All Speakers: I had a Mountain Dew now after you were... Now I actually feel like I do want

All Speakers: to have a Mountain Dew for the first time in 20 years.

All Speakers: The last Mountain Dew I ever had on my... I think it was my birthday last year or two years ago.

All Speakers: For some reason, I was like, fuck it. I'm getting Taco Bell.

All Speakers: And I had a Baja Blast with that. And that was... Ew. A blast?

All Speakers: Baja Blast is so much better than just plain old Mountain Dew that I don't even

All Speakers: lump them together, really.

All Speakers: Yeah they now that you mentioned it like oh did

All Speakers: you ever do that growing up where um did you ever

All Speakers: do the hulk at taco bell it's like a secret soda

All Speakers: where you do it's like two-thirds regular

All Speakers: mountain dew one-third baja blast and i swear it looks like it will make your

All Speakers: insides glow the color that comes out of that it's beautiful it's like the color

All Speakers: of uh flubber yeah Yeah, basically you're drinking Flubber.

All Speakers: I wonder what Flubber would taste like. It seems like it'd be kind of delicious.

All Speakers: Someone actually recommended to do that episode on Flubber as like a kid's kind

All Speakers: of a kid's. I haven't seen it since it came out, so I have no clue.

All Speakers: No memory of it. How that would age. Yeah, Flubber.

All Speakers: Yeah, I don't think I ever even saw it as a kid. Came out of what? Ninety?

All Speakers: This is a 90s one. Seven. Really?

All Speakers: Just like L.A. Confidential. The same year as this. So, I mean,

All Speakers: if you're... They were competing at the Oscars.

All Speakers: Who's to say which one has more cultural cachet, which has a longer tail?

All Speakers: All I know is that people know Flubber. You say Flubber, they know exactly what you're talking about.

All Speakers: And especially if you ask a guy named Dwight Garner about this L.A.

All Speakers: Confidential, he will tell you that Flubber might be a better movie.

All Speakers: Well, we'll get to that. I'll get to the couple of quotes. Was Dwight one of

All Speakers: the only naysayers as far as Rotten Tomatoes? The only one.

All Speakers: The only one. There was 172, and he was the only one with a negative review.

All Speakers: Man, what a king. Oh, yeah. I'm excited to hear what he said.

All Speakers: But yes, as you heard in the intro, we are discussing L.A. Confidential.

All Speakers: And with me back on the show again, glad to have you here, is the host of Concessions.

All Speakers: I have Dan and Jared. How are you both doing today?

All Speakers: Oh, we're both doing great. And I speak for Dan. And I can tell you that he's

All Speakers: doing great. Actually, I can see him right now. He's smiling.

All Speakers: He's wearing a baseball hat. He's wearing a politically charged T-shirt.

All Speakers: He's in his element. And so am I.

All Speakers: I'm sorry, Dan. How are you doing? wait and he's

All Speakers: wearing a very important shirt that is sending sending

All Speakers: props to a true champion of the

All Speakers: people um oh man i need to get his name down

All Speakers: exactly because uh well evan did you hear about this yesterday the the great

All Speakers: morning that we all should be in right now oh yeah the plan is in morning oh

All Speakers: what did i yes have you ever heard the uh it was like an old youtube video or

All Speakers: this might have been pre-youtube to be honest i don't know when it came it's

All Speakers: just like has always been on the internet.

All Speakers: It was like this random Australian guy with like this super high theatrical...

All Speakers: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I know who you're talking about now.

All Speakers: Yeah. A meal? A succulent Chinese meal?

All Speakers: Yeah, he passed away this week. The week we were recording this.

All Speakers: And the world is a little darker. I just... I have a message for God.

All Speakers: God, I hope you know your judo well.

All Speakers: This episode is in his memory, so RIP, King.

All Speakers: I bet Jack Carlson probably loved LA Confidential.

All Speakers: I would think so. Apparently, as we'll get to later in the episode,

All Speakers: only one person on all of Rotten Tomatoes critics did not like this episode.

All Speakers: Even people who I would have thought might find it to be, you know, not as good.

All Speakers: But in any other year, it would have won more awards. But yeah,

All Speakers: so as I mentioned, we are talking about L.A.

All Speakers: Confidential. It boasts a pretty phenomenal cast.

All Speakers: It was directed by Curtis Hanson. It has all your favorites and people who weren't

All Speakers: big at the time, like Russell Crowe, Guy Pearce, James Cromwell, David Brathren,

All Speakers: Kim Basinger, Danny DeVito, and last but not least, Kevin Spacey. We hardly knew thee.

All Speakers: I would argue least. Actually, yeah, last and least.

All Speakers: Last and least. Okay, that's fair. Although I did see recently he's trying to

All Speakers: make a comeback but not in America because...

All Speakers: Apparently, we aren't ready to forgive his disgusting deeds.

All Speakers: He's doing Lydia Tarr right now. Yeah, he'll continue to be quite a successful

All Speakers: contributor to the world of film in Europe. They take our garbage like that all the time.

All Speakers: Yes, they do. And so I guess before we talk about the movie and kind of your

All Speakers: first impressions on it, because this is officially.

All Speakers: You know, by name or by Wikipedia, a neo-noir, you know, given all the kind of tropes from it.

All Speakers: I'm curious if there are any other noirs from, you know, the 50s or even,

All Speakers: you know, more recent ones other than L.A.

All Speakers: Confidential that you have seen or enjoy or would recommend,

All Speakers: I guess. Yes. Um, I like I was never really a big noir guy.

All Speakers: Like most of the ones I've seen, I've kind of been sometimes,

All Speakers: you know, you sit down and you see a movie because you're like,

All Speakers: okay, this is like, quote, unquote, an important one.

All Speakers: And this will be a it will fill a gap that I that I need to educate myself in

All Speakers: my own film self education.

All Speakers: So like a lot of those I've watched with like, sort of the respect and not like

All Speakers: really, and I mean, I enjoyed it.

All Speakers: But it's just like, noir is not my thing, where I know people that they'll just they'll just snort up

All Speakers: every single thing that says noir on it

All Speakers: like it's cocaine um but a couple of noirs

All Speakers: i was like looking through the movies that i've seen that i enjoy oh one

All Speakers: that came out a few years ago which i think is kind of close to this in spirit

All Speakers: where it's like really really leaning into like the golden age of hollywood

All Speakers: kind of aesthetic and that whole like nasty grimy noir but they can they don't

All Speakers: have the haze coat underneath them so they can kind of let a little bit more

All Speakers: loose with It was Guillermo del Toro's Nightmare Alley.

All Speakers: I feel like that movie did not get the attention it deserved.

All Speakers: That's a good thing. Yeah, I'm not super well-versed in kind of classic film

All Speakers: noir, although I've seen some of the...

All Speakers: Big mainstays i think just in this

All Speakers: last year um i saw maltese falcon

All Speakers: for the first time and that movie has earned its kind

All Speakers: of you know timeless classic status i want to say that movie's like

All Speakers: 80 years old now or something uh i believe i believe it's in this movie like

All Speakers: isn't that the movie that lynn bracken is watching in this movie yeah that's

All Speakers: why that's why it came to mind then um as far as i guess at this in the grand

All Speakers: scheme of things we may think of this movie as just.

All Speakers: Classic film noir even though at the time i'm sure

All Speakers: it was considered neo-noir but also for the first time this year

All Speakers: i saw chinatown for the first time which obviously this

All Speakers: is extremely indebted to um as

All Speakers: far as um true like

All Speakers: neo-noir you know of the last 20 30 years where

All Speakers: there was the whole sort of resurgence I

All Speakers: would definitely put the movie seven in that category um

All Speakers: doesn't get more noir than that

All Speakers: really um uh and then uh

All Speakers: a movie that shares a star

All Speakers: with LA Confidential that I think is uh obviously a

All Speakers: neo-noir masterpiece Memento is probably my

All Speakers: very favorite neo-noir film even just

All Speakers: like thinking of this movie as a neo-noir is a a little bit of a stretch because

All Speakers: it kind of just seems like it's a throwback to the classic noir without

All Speakers: being uh super neo even

All Speakers: though curtis hansen uh said the exact opposite and set out to make a a very

All Speakers: modern movie with a noir spin i don't know if i agree that he he yeah well that's

All Speakers: a good point well we will get to that for sure um and yeah speaking of momento or memento i uh.

All Speakers: Obviously no one makes a ton of noirs, and I feel like the big one there is

All Speakers: The Dark Knight, which is basically a noir that's in like,

All Speakers: bringing well batman 2 is kind of a noir story as

All Speakers: well in general or as a character i think it

All Speakers: actually some of the which we can get into

All Speakers: later some of like the themes about like policing and

All Speakers: justice and what does it mean to run a like

All Speakers: how to keep a society in order like i feel like la confidential and the dark

All Speakers: knight kind of agree in some ways that actually makes me like the dark knight

All Speakers: a little bit less hmm interesting well here i'm curious if what you again this

All Speakers: we don't need You could spend like three hours talking about all the characteristics of noir,

All Speakers: neo-noir, and what's this and what's that.

All Speakers: But I was racking my brain because I went through a phase maybe a year ago where

All Speakers: I watched a lot of the 50s and Maltese Falcon, a lot of those kind of movies, Sunset Boulevard.

All Speakers: And I was actually thinking, do you think that Fargo is a noir, a neo-noir?

All Speakers: Because if it is, I would say it's probably my favorite one. Kind of one.

All Speakers: I mean... The Big Lebowski is definitely one.

All Speakers: But i yeah i mean fargo's yeah it's tough

All Speakers: to draw the line like we were talking about before uh we hit

All Speakers: record where it's like you know if there's a mystery and an

All Speakers: unreliable protagonist that just automatically makes something

All Speakers: a noir yeah yeah maybe not to

All Speakers: the extent that like blood simple is now

All Speakers: i'm just like yeah going through cohen cohen filmography

All Speakers: but i don't know fargo has a lot of the characteristics

All Speakers: as far as like the mystery and the crime and like

All Speakers: the the literal real darkness uh and just

All Speakers: but it also has this like comic edge you

All Speakers: know that just mixing that noir those noir

All Speakers: stylings with just the like midwest like

All Speakers: goofiness sorry dan almost like

All Speakers: get like kind of almost stretches the the

All Speakers: film noir label yeah i think past

All Speakers: its limit uh i would i would say no there might

All Speakers: be a season or two of the show that are

All Speakers: more like noir noir but the movie i

All Speakers: think the movie has too much like it's like a black comedy to

All Speakers: it yeah it's more of a black comedy yeah yeah more

All Speakers: in bruges i would say it's closer to yeah another

All Speakers: another one that just comes to mind just because it's one of my favorites i don't necessarily

All Speakers: think it's a neo-noir but it's clearly trying to be one it's

All Speakers: who framed roger rabbit oh yeah which is one of which

All Speakers: is one of one of my favorites as a kid and i did that as an early episode and it's.

All Speakers: Uh i mean especially given the time period that

All Speakers: it takes place i mean that's the other thing too is whether it does it have

All Speakers: to be a period piece and again we could spend we

All Speakers: could spend uh less time talking about lilly confidential and more time talking

All Speakers: about these things but i think i'd speak for both of you that we should talk

All Speakers: more about l.a confidential so i'm curious uh i think dan you said this was

All Speakers: your first time watching it so what did you what were your uh your thoughts

All Speakers: because i hadn't seen I saw it two or three times recently, but it hadn't been since it came out.

All Speakers: So this was your first shot at it. Yeah. I mean, it's always one that kind of flowed around my radar.

All Speakers: The poster is really splashy. You see really big names on it.

All Speakers: And I know it's like one of those big seminal 90s posters.

All Speakers: In this glut of they were doing send-ups of, like, classical Hollywood kind of styles.

All Speakers: And I don't know, it just never really jumped out at me until we,

All Speakers: like, talked about doing this for the episode.

All Speakers: So when I watched it, no, I mean, I thought it was really good. I had a great time.

All Speakers: I thought it was really, really well executed, I guess would be the way that I would describe it.

All Speakers: Like, will I walk away, like, three years from now, like, really ruminating

All Speakers: on, like, the themes in the movie?

All Speakers: Probably not. not but it's one of those movies where like when

All Speakers: it's done it's like that was really impressive what they pulled

All Speakers: off like that's a that's good movie making right

All Speakers: there if that makes sense what about you jared you you

All Speakers: hadn't seen it for a while either right yeah maybe maybe in

All Speakers: your position where oh gosh i maybe a

All Speakers: couple years after this movie came out like i was i was

All Speakers: too young to seek something like this out in the movie theater i

All Speakers: think i was like 10 or 11 when this came out um but

All Speakers: i this was one of the very first movies that i

All Speakers: obtained on dvd in like i don't know

All Speakers: 1999 or 2000 or something and i

All Speakers: don't know what i don't remember like the circumstances of my first viewing

All Speakers: because again it's like kind of a weird movie for a 12 or 13 year old to seek

All Speakers: out also um maybe i want to say like it was used for like a dollar like at the

All Speakers: bookstore underneath underneath my library in my hometown.

All Speakers: So like I bought the DVD for like a dollar or two or something,

All Speakers: not knowing what it was and watched it and then watched it again and again and again and again.

All Speakers: Yeah. I probably, I probably watched this movie like, you know,

All Speakers: 10 or 12 times in like the year 2000.

All Speakers: And absolutely loved it. Obviously, if I watched it that many times,

All Speakers: but yeah, when you're a kid, you do that.

All Speakers: And hadn't really thought about it in the last almost 25 years until this past

All Speakers: week when you invited Dan and I on to do this that we're doing at this moment.

All Speakers: And honestly, still kind of love it. Yeah, I saw it for the first time around

All Speakers: when you did. I didn't see it in the theater.

All Speakers: But do either of you remember the DVD format that was around,

All Speakers: I think, from 99-2000 called DivX?

All Speakers: DivX? No, I don't even know that word. It was this ridiculous thing where you

All Speakers: would buy a DVD, I think it's Circuit City.

All Speakers: And I think it was part of Circuit City's company.

All Speakers: Essentially, you bought it for a couple dollars, like a rental.

All Speakers: And if you liked it, you could then buy it outright to unlock it.

All Speakers: So basically, it only lets you watch it one time.

All Speakers: And then if you paid for the whole thing, you would get it. And I remember buying

All Speakers: this. I bought a few other movies right around 99, 2000.

All Speakers: And I'm like, Oh, this was pretty cool. Even though I don't think I really understood

All Speakers: the movie that well, or, you know, it's the best I could for a 17 year old.

All Speakers: And then I bought it. And I also watched it a few times around 99, 2000.

All Speakers: Okay. So it came out in 98 and discontinued in 99 because it was a complete flop.

All Speakers: Yeah. Apparently. Yeah. Yeah. The thing I remember most fondly about DivX is

All Speakers: that it was very easy to...

All Speakers: To rip so you'd pay the the few dollars to

All Speakers: like rent it quote unquote but then you would like rip it

All Speakers: using a dvd burner and then uh they would

All Speakers: it would make its way onto file sharing websites even back then like

All Speakers: you'd like even like on limewire and stuff you'd see like la confidential dot

All Speakers: 1997 dot divx dot mp4 like whatever it was you know and uh yeah i remember there

All Speakers: being a ton of pirated divx files out on the internet when i was a kid that

All Speakers: makes that makes perfect sense i I don't think I had a DVD burner at that time.

All Speakers: I think they were still somewhat expensive, but that makes sense.

All Speakers: But yeah, so I saw it then, and I remember liking it. And then I only re-saw

All Speakers: it when it got added to the Criterion Collection maybe two months ago, a month ago.

All Speakers: And that's where it came back on my radar. I'm like, oh, I should revisit this.

All Speakers: And I'm glad I did because I think maybe like you were saying,

All Speakers: Dan, it may not be like a movie I'll think about forever.

All Speakers: It's not like an all-time great, but I still gave it five stars.

All Speakers: I still think it's a really well-made movie. I think whether it's a neo-noir

All Speakers: or a noir or it's part of both, I think you said, Dan, like the first half is

All Speakers: more noir and then it kind of shifts a little bit.

All Speakers: But I don't know. I think what you said, Jared, actually, is the thing that

All Speakers: we're curious is the director of the film said he didn't want this film to be a noir.

All Speakers: He didn't even want it to be a period

All Speakers: piece, but just a modern movie that happened to take place in 1950s.

All Speakers: And I think that that's such a weird, I don't know.

All Speakers: I don't know what to make of that. It's just, it's such a wise,

All Speakers: even, I don't know. I'm at a loss for words.

All Speakers: I don't think if that's what he wanted to do, I don't think it works on that

All Speakers: level. Like, I don't I don't like seeing it through that lens.

All Speakers: I'm like, well, that's not what's going on here, because then,

All Speakers: like, these characters would have modern sensibilities, which they just don't.

All Speakers: And they would like because that's what, like you were mentioning,

All Speakers: it's like the whole second half of the movie is kind of a commentary on the first half.

All Speakers: And the first half is pretty much a by the numbers noir film with noir characters

All Speakers: behaving like people in the 50s.

All Speakers: It's like I guess that would have been interesting if you put characters in

All Speakers: there that had like 1997 or sensibilities in this movie.

All Speakers: But like none of the situations or the themes or the way people are responding

All Speakers: make me feel like this is a modern movie that just happens to be set in the 50s.

All Speakers: Yeah, or or the aesthetics like I mean, if you're sending out to not make a

All Speakers: noir throwback, why would you start your movie with like Danny DeVito doing

All Speakers: his best radio announcer voice?

All Speakers: Using as much old-timey slang as he possibly can. Yeah.

All Speakers: It almost makes me wonder if he... I don't know.

All Speakers: I saw that his influence, the director's influence of this was Alfred Hitchcock movies.

All Speakers: That kind of was his... Curtis Hanson, like those movies, is a younger person.

All Speakers: Came across the book that this is based on by James L. Roy and thought,

All Speakers: I'm going to make it a modern thing, but keep all the aesthetics of the book.

All Speakers: I don't think he did any of those things, except I didn't read the book.

All Speakers: So I assume it's similar. He tried to keep it to be like the book from what I read.

All Speakers: I don't know. Maybe it just doesn't matter what he wanted to do.

All Speakers: Right. I mean, he made this movie.

All Speakers: We saw it. It's a no are for the most part. It has griminess.

All Speakers: It has, you know, uh, the femme fatale of, you know, Kim Basinger and,

All Speakers: uh, Danny DeVito as the sort of creepy, you know, uh, what would you call it?

All Speakers: His, I got, he's like a paparazzo. Yeah.

All Speakers: Yeah, exactly. Just doing, making, you know, crappy, you know,

All Speakers: it's like the New York post back then or something equivalent.

All Speakers: Uh, I don't know. What's the L.A. version of that? I don't know.

All Speakers: What's the L.A.? L.A. must have a bunch of those like tabloid papers.

All Speakers: Do they have like a rag kind of thing? I don't know. Yeah, there's all sorts

All Speakers: of those that still exist.

All Speakers: I mean, the modern version of that is probably like TMZ.

All Speakers: But also TMZ is now like shifted into like actually just being quite good at

All Speakers: reporting the news really plainly.

All Speakers: But they do still like have that sort of paparazzi rag type of vibe to a lot of their content.

All Speakers: Content but yeah i see that as like an old old old school

All Speakers: tmz in a way yeah that like

All Speakers: gave me whiplash when i started seeing there's that phase when

All Speakers: like buzzfeed was actually doing some good journalism i'm

All Speakers: like what the fuck is buzzfeed doing out here now where are their listicles right

All Speakers: right right right right it's like they got tired of being considered just like

All Speakers: a complete rag and like well i mean i guess also now journalists need jobs right

All Speakers: and so they want to do the best reporting they can i guess more power to them

All Speakers: okay so i don't even think this is a neo-noir. Like, I think this is just a noir.

All Speakers: Like it's, I mean, yes, it's, it was made in the late nineties and it's sort

All Speakers: of couched between a lot of actual neo-noirs where it's like noir,

All Speakers: but it's updated and it's got a lot of modern sensibilities,

All Speakers: not just aesthetically, but thematically and everything.

All Speakers: But this movie is just like Dan said, these are all like old fashioned people

All Speakers: like doing old fashioned things in old fashioned ways.

All Speakers: This is a good old fashioned movie where it's like plot heavy and all of the

All Speakers: intricacies of the plot really begin and end with the intricacies of the characters and the performances.

All Speakers: Performances like it has all of the trappings of

All Speakers: noir and almost none of the trappings of like modern

All Speakers: filmmaking or modern like modernity other than

All Speakers: this is clearly like a post-scorsese and post-tarantino level of like brutal

All Speakers: violence and sexuality and like you know like all of like our morbid curiosities

All Speakers: sort of laid bare but still the template of like a 1940s noir yeah um yeah Yeah,

All Speakers: I would say the thing that for me makes it neo-noir, where like you said,

All Speakers: like this is what noir would be without the Hays Code.

All Speakers: Like all the things are implied and gestured at in noir. This is right out in front and center.

All Speakers: But I would say like, and I actually even checked this, like when the main,

All Speakers: the diner. Oh, what's this?

All Speakers: The late night diner i always forget the name of the diner um but when they when they saw the.

All Speakers: Night owl the night owl yeah yeah when they like initially solved

All Speakers: that murder when that case is closed like i actually checked the

All Speakers: time i'm like wait is the movie ending like this feels like we're

All Speakers: wrapping up and i'm like oh no we're only halfway through where i see

All Speakers: in second half as the neo-noir part

All Speakers: because it's kind of deconstructing all this stuff that's going

All Speakers: on in the first half of the film that it

All Speakers: does play pretty much like a straight noir and then it's

All Speakers: commenting like like how social forces at the

All Speakers: time how set how i like ideologies at

All Speakers: the time basically push the cops in or the

All Speakers: the main detectives into these spaces and like

All Speakers: especially with like how he just like fucking blasted those

All Speakers: three black guys like with no hesitation or someone's like

All Speakers: well yeah you got manipulated into this because like of course you would

All Speakers: do that as a cop in this scenario so it's like it's

All Speakers: starting to comment on itself which i think gives it the quote-unquote

All Speakers: neo bit for it and like and with like the

All Speakers: bucking of haze code uh haze code uh limitations

All Speakers: which is like why neo or why noir had a lot of its specific tropes and and sensibilities

All Speakers: like especially with the end like the criminals get away with it which was like

All Speakers: explicitly not allowed in uh noir film so i think that ending and like and showing um cop or like

All Speakers: forces of justice as that corrupt, like you could do that in noir a little bit,

All Speakers: but you couldn't show it nearly as much, or it couldn't be as integral to the

All Speakers: plot as it is in this one. So like, I think that like.

All Speakers: Kind of recursive nature commenting on itself and commenting on the form and

All Speakers: then pushing against it in what probably feels like a more realistic light of

All Speakers: how this shit could have gone down, I think does give it its neo-credential.

All Speakers: Yeah, basically, like I think you said, Dan, it's like this is what,

All Speakers: when you watched old movies from the 90s, from the 40s or 50s, those noirs,

All Speakers: the police officer usually, you know, at the end was the guy that got the criminal

All Speakers: and everything was happy, you know, happy ending kind of situation.

All Speakers: And this, it's the cops are all pieces of shit. The people who are involved

All Speakers: in Hollywood that are part of all the crime racket are all terrible people too.

All Speakers: There's really no one in this movie with the exception of maybe Kim Basinger's

All Speakers: character that are actually good people at all.

All Speakers: Yeah, and it makes a point to like, Guy Pearce's character wants to do things quote unquote right.

All Speakers: He's kind of the upright guy eye and you're

All Speakers: kind of sucking this rock in a hard place for like yeah

All Speakers: he's technically squealing on his uh his compatriots

All Speakers: or his compadres or whatever but like these people are pieces of

All Speakers: shit he should squeal on them like right in

All Speakers: a properly running justice system cops

All Speakers: like that would get like pushed out uh but he's like portrayed as it's portrayed

All Speakers: as like a tension and like you don't know whether to root for him and and the

All Speakers: only way that um he gets through and quote-unquote saves the day and is lauded

All Speakers: for it is by basically lying to the entire public.

All Speakers: Misrepresenting that this whole organ or the whole organization of the police

All Speakers: are rotten from the inside out and being this public face for this lie um so

All Speakers: yeah it's basically showing like no it's impossible to be a cop and a good person yeah yeah totally.

All Speakers: Like the way he does like uh captain dudley

All Speakers: uh james cromwell like lists out you

All Speakers: know those three questions like would you do this in order to do

All Speakers: that and like he's like no no like those are and then by the end of the movie he's

All Speakers: done all of those things um like yeah

All Speakers: it it almost seemed like they

All Speakers: are saying that you know you know it's not

All Speakers: that there's like good cops and bad cops they're all bad

All Speakers: cops but they're just a product of their environment that's just

All Speakers: the job bob that's just the city also did

All Speakers: anyone notice um did he suddenly get more irish

All Speakers: as the movie like continually and as

All Speakers: he got like more clearly evil i feel like i

All Speakers: noticed his irish accent or yeah how many times

All Speakers: did he say the word lad with an irish accent yeah yeah

All Speakers: um well okay uh i wonder

All Speakers: how intentional that may have been but and james cromwell

All Speakers: let's just get out of the way he's absolute s-tier actor oh yeah

All Speakers: oh he's so good and he's like but yeah

All Speakers: he i always thought it was like that's just his voice like

All Speakers: when he when he speaks in any role or in just as himself in interviews and stuff

All Speakers: he always has that like fairly strong irish lilt even though he's just american

All Speakers: he's like born and raised in la and has remained there as an actor his whole

All Speakers: life he like he's just like Like, I mean,

All Speakers: I assume like his parents were Irish immigrants.

All Speakers: I mean, that would be odd if they weren't. But yeah, I always thought it was

All Speakers: it was kind of weird that he just sounded like a full on Irishman,

All Speakers: even though he's just red blooded American.

All Speakers: Yeah, his he's actually from he's actually Scottish, Scottish.

All Speakers: His parents are Scottish descent, says.

All Speakers: Actually, I didn't realize that his father was blacklisted during the McCarthy

All Speakers: era. Oh, that's interesting.

All Speakers: And that we're like in the height of during this film. um well

All Speakers: that that's another weird thing about this movie like

All Speakers: there's a lot of things that would clearly be going

All Speakers: on in this movie that's like aren't

All Speakers: acknowledged and like okay the mccarthyism or especially within hollywood like

All Speakers: i'm not surprised that's not really pointed out so much like there's that danny

All Speakers: devito line where he's like well he's not queer and he's not a red so like this

All Speakers: won't this isn't like scintillating enough to put in a uh in my articles but like Like,

All Speakers: World War II is just not mentioned. Like, wouldn't all these guys be veterans?

All Speakers: And, like, this would kind of be, this could have been a tension where,

All Speakers: like, it seems to me that, like, Guy Pearce's character, instead of being in

All Speakers: war, he was, you know, in the police academy or something like that.

All Speakers: And there's definitely this more, like, rough and tumble side of the police

All Speakers: force that feels like they probably are, like, a little PTSD addled from World

All Speakers: War II and a little bit more comfortable with violence.

All Speakers: And like, I just kind of sensed that that was going on, but like,

All Speakers: it's never really discussed.

All Speakers: It's almost like instead of using war or whatever as the backdrop of,

All Speakers: you know, the things that led to their violent tendency,

All Speakers: as they're saying, it's really living in, you know, this corrupt Hollywood that's

All Speakers: kind of created their their whole thing, because that's sort of like the beginning,

All Speakers: which I think it's a good I like Danny DeVito sort of opening little,

All Speakers: you know, description of what's

All Speakers: going on, how, you know, Hollywood is this beautiful romanticized place.

All Speakers: But really underneath it, there's just all the shit that I have to report on,

All Speakers: because if I don't report on it, who would know about it or whatever?

All Speakers: And it's all very it's a terrible place beyond or I guess it's the average person

All Speakers: doesn't maybe know what a terrible place Hollywood really is.

All Speakers: But I think, I don't know, the cops are all very much just kind of this weird

All Speakers: caricature of evil in a way that's, you know, very explicit from the beginning.

All Speakers: And the only person you're ever meant to think is good is Guy Pearce's character.

All Speakers: And then you also briefly see Russell Crowe's character being a little bit,

All Speakers: you know, sympathetic towards women who are being abused by men.

All Speakers: So there are these little things like, oh, if it weren't for that,

All Speakers: who would stop all the violence toward women?

All Speakers: It's like, well, I don't think this one guy, Russell Crowe, is going to stop

All Speakers: all of that across all of LA.

All Speakers: It's a much deeper problem, just as the police is a much deeper problem that

All Speakers: they don't ever really address, which I wouldn't have expected them to address

All Speakers: the fact that maybe it's just implied that cops are just corrupt and it's impossible to.

All Speakers: Do anything about that, right?

All Speakers: Because Exley, Guy Pearce's character has eventually, like you said,

All Speakers: Dan, has to cover everything up because if they did, it would destroy their

All Speakers: reputation. They can't have that.

All Speakers: Yeah, it's like they kind of all act like their own little Batmans, it seems like.

All Speakers: Vigilantes. Yeah. Yeah, as like outwardly moral as Exley wants to portray himself,

All Speakers: at the end of the day, he's still got the sort of like classic like Greek tragic

All Speakers: flaws where like his ambition and his pride and stuff is still going to like win at the end of the day.

All Speakers: He just doesn't die because like, you know,

All Speakers: heroes in these types of movies get shot and don't die

All Speakers: but um yeah he's uh there

All Speakers: really aren't any like total like moral anchors here and they're really like

All Speakers: shouldn't be it probably wouldn't be realistic if there were yeah yeah because

All Speakers: i'm thinking speaking of the the opening you know monologue or yeah the opening

All Speakers: monologue from danny devito is like it's such a good sign or.

All Speakers: Encapsulation of like what southern california was at

All Speakers: like four people there and how it's projected out in

All Speakers: the u.s in the post-war boom because like i didn't

All Speakers: realize that until i moved down here like orange county literally didn't really

All Speakers: exist until the put like after world

All Speakers: war ii it's like and a lot of the wealth that came from there

All Speakers: yeah it came up from la and hollywood and like southern california in

All Speakers: general like this is a huge military hub down

All Speakers: here and there's a ton of people that make a

All Speakers: lot of money off the military down here and like and

All Speakers: then like related industries and so you

All Speakers: see like hollywood as this sort of projection outward

All Speakers: of america now of you know we've won the war where we're now sort of the top

All Speakers: dog at the point the cold war is starting to really like shift into gear and

All Speakers: hollywood has always been this form of soft power that we project out and like

All Speakers: show our culture and show us at the the very us at our very best and how we want to be And so L.A.

All Speakers: Is like an encapsulation of that in Southern California in general.

All Speakers: And especially like what you're saying, where Danny DeVito is saying,

All Speakers: it's like, oh, well, if I don't report this, no one would because it's the 50s. There's no Twitter.

All Speakers: There's no social media for like actual on the ground evidence of what's going on in L.A.

All Speakers: Is for the populace. So the only thing everyone gets like within the country

All Speakers: and around the world about what L.A.

All Speakers: Is like, what America is like is from our movies. And it's really idealized

All Speakers: versions of ourselves where, you know, the reality of it. I mean,

All Speakers: this is the fucking 1950s. Like, we know now, like.

All Speakers: All the bullshit that was going on at that point in

All Speakers: the u.s but like none of that was getting well a

All Speakers: little bit of it was getting out but for the most part it's just

All Speakers: this rosy glitzy uh place like

All Speakers: hollywood and they had to use hollywood as this uh which isn't

All Speakers: addressed in this movie but is a way to counter you know

All Speakers: the soviet union and what their portrayal of

All Speakers: america was which is most likely much more accurate than

All Speakers: than uh something like this and it's yeah it's

All Speakers: interesting how they have to portray it through that um but yeah that

All Speakers: does like that does remind me and it's kind of addressing this film too that

All Speakers: like that was a big uh like a contradiction that

All Speakers: the soviet union would do using their own propaganda abroad it's

All Speakers: like oh all like all these african-americans all these latinos all these native

All Speakers: americans they went and fought to defeat fascism and then you came back to your

All Speakers: own country and you're basically under the same thumb that you just tried or

All Speakers: you went out and uh defeated so like what's going on guys what's going on over there it's not quite

All Speakers: the shining beacon on the hill that you that you're portraying yourself as.

All Speakers: I guess this is more to the movie itself,

All Speakers: but I thought it was worth mentioning is that one of the things that Hanson

All Speakers: wanted to do with this was to include actors that weren't as well known sort

All Speakers: of intentionally to, he apparently kind of discovered the book by accident,

All Speakers: the, the, that it's based on.

All Speakers: And so he almost wanted people to discover a bunch of actors.

All Speakers: And so for this to be, you know, Guy Pearce and Russell Crowe's,

All Speakers: not their first movies, but their first big ones.

All Speakers: I think that Russell Crowe was in some medium or a bigger movie before this,

All Speakers: but I'm blanking on what it was at the moment that came out before this, Virtuosity. Yeah.

All Speakers: I think he was in, which is a Denzel Washington movie. But yeah, so I don't know.

All Speakers: I mean, just for me, I think that it's kind of cool he did that, give us some new people.

All Speakers: But I thought that Russell Crowe and Guy Pearce were magnificent in this,

All Speakers: as for pretty much every performance in this.

All Speakers: It was kind of a top to bottom of just masterclass.

All Speakers: And some of the behind the scenes sort of making of this was talking about how

All Speakers: both of them don't have, they're both not from America.

All Speakers: And so they had to change to the American accents. And apparently it was very

All Speakers: difficult for Guy Pearce in this because of the style that the kind of the dialogue had.

All Speakers: And so he apparently initially had some trouble with it, but you wouldn't know it from watching it. No.

All Speakers: Yeah, he does a great job with the American accent. He's like one of those guys

All Speakers: when I was a kid, like I was I was surprised to learn he wasn't American because

All Speakers: when I saw this, I knew him from this and from Memento.

All Speakers: And yeah, I had like absolutely no idea he wasn't American.

All Speakers: Yeah, I remember being surprised the first time I heard him speak.

All Speakers: And there was, you know, an Australian accent coming out. yeah that

All Speakers: was um russell crowe felt the same way for me where um

All Speakers: when key like first time you know you heard an interview or

All Speakers: something like that you're like holy shit i thought he was he's he's

All Speakers: one of us what happened but the biggest example of

All Speakers: that and that's my own fault for that is like i didn't grow up with uh uh dude

All Speakers: who's the guy who played house uh not hugh laurie is he you laurie yeah you

All Speakers: laurie yeah it's my introduction to hugh laurie so i thought it was very serious

All Speakers: actor man from america and then the first time i saw him like being a silly

All Speakers: little british guy i'm I'm like, who is this guy? What's he doing over here?

All Speakers: Yeah. And I was also like reading up on some of that kind of behind the scenes pre-production stuff.

All Speakers: And yeah, Hanson really had to go to bat for Pierce and Crow because they weren't American.

All Speakers: And like not only were they unknown, but they were also un-American.

All Speakers: American and um and uh

All Speakers: but but luckily shining shining beacon of

All Speakers: a of American patriotism Kevin Spacey was there to get top

All Speakers: billing and uh yeah

All Speakers: that that was like the compromise is like okay well we need like an actual star

All Speakers: for the third lead in this um and uh but you know there's some other like heavyweights

All Speakers: and they're like Danny DeVito's pretty big star Kim Kim Basinger was It's pretty big star. Um, yeah.

All Speakers: James Cromwell and David Strathairn were known, even though they're more like

All Speakers: character actors, they're like very respected, kind of well known actors.

All Speakers: But yeah, I mean, that is pretty ballsy to cast your two leads that really are

All Speakers: the protagonists that have to carry the movie that audience has to root for,

All Speakers: like not movie stars, like in a movie that's kind of about movie stars.

All Speakers: Stars um that is pretty wild like

All Speakers: the opposite of that would be like once upon

All Speakers: a time in hollywood where it's like oh the two biggest stars on

All Speakers: the planet are the leads you know so like

All Speakers: you know given that this is kind of a similar movie with sort of similar aims

All Speakers: here and there that is pretty wild and you know now we've got the like gift

All Speakers: of foresight that yeah of course guy pierce and russell crowe would be awesome

All Speakers: they're amazing everyone knows everyone knows that but um yeah Yeah,

All Speakers: I mean, I think that's that's pretty awesome.

All Speakers: But also, like, makes me bad.

All Speakers: Also, like just watching this movie and thinking like, you know, 26,

All Speakers: 27 years ago, they're still making these like relatively big budget,

All Speakers: like, like dark movies for adults that had a lot of like great actors in them.

All Speakers: And then the movie comes out and, you know, makes back like five times its budget.

All Speakers: It like i missed that i

All Speakers: wish i could have been like this age and that being

All Speakers: the state of the movie industry it kind of like bums me out that it's not in

All Speakers: this movie such a good reminder of that have you rated and reviewed left of

All Speakers: the projector on apple music funny you should ask Yes, I have.

All Speakers: And you should too, dear listener. Give it a five star rating.

All Speakers: Give it a like. Give it a review. Say nice things. Mention him on Twitter.

All Speakers: It's fun to do. That's what the cool kids are doing. That's what the good cops are doing.

All Speakers: Guy Pearce, he was cast as the baby face in this. And he pretty quickly stopped.

All Speakers: He never got that typecasting. disgusting and uh

All Speakers: like if you like just even the difference between this and like memento a

All Speakers: couple years later like where he's just like very dark and

All Speakers: brooding and just kind of you know enigmatic and stuff like the difference between

All Speakers: that and like i got glasses and i'm a good guy is like we took off the glasses

All Speakers: mind you well that was the thing too they kept saying he had to not wear his

All Speakers: glasses because it was too dorky to be in the cop police force i guess with glasses which is,

All Speakers: you might need those not to shoot the wrong guy yeah I think it was Dudley just

All Speakers: being a criminal mastermind and planning ahead like oh I'm going to be in a

All Speakers: shootout with this guy someday and I don't want him to have his glasses on too

All Speakers: bad he used a god damn shotgun you don't really need aim for that one.

All Speakers: Well, yeah. And so one of the other like big common,

All Speakers: I mean, pretty easy, I guess, obvious things that happened in this movie that

All Speakers: I think is worth referring to, at least briefly, is the police in general, just like the idea that,

All Speakers: you know, cops are seen as these elite police force in Hollywood.

All Speakers: I had watched another movie that I'm trying to remember just recently where they talk about.

All Speakers: Oh, no, it was when we're talking about Rambo on your show, how like the cops

All Speakers: were these like elite training machines.

All Speakers: And that's how they're able to avoid getting killed by Rambo.

All Speakers: I think it's a very similar thing.

All Speakers: Also in Beverly Hills Cops, too, where they talk about cops as being this like

All Speakers: polite, you know, great force that's well trained. And, you know,

All Speakers: we can train it all out. But in this, they kind of just strip away that veneer.

All Speakers: And one of the very first moments you see them is just beating the shit out

All Speakers: of a bunch of Black people who were accused of a crime they clearly did not commit.

All Speakers: And just like that falling over to just the overt racism of,

All Speakers: let's just see what Black people we can use to pin this murder on.

All Speakers: And it doesn't matter. So there's no even attempt to show Cops as being good

All Speakers: except for Exley, which we then, as you said, Dan, like the second half of the

All Speakers: movie shows that he is not good in any sense of the way of the world.

All Speakers: Well, I mean, he still I mean, actually still has like a far,

All Speakers: far, far stronger moral compass than any other character. No doubt.

All Speakers: He just also he just also has like far more like kind of general classical flaws.

All Speakers: Like I was talking about, like, you know, he's got the classic ambition and

All Speakers: pride and like all that stuff that usually feels like, you know,

All Speakers: tragic figures in the Greek.

All Speakers: Freak but you know he all but at the end of the day he also like

All Speakers: he's using strong arm police tactics just like

All Speakers: anyone else yeah i think that's in the interview oh sorry go ahead there oh

All Speakers: yeah i thought oh man yeah the interview's i'm sorry um yeah so that's actually

All Speakers: pretty brilliant the uh like what you're saying is like the way that they manipulate

All Speakers: the the black characters in this one where it's like you can already tell that this is like.

All Speakers: The third or fourth layer, you can kind of see the how the prison system works

All Speakers: to basically, you know, keep them under their heel and keep them under their boot.

All Speakers: Really, when they're talking to the character is a boxer, like the way they

All Speakers: basically get him to like snitch on people in his own community is like,

All Speakers: hey, you know, your brother that we also have in jail that we can use as leverage.

All Speakers: Like, we're going to lower that

All Speakers: sentence, which like you also see they probably aren't going to do it.

All Speakers: It's kind of implied at the end of the scene there, like that they can leverage

All Speakers: the fact that they've locked up so many people from their community already.

All Speakers: They can use them as sort of negotiation tools and nothing more like that's

All Speakers: all they are to these cops.

All Speakers: Yeah. And if you don't do what they say and give them information.

All Speakers: They'll just you have to fear that they're going to just pin some fake ass crime

All Speakers: on them. And so that, you know, you're kind of you're you're stuck.

All Speakers: And it's also this is also when maybe not quite as much as the 80s under Reagan

All Speakers: with the growth of like the prison industrial complex.

All Speakers: It's very clear that I meant to do research in this.

All Speakers: I didn't get a chance to. I was curious to see like how much prison growth occurred in the 1950s.

All Speakers: I have to think, especially in California, it must have gone up a lot because

All Speakers: they were trying to clean up, in quotation marks, Hollywood and LA to make it

All Speakers: white and rich and not the opposite.

All Speakers: You don't want other people that are going to make our property value go down.

All Speakers: And so I wonder if at the time, all these arrests of people is partly that they're just...

All Speakers: Increasing that you know prison system for basically

All Speakers: you know prison labor and i don't know if that's uh

All Speakers: if either you have any idea about what what happened then

All Speakers: well yeah i mean that's you know that's a tale as old

All Speakers: as uh well i think it's the 13th amendment where it's like yeah slavery the

All Speakers: ball if you're if we imprison you then we can basically use you as de facto

All Speakers: slave labor which a lot of that had was actually used to build up a lot of the

All Speakers: infrastructure that is now out here which is southern or in what is now a lot

All Speakers: of the the major cities in southern California.

All Speakers: So it's like the way of basically crude accumulation of wealth of capital resources

All Speakers: that people can use this free labor.

All Speakers: And like, what's the we see it in its most explicit version during the war on

All Speakers: drugs when the prison population booms, but there's no way that those factors

All Speakers: weren't at play in the 50s as well.

All Speakers: Yeah. So according to a prison policy.org, it

All Speakers: wasn't really that the growth started in about

All Speakers: 1977 and in the 80s of course but so

All Speakers: in the 50s it it does actually seem like in california it

All Speakers: was going up more than other places so i guess that makes makes sense yeah you

All Speakers: could you could do yeah you could do a whole episode probably on uh prison industrial

All Speakers: complex related to movies and things because they just always almost kind of

All Speakers: just like a foregone conclusion that the bad guy has gotten gone went to prison And in this movie,

All Speakers: at least they kind of turn that around and they're saying clearly the innocent

All Speakers: people are in prison and the cops who are the ones doing the bad things just

All Speakers: get what they lose their pension. That's their punishment. Yeah.

All Speakers: Or just get like executed in the street if they're really bad.

All Speakers: I guess some of them did right in this.

All Speakers: Yeah, but not in that they, you know, have been breaking the law and destroying

All Speakers: the lives of common people around them bad and that they pissed off the guy

All Speakers: who's ultimately the most corrupt

All Speakers: among all of them. Well, that actually leads me to a portion of this.

All Speakers: For anyone who hasn't seen it, I didn't describe the plot, really,

All Speakers: because I think it's fairly...

All Speakers: There's a lot of different strands that all kind of come together in the last

All Speakers: act of this, which I think was one thing I saw occasionally of people who didn't

All Speakers: like this is they felt the first third or two thirds were a little bit slow in developing all of it.

All Speakers: It but i think they're both wrong and i think it makes the

All Speakers: last third of the movie so good is all that coming together but

All Speakers: didn't seem like they were uh together but you

All Speakers: have the character that's played by uh

All Speakers: david strathern which is kind of like this he's referred to as a pimp in here

All Speakers: i guess you could say that's what he is he's essentially giving plastic surgery

All Speakers: to women to look like famous movie stars to essentially uh you know pawn them

All Speakers: off to men and that's what kim basinger's character kind of becomes free of.

All Speakers: But they're clearly showing that there's no positive depiction of Hollywood at all in this.

All Speakers: And they're very much showing that the leaders and the wealthy people in Hollywood are just scumbags.

All Speakers: And it's interesting to draw that line between like a

All Speakers: pimp and a simulacrum of a

All Speakers: uh of an actress and like the real

All Speakers: world of like producers people hire and

All Speakers: actresses are playing on hollywood or or yeah

All Speakers: the real well who's she supposed to look like not rita hayworth that was another

All Speakers: one uh i don't remember who she's supposed to look like but like the the parallel

All Speakers: between like the the hooker and the actress and the relationship they have to

All Speakers: the wealthy and powerful man is It's like a pretty straight line,

All Speakers: I feel like. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

All Speakers: I mean, it's really driven home in that hilarious scene where Johnny Stompanato is there in the bar.

All Speakers: That is Lana Turner. Oh, I know. Oh, yeah. I mean, whatever.

All Speakers: Like, a whore dressed up as an actress is still a whore. No, that's Lana Turner.

All Speakers: Oh, yeah. That scene is very good.

All Speakers: It's a funny scene, but it's very much gesturing at

All Speakers: Dan's point that there's like at the end of the

All Speakers: day there there is a subtle difference between like an

All Speakers: actual pimp and a hollywood producer during the golden era

All Speakers: yeah it's like just a difference of degrees really up until

All Speakers: like literally like eight years ago six seven years ago yeah i mean the only

All Speakers: difference is like well i was going to say like maybe in one case you don't

All Speakers: actually have to sleep with anyone but i guess that's not the case at all because

All Speakers: you think of people who harvey weinstein scene and such who did force you to do that to get part.

All Speakers: Or Kevin Spacey. Or Kevin Spacey, who is last filled in this movie,

All Speakers: even though he's on the cover of the book. Yeah.

All Speakers: I don't know about you guys, but I don't quite buy him as a suave ladies man.

All Speakers: Is it because of what we know of him now? Or is it a little bit of a tough sell?

All Speakers: Well, I guess I didn't read him as necessarily a suave ladies man in that like,

All Speakers: he's just naturally magnetic it's more like he's a

All Speakers: man in position of power and he has like he

All Speakers: has access to all these connections and all the big hollywood people that like

All Speakers: that would be the appeal of him not that like oh kevin's like this guy in the

All Speakers: white suit is so handsome it's like oh this guy can help me like get out of

All Speakers: the fucking slums or get out of like yeah being a person to this industry and

All Speakers: get me into the middle that's more it that is more it

All Speakers: but i mean i still feel like he's characterized as sort of like the cool one

All Speakers: yeah he seems like the

All Speakers: guy who fancies himself the cool one i yeah

All Speakers: i guess i mean i hope that's more it it almost

All Speakers: seems like danny devito is kind of like playing him up to be that to get him

All Speakers: to do what he wants right like oh here's 50 bucks which i guess i think i looked

All Speakers: it up was equivalent of something like 400 which isn't nothing but i mean given

All Speakers: can't imagine they're paid that well you know as police officers in LA.

All Speakers: I mean, that was... And it seems like also very funny how all of the other officers...

All Speakers: He's kind of a joke amongst the rest of the people when he goes to Vice to have

All Speakers: to do his little stint because he gets kicked out of his regular division.

All Speakers: It's very much like he's this pretty boy, playboy wearing...

All Speakers: And here's another thing to kind of illustrate the point.

All Speakers: Did you notice the neckties that they all wore were very distinctive to kind

All Speakers: of their personalities?

All Speakers: Kevin Spacey had these really colorful colorful, flowery neckties.

All Speakers: And Bud, who's the played by Russell Crowe, he's wearing just like a black,

All Speakers: straight black necktie, I think, most of the time. Like a really skinny one, even.

All Speakers: Yeah, skinny one. And then I can't remember. I saw something where it mentioned

All Speakers: them and all of the different ones, but it's clearly they were showing.

All Speakers: And also, Kevin Spacey has that big white sport coat that kind of seemed like

All Speakers: it's three sizes too big on him or something. Yeah.

All Speakers: I don't know. They clearly were playing

All Speakers: him up as this very strange uh like a

All Speakers: playboy yeah i guess that's right well and you can tell like

All Speakers: just by like the cars he's

All Speakers: driving the the suits he's wearing the

All Speakers: lifestyle he lives like he makes way more than an average cop

All Speakers: like he is definitely a tax bracket above all of them yeah being like a consultant

All Speakers: on a tv show right so yeah and also getting his tabloid kick kickbacks hmm yeah

All Speakers: it's well here's the thing that's interesting about them it seems like with the exception of the um.

All Speakers: Captain Smith, James Cromwell, they all seem to have a eureka moment where they

All Speakers: realize that they're the ones being controlled by someone nefarious.

All Speakers: Kevin Spacey, he is in the bar and leaves his $50 bill on the whiskey or whatever.

All Speakers: He realizes something's going on.

All Speakers: And even Guy Pearce from the beginning has his good guy mentality.

All Speakers: Russell Crowe even, I feel like, kind of has this moment where he is being kind

All Speakers: of taken advantage of by people who just know he's just like a guy who can punch people.

All Speakers: So they all kind of have that moment where they realize there's probably something better.

All Speakers: And the only one who actually gets out is Russell Crowe, right?

All Speakers: I mean, the other ones are either dead or still caught.

All Speakers: Yeah, he just has to get like shot in the face and hit some ladies himself.

All Speakers: But he gets to move to uh what's arizona

All Speakers: arizona yeah again he'll fit

All Speakers: in over there he could be

All Speakers: like a uh a bouncer at a uh i don't know a local bar yeah he has the saddest

All Speakers: story i think like oh because we i think it's well established that he wants

All Speakers: to be a good person and he has a lot of righteous fury that's earned and it's directed towards...

All Speakers: Abusers and stuff like that and it's like i think it's like

All Speakers: sad and realistic that like you know we know that

All Speakers: he was brought up like around a lot of physical abuse and

All Speakers: that sort of thing and like it's just like he continues the cycle like it's

All Speakers: like so sad that he hits her like i think that's so tragic and it sucks like

All Speakers: as he was i think even more so than exley he is like the most morally upstanding

All Speakers: person he just has a really traumatic childhood.

All Speakers: It's really sad and like even even like the way they like use that

All Speakers: that like hot streak like like what dudley

All Speakers: does like where he's like i'm gonna put you on homicide homicide i'm

All Speakers: gonna be investigating no you're gonna be torturing and

All Speakers: he's like oh okay it strikes

All Speakers: me too as like among all the the police characters is

All Speakers: definitely the most working class or the lowest

All Speakers: class among them which is then encoded as

All Speakers: stupid to all of the other uh completely

All Speakers: and then because he's like pigeonholed as

All Speakers: that he is like he yeah he's just used as the goof like the tough uh where as

All Speakers: like they're it's kind of funny that the movie like directly addresses it where

All Speakers: people realize that way they're like oh maybe maybe johnny johnny working class

All Speakers: isn't a giant big dum-dum as we We thought because he didn't go to college.

All Speakers: We thought he was dumb. But turns out his brain does work good.

All Speakers: Well, is it is it implied to the Kevin Spacey's character also?

All Speakers: I mean, clearly his. So the actually played by Guy Pearce, his father was a

All Speakers: cop. You mentioned that specifically.

All Speakers: They ever say what the past of Kevin Spacey is like.

All Speakers: Do you think he's also wealthy or is it just a wealthy now because he's like

All Speakers: making up? I also got the sense that he might have been like a working class

All Speakers: guy that is like making up for it now by doing, you know.

All Speakers: He's like reaching beyond the station. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I guess it doesn't

All Speakers: matter at all. Just that his dad was killed.

All Speakers: Yeah. I bet the book does reveal more about this, but yeah, he could kind of

All Speakers: strike me as a bit of a Gatsby figure.

All Speakers: Like, you know, someone trying to reach into a, a higher echelon of society

All Speakers: and then getting, uh, paying the consequences for such class mobility.

All Speakers: Yeah. Go ahead. No, no, I was, I'm sorry.

All Speakers: Sorry to cut you off. No, no, please. No, I was just going to,

All Speakers: I was going to go to something totally different. So you should,

All Speakers: yeah, me too. Oh, Oh, well, then you go first.

All Speakers: Do you guys think that Dudley Smith is actually Rolo Tomasi?

All Speakers: Do you think that he killed Exley's dad for being also like being a morally

All Speakers: upstanding, like an unbendable guy?

All Speakers: Yeah, that one. I didn't like when they they had him connect the dots like that.

All Speakers: That one I was kind of like, I don't know, like maybe it's more kind of like,

All Speakers: you know, another Kevin Spacey movie.

All Speakers: Oh, what's the name of in the usual sex suspects? Kaiser.

All Speakers: Kaiser Sosa. it's kind of like a kaiser soze thing

All Speakers: where it's like it's more that's like a a role

All Speakers: that has like that seems to have to exist in la

All Speakers: because of like like they said like all this is going

All Speakers: on because it was a power vacuum that suddenly uh appeared after

All Speakers: they arrested the the head mobster guy um so it's more like this this yeah this

All Speakers: this uh this position that has to exist that somebody if it wasn't him it'd

All Speakers: be another guy if it was it was like basically the idea of this guy killed his

All Speakers: his dad where I think he literalizes it and things like all this,

All Speakers: you know, this Irish motherfucker actually killed my dad. But like,

All Speakers: I interpreted more as like.

All Speakers: This a guy like him didn't or did it i

All Speakers: didn't think he did it either i thought it was kind of like a stand-in kind

All Speakers: of situation perhaps like a excuse for um

All Speakers: he's the easy person to blame because like he he killed

All Speakers: kevin spacey's um someone in

All Speakers: his family right or no he just figures out who he is right doesn't

All Speakers: right before he died he say roland tomasi right before he shoots

All Speakers: him oh yeah well what happens is they they're like

All Speakers: so jack jack kevin spacey's character and

All Speakers: um ed actually they uh they kind of

All Speakers: like are they're getting to the bottom of the conspiracy and really

All Speakers: the linchpin for all of it is um uh like he follows like the paper trail the

All Speakers: stuff and like he basically is like starting to deduce that dudley is like the

All Speakers: person that's filling the power vacuum and what happens and this is like pretty

All Speakers: convenient because because

All Speakers: like uh x or excuse me vincennes

All Speakers: jack his last words when he gets shot are rollo

All Speakers: tamasi and it's just like a hail mary he throws

All Speakers: like oh what's something that only x and i will know that if this guy knows

All Speakers: it x will know that he killed me like and he just kind of throws that out there

All Speakers: with like his death throw and uh it works because he like brings up rollo tamasi

All Speakers: and then all of a sudden he knows that you know he had contact with vincennes as he was dying.

All Speakers: Yeah and that does like pretty it's pretty convoluted and like pretty like convenient

All Speakers: you know that it all just works out exactly like that but there's nothing deeper

All Speakers: than that that's kind of the fun of noir sometimes they can get a little cute

All Speakers: with their plotting but it does make me think too like with.

All Speakers: Rolo tomasi as like a figure less than

All Speakers: a singular guy and like the ending of this movie

All Speakers: where it does paint in a much more tragic light because like nothing

All Speakers: materially changes whatsoever like that

All Speakers: power vacuum is now just open again to

All Speakers: be refilled by someone else and now this cycle

All Speakers: is just going to keep on turning over because like what

All Speakers: materially changed to address everything

All Speakers: that happened during this two-hour movie well as i

All Speakers: was gonna say it's like they don't they don't actually ever that's why police are

All Speakers: don't they don't actually fix things because they're not changing any

All Speakers: material conditions of people they're not fixing the societal

All Speakers: problems they're just kind of yeah they're not doing any of those

All Speakers: things actually leads me to one thing about the movie that i thought was that

All Speakers: i noticed is that there's no average people ever

All Speakers: there's no like any civilians really other

All Speakers: than i guess maybe the people who are framed for the different murders

All Speakers: the people who were accidentally shot in the night owl murder

All Speakers: you know murder spree you kind of have the police

All Speakers: you have the hollywood kind of uh you know

All Speakers: sex working ring or whatever and then

All Speakers: you don't really see anyone else you have that like one guy who's like the b-list

All Speakers: actor who gets killed for you know seducing the the da or whatever and uh which

All Speakers: is another separate plot too i don't know i don't know what to make of that

All Speakers: but it feels like they're they're not i don't know maybe that goes back to the

All Speakers: original monologue by danny devito where he's talking about the.

All Speakers: Underbelly not kind of what's on the surface and the

All Speakers: on the surface of the people you know the regular people what's interesting too

All Speakers: is that in that opening monologue like it's when he's like selling la to you

All Speakers: it's like where your average working man can like you know have a great house

All Speakers: and a wife and a kid and picket fence and all that stuff and then you see none

All Speakers: of that for the entire movie yeah and it is like i am choosing to read it more

All Speakers: generously and say that the director of.

All Speakers: Purposely did not put any of that in because it's

All Speakers: showing that like yeah these you know it's supposed to be the protector

All Speakers: of the people this force that's keeping order and for

All Speakers: you know for the general populace in a democratic way

All Speakers: like and they always talk about this stuff like

All Speakers: that's why i'm on hops and that's like the idea of like

All Speakers: you know restoring justice but like at no point like if

All Speakers: anything the public just seems like a nuisance that

All Speakers: they need to like make sure doesn't know what's going

All Speakers: on because they'll just yeah yeah i think that was totally deliberate

All Speakers: like that whole monologue at the beginning i think isn't intentionally

All Speakers: has like this sardonic edge

All Speakers: to it that danny devito embodies like really perfectly like i don't think uh

All Speakers: we're meant to take those words at face value whatsoever like i think there's

All Speakers: that satire starts immediately from the beginning yeah it was almost is interesting

All Speakers: because we said at length like how the first half of the film is kind of like

All Speakers: a straight noir and that it kind of comes like a new noir.

All Speakers: That opening monologue being such like a satirical way.

All Speakers: It's almost like you're there, like nudging you, like, get ready.

All Speakers: We're going to, we're going to get to you later at this point in this movie

All Speakers: where we're going to laugh to see like how absurd all of this actually is.

All Speakers: And it doesn't take itself very seriously, but then it like immediately become very serious.

All Speakers: It's kind of a, I don't know, in a way you could argue that the movie kind of

All Speakers: changes its style and maybe, I don't necessarily think to its fault.

All Speakers: I still think it's a well-made movie, but maybe if it was one way or the other,

All Speakers: it would have done more. I don't know. Well, I like the tone. Yeah.

All Speakers: It was critiquing the, like that's where the satire comes in.

All Speakers: So yeah, that's a good point that the opening monologue kind of couches the

All Speakers: tone a little bit better or like.

All Speakers: Prepares or foreshadows what's about to happen

All Speakers: um and so then the second half like kind of

All Speakers: then locks in that satire that happened that

All Speakers: of the original hour which is played seemingly pretty

All Speakers: straight yeah that's true that actually before you before

All Speakers: we run out of time i want to i mentioned alluded to this

All Speakers: salon.com article by dwight garner

All Speakers: that came out on october 19th 1997 as

All Speakers: the only person who did not like or

All Speakers: rate this uh positively the only

All Speakers: prominent critic who did not rate this positively upon

All Speakers: its release yes yes that's a

All Speakers: better way to put it but so there's a couple funny lines in this and i'm curious

All Speakers: i mean i'm not going to read the whole thing because it's it's actually not

All Speakers: even that long but i'm going to read a couple parts i think are funny i have

All Speakers: not read any books by james elroy so i don't really know too much about his

All Speakers: writing style although I can assume based on this movie.

All Speakers: I think he also wrote back Black Dahlia as the only other one I can think of that I know about.

All Speakers: But in the very beginning, he says, well, for once he says, let's see,

All Speakers: I'll read the beginning.

All Speakers: He says, novelist James Elroy has pronounced is the history of bad white men

All Speakers: doing bad things in the name of authority.

All Speakers: L.A. Confidential, the new Curtis Hanson film based on Elroy's 1999.

All Speakers: I don't know if you could hear that in the background. He says,

All Speakers: Elroy's novel, the same name is something slightly different.

All Speakers: It's the story of good white actors stranded in the name

All Speakers: of noir in a movie that refuses to kick into gear until

All Speakers: it's far too late this didn't have to happen elroy's

All Speakers: novel is ferocious caterwalling slab of

All Speakers: pulp a big buick six of a book that serves up 1950s era la as if only creatures

All Speakers: who strode the west coast were mobsters hookers corrupt cops and scandal magazine

All Speakers: editors and then he says and you got off and then he says reading elroy can

All Speakers: be like deciphering morris code tapped out by a pair of barely scarily sentient testicles.

All Speakers: Which is quite the line. And so I guess he's alluding to the fact that it seems

All Speakers: like he really likes his book.

All Speakers: But then he says, in this case, the trouble includes a series of gruesome mobster

All Speakers: hits, which Hanson renders in short vignettes, flashes of lurid black and white

All Speakers: news photographs, trouble at the LAPD,

All Speakers: a squad that has a real fondness for kicking the crap out of perps, like Rodney King style.

All Speakers: And then he says, it's spun out and.

All Speakers: Overly ambitious ensemble piece characters

All Speakers: who are sucked into this flurry I don't

All Speakers: know I'm like rambling now but in a way as I read

All Speakers: it again very poorly I might add he like

All Speakers: likes lots about it but it seems like he hates that

All Speakers: it takes too long to get to the point and

All Speakers: it's like the last line of it he says you know it's the

All Speakers: film hasn't the confidence or the nerve of either

All Speakers: of those pictures was referring to Chinatown and Pulp Fiction and you

All Speakers: emerge from the theater feeling like Hanson finally managed

All Speakers: to push Ellie Confidential past the usual boundaries if your waiting hasn't

All Speakers: been entirely in vain but at this point you're already too burned out to care

All Speakers: so he's saying it's like boring for the first two thirds and I might have to

All Speakers: cut all this because I poor life I felt like I was distracted,

All Speakers: fuck that guy.

All Speakers: I mean wait he said that the pair of testicles hammering out that 700 page novel is a good thing. Yes.

All Speakers: What the fuck does that mean? I don't know.

All Speakers: Yeah. Nowhere in his rambling, incoherent response was there anything like the correct answer.

All Speakers: We're all dumber having heard it. I award him no points and may God have mercy on his soul.

All Speakers: I thought the only bit that I thought was interesting for a second.

All Speakers: No, that doesn't work. is

All Speakers: uh the the idea that he lets the white

All Speakers: or the movie lets the white characters off the hook which like

All Speakers: i didn't read that in

All Speakers: the movie well i mean like there's the whole there's the whole thing like kind

All Speakers: of you know catalyst event towards the beginning where they're like beating

All Speakers: up those framed mexican people for like doing nothing basically and like russell

All Speakers: crowe's all the way participating in it and we're still meant to see him as

All Speakers: one of the you know most morally,

All Speakers: upstanding characters like amongst the

All Speakers: rabble yeah the movie does work hard to

All Speakers: make sure that a we let russell crowe

All Speakers: beat up a mexican and b we think it's a good idea yeah

All Speakers: and like there's four there's four black characters and three

All Speakers: of them have participated in like the sex trafficking gang

All Speakers: and rape of a young lady and then get you know summarily

All Speakers: executed for it yeah well and it's interesting because he also in this review

All Speakers: he also basically says you know he according to him like it doesn't really get

All Speakers: good until the night owl murder and but the way he describes like pierce crow

All Speakers: and spacey is like in a pretty positive light like how they were really good performances,

All Speakers: so it kind of like confuses me like he seems to almost be writing a bad review

All Speakers: because like he He wants to be that one guy who said it sucks.

All Speakers: You know, like, I don't know. I'm going to go against the trend.

All Speakers: Everyone really loved, you know... Paddington 2.

All Speakers: Oh, who would have a negative review about Paddington 2? That lovable bear and

All Speakers: his marmalade sandwiches. I mean...

All Speakers: What can you say? But I don't know. It's like a it's a very odd thing.

All Speakers: Actually, what would have been funnier is what you said, Dan.

All Speakers: If I'd gone to Letterboxd and look for people who wrote like half star reviews

All Speakers: of it and seen what they think.

All Speakers: I never actually done that because maybe I don't want to know.

All Speakers: I'm going to do that right now. But look at us. We all we all generally really

All Speakers: liked the craft of this movie and enjoyed the hell out of it,

All Speakers: but still have plenty of like decent criticism about it.

All Speakers: It but none of our criticism like is uh at

All Speakers: all leveled against the filmmaking it's

All Speakers: against like some of the topics that we wished

All Speakers: it would have like a like you know a

All Speakers: a clear like any clearer insight into

All Speakers: that it doesn't like it played by a lot of rules that are kind

All Speakers: of perpetuating a lot of like sort of like you

All Speakers: know things in culture that that the three of us wish were

All Speakers: different but like the movie itself i i

All Speakers: don't know i feel like it's fairly like untouchable just

All Speakers: as a movie if you remove like what we wish it would would have done like socially

All Speakers: yeah i i think so i just ran a search on letterboxd of one-star reviews and

All Speakers: a bunch of people like the first ones that come up are like that it's boring

All Speakers: none of it age well it's not accurate about cops which like what What the fuck?

All Speakers: Like it's saying that it's meant to be accurate.

All Speakers: Like this is no war. No war was never trying to be like journalistic.

All Speakers: Like it's trying to show a bit of like a, I don't know, a shit covered lens on it.

All Speakers: It's also kind of satirizing it because of that opening monologue about,

All Speakers: I think sometimes people take things too seriously or the opposite.

All Speakers: Sometimes they take them not seriously enough. I don't know.

All Speakers: But yeah, Yeah, I agree. I think I agree with you, Jared. I think there I love this movie.

All Speakers: I would watch it. I don't know, not necessarily against you because I just watched

All Speakers: it a couple of times. But in three, four or five years, I happily watch it.

All Speakers: I'm sure I probably will still enjoy it. But I do think there's lots of problems,

All Speakers: not the least of which is the fact that Kevin Spacey is in it.

All Speakers: But, you know, you can't. Which I couldn't be helped at the time. They didn't know.

All Speakers: Well, there's is that a way that I could be good if we could,

All Speakers: like, remove him and just put, you know, who's

All Speakers: the guy that who's the guy that replaced him in that ridley

All Speakers: scott movie i think that guy's dead now though it was like a much

All Speakers: older actor wasn't it wasn't it like peter o'toole or someone

All Speakers: uh yeah it was someone really old let's see

All Speakers: it was christopher plumber oh okay yeah and all the money in the world yeah

All Speakers: let's just get christopher plumber to reshoot kevin facey's only confidential

All Speakers: scenes and oh and most importantly all of his all of his scenes in american

All Speakers: beauty as well Oh, sweetie.

All Speakers: I don't know. I kind of in like a weird way, I kind of like American Beauty

All Speakers: better than I know that Kevin Spacey is a sex pest trying to play a sex pest.

All Speakers: Like I'm just like imagining him working through that on screen and like that nobody knows.

All Speakers: There's like this added layer of dramatic irony going on. That's true.

All Speakers: Yeah. I mean, I I don't know. I really don't know how I feel about Kevin Spacey's

All Speakers: acting anymore because like just knowing what a like a terrible person he is.

All Speakers: And also just like a creepy weirdo with like some of his like reactions to getting

All Speakers: cancelled and stuff like that he did like I'm back.

All Speakers: Like like so like he did it in characters Frank Underwood like so creepy that

All Speakers: now I go back and I like watch I like while I was watching this I was like he's

All Speakers: kind of boring like in monotonous as an actor,

All Speakers: yeah like he kind of just says all

All Speakers: of his lines like I'm very smart and

All Speakers: cool and blah blah blah blah blah like and like

All Speakers: he honestly doesn't have range as an actor it's funny

All Speakers: you say that because some of the like interviews about the making of it a lot

All Speakers: of people within the making of it and critics were saying how they thought he

All Speakers: was really really good in this like particularly and i i don't i think the best

All Speakers: part i think his best performance was when he died and he was just lying there

All Speakers: and he was dead i really enjoyed that part.

All Speakers: Bleeding from the heart he actually did

All Speakers: like look pretty good when he was just kind of like lying oh

All Speakers: when it went yeah when when like he didn't like like

All Speakers: uh dramatically like close his eyes where all of a sudden it was

All Speakers: just lifeless that was pretty good scene yeah i mean i

All Speakers: think too that like that was the moment where kind of the veneer of like

All Speakers: his hollywood cool guy kind of drops and like

All Speakers: the whole i don't know simulacrum of like the world

All Speakers: he was living in now all of a sudden the consequences of all

All Speakers: of it are are flooding in you see like the real guy underneath

All Speakers: the the playboy facade so you're saying in

All Speakers: a way this is almost like a metaphor for him in a very kind

All Speakers: of a way right like i mean he kind of he i mean not

All Speakers: in the same way i mean i guess is he helping traffic like

All Speakers: he doesn't kind of help traffic that male actor right i

All Speakers: mean yeah he does yeah he sure does yeah wow that was just like your like a

All Speakers: emotional recall for him as an actor he was he's like yeah i like i know what

All Speakers: it's like to traffic young men to hollywood elites i just can pretend i'm in

All Speakers: both positions in the oh gosh i.

All Speakers: Oh boy um yeah just yeah i

All Speakers: think i don't know i don't i don't know if i just dislike him as a person

All Speakers: because i used to think he was a fantastic actor but literally i was watching

All Speakers: this movie and being like this guy's boring as fuck i mean it's just my bias

All Speakers: that's always a funny thing i've noticed and i remember but my mom was actually

All Speakers: talking about this yesterday where she like gets annoyed when olympians act

All Speakers: like dickheads a little bit and i'm like what they're athletes they're not They

All Speakers: don't have to be morally good.

All Speakers: They just have to be good at what they do.

All Speakers: And like... Jump on that trampoline real good.

All Speakers: Yeah. Where like, for some reason...

All Speakers: Artists like that divide is much

All Speakers: blurrier of like you kind of want your artists

All Speakers: to be good people and you find it harder when like you know that they're bags

All Speakers: of shit to enjoy like there are plenty of like i don't know tom brady not really

All Speakers: a good dude kind of a sack of shit but like or aaron rogers like two big nfl

All Speakers: quarterbacks but like they're good at what they do so kind of like,

All Speakers: Well, yeah, but it's like it's like throwing a ball really accurately and quickly.

All Speakers: Like, is that an expression of who Tom Brady is as a person?

All Speakers: Like, if you're making art, that is an expression of who you are as a person.

All Speakers: Yeah. And that's where it gets buzzier. I guess. Yeah. This is like this is

All Speakers: a whole other episode. We're about to start.

All Speakers: Yeah, I know. But I yeah, that's I can. it's a yeah that'd be an interesting

All Speakers: conversation too as to how all that falls in but I guess the only last question I had before we maybe,

All Speakers: send off is on the movie anyway is the thing I like the last thing I wrote was

All Speakers: like in this in this it seems like no one really wins like it's kind of like

All Speakers: there is no good person I guess you could maybe say.

All Speakers: That Bud you know Russell Crowe and Kim

All Speakers: Basinger kind of like win in a way as you

All Speakers: said except for getting shot in the face they kind of like get to have like

All Speakers: a bit of a happy ending but nothing is ever nothing is fixed as you said Dan

All Speakers: like it kind of all just ends and it's likely just going to happen again in

All Speakers: some slightly different way because they haven't actually stamped out any corruption

All Speakers: in the force they've just pretended it doesn't exist so in the end we're just

All Speakers: going to you know someone can write you know,

All Speakers: LA Confidential 2 you know 1994.

All Speakers: I don't know whatever you want to choose oh yeah i have it

All Speakers: on good authority that the lapd did in fact remain

All Speakers: shitty well like

All Speakers: like i said it does remind me of the end of the dark

All Speakers: night and i'm like oh like all this terrible bullshit happened and we're just

All Speakers: gonna lie about it and cover it up so that like public order can be maintained

All Speakers: and like you know that story continues that doesn't solve the contradiction

All Speakers: there like it it has to be somehow rectified which i guess in the dark knight's case is.

All Speakers: Blowing up a nuke over the bay of a city for

All Speakers: some reason but uh but yeah like i could very

All Speakers: easily see an la confidential 2 of some sort where

All Speakers: it's just another person fills those shoes because nothing has been fixed it's

All Speakers: just some people get out yeah the only way you can win like you said it's like

All Speakers: two people get out of it they fuck off to arizona yeah that's true oh that's

All Speakers: always such Such a nice high point to end on.

All Speakers: Yeah, that is a terrible ending to be sent.

All Speakers: Oh, yeah. Well, here's a better ending than the movie anyway.

All Speakers: So since we talked at the beginning about noir movies that you might like,

All Speakers: how about a movie you would send off the listeners to watch that you've enjoyed

All Speakers: recently, which is slightly copying the beginning of your show,

All Speakers: which I also have mentioned is Concessions, that you talk about,

All Speakers: like things that are, you know, you or other guests might be enjoyed recently.

All Speakers: So maybe something you would recommend to the fair listeners.

All Speakers: Oh, I've got a good one while Jared cooks one up. The other day,

All Speakers: it just hit the Criterion channel, the movie The Beast with George McKay.

All Speakers: It's excellent. It is one of those movies that I kind of had to read what it

All Speakers: was about afterward a little bit just to get some details down correctly.

All Speakers: But no, it's it's absolutely wonderful.

All Speakers: Wonderful um the director has uh twin peaks

All Speakers: i believe the return or fire walk with me

All Speakers: as like one of his top 10 movies ever and it makes sense in this uh so i like

All Speakers: the way i describe it to a friend real quick or my good friends the listeners

All Speakers: here and my two other good friends of this podcast that we are currently on

All Speakers: um it's like if cloud atlas was filtered through uh twin peaks trying

All Speakers: to deal with the death of Laura Palmer. Interesting.

All Speakers: Excellent. Yeah. That's not my list. I'm going to, um, just throw out one that

All Speakers: Dan and I just released a quick hitter on.

All Speakers: Well, I don't know when your dear listeners will be listening to this,

All Speakers: but, uh, the movie was in theaters at the beginning of August.

All Speakers: Um, and it's probably available for like, uh, VOD streamings at some point,

All Speakers: uh, when this episode comes out.

All Speakers: Um, but it's this movie called kneecap, uh, That just absolutely slaps like so hard.

All Speakers: It's an Irish movie. Michael Fassbender is in a supporting role,

All Speakers: but it's it's like an autobiographical biopic with with the real musicians playing themselves.

All Speakers: This this hip hop trio called Kneecap, who they rap in the actual Irish Gaelic language.

All Speakers: And they are um some of

All Speakers: the most prominent activists uh in the uk uh for like parliament to uh officially

All Speakers: recognize the irish language as a national language of the uk and they actually

All Speakers: successfully lobbied that and

All Speakers: that actually like went into effect about a year ago but they were like.

All Speakers: Quite the hooligan uh uh uh

All Speakers: you know uh kind of protesting that and um

All Speakers: the movie is amazing it's kind of got the

All Speakers: spirit of like a goodfellas or city of god where

All Speakers: it's just breakneck like editing narration uh funny streak violent streak it's

All Speakers: a crime movie and it's also a music movie and it's also a biopic and it's um

All Speakers: it's just amazing like it's such a fun movie and it's It's weighty and also hysterical.

All Speakers: And yeah. I got to see that. Yeah. Yeah. Kneecap is so good. Kneecap rules.

All Speakers: Yeah. That's the, those both, both. I just saw also the, that beast was on a criterion.

All Speakers: I, I, this is only, this is like the newest movie I saw that's in theaters.

All Speakers: I guess it comes out the day that we're recording. This is the day it releases

All Speakers: is a cuckoo, which I wouldn't say it was like the best movie I've seen recently,

All Speakers: but I've thoroughly enjoyed it.

All Speakers: And I would say if, I don't know when this comes out, maybe it's,

All Speakers: I hopefully it'll still be in the theater.

All Speakers: You'll be able to watch it. I would definitely recommend it.

All Speakers: I think it's, uh, especially the performance by Hunter Schaefer is, uh, is quite good.

All Speakers: And Dan Stevens is also disturbingly creepy and, um, perfect as well.

All Speakers: So I would, uh, since it seems like we're getting all these little,

All Speakers: like, um, lower budget horror movies that everyone should see.

All Speakers: Well, Why this podcast exists.

All Speakers: Oh, no, not this podcast. Sorry, yeah.

All Speakers: Why Concessions exists. Yeah, The

All Speakers: Guest is the first movie we ever did on Concessions. Oh, perfect. Yeah.

All Speakers: It's funny. I'm going to cut this. But I've been toying with doing similar to

All Speakers: your like kind of like quick.

All Speakers: I guess we did the long leg one, but one where but I might try and do it where

All Speakers: there's no spoilers where someone could then watch it.

All Speakers: It and like yeah it's basically unspoiled or like of like the very

All Speakers: lightest of spoiler you know not yeah we did that

All Speakers: for kneecap yeah yeah but that episode was like 25 minutes long as a result

All Speakers: okay yeah well that's the thing that's i almost didn't listen to it because

All Speakers: i'm like i'm gonna see it probably on in two days from now so i'll wait a lot

All Speakers: for that but yeah so um for anyone

All Speakers: listening you should also listen and subscribe to concessions and um.

All Speakers: I think you have probably heard what your podcast is about, but you want to

All Speakers: send us off with concessions, uh, elevator pitch.

All Speakers: Ooh, elevator pitch. I don't know if we've ever officially done this.

All Speakers: Um, in my head, concessions is two people who spent way too much time babbling

All Speakers: at each other about movies from like slightly different emphases.

All Speakers: So it's interesting to see like where they kind of not great against each other,

All Speakers: but where they kind of overlap, where we have different viewpoints.

All Speakers: And the idea originally was one of us would concede to the other about movies.

All Speakers: But then it just turned into, turns out we both just love movies very,

All Speakers: very much and just come at them from different angles.

All Speakers: And we just use both of our strengths to do that. Yeah. At the end of the day,

All Speakers: Dan has this great perspective as someone with a lot of expertise around like

All Speakers: history and philosophy and politics and kind of the global stage.

All Speakers: And I come into the conversation with someone with a lot of expertise around

All Speakers: storytelling and like the film industry.

All Speakers: And I've been an actor and a director and a writer and basically like my whole life at this point.

All Speakers: And sometimes those different perspectives put us at odds on how we interpret different movies.

All Speakers: And by the end of our conversations we've usually educated the fuck out of each

All Speakers: other and have had a lot of concessions along the way.

All Speakers: We considered the bigger picture by the end that is and I actually I think that

All Speakers: actually has happened a number of times where I feel like at the beginning they're

All Speakers: like slightly different and then as the conversation I think I put jaws to I

All Speakers: specifically remember like you hadn't seen it before or had seen it for that so but,

All Speakers: you can listen to concessions on the internets and uh this on the internet and

All Speakers: you can listen to lots of things on the internet but we will uh catch you next

All Speakers: time on left of the projector.