Goodfellas

[MUSIC] >> No more podcasts, Billy. >> What? >> I said no more podcasts. Maybe you didn't hear about it. You've been away a long time. They don't go up there and tell you, I don't podcast anymore. >> Relax, will you flip right out? What's got into you? I'm breaking your balls a little bit. That's all I'm only kidding with you. >> Yeah, sometimes you don't sound like a kitten. You know there's a lot of people. >> I'm only kidding with you. We having a party. I just came home and I haven't seen you a long time and I'm breaking your balls and you get and fucking fresh. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to offend you. >> I'm sorry too, it's okay, it's no problem. >> Okay, salute. Now, go home and do your fucking podcast. I said to you, we have to do it. It's my, it's my favorite dialogue. >> It's great in history. >> The only objection I would have, of course, is I can imagine there's a million other things we could do because it's the most quotable screenplay. >> As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a podcast. >> That's certainly that and then Ben could just put in the, you know, the, the, you know, you're a funny guy. I'm sure we could do something about, you know. >> I looked at that, but you know how much I love Shine Box? >> Well, the thing about Shine Box is the thing about funny guy, especially is that it's all in the back and forth. And it's also like, you know, trying to do an imitation of one of the most famous, like, dialogue exchanges. >> Uh-huh. >> Very tough. >> Like it is. >> Yeah. >> Shine Box is a little bit the past. >> Shine Box is a travel. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Well, you know what I love in the Shine Boxing, though, is, you know, it's De Niro who we didn't do. >> Yeah. >> A little bit, a little bit. >> A little bit. >> A little bit. >> That's later, though, that's part two. >> I know, I know, but it's so good. >> A little bit. That's when, uh, when, uh, fucking, uh, Jim Brewer would do the Joe Peshry show in SNL. >> You want to fuck it, but, I mean, he says a mutt a lot. It's one of his favorite, uh, uh, sort of flurs. >> Yeah. >> It's a mutt. >> But Alec Baldwin played De Niro, and his De Niro was all based around a little bit. >> Yeah, well, that, I mean, Baldwin's De Niro is, is top show. >> A little bit, I mean, he did it on a podcast recently. >> You see it going around. >> It's really good. >> It's a top show. >> Yeah. >> It's a top show of De Niro, and obviously a lot of people have a De Niro, you know, but. >> Should Alec Baldwin do a one-man show of Trump versus De Niro? >> Sure. >> Fine. >> Should do it in his bathroom. >> You should. >> You could corrupt a little bit. >> A little bit. >> A little bit. >> Oh, man, I'm now, I'm just trying to find what else. >> What, other lines? >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> I just, I think the fucking, oh, I don't give a fuck. What is it, the first whole wide dog, not the first time I dug a hole? I'll dig the fucking hole. Where the shovels? >> Look at these. >> It's a long quotes page for the movie Goodfellas, Jimmy Conway, after kicking bats to a bloody pulp. Look what this fucking mutt did to my shoes. [LAUGH] >> My goodness. >> And then there was Jimmy two times who got that nickname because he said everything twice. Like, I'm gonna go get the papers. >> I'm gonna go do the podcast, do the podcast. >> That would be good. >> It's the, like, grabbing the tie, though. >> Oh, yes. >> The quality that makes it. >> I rewatched a Palsies, which is the Mr. Show sketch, where the bit is, it's a Goodfellas rip off, but it's been, it's the censored for TV version. >> Okay, right, right. >> But they have Jimmy one time, so only says things one time. >> That's funny. >> And David Cross since one goes, what do you say? And he just gives them a look. >> But the best part of Palsies is that it's all about like how bad the TV dubbing is for the cursing. >> I vaguely remember. >> And it escalates to you, mother, father, Chinese dentist. [LAUGH] >> You know one thing I like is with the mafia in media. >> But you like, okay, you like everything about the mafia in real life. >> They're doing great. >> Yes. >> Better than ever as far as I know. >> Brand Vega better. >> Still kept in, yeah, yeah, they're still around. >> They are still around. >> Yeah, but you like about the mafia in media is how they describe a terrible thing in the vaguest way possible. I'm going to quote here them, them telling Jimmy on the phone that they killed Tommy. >> We had a problem and we tried to do everything we could. I mean, you know, he's gone and we couldn't do nothing about it. That's it. Like that's how they're telling Jimmy, like your friend of many years, your criminal in arms, who we told you was getting made. >> We just shot him in the head and buried him somewhere and you'll never see him again. >> Except they basically repeat that exchange five times. This is a great repetition movie. >> He's gone. >> I mean, I never knew, you know, all I'm saying is we had a problem and there was nothing we could do. >> But then it goes into like, what do you tell him? I'm telling you this, it was a problem and this. >> There was nothing we could do. It's like, no, you did do so. You killed it. >> Yes. >> In fact, there was something you could do and you sure did it. >> I mean, obviously this whole mini series is building up to, it is what it is, they wouldn't dare. >> They wouldn't. >> They wouldn't dare. >> God, it is what it is, it is what it is. >> It is what it is. >> We're getting there. >> Yeah, we're getting there. We'll get there. But today we're on Goodfellas. >> Wow. >> Martin Scorsese's best loved movie. >> I think so. >> Is this his definitive film dispute? >> I think so. >> I think that's even really in the remote dispute at this point. >> I mean, it's his most well-known, certainly. >> Yes. >> And we are podcasts, fellas. >> We sure are. >> Yes. >> And now no one's going to complain about it anymore because we've got it. We've gotten to the Goodfellas episode. This is Blankcheck with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin. >> I'm David. >> It's a podcast about filmography's directors who have massive success early on in their careers and are given a series of Blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want. Sometimes those checks clear, sometimes they bounce, baby, and sometimes they do pretty well in theaters, get a ton of nominations, are snubbed for best picture, and then go on to become one of the most canonical American films in history. >> Yeah. Was there ever a chance of this winning best picture I wonder? >> Yeah. >> I don't think so. You think in retrospect, there was no chance it actually could have won. >> At the time, yeah. >> To be clear. Now, I'm sure if we did a re-best picture, I kind of sometimes like Bill Simmons' argument of like they should do the Oscars five years later. Like this year's Oscars should be for the movie five years ago. >> Sure. >> And you continue with that window because by five years, everyone's kind of settled on like what they think the best movie was, and you can't be tricked by like, "Coda, you know what? We all like Coda," or whatever. >> Also, what if I did the Oscars? >> What was that? Oh, 'cause Bill Simmons was doing charity right now, 'cause like Goodfellas made decent money, but it wasn't a big hit where you dance this with wolves, there's this smile. >> In my head. Yeah. >> And also, I know this sounds ridiculous, but there were two mob movies, 'cause it's the year of Godfather III. >> Right. >> Now, obviously Godfather III was not winning best picture. >> Yeah. >> But it's in there kind of like, sapping attention and votes a little bit, maybe. >> It is interesting question. >> Although Goodfellas stands in such great parallel to it. >> Yeah. >> Of like, that is starting to feel like a tale, you know, being woven in a fantasy world where goodfellas is about the reality of the mob much more. But yeah. >> But goodfellas not have afforded to lose any votes to Godfather III. >> Who knows? >> Yeah. >> And then also Ghost is that year. >> And one assumes Ghost had some juice just as the like, this movie came out of nowhere and everyone's talking about it. >> You're wondering, was Ghost maybe number two for best picture? >> That's a good question. >> Because there's a chance there. And then what's the fifth nominee? >> Awakenings. >> Sure. >> And get ready for our Penny Marshall series one day. >> Let's actually promise that we will cover awakening someday. >> Yeah. >> We're going to, yeah. >> Exactly. >> Jesus. >> But Awakenings didn't even get a directing nomination because of sexism or whatever, because they really need to get bar based shroder in there. >> He's all right. >> For rehearsal. >> For show tonight. >> Which I've never seen. >> Good movie. >> Yeah. >> Very fun. >> Yeah. >> You know, I don't think, I'm not sure the goodfellas is probably ever. It's too nasty and shocking for the time, probably, blah, blah, blah. But obviously, the best film, in my opinion of 1990, it was the Critics' pick of 1990. >> The Critics' pick of 1990. >> The Critics' pick of 90. Cass Fellas, that is who we are. We're talking about Goodfellas. - Who's with us? - Ben Hossley. - Nobody else. - No guess. - Wait, didn't we have like a Mafia-esque nicknames that we had established? I feel like yours was like, David, the bag sims. - David the bag sims. - It's not that exciting. - What if it was this? - I published this early on into the series. - Really? - Yes. - And I can't remember what mine is or what yours is. I think Mr. Maybe. - I got, I got a random. - It's Pasta dinner, isn't it? - That's pretty good. - Griffey Pasta dinner. - David Bean sims. I just got, I got a random Mafia name dinner in our app here. - One another one. - I'm of course wearing a hat theme to today's episode. - Oh, I don't see what it says. Sorry. Is it say? - Says witness protection program. - Relocation. - Oh, really. - Excuse me, what are you talking about? That's not what my hat says. I'm an almost civilian. - What was I going to say? - Savannah, the horse, the grosser. - David the grosser sims. - So what can you give me one? - Yeah, sure. - Yeah, whatever the first one spits out is. - All right. The beast. Wow, Ben. - Ben, the beast. - All right. I prefer the ones though that are kind of affectionately mean. Like Jimmy the nose or whatever it's just like, "This guy's got a big fucking nose." And that's so now that we call him that. But, you know, or like, he's called like, I don't know, like two kicks because he like kicked a guy once or, I don't, you know, like some weird shit that happened. - David the fucking idiot sims is that what you want? You said you liked affectionately insulting. - Wow, that's pretty mean. - Hey, that's what it's like. - Then there's the really insane ones, like, you know, like Anthony Casa, who, you know what they called him, gas pipe, just who fucking hit you with a pipe. - Well, I thought because he farted a lot. - No, that would be fun though. - Okay, wait. I pulled up the scene where they go through the nicknames. - Okay. - There is Anthony Stable. - Okay, not a great nickname, yeah. - Frankie Carbone. - Right. Carbone is, the guy who ends up in the me locker. - Great, the great head of hair on him. - Do you know about his lost hand? - We'll get to his lost hand. - We'll get to him. - Frankie the whop. - Right. - Okay. - It's a slur to be. - Yeah. - Frankie no less excitement. - And yet he has a nose. - Yeah. - Then there was Pete the killer. I wonder why he got that nickname. He's killer at chess. - Exactly. - Right. - He was a killer in the board room. He was actually actually didn't even belong to them off, yeah. - Nicky eyes. - He had them. - Yeah. - We assume. - Two of them. - And then Jimmy two times. - Jimmy two times. - We went to get the papers. - Yeah. - When I covered labor unions, when I was a junior reporter for the chief, Maddie the horse, Yanalo, who was very involved with the ATU local F and 81 allegedly. I don't want anyone coming up for me, but you can read some stories about it. The bus drivers union. I always thought I thought I was pretty good at the horse. Why is he called the horse? Let's see. Oh, and this is what I love. A youth baseball game. The opposing pitcher threw a hard pitch into the face of some batter. And Yanalo knocks down the pitcher. I don't even know if he got the ball thrown at him. There was just a fight. He knocks down the pitcher and someone said that boy's as strong as a horse. That's it. Then he's maddie the horse forever. It's like I didn't one fight at a baseball game. This is like how Mitch's Quincy friends get their nickname. - Right. - Like one thing they did in fifth grade. - You know, Vin the chin Gigante, who is the head of the Genevieve's family. He's the one who, they called him the chin, I think because he was a boxer. So he had like a tough chin. And then he did the thing that Robert de Niro doesn't analyze that when he was under trial, where he pretended to be insane and started walking around in a bathroom. And so they started calling him the odd father, which I thought was funny. - The odd father's good. - Yeah. - You know, he pretended he was crazy. Probably it was not crazy. - Is this your favorite school setting movie? - It is. It's so boring of me. You know, I'm not gonna fuck around. - I do prefer taxi driver. That's just my own taste. - A lot of men. - I gotta admit, it's also mine. - Yeah, no, no. I mean, this is one of the most watchable movies in history. - I've watched this movie so many times. - Me too. I've seen this movie one billion times. - It's one of those movies where every single scene is compelling to watch. - And you can kind of watch it at any moment. 'Cause I feel like I would come over to like a friend's house and they would just have it on and then you just get locked in. Even if it's like the last 20 minutes. - Yes, but I, you know, I watch it in two parts 'cause I often do because of the vagaries of my life. And I watched the first 70 minutes for my first chunk, which I am now calling like Goodfellas, you know, everything's going great edition or whatever. Like it's basically like, 70 minutes is where they kill Billy Batts at the end around there. - Everything up until then is easy street. - The lights are going good. - Nothing bad happened to this guy. - I was talking to my friend about like, what if like that just, 'cause she was like, I love Goodfellas. It's always too bad when it, you know, it has to descend into Mania and degradation and them all. And I'm like, what, imagine if the movie was just him being, I always wanted to be a gangster and then I was, it rocked. I was so rich. I got away with everything. - I went from cool entrances. - It was so cool. Right, I got to do whatever I wanted all the time. I walk in a restaurant, they bring a table out from nowhere and put it down so I can sit there. Anyway, my life continues like that to this day. I'll see you guys later. - Congrats. - I'm out of here. - The cops tried to get me. They failed. Marriage, healthy, intact. - She loves me. I'm a great father. - Yeah. - But I think it's so vital when you think about Goodfellas that it's like, what's the most fuck, like where does it start to go wrong with them? They kill another mobster. It's not like they commit some cardinal mortal kind of ethical thing. You know, of course they start dealing drugs. That's always gonna fuck you, Babu. But like they just, they kill Billy Bass. - And why? - They kill a babe guy. - Why did they do it? - Well, he said to go get his fucking shine box. - He dared suggest to go get a shine box. - I'd like to say this to you. - Yeah. - Don't get your fucking shine box. - What the fuck you say to me? - Oh my God, wait a second. - Ben is bringing you over a cardboard box. Did you know you knew I was gonna fucking, 'cause I talk about shine box so much. - Yes, I know. - So I got you a little something. This is literally a shine box. - Whoa, look at that. - It looks like a vintage shine box. - Take a look at the brand. - Oh my God. - The Griffin Shine Master. - Oh my God. Is that a-- - It has a little Griffin logo. - Is that inscribed? Like how did you-- - No, that's a fun. - This is a comedy. - I went on to eBay and I typed in shine box. And somehow one of the top results was the Griffin Shine Master. - There's a full kit inside. I got two brushes. I got shining wax. What if I start shining shoes? - I would love to see it. - What if this becomes my new thing? - You should do it. - Yeah, this is incredible. Shoe polish. I got shoe polish. - This is unbelievable. You're gonna need to start wearing more loafers though and last year. - Right, Toy Story branded sneakers. - Yeah, I am wearing Toy Story branded sneakers today. - I got under the table. - I got really signed that box. - Just guessing. - It's a fucking Kenny Rogers gross. - I say that to you, you get mad and then Ben's like, "Hey, you insult him a little bit." - Yes, a little bit. - A little bit, a little bit. - It is funny that Billy Bats is like, I didn't insult him. It's like Billy, you definitely insulted him. - Go get your fucking shine box. It's definitely insulting. - I also love how he, they have this exchange. There's like this beat of silence and then he's like staring straight at the bar and goes, "Go get your fucking shine box." That's my favorite. It's so good. - You know what my favorite moment is? My favorite moment is Tommy just saying, maybe you didn't hear about it. Does that little bar been there? And he no sells it so hard. Because he didn't mind that I heard about you. I'm gonna remind you in prison a long time. Just to get this out of the way. - I can't believe I was shine box. I'm like glowing. I'm so excited. - Because it's, Pesci is one of the great screen performance. It's the most unbelievable thing. The riskiest and craziest thing the movie does in a way is kill him off. Obviously, it has to. It's part of the story. It's part of the reality. It makes sense in this story. But when they just kill him off like that, you're like, I thought this was got no shit. He's just dead, huh? Pesci's I think around 45, 46 when he makes this movie. Tommy Dussamone, the guy who's playing died at the age of 32, right? Billy Bats, played by Frank Vincent who looks God bless him in this looks 50. I mean, I know he's had a long career sense. He died at the age of 37. They were also much younger than like they are in the movie. Also, I'm like, Leota is age appropriate, I think. But everyone else. - Unlike Pesci's character in Casino, the guy he's playing was built in a real life. Was he, Tommy Dussamone? Yeah, he was bigger, right? Yeah. He was a bigger guy. Yeah. So everything about his casting doesn't make sense on paper. And yet like, I mean, the most unbelievable, like it's right, like, it's so fast with him. How quickly we get to funny. Yes. How? It's so early in the movie. Imagine just seeing this for the first time, because I already knew about it when I watched this movie. I already knew about that. Like my dad told me about that scene. And then my brain told me about it and me being like, I don't really get it. You know, him being like, you don't get it, he's so scary. And I was so like, okay, you know, like he was hard to communicate how the scene works. That scene is always over so much faster than I think. And then I remember, no, the juice of this scene is the stuff he does after funny. Right. It's the follow up. No, no, no, no. I watched some special features last night. Okay. Congratulations. And welcome to the club. And apparently that was. conversation that Pesci really had had in his life with a guy and they connected guy, let's say. Right. And they improvised it at some point and then Scorsese wrote it into the screen. Yes. This is a common misconception about this movie that like cameras rolling peppy comes up with that. We know where what Scorsese did and a lot of this is like what he does in his career post-American boy where he talks about how he got so into the rhythms of that and Italian America and in those two docs, the real rhythms of how people talk where it's like, Hona script, then do extensive rehearsals with the cast, then let them riff, then transcribe the riffs, revise the script, and then you have dialogue that has a rhythm that you maybe wouldn't be able to write as a solitary person alone in a room. Wait a second. Gryff the riff. Gryff the riff. David the twin sims David, that's not nothing. But like for me, it's like David wrap it up, sims, you know, I mean, you just wear condoms a lot. Well, that's interesting that you say that because SNAP SNAP, that's for one, I've had work done for one for two. I'm not sure that's what I think of when I hear wrap it up, I'm like wrap it up like condoms. Like that's not right where I go. Sorry. That's just, I guess, my twisted mind. Yeah, exactly. Uh, first of all, Benny, the twister, Hossley, uh, first of all, David timepiece, I'm just trying to think of like me as like the clock watcher, you know, like what the mafia version of it. He's always looking at the fucking clock. You said keep telling people that you've had work done, but never clarify what you mean by that. I've had work done and then wiggle your eyebrows. Uh, secondly, I was on podcast the ride recently. You wait. Oh, what? Hold on. I see it to review the new Fast and Furious rollercoaster what expertise you have in that sort of thing. The episode came in at two hours and 10 minutes and one of the top comments was two hours and 10 minutes. Only I assume David must have had a heart out. Which I like. He's like, I somehow intervened and I apologize. I'm not even in. Yeah. Oh, my God. Wrap this up. Wrap it up. You know what? We're going to go as long as we want on this episode. It will not be the longest episode in blank check history because it doesn't need to be. Like the stuff drives me completely crazy. But we are here. This is an episode with no guests. We're not a size queen. Let's make it clear. David, it's not a size queen. I truly am not. It's really not. Uh, I love all shapes and sizes. I love good fellows. Martin Scorsese 1990 Biographical gangster film based on a novel called Wise Guy by Nicholas Pillagy, which I did read in anticipation of this episode. Good job. Me. Uh, really fun to read. Really interesting how certain things are ported right over and other things are emitted. It's a beautifully written screenplay. It's a, it's a very impressive work of like kind of making sense out of this one guy's life. And my favorite, just weird factoid is that the same year this comes out, Mitch Pillagy's, it's a Plegger Plegy. I don't know. Okay. His wife, Nora Efron writes my blue hat. I'm talking about Nicholas Pillagy, not Mitch Pillagy, of course, is from the X-fowl. Right. I'm sorry. Nicholas Pillagy's, his wife, Nora Efron writes my blue heaven, which is the sequel to this movie based in essentially what, what's life like for the mobster who's now in witness protection? Right. Yeah. But based on the same accounts of Henry Hill, just picking up from basically where this movie ends. The fact that both of these films come out in 1990 written by husband and wife is fascinating to me. It's also just interesting that in my blue, that in Goodfellas, they go for these actors who feel quite authentic. Yes. And in my blue heaven, it's Steve Martin. Right. And he's like, what if I try something with my hair for the one and only time? Right. Yeah. One of those Steve Martin's done hair stuff. Other times, that was me. Like, I'm trying to say. Well, mix knots. I was going to say that I feel like as obviously Steve Martin has iconic gray hair. He wore it. He's worn it well for much of his career. Why? You could even say. One could even call it white. Sure. But like later in his career, he started wearing wacky wigs and stuff once in a while, right? Like, when you did the sort of funny supporting, like, and loony tunes, isn't he, isn't he? A loony. Right. Loony's just back in action. He's got a funny wig. Yeah. Baby Mama. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I think you ever forget. That's very good in baby Mama. Yeah. He's very good in baby Mama. Goodfellas. I first saw this film. Like, anyone I think my age who was too young to be seeing in theaters just like in a basement. Like in some, some friends house, something like that. You know what I mean? Yeah. I think I saw it in a basement too. What the fuck? VHS. You can't wrap this on a porch. This needs to be watched in shadow. Yes. Yes. No, you really need to take it in. Like, I mean, I probably saw it before I saw the Godfather. Interesting. I would assume it's a good question. You know, these are movies I saw as a teenager and I can't remember the order of it. I remember my dad stressing to me whenever I was old enough just sort of like, you got to understand Goodfellas is the reality and Godfather is the fantasy and that was why Goodfellas was so important. Like it was like these earth thugs and psychopaths and all they like is being rich and, you know, being each other up and being the big, you know, Godfather, it's this like beautiful romantic epic tale of immigration and America, you know, Goodfellas is just like this poke in the eye. Like these what these fucking people are like. I feel like this is a thing you brought up a lot on. I bring it up a lot. Yeah. Really? Yeah. It made sense to me. And that's true of all, you know, start with me in streets, right? Marty's like, this is the reality. These are just fucking guys hanging out most of the time. When you read the book, his life, especially early on, was fucking hanging out. They hung out all day and night. That's why he wanted to be against. Yes. Truly. That's all it is. That's why I didn't want it to be gangster. It is so funny, Ben. It's East New York, you know, like which now is like a, you know, a, at best up and coming neighborhood. Obviously a very sort of like, you know, in the 90s, like scary kind of crime ridden neighborhood. It's changing a little bit, blah, blah. But back in, you know, the 60 70s is still kind of run by the mob and all that. And they're just like, we just fucking hung out and pick in having you, sitting outside of a barbershop or a restaurant, just being mean to each other, you know, parking up nicknames. Exactly. And once in a while, you have to go beat someone up and get some money from them basically. The tax on that lifestyle is every once in a while, you got to kick a guy to death. Yeah. Like, you know, go like rob a truck or, you know, just like sort of get some illegal shit and bring it to someone else. Pay off somebody. Hey, do me a favor. I'll get some illegal shit. Do me a favor, you know. I think about all the time. Good fellas. Like, I would love to be Paul Vario. I mean, to be clear, I don't want to live a life of organized crime. You never want to be a gangster and never do. But like that, like just where it's like, I'm the big guy. I don't say much. And it's like, Hey, this guy's disrespecting me. He owes me seven grand and probably and the other guy's like, Oh, there's what's going on me. And I go, okay, here is what I decide. You give him four grand. I got to eat at your restaurant free for a year. That's it. I made my decision. And then everyone just has to leave. This is the way you can't fuck with me. You often describe wanting to be a film festival consultant, not a consultant for a film festival, a consultant to the studios on which foam festival they should go. It's a movie. It's about a movie star and he's having a bad day. Whatever. I'm like, don't do Venice. They're not going to like that in Venice. You're going to want to go to tell you right. You're going to call, going to call Jimmy. I tell you, right? He'll set you right now. I'll say you up with him. You do one of those screenings. It's how you go off the ski lift. It'll be great. This sounds like a ski lift. You're going to move. Yeah. Right. They'll take care of you. You're going to want Tuesday. You'll call Cameron. He's going to set you up Sunday night premiere. Okay. You're not going to want to do Roy Thompson Hall. Okay. The acoustics are terrible in there. So you got to be great at this. You got to be great at this. I feel like the two things I always talk about with good fellows are the shine boxing and being the funniest man. You enjoy the shine box scene and I mean, no hyperbole when I say this. I mean this from the bottom of my heart. The slicing of the garlic with the razor blade being the sexiest shot in the history of cinema. Okay. Thank you for bringing this up. I'm going to bring this up right away. This shot is incredibly controversial in cooking Reddit. Real cooking in general. Okay. Now I read the book. It's in the book. Like the book has like them describing like, oh yeah, he would slice the garlic to liquefy in the pan. It's a little bit long. Garlic doesn't liquefy. Like it's just and so I want people to weigh in. I wish it did. We all wish it did because like, you know, because this is a big thing. People are like, if you slice your garlic into thin little discs, you are going to get a bunch of burnt garlic on your hands. Garlic burns really fast. Because it's got the sugar content. Yeah, exactly. So like, it's not like garlic isn't like anchovies where it truly will kind of just like dissolve into your sauce or whatever. I've had it right through the walls. I call for it. I call for it. I'm sure. I don't know. I don't know. Did they move? I don't know. Did they move? I don't know. Did they move? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. And so maybe I'll try to like when I do my next, when I make my next sauce to like slice some garlic with razor blades, it's great to do it, but you know, because it's like, it's a great notion. And when you see it in the movie, you're like, ah, but you're like, maybe it's smart that the movie doesn't show you the little slice is going into the pan that it leaves it up to your imagination. Maybe if you drown them in oil, maybe maybe that's maybe you're not using it as oil, but all of it looks so fast as you can't get it too hot. No, because it doesn't. Yeah, anyway, look, it's a fast, but I have to see on Reddit all the time, people who aren't like food nerds get mad, they're like, that's not going to work. Garlic doesn't, you know what, um, it's a great shot. I was looking for gifts of the slice. And I noticed it was popping up a lot on our slash recipes and our slash cooking, right with a lot of anger, a lot of anger, a lot of anger. And to live this respectful, that's a, that's some garlic's friend. Shallot. Yeah, shallot. Oh, I love a shallot. That's better than a shallot. Yeah, I can't answer that question, sir. Fadalya onion, pretty good. Sure, I would say plays a different role, but yeah, no, I mean, yeah, yeah, love. Oh, fuck, what's the, um, if he's so funny, if he said like blow jobs, he just like goes to complete garlic and blow jobs. What's the annoying thing that comes around seasonally that everyone goes crazy for? That's really expensive. That's in the garlic onion family starts with an R ramp ramp ramps. That's a fancy, I know, fancy boy. I don't miss a round with ramps too often. I try, I like a restaurant ramp because I'm like, you guys know what you're doing. I'll just mess up the ramps, same, same. [Music] Good fellows. Griffith, when did you first see good fellow? I definitely saw Godfather first. That was a movie that was shown to me, I think, on a sick day from school as I don't know if I've ever talked about this. You're feeling sick, it's time for the Godfather. When I was homesick, which would happen a lot because I have a bad body. My mom would insist that I could only watch classics. Oh, interesting. I don't think I've ever brought this on. You don't get to watch trashy cartoon today. You're going to have to watch a canonical film. I'd be like, I want to watch the Rosie O'Donnell show and she's like, you can watch Rosie, but then I'm going to go across the street to catch a potato video and I'm going to rent you a classic that you've never seen before. So there was one point where it was like, you might be old enough to watch the Godfather. Probably when I was like 11 or 12, homesick from school. So I saw that first, then I definitely saw scenes from good fellows on TV. But I think I didn't actually see good fellows in full. I felt I'd kind of seen a Cloverfield style. I didn't watch it properly until it was screening at MoMA. When I want to say I was in my early 20s, yeah, that's when I really contend with it. And I saw it at MoMA where it's been presented in a historical artistic context. Yeah, right. A 35 millimeter print of a movie that at that point is already like 15. Yes, close 20 years old. Yes. And I just remember I was sitting next to an old couple who just kept going, oh my God, the language. The language. Oh my gosh. These young men are saying fuck, but as if it like it was a new release film. They couldn't believe what they were hearing. They're sitting there watching good fellows in like 2008. Oh my God, the mouse on these guys, they wouldn't like like vocally discussed. Oh, I will say they do use profane language, quite a lot of this, but I think they do. I think beautifully they really do. It is really beautiful. It's a for a while. It was always the one that like was up there for the most fox, which I feel like Casino kicked its ass. No, by mouth has a lot of folks. No, by mouth has an insane amount of fucks. Yes. Anora, Anora is like a very recent like anora. Like every other word is fucking anora. And Paw Patrol, the dyno movie, oh God, they, those dinos, the mouth on it. Zero fucks given many fucks said, I'm going to open the dry secret please just we might as well. Very soon following the production of the last temptation of Christ, which is the last movie that Marty makes before good fellows. That's well. And that movie kind of kicked his ass. Yeah, a little bit. Yeah, a little bit, a little bit. It's kick grass a little bit, a little bit, a little disrespectful to the Lord. Christ might have kicked your ass a little bit. Put it up there. It's a little disrespectful given them the hi hat. No, that's, that's a movie that's a Miller's Carson. Martin's course has directed a music video for his friend, Robbie Robertson, solo single somewhere down the crazy river in January, 1988. It was only a second music video after bad, which was quite good as a music video. JJ included a lot of life lessons, New York story stuff in this dossier, which we're not going to read at all, because that will be its own episode on Patreon. Oh, sure. Okay. Well, I'll make sure to skip life lessons. Then you also, Robertson asks, or says he to direct a concert film titled Robbie Robertson and friends, which feature other performers like you to and Peter Gabriel. Never happened. No, that stalls out. So then they start dreaming up a fictional feature that was going to be like a combination of the red shoes and all that jazz, dealing with music instead of dance, it never came to pass. Interesting. Yeah. So I'll skip all this life lesson stuff. Okay. 1985 Nicholas Pellejia veteran crime reporter publishes a book called Wise Guy, life in a mafia family. It's his second book years on after he marries Nora Ephron. Nick Pellejia on the origins of the book. It was initially a piece from New York magazine. He chooses Henry Hill, not because he's maybe the most interesting mafia mafia. So he's ever met, but he's willing to talk. That is also arguably what makes him kind of interesting. Of course, I mean, like I think in the world of the mob, like some mobsters are like, fucking Henry, he wasn't even a made man. He's just this like schnuck who hung out with guys. He, you know, was a rap, blah, blah, blah, but it's like, yeah, but Henry, he'll fucking talk to you. He's, he's, he paints beautiful pictures with his words in a way. You didn't hear that he paints houses, but he does paint beautiful pictures with his words. That's right. So Scorsese is reading the New York Viewer books in 1985. He reads a review of this book while he's shooting color money. He gets the book in Galleys, he really enjoys it because the free flowing, easy style, the arrogance of it, something he knew from his own experience. Pope speaks to Marty's like, this is what it's really like. These fucking guys are the guys I know that I witness. Yes. He likes that Henry is an outsider, sort of had different access to the different levels of organized crime. As an outsider, he would be sort of like, you know, sometimes talking to the big guys, but he likes the sort of cross section that he's portraying. Very interesting, likes the sort of documentary approach gives you a sense of the day-to-day life, the tedium, how they like end up taking over a business and then kind of ruin it, you know, how like the sort of day-to-day work of the mob is done. What's the name of the tropical bar, the teaky bar? Oh, I forget. It looks so good. It's now, it's now like a guy in his restaurant. I have one, I have long thought about you can do like a little tour at East New York, like of all the locations, because they're all gone. The diner's gone. The diner's gone. You can go to this neighborhood, a neighborhood, this area that's called the hole, which is still, it's like this weird kind of like New York, it's like it's like a ditch basically, where they used to bury bodies all the time. Bamboo lounge. Yeah, I wish I could go to the bamboo lounge. I wish I could go to the bamboo lounge. I'm sorry, continue. Of course, as he's like Nick's pillage is taking us through the different levels of purgatory and hell. He feels like, right? You sort of start out, you know, things are going good and you just get deeper and deeper and to nest. And yeah, he's like, look, people think gangsters kill people. Of course, they do. But the main purpose is to make money. After a while, Tommy's making more noise than money. That's why he gets killed. He starts killing people for no reason. They have to get rid of him like fundamentally. You just sit there and make money. You're in much better shape. So, okay, Pellejee. One day, he answers the phone. Guy says, my name's Martin Scorsese and I'm a movie director. I know who you are. He said, I read your book, the wise guy I've been looking for for years. I'd love to do it. And Nick says, I've been waiting for this phone call all my life. I'd love you to do it. It's far back as I can remember. I always want it to be adapted by Martin Scorsese. He says, look, finish the movie you're working on, which at the time was color of money. But if you want to do it, it's yours. He calls his agents and he's like, Marty's going to do it. His agents are getting mad because they're like, we're trying to get like a fucking deal for you. But, you know, Urban Winkler, Urban Winkler, who has already worked with Marty already. He's in Paris. He calls up and he's like, Marty wants to direct. Marty wants to write it with you. Great. It's all happening. Produced as Martin Scorsese's least successful, most out of control movie. And then gets in exchange for it. Raging Bull and Goodfellas. This is true. Wise guys love the Godfather because, according to Pellejee, because it's sort of in nobles them. But their favorite is Mean Streets because they're like, that's what it's really like. Henry Hill and others loved that movie so much. They basically kid that Paul Vario, who is, you know, Paul Serveno in the film, Paul Cicero, made him go see it. Vario didn't have a TV set or go to the movies. Like, I think Vario truly is like, you know, like what he's portrayed like in this. The hate's phones, hate's devices. He just sits, sits all the fucking time. People just come to him. I was so shocked in whatever behind the scenes thing I watched, hearing him talk. Because he's such a like, Paul Serveno. Yeah, an opera singer, really. Yeah, he's got a beautiful voice. Yeah, he just seemed like completely the opposite of that character. Yeah, it's an incredible performer. Yes. Every performance in this movie is good. He should be the fourth guy in the poster. He gets a little forgotten in the lineup. Some posters I've seen that put him on there. It's interesting. Obviously, his screen time in the movie is pretty brief. Because like, that's the point of him. Anyway, they dragged Paul Vario to go see it. Because they were like someone made a home movie. Essentially, you know what I mean? And Marty was like, it's a high compliment about this sort of just, you know. Oh, fuck. I got Vario and Serveno mixed up. That's fine. Yeah, they got it. That's comes to the territory. Serveno had a quote where he said the thing he found challenging was finding that kernel of coldness and absolute hardness that is antithetical to my nature, except when my family is threatened. - So he's got it there. But it speaks to what you're saying, Ben, of he's just like, I can't relate to this guy at all unless you threaten my fucking family. And then he's like, oh, that's what I should play. Servino is in season two only of law and order. It's unbelievable. I recommend it to people all the time. Season two of law and order where it's Servino enough of the two cops. Chris not. He's so good. No, no, I don't even know. No. Servino famously does one season. It is like the cold air in New York is hurting my vocal cords. I won't do any more seasons. And they replace him with Jerry Orbach, who's obviously a G and the king. We love him so much. And I love the law and orders with Orbach. But that one season with Servino is so fucking good. Anyway. So they start writing the script together. They kind of each take sections, Nick and Marty and sort of just like Marty's like we don't need a traditional narrative. Like we don't need to worry about like sort of three acts structure or whatever. We're just going to go episodic. And then they just kind of like tackle all the blocks and they just sort of start putting them together. And I realized if the scenes were kept short, the impact would be like terrific as I like builds up, which is so clever. Does the quote he has that like you wanted the entire movie to feel like a trailer first? Yes. One long trailer for a lifestyle. Basically. I mean, especially the first hour of this way. It's so seductive. It's the best. You just want these guys to like you. It's a big deal too. Because like as far as Scorsese writing it, because he had this is the first time since mean streets that he's written that he gets credit. Believe so, because he doesn't have a credit on last Saturday. I'm trying to think. Yeah. I think it's just yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Other big element of the screenplay along with this sort of, you know, what we're talking about, the voiceover. Previous films had had it. But this is where the Scorsese voiceover becomes I feel like a crucial part of the Scorsese movie. I got the fucking Ray Leotus voiceover performance in this film. It's so good. It's so and it's really vital. And like he's really explaining things to you in this like kind of clipped way that feels real. Yeah, he's really really really is a performance. And he somehow sells feeling like he's just talking to you. Like he's letting you in and he's being like, you understand? Let me just tell you how this fucking works. But he's just like, you get it. Yeah. Why would you would you would do this? Yeah. How could I not? He gets excitable sometimes. You know, it's the best thing in the world. I've always wanted to do this. You know, like, yeah, yeah, I don't know. Of course, of course. Yeah. Because like this is a movie about pieces of shit. They're redeemable little fuckers. Bad fellows. If you encountered any of these people, it would be the worst day you're right. Yes. Any single person in this movie. Yes. Yes. Even like a fucking Lorraine Bronco. Yes. Like bought a cup of coffee from you. I would melt. Who is the most sympathetic character in Goodfellas that is not a child or animal? Kevin Corrigan. Kevin Corrigan or like Samuel Jackson or like someone like that. The only one to do is get stoned. Let's go records hang out with this girlfriend. Yeah. Yeah. So, of course, as he watches the opening of Juliz Jim. When he's thinking about, you know, voice over and all that, he also feels like that early French New Wave narrative. It's not very important. And he co-backed to pledging like, let's start in the middle and then go backwards, then catch up and then go forward. Yeah. It also feels very French New Wave that the characters are talking to the camera. Yeah. Pilegee had some contact with Hill throughout production, but Scorsese didn't talk to him. He said at the end of the phone, at the end of the film, I talked to him on the phone for like 30 seconds. He thanked me about something, but Scorsese kind of keeps away from that. He's like, I'm not going to, you know, get involved with whatever the reality. Yeah. These 11 or 12 drafts, they said every draft was good, basically. Bragg. It is indeed Scorsese's first credit since Mean Streets. And Scorsese said he was a little concerned about making another gangster movie. Brando apparently had told him don't do another gangster picture. I don't know when he was talking to Brando. I guess he went to the island that one time, right? Of Dr. Monroe. Yeah, basically. The movie was going to be called Wise Guys, of course, because that's what the book is called. Do we think the movie's better suited with the name Goodfellas or Wise Guys? I think Goodfellas is. It's a pretty great title. Yes. Yes. It's not called Wise Guys because there's that TV show in the 80s called Wise Guys. That was like kind of like an early like way before the Golden Age of TV, but like, it's a little sophisticated. It's like got a longer narrative to it. It's like darker. Michael Powell, he says, I don't know if I want to do Wise Guys. Michael goes back home. He's basically blind at this point. And so Velma Schumacher reads the script to him. And he says, you have to do this. It's so funny. No one's ever seen this way of life before. You've got to do it. I pulled out. He does it. There's the infamous letter that Michael Powell sends him in response. And the opening is Deer Marty. Read the script of Wise Guys is one of the best constructed scripts I have ever read. At the same time, it is not academic. It is not a script just on paper. It is very much alive. And then he gets into some questions and suggestions. And at the end, he says, Deer Marty, it is a stunning script and will make a wonderful film and a priceless social document. Hey, it kind of is. It's what we do once a week here on Blanchett. That makes the priceless social documents priceless priceless. Ray Leota is Corsese's number one choice. They had run into each other at Venice in 1988. I guess Marty had seen something wild. Like Demi chose it to him when before it even comes out. And he loved it. They run into each other in chat about last temptation. How that's crazy. And Marty says, I love something wild. That sounds great. But he has, Marty then has to convince the producers that this is his guy. Apparently someone suggested Tom Cruise. I mean, I'm sure everyone's suggesting Tom Cruise for everything those days. Marty Leota says they suggested Eddie Murphy. I think Leota might be kidding. I assume he is. His joke was. They're naming everyone, right? They didn't want me so badly. They would have been happier getting Eddie Murphy. Yes, right. Yeah. Obviously, Leota, I probably considers this one of the best films ever made behind his favorite film of all time Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Isn't that Leota? No, that's like Curtis. Who is sort of the Ray Leota of the 50s and 60s? Would you agree with me? Yes, I'll say Ray Leota of my father. He's like there. Yes. Yes, I would agree with that. But just the prettiness. The stunning eyes. Ray Leota is so pretty. But it's the fascinating thing with Ray Leota is that he's also scary. He's scary. I mean, Tony Curtis could be scared to be like, he's scary and he gets scarier. I feel like his face kind of gets a little bigger and he gets like, you know, but that early Leota like something wild and they're good for like where he's just got the angles, the cute little chin. His eyes are so blue that they're almost frightening. And then he's got the sort of acting scars on his cheeks. So Leota, you know, Marty wants him very badly. Wingkler feels like they could do better and is like, let's keep looking. And then he goes to dinner in Venice, California and not in his Italy. And lo and behold, like Ray Leota just comes up to him. And he sort of like, you know, talks to him and says, like, look, I really want the role and sells him there. And Wingkler calls up Marty and says, I see what you mean. Pellejee gives him like hours of cassettes of Henry Hill talking. And Leota says like the whole time he's eating potato chips, talking to this food in his mouth. And it's like, yeah, and then we kill that guy. But yeah, like Leota, I mean, think for Leota, it's like everyone else knows each other. And I don't know anyone like I wasn't like in the group in the same way. But that's probably good. It's absolutely some on it. Yes, right. I mean, the other, the obvious piece of this puzzle is they get De Niro to play Jimmy Conway and then the studio's happy. If De Niro is in a mafia movie, they're like fine. You can cast whoever you want in the other roles. So Leota is there. Robert De Niro. Now this is interesting. I feel like Marty's worked for him before they're couple other films. Yeah. Okay. One Madonna apparently was in the mix for Karen. It makes sense. It does. She might have been good. I don't think she would have been asked. No. And we should mention that, of course, this episode is making good on a promise. Oh, what's that? That we had to cover good fellas because of how poorly we've treated Lorraine Brocco on the past. On the matter of her medicine, man. What's the other one? Robert De Niro says Pinocchio or she plays a screeching seagull. Pinocchio, where the fuck are you going? Don't touch that fucking part. Pinocchio. That was an active performance. That's what I'll say about the at least she was making choices. Exactly. Yeah. She didn't phone that one in. Yes. A medicine man. Similarly, what are you doing in the jungle? But during our medicine man episode, we said like, I guess we need to do Scorsese now because it's, we've done such a disservice to Lorraine Brocco by only discussing her worst performances. No one was going to top her in this. She's just fucking phenomenal. She's unbelievable. She was a model in France. She started making movies just a couple years earlier. She's in the pickup artist. You know, pretty tobacchi in film. Yeah, one of the greats. She was brought up in a Jewish neighborhood in New York. So she kind of related to Karen Hill enough. Marty gets, you know, her and Ray together. He likes it there. You know, their chemistry. Joe Pesci. Now they'd worked here before. They had, but he's in interesting to consider. As I feel like we already talked about, obviously he's in Raging Ball. He gets nominated for the Academy Award. He makes movies in the 80s. - He makes, go ahead. - Two lethal weapons in the 80s or has only lethal weapon two come up by this? - No, there's only been lethal weapon two, which is 89. - Okay. - And obviously he's in like, once upon a time in America and kind of a small roll, small ish. - Yeah. - I mean like, you know, small roll in like Eureka, the original man on fire. - He's in the danger field movie easy money, but like it's like, you know, he's not really on fire. - The Raging Ball Oscar nomination made him a working actor. - Yeah, totally. - Which he didn't have before, but he's not doing huge stuff. Lithal weapon two feels like the first moment where the studio's figure out like, this is how Hollywood uses Joe Pesci. - Right, and so 1990 he has Goodfellas in Home Alone. - Which is just insane. - It's a pretty good year. - It's almost like a Schindler's Listerastic Park year. - Like kind of. - You win best supporting actor and you're in the highest grossing film of the year, the third highest grossing film of all time at that point. - Goodfellas comes out September. - Yeah. - Home Alone comes out Christmas time or is it like a little before? It's a, no matter, like Thanksgiving time. Like, yeah, it's a good one. - He's owning the fall. - Yeah, yeah. - Joe, as it feels like it's true for every movie, he's like, I don't want to do that. And Marty's like, well, let's have a conversation. - Just staying at home. - Then Joe's like, let me tell you a couple of stories, I guess from those days tells, you know, like the funny story that comes up and, you know, that's where it'll get started. They changed the name 'cause he's, Pesh, he's like, look, I'm not tall, like Tommy DeSimone. So we got to change the name. I'll be Tommy DeVito. - Is that meant to be a day in DeVito? Like, that's a fair point. I don't know. - That's a real fucking short guy name. - He's saying, like, you know, I knew people like Tommy Simone, I read about him. You know, I don't take that stuff into the film with me. Bob and I will figure out everything about his character. Take those traits, little things with them. Let it start to feel like that. This is not an easy quote to read, Joe. Jesus. What I do is I think of somebody that I knew very well who's the same type and I play him. I do my Tommy Simone. I do Joe Pesh, as if I was this killer. - Okay. - Looking up Tommy DeSimone. Born 1946 says here, disappeared. - Oh, we've already 14, 1979. - Tommy, what you got here? - I created. - He was secreted, yeah. - He was secreted. You know, Pesh, which is interesting where he's like, I think the wise guys justify what they do like their soldiers. Which is something that Tony Soprano says in the Soprano's. I feel like at a certain point where he's like, it's my job and I'm a soldier. Like, that's how I think about it. Obviously Tommy's a psychopath, like and kills people for no good reason. For example, he kills Spider because I don't know, he tells him to go fuck himself. - Actually, it's a really good reason. Good job, Tommy. - It's the best reason. Danero, not the first guy considered. Many listicles mentioned that Al Pacino turned down the role, but JJ couldn't find good sourcing on it. But that doesn't mean it's not true. Ellen Lewis, who's the casting director, does say Marty had offered it to someone who turned it down. Definitely John Malkovich, who was discussed at some point. Malkovich says it came up at a bad time in my life when I wasn't feeling well and I didn't want to think about working. It's hard to explain why you end up in Ergon and not good fellows. - Damn. - That's incredible quote. - That's a good quote. - I can see why they thought it might be overpowering to put Danero in this role. - For sure, especially because he's not the main character. - He's not the main character. - And you kind of can't help but think that he is because he's Robert Danero. - He's also gonna run throughout the whole movie. It's not like Capone and Untouchables where you're isolating him to a few scenes. - He's a lead actor. - Correct. - If you're submitting him for the Oscars, it's in lead, right? He's all over the way. - No, I think it's supporting. - I guess so. 'Cause obviously Leo is the lead of the first. - Yes. - And obviously Joe Pescius is a supporting actor. Danero, it's one of these weird things where it's like, the movie's not really about him, but it's not not about him. He's in a ton of it, but he's not the main character. - And he'll disappear for stretches. - He will. - Yeah. But the end is when he comes on really strong, the last hour. - I don't know what you're talking about. He's just trying to get her some coats. - What do you mean he's coming on? - Just right, just go right around the corner. - Let me tell you who's creating this movie. - Christopher Sorone, who plays young Leota, please. - I remember, where did I fucking find this? - When Irishman came out and you rewatched this movie and you're like, right, they used to just do this. Like, even a guy like Ray Leota, who is so visually distinctive, you just find a kid who looks kind of like him, and we all just accept it. Like, no one complains that like this doesn't look like a D-aged Ray Leota. - Yes, he's beautiful. He's had a couple minor credits since, but really this is it, you know? - Just to circle back to the New York thing though. It's like, I'm sure they were hesitant to offer him because they thought it might destabilize the movie, but the second you cast in Euro, the studio's gonna let you cast Ray Leota. It's the tip for tax. - Exactly, yeah. - And, you know, it all worked out. This is not one of the five best in Euro performances in his career, but it's also unbelievable and like iconic, and you think about it every single day of your life. - But this is almost the start of "Deniro Elder Statesman." It's the start of a type of "Deniro" that you can sprinkle into a movie with some instant gravitas or weight or menace or whatever it is, but him not needing to be the guy. - Is this when he's starting to kind of read more like "Older Man"? - Well, they age him up in this. I mean, they do. - The gray hair kind of gives you a preview of what late '90s, early 2000s, "Deniro" is gonna be. I also, here's the thing I love about this movie. It's a poster that is so satisfying and that it does the triangular "Deniro's Name" as highest, but Leo, his name is first. - Yes, everyone's happy. - And everyone's name is properly aligned with where they are on the poster. - You know, this is like a big pet peeve, right? - It is always so annoying, right? When like Kate Winslet's name is over Leo's face, titanic or whatever, you're like, come on. - Right, it's just so thoughtfully designed where you're just like, it makes sense that "Deniro" is the most famous, but "Railiota" is first and "Deniro" is up highest and "Railiota" is to the left. - I would say it's a good poster. - It's a great poster. - I would say it's pretty iconic when you think about it actually. - It could use one thing. - Wait, I need to look it up. What does it look like? I've never seen it before. - You've never seen it before, huh? You've never been in a college dorm room? What were you gonna, what's it like? - It could use Joe Pesci holding some dice very tightly. - No, true. - We'll get there. - Griffin, I have to say this. - Yeah. - My Halloween project this year, you know, I always pick a horror franchise. - Oh, I thought you meant what costume you were building. - Yeah. - No, I'm not building a costume. Although I did my daughter's Princess Peach costume arrived. - Okay. - And we, you know, we're like, let's try it on to make sure it fits you. She was drunk with power. I mean, it was crazy. She started saying things like, you know, like, let me find some of the quotes she was throwing at me, but, you know, you have to call me your majesty. I will boss you around. She started using like at once at the end of phrases. Like, no one told her to, you know, like, you have to get me this at once. - Wow. - She took a bath and was like, it's the royal bath, these are the royal toys. I'm like, you're not even in the costume anymore. No, my Halloween project this year, Griffin is the ring movies. - Oh, sure. - And I don't mean the Hollywood ring. - You mean everything. - I mean everything. - Right. - There's so many. - Yes. - It's just like Halloween. There are four ring twos. - I'll change. - In Japan alone. - Yes. - Before you even get to America. - Right. - But beyond that, there is also a 1995 TV movie of Ring. Ring, you know, the original Japanese novel that came out before the iconic first film was TV only. - It's like heat. - It's like heat. It is loaded with, to my total shock, tits. It's basically like a dumb, soft core horror movie. - TV tits. - TV tits, I don't know the rules in Japan of boobs, but it's got 'em. You know, it's like, you know how like in the ring movies, the little girl in the well is kind of like a scary ghost who kills you and a scary? Well, in the Japanese TV movie ring, she's a sexy ghost who fucks you. - I don't know why, but the other thing about it, and it really is like heat where you watch LA take down the, you know, and you're like, huh, this is like the dialogue and plot of heat, but it's not very good, that's weird. Ring, it's the same plot basically, but then you watch the movie that kills you, you watch the tape. It's so unscrupulous, it's hysterical. And at one point, there is a shot of rolling dice, which to me is like the least scary thing you can imagine. - It's exciting. And let's get snake eyes. - Oh, I'm sending you guys a particularly bad Blu-ray cover for good fellas, but in a, why mess with perfection, right? - I feel like there's been, the poster is perfect. - I'm sorry, what's Bobby kind of Holly doing here? Leona looks insane on this. - Leona looks insane. They decide that it doesn't even look like it. - The color is yellow. They decide I have poster is pissly yellow like a piss Jesus. And then it's, they cut out Joe Pesci, the guy who won the Oscar, the movie. Well, well known, his name is still above the title, but it's only De Niro and Leona, De Niro's huge ad. - Leona is behind him, you know, off to the side. - And then the gun. - Oh, gun. - Oh, gun. - Oh, gun. - Also, it, look, has some Manhattan Bridge, which kind of just makes me think of once upon a time in America, not good fellas. - Yes. - Although I will say the good fellas poster, you know, has like, you know, the three guys, and then sort of elevated train line in the body. And I'm like, that doesn't actually really happen in good fellas so much. But I guess there's enough of it. - It's just Manhattan Bridge and random Chinese food restaurant. - I mean, hey, these guys did love Chinese food, we assume. - Yeah, I just find the gun so funny, 'cause the gun is poster. - What do they have? - The beautiful, the body line in the middle of the street. - Yeah. - And they're like, that's lame. What do people want? Just a gun. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) - Good fellas. Frank Delio, like Cicero. I'm trying to remember which guy he is in good fellas. 'Cause he was a music industry executive. I guess he's just, he's one of the big guys who shoots Tommy at the end, you know, from Bond. - Okay. - Yeah, he's Michael Jackson's manager. - Ooh. - Okay. - Interesting. - There's shooting bad. - Right, there's shooting bad. And Marty, one day, they're in the subway station, Hoi Skirmherhorn, where they're shooting it. And Marty is just looking at him with Mike Chapman, who's a cinematographer. And he's like, what, my zipper down, what's going on? Marty's like, I might do this movie, and I might have a part for you. You look like this guy, I know. You look like this character. And three years later, he calls him up, and he's in good fellas, he's never acted before. Michael Imperial, play Spider, says, I would not have the career I had if I hadn't done good fellas. Even though he's in the movie for two minutes. - I mean, it seemed with Kevin Corrigan. Like, this is a movie where, and even Samuel Jackson, like, just every single part in this is kind of iconic. And everyone pops. - Michael Bauhaus, the great cinematographer, says, Marty Castellata, non-actors, is these strange people knew about the sense of the movie. Debbie Maysart, to make it more clean, says, a lot of the extras were gangsters. - Uh-huh. - Just see. - My favorite is Truclo, who plays Morris Castler. - Uh-huh, yeah. - And was incredible. - Deneuro's real estate guy. Originally, Deneuro lived in an apartment in a building that he owned. And then when Deneuro starts taking over Tribeca, this is the guy who does all of that for him. And he's just perfectly, like, he's in a couple movies, a couple Deneuro movies. He's in King of Comedy very briefly, but he's really fucking good in this. - He's so good. - Yeah. - The scenes where he's like exploding with anger, and then Leo, like, there's that scene where Leo does, like, fine, you wanna go talk to him? And then he, like, kinda goes right back down the neutral. In the book, it's really clear. Like, they really say, like, Jimmy, the judge, Jimmy, fucking hate it. - Yeah. - Yeah, so much. - Yes. - Just sort of, like, personally, I was like, I fucking hate that guy. I hate a stupid commercial. - No way. - I hate a stupid wig. I hate it, like, really? Just, like, could not wait to kill that guy. One of my favorite, this is Pilegee. Warner Brothers had to put a lot of these guys, these extras on the payroll. So they'd be like, what's your security number? And the wise guys would be like, one, two, six, seven, four, three, two, one. Oh, I said too many numbers. Nobody really knew where the money was. - One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, nine, nine, nine, nine, nine, nine, nine, nine, nine, nine. Yeah, I got your social security number right here. - Ooh. - All right. Marty had gotten better on budgets since the last time he'd worked with Winkler. I don't know if you know this, but his old movies kind of went over budgets a little bit. - Okay. - A little bit. - A little bit. - Went over a budget a little bit. - A little bit. Marty, you know, was very. - Detail-oriented. - Yeah. - Who cares? - Who cares about the way he makes his movies? - It's all storyboarded, but Marty wants very fluid style, which he achieves, I would say. - Did you see that on his special features, Ben? - Yep. - Very good. - Also, he was very specific about all of the needle drops, the music, as always. - The costumes. Everyone's ties have to be tied perfectly. - My wife, who works in the watch industry, she just kept pointing out all of the watches. They have incredible watches in this film. - Do you think they paid for those watches, the characters, the mobsters? - They have all the truckers. - No, I think, you don't think they went to say like the diamond is just can pay full price, full ride for those items. They were happy to be wait-listed. - They waited patiently? - They did not haggle. - No, they didn't haggle at all. There was no fever trading. - That we know, right? - No. - No one owed each other famous. - And zero intimidation. - Michael Ballhouse says, very tough movie. Marty knows so much about the subject. He wants everything to be absolutely correct. The results are great. It all looks real. It's very different from anything I've ever done. A lot of wide angles, extreme high angles, long lenses. Light is not soft, not balanced. Very harsh and direct. A lot of darkness in it. Very rich colors, rich reds, rich blacks. They've got a couple of freeze frames. Already kind of the master of the freeze frame, which you say, which is very French new wave inspired. Of course, as he says, it's basically all true foe. All those techniques from the early '60s are really in my mind. The long shot at the Copa, where they go through the back entrance, part of it is practical. They can't get permission to go the short way, so they have to go around the back. But then Marty's like, this will be fun. This is great. We'll do one shot, right? There's a reason to do it in one shot. Henry's whole life is ahead of him. He's taken over the world. This is his reward. He doesn't have to wait in line. So it's a seduction, right? Like the big sweeping shot. It's also a perfect magic trick, because if you watch this shot and study it closely, they go in a complete circle. There's a hallway. Then they enter into the kitchen. They do one loop of the kitchen. They go back to the hallway that they were in and then go through a different door. I've never noticed that. The entire kitchen is irrelevant, but it's so well blocked that it feels like. It feels fluid, right? Marty, in the end of Douglas also says, Brian De Palma had just done a really long study camp shop in the Untouchables and Marty's is one minute longer. And she thinks there was some dick measuring going on. Yes. They only did seven takes, which is pretty impressive for that. Delma schoolmaker's husband, Michael Powell, Marty's mentor, dies of cancer at the age of 84 during the editing of Goodfellas. So this is kind of like whatever, you know, a big moment for the two of them. She was flying back to England with him. Marty arranges for all of that, like private planes, private cars and all that to make that all happen. When he dies, Marty shuts down editing for two months, like when he's near, you know, near the end of his life. She says the work saved me like after he was gone and all that. So very pivotal to their relationship, I feel. First course, as he filmed to have studio mandated preview screenings, that's crazy. And it led them to tighten the last two reels a little bit. A lot of the preview audiences were agitated by the last day sequence. Why? It's so relaxing. Good day. This is what Ice Cube was rapping about, right? Good day. Yeah, that's what he's talking about. He had a really nice day when he watched a test screening Goodfellas in California. The previews were scary according to a Daphina. Who's Daphina? I don't know. Barber Daphina. Yeah, that's right. There you go. 'Cause people would get mad when Spider got killed. That's where like they're, you're starting to lose the audience where it's like, why am I with these people? They're awful, right? We wound up hiding in a bowling alley 'cause one audience was angry. One guy wrote, fuck you on the comment. So let's discuss Goodfellas. Five stars. Thank you all for listening. Please remember to rate or review and subscribe. It's been an hour and nine minutes. Pretty long app. Pretty long app. How do we feel about the decision to start kind of in the middle? I think it is, is it like that in the book? A good choice. Mm-hmm. I don't think so. Fuck, let me call up the book. Let me see if I remember it. Barber Daphine, we should call out, was a producer on this movie, produces Scorsese movies for decades, was married to him. Is another example, I feel like we've covered a few of these. He's been stuck in marriage to everybody. He's been married to everybody. The thing I just discovered, he was married to Julia Cameron, the author of the artist's way. Yes. And they have a daughter together. Correct. Wild. Barber Daphine, it's like a Debra Hill situation. We love the examples of divorce couples still make movies together. They actually get along better. Galen heard in James Cameron. I mean, that's James Cameron. You basically can't be friends with him until you've divorced him. That's when things get good. That's when you're like, you know what, you're not so bad. Here, I'm calling out the book. I actually try to remember if it has that. I think it's vital that you sort of know, if for one, it would be a little boring if it was just like, here I am, a young man, and what I want to be is a gangster. The book, the prologue, right, actually, of the book is like, he's going into witness protection. You need to, you know, like, which makes sense too. Like, you know, so Henry Hill has decided to not exist anymore. This makes more sense just in terms of like, the casualness of it, but I think it's all, it's just the crux point in his life. This is when things started to go bad, right, is the Billy Bats thing. And as he, they've just done, they have to re-stab someone who's already in their trunk. Already, they think that. They, it's, it's, especially as a slight guy. So there's maybe a proportion thing going on, but the knife just looks so huge. It looks like a car too much. It's an itching scratchy knife. It's truly, yeah, yeah. That's what it looks like. It looks like scratchy holding up a human sized weapon, just a little mouse. And so you've got Henry Hill, obviously, like all of those scenes literally by the car lights were told red and it's like we're in hell, like, you know, just slamming the car shut. He's like, well, but I've always wanted to do this, right? Like, this is what I've dreamed of. my whole life to be a gangster. He's a gangster. When I did an animation program at NYU, a summer program, when I was considering becoming an animator, the teacher showed us the opening scene from Goodfellas to try to teach us about a blocking composition. And this was a period of time in my life where I was really resistant to I felt like over-analysing movies versus now what I like about a company. But I remember him just saying like, look at how much information you're already getting from the positioning of the three of them in the car and their body languages. So you've got like, De Niro's asleep. De Niro's asleep. Yes. You know, Leonardo's driving, Pesci's in the back, but looking antsy, and you're hearing the sound in the back. And like, as I've gotten older and re-watched this movie over and over again, I do just look at this and think back to that class. And as the reminder of just like what he was actually trying to convey to us is everything is an opportunity to convey information. If you're making a movie properly, every single choice doesn't need to be loaded with like metaphor, but it is an opportunity to say something. And right off the bat, you're introducing these three guys, a banality of a drive, then you're hearing the sound in the trunk, then you're realizing there's a guy they need to bury, right? And then he's still alive, and he's going to require re-mergering. But it's also because then when we jump back ahead or jump back to the beginning of Henry Hill's childhood, we know we're hitting this inevitable point of when things get bad. As you said, it passed a shadow over the, everything's good, good times. Exactly. So now we're in change of the movie. Obviously, the movie is so seductive, successfully, despite you knowing you know things are going to get sort of unbearable. But yeah, right, you need a little, little salty with the, with this week. If you didn't have the, the ominous opening, 40 minutes into the movie, everyone would be leaving the theater to go sign up to become a gangster. Where's the nearest cap stand? Where's the recruitment station? Like my friend described like the first hour of this movie is you're just eating cake, and then like Tommy Ack and then she sent me the last hour plus to just like, oh, he gets himself into a real wicked for good, I ate too much cake. He's always wanted to be a gangster. He's a little boy, and it's just the thing Marty said of just like one minute long scenes, just like little scene after little memory after little memory. It's great. He always wanted to be a gangster to me, being a gangster is better than being the President of the United States. Being the President of the United States sucks. Seems like a tough job. And you could argue, there's a gangster in the White House right now. You could argue that one man has found a way to combine the two positions. I'm just a President of Miami. I don't know. Who's the President of the country right now? Unfortunately, it is not Red Hawk. It is a certain man yet. We wish. We wish it was Red Hawk. We'll bring him back someday. Unfortunately, as a certain man named Donald J. Trump, who has made himself enemies with Robert De Niro, a star of good fellows, Henry Hill, my favorite thing in this is right out of the book is when the, the true and officer, you know, they start getting the true and sea letters in the mail. So their solution is great. We threaten the mail. The mail man. That's problem solving, baby. And then new problem created no mail. What? Mailman's like, I'm fighting to know what true and sea letters they don't get any fucking left. You're not getting your fucking C's catalog. Not only will they threaten him, they'll be like, here's what we're going to do. See this pizza oven, you will be a pizza if you send the most Italian threat. They've got a pizza face this guy for real. Tony Sirico, Pauli Walnuts, you see him briefly, I mean, he grabs the postman, throws him in the car. Yeah. Love that guy. Yeah, I mean, the thing about him that's so interesting is, you know, he had no connection to the mob at all. No, he's just acting. He's a classically trained. He's such a natural. They talk about it all the time with like those sopranos pods where they're just like, you know, Tony and Pauli, like, the line between them, vanishingly thing, someone, someone shared, I can't remember which of our group texts it was, but that clip of James Gray talking about his bachelor party. Yes, where, um, uh, who was it? It was James Conn and a bunch of scary guys. It was both of them. Right. And he does a very good. And he was like, yeah, but he said, guys, go kill you when they were making the godfather that Copalo was like, you should spend some time with some real mobsters. And Pacino like dipped his toe in and was like, I'm good. I can try acting. And the other two guys got way too close. And James Gray had worked with both DeVal and Conn at that point. And he invites them to the bachelor party and they each show up with like three real-life mobster assassins who brought up like a $70,000 bill and they kept being like, isn't this funny? He killed people. It's great. You should watch the clip. The voices are incredible. Yeah. Do you think Paul Vario, he sits there, right? He won't answer the phone and I feel like every conversation he has about business is like this. Griffin, say, like, how you doing? Yeah. You know, like guy we're talking about lives in Brooklyn. No, the other guy, you know, the guy who lives the thing, the guy who lives up, uh, you know, uptown. You know, the guy, you know what I'm talking about? Oh, sure. The uptown guy. Can you take care of that for me? Something wrong happened like his instructions are so meaningless. You know, like I like sandwiches, you know, can you, uh, go talk to him? And you know what I mean, right? Yeah. I'm talking about that. I think I, uh, the fakasha. All he does is sit there with like his napkin tucked into his collar, like having one shawl day, I feel like and guys just come up to him and they're like, hey, I need your help with that thing. He's like, yeah, that's sure. Jimmy will take care of it. The violence feels kind of cute and cartoony in a way where I like the like, like the threatening the mailman when he blows up the car and it's so like cinematic. And you have the freeze frame of the explosion. It's so like cool, right? Like, there's nothing nasty, like, I mean, obviously, it's very, you know what I mean? Like, uh, like the first is like casino, which people critique for being too similar to this movie is so much more operatic. Yeah. Just like bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, flash. Yes. Then there's like little stuff coming in like the guy who shot who comes up on the pizza's restaurant stoop and the guy won't let him. Who's the guy? Who's the pizza guy? That guy's the rock guy. You know, the guy who's sort of like his first boss kind of that actor. Yes. I forget who it is. It's Paulie's brother, right? Yeah. I guess that makes sense that it's like another, another Cicero, I don't know, um, but he's great. But where he's like this kid wasted seven aprons on this guy, you know, yeah, I like aprons as a unit of measurement. Right. Yeah. Um, but, uh, you know, uh, yeah, the first sign of like a little bit of nastiness, right? You know, obviously Hank Henry's parents is dad does not approve. And then De Niro comes in orders a seven and seven, very cool kind of mobster order. Uh, I know that's your favorite drink. Uh, is that something you love ginger ale? I love ginger ale. Someone who was someone was, oh, I was talking about this fantasy with fantasy. Yes. Uh, the brother's name Vito Tutti Cicero. Oh, yeah. He just slips the, uh, you know, the, the 20 into his top pocket and you're just like, this is the coolest guy in the world. But what's appealing is you said, you know, how much of it is hanging out, but also how casual it is. That's just let me, let me just give it a little more. You know, the Will Senate tweet about, um, madmen. No. I'll read it soon. Okay. I'm just going to read it. Recently we watched madmen and this time around it struck me that Don is not the hero. Heck, it's girlfriend leaves room. If Don Draper was a fire truck, he would be the biggest one in the world. Like, that's how he feel about pretty all the characters. Yes. No, no, he's a very flawed character. He's the coolest guy. Oh my god. Do you see how he puts the money in that guy's pocket? Yes. Yes. This is the thing though. I mean, you, you going back to your dad's point of like mob movies had been romantic up until this point. Yes. And good fellows was the one that was trying to show like how nasty shit is, right? And you watch this movie and you're like, these are the classiest guys I've ever seen in my life. This face, you know, you might know who you we are. We know who you are when Daenerys holding up like the little ticket from his wallet. Um, yeah. Obviously, again, the last half of this movie's there for you to convince you that in fact, the life of crime is not all might not pay sunshine and rainbows. That's right. Um, you need the instruction. You have to get why people would do this. If I was 13 and I could explode cars and make bad money, I would be enticed a little bit. Do you think that it would work out for you? This is my question. No. I want to have to admit to know that Ben was reading that off of the smallest notebook I've ever seen. Ben has taken out the tiniest like college role journal. It is, uh, in your tiny little notebook, it's very, very, I agree with you. I, I think it would be really great. Ben, I, I hope I'm not blowing up someone's spot here. I'll keep this as vague as possible. I was talking to a professional screenwriter who listens to the podcast and he was telling me about his new project he's working on. And he was like, it's basically inspired by Ben's if I did this, everything would work out for me. Oh, God, that's, I'm hugely honored where he was like, I tried that as a writing exercise. Right. He's actually dramatically interested. Right. What if the starting point of this is a bad thing you shouldn't do it actually turned out to work out great for everybody? And what does that do to their psyches? Well, I fully co-signed. Yeah. What I love about Jimmy, when he sets him off, he's like, look, yeah, look, sure, Jimmy would kill someone if needed. What he loves to do is steal shit. This stealing shit is just, that's, that's, that's his draw to view. That's that spice alike. That's what he's in it for. He loves to steal anything that's not bolted down. Do you know what I love about Jimmy? What? His slutty little glasses. Well, he only gets them later. I know, but that's my favorite. When he goes gray, where's those slutty little glasses? They're not that little, they like really make his eyes look sort of large, right? That's the thing about slutty little glasses is they have to be kind of big, but like him pointing on those glasses late, it is one of those things where you're like, Jimmy's not the same anymore. No, no, no. Can't trust him anymore. Yeah. Just go around the corner. You just, I'm doing him, you know, it's a, it's a Scorsese magic of like not just repetition, but something going on longer than it should. One good one. Polar asks him like, is he gonna kill her? And he's like, you know, I think it's supposed to be ambiguous, but I think I played it like yes. Yeah. And he really wants her to go in there. Well, he wants her to get a free jacket and have no idea what you're talking about. She's a brush. She's just an awrush. What's the emotional peak of baby? I think it's when he gets pinched and everyone's like, hey, you popped your cherry and they all give him the hugs, right? Yes. I'm just gonna say it's your dad's point. It's wild that's and obviously this movie is set earlier, but Sopranos is only nine years after this comes out. And he shares cast members in a general kind of vibe, I would say. And Sopranos is like the thesis is, don't you feel like the best things, best times happen before we got in, that this is now like so lame and sleazy and gouge, right? Because in this movie, at least still like everyone's dressed to the nines and has the kind of like classic look to them. It's not late. I mean, later things start to get tacky again, very vital to the vibe shift of this movie. The suits start to go away. The polyester starts to come in and all that when you get to Sopranos, it's like an eleven on the tackiness scale where everyone's a thug, right? And like, you know, this is about a guy, these are, this is a movie about guys who live in Brooklyn. By Sopranos, it's like they've all relocated to the suburbs, like their involvement is not as, you know, sort of street level anymore movie about us because we live in the suburbs. Oh, because we live in Brooklyn. We boys are living Brooklyn. Yeah. So true. Yeah. Okay. The two rules that are out of them. We have bamboo. Yeah. Never rat on your friend. Number two, and always keep your mouth shut. And he brings. Kind of rules. I would say there's some overlap to those rules. Would you agree? No, but I mean, like, that's the thing we're talking to someone who basically, I guess we don't know in the movie right away in the same way. And the book, it's like, right. So by the way, this guy is going to give everyone. He's going to turn on everyone, but there's a, there's a hint of that in the fact that he's telling this story to us. You're like, this guy's fucking blabbing and he's too excited to share these stories. Oh, sure. You know, yeah. And are we complicit? Thank you. The walk. I believe. Watch your mouth. Sorry. Is played. Yeah. It's played by Tony Lip, aka Frank Vellalonga senior, who is of course the father of Nick Vellalonga Academy Award winner. Yes. Yes. But who also plays Carmine Lupertatsi, director of that Samore coming to theaters right after Horizon Part Two. Now, what was the movie that Kevin James was in? Solomia. And how was that one? I haven't seen it yet. Yeah. That's coming for me on a plane, right? Freddie no-nose indeed. Doesn't feel like he actually has a bit of a schnauz. Pete the killer. Who is Sally Balls' brother? And then he just goes, I took care of that before he comes to me so hard. When you call Pete the killer, do you think it's like to pick up your dry cleaning? Like, you know, hey, Pete the killer, can you do me a favor? Got anything else you guys want to say about the bamboo lounge? I had to look up idle while did not realize that it was, that was the original name for it. Yeah. We renamed it JFK when he was assassinated. Yeah. Isn't that interesting? I think he should go back to idle while just because it's a cool name. Oh, wait. How did he know he was going to be assassinated? Wait a second. Wait a second. The top. No, let's, I mean, let's talk about the funny housing for a second. Yeah. Cause, right. Cause like, right. We have the bamboo lounge. We have the fur coats being brought back. Like, what the fuck is this sum up? What are we going to do to this fur coat? So fine. I'll take away. No, no, no, let's put them in the freezer with the meat. And then it's right to funny how I think because it's, yeah, it's right to, no, for, yeah, it's him. He talks just like, you know, you see Liyota talking to someone at the bar or whatever. But then it's right to funny how we talk to the airport guy. Right. That's where they get an air fron. Yeah. But and I think funny how starts with Tommy telling the story of him telling the cops like, go fuck your mother. Like when he was being into being pow, right? Like, first he does tell a funny story. Is that funny? He's also saying off that humorous, like laying in like a swamp area and the cop comes up and he's like, I'm resting. That's pretty funny. It's so funny. This guy likes entertaining. This big prick again. Yeah. He says, what do you want to tell me now, tough guy? I said, what are you doing here? You go fuck your mother. It's pretty good. Because I feel like the trademark of this type of Scorsese movie and this movie in particular is the conversation, the circular dialogue going on longer than you think possible. Just like stretching the rubber band. You remember the funny how being much more drawn out than it is. Yes. And being like unbearably tense. Right. But it's pretty quick. And then it's more that he doesn't let go of the tension afterwards. They shout this out in the behind the scenes, the framing to not do a close up like this medium shot with like the guys kind of cropped out. You feel like you're in the group watching it. It's very intimate. Like you're at the table. Yeah. That makes sense. There's another thing which I think they're cross-shooting it. Which is when you have two cameras going at the same time, which DPs hate because it fucks with lighting. Right. The two shots well at the same time. But it feels like it's such overlapping dialogue and it's so much about the tension between the two of them. And this is another thing that makes people erroneously report the whole scene was improvised is just that like you need the take where the two of them, you need to be editing from the same take. I agree. Do you think their collars are a bit much, whether they're the arrow collars? A little skinny. Yes. Like this thing. They look like vampire things. It's so weird. It really is. It's a weird as well. I feel like I've only ever seen it in this movie. It's weird that it. It's seen some of the other mob movies. The no neck thing. Yeah. I don't know. Yeah. It's so stiff. It's also weird that it basically hides the knot of the tie. It completely hides it. Yeah. Yeah. You don't really see it. It's just like a thin line. It's totally right though. It's very count Dracula. Yes. Which we'll be talking about over on Patreon. Really Oda, good actor in general, quite good in the film, good fellas, rudely some would have an Oscar by the way or an nomination at the very least. The best on-screen fake laugher. Like his fake laugh in this movie. And like everyone's laughs in this movie are fake, which I love. Like they clearly have those practice laughs that you they know you know you have to do. Where you're just like, like you just kind of like open your mouth and make noise. But he feels like he has such a deep affection for peshies. Yeah. A pleasure. Like you can really like see it in this scene, especially. It's also that thing where you're like a little starstruck so you're laughing too hard. Like he still kind of can't believe he's at the table with this guy. It's a good story. You're a funny guy. He's a funny guy. Well, you're funny now. It's just you know, you're just funny. It's funny. The way you tell the story. By the way, Henry doing an admiral job trying to explain what being funny is. He nails. He really says like, it's no, it's in the way that you tell the story. Yeah. He really. It's in the way that you use it. Yeah. Maybe he should have been like, did she see color money? Yeah. Yes. Funny like a clown. Funny like a clown. Yeah. Maybe it's me. I'm all fucked up. You know, I got it. Funny like a clown. I am use you. He picks the perfect moment to puncture. Right. But it's like he judges it so accurately. It's a big risk to huge risk to do it. But he nails it. Is Joe Pesci one of the scariest guys with the slight stature of all time? Well. Yeah. And me. If we're talking Sean, Gary Shortkings, Joey Griffey and Wally. Pesci is terrified. No, Pesci. Pesci is this. Is DeVito ever scary? Like did Danny DeVito ever play like a kind of a threatening guy like penguin? That's true. He's terrifying in that movie. He's terrifying. He's grotesque. He's monstrous. I'm not really afraid of him in this way where I'm like personally afraid of him. I'm afraid of him because he's scary looking and he's scary, but he's also the mayor. He's cloaked in immense power. That is so true. Mayor of Gotham. Of course, it really well went well run city. You know, in heist, he doesn't get elected. He gets close. He runs. Yeah. He runs. He runs. He's in the mix. You know, in heist, he's the mob boss and he's great. But he's not really scared like he's more doing like funny motor mouth kind of. No, DeVito can't be scary the way that Pesci can. You motherfucker. I almost had it. I almost had it. It's just the way he's like, yeah, there's something like a Pesci that's just really hard to like you stuttering prick you like to do it all day to pin down. Yeah. you up but he will mercilessly make fun of you. Yes, and he seems to be getting enjoyment from it. Yes. And right after that is when the guy, another actor who's in the sopranos, whose name I forget, comes over being like, "Hey, you have a seven grand bill," which I got to say. This guy is fucking up. It's like, that's where the scene really starts exploding is in like, he takes out the residual energy from the funny how on everyone else around him and then he yells at the random waiter. Well, he's like, he's already told the waiter put on a set. This is the owner come or whatever the manager is, you know, coming over, being like, I don't mean to be out of order, but it's seven grand, you know, it's a lot of money. And like, yeah, you're right. Like now, the tension's off Leota, but he's watching in horror because he's like, this guy almost attacked me. And now he's like, right, then he hits him with the glass and Leota nailed the dismount. But the energy still has to go somewhere. And obviously, Leota's reaction to Pesci brutaling us, brutally assaulting him is, it's a funny bit. And yet, you're watching this and you're like, you know what, I should be a mobster. And then this guy goes right to Pulverio and Pulverio's like, I've got a, he's pulsed his throat in the movie. I've got a great idea. I guess I'll run your business. And then like, next scene is like, and then he was out of money. It's just great. Don't you think? Yeah. Yeah. Which they knew would happen. Yeah. They bust you out. They just, they're like, oh, your restaurant has like credit. Great. Well, order one billion bottles of liquor. Yeah. And then it'll be for us. Not for the restaurant. And then we'll burn it down for insurance. Yeah. And then we'll do that. The last thing we do is we burn it down for the fucking insurance money. And that's that. He at one point when he's having that meeting with Paul, he's like, maybe you should kill Tommy. And there's just like this beat and he's like, I'm sorry. I said that. Yeah. Yeah. That was out of line. Yeah. And then we move on to the girls, right? Like how he meets Karen. I love that Karen wins him over by yelling at him. I mean, it feels like in this world, this was a very, very important thing. Especially. Like they end up marrying these, these, these ladies who got a lot of to it. And everyone. Look at everyone. Yes. Like they're all like, I think they love it. Delighted. And she's chewing them in front of the cab stand. Yeah. And he's like, well, I forgot. And she's like, you don't do that to me. And she's right. She's too hot. You can't disrespect her. No. And the anger she gets, the more he laughs, she said she's the somebody is trying to buy it. But Tommy. Right. Tommy needs a wing man. Uh, yeah. Tommy needs to wait. What do you think going on a date with Tommy's like horrendous? Now, the love making, I'm sure, is exceptional. Yes. Right. I think that's the bigger opposition is just like, Henry doesn't want to be tied to anything going on in Tommy's romantic life, but they were friends. I mean, I have no idea what this friendship is like. And he bristles the second Tommy starts soft pedaling it when he's complaining about, I'm going with this girl, but she won't sleep with me. I've been putting in months on her. And Tommy, Henry is just clearly like, don't ask me, don't ask me, don't ask me. I just like, I guess if you go on a date with Tommy, he will talk the whole time. Like I don't see Tommy being like quiet and awkward on a date. He will pick up the bill in a sense. Sure. You'll pick it up. Look at it and throw it in the car. Yes. I think we need, it's an important detail to shout out that when he's asking him to go on this double date, they have just rigged a restaurant to be burnt down. They're waiting for it to catch on fire and just killing time to wait to make sure that it's in a park car. Yes. Yes. But then to make it up to her, he does the Copa thing. I'm like, I'm just watching it right now, just watching the Copa, like what you described Gryff. They do. It's so good. You ever been to the Copa? It's still there. You want to go? Yeah. I wonder if it's any good. Let's see what's at the Copa. Is he any young man still playing? Do. And that's the real Henry. That's him, right? That's him. I looked up. That's him. Yes. Do you think any young man was good? He is the epitome of a certain type of comp. Take my wife, please. But do you think as the epitome, if you were at the Copa and you saw Hannah, you'd be laughing? I laugh dad. His jokes. I mean, it's enough. He's built in. You know, it starts to take my wife, please. You're like, I'm laughing. I got more. I got more. It's another famous thing about this movie. You're saying they only had to do seven takes of the Copa thing. Most of those texts were blown by Hannah Youngman, where the final moment is him needing to nail his joke. Oh, yes. And infamously, he blew a couple of takes and Scorsese is like, you've been telling the same fucking jokes for 50 years. How do you fucking blow this shit? You're the one person who should be relied upon to nail this. God, he's so good, though. He says my wife asked to take me somewhere I've never been before and he said, how about the kitchen? Oh, wait a second. Wait a second. I love that he's holding a violin because I guess he would be part of the band and then he would sort of come out and do the one line. God. Do I personally find him funny? No. I don't know. I take my wife everywhere, but she finds her way home. I might be like, this guy's wife sounds like a bit of a piece of work. A bad laugh. God. I hate to break this to you guys, but I feel like the Copa these days might be you. I'm using AI and some of you. Okay. Let me look at some of its newsletter generation. Here's a real problem. I have sending a link to the Copa. I know we all love policing bad AI. Sure. Sure. Maybe everyone's getting a little too, you know, kind of like on everything a little too worked up. Sometimes I will. Well, I think AI is. We don't like AI to be clear. And what you're sending me is. You don't understand. I would love it. When my local Takarria didn't AI post, I'm not about to run in there and yell at them. I'm like, I don't know. Whatever. I understand like that. This thing is becoming pushed on every. But also, when I see stuff like that, sometimes I'm like graphic design has been so bad for so long. I know. Yeah. That the line is thin occasionally between their stuff that is like self evidently like this is shitty AI art. And then there's stuff where I'm just like, this could just be the work of someone who really doesn't care about their job. This is possible. Gary. But what's your point? What were you going to say? That was my point. That was a good thing. Yeah. I think they might have consulted with Mr. GPT on a few of these. Also, I'm surprised at how expensive these ticket prices are. They're a little pricey. Yes. I guess so. I guess that's the high end. Yeah. For the sort of VIP table. If we wanted to go to the 666 annual after parade Halloween immersive party, I do. The price is, it's, it's, it's a range. It's sliding scale. But there is one that is an intriguing number. It starts at a $6 entry level early breathable. Yes. It goes all the way up to 666, no, no, one a waste of money. That's why it's scary. And everyone was so thrilled when we tried to waste our money on the big bambina and we didn't do it. We didn't do it. Right? Yes. No, no, I should take that back. We'll never do it. This is funny that the three tiers are $6, $66, $666, but the $666 includes an appetizer platter. Oh, I bet it's good too. I bet it tastes delicious. Real good. Can we go to the copa for lunch? I don't think so. Like, I'm not sure the copa's open all that maybe it is. Can we do a live show at the copa? That. I think my, we might end up losing money. That would be my fear there. Let's see. The copa cabana is on Yelp. Okay. What kind of star rating does it have? I'm seeing a three and a half here. It's hours are it's open from 8 p.m. to 4 a.m. Friday and Saturday. It's all the two nights a week. Okay. Sunday it's 10 p.m. It opens it. 10 p.m. on Sunday. What the fuck are you doing on a Sunday if you go to the copa 10 p.m. The 10 p.m. Sunday crowd. It's, you know, it's on. It's on 51st and the water, you know, it's all the way over by 12th Avenue. Yeah. I mean, I think it's seen better days. I'm looking at some of these pictures. The food's not looking so great. It's fun to do the walk though. Yeah. If you go to the side and the walk. Yeah. I also am getting the sense that they probably don't even have live performers and maybe just DJs. I think it's probably mostly deep. There might be some bands once in a while. Yeah. I don't want to go. Sorry. You're actually, you're going to weigh in and say you don't want to. I'm out. I'm out on the copa. It won't live up to it. The most seductive moment, I think, when, because like what's interesting after the first chunk where it's Henry, Henry Hill, you know, is we switched to her narration, right? We switched to Lauren Bronco doing some voiceover, right? I'm sorry. I'm going to send you this. It's making music, but it's important that you see this before we move off of the copa cabana. Something very important is happening in Halloween that adds to the 666. It's called glizzy. Main here. Okay. And it's a hot dog festival and it has AI art of Freddie and Jason. They're fighting over hot, well, fighting over and with hot dogs. They're fighting over hot dogs, but also Freddie's famous glove has been replaced with hot dog fingers that also have knives on them. Free hot dogs for the whole event. The whole event has free glizzies. I bet you those glizzies are real good. Uh, yeah, we're diving into the copa or diving into the copa, that's the end of the copa section. I just need a glizzy mania to be acknowledged someone way weighing in here on the Instagram comments. You're complaining about the time. It's a day party. You want a gobble glizzies after hours? The point I stand corrected. So points were made. So we switched to Karen's voiceover perspective as he's starting to seduce her because initially she's mad and then she tells him that this guy who lives across the street from her got fresh with her and grabbed her right was like, you know, clearly trying to assault her when she rejects him close around a car and he goes and beats the shit out of him with a gun, like, you know, pistol whips him, he is so sexy. You cannot, like, it is like you totally get he's incredibly and it's just like as she keeps saying throughout the movie, like we were attracted to each other, like we could I cannot deny that I found it sexy. You know, it's not just that he's being a man, he's being tough and he's beaten the shit out of his asshole, like, but it's like it's sexual. He's hot. So shifting to her perspective is what makes this movie a masterpiece. Of course. And like the first time they do it, you're like, I don't know how to do in screenwriting school. Exactly. Like, wait, you're going to have two narrators all of a sudden with the fucking time and obviously Cassino is like, two, yes, hold my dice. But an aerator every five minutes in this one. But but this it feels like you need her interior monologue to basically explain to you. I hate that I like this, right? Like in that scene, I can't deny it. Yeah. It sucks that I find this. And he's like, hide this gun. What's the next shot they're getting married? And guess what happens when you get married? Big guys and suits come over and give you envelopes with money in them. I love the whole everyone's named either what? Tommy Joey, Jimmy, you know, so he doesn't even everyone say Marie. Yes. Hey, everyone's woman. Still, I wouldn't marry him personally. Need no. I have actually gone my whole life without mirroring Henry Hill. And I tend to maintain that. I could fix them. The book makes it clear, you know, if the movie doesn't abundantly, you know, like they were kind of obsessed with each other. Obviously, he went out and fucked like one billion women a day or whatever. You know, like that is a mob lifestyle. Like there's that moment later on when like Paul and Jimmy are like, you got to get back with her with the like, obviously, you can do what you got to do. You know, we understand, you know, everyone's like, oh, no, we understand. We understand. Like no one is disputing that, but you know, I'm not going to get divorced here. Like come on, we're not any Molly. But yeah, like they were connected. There is some crazy thing with them. Yes. But yeah, if if he, it's so crazy that they don't have a house for a while and then he just lives with them. And then he's coming home at like 3 a.m. every night and they're yelling at it. But her mom loves him. He's half Jewish, only the good half, only the good half, only the good half. He wears a cross and a star. Yeah, it's classy. Yeah. And kind of covering your bases. What are you fucking talking about? Just in case. We don't know who's up there. And then all the stuff with the wives, you know, when she's like hanging out with the ladies. Yeah. God. It's sexy. It's a little bit sexy. Okay. What happens? Right. The feds come into their house. Just like the, you know, like the little, the cute pictures of them all, like, you know, like hanging out together. The way she's like, we were all a family. We only saw each other. Yeah. These like wacky pictures of De Niro, like mugging for the camera. Come on, guys. What else? What else? All his suits. Oh my God. The suits. Yeah. And then she's got up, like, they have both huge wardrobes. It's a big, you know, you need some mid closets. Um, and then, and then it's, we catch up the back box. Yeah, it's really bad. Yeah. Then we're, there we go. We're at the bar. And by the way, he's kicking off then and you can weigh in with some anti Irish behavior. Yeah. Get some of those Irish hoodlums over there. Top of the morning to you. But they kind of, they know. Oh, I know. They're busting balls. Yeah. It's one of the best needle drop moments in history. I mean, obviously this movie might have the best soundtrack ever. It's a good one. Yes. And it's just like wall to wall, like perfect music cues, but the opening strains of, uh, it's a, he's sure the boy I love, right? They're like, yeah. Uh, onto the establishing shot of the bar where you just know something dramatic is going to happen. I just remember that you gave me a shine box. I'm so happy. And we of course, we'll post pictures of Griffin with his Griffin shine master. Yeah. I'm just holding on to it now. Yeah. You know, if I was busting balls, I would tell you to go get the shine bar. That's if, if hypothetically, hypothetically, no, I were to bust what I would do. And David, I, I have a feeling you and I are never going to tell Griffin moving forward to go get his shine. Oh, this is why you fucking get to me a shine box. You can tell me to go get my fucking shine box. Relax. We're, we're, we're relaxed. Will you? Relax. Okay. Relax. Relax. Sometimes this is how like you kid is a lot of people around you were in a span for six weeks shooting murder, but I don't know if you know, some things change. You've become for a while. I'm sorry. You know, I didn't mean to offend you, but you know, one thought I'm having as I say this is maybe you should go and get the fucking shine box, though. Okay. Here's another thing I love about go get your shine box that he's, he's marrying it to real compliments. This guy was so good at shining shoes. They looked like fucking mirrors. He is saying, but it's, it's the best of that. It's so demeaning. Yes. Like I totally get it. Yes. Because he's one. He's basically like being like, this is a child to me. Like I remember when he was just a child who wanted to dress all of us. Right. Yeah. It's a true shine boy. But he is saying it in that way. What are you? You were great. What are you talking about? Fucking mirrors. Fucking mirrors. You should go get it. If you think about it, go get it. I got a great idea for you. What if you left here, went home, and go got your fucking shine box and you brought it back here and you shine my fucking shoes? Just the layering of it. And it's why like, I mean, like why I will go to YouTube and like load up like sopranos, like cut scenes where it's just arguments or like sit downs. The most fun thing is just the rhythms of like, you know, the insult and they're like, I, you know, and I'm sorry. And we're all having fun here. And I am just breaking balls. But then like, so now we'll go back to the insults now that we've layered that in and then the insults build in the way like it sort of cools off and goes up again. And the project, the gladitorial kind of style of it. We will get to it. But I've been rewatching the Kyle Chandler boat scene from Wolf of Wall Street a lot, which gives me a similar rush. Absolutely. I mean, that's a great. He say that one more time. And I mean, the Kyle Chandler scene in the first episode of lanterns where he spent the whole episode kind of being like, you know, like where you're like, I get it. He's sort of like over it. And then he like, crushes that interrogation scene with the guy. That seems incredible. It's so good. I don't know if I like the finale of lanterns. I was fine with it. It mildly underwhelmed. It was a little underwhelmed. It was a little surf Dracula at the end of the day. It was. And I read an interview with Lindeloffer. He was like, well, we had to do this. And I'm like, I think you could have done, you know, anyway, but you know, generally, it was I had enjoyed watching that show. It did not live up to its early promise. Not entirely, but hopefully they can run with the right things. Yes. If that makes sense, they do more of it. Well, there it's the most popular show in like the history of HBO Max. Really? It's getting insane ratings crazy. Then do more. The huge hit. I know everyone's coming back for Manitomaro. Right. And that's fun. Yeah. Did you see the lanterns in Frank Rillow was sharing fan art with like characters that aren't in the movie. And James Gunn was like, Frank Rillow, what the fuck are you doing? You know what, James? They're text exchange. Maybe don't cast Frank Rillow and things if you don't want him to be posting random van art. I think James Gunn literally said, Frank Rillow just reposted this Photoshop because his face was in it. He likes attention. And have you seen Frank Rillow's IMDB? Yes. The man does everything he wants. Yes. But maybe just go get your fucking shine. Or maybe just go get your fucking shine box. Another scene where you're like, oh, the tension diffuses. They fight. They're broken apart. They stay drinking there for hours. There's, it's, you know, you can't touch him. Like Tommy says, like that guy bought his button. You know, he's an old fucking tough. He's sort of accusing him of like, he's a fake made man, like which, you know, who knows what he's even talking about. But he's sort of trying to argue like, no, I can fuck with him. And Jimmy's like, no, you know, but it's all right. It's all right. He makes it land to sound so ominous. Yeah. What is ostensibly kind of a relaxing hip-hop song? You insult them a little bit. A little bit. You got a little honor to yourself. A little bit. I mean, I didn't insult nobody. I don't have one. I have a drink. Let's have some drinks on the house. I think, I think we should let this line, you know, drinks are on the house. Okay. I'll fuck him in the ass. I'm just like, it's incredible. He says to his friends, like, yeah, PS, I will fuck him in the ass. I'm gonna fuck him in the ass. The A, Danero's kicking acting in this movie is unilaterally so good, which we much acknowledge because in the Irishman, it's going to hit an all-time look. We are going to disrespect them a little bit in the Irishman. His kicking. Let's put it this way. We're going to disrespect. We're going to break some bosses. When we get to the Irishman, we are going to kick him while he's down. The phrase breaking balls. Yeah. What are we doing there? Where does that come from? If you act break, try to visualize it. Imagine them shattering, like glass. Like, where does this come from? Because bust balls make sense to me. That's what it feels like. But you have to think that when you get hit in the boss, It's kind of always funny, kind of, not to you, no, but it's other people. I know shot is classic. And here's the thing, balls have been around for a long time. Balls have been around for a very long time. So I have a feeling that that goes way back. I'm looking it up a little bit. There is the Italian idiom non rompericoloni, like do not break my balls. So it is sort of, you know, it's coming from there. Apparently, yeah, ball busting, ball breaking, those things existed already, but it seems like the early fifties is where it became common, a painful, get common practice among beef kennel operators where they bust the balls, balls, I don't think that's where it comes from. That doesn't sound real, right? No one's out here saying that because cows get castrated a certain way. Have you ever said I'm breaking your balls sincerely, Griffin? Have I? Have you ever been making fun of someone and when they get mad at you, you've been like, I'm breaking balls. I've never said it meant it. If that's what you're asking. Right. Exactly. You will only set it in an ironic kind of like breaking your balls. I'm here. Someone who grew up in New Jersey, I can confirm I haven't said it, but I have witnessed it. It's been said many a time. I'm realizing because there's a similar kind of time stamp title card before the Billy Bats sequence, which is October 11th, 1970, no, it's June, but it's both, both are the 11th and like it's all the parties over by the end of the 70s, which is the big 80. It's June 11, 1970 to Saturday, May 11, 1980, so it's, it's just under 10 years to the day. Right. And this is like, we're cresting here, Billy Bats is where we're just starting to slowly. It takes so long for things to actually crash, right. But like once they kill Billy Bats, it's over and we should shout out Marty's mother. She's great. I mean, because this is the thing, they beat the shit out of him and then they go to her house. This is to get a shovel. Obviously, I don't know. Right. And what do I say about night shovel it because they hit a deer. Well, of course, it's what do you call Paul? It's a hoof. It's a sin. It's a sin. She's in obviously many a Marty movie. This is her crowning performance, right? Yeah. She's excellent. The painting. I mean, I just think about it all the time. I want to get the exact framing of it of what she says God. Like I do love that like Jimmy is so, he's just tucking in. He's eating her food. I mean, what do you think it's like 10 o'clock at night later? Like if they woke her up in like one in the morning, they were already carousing at a bar. Some night pasta. It truly is the night pasta she just clearly was like, Oh, Henry's the only she's like, you're not eating. Like he's the only one who's clearly like kind of wrapped a little freaked out by this. Yeah. Right. And you see it in that opening shot. I was talking about it. Henry driving. One dog goes one way. One goes the other way. One cone. He's one going west. So what? And this guy saying, what do you want from me? He's got a nice out of way. Do you know one of the most astonishing discoveries of the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, which I recently visited and Los Angeles that George Lucas owns the original dogs playing poker painting. That is crazy. And do you know when that painting is from no, the 1890s, they were, they were that guy was funny. That guy nailed it. But you think of that as like, Oh, this is like Americana Kitch from like the 50s. No, no, no, no. No, that's some Guilded Age humor. Yes. We all know dogs. The next season of Guilded Age is going to be about that guy. Yeah. And then Carrie Coon gets in a war with like, you know, Ms. Bleaker or whatever. Yeah. For like who gets to own the painting? You know, they have a big fight. Wait, sir, I want you to do your act out of the painting. We all know dogs. Oh, we all know dogs. Yeah. Yeah. They walk around outside. They pee. They poop. No, no, no, no, no. This dog is inside. Yeah. Sure. My dog comes inside. Yeah. Everyone wants to watch it. If I have this feeling. Now, the game of poker. Who plays that? Human. Possibly. Not in this painting. I want to tell you that that painting was painted by Susan Pallegi, the mother of Nicholas Pooley. No. Yes. It was based on the artwork of a 1978 National Geographic photograph of a retired English banker and River Nomad who lived on a houseboat in the River Shannon in Ireland with his two Stafford triple Terryers, Brocky and Twiggy. He is so funny that he had this clearly in his possession and was like, let's throw this one in the movie. It's got to be a part of the movie. And it is so funny too that then they're like, that looks like a certain guy. Yeah. I just murdered. He's not murdered. He's still alive. Right. Right. But like, and it's like then, you know, they're burying him or if I wanted to point out a small thing because I wondered, David, if you noticed it, De Niro, they're sitting at the table. They're eating. He picks up a bottle of ketchup and puts it on his spaghetti. That is so disgusting. But that is the thing that my mom Irish Catholic family, my grandfather, he would eat his pasta with ketchup. Yeah. I mean, you know, it's in this episode of this, they have a sort of the surprise where they go to Italy and it's kind of about how like they, the Italian food baffles them because it's not like the food they grew up eating and like, and like, at one point, like, probably once I want some ketchup or whatever, and it's so beyond me, like the idea that you'd want to add ketchup to be a well, so the ultimate, like, insult to injury at the end of this movie is that he's got to eat ketchup with buttered noodles, egg noodles with ketchup, egg noodles with ketchup. There we go. Sorry. Yeah. Yeah. Disgusting. I don't really like ketchup that much though. I know some people. I used to love it so much and I rarely use it anymore and it is interesting as friends of mine have children such as yourself, David, to be reminded that kids love ketchup so fucking much. It's like their favorite food period. Some kids like the fries are just an excuse to eat the ketchup, like they want the ketchup first. That's my, Sophie and Hawkins, my best friends, their kid, ketchup is his number one favorite food. They use ketchup to convince him to eat chicken nuggets. For me, it was rice. I remember. Okay. They would put it in rice for me. Yeah. So eat the rice. Yeah. That's the most palatable thing to like every child. Just want to share something about grandpa. He's a meat inspector for the railroad. What does that mean? So he was, he was inspecting to make sure that the meat was all up to code, they were properly stored for the railroad as a shipping. Oh, okay. And my mom said growing up, they would have roast beef basically every single night. Yeah. And the thing was about the roast beef is that it fell off the train. Well, well, well, well, those trains had a lot of integrity. I don't know. Loose, don't worry. He paid full freight for that. You got to feed five kids. I just want to, like, there's the scene right after that is where the, the girl says like Sammy Davis Jr. is talented and Tammy has to be like, hey, you know, you don't want anyone to get the wrong idea about what you're talking about here. I'm just, this is this, I want to, I'm just doing this is Paulie talking to Henry. What do you hear about that thing? What thing that Brooklyn thing? No, no, the guy from downtown, the guy from near where Christie used to live, that thing. No, the guy who disappeared up the block from Christie, the one they made the beef on. Oh, yeah. Yeah. You know the guy. I mean, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I know. That's them talking about Billy Bats. But I love the most obscure way to talk about anything. I'm looking for the conversation Tommy has with his mom about settling down with a nice girl. I got a nice girl every night. Yeah. Cause I want to be with him. I want to be with you, mom. Yeah. Oh, these boys and their mothers. Um, yeah. So, you know, the true putrid beginning of hell, it's 65 minutes into the movie. It's when they have to go dig up Billy Bats' corpse. They're shrouded in red because of the car lights. It's the worst. And it's when Tommy's going like, hey, here's a leg. Here's a wing. What do you want? And like Henry's like barfing or whatever. And it's like, Henry has to wear a mask. He's so disgusted by this. The other two barely care about it are unaffected or joking around. Obviously, like Henry's the one telling the story. He's the one telling the real story as well. He's probably trying to make himself look good. I do not, I do not think Henry Hill was a noble guy, but I do think it's sort of vital to the movie, kind of in the soprano's way of like, you have the guy who stands slightly in comparison to the even more sadistic characters, right? Like Henry likes money. He likes success. He likes people being nice to him. He doesn't seem quite as like interested in violence. Like he's fine. He can be violent, but he's not like, he doesn't like get off on it in the way that Tommy clearly does. He doesn't, he's not like sent to whack people. No. He doesn't. Like one of the murders they tried to get Jimmy on was the murder of spider. Like, you know what? So Tommy obviously gets killed. He gets murdered before Henry turns States witness, but Jimmy's still live in Henry gets Jimmy in prison. And one of the murders is spider where he's like, Jimmy was an accomplice to this murder. Tommy shot him, but Jimmy's there, right? And they were like, no, we can't because you're the only witness and you are also an accomplice. And Henry's like, oh, I see. They're like, that doesn't really hold up in court, where you're like, no, I saw it happen. I participated into the crime. I found the dialogue I was looking for where he goes, why don't you find yourself a nice girl and it goes again, nice girl almost every night and she goes, I mean settle down and he goes, I settle down almost every night, but then in the morning. I'm free. Pretty good comedy from him. Pretty good comedy. You know what time he's not so bad. No. Oh wait No, here's the scene where he shoots a spider because a spider doesn't get him a fucking drink. I thought you said you're all right I'm just I'm just you guys. I'm just watching you're enjoying. Well, you're watching the movie. I'm scrolling through Sure. I'm just making sure we cover everything important and good fellas right after he shoots spider is When Karen wakes Henry up with a gun to his face Do you remember that? Yeah, it's not my favorite way to wake up Okay, and you should we should say the first time you shoot spider. Yeah shoots him in the foot. Yeah, cuz he's the Tennessee kid That I think sucks about peshy. Yeah, he was picked on yeah, that's a very similar way. It's why the shine box gets him Right. Yes, and then he's carrying on the tradition and this is the thing about bullying. It's the cycle He's yeah, the cycle is believably insecure. Obviously. I am not I am not an interesting for making this observation or whatever But like you couldn't make fun of Jimmy There's no way you can get under that guy. I can't touch him. Yeah, where's Tommy? You can get under skin immediately clearly by just like his stature saying he's funny Like like that's why him being like funny, you know clearly does piss him off Paul is like I'm not here to be funny. You know like I'm scary. Yeah, Paulie later says about Tommy He's crazy. He's a cowboy with too much to prove. It's like such a hat cowboys good nail it exactly That's what's going on with that like there's that scene where he's like they they robbed the truck and he's like shooting the gun Like like a cowboy, you know after window Henry then gets pinched goes to prison as we have the prison scene. I want to point out in the book There is a sequence that they do not cut on that put in this movie, which makes sense Which is the other time Henry was removed from mob life, which was when he was in the army and it is similarly fascinating in both times in the book It's clear he loves it. He loves being in the army. He loves being in prison He loves systems like he loves being plugged into a system and with a hierarchy Which is just what the mob is to him like he crushes army It's like you know when Buster is in the army. He's like I do great. Top of Henry so good at being in the army I mean, he's kind of a piece of shit like or whatever and he's you know doing criminal shit like Running smuggling stuff or whatever but like he generally is into it and he likes being in prison because it's like cool prison where they're You know, you know in charge of the prison and they smuggles shit and they have all their you know There's probably some part of him to jump ahead that like not not to jump ahead for the conversation No, no, no, but like there's some part of him that probably enjoys being in witness protection Yeah, I wonder in in a weird sort of controlled version of domestic life and also having that amount of Attention on him. One of my favorite jokes in the prison. How do you want your steak medium rare? Oh, an aristocrat The guy just says that this is also Papa score says he's best performance says the three types of meat and the meatball guy They always put too much onions in the sauce. The sauce looks so good. It does Can you put too many onions? I guess you could Someone also gets agita from too much. Yeah, it'll make your real gas. Okay, but that's thinking long term thinking short term just to taste I love an onion. Yeah, I guess it could make it too sweet if you're really like overwhelm. Yeah, I don't know I love an onion Um, and like they do it a little bit in this like her having the big jacket and smuggling the shit out But like there was a lot of that like she's walking out of prison. It's like margin In the episode where they're smuggling the candy like prison, which is like cigarette cartons and drugs like sewn into our jackets The bit with the babysitter where he gets everyone working for him right and the babysitter has to use the baby to smuggle drugs back and forth Yeah, so I mean, this is when he gets into drugs. Yes, so after he's in prison the problem is he makes money in prison through his Pittsburgh connection Which is drugs and that is how he makes money after prison even though Paul is like don't you do that because like you'll Get in trouble. You've got a prison for life. They can get you you know way worse for drugs smoking all that But also it is kind of what saves him after the Lufthansa heist because what happens after the Lufthansa heist Which is what you know is the sort of second half of the movie is Jimmy starts killing everyone involved with it because he Just doesn't want to give them the money. It's not because he's scared. It's like a little bit He's scared though, but he's mostly just doesn't want to give people their cut. He just kills them He doesn't kill Henry because Henry gets him drugs like you know gets him drug money That the Pittsburgh connection is kind of what protects Henry in that point of the movie now There's a problem on the other side of this which is he gets addicted to drugs. That's true. Yes I got to say Ray Liotta looks pretty bad. Oh You don't think I think he's not in those eyes? Yeah, I think the cocaine used to sort of catching up with him a little bit. Yes. Yes As well as his new girlfriend. Yeah, he agrees to get rid of the old girlfriend. Right. Then he's got Debbie Maesar. Yeah, she's a babe Oh, I would get in trouble for Debbie Maesar. I bet you I Oh God. I would be in so much trouble. Have you ever seen space truckers? No She's the female lead and how did she do? She does well. She quits herself quite well The little tons of heist is so funny to me because it's basically just like we realized there'd be a lot of money there Someone told us sure so we went and we got it Lots of money for us, but then we left Like that's the it's not like fucking tenet over here Go get it now. I know you're shouting out yes, he kind of fucked up. Maybe one of the easiest jobs was to just drive it to New Jersey to get it like crush. Yeah, but I Relate to him more than any other character in this movie where it's like this guy just kind of campy bother He procrastinates. Yeah, and it fucking gets him And then yeah, like we don't even really see the heist which is kind of an interesting decision I think it's because like Henry's not really involved in it like the actual doing of the heist Like he finds out about it on the radio and he's in the shower, you know, and like that's and basically It's just like the vibes are ruined Basically Jimmy's just like a paranoid psychopath at this point just starts killing everybody they kill Samuel Jackson Um, you know it is in bedroom Yeah, it's just bad and then obviously you have what Mauree. It's so much blood. Something I noticed about this We're breaking in this movie isn't saying. Yeah, is that they do another angle of peshy. Yeah, then just with the slow motion him shooting the gun But there's there's blood already on the wall Yeah, and it's like the kind of thing where is it a mistake or no, I think it's that he keeps shooting him. Yeah, he's shooting the dead body. Yeah Uh, they kill Mauree with the sort of ice pick through the neck That worries a pain. Yeah, he is pretty important. Uh, that's that's the worst death to me It's really nasty. It's really nasty and then we have One of the great needle drop choices of all time. We all know Leila. Mm-hmm. What do we know about Leila? No, we're doing the second half of Leila The people sometimes kind of turn off because they're like all right with the piano It's like six minutes of this and he's like, yeah, that's the like the vibes are you know are leaving us part of the song like It's just the the bodies, you know the the kids seeing the the pink the pink car and then the The garbage truck with the bodies in it and then what's this pants with the meat? What's what's his lawsuit? Oh, okay in the uh the meat freezer So the character Louie on the Simpsons. There's Louie and Lex who are at home. He does really look like really looks like him You know the guy with the kind of crazy hair. It's isn't a piece or is it just like a pearl? What is it? What is the head? It looks like it is made out of rocks And it's the darkest black you've ever seen the deepest black Um, Frank, uh, Severo Uh-huh, yeah in 2014 suit the Simpsons four two hundred and fifty million dollars. I would say that's a little high. It's a little high Saying that they built uh, uh, one of their most popular characters off of his reputation Not just his look, but everything that he had developed In his style and his sensibility in his attitude Most people couldn't name Louie from the Simpsons. No, maybe not uh, but there was a uh line of Simpsons action figures that was very successful And ran very deep into character selection right and that is apparently the thing that kind of broke him Is he saw that there was an action figure of a Simpsons character that looked like him And was like they're making money off of me grab this tie. Yeah Adjusted a little bit. I bet they sold two hundred and fifty million dollars. I was about to say how much money are they making off the Louie action by that point The series was like, you know, we're we're skipping the bottom of the right. We've done eighteen runs of it's Louie in princess cashmere And the penny marshal babysitter how many Simpsons action figures do you have Griffin? I used to have an almost complete collection of that line And then I gave most of them away and then I've been rebuilding it a little bit and there's a newer line. Amy gave them away I know. How do you yeah? Are you feeling good about that? Uh, no, I'm not um, but I'd say I'd say 20 Um, that's pretty good. I mean, this is a big town of Springfield. What's your favorite? Uh, what's my favorite is a really good question. I know. I have the best question. I really do Um There's uh, well, you know relevant to coming up, but the vampire mr burns from trash of horror Is very good. Uh, that is that rail rocks. Yes with his coffin. Yeah. Um, I don't own the Louie love that episode. So yeah, thanks for you couldn't murder me. Yeah. Yeah. And then it's Tommy's going to get made. It is right near the end. I guess there's still half an hour to go. Yeah. But last half an hour is just the sparkle. It's so shocking. Yes. Don't you think? Yes. Like the movie is setting it up as like this was it though. It was going to be okay because he was going to get made. And then he just knows. He's in this shitty, you know, it's a bad room. You got the like the the Marlin. Yeah. When you're a plastic fish hanging on the wall. Nothing good's going to happen in this room. No. Oh, no. Yeah. He doesn't make it. He doesn't make it. I am. In my opinion, he kind of did kind of maybe got to come in a little bit. Yeah. It's I there are obvious exceptions to this rule, but I do feel like best supporting actor winners. Usually either run the length of the movie, even if it's a small part, have one contained scene. Yeah. Or just come in at the end. But he's undeniably a supporting actor, obviously. No question. No, no, no, no, my my bigger point is I feel like for the winners, you often want the best supporting actor candidate to deliver some closure on the movie. Sure. And he sort of unceremoniously dies with 30 or 40 minutes left. Right. It's important. It is closure in a way of like, right, that's their last kind of link to the mob in a way is getting cut off. Like that was their guy. And now he's not even alive. The Mahershala Moonlight win is similar as is the Alan Arkin. I mean, we're the absence of the guy in the final act. Yes, it's very powerful. So vital to the Mahershala win. I feel like, I mean, with peshy, it's also like, he basically wins the Oscar with scene one. Correct. And then every scene he does have to that is also good. But I also think genuinely, I think it helps his win that he puts in Scorsese, the later great train robbery, Tommy shooting straight at you at the camera, just to remind you at the end of the movie. Remember this guy? Yeah. Remember how great this guy was to watch. I wonder if people thought about that X thing. Like, what was that about? Because like, already isn't able to like do interviews right away being like, by the way, I'm paying homage to a famous silent movie here. Well, sure. I think it's also just like Scorsese doesn't like to moralize during his movies until the end. He delivers the hammer blow thesis like at the end of the movie. And that's part of it of like the, the, you are complicit. You know, it's, I think a similar shot to the end of Wolf of Wall Street of cutting to the audience at the seminar. Yeah. And the departed has ending way, my man may not discuss. I don't know. It's got sort of a bit of a button. A little button. But no, but I think that shot is, it's like, this feels different if it's directed at you, doesn't it? You've been able to watch this stuff without any culpable. Imagine looking down the barrel. Yeah. Like the other side is Tommy DeSimon. Yeah. So that's pretty scary. Tommy DeBio right after he dies is the helicopter. Is that sequence? I just want to say something. That is what cooking dinner is like for me. Every night. Yeah. It's like that. It is so funny that like, yes, he has like weapons. He has to deal right? He like tries to sell Jimmy some guns and or like silencers or something. You know, Jimmy's like beat us. But Jimmy has silencers and he wants guns for them, but they can't put it together. What is all that? Or whatever. But like he has added maybe a little too much to his plate with. I'm making meatballs and chicken cutlets. Yes. Yes. For an appetizer sauce. And you got to make sure to stir the sauce. This is why Kevin Korkins the most empathetic character. Yeah. It's true. And like, all he was trying to do is stir the sauce. They're just so fucking whacked out. Yeah. God. He looks so fucked up and good. It's so it's so yeah, it's so vital. It's the extremity of Ray Lyota. It's just everything about him physically, visually is very extreme that you can crank it up. Somehow man has to go fuck Debbie Maesar in the middle of all this. Yeah. Fuck. I don't know. Like if he gets it up. But like they make make out with her and kind of they rub coke all over each other. I think he actually pulls him over. He's like, yeah, yeah, I'll do it. And then he runs down is like. And it's like he's right that they're coming after him. Do we know that the helicopter is him? We don't know. We don't know. It speaks to his state of mind. And I guess you never see guys come out of the helicopter. No. Right. Right. And I think also before that, we see Jimmy fucking with the FBI agents. And I feel like it does this thing of establishing that they're used to being tailed. Yes. Totally. But you know, the dual, the final fuck up. It's not him getting pinched. It's that she then flushes the drugs, which was their money. And then he goes to Polly. And Polly's like, he made me look like a jerk. You know, I said, you were going to knock do this and you did it. Now I have to turn my back. You don't want to hear that from him. Now I got to turn my back. He gives him $3200. And iconic Henry Hill thing, in my opinion, is that he complains about this. He's like $3200. Like what? Like I'm an asshole. I'm like, he is not killing you. He's an asshole. Yeah. That's why he's treating you like that. You're being treated like an asshole because of your asshole behavior. On grounds of asshole dumb. And then like his triumph is that he doesn't get killed. Like clearly, he probably would have gotten killed. And that's why he that's why he turned states witness the scene, uh, where Danero is clearly going to kill Kathy is Smith ninth, basically, you know, it's, you've been there a million times. It's done to meet the F train right down there in the Culver Viaduct, which is like now, you know, you can go get yourself a $60 fucking pancake or whatever. The fact then was basically just like warehouses and factories and shit. $60 pancakes. New York's doing great. It's a five hour line. You know what I mean, but there's like a stack of one down there. Oh, there's like eight pie shops down there. Are you kidding me? But they only sell crust. And it's $50 and they sell out at 10 a.m. every morning and people yeah, line up anyway for four days. This is when Jimmy puts on his slutty little glasses. Here we go. I love the performance of the guy. Not sure who plays the FBI guy. Uh-huh, but I love when when she's like, well, I'll be able to see my family is like, no, am I wrong in thinking it's bodiddle? No, it's not. It's not bodiddle. Okay. I thought I saw bodiddle in here. He might be in there somewhere. Yeah. In good balance. Let's see. Let's see. Edward McDonald's. I guess what? He was a real lawyer. Bodiddle is the arresting gnarc. Oh, that makes that's that's probably how you know, yeah. But yeah, I love the quick, uh, as a wetlock junior check-in. This is right. I knew I needed to check on this. Yes. This is the real guy who put Henry Hill in witness protection. Okay. That's why that guy is so fucking good. There's that moment where he says, like, don't give me baby in the woods. I listen to the wiretaps when like she's like, I didn't do anything wrong. He's like, I said that exact thing to Karen. Like, and he's just so where he is no sympathy. He's like, I want you to go into witness protection because it'll make him a better witness. That is the only reason I have no compassion for you whatsoever. Like, this is not I'm not your friend, which I love in the sopranos how it portrays how those relationships could get muddy and like the FBI guys would kind of get into the mob and kind of root for guys, right? You know, like they're kind of have their favorites and all that. But this guy is just like, fuck you. Like, I, you know, I know you're coming to me because you're going to die otherwise. It's also a thing too with Debbie's character. How suddenly you see now in the 80s, she's gotten into drugs and she's really gotten in in a way never before. No, she's, she's like really deeply involved. She's as stuck as he is. Yeah. Yeah. She's, she's testing the limits. She's, uh, what, you know, she's pushing boundaries. Yeah. I would say sometimes you miss just the really quick Give Me shelter also over the cocaine mirror. I think it's with Debbie Maezer when he's telling her not to, not to use it all at once. But just that like Marty's like, just like I'm doing fucking Give Me Shelter again, just a shorthand. I'm like referencing myself to tell you what type of seeing this is. And then yeah, that's it. He's a fucking schnuck. He's a fuck in the suburbs. His life sucks. Yeah. He did it his way. You want it? The best ending needle. Incredible. Who does that cover? It's, it's a special. Yeah, it's ambitious, right? It's a, it's a, it's a, yes, right? Yeah, it's just ambitious. It's not right. Yes, it's solo. Yeah. The best and everything ended up great for him too. Yeah, perfectly. The audaciousness of him being like, and you know who the real victim is here? Me. Yeah. Like, where I'm like, buddy, you're alive. I like that. Moving now. Right. And Marty, you know, giving you the after, you know, after points of kind of like, he did get busted again. He's kind of on the straight and narrow now. They have gotten divorced. They could not handle the mundanity of life together. Only lasted a quarter century. Yeah. Where does he end up and witness protection? We don't know what he means. I can look up for you. What happened later years? He's so like publicly out though. It's, I mean, I know it is interesting. I think what happened is like eventually guys die and people start caring less and less. And the mob loses power too. Yeah. He lived in Nevada at some point. At some point, he married someone else despite the fact that he was still married. So that was considered big of me. So that was an issue. Later on, he was arrested in Nebraska. Illinois in 2009. He was arrested. Eventually, he lives in like Topanga Canyon, like near Malibu. But yeah, I mean, like, he was on Charlie Rose and shit. Like, he would host screenings of the movie. You know, eventually, I feel like he was pretty out and about. He died in 2012 of a heart attack. Well, he worked for a time at a, as a chef, always spaghetti saw Sunday gravy was marketed over the internet. Wait a second. I'm going to look this up. Paul Stravino has an extensive food line as well. I don't know if that's ended since his death. When did he die? Paul, I feel like Paul was more recently, right? Try 22. Yeah. What a legend. Yes. Henry Hill Sunday's gravy recipe. A pound pork butt, a pound of field shanks, a cloves of garlic, two cans of tomatoes, 12 basil leaves. Isn't it a funny griff that people use pork butt in cooking? I thought they call it that. Yeah. I'm trying to find a picture of the Paul Stravino, like I remember like the Paul Stravino tomato sauce. All the jars just had his big mug on it. You know what? I found it. You found it. It's a really good picture. You know, I wouldn't you want this on your pasta. Look at that. Look at that. Simply the finance. Look at that. That's classy. Yeah. Very classy. Yeah. No idea if it was any good. I feel like once you're jarring pasta sauce, you're losing a little bit of authenticity. And we should announce now the blank check pasta sauce. Oh, yeah. Yes. We're doing it. Blank sauce. Yeah. This movie came out in September. This movie came out September 18th. Never forget. Never forget. In 1990, and let me call up the old box office game for good fellers. It's opening at number one, $6.3 million, it's going to gross 46 domestic. It's pretty good. Yeah. It's about double its budget. Plus 25. How much it make overseas. What was the worldwide? The number listed here is very small. Okay. I think it's, you know, they don't have the international. It was a reasonable hit. It was a reasonable hit and it, it had a long life. It has a very long tail. It's made some extra money for the good people. It's like the comic strip episode of High and Mighty. And they are good people. Oh, currently the finest. Number one is good fellows. Number two is a comedy drama based on a sort of semi-autobiographical novel. Comedy drama. Very good movie. It's a very good movie. Yeah. It's like memoirs. It's a memoir of sorts by a famous person who became a great writer and wrote books and movies. It's not, is it postcards from the ads? From the ads. Just think of that as being a little later. Yeah. That's a good movie. Good movie. Good movie. It's not like a masterpiece. No, but it's a very well done movie. Yeah. Of course, based on Carrie Fisher's book. Yeah. Number two at the box office. Number three is one of the big hits of 1990 and it's going to pip. Lorraine Bronco to Best Supporting Actress of this year's Oscars. It's called Ghost Ghost. Because you're always like, "Damn, how did Bronco know it was?" I know. Whoopi was pretty unbelievable. I made our movie star giant hit and had already been snubbed like, you know, like was, yeah. Ghost. Ghost. Do you like Ghost? Yeah. Great. Ben. Ghost. It's okay. Very cheesy. Yeah. It's good cheese, though. It's like part of the genre. It's good. I don't know. Sure. Number four at the box office. So as a film that I imagine will come up on a new, enough coming big picture episode that isn't posted yet, Gene Hackman Hall of Famer, maybe I've never heard of. Is it the one with Mary Lisbeth, Master Antonio? It is not. Fuck. That one's called Class Action. Correct. This has a sort of similar kind of like title, like a little two word phrase. Interesting. Stars. Gene Hackman. Gene Hackman's also in postcards from the Edge. Yes, he is. He's the director. So this is a big weekend for him. He's doing great. He's doing incredible. Okay. It's got a two word title. Yeah. It's directed by the great Peter Heim's. I feel like maybe Tarantino covered this one on his episode. I feel like they covered a lot of Peter Heim's movies on their, on their, um, I guess. What this movie is. Yeah. The other star is Ann Archer. I don't think I got it. He's got a J.T. Walsh in a supporting role. He never did that. No. He did. He was approving. It is a reimagining of a 50s, like kind of norm movie. It's about a D.A. He was trying to keep a murder witness safe while traveling on a train. It is called narrow margin. Oh, sure. I've never seen it. No, me neither. Now, number five of the box office. It's a very red poster. Yeah. There's a train on there. Those have intrigued. Yeah. Number nine, five of the box office is a film starring one of your favorite comic actors. I think you've said it's not very good. We've discussed it before, partly because of the actor and partly because of the director, who's a actor turn director, who's made some movies we've discussed on this show's Patreon. Interesting. Is it in Eddie Murphy? No. It's not Bill Murray. No. It's not Steve Martin. No. It's not Gene Wilder. There it is. And it's one that Gene directed. No. A different actor turn director made this film. Oh, I've never seen this movie if it's the one I'm thinking of. It is. Is it a lot like love? It's called Funny About Love. Funny about love. A lot like love, of course, had the great ash picture. There we go. Funny about love. It's the one where he's got a baby on his head holding a clock. Correct. And the tag line is tick, tick, tick. Yes. Which I don't really. It's directed by Leonard Des Moines. Directed by Leonard Des Moines. Yeah. So you've never seen it. I've never seen it. This is pretty late in the wilder filmography. It always has looked very depressing to me. It does look kind of. Everything about the movie feels like it's got a sad patina, a sad sheen around it. Like he makes another you the year after and that's it. Right? Like then he's done. No appearances. He did that awesome wonderland TV movie. Like he would pop up in little things, but he basically is done with movies after them. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, he did have something wilder though. Never forget. Something wilder? Yeah. His weird sitcom. Oh, right. A year on NBC. And he was on Will and Grace. Yeah, of course. He popped up. He's two episodes away. But basically he only does TV after another you. Which was why? Because the movie started getting bad. Like was he just kind of like, eh? I think so. This misconception that like he was so depressed by Gilda Ratner's death, that he disappeared. But I think that's a slight romance. I mean, obviously he was depressed about that, but you also remarried him, was married until his death. Right. That had a happy final marriage by all accounts and did work. I think it was just sort of like the industry is changing and he's tired and the work is bad and whatever. Yeah. But he lived obviously many more year. He dies in like the 2016. He was one of those white whale. And we get him out of retirement guys for so long. That was the whole thing Spielberg wanted him for Ready Player One. Yeah. Do you know what? He ended up with Mark Ryland. In a coffin. Uh, funny about love. You also got a death warrant. Ooh, what's that? Okay. It's good. That's all you need to hear. Yeah. John Club Van Damme. Perfect. It sounds great. How have I not seen this film? 10 out of 10. Oh, a police detective goes to a prison facility as an undercover cop to find out who is behind a series of murders. Go well and finds himself locked up with his nemesis Christian Naylor, a psychotic serial killer who calls himself the sand man. Well, wait a second. Played by Patrick kill Patrick. You act just so nice to name him twice. Written by David Esquire. Sounds fucking great. Second build Robert Guillaume. I'm queuing it up. I'm adding it to the old watch list as we speak. Oh, I never seen this. God, where they were just like Van Damme's in the film. And here's how we're going to sell the film. The poster will be a picture of John Claude Van Damme. And he will be posing in an action pose. The end. This is David Guillaume's first produced film. Nice. Yeah. He goes from this to kickboxer too. From strength to strength. Number seven is Flatliners, the Joel Schumacher picture. Number eight is the, the very fun programmer presumed innocent, which is directed by Alan Pacula. Number nine is, hey, we love it Darkman, dark man. We love him. And number 10 is the film Hardware, the sci-fi horror movie directed by Richard Stanley, sort of a early cyber funky kind of movie. A movie you're a big fan of, right? Yeah. That's kind of cool. Yeah. Yeah. So Goodfellas does well. Let's see here, the print, apparently the test screenings crushed. It's a little bit like WB was going to open it really wide and they reduced it to about 1,000 because of the walkouts too much for some people. They were a little freaked out, but it does well. The reviews are spectacular. It only wins the one. It only wins. New York LA National Boston, Chicago Film Critique, right? It like, it sweeps the critics awards. It wins Best Picture of the Baptist, but at the Globes and Best Director. Yes, but at the Globes at the DGA awards and at the Oscars, dances with wolves. It only wins a spring actor for Joe Pesci. Some people thought that Marty might win director, you know, that there would be a split. Yeah. And Marty was like, really bummed out when he lost. He said, they put me in the front row with my mother and I didn't win, which is, according to Ilyana Douglas who's telling this story, which is such an Italian thing to say. He came home. They don't like me. They really don't like me. That's, he always brings this up that that was the night where he said like, they just don't. And whatever reason, they're never going for me. To your earlier point, David, at the BAFTAs, they did nominate De Niro for Best Lead Actor. It's, it's because he's, he's first built, sort of the star. I don't know where I put it. Yeah. I don't know. Yeah. It's interesting. Um, dances with wolves came out late in the year as well, right? So it was sort of like, once it popped, it was unstoppable. Back when the Oscars, you know, are in like late March or whatever. So I think dances with wolves is one of those things where it comes out and then it has such crazy legs throughout, like, and like, good fellows, like, had done well, but it's the scarier movie is more violent and so this is what ultimately just lays there. takes it. I don't cuss her. He always has sex. Oh sure. When he's asleep and forgot about that bit. I forgot about that bit. Yeah, clearly went over great. We should keep it in and double it. Yeah. You suck. Any two times. And so dance is wolf ultimately just lays it there, takes it. And then he makes Kate fear a year later. So I don't know, like, I assume that must have we'll talk about on that. So he that must have just kind of been in the works, right? Like that was already spoohing up. Yes. And remember, he owed universal moving from last temptation. Right. But it's funny. Like this is a hit. And then Kate fear, I feel like it's an even bigger hit. Like, if you're what's his biggest movie at that point. Yeah. And, you know, it gives him, those two give him enough juice. I feel like to do age of innocence. Yeah. And then Casino is a little bit him being like, you know, I'll go back to the well. Casino speaks to how quickly good fellas had become canonized that people were like, can you please do that again? Do that? Yes. Guys, mobs, please. And then like we'll talk, you know, post Casino is the little swell, the little like it already cooked. Like, Casino wasn't as good as good fellas. Then he just couldn't do and bringing out the dead. Gangs in New York is like this. Yeah. I know. But I'm saying, right? Like it's like the narrative kind of becomes like, okay. But also the second you enter the 2000s, it's like, are we ready to finally give this man an Oscar? I mean, Gangs in New York is such a complicated text that they can't. But Gangs in New York and Aviator are these two movies. Yeah. That are not tailor made, but are made for Oscar attention and they don't quite get it. Yes. Yeah. We'll go through all of that here on blank check. A podcast posted by two podcast fellas. My name's Griff the riff new man. David wristwatch Sims. David wristwatch. Yeah. We're going to go into all of it. And he made so many more good movies. And I think it's probably the most fun we are. I'll have is talking about those 2000s movies. But good fellas. You know, pretty fucking good. It's pretty fucking good. So like we said, next week, Cape Fear with guests, Eva Anderson returns to the show from Margot's got money troubles. That's true. You know, who else had money trouble Henry Hill. Henry Hill. Henry Hill. Sure she pitched Henry has money trouble. Yeah. Henry's got money. I mean, good fellas to be a TV show. The worst nightmare of all. But of course, Cape Fear became the best TV show of all time. So sometimes we'll talk about that next week. Okay. Also over on Patreon coming up in a few days, we're getting near the end of our resident evil commentary series. We have resident evil, the final chapter, except it's not the final chapter of our Patreon series because we're also going to welcome you to Raccoon City. Yeah. Yeah. Final chapter. Not so good. No. It's got a little bit of stuff in it. And our Raccoon City episode is a lot of talk about the 2026 cracker movie just to give you advanced warning. That's a space where we did that. But also, David recently did critical darlings a great episode on resident evil. If you want more people want chat. David's Resi thoughts. Yeah. And I'm still trying to figure out how to live stream, or Twitch stream. Sure. My playthrough of resident evil for not play through the whole game. But I'm like, oh, at least some of it a little bit. You're down to do a little bit. We're going to do it. We're going to figure it out a little bit. A little bit. Just a bit of a hectic week or two for us. But we'll find a spot. We'll figure it out. Yeah. We'll figure it out. We'll talk. We'll talk. Or I'll figure it out. I don't know. Yeah. I'll just one day. Yeah. These remember to rate, review, and subscribe. And as always, and got me my fucking shine. Langcheck with Griffin and David is hosted by Griffin Newman and David Sims. Our executive producer is me Ben Hossley. Our creative producer is Marie Barty Salinas and our associate producer is AJ McKeon. This show is mixed and edited by AJ McKeon and Alan Smithy. Research by JJ Birch. Our theme song is by Lane Montgomery in the Great American novel with additional music by Alex Mitchell. Our work by Joe Bowen, Ali Moss, and Pat Reynolds. Our production assistant is Minick. Special thanks to David Cho, Jordan Fish, and Nate Patterson for their production help. Head over to blankcheckpod.com for links to all of the real nerdy shit. Join our Patreon blankcheck special features for exclusive franchise commentaries and bonus episodes. Follow us on social @blankcheckpod. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter checkbook on Substack. 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