Mean Streets with Miriam Bale

[music] We're not paying because this guy, this guy is a fucking podcast But I ain't seen nothing, and we don't pay podcasts I'm a podcast. Yes. What's a podcast? A podcast. What's a podcast? There's a fourth character, Griffin. This is his answer. Then take that one, take that line. I don't know. What's a podcast? You can't call me a podcast. I can't. No. I'll give you a podcast. Wow. I guess this is not a movie with like, should we all just clap for ourselves? That's really good. That's a little scene lit. What? What, David? What? I know what I'm thinking about mean streets. I'm thinking about how I guess. Yeah, it's not. I mean, it has some of the inner dialogue is very iconic. But the dialogue is iconic just because it's that. It's all them going like, like, you know, like, they're just all yelling at each other. There's a lot of iconic dialogue. I mean, I'm DB, of course, points out a repeated line. What's the matter with you? What's about you? It's just like brackets repeated line. That's not even what it's like. Honorable men go with honorable honorable podcast chairs go with honorable podcast. I don't like this attitude of I picked the wrong thing. This was this was fun. This was a little attitude. I'm just looking at it. It's fine to keep the word over and over again. You know what the queen said? If I had balls, I'd be king. I don't remember that. This is our first scores AZ session. And I got to tell you disaster off the race. I watching this movie. It's been a minute. I am feeling so comforted if I've been movie. Oh, not just a movie, but it's reminding me of growing up in northern New Jersey. Well, hey, and the characters that I used to know. And I'm just I'm thrilled to dive back in. Are you telling me means treats as autobiographical to your life? Not at all. I just like that this movie. I was I was I was watching some of the special features on the criteria and disk. And there is like a promotional feature at that is let me see what the name of it is. It's called a martenscore sazy colon back on the block. And it almost feels like a national geographic documentary. They're like New York City City of dreams or some of the wealthiest live. But it also has little neighborhoods. And one of those little neighborhoods is called little Italy. And what do you believe it a filmmaker came from there named martenscore sazy. And now he's back on the block. And it's like score sazy explaining what his childhood was to create a frame of reference for the movie. You know that like I hear you I hear the marketing of this film was like this guy came from a place you can't even imagine. These people that he grew up with you'd never seen them in movies before. That was the vibe right? Yeah. It's just funny because like there's lots of neighborhoods in New York that were very very very Italian. And some of them were little. Well only one of them gets to be a little Italy. It's right. Yeah. I remember my parents saying little Italy once and I was like what do you mean little Italy? And they're like this is a neighbor that's kind of informally called little Italy. And I was like why in there like because the Italians live there. It's somewhere else like aren't they? You put it that way it sounds patronizing. Absolutely. I was like what do you have that little Italy right? No like no but it's where the Italian restaurants are. I'm like I've been to Italian restaurants in other parts of New York City. But this was a little neighborhood. You can talk a friend of the show who's on the show. You can jump in. Yes. Guest is the term we usually. Yes. Yeah. Nice. I do I like little Italy. Yeah. I mean sure. I mean I would say the same when I lived here when I lived in New York. I liked little Italy except for the festival. The festival's tough. It's quite annoying and it's it's kind of the best part of this movie. Is it sort of frustration at. Oh, fucking. It's talking about this engineer of festival. Yeah. Which takes over probably like three four blocks. It's just really just a couple blocks. Yeah. It's mulberry and moth probably between like Nell and. Well, Italy is quite small. Well, little Italy now is right. It's like a historically protected like two to three block thing. Right. Because no Italian. Not that many Italians actually lived there. Where it's all Chinatown. Sure. And then also like Soho and yeah. And the restaurant. Yeah. Yeah. It's just there's just those couple blocks where there's still the you know you want to pay a lot of money for red sauce. Even though there's a million other places you can get red sauce. Yeah. It feels so touristy these days. But it means still kind of fun. Sure. Get some woods. You know. Wait, I saw an interview. I was before this with Garcese and he was talking about he was important for him to set it at the festival. Because it was about the malevolent nature of a celebration. I know. Fuck yeah. See he gets it. That's also a very New York thing where anytime there's a celebration like that you're like this city can't handle this right now. This is getting in the way of too many things. We're not a town that can stop and shut down and be like today is just about San Genero. Did you live in an apartment for like a month? This is San Genero. This is trying to show Ray Tintour. Yeah. Yes. When I was going through a breakup, I was couch surfing. Right. And our friend Ray was gracious enough to let me stay in his apartment and live a little Italy. And it felt like oh, this is like a miracle. What a nice place to stay. He's going to be out of town working. This is perfect. I couldn't have a better setup. I realized why he had left town because the festival. The festival is quite loud. And they're just felt like there was a flood light directly outside of the window where the bed was. Yes. Yes. Yeah. There was like a week or two of you coming to records very frazzled for sure. Yes. This is. Yes. Blank check with Griffin and Dave. Thank you. I'm Griffin. You're welcome. What's your nickname? Come on. What's my nickname? Grip the grip. Oh, we're using my sportscaster nickname for someone. Yeah. Yeah. Gryffi. Gryffi Parm. Yeah. Sure. Mine's Gryffi Parm. That's actually really good. Yeah. I'm here with my co-host David Spaghetti. I feel like we can pass that. That's actually a little fancy. David's bag. David Govagool. Savings. I think David Spaghetti is really sticky. No, I think it's. I think it's David Bags because he's got bags. Oh, that's actually pretty good. What if it's David Bags, oh, Spaghetti? No, I'm not a big spaghetti guy. It's all like it's like, oh, David, he's always eaten. He's always slurping up Spaghetti. David, what is the matter with you? It's not about what you like. It's about honoring little Italy. Of course, David Bags. I love David Bags. David's bags, I would say. It's podcast about homographies, directors who have massive success early on in their careers and are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion products they want. And sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they bounce baby. This is a mini series on the films of Martin Scorsese. And of course it is called podcast fellas. I think it's the best title we've ever come up with. Podcast fellas. Podcast fellas. One word rolls off the tongue trippingly. Do you think we should all just, the cover should just be us? Yeah. Arms crossed. Arms crossed? Yes. It should be all of us back to back to back arms crossed. And I want to be Ellen Burst and Alice to live here anymore. Cool. And I want to be the clockwork thing in Hugo. Yeah. The automaton. Yeah. That's what I want to be. Yeah. And he's writing down the name David Spaghetti. That's what the, that's what the automaton's doing with its pen. All right. Well, if we're calling it out, then I want to be a deniro and casino with those big sunglasses. Oh, sure. Sure. Yeah. That would be good. Maybe I want to be Sharon Stone and Casino. Maybe we should just all be in Casino. Maybe we should just be Casino. Maybe in the casino. When I was a kid, and Casino came out, and I was nine, or yeah, nine, or 95, right? Yeah. And I was like, well, I know Casino has dice. And so I really appreciated that Joe Pesci was holding a pair of dice on the poster. Oh, sure. Because I was like, what's this movie about? Dice? Like, they make dice. They roll dice. If I'm paying $8, I better get dice. I don't want to just see cards. Well, it gets my mom being like, it's really violent. And I'm like, why? Like, aren't they rolling like playing the dice and they win or they are they playing dice? He's literally holding a pair of fucking dice on the poster. How violent can yachts you get? Exactly. We'll get to that in some months from now. But watching Casino in 4K is quite an experience because you can see that Joe Pesci's face is literally being pulled back by strings. He looks crazy in that movie. That whole era of Pesci, he like, wouldn't get a facelift. No. But like. Brother bands. Yes. Yeah. Underneath a wig. And all those movies now, like, my cousin Vinnie is the same way. Were you watching? You're like, what the fuck is going on with his face? We were never supposed to see this this clearly. Yeah. Yeah. Beautiful. Yeah. Who's our guest? We have to introduce our guest. Are we talking about the movie first? We have to say that this is an episode on Mean Streets. Mean Streets. The Guaranteur. Yeah. Absolutely. The phenomenon I would maybe call the second first film. Sure. You know what I'm saying? The first real debut. Right. You make other movies, but this is your debut. Like Cameron with the Terminator. Yeah. And the Chamelama six ends. Right. Right. Right. This is the first. On the street, if you ask them, would say this is the first film, but it's also because this is the movie where everything clicks and the rest of the career is off to the races. We're talking about mean streets. It is Botbox Carp Bertha. It doesn't count. I mean, of course it counts, but Botbox and Counts. But like, you know, this is kind of also his debut, you know what I mean? I mean, I think who's that knocking is like very him, and that's kind of is the spanner and the rent. Yeah. Yeah, the like party scenes and stuff. You know, I would make an argument even more than being the debut of a, it was like Scorsese style. It is. I mean, especially with the movement and the music, which we'll get into, but like, I actually, this is a, this is more of a wild take. I'm excited. I think this is the debut of De Niro. Yes. Oh, yes. That's a big thing. He made a lot of movies. He's been in stuff. Not in any significant way. And I think it's almost accidental, like because like, you know, he was maybe going to play Charlie or like wanted to and then the only thing left was playing this role. And it wasn't what he was going towards before before that. He was like, you know, in the Jopama movies and, you know, it's just so experimental. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But he's also kind of like a cipher. He's always like a weird girl. Yeah. And then all of a sudden he comes and he's this like crazy Italian American. That's who he is. It's not what he becomes known for. This performance is kind of unique in his career. Undeniably is like what makes him stick. Yeah. Did he ever play like this kind of wild card? Because it's like the untouchables or whatever where he's over the top. That's different. It's different. He's gone big before and he's played like charismatic before. But I do think the wild card thing is kind of unique. And it's like off of this copula cast him and godfather part two, which is more what we think of. Yeah. That's the focus. Yeah. Right. There's a scaryness, but it's it's quiet. What's he like? I've never seen the gang who couldn't shoot straight. Okay. I was hoping you would bring that up because I feel like I'm one of 30 people who have seen this couple of years. Let's say our guest today is Miriam Bilt maybe breaking the record for longest time in between appearances. But incredibly excited we could get you on this because I feel like you have a lot of early Scorsese context takes. Sure. This is this is one of your. My guys. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. You're not supposed to say that here. No, my guys say that here. We say that proud of you. Of course. Yeah. I love him. I mean, this was like I could I mean, I should could just get into it. This was for well, I saw good fellows like way too young, way too young and like it kind of changed my life in a way, but I saw mean streets when I was in I was studying film production. Okay. And this is such a here in film school. You love this movie. It has like lines and a bar and sheets. You know, just has all these like accessible things that kind of has the story of like this. This is kind of the patron saint movie of just like go out and just make the movie that only you can make. You know, this ethos of what this comes out of and how it does feel like the full emergence of a person. Yeah. Yeah. But even more importantly, it's sort of I mean, it's it's the personal film like the, you know, the Casavetti's personal film and Casavetti's really encouraged him to make this movie because he'd made our birth and he was like, you're just spending your real life. Yeah. He's shot all over it. Yeah. Casavetti's so mean. I know. He said that he gave them a big hug. I always remember that story, it's so it's I've never forgotten it, whatever, you know, because it's it does feel like something you would really, you know, made him make mean scripts, right? The Casavetti's was like you wasted your life. Yeah. And the legendary story is the Casavetti's was a mentor of Scorsese's and he shows and box car birth, which is like the first movie he does for hire. And he goes, congratulations. You just wasted your your life making a piece of shit. Damn. For air, basically kind of like grabs him by the little pebbles and says like you need to make the movie that only you can make the personal film, the film about you, the thing that comes from you. And and Scorsese says like that I never would have it would have been difficult for me to feel emboldened enough to prioritize mean streets, which will get into he had spent like seven years kind of drafting and new going on had had Casavetti's not said that. Yeah. But it is, you know, do you think Scorsese is going to come on vinegar syndrome is going to put out a really nice addition of box car birth. So be interesting. Where is right? Yeah. People will watch it and be like, Oh, there's stuff here. It's not nothing. Come on, John. Give me a break. I think John said there's stuff here. It's like the actors are good. Right. It's a piece of shit. It also feels like a Casavetti is like that's what he was like as a director with actors. Like he was a very keen psychological manipulator of knowing what's the thing I need to say to a person to get what I need out of them. And I think that the subtext of that story is he knew that's the way it would fire up Scorsese and actually the move. Right. But who couldn't shoot straight the 1971 James Coleson? Yeah. Oh, wait. I was going to say about this film. Can I finish in film school? Oh, yeah, right. We were in there. I can go all the way. All the way back. All the way. So, yeah, I saw this in film school and I loved it. And I was in a sound class Dan Olmsted and the greatest sound mixer. So I wrote a paper on this and was really interested in the music and how so much of the movement was cut to music. And I was like, so into that and unfortunately or fortunately, no, I think unfortunately, it led me down a path of writing about movies. Sure. I kept going. Yeah. And I kept going. Also, I would say that this film is like a personal film, like we're saying about Casavetes, but it's also a genre film. It's like, and the combination of that is why this is like, yeah, the films like this is this is the ortex for these kind of things. It's like, and that was the next step for me as you guys might know. As I was here before just listing off films from the 40s. Hell yeah. This is. I'm going to go back to that. This is like, he was really inspired by these like, you know, these, especially the Warner Bros. crime films of the 30s and loves the Cagney movies, right? Like, roaring 20s. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. But what if you take the plot mechanics out of it? Right. What if it's also a hangout movie? Yeah. No. And then so for me, the next step for me for Scorsese is like, he, I, I think he is as important as like a film scholar as he is a filmmaker. Yeah. Like, I think like Anna and a film preservation is like, I think that that. So soon after this, I watched like the personal journey through American film. The best. Yeah. And then it was just like, my life has changed like I was, you know, and so that's my origins right. No. I mean, when I said it's the, the second first film, it's not that I, I, because I like who's that knock in my door a lot, and I think boxcar birth is interesting. But it's more that thing of like, right, he makes kind of a traditional first film that is like a small, personal, focused thing. And then he makes an impersonal genre exercise. And then this is the movie where he's like, I figured out the entire thing. I figured out how I can use genre to make my personal statements. Here's the style. Here's one of my key collaborators, you know, something in, it's, it's fascinating to have this be the like, you know, Kitelle, Deniro, two-hander movie. It's not like those two guys don't coexist in the same movie ever again. But it does feel like there's a bit of a baton pass here. He always says like, the three actors I had this kind of like, I'm all connection with, in my career where Kitelle, Deniro, and DeCaprio, there's three guys where there's just been the unspoken language. And Kitelle starts out as like his Antoine don't yell. It's like, this is my representation on screen. This is the prism through which I'm expressing my things. And then, you know, it's, it's one of those moments where an actor enters a movie where a character enters a movie and a star is born definitively, inarguably in a moment. Deniro at the bar and jumping Jack Flash, like, changes the course of American movies. You see Scorsese watch what's happening on screen and going like, there's shit I can do if I have this piece of technology here that I never even considered before. Well, I think his intro is also the mailbox, the, the, the, you see him, and to me, it's like something that's like, you see him and it's like, like, I mean, let's just take a moment to appreciate how good looking he is. He is so hot. He is so hot. The hair engineer. He's incredible. Oh, my God. I was obsessed with it in high school. And like, the bits, it's like a weasus, you know, weasus. Obviously, no weasus. Yeah. And during the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, like, uh, you know, on the side birds. Yes. And, but he has the, like, the kind of, like, it's a severe bang. It's so, that's what I love about it is that it is the haircut of a girl. A guy who probably doesn't think that hard about the haircut he's getting, but he still looks like cute. A modest. Yes. Exactly. And a casual. Um, it's great. But he's so, yeah, I would say Robert Gineiro. He's sort of the mascot of many black women. We love him. Well, obviously, he's got, he's got a type that is, you know, Mary, do you know the awakening story? No. I think I've told this anecdote, like five times on the podcast because I do think it's one of the funniest things to ever happen. Okay. The Awakening's where he plays this guy with this medical condition who was like frozen in his body, um, uh, basically fully paralyzed for like years and years and years. And there was a scene. they were shooting where Robin Williams and DeNiro were in a cab or in the back of a car at least. And it was in the period before he has the awakening. So here's DeNiro. That's incredibly focused, famously sort of intense, methody actor. And he's fully frozen. And they're just driving around New York City. And this guy on the street corner is yelling stuff out, "Oh, hey, Mark, hey, DeNiro." And DeNiro is just locked in, you know, unconcerned Robin Williams is like focused. And then the guy goes, "Bobby, you still like that black pussy?" Did he break? Yes. That's amazing. Yes. And Robin Williams was like, "It was the only time he ever broke. And he kind of just looked at the guy and like, "Not." Spags the best. He's the king. He's my pet. I mean, I always shout out to his off-menu podcast appearance where they ask him. So what's your favorite appetizer? He's like, "No, I don't know. What do they want to give me?" And they're like, "Well, I know you have to pick." The premise of me is showing you your dream menu. And he's like, "I'll ask the chef whatever's good." And they're like, "Don't you own restaurants?" And he's like, "Yeah, I just tell him to do whatever they want." Yeah. And they're like, "Okay, well, what about the food at your restaurant?" He's like, "Yeah, it's good. Yeah, yeah, yeah." You guys, this is what I mean. I'm not saying this was the birth of DeNiro, like his type. Yeah. This thing, this is the birth of him as a person. Do you remember? Yes. That's so fascinating. Do you remember the who's hotter, DeNiro Pratino, debate on Twitter? Do you remember that? I don't think I missed it. It was such a war. It was a few years ago. Yeah. And it is just one of those things where it's like, I don't know, like, pick your day. You know, like, you know, like aren't we who you prefer? They're such different. They're both sexy. They're also both kind of odd. Like, they're both like these funny little guys, but they both can also kind of shock you with how, you know, beautiful they are. DeNiro was more conventionally handsome. And DeNiro's a little more cute than Pacino. I think so. Yeah. I think Pacino's more pretty. And Pacino's a little scary, you know, I prefer DeNiro, but I think that Pacino's beautiful. Yeah. Pacino's gorgeous. He's so beautiful. Yeah. I mean, I guess we're not going to talk about it. Talk about what? We're not going to talk about young Pacino. No, young Pacino, and Scorsese career at Tino, we got to wait for old Pacino. Ben and I just spent the weekend in Wisconsin with JJ Bersh, our researcher. That's right. And he was saying, I don't know if he made it, it made into the Dossie, because JJ vets his information very thoroughly, but he, he asked me, he was like, had you ever heard this anecdote that Scorsese wanted Pacino to play Johnny Boy, and Pacino just straight up turned it down, and then they don't work together, obviously, for like 40 years. I mean, like Pacino had already been in the Godfather, so like it would have been like, right. I mean, yes. Well, Pacino is supposed to be in the gang who couldn't shoot straight, and that's how, and then DeNiro got it because he was making the Godfather. But I hadn't heard that about, about, for Mean Streets and Pacino, I, who was, who he wanted to play, which doesn't make sense at all, John Boy. Yes. That's crazy. Yes. That's interesting. Right. of like, would that appease the studio? - Right, exactly. - And we can look at the dossier. But like, wait, as, because you mentioned it again, the gang who couldn't shoot today. - I just wanna ask. - Yes. - What is in your, that's in Cheerio or Bach, is the star of that. - Oh my god, that's great cheerio. - This is the crazy thing. It's like, it was written for Marcello Mastrioni. - Right, that sounds pretty good. - Yeah, and then he admitted towards, when they were getting close to production, that he couldn't speak English. - Perfect. - Pederdone. - It's the right time. - So they replaced him with Cheerio or Bach. - I mean, of course, we love one to one. - Yeah. - I mean, Cheerio or Bach makes more sense as like a New York tough. You know, Italian, but you see, you know. - Yes. - He's close enough. - Right, it would have been weirder to have Marcello Mastrioni. - Yeah, be right. - Okay. - Well, and De Niro actually plays in Italian. He plays in Italian, like a kleptomaniac Italian. - Mario Trantino. - Yeah, so is he silly? Like, is he kind of in more of things in the road, right? - So this is the weird thing is like, I've interviewed De Niro and I think one of the things he really hates. I mean, you know, he barely says anything in an interview, but I think you can tell he's annoyed with this idea that he started comedy in the 2000s with analysis or with like Midnight Run or something, because he was doing comedy in the beginning, and like he was doing comedy with De Pomma, and this is like a straight-up comedy. Is it good? No, it's not. It's very bad. - Right. - It's so bad. It's like, it doesn't work. So they were thinking at first, I mean, streets would be kind of like the gangster comedy. - Sure. - And they were like, oh, like the gang who couldn't shoot straight, but then the gang who couldn't shoot straight was didn't work. - Right, right. - It was a failure. So at first they were like, oh yeah, De Niro will be in like shorts and shooting, and you know, when we see him, when he walks down that street, you're talking the bar, he's like in his boxers. So I think in the beginning, he was like, doing these kind of zany comedy roles. I mean, this is the thing. He's like, we're talking about Little Italy, but like De Niro's from the village. He's from like his artist parents. He went to the Little Red School. - It's very different. - He's like, he's like, it's so, it's like a couple blocks, but it's such a difference. And I like-- - He talks about it, I didn't know those guys as well. Like in the, in the Marty doc. - He had proximity, he understood it. He saw these things. - And he's Irish Italian. - Right. - He's like, he's not full Italian. - Right. - He's Irish, his mom is Irish. His father is Irish Italian. His mother is like, a sort of Dutch English. - Oh, yeah, like Whiskey. - And his dad was like a Laf's Catholic. So there was no real religion in the same way. Like it's not like, it's not the Marty thing of like, I mean, Marty is just like a child's cartoon of a little Italian American boy. Well, you know, with his vaguely mobbed up dad and his mom just like constantly stirring a big pot of sauce. - And him looking at a window with asthma. - Right, and then living in a tiny apartment with a bunch of people, like, you know, like everyone in the neighborhood knows each other and they play stick ball and shit. - But there's something to do now. - To your priests. - Senior having like the same reference points without the same lived experiences in a way. - Yeah. - That I do think gives him this sort of like, this expressive elasticity and what he can put on screen that's different than Scorsese's very like personal experience. - Yeah, well I think that they're both kind of outsiders because of the whole asthma thing. So they're both kind of like, know the thing, but I don't see either of these guys getting in big stakes, big fights, you know, I think they're there. - Yes, they're like servers. - Yeah, they're insiders outside. - So that's like where they overlap. - It's a thing Scorsese said that while I'm making the movie about my experiences and being this age and growing up with these people and all of this and then he said, I think years later when he re-watched the movie, he's like, this is actually about like my dad and my uncle. - Well, Charlie, that's his dad. - Right, he's like, this isn't my lived experience. I said it in the present day. I gave it the milieu of the songs I grew up on and the outfits and the language, but actually in terms of the characters. - He didn't have this crisis of like, am I too close to this criminal life and all that, like in the same way. - Right, he was like, am I gonna be a priest or a director? He wasn't, he was too level to get in trouble. - But it is this thing that is a little lost time. I think you're right, Miriam, which is like those early Dupalma movies because what De Niro and Dupalma go on to do separately are so different and loom so large, people forget that those early movies are like, closer to like Matt Johnson films, that they're like weird sort of exercises. They're almost like multimedia projects and they're really kind of using De Niro as like, if not a purely comedic figure, it's like this is a guy who's just like, boundless energy, pushing boundaries. I said bound fucking twice. And then, you know, like Mean Streets is harnessing that into a dramatic context. And then Godfather Part II like just sets the mold for how he's seen forever. - Little bit. - I feel like he was like a phenom. There was obviously Panic and Edel Park happened pretty early and even when people were like, our audience is ready for this guy as a leading man. There was a type he had established in the way he could sort of hold the center in the focus and this nervy sort of unconventional protagonist that was very different than what De Niro was doing up until this point. - You know, I have a question. What do you think is like natural axonist? Because I don't think-- - That's a really good question. - I don't think he has one. I mean, I think he has a voice. And I think like you hear in those, you know, he talks like this. And he has like his kind of gravely and you hear it and the things and it's like, great. But I think that he obviously, you know, from his Italian-American family, he heard some of this in his neighborhood. But I think it's kind of, I think it's kind of a role. I think he's sort of like, you know, what you hear about Peter Sellers, like just kind of a blank. - Right. And then like he would just reflect something, you know, but he was, right, if there was no real guy that you could find, it's interesting. I mean, he is famously one of the worst interviewers, interview subjects alive. - Yes. - Essentially always, although once in a while, you'll see like someone he knows essentially get a little more out of his. - Yeah. - I mean, I don't ask him about our president, Donald Trump, who I support, but De Niro has seen that before. - What does he do? - He applauds on me, hands on me. - He has a couple of nitpacks along the back. - My favorite thing about De Niro is to, and it's really so crazy. - And these guys, to be clear, I don't support Donald Trump. But like, you know, just like when you're like, he's such an amazing actor. He's got such a long legacy. He's like, oh, I watch him as NBC old. I think Trump sucks. You know, like they're just so like regular boomer dance about politics and also every time he gets up and it's like I'm presenting the breakout artist all of the Harris Dickinson, fuck Donald Trump. He does it with an energy is like, maybe this takes him down. Yeah, right. I like him. I think he might be time to say it. Trump no good. Yeah. He's so crazy about it. But then maybe he's the only one who's not crazy about it. I think Bobby's right. Yeah. Absolutely. I was going to say that I have heard people who have worked with Danero in interviews been like, he's very protective of his process. So unlike Peter Sellers, where there was this kind of like, there is no me. I am just weirdly like a conduit for these things. I can't talk about this shit that Danero there like is a very specific process, but it's entirely entirely internalized and that part of it for him is that he feels like it needs to be private. Yeah. So that even the people who are right up next to him are like, there's something going on. It's not just that he's like a savant. It's not just that he's like a cipher. There's intentionality and there's like work and there's effort, but he really doesn't want to talk about what he's pulling from. I wouldn't be able to go out to him be like, would I be able to talk to him about the maths or something? Like what I've never like that's my feel. Like, can I get just chatting? I think like just from like the brief time that I tried to interview him, he's communicating, but it's not in words. It's all in body language, which is really hard to transcribe. Yeah, but he's communicating really well. I just think he's sort of somewhat nonverbal. And so you get this kind of like nonverbal guy who meets motor mouth, Marty. That's also what's so interesting about him being a motor mouth in this. I was struggling to think of another performance where he is this verbal. I mean, like I think of, I don't know where he's nonstop, you know, where is he nonsense? Cause there's like stuff in his later career like silver linings playbook where he has like big kind of like yelling speeches and stuff. But that's that's the that's the denial row explosion. It's the explosion. It's not right. What about the comedian? Huh? I haven't seen his set yet. Have you seen Taylor Hackford's the comedian? No, I missed it. I heard. He does a lot of stand up coming in. And my memory, it's De Niro ask, she's still doing, you know, but I was going to say isn't that like a movie where people go, it feels unnatural to watch you do this. I mean, my brain is erased. It clearly is a trauma response. So yes, uh, that movie is co-written by Jeff Ross. Good. Is he talk a lot in dirty grandpa? Oh, yeah, let me see your ass. I imagine dirty grandpa say, yeah, you know, I have see it. I love dirty grandpa working. Yeah, I doing karaoke. Yeah. And he asks the audience if he can say the N word and they'd say that he can and then he does, right? I've seen that clip. Well, I've just seen that clip because people are posting because the whole thing with De Niro is like he made 200 movies. Yeah, 140 of them are bad. Right. And so you can find these clips. It's like, do you know the De Niro did this? Right. You know, it's like people post Al Pacino doing Dunk a cheetah. Give it a break. De Niro has endless that, you know, the stuff that De Niro has done on screen is wild. But I think you're right. That when he does something that feels outside of these sort of basic cultural understanding of the De Niro archetype, it basically just gets memory washed. People just don't keep that. He's still bulletproof. Right. He could make shit for another hundred years. Maybe will. But even when he does it well, like even when he stretches outside of his sort of obvious movie star persona successfully, I feel like within five years, people are still just reducing him to the ten big. You see an all tone nights. I have. So his two characters in that are either of them big. You know what? Yes. I like one of them is big. I actually think he's very good in Frank Costello is probably the bigger one or like which of the two guys? One of them he is clearly playing peshy. One of them he's playing like more the elderly De Niro archetype. And one of them feels like him doing. It looks so fun to be the Joe peshy guy in a movie because I guess that's the other part of it is peshy starts to be the Johnny boy standing next to the De Niro as the strong silent type, right? As the person who's struggling to communicate with words. That's true. Actually, I will. So I think like I think there's some conflicting stuff in as far as biographies I've said I've read, but I think that they started shooting with Harvey Kitell. And so basically like it was October. The festival was coming. They didn't have all the funding. They didn't have everything together. So they're like, if we don't shoot now, we have to wait till next year and not sure where to do it. So they shot some stuff with Harvey Kitell. And I'm not just this is where I'm not sure. But I think he met De Niro Metzgor Sezi or officially really met at some or at some party at Christmas after that October. And so then he was like, Oh, you can play anything but you can't play Charlie because it's already this. And he was annoyed. And so he wanted to play Charlie. He wanted to play Charlie. Yeah. Then he ran into Harvey Kitell on the street. And they were just like they started laughing. They were just like, Oh, okay, you're an actor too. Well, this is going to be fine. But I think, yeah. So he played the Joe peshy. He played the crazy guy. Right. Right. Right. And that's just something he doesn't get to do much. Alto Nights. He does play the old band version of it. One of his is good as mean streets, right? No, it's bad. Okay. Right. Marty could never. Um, Marty saw all tonight. Do you think Marty sees everything De Niro makes? Like De Niro's like, I made a movie with Sebastian Minnescal. You got to watch it. And he's like, Okay, life is short. I think he watches most of it. Because he watches a lot of movies. Yeah. But it does feel like he's very invested in Bob's career. You know, like it does feel like there's a sense of like, I want to keep up with what Bob's doing. I think De Niro hasn't seen all the movies. De Niro has. Yeah. That's what you guys keep saying that there are in a lot of like a wild card rolls Virginia. Yeah. Like Cape Fear and Jack. But those are like scary guys, right? And it's like, Cape Fear, he is so, so big. That is so true. But like by wild card, I mean the kind of joking, like character in a group of guys where there's the wild card who's kind of like, he might put a fucking firecracker in a mailbox, right? And the guy who's the motor. Yeah. Yeah. And it's like so often. Yes, there's stuff like Cape Fear. But like, like Brazil, he's so funny and weird. Yes. But that movie is, you know, not a reality is really like when he's doing kind of character. Right. And stuff. Even Cape Fear where he's like a lead, but he's obviously not the protagonist of the story. But like in the 80s, in the 70s, it's the godfather two stuff. So it's like 1900 and last. Right. Like all that. In the 80s, it's the raging bull stuff. So I feel like it's like transformation. That's true. But also just like, you know, more like intense scary characters. We don't want to sort him by a analogy here because actually this is there's so much to talk about. Yeah. I know we haven't been started. I know. God. This is all about to do. Yeah. No, because I think you are right. Me or else that really didn't make a lot of movies in the air. But like once a time on a time in America is like that the mission is like the angel heart. He's like stoic characters. And then like the 90s. I've never seen Jack night. Have you ever seen Jack night? That is a classic. I would pull that off the shelf of Blockbuster or the video store all the time being like, what is this movie? Yeah. Be it non bat movie. And so the poster is just a painting of denier with a beard and a Boston red socks hat. He does have a red socks hat. Well, you know, the 90s of like good fellas. Let's let's put Cape Fear aside. But like good fellas, Bronx tale, you know, casino, heat, sleepers, like these movies were thrown in where he's just like the the impassive guy. Yeah. And he also did do like Jackie Brown and this boy's life in Frankenstein. He did a lot of weird shit too. So he's so funny. And but I know it's yeah, and then he break. Oh, yeah, that's another kind of wild card. But I mean, it's like, it's a silent until he breaks. Sexy. That movie makes me laugh. Oh, thank you. I was in. You read my mind. This is his sexiest era. Eat and Jackie Brown. For me, I think this is, I mean, I've thought the 90s era is for you. What about what about midnight run? I don't know about where I think so hot and be so hot. Midnight run is one of his best performances. But I wouldn't say it's hottest. I feel like there's something about that a little bit later. Yeah, just that 90s like that. There's a layer. It's got a mustache. Denier. I love it. Yeah, I think that it's just, I mean, I just think it's objectively his hot his hottest. I mean, someone say this is mean treats. I don't know. Yeah. I guess wag the dog is almost him doing something similar. Fucking great and wag the dog. This, yeah, I love that performance. Like it's he rocks. I know what? That's not so bad. That's our official stance on blank check. I think what is Miriam is what you're saying that like Coppola was mentor to all these guys, right? He watches mean streets and is like, fuck, that's my young Corleone and that's not an obvious move. It was kind of genius to see him and go like, if this guy stops talking, but that energy is still there, it's going to be really captivating to watch. And that's a performance where he doesn't talk that much and all the talking he does is in Italian. And he wins an Oscar basically for physical presence and for how much he's able to communicate just in his body silently. Yeah, before the gang who couldn't shoot straight, he went to Sicily. So to learn Italian. But the characters from Calabria, so I think like was he was he gaming for this like was he? I don't know. Yeah, I think they're gonna do prequel. I'm gonna beat Brando All right, I'm gonna open the dossier actually just so we can stay on track a little bit So mean streets originally called Miriam. Do you know season of the way it's very fascinating, you know, and they Already correctly was like cage is gonna want that. I assume Nicholas Coppola was what like five years old. Yes. Yeah, he was like We'll save that for Nick case. Yes. Is it a reference to the Donovan song? I think that song into the festival right? You know, you know, it's like the kind of like, you know You're playing with the devil. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the way the club is like all red and it's like the underworld or you know Like mean streets is better mean streets is a great title. I don't think great streets can really be beat as a title This is as long just dating passion project. He works on it with his college classmate Marty Martin Sorry, I just want I want to No, no, I wanted to be correct about this the the movie they're watching with Vincent Price yes, that's is that the witch finder general? I mean, that's a classic Vincent Price movie. Yeah, okay. No, I don't think it would be now It's like a dumber of it's a price movie. It's a Roger Cormin movie. Yeah, right. Okay. It's Which is it which kind of general is the Vincent Price movie? That's like really intense. Yeah, like he's performance and it is so Magnificent. It's not trashy. Right, but there is the season of the witch movie. Well, that is a Romero movie that has two titles. No, I mean, it's not okay. Okay. It's not a reference to anything. Okay, so Martin Martin so Martin Martin worked on what on who's that knocking on my door and on New York New York on raging You know like early Scorsese collaborators. Yes, am I saying it right? This is our first episode How do I say it? Scorsese Scorsese Miriam, I feel like you I feel like it's Scorsese I feel like I've heard him say Scorsese and like I saw an old comedian Talking like on the David Letterman show, and he was like Kapola, and he was like Kapola He doesn't know how to pronounce his name. This isn't like the earliest. It's actually right. It's actually Americans don't know how to pronounce there. I mean his name is a transcription error. Yeah, the family was Scorsese or what it's Scorsese with double Zs in Sicily, which means Scottish or something like, you know, in Italian and then it was changed when they, you know, moved Because someone wrote it down wrong or whatever. So it's like the effort to correct the last 15 years has been towards Scorsese Or versus Scorsese, yeah, yeah, you said we used to say Scorsese and that's wrong. Yeah, I think yeah Then I've just been saying that the whole time. Yeah, you're wrong. All right. I think Scorsese, okay, so Do you feel okay? How do you do you feel familiar enough to say Marty? Can we just can we give ourselves permission to call him Marty? Of course. Yeah, you worked with him. I have I called him Marty I have been in his office and screening room. Sure it wasn't there. Yeah But I watched go to the flower moon in his office. I'm sure I'll bring out a familiar more. I was gonna say that's where you saw the Super Mario Galaxy movie So, Marty and him sat down. They work out the structure of this movie. They work out the characters. They work out the incidents I guess who's that knocking at my door? This was a reasonable refers to the a Continuation. Yeah, Anton Donnell style. I'm following this guy Charlie will be my analog across stages, right in life And when this movie came out, he said he was going to make a third film of him settling down and having a family that was Fucking bed and bored or whatever like the third but also like Italian American like I want to represent my family life that I've put into this Documentary through this fictional character. That's interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I think it was I think it was written that never made and it's kind of boring In a fun way. I don't like I read it, but I so he started this means she's in the witch and like Did you say the date like mid 60s right? It's like 65 is where he puts it basically maybe 66 like And obviously it's inspired by his his life a little bit, but as you guys already said like he wasn't in a gang They didn't really get in fights they hung out in bars and picked up girls or whatever But like they didn't even smoke pot. He said like really like you know, we were not like he's got asthma forgot. He's got asthma Didn't really do the hard stuff No, years later, yes, I'd identify his nose He would possibility. Ah, my lungs aren't connected. Well, they are, but I mean It's a less direct route. Yeah Marty has been working to be clear was working on mean streets for a long time before like the godfather Was ever thought of right because when this movie comes out, I think it draws comparisons to the godfather Yes, like Press is probably a little like entirely gangster. Yeah. Yeah, that's an epic film. Obviously. This is the opposite The priest who has the young man test his hand against the flame of a candle that comes from like a retreat. He went on With you know other boys, you know, so that's that's a memory that's that's real as you said Miriam Right, there's someone of one of you to you said like it's really his father. He realized. Yeah, it's the story right film screenplay initially was much harder on the religious aspects uh to make a story of a modern saint in his own society with a society happens to be gangsters but also more reflective of Our friend Marty's personal experience, which was like do I do I go into the parish or do I make movies? You know they all to really being Hold between the two as equal forces rather than in this where it just feels like it's kind of a thing hanging over his head But not the active tug Yeah, so I think like some of the difference so I think some of the religious stuff changed and then also He developed the Teresa character a little more um and then I think I think a big influence on developing the screenplay was um Uh sandy wine trip was his girlfriend at the time right and her dad was Uh studio exec and she's in the film. I think playing Heather wine trap. Mm-hmm. So she said you got to put some more of your funny stories in there You know like I think you had his like things like put in the MOOC story put in the firecracker story put in this kind of stuff. So I think um Yeah, what do you guys think? I mean, maybe we're not ready for that. But what do you think of the women? Look, it is and he talks about it. It's why he Went straight to Alice doesn't live here anymore after this because even from this film people were saying And this guy doesn't really know to put women on screen right like this early on he felt the need to combat that. Yeah, it definitely feels like It's interesting. I think Amy Robbins is really fucking good in this movie. I also think it's interesting that In the way we're talking about This being positioned as an autobiographical film, but him acknowledging I didn't actually really live You know walk the walk and talk the talk of these characters. I watched these guys That her and her epilepsy does feel okay She's Amy Robinson's Teresa. Yes, who is De Niro's cousin right. Yeah, and and Charlie's love interest right Yeah, and she was friends with I think she worked with Depama so she knew like Margot Yeah, she worked on sisters and stuff. Yeah, but her epilepsy feels a little bit like an analog for Scorsese Asma to me maybe yeah, I mean this feeling of here is someone In and of this community who's looking to get just a little bit out. I want to treat it a little like it's not a community Niro's had a like empathetically deal with someone who has a condition, but like you can't be tough You can't be in this action because you're too delicate and everyone being right. Yeah Um read the women. I also just think it's like it is fairly reflective of what I imagine these men Like how they perceived women maybe I mean it's not like who's that knocking street up sexist just garbage Like someone named girl like just a real bad. I would say I mean I think Marty is pretty down on who's that knocking? Like he's like it's kind of sucks like I mean in a nice way, but he's sort of like it's kind of a mess I agree who's that knocking is so juvenile like not and not in like a the humor way or anything It's just like it's just all these Undevelled ideas bouncing around in his head But yeah, I mean like you know look and a pack one will be silently sitting for every episode I already made that clear right? Yes, of course. She's sitting right there and a pack when she won't speak She's a guest on every episode We don't want to hear you complaining about how rarely we ask her questions. Yeah, right. So okay, uh scorsese That's what's interesting to me though is I think he relates a lot to the Teresa character But he's obviously not building the movie around her and she's kind of treated almost like a secret in the film totally Yeah, he's ashamed of her right where she's in the relationship, but the movie hides her In a way that's similar to the way that Charlie treats her. Yes, which is a thing you get into with scorsese It's it is the same with the anapack one thing literally will be a running discussion for like decades of his career Of If he is sidelineing women when is that an oversight or failing of his and when is it a very pointed statement? Yeah, I I think like um Uh, yeah, it's something like people will say that about like and I don't agree with it there, but with Scorsese, it's hard, you know, it's not his string, but I mean, he's gotten into it. Like, he's obviously more recently, killers of a flower moon, interesting. He's grown into it. He's grown. He's like done that, but like, for this film, it kind of feels like, oh, you make a movie, you got to have a woman. Like, you know, like, it's kind of like, you make a dish, put a little salt in it. She's a conflict. She's a story element. It's not really a character. By the way, that's why he says yes to Alice. It's not an I'll prove them thing. It's a, I should work on this, right? Like, if I want to be an actors director, let me figure out different rhythms of actors, not just working with like actors of a different gender, but also just like, here's a different milieu. Here's a different like cultural type. I need to have that range. At this point, he's making films where the women represent what women were when he was growing up, which was these men are obsessed and driven by sex, but also kind of need to compartmentalize it. Yeah, I don't know. It's not as as interested as the the romance, if you will, but I want to talk about the other women who was probably what first drew me to this film in that there's that opening scene where, or it's very early on where Charlie Kytel is like watching the woman who's a stripper, Jeannie Bell, playing Diane, I think. Diane. Yeah, Diane. And it's so beautiful. And you've got these like really beautiful close-ups that are kind of abstracted. And I love this woman. She's so beautiful. I looked her up. She is a fitness influencer. She was the, yes, on Instagram. She was the world's oldest competitive jump rope skipper. Yeah, she was at the time. She was a playboy model. I mean, she's just gorgeous. And she goes by Annie Judas now. You can find her on Instagram. But yeah, I think I love her. I love her presence in this. But, you know, so there's that scene where he's like, well, she's really good looking. She's black. She's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. Yeah, right. But she's like, but she's black. You can like, obviously, doesn't make a difference. And that's, that's Scorsese. I'm pretty sure that's his, because, you know, they, they alternately cutting between Kaitel doing voiceover and him doing voiceover. Yeah, this really personal thing. He's saying that. So I'm going to say, this is my other wild take, is like, this is a film about race. Like, you know, like, there's that with like, then he, like, he stands her up. Like, what is it? Mulinyon? No, it's not. It's another. It's a slur. Yeah, it's a slur. And then he, like, and then there's someone who's kissing an end word. And like, Mulinyon means eggplant. Like, that's the, you know, it's from the Sicilian. I mean, it's a nasty thing to say. I know. And so maybe I should have said the M word. I don't know. But like, I feel like that's part of the religious thing. The changing of his Italian American family, you know, talking about Francis of the CC. But like, what is his real sense of empathy? Because there's these like, dueling ethnic groups. I think that's a key theme in this. I think it's also going back to the little Italy talk. What can founded me about little Italy as a child, but what I didn't understand is like, this is this idea of almost fighting against the melting pot of not just America, but New York specifically, where that's the great promise. But then also it's like, but these five blocks, it's just us. It's just us. And we're going to maintain tradition and evolve tradition to figure out what the Italian American experiences versus the Italian experience, but also Italian gets first billing over American. And so there's that feeling of like, we got to keep everyone at a distance because we can't lose what we are. And even if it's not driven by like racial animosity, I think there's that protectiveness where even just to make a gangster film, a crime film in the 70s and not keeping those things on the sidelines in the same way that you're keeping the women's at the sidelines is like, what this movie is really about, which is sort of like immasculinity crisis of its time. Yeah, I mean, masculine crisis, but so much of identity. So I say, it's about race, but really what I mean is it's about racism. It's a really interesting thing about this movie is that he goes and tries to pitch it to Korman to finance. And Korman's like, yeah, I love that. Can you make it a black exploitation? Oh, yeah. Can you take this same script and like cast it with black actors because that is invoked right now that that there had been enough successful black exploitation films that he was like, that's sellable. The Italian American version of this movie doesn't really have a precedent, especially before Godfather came out, but even post Godfather, it's like, well, that's Tony, that's sort of the class of the old Mafioso kind of thing. You know, he says like, I said I consider it because you always have to say you consider anything, but I don't know that I really would have known how to make that movie. And it goes against the exercise of what's driving him to make this in the first place, which is what we're saying, like, what's the most personal thing I can make? What's the thing I understand the most? And the blind spots of this movie are, I think a self-conscious awareness of what he doesn't understand if that makes sense. Yeah, you know, like he was the one of his teachers at NYU, or maybe he was just called Washington Square University or something. But like, head said, you know, make, make what you know. And he said there was no one else like him in his classes. Like there's no one else that was from this like, you know, lower than the class. I know. And like, again, a few blocks away. Right. Yes. Yes. It was a whole different world. Yeah. And then my you was not what we think of it as, you know, now at all. No, he also said like, he'd be going and like studying like English literature and then meeting his childhood friends at clubs that are like the clubs you see in this movie. Right. Yeah. Like they were too completely disconnected worlds, even though they were five blocks away from each other. Yeah. He said they're like, uh, Danero says when he brings the wine-trop girls, he's like, they're from the village, you know, like this other world. Yeah. So he brings Mean Street to AFI. They are just starting their feature program. And he says the outline he'd written was ridiculous. There was no female character basically at all. It had no characters. It had basic elements. Gets turned down there. He takes his joke, Brenner, who's a sex film distributor. Who's the guy who distributed? Who's that knocking? And he said, no, probably because it's just not, you know, sexy enough. One of the old professors at NYU told him, hey, no one wants to see phones about Italian Americans anyway, so forget about it. So that's like a soup not the guy who's encouraging him. Yeah. It's like he's shopping around a genre film that doesn't conform into any of the sellable areas of genre at this point in time. Totally. I mean, he invents a kind of movie here. He does. He does. Right. So instead, he works obviously on Woodstock, editing Woodstock, which is, you know, a formative, of course, as he thing. And he enters Roger Corman's orbit. We talked, you know, we talked about all that last week, I'm sure. So, yeah, Boxcar worth a Jay Cox, who's working at the New York Times. Cox spelled like the cool way. Multiple penises. Right. He's the one who shows John Cassivelli's who's that knocking in my door. And Cassivelli's response to it and says, like, what's the film you're dying to make? And he's like, I have this thing, but it needs a rewrite in Cassivelli says, well, rewrite it then. Right. You know, like, what are you waiting for? Cox, obviously, he's a guy who works with Scorsese a bunch, you know, over the years. But, but that's also very indicative about why Scorsese or why Cassivelli said the like you wasted a year of your life but making a piece of shit because he knows the thing he wants to make. Right. Totally. So Sandy Wyntrobe, obviously, he's dating at the time. She's the one who says, right, put in, put in the funny stuff, take out the religious stuff. So he puts in the pool hall. He puts in the the MOOC scene of the firecrackers and all that stuff. It ends up in Korman's hands. Korman is basically like, I've just made the cool breeze, which is like, it was sort of like a black exploitation asphalt jungle. And so he's the one who's like, yeah, could we make this a black exploitation movie essentially like it all black cast. And Scorsese is like, I don't think so. He's still. Korman does still eventually agree to distribute the film, but then Warner Brothers ends up distributing it. So I guess like Korman backs out when it becomes more of a real thing. And Scorsese. But there's a tribute to Korman. Yes. A lot of Korman crew. I mean, this is one of those movies where when you get into it, it's like the money appeared and then disappeared like six times. It kept coming together and falling apart, but it would happen in quick enough rotations that the movie never fully collapsed. J. Cox was married to Verna Bloom, who I remember best as being teamworms or his wife in Animal House. Sure. My version of the way you're describing Goodfellas Miriam a movie I watched way too many times before I was 10 because my father basically treated it as the Bible. Yeah. But she was the one who I think helped locate the money that freed him from being dependent on Korman. It costs about a hundred and fifty thousand dollars. I think Jonathan Tapplin is also very important who is the touring manager for the band. That's why I believe Verna Bloom. Blue introduces them. Right. She started that he was talking to Korman and that he was that he felt like I can see Marty in a month starting to bend on his principles in order to get the money he needs. And it's going to dilute the movie he actually wants to make. So she goes breathe on. Yes. Yes. She finds the money in a way that wouldn't make him have to. Well, Constantly justifies decisions. You'll make it in Cleveland. Yeah. Then the money falls through and then, right, and then they end up with $175,000 and they get some other stuff from like CFI labs. I don't know. They scrape money together. They, obviously, he had written Charlie for Harvey Kytel because it was essentially going to be a sequel to who's that knocking, like you guys said. And then he decided to separate it, which is smart. Right. At one point John Void is involved, but then they shoot the festival stuff before they even start doing pre-production. And that point Harvey is basically locked in. John had already done midnight cowboy. And apparently Void says to Scorsese, like, I'm too famous. Like you need unknowns. Like you need like this needs to feel real or whatever. There's the other thing, which is we were talking about it when you came in, David. And I was watching. There's a Q&A discussion between. We were watching a link later interview. Link later in Scorsese, Rick and Morty. And it was a series called Game Changers that the DGA was curating of like movies that changed the industry. And Link later was like, this is the definitive Game Changer for like filmmakers taking their careers into their own hands and self-realizing what they want to do. But he was talking to him about how much of this movie was shot in LA, which is the craziest fucking thing that like more than 90% of the film was shot in Los Angeles. Right. And the New York exterior stuff they did, especially San Gennaro, is so impactful. And then Scorsese finds the right locations in LA without building sets that he can sort of double that you don't question it when you're watching it. And Link later is asking him where you concerned at all about like the concession of needing to move to LA. And if you were going to lose some of the authenticity in the character. And Scorsese was like, why wasn't concerned because we just didn't have money? So I need to make a move. We just need to make the movie. There was like no principal stance that could be taken. But the other thing he said was he kept saying, but I got the guys. I knew that's the whole thing. The New York guys did a provol. They find him at this John Void workshop as with Richard Romano's, but they're both Brooklyn, they're New York guys. These guys have a share of languages from New York. If I put them in the same room, even if that room's in LA instead of New York, they're going to talk like they're in New York. That's what the audience will connect to. They shot, they did 10 days of rehearsals in New York. They shot all the interiors in Los Angeles, a fair amount of the X series, including the big crash at the end too. Then they did some hallways and the beach in New York. And the weirdest, we were talking about this before recorded the when Da Niro shooting the gun on the roof, the roof is New York, because you can see the Empress dip building, but the window is Los Angeles. And so like there's no establishing shots, right? There's no like they didn't have time for that. They shot the whole movie in about 27 days. This movie has so much accidental language like that, where there's something that you don't even clock the first time about the fact that it's not giving you those establishing shots, that you're just in the places without a feeling of being eased into them. That is just a result of them not having the time to shoot establishing shots in New York, but it becomes its own language. And then the handheld stuff is just like we didn't have time for fucking tracking shots. We didn't have money for the equipment to do anything more complicated. And you need longer shots. You need scenes playing out longer takes. And you need the camera being able to just move really quickly from one focus to the other, because that's the only way we're getting our pages done. And the DP on this movie remind me his name. So the DP on this movie's name is Kent L. Wakeford, which is first movie. He was like a commercial director. Done documentaries and stuff. I think like with the handheld Altman famously thought at, or I don't know how famously, but saw it in New York Film Festival and said that if he would have done tracking shots instead of the handheld and Scorsese, it was just like, well, if we had, we'd still be shooting it now. Right. Right. Right. The other thing Wakefield said was like there was Wakeford. Wakeford that there was no intentional strategy, but then even when they started watching Dailies, it was like, oh, this feels anxious. Yeah. This is a camera language that we've landed on just out of necessity, but it actually is reflecting the energy we want, so then they lean into it. And everything is like that where it's like, we're doing it this way because we don't have any other options. And then they look at it and they're like, this is a miracle. This actually is better than we could have planned. I don't know how he feels about it now, but I think immediately afterwards, he kind of thought versus he thought it was like a little sloppy, you know. But like, it's what I love about it is how like handmade it is. And for me, this is going to be my wildest take of all, but to me, I prefer this to the Godfather. I mean, they're very similarly about like, there's such different movies. It's like, this is the the termite Godfather. Yeah. It's just like, the Godfather's like the porterhouse and this is a burger or whatever. You know, like, I mean, they're they're so different. Like I love them together. I've never loved the Godfather while also never denying its power. Like, I have no complaints about it, but it's just not it's for how we're going to not movie. It's fine movies. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's not you. That was a big movie for team David. I cannot. Yeah. I love the Godfather's great. But I love this. This is way more my vibe. It's also like that roughness you're talking about is like what people are still chasing today. Like the safties careers are built on. Can we figure out a way to get back to that feeling? Wait, which I was wondering which safties movie is mean street? Is it Daddy Longley? Yeah. It's Daddy Longley. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because that's the personal one. Yeah. Yeah. It's the personal one. And like, it's like something like heaven knows what is so about like drugs and like addiction stuff. Like that's more fucking, you know, New York, New York, or I don't know. And that they all weirdly become like, what is their New York New York? What am I talking about? I think an idiot. You go ahead day long. No, Marty Suprem is there couldn't done. No, I was I was just going to say that the other movies become kind of genre movies. Yeah. Because they start to get so into the kind of like chase structure. Right. The outrunning thing. Which this has that narratively of like when is shit going to catch up to Johnny Boy? But the movie doesn't have the narrative engine of they're getting closer. I said this to you and I came in. Read the Wikipedia synopsis. It's four paragraphs. The final three paragraphs of the last 15 minutes of the movie, there's nothing else. There's no plot in the movie before that. The first paragraph is a bird's eye. It's like, you know, Charlie Linson, little Italy, and he's dating this girl and he's got Johnny Boy and all that. And then it's to retort between Catholicism and gangsters and then it's like to 15 minutes. Anyway, at the end, they try to fucking get somebody from Johnny Boy and it all pops off. Like that's all that happens in the movie. There's no complex structure here. Yes. I mean, it's just about like the ending, the end or banish. And I feel like that happens and I like not to bring about this. I feel like that happens in it too. They like end up leaving. That is like like daddy long legs. But yeah, like it's yeah, not all that happens. It's just it is kind of a hangout movie. And I think hang out in the club with Johnny Boy and the boys hang out with the mob a little bit. And then you hang out in the church and you hang out with Theresa and her apartment. I was also thinking a lot while watching this of Mikey and Nikki. Oh, it's like here's the one who's a little bit more of a straight arrow, there's the fuck up. I can't you fucking stop it. Right. And as much as that's like a one crazy night movie that has hangout elements, that movie is also a funeral march. That movie has the narrative engine of you know, this is going somewhere bad. Yeah, even streets even though everyone's kind of saying like you got to get Johnny Boy under control. It doesn't feel like it's pushing you towards some obvious outcome. Mikey and Nikki also, you're kind of like they've been doing this dance for so long. They're older. Right. This is become untenable like. Yeah. It means streets it's a little right. They're young. And it's just kind of this like you got to pick your friend's moment of like are you really going to stick with this guy? Like can you be a grownup? That's the thing. It doesn't feel like well, obviously this movie is going to end with either Johnny Boy getting killed or killing everyone else. You're like, there's a scenario in which this guy just stops hanging out with Johnny Boy and that's the end of the movie. It's Johnny Boy fun. Do we want to hang out with Johnny Boy? He's really fun to watch. When I was a younger man, I used to just love the chaos of the character. I mean, this is always sort of about when you start to get a little beat, you know, like, hey, could we actually just hang out without you doing something insane? Like one time, right? Getting a little bored of it. One of my best friends in high school was very much a Johnny Boy. And I was I was very much the Charlie to his side. Yeah, I would gravitate to those types because they're fun and exciting. There was something about the like adjacency to danger. Even if I never was that you're not getting it to danger and anything. I felt like I was the one sort of trying to moderate him. But there was something I don't know as a very neurotic anxious person about watching someone right next to you cross the lines constantly, you know, or just like push things to the extreme. But I see it now and he's just so sad and clearly suffering. Johnny Boy. Yeah, yeah, he's easy. Wow. Because I think he's suffering because he is stuck. He is stuck in his position. Yeah. He really he can't get the job right? Right. With Charlie's uncle Charlie keeps denying him because he's too chaotic. The mom doesn't want that. Like they don't want those guys. Right. But he can't be honorable like his friends. Right. Sure. I might take a slightly different which is that he everyone's looking at him like, is this guy fucking dumb? Doesn't he realize that he's like putting his neck out there, right? That that he's not playing this. That he's should's going to catch up to him of them. And I think for him it's like, what's the fucking alternative? - Right. - What's the end game? There's not like, none of the options available to me seem interesting, so why don't I just do what's fun to me? Like, I think it's less that he's saddened that he's trapped and more that there's something he finds freeing and the idea of like, then I'll just like, fucking be an instinctual kidnist in a way, you know? Like, let me do whatever is most interesting to me at any given moment, because the long game just doesn't seem worth playing to me. The long game is a dead end job. - Right, right, yes. - So when I'm making this, we just want to say, in the lower side, the few days that they are, people would come up to them and see the title on the clapper. And be like, the movie, not the wrong would these streets. - Call it nice streets. - Yeah, these streets are so mean. - Yeah. - Put your fucking problem. - They get to a fight with them. - What is the matter with you? - He sees the title as an homage to like, Cagney, you know, right, like, to a one of those gangster movie or whatever. - Wait, I think it has a different reference. - It's a Raymond Chandler essay called The Simple Art of Murder and it has the line, but down these mean streets, a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid. - So it's about, it's about Charlie. - Yeah, that makes sense. - So the mean street is about like, yeah. - But it also, I mean, Scorsese is the one saying, like, I was trying to make a kind of homage to those gangster movies of like, you know? - Yeah. - It's a punchy title. - But Jay Cox showed him the essay and said, like, that's a good fucking title. - Right. - And it does have that kind of-- - By the season of the witch. - But it has that thing like white heat where you're just like, those two words are interesting together. - Oh man, white heat's so normal. - I love that movie. Well, speaking of, can we talk about the gangster movies? - Yes, yes. - Because I think something that he said is that the big movies, the big like Warner's movies, that they would watch were public enemy and little Caesar. And he said that he hated little Caesar. He thought it was like vulgar, very overdone, heavily acted, but loved public enemy. - Little Caesar's ever G-Robins, right? - Ever G-Robins did, so that's Mervyn LaRoy. And then public enemy is William Wellman. So this was the other person who's really important for this movie and for Scorsese is Andrew Saras. And the kind of cinema guy, the Autorus. 'Cause when these guys were coming up, it was Andrew Saras and these French guys were appreciating all these movies that they grew up with. They were like junky movies. Movies that at the time were not seen. - Yeah, they were being disjointed. - On TV. - Crime movies, Western Hollywood. - Totally, they were, yeah, they were like, and so he was figuring out the ones that he liked and the ones he didn't. And so he was gonna, no offense to Mervyn LaRoy, but he was not a Mervyn LaRoy guy. He was like William Wellman guy. He was a fuller guy. He was a Hawks and Ford guy. So that's really important to figuring out the films, the same films that all feel junky, but some of them are really good and some of them are not. And he was specifically, public enemy was about Irish people, but he was like, we can still relate with this. Like even though it's about Irish gangsters. - Right, 'cause that's Kagmy. Public enemy is like young Kagmy. - Public, yeah, exactly. And it's like what he was really, there's actually also some like street noises. I don't think it's a festival, but something like that. He said he was really influenced by the way that film used popular music in the background. So it was not score, it was source music. The last shot is a record player. - Sure. - And like that was like important for him. So it was important for him to bring in the music. 'Cause we talked about Jonathan Kaplan, but Jonathan Kaplan probably also helped get all this music. - He was the music supervisor. - Right, this was the soundtrack he wanted for who's that knocking at my door. He was always like my movies are gonna have a soundtrack that reflects the music of my life. He did not have the budget to get any songs for that movie. - Yeah. - This one he said it somehow was only like $65,000, $75,000 for the soundtrack of which $15,000 was just to the rolling stone. - So 30. - So yeah, the stones was 15 each. Is that have both Jump and Jack Flash and tell me. - Yeah. - They have Be My Baby, which is the most important one. - Yeah. - And they have very similar, you know. But like Be My Baby was the one that he was like that, obviously was the song. Like we needed that one. - Yeah. - Those female singing groups right before the Beatles. Like that's his music. - Link later said a thing in that DJ talk. I thought was really interesting where he was like, there are things like Easy Rider that come before this that have famous soundtracks and contemporary soundtracks. He was like every other music, movie that used popular songs up until this point, it felt like the soundtrack was above the movie. - Right. - And Mean Streets to Me feels like the first movie where the music is coming out of the film. - Yeah. - And Scorsese said, like yeah, it was important that it's like you're seeing even when it's not supposed to be diogetic within a scene, that you get the sense that it could be. And that often enough, you point at, this is coming from a jukebox or whatever. - It does invent this shit. - It does. - You can hear the pop in the hiss. - Yes, yes. - He said this thing for actually his record. - Right, right. - Yes. - With bringing a baby. - Which is a huge difference, right? It's not for a baby. - Not for a baby. - Not for a baby. - Bringing a baby. The music thing, it was saying it to my wife last night, I was just like, I know this sound so boring, but no one had ever done this before. - No, it's so true. - Like it seems like the most, like what do you mean no one had ever put pop music in a movie before? But it's like kind of no one really done that yet. - Not this way, not in this sort of, but the thing is, it's hard to watch this movie and not see all the people who ripped it off, like Sam Levinson, like you have all the terrible copies that we've gotten. We've gotten so far, all the, all the, all the horror. - Sam is one of our great returns. He just released a magnificent new season of his great show Euphoria, right? - We've got, like, we've, and you know, the horror movies with the ironic pop music, you know? And like, this sort of-- - And every trailer would like the slow down, like hit songs or whatever. - Oh. - Yeah, it's a bit of a feature. - Someone's definitely done that, right? Has someone done that? - And then the film flickers and then a knife cuts. - I think it's in, I haven't seen it, but I think it's in like Barbarian or something, right? I think maybe it's there-- - There's a lot of baby stuff in that movie, it wouldn't make sense. - Yeah, it's in Barbarian, yeah. - Oh, okay. - And so, but like the thing that's interesting is that, like, and then all the guys, the better than Sam Levinson, I feel like all the Gen X guys, all these like mixed tape guys, you know? All these like-- - Thinking while watching this, it is crazy how much of this movie is in the DNA of the early Wes Anderson stuff. - Yeah, Wes Anderson, KCA, honestly, Tarrantino. - And much more. - Also, Sophia Coppola, like these are people who wrote to mixes, to like pop mixes. But the thing is, those were from all over. Those were like from all over, you know, and that was, they were from all errors. And it really was like a mixed tape or something. It was like, and they would write in the same way, Scorsese would, to like write the scenes to these songs. But the thing that's different about me is, is it's capturing a specific era. It's like present tense. It's capturing the '60s in the early '70s. And like, those songs, Phil Spector and those stones have been used in these like other kind of mixed tape things, but this is something we've gotten away from, which is like-- - It's evocating a specific era. - I mean, that's what like Linklater does with Dazen Confused. You know, it makes sense that he talks about how much that soundtrack felt like eye-opening to him. But, you know, Scorsese won our mark madness thing. - Marty. - It almost came down to him and Wes Anderson. - True. - And there was a nerd part of me that really wanted to see that match up happen for the final two, because there's that article I'm obsessed with that I think Esquire Magazine did in 1999, that was, who's the next Scorsese? We've decided, or Cessi is the definitive filmmaker of the last 50 years, you know, the second half of the 20th century. - This is after Bottle Rock. - And they had like a bunch of, it was like the Wachowskies were. - People made their case. They asked like a bunch of different film scholars and critics, and then they asked where Cessi and he said Wes Anderson. He said Wes Anderson off of Bottle Rocket and Rushmore. And when she-- - I can, shall I tell you all the nominees, 'cause it's crazy. - Yes, I know. - And Traceris nominated Kevin Smith. - Yes. - Which his essay is fascinating, because he's like, I know this one sounds crazy. - Right. - It's basically on the strength of chasing Amy and if he pursues this. - Yeah. - It's time from Paradise, what? - I don't know, I don't know. - Kevin's trying to nominate David O'Rossel, which is interesting 'cause David O'Rossel, I could see that at that time. - But that's from more obvious, this guy is going for that nervy comic energy. - Todd McCarthy nominated Paul Thomas Anderson. - Sure. - Tom Carson nominated Alexander Payne. - Sure, although I don't really see that who Payne's work at all, but okay. Elvis Mitchell nominated with Chowskies, which I think is a fun pick by Elvis. And then Marty says, Wes. - And he, you know, after Jean Seiskel dies, Squirtz says he does the best of the decade, episode with Ebert. - Yes, that I've watched it multiple times. It's so good. - But he puts Bottle Rocket on his like, top 10 of the 90s, he was like one of the early champions, and I think versus a lot of these filmmakers who were more clearly influenced by Squirtz says he in the type of film they were making in the subject matter. He saw like, this guy is making movies about his own life in his own worldview that is more analogous to what I did, and also the way he is experimenting with form and language. And this movie is, it's obviously not symmetrical, but like bottle rocket and Rushmore are a lot rougher around the edges than everything becomes from rural tan bombs on. And even just like the colors of the bar and the energy of the characters in their costumes. - Yes. - It's like so much of Wes Anderson starts here weirdly. - You know, never seen the horse thief. I haven't either. - You know, on that list. And he's like, my number one is this like Tibetan movie called the horse thief. And I'm like, I've always like, I gotta watch that. - Well, so do you have on the puppet master? - He, he's got a Malcolm X Fargo crash bottle rocket breaking the waves, badly tenant, eyes wide shut, thin red line, borrowed life and the horse thief. Barred life is a, is a Chinese or Taiwanese movie that I've also seen. (upbeat music) Mean streets, should we talk about it? 'Cause I mean, I've talked about the production just, just plenty of that film. - Yeah, well let's talk about, let's, well, like back to the, what you were saying about us about Wes Anderson and about this is being a very personal thing. I mean, I think they're both also big fans. They're big supporters of like classic films. You see those references there. But they're also just like, finding like a color and movement to express emotion and biography. - Right. - Kind of what Scorsese has said about this and like the, you know, the commentary for the criterion, I think from the old commentary when I first saw it in like 2004 or something. He says, it's hard for it to describe this as a film. He feels like instead, it's like the final culmination of everything I was to do and who I am. - Yeah, yeah. There's that synthesizing of personal experience and all the films he had studied. And even you talking about him trying to study and figure out which gangster films dug in on him and which ones bounced off of him. It's like, well, there's two silos. It feels like they're the people where he's recognizing the craft. He's recognizing the formalism of what they're doing and how they're able to express contradictory things through the language of the filmmaking. And then there's the people like fuller where it's like, what's going on with this guy? You know, there's like some psychology that's seeping into the movie of a personality that you cannot get out of their system, even if they're doing for higher work. - For sure, but for fuller was also specifically the movement. And that's when we're talking about this film and we're talking about the difference between like, who's that knocking? This film moves. It has like this like dynamic and I think you called it like an involved camera. And obviously we talked about it's like handheld. We've got that weird, he's got Harvey Ketchel like on a dolly and in some way. - Yeah, we're sharing it through. - But he's drunk. - That's so fun, yeah, I love that shot. - Like before there was steady camera. They invented it, like there's thing. But he said he was really inspired by Fuller, specifically like shot corridor and like park row 'cause there's all this like movement part. - Yes. - Are you kidding me? - I've seen it for a quarter. - I've never seen park row. - Master. - Yeah, gotta watch it. - God, it's a master part. - I'm not a huge fuller, like I like Fuller a lot, but I'm not an expert at fuller. I feel like I've seen like three or four fuller movies. - I wanna hit fuller those. - I'm a loser, I am. - Fuller blind check. - If you review of that film, just listing all the classic cocktails. - Oh interesting. - So many. - Anyway, it's a great movie. Yeah, so it was again like for Fuller, it was like the movement. - But hiring a documentary DP, and Scorsese also having come off of being a cameraman himself on Woodstock where he's holding a camera and feeling that urgency of fuck, something's happening here. Can we catch it in time? - Yeah. - Like the movie has that energy despite being a scripted film. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. - The camera being worried it's not going to catch the thing. - Yeah, I mean, he was editing Docs the Scorsese was, so it totally makes sense that that combination of that. But it's interesting, because this guy, I don't know, I saw an interview and he was talking, they were asking him about the lighting setups and stuff. I just get the feeling that Scorsese told him what to do, because he was saying, "Oh, why the red in the, in the bar?" And he's like, "That's just what it seemed like to me." I'm like. - Like, how am I? I, this is totally Marty, this is, this is, this is, this is Dool in the Sun. This is the red shoes. - Right, right. - This isn't gone with it. This is Marty. - I do also agree with him that that's how bars feel. If you take a picture in a bar, it might not look like this. - Yeah. - But that's what it feels to be inside a bar. - No, it's true. - Also, they're the movement and the energy of the movie feels like versus Altman who's like, you know, a god for me, but what I love about the Altman tracking shots is they do feel like a god telling you, this is the interesting thing. You might not be drawn to this at first, but I'm slowly going to push your focus over here. Mean Streets is like a panic of, can this movie keep up with its characters, you know? You feel the urgency and also the stress of, they might be moving too fast, they might leave the frame. - Well, and Charlie is so alienated from, or is it so increasingly alienated from his, his only world, which is these bars and these streets, these, yes, mean streets. And like, I think it's just like shots like the Dolly shot just so good at making him feel a little alienated or separate in a way, like it's so, yeah. And then just then the calm of the church, like, I would hang out of the fucking church. Like if I was, like if I had to grow up in Malibu, it looks nice, sure. - It's quiet. - Yeah. - Right. - It's just like, okay, finally, I can like read a book and sit down. Well, so Scorsese is like a kid where the asthma is so bad that it's like, if I get a fight I might die. You know, like if someone punches me the wrong way, and it takes a while for someone to pull my body up. - It's in the dock and it's in all, you know, it's like they, he was born in flushing, right? And then they were kicked out of Queens because his dad, like, got in a fight with the local, like mom. - And then the dockies, like that felt like being kicked out of paradise. - You kicked out of paradise. - And like you, like he was paired in this movie, just like I just want the wide open streets of flushing. It's like how do I survive? - I'm still in an urban environment, but I just why long for like the relatively open skies. - Yeah. - I mean, and obviously, you know, that's not a plot in this movie, but like the way he makes New York feel in the like the San Gineris, like shots and all that, just like, it's alive and it's cool. And I'm watching it being like, ah, fuck it, yeah, New York, this rocks, but like it's overwhelming. - But he also, I mean, so I'm saying interview, maybe it was a known later thing as well that like the entire social life was built around these after hours clubs, where ostensibly what was driving you was the pursuit of women, but women were rarely at these places. - Why would they fucking go? - And you were hoping that one might show up. - And he wanted to accident that. - Bring Rolling Rock with degenerates. - Right. - So he's like more often, you're there with degenerates and you're either recounting your victories with women in the past, or probably bullshit, or you're telling people your aspirations of what you want to do with women someday, or you're just like getting in a fight over pool. - Right. He said, all these people still basically live with their parents, because even though they were driven by sex, it was like, if you're living on your own, that's an admission that you're living in sin. Right? It's like the only reason you would have your own apartment is so you could have sex there, which is the thing you like can't do. - Sounds cool. - Even if you're talking about it all the time, you can't be that visible about it. And like he was like the guys who moved, moved around the corner. You know? - Yeah, yeah, sure. - Like the idea of moving to the village. - Oh, it's the old joke. Like you bid your mother good, tearful goodbye, give her a big hug and then you move downstairs. - Right. - You move to the apartment downstairs. - Any implication is you need your own space, you know, and maybe it's more you need private space because the work you're doing is violent and unseemly and you need to hide that from your parents, but also they're close enough that your mom's going to fucking come over and make your bed and do your laundry. You're still basically, it's like living in their garage, you know? - Does Johnny Boy just need money because he's a gambler? Like that's where he's blowing his money. - Yeah, I think so. - It's mostly just that, right? Like he's just like on the horses or whatever. - Because he's always trying to get ahead. - I know. It's tough, but there's no end goal. Like it's important that Johnny doesn't want to like open a barber shop. - Right, he's not, you know what my dream is to someday make enough money that I can move the boysy, you know? - But he doesn't, there's a part of my dream because he just doesn't see any path forward. His friends are business owner, right? The other one's working for his uncle. The other one is like, I guess making his way up as well as being a made guy and he's just kind of stuck. He's the loser of the group, the Caribbean bar fight, right? That basically plays out with out dialogue largely and is like brother actors and ending in a debt. - I don't care. - 30 highlighting action. - David and Robert. - Yes. - Yes, yes. - And that's what these guys- - Recently debt diet, Robert, right? - RIP. - Yes. - But that's what these guys are witnessing and it's like, so right, at any fucking moment, a guy can just walk in here drunk with some petty grievance and shoot you and it's over. Like what's the fucking point? There is that even if you're trying to stay clean out of this stuff and you're not becoming a made man or working, you're a jacency to these things puts you on the battle front to a certain degree. And Squarespace said that that scene is based off of a thing that happened at one of those clubs in his 20s. he was like, and we went to the other club that night, but it was like a coin flip. There were two places that we went back and forth to, and we picked the other one, and then heard the next day, did he hear some guy just came in? He got drunk, and he was upset, and he shot that dude, and that guy's dead. And it's like, it could have been us by the difference of like, which block we walked out. - Are we in trouble? Are we off course? - No, we're fine. - This is what this podcast is for better than this. - Also like, what are the big scenes should we be talking about? 'Cause again, this is not a film with a very, very, you know, - Let's talk. - Let's talk about, I just how personal it is. Like from the very beginning, we have like a scene about German lenses and Jeff adapters. - Yes. - Like, you know, we've got, we've got super eight footage. We've got, you know, it's so about Marty. I just, yeah, I love the, I love the MOOC scene. - The MOOC scene, there's a fight that he witnesses at a bar, which is what happens in the movie. And it starts with a bartender called you, called me a MOOC and everyone starts fighting. And then someone says, what's a MOOC? And the guy's like, I don't know. Yeah. - What's a MOOC? - You know, I looked it up. Like, what is it? - It means big mouth. - Big, is it? Okay. - It's like neapolitan, like sort of slang for like talking too much, big mouth. - Interesting. - Yeah, yeah. - There's a reddit thread that is like every possible iteration of, like they're like did, did, screw say the invention or where did it come from. And it obviously goes somewhere, but it's, it's, um. - According to Marty, he later realized, he didn't know at the time, that it's neapolitan. - Yeah. - And he is a Sicilian, you know, the Sicilians of Nepal, Neapolitan's always hated each other and Neapolitan's, you know, Naples. And like, it was a neapolitan word for like, a loud mouth Sicilian, a MOOC, like MOOC. - I mean, it is that thing. And I've learned this a couple of times, unfortunately, on Mike, on this podcast. But as someone who was raised on like Bugs Bunny and like old comedy shit, I was like so obsessed with all the slang of mid-20th century guys. And then you unpack it and you're like nine out of 10 are like racially charged. - Yeah. - Like all these sort of up yours names that the Wisecracken characters will throw at people. But you're right, that people don't even understand what they're saying. - It's, yeah. - And it's like throwing these Molotov cocktails and not quite sure what the impact of them are. - Well, you brought Wes Anderson, one of my favorite sort of generic unknown racial epithets when in Royal Ten and Bums when he's like, "Did you just call me Coltrane?" - Yes. - And one of the fucking funniest things is in any Wes Anderson movie ever. - It's so good. - It's kind of things where you're like, "Is that racist?" - It feels bad. - So the way it reacts, it feels pretty racist, yes. - Right. - No, it's so great though. But I love these sort of like, it sort of abstracts some of the language we use. But I have to say, I did say it was about racism. I do wanna do my due diligence and say that Mean Streets was the first film to be rated by Core the Congressional Congress on racial equity. - Yeah, it was the first one. And it was declared extremely offensive for its black perspective and because of the stripper and the policeman who's like, "Takes a ride." - Oh, sure. - I don't know if I agree with that. I mean, I think I would think, I would say, I mean, again, I really do think it's about these like, you know, these unknown racial episodes is about, it's about racism. It's about like that with morality. But I will say what I do find really offensive is the gay couple. That's just, - Oh, sure. Yeah, that's just, that must be so far from Marty's understanding at this point. - Yeah. - I don't think of gay characters in Marty movies. - Well, so we should call it. "Deniro's father was gay." - "Deniro's father was gay." - Yes, that's another fascinating part of it. - I don't know how much that's being discussed at the time. - No, no, no, no, but that's what I'm saying. Like, "Deniro does have a model in his life." And obviously, he was married to a woman at one point. He was out later in his life, although it was sort of more quietly. Who knows what "Deniro" knows about his father at this point, what his father self-identifies as him, whatever, but his father was a man he lived with who was a more realistic, you know, version of a West Village artistic homosexual man in the '60s, '70s. And this movie presents what feels like the most kind of laughing version of that character. - Wait, "Side Hack, do you know his mom dated Manifarber?" - No, "Deniro's mom?" - Yeah, and like when they were just like, you know, bohemians in the village and stuff. So I had said that this was like the termite, like to the godfather. So that's like Manifarber is one of the great film critics in the whole termite versus white elephant is him. And I guess Manifarber came up to, he really liked Mean Streets. I don't know what point he reviewed it, but he really liked it. At one point, he came up to Deniro at a party and was like, "Ah, I remember you when you were a kid in like 14th Street and Deniro just ran away." - Wow. Yeah, 'cause I guess his parents split up pretty early. Right? - Yeah. - I think there's something too of like, what, I guess these guys would be like the regeneration Americans, theoretically, these guys? - Yeah. - Like, like their grandparents came, you're saying. Their grandparents immigrated. - Yeah, right. I know you mean. - Their grandparents immigrated probably with their parents as young adults. - Yeah, I mean, well, Marty's parents were, well, Kathryn was born in New York. I forget about the dad, Charles. - Second or third? - Yeah, he was born in New York. - Yeah, they're parents were immigrants. - Yeah. - This sense of this inherited tribalism that isn't even actually motivated by anger in talking about like the racial dynamics of this movie, that it feels more like they're just worried about. I don't understand what's going on outside of these three blocks, these clubs, the 10 people I know, you know? - It feels deliberate. Yeah, it feels like really this changing, like you were saying this time period. - Right. And even the kind of like rep black hop character, it feels like what is driving him is just like, I just don't even wanna have to deal with you guys. - I love that guy. - The way he like accepts the bribery is just like, can you please just make it easy for me to disengage from this? - Yeah. - I wanna just let this be whatever the fuck it is. - That's so funny, he's like, yeah, I'm going to Jersey. You know what, actually I'm going to Philly. - Right. - But the way he swears is just kind of exhausted in being like actually more money. I changed the ride home. That's where I think the movie is kind of knowingly about how limited their worldview is. - I mean, they live in like forced box. - Right. - The way Teresa's character talks about moving up town, she's leaving the country exactly like I mean. Of course, as he said, that'd be the equivalent of a girl telling you she was moving to Ohio. You're never gonna see her again. That's impossible. - Right. - Can we talk about Kitelle bit? - You know what? - I mean, I assume we, we're recording this one a week before, is that not because Miriam's in town. - Soon we talked about Harvey a little bit. - Yeah. - But Harvey very important. From this moment on, now that he's discovered De Niro, Kitelle becomes more of a stock company player and more often he is presented as a villain or a rival. - Like he's in Alice and taxi driver. - But he's right. He's a fucking pedophile pimped taxi driver. He's literally Judas. But between taxi driver and last temptation, he doesn't work with Martin. - Right. And then is there anything between last temptation and Irishman? - I was trying to remember if there was like one thing. Maybe not. - It feels like every time he uses him after that, other than Irishman, which feels like a kind of like, isn't this nice to put them all at the same table again? - I know. - The other ones it feels like what he's using Kitelle to be like, "I want to show that this guy has range." - Right. - I want to test him and put him in a different light. - Obviously, like, of course as he was such a, you know, he loved Bad Lieutenant or whatever, like he would pump, you know, pray to other Harvey stuff. - And I think they remain very close. - I'm still doing it. - I wonder if Harvey's like, fuck you, why am I not, you know, why do I not get to be your De Niro? Like, why does De Niro get to be your star? - On my re-watch, I really had that. I'm like, half into heart. Like, what happened to Kitelle? - He's a great actor. - This is what struck me watching it, right? - Yeah. - Is like, it's interesting that he had this guy who was so much the stand-in for him, and then he picks this other guy who was so different from him who becomes the driving force of his movies going forward or at least a majority of them. And then you look at the filmography and you're like, all of these movies are personal in that they are explorations of the things that clearly score so as he wrestles with constantly, but his movies no longer pass this point really feel like they're about characters that reflect him. They become explorations of his worldview. - Yeah. - And at least in some recycled, but like, and also, he doesn't write as many movies. - No. - And when he does write, it's often adaptation, you know, like something like age of innocence or like getting to New York. - But I wonder if part of that is him recognizing in the sort of like, the forcefulness of what De Niro is able to do is Johnny Boy and putting a character that sort of exciting, that much of a wild card into the mix, that he's like, I'm kind of a passive protagonist. I'm a guy who looks at the window and watches what's happening, who thinks about it, who will stand a little close to the danger but never actually place myself, you know, in real harm's way. And he wants to start to build movies around characters who are actively moving the plot. So then Kitell becomes sort of an odd duck, you know? In a way that maybe his association with him was too strong at the beginning. - Yeah, maybe you don't want to get locked into it, but then he gets locked into it with De Niro to some extent. - Which is why he then, from that point on, is like, Harvey, I'm gonna ask you to play all sorts of wild different things. - Yeah. - You're just an actor, I'm like, throwing interesting challenges at. - How do you feel about Harvey, Mary? I like him. I mean, I was really like, what happened? Like, you know, I was thinking about he's got some great roles I mean he's Jewish, right? Yeah, and that so that was the whole thing was this like Polish Jews His place where I Russian Jews. Yeah, so he was so he was like Stan Brighton Beach guy So first he was the stand-in for Marty and then but I was you know, just when now we were talking like Could Harvey Kaitella have been in casino? Yeah, totally like either role. Yeah, I mean it's interesting like Harvey Kaitella's a good actor. Yeah, if he's in a movie, it's usually good Yeah, I mean his performance he's in lots of bad movies like I mean, he just was one of those guys who I feel like you're sure Five movies a year for 30 years, right? Like yeah 80s and 90s like he just says is Zillian credits and He can do big. Yeah, or he can do restrained like you know, he doesn't feel like an Artistical actor to me. I I there's a part of it and some of this is conjecture in my part, right? But you look at him in like the 70s and the 80s you look at the stuff he did with towback, which is very towback He and you know, of course, yes It is that he For a while I would say until the 90s really wants to be the leader the co-lead of the movie and Sometimes these guys do just get into a place where they're like I'm willing to play the dilemma I'm willing to play the side character of the villain for Marty. But otherwise I'd rather be the guy and That's sometimes can dictate the choices, you know, if no weird stuff in the 80s Yes with with Kaitella. Yeah, we see was that when was piano was at the 90s? 93. I love that performance. It's a great performance Right. We've talked about fair amount of 90s and 2000s Kaitella. We've done camping so there's multiple, you know, camping performances from him What else have we talked about? Well, of course we did the national treasure movies on patreon probably is to finest performances as guy behind desk But that's the thing it's like what he's doing the declaration of independent I mean, there's like right and which is like that's just like fellman Louise, right? Like it's like he does fellman Louise and then he'll just like do that Every so often ever since of like do you want me to play the tired cop like clockers? She's good in clockers. Yeah, like and he's sort of the lead of clockers But he's not really like my guy fipers the lead of clockers, but Harvey's like the face. That's the other thing That's right. Right Tarantino and Spike Lee and all these other filmmakers using him almost in a mixtape way is right Good in reservoir. Yeah, he's incredible and I've never seen it. You've never seen why have you never seen reservoir? Is there is there an active avoidance or have you just not gotten around to it? Yeah, I don't know. It's just it's like 90 minutes long They played in reps cinemas constantly and bars and like yeah Um, I tell his incredibly good. The whole thing with reservoir dogs like Michael Madson I assume you know, it's kind of like the character their pops or whatever and she's doing the James Money kind of thing. Right, you know, and kaito is the lead and it's the center super emotional. Yeah, and it's it's different But it does feel like Tarantino is casting him because it's like using an impactful pop song, you know, uh there is he becomes somewhat Representational by the 90s for a lot of filmmakers who grew up inspired by the Scorsese movies and then I think they'll I don't know. They'll rework him in interesting ways. I mean, even the way Wes Anderson uses him is very fascinating Hey, which one was interesting. He says in Budapest. Yes, and he's also a moonrise kingdom as like the major Tribulator at the end. They keep going up the ladder to choose the ultimate troupe leader And then you reveal like old Harvey Kaitel and little khaki shorts and Kaitel's like Just have to say it. It's not even a great face. He has one of the most Fascinating skulls in history where you're just like who is a head like this, right? He just doesn't look like anybody else and it's it's hard to read him It's really kind of fasting to watch him listen to people Because you can't really tell what's going on And I think similarly when he talks it sort of feels like a struggle to him Not that it's non-verbal, but that it's really like an effort to get things out It's funny because I feel like in press interviews he's far more gregarious That he is not a guy who's like incredibly self-serious or protective about sure his process But then on screen he plays things that feel often a little bit closer to deniro maybe as a guy Where this guy doesn't have the language to get what he wants to say out of his system And also so much of that is just like Kaitel's insane body, right? Yeah, I feel like he can also I mean, maybe I'm just misjudging from certain roles But I feel like there's like a dangerous eroticism to a lot of his performances I don't really see with deniro like I feel like deniro and deniro is like I'm sure a sexy guy But there's not like a real sensuality with sexual and feels transgressive and he also he looks Moves towards that right like in the roles he takes But he's got this fucking pitiful thing, you know, he's got this kind of like perma frown Yeah, let's watch this for a brow and he's so kind of weirdly like he's Yeah, he's like stocky or although I don't know if he's really stocky like This is all just how things read. I know it's how he's on camera But he's just a guy where you're just like it's just fucking shoulders and biceps At a time where people in American movies aren't really built, you know And it's not like he's like a jacked bodybuilder, but he always just had kind of like a weird spilling of muscles in his upper body He's a funny body and he shows it off a lot. He likes to show his penis. I've never With in the context of art Harvey Cartel's body this much Well like if you think I like bad lieutenant, it's sort of iconic. Yeah, like you know when he's like Yeah, you know, there's some of you know, he has a fun and then the piano and stuff. Yeah, would call out a very deep V too I feel like those movies like bad lieutenant And the panel where he's getting naked. He's got. He's got the V Okay, he's got like a tiny little ripped. He's got the deep. Miriam is covering her mouth in As she should Miriam on the desk there we have a postcard of awesome powers frozen and ice because when we watch that movie Marie Barney said is Mike Myers cut and then just kept calling out the deep V I tell obviously doesn't have the awesome powers. Trust here. Oh, okay other scenes we should talk about How about the Vietnam vet party? That feels significant. Yeah, is that where he speaks to the time that is said Is that still worse than maybe what was I what's right then he gets drunk? Is that where he gets drunk? And he walks and he's like blessing. I think he's like He's a baptizing people. He's like yeah going around with water and like baptizing people But you were thinking specifically of the of the Vietnam thing of the era of what like the vet is clearly suffering from You know his experience there and he attacks that woman and Kitell has that moment where he dances with her in the closet. Oh, yeah, I forgot about that. Oh, that's weird It's so weird. I don't know what to read from it. Yeah, it feels like another story like that, you know Of course as he remembered or whatever and it like makes so much sense Obviously if you threw a party for a Vietnam vet and we're like let's set off a bunch of Loud noises and streamers and shit that would like obviously like could be very traumatic for them. Yeah I mean the literal opening at this movie is him lighting the candles and church, right? Is that the opening shot? Uh, yeah, I mean the the opening is the monologue and the narration which is, of course as these voices You don't make up for your sins and church you do it in the streets you do it at home the rest is bullshit and you know it Rather than it being a movie where the pull is is this guy going to follow faith the movies telling you up front While the guy is going through the motions and the rituals that this is kind of all not that it's bullshit But I can't overpower the rest. It's it's actually like an impossible battle that you've already lost It's not that it's bullshit It's just that you have like all these opportunities for like empathy and savior and saving people and like and um And real testing of stuff and then the real work isn't going to happen here in a theoretical space It's going to happen in your actions outside in the world. Yeah. Yeah One scene that we didn't talk about is most of this is the scripted But they would do like kind of like you know it they would do like little sessions then add into the script But there is one like improv scene and it's like right after the trash can. Yeah. Yes. Oh, no Yeah, that might be but I was thinking about when they go into the back room So when De Niro first walks in. Mm-hmm. It's the it's the stones and you know It's the slow motion and we're really in a Scorsese movie and then they go into the back room And that's when they're like they're like the Tuesday after the Tuesday after this Tuesday or you know And they're doing all this wordplay and talking about Joey Clams. No, Joey Skelet. No, they're the same person Yeah, and like this whole thing that was all improvised and that was something that Scorsese said he was really feel like he he needed something there and he needed something to set the tone in the comedy And he was really influenced by like Abbott and Castello and who's on first right also like the road movies and Bob Hope and And Ben Crosby in this like you know someone always trying to get one over But I think the word play is really keen. The line where he's like which girl he's like my left to your left We were sitting we were on the same side It's so good the same shit. It's like it's rock music and it's like old vaudeville comedy dynamics and it's the language of how people fight with each other. verbally, you know, it's all rhythm shit. It's rhythm and word selection, which I feel like are always the thing, like the metronome that his movies go off of. David Denby, when this came out, said that Scorsese has used improvisation better than anyone in American movies so far, which is an interesting line to me because a less of this movie is improvised than people think. It's really those two big moments, but a lot of what you said, there was a really solid script than they would do rehearsals. And then if they came up with something good and improv exercise, they would transcribe it and tighten it and writing. A lot of times when they're these fucking famous moments and movies where people go like, and do you know that was actually improvised? It's like that was improvised when they did the blocking rehearsals. Yeah. And then they wrote it into the sides. And then they did it 80 times and they refined it. It's not like the moment you're watching is the one time that happened. And this is one where the improvisation is happening developmentally, but I think what they're getting at, and even just the way Denby words that, it's like they're talking about improvisation like it's 3D or something. Like there's this new technology and movies. And people are like, is this a gimmick? Do you make whole movies out of improv? Is this something that you can use as part of the language? Right. It's been going out, it was going on for so long, like Gregory Lookava was doing it. Like it's so interesting when people like people are, I mean, you know, if you guys have ever been to an awful Q&A, they're always like, was that improvised? It's so annoying. It's just the camera's roll, you know? But the answer is always if people see something that sounds natural. It sounds to them like real dialogue. They want to believe it's improv. And you know, movies you do fucking a thousand takes of everything. Things are like iterative. You know, it's rarely like improv in the way you think of seeing a fucking improv show where two people are making up a scene from the get go. But I think versus a lot of these other things we're talking about where improv was used as like, this is like an interesting formal experiment. Scorsese kind of figured out a way to harness the energy of improv into more conventional seasonings, lightening in a bottle. That's the other part of it. Right. If you're like Casavetti's where those films are less improvised than people think. Yeah. But they have the energy of the main purpose of the camera here is to capture what the actors are doing rather than say something with the camera themselves. I think in later, Casavetti's movies, he does meaningful things visually. But it's really like serving the performance as first and foremost and to have a movie that has improv energy in it, but also has complicated camera moves. You know, has like three minute traveling shots through an apartment and things like that is where people start to feel like, Oh, improv isn't an either or thing. I mean, all these conversations just fucking cycle themselves. But it's like what kind of kills the American comedy movie in a way is they all felt really stagnant and high concept. And then improv comes in back into them. And people enjoy that these movies feel riffy, but then they all start to feel really visually static because they need three cameras running at the same time to get what actually is a real improv riff. So are you guys all the Charlie in your bromance? Yes. Yeah. Or I'm not even Charlie. I'm like, hi, the Charlie. Are you the Charlie and you're like, wow, with these people? Or maybe you're, I feel like you might, you have a little Johnny boy sympathy. I think I made you all been saying you're Johnny boy. I love this. I love this. I mean, I definitely, I always had less tolerance for the guy who is like, let's throw a firecracker in a mailbox. I'd be like, I'm going home. I find this movie invigorating because I love like New York movies. I love how Marty tells any story or whatever. This has never been like my favorite Marty because I don't relate to it very much. But I do, I love this movie though. I got to be for this movie. This is a big movie for my mom. My mom loves this movie. Why does your mom love it? She's a New York girl. Like, you know, I don't know. She, I think it was probably she, what, this is 73. So she was 22. Yeah. Like, you know, she saw it at the right time. And it was under crack kind of movie for her. Like the later Marty's are too fucked up, I think. Still like taxi drive, like she's seen taxi driver, like she's like, oh, but those are so dark. Like, and those are so violent means for each of the appropriate amount of violence. It is fascinating to where it is a movie where even living 50 years past its release date in a media landscape that is like permanently influenced by what this movie does. You feel like you're watching the big bang. It doesn't, you understand that what you're seeing is all of these things starting to crystallize for the first time. Everything he's synthesizing together. And what he'll do in the rest of his career and how other people will be influenced by it. Like Bonnie and Clyde feels that way to me too, or even if you've seen all the movies that come after it, when you watch Bonnie and Clyde for the first time, you're like, I can tell this is them breaking the sound barrier in certain areas. Totally. You're right. And there's stuff like mash, which for how much I love Robert Altman, that's a movie that I think like you cannot watch without context of what it was coming out of and actually fully understand it because so much of what people like my father who saw it in 1970 and were like, this is just no one talked like this. Stories weren't structured like this. When you watch it now, it just feels kind of sloppy. And there's stuff in mash that I think is incredible. There's stuff in mash that is beyond retrograde. Sure. But there's also a lot of it that's just kind of mushy and you're actually almost David five for fun to de points. But at the time, every single thing people were seeing was that's never been on screen before. Nothing's ever felt like this. It's never sounded like this. It's never looked like this. And Mean Street still has all of that power, even though we've seen everything it's influenced after. Yeah. It also, I feel like, you know, your mom was the right age like 2022 or whatever. Like it's just so captures that like in jokes and language of a friendship group and you're like late teens in early 20s. You know, doesn't it? Of course. And though I never worked for the mob nor hung out at Italian American social club. And say that again, let's make sure you have that one for the mob. Yet my phone number is one, two, three, four, five, six. I never yet is a funny sentence structure. They want to call me and offer me a job. I have never. And I mean, never. I would like one of those jobs. And I maybe ton tells a school here, where you do not show up to it and get the money anyway. I know show job. If they give me one of those, one of those, please, like a mob desktop. No, you know, no show, like the like the whole thing the mob does where they're like, you know, we run this union now and you're going to have five extra salaries. Oh, I wonder if the mob is in on podcasting yet. Well, I mean, the audio business. What do you want for me? The legitimate business. I mean, I told you my friends. I make audio. Go boom. I turn heads into gum. Oh boy. Wow. I was looking up a letter box logs for this movie. And there was one from Paul Schrader from 2019, the before times, where he just wrote all caps, mean streets, watched it tonight for the first time in almost 50 years. I'd first seen it rough cut. What struck me most was how well I remembered it, lying for line, scene for scene, needle drop for needle drop, and how in place, Marty's aesthetic was I was tempted to think, quote, this director's been watching a lot of Scorsese films way back then I knew it was very good. I fancied myself a film critic after all, but I didn't realize it was a fucking Roman candle. Perfect. The Roman candle thing really stuck with me because it was not to, you know, a movie with like this very clear direction to it. It is firing off in all directions. And he wasn't seeing it for what it was at the time because also he was part of the movement that it was coming out. It's so funny. I know. It is so funny. The traitor and him fine. And Scorsese like start working together because like Scorsese like the Catholic thing versus the Calvinist thing like very different approaches to religious sort of guilt and fervor and yeah. They've made some good movies together. But speaking of Schrader, do you think that like, I mean, because obviously you think that is AI Facebook posts are good. Of course, they're hilarious. We love them. But do you think Scorsese like always, I don't think his screenplays are his strengths. And I actually think this is one of his strongest screenplays. Even though you're right, it's just the most incredible screenplay and at the same, like in the same way where you're like, is this just improvised? All these guys talking like this. Scorsese really write this down. I mean, what are his other screenplays? Now, I want to look. But this is when deported came out, I feel like he kept making the joke of like it took me 40 years, but I finally made a movie with a plot. Yeah. That he always was this guy who, you know, and he's very self-effacing about it. But he talks about it like it's not even that I don't find that stuff interesting. I'm not good at it. I don't know how to do it. I feel like I've told this story before. Okay. But on the set of vinyl, there was this point. I was I was in the worst things Scorsese ever directed, Maryam. And let's wait to see shine away. Okay. Let's wait to watch shine away. There was a moment of pilot where there was a boardroom scene with like 15 speaking roles, which is the worst fucking thing in the world to shoot. It's stagnant. Everyone's at chairs. You have to get so much cross coverage. And then the angles are like, fuck, he delivers most of his lines to this guy at one end of the table, but one line to the other end of the table so we need to get coverage from the other side as well just for that one line. And he comes in and they're like, "Marty, what should we get next?" And he stands there, and he's sort of muttering himself, and he's like, cleaning and doing directions. And he's trying to figure out the math on like, "What coverage are we still owed? What do I need? What would help me?" And he just looks up and he goes, "I've just never been good at this stuff." Right. Okay, so his script cert means street's good fellas. Wow. No screenplay credit between those two movies. Yeah. Age of innocence. Casino. Yeah. Yeah, it's like, you know, and then like, silence, killers of the fire moon, like more recently. It's also obviously very hands-on with his writers or his closest friends, his closest collaborators. He works with the same people often. In J. Cox. It's years and years of development. Yeah. Um, Kennavali was like, "Marty, what the fuck are you talking about? Your martensware says it. You know what coverage you need?" And he was like, "I really, I just don't have a head for that." And you realize not that he's being like falsely modest, but much in the same way that like, the anxious camera work is a byproduct of, we don't have time to set up multiple shots. That a lot of his language comes out of like, "I'm just not going to do the stuff that doesn't come to me innately. I'm going to go to the stuff I feel like I can do better than anyone else." And I think similarly, he's like, "I'm not a tight, hot construction guy." Yeah. You know, and I can do it when I need to. And when he does it, it's usually the things that are more conventional genre riffs like Cape Fear or Shutter Island where he's playing in the tradition of a type of movie and then what he's doing is having fun stylistically or making the performances on conventional within it. But left to his own devices, it's like what he likes is finding a world. What he likes is like digging into the corners. What he likes is exploring every little sub-dynamic. But he's not someone who is into, I think, tight story construction. I do want to say, as far as coverage for this one, I think because he'd worked on it for so long, for whatever, eight, seven years, he had drawn everything. He had done- Beautiful fucking artists. So he's had done shot, but as far as the actual coverage, he brought in the Boxcar Bertha quarantine to be like, "Okay, how do we do this efficiently?" Right. Right stuff. But yeah, so he had drawn every scene. And so he had a version in his head of what his perfect movie would look like, but then the reason he bring in the Corman people is they are like the A team. They are like the weirdos who know how to just like fuck. Well, actually, if we only have five minutes, here's the way to do it. Like they exceed under pressure. Right. Also, I want to say the different, like what makes this film a little different than the rest is he edited it. He edited this and Boxcar Bertha. He's not credited because of Guild rules, but he says the original editor who is credited. He's got a co-credit, but there was a Guild rule that you couldn't be the sole editor of your own. No, he's not credited. He's not so like an additional editing or something. I don't think he was credited, but he did. He said he edited, but he couldn't take credit. Yeah, the original editor was terrible. By whoever gets credit. So this is like, so, so filmmaker, film a shoemaker did his first one, who's that knocking, and then so, and this one is like, is Marty without film? Yes. Right. Well, she's also like working on Woodstock for years. Yeah. Well, no, but Woodstock comes out in 70. Okay. Oh, it she worked on too, obviously, but she is sort of what it, and that's where they reconnect, or yeah, but she doesn't come back to him until Raging Bull. Yeah, which is crazy. Like taxi drivers edited by somebody else. I forget, yeah, Marshall Lucas and Todd Rolf. Oh, I forgot. Actually, it's an interesting point. So Marshall Lucas, I'm going to make in the next episode. What were you going to say, Mary? Well, you can edit this out because it's probably you're going to get to it. But is New York New York very bounced? Oh, yes. Oh, yes. New York New York is the first bounce. This is a classic. I mean, this is interesting. It's classic and arc of, but the way we used to when the show started and things were more narrow and we were like, we need people who fit into these very classic, tight arcs. The first 10 years of his career are so thoroughly that of like, you have two developmental movies. Then you have the movie where it all comes together. That's the guarantor to like, we're going to let you elevate to taxi driver, which is the crazy breakthrough. And then he caches that in on New York, New York, where people are like, you're fucking done. And New York, New York is just the classic bounce of like, he spent too much money on a movie that didn't need to be expensive. And he had like, right, a whole artistic idea of like, how to present this story and do a musical differently. It's very similar to Spielberg with 1941, where it's like overloaded with ideas and passion. I can't do a different job. You have overthought this movie. And cocaine. Yes, cocaine is a little bit of cocaine. And then Raging Bull is the like, I got to show people I can just like, focus it up again. But like, King of Comedy's a bounce. I mean, he's got a lot of bounces. I'm saying just that. No, I know. I agree with you because who's that knocking is 69 or 70? 67. So it's 67 to and then Raging Bull's 80. Yeah, that's where there's a real tight like sort of, this is how a career develops, grows, crashes, rebounds. And then the 80s are up and down. You just agree, David? I see. I know. I don't disagree. The 80s are more up. I mean, last temptation, nominally made money. Yeah, like it did ruin things for him a little bit. Yeah. And like his other big bombs are King of Comedy. That's a huge bomb. Like that makes no money and was framed as an embarrassment. Like people were like shame on you. Right. Yeah. And bringing out the dead was like, honestly, like a really big bomb. Yeah. Because that movie is also pretty expensive. And that was, I feel like bringing out the dead is another kind of low point for him career wise of like, why should studios keep giving you money? Like when we were talking about after that, he's been able to do whatever we were talking about because the series are so long, do we like split it in half? And do we do a little short series in between so that there's a little bit of a break and Marty and every time it feels like there's enough new releases coming out the end of this year in the beginning and next so that will kind of naturally happen. But when we talked about it, I was always adamant, the only place to break it up is 1999 to 2001 because like what happens between the 20th century and the 21st century is Leo unlocks everything. And it feels like from Gaines of New York on, he's working with bigger budgets than he's ever worked with. He's got this hot young star who will do anything for him. And everyone is like, it's time when he's getting the fucking Oscar. And then after he gets the Oscar, it's like he gets to do whatever he wants. And bringing out the dead feels like the last time there is like an attempt at doing a classic Scorsese movie that doesn't work for people. Mm-hmm. A movie I love and think is a masterpiece. Yes. But his other films in the 21st century are him going way outside of his wheelhouse. Mary, are there movies you don't like or love? Are there marities you sort of respect your stick up for? I do not like the aviator, but that might be partly because I'm too loyal to the source material. I'm not like seeing a Catherine Hepburn invitation. Yeah. I need to see it again. I'm very curious. I'm excited to be watching it. It's never been a release. I've seen it since release, but it does so many bananas visual things that I bet I will enjoy. I think I, I think I would too. And it's like early Leo. Like you're saying that transition. I was like, let's see, is there anything? I don't remember loving, bringing, uh, bringing at the dead, but and possibly worth a rewatch. Yeah. And then, but and so I think the only one I haven't seen is the color of money. Color money rocks. Yeah. I bet. I bet. I never think of it as a real Scorsese, but I know it is. I know it is. His 80s are so weird because that's kind of like a commercial play of like you got to get back in the good graces of the studio. And it's a big hit and he gets newman an Oscar, but there was a little bit of like Scorsese sold out, right? And then after hours, it's him trying to be like, I can be responsible. I can make a low budget thing. I can like get on base, but it's like a comedy. It's not seen as like a major work. It's, it's fascinating how up and down he was there. Yeah. And yeah, I like, but the rest I love. I love, I love, I was, I was saying, if I didn't do this, I would do Shutter Island. I love that. Yeah. So much. That's gonna be a fun out. I love you guys. I mean, good company. Oh, we so much fun. I can't wait to see who's going to do Cundoon. We, we, we, we, guess, line up on the block. Well, let's, let's just say the Dalai Lama is a blankie. I don't know if we can get him because I, you know, we ask people to be in person. We don't want to do a Zoom episode, but yeah, Cundoon famously filled in the same places. Ishtar. Really? Yeah. Same studio in Morocco. That fuck. I visited the Cundoon set. It's amazing. And, and Cundoon, the soundtrack is mostly Rogers and Clark, right? They used mostly there. Yeah. That's the director's. I, I have never seen Cundoon before and I've never seen a representation. I'm very eager to see you. You've never seen last time. You've never seen it. You have. Intention is amazing. That's the best. Yeah. Just rewatched it, which caused our fans to go insane, being like, they're recording out of order. I was like, nope, right? We watched it not because of the podcast. Yeah. Let us just watch movies. Let me watch movies. Please let us watch movies. Let's do the box. I was getting for a mean street, which came out. And I should actually, before I do the box, I should just notice release. It premiered kind of a surprising choice here at the New York film festival. I don't know why they picked that one. Interesting. No, yeah. So it premieres in fall of 73 at the New York film festival. Warner Brothers had, you know, it does end up distributing it. They get shoved around and they pick it up. I knew And you know what? In that link later things, Chris, he was saying they showed it to Columbia, maybe, and they passed on it. They showed it to a different studio first. Paramount. Thank you. And then they went over to Warner Brothers, and he was like, we're there with all the Warner Brothers execs, and they're getting their sandwiches delivered. We're screening the movie for the second time in two days. The first day, they were like, this is well made, kid, but there's no money here, right? And he's like, I'm spooling my movie up. It's starting, and the guys are arguing over like, is that the corn beef? I got the corn beef. And he was like, I'm losing them. And then De Niro came on screen, and one of the guys looked up and went like, oh, this guy's interesting. And then they all started looking, and they all started engaging with the movie, and they bought it. You have to imagine that's a moment that changes his entire life where he's like, huh? This guy unlocks doors for me. There's something here that is undeniable that translates across audiences, where if I have this guy in my movies, people are going to watch. Even if he's not famous yet, he makes people lift their heads up and stop paying attention to their sandwiches. Totally. That's, that's so true. And such a good story. But also, I think what was happening then is that the guys were like, these Warner Brothers guys were like, oh, I know a guy like that. I know. Truly. That's just like a guy from home. Totally. So the thing for Scorsese was like, yes, like if this works for, if this, if this is familiar to people, then this works. People don't want to watch a movie about a guy like me. They want to watch a movie about the guys I know, and the movies can still be personal. But yes, if I can put those guys on screen, I really have something. Um, so the release strategy Scorsese was not very happy with, um, you know, uh, Warner Brothers didn't really know what to do and was against them opening in New York because I think New York Film Festival was not really as glitzy back then, maybe, um, and they had no idea how to sell the picture. I mean, it's funny because the poster's so iconic, but don't you think it'd be like, yeah, it's such a famous poster, but they don't have stars, yeah, um, the actresses is coming out around the same time, um, although it is not in the top five, so that's not a spoiler thing. Okay. And Warner Brothers is more worried about that. They don't really care about mean streets. Um, so the film comes out, it gets nice reviews. It makes $3 million domestically, but it maybe doesn't, it's not like a huge hit. And it was interesting in that link later, combo we watched, we're a link later, they were talking about how it got no Oscar nominations. It got, De Niro got a couple critics. He got like, uh, yes, he got National Society and New York Film Critics Circle supporting actor. And it got a WGAN, um, but like the Oscars ignored it, but Marty was like, nobody saw it. Like a widely seen movie, the Academy was different, but also just it wasn't like really out there. It didn't feel like we were in the conversation. He wasn't surprised. It didn't get the nominations, uh, right. So when this film is coming out, number one of the box office, this is crazy, um, is, I believe, I think it's a double feature that the way I'm reading this chart, um, it gets a double feature. Well, I don't think that this chart is trying to tell me it's a tie. I think that these were double features because the first is like an erotic comedy. Okay. Uh, you know, I think a bit of a fun sexy movie for you to go see. I'm in a home in a home. And then the other is an animated film that is famously raunchy and I imagine they were even presented together. Okay. So Fritz the cat. So Fritz the cat is the animated film, the first one, the 1972, you know, back she Fritz the cat. And then it was on a double bill with a sex. Yeah. I doubt you've heard the other. It's a sex comedy directed by Paul Glickler. Uh, you, I don't know why I'm trying to give you guys clues. It's called The Cheerleaders. Oh, my god. I was going to say Paul Glickler was at the cheerleaders. Okay. I was wondering. It's Miriam. I was like, make Miriam. Dave knows. But I didn't want to patronize it. I didn't know. No, I love this movie. Okay. Tell me about the cheerleaders. Let me see. They don't bring it on. They take it off. Okay. I'm guessing that that tagline was put on a DVD later. Uh, that's pretty good though. The cheerleaders. They're these fucking good. These great software films that they made like, I think three of them in all these like experimental filmmakers, like worked on. Yes. The swing cheerleaders in 74 and then cheerleaders wild weekend at one point. I don't know. Just abstract TNA. Love these films. It's just cheerleaders, uh, having fun. So that was the same week that nature is coming out. So this is the right. That is number one of the boxes. Wow. Wow. So that is number one. Number two is a martial arts film, probably the most famous martial arts film I've ever made. I'm sorry. I'm on the cheerleaders Wikipedia page. Right up at the top, uh, this article needs additional citations for verifications July 2013. Someone flagged this 13 years ago and has not followed up on it. But also there's a section at the bottom that says streaming media. And then it just says, the film is often available at licensed streaming movie sites with two citations. Oh, interesting. Feels like a real abandoned wiki page. Yes. Sorry. Number two at the box office. What's the most famous martial arts movie I ever made? Enter the dragon. So that's number two. Uh, right? Correct. Uh, and that's been in the box office for three months at this point and it's a huge hit. That's another example though of like his other films had been, you know, kind of cult successes. And it was like he's finally seated into the consciousness enough that everyone's ready for the big mainstream breakthrough. Warner Brothers makes a Bruce Lee movie. And then he dies and it becomes a phenomenon because it's like, fuck, this is the final object. Um, do you like him to the dragon? I haven't seen it. I don't know. I mean, you should do a double feature. Oh, fucking awesome. With Reservoir Dogs. Yeah. Number three at the box office is a porn film. So like I think cheerleaders is more like soft core, but like this is like a classic, like golden age of porn move. Uh, is a green door not behind the green door? Uh, um, um, this debate of it, not, this debate of it, not deep throats. It's not a manual. No, no. It's not worse. It's not the horny Allison Wonderland. No. No. Uh, uh, devil and miss Jones, uh, I mean, I mean, there we go. Just like name the big one. Yeah. The devil and miss Jones, the Gerard, uh, Dom, Domianos, that isn't right. Who's the guy that who also did basically based on, uh, who also made a movie, uh, I apologize in advance to all of our listeners and our guests, uh, let my puppets come. Wow. Gerard de Miano made a puppet porn film. Wow. That was not presented as like, this is like a parody of porn. It was like, do people want to jerk off the puppets? Uh, and so the parody, it, the title is a parody of let, let my people come. I like it. It's just horny puppets. I'd like it a apology as well. I own it on vinegar syndrome, Blu-ray, um, didn't get the slip cover. It's just to speak my truth. You own it. It's an interesting artifact to film history. I'm not saying I get my rocks off watching it. I don't look at puppets that way. It's a different way. He bought it for the liner notes. Friedkin calls devil. Really good. It says devil miss Jones is the best like porn movie of those of that era because it like has a plot. I saw it at Bologna at this film festival for restorations. It was so, it was weird to watch a film with like, you know, all these like academics and stuff. It was weird, but no, it's a good thing. I've seen it. She, she kills herself and then like the devil, right, is like, or the, like an angel or is basically like, there's like, you can earn your place of hell by being a horny lady on earth. Something like that. There's sort of a celestial element to it. Yeah. The cheerleaders has a better plot where like, if you want to win the football game, you have to like, out fuck the other team. Right. I mean, we love a good part. Let my puppets come has a plot owning a mob boss half a million dollars that must be paid within 24 hours. A group of executives come up with ideas, foreign films, a pornographic movie, but the characters are puppet. It's kind of, it's, I, I, I watch the movie for the story. Of course. That's what I watch it for. Number four, this is a crazy box office because it's all kind of like, you know, underground movie kind of movies is like a Chinese action movie starring the female Bruce Lee as she was built. Oh, um, is this fuck, sorry, tell me the actor is called Judy Lee. Yes. The film is called Queen Boxer. Okay. Yep. And I've never seen it, but she's like a kick boxer who's taking revenge or whatever. Yes. And yeah, that's number four. That's new this week. And the number five is, well, it's a film that you just told me that the director wanted Marty to be in. Let my puppets come. This was another thing revealed in the link later thing that American graffiti is basically filming the same time as mean streets and that George Lucas wanted Scorsese as an actor in the film to be the leader of the Pharaohs, he said in the American graffiti, which of course is one of the biggest hits of 73 and he said George, I don't even drive him from New York. I'm not a California. We should note, of course, that Marty is in mean streets and does shoot Robert De Niro in the neck with the gun. Yeah. Nice work. We didn't really talk about the ending with the ending is so fucking insane, like it really, I love that you just don't know what happens to Johnny Boy or really to any of them. You know that they're making it to the hospital. It's the other part that was making me think of Mikey and Nikki that it just like the big dramatic burst of violence happens and the movie ends like immediately. And then you get your other clip, you get the big heat when. the wife dies and like it's so devastating. So you're like, I don't know. And when they're music, that's such a crazy ending. What are you going to say, Ben? When they're on their way to Brooklyn, I wrote down this really funny quote from Kitelle. Do I know Brooklyn? Do I know the jungle? And I just love that at that time, Brooklyn, all of the outer burrows were truly just like no man's land for people in Manhattan. It's not even that it's just you don't leave your place. Right. Sure. You got your spot. This is your neighborhood. This is where your people are. You know, they filmed it in Brooklyn. I mean, it took place in Brooklyn so they can film it in L.A. Yeah. I think David talked about that. Yeah. Uh, yes. Um, so how long has America been out at this point? America, if he's been out for 11 weeks, so, uh, uh, three months. Twice down. So other films, uh, a reissue of Clockwork Orange is number six. Okay. That's obviously a couple years old at this point. A reissue of Camelot, the musical. Is it number seven? And a reissue of the last of Sheila. Oh, sure. With Richard Benjamin is number eight. Yeah. Then you have electric line in blue at number nine, uh, which is, um, I want to just double check, you know, this movie. Uh, that's like, yeah. The, um, sort of biker movie, but it's like a sort of spoof of biker movies. A little bit. Yeah. Okay. We've got our place. Most modern. Yeah. And then there's the movie hit with Billy D Williams, the Sydney Fury movie. Okay. That's like, uh, you know, it's, it's maybe not even black exploitation, but it's like a sort of like all black cast action thriller, uh, from Paramount, like a big sort of action movie, um, with Billy D Williams and a young Richard Pryor. It's just remembered that when we were talking into soundtrack, I wanted to, um, mention, uh, Michael Schultz is Cooley High, which was two years later. Yes. And that used all these Motown songs and that he said recently, he said, like, it was dirt cheap to get the song said. And then just like right after this and that, when you're everywhere, I'm sorry. What are you gonna say? No, I was just gonna say Scorsese in, in that DGA thing said, um, Badlands was the closing night film at New York Film Festival this same year. Yeah, I guess that makes sense. And those two guys being roughly the same age, yeah, feeling like putting on the board new methods of like film language, uh, for American artists. And he was like, that was the one that had all the heat and the energy behind it. Like we were in the festival and we got a good reception, but the energy was something incredible is happening over here with Badlands, but I guess Badlands ends up actually releasing a little bit longer. It released in '74. Okay, but it was the closing film of the 73 New York Film Festival. Yeah. The big 73 movie is obviously extra says. Yeah. Well, I don't know what one's best picture that you're, um, uh, for 70, three, that it, it, it's not the godfather. I'll tell you that much. That was 72. It is the sting. Yeah, it's the sting, which you know, it's a giant pit that everybody loved, but also is, is a very old fashion movie, not just in being a period piece, but well, they play the piano like, do, do, do, do, do, you know, they do that. It's just interesting that you've already had like Midnight Cowboy winning best picture and being like, Oh, shit is everything different now. And the couple of years later, they're like, we watch, like watching movie stars and expensive costumes pull off cons. Right. We've been going through that in the last 10 years. Right. We keep swinging back and forth. And then Mean Treats plays director's fortnight at Cannes, right? And that's like, you still see it. If you guys go, like they do this, like kind of screensaver sort of like iPhone kind of collage of all the films that have played and they always play Mean Treats and John Dillman. So it's an iconic director's fortnight. So funny because it must have been like six months after the movie came out in the States, right? Yeah. But back then, no, no, yeah. Yeah. So the film obviously holds a special place in Marty's heart because it's so personal, but he says he's never really sat down and watched it from beginning to end because it's too close. And indeed, he wanted to make a sequel about Charlie living on Staten Island with a couple kids. Again, I am kind of like, and what is the story of this film? Like, I can't just be Charlie hanging out. Yeah. Which is Johnny Boy come back. What are you dead? Robo Johnny boy. Well, you don't know that he's dead. You don't, you don't know what happened. Yeah. Like you see, he gets shot. He's bleeding out and he like runs into the street. You assume Johnny Boy is probably not making it. But like, I've heard him say that nobody dies, but that they can never go back. And like, that's how he reads it is that they don't die or maybe we don't know, but that if he's survived, that he needs people basically to think that he's dead. Or they just can't go back. And so they exile. Yeah. That's interesting. Yeah. Instead, instead Warner Brothers who had released this film and found him very promising, through him, Alice doesn't live here anymore, as a challenge, right, which comes out basically like one year later. Like, so it's like, he goes right to that. And whereas I assume taxi driver, well, but that's Schrader's thing. So like, I don't even know that he's like nursing tax. Like, it's like, I don't think after this, of course, as he's like, okay, and now, no, New York, New York, that was his. I guess that's the next. I saw an interview. I read an interview and he's like, the next thing on his mind is New York, New York. I need another genre. I did the gangster film. Now I do the musical. He knows it's going to take a lot of money and a lot of production resources to put that movie together. He needs to play the studio game. Right. To be able to be intrustible. Because it's the only game back then. Yeah. And like, it's funny, because it's like, right. So jaws is what? 75. Yeah. And American graffiti is 73. De Palma's like sisters is what? 72. Like what's De Palma doing? De Palma is probably in the weirdest place. Yeah. Because what carries not until 78. Carry 76. Okay. But so, you know, all these guys are trying shit and doing exciting stuff. Right. But they're not quite, you know, they're not quite atop the Hollywood pile. Yeah. Whereas Copa is like, immediately atop the Hollywood pile after he does. He was also older than all of them. And he's in San Francisco. And he's like, doing his own. He had made more films before Godfather. He had gone through a whole sort of arc. And he was like the mentor to all of them. He was kind of like the camp counselor trying to encourage all of them to follow their things. My 73 list is, I mean, like my favorite movies that you are don't look now and long goodbye. And the excerpts and spirit of the beehive and shit like that, which, you know, like they'd great. Or fucking roles. Peer of the beehives. Pretty cool. Yeah. That guy rocks. I don't know if we've seen any of his other films actually. They're all good. I mean, I mean, like three. Yeah. Do you like Victor 3J? Yeah. He say, I'm like, do you say? Here you take also a great band. Spirit of the beehive. Really? Yeah. Uh, let's be done. Let's stop talking about these. Are there any other sort of general overarching, uh, Scorsese takes or thoughts in your relationship with him and his work that you want to throw out as we start this journey for months? I think I've I've I've drained the Scorsese love for now. But I love him forever. Yeah. I mean, he's the best. He's like, uh, uh, uh, the one thing I'll say, the departed. I was wrong about it. People say, like, I used to think it was like he just got the award because, you know, it's a career achievement. The part of it is, is, is amazing. Like now that we see more Hong Kong, movies, I'm like, yes, maybe fucking rocks. It's also it's it's just so watchable. When will he work with with Mark Wilberg again? It's crazy because you guys for him to rescue Wilberg. It would be nice, but also I'm like, how disappointed would it be to see them work together again and not reactivate the same thing? I mean, this is this is another thing I remember. Sorry, just but, uh, this was public knowledge, but at the time we were shooting vinyl, it was pretty recent that he, William Monahan wrote a departed sequel to Star Wahlberg. Yes. And that was pre-production on board to direct it. And Warner Brothers said, we don't believe that Wahlberg can carry this movie. Okay. It was going to be. Deniro was only one nominated in a film. That's crazy. Well, that is also crazy. That that happened. But Deniro was going to play. It was going to be the fucking rat and Congress, right? Like the, the final shot. Deniro was going to play like a corrupt congressman. I just died. Yeah. And it was going to be Wahlberg. All this I'm not saying anything part to. But I just remember him. What's like the stupidest thing? Like turns out Martin Sheen didn't die. He's just like interaction. I'm trying to think of like the worst departed sequel. Sure. Like, you know, what else happened? But he was, I think it was at the rap party. And he was like holding court with a bunch of us youngins. And he was like, I, I was ready to make it. The film won best picture. It was a big hit. I had Mark Wahlberg. He's a movie star. They went, they wouldn't do it. It said, Martin, you don't see the vision. Sure. Well, I mean, that's funny. He was like, I've given up on it. I spent five years trying. I'm not. It's over. Miriam, is there anything you want to plug? No, I'm just, you're vibing. I'm vibing. We love it. We love to see vibe. We're here to vibe. It's very nice to have you on the show again. It's so nice to be back. It's, yeah. Years-long project. There've been other episodes we've circled and then trips changed. No, I'm sorry. I don't know. There's one. I would have loved to do. Which, like, Vamps. Vamps. Oh, yeah, that's right. Yeah. Which now we've both, I fucking love Vamps. Vamps, yeah, I told you that. Posted a Vamps screening in LA. I think that movie's awesome. Yeah. Anyway, it's such an honor to be on this episode for this series. It's nice to have you on. So glad to have that down. And thank you all for listening. Please remember to rate, review, and subscribe as we go through five more months of Martins for Sessie. Yes, next week will be Alice. Doesn't live here anymore. Another gangster picture. Oh, God. The same thing every week. Why don't you try silence? We are going to turn the person. Yeah. Right. Do you once told Gryffin to shut a fuck up? in a nice. Well, it wasn't nice, but you know, in a more polite way, the way she said it was Griffin Triceyland. We said that. A little person. Academy of Northern Ireland. Burston. Oh my god. Devastating things that has ever happened to anyone. I'd be dead anyway. It was incredible. I wear it as a badge of honor. But then you went on to become a professional talker. Yeah. You know what? You know what, Ellen? And it's good that you didn't. Anyway. Tune in next week. Tune in next week, as against her wishes, we talk extensively about Ellen Burston. And as always, I want to say, I only watch, let my puppets come as a student of cinema. That is the only thing. That's the prism through which it's just important to film history, Ben. And there's some good puppetry in it. I don't endorse what the puppets are doing. I don't like it. Okay. Can do it if they want it. I'm not telling them they can do it. Lank check 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 McKean. This show is mixed and edited by AJ McKean and Alan Smithy, researched by JJ Birch. Our theme song is by Lane Montgomery in the Great American Novel, with additional music by Alex Mitchell, artwork by Joe Bowen, Holley 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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