The Color Purple with Kenice Mobley

Blank Jack with Griffin and David

Black Jack with Griffin and David Don't know what to say or to expect

All you need to know is that the name of the show is Black Jack

It's about life It's about love

It's about podcasts now This movie has a very thorough quotes page on IMDb, and I looked through every one of them.

You didn't think you could really nail anything?

I failed to identify one that I could do without getting arrested.

Cool.

I did a really thorough scan, and I thought about it from a bunch of angles.

I went, I don't think I should try one of these.

I think the tagline for the color purple, which you just did from the, in my opinion, wonderful poster.

It's a very iconic poster.

Yeah.

It's about life.

It's about love.

It's about us.

Is such a like fucking terrible, like,

you know stereotypical 80s movie tagline where you're just like what does that mean and then you're like oh so what's the movie about and they're like well and you're and then if someone described what the color purple was about to you they'll be like what do you mean it's about life it's about love it's about i mean sure but that's not really setting me up for the color purple that's all i i like this movie but the other reason i thought it was uh i i'm gonna go with the tagline here is that being the tagline for this movie on this poster with all the other elements of what is being communicated in the poster is kind of the whole movie in a nutshell.

Like this movie's weird cultural object status of just like, here's this seismic book.

It wins all the awards.

How are we going to make this into the movie?

Just get the best people in Hollywood and then try to sell this as like big tent entertainment and decades of people being like, was that the right way to do this?

Is like the goal to make it the biggest production you can.

Well, it worked.

This movie was a colossal hit.

That's the thing.

And I do think it was a sort of, yeah, big seismic, everybody went to see it kind of movie, i feel like and it's i had never seen it before this was the first time watched for me this is one of my only spielberg blind spots uh and i don't think i'd been avoiding it to any degree but i feel like it has a very weird status in his career and uh i just kept last night watching it and going it's so bizarre that steven spielberg made this That is true.

And we'll talk about it.

What's weird about it is in every single solitary second, it both so feels like a Steven Spielberg movie and doesn't at all.

Wow, I just, I'm looking at the art.

Do you want to see it, Kenny's?

Yes.

For the mini-series.

Wow, the mini series.

I'm just seeing this now for the first time.

Yeah, it's good.

Yeah.

I look fucking hot as Indiana does.

Well, you know, a lot of people look hot with that hat on, but yeah.

You know what?

And I want to commend Pat Reynolds for also not Photoshopping any of us onto the cast of the color purple.

Another great decision.

And what's going to be a very appropriate episode?

This is blank check with Griffin and David.

I'm Griffin.

I'm David.

It's a podcast about filmographies, directors who have massive success early on in their careers, such as making Jaws, E.T.,

two Indiana Jones movies, and then are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion products they want.

And sometimes they decide to adapt Alice Walker's

to a comic novel, The Color Purple.

Who's our guest?

Main series on the films of TV show.

Sorry, sorry, sorry.

It's called Podrassic Cast.

That's true.

That's not new information.

And today we're talking about The Color Purple.

Our guest guest is the great comedian,

great comedian.

I started combining your name and comedian.

Please don't.

Knesse Mobley.

Hi.

The tonight show.

Yes.

The founder of Netflix.

I am the founder of Netflix.

Yes.

I made it.

I have money.

So much money.

You did, your tonight show appearance was in the pandemic, right?

It was the rooftop.

It was the rooftop.

It was 28 degrees outside.

Have you seen any of these, David or Ben?

Knisse performs.

Knisse is one of my favorite comedians.

Wow.

Oh, my God.

And we've known each other for a little while.

We kind of overlap in circles.

We'll run into each other.

And it kept coming up.

And every time I would cross paths with you, you're like, can I argue a point of something that you and David said on the podcast that drove me crazy?

I start increasingly finding out that you are a listener

through your like objections to how did we drive you crazy right this is what i was i can't remember it's happened multiple times but i you will reach out and go like good episodes yeah but then sometimes you'll come in and be like, I have an axe to grind.

What the fuck are you guys talking about?

So I was not a listener of your podcast.

And then I dated three people in a row.

This is the thing you said when we met.

You said,

I need you to know I have a problem.

I keep dating listeners of your podcast.

Someone just told me that her friend confessed to her recently that she and her boyfriend put our podcast on the TV.

What?

Like, I guess through like YouTube or something like that, Spotify, and then like sit and and listen to it.

That's chilling.

Chilling.

And I was like, are they?

Do they like knit or cook or something?

She's like, yeah, I assume they do.

Did you do other stuff?

I can't imagine just sort of sitting there.

It's horrible.

It was so strange because

I wasn't aware of this podcast, but then so many people kept,

it would come up on dates.

And I'm like, what is this?

Sure.

And so I started listening first for like a bit and then I became a fan.

That's nice.

And I'm a fan of that.

Well, a fan of yours.

During 2020, you got to do Stand Up on the Tenai Show, which is one of like the thing.

It's the thing I had been working for for my entire comedic career.

Did Carson invite you over to the couch?

Well, the dead Carson invited me.

Yes.

It was complicated.

A couple interesting wrinkles in Canese's circumstances.

One, Carson long dead.

Secondly, no one was allowed to be indoors.

What would Carson have made of all that?

I don't know.

Cannese had this great show outside.

Weird

stuff.

Cannes had this great fucking tonight show set, The Dream, that happened on a

rooftop in the winter.

Yes.

I was crying because, like, if it's cold, I start to, my eyes water.

And so I had to like constantly figure out ways to like wipe tears away from my face while still telling my jokes and like being filmed.

It was, it was an experience that I'll never forget.

But my memory is that it's like Fallon at home, right?

Like in his cabin, and he's

in studio.

So, like, some people weren't allowed to be in studio.

Okay, the roof

are in studio.

Okay, so it was when he was back to in-studio, but there was no audience.

Yes.

Yes.

And half the guests were Zoom.

Yes.

And he's in studio and he goes, like, and now Knis Mobile, except instead of gesturing to his left, he gestures towards the roof.

And then it just cuts to the roof of 30 Rock.

in again the winter the winter

yawn winter yes it was fascinating i will with carson it would have been carson was in la

so a rooftop

even in february or whatever why did that guy have to go and die and make your life more difficult well first he retired

it was about me yes yeah it was yes i won't i won't be there when she's performing no i i'm retiring and dying i mean a few people did it outside but somebody did it from uh like a drive-in in texas and that was like warm and he looked like he was happy and then Mark Normand I think did it from the Staten Island Ferry and it was very strange that that seems like maybe too much business also under those circumstances maybe you do want to just like be like look this is never going to be normal yes so why not try to do the weirdest version of it sure That's why I got married in my backyard.

I was like, I don't know when things are going to happen.

You have a backyard?

I went for the invite, by the way.

Well, it was COVID.

Are you kidding me?

It was the whole election.

No, it was my parents-in-law's background.

What?

You have access to grass and sky simultaneously?

I didn't at the time.

I lived at a fucking railroad.

I had a roof.

We had a roof, but it was one of those sort of building roofs.

I was on the rails, just to be clear.

David his wife a bindle.

Carson retired 92.

Died in 2005.

Oh, wow.

I thought he was dead way earlier.

Just lazy.

What is this?

This is 13 years just fucking cooling his hits.

This is my favorite thing to talk about carson used to retire in this country oh yeah it's so true

especially people in jobs that need turnover yeah but you know that need a bit of freshening up so like that's that's a huge part of it right just in general that doesn't happen this generation won't let go of their position that's why harrison ford at 80 is red hulk or whatever second part

you know who used to retire the hardest so funny that he's red hulk

do you know who used to retire the hardest who used to retire the hardest the most famous people in the world sure right oh yeah they would be be like i'm done goodbye right you're like yeah right audrey hepburn you know i guess well no well well no

hepburn are you talking about audrey hepburn right now because we're we're about to do always right last

movie she died shortly after then so she did not like you know i guess she's not as good as an example did she do an al pacino phase where it was just like anything that paid her she was there none of those people fucking did that no well i think that you know it was less of there weren't movies like that as much i guess back then either, right?

You couldn't just be like, hey, put me in any Bulgarian action movie that like is being made this year, right?

There are relevant threads within this, right?

Like this is Mini series on the early films of Steven Spielberg, covering the first half of his career.

His first big official professional directing job was the episode of the Night Gallery with Joan Crawford.

And that was the example of like, that's like an old movie star who won't retire, right?

And perhaps like didn't manage their finances enough to be able to retire slash needs the attention.

But yeah, are they just bored?

But you'd end up there.

You'd end up like, you're a very special guest star on television.

That would be nice.

Right.

Or you like have a sort of like poignant cameo in a thing or you show up in a horror movie for five minutes to be like lend it some credibility, whatever, right?

There wasn't the sort of like cash out of Red Hulk.

Yes.

But there's also the thing.

Is he doing like five movies right now?

The Red Hulk thing is particularly galling.

We have maybe brought up Red Hulk in every episode.

Red Hulk has definitely come up with a lot of people who are just

past.

Because it just keeps being so funny to me that they're like, there's a new Captain America movie.

And I'm like, oh, what's it about?

And they're like, there's a black captain.

Sam Wilson is Captain America.

I'm like, what's it about?

What does he do?

And they're like, I don't know.

Harrison will be Red Hulk.

Right.

And I'm like, what does Captain America do in the movie?

And they're like,

he's dialing something.

He's investigating or something.

I don't know.

He has wings.

Did you watch it in his Harrison?

Half of the Winter Soldier?

I watched every episode of it yes that was early covet too

we were watching everything i'll throw it on i'm right you know what i'm watching right now lord of the rings the rings of power season two yikes because i have this kind of seven to ten o'clock period where i'm not i can't sleep but uh that my my twin uh babies are trying to sleep, but that's when they're going to be the most rocky.

They'll pop up.

They'll, you know, you're going to be like, oh, Rocksteady, Beep, and Rocksteady.

Their names are Bebop and Rocksteady.

Oh, okay, thank you.

I was like, Rocksteady, like Gwen Stefani, or Rocksteady, like the other.

Okay, cool, cool.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I'm hip.

Um, so it's good to have a show that I don't

mind too much if it's gotta pause it or whatever.

And Lord of the Rings of the Rings of Power is that show.

It's very plausible.

Have you seen?

Yes, I watched all of the first season, and then I watched the first episode of the second season.

And you were like, I'm finally, I'm, I'm, I'm beyond when they're when we're following like black

like gunk just rolling down a hill.

That does happen.

I think I was a little out on that.

That does have to be like young Sauron.

You are, Ben.

Correct.

Wow.

How did you get that?

You were doing a joke, but that's what that is.

That's 100% the Sauron died and then he was gunk for a while.

Let's follow the gunk.

And I'm like, mervinia of gunk.

Gunk?

Yes.

Up a hill.

Did Ben write this show?

Possibly.

No, there's just there's whole episodes where they're like, should we make more rings?

And they're like, I don't know.

And I'm like, I know you're going to make it.

You're going to make rings.

answer other questions no other questions answered they sit and they think about making rings and that's

they have this like proto gandalf where he's like should i be gandalf and they're like i don't know

he's like i don't know how to do it and they're like well you'll probably figure it out episode seven or eight is he literally gandalf or is he a gala he is literally gandalf he has visions of a staff or something oh my god someday it's truly my hand feels so empty i had something

off it's just one of those things where people are like oh they're gonna to do a prequel Lord of the Rings show, but like, you know, I know that there's a lot of token stuff that you can work with, but don't people kind of know, you know, the backstory enough to how could that be interesting?

They're like, no, we'll make it interesting.

And like 18 hours in, I can tell you, they didn't pull it off.

They give him a really straight hat, and there's a scene where he decides to bend it.

So it droops.

I think that would be like the season finale of season three.

Not unless I watch it.

True.

I will give it that.

Like, I do.

So much money on that.

It's an it's an expensive, fairly fairly handsome show yeah you know and

uh you know anyway uh whatever i can't even remember how we got on this topic people don't retire the person for it is red wolves

don't you think it's funny that they're like captain america what's it about i i had a whole long argument with my grandmother who's who's a woman of an advanced age and gets very touchy when I get into conversations about like

people need to retire, right?

And I'm talking about from a sociological aspect.

And she interprets it as you're saying that over a certain age, people don't have value anymore.

Got it, which I constantly try to delineate, you know.

But we had versions of this argument with Joe Biden, running for president, a thing that worked out really well for everybody.

So well.

We're excited about the future.

Totally.

But I was saying this about Harrison Ford, and she's like, who are you to say he can't work anymore?

He still has value.

And I'm like, I'm not saying that.

I'm just saying maybe he shouldn't make movies for nine-year-olds anymore.

Yeah.

I'm like, I want him to do whatever makes him happy, but I'm like a little depressed that we can't let go of him playing Indiana Jones.

Right.

I was having this conversation when the last one was coming out.

And I'm like, that movie's trying to reckon with it, but it is just like, he seems very fulfilled by being unshrinking.

I'm not going to tell him he shouldn't play Red Hulk, but there is a larger aspect of like

let's step back.

Like Red Hulk feels like this inflection point of like, we need to examine 10 different cultural phenomena that have led to this moment.

That have led to Harrison, do you want to step?

You know what?

I was about to say, like it's beneath him to sort of step into a role right it's like this was william hurt and william hurt died but he stepped into jack ryan he's you know what he's just a guy who's just like look i was a carpenter and i just i do the work i show up they tell me i'm hulk i go

and then i go home i want to see him more in like um what lies beneath sized movies that would be great that would be great what if you married harrison ford right now i might be freaking i feel like might be weird we have to move about it a bit in doing this series but you're just like wouldn't it be so cool to see him and Spielberg work together in any other context?

You know, like rather than just Indiana Jones.

They never worked together.

It's wild that they never did.

That's a true.

And they remained like close friends and they speak very lovingly of each other.

And there was always like the rumor that he was, that he wanted him to play.

I want you to direct six days, seven nights.

Sorry, I don't know.

Just doing a bad thing.

There were conflicting rumors about him and Lincoln.

Him and Lincoln.

I remember that.

I feel like both at some point maybe being the Tommy Lee Jones part, but also maybe being Grant in a smaller role.

And then there's been some like kind of questioning of the story of David Lynch ending up in the Fablemans

that was suggested by Mark Harris, but Spielberg said he had a different actor in mind.

And people have been like, would that have been Harrison Ford for one scene?

Like all of those are interesting possibilities.

Obviously, we got two great performances from other people in that situation.

And we're about to get a great performance from him in Captain America something something as Red Hulk, President Hulk.

I just think it's funny that he's the president.

I think every part of it's eight hats on hats.

Yeah.

They're like, we've cast hairs in front of them.

Like, that's okay.

That's an upgrade, I guess, or that's crazy.

He'll be Red Hulk too.

He's going to be Red Hulk too.

Okay.

And he's the president as well.

Here's the funnier part.

They elected him.

Yeah.

We're going to talk about the color purple.

There's a lot to talk about.

First, we have to talk about the color red.

William Hurt, Academy Award-winning actor, plays General Thunderbolt Ross like five times, six times over like 10, 12 years.

A lot of times.

And is basically always at most the 10th most important character in the movie.

And you're like, yeah, he's fine in these.

He's like sturdy.

They get a little dramatic use out of helping, having him set up larger government stakes or whatever, but he's not that important.

And then William Hurt dies.

And then they're like, here's the pitch for Captain America 4.

Maybe the biggest living historic movie star.

Now plays him, shaves his mustache, and turns into a monster.

And the whole movie's about him.

Yeah, they were like, okay, we were thinking, maybe we'll make a Marvel movie that's not Black Panther, but about a black Captain America.

No,

it is about the president.

Be real, it's about the president, it's about Harrison Ford.

Please come to this movie.

What if the president was a monster and he shaved his mustache?

Just the sort of like taking your whole dick out, too, right?

Of like, Harrison Ford's in it.

I'm like, okay, he's red hook.

I'm like,

are there any surprises left for me in the middle?

None, right?

You just saw my whole dick.

The whole, that's my whole dick.

Like, they tried to all be cagey about it for so long, and now the trailer is like, just the tip, tip, and they're like, Okay, we'll just

get a little angry.

Oh, will he?

And they're like,

Look at him.

His face looks like Harrison Ford.

We made it look like Harrison Ford.

We made it look like Harrison Ford.

Oh, boy.

Anyway, why are we talking about this?

I don't know.

The color purple.

Retiring.

Retiring.

It is,

I don't know.

How do I frame this?

There were times I was watching this movie.

I felt this sense of sorrow of like, oh, this was a point in time where if a movie, if a book won the Pulitzer Prize, big best-selling book, studios would be like, well, obviously, we have to turn this into a big, serious movie.

There is a cultural obligation and the public is demanding it.

There is interest in this.

Right.

This book came out three years before the movie.

Like it was, it was, you know, book comes out in 82.

By 83, it is an award-winning, Pulitzer Prize-winning, best-selling book.

By 85, the film has been released, directed by one of the big filmmakers of the era.

Like, you know, bang, bang, boom.

What won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction last year?

I don't know.

I should know.

I don't read as much as I should.

I feel very guilty.

Something called Night Watch, Historical Fiction During the American Civil War by Jane Ann Phillips.

Someone turned this into a movie.

Dwight Gardner called it Sludgy.

Sludgy?

I just finally saw Nickel Boys, which will be, have been out for a while by the time this episode comes out, but just came out here pretty recently.

Well, that, which won the Pulitzer in 2020?

This is my favorite.

the last, in fact, that is the last Pulitzer winner for fiction that has been turned into a film.

Okay.

So that film is phenomenal.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Right.

The book's great.

I haven't watched the movie.

Terrific film.

Movie's terrific.

But I was just like, having seen that in theaters in the same week that I watched Color Purple for the first time.

Oh, man.

You're real deep in Black Pain.

Hey, look, I'm not looking for a round of applause.

Oh, no, I'm not giving it to you, but thank you.

We can agree on that.

I don't deserve it.

Don't give it.

But yeah, you real

black people be suffering.

A little bit.

A little bit.

And it's just, you know, timing, chance, whatever.

But it was like interesting to see these two movies like 40 years apart, right?

In the same week, and be like, here's this book that is like seismic.

And that like Amazon and MGM are just like, you know what?

We're going to give like a $25 million budget to someone who's never made a feature-length scripted film before casting largely unknown actors with like a very daring formal like conceit.

I've heard about this conceit and I'm like, wow, I'm just like, which is incredible.

But that speaks to in that moment, them almost having the awareness of like, there is no big tent version of this.

If we try to make the version of this that appeals to like multiplex mall audiences everywhere, like

it's not going to accomplish anything, right?

No, it's like the help, bro.

Like

that's when it's like, hey, we need to make this a four-collagent thing.

Okay, we got to get the black people out the center center of it.

Okay, we can't.

Get rid of that.

But even the help is like,

that's more of a like an emotional beach read, you know?

It wasn't like, this is this like humongous, immediately historic piece of literature that needs to be treated with respect.

That also in the history of Hollywood was like, we have to serve two things at the same time.

One, like treat the material, but also two, we have an obligation to like win best picture, make $100 million.

And Nickel Boys is just clearly like, why would we even attempt to do that?

Just do an artistic film.

Right.

And I think that everything that's interesting about Color Purple is it like existing in tension between those two things,

you know, and like

being both better and worse than it should be and could be at the same time.

The really annoying thing is, when I'm looking at this Pulitzer list, all the light we cannot see the sympathizer and the Underground Railroad all turned into television.

Right.

That's, that's now what more often happens.

The Goldfinch was turned into a movie.

I was thinking about a bad one.

I saw it.

I suffered through every second of that piece of shit.

But that's the other one I was thinking of in doing this sort of math in my head where I pinned that in my mind.

And I'm like, I feel like that was the last time that a book comes out, is a sensation, wins all the awards.

And there's like this feeding frenzy of like, which recent best picture director are we going to get with 20 name actors?

Before that, it's The Road.

Yeah.

And we're taking like eight-year leaps.

The road also was like 10 years in development.

Yeah, no, this is the thing.

There's a lot of these sort of bestsellers that became classics, Cavalier and Clay, Middlesex.

Middlesex was made into something?

No, no, where it's like development channels.

That's just what I'm saying is people keep saying, like, we're going to turn that into like an HBO series, or no, we're going to make a movie of that.

And then it just kind of gets lost and developed.

All of those started this way, where it's like, it wins the award, and it's immediately like X, Y, and Z have all signed on to adapt this.

Here are the casting lists, here are the this, and then it keeps getting redeveloped and it never happens.

Okay.

Because they're like not, I feel like that's why they make night pitch.

That's why they make crazy rich agents.

Like, hey, there are books that they're making and it's like going to make us more money.

Why would we do this?

Yes, yes, yes.

There's like, there's less of this pressure to take a book that is important and try to figure out how to make it more functional as a broad movie.

Whereas I think they're now like, if a book feels like a movie, make it into a movie.

And if a book feels difficult to adapt, then maybe let's like slow our horses and like rethink this.

Ben.

What's up, Griff?

This is an ad break.

Yeah.

And I'm just, this isn't a humble brag.

It's just a fact of the matter.

Despite you being on mic, oftentimes when sponsors buy ad space on this podcast, the big thing they want is personal host endorsement.

Right.

They love that they get a little bonus ben on the ad read, but technically, that's not what they're looking for.

But But something very different is happening right now.

That is true.

We had a sponsor coming and say, we are looking for the coveted Ben Hosley endorsement.

What?

This is laser targeted.

The product.

We have a copy that asks, is the product a porch movie?

It certainly is.

And what is today's episode sponsored by?

The Toxic Avenger.

The new Toxic Avenger movie is coming to theaters August 29th.

Making Blair's remake of...

reimagining, whatever.

A reboot of the Toxic Avenger.

Now, David and I have not gotten to see it yet, but they sent you a screener link.

Yeah, I'm going to see it.

We're

excited to see it.

But, Ben, you texted us last night.

This fucking rules.

It fucks.

It honks.

Yeah.

It's so great.

Let me read you the cast list here in billing order, as they asked, which I really appreciate.

Peter Dinklage, Jacob Tremblay, Tremblay, Taylor Page, with Elijah Wood, and Kevin Bacon.

Tremblay is Toxie's son.

His stepson.

His stepson.

Okay.

Wade Goose.

Yes.

Great name.

Give us the takes.

We haven't heard of them yet.

Okay.

You got fucking Dinkledge is fantastic.

He's talking.

He plays it with so much heart.

It's such a lovely performance.

Bacon is in the pocket too, man.

He's the bad guy.

He's the bad guy.

There's a lot of him shirtless.

Okay.

Looking like David.

David sizzling.

Yep.

And then Elijah Wood plays like a dang-ass freak.

He certainly does.

He's having a lot of fun.

Tell us some things you liked about the movie.

Okay, well, I'm a Jersey guy.

I just got to say, the original movie was shot in the town where I went to high school.

Trump.

Yes, yes, that's right.

The original film.

Yep.

I grew up watching toxic and trauma movies on porches

with my sleazy and sticky friends.

It informed so much of my sensibility.

Your friends like Junkyard Dog and Headbanger.

Yeah, exactly.

Making Toxic Crusader drills.

And so when I heard that they were doing this new installment, I was really emotionally invested.

It was in limbo for a while before our friends at Ciniverse rescued it and are now releasing it uncut.

But I feel like there have been years of you being very excited at the prospect, but also a little weary.

They're playing with fire here.

Yeah, it's just, it's something that means a lot to me.

And they knocked it out of the fucking park.

Okay.

It somehow really captured.

that sensibility, that sense of humor, even just that like lo-fi, scrappy kind of nature that's inherent in all of the trauma movies and the original Toxie movies.

And they have like updated in this way that it was just, I was so pleased with it.

It's gooey.

It's gooey.

It's sufficiently gooey.

Tons of blood, tons of goo,

great action.

It's really fucking funny.

It just, it hits all of the sensibilities that you would want in an updated version.

Cineverse last year released Terrifier 3 unrated.

Yeah.

Big risk for them there.

I feel like it's a very, very intense movie.

And a huge hit.

More interesting, yeah, theatrical box office phenomenons the last five years.

Want to make that happen again here?

Tickets are on sale right now.

Advanced sales really matter for movies like this.

So if y'all were planning on seeing Toxic Avenger, go ahead and buy those tickets.

Please go to toxicaver.com slash blank check to get your tickets.

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Yup.

And Ben, it just says here here in the copy, wants to call out that Elijah Wood plays a weird little guy who says, Summon the Nuts.

Can you tell us anything about that moment without spoiling it?

Summon the Nuts is in reference to a

psychotic new metal band.

Hell yeah.

Who are also mercenaries.

Cool.

And drive a van.

with a skeleton giving two fingies up on the grill.

And that's all I'll say.

Okay.

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I'm excited to see it.

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Anyway, the color purple is the movie we're here to discuss today.

So Griffin had never seen it.

Ben, had you ever seen it?

No.

I'd seen it.

Had you ever seen it?

Okay.

Oh, my goodness.

Let's just let me finish.

Okay.

So I am a black woman from the South.

It was, I was raised in the black church, went to a black school.

I was certain that I had grown up with this film, that I had seen it so many times.

There are cultural touch points.

It's in.

like rap music like it's it's everywhere so i was like when you were like hey color purple i was like yeah i got that that I watched the movie I've never seen that movie in my life wild I've I had not seen it and I had to be like oh fuck had you seen like the the musical or the the musical movie or any of that like any of the later color purple stuff had you read the book I read the book yesterday I'm the only host now I read the book I read the book long ago oh you're cooler than me

Pretty cool of me to have read a famous bestseller, The Color Purple, which I'm pretty sure I got on Kindle Unlimited.

Wow.

COVID when I was just like, I got to read something.

But yes, I have read the color.

Okay, so you'd never seen it.

You had never seen the color purple.

Um, congratulations on watching it.

What did you think?

I am so worried about my street cred right now.

Um, only the coolest people, you know, no, it's like my black street cred, okay?

Like,

I could get like cards, could be revoked.

You don't understand, it's like the whole thing,

and so,

like,

yes, this movie is important.

Yes, it has some of the people who have defined blackness on camera for the last 50 years.

I think it is important.

Quincy Jones did the movie, like the music for it and everything.

Super important.

And like produced it.

And was by all accounts the one who really got Spielberg to sign off.

Yeah.

I mean, we'll talk about it.

Yeah.

I hate the music for this so much.

And I was like, what the fuck is this?

Like, why are you shooting child rape like it's a day in the park?

Well, this is what we're going to talk about.

This is the weird tonal thing with this movie.

Absolutely.

Yes.

We'll talk about it.

Thank you.

I just, I feel like part of me has to say that I love this movie.

You don't have to say anything.

Okay.

Thank you.

You definitely don't have to say anything.

But I definitely felt like the book.

had more interesting things to say about the black community, our relationship with God, parents, and women specifically.

And they took a lot of those edges off

and then had this ending of coming to Jesus or something.

And I was like, please don't do, no, no.

As an adaptation of the book,

it's a huge misfire.

I think all adaptations of the book are, actually.

I think the musical and the later musical movie also are bad adaptations of the book.

Those are kind of, they're kind of just like...

adaptations of this movie in a weird way.

Like, it's like,

because the book is very hard to deal with the weird like cultural reputation of the movie as an idea, which is sort of so different than what the thing is.

I watched it and I was like, oh, yeah.

Cause like this is an important thing.

The first time, like a lot of, like, oh, wow, it's a blow.

Black women, we never get to do anything.

And then, oh, so we just getting beat down and assault.

Okay.

Well, look, the whole thing with the color purple, though, the movie is what you're saying of like, why, why was it made by Steven Spielberg?

And like, why?

Great question.

Yeah.

Why, you know, well, who else would have they gotten to do it at the time?

That's that's what we have to talk about is right.

It's like, right, who was who is the project sort of what we and we could, I think Quincy Jones sought out Steven Spielberg in the sort of like that gives it the biggest seal of approval.

He's the biggest director there is.

Isn't Oprah, though, kind of also very involved in this?

No, she's a little later.

She's a fucking nobody for this one.

She's like a local TV host.

Like, yeah.

Oprah becomes like one of the main creative forces on both productions of the musical on Broadway and the musical movie.

And Oprah, like, she becomes Oprah.

Sure.

But she was an Oprah.

Not, I mean, she was a local TV host.

Like she was the start of Oprah, but she was not a mobile.

Zero acting credits, right?

I think, yeah.

I mean, and that's the

cast of this movie

is a lot of people that you're like, well, these are famous people who were not really well known at the time.

Like Danny Glover was like a theater actor.

You know, like these are not.

It's not Kines.

It's just like this movie having lightning in a bottle, Danny Glover, Whoopi Goldberg, Oprah, basically not existing prior to this moment, gives it a power that is kind of like never going to disappear.

So this is, you know, it's an important movie.

It's important that a movie like this was a blockbuster,

launched careers, you know, sort of displayed an experience that wasn't in movies much, but it feels kind of like first steps

on a lot of this stuff.

Very first step.

It's very tentative.

I think being present is a step.

I think Spielberg himself would admit like he was somewhat cowardly in how he made the movie and like stand it out, standing off the edge.

Right to the deep end of this, because this is the thing I really like go back and forth on with this film that I think is interesting.

Okay.

I don't say interesting a good way.

I'm like, part of what makes it a fascinating, like a piece of work to dig into is

it feels like just, you know, we'll dig into this more, but like.

there is almost the chess move, it feels like, where when you read Alice Walker be like, do I want to like sell these rights to anyone?

Do I trust anyone to make a movie of the color?

I could Hollywood make a good movie of this size.

And then she's sort of like convinced by people in her inner circle of like, there's a responsibility to like put this on a bigger platform.

There's like an opportunity here to make a movie of this size starring women of color, which doesn't really exist in the studio system.

Like, there are all the values of this.

And Quincy Jones comes in.

Quincy Jones is this figure for decades who is like deeply invested in like black Hollywood and opportunities and like trying to create industries and this like that.

And it feels like he made this sort of strategic chess move of like, A, if I get Spielberg to direct this, that gives it the biggest stamp of approval.

But B, does that also kind of protect it?

Like, he is the one guy with enough cachet where if he says he wants to do it this way, they won't push back on him, which is interesting as a strategic move, right?

Then the flip side of that is all the stuff that you're saying that Steven Spielberg doesn't represent well in this movie feels like, to David's point, kind of cowardice of him being like, I know I don't have a handle on it.

Pull that off.

This weird thing of being like, you want to give him the credit for knowing that he would have fucked that up.

But yet, if you are the one adapting this material and you're not willing to touch that, then maybe you shouldn't be directing this movie.

Yes.

Has he ever directed anything with even a hint of gay in it?

Here, this is a theory.

that David and I have stewed on for a long time.

I threw out years and years ago, and that I feel like comes up a lot on the podcast.

but when Steven Spielberg was the head of the jury at the Conn Film Festival, he gave the palm d'Or to Blue is the warmest color.

But yes.

But he was the head of the jury.

He was the head of the jury.

And then he gave it to French lesbian drama, Blue is the warmest color.

Directed by

a really chill guy.

Okay, cool.

Just wanted to clarify that.

Okay.

A little bit of a similar situation.

At the time.

Adapting a very big, like, queer French, like, graphic novel by a man who maybe has a weird relationship to women.

But they don't know.

They don't know.

But my guess is it's like is what uh griffin is saying is spielberg is watching this movie that is wall-to-wall sex scenes and lesbian sex scenes it's just like i could never do that this has always been my so impressed by is that when like filmmakers are the heads of juries of major festivals and you see what they give the awards to versus when it's actors or you know other people i specifically when it's directors and some of those choices are really odd i think usually you can pathologize it as this is the movie they can least imagine themselves being able to pull off.

That they are in awe, that there is something on screen that they're just like, I don't know how you get there.

And Spielberg gives it to this movie and is like, and by the way, the award is split between the director and the two actresses.

Yeah.

Because this couldn't be possible without the level of whatever.

There's years of litigation of like, did he abuse the actresses?

Psychologically torturous set, whatever.

But there's something there in Spielberg, like 30 years later, being like, I wouldn't even know where to begin.

He shows one lady putting her hand on the other lady's shoulder, and that's a stand-in for all lesbianism.

You also have to remember, it's the 80s.

This just isn't in movies.

Like, you think of a movie called like Desert Hearts, right?

Which is, I think, the same year, 85.

Have you ever seen Desert Hearts?

Anyone ever seen Desert Hearts?

It's a totemic, early indie lesbian drama.

It's awesome.

It's, uh, I think Criterion released it eventually or whatever.

You know, you can go watch it, everybody.

But, like, that's like an indie, indie, indie-ass movie that, like, you probably could have only seen in two theaters like in America.

That's, that's where like gay, you know, romance basically exists in the American cinema in the mid 80s, right?

Sure.

Or, you know, it's, it's like Dog Day Afternoon, or it's like, wow, sure, right.

You know, I bet like,

but that's not what that movie is fundamentally.

That's an element of the movie, and that's a sort of sensationalist element of that movie that that movie handles very well.

But like,

yes, it is like kind of, there's that degree of it.

And Spielberg talks about in interviews being like, look, I felt the movie had to be PG-13.

There was a responsibility to make the biggest version of this movie.

I want it to be communicated.

That was a strategic decision.

But the other part of that is just like...

It's so crazy where you're like, how does the movie begin?

It's like, well, you know, it's about this, this, this girl who's being abused by her father.

And he, you know,

fires two children on her and gives the children away.

And you're like, that's the start of the movie.

That's the start of the movie.

You're like, yeah.

Her on a bed in the snow, pushing a baby out.

And you're like, what's the plot of the movie?

And you're like, a procession of suffering across like multiple characters until they get like a little bit of respite at the end.

Which also, those types of narratives, which often are make like huge, incredible, important books, are really hard to adapt into like.

not even three-act structures, but sort of like fixed time audiovisual narratives where it's just like watching characters go through the worst of it over and over.

This is why I want to open the dossier, but I do want to say this is, I think, the argument for why this movie is kind of good in a way.

Good in a way is exactly how I would put it.

I mean, to be clear, all right, to be clear, I think that this is a very watchable, affecting movie.

Like, if you just like sit down and watch this movie, as many Americans did, it is hard not to be moved by it.

It's incredibly, incredibly well-acted.

He cannot make an uncompelling movie.

And, like, Spielberg's.

There's a few performances where I could have like adjusted some stuff.

But like, what is incredible and like, you know, it's a, it's, yeah, well, wow.

You know, it's a, it's, and Spielberg's a good filmmaker.

And, like, you know, you're, you're in the hands of a good filmmaker.

And you watch this movie and you're like, yeah, wow.

I mean, like, what a, what a tough time and what a, you know, somewhat, you know, note of grace at the end.

And blah, blah, blah.

As an adaptation, you can quibble.

As like a white Jewish filmmaker who doesn't really know shit about like the South or women's experiences, you know, like,

yeah, but I was mad as a child.

Yeah.

It's like that because that's true.

He's coming in there being like, I understand the experience of black women.

I'm just credit for not having the arrogance of that, but it's right.

The weird.

Yeah.

But the fact that Spielberg is too shy or maybe just too sentimental to really depict things like with like utter brutality kind of makes the movie, you know, it's like there's a lot of movies that just lean into the misery and the brutality, like you're saying, and they're not really good.

Like.

That's often a mistake.

They can become kind of numbing.

It's kind of relentless and numbing.

And you're so, you know, it's really hard balance to strike how to depict like, oh, and then at a certain point, I think in our culture, people started being like, Can we just have less movies about this?

Like, and have movies about other experiences.

Why are we

trying?

But this was a bestseller.

This is Alice.

Anyway, so that's sort of the argument for like

what was helpful about the color purple.

You know, I'm like layering this in caveats,

but that, right?

Like, if you're gonna, but then, you know, you read shit like, you know, Margaret Avery is like incredible in this movie, right?

She gets an academy award

she plays shug oh yeah yeah i like her and then her like career completely kind of stalls out and you read interviews

like margaret avery shug avery yeah okay yeah yeah they've the her and the character both have the same last name cool cool cool um

uh she was just like this movie comes out again oscar nomination and people are like well she's not big enough for movies and she's probably too big for tv

was just sort of like all

so you guys nothing right they were just kind of like and i'm not even gonna have a window of opportunity unless there's like another black star who needs a wife in a movie, you know?

And she was like, and meanwhile, I watch the next year, Danny Glover does like Lethal Weapon.

Like it's an immediate launching pad, right?

And obviously Whoopi Goldberg launches into like an insane film career off of this.

A very nice one.

A really nice one, but it's also sort of bizarre to be like weird like theatrical comedian, never in a movie, gets her breakthrough in a like.

purely dramatic role in a Spielberg film, gets an Oscar nomination for her debut performance, and then immediately is like, great, and now I make comedy vehicles.

Yeah.

Like, it's funny that she didn't get slotted into drama and that she was able to go back and

totally.

Yeah.

But it's like, but Whoopi's career is a one-of-one.

Like, it's a very,

but, like, that's, that's a weird example of like, and then, you know,

Oprah doesn't really act again for like over a decade.

We've, we've now covered like half of Oprah's movie career on this behavior.

Because we covered Beloved and we covered Princess of the Frog.

Oh, sure.

Oh, wow.

If you remove times in which she played Oprah Winfrey in a movie, it's like eight roles, and I think we've covered four of them.

Yeah, we'll probably do Selma one day

and a Wrinkle in Time.

I mean, if we do Selma, we're doing A Wrinkle in Time.

Same director.

But you're like this thing where it sort of like launches people and also like some people get totally stuck.

Yeah.

Margaret Avery should have won the Oscar and Woofie should have won the Oscar, in my opinion.

If you guys want to talk about it now, or we can talk about it later.

If you want to talk about the 1985 Oscars, which are kind of a travesty.

Like almost every winner is wrong.

Build up to that.

Okay, fine.

So the color purple, 1980s, Steven Spielberg, Peter Pan himself, he'll never grow up.

Yes.

He makes movies about space aliens and Harrison Ford with his whip, Temples of Doom.

Sharks and stuff.

Sharks.

Right.

He's quickly becoming.

Oh, he wants to make a grown-up movie and it turns out to be Poltergeist.

It's just another silly movie.

for children.

And you're getting the narratives of like, is this guy holding back culture?

Oh, he wants to make another thing what's oh he's doing a movie based on his favorite tv show twilight zone well i'm sure nothing bad will happen there oh he started a production company amblin what's he gonna make with that gremlins and the goonies i'm serious like this is the narrative what you say it's like this person is infantilizing culture with his childish genre obsessions and like now Amblin is spawning like more Spielbergs like that will only you know do more right right he basically right they poured water on Steven Spielberg, and now many Spielbergs are coming out of his back and wrecking trap.

But, like, at this point, he has made four of the highest-grossing films of all time, if not five.

Oh, sure.

I don't know.

Indiana Jones draws an ET for sure.

Close encounters was up there.

Whatever.

He's made like four of the highest-grossing films of all time.

Here's the other weird thing that we've been covering, Knisse.

Sugarland Express, no Oscar nominations.

Right.

Second movie, Jaws.

Big Oscar film, nominated for Best Picture, not nominated for Best Director.

Seen as a snub.

Yeah.

For a film that was so culturally like seismic.

Then Close Encounters, nominated for best director, not nominated for best picture.

1941's a flop.

Raiders of the Lost Ark, nominated for picture and director.

Oh.

Indiana Jones is the first time that they're like, fuck, fine.

Yeah.

We'll give you both.

But it's felt like they've been a little like.

I did not know that that was nominated for best picture.

Which is also crazy.

Yeah.

Do you like Steven Spielberg?

We didn't even ask.

I think so.

i think i like steven spielberg in the way that i like coca-cola or beyonce or uh

football in america i don't you know just like this

mac and cheese yeah actually i don't like i'm from the south that's like offensive to me so sorry sorry

i'm so sorry but are you velveeta then what's your what on earth are you talking about she's saying that like she she doesn't need to make mac and cheese out of a what yeah

i thought it was just you you had another brand of them.

Brand?

What are you talking about, family?

I'm so sorry.

I'm now with you.

Yes.

I genuinely was confused.

When the word Velveeta came out of your mouth, I was like, what is happening?

You gave me a disdainful look.

And I opened mac and cheese once.

It was weird.

I didn't know that Velveeta made mac and cheese because Velveeta isn't even,

can we legally call Velveeta cheese?

It's the cheese product.

It's the goo, right?

Yeah.

It's vegan.

Macaroni.

It's vegan?

I think it is.

I don't know.

It's like the orange version of the Sauron goo.

That's what Velveeta looks like.

No, it's not vegan.

I'm sorry.

I take it back.

Yeah, the vegans are going to come after you.

One of my exes who listens to this podcast and is a vegan.

He's going to come after you.

Shout out to Knesse's vegan ex.

You know who I am if you're listening.

He should be.

He fucking should be.

Sit down and listen.

Yeah, how about that?

No, I'm kidding.

Turn it on.

You're a perfectly nice person.

Just we weren't right together.

E.T.

the Extraterrestrial becomes the highest-grossing film of all time.

Immediately one of the most beloved films in history.

I think is basically presumed to be the Oscar frontrunner, and it's seen as like a bit of a shock that Gandhi beats it for picture and director.

And it's this element of like, they would rather give it to the very sort of like handsome, middlebrow, classical biopic.

than the movie that like made the entire world cry because it does feel like there's a bit of a like we can't fucking give spielberg everything.

We can't give him too much power, right?

Off of ET.

He can be the box office king, but that doesn't mean he gets Oscars automatically.

And it is foolish because indeed, he probably should have just won his Oscars for ET, because that's where it's kind of like, look, man, this is the whole package.

You made a huge hit.

It's a personal film.

It sort of appeals to everyone.

It's really fucking good.

But no, Gandhi, I think Gandhi was the front runner.

We'll talk about it on that episode, but Gandhi was this, you know, the whole thing with Gandhi was like, they had 10,000 people in this scene, you know, where it was just like, how the fuck did they do this?

You know, I don't know.

And they got this guy who looks like Gandhi.

Where'd they buy this guy?

It's like, I don't know.

Anyway, he rolls straight from that into basically a contractually obligated second Indiana Jones movie, which people have a divisive reaction to.

And it's in that moment, that inflection point, that it does feel like we have this run of years that Spielberg being like, you want me to grow up?

Fine.

Like a slightly kind of like vindictive, like, I can do this.

So, well, as Spielberg puts it, for a long time, I'd wanted to become something involved, involved with something that had more to do with character development.

I wanted to do something that was not stereotypically a Spielberg movie.

Try a different set of muscles, right?

Sidney Lumet,

Sidney Pollock, a couple of Sidneys out here, right?

Who he admires,

who are more guys who kind of do a lot of stuff, you know, like, right?

Like, those are not.

filmmakers where you're like, yeah, they're going to make the same sort of movie every time they make all kinds of dramas in a grown-up movie.

and also like you know spielberg growing up like coveting people like hawks and ford who made like six studio movies a year and they'd finish one and the studio head would be like here's a book adapt this you know and it's just like this is the assignment you're handed like those kinds of assignment directors who are able to elevate the material but would just kind of serve it and be like here's another one off the factory line and some of them hit he's always had such a like um

he covets those people and those types of careers and the flexibility and the range of what they were able to make.

Uh, color purple.

You could see him going, like, this is my chance to do that kind of thing.

It's an epistolary novel, as we know, as readers of the book.

Uh, these two haven't read it.

Guess they, guess they don't want to, you know, experience literature.

Uh, Alice Walker was letters.

It's a bunch of letters,

which, of course, is in the movie that your discovery of letters and stuff becomes important.

Um,

Alice Walker, she was an editor at Ms.

magazine

and had written this big essay about

Nora Zeal Hurston that helped revive Nora Zeal, Zora Neale Hurston.

Okay, I was like, who is that?

JJ,

you are legitimately fired writing Nora Zeal Hurston.

Zora Neale Hurston.

Double fired.

And I guess, I don't like the book becoming a bestseller is somewhat of a surprise.

It's a tough book to read.

It's written in like a vernacular.

The violence is very intense.

It's very dark.

It has lesbian themes, which are, you know, maybe less controversial in literature, but still, you know, it's a little out there, I guess, for 1983, but it is a gigantic bestseller.

And Quincy Jones loves the book and gets Peter Goober.

Wait, this is the other part.

It's a Quincy Jones.

His last name is Goober.

We're just accepting that.

I assume that's how you say it.

But Quincy Jones gets

Goober and Alan.

Goober

and Peters, John Peters, to option the book because he wants to do.

Quincy Jones is like, I must do the music for this.

Quincy, no.

Quincy, no.

But this is like the guys.

He hires the producing team who four years later are shepherding Batman and Warner Brothers.

Are just kind of like

the big

swing and dick Hollywood producers at the time.

You know, that, I don't know if swinging dicks were right for this presentation.

No, but

it speaks to, it's just like, let's just get all

the heavyweights.

And so people want to be a part of it.

Kathleen Kennedy, legendary producer, also reads it and gives it to Spielberg.

And Spielberg says he falls very much in love with Seely and is sort of obsessed with the book and can't stop thinking about it.

Kennedy wasn't like.

you have to make this or anything, but she was like,

you know, thinking of it as a potential thing for him.

And he said, look, I'm scared to do it, but I kind of love that.

And Quincy Jones agrees.

They had worked.

He and Spielberg had worked on some sort of unrealized musical together.

I don't know what it is.

Not the Peter Pan thing.

Oh,

okay.

And Spielberg is saying to Quincy Jones, like, shouldn't a black person direct this?

Shouldn't a woman direct this?

This is all reasonable questions.

Quincy asks, and this is a good line by Quincy Jones.

You didn't have to come from Mars to do E.T., did you?

Pretty good line.

It's a good line.

It's a good line.

So E.T.

is not from Mars.

He's from the green planet.

Which one's that?

That's what it's called.

Okay.

I believe that's its proper name.

The green planet.

Okay, cool, cool, cool.

Yeah.

Isn't Quincy Jones

with the one

he did the interview with Vulture a couple of years ago where he says Marlon Brando would fuck anything you'd fuck a mailbox.

Yes.

And he fucked James Baldwin.

He fucked Richard Pryor.

And and the guy's like wait how do you know that he slept with those people he says come on man he didn't give a fuck do you like brazilian music

that's lovely it is the greatest

we're just like do you like brazilian music

he's like what uh yeah sure

anyway

I just like to think about, you know, be like, E.T., you're not from Mars and you made E.T.

Do you like Brazilian music?

But the most important person Spielberg Spielberg has to sway, Kois Clincy Jones is on board, is Alice Walker.

And so he meets with her

and her daughter and her publishing partner and a literary critic named Barbara Christian and filmmaker Bellevue Rooks and the activist Daphne Muse.

And this entire group apparently is like, we do not want Steven Spielberg to make this movie.

Would be hilarious if the names I just read to you, we were all just like, Steven Spielberg seems like a perfect choice.

Would you sign our ET posters?

And especially the Spielberg we're talking about.

Like, it's like later, the guy who made like the sort of more complex, like, you know, 2000s movies that he made, like, you might kind of be like, ah, well, he's grown up and he's made a lot of different kinds of movies.

We're talking about the guy who just made Raiders

Arc and alien movies and shit.

Like,

it's a huge leap.

It's, it look, it is not a one-to-one, but in the 2000s, in this sort of similar quarter to what we're talking about, Spielberg for years came very close to wanting to direct memoirs of a geisha himself, right?

And developed it and then ended up still producing it when Rob Marshall took over.

Okay.

I don't think.

He gave it to an Asian woman, Rob Marshall.

Yes.

I was like, Rob Marshall.

That's how we pronounce that, right?

I don't think that movie would have turned out well.

But I'm also like, if he had, if there had been a Steven Spielberg Memoirs of Agesa in 2006, it would not have been as strange as there being a Steven Spielberg color purple in 1985, where at that point he's like branched out and tried a bunch of different shit, and some of it works and some of it doesn't.

Whereas at this point, you're like, Steven Spielberg's thing is figured out and he's taking like the hardest pivot where, and this is the other thing about him being like, I want to be like Sidney Pollock and Sidney LeMette and all these guys, those guys like do not have a dominant personality and worldview that seeps into every single corner of their film.

They're both like, right, my job is to figure out how to tell the story the best you can, right?

And like Quincy Jones is the the person who I think kind of like convinces Sidney Lumet to direct The Wiz in the 70s in a similar way of like, this needs to be made by a major filmmaker.

I'll produce this.

You didn't have to be a dog to make Dog Day Afternoon.

Quincy, it's not about a dog.

Do you like Brazilian music?

Yes.

But like every Spielberg movie is just like, we understand this guy's brain, his stylistic quirks, what he likes out of his collaborators.

Do you like Brazilian music?

Like the Steven Spielberg thing is so like codified at this point for better and worse that for him to then just be like, I'm just going to try to put it on something totally different,

as far away from myself as possible, is so strange.

So Alice Walker's take

in concert with this sort of group of like intellectuals and, you know, collaborators, what our experience had been with Hollywood and with what white people do to black work.

All you have to do is go to an average movie where you have one black person surrounded by a million white people and you see how artificial the black character becomes.

And I just didn't want that.

So she's anti-Spielberg, but she likes Quincy Jones, probably because he's a fun hang.

And he's like, yeah, just meet with him.

And then she sits down with Steven Spielberg and she really likes him.

Now, Steven Spielberg's a likable guy,

I think, right?

And sits down, starts talking about the book, in her opinion, incredibly intelligently, clearly actually read the book and cares about it, I guess.

And you know, she's very taken with him and has confidence that he's the one.

And

she watches E.T.

and she's like, this fucking rocks.

Yeah.

Not joking.

Like, she's like, of all characters being produced in Hollywood at the time, E.T.

was the one I felt closest to.

So.

Look, and I also get there is like a level of like

emotional intimacy and sincerity to E.T.

that for how much people are like, Spielberg, the manipulative, the big sweeping emotions, like there is like a smallness in E.T.

and him's kind of preserving the like emotional integrity of this like very delicate relationship in this big movie.

That to her, I'm sure she's just like, look, there is a feeling being conveyed here that this guy knows how to create.

And perhaps you could transmute this onto a wildly different story.

I don't know if I want the feel-good when I'm watching a child be assaulted.

But I think that balance of just like, oh, E.T.

is able to go into places of darkness, never as dark as the color purple, you know, but like it has this range.

He's not just dealing in like mid-tones.

It's very different.

She does set of circumstances with this particular though.

She does say that at one point, Steven Spielberg later referred to Gone with the Wind as the greatest movie ever made and said he loved the Butterfly McQueen character.

And she said she slept poorly for a week after that.

And

she thought she was going to have to relay to him, quote, to make him understand what a nightmare Gone with the Wind was to me.

Yeah.

So, right, not like, she's not like he's perfect by any means.

She is, however, allowed to write the first script.

Like, she is given the first shot at turning into screenplay.

She turns in, after three months, a draft that gets rid of the epistolary structure, has more sugar in the narrative.

Spielberg likes the script, but,

you know, it doesn't want to make it.

I don't know.

She submitted with an alternate title, Watch for Me in the Sunset.

Spielberg's like, this is interesting, but then like brings in Melissa Matheson, who he's worked with before.

Roadie T.

Yes,

and was married to Red Hulk.

Was married to Red Hulk himself.

Walker rejects her.

Spielberg brings in Meno Man Mayhez.

How do you say his last name?

I think.

Mayhez?

Yes.

A rookie screenwriter.

He had like a spec script called Lion Heart, which eventually gets turned into a Gabriel Byrne movie.

But was kind of like a cast in situation of like Spielberg finding this guy and throwing him on projects and having him do passes on stuff.

Yeah.

Walker likes him because he's Dutch and is from like a part of Holland with folk speech that is looked down on by the rest of the Dutch.

And she said that he really understood like sort of like folk speech and like felt like that this was some common ground for them.

And so he, they work on the movie together, but he has sole screenwriting credit.

It is so weird again that you're like the color purple directed by Steven Spielberg, written by a random Dutch guy who'd never written a movie before.

Okay.

And so they have this script, and

yeah, you know, I Spielberg's

part of it.

It's a little exasperating because he's saying things like, I wanted to bring Seely's story to a wider audience than the one reading the book.

You know, the audience reading the book is more female.

Like, you know, I want you to change that.

I get what he's saying.

Like, it's the only way he can defend it in a way of like, yeah, I'm, I can, I have a launch pad to bring a lot of attention to this, right?

Sure.

Why, why does he get a lot of the same sex intimacy in Walker's novel?

Uh, I wasn't comfortable going beyond that, he says.

Well, okay, so Mardi Scorsese could do it, not me, he says.

Really?

That's an interesting take.

Yeah.

You saying, is there any Spielberg movie that has even like a hint of queer stuff in it, right?

There's that conversation, and there's the bigger kind of tide conversation of like sexuality in Spielberg is is a very limited spectrum, period.

There's a reason why the Munich sex scene comes up all the fucking time.

That's weird.

As like the weirdest sex scene by someone who's never even like heard a description of sex.

Oh, no.

And you watch that and you're like...

Did he like look at a diagram and was like, okay, we're going, that's how we're going to show this.

But also that he like, you're like, is that the first time you actually see two people fuck in any Spielberg movie?

Like maybe.

Munich?

And it's like 35 years into his career.

And even, like, you know, Marion and Indiana Jones have a more sexual relationship than exists in most Spielberg movies up until that point.

And even then, it's very like dot, dot, dot.

And then she accidentally knocks him out, and he wakes up with birds swinging around his head or whatever.

Like, it's just not a thing that really gets touched on.

You could argue some of this has to do with like the sort of original sin of Spielberg capturing footage of Seth Rogan holding his mom's hand and thus having a very weird relationship to intimacy just picked on camera.

I do think there's something there not to psychoanalyze, but it is just a thing.

He doesn't seem to ever have a facility

communicating.

And here is a movie where you're starting with this source material that's like the greatest source of trauma in this is the repeated sexual violence perpetuated by the men, and the greatest source of like comfort and joy and solace.

and belonging is the like sexual intimacy and like requited love provided by the other women.

There's a scene in the book where Shuge holds up a mirror to Celie's vagina and shows it to her and helps her understand her own body and whatever.

And like that should be in the movie.

The moment where she goes, oh my God, you're still a virgin.

Right.

It's such a profound piece of writing.

And

that's the scene that Spielberg claims that only Marty's Christians.

Yo, what?

What?

I assume he kind of means like Martin's Christace makes like R-rated movies and I don't.

I guess that's no problem.

I'm in for what?

He's seized with mirror scenes.

He loves mirrors.

He's seized with mirrors.

Yeah.

He knows how to make that, you don't see the camera.

And he's got

a great relationship with vaginas.

Yeah.

Oh, God.

Marty, that guy.

Yeah.

That guy can lie to him.

Super, super, yeah.

Yeah.

But this, the like sort of, I have a responsibility to make this movie translate to a bigger audience.

There is this like, and as he morphs, as he stretches out, some of this gets knocked out of his system.

At this point in his career, Spielberg is still like entertainer, first and foremost.

Even when he is trying to make a more serious, considered adult movie, there are like what you're saying, like some of the most traumatic sequences in this movie, he kind of shoots and edits like their set pieces.

Yeah, because it's just how he thinks.

And he's so good at just being like, okay, what's the emotion you need to feel here?

So then if the camera moves like this and I cut like this and whatever, then that gets that across.

Do you have any say with the music?

Because truly the music was killing me during this movie.

It's also so strange because,

I mean, there, am I wrong in in thinking the only two scores that John Williams didn't do for him are this and Bridge of Spies?

Correct.

Right.

And Bridge of Spies was like, he's getting older.

He's doing the Star Wars movies.

He just didn't have the time.

Right.

And this was like, well, obviously Quincy wanted that.

He opted.

It's like in the contract.

It's speaking to him.

He has something to say.

And you hear it in this score.

And I love Quincy Jones.

Yes.

Feels like Quincy Jones doing a bad John Williams.

Yes, exactly.

It's a horrendous score.

And it like, it has these weird themes where you're like, that almost sounds like E.T.

That almost sounds like Indiana Jones.

Like he's trying to match the Spielberg movie version of the movie, which doesn't help.

Not in this story, no?

But then like Spielberg needing to be like, well, look, the like root of all this movie is the sexual violence.

So I have to find ways to depict this.

And maybe it's not going to be graphic, but it's going to be visceral and it's going to be painful.

But the way he knows how to make his camera expressive also is like fairy pop art.

Yeah.

And then all the sort of like intimacy and romance, he's just like, can I reduce that to like one scene with a kiss?

And I think that kiss scene is very well done on its own.

I think that scene.

If we took it outside of the context of what it is supposed to represent entirely, yes.

I think it's like beautifully acted and staged and conceived.

And if that were the first scene that leads to the start of the thread of their relationship, whether or not that is depicted in an incredibly visual graphic way, but at least it's textually like

pointed.

Yes.

I'd be like, man, he handled this well.

I'm watching the scene.

I'm like, this is a kind of intimacy I don't see in his early films that we've been watching.

And then it's like, and that's enough of that.

I get it.

No more.

Aren't you happy?

It's like, isn't that like the main way she gets any type of joy in her sad, sad life?

And then we're just like, nah, nah, don't include it.

David, what?

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Wolfie Goldberg loved the book and had written to Alice Walker saying, if it's ever turned into a movie, I want to be a part of it, even if I just play a Venetian blind.

Good line.

So Quincy and so Walker suggests Goldberg to Spielberg.

And so Spielberg goes to, he doesn't know her, he goes to see a stand-up performance

along with Walker, Quincy Jones, Michael Jackson, and Lionel Ritchie.

Cool.

Just a regular show.

Yeah,

just hanging.

Was this, was she on Broadway at this point, or was this?

I don't

know.

I think she did this for them.

I think it's, I don't think they like went to see, like, he was like, hey, do a set for us.

Oh, okay.

I was, genuinely, I was like at like the stand, just like her kidding up.

Comedy tip your bartender.

Yeah.

Well, she's such a weird.

I mean, well, and he loves her.

It works, even though she apparently did a joke about E.T.

getting hooked on doping in Oakland jail.

Spielberg is very charmed.

And despite the rumor that Diana Ross was the first choice for this, which is insane to think about,

He's like,

I want you to do it.

Whoopee is like, I don't know if I'm up to that.

What if I played Sophia, you know,

sort of supporting character, Oprah, you know, Oprah's character.

And

then eventually she's like, wait, Steven Spooberry's trying to cast me as the leader in this movie.

Like, what does that matter to me?

I should just do what he says.

Like, I'll say yes, absolutely.

Right.

And I mean, Whoopee is astonishing in this movie.

It is like one of the great debut performances in the history of film, I would argue.

And then launches like, as you were saying, and we'll unpack, one of the most unique careers in entertainment history.

Like there is no parallel to her, really, when you like step back and go, like, she has done everything at least twice, you know, like it just covers all of it.

But it is

such an interesting, I don't know, I feel like this is what I was trying to get at earlier, but like.

Here's this woman who's like basically like kind of synthesizing a new form of comedy at the time where when you're saying like she's referred to as as a comedian, but she was like more doing character stuff, but would also do monologue.

She like can recite jokes, but was very quickly doing like longer form kind of theater pieces and then becomes like a sensation, has like this one woman off Broadway show that keeps growing and growing.

But I think there was like you read the reviews at the time, people go, how could you translate this?

Like, Whoopi Goldberg is so her own universe.

She is so complete.

Just leaving her alone on stage for two hours, she can create like, you know, an entire reality.

What is like the proper vehicle for her?

You don't put her on a fucking sitcom, you know?

Like, what's the movie you make for her to then do this big swing to put her in this dramatic role that is so quiet and so reactive and is like 90% just her face

and is so underplayed.

Right.

And have her just like knock it out of the fucking park.

And now be like, great.

And now I'm Whoopi Goldberg and I have the cachet.

No one can tell me what to do.

I'm going to do exactly what the fuck I want to do with my career.

She's going to do Theodore Rex.

Right.

Yeah.

yeah i'm just gonna like follow all of my own dinosaurs yeah is that what happens in theodore rex i think so yeah would be very intimidated on set doesn't say she really didn't know what the hell she was doing said spielberg and her had a bond over like movie nerdery so he would be like hey do boo radley uh when he gets caught uh into kill a mockingbird and she knew what that was or like do indiana jones finding the girl at the end like whatever he would like reference things for her and she would she recognized that she was as encyclopedic as he he was of watching every single movie that would like air on television and do do gaslight like when danny glover's being insane to her do gaslight and she apparently would like be like yep i know what you're talking about what's crazy about it to me is that like on paper is like this is how you shouldn't directly right hey imitate other acting right and i think it is like to spielberg's credit that he is flexible enough to be like what do i need to help this person here's someone whipping

who is like undeniably as powerful a performer as anyone on the planet but also has not had to act within this context and this structure, has not had to play a role like this before, has not been on a shoot like this before.

And he's just like, oh, you know what?

If I point to a scene and go, you know, the face that Carrie Grant makes in that moment, can you do that?

She actually is able to replicate that in a way that isn't hollow, can access the real emotion from the surface level

request of what I want.

That's fantastic.

Like, I know Whoopi Goldberg, just as someone who's watched the movies and has seen the view.

So, to hear this stuff, I'm like, yes, she's cool.

I always compared to her.

I went to film school.

I was the only black girl in my class.

I had locks, and they were just like, you're Whoopi Goldberg.

So, they just called me Whoopi Goldberg all the time.

What the fuck?

You must have loved that.

Oh, it was definitely interesting.

And they also, because I lived in a decent apartment based on a scholarship thing, they were like, oh, the only reason you would have money is that your dad is Sam Jackson.

So, I would

They jump to Sam Jackson as a black person they know that would have a daughter that looks like me.

Whose last name is Mobley.

Yeah, his last name is definitely Mobley.

Right.

They don't like to talk about it very much.

It's a whole thing.

Sure.

Yeah.

So to hear that she's like cool as hell, there is a bit of, I don't like reclamation of that where I'm like, I don't know, she is pretty cool.

Okay.

They could have called me Whoopee.

But if they had known that, not just because I had locks in with black.

What I find so interesting about Whoopi is that like

there are all these stories of like when she wanted to do star trek right like next gen is happening and she goes to her agent and she's like i want to be on star trek and he's like you're whoopee gold

you can't be on you're not gonna be a guest star on no i want to be on star trek then she's like star trek was important to me like i want you know her was important to me like i want to be on the new star trek right and they were like that will like damage your legacy that devalues you you're a movie star now you have academy award

right you and leota baby right because it wasn't even like i want to be a guest star on one episode She's like, can I have like a recurring podcast?

Like, we're not tying you down to a fucking contract on Star Trek.

I don't know.

It sounds pretty cool.

Let's do it.

But she just totally was like, you know what I want to do?

Shit, I want to do.

Yeah.

And I feel like she'll do these interviews now, much like Quincy Jones, one of the best interviewers.

will just say wild shit and now has a TV show where she just says wild shit every day.

And in some ways, that does sometimes abstract her of like, what's Whoopee's deal?

She's just like some kind of like woman who just says crazy shit and then like pops up and does stuff.

But you're like, no, she's done everything.

And like part of what is held against her is that she was not protective of her like

prestige in that way.

I think that she was just like, I don't give a shit.

I'm going to like host the Oscars.

I'm going to do this.

I like cartoons.

I like whatever.

And you're like, she like broke eight million doors.

But in a way that just kind of makes it feel like, oh yeah, and like Whoopi Goldberg is like the American flag.

She's just like an object that we look at.

Yeah, that's always there.

It's always doing something.

Like, I feel like

our buddy Alex Russ Perry and I always talk about how when we were children, we were like, there are 10 famous people.

There are 10.

He's one of them.

Right.

It's like Whoopi Goldberg, Danny DeVito, Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Like, who are the people who could exist in both the Academy Awards and the Kids' Choice Awards?

Those are the 10 people where you're like, and a lot of them, part of it is just like, they don't look like anyone else.

They have an interesting name.

Yes.

They appear in all kinds of things.

You know, they'll be in commercials and also like cartoons and whatever.

Whoopi egotted.

Whoopi egotted.

Yeah.

Early.

An early egotist.

Is she in an episode of 30 Rock talking to?

She is the one.

Yes.

Yes.

She is the one he consulted.

The Roger.

The Roger.

Yeah.

But I feel like that's kind of, I don't want to say taken away from her, but people are like, oh, yeah, I guess like a Whoopi Olberg was.

Yeah, but they don't put her on the pedestal that she deserves to be on.

Yes.

And now she's just on the view, and I feel like she says something out of pocket every day.

And everyone's just like, ah, Whoopee's crazy.

Who cares?

She just cashes checks, takes a limo, I guess, to and from, and yeah, lives her life.

Is it the greatest stage name of all time?

Whoopiberg.

It is an incredible.

What's her real name?

Sorry?

Elaine Johnson.

Karen Elaine Johnson.

Karen Elaine Johnson.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Karen Elaine Johnson.

Yeah.

I mean, Whoopee Goldberg is an incredible name.

How'd she get the Goldberg?

I think it's part of her family.

Like, there's some, like, forbear.

Although then she did the Henry Lewis Gates Jr.

show, and he was like, we didn't find any Goldberg.

Yeah.

But she claimed that it was.

Okay.

We could all claim stuff.

Let's do it.

Yeah.

She got Whoopee from Whoopee Cushions.

cushions, like genuinely, yeah, yeah, what, yeah, that's lovely.

Um,

uh, love whoopee, Danny Glover cast largely, he was in he's in pieces in the uh, places in the heart, pieces in the heart.

That's a weird movie, uh, places in the heart.

Spielberg loved that performance casting without an audition.

Glover says, Glover grew up in San Francisco, not in the south, but he was the first generation in his family to do so.

His family's from Georgia, he would spend every summer going back to Georgia, working on the farm.

So he like was like, I very much understood like this environment, you know, this kind of childhood.

Quincy Jones.

I just want to say 84 places in the heart in 1985, Witness Silverado and the color purple.

But he basically like 1979, inmate and escape from Alcatraz, you know, like three or four tales you've never heard of.

And then it's like, he's in one movie that like gets on the Oscar radar.

The next year, he's in three big movies two years after that lethal weapon.

It's like, it was this incredible.

He's He's nice.

He's 39 in this.

Sure, yeah.

Like he'd been around.

Mostly a stage actor.

But mostly a stage actor.

And then it's just sort of immediately identified as like, yeah, movie star.

I guess so.

He's a very interesting movie star in a way.

I love Danny Glover.

He's one of my favorite.

So wait, when he was too old for this shit, he was only like 43.

He's not that old.

He's young.

Yeah.

He's like 41.

Oh, God.

But he looks too old for this shit.

You believe it.

You do.

He's great acting.

The last 30 minutes of this movie, when they like shave his hairline back, you just see that execs were like, oh my God, we we could make this guy retirement age.

This guy could be too old for some shit.

We'll have to figure out what it is.

Yeah, be young enough to actually do the action scenes, but play like he's too old.

Well, also, when they age him up in this movie, you're just like, this looks like Danny Glover

2000.

Royal Tanbomb's Danny Glover, right there.

Boom.

He's so fucking funny in the Royal Tambombo.

But there's the famous.

He calls him Coltram.

He's so good.

He's really funny.

The Max Von Saito thing, where the makeup was so good good in the exorcist that he was like, it fucked up my career because people thought I was 80.

He was so old.

Right.

He was 80 for a long time to me.

Yes.

Right.

And he was like, and then when he caught up to looking as old as he looked in the exorcist, he was like, let's get you back.

Danny Glover weirdly had the opposite thing where they like age him up in this and people were like, wait, do you want to play older all the time?

That's the dream.

Quincy Jones at one point

is catching a red eye for some.

He's in Chicago.

Okay.

He turns on the TV.

He sees a show called A.M.

Chicago.

has an exciting young new host, Oprah Winfrey, calls Steven Spielberg.

Quincy Jones really was kind of wild for this one because, like, all of his choices make sense.

You're like, yeah, Whoopi Goldberg, Danny Glover, Oprah Winfrey.

These are great choices.

But like, imagine being Steven Spielberg being like, all right, how do I get my handle on this like black lesbian drama set in the South?

And Quincy Jones, like, I'm watching this local Chicago TV like fucking daytime host.

She's perfect for Sophia.

We're going to cast her.

Spielberg's just like, okay.

She'd never been in a movie.

She found being in a movie really difficult.

Like, it's not like Oprah Winfrey was like

a natural actor.

Like, you know, and she talks about like how tough.

She also thinks, like,

hey, your role is like being insulted, being hit,

and then being like catatonic.

Yes.

Like, you know,

all five.

How much?

Oh, the makeup in this movie is the way, like, they make

the

son of Danny Glover,

Harpo.

Yes, oh, Harpo, and yeah, yeah, Oprah's production company, yes, yes, she just she ran with that.

His makeup when he's supposed to be old, made me laugh out loud at the movie, and I'm like, that is not what I'm supposed to be getting from this scene.

But they put a bald cap on him where you can see the seam of it, they just like kind of put wrinkles around their eyes to be like, Look, they're old now, and I'm like, But they're old, okay, so he looks insane.

He looks truly, I'm like, Who put this wig on this man?

Did they hire people that knew how to do wigs?

Like,

you're like, what?

Well, and like, the Oprah makeup looks very, like,

Lancéani.

Like, it looks very like, you know, I understand we are trying to, like, show the lasting physical scars of this woman's like experience and the indignity she's suffered, but it is, like, stylized in a way that looks universal monster.

It does, like, the substance.

That's what I got from her eye prosthetics in that movie.

But she does this.

She does Noble Sun and then doesn't do a movie until Beloved.

Sorry, Native Sun.

And then becomes, I mean, she becomes Oprah.

Right.

Becomes Oprah, but also it's just like, movies are tough.

I don't need to do that again.

You know what?

She wants to do Beloved where it's also Black Pain.

That's what's, it's, I find it interesting, right?

Beloved is her doing the Quincy Jones thing.

It's her making kind of the same decision of I think I can get this

tough book made into a movie.

I can protect someone else from fucking

my choice is this incredibly talented white director who's not like, again, connected to the South or like, you know, this sort of heritage or but he's got empathy in space but he's a good director and it's like the result again is a movie where you're like this is well made it's not bad no but why was this the truth would anyone re-watch beloved we did why the fuck would you rewatch

yeah i guess you could it's a really interesting

theaters like my the yeah this is important right we're gonna go see these and so it was like jesus Do you hate me?

Why?

And it is.

I mean, you must have been like 12 years old.

Yeah, I know.

That's why I'm like, is my mom mad at me?

Did the directors hate me?

Sure.

Does society dislike black women, which is a different thing?

But Jesus Christ, this is a lot.

It is a fascinating counterpoint to this movie where it's sort of like what you were saying, David, of like, that's a movie that is like, okay, we're not going to do like magical uplift.

Yes.

And instead, it is just like punishing and like very difficult to watch.

And thus like has no cultural permanence whatsoever, like did not translate.

But then she like is so burned out by that experience that she's like, I'm not going to do a movie again.

It's just fascinating to me that it's like Oprah just like quietly gets an Academy Award nomination for her first performance ever, then becomes the most like important woman in media, right?

Becomes, I think, like the first black billionaire, period.

And then like over 10 years later is like, it is my responsibility to try to do this again.

Yeah.

And then was like, this sucks.

I hate this.

Yeah, why are we doing this?

I don't want to do the same thing.

Good for her.

And it was like, oh, it's weird.

Oprah was in like two movies.

And then the last decade, she's just like quietly like done a handful of of films yeah she started acting again she's really good she's really good she's probably a bit easier though like i think so yeah and some smaller role yeah well hey wrinkle in time is a really big role she's like a giant

have you seen that movie no look

tallest oprah you'll ever see in your tallest oprah okay the tallest oprah you'll ever see in her tall we talking

i don't know like 800 feet 800 she's like a giant yeah like a true giant so taller than a skyscraper um

Spielberg phil and Jones want Tina Turner to play Shook Avery.

That's the only person, like top choice, that they don't get.

Fascinating.

Tina Turner is like, I fucking lived that shit, bro.

I fucking was married to Ike Turner.

I do not want to make that movie.

I'm going to go make Mad Max be off Thunderdome.

Literally.

That's what she does.

I've lived

in Thunderdome yet.

That's a new experience for me.

Spielberg apparently, Spielberg had worked with Margaret Avery.

She's in something evil.

And

like, apparently, didn't even remember.

And no one was even that excited about her.

But I mean, it's an incredible thing.

It's mostly a TV theater actor at this point.

Yeah, it's incredible in her.

The movie cost about $15 million.

Spielberg accepted only a minimum salary.

Yay.

It was shot in

North Carolina, where you grew up.

It was set in Georgia, of course, the color purple set in Georgia, but as Kinny's told me, it was shot in North Carolina, and she's right.

And it was heavily storyboarded, just like all uh spielberg movies alan davio who shot et shot it his first instinct was to shoot in black and white then he was like i'm being a coward that's me sugarcoating it more like that's me fearing the violence even more trying to distance it even more uh so he doesn't do that so here's an interesting thing he talks a lot about on schindler's list which is the movie where he succeeds finally in like making the transition that he's trying to make on this film and on Empire of the Sun, right?

Where he's like, how do I make the movie that is actually like staring reality in the face, that isn't caught up in like spiritual movie for run up candy coding.

Yes.

And he's dealing with serious issues and pain and what have you, not entertainment first and foremost.

And that movie, he talks about that he was like, I had to let go of storyboards.

I didn't want to be like

mathematical about it.

I would like show up and I would feel it out.

And it was improvisatory.

And I think part of that for him was that he was just like, I need to like be connected to the actual emotions of this thing, which is not a thing he lived through himself, but a thing that happened to his people that he perhaps has a greater psychic connection to.

And he's filming in similar spaces and all of this, right?

It's exactly what you're saying of like Spielberg sitting down with the script and being like, okay, so how do we shoot the father raping?

Yeah.

And like storyboarding it might be like the beginning of the problem, where even if he's kind of making good choices, thinking about it that clinically yes which isn't to say he shouldn't have like planned out shots yeah yes but where it's like this will match this exactly versus what is the feeling how do we best portray what is happening in front of the camera spielberg's problem at this point in his time is that he is too entertaining and he is too good of a communicator right it is what makes people go like is this all just like manipulative bullshit when people are starting to tire of the spielberg thing of like you know what he's got to pull at the heartstrings every fucking time.

He's got to have the moments of awe and wonder and all this sort of shit.

That like he, he,

it is so hard for him to not turn something into

a moment of like grand ecstatic movie magic

that he does need to like figure out how to, I don't know, like tie his arms behind his back to something

and be more of an interpreter.

Talk about the movie.

Versus an orchestrator.

Yeah.

I mean, it just, it comes up right from the beginning because you're like thrown into the deep end of like some of the most extreme shit in the movie.

Like, to me, the thing that stuck with me most is this cheesy, sappy score plus the voiceover narration, which I'm like, I don't know, do they have to make her sound like that?

Whatever.

Okay.

But that over

blood,

baby being taken, a dad saying, don't tell your mom.

Like that.

It just.

You have so much so quickly.

There is a real, like, you know, this character lives in hell, and we're like speed running through it.

Yes.

And even to a degree, you know, that it's like this movie stars Whoopee Goldberg.

We're still on the young version of her.

It takes 30 minutes, I think, I want to say, before you get to Whoopee.

Yeah.

And so you're just like, man, there's like a lot to get through.

That little girl goes through a lot of pain.

A ton before the movie's really going to kind of begin in earnest.

And it's, yes, it's, it's the kind of thing that in a book, you can take longer to sort of live with.

And this movie needs to like get through it real quick.

Barrel through, which just is, is overwhelming.

But yes, you set up this woman, her abusive father has

fathered two children with her, has taken them away,

and then is basically sold off into marriage to Danny Glover, who is interested in her sister, not in her.

Who's like 12?

Yes.

And her abusive father is like, take the older one.

Yeah.

She's separated from her sister, who's her closest tie in life, her only friend, yes.

Her, her, her, like, kind of her entire life, like her entire grounding force.

The guy who plays her father, Leonard Jackson, is very like indelible to me.

And I think it's because he's in like Sesame Street a lot and like

Shining Time Station.

He was a lot of like

crashed as a little kid because I was watching it being like, who is this guy?

This face is so familiar.

Like, I really know this guy, and that's, that's what I think I know him best from.

Anyway, carry on.

Well,

They're split up.

There's this sort of like, we'll communicate through letters.

That's how I'll let you know that I'm still alive.

Uh, the device of the book.

Um, but that's basically the 30-minute mark.

Not to say we're past all of that, right?

But like, at 30 minutes, you get to like, here's whoopie.

Now she's grown up.

She's stuck in a fucking horrible situation.

She hasn't spoken to her sister in 10 years.

She doesn't seem to do much of like,

she doesn't have anyone she can relate to at all.

It seems like.

No, she's just

it is what she plays incredibly well, I think, is someone who basically, as a survival mechanism, has just kind of

it's interesting.

There's like the two sides of like, you know, Oprah plays Sophia as this sort of like zombie-like despondence, right?

Like as much as she is trying to like turn herself off to insulate herself from the pain of her reality, where she gets to ultimately in the movie, there is this this feeling of like

great sorrow within her that she carries, that she's trying to like,

I don't, muzzle so it doesn't overtake her.

Right.

Whereas Whoopi, it's almost just sort of like,

how do I put it?

She's just trying to like disengage, right?

She's shut herself off entirely.

She's like completely closed down because it is only pain outside of that.

It's very sad.

It's my insight into that

situation.

But there is this Spielbergian

nostalgia for the child

nonetheless.

With hand clapping, the singing and the stuff like that.

Visually, it reminds me a lot of, what is it, Daughters of the Dust?

Oh,

an incredible movie.

Yeah, which is visually striking and it comes later, but there's visual similarities.

And it's just interesting to watch Daughters of the Dust and be like, oh, look how this is evocative of a whole thing.

And there it's like, I don't know if this is like right for child rape.

I don't.

Yeah.

Daughters of the Dust dust is an interesting movie to talk about because that's julie dash that's like one of the first movies directed by a black woman yes in america yeah like that's theatrically because i think the first movie directed by a black woman is uh a dry white season but uh that's um you sin pausey who's french or whatever but like that's how unusual it was for a black woman to make a movie like period dollars of the dust is amazing yes but it's

uh you know it's an art film it's kind of light on plot it's very experiential it's in this sort of gullah dialect.

So it's like, you know, it's, it's like not a commercial film.

It's like a memory piece.

Julie Dash never gets to make another like, you know, movie like that again, really, you know, all that.

She should be making, like, or whatever.

Like, you know, they should be finding Julie Dashes or using whatever.

Like, and

yeah, instead, like when there's the hand clapping, this motif that Spielberg puts at the beginning and the end of the movie, I'm like, that's powerful.

That's getting me right here.

But I'm also kind of like, is that kind of bullshit?

Like, you know, I don't know.

Like, you know, that it's kind of working me a little too easy.

I don't know.

There was, I sent it to the group text, but there was an interview from when Hook was coming, or it just come out on 60 Minutes that's sort of a like checking in on Steven Spielberg, the king of Hollywood.

And the interview is trying to like,

not, I'm not trying to soften it a little bit, but they're like, Hook doesn't seem to be like totally working, right?

It's like, here's this guy kind of on like a semi-victory lap, but this is the last movie he he makes before he goes on to his Jurassic Schindler year, where it's like, undeniable Spielberg, you did it, you won everything, right?

And it's him at this inflection point, and they're kind of grilling the like permanent adolescence part of it and asking him about his like obsession with childhood and all these things.

And he's showing this big office that Universal built for him, or he has like fucking 80 arcade cabinets and whatever.

Things I can't relate to, surrounding yourself with childhood ephemera.

I don't see that at all.

At all.

Not in this very sober spare office.

Yeah.

But the interviewer asked him some question about his childhood and like why he wants to recapture it.

He's like, I don't have any fondness for my childhood.

And he's like, you don't?

And he's like, I just have no good memories.

And he's not being like, you don't understand how difficult it was, but he's just kind of very soberly saying like, when I think back on it, there's just like not a single happy thought.

I just wasn't happy.

You know, kind of fascinating.

It's kind of fascinating because it feels like, if anything, that is the connection point he has into this movie.

It's just like some feeling of like deep existential sadness as a child that was not circumstantial in the way it is for this yeah yeah yeah right hopefully yeah but like in that first 30 minutes I feel him sort of connecting to something if not in one-to-one experience which is probably the thing where she's like if you could translate the Elliot feeling in ET to this you know is there like some parallel here but then it also makes it kind of odd when the movie is all about like

the power those like brief moments of connection and grace have in her childhood amidst all of this and trying to recapture that where it's like is there any analog for that in his life no he ran off and he joined the circus and he like looked back and was like and now i make fun yeah i make fun in magic

so you're saying that's why steven spoker is a perfect choice to make the color provider

10 out of 10.

uh the only one who was making art that black people would like or he hadn't done anything about abuse again it's not like that almost sounds silly of me to say because it's not like, oh, we need an abuse director for this movie.

We need someone to really use awareness.

Where would you count as an abusive director?

That's what I'm saying.

But like,

I just sat on like five jokes I could have made.

I want to hear three of them.

I want to hear three of them.

Oh, okay.

I was going to go that kind of like territory.

Yeah, John Landis.

I mean, that's a different thing.

Going back to Twilight's on the movie.

Yeah.

Okay.

E.T.

has trauma in it.

Close encounters has this kind of darkness to it.

Part of Spielberg's thing is like being able to make these things a little allegorical or being able to make them sort of like elliptical, where it's like, here is something like the one scene of the kiss that represents a sort of like notion of a thread that you fill in the blanks and I don't have to depict it.

Right.

You know, one of the movies I struggle with the most that we've covered on this show is Lolita.

which is like another very bizarre book to adapt into a movie and try to make into a commercial studio film at that time.

Right.

And part of what I find so bizarre about that film is that they're like, we are adapting Lolita.

Also, because of codes and regulations, we can never once directly acknowledge what is going on in this movie.

And it feels like this sci-fi movie where everyone is like talking around what's going on.

Yeah.

And it's like, why bother making this if you can't depict this?

And there's this self-censorship in Spielberg where he's just like, well, the romance I'm going to take out, but the abuse I have to put on.

Yeah, you have to keep the pain in.

That's why people are coming to that.

And I'm going to try to do the PG-13 version of it that isn't like inflicting suffering upon the audience in like a cruel or malicious way.

Yeah.

But then it's also like, then, then what are you doing?

What are you saying?

Here, right?

The book is saying something interesting about humanity and pain and recovering from that.

And there's like the end has this recovery and this understanding of what God is in a really cool way.

And they get rid of it.

Well, especially if you don't have anyone who's kind of like pulling her out and forcing her to connect, other than in very brief moments, you know, and it's the movie, he is so deliberate as a storyteller that he is not creating a world where you can imply what is happening in between the scenes and fill in the gaps.

It feels like he's saying, like, no, in my version of the movie, they don't have sex.

Nope.

Right?

This just, it shoulder touches the love that

is truly the end of it.

And it is going to be, it's sort of old school Hollywood stuff.

It'll all be in eyes and gestures and right, feeling and emotion.

And you can read things through.

And whoopie's really, really, really good.

You get to the dinner table scene and Spielberg said that he like encouraged Whoopee and Oprah to improvise a lot.

You know, that's the big scene because obviously Whoopi doesn't like talk that much otherwise.

We're talking about quite late in the movie.

Yes.

Yes.

But he knows this is someone who has that ability.

And I think also to his credit, perhaps he's just like, hey, you know what?

If we've cast this movie well and these people are in this environment on the day, they might find the language to say things that me and my fucking Dutch writer couldn't identify at a desk, right?

Maybe let them feel it out and see if anything comes up.

Was that shot?

Do you know if that was shot later in the filming process?

That's interesting.

I wonder.

Yeah, I don't know.

Like when they got the time to like

jive and gel as a community.

I don't know.

The thing I just know is that it was like a repeated thing that she has said that he was constantly encouraging her to improvise and go, okay, if anything feels right, say it.

And same thing to Oprah.

And that scene in particular is like the most ecstatic ecstatic version of it.

I think in a lot of ways is the best scene in the movie.

A lot of it's just that like whoopee is coming in, like

so fucking hot and it is so cathartic when we've had the waiting.

Yes.

She's got a knife in her hand.

She's yelling.

And we're like, yes, these people deserve it.

And I love, love, love.

And this happens in the book too, that she's like,

I hate you and your kids are shitty.

Yeah.

That was like, I, because we, as an adult with no children oftentimes it's like hey, you can't comment on children.

But I right, you don't want to bring that, yeah, the further burden of like, you know what, actually, you're just sucking.

I don't like their vibe.

Yeah, but I love that.

We've been watching this movie for two hours and we're like, these kids do say it.

They do say it.

Everyone in this movie is unbearable.

And she just like, it is, I think.

This movie would not have worked at all.

Its success in its time, I think hinges entirely on that scene delivering so hard of the emotional release of like, yes, and now she's going to be able to fucking take her life into her own hands.

And we end the movie with a little bit of uplift.

That's right.

A smidgen.

A smidgen.

Yeah.

And right.

A hope of

better days ahead and at least right being, you know, being liberated from the worst of it and all that.

It's not like it's like, yeah, and then everything was fantastic.

I don't know.

You at least have an opportunity to try to make a better life for yourself at the end of the movie, right?

She is finally given a little space and a set of circumstances where there is a possibility to rebuild a life.

Yeah, and her sister's back.

And

we don't really get into that.

Right.

But I think it is to Goldberg's credit that she nails that scene so fucking hard, as does Oprah, as does everyone at the table, right?

The whole scene is kind of like perfect,

but it is such a wild switch flip.

When you just have this character barely be able to string together six words above a whisper whisper for the two hours leading up to that.

And you have these small moments of connection, but they don't really feel like she has ever been given any space to be herself, which as an idiot who hasn't read the book, I'm like, I understand the dramatic function of having this romance with Shug in her life that like accesses this part of herself, that helps her discover herself, that like builds a path for this kind of catharsis.

I really like that.

And in the movie, they do maintain where, so they're all having dinner, which seems to be like a normal thing.

And then Shoga's like, hey, I'm about to leave.

BG Dubs, Ceely's coming with me.

And that is the thing that seems to open the floodgates and allows her like that that Shog was like, hey,

we are doing something that is not the norm.

And now Ceely's like, okay, I'm going to curse all y'all out.

I'm going to tell these children that they're stupid, that these people suck.

Your daddy sucks.

I hope you die.

I hope everything you touch turns to ash.

I hope you have pain.

Till you do right by me, nothing, nothing's going to go right for you.

And I love that.

I love it too.

And I love that it like sort of works, right?

The implication is like she has has kind of messed him up in some way, but that it's also not like, and then he fell off a cliff like a Disney villain and he was dealt with.

It's like, now he's still there.

And all this shit is still there.

And like, you know, it's not like there's some.

you know, triumphant downfall of the bad guys in this movie and this story, right?

I don't know.

No, but you have, you have the suppression of the letters, right?

Yes.

The big violation, right?

Right, right.

The thing that finally breaks her above all else, of all the indignities in her life.

Yeah, it's like he did a lot.

Like, he beat this woman, but it's the letter keeping.

It's the letter keeping.

That's the thing.

And also, that the letters, when she finally gets one, are like, hey, by the way, you won't believe the incredible shit that's been going on over here.

I live in Africa.

Right.

I'm doing stuff.

Oh, I'm with your kids, BT Dubs.

They are totally alive.

Right.

What a miracle.

I'm with them.

They got great parents.

Everything's awesome.

You know, life and how it could be nice.

I've been having that.

Good luck with your terrible existence.

Right.

Which, like, basically, she gets this letter that's like, we've been living in a Steven Spielberg movie that rules.

I'm so sorry I haven't been able to get hold of you.

I'm worried that things are probably pretty bad, but I thought you might like to know that we're like kind of killing it over here.

There is something in

rather than

it gives her this sense of like

internal strength to, for the first time, consider that there is an alternate way her life could go.

After you imagine assuming the worst, which is she's been dead for decades.

Yeah.

Right.

And now to get this letter that's like, and then you won't believe what happened next.

I found your children, like all this stuff, right?

That

like the betrayal combined with the sort of first like revealing of a window window to another viewpoint.

Yes.

But all of that is internal.

Like all of that is just kind of like, and Whoopi sells it, but like an arc the movie has not really built outside of like an ecstatic 10-minute sequence of Spielberg lovingly like shooting Africa and Quincy going hard and like Whoopee just really playing the shit out of reading a letter.

And there's one moment and in the book, I feel like it doesn't go like this, but in the movie where she's being asked to shave Mr.

and

you can tell she's about to slit us.

She's like, maybe I kill him right here.

And honestly, maybe this says something about the way I was raised in the South and like the plays that I saw, but it was like, hey, if a man beats you, you got to kill him.

Right.

You, you're, right.

You're just you got an earl had to die him.

And that's just like how it's going to go.

So I was like, I don't know, man.

Just kill.

Like, if the law isn't involved in you guys's life every day like that, I feel like we should just slit his throat.

Are you referencing the Dixie Checks on Goodbye Earl?

That you weren't raised like that?

You weren't raised with the Earl Had to Die.

We as a, like, that is a thing that will get friends together.

Like, you want to really cement your female relationships, kill a man.

Like that.

My favorite version of that is the Miranda Lambert song, Gunpounder and Lead, which I think is underrated.

One of her best songs, which is also about, she's like, I'm going to shoot this person who hit me.

So fucking good.

His fist is big, but my gun's bigger.

He'll find out when I pull the trigger.

Is the

bridge?

It's really, really good.

That's very, really good.

Country Western Sims over here.

I am.

People make fun of me.

Right.

Like, Alex likes to do hip-hop sims.

Country Western Sims rarely comes out, but he's there.

I love country music.

Ben and Griff exchanging a little look.

Yeah.

It's just Decade of Dreams is

getting up.

Yeah.

Decade of Dreams.

I love country music.

Maria Lambert, one of the great songstresses of our lifetime.

These shaving sequences are so insanely well done.

Shaving is crazy.

Shaving is crazy.

Why do men?

Why did my mother?

Why would you have somebody else do that?

Yeah, 100%.

I don't trust people to do my nails half the time, but you're saying you're going to hold

my important veins and arteries are.

No one should have ever shaved until they invented, you know, a decent way.

It was like, all right, here we go.

Slice

truly a weapon for murder.

And then you're just like, yes, I trust often a stranger to just scrape that against my delicate neck.

That's wild.

But it's a kind of a perfect Spielberg setup, right?

To have this guy be like, here, I'm handing you a murder instrument.

And by the way, if you cut me, I'm going to murder you, right?

But I could murder you first so quickly.

That's what's interesting about it for me is like, and I think these sequences work well because they are less verbal and he's able to just do kind of like Spielberg like imagery and moments and looks and whatever.

But the weird like dynamic of like, you are holding the weapon and yet psychologically, he is still convincing you that if you try to kill him, you'll end up dead first.

And it's like, yeah, right.

The first time she's sort of aware of the power, but wouldn't even consider it and is actually just afraid of the harm of accidentally nicking him.

And the second time she comes so close to doing it.

But like the way he just constructs those sequences and the tension of it, and it's like, it does, it feels very visceral and it makes you in the way that Spielberg can go like, it is insane that we just hold blades up to our neck.

Well, it's just like, there's a lot of, you know, like, um, obviously, uh, Sarah, uh, Sophia, sorry, the Oprah character, the foremost example of like what Seeley is absorbing around her, where it's like, yeah, that's a woman who speaks up and is like, you know, destroyed for it.

Yeah.

Right.

You know, like, she has one moment of sort of outspoken behavior that's justified.

And literally her life is ruined.

Like, which is one of the craziest things in the color purple that it's just like, we're just going to cut ahead to eight years later.

She's she's out of jail and she's ruined.

And, like, that's you know,

two minutes in the movie, right?

Like, the leap just sort of happens.

It's really, I had to rewind it just to make sure I'd be like, right, hey, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

We're not going to have to have like sequences of Sophie in prison, maybe, to understand what's going on.

It's like, no, no, just like years gone.

Yeah.

And then they say, like, and eight years later, the final indignity, they made her go work for Judith Ivy.

Right.

Which is the Christmas sequence is

that the Christmas sequence is incredible.

That's, there are like, there are sequences in this

that are so undeniably effective.

He's able to, in this kind of odd Spielberg way, identify where the humor is in it, find the stakes, find the real emotion, like be this kind of like five-tool player filmmaker who's giving you a full feast and is giving you this kind of like old school, like Hollywood weepy.

I just, I think that scene is so beautifully played out because you're already kind of unmoored by the jump in time.

Yes, it's eight years.

She's been

like, Holy shit, we're just here now and it's over.

And now, like, here's this woman who is unrecognizable, is wearing quasimoto makeup, has a very different physicality, right?

And then this moment of like bringing her back to her family, you know, I mean, the driving sequence is fun, and you're like, right.

But then

the realization of, oh, she's going to get this taken away from her.

Yeah.

And Dana Ivey saying, like, I don't know her either.

Yeah.

You're like, late, late, lady.

Come on.

Love Dana Ivey.

She's in Sabrina, which is.

The remake of Sabrina, yes.

With Red Hulk.

Yeah.

Yeah, with Red Hulk.

And

I hate that I love that movie.

Do you?

Everyone.

Sidney Park film?

So many people have told me how bad that film is.

And so intellectually, I know it is bad, but

I will have a crush on Red Hulk until I die.

I'm not taking it back.

I mean it.

Yeah.

Harrison Ford is a cutie for tootie.

And

is it Julie Romond?

Yeah.

She, I'm like, go for it.

Sleep with a billionaire who you work for.

Do whatever you want, man.

I got to watch that movie.

I've never seen it.

I've never had either.

Yeah, because it was not like.

No, it watches it.

Yeah.

And I watched

the John Williams documentary the other day that was on Disney Plus that you guys have referenced, I think, on prior episodes, which briefly references that score.

Oh, sure.

I guess, because it's like one of his forgotten sort of sweeping 90s scores.

And I was like, huh, do I need to watch Sidney Pollock?

No, no, no.

Kind of, yeah.

Just on a Saturday afternoon.

Just give it a shot.

All right, fine.

But the whole Christmas sequence, I think he likes,

there is such a masterful control of like silence and body language and like him actually letting the performances sell it and letting it being a little bit unspoken.

Just like the shoulders falling when it's like, well, it was nice seeing you once, children, and I'm gone forever.

Yes, yes, yes.

It's what's weird about this movie is like, yeah, that he will

over-deliver and under-deliver at the same time.

And you're like, there is like no ill intent in this movie.

Right.

This is not a maliciously made film or whatever.

Yeah.

No, no.

No.

And there's also like no incompetence.

No, yeah.

These people know what they're doing.

Yes.

Mostly.

They know physically, like technically what they're doing, yes.

Right.

But like you saying the thing of like the dynamic of the shaving, right?

Yes.

Like obviously that's the tension of the scene, but it feels like Spielberg has only internalized it to a like movie thriller degree, right?

Which he's able to express well, but I don't think if he totally understands

where that character is at that moment.

For that to be like, because it's Shug's running to stop her from killing him because she can tell

from quite far off that this lady's going to do this thing.

It felt contrived in a way that I didn't like.

Similarly to when Shug is singing as she's walking like towards the church at the end, and there's a sort of like, oh,

but God,

but God.

It's a black movie.

We're going to put God in it, right?

Right.

Right.

Which, yes, that

it does, it does feel like that.

It does feel like Spielberg being like, and this is important.

Yeah, right, right.

Right.

I'm correct in that that's important.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I right.

I don't think Spielberg has a particularly spiritual

side at this really ever.

Like, honestly, even when he talks about that, it's Schindler's list, like, he, he talks about like sort of getting captured.

And he's like, her going through conversion later in life made me like relive it.

And then I sort of became a better Jew in my 40s.

But I still, I don't think of him as like a spiritual.

That's a hardest.

Like whether or not he's had a family.

It feels very cultural.

It's about traditions.

It's about lineage.

And he's someone who understands, yeah, the power and the scariness of like family.

And this is a movie about

what a betrayal family can be, right?

Like, you know, all of so much of Seeley's family is, you know, hostile and abusive and against her and like turns out to be not her family or there's like, you know, revelations.

The Indiana Jones movies are the most explicitly theological movies he's made, right?

And they're all about like fighting this idea of it.

I think a lot of his movies kind of take place in a godless world.

I think a lot of his movies are about like these kind of like inexplicable, incomprehensibly huge acts and events.

that in a universe that refuses to sort of give you answers.

When I say that it's like, oh, we were throwing God in it, I don't necessarily mean there's any sort of theologic ideology behind it.

I do think it is like black people church, throw some black church in this movie.

I agree.

Does that make sense?

Is that being insensitive?

I agree with you.

And I'm saying, I think that's the exact thing that Spielberg kind of can't relate to, which is the sort of like turning to God for some sense of comfort or answers, right?

Like to him.

And I think it speaks to his like sad, worried child thing.

He's just like, when I grew up, nothing made sense to me and I felt like alienated and alone.

And what made sense to me were movies and TV shows.

And so I made them and now I'm good at recreating feelings to make other people feel things, right?

Right.

And the way that there are these sort of like huge acts in his film, the divine interventions, whether they're like a shark or E.T.

coming to the ground, if it's the worst thing or the best thing, right?

Part of it feels like, and we don't really know what to make of this.

It's kind of the world is bigger than you can understand, right?

There are inexplicably good and bad things, but there's no sort of like guiding light.

Yeah.

We struggle to find answers, and anyone who tries to like pursue them is maybe like, that's not what it's about.

It's about the internal journey of how you respond to this thing.

Where then the movie being like, and then we found church feels really insincere coming from him.

Yes.

And like, maybe I'm way out of line in my pathologizing of this, but like, we spent a lot of time thinking about this guy.

And you look at like, I, you know, I feel like when people mock like the end of

War of the Worlds, it's a similar thing.

How did those kids live?

How did they?

It feels sort of insincere where you're just like, that's not where these movies go.

That's not really his language of like, and then you make it and the Brownstone's in perfect shape.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Sorry, I watched that movie also in theaters.

Also, it was like, that girl had been dead so fast.

What are we doing?

Justin Chatwin rubbing, running like into a tank.

And then later he's just like, hey, dad.

Yeah, what's up?

That's

we've talked about it.

Sorry, sorry.

But I feel like most, yes, most Spielberg movies kind of end with this note of like, and people have to live with shit.

For the degree that it's like, here's like the king of like wonder and uplift.

Most of his movies, he's good at finding a good ending point to leave you feeling kind of good.

But if you actually dig into where his movies resolve himself, they're messy as hell in a way that's interesting.

And I think makes them stick.

You know, it's like you're putting the fucking Ark of the Covenant in a crate and being like, so what now?

What are you talking about?

And the guys swim up to shore at the end of Jaws and you're like, they just survived a shark attack and they're like, their friend was murdered, you know?

And like,

acquaintance.

Okay.

We're not friends of Queen.

I like this distinction.

Their emotions shouldn't be that clue.

It was just an acquaintance.

It doesn't matter that much, right?

Right.

But like, this is his first movie that is really kind of,

I'm running in my head if i can back this up i think i can i think this is like his first movie that is really trying to contend with like human evils

right yeah it's not a thing coming from the sky or the sea it's not supernatural but it's also not like bureaucratic it's not institutional it's not that guy it's an abstract idea of like the law chasing the like honeymoon lovers in sugarland express which is also like a low level you know like all this sort of stuff it's like what if there is like an unfathomable level of like human suffering and it is like not abstracted it is like looked at directly in the eye is perpetuated by people is perpetuated out of basically their own smallness i mean that's what this movie really comes to right what is so cathartic in the dinner table scene is like also the adolf caesar character need to be like you're right i raised him poorly

I'm bad and I fucked him up.

Yeah.

This is like a bad lineage of bad people who don't know how to do it.

I raised a bad son.

His kids are shit.

We're all bad.

And you look around this table and the collateral damage of all of this.

And it's just like men

will literally do the color purple to avoid going to therapy, right?

Like to a certain degree.

I'm doing a little clap into the microphone.

That was great.

Loves to avoid going to therapy joke.

It's a great joke,

but

I think that places him in a story that he has no idea how to actually end.

Yeah, because the end of the book is very much so like

her and Mr.

kind of like develop a not a friendship exactly, but like an

comfort with each other in a certain way and Suge and all these other people where it is like, hey, these people kind of rehabilitate and acknowledge the fact that the, at the harm that they've caused each other and God, and they, they smoke pot, and I'm like, good for them.

Yeah.

Um, but they don't, of course, they didn't do that in the movie in the 80s where they come to God or whatever, but I really like that development that can happen in the book that Spielberg does not seem to have a handle on.

Well, that's the internal life stuff, which he just is the stuff that, like, of course, he doesn't know what to do with.

Yeah.

Right.

But I, but I also think, I, I think the ideas of what this movie's like

grappling with are things that he just like doesn't know how to work through because you can't blow up the shark.

Yeah.

Right.

Right.

This is the thing.

You can't have a Danny moment where Danny Glover gets pushed off a cliff like Gaston.

Right.

And even the sort of moment.

I would like to see it, but yeah, you're right.

You're right.

You're right.

The moment of kind of grace of him like receiving the letter and sending the money and being like, I should do one good thing.

The one.

Right.

Still doesn't like

resolve anything.

It doesn't heal any wounds.

It's done in sort of like private, right?

It's basically just this one quiet, silent moment of his own reckoning of like, I can do one good thing in my life.

I will never have the ability to say I'm sorry or like own up to any of this.

But then it's like he's trying to push the movie's equivalent of the brownstone at the end of War of the Worlds, where it's like, well, what if they have the house and the church and they're all together and they're happy and the kids had a good education?

Then they'd just be happy for the rest of time, right?

Everything's fine.

Right.

They got there.

Yeah.

They got to like,

I don't know.

They got to fucking Emerald City.

Like there's a degree of that, right?

Yes.

I feel like, yes.

I feel like we, I'm trying to think of what we have.

We haven't talked about Sug avery enough in my opinion that's sort of the uh you know plotline we've sort of talked around because like those sequences of her singing and of the club are very very cool and

i don't know i just want to know everyone's opinion on them well i i think uh you're saying they're sort of you know the the three shug uh um sophia uh setty thing right ceilie ceilie excuse me triangle of the three of them and like understanding Seeley's pathology through seeing the examples of how the women who try to step out of line are treated in society.

Right.

Right.

She is beaten down and imprisoned for saying hell no to somebody, essentially.

Right.

Like one time.

And the musical, obviously, it's a big song.

It's a great number.

The movie.

Are you saying I should or shouldn't see the musical?

Some people like the movie.

Did you ever see it?

I never saw it.

No.

I found the way.

No Fantasias in it.

Yeah.

I mean, the performers are pretty good in it.

It's not, it's, I found the way it was made a little hermetic feeling, like a lot of movie musicals where I just kind of like, this doesn't feel like it's said anywhere.

And like, but it's kind of, I mean, it's pretty watchable.

I think it's a strange musical

fundamentally, like in a way, much as this is kind of a strange, but it's a tough thing to adapt into a, you know, progressive, you know, Hollywood-y.

But that felt like that was Oprah really getting behind it and being like, we need a new way to get the story back out to people.

Which I understand.

It's again, it's, it's watchable.

I don't know.

It's okay.

It's okay.

Do you like musicals?

No.

Okay.

Well, then I don't think you're.

I like, I like some musicals, but I have to realize, like, oh, you like these three musicals that you grew up on and you're not really interested in any others.

So, uh,

oh my God, West Side Story is one that we watched in music class in elementary school.

It doesn't make a lot of sense, but I watch that one all the time.

It's, it's It's like, did it win best picture?

It was, okay, I was like, somebody, you, I, you should know.

Um,

you should be able to answer these questions immediately.

I, so, West Side Story, uh, the sound of music, and Oliver.

Oh, I mean, these are classic 60s, you know, big Hollywood colorful musical movies.

I feel like all three movies I saw for the first time on VHS in school broken up into classes.

Yes, yes.

Kind of fun classics.

I mean, I, Oliver also won best picture, and that's the one where you're like, this wasn't best picture like but it is fun it's but it's not as i mean come on please yeah cotton city isn't i thought you were gonna break out into the full song uh anyway uh but but okay so shook avery right so sophia's beaten down shuge avery is this independent and impressive figure in a way but she is also somewhat you know marginalized and like a little tragic and like right there is a more sort of uh quiet suppression around her right like sophia is like really pushing lines and being like push back

whereas shug there's just this kind of like, she's not a serious woman.

Right.

Yeah, a little bit.

But it's, but like, she is this gateway to Seeley considering whatever, independence and sexual independence.

Yeah.

Like I like

when

Shug is singing sister, which is a song I grew up with.

And this is part of the reason why I thought I was like, I've seen this movie a zillion times.

Cause that sister, that one,

people,

I heard that throughout my childhood.

But in that moment, in the movie, uh, it is clear that Celie is experiencing something and is being seen as a human with thoughts and emotions and like potential, uh, in a way that she hasn't before.

And I really like that these men, right?

Yeah, none of them have.

I also kind of like, I mean, it's very, very silly, uh, but the

way that Spielberg shoots, oh,

Sophie's about to fight this girl.

I liked that.

Yes.

Yeah.

Yes.

No, I think

it's what makes Margaret Avery's performance so good is she enters the movie late and you're just like, this is the first person who actually like sees her and listens to her.

Yes.

Right.

When this person's paying any attention to her.

We've been seeing this movie mostly from this character's viewpoint, who is the one who silently looks and listens.

Yes.

And I also think she successfully comes in and you're like, this is the only person in the movie who has a bulletproof sense of self.

Right.

Just comes in like completely self-possessed, does not care what anyone thinks for how much Sophia is like brash and pushy and like won't take shit from anybody or whatever.

You see the hesitation in her.

I think Oprah plays that well.

It is someone who is trying to fight against a system, but understands what she's up against, where Shuk, to some degree, is just sort of like, I'm me.

I'm me.

I really like that in the book because She continues to I'm me her way throughout.

I feel like in the movie, and this was a little bit frustrating, they do have her interacting with the preacher character.

And at that moment, it doesn't feel as much like, I am me, I'm standing here, I am powerful, I am completely accepting of who I am and think that I have worth.

It seems like she's going to the church to talk to the preacher guy.

And she's like asking for worth in a certain way.

And then they reiterate that when she's like walking to the church at the end of the movie, singing and being like, I'm a person.

And then like she hugs the, and that's like her big moment when she hugs the pastor.

isn't am i making any sense at all yes movie loose says signed to her i should say yes but yeah i think the other part of it is that she kind of

her gift is that she doesn't consider that she should be feeling limited in any way if that makes any sense you know like that uh let me word this better the the scene the scene the kiss scene right yeah that one having the conversation about sex and and suddenly the entire act of sex is being discussed for the first time in a spiel work movie ever um

but where she's sort of radicalized by like, what do you mean you don't get enjoyment out of it?

Yes.

Right.

That it's not that she's naive enough to think that all sex is positive, but that she kind of can't consider a world in which it's only negative and you've never experienced any light versus like Sophia being someone who is like.

making moves that have statements behind them of her trying to purposefully like push back against the idea of what she's told.

Shug seems a little bit like unencumbered by that line of thinking, which then reduces other people to be like, well, she's a floozy, she's a singer, you know what showbiz women are like.

She's not a real person, right?

And you see all the see this with Sailor of like, oh, no, she's able to actually connect other people.

She has an internal life.

She's not just some like whatever, but it does take a little bit away from her to have her need to consult someone else.

Yes.

Which also then ties back into this like, what is this movie's like

relationship to organized religion?

I don't say in a conspiratorial way but almost looking to it as an easy solve right like well isn't just like the ultimate solve for all of this if you just like know that god loves you yes and you can find love and acceptance here and like you find your way to the other side of the rainbow yeah i mean an important detail though is the pastor is her father yes which i think we should mention because that i think she's looking for acceptance yes Yeah, and you read about when this film came out and there was controversy and a lot of it was over like

this movie, every single man in this movie is the most like horrific monster who has ever existed.

Yes.

Also, I remember learning about that.

We're like, hey, all the black men are mad.

This movie shows them as bad people and we don't like that.

And I was like, I don't know, like these men are bad.

But then you get into this conversation where you're like, if there is like one studio film starring a black cast every three years, then it's hard to not have it also feel like it's representing something larger because there's no counter-argument.

True.

Yeah.

I was like, is there a good man in the movie?

Well, I'd say it's kind of that character, but in such a small way.

Yeah.

I mean, Harpo is

not so bad.

He's terrible.

Yeah.

I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

He's kind of just an idiot.

He brings that sweet girl around.

Yeah.

So the best we can say about men is that some of them are idiots and therefore harmful.

He's a sillier evil.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Sillier.

He's a bit more buffoonery or whatever.

But no, I mean, look, it's in the book.

Like, the book is incredibly skeptical of these power dynamics, like between the genders at this time.

There's one good guy in the book that I like.

Remind me.

It is

the one that takes Nettie to Africa.

Right, sure.

Well, he's good.

Good job by him.

Yeah, he's the one.

The one good guy, and then they don't go into that.

There's one good guy in this movie.

Steven Spielberg, who except for DGA minimum.

No, I don't know.

Like, it's just like this movie was a hit.

It got nominated for 10 Oscars.

Obviously, it didn't win any, which was a bit of a rebuke.

At the time, it held the record for the most nominations without a single win, and notably did not get Spielberg a nomination.

He won the DGA, which I think was the first time that someone won the DGA without being nominated for an Oscar.

Like, it was a weird thing.

And in that hook interview I mentioned earlier where the guy's like, so is Steven Spielberg bitter about not having won the Oscar yet?

Do you sit there going, why not me?

When will it be my time?

And Spielberg's like, you know, like, he actually was pretty reasonable about it and was just like, look, I'm not going to like complain.

I have my success.

I don't feel like they're saying not you.

They're saying not yet.

It gives me something to prove, you know, like it makes me work harder.

And then he's like, the one that hurt me with color was color purple.

Color purple, it felt personal that it was like the most nominated movie and I was the one thing left out.

But it does speak to the sort of weirdness of being like, okay, Steven, good job.

Like we'll bring this into existence.

Well, also, again, who nudged him out?

Do you know?

In 1985.

Talk Oscars in a second.

Yeah.

Like, where the other four director nominees directed the other four best picture nominees: Sidney Pollock, Hector Babenko, John Houston, Peter Weir.

Hector Babenko, what was

the Spider-Woman?

Okay, thanks.

Yeah.

No problem.

Which talking about like that's another queer movie.

I was trying to remember when in timeline, but like what exists in queer cinema at that point.

That was like a revolutionary movie, but was also like made independent, wildly outside of the studio system.

Right.

Who nudged him out?

Akira Kurosawa for Ran, the, you know, Japanese master in his sort of final years.

It's not like it's like, oh yeah, they nudged him out for, you know, Mr.

Bullshit directing like,

you know, stupid.

But it's the same thing.

It's the same thing with the Jaws year.

I'm sorry, I'm just visualizing a poster.

Mr.

Bullshit

presents stupid.

I think that movie's underrated.

Of course, you do.

I do.

I think.

No, you're right.

Mr.

Bullshit made a couple good good movies.

He's not a great director, but he's made some great films.

For Jaws, he was nudged up by Fellini.

Here, he's nudged up by Curosawa.

These are, but as you know, highly esteemed.

Now, if I'm Spielberg, maybe in the back of my mind, I'm like, John Houston for Christie's Honor, that movie's a snooze.

I don't know, right?

Like in all these cases, the person who snubs him is someone who is like humongous, right, and legendary and the kind of person Spielberg reveres.

But then it's like, it's interesting that Hector Babenko makes the cut and he doesn't, considering how big his status was.

But it was all this.

Yeah.

Hector Babenko, I'm sure it was the kind of that thing of like, hey, man, Steven Spielberg gets to make what he wants.

Good for him that he wanted to make something a little different than an alien movie or whatever.

Hector Babenko like fought and scratched to make this little, you know, indie movie.

And here's a movie without concession that's

about, you know, a gay man and a leftist revolutionary in prison chatting about Brazilian politics.

Like, it's like, fuck, okay.

Yeah, that's hard to get across the line.

Good job.

Maybe that's what it was, or maybe it's just, because I just feel like if this movie was,

and I think, again i do think this movie is generally good and watchable but if this movie was great like if this was like a really amazing movie it would be a seismic film that was that won all the oscars and like was remembered like totemically to the right you know what i mean where it's like this could have been one of the biggest movies of the 80s it kind of was a big movie that yeah i i don't know not as big as it could have been it could have been like his schindler's list it's probably just not a spiel Spielberg movie.

That's the thing.

You're like, what were you going to say, Case?

No, it's just the way that you're describing it is almost like, oh, my gosh, we have this dish.

It has everything that you like, but it's missing one spice that would make it really come together and be a memorable meal.

And I'm wondering, what do you think that spice would be?

Salt.

Salt.

It's missing salt.

No, that's like the joke is it's like.

Fuck, we forgot to put salt.

You know, it's like, it's like, sure.

Everything about all the elements here are great, except the director you've picked is a little off for it.

And it's like, well, the director of the movie kind of needs to be on for it.

But the answer, I think, is just point of view.

Yeah, right?

It is a well-directed movie in terms of like how it looks and what it evokes.

You know, it's not, it's not like a badly directed movie.

No one looks in the camera.

It's always my joke.

Spielberg forgot to tell what people look in the camera.

Look over there.

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It was a time my wife made a cake without sugar.

Like she forgot to put sugar in the cake.

How did that cake taste?

It tasted

like a pumpkin cake or a sweet potato, you know, something like that.

And it was one of those things where like one bite in, I was like, This is the strangest sensation because this is what it's supposed to be.

It has the texture and it tastes like pumpkin or whatever.

But what is wrong?

They feel crazy right now.

Then you realize like, oh, right, it's not sweet.

It's supposed to be sweet.

Sure.

But like, here's, here's the, I'm just saying, there's just the alternative fundamental.

It's like Spielberg's reading the recipe, right?

Which is the book, The Color Purple.

And he's like, very well.

Rolls Walker was impressed by how well he read it.

Right.

And he's like looking and he's like, am I reading this right?

Four tablespoons of oregano and a birthday cake.

And the book is like, this cake has oregano.

And he's like, you know what?

I don't feel comfortable enough with oregano.

That's a really good cake.

I'm going to leave the oregano.

I'm just going to make a regular cake.

That's right.

I will put salt and pepper on it.

I'm just not going to, I'm not going to do it.

I don't know what that is.

Right.

And everyone's like, the oregano is the dicey part of it.

Yeah.

But also, if you're not putting it in there, maybe just

different recipes.

Yeah.

I like that.

Thank you.

It is interesting.

I kept watching it.

I'm just like, this movie continually.

heaps landing just barely on the side of i think this is good with like humongous qualifiers.

And you saying like, well, if it had been perfect, then it would be one of the most like seismic American movies of all time.

And yet this movie like has a humongous legacy.

Yes.

And even though that legacy continues to be like re-litigating it in a lot of ways, to the extent that you felt like you had seen it, and I felt like I had seen it too.

And I grew up in the fucking West Village of New York.

Like it was not like.

passed on to me culturally in the same way, but I have this very distinct memory of like the school I went to, there was a bookstore that was like a block away that we passed by every day when my parents were dropping me off and picking me up from school that had a giant poster of the color purple facing towards the window.

And I would just see this thing every day for like 10 years that was like, okay, Steven Spielberg, color purple, Hewlett Surprise.

This is a thing.

This is important.

Right.

I was just like, this is 10 years after this movie came out.

And I understand you're telling me these names 10 years ago before I was born made something that still deserves to hang in like a bookstore window.

And then I asked my parents, I'm like, is that one of the best movies ever made?

And they're like, it's okay.

It is.

It kind of works.

I'll shout out when Seely leaves

and

Danny Glover's character is left to his own devices.

The house is fucked up.

I mean, it was fucked up when she got there.

And then it goes back to being fucked up.

Like farm animals.

Yeah.

Like, it, it, it's, it's like such an extreme version of this has become a bachelor pad.

That is a level of dirt.

I, I,

it's hard for my brain to wrap around.

I keep a very clean home.

I, I don't like mess at all.

That you would have,

like, I don't even let people wear shoes into my home.

Should you?

That you would have.

animals that poop that i mean we all poop but like they poop and then they don't wipe it's just can i tell you about a rule I have?

I want to hear it.

No, like outside pants in the bed.

Yes, yes.

Like you can't sit

on your outside clothes, Jerry.

Like take, no pants for some reason or the.

Touch your butt.

You know, yeah.

And you're rubbing against where everyone else's butt was and butt sweat.

And it's like a combination of things that means that you are bringing that into your home.

And yet, like where you sleep, where you spend potentially eight hours a day, you want to be rubbing against that.

That's, don't do that.

Okay, can I run a couple simulations by you and ask what you would do in these Circuit Waves?

I'm putting on my VR gods.

I want to, yes, please.

Okay.

You're like, oh, exhausting day, right?

I want you to just imagine a scenario in which you, David Sims, feel overwhelmed by life.

Are sleep deprived.

My balls hurt.

Possibly have multiple plates spinning.

David got snipped.

I think he's locked in.

He's locked in.

Okay.

All the way in.

And you're like, oh, okay, I have like 10 minutes before I have to turn around and like leave the house and go somewhere else, right?

This is like a quick pit stop.

And you're sort of like, I just want to like lie down for five minutes.

Do you in that situation go,

I need to change into sweatpants for five minutes to be able to lie on the bed?

Or

the fact that I don't have enough time to change into sweatpants and out means I shouldn't be lying down.

These are not,

the pants come off.

But you put them back on?

Later, yeah.

The pants can come off and on, but you are acting as though the only surface in your home where you are able to lay down is I was going to say the next option, I was going to say,

but you will allow outside pants on the couch yeah okay outside pants are allowed on the couch so the bed just has a level of sanctity i agree i mean that was that's my proposal keys where are you from in north carolina charlotte north carolina yeah the great the great

the hornets yes

we for a while we weren't for a while we weren't 50 on the but yes we are the hornets again that is the team that i was very attached to as a child oh like did you have a starter jacket i didn't have a starter jacket but i had like a lot of big t-shirts i don't know why but like kids in my middle and elementary school wore like big T-shirts and umbro shorts.

And we were like, we look fucking good.

Probably did.

Yeah.

And that was, you know, the teal and purple.

Yeah.

Very cool.

And, oh, they would come to like events.

Like, we had a.

I'm like, so cool, but in sixth grade, we had a trip to dendrology camp.

And like a bunch of schools sent kids to a park and we learned about leaves and stuff.

And then the hornet came out and did a little dance.

Can you say that word?

Oh, like

the mascot, the hornet.

Yeah.

Cool.

Awesome.

what kind of camera

dendrology i had to look it up it is the study uh the science and study of wooded plants wow you guys didn't go to dendrology camp you know i meant to and i

i forgot you had to make up songs about different types of leaf structures you guys didn't have to do that can you look at like bark and be like oh this is this kind of tree have it in the back of your head i oh my god mostly no just like a few types of leaves and somebody did a song to uh the thong song but it was like ooh that chunk's so scandalous.

Uh, and I will remember that until the day that I die.

Sounds like a good way to make learning fun.

Yeah, yeah, you are from exactly where they shot the movie, essentially.

And my family is from uh, like rural South Carolina, so between North Carolina and Georgia, obviously.

Um, and we went to black churches growing up, and then I would visit my hyper-religious relatives in Maryland, where I thought Maryland was the north, but a lot of Maryland is the south, and they have some backward-ass churches.

Uh, no, yeah, Maryland is uh, you know, uh, was didn't secede, but was a slave state, and uh, yeah, you know, that's where I learned about uh

white Jesus on the wall of a black church.

Uh, thought that was very fascinating.

And then, uh, did you guys

like it was a black church that was like, but we

pray to a white Jesus, yeah, and I'm like,

that seems weird, yeah, sure.

Um, and then chick tracks, have you heard of these?

I do, yes, I do, because they were, they became like an internet phenomenon.

Yes.

Even though they're from a long time ago, but the internet like discovered them when I was a teenager.

They're very strange.

They are very strange.

And I would take them because it was like, hey, I'm born.

Well, they're comic books.

Yeah, I'm like, I'm born at church.

I need something to read.

So they had like a little container where there were different

chick tracks in each of these little slots.

And I would take the new ones because I needed something to read during church.

Chick tracks?

And they're like little comic books that are sort of evangelical, but like very, very hardcore,

whatever, Orthodox or right-wing or whatever.

I mean, it's what taught me that even some

evangelical Christians don't just hate, you know, Jews and homosexuals.

They hate Catholics.

Like, you know, they hate Catholicism.

There was a whole book on like, no, you guys are worshiping Mary.

It's actually the devil.

Catholics are bad.

Yeah, where it's like, but because he was a Catholic, straight to hell.

Yeah.

Forever.

No way out.

And it's just like, what?

The cartoons would be like, and so then he went to hell.

And it's just like him roasting in hell.

And there's a little cartoon of him like, yeah, in hell.

And they're like, he's not getting out.

Chick tracks.

Yeah, they always just have a pretty, there's not usually a way out.

Like, chick tracks aren't usually like, but you know,

there was one about a Muslim character.

And he's like, what?

I'm not worshiping God.

Oh, I'll just worship God then.

If you make the switch, the chick tracks are on board with you.

Yeah, very important to my upbringing.

Yeah.

But growing up in the South, like, yeah, this was such a big big part of it.

The songs, and my church did have really good music.

In fact, when I watch other movies about church and they don't have good music, I'm like, this doesn't make any sense.

This does not reflect the

why are you going there if there's not good music?

This movie has terrible music.

I mean, Quincy Jones.

But I mean, like, I do think that hurts.

Like when Suge is

on her way to church, she's singing.

And I'm like, yes, this seems more like what people sang in church.

Just to kind of like go back full circle, I mean, it's the other part of this movie that's just like the fact that it successfully introduces Danny Glover, Oprah Winfrey, and Whoopi Goldberg to a wider audience all at once.

And then the three of them are so impactful, not just in the work they do, but also just as like cultural leaders in a lot of ways.

Like Danny Glover is maybe the most like overtly political movie star of all time.

Yeah,

arguably.

And like,

Oprah is someone who like at points in time could arguably win presidential elections.

That's so they say that's kind of the Joe Rogan of her moment, if you will.

I mean, Joe Rogan, we'd say like evil, lawful evil.

She'd be like,

lawful neutral or

for looking at that grid.

Wait, what did you say?

When he said Joe Rogan, I just got upset.

Ben, how are you doing?

Ben's, it looks like Ben is rolling a cigarette.

I think he's just playing with a poster though.

It's something I just do occasionally.

Do you have like a collection of rolled up pieces of paper over there?

He's showing us several pieces of paper that he's a little bit more like a piece of 3D triangle

and origami.

Yeah, I feel like this is a movie that Spielberg does not point back to that often when discussing his own legacy, which he is not loath to do.

It doesn't really come up in those sort of retrospective films about him or anything like that.

And he doesn't talk about it with shame.

He doesn't talk about it with pride.

He's just sort of like, that's another one.

I think I did something's right.

I did something's wrong.

He's usually pretty like unsentimental when he looks back on his work in that kind of way.

But there is something to like Glover, Winfrey, and Goldberg all point back to this movie all the time because it changed their lives, you know?

And like, and so it kind of like has always remained in the conversation,

which is then also furthered by Oprah being like, I'm going to get this on Broadway.

Like, I'm going to do, like, it just, it's,

I don't know.

It's, it's an odd thing where it's not just like, you know, there's certain, I feel like we've all had this experience, right?

Where it's like, you're reading like a huge like American book in school and they're like, we're going to show you the movie.

The movie's not great, but it is what it is.

And it might help you guys understand the book if you watch some week here so you're going to watch the movie right that was the scarlet letter when i was growing up wait the demi moore the sexy one with demi moore we watched that you're allowed to watch that in school also uh boobs the the crucible yeah oh yeah that that makes more sense because that's not an amazing movie but at least that's it that's the exact kind of thing there was a big poster and this is danielle taylor's going

yeah and all the women in my class girls were girls were under 18 were girls so we sat on there were some adult women no there were there were um all the girls sat on one side of the class so we could stare at the daniel day lewis poster because uh he's okay in that movie he looked really he looks very intense too yes

we're like oh that's what men are like that's nice that might be kind of like peak unvarnished handsome from him Yeah, it's that mid-90s, big beard-y kind of phase for him.

Yeah.

No, my point was just, I feel like this movie is constantly talked about in that sort of context of like the good versus the bad and like what it got right and what we know today and what we, you know, yada, yada, yada.

But yet I don't think it's presented in that way of like, look, it's not a great adaptation, but it is what it is.

Like the movie kind of has its own reputation as its own work, not just as this was the time they tried and didn't really succeed in cracking the color purple, which is part of what's interesting about it versus maybe like.

I don't know, a more successful literal adaptation.

Although, as you said, like maybe this is a work that doesn't really translate to that form.

Yeah, it's tough.

Again, the book is nothing really like this.

Yeah.

And because of the epistolary thing and because of the fact that it's all in the vernacular, like, I remember when I started reading it, I was like very thrown by that because I think I had the Spielberg movie in my head of like, this isn't just like kind of a like, let me take you back to this time with like an omniscient narrator of like, okay, it's the deep south.

It's the early 1900s.

It's not like that at all.

Instead, you're like right with Celie and like her trying to describe her situation.

And it, you know, begins in a similar way, obviously.

Her situation is bad.

Yes.

And it's a lot of dear God and then dear Nettie.

And then,

so she thinks something happens, Netty, but I like that it is letters.

And I, I listen to the audiobook because

are we all like, are we pro anti?

Like, I'm not anti-audiobook.

I have never,

I shouldn't say this because God knows they'll sponsor the podcast.

I've never really been an audiobook person.

But I'm a podcast person.

I think I just read book.

I read book on phone and Kindle and stuff.

You read book on phone?

But who narrated the audiobook?

Alice Walker.

Oh, that's it.

And I, so

I had a stroke.

It has affected my brain.

It is harder for me to read books,

but I love books.

So I listen to a lot of audiobooks now.

This is why it's good.

I would ban audiobooks, but now that I've heard your story.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no, no, no, this is why it's good there's audio

but the thing that is tough about it is when you're talking to somebody it's like it feels weird to be like, I listen to a movie.

Yes, exactly.

Where I'm like, I want to say, like, oh, yeah, I read that, but I didn't technically read it.

And then I feel guilt about it.

And it's like a thing I'm holding inside.

So learn it out.

But yeah, I read the audiobook.

I think Alice Walker does a good job.

And it is much easier for me to understand

Southern Vernacular English when it is spoken than having to read it.

So 100%.

I think that my experience was probably a little bit easier.

I read him.

This movie was a big box office success.

Yeah, well, do box office game a second.

I do want to acknowledge the Oscars.

It's really a terrible, terrible Oscars because there's no offense to this movie.

Well, some offense.

It's the Out of Africa Oscars.

Right.

And it does feel like it's like they can't settle on something like the color purple because whatever,

it's not hitting quite big enough.

And instead, they settled for an even sort of duller, you know, literary epic, like in my opinion.

But we're sort of like, right.

This feels the most like an Oscar suit.

Out of Africa was a big hit.

I'm not.

Have you seen Out of Africa?

I have not seen Out of Africa.

I've never seen it.

Meryl Streep and Robert Redford.

We like both of those people.

We do.

And it's a very, very handsome movie.

You know, you've never seen it, I'm assuming.

No, because they're in Africa, I presume.

Unfortunately, yes.

And they're, I'm, I'm guessing, Sabs in the dark.

Are there wild animals of some sort?

Yeah, there's some wild animals and stuff.

Okay.

It's a whole lot.

Do we have a large sun going down?

Biggest

safaris.

Vistas, etc.

Isn't like the poster literally what Kinesis describes and go with like a tiger?

Pretty much.

Pretty much.

Was just the sun though, like vibrantly orange?

This is the movie.

Look, I watched every best picture winner.

Okay.

Like that, it was something I eventually decided.

I was like, yeah,

there's only like 15 or 20 at this point.

I'm going to watch them just, you know, I'll just go back and I'll clear off every.

And when I got to Out of Africa, I was truly like, this should only be watched if you want to watch every

it's like the most homework ass.

You're just like,

but that's sort of

like it

shouldn't, you know, like this year, 2025 Oscars, where people are like, it doesn't feel like there's a front runner.

You're like, something has to win by default.

Yes, something will be anointed, the best picture of 2025.

The other nominees for best picture, Kiss of the Spider-Woman, Pritzy's Honor, which is a movie I watched recently.

Have you ever seen Pritzy's Honor?

No, I know you love the film, right?

No.

Oh, really?

You think I'm filming?

I put it on thinking I was going to love it.

I was like, John Houston, jack nicholson angelica houston yeah kathleen turner mob comedy how is this gonna be bad it starts up and you're like this is like i'm i think i'm expecting like moonstruck with the mob right like i'm like that's a big 80s italian movie where everyone's like you know being a giving a big performance even married to the mob even married to the mob even married to and it is so like leaden and dull and you watch it and you're like what the was everyone smoking that this was considered good like and again all the people involved are good although Nicholson is sort of trying to do like a Brooklyn accent.

Oh, great.

So,

and like, so Angelica Houston wins supporting actress that year.

And it was kind of this, I think, the narrative for her was like, one, we love Angelica Houston, great actor, but it was like, she got her way into John Houston's movie.

He didn't want to put her in it, and she fought to be in the movie anyway because he's her father.

Also, the other narrative was that it was this sort of like, what was her first movie again?

Her Angelica Houston's first movie.

Yes.

A Walk with Love and Death.

I think she was so thoroughly trashed in that movie.

Right.

So it was like a comeback for her.

Ultimate Nepo baby.

He cast his daughter.

He's so enamored with her.

She sucks in this.

Fuck you.

Go away.

Where, like, she kind of won the Oscar in like a kind of clapback of like, look, she fought her way into another movie.

Right.

She's fine in the movie.

Like, she's good even, I guess.

She's very glamorous and like, I love Angelica Houston.

But again, I was watching it being like, and now she's about, there's going to be some big scene.

She's going to like the

fire.

And then you watch fucking the color purple and you're like both oprah winfrey and margaret avery have like scenes where you're like holy shit you know like you know how did this not win an oscar didn't win an oscar the answer is probably if one or the other had been nominated they probably would have won maybe right maybe maybe obviously both deserved nominations yes whoopie goldberg loses to geraldine page for the trip to bountiful what which is kind of seen as a shock whoopie won the golden globe i mean like you read ebert's review and he's like whoopi goldberg is going to win the oscar like everyone is sort of like this is an undeniable which she should have yes Yes.

Who is this other person?

And what is this other movie?

I'm not sure.

So, Geraldine Page is like this legendary old American actress, and it was like a late career movie.

And so, kind of like, you know, she's look, I've never seen it, so I don't want to make fun of it.

But it's like,

I feel like you don't want to make fun of it, but you, that's how you would describe the movie, of course.

Okay, and that's the one that won Best Actress.

Gotcha, gotcha.

The 80s were not great for the Academy Awards, but I feel like this was in particular a real recurrence, which was like, what wins best actress or best supporting actress?

And it's like a legendary, beloved, like sort of like legend of the stage who had a movie career, but was never fully a movie star and was always a little bit like take it for granted, but everyone in the industry loved.

And then they like show up with a carpet bag in a movie at 85 and people are like, fine, here you go.

Just take it.

Because F.

Marie Abraham gives her the Oscar, right?

That would make sense.

This is the moment I remember i've never seen trip to the bountiful but

trip to bountiful weirdly and bancroft also nominated that year like sarcastically goes like geraldine page when she's in that like she knew it was gonna happen which is funny anyway what was ann bancroft nominated for agnes of god oh sure the uh norman jewis and noir movie

never seen it um

anyway uh i think whoopie was sort of seen as the front runner sure yeah and uh f murray abraham uh is presenting his last year's winner and he opens the envelope and he like catches his breath and he says something for Klemp to the effect of like, it is my great honor to be able to bestow this act, this Academy Award to, in my opinion, the greatest actor alive, Geraldine Page.

There is like this sense of like, we are finally giving this woman respect for a movie that will never be watched ever.

Right, right.

She was a big actor who'd been nominated for a bunch of Oscars and she's a great actor.

Like, I got no beef with Geraldine Page, just that the trivial bounce will kind of look like a movie where ladies go,

that's all.

That's all I'm saying.

I don't know if it's true or not.

For all I know, it's actually about Geraldine Page is like a badass action hero who's got to get to Bountiful, the villain's lair.

I mean, Whoopee wins for a ghost five years later.

She does.

And that's obviously like a dynamite supporting performance that she might have won for anyway.

But there is, I think, an element of like

overdue.

Like the five years in between, she makes a lot of like comedy vehicles, becomes like a successful bankable movie star in the sort of like whoopi Goldberg persona that she has crafted for herself and then talks about how hard she had to fight to get cast in ghosts because they were like, well, you're not a serious actress now.

Like within five years, they were like, Whoopi Goldberg's going to make this feel like a comedy.

And it's like, she was in the color purple.

Yeah.

Just, yeah.

The trip to Bountiful is actually a revenge war movie.

What?

They killed her squad.

Now she's going to get them all.

This is for the lieutenant.

No,

what is, I don't know what the trip to bouncing is about.

I'm going to watch Sidney Pollock's remake of Sabrina.

I'm going to watch the trip to Bounciful.

I'm going to do the work.

Truly, don't.

Like, if you don't like it, I don't want you to be like, Canise doesn't know.

Canice is going to have to give me your phone number and I will text you.

Give you my phone number.

You know what?

I think you're cool.

Let's be friends.

You're cool too.

Okay.

But yeah, let's all be friends.

But I hope that means

before.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Totally.

I'm going to say this to you in all honesty, Canise.

uh sabrina is one of those movies that much like you're saying i just hear everyone go like and obviously that sucks it's just stated as like well it's a given of course we all know that was terrible yes and every time i see like a clip from it i'm like i think i would like this she's a teenage witch

what's not the love i am not

there's a quiz master she's got two ants the cat talk the cat talks yeah

her boyfriend's name is harvey that's because that was the name of the comic imprint.

No, I have always thought, like, I bet I would like this if I saw this.

And I've been worried to watch it because I think people are so dismissive of it.

Let yourself like it.

You ever think about how in Sabrina, she's got the friend with the red hair in season one, and then they recast the actor.

In season two, she just gets a new friend.

Are you talking about Melissa Joan Hart's Sabrina the Teenage Witch?

Because there was another one with that chick who was in Mad Men.

Oh, that's true.

There was the Netflix one that was like Sabrina, the dark witch of

gothicness.

No, I'm talking about the sitcom from

there is an amazing, like I TikTok that I found once of like, you know,

out-of-pocket moments from sitcoms that no one noticed at the time, where like, you know, there's the aunts, Hilda and Zelda, right?

And Carolyn Ray and the other one.

And Hilda's like, oh, man, we haven't fought this much since we picked opposite sides of the Civil War.

It's like, what is that?

How did that slip through?

So wait, which one were you?

Exactly.

Wait a minute.

Did you chance?

Marie was working on the checkbook, the blank check newsletter on Substack.

Subscribe if you haven't already.

And was talking about in relation to our Twin Peaks episode 8 conversation, what are the most insane things broadcast on television, right?

And I was like, everyone was throwing out like obvious examples.

And I was like, that night where TGIF traveled through time.

And everyone else in the thread was like, what the fuck are you talking about?

And I was like, I don't remember this.

Do you remember that historic night where the entire TGIF lineup ended up time traveling?

And I had to unpack this and be like, let me make sure I'm not getting this wrong.

There was an, I think Sabrina was the first.

And Salem and Sabrina is a sorceress.

Salem cast like a bad spell and an orb created a time travel effect.

He eats a magic time ball.

Okay, he eats in a magic time ball.

And the Sabrina.

Yes, the Sabrina episode that night was set in the 60s with Sabrina leading second wave feminism.

Good for her.

And has like bra-burning jokes.

And then all the, like, Boy Meets World was about like Corey shipping out for the Vietnam War.

Am I wrong about this?

For the Korean War?

I can tell you that the episode was called No Guts, No Corey.

Every episode started with Salem walking onto the set of a different show and then it going.

And then they ended up in a different time period.

It sounds lovely.

It was insane.

Salem had so much attitude.

That cat was silly.

I love that cat.

Let's play box off this game.

This film came out Christmas time, 1985, and limited release.

So we're going to do this limited release, but it's semi-limited.

It's opening at number eight, $1.7 million on 192 screens.

They made $98 million domestic.

Yeah, it was a big hit considering it's $94 million, but you know what?

I mean, how much did the musical remake make?

Well, you know what?

It was one of the weirdest box office performances ever, that musical remake, because it like made like $20 million on like day one and then fell off really fast.

And it was one of those things where like lots of church groups and like community groups had bought tickets en masse for like Christmas or whenever Christmas Day.

They like, they planned out really well.

It's, it's one of the weirdest, disproportionate, like 45% of its entire gross happened in 2014.

$18 million on Christmas Day.

And it ends up at like 45.

It ended up at 60.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

But still not as much as its predecessor 30 years ago.

And if you like, but just for inflation, Color Purple performed like fucking American Sniper.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Did like Transformer Snipers.

I like that that's the first one we get.

It was the highest grossing PG-13 movie of that year, PG-13 being a new rating.

Number one at the box office is a sequel.

It's been out for a month.

It is still number one at the box office.

I think it might have been the highest-grossing in this series.

It's not Star Trek 4 after the first one.

Nope.

No.

It's the highest grossing after the first.

Oh, it's Rocky 4.

Rocky 4.

It is the highest grossing.

Is it the highest grossing even including Rocky?

Maybe.

Unadjusted?

Unadjusted, yes.

Maybe unadjusted.

Unadjusted is the highest grossing.

Have you seen Rocky 4?

No.

I can't see any Rocky.

I've I've seen two.

Yeah, sure.

And then I've seen Creed.

Yeah.

Well, not the most recent one.

Well, okay, so I had a question on Jonathan Majors for a very long time, and then I, it turns out he's bad.

So I'm just like, right, so now you're like, do I even want to engage with

pre-canceling?

Because, like, I know he's bad, but my pussy doesn't.

And so he's allowed to say,

okay, um, Bike Jack.

I mean, like, people can yell at you, but we'll stop them.

Dave and I have talked about a lot how fascinating it is that that movie came out, was a really big hit, was well-liked.

People were like, Michael B.

Jordan's a good director, he pulled it off.

And like, Jonathan Majors, here's finally, they've been hyping him up for years.

This is the performance that makes him kind of undeniable.

Uh-huh.

And then, like, all the shit goes down like within three weeks after the movie had already made $150 million.

It was a huge success.

It was basically agreed upon that we were never going to acknowledge the movie ever again.

At that time,

talking about Quantumania gangs as like a problem, but it's not forgotten.

I mean, Creed 3 feels like it's been memory holding.

Majors is good in that movie.

He's very good in it.

But like that movie

is great outside of him.

Will Michael B.

Jordan ever get to direct against them?

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

He's doing a Thomas Crown Affair remake,

which is the thing he's been attached to do for over a decade and he's finally fucking doing it, which is exciting.

They're making another Thomas Crown affair?

Yeah.

So I think one of the times I wrote you the most enthusiastically was when you covered the Thomas Crown Affair.

And I was like, I posted that.

I was like, truly, one of the best days of my life.

I love this so much.

It's It's my interests converging in a way that causes me deep joy and happiness.

And then you had someone from Ring of Verson who was Amanda Dobbins.

Oh, my God.

Oh, my God.

Denise and I were chatting before you guys got here, and you said something about that movie that was really encouraging, which is it instilled to be excited about becoming 40.

Yes.

Oh, yeah, coach, because it's a right.

It's a 40-something.

It's a 40-something.

I saw that as a young teenager, and I was like, that's the age.

I got something to look forward to.

I've always wanted to like, I brought truly in that, she wears two outfits that stuck with me to the point where I bought a powder blue pants suit and wore it with a white turtleneck folded down.

And she also, this is the scene when she interrogates Thomas Crown.

Oh my God, this is, I'm sorry.

So there's still time for me to become a master thief.

There is still time for you to become a master thief.

In fact, that was his like first time as master thief.

I think he like played a few things practicing, but then he did this art heist at the Met and it was his first time.

So it could be your first time.

Poppus cherry.

I like you.

Art thief cherry.

Oh, I like you too, Kami.

You're a cool guy.

I'm dope.

You've given me like 18 compliments.

It's like, I don't like it.

Do nice to me.

Why?

No, I'm joking.

Yeah.

Well, if we start talking about Shamala, and then she'll flip in the opposite direction.

Those are when I get the angry messages from you where you're like, what the fuck are you guys talking about?

Yeah, you guys sound insane right now.

And also, you, because originally you wrote me and you were like, hey,

do you want to do,

who was the last last one that you guys released?

David Lynch, yes, you were like, Is there a David Lynch film that you want to do?

And I was like, Oh, I'm so sorry.

I absolutely hate David Lynch.

I couldn't possibly, I feel, I like, I love you guys's podcasts.

Like, I feel like a kid with cancer who's like been given a make-a-wish or something.

Just,

but then you were like, Oh, but it have to be with David Lynch.

And I was like, oh, I'm sorry, I'm gonna have to give that make-a-wish back.

I absolutely couldn't, even if I tried.

We planned so far in advance.

Yes, that I often when it's like, we are overdue, we need to get you on.

Can I show you what we have right now and if there's nothing here I promise I'll circle back in like five months But it does mean that there's often a long gap and then even if it's like five months later It's like great the one you picked is five months from now.

Hell yeah, but I always prefer to like wait for what feels like I really appreciate that.

I was never gonna yes

What else is in the the top five David?

Oh back to the box office game.

Number two at the box office is a sequel a terrible sequel to a film we have covered.

We have not covered the sequel nor ever shall we we never shall I don't think so.

We never shall.

We covered a made feed, yeah.

Covered the original.

We covered the original.

Is it a Jaws sequel?

Nope.

Hmm.

Because I could see us doing a Jaws Patreon.

I mean, that's could we?

That's a little deep, I feel like, for us, but you know, you never do.

We're never gonna.

This is number two.

Two of two.

Two of two.

Yeah, the series ends here.

The series ends here definitively.

Same stars?

Yeah.

Not the same director, though, obviously.

No.

And can you give me a genre?

Adventure, romance.

Oh, this is the fucking.

It keeps coming up.

It sucks.

It does.

Lewis Teague film.

The Jewel of the Nile.

The Jewel of the Nile, the sequel to Robert Zemeckis's Romancing the Stone.

I remember Romancing the Stone.

Does it still have Kathleen Turner?

Michael Turner.

Both of them.

And Kathleen Turner.

Devito's back?

It is so bad.

It is so bad.

What happened to her after Serial Mom?

What?

Serial mom is a good shout as like a great later performance for her.

Like, I feel like that is kind of the end.

She had already kind of run out of thread by that point.

I feel like Serial Mom is John Waters being like, Kathleen Turner rocks.

Like, why isn't she in a more?

She has very severe arthritis.

She does, but that's, I feel like that came on later.

Like, I feel like she's already kind of lost some movie star juice by the 90s.

I think a lot of that is unfortunately, despite everything that Renee Russo tried to teach us.

Hollywood's well-established prejudice against women over the age of 40.

There's shit also like the, what's it called?

V.I.

Wachowski, where she like adapted that book series that was like a long-running book series.

And it was like, this is going to be her sort of like dirty hairy series.

And that one didn't perform.

And it was a like, oh, people don't want women in action movies kind of like there.

But then early 2000s, she did the graduate on Broadway.

And I felt like

it was on the West End.

And it was, she got naked.

And everyone was like,

like, it was truly one of those things where like the British press was like, she fucking is naked in this thing.

It's on its stage.

The Brits love nudity.

Don't they have it on like channel four?

Galore?

Yeah.

Whole thing.

You're British-ish.

As you move there, I'm British-ish.

And you're like, in Britain, and now this isn't true anymore because this finally got done away with.

But like in the old red tabloids, the red top tabloids on page three, there was a nude woman whose breasts were revealed.

The page three girls.

The page three girls, right?

Page three girls.

Literally, it was like, you sick fucks can only make it one.

You refuse to turn it on.

That's page three, bro.

Obviously, if you get past the cover, yeah, then you get tits at least in your peripheral vision, geez, and and and you were like

you know, as a little boy, I'm like, What is it?

And yet, at the same time, right, if you like say tits, British people are like, Oh,

wait a second, what are you talking about?

Oh, fuck it all,

crazy right now.

It's just the weird kind of their stuff about that, but they were upset that she had her, they weren't upset, they were just thrilled.

Oh, they're thrilled, they were like, We gotta get it like, yes, she did it on Broadway, and then she did

She also created it on Broadway.

I believe so.

She did Virginia Wolfe as well, right?

Didn't she?

Yeah, she did, I think.

I feel like she had a 2000s, like, you know what?

Hollywood's turned their back on me.

I'm going to like take on great roles on stage.

And I believe one of Tony for something at some point.

At least was nominated for it.

Yes.

I just like her voice so much.

I did too.

She was supposed to do George Lucas talk show recently.

Oh, really?

She said she's going to reschedule and do it again soon, but I was very.

What was the connection?

Like, what, what's the, is there a George Lucas project she wants to discuss?

Well, what Connor loves to talk about is that George Lucas produced Body Heat, but took his name off of it because he thought people wouldn't think a movie was sexy if George Lucas's name wasn't.

It was sort of the Mel Brooks thing.

All right, so number three, the box office Griffin.

Now, this might have been a Porch Classic, Ben.

I've got a Porch Classic alert to this one.

Never actually checked in.

Not a director.

A director we already badmouthed on this episode, but he's made comedy hits.

John Landis?

Yes.

Spies like Us?

Spies Like Us.

Chevy and Dan Aykroyd?

No, I've never seen it.

I've heard of it.

Yeah, it's not a good movie.

Yeah, I've never seen it.

Great poster.

Great poster.

They're wearing like furry hats.

Yes.

Yeah, in the snow.

Yeah.

Yeah, I feel like

kind of like for everyone involved, like them sort of looking for better days, right?

Like Landis, Chevy, Aykroyd.

Yes.

I don't know.

Yeah.

Spies like us.

Number four at the box office is the best picture winner already

out of Africa new this week.

Number five at at the box office i think we've discussed this film before

uh

so we must have done a we must have done something in this time frame recently because a couple of these are very familiar uh it's a christmas film

and it's like about like like one of the main christmas guys is it santa claus the movie

What is Santa Claus the movie?

Because I feel like we recently talked about this, that someone was like, no one's ever actually just done a movie about Santa.

The weird producers of the Christopher Reeves Superman movies were like, we just had the greatest idea idea of all time.

Santa Claus the movie.

And you're like, what makes it the movie?

And they're like, us saying it is.

Us putting a title close to that.

Like we got the right disaster

for the first time ever official.

Santa Claus.

Okay.

What type of Santa Claus is this?

It's not like a the Santa Claus.

Dudley Moore, right?

But Dudley Moore plays an elf.

Oh, okay.

And like John Lithgow plays a businessman who hates Christmas or some shit.

I'm sure he had to reach really hard to get that one.

Who plays Santa?

Like a third of the budget was paid for by Coca-Cola and McDonald's, I think.

Okay.

It's like a notorious disaster.

Yeah, I don't think it made a lot of money.

I just remember when I was a kid, some other kid telling me, like, you've never seen Santa Claus the movie?

It's like the movie about Santa Claus.

And I was like, what?

David Hovleston plays Santa Claus.

Oh, there we go.

You know, it's very Santa-like me.

Yeah.

I soft-pitched recently a Patreon series called Christmas Cole.

Worst depictions of Santa.

Who else is?

I pitched for the four.

Okay.

I'm not going in chronological order here.

Santa Claus, the movie.

Fred Claus.

Santa Claus Conquers the Martians.

What?

Yeah, I've never heard that now.

Legendary being a movie.

One of the most insane movies ever made.

I sampled it in one of my Slow Christmas albums.

There we go.

And I watched a little bit of it.

It's very absurd.

And of course, the reason for the season, the movie I walked out of and said, attention must be paid.

I must, I must.

break this movie down is red one the worst film ever made the worst film ever made it's i it's not just the inspiration right red one i think it represents an idea for culture I'm excited.

I don't think it's the worst movie I've made, but I think in a lot of ways it is the greatest distillation of everything that I've ever seen.

He's been making a lot of pronouncements recently.

I was going to say that.

Is it like some movies are, I know they're not going to be good, but I like to take like half of an edible and get the big tub.

I love that experience of watching a bad movie while eating caramel popcorn while a little bit high.

Would this be good for that?

Or would I even, from that experience, walk away like upset?

I disappointed.

I think it would probably.

I think it would upset you.

Damn.

I think it would upset you.

I i think there's things in it that would genuinely upset you especially in a modified state like that okay yeah all right um in six to ten we've got white knights the taylor hackford um ballet movie

with uh heinz and baryshnikov the big two

um

we've got a disney re-release of 101 dalmatians one of your daughter's favorite movies she has she moved on huge phase with that movie she has not watched it in a while but she loved kruella she was very i mean not to be clear not like her actions not crate Gillespie's film Cruella.

She liked Cruella in the movie.

She called her the Grumpy Queen.

She should see Cruella then.

We'll get to it.

Right now, it's doesn't your daughter have a bunch of questions about why did Cruella pretend to hate dogs?

Yeah.

No.

Where she came from?

Why her hair is dead like that?

Yeah, where she got the goat.

Oh, yeah.

She wants to know the origins of like, did a dog knock her mom off a cliff or whatever that happens in that movie.

My daughter, right now, unfortunately, it's all frozen.

They watch it as one or frozen one and two.

this is what i want to tell you so both she likes both but she distinguishes them by there's the regular frozen as she refers to which is frozen one and then frozen with the pants because she one point told me that princesses wear dresses and i was like princesses don't have to wear dresses they can wear pants and she was like princesses wear dresses and i was like elsa wears pants in frozen two remember when she runs into the water she's wearing pants and she was like Show me that right now.

And I like, I like queued it up and I showed it to her.

And she watched it and she was like, she is wearing pants.

I agree with you.

And so now she will specifically be like, I want frozen with the pants.

And I'll be like, but you want it from the beginning, right?

Because she's not going to wear pants until an hour into this thing.

And she's like,

right now, like Disney, Disney Animation Headquarters, they're playing this back and they're like, okay, fuck.

You never thought of this.

What are we doing for part three?

Because my daughter likes to sometimes put a dress on, any dress.

It just has to be, and then just dance around to music.

And then we clap and she bows.

Oh, nice.

It's very great.

Very cute.

But, you know, still

trying to just get her, you know, get her away from the thought of like girls wear a dress and princesses.

They just need to make a big bottomwear choice for Frozen 3.

And if they fuck this up, the whole thing is going to crumble.

Frozen, but tropical.

It's like a whole thing.

And then they have shorts on, yeah.

And so,

but she does love 100 Wand Automations.

Number eight, color purple.

Number nine, Enemy Mine.

A movie I've been thinking about a lot because

Andy Sandberg on the Lonely Land

podcast keeps talking about how you would try to work it into sketches.

What is that?

It's like, I know, and they eventually got it in.

It's this

Wolf King Peterson movie about a human and an alien get stranded on a planet together.

Quaid and Louis Goster Jr.

When Louis Goster Jr.

is in like alien makeup.

Louis Costa Jr.

like coming off an Oscar.

Yeah.

It's like his.

I definitely had mentally switched that around.

Okay, so he's the alien, but like bearded Quaid and

Lou, like, yeah, collecting his like post-Oscar, like,

uh, and, and the crux of the movie is like these two different species stranded on a planet together, sort of surviving.

And then I think I can say this because it's what the cultural reputation of the movie is.

The sort of twist is that it turns out that he is able to become pregnant.

The alien.

Fuck.

I need to see it.

I need to see it.

And he gets pregnant?

They have a child, I believe.

So they fuck.

This is what I'm trying to remember.

We don't see that, though.

I don't think so.

You don't think so.

I got to watch it.

All right.

So, Sabrina, Enemy Mine, what was the other thing I'm watching?

Oh, Trip to Bountiful.

I got to check that.

Yeah, red one.

Red one.

I am going to watch it.

Number 10 is a chorus line, which I feel like was not the hit they wanted it to be.

That's Richard Attenborough post-Gandhi being like, I'm going to adapt the biggest hit on Broadway ever.

And it like did okay.

you know um i answer piece so badly okay yeah well we've been talking for way too long yeah no no no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no, not way too long.

That's very nice and kind of you.

I do want to say before we wrap things up, no, I don't.

I didn't drink enough water to, so I intentionally dehydrated myself so that I wouldn't have to.

Yeah.

Cause you guys, I listen to the pod.

I know you guys go so long.

So I was like, do not fill up on water.

You're going to have to pee.

The person who plays Nettie as a child does.

Some of the weirdest acting I've ever seen in my life.

And I, I'm sorry.

It caught me so off guard that I felt irresponsible not mentioning it.

Yeah, I just needed to know, like, I needed to say when she screams, ah, waves her hands in the air, and that's supposed to be a big pivotal moment of emotionality from these two characters.

I said, I must mention this on the podcast, and that's it.

It's worth calling out, especially because he is historically very good with children.

Yeah, yeah, yes, it might, it might speak to the fundamental, he might not just totally have a grasp on the character, yeah, yes, okay, sorry, that's

I want you to pee, I want you to have the ability to go pee.

Uh, Canese, thank you so much.

Thank you so much for having me.

You guys are, this is, this is a dream come true.

Thanks, guys.

You're the best.

It took far too long.

Anything, anything specific you want to plug?

Follow me on the websites that we all follow each other on, obviously.

If we've dated, I'm sorry.

Come on.

Actually, I'm not sorry.

I was a nice lady to date, okay?

Use this platform to save me.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I was a nice lady to date.

I'm a good cook.

I do stuff.

I'm like

a reasonable person.

And you guys were fine.

We were not compatible.

There we go.

I want to hear all.

And maybe even a you're welcome.

Maybe let's throw a you're welcome out there.

If you're listening to this show, you did a Kinese, you're welcome.

Yeah.

And

don't write me about this on Instagram.

Don't do that.

Don't do that.

Okay, you can, but we're not going to get back together.

That's just not going to happen.

Are you doing a hot guy draft?

Oh, I love it.

Okay, so this is my birthday thing, and I love it so much.

And you guys are all invited.

Well, not the listeners.

I'm talking to the people in the show.

Okay.

So every year we do a hot guy draft and i put polls up online and people vote to say who the hot guys are and what they should be ranked on a scale of one to five then we take those people we divide them into three tiers some people get like green silver or gold stickers they represent one, three, or five points.

And you have to make a team of 15 points.

It's very, very silly.

People who work in sports media do come and they are the commissioners for this draft.

Hell, love it.

And it's really fun.

And we decide who is the hottest.

We make teams.

We yell at each other.

We have like very, it's super silly.

It's my favorite thing in the world.

Who won last year?

So this year for my birthday, or it was last year.

2024.

Okay.

So 2024, it was a team of Denzel Washington, Yaya Abdul Mateen,

Simulu, Shade,

and a fifth person that I can't remember.

But that was the winning team of hotness.

The lesbian team was really mad that ever.

Are you okay?

I'm fine.

It was a team of lesbians, and they made a team, and nobody else liked who they said was hot.

It was like they were on an island about it.

It was a fascinating social experiment.

Yes.

You're doing the work, Canice.

I majored in psychology.

This is my experiments with human behavior and thought, and I love it so much.

Everyone, everyone,

look out for that.

I'll certainly be following very closely this year.

Thank you for being here.

Thank you all for listening.

Tune in next week for Empire of the Sun.

Yeah.

Kind of an odd double down from Spielberg.

Yeah, it is.

It's a slightly better movie, but also, yeah, not perfect, in my opinion.

Him striving for the kind of serious movie he will eventually make better.

I don't know.

Have you seen it?

Yes, I have.

Okay.

Yeah.

Excited to see it again.

I've only seen it once.

Over on the Patreon coming up in a few days, we have a bonus Spielberg episode we're doing about Twilight Zone, the movie.

Wow.

Just his segment.

Just his part.

But his part's really bad yep okay and amazing stories which which are better yeah his more amazing story segments uh and doing star trek next gen or are we yeah we are in the middle of that star trek in directions oh oh the one where they're on the planet where people don't age and picard gets a crush what is

wring f marie abraham f marie abraham is there you like star trekking no that's fine you just seemed interested so i was like i am interested my mom loves star trek my mom's like this weird cool person where she likes Star Trek and she's on bowling and pool leagues.

And so I like want to be cool to my mom, I guess.

That's not automatically cool to all people.

Oh, no, no, no, but to your mom.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So like sometimes I like try to pick up on things that are going on in the Star Trek world so I can like be cool to my mom.

Yeah, that's like how I'll say to my dad, like, I heard someone hit a ball yesterday, huh?

Another hoop.

Did you know Kinisa is a twin?

I did know this.

Yes.

He He just revealed that to me.

Where and when?

What?

You're not here yet.

You weren't here yet.

You weren't.

You're both saying,

we love you.

And as always,

we've talked a lot about the color purple for nearly three hours, but I would just like to take this final opportunity on mic to recenter the real focus: the color red.

Red one?

Red Hulk.

Oh, yeah.

Hail to the chief.

Hail to the chief.

Blank Check with Griffin and David is hosted by Griffin Newman and David Sims.

Our executive producer is me, Ben Hostley.

Our creative producer is Marie Bardy Salinas, and our associate producer is A.J.

McKeon.

This show is mixed and edited by A.J.

McKeon and Alan Smithy.

Research by J.J.

Birch.

Our theme song is by Lane Montgomery in the Great American Novel, with additional music by Alex Mitchell.

Artwork by Joe Bowen, Ollie Moss, and Pat Reynolds.

Our production assistant is Minnick.

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.

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