Quentin Tarantino Returns Part 1 | Club Random with Bill Maher

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My dialogue is the shit. I hear Quentin Tarantino is here,

and it's like I have a fireman's pole in my house.

I just come right down.

Smoking a pipe.

Good to see you, my friend.

Hey, can I get you a smoking jacket?

Yeah.

Would you like some candy?

I mean the Playmate candy. Oh exactly a candy with a k i don't mean actual no you mean candy candy lieberman that was a joke i used to do i went up to the playboy mansion on new year's eve can we have candy she's in the grotto with jimmy khan so don't, first of all, thank you for being here.

I mean, you're our first repeat customer.

Yes.

I think we're going to frame the dollar bill right on the wall.

The first repeat customer, Quentin Tarantino, by popular demand. You know, the gal that put some powder on me told me that, well, not the gal, but one of your people,

So that she handles the website and everything. And she said that there's been a thing about who would you like to see a repeat guest? And I didn't know this.
Apparently, it was like, I want hands down. Hands down.
Absolutely. Quentin Part 2.
So you're smoking out of a pipe now. That's quite a pipe, too.
Yeah, this is the Calabash. This is not the famous pipe that Hans Landa smoked in Unglorious Bastards.
That's kind of just a cinematic artifact. But it's actually just interesting.
I get into a little bit of smoking a pipe for a little while, and then I get off of it for a little bit, and then I get onto it for a little bit. But it was funny because I was doing it while I was here, and I was thinking I was smoking it too much.
I go, God, I don't want to have to, I don't want to be like smoking cigarettes or anything. So then I left it at home when I went back to Tel Aviv.
And I was like, okay, let me just see if I,

did I monkey around and get myself addicted?

And then, no, I didn't.

Right.

It wasn't there, so I didn't eat it.

But this is, I've always been that way with putt.

I know it sounds like it's an invitation for a joke

about how it's not addictive.

I've been doing it for 45 years and I'm not addicted,

but it really isn't in that it doesn't call to me. Like marijuana doesn't say, do me now.
Cigarettes did. Yeah, yeah.
Cigarettes were the boss. Right.
Or if you're on heroin or cocaine. Well, it's easy, especially when you live by yourself, it's easy to get high every night because, well, you're by yourself.
So you're a little bored and so you'll be less bored, all right, if you get high. I think we all remember Richard Pryor talking rapturously about his love affair with the cracked pipe.
Yeah, yeah. That he, remember, he was just in his bedroom with the pipe and anybody else was a third wheel.
Yeah, right. I mean, a drug can be that.
Yeah, exactly. If they're good.
they're good no kids i don't mean that at all but it was actually interesting because when i went back to tel aviv i go did i smoke smoke smoke in this pipe a little bit too much i got a little used to it a little bit too much and then when i went back to tel aviv no i didn't miss it however i watch a lot of old movies and so when i would watch an old movie and the guy smoking a pipe okay i had a little feel okay that would be nice right now i admit right now watching watching the guy in the watching the old guy in the hat or i smoke is making me want to smoke but i can handle that but your smoke is for a reason and you inhale it yeah in the old days this isn't inhaling this is just like you know it's like a. You take it and you blow it out.
And it just feels good in your mouth?

Yeah.

It's just like it tastes good.

It tastes good.

Yeah, it tastes good.

And yeah, it just makes you kind of feel good.

Well, first of all, that's so funny.

I was inscribing this book.

Here, you can read it.

I might have sent you one of these.

You did send me one.

Not an autograph.

Oh, I think they are autographed.

The O-B-I sent you, but it was my assistant.

No.

Your sister did it.

That's almost like you did it.

But speaking of sophistication, this is what I wrote to you, like, you know, today.

For the sophistication and the laughs, as the world got a lot stupider and more cowardly.

Oh, that's really great, man. But it's true.
As the world got stupider and more cowardly, you stayed the course and never pulled a punch. And it was always sophisticated.
And it was like, no, I'm still going to make movies for adults. because, you know, just since way back in the 90s,

we were already past that point where children were just much more important than people.

Everything was, what about the children?

How it will affect you?

And I used to say, what about the people?

Right.

You know, I'm a childhood survivor.

Doesn't that give me some victim credibility there?

Can I count to – and, like, in the arts, I think that's what happened is things just got more oriented toward children. As parents became more indulgent, they, you always trade your.
What also falls on deaf ears when it comes to us, because we were subjected to the really wild stuff in the 70s as a kid, both in movies and TV, and especially movies and stuff, and just pop culture. And I think it made us better.
Well, your book, which I fucking loved, that book you wrote about, what is it called? Oh, Cinema Speculation. Cinema Speculation.
And it's so interesting. I haven't done it.
It's on my to-do list. All the movies that you did a chapter on that I was, I hadn't even heard of a lot of these movies.
And I thought I knew all, I mean, a lot of them I did, of course. But I can't even remember their titles because they weren't familiar to me.
Right, yeah. Like Rolling Thunder or something.
Oh, that's one of my favorites. I never even fucking heard of that.
Should I see it? i think you would actually uh no i i think it's i think it's a i think it's a terrific movie but however who's in it what's it about it's a william uh william devane a very young tom ely jones i'm a big william devane fan i love william devane and uh written by paul schrader you know who wrote taxi drivers yeah and uh it's it's a good revenge-o-matic oh great Okay. But like, I mean, the ones I love, oh, well, Deliverance.
I loved your thing on Deliverance. I think that aside from the biography pieces in there, I think that's the best written cinema piece.
I do. That's why I'm citing it, because it stuck out.
I mean, also, you're working with a movie that, well, I mean, all the movies you've met. I mean, I certainly appreciated the ones, again, that I'd seen more, like Dirty Harry.
I knew that. I knew the getaway.
That's very interesting. I thought that was great, the idea that, you know, back in the production code days, you literally couldn't get away.
Yeah. I mean, that was almost the whole point of the production code.
Oh, film. If you commit a crime, which included adultery.
Absolutely it did, yeah. You did not get away with it.
And here they're like, no, we got away. Yeah, no, there's a whole thing.
You can't hold this against older movies because they literally had to exist under this code. It's not their fault.
But like you would see, they would do a movie version of say a fantastic play where the whole point is that the characters do this thing. Well, they can do this thing in the movie version, but they all have to pay for it.
Exactly. Including up until 1960 was Where the Boys Are, the original.
Some people, most people will still be too young to remember the remake, but I remember it. It was 1984.
They remade it. And it was actually called Where the Boys Are 84.
It was? Yeah. Okay, but in the original, this is 1960.
This will be interesting to kids because this is the legacy and how it continues. That's what made Fort Lauderdale and that part of southern Florida the spring break destination.
That movie popularized the idea. It's Paula Prentice.
In the beginning, she's in school in Minnesota in the winter. Spring break, we're all going to Florida.

Right, Barbara Eden and Connie Francis.

And George Hamilton.

George Hamilton, yeah.

I remember he sat down next to the girl,

and he just writes a question mark in the sand.

That's actually a pretty cool move.

Very cool.

And then she gives her name, and he just does it again.

And she gives, like, where she's from.

And he just keeps doing it. It's like, wow, that made me want to be George Hamilton, who was a pretty cool guy.
Yeah, it was pretty cool. Did you meet him a couple of times? Oh, we used to pal around in the 90s.
I met him a couple of times. I didn't, we didn't pal around.
Oh, no, no. He was so cool.
He had this cigar bar. No, I think it was his cigar bar on Santa Monica Boulevard.
Well, that sounds like a cigar bar I'd want to go to.

You would.

It was great,

although it stunk up cigars,

which I don't like.

But no, he was very cool,

very self-deprecating,

you know, not full of himself.

Well, he actually...

He did a real kind of

change his whole... Persona? whole persona in the 70s.
He kind of, after being the Steve Stunning guy and everything, but in real life was actually quite funny and depreciating. He saw how Burt Reynolds revolutionized himself on talk shows.
Yep. And George Hamilton was kind of number two at that.
As far as going on talk shows, one great story after another, really charming, really self-depreciating, really make the host feel really good. Right.
And that was a whole different look for him compared to what it was like in the 60s. He would show up.
They had a, in the middle of the afternoon, Sandy Barron had a local LA show. Sandy Barron, I remember.
And it was sort of like what the Regis and Kathie Lee became. Right.
I did the show. You were talking about George and Alana? Yeah, yeah.
That was his ex-wife. He did the show with his ex-wife.
Oh, no, no, no. I'm talking about he would just be a guest.
He would be a guest on the Sandy Barron show. And I was like, wow, this is the guy, George Hamilton? This is Evel Knievel? He's so charming on this.
And then he kind of took that persona and did a love at first bite. Yes.
Kind of worked on that. Well, he was cut out of Godfather 3.
Yeah. He had a pretty big role as the success.
He really took the Tom Hagen part. He was the conciliary, because now Michael's really into legitimate business, or mostly, of course, they pull me back in.
Yeah. But he was, I think, very disappointed about that.
I know he was, because remember him talking about it. Like lots of actors are very disappointed, as they should be when they get cut out of a movie.
They think they've got a big part. And Coppola looked at it and he went, well, that's not what the movie's about.
Right, yeah. But frankly, to me, he was one of the most interesting things about Godfather 3 was the idea of George Hamilton being Michael's lawyer.
The idea that, well, first of all, there were some brilliant ideas in that. I mean, I'll tell you why I think it's ultimately not great, and most people think it's worse than that.
I don't think it's terrible at all because it's very entertaining. The reason why I think it never can quite work is because it's a trilogy of a story that has already ended after two.
Michael Corleone starts out, that's not me. Yeah.
That's my family, Kay. And goes all the way to, and I kill my brother.
Yeah. Once you go from that arc, which is beautiful, you have nowhere else to go.
Look, I couldn't agree with you more. I mean, there was a thing where you probably don't like it, but I'm a big, big fan.
And I don't watch all the animated movies and stuff, but I am a big fan of the Toy Story trilogy. I think that that...
I'm agnostic. Never saw it.
I think there's only one trilogy that completely and utterly works to the nth degree, and that's A Fistful of Dollars for a Few Dollars More and The Good and the Bad and the Ugly. That's a trilogy? Yeah.
So they're all the same characters? Yeah. The Man with No Name? The Man with No Name, yeah.
Right. Clint Eastwood.
Yeah. And so it's one director vision, Sir Giuliani, through all three movies.
So that's the spaghetti westerns. Yes.
But the thing about it is it does what no other trilogy has ever been quite able to do. The first movie is terrific.
But the second movie is so great and takes the whole idea for a few dollars more. It's so great and takes the whole idea to such a bigger canvas that it obliterates the first one.
Wow. And then the third one, Good and the Bad and the Ugly, does the same thing to the second one.
And that's kind of what never happens. You'll see this big jump from the first to the second, and they don't really land the third one.
Right. You know, Mad Max, Road Warrior, and well, Beyond Thunderdome doesn't dwarf Road Warrior, you know.
But in the case of Toy Story, the third one is just magnificent. It's one of the best movies I've ever seen.
And if you've seen the other two, then it's just, it's devastating. Is it a cartoon? Yeah, well, it's a, yeah, it's a cartoon.

But the thing is, they, then three years later or something, they did a fourth.

And I have no desire to see it.

Right.

You literally ended the story as perfect as you could.

Right.

So, no, I don't care if it's good.

I'm done.

Why put the condom?

I am done.

It can still be good, but I'm done. Don't put the condom on after you come.
I mean, if you follow that rule of life. But so this is why there's no Kill Bill 3.
Yeah. Right? Because you feel like.
No, I did. I killed Bill.
Right. But yeah, I get it.
But it's interesting, I mean, speaking of the threes, now, I mean, three is a magic number in the arts. I mean, there's very often not just trilogies.
I mean, Dante's Inferno is written in triplets. Did you know that? Triremes, like every line is threes, threes, threes.
No, I did not know that. for a whole book of did you know that triremes like every line is threes threes threes no i did not know that for a whole book of you know yeah and the concentric circles of hell is done in threes i mean i thought that was very sick three acts in every play yeah and movie you uh in the in the deliverance chapter if i recall you are you love it as we all love it, but you do bitch.
I'm rough on the third act. Third act.
And tell me, because you know what? Now that I'm thinking about it, I don't think I quite understand what you— What my problem was? Well, because I don't remember the movie. I don't remember what happens in the third act.
It's a double-headed coin that i have a problem with one once burt reynolds is taken out of the picture and it's just uh ned beatty and and and uh uh john voight trying to trying to survive and and john voight has to climb up the mountain and then get one of the hillbillies and then why is burt reynolds taken out of the well because he got he wiped out uh he wiped out down the river and his his leg got hit on a rock and he's all he's all he's just taken out he's he's he's messed up he's just completely messed up they're carrying him you know they they hide him out but then they can't get away because that hillbilly is up is up on the on the mountain you can shoot him right so john voight's got to go out and get the hillbilly and hopefully catch him and kill him and then then they got to make their way. And now we got to lie about what happened so we can put this all behind him.
And does he complete this quest? He does complete the quest. Now, to me, part of it is simply just the kind of the movie thing of like, well, I know John Voight's not going to fall off the fucking mountain.
So they make a big deal about him climbing the mountain. But of course, he's going to not just fall off the mountain and die.
Okay. But John Voight is the character who we,

as the everyman, relate to. Yeah, he's the one.
Yeah.

Burt Reynolds is a bit of a superhero. Yeah.
Yeah. Okay.
And Ned Beatty is the opposite. He's the guy who has to squeal like a pig because he gets fucked in the ass.
I seem to recall you

saying you saw this with your mother. Yeah.
Which blows my mind because I couldn't watch HBO with

my mother because there would be some sex scene or something that was just made me like turn beat

Thank you. saying you saw this with your mother, which blows my mind because I couldn't watch HBO with my mother because there would be some sex scene or something that just made me turn beet red inside.
But you watched it with your mother. Yes, I did.
But your mother was cool. Yeah, she was.
Well, my mom was pretty cool about stuff like that. But to me, the real problem with the movie is when they decide to go to town and now they're going to lie about what happened and not mention the rape and not mention the hillbillies that they killed and just if we can just get past this thing all right then no one ever has to know about this and we can go on with our lives and then they show up they show up in the town and they they report it to the sheriff whether or not they can pull this off should be one of the most exciting parts of the movie.
Right. All right.
Because, I mean, they could say what really happened and take their chances in court. But no, we're going to double down.
Right. We're going to get away with this whole thing completely or not at all.
Right. Like it never happened.
And that should be one of the most exciting things. But John Borman doesn't really play it for suspense.
He could have cast like a really terrific, like a Wilford Brimley type of actor to be the sheriff who like, I know something's up. I'm just a folksy old sheriff, but I know something's up between you guys.
And you could have been shitting bricks, all right? Watching that happen. And it's just all treated with their left hand.

It's all treated.

It's all, it just, it's a fizzle.

It just, it's like a pop.

Right.

As opposed to a thing.

It ends with a whimper and not a bang.

Yeah, it absolutely ends with a whimper.

And to me, it's just a, it's a, it's a, it's a bizarre decision to undramatize that situation.

But the question you ask, I feel like is, is the question that is, makes everything

either sophisticated or not, as opposed to movies that end with someone shooting rays

out of their fingers.

Okay.

This is, this is not sophistication. Okay.
I'm not saying it's bad and you can enjoy it and I enjoy stupid things too. But a sophistication...
You sound like my wife because my wife is like a... I'll take...
I don't consider this this, but okay, I'll take her to see one of those latest King Kong movies, King Kong Skull Island. And she liked it well enough.
But she Yeah. But it's a children's movie.
It is.

It's a movie for children.

That's exactly what I'm always saying.

She sees Wonder Woman.

Yeah, okay, for a children's movie, it's okay.

Absolutely.

That's what I'm always saying.

Either something is for children or adults, it's okay.

I can like children's stuff, too, but not that much.

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Coverage information is subject to change by the relevant payer. When you have to ask yourself as the audience member, if I was in that situation, would I do that, what the character did, and would it make me bad or would I do the same thing? Michael Corleone, you know, I mean, Michael Corleone kills a lot of people, but he's pulled into it because he wants to avenge the death of his father and protect his father, which is something that we all can relate to.
So is he a bad person or would I, in the same situation, do that? Well, I think it goes even deeper than that because the thing is, Coppola makes the family so vital that you're actually able to look at The Godfather on one level as a movie about a family business. It could be about the family dry cleaners.
Olive oil. Yeah.
They were in the olive oil. They were in the olive oil.
But it could be, they could be fighting all about the barbecue joint that the family has opened and this brother knows the barbecue sauce and this guy, and this brother knows how to cook the meat. Sure.
And they don't fucking like each other. But they fucking need each other.
And here's the plot. Someone suggests they now get into the frozen yogurt industry.
That's like the heroin of this. I don't know.
There's a lot of money in that frozen ice cream. We just sold it up to the side.

You're ruining the whole Texas vibe of it.

I predict frozen yogurt will be the death of us.

I was against it then, I am against it now.

If all the people in this room who sold frozen yogurt were to die,

I'd be the only one standing.

Then there will be the peace.

Don Colione will provide protection for the frozen yogurt industry in the East. After all, we are not communists.
But yeah, that is, to me, the key is like you ask yourself, would I do that in that situation? Otherwise, the character is two dimensional. Well, you know, I saw an interesting movie from the 30s.

It's written by Agatha Christie.

It's based on an Agatha Christie story.

It's called Love from a Stranger.

And it's where this kind of regular mundane woman

lives a hard scrap of life, but she's okay.

And she ends up winning the lottery. And she becomes rich all of a sudden.
And so she's on a cruise and meets Basil Rathbone. Sherlock Holmes.
Yeah, Sherlock Holmes. One of the great actors, one of the great talkers.
as far as like- Oh, really? Actors' voices. Right.
And it completely sweeps her off her feet and then marries her. And now, have you seen the poster of this movie? If you've read about this movie, even enough to want to watch it, written by Agathaie you know what you're watching you're watching a movie about a guy who's going to fucking kill his kill his wife he married her obviously because she's rich and he's going to kill her it's that kind of movie right you kind of know what type of movie you bought a ticket for a feel-good movie he's gonna kill his wife you said it so so we know what we're watching all right and um and we're heading towards it but she doesn't know the kind she doesn't know she's in a movie so we know this guy is a rotter but we're also watching it from her perspective when is she going to figure it out right because.
Because we're a little bit ahead of the curve. Right.
And they never show him doing anything. In fact, he's even creepier because he never really gives you any reason, other than that we know, other than we know that he's going to do it.
He never gives us any indication that he's going to do it, which makes him all the creepier. But the thing is, yeah, we know, but we keep looking through her eyes and there's nothing he does that raises a red flag.
She's not stupid. She's far from stupid.
And so we keep waiting for her to see something and ignore it or be a patsy, but no, he's that good. Until it finally ends up that she puts it all together.
But when she puts it all together, they're staying for the weekend in a cabin in the woods. And this is the night he's going to kill her.
I see. It's a really, really terrific...
And he does? I can't tell you. You should watch it.
It's a fun movie. Oh.
Well, you won't watch it, but somebody out there in TV land... No, I might.
What is it called? Love from a Stranger. Oh, yeah.
That's a famous title. It's really...
What year is this? 40s? No, it's like 39. Oh, wow.
39. The Annas Marabolas year.
Yeah, it was a great year. That was a great year from Hollywood movies.
Gone with the Wind and The Wizard of Oz. Yes.
I mean, plus like... Well, actually, my favorite movie of 1939 is The Man in the Iron Mask.
Oh. Louis Hayward, directed by James Whale, who did The Frankenstein.
I saw, I guess, the remake of it with Leonardo DiCaprio. Yeah, but they had a big remake in the 70s, the Richard Chamberlain version that they showed on the Hallmark Hall of Fame.
Is this where he's, the twin takes over the castle because the remake is so stupid. First of all, I mean, I'll suspend my belief, as you have to in the arts, for things.
Like identical twins? I'm not unreasonable. Yeah.
But he's in an iron mask for six years.

And when they take the mask off, his skin is perfect.

And he looks exactly like the guy who's been living as the king for six years.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Okay.

I'm not talking about that one.

I'm talking about the 1939 version.

That one I stand behind.

But that's also one of those actually interesting things, though. Well, at least it's interesting to me.
Because it's based on a very famous Alexander Dumas novel. Right.
Okay, so... Three Musketeers.
Yeah, yeah. Same author, right? Same author, and it's...
Same era. And it's also a sequel to that.
D'Artagnan and the Free Musketeers are characters in it.

They're certainly characters in the DiCaprio movie.

No, but they're characters in the book.

Right.

It's part of it.

It's Gabriel Byrne, I think, plays.

Again, you keep referencing the...

I don't know.

I think Tim, your boy, Tim Roth, I think, is in it.

I don't think he's in that one.

I don't think he's...

He's in that, the one where they have the ladder fight.

All right.

It was called the Musketeer. But he's not in that one.
But anyway, the thing is, though, it's a pretty famous story. In 39, they hired this really terrific screenwriter named George Bruce to take the novel and turn it into a movie, and he did, and that's the movie that I like.
And they do such a good job of it that you kind of just think, oh, well, that must be the story, that it's such a classic story and it plays out so well. You just assume that, oh, that's what's in Dumas' book.
So because I liked the story so much and I liked a couple of other versions of it, I decided to read the book. The book's fucking terrible.
So is The Great Gatsby. No, no.
The opposite. The Great Gatsby, they keep making the movie.
It keeps sucking. And then I say to myself, maybe it's not a great book.
But you're saying the opposite. Yeah, I'm saying the opposite.
But you said that about Deliverance. The book is not that great.
The book isn't that. The movie's better than the book.
the movie does improve it the movie the movie definitely improves the book i and i did not expect that to be the case the actors really take it absolutely can happen that a movie is better than a book yeah but but one of the things i talk about in the deliverance thing and i want to get back to the man of an iron mask thing but the one thing i was talking about and the deliverance thing is in most cases, a movie can't help but be a reduction

when it comes to the book. You can't just, can't help it.
It's just what it is. It can't include everything.
Yeah, it's just what it is. That's kind of not the case with deliverance.
I can imagine John Borman reading the book and thinking, oh, shit, I can do something with this. Right.
Oh, I can cast this well. Right.
And actually going down the river, seeing that, that will be important. Right.
Seeing the trees, that will be important. This environment will be, I've got something to do here.
Right. It's not like I have to figure out what do I lose? What can I add? Let's get started.
And that doesn't happen that often. He's a visual stylist anyways.
Right. Let's get started on storyboarding the ass-fucking scene.
I want to see pictures. I want to see drawings.
But really, when you think about it... Let me finish my thought on The Man with the Iron Mask.
The thing that was cool about that, though, is I'm reading it, like, oh my god. I realize that this screenwriter, George Bruce, kind of invented the story that we all know.
And just grafted it onto his his screenplay and now we all think that that's the story but the thing that's funny is okay when they do the richard chamberlain version in 1979 they did a version with bo bridges playing the two guys oh bridges and in each case they hadn't read the book either they want to do the louis hayward movie with just with their guy all right so that they set it all up and then they read the book either. They want to do the Louis Hayward movie just with their guy, all right? So then they set it all up, and then they read the book, and they go, we don't want to do this shit.
So they all keep remaking the same of the first movie. Right.
Because that's the story they want to tell, because that's now the story. That's so interesting.
And it's all a screenwriter. So how could somebody who loves movies this much ever walk away? I know I say this every time, and I'm a broken record, but, like, you've got to be kidding.
First of all, you know, you're just too young. You just, you don't, you don't, you don't, but you don't present as old.
I mean, this country has certainly had a moment where we confronted this idea of people who just present as old. Because Joe Biden, I don't think he lost his marbles, but he presents as old.
You don't. If you don't, you probably have a lot of things left in you.
So again, and I hear, this is only the scuttlebutt, I hear you are, it's a done deal. You're directing the next Star Trek movie.
What's it going to be about? And what is your vision for Star Trek? Well, I had, well, it's never going to happen. So I've been, there's been so much misinformation about what it was going to be.
I mean, nothing but misinformation. That's a big word in today's world, misinformation.
That's a trigger word for me. Because even though there is a lot of misinformation, it's also a weapon you can throw at something to just stop a debate.
I mean, there was a lot of misinformation about COVID that wasn't actually misinformation. Yeah.
Oh, no. Look, I understand what you're talking about.
Yeah. But I live in this other—I live live in a special zone and part of my zone is because i'm not on instagram and i'm not on facebook i'm not i'm not on the social media thing so thus i'm not creating this constant dialogue of uh you know with with the world what's going on with my life and you don don't need to.
You're above it. But consequently, if you're Joe Schlamocha and you're some sort of transient celebrity reporter of some kind, if you hear Quentin is going to make a Star Trek movie or Quentin is going to do a movie called the movie critic or quentin is going to do any fucking thing okay it's a little bit like when that guy wrote that uh howard hughes a biography that ended up being a hoax clifford clifford irving clifford irving the thing is they can say anything oh quentin is going to cast tom cruise It's for sure.
Quentin is going to cast Tom Cruise. It's for sure.
Quentin is going to cast Tom Cruise as the movie critic or Quentin is going to cast Tom Cruise as Captain Kirk or Quentin is going to cast- Click that. Yeah.
Send that on the Instagram. Or the thing was kind of funny about the movie critic was they started saying that I was going to cast that actor, Paul Walter Hauser.
Who's that? He's an actor and it had been a few things. He played Richard Jewell in the Richard Jewell movie.
Oh, he was good. But the thing that was funny about it, I think they just think he looks like a critic.
So that's what they picked up. Okay, but my point being though, is they write it in showbiz daily or whatever.
Yes, showbiz weekly. I read it.
And then that gets picked up in 140 pieces. Yeah.
Now, because I'm not shutting that down, because I'm not all connected, then that's just reported as if it's true. And it's true for a couple of weeks because no one knows anything better

because I'm not filling them in.

Yeah, but I had a talk with you.

It's not a bad thing.

It actually, I mean,

the egomaniac in me

thinks that the idea

that 142 articles

can be printed about

just speculation

of what I'm going to do,

I appreciate that a lot.

That means I'm in a good place.

The egomaniac Elvis guy part of me goes, yeah, right on. Yeah.
What about the two Oscars that you have and how lonely they are and now they cry at night wanting a third sibling? I'm just saying I have some ideas for you to win that next Oscar. Okay.
Let me tell you. Okay, first of all, I think you should do a movie on a train.

I've actually just had a...

A train.

I want to hear it.

I want to hear your idea.

Because the three...

I've read this.

The three greatest, like, 30s comedies, Some Like It Hot...

Oh, that's not the...

Well, I'm saying like 30s to 60s comedies.

Yeah.

Some Like It Hot, The 20th Century, and Palm Beach Story, I think, they all take place on a train. Yes, they do.
Because it's kind of like you're trapped, you know? You can, it's, I mean, they're all great movies. No, I mean, it's funny that you're saying this because I actually just, I do a podcast with Roger Avery and we watch movies and it's called the Video Archives Podcast.
And the thing is, we just watched this really fun movie from the early 90s called Narrow Margin with Gene Hackman and Ann Archer. Yeah, I see it.
Sure. And it's a train movie, and we have a big talk about how fun train movies are.
There's James Bond stuff on a train. Oh, the big fight, him and robert shaw is in the train right um and tom cruise has done trained um stuff but but but as a comedy you know like i feel like you could like do a straight up comedy i agree with you about that you know i mean spielberg did a comedy in in early on 1941 i feel like hugely underappreciated.
I agree. I'm a big fan of 1941.
Love that movie. And it's very funny.
And Scorsese did After Midnight. Yeah.
Remember that? After Hours, yeah. After Hours with Gryffindor.
Yeah, it's good. It's funny.
Such a good, funny movie. Like, just to show, I mean, I felt like, look, I can do this too.

I may not even go back to it.

And neither one of them ever went back to it. I guess because they didn't have a, like, the critics sort of were out to get them at that moment.
Yeah. Well, I mean, at the same time, you know, I mean.
But they missed those. Those are good movies.
I agree. I really agree.
Well, I'm leaning more towards writing right now for a while, trying for a while anyway, theater. Theater? Yeah, yeah.
And in theater, it would be funny stuff. I can't go to the theater.
I didn't make a movie. Well, if it's a popular play, then I'll probably make a movie.
Really? But why do we even have to try it out in the theater? I mean, the theater, you've got to get a shower in and put on clothes and go out. Let me tell you.
Can I tell you the distraction for me? Yeah. Why it sounds good.
You've had David Mamet sit here before.

Oh, I love him.

Okay, I'll tell you exactly why it's interesting. No one, I haven't done it, so we'll see what happens.
But the thing is, I mean, two things are interesting. One, the idea of, especially if it was funny, especially if it was a comedy, The idea of doing something where, oh, no, it's in a comedy play, the audience is a character in the room.
And it's like, you say this, they laugh. The actors kind of wait for a moment for the laugh to die.
Then they got to pick their pace. And it's a rhythm.
It's almost like, the audience is almost like a live animal in the room. There's a type of play, I've seen them.
I think it's called a drawing room comedy. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Where they are, maybe there's another word for it, but I saw one of them, I forget the name of it, but back in the 90s, I think. And it's like, there's four doors.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the people come in and out.
Oh, yeah, yeah.

Oh, no, and that door closing is a line.

That, right, and then somebody else.

I mean, it's all about timing.

It's almost like watching something that's a little above what a normal.

Yeah, and the thing is, when that works, well, that's an evening out.

That was funny.

There was a reason why I was in that room, and there was an interplay between the actors and the— You're right. That's hard to capture on film.
Yeah, that's really hard to capture on film. That could be something really, really special.
The other thing that could be really neat about it is if the show were successful, then I would have the joy of seeing different actors play those characters. When I do a movie, it's, okay, the actor I cast plays the character, and then that's the character, and that's kind of what you want.
You want them to kind of own that character. But in a play, it's like, no, no actor owns the role.
This actor will play it, and even if it's a big hit, okay, well, somebody else will do the London show, and somebody else will do the tour, and then colleges and high schools can do it later. And I feel like you're, like, the last one who will stand up against the current trend to cast not by merit.
Yeah. But, and also to, I mean, the whole thing about cultural appropriation that, you know, who was it? We did a whole thing about it.
It's in that book. Yeah.
Oh, John Leguizamo, who I like, but he was complaining about, who was it? Some white guy who was playing Castro. He's like, but he's not Cuban.
But

John Leguizamo has played parts where he played Super Mario. He's not Italian.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

I mean, it's like, it's Tom Hanks that he would not play the character in Philadelphia

today.

Oh, really?

Because he's not really gay, which I feel is so gay in a in you know the m&m way um today because he was i mean i mean i mean the thing about it is i mean look i guess i have no problem with any actor playing any type of another race role for anything that's happened kind of up until now okay now there is now i now it actually i would ask the question well what you couldn't find a mexican guy to play this mexican guy all right uh right and uh no you couldn't find an american indian of all the people that exist you can't, you know. Certainly an Indian because they just don't look the same.
And certainly there's Mexico. I understand that.
But I even feel like I don't want to see some American do a phony French accent when there's French people, when there's French actors out there. But that's an exaggerated version of it.
They're talking about things like Tom Hanks as a gay. I think you should be able to play a gay...
Okay, that's the part that I... That's where I would kind of draw the line.
If it comes to a different race, well, that I can understand. But I feel all of Latin America is eligible to play all the rest of Latin America.
We're not going to cast Mickey Rooney again as a Japanese man or Jerry Lewis with the buck teeth.

But if it comes to sexual preference, then anybody should play that role. Right, because we're not supposed to know what people's sexual preference or care about them anyway.
It's so hypocritical. And there also is an aspect about acting going on.
Of course. You know? Yes.
It's like, I mean, I would be interested to see Al Pacino play a drag queen to see the drag queen Al Pacino would come up with because he's a great actor.

You know what movie I was watching recently, and I swear to God, the character, and I don't take this the wrong way, but he came off kind of gay.

How?

In 2001.

Oh, yes. Well, that's always kind of been a subtext in it.
Really? He gets very jelly. His manner, yeah.
His manner. I thought I was the only one to see this.
Oh, yeah, absolutely. I mean, if people don't remember, I mean, first of all, what is your interpretation of that whole movie? You'd be a great one to ask that.
I mean, at the beginning, we see the apes. And by the way, I watched it fairly recently.
It's so obvious that there are men in ape costume. I guess we would do that differently today.
Although, I don't know how you would get the apes to actually do the things that the director wanted them to do. It's hard enough to get the actors to do it.
What do they want to do? Am I right? Okay. But the apes, yes, they're obviously men in ape suits.
But those are pretty good ape suits, though. I don't have a problem.
I agree. They're pretty good.
Yeah, but I don't mind that, though. I don't mind it either.
It's 1960. But in that instance particular, that does not break me out of them.
Not at all. Okay.
It's 1968. I agree.
So, okay, the first 20 minutes of the movie is the apes. First, they're like, they're just doing ape shit, but they don't seem to be like, you know, going ape shit about anything.
Then the monolith comes. This is the big thing.
I remember my mother and father talking about it when I was 12 years old. They were like debating, which is what you want in your household.

Your parents debating art.

Yeah, yeah.

And they were like the monolith.

But you couldn't, by the way, in 1968 go on the internet and say, what are people saying about this?

You had to know what you were saying about it.

Well, no, but I'll keep it.

Something that I don't know if your parents did, but my parents did it, and I think a lot of people our age, their parents did it, is my parents had bridge night. Oh, my father was a big bridge player.
And so all of a sudden, it was like two or three couples would show up at the house, and they would play bridge. And it was made pretty clear, okay, no, this is not the time for you to be fucking around.
No, the adults are going to be doing their thing. Right.
And you can come and say hello, but we're doing our thing. Exactly.
And during that playing a bridge, they would talk about 2001 or anything that was interesting going on at the time. Yes.
And what's different about today, because, you know, yes, I don't have kids, but I have been in the homes of people who have kids. And I'm always quite amazed that the kids, and I mean, from 10 up, you know, teenagers invite themselves into the adult conversations without asking and without the parents remonstrating about this at all.
And if I ever did that, if I just walked into the adult conversation, you know what I think we should do about Vietnam? Get the fuck out of here, you little whippersnapper. Well, look, I've definitely been in houses where the kids ran herd over the adult conversations, you know, and usually you're even describing where they're actually trying to engage in the topic at hand.
Okay, normally it's known. They're talking about their kid shit and we're all supposed to stop.
I'm very proud of my four-year-old son because when adults come over and we're going to have dinner and we're going to have adult time they can still be like in the room where the TV is with the nanny or whatever and then they come over but he knows this is adult time and it's not Leo Leo's time. And he is a guest here.
Right. And he's wonderful.
And he dips his toe in. It's all cool.
He doesn't break the vibe. OK.
First of all, Quentin, at four, I don't think they're interested in you. Yeah me this in six years.
When they're old enough to want to be in the adult conversation, that's when you've got to tell them to go fuck off. Well, that might be true, but the thing about it is he's respecting the idea that the adults are here.
Absolutely. And normally his needs get all the attention.
But here he's... Now, what is age four like? I've always heard the term terrible twos.
So I have an idea what the twos are like. But four must be very different from two.
Yeah, four is very different from two. I mean, he's still a little boy.
There can still be moments where he just wants his mommy. Right.
You know, or he gets a little scared about something. But he's much, much more articulate.
He's really, he's putting together phrases now, as opposed to words. He knows what he wants.
He actually, I mean, aesthetically. Sure, go ahead.
He has the stuff that he likes. And just even as far as, like, I've watched him go from watching simple things that are 10 minutes to 15 minutes in length.
Now he watches, like, more involved things that can go to a half hour. That's more than a lot of American adults do.
And then, like, you know, and then he row. Right.
I was thinking, well, he's not quite ready to watch a movie as far as his attention span from beginning to end. Certainly not one of yours.
Yeah, not one of mine. But the other day, he did watch a movie.
It was literally a thing where I was like, okay, we'll watch this for maybe 20 minutes and then at some point, he'll start climbing the chair. And that lets me know that he's lost his attention span.
Or he'll say, hey, can we do something else? And so I put on Despicable Me 3. And he'd seen the other two segments.
And so we're watching it. And he's kind of got past the 20-minute point.
And he's kind of into it. I go, okay, well, let's see how far this goes.
And then we got to the 45-minute point, and he's still kind of watching it. And not only that, he's laughing out loud about sight gags that he thinks are really funny.
And then there's even a couple of scary parts. And he's like, oh, this is scary.
But then he got through them. He got through them.
And then now we're into other stuff. And when we finally got to the director credit, I'm cheering on silently for these last 15 minutes to make sure his concentration.
But no, it's a good movie. He was caught up in the end.
He wanted to see how it all came out. But that was the first time that I realized that he had the attention span to watch an actual motion picture from beginning to end.
But, spoiler alert, I think the actual epiphany here is about you. Yes, he had one.
But I predict you're going to make another movie. But it's going to be one that you want him to see.
Because I saw Jerry Seinfeld do the same thing. Jerry Seinf a movie called b movie yeah it's a good movie very good movie yeah but he had little kids and i think he wanted to make a movie that the little kids could watch and love well that so that would be an honorable that would be an honorable uh i bet you that is going to be an ineluctable pull for you to get back into this.
Maybe.

Yeah.

Well, that wouldn't be the worst thing in the world.

So may I suggest the Three Stooges go to the Fyre Festival?

The Three Stooges go to Fire Ireland?

Go to the Fyre Festival.

I kind of like the Three Stooges go to Fire Ireland.

Or that.

That could be fine, too.

Oh, I used to love the Three Stooges.

I mean, I lived for the Three Stooges and Superman. I was a snob.
I didn't watch cartoons. Still really.
Did you watch Little Rascals? Yes. Because they were usually connected to the Three Stooges.
Yes, because that was film. Right.
I watched the, and also the Bowery Boys were very influential in my upbringing. Because the Bowery boys were bad.

Okay, here's the thing.

Okay, well, let's make sure we're talking about the right guys.

Okay, because here's the thing.

Hunts Hall.

Well, no, no, I know Hunts Hall and Leo Gorsi.

But the thing is that there's two different groups.

Well, there's three different groups.

Really?

Yes.

Okay.

This is explained in the Paradise Alley chapter of my book.

All right.

So initially, there was this group called the Dead End Kids. And then they were in this play on Broadway, and they were so popular that Warner Brothers signed them up.
And they put them in like one great movie after another. They Made Me a Crinimal, Angels with Dirty Faces.
They're literally acting opposite the biggest actors in the Warner Brothers. Yeah, isn't Bogart in one of them? Yeah, Bogart's in one called Crime School.
Okay. John Garfield's in They Made Me a Cridimal.
Oh. James Cagney is in Angels with Dirty Faces, one of the most famous of all the gangster films.
Right. And so they were really, really popular for a while.
Then Warner Brothers decided, okay, enough of these kids. And so now they're still popular, so they go off to make a deal.
And Leo Gorsi takes one group of them and starts the Eastside Kids. And he makes it with one of the cheapy studios called Monogram.
Now, here's the thing. The Eastside Kids, there's the Eastside kids and there's the Bowery boys.
They do the Eastside kids for a long, long period of time. And then Leo Gorsi starts another one all over again so he can own more money over it.
And he changes the Bowery boys and he takes some of them with them. Now, the difference between the Eastside kids and the Bowery Boys is the Eastside kids are really tough.
The Bowery Boys, they're buffoons. So I don't like the Bowery Boys movies, but oftentimes people will use Bowery Boys to mean any of them.
I always saw the Leo Gorsi character as sort of like the mole of whatever group he was in, right?

Wasn't he the mole?

Well, that would be a good way to describe him.

But frankly, but in his Better Guys and the East Side Kids, he's more like Robert Blake. Okay.
In fact, Robert Blake is obviously influenced by Leo Gorsi in his whole Beretta persona. Beretta? Yeah.
Robert Blake's entire

little tough guy persona

that he had with had his beretta and on talk shows and that his whole kind of way of talking is he was completely influenced by leo gorsey in the east side kids movies i can see that i want the way he strangled the english language but like like a poetic entertaining effect i saw recently and and I had never seen it. It's one of those.
I'm going to have another hit on that. Yeah.
It's one of those movies that I remember it was out, and I just never caught up with it. Tell Them Willie Boy is here.
Oh, yeah. Robert Blake, Robert Redford.
What's your take on that? I mean he's an Indian well that movie has I don't think that movie works as a movie but it's interesting what the director is trying to do because he's he's using a gigantic he's using this whole Indian thing as a gigantic metaphor because the story he's using this whole Indian thing as a gigantic metaphor. Because the story he's telling, where he's coming from, Telling Willie Boy is about a Black Panther.
But he can't tell that story. So he takes a Black Panther story.
Right. And he sets it in the Old West and he makes it an Indian.
Right.

All right.

And then to double down on the iconography, not only does he cast Golden Boy Robert Redford to represent both white man and the law, he names him Coop.

You're right.

As in Gary Cooper.

Oh, I see.

Wow.

That's interesting.

So Golden Boy is playing Golden Boy, and this is representing white America law. And speaking of casting an Indian as an Indian, the Indian woman who Robert Blake is involved with is played by Catherine Ross, late of The Graduate, a year before, two years before, where she's playing a debutante.
So you could be a debutante in one movie and a year later be an Indian. That's where we were.
Well, the sad thing about it is Robert Blake pulls off Indian roles perfectly. Yeah, yeah.
Perfectly. No issue there.
All right? He's great. Catherine Roth is terrible.
Including when he killed his squaw outside of a restaurant in the valley.

He snuck up behind her and scalped her.

Remember that story?

He went back to get his gun?

Was that the...

Well, you know, he was on trial and he was found not guilty.

I used to see him at the Playboy Mansion.

I was friendly with him.

Yeah, he's like somebody, if he hadn't killed his wife,

you would have revived his career.

Well, yeah, okay.

One, we don't know if he killed his wife.

He went to jail.

He went to trial and he was found not guilty.

He definitely killed his wife. He went to jail.
He went to trial and he was found not guilty. He definitely killed his wife.
You can say that. I'm going to actually go with I don't know.
And the jury said not guilty. Isn't that legit? Is that not legit? Okay.
But as I recall, this is going back. Maybe you will correct the record in my mind.
I know. We can move the furniture.
They had dinner in the Valley. I think the restaurant was called Vitello's.
Uh-huh. Okay.
So they go out after dinner. And he was not happy in the marriage.
And she was kind of like some sort of mail order bride type. I mean, it was like.
She's like a con man kind of scammer. She was absolutely a con man scammer.
And so it was sort of like pathetic to begin with that someone who had been a star and was famous and was walking around the Playboy Mansion. He's married to this predator.
This is the best he can do. And they have dinner there.
And then they go out to leave. They get in the car, and he says, oh, I got to go back to the restaurant.
I forgot my gun? Or I don't know. Well, I don't remember what it is.
But then she's dead in the car. But then, okay, I actually saw Robert Blake on the Phil Donahue show.
That's funny to begin with. No, it's a very, it's a really, you should look up this episode.
It's worth watching. Okay, so now here's the thing, the whole fucking episode, every minute of it.
But one of the things that's really funny is blake is just being him and he and he's and he's a little bit more comfortable than he's been i think in in in front of the camera in in in a while and the reason he's a little bit more comfortable the audience likes him the audience fucking digss him. This is after the murder?

Yeah.

The audience digs him.

They get into his vibe.

They like OJ.

But you can tell that Dr. Phil's a little sketchy about the dude.

And it makes fantastic television.

But one of the scenes is really- Wait, Phil Donahue.

Yeah. Not Dr.
Phil. Dr.
Phil. No, Dr.
Phil. It's Dr.
Phil I'm talking about. Did I say Phil Donahue? I meant Dr.
Phil. Oh, yeah.
You said Phil Donahue. Okay, I meant Dr.
Phil. Sorry.
Okay, I meant Dr. Phil.
Okay, it's even funnier now, right? It is even funnier. Okay, so it's Dr.
Phil. So.
So, Blake. Deals with what people say.
And he deals with the scenario. And he says it incredulously about the theory against him.
He goes, okay, so if I understand you correctly. Okay, I'll do it like Blake.
Okay, so if I understand you correctly, okay, I'll do it like Blake. Okay, so if I understand you correctly, my whole plan was this.
Hey, Mr. Hitman, I want you to kill my wife.
I want you to offer. Wait till I take her out to dinner so I'm there it's got to be important that I'm there when the hitman kills my wife okay so I will take her out to dinner and when I'm not looking I think if I wanted to kill my wife I could have done any better than that you know that's probably true no you know i could have i never really thought about it that much you're right i mean that absolutely could be the case um but oj you gotta admit that one looks bad my my holding on to what the jury says maybe doesn't extend as far as to OJ, at least as far as my thoughts.
But what about the whole theory now about maybe it was the son? OJ? Well, I would say that that doesn't change my opinion of OJ that much, that he actually wouldn't kill his own wife on his own. Hey, kid, after you get done cutting the lawn, I've got another little errand for you.
I want you to kill the ex. Hey, I'll be at the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Center in Atlanta on September 7th, September 8th, the Riverside in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and September 28th, the Orpheum Theater in Memphis, Tennessee.
September 29th, the Taft Theater in Cincinnati, Ohio. And November 1st and 2nd, the David Copperfield at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.
You know that they couldn't get, I was just reading this, they can't get a host for the Oscars. Like they asked Jimmy Kimmel and he said no.
They asked somebody else. Oh, John Mulvaney, they asked.
He said no. They went to Alec Baldwin.
You know who they should ask? I'm joking. You know who they should ask? Well, he's done it before.
He said he couldn't do it. He was shooting.
No, wait. Now, before we go on, I have to say, I am the biggest supporter of his bullshit case.
Don't you think? I mean, come on. You're a perfect one to ask.
Who's been on more sets than you? I mean, how can it be his fault? Like, either you think he purposely shot that cinematographer, or you think he didn't purposely shoot her. And if he didn't purposely shoot her, then it's all fucking bullshit.
Am I wrong? No, it's a situation, I think, I'm being fair enough to say, that the armorer is 90, the guy who handles the gun the armor is 90 percent responsible for everything that happens when it comes to that gun but but but but but but the actor is 10 percent responsible the actor is 10 percent responsible it's not just it a gun. You are a partner in the responsibility to some degree.
What do you do to test it? They show it to you. If there are steps to go through, you go through them, and you do it, and it's done with due diligence, and you know it's fucking for real.
All right? And so, like, okay, here's how an actor can handle it. I'm not talking about that situation.
What should he have done? Looked into the barrel or, like, shot it? I mean, you can't, like, shoot it because then you're using it. If he went through the steps that he's supposed to go through, then he should.
What are the steps? Well, it's like, okay, so you see the barrel is clear. They show you that the barrel is clear, that there's not anything wedged in between the barrel.
you actually show you the steps. Well, it's like, okay, so you see, the barrel is clear.
They show you that the barrel is clear,

that there's not anything wedged

in between the barrel. You actually show you the barrel.

All right? You look at...

They show you the barrel,

and then, you know...

And then they show you

some version of, like, here are our blanks.

These are the blanks, and here's the gun.

Boom. Now you're ready to go.
It's ready

for two, or it's ready for three.

And,

and, if an actor

I'm sorry. These are the blanks.
And here's the gun. Boom.
Now you're ready to go. It's ready for two.
Or it's ready for three.

And if an actor is, if the actor knows he has three hot rounds in his gun, and he knows that, like, okay, I'm going to do a scene, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And he knows he's got three hot rounds as he's doing the scene.

And then at this point, bam, bam, bam.

And then he's going to continue on and say a few more things.

Okay, if one of the rounds doesn't go off while he does his bam, bam, bam,

then he should like cut the scene and say,

guys, one of the rounds didn't go off. I think I'm holding a hot gun here okay let me ask you this why can't we just do it this way there's nothing in the gun nothing so when the actor pulls the trigger nothing happens except you hear except that's bloodless okay but can't you put that in post yeah but that's who okay yeah I guess I can add digital erections to porno movies but who wants to fucking watch that well I don't think we need it to go that far no I do I don't understand no it's exciting to shoot the blanks and to see the real orange fire, not add orange fire.
So we do see orange fire? Yeah, no, but also you've got to catch it. No, no, it's like a thing that you've got to catch it.
I am not. No, no, no, let me explain it.
No, I'm just saying I'm not going to argue catching orange fire with Quentin Tarantino.

I get it.

You're the orange fire.

No, but there's an interesting thing about it, though,

because when you actually fire a gun,

whether or not you see the orange fire

that comes out of the muzzle,

it's a 50-50 thing.

Okay, if you see it on the viewfinder,

you didn't catch it on the camera.

If you don't see it in the viewfinder, you didn't catch it on the camera. If you don't see it in the viewfinder, that means you got it on the camera.
So it is actually something you have to catch. It's not just right there.
All right, what about this? Would it be always impossible to shoot from an angle where the person wasn't aiming at anyone? if the worst happened you would just be shooting the wall

can I answer that?

can I

can't the camera be here?

can I answer that from an action movie point of view?

from an action movie lover point of view?

please do, I want to know

even before I was a filmmaker, when I was like the guy

at Video Archives, I can answer that exactly

that's what Hollywood did in the 80s. And then I started watching Hong Kong movies.
And then they're like Chow Yun-Fat has got the 45 and he's this close to the guy. Bam, bam, bam, bam, bam! And it was so fucking exciting.
It was like movies were liberated. It was like, oh, yes, yes, yes.
And if you're talking about, and I think for as many guns as we've shot off in movies, that we only have two examples of people being shot on the set by a gun mishap, that's a pretty fucking good record.

Yeah, you know, that is.

I mean, I just wouldn't want, especially now,

to ever be on the wrong end of a gun.

No matter how much I thought it was safe,

I would be shitting in my pants.

Yeah, no, no, no, look.

That's the kind of fuck-up that happens that undermines an entire industry. Yeah, kind of.
Well, it certainly makes you nervous. Yeah, but you don't need nervous people.
You want people to go for it. That's the last thing you want is nervous people.
You want, you know, you want, no, we're all in this together and we're going to do this cool thing and we're going to capture this exciting thing on film. And it's a thing that we're capturing.
But it's the thing to go back to Alec Wall and just for one second. I mean, and look, I have no personal really relationship.
He used to do my show a lot and we loved him. He'd stopped doing it, which I have no grudge about.
I wish he would because he's an interesting guy to talk to. But was there a reason that you know for a fact? No, he's just living his best life.
He's got 1,000 children. I'm happy he's a free man, or at least as free as a man with eight children can be.
And I'm happy it came out well for him. But, no, I like him a lot.
And he's interesting. I mean, has he colored beyond the lines? Many times.
And he always survives. I kind of love that about him.
And he's too charismatic. People are like, yeah, he said this and he said that and he said fag and he did this.
But he's Alec Baldwin. And I agree with that.
No, he's kind of the whole package as a celebrity. He's great.
When you add up the last 30 years. Yes, and very funny.
Anyway, I forgot what I was going to say about him. Well, just generally, I'm glad that, I mean, oh, when I saw him crying at the, you know, he went away.
Well, Dorsey fucking ended up shooting somebody. That's not something most of us human beings have to go through and it's bad enough but then to have to put him through this charade oh it's terrible i mean like when i saw him break down it's like yes i mean you saw like this incredible amount of stress and tension which any of us would have had under the same circumstances like i just I just, it's the kind of thing that just makes you really go yuck about the nature of our society these days.
The pettiness that some people have, the sort of bad faith. You know what that means? I'm sure you act in bad faith.
You don't really think he's guilty of it, but you know you can get away with charging that. That's called bad faith.
No, I mean, no. It's so gross.
No, I actually think it's actually. Well, that's why I drink.
Yeah. God damn it.
I don't want to... God damn it.

I don't want to get into a thing where I'm just so cynical about the modern world of the modern times.

Get into it. It's like finger painting.
Yeah.

But the thing that does make me heart sick, at the end of the day, all comes down to the bad faith on every single solitary side. Everything.
So true. Everything.
And it's just. Ugh.
Gross. So gross.
Ignorance is one thing. Right.
But the bad faith is something else. So much worse.
Because to have bad faith, you have to know something. Yeah.
You have to know that what you can make people believe is different than what you know is true. Okay, so let me ask you about, because you know her.
You had her on your show. I was like, man, you've got to get her on your show.
And then you finally did. I don't know if you guys got along.
But I have to ask you about one person that I'm really kind of curious about. And even the existence of this one person is an interesting thing to me.
Okay. Fox is Fox.
MSNBC is MSNBC. They're a lot closer than we wish they were, but there's still enough daylight between them.

Correct.

But the closeness is all to the discredit of MSNBC.

Correct.

Correct.

I would agree with that.

But there's still daylight between them.

Correct.

Yep.

Yet.

Yet.

Fox does hire Jessica Tarloff. And they put her on their big show.
And she says what she says against the Fox audience, against the panel, and especially against Janine Perrero. All right? Monday through fucking Friday.
Yep.

As far as I can see,

that is the hardest job on television, all right?

And also, they kind of like,

maybe not Janine, but they all kind of like her.

So they're not gonna,

they don't go ballistic on her, all right?

They keep it respectful.

And so here's the thing.

One, she's kind of amazing

Thank you. don't go ballistic on her.
All right. They keep it respectful.
And so here's the thing. One, she's kind of amazing.
And I think it's one of the hardest jobs that there is out there. But two, how come there isn't that person on MSNBC? Right.
Well, I asked the same question. And that says a lot about the left, because Eminence NBC is a branch of the left who, you know, again, we probably.
They'll say Nicole Wallace. No, you turned her.
You turned her a decade ago. A decade ago.
Exactly. No, I've said that.
And I like Michael Steele. I love him.
But no, you turned him. He switched sides a long time ago.

It's very much like the way they break a horse.

Exactly.

You hobbled him for a little bit, but now he's taking your daughter to church.

I mean, a Mustang is a Mustang, and then at some point, he's going around Central Park shitting in a bucket. You know, I mean, that's just it.
And that's okay. Jessica Tarloff is not a retired liberal.
No, I mean, yes. But again, this is- Did you like her when you had her on the show? Sure.
I mean, do I remember everything perhaps as in detail as you think I do? I do not. But, you know, I have a lot of guests and there's a lot of day and there's a lot of pods.
You have a thousand guests. I know.
But I think I like her a lot. But the bigger issue is the left and their ability or their desire to engage with anyone who's not already in the bubble.
And they get a big fat D minus on that. I couldn't agree more.
Right. I mean, you see Kamala.
I mean, I'm glad she's doing well. I'm glad we have a real fight now for president.
But doesn't talk to the press. You know, would never go near me.
And I'm, you know, when you won't go near the people who are going to vote for you. I'm going to vote for you.
Do I have to love everything? No, I don't. It just shows they're afraid.
And you're right. I see it so more.
Well, hold on. I don't.
Okay, you know okay you know what i don't see her well there's no reason for her to go on your show before the election but i can actually see her yes there is because i speak to the exact voter she needs the person who is in the middle the person who is not ideologically captured by either side now there are some who watch who are uh that and everyone is welcome. I need a bigger audience all the time.
I'm gritty that way. But basically, that's exactly the audience she needs.
The MSNBC crowd is already voting for her. People who watch me, who will decide, this election will probably be decided in like four states by something like 80,000 votes in each.
That's how these elections, how close they are these days. And that's where we're back to.
We're at least back to normal, which sucked. But it is normal that it's 50-50 going into the election.
With Biden, it wouldn't have been. Let me ask you about this, though.
Okay, look, look, there's nothing you said that isn't right, all right? And there's definitely nothing you said that isn't right in a normal election cycle. I mean, it's irrefutably right in a normal election cycle where you have a year to set your case.
I think it's just all about winning the fucking election, all right? And then the easiest path to winning the election, look, you can talk about maybe she should have had more guts about this or that and the other, but we're the fucking president. Right.
And Trump's not the president, and we're the fucking president, and now it's going to be about this. But this is about fucking winning.
What most people don't give the Democrats enough credit for,

but we give the Republicans credit for,

it's like, no, sometimes it's just about fucking winning.

And it doesn't matter how we look at this moment.

It's about fucking winning. Right.

This is about fucking winning.

Yep.

No, it is.

It's a mad fucking dash, and she is running,

and she's not stopping to stumble.

I don't fuck shit up you're right i couldn't be more on that page when i say that she doesn't talk to the press i'm not even complaining about it yeah i'm just saying that is the democrats and that has been their flaw and there are sometimes when you really do and in general they should start doing it more talking to people who are not already on their side they come across as as scared i and that is not right but it's too but i mean i mean but i mean And frankly, though, that's...

I mean, there's not a world where Pete Buttigieg should be coming across as this magnificent, wonderful thinker. But one, he is very articulate.
He's great. All right? No, but he's great because everybody else is so fucking bad.
No, I disagree. No, I think in a time of statesmen.
No, no. I'm not putting him down.
No, I understand. I'm putting everybody else down.
I get it. I mean, and everybody else deserves to be put down.
But I would give him way more credit than that. I think in any era, he would have stood out.
He is super smart, super articulate, never takes the bait. That's the Obama playbook.
Never takes the bait, which you have to do. They're all, excuse me, wait.
No, you're 100% lying. I agree.
They're all trolls out there. My thing is not about, let me just say this.
My thing is not about Pete Buttigieg. My problem is there's not 20 Pete Buttigiegs.
Well, that will get used to it. No, but that's not unrealistic to ask for because there was a time that that was the case.
I don't think there was ever 20. I think there was Adlai Stevenson and then he ran against Eisenhower a nice guy.
No, I actually do think that there was a time where you had statesmen. You had 13 to 14 to 15 statesmen who could fucking talk their game because it was all about talking the game.
Yeah, I think— Am I wrong about that? I think you're romanticizing the past a little, yes. I mean, there was Lincoln, whose letter I quoted.
We see how eloquent he was. And people used to be, because they actually had schooling, where they taught kids things.
That doesn't happen anymore. So people were generally more literary, and they could speak.
But you're going to just throw that away? That's like throwing away talent from talking about an actor. I really think the number of people who go into politics who are qualified is so tiny it would scare you.
People like Buttigieg is one of them. Obama was one of them.
Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton. These are people, did I agree with everything? No.
But did they like— But when you say talented, talented in what way? I'm just saying that they took the job of politician, of running the government very seriously. It's not just something.
I mean, The Rock, I love him, but he thinks he can be president because you have to actually learn things about how government works. It's a job just like any other.
Maybe it's more complicated. You can't walk into the Oval Office and on day one be like, what's TPP? Oh, well, that's a giant treaty we've been negotiating for 10 years.
You have to know these things going in. Well, you know, I mean, look, there is this weird aspect that politics was this sort of shell game that the players who ran it, they knew what's going on and they're showing us and we don't really care.
So as long as you seem to know what's going on, we'll pretend like we care about what's going on. and this all works, and we all more or less kind of, as a public, decide, well, they have more information than we do, and they ultimately know what's best.
That's why we're voting for them. That's why we pay them.
Then when George W. Bush becomes president, for the first time, I knew somebody dumber than me was president.
And the whole fucking thing fell apart. It's all been a house of cards.
It's all been a shell game and a mirror illusion and george w bush made it you you could see through the mirror at all the wrong angles it's also just because you got older you were as dumb as anybody as i was when we were in our 20s and shit. So, I mean, and, you know, presidents were, I remember Obama was the first president who was younger than me.
Which is like, wow. I mean, there are certain moments in your life like, oh, well, I guess I'll never be a professional baseball player.
I'm 25 now. And then, you know, oh, the president is younger than me.
But, you know, I still think I really have come to understand. That was actually one of the, there's all the things that you can do at a certain age, but there was one, and actually I remember from a Bill Cosby routine, all right, was that you can't run for president until you're 39.
Yeah. Well, it's true.
Well, 35. 35, 35.
Yeah, like Taylor Swift can run next year. And I'm sure she will, and I hope she wins.
But you know, something you said really reminded me of Three Days of the Condor. Yeah, I remember that movie, yeah.
I can't remember what it was. What? Oh, what I said? You can't remember? Yes, something.
Or you can't remember or you can't remember it was about like well what was three days of a condor well it's about the idea that I don't even think it's so much of a ridiculous idea I love the idea that the government would do this but I don't think it does oh the government has a no I gotta say this the government has a division okay no i gotta say this that's what it is yeah the government has a division i don't believe that this exists the government has this division of like brainiacs that just read everything ever printed every newspaper in every small town ever printed to just know what's out there now they have a computer do it to just know what's out there in case there's something weird that like spikes or does something. Read every piece of pop culture, read every comic strip, read everything to just see if there's some weird leaning of something.
And so Robert Redford is part of this collective. And then some sort of conspiracy happens inside of the CIA where they realize that they may have read something and they can put it all together.
So they send a hit team to come out and wipe all those people out. And they do, except for him.
Except for Redford. You know, and so he's on the run.
They just read for a living. Yeah, they just read, yeah.
When he gets with Faye Dunaway

and finally tells her what he does for a living,

it's like, we just read. I mean, they just read spy novels to get ideas about what the Soviets might be thinking.
Now, I actually had a situation like that, oddly enough, in my work. I never put myself up for sale as a dialogue writer, to do dialogue punch-ups for Hollywood movies.
They asked you? Of course they did. My dialogue's the shit.
Right. You know? It is.
No, I can make any movie better by giving it a dialogue policy. That's just the deal.
I can make it better. All right.
I can't make it good, but I can make it better. Could you start on Flowers of the Early Moon? I mean, the whatever moon.
Something moon. I don't know.
But the thing is, though, I didn't want to make money that way. And I also looked at it as like, no, I'm a director.
I'm making movies. That's my magic well watered.
I don't want to make money that way. And I also looked at it as like, no, I'm a director.

I'm making movies.

That's my magic well watered.

I don't want to give it to the Hollywood fucks out there.

There's not a price I can put on it.

This is for my movies.

Yeah.

You know.

Where was I going with it?

No, I don't know, but I would file that under duh.

Yeah, no, it's like that's my shit.

Yeah, you don't do punch-up work. Right, and I don't open bowling alleys.
Yeah. Right, we're past that, we're old.
Yeah, but that would have been crazy lucrative if I wanted to, but I bet, no, I'll make the money myself. Yeah, and you did.
But hold on for a minute. It's the only time I'm saying cut.
I want to go where I was going with my thought, and I can't think of it. Well, I want to go back to Three Days of the Condor.
It had something to do with that. Yes, but I remember you said something about, like, well, the reason why you're so right about 70s movies being so great and emulating them is, like, the end of that movie, okay, well, the reason why you're so right about some of these movies being so great and emulating them is like the end of that movie.
Okay. Yes, they're a CIA team that reads about spies and they get wiped out.
And Robert Redford at the end of the movie, Robertson. What's his? Cliff Robertson.
What is it? Cliff Robertson Robertson Cliff Robertson who's the CIA guy

and Robert

and we think that

that Redford is the hero

and I guess he still

kind of is

because he's given the story

about the

how bad the CIA is

to the New York Times

and they're at the

New York Times building

and the truck comes out

I gave it to them

and Cliff Robertson says

oh my god

you have no idea

how much damage you've done

yeah right

you have no

you know what

Thank you. and the truck comes out.
I gave it to them. And Cliff Robertson says, oh, my God.
You have no idea how much damage you've done. Yeah, right.
You have no, you know what? When people are freezing in their homes and they want us to get the oil, they're not going to want us to ask, how did you get it? They're just going to want us to get it. And it's like, that is adult entertainment.
Absolutely. That is sophistication.
Okay, but not only is, okay, yes. Because it's true and it's entertaining at the same time.
There is not, okay, there is not a yeah, but. There's not a yeah, but.
There's a yeah, and. And the yeah, and in that is, again, you can't take entertainment out of the era it was made and for the audience it was made for.
Three Days of the Condor was not made for us sitting here right now. Correct.
Watching it, oh, what's that movie? Because they hear us talking about it. Maybe somebody watches it now.
It's not made for them. It was made for the audience in the 70s when it came out.
But I bet you people today would still like it. That's not the point.
It's so fucking cool. That's not my point.
My point is, it was made for the audience in the 70s when it came out but i bet you people today would still like it that's not the point it's so fucking cool that's not my point my point is it was made for the audience in the 70s when it came out and just by the very nature of it a cynicism about the government is baked in the pie this is about as commercial a movie as you can possibly make Robert Redford, Faye Dunwoord. Faye Dunwoord, the biggest stars, the most glamorous stars in a really exciting action movie that seems to talk about now.
And sexy. And sexy, and it's talking about now.
But a cynicism against the government is baked into the audience pie. But sexy.
I mean, if people don't remember or haven't seen it. No, but the thing is, that movie could not exist in that commercial way in 1966.
No, of course not. But after 73, yeah, of course, it was a cynical time.
So any cynicism about history or the government is expected. But here's where the modern filmmakers have mostly, not all, of course, but fallen down, the ability to weave the sexy entertaining part into a movie that means something.
Yeah, I agree. You know, like I would like this movie anyway, but I really love it because it's a love story.
It's very similar to Bourne Identity where, and many other movies I'm sure, where the guy who's in great trouble meets some chick who's kind of hot.

It's going to be very hot that they're getting out of this situation together. What could make you want to fuck anybody more than that?

And they do, and she does, and she's the girl who's just somehow in the way,

and then she becomes a compatriot with him.

No, that's a very Pauline Kaelish

review, alright,

of the

Bourne genre.

The Bourne movies as a genre

and as a placeholder for every other

spy movie you've seen since then.

Well, Three Days of the Condor came well before the Bourne movies.

No, but I'm talking about from what you're talking about

And they weren't the first to do it either. It's like guy in trouble on the run meets hot chick who wants to help.
No, there's 90 versions of that that deal with World War II espionage. They drop the flyer in France and the French girl helps them.
Yeah, well, excuse me if my dick is in my hand for every one of them. I mean, I like a movie that, I don't know, where you sort of like, you know, can sort of put yourself in the place of the guy who's getting the hot chick in the movie.
Does that make me a bad person? Of course not. I mean, just human.
I actually think, like, it is, it's one of the differences between movies and theater. I mean, because the thing about it is, yeah, handsome people and pretty women in theater obviously did well, as you would imagine they would.
But actually, acting was more important. You're sure.
So the idea is like some of the greatest actors of the theater times,

before cinema, the people went to the theater. was more important.
You're so... So the idea is like some of the greatest actors

of the theater times,

before cinema,

the people went to the theater.

You know, some of them

weren't the greatest looking people

in the world,

but they were the fucking greatest actors.

They filled the fucking room.

Well, I mean,

that's still true of Tommy Lee Jones.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But the point being is

you're not in a close-up.

It's about their ability

to fill the room.

You know, and we had those people

I'm going to go. But the point being is you're not in a close-up.
It's about their ability to fill the room.

And we had those people on film, too.

George C. Scott, Edward G.
Robinson.

We had those people.

Yeah, Bogart.

I had a face like three miles of bad road.

That's a Robert Blake quote.

That's a Robert Blake quote.

It is? That literally is a Robert Blake quote about Bogart.

My father used to say it. He heard it from Blake.
I'm learning so much about my old family these days. All right.
So back to the agitated apes. The monolith comes down.
Yeah. Okay.
And then the question becomes, and it's a question. It's not an answer.
It's a question. Is that technology or is that spirituality? Well, it's some, well, what, I don't know, but what it definitely is, is something from not earth.
Oh, absolutely. Okay.
Because there's nothing like. Again, but is it a spiritual thing? Is it a technological thing? I think it's a technological thing because the next scene...
Well, I agree with that. Theoretically, I agree with that, but it's a slab.
Okay, it's a slab, but they didn't have slabs back in the ape days. They just had, like, rocks and wood.
That's true. This is, like, smooth and shiny.
But I would think if I was going to try to sell technology I might have a few working parts. But okay, they also find the monolith, remember, a few scenes later when they go to the moon.
They go to the moon and the monolith Okay, well now you try to tie it together like it's a movie that has a story and it doesn't. It kind of does.
Well, no, it has a Okay well, let's go through it. It has a theme and it has...

Well, no, no, no, no.

Let's go through it.

Maybe you don't remember.

So first we have agitated apes.

Yeah.

The monolith comes down.

They seem to get different after the monolith.

First of all, they certainly learn how to use tools

because you see the guy, the ape, hammering with the bone.

He's got a big femur in his hand and he's like, okay, so we see he's learned how to do things with technology. And he throws the bone up in the air.
It becomes the spacecraft. Iconic.
Yeah, absolutely. Then there's like a scene where the guys, the doctor dude is talking to people.
And it's like, oh, there's some trouble. It's very vague.
And And then they go to the moon and there's the monolith again. Yeah, yeah.
And the monolith emits a piercing sound and they go like this with their space helmets on, which I don't think would do anything if you had a space helmet on. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But, and then I don't know what that means. You know, and, you know, but it's actually curious while you're describing it, is the apes respond to the sound, but they don't respond to the sound that way.
It's not like, oh, they can't handle it. The apes don't hear sound.
No, when the wind goes, wah, when they touch it and it goes, wah, ah, they respond to the wah. Yes, yes, you're right, yes.
But it's a different sound. It's like they're not going, ah!

They're not going like this, right.

So I don't know why the monolith was doing that on the moon.

I don't know why the monolith at all.

And then we cut to they're on the thing going to Jupiter.

It's like Jupiter mission 18 months later.

And that's where we have the famous Hal, I can't do that.

One of the astronauts goes out to do a spacewalk to fix something.

There's something wrong.

We've seen this in other movies.

Yeah.

And Hal will not let him back in, and he dies out there in outer space.

I think.

And Hal is bitchy.

Hal is a little bitch.

It's one of the questions of cinema. It's one of the reasons that you can say that there's a brilliance to, if not Arthur C.
Clarke's novel, but to Stanley Kubrick's movie. He seems to ignore everything about drama except just enough rope with knots in it.
You're so right. To connect you to the next knot, to the next knot, to the next knot.
You're right. And a case can be made that when the movie loses it, when it gets more metaphysical at the end, is when he stops supplying knots that are narrative.
Yeah, you're right. And the knots don't need to connect to each other.
They just need to get you forward. And they do.
And they do. And they do.
Like it's, yeah. I mean, like there's a very interesting scene where he's watching the news from home.

They say there's a seven-minute delay, but thanks to editing, we're... And they're interviewing Hal.

It's like our spaceship here going to Jupiter, and what year must this be?

I mean, Jupiter is a really long trip, and what do you do when you get there?

Not like you can land on it.

Anyway, we're talking to our

astronauts who are going to Jupiter,

and two of them are in

suspended animation. They apparently had

that back then.

Two of them are around. Oh, I had that from

Planet of the Apes. I'm all good.

I understood that.

And then we're going to also talk to Hal.

Hal is the HAL 9000 computer. And Hal is like another crew member.
This show is very much like Entertainment Tonight, but for astronauts. No, it's the nightly news.
This is a big news story. No, but it's not as if it's Entertainment Tonight.
And he's listening to it like he's listening to his report on Entertainment Tonight. He's eating his space food which is compartmentalized.
He's watching it on the news. I thought it was very BBC and they're trying to do it straight.
I thought it was very much like you've done Angie and you're watching the Entertainment Tonight special on Angie and here comes your guy. Well, that's what you think because you probably smoked too much pot.
Anyway, I thought it was more like the BBC. And anyway, he is interviewing, and then the guy interviews Howe.
And Howe, again, it's like, I don't remember this from the first time I watched it, but when I saw it recently, I was like, wow, How is to be this prescient in 1968 about what we are absolutely talking about today, AI in 2024? Like how, that's exactly what we're talking about now. Are the computers taking over? And when they do, will they be this bitchy? Okay.
Because the computer is such a bitch and a little, like everything like at the end like how i mean like dave i'm sorry i can do better i made some poor decisions it's like it's like a relationship fight they're having with a fucking computer here's the thing that i oh that I think you kind of nailed without nailing it.

My specialty. that I think you kind of nailed without nailing it.

My specialty. That was such a fucking passive-aggressive compliment.
I apologize. I really don't agree with shit like that, but that kind of was that.
I apologize. Oh, please.
But it's so much. I have to say, I really enjoy watching the show it's actually interesting my favorite my favorite ones are the ones that I wish I was in the show I wish I was the third person on the episode.
Then do it. Come on.
But it's actually interesting. It's all about comedians and an actor.
The three that I wish I were in the room at the time was the Martin Short episode, the Chevy Chase episode, and the Richard Dreyfuss episode. Here.
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Club Random episodes. I mean, Richard Dreyfuss, we'll never live that down.
I mean, Richard Dreyfuss was actually, was probably the most memorable of your shows, all right? You know, remember what they said about the Kennedy-Nixon debates, that if you saw it on TV, you thought that Kennedy won. And if you heard it on radio, you thought that Nixon won.
It's a little like that. People who didn't see it, they didn't think he was fucked up at all.
And people who watched it, I mean, he was in this position, you know, so. It no i watched it it's the craziest thing in the world that he's like sinking in the chair to the degree that he is he had okay but here's the deal but i don't know any of that i'm not like and i'm not reading i'm not reading blogs about that episode.
I watch it. Right.
And I think, well, maybe that's the way he sits in chairs. Well.
Maybe if you're going to talk to Richard Dreyfuss for 90 minutes, then that's going to be the way he sits in a chair. That's actually not unbelievable that there's certain old dudes that when they get together with their boys that they're in a chair that way at the end of the fucking talk.
Am I wrong? No, you're not wrong at all. I did not want to break the...
I'm turning so Jewish. Am I wrong? I'm saying, am I wrong? You're George Segal.
I'm turning into when we live in israel for a while you're turning into george siegel george siegel had a nice career he had a nice career i mean from uh virginia wolf yeah i mean no i mean it's like a young steve stunning guy all right and then he became the court no in the 60s he. In the 60s he was, but in the 70s it's different.
He was a Jewish Steve Stunning. It's a different category.
If you look at his movies in the 60s, it's different. He's pretty Steve Stunning.
Like what? The Quiller Memorandum. No, that's a good one.
He's like a James Bond kind of guy in that. Okay, but I'm remembering, of course.

Actually, but he's still in his Steve Stunning period

during the time he's doing Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf.

Okay, that was like 1966.

I mean, if he's so-

Yeah, I'm talking about the 60s.

If he's so stunning, why does he have to hire a prostitute in The Owl and the Pussycat? I put it to you, sir. Okay, because he realized that as handsome as he was to go in this 60s George Meharis

kind of... George Meharis?

Yeah, well, I'm using

his

examples, all right?

To go in

that kind of

handsome, cut-out role,

one, it's not who he is.

That's who

Hollywood was asking him to be. And then he got in touch with the Jewish prankster inside of himself, and 70s cinema allowed him to do that.
And so then, as opposed to not playing the Jewish guy, he's playing the Jewish guy. And that's Elliotiot ghoul's job yes exactly that's his main competition oh really elliot ghoul is showing him the way there is no george sika without elliot ghoul's guidance wow that's a very heavy statement in nowhere no uh well in a world that in a world what are we doing in my world is actually a really cool statement because i actually just put it together right now when i said it somebody did a funny parody once of the trailers and every one of them started with in a world that was for a while that was de rigueur when you had the guy with that perfect voice

over voice say right in a world where nothing seems to make sense you know well yeah look there

is a case there is a case that as much as i like film criticism to such a degree that i'm writing

it now and by the way just to answer a question you didn't ask, but you alluded to. Again, my specialty.
About cinema stuff? Bill, here are your allusions for today. Oh, there you go.
Stoopy sales here. You got the laugh.
The stupid sales. Yeah, you got the crew laughing at your job.
The band laugh. I don't know who those people are.
And I'm throwing them off the property. You know, I did my first HBO special in 1989.
It was called The Young Comedian. They had, like, young comedian specials.
You got a half hour. Half hour.
You remember that. Okay.
Very well. And you were asked to do a sketch at the beginning.
So my sketch, like a two, three-minute thing to introduce the special, so it wasn't just stand-up. And the one I did was a parody of My Fair Lady.
Though in My Fair Lady, as we all know, it's a play on Pygmalion. Yeah.
Okay. In Pygmalion, he turns a statue into a woman, his ideal woman.
In My Fair Lady, he makes a bet with Pickering, his friend Pickering, whether he can take the biggest... The most common, like, trollop.
A gutter snipe. A gutter snipe.
I could take a gutter snipe and turn her into a lady and pass her off as a lady at the ball. And so he does that.
And he's just such a huge prick in this movie, Rex Harrison. It's amazing the way they did not pull a punch in those days.
And so my parody of that was I played Henry Higgins, who could take the most generic, derivative comedian and turn him into a fabulous monologist. And so I took this.
So that was the bit where I then found this comic who's doing, hey, Jack Nicholson. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And airline food, am I right? And I'm turning it. So that was, I thought that for age 30, I thought that was a pretty sophisticated way to go with my little.
But where did it go with it? Well, then we did, I remember they shot the split screen where I was both Henry Higgins and I was the bad comic coming in. I was the Eliza who was going to transform.
I can turn him into a fine monologist. That's actually pretty good cultural satire of its time.
It really is. Especially since no one knew My Fair Lady or what I was talking about.
Even in 1989. No, they actually did.
They did a little bit. There was a context to it.
There actually was... I'm realizing now and this was a point I was going to say earlier, there is an aspect that, as much as I like film criticism, that parody is the greatest criticism.
Well, yes, that's interesting, of course. All right.
Well, it's the one that wields the most scalpel. The most scalpel edge to criticism of art is parody itself.
But when it, again, when it's like sushi-like finely cut. Well, when was the last time you saw The Great Dictator? I actually have seen him recently.
You have? Yeah. Okay.
I have not, but I did see, I was watching the documentary. I'm a big Chaplin fan.
I know you are. No, that's not a given.
I went for years putting down Chaplin because I was so worshipped at the altar of Buster Keaton. I know.
And now I've appreciated... Yeah.
At an older age, I've appreciated what Chaplin... Oh, amazing.
But, you know, in 1940, he made The Great Dictator, which, of course, was a Romana clay, a very thinly one, on Adolf Hitler. Yes.
And the upshot of that, as we remember, he... But Jack O'Kee as Mussolini and a very funny Mussolini.
The famous scene where he's in the Nazi uniform and he's kicking the globe, which is like a beach ball. He's going to take over the world.
And this was 1940, of course, after the war had started, but before we got into it. And as everyone remembers, the upshot of the whole thing of his satire of making fun of Hitler mercilessly was that Hitler was stopped and World War II never happened.
Oh, wait, that's not what happened. What happened is art can do nothing.
I have no patience for the people, especially musicians. They're such narcissists.
Music can change the world. No, it can't.
Nothing in art changes the world. What it can do is make the shitty world we live in more tolerable because it entertains us or amuses us or comments on us.
Yes, they can change social mores. I mean, television changed gay marriage in this country.
It made it, and the people saw it on TV, and they were okay with it, and race issues. It can move the needle, but it doesn't solve anything.
And certainly, but that movie is just funny. The Great Dictator? I mean, it's just, it's just, I'm always amazed how it's like, as much of it's a parody, he does go for the laugh.

No, he is Chaplin.

Of course he goes for the laugh.

I mean, at the end of the day, there is probably no actor who ever performed before a camera that felt more entitled than Charlie Chaplin. I mean, ever, ever.
Marlon Brando, at his most Brando-esque, was never as entitled as Charlie Chaplin. Why are you saying entitled? Well, because it's just like whatever this film captures is just the glory of what I'm doing.

I see, yeah.

Right.

Right.

I am capturing history by me doing anything.

This is all history.

Just turn the camera on.

Wow. Talk about this.
Turn the camera on. Wow.
Now talk about... Turn the camera on! Talk about a scathing review.
No, but it's all history because I'm Charlie Chaplin and I can do no wrong. But you're capturing it.
But certainly it's great movies. No, no, no, no., no, no.
I'm making fun of the megalomania,

but thank God for the megalomania

because he's Charlie Chaplin.

You could say the same about Jerry Lewis.

Yeah.

Saying thank God for the megalomania

because without that, there would be no buddy love.

You can absolutely say that in that instance,

but it's a bad comparison with Charlie Chaplin, because Charlie Chaplin is like, there is no celebrity in the history of celebrity, in the history of our world, that was ever as famous as Charlie Chaplin. That's true.
But, you know. No, no, but that's an important aspect of it.
No. was silent and he translated everywhere and the little tramp translated, the persona translated everywhere.
And his comedy and his humanity translated everywhere. But to your original point about how just big he was, when he went back to London after he became a sensation in America, the headline in the London Times that day was just Chaplin.
Yeah. Like he was in town and that was like more important.
But, you know. It's like, I don't think, until Elvis, there was a celebrity at the level of Charlie Chaplin.
Frank Sinatra. I think if the deal is Chaplin to Elvis, I think Sinatra is here.
I think Sinatra is hanging below. Maybe, but I mean, there are a few people.
When you're talking about an entire career, that's another thing. Look, there's someone who is performing today, possibly right now, who is on that level.
You may not like it or not, but Taylor Swift, as far as just popularity. I mean, there's Michael Jackson, there's the Beatles, there's Elvis.
But there's also popularity right now. Yeah, right.
But I'm just saying, some people get to this level that's sort of pretter show business. It's above where show business is.
It's part of the culture. No, but that's exciting.
That's actually exciting to talk about those guys. I'm just saying that there is one around today.
I mean, do I get why that is? No, I don't. I don't begrudge her.
I just don't get why she's reaching people on this level.

But, you know, I'm not a teenage girl.

I mean, I didn't just break up with, you know, what do you call them?

What's your name for the studly guy in the movie's head?

Steve Stunning.

Steve Stunning.

I'd never heard that Steve Stunning.

Is that something people say or do you just say that?

I think I just say that.

I'm going to stop it for a second.

I want to take a pee, okay?

Oh, yeah, yeah. I thought you just did.
No, I didn't. Just not do.
Okay. We can keep going, whatever, but I'm only, um...
Yeah, yeah. I mean...
I'm good for going after dinner. Yeah, let's just go do that.
Let me take a pee, though. Yeah, yeah.
You pee. But we can go back if you want.
No, no, no. We've done enough.
Okay, here's the deal.

If they will stay, it wouldn't be the worst show in the world if we did 20 more minutes.

Great.

I'm serious.

No, no, let's do it.

Cool.

Right here.

Throw it.

I literally, I couldn't stop my pee.

I was like, I started, I was like, the best pee I've had in life. You're lucky.
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