Episode 2 - 1974

Hello & welcome to another incredible episode of “For Your Reconsideration - an Oscars podcast.”

This week, Phil, Andrew, Jose, David & Norm join me on the show as we discuss five of the best Oscar-nominated movies in 1974. From Chinatown, The Conversation, Lenny, Towering Inferno to its best picture GodFather part II. Moreover, the panelists share movies they would add or eliminate in 1974.

Tune in to our candid & interesting conversation on some of the best movie scenes and characters as well as our nominee movie from 1974!

Timestamps

[01:23] Introducing this week’s topic, “1974.”

[01:58] About this week’s panelists

[04:12] Why “Chinatown” is one of the best-written films of the 70s in the detective movie genre & Jack’s outstanding character

[17:07] Interesting scenes in “The Towering Inferno “movie & McQueen versus Newman performance

[25:03] Was McQueen’s role supposed to be Newman’s role?

[27:50] Dissecting outstanding characters and problems in “Lenny”

[35:31] Lenny Bruce's exceptional performance in Lenny compared to his actual sets

[37:58] The conspiracy paranoia and what stands out in “The Conversation Movie.”

[52:00] Best scenes & characters in “The Godfather Part II” Movie

[01:04:20] What would our panel take away or add to the 1974 list

[01:13:33] Does 1974 require a do-over?

[01:15:17] The Panel’s nominee movie from the 1974 list

Notable Quotes

“Chinatown is a great stepping stone movie for anyone that wants to get into the film world.” (08:35-08:40)

“Lenny is just too off the moment and too rigidly controlled to try and stick to the story. It's almost too faithful.” (32:10-32:22)

“In a lot of ways, Lenny Bruce was more of a performance artist than he was in stand-up. People respect Lenny Bruce's performance more than his actual sets. They appreciate the craft more than what he was actually saying.” (37:39-37:53)

“The Godfather will always be a classic movie.” (56:20-56:22)

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Transcript

0:00:01 - Speaker 1

The nominees for the best picture of the year are Chinatown, a Robert Evans production, paramount. Robert Evans producer. The Conversation, a director's company production, paramount. Francis Ford Coppola producer. Fred Roos, co producer. The Godfather Part II, a Coppola company production, paramount. Francis Ford Coppola producer. Gray Fredrickson and Fred Roos co-producers. Lenny, a Marvin Worth production, united Artists. Marvin Worth producer. The Towering Inferno, an Irwin Allen production, 20th Century Fox, warner Brothers. Irwin Allen producer. And the winner is Godfather Part II, francis Ford Coppola, gray Fredrickson and Fred Roos. For your reconsideration. 

0:01:20 - Speaker 2

Hey, it's Matty Price. Myself and today's host, jamie Dew, are here for you, as we will be in every episode. Welcome to, for Your Reconsideration, an Oscars podcast. As always, we have an amazing panel of film buffs. This week, we are looking at the best picture of 1974, the Godfather, part II, as well as the other nominees Lenny, the Conversation, the Towering Inferno and Chinatown. As always, we will open it up so the panel can discuss those films, but also curate their own ballots. Remove choices they think don't work, add films that they feel like shouldn't have been overlooked. So thanks again for listening. Subscribe through the podcast client of your choice to get new episodes every week as they are available. Welcome to Season 1, and now it's time to join this episode's host, jamie. Panelist Norm Willner, David Brown, david Follows, andrew Parker and Jose Roldan. Listen. The episode was originally recorded live and in person in 2016. Remember 2016? 

0:02:23 - Speaker 3

Before there was a pandemic And we all Oh, never mind, anyway, let's get into it, it's 1974 is what we're doing and of course, i didn't recall that This is the year I was born, so Well of course you wouldn't recall. 

0:02:46 - Speaker 4

I don't remember a whole bunch. 

0:02:52 - Speaker 3

We will go around the table with introductions. Does everybody introduce themselves? I wasn't here when everybody else arrived, but we'll start over here on my left. 

0:02:57 - Speaker 5

Andrew Parker. I am the Film and Performing Arts Editor of the website Dorkshelf. You can find me on Twitter at AndrewJ Parker. 

0:03:04 - Speaker 3

Cool Thanks. 

0:03:05 - Speaker 4

Andrew, i'm Norm. 

0:03:06 - Speaker 3

Willner. You can find me on Twitter at Norm Willner. 

0:03:08 - Speaker 4

I'm the senior film writer for Now Magazine and I also do some stuff for MSN Great. 

0:03:13 - Speaker 6

Thanks, norm, i'm Phil Brown. You can find me on Twitter at that. Phil Brown and I rate for a bunch of. I rate for Dorkshelf and Now, like Them and I rate for Charmstar and Globe and Mound Remorgen Fingery and Bunch of Anyone will let me? basically. 

0:03:28 - Speaker 8

I'm Jose Roldan. You can find me on Twitter at DEC22CM and I work for one of the major studios. I'm a suit. 

0:03:35 - Speaker 7

I love all movies, i'm all about movies. No, he's not in a suit right now. Yeah, i'm David Follows. I am only from Drink Along with Dave and Jeremy. I play Jeremy. I'm going to steal Jeremy's joke from the last episode. We're on the Modern Superior Network and you can follow us on Twitter at Drink Along and myself. You can follow me at D Fidicus. It spells itself. 

0:04:03 - Speaker 3

I'm trying to spell it right now It would have to. It doesn't really spell itself. Just go to Add Drink Along, then Cool. Thanks everybody for coming out on a hazy Sunday. We are here talking 1974. What better place to start in 1974 than What do you say? we start with Chinatown. Sure, forget it, i'm going to profound. 

0:04:29 - Speaker 6

Essay on the evil. 

0:04:31 - Speaker 3

Chinatown, let's throw in Chinatown. 

0:04:34 - Speaker 4

Profound psychological essay on the evil that men and women do, written by Robert Towne directed by. Roman Plansky, probably one of the best movies in the 1970s. Oops, I may have given something away. 

0:04:45 - Speaker 5

We didn't give away the ending to Chinatown Not a monster. 

0:04:48 - Speaker 4

The title does that. Although you would not believe what men can do when they are pressed. No one really knows, do they Mr Giddish, isn't it Giddish He calls? 

0:04:58 - Speaker 8

him Mr. 

0:04:58 - Speaker 4

Giddish. He always gets it wrong because he doesn't care. So again, John Houston, Best Supporting Actor. That's my Sorry, we're getting ahead of ourselves. 

0:05:08 - Speaker 6

Yeah, no, absolutely. 

0:05:09 - Speaker 7

That's one of the great film performances all the time, and Jack was sleeping with his movie daughter and his real life daughter when they were making that movie. 

0:05:18 - Speaker 6

That explains all that aggression. 

0:05:22 - Speaker 7

Jack was sleeping with Houston's daughter. 

0:05:24 - Speaker 4

Oh, angelica, he and Angelica Houston were in that film. 

0:05:26 - Speaker 7

We were in that film when they were making that film. So it was when he was like are you fucking my daughter? 

0:05:32 - Speaker 8

It was like yes, Jack is so badass in that movie. Though That's when it's still counted After that, it's just like a version of himself In this movie. it's so awesome. 

0:05:41 - Speaker 5

He's awesome, but he's also kind of a wimpy badass. Every time someone confronts him, like the scene where he's confronted by Roman Polansky. He gets his nose cut. It's not really a badass thing. You kind of just fold it. You act like such a badass. But there's these two dudes, and the little shrimpy dude gets the jump on you. 

0:05:58 - Speaker 4

Yeah really, all you have to do is step back, yeah, and Roman Polansky cannot actually reach you. 

0:06:02 - Speaker 5

Yeah, you could just bob you, Even if you're being held back. you could have bobbed your head just enough for him to miss you. 

0:06:09 - Speaker 4

But that is what's so great about the character is that he doesn't. he's a terrible detective. 

0:06:13 - Speaker 1

He's an immediate detective. 

0:06:15 - Speaker 4

The very first scene is he's tricked by someone who isn't who. She says she is into doing something that isn't what he thinks it is. He continues to get everything wrong. It's the Harrison Ford Blade Runner performance, basically, where you just suck but people keep falling over, people keep tripping, you're there at the right moment. It's a really different version of a sleuth than we've been led to believe, although this was just a year after the long goodbye, where Aliakul played a very similar kind of detective, although with Gould you get the sense with Marlowe that he's actually paying attention Yeah, he could actually be good And faking it. And with Giddy he's overconfident. He's a dumbass. He has already gotten people killed before the movie starts or whatever happened in Chinatown. He screwed up. 

And this is what happens when this plan like basically and this is a bit of a spoiler, i suppose conceptually, but the bad guys do win The plan that he's lured into works in the first two minutes of the film And he has played from beginning to end and watching Jack Nicholson be that guy as opposed to the character from The Last Detail or the characters he played before, who were super confident and also competent That was really something That was kind of a statement of Nicholson's at the time. 

0:07:30 - Speaker 6

Is he kind of opening in The Last Detail? Well, yeah, he's a lot of bluster. 

0:07:33 - Speaker 4

He does his job and he doesn't get anybody killed Except for the one that he was supposed to get killed, Yeah but he knows the system is wrong, so there's that He's a cog in a machine, but he cooperates and he's doing a professional In this one. He is absolutely a professional, with very nice suits and a lovely office and he's useless, Which is a very California thing. 

0:07:57 - Speaker 5

He looks very good, he's very flashy And he is very indicative of that period of California history where you could get by on your looks and your swagger And that's fine. The thing that's so well written about it is we just said that it's a great film about someone who's always wrong with everything. Everyone around him knows he's going to screw this up Right to the end. The punchline of the movie is you should have seen this coming, and I think that's what I love about it. 

I think it's one of the best films of the 70s because it's probably the best written film of the 70s And in terms of how that all comes together and how it turns the detective genre on its ear, it's a great California history lesson And I think the reason that several years later because I saw it in the 80s when I was growing up for the first time, i think several years later the reason I liked something like LA Confidential is because I was like Oh, chinatown prepared me for this And I think Chinatown's a great stepping stone movie for anyone that wants to get into film noir in any way, like if you've never seen another movie like that, it's probably a good place to start because you're never going to get another movie like that again. 

0:09:07 - Speaker 4

Yeah, and it's sun drenched instead of noir. 

0:09:10 - Speaker 7

So, you fight to the subversive on every level. 

0:09:13 - Speaker 4

Although, of course, at the time people just thought Oh, what a lovely Robert Evans studio production. It's so polished and gorgeous And it is. It absolutely is. But it's this, you know, it's filled with snakes. It's this veneer of respectability, but much like what was happening in Roman Polanski's life at that time, it's just a rat's nest of ugly. 

0:09:33 - Speaker 3

It's interesting for me. I mean coming at it for the first time for this podcast. Really, yeah, yeah, absolutely. This was the film on the list that least grabbed my attention And not to say that You mean like the title Initially. 

0:09:49 - Speaker 8

No no no, no. 

0:09:49 - Speaker 4

The after-watch experience of watching it. 

0:09:51 - Speaker 3

Pacing was interesting. I think this is where the show, like the do-over, suffers from a context sort of thing. This was the first time I watched this movie And it was the first one I also watched for the 74 series, so you know, i had to sort of get into that different style filmmaking. 

0:10:10 - Speaker 4

Right, like films look different, they felt different, they were paced differently And this is a deliberate attempt to mimic an, to evoke an era that didn't exist, really Like this sort of beautiful, splendid 1920s filmmaking that wasn't there in the 1920s. That's not how they made movies. It's like the artist where it's not really about movies made in a silent era. It's about movies made around seeing the rain. It's like a romantic Romanticized. 

0:10:30 - Speaker 7

Yeah, which is what the-. Yeah, it's a false sense of nostalgia. 

0:10:32 - Speaker 4

What the film makes Yeah but this one's actively working to create that. 

0:10:36 - Speaker 3

So this side of the table, you guys are going to see me, but the left side of the table, big fans, huge fans. 

0:10:41 - Speaker 5

Oh, huge, massive fans. 

0:10:42 - Speaker 7

Over here on the right, dave. I've always enjoyed this movie. Every time I start to watch it and then when I get to the end, i'm always That ending always gets me every time because I always I get so drawn into the film because it's so gorgeous and it is such The pacing is just perfect. It's like it's one of the perfect films for it. It gets you from point A to point Z because it's such a weird ending. But that ending gets me every time, and every time I'm so disappointed by the film. At the end I'm like, oh crap, i hate I forget that. I always I have a mental block on that ending. But I mean, the film itself is just you can't take your eyes off of every frame. 

0:11:22 - Speaker 6

One of the things I love about visually is the way it's all so subtly subjective. Every shot is from Jack Nichols' perspective. You don't necessarily notice it because it's done in a way where it's not point of view necessarily. 

He's in every scene and it's always coming from his perspective, which was a useful tool. And then one of the things I like is it's so handsome, like we were talking before, like carefully mounted, and then that ending is all handheld cameras and ragged and it's incredibly posey and sense-. It pulls you right out of any veneer of old-fashioned filmmaking that you've fallen into. 

0:11:53 - Speaker 5

It's kind of like switching from watching a really polished movie and then for the last 15 minutes or so you just switched over to the news. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. 

0:12:03 - Speaker 4

And it works like tonally. It even works beautifully, because obviously I'm assuming anybody listening to a podcast about Oscar movies from 1974 knows the story behind Chinatown, which is that it's not Town's Ending. 

The original screenplay ended very differently and Rowan Polanski said No, this has to go bad, this has to be worse, and the ending feels like he has like Polanski, the filmmaker has dragged you by your collar into his movie, into the movie that he really wants to make, and it's nasty and it's ugly and it's bloody and it's horrible. And that leer on that one guy's face which I can conjure up in my head right now, perfectly, just, you know, this is what this movie is, this is what these events would end in. 

0:12:42 - Speaker 6

And there's so many helmets in the film that conform to that. Like I always, am sort of struck by Bay Dunaway's performance in the beginning. I find very mannered and awkward, but it's like deliberately so A for Omaj and B for the game that she's trying to play and by the end. 

0:12:53 - Speaker 7

She's entirely naturalistic in a way that she can be Oh, and Polanski is a complete knob to her own set. 

0:12:57 - Speaker 6

Yes, definitely. Oh, there's chapter on it. Oh yeah, there's so many stories as well the stuff that he did. Yeah, delightfully abusive, man. 

0:13:04 - Speaker 7

Yes, yes. 

0:13:07 - Speaker 4

Does have two of the best get out of jail free cards at that point, but still Yeah, as it were. Where are you on the Swarovski. 

0:13:14 - Speaker 8

I don't like Roman Polanski, so it's my only Roman Polanski movie that I like period. I hate that he's in it That kind of part of me. 

0:13:21 - Speaker 7

Yeah, That's like the one thing it's like, it's like I'm incredibly awkward. 

0:13:24 - Speaker 8

It's like Eli Roth and Glorious Bastards, and I don't like you in this movie everybody else in this movie but you. But it's funny that you said that you know how the ending is changing everything, because it's the standard script that they teach you in film school, right? 

0:13:36 - Speaker 5

Oh, this is the perfect one Written by the guy who wrote books on creating the standard script. 

0:13:41 - Speaker 8

Yeah, like literally. This is the canon. 

0:13:42 - Speaker 5

You know like, this is it. Don't look at any other screenplay. 

0:13:44 - Speaker 8

You'll be fine with Chinatown and it's good and it totally works, except Tremors. Yeah, tremors. Well, tremors is a great script. It is technically one of the better scripts, and sorry. 

0:13:54 - Speaker 5

I haven't seen. 

0:13:55 - Speaker 8

Tremors. Maybe during the do-over you should watch whatever year. Yeah, who hears that 90? Yeah, yeah. 

0:14:03 - Speaker 5

That's a bit of a non-conjuring, but don't look at me. I just watched Chinatown today. 

0:14:08 - Speaker 8

What I love about the podcast is that people there are people who don't watch movies like before a certain year and still participate in these, and they're forced to watch these movies, kind of like yourself, jamie. So That's what. I'm doing this show, but I think it's so awesome because it's like Chinatown would be the one old movie that I would show somebody to get into older movies. 

Yeah, it's kind of like the marijuana of old movies. You know It's old enough that it's count as old, but it's still not alien. You know the way that some silent movies just you couldn't watch now without preparing yourself for it. I love Chinatown and Giddies or Gids or whatever is a Giddies. Yeah, giddies is probably. I know, i know, but I'm Giddies. Giddies, i think so bad. And what I meant by him being badass is that that's Jack Nicholson actually acting, you know, at his best, i think. You know, whereas almost every movie after well, not almost every, because there's a few others like Cuckoo's Nest and stuff that he stopped caring, you know, and he's good, he's so good at this. 

0:15:03 - Speaker 3

His performance is, like, really, really good, even something simple, like him wearing that bandage on his nose for the entirety of the movie. 

0:15:11 - Speaker 4

Yeah much yeah. 

0:15:13 - Speaker 3

I was trying to think of another actor that would do that. You see all these superhero movies now where they make the superheroes take off their mask so that the actor can get screen time in here. Jack was, you know, wearing this thing that you know tore to his face and then performing the shit out of the role. Really. And some of it should come across as comedic. 

0:15:31 - Speaker 7

Yeah, and it wasn't. 

0:15:32 - Speaker 3

And I feel like if somebody was directing him now it would be absolutely comedic, But it's part of. 

0:15:36 - Speaker 4

I mean it's on another level. It's part of Giddies' humiliation which we get before he does. And I'm sort of keen into this that, like you, are not coming out of this clean. That's just. you've already been mutilated And we still have an hour and ten minutes, so let's see where else. 

0:15:51 - Speaker 7

But, it's not what. 

0:15:52 - Speaker 4

Yeah, you're right, it's not one of those heroic things, where you know like there's a perfect asymmetrical bruise on his face and he can then fight through it. 

0:15:57 - Speaker 5

Right, exactly. If you can't even follow up a simple lead at a reservoir where no one should be there, you are a shitty detective and you need to quit your job, which is even worse, and this is why a sequel to Chinatown, the Two Jakes is such a terrible movie, because you wonder how the hell he survived this long. 

0:16:18 - Speaker 7

He was planning to be a trilogy originally too. 

0:16:20 - Speaker 4

Yeah, I would have liked to see where that went, because you know, like, maybe he's the first plastic surgeon in the 50s And he's terrible at it, but at least it's an innovation. 

0:16:30 - Speaker 7

Well, he must have been good at what he was doing, which was catching guys cheating on their lives. 

0:16:35 - Speaker 4

Yeah right, So he's like a backup. He found his niche and he was in his comfort zone and this rocked him right out of it. 

0:16:41 - Speaker 8

I love those TMC, so he was good at it. He was the watch on the W. You know what he puts? the watch on the W Yeah, i love that. I don't know. 

0:16:47 - Speaker 1

It's been stolen so many times. I know, I know. 

0:16:50 - Speaker 8

Can't do it anymore really. but No digital watches wouldn't do it. 

0:16:52 - Speaker 3

Well, feel pretty good about this film. 

0:16:54 - Speaker 4

Oh yeah, it's great, i don't get tired of it. I mean, this is a fantastic year. 

0:16:59 - Speaker 6

Yeah. 

0:17:00 - Speaker 4

We really need to say that there's like we could go half an hour on each film. 

0:17:04 - Speaker 5

And I even made a list of like 15 films that could have been nominated for this year. 

0:17:09 - Speaker 3

Let's switch gears. Really briefly, sorry, phil, we'll come back to your point, but I'll listen to your point. I want to jump into Towering Inferno. 

0:17:17 - Speaker 5

Yeah, just jump right into Inferno, Yeah get in there, man. 

0:17:20 - Speaker 4

That's good, you can fall right through and then we're done. 

0:17:22 - Speaker 5

I have the funniest Towering Inferno story Growing up I was. it was on AMC and I was home on a weekend night and my dad just kind of saw that was on. He got really excited. I was like why are you so excited to watch Towering Inferno? He's like son, you're going to watch this movie with me. You're going to see one of the stupidest films you've ever seen. 

And I was like dad, why would you want to do it? He's like trust me, this is a good kind of stupid. And man, that movie did not let me down in the good kind of stupid department, do I think it should have been nominated for Best Picture? Hell, no, never, never in a trillion years. But I can see the appeal of it. 

0:18:03 - Speaker 6

Well, it's kind of an embarrassing like last grasp of the old studio system. is everyone who's voting for it clearly voting? Well they took two studios to mash it together For sure, yeah, they're like, this is what we can do More stars in the sky. 

0:18:15 - Speaker 3

Deeper love than you ever felt. 

0:18:17 - Speaker 6

Bigger thrills than a lifetime. Introduce them and then kill them. Exactly, yeah, and it's sort of interesting the way it pairs up everything else which feels like, even now so contemporary and interesting and challenging that this is just like so. 

0:18:29 - Speaker 3

Square. 

0:18:30 - Speaker 5

How many Doors I've seen it a few times. 

0:18:40 - Speaker 7

Yeah, my little disaster phone collection. 

0:18:43 - Speaker 5

There were a few that year Every month for the final three months of the year was earthquake airport 1975, and then this yeah, this was the big holiday. 

0:18:58 - Speaker 7

Or something like that Hijacking of a boat or something. 

0:19:01 - Speaker 4

Oh juggernauts, oh juggernauts. 

0:19:02 - Speaker 5

Yeah, that one's actually good Juggernauts, a good movie. Yeah, Anthony Hopkins action role Yeah, and I guess if you want to include the taking of Pellan 1, 2, 3, you could you could also throw that in, because they're all kind of like. Pellan 1, 2, 3 is the good disaster film. 

0:19:17 - Speaker 6

That's what you're going by. That Sure. Any movie that puts Walter Mather and Jerry Stiller and a buddy team Is right on my side and like juggernaut isn't a disaster movie per se. 

0:19:26 - Speaker 5

It's more of a heist movie. pictures, yeah, but uh, it's, it's really good. 

0:19:30 - Speaker 7

Like I would. 

0:19:31 - Speaker 5

I would put that up there, if we were, if we were counting that, but I mean it's one of those towering inferno. Is it best like the fourth or fifth best disaster film? Yeah, but it was the biggest. It was the biggest one. It's the one that got Paul Paul Luminosity McQueen, and so it and only one of them is any good And it had to be taken seriously as a result, which is this really fascinating anomaly? 

0:19:51 - Speaker 4

It's like you know what if you made I'm trying to think of a terrible like a Relevant example, like a Roland Emmerich movie that got Bogart. At that point in his career like something that bad with someone that respected. 

0:20:03 - Speaker 6

Yeah, like if Daniel Day Lewis was in the day after tomorrow. Yes, yes, which I would be there in a second, there in a second. 

0:20:10 - Speaker 4

These people are running from frost. They're running from frost. That's more Liam Neeson I have a child. 

0:20:18 - Speaker 3

I abandoned my boy in the new york public library of their walls. 

0:20:23 - Speaker 4

I would watch that and we also there we go, we get the connection to john houston in chinatown. 

0:20:26 - Speaker 5

Yes. 

0:20:28 - Speaker 4

Because that character Yeah it was an impression. Daniel Plain is the bastard love child of mr Burns from the simpsons And john used to be a chanel. 

0:20:38 - Speaker 3

So the bad guy in this movie is Boyle. 

0:20:40 - Speaker 4

Riggs. And the bastards that would darebell the skyscraper and the adulterers who were then immediately punished, and the spring System that was not working on the 81st floor and that's the event that was blocking the. 

0:20:53 - Speaker 5

You know, there's so many villains well and oj simpsons. 

0:20:56 - Speaker 4

It's a long movie. 

0:20:57 - Speaker 3

This is a long movie. 

0:20:59 - Speaker 4

Yeah but eventually that's all. 

0:21:04 - Speaker 6

He set the fire to make himself look like a hero. He saved the cat. No one will suspect me now. 

0:21:08 - Speaker 5

Richard Chamberlain with the Billy zane Oh, richard Chamberlain was phenomenal. 

0:21:14 - Speaker 3

When he, when he pulls everyone off, that that really feeble looking attempt at, uh, an escape. 

0:21:19 - Speaker 6

Yeah, there's some like amazing practical effects for people are actually on fire. I'm just doing the reason to do the movie and some of the worst effects I've ever seen at my age is super bad. 

0:21:27 - Speaker 7

There was one bit. 

0:21:28 - Speaker 6

I had to play a couple times where it was like a model of the building and someone jumped off And it was clearly like maybe a two inch paper. 

0:21:37 - Speaker 7

Oh man so pathetic. 

0:21:40 - Speaker 6

That's the money. We need, that one. 

0:21:42 - Speaker 4

Which is the one scene where, oh, it's gonna be okay. No, it's one of those things 60 yard dash or whatever 

0:21:51 - Speaker 3

he says But he's not even close he hit a table and caught on fire immediately. 

0:22:01 - Speaker 4

That was, uh, sterling sylphan script, right. So that's that's, and I mean, that scene is almost a lot. 

0:22:06 - Speaker 5

That scene's almost a direct call back to trying to be the Poseidon adventure, which was you know another big. Big disaster movie at the time this was made, that was the fourth highest grossing film of all time. 

0:22:17 - Speaker 6

And Terry was the second highest of that year. Yeah, yeah, the second highest but. I love what beat it. I know I had no idea it was blazing saddles. 

0:22:24 - Speaker 5

Yeah, blazing saddles and and the thing that I think is kind of funny is if you watch any old epk stuff from uh, from towering inferno, they're all making it with the, they're very upfront, but they want to make the highest grossing picture of the year and they they came out in December with a lot of fanfare. They were beaten by a movie that came out in february. That was a comedy, a mill Brooksville, which I find uh, i guess you could say in that case towering inferno was a bit of a disappointment. 

But, it's sort of great They're in a number of ways. 

0:22:55 - Speaker 4

Yeah, we've made this movie. It's gonna make all the money in the world. It's three hours long. 

0:23:00 - Speaker 7

It can't do more than three shows a day. 

0:23:02 - Speaker 4

We can't make that much money. Blazing saddles is what? 92. 

0:23:05 - Speaker 7

It looks like a. 

0:23:06 - Speaker 4

It just shoots right past you. You can get five shows in there, and this was at a time when theater space was literally like legitimately limited. Yeah, so All of it, like every element of this film, is just hubris, yeah, just it piles upon itself. 

0:23:19 - Speaker 6

Well, it was the end of something that's trying to recreate A film like what's already dead, because I mean, you know, there were the rojo movies where length was like part of the style. People, it would be an after. That's where you'd go. 

0:23:28 - Speaker 3

What about the new man's? the new man and mcqueen big rivalry there newman. 

0:23:35 - Speaker 5

Getting extra scenes written Queen demanded that he have the same number of lines as paul newman, and the screenwriter got called in on his vacation To write precisely 22 new sentences. So they could have the same number of lines And when I heard that, i was like you should have cut 22 sentences From mcqueen's performance, because the thing about mcqueen is mcqueen doesn't care, mcqueen really does not care. But the thing about newman is man, does he care? 

Yeah but I mean he cares in so much as he wants to. I think he really wants to look like the best thing in a bad Movie. Yeah, that is what his performance really smacks of. It's like man. This movie's gonna suck. I'm gonna act the hell out of this and no one is gonna blame me. 

Yeah, no one can blame me for anything this movie does wrong. Yeah, mcqueen did this. That's the kind of performance that keeps coming back in movies like this, like like kurt russell and posseiden, like in the remake of it, or or like Playing. 

0:24:32 - Speaker 4

Rudy Giuliani, which is a terribly written role. 

0:24:34 - Speaker 2

Yeah, he sells it because it doesn't care. 

0:24:36 - Speaker 8

It's those those kind of roles where it's just like. 

0:24:39 - Speaker 5

i'm just gonna do my best to act through this And no one will ever blame me for this sucking Yeah we're in a sport in everything, yes, show up, do the job. 

0:24:48 - Speaker 4

And and mcqueen, like you could just tell Well, somebody made him do it, it was his agent, it was a divorce, like something Was pushing him to make this kind of money for this kind of role. And he doesn't, like he checked out. I think the script thing is like trying to get more lines or it's just like okay, fuck, you go, go do something else, make another racing movie and we'll get, i don't know. 

0:25:07 - Speaker 5

James garnt like some yeah, like who could also have handled that you could have bumped up anyone from the supporting Yeah or tonight. 

0:25:12 - Speaker 4

Why not? 

0:25:13 - Speaker 8

He was lagging right wasn't mcqueen supposed to be the neumann role, so I don't know if that's actually true. 

0:25:19 - Speaker 5

Like He's like. 

0:25:21 - Speaker 8

I'll take the fireman role But I love I. There's a soft spot for me having like the all star cast of like everybody that just Famed this person, but I hate it and I love astair, like for astair in life But I hated the way they treated him like. every time he'd look in the mirror It's like parking back to like role. 

0:25:39 - Speaker 6

It's so bad. It's so bad so awkwardly dancing. It's so many of any little things or you could show Yeah, the best dancer of like all time is dancing awful. 

0:25:47 - Speaker 5

It's hard to tell who gets the short end of the stick in that movie, whether it's a stare Yeah, it's a stares to pay. 

0:25:57 - Speaker 2

That's just for the throw water out of the water to kind of to pay, yeah, especially for a stare. 

0:26:04 - Speaker 3

Yeah, have some dink with the psa at the end. It almost felt like a psa at the end is as mcqueen, you know, tells all right, only 200 people lost their lives. 

0:26:13 - Speaker 5

I bet you those, the 22 senses that we're at. It's like you want me to pee, fuck your role. You're gonna say the dumbest thing in the movie. 

0:26:26 - Speaker 3

A movie could have been shown at the beginning of any dedication to a tall building after that. 

0:26:31 - Speaker 8

What was going? 

0:26:32 - Speaker 3

on where they built? is that when they were starting to really build. 

0:26:34 - Speaker 8

Oh, the world had just been built, okay. And so it was originally set there, or one of the books that set the tower. 

0:26:41 - Speaker 7

It's based on two books. Yeah, there's the tower and the glass inferno. 

0:26:46 - Speaker 5

Two studios were involved in this. 

0:26:49 - Speaker 3

And there was a director specifically for all the action stuff as well as erwin allan. 

0:26:52 - Speaker 5

Yeah, erwin allan specifically did all the uh action directing. 

0:26:57 - Speaker 4

The other director got the worst job. 

0:27:01 - Speaker 3

The best was watching all the hodya scenes stuff for this. 

0:27:04 - Speaker 5

And the guy who directs the uh, the dramatic scenes can't even really say anything. He's just there with a pipe, like let's do it again. That's all he ever does. He never even comments on his work. He's like, hmm, that was good. 

0:27:16 - Speaker 8

He done away. Look, dausman, this She did. I hate the way she looks in chanatown with the fuzz olden eyebrows? She's not like sexy to me. 

0:27:23 - Speaker 5

But in this one she does nothing. Her dress gives the best performance, Yeah. 

0:27:27 - Speaker 8

I like her entrance too, like she's sitting in the chair. Yeah, that's a really good entrance, but yeah, i watched them in that order. 

0:27:34 - Speaker 3

I watched chanatown, then I watched this one And it was like fate done away, some both, but like really she's it could be the year of the bodies, because no brooks had two movies. 

0:27:43 - Speaker 5

Three of the best picture nominees were from paramount. 

0:27:47 - Speaker 3

Let's move to. Let's move to another nominee, then let's go to Lenny. What do you guys think? I like it a lot. 

0:27:52 - Speaker 5

I love Lenny. It's for him, never seen him before and boy, i think it's okay Love it, it's good. 

0:27:58 - Speaker 8

It's a bad year, though. 74 like my heart is already in another movie like so I can't even look at any nominees right now, but Lenny Right, all right right. 

0:28:07 - Speaker 7

Here's what I'll say about Lenny. 

0:28:09 - Speaker 8

I love Hoffman. Hoffman's awesome And I like until this movie I hadn't seen his range really. I mean, i seen straight time, which is kind of like a badass Dustin Hoffman but the uh, but I don't know. I never thought him to be this sort of edgy. Edgy's not a word that comes to me when I think of Dustin Hoffman. But I've worked. You know, i liked it. I like the girl. I don't know who the girl was. 

Yeah, honey, yeah, but I love Bob Fosse movies, like all that jazz and just feel like the same. 

0:28:40 - Speaker 3

Bob Fosse loved to photograph. Honey. It felt oh yeah, every shot. Oh, she looked amazing in that, yeah, but it He just really was doing her a lot of favors and she did great too. There's the scene where she's being interviewed, you know in the inside, and then at the end of it I forget what she says, but she bites the chip, oh yeah. She's talking about something really serious and then just bites this chip and it's, it just pulls you. 

0:29:03 - Speaker 8

I thought that was great, actually, yeah. 

0:29:06 - Speaker 6

It's kind of weird parallel to cabaret as well, where it's sort of like Are parallel to life and using it, using it as a form of escape and and sort of issue shoots a lot of the stand-up, almost like musical sequences in a really interesting way. I like it as well too, just because Lenny Bruce is obviously an incredibly interesting figure in the history of San Antonio County, but he's not hugely funny anymore. This stuff is very dated, so the way that it Contrasts his material with his life and with the times kind of puts it in enough context So you can at least appreciate what's going on, even if you're not necessarily gonna be laughing hysterically. 

0:29:38 - Speaker 7

Yeah, because I mean he was basically killed by the system. Yeah, totally He was you know doing stuff that we take completely for granted. Yeah, and he was, like you know, being treated like You know Martin Luther King or something. 

0:29:49 - Speaker 5

Yeah, i forget who said it, but someone had a really good quote. I think it was like Time magazine. They said that his cause of death was too many cops. Yeah, Yeah, that's a pretty Pretty appropriate description of how he, how he lived and died. 

0:30:03 - Speaker 4

Yeah, but it's also the thing that I really like about the way Fosse goes into it and he does it with capere too Is he does. Let you see that this is not. He might be a martyr, but he kind of does it to himself His own, like the way the act just turns into him reading his core transcripts, which is actually what happened? 

Yeah, You know some movies would now, especially where you have this vogue of capturing 10 years in a subject's life so you can go out on high. We just go right down there with him And we watch the drug abuse get worse, we watch the persecution get worse, we watch the paranoia get worse And the sense that on some level, through Hoppins' performance, he's getting off on it Like this is he knows he's going to be a martyr, although again it's like you know, there are other ways to leave your mark. You don't have to die, but that's his trajectory And he embraces it. And the movie lets us see that that's not necessarily the best thing to do. So it doesn't linize him, it doesn't think, oh, look at this incredible man who died for nothing or something. Or you get to decide, no, he's wasting his life. We get to see that He's doing valid work, but the cost is preposterous. 

0:31:02 - Speaker 6

Yeah, It's yeah, the complete opposite of what we think of as a biopic being and what you'd want it to be ideally, but it's so rarely, is Yeah? And I. 

0:31:10 - Speaker 5

That's kind of leads into why I think the movie's just okay What you got. 

I think it is kind of the standard biopic in a lot of ways, and the reason is not so much like the content of the movie or how it's being made or nothing against Hoffman or even Fosse, who I think is doing an interesting change of pace here that I think shows him outside of his comfort zone and kind of shows why he's such a great director. 

I think the problem with Lenny is just timing. I think this is a film that if I had seen it then Lenny Bruce would be so fresh in my mind from before that that I would look at this and be like I'm definitely afraid this movie is not telling me anything I don't already know. We talk about how it just it does a good job of recreating the act and it shows it that cuts in with his personal life, but I never really get a sense that I'm not getting anything that I couldn't have looked up in an encyclopedia or a news article or anything like that, and I think, oddly enough, it's a movie that's almost too timely in comparison to the rest of them. I'm not saying it's the worst of these picks, yeah, and I think there were much better movies that year that could have taken this lot, but it's just too of the moment, i think, and too rigidly controlled to try to stick to the story. It's almost too faithful. 

0:32:33 - Speaker 6

I don't know, I find it such a cynical portrayal of him Because I think at that point he was kind of lionized and the movie kind of put it in perspective in a way that as. Norma's saying I think is appropriate sort of saying yeah, he did all this, but at what cost? And who is this guy? Kind of a shithead, as far as I can tell. 

0:32:49 - Speaker 4

I mean biopics at the time were stuff like Funny Girl. 

0:32:51 - Speaker 5

Yeah, no, that's true. 

0:32:52 - Speaker 4

That is true. You were hostrously sanitizing and glorifying and glamorizing everything I think for 1974, as a biopic goes. what Fosse does within the strictures of what biopics were, i think is really interesting. 

0:33:05 - Speaker 1

I mean, yes, it isn't anything more than it doesn't break the genre of it. 

0:33:09 - Speaker 4

But it works for what it is Right, And I mean that's really just me putting it in comparison to everything else. 

0:33:15 - Speaker 8

Right Yeah. 

0:33:16 - Speaker 7

Like I mean it's a good movie in a good year. 

0:33:19 - Speaker 5

I'd seen it twice. I watched it again for this, but I saw it originally maybe about five or six years ago for the first time And even then I was just kind of like, yeah, that's OK, that's another biopic, it's very well done. I can't really take anything away from it. I just didn't really. I don't really feel like it went the extra mile. 

0:33:36 - Speaker 3

I'm always curious about the latency effect, right, like what people bring when they watch it fresh versus what they're bringing when they've watched it 20 years ago or 10 years ago or they're rewatching it or whatever. I think that stuff is really interesting. And if you think about Lenny Bruce, that's where I'll agree with you. I think we knew most of what was in it. I did think he was presented as a horrible person, specifically that scene where he's just berating, where he's berating Honey after the threesome, oh yeah. 

But in a way I think That's such a terrifying scene And coming right after the threesome scene where when Fosse's shooting it there's no sound how disturbing that scene was And just him staring. 

0:34:23 - Speaker 6

Yeah, there's a lot of staring. 

0:34:24 - Speaker 3

I thought there was something wrong with my sound on my TV. I actually got up and I, you know, lost with it for a moment and then realized like whoa, wait a minute, this is supposed to be having this profound effect on me, and it really did. It was just all you could do was stare at these images that were, you know, erotic and awesome. And deeply wrong. 

0:34:43 - Speaker 4

Yes, exactly, and Bob. 

0:34:45 - Speaker 5

Fosse's the master of that. 

0:34:47 - Speaker 8

Yeah yeah, I'm deeply wrong. 

0:34:48 - Speaker 5

I'm creepy, deeply wrong, creepy erotica I am enjoying this for the road, dear God and the person I'm up 

0:34:55 - Speaker 7

with. 

0:34:55 - Speaker 4

But yeah, like you have to, you're like he makes oh man, the idea of like 500 people in a room suddenly questioning themselves watching that movie just kind of starting to shift Because I've seen all that jazz in a theater and the erotica sequence freaks people out. 

And it's because on some level, it's incredibly dated and cheesy, and it really is, and it's a really clumsy way of a filmmaker trying to show you how cutting edgey is He. Just, he like had culture progressed along that line, he would have looked like a visionary, but instead it's like oh yeah, that's cats in five years. 

0:35:26 - Speaker 6

That's what that is That's that thing. 

0:35:29 - Speaker 4

But watching it with an audience now it's just like you can feel people kind of try to lean into it, either for the sexy part or for the cultural relevance part, And it's like figure out where this is going. And when it happens in Lenny it's like being throttled. That's how I feel, Like just doing crap. 

0:35:44 - Speaker 5

Yeah, There's one thing about Lenny that I want I have to give it credit for, and I think is the biggest compliment that I could pay towards it. I think this is how Lenny Bruce would have wanted his life to have shown up on films. 

I mean honestly, even though he looks like a complete shit, we've proven throughout his career that he's not afraid of looking like a shit on stage or exactly like he wanted to become a martyr, and this is the kind of film that'd be like yep, this is you. And I think of Lenny Bruce. it seemed to be like yep, that's me. I think he would have wanted the film to be called cock sucker, though Yeah, the poster is his finger sticking out of his zipper, which is a love in his mom's. 

0:36:21 - Speaker 6

Yeah, yeah. Well, and Fosse and him were friends And I think that was deliberately. What he was trying to make was sort of this is sort of, and I think in a weird way it's probably more fondly remembered than Lenny Bruce's material. 

0:36:33 - Speaker 4

Yeah. 

0:36:33 - Speaker 1

I think you told him right. 

0:36:34 - Speaker 4

Yeah, yeah, because it doesn't give you all the material that didn't last Even in 74, some of his stuff was dating And Fosse left out the stuff that was most you know clunky. 

0:36:46 - Speaker 5

Fosse was more memorable Lenny Bruce than Lenny Bruce. 

0:36:50 - Speaker 3

Yeah, it's an interesting image. Well, it's funny. I went to performance school, i went to the Humber School of Comedy and you know, you go through a period where everybody is talking about their favorite comedians, and comedians that matter, and people would throw his name out in a conversation just to throw his name out, but nobody had ever listened to a record. And if they had listened to a record and you could get them one-on-one over drinks, they would say yeah, yeah, yeah, but the movie was great. 

0:37:18 - Speaker 4

That's the problem, yeah. 

0:37:19 - Speaker 6

It's Carlin and Pryor together. 

0:37:20 - Speaker 4

Pryor They come out to meet. 

0:37:21 - Speaker 6

they're inspired by him, They come out immediately after and they bring a different scope to everything he did. 

0:37:26 - Speaker 3

And they were just starting to really In 74. 

0:37:29 - Speaker 6

For sure, Yeah absolutely, Yeah, yeah, yeah. In fact I don't know, I've never read anything, but I wouldn't be surprised if maybe this movie helped in some way, Sort of probably got a way into the like the Bruce legacy, but they were already fairly big. 

0:37:40 - Speaker 4

They know about albums going to them, that's true. 

0:37:43 - Speaker 5

They existed without Lenny Bruce, absolutely No, no, no, lenny Bruce sort of kicked the door open. 

0:37:47 - Speaker 6

Because you can see their work before him. 

0:37:49 - Speaker 5

Yeah, and it's embarrassing Yeah. And a lot of ways, lenny Bruce was more performance art than he was stand-up. For sure, yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. 

0:37:56 - Speaker 3

Reading all the transcripts Not many people bought a Velvete underground record, but everybody who did started it. Yeah Yeah, it's almost like Lenny Bruce would call it. 

0:38:03 - Speaker 1

People respect the performance of Lenny Bruce more than they do his actual sets. Yeah, yeah. 

0:38:08 - Speaker 6

They appreciate the craft more than they appreciate what he was actually saying And he represents something that he always will And that sort of more his legacy than anything else, i want to jump off of craft, and the next two films that we have to talk about are both Francis Ford couple films. 

0:38:21 - Speaker 3

Yeah, so talking about craft, we'll start with the conversation Again. Never saw it prior to this. 

0:38:29 - Speaker 8

Wow, that's so serious. 

0:38:31 - Speaker 7

I want to provide context here. No, no. 

0:38:33 - Speaker 3

The main reason I'm doing this show is I do a lot of training And when we do training we always throw it a random fact, and one of the things that somebody brought up at a training that I was doing was they had seen every movie that had ever been nominated for Best Picture And I was like, holy shit, i have so not seen it. It's been nominated for Best Picture And I wanted to get in on that And I thought what better way to do that than invite people over with microphones and talk about them So I can get the context? So, rather than reading a textbook, i get to listen to people talk about these great films. This was a great film, yeah, holy shit. 

0:39:12 - Speaker 7

I don't know if you've been meaning to watch, but this has been on my list for ages, and thanks for doing the show because it pushed me to finally watch it. Same with Lenny, it had been on my list for ages and I'd never seen it, and so those are the only two films I hadn't seen. The other ones I'd seen many, many times. 

0:39:26 - Speaker 2

So what did? 

0:39:26 - Speaker 7

you think I really enjoyed it. It's a little coppola-esque because I find him a little bit clumsy with his filmmaking sometimes, But I thoroughly enjoyed it And it is a product of its time but it is still timely at the same time. But I think I also enjoyed the technology shots that are supposed to be like oh, look at this piece of machinery. It's like 40 years old and it's like you know it's amazing. I thoroughly enjoyed it because I love conspiracy, paranoia, thriller type things. So Hackman is, and he's great, he's amazing He's spectacular And his character is very interesting. 

0:40:03 - Speaker 6

Aside from Tarrar I'm faring out all the movies kind of. His characters are emblematic of that kind of 70s hero who's not hero in A-Straight. 

0:40:10 - Speaker 7

Yeah. 

0:40:11 - Speaker 6

I could. All four of these movies are about very unheroic kind of terrible people. Yeah. 

0:40:17 - Speaker 7

Who's fucked up in the past? 

0:40:18 - Speaker 6

Yeah, Yeah, he's screwed up and we're just going to watch him screw up again, bigger than it, better than ever before, and there's something, yeah, kind of fascinating about that, in a way that not only could that come out, then they could be successful and they could be up in this situation, it's a situation for Oscars. I mean, what to say? And yeah, and I think Gene Hackman's character in the conversation is one of the more fascinating examples of that, because he's just such a closed book. Like in a movie, your protagonist should be someone you're connecting to and wanting to follow And at every stage of the game. 

It's like going out of its way to make you never quite understand who this guy is, to doubt him, not like him. I find it incredibly fascinating. 

0:40:55 - Speaker 5

It works really well. Yeah, that's why I love the film so much And I think it's probably. I never really gave much thought into how it fits into the conspiracy thriller, surveillance thriller, canon, but it's definitely near the top. 

0:41:09 - Speaker 3

Absolutely. 

0:41:10 - Speaker 5

Without question, and I think a lot of that is credit to how Coppola and Hackman are working together in tandem. One of the things I love about this movie is that it is a thriller, but it's also very heartbreaking to watch because Hackman's character is someone that has spent his entire life being really cold, really distant, has to stay on the outside of everything, not getting involved, not caring, and this is about the movie. It's a pretty classical story about the guy who does that but eventually has to learn to grow a conscience, and I find this to be one of the more fascinating examples of one of those films where a shithead eventually starts to have to learn how to give a shit, and I think a lot of that is credit to Hackman. I'm not taking anything away from the story or from Coppola. I mean I guess you could say it's a B-grade Coppola film in a lot of ways, but I mean Well, i mean in the 70s. 

0:42:06 - Speaker 6

Yeah, exactly, i mean, it's sort of like the anomaly of his filmmaking career Of the four masterpieces. 

0:42:14 - Speaker 4

This is the least masterpiece, right, yeah, yeah, yeah, still a masterpiece, Exactly. 

0:42:18 - Speaker 5

But I mean, it's a masterpiece of a genre film which I find to be fascinating And I love that it's here. I think it won the poem that year. 

0:42:28 - Speaker 8

I'm glad it exists. 

0:42:29 - Speaker 5

Yeah. 

0:42:30 - Speaker 7

Did the screenplay win too? 

0:42:32 - Speaker 3

It was just on the wall Editing, not an Oscar. 

0:42:33 - Speaker 5

Editing It's a merchandise house, yeah. 

0:42:35 - Speaker 4

It deserved me. 

0:42:36 - Speaker 8

You know, I love that this movie exists because it's the same year as this mega blockbuster. right after another mega blockbuster, He's like I'll do this other movie for you, if I can do what I want, which is like the dream right. 

And it's like his traffic to the air in Brockovich And I can't distinguish it from the filmmaking right. So, like when we talk about the story and that's what I first saw, the reason I go back is the fact that it exists. They ran out of money, They changed the ending and the editing That the technology is such a prominent character in the movie. But also the zoom lens wasn't used that way originally until in the 70s, You know, like the beginning, where it sort of zooms in on the first time. 

0:43:15 - Speaker 7

Oh, those are such on The Indian Square. 

0:43:17 - Speaker 8

Yeah, and his raincoat. 

0:43:19 - Speaker 7

that's like this whole thing about like you can see, it's one of those ones that you carry little plastic bags like the world's cheapest raincoat. 

0:43:24 - Speaker 8

Everything about this movie is so fetishistic about this movie, but the fact that it exists is really the reason that I dig it, man. Oh, I love it. 

0:43:31 - Speaker 4

It's just such a beautiful, methodical, careful film about making mistakes About missing the obvious thing And just the idea that you would make a movie where the entire film is predicated. spoiler alert, i suppose, on someone not quite listening right. 

0:43:48 - Speaker 1

Like he hears it, He doesn't get it. 

0:43:50 - Speaker 4

And that's just the idea that, of course, this is why he had to make Godfather 2. Paramount was like no you want money for the movie? 

0:43:57 - Speaker 6

No, how do? 

0:43:58 - Speaker 4

you pitch it, You have to see it. You have to make that movie to get people to understand what you're trying to say And then what the larger statement is about. And also this is, of course, the heart of Watergate is happening all around them, Like the other big conspiracy movie that year was The Parallax View. So you've got that, this Chinatown. All films about noblish investigators just completely getting something wrong or being misled by powerful interests I mean, that's America at that moment And to see a film that isn't about any of that and is all about that at the same time. 

So 40 years later, it still holds up as a completely character-driven piece of movie making rather than self-reflexive political commentary. And the scene's in, I think about something like Good Night and Good Luck, where you can watch it and think, oh, that's cloney responding to the Iraq war and the way the Bush administration pressured journalists, or it's a biopic about Edward R Murrow making a really brave stand. They work either way And you could watch one without the knowledge of the other, Although if you watch it without knowledge of Murrow, you'll just see a new story. For me, The conversation is really not about Watergate in as much as anything. It's about anxiety about surveillance. And that's utterly relevant to the point where Gene Hackman turns up an enemy of the state and they use his ID photo from the conversation, And they're just like ah, Harry's still out there, Of course he is. 

And you know like, come on, Tony Scott, make your own character. 

0:45:20 - Speaker 1

Make your own movie. 

0:45:22 - Speaker 4

But there's this moment of like oh, that's adorable. And then you realize it makes absolutely no sense within the movie And it's just a stupid concept. But how dare you? 

0:45:29 - Speaker 7

Well, the fact that I have that love for the conversation right. 

0:45:32 - Speaker 4

You want it to work. 

0:45:34 - Speaker 3

I don't even know why I love it, but this is my favorite of the five films that I watched That I watched for those. 

0:45:38 - Speaker 8

So it's interesting that it holds up. I was wondering how it would be approached by somebody who hasn't seen it before, Because I'm trying to think of it from your perspective. I'm like god, it's not pretty looking. It's the technologies clunky in the towering. And for now you're like the headphones and all that, but like I can't, Rotary phones Yeah, rotary phones are the villain. 

0:45:56 - Speaker 4

Yeah, i think it's funny. 

0:45:57 - Speaker 5

I think you can watch the conversation right now, and I think, of all the movies on this list, this is the one movie that friends of mine, who are casual movie fans, always find a way to come around to. It seems like every year there are more people that know about this movie and see it And they're like, wow, what did you think of that? I really loved it And I think that really stands to how timeless this movie can be. I mean, this could be a movie that was made today, for sure, with the same technology, and make it a period piece, and it would be just as good if you knew it. 

0:46:26 - Speaker 1

Yeah, it's called The Lives of Others. Yeah, exactly. 

0:46:29 - Speaker 5

But it's not as good of a movie? Definitely not. But the other thing that I really love about the conversation is oh god, i forgot what I was going to say. No, it's a. 

0:46:43 - Speaker 8

Did you think of it like blow up? Did you think No, no, no, no, no, no. 

0:46:46 - Speaker 5

Well, I mean, there is something interesting to be said about how this film can sort of go one better than all of the other surveillance films of the era, and I think there's a lot more to unpack with the conversation on a subtextual level, like Norm was saying, and there's a lot that you can sort of draw on from history. 

0:47:05 - Speaker 8

Is it like blow out? a lot I haven't seen blow out. Blow out is like the conversation. Yeah, it kind of is. It's the diploma going. 

0:47:11 - Speaker 4

Oh yeah, i can do that. 

0:47:12 - Speaker 7

Yeah, no, that's exactly what that movie. The blow up movie Which was done in 68?, 66. 66. Was it like that? 

0:47:18 - Speaker 4

Yeah, It's one of those things where yeah, i mean with De Palma it's always a remake of something, it's always riffing on something, but the conversation stands apart in a way that. 

0:47:26 - Speaker 7

I don't think blow out goes. 

0:47:28 - Speaker 4

Yeah, i just. I have this game that I play these days because there's this Canadian horror film that I think I could make a brilliant case for. I don't think I could do it myself, but I think a Mumblecore remake of Scanners would be the best thing, because the movie is so limited and so minimal that the only way to do justice to it is by keeping it small. If you're going to re like, i don't think it should be remade, but if you're going to do one, that's the one that that genre would fit. So you've been sort of getting consumed with well, what else could work like that? And the conversation absolutely does, because it's something you have to strip down to emotions and motivation And that's how that genre works. And the conversation is already there. Like there's nothing in this movie that is hard to conceive of or impossible to imagine, and the idea that maybe your phone can ring and then you pick it up and it becomes a live microphone. That's not hard to swallow. 

0:48:15 - Speaker 7

No, at least they still talk. You do it yourself on GPS. I don't think they do that. They do it myself on GPS. 

0:48:19 - Speaker 4

Hyperparanoia is your laptop. 

0:48:20 - Speaker 5

We're being recorded right now. Yeah, why. 

0:48:23 - Speaker 4

What, What? Yeah Well, the question is how many of our devices are recording us? Right, right, right. But you could do it and not really change very much And it could still have the same. I would hope it had the same emotional impact if you get the right actors. 

0:48:36 - Speaker 7

I think about Giovanni. 

0:48:37 - Speaker 4

Robisi in a plastic coat. He could do this Like there's no reason this movie could not happen now And for a minimal budget. I mean, obviously the gimmick doesn't work if you're doing tearing in front of you or something, but the idea of the themes and the story playing out at a micro budget always says to me that yeah, there's something here that is bigger than the movie you're watching And it's what you engage with while you watch it. This is absolutely a movie. 

0:49:04 - Speaker 3

I would show people if they said you know you missed the context, You missed it. If you didn't see it at the time of I would slot this movie down and say, watch it right now because I think you're right. The themes are there, The tone is, you would get the same feeling that you got in a movie theater in 1974. Pretty close to it. Oh, thank you, I remember what I was going to say. 

0:49:28 - Speaker 1

That sorry. Those were really good at home. 

0:49:30 - Speaker 5

Before I forget it again, No, I was going to say that this is a good companion piece to something like Chinatown in terms of what takes place that year, because Chinatown, as we were discussing, is a film about someone who's bad at their job screwing up. The conversation is about someone who's really good at their job screwing up. 

0:49:46 - Speaker 7

But who had screwed up in the past too. Yeah, exactly. 

0:49:49 - Speaker 5

But I mean, I find that to be an interesting sort of thing to pair those two movies up against one another. And there's such different movies too. The conversation is a lot. It's weird Tonally, chinatown might be a little bit darker and more disturbing than the conversation is. 

0:50:06 - Speaker 4

Yeah, because it's personal Yeah. 

0:50:08 - Speaker 5

But the conversation is the grittier movie. 

0:50:11 - Speaker 7

Yeah, i think the plot points hit almost at the exact same time. You'd be right up to the lovemaking scene. Yeah, it's kind of true. 

0:50:16 - Speaker 5

It'd be interesting to pair the two up if you watched them immediately, one after the other, yeah, But they're both reactions to the same thing, so that's what interests me. 

0:50:27 - Speaker 4

This is what people were obsessing about enough to get a movie made different coasts, the stuff from the moment he checked into the hotel, though is so nightmarish Ripping to me, yeah. 

0:50:37 - Speaker 8

Like I couldn't Oh the toilet. 

0:50:38 - Speaker 7

Is that the toilet? Yeah, yeah, the whole you know sequence. 

0:50:41 - Speaker 3

I thought it was a dream sequence. Oh man, when the toilet starts backing up. Yeah, it's a dream like this. 

0:50:45 - Speaker 4

It's wrapped up in that. That's so good. That's David Lynch right there. Yeah, he's inventing Lynch, for sure. 

0:50:49 - Speaker 6

Yeah, well, it's one of the great sound design with this ball top which has clearly made massive influence on Lynch. And yeah, and I think that is like inseparable from it. It doesn't have much of a soundtrack on it. It's not the same movie. Sure, because so much of it is in contrast to what you see. So much of it is changing things afterwards. Yeah, and I think it's a great movie that you could watch five times and get five completely different things out of it, yeah, and it's. 

0:51:11 - Speaker 4

It's a hold on him to release a movie with that kind of sound design in 1974 when there was no sound design. Right, like when you've got a mono speaker and it probably shorts out 20 minutes into it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. 

0:51:18 - Speaker 1

When did it come out in? In? 

0:51:19 - Speaker 3

comparison with the next one we'll talk about, like what was the Conversation? was first He? Oh yeah, it was first Yeah. 

0:51:27 - Speaker 6

And it was like at that time finishing Godfather 2. Right, yeah, because he basically left the entire post-production to Walter Merge. Yeah, so he could do Godfather 2. And Walter Merge is like the second author of that movie. 

0:51:38 - Speaker 3

He's like my hero, yeah. So let's dive into Godfather 2, and I'll preface this by saying there's been a lot said, written, discussed about Godfather 2. I don't know how much more we'll bring. So, I don't know what else we need to say about this really, really, really great film. Yeah, I do welcome you to say some things of course, or that would be pointless. 

0:52:00 - Speaker 7

I have something. I don't know if this has been, but I think watching it again and I'll preface this by saying that I think the first time I saw the Godfather films was as the TV version, the Godfather saga, where they edited together chronologically, which was amazing to watch. So when I watch them now, i still have to like, isn't that in the other one? 

I'm like I'm getting myself all muddled up. So watching this one I realize, why not cut it into two different films? Do the Vito Cardio in Persian and then make that Godfather 2 and then Godfather 3 be the 1959 stuff and fuck Godfather 3. 

0:52:41 - Speaker 3

Is that? 

0:52:41 - Speaker 7

Yeah, it just changed the ending so that his kid dies instead of Godfather 3. So then you get the full circle thing right. It's all Your family's always going to get fucked. 

0:52:48 - Speaker 4

Yeah, but you need the contrast, you need them to play off each other. Yeah, and then you go compromise himself as Michael compromises himself, because otherwise you would spend 90 minutes with Vito. And then it's just like oh well, did you never talk to? 

0:53:00 - Speaker 7

your dad Did you not realize. 

0:53:03 - Speaker 4

And then, because the great revelation here is no, you never did Like, he didn't have that for now, but he doesn't know about the family And they're both the same age, right, yeah, yeah, yeah, so they're the same age doing the same things, but one's obviously better than the other one And it's a different trajectory. 

0:53:16 - Speaker 8

One's going up in their shining star of gangsterism and the other one's going down. And I can't. I'm going to wait until youare you done? 

0:53:23 - Speaker 7

No, I'm done. Yeah, I just played the phone. 

0:53:25 - Speaker 8

I'm going to start by saying this is the bestthis is my favorite movie of all time, so this is like difficult for me to you know tone it down. I hated it when I first watched it Really. Yeah, i was like this is fucking confusing. I was like in great time, Okay, I was like this is confusing And I had. I watched it Godfather's backwards, Like I saw the three first, which is why I don't hate it. 

0:53:42 - Speaker 7

I'm like this is kind of cool, this is great this movie. 

0:53:44 - Speaker 8

And look, who's that young guy, is that supposed to be El Pacino, you know, in the flashbacks. And the third one, anyway. So I saw the first one and I was like awesome, whatever. And the second one was confusing, whatever. And I kept coming back to it and, oh my God, now it's justand, now that I have a son, this whole family thing of like, what's he going to be like when he's my age and, you know, living in thisand the cast is just killer Fredo Like. Is he the best actor that died too soon? Yeah, absolutely I was. I found the plot confusing because Iwhat did I have in Roth do, like who shot the window? You know, but what, you watch it over and over and it's just, you know, it's beautiful, the music works, the acting works, the plot works. Did you watch it again for this? 

0:54:23 - Speaker 3

Yeah, it's so good, i loved it. You didn't need an excuse, but you took it anyway and watched it again. 

0:54:29 - Speaker 8

I mean, i didn't watch the whole thing. You know what killer is the last scene? Brando didn't want to come back and so Coppola stuck with this reunion scene and so he keeps Michael in the kitchen or in the dining room while everybody else goes and sings happy birthday to get. It's the best ending there could be because it's so related to Yeah, no, the Thematically it's amazing. 

0:54:49 - Speaker 4

You'll never live up to your father. You've already Exactly. 

0:54:51 - Speaker 1

You can't get him back. 

0:54:52 - Speaker 4

It's incredible And thatI think that's why you need to experience them just opposed together. But Oh Man, yeah, i'm actually nowI'm pissed at myself. There was a press screening of the restored 4K version Thursday morning and I couldn't go because it was three and a half hours long and there was a 

0:55:06 - Speaker 6

day and. 

0:55:07 - Speaker 4

I had stuff against it. I'm mad at myself Yeah no I. 

0:55:12 - Speaker 6

It is the same restoration that's on the Blu-ray, so Yeah, no, i completely agree that I love them separate and I think Godfather 2, one of the reasons why it's the greatest sequel ever is I think it makes the original one better by virtue of the fact it exists, because I think the original one is obviously a masterpiece, but it is kind of pulpy and like a perfectly executed bit of entertainment. What elevates it is how Coppola shoots it and the thematic eye obviously. 

But what I like about the second one is it's like the subtext of the first one becomes the text of the second one And the way that they play out, the way that it's sort of the prequel, sequel aspect, the way they play out each other, it sort of deepens what you know from the first one, takes your memories from all those indelible scenes that are burning your mind forever, plays with them, toys with them. I always. I think one of the most powerful sequences of all movies is after De Niro does the assassination and then he goes and he picks up the boy and they play the theme song and it's just so heartbreaking and devastating and And the stuff with the oranges, like the business. 

0:56:03 - Speaker 4

Totally Right, the business that's seen throughout the film. 

0:56:06 - Speaker 6

The moment where they play the score on the Like. That only works because you've seen the first one, you know the context, you know we're going to go back to Michael in the present day and see what a tragic state that is And I think, yeah, i think, if you put it chronologically, that's still a powerful moment, just because that whole assassination sequence is so sturdier. But I think you need whatever four and a half hours or whatever it takes to get to that moment for it to hit, and I think that's Yeah, i just think it's. 

Yeah, I think The Godfather would always be a classic movie. I think the reason why people always talk about Intert's second being one of the best to remain is because of the second one, yeah, and how it sort of deepens and expands. 

0:56:39 - Speaker 5

Exactly, i think the first film is an excellent film. First film is great. The second film is not only a better excellent film, but it's also an epic. This is such a sprawling movie. Just the ambition that it takes to even conceive of a storyline like this. That's this fractured and going back and forth. And I'll admit I was never really a fan of the chronological cut because I think it kind of. I think it does dampen the impact of what the second film specifically is trying to do, which is trying to lend context to the first film. And I mean it doesn't treat the Like most sequels, it doesn't treat the audience like an idiot that they have to remind them of everything that happened in the first film, because it's The Godfather, you should know what happened in the first film. 

0:57:29 - Speaker 6

And it's written for the contrast. It's like you were saying how you're not having a cue. But I think if you put it chronologically that's a major problem, because that last hour made no sense, but in this it doesn't I get it now. 

0:57:38 - Speaker 1

Yeah, yeah, yeah Oh man. Sorry. 

0:57:42 - Speaker 8

But it almost doesn't matter, because it's all about the themes, right. Exactly, it's about seeing him Well, the first one, he's building up his family, and the second one, kay, had an abortion. His Michael's family's falling apart. 

0:57:53 - Speaker 4

It's just beautiful. Oh, it's all about the grudges, it's about the history, it's about the shit you carry with you, which is why it's universal, which is why everybody who's ever had a family understands what's going on, even if they don't know the first thing about heroin trafficking, destroying the mob in Brooklyn. But it's, oh man, so good It's. I had this joke that I cannot land. I've been trying for years now to say that the Fast and Furious movies are trying to do what the Godfather movies do, by playing with chronology and giving you characters that you can Yeah, they're template and make. They're template and make sound. 

0:58:29 - Speaker 5

That's the problem. 

0:58:31 - Speaker 7

It's just like. 

0:58:32 - Speaker 4

The joke is that the Fast and Furious movies are the ones doing it. 

0:58:35 - Speaker 6

Well, sadly that's the legacy of Godfather 2 now. 

0:58:37 - Speaker 3

Yeah, it's the Fast and Furious movies. 

0:58:38 - Speaker 4

That's the thing. That makes no sense at all. Wait, I'm talking about the sequel. 

0:58:43 - Speaker 8

Are the later sequels better than the original? 

0:58:45 - Speaker 4

Yeah, Well, the idea of structuring and layering and the idea that, like, there's a guy who died in the third one, who finally dies in the end of the Yeah Yeah, Who comes back and now this movie's gonna take. 

0:58:54 - Speaker 5

This next movie's gonna take place after the third movie, maybe more movies to get to the end of. 

0:58:59 - Speaker 4

Tokyo Drift And it's just like yeah, that's not what Michael Corleone done before. 

0:59:04 - Speaker 3

That's not why this happened. That's a good punchline. That's right, michael Corleone on the Time. This is Yeah, thanks guys. Workshop. 

0:59:13 - Speaker 4

But no, it is. There are so few movies that, first of all, i'm gonna make the sequel how I wanna make it. I'm gonna make an hour in Italian with subtitles. I'm going to cast a guy, nobody knows to replace Marlon Brando's most iconic performance ever And he's gonna be better than Brando. He's not gonna be his hammy. I'm going to just pretend James Cohn wasn't a big deal on the first. 

0:59:38 - Speaker 1

Yeah. 

0:59:38 - Speaker 4

Like he's dead, screw it. We're gonna keep moving. We're gonna find somebody else who's more charismatic Oh, there's no one who's more charismatic Oh, there's his dad. Like the way it knits itself together to find the story on the screen, on the page, like even before they shot it. just the solutions to all these questions are how do you follow up the Godfather? And every answer he came up with was right. 

There are no wrong moves, the villains that got killed in the first one. here's some new ones. You'll like them too. Like just everything works. It's incredible. 

1:00:03 - Speaker 3

Has there been a director that had like a three-year period? Like, we just talked about conversation and you guys are talking about Godfather, It's Cronenberg Sotterberg. 

1:00:10 - Speaker 4

I mean the Bergs. 

1:00:11 - Speaker 3

That's a three-year period, though that is like holy fuck, Well you can extend it to the decades, right? 

1:00:15 - Speaker 4

Yeah, it's a whole decade. I mean, I went from the heart is the movie he wanted to make. 

1:00:19 - Speaker 5

Yeah. 

1:00:20 - Speaker 4

I don't know that it's a masterpiece. I'm pretty sure it's not. But it is what he wanted to do. It's an incredible experiment. It just doesn't. It just doesn't land it. 

1:00:29 - Speaker 6

I think it's just a person in the perfect time and place that he wanted to do. I think it's similar to like, say, I think George A Romero has the same similar trajectory from the 60s and 70s. He's kind of lost her After that lost And I think it's just yeah, time and place. It's just these are guys who, in a weird way, kind of did the same thing which refusing the American genre movie with the European art film. 

1:00:50 - Speaker 7

I think you can even say the same about Lucas in that decade. 

1:00:52 - Speaker 4

Yeah, yeah, couldn't put a foot wrong Until. 

1:00:54 - Speaker 7

Directors with glasses and beards. Yeah, it was the time. 

1:00:57 - Speaker 4

It was the time, well, spielberg's got 1941, so that throws you to the curb, Yeah. 

1:01:02 - Speaker 5

I was going to say Spielberg, and then I remember 1940. 

1:01:05 - Speaker 7

Seeing that movie in a theater, though I thoroughly do. Oh, that's so awesome. 

1:01:08 - Speaker 5

I don't think 1941's a bad movie No. 

1:01:13 - Speaker 6

And that's also like one of the great insane director movies. 

1:01:16 - Speaker 7

Yeah. 

1:01:17 - Speaker 3

Anything with Beletian candy. Yeah, I mean, I was like how much money is this really going to come. 

1:01:22 - Speaker 4

1941 is Spielberg's turn in front of us. 

1:01:25 - Speaker 7

It's like everyone peeped stuff on him. 

1:01:27 - Speaker 4

No, no, no no, no, you need to do this. What else can we get you? Well, i'd like also maybe Stephen Queen. Sure, put him in a fireman's hand. What about this? I think I would like some special effects. Okay, mr Allen, you made the Poseidon Adventure Here you go. What else do you want? 

1:01:42 - Speaker 6

But I also think there's something interesting where, like, what he was going for was to try and basically do what the Zuckers brothers then do Years later. He was trying to He let me boost it Yeah exactly. Like he knew there was a certain, there was something to that Mad Magazine Anarchy that could work in movies. He just had no fucking clue how to do it. 

1:01:58 - Speaker 4

And hiring. It's the last 20 minutes of animal house, Yeah exactly. 

1:02:01 - Speaker 7

Made for two and a half hours Exactly. Yeah, he produced Gremlins, though right Oh yeah. 

1:02:05 - Speaker 4

That was Dante. That's giving him some of the nose how to do stuff. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. 

1:02:09 - Speaker 7

I think he's smart enough by that, but definitely. 

1:02:11 - Speaker 4

But also, you know, dante had done it in 1941. 

1:02:13 - Speaker 7

You'd have an imagine, but isn't it interesting that. 

1:02:16 - Speaker 8

It isn't interesting that Spielberg, once you give him, you know, carte blanche in this instance, he totally just fucks it up. 

1:02:21 - Speaker 1

And then this is what Godfather 2, was It's like here's like Yeah, you can do whatever you want? 

1:02:25 - Speaker 8

No, it's the one, and he does this movie. that's unlike almost any other movie before. 

1:02:29 - Speaker 5

Yeah going Never made right. There's nothing quite like. And he was given that opportunity again with one for the heart and later in his career, especially now I don't see anyone second guessing anything that he's doing, or maybe his movies wouldn't be this terrible Right. 

1:02:42 - Speaker 4

But I mean, he's doing what, he's absolutely doing what he wants to do now. 

1:02:44 - Speaker 5

I mean he did what he wanted with this one, but you gotta remember it's still a major studio production. Someone had to fight him on a few things like whether they were minor or not. They probably had faith that he would be able to work through anything. 

1:02:55 - Speaker 4

I had rubberheads. It's just Rupert Hits was doing a lot of coke at that point. 

1:02:59 - Speaker 6

I don't know how much control he really had. He was banned from the set too. And it's also ironically a movie he didn't want to make. 

1:03:06 - Speaker 7

Yeah. 

1:03:07 - Speaker 6

This was supposed to be the commercial movie so I can make the conversation Right, right. And it just ends up being so in the zone that even when he's trying to do one for them, it's really not for him If you watch Godfather 3, you can see why the instincts don't always work. Oh, but the Godfather always needed a helicopter machine gun. Sequence I'm not dissing him, i'm not dissing him. And a dead pope. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's not that bad, Just saying he's an idiot. 

1:03:29 - Speaker 8

That's not what it is. 

1:03:30 - Speaker 4

It is The problem with the Godfather 3 is that it has absolutely nowhere to go. 

1:03:35 - Speaker 5

after two It's not a bad movie. It's a movie that has no reason to exist. 

1:03:39 - Speaker 8

Yeah, yeah, it's just within its universe, though that silent scream at the end is amazing, i guess, but we don't. 

1:03:46 - Speaker 5

It's such an unnecessary movie. 

1:03:48 - Speaker 8

I don't hate it? 

1:03:49 - Speaker 1

I don't. It's just so unnecessary. Yeah, and it's also comparing it to its better looking older brother. 

1:03:54 - Speaker 8

It's the Godfather and Godfather 3. 

1:03:56 - Speaker 2

And those two movies are so like the brothers, That's a Fredo And it's all good happened to Fredo. 

1:04:00 - Speaker 1

Fredo's not around for three. 

1:04:02 - Speaker 6

And it's also everything they're trying to communicate in part three is just that last shot of Mark Parleone and the Godfather 2. 

1:04:09 - Speaker 7

It's all there and one guy why even Yeah? 

1:04:11 - Speaker 8

yeah, yeah. 

1:04:13 - Speaker 6

It didn't need three hours in Andy Garcia to do it again. 

1:04:14 - Speaker 8

No, it's. Sweden needs more hours in Andy Garcia. 

1:04:16 - Speaker 1

We don't need Andy Garcia period. 

1:04:17 - Speaker 7

I want to look at his bank statements. 

1:04:19 - Speaker 4

I want to reel it in and go around the table and hear. I have a good idea. 

1:04:23 - Speaker 3

One movie that's going to be pulled from everyone's ballot. But I want to go around the table and hear, if you guys made the ballot, what would you call from the list and what would you add to the list? I mean, throw in why as well. It's tricky. We'll start over here with you. 

1:04:38 - Speaker 7

Oh well, i definitely take. I leave everything except towering inferno. And then I couldn't figure what to put on. I have like almost a list of another five like taking up helm, one, two, three, four musketeers. It's not brilliant but it's a watchable Sure. It's better than towering inferno. A apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz. Get some Canadian films in there Blazing Saddles, why not Dundee or head? I'm going to say apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz. 

1:05:11 - Speaker 6

I like this one too, the Canadian cool. It's still like you watching. You still get uncomfortable. 

1:05:37 - Speaker 7

Yeah, 30 years later. 

1:05:40 - Speaker 4

I think we were as uncomfortable 40 years ago. 

1:05:41 - Speaker 6

Totally yeah, yeah yeah, you want you. I mean you watch, bring design still hilarious. I'm not gonna pretend for a second. It's not, it's just blazing saddles, the actually it actually feels like it's. It means something. 

1:05:51 - Speaker 4

Yeah, i think I honestly think that if prior had played yes, it would be as good, but for me I'm just like such a pitch perfect parody. Yeah, everything it wants to do is Is there. And Jean Wilder It's my favorite performance of his and he co-wrote it. So he's writing to a string that he worked on blazing saddles as well, but the young frankincense script is just like it's it endless Stream of pleasures. Also less Brooks, which is a huge thing for me. 

1:06:16 - Speaker 5

Yeah, well, that one seen it out and that's you know. Yeah, i still, i still like His second great performance in 1974. 

1:06:26 - Speaker 4

Yeah, i'm sorry, i saw you conversation. 

1:06:28 - Speaker 5

Oh, jumping to me. Um, i, i definitely would not include towering inferno on this ballot ever for a second. I also. I mean I touched on this before, i wouldn't. I wouldn't do Lenny either. I mean I think Lenny's fine, but I wouldn't have included it in this five. A couple of things that you brought up, but we're also on mine. A Apprenticeship of daddy Kravitz was on mine, taking a poem, one, two, three. Another film that I really love There. There are so many things this year that I could go to bat for. I could even go to bat for something like day for night, longest year Hearts and minds I could. I could go to bat for Murray murder on the Orient Express if I wanted to. But the one that I would I would go for is woman under the influence, with General and greatest performance ever, with unquestionably one of the best performances by any actress ever just any actor. 

1:07:23 - Speaker 8

That's his best movie. 

1:07:25 - Speaker 5

Yeah, it's a it's a career best for everyone involved in Cassavetes is so underrated. 

1:07:31 - Speaker 6

He did get the director nomination, which I was surprised he did and and Roland and she got her. 

1:07:36 - Speaker 5

Yeah, she got hers, but I mean, it's just In comparison to something like Lenny and towering inferno. I'm like there's no. This movie should have been on this, on this final ballot. 

1:07:46 - Speaker 6

So that would be the one that I would really throw it totally agree to you, and I think it's also service name and have the Academy more like that. Clearly should have been in the fifth and they give it. It's fucking towering inferno. 

1:07:55 - Speaker 5

Yeah, because they want to pat themselves on the back to spend so much money. Yeah, there's too much money involved. The towering inferno. I could not be the queen insisting more opposite than the woman in the other influence in towering inferno. 

1:08:07 - Speaker 4

Those are the extremes. Now a woman under the towering inferno. 

1:08:10 - Speaker 6

I Replace McQueen. 

1:08:23 - Speaker 5

Instead of McQueen and Newman. 

1:08:27 - Speaker 7

Adventure to, so you could do. 

1:08:32 - Speaker 8

All right, so. 

1:08:33 - Speaker 6

I also yeah, I gotta go with the four, except for towering inferno. 

1:08:38 - Speaker 7

I know. 

1:08:39 - Speaker 6

I briefly considered dropping Lenny, but I love it too much I can't do it. So for my fifth spot, just to be like there are so many, like California split and so many and Texas chains on masquer even I would put in, although feels appropriate. so The one I'm gonna go with is I bring to the head of Alfredo Persever, oh yeah, just, and every possible way and like and Again. I just think of in terms of this being a year of then it would make it five movies about, yeah, wrendlessly horrible that was on my list too. 

Yeah, and the other one I would consider also, just because I think it's so deeply underrated, would be Shakerland Express Spielberg's first feature problem, which I think is amazing, kind of indicative of a type of Yeah, jose. 

1:09:30 - Speaker 8

I I probably definitely would have dropped towering inferno, that's coming from a suit. 

1:09:37 - Speaker 5

Yeah, yeah, yeah, well. Well, the movie made it to money. That's all you should care about. 

1:09:43 - Speaker 8

From that perspective, i'm like you know I'm in the machine, but I'm not we made the money. 

1:09:47 - Speaker 5

Who cares if it gets the award? 

1:09:48 - Speaker 8

everyone saw it and Lenny, it probably would have dropped, because there's a couple of the movies that came out this year that I Wanted to put in but I didn't realize women under the influence was there. So that's definitely. That's an amazing movie, but I love Allison and live here anymore and I leave fear. It's the soul. So I don't know if I realized to put German movies in this or no, yeah, whatever you love. 

Yeah, that would be my fifth one. I leave fear. Fear eats the soul. It's this really. It's like a weirdo movie but it's fast-finder. Yeah, it's fast-finder. It's about a Maraca. I think he's Maraca is a black man with an older German woman and they have it's like a love story. It's basically like a Douglas Cerk movie done in like German, I guess in Berlin, in the system. 

Yeah, no it is written on the way Yeah, it is, it is written when and it's like it's weird, like it's they do tabloids in the movie like people, but you walk into a scene and they're all sort of frozen kind of in a weird way. It's. It's not for everybody, but as far as like filmmaking, what we should support in the you know, ward season, this is totally one for me. 

1:10:46 - Speaker 7

So did they have foreign film Oscars in 70s? 

1:10:51 - Speaker 8

Yeah yeah they would have one, didn't it? It did I think okay, no, i didn't get nominated for that. 

1:10:54 - Speaker 6

It was one of those weird ones where it didn't get. I think it like Frans didn't put it forward as its movie, so that's why it Everything else. I could be wrong. I do know I could be wrong, but I think it's one of those weird years. 

1:11:05 - Speaker 4

I'm okay, i'm gonna quickly jump into my name because I would keep Godfather 2 and Chinatown in the conversation. I'm conflicted about Lenny. I like it a lot, but there are two other films that I would put on that ballot instead Zardos and Emmanuel. Yeah, absolutely. Women under the influence, absolutely, i think it says. I think it's as radical in its filmmaking as Ali is. Yeah, for its time and for who made it too. But I also want to give a little love to Alice doesn't live here anymore which everyone forgot. 

1:11:37 - Speaker 5

Yeah, I kind of like that was online. Yeah, I'm not accusing anyone of forgetting. 

1:11:40 - Speaker 4

But it's just the kind of movie that never, because it's so calm and quietly crafted and Observational, and because we don't think about Martin Scorsese picture being that kind of movie It just everyone forgets. It's there and it. That's one that I just, you know, i don't want it to slip away, i want people to go out and find it if they listen to this, because it's so good, he's so good in it, yeah. 

1:12:01 - Speaker 6

I tell the titles best performance. It's just one of those words. The competition was so intense I couldn't you know was like six or seven down the list when I shouldn't have been yeah, yeah, that's how good a year. 

1:12:11 - Speaker 7

The towering infernal because they couldn't choose. Yeah, but in Scorsese's photography. 

1:12:16 - Speaker 8

It's really the best quiet movie that he's ever done. 

1:12:18 - Speaker 4

You know, yeah, there's like the good fellas and everything, but as far as the smaller movie with Jodie Foster, we can't find it, yeah, working against his instincts like all the time, yeah, and just letting scenes play and, maybe because of the sitcom, sort of overtook the concept of Alice. I think that's crazy. 

1:12:34 - Speaker 8

I didn't know that that existed until wait after I saw the movie. 

1:12:36 - Speaker 4

Right and for a lot of people don't see other Around us in syndication and everybody just inundated with that opening, with shot like a 50s melodrama. Yeah, it's just a direct poke in the idol, as pictures show, i think. Take the ass cut off and live like it's East Coast, west Coast, it's like that's funny. Yeah, it's just. 

1:13:00 - Speaker 1

And also. 

1:13:00 - Speaker 4

Ellen burst and, coming off the exorcist, who do you want to work with? Oh, the taxi driver guy. Like he's not yeah. I'm trying to make it before you make that, make this for me, and boy, it's good I. 

1:13:09 - Speaker 3

Just looked up for film and no, it was not France. Okay, france, it's a mid a movie. It was a La Cone, lucien, it's what. 

1:13:14 - Speaker 6

I thought because I was a lot. When you see porn films, now many other categories, it's like an apology get this out, if you guys don't have. 

1:13:20 - Speaker 3

It's called meet the awards. 

1:13:21 - Speaker 6

It's okay, it's just a comprehensive Awards happen you can see check off the movies you've seen and it keeps a database for you. Yeah, day for night, which we didn't talk about, that's one of the greatest Making ever made so we got for this here director for that too. 

1:13:36 - Speaker 3

We've all put together our nominees and We have to ask the question does 1974 Require a do-over Around the table? 

1:13:49 - Speaker 8

Jose says no. 

1:13:51 - Speaker 7

I Would give the time down, but I'll say I'll go, okay, it doesn't need no, doesn't need it. 

1:13:58 - Speaker 5

Yeah, between those two, you guys had a lot of love for Godfather, part two. 

1:14:02 - Speaker 3

So I don't think you should feel bad about. 

1:14:07 - Speaker 5

By China town but yeah. 

1:14:09 - Speaker 4

I'm entirely fine with Godfather 2 winning, but China town and the conversation are both yeah just yeah, just as well any other year, They would have one. 

1:14:18 - Speaker 8

Yeah. 

1:14:18 - Speaker 6

I was sure it's just waiting to do. it's got father, Yeah what's gonna do? 

1:14:21 - Speaker 3

it's got father too. 

1:14:23 - Speaker 6

They had t-shirts. There was a reason Um yeah, i just you can't. It's just one of the greatest achievements Filmmaking ever cool. 

1:14:32 - Speaker 4

Yeah, you get out of the way. Yeah, yeah, how do you not acknowledge that No? 

1:14:36 - Speaker 3

Well, thank you for giving me your Sunday. everybody, thank you, it was a lot of fun. 

1:14:40 - Speaker 7

Watch 27 hours of film Like three three-hour films in? 

1:14:44 - Speaker 3

there wasn't. There was one of the most towering inferno. 

1:14:47 - Speaker 7

Oh yeah, it doesn't need to be long. like there wasn't even character development, So I bother. 

1:14:52 - Speaker 3

So if there's one take away from today, it's don't watch towering inferno, i suppose. 

1:14:59 - Speaker 7

Don't give a nosker. 

1:15:03 - Speaker 3

Conversation three times, or watch it twice to and a half, whatever certain. 

1:15:07 - Speaker 6

There's a YouTube montage of everything you need to see in tower. 

1:15:10 - Speaker 8

Right, i haven't looked it up, but I'm sure it's like the trailer, for it is probably good. Yeah, watch it. It's a long ass trailer. Yeah, it's what I did, yeah that's fine. 

1:15:18 - Speaker 3

Well, thanks again. 

1:15:27 - Speaker 2

And just like that, episode one is done. 1974 stays just like it was the Godfather. Part two rain supreme, as is only good, and just Thanks again to norm. Phil, jose, david and Andrew will be back with movies from the year 1975 and on and on Into the future. It's gonna be one heck of a ride for your Reconsideration. We'll talk soon. 

1:16:03 - Speaker 3

For your reconsideration is the production of dover podcast such to subscribe share rate review. Please visit doveracom Do. Ah podcast, some such.