Top 5 Gene Hackman Scenes, Madness ‘25 (Sweet 16)

Also later in the show, Josh, you have thoughts on a few new releases, including Michael Shannon's directing debut and Nicole Kidman in Holland not the country but the city in Michigan, which is a little town you know quite well.

I feel good about the work we did. To your point, we saw some films for the first time, including one we'll get to that you and I both loved, watched a few things, and so I think we did our due diligence, and I think we will do Hackman's legacy justice with this.

Just that's Hackman right there. And so I had that in my mind and then thought, you know more, Okay, what does make him that distinction not just a character actor we love, not just your traditional star, but what combines those two qualities. And I really did come to what I feel is the quintessential Hackman character after doing a lot of this work, Adam, and to me, it is the self deluded cock of the walk. So in many of his movies, Hackman's roosters they can back it up, right.

I think this is one thing we love about him is he barks and he bites. That's entertaining. But I think in his best performances, Hackman wears a shit eating grin and he has to actually eat the shit. That is what is fascinating about him and how he can play that line. And obviously he has ranged beyond this.

There's definitely a heroic side to him as well. I do want to note over on my Facebook page heard from a former newspaper colleague, Niki Roller, and she shared this Gene has been a cinematic rock for me in his movies that probably lacked critical acclaim. I can and do appreciate his less mainstream efforts, but for me, I will remember him as an actor who taught leadership and sacrifice. I miss him already, and so I wanted to note that because I think that's true and a very good

point about a lot of the roles he took. It's not where my list leaned, however, and I could have sprinkled some of that in. I could have gone for the Pope Prix represent his range route and one of my picks does that to a degree. But for me, most of them are variations on this Hackman rooster who gets called out for his crowing. That's kind of where

I landed after reassessing things. So I'm going to start in a place like that with my number five pick, and it comes from that decade we associate most with Hackman. It's the seventies. This is Night Moves nineteen seventy five. Adam I was assigned this film in the only film appreciation class that my college offered, so of course I took the class, and that's where I first encountered it. Maybe something of a curious choice, especially if this is the only offering you have for all of cinema. But

Night Moves is one we considered. I didn't remember all that much about it, some of the images, but I thought I got to give this one another look, you know, just the fact that my professor chose it to be so representative, and wow, is it a key text in

this Hackman rooster theory. He plays Harry Moseby here, a former football star turned la private eye, and at the beginning of the movie he's hired by this aging movie actress to track down her promiscuous teen daughter played by Melanie Griffith, who, you know, talking seventies is kind of uncomfortably was uncomfortably on the edge of legality when this movie was made, So so take that aspect of it

with a grain of salt. Now, Night Moves also, when you look at its time and its context, came out a year after Chinatown, and it's definitely in a similar noir mold. You have Harry here the Hackman character as a Jake Gettis type. I think this cocky detective who has a bit of a haughty side to him that ends up blinding him to what's really going on. And like Chinatown, Night Moves is partly about Harry coming to that self realization. So we get a hint of this.

My favorite hint of this is in my pick my actual scene. This is a very quiet mid movie moment between Harry and Griffith's deli. This is after he's caught up with her in Florida. He's kind of assessed the situation of what's going on with her there, and he has convinced her to come home. He's rebuffed her advances. So they're having this quiet conversation and she offers him this compliment.

where happens. Best characters lived between what they're selling to others into themselves what they actually are, and then how aware they are of the gap between the two. So I'm an ace from Night Moves is my number five.

whole film from start to finish. And then I watch Lenny, the Bob Fosse movie. I realized I was watching films that had all been shot by Bruce Surtiz, and that then took me to Night Moves, which had always been on my radar as an Arthur Penn film and a Hackman film that I needed to see. But it was that accidental Sirtees marathon that finally forced me to watch it. This is what I wrote on letterboxed about it, and I just noticed this now as you were referencing your pick, Josh.

The more I think about how utterly incapable of connection everyone in the movie is and how it disappoints as a noir, the more I recognize how such disillusionment and dissatisfaction is precisely the point also, Colin Gene Hackman, incapable of connection, disillusionment, dissatisfaction. These ideas may come up again

throughout my list. Looking it over. The challenge for me, besides just having to consider, as you said, so many good scenes, so many good performances, characters, movies, the challenge was between the best scenes featuring Gene Hackman and the best Gene Hackman scenes right, because there are so many iconic examples to consider, And I started piecing together how the same characteristics that make Hackman such a commanding presence to watch as a good guy very often, they're the

same traits that make him such a good villain or a good anti hero. There is a practicality to his characters often and a persistence to them. It can be admirable at times, but in other cases his characters are driven by an end justifies the means kind of philosophy that gets him into a little bit of trouble or

maybe gets him into trouble with us as viewers. And to your point about his confidence, there is often that quiet confidence that can occasionally cross over into full blown arrogance where we are happy to see him get a bit of come uppance. And it's not just the the Hackman chuckle that can be merry or menacing, Josh, it's even just the twinkle in his eyes. So many scenes I realized I was considering, we're completely nonverbal, yeah, Hackman.

great scene featuring Gene Hackman. What about the car chase in The French Connection, maybe the greatest car chase in cinema, and Hackman's purely physical performance is part of why it's great. I'll say that, but is it the number one reason? Is it even the number two reason why it's great? Maybe I'd entertain the argument, but it is a discussion

that we'd have to have. I did try to strike a balance where I was representing his most iconic characters and moments, but also reflecting his dramatic range and that judicious balance of calmness and quiet with those occasional explosions of anger or violence that we get with Gene Hackman. My number five is from The French Connection, and it's the end scene, and it's this line reading, in particular,

Josh I saw him. I'm going to get him. I may not have the car chase here, but it felt wrong to have a top five Hackman list without Popeye Doyle on it.

three to four pages of the screenplay. And yet try to imagine that movie working half as well as it does without the depth of Hackman's characterization. How Hackman renders and Friedkin captures behavior. Popeye Doyle doesn't say much, and he never says anything really about himself. He doesn't express his inner longings and emotions, but we know exactly who Popeye Doyle is and that propulsive energy that's driven by

Popeye's obsession. Do we want to see the bad guys get busted because it's a crime thriller and we want that kind of resolution, Probably, but we really want that resolution because of Popeye's relentless and occasionally reckless pursuit, his absolute tunnel vision, which all culminates in that end scene, and freedkin staging of it is so great that final shootout in the old building, the emptiness of it, the

eeriness of Don Ellis's score. It somehow feels like a manifestation of Popeye's deranged psyche and i'll use your word, delusional psyche. But the wonder of that scene is that final line, and Hackman's line reading he has just mistakenly shot an FBI agent trying to chase down the same drug dealer that he is, and when confronted with this fact, he's unfazed. He's undeterred, aldered, you shot muldered.

That's like what we love to see, right, because you can't believe he's walking in and just immediately owning that place that he really shouldn't even be in. So I thought about that one, but you nailed why. This is the scene from the French Connection, and it is his glassy eyed non response to shooting the other agent that is terrifying. But I think you're right. Also allows us a peek into Popeye realizing for just a split second

who he really is. And then again to your point, like he plows ahead anyway, he's not going to like pause and reassess and really consider the depths of his humanity. But there's that little glimmer that Hackman, even in this wild, you know, action driven movie, is able to carve out some space for.

And maybe he did in our conversation. I didn't re listen to that, But why didn't he Why doesn't he stick in in my mind more than just the villain? So I did go through and watch basically every scene of his in the movie because they're all available online. Because this is one of those Hackman roles and Yeah, there is obviously so many layers there beyond the big

bad guy of Unforgiven. That is, he lingers in our memory that way, because this is a movie full of tough, violent men, and Hackman's merciless sheriff little Bill here is maybe the scariest one, right, and there are so many intimidating scenes that attest to that. So that's what we

have in our memory. But Steve Emily, writing on my Facebook page, he called out the slightly different scene that I'm going to go with, and this is little Bill's final moments after he's been shot by Clint Eastwood's William Money, and basically he's staring down the barrel of Money's gun here, I'll.

You know, we've seen his vindictiveness, his cruelty, his arbitrary application of the law, so we know differently. But this is a glimpse into his head, that one line, and then to switch this is the hackman's subtlety to switch from that openness. It's the same openness you were just talking about at the end of the French connection, that little crack, that little glimmer. Then he switches to I'll see you in Hell, and his face changing to match.

That's when little Bill faces that truth when he makes that shift. So so yeah, so many good choices from Unforgiven, but I'll see You in Hell is going to be number four on my list.

I'm someone who is settled down. I've eschewed the outlaw kind of life. I'm listening to the citizen, the right kind of life. That's it and it doesn't matter. And as William Money says, deserve has nothing to do with it. It's so good. My number four is one where I'm going to pick up the vulnerability theme again. Long time

since I've seen the movie The Conversation. I'll thank Joshua t ruth Over on the film spotting facebook page for reminding me of this scene where Hackman's Harry Call is talking to a woman he has met at a party. It's Meredith, played by Elizabeth McCrae. They're sharing what seems to be a very intimate moment together. They're alone in this big space, the space where he works effectively his office, but they're alone, They're up against a pillar, there is

no space between them. She's certainly expressing romantic interest in him, and probably thinks that he's expressing romantic interest in her. Though what we realize is that he's completely hung up on Terry Gar's and Harry trusts no one. He confides in no one. He's unwilling to betray anything about who he really is. And yet in this moment, he he does feel at least safe enough to open up a little bits.

it's completely stripped away with Harry Call. There is a cautiousness to the way he talks, There's a cautiousness to the way he holds himself. He not only doesn't fully trust her, he doesn't trust himself in mos like this, And the line here is you'd have no way of knowing his answer to her question, which actually doesn't really feel like an answer to her question. He doesn't say it matter of factly. He doesn't say it like he is answering her. There's enough disappointment in himself and self

contempt that seeps in. It's as if he's saying, right, of course, how could you go back to him when you could never know he loved you. Hackman is just too understated to show us the light bulb going off, But that's effectively what's happening there. He Harry Call, is realizing something through this exchange, and he's realizing something profoundly sad.

though this was a nineteen eighty eight Oscar nominee. I remember it at that time when I would have been so into what was going on with the Oscars and somehow would have been in middle school and still didn't see this, but yeah. Hackman Best Actor nomination for this one as well. He plays an FBI agent alongside partner Willem Dafoe, assigned to investigate the disappearance of three civil rights activists in rural Mississippi. Is set in nineteen sixty four,

and they're a bit of an odd couple. Dafoe is this younger, naive, hard charging idealist. Hackman's character, we learn, used to be a sheriff in the South, so he has a much better understanding of what they're actually up

against here. And there's this point when Dafoe sort of rhetorically wonders where all this hatred he's encountering comes from, and then Hackman meanders into a story from his childhood about his father having poisoned a black neighbor's mule because the neighbor's farm was doing better than his father's.

getting that in this indelible image and little story. He's also telling us everything we need to know about how his character came to be who he is and retains what attitudes he has that we've already picked up on. Then he's hinting at the self reflective qualities. Anderson also has right that he is not just eating up his family's history, but thinking about it and what that says about his own place in the dynamics of this case

that they're investigating. So he's basically here sharing both where he came from, how he understands that he's not exactly part of that past, but still kind of is you know, he's not refuting this to the foe and totally like saying you're right and all these people are morons. He's trying, he's trying to wrestle with this reality in real time here and over on Blue Sky. Stephen Kotch put it this way. This scene is not only a thesis for

the film, but Hackman delivers the story perfectly. An old man who was just so full of hate he didn't know being poor is what was killing him. That remains

depressingly pression. So over all, I would say I was a little disappointed in Mississippi Burning, not just because it's you know, it has sort of the oscary stuff I expected, but this does in the way that the French connection keeps a bit of a distance from Popeye's vigilanteism, this Mississippi Burning kind of endorses that by the end, and it's all largely enacted by Hackman's character in the climax, and it's just this kind of bitterly ironic thing for

a movie about civil rights and protecting civil rights, that to my mind, it ends up endorsing. You know, if you're on the right side of history, you can do it. So that was a little disturbing, but you know, Hackman overall, I will say, keeps the movie on its toes because here he is playing another character who's simmering in this sense of moral unease. Yeah.

And that's that little Hackman twinkle that comes through in that moment. Here's my unforgiven pick at number three. I'm going with the scene where we see the sadistic side of Little Bill really come out beating up Richard Harris's English Bob outside the barber shop. We've got to get some Hackman swagger in here. I've been talking about sadness and vulnerability, that devilish grin. We never see it with

Harry Call, we barely see it with Popeye Doyle. But Little Bill is a devil who is sure enjoying his authority. And English Bob and his biographer arrive in town. They initially forego giving up their firearms when asked by one of Little Bill's deputies. That leads to this confrontation outside the barbershop, with a Little Bill holding court in front

of the entire town, and that quiet confidence. Hackman plays him almost the whole time, with his hand on his hip, standing with a certain posture as if he's he's a little laid back about the whole thing. But we see how focused he is. We know that he's ready to strike if he has to. We certainly know that he's ready to draw his gun if he needs to. But he's steady, he's unflappable. He never raises his voice at all until.

he's holding court. He is. He's using English Bob and his loathing for English Bob, which is legitimate because of their past, to send a larger message to others who may be deciding to come to town. And my favorite touch one of those touches that you want to give the actor credit for that you feel like you have to assume it was something the act or chose to do, but of course it might have been in the script,

it might have been something that Eastwood himself suggested. But after all that punching and kicking English Bob, Bloody Hackman just finally is so mad he throws his cowboy hat at him, and that act shows how little respect he has for him, but also shows that he's not quite as unflappable as he makes himself out to be. That's where we see that little sadistic street to little Bill

come out. There is a look in his eye as he's yelling at the townspeople to leave that has that same hint of madness that we see in Popeye Doyle at the end of the French Connection. We're all looking at go Long, get out here. Who.

it right over there at Film Spotting Family. We want to welcome new family plus member Darren in Connecticut. I've been following Darren for a while on letterbox as j Gunn five. The number five all one word. So welcome Darren. Good to see you join the family.

this reminds me that we need to pencil in. We need to add to our list of top five suggestions for the future, top five movies that we didn't give a proper review to because they came out in that bizarre end of year limbo period when we're catching up

with everything for awards. Maybe some films are not giving quite as much attention as we should because we're trying to fit in so much, and we take some time off around Thanksgiving and then we have the Top ten show and we just don't have all those normal reviews. What I'm saying, Darren is you're absolutely right. We did not give Come On, Come On or Twentieth Century Women their due, even though I liked both of those films.

eighty five. Will smooth Talk take your word for it, because clearly neither of us have seen it, he credits.

You get to listen early in ED Free, You get our weekly newsletter. You get exclusive opportunities and access to things like the Film Spotting Family Discord. You also get our monthly bonus shows we have. Now as people are hearing this, Josh dropped into our feed the March edition of Trivia Spotting and coming up in April, our Madness bracket winner will get to decide a topic that we will have to draft with that listener.

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a good candidate for the Golden Brick Award. Here on film spotting neurological disorder a system for recording memories crime thriller, mister Sloane doesn't seem to be going out of his way to avoid comparisons to Memento, a film I adore, might I adore Gazer.

did appreciate. The screenplay written by the star Ariela Mestriami, who plays this mother who's basically suffering from this condition, and then yeah, it gets wrapped up in a missing person case, so everything becomes more complicated for her. There nods even you know, brief nods to the Shining, brief nods to the Exorcist, brief nods to Coronaberg's video drome. It kind of goes a lot of places, but I

especially appreciated the locations here. This is set in New Jersey, but kind of like the off ramp New Jersey from the Expressway, a lot of warehouses and you know, convenience stores things like that. The sound design is very interesting as it's trying to put us in the headspace of Frankie, this main character. And I also liked the score, which to connect with our top five, the Hackman Top five.

It's very heavy on the horns and made me think of a seventies detective movie, something like Night Moves actually, but then what's going on here also projects it into this grungy future. So yeah, I think Gayser is worthy of Golden Brick consideration and if it's playing near you folks should check it out.

harrowing stuff, Josh. It's new to theaters, but not new, as I said. Played at the Chicago Film Festival last year, premiered at Tribeca back in twenty twenty three. What did you make of it?

this dorkey midwesterner, you know, against type very much. So who throws himself into a prayer group at this new church to kind of, you know, just escape all of the awfulness of their situation. But he finds enough notes of conviction to keep them from being a caricature. So I think those two performances are very strong. And then also their son, he does show up at the end of the film, so it's not a spoiler to say that,

but it's the first time you see him. He's played by Nation Hendrickson, you know, a new actor who is just incredible in this very long scene. So I'm definitely going to keep an eye out for Nation Hendrickson in future films, but this one, particularly for the performances Eric LaRue, is worth checking out as well.

She and coworker Gail Garcia Bernal investigate. You know, I already have a bias against this movie because the other town in the Midwest, I don't know, maybe the only other town in the entire country that is known for its unique dutchness. Josh is in Iowa. Pella, Iowa. Grew up just down the road from Pella. Used to love visiting my favorite spot in the world, Yarsma's Bakery. I don't know if there's a Yarsma's in Holland. Is there a good movie made about Holland?

Fargo who sound like the people in this movie. I know no one in Alen, Michigan who sounds like this, So that's you know, neither here nor there, but was amusing. Ultimately, the problem is that this is a very lazy blue velvet riff, and it also is nowhere near interesting to your point, near as interesting as other Nicole Kidman interrogations of perfection, and poor Matthew McFadyen, who I love, you know,

from Succession and so many other things. He's just he's the latest guy unable to satisfy Nicole Kidney two disastrous results for the characters and for the movie. I would say so, unless you're familiar with Holland and want to watch this as a curiosity, a definite skip.

that accent. You can do that feedback at film spotting dot Net. Next week on the show, it's your turn to skip town. Josh. You will be in Boulder, Colorado for a return to Ebert interrupt Us and I think to secure housing for Sundance twenty twenty seven. Good luck with that, you joke.

love to see film Spotting listeners there. We're gonna watch Wizard of Oz day one, then spend three days working through it. We're also having a film spotting meet up on Thursday, April ten. They're in Boulder. It's going to be at a new location, Boulder Social and you'll get all the details. You can also RSVP via the link in the show notes. If you are a film Spotting family member, just check that meetups channel in our discord and you'll find details there as well.

And I went back and looked at the calendar. At some point I was like, Veronica has been doing this for two years and she she never raised a fuss, always gave us great ideas for top fives and suggestions when we asked her to start forming lists for us or come up with ideas, and she was responsible for keeping the website updated. And we have finally said, Veronica, you can you can depart. You can go out into the world and do other film related work.

cow option week. I throughout the idea of pride and Prejudice, knowing that she would be fully on board and want us to do that because she loves that film. If it's not in her letterbox top four, it's number five. Okay, that's how much she loves this film. And she gives me grief for the fact that when it was reviewed on Film Spotting back in two thousand and five when it was called Cinecast, Sam adored it and gave it

five stars. I gave it a pass at three stars, even though Joe Wright would come along a few years later with Atonement and I would swoon for that film. So I've long felt like I owed Pride and Prejudice five a revisit, and since it is five, it's its twentieth anniversary. So I said, why not, let's do it. Let's talk about Pride and Prejudice. And I said, Sophie, what's a good You've seen this film a million times. What's a good top five for Michael Knight to do

with it? And right off the tip of her tongue, she said, rain scenes. And it's kind of a miracle. We've never done rain scenes in the twenty year history of this show. But I don't think we have love it.

Show with Michael Phillips. If you'd like to keep up to date on future show plans, visit Filmspotting dot Net slash episodes.

so I am primed. I'm actually midway through their conversation about the Thin Man. When I saw it roll in, I knew I had to dive in right away, So it didn't come to mind when I was watching Black Bag about that series. But makes a ton of sense to pair these two.

slash Madness Round two. Josh meant thirty two films sixteen contests. We will not go through them all, but we did want to highlight a few close ones, a few upsets, maybe a few surprises along the way. Here are the

ones that weren't close. I'll read these off to you, Josh, and then you can get into the upsets, the movies that had a pretty wide margin of victory, and the films that hit at least seventy percent or more of the vote total, winning seventy six percent to twenty four percent, it was not tough for mad Max's Fury Road to

take down. Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind also easily defeated Edgar Wright's Shot of the Dead by that margin, seventy four percent to twenty six percent. No Country for Old Men beats Guillermo del Toro's Pans Labyrinth, and there goes your beloved Phantom thread Pta out of the tournament, officially at the hands of Parasite. These three

all were seventy one to twenty nine percent victories. There will be Blood the number one overall seed over Denis Villeneuve's Arrival, David Lynch and Mulholland Drive still Alive, beating Celine Siama's Portrait of Lady on Fire. I thought that one might be tough to predict, might be pretty close. I was wrong, like I fear I have been or will be for much of this year's addition to film

spotting Madness. And how about this, Christopher Nolan also out of the tournament, Fellowship of the Ring crushed in her stuff.

as you said, Adam Nolan's out. He started with four films in this tournament. All four made it to the second round, so he had interstellar Memento Oppenheimer, The Dark Knight, and now all four are out.

eighteen seed. Wes Anderson's film was the fifteenth seed, and looking at this vote total, Josh over the course of the past week, Sunset it was very tight, but Sunset was in the lead, and at the end Wes Anderson took it fifty three to forty seven percent.

she will do anything to win. She's going to survive.

you thought it would play out. And if you look at the Sweet sixteen, it is comprised of fourteen films that were among the Top sixteen, and the top thirteen seeds all advanced to the Sweet sixteen. So I think fourteen and fifteen are out and eighteen and nineteen are in. So good on the selection committee, or did we I suppose rig it in favor of those films, depends on your perspective. We are at the Sweet sixteen though. That means there's only eight matchups, Josh, and that means we

can take them one by one. So let's do our usual routine. Give me, as I give you the title, tell me is it an easy one for you? Is it a tough one for you? Or is it a tough one to predict? Okay, first up, there will be blood. I think I said Paul Thomas A. Anderson was out. Paul Thomas Anderson is not out. Phantom Thread is out, the Master is out. There will be blood very much alive. Is the number one seed PT Anderson versus Wes Anderson the Royal Tenant bombs.

Social network a revisit. I don't think i've seen it since it came out, and my reservation at the time, though I was positive on it very much so for many reasons, but I remember being disappointed because, you know, I felt like it didn't have that much to say about social networking, and I wonder if I just missed what it had to say about it, and if a revisit might make me reconsider, But especially when it's paired up against something as prescient and you know, on topic

in a way that I was hoping for, and that it pulled it through. On that end, I think I will still go with Xmokana.

definitely see it fitting there. I did have the Social Network on that top twenty, and that was based on my rewatch of that film, Like you really liked it the first time, gave it a very positive review on the show. The second time, I felt even more. Why it's a movie, people kind of go crazy for that.

It's a film people revere and I love Fincher as well, So even though it's really tough in recency bias here would put X Machina as the more likely candidate for me, I am going to default to what I ranked back in twenty twenty and give it to the Social.

they're eligible, could have been in. Have they all been sent to the incinerator?

of it to vote against the Grand Budapest Hotel. And I don't just think, yeah it is, But I also think, as much as my appreciation for Lynch has grown, it's sort of more the It's more an appreciation for others, deep emotional attachment and appreciation. It's like I get it, and I get what they're getting, whereas Grand Budapest Wes Anderson, I just get it. And so you know, it would be a bad faith vote to jump for Mulholland on my part at this point over Grand Budapest Hotel.

now in that Wes Anderson movie. So I'm still going mull Holland Drive, and that might also be wishful thinking on my part because my bracket challenge depends wholly on mulhalland Drive still advancing. I think this is the only one for me that is truly hard to predict. As well, Josh, I think the Grand Budapest really has a shot. I think it could beat mulhalland Drive despite mulhalland Drive being the number three overall seed. I think in the tournament.

or whatever it was. I know I weighed mine more towards titles that represented what happened in those ten years, because we live those ten years, and this is somewhat similar. So you could make an argument for get Out being a movie that better represents this century so far. But you know what, for me, in the Mood for Love represents all the centuries we've ever had. So that's my vote.

Get Out, are close right now. Two more to share with you, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind versus Children of Men. I love children men, but a relatively easy pick for me to go. Eternal Sunshine.

you're doing. Over eight hundred and twenty brackets, the most we've ever received as part of a film spotting Madness Prediction Challenge and at the top of the leader board. Josh, I'm just going to say this. If Ricky Kendall in the UK wins for the second year in a row, the selection committee will be conducting a proper investigation. So we will be heading across the pond and we will be looking into whatever is going on here. Because Ricky, he has this bracket name Uneasy Lies the head that

wears the crown. He was the winner of last year's Madness Best of the nineteen fifties. He told us on the show he drafted with us that he had no strategy, he was kind of just winging it, and yet here he is in first place.

sixty two of the choices correct. That's why he's in first place, just ahead of how about this film spotting family member Ross Bratton, Oh, come country for old Ross is the bracket sixty two is the score for Ross picks potential, though slightly behind at sixty one, but can absolutely want this thing. And then another familiar name mentioned him last week, still in that top three, Oscary Vaneo in Finland. My predictions are going to make me almost famous.

They might, They might. Oscary undred and eighty eight points and a sixty one picks potential number, so twenty eight points. That means fourteen of sixteen correct for Oscary in round two after getting all of the picks correct in round one. Speaking of all the picks correct, Ross was the only one of those three, Josh, and maybe the only one out of the entire tournament. I didn't thoroughly look who got all sixteen Round two matchups right, Wow, called them all. Yeah, Ricky got fifteen.

up to ninety seventh, but I'm still decidedly in last place. Josh, you took a little bit of a tumble again eight hundred and twenty five brackets, so we should probably feel pretty good. But you are now tied for fifty fifth.

maybe even tied with you. I can't remember where we stood last week, but Sam was doing very well, and Sam continues to do very well fifteen of sixteen.

cheat it's every time Hackman is on screen. Yeah right, It's so true. Every line reading he gets in this movie is a gem. And trying to whittle my options down, the only thing I could do was again this was later in all my homework, all my watching, all I could do was watch Royal Tenenbaums again through this Hackman Rooster lens and think about what scenes captured this quality. And it really struck me that ten in Boums written

by Wes Anderson and Owen Wilson. From that title all the way down, you could see this movie as a tribute to Hackman's career of cocksure, self deluded, self inflated characters. I mean, Royal tenenbaum Is. He's a gentler little Bill In some ways, he's a more refined Harry Moseby. He's very much a variation on my number one pick, which I'm not gonna spoil here. So watching ten and Bounds through this lens, I narrowed it down to three three saints, And I'm just gonna give you a line for my

two runners up so we can move along here. Call me Pappy. I know I'm gonna be the bad guy on this one. Those were my runners up could have easily gone with either one, but instead I went with another scene with Angelica Houston's Ethelene and it's Royals cancer confession. Yeah, in a ploy to move back into their home?

He flinches, he like, he steps back, like she's gonna throw a punch at him. And the genius of it is not that she's being aggressive. It speaks more to her to his guilt than her aggression. Right, he already knows he's he's deserving of whatever is coming. Right then, after she breaks down in tears about it, I love how Royal looks around to see if anyone is watching why, because he's committing a crime. He's guilty, and he's got like, who's are there? Cops? Are the emotional cops around? Are

the psychological cops seeing this? At the same time, there is so much tenderness to that little moment there on Royal's part. He's genuinely taken aback by her reaction, by the love that she's still expressing for him. He's sorry for her. And yet again, I mean, Hackman is just

you know, doing so many backflips in these scenes. Yet again, this is where he could have committed to the lie, but he retracts it right and he decides, Okay, I'm going to drop this, and then another backflip lunging back in because what he still hasn't gotten what he wanted, so he's going to have to play that card again.

So Royal Ton of Baums, you know, going back to Anderson and Wilson thinking about this in terms of Hackman's career, it is one of Wes Anderson's restoration comedies, so it's going to be different than his Hackman's Disillusion seventies work where these roosters almost always pay a price. Royal manages, despite himself, despite his self delusion, to find his way back into his family's life by the movie's end, and

so I love this film. I'm almost talking to myself into moving it back up into the number one because it's the redemption of the Gene Hackman rooster. That is what Royal Tenant of Bombs is. Probably should be my number one, But I've got to hear at number two.

I'm going to go to a scene where he is fighting, as he often is, fighting against that vulnerability and where some real, real emotion ultimately does come through. It is from the pen ultimate scene in the movie that was homework for both of us to prepare for this list. It was the biggest blind spot for me on the list. A movie I've always wanted to see, Jerry Schatzburg's nineteen seventy three film Scarecrow, starring Hackman and al Pacino. The

penultimate scene. We are going to spoil this movie if you haven't seen it and you really want to see it, especially after you are going to hear both of us praise it, or maybe you won't because you're going to fast forward. That's fine, We are okay with that, but we cannot avoid talking about the ending of this film. And to go back to Tenenbaumbs for a second, I didn't put I know you have Chassy on my list. It's an honorable mention. I've got another Tenenbom's choice at

number one, as I alluded to. But the only Hackman scene that really does break my heart more than that one is this scene. This movie is about this unlikely friendship that develops between Hackman's Max and Pacino's Lion. Lion is. He's goofy, he's naive, he's sentimental, all things that Max isn't. Max is a hardnecks con he's quick tempered. He is someone who never backs down from anyone and never really seems For most of this film's running time, Josh never

seems afraid of anything. But late in the film, there's a beating that occurs. Lion is hurt really badly and it traumatizes him, and that's followed by a conversation with the mother of the child that he's never met that compounds that trauma and Lion ends up hospitalized and catatonic on a gurney in a hallway. And this is where

we see Max really crack. He cannot process that Lion won't be going with him to Pittsburgh, following through on all the plans that they have made on their journeys together. He can't process that Lion likely will never be the same again, that they may never actually interact with each other or engage with each other at all like they

previously did. And he is fully initially in this denial stage, you hear him say to no one really at this point, he's talking to himself, he's talking to the room, he's talking to the cosmos. He says, he's just fooling around. He's just fooling around, as if Lyon is playing another gag. It's a joke, and he's trying to convince himself that it's true that he's going to snap out of this somehow, or he is play acting. But then you see it.

You see it in Hackman's face as the camera tracks with him from talking to the doctor over to the bed. You see the recognition. And Josh, it's so funny. You mentioned in that tenembomb scene, how when there is that burst of emotion from Angelica Houston, how he looks around

a little bit like like is anyone noticing this? And it's almost like, I wonder if it's a psychological gesture on the part of Hackman, because he does something similar in this scene, where as it's dawning on him what the reality is and what it's going to be moving forward, the closer he gets to Lion on that journey, he stops.

He takes a moment, and he stops, and he looks back at the nurses station, and no one's paying attention to him, but he stops and looks at the nurses station almost like he's he's laying having to fully face the truth, or someone's gonna stop him, or something will happen,

and he is this big presence. A lot is made of Hackman in his size as Max throughout the entire film, and of course his stature is so much greater than lions than Pacino's, but that just amplifies why it's then so crushing when Max finally does break down.

we have Hackman just intermingling all of those emotions. And here's the line, because again we've had so many great examples throughout this list of lines, I just can't make it alone anymore. When he admits to himself in the world, this character who has always been on his own now can't make it without Lyon and Shatsburgh even stretches out the journey down the hallway. He makes it seem like

it takes him forever to get down the hallway. It's like the long emotional journey that Max's is going through, and we see the full range of hackman emotion, but we still see that restraint. I just think Hackman might be Josh and this scene really cements it for me. He might be the consummate film actor. He knows exactly how to pitch a performance for the camera. He is never too big, he is never too small. He's never

anything but completely honest. And that scene just devastated me watching Scarecrow.

his own. Maybe it's it was part of the script by Gary Michael White, but it reveals, you know, we're getting into the details here, which might be difficult for people who haven't seen this, but that scene is played at the payphone where Pacino's character denies the reality of what he heard and lies to Max and tries to paint a rosy picture, and in the moment Max pretty much buys it right so he can get along with

what he wants. But calling it back in the scene you've picked shows that Max knew what was happening then, and he's blaming himself for not confronting it then because it might have in some way prevented where they're at now. It's just all of these layers again going on that he's able to play in a single scene. So yeah, great pick Scarecrow. I mean, man, this was the discovery, right this is doing this list was worth it for Scarecrow because yeah, I knew about it as well and

had hoped at some point to get to it. But it's not really discussed among the masterpieces of the nineteen seventies, right, but it is. It's hard now that I've seen it to imagine that decade without a movie like Scarecrow. It's just a time when there was studio in security and there was you know, openness to idiosyncratic storytelling, unconventional leading men. We're getting here. It's such a seventies movie in that way. And at the same time, watching Max struck me as

the ultimate embody of this quintessential Hackman character. He's a cajoler, he's a storyteller, big talker with big plans here, you know, to open that car wash in Pittsburgh. But you know it's all upfront, we know it in the audience. Think about the way he ostentatiously chomps on I don't know if it's a full cigar or it's something like that all the time. Also, notice how often he has trouble

lighting it. He can hardly ever get the thing. Let how about his ratty notebook that contains his business plans. These are all expressions of self delusion, right, He's another self deluded cock of the walk here. And I'm gonna spoil even more. I'm gonna go all the way to the end for my pick, Adam. And I think this scene captures from what I saw previously and doing this homework, this capture is better than anything else the quintessential Hackman.

To your point, if you haven't seen Scarcrow, you don't want the union spoiled skip ahead. It's not really a plot spoiler, but really you should get to experience and this within the flow of the film for the first time. But basically, at this point, because of the scene we just discussed, Pacino's character Lion has been tragically left behind. Max is still trying to get to Pittsburgh right pursue

this dream. So Max is at the ticket counter at this train station and he's counting out the twenty seven dollars and ninety five cents he needs for the fair one bill at a time, basically, and of course he falls short. And what does he do. He just starts counting again, because you know, he's Max. He can will those extra bills into existence, and it's not working. So the teller asks him to step aside for the next customer, and we see him in the side of the frame

while this woman's buying her ticket. He pulls off his boot, kind of cuts open the heel, pulls out this ten dollars bill and what does he do hands it to the woman at the counter with that shit eating grin. He has hit rock bottom. He's literally down to his

last time. But you know what, Max thinks He's won that moment he thinks he's won, and it's this tragic ending because of that, and I think, you know, we get a sense of it because after she gives him the ticket, or he's waiting for it to process, he starts smacking his boot on the counter kind of to get my senses to get the heel back in place. Maybe I'm not entirely sure.

who Max is. And that's such a great articulation of that seed and that grin in particular, seeing that that grin from Hackman there, from that character Max in that moment after the scene I just described at least sends you out, I suppose, on the only ray of hope that you can possibly have.

that the pure child behavior. It's impossible for me anyway to watch that sequence and not have the same huge smile on my face the entire time that Hackman wears throughout the scene. And I'll extend it beyond me and Julio to when the music stops and Stiller's Chaz takes him into the closet, the gaming closet, to reprimand him for the inappropriateness of the day. You stay away from my children, Do you understand?

And just to have that be the closing of that scene, Josh, this scene that is that childlike joy that has you smiling, and then have such an honest emotional moment between those two characters. That's that's part of the wonder of the film. The Royal Tenet moms.

is to watch Gene Hackman on screen. And I don't know how many of our picks have delved necessarily into that, but I'm glad we've ended up here because whether he was being scary or insecure, there was still a certain pleasure in watching him. It's a great point, and maybe never more so than Here's. This is just where the pleasure comes out front and foremost.

Then sitting in the mess. And you know, there's some very good conversation about this in the discord for film spotting family members when people were talking about some good conversation about exactly what you were talking about, Adam, like, is this what makes this a good Hackman?

Film facebook page. He wrote this about it. Outmatched, outwitted, frustrated, alone, defeated with only one last resort, Jazz going from the paranoia fuel destruction of his home to sitting in his mess as he plays his sex. Harry coll knows that despite his efforts, he's failed again. The final scene is tremendous Ackman's best performance the conversation so strong case there from Aaron A couple more real quick here mentioned the French connection. My pick would have been the one you

went with Adam in the climactic action sequence. I did watch as part of homework just because I've always wanted to see it. Sam Raimi's The Quick and the Dead. He's doing more of a stock villain here, kind of a riff on the richer role he had in Unforgiven, But you know what, he gets a great chuckle off with Keith David that is worth watching The Quick and the Dead alone. And then so many people mentioned young Frankenstein.

I think that and his lex Luthor in the Superman films just showed it was a great reminder of his ability to do straight comedy, so I wanted to give a nod to those performances as well well.

It's when they're sitting before dinner, I think, having some champagne, sitting across from each other, getting to know each other, and someone asks how was the trip, because they drove down from Ohio I believe, down to South Florida, to South Beach so they could meet the family of the

man that their daughter is going to marry. And someone says, how's the trip, and he says, nice trip, very nice, And then Hackman delivers this beautiful monologue that highlights all of the differences between the states and the multitude of

colors that he experienced. And the irony should not be lost on any viewer that this man who seems so rigid in his thinking and seems so oblivious or willfully oblivious to the differences that actually make America so great, is articulating it there as if it is something that he feels so deep in his heart. And Hackman here again, he just does it at the right pitch, Josh, where there's no music swelling underneath. He doesn't play it like

there's music swelling underneath. He's not delivering some sermon. He's not winking at us and saying, oh, look, he's not such a bad guy after all. He just is evoking this memory of the trip and what struck him as he drove, and it's surprising to us. And I think it's a beautiful moment in the bird cage that Hackman makes special.

coach stays. I love that line. It's one of the more iconic scenes. Yeah, I'm not going with the pregame speech. This is the rewatch in the moment, Josh, where I was really cued into how many great scenes Hackman has, as we noted, where he doesn't say a word. Watch the journey Norman Dale goes on. Over the course of that entire sequence where the town is trying to vote him out, he has a really hard time expressing himself.

He doesn't make a very eloquent speech. He certainly doesn't ask for forgiveness, and in fact he does the opposite. He says, I apologize for nothing, and he sits down and he knows what his fate is going to be. And the rest of that scene, for the next three four five minutes, Jimmy Chitwood shows up, different people go up and speak. It all plays out just in reaction shots on Hackman's face and you can see the entire arc of a character in that scene just by watching

his facial reactions. Love it so.

Klux Klan members. The razor interrogation scene with Brad Dorf's character is a fun, a fung gene Hackman scene, despite how violent and intimidating it is. And I know there are so many more we could mention, but maybe as a nod to producer Sam who loves get Shorty as much as any person on the planet. Now, I don't know he didn't lobby for any scenes, and I don't know if any of Hackman's scenes as Harry's in are

among Sam's favorite in the movie. But I rewatched a few today and the phone call scene with Dennis Farina's Ray Bones where he tells him to use his ething imagination and he starts taking on the personality and persona of Travolta's Chili Palmer. That that is a fun Gene Hackman. See that entire performance is fun. That movie is great. So I wanted to give a nod to get.

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limited release. Eric LaRue, directed by Michael Shannon, recommended by Josh earlier in the show The Friend, starring Naomi Watts and Bill Murray, also Anne Dowd and Constant Swoo. That's from directors David Siegel and Scott McGhee, who made What Mazie Knew and The Deep End. The Ballad of Wallace Island, a movie I really want to catch up with. A movie about an eccentric lottery winner who hires his favorite musician to perform a private gig, also invited the musician's

ex bandmate and ex girlfriend played by Kerrie Mulligan. That's based on an award winning short film from two thousand and seven, Freaky Tales. Josh, did you know that Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck have a new film?

Luck and could not Lose. Walter Goggins and David Strathern co star A Nice Indian Boy, the story of Navine who brings his fiance Jay played by Jonathan groth Holme, to his traditional Indian family. VI It and Mom is also playing at the Gene Sisco Film Center in Chicago, a queer love story largely set in a coal mine. Our friends Robert Daniels and Mariah Gates were positive. Robert called it hypnotic. Mariah Gates called it ethereal and hunting. Okay,

I'm sold out wide. Josh taking anybody to a Minecraft movie and he nieces or nephews. I've got a couple of kids who want to see it.