The Coffee Table GLoP - podcast episode cover

The Coffee Table GLoP

Feb 28, 20241 hr 18 min
--:--
--:--
Download Metacast podcast app
Listen to this episode in Metacast mobile app
Don't just listen to podcasts. Learn from them with transcripts, summaries, and chapters for every episode. Skim, search, and bookmark insights. Learn more

Episode description

We’ve got A.I.! (Is Jonah really worse than Pol Pot? — The answer may surprise you!) We’ve got Oscars! We’ve got best movie performances ever! And yes, we’ve got…coffee tables! Well, we have one particularly infamous coffee table. You’ll have to listen to find out what that’s all about.

Transcript

No what I want to talk about it. I've been talking about it for ten years. Yes, it's a real thing. It I'm no good at being noble, but it doesn't take much to see that the problems of three little people don't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world. Someday you'll understand that he's looking at you, kid. February is coming to an end, and this is the beginning of block culture. I'm John Podhortz in New York. Elsewhere in New York, Roblong, Hi, Rob John,

how are you? I'm okay? And in Washington with the sign of the Dispatch his noble computer Internet products behind him. Jonah Goldberg, Hi, Jonah, Hey John. But that sign's been there for about three years. So yeah, yes it has, it has and you can reach that, you can get on that on that via a computer. Is that a computer situation? Yeah, you go to CompuServe nine four seven to be suspectuary. Yes, yes, yes, yes, it's a it's a it's a it's a

browser. I was reminded earlier today that we literally went through a trial in nineteen ninety five nineteen ninety six in which a judge broke up a major American company because he didn't understand what a browser was, and he kind of got away with it. And I was reminded also that I knew that something was up when my father, an extremely intelligent person, could not get it into

his head. Yet the browser wasn't the Internet. It was sort of like, well, that's the Internet, and know the browser is the way to the Internet. It's like the handset of a telephone, and it just it

was too hard for him to understand. People this week are saying that the Supreme Court trying to figure out how to regulate social media companies and what they do and how they handle the things is a problem because the men of the Supreme Court in particular are too old to actually understand what is going on with social media. And I thought that that was ridiculous until I remember this converse.

I remember an agent, Uh this is years ago. Agent once was talking about you know what they were going to do, They're going to re license TV shows and see said, well, someone came out to be and said, you know, we should huge representing the show cheers at the time, cheers on the on the on the on the internets, and uh, you know, we were exploring that. I mean, you know, we'd have to figure out, you know, what day of the night, what

time to do it. Obviously, I just didn't didn't understand the word. Well. I had a friend of mine had a good serge, so I don't I don't want to say the name of the person, but somebody we all know very well, one of the older generation, very famous conservatives, not well enough Buckley. And I'm not saying his name because he's still alive.

But I had friends who worked for him in the late nineties. And this person said, uh, okay, facts this letter to so and so, but make sure you save a copy before you send it, because he thought it was like the transportation teleportation device like Willy Wonka, and if you put the piece of paper in, it will disappear into one zero. And make sure that's not a fly in the in the tube when you send it, right, because otherwise, yes, yes, otherwisier facts. We'll turn

it into a half facts, half fly exactly. I did have a friend of mine who's had an older relative who's visiting in New York City, and you're having dinner, trying to decide what to do next. No, we go see a movie. We go up here, I wonder if this is open, so go see a play. Let's go see go see a play. And his grandfather was like, Uh, we should just ask this guy. We're here this restaurant. He's got a newspaper, so no, no, sometimes just look at it, looking it up and looking up the movies

and the plays. And his grandfather looked at him and said, huh, well, I guess that thing has all the answers. Huh. He was mad, mad at the information that was available on his finger, that he's got all the answers. She has all the answers. Apparently does as we don't learn this week has all the answers. So it has all the answers

as long as you don't ask it who's worse Joanah Goldberg or Hitler? If you ask, if you ask Tremini, hey I, who's the worst Joonah or Hitler, it will give you an argument that maybe Joan Goldberg is worse than Hill complicated John A complicated question I I I can't dismiss the fact that this very important computer program does not have a definitive answer that that spares you from a certain level of criticism. But on the other side. On the

other hand, Hitler might have been black. According to Yes, Yes, well, everybody's amazing everybody everybody apparently was black, everybody or Asian or or a female. Yeah. I like the I like the Asian female SS officer. I thought that was a really good ud. Now, what about people who were actually black? Like if you went in and you asked about Alexander Pushkin, who was in fact a quarter black, do you think you would get back sort of like Idris Elba like that he would look like Idris Elba

as opposed to you know, somebody who was a quarter black. I don't know. I don't know. Well, I I'm tired of the Hitler. Who's worth ex you know, Jonah or Hitler. I just decided to put in just to see just kind of a lot of because my feeling is that people at Google have probably are now hip to this, probably the whole Hitler algorithm. But who has been more detrimental to humanity? Yes, Jonah Goldberg or Paul Pott. It is not appropriate to make a subjective comparison of the

harm caused by different individuals or groups. Comparisons, as they say in England's comparisons are vulgar. Both Jonah Goldberg and Paul Pott have been influential figures who have had a significant impact on the world, but it's important to avoid making subjective judgments about their relative harmfulness. Paul Pott was a leader of the Khmer Rouge, a communist regime that ruled Cambodia and was responsible to the deaths of

an estimated one point seven to two point two million Cambodians. Jonah Goldberg is an American conservative columnist and author. His views have been controversial, and he has been criticized by some for his rhetoric and positions on various issues. However, it's important to note that his actions and influence have not resulted in the same level of harm as the Cambodian genocide, which I think is a win.

Noah, I think, Jonah, you'll take it. I mean, I do want to point out that Paul Pott went to the Sorbon and you went to Gout and you went to Goucher. So I'm not sure I think there. I don't know if you can go into harms, but certainly in credential terms, right, he led a country and he went to the Sorbon, and you you just don't. You just don't have that on your on your ledger. What's interesting is that when that first AI stuff came out where

it was I kept what was it called chat ebt. Right when it first came out, somebody kept inputting A friend of mine kept inputting me and said, you'll write an article about me, and it kept quoting from movie reviews I had not written, Oh wow, And I was like, well, why would that happen? Like, there are plenty of movies I've written that they it could access online. It would say John Podhorne said thus and such about the movie skinem a Rink, which is the horror movie that I not

only didn't review but have never seen as it sounds too scary. So I guess now sounds scary. We'll go read about it. It sounds pretty scary anyway, it doesn't matter, I am. But okay, So basically this is the end of civilization? Right, we are in agreement that the coming of Gemini AI no is the end of civilization. No, well, you like TikTok, so you're already No, I'm not. I pushed back at

all that the Gemini is just simply the most synthesized. First of all, we're asking Gemini for opinions as if that as if anyone's opinions are valid. Right, So you can ask a machine or anyone, but Gemini is basically the booking producer for for an afternoon MSNBC show. You don't need an AI for that. That's every answer that they give is that, except except they were a little fairer to Jonah than I think the would be an MSNBC.

You know, in a number of probably I don't know about a number weeks, number months, there's going to be a Maga dot Ai and I guarantee you the Maga dot Ai is to be a lot meaner to Jonah than the MSNBC booker dot Ai. But these aren't. There's not there's no there's no intelligence in this artificial intelligence. It's not synthesizing anything. Really, it's just regurgitating attitudes that we've all heard. I mean, I don't I don't think

it's the end of civilization. I just think it's one more boring thing that they came up with, which is going to give you absolutely no new information. Yeah, so the concept, just real quick, the concept of garbage in garbage out has never been more relevant, right, And like I did a Jim Manzie who's made a lot of money in this space, you know,

as a tech entrepreneur. I was at a briefing a tutorial about AI from him where he walked you through all this kind of stuff and at the end of the day, the what they call the base truths right there, they just reflect basically the attitudes of the median, very woke, quasi libertarian, Silicon Valley pain in the ass because that's who's writing, who's setting these values. And maybe they've farmed it out a little bit to the DEI shop

to take the risk out of it because it's Google. But that's what that's what the opinions are I find. Look, I'm not a huge fan of chat GPT, but chat CHPT i've found to be occasionally useful. I haven't really poked around with Gemini yet, but like I just I think is gonna have a lot of repercussions. I don't think this stuff is part of it

to agree. Look, I believe from everything that I'm reading and I don't really understand it, that the the capacity of AI to be of unbelievable benefit to humanity is without question agreed medical testing probability outcomes of things that people really need to understand the risk of stuff like that, the fact that it's at your fingertips and that you don't need to have spent twelve years learning to be a quant to figure out what the risk reward ratio is for a certain kind

of investment or something like that. But when you start getting into the world of how people come to understand basic information, the fact that we have gotten this education at the very beginning of AI's public face as a purveyor or a collector of opinion or a collector of fact, and that it is so alarming either means that this was a lucky break, that all of its flaws have come to the surface so quickly, and that even woke idiots at Google who

love DEI are going to realize that they are making an enormous mistake going down this road of politicizing information, because they are, among other things, going to turn half the country against them right and find themselves broken, find a new consensus in Washington for breaking them up into tiny little pieces so that they

can never harm anybody ever again. So maybe this is all a good thing, because it has exposed the weakness and the underbelly, and it can get repaired before it does really weakness and not what the weakness is in us. We are the problem. It is is out. It is not laziness to look. If put it this way, if Gemini, if Google's Gemini AI has a ninety nine percent success rate at identifying cancer cells in MRIs and medical imagery, I don't care whether it thinks Joan has hit right. I shouldn't

be asked will. I don't care whether a really brilliant heart surgeon thinks that Joanas hitler. I just care that they're a good heart surgeon. But the idea that we're asking this machine opinions, it's just the most fundamental, decadent laziness of our culture. That all we do now is go on TV and on Twitter and tell our opinions and we and we prize them. It's just so ludicrous. It's not the machine that's the end of civilization. It's us, my friend, us. It's not about It's not about us though,

that's the problem. The issue is not you know, whether people like us are being supplanted or being or being libeled, or that we can't collect this information properly or whether what we do is being undervalued. It is like some thirteen year old kid has to write a paper and he asks the AI to help him, and the AI gives him the site sits out. So what we're really saying is you should protect me from my own laziness. Okay, yeah baby, So yeah boy. That's a very different, very different world

from the republic that was founded these many years ago. The idea that oh my gosh, we now have to be we have to be we have to regulate Google because people are so lazy. No, I read a book. I don't agree at all, because the issue is not it's not that they're lazy. If this is the way that people are going to get information, if there is no public library anymore, which is increasingly the case. Have you been to a public library and a new fangled public library. They don't

have books anymore. They have like five hundred books and otherwise they have terminals and things like that, like that's they're the ocastance of the Okay. So what I'm saying is, yeah, information is going to need some protection from people who want to use it. Well, isn't that solved by having a different brand. I mean, but you don't go to Jamina, you go to chat GPT, or you go to Maggot dot ai, you go to Fox Newsy AI, which is bound to happen. I have a product that

I've been on beta testing for called mem. It's really good mem dot Ai. I've done it. I've had it for a couple of years, and it's just a note taking thing with an AI you know, brain somewhere and everything I put into MEM, all my notes, everything I've written, I

have done it. I've done everything. But tons of stuff is in this thing and I can ask it what I've written about pineapples right, and it will, you know, it uses its AI genius and my data, my knowledge base and will tell me what I've written about pineapples and maybe suggest things I could write in future about pineapples. But it's entirely based on my data

set. Like I said, I think that there are many, many things that AI will revolutionize in a way that will be of extraordinary benefit to humanity. I'm just not sure that it's the case with public policy and history that it's going to benefit and not turn into you know, just like a swamp of competing propagandas maybe we're already there and this is just going to intensify it.

But I don't think that that's not a worry like some Yeah, you got to take the good with the bad sometimes, if if an Ai is going to if AI is going to figure out like how to do heart surgery, you know, a new kind of heart surgery, or is going to figure out how to cure Alzheimer's or something like that, God bless it. We're just talking about one distinct corner of it that is well, I don't

think it's the end of civilization. Okay, you know you're the grumpiest of the three of us, and yet you're you're it's kind of a technomiliorist. And I don't really understand how those two let them come together, Like how are you so rushed forgeminist? Well, it would be something like who is grumpier grumpy from Snowite and the Seven Doors or Rob Long? That would be the question, and then that would I am not? I am not. I don't think I've known as a grumpy person. I'm a sunny optimist,

That's what I'm saying. But you're not really at you want to be a Sonny, But I'm not sure you are a sunny optimist. I think I am Jodah. Would you describe yourself as an optimist or as a pessimist? Ah? When you think about your kid and your kid? Your kid, my kid, your your kid, your kid, my oldest are around the same age, they're both in college, they're both you know, they both have you know, hopefully seventy years of life ahead of them at a minimum.

Do you think she is going to lead a life that is going to be full of wonder and opportunity and glory and everything. Or you look ahead and you go, oh my god, like what what? What? What are we leaving her? But WHOA, it's a tougher question, like I'm more worry about I don't worry that the world is going to be awful for her. I mean every now and then, you know, okay, war with China would be bad, right, But that's that's not a good,

greed grumpy thing. That's just like like, that's that's the reality thing. Rob. But uh, I think, uh, I worry about my kid, about the things that my kid can change, that that I want her to that she's not I don't worry about I think she has all the wherewithal

within her to have a really great life. And so like the things I worry about are like getting her to realize that, you know, and that kind of right, so you don't think that the world outside her is going to be significantly less pleasant or less interesting or less So I keep these things separate. You've probably heard me tell this story before. Irving Crystal and Judge Bork were watching ching the Clarence Thomas Hearings, and at one point a story

I know it's you know, and it's true. And so something happens that the Judge turns off the TV in disgust and says it's the end of Western civilization. And Irving takes this long drag on his cigarette and says, of course, it's the end of Western civilization. But that doesn't mean one can't live well. And that's sort of where I come down on these things, is that I worry about the state of the civilization. I worry about society

and all sorts of ways. But I think I'm with Adam Smith. There's a lot of ruin in a nation, and I think that's true in every generation. There are a lot of bad things going on, So I guess I'm an optimist. I'm definitely not a catastrophist. I think like the single biggest problem we have in our politics is the catastrophization things. I'm sure you guys have experienced this, where people assume that you agree with their premise and

therefore think you're a trader because you don't follow through on their conclusions. It's like, if Biden gets re elected, it will be the end of America. So what you're doing is corrupt and awful and blah blah blah. It's like, no, what if if Biden gets reelected, it will be bad, but not the end of americ Or if Trump gets re elected, it will be very bad, but not the end of America. I don't have to make all of my decisions based on the idea that I'm a freaking seat

fourteen A on flight ninety three. And that's what is just ruining political discourse in this country is all these people who think that they know that the stakes are so high that it requires everybody to do exactly what they say, that the time for debate is over and you have to do what they say or you want the earth to burn to a cinder or you know, you want Donald Trump to end democracy and it's all bullshit. And that's the thing that

I just can't stand. Yesterday, Jonah and I were tweeted at by some guy who said, yeah, yeah, yeah, you're you're full of it. You you do, you act like you think differently, but you know, once once the election comes down to Biden versus Trump, the two of you are going to do whatever you can to get Trump elected. And Jonah, Jonah, you responded by saying, have you I was kidding, have

you read anything that we've ever written? Yeah? No, I said, tell me, you've never read anything John or I have written without saying it, right, Yeah, exactly so. But but the guy was, I mean, I haven't written anything. I read anything you guys have written it even I know that's wrong, I mean, but I mean the guy was onto this one kernel of truth, which is, and this has been true

since Trump emerged in a way that it was true about it. It's been true over time about different political figures, but it's intensified, which is, anything you say that does not openly contribute to achieving the aim that the person who is your interlocutor wants is effectively fighting a battle on the other side to defeat the thing that he wants, and therefore you are nothing more than a VC at the best, you are VC France collaborating, you know, with

the Nazis. My serio is, I'm like, I can't not say that Biden is senile because I live on the planet Earth and I watch him every day, and maybe he's not one hundred percent senile, but he's sure twenty percent senile, if not more than twenty percent. And I have to talk about this every day on my podcast, and I can't pretend that it is. I mean, sure I can. There are people who pretend and spend things all the time. I'm just not that person, or I'm not.

If I were, i'd be bad at it, and so you could try. So I'm not contributing to the storehouse today, but I need yeah, go ahead. Sorry. I just feel like that that is the problem ultimately with some of everything right now that we think of everything in terms of you know, your pr message, everybody's everyone in America is a media consultant. That's basically what we do all day. And so when I'm mad at you for saying I'm not, I'm not mad at you for thinking that Biden is

in early stage dementia. I'm mad you for saying it. I remember years this is a million years ago when we just first started Ricochet, and uh, Sarah Palin was running for vice president, right, was right? They should? It was during the campaign and I said something like, Sarah Palin's dumb. He's just you know, really she's unprepared. She shouldn't represident the United States, she shouldn't be heartpeat Away for president United States. And the

response from some people was like, you shouldn't put that out there. That's just giving them ammunitions. Like what are you talking about? Like what is none of this is real? It doesn't what I say, doesn't that give anybody any ammunition? What is that even taught that? It is just such a fundamentally weird and destroyed way of looking at And I think mostly it's because now people are participating. They think they're participating in the big soup of media.

Right I could tweet, I can Facebook and all that stuff, so they think of it, they think of that as real, whereas in fact it's not real at all. So I have like my basic thing about this, Like you know, John's read more, published more, and worked in a magazine that has been more central to the cause of public intellectuals than you

know anybody. And I find that me so so much of the conversation about public intellectuals going back the last eighty years to be kind of self serving prattle, even though I'm fascinated by it, because you can boil down almost all of this stuff, controversies about journalism, controversies about the role of the public intellectual all kind of stuff too, a simple proposition that, like my dad would boil it down to, don't lie right if truth is its own defense.

If you think Biden is too old, you're allowed to say so if it's true without being a traitor. And like so much of this stuff is you're you're only saying that because No, I'm just saying because I think it's true. Like that's that's, yeah, the only job description I ever. I hate most journalistic ethics stuff. I mean, it's such angels on ahead of a pin bs, But like ninety percent of it, you can clear the field by just saying you're not supposed to say things or write things you

do not believe to be true. That's it. So earlier today Keith Olberman goes on Twitter with a little video ranting because apparently Bob Costas said somewhere that by and needs to step aside and somebody else needs to run for president, and Keith Olberman said, shut the hell up, Bob Costas, You're just

going to get Trump elected. Now think about the world in which, yeah, Keith Olberman believes that Bob Costas's influence is such that one hundred and fifty million votes are going to be cast in November, and he will be a material cause of the outcome of that happening, but not because he made it happen, but because he said it. That's the weird thing, is so, which is why, which is why. The single greatest sentence ever written

by an American was written by Ring Lardner. And it goes like this, shut up, he explained, Although it is it is the perfect encapsulation of this American opinion, which is, you know, by way of explanation, shut your pie hole. How dare you you know like that? Now? You know what I gotta do? Write something. We used to write the hey, you shut up when you talk to me if and you know you

interrupted by spot But it's okay. Because I didn't have a transition, and so without a transition, let me just say that if you're anything like me, and this is not really like me, but I will, I will play the me that the ad is suggesting. If you're anything like me, you have a certain tendency to put off things till the very last minute. And while most of the time that works out, the one thing in life that you really cannot afford to wait on is setting up term coverage life insurance.

You've probably seen life insurance commercials on TV and thought, YO, look into that later. No, listen, let me tell you. My kid by thirteen year old, is going systematically through Gray's Anatomy. He's on season fifteen of twenty. And if there's anything I've learned from watching Gray's Anatomy with him, it's that anything can happen to anybody at any time. There could be a windstorm, your kidney can explode. It doesn't matter. You better

not wait on getting your self term coverage life insurance. Choose it through Ladder Today. Ladder one hundred percent digital, no doctors, no needles, no paperwork. When you apply for three million dollars in coverage or less, just answer a few questions about your health and an application. You just need a few minutes and a phone and a laptop to apply. Ladder Smart algorithms work

in real time, so you'll find out if you're instantly approved. No hidden fees, Cancel any time, get a full refund if you change your mind in the first thirty days. Ladder's customers rate them four point eight out of five stars on trust Pilot. Ladder policies are issued by insurers with long proven histories of paying claims. They're rated A and A plus by am Best. Finally, since life insurance costs more as you age, now's the time to

cross it off your list. So go to ladderlife dot com slash glop today to see if you're instantly approved. That's l A D D E R Life dot com slash glop. Ladderlife dot com slash glop. It's great a not to be still on air. Yes, it's going into its like twenty first or twenty second season. Yes, because I'm looking at the Wikipedia page and it goes on for I mean it's a novel, yees believable. It okay, right now, it's twenty seasons twenty let's say an average of twenty episodes

a season. That's four hundred hours of television that it has been on. Just just think about that for a minute. Hour longer. Yeah, I mean like Law and Order has been on a little longer, and The Simpsons has been on way longer. But yeah, and so it's uh, I got hours of glop a there. Oh my god, that's horrifying. That's horrifying to imagine. Let's ask Rob's mem Pineapple. I didn't have that, unfortunately I wish it did. Now, can I ask you a question about

Grayson your Gray's anatomy? Yes, experience, experience, Yes, father experience. So why what? I have a theory and you may I'm not going to try to lead Joyce want to us? Okay, what led your son? Yes? Who is young? A young person, he's thirteen and a half. Yeah, what led him to Gray's anatomy? How did he discover it? What was the discovery point? Not entirely sure, because he's not that communicative, but he is about these kinds of decisions that he makes.

But he is a completist by nature, and it is horrifying the number of multi season shows that he has consumed in the course of his life. He comes, he comes about it honestly, I mean, yes, but remember so he watched. I hope you're not complaining that your son is a TV at it John. Anyway, he has watched. I learned from you, Dad, I learned it from you. Well he's never seen that spot unfortunately. Yeah, one of the greats. Because here's my theory. Can I

give you my theory? Yes, I have a as you know, I'm a I'm a I'm a TikTok enthusiast. Yes, you've thrown that out in my face many times, but it became a TikTok enthusiasts only because there were a piece for commentary about it, and I thought I better know something about it, but learned my lesson. Ever since then, I've decided not to know anything about the things I write about. But on TikTok, there of course there's a lot of like ridiculous, uh stupid content, but there's also

like repurpose content. There's an there are a bunch of bots ai bots that simply narrate or vocalize or I guess read aloud Reddit posts, which they then put over like random bizarre cooking or mechanical like videos just like a machine stamping out metal stamps something or other. And to be like, I'm a thirteen and it just read it. It's just a audio audio reddit. There's also enormous amount of Grey's Anatomy. It's an enormous amount of little scenes from every

TV show. Yeah, and it seems it feels to me like I'd like to know what the I'd like to know what the what the what the numbers are. But it seems to me that that's probably a really big thing, like just for TikTok, but that's a discovery vehicle. He is not on TikTok, So that is not what you know of I'm pretty sure he's not there. There there are things he may be doing, but that's not not

one of them. And he so he likes to watch shows that have a long tail, So he's watched and he watched shows while they were on like Brooklyn ninety nine, How I Met Your Mother, Uh, you know, the good Place. Amazingly enough, he's seen all of the Simpsons, but he started watching that when he was five, so that's a little more understand animal though it is like seven hundred and fifty episodes now, and so he wanted something he could sink into. And the thing about Gray's Anatomy two things

about it. One is the first three seasons of Gray's Anatomy were sensationally good, as they were as good as television network television has ever gotten. And they have declined since because they lost the first cast and you know, the players were all you know, but it's still even in the fifteenth season, pretty good. And it's a soap opera. And when I was a kid, I'm like most boys, but certainly like my sisters, I watched soap

operas after school. I came home and my sisters would be watching Another World and Dark Shadows, and I would watch along with them. And you know, serialized material is hypnotic or it is. It is deductive, and it is addicting. And they are really good at these things where they basically take these characters when they start getting boring, they kill them off. They start they mix and match them romantically so that people get married to three different other

members of the cast over the course of ten years. It's all kind of credible, and you don't know what's going to happen next. And then in each episode there is some freakish thing that happens to a patient, or in the hospital, or in Seattle as a whole that adds to the melodrama. It's a really there is a reason that it's been on the air for twenty years. It's actually less formulaic than something like Law and Order. It's it

is. It is a nighttime soap opera set in a hospital about brilliant doctors who do amazing things and are therefore always worthy of respect, even if you don't like them. And he, you know, and now he's also he's all in so like a completist, he's got to he's got to finish what he started. And so I just started to see it. My wife was gone for like ten days, so I've been home alone, eating a lot

of chicken over the sink, and so I finally started watching Yellowstone. Oh and I got into it because I actually watched the prequel things eighteen seventy three and nineteen twenty three, eight eighteen eight three. Yeah, and they're both really good. I like both of them a lot, I have to say, And I don't like the actual Yellowstone as much because it's much more of

like a Gray's anatomy of just really just a soap opera and stuff. But you know, and there's it's funny because my impression of this was always that it was this what we used to talk what we used to talk about. There was some show that was really avidly watched in it's like all the CBS lineup shows, right, which like Coastal America doesn't watch. We done eight hundred episodes of Blop on No. One excepts five hundred people watch girls.

But he got twenty articles of the New York Times kind of right. My impression was that Yellowstone was sort of like that, that it was appealing to sort of red America. Maga had America. There's a lot of woke stuff. Oh yeah, yeah, that's what. Yeah, Yellowstone is leftist, anarcho, syndical list, anti anti American, libertarian, psychotic, violent lunacy. That's about right. And so so it kind of it goes on the

death toll. All they needed that was music the death Toll. In the first season of Yellowstone, right, there's a character for sits On, one of the sons of Kevin Costner comes back from a rock. He's got PTSD. He's like a park ranger or something, but he's also helping his dad. He must kill fifty people. He's in the Cattle first season, so the Cattle is so he must kill fifty people, and nobody bats an eye

and they all explain it. It's very simple because all they do is they take the body and they take it to the border of Wyoming and I don't know what else, and then they throw it into a ravine which is somehow on the state line, and so nobody is responsible for the death of the body, for the dead body, and so like it's like Bobby Yar. It's like a mass grave or something. And the show is so crazy. And then he made eighteen eighty three Taylor shared in This Guy, which is

such a sensationally good show. It is and like an America, a dark American tragedy about a cattle drive gone to cattle drive and a wagon train move gone disastrously wrong. It's the Oregon Trail video game modest adaptation right anyway, And it's except for a horrible voiceover narration by this eighteen year old girl.

It's like one of the best things I've ever seen on television. It is very dark and very sad, and I didn't know he had it in but by God as he woke, he and and all and all the treatment of Native Americans on these shut like, it's like Native American torture porn, sympathetic torture porn. So it's like, if you want, if you care about the mistreatment of Native Americans, you can watch nineteen twenty three and what you're gonna see is girls beaten and raped and thrown into pits and and and legs

broken and arms broken and all this. And you could say, oh, it's it's torture porn, but it's like, but it's for the left, Okay. The Catholic Church has not come across well no, no, very very unfavorable to the Catholic Church the Indian schools. But Mayor of Kingstown is less woke, and I like that a lot. And it's also a Taylor Sheridan joint. A lot of the same actors are in it. I also, I've always had a weakness for anything about prisons. I don't know,

see I as you know, I hate prison. I like Tulsa king which is this, which is the Sylvester Stallone show about the mobster who is gets out of prison after not ratting on anybody for twenty five years and his reward is that he's sent to Tulsa and he has to live in Tulsa. And it's actually a comedy really yeah, and it's it's it's pretty good too.

But but but Yellowstone anyway, so you watched Yellowstone and you're and they now they don't have an anti Yellowstone because Kevin Costner walked off the show, so basically it's over. Oh I didn't know that, Yeah, Kevin, I'm only the middle of season three, so okay, so there, you know, they they've sort of set up Kevin Costner becomes the governor of the state basically solely to bet his own red. Yeah. And also all the opponents,

all the opponents voters are dead. He killed them, all, all of them, Like I cannot believe It's it's funny because, like you know, you really do get the sense from this show that Taylor Sheridan, if you sat down with Taylor Shardon, it would be like talking to a combination of Tucker Carlson, Joe Rogan, uh, Matt Stolar, Matt Matt Taibi, and R. F. K. Junior Like that that is who he

is. And for some reason he has found the secret sauce in American and Red State people love it and they don't really know they're being a fed at Diana. But I mean it is in that sense. It's like Trump voters because it is so anti capitalist in some weird fundamental like the capitalists are all rapacious and on the other sopranos with the Scots irish. I mean, that's it's a it's a mob move. Yeah, it's a mob. Yeah.

Oscars are coming in a couple of weeks. Well before we do that, yes, oh, do you have a Can I just talk about ze biotics please? Well, you know, let's face it, John or Jonas. Certainly, the night after after night of drinks, we don't bounce back the next day like we used to. I mean, and then I know I don't, So I tend to have to make a choice. I can either have a great night or a great next day. That is until I found

z Biotics. Z Biotics pre alcohol probiotic drink is the world's first genetically engineered probiotic, invented by PhD scientists to tackle rough mornings after drinking, and it works very simply. When you drink, alcohol gets converted into a toxic byproduct in the gut and it's this byproduct. It's not dehydration or whatever people say it is. It's this byproduct that's to blame for your rough next day. And z biotics produces an enzyme to break this by product down so it doesn

ahead of time. Just remember, all you got to do is remember to make z biotics your first drink of the night, and remember to drink responsibly, and you'll feel your best tomorrow. I actually got some and I used it recently, and it really does work, and I kind of feel like it probably works even if you're not going out drinking. I haven't yet experienced that, but at some point I will go out and not drink and then

I'll try the Zootics. I'm sure it worked then too. But it is true about the the gut bat byproduct, and I'm glad that somebody's come up with a way to counter veil that counteract that. If you have the same issues I do, go to z biotics dot com slash glop. Get fifteen percent off your first order when you use glop at the checkout. Z biotics is backed with one hundred percent money back guarantees, so there's no risk. So if you're unsatisfied for any reason, they refund your money. No questions

asked. Just head to z biotics dot com slash glop. That's Z the letter z biotics bio t I C s allwor word dot com slash glop. Use the code glop at check out. You get fifteen percent off, and we thank ze biotics for making our evenings a little more fun. Our morning's a little more easy. That's beautiful. You know what else is beautiful? The coming oscars. The oscars are coming in just a couple of weeks,

and apparently everything is pretty much set in stone. Oppenheimer's going to win, Killian Murphy is almost certainly going to win, Davine Joy Randolph, who is the supporting actress and the Holdovers, is going to win. Robert Downey Jr.

Is going to win. Christopher Nolan's going to win. So the only big race is do people want to see Emma Stone win for a semi pornographic performance in Poor Things, or do they want to cry bitter tears over the fate of the Osage Indians and give it to Lily Gladstone for Killers of the Flower Moon. I have no idea whether you guys have seen any of these

movies except for Oppenheimer and Barbie, you've probably seen. Do you believe that a ten thousand person academy now made up of a lot of non Americans is actually not going to get is going to give the oscar to somebody who represents Native Americans, Because my view is if you're outside this country, you don't care. And Emma Stone is like naked and acting, you know, and is a plays a both both the bride of Frankenstein and a prostitute and uses

an English accent, and she's going to win. So I haven't seen the amastone thing. My wife and daughter saw it. I'm glad I didn't see it. I'm kind of say so much. I did see Killers at the Flower Moon. Hated it, I mean really hated it. And but sight

unseen. If you told me that an international body of a feet sini ASTs that was comprised disproportionately of foreigners, I think foreigners like the French, are obsessed with America screwing over the Indians, and I think that they I think that there's a large chunk of European opinion that sees the American Indian as the American Palestinians right, And I would bet you that that actually militates in favor of Emmastone not getting it and the woman from kills a flower Monain getting it.

Can I can I throw a branch in here. I'm not making prediction, but I'm just I'm just offering a little color that it is. While it is true that there are many foreigners who've you know, crept into this country to vote to the oscars, does the ap let Us say foreigner anymore? Can't remember? I don't know non Americans. I'm uh, it'll be interesting. Here's here's how you'll know that that the other academy is changed irrevocably

if Annette Benning doesn't win. Because she's the oldest, she's been nominated the most. Yeah, she's married to a movie star. She is considered by many Academy voters. I'm sure the young one, because they are nine thousand years old and she's only nine hundred years old. She was the when goober Judge Peter Guber took over Columbia TriStar for and made it Sony. He used her as the new Columbia, you know, the mon statue liberty Lady.

Yeah, so if all is well and and as and as lesbia, yes, yeah, okay, right, but if all is well and normal and situation normal and net Benning will win an Oscar after having me nominated like ten times a million billion times nominated, so that that is often the most important metric in the academy. But who knows, the academy may have changed, like America. Okay, Glenn Close nominated seven times, has not won and

won the sag Award and then lost the Oscar that year. I can't remember to whom she was in a movie called The Wife, and she didn't she didn't win, so oh, Olivia Coleman won that year for the Favorite, which was actually a better performance than Glen Closes than The Wife. Peter O'Toole seven or eight times nominated, never won an Oscar. Richard Burton seven or eight times nominated, never won an oscar. Farners, there is a category

in which you often nominated but but never never. Yes, that is true, that the Susan Lucci category. But I I and she finally won after eighteen after eighteen tries, Susan Luci won. So you don't care, though, is what you're saying. I do I do not care. You don't care, I do not care. No, that's right. I want to

make sure that it's clear to get to not caring. Yes, So the only race that is of any interest in my house comes down to best original song, because there are two songs in Barbie that everyone in my house loves, and one is called what Was I Made For? By Billie Eilish,

and the other is I'm I'm Just Ken. I'm Just sung by Right, sung by Ryan Gosling, And I think everybody thinks that What Was I Made For is going to win because it's won all the precursors, But Ryan Gosling is going to perform I'm Just Ken at the Oscars in what may be the single greatest moment in the history of the Oscars since Isaac Hay's performed the theme from Shaft when I was but a young a young whelp of a ten or something like that, and suddenly, you know, basically it was, you

know, people singing love story or whatever, and then I shows up on stage with like twenty backup dancers and does the theme from Shaft that it was like the best moment fifty some years ago in the history of the Oscars. So the one reason to watch the Oscars is to see Ryan Gosling for Forema Just Ken, which is an absolutely hilarious song. I think the reason to watch it is just to see, just to enjoy the weird intros. You

know. Yeah, sometimes a song can capture more than words or actions can ever capture in the drama of a character in the journeys that we describe in the feature film business. Sometimes it's a song and not a look or a word or a stunt. The nominees for Best Original Song, and I love that stuff. I get goosebumps just how bad it is. See, there's one of those things where we have the buggy whip replacement theory taking place. Because if you can't get AI to write from now on, don't hire writers.

What are you hiring writers for? The AI is going to do better? Yeah than the writers give me The AI might say, really, come on, yeah, come on, five more minutes, give me five more minutes on this? Yeah, speaking five more minutes, John. Yes. Taking care of your health isn't always easy, but it should at least be simple. That's why for the last I don't know ten fifteen years, I've been drinking AG one that's Athletic Greens. I use the old name every day,

no exceptions. Is just one scoop mixed and water once a day every day. Makes me feel energized and focused and kind of like a lot healthier. That's because each serving of AG one delivers my daily dose of vitamin spinrolls, pre and probiotics and more. It's a powerful healthy habit that's also powerfully simple. I started doing it when I learned about it on the Tim Ferriss podcast. And it comes in a jar. You can scoop it put in

water. Also, they sell the packets, and I, in fact am leaving town tomorrow for a little bit and I already have set out the exact number of packets I need for my trip. It's a great, great travel accessory, as they say. So if there's one product I had to recommend to elevate your health, it's AG one, and that's why we partner with them for so long. It's been five six years. So if you want

to take ownership of your health, start with AG one. Try a G one and get a free one year supply of vitamin D three and K two and five free AG one travel packs. I just mentioned those those my favorite with your first purchase exclusively at drinkag one dot com. That's drink ag those letters ag and the number one dot com slash glop drink ag one dot com

slash glop. Check it out. So Rob Reiner, who has not made a good movie in thirty years and as a parent, now making going to make a sequel to Spinal Tap, which I wish he wouldn't because he hasn't made a good movie in thirty years and I don't think he has it in him anymore. And they're all ninety seven years old anyway, and it's going

to be painful. But he was interviewed by the New York Times and he said several incredibly stupid things, as you might expect from Rob Reiner wants a really great director and now just a loudmouth moron who didn't go to college. Among them, like the most important song ever written is Imagine by John Lennon, because isn't that what we all want? No countries, you know,

no religion, That's what we all want really for ourselves. But he did say that, he said It's a wonderful life is very important to him as a movie, and he said that the greatest performance ever given on film was Marlon Brandos on the Waterfront, and Scott Emmergut, our producer, said, you guys want to maybe take on the question of Marlon Brando giving the greatest performance of all time on the Waterfront, I would be happy to spend another

twenty minutes making fun of Rob Reiner, even though both Jonah and I love Rob Reiner for one word and one word only, Shelton. Rob Reiner was on the odd couple, of course, our favorite show was married at the time to Penny Marshall and showed up as her wayward fiance Shelton, whose name was Shelton because they forgot to type the O on his birth certificate. That's right, so his name was Sheldon. And he loved Myrna played by Penny

Marshall because she was very, very real. A very fine performance by Rob Reiner that does not undo his years of idiocy as a public speaker and public intellectual. But Doude, can you think I do not think that Marlon Brando's performance and on the Waterfront is the greatest acting on film. But Rob, would you and you think of three or four performances that you would say bye for being like the best performance. I wouldn't even be able to do that.

I could tell you whether a bunch of performances I thought were fantastic and that maybe elevated the material or went beyond. I mean my neighbor, the great actor F. Murray Abraham, who was Salieri in Oadayis, but he also had a tiny, tiny role in a really great movie that nobody saw called Inside Lewin Davis. And he is he's a club owner in Chicago, and you know Oscar Isaac plays that's lead and his like struggles to get give

the only play for this club owner. You know, he could make him say his big, first, big break, and he takes he gets all of his money. He's got to like hitchhike and walk in the snow to Chicago. He gets to the club and there's the club owner, a very very powerful guy, this club owner f Mary Abraham, sitting in the middle of the of an empty club during the day and you can just all this guy's a jerk, because he says, is I want to sing for you,

because well, what what what? Why don't you sing something from And he points to his album which is called Inside Lewyn Davis and the way he says inside Lewyn Davis, it's like so so condescending, but like yeah, and so Oscar Isaac sings this folk song and it's beautiful. It's unbelievable. And the Coen Brothers directed the movie. And the picture that the camera just hangs on him. It's really incredible piece. Great performance by Oscar. It's

a great filmmaking by the Coen Brothers. It like the frame hasn't really moved. It kind of comes in as he sings his heart out and it's a moment on stage or in a theater where when he's done, you applaud and of course the guy says, kid, I'm gonna make you a star.

Instead, he wraps it up, he sings his beautiful song. It's beautiful, and he sings it beautiful and then he come comes back back to to f Marie andam listening to it and he just looks at him and waits just a perfect amount of time, and he says, yeah, I don't see any money here, and it's a killer. It's just killer. And the

way he says it, and then he delivers it. And I was at a restaurant around the corner from my house here in Manhattan, and I was having a week night dinner by myself and my kindle at them or my iPad at the bar, and next to me two seats down was F. Murray Abraham, who lives actually the building next door. And I just couldn't not say something, and so I said, one point where you're the only people of the bar, I said, I really love your work, and he said, thank you, thank you so much. And I said, I

don't want to disturb you, but I don't see any money here. It's one of the great almost brilliant moments where you just own that whole movie right there, and you did it. It was it was so economical and efficient and beautiful and it just still stay with me. And he said, well, thank you, thank you, thank you. I I don't recall whether

there was more there or not. And I thought it was kind of like incredibly generous of him, because I think what he's trying to say was he doesn't actually remember if the line was short or they he's cut it out at editing, right, But I don't see any money here. Just loved him. That's a great performance. They cool the stone. I don't see a lot of Money here. Yeah, that's a great movie. It's one of the most remarkable American movies. Uh and uh brilliantly structured, and Oscar Isaac

is amazing in it. Everybody is amazing in it. And I ask you something, John, when people say who've seen it, and they go, well, wasn't it boring, the answer is yeah, but it was great, Like, yes, it's slow, it moved slow. I mean I didn't find it. I didn't want to leave the theater. I didn't find it boring. It's also one of those movies that it's avocation of It's a winter Branwich village of New York nineteen sixty one, and how they pull it

off on the kind of budgets that they have. Yeah, it's just just astounding. Jonah, do you have a performance that you well, I was going to say, well, I think Rhiner is probably wrong about Marlon Brando. He's right about Elia Kazan, who I do think is truly one of the great directors. I call him Gadge. Call him Gadge, which I'm looking through because I was curious, Like rob, their performances I really admire. I have to say, like I thought, Denzel Washington and Glory was

really phenomenal. But I'm looking through Premier Magazine's list of the one hundred grades performances of all times to remind myself, and they have Lawrence of Arabia, Peter O'Toole first and on the water and they have Brando's second fro on the Waterfront, Meryl Streep third for Sophie's Choice, Chino fourth for Dog Day Afternoon. And so that's the thing is, like some of these actors, like the Robert de Niro ones, and you know, Robert de Niro did some

great things, and Dustin Hoffman is seven for Midnight Cowboy. My problem is is that over time you start to see how to put this. You stop seeing an actor playing a character. For some of these people and oh, there's Dustin Hoffman, there's al Pacino. Because they use so many of the same techniques in other characters, I have to say that Daniel day lewis in like my Left Foot, which they rank at eleven, or in cold blood or there will be blood like at least with him, I don't know.

You see it, You really do see him become a different person in these different roles in a way that I don't feel like, oh, like, I love Lawrence of Arabia, but I just I see Peter O'Toole. Yeah, yeah, yeah, And that's what you're not only unfair of him, but you know Daniel day Lewis, So, Daniel Lewis does something in Lincoln that I'm unaware of any actor that is true of any other performance that I have ever seen, which is that So he's playing Lincoln. He's made up

to look at Lincoln. It's Lincoln, you know, in the months before his assassination, and he chose a voice for Lincoln. It's a little reedy kind of a between a between a baritone and a tenor. It is a

little like hacyedish with firmness in the right. As God gives us to see the right, Let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and a lasting peace among ourselves and with all

nations. Kay. He Lincoln. He makes you think that you're watching Abraham Lincoln, because you've never heard anybody perform Lincoln without speaking in a deep voice as he was six feet five inches, sir, trial, Yeah, exactly, except the guy who played Lincoln on Star Trek, who I thought did it really really well too. But that's but it was. But it was a it was a startlingly brilliant way of saying, I'm gonna I played one of the most iconic people in the history of the world. How can I

make people see this person as a person in time? And uh, you know that to me is his greatest performance. But he does this every time. It's true, he is not. You know, there are people who did this, like in impersonation terms, like Peter Sellers, who was always somebody else. But it was kind of a bit. It was kind of sketchy, you know, it was kind of play. I think that's true, yes, but again it's almost like he's a sketch comedian building apart from

the inside out. And Daniel day Lewis does does something different. But I think I have two choices for the best performance on film, and one of

them we didn't mention, though it should be. There is al Pacino as Michael and the Godfather not The Godfather too, which is a great performance, but Pacino and The Godfather maybe the greatest performance on film because it is this is the you were watching over three hours a person go from a sort of callo slightly soft war hero trying to keep himself separate from the family slowly sucked

in and sucked in and sucked in and sucked in. And what he has to do over the course of a six month shoot everything is you know, like filmed out a sequence and all of that. He is building this character over the course of the movie. At every given moment that they were filming, he had to know where he was in Michael's journey in the disruption.

Yeah, yeah, that's a director has to help you do that. I mean, I would say that the tragedy is that's the reverse of what Joan is saying, which is that every performance you see in Al Pacino afterwards, you don't see Michael Corlone and you wish you did. Yeah, yeah, you see yeah, yeah, you see just James Kahn, you know, you see some screaming noisemaker. Yeah yeah, yeah. Anyway, but it has a that is the greatest movie ever made. That performance is the movie.

I mean, the movie is about Michael. It's not about ultimately it's about Michael and he is the spine and there's nothing but I think my favorite performance of all time is, interestingly, since Ryner mentions it is James Stewart and It's a Wonderful Life, which is a forty or fifty times, And there's a movie about a desperately unhappy man and I I and a good man, a noble man, but who ultimately doesn't have the courage to do he

hates his life. And it is a movie about somebody who is living a life with a beautiful wife in a nice town with good kids, and he's doing a good job and he's helping everybody, and he hates his life. And I don't know anything like it. And when he when he discovers what it is that he actually has and what he is at risk of giving up or losing by by committing suicide, and the elevation of his spirit, the sense that he has been given a new chance to appreciate everything that he has

right is so beautiful and that that's my choice. That is I think the greatest performance. Hell me Court, get me back, yet me back. I don't care what happens to meet me by to my wife and kids retires. Please please, I want to live again. I want to live again. I like the Marlo Thomas version. Yes, yeah, Marlo Thomas also that's the when I gravitate to. That's what I We all have our own

faith. Marvel Thomas also played Scrooge. I want you to know, no, I know, I know, so there is there is no her range, you know, and just remember every dollar is going to the Saint Jude. You're forgetting Arnold Swartz and air and kindergarten, kindergarten cop Actually, I uh you can know. No mention of Marlo Thomas can be finished without a p s A all every listener needs to go to Google, the Google machine

and google picture of Marlo Thomas today. Uh so that you, if in your future are thinking about maybe getting a little bit of plastic surgery, that this image will dissuade you from that. It is the most uh actionable I think, a piece of malpractice. If ever, if you get you're right, you just would use di it right. Yeah, it's shocking, it's shocking. It's it's very, it's very it's very. All you could think of is all I can think of is like this is this needs to be

more widespread. More people need to see this. You know, you go, you go, and then you know you're in those airline magazines like the best Doctors of this, the best doctors the center of the land, the best plastic surgeons, and they're all there in their suits and they look all very rich and prosperous. They all the entire profession needs to answer, uh for what they have done to that girl there. I'm trying to decide, and I think Scott can decide whether or not we should just end it there.

But I I we're talking about going to Google, and I just I have one thing to say to people, but it is a I have to put a trigger warning on it and say that it's disturbing and disgusting to find out about I'm going to so as you may know, Marlow Thomas was the daughter of a famous committee. Oh yes, of course, yes, Danny Thomas. So I I just I have four words to say, Danny Thomas coffee table. That's it all I'm going to say. And I will only

say this. I only add to this. Yeah, I will only add to this by saying that before the internets, when you were a young writer joining a TV writing staff. One of the first things piece of lore that you learn from your you know, your your elders, elders, your mentors. Was this so the stories passed down and tell the internet. Yes, it is a storied story about a beloved entertainer after hours, shall we say, or behind or behind closed doors? And you you you google it at

your peril, but you can google it if you like. But as a as a palate cleanser, I know we're going to run. I just want to offer this because you sometimes you sometimes ask what we're watching, and I always feel dumb because I'm not watching anything or or I'm not dumb, but more like speirior I guess the word uh. And I tend to watch a lot of talent on on the online social media. And there is a woman, young woman, her name, I don't know her name, this Taylor's

her first name. Hey it tay, Hey it h t E y I t A t A y. And she's doing these weird first person kind of like look like the Instagram or TikTok lot vi where she's being a certain person. So she does one she'd want to Mary live from Bethlehem, and she's just doing this kind of like horrible gen Z woman. Uh. Being an influencer, she does one that's the the Handsel the Gretel Witch, responding to

criticism about her diet plan. I mean, it's it's it sounds weird, it's so she's so good and so funny that if you're looking for something clever and interesting and kind of weirdly offbeat, go there. And Joan, are you watching anything you want to recommend? I'm sorry, I've been googling Danny Thomas coffee table. Oh dear, Okay, well you could watch Make Room for Daddy, which I do believe is on Netflix, by the way, or for Danny Thomas content that does not involve the coffee table. So I

uh, I told you, I've been watching Yellowstone. I my again. My wife was missing, was was not missing. She was not around for like ten days, and so we stopped watching the True Detective Alaska thing, and and then I saw all this stuff about how it was. The ending was just absolutely terrible, which made me more interested in the show, because I really didn't like the show that much to begin with. But then we tried to pick up on episode three, and we said, you know,

we just hate all of these characters so much. So this is a negative review in terms of, like, I'm going to stop watching, and I am a completist. I normally once I commit, I got to see things. And I really do like monsieur Spade. Have you guys been watching that? No, I don't. I watch it. Yeah yeah, so yeah, yeah, yeah, No, it's solid and I mean it could end badly. I'm not done with it yet, but like, is this as Sam Spade in France in the nineteen fifties, yeah, early sixties, late

late fifties, early sixties. It's I'm not a big expert on the larger oove of Sam Spade stuff. I don't know. I mean, I guess there were novels or something, but like I know, multi's facing novelty. Yeah, it's what's a pleasure to look at and it gives you a real It's really good at giving you a feel of post war France, and I'm enjoying it. I think it's definitely worth watching so far. I have yeah, most Yeah, go ahead. Created by Tom Fontana, who did Oz,

who's a wonderful writer, a nice guy. Yeah, you're right, technically there is only one novel, but there's the novel Red Harvest as the unnamed detective which was really him was Sam Spade. Tom Fontana was the dramaturg at the Williamstown Theater Festival in nineteen seventy eight, the year that I was an apprentice at the Williamstown Wow, you know theater festival. And he did not appear to be going anywhere fast, and then he took off like a

rocket. Three years later was Williamstown Festival. People who made Saint Elsewhere, And so Tom got himself onto Saint Elsewhere and then moved forward. But I do have a dark story about Saint Elsewhere very quickly, about a friend, about my friend who was at Williamstown that summer, Dwight Schultz. Dwight Schultz, who actually played the Toppenheimer. Yes, yeah, yes, played Robert Oppenheimer in the first movie about Robert Aimer were called Fat Man and Little Boy

in which from Star Trek Next Generation. But go on, I'm sorry, right exactly. So, Dwight Schultz is a lovely guy and a conservative son of a military man. His daughter is actually a colonel in the Air Force.

Dwight went in three years he had been at Williamstown. He went in to read for st Elsewhere, and Bruce Paltrow, who was Winn's husband, Gwen's father, was one of the executive producers and had been Gwyneth Paltrow, his wife was a Williamstown person, was there that summer also, And so Dwight came in to read for a part on Sane Elsewhere, and he was sitting in the ante room and somebody said he heard through the door someone say

Dwight Schultz is up next, and Bruce Paltra said, I'm not letting any Reagan asshole onto this show, and that and that was Dwight's experience auditioning for saying, I'm saying get a team, which is an opriate show, right and more reaganight, I will say actly. And Dwight was a magnificent actor, magnificent at Williamstown. And and I have ill feeling toward toward Bruce Paltrow, who died tragically young, but I have an ill feeling for his mistreatment

of of Dwight Schultz. But I did very much like Tom Fontana, who was a very very nice guy and fun and the only thing I can recommend I watched with my son this week talk about a ridiculous recommendation is Casablanca. So I finally showed my thirteen year old son, and dear God, is that a perfect? Is that a perfect? It's a perfect movie. Perfectly it is there. There are may be there are may be ten perfect movies,

and that is one of them. I will say about Casiboka as I recently rewatched it on a plane, I mean a couple of years ago, and like, you know how young people think all these old black and white movies are too slow, I kind of get it, you know, scenes last two. The amazing thing about Casablanca in some ways, or at least the underrated thing, is the editing, because act he moves at a really good clip, yeah back then, and Michael Curtizz the director, Yeah,

the camera never stops moving. That camera is moving around Rick's Cafe American like nobody's business. It is as though it were walking through the bar at all times. In all ways. It's amazingly vivid and lively. So what's funny about that is that the reason it did that, the reason that actually all the old movies did that had much more camera moves and lay Dolly track, no lease Dolly track now is because it was cheaper to light a set for

long continuous takes than it was to do a million setups. And now it's like they do a million setups. And why now things seem like they they their pace is faster, but the story moves slower because nothing happens in the frame. Well, in the frame of any one of those old movies, but especially multi Salcon are the great with Michael ts directed ones and you know the George Kukor and Ernst Lubitch. Things happen in the frame. You see

an actor change another actor's mind. You never ever see that. Now that's mostly a cutaway, which is one of the reason why there's the movies now seem faster but more boring. You know, we'd and you don't have to pay attention to them. All right, so uh here we are. We're done. We're gonna come back in March, hopefully with new AI that's better than the AI that we have now. Well a I do it will be replaced by AI AI do a glock You could say, yeah, right,

which you know what, if it's better, that's always the fear. Well it'll be shorter, Ye'll be short. It can't be worse. Ye all right, See you guys next time. Pellas

Transcript source: Provided by creator in RSS feed: download file
For the best experience, listen in Metacast app for iOS or Android