Cole Stratton on Searching for Bobby Fischer

so it felt pretty legit. Or just sitting on the couch watching the first episode of Lock and Key because we decided to dive into that and and just sing where you know, Swede for about fifteen twenty seconds. There's been quite a few in the last like year or so, so that's getting slightly alarming, but they've never really scared me.

But it was legit, you know. Man. I lived there for about five years and I never felt so much as a tremble, and that was It's kind of one of those things where you obviously don't want anything bad to happen, but you kind of want to know what it feels like. Yeah, I mean, I usually don't feel them up to this past year, when they've become like a lot more prevalent and like have happened during the day.

Like I just don't feel them half the time. And of course you just go to Twitter or whatever to find out if legit had happened, because then everybody in the world's tweeting about it in the l A area. But but yeah, I mean I I didn't feel them. I usually don't feel them, but the last couple I have, I think mostly because they've been pretty significantly rocking. So and the other ones you just feel emotionally. Yeah, you bet. It gives me right here. So Cole is a an

improv comedian. Um, you do some acting as well, right, Yeah, a little bit here and there. And you are someone who I met through San Francisco sketch Fest. You were one of the co founders of sketch Fest along with Janet Barney and I think one other person, right, yeah, David Owen, where the three that started it in two thousand and two. So that's crazy, man. I don't know if I've met David. Um he is. He's still a part of it. Yeah, he's around. We're just because we

have a billion shows happening. It's at odds are we have not you guys have not been in the same building at the same time. Yeah, it is crazy big and really successful. For my money, the best comedy festival in the country. And I would love to hear a little bit about how that started out in your relationship with Janet as well. Yeah. Sure, so we're we're coming up on our twentieth festival in Theory in January. Who knows, with the way things are going in the world right now.

But back in two thousand two we started it. Janet, me, Dave, and this other guy, Gabe. We're in a sketch group together called Totally False People. We all met at San Francisco State We started doing sketch together and there wasn't really a lot of places to do sketch in San Francisco. There was a couple of kind of jankie venues. One was called the Mock Cafe that had like a beam in the middle of the room, So they're not great. Uh, if you did sketch like comedy clubs, it was very

confusing for people. Remember we did uh, we did a gig in Rooster Ti Feathers because Gabe's mom owned it at the time, and we did like a twenty minute opening up or something, and I remember some guy like called and left a message on the voicemail and being like, I don't know what they were doing, stage acting or something. So so it was kind of hard to find a place to do this stuff. So there was a couple other uh sketch teams in town that we're kind of

in a similar boat. UM, So we kind of banned together and we rented a theater because you couldn't do a one off in the theater, you had to like kind of rent for a month. So we rented the Shelton Theater and Union Square, which was seventy five seats, and the six teams decided to kind of do to like two groups of night co head lining with an intermission and then the last week like kind of cabaret style. We're all six teams tod like fifteen minutes sets instead

of forty five minutes sets like that. Um, And we had no idea if it would work, and we just decided to give it a shot. And thankfully the San Francisco Chronicle ran a date book story on it back when print like really did a lot for you and it was front page on the Thursday date book section, and it kind of took off. We sold out every single show but one, and then when we didn't sell it had like ten tickets left. So that's where we kind of figured like, oh, this thing could actually be something.

We had really no intentions of it becoming an actual festival. That was just kind of the the guys to put it under an order for all six of us to kind of cross pollinate our own audiences and find some new ones. Yeah, that was kind of my My question was whether or not you guys were like, you know, maybe we should try it again next year. I mean,

did it kind of grow organically? Yeah. The next year, we just decided we could kind of go to a bigger venue, so we rented the Eureka Theater, which is not the Gateway, but it's been one of our venues since here too. It's the longest tenured venue at this point, and it's two hundred se up from the seventy five and Shelton, and so we decided to do that and we pursu we like, we kind of opened it up

to other sketch teams in the country. You could kind of submit send a video and back when everybody's sent in vhs, s UM, and we went after some headliners like just thinking why not, can't hurt to ask, and we managed to somehow get um UCB the three guys to come and do a sketch show and an impropt while UM and uh Fred Willard and his Hollywood Players, which is a sketch team that Fred was kind of

in charge of. So those two were like kind of the first to really take a chance on us, and then we just kind of built it out from there. Just every year kind of added a few more venues or a few more headliners, and after five or six years, we just realized that sketch was very finite. So we decided to open it up to hall forms of comedy and just kind of went from there. And that is amazing. I mean, if you've never been to Sketch Fest, you're

missing out. It is a is it just in the month of January, now, Yeah, that's when the festival's self is proper. We sometimes do programming throughout the year, a little bit here and a little bit there. Sometimes we we usually book the comedy tenant outside Lands, which a big music festival there, and we were working at Clusterfes the last couple of years too. We've done some summer events at the Castro Theater and things like that too, but yet the bulk of what we do is in January. Yeah,

it's amazing. Um, if you've never been, you should go. It is a month of some of the best. I mean, you guys have gotten to the point now where you just kind of owned the city of San Francisco for a month. Um. Just I feel like, dozens of venues. How many venues do you have going we have? It kind of varies per year, but I think we're usually

around twenty. We've had as many as three. Um, Like, on any given Friday night, say like at eight o'clock, they're probably twelve shows going on at the same time against each other. And you know that's the only shitty part. As a performer, It's like, oh man, I want to be doing this, I want to be doing this, and it's just you can't get it all in. So you go and you see what you can see, and you you sacrifice by doing your own perform princes when you'd

rather be going somewhere else to watch somebody. And you guys are getting I mean, you do these big tributes. Now you've had these legends like Carol Burnett and I know Jeff Goldwin was there last year, I think or two years ago. Yeah, he's done his kind of fun, weird music jazz thing he does where he sings songs, but then he also comes out and does like music trivia or movie trivia in his own movies and stuff,

and it's really funny and silly. But yea, at this point, like early on, we were just kind of like, there's no way anybody would do this thing. You know, in our minds, it's like we're just a bunch of college kids, which is really all we were. We're just we had no knowledge of this stuff. But I think the reason we've been able to survive and actually thrive as long as we have is that the three of us came came out, came out there as performers, but we all

have good heads for business. So it's that combination of knowing what the performers want to get out of it and the audiences want to get out of it. So hopefully the performers come and have a good time, the audiences have a good time, and it's kind of symbiotic and it goes from there. And I think Fred Armison once said is like many summer camp, which we kind of lean on that quote because it kind of is like any given weekend because of the volume shows we have.

There's so many performers in town, and so many people are friends with each other, and then I just don't get to hang out that often because they're not in the same town. So that's kind of the fun part of it is at the end of the night at the parties, you know, at midnight, there's like a hundred people in a room that all barely see each other and are excited to come together and kind of cross

polity to each other's shows and stuff. So yeah, yeah, man, it's um I think stuff you should know has been

there for maybe five years straight or at least four. Yeah, and it's always, you know, one of our favorite things to do every year, and we get to see all of our friends because you guys are kind enough to book us of the weekend where you know, word Colton and Hodgeman and beIN Acker and the guys are all there, and and Adam Pranica and Ben Harrison, so we're all of our buddies are kind of all there at the same time, Paula Tompkins, and it's just it's just sort

of a fun weekend of celebration with each other. It's really great. Yeah, we love it. We were pretty cognitive of that, like when we put stuff together of like, okay, well that'll be the weekend of all the thrilling people, all the podcasts on Maximum Fun, all that kind of stuff, because you guys all want to be at the same time, which is cool. Um, And that's always the weird thing is like everybody's there's three kind of weekends, so we have shows on weeknights to we only stayed dark on

Mondays if we can. Sometimes we can't. We could do Carrol Burnett and on on Monday because that's when she could do. So it's kind of like a different weekend for each of these performers that are coming through. So yeah, we try to put the same kind of folk on the same weekend, which also sometimes sucks because we have to program shows that have a very similar audience base at the same time, and it's kind of, yeah, you gotta choose one, sorry, audience or whatever, you know. I mean,

it's a it's an embarrassment of riches. When you get to that point, you know, yeah, um, who's the biggest I know, Carrol Burnett was a really big deal. Who who for you has been kind of the coolest, biggest person in your life that you've been able to meet and work with? Their how it's been crazy? I mean early on for us it was Kids in the Hall because they were kind of our heroes and and that was kind of a goal of ours just to get

the Kids in the Hall to a festival. So we kind of got them individually first, like Bruce McCulloch can did one of his solo shows and fully I think came into that too, and then Scott came in did something, and then Kevin did something, and then I think Mark was the last one we got when we did a full Kids in the Hall like Sketch Live Sketch show and a tribute where we had them in conversation and I remember there's a moment where um, they had a big suite over at the Marriott, which was like our

sponsor hotel that one one year only, but we used them that one year, and I remember all of us were up there hanging out in this big like sweet at the Marriott with the kids in the hall and being like, okay, um, we're here now. So yeah, that is amazing. I was on the elevator with Bruce McCullough one year and I just like, I couldn't even say anything. And I'm usually pretty good about that, but I, uh, yeah, I just I froze up. It's funny because like he

he and Janet are pretty good friends. And I remember once we went and saw the National at the Hollywood Bowl and Bruce came with Janet and afterwards we were leaving, he was he had a backpack on in a ball cap and he looked just like Gavin his character and it was just hard to not like the National ways eight and a half pound. Um did he have cabbage on his head? Pretty much? So yes, that was early on.

That was a big one for me. Since then, like we've gotten so many of our heroes, and Carolman obviously was huge. Um, Alan Arkin was one of my like heroes. So we've had him, Like my white whale right now is Albert Brooks because he's my comedy hero. Never had but we've been trying and I think one year we will. I mean, he's interested it just hasn't worked out yet.

But um, yeah, it's been crazy the amount of people we've gotten there, and it's gotten I don't get star struck anymore because of the volume in which we get these people over. I mean, obviously there's some people that I'm a little more like I'm just gonna say hello and shake their hands and that's it goodbye, Like I'm not going to try to strike up a conversation. But it's pretty crazy. It's very surreal every year. Yeah, man,

that's awesome. I mean just what you guys have managed to put together or it's just amazing and um, it's uh, it's one of those festivals. It's just there's a good vibe everywhere you go. It's staying in that hotel is fun because like you never know who's going to cruise through that lobby or be on the elevator with you, and it's all very chill and you know, probably because it's San Francisco, and um, it's just a great vibe. I have a have a great time every single year.

I hope you guys keep inviting us that we definitely well, that's one of the wonderful things about the festivals. We finally get somebody for the first time, and then most of the time they want to come back, and then they become staple the festival year after year. So yeah, it's cool and um our our listeners look forward to us coming every January at the Castro and Janet his um. I've told her this too. She has always pushed me to do things that I didn't think I could do.

And I got to do the in Conversation with the Baskets UH TV show and so I you know, I was on stage with Zach and Louie Anderson and just like that was a huge career moment for me and I just thank you guys for letting me be a

part of it. Of course. Yeah, it's crazy how far Janet's com I mean, like I just remember back when we were doing sketch together, she was selling furniture, like that's what she did and going to school she had transferred from Arizona where she's from and stuff, and so she was very very shy about it, like she didn't

have a lot of confidence at first. And I just remember I wrote for her a lot because I thought she was really funny and like she it took her a little while to like believe it and then what she did. She's amazing and she always has been and lo and behold, she's the one that really took off and has has an amazing career and I still get to work with her all the time. I see her less here in l A, even though we both live here. Then when we're in San Francisco, because she's in the

East side. I'm on the west side, which so you might as well be like New York l A at that point. It's so far but yeah, yeah, how far west are you? I am in Century City, so kind I'm kind of near that mall. Uh yeah. So I like it a lot. It's like central West Side. The only thing that's hard to get to is like Burbank because there's no real I gotta go around her over. But it's pretty easy to get to Cinema. I got pretty easy to get into Hollywood. So I like it

a lot. Yeah, that's awesome. Man, Um, where are you from? Originally? I was born in East Lansing, so I grew up in Okamist, Michigan. UM lived there till I was nine, and then my mom she worked at Michigan State and then she got basically the same job, but at U C. Davis for like double the salary or whatever. So it was like, okay, pack up the camper, here we go

to California. We moved out to Davis, California, which is where my folks still are and where most of my formulative years are from nine through you know, the end of high school, and that's where I still go back for holidays and stuff. And was San Francisco after that? Yeah? That that's um interesting you mentioned that age range because that's sort of where I like to talk to people about their formative movie going years, which for me are

like ten or eleven through you know, seventeen or eighteen. Um, what what movies were you into? Was this something that you were always because I've seen, you know, we're on face Facebook together and I see you have an amaze in collection of movie posters that you display regularly on Facebook and it's it's truly impressive, and so I know you're a really big movie buff. Was that always your bag? Yeah?

I always? Um, I like to say I'm a child of HBO um because because like you know, I was born in seventy six, so like, you know, mid eighties was really like when my film stuff started happening, and my dad was like really into movies and stuff too, when he passed down a lot of classic films, so I was getting both the HBO things that I watched all the time. So there's a good twenty movies or so that, like, I will defend at the end of time.

I know they're not great movies necessarily that I've seen that. I've seen girls just want to have fun and cloak and dagger in the Pirate Movie, in the Last Unicorn a million times. Um, So I love those things to death and I get that, you know, for me, the eighties are the sweet spot. That's all the stuff that like I have such romance for, so to speak. And then the nineties is really where I started to kind

of go into explore wearing all sorts of film. I worked in indie video stores for like fifteen years, uh in San Francisco and then even down here when I first moved here, so I was really into physical media. I still have like two thousand blue rays and DVDs, So which is you know, they're not all on streaming people. I know you think that they are, but they're not. Yeah, I think you're speaking to the heart of many movie crush listeners, because there are a lot of people that

have vast libraries and take it pretty seriously. Um, I know what you're talking about. With the HBO. There were I called them HBO movies. I mean they were there were movies. They weren't made by HBO, but there were movies that I watched just incessantly just because they were on and in that same gap. I'm I think I'm about five years older than you, but it's it's that same window of time where uh, HBO came into your house and between that and MTV, like it changed my life.

Oh yeah, fully, I mean that. I mean it's it's funny because I don't watch cable that much even anymore, even though I have a billion annals and I'll flip around. I'll just put movies on if I'm working because I work from home for the festival. Sometimes I'm just doing a lot of busy work on my computer, and like, if there's certain movies out they're just on cable. I'll

just leave them on in the background. I just won't ever change off, like Mr Monto or Major League or whatever, like, they just will constantly be on because Silverado, Like, they're just things that I just love and it doesn't matter what part it is, because I've seen him a bunch of times. It's like, oh cool, I'll just pick it up right here. Awesome. So yeah, but HBO definitely was the one. I still like love. I have that theme song stuck in my head still, no no, no, no,

oh god. So yeah, that was the best, that flying Hbos symbol that would come over town. Yeah. Someone posted that on our on our Facebook page the movie Crush on the other day, and it's just it's impossible to see that and not just be awash in a wave of nostalgia. Yeah, And I think what was great about that time and what's confusing about this time is you

didn't have choices. And I like that, like you had choices, but you didn't have what you have now, which is like needles and haystecks of needles, whereas before it's like, you know, you had a pitchfork, so you could at least bay all through the hay um. So like not movies come out and it's like you don't you look at the cashmick, how have been heard of this? How is this not in the theater is that kind of thing or back then, it's like movies came out in

the theater. There was like three or four that opened on a weekend, and then it used to take like six months to a year for it to come out on vhs. Like you had a legit amount of time to wait for the movies. Now it's like if you don't see in the theater, you're like, oh, I'll be on demand in like three weeks or whatever, which is crazy. So like that was, and when vhs came out, they cost so you had to wait for them to get to price to own, so it was so crazy like that.

It was just like a different pace of living. Everything was slower and if you think about it, even though at that time the generation before was saying like stop living so fast with your VCRs and whatever. But it used to be that you would call somebody, you'd leave a message on their message machine, and then when they called you, you called them back the next day, or they called you back the next day. You're like, thanks for calling me back so quick. Right now, it's like

I texted you fifteen minutes ago. Are you dead? Know what the funk is wrong? Right? Do you have do you have COVID nineteen exactly. So that's just I kind of missed that time. I missed that kind of like slower pace of everything, even though there's still a lot happening. But and I think that enabled me to like watch movies and not think about it, just like enjoy them and be able to relax. Now it just feels like

there's something I should be doing. There's something I should be doing, and it's harder for me to, like, I want to sit down and watch movies as much I feel guilty when I do it. I still watch a ton of movies, don't get me wrong, but it doesn't have the same kind of childhood glee that it once did. Yeah, and I talk a lot about um, certainly great movies in the nineteen sixties, in nineteen seventies, some of the most iconic films ever. But I talk a lot about

just like nineteen eight two or nineteen eighties. If you go back and occasionally someone will scan in like the newspaper movie section from that one of those years, and it's staggering the quality of of the movies that came out. We're just really good movies. I mean, they might not be the biggest blockbusters or these iconic films, but movies like you know, Absence of Malice or The Verdict like these call them adult films, like adult dramas that you

just don't see enough of anymore. It's really and and I don't want to be the old guy that's talking about how you know, things of my day were so much better. But I think week to week, every Friday there were a couple of really good movies that would come out. It felt like, yeah, for sure. I mean, I think movies were built different then. I mean, if you go back to the old Hollywood system, they're all built kind of on a formula. But the formula was

like take your time, hit these marks or whatever. Um. And then the au tour stuff happened with you know, Easy Writer and and Godfather and all that stuff Scorsese and then the kind of studio system kind of got freaked out. Um. But so then it was kind of a clash between that where the indie film and and and the system and stuff after that. But I just feel like they're if you, yeah, you look like a

two four. I mean, eighty four is kind of when all the blockbustery stuff started happening because you had Grandus and Ghostbusters and all that kind of stuff. I think Raiders was at eighty four. Was that I think it was. There might have been eight. I think that was a two, but like that's kind of I mean, obviously Jaws was the first, like the thing that set the whole Blockbuster chain going, But I just kind of feel like then

it was more tentpole summer event movies from that point on. Um, and then like the art films are still open or they still be there because the studios had prestige films they wanted to get out there in addition to their popcorn movies. Yeah, and now it's like every weekend, it's like you're lucky if you live in a town that will get the movies that aren't the big studio movies that planned three thousand screens. Yeah, that's where you kind

of have to look these days. I think you're Um, I mean, there are still some good studio films, but there are a few and four between that aren't Marvel movies. I mean, I love those movies, but you have to kind of look to the indie world a little more, do a little more curating and searching. Um, I feel like you could write a book about this kind of stuff. Yeah,

I mean I thought about that. I've thought about I thought about doing some sort of podcast on eighties movies and stuff, especially where I thought I would like take a movie and really deconstruct it and be like, here's here's the audio from the trailer, this is how they did it, here's the marketing, here's that stuff. Because it's really fascinating, especially if you like most of those old trailers are on YouTube and other places too, if you just look them up or if you end up down

the rabbit hole Systel and Ebert reviews. That's always fun because like it's just fun to see what they thought of things at the time because time and distance from movies. It's just good weird to see how things were received initially versus now movies that are classics are like panned and that kind of stuff too. But yeah, it's just it's weird to look back and all how that all went. Um. But the trailers are great too, and that like they did voice over on almost all of them, and they

don't do that anymore. It's just like music, you're lucky if you get in a world, even in a world is an old true now but most of like if you look back on those eighties movies especially, it's always just like Charlie Babbitt is a wonderful lawyer, but he's about to have the Weekend from Hell. Like they literally spell it all out for you. Yeah, you're great, and they just don't do it anymore. And then like the voices used to be, not the not the Fred Melama is not the like the low like in a world

where it was more conversational, it was like different. It's just different. And it's just interesting to see it now because if you play one of those trailers now before a movie, people would laugh at it. They'd be like, that's so cheesy. Doesn't mean you want to see it. I don't get it up, but that's what it was like. It's just weird how much things have changed to be slick and evokes certain feelings and not actually tell you

kind of what the movie is half the time. Yeah, and this leads me to the movie posters in your collection. I think we can both agree that movie posters nowadays are awful and yeah, they're there's fucking terrible and and so formulaic and with all the faces. And you've got a really great collection of both foreign not foreign films, but foreign versions of American movies, which is really fun. Um. The first time I traveled to Europe, I took a lot of pictures of of American of you know, European

versions of American movie posters and the titles. But when did that start? And what is your collection all about to you? So? I mean, I love the alternative, any alternative art. Orc for posters, I love because there's a certain thing you've seen a billion times, but when you see us, different countries take on it are different. I just love it. And how the titles are different stuff too. I just find them entertaining as well. But for me, like I worked, I was obsessed obsessive movies growing up.

So my room was just covered in movie posters that I got, like free from the video store that I would just frequent And I even had a couple of the cardboards standis, like the big ones because they when they were going to toss them out, they would given to me. So in my room I had Willow broadcast news and dy dancing. And you don't you don't see a lot of like you know, ten year old kids of the broadcast news standy. But that's why that's my

second favorite movie. Like I love it to death, but it's just one of those I just loved it all and like I would just like the room I was given we moved into our replace in Davis. I think was like a little girl's room at the time. So I had like strawberry wallpapers. Is weird? It wasn't. I didn't love it, so I just just like covering it up with movie posters. I just plastered over it. So I had so many and then I would just you know, get something new and replace it. But I didn't like

like protect them. They were just taped up there like there's no thought and about value. It was just like this is cool, and I just think back they're so weird too, Like I hadn Deane up there with Jeff Bridges and Convintion, like what is that? But it was just like, I like those actors, this is a cool looking poster. Why not um? And I would just keeps constantly cycle through it. So I think I always kind

of have that. And then as they started to kind of really get serious about movies because I technically went to San Francisco State four film. I was enrolled in the film program there. My degree is in cinema with an emphasis on direction. Fat a lot of good I'm doing with that, but um, but it was different then too because the film I was I learned to edit on a flatbed, like, it wasn't digital, So it was

just different. It was just you know, you'd you'd go back and you look at the film and what you thought was fast wasn't wasn't fast because you were cranking it too fast. And then you look at it and you're like, oh my god, this is the slowest cut thing in the history of the world. Um. But it

was just a different like feelings. So as I started to go through that, um and I started to work at indie video stores and stuff too, I would start to get posters that were like I had a I used to get reproductions because I didn't really think much like about value of it. So I had like a gold Finger poster on my wall, like the British UK

Quad version, that kind of stuff. And then I just started kind of getting excited about these like foreign film posters I would find for American movies and stuff, and I just started collecting them. And at first I would put them up, but now I have hundreds. So a couple of years ago I realized these are just sitting in a closet. I just take these all out, photograph them and then periodically post them on my socials as a way of hanging them without hanging them. Um, and

I still have at it. Thanks. Thanks, And it's not hard to find them, Like you can go on eBay and just you know, literally just look at originals non US years or whatever and just kind of scroll through and some stuff is ridiculously expensive. But I'll order like, you know, twenty from Australia that are arranging from like three d ten dollars each and then ends up being just like you know, a hundred fifty bucks or whatever.

And I got a much cool posters. So they're all out there, and they're not They're undervalued a lot of the time, especially if you like movies that aren't the big blockbusters. Yeah, what is your what is your most prized possession? I know that's a tough one. Or do you have a oh that's stuff. I think it might be. I have some that are are signed by people that I got either through the festival or my podcast or whatever.

I have a Swedish Young Frankenstein posters signed by Gene Wilder. Um. We did a uh kind of a tribute to him. Ended up being a post festival event because he can only come in March to time with the book release. So he did like a book release signing and a screening of Young Frankistein and then like a conversation Q and A with him, and it was just like magical. And while the film ran, we all went and got dinner. And that's like probably the most surreal night of my life.

Sixth top of Us. It was like Jean and his wife and me, Janet and Dave and Sydney Goldstein who used to run City Arts and Lectures who pass away a couple of years ago, her husband and we were just, you know, stare chatting and I wasn't there's somebody between me and him, so I wasn't talking to him that much. But we rode over together and you know, what do you talk about on a car ride with Gene Wilder. He just kind of pressed about the rates of houses

in San Francisco, I think, and expensive is the answer. Um. But it was crazy, and there's been a few nights like that like we went and we got beers with Terry Jones after we did Holy Grail and stuff, and like, you know, he this is about five or six years before them and just set in and then he passed

recently too. So there's just things like that that are just like these are things that people nowadays would like have to win and like one of those like by three worth of things and one person will win this thing. And these are just things we got to do. And it's just crazy to me. And I'm just glad that, like I'm somebody who would appreciate it, because there's people that get that ship all the time that don't, which is crazy to me. Yeah, that's unbelievable. Gene Wilder, boy,

that's special. He's he's up there for me, that would have been, uh intimidating. Everything I've heard about him is that he was the biggest sweetheart of a man in the history of the world. You know. Yeah, he was very soft spoken and gentle and sweet and funny. Still very very sharp and funny. Then he I think it had already retired from acting, or I think he was doing a couple of those like TV mystery things for that character. Like he liked to do, but that was it.

He hasn't done any features after that. I know Spielberg was trying to coax him out of retirement to do Ready Player one. Um wow, yep, which would have been crazy. But he I think he was an ill health then and I don't think they wanted that to get out because think he died like six months or a year later or something. But um, yeah, he was trying to get him out for that. That That would have been crazy. Yeah, cheez,

that's unbelievable. He um, yeah, he would have been. I don't know what I would have said to Gene Wilder. I would have been super intimidated. It's crazy because you don't want to talk about their work because obviously they've talked about their work a billion times. Even though you would love to be like, what was it like working with Prior? What was it you know whatever? Like Brooks. You know that you like Mel didn't find putting on the Rits funny, but you did. How did you fight

for that or whatever? But you know, you don't want to come at them as a fanboy. You want to come out as a peer at the best, you know, like Or's just somebody that he can talk to, he can be free, he can take he can take off his persona that a lot of actors and stuff have to do, and just like chat about whatever you want to chat about, you know, whether that's other movies or

whether that's whatever, it doesn't matter. I think I would have to break proto call a little bit though, because I wouldn't want to come across as indifferent to who he is as well, So I would have to sneak in something about Blazing Saddles or Willy Wonka or or speaking of HBO movies of that era, The Woman in Red was a movie I probably saw thirteen times as a youth. All the Charles Grodin blind stuff in that movie just oh man, it's so good. He was just

so good. I mean even in his like movies that were kind of pan his lesser works that are speaking, like Haunted Honeymoon, Hanky Panky, like those were HBO movies. I watched the hell out of Haunted Honeymoon. So yeah, now I totally did too. There's people you're watching anything, it doesn't matter what they're is just joy to see them on screen, and he was one of them. That is amazing. So before we get going with the movie.

I do want to cover really quickly. I saw on Facebook the past few days, you have you have watched the Add Boys movies? Movies that I have never seen. Uh. I worked with Michael Bay one time. I was at p A on a TV commercial that he directed, and it was one of the most interesting, enjoyable and surreal commercial shoots I've ever been on. UM, but what were those movies? Like? Are they any good? You know, it's weird. I've seen most everything in that era, you know, working videos.

Was I just push it on in the background if but I somehow I just never seen the Bad Boys movies. I was always aware of them, but just had never put him in. I think I missed the first one, and then when the second one came out, I was like, why didn't see the first one? And at that time it was a little harder to kind of they weren't playing a TV and I didn't really want to rent it or whatever. So I just finally decided. My wife and I were just talking and I was like, you know,

I've never seen the Bad Boys movies. She's like, I haven't either, and I was like, well, I guess we should watch the Bad Boys movies and how was the time. I was like, yeah at the time, and they're on Netflix, the first two and the third one just just became

rentable on iTunes, so we watched them. And it's weird because you know, I'll get people will write about my movie picks and I put them up there and my posters or whatever, and like, right now I'm doing this Quarantine film fest thing that I just decided to do. Or I'm like picking like thirty your favorite movies one movie a day. I'm not necessarily watching them now. I'm just like posting one a day just to be like, I love this movie and whatever. But those would get

some responses. But the Bad Boys thing has caused a lot of conversation on my wall because people love those movies, like and I realized it's for people a bit younger than me that like the nineties were their HBO movies so to speak, and so that for them was huge because the first one came out in ninety five, which means I was like my second year of college, and uh,

it's two thousand three, two thousand twenties, like most trilogies do. Um, So the first one to me, like that's everybody kept saying watch to watch two two is the best one watched to watch too. Um, which it's always annoying when you get that for series or things like at to Like, oh, the first season of Buffy's terrible, but season two is great, but you need to watch season one. But you know so, so I gotta I gotta suffer through twelve terrible episodes

to get to where it's good. We'll do appreciate where it's good, okay, whatever. So we watched Bad Boys, and like I thought I was okay, Like I didn't. The has a conceit in it, a plot mechanic that I hate. It's one of my pet peeves and movies, which is

mistaken identity and it goes on for fucking ever. It's one of those things where like she only will deal with Mike Lowry and that's that's Will Smith, and like she gets Martin Lawrence and he's like has to pretend he's Mike Lowry and takes her back to his apartment and it's pictures of him, of Will Smith everywhere, and she thinks he's gay because you know, gay panic still happening in the nineties, and um, it's three company, Yeah, exactly,

and three companies fine? For what three company is? No? I love but sure, I get I get what you're saying. But this drags on for over an hour of the mistaken identity thing, and I was like, this would have been a good scene or two. This would have been a good ten minutes. And I always get frustrated in

movies where a simple conversation clears things up. I just hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it when like, like I always think about Shrek as an example of like he's about to tell her how he feels, and he goes to the door to knock, and then she's saying something out of context and he hears that, and so he doesn't knock and he watch Like I hate so much it makes me. It frustrates me. It frustrates me so that so watching that movie, I just just

getting frustrated with it. I was like, okay, just say like I'm his partner, like he will be here tomorrow. Do would you rather go ouside and get shot at? Like that would have sufficed, But they wanted to mind the comedy out of it, which then took away the logic. And like, I'm fine with things being brand less action movies. I love them, but at a certain point when you're this is just going on and on and on, I was just like, oh my god, cleared up. Please let's

move forward to the third act. Um. So I didn't love the first one. I thought it was fine. I didn't. I thought their chemistry was good and stuff, and I could see like, okay, this is potential. But then everybody was saying watch to watch, to watch two. So we watched two. It's like two and a half hours long, which the movies are way too long, does not need to be and um, it's way over the top. It's better,

it's shot better, the action sequences are more exciting. The camaraderie is better in a sense too, but it's still like very uneven and like still ridiculous lapses in logic per usual. But that's fine. I don't mind that. Um. But then I felt like, okay, we should watch three. Three just got rentable yesterday, so we should complete the trilogy, um and watch that one. And honestly, I might have liked it the best, only because I saw them all

at once, and it's a little more of a modern sensibility. Now. I think it's a little more grounded and logic, even though it's still ridiculous. But I don't know, I thought it was pretty good and and I would give them all like two and a half stars out of five, like that's kind of where they said, that's kind where they stay with me, you know, like moments, good moments.

But I don't have the same emotional attachment to them as people that were raised on them or grew up with it, right, And we'll forgive those things because it meant a lot to them when they were twelve, you know. I didn't have that. But there are definitely little holes here, and there are movies like that that I haven't seen and periodically realizing like, all right, I'll go I have the time, now, I'll go back and check them out and see what I was missing. Yeah, I've got a

lot of those holes. There's a whole uh spade of movies from the nineties that because those were you know, uh my college years as well. And I certainly went to a lot of movies and I worked at the cool video store, but I didn't go see everything that came out because you know, when you're in college, you're just doing a lot of other stuff and I never saw any of those movies. I never saw any of the h and people can't believe that. I've never seen any of the Happy Madison movies or the the Spade

Farley movies. I've never seen any of those. I never saw the the Jackie chan Owen Wilson stuff. What were those Shanghai Neon and Shanghai Nights? And I didn't see those? Are they good? I think they're really good. Yeah, I mean, at least the first one is. I think it's it's a fun comedy. Um. And like the Happy Madison, like Happy Gilmore, Billy Madison, all that stuff, like I those were in college. For me, I watched was in college. I love them. I still have a spot for them,

but I know I realized they're not great movies. I recognize that, but I don't know why I didn't see those. Well. It's also weird too because like Tommy Boys fantastic. I think it still holds up. It's very funny, but then Black Sheep, which is right afterwards, is pretty abysmal. And so it's just weird how things can be like really

hit and missed with the same you know, set of people. Um. But yeah, I can see like, if you just miss those, it's hard to want to go back and watch those, though people will quote them around you all the time. Then you feel like you get a little bit of Bomo. Yeah, I think I should probably go back and watch Tommy Boy. I've seen parts of a lot of these movies. Um was which was the Gulf? One? Was that Happy Gilmore's.

I feel like I've seen most of that, but I never definitely never just sat down to watch that or saw it in the theater. Uh. And I like Sandler. It's certainly like what we're getting these days from him a lot more. But um, now is the time. Maybe I should just go start watching all this sort of

popcorn Hollywood movies from the nineties. Sandler had such a weird trajectory to me, and that like, you know, he all the college bros and stuff loved those movies and they first came out, and like those two, especially Billy Madison Happy Gilmore, are like so goofy and so silly, and so many non sequiturs and things that don't make any sense whatsoever. They're just bits or whatever, but they're

funny and they're very juvenile. And then wedding singer happened, and he started to get a little it's a little more serious in a sense. It was still accommoye that. Yeah, it was still a comedy, but he was kind of acting a little bit in it, you know, water very silly too. But then punch Drunk Drunk Love happened and it became like, oh Sandler as an actor, He's not

just like a goofball, right. And then for a while after that he was in the gym carey thing of like serious stuff only and then you were kind of like make goofy movies again. And then he went to seriously goofy, like maybe the worst goofy movies and like the Netflix ones. He was doing Ridiculous six and all that kind of stuff. And Little Nikki I never saw, but that was supposed to be really bad, wouldn't it. Yeah,

that though is nineties and a time capsule. That is like probably the most nineties movie that exists, Like, watch it. It is so nineties. The soundtrack alone, like just go song and song to song. It's just it's it's, it's, it's it's Incubus was a movie. Um, it's it's Little Nicki. Oh that's good stuff, man. I feel like we could just talk about random movies forever. Maybe you can become like a regular guest and we could do some more fun stuff like this would be great, man, that'd be

a lot of fun. Um. I think we will move on to Searching for Bobby Fisher. Which was your pick? Is your favorite film? Uh? This is a movie from three, I think right that I saw when it came out, um in ninety three. I was in college and Athens, and it's not a movie that I don't I'm not sure why I saw it in the theater at the time, because it's, um, it's not a college movie that I would have that would have drawn me to the theater

for some reason. But I got to watch it again this morning, and it's just purely magical in every way. It's great. And I don't know why you would see in college. It's not like you're like, bros, you guys want to go see this, Uh Father's Son Bonding Chess Prodigy movie. Oh, there's there's no reason you would do that. I don't know why I did. I'm pretty sure I saw in the theater, but I know I definitely saw it very soon on VHS. If that wasn't the case.

But um, tell me about your first experience with the movie and why before we kind of dig into it, what it means to you and why it's your favorite movie. Well, it was definitely VHS for me because I missed it in the theaters. Um because it didn't I mean I looked up some stuff on it, and like it opened

at number nine in its first weekend. It had the third highest per screen average, but it was not on a lot of screens, and that's when like Fugitive is ruling the box office and like Jason Goes to Hell open that weekend, So that was number two, like it was nineteen, So like it wasn't really widespread and I didn't think to go see it, even I love all these people in it, especially now if you look back, like character actor Bonanza, Oh it's ridiculous, But um, I

think I just we've rented it and I put it in and it was just like from frame one, I was just like my jaw just dropped, like the whole The feel of it to me is like the most like consistently magical. There's no tone issues whatsoever. It has a tone and it just nails it and it's just like it's perfect because it gives. It has every emotion in it to me, like it's it's it's sad at times, it's funny at times, it's very touching, it's very it's

feel good. It's just like kind of everything. And you know, I'm not like a chess guy, you know, like I was gonna ask you that if I had anything to do with it. I played us a little bit, but like I'm just okay at it. Like I never bothered to learn theory or like you know, moving and stuff. It was just like, let's just play and if somebody's too good, I'd be like, well this is pointless. I'm like, I don't care about learning that much. But uh, you know,

I like chess fine. I played like battle Chess on my PC and whatever else. But I think it was just like I always tell people that, like, well, really it's a father son movie with chess is just a vehicle for it. Um. And that's not to say that

there's all sorts of things in it too. Obviously, Joan Allen's amazing as his mom and stuff too, and like everything with his buddy Morrigan and his sister and like and also this movie gets kids right, Like it's so goods kids right, and so many movies do not so good, just like just the feeler. I think little scenes, it's it's it's got little beats in it, so many little beats that when you watch it again you'll be like,

that is so good. That is so perfect. And you know, I think people I've never met anybody who didn't like it. If they've seen it, they're like, oh I like that movie. They've never any met this be like oh what a bore, or like it's just I feel like it grabs you immediately and it doesn't let go, and it it's a combination of everything, the acting, the script, the score is beautiful to James Horner is so great, and the cinematography

by Conrad Hall is so great. How do you make chess look good while you put it in the park in the rain and it looks amazing? It does, And he got nominated for an Oscar that year for cinematography, but he lost to Janie Kamiskey for Schindler's List? So what are you Gonna Do? Exactly and amazingly Shy a beautiful movie too, but um, it's just there's just nothing in it that I don't like. There's nothing in it that I can say I don't like about that movie. Yeah, jeez,

there's a million things I want to talk about. Um. What occurred to me today for the first time is that it's a sports movie. Yeah it is. It is Rocky, it is karate Kid, it is Hoosier's Um. But it's also goodwill hunting and finding Forrester and Dead Poets Society. It's got elements of all and those are all movies that are just so dear to me, and it has elements of all those films. I feel like it. It does such a skillful job of dancing around tropes without

fully going trophy. But but trope tropes are are comforting, Like that's why there are tropes, because they work, and we make fun of them a lot, but especially on movie Crush. But I think it veers towards trophy at times, but it knows just when to pull back. Um. And there's a couple of instances that I can think of specifically. One is just as a general plot device, they didn't make Joe montanea uh. He had his carrecter arc but it wasn't he wasn't living his life through his kid.

He wasn't the guy that almost had it all but didn't quite make it, and now his son has to do it and they could have very easily done that. And the other the other big moment was at the end when he beats and it's okay, we're gonna jump all around. But at the end when he beats the jerk kid. Um who By the way, that guy died of cancer at eighteen. Did you know that? I did not know that. Yeah. I looked him up and I was like, where where did that kid go? And he

very sadly passed away as a teenager. But um, after he loses he you see it through uh glass that is um frosted this sort of moment with his dad where he's sort of pulling away from him. But in another movie that would have been sort of front and center in this big scene where he pulls away from his dad and it's like you made me do this and I lost now and all, and so it sort of dances toward that line, but just sort of hints

at it, which I thought was really smart. Yeah. I think that's what one of the reasons I really love it is like I don't like unnecessary conflict in movies. I don't like things that like. I don't like tension for the sake of attention. I really don't like. One of my biggest pet peeves in movies in general is like I embarrassment humor. I just can't. I can't get behind it, I think because I have anxiety and issues like that too. Like I don't find me the Parents funny.

I'm always just like, leave him alone, he's trying his best. Like that to me, Like that kind of stuff is hard for me to watch. There's not really moments of this in here. Like whenever the adversity happens, it happens in a way that like, this feels like it should happen, and it doesn't send characters reeling into a thing for an x amount of time. That's my problem with music biopics is like they almost always have a twenty to thirty minutes section of rock bottom when they're in rehab or.

I was like, we know that that's going to happen, and there's no there's no way to show it in a fresh, new, exciting way. It's just an awful thing to watch as they push their friends and family away and do all the others too, Like how how about we just like this gloss over that maybe go to like show one instance to say like three years later or whatever. I get to the stuff that's more interesting to me unless that's what the movie is, fine, but in general, like that kind of stuff makes me crazy.

And you're right about that, Like through the through the window from far away, it's not like really dwelled on and with his dad with Fred like he hes he there's never that thing too. It. I also hate when often is like this kid has a gift and he's like, no, he has to work on his studies or he has like there's that whole thing instead, Like at first he's just like okay, kind of dismisses it initially until it's

very early proven to him. When you want to go to the lake and his kids beat beats him without even being in the room, he realizes like, oh okay, I get it now done as a gift, and it's my job to cultivate that but not make it the thing he does. And that's I think it's great about it too. It's a way to like like cultivate it and stuff like that too. But they have like rules of like there's no chest talk this weekend. We're just gonna go swimming, or we're just gonna want to be

a kid. Like that's what's amazing about it is the protege kid obviously doesn't have be a kid. He just has a Rocky Ford destroy I will break you attitude. Yeah, whereas like like Max Promac's character, like he never Josh never has a mean bone in his body ever, Like he's just a sweet kid. He's always a sweet kid.

And that's what I like about it. And like when it's when Morgan his best friend is like not at the same level of him and chess, but you know, he's a chess player just like the whole like the last line in the movie, and this doesn't speak like don't see it, puts his arm around him and just says, you're a much stronger player than I was when I was your age. Like it's so it's such a sweet little moment to leave the movie. God, it was so great.

And they're just two little boys with their arms around each other and he says that, and I'm just like, you know, ten fifteen in the morning, I'm just like bawling in my bedroom. At the end, of that movie. It was just so perfect and and the kid, uh it was such a good actor, has had such an expressive face, and you're right, they get kids, right, he doesn't. There's not a moment that feels false in this movie with him, or really at all, but especially with these kids,

it's all so pure. They don't ask him to overact. A lot of times, it's just his face that's conveying that what would normally be a line, and he has those eyes, and it's just it just works on every single level with these kids. One of my favorite moments of the whole movie is when they kick the parents out of the tournament and basically lock them in a jail in the basement, and all the kids start clapping because yeah, because they just get to be kids. It's

just a wonderful moment. I think that's what's so good about his performance is just like he's just being it's so natural. It's so natural. There's no precociousness to it, there's nothing like it's just the worst. He's just a kid. Like when he's playing in his room and he's reaching under like his bed defined things and he disappears on there and stuff like that. It just feels so authentic. My daughter just broke in. Hey, you want to say hi to Cole? Hey there, this is Ruby. Hey, Ruby.

She's been busting in lately and I've just been kind of leaving them in the episodes. I heard you banging on the door to do you want to say? Hid? Everyone again? All right, Well you can't come in from that way, and I'm gonna have to ask you to go back upstairs now, just because it's not a it's not an episode where I can feature you. I'm very sorry. Thank you. She was banging on the back door too,

all right. I think maybe we'll just leave that in there because these have been Quarantine episodes and everyone knows her by now, she's made appearances, so um, thank you for indulging that. It's funny. It's just we're literally talking about kids being natural and being kids and then and there. I love it. Um yeah, the whole thing, just like that whole everything is so natural to me in that movie.

And like you're right about the tropes, like because you have like the street Wise Teacher and you have the book Wise and like, I mean, the formula is there, but formulas are okay, Like the reason that people write screenwriting books. Is because screenwriting is a super duper strict formula for the most part um. But like the Larry Fishburn character, uh, like pre Matrix, Larry Fishburn is my favorite.

I love the Matrix, But before the Matrix, he was just a different guy, I feel like, and he, uh, he manages to pull off this role. Like they don't have that trope of I won't say what they normally call it, but sort of the magical black man that comes into the movie. They dance towards that, but he's not that, and the movie is much much better for that.

I think. Yeah, I agree. Like there's that one little wonderful scene to where like Josh asks his mom like where does Vinnie sleep, Like he just doesn't know, like he doesn't doesn't know about him, and she's like, I don't, I don't know. That's just kind of how it's a dryst and like he's his character is great, Like he definitely like I love the thing was like what's your name? Don't tell him your name. Your kid's got you know, he's got talent, and write his name down right now.

I saw him one, you know that kind of thing. It's just yeah, and you know it's gonna end up being the like he has to put together both styles to become the kind of player that he is. And you know he's going to bring his queen out too early if he wants to. It's great though, it all works, like the Ben Kingsley character and the Larry Fishburne character, Like he said, they're headed for a collision course in

a way. But I think in the hands I mean Steve Zali And we haven't even mentioned the writer and director, one of the greatest writers in the in the history of writing movies. Um has only directed a few, but I think in anyone else's hands, this movie could have been uh really really smalty. But he has such a such a deft hand as a writer. I think he did not let it veer into those lanes. And it was his directorial debut, so obviously, like it was all

his kid. And when I found out about the movie, didn't realize about Alien is like I was just reading the liner notes of the soundtrack because I bought it on CD at the time because I loved it and like as weird as like I don't love classical music, but I love film scores, and I think it's because classical music puts me on edge because that was always it was playing in the waiting room at like dentists

and like doctors and something as a kid. So like I don't, I don't have pleasant memories associated with it, whereas film scores I do, and some really good ones I just like, I love and I'll listen to over and over. It's it's weird which movies do. Like Gatica has a great score, but you wouldn't say that grad gadic has a great you know, it's a great movie, boever, But like this movie to me has one of the

best scores, like James Horner scores great. And I was reading the liner notes that Steve's Alien went to San Francisco State, which is where I went, and I didn't know. I did not know that. So I used to do a thing back in college too where I would write a lot of actors and filmmakers and stuff like that too, and they would often send me back, like you know,

signed photos. Have a bunch of signed photos and stuff like that too, because I was definitely an autograph collector early um and some some people would actually write me back and write letters. And I wrote him about like, you know how much I loved the movie and it's my favorite film. And I'm I think at the time, I was at San Francisco State or I just graduated from it, and you know, I just found this out

and it's so great and I love it. But I just wrote him and he wrote me back and sent me a nice handwritten note which I having a thing someplace, but um just basically saying me's a lot, I love my time in San Francisco whatever. So cut to me working at Second Spin here in Los Angeles, which was used in new CD and DVD like Blu Ray place, um, like Wilsher um where we would buy stuff, use things

and then sell them or whatever. That's how I built up my collection because I would get things that like very cheap, a lot of DVDs and blue rays for a dollar or two dollar or whatever. Um. But he sometimes people celebrities would come in there because it's you know, like Los Angeles. And one time this kid, teenage kid was like buying something and he gave a credit card and the credit card said Steven's Alien on it. So I was like, Steve's Alien, like the director writer, and

He's like, yeah, that's my dad. And I was like, please tell your dad hello for me, and tell him that Searching Before a Bobby Fisher was my favorite movie, and I thank you so much. He's like he was really excited about it. And then like a couple of days later, he brought Steve's Alien in with him, like brought his dad just to say hello, what I mean, like to meet him, so like that was amazing. I mean we just talked like a minute or two, but

it was still really cool. Like it's just crazy the stories of people that would come in there, because one time Janice Kaminski came in and was buying up box sets and I just looked at it. I didn't know it was him because I didn't know what jan Komiski looked like. But I saw his credit card, and you know, Jannis Kaminski was like, you you lends movies beautifully. I

love so much of your stuff. And he's like, oh, thank you, Like he was very nice about it, Like I didn't famboy and I don't think he gets it that often, you know, so um. That was one of the weird benefits of like working at a retail store in Los Angeles in a sense there Cinophiles would come in sometimes, so yeah, so that's when I meant alien and stuff too, and through his kid initially, which is kind of funny too because Father Soun's story met my

filmmaking hero through father sound connection. So yeah, it's crazy. Yeah. So I'm just gonna read through some of the movies that he's written. His The first movie he ever wrote was The Falcon and the Snowman. Amazing. Yeah. Uh. He follows it up with Awakenings, Schindler's List, Bobby Fisher, Uh, Clear and Present Danger, Mission Impossible, Civil Action, Gangs of New York, Moneyball, American Gangster Girl with the Dragon Tattoo,

The Irishman. It's just that's an intimidating list, all great movies. I Mean, you can argue that Awakenings might be the smalty place that this could have gone this movie, but I love Awakenings to we can definitely like slightly manipulated. But I don't know if that's so much about the writing and more so about the Witch like done directed. I love that movie though, Like it gets me every time. Oh, totally. Yeah, He's he's amazing. He's one of the best writers out

there for sure. Um, I have a quick Conrad Hall story, one of my favorite cinematographers of all time. And when I was at p A in Los Angeles on TV commercials, I worked a lot for his daughter. She was a commercial producer, Naya Hall, and Iah was just amazing and I always just nerd it out with her, and she loved how much I loved her dad's work, and I really meant a lot to her, and she was just wonderful, and she when he passed away, she asked if I

wanted or she asked for my help. But to me, it was an opportunity to go um before his memorial service and kind of help help her out and help put everything together and put up these posters and put up the flowers and all that stuff. And so I and she said I could stay. So I went to Conrad Hall's memorial and just uh and very much just hung back in the background and like Tom Hanks was there and Spielberg was there, and it was it was a room that I never thought I would be in.

And I literally didn't speak to anyone. I just just sat there like a fly on the wall and watched everybod It was. It was pretty cool. It's amazing. It's hard to not want to call him Connie Hall because I know that's what they all his friends called him. Was like, I don't know. I can't call Marty's Connie. I can't call him a Bobby de Niro into my head. Yeah, but you mentioned, um, how do you make chess exciting? And that that opening and those opening scenes in the

rain in the park. Uh, the sound design is really important in this movie too, how they're slamming those pieces down and hitting that clock and it it really gives the It gives chess an energy that it might as well be Rocky or Karate Kid. It might as well be a prize fight that you're watching or the final of a karate match. It's that thrilling, and it's totally due to the way he shot it in that sound design.

And it's also like especially then too, it's it's his way of of doing a difference between street chess and like textbook chess, because like Vinnie's whole thing is like you gotta attack, you gotta attack, you gotta attack, you can't sit back, and Bruce's thing is more like don't move until you see it, don't move into take your time, don't move until you see it, that kind of thing. So it's very two different approaches and Vinnie's things like move fast, catch your guy off guard, you know that

kind of thing. Um. And so it definitely has that energy and the kind of streen energy to it too. And you know, it's like Washington Park in New York and that kind of stuff too, and um and did you know about that stuff then? By the way, that because that was my first introduction to the fact that there were people like on the street playing chess in Washington Square Park, it really sort of brought it to me in a different light that I hadn't seen before.

I definitely had seen people play chess and parks, but didn't think about it, like I didn't really pay an attention, like, oh, these guys are playing chess, like I didn't realize that. Like it's the same card kind of thing, is like people doing three card monty in the corner or whatever. Like it's kind of has this kind of hustler energy

to it. And these guys that were either chess pros or ranked at some point now that just I've kind of fallen out of favor that are trying to just like earn a living by going out there, like the Russian chess master or whatever that he's with early, who's like will give him a lesson for five dollars and

like that kind of whole thing. It's it's kind of really thrilling to see that, and like it just kind of opens up the whole world that you don't you're not aware, like spelling bees or whatever, like this is that kind of thing of like like like just seeing the tournament footage too and that kind of stuff and realize that this is a whole world. This is just like anything else, um. In terms of his competition. It could be a pageant, this could be horse raising, it

doesn't matter. Um. And like I said, like two and they locked the parents up. It's like that so many of the parents are like living by karisy through their kids in that and it's not so much like Fred and Josh's relationship, which is what I like a lot. Yeah, I mean you you briefly mentioned Ben Kingsley, and holy sh it, Bing Kingsley's in this movie too. Like it's a murderers row of actors, uh in the main roles and then all the way down like Tony Shalube has

a one minute scene. Young Laura Lenny has has one of the best scenes in the movie, and she's in it for like a minute. William H. Macy's in it for a minute, Like it's crazy the cast that he was able to Austin Pendleton and um Danadea, oh yeah, David Paymer, like, it's just it's just chock full of people that and I think a lot of them came out of the New York Theater scene, probably Jone Montania

on that Center stuff too. But they're so good and it's kind of interest to too if you read up, Like a lot of those guys are playing versions of real people. And this is a true story, right, It's based on a book that the Joe Montania character, but his dad, uh Fred Wayskin wrote about his son and

that whole thing. Um, But Austin Pendleton in his one scene where's kind of talking to himself and he's doing the board thing, he's playing a real chess master and that chess masters like didn't like the the version of himself in it or whatever too, which is interesting to hear about that. Like, but they interviewed Bobby Fisher at some point about it. And he never saw the movie and he was upset that, like he feels like he should be gotten paid something because they used his name

and that kind of stuff too. But it, um, I was like seeing the movie, dude, like he's not playing you and if anything, like, I think it gives a lot of humanity to Bobby Fisher because it kind of like totally interstitials about kind of what his journey was like. Too. Then how it mirrors like Josh and Friends a little bit too, Like I think it's a it does a big service to himself and paints him in a positive light. But yeah, I hear your cat, dude. I see your

cats on Facebook. Your cats are the best. Thank you. That's Sydney. He's the redheads in the other room. Sidney's usually pretty chill, So I left him stay in this room because I did a thing on Zoom the other night where, of course, one of the red heads popped up on the computer and completely ruined. So I was like, hey, I'm not gonna chance that right now. Oh man, I love it. We call her we call cats are rotten because we have two rotten cats, and rotten cats are

the best. They're always We have two very weird cats. Now, yeah, they're awesome. Sydney's the he's the old man, he's fourteen. And then the Redheads are now Rudy and uh, Lucas are year and a half. Now I think, oh, yeah, they're great. So they have that kitten energy still, but they're starting to calm down a little bit. Did they get along with the with the old one? They do?

We did it in the right way. I think we isolated out the kittens in one room and they gave them another room and then reintroduced them slowly to each other, and they get along the um. So the narration, you know you mentioned the Bobby Fisher parts. Uh boy, that really just is the through line to this movie. That narration is so great. It always comes in at the perfect moment and I can't imagine this movie without that stuff.

I'm so glad that they, I guess, risk getting sued or whatever by showing that footage, the black and white footage. It just it all works so perfectly. Yeah, it totally does. And it always say like movies and narration are lazy, you know, like that's a screen trope they don't like like a lot of filmmakers do. But like it's not really narration. It's just like they're just these little moments that helped feel lynn the gaps of everything else that's

going on. It's it's you know, they could have started with like all my life I wanted to play chess. That's differently or whatever. Like it's not that it's not good Fellas or whatever, but right, um, And I think that's what's so great about it, is like he's he's he's narrating his own story in a way without really narrating his own story. That's what's really cool about it. Yeah,

it was great. Um. One of my favorite shots in the movie is uh and it just like it gives me chills when I see it and I rewound it like three times. Is early on when he does when he sets those legos up as the chess characters in his castle and opens the castle door and the camera goes through. Oh man, what a shot. It's such like it's just like a little glimpse inside of kid's mind.

It's just it's so great. Yeah, That's what I think is is so wonderful about this movie is it just straddles like here's the adult side, here's the kid's side. Here's everything he me And it doesn't treat anybody with contempt. It doesn't judge anybody, you know, even like the villain so to speak of like the the Grandmaster and his protege. Like if anybody complains about anything, is that those characters are one to mentional. I don't think that they are.

I think that they're the least drawn of the characters in the film. But I think it's because they're not meant to be known, Like they're not they're not part of Josh and Fred's world. Like what you see is what they see. It's just these little glimpses of them in tournament time, and like you actually learn a little bit about the guy he's against when he offers in the draw and how he's kind of stuck in that moment of like why are you? Why are you offering

me this? Like I don't understand what a great moment in the movie if his little hand reached out like a little kid didn't even know how to shake his hand. It's all like kind of stiff and straight. Uh. And and that was the one moment like they gave they gave that kid that one moment where he said trick or tree eat, which is kind of out of character for him as as as a really sweet kid to kind of use that back against him. But that moment where he says like you've already lost, and like I'm

offering you a chance to draw. And I don't know if I remembered when I watched it this morning, because I just saw this in ninety three if he took him up on the offer. So there was genuine suspense again when I was watching that scene, and I was going to take the deal in hand. Yeah. Yeah, that's

what's so great about it. Like I feel like when he does do the trick or treat thing and he says it back and he'd be like, whoa, Okay, shots fired, it's almost like he realizes he has to stand up for himself and that thing and he has to dish back a little bit. That's him channeling Vinny a little bit in that moment. That's him being like, Okay, you've been trash talking me and everybody else you're playing against.

I'm for real, I'm gonna trash hockey back just for a moment, just just so you know that I can go toe to toe with you and I can dish out whatever you're gonna dish out, yeah, and that that final matches, it's so great. There's the shots of him, there's so many great opportunities for a chessboard with the wreck focus shots and there's so many great ones. But when they would rack from the chess piece back and there's so much tension there and Ben Kingsley is saying

out loud what the moves are? I think it was like twelve moves or something like that, and he sees you see his all you see is his eyes darting around that board and bing bing. Kingsley's like, man, he's working it out, and he's working it out. And Joe Montane he's like, what's he working out? What's he working out? Like when they when Banks goes that's a mistake. That's a mistake, and he realizes it and then you can see him just trying to like communicate with Josh mentally

being like it's there. It's he moves away, but it's there. It's there, just don't move in to see it. It's like, this is this is my teaching now, like and you can see that Josh is actually like, oh, yeah, I'm gonna this is what Bruce did for me, and I'm gonna wait until I see it, and I see it and so that's when the draw thing happens and all that stuff. So it's just so it's like, how do

you make chess exciting? They do? How do you put chess? Like, because you to the so many watching, you can't tell what's going on. You have no idea unless you have have an advanced knowledge or chess, you don't you can tell them like somebody's like if the camera shoots in a way, they're like, well, the the king's open, we know that that's going down or whatever. But you don't know, and you don't want to do a play by pay announcer being like, oh Josh's castling on the first move. We're crazy,

Like you can't do that, So how do you? How do you do it in a way that the audience will have an idea of what's going on, at least enough to know. And I think Zillion was smart enough to know that, Like, I don't need to explain the mechanics with chess. I don't. People don't need to know how he's beating them or what he's using a gambit or whatever. That doesn't matter what I had to be able to communicate to them, is that like, is he doing well? Is he not doing well? What are the stakes?

Where are we in that? Yeah? Absolutely, And I think a lot of other I think this in the hands of other people, it would have been way too on the nose, way too telegraph. They probably would have had a fucking announcer in the room, like you said, like spelling out exactly what was going on. But you know exactly how much you need to know to follow the match and the and these these peaks and valleys of that match. Kind of the same as um Karate Kid,

which I think is a great, great movie. Uh. And and that's what I think the best sports movies do is you don't have to know anything or be a fan of the thing if you make a great movie. Uh. If if someone says, I don't I don't like basketball, so I've never seen Hoosiers, Like, no, you should see Hoosiers because it's a great, great story. The same with boxing or karate or chess or anything else. Um, if you do it right, you transcend the thing that the

movie is about because the story is there. Or even like Moneyball, which is alien also wrote like you know that's absolutely about math baseball. I know, I'm a big baseball guy. I love baseball, and I was actually at that. I've said this billion times in general rolleris and she hears it. I was at that Wayne in Oakland when they won their to really straight, so it was like

Giants as more than Giants. I think it's because when I was in Davis we would drive to see A's games sometimes, but I like the Giants too, like I've gone, I'm just I'm a Tiger guy. Like it's because of my Detroit roots, so with Tigers, but I definitely would go to Giants and A's games. And it's definitely the first like sporting event that I've seen re enacted on screen that I was at that that was really surreal

to me too. But again, like that's the thing, like how do you make trans baseball transactions like fascinating And like when you just see him working his magic on the phones in that movie, it's just like this, it's crazy. It's like it's almost Bobby Fisher again with chess, but now it's now it's numbers, baseball numbers. Yeah, I'd like to see Moneyball again. That was a great movie. Yeah, real good. Um, So, a couple of my favorite this that you were talking about the small moments in this

movie and these small beats. There are a few lines and moments that just really are so touching and so great. One of them is when again outside in the rain after I think it's after he throws the tournament, uh, And there's a great moment before that when he's in bed talking about not wanting to be the best, and you kind of know what's coming, you know he's gonna throw it, but he's outside and he looks up at his dad and says, why are you standing so far

away from me? That's just the most heartbreaking moment of the entire moment, and that's what gets Fred to like, that's what it gets Joe Montanie where he's like, oh,

what what am I doing? Because that whole sequence too, it's like I love how they handle it when the little girl runs out of the room and he's like, oh, that was that was fast, Like because he's supposed to cheat, he's supposed to destroy her, and it turns out the other way around, and like goes to her dad far away and starts celebrating, and he's just like no, yeah, like it's just like his jaw just drops and then it's like a rainy day when you're yelling at your

kid about losing, like yeah, and that's when, yeah, he realized it's not about winning, you're losing. Yeah, And that line just it's, um, I don't know if Zalion had kids then, but my daughter is almost five. He's supposed to be seven in the movie, and that's what a kid would say because they don't have the emotional processing

ability at that age. All they know is dad is standing far away from him right now, and that's doesn't feel good, and like that's It's such a simple line, but just nailed it on the head, you know, Yeah, No,

it's crazy. Another one of the best lines is the great Laura Lenny scene where she's sort of condescending about this chess thing and he's being the you know, the sports dad sort of, but when he says, you know, he's better at this than anything I've ever done and anything that you will ever do, it's just such an

aniviscary line. So yeah, it's so crazy. I mean, I especially love it too, like when even Joan Allen has her moment when Laura Lenny's like, I had this chest thing and like he's like chest thing and he wanders away and like that, it's just that whole thing. I think that whole moment. Um. Laura Lennie's like John Allen is so good in this movie, and like she is, you think you could be a thankless role because it's more so the mother um or the father's son part

of the thing. But she she holds her own. She's amazing moments of this movie. And her little sister is so cute too, like such a good little character. I love it so much totally. Um. And then the other two big moments for me is the scene where Ben Kingsley is telling him that he has to hate his opponents and he said Bobby, Bobby had contempt for everyone,

and he just said, I'm not him. It's like a three word line and and just sort of a masterclass in and not overwriting I And that's like so devastating too, and like he like tears up all the master class certificates that, Like that's like the one thing he's like trying. He's doing this because he wants the praise too, and

he's working so hard for this. And then to realize that in the eyes of his coach, it's nothing, You're nothing in a sense, like that's just that's like one of the most heartbreaking moments too well, and that pays off so well when he um frames that really nice masterclass uh A certificate and he gives it to him before the last match and he says, I've never been so proud of anyone in my life. I'm proud to call it, call myself your teacher. And the kid goes,

I'm scared, and he says, I know. And again, it's just not overwriting. Like I like to with some of my favorite screenplays in lines, I like to picture it on the page and it's so sparse but just pitch perfect. And also the scene when they first started working together and they're playing games and you think they're playing chess and he's like candle secred over and he's like rope or what was and he's like they're they're playing clue. And then he's like, so you guys talking about chess

in there? No, it didn't come up, like they're just playing games together, getting to know each other or whatever, and he's perplexed about why is he in they're playing board games with my son at three an hour or something whatever it is. Yeah, which again sort of dances in that trope of like Karate Kid. He's standing the floor and waxing the car, but he's really learning karate. It's that it's sort of that it's tried and true in movies like this, and it works every single time

if you do it right. Yeah, it's so beautifully done. I mean this movie is just like it's just like I said, moment after moment. It's just little little vignettes in the sounds, like little things. And that's why I think it rewards you with like repeat viewings, because you're gonna pick up on things you didn't notice the first time through, because you're gonna get caught up in different

aspects of it. Um. And you know, I don't think it hurts to actually like listen to something like this or like watch um or read about it or read about Bobby Fischer himself, or like I've heard the memoirs good. I have not read it, but I don't think it will. I think it will change your perspective in some ways to like think of approaching it from a different viewpoint, to like watch it like you're like a kid, or watch it like you're a parent or whatever. I think

it's just different every time you see the film. Well, yeah, I mean I watched it when I was in college, and then I watched it with a five year old in my life, and it's definitely had a more residents. I loved it back then, but it had a lot more meaning and it was a little deeper for me today. And it's not on Blu Ray. It's a shitty DVD released from a long ast time ago. Like that just kills me. It's it's at least thank god it's wide screen on there, because there are some DV releases earlier're

all full screen. You're like, what are you doing? Like, I just remember working at the video store and having to explain to people because we had letterbox vhs is for some movies, and we'd have a section called letterbox, you know, and we put them there. We put a thing on the side and said letterbox or whatever, and we would like when people would bring it up, we would explain it to them. And sometimes people will be like, so what is this and be like, well, when films

are shot, they're shot. They're not shot in the four three. They're not shot like a square there shot like a rectangle and this basically shows you the entire picture. There's black bars with the bottom on the top of the screen so that you're not going to computer panning back

and forth. So people are like walking down the sidewalk from far like different size of the street, ge see them both the same time and go through the whole rig and roll and they go okay, and then they bring it back an hour later being like, yeah, it's the top and bottom or cut off, and you're just like, you can't. There was no way to explain this to

these people. They could not get their head around it. No. I think the easiest way to set it back then was like compare your television screen to a movie screen and that's the difference, and still couldn't. He couldn't wrap their heads around it. So most things are full screen, and then they started to come out white screen, and then thank god TVs just started being manufactured why and now that's the norm and there's no way around that.

But you can watch old DVDs and stuff from like movies from the eighties and never got a good like version ever put out, Like Short Time I have like a boot version of which is a great movie, but like it's not out there, and it's a shitty little four three grainy awful like version of that movie. But at least I can watch it. But you can put those things in it, and it just looks so god awful. But I can't imagine watching anything not wide screen anymore.

Let's me shot that. I mean a lot of old movies weren't shot wide but right, and now the fight we have to fight is the motion smoothing it to the in law's house. Oh god. I every time I go home, I turn that off and somehow it resets. Sometimes it just needs no crazy Like I did that for years at my father in law's when we would go for Christmas. Now they live here, so I don't bother because I don't watch TV over there, but I would sneak over and grab that fucking remote and it

would somehow be changed back the next day. Oh my god. Like when the movies would start that way, I was like, you've realized, this doesn't look like a movie anymore, And it looks like somebody who's recording a soccer game with a camcorder. Right, you realize that's what this looks like. Now? Yeah, they don't get it. They think it looks super clear, and I'm like, it clear isn't necessarily great awful, Like I get it if you were watching football, but it's

terrible for movies. Movies should look like movies. Yep, anything else on Bobby Fisherman, I think that was a good discussion. Thoroughly enjoyed that, thanks man. Yeah, it's hopefully people will go find it. It's been cable lately, like it's been on I think like Showtime or Stars or it's been playing because I've caught it a few times. So when people do check this out, they might be able to find it someplace. I don't know if it's streaming or whatever,

but it's not. I got it on iTunes movies and uh, you know it looks it looks fine. Cool. They should definitely seek it out because I think a lot of people haven't seen it, and people always find it weird that it's my favorite movie because I'm a big comedy guy.

I mean that's how I'm making my living is in comedy, and like I love comedies, like going on about comedy, but like, this is the movie that touches me more than anything else, and I'll defend it till the end of time, and it's just like it's great, a little sleeper of a movie that more people should have seen and it should have done better than it did. But at least they do think it is appreciated with those who have seen it and who love it. Yeah, I

totally agree. I get your stuff on Facebook. I'm not on Twitter, but I'm sure your Twitter handle is a fun follow because you were especially for our listeners, because you're a true movie buff and movie nerd and connoisseur. And I have a lot of great stuff. So where

can people find you? They can find me. I have both Instagram and Twitter, which I mean, obviously with the movie posters and stuff, I usually put them on both, but I definitely put them all on Instagram, which I believe is Stratton Cole, and then Twitter is Cole Stratton, so it's pretty pretty easy one or the other. Um alright, But yeah, they're all kind of up there and stuff, and I'll continue to post movies ship all the time.

That's great, man. I appreciate you coming on. Janet was my inaugural guest on this show, and now I've gotten you in here, and I would love to just have you back to talk about anything. At some point there's I can talk movies forever, so theyre all right. Well, thanks Buddy, awesome, Thanks jack Man. He's a lot all right. Bye bye bye. M Movie Crush is produced, edited, and engineered by Ramsay Hunt here in our home studio at

pont City Market, Atlanta, Georgia. For I Heart Radio. For more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.