Film Series: Dan Bush on Dr. Strangelove

what you're doing about it. And I think it's good advice to quit quit worrying and learn exactly let ty that in um yeah, I was just you know this the idea of like, think what does it think globally? Act locally? And I was like, well, if you internalize that and act really really specifically locally, and start with your own freaking mind, what's the most local, what's the most local? And then and then work outward from there

of like, okay, being sort of mindful and thoughtful. And I don't mean to be on a soapbox, but I just myself, I was like, why don't I take a minute and get away from the chatter and all of the Trump tweets and all of the stuff going on with the impeachment hearings and and everything about not that all that stuff doesn't need to be addressed, and not that it's not extremely important, but but to hold space for yourself just for a second, take it, take a

minute and take a deep breath and get me And when you do that, you go okay. Actually, when I walk at my door and look around, there's not that much conflict. It's you know, people are for the most part.

And I think this is probably true. It's just it's just that it's the filter of the media puts everything in such it just it packs everything into this sort of you know, laser shoots right into your brain, and then social media on top of it, right, and and we're addicted to that and they have like you know, so so just the idea of like can I actually put my phone down, put it away while I'm sleeping, take any breath, take ten minutes for myself every day,

just ten minutes to just sit there and do nothing. And and and more than that, like try to really hang out with my kids when they're around, as opposed to like I'm trying to do this thing while you're no. It's like that's my biggest trap, man, that it just makes me feel like a garbage parent is when I'm distracted and she's trying to get my attention. Yeah. So, and I've been doing things with them, like you know your kids can do ship My kids only there's three

three year old ones almost five. It's like they can do stuff. So like I don't have to be like you sit there while I cook. You know, I'm like, come over here. This is a burner on the stove. Here's a knife you can cut. But here I'm gon show you how. I know that sounds like a dangerous thing for a parent to do, but man, make them, you know, get them. They love being involved. So it takes you long. So you know, I'm not onloading the dishwasher. I'm being with my kid. And that's the activity, yes,

as opposed to God, damn, I gotta get this down. Yeah, that's so value bowl. And it's really easy to fall into that trap of busy, uh distraction stuff. But like you're you're modeling. Man, you're teaching them, and that's gonna come back and bite us all of the ass when they're teenagers and they don't have the attention for us, you know, because they were raised with a parent staring at a phone. It's no good fucking sucks. I want

to like smash my phone on a daily basis. But you know, but then there's something about and I'm not you know, it's a survivalist, spinny stretch, but I'm like, I want to wanna view them with some skills. The world's gonna be pretty nasty if if we on the current track, it would not hurt to know how to start a fire without enjoy these times before it's yeah, you know, little things like that. How do you grow something right exactly? I don't know. I'm not good at it.

We can learn together. Come on, kids, Yeah, Tara farming, let's do it. Yeah, but no, you're right. Uh. And what we were talking about before, it's like, it's really easy to go down that rabbit hole of of everything is shitty right now. But if you if you walk outside your door and you look around your home, in your community, in your neighborhood, hopefully that makes you feel good. It does in my case, without sounding cheesy, all you really have is now everything before this doesn't exist. Nope,

everything that's about to happen, it doesn't exist. So there's you know, you have all the potential in the world. I feel like right now and see what happens. Yeah, yeah, let's do it. We should do that on a episode. How fun and weird would that be? A friend of mine? I met with a friend of mine the other day that I'm working with, and he was like, by the way, I'm micro docing today. And I'm like, okay, that sounds awesome. How do you do that? And he's like, oh, well,

blah blah blah, it's a thing that sounds yeah. Yeah, I know. Well, I mean there's all sorts of ways to do that. You can have a friend who micro doce is marijuana edibles for migraines and she doesn't ever, I don't think feel she never feels stoned or anything, Okay, And it's like through a doctor and it's just like tiny little bits of edibles throughout the day. Huh yeah, and apparently helps out the migraine. Is that like the CBD or is that just no? I mean, it's it's

the real deal THHC. But it's just a tiny bit of THD, which is the only psychoactive property of the only psychoactive it's the only good stuff canniboid cannabinoid canabinois. I think that's it anyway, Well, Uh, Dr Strangelove, let's get high and watch Dr Strange stuff. What do you think this is Wednesday night? No, it's Thursday morning. I watched this Wednesday night, and for the many, many a time, I've seen this movie a lot. Yeah, but it was

like it had been a while. Were you excited to talk about super excited to watch it again and talk about it? Uh? So, let's do it. I have a couple of bits of fun trivia. Um, yeah, I've got a bunch. I'll sprinkle them out. You probably know this stuff, but for the benefit of the listener. Uh. The he had a few different titles. Apparently Dr Doomsday or how to Start World War Three without even Trying would have

been good. Doctor Strangelove, Secret Uses of Uranus. I heard that one, and then Wonderful Bomb, which that's pretty good. That's a good one. Wonderful Bomb. Yeah, I like that one. Did you have any other ones? Any titles? No? I didn't have any. I didn't shot down the titles that I had heard of. But what other trivia you got? Oh man, just tons of ship Um let me look here. So Sellers was gonna play four characters. I think I saw that he was gonna play Slim Pickens part. Right,

he was gonna do Slim Pickens part. And there there's a bunch of different you know, theories about why that didn't. Yeah. I saw one story where he faked a broken leg so he wouldn't have to, but that sounds made up. Yeah, so we wouldn't have to because of because I'm like, it's Peter Sellers. He's probably gonna nail a Texas accent if he needs to. Well, but I heard that the accent was one of the problems and that didn't like it.

It's hard to tell, um, but yeah, and then another one Pickens, Slim Pickens, who did play that pilot, was also in the running to play the scatman Cruthers part in The Shining. Oh interesting, I'm not sure why. Well, I love the race, the racial tones and the Shining. Yeah, the racist ever tones in The Shining totally. I mean, I loved scatman Cruthers in that movie, but I could

totally see Slim Pickens playing that part. Well, they're both, They're both are these uh not character actors, but actors who are characters, these guys who are authentically themselves. Totally and apparently slim Pickens, is that guy really yeah? Like and there they're like he wasn't a method actor, that's just him. What else I got? Reagan when he was when he after he was inaugurated, wanted to see the war room and there was no war room, but he like,

you want to see the war room. Um, let me see, I've got one for you. Okay, the war room. Kuber consisted that the war room table be covered in green baize, which is like, felt so uh even though it wouldn't read in black and white. So they all felt like they were just a bunch of men playing poker with the like a big poker table. That's all sense. Essentially, what you're doing is playing poker with the world and the in nuclear War, as slim Pickings calls it, slimp Pickins.

So he covered it in green green felt pretty good even though it's a black and white movie. Oh yeah, here's a huge one. Um. So the line was changed from Dallas to Vegas. The line when he when Slimp Pickins like I could have a pretty good time. He's open up the survival kit. That's one of my favorite parts. When he's reading all that and he says, you know at he's like, yeah, he's like ninline Stockings one prople actic,

you could have a pretty good time in Vegas. That line is dubbed later it looks funny, it was not. It was his a d r okay, um, because the original line was Dallas, you have a pretty good time in Dallas with this stuff and changed it. Do you know why wait a minute, Kennedy. The original release date was November twenty, the day Kennedy got shot. So they pulled the movie and they and they changed a few things, and then the movie came out, you know, January of

So they held it that long. Huh Yeah, yeah, well that they held it for like three months or four months or whatever. But but I always think about that. I'm like, Okay, if if you have Kennedy assassination, which is like the first and most significant sort of point where you go, the world in our nation goes okay, there's more at work, There's more sleight of hand, is more stuff happening behind the scenes than we're aware of

for this to be possible. And if this is if this man represents the best of us, regardless of whatever he you know, if he was or wasn't in all the arguments about Kennedy, but he represented this night and shining armor and then he gets taken down. And then a couple of months later, strange up comes out, which is all about the industrial complex, military complex and how how full of ship it all is. You know, I think you have the makings in those two first moments

for the for like the launch of the counterculture. Yeah. I feel like those two things are like, okay, because what year was this? Yeah, I mean those are the things. Okay, our government is not they don't they aren't all to be trusted and there's more than you know at hand that meets the eye. And and then Vietnam. Yeah, I just feel like those are the beginnings of that, you know, that that that huge revolution, totally cultural revolution that happened. Yeah.

One thing this movie really, um, what jumped out at me last night more than ever before it was how how ahead of its time it felt, even though it's black and white. Um, it has this weird contemporary feel to it, starting from the very beginning with those opening credits in it. And I think I tracked it down to the just the font and the credit sequence, which was, you know, very unusual for the time. You know that that it looks you on a hand drawn in pencil?

Who did that? Who? Pablo Faraoh, who says the guy, he's a graphic designer. He also did the Stop Making Sense album. Of course, there you have. It looks just like it. I never tied those together. Yeah, but maybe that helps explain it because it it definitely didn't look at like a title sequence from out of you know, two thousands or whatever. Yeah, it felt very contemporary and um, and that you know, the opening is so great with

the the planes fucking each other. Basically there's so much, so much sexual innuendo throughout this whole movie to that whatever that sort of not elevator music, but yeah, whatever it was, it was fantastic and just so like Kubrick, you know. Yeah, the whole thing is sexual, is power and sex. The whole damn movie. It's sex power, sex power, you know. Yeah, And I think he didn't get enough strange love, power and sex, which he named himself Strange Love, right, Um,

we find that out, does he? I don't know that. Yeah, it's later on in the movie. He said, GEORGEI Scott's like, why kind of my name is Strange Love? And he says, well, he gave him that, he gave himself that name, but when he came over, when he became a citizen or whatever, and he says, what it was before, I can't remember what it was? Man, How great is George? She's Scott in this movie? It just and you never see him

do Does he ever do any other comedy? I don't think so, man, And and I read I don't know if this is true. I guess it is that that Kubrick had him go super broad and he said, like, we're not gonna use his stuff. It's just sort of a test to see how far you can go with it or whatever. And that's the stuff that he used. Well, yeah, because Cooper got that. He's notoriously did like hundred takes or whatever to the point where the actors were so

piste off and freaked out. So the version I heard was kind of like Nicol the same thing he did with Nicholson and the Shining where he's he got him so pissed that he was like, is that what you want you want me to? Like, you know, you want to just not be subtle at all? Okay like this, and he was like, yeah, you want crazy like you want crazy, I'll show you crazy. And he's rolling his eyes and he's going bug nuts and it's just amazing.

Oh man, I mean, Georgie Scott is so good in this and everybody, I mean, it's an acting toward divorce. Sterling Hayden is just off the charts. And and this is a movie with Peter Sellers, like Pete Peter Sellers, you know, And Peter Sellers gets to play the straight guy opposite of Sterling Hayden. And then he gets to play the straight guy opposite of um uh Turgison, which is uh Georgie Scott. Yeah yeah in a way, and then kind of gets to play Strange Love, and then

he gets place, he gets to have some fun. Who was who was your favorite of the three of his Seller's characters? Strange Love, really, yeah, I think just because it's I mean it's I mean it's I mean, they're they're all they're all fantastic, so they're all amazing, And I always just Strange Love is so easy because it's so funny. But I think President Muffly like, it's that phone call, man, muff That fucking phone call just seals

the deal for me. That first phone call, or both the phone calls, but that first phone call to uh to Dmitri. Right, I'm just as capable of being sad. Man, so good, and I actually printed out that whole thing. It's a lot of fun. Just know it wasn't sad. I'm capable of being just as sorry as you. Dmitri. Yeah, I know you're sorry, but I'm sorry to Dmitri. Well, then it's good that you're fine, and I'm fine. I

agree with you. It's great to be fine. And right before that he's like, it's like, well, you know that thing was something like the thing we always do. You have it there about the bomb. We we got to talk about the bomb. It's like he's he's talking to my next wife about yeah, the kid got arrested or he said, one of our base commanders he had sort of well he went a little funny ahead, you know, and he went and did a silly thing started World War three. Oh man, I so love it. Um this

it's you know, I like to talk about structure a lot. Yeah, this one is like trying to pin it down. And what I start I was looking around was like, what are the movies like, how does the structurally work? At all, and other than being like a political force or whatever, there's not too many of those. I can't think of anything that's like this movie. I can't think that of anything before it or after it that is like it. It's like a lot of things, but it's its own category. Yeah,

it's very compartmentalized structurally, like he only has those. He's got the plane set and that that storyline, he's got the war room, and he's got the office basically, and the initial scene with Turgison and and the yeah you got the Great Secretary Man, which is it's all like they're already living in bunker's. Yeah, they're already living in like these there's no outside view of the world at

all except from that plan. Yeah. And then when they cut to the documentary footage of them attacking the base, and even that is long lenses and very tight, and it's said, there's no it's hard to So did he shoot that or was that? I don't know, Okay, I

couldn't quite tell. It looks like it's suddenly cutting from these shots that are locked off medium wides of everybody, and then occasionally like a specific listip of like uh Sterling is Sterling Hayden is his name from down below, so you're like, oh, he looks insane from this angle. But then that it's like these medium wide shots and just play out through the whole thing like a stage play,

and then they cut to this handheld documentary footage. It's really jarring, yeah, and and intense, like shades of full metal jacket to come. But it's, um, it's very jarring when it goes to those those battle scenes. Yeah. And that's the weird thing about the movie is it's it's like, Okay, if you think I once heard a UM, I guess it was. It was a lecture that who's given that lecture?

Um the writer Breakfast of Champions. Yeah. Sorry. Vonneguet was giving this lecture at this uh at the college that I was in, UM, the USC in in South Carolina, and he came in to give this lecture about structure,

and he was talking about there's in tragedy. There's like, you know, he starts starts off where there's gonna be a war, uh or some horrible event, you know, some pestilence or whatever, and then the one guy who might be able to save everybody fails to do so because of his own humorist or his pride or whatever, and

then everybody dies. And that's like tragic structure. So it's like this this you know, inverted you and then the other comedy structure that Aristotle talked about in Poetics, and then Vonnegutt was kind of reiterating here was he was like, okay, in in the other structure, everything starts off, there's gonna be a wedding or birth comedy. And then and then some asshole decides to ruin everything and you know, trash

trash the day. Uh, And together everybody bonds together. The people who maybe have their differences all come together in the end and they save the day. And you know, the comedy ends with like a birth or a wedding. You know, you can think about everything from like The Hangover to sure all the comedies that have ever been made, they always end with a birth or a wedding, right, um, and everybody comes together to figure it out. But this one, this is like, this is not this is not a

it's not a comic structure. It's not a tragic structure. It's this weird amalgam of the two were like the only way for everybody to come together in the end of the movie, and when is to lose. The only way you can win is by losing. Um does that make sense? So it's like a tragic comedy or it's like some sort of it is a strange movie totally, And yeah, it's obviously a satire and clearly a comedy. And you know about the pie fight, Yeah, because that

was they shot it and everything. The original ending was they in the war room, they break out into a pie fight, which there used thousands of pies per day, captured this thing and has a lot of merit. I saw something. I saw a picture. Have you ever seen any of them? I have one right here. So yeah, I'm like, that's a kind of a perfect ending. I guess he pulled back from that, but it's kind of a beautiful ending to a you know what is kind of a body humor farcet movie. There's like a shot,

a still shot at least of what that looked like. Yeah, I mean, how do you end this movie? It's ah, but like if it's it's it's it's a tough one to But that's a comedic ending. Yeah, that's a comedy ending. You know, it could have ended with with slim Pickins riding that bomb and kind of that kind of feels like the ending. But then there's the come back to the monologue about well that great bit about through populating

the world ten women to one man. Yeah, and he's basically saying like, well, we're gonna have to get a bunch of sexy, sex up women because they have certain proclivities, like we want to make they're gonna have to be appealing from from you know, right exactly. And you see George, you see chargets in over there just like you know, licking his lips because he's such a you know, such a dog. Um And and the real ending is great, you know, yeah, he stands mind pure, I can walk

And then did that cut to the bombs? Yeah, but a pie fight has merit, Like I could have seen that sort of ridiculous three stooges. He ending to this thing. Well, that's the thing. Is this this weird like every you know, this movie is not absurd because they're dealing with real the real the real world is absurd. They're just and it's just loaded with his body humor. The first time we see like the first time that he gets the code or gets the orders for Plan r the guy

on the in the plane. Yeah, like the communications officer on the plane gets the plant are and he's like okay, and he's just like stuffing his ace and he's chewing on there's food he's like trying to swallow while he's saying hey anyway, and then um, you know, it cuts to the the sort of bunker like space. It's like a hotel room. The Turgison and his secretary are in and she's son, she's like doing some tanning. She's in a bikini, in a bikini, and he's taking gorgeous sea.

She's relaying this like basically relaying, not basically, she is fully relaying a phone call about we're about to start an accidental nuclear war while he's taking a dump in the other room with all the politeness in the world. And it's fantastic. She's really great at that, brilliant. And then there's uh, and then he's constantly Turgison is just constantly chewing gum. Yeah, it's just all this. But I'm

surprised the movie. Honestly, the pie fight makes sense because I'm surprised the movie didn't didn't have like fart jokes. I'm surprised that people weren't like yeah, because it veers into that territory comedically. Yeah, And it's interesting because this is Kubricks. He didn't do any of any else approaching comedy, did he. I mean you know that I've heard that on the set of The Shining they were laughing their asses off. Well, okay, but as far as movies go,

like this is totally this. I'm trying to get into his head of like what did Stanley Cooper can find funny because he's not a funny filmmaker and doesn't come across as a funny guy. Right, this is the only thing we have to go on that's true, you know, And there's weird there's weird things that I just laughed at, Like when he when the um slim Pickens is first

like are you sure it's plan? Are I'm sure? And he's like, all right, I'm coming back there, And like this whole scene has been him talking to somebody in the back of the plane and there's all this distance between them and he says, I'm coming back there and he turns around there like five feet away, right, Like that's humorous that I don't know. That was pretty funny. You know, that's kind of that kind of love subtle.

I don't know timing or something that. Yeah, So shout out to Tracy Reid, who was uh the woman who played uh ms Scott Um we've already gone over Scott and Sellers, Slim Pickens, Sterling Hayden, a young James old Jones on the plane. Huge shout out to Keenan when who plays Colonel bat Guano, the guy that comes in at the end and uh basically holds man Drake, you know, hostage for a brief time. He does such a good job, You're gonna have to answer to the Coca Cola company.

And it just ends with like the machine being yeah exactly, I mean like pure slapstick. But also this collection of of nameless, faceless men in the war room last night. I was really fixated during the strange love stuff on seeing if I could catch any of them in the background cracking up, and like, how the funk were they able to just stay so stoic in the midst of that. Although I don't know if he did that with Sellers, because I read that Seller said that he did this too.

Kubrick did this to break down the actor's sense of self, and he said, I I've never had a sense of self, so you don't need to do that with me. I heard he was the only one that Kubrick ever let improvise. Yeah, I saw that too. Kubrick said he's the only actor that can really do it, which man high compliment. Yeah, and it makes me seeing this again, I want to go back and watch Being There again. Oh Man, one

of my favorites so good. I got my my entree into Being There was Mad Magazine's parody of Being There that I read when I was a kid, because I was Mad Magazine obsessive, and you know, they had all these you know, adult type themed movies in Mad Magazine that like ten year old Chuck is reading about all these movies that like, I have no idea what they are. You know, they did stuff like writers in the Lost Ark every now and then, but a lot of times it was the sort of high minded stuff. They were

kind of poking. Yeah, it's adult, and it's all Being There later on, and you know, it's just so great. There's a bunch of his movies. I've never seen Lolita, right, I've never seen Lilia. Yeah, either, it's it's got. He plays several roles in that one, too, right, And I heard that that was potentially going to be a comedy at some point, But I don't know how teters on that edge. If I'm not mistaken, I gotta check it out. Though there's a lot of Peter sellers out there. I

need to see. I was a pink panther nut as a kid. I thought that was just nothing funnier in the world, right to me than inspector Clues. Oh, but you know, I think about Kubrick's like a lot of his the way he shot stuff with those you know, those um center punched frames. They're wide and and and last way too long, just just watching it, and it's

it's so perfectly balanced. There's something about the way the composition is that he always does in the Clockwork Orange and another that is intrinsically funny to me, Like I can't you know, everybody thinks, oh, it's it's disturbed, or it's maybe it's it's so center punched that it's almost disturbing because it's like so calculated and specifically you think the tongue is in cheek. I do. I think there's something I get that something where he's going, look at this,

how stupid this is or how absurd this is? Yeah, and something about the framing makes me go make the giddy kind of tickles my tummy, and I'm like, this is ridiculous, like you know, and like the scenes in Full Metal Jacket when he's you know, they're when they're marching around and it's like, this is my you know, I don't think this is my rifle. This is my gun.

And it just holds on it for too long and it stays center punched and it never does anything else, and it's just after a while, I'm you know, I'm gonna start laughing, Yeah ahead, miss Cooper. And I think he's I think he's doing I think it's intentional. I don't think. I don't know. I think you're right. I don't think he's like, well that this is a pretty frame or whatever, like he's not being he's not like being serious. No, I don't think so. I think you're

right there there. There's little bits of humor throughout his stuff when you kind of look at it through that lens. I heard somebody describing Strangelove as like it's it's mel Brooks. But but conducted by this like brilliant chess playing, you know, math chess master, you know, hyperintelligent filmmaker. But it's but it's mel Brooks or something totally. That's an interesting Yeah.

I mean you were talking a second ago about the serious stuff in this movie, like all of the all of the stuff on the plane, all of the um, the conversations, the political conversations, it's all like it is not I mean, it's satire, but it's not. It's all perfectly squared away and as it would be, like it's not like he wrote it funny. He writes it. I mean, there's funny stuff going on around it, but it's all very real. I mean, GEORGEI. Scott has that folder on

his desk. Where where is it? World targets and Mega Deaths. That's the holder? Is that what it says? Yes, that's a on the the title on the spine, and that was the whole thing of a fairly new idea of uh talking about Megadeth's like numbering deaths and megadeths because of nuclear war was a new thing, and that's one of the folders. He's like squeezing at his chest once. Uh, the ambassador gets there. You know that that the pink O Commi ambassador. He's got a guard all the stuff.

So he's literally hugging the world targets in megades folder, you know, to keep it safe. Like, yeah, but that's a school boy. Yeah, but I mean that's a real thing. It's not you imagine. That's exactly what it was like, Um, we think I'm looking at all this other stuff. Those quote, the quotes in the movie are just out of control. I mean, it's just the most beautiful irony I've ever heard in a movie. Well, old gentlemen, I reckon, this is yet nuclear combat, toe to toe with the Rusks.

And that's that. Johnny comes marching home. Que right there too, and they always come back to it when to come back to the guys. Yeah, it's just really it's the only time they use music, I think, except maybe at the beginning and the end. Yeah, there's yeah, that's it. There's that elevator music at the beginning and the very end they have that song and then Johnny comes marching home. That refrain over and over and over that, done that, done that? Then that then that's so good. Well here's

what the he's like. There's there's Mufflies talking to Turgison. He's like, there's nothing to figure out, General Turgison, the man is obviously a psychotics like well, you know's hold off on judgment on a thing like that until all the facts are in. He's like, Turchison, He's like, you know, when you initiated the human reliability tests, you assume that there were there was no possibility of such a thing

ever happening. He's like, Wow, I don't know if it's quite fair to condemn the whole program because of one little slip up. Well, and that's turg insince thing the whole time. He's it's not dawning on him that this is like possibly the end of the world, you know, or that you know, million people, like that's except doable. And I guess in the grand scheme of things, you know, he may be right. That's better than a hundred and fifty million people. It's better than total annihilation, he says.

He says, we are rapidly approaching a moment of truth for both ourselves as human beings and for the U and for the life of our nation. Um Now, truth is not always a pleasant thing, but it's necessary to make a choice, and to choose between two admittedly regrettable but nevertheless distinguishable post war environments, one where twenty million people get killed and the other one where you have a hundred and fifty million people killed. And he's like,

you're talking about mass murder, not war. And he's like, I'm not saying we might get our We're not gonna get her hair a little must another one of my favorite parts George. He's got really shines in this movie,

like really hit me last night. But it's towards the end when they're talking about when the plane has been hit and they're flying super low under the radar and um, he's asking about their chances basically, and Georgie Scott gets all excited and he's kind of he kind of forgets himself that he's talking about, like, oh, yeah, they're going to drop the bomb. He's like, oh, yeah, you should see they can get down there real oh and he

puts his arms out like plains wings. And then he realizes what he's talking about, you know, and he collects himself again. You should see it a big plan like Dad getting all a lot of we can something about roasting the chickens and the chicken house or something. Yeah. And before that, he has a flamboyant americanisms and patriotic yeah. Well, you know, and he loves war, he loves power, he

loves That's exactly it. He's excited. I mean, he's the one that leaps and he's he's envious city to do this. He's envious of the bomb. I was like, oh, man, I wish we had one of those doomday devices. Yeah, and then he's envious of of um uh Ripper. He's like, Ripper had the guts to like do this thing. That's right.

He's he's kind of like secretly is like praising well and he and he's talking about when they're so excited when the bass is invading, you know, it's a civil war breaking out basically, and he's talking about like, oh, you're gonna have a real hard time with my guys and the other guys, like with all due respect, like we should be able to brush on the side with

ease or whatever. And you can tell it's like a big dick contest all of a sudden, all this in fighting and then you have and then this other really weird things like you have, um, what's what's the president of same Muffly Muffly, Merkin Muffly, who's this effeminate, these ridiculous names, kiss off Muffly back Guano, And he's like and Muffly is supposed to be like the one voice of a reason other than other than um the commander who's in there with with Ripper, other than Drake Man Drake,

the British guy. But he so he's the point of reason and he's and it's just the opposite of what we have today today. The military is more cautious, and the president is you know, obviously the president so and you know, he's completely fucking insane. He is a great line. But didn't it inverted from when this movie was made.

I mean, Eisenhower was the one who was like her first implemented the idea of like having an officer be able to in the event that the president has wiped out, We're gonna make it so that certain the officers can follow through with a nuclear strike like a Plan C or whatever. Yeah, and and he was hesitant to do so,

but then they made it a thing. And so that's what the whole movie is sort of based on, is like these these planes are always flying within two hours of their any target or whatever, and that's why they have to fuel in the air, you know, and and all this stuff. But it's it's all based on that

those early decisions. Yeah, there's I think still intact. Well, and he says that, he's like, you know, you're the one that signed off on this, and the disbelief, which is very reasonable, Like are you telling me like there's literally no way to back out of this at this point, Like there's no fail safe for us. And that's when GEORGEI Scott, that's when Turgenson says, well, we could look

at this as an opportunity. If it's gonna happen anyway, we catch them with their pants down and just wipe them out, right, which is what and that's what Ripper wanted, is like, that's right, this is the only this is the way this goes down. And it gets into this thing of paradox is that that I think Cooper had mentioned, like there's no way to follow through on the game theory of this, or the or the military strategy or the chess game. There's no way. It's that wargames thing

of like there's no way that the malcome. So there's the irony or the you can look at the mathematically and go okay, in a nuclear strike, if you strike first, you can knock out of their of their artillery and there and then they'll strike with what they have left, ten percent, with their ten percent, and they cannot got ninety percent of ours. So at the end we have ten percent left and they have nothing. So where we went. Meanwhile, the world is no longer inhabitable. And that's it's always

like this. Yeah, that's so, there's that one paradox of like the theory. And that's before they learn of the doomsday device, of course, which wipes out everybody, which is just a fear mechanism. Um. The other one was the always never dilemma. Um, let me read this. It says the UH command and control of nuclear weapons has long

been plagued by an always never dilemma. The administrative, administrative, and technological systems that are necessary to ensure that nuclear weapons are always available to use in wartime might be quite different from the ones UH that's necessary to guarantee that such weapons can never be used without proper authorization in peace time. And those two things are in perfect conflict with each other. And there's a way to reconcile them.

So there it is, right. And the weirdest think of all is that the president, you know, even if even if these other people have to go through certain procedures and they have to be two keys, and there's two different cut parts of a code that's sent unlock the two keys so that they can both check each other before doing a nuclei. There's all these things at hand if you're like if if Washington has been wiped out.

But the end, the other side of that is that the president is the only person that has zero checks because there's all there's always the I see I c B M s take ten minutes. That's not enough time to get Congress to vote. So there has to be a the ability of the president to launch an all out in nuclear strike at all times. And I don't know what that policy looks like now. And I heard they were trying to change it because of our current president. Really,

I heard that there was that the Pentagon they're actually scared. Yeah, but I don't know. I don't have anything to verify that, but um, well it makes sense, Yeah, it does. The one of my favorite parts is early on when uh and I love all the Man Drake Ripper stuff. It's just so great and um, like, Ripper has clearly lost his mind because from the beginning he's talking about the conspiracy, which was in the fifties it was a real thing

that people were worried about. Was the floridation. Then it was the Russians, and you know they were brainwatching is basically poison us the communist conspiracy to exactly. But Ripper has bought into this and Man Drake, God, he's so good and sellers so good in their role. He uh, there's that one scene where he Ripper commonly gets up, walks, unlocks the door, puts the key in his pocket and Mandrake doesn't even notice, like because they're just talking. And

then Man Drake has his has his moment. He stands at attention and he's basically like, you know, I have to tell you right now that you know, as an officer, I can't go through this or whatever how he says it, and uh, I'm gonna I'm gonna leave and go stop this. And he goes over and then he checks the other door and that's locked, right, and he knows and the look on the look on Man Drake's face seller's face when he's like, oh no, it's' to my thinking, that's

really not quite the way. It's right a way to look at it. Whatever. And he's like because of this and that, I mean, he dawns on him. He's like, uh, right, right, So it's my duty at this point in time to let you know that. But because i'm you know, I'm servicing the Queen, the Queen's army or whatever, you all this procedural bullshit. It was interesting that they made him an RF officer. Um. And I think the first few times I saw this, I didn't fully understand that that

was a real thing. Um, my brother in laws in the Marines and they they do that. He exchanged programs. Yeah, that some of his best buddies over the years were these Royal Marines and and they they love that ship man to to find you know, a like minded dude with a cool accent. You know that they can bond with. They're the same over there, man, you know that mentality is the same. And he loved his his Royal Marine pals when they whenever they've trained together insteads cool. It was.

It was a big deal. But I wonder why he did that though, in this Why have the British, I mean it could have been an American exo. Yeah, I think maybe because he something about him being an outsider, being outside of the normal ranks. Yeah, maybe made us It would presuppose that this guy might be able to think differently, or might be he might be honoring his ultimate loyalty is to something different. Yeah, so that that gives him at least some plausibility to be able to

like even stand up to this guy. Or it doesn't really, but well they sort of test each other, you know, Like um that that scene later before um Ripper kills himself in the bathroom, he's asking about you know where you're ever a prisoner of war? We ever tortured? And Peter Sellers He's so nervous at that point. He's like, yes, you know, I was the Japanese torture me and it's not not a pleasant story, right. He's like, I figured they're gonna have a pretty good time with me when

they get up here. Yeah, and they're probably gonna be able to It's like, without a doubt they're gonna be able to extract the code from you, So you might as want to give it to me, Yeah, he he really uses to his or tries to use it to his advantage. And then then he goes in the bathroom. Oh that's right, just clean yourself up or whatever. I think that's a wonderful and then the door is blocked by the body. It's so funny and morbid. It's really

great hum and all those sets are just amazing. I mean there's only a few sets, but they're just perfect. That war Room set is one of the most iconic movie sets in history. I think, yeah, it's betiful, it's it's vast, but yet at the same time, it feels like you're underneath a volcano. Yeah, it's gorgeous. It's so clean, and uh, it's they used darkness so to their advantage because they just cloak it all in black. It just falls except for the you know, the great Ring light,

which apparently was most of the lighting. It's almost like this the war Room exists in this ambiguous, like nebulous space. Yeah that we don't know where it is or how you know. It's it's so cool with matrix or something when you see pictures of it, because it doesn't it reads differently when like when you see a photograph of the set like as they were using it. Um, it's

just it's fucking great. It's gorgeous. And those set you know, it was the sixties, so it's not like he you know, he made it look like the times, but all those great uh, the big computer rooms and and then Ripper's office it was just like so like beautifully sixty and then the low the low angles on in the wor room. You could always shoot up and get you know. Yeah, Storgy Scott always has the big board behind him. There's always there. We'll see the big board. There's so many

classic lines. There's no fighting, whi there's another huge piece of of delicious irony almost every time you see the men fighting. Whether that I don't know if that footage was stuff they shot for the movie or not, but I think he shot it. Yeah, Okay, it looks seems like he would have to. It looks like stock documentary footage. But but he shot it to make it feel like word word because they use the outside of shepherds and studios.

Apparently it is the but everywhere and almost every background there's a sign that says pieces are profession Well, well, the tanks are going off on it. Yeah, I mean, that's so like obviously on the nose, but then the whole movie is just so on the nose, so over the top, and it's specific, you know, and a lot of people, I don't know how you can miss that. A lot of people seem to think, you know what, I guess the satire falls off on some peoples. This

is the most specifically clear. Yeah, like he's banging you over the head with it. Yeah, it's not like GEORGEI. Scott is actually playing a guy who's who's thoughtful, right, he's playing He's just an archetype. He's just a caricature, you know what I mean. I don't know how you could read anything else into it. But the of course the grain alcohol and rainwater. Yeah, that's that became such an iconic sort of thing. I've heard that line uttered

in many a bar. Have you makes sense? People? You know, I got the man drake, Man Drake. Do you recall what so and so said about war? He's like, war is too important to be left for the generals. Um, when he said that fifty years ago, he may have been right, but today it's too important to be left to the politicians. They neither have the time, the training,

nor the inclination for strategic thought. And I can no longer sit back and allow the communist infiltration and communist indoctrination and communist subversion of the international communist conspiracy to sap and it purify all of our precious bodily fluids. And then the whole movie is about bodily fluids. I know, the whole movie is about male power. Yeah, kicks it

all off. I just love how no matter what, even like whether it's it's she calls him in the room, she's like, but you know, but don't you want to spend time with me or whatever? And he's like, oh, I love your baby. Yeah, I'm gonna make you. Mrs. This is targetson. You start to count down, and I will be before you say blast off. A little buddy will be back before he blast off. And then and she's yeah, I mean everything about it is just body

humor and sex. And then the President's call with Dmitri, who's a drunk on the other end of the line, and it's like it's like I think he's been drinking. Yeah, it's like their ex there ex lovers or something is the way that the relationship works, right, I mean, yeah, why do you think I'm calling you just to say hello? Of course I like to speak to you. Of course I like to say hello. Not now, but anytime. Dmitri. I mean, when you see this chunk of dialogue, I'm

just as sorry as you are to me. Oh my god. He just acts the ship out of that part, and I guess it's all improv a lot of it. Well, I mean, I don't know, man, I'd be curious because that's such a large chunk. Yeah. The camera, the camera don't cut it at all. And GEORGEI Scott too, he has these uh I mean, he just acts the ship out of it. There these just long, crazy monologues where he's not and not I mean he's physically acting too.

That scene where he falls over was real, apparently, and he was mad that they kept it in the movie or whatever was he I guess so interesting. And you can tell that they cut pretty quick after he stands aback up because he's as he's standing up, he's still deliver. I mean, it's beautiful. It's one of the great moments in the movie because you're left to wonder like was

that real? Yeah, or did that just happen? Was that written in What is I mean this like, I don't again, I don't know if there's ever been a movie like this or ever will be again. I mean, it just seems like there's Wag the Dog, and then there's Veep and there's these like attempts at Death of Salin. I don't know if you've seen that yet. It's just fucking great. In fact, that movie totally comes closer to this than anything I've seen, I think, does it Death of Salin?

I think so, yeah, yeah, I mean a different film, but it feels like a little bit of the DNA of this film is in that movie. Yeah, And I guess that brings me to the idea of like what there's so much that could not have come after without this movie, Like this movie is responsible. I even think about like it's almost like a mockumentary, you know, yeah, totally.

I mean when they cut of the war footage and they have like I guess that the beginning is like a slate that they had to roll from the US Air Force that they had to put in the movie. I think that that first, the first like role that says, oh that it's not based on anyone real or something

like that. But but even I mean everything about it, there's and then they have the objective narrator, um, you know, this omniscient narrator, who's who's like like a war time you know, like a news reel, like a newsreel, who's giving you this this stuff? And that happens I think twice in the movie, and then they cut to this newsreel footage like war footage of the attack on the base. And other than that, right, it's all stage, but it just it's got this feel to me like a mockumentary

quality to it. It's supposed to feel like a newsreel at times. And I don't know if spinal tap would have happened without Strange Love, don't you know what I mean? The onion may not have happened without Stranger Yeah, you know, I honestly think it's and it's just so ahead of its time. I'm curious about the birth of satire. I don't know much about it, Like what the first satire was. Well for it, there's I mean there's I guess you can even look at like Shakespeare, there's always a clown

who's mocking a king. You know, there's there's evidence of political satire that goes pretty far back, I think, But I I don't know if it's ever handled like you know, the End of the World or if ever, if ever, it's been so black and so you know, nihilistic. Yeah, you know what I mean. And how else can you treat this stuff? I guess they wanted to. Apparently they spent a year is trying to make this into a

real They yeah, they they were. It was only it was late in the game they decided in in like many iterations of the script, they kept laughing and they were like, Okay, well we're laughing. This is really a comedy. So before it was straight they wanted to make a thriller into the world thriller, and then fail Safe came out a few years later. I guess. Yeah. I saw there was like a lawsuit or something. Yeah, we tried

to sue and that's Sydney le May I think. Yeah. Anyway, I'm I just I'm so struck at how the genius of going, oh, there's no other way to handle this. You can't you can't take this stuff seriously, and we'll end it with a pie fight. Yeah, well, in with a fucking magnificent glorious pie fight that's on far with like total annihilation. I love how there's no I love

how quickly the story gets going. I mean it's it's like it's fired out of a cannon with Ripper early on setting the stakes, um, having lost his mind, and like, this is what's happening, and there's no like you're right, it's not like any other movie. There's no kind of classic character development as you think of it in films. Um,

it's just but but the characters are all super developed somehow. Yeah, it's like this weird little magic trick, uh, in a movie that's an hour and forty five minutes long that just gets going so fast. It's this portrait of total and complete absurdity. Yeah. And it's it's just gotting gorgeous. Yeah. Um yeah, I've just never seen anything quite like it.

Well and gorgeous. You know, we can't. I know, we talked about the sets some and but we haven't really touched on the black and white and just what a beautiful movie it is. Yeah, I it's it's low key, it feels. I heard somebody talking about how at the time there was color movies were for comedies and black and whites were still reserved for like, you know, noirs, and so we kind of flipped it. So we kind of flipped that too, you know. Um, And I don't know if audience is going in had any you know,

they didn't. I don't know if they knew what they were going into. Yeah, I don't know if they I don't know how they would have responded. I mean, was it was it promoted as a as a comedy or was it I don't know. I don't know, man, in what did the American public think of this? Right? It?

Maybe that's the subversive thing about it. Maybe he was like hoping they would go in thinking, oh, this is a real thriller, like this is an actual thing, and they get they get this other thing that they were not expecting and maybe don't even know how to react to because there's not necessarily you know, there's no cop right. Yeah. So that's the verses. That's subverse of as hell, that's

punk rock as hell. Yeah yeah, I mean, get everybody in the theater and then feed him this and then there's all these people, the backlash from the military saying this is completely inaccurate. This is you know, it's it's borderline dangerous. Um. And it turns out the it wasn't inaccurate. Oh no, I read that a lot of like even the pilots in all We're like, no, this was scarily accurate, so much so that the Kubrick was afraid that the guy who helped him out with that stuff had gotten

illegal information. Cooper always seems to be a time traveler to me. He seems to always have his hand on on some either either he's got a magical imagination or he's actually, you know, in some conspiracy, you know, like got a straight line into like all of the classified information. Yeah, you know, in the Illuminati or something, right, you know, it was all these conspiracy because he doesn't again and again and again. Yeah, and he always seems to have

be way way out in front of way ahead of whatever. Um. So there's something magical about his genius that Yeah, nobody can put their finger on. He's the best ever, right, Yeah, Yeah, he really is in his own way. Yeah. Yeah, because like I'm trying, I mean, we did a series and we didn't abandon it. We just kind of paused it. With my buddy Casey here, Casey on kuber Can we covered that so it show and Barry Lyndon and full Metal Jacket and the Shining I think was all and

that's our Did we do Ramesay? Did we do uh uh now I can't think of it. The Drew Gies, Oh yeah, clock Recorn? Did we do clock Recrange Orange? Oh, that's right, that was a j Yeah did Yeah, we did passive Glory, that's right. And then we were killing. Well, we didn't do the killing. We didn't do alone. What's his name Hayden? Oh? Is he in that Sterling Hayden? Yeah, he's the he's the lead. Oh wow, that's right. Yeah. I've only seen The Killing once and that was like

in college. Yeah. But Cooper was always just so in his own lane, like they're they're more than movies. I'm not trying to like to elevate him to this like God likes that. I mean, there's there weren't they weren't movies. They were different, they were different, and there's like I was just in London and there was the Cooper exhibit at the Design mused him when I missed that in l A. I went over there and I tried to

like I I didn't look it up before. I just went over there because we had a film in the festival. And I went over there and tried to get in and it was sold out and unfortunately, so I didn't get to go in and look just snuck in. I was like, say, there's almost snuck in. I got half way in and my wife was lingering behind, and I was like, I either need to just ad her, abandoned

her and go in here and see this. And when I when I came back and I was like, cod I could have gotten and she's like, should have gone in, man, I would have figured it out right, Yeah, but I'm She's like, I would have just gone and had tea or something. Yeah, what are you doing in London? We were there because our film The Dark Red was screening

had its European premiere at um fright Fest. How'd that It was fantastic and really had a We had a killer you know how A bunch of our crew came Um Elizabeth, the Bit of Itch came in April, Billings Leave the League came and Davidovich is our stunt or nator and she's amazing, and U Ben Lovett was there, our composer, and Victoria Warren was there and Victoria's our

our DP. That's great. Yeah, we all came in like the movie was really well received and uh yeah it was just it was the best we could have ever hoped for because how Fun Fest is like one of the top four genre fests and just to have it so well received, and we were scared because the movie is not total horror. It's not for a genre festival. This one's a little bit more of a thought piece, and it was maybe they needed a break from the like the crazy blight splatter, but it was. It was

very well received and we're excited. That's awesome, dude. And it's coming out in March, so and in London, Like, how fun was that? Yeah? One of my favorite cities in the world. It's yeah, it's like the coolest city ever. Yeah, I've had forgotten how I just love it. Man. I would move to London in a sec. It was Berlin forever.

Now it's London again. I've never been. I missed my chance. Well, I had a question for you when you were a kid, because you're my age, So, to what degree before the Cold the Cold War sort of collapsed around the wall coming down, Um, to what degree were you did you grow up like me, terrified the there was gonna be a nuclear war. I mean that was the shadow that we lived in. Yeah, it was very real. I remember, as I'm sure you do, the day after that TV

movie with Jason Robards and my dad. After that movie, Uh, we started building a bomb shelter in our basement. Seriously, Yes, we started digging out. It was behind our this wood shop. Behind the cinder black walls of the wood shop was you know, red clay. And he knocked a hole in that wall and we started digging and he had me and my brother digging and you physically built a bomb. Well, no,

we didn't, true true to form. Uh. He stopped after a few weeks and we had, you know, after my brother and I dug out, you know, a hundred and fifty wheelbarrels full of red clay. He what was that impact on you? Like you're like, okay, we're taking for one. What was the impact of like, okay, we're building a bunker and like we're in this because the world's gonna end. Part of you think that's kind of cool and to what was what was the impact of, like, oh, we're

not doing this anymore? Because that was just a movie and nobody really cares. Well, I was a little kid, So part of it is kind of cool because, um, I think there's something about war games and growing up with that film and uh red Don with that film that was a little bit of like yeah, man, like I'm going to be in the woods with a rifle and a football or in a bunch of cans of soup and we'll be and we'll be okay, Like I still have that zombie apocalypse sort of weird fantasy like

we'd be all right. We did too. I lived in um the plasm Midwood area in Charlotte, North Carolina, and there was this section of woods behind like the golf course over there, and there was this weird division between where we were the like sort of middle class over middle class and then the and then like this weird pocket of like upper middle class and man sins and ship and the dividing line with these were these woods

and we would play Vietnam War. We would go in there I had seen like I think I've seen Apocalypse now or something, and we would go in there and we would ambush each other and we just it was just it was the most delightful these war games we play in the woods were the most delightful thing in the world. I didn't have anything about the true terror of Vietnam. No, we did the same thing, man, but we shot bottle rockets at each other. Roman candle wars,

Yeah are the best. But to answer your second part of that question, when we stopped building it, I was just relieved and not have to be digging anymore. On the weekend, there was no sense of like, but are we gonna be okay? Like why aren't we doing this thing that seemed very important? Um? But yeah, you know, I was watching Red Dawn and Night did the Comment and all these sort of disaster scenario movies. But it was just like you said it. It was the way

it was. I went to my friend of mine was was My parents did not We didn't go to church growing up. We quit very early on. My My dad was he was a chemist, and he had had an experience at his at the church, some church in South Carolina where he had like basically abandoned he at one point that they showed signs of being very racist at this one church that he was sort of interested. He was actually doing Sunday We're like Bible school in um for adults, and and he basically said, I'm never going

to darken your doors again. I'm done with this. And then it's there was this snowball effect with him if he eventually backed away from the entire thing. And he basically raised us almost as atheists, um or at least agnostics, and anything that has any dog at all he's terrified of. He's like anybody who thinks that they know the right way to do anything, then walk away as quick as

possible with run or stop them. And we're men. But this there's this one friend of mine who took me to like this youth Christian church camp and my dad was like, Okay, I guess you can go see what the other side like. And I went, and uh, I met all the crazies there. They're all these kids that

were like part of this youth Christian camp thing. And I was the one guy who I kept it hush hush at that point because I had learned by going to camp in South Carolina that you the more I speak about this, the less the more I'm hated and

people fear me. You're like, they don't know that I played the one I would play the Beatles and and talk about you know how much I don't I don't go to church, and then yeah, how God, we don't know if God exists, and they would like you know, I was, yeah, I was outcast, so I was like, okay, I'll shut up about that. But when I but I

met all these kids who were like obsessed. They sent me after I get left camp there like we decided you're cool enough, and they sent me this letter in the mail with like this debriefing about what to do in case of a nuclear war and how they have the survivalist club that they had started talking nine years old, ten years old and scary sh yeah, And I was like, you guys have started your own like clubbed on how to survive in nuclear war and you're inviting me to

join your posse, And was just like it was and they were it was insane. But that's the kind of ship that would happen to us when we were growing up in the shadow of nuclear war. We did it for fun. This weird thing happened, Sure, this weird thing happened. Where it all and I would I wouldn't remember. I was at a very open school and we had joined this extra crew curricular class in the sixth grade called the World Peace Club. We would talk about ways that

we could. Yeah, but I just was terrified growing up. I was literally I was like, Okay, this is how we're going out. And it affected this sensibility to me of like nothing matters. Well, why not litterally? Why not? Why not smoke? Why not do drugs? Who gives a ship? You know? Right? I think? And then at some point it all went away. At some point it was like, okay, so that's gone true. We dodged a bullet there, didn't we But it hasn't. There's still these broken arrows, which

is broken airs the term for lost nuke. There's just broken airs that happened all the time. And I brought you this. This is um a print out of all the broken arrows. Well, it's the thirty five. It's the thirty five declassified broken arrows that really they were speaking about. And one of them is in off a Tybee Island. Well I know about that one, yeah, yeah, the one that it's underwater somewhere right. Another one in Aiken, South

Carolina's gloss from there's one an, there's one an. There was a broken arrow happening in Aken there's one in um Florence, South Carolina. Why are they all in South Carolina? I don't know there's hundreds. This is just happened to be the ones around. This is gonna be my toilet. Yeah, I figured you guys have talked about that on No you know, we've never done on this a great idea of broken arrow and stuff. You should know it's not just a Travolta movie. Wasn't that dult? Was it that general?

I don't know? Am I thinking face off? Face off? Ramsey's nodding? Um, anyway, back to the movie. Sorry, I know it's it's all It all ties in. You know. I think the movie for me because of that, because of growing up in the shadow of of this weird, absurd condition that we all might blow yourselves up in any minute. The movie was this like release of pressure for me. When did you see it first? I think I saw it in college, So I didn't see it in high school. I must have been I definitely didn't

see it in high school. I was thinking college. I must have seen it around something in anyway, So right when we were going in the first like Gulf War, right around then is when I saw it. So I was already kind of anti war kid at the time. And then did you sit around and watch the war on TV in college? Like yeah, yeah, at the pizza

and we go to the pizza place and watch the war. Um, it was weird, but I in the way that people were reacting, in the way that like the frat boys in this school that I was in were like so

immediately gun home about it. I was like, and then I've seen and then I think I watched the movie Strange Loove and and it just was like this release like, Okay, so I'm not crazy, So I'm not the only one who gets that this is all bullshit and all these people are fucking crazy and this is just completely insane. This is lunacy. Yeah, And I was like, oh, so there's been subversive messages from way back. There's a there's anyway.

The relief of knowing that I wasn't the only one that felt this way and that there is actually a long history of it was it was wonderful. Yeah. I mean that's why the movie is kind of a crush for me. Well, it's a it's a it's a movie too that changes over the years for as you age, because my first viewings of this is a lot of it was lost on me, and um uh, A lot of it was the broad performances that I thought were funny, and of course Dr Strangelove and his alien hand syndrome,

which I have no idea why they did that. Um I think my favorite thing about all of that is the fact that no one ever acknowledges it. You know that the great I mean, there's funny stuff through choking himself, you mean, and yeah, but at the end when he's uh, it's the sequence of hand steering the wheelchair and a little circle he's like trying to go away. It's like and then to the chin punch, to the handbite, to the joke fucking sequence. I was dying and he came out.

She's like, what are you laughing at? I was like, I can see that part a thousand times and it will still make me laugh out loud. Well, he's all of this is happening while he's talking about how to survive in all that stuff? Is that sellers? I mean, that's not in the script, Like he has alien hand syndrome and no one notices. I don't know where they came up with the doctor Strange love character because he wasn't in the book that they were mostly basing it on.

Apparently the president. It had to have been sellers because for roughly he originally was going to play him as being really really sick with a cold, and they said that he was so good at it with all the cold stuff that he uh and no one could keep a straight face. And they're like, and Kubrick was like, you gotta you gotta lose it, man, I'm sorry to

fine such a fine line. Yeah, because that the president's role is such a straight role and cutting the pie thing like he's he's trimming down certain things that are too farcical or too slapsticky, and and and it becomes uncomfortable. It's like, why am I laughing at this? And he never gives you the full like, oh, this is to be dismissed. This is just a total He's like, no, no, no, this is not You can't dismiss this as as a as a as a pure slapstick farce. Each can't and

I'm not gonna let you so. And maybe in that sense the pie thing had to go, and and the over the over silliness. You know, if if he ever did the muffly maybe they had to go right, I mean the fine line and and the tone was his, his and his alone, like uh, sell no, Kubrick, I think of like that that line that he wanted to walk, Um, I think was his alone, like he what exactly what he wanted to do? Uh, And it was just genius. And I guess there were lots of the edits of

the movie. Oh really Yeah, apparently they cut it a lot of times. I mean, you know, he was pretty obsessive at this point in his career with He's pretty exacting and hands on. Like I know there was an editor credited, but everything I read says that editor and also obviously Coop breaking right in the room. Yeah, cutting tape. Did you ever do that? Were you ever cutting film? Yeah? I started off cutting on a on a steam back um editing machine and same here. That was fun. Yeah.

Even before that, I was cutting sixteen millimeter, which is um well eight millimeters like spaghetti. Yeah, but I had a little hite millimeter cutting spice cutting. But yeah, I kept my first The first couple of short films I made were sixteen millimeter and I yeah, I had to get a workprint and cut with the work print. That's awesome. That's what what I did. It was in the bands with all the stuff hanging on his little white gloves, tough grease pencils. Yeah, and then you had to get

your negative cutter to conform everything. That was expensive. Such a cool process. Uh, I mean it's better now I'm not one of these guys. It's like, oh, Avoca, AVOD came out. Pretty much for the year I graduated from film school was like AVOD came out, and then everything that he had learned was Yeah, so I couldn't get a job editing because everybody coming out behind me we knew how to do digital editing. Yeah, but that was

just the process. Like you know, editing is a is an art and no matter if you're cutting film or doing it with a click of the mouse, you got learned the new system, which there is something, there is something wonderful that's happened with the when you have the nonlinear digital editing that is I you know, it's like you can move so quickly that you can entertain several conversations with yourself. You have a backlog of ideas that you can kind of quickly. It's just a different game

you can edit. It's just informs my just so different that I you know, and I know that it's thirty years ago now, but like it changed my brain. I'm like, oh, I can compose here, I can write, yeah, pretty much to today. I've cut my own movies. Like you don't work with an editor at all? No, No, I mean I would love I would love to if I found one, Um, would you be able to? You think? I don't think so. I think. You know, it's funny because I talked to Bruckner,

David Bruckner. He's working on a movie called Nighthouse right now with Rebecca Hall, and he, you know, he always has these other editors that he's having to work with now because it's just contractually but it's still a director's cut. But he's an editor, like that's his gift, his magic editing. He's badass. So I'm like, how do you sit there and watch them push the buttons? And I don't. I

haven't had to deal with that really yet. There was one instance on a movie called The Vault, which was we had another editor, but luckily we got rid of that editor and I took over and again and right try to salvage the movie. But yeah, so I would. It's like a cinematographer, if I could find a cinematographer, you know. And I've found some that I love, and I'm like, okay. And when I finally found that, I was like, okay, I feel good about not worrying about that. Yeah,

but right now the editing, I don't. Yeah, so much fun. It's wonderful. Editing is the best. Uh So. A couple of things here at the end of the movie that I loved um is a couple of lines. Is one that that last phone call with Dmitri and President Mofly, when he's explaining like the current situation, like you know, you're just gonna have to find that plane and shoot it down. Basically he goes, well, I'm sorry, they're jamming your radar and flying so low. That's what they're trained

to do. It's initiative, you know. Oh man, I love it. And then when strange Love is describing the post war rebuilding effort, when he goes, animals could be bread and stop. Oh god, I mean, Sellers was such a genius. He left us so soon. He was fifty four years old, Yeah, just fifty four four, and he fell over at a breakfast table dead of a heart attack. Yeah, I think. I think he was also had a lot of like demons,

as the best comics often do. Right, Yeah, I'd like to read a good biography on him because he was a lot of problems. You know who's an expert on Sellers, Scott Poythress. Oh really, Yeah. He even was gonna he was trying to put together a film where he was going to play Sellers. Yeah, he's and he can do he can do a Sellers impersonation. That were Sellers doing

other characters. I was about to say, no one even knows who Sellers was, and I think that was his whole jam, right, Yeah, I mean he'd been admitted that he didn't have any other personas outside He was tough dude. I mean he was married four times and admittedly just a sort of a monster. Um. I did see the Jeffrey Rush thing that they did a few years. I didn't see that that was a while ago. That The

Lives of Peter Sellers or whatever. It's good. I mean, it's worth a watch, but uh, you know, britt Eklund, one of his wives, came out and she was like, I didn't like it because it portrayed him as a human. They're like, he he was a monster. Yeah, Jesus, Yeah, he was a tough guy. Uh, depression, you know, drug addiction, alcoholism. I'm not sure how bad the drugs were. I know he's a big pod head twitches who cares about that, but right, he was. He was a messed up guy. Yeah.

It fits into that whole the whole theory about the American clown and how I'm getting that some other time, but basically just the idea that, you know, we hate our clowns and other cultures, clowns represent their sort of outside of they're they're even more praised in some primal cultures than the priest or the medicine man. We hate

our clowns. Yeah, Wen, they're they're praised because they are beyond dogma, because they are like, okay, they'll come in and the trickster is understand something that is outside, Like you think you understand the mind of God. Actually that's

laughable because there's no way you could. And so they have in some senses, they're more sacred than the priest or whoever is this the spokesman, but in in the United States or it's it's in the Western culture, seems like we're so terrified of the clown that he becomes monstrous like the movie It or you know, these other

movies like that. But we were terrified of them. And then the clowns that we have that are comedians, they they tend to have all these demons and they carry with them this it's a sad clown that, you know, and that the suicidal tendencies and the self destruction, you know, and it's I think it's part of that whole equation. Did you watch Baskets, No, zach alais is Huh, you should watch Baskets. Ok, it's great. He was a clown in the in the show. Okay, uh, that sounds perfect. Yeah, yeah,

it was really good. But I think about like Joker, the movie Joker, and did you see it? I haven't seen it yet, Yeah, but you know, it's just that that and even yeah, these characters that were just terrified of anyway, I don't know, it seems like that's part of the equation with with Robin Williams and Peter Seller's and these other these other you know, guys who are somewhat self destructive or you know, yeah, all right, man, you got anything else do I, Um, you know, look

at your notes. Yeah, I mean I'm probably gonna walk out and go, oh yeah, I forgot to talk about that thing we talked about Pablo Pharaoh the titles. Yes, yeah, okay, Bablo Pharaoh. I thought that was cool. That's very cool. And it all it all comes together because uh I never noticed that that that was the same exact script basically. Um, now, I think we've covered some good stuff here. I just think the movie is important because it's I just think

it stands alone. I don't think there's anything quite like it. And so when I saw it, it was one of those movies that when you see it, you're just giddy because you're just like, oh my god, I can't believe this is somebody did this. Yeah, and it's a movie you want to talk about with other people. And it's the most efficient movie in the world. I mean, like every scene is so specifically clear cut and there's no fat in this movie now whatsoever. Yeah, but thank you

for having me. Of course, man, think about what you want to do next. Um, I'll have you on before March. But where can people find the Dark Red in March? The Dark Red? Um it'll be on all of the pay outlets like iTunes and Google Play, and we'll do a big all that stuff from a push for it. Um yeah, so well, and then beyond that, we don't yet to be seen if it will be like a

Netflix thing at some point or what. Cool. Maybe we're probably gonna be theatrical release like limited, So maybe around the release, it would be fun to get you and whoever you want to invite key players great from uh maybe your DP and the and the lead actress. They'd be fun sit around, do a little round table. I'd be just about the making of it and some insider stuff. I know people love that stuff. All right, Well, think about what you want to do next as well, and

we'll get you in here like in the new year. Okay, thanks Dan, thanks for having me. Man. Bomie Crush is produced, edited, and engineered by Ramsey unt 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.