FIlmmaker Series: Ben Harrison on Barton Fink

like the show. Is having a lot of fun watching it. Um, yeah, I think, I mean it's ah, there's only ten episode of it, and I'm and I think we've as of this recording, we've reviewed seven and uh, I'm already sad that we're almost out. So it's a limited series. I mean it's this is season one, so it's coming back.

It's already been renewed. But uh, but yeah, it's like this modern television thing where instead of making twenty six episodes of a season and make ten or thirteen, Yeah, which is you know, let's be honest, it's not great for you, sex for me, it's uh, it's putting me out of house and home. See if we can get some more Epps going next season, guys. Um, yeah, but you know, Star Trek was a kind of a limited resource when we started podcasting about it, and it is

no longer there. They've announced that Discovery is renewed through season five, so there there's a lot of new stuff coming and uh and that's good. No, forgive me, but did you guys ever do anything with all the original stuff? We have reviewed a couple of original series episodes on Greatest Discovery, because especially with Discovery, they go back and reference things from past episodes because I guess Discovery is set a little bit before the events of original series.

Oh no, ship, it's a prequel. Yeah, it's kind of a prequel. And uh, well so yeah, seasons one and two are prequel and then uh, through events that I shan't spoil that the next season will not be set in the same timeline. Um, but we've we've gotten We've gone back and kind of done our homework on a couple of t O S episodes because that's uh, Adam and my star Trek is TNG. So that's that's where we started. What are all these letters podcasts the original series?

And TN is the Next Generation? Is this how the nerds refer to it? Yeah, that's how we refer to it. Chuck Yeah, but you didn't start out as a Star Trek nerd. That's not why you did it, is it. I mean I started out as a person who really liked Star Trek. I don't know. I don't, I don't. It's a calling yourself a Christian, you know, it's like it seems a little presumptuous, like I'm not saying I'm christ like I'm saying I like the works of Gene Roddenberry. Okay, well,

I'm gonna do a podcast about the Christianity prequel. Okay, wow, it's called it's called the Torah whoa Burn? Uh, it's called total Darkness because there was nothing else. Dude, Chuck, did you just call for burning Tora's I don't think I can keep on keep going with this podcast, all right, see you later. Good episode. Uh. We're recording remotely everyone, because we don't want to die. Yeah. We're socially distancing, even in podcast form. We are socially distancing because you

are in Los Angeles where you make your home. Yes, is here, winsome and charming wife, I do. Uh. Hopefully, if if our summer hangs aren't canceled due to the virus, you'll you'll get to hang out with her this summer in the lake house. That's right, that's gonna be. Uh. I feel like everything is up in the fucking air right now. It really feels like that, you know. I mean, I don't think I'm not like going down the road where I think, like, you know, ten million people are

gonna die. My father's is uh is saying a billion to anyone who will listen to him. So that's really comforting. It's funny. Mean, I just saw go ahead. He's like a you know, a guy that he's like an old guy that watches the television, you know, the twenty four hour television news networks way too much for health health. So that's where he's getting that number. We'll been. There are some people that say, a a thinning of the herd, as it were, it's good for the planet, an over

burdened planet that we already have. You know what I'm saying, that's a pretty maccab approach to climate change. Uh, well, Nana, not climate change. I'm talking about this pandemic. What do you you've been talking about climate change? I'm saying. I'm saying, if you're if if a thinning of the herd is good for the planet. It's not good for the people that got thinned. Oh sure, okay, let's see what you mean.

I got you. Well, you know Bonnie Prince Billy has a song about that that basically says, even when humans are gone, that's it's still not the end of anything. We just think it is. Yeah, the earth continues right, well, talking about something more uplifting speaking, Yes, let's let's talk about this hell Allegory movie. All right, so we're talking about Barton Fink. This is our continuation, folks of the Coen Brothers film series. Yeah, quick sides, people will here.

We skipped the Miller's Crossing Raising Arizona right because has Ben Acker stole My Miller's Crossing episode? Who stole My Raising Arizona episode? Deck Shepherd? You want to start ship with him? Yeah? I saw that at the at the fish Market one time, which which one uh Seattle los los feless I forget what it's called a Yeah, they probably live around there. They seem like Los feless types. Yeah, yeah, I should have. I should have challenged him to an

old timey boxing match, a pugilist sparking. Yeah, Marcus of Queensberry rules played them some sweet chin music. I think I's got a glass gin. You would have had no problem. But I can't throw a punch to save my life. I've never had so I don't even know. I've beat people up in my dreams. Does that count? They? Speaking of dreams, let's talk about this dream allegory film well

before we do, I have a quick side story. I was just on a little um and people of movie crush Land will probably here this twice because I will probably talk about it again on a mini crush. But I just went on a little buddy trip with my best friend Eddie to see to travel to three cities to see Bonnie Prince Billy saying the aforementioned musician play

shows with Jonathan Richmond. So we went to d C Philly in New York, and in New York at the Town Hall, standing outside, Ethan Cohen right next to me, No kidding, which is obviously a big one for both of us, like huge, huge level. They'd be like Alexander Pain or Paul Thomas Anderson or you know, do you feel confident that you know the difference between Joel and Ethan so competent? Okay, because I don't. I don't think. I think I've seen them in interviews always together, so

I don't know that I that's how they get you. Yeah, Like I think I would be, like, it's one of the Cohen brothers, either Joel or Ethan, tall, dark haired gentleman married to Free mcdormant. Ethan is the shorter kind of Yeah, I think I know that intellectually, but my instinct is that it's the opposite. Like when I've got there, I've got my my biography of the Cohen Brothers here next to me, written by Ronald Bergen. It's good, It's it's early. It came out pretty early in their career.

This is like a book I picked up at the Strand for like a dollar and a half back when I lived in New York, and it goes up through like not much further past uh the Big Lebowski. But I read I reread the chapter on Barton Fink last night and uh, yeah, there's just a picture of the two of them on the cover, and uh, And I was I was thinking to myself, if I ever met one of these guys, I would be embarrassed to say I wasn't sure which one. Well, you just say, Mr

Cohen in your cover. So I see him out there. I'm not the kind of guy that would well, actually kind of in that guy that would just literally say hi, I love your work. But I was a little inebriated, so I was like, I'm just gonna be cool here. Uh. Ten minutes later, I'm in the drink line and he and his wife are walking by me, and she looks at me right in the face and says, is this

the drink line? That was really long? And I was at the front of and I said, instead of saying it is, but boy, I would love to buy you and your husband a drink. Just jump right in here. I said, yep, it's the drink line. And I've been mad for three fucking days. Is oh man, that was my chance? That was that was your chance. You You could have painted the town red with his blood. Yes, you could have murdered, taken him back to your hotel, woken up next to his lifeless body. Oh look at you.

They're on their movie refs in there. So anyway that happened. And I'm sure in his mind, of course, he didn't think about it at all, but in his mind he would have thought, boy, I'm glad that guy didn't buy me in jurnks. Anyone I had to make small talk for two minutes with him, he would have told me about his podcast. I would not have done that. I that would be the most obnoxious route to take with

that conversation, don't you know. Well, it's it's interesting because you your podcast is about being a film buff and I think that this movie is is really like kind of they're the peak of their film buffery being shown and in their work, and so yeah, this is like incredibly deep cut film nerds stuff that they're referencing here. Yeah,

it is. Um, I mean, let's just dive in. Um. My uh story with this film is I saw it in the movie theater with one of my other best friends, Jim, and then um, when it came out on VHS when I was in college. My other friend Eddie, who just went on this trip with us, we probably watched Barton Fink twenty five times in the couple of years that we lived together, no joke. That's uh. That is far more than the FDA recommended a lot. Man, it was

a big one for us. Man. We and you know how it has been college when you have the VHS's line around, You've got like twelve of them, so you end up watching all those movies memorize, memorized the ones that you've got. Yeah, but it had been a long time since i'd seen it, so it was cool to revisit What's what's your story with it? I think it was it was just a yeah, picked that but at

the movie rental at one point in college. And I never really realized what a big impact it had when it first came out, because I think, like Miller's Crossing had not been a huge box office success for them, and then this movie went to con and got Best Director, Best Picture, and Best Actor, which had never happened before, and it was like one of these prestige films that that really, like you know, had had a moment in

the culture. And I think I was too young to be aware of things like that, so it just didn't It didn't register for me until I was in college later. Yeah, here we go with I was curious about the box office once he said that, still not much about six million bucks. This is before they were household names, though, you know, I mean, they were right. They were certainly the delight of me and my friends and like college film buffs and you know, coastal elites. But they, I mean,

Fargo is what really broke them up. And right, yeah, well, and I think, uh, you know, the independent film world hadn't hadn't really like grown and you know, like the there were obviously independent films going back to the beginning of cinema, but this, you know there there wasn't as much of a like an industry around it back then. You can go and say it was pre Sereal. Yeah, it was before Cereal invented podcasting. I'm looking at the order here, Barton Fink and then Hudsucker, which we'll get

to next. Yeah, um, and then Fargo. Fargo was always earlier than I think because it feels like late Coen Brothers to me, because I had seen all those other films well, and it was such a break for them too, because it's Miller's us saying Barton Fink, Hudsucker are all these kind of period pieces, are about a certain moment in American life. They're about like kind of class signifiers

that we don't really have anymore. They're all these all these like things that are are like somewhat alien to us now, but are are fun to like revisit, whereas Fargo has just set in the present. Yeah, I mean that was looking now in blood simple as obviously was the present for the time Raising Arizona was, but it was also a movie kind of weirdly that didn't feel time specific at all. It's kind of a temporal Yeah, that's the word. Uh. And then yeah, three in a

row that we're set. What I mean, what is this thirties? I think it's one, right, because there's the scene where the where the film executive has his his colonel uniform and and he's like, this hasn't gotten three yet, A just had costume with this. Yeah, and of course the USO dance later come on, give the Navy a spin.

That great scene. Yeah, And that's like that scene is so wild to me because it it's it sort of feels somewhere in between a real scene and a dream sequence, like yeah, there's no there's no warning that he is likely to go to a USO dance, there's no there's no context for it that they don't there's no like, you know, newsreel footage cut into like give you you know, a sense of time where like the us has decided

to enter the war or anything. He's just he's just like finishes his script and then he's dancing at a USO dance A great dance too. It's that's always been any and I don't dance much at all, but anytime I've had a few and I'm at a wedding or something, I will pull out a couple of the Barton moves to the delight of no one. I'm a podcaster. How do things that are important? Oh man, it's so good.

Uh people in brown suits. And I remember there was a joke about Hudsucker about something about big and brown, and I think it may have been after these two films, the studio was like, don't use any more brown and scale it back, and he said something about setting out to make the biggest brownest movie they could. I guess Brown's had a great cinema color. I don't know. I

love it, ove me two. I mean this this movie really does have a palette, and it it feels like it almost like inspires some later French cinema with how gross it gets, like the the gooey noess of the of the wallpaper glue coming down the walls. Like it feels like, uh, that's the guy that directed Emily. It feels like yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, super interested in walls that were covered in goo. Yeah, well who did do Emily? That was one of the brothers, right that I just mentioned,

did you know? And Caro am I wrong? H it's the same guy that did Alien four Jesus. I just looked up Emily and it was Amelia the very bad Amelia Earhart biopic Jean Pierre Janet. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's it because they were the same guys who did Delicatessen, which also had a bunch of gross. Yeah. Moisture, yeah, gross moisture is is really a watchword in there in there of the um. Yeah, I mean this is a like an early example of that as far as I can tell. And uh and and yeah, very brown, very

like very unpleasant seeming. You sort of wonder, like, what is what is motivating Barton? Because he doesn't he has the opportunity to move to a nice hotel when he first arrives in Hollywood and it doesn't doesn't take it. But he also it's not because he like doesn't I feel like he deserves it or anything like he he thinks a lot of himself, but and and but he has I mean it's and it's it's not this like delusion that he's like, uh, you know, obsessed with the

plight of the common man. He doesn't want to live like the common man. He wants to write about the common man. Yeah, that's interesting. Um, I was I'd seen this movie so many times and I just kind of know it by heart, and it never really occurred to me until the other night on what an obnoxious character he is. Yeah. I think I just loved the movie so much. I didn't stop to think the fact that their protagonist was. I mean, you're rooting for him, but he's awful that he's the last guy you want to

be stuck to a next to at a party. Yeah, like part of like, like John Goodman's character feels super dangerous, but you kind of love him because he is willing to sit there despite how obnoxious Spartan is. The first like three times they hang out, uh huh. Well, and he says that at the end, you know you don't listen.

That's sort of the thing right there. Yeah, he wants to write about the common man, but he's just from that distance perspective, I think, Yeah, he's like he's naive and he doesn't know he's naive, right, Yeah, Yeah, that's a good way saying it that he can he can both hold it in his mind that he wants to be the playwright of the common man, but also have no interest in you know, like like he the way he talks to the common man, who he imagines John

Goodman is is so dismissive. So yeah, so so insulting. Yeah, I mean he's Goodman is constantly saying in that first meeting, boy, I could tell you some stories, and and a true artist who was really interested in that would immediately reply with why I'd love to hear are some of those stories I could really help inform my work? Hold on, let me grab my notebook. I need I need wrestling stories specifically, and John Goodman has them to offer Big

Ben in Tights. Um. It also struck me the other day how funny it is that the Coen Brothers, at some point, and you know that, I'm sure you know the backstory, but for the benefit of the listener, when they got writer's block, which I just demonstrated, when they got writer's block writing Miller's Crossing, they stopped for like two weeks or something and knocked the script out. Yeah, like this, this ironically was the script that cleared the

writer's block for them. They just burped it out. They said, yeah, some people go on a walk, they wrote a movie, they write a cinematic masterpiece. Yeah exactly. But at some point, um, one of them looked at the other and said, you know, let's write a story about a big play play right in New York that thinks a lot of himself. It gets moved out to l A to write movies, and he moves next door to a serial killer. Like that's the premise of the film. Yeah, the um, it's it's

very not there their experience like there. I read a quote from them saying like, yeah, like we've actually had kind of a really easy time in Hollywood, like once we got our first movie done, like we've never had any trouble getting getting to keep making movies, which you know, many directors get a few movies and then they have one that doesn't do well at the box office and they get put in movie jail and they never come back.

And the Coen Brothers like very emphatically did not have Barton Fink's experience like that, this is not a you know, semi autobiographical tale by any extent. Yeah, but it was a movie that supposedly was based on and I didn't know much of this stuff until I kind of dove

back in. But a playwright named Clifford Odets, which is I'm sure you saw that stuff too, Yeah, and and kind of taking a lot of elements out of the timeline because there was this like theater movement in the thirties in New York that has a lot to do with what parton Fink talks about the theater of the common man, of vernacular theater that uh, you know, would have been really well established by the time the events of this movie take place. But this this movie doesn't

really take place in real history, you know. Yeah, although they do pepper it with you know, thinly veiled characters of of real people at the time. Obviously, well no one knows, not many people know about Clifford Adets, But clearly John C. Mahoney is is William Faulkner spent off right. He even looks just like him. Yeah, And I think the I think that the movie that he's got on his on the door of his bungalow slave ship is the name of it, a film that Faulkner actually wrote

on Hollywood. Yeah, Man, how good is John Mahoney in this movie? He's great, He's uh, he's a lot like I feel like there's a temptation to take that character and go really big with it. And the only time he's really super big is when he's off screen, when he's like screaming in the in a room that you can't see him in. Where's my honey? Yeah, Like he's he's pretty subtle, despite um, despite like that temptation. I think I thought that that was It's one of my

favorite characters in the film. Just like you know, he like he's totally stripped of dignity by the end of it when he's like, you know, it's revealed that he's basically like not even the author that he claims to be. Man W P. William Phony Mayhew so many great lines, and he did write a wrestling movie to Faulkner wrote a or at least worked on a wrestling movie called Flesh. Yeah, that's starred Wallace Beery, who was the real actor that

they said that Barton was writing for. Does So here's a question that maybe you know the answer to like it was there in the thirties and forties, like a big market for wrestling pictures or is that is that kind of like is that part of the like synthesized reality here. I think it's probably kind of real. I mean, if there was a movie called Flesh about a German wrestler, it would not surprise because you know how they were making movies at the time. They didn't they didn't make

a movie. They were like, let's make seventies, right and see what happens, right, And and that's like like the the executive character that is like he's so um he has no like actual respect for the art form. You know, he's like, uh Jack Lipnick. He he just talks about you know, like we got a war picture, a Bible picture of wrestling picture, like it's it's it's just inventory

for him. It's it's it's he considers these things to be like basically commodities, depending on who he's talking to or like what part of the sentence he's in, because he also claims to, you know, love the writer above all other you know, all other creatives. The writer's kissing king at Capital Pictures, kissing partner thinks a Shoe so great, one of my favorites. Uh, and he was. He was so great. Um, Jack Lipnick like one of the great characters and all of their movies I think. And Michael

Lerner just fucking fantastic. Uh I think was he in? Um it seems like he did something else with them. I know they re use actors a lot. Yeah, there's kind of the the Coen brother stable of actors to Turo and Goodman here in in a pre Lebowski pairing. Oh I see back first serious man much later in there. Okay, that's right. Yeah. And the great John Polido, the late great John Polido, who just passed away a few years ago, as Lou. Oh, I didn't. I didn't realize he'd passed.

That's too bad. Yeah, he think he died in like, um just and he was. He's been in a bunch of Collen Brothers movies. One of the great character actors. And as as Lou, Yeah, used used to own some shares in the company. No longer so great, but like maybe the character with the least dignity of anyone in this in this film. Yeah, and it's funny because he's the one he gets so called out in that meeting because he translates what is the correct translation, which is,

you know, you're the property of Capital Pictures. You really need to sort of tell us what's going on here, And he's right, and he gets so totally sold out, son of a bitch. Uh and then he's just back in the next scene like that. It was entirely for Burton's benefit and not real We get a very young Steve Bashimi. It's one of the first times I remember seeing him. I think, is Jet within exclamation point, I'm chet uh yeah, the I'm just distracted by this cast list.

So many of these people were also in Star Trek things, so really it always leaps out to me. Yeah. The the guy that works the clapper in the in the when he gets to see the rushes of the other wrestling pictures is Max Garden Chick who played rom on Deep Space nine. I didn't realize that didn't didn't recognize him because he's usually he's usually got a bunch of prosthetic makeup to make him look like a FERENGHI, so, uh well, a young touch Euro as well. Um, John

Goodman fantastic learner. Um, you've got Judy Davis is Audrey, who just I had such a big crush on her still do. Yeah, she's a She's a delight. Um. It's these are all actors that are still with us too, Like the the the careers have really like developed and grown.

But I think John Goodman was the only like really really really famous person in this right, yeah, I mean, come to think of it, to Turo, this is sort of before everyone, you're right, had had become more household names, even you know, my favorite character in the film has been Geisler Tony and it was the first thing that I had seen Tony Shalubin and my friend Jim and I Jim got to know him and then hooked me up for a movie crush interview with him, and and

I just fond. I was like, man, I said, I'm such a fan, but I said, been ben. Geisler is one of the great great all time Cohen Brothers characters. So great every both of the scenes are so great. He has so much range too, because like he can play the he can play monk, and he can play like a you know, like a cop or whatever. But he, like this character is like is so big and brassy

and he's amazing yeah, I think he said that. There was just I think they, the Coen Brothers are just like, you cannot go big enough for us in this role, so just just chew it up. And that that one great opening line when he gets and he rings up lipnic or lou Hey, lou How's lipnics as mell this morning so great. One of the great fake phone calls in movie history. I think, real screwy. Yeah, I got

this right here, real screwy. Alright, no, alright, ship okay, alright. No. The use of the word no to mean yes, it's like it is all through this movie. Anytime somebody means yes, there they say no, no, no, no, okay no. Yeah. They do that a lot. And then Barton also has that great part um towards the end when Judy Davis dies yeah and he goes to the door and he nods yes and says no. Even they do that thing where they they do recurring dialogue, like repeating dialogue. Yeah,

it's really interesting. That's something that I first noticed in Lebowski, like the way like the you know, when he's like watching the TV at the beginning and George George H. W. Bush is saying this unchecked aggression against Iraq will not stand. And then Lebowski like two scenes later, going like this unchecked aggression will not stand. Man. Yeah, they're they're obsessed with that idea that that like that idea of picking up little kind of memes of culture and and then

repeating them later. And it's always it's always a subtle thing, but I love it. Yeah, it's one of my favorites. Chet and introduces himself like three or four times in that opening scene. My name is Chet. I'm Chet. And then at the end he writes his name with the exclamation point and shoves it across the table. Chet. Judge Trow takes the paper, folds it up and puts it

in his jacket. I'll need this to remember. Yeah, well, that introductory scene is so great And this is the stuff that really occurs to me is what puts the Cohens in a different realm of filmmaking and and just the reality of a movie is the when Chet is introduced and Barton rings that bell and it rings and rings and rings, and you hear the steps coming up from some cellar below and the thing is still ringing,

and you think, like, is it even still ringing? And then here he touches it with his finger and it's like his his nail is so chewed up, like he's got he's got real bad uticles. Um. Yeah, I love the atmosphere that it strikes in that in that first time he's in the hotel is amazing because it's not it's it's not the old Hollywood that we imagine, right, it doesn't. It doesn't show an exterior with palm trees and you know, drop top student bakers. It's it's always

you're always inside the hotel. And despite the fact that the lobby is really cavernous, it also feels like really like close and coying. And you know, when he's in his room, he can't see anything out the window. There's just like a brick wall out there, and you don't you know, Hollywood isn't this sunny, open, exciting place for Barton Fink. It's it's very it's very closed in and it's kind of depicted in the way that New York is often depicted in filmed. Totally, it totally reads this

New York. Um. Obviously they did a lot of this for the sense of isolation, but you know, you never see anyone in this giant, giant, fucking sort of tenement apartment hotel. The lobby is always empty, the hallways are empty. Yet there are you know, hundreds of pairs of shoes down an endless hallway, but the only person you ever see is Chet and Charlie. Yeah. I would. I would love to find a hotel that charges twenty five dollars

a week. I know. I mean I would put up with the with the wallpaper coming down the wall like that week. I would. I would just keep it. I would just you know, like, yeah, let it flow. Yeah, Yeah, I keep a room in Minneapolis. It's only twenty five bucks a week. Who cares? Um the way Barton two or into Turo, the way they developed this character, and um his physical traits. You know, he's always kind of hunched over and hump backed, and he walks with his

is it pigeon toed yeah, whereas toes pointing yeah. And I think everything about this was a choice, you know, they think. The Cohen Brothers are well known for being super super specific, Like that finger on the bell was, if not Steve Bashimi, someone else who they were like, we need to get a really nasty finger, like all

that ship matters to them. I'm wondering in retrospect, I interpreted it as bruised, But I'm wondering in retrospect if if if what I was seeing was shoe polish on the finger, like like residue from his totally hireless polishing of shoes. Yeah. I didn't even notice that that was there a black smudge or something. Yeah, I mean his finger just looks very discolored. Yeah, it's totally shoe polished. That makes a lot of sense. Yeah, I read that Umo like spent a lot of time with the Cohen brothers.

He's spent like a month just hanging around them before before they made the film, just to kind of get to get their vibe. And that's a level of commitment that I really admire. You know, just just develop a working relationship, you know, like that's that's not always easy to do when you're making a film and you might have no rehearsal time built into the schedule or anything. Yeah, especially back then, I mean they this movie obviously had it.

They were starting to get some budgets because they made these, you know, pretty impressive period pieces. Yeah, but this this film had a third of the budget of Miller's Crossing. Yeah, this was a big down budget for them. Well, I wonder if that is one reason they didn't fill that lobby with extras and went with the more uh, because I mean there's not a ton of extras in the whole movie except for that USO dancing, right, Yeah, that's that is the one. There's not a lot of people around.

Usually they're in an office, Yeah, secretary, there's another person, there's lou there's lipnik. But it doesn't feel like cheap the way there's there's a lot of you know, independent films that don't get the budget to have a lot of extras, and and you can you can really feel the corners being cut and you you don't in this movie. No, they didn't do a lot of exteriors. That's where you can save you know, they were clearly hold up on

a stage somewhere. Yeah, Um, the stage that the hotel interiors were built in, the where the you know, the hallway and and his room was the the hangar that the Spruce Goose was originally in. Yeah, and apparently the like it was a real challenge to build this set because all of the walls were wired with like gas lines, that could be individually turned on and off so that you know, when Goodman is running down the hallway, they've got guys up on the cat looks above like like

turning knobs to to engage the gas. It's like some special kind of gas that burns a lot cooler than you know would or whatever, so they can. I mean, they had to rebuild the set every time they did another take, but they you know, they didn't want to like actually kill the actor. I guess, yeah. I mean they clearly put a little money into that ending sequence with the fire. Um, but even then they send two detectives. It's not um, they're not. They're not. They're a lot

of the Swat team. No, and they're not a lot of exteriors with I mean, there's that one sequence with with Mahoney and Judy Davis in clearly Griffith Park, but you only see a couple of cards go by, Like they're not throwing a ton of money down to recreate old Hollywood, And that had to have been a conscious choice. Yeah, right, it doesn't. It's there's no romanticism in in the Hollywood

that Barton Fink comes to. And it it's interesting because that conversation he has at the beginning, he's sort of He's like, oh, I don't want to go do that, Like, you know, Rebel was the famous people and go to fancy parties. Like That's not what he winds up doing at all, not at all. Like the only like bright

and well lit places are Lipnicks office and Lipnicks backyard pool. Yeah, and it's interesting now that I'm thinking about it, they finally did kind of scratch that itch if they were unable to hear with Hail Caesar, they went really big, Yeah, with the great sort of ode to old Hollywood. Right. Yeah, Yeah, I've never really thought of this movie and that one being connected, but I guess they really are like similar,

similar time period and everything. Yeah. I wonder if there's an Easter Egg or two and Hail Caesar that I never picked up on. I bet you there is. We'll get to it eventually. Yeah. What was the name of the hotel? Earl? Just so many great details, man, And I think that's what sets the Coen Brothers apart. Like the part where he goes into the room for the first time and he looks down at the station an airy and rolls the pencil away and there's the spot

where the dust didn't settle. Yeah, it's that's the stuff that puts them over the top. It's so great. The the like note for the prop department on that I would love to read, you know, yeah, yeah, that would have been a fun prop because you just get a little die to maceous earth and sprinkle it on a page until it looks dusty, yeah, with like a like a sieve, Yeah, exactly, and then make sure that pencil doesn't move. Yeah, it's great hot set um I read that.

They also um like that the idea of that of that photograph being like the one piece of decoration in the room was something that they came up with really early on, like like they had conversations like what would be in the room, like how how would it feel to be in there? And it's sort of become you know, because there's a brick wall outside his window, it's kind of his only his only view to the outside world.

And the fact that he never gets to see any other parts of the hotel also you know, make you feel really isolated in there. But I love I love the way that photo kind of becomes his reality in the end. Yeah, I mean they bring that back around. Uh there at Zooma Beach. If you've seen that stretch of beach a gazillion times, yeah, I mean I've shot tin TV commercials right there. But it's also, of course very famously from Planet of the Apes. Oh no way, Yeah,

that's it, dude. Wow. You can tell because of the big rock. There's that big cliff right right, and I mean that's the only place you can get that look that close to l A Yeah wow. Otherwise you got to go up the PC quite a bit damn dirty. Ye. Well, I don't have time to go all the way of

the man. No, let's just shoot it. It's uma. What is your thought about the um what happens in this film at the end, and sort of the the allegory of it all and seeing that woman on the beach and the pelican diving in, and do you read too

much into that or is what it means? I mean the I feel like parts of this I like have picked up from stuff I have read over the years, and maybe I'm not sure how much I can take credit forward here, but I guess my read is that Goodman is sort of satan and that the like the rest of l a are like is you know, it's hell like and and when when Goodman is close, it gets hot in the hotel and uh and I don't know why, like you know why the scene at the

beach at the end. But but it Barton's life as he knew it is is over right, like the like he's he's stuck in this contract where they're gonna they're just gonna mind him for writing that they don't produce. And and somehow he finds himself on this beach with the head in the box or the mcguffin in the box anyway. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Um, it's like he's it's it's like he's trapped in the painting in the hotel room. Like he's gone even further into the trap somehow. Yeah,

I think. And in fact now i'm reading because I was just thinking it would surprise me for some reason if the Cohen Brothers really had a bunch of intention behind these symbols. Yeah. I think that they like to kind of just the kids. Um. Yeah, there's a lot of comparisons made to this from this movie to Kafka, and they in this in this biography really reject those comparisons. Are like we're we don't. We're not like Kafka. People like we don't like I never read much Kafka and

didn't consciously think about him when we were writing this movie. So, um, I think they like the the symbolism is maybe a lot less explicitly connected to anything, and it's it's more open to interpretation than Kaska. Yeah, for sure. Um. I think Ethan or Joel said, because they were asking about the symbolism and he said, we never ever go into our films with anything like that in mind. He said, there's never anything approaching that kind of specific intellectual breakdown.

It's always just a bunch of instinctive things that feel right for whatever reason. Yeah, I think they just have their world that they're comfortable in, right, and uh, it looks cool to see a hallway on fire. I mean they definitely create an alternate reality. Some people think this like kind of from the midpoint on when it descends into this almost sort of a weird horror movie totally is all a dream of Barton's. And of course they they wouldn't say that that's the case, but I think

it is open to interpretation. I like that. Um. Yeah, Like if you sit and think about like the shot where they camera like pans away from the bed and goes down the drain hole in the sink, like you could you could describe a ton of meaning to that, or you could just let it be like this wild tripped out moment that happens that it doesn't need to

necessarily have that much meaning. Well, I mean it's it's obviously sort of a not not because I think their sense of humor is really kind of you know, twisted h and they do things to funk with people. So having bar and in the other room beginning to initiate the sex or I guess Judy Davis kind of initiates it, and then going you know, the shot of either if it's not the train going into into the tunnel, they literally take a camera into a sinkhole. But then from

that point on it gets really weird. All those sounds. Yeah, and it sounds like, uh, I don't know, it sounds like people screaming and stuff. Yeah, like like it's it's literally like the the slavering masses in in Hell. Right, That's sort of where my head went. Anyways, Um, this is their first Roger Deakins shot film. That was kind of a curveball that they threw him on set, apparently like, hey, so in this scene, we want you to set up pretty far back and then have the camera plunge down

the hole in the in the sink drain. And he's like, uh okay, right, like and I don't know they have like uh, I guess maybe it was on our last episode that we talked about what their reputation is like to work with that they kind of they're a little bit stand offish, and they'll they'll just go off and talk to each other in hushed tones off in the corner and and that can be a little off putting. But Roger Degans apparently just loves working with them and

had a ton of fun working on this movie. One thing he said was that the scenes that they shot in the theater where you know it's Burton Fink standing in the wings and then going out to accept his applause um, they finished that day at even thirty am because they've gotten everything they needed and didn't I feel like they needed to keep shooting really, so they just

dismissed everybody from the set. Well, and as you know, that is crazy town, like like when you get what do you get off work on a film set before the twelve hour and more, you're like, yes, yeah, well, I mean it's just so inefficient to do that. I'm surprised you because usually a director will say, well, you know, ship, we got some time, let's try and pick up something else at least, right. Uh. Yeah, but I don't know, like I guess, uh, this is film number four for them. Yeah,

they're maybe they were competent at this point. It's at four notes five right because blood simple raising Arizona, others crossing. Oh yeah, and then this is number four, number four. Yeah, So I don't know, Like like the more season directors do like keep you know, like there's there's some famous story about somebody seeing Steven Spielberg and the grocery store and going like are you making Jurassic Park right now? And he's like yes, yeah, Like why are you picking

through the cucumbers? Yeah? Like how do you how do you like, how do you also be like getting groceries tonight? Yeah? That's weird. It's like a nine to five, you know, for for a certain level of success. Yeah, that is very strange. Um, the sound design in this movie too, you know, the Coen Brothers are very well known for not only their scores, which the score and this is great, but just the sound design. Um, the weird choices they make, like the the vacuum sound every time a door opens

and shuts in that hotel. Yeah, there's like different pressure on the on the inside versus the outside of Burton Finx room. Um. Yeah. And I kept turning my TV up a little bit when I was watching this because because especially when he likes sticks his head out into the hallway to you know, when he hears John Goodman, uh, you know, making strange noises in his room, like the Um, that stuff is pretty subtle. And um, if you if you don't have the TV really cranked, you might miss

some of it. Yeah. This is a movie that bears allowed viewing, um, which you can do because it's not especially loud movie. Yeah, there's no explosions that you're gonna have to like reach for the remote like turn it down, turn Did Rachel watch us with you or no? She was she was at work when I watched it. Yeah. I kind of wish we had watched it together. Though I think this is Uh has seen it. I'm not

sure if she has. I'll have to ask her. Um. Speaking of the down the drain pipe scene, there's the other great scene in the USO dance at the very end um in that slow mo fight. This choreographed so beautifully, and that camera works this way through it and then into the horn of the trumpet. Yeah, I love the I love that the that he is like the instigating He's like the catalyst for a fight between the Navy and the Army. Like once he's once he's on the floor,

all they care about is beating each other up. Yeah. Yeah, that's definitely kind of thing where he's like crawling out on his hands and knees or something. Um, there's a lot of things in this movie that I still do today, Like one was the dance thing. Another thing, and this is mainly just for the benefit of my friend Eddie. He's the only person who ever gets any of him,

or my friend Jim. But and now you. But I still anytime someone hands me a flask, I still turn it up for like an impossibly long time, and I might even be regulating the flow, so I'm not taking like a you know, five shots at once. Just because John Mahoney when he's in the bathroom that first needed, He tips it up and you just hear that little little gurgling sound for like ten seconds. Come come by my office later. I've got drinking to do right now, son,

you are dripping. He's so good. Uh. And some of the lines to um, a lot of them are are from Tony shalub Um, just classic Cohen Brother's line when he's talking about the uh seeing a writer on on on the back load or whatever. He's like, Jesus, think throw a rock in here, and you'll hit one and do me a favor, think throw it odd so great,

it's so good. It's like it is kind of a funny self dunk, like even though this movie isn't really about them, like to write an entire movie about like about how up his own ass a writer can be. And then the derision everybody else has for for writers. When when he gets Dollywood, the uh, I'd like even further, like the the amount of formula that they talk about with each you know, with each kind of movie, like it's a wrestling picture. He's gotta have a dame or

or an orphan that he protects. He's like, which one

button both maybe which is dame. He's got Dame question mark or question market, not this piece of paper later and like and like the fact that it is all just kind of paint by numbers, like who like it's it's you know, you just like fill out the save the cat formula and then write the scenes and and and that's really like never how the Cohen Brothers have have done there have written their stuff, you know, like they're they're much more interested in taking it in a

totally surprising direction that is completely unlike other cinema. And uh and I think that that's one of the things that I'm really drawn to with their work, is that like you don't feel like you like even when even when their movies follow like a fairly conventional story arc, you know, individual scenes will totally come out of nowhere

and and you never know what's coming next. Yeah, they're real life and their whole point of view is never real life, like you said, even if it's said in modern times, there's just something that it's a Cohen Brothers world still somehow. Yeah, and we're just living in it baby, yeah man. Uh And it's a world where, uh, like you were saying the disrespect to the writer in Hollywood. William Faulkner is a souse. You know, he's not a

great writer, he's a great souse. I love how many times he says souse in that scene because parton just keeps going kind of going on, and he just keeps going, shaking his head south south. It's one of the great words to and that's good good Crossrood puzzle word. Uh. In that moment too where Shalub, I mean, I feel like I could talk for an hour just on Tony

Shaloub's two scenes. Um, that moment where he leaps forward onto his desk a little bit, yea, where he's talking about uh, never make lip Nick like you he's taken an interest. Do you realize what that means? Oh my god, he's so distraught. And then when he's like, I really haven't written anything. Who said right, Jesus, Jack can't read? You gotta tell it to him. Jack can't read so great man. I wish all their movies were about Hollywood.

I mean in a lot of ways. I mean not all of them are, but all of them are kind of yeah, you know, like even even when they're not about Hollywood, I feel like they're kind of about movies. Yeah, Like the you know, the playing with with all of your expectations of what a movie Cannon should be. Yeah, like I mean far ago, it feels it's like, hey, like, hey, you know what if we made a hit film about about cops in what is it? Northern Minnesota? Yeah, like

a kidnapping gone wrong. It's like daring you too not care about this movie. Like it almost feels like it's it's a it's a issuing a challenge to the audience, Like, right, you can't even imagine that this would be an interesting film. You would be wrong totally. Um, the movie Barton Fink just builds this unease kind of throughout the whole thing, this sort of impending doom. And where it really kind of um ramps up I think is obviously the second half.

But that screening room sequence with the wrestling dailies, Yeah, so effective somehow. Yeah, like that he is a guy that doesn't have much experience with with pictures. He doesn't he doesn't go to the picture as much. What an alienating experience it would be to just see the raw material from which a film is edited. Yeah, because he's not learning anything about writing a wrestling movie with those rushes.

It's all just I will destroy him over and over and they start coming at a faster clip, and that sense of unease is just building and building because you see his face. He's just like, this isn't helping me, this is making it worse. Yeah, And it's just flesh on flash like it's so it's so like gross looking. Yeah, it's pretty grassy, big men in tights. Mm hmm. Let's talk a little bit about the hotel room scene with Judy Davis when she comes over to do what she

did for Bill. So many times I thought that that was going to be a scene about her sort of becoming his muse. First time I saw it, and it really does not go in that direction at all. I mean mused being the most charitable way to describe it. And maybe the fact that she's a woman and doesn't get any respect in this time and place and could be a great writer in her own right, but has to sort of has to sort of get her work out through like you know, people, the great men around

her or whatever. Um. I'm curious if, um, that's got to be a true thing. That was Faulkner accused of having a ghostwriter. Boy, I don't know. I bet you any I bet you anything they got that from real life. I'm curious. I'll have to go back in a look later. But um, that scene is it's about seven minutes long, which, um, if you've never written movies or made a movie or anything, it probably doesn't sound like a long time. But for listeners, if you're watching a film, kind of kind of think

about how long scenes are. Seven minutes is super super long for one scene in one room with two people, right, like the a scene structure is based on, you know, two characters enter a scene wanting two different things, and you know it's like it's conflict resolution written small, the way a you know, two hour movie is about conflict. Conflict resolution writ large. And to spend seven minutes doing that is it's pretty audacious, I think. And it's kind

of the central scene in the film, aside from the climax. Yeah, I agree, because they go so many places in this seven minutes. He's he's sort of having an anxiety attack when she shows up, and she goes right into this soothing, uh sort of mommy soothed angry child mode, and then she lets it slip that she had done this so many times for Bill and that ramps up this big revelation and then he goes berserk and she again brings him back down. Like the the amount of emotional places

this scene goes is current kind of crazy. Um has also got one of the great lines. Uh. Sometimes instead of a waif, he'd have a the wrestler protect an

idiot man Child Studios always hated that instead of a waif. Yeah, the the and then like giving into the sexual tension at the end, despite the fact, like the films, the scene start with him being under the gun right, like the clock is ticking on getting something and and by the end of the scene you don't care about that anymore, which is an amazing magic trick like that that they're

able to hide that tension by the end of the scene. Yeah, I guess because Barton is able to stop and perform some coital X, you do kind of forget about it, and then I guess the very next scene is well, the next scene is the next morning, and that's when sort of the nightmare begins, right, But he goes straight from there over to Leipnics, doesn't he. Right, They have the pool side meeting and it's kind of the first

moment where Barton is a little kg you know. He he says like, I'm not going to tell you what's in my mind, because you know, giving giving voice to these words before they're on the page could despoil them. And it's not. I guess, uh, I guess Goodman leaves leaves the mysterious package in his room. That's when Barton finds the Holy Bible and finds the words another great

Coen Brothers thing. Oh my god. And that guy is the is the evil uh the evil worker in the Hudsucker building right, and the next he's the one that's scraping wearing Hudsucker's name off of the President's office and then and then fights the the elevator technician at the end. Boy, I want to think that's the same guy in their world. Yeah,

he just had these different jobs. Um, but but this is kind of like when when he starts to be able to write, and I think that like maybe the like the subtlest joke in the in the movie is that this script is obviously just kind of a warmed over version of his play Yeah yeah, which is not at all. So so many of the words are the same, like the fishmongers and everything and it's just, uh, he's like,

this is the best thing I've ever written. It's like it's you know when a band releases their second album and it's just like, yeah, this is kind of just your first album again. Yeah. Yeah, Well, and then the reaction from Learner like, uh, little fruity, maybe a little bit for the critics, but yeah, we don't want him wrestling with his emotions. I know, I want to know what that script was. I know that's one of the great like unresolved things in the Coen Brothers annals, I think,

is what movie did he write? Yeah? The the other very Cohen's uh sort of subtle joke is when um Charlie's he agrees to clean up the body that obviously he had killed and and two tuos in the bathroom and you see him carrying the body out and and just box her head on the dresser on the way out. They have so many little subtle things like that in their films, and I think that's just those are the

nuggets that set them apart. You know, Yeah, you can't imagine that that it is something that they come up with in the script phase, right, Like, I don't know, man, there's details. Yeah, but like I can see them being on set and be like, you know, it would be really funny. You know, yeah, just bonker on the head, uh the other thing this midpoint you know, or not midpoint. I guess it's more sort of the third act it becomes the plot gets really weird, and um, the cinematically

gets really weird. And it's such a strange for I mean, this was a mainstream movie. It didn't do great at the box office, but I think this was their effort to make something that people would see. And it's and it takes such a strange turn for a mainstream film. It a like the surreality of it starts getting dialed up to eleven in a way that you just don't

see like studio movies doing. And yeah, I mean it's it's it's kind of what the movie is making fun of, right like the like it's the it's the inner struggle that the movie is kind of preoccupied with, and um, you know, maybe even like signaling to the audience like if if you're not here for this, like you know, if if you're not like interested in seeing Barton Fink's play, you probably won't be able to make it through this, Like I for sure want to see Barton Finks play

Oh totally dude, absolutely, um you. And then we get to the end with the that's where it really goes off the rails or or um you know, as far as definitely leaving reality is the hallway fire. These two detectives that are so amazing. Yeah, I don't recognize those actors from other things. Maybe the maybe the taller of the two detectives look a little familiar to me, but I definitely recognize him. Yeah, they're great, and there they have kind of a lot of the movie on their shoulders.

Like if if they don't somehow feel more threatening than John Goodman, like that flip when he chases them down the hallway with the shotgun is not going to feel as big. No, I agree, um, and that that picture too, they show of Madman Munt like Charlie, such a lovable, affable guy, and of course they went with John Goodman because he is one of the more affable people in

the history of movies. Yeah. Like his his atility and this is very similar to his utility as as Walter soab check, which is that he's like he like on paper is terrifying. But you can't help loving him, Yeah for sure. But that photo they really get across so much in that little snapshot of him in a in a line up room or whatever getting his mug shot just looking like totally unhinged. So you know, that just sets up this whole ending with the the shotgun against

the forehead and the Heil Hitler. What was that all about? Do you have a take on that? I mean, just to peg the evil needle? You think it was a weird line. It it almost goes by like it's just like it doesn't even it doesn't make sense, like this cop is not coated as Jewish, like like everybody everybody in the Hollywood parts of the movie, he as coded

as Jewish and they throw the K word around pretty liberally. Uh, But like, yeah, I guess it's just like the beginning of the war and he is like he is like

a source of of evil. Maybe, so, I mean, it didn't he didn't indicate at all that he's any sort of a not see or white supremacist, even though the things weren't even linked at the time, although he could play one of no brother weren't thewn that now I think about it, he was a klansman right, and another character that is like really fun to be around until you realize what what a nightmare he is. Is he a klansman, No, he's the Bible salesman. But is he

at the clan rally too? Yeah? He he's He's the one that says, don't let don't let that flag touch the ground. That's right, that's right. He's got he's got the one hole in the hood because he's a he's the cyclops. I can't wait to get to that one.

That's one of my favorites. Oh Man is great. I mean that movie and this movie both definitely build a lot from Sulivan's Travels, which is like an old old movie about a motion picture executive who has made a bunch of light comedy films and you know, wants to wants to make a bigger, uh you know, more ambitious, more artistic film called Old Brother where Art thou and Sullivan's Travels is a road film where he like you know, finds himself in the depression South and sees that the

you know, the comedy films that he's made are actually like really meaningful to people and bring light two very dark times for people, and and that that that's actually like a it's it's actually a worthy aspiration to make, to make entertainment that is just an escape for people. And and like oh, brother ware Art thou as a as as the Coen Brothers road movie comedy depression era films and this movie as there as they're like, you know,

nineteen forties Hollywood film. Both feel like they're really grounded in in inspiration from Solivan's travels. I need to see that. That was referenced also in Grand Canyon. Um at the end was Steve Martin talks about Grand Cany era, talks about Sulivan's travels. It's one I don't know, Grand Canyon. Yeah, you don't know Grand Canyon. That was um Danny Glover and Mary mc McDonell and Kevin Klein. It was a movie about l A and sort of race relations and

Hugh and humans. I think it was. I want to say, Lawrence Kasden, it's a good movie. I'm looking. I'm thinking now and whether or not that movie might age poorly because I feel like it was sort of in the aftermath of the l A Riot, so it may not exists well today, you know, since we solved racism, right, well, yeah, that that there was that period where we thought we had solved racism and we realized how how wrong we

were as a society. Uh but yeah, Sullivan's travels he he he literally says, you know, you ever seen the movie Canyon was the same year as this? Oh? Really? Yeah, they don't exist in the same timeline for me, But I guess that kind of makes sense. Not a bad movie, though, I just I'm just curious about eight as well, a movie like Barton fink Age as well, because it's just sort of timeless like so many of their films. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I watched some some Lawrence Kasdan movie recently that I

just could not get into. Had to turn it off. It was like something it was kind of like an erotic thriller and really and um, I'm trying to trying to find it here. I don't associate him with erotic or thriller. I know. Yeah, it doesn't. Oh maybe it was Body Heat that wasn't him. That was DiPalma writer and directed it, William Hurt and Kathleen Turner. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I was thinking of um Di Palma's Body Double. Okay,

both of those are both good movies, both very erotic. Actually, yeah, I put it on like one night, and I just I didn't connect to it at all. So which body heat or body double body heat? I didn't know that was a lyric ast a movie that's crazy, yeah, weird right in the so like right in his right in the same eras when he was doing Star Wars, stuffy kind of funny, you know, like I guess like a

palate cleanser. The way partner think is Ti Miller's crossing, Like, let me just like do something a little bit different different. So Um, in the end, Charlie, let's Barton go. I think it was. It could never have been a consideration to kill Barton. That would have been a very poor way to end this film. Um. I think his punishment is to let him live, even perhaps Yeah, no, definitely. It doesn't feel like Barton wins anything in this movie.

And and in fact, like that that beach scene at the end, like is sort of it's sort of a joke about that, right because he's like he comes straight from Lipnocks office to the beach where the feeling is not the the triumph of of or the freedom of being on the beach. It's the feeling of being trapped in that hotel room. Yeah, yeah, for sure. And it's funny to think about headlines the next day, you know.

And and if this is all real and not a dream, it's like, you know, l a hotel burns down, serial killer murders, you know, hundreds of people right because it's ostensibly full. Those shoes are always out every night. Shoes are always out, and no one's getting out of those rooms. It's one of the most popular features of the hotel, earl uh. And then Barton goes to the beach and you know, it's a great sequence at the end with

the box. You know it isn't mine. Yeah, And speaking of great sound design, I love that moment when he can't hear her at first because of the surf, Like the it's kind of a hard, hard needle to thread with sound design, Like somebody speaking and you can tell that they're saying something, but you can't make it out. And why so good at decoding the human voice that you know, like it has to be really distorted. Why yeah?

And why is she talking to him? Well, because he's she doesn't need him kind of tweed suit sitting on the beach staring at her with a head in the box. Yeah, what's in the box? What did the box? Such a great movie? It was good to see it after all these years too, Yeah, holds up great? How did the This may be like one of the great ending shots, second only maybe two big Lebowski after that really long wonner when the guy bowls a perfect strike. That pelican

just plunking into the ocean. Yeah, what how did they get that? I don't know. I've always wondered about that because this was pre c G I, there would there would have been no c G I pelican. No. Um, they clearly added that sound design, right, Yeah, there wasn't a boom mico over the over the water there. I don't know. I'm curious. I bet you there's an answer out there that we could, uh, we could track down.

But um, or maybe it was just fortuitous and good luck and the Coen Brothers are like, oh my god, did you see that fucking belican? Yeah? I kind of feel like it was that way it might have been. Um, I'm trying to think about seed pelicans on beaches in l A. But now can count on one hand the times I went to the beach in l A. You know what, I mean that is an East Cider. Yeah, yeah, I I've been to the beach zero times since I

moved to Los Angeles. The only time I ever went was when someone came in from out of town that was wanted to go to Venice Beach or something in Venice Beach is kind of fun. But the parking, give me a break. I know. The parking is a fucking bitch. It's terrible. It's the worst. Okay, uh, since we brought this up earlier, I uh just just caught my eye in this biography, and I feel like I should get it into the record before we stopped recording, because we'll

get we'll get, we'll get tweets. Delicate Tessen I think was at Con the same year as this movie. Oh really yeah, wow, yeah, I guess that all makes sense. In early nineties, totally nuts. Boy, you saved us, so I didn't. The the wetness of the walls didn't directly, it was just it was just in the in the zeitgeist, you know. Yeah, everybody was obsessed with wet walls. All right, buddy, you got anything else? Um? I don't, but I do want to say thanks for getting me to watch this

movie again. Yeah, it had been a while for me as well. And um, what is next, Hudsucker? So we're gonna finish you. Oh you didn't get to do Millards, but this will finish their period. Is a great guy, and I'm glad that he got it. Yeah, Ben, he he took that one. I don't blame him. Uh so, yeah, so we'll get Hudsucker in the can and then move right on into the geeze now looking at it the second half of their career. Yeah, that's uh some exciting stuff.

I'm I'm really looking forward to it. Yeah, and they get a lot more fun too. Um, raising Arizona is fun, but I'm really looking forward to some of their undersung films. I think like Intolerable Cruelty and Burn. After reading Total Movies, I really enjoyed a lot. Yeah. I mean Hudsucker is like a real ald timer for me as well. So oh great, Paul Newman, Yeah, I'm super jazzed. All right, dude, Well, thanks for coming on, and uh I'll hitch up off

and about about Hudsucker. Awesome. Uh Yeah. People can listen to my podcasts at maximum Fun dot org or just search for the Greatest Generation or Friendly Fire or the greatest discovery in your podcast app. You're kid at that. Always forget that. With guests, you gotta plug their ship, you know, check out friendly Fire. I'm behind myself because I've been obsessing about other podcasts for a moment. So all of my regulars have built up many, many shows

that I'm gonna be tacking. Man. We have some some great ones coming up, so I can't wait. Yeah, all right, buddy, Thanks, all right? Check awesome talking to a Man. Bite Joy Crush has produced, edited, and engineered by Ramsey 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.