50+ Years of Jack Lemmon! - podcast episode cover

50+ Years of Jack Lemmon!

May 29, 202539 min
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Episode description

Gary Tanguay Fills in On NightSide with Dan Rea

Academy award winning actor and Newton native, Jack Lemmon is considered “the most successful tragi-comedian of his age". Lemmon is known for his roles in movies such as, Some Like It Hot, The Apartment, The Odd Couple, Glengarry Glen Ross, and more! Boston Globe film critic Odie Henderson joined Gary to discuss Jack Lemmon’s 50 year acting career, highlighting some of his classics!

Listen to WBZ NewsRadio on the NEW iHeart Radio app and be sure to set WBZ NewsRadio as your #1 preset!

Transcript

Speaker 1

It's night side with Dan Ray w bsy. He constant's me radio.

Speaker 2

Mister Kirkby. I don't like to complain, but you were supposed to be out of here by eight. I know, buddy boy, I know, but those things don't always run on schedule, like a greyhound bus.

Speaker 3

Well, I don't mind in the summer. It's on a rainy night. I haven't had any dinner yet.

Speaker 2

When we were on Rio Rancho, who was the top man?

Speaker 4

Half of what old?

Speaker 1

Two months? Three months?

Speaker 5

How about eight months? For three years in a row?

Speaker 4

Huh?

Speaker 1

I know what bluck?

Speaker 6

Was that?

Speaker 2

It?

Speaker 1

John or Purloin?

Speaker 2

Please?

Speaker 4

It was talent?

Speaker 1

Yes, door to door. It's called cold calling. John.

Speaker 3

I'll let me see if you can find out where that gun animal is coming from.

Speaker 2

Wherever it's coming from, we got to get rid of it. Look at this did.

Speaker 3

Oh hey, Bernie yo open fourteen and fifteen. You can't do that, Jack open and Bernie, Jack, you can't do what the book says you can't do.

Speaker 2

We're almost up to the steam lines.

Speaker 3

No, I got this. My ears are filling up. I got this sinus conditions, changing temperature I was getting from their conditioning. Maybe no, no, It's all part of my allergies. I get him in the summers.

Speaker 2

I listen to me. You put me on my board, and I want three promising leads for the day. And I don't want any book about him, and I want them close together because I am going to close them all. And that's all I have to say to you.

Speaker 4

The amazing Jack Lemon. Amazing. Now.

Speaker 5

I know we're changing gears big time because we've gone from a family feud with the demolers to murder on the high seas to courtroom drama, and now we're going to have some fun. And joining me right now is Odie Henderson for the Boston Globe.

Speaker 4

Odie W.

Speaker 5

Jack Lemon died in two thousand and one, and I should say it back up six days ago, Odie wrote this article appreciating Jack Lemon, who would have been one hundred years old. I loved it. I was like a kid. I was like, I couldn't believe it. And I need to ask you, Odi, how old were you in two thousand and one when.

Speaker 4

He passed away?

Speaker 6

Oh? God, thirty one?

Speaker 4

Okay? Really? Oh okay? You know you look much luck, you look much younger. Online.

Speaker 5

I will tell you that I thought, I thought you were a kid when he passed away. But I just appreciated how you appreciated him. And we're going to talk about his career. And quite frankly, I think for the casual movie guar, I think he's underappreciated. But what made you want to write that article.

Speaker 6

Well, they're doing a retrospective New York Stone Forum on Jack Lemon and the Doctor. I only liked my favorite director, Billy Wilder, used plenty of and when they were doing a retrospective, i'd look to see if anything in Boston. At the time, they had not been. I pitched the paper and I was looking him up. I had no idea he was born in Newton. That was kind of my angle. You know, he's about him. So we did this article. I he made a hundred movies, he made

a hundred he acted in a hundred roles. I can't say he did one hundred movies because accounting, television and things like that, but on and on the big screen he had done a hundred roles. Last one, unfortunately, was a legend of bag of ant. But he had a lot of work, and so I wanted to write about him. My mom liked an after very much. So when I was a kid, he would Tom on TV. She would

tell me who he was. And in fact, the reason why I saw Buddy Buddy in the movie Theater was because my mom liked Jack Lemon and Valtamathow and they're in that. That's the last movie that Billy Wilder made, and that's the last movie that they were in that he made for them in Terrible. And it's funny that Billy Wilder is my favorite director and the first movie I saw Buddy Buddy, so apparently I've forgiven him. Buddy Buddy is terrible.

Speaker 5

Okay, we have We're going to get another connection with you, Rob Let's take a break right now, a few minutes early. Then we're gonna get a better phone connection with Odie's. We talk about the life of Jack Lemon coming up next to WBZ.

Speaker 4

It's Night Side with.

Speaker 1

Boston's news Radio.

Speaker 5

All right, we get a clear line now. Odie Anderson film credit for the Boston Globe. He was joining us and he wrote a terrific piece on Jack Lemon celebrating his birthday.

Speaker 4

I thought it was great.

Speaker 5

So why do you think Billy Wilder and Jack Lemon hit it? Off and did so well together as as partners.

Speaker 6

Honestly, I don't know. I think maybe he saw something in Jack Lemon and he was able to write for him. You know, he Il Diamond will something like a hot and the Apartment, among other things, and maybe he saw something. And I know that pim perrying baltim Math out with him was a stroke a genius.

Speaker 4

There's no doubt about that.

Speaker 5

Because and I do want to get to Mathew in a minute, but I want to talk about the Apartment. It is a it's it's the perfect movie. It's a perfect movie. And Shirley mcl I mean, and Fred McMurray, I mean, come on, mister, my three Sons, the dad from My Sons plays the jackass who has the mistress and the whole bit. And it's a phenomenal movie. And mcclean's great in it too. They're both phenomenal in it. It's it's the perfect script. It's the perfect movie.

Speaker 6

Well, I think this is Chula mclin's finest hour. You know, she lost to a trichyat Andy famously the Oscar, that is to Liz Taylor, who was in Butterfield Date, a movie that Liz Taylor absolutely hates but Liz Taylor was ill and the Academy assumed she was going to kill over sty gear for the Oscar. Yeah, but but Cherley mcsaying that that's her finest hour on the screen, and

The Apartment is a fantastic movie. And the funny thing is I knew for Big Murray for my Three Sons because obviously he was on the repeats when I was a kid, and so when I saw Double Indemnity, it was a shock. I saw doublin Demity probably before I saw The Apartment, and he's a heel, and it was just I saw him in Flubber right and my Three Sons. This is a Nick Murray Wilder. He always used him for evil purposes, the way he used William Holden as

a cat in Stall of seventeen and Sunset Boulevard. So it's interesting what what Wilder would get from his actors, you know what roles he put them in.

Speaker 5

Do you think that Jack Lemon was Tom Hanks before Tom Hanks?

Speaker 6

Noah, I was joking to say that that Tom Hanks was our dar. Jimmy's to my generation is Jimmy Stewart.

Speaker 4

That's a good point.

Speaker 5

Because like Tom Hanks is, he's just a damn likable And I would probably say, because I'm a I'm a big Hanks fan, I would probably say Lemon, he's I would say he's a better actor than Hanks because Lemon could also pull off.

Speaker 4

The serious roles, which was really hard to do.

Speaker 5

And the China Syndrome, for example, Yeah, you know where all of a sudden he goes from playing this innocent sort of buffoon in the apartment, or you know, he's playing Felix in the odd couple opposite Mathow or grumpy old man, and then you go to the China Syndrome, and that dude brings it. I think it's well, I'm not gonna say it's I'm not gonna say it's his greatest performance for me, but I could see why others would say.

Speaker 6

That, oh, well, he got the awarded can for that and for missing And I mentioned in my article that my parents took me to see that to drive him that's all asleep. So I technically have never seen in China Syndrome in its entirety. So I said I would put it in the paper so you guys could guilt me into watching it. But Even before he did that, he was in Days of Wine and Roses. He won the Oscar for Save the Tiger. I think he's he can play a heel far better than Tom Hanks can.

You can buy Jack Lemon as a heel despite all delightable performances he's given, whereas Tom Hanks is always difficult to buy him as the bad guy.

Speaker 4

Do you know?

Speaker 5

Do you know how how did he go from Newton, Massachusetts all of a sudden to the success that he had.

Speaker 1

Oh?

Speaker 6

I know, he went to Harvard and then he was in the Navy, and then he got out and he decided to act on stage. And I think his first movie was nineteen forty nine, and he started working there and then he was he went the Oscar for mister Roberts. He was on stage before, Yeah, mister Roberts. I saw that at So and Farm. I'd never seen it on the big screen. It's this huge, beautiful CinemaScope movie and I'd only seen it on VHS or on television when

I was a kid, and it just looked gorgeous. And you know, there's a whole backstory to all the crazy stuff that was going on on the set of mister Roberts. But Lemon's great. He's the comedy release and he's really

broad in that movie. And then you look at something like Missing and you can see the scope of his acting, you know, something that is like he's bottled up in that film, or something like Glengary Glen Ross faced Lley Machine Levine where he's just this desperate character and not like him at all.

Speaker 5

When you say there's some backstory there with mister Roberts, okay, anything, any t you can spell as the kids would.

Speaker 6

Say, oh oh yeah, I mean you know, John Ford got fired and discredited to John Ford and Brevon Leroy he picked up after he got fired. Ford hated Kimmy Fond, but he slugged him on the ship. I think I may have been the beginning of the end for John Ford directing that movie. So there's a lot of crazy stuff going on. That was some of the more famous things. Ford being fired, him punching Kenny Fond in the face, knocking him out back in.

Speaker 4

The good old days of Hollywood.

Speaker 5

Right, But with Lemon, because I've seen interviews with Lemon and there was the same thing with Fonda.

Speaker 4

While they would play.

Speaker 5

Certain in certain situations, I mean Fonda obviously in on Golden Pond that was a different, different character, but they would play the every man, They would play likable characters. There was definitely a sadness in Lemon's life. I would see that in interviews.

Speaker 6

Yeah, I suppose so, And I think, you know, you can channel that into especially in comedy. They always say people that are the funniest people off the off screen have a lot of suffering, a lot of tragedy, you know, And I kind of believe that. I think you'd be really funny like Richard Pryor is a perfect example of that. You have to really channel your pain into your performances, to your humor. And perhaps that was the case of

that woman. And when I was that phone for him, his kid Chris was there, and his daughter, and his grands and grandchildren were there, I mean some of his family or actors still, they were all there to introduce the some like a ho which is great on the big screen. They played with the packed audience. It was fantastic. One of the funniest movies ever made.

Speaker 4

Uh.

Speaker 5

The thing about Lemon is he was also a recovering alcoholic, which he announced on the Actors Studio and that that had that was like wait a minute, well what and he had battled that and the other the other thing that he I can't remember who said this, but before every scene, before before the act, when they would say action, he would whisper magic time.

Speaker 4

That was his thing.

Speaker 6

I don't know, I heard. I heard that. I heard that as well. I believe that.

Speaker 4

Yeah, I totally do.

Speaker 5

Yeah, like magic time, that's what kicked him in. You know where there's something that an actor does that sends him into that reality or that false reality, and that's that's what would work for.

Speaker 4

Him for Lemon.

Speaker 6

Yeah, magic time, Yeah, I heard that magic time.

Speaker 5

Okay, So from the China Syndrome, the glen Garry Glenn Ross is Shelley.

Speaker 4

I want to what we can do? Can we play this? Can we play this? Rob? Can we play cut number six?

Speaker 6

Hopefully it's censored?

Speaker 2

Rob?

Speaker 4

Can we play cut number six from Glengarry Glen Ross.

Speaker 2

When we were on Rio Rancho who was the top man half of what oh.

Speaker 1

Two months, three months? How about eight months for three.

Speaker 5

Years in a row?

Speaker 4

Huh?

Speaker 6

And what luck was that?

Speaker 2

It?

Speaker 1

John or Purloin leads it was talent.

Speaker 3

Yes, door to door It's called cold calling John.

Speaker 4

I don't even know their name.

Speaker 2

They don't want to buy what I've got, soft cells.

Speaker 4

We were doing it before we even had a name for it. Am I right?

Speaker 1

Are you right?

Speaker 2

Sure?

Speaker 4

You wouldn't know you?

Speaker 1

He doesn't even know what our streak is.

Speaker 2

What the hell are you?

Speaker 6

There?

Speaker 5

Are Secretary Few?

Speaker 2

Are?

Speaker 1

Yeah, that's my message, So you few.

Speaker 2

And kiss my ass. And if you don't like that, baby, I go across the street and I speak to Jerry Grant.

Speaker 6

Period.

Speaker 2

You now listen to me. You put me on my board and I want three promising leads for the day, and I don't want any book about him, and I want them close to get there. He goes, I am going to close them all. And that's all I have to say to you.

Speaker 4

I love the scene where Alec Baldwin comes in, which wasn't.

Speaker 6

In the original play.

Speaker 4

It was not.

Speaker 5

That is correct, that You're absolutely right it was in the film.

Speaker 4

And Baldwin comes in.

Speaker 5

You know you see this, Watch this, watch Cush more than the car and then Shelley's over trying to get a cup of coffee, and then it's Baldwin's scene. Obviously, yes, but the way Lemon just turns around. Is it's just it's it's so, it's tremendous. Put that coffee down. What are you talking about? Coffee is for closes on?

Speaker 6

Yeah, just he's.

Speaker 5

Just tremendous in this in this film. And then al Pacino played that on Broadway, played Shelley on Broadway. I can't imagine Odie anybody else playing Shelley but Jack Lemon.

Speaker 6

Bob Odenkirk, who is produced the booking Candle the other day and also introduced grin Glaragan Ross a couple of days ago. The phone for him is playing, so he living on Broadway currently in glen Garigan Ross. And he talked about how he had to force himself not to mimic Jack Lemon's cadence in his performance, especially in the first speech that he has in play. And he talked about how he had to basically keep correcting himself because

he was constantly tapping into Jack Lemon's performance. How great Jack Lemen's performance is in that movie. I think he's the best performance in the Glenglorygan Ross movie. So it was interesting too that you mentioned Matt.

Speaker 5

Yeah, I mean, how can you not how can you you know? I mean how can you not try to be Jack Lemon? Because the great thing about the Glengarry Glenn Ross performance, I remember he's in he's in the rain, and he's on the phone in the rain, and I believe his daughter needs an operation or needs surgery, and he is up against it and he is just ruggling trying just I mean, you know, trying to get these leads of selling condos in Flora or whatever. Just these despicable,

just just the worst. And you don't know. And this is the magic of a great actor. When the character's gray, you don't know whether to feel sorry for him or be irritated by him.

Speaker 6

Absolutely, And I can never buy Paccino in that part. And I don't think it's good Ken and they cast them right as as with your roll mind the movie, I don't buy him as a showy ravine at all. I haven't seen the performance, but just thinking about it, it just wouldn't work.

Speaker 5

Have you seen the current Broadway produce. I don't even know if it's still running with Glengarry.

Speaker 4

Have you seen it?

Speaker 6

Because I have it's it's I liked it. I liked it. I think it's probably it's not as good as the movie. That. I think Odenkirk is very goodn't it. You know, it's on its al and him, and then it's it's hard to shake the movie out of your memory. So when you're watching and I didn't see to play initially, you know, so I by my first encounter with Gungary and Ross was the movie.

Speaker 5

Yeah, I mean, just the man. I think it's I think it's ma'am. It's best work quite frankly. I mean it's just somebody say American Buffalo, but like it's just unbelievable. And the cast, my guy Kevin Spacey, well he's had his own issues, but I mean Kevin Spacey's like a supported character in that thing. And the cast is just I heard Bill Burr, Massachusetts own Bill Burr does pretty well is pretty well there too.

Speaker 6

Yes, you know it's being Kevin Spacey has that that lineout dat women says you know why, and he has because I don't like you, right.

Speaker 5

It's it's it's awesome. Culkin got panned, though I was Culkin.

Speaker 6

He wasn't terrible. I mean, he wasn't terrible. I again, I wonder if he was the right choice.

Speaker 5

He's not terrible, well probably not, but he's riding high. You know, I I didn't think he deserved the oscar. Myself, I would have gone other ways.

Speaker 6

I would he deserved it.

Speaker 4

But yeah, we disagreed on that. You loved that.

Speaker 6

Yeah, we disagreed.

Speaker 4

Ye, Yeah, we disagreed. Yeah.

Speaker 5

I love the guy Pierce and this also, he hasn't done a lot of stage work from what I understand.

Speaker 6

Culkin, No, I don't think he has no. And you can tell. You can tell who's the you know, the expert on stage and who's the newbie. You're not necessarily the mowbe, but the best experienced. If you're up against that kind of someone like Bob wooden Kirk for example, you know, not that they're you know, beating each other up on the stage, but you can usually tell, you know, they haven't gotten the cowboys out. You know what I mean?

Speaker 4

Right?

Speaker 5

Well, you know the I mean after I played Lieutenant Shrank and West Side Story in the Portsmouth Academy of Performing Arts presentation of the you know, I know the stage that was a joke. Okay, No, I did play it. You don't want to hear my own theater? Yeah, I'll tell your theory story. We put on a play in a motel. It was called Motel six. You know why because it was off of exit six off the Spaulding Turnpike.

Speaker 6

Hence because Motel six the chain it was actually.

Speaker 5

No, it was maybe maybe it was a different number, but no, it was the number of the exit off the turnpike. We rented the ballroom, we rented the stage, and we put on a show. My friend, that's all I can tell you. That's how much we wanted to do it, and friends and family came. I don't know if we were any good, but we had a really good time. All Right, we still have more I want

to talk about. I want to talk about lemon of math out and then Alway's going to tell us what's hot coming out and what we should be looking four.

Speaker 4

As we continue on WBC's Night Side.

Speaker 1

It's Night Side with Dan Ray on WBZ, Boston's news radio.

Speaker 3

What's the matter now, No, I got this. My ears are filling up. I got this sinus condition. It's the change in temperature I was getting from your conditioning. Maybe you don't know, Way, No, it's all part of my allergies.

Speaker 2

I get him in the summer, only in the summer.

Speaker 3

Man in the winter too. I get them all year long, allergic to foods and pillows and curtains and perfumes. Can you imagine that? Allergic to perfumes? I used to drive Francis crazy.

Speaker 5

Jack Levin the odd couple with the Greg Walter mattho Odie Henderson Jordan, guess you're talking about the career of Jack Lemon, born in Newton, Massachusetts in nineteen twenty five. Is there a better combo than those two?

Speaker 6

You know, baby wille would already a earlier error.

Speaker 4

Their magic.

Speaker 5

And when I look at the casting for that, because when I've talked to casting directors many times they'll say what directors film directors will say, The key isn't in the directing of the film. The key is in the casting of the film. And that is the perfectly cash movie. Now do we know what Jack Lemon was really like? As I mentioned, I think there was some sadness. Who

was an alcoholic. He battled alcoholism. He wasn't Felix under I don't think off the screen and Math I'm sure had his issues, but their personas you would think, they just fit that role perfectly. And I liked Klugman and Randall, but those two just fit that role perfectly, like casting.

Speaker 4

Was on The Money.

Speaker 6

Well, you know, I got introduced to a couple from the TV show, which is still wrong when I was a kid. You know, I mentioned this in a many times. My mother loves Neil Simon. I can't stand him, uh and the Odd Couple is one of the few things of his I can actually tolerate. And so I didn't see The Odd Couple until many, many years that I knew that Baltim math All and Jack Women were in it. I think the first thing I saw on the Men was probably the front page, but the Fortune Cooking, which

is where Mathew got his oscar. It was the first pairing of Wilder of Jack Women and WALTI math All in any movie. This was Billy Wilder's film. This is a couple of years before The Odd Couple. But you can't you can't really think of as much as I love Jack Clubman, and when I saw WALTI. Mathow, it's kind of a perfect It's almost like there are roles that were killer made for him, and that's one of them.

The Bad News Bears another one that taken the problem one to three is another one great also quite versatile comic and dramatic actor like his partner Jack Women. But yeah, they made so many movies together. Someone were pretty bad, but the commissary between them was always unmistakable. I mean, you could say the movie was bad, but you could never say that they didn't work well together in that movie, in any of their movies.

Speaker 4

Do you think Mathow had ranged?

Speaker 3

Oh?

Speaker 6

I do absolutely. It's und of like Charlie Varreck and look at you know, him being the villain like Charade or something like later on when he's doing a much broader kind of comedy. Yeah, I think he had considerable range. He just you always think of him as kind of the grumpy old New York commergion, you know, And that's kind of a lot of what is persona. And it's just like how Jack Lemon is kind of fussiest persona.

But that's not necessarily all they could do. I mean again, Charlie Varreck is probably the best example I can think of besides taking a toll of one ty three, but is a different Mathow but still Walter math Ow.

Speaker 5

Yeah, I need to get into that more because I haven't seen enough of it the way I have with Lemon. So I wouldn't know, but and forgive me if this is. And now you've questioned, why do you like Billy Wilder but not Neil Simon.

Speaker 6

I think Billy Wilder's meaner for starters, He's more cynical. He's more of my type of humor, although he's made some pretty bad movies as well as some brilliant ones. Also, he made the quintessential noir. You know, Noir is my favorite genre of movie, so you know, I could it's only ever made. It was Double Indemnity, you know, and then Sounds at Boulevard, which is my second favorite movie of all time. You know, he would be my favorite

director in Hitchcock would be number two. But I just seem to like the asterbic nature of a lot of his films. And he always thought of himself as a writer first and less of himself as a director, you know, all throughout his entire career, he always thought he was a better writer than director, which I always found interesting. But no, I mean I grew to love Billy Walder. This kind of what I would expect to get from

his films. There was always humor, and there's always great, great, great dialogue, you know, I'm a writer too, so you know, when the screenplay is great or whatever, the screenplay or something in that draws your attention, that brings you to it. I think he does a great job directing his movies, even the bad ones.

Speaker 4

So what didn't you What don't you like about Simon?

Speaker 6

I don't think it's funny and I had to deal with things that California Sweet and when I was a kid, my mom and a Goodbye Girl, which I actually did like it, just his human that doesn't do it for me. It never really did. I just don't think it's funny. I think it's very repetitive in terms of the type of humor. Now, my mother's gonna come beat me up because I'm speaking ill of Neil Simon.

Speaker 5

You got mommy issues there, kid, you got mommy issues? Uh, California Sweet. I was never a fan of either. The Goodbye Girl I thought was great, but I never I thought that more. I maybe I'm wrong. It's been so long since I've seen it. I thought that was more of a drama edy. The Goodbye Girl.

Speaker 6

It's I mean, no Richard Dryfers is running around mint scene and doing Richard the Third as a flaming homosexual. That's not drama.

Speaker 4

Yeah, I don't. I remember. I remember that.

Speaker 5

I think that's the first time I saw Dryfors in a movie, and I remember really wasn't Jaws. No, you know something, I am going to tell you. I'm going to admit something to you. I've never seen Jaws.

Speaker 6

Well you got an opportunity because they're going to be doing it at Mark's Ring and I've been trying to get out there that actually cover this thing. I just saw it at TCM Film Festival. They ran a beautiful ivy technicolor prints from the BSI it looked better than it did in nineteen seventy five.

Speaker 5

I just you know, there's there's two movies. I love movies. There's two movies that I haven't seen. I have no interest in seeing Jaws.

Speaker 4

I don't know why.

Speaker 6

I think.

Speaker 5

I don't you know, maybe it's horror. No, I just look at the Shark and I go, eh, I'm not It's come on, man, it's like twenty twenty five The Shark.

Speaker 6

Three times you see the Shark. The Shark was take in nineteen seventy five, so you can't make that excuse. But you only see the sh I'm pretty sure three or four times. The first time you see him is great. I mean that that scene is classic iconic. We're gonna need a bigger boat, I mean fake or not. That that scene is effective.

Speaker 4

What's the music? I mean, there's music.

Speaker 6

When the shark shows up the first time music. Now it is completely silent because it's a jump scare, so uh, we're shier. Brodie is down with a shoveling schumb into the water and he's complaining the Dreyfist and the show and say, why don't you come down and shovel some of this expert is And then immediately the shark pops up. There's no music, and then the shider backs up into the boat, and then he says to we're a sure we're going to need a bigger boat.

Speaker 4

That's a great line. I mean, I just all right, all.

Speaker 6

Right, watch I'll watched the China send if you watch.

Speaker 4

Yours, that's a deal.

Speaker 5

Because the fact that you haven't seen the China syndrome, I mean that's blasphemy.

Speaker 6

Well I saw enough of it. I fell asleep not see anything.

Speaker 5

Well, I mean, well, okay, you don't have to watch as much. The other one I said, and I've told you this before. I tell people I've sat down to start to watch Shindler's List one hundred times and I I.

Speaker 4

Can't do that.

Speaker 6

You've got a Spielberg sing here.

Speaker 4

But you know that's a good point. I mean, I love Yeah, I love Spielberg.

Speaker 5

But I just like when I those are two and when people say, you know, I love movies, I haven't seen those two, I go, yeah, I know it's a little.

Speaker 6

Embarrassing I can see, but Jaws is a surprise.

Speaker 4

Yeah, I gotta do it. I gotta do it. I want to Now. I want to ask you about Grumpy Old Men. Where you are fa.

Speaker 6

Grumpy Old Men? I did. I liked it. I enjoyed that. I like to see also Grumpy Old Man. I didn't like the sequel that is, but Grumpy Old Man I liked. I like, I'll just see that. I think is that the last one they did together. I'm not sure they did a sequel to the Couple, which is god awful.

Speaker 4

I bet it is.

Speaker 6

Yeah, I think that was the last movie that they made together, not the rest thing they made a period, the last thing they know. Actually it is no, it is the Couple I'm looking it up here. The odd Couple two is after out to see a year after Our Couple two is a ninety eight Well.

Speaker 5

Grumpy Old Man two was a money grab. I mean, yes, that's a money grab. That's for the kids. That's definitely not for the kids. Hey, do you know what a movie I love the Matthewen was Hopscotch.

Speaker 6

How Scotch is good? Hol Scotch with Glenn Grenda Jackson. He did a couple of movies that are right. And then you know, the women directed math Al in a movie called Cotch.

Speaker 4

I didn't know that.

Speaker 6

It's like nineteen seventy two. I think they may be the only movie jack women directed.

Speaker 4

Did they hang out on that? Did they socialize?

Speaker 6

I can imagine that they've had to. I mean they were in so many movies. But then again, like they said, you know, you thought Geene Wald and Richard Pryo so slabs little time and he didn't, and they made those four movies together. I can't I can't imagine that math Allen Lemon didn't hang out together. Yeah, this chemistry is just too much for them. Like if they hated each other, it'd be a big.

Speaker 4

Yeah, that's definitely not true.

Speaker 5

But sometimes you know, you work on so many movies together, that's enough, and then they kind of like, go do go do their own separate thing.

Speaker 4

Can you hang around it?

Speaker 5

Can you hang around and tell us what's big coming up?

Speaker 6

Sure?

Speaker 5

Okay, Great Odie Henderson is with us from the Globe Film Critic. He's gonna tell us what we should look out for coming up next to w b Z.

Speaker 1

You're on Night Side with Dan Ray on wb Z Boston's news radio.

Speaker 4

Talking to some movies.

Speaker 5

Here Odie Henderson, Boston Globe Film Critic talking about the Great Jack Lemon. Uh and again it's you can catch it on the Globe dot Com. Odie wrote a great appreciation piece on Lemon came out about six days ago, so just google ittle pop up out there.

Speaker 4

So what do we have to look forward to on the screen here, Odie.

Speaker 6

Well, it's summer, and summer is full of remakes and sequels and all of that stuff. And this week you have Karate Kid Legends. If you are wishing to live we live your eighties era adolescens. I saw it, I didn't like it, But next week June sixth, one of the best movies of the year, and it would have been my best movie of last year had come out. Has Life of Chuck opens on June sixth, and I've been this Life of Chuck evangelist for a little while.

Now it's a great movie. I finally get to run my review that I wrote back in October for that. It's a Stephen King aditation. It is not a horror movie, and it's just fantastic, life affirming, beautiful little move if Mark Hampbell is in it and Tom Hilliston in a bunch of red folks in it, and I can't tell you anything about the movies, and I want to spoiler for it's also on the sixth if you're a John Wick fan, you can see Ballerina. It's the latest in

the series of John Wick movies. Keanu Reeves is in this one, even though John Wick is technically dead. So if you are like if you like Wes Anderson, you need help. But if you like Wes Anderson, he has a Phoenician scheme also comes out in the sixth I saw that. You can imagine when I thought, yeah, go further, yeah yeah yeah, but doing for it for kids, you have how to train your dragon. There's a ve Action remake. I don't know why of How to Train Your Dragon coming?

Speaker 5

Can you stop for a minute. Why did they do it? They did it with Lion King and I love Fabreau.

Speaker 6

It doesn't We're doing it with and Stitch right now. They let on Stitch is a number of movie beat Tom Cruise. It's almost shot for shot eighty five percent of the cartoon.

Speaker 4

I don't get it. I mean, it's a money grab. I get it. You know they already know it's money.

Speaker 6

It's money.

Speaker 5

Yeah, But I mean I just leave it alone, all right anyway? Sorry, go ahead?

Speaker 6

So I mean, yeah, I agree with you one hundred percent. Even when I like the movie. I mentioned in my review, this is a money like, why does this movie even exist?

Speaker 2

So?

Speaker 6

I haven't seen How to Train Your Dragon, so I can't speak to that. I've seen the cartoon, which I like. For horror folks, there's a twenty eight Years Later, which is the sequel to twenty eight Days Late twenty eight weeks later, and then the sequel to twenty eight Days Later zombie movie going forward later. For dads, there's the Formula one movie with a bad Pitt that comes out

on June twenty seven. It's twelve f one. Also in June twenty seventh movie I'm looking forward to Megan two point zero because you know how much I love the original Megan. The Killer Twerking Robot. Spike Lee's movie Highest to Lowest, which is my most anticipated movie of the summer, comes out on a twenty second. It's his we he and Denzel Washington routine for the first time in almost twenty years.

Speaker 4

Wow.

Speaker 6

The last movie they did together was Inside.

Speaker 4

Manat that's the great movie. I love that.

Speaker 6

I love Inside Man.

Speaker 4

I love Inside Clive Owens is awesome.

Speaker 6

Washington is great, but I mean, you know, Clive Owen is great in that. For the fourth of July, we have another Jurassic Park movie. This one's got Scar Joe. It's Scarduni versus T.

Speaker 4

I never got into him. I just stay don't. I can't get into him.

Speaker 6

After the first two they just went to hell. Oh before I forget because this is the Boston time. There's a happy gil More too. What have you heard coming out on July twenty fifth. I don't know if it's it's one of the few Adam Salmer movies that kind of enjoyed, but Carl Weathers and Bob Barker, who were the best things in the first movie. They're both deceased, so we'll have to see how it goes.

Speaker 5

It took a while. They wanted him to make that for a long.

Speaker 6

Time, so we'll Yeah, I'm surprised he didn't make it sooner. And considering he has a big deal with Netflix, they can do whatever he wants.

Speaker 4

Right right. His movies do great on Netflix.

Speaker 6

I mean and one one other. Yeah, his movies do greater Netflix. And I know why bad A one one move there to remake again of The Naked Gun, which has been getting a lot of press. It's Liam Neeson taking over the world because Leslie Nielsen is no longer with us. I saw the trailer and I am very worried about this one.

Speaker 5

But you know what you should you should be But I will say this, I if anybody could pull it off, it's him because I've heard him in interviews and he's very self deprecating. You know, he can be very funny, like he'll even go along with a bit like so I heard an interview where they asked him to do that, you know, the what's the franchise he's done where his daughter Bacon. Yeah, taken like taken eight or nine or ten.

But you know he does that thing like I'm gonna find you and I'm going to kill you, and I've heard him do parodies of himself with it, and he's really funny.

Speaker 6

I have a very speticular set of skills, right, that's it.

Speaker 4

That's it.

Speaker 6

Yes, yes, well you know the casting. I mentioned this to people about Airplane. How how Airplane played differently for me in nineteen eighty in the place for younger people now, because in nineteen eighty Leslie Nilson wasn't Leslie Wilson. He was a dramatic actor, right, And everybody in air playing it was dramatic act just making fools in themselves. That's why it was so funny. So I'm willing to conceive that the casting of Liam Neeson is an idea in

the same vein as that. But the trailer looks very mean spirited and it's second fall and red flares are flying all over the place. But again I was there judgments, so I see it. The one last movie there is a great, great movie called Sorry Baby Beat Up on July eighteenth. It's a dramedy. Even Victor she wrote and directed, and she stars in it. It is fantastic.

Speaker 4

Oh okay, well I got to check that out.

Speaker 5

What about Mission Impossible? Did you write about that?

Speaker 1

I did?

Speaker 6

And here's the funny thing. I like the last one better than this one because this is technically part two of the last one, and it's three hours long, and it's you really start to feel it. The first hour is pretty star. I mean I gave the three stars out of four. The last one I gave three and a half. It's a little bit too self serious, but once the stunts happen to start happening, the movie really takes off.

Speaker 5

He's yeah, you could see what you want about cruise, but the stunt, I mean, he's just insane.

Speaker 2

You know.

Speaker 6

I got a give him credit. He's marketed himself very very well. I think he's a better actor than people give him credit for. But he doesn't have to act anymore. He can just do these movies where he's stumping around and jumping out of planes and you know, opened up submarine doors. So yeah, the last hour and a half of the movie is absolutely fantastic, but you got to dig through the first hour of it and it's kind of like, oh, God, let me fast forward this. I liked it.

Speaker 5

I thought Cruise was great. I'm born on the fourth of July, and I also think was it less Grossman in Tropic Thunder.

Speaker 6

Yeah, he's funny in that. I love him. And Jerry Maguire's great in Magnolia movie I despise. I think he's good in One and the fol for July, another movie that I can't stand. I think he's a better actor than a given credit for. But like that Willis and Stallone and all these other folks, they don't have to act anymore. They he just show up and be Tom Cruise, right.

Speaker 4

Right, He is a better actor than people give him credit for. I agree with you. And before we will look at a couple of minutes.

Speaker 5

I'm glad you brought up Tom Hitdelson, huge fan Night Clerk's a great series.

Speaker 6

Oh yeah, he's.

Speaker 5

I mean he's I know, he's part of the Marvel universe and so forth, but I mean, the dudes, he's the real deal. I mean, he is, no doubt the real deal. Odie, it's always great to talk to you, man. We appreciate you coming on. Read him in the Boston Globe, Odie Henderson, he loves movies. I love movies. That's why we have him on. And if you love Jack Lemon, google it. Read his article on Jack Lemon.

Speaker 4

It's terrific. Odie, take care, Boddy. We'll talk to you soon.

Speaker 6

Yeah, all right, take care.

Speaker 5

It's great to have film critics, you know people.

Speaker 4

It's you know, you gotta read him, you got to follow him.

Speaker 5

It's not like he used to be, you know, we had like the there's so much going on and there's so much content, there's so many things to read. But you want to follow him. You want to catch him in the Boston Globe and read what he has to say. So anyways, coming up in the next hour, is this title town anymore? Jackson Tolliver's going to join us. He has a lot of great tics. NBA Celtics. Who's gonna be a rough year next year at the Patriots? Vrabel

will order be returned in Foxborough? By the way, I gotta say, I took my daughter to the lacrosse Championships at Foxboro. Congratulations Danny Kraft, the Craft family. You guys do a great job. Congratulations to Harvard for hosting and also Matt Dooley, the Pride of Lincoln Sudbury, who was on the Cornell team starting defenseman that won the national championship, is going to join us tomorrow night right here on

WBZ Life is a collegiate athlete and parents. I want you to listen to that segment that's coming tomorrow night at nine thirty. By congratulations to all the teams that participated Tofts. Great job the Crafts. Thank you for hosting and lacrosse tournaments at Julettus past weekend. It was fabulous sports. Coming up next with Jackson Tolliver

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