True Romance (1993) Love on the Run - Part Two

True Romance! Yeah. We have been waiting to do this episode.

And uh, and thank you for the gift. I, I wanted to acknowledge you, you sent me this gift. It's the, uh, I refresh my memory, the DVD.

I was going to say you can skip the Tarantino commentary. Only because And, and I don't know if this is even something he would even argue. He would probably agree with me. The man does have an healthy ego, a very healthy ego, and, um, there's just a lot of arrogance that comes out when he speaks, particularly about his own stuff. I started watching The True Romance.

So I'll tell you how quick into the movie We, we're probably about ten minutes in, and in those ten minutes, he mentions that he wrote the screenplay five times. And I'm like, I'm like, alright dude, I get it, I'm listening to your fucking commentary. I know you wrote the fucker, the whole world knows you wrote it. But anyway, at some point I had to turn it off, I'm like, I don't know, maybe I'll get more out of the Tony Scott commentary.

Let me give you the specs here. All right. 1993 directed by Tony Scott written by the aforementioned Quentin Tarantino. It does have an uncredited consulting by Roger Avery on IMDb, which is interesting,

Just behind movies like Jason Goes to Hell. But better than Weekend at Bernie's 2. Um, just for fun, I know we don't do this a lot, but just for fun, the top 5 movies that year in ascending order. Number 5, Sleep is in Seattle. 127 million. Number four, the firm 158 million. Number three, the number three movie of the year, the fugitive at 184 million. What a year, man. Number two, Mrs. Doubtfire at 219 million. And number one, can you guess it?

The number one film of 1993, 1993 with 978 million worldwide. First run release

I went, I saw it at the theater. I think it was opening weekend.

And it said true romance above them, above their bodies. And that's all you saw. And I was like, Oh, I heard about that. That's supposed to be good. We should go see that. And he was like, what? You want to go see that with me? Like, and then he used a derogatory term that we don't use today anymore.

Anyway, True Romance starring Christian Slater as Clarence Worley, Patricia Arquette as Alabama, Alabama Worley. Dennis Hopper as Clifford Worley, Val Kilmer as The Mentor, that's his credited name, we all know that that mentor is Elvis, Gary Oldman as Drexel, Christopher Walken as Vincenzo Coccotti, um, but also, Big Rules? Uh, or I should say small roles for big names that would become big later.

They were virtually, I don't want to say virtually no namers, but somewhat no namers at the time this movie came out. Brad Pitt as Floyd, Samuel L. Jackson as Big Don, Michael Rappaport as Dick Ritchie. Tom Sizemore as Cody Nicholson. And of course, a very early James Gandolfini as Virgil.

Now I gotta go back and watch it again! I had to watch the movie again just to

At least even in how they depict Detroit. Right. Like the Renaissance Center is the first thing they show. Yeah. City, city, skylines, bums warming their hands. Yeah. Bums warming their hands at a garbage camp. Fire, fire coming out. The sewer or the sewer lines? Uh, they got police car into the city. Yeah. It's a, yep. Police car was. With sirens blaring, cold, hard weather, uh, cars that are stripped and abandoned, right?

Like it's not a pretty picture, but when I watch it, I'm like, I feel pride, right? Like that's Detroit, baby. That's, that's our hometown. That is, uh, you know, and it reminds me of like intros to like Beverly Hills cop

But to, to watch that now, you know, it's just core town is hopping, man. It's a really cool place to go. If you watch that and then you watch the beginning of True Romance, you're like, That can't be the same place.

Um, but there's a scene in there where the, the movie takes, it starts in Florida. Um, but there's a moment where they traveled to Detroit, like halfway through the movie. Yeah. And the intro, I gotta tell this story real quick. So, this is another one I saw in the theater. But this is like, 96, 97. I was in Detroit. I was watching the movie, and the scene where, um, Ving Rhames and Clooney are in the car, and he says, Okay, what do we do next? And Clooney goes, Let's go to Detroit.

And then the very next shot is like another dirty, gritty city street. But they got, uh, oh fuck, what is the song? I want to say it's Stevie Wonder or something. So he starts playing like Motown music, and at the bottom of the screen it says Detroit. Everybody in the theater, there wasn't that many people in the theater. There was about 30 of us, but the other 29 got up, threw their jackets off and started dancing. It was like, I love the pride of this city, man. I love the pride of this city.

I can't remember what theater it was, but it was Detroit. Yeah, it was somewhere. Uh, or at least Warren South Warren. Wow. You know, was it at bel Air? That was on eight mile. Maybe it was, maybe it was, I can't remember. All I remember was thinking was, first of all, I'm the only white person in this theater right now. Um, but that's okay. Cause we're all here together to watch a good movie. But when that scene happened, man, everybody started dancing.

And I was like, I fucking love this city, man. I love it. I love

the press.

In Detroit, a pop culture nerd steals cocaine from his new wife's pimp and tries to sell it in Hollywood, prompting the mobsters who own the drug to pursue the couple.

They more closely match, sort of like, the crime sprees being wanted by the authorities, media turning heroes into, uh, out of villains. Right. Clarence and Alabama may be on the run, uh, but it's hardly a crime spree. They don't even know that they're wanted. They don't even know that anyone's after them until an hour and 14 minutes into the film.

Um, and I think Reservoir Dogs is a perfect example of a low budget filmmaker who only had scraps to work with making a great fucking film. Yeah. Now Pulp Fiction came along, he didn't have that much more money, but he had more budget, right? I mean, I think it costs like seven million to make Pulp Fiction, something like that. Um, so he had more money to, to deal with, but. Those are my top three though.

Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, and True Romance are my top three favorite Tarantino scripts And he didn't even direct True Romance, you know If I did my top three films that he actually directed, uh, I don't know what the third one would be probably Probably Inglorious Bastards. I'd probably be at the third one. I don't know. I'd have to really dig, dig into it I was never really a fan of the Kill Bills.

I know I'm gonna get murdered for that By our listener but uh But yeah, I wasn't as big into Kill Bill as I was on some of the other films that he'd done. But anyway, uh, again, I don't want to get off too much again on another tangent. Um, I think the reason why I picked those three as far as their screenplays, um, I think what's funny is that they make great films. They, they make great films, but all three of those films that I mentioned, they're They have some really terrible character arcs.

Like, there's like, they're mostly flat arcs, right? There's not a lot of lessons to learn. Now, you could argue Pulp Fiction, Jules and Butch have the best arcs in that movie, right? Um, and I could argue that. Um, so I guess I shouldn't say that they're the worst arcs. Um, I just, I just mean, most of them are a lot like Paul Schrader films. Remember, we talked about Paul Schrader's films in the past. Uh, Taxi Driver, uh, Mosquito Coast. Nope. Raging bull, you know, affliction.

He writes a lot of these where the flat art, the main character doesn't learn a fucking thing and Everybody around them learns I need to get as far away from this fucking guy as I can, right? Like that's, that's, everybody else is learning a lesson. That person doesn't learn anything. Everybody else learns I gotta get away, I gotta get away from this guy. So, um, So Tarantino, I think has a, uh, at least his early scripts had, had some flat arc appeal like that.

Um, but okay, we're going to tackle on, uh, Blake Snyder's Beats here. Let's do it. We have the Beats. I didn't even do my Beats intro in the last movie. All right. Opening image. The song Graceland is playing as Clarence sits at a bar looking for love and gets denied. The lyrics Sexton as he sings, I've never been to Graceland. Uh, this definitely speaks to Clarence's. Sort of like homebody mentality, right? Doesn't come off as somebody that travels a lot, right?

He's likely never been outside of southeast Michigan before He's comfortable in this quiet non adventurous hidden life Though he obviously It's obvious he loves badasses, the idea of badasses, the idea of being a badass, and the idea of badass movies, right? Uh, cause he loves Elvis, and he loves Elvis particularly in the movies where he's a badass. Um, so he lives sort of vicariously through these movie heroes of his, uh, obviously mostly Elvis.

Now, as Blake Snyder cited in one of the save the cat books, um, there's what's called the things that need fixing, right? Usually start movies, not just what the character may be doing something that the audience can get behind, which is the definition of save the cat, but also it's it sets up Like kind of how shitty their life might be, right? It's the things that need fixing. We can tell in the first few minutes of seeing Clarence things that need fixing, right? He obviously needs a life.

Number one, he doesn't have much of a life. He doesn't have any friends. He doesn't have a girlfriend. He's got no money. At one point Alabama even says to him, So does it pay a lot? And he's like, No. He goes, But the boss is nice, Lets you borrow money from time to time. So you get the idea, This guy's broke as fuck. Right? Living in a shitty apartment, In Detroit. Um, So these are the things that need fixing for Clarence, right? Uh, most of all that he's lonely.

He's gotta be lonely because he has visions from Elvis that he talks to. So, and this is, and this I think really plays an important thing that people don't really realize. Understand, the mentor isn't really there. Right? So he's a figment of Clarence's imagination. So it becomes even more sad, if you think about it, that he's talking to himself. But in his mind, he's justifying it that I'm talking to Elvis.

Well, all this great advice that comes out of Elvis's mouth are things that he already was thinking about and considering doing.

Um, but anyway, um, Okay, so I wrote down here, I'm paraphrasing Fight Club. In Fight Club, Tyler Durden justifies and clarifies all this to Edward Norton when he says, I look how you wanna look, I dress how you wanna dress, and I fuck how you wanna fuck. That's Clarence and the mentor. Right? That's why he's imagining him in his mind. Because he's everything he wishes he was. So that to me is the things that need fixing theme stated. Alabama also has things that need fixing.

We'll learn she's also lonely. She's a call girl in a dangerously abusive situation has very little future, also lacks confidence. One of her arcs that we'll learn is that she also gives in too quickly. More on that later. Uh, she has a voiceover. Uh, that book ends the beginning and the end of the film. Uh, the first one, the beginning of film is how she came to find true love in Detroit at the five minute mark. She says, and quote, um, she's actually speaking for Clarence at this point.

She says, quote, usually that's the way it goes, but sometimes it goes the other way too. This is going to serve as sort of the theme for these two, as most of the things that happen to them are very circumstantial and luck, like they just, and usually. Luck that happens in films is bad writing, but when it's bad luck, we accept it. You know what I mean? It's the age old adage that, uh, coincidence is bad in screenplays when it helps your main character.

If it hurts your main character, then it's okay, right? Because bad things are allowed to happen all the time. You have to find a way to fight through them. Um, so, um, And that's just the way life goes. So since Tarantino sets this up early, we can expect the suspension of disbelief that when crazy things happen, that's just the way it goes, right? Um, what was one of the examples I remember telling somebody one time?

Blues Brothers has a great example that they start the movie off with like, um, just sort of like the ridiculousness of, I think as soon as, uh, Elwood picks up Jake from prison, right? They go home. And Carrie Fisher's character wants to kill them, right? The whole movie she's been trying to kill. Like, uh, Jake Blues. I wanna say, this might not be it. I'd have to go back and watch it again. But there's a moment where she, like, torpedoes their apartment with a rocket launcher.

And they survive! They, like, fall down as the building's collapsing. And they get up out of the rubble and walk away. That's setting up from here on out, just expect that crazy shit's gonna happen, and you're gonna believe all of it, right? Um, another point in a car chase, their car like backs up, flips up, turns around, and then literally takes flight. Like, like, and, and, but at that point we've already suspension of disbelief. We just know that this is how this movie is gonna be, right?

So, Tarantino's kinda doing something like that here, just to let us know that crazy shit's gonna happen, and we have to just accept that that's That's how things go. Uh, but sometimes it goes the other way too, as Alabama says. Alright. Um. So. Also in her voiceover, um, she begins to tell us that she came to Detroit from Florida. So we know that about her. She's a traveler. So that already estimates that she's sort of like the opposite of Clarence, right? Clarence is a homebody.

He's never been anywhere. She's at least a traveler. Um, so, and despite that that's one of the things that needs fixing, she is wild. You know, she's a traveler. She's an adventurous spirit. She's everything that Clarence isn't. And that's probably why he's drawn to her. All right, inciting incident. Four point push starts early in this one too. Alabama meets Clarence six minutes into the film at the movie theater. This actually is the result of something that already happened off screen.

We talked about it in, uh, the Fargo episode. The Latin term, in media res, where you start your movie, And the movie already has been going on. It's just off screen. We haven't seen it. We will find out later that she didn't just happen to be there. She was paid to be there by his boss. Right? So all that we didn't see, we didn't see him contacting her or calling. I mean, think about it this way. Lance, his boss would have had to have called Drexel. To arrange for this, right? Right.

So that, that's all stuff that's off screen that we didn't see, uh, in Meteorez. That's where you start your story and the shit's already going on. Um, nevertheless, them meeting each other is the inciting incident because it's the first hint to Clarence that his upside or this world is about to become upside down. This first change to his before world. Um, so. Again, this is all opinion. There is no facts.

I think it's the inciting incident because if they don't meet, we don't have a story, right? So, and I've had discussions with people about inciting incidents where I, you know, I go early. And say, it's gotta be that. And people be like, no, that's more like the catalyst. And I think, no, no, no, no. It's gotta be, you know, or I'll pick something that people are like, no, nothing's really happened yet. And my argument is, but if this one thing doesn't happen, the story doesn't happen at all.

I see that. So, okay. Um, there's a lot of setup after that, right? For the next 12 minutes, we learn a lot about these two, including where they're from, what they're interested in. Um, Particularly each other, at the 17 minute mark, Alabama professes her love for him outside of his apartment. Alright, more on that later too, I got more on that too. He feels the same way, so they get married. That's it.

By the way, By the way, before that, they actually have sex, uh, using another, uh, by the way, uh, perfect song choices for this movie. The sex scene, they're playing Charles and Eddie's song Wounded Bird. I mean, how perfect is that, right? So you could argue that this film actually has, uh, a five point push instead of a four point push because you could argue that there's two debates here.

So while I was like Trying to figure out the ins and outs of my, my four point push that I've coined that term. Um, there actually is potential for moves to have a five point push where you have inciting incident. Like right now, the four point pushes inciting incident, catalyst debate, break into two. The five point push could be inciting incident debate, debate one. Catalyst debate two and then break into two.

Yeah, there's sometimes we've talked about the double bump That would make it a six point push, but remember but remember More points the better right the more things that have to happen to get somebody into act two It keeps you engaged and it's more believable. Yeah, right that they're now in act two because they went through all this shit to earn it right, um Okay, so Um, okay, so the post sex billboard scene, okay? Um, this could technically be Clarence's first debate, right?

Because, the girl he just met, And had the best time of his life with finds out she's a prostitute. He could have kicked her ass out of the apartment. He could have been like, man, fucking what a horrible end to my birthday. I thought I met the girl of my dreams. Turns out she's a whore. He even uses that word on her, by the way. Um, she yells at him when he calls her that, but, but you know, he, so he could have kicked her out, right? So this is his debate. I'll be at a very short one.

He has to debate. Do I have to, can I just say. I don't give a shit that she's a prostitute because We really hit it off, right? Like we're like a match made in heaven Uh, and by the way on the billboard, I don't know if you ever noticed but it's a car ad on the billboard in large letters above the car on the billboard, it says Don't wait for the dust to settle I always thought that was interesting because it's pertinent to Clarence's debate, right? Yeah You Don't stop and think.

Don't think about it too much. Just go, go baby, go, you know? And he goes with his first instinct, which is to tell her he loves her too. Um, Catalyst. Minutes 18 to 20. The reason why this one is kind of like a two parter is, uh, it sets up two things. First, Clarence and Alabama go to get tattoos and she tells him about Drexel and that he beats women. That's the first part of the Catalyst because up until this point, he doesn't know anything about Drexel. Right.

In fact, he doesn't even know that it's a person. I think at one point he thought it was a city. He's like, who, what, or where is Drexel? You know what I mean? Like he doesn't know anything about it. So this is the part where she tells him who he is and that he's the pimp and that he beats women. Um, this is going to drive clearance to his. Next, his real debate, which is the debate that happens before the break into two, the will he, won't he, right?

This is paired with a scene where we get to meet Drexel and the drug dealers that he kills. Um, I feel like this is a two part catalyst because, um, there's a little, oh, by the way, aside from that, there's a little foreshadowing here. After he kills one of the drug dealers, he throws the cigarette lighter on top of the dead body. And I feel like that's a little foreshadowing about what's going to happen to the driver's license of Clarence. But anyway, little thing I caught. Um, okay.

Uh, this, I feel like this is the second part of the catalyst because, um, The Act 2's next world doesn't happen without this scene either. Because that scene is where they get the drugs. In the suitcase, right? So you need both of those things to propel Act 2 to happen. Right? Um, So it's the first indication, uh, the suitcase, by the way, that the drugs are in represents sin and that there's murders attached to it. This is going to also play a part later as well. Uh, okay.

Debate 21 minutes in Clarence gets his inspirational visit from the mentor Elvis, who's really just a figment of his own imagination. Oddly enough, another point of music placement here. He's singing heartbreak hotel. Uh, And he's singing it right at the part where Clarence is washing his face. You can hear the mentor singing. I feel so lonely. I could die, which is important. Remember that again, this is part of Clarence's imagination. These are his thoughts, right?

He's really talking to himself. So the second part of that scene, uh, after he gets done, you know, by the way, the mentor tells him, that he would kill Drexel. Again, if you accept the fact that there really is no mentor in that scene, that he's talking to himself, these are already thoughts he's having. He wants to kill Drexel, right? So the second part of that is where he goes to tell Alabama, give me Drexel's address. She resists and says, you know, don't, you don't know him.

And he says, no, you don't know me. Not when it comes to shit like this. So he's projecting himself to be that Elvis style badass that he's not, but he's projecting himself that he is. Uh, and she gives in, she gives in, she gives him the address. Again, one of the things that she needs to work on is not to give in so fucking easily. Um, so, um, Yeah, so I wrote down your life. Life gets hard. Become a call girl. She meets a guy she likes. Let's not take it slow. Let's get married the next day.

Uh, my new guy wants to confront my ex pimp who I know is a psychopath. Ah, well, I'll give him the address anyway. Like she got all of these things. She just, she just reacts without thinking. It doesn't, you know, so, okay. Um, also I'll mention that this arc, um, by the time it's over, You're gonna get to, um, where she fights instead of giving in. Yeah. Right? And that's when she meets Virgil later. So she has an arc with that.

At the 26 minute mark, when the showdown with Drexel happens. Interestingly enough, the address that Alabama provides Clarence on her, on her, uh, of where her former whorehouse was, or, Pimp house, whatever, uh, complete with prostitutes hanging outside the door is 447 East Montcalm, which actually nowadays is a spot directly between Ford Field and Comerica Park.

Didn't write that.

I think it's in that trivia book I sent you, but, um, in that scene, when Gary Oldman was reading the screenplay, he said that he found he, I don't know if he went outside, he went to a park where there was a bunch of, uh, younger, like black kids playing basketball. And he went to them with the script and he's like, I need you guys to teach me how to talk. Black. It's like, is this character thinks he's black. So he showed the script to a bunch of kids. Amazing.

And one of them said to him, a black man would never say titties. Cause I guess in the script he was supposed to say, I'm not as pretty as a couple of, Oh, he does say I was not pretties. But he does say when he first comes in, he says there's a movie on and there's a woman with her titties hanging out. That's how it was written. But the kid that, the kid at the park told Gary Oldman, Black guy would never say that. He would have said breastises.

So when you watch the movie now, Gary Oldman Drexel says there's a woman on the TV screen and since you've been in the room, her breastises have been hanging out. So he actually changed it to breastises. So that is funny. But that's when then when he shows the light himself, he says, I know I'm pretty. Man, he's one of my favorite actors. So many different people he's played. Yeah. But he does say titties in that second part.

When he shines the light on himself, he says, I know I'm pretty, but I ain't as pretty as a couple of titties. But anyway, okay. So Clarence tries unsuccessfully to talk Alabama out of Drexel's life. Uh, and it turns on to a full on fight between Clarence Drexel and his right hand man, Marty. Drexel gets the advantage enough to get Clarence's driver's license and get his address.

In the moment of confusion, Clarence pulls out his gun and shoots Drexel first in the nuts and then point blank in the face. Um, this scene is the payoff of the previous setup, uh, of, you know, Clarence leaving his driver's license behind. I just thought that was a little sort of like a nice setup and payoff with the lighter from the earlier scene. Right, right. Uh, but again, it's bad luck, right? It's just a bad luck coincidence that he left his driver's license behind.

Without it, we don't have the rest of the movie. Dumb luck. Dumb luck, right. It's okay that dumb luck happens. It's not good when coincidence happens, turns into good luck. Right? Um, alright.

Clarence leaves the license, but he does take the suitcase. Uh, again, that suitcase of coke is now attached to more killings. Yeah. Again, this, this is a metaphor. I'm gonna prove it later that you're gonna like how it ends up. But anyway, alright. Um, He thought it had Alabama's clothes in it. It doesn't. Fun and Games were now officially in Act 2, the mirror flip of Act 1, and now the framing of their relationship has changed.

In fact, for the better, uh, as she is kind of turned on by what he did, right? Right, right. They discover this is a great scene where she's like, oh, I have clean clothes and she opens up the suitcase To all the coke and she goes these are not my clothes

So more fun and games as we meet daddy Clifford Worley Dennis Hopper and one of his best scenes coming up Oh my god this scene Some of the most comedic moments of the film regarding the reaction to Clarence's arrival. When he kisses Alabama, he acknowledges she tastes like a peach. More on that connection later, uh, about traits that Clarence sees in Alabama that he likes about his father. Yeah. Um, B story. By the way, we haven't gotten to Clifford's scene yet.

So that's why in case you're like, well, you're stepping over it. It hasn't happened yet.

B story at the 40 minute mark, we actually meet Dick Ritchie, Michael Rapaport's, uh, Clarence's friend. He serves as the B story because he also, he'll eventually get Clarence and Alabama to their spiritual goal. He will be the reason that they reached their climax. Um, uh, Incidentally, at the time we meet him, he's taking a shit. All right. More funny games at the 48

minute mark. Clifford meets Vincent Concordia, uh, Christopher Walken. This is a 10 minute scene.

Yeah. And that's, that's kind of an amateur move. Tarantino is not an amateur. He actually he was pretty much an amateur when he wrote this script. It was his first script So he technically is an amateur, but he doesn't do the montage, but he does write a 10 minute scene in this segment and it kind of um You know, it's a way for writers to kind of drain through that, that fun and game segment without a lot of quality elements.

But I think the beauty of this is that even though it's a 10 minute scene that really cuts into the time, it's memorable. Like this becomes what it's probably one of the most famous scenes in any Tarantino screenplay of anything he's ever done. Yeah. You know, it's up there. And

And so when he unleashes this, this monologue about the Sicilians and how they bred with the Moors and all this stuff and, and he knew it was going to make the Sicilians blood boil. Right. And I realized what he was doing. Like, When he smoked the, when he asked for the cigarette, I'm like, Oh, he knows his life is over.

And the only thing he has is his words to inflict something into these guys before I kill him. So, anyway, that's my story.

He knows he's going to die, but let me see if I can get one stinger in there before I go out and he hits him with this.

It's, it's interesting to know, by the way, anyone that doesn't know what we're talking about, Dennis Hopper goes on this huge 10 minute tirade about how, um, that the Italians, uh, when, when the Moors conquered Sicily hundreds of years ago, that they changed the bloodline from all the sex they were having with Italian women who at that point were like blonde hair and blue eyes. And now it's.

Italians and Sicilians even to this day still have dark eyes, dark hair, dark skin because of all the sex that the Moors did with all their grandmas and great grandmas and great great grandmas. And the way he said it though. He says it very offensively. He says it very offensively. It's also, it's worthy to note though, um, that the entire scene is word for word how Tarantino wrote it with the exception of one improv at the end.

Mmm. In Tarantino's screenplay, it ends, uh, you know, it, uh, what's the part that he says? Um, you know, when he says, if that's the truth, am I lying? If that's a fact, if that's a fact, am I lying? That's how it ended in the script in the movie. That's how that point ends. But then Dennis Hopper ad libs and says, because you are part eggplant. And then Christopher walk in who wasn't expecting that line because it's not in the script, went with it and goes, you're a cantaloupe.

So those two lines are not in the script. Those two were added by the actors. Wow. I didn't know that. That's cool. Um, um, Okay. So the very next scene, another wonderful use of music. Clarence and Alabama are arriving to Los Angeles to Aerosmith's other side. Take me to the other side. So again, well, all right, then I'll do this instead. Are you ready? Instead of my singing voice, you're going to hear. All right. Before the end of this, I'm afraid you will be singing.

Margaritas are done for the day. We are onto my lightsabers. Okay. Um, So again, another great use of music. As they visit Dick, intro to Floyd, played by Brad Pitt. I love Floyd's character. And, and then they eventually check into the Safari Inn. By the way, that is not far, the Safari Inn, is not far from where I used to live in Burbank. And I used to see it when I would drive by every time. Oh, that was a real name, that was a real name of the place, huh? Still there to this day.

And it's exactly how it looks in the movie. Um, so yeah. Um, alright. Midpoint scene. At the one hour mark, Dick knows a guy that can help sell the coke. This is Clarence and Alabama's tangible goal, right? To sell the dope. It's a false victory, of course, because ironically, uh, oh, by the way, ironically, Dick is eating a peach. So, remember? Alabama, Alabama peach. She tastes like a peach. Dick's eating a peach at this moment.

But anyway, it's a false victory, we know, because we know that it's only going to lead to shit after this, right? So intro to Elliot Blitzer and the rollercoaster ride, meet and greet. Bad guys closing in in a perfect structure form the bad guys immediately close in as we are introduced to Virgil the second Clarence drops Alabama off at the hotel guess who's waiting inside Virgil with his shotgun one of the mobsters one of Vincent's uh Um, Oh, actually I, I, I jumped the spot.

The bad guys closing in is the introduction of Virgil, but not in the hotel room. He first goes to see Floyd. I'm sorry, my bad. He goes to see Floyd first. And it's another funny scene because Brad Pitt is fucking high as usual and is, is asking him, you know, where, where, you know, where is he? Like, yeah, man, he's at the safari motor, Uh, Motel Inn or something. It's like Safari Motel. And it's just, you know, he's having this back and forth.

And then when Virgil leaves All of a sudden, Brad Pitt's all, Condon, send me, man. I'll fucking kill you. Yeah, I love that. He played a good stoner. Yeah. So, to this point, Clarence and Alabama still have no idea that anyone's even after them. Right. There's no idea that anyone's looking for them. At the 1 hour 14 mark, uh, this is where Alabama returns

the hotel room. So this is the part. I jumped the one scene. This is the part. One hour, 14 minutes. Now is the first moment they realize they're being hunted because Clarence drops Alabama off. She goes into the hotel room and waiting inside. Is Virgil okay? Played by? You want James Delini? Yes. Uh, uh, people argued this was the movie that got him, uh, Sopranos. Um, I think there were more movies in between though. Um, I know he, he played a hit. Was she a producer on the Sopranos?

Oh, I'm sure he's probably an executive producer. I mean, I I'm just curious cause I heard, I read something that it, his character in this movie gave him inspiration maybe just for the character of who he would play in the Sopranos, but I read something about it. Yeah. So anyway. Um, Oh yeah. I, I know there was other movies too. Like I think he was in get shorty before the Sopranos. He played a hit man in that too. Um, Thank you.

But okay, so, he wants his coke, Alabama resorts to an old movie cliche again. We've seen this in other movies where the person that's scared tries to scare off the villain by claiming they have a boyfriend who's a football player. We've actually seen that in other movies, notably Drew Barrymore in the beginning of Scream in 1996, also used the same tactic. My boyfriend's a football player and he's going to kick your ass. You know, so it's like that movie trope is in there.

Um, and ensuing brutal battle can, uh, begins where Alabama fights. Uh, this reminded me, uh, again, as I said, the connection between Alabama and Clifford, um, how they both face possible death, right? Um, there's a confidence, a toughness, almost a defiance of I'm not gonna go out the way they want me to go out.

I believe Clarence knew that sort of, uh, that that might be how his father is, you know, and maybe that's something he saw in Alabama, um, that she has that sort of, you know, defiance in her, uh, which is odd because everything we've seen up to her from her up to this point is that she gives into easily. Now, all of a sudden she doesn't just roll over and take the death. She fights for it, right? She's fighting now, which could be part of the arc, right?

That. From what we knew of her, she was a give in personality, but now she's got something to fight for. Mm-Hmm. right? So now she's not gonna just roll over and take it. Okay. So one of the things that she needed fixing when we talked about lack of confidence, she solves that in this battle, um, just as Clarence solved his, when he killed Drexel. Mm-Hmm. right? The, the lacking of confidence. Um, so Clarence does eventually arrive and he gets her outta there.

Another aspect I loved about this is that he didn't have to save her in in a in a worse movie He would have come in during the fight Right and and and ended it and killed Virgil and saved her like a damsel in distress I like that Tarantino and Tony Scott's direction didn't have him come in until it was over right, right She had to save herself And that's important. And I love that about that, that moment that it's after she kills him with a shotgun. He comes in right after. Um, okay.

So, uh, he, and actually, I actually wrote on here too, that, Um, Tarantino has uses this method in other films as well. His leading lady is usually, uh, strong, right? You think of, um, the bride in Kill Bill movies, uh, Mallory Knox in Natural Born Killers, um, Melanie Laurent in, in, in Glorious Bastards, a lot of his female leads have that sort of inner fire and that strength that they don't need to be saved. No matter who is coming across their path, the men in their life are additions.

They're not, uh, anything to cling to, right? They're not, they're not protectors. They're just, they're like bonuses. They're just there. All right. That they're strong enough to take care of themselves. All right. Bad guys closing in Elliot gets caught with cocaine. Wait, let's pause for a moment. We have to pause and mark this spot. Mom is calling. Oh boy. Hello. She butt dialed you. I have her on speaker. You're on the air. Hello? She butt dialed you 100%. She did butt dial me.

That's not getting cut. We're leaving that in. Oh, she texted me, can we FaceTime? We are recording at the moment. I'm leaving that in 100%. We're recording at the moment. We'll call you back. Isn't it funny how mom always podcast? Yeah, yeah. Okay. Okay. Alright, sorry about that, audience member. Okay. We gotta wrap it up, you gotta call your mama. It's getting late in Detroit. Yeah, I gotta, I have to call my, it is Father's Day, I have to call my mom.

Alright, alright, alright, oh, so Ellie gets caught with the cookbook. Wait a minute, you have to call your mom. It is Father's Day. You gotta call your mom. I'm a father! What about your dad? Jesus. Don't you know today's all about me now? It's all about me. Alright, now I know what, what punny intro we're gonna use. Alright, somehow that went right over my head. Yes, but when we FaceTime, I don't ever FaceTime with just Mom, it's always Mom and Dad.

Hey Mom, happy Father's Day. Happy Father's Day Mom, and please wish it back to me. Oh, hi Dad! That's classic. That's, that's, uh, most dads, that's what we get, you know? Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Again, we just talked about strong women who don't need men to protect them. They're just add ons. Dad's the add on to mom. Oh my god. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. It's getting really hot in this fucking room right now. I know. With no air on and no 90 degrees. Dad's Alright, all is lost.

One hour, twenty six minutes in. Cops Nicholson and Dimes, Tom Sizemore and Chris Penn Uh, by the way, both are, have passed away. The late, the late Tom Sizemore and Chris Penn. Uh, lay the hammer down on Elliot. This is interesting beat because in this, in this film, the all is lost doesn't fall on the protagonist. Um, he doesn't even, he's not aware of it. Right. He doesn't know where that the plan is all falling apart. We have sort of an omniscient view.

Uh, again, the, uh, this happened with Bonnie and Clyde, right? We have, uh, the audience has superior position that shit's about to go down, but the, the main characters don't. Right. Right. Um, so, uh, Clarence's all his loss is when he gets Alabama out of the hotel room and he's speeding off cursing and yelling, he knows at this point that the mob is after him and that he's not safe. Uh, but the argument against that being. It doesn't change his goals, motives, or direction.

He's still gonna go forward with trying to sell the coke. Even though he knows the mobsters are after him for the coke. Fuck it, I'm gonna sell it anyway. Not just give it back and say, Sorry, we didn't know anyone was looking for this. No, he's gonna sell it anyway. Uh, Elliot, uh, before, uh, Oh, he's, uh, before he's forced to wear the wire, He's certainly and ultimately gonna drive Clarence to his climax. Okay, Dark Night of the Soul.

Uh, this is where Clarence is, uh, bandaging up Alabama at the airport. Uh, this confirms his plans are still in place. He just wants to sell the coke and get out. Uh, They contemplate how wonderful their life will be, uh, if they can finally escape all this. Uh, interesting change, I think, in the fight or flight by Clarence, um, whereas at the beginning, I don't think he would fathom, like, that Drexel would be somebody that he would ever want to fight and kill. But he does it, right?

But now, when he realizes the mob's after him, he doesn't want to fight. He wants to flight, right? He wants to take off, like he wants to sell the coke and get out of there It's not like, all of a sudden it's not like killing a pimp, you know what I mean? Now he's like, I don't want nothing to do with the mob, right? Like, get the fuck out of here.

Let's sell the coke, get the money, and get the fuck out Breaking the three A and B stories collide as Dick Ritchie gets the call that he got the part in the new show Dick represents the innocence Remember, the suitcase still represents evil. Okay? That's gonna come into play here in a minute. Yeah. Uh, and now, by the way, has another death attached to it, Virgil's death. So, everywhere the suitcase has gone, people have died. Yep. Okay? Alright.

They're off to the hotel, uh, for the big Uh, drug deal scene and we're now officially in act three. Five point finale. Here we go. Gathering the team. While the mob is loading up their guns and the cops are prepping Elliot, Clarence is assembling his team, uh, in the car on the way to the hotel. Clarence also gives a line of dialogue that I use as sort of like one of my Bible oaths that I use in my lifetime. And he says, quote, there's a, uh, it's been a while.

Well, he says gun, but I, I'll tell you, I word it differently in my life. He's referring to the gun. It's better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it. That is a line of dialogue that I use in my life all the time, usually with my wife and kids, where V will say, do we need to bring that? I always say it's better to have it and not need it than to need it. Not have it.

And I've gotten that from this movie and I've been saying it for 30, 40 years, 40 years, however long, 20 years, 20, 30, I don't know, whatever. All right. Uh, where we at here? Um, okay, so we get to the elevator scene where Clarence threatens Elliot to ensure that this isn't a shakedown. Elliot, uh, commendably so, doesn't crack. He does say, I wish somebody would just come take me away!

So he is telling the cops through the radio, please come get me, but he never cracks, he never says the cops are here. So, good job Elliot. Okay, then the mobsters pay a visit to Floyd. That's another funny scene. And again, another great musical tie in. They come in and Floyd's listening to Soundgarden. Right. I love it so much. And they come in and he's all, You guys want to smoke a bowl? And the one dude racks his shotgun and he's like, Oh, okay. Man, it's just another funny scene.

Floyd provides all the humor in this movie. Yeah. Okay. Execution of the plan. Blake Snyder also calls this storming the castle. Now I can't think of a better example of storming the castle than when they go up to the suite at the hotel. Uh, the, the hotel represents the castle that they're storming. Um, here we have, uh, the meet, the in person meet and greet with Lee Donowitz, the producer that wants to buy the Coke. Played greatly by Saul Rubinick. Love that guy.

Um, everything is going as planned. Clarence is, uh, convinces Lee that he's on the level and that the deal is done. Alabama counts the money as Clarence goes to the bathroom. Everything's going fine. High tower surprise. The cops crash in and then the mob crashes in moments after that. And now we have a standoff. Dig down deep while there is confusion in the room.

Somehow Clarence hears none of it while he's in the bathroom and he's having a pep talk with his mentor, of course, Elvis, who really is just his own imagination and imagination. Execution of the new plan, gunfire erupts as the cops, the mob, and Lee's henchmen are all firing at each other. Reminiscent of Stanley Kubrick's 1956 film, The Killing, where everyone shoots each other. Tarantino also uses this method at the end of Reservoir Dogs, where everybody shoots each other.

Among the chaos, Clarence emerges and is grazed by a bullet in the eye. Alabama runs to his aid, eventually revives him, and they escape. But not before Here's where it all comes into play. The innocence that's represented by Dick Ritchie's character, Dick Ritchie throws the suitcase, the symbol of evil up into the air and they shoot at it. And the Coke flies everywhere. They literally shoot the symbol of evil in the movie. Yeah. Uh, and that's where Dick Ritchie takes off too.

He gets out of the, he gets out in the hallway and he takes off. So he escapes the evil. Yeah. Uh, side note, Clarence did tell Elliot in the elevator that if anything went wrong, he'd be the first that got shot. He wasn't the first that got shot, but he was first hit with hot coffee. So he was the first person to get hit with something. And that's what started the shooting. Lee Donowitz was actually the first person that was shot.

All right. Resolution, Alabama's voiceover, uh, wraps it up counterpart from her opening voiceover, where they have worked through the theme that she stated earlier, that love sometimes goes one way, but sometimes it goes another way too. They realized that as much as they, uh, As much as they plan, life and happenstance gets in the way. They're now living happily in Mexico with a son. Side notes on the goals. Both Clarence and Alabama had, uh, had a main tangible goal of selling the cocaine.

Uh, and at the midpoint scene. Uh, they kind of make, you know, they make the connections to make that happen. Uh, while they appear to be flat arcs, you could argue, uh, if you wanted to dig deep enough on the arc, both Clarence and Alabama not only fix the things that need fixing in their lives, uh, but they also end up with a family. Uh, the real riches, you know? Uh, perhaps neither of them expected in the beginning of the film that they would ever have that. Right. So, there are arcs there.

Um, before I get into the trivia, anything you want to wrap up with themes or goals or characters? Not really, I just loved it all. It's the type of movie that just keeps you engaged the whole way through, the whole ride, you know what I mean? Yeah, a two hour movie doesn't feel like two hours. Right. You know? Right.

Uh, trivia, Ed Lauder, who is in movies like Cujo, where he played the dad, and Real Genius, uh, he appears uncredited as the police captain. Okay, the thing that I said was all over this movie. Videotapes are all over this film. In Drexel's showdown scene, there's stacks and stacks of VHS tapes. Um, quite common for the time, obviously, but Tarantino used to work Remember, Clarence is kind of the Tarantino, he's based on himself.

Not all the stealing drugs and the shootouts and everything, but He Clarence works in a comic book store, but Tarantino in real life worked in a video store. So, the idea of Clarence kind of comes from Tarantino's almost like Almost autobiographical how it starts, you know, how Clarence starts. He starts a lot like how Tarantino was in real life, but the videotapes are also in Dick Ritchie's apartment, his place. There's stacks of videotapes everywhere.

So it's like a little homage to Tarantino's start. Personal touch. Um, Jack Black appears in a deleted scene as the theater manager at the beginning of the movie who kicks everyone out after the Kung Fu movies are over. Yeah, you'll have to watch the deleted scenes. Jack Black's scene is in there. Alternate ending. Tarantino originally wrote that Clarence dies, that the bullet hits him in the head and it kills him.

Director Tony Scott talked him out of it because he said, and quote, He fell in love with the characters. Other changes to the script, originally it's Alabama that kills dimes after she kills Boris, after he kills Boris. But ultimately they wanted Clarence and Alabama to be as close as the good guys as possible. Right. Right. They didn't, they didn't want her killing a cop. Um, it's in the deleted scenes, you actually see she does shoot one of the cops and kills him. Mm-Hmm. But they changed it.

Um, she, she's changed it to where one of the mobsters who was shot kind of wakes up for one last moment and kills the cop. The Beverly Ambassador Hotel that the final scene is shot in has now been demolished. It was at 3400 Wilshire Boulevard. The original musical score was done by Hans Zimmer, who I absolutely love, by the way. He's had some great films. Um, he fails to get an Oscar nomination.

Uh, the four nominees Lost best sound the musical score I don't know why I'm throwing this in there Just that I can't believe Hans Zimmer didn't crack this list But the four nominees that lost were Richard Robbins for remains of the day James Newton Howard for the fugitive Dave Grusin for the firm and Elmer Bernstein for the age of innocence. I can't believe Hans Zimmer didn't get in there somewhere They all lost though To John Williams for Schindler's List.

So, by the way, that was John Williams fifth Oscar at the time. Anyway. All right. One criticism that I think I've been tainted by other aspects of this, but why didn't the cops string Elliot along? For more, you know, it, it almost seemed to, there was too much finality to it. Oh, we caught you with drugs. You're putting together a bust. Okay. We're going to take your boss down. Cops in real life. Don't do that. What they say is where you're going to wear a wire for the next month.

We want to know not just where this Coke came from. We want to know where your producer gets all his regular Coke from, right? This would have became a major sting. They wouldn't have just knee jerked reaction on one bus deal, but you know, it's a movie, but whatever. That was one of the things I thought was like, that just doesn't seem to ring too true. So, uh, Lee Donowitz in the film is known for making a famous war movie called Coming Home in a Body Bag.

I think Tarantino is basing that on Platoon. Tarantino wrote the script in 1988. Platoon had been out for two years already at that point and had won Best Picture. Right? Clarence says in the movie, quote, it's the first movie with any balls to win a lot of Oscars since deer hunter end quote. Platoon literally was the first movie to win best picture with Clarence type balls since deer hunter. So I think that they were basing that off platoon.

Oddly enough, Oliver stone who did platoon, uh, did natural born killers and Tarantino hates him for it. Yeah. A lot of animosity towards those two because of that movie. Um, okay. One last bit before we go on to something else. Before we go on to Six Degrees, I think. Let me see what else I have here. All right. So the last segment I have is something that we could talk about a lot of these movies that I mentioned.

How do Bonnie and Clyde and Clarence in Alabama, among others, and other films, how do they fall in love so fast? Right. It's the most suspension of disbelief movies ask us to accept. Yeah. In movies like this. Um, oddly enough, some dialogue from. Other crime movie that I already mentioned out of sight sheds a little light. Well, it doesn't shed light. It just, it, it, it plays on the, it sort of like letting the audience accept that this is just how it is. That things like this just happen.

Obviously, attraction is the first get right. If somebody is not good looking to you, you're not going to be into it. Right. So obviously in every one of these scenarios, there has to be attraction. Warren Beatty. You know, Faye Dunaway, Patricia Arquette, Christian Slater, and out of sight, we're talking about George Clooney and Jennifer Lopez. Like there's a, there's an element here already that you can see none of these are ugly people. Suspend the disbelief. Yeah. All right.

so it helps with the disbelief because you, uh, maybe because they brought the, I don't know if it was IQ level or circumstance, you know, with, especially with the mental health things that, uh, going through.

She's actually hunting him, right? So this aren't two that you would imagine would get together, but there's this, so there's, so I'm going to set this up now. There's a thread of dialogue between George Clooney and Jennifer Lopez and out of sight that suggests a technique that writers can use to tell the audience, look, this stuff just happens. The less explanation, the better. So just go with it. Okay. So I'm going to set the scene up. Clooney has just escaped from the, uh, uh, prison.

She was arriving at the prison to talk to some other prisoner. She sees the prison break happening in the moment. Ving Rhames has come to help spring Clooney from prison, so he's there. They grab Jennifer Lopez, they throw her in the trunk, Clooney gets in the trunk with her, Bing Rames gets behind the wheel, they take off, right? So they're all in the trunk. Now this is the dialogue, okay? Karen, you know this isn't gonna end well, these things never do. Fully, that's George Clooney.

Yeah, well if it turns out I get shot like a dog, it'll be in the street, not on a goddamn fence. Karen, you must see yourself as some kind of Clyde Barrow. Fully, oh, you mean a Bonnie and Clyde. And she says, yeah, and then they talk about some other stuff, but I skipped over it because some of the stuff isn't relevant. But then it gets back to him and he says, Uh, The part in the movie where they get shot, Warren Beatty and I can't think of her name. Karen, Faye Dunaway, Foley.

Yeah, I liked her in that movie about TV. Karen, Network, yeah, she was good. Foley. And the guy saying he wasn't gonna take any more shit from anybody. Karen, Peter Finch, Foley. Yeah, right. Anyway, that scene where Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway get shot, I remember thinking at the time, it wouldn't be a bad way to go. If you had to, Karen, Karen bleeding on a country road. And then they, again, they start talking about other stuff. Then they get back to it again.

Foley, you're sure easy to talk to. I wonder, say if we met under certain different circumstances, if we got to talking, say you and I were in a bar or something and I came up to you, um, I wonder what would happen. Karen, nothing fully. I mean, if, if you didn't know who I was, Karen, you'd probably tell me fully. I'm just saying, I think if we met under circumstances, different circumstances, Karen, you've got to be kidding. Foley tries to get back to where was his speech was working. Foley.

Another one of Faye Dunaway's I liked was Three Days of the Condor. Karen. Yeah, with Robert Redford when he was young. Foley. Yeah. Karen. I never thought it made sense though, the way they got together so quick. Fully. Really? Karen, I mean romantically fully. Uh huh. Well, but if, and then at that moment, the car stops and the trunk pops open because they reached to where they're going.

So he was about to say something to make it believable why they got together so quick, but the scene got interrupted. So what I love most about that scene is Elmore Leonard wrote the novel and Scott Frank did the screenplay. It's almost like they're telling the audience, look. Shit like this happens, okay? This is just a scene to tell how two people, they actually have similar interests. They actually know movies. They like the same movies. They like the same people.

They're obviously attracted to each other. It's just a bad circumstance. He even mentions, what if we met under different circumstances? Later in the movie, they do meet up again at a bar. This very bar that he is depicting what would happen. Anyway, I love them. It's my favorite Elmore Leonard book. It's my favorite Clooney movie. You Out of sight. Uh, if you're interested in more of this, two people get together quick and it's a disastrous, you would think wouldn't work out, but it does.

Um, so in the first 10 minutes of true romance, a similar thing happens where Clarence is showing Alabama's job and specifically a comic with a love story, right? He's showing her the comic book. Uh, he says, you want to see, uh, this is a side note, he says to her, you want to see what Spider Man number one looks like? And she says yes, but when he proceeds to show her a comic, it's not, it's Sleepwalker number eight.

But, the story he's telling, uh, isn't even from Sleepwalker number eight either. This, this, the thing, the book that they show in the movie is Sleepwalker number eight, but the story he's telling her is not from that comic. Oh wow. But what's interesting is, uh, the reason Tarantino put that in there is that it's not, it's not so much what the comic book is, isn't the important part. The port part is while he's telling the story, Alabama's face is just fixated on him, right?

She's really falling for him at this point. So this, I kind of caught that parallel between like this and a movie like out of sight where it seems. Harmless. It's pop culture, right? Instead of talking about movies, they're talking about comics, but that's not the important part. The important part is not what they're saying. It's that they're sort of like falling in love with each other's personality, right? So that's how you get away with movies like this, how they fall for each other so fast.

You got to throw a scene in there that has them more than just attraction. There needs to be a scene where they connect on a level.

degrees.

They have to be actors, actors or actresses in a feature length film. And, uh, we can't use the movies that we talked about today. So my brother is going to pick two people, one from Bonnie and Clyde and one from True Romance. And I can't use True Romance or Bonnie and Clyde to connect them.

Uh, but yeah, it's a great list. And they actually, they're professionals. They actually know a lot more about screenwriting. They have forgotten more about screenwriting than my brother and I will ever know.

Um, uh, That's a high respect, um, so, love those guys, they have a great show, I've listened to, I think I've listened to every episode of those, uh, but anyway, um, so check them out as well, I think that's about it for Shoutouts, Happy Father's Day to all you daddies out there, yeah, it's, what, seven, it's eight o'clock now in, in, uh, It's, it's eight, it's eight o'clock on the west coast, which means my brother is closing in on his, uh, his sleeping time.

Yes. So. So, uh, keep drinking and keep watching. Support your local cinema.