0:12

Well, that's

0:14

what.

0:17

Hey, everyone. Welcome to. What are you watching?

0:20

I'm Alex Witt throwing. I'm joined by my best man, Nick Dostal.

0:24

How are you doing there? King bending. Don't do it. Okay.

0:27

I wasn't done and I'm not going to go. I was like, What are you going to do?

0:31

No, no, no. How you do there. King Benny, I can't do it.

0:35

If an accent. Hell's Kitchen. Well, his is hard.

0:38

Well, yeah, it's hard

0:38

because he's like, Italian, you know?

0:41

I love, you know, more than one.

0:43

Danny Snyder No. King Vinny,

0:44

bring me the one you know. Yeah.

0:48

So, like, matter of fact, to the point.

0:50

All right, sleepers, here we go.

0:53

this is one of my all time

0:53

favorite coming of age films.

0:57

One of my favorite movies about trauma,

0:57

revenge, sweet, lasting revenge.

1:02

I think it is a perfect nineties

1:02

movie with the cast,

1:06

the rich cinematography

1:06

that never calls attention to itself.

1:10

Like, Yeah, the movie opens with this

1:10

like brilliant oner crane shot.

1:15

Like they're all on the roof and it goes down to the street and like,

1:16

no one ever talks about that.

1:19

Like, no one ever talks

1:19

about how actually well-made the movie is.

1:22

The whole time I was rewatching this movie

1:22

for this episode, I'm like,

1:26

I mean, it was a hit when it was released,

1:26

but like,

1:28

no one really talks about it that much anymore. And we're going to get into all this.

1:31

But this is a movie I watch. This is one of the movies

1:33

I've seen the most. I watch it

1:35

annually at least once annually.

1:39

And this movie contains

1:39

one of the most ice cold movie characters

1:44

I've ever seen on film,

1:44

one of the worst villains just ever.

1:48

It's a solid courtroom thriller,

1:50

and this movie pulls off

1:50

something that's really hard to do.

1:53

It convinces us

1:53

that some motherfuckers deserve to die.

1:56

How are you feeling today? Wow, that's.

1:59

I was about to use the word cool, but I mean, that's a very true.

2:04

That's a very true take, man. Like you do feel like that Like this.

2:09

It actually makes me wonder

2:09

if this movie would work today.

2:13

If for that reason, there

2:13

there is like, this gray area

2:17

of what we're rooting for as an audience,

2:21

which is in the general sense

2:21

of like human justice.

2:25

Yeah. Yeah. Do you really feel that strongly

2:26

about something when someone is so evil?

2:31

I'm feeling good about it, man. I'm feeling good.

2:34

One thing I know for sure, I usually save

2:34

like how well the movie did at the end.

2:39

If this movie was somehow made today with the same caliber cast,

2:41

because this movie was sold on the cast,

2:44

the cast still plays

2:44

as a wholly shit cast like,

2:48

Yeah, and we're we're decades later

2:48

and this cast still hits.

2:51

At the time it was like,

2:51

how the hell did they do this?

2:54

How did they get all these people

2:54

in one movie?

2:56

So this movie cost $44

2:56

million, went on to make $165

3:01

million this year

3:01

or two and a half hour movie

3:06

that came out in October

3:06

did not really have Oscar prospects,

3:10

but it was made by a Hollywood

3:10

veteran filmmaker, Barry Levinson.

3:14

He has an Oscar for Rain Man. It stars so many Oscar

3:16

nominees, Oscar winners.

3:19

But then it also has this young emerging

3:19

cast who would all grow to be famous.

3:24

Some of the boys who are playing the boys,

3:24

some of them grew up to be famous.

3:28

So what I want to know is like, when

3:28

did you first come of age for sleepers?

3:34

When did you first hear about it? I'm like, This is one of the reasons

3:35

why we're doing this.

3:38

I was I rented this

3:38

the day it was released on VHS.

3:42

The Tuesday is released. I'm 11 years old.

3:45

I had heard about it because it actually came out

3:45

right around my brother's birthday

3:49

and my dad took him to go

3:49

see it in the theater.

3:52

I was still probably a little too young

3:52

for subject material

3:54

like this to be taken to the theater. Yeah, they both saw it.

3:58

They liked it. And I this is a family I grew up in.

4:01

Like, I'm having serious conversations

4:01

with my dad about sleepers at age 11,

4:05

but I was. I was ready for this one.

4:05

What about you, though?

4:08

So I remember this movie,

4:08

like in 96 being a thing,

4:13

but I really wasn't

4:13

tackling movies like this then.

4:18

So to me

4:18

it was always I had like, it's so funny.

4:22

I had a stigma about movies like this

4:22

at a young age being like,

4:25

this is one of those like good movies.

4:29

This is one of those like, prestige.

4:32

Yeah, yeah. And I don't think I really cared for that

4:33

at that time because I was like, Yeah,

4:37

how old were we? Like ten, 11. So 11. Yeah, Yeah.

4:41

So I just remember seeing the cover

4:41

in a blockbuster, like,

4:45

because me and my uncle would go

4:45

and we'd rent videos.

4:48

I remember always this cover

4:48

of like that, that dark

4:51

kind of like muted gold kind of coloring.

4:54

And then the list of the cast. Yeah. Bacon to Nero Hoffman. Yup.

4:58

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And it's great as remember

4:59

looking at to go off

5:03

this movie We're not renting this,

5:03

we're not renting this.

5:06

And so around when I was in college,

5:06

I was told by basically everyone

5:13

that I was the Kevin Bacon

5:13

of the theater department

5:16

that was the actor that I was like, okay,

5:16

like the Kevin Bacon, but not the Sean.

5:21

No, no, no, no. Yeah, no, no, no, no.

5:24

The actor Kevin Bacon,

5:24

the apartment you have going on.

5:28

that'd be okay. Hey,

5:28

I dig that compliment.

5:31

I've always love Kevin Bacon,

5:31

so I'm going to get to him today.

5:33

Yeah, Yeah. So? So I was like, okay,

5:35

all right, everyone, let's all calm down.

5:38

If you're all calling me the Kevin Bacon

5:38

of the theater department, then like,

5:42

I better because I. I knew Tremors.

5:45

I knew. I knew some of this.

5:47

Yeah, well, actually,

5:47

no, I never even saw Footloose, so

5:50

I seen it since, but I wasn't really

5:53

that familiar

5:53

with much of Kevin Bacon stuff.

5:56

And so I went to my professor

5:56

and I was like, All right,

5:59

so you've dug me this name.

6:02

You're I'm the Kevin Bacon of the theater department. So what's a good Kevin Bacon performance?

6:07

I should see. And he said, Sleepers and he didn't

6:08

prepare me for it or anything.

6:12

He just kind of just goes sleepers.

6:15

And I was like, okay,

6:15

all right, I'll watch it.

6:17

So went home, watched it, had

6:20

no idea what I was getting myself into.

6:23

It was like, on one hand,

6:23

you're kind of enthralled

6:27

by this whole entire movie,

6:27

and then you get a performance like that

6:33

and it just shakes

6:33

you like you're like, how?

6:35

How, how am I even supposed to kind of,

6:35

like, feel about

6:39

now that I'm being called

6:39

the Kevin Bacon of the theater?

6:42

Well, that's what I mean. That's why I wanted the clarification.

6:45

If it was because of this. Hey, good on the professor

6:47

for recommending this

6:47

and not like teasing it out, being like,

6:50

you want a Kevin Bacon performance,

6:50

Like this guy, this guy can do more

6:53

than, you know,

6:53

cut loose on a dance floor and yet,

6:57

you know, kill giant snakes in the desert.

7:00

There it is. Snakes are they call tremors

7:01

or are the tremors like what they

7:05

that's like the earthquake, right? The cobra bugs.

7:08

Yeah, I don't know. I remember what they called

7:09

giant worms or bugs

7:11

because he was also in tremors was

7:11

the first two was just one, too.

7:15

Just one? Yeah, just one. Just one. Yeah.

7:17

Fred Ward was in them all. I think. I think there's like. Well I don't know,

7:22

Fred. All right. I love that. I love that. Yeah.

7:24

What an introduction. There are a few things

7:26

we're going to breeze by today as we go.

7:29

They are a huge part of the sleepers Lore.

7:33

I don't have any concrete information

7:33

about it.

7:35

I'm referring to the book

7:35

the film is based on because after I saw

7:38

the movie and became obsessed

7:38

with the movie and loved the movie, movie

7:42

really taught me a lot. I finally bought the book.

7:44

I read the book.

7:46

The book is written by Lorenzo Kaa Katara.

7:49

Sorry if I'm not saying that right. That is who Jason Patrick's

7:51

character is based on.

7:54

He's based on a version of Lorenzo

7:54

and as a literary text.

7:59

The book to me is superb.

8:02

If you like the movie,

8:02

you will like the book now

8:05

as a work of nonfiction,

8:05

which the book purports to be.

8:10

I just can't speak to that.

8:12

I mean, we're not really going

8:12

to explore that on the pod.

8:16

So I just want to get all of this

8:16

out of the way right now.

8:19

And I'm quickly going to go

8:19

through the book, the pre-production,

8:22

because this they used to do this in Hollywood. This doesn't happen anymore.

8:25

This is nuts. Sleeper. In fact, sleepers is the exact kind

8:26

of mid-budget, you know, 40

8:30

to $50 million movie that we can play

8:30

and doesn't exist anymore.

8:34

It costs 44 million to make it stars

8:34

a ton of A-listers.

8:39

It's directed by an Oscar winner. It's scored

8:41

by the most famous movie musician ever.

8:44

It's shot by the guy who shot Goodfellas.

8:47

So the movie comes together quickly. Lorenzo submits his book to a publisher,

8:49

a smaller movie company,

8:53

House, called Propaganda Films,

8:53

which was co-founded by David Fincher.

8:57

They buy the movie rights to the book

8:57

in February 1995.

9:01

Barry Levinson comes on to direct.

9:03

Everyone is cast by July.

9:05

They're filming in August 95.

9:08

They film for a few months,

9:08

edit the picture, and Warner

9:11

Brothers distributes

9:11

it wide in mid-October, 1996.

9:15

Wow. Very fast for Hollywood.

9:18

So while all this is going on,

9:18

while pre-production and filming is going

9:21

on, Lorenzo is claiming

9:21

that his book is based on a true story

9:27

and that the events in the book

9:27

happened to himself

9:30

and his friends in Hell's Kitchen

9:30

when they were younger.

9:34

That whole notion

9:34

is coming under very heavy scrutiny.

9:38

Everyone's involved. The Catholic school

9:39

Lorenzo attended calls bullshit.

9:42

The Manhattan D.A. gets involved. They call bullshit.

9:45

They say no case like this

9:45

has ever existed.

9:47

Lorenzo maintains his story.

9:49

Levinson said he believes the author

9:49

and went ahead to make the movie

9:54

is Sleepers, The book and Movie

9:54

an exact representation

9:57

of what this Lorenzo writer went through

9:57

when he was 13.

10:01

I don't know. But I do know that stories like this

10:02

do happen.

10:05

So that's. That's all I can say on it. That's it.

10:07

You know,

10:07

so obviously the the judicial part

10:13

of the I'm assuming book

10:13

and movie is fictional.

10:17

Well, yeah, sure. Because you would. That's why the Manhattan D.A.

10:20

got involved, because they're like, we have no cases of this, like,

10:20

ever taking place of like, you guys

10:25

with, like, a carte

10:25

like doing some sort of carte thing

10:28

and then getting two guys off of, like,

10:28

you know, prison for killing a guard.

10:33

So they're saying this doesn't exist. I you know, I do want to bring this up

10:35

because I need to

10:39

I kind of need to call myself out here

10:39

because I've said so many times

10:42

on this podcast that I hate

10:42

when movies, say,

10:44

based on a true story

10:44

and then they're not.

10:46

I guess why

10:46

I don't have that big of a stain

10:49

against this because I didn't know

10:49

any of this was based on a true story.

10:52

Like when I saw all this stuff

10:52

that was not a selling point of the movie

10:56

for me because I was so young,

10:56

but I guess it was part of the marketing.

11:00

So I don't know. I've never been a fan of people doing

11:01

this, of people saying that something.

11:06

Sure. And it's not. But ultimately,

11:06

I just ultimately I don't care.

11:10

Like this is from what was like 95, 96.

11:13

The movie means so much to me. So if it didn't happen, okay,

11:14

but I, I stories like this do happen.

11:19

So that's that. That's enough for me.

11:20

That's enough, you know?

11:22

no, for sure.

11:22

Like, I mean, the unfortunate

11:26

reality of the abuse that happens that's reflected in

11:27

this movie is very true.

11:31

I was just thinking about, like the case,

11:35

like coming together the way where

11:35

this one boy actually became a lawyer.

11:38

This case got dropped in his lap

11:38

and they did all of this

11:44

like complete smoke and mirrors

11:44

type thing, because that, to me,

11:48

in a great way for the movie

11:48

feels like, what, a nineties,

11:53

even like something like the Verdict

11:53

or like in Justice for All like that

11:57

yeah room drama that's over the top

12:00

and not exactly realistic

12:00

but you buy it right

12:03

you go along for the ride

12:03

Yeah I mean a few good men has so like

12:07

yeah the thing about the courtroom

12:07

scenes are believable, but they're fun.

12:10

They're all Yeah. I mean, yeah, if we're going

12:11

to, like, litigate the court,

12:13

like the accuracy of the courtroom stuff,

12:13

there's a whole host of things

12:17

that, like, calling it a character witness.

12:18

If it was going

12:20

that poorly, you'd be like,

12:20

Hey, Your Honor, we need to pause here.

12:23

Yeah, I believe, like, we need.

12:25

I guess I called the wrong

12:25

character witness. Yeah,

12:30

sort of like for about 15 minutes in.

12:32

So we're going to do something a little different. I got her.

12:36

Yeah, we're going to do something a little different. We're going to slow things down before

12:38

we really get going about the movie.

12:41

Before we really get going,

12:41

we're going to get a little personal,

12:45

which I've done a few times on the podcast,

12:46

and I've always done it with a

12:51

greater amount of resistance

12:51

because I want people to listen

12:55

to our podcast and here to knucklehead

12:55

best friends talking about movies.

13:00

That's all this should be. It should just be fun.

13:03

I want us to have fun doing it. I want the people to have fun

13:04

listening to it.

13:07

But since you are listening occasionally,

13:10

occasionally we talk about movies

13:10

that transcend the art form.

13:15

For me, sleepers.

13:17

He got Game. Antoine Fisher

13:18

which I brought up a few times.

13:21

These are just movies to most people,

13:21

if people have even seen them.

13:25

But these movies changed my life.

13:28

I found these films at a point

13:31

in my life when I absolutely needed them.

13:34

The perspective I gained from sleepers

13:34

allowed me to live my life

13:40

in a fuller way. If I'm going to do a podcast

13:42

about sleepers and make grand

13:47

declarative statements like Sleepers

13:49

is the most emotionally important film

13:49

I will ever see,

13:54

That's not going to make sense

13:54

unless I paint a fuller picture.

13:57

So I talk about my brother

14:01

a bit on this podcast,

14:01

a bit more than I thought I would.

14:04

I did not realize

14:04

that was going to happen.

14:07

And I do this again with resistance

14:07

because I don't want I don't want to sound

14:10

like a broken record or keep constantly

14:10

bringing these, you know, things up.

14:14

But my brother was not a mentally

14:14

well person.

14:17

And you know, who knows why?

14:20

Family history, chemical imbalance,

14:20

childhood trauma, all the above.

14:24

Who the hell knows? And he was not a pleasant person.

14:27

He was angry,

14:27

explosive, irrational, paranoid.

14:32

He would do things

14:32

that did not make sense.

14:35

If you challenged him on anything,

14:35

he would get angry.

14:39

That behavior was always there. He was three years older than me, and

14:41

from when I was born, that was always him.

14:46

When I got much older,

14:46

I started going to therapy

14:49

and I started to study things

14:49

like bipolar one disorder,

14:53

borderline personality disorder,

14:53

paranoid schizophrenia.

14:57

And through that I was finally able

14:57

to identify my brother's behavior.

15:02

But by then I'm off the couch.

15:05

I had purposefully become estranged

15:05

from my brother.

15:09

I didn't have any of that

15:09

psychological perspective

15:13

when I was actually living with him

15:13

when we were young.

15:16

But thankfully,

15:16

I discovered a few key movies like the one

15:19

we're talking about today. That helped because

15:24

things got way, way worse with my brother

15:28

while he was already exhibiting

15:28

combative behavior at a young age.

15:33

When he was 12 years old,

15:33

he was physically assaulted

15:37

by a grown man

15:37

that he thought he could trust.

15:41

And that one single event

15:41

was the turning point.

15:45

I want to be clear here

15:45

very, very, very clear.

15:48

I am not saying that the single event,

15:48

quote unquote,

15:51

made my brother mentally ill.

15:53

He it was already there. He was already strange.

15:55

He was already angry.

15:58

But this single event

15:58

did turn a strange and angry

16:02

child into a tortured, violent monster.

16:06

Overnight. My brother went from doing well in school

16:07

and playing in a ton of organized sports

16:12

to isolating himself and violently

16:12

challenging anyone who stood up to him.

16:18

He could spin into a rage

16:18

the likes of which I have never seen

16:23

matched by another person

16:23

in real life or on screen.

16:26

I see things like Edward Norton

16:26

in American history at the dinner table

16:31

that gets kind of close for like every,

16:31

you know, we're having a nice discussion.

16:34

And then within 4 minutes,

16:34

he spun himself completely out of control.

16:38

That gets close. A few years after this event,

16:40

when my brother was a teenager,

16:43

a bad group of friends

16:43

of which he was the leader of.

16:46

And you start to mix in drugs and alcohol.

16:49

And it just made all of this so much worse

16:49

to his friends and his girlfriends.

16:54

He was the tough guy. He didn't take shit from anyone.

16:58

He was the crazy guy

16:58

who was in all of their corners.

17:01

He would punch a teacher

17:01

or curse out a cop,

17:04

and that was probably exciting

17:04

to his friends.

17:08

But at home at night, I would just myself

17:12

and my parents, it was like

17:12

the anger had nowhere else to go.

17:16

So it exploded often.

17:18

Quite often I was the recipient

17:18

of the violence emotionally or physically.

17:24

Other times I just barricaded myself

17:24

in my room and watched movies

17:29

and routinely,

17:29

in his most explosive moments,

17:34

I would hear my brother cry

17:36

out the man's name who brutalized him.

17:40

I would hear him go back to this event

17:43

over and over and use it as a crutch,

17:48

use it as an excuse

17:48

for why he was the way he was.

17:53

I saw him actively avoid any repercussions

17:57

for his own behavior

17:57

because of what he had been through.

18:01

And initially I was nine years old.

18:03

I felt terrible for him. But after a few years of him constantly

18:08

taking his rage out on me

18:08

and my parents who were innocent,

18:12

I realize that we've all been through

18:12

something bad or traumatic or horrific.

18:17

We all have baggage

18:17

and if you keep using that as an excuse

18:21

to not explore your own mental health,

18:21

then it could very well kill you.

18:26

I have never seen any of this.

18:29

All this stuff that I'm describing

18:29

portrayed with more honesty

18:33

than in Barry Levinson. Sleepers. In this film,

18:37

four boys survive horrific abuse

18:40

from men who were hired to guard them.

18:44

And they do survive it. They do make it out of that

18:45

dark, cold basement, but they are forever

18:50

altered, as you're going to hear

18:50

one is doing.

18:53

He's okay. He works at a paper he gets by, the other

18:54

one is a lunatic, but he's not psychotic.

19:00

He he's just spent

19:00

seemingly his entire adult life

19:03

manipulating the legal system

19:03

to bury the four cowards who tortured him

19:08

and those other two boys have grown

19:08

into full fledged psychopaths.

19:13

They are not sociopaths.

19:13

They cannot hide it.

19:16

They cannot blend into society.

19:18

They walk into a bar

19:18

and you immediately know they're trouble.

19:21

And when they get a chance

19:21

to kill one of those guards,

19:24

they do not spend years

19:24

thinking about how to legally bury him.

19:28

They shoot him

19:28

eight times in a New York restaurant.

19:31

I saw sleepers for the first time 18 months after my brother's attack,

19:33

when he seemed to be well on his way

19:37

to turning into the adult John

19:37

or Tom from Sleepers and Sleepers.

19:43

I cannot tell you

19:43

how much this movie helped me understand.

19:46

It helped me compartmentalize. It helped me survive.

19:49

Good Will Hunting

19:49

came out the next year. It did, too.

19:52

That film made me realize it. Yeah, The horrible shit we've gone

19:54

through is not our fault,

19:59

but it is our responsibility

19:59

to deal with it.

20:02

Will Hunting has never left Boston.

20:04

He has no capacity for love

20:04

by the end of that movie

20:08

because of what he's opened himself

20:08

up to emotionally,

20:11

he's uprooting his entire life

20:11

for the sake of love.

20:14

I got that. I got that.

20:17

He got game, Dad, this is. Well,

20:18

I got way too nervous on that episode

20:22

to bring up everything

20:22

that I'm talking about now.

20:24

And while Jake and Jesus in that movie

20:24

are father and son,

20:28

that relationship is my brother. And I see that combative, antagonistic,

20:30

aggressive behavior,

20:34

the little boy trying to stand up to it,

20:34

the innocent bystander to get hurt.

20:38

And then years later,

20:38

the aggressor wants solace.

20:41

But the abuse little boy wants

20:41

none of it. Just as I did,

20:45

my brother apologized to me twice in my life

20:46

and they were real apologies with tears.

20:50

Both of these apologies happened in the same summer,

20:51

the summer before I left for college.

20:54

One apology happened

20:54

after we watched the game together.

20:57

The other much more emotional apology

20:57

happened

21:00

after we watched sleepers together.

21:02

And he did mean what he said to me,

21:02

but it was too little too late for me.

21:08

That was 2004. He died in 2016.

21:12

We saw each other a handful of times

21:12

in those years.

21:15

I never had his cell phone number

21:15

or email address.

21:18

The last time I saw him was 2013, and

21:22

to his credit, he did seem to get his life

21:22

together for a little bit.

21:25

He had a good job. He made good money.

21:27

He got master's degrees, plural,

21:31

got along really well with my parents,

21:31

which I could not believe.

21:34

His life was never perfect,

21:34

but he did seem to be getting on.

21:39

And then in a snap, he had a complete and utter

21:40

mental breakdown.

21:43

There was no event that led to this.

21:46

He woke up one morning. It was quite simply out of his mind.

21:49

Tom Wilkinson, Michael Clayton.

21:51

And he stayed that way for a little

21:51

over a year until he died by suicide.

21:56

So long story sleepers and part movie.

22:00

I do think I needed to say this

22:00

because I didn't want to tiptoe around

22:03

my brother during this episode.

22:05

I was extremely nervous

22:05

to mention all this.

22:07

But if you want to know

22:07

why I'm so obsessed with certain movies

22:11

and films like Sleepers in particular,

22:11

this is why

22:15

when I was not the Target of my brother's

22:15

rage,

22:17

I was hiding in my room watching movies,

22:17

usually desperately trying to find movies

22:23

that showed the darker sides

22:23

of human nature so that I could understand

22:27

my life better. And, you know, I know my dad is listening.

22:30

I just want to say that I love him.

22:33

And this is why he's my best friend,

22:33

because we made it, you know, we're here

22:37

the day my brother died. The day he died,

22:38

my dad told himself that he would not let

22:42

the death of his oldest son

22:42

define who he was.

22:45

And he hasn't had.

22:47

I hope this is all okay. I hope you know,

22:49

I don't get personal for sympathy.

22:52

Believe me, that it's not my intention.

22:54

But we're we're not defined

22:54

by the worst thing that happened to us.

22:59

We're not at the end of this movie.

23:01

There's a passage. I can hear my voice cracking

23:03

that has meant so much to me.

23:07

When Brad Pitt and Jason Patric

23:07

are talking after the court

23:10

and Jason Patric says, Don't go too far, I

23:13

may need a good lawyer someday,

23:13

You can't afford a good lawyer.

23:16

May need a good friend, though. Brad Pitt says,

23:18

I'll find you when you do count on it.

23:22

That's it.

23:25

What do

23:25

we do now with the rest of the podcast?

23:28

That was, I think.

23:31

Yeah, I know. Thank you. Thank you for being here and being a very,

23:32

you know,

23:35

warm presence,

23:35

as I said, all that, you know, that story.

23:39

This isn't something I talk about a lot,

23:39

but there's a whole like

23:41

there is a picture to paint here. It's not necessarily pleasant one,

23:45

but this movie, I mean,

23:45

this movie just helped me in ways I,

23:49

I have just tried to articulate

23:49

but really will never be able to fully.

23:54

So that's it. Thanks for listening.

23:57

Yeah, man. I mean, I mean, obviously,

23:58

I know that story.

24:01

I mean, I think the first time I actually

24:01

learned that about you, I read it.

24:05

It's something that you've

24:05

that you've put into a piece of your art.

24:09

Yeah. And my script and I remember being like,

24:10

I didn't know any of this.

24:15

I think it's really, really beautiful.

24:17

And brave

24:17

that you put that out there in this forum,

24:23

because this isn't just it's not it's not you just putting out a diary entry,

24:24

just like, hey, people, listen,

24:29

there's a point

24:29

and this is like I've always said,

24:33

this is why we've started

24:33

this podcast was because this is why.

24:37

Yeah, these

24:37

there are movies that help us either

24:42

understand our lives or our help

24:42

reflect, mirror anything.

24:48

This is why we make art. This is why anyone does anything.

24:51

I mean, it's crazy to always kind of think

24:54

that whatever you possibly could put out

24:54

there

24:57

might be received by somebody in a way

24:57

that you could never even imagine.

25:01

I'm sure. Yeah. Yeah. You know, there's obviously,

25:02

like, a reason to make a movie

25:07

like Sleepers, if you are Barry Levinson

25:10

and the producers and all this and that.

25:14

But I don't think any of them could ever

25:14

imagine that somewhere in a small

25:18

Virginian town, there is young boys

25:22

that are watching this movie where

25:25

because one of the more like compelling

25:25

things about,

25:28

you know, this story with your brother

25:28

is Yes, would it helped you?

25:33

But that apology that he gave you after

25:33

seeing this, because that means that.

25:37

Yeah, in his

25:37

like he was able to receive that movie

25:42

and understand something about himself

25:42

and I'm sure it

25:45

great pain and great conflict

25:45

to then apologize.

25:51

That means that this movie touches on

25:51

something very human and very real.

25:55

And if it can connect

25:55

with people on this way, then

26:00

this is the point of why

26:02

anyone makes anything,

26:02

whether it's music, any kind of art form.

26:06

This is why we need it. This is why it's it's it's

26:07

always like that.

26:10

Dead Poets Society. Ridiculous.

26:12

I always say it's ridiculous

26:12

because it's not though.

26:15

Yeah, but it's it's, it's

26:15

why we need things when we need them.

26:19

And then when we receive them,

26:19

whether we're ready for them or not.

26:22

It stops us in our tracks and we need to

26:22

pay attention because it's, it's healthy.

26:29

It's a complete tribute to yourself

26:33

and to the makers of

26:33

this movie for being able to

26:38

create

26:38

something that means something so much.

26:41

And that's the point of what we're doing,

26:41

is sharing why it means that.

26:44

So that's why it's not a diary entry.

26:47

That's why it's not this or that. It's for this reason.

26:51

And that's amazing.

26:53

And again, I think this is really

26:53

also a credit to how

26:57

awesome you are as a person as such.

27:00

Thanks. It's true. It's true.

27:03

Well, you know, I talk to my dad about stuff

27:04

and it's like, you know, let's we're here.

27:08

Like we're safe. Everything's good. This is this is resolved. Trauma.

27:12

I mean, it's there. Believe me, it's there.

27:12

It doesn't go away.

27:15

Right? And I have depression, in part

27:15

because this and maybe, who knows,

27:20

chemical imbalance, all the stuff

27:20

I just talked about, like, who knows?

27:23

Who knows?

27:23

But it's, you know, everything's good.

27:25

Like, Yes. Yeah.

27:27

Whoever needs to be

27:27

medicated is properly medicated.

27:30

It's, you know. So I thank you again for saying that.

27:34

And yeah, I, I

27:37

this just isn't a movie

27:37

that a lot of people talk about.

27:39

And some people are like,

27:39

yeah, that I saw that once.

27:41

I saw that and I just

27:41

I kind of like to pull these little,

27:45

these little movies out

27:45

kind of from semi obscurity.

27:48

Like, this movie's

27:48

never streaming everywhere ever.

27:50

No, never. I don't know what the hell happened

27:51

to the rights, but it's never anywhere.

27:54

So that's one reason why

27:54

I think it goes underseen a lot.

27:57

And I'm just trying to pull them out and go, you know, this

27:59

did this meant something to me.

28:02

And it always has. And this is a movie.

28:03

I get excited to put on. Like when we locked into this,

28:04

I was like, Yes, sleepers, like,

28:08

I love this movie and I'm so excited to like, do it. But we're going to talk about Barry

28:10

Levinson next.

28:12

Even among him and like his body of work there,

28:14

he doesn't talk about the movie a lot.

28:18

The DVD has never had

28:18

any special features.

28:20

The DVD doesn't on Blu ray doesn't.

28:20

There's nothing on it.

28:23

Barry Levinson is no stranger

28:23

to doing commentaries.

28:25

I loved his his voice. He was born and raised in Baltimore,

28:27

which is,

28:30

you know, close to where I grew up. And I just love that accent.

28:33

So he's a lot of fun to listen to. It's basically, you know,

28:34

Kevin Bacon's accent in the movie.

28:36

It's like a pretty even though they're in

28:36

I guess it's supposed to be in upstate

28:39

New York, but it's a pretty

28:39

thicker Baltimore accent.

28:44

What's your relationship with Barry Levinson? Watch any of his.

28:46

Are you a fan of his movies? I know we've talked about diner

28:47

on this on the pod.

28:51

We talked about our 1982.

28:53

Yeah, 1982. Exactly. He's just he's one of those journeyman

28:54

directors, basically a Hollywood studio

28:59

director who, like, started in seventies and eighties and just

28:59

he is still around, still making movies.

29:04

And it just always kind of chips away.

29:06

Sometimes his movies get nominated

29:06

for Oscars, sometimes they bomb,

29:10

but then the next year he's

29:10

just going to make another movie.

29:12

You know, Rob Reiner. Mike Nichols was like this.

29:15

Yeah. Barry Levinson. These guys who were just good at it,

29:17

just like a solid

29:19

like director that can kind of take almost

29:19

any kind of material.

29:23

No, I'm a fan. Like, I made a top five list of,

29:27

I want to hear dude. Yeah. Okay, good, good.

29:28

What's your number five?

29:31

So number five, is it probably one

29:31

that a lot of people really like?

29:35

Good morning, Vietnam. Yeah. Good. I'm glad. Okay.

29:38

I'm so glad you're mentioning

29:38

because there's he's made some huge movies

29:41

that, of course, didn't make my top five

29:41

because that's just how I am.

29:45

But and I do want to say that in 2014,

29:45

holy shit, it was ten years ago,

29:49

but I hope my blog, I was like, my God,

29:49

this was ten years ago.

29:53

I covered him on my blog. So I've seen every

29:55

I've seen all of his movies,

29:55

which is just, you know, a thing. But.

29:58

All right, Good morning, Vietnam. That's great. It's good. And it's it's Robin Williams.

30:03

I think in some ways like his it's

30:03

that peak, Robin Williams

30:08

of where he was at in his standup comedy

30:08

and then transitioning into film.

30:13

I think it's also like that

30:13

big introduction to that heartfelt

30:17

I think that's like one of the movies

30:17

where, yeah, we really get to start

30:20

to understand that, this guy's

30:20

more than just a funny, funny person.

30:24

He is. He's got a lot in that. Well, true. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

30:29

My number five is a very little seen

30:29

Barry Levinson movie.

30:33

It's very autobiographical. It's called Avalon.

30:35

He released it in 1990.

30:38

This is a coming of age film

30:38

based heavily on his own story growing up.

30:44

But what's cool about it

30:44

is that it perfectly captures

30:47

the invention of television

30:47

coming into the homes in America.

30:51

So you get life before television

30:51

when it was the radio.

30:54

And as it shows in this movie,

30:54

like people, you know, talked

30:57

and then overnight, everyone was around

30:57

the box in the living room

31:01

and no one was talking

31:01

and everyone was watching a box.

31:04

So it kind of it traces that again, not not very well seen,

31:04

but I've always loved Avalon.

31:09

Number five. Do you think this is a crazy question?

31:12

Really quick to maybe think of it. Do you think social media is like

31:13

the new like television in that way?

31:17

yeah. Like, yeah. Where dude, they say yes.

31:20

And it's it's so funny

31:20

you bring this up, I'm going to

31:23

you know, I'm no, okay, just hold. No, where else would I fuck it?

31:27

I just listen to his commentary. He does a commentary for Wag

31:29

the Dog, a movie

31:31

I love in a movie that is on my top

31:31

five Barry Levinson films.

31:35

And he it was recorded separately. Dustin Hoffman is also in the commentary,

31:37

but in it so separately

31:40

they are both lamenting about how just

31:40

terrible commercials are for society.

31:47

And I'm listening to this and I'm like,

31:47

When did they record this commentary?

31:51

They're talking about how commercials

31:51

are going to kill us all.

31:53

And the commentary is recorded in 1998,

31:53

and I'm like,

31:56

Wow, you guys have you think commercials

31:56

are the worst thing for children?

32:00

Yeah, All this wait, just wait

32:00

a few years to social media comes along.

32:03

So, yes, I do. I think social media became the new

32:04

whatever whatever

32:07

melting the brains of the of the youth.

32:10

Yeah yeah. And like taking away from like

32:11

like communication or.

32:15

Yeah. Because like before the

32:16

anything by the TV comes out

32:19

what you just said, like everyone sits

32:19

around, stops talking and looks at a box.

32:22

Yeah, yeah. Now we're just doing that

32:23

in our phones. It's crazy.

32:26

Yeah. Yeah. We all talk to you, all communicate less.

32:29

Number four from you, the natural.

32:31

Okay, awesome. Great. I'm glad you mentioned that one, too.

32:34

Robert Redford. Great film. Yeah. Barry Levinson Film.

32:37

Yeah. But it's not on my list. But good. It's one of those romantic.

32:41

It's like baseball's

32:41

the most romantic sport for film.

32:45

It just they

32:45

they're able to do that shit with it.

32:48

Yeah. Perfect ending, like.

32:50

Yeah. Iconic ending. My number four is Bugsy,

32:52

starring Warren Beatty and Annette Bening.

32:56

Love that movie. Never seen this. I've only I've talked about this

32:57

actually a couple of times.

33:00

Yeah. Written by James Toback, who is, you know,

33:00

an interesting voice in cinema.

33:06

He's not. Maybe I'll just cut that out.

33:09

Never mind. Yes, it's a good movie. Good movie.

33:12

What's your. Well, he got it.

33:15

He's been a bad, bad, bad man.

33:17

But he did write some good screenplays

33:17

back in the day.

33:20

All right. What about your number three? There are three is I got to put it.

33:25

I've really enjoyed this movie, Rainman.

33:27

nice. One of my favorite Tom Cruise movies.

33:31

I mean, that's like that's

33:31

probably the biggest Barry Levinson film.

33:33

One big picture won Best Director,

33:33

one best actor.

33:38

So many great stories behind it

33:38

that Dustin Hoffman

33:41

really fought him

33:41

hard to try to get kicked off the movie.

33:44

He wanted to get fired like he they were filming for a week

33:46

and Hoffman's like, I don't have it.

33:48

I don't have the character.

33:48

I don't know what I'm doing.

33:51

You need to go higher. Richard Dreyfus Like I've talked to him,

33:51

He'll go, Wow, take my place.

33:57

And yeah. And he's like, No,

33:57

you were here.

33:59

Like, Stick with it, You got to do it. And I think that's where you came from.

34:03

The dependance on. Yeah, yeah. Like every time you don't think

34:05

you're in it, go with do that state.

34:09

Yeah. Yeah. And that's how they kind of found it.

34:11

So does great stories.

34:14

The unsung hero of that movie

34:14

actually is Tom Cruise,

34:17

and some people have wondered

34:17

if he gives a better performance in Dustin

34:21

Hoffman because he's he changes

34:21

Tom Cruise changes in the movie.

34:24

Dustin Hoffman. yeah it's

34:25

you know he stays but yeah, it's it's

34:28

next time you watch that movie

34:28

you as in like everyone just kind of

34:31

look at it with that one's looking

34:31

like what Tom Cruise actually doing.

34:35

I think he's doing more than people

34:35

remember it.

34:38

So it's always kind of fascinating to me

34:38

just being on an acting

34:42

point of it where you realize that

34:42

someone had a really hard time with this.

34:46

Yeah. And yet, you know, because it when it finally there

34:48

no one would think in a million years

34:51

that Dustin Hoffman struggled with this

34:51

because he delivers it right.

34:54

Very right very, very good performance.

34:57

But to know that behind the scenes

34:57

that this was not easy for him and that

35:02

yeah that used to the point of

35:02

like wanting to leave

35:06

that that almost makes it even better

35:06

in some ways that he was able to find it.

35:11

And then the collaboration too.

35:11

Yep, exactly.

35:14

My number three already mentioned it Wag the Dog, written

35:15

by none other than David Mamet.

35:19

It is a absolutely biting satire.

35:22

I love it. There are two really good satires,

35:23

at least two

35:25

that Barry Levinson has made and Wag Dogs

35:25

just are tops.

35:29

Great film tops, Top Aces, Aces, baby.

35:32

What's your number two? Number two is

35:36

I love this movie. What just happened?

35:38

That's the that that is his other satire. I absolutely love that movie.

35:42

I was trying to look of a movie like I'm

35:42

watching all sorts of different shit

35:46

right now for a director coming up. And it's that's really heavy.

35:49

Last night I was like, you know, I should

35:49

I should stick with Levinson.

35:51

We're doing Levinson tomorrow. What just happened right on Hulu.

35:54

I put it on I hadn't seen in a while.

35:57

This movie's fucking hilarious.

35:59

It's hilarious. 40 And it's you're like, is this satire

36:00

or did they just let him put cameras here?

36:05

Like,

36:05

this is this is a very thin satire about

36:09

one of the most absurd industries

36:09

in America, which is the movie industry.

36:13

Love it. Yeah. It's so fun.

36:16

yes. That was your number two. My number two, his first film.

36:19

Some may call it his best diner,

36:19

maybe too heavily improvised.

36:24

Love it just absolutely love this movie

36:26

I dad turn me on to this movie

36:26

so so young and I've always loved it.

36:31

I actually was, like, really wondering

36:31

how am I not putting this in there?

36:35

Especially because we talked

36:35

so fondly about it on our 1982 podcast.

36:40

Yeah, I just yeah, it didn't make it.

36:42

It didn't make it,

36:42

but I like this movie so much.

36:44

Yeah, that's okay. Number one.

36:46

I mean, it's

36:46

the movie we're here to talk about, baby.

36:49

God damn right.

36:49

I didn't know. I didn't know.

36:51

I thought I was like,

36:51

He has to talk about diner.

36:53

He to talked about what's happening and B,

36:53

what about envy?

36:57

And so he's got some funny moments.

37:00

It does. It does. But I mean, he's

37:02

I wanted to spend a little more time

37:02

on him because we never we're probably

37:05

never going to do like a Barry Levinson

37:05

episode.

37:07

But yes, I'm so glad you got to mention

37:07

the natural and good morning Vietnam.

37:12

Other ones we missed like he's he's

37:12

actually written a lot of his own movies.

37:16

Some of them are his most personal ones.

37:18

He wrote Diner. He wrote the screenplay for Ten Men.

37:21

He wrote Avalon

37:21

Other Barry Levinson directed films,

37:25

toys with Rob Boys,

37:25

not not not a very well-remembered movie.

37:29

Jimmy Hollywood with Joe Pesci,

37:29

not a very fondly remembered movie.

37:33

He also wrote Liberty Heights Man of

37:33

the Year with Robin Williams and Sleepers.

37:37

I think Sleepers is his best screenplay.

37:40

But yeah, he's got some it's got some

37:40

interesting movies in their sphere.

37:43

Remember? Sphere? my God, Bandits with Bruce Willis,

37:48

Billy Bob The Bay,

37:48

Which was like, Yeah, Billy Bob.

37:50

Yeah, The Bay. Which was like found footage,

37:51

horror movie.

37:54

Not actually, not too bad. The Survivor, which no one talked about.

37:57

It was Ben Foster

37:57

played like a Holocaust survivor who had.

38:02

Yeah, a boxer.

38:04

Yeah, well, it wasn't that good, but that's okay. You know, I just like Ben Foster. Just.

38:08

I did, too. He was good.

38:09

He was good. He put, like, a lot into it.

38:11

All right. You know, sometimes we start with the plot

38:13

because this cast in Sleepers is so big,

38:17

We're going to go through all these people first,

38:18

and we're going to call out any scenes

38:21

want from sleepers along the way. But after the cast, whatever we missed

38:23

will go through the movie

38:26

kind of in order.

38:26

But it's going to be fun.

38:29

Well, first of all, Sleepers,

38:29

the title is a slang term

38:32

for juvenile delinquents who serve

38:32

sentences longer than nine months.

38:37

And that is the fate of our four boys.

38:39

Shortly after the movie begins, I'm going

38:39

to start with who plays them as adults.

38:43

We have Jason Patric

38:43

as Lorenzo, better known as Shakes.

38:47

Throughout the movie, Joe Perrineau played

38:47

Young Shakes.

38:50

He was an actor that he was one. I haven't seen much from him.

38:54

Yeah, you know, Post Sleepers.

38:56

But Patrick was in the Lost Boys

38:56

After Dark.

38:59

My Sweet Rush, which is a nuts movie.

39:02

Geronimo. Jason Patrick, What can I say about him?

39:05

He is your Mr.. I have always

39:06

what you're missing the biggest one.

39:11

So I see cruise control. I'm sick of doing everything pre sleepers.

39:18

Speed two was what he took

39:18

as sleepers clout.

39:21

It went to like giddy movie.

39:24

He's the star and decorator

39:24

of a Barry Levinson movie.

39:27

It is like,

39:27

what am I going to use his clout for?

39:29

So he had to be in jail.

39:31

Got that right. I am. Yeah. Not yeah, I'm not talking about it

39:33

to be there post careers

39:36

because it's kind of interesting

39:36

where everyone was at the time.

39:39

But I got you. I've always loved Jason Patrick.

39:42

He did not have a good time making this movie. It doesn't sound like he's

39:44

ever had a good time making any movie.

39:48

He's been notoriously difficult

39:48

to work with, but well, I loved

39:53

I love his performance, his shakes,

39:53

and I love his voiceover in the movie.

39:57

I've always been really,

39:57

really drawn to it.

39:59

I love his voiceover.

40:01

The voiceover, I think, is perfect.

40:04

It really

40:04

it is a very, very good voiceover movie

40:08

because not a lot of these

40:08

voiceover movies

40:11

because there's a lot of explanation

40:11

and exposition and stuff throughout this.

40:16

But I think I think it really serves

40:16

the piece, and I think his voice

40:20

is the type of voice that really helps

40:20

a very there's a lot of gravity,

40:25

there's a lot of way

40:25

there's a, yeah, easy voice to listen to.

40:29

Actually, the very first time

40:29

I saw this movie, I had a big issue

40:32

with the the, the separation

40:32

between the kids and the adults.

40:38

Didn't have that much. This this time around,

40:40

a young up and comer named Brad

40:40

Pitt played one of the sleepers.

40:44

One of the adult sleepers. He's playing

40:44

Michael Sullivan.

40:47

Brad Renfro played young Michael Sullivan.

40:49

He was. Yes, in the client. So he was used

40:53

probably he was the biggest,

40:53

you know, kid actor in the movie.

40:57

And he went on to have Brad

40:57

Renfro, went on to have a good career

41:00

and then passed away too soon,

41:00

unfortunately.

41:02

But and we all know who Brad Pitt is now.

41:04

Before sleepers, we had Thelma and Louise

41:04

River run through it.

41:08

California, True Romance. I mean, the dude is a white hot interview

41:10

with the vampire

41:13

Legends of the Fall 712 Monkeys,

41:16

which he gets nominated for an Oscar

41:16

for right up to the Oscar nomination.

41:19

He's in sleepers. Brad Pitt did not like this

41:21

performance of his at all which is sad

41:25

but I just felt like mention that

41:25

yeah he said he was a little too green.

41:29

I liked the accent work

41:29

it kind of dips in but

41:33

again, I, I never

41:33

I never said this was a perfect movie.

41:36

I don't know if anyone never said

41:36

Sleepers is perfect movie,

41:38

but it's damn sure perfect to me. But if someone's going to be like, Yeah,

41:40

I kind of problem with this performance,

41:43

I'm like, Yeah, I get it,

41:43

I get it, it's fine.

41:46

And that's all that it is.

41:46

This is not like, yeah, like my

41:49

none of this takes away from the movie.

41:52

I think it's actually a testament

41:52

to the movie.

41:54

I think it's also probably,

41:54

it was kind of open this up a little bit.

41:58

You spend so much time

42:01

with this movie

42:01

as a certain movie with these kids,

42:05

you're kind of like really engrossed in.

42:09

You've made these relationships

42:09

with these kids

42:11

and because you know

42:11

what they've gone through, there is like

42:14

an element of like,

42:14

you're feeling a certain way.

42:17

And then there is a very, very strong

42:17

cut off to now.

42:23

we're adults now. That's the way the story goes.

42:28

But there is like an adjustment period

42:28

where you're trying to separate the two.

42:33

And I think almost

42:33

I can say this across the board,

42:36

and this is, again,

42:36

not a knock on the movie at all.

42:39

I like all the kids performances

42:39

better than I like the adult performances.

42:43

what a cool. Take that again. I love this.

42:46

I love it. I really do.

42:48

I really. And I did feel like that, too.

42:48

The second time I saw it.

42:51

I go, I really like these kids

42:51

and I feel like the adults

42:56

might not exactly match up.

42:59

Maybe it's the look. Maybe it's just the attitudes.

43:04

I think that was my Jason Patrick. One was like, He does not remind me.

43:08

And so it's weird because I don't think

43:08

Jason Patrick does a bad job at all,

43:12

but he doesn't

43:12

remind me of of young shakes.

43:16

I don't see the the similarities.

43:19

I do see the similarities in the two

43:19

other ones that we're going to get to.

43:25

John actually. Yeah. Yeah.

43:27

Especially John.

43:29

John Yeah, I'll do him next. Yeah. Yeah.

43:32

Like he like that is the correlation.

43:34

I'm like,

43:34

that's totally that kid right now.

43:38

And that's not it is hard to say

43:38

because like, did these actors

43:41

get to see the kids performances? How, what, who shot first was there.

43:46

it was the, the grown ups were cast first

43:49

and then they cast the kids

43:49

to try to like match them.

43:53

Also,

43:53

the kids were trying to match the adults.

43:56

Yeah. I don't know if they were, like,

43:56

watching their takes or anything.

43:59

I don't think there was

43:59

anything like that, but I think it was.

44:02

Yeah. Like,

44:03

you know, all the adults had some work.

44:05

Well,

44:05

not not Billy Crudup, who played Tommy.

44:08

I know. I said I was going to do John,

44:08

but he plays the adult Tommy,

44:11

and that's his first major movie role,

44:11

which is crazy.

44:14

And then, of course,

44:14

young Jonathan Tucker plays young

44:17

Tommy and John and Tucker went on to,

44:17

you know, he's still in movies.

44:20

We love Jonathan Tucker. yeah, he's great.

44:23

And then, yeah, Ron Eldred plays

44:23

the adult John Reilly,

44:27

and it's Jeffrey Wigdor,

44:27

who I've never seen again, is Young John.

44:31

And that boy's great.

44:33

Like,

44:33

you know, give everything like all of his

44:36

like he's a little one in the group,

44:36

so he has the most fire to him.

44:39

Like, I get that. But then he's

44:40

also the first to get picked on

44:42

Bryan Elder was Mickey and drop dead

44:42

Fred personal favorite of mine.

44:46

He's the guy who pulls I love

44:46

drop dead Fred.

44:49

I was solid. They played in Alamo

44:50

like a couple months ago.

44:52

Who even knows at this point? It was a blast. He was a blast.

44:56

Watched that movie

44:56

every Christmas Eve with my brother.

45:00

Just the tradition. We are tradition. That's a good memory.

45:01

That's nice. He played.

45:04

He also played the cop

45:04

who pulls Pacino over and Scent of a Woman

45:07

and just like, what a shit cop. Like, he can't even tell the driver.

45:11

He just pulled over his blind man idiot.

45:13

He goes blind himself in deep impact.

45:16

Good actor. I love him in this movie too.

45:19

And he yeah, yeah, I, he he is my favorite

45:19

of the of the boys grown up.

45:26

if he's your favorite then

45:26

let me let me get your ear on this one.

45:29

Let me bend your ear on this one. There was someone already cast

45:32

in this role, but he had to drop out

45:32

because he got really, really busy.

45:36

And that person was the mighty duck

45:36

himself.

45:39

Emilio Estevez. No. What do you think of that?

45:42

That could have been interesting. I think he could have,

45:44

because this is mission impossible.

45:47

Same year's Mission Impossible

45:47

one where he's like, you know,

45:49

kind of scraggly and he like he's,

45:49

you know, spike him out in the elevator.

45:53

But it could have been interesting. I liked that

45:55

they went with a more unknown actor,

45:58

but I'm going to go through a few of these

45:58

sliding doors.

46:00

These cast. Yes. Sliding doors. Yes. Yes. But it's interesting.

46:02

It's an interesting one.

46:05

I like it because Ryan Elder, I like

46:05

he has that huge scene in the restaurant.

46:09

He's got to look at himself in the mirror. Yes. yeah. Change in that mirror.

46:13

He has to be like you like,

46:13

I can't wait to talk about that scene.

46:18

So those were our sleepers. Now we'll go to the neighborhood.

46:21

We have Minnie Driver as the grown Carol.

46:24

She's a friend to all the boys. She was in circle friends, Goldeneye.

46:28

I can't forget her cameo in Goldeneye. Take a hike.

46:32

Sandra

46:32

Bullock was originally cast as Carol,

46:36

but she was already involved in a Time

46:36

to Kill another movie about

46:40

perhaps the justified

46:40

killing of pieces of shit.

46:45

But that's that's another sliding doors thing. There

46:47

we have a little actor named Robert

46:47

De Niro coming in as Father Bobby Carillo.

46:52

This is his first collaboration

46:52

with Barry Levinson.

46:55

They went on to do Wag the Dog. What just happened?

46:58

The Wizard of Lies, which I never seen

46:58

and just watch

47:01

for the first time

47:01

the Bernie Madoff movie on HBO.

47:04

Vittorio Grossman plays King Benny.

47:07

This dude has 135 credits on IMDB.

47:10

Sleepers was one of his last movies. He died four years later,

47:12

have not seen a lot of his Italian movies.

47:17

God, do I love him? Is King Benny just perfect casting?

47:21

Perfect casting? The whole entire neighborhood is so well

47:22

cast, ever

47:26

so well

47:26

cast, including Bruno Kirby is Sheik.

47:29

His father doesn't have a lot to do,

47:29

but he's

47:32

so brutal early on, just the way like

47:35

first of all, it's the beatings that are like taking,

47:36

you know, kind of place off camera

47:39

in the way he puts his arm around

47:39

young sheiks and they see that

47:42

dude is like fucking hanging

47:42

from the streetlight

47:45

and the

47:45

the frequency of the beatings in hell.

47:49

I mean, it's crazy how when sheik's gets in trouble,

47:51

he's just flipping out at the situation.

47:55

You think he'd be taking it out on sheiks? But he's like, You know,

47:56

I've done enough time for everybody.

47:59

Yeah, it's kind of. It's oddly endearing to watch him

48:00

be flipping out

48:03

on behalf of sheiks

48:03

as opposed to flipping out on sheiks.

48:07

I don't know. Yeah, really good performance.

48:09

It's a good performance. Frank Medrano.

48:13

Sorry about the last name as Fatman.

48:15

I love this guy. A lot of people know him as Fat Ass

48:16

and Shawshank Redemption.

48:20

This poor guy

48:20

who didn't survive his first night.

48:23

He also has one of my favorite lines

48:23

in sleepers.

48:26

It is something I repeat often much

48:26

of the chagrin to whomever I say it to.

48:30

I give a fuck about most people.

48:33

God, I love that line. The Dustin Hoffman Academy,

48:35

a two time Academy Award winner, Dustin

48:39

Hoffman showing up as what,

48:39

like the ninth lead as Danny Snyder.

48:42

You know, in addition to alcohol, I have a

48:44

I have a slight nothing major

48:44

like drug issue, like drug issue.

48:48

I hear like it's so good.

48:52

The this is one of my favorite like

48:56

because he comes in like so late

48:56

in the movie so and just bumbling and

49:02

just like like what a character to introduce

49:03

like a guy who's like,

49:07

I dunno, I'm an alcoholic,

49:07

I can't do this.

49:10

I get on top of this, I got this and that.

49:13

It's it's, it's a great character

49:13

introduction and I am a huge fan.

49:17

Dustin Hoffman in this movie

49:17

and then George Georgiadis,

49:21

I've never seen him before, but he plays

49:23

hotdog vendor and I wanted to give him a little shout out

49:24

because that scene when they show him

49:28

like walking into the courthouse

49:28

and they give him, yeah, you know,

49:31

his like his justice with that narration,

49:31

like we never saw him as a man.

49:35

We just saw him as a free lunch and

49:35

we didn't know about the family back home.

49:39

I just I really, really love that. I love the

49:41

this is

49:41

this is a movie about the sleepers,

49:44

but it is painting a perfect portrait

49:44

of this whole neighborhood

49:48

like, Yes, yes, we get it. So. Well, we understand,

49:49

like may never been to Hell's Kitchen,

49:53

New York, but we understand how important

49:53

these square blocks are to this group.

49:57

And and he does so much with no dialog.

50:00

Yeah. Like in that scene where he's

50:01

when the kids are looking at him

50:04

and he's looking at them, there's like

50:04

I to me I kind of took that is like, okay,

50:09

you may have just destroyed my livelihood

50:09

in a way, like destroyed my, my heart.

50:15

But none of this was worth

50:15

what we're both here for today.

50:19

Like me chasing him didn't need to happen.

50:21

Yeah, like Justin you had. But then there's also, like,

50:22

there's doesn't seem to be any anger.

50:26

Like, there's anger, right? He's right when he's chasing in, but not.

50:29

Not right now. And that's such a nice choice because,

50:30

like, that's like, it'd be so easy

50:34

for him to see the kids and just be like,

50:34

you motherfuckers like this.

50:38

This is all your fault

50:38

and everything. Yeah.

50:40

And to give him the scene of him

50:40

on the stand, my livelihood is ruined

50:44

and all that stuff, which I'm not,

50:44

you know, he would have been entitled to.

50:47

But we've seen that so many,

50:47

so many times. Yeah.

50:49

Just giving us that look and some really

50:49

empathic narration from sheiks.

50:54

You're like, Shit, yeah, he is a human being. These people out here serving our food,

50:56

serving us food, they are human beings.

51:00

Yeah, they have families. Yeah. Yeah. And conversely, in the chase,

51:01

when they're looking at each other

51:05

from across the street and he's got that

51:05

and there's the voiceover

51:08

shakes, he's got that

51:08

like you probably know it better,

51:12

but he's like, He looks like he could go

51:12

like ten more blocks.

51:15

Yeah,

51:15

just on hate alone. Just on hate alone.

51:18

That was it. Yeah. Yeah. And. And you and

51:20

and then see necessarily hate in the eyes.

51:22

But I saw conviction like,

51:22

what are you doing.

51:25

Because I'm going to be going to and like

51:27

what a great line

51:27

to, to just mirror that on.

51:31

it's so good. A lot of those best lines are plucked

51:32

like straight out of the book.

51:35

And it's just that's what I recommend. You know, it's not it's not a book

51:36

that's like in rotation a lot.

51:40

You know, we'll be able to do the coveted I should say coveted.

51:44

You know, you said your book for bit

51:47

coveted the hotly desired Sleepers

51:47

audiobook is not out there.

51:51

Tell you what's not desire

51:51

these fucking guards.

51:55

First off, I'm going to do Lenny

51:55

Lofton, a Steeler actor.

51:59

I never actor I don't know much about.

52:01

They may have Jeffrey Donovan

52:01

as Henry Edison, who was not

52:05

well known when this movie was made,

52:05

but he went on to star in Burn Notice.

52:08

He was in chains. yeah. Says yeah,

52:10

He wears the thick glasses in Sicario.

52:13

You know, he's kind of a badass. Terry Kinney shows up as Ralph Ferguson.

52:17

Ferguson? He's

52:17

what a great character actor.

52:20

I think his best role and probably his most famous one was as

52:22

I was in Oz, the HBO show

52:26

right after this, where he's actually

52:26

playing like a counselor to the prisoners

52:30

and he's trying to help them,

52:30

which is not his role in sleepers.

52:34

No, the head of the guards is Kevin Bacon

52:34

playing one.

52:38

Sean Noakes.

52:40

Kevin Bacon. He was in, of course, Friday the 13th.

52:44

But his first breakout is major breakout

52:44

role was in Barry Levinson's Diner,

52:49

goes on to be in Footloose,

52:49

Quicksilver, Tremors,

52:52

Flatliners, JFK, A Few Good Men.

52:55

The air up there, The River Wilde Murder

52:55

in the first Apollo 13.

53:00

When I saw sleepers,

53:00

I was pretty much meeting the guy

53:03

from Footloose Tremors

53:03

and the air up there.

53:07

And he is really nice guys

53:07

in all of those movies.

53:10

And I was like, Well,

53:10

I probably had the Apollo scene.

53:14

Apollo 13, It's a small part.

53:16

We're going to talk a lot about Noakes

53:16

as we go.

53:19

I just don't know

53:19

where this character came from.

53:21

I haven't seen him do anything like this

53:21

before or since.

53:24

There were some really heavy hitters

53:24

considered for this role.

53:27

We have Willem Dafoe, Gary Sinise, J.T.

53:31

Walsh, John Travolta,

53:31

and here he is, Ray Liotta.

53:36

Wow. I like all of those actors.

53:39

Kevin Bacon is the least likely choice

53:39

among them and therefore, yeah.

53:45

CS Is it

53:45

the best in does just does something,

53:48

I mean, just to complete,

53:48

what do you call it, such stunt casting,

53:52

but like a role reversal

53:52

for what we're used to him

53:54

as and he's gone on to play like villains

53:54

and stuff.

53:57

He's on a show City on the Hill.

53:59

I watched the first season, I fell off it. He's a crooked cop and that he was in that

54:04

movie

54:04

Cop car like where those villains are.

54:06

These are big these are big villains. Noakes is not a big villain.

54:09

He's so menacing and terrifying,

54:09

and everything he does is in the shadows.

54:14

It's hushed

54:14

when a priest is coming to say hi.

54:17

Yeah, Make sure we don't talk about this. You know, everything's it's

54:19

not it's not a loud performance at all.

54:22

That's what makes it so terrifying. I like the way you just said

54:24

that about the loudness,

54:26

because the note that I had, like that

54:26

there's just so many.

54:30

But the one is,

54:30

what is it about his voice in this movie

54:36

that it's it's

54:36

something that like you just hear it

54:40

and it sounds pure evil because he's he's

54:40

he doesn't

54:44

have he's not putting on some type

54:44

of like idea of a performance of like

54:49

it's like, I don't know, like this idea

54:51

of like a menacing type of like heavy,

54:55

thick, deep voice,

54:55

like the devil or something like that.

54:59

It's yeah, this very not high pitched,

54:59

but it's some

55:04

it doesn't even sound like, like

55:07

there's no there's this is a weird thing.

55:09

There's no masculinity behind it in a way.

55:09

Yeah.

55:12

It's, it's, you know, your time here

55:12

hadn't taught you shit.

55:15

It's almost like.

55:17

Come on, guys, stop. Yeah, Stop fucking around here. Like,

55:19

stop doing it.

55:22

He's not, like,

55:22

yelling. There's no better.

55:24

No, that's what makes him so scary.

55:26

Even the first time. See him, like he's got the. He's got the cigaret.

55:29

He's always spinning the baton, but he's standing in front

55:31

of the door and you're like, I mean,

55:34

it can like, how bad could this be?

55:36

Like the guy who starts the cafeteria food

55:36

fight, dash me hawk meal.

55:42

Yes. Name who's been in a ton of stuff.

55:44

Like he's a great character actor. He's an yeah, I've always loved him.

55:47

He starts a fight, that dude. I mean, maybe if all four guards get on

55:49

that guy at once, it's a different story.

55:54

But that guy against Sean Nokes is.

55:57

That's why he's like, he's kind of he's

55:57

like, All right, go back to your room.

56:01

You're done with lunch.

56:01

That's how Nokes talks to him.

56:03

You know, he's not trying to bully him

56:03

because he can.

56:05

He can't. Nokes very, very deliberately picks

56:06

the smallest person.

56:10

Who's John in the whole fucking in Wilkinson,

56:11

Like he picks the smallest one on purpose.

56:15

This is all. This is what these predators do.

56:18

This is how they do it. You know, pluck them out.

56:20

And yeah, there's it's just not a

56:20

a masculine macho performance.

56:25

It's it's not like a sweaty, drunk

56:25

hulk out working out.

56:29

It's why the medicine's there is because

56:29

this could just be fucking anybody.

56:34

Like it could be. Yeah. You don't. This dude does not look crazy.

56:37

If you look at him, he doesn't know.

56:39

I remember even one point. I just close my eyes

56:41

during, like, a part of his speech.

56:45

I couldn't shake it. I was like. Like, even though I've seen the movie

56:47

and I know, like, the

56:50

the atrocities

56:50

that his character is about to do,

56:53

but it's like, why is this voice

56:53

just like, gnawing at me?

56:57

So I close my eyes and to take it in

56:57

and it was just I was like,

57:01

This is so uncomfortable and like,

57:01

so disturbing,

57:05

but in the most compelling of ways,

57:05

which is why, like, this character's

57:09

so I almost don't know,

57:09

How do you do this?

57:13

Yeah, because it's so disturbing.

57:16

Yet you can't not look at him.

57:20

You actually you actually can't

57:20

take your eyes off of him.

57:24

That is so disturbing about it. Yeah. Since he just walks into a room,

57:26

you're like, God, here it comes.

57:30

Like, Yeah, but then yeah,

57:30

you're so compelled to look at.

57:33

I'm like, What is this guy

57:33

going to do? Like, what's he going to do?

57:35

And I think it's very easy to kind of play

57:38

a character like this in a way that's

57:42

almost so disturbing that you're you're

57:45

looking away as opposed to being drawn in,

57:45

which is crazy

57:49

because you are you're drawn in to like,

57:49

what is he going to do?

57:53

What is he going to say? That's a that's a really a testament to

57:55

how Kevin Bacon pulled this off so well.

58:00

And because we wouldn't be talking

58:00

about a character like this with such

58:05

almost like praise in a way

58:05

because of of how disturbing he made it.

58:11

But it's so compelling to watch like it's

58:11

crazy.

58:14

He's he's he's excellent. He's like an excellent he really is

58:16

of just a few others from the cast,

58:20

James Pickens Jr plays the nice

58:20

black guard who comes and saves the day.

58:26

yeah, I love that little bit.

58:26

Love that. Yeah, that's great.

58:28

Yeah. John Slattery shows up as a teacher. Yup.

58:32

These characters like that, like,

58:32

I just want to say about them,

58:36

like they're giving us the reprieve.

58:38

They're giving these boys. Yes, I'm a breath of fresh air

58:43

while they're just being suffocated

58:43

by these oppressors and.

58:47

And these physical assailants. So

58:50

they are met with some decency by men.

58:54

Decency in men in in this place

58:54

with these two characters right here.

58:59

And those are really jarring, too. Not everyone in Wilkinson is a monster

59:00

like the teacher gives him, you know,

59:05

the copy of The Count of Monte Cristo,

59:05

which he still has all those years later.

59:08

Like it means. Yeah, yeah, yeah,

59:11

Huge cast of characters. And again,

59:13

this is what the movie was sold on.

59:15

But now that we've introduced everyone,

59:15

let's start to dig into the movie itself

59:20

because we open in Hell's

59:20

Kitchen Summer 1966.

59:25

We already mentioned

59:25

I made a note that I love the

59:28

The teMber of Jason Patrick's voiceover

59:28

because it's just so he's

59:32

got like a subtle New York accent

59:32

that just barely pokes through.

59:36

But then it's

59:36

it can be very matter of fact.

59:38

It's like even when he's talking about the abuse, there's no he's not going up and down

59:40

like an emotional register.

59:44

And I appreciate that. It's like it's it's obviously

59:45

shakes his story but he's presenting it

59:49

kind of like a journalist would, which, you know, I know he's

59:51

what his character's trying to aspire to.

59:55

So an all timer voiceover to me, for sure,

59:55

I like that

59:58

you use that word again that I was looking

59:58

for earlier timber, that's what.

1:00:02

okay. Okay. Yeah, I use the word with an olive.

1:00:05

I think it's

1:00:05

because yeah, the reason we get introduced

1:00:09

to the core group of friends,

1:00:09

we got shakes Michael, Tom, Little John.

1:00:13

We meet the young hit

1:00:13

priest played by Robert De Niro.

1:00:16

I love the bit with the nuns clicker

1:00:16

all folic it and under such easy targets.

1:00:21

This is such a genuinely earnest character

1:00:21

This is just Robert De Niro.

1:00:26

Good guy. There's nothing shitty about this guy.

1:00:29

I love him again. I think it's crazy.

1:00:32

This was his first collaboration

1:00:32

with Barry Levinson.

1:00:34

But this is a priest who smoke cigarets

1:00:34

who plays basketball, who,

1:00:38

you know, is understands

1:00:38

the danger that goes on

1:00:42

in his neighborhood, but

1:00:42

is also just trying to lend a helping hand

1:00:46

when he can,

1:00:46

even when he finds out like the shakes.

1:00:49

And John were listening. The women's confession,

1:00:50

it's just like hysterical.

1:00:53

He just makes him do work. He's not he's not punished

1:00:54

with, like, terrible stuff.

1:00:57

He knows that the street could eat them

1:00:57

alive and he's trying to save from that.

1:01:01

Father Robert Carillo was a longshoreman

1:01:01

son who was as comfortable sitting on a

1:01:05

barstool in a back alley saloon as he was

1:01:05

standing at the altar during time,

1:01:08

as he had toyed the life of petty crime

1:01:08

before finding his calling.

1:01:13

Who's a friend? A friend? He just happened to be a priest.

1:01:15

Crap like that does to your body. Come my father.

1:01:18

That smoke

1:01:18

and it's just such a good, good man.

1:01:23

Like it's. It's really wonderful to watch

1:01:24

DeNiro do this.

1:01:26

I love him in this movie. Yeah. Yeah.

1:01:29

De Niro as Father Bobby steps in to be

1:01:33

a sort of surrogate father

1:01:33

in some ways for shakes because,

1:01:37

yeah, Bruno Kirby is just,

1:01:37

you know, all sorts of bad.

1:01:40

And then the other surrogate

1:01:40

father is King Benny.

1:01:43

King Benny is an ex hitman for Lucky

1:01:43

Luciano.

1:01:46

That's a tough job. And so we're getting to know him.

1:01:49

We're getting to see

1:01:49

the boys come to work for King Benny,

1:01:52

the beginning of this movie very much

1:01:55

is cut and assembled in movies

1:01:55

like, say, Goodfellas.

1:01:59

And I get it. I was going to say, Yeah, I'm

1:02:00

okay with it.

1:02:02

We, you know, in this podcast,

1:02:02

I think we've talked so much

1:02:06

about all of the Pulp Fiction imitators

1:02:06

that came out in the wake of that film.

1:02:11

Goodfellas was first

1:02:11

like after Goodfellas.

1:02:13

I mean, the

1:02:13

the wave of shitty crime movies

1:02:17

inspired by Goodfellas in the nineties.

1:02:20

That was a real thing. And if you want to if some people were

1:02:21

to write sleepers off as that, I hear you.

1:02:26

I think this is the best version.

1:02:29

A Goodfellas imitation to me.

1:02:31

It's the community. Yeah. Yeah. It's the it's you're what you're doing

1:02:36

this whole entire time is

1:02:36

you're getting to on in the voiceover.

1:02:39

It really helps you as you're getting

1:02:39

to know the way of life in Hell's Kitchen.

1:02:44

This is at the time, this is what people

1:02:44

were like, this is how things were.

1:02:49

I actually really appreciate how they talked about the domestic abuse

1:02:51

in all the families.

1:02:55

Like you were saying to your point

1:02:55

about Bruno Kirby, you know, but

1:02:58

the way that everyone this is how it was

1:02:58

you know, it wasn't just about.

1:03:02

Kirby. Yeah, No. no. Kirby doing this.

1:03:05

This is all these families. This is how they are.

1:03:08

And it's always kind of amazing to me

1:03:08

in a movie, in any movie

1:03:13

where, you know,

1:03:13

you only have a chunk of time

1:03:17

to show case the world

1:03:20

and how well can you actually articulate

1:03:24

and present this world

1:03:24

to where the audience receives it.

1:03:28

And it feels like they know it,

1:03:28

like they get it.

1:03:32

And this movie does that. Like I really felt like I

1:03:33

this movie just absolutely cooks like it.

1:03:37

Just, yeah, guys, it does that

1:03:37

I never once known as time at all.

1:03:41

It just it's like this flying machine

1:03:41

just goes.

1:03:45

So all of that is to also say

1:03:45

that within a certain amount of time

1:03:49

I feel like

1:03:49

I know what this environment is or

1:03:52

this world is like and I'm in it

1:03:52

and I don't know how you do that.

1:03:56

Like, think about it. Like you have like establishing shots,

1:04:01

very quick scenes with these characters

1:04:01

in, out, in, out, in, out.

1:04:05

And then you got a voiceover on a script.

1:04:08

Those are just the actions in the words,

1:04:08

how you actually communicate that.

1:04:13

And it works like,

1:04:13

I don't know, I just don't know.

1:04:16

Yeah, this was assembled by Stu Linder

1:04:16

and we're going

1:04:20

to get to some more of his credits. But it does it absolutely moves your cooking along,

1:04:22

especially in these early scenes.

1:04:25

The music's blaring. We get the pop music,

1:04:27

you know, Walk Like a Man,

1:04:29

which is going to come back around. I love Anna.

1:04:31

At the end of this

1:04:31

first little block of time

1:04:34

is when they're all playing basketball

1:04:34

and De Niro

1:04:37

explains the Sistine Chapel and how long

1:04:37

it took Michelangelo to paint it.

1:04:40

And John goes, Hey, Father, how

1:04:40

long did it take me to paint and ceiling?

1:04:44

It took him about nine years.

1:04:46

Nine years? That's right.

1:04:49

I had a Puerto Rican guy

1:04:49

do my whole apartment two days,

1:04:52

and he had a bum like,

1:04:52

I don't want to do it, you guys.

1:04:55

And he had a bum leg. Yeah, but yeah,

1:04:59

that man talking about,

1:04:59

you know, the influence, like the danger,

1:05:03

the danger of Hell's Kitchen, but how also

1:05:03

everyone looks out for each other.

1:05:08

Winter, 1967. The first scene we get is Robert De Niro

1:05:09

threatening

1:05:13

this massive guy

1:05:13

who just beat the shit out of Little John.

1:05:17

And this is just an Alzheimer's

1:05:17

scene for me.

1:05:20

I mean, the way De Niro carries himself

1:05:20

with so much confidence and you see,

1:05:24

you kind of see that flash like Jake

1:05:24

LaMotta come back, you know,

1:05:27

He's like, Yeah, you all need

1:05:27

you'll need a you all need a doctor.

1:05:30

You need a priest to pray over your body. I love that scene.

1:05:34

it's it's really, really good. And it it's yeah,

1:05:35

because the guy is so big.

1:05:39

It is. It is also, you know, kind of like

1:05:39

for that other actor to, like, he

1:05:43

you know, he's probably not used to being

1:05:43

called out on this because he does not

1:05:47

he does not get defense. He does not like,

1:05:49

you know, like stand up to De Niro.

1:05:52

He just kind of like almost like shrinks

1:05:52

in a way, because he was just sort of like

1:05:56

how much you figure he weighs,

1:05:56

you know, £80.

1:05:59

You're a big guy. Like, he like the guy

1:06:01

doesn't look like he's stupid.

1:06:03

He doesn't realize what he's getting at,

1:06:03

but he's just sort of like,

1:06:06

yeah, you know, he's backing

1:06:06

away, cowering almost to DeNiro, who,

1:06:11

as you

1:06:11

said, like, I'm I'm not as big as you, but

1:06:14

I'm also not £85

1:06:14

and you're going to have a real problem.

1:06:17

This happens again.

1:06:17

Like it's just so good.

1:06:21

What do you about to 20 to 30?

1:06:23

Yeah. You're a big guy.

1:06:26

How much you think John riding? With

1:06:28

80, 85, that's not even a featherweight.

1:06:32

This were a fight. You'd be way out in division

1:06:36

Slap. It was nothing.

1:06:39

And next time you'll be meeting me.

1:06:41

And I may not be in your division,

1:06:41

but I do weigh more than £85.

1:06:46

And you need a doctor when I'm done. You need a priest

1:06:50

to pray over your body.

1:06:53

I love it. And just that smile on his face,

1:06:54

it's like, Yeah, he.

1:06:57

He intimidates the big guy. He intimidates the boy.

1:06:59

He stands up to him like, All right. Yeah, I'm not, you know,

1:07:03

I'm not in your division,

1:07:03

but I do weigh more than £80.

1:07:06

That's what it was. So good. Yeah.

1:07:08

And then we jump again

1:07:08

to the summer of 1967.

1:07:12

The temperature topped out

1:07:12

at 98 degrees on the day.

1:07:17

Our lives were forever altered.

1:07:19

We have this great tragic five minute

1:07:19

set piece of the hotdog vendor sequence.

1:07:25

And for group city kids,

1:07:25

it's it's a pretty solid scam.

1:07:30

It just sucks. They have apparently been doing it

1:07:30

to this one guy like overdeliver.

1:07:34

But the scam is simple sheiks or whomever.

1:07:37

But today it's going to be shakes, goes

1:07:37

to a hotdog vendor,

1:07:40

orders

1:07:40

one hotdog and runs off without paying.

1:07:44

The vendor then has two options.

1:07:46

They can accept the loss of the hotdog

1:07:46

or he can chase after shakes

1:07:51

a abandoning his cart, leaving the other

1:07:51

three boys to feast in his absence.

1:07:56

It's a fun scam. It gets underway, a chase begins.

1:08:00

But Michael thinks it's a good idea

1:08:00

to move the carts that with them

1:08:04

so that when the vendor comes back carts

1:08:04

in a different place,

1:08:07

things get way out of control. The cart is held over a subway staircase,

1:08:09

cart slips, thunders down the stairs.

1:08:14

That is a great scene

1:08:14

when they're just cutting back

1:08:16

and forth between the slow motion.

1:08:18

Then you get movement

1:08:18

how loud that cart is going.

1:08:21

You're like, yeah, it would be the sound

1:08:21

o loud and the echo would just go and go.

1:08:27

And you're like, my God. And then, yeah,

1:08:28

you see it Smash an innocent businessman

1:08:32

at the end of the kind of train platform

1:08:32

at the bottom of the stairs.

1:08:35

And that great matter of fact delivery

1:08:35

from Jason Patric via voiceover.

1:08:40

To this day, I don't know why we did it.

1:08:42

And yeah, I can just hear like I did

1:08:42

dumb shit when I was a kid.

1:08:46

I didn't do anything like this, but I did dumb shit like I look back

1:08:47

even the next day, let alone later.

1:08:51

And I'm like,

1:08:51

What the hell were you thinking, man?

1:08:54

What was that? I mean, that's what that's

1:08:54

what time gives us.

1:08:57

But they say, like, it's

1:08:57

like one of the hottest days of the year.

1:09:00

You can actually feel like the heat

1:09:00

and looks this haunted.

1:09:04

It does even just like the lived

1:09:04

in reality of Zen like on the roof.

1:09:09

You know, in that one is they're talking

1:09:09

they're on something.

1:09:13

Yeah they're on the roof, right?

1:09:13

Yeah, they're on the roof.

1:09:15

And it just makes you think like that's

1:09:15

just what kids did.

1:09:18

Like, like there's nowhere to go. Worse plane on the roof.

1:09:20

I love that. Also, like, it's.

1:09:22

It's kind of stereotypical,

1:09:22

but it's like the broken fire

1:09:25

hydrant and it's playing

1:09:25

cool themselves down.

1:09:29

Yeah. Planes people Yeah but that's what

1:09:32

and all the adults are like now

1:09:32

The kids are fine. They're just playing.

1:09:34

This is what they do. Yeah. Like there's this very laid back

1:09:35

community again.

1:09:38

But you're getting

1:09:38

all that in the scene and.

1:09:41

Yeah. And then, and then for the chase to actually start like the

1:09:43

What is that really cool.

1:09:46

Like that slow motion that the movie never

1:09:46

looks like this again.

1:09:51

I don't even know

1:09:51

what kind of it's like a filter

1:09:53

almost that they put on the guy,

1:09:53

the hotdog vendor chasing shakes.

1:09:59

It's got I know. I mean, it's

1:10:00

definitely like an in-camera trick.

1:10:02

It's like they jacking the shutter speed,

1:10:02

but then ran it in slow motion

1:10:06

or something. I don't know. But yeah, really cool.

1:10:07

Like in-camera tricks.

1:10:09

It's just like in the cinematographer,

1:10:09

Michael Ballhaus.

1:10:12

It's just like in his bag.

1:10:12

This guy shot Color of Money. Yeah.

1:10:15

Goodfellas. Like this dude, like, knows

1:10:16

how to do cool stuff, but not it's not

1:10:20

an effect

1:10:20

we're seeing over and over throughout

1:10:22

movie versus just using it right now. Even slow motion is not done a lot,

1:10:23

only in very, very key sequences

1:10:28

and I love that. But yeah, it's a really cool

1:10:30

fact like, cool, now we got this

1:10:30

like chase sequence in the middle

1:10:33

of this kind of movie and there's fun

1:10:33

music playing and it's cool.

1:10:36

This is fun until it's not,

1:10:36

but until it's not.

1:10:39

And that's exactly my next point is like the tone

1:10:43

change going from like it's

1:10:43

very beat by beat.

1:10:47

Like it's fun. And then as soon as Michael gets the idea

1:10:48

to move the car,

1:10:54

like we all as the audience are like,

1:10:54

No, we really needed to go here.

1:10:58

I mean, it's

1:10:58

what's one step too far, You know,

1:11:02

the gag is already happening and

1:11:02

they're like, Yeah, all right, all right.

1:11:05

Now they're doing it. And and so now we're building that tension

1:11:06

and then now they're near the subway

1:11:13

and you're like, Guys, you're

1:11:13

now you're in a really crowded area.

1:11:16

Like, What are you doing? What Do you do? And then like what?

1:11:20

Like do did they think that they were.

1:11:22

yeah, like again, like his voiceover.

1:11:25

It's like to this day, don't know why we did it. Because you're not thinking like,

1:11:26

why would you even try to do that?

1:11:30

I guess the idea is

1:11:30

if they hold it over the edge

1:11:33

instead of the guy coming

1:11:33

in, like the vendor coming in, tackling

1:11:37

or B or like being,

1:11:37

stay here till the cops get here,

1:11:40

he's going to have no choice

1:11:40

but to grab the cart.

1:11:43

But I guess

1:11:43

they think their eight young hands

1:11:46

are strong, as strong as two adult hands,

1:11:46

and they're not.

1:11:50

And it just it just slips

1:11:50

out of their hands like that.

1:11:52

As John as Little John says,

1:11:52

these carts are heavier than shit.

1:11:55

And yeah, we tried to hold it

1:11:55

over a steep staircase.

1:11:59

That's what happens. But man, I will. I'll just never forget the first time

1:12:01

seeing this and hearing the sound of that hot car.

1:12:05

And it also looks really scary. Just it looks terrifying out

1:12:07

every like flying.

1:12:10

Yeah, everything's flying it, but. And you don't even know

1:12:12

if it's going to hit someone. But it just it's a terrifying image.

1:12:16

Straight on

1:12:16

and it's just brilliant filmmaking.

1:12:18

Just a nice little slice of like brilliant

1:12:18

filmmaking right here in the

1:12:21

middle of the movie. The plan, as it

1:12:24

turned out, was as simple

1:12:24

and as dumb as anything we had ever done.

1:12:27

We were to hold the cart at the top

1:12:27

edge of the stairwell,

1:12:30

leaning it downward

1:12:30

and wait for the vendor.

1:12:32

We were to let it go. The second he grabbed the handles,

1:12:34

then we'd leave the scene as he struggled

1:12:34

to ease the cart back on the sidewalk.

1:12:38

To this day, I don't know why we did it,

1:12:38

but we would all pay a price.

1:12:43

It only took a minute,

1:12:43

but in that minute everything changed

1:12:48

and I can

1:12:53

I wonder. I wonder how many takes

1:12:54

because there's so many cuts

1:12:57

and so many different angles

1:12:57

that they're capturing this hot dog

1:13:01

and this this hot dog stand

1:13:01

falling down these stairs where like,

1:13:05

you know, they just couldn't have been one take. So how many carts did they get?

1:13:08

How how much did they have to clean

1:13:08

up, do this again, get it from this angle,

1:13:12

get it from that. Like that's

1:13:12

that's a lot.

1:13:15

These are the stuff

1:13:15

that, like a commentary would be great for

1:13:18

just a little like whatever I'm

1:13:18

making of on that Blu ray.

1:13:22

Just something I don't

1:13:22

I would think $44,000,000.19 96

1:13:26

you might be able to get two or three

1:13:26

takes because you need a different card

1:13:29

every time. Yeah, two or three times. But I bet they had a lot of cameras

1:13:31

rolling. A lot of cameras.

1:13:34

You have to

1:13:34

so you can just catch it all and.

1:13:38

Yeah Yeah. And then just edit it. They probably in a lot of

1:13:39

footage were like, this is all looks good. Just put it all together,

1:13:41

put it all together.

1:13:44

But then this is yes,

1:13:44

this is the event that unfortunately,

1:13:49

well, directly after the event

1:13:49

we get Father Bobby consoling

1:13:52

shakes and again De Niro's just the way he's

1:13:53

so gentle with that actor and he's like,

1:13:57

you know, just smoking and, you know,

1:13:57

every door I try to open, it's get closed.

1:14:01

I can't I can't do anything. There's scenes between

1:14:05

DeNiro and Joe Perrineau Yeah, that are just

1:14:07

they have great chemistry, I think.

1:14:12

I think there's just a, there is a very honest vulnerability

1:14:13

that both of them get to in their scenes.

1:14:19

There's one coming up that we're about

1:14:19

to get to in the prison that I love.

1:14:23

Yeah, but like,

1:14:23

just when, when Farina says to me

1:14:26

it was, I don't want to face it, Father,

1:14:26

you know, like.

1:14:29

Like that. That's just the truth, man.

1:14:31

That's just like. Like, I don't want to go and do this thing

1:14:32

that I'm that I have to do in DeNiro's.

1:14:37

It's like, you got to face it. Like you have to, because if you keep

1:14:39

running, you run the rest of your life.

1:14:42

You might think when you're 12 or 13,

1:14:42

I can outrun this.

1:14:45

But my God, you've never been

1:14:45

out of Hell's Kitchen.

1:14:48

You're not running anywhere. The court case does not go their way.

1:14:51

I like that. They kind of breeze through it. We're going to get to a court case.

1:14:54

So we breezed through this one,

1:14:54

but they're off to the Wilkinson

1:14:57

home for boys for 12 to 18 months

1:14:57

and is more than enough time

1:15:02

to destroy a few lives as soon as they are

1:15:02

out of the neighborhood.

1:15:06

The pop music stops. It's been kind of wall to wall pop music,

1:15:08

which I've loved up until then,

1:15:12

and now it stops. And now the even the temperature

1:15:13

of the colors changed.

1:15:15

It's not all sweaty in Hell's Kitchen.

1:15:18

It's cold, ice, cold and blues.

1:15:21

The blues, the very, very deep blues.

1:15:23

We've already talked about Kevin Bacon

1:15:23

as folks bit, but in terms of that,

1:15:28

the banality of evil. I see there's

1:15:30

I don't know what makes Knox tick.

1:15:33

I don't know where he's come from. It's

1:15:33

Yeah.

1:15:36

my God. Again,

1:15:36

just the hair is parted in such a way.

1:15:39

There's a coldness

1:15:39

and a blankness to his eyes.

1:15:43

It's so terrifying. Even the way that he smokes is terrifying.

1:15:46

In I found some trivia.

1:15:49

I just love this that he's playing

1:15:49

a very tense, scary person on screen

1:15:54

that as soon as they called cut,

1:15:54

he would just like throwing

1:15:57

footballs with the boys and stuff

1:15:57

and like playing around with them

1:16:00

and just being really, really cool with him. Not staying like method at all.

1:16:04

And I love that. I mean, if you just take that opening

1:16:05

scene, the introduction of him

1:16:09

through like, that's the thing.

1:16:09

You don't even see his body.

1:16:12

You just see his face. And and again, you're like,

1:16:13

How bad can this be?

1:16:16

This the guy from Footloose

1:16:16

and then, you know, take off your clothes

1:16:19

and it's like, okay, well,

1:16:19

this is can be kind of normal.

1:16:22

No, all of it. And you're like, Yeah, why?

1:16:26

And man. And there's a moment and it's so gross.

1:16:30

It's so fucking gross. But like, when he's naked

1:16:31

and you can see his eyes dip down.

1:16:37

yeah. In, in that moment,

1:16:37

there's like, actual desire, like,

1:16:41

right then and there and, you know,

1:16:41

you just kind of, I mean, but that's the

1:16:45

that's the fucking commitment

1:16:45

of that character like that.

1:16:48

That's his fucking truth

1:16:48

and it's fucking awful.

1:16:51

But like, he was not afraid to go there

1:16:51

a right away.

1:16:54

Yeah. And then. And then. And then you, you,

1:16:56

you'd have to shake it off.

1:16:58

Okay, well, fuck it. And, you know, let's

1:16:59

go do something else right now.

1:17:02

Yeah, we're going to, you know,

1:17:02

as we get to the section,

1:17:04

we're going to start to talk about

1:17:04

some not very pleasant things.

1:17:08

But yeah,

1:17:08

you see an acknowledgment in his eyes of.

1:17:13

Here's my new toy for my friends and I

1:17:15

and that I don't enjoy saying these words

1:17:15

but that that's what's going on here.

1:17:19

We don't necessarily know that yet,

1:17:19

but we're like, all right, what is this?

1:17:22

You know? And then we get though,

1:17:22

yeah, you get it, though.

1:17:25

You get this

1:17:25

some very sinister thing going on here.

1:17:28

Yeah. Yeah. It's something that's just not right.

1:17:30

Like this is not right. And, like,

1:17:30

what are you doing?

1:17:33

Yeah. Who? And then they have the,

1:17:34

you know, the food fight of sorts.

1:17:38

Not really a food fight. It's just a fight in the cafeteria.

1:17:41

They're told to eat off the floor

1:17:41

and kind of like, Man, this is gross.

1:17:45

I really hope

1:17:45

it doesn't get any worse than this.

1:17:48

And then, yeah, they were just down here

1:17:48

in this basement hallway and this scene.

1:17:54

I mean, keep in mind, I saw this movie.

1:17:54

I was alone.

1:17:56

First time I saw it, I was 11. I was very confused about

1:17:58

some of the words that were being chosen.

1:18:02

I didn't know what these things were

1:18:02

I was shocked.

1:18:06

I was terrified. The way we hear that chain banging against

1:18:07

a light bulb that's going to come back

1:18:12

as a motif, really for everyone involved,

1:18:12

the perpetrators and the victims.

1:18:17

It was also disconcerting. Yeah, this is the first scene of abuse.

1:18:21

And what I want to say

1:18:21

is that it's terrible

1:18:23

what is insinuated in this scene

1:18:23

and even words that are said.

1:18:26

But this is

1:18:26

this is a movie that's going there, Right?

1:18:29

So for going there and this is what it's

1:18:29

about, you, us, as much as I can tolerate.

1:18:35

And I appreciate it for that. That's that's all I can say,

1:18:36

that this could have gone so much worse.

1:18:40

It could be so much worse in what they do,

1:18:40

but they're there is a weird word

1:18:44

to say for sleepers,

1:18:44

but there is a restraint to

1:18:47

some of these scenes in terms of what

1:18:47

they don't show us, that we get it.

1:18:51

Everything that needs to be

1:18:51

said has been said.

1:18:54

We understand

1:18:54

it strikes a really good balance between

1:18:58

going there and then not like, yeah, it's not playing it

1:18:59

safe.

1:19:03

It's very,

1:19:03

very well handled for that material.

1:19:08

You've explained everything sufficiently. No one watching the movie has questions

1:19:09

about what these boys have suffered,

1:19:14

but we did not need to see it. We all understand what they suffered.

1:19:15

We don't need to see it.

1:19:18

And they're going to show us more

1:19:18

flashes later when they're flashbacks.

1:19:22

They are adults

1:19:22

that are that that's honestly

1:19:24

like some of the most positive stuff. Yeah. Yeah.

1:19:26

That's actually worse in a lot of ways.

1:19:29

Like at least. I mean, my viewing experience like this

1:19:29

got to me more as I

1:19:33

chronologically thought,

1:19:33

this is when Father Bobby shows up,

1:19:36

De Niro comes and visits Sheik and visits

1:19:36

shakes and even like bacon, like walking

1:19:42

down the stairs, going, you know, like,

1:19:42

let's just keep everything quiet here.

1:19:46

And you're like, And he's like,

1:19:46

staring at him through the window.

1:19:49

This is a very important scene. We already mentioned it,

1:19:51

but it's very important

1:19:51

for what's going to happen 15 years later,

1:19:54

because Father Bobby admits,

1:19:54

you know, that he and his friend

1:19:58

were sent here and it's a little bit

1:19:58

of a question to the movie.

1:20:02

I don't know if Father Bobby knows

1:20:02

what's going on in terms of the abuse.

1:20:07

He knows they're not having a good time. But does he know the extent it does

1:20:08

he know that guards are involved?

1:20:13

So basically, does this impact his decision later

1:20:14

to lie on the stand and departure?

1:20:18

There's a

1:20:18

there's a moment that I took from scene

1:20:21

where De Niro, like he's asking them,

1:20:21

like, is everything all right in here?

1:20:26

Like, what's going on? And Shakes is particularly in that moment,

1:20:27

not answering

1:20:30

de Niro, like looks up in like a way

1:20:30

and like his eyes

1:20:35

do that De Niro thing where he, like,

1:20:35

clinches him up and is like thinking

1:20:39

I in that moment I was sort of like,

1:20:39

is he thinking

1:20:44

that the worst that possible thing

1:20:44

could be happening right now?

1:20:48

Yeah. Yeah. And he de Niro has that great line

1:20:49

when he's talking about his friend

1:20:52

because he's going to visit his friend, you know, who's in actual prison

1:20:54

for committing a triple murder.

1:20:57

And he said this place killed him. It made him not care anymore.

1:21:00

And he is describing who young John

1:21:00

and Tom will turn into, that they're going

1:21:06

to become these powers who just don't

1:21:06

don't care about anything more.

1:21:09

And then because the personal story

1:21:09

I told earlier, there,

1:21:13

there are some scenes that really get

1:21:16

me from this movie

1:21:16

and they can just be lines of voiceover.

1:21:19

And when we see Ferguson

1:21:19

walking out of young John's room

1:21:24

and you kind of understand that

1:21:24

he's in a lot of bad stuff has gone on.

1:21:28

Jason Patrick says a number

1:21:28

of the inmates, as tough as they acted

1:21:32

during the day, would often cry themselves

1:21:32

to sleep at night.

1:21:36

There were other cries to

1:21:38

these differed from those filled

1:21:38

with fear and loneliness.

1:21:42

They were low and muffled,

1:21:42

the sounds of pained anguish.

1:21:46

Those cries can change the course

1:21:46

of a life.

1:21:49

Their cries that once heard

1:21:49

can never be erased from memory.

1:21:53

On this one night,

1:21:53

those cries belong to my friend John.

1:21:56

When Ralph Ferguson paid him a visit,

1:22:01

those cries can change

1:22:01

the course of the life.

1:22:03

Their cries that once heard

1:22:03

can never be erased from memory.

1:22:07

I a very, very good line. Very, very good line.

1:22:11

Slattery We just touched on Slattery,

1:22:11

but I do like that he shows up

1:22:15

and you do need that. You need like this

1:22:17

reprieve of like, there, there's

1:22:17

actually a good adult in this hell.

1:22:21

Like, it exists. Yes. Yeah.

1:22:24

And then we get to,

1:22:24

my God, it's this touch football sequence.

1:22:28

Because even the first time I saw this,

1:22:28

I didn't get satisfaction

1:22:32

watching it because I knew

1:22:32

what the repercussions were going to be.

1:22:36

I knew that even though all the sleepers

1:22:36

in Wilkinson, they recruit

1:22:42

this young star, Rizzo, played by Eugene

1:22:42

Bird, who was wink an eight mil.

1:22:47

He was also the kid in Dead Man. He's good actor, but he kind of like,

1:22:49

you know, runs stuff a little bit.

1:22:53

You know, the guards will miss them

1:22:53

physically, but all the guards are racist.

1:22:56

So the sleepers are four sleepers.

1:22:58

Convince Rizzo to basically like, we're

1:22:58

playing touch football with these guards.

1:23:02

Let's just beat the shit out of them and get a little for ourselves and it's,

1:23:08

I want to talk about the sequence because first I want to talk about how you feel about,

1:23:09

like, how it looks because it's very like blue

1:23:11

and overexposed and all that stuff.

1:23:15

It's almost like a music video of that.

1:23:18

Yeah, it reminds me of like, it's

1:23:18

very experimental, It's very,

1:23:24

very choppy, very kind of like,

1:23:27

just get these images and they're moving,

1:23:30

but they're not moving at the normal rate

1:23:30

of like how things are.

1:23:34

It's almost like a flipbook

1:23:34

in, a way you understand that this was

1:23:39

a very significant moment for everything,

1:23:39

like it was this in the big moments.

1:23:43

It was a significant moment for the boys

1:23:43

as, as in the voiceover and all of those

1:23:48

flashing clips where they're like,

1:23:48

We're taking this back for us.

1:23:52

And you get that the guards,

1:23:52

like they're humiliated.

1:23:57

Yeah, and, and just getting the shit

1:23:57

kicked out of them.

1:24:01

So it's a cool way to as opposed

1:24:01

to let's just film

1:24:06

this like, touch football thing

1:24:06

and actually show it this way.

1:24:09

Like, let's just go a different direction.

1:24:12

And because it's fast to like,

1:24:15

what do we need to get

1:24:15

and how do we just evoke emotion?

1:24:19

I like that this movie kind of does that, that it's the only time

1:24:20

the movie ever breaks away from its.

1:24:23

Yeah,

1:24:23

the look that it's set up for itself.

1:24:26

Very true and it the only time it does

1:24:26

it again is when they're having those

1:24:30

like abuse flashbacks

1:24:30

to be used to have sex and yeah

1:24:33

it makes those I'm

1:24:33

glad they did that for those flashbacks

1:24:36

and then we've already been introduced

1:24:36

this technique and I'm like okay, cool.

1:24:40

I get why they did that. And yeah, you're right. Like the camera is moving,

1:24:42

but everything's kind of shot from like

1:24:44

a low angle and there's usually only one

1:24:44

or two people in the frame at once.

1:24:48

But yeah, you know, tough scene,

1:24:48

tough resolution to the scene they

1:24:52

throw at these poor kids.

1:24:52

These are teenagers.

1:24:54

I mean, they've thrown them

1:24:54

in solitary confinement.

1:24:56

There's rats everywhere. And then they do pay a huge price

1:24:58

for the game.

1:25:01

I mean, Rizzo is killed. And then I just want to say this is

1:25:06

a point of I just want to call out

1:25:06

that the bruising

1:25:09

they have on their face in the hospital,

1:25:09

the yellow bruising, is so accurate.

1:25:16

I never see movies get that right, that

1:25:16

just before your bruise heals, especially

1:25:22

a big face bruise, it turns that

1:25:22

like yellow puke, green color.

1:25:26

It's very strange. But so basically that insinuates

1:25:27

that they've been

1:25:30

they've been down there in solitary

1:25:30

or in the hospital for a long time.

1:25:35

It takes a long time

1:25:35

for a wound like that to heal

1:25:39

when they're not done. They have that really heartbreaking scene

1:25:40

where the four of them talk

1:25:44

about how they're never going

1:25:44

to talk about this again.

1:25:47

This is going to bury as deep as it goes.

1:25:49

And I thought, I'm

1:25:49

going to bring this up later.

1:25:52

But I think that's true. I don't think any four of these guys

1:25:55

have ever talked about this,

1:25:55

even though they're hanging out.

1:25:58

I don't think it has been buried. I think the first time all of this is

1:26:00

brought up again is when John goes

1:26:05

and sits at that bar next to Billy Crudup

1:26:05

and says, look over there.

1:26:08

I I think it's the first time

1:26:08

Nokes has been mentioned.

1:26:12

WILKINSON All of it. So it's buried.

1:26:14

And yeah, I don't think that

1:26:14

that those two because obviously

1:26:20

they're the ones who have stayed in touch

1:26:20

because they're the killers.

1:26:23

I do not that they have talked about that.

1:26:25

I don't think that's something that they commiserate about then I think

1:26:26

that's certainly nothing that they have

1:26:30

talked about healthily in a way like,

1:26:30

hey, let's be there for each other.

1:26:34

Maybe in a way

1:26:34

that Patrick and Pitt's characters

1:26:37

kind of allude to that like,

1:26:37

maybe I'll need a friend.

1:26:40

I don't think the other two did that. And I think you're right.

1:26:42

Like as soon as they see Nokes, it's

1:26:45

you're the only person I can say this

1:26:45

to go over it and look who that is.

1:26:49

But and that's why they both

1:26:49

just know what needs to happen next.

1:26:53

Yeah. And the final scene, Wilkinson,

1:26:54

is it's so disturbing how like you're

1:26:59

you're back in the hallway because it's

1:26:59

you know it shakes is last night

1:27:03

and these guards are just like arguing

1:27:03

about

1:27:05

fucking work work and their bosses

1:27:05

and it's like it's so evil again.

1:27:09

It's nothing. Yeah, just small talk on her way to,

1:27:11

like horrific abuse.

1:27:14

my God. It's terrible. It's. It's really tragic that those kids, like,

1:27:16

have that reaction

1:27:20

as they're all together at that young age,

1:27:20

saying that

1:27:23

I don't think we should ever talk about this. We should bury

1:27:24

is because of just like no matter

1:27:28

who you are, Like,

1:27:28

that's that's how you feel in that moment.

1:27:32

But like that's just

1:27:33

going to build up and become such that,

1:27:36

like therapy can even begin to kind of

1:27:39

like like that scene shown in 1996.

1:27:43

You show that to someone now.

1:27:45

And with what we've discovered about mental health

1:27:46

and like the differences of the time,

1:27:51

I really it's really interesting

1:27:51

to kind of see

1:27:53

how would that be handled differently

1:27:53

today?

1:27:56

Would that like if like would

1:27:56

there be a dialog more open now?

1:28:02

Interesting. Interesting thought.

1:28:05

When I get out, I guess I'll make a couple

1:28:05

phone calls, She even wants to.

1:28:10

There's nothing to talk about. There's A lot to talk about

1:28:12

all these people.

1:28:14

Who's going to need to make a move?

1:28:17

I don't want anybody to know.

1:28:19

My father. Bobby King. Many fat man show and my mother

1:28:25

body.

1:28:27

Yeah. I don't need. I mean, I wouldn't know what to say

1:28:28

to anyone who did not.

1:28:32

I can't think of anybody

1:28:32

who needs to hear about it.

1:28:35

I mean, you won't believe it.

1:28:37

I won't give a shit.

1:28:39

Yeah. Don't even think to talk about it

1:28:39

whatsoever. You know,

1:28:44

we got no choice but to live with it.

1:28:46

And talking makes it harder,

1:28:49

so might as well not even talk about it.

1:28:52

The truth stays with us.

1:28:55

I love this thread because

1:28:55

that was something I thought about.

1:28:58

I've always. That scene

1:28:59

has always meant something to me, but it really hit this time,

1:29:02

knowing everything that we have such open

1:29:02

dialogs about mental health.

1:29:06

Even, you know, 1996

1:29:08

when this movie came out

1:29:08

was when my brother was at his his worst.

1:29:11

No one was talking about mental health. It wasn't like these stories

1:29:13

weren't around. Like no one's talking about this stuff.

1:29:16

And no one, these four young kids

1:29:16

clearly don't have the perspective

1:29:21

to know what can happen

1:29:21

if you bury this, because

1:29:26

very wisely, the

1:29:26

movie does something that I don't know.

1:29:29

I just feel like I'm not saying movies

1:29:29

don't jump ahead in the past,

1:29:32

but a lot of movies now, everything's

1:29:32

just jumping around constantly

1:29:36

and we're like, back in present, back a present. But this is just one hard jump

1:29:37

and it really hits just like Place

1:29:41

Beyond the Pines,

1:29:41

Like when you walk thing comes on screen.

1:29:44

It's like 15 years later.

1:29:44

You're like, What?

1:29:47

What, what's? So yeah, so in this goes, you know, slo mo

1:29:47

and then we're in fall 1981.

1:29:53

I love everything about this

1:29:53

sequence meeting.

1:29:55

Adult John and Tom, they're walking

1:29:55

in slow motion through that steam.

1:30:00

They just sit down at the bar. You know, if you haven't seen the movie,

1:30:02

you're not entirely positive,

1:30:02

which to these kids it is yet.

1:30:06

But, you know, this is just

1:30:06

one of my favorite scenes just to watch.

1:30:11

Like, I love this. I love just the murder of Sean

1:30:12

Nokes, the set piece.

1:30:15

I love this set piece so much. I love it.

1:30:18

I love when they sit down. You know,

1:30:19

John and Tom are clearly regulars. They hear the guys talking. They're like,

1:30:23

you tell them that Republicans

1:30:23

are not welcome in Hell's Kitchen.

1:30:27

I love that either a political conversion

1:30:29

or a change of conversation is necessary

1:30:29

in order is in order.

1:30:33

Yeah. So then John walks off,

1:30:33

you know, he's got to take a leak

1:30:37

and that fucking double take,

1:30:39

he does go slow

1:30:39

motion does a double take reed.

1:30:43

It looks left

1:30:43

and you hear the light come back

1:30:46

and then you just see this like pathetic.

1:30:49

He looks like a, like a rat now. Like this pathetic man

1:30:52

just, like, hunched over,

1:30:52

drinking his beer, eating meatloaf.

1:30:56

And in some. What are those people called

1:30:58

like guard money in a uniform like that?

1:31:01

Ron Eldred is John

1:31:01

It's like staring at him

1:31:04

and I, you know, Can I help you with something, Chief? And not right? Yeah.

1:31:06

Like I love his voice.

1:31:09

He's probably, like, on drugs and just,

1:31:09

like, coked out of his mind and drunken,

1:31:13

you know, we haven't seen this stuff,

1:31:13

but we know that they abuse drugs.

1:31:17

And then, God, he just goes in that bathroom and is washing the face

1:31:19

and taking that beat.

1:31:21

That song,

1:31:21

you know, queuing up and all that.

1:31:24

And it's I love this. I'll be honest with you

1:31:31

know, right now.

1:31:34

Enjoy the rest of You mean

1:31:56

like one

1:31:59

day? wow.

1:32:04

I love

1:32:06

that.

1:32:10

my gosh. I think this is the most well-done

1:32:12

sequence of the whole entire movie.

1:32:16

And that's good seeing a lot

1:32:16

because I think there's a lot of really

1:32:19

well done scenes, which we've talked

1:32:19

about a lot of them already.

1:32:22

But I think just like it almost could

1:32:22

almost work as a short film on its own.

1:32:27

Yeah, like in some ways, even though we know what this history is

1:32:29

like, there's so much of it.

1:32:32

But they even say the history,

1:32:32

even if it was a short film.

1:32:35

Yeah, the two guys, even like I thought

1:32:35

you just liked Blank, blank little boys.