Film Series: Dan Bush on Dr. Strangelove

Filmmaker Dan Bush is back with us to continue his film series on stuff he loves. This week we tackle the Kubrick classic, Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Movie Crush, a production of I Heart Radio.

(00:29):
So people, Hello, welcome to movie Crush. Uh here with
Dan Bush on another film series. And I guess your
film series is just whatever Dan wants to talk about.
We don't have to have a theme. But we were
speaking before we had technical difficulties about uh, the fact
that the world's going to hell in a handbasket and

(00:51):
what you're doing about it. And I think it's good
advice to quit quit worrying and learn exactly let ty
that in um yeah, I was just you know this
the idea of like, think what does it think globally?
Act locally? And I was like, well, if you internalize
that and act really really specifically locally, and start with
your own freaking mind, what's the most local, what's the

(01:14):
most local? And then and then work outward from there
of like, okay, being sort of mindful and thoughtful. And
I don't mean to be on a soapbox, but I
just myself, I was like, why don't I take a
minute and get away from the chatter and all of
the Trump tweets and all of the stuff going on
with the impeachment hearings and and everything about not that
all that stuff doesn't need to be addressed, and not
that it's not extremely important, but but to hold space

(01:35):
for yourself just for a second, take it, take a
minute and take a deep breath and get me And
when you do that, you go okay. Actually, when I
walk at my door and look around, there's not that
much conflict. It's you know, people are for the most part.
And I think this is probably true. It's just it's
just that it's the filter of the media puts everything
in such it just it packs everything into this sort

(01:56):
of you know, laser shoots right into your brain, and
then social media on top of it, right, and and
we're addicted to that and they have like you know,
so so just the idea of like can I actually
put my phone down, put it away while I'm sleeping,
take any breath, take ten minutes for myself every day,
just ten minutes to just sit there and do nothing.
And and and more than that, like try to really hang
out with my kids when they're around, as opposed to

(02:18):
like I'm trying to do this thing while you're no.
It's like that's my biggest trap, man, that it just
makes me feel like a garbage parent is when I'm
distracted and she's trying to get my attention. Yeah. So,
and I've been doing things with them, like you know
your kids can do ship My kids only there's three
three year old ones almost five. It's like they can
do stuff. So like I don't have to be like
you sit there while I cook. You know, I'm like,

(02:39):
come over here. This is a burner on the stove.
Here's a knife you can cut. But here I'm gon
show you how. I know that sounds like a dangerous
thing for a parent to do, but man, make them,
you know, get them. They love being involved. So it
takes you long. So you know, I'm not onloading the dishwasher.
I'm being with my kid. And that's the activity, yes,
as opposed to God, damn, I gotta get this down. Yeah,
that's so value bowl. And it's really easy to fall

(03:01):
into that trap of busy, uh distraction stuff. But like
you're you're modeling. Man, you're teaching them, and that's gonna
come back and bite us all of the ass when
they're teenagers and they don't have the attention for us,
you know, because they were raised with a parent staring
at a phone. It's no good fucking sucks. I want
to like smash my phone on a daily basis. But

(03:23):
you know, but then there's something about and I'm not
you know, it's a survivalist, spinny stretch, but I'm like,
I want to wanna view them with some skills. The
world's gonna be pretty nasty if if we on the
current track, it would not hurt to know how to
start a fire without enjoy these times before it's yeah,
you know, little things like that. How do you grow
something right exactly? I don't know. I'm not good at it.

(03:44):
We can learn together. Come on, kids, Yeah, Tara farming,
let's do it. Yeah, but no, you're right. Uh. And
what we were talking about before, it's like, it's really
easy to go down that rabbit hole of of everything
is shitty right now. But if you if you walk
outside your door and you look around your home, in
your community, in your neighborhood, hopefully that makes you feel good.

(04:06):
It does in my case, without sounding cheesy, all you
really have is now everything before this doesn't exist. Nope,
everything that's about to happen, it doesn't exist. So there's
you know, you have all the potential in the world.
I feel like right now and see what happens. Yeah, yeah,
let's do it. We should do that on a episode.

(04:26):
How fun and weird would that be? A friend of mine?
I met with a friend of mine the other day
that I'm working with, and he was like, by the way,
I'm micro docing today. And I'm like, okay, that sounds awesome.
How do you do that? And he's like, oh, well,
blah blah blah, it's a thing that sounds yeah. Yeah,
I know. Well, I mean there's all sorts of ways
to do that. You can have a friend who micro
doce is marijuana edibles for migraines and she doesn't ever,

(04:53):
I don't think feel she never feels stoned or anything, Okay,
And it's like through a doctor and it's just like
tiny little bits of edibles throughout the day. Huh yeah,
and apparently helps out the migraine. Is that like the
CBD or is that just no? I mean, it's it's
the real deal THHC. But it's just a tiny bit
of THD, which is the only psychoactive property of the

(05:15):
only psychoactive it's the only good stuff canniboid cannabinoid canabinois.
I think that's it anyway, Well, Uh, Dr Strangelove, let's
get high and watch Dr Strange stuff. What do you
think this is Wednesday night? No, it's Thursday morning. I
watched this Wednesday night, and for the many, many a time,

(05:36):
I've seen this movie a lot. Yeah, but it was
like it had been a while. Were you excited to
talk about super excited to watch it again and talk
about it? Uh? So, let's do it. I have a
couple of bits of fun trivia. Um, yeah, I've got
a bunch. I'll sprinkle them out. You probably know this stuff,
but for the benefit of the listener. Uh. The he

(05:58):
had a few different titles. Apparently Dr Doomsday or how
to Start World War Three without even Trying would have
been good. Doctor Strangelove, Secret Uses of Uranus. I heard
that one, and then Wonderful Bomb, which that's pretty good.
That's a good one. Wonderful Bomb. Yeah, I like that one.

(06:19):
Did you have any other ones? Any titles? No? I
didn't have any. I didn't shot down the titles that
I had heard of. But what other trivia you got?
Oh man, just tons of ship Um let me look here.
So Sellers was gonna play four characters. I think I
saw that he was gonna play Slim Pickens part. Right,
he was gonna do Slim Pickens part. And there there's
a bunch of different you know, theories about why that didn't. Yeah.

(06:41):
I saw one story where he faked a broken leg
so he wouldn't have to, but that sounds made up. Yeah,
so we wouldn't have to because of because I'm like,
it's Peter Sellers. He's probably gonna nail a Texas accent
if he needs to. Well, but I heard that the
accent was one of the problems and that didn't like it.
It's hard to tell, um, but yeah, and then another
one Pickens, Slim Pickens, who did play that pilot, was

(07:06):
also in the running to play the scatman Cruthers part
in The Shining. Oh interesting, I'm not sure why. Well,
I love the race, the racial tones and the Shining. Yeah,
the racist ever tones in The Shining totally. I mean,
I loved scatman Cruthers in that movie, but I could
totally see Slim Pickens playing that part. Well, they're both,
They're both are these uh not character actors, but actors

(07:30):
who are characters, these guys who are authentically themselves. Totally
and apparently slim Pickens, is that guy really yeah? Like
and there they're like he wasn't a method actor, that's
just him. What else I got? Reagan when he was
when he after he was inaugurated, wanted to see the
war room and there was no war room, but he like,

(07:55):
you want to see the war room. Um, let me see,
I've got one for you. Okay, the war room. Kuber
consisted that the war room table be covered in green baize,
which is like, felt so uh even though it wouldn't
read in black and white. So they all felt like
they were just a bunch of men playing poker with

(08:15):
the like a big poker table. That's all sense. Essentially,
what you're doing is playing poker with the world and
the in nuclear War, as slim Pickings calls it, slimp Pickins.
So he covered it in green green felt pretty good
even though it's a black and white movie. Oh yeah,
here's a huge one. Um. So the line was changed

(08:35):
from Dallas to Vegas. The line when he when Slimp
Pickins like I could have a pretty good time. He's
open up the survival kit. That's one of my favorite parts.
When he's reading all that and he says, you know
at he's like, yeah, he's like ninline Stockings one prople actic,
you could have a pretty good time in Vegas. That
line is dubbed later it looks funny, it was not.
It was his a d r okay, um, because the

(08:56):
original line was Dallas, you have a pretty good time
in Dallas with this stuff and changed it. Do you
know why wait a minute, Kennedy. The original release date
was November twenty, the day Kennedy got shot. So they
pulled the movie and they and they changed a few things,
and then the movie came out, you know, January of

(09:20):
So they held it that long. Huh Yeah, yeah, well
that they held it for like three months or four
months or whatever. But but I always think about that.
I'm like, Okay, if if you have Kennedy assassination, which
is like the first and most significant sort of point
where you go, the world in our nation goes okay,
there's more at work, There's more sleight of hand, is

(09:42):
more stuff happening behind the scenes than we're aware of
for this to be possible. And if this is if
this man represents the best of us, regardless of whatever
he you know, if he was or wasn't in all
the arguments about Kennedy, but he represented this night and
shining armor and then he gets taken down. And then
a couple of months later, strange up comes out, which
is all about the industrial complex, military complex and how

(10:05):
how full of ship it all is. You know, I
think you have the makings in those two first moments
for the for like the launch of the counterculture. Yeah.
I feel like those two things are like, okay, because
what year was this? Yeah, I mean those are the things. Okay,
our government is not they don't they aren't all to

(10:26):
be trusted and there's more than you know at hand
that meets the eye. And and then Vietnam. Yeah, I
just feel like those are the beginnings of that, you know,
that that that huge revolution, totally cultural revolution that happened. Yeah.
One thing this movie really, um, what jumped out at
me last night more than ever before it was how

(10:48):
how ahead of its time it felt, even though it's
black and white. Um, it has this weird contemporary feel
to it, starting from the very beginning with those opening
credits in it. And I think I tracked it down
to the just the font and the credit sequence, which was,
you know, very unusual for the time. You know that

(11:09):
that it looks you on a hand drawn in pencil?
Who did that? Who? Pablo Faraoh, who says the guy,
he's a graphic designer. He also did the Stop Making
Sense album. Of course, there you have. It looks just
like it. I never tied those together. Yeah, but maybe
that helps explain it because it it definitely didn't look

(11:29):
at like a title sequence from out of you know,
two thousands or whatever. Yeah, it felt very contemporary and um,
and that you know, the opening is so great with
the the planes fucking each other. Basically there's so much,
so much sexual innuendo throughout this whole movie to that

(11:50):
whatever that sort of not elevator music, but yeah, whatever
it was, it was fantastic and just so like Kubrick,
you know. Yeah, the whole thing is sexual, is power
and sex. The whole damn movie. It's sex power, sex power,
you know. Yeah, And I think he didn't get enough
strange love, power and sex, which he named himself Strange Love, right, Um,

(12:14):
we find that out, does he? I don't know that. Yeah,
it's later on in the movie. He said, GEORGEI Scott's like,
why kind of my name is Strange Love? And he says, well,
he gave him that, he gave himself that name, but
when he came over, when he became a citizen or whatever,
and he says, what it was before, I can't remember
what it was? Man, How great is George? She's Scott
in this movie? It just and you never see him
do Does he ever do any other comedy? I don't

(12:36):
think so, man, And and I read I don't know
if this is true. I guess it is that that
Kubrick had him go super broad and he said, like,
we're not gonna use his stuff. It's just sort of
a test to see how far you can go with
it or whatever. And that's the stuff that he used. Well, yeah,
because Cooper got that. He's notoriously did like hundred takes

(12:56):
or whatever to the point where the actors were so
piste off and freaked out. So the version I heard
was kind of like Nicol the same thing he did
with Nicholson and the Shining where he's he got him
so pissed that he was like, is that what you
want you want me to? Like, you know, you want
to just not be subtle at all? Okay like this,
and he was like, yeah, you want crazy like you
want crazy, I'll show you crazy. And he's rolling his
eyes and he's going bug nuts and it's just amazing.

(13:18):
Oh man, I mean, Georgie Scott is so good in
this and everybody, I mean, it's an acting toward divorce.
Sterling Hayden is just off the charts. And and this
is a movie with Peter Sellers, like Pete Peter Sellers,
you know, And Peter Sellers gets to play the straight
guy opposite of Sterling Hayden. And then he gets to
play the straight guy opposite of um uh Turgison, which

(13:42):
is uh Georgie Scott. Yeah yeah in a way, and
then kind of gets to play Strange Love, and then
he gets place, he gets to have some fun. Who
was who was your favorite of the three of his
Seller's characters? Strange Love, really, yeah, I think just because
it's I mean it's I mean it's I mean, they're
they're all they're all fantastic, so they're all amazing, And

(14:02):
I always just Strange Love is so easy because it's
so funny. But I think President Muffly like, it's that
phone call, man, muff That fucking phone call just seals
the deal for me. That first phone call, or both
the phone calls, but that first phone call to uh
to Dmitri. Right, I'm just as capable of being sad. Man,

(14:28):
so good, and I actually printed out that whole thing.
It's a lot of fun. Just know it wasn't sad.
I'm capable of being just as sorry as you. Dmitri. Yeah,
I know you're sorry, but I'm sorry to Dmitri. Well,
then it's good that you're fine, and I'm fine. I
agree with you. It's great to be fine. And right
before that he's like, it's like, well, you know that

(14:50):
thing was something like the thing we always do. You
have it there about the bomb. We we got to
talk about the bomb. It's like he's he's talking to
my next wife about yeah, the kid got arrested or
he said, one of our base commanders he had sort
of well he went a little funny ahead, you know,
and he went and did a silly thing started World

(15:14):
War three. Oh man, I so love it. Um this
it's you know, I like to talk about structure a lot. Yeah,
this one is like trying to pin it down. And
what I start I was looking around was like, what
are the movies like, how does the structurally work? At all,
and other than being like a political force or whatever,
there's not too many of those. I can't think of
anything that's like this movie. I can't think that of

(15:36):
anything before it or after it that is like it.
It's like a lot of things, but it's its own category. Yeah,
it's very compartmentalized structurally, like he only has those. He's
got the plane set and that that storyline, he's got
the war room, and he's got the office basically, and
the initial scene with Turgison and and the yeah you

(15:58):
got the Great Secretary Man, which is it's all like
they're already living in bunker's. Yeah, they're already living in
like these there's no outside view of the world at
all except from that plan. Yeah. And then when they
cut to the documentary footage of them attacking the base,
and even that is long lenses and very tight, and
it's said, there's no it's hard to So did he
shoot that or was that? I don't know, Okay, I
couldn't quite tell. It looks like it's suddenly cutting from

(16:20):
these shots that are locked off medium wides of everybody,
and then occasionally like a specific listip of like uh
Sterling is Sterling Hayden is his name from down below,
so you're like, oh, he looks insane from this angle.
But then that it's like these medium wide shots and
just play out through the whole thing like a stage play,
and then they cut to this handheld documentary footage. It's

(16:43):
really jarring, yeah, and and intense, like shades of full
metal jacket to come. But it's, um, it's very jarring
when it goes to those those battle scenes. Yeah. And
that's the weird thing about the movie is it's it's like, Okay,
if you think I once heard a UM, I guess
it was. It was a lecture that who's given that lecture?

(17:07):
Um the writer Breakfast of Champions. Yeah. Sorry. Vonneguet was
giving this lecture at this uh at the college that
I was in, UM, the USC in in South Carolina,
and he came in to give this lecture about structure,
and he was talking about there's in tragedy. There's like,

(17:28):
you know, he starts starts off where there's gonna be
a war, uh or some horrible event, you know, some
pestilence or whatever, and then the one guy who might
be able to save everybody fails to do so because
of his own humorist or his pride or whatever, and
then everybody dies. And that's like tragic structure. So it's
like this this you know, inverted you and then the
other comedy structure that Aristotle talked about in Poetics, and

(17:51):
then Vonnegutt was kind of reiterating here was he was like, okay,
in in the other structure, everything starts off, there's gonna
be a wedding or birth comedy. And then and then
some asshole decides to ruin everything and you know, trash
trash the day. Uh, And together everybody bonds together. The
people who maybe have their differences all come together in

(18:13):
the end and they save the day. And you know,
the comedy ends with like a birth or a wedding.
You know, you can think about everything from like The
Hangover to sure all the comedies that have ever been made,
they always end with a birth or a wedding, right, um,
and everybody comes together to figure it out. But this one,
this is like, this is not this is not a
it's not a comic structure. It's not a tragic structure.

(18:35):
It's this weird amalgam of the two were like the
only way for everybody to come together in the end
of the movie, and when is to lose. The only
way you can win is by losing. Um does that
make sense? So it's like a tragic comedy or it's
like some sort of it is a strange movie totally,
And yeah, it's obviously a satire and clearly a comedy.

(18:58):
And you know about the pie fight, Yeah, because that
was they shot it and everything. The original ending was
they in the war room, they break out into a
pie fight, which there used thousands of pies per day,
captured this thing and has a lot of merit. I
saw something. I saw a picture. Have you ever seen
any of them? I have one right here. So yeah,

(19:20):
I'm like, that's a kind of a perfect ending. I
guess he pulled back from that, but it's kind of
a beautiful ending to a you know what is kind
of a body humor farcet movie. There's like a shot,
a still shot at least of what that looked like. Yeah,
I mean, how do you end this movie? It's ah,
but like if it's it's it's it's a tough one
to But that's a comedic ending. Yeah, that's a comedy ending.

(19:43):
You know, it could have ended with with slim Pickins
riding that bomb and kind of that kind of feels
like the ending. But then there's the come back to
the monologue about well that great bit about through populating
the world ten women to one man. Yeah, and he's
basically saying like, well, we're gonna have to get a
bunch of sexy, sex up women because they have certain proclivities,

(20:06):
like we want to make they're gonna have to be
appealing from from you know, right exactly. And you see George,
you see chargets in over there just like you know,
licking his lips because he's such a you know, such
a dog. Um And and the real ending is great,
you know, yeah, he stands mind pure, I can walk
And then did that cut to the bombs? Yeah, but

(20:28):
a pie fight has merit, Like I could have seen
that sort of ridiculous three stooges. He ending to this thing. Well,
that's the thing. Is this this weird like every you know,
this movie is not absurd because they're dealing with real
the real the real world is absurd. They're just and
it's just loaded with his body humor. The first time
we see like the first time that he gets the

(20:49):
code or gets the orders for Plan r the guy
on the in the plane. Yeah, like the communications officer
on the plane gets the plant are and he's like okay,
and he's just like stuffing his ace and he's chewing
on there's food he's like trying to swallow while he's
saying hey anyway, and then um, you know, it cuts
to the the sort of bunker like space. It's like

(21:10):
a hotel room. The Turgison and his secretary are in
and she's son, she's like doing some tanning. She's in
a bikini, in a bikini, and he's taking gorgeous sea.
She's relaying this like basically relaying, not basically, she is
fully relaying a phone call about we're about to start
an accidental nuclear war while he's taking a dump in

(21:32):
the other room with all the politeness in the world.
And it's fantastic. She's really great at that, brilliant. And
then there's uh, and then he's constantly Turgison is just
constantly chewing gum. Yeah, it's just all this. But I'm
surprised the movie. Honestly, the pie fight makes sense because
I'm surprised the movie didn't didn't have like fart jokes.
I'm surprised that people weren't like yeah, because it veers

(21:54):
into that territory comedically. Yeah, And it's interesting because this
is Kubricks. He didn't do any of any else approaching comedy,
did he. I mean you know that I've heard that
on the set of The Shining they were laughing their
asses off. Well, okay, but as far as movies go,
like this is totally this. I'm trying to get into
his head of like what did Stanley Cooper can find

(22:14):
funny because he's not a funny filmmaker and doesn't come
across as a funny guy. Right, this is the only
thing we have to go on that's true, you know,
And there's weird there's weird things that I just laughed at,
Like when he when the um slim Pickens is first
like are you sure it's plan? Are I'm sure? And
he's like, all right, I'm coming back there, And like
this whole scene has been him talking to somebody in
the back of the plane and there's all this distance

(22:35):
between them and he says, I'm coming back there and
he turns around there like five feet away, right, Like
that's humorous that I don't know. That was pretty funny.
You know, that's kind of that kind of love subtle.
I don't know timing or something that. Yeah, So shout
out to Tracy Reid, who was uh the woman who
played uh ms Scott Um we've already gone over Scott
and Sellers, Slim Pickens, Sterling Hayden, a young James old

(22:58):
Jones on the plane. Huge shout out to Keenan when
who plays Colonel bat Guano, the guy that comes in
at the end and uh basically holds man Drake, you know,
hostage for a brief time. He does such a good job,
You're gonna have to answer to the Coca Cola company.

(23:19):
And it just ends with like the machine being yeah exactly,
I mean like pure slapstick. But also this collection of
of nameless, faceless men in the war room last night.
I was really fixated during the strange love stuff on
seeing if I could catch any of them in the

(23:39):
background cracking up, and like, how the funk were they
able to just stay so stoic in the midst of that.
Although I don't know if he did that with Sellers,
because I read that Seller said that he did this too.
Kubrick did this to break down the actor's sense of self,
and he said, I I've never had a sense of self,

(24:01):
so you don't need to do that with me. I
heard he was the only one that Kubrick ever let improvise. Yeah,
I saw that too. Kubrick said he's the only actor
that can really do it, which man high compliment. Yeah,
and it makes me seeing this again, I want to
go back and watch Being There again. Oh Man, one
of my favorites so good. I got my my entree

(24:26):
into Being There was Mad Magazine's parody of Being There
that I read when I was a kid, because I
was Mad Magazine obsessive, and you know, they had all
these you know, adult type themed movies in Mad Magazine
that like ten year old Chuck is reading about all
these movies that like, I have no idea what they are.
You know, they did stuff like writers in the Lost

(24:46):
Ark every now and then, but a lot of times
it was the sort of high minded stuff. They were
kind of poking. Yeah, it's adult, and it's all Being
There later on, and you know, it's just so great.
There's a bunch of his movies. I've never seen Lolita, right,
I've never seen Lilia. Yeah, either, it's it's got. He
plays several roles in that one, too, right, And I
heard that that was potentially going to be a comedy

(25:06):
at some point, But I don't know how teters on
that edge. If I'm not mistaken, I gotta check it out.
Though there's a lot of Peter sellers out there. I
need to see. I was a pink panther nut as
a kid. I thought that was just nothing funnier in
the world, right to me than inspector Clues. Oh, but

(25:30):
you know, I think about Kubrick's like a lot of
his the way he shot stuff with those you know,
those um center punched frames. They're wide and and and
last way too long, just just watching it, and it's
it's so perfectly balanced. There's something about the way the

(25:51):
composition is that he always does in the Clockwork Orange
and another that is intrinsically funny to me, Like I
can't you know, everybody thinks, oh, it's it's disturbed, or
it's maybe it's it's so center punched that it's almost
disturbing because it's like so calculated and specifically you think
the tongue is in cheek. I do. I think there's
something I get that something where he's going, look at this,

(26:14):
how stupid this is or how absurd this is? Yeah,
and something about the framing makes me go make the
giddy kind of tickles my tummy, and I'm like, this
is ridiculous, like you know, and like the scenes in
Full Metal Jacket when he's you know, they're when they're
marching around and it's like, this is my you know,
I don't think this is my rifle. This is my gun.
And it just holds on it for too long and

(26:35):
it stays center punched and it never does anything else,
and it's just after a while, I'm you know, I'm
gonna start laughing, Yeah ahead, miss Cooper. And I think
he's I think he's doing I think it's intentional. I
don't think. I don't know. I think you're right. I
don't think he's like, well that this is a pretty
frame or whatever, like he's not being he's not like
being serious. No, I don't think so. I think you're
right there there. There's little bits of humor throughout his

(26:59):
stuff when you kind of look at it through that lens.
I heard somebody describing Strangelove as like it's it's mel Brooks.
But but conducted by this like brilliant chess playing, you know,
math chess master, you know, hyperintelligent filmmaker. But it's but
it's mel Brooks or something totally. That's an interesting Yeah.

(27:19):
I mean you were talking a second ago about the
serious stuff in this movie, like all of the all
of the stuff on the plane, all of the um,
the conversations, the political conversations, it's all like it is
not I mean, it's satire, but it's not. It's all
perfectly squared away and as it would be, like it's

(27:43):
not like he wrote it funny. He writes it. I mean,
there's funny stuff going on around it, but it's all
very real. I mean, GEORGEI. Scott has that folder on
his desk. Where where is it? World targets and Mega Deaths.
That's the holder? Is that what it says? Yes, that's
a on the the title on the spine, and that

(28:05):
was the whole thing of a fairly new idea of
uh talking about Megadeth's like numbering deaths and megadeths because
of nuclear war was a new thing, and that's one
of the folders. He's like squeezing at his chest once. Uh,
the ambassador gets there. You know that that the pink
O Commi ambassador. He's got a guard all the stuff.

(28:26):
So he's literally hugging the world targets in megades folder,
you know, to keep it safe. Like, yeah, but that's
a school boy. Yeah, but I mean that's a real thing.
It's not you imagine. That's exactly what it was like, Um,
we think I'm looking at all this other stuff. Those quote,
the quotes in the movie are just out of control.

(28:48):
I mean, it's just the most beautiful irony I've ever
heard in a movie. Well, old gentlemen, I reckon, this
is yet nuclear combat, toe to toe with the Rusks.
And that's that. Johnny comes marching home. Que right there too,
and they always come back to it when to come
back to the guys. Yeah, it's just really it's the
only time they use music, I think, except maybe at

(29:08):
the beginning and the end. Yeah, there's yeah, that's it.
There's that elevator music at the beginning and the very
end they have that song and then Johnny comes marching home.
That refrain over and over and over that, done that,
done that? Then that then that's so good. Well here's
what the he's like. There's there's Mufflies talking to Turgison.
He's like, there's nothing to figure out, General Turgison, the

(29:28):
man is obviously a psychotics like well, you know's hold
off on judgment on a thing like that until all
the facts are in. He's like, Turchison, He's like, you know,
when you initiated the human reliability tests, you assume that
there were there was no possibility of such a thing
ever happening. He's like, Wow, I don't know if it's
quite fair to condemn the whole program because of one
little slip up. Well, and that's turg insince thing the

(29:50):
whole time. He's it's not dawning on him that this
is like possibly the end of the world, you know,
or that you know, million people, like that's except doable.
And I guess in the grand scheme of things, you know,
he may be right. That's better than a hundred and
fifty million people. It's better than total annihilation, he says.
He says, we are rapidly approaching a moment of truth

(30:13):
for both ourselves as human beings and for the U
and for the life of our nation. Um Now, truth
is not always a pleasant thing, but it's necessary to
make a choice, and to choose between two admittedly regrettable
but nevertheless distinguishable post war environments, one where twenty million
people get killed and the other one where you have
a hundred and fifty million people killed. And he's like,
you're talking about mass murder, not war. And he's like,

(30:34):
I'm not saying we might get our We're not gonna
get her hair a little must another one of my
favorite parts George. He's got really shines in this movie,
like really hit me last night. But it's towards the
end when they're talking about when the plane has been
hit and they're flying super low under the radar and um,

(30:55):
he's asking about their chances basically, and Georgie Scott gets
all excited and he's kind of he kind of forgets
himself that he's talking about, like, oh, yeah, they're going
to drop the bomb. He's like, oh, yeah, you should
see they can get down there real oh and he
puts his arms out like plains wings. And then he
realizes what he's talking about, you know, and he collects
himself again. You should see it a big plan like
Dad getting all a lot of we can something about

(31:18):
roasting the chickens and the chicken house or something. Yeah.
And before that, he has a flamboyant americanisms and patriotic yeah. Well,
you know, and he loves war, he loves power, he
loves That's exactly it. He's excited. I mean, he's the
one that leaps and he's he's envious city to do this.
He's envious of the bomb. I was like, oh, man,

(31:40):
I wish we had one of those doomday devices. Yeah,
and then he's envious of of um uh Ripper. He's like,
Ripper had the guts to like do this thing. That's right.
He's he's kind of like secretly is like praising well
and he and he's talking about when they're so excited
when the bass is invading, you know, it's a civil
war breaking out basically, and he's talking about like, oh,

(32:01):
you're gonna have a real hard time with my guys
and the other guys, like with all due respect, like
we should be able to brush on the side with
ease or whatever. And you can tell it's like a
big dick contest all of a sudden, all this in
fighting and then you have and then this other really
weird things like you have, um, what's what's the president
of same Muffly Muffly, Merkin Muffly, who's this effeminate, these

(32:23):
ridiculous names, kiss off Muffly back Guano, And he's like
and Muffly is supposed to be like the one voice
of a reason other than other than um the commander
who's in there with with Ripper, other than Drake Man Drake,
the British guy. But he so he's the point of
reason and he's and it's just the opposite of what
we have today today. The military is more cautious, and

(32:45):
the president is you know, obviously the president so and
you know, he's completely fucking insane. He is a great line.
But didn't it inverted from when this movie was made.
I mean, Eisenhower was the one who was like her
first implemented the idea of like having an officer be
able to in the event that the president has wiped out,
We're gonna make it so that certain the officers can

(33:09):
follow through with a nuclear strike like a Plan C
or whatever. Yeah, and and he was hesitant to do so,
but then they made it a thing. And so that's
what the whole movie is sort of based on, is
like these these planes are always flying within two hours
of their any target or whatever, and that's why they
have to fuel in the air, you know, and and
all this stuff. But it's it's all based on that
those early decisions. Yeah, there's I think still intact. Well,

(33:31):
and he says that, he's like, you know, you're the
one that signed off on this, and the disbelief, which
is very reasonable, Like are you telling me like there's
literally no way to back out of this at this point,
Like there's no fail safe for us. And that's when
GEORGEI Scott, that's when Turgenson says, well, we could look
at this as an opportunity. If it's gonna happen anyway,

(33:54):
we catch them with their pants down and just wipe
them out, right, which is what and that's what Ripper wanted,
is like, that's right, this is the only this is
the way this goes down. And it gets into this
thing of paradox is that that I think Cooper had mentioned,
like there's no way to follow through on the game
theory of this, or the or the military strategy or
the chess game. There's no way. It's that wargames thing

(34:15):
of like there's no way that the malcome. So there's
the irony or the you can look at the mathematically
and go okay, in a nuclear strike, if you strike first,
you can knock out of their of their artillery and
there and then they'll strike with what they have left,
ten percent, with their ten percent, and they cannot got
ninety percent of ours. So at the end we have

(34:36):
ten percent left and they have nothing. So where we went. Meanwhile,
the world is no longer inhabitable. And that's it's always
like this. Yeah, that's so, there's that one paradox of
like the theory. And that's before they learn of the
doomsday device, of course, which wipes out everybody, which is
just a fear mechanism. Um. The other one was the
always never dilemma. Um, let me read this. It says

(34:59):
the UH command and control of nuclear weapons has long
been plagued by an always never dilemma. The administrative, administrative,
and technological systems that are necessary to ensure that nuclear
weapons are always available to use in wartime might be
quite different from the ones UH that's necessary to guarantee
that such weapons can never be used without proper authorization

(35:20):
in peace time. And those two things are in perfect
conflict with each other. And there's a way to reconcile them.
So there it is, right. And the weirdest think of
all is that the president, you know, even if even
if these other people have to go through certain procedures
and they have to be two keys, and there's two
different cut parts of a code that's sent unlock the
two keys so that they can both check each other
before doing a nuclei. There's all these things at hand

(35:42):
if you're like if if Washington has been wiped out.
But the end, the other side of that is that
the president is the only person that has zero checks
because there's all there's always the I see I c
B M s take ten minutes. That's not enough time
to get Congress to vote. So there has to be
a the ability of the president to launch an all

(36:02):
out in nuclear strike at all times. And I don't
know what that policy looks like now. And I heard
they were trying to change it because of our current president. Really,
I heard that there was that the Pentagon they're actually scared. Yeah,
but I don't know. I don't have anything to verify that,
but um, well it makes sense, Yeah, it does. The

(36:23):
one of my favorite parts is early on when uh
and I love all the Man Drake Ripper stuff. It's
just so great and um, like, Ripper has clearly lost
his mind because from the beginning he's talking about the conspiracy,
which was in the fifties it was a real thing
that people were worried about. Was the floridation. Then it
was the Russians, and you know they were brainwatching is

(36:46):
basically poison us the communist conspiracy to exactly. But Ripper
has bought into this and Man Drake, God, he's so
good and sellers so good in their role. He uh,
there's that one scene where he Ripper commonly gets up, walks,
unlocks the door, puts the key in his pocket and
Mandrake doesn't even notice, like because they're just talking. And
then Man Drake has his has his moment. He stands

(37:08):
at attention and he's basically like, you know, I have
to tell you right now that you know, as an officer,
I can't go through this or whatever how he says it,
and uh, I'm gonna I'm gonna leave and go stop this.
And he goes over and then he checks the other
door and that's locked, right, and he knows and the
look on the look on Man Drake's face seller's face

(37:29):
when he's like, oh no, it's' to my thinking, that's
really not quite the way. It's right a way to
look at it. Whatever. And he's like because of this
and that, I mean, he dawns on him. He's like, uh, right, right,
So it's my duty at this point in time to
let you know that. But because i'm you know, I'm
servicing the Queen, the Queen's army or whatever, you all
this procedural bullshit. It was interesting that they made him

(37:50):
an RF officer. Um. And I think the first few
times I saw this, I didn't fully understand that that
was a real thing. Um, my brother in laws in
the Marines and they they do that. He exchanged programs. Yeah,
that some of his best buddies over the years were
these Royal Marines and and they they love that ship
man to to find you know, a like minded dude

(38:12):
with a cool accent. You know that they can bond with.
They're the same over there, man, you know that mentality
is the same. And he loved his his Royal Marine
pals when they whenever they've trained together insteads cool. It was.
It was a big deal. But I wonder why he
did that though, in this Why have the British, I
mean it could have been an American exo. Yeah, I

(38:36):
think maybe because he something about him being an outsider,
being outside of the normal ranks. Yeah, maybe made us
It would presuppose that this guy might be able to
think differently, or might be he might be honoring his
ultimate loyalty is to something different. Yeah, so that that
gives him at least some plausibility to be able to

(38:58):
like even stand up to this guy. Or it doesn't really,
but well they sort of test each other, you know,
Like um that that scene later before um Ripper kills
himself in the bathroom, he's asking about you know where
you're ever a prisoner of war? We ever tortured? And
Peter Sellers He's so nervous at that point. He's like, yes,
you know, I was the Japanese torture me and it's

(39:19):
not not a pleasant story, right. He's like, I figured
they're gonna have a pretty good time with me when
they get up here. Yeah, and they're probably gonna be
able to It's like, without a doubt they're gonna be
able to extract the code from you, So you might
as want to give it to me, Yeah, he he
really uses to his or tries to use it to
his advantage. And then then he goes in the bathroom.
Oh that's right, just clean yourself up or whatever. I
think that's a wonderful and then the door is blocked

(39:42):
by the body. It's so funny and morbid. It's really
great hum and all those sets are just amazing. I
mean there's only a few sets, but they're just perfect.
That war Room set is one of the most iconic
movie sets in history. I think, yeah, it's betiful, it's
it's vast, but yet at the same time, it feels
like you're underneath a volcano. Yeah, it's gorgeous. It's so clean,

(40:06):
and uh, it's they used darkness so to their advantage
because they just cloak it all in black. It just
falls except for the you know, the great Ring light,
which apparently was most of the lighting. It's almost like
this the war Room exists in this ambiguous, like nebulous space.
Yeah that we don't know where it is or how

(40:26):
you know. It's it's so cool with matrix or something
when you see pictures of it, because it doesn't it
reads differently when like when you see a photograph of
the set like as they were using it. Um, it's
just it's fucking great. It's gorgeous. And those set you know,
it was the sixties, so it's not like he you know,
he made it look like the times, but all those
great uh, the big computer rooms and and then Ripper's

(40:50):
office it was just like so like beautifully sixty and
then the low the low angles on in the wor room.
You could always shoot up and get you know. Yeah,
Storgy Scott always has the big board behind him. There's
always there. We'll see the big board. There's so many
classic lines. There's no fighting, whi there's another huge piece
of of delicious irony almost every time you see the

(41:11):
men fighting. Whether that I don't know if that footage
was stuff they shot for the movie or not, but
I think he shot it. Yeah, Okay, it looks seems
like he would have to. It looks like stock documentary footage.
But but he shot it to make it feel like
word word because they use the outside of shepherds and studios.
Apparently it is the but everywhere and almost every background
there's a sign that says pieces are profession Well, well,

(41:32):
the tanks are going off on it. Yeah, I mean,
that's so like obviously on the nose, but then the
whole movie is just so on the nose, so over
the top, and it's specific, you know, and a lot
of people, I don't know how you can miss that.
A lot of people seem to think, you know what,
I guess the satire falls off on some peoples. This
is the most specifically clear. Yeah, like he's banging you

(41:54):
over the head with it. Yeah, it's not like GEORGEI.
Scott is actually playing a guy who's who's thoughtful, right,
he's playing He's just an archetype. He's just a caricature,
you know what I mean. I don't know how you
could read anything else into it. But the of course
the grain alcohol and rainwater. Yeah, that's that became such

(42:15):
an iconic sort of thing. I've heard that line uttered
in many a bar. Have you makes sense? People? You know,
I got the man drake, Man Drake. Do you recall
what so and so said about war? He's like, war
is too important to be left for the generals. Um,
when he said that fifty years ago, he may have
been right, but today it's too important to be left

(42:36):
to the politicians. They neither have the time, the training,
nor the inclination for strategic thought. And I can no
longer sit back and allow the communist infiltration and communist
indoctrination and communist subversion of the international communist conspiracy to
sap and it purify all of our precious bodily fluids.

(42:57):
And then the whole movie is about bodily fluids. I know,
the whole movie is about male power. Yeah, kicks it
all off. I just love how no matter what, even
like whether it's it's she calls him in the room,
she's like, but you know, but don't you want to
spend time with me or whatever? And he's like, oh,

(43:18):
I love your baby. Yeah, I'm gonna make you. Mrs.
This is targetson. You start to count down, and I
will be before you say blast off. A little buddy
will be back before he blast off. And then and
she's yeah, I mean everything about it is just body
humor and sex. And then the President's call with Dmitri,
who's a drunk on the other end of the line,

(43:38):
and it's like it's like I think he's been drinking. Yeah,
it's like their ex there ex lovers or something is
the way that the relationship works, right, I mean, yeah,
why do you think I'm calling you just to say hello?
Of course I like to speak to you. Of course
I like to say hello. Not now, but anytime. Dmitri.

(43:59):
I mean, when you see this chunk of dialogue, I'm
just as sorry as you are to me. Oh my god.
He just acts the ship out of that part, and
I guess it's all improv a lot of it. Well,
I mean, I don't know, man, I'd be curious because
that's such a large chunk. Yeah. The camera, the camera
don't cut it at all. And GEORGEI Scott too, he
has these uh I mean, he just acts the ship

(44:21):
out of it. There these just long, crazy monologues where
he's not and not I mean he's physically acting too.
That scene where he falls over was real, apparently, and
he was mad that they kept it in the movie
or whatever was he I guess so interesting. And you
can tell that they cut pretty quick after he stands
aback up because he's as he's standing up, he's still deliver.

(44:45):
I mean, it's beautiful. It's one of the great moments
in the movie because you're left to wonder like was
that real? Yeah, or did that just happen? Was that
written in What is I mean this like, I don't again,
I don't know if there's ever been a movie like
this or ever will be again. I mean, it just
seems like there's Wag the Dog, and then there's Veep
and there's these like attempts at Death of Salin. I

(45:08):
don't know if you've seen that yet. It's just fucking great.
In fact, that movie totally comes closer to this than
anything I've seen, I think, does it Death of Salin?
I think so, yeah, yeah, I mean a different film,
but it feels like a little bit of the DNA
of this film is in that movie. Yeah, And I
guess that brings me to the idea of like what

(45:28):
there's so much that could not have come after without
this movie, Like this movie is responsible. I even think
about like it's almost like a mockumentary, you know, yeah, totally.
I mean when they cut of the war footage and
they have like I guess that the beginning is like
a slate that they had to roll from the US
Air Force that they had to put in the movie.
I think that that first, the first like role that says,

(45:50):
oh that it's not based on anyone real or something
like that. But but even I mean everything about it,
there's and then they have the objective narrator, um, you know,
this omniscient narrator, who's who's like like a war time
you know, like a news reel, like a newsreel, who's
giving you this this stuff? And that happens I think
twice in the movie, and then they cut to this
newsreel footage like war footage of the attack on the base.

(46:14):
And other than that, right, it's all stage, but it
just it's got this feel to me like a mockumentary
quality to it. It's supposed to feel like a newsreel
at times. And I don't know if spinal tap would
have happened without Strange Love, don't you know what I mean?
The onion may not have happened without Stranger Yeah, you know,
I honestly think it's and it's just so ahead of
its time. I'm curious about the birth of satire. I

(46:36):
don't know much about it, Like what the first satire was.
Well for it, there's I mean there's I guess you
can even look at like Shakespeare, there's always a clown
who's mocking a king. You know, there's there's evidence of
political satire that goes pretty far back, I think, But
I I don't know if it's ever handled like you know,

(46:58):
the End of the World or if ever, if ever,
it's been so black and so you know, nihilistic. Yeah,
you know what I mean. And how else can you
treat this stuff? I guess they wanted to. Apparently they
spent a year is trying to make this into a
real They yeah, they they were. It was only it
was late in the game they decided in in like
many iterations of the script, they kept laughing and they

(47:20):
were like, Okay, well we're laughing. This is really a comedy.
So before it was straight they wanted to make a
thriller into the world thriller, and then fail Safe came
out a few years later. I guess. Yeah. I saw
there was like a lawsuit or something. Yeah, we tried
to sue and that's Sydney le May I think. Yeah. Anyway,
I'm I just I'm so struck at how the genius

(47:42):
of going, oh, there's no other way to handle this.
You can't you can't take this stuff seriously, and we'll
end it with a pie fight. Yeah, well, in with
a fucking magnificent glorious pie fight that's on far with
like total annihilation. I love how there's no I love
how quickly the story gets going. I mean it's it's

(48:03):
like it's fired out of a cannon with Ripper early
on setting the stakes, um, having lost his mind, and like,
this is what's happening, and there's no like you're right,
it's not like any other movie. There's no kind of
classic character development as you think of it in films. Um,
it's just but but the characters are all super developed somehow. Yeah,

(48:23):
it's like this weird little magic trick, uh, in a
movie that's an hour and forty five minutes long that
just gets going so fast. It's this portrait of total
and complete absurdity. Yeah. And it's it's just gotting gorgeous. Yeah.
Um yeah, I've just never seen anything quite like it.
Well and gorgeous. You know, we can't. I know, we
talked about the sets some and but we haven't really
touched on the black and white and just what a

(48:46):
beautiful movie it is. Yeah, I it's it's low key,
it feels. I heard somebody talking about how at the
time there was color movies were for comedies and black
and whites were still reserved for like, you know, noirs,
and so we kind of flipped it. So we kind
of flipped that too, you know. Um, And I don't
know if audience is going in had any you know,

(49:09):
they didn't. I don't know if they knew what they
were going into. Yeah, I don't know if they I
don't know how they would have responded. I mean, was
it was it promoted as a as a comedy or
was it I don't know. I don't know, man, in
what did the American public think of this? Right? It?
Maybe that's the subversive thing about it. Maybe he was
like hoping they would go in thinking, oh, this is

(49:30):
a real thriller, like this is an actual thing, and
they get they get this other thing that they were
not expecting and maybe don't even know how to react
to because there's not necessarily you know, there's no cop right. Yeah.
So that's the verses. That's subverse of as hell, that's
punk rock as hell. Yeah yeah, I mean, get everybody
in the theater and then feed him this and then

(49:50):
there's all these people, the backlash from the military saying
this is completely inaccurate. This is you know, it's it's
borderline dangerous. Um. And it turns out the it wasn't inaccurate.
Oh no, I read that a lot of like even
the pilots in all We're like, no, this was scarily accurate,
so much so that the Kubrick was afraid that the
guy who helped him out with that stuff had gotten

(50:11):
illegal information. Cooper always seems to be a time traveler
to me. He seems to always have his hand on
on some either either he's got a magical imagination or
he's actually, you know, in some conspiracy, you know, like
got a straight line into like all of the classified information. Yeah,
you know, in the Illuminati or something, right, you know,

(50:32):
it was all these conspiracy because he doesn't again and
again and again. Yeah, and he always seems to have
be way way out in front of way ahead of whatever. Um.
So there's something magical about his genius that Yeah, nobody
can put their finger on. He's the best ever, right, Yeah, Yeah,
he really is in his own way. Yeah. Yeah, because
like I'm trying, I mean, we did a series and

(50:52):
we didn't abandon it. We just kind of paused it.
With my buddy Casey here, Casey on kuber Can we
covered that so it show and Barry Lyndon and full
Metal Jacket and the Shining I think was all and
that's our Did we do Ramesay? Did we do uh
uh now I can't think of it. The Drew Gies,

(51:13):
Oh yeah, clock Recorn? Did we do clock Recrange Orange? Oh,
that's right, that was a j Yeah did Yeah, we
did passive Glory, that's right. And then we were killing. Well,
we didn't do the killing. We didn't do alone. What's
his name Hayden? Oh? Is he in that Sterling Hayden? Yeah,
he's the he's the lead. Oh wow, that's right. Yeah.

(51:36):
I've only seen The Killing once and that was like
in college. Yeah. But Cooper was always just so in
his own lane, like they're they're more than movies. I'm
not trying to like to elevate him to this like
God likes that. I mean, there's there weren't they weren't movies.
They were different, they were different, and there's like I

(51:57):
was just in London and there was the Cooper exhibit
at the Design mused him when I missed that in
l A. I went over there and I tried to
like I I didn't look it up before. I just
went over there because we had a film in the festival.
And I went over there and tried to get in
and it was sold out and unfortunately, so I didn't
get to go in and look just snuck in. I
was like, say, there's almost snuck in. I got half
way in and my wife was lingering behind, and I

(52:19):
was like, I either need to just ad her, abandoned
her and go in here and see this. And when
I when I came back and I was like, cod
I could have gotten and she's like, should have gone in, man,
I would have figured it out right, Yeah, but I'm
She's like, I would have just gone and had tea
or something. Yeah, what are you doing in London? We

(52:42):
were there because our film The Dark Red was screening
had its European premiere at um fright Fest. How'd that
It was fantastic and really had a We had a
killer you know how A bunch of our crew came
Um Elizabeth, the Bit of Itch came in April, Billings
Leave the League came and Davidovich is our stunt or
nator and she's amazing, and U Ben Lovett was there,

(53:04):
our composer, and Victoria Warren was there and Victoria's our
our DP. That's great. Yeah, we all came in like
the movie was really well received and uh yeah it
was just it was the best we could have ever
hoped for because how Fun Fest is like one of
the top four genre fests and just to have it
so well received, and we were scared because the movie
is not total horror. It's not for a genre festival.

(53:27):
This one's a little bit more of a thought piece,
and it was maybe they needed a break from the
like the crazy blight splatter, but it was. It was
very well received and we're excited. That's awesome, dude. And
it's coming out in March, so and in London, Like,
how fun was that? Yeah? One of my favorite cities
in the world. It's yeah, it's like the coolest city ever. Yeah,
I've had forgotten how I just love it. Man. I

(53:47):
would move to London in a sec. It was Berlin forever.
Now it's London again. I've never been. I missed my chance. Well,
I had a question for you when you were a kid,
because you're my age, So, to what degree before the
Cold the Cold War sort of collapsed around the wall
coming down, Um, to what degree were you did you

(54:10):
grow up like me, terrified the there was gonna be
a nuclear war. I mean that was the shadow that
we lived in. Yeah, it was very real. I remember,
as I'm sure you do, the day after that TV
movie with Jason Robards and my dad. After that movie, Uh,
we started building a bomb shelter in our basement. Seriously, Yes,

(54:31):
we started digging out. It was behind our this wood shop.
Behind the cinder black walls of the wood shop was
you know, red clay. And he knocked a hole in
that wall and we started digging and he had me
and my brother digging and you physically built a bomb. Well, no,
we didn't, true true to form. Uh. He stopped after
a few weeks and we had, you know, after my

(54:52):
brother and I dug out, you know, a hundred and
fifty wheelbarrels full of red clay. He what was that
impact on you? Like you're like, okay, we're taking for one.
What was the impact of like, okay, we're building a
bunker and like we're in this because the world's gonna end.
Part of you think that's kind of cool and to
what was what was the impact of, like, oh, we're
not doing this anymore? Because that was just a movie
and nobody really cares. Well, I was a little kid,

(55:15):
So part of it is kind of cool because, um,
I think there's something about war games and growing up
with that film and uh red Don with that film
that was a little bit of like yeah, man, like
I'm going to be in the woods with a rifle
and a football or in a bunch of cans of
soup and we'll be and we'll be okay, Like I

(55:36):
still have that zombie apocalypse sort of weird fantasy like
we'd be all right. We did too. I lived in
um the plasm Midwood area in Charlotte, North Carolina, and
there was this section of woods behind like the golf
course over there, and there was this weird division between
where we were the like sort of middle class over
middle class and then the and then like this weird

(55:57):
pocket of like upper middle class and man sins and
ship and the dividing line with these were these woods
and we would play Vietnam War. We would go in
there I had seen like I think I've seen Apocalypse
now or something, and we would go in there and
we would ambush each other and we just it was
just it was the most delightful these war games we
play in the woods were the most delightful thing in

(56:18):
the world. I didn't have anything about the true terror
of Vietnam. No, we did the same thing, man, but
we shot bottle rockets at each other. Roman candle wars,
Yeah are the best. But to answer your second part
of that question, when we stopped building it, I was
just relieved and not have to be digging anymore. On
the weekend, there was no sense of like, but are

(56:41):
we gonna be okay? Like why aren't we doing this
thing that seemed very important? Um? But yeah, you know,
I was watching Red Dawn and Night did the Comment
and all these sort of disaster scenario movies. But it
was just like you said it. It was the way
it was. I went to my friend of mine was
was My parents did not We didn't go to church

(57:01):
growing up. We quit very early on. My My dad
was he was a chemist, and he had had an
experience at his at the church, some church in South
Carolina where he had like basically abandoned he at one
point that they showed signs of being very racist at
this one church that he was sort of interested. He
was actually doing Sunday We're like Bible school in um

(57:23):
for adults, and and he basically said, I'm never going
to darken your doors again. I'm done with this. And
then it's there was this snowball effect with him if
he eventually backed away from the entire thing. And he
basically raised us almost as atheists, um or at least agnostics,
and anything that has any dog at all he's terrified of.

(57:43):
He's like anybody who thinks that they know the right
way to do anything, then walk away as quick as
possible with run or stop them. And we're men. But
this there's this one friend of mine who took me
to like this youth Christian church camp and my dad
was like, Okay, I guess you can go see what
the other side like. And I went, and uh, I
met all the crazies there. They're all these kids that

(58:06):
were like part of this youth Christian camp thing. And
I was the one guy who I kept it hush
hush at that point because I had learned by going
to camp in South Carolina that you the more I
speak about this, the less the more I'm hated and
people fear me. You're like, they don't know that I
played the one I would play the Beatles and and
talk about you know how much I don't I don't

(58:26):
go to church, and then yeah, how God, we don't
know if God exists, and they would like you know,
I was, yeah, I was outcast, so I was like, okay,
I'll shut up about that. But when I but I
met all these kids who were like obsessed. They sent
me after I get left camp there like we decided
you're cool enough, and they sent me this letter in
the mail with like this debriefing about what to do
in case of a nuclear war and how they have
the survivalist club that they had started talking nine years old,

(58:48):
ten years old and scary sh yeah, And I was like,
you guys have started your own like clubbed on how
to survive in nuclear war and you're inviting me to
join your posse, And was just like it was and
they were it was insane. But that's the kind of
ship that would happen to us when we were growing
up in the shadow of nuclear war. We did it

(59:08):
for fun. This weird thing happened, Sure, this weird thing happened.
Where it all and I would I wouldn't remember. I
was at a very open school and we had joined
this extra crew curricular class in the sixth grade called
the World Peace Club. We would talk about ways that
we could. Yeah, but I just was terrified growing up.

(59:30):
I was literally I was like, Okay, this is how
we're going out. And it affected this sensibility to me
of like nothing matters. Well, why not litterally? Why not?
Why not smoke? Why not do drugs? Who gives a ship?
You know? Right? I think? And then at some point
it all went away. At some point it was like, okay,
so that's gone true. We dodged a bullet there, didn't

(59:51):
we But it hasn't. There's still these broken arrows, which
is broken airs the term for lost nuke. There's just
broken airs that happened all the time. And I brought
you this. This is um a print out of all
the broken arrows. Well, it's the thirty five. It's the
thirty five declassified broken arrows that really they were speaking about.
And one of them is in off a Tybee Island.

(01:00:12):
Well I know about that one, yeah, yeah, the one
that it's underwater somewhere right. Another one in Aiken, South
Carolina's gloss from there's one an, there's one an. There
was a broken arrow happening in Aken there's one in
um Florence, South Carolina. Why are they all in South Carolina?
I don't know there's hundreds. This is just happened to
be the ones around. This is gonna be my toilet. Yeah,

(01:00:34):
I figured you guys have talked about that on No
you know, we've never done on this a great idea
of broken arrow and stuff. You should know it's not
just a Travolta movie. Wasn't that dult? Was it that general?
I don't know? Am I thinking face off? Face off?
Ramsey's nodding? Um, anyway, back to the movie. Sorry, I

(01:00:55):
know it's it's all It all ties in. You know.
I think the movie for me because of that, because
of growing up in the shadow of of this weird,
absurd condition that we all might blow yourselves up in
any minute. The movie was this like release of pressure
for me. When did you see it first? I think

(01:01:15):
I saw it in college, So I didn't see it
in high school. I must have been I definitely didn't
see it in high school. I was thinking college. I
must have seen it around something in anyway, So right
when we were going in the first like Gulf War,
right around then is when I saw it. So I
was already kind of anti war kid at the time.
And then did you sit around and watch the war

(01:01:37):
on TV in college? Like yeah, yeah, at the pizza
and we go to the pizza place and watch the war. Um,
it was weird, but I in the way that people
were reacting, in the way that like the frat boys
in this school that I was in were like so
immediately gun home about it. I was like, and then
I've seen and then I think I watched the movie
Strange Loove and and it just was like this release like, Okay,

(01:01:59):
so I'm not crazy, So I'm not the only one
who gets that this is all bullshit and all these
people are fucking crazy and this is just completely insane.
This is lunacy. Yeah, And I was like, oh, so
there's been subversive messages from way back. There's a there's anyway.
The relief of knowing that I wasn't the only one
that felt this way and that there is actually a

(01:02:22):
long history of it was it was wonderful. Yeah. I
mean that's why the movie is kind of a crush
for me. Well, it's a it's a it's a movie
too that changes over the years for as you age,
because my first viewings of this is a lot of
it was lost on me, and um uh, A lot
of it was the broad performances that I thought were funny,

(01:02:42):
and of course Dr Strangelove and his alien hand syndrome,
which I have no idea why they did that. Um
I think my favorite thing about all of that is
the fact that no one ever acknowledges it. You know
that the great I mean, there's funny stuff through choking himself,
you mean, and yeah, but at the end when he's uh,
it's the sequence of hand steering the wheelchair and a

(01:03:06):
little circle he's like trying to go away. It's like
and then to the chin punch, to the handbite, to
the joke fucking sequence. I was dying and he came out.
She's like, what are you laughing at? I was like,
I can see that part a thousand times and it
will still make me laugh out loud. Well, he's all

(01:03:27):
of this is happening while he's talking about how to
survive in all that stuff? Is that sellers? I mean,
that's not in the script, Like he has alien hand
syndrome and no one notices. I don't know where they
came up with the doctor Strange love character because he
wasn't in the book that they were mostly basing it on.
Apparently the president. It had to have been sellers because

(01:03:50):
for roughly he originally was going to play him as
being really really sick with a cold, and they said
that he was so good at it with all the
cold stuff that he uh and no one could keep
a straight face. And they're like, and Kubrick was like,
you gotta you gotta lose it, man, I'm sorry to
fine such a fine line. Yeah, because that the president's

(01:04:12):
role is such a straight role and cutting the pie
thing like he's he's trimming down certain things that are
too farcical or too slapsticky, and and and it becomes uncomfortable.
It's like, why am I laughing at this? And he
never gives you the full like, oh, this is to
be dismissed. This is just a total He's like, no, no, no,
this is not You can't dismiss this as as a
as a as a pure slapstick farce. Each can't and

(01:04:33):
I'm not gonna let you so. And maybe in that
sense the pie thing had to go, and and the
over the over silliness. You know, if if he ever
did the muffly maybe they had to go right, I
mean the fine line and and the tone was his,
his and his alone, like uh, sell no, Kubrick, I
think of like that that line that he wanted to walk, Um,

(01:04:57):
I think was his alone, like he what exactly what
he wanted to do? Uh, And it was just genius.
And I guess there were lots of the edits of
the movie. Oh really Yeah, apparently they cut it a
lot of times. I mean, you know, he was pretty
obsessive at this point in his career with He's pretty
exacting and hands on. Like I know there was an

(01:05:18):
editor credited, but everything I read says that editor and
also obviously Coop breaking right in the room. Yeah, cutting tape.
Did you ever do that? Were you ever cutting film? Yeah?
I started off cutting on a on a steam back
um editing machine and same here. That was fun. Yeah.
Even before that, I was cutting sixteen millimeter, which is

(01:05:39):
um well eight millimeters like spaghetti. Yeah, but I had
a little hite millimeter cutting spice cutting. But yeah, I
kept my first The first couple of short films I
made were sixteen millimeter and I yeah, I had to
get a workprint and cut with the work print. That's awesome.
That's what what I did. It was in the bands
with all the stuff hanging on his little white gloves,
tough grease pencils. Yeah, and then you had to get

(01:06:02):
your negative cutter to conform everything. That was expensive. Such
a cool process. Uh, I mean it's better now I'm
not one of these guys. It's like, oh, Avoca, AVOD
came out. Pretty much for the year I graduated from
film school was like AVOD came out, and then everything
that he had learned was Yeah, so I couldn't get

(01:06:23):
a job editing because everybody coming out behind me we
knew how to do digital editing. Yeah, but that was
just the process. Like you know, editing is a is
an art and no matter if you're cutting film or
doing it with a click of the mouse, you got
learned the new system, which there is something, there is
something wonderful that's happened with the when you have the

(01:06:44):
nonlinear digital editing that is I you know, it's like
you can move so quickly that you can entertain several
conversations with yourself. You have a backlog of ideas that
you can kind of quickly. It's just a different game
you can edit. It's just informs my just so different
that I you know, and I know that it's thirty
years ago now, but like it changed my brain. I'm like, oh,

(01:07:05):
I can compose here, I can write, yeah, pretty much
to today. I've cut my own movies. Like you don't
work with an editor at all? No, No, I mean
I would love I would love to if I found one, Um,
would you be able to? You think? I don't think so.
I think. You know, it's funny because I talked to Bruckner,

(01:07:26):
David Bruckner. He's working on a movie called Nighthouse right
now with Rebecca Hall, and he, you know, he always
has these other editors that he's having to work with
now because it's just contractually but it's still a director's cut.
But he's an editor, like that's his gift, his magic editing.
He's badass. So I'm like, how do you sit there
and watch them push the buttons? And I don't. I
haven't had to deal with that really yet. There was

(01:07:48):
one instance on a movie called The Vault, which was
we had another editor, but luckily we got rid of
that editor and I took over and again and right
try to salvage the movie. But yeah, so I would.
It's like a cinematographer, if I could find a cinematographer,
you know. And I've found some that I love, and
I'm like, okay. And when I finally found that, I

(01:08:09):
was like, okay, I feel good about not worrying about that. Yeah,
but right now the editing, I don't. Yeah, so much fun.
It's wonderful. Editing is the best. Uh So. A couple
of things here at the end of the movie that
I loved um is a couple of lines. Is one
that that last phone call with Dmitri and President Mofly,

(01:08:31):
when he's explaining like the current situation, like you know,
you're just gonna have to find that plane and shoot
it down. Basically he goes, well, I'm sorry, they're jamming
your radar and flying so low. That's what they're trained
to do. It's initiative, you know. Oh man, I love it.
And then when strange Love is describing the post war

(01:08:53):
rebuilding effort, when he goes, animals could be bread and stop.
Oh god, I mean, Sellers was such a genius. He
left us so soon. He was fifty four years old, Yeah,
just fifty four four, and he fell over at a
breakfast table dead of a heart attack. Yeah, I think.

(01:09:16):
I think he was also had a lot of like demons,
as the best comics often do. Right, Yeah, I'd like
to read a good biography on him because he was
a lot of problems. You know who's an expert on Sellers,
Scott Poythress. Oh really, Yeah. He even was gonna he
was trying to put together a film where he was
going to play Sellers. Yeah, he's and he can do

(01:09:39):
he can do a Sellers impersonation. That were Sellers doing
other characters. I was about to say, no one even
knows who Sellers was, and I think that was his
whole jam, right, Yeah, I mean he'd been admitted that
he didn't have any other personas outside He was tough dude.
I mean he was married four times and admittedly just
a sort of a monster. Um. I did see the
Jeffrey Rush thing that they did a few years. I

(01:10:00):
didn't see that that was a while ago. That The
Lives of Peter Sellers or whatever. It's good. I mean,
it's worth a watch, but uh, you know, britt Eklund,
one of his wives, came out and she was like,
I didn't like it because it portrayed him as a human.
They're like, he he was a monster. Yeah, Jesus, Yeah,
he was a tough guy. Uh, depression, you know, drug addiction, alcoholism.

(01:10:24):
I'm not sure how bad the drugs were. I know
he's a big pod head twitches who cares about that,
but right, he was. He was a messed up guy. Yeah.
It fits into that whole the whole theory about the
American clown and how I'm getting that some other time,
but basically just the idea that, you know, we hate
our clowns and other cultures, clowns represent their sort of

(01:10:46):
outside of they're they're even more praised in some primal
cultures than the priest or the medicine man. We hate
our clowns. Yeah, Wen, they're they're praised because they are
beyond dogma, because they are like, okay, they'll come in
and the trickster is understand something that is outside, Like
you think you understand the mind of God. Actually that's
laughable because there's no way you could. And so they

(01:11:06):
have in some senses, they're more sacred than the priest
or whoever is this the spokesman, but in in the
United States or it's it's in the Western culture, seems
like we're so terrified of the clown that he becomes
monstrous like the movie It or you know, these other
movies like that. But we were terrified of them. And
then the clowns that we have that are comedians, they

(01:11:28):
they tend to have all these demons and they carry
with them this it's a sad clown that, you know,
and that the suicidal tendencies and the self destruction, you know,
and it's I think it's part of that whole equation.
Did you watch Baskets, No, zach alais is Huh, you
should watch Baskets. Ok, it's great. He was a clown

(01:11:51):
in the in the show. Okay, uh, that sounds perfect. Yeah, yeah,
it was really good. But I think about like Joker,
the movie Joker, and did you see it? I haven't
seen it yet, Yeah, but you know, it's just that
that and even yeah, these characters that were just terrified
of anyway, I don't know, it seems like that's part
of the equation with with Robin Williams and Peter Seller's
and these other these other you know, guys who are

(01:12:13):
somewhat self destructive or you know, yeah, all right, man,
you got anything else do I, Um, you know, look
at your notes. Yeah, I mean I'm probably gonna walk
out and go, oh yeah, I forgot to talk about
that thing we talked about Pablo Pharaoh the titles. Yes, yeah, okay,

(01:12:33):
Bablo Pharaoh. I thought that was cool. That's very cool.
And it all it all comes together because uh I
never noticed that that that was the same exact script basically. Um, now,
I think we've covered some good stuff here. I just
think the movie is important because it's I just think

(01:12:56):
it stands alone. I don't think there's anything quite like it.
And so when I saw it, it was one of
those movies that when you see it, you're just giddy
because you're just like, oh my god, I can't believe
this is somebody did this. Yeah, and it's a movie
you want to talk about with other people. And it's
the most efficient movie in the world. I mean, like
every scene is so specifically clear cut and there's no
fat in this movie now whatsoever. Yeah, but thank you

(01:13:17):
for having me. Of course, man, think about what you
want to do next. Um, I'll have you on before March.
But where can people find the Dark Red in March?
The Dark Red? Um it'll be on all of the
pay outlets like iTunes and Google Play, and we'll do
a big all that stuff from a push for it.

(01:13:38):
Um yeah, so well, and then beyond that, we don't
yet to be seen if it will be like a
Netflix thing at some point or what. Cool. Maybe we're
probably gonna be theatrical release like limited, So maybe around
the release, it would be fun to get you and
whoever you want to invite key players great from uh
maybe your DP and the and the lead actress. They'd
be fun sit around, do a little round table. I'd

(01:13:59):
be just about the making of it and some insider stuff.
I know people love that stuff. All right, Well, think
about what you want to do next as well, and
we'll get you in here like in the new year. Okay,
thanks Dan, thanks for having me. Man. Bomie Crush is produced, edited,

(01:14:23):
and engineered by Ramsey unt Here in our home studio
at Pont City Market, Atlanta, Georgia. For I Heart Radio.
For more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the i
Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows.