March 19, 2021 • 51 mins
Ben Harrison is back to continue our Coen Brothers series with their very weird, brown comedy, The Hudsucker Proxy.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Movie Crush, a production of I Heart Radio.
(00:29):
Hey everybody, and welcome to Movie Crush Friday Interview Edition
Filmmaker Series Edition. Because I'm sitting across from the very
handsome if I may say, Hey, what is this Benjamin R.
Harrison of a podcast fame? And Ben and I had
(00:50):
started the Coen Brothers series a while ago and knocked
out Blood Simple and Barton Fink only because we had
a skip raising Arizona and Miller's Crossing, and we just
done two of these. I've only done two, and I, uh,
I've been I've been missing you man. I've been wanting
to come back on the show for a long time.
And I know it's been not right. We haven't done
(01:11):
this center. It's been a real uh travesty of justice.
I would say, I think people are angry and upset. Frankly,
I don't blame us. What is movie Crush without Ben
Harrison coming around? Every so often they say that's right, agreed, Uh,
And just let everyone know. Ben has a background set
(01:31):
upon a zoom that is the interior set of Paul
Newman's office, uh, from The Hudsucker Proxy, the movie we're
talking about, and we decided to, as per tradition, with
both Ben and Adam, to have this over cocktails in
the evening. It's eight o'clock for me, it's five five
fifteen for me, five fifteen for you. What are you drinking?
(01:52):
I am drinking some some apple brandy from St. George Distillery. Well,
it's a it's a it's a special treat that as
like it's like I would say, my favorite brown spirit,
like full stop and having apple brandy, yeah, specifically the St.
George Apple brandy. So and having that in my like
(02:15):
like as a known known for a lot of people
in my life means it shows up at like birthdays
and holiday times a lot. So they seem me typing
right now right, Well, you don't need to you don't
need to type. I can. I can provide you some
apple brandy. Check no, no, no, I'm typing. So now
I have a reminder to send you Apple brand Okay,
(02:35):
oh yeah, you're now on the the official list and
oh you a shipment of oh you uh your package anyway?
So ah, you don't you don't know me nothing? Um
I do, though, but what's apple brandy? Like? It's like
so I I first had their brandy and it was
the not barrel aged version, so it was a clear spirit.
(02:58):
In a rest taurant in New York called eleven Madison Park,
it was like a very special, like once in a
lifetime dinner for me at a very fancy restaurant. And
at the end of the meal, they dropped off just
a full milli eater bottle of this apple brandy on
the table and said, like, enjoy as much of this
as you would like. Like with the check, they bring
(03:21):
this bottle of booze, and I'm like what and and
like my like, I am like a eat everything on
my plate kind of person. So like there's an impossible
amount of alcohol here and we've just had dinner and
like three glasses of wine. This is like the worst
torture I've ever experienced. Because they've dropped the check. They're
not charging us for this, it's built into the price
(03:43):
of the meal. And I'm like, how much of this
can I drink? And I start drinking and it's so good.
It tastes like it tastes like you're biting into a
fresh apple that has no sweetness, and it replaces the
sweet with the spirit. And so they that that is
a a private label that they only do for that restaurant,
(04:04):
but the distillery makes a barrel aged version of the
same that you can buy in your finer bottle shops,
and uh, I really enjoy it. Well, I'm looking now.
It says the St. George California Reserve Apple Brandy availability
colon very limited. Yeah, it can be hard to find,
(04:25):
but it's not like super expensive. I think it's like
thirty five bucks or forty bucks for a bottle or
something like that. Well, I am having a you know,
I've kind of gangd this from you and Adam. That
just tequila and a little soda. Yeah, that's the official
beverage of the Greatest Generation our Star Trek podcast. It's good.
It's like what I do is and I don't know
(04:46):
if you do it quite this way, but I do
um For this one, I'm doing the George Clooney Geo
Clooneyism only calls it, uh cosamigos can't even think of
the real name because we call it Geo Clooney And uh,
you know about three quarters of that. And then I
get a topa Chico because it just has the most fizz. Yeah,
and I do a couple of splashes of topa Chico
(05:06):
and then I do like like I do like half
a lime. Yeah, so it's almost like the skinniest margariting.
I love it. That's that is a that's a drink
that I drank very often. Um. I mean the Cosomigos
is my favorite. Riding motorcycles with my friend and no
helmets tequila uh Hutch. Anybody that's seen the cosome Egos
(05:30):
delivery truck will know that is how they market that
particular brand of tequila. No safety. I do not understand
that choice. It makes me worried for American movie star
George Clooney every time I see it, But I love that.
You know, recently Springsteen Springsteen was outed with the story
(05:52):
of that, like being in that National Park on his
motorcycle and doing tequila shots with his fans and getting
back on his motorcycle got d w I and the
you know, Fox News was just railing against him and
all this stuff, and I was like, I don't think
you understand how fucking cool that made him. Look. He
did tequila shots with random bands in a national party,
(06:14):
and then not much. He did like two and then
got back on his motorcycle. I think he blew a
point oh four. They threw threw it out of court
even and I was like, man, that that backfired. Yeah,
he knows his little big way. I love that. I
didn't know he drank. You know, he had substance issues,
So I guess he's learned how to d tequila shots
with random bands and deal with it. That's uh, that's
(06:37):
not easy to do, alright, So hudsucker proxy, we could
talk about drinking all night. We have talked about drinking
all night, we have in the past. But this is
one of my one of my favorite Coen Brothers films,
and it's like they're one of their least successful films
and they're actolately successful, I think, and uh, and I
(06:59):
have have to think that that has a lot to
do with Joel Silver being the executive producer. Like I
kind of feel like it's a weird combo. He wanted
it to be. They're kind of move into more commercial
film and they wanted to make a big budget Cohen
(07:19):
Brothers movie. Yeah, did you uh did you hear that
story about it being big and brown? It's kind of great.
I'll read it for you this. I remember reading this
back in the day and I looked it up to confirm,
and this is from Rolling Stone. It said that Jennifer
Jason Lee told the press just prior to shooting she
had a biography of Rosalind Russell in which the actress
(07:41):
insisted that big sets in the color brown kill laughs
and Joel Silver Deadpand what we've got here is the
biggest brownest comedy I've ever seen. Those huge sets and
that Cohen Brothers are always in that rich tweetie brown,
it feels like, at least in these period films. So
(08:03):
it's they made a big brown movie, made a big
brown movie. And Joel Silver like maybe more like a
more like like authentic Jack Lipnick character you can't you
can't point out in Hollywood today, like he's like off
of fresh off of making like Commando and Predator, great
(08:27):
great movies, absolutely, but like but like kind of a
kind of a hilarious team up here, and they never
teamed up again. Like I think that the Coen Brothers
came off of this project, like, Yeah, working with Joel
was really cool, and Joel Silver was like never again,
Like we made the movie wanted to make. Yeah, it
was a complete flop. It said it did not even
(08:48):
clear three million at domestic box office, and I think
costs plus to make. Um. But it is a movie
that is was kind of crushed by critics at the
time and has been reviewed a little bit more favorably since. Um.
I didn't love it back in the day. I always
(09:09):
rated it towards the bottom of my Coen Brothers list,
and not that it was like terrible, but if you
if you have to rank things, it was lower on
my list. But I definitely, you know, after watching it
today through the studied lens of movie crush, have more
appreciation for it. It is a very classic, sort of
by the numbers screenwriting, one on one kind of movie.
(09:31):
And I think that was their intent to make sort
of this homage to like Preston Sturgis and Howard Hawks
and these sort of big broad romantic comedy kind of
movies of the day. Yeah, and and and like in
being a homage to old Hollywood and also kind of
like a send up of old Hollywood. It. I don't know.
(09:53):
I think I think that Hudsucker Proxy is uniquely appealing
to movie nerds in a way that like, I think
that in a way that kind of explains why it
wasn't a big hit at the box office. Like, you
kind of have to be really into the movi nous
of it to to really enjoy it. And like I
watched it with my wife last night and she was
(10:15):
on Instagram within twenty minutes of the movie starting. You know, No,
I mean it's definitely a movie. Even watching it today,
I'm like, well, of course it wasn't a big hit. Yeah,
who ever thought it would be? I don't know, Like
I'm like an I'm an idealist, and like, I mean
their next their next movie is Fargo, right, yeah, and
(10:36):
that's another one. It's that's the that's the high point
of their career financially until more recently, I guess probably Yeah,
like I maybe probably, uh what's the Western Uh? No
Country for Old Man? No Country for Old Men? Probably
is like the first time they made more than Fargo,
right Yeah. I mean I'm looking over their films. I mean,
(10:59):
none of them are the biggest movies ever, yet they
they'll always get financed. I mean they made a movie,
you know, five years ago, in Hail Caesar that I
sort of liken a little bit to this one, and
that it was sort of a big budget homage type
thing that has fairly limited appeal. I think that the
other thing that probably got them in trouble with the
(11:20):
critics is that it's a da a sex Machina story
that like Norville does not save himself. It's just a
but but I love this is like the rare day
of sex Makena that I really love because it it
is so beautifully set up, like it's set up from
the from the like opening shots and and and they
(11:45):
build more and more framework for it over the course
of the film, so that by the time wearing Hudsucker
as Angel is floating down from heaven, I'm like, I'm
here for it. Like, tell me how we are going
to save the day with the with the blue letter
that's still in the in the apron the blue letter. Yeah,
(12:08):
it's it's a movie that, um, I think they do
well when they're saying when they're playing in the sandbox
of sort of heightened reality, sort of fantasy, magical realism
a little bit, which they do a little bit here
and there, like, um, this movie maybe more magical realism
than a lot of their others. Like yeah, I think so.
(12:31):
When when Moses like puts the broom handle and the
clock skiers and turns, turns to camera and breaks the
fourth wall. Yeah, now they're fully in at that point.
But I'm all in, man, I mean I love it.
I think they I think they do well in this
sort of just slightly sideways world that they create. Um.
(12:53):
I mean, it's still based in reality to a certain degree,
but they dabble in that in other movies. I think, oh,
brother Art thou dabbled a little bit out side that reality,
even something like The Big Lebowski, you know, very grounded,
but it's also has that the Sam Elliott narration. Yeah,
kind of like almost a fairy tale kind of thing.
(13:15):
I think that, like Moses really feels like The Stranger
and The Big Lebowski. Like there's a lot of things
that happened in this movie that are that you see
them try again in a stronger film The Big Lebowski
like and and a lot of other like Coen Brothers
kind of signature moves. I feel like start here and
(13:36):
it's like they're like, it's got to be so weird
to be them, because you know, this is known as
a failure, but I feel like it is it succeeds
at what it sets out to do. Yeah. And and
that's such a totally weird tension as an artist to
to have have nailed it in some ways and yet
(14:00):
like nobody cared and nobody liked it. Yeah. I mean
I'm sure they, like you said, I'm sure they walked
away from this movie and they're like that was great. Yeah,
like it it is all up there on the screen.
I mean, one thing no critic is gonna bult it
for is how great it looks. I mean, you have
Roger Deakins on board again, and uh, actually, I wonder
(14:22):
if this is one of the first ones that he
worked on them with I had to be right, Yeah,
I guess unless he did. Uh, I don't think he did.
Barton Fink, did he? He may have done Barton Fink,
but it was the very least pretty early in their
relationship I think. But you know, it looks amazing he
did and was that the first one that must have been? Yeah,
(14:52):
So it looks unbelievable. The art deco design in the
in the sets, these huge big brown sets. Yeah, they
just look amazing and it really holds up to it
looks awesome. It's a it's it's really beautiful, like and
and they really spared no expense, Like they built a
(15:13):
miniature of Manhattan in it on a sound stage so
that they could do the camera flying around and like
the transit like that that opening shot where the cameras
is coming in over New York and lands on Orville
standing on the ledge of the Hot Sucker building is
like a pretty sophisticated technical achievement for its time, because
(15:35):
they like they're going from a miniature to a full
sized thing, and they have to shoot the miniature in
real time, so they had to have like micro fake
snow because that snow is not digital except for the
one part where it transitions from the miniature to the
to the real and and and they had to like
(15:56):
scale little snow for this little set and have it
fall at the right eight to to look the way
it's you know, to the look the way that snow looks.
And that stuff is so bind blowing. It's not really
like what you associate the Cohen Brothers with that like
weird like technical special effects driven filmmaking. But there's a
lot of that in this movie. Like and they wrote
(16:17):
it in the eighties with Sam Raimie, like right after
they did Blood Simple, and they didn't really like realize
that they it was like unproducible at the time that
they wrote it. Yeah, I mean I think they knew
they needed more money than they would be able to
get soon. Yeah, But um, I was surprised that I
did the research today and saw that they wrote it
(16:37):
back then too, and I was a little bit surprised
that it wasn't like, well, now we've got some currency,
so let's write something bigger, Like they wrote this apparently
in Raising Arizona Um the work uniform for Nicolas Cage
in one scene as it Hudsucker Industries patch, so like
it was around back then. You want to hear. The
(16:59):
wildest thing about that, though, is that the hula hoop
part was not in that original script. That was a
rewrite right before they like went into production on this.
What was it then, I don't I don't even know,
like they I don't know if they've talked about it,
but they like needed him to come up with an
invention that seemed like something that an idiot could come
(17:20):
up with, but also that was like incredibly popular at
the time, and it's so perfect to like, it's so
brilliant from the very beginning with the circle of the
coffee ring. Yeah. Uh oh man, I can't believe that
wasn't in the original thing because it just fits so perfectly,
I know, and it's it. It's in like every bit
of the production design of this movie. It feels like
it's it feels like it starts with a drawing of
(17:43):
a circle on a paper and they're like, what what
can we write a movie about to do with this?
You know, and you know, for kids, and it's like
it's all like perfect circles and straight lines, like vertical. Like.
One of the things I love about the opening scene
with wearing Headsecre jumping out of the window is that
(18:07):
that boardroom table has like what looks like parallel lines
on it, but they're actually lines that like split apart,
like from from your perspective watching him run down towards
the window. The lines on the surface of the table
look like vertical lines on screen, but when you see
the table overhead there, actually it's actually like a triangle. Yeah.
(18:29):
And then every office has like really tall vertical lines
in the windows. Every time you're looking at the city, obviously,
the tall vertical lines of the buildings and well that's
kind of the art deco thing right. Yeah. And then
when you see the the the elevation in the blueprint
of the extruded plactic plastic dinghis it's like it's just
(18:50):
they show the hula hoop on its side. It's just
a vertical line. Of course. Man, I will never I've
seen this movie if times now, but it had been
a while. I will never not laugh at the hula
hoop sequence with those kids and that one fucking kid
that they got that was just going at it on
the sidewalk, then it was around his neck, and then
(19:11):
the kids screaming like that delights me every single time.
Let's see it. It's amazing. I read that that kid,
like like all the best audition stories, showed up to
the audition with his own hula hoop and that like
really impressed them, and he apparently just had like a
ton of charisma and they were just like, this is
the kid totally. Man, he looks like the kid. Uh
(19:35):
and you know these are just Coen Brothers kids, but
uh he because they don't use children a lot, but
he looks like the kid one of the kids who
ripped off uh minks, not mink, but the guy's wig
in the alleyway in Miller's Crossing he was when he
was dead in the alley. Those two kids pulled his
two pay off and run away with it. He looks
(19:57):
in my mind, it's the same kid, I know, it's not.
He looks like a p past person, you know, like
he looks like a photograph of a kid from the fifties. Um.
You mentioned something earlier about some of the Cohen's patented
sort of things stylistically, and that's one of my favorite
things about their movies is UM the stuff that they
do in all their movies. One of them is the
(20:18):
repeating dialogue, like saying a line twice in a row.
Another thing is which I kind of just noticed today,
was they have a thing with um having smart characters
who are really dumb, and dumb characters who are really smart. Yeah.
I feel like most of their movies have that element
in some way. Yeah. And and Tim Robbins is kind
(20:38):
of that in this because he's not an imbecile, No,
he's he's he's a rube. He's he doesn't know what
he's gotten himself into because he's unsophisticated and right like
didn't have time to like work his way up and
learn the ropes but he's not stupid, though I don't
think he's brilliant, but he did admit the hula who
(21:00):
he quote. He quotes Buddha and he tries to speak
finish and like he's not he's They kind of picked
the wrong guy obviously because about Win, right, Yeah, and
like Buzz, the elevator operator is kind of like like
they kind of imply that, like Buzz has just as
much potential to be the president of Utsucker Industries in
some ways. He invented the bindy strong. That guy played
(21:26):
PRIs Baluski in The Wire and I didn't realize that
until this watch through. Yeah, he's been in uh. I
remember from the singles the Cameron Crow movie. He was
one of the grunge buddies. He's great. He's so funny
in this movie. Like it's such a funnier role than
I like think of that actor as being capable of
(21:47):
Like it's so big and and he's like he's that guy, right,
he has like this super low status job, but he's
like snoppy and witty and like entertaining in this way
that like you like if you're not sharp, you can't
do that, you know, you can't like come up with
jokes on the fly that way. Yeah. I mean that's
some good writing, man. That that first scene we introduced
(22:07):
to him and he's rhyming all the people getting on
the elevator and he says whatever, so and so floor eight.
He was like floor seven, walk down the floor, rhyme.
And then Jennifer Jason Lee too. I mean, what a
fucking performance man. Yeah, I think that. Uh. She got
(22:28):
kind of criticized for being like to like machine gun
with her dialogue and to stylized, but I think it's
so good. And when she's not like doing the fast
talking career gal stuff, when like in the in the
quieter moments, especially when she's kind of falling in love
with Norville, the she brings so much authenticity to that.
(22:51):
Like it's so hard to imagine any other actress getting
us from She is going to write the inside you know,
like behind the scenes investigative journalism article that destroys this
guy too. She is smooching with him on the balcony
at the Christmas party, and I completely buy it, like
(23:12):
they're like, her love for him feels so authentic and
and likewise his for her. I think Tim Robbins was
great in this role. Yeah, I agree. I really like
they're pairing. Um I saw. I kept thinking in early on,
especially with that mail room stuff, how Terry gilliam esk.
I was like, this feels like Brazil. Yeah, absolutely, And
(23:34):
I was like, am I alone in this? And a
and a read article on Roger Ebert dot Com has
a series called the Unloved Series where they write about
movies that initially were you know, kind of panned and
kind of revisit them. And the person who wrote this
said that compared it to a mashup of Orson Wells,
Chuck Jones cartoons, and Terry Gillham. Yeah. I was like, yeah,
(23:56):
that's that kind of nails it. Actually, Yeah, the satire
is so much less biting than Terry gilliam though, Like
one thing I always think about with this movie is
how grim the the work life is for anybody that
isn't in that boardroom at Hudsucker Industries. Like it doesn't like,
it doesn't paint wearing Hudsuckers being this like benevolent deceased,
(24:21):
you know, god of of his domain or whatever. Like
the scene where Norvil is hired and the guy's explaining
about all the ways that his pay can be docked
and it's basically do anything not as a as a
like perfect machine and like in the Old Man flinging
(24:42):
the envelopes in Yeah, like like the the Angel of
Hudsucker comes in to save the day at the end.
But you realize, like even in the way that his
dialogue is written, that he is much more like Sydney Musburger,
the Paul Newman character, than he has like Marville. Like
he says sure, sure and talk talks in such glowing
terms about Paul Newman as like a you know, as
(25:06):
like a pit bull or or you know, a ruthless
businessman or whatever, and and that that is there's like
a this topic element of Hudsucker Industries as and it
almost totally contains the movie too. I was thinking this
watch through about how we never see Norville like have
like a shitty apartment at the beginning and then like
(25:27):
a super fancy apartment when he becomes the CEO, Like
you never see anything outside of that building aside from
like the juice bar or the I didn't really think about, Yeah,
and like the like his status obviously elevates, but also
like that the way they this movie plays with time
is really interesting because it's all supposed to take place
(25:49):
in the course of a month. But you know, they're
like that. I guess the scene where he's going down
the elevator with Musburger and he's got like the top
hat and the nice scarf and the like custom tailored suit,
and Buzz notices that he's suddenly like a fancy man.
I think that's supposed to happen on the same day
(26:10):
that he walked into the building. Oh, interesting, because I
don't know how Buzz wouldn't have noticed that before, you know,
and and presumably Buzz would have like seen a copy
of the Manhattan Argus in between, which apparently was covering
only Hudsucker related news in the month of December, right, Yeah,
(26:32):
because because they start at the beginning of December, and
they like, the board has this problem that they need
to solved by the beginning of the financial year. Oh
that's right. They set up the date at the beginning. Yeah,
but that's I kind of had forgotten it was a
stock scam until I rewatched it. Yeah, it's a real
game stock type story. Um. Another bit, like, I love
(26:56):
how the Cohens have so much subtle comedy in their movies.
Um at the beginning when he goes to that job
board and the job board is ticking through all the
different jobs that are going to be there's so many
funny jobs. One of them was bombardier, one of them
was sand hogs. And then when he's looking through the paper,
(27:18):
there's there's one that is Cats meets Man, like m
E a T. Cats meets I mean the Cats Meets Man.
That was like almost exactly the part of the movie
where my wife had started to look at look at
all these funny job listings. Yeah, I could picture Rachel
(27:39):
just be like, Yeah. Emily doesn't like the Coen Brothers
that much. She loves Fargo and a couple of others,
but generally she's not really down with it. She hates
that they mistreat animals and almost all their movies this
is a rare movie where they don't know that I
don't think there's an animal death, and this one maybe
(28:00):
think Cats Cats Meats Man might be their own their
little nod to the fact. Yeah, I mean, I I
don't blame her, like I think that they they're a
strong flavor, you know, and if it doesn't taste good
to you, like I wouldn't. I wouldn't try and force
(28:20):
this on somebody that was resistant to it, unless she
was like my spouse and happened to be sitting on
the couch next to me. I got a lot because
we're watching something else, and I was like, oh, shoot,
I gotta watch this movie for movie crush tomorrow. I'm
sure that one over well, Sorry, Rachel. Another scene that
(28:40):
really cracked me up because they're so not afraid to
do some really dumb things comedically. That or is some
of my favorite kind of humor is really dumb humor.
And uh, the double stitch pants scene, Oh my god,
that gets me. When he's like, sir, I've got you.
I've got you by then, and then they flashed back
(29:02):
to that Italian suit maker and you know, the pants
are ripping and he's going back and forth remembering that
he cheeped out and just got the single stitch. Yeah,
And then they had the other little insert where he goes,
he's just such a nice guy, I'm going to give
him the double stitch anyway. That's the nicest, strongest stitch.
It's so dumb, and I can just see the Coen
(29:23):
Brothers just like kind of tickled pink when they're writing
something that's silly, I know, And I love that Paul
Newman is like mad that he got the double stitch,
even though it's saving his life, like he's gonna in
real life he would have gone back and like, you know,
chew the guy out or something crucially not so manned
though that he doesn't take Norville to get his suits
(29:45):
made by the same guy. Right, Oh, yeah, that's true.
And it's funny because like the movie setting like the
late fifties, but these are all very forties style suits.
It is a little confusing. It seems very forties, but
it's it's almost nineteen sixty, I think, right, yeah, it's
it's the nineteen fifties, seven to fifty eight. I think
(30:06):
is the is the New Years that it celebrates. It
feels a little out of time. Yeah, yeah, And I'm
wondering why they did that. Actually, I think it's intentional
because it's like it's not about like like the movie
is the Circle, right, it's the like it starts and
ends at the same moment, and it it's like much
(30:27):
more about karma and the wheel of fate than it
is about like talking about a specific time in business.
History or something like that, like Norville. Norville is much
more a victim of the wheel of faith than he
is like a guy who like went and and did
a thing intentionally. Do I need to say these three
(30:50):
words been film studies paper it was gonna happen. I mean,
this is not I couldn't claim that as an original observation,
just stuff that I've I've read people talking about with
this movie. But like I think, I think it's in
the movie, so it's it's fair to bring up. No,
of course, And and like I was saying at the beginning,
(31:12):
it definitely is a screenwriting, one on one type of movie.
I mean the character arcs and the obstacles and the
plot points hitting uh, it is a real rags to
riches to rags kind of thing, um in you know, normal,
Like it's interesting because he's handling it well, I think,
and it is even humble at first, but there's there's
(31:35):
no movie there, Like you've got to you've got to
have him get too big for his bridges and and
have that stumble, you know, and also just all of
the like detail that is attendant to all of that.
Like I think that that's the thing that always impresses
me about this movie, Like every every watch through, I'm like, oh,
like they built the whole mail room. They showed all
(31:56):
of the like vacuum tubes that go throughout the building.
They got, They've got the whole newsroom at the Manhattan
Argus and the editor's office, like build as beautiful sets
with hundreds of extras filling them out, and like all
of these things are are so rich and detailed that
it's like it's a it's it's like the feat is
(32:19):
that it's like a beautifully built world. Like sometimes I
just want to visit the world of the Hudsucker Proxy. Yeah,
and they do that for I mean, you can see
where they spent their money, because that mail room scene
is is really impressive, and that's that's the only thing
they kind of shot down there, right, Yeah, they even
go back down there. I think that I think that
(32:39):
that's the last time. And yeah, like it's kind of
it's kind of hinted at later in the film when
the when the Hula Hoop is a big success and
some mail room guys are like dumping out sacks of
mail on President Barns as desks. But but yeah, I
don't think we go back down there, and and then
(33:00):
like I think that that's like the other part of
it is that like he's not a very like moral character,
you know, like he doesn't he's not like fighting for
the for the little guy. Like he doesn't really give
give a damn about those people in the mail room.
Once he gets his success, he's like happy to have
it for himself. And and and like I think that
(33:22):
like we can kind of see ourselves in that character
in some ways, like and and in a way that
like we as the audience maybe like don't love and
and I think that that's I think that's where the
like satire and the like and the like critique of
capitalism as a machine comes in to this film. Yeah,
(33:46):
I mean it's definitely there. I think the Coen Brothers, um,
they're not the most like, uh, they're not statement filmmakers
really know, but but I think you do find that
stuff sprinkled throughout. And this is clearly the fact that
the whole plot is around a stock scam. I don't
think that's an accident. I think there is a bit
of an indictment on on corporate America and greed. But
(34:09):
they're they're just not interested in that stuff. They're much
more interested in being goofy and fun and making a
fun movie. I think, yeah, making a big brown fun movie,
big round fun movie. I love it. I don't think
I told you this. I saw. The last thing I
did before coronavirus was I went on a little mini
concert tour with my friend and Philly d C in
(34:31):
New York to see Bonnie Prince Billy and Jonathan Richmond.
And we ended up at town Hall in early March
a year ago, almost exactly a year ago in New York. Yeah,
town Hall for a show. I think I said you
performed there once? You did? Yeah, performed there once? That's right, Yeah, Josh,
and I did show there. You read that show I was.
I don't think we knew each other then? What you
(34:54):
didn't just pay to come to see a fucking show,
did you? I don't remember how I got there. I
did see that show though, very interesting. Yeah, do we
not know each other then? I think we'd like, like
we weren't good pals. Yeah, we weren't pals, but okay, yeah, well,
uh Joel, I'm in line, this terrible, terrible booze line,
and uh fucking Joel Cohen and his wife are walking
(35:18):
right by me and sort of commenting about this line,
and I froze and they walked by, And I've never
been more upset to this day that I didn't like,
why didn't I say, hey, man, come on, like I'm
buying your drinks and your standing in front of me.
You don't have you don't have to talk to me
for the next five minutes. Like it's fine, but like
(35:38):
I I owe you one, so go ahead and sneak
in here. And I'm sure his wife would have been like, oh,
of course, and he probably would been like, oh god,
this guy. That's very funny. The biography of the Cohen
Brothers that I I like, I reread The Hudsucker Proxy
chapter two to get ready for this record. The author
(35:58):
of that biography has a very similar story where he
was at like the Edinburgh Film Festival or something like that,
and like at a table with a bunch of screenwriters
and filmmakers and the Cohen Brothers were there, but he
was like talking to somebody else and like looks back
on that moment with regret because like they were there
(36:19):
to promote the Hudsucker Proxy and it was like a
kind of like huge moment in their careers and he
just didn't know that he was going to write a
biography of them. One day, my friend worked with them
on Haile Caesar and it was a little disappointing. They
weren't jerks at all, but he just said he thinks
so much of them, and I think wanted them to
(36:40):
just be super friendly and outgoing and like hanging with
the crew, and he just said they were just really
business like, didn't really hang out with the crew much,
weren't weren't abusive or jerks or anything, but just you
know that thing you build up in your head, like
you know, like we're all going to be best friends
on this job, and it didn't. They just they're just
not like that. He said. They were pretty serious guys
(37:01):
and kind of get in and out and do their thing.
But you know, yeah, I mean it is what it is,
like they are like at the stature as creatives where
you like, hope, oh what if they noticed me and
like you could be my little protege or something. I know,
and I know I should have just bought him a drink.
So it's still so mad. One of the kind of
(37:32):
things that they butted heads with Joel silver on with
this movie was they wanted Ethan to be Norville Barnes.
They like, they kind of wrote the part for Ethan Cohen. Oh,
really interesting, and they did a screen test and I
would love to see that footage. I'm sure I'm sure
that it's been destroyed or something, because, I mean, Joel
Silver like makes so much fun of it in interviews.
(37:53):
He's like, give me a break, Like Ethan Cohen could
not carry a movie like we needed stars. We're spending
thirty millions sweched to make this. It's a very broad
at least the way Tim Robbins did it too, was
very broad and at times even slapsticky. Yeah, and Ethan
Cohen is not that that'd be very strange. It's it's
hard to picture and and I think, I mean, I
(38:14):
think Tim Robbins is so funny in the part and
and does such a great job that it's it's it's
really hard for me to picture anyone else's Norville Barnes.
I think you kind of stole the show, like it's
it's nobody else's role. So but yeah, I saw um,
I saw waiting for Guffman in New York at the
Angelica years ago when it was out and Robbins and
(38:36):
Surrandon we're in front of me and we ended up
in in uh at urinals beside each other taking a
leak afterward, and I was like, I kind of feel
like I need to take a peek. Well, speaking of
Tim Robbins and peeking. Have I told you my Tim
Robbins story. So we lived in a an apartment, my
(38:57):
wife and I before we were married, living in up
Artman in Williamsburg, Brooklyn with another couple. I think I
see where this is going. I didn't have it. We
didn't have a swinging thing with no no, no, go ahead.
I'll tell you if I was right. We had a
We had a backyard with this apartment that we shared
with another apartment unit and a store. There was like
a furniture store next door that's sold like really high
(39:20):
end furniture that had access to the backyard. And the
deal with the landlord was like we could all use
the backyard as long as we didn't trash it, like
everybody could use it. Um And I guess Tim Robbins
went to this store to buy something one day and
like a high enough ticket item that like some negotiation
(39:40):
was happening, and he was like walking. We were sitting
in our apartment like watching TV and looked out the
window into the backyard and Tim Robbins and a salesperson
were like kind of walking around talking turkey with each
other in our backyard. And we're like, that's Tim Robbins
about furniture, about nature. And we had like a we
(40:02):
had like a screen door onto the backyard. And he
walked up to the screen door and like put his
hands to the side of his face to black the
light and look looked into our apartment. Get out of here,
Tim Robbins. Did you say anything. We didn't. We just
I don't know if we could see us or not.
(40:22):
But we're like all kind of star struck. Yeah, I mean,
what do you do? What do you do? Oh? New York.
It's the best. It's so weird. On any given day,
you can peek it, Tim Robbins. Tim Robbins can be
in your backyard and there's nothing you can do about it.
I mean, let's talk about Paul Newman again, um a
(40:44):
little bit. He's He's Paul Newman and this is uh,
I mean, this is towards the end of his career.
I didn't look up to see how many movies he
did after this. I feel like he did a lot.
I mean did he he it's so great in this role.
It's kind of against type for him to be the
kind of like like totally heartless still in in a movie,
(41:10):
but he's great. He is. He's still so charismatic in
the role. And there's so many like funny little details
about his character, like when Norville meets his wife and
then like we realized later that that's the woman that
Wearing Hudsucker was in love with but kind of ignored
because he was so focused on success, Like like like
(41:32):
Paul Newman is the vice president of this company because
he was like fractionally less work obsessed than Wearing Headsucker,
which like kind of makes him like a slightly more
endearing character in retrospect. Yeah, and just the balls to
sort of cast this legend, I mean, yeah, that was
a big swing um and like the that they've ever
(41:54):
worked with at the time, you know, oh for sure.
And and but like he had an a ton of
fun on this movie, Like he said that really he
said that it was like the most fun he'd had
since he'd been in slap Shot. Oh, My god, isn't
that amazing? Isn't it an amazing quote? Wow? So he
(42:15):
was in Uh, he was in this, He was in
a few more. He was in Nobody's full twilight Road
to Perdition had to have come after this, right, yeah,
Road to Perdition and like one more and then did
some voice work. But you know, definitely in the twilight
of his career as Musburger, and he he still just
looks great. I mean he was always my mom's biggest crush.
(42:36):
She was always just in love with Paul Newman and
just impossibly handsome. I mean he was in his probably
seventies here, and like, you know, I had a shirt
off in that one scene, and I'm like, god, damn it,
Paul Newman looks is ten times the man I am. Yeah,
in his old age Rachel put down her phone when
when he was shirtless. For sure. Yeah, it's just a
(43:01):
good guy. Like I mean, every story I've ever heard
about Paul Newman is that um and obviously all his
great charity work, Like you know, he's a good dude,
but very very down to earth guy and easy to
work with and just sort of a throwback to the
you know that those great early days of the film
industry with that star power. Yeah, and and really like
(43:22):
brings his a game for this part in a in
a way that like I don't think you needed to
you know, like, yeah, he's he's already Paul Newman like that,
there's not a lot more that he needs to say
as a as a performer, but like still like doing
the work. And like the other thing I read was
that he didn't love the scene with the with the
(43:45):
Taylor because his knees were visible and he didn't like
the way his knees looked. And it was so sweet
that he just like had a little self consciousness. I
don't like my knees, I don't like my funny that
that shot of him and during the time stop seeing
where he's he's frozen, but that and it's clearly I'm
(44:07):
holding the look. Yeah, it's not a freeze frame at all.
He's just following him and being very stick because they
need to push the camera in. Yeah, yeah, that's so great.
And then uh, plexiglass. I had it installed last week,
Like you knew something was going to happen when that
guy takes off across the table. Incredible, Every every guy
(44:28):
in the in the boardroom is like incredible casting. Yeah,
and you know, the not counting the mezzanine guy, the
the guy that's giving the presentation about how they're loaded
at the beginning, like and is just amazing. Um. Also
like just so people don't get mad at us and say,
(44:49):
how could you know what? Mentioned Bruce Campbell. Bruce Cambell
is also in this movie. Not a very big part,
but he's you know, he's great. He's dashing and he
really fits like we Bruce Campbell would have done more stuff,
like more Smitty's would have been great, especially at this
era of his career. Yeah. Yeah, I guess it's that
(45:11):
he was never that leading man like he was in
the Evil Dead movies. But I don't know, he had
he had the look of like a big star. I
wonder if his involvement has to do with Sam Raimi
because Sam Raimi was the second unit director. I wonder
if he directed those scenes. Also. I think, I mean
they were all buddies from back in the day, Ramy
(45:31):
and Campbell and the commins, uh you know, Frame mcdormant
was living with Holly Hunter and Jason Alexander. I think
they were all roommates. I know, like it's just nuts
to think about this, this small group of friends that
all ended up being huge. I'll also not hear the
end of it if I don't bring up John Mahoney
(45:52):
as the editor of the City of the City pages
at the Manhattan Argus. He's full John Mahoney so good. Um.
I always asked the question, where do you remember where
you were when you found out John Mahoney was gay?
I was in my basement right now talking to you.
(46:13):
I did not know that. Yeah, it's it's a I
don't think I knew that. One of my favorite, one
of my favorite character actors in Hollywood, and uh, and
like he he is, like he had this like secret
life that like I feel like nobody knows about. Wow,
I don't know if I knew that. I feel like
I'm hearing that for the first time. But I'm also
(46:35):
feeling that maybe you told me that already a couple
of years ago or something, but it basically never stopped
talking about. It's the greatest and we're just like in
awe of the fact that that like has has escaped
the public attention. Yeah, because he should be a gay icon.
I know, I feel like he kind of is, but
(46:57):
like the straight world just doesn't know about it, right right,
that's sad whenever I hear about that stuff that people
you know, have to keep all that ship secret, and
especially from his era. You know, well, now Fraser's like
apparently being rebooted or something, and and like, I just
don't think I think that, I think you need John
Mahoney for that. He passed away to though, didn't he Yeah, sad,
(47:22):
I'd like see Frasier again though, I guess, so get
the aisles back in there, it'll be fine. Yeah. I
knew John mahoney first from say Anything the Cameron Crow
movie where he played Ione Sky's father. Yeah, that was
definitely my first introduction to him. And then of course
in in Barton Fink, you know, one of the great
all time roles. Totally. Uh maybe I brought that up
(47:45):
on the on the Barton Fink episode. We'll have to
go back into the movie archives and listen. Someone will
probably point it out, like you dummy said, the same thing,
that's his that's his pocket. Fact. The listeners always no
more and they than the host. That is definitely true. Always. Uh, well,
do do you have anything else on your lists for
(48:07):
this man, I feel like we really covered it. Um,
this is a favor of mine, something a film I
revisit a lot more than some of the other Cohen Brothers,
Like I think that a lot of their other movies
are better movies, like Objectively Raising Arizona is a better movie.
But I watched Hudsucker Proxy more often, and um, and
(48:29):
I think it's I think it's the world building. I
think it's a place I like to visit because it
just feels so fully realized, and I like that's something
I'm drawn to in all kinds of media. And I
think it's a real achievement, Like I it like watching
it this time, I was like, what if the Cohen
Brothers did a movie in a sci fi context? Like
(48:50):
I feel like this amount of world building like makes
me believe that they could in a way that like
that would be as as great as Blade Runner, which
was the movie that they screened for their art department
before they shot this. They were like to feel as
in this world as we do in Blade Runner. Wow. Well,
(49:11):
and this is Taylor made for you too, because it's
got great suits and wardrobe and great furniture and like
all the things that I know that you have a
deep appreciation for I love this stuff. It's it's wonderful.
I mean they I don't know. I think Cohen Brothers
movies can almost be divided up into a few different buckets. Um,
(49:35):
and the period peace bucket is is one. They haven't
done a ton of contemporary films, and it's always a
little weird when they do. I like them, Like, we'll
get to these, but I'm I'm always on record as
being big fans of Intolerable Cruelty and burn after reading
and uh, certainly No Country, and you know they once
they started doing like westerns. But um, I do love
(49:57):
their period stuff. Man, there's something about and Fink and
Meluch Crossing and this and oh brother that just like
such a rich world. There's just a couple of genres
that I hope that they like get to on their
dance card. What else. I mean, like they've done horror
somewhat like I think Blood simple simple as a horror movie,
(50:19):
but like I like a really like like a monster
movie almost is like is like something that's interesting to
think about, Like what would they do with that? Wow?
I know that Joel is doing his own thing for
the next movie, for the first interesting. Wow, it's it's
gonna be a half as good it might be. You
(50:42):
never know, Yeah, I'll never know because it didn't mind
that drink. Yeah, you could have. You could have been
the screenwriter that. All Right, dude, Well this is a
lot of fun. It's always great seeing you. And let's
not wait for six months or whatever. Let's do this
again in a couple of months or so. Absolutely, I'm
I'm here for it, man, every every time you offer,
I am available. All right. I love that, Thanks, Bud Cleater.
(51:08):
Movie Crash is produced and written by Charles Bryant and
Meel Brown, edited and engineered by Seth Nicholas Johnson, and
scored by Noel Brown here in our home studio at
Pontsty Market, Atlanta, Georgia. For I Heart Radio. For more
podcasts for my Heart Radio, visit the i Heart Radio app,
Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Movie Crush, a production of I Heart Radio.
(00:29):
Hey everybody, and welcome to Movie Crush Friday Interview Edition
Filmmaker Series Edition. Because I'm sitting across from the very
handsome if I may say, Hey, what is this Benjamin R.
Harrison of a podcast fame? And Ben and I had
(00:50):
started the Coen Brothers series a while ago and knocked
out Blood Simple and Barton Fink only because we had
a skip raising Arizona and Miller's Crossing, and we just
done two of these. I've only done two, and I, uh,
I've been I've been missing you man. I've been wanting
to come back on the show for a long time.
And I know it's been not right. We haven't done
(01:11):
this center. It's been a real uh travesty of justice.
I would say, I think people are angry and upset. Frankly,
I don't blame us. What is movie Crush without Ben
Harrison coming around? Every so often they say that's right, agreed, Uh,
And just let everyone know. Ben has a background set
(01:31):
upon a zoom that is the interior set of Paul
Newman's office, uh, from The Hudsucker Proxy, the movie we're
talking about, and we decided to, as per tradition, with
both Ben and Adam, to have this over cocktails in
the evening. It's eight o'clock for me, it's five five
fifteen for me, five fifteen for you. What are you drinking?
(01:52):
I am drinking some some apple brandy from St. George Distillery. Well,
it's a it's a it's a special treat that as
like it's like I would say, my favorite brown spirit,
like full stop and having apple brandy, yeah, specifically the St.
George Apple brandy. So and having that in my like
(02:15):
like as a known known for a lot of people
in my life means it shows up at like birthdays
and holiday times a lot. So they seem me typing
right now right, Well, you don't need to you don't
need to type. I can. I can provide you some
apple brandy. Check no, no, no, I'm typing. So now
I have a reminder to send you Apple brand Okay,
(02:35):
oh yeah, you're now on the the official list and
oh you a shipment of oh you uh your package anyway?
So ah, you don't you don't know me nothing? Um
I do, though, but what's apple brandy? Like? It's like
so I I first had their brandy and it was
the not barrel aged version, so it was a clear spirit.
(02:58):
In a rest taurant in New York called eleven Madison Park,
it was like a very special, like once in a
lifetime dinner for me at a very fancy restaurant. And
at the end of the meal, they dropped off just
a full milli eater bottle of this apple brandy on
the table and said, like, enjoy as much of this
as you would like. Like with the check, they bring
(03:21):
this bottle of booze, and I'm like what and and
like my like, I am like a eat everything on
my plate kind of person. So like there's an impossible
amount of alcohol here and we've just had dinner and
like three glasses of wine. This is like the worst
torture I've ever experienced. Because they've dropped the check. They're
not charging us for this, it's built into the price
(03:43):
of the meal. And I'm like, how much of this
can I drink? And I start drinking and it's so good.
It tastes like it tastes like you're biting into a
fresh apple that has no sweetness, and it replaces the
sweet with the spirit. And so they that that is
a a private label that they only do for that restaurant,
(04:04):
but the distillery makes a barrel aged version of the
same that you can buy in your finer bottle shops,
and uh, I really enjoy it. Well, I'm looking now.
It says the St. George California Reserve Apple Brandy availability
colon very limited. Yeah, it can be hard to find,
(04:25):
but it's not like super expensive. I think it's like
thirty five bucks or forty bucks for a bottle or
something like that. Well, I am having a you know,
I've kind of gangd this from you and Adam. That
just tequila and a little soda. Yeah, that's the official
beverage of the Greatest Generation our Star Trek podcast. It's good.
It's like what I do is and I don't know
(04:46):
if you do it quite this way, but I do
um For this one, I'm doing the George Clooney Geo
Clooneyism only calls it, uh cosamigos can't even think of
the real name because we call it Geo Clooney And uh,
you know about three quarters of that. And then I
get a topa Chico because it just has the most fizz. Yeah,
and I do a couple of splashes of topa Chico
(05:06):
and then I do like like I do like half
a lime. Yeah, so it's almost like the skinniest margariting.
I love it. That's that is a that's a drink
that I drank very often. Um. I mean the Cosomigos
is my favorite. Riding motorcycles with my friend and no
helmets tequila uh Hutch. Anybody that's seen the cosome Egos
(05:30):
delivery truck will know that is how they market that
particular brand of tequila. No safety. I do not understand
that choice. It makes me worried for American movie star
George Clooney every time I see it, But I love that.
You know, recently Springsteen Springsteen was outed with the story
(05:52):
of that, like being in that National Park on his
motorcycle and doing tequila shots with his fans and getting
back on his motorcycle got d w I and the
you know, Fox News was just railing against him and
all this stuff, and I was like, I don't think
you understand how fucking cool that made him. Look. He
did tequila shots with random bands in a national party,
(06:14):
and then not much. He did like two and then
got back on his motorcycle. I think he blew a
point oh four. They threw threw it out of court
even and I was like, man, that that backfired. Yeah,
he knows his little big way. I love that. I
didn't know he drank. You know, he had substance issues,
So I guess he's learned how to d tequila shots
with random bands and deal with it. That's uh, that's
(06:37):
not easy to do, alright, So hudsucker proxy, we could
talk about drinking all night. We have talked about drinking
all night, we have in the past. But this is
one of my one of my favorite Coen Brothers films,
and it's like they're one of their least successful films
and they're actolately successful, I think, and uh, and I
(06:59):
have have to think that that has a lot to
do with Joel Silver being the executive producer. Like I
kind of feel like it's a weird combo. He wanted
it to be. They're kind of move into more commercial
film and they wanted to make a big budget Cohen
(07:19):
Brothers movie. Yeah, did you uh did you hear that
story about it being big and brown? It's kind of great.
I'll read it for you this. I remember reading this
back in the day and I looked it up to confirm,
and this is from Rolling Stone. It said that Jennifer
Jason Lee told the press just prior to shooting she
had a biography of Rosalind Russell in which the actress
(07:41):
insisted that big sets in the color brown kill laughs
and Joel Silver Deadpand what we've got here is the
biggest brownest comedy I've ever seen. Those huge sets and
that Cohen Brothers are always in that rich tweetie brown,
it feels like, at least in these period films. So
(08:03):
it's they made a big brown movie, made a big
brown movie. And Joel Silver like maybe more like a
more like like authentic Jack Lipnick character you can't you
can't point out in Hollywood today, like he's like off
of fresh off of making like Commando and Predator, great
(08:27):
great movies, absolutely, but like but like kind of a
kind of a hilarious team up here, and they never
teamed up again. Like I think that the Coen Brothers
came off of this project, like, Yeah, working with Joel
was really cool, and Joel Silver was like never again,
Like we made the movie wanted to make. Yeah, it
was a complete flop. It said it did not even
(08:48):
clear three million at domestic box office, and I think
costs plus to make. Um. But it is a movie
that is was kind of crushed by critics at the
time and has been reviewed a little bit more favorably since. Um.
I didn't love it back in the day. I always
(09:09):
rated it towards the bottom of my Coen Brothers list,
and not that it was like terrible, but if you
if you have to rank things, it was lower on
my list. But I definitely, you know, after watching it
today through the studied lens of movie crush, have more
appreciation for it. It is a very classic, sort of
by the numbers screenwriting, one on one kind of movie.
(09:31):
And I think that was their intent to make sort
of this homage to like Preston Sturgis and Howard Hawks
and these sort of big broad romantic comedy kind of
movies of the day. Yeah, and and and like in
being a homage to old Hollywood and also kind of
like a send up of old Hollywood. It. I don't know.
(09:53):
I think I think that Hudsucker Proxy is uniquely appealing
to movie nerds in a way that like, I think
that in a way that kind of explains why it
wasn't a big hit at the box office. Like, you
kind of have to be really into the movi nous
of it to to really enjoy it. And like I
watched it with my wife last night and she was
(10:15):
on Instagram within twenty minutes of the movie starting. You know, No,
I mean it's definitely a movie. Even watching it today,
I'm like, well, of course it wasn't a big hit. Yeah,
who ever thought it would be? I don't know, Like
I'm like an I'm an idealist, and like, I mean
their next their next movie is Fargo, right, yeah, and
(10:36):
that's another one. It's that's the that's the high point
of their career financially until more recently, I guess probably Yeah,
like I maybe probably, uh what's the Western Uh? No
Country for Old Man? No Country for Old Men? Probably
is like the first time they made more than Fargo,
right Yeah. I mean I'm looking over their films. I mean,
(10:59):
none of them are the biggest movies ever, yet they
they'll always get financed. I mean they made a movie,
you know, five years ago, in Hail Caesar that I
sort of liken a little bit to this one, and
that it was sort of a big budget homage type
thing that has fairly limited appeal. I think that the
other thing that probably got them in trouble with the
(11:20):
critics is that it's a da a sex Machina story
that like Norville does not save himself. It's just a
but but I love this is like the rare day
of sex Makena that I really love because it it
is so beautifully set up, like it's set up from
the from the like opening shots and and and they
(11:45):
build more and more framework for it over the course
of the film, so that by the time wearing Hudsucker
as Angel is floating down from heaven, I'm like, I'm
here for it. Like, tell me how we are going
to save the day with the with the blue letter
that's still in the in the apron the blue letter. Yeah,
(12:08):
it's it's a movie that, um, I think they do
well when they're saying when they're playing in the sandbox
of sort of heightened reality, sort of fantasy, magical realism
a little bit, which they do a little bit here
and there, like, um, this movie maybe more magical realism
than a lot of their others. Like yeah, I think so.
(12:31):
When when Moses like puts the broom handle and the
clock skiers and turns, turns to camera and breaks the
fourth wall. Yeah, now they're fully in at that point.
But I'm all in, man, I mean I love it.
I think they I think they do well in this
sort of just slightly sideways world that they create. Um.
(12:53):
I mean, it's still based in reality to a certain degree,
but they dabble in that in other movies. I think, oh,
brother Art thou dabbled a little bit out side that reality,
even something like The Big Lebowski, you know, very grounded,
but it's also has that the Sam Elliott narration. Yeah,
kind of like almost a fairy tale kind of thing.
(13:15):
I think that, like Moses really feels like The Stranger
and The Big Lebowski. Like there's a lot of things
that happened in this movie that are that you see
them try again in a stronger film The Big Lebowski
like and and a lot of other like Coen Brothers
kind of signature moves. I feel like start here and
(13:36):
it's like they're like, it's got to be so weird
to be them, because you know, this is known as
a failure, but I feel like it is it succeeds
at what it sets out to do. Yeah. And and
that's such a totally weird tension as an artist to
to have have nailed it in some ways and yet
(14:00):
like nobody cared and nobody liked it. Yeah. I mean
I'm sure they, like you said, I'm sure they walked
away from this movie and they're like that was great. Yeah,
like it it is all up there on the screen.
I mean, one thing no critic is gonna bult it
for is how great it looks. I mean, you have
Roger Deakins on board again, and uh, actually, I wonder
(14:22):
if this is one of the first ones that he
worked on them with I had to be right, Yeah,
I guess unless he did. Uh, I don't think he did.
Barton Fink, did he? He may have done Barton Fink,
but it was the very least pretty early in their
relationship I think. But you know, it looks amazing he
did and was that the first one that must have been? Yeah,
(14:52):
So it looks unbelievable. The art deco design in the
in the sets, these huge big brown sets. Yeah, they
just look amazing and it really holds up to it
looks awesome. It's a it's it's really beautiful, like and
and they really spared no expense, Like they built a
(15:13):
miniature of Manhattan in it on a sound stage so
that they could do the camera flying around and like
the transit like that that opening shot where the cameras
is coming in over New York and lands on Orville
standing on the ledge of the Hot Sucker building is
like a pretty sophisticated technical achievement for its time, because
(15:35):
they like they're going from a miniature to a full
sized thing, and they have to shoot the miniature in
real time, so they had to have like micro fake
snow because that snow is not digital except for the
one part where it transitions from the miniature to the
to the real and and and they had to like
(15:56):
scale little snow for this little set and have it
fall at the right eight to to look the way
it's you know, to the look the way that snow looks.
And that stuff is so bind blowing. It's not really
like what you associate the Cohen Brothers with that like
weird like technical special effects driven filmmaking. But there's a
lot of that in this movie. Like and they wrote
(16:17):
it in the eighties with Sam Raimie, like right after
they did Blood Simple, and they didn't really like realize
that they it was like unproducible at the time that
they wrote it. Yeah, I mean I think they knew
they needed more money than they would be able to
get soon. Yeah, But um, I was surprised that I
did the research today and saw that they wrote it
(16:37):
back then too, and I was a little bit surprised
that it wasn't like, well, now we've got some currency,
so let's write something bigger, Like they wrote this apparently
in Raising Arizona Um the work uniform for Nicolas Cage
in one scene as it Hudsucker Industries patch, so like
it was around back then. You want to hear. The
(16:59):
wildest thing about that, though, is that the hula hoop
part was not in that original script. That was a
rewrite right before they like went into production on this.
What was it then, I don't I don't even know,
like they I don't know if they've talked about it,
but they like needed him to come up with an
invention that seemed like something that an idiot could come
(17:20):
up with, but also that was like incredibly popular at
the time, and it's so perfect to like, it's so
brilliant from the very beginning with the circle of the
coffee ring. Yeah. Uh oh man, I can't believe that
wasn't in the original thing because it just fits so perfectly,
I know, and it's it. It's in like every bit
of the production design of this movie. It feels like
it's it feels like it starts with a drawing of
(17:43):
a circle on a paper and they're like, what what
can we write a movie about to do with this?
You know, and you know, for kids, and it's like
it's all like perfect circles and straight lines, like vertical. Like.
One of the things I love about the opening scene
with wearing Headsecre jumping out of the window is that
(18:07):
that boardroom table has like what looks like parallel lines
on it, but they're actually lines that like split apart,
like from from your perspective watching him run down towards
the window. The lines on the surface of the table
look like vertical lines on screen, but when you see
the table overhead there, actually it's actually like a triangle. Yeah.
(18:29):
And then every office has like really tall vertical lines
in the windows. Every time you're looking at the city, obviously,
the tall vertical lines of the buildings and well that's
kind of the art deco thing right. Yeah. And then
when you see the the the elevation in the blueprint
of the extruded plactic plastic dinghis it's like it's just
(18:50):
they show the hula hoop on its side. It's just
a vertical line. Of course. Man, I will never I've
seen this movie if times now, but it had been
a while. I will never not laugh at the hula
hoop sequence with those kids and that one fucking kid
that they got that was just going at it on
the sidewalk, then it was around his neck, and then
(19:11):
the kids screaming like that delights me every single time.
Let's see it. It's amazing. I read that that kid,
like like all the best audition stories, showed up to
the audition with his own hula hoop and that like
really impressed them, and he apparently just had like a
ton of charisma and they were just like, this is
the kid totally. Man, he looks like the kid. Uh
(19:35):
and you know these are just Coen Brothers kids, but
uh he because they don't use children a lot, but
he looks like the kid one of the kids who
ripped off uh minks, not mink, but the guy's wig
in the alleyway in Miller's Crossing he was when he
was dead in the alley. Those two kids pulled his
two pay off and run away with it. He looks
(19:57):
in my mind, it's the same kid, I know, it's not.
He looks like a p past person, you know, like
he looks like a photograph of a kid from the fifties. Um.
You mentioned something earlier about some of the Cohen's patented
sort of things stylistically, and that's one of my favorite
things about their movies is UM the stuff that they
do in all their movies. One of them is the
(20:18):
repeating dialogue, like saying a line twice in a row.
Another thing is which I kind of just noticed today,
was they have a thing with um having smart characters
who are really dumb, and dumb characters who are really smart. Yeah.
I feel like most of their movies have that element
in some way. Yeah. And and Tim Robbins is kind
(20:38):
of that in this because he's not an imbecile, No,
he's he's he's a rube. He's he doesn't know what
he's gotten himself into because he's unsophisticated and right like
didn't have time to like work his way up and
learn the ropes but he's not stupid, though I don't
think he's brilliant, but he did admit the hula who
(21:00):
he quote. He quotes Buddha and he tries to speak
finish and like he's not he's They kind of picked
the wrong guy obviously because about Win, right, Yeah, and
like Buzz, the elevator operator is kind of like like
they kind of imply that, like Buzz has just as
much potential to be the president of Utsucker Industries in
some ways. He invented the bindy strong. That guy played
(21:26):
PRIs Baluski in The Wire and I didn't realize that
until this watch through. Yeah, he's been in uh. I
remember from the singles the Cameron Crow movie. He was
one of the grunge buddies. He's great. He's so funny
in this movie. Like it's such a funnier role than
I like think of that actor as being capable of
(21:47):
Like it's so big and and he's like he's that guy, right,
he has like this super low status job, but he's
like snoppy and witty and like entertaining in this way
that like you like if you're not sharp, you can't
do that, you know, you can't like come up with
jokes on the fly that way. Yeah. I mean that's
some good writing, man. That that first scene we introduced
(22:07):
to him and he's rhyming all the people getting on
the elevator and he says whatever, so and so floor eight.
He was like floor seven, walk down the floor, rhyme.
And then Jennifer Jason Lee too. I mean, what a
fucking performance man. Yeah, I think that. Uh. She got
(22:28):
kind of criticized for being like to like machine gun
with her dialogue and to stylized, but I think it's
so good. And when she's not like doing the fast
talking career gal stuff, when like in the in the
quieter moments, especially when she's kind of falling in love
with Norville, the she brings so much authenticity to that.
(22:51):
Like it's so hard to imagine any other actress getting
us from She is going to write the inside you know,
like behind the scenes investigative journalism article that destroys this
guy too. She is smooching with him on the balcony
at the Christmas party, and I completely buy it, like
(23:12):
they're like, her love for him feels so authentic and
and likewise his for her. I think Tim Robbins was
great in this role. Yeah, I agree. I really like
they're pairing. Um I saw. I kept thinking in early on,
especially with that mail room stuff, how Terry gilliam esk.
I was like, this feels like Brazil. Yeah, absolutely, And
(23:34):
I was like, am I alone in this? And a
and a read article on Roger Ebert dot Com has
a series called the Unloved Series where they write about
movies that initially were you know, kind of panned and
kind of revisit them. And the person who wrote this
said that compared it to a mashup of Orson Wells,
Chuck Jones cartoons, and Terry Gillham. Yeah. I was like, yeah,
(23:56):
that's that kind of nails it. Actually, Yeah, the satire
is so much less biting than Terry gilliam though, Like
one thing I always think about with this movie is
how grim the the work life is for anybody that
isn't in that boardroom at Hudsucker Industries. Like it doesn't like,
it doesn't paint wearing Hudsuckers being this like benevolent deceased,
(24:21):
you know, god of of his domain or whatever. Like
the scene where Norvil is hired and the guy's explaining
about all the ways that his pay can be docked
and it's basically do anything not as a as a
like perfect machine and like in the Old Man flinging
(24:42):
the envelopes in Yeah, like like the the Angel of
Hudsucker comes in to save the day at the end.
But you realize, like even in the way that his
dialogue is written, that he is much more like Sydney Musburger,
the Paul Newman character, than he has like Marville. Like
he says sure, sure and talk talks in such glowing
terms about Paul Newman as like a you know, as
(25:06):
like a pit bull or or you know, a ruthless
businessman or whatever, and and that that is there's like
a this topic element of Hudsucker Industries as and it
almost totally contains the movie too. I was thinking this
watch through about how we never see Norville like have
like a shitty apartment at the beginning and then like
(25:27):
a super fancy apartment when he becomes the CEO, Like
you never see anything outside of that building aside from
like the juice bar or the I didn't really think about, Yeah,
and like the like his status obviously elevates, but also
like that the way they this movie plays with time
is really interesting because it's all supposed to take place
(25:49):
in the course of a month. But you know, they're
like that. I guess the scene where he's going down
the elevator with Musburger and he's got like the top
hat and the nice scarf and the like custom tailored suit,
and Buzz notices that he's suddenly like a fancy man.
I think that's supposed to happen on the same day
(26:10):
that he walked into the building. Oh, interesting, because I
don't know how Buzz wouldn't have noticed that before, you know,
and and presumably Buzz would have like seen a copy
of the Manhattan Argus in between, which apparently was covering
only Hudsucker related news in the month of December, right, Yeah,
(26:32):
because because they start at the beginning of December, and
they like, the board has this problem that they need
to solved by the beginning of the financial year. Oh
that's right. They set up the date at the beginning. Yeah,
but that's I kind of had forgotten it was a
stock scam until I rewatched it. Yeah, it's a real
game stock type story. Um. Another bit, like, I love
(26:56):
how the Cohens have so much subtle comedy in their movies.
Um at the beginning when he goes to that job
board and the job board is ticking through all the
different jobs that are going to be there's so many
funny jobs. One of them was bombardier, one of them
was sand hogs. And then when he's looking through the paper,
(27:18):
there's there's one that is Cats meets Man, like m
E a T. Cats meets I mean the Cats Meets Man.
That was like almost exactly the part of the movie
where my wife had started to look at look at
all these funny job listings. Yeah, I could picture Rachel
(27:39):
just be like, Yeah. Emily doesn't like the Coen Brothers
that much. She loves Fargo and a couple of others,
but generally she's not really down with it. She hates
that they mistreat animals and almost all their movies this
is a rare movie where they don't know that I
don't think there's an animal death, and this one maybe
(28:00):
think Cats Cats Meats Man might be their own their
little nod to the fact. Yeah, I mean, I I
don't blame her, like I think that they they're a
strong flavor, you know, and if it doesn't taste good
to you, like I wouldn't. I wouldn't try and force
(28:20):
this on somebody that was resistant to it, unless she
was like my spouse and happened to be sitting on
the couch next to me. I got a lot because
we're watching something else, and I was like, oh, shoot,
I gotta watch this movie for movie crush tomorrow. I'm
sure that one over well, Sorry, Rachel. Another scene that
(28:40):
really cracked me up because they're so not afraid to
do some really dumb things comedically. That or is some
of my favorite kind of humor is really dumb humor.
And uh, the double stitch pants scene, Oh my god,
that gets me. When he's like, sir, I've got you.
I've got you by then, and then they flashed back
(29:02):
to that Italian suit maker and you know, the pants
are ripping and he's going back and forth remembering that
he cheeped out and just got the single stitch. Yeah,
And then they had the other little insert where he goes,
he's just such a nice guy, I'm going to give
him the double stitch anyway. That's the nicest, strongest stitch.
It's so dumb, and I can just see the Coen
(29:23):
Brothers just like kind of tickled pink when they're writing
something that's silly, I know, And I love that Paul
Newman is like mad that he got the double stitch,
even though it's saving his life, like he's gonna in
real life he would have gone back and like, you know,
chew the guy out or something crucially not so manned
though that he doesn't take Norville to get his suits
(29:45):
made by the same guy. Right, Oh, yeah, that's true.
And it's funny because like the movie setting like the
late fifties, but these are all very forties style suits.
It is a little confusing. It seems very forties, but
it's it's almost nineteen sixty, I think, right, yeah, it's
it's the nineteen fifties, seven to fifty eight. I think
(30:06):
is the is the New Years that it celebrates. It
feels a little out of time. Yeah, yeah, And I'm
wondering why they did that. Actually, I think it's intentional
because it's like it's not about like like the movie
is the Circle, right, it's the like it starts and
ends at the same moment, and it it's like much
(30:27):
more about karma and the wheel of fate than it
is about like talking about a specific time in business.
History or something like that, like Norville. Norville is much
more a victim of the wheel of faith than he
is like a guy who like went and and did
a thing intentionally. Do I need to say these three
(30:50):
words been film studies paper it was gonna happen. I mean,
this is not I couldn't claim that as an original observation,
just stuff that I've I've read people talking about with
this movie. But like I think, I think it's in
the movie, so it's it's fair to bring up. No,
of course, And and like I was saying at the beginning,
(31:12):
it definitely is a screenwriting, one on one type of movie.
I mean the character arcs and the obstacles and the
plot points hitting uh, it is a real rags to
riches to rags kind of thing, um in you know, normal,
Like it's interesting because he's handling it well, I think,
and it is even humble at first, but there's there's
(31:35):
no movie there, Like you've got to you've got to
have him get too big for his bridges and and
have that stumble, you know, and also just all of
the like detail that is attendant to all of that.
Like I think that that's the thing that always impresses
me about this movie, Like every every watch through, I'm like, oh,
like they built the whole mail room. They showed all
(31:56):
of the like vacuum tubes that go throughout the building.
They got, They've got the whole newsroom at the Manhattan
Argus and the editor's office, like build as beautiful sets
with hundreds of extras filling them out, and like all
of these things are are so rich and detailed that
it's like it's a it's it's like the feat is
(32:19):
that it's like a beautifully built world. Like sometimes I
just want to visit the world of the Hudsucker Proxy. Yeah,
and they do that for I mean, you can see
where they spent their money, because that mail room scene
is is really impressive, and that's that's the only thing
they kind of shot down there, right, Yeah, they even
go back down there. I think that I think that
(32:39):
that's the last time. And yeah, like it's kind of
it's kind of hinted at later in the film when
the when the Hula Hoop is a big success and
some mail room guys are like dumping out sacks of
mail on President Barns as desks. But but yeah, I
don't think we go back down there, and and then
(33:00):
like I think that that's like the other part of
it is that like he's not a very like moral character,
you know, like he doesn't he's not like fighting for
the for the little guy. Like he doesn't really give
give a damn about those people in the mail room.
Once he gets his success, he's like happy to have
it for himself. And and and like I think that
(33:22):
like we can kind of see ourselves in that character
in some ways, like and and in a way that
like we as the audience maybe like don't love and
and I think that that's I think that's where the
like satire and the like and the like critique of
capitalism as a machine comes in to this film. Yeah,
(33:46):
I mean it's definitely there. I think the Coen Brothers, um,
they're not the most like, uh, they're not statement filmmakers
really know, but but I think you do find that
stuff sprinkled throughout. And this is clearly the fact that
the whole plot is around a stock scam. I don't
think that's an accident. I think there is a bit
of an indictment on on corporate America and greed. But
(34:09):
they're they're just not interested in that stuff. They're much
more interested in being goofy and fun and making a
fun movie. I think, yeah, making a big brown fun movie,
big round fun movie. I love it. I don't think
I told you this. I saw. The last thing I
did before coronavirus was I went on a little mini
concert tour with my friend and Philly d C in
(34:31):
New York to see Bonnie Prince Billy and Jonathan Richmond.
And we ended up at town Hall in early March
a year ago, almost exactly a year ago in New York. Yeah,
town Hall for a show. I think I said you
performed there once? You did? Yeah, performed there once? That's right, Yeah, Josh,
and I did show there. You read that show I was.
I don't think we knew each other then? What you
(34:54):
didn't just pay to come to see a fucking show,
did you? I don't remember how I got there. I
did see that show though, very interesting. Yeah, do we
not know each other then? I think we'd like, like
we weren't good pals. Yeah, we weren't pals, but okay, yeah, well,
uh Joel, I'm in line, this terrible, terrible booze line,
and uh fucking Joel Cohen and his wife are walking
(35:18):
right by me and sort of commenting about this line,
and I froze and they walked by, And I've never
been more upset to this day that I didn't like,
why didn't I say, hey, man, come on, like I'm
buying your drinks and your standing in front of me.
You don't have you don't have to talk to me
for the next five minutes. Like it's fine, but like
(35:38):
I I owe you one, so go ahead and sneak
in here. And I'm sure his wife would have been like, oh,
of course, and he probably would been like, oh god,
this guy. That's very funny. The biography of the Cohen
Brothers that I I like, I reread The Hudsucker Proxy
chapter two to get ready for this record. The author
(35:58):
of that biography has a very similar story where he
was at like the Edinburgh Film Festival or something like that,
and like at a table with a bunch of screenwriters
and filmmakers and the Cohen Brothers were there, but he
was like talking to somebody else and like looks back
on that moment with regret because like they were there
(36:19):
to promote the Hudsucker Proxy and it was like a
kind of like huge moment in their careers and he
just didn't know that he was going to write a
biography of them. One day, my friend worked with them
on Haile Caesar and it was a little disappointing. They
weren't jerks at all, but he just said he thinks
so much of them, and I think wanted them to
(36:40):
just be super friendly and outgoing and like hanging with
the crew, and he just said they were just really
business like, didn't really hang out with the crew much,
weren't weren't abusive or jerks or anything, but just you
know that thing you build up in your head, like
you know, like we're all going to be best friends
on this job, and it didn't. They just they're just
not like that. He said. They were pretty serious guys
(37:01):
and kind of get in and out and do their thing.
But you know, yeah, I mean it is what it is,
like they are like at the stature as creatives where
you like, hope, oh what if they noticed me and
like you could be my little protege or something. I know,
and I know I should have just bought him a drink.
So it's still so mad. One of the kind of
(37:32):
things that they butted heads with Joel silver on with
this movie was they wanted Ethan to be Norville Barnes.
They like, they kind of wrote the part for Ethan Cohen. Oh,
really interesting, and they did a screen test and I
would love to see that footage. I'm sure I'm sure
that it's been destroyed or something, because, I mean, Joel
Silver like makes so much fun of it in interviews.
(37:53):
He's like, give me a break, Like Ethan Cohen could
not carry a movie like we needed stars. We're spending
thirty millions sweched to make this. It's a very broad
at least the way Tim Robbins did it too, was
very broad and at times even slapsticky. Yeah, and Ethan
Cohen is not that that'd be very strange. It's it's
hard to picture and and I think, I mean, I
(38:14):
think Tim Robbins is so funny in the part and
and does such a great job that it's it's it's
really hard for me to picture anyone else's Norville Barnes.
I think you kind of stole the show, like it's
it's nobody else's role. So but yeah, I saw um,
I saw waiting for Guffman in New York at the
Angelica years ago when it was out and Robbins and
(38:36):
Surrandon we're in front of me and we ended up
in in uh at urinals beside each other taking a
leak afterward, and I was like, I kind of feel
like I need to take a peek. Well, speaking of
Tim Robbins and peeking. Have I told you my Tim
Robbins story. So we lived in a an apartment, my
(38:57):
wife and I before we were married, living in up
Artman in Williamsburg, Brooklyn with another couple. I think I
see where this is going. I didn't have it. We
didn't have a swinging thing with no no, no, go ahead.
I'll tell you if I was right. We had a
We had a backyard with this apartment that we shared
with another apartment unit and a store. There was like
a furniture store next door that's sold like really high
(39:20):
end furniture that had access to the backyard. And the
deal with the landlord was like we could all use
the backyard as long as we didn't trash it, like
everybody could use it. Um And I guess Tim Robbins
went to this store to buy something one day and
like a high enough ticket item that like some negotiation
(39:40):
was happening, and he was like walking. We were sitting
in our apartment like watching TV and looked out the
window into the backyard and Tim Robbins and a salesperson
were like kind of walking around talking turkey with each
other in our backyard. And we're like, that's Tim Robbins
about furniture, about nature. And we had like a we
(40:02):
had like a screen door onto the backyard. And he
walked up to the screen door and like put his
hands to the side of his face to black the
light and look looked into our apartment. Get out of here,
Tim Robbins. Did you say anything. We didn't. We just
I don't know if we could see us or not.
(40:22):
But we're like all kind of star struck. Yeah, I mean,
what do you do? What do you do? Oh? New York.
It's the best. It's so weird. On any given day,
you can peek it, Tim Robbins. Tim Robbins can be
in your backyard and there's nothing you can do about it.
I mean, let's talk about Paul Newman again, um a
(40:44):
little bit. He's He's Paul Newman and this is uh,
I mean, this is towards the end of his career.
I didn't look up to see how many movies he
did after this. I feel like he did a lot.
I mean did he he it's so great in this role.
It's kind of against type for him to be the
kind of like like totally heartless still in in a movie,
(41:10):
but he's great. He is. He's still so charismatic in
the role. And there's so many like funny little details
about his character, like when Norville meets his wife and
then like we realized later that that's the woman that
Wearing Hudsucker was in love with but kind of ignored
because he was so focused on success, Like like like
(41:32):
Paul Newman is the vice president of this company because
he was like fractionally less work obsessed than Wearing Headsucker,
which like kind of makes him like a slightly more
endearing character in retrospect. Yeah, and just the balls to
sort of cast this legend, I mean, yeah, that was
a big swing um and like the that they've ever
(41:54):
worked with at the time, you know, oh for sure.
And and but like he had an a ton of
fun on this movie, Like he said that really he
said that it was like the most fun he'd had
since he'd been in slap Shot. Oh, My god, isn't
that amazing? Isn't it an amazing quote? Wow? So he
(42:15):
was in Uh, he was in this, He was in
a few more. He was in Nobody's full twilight Road
to Perdition had to have come after this, right, yeah,
Road to Perdition and like one more and then did
some voice work. But you know, definitely in the twilight
of his career as Musburger, and he he still just
looks great. I mean he was always my mom's biggest crush.
(42:36):
She was always just in love with Paul Newman and
just impossibly handsome. I mean he was in his probably
seventies here, and like, you know, I had a shirt
off in that one scene, and I'm like, god, damn it,
Paul Newman looks is ten times the man I am. Yeah,
in his old age Rachel put down her phone when
when he was shirtless. For sure. Yeah, it's just a
(43:01):
good guy. Like I mean, every story I've ever heard
about Paul Newman is that um and obviously all his
great charity work, Like you know, he's a good dude,
but very very down to earth guy and easy to
work with and just sort of a throwback to the
you know that those great early days of the film
industry with that star power. Yeah, and and really like
(43:22):
brings his a game for this part in a in
a way that like I don't think you needed to
you know, like, yeah, he's he's already Paul Newman like that,
there's not a lot more that he needs to say
as a as a performer, but like still like doing
the work. And like the other thing I read was
that he didn't love the scene with the with the
(43:45):
Taylor because his knees were visible and he didn't like
the way his knees looked. And it was so sweet
that he just like had a little self consciousness. I
don't like my knees, I don't like my funny that
that shot of him and during the time stop seeing
where he's he's frozen, but that and it's clearly I'm
(44:07):
holding the look. Yeah, it's not a freeze frame at all.
He's just following him and being very stick because they
need to push the camera in. Yeah, yeah, that's so great.
And then uh, plexiglass. I had it installed last week,
Like you knew something was going to happen when that
guy takes off across the table. Incredible, Every every guy
(44:28):
in the in the boardroom is like incredible casting. Yeah,
and you know, the not counting the mezzanine guy, the
the guy that's giving the presentation about how they're loaded
at the beginning, like and is just amazing. Um. Also
like just so people don't get mad at us and say,
(44:49):
how could you know what? Mentioned Bruce Campbell. Bruce Cambell
is also in this movie. Not a very big part,
but he's you know, he's great. He's dashing and he
really fits like we Bruce Campbell would have done more stuff,
like more Smitty's would have been great, especially at this
era of his career. Yeah. Yeah, I guess it's that
(45:11):
he was never that leading man like he was in
the Evil Dead movies. But I don't know, he had
he had the look of like a big star. I
wonder if his involvement has to do with Sam Raimi
because Sam Raimi was the second unit director. I wonder
if he directed those scenes. Also. I think, I mean
they were all buddies from back in the day, Ramy
(45:31):
and Campbell and the commins, uh you know, Frame mcdormant
was living with Holly Hunter and Jason Alexander. I think
they were all roommates. I know, like it's just nuts
to think about this, this small group of friends that
all ended up being huge. I'll also not hear the
end of it if I don't bring up John Mahoney
(45:52):
as the editor of the City of the City pages
at the Manhattan Argus. He's full John Mahoney so good. Um.
I always asked the question, where do you remember where
you were when you found out John Mahoney was gay?
I was in my basement right now talking to you.
(46:13):
I did not know that. Yeah, it's it's a I
don't think I knew that. One of my favorite, one
of my favorite character actors in Hollywood, and uh, and
like he he is, like he had this like secret
life that like I feel like nobody knows about. Wow,
I don't know if I knew that. I feel like
I'm hearing that for the first time. But I'm also
(46:35):
feeling that maybe you told me that already a couple
of years ago or something, but it basically never stopped
talking about. It's the greatest and we're just like in
awe of the fact that that like has has escaped
the public attention. Yeah, because he should be a gay icon.
I know, I feel like he kind of is, but
(46:57):
like the straight world just doesn't know about it, right right,
that's sad whenever I hear about that stuff that people
you know, have to keep all that ship secret, and
especially from his era. You know, well, now Fraser's like
apparently being rebooted or something, and and like, I just
don't think I think that, I think you need John
Mahoney for that. He passed away to though, didn't he Yeah, sad,
(47:22):
I'd like see Frasier again though, I guess, so get
the aisles back in there, it'll be fine. Yeah. I
knew John mahoney first from say Anything the Cameron Crow
movie where he played Ione Sky's father. Yeah, that was
definitely my first introduction to him. And then of course
in in Barton Fink, you know, one of the great
all time roles. Totally. Uh maybe I brought that up
(47:45):
on the on the Barton Fink episode. We'll have to
go back into the movie archives and listen. Someone will
probably point it out, like you dummy said, the same thing,
that's his that's his pocket. Fact. The listeners always no
more and they than the host. That is definitely true. Always. Uh, well,
do do you have anything else on your lists for
(48:07):
this man, I feel like we really covered it. Um,
this is a favor of mine, something a film I
revisit a lot more than some of the other Cohen Brothers,
Like I think that a lot of their other movies
are better movies, like Objectively Raising Arizona is a better movie.
But I watched Hudsucker Proxy more often, and um, and
(48:29):
I think it's I think it's the world building. I
think it's a place I like to visit because it
just feels so fully realized, and I like that's something
I'm drawn to in all kinds of media. And I
think it's a real achievement, Like I it like watching
it this time, I was like, what if the Cohen
Brothers did a movie in a sci fi context? Like
(48:50):
I feel like this amount of world building like makes
me believe that they could in a way that like
that would be as as great as Blade Runner, which
was the movie that they screened for their art department
before they shot this. They were like to feel as
in this world as we do in Blade Runner. Wow. Well,
(49:11):
and this is Taylor made for you too, because it's
got great suits and wardrobe and great furniture and like
all the things that I know that you have a
deep appreciation for I love this stuff. It's it's wonderful.
I mean they I don't know. I think Cohen Brothers
movies can almost be divided up into a few different buckets. Um,
(49:35):
and the period peace bucket is is one. They haven't
done a ton of contemporary films, and it's always a
little weird when they do. I like them, Like, we'll
get to these, but I'm I'm always on record as
being big fans of Intolerable Cruelty and burn after reading
and uh, certainly No Country, and you know they once
they started doing like westerns. But um, I do love
(49:57):
their period stuff. Man, there's something about and Fink and
Meluch Crossing and this and oh brother that just like
such a rich world. There's just a couple of genres
that I hope that they like get to on their
dance card. What else. I mean, like they've done horror
somewhat like I think Blood simple simple as a horror movie,
(50:19):
but like I like a really like like a monster
movie almost is like is like something that's interesting to
think about, Like what would they do with that? Wow?
I know that Joel is doing his own thing for
the next movie, for the first interesting. Wow, it's it's
gonna be a half as good it might be. You
(50:42):
never know, Yeah, I'll never know because it didn't mind
that drink. Yeah, you could have. You could have been
the screenwriter that. All Right, dude, Well this is a
lot of fun. It's always great seeing you. And let's
not wait for six months or whatever. Let's do this
again in a couple of months or so. Absolutely, I'm
I'm here for it, man, every every time you offer,
I am available. All right. I love that, Thanks, Bud Cleater.
(51:08):
Movie Crash is produced and written by Charles Bryant and
Meel Brown, edited and engineered by Seth Nicholas Johnson, and
scored by Noel Brown here in our home studio at
Pontsty Market, Atlanta, Georgia. For I Heart Radio. For more
podcasts for my Heart Radio, visit the i Heart Radio app,
Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Movie Crush News
Host
Chuck Bryant
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.