MC Classic: Back to the Future

Because of a tech failure, we have to re-release a classic episode this week. Easy pick for me, Paul Schneider on Back to the Future. Hope you enjoy it all over again. We'll be back next Friday with a new one.

Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

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

(00:29):
Hey everybody chuck here. If you were on the Movie
Crush Facebook page, then you saw two things this week.
You saw me give a coming attractions post for this
is Spinal Tap with guest Brian Cook, the drummer for
the band Blitz and Trapper, one of my favorite bands,
and Brian's a great guy. Uh. Then if you saw

(00:51):
the post from yesterday, then you saw that we had
an audio issue and lost the entire interview. Very disappoint Obviously,
it was a good talk, and unfortunately you can't just
redo that and recreate a conversation, an organic conversation that
would just be weird. Maybe on down the line, once

(01:12):
that one is wiped from the memory bank, I can
get Brian back in here and we can talk about
Spinal Tap, because I really want to. We had so
much fun. Uh So I'm very sorry. That's the first
time that's ever happened in the history of this show.
Recording from home. Um is not easy, and this happened,
so all apologies, and I was going to try and
put something else together, but you guys, it just didn't

(01:34):
have Uh. I didn't have time to get someone book,
someone watched the movie, take notes on the movie and
get the recording in the can and then edited and
everything by Friday. So one of the movie crushers said
something about, hey, why don't you rerelease a classic episode
like you do for stuff you should know it's no

(01:54):
big deal. So because this one guy said that was okay,
I decided that it was okay, and I'm letting myself up. So, uh,
it was really easy for me. I mean, I love
so many of the episodes that I've been able to
do these interviews over the past couple of years, but uh,
Paul Schneider's really stands out for Back to the Future.
Paul is a pal of mine and we've become even

(02:17):
better bud since that interview. I had a little mandate
in New York when I was there and went to
dinner and had a nice walk and talk and we
talk on the phone now and chit chad and text
and we're just birds of a feather to Southern boys
trying to work it out here in the entertainment industry.
And Paul is awesome, And like I mentioned on a
on a mini crush, he has just had his first

(02:40):
little baby. He has a beautiful little baby girl. He
and his lovely wife and it's just there over the
moon about it, and I'm really excited. So we've been
texting a lot about fatherhood and stuff. So Paul's been
on my mind lately, and we, as it turns out,
have a great episode on a great movie, Back to
the Future, and if you've heard it, I encourage you
to listen to again. If you haven't heard this one, boy,

(03:02):
you were in for a treat because Back to the
Future is a great, great movie. And Paul brings his
uh his insider scoop for his comments, and we had
a great talk about acting and stuff. It was just
a good conversation. One of my favorite episodes. So all
apologies about the rerun. Uh, this won't happen again, I hope.

(03:23):
And we'll be back with the new interview movie edition
next Friday. Noel and I will be back on Monday
for our mini crush And here we go, everyone with
the classic episode Paul Schneider on Back to the Future.
I wrote down notes for your for your program, so

(03:45):
I'm not I mean, I'm taking it very seriously. Are
you still teaching? No, I'm not. How what was that
all about? Was it acting or directing or writing or
I talked directing actors who graduate school directing student Columbia
at Columbia. How'd that go? Um? I really, I really

(04:05):
loved it. Um. I didn't go back because I kind
of needed to work for money. Um. But it was
explaining to the you know, explaining to these kids, like
what what I felt like actors needed in that situation
was like a pretty surprising that they didn't know and
be kind of easy that it's basically just kind of

(04:28):
psychology what I want. It's like and like being a
good coach, you know, like encouragement, you know, like say
three nice things before you give a criticism. And it's
like life skills almost. It's very um all I needed
to know I learned in kindergarten stuff. It's crazy when
I hear stories about these directors, like the tyrannical directors

(04:51):
who I just don't get that, and I don't the
whole William Friedkin, you know, shooting guns next to Ellen
Burston's head, and yeah, I just I there's no way
I would deal with that. I There's just no fucking
way that I would. I just wouldn't deal with It's
just this is not you know, this is not the

(05:11):
end of the world type stuff right in the movie.
You know it should be fun. Yeah, that's why I
don't understand auditions sometimes, because the amount of time they
give you to prepare, the quality of air in the room,
I mean just in terms of sort of attitude in
the room, the vibe. I guess, it doesn't give you

(05:32):
a chance to like, if I want to know what great,
how great an actor you are, I am going to
make you comfortable as comfortable as I can. I'm going
to kind of free up ourselves in terms of conversation.
I'm gonna not shut it down your ideas. I'm gonna
make sort of a free flowing, brainstormy comment so that

(05:53):
I get all of Chuck. I see, oh, he's got
this idea about this and that idea about that. But
when I sort of close it all down, all I'm
getting is the very cocoons protected Chuck who's only throwing
out ideas that he's pretty sure he's already kind of
vetted in his brain. It's like writing and editing at

(06:15):
the same time. It's just so hard. Yeah, you just
have to write and then go back right, which is
why when I'm working with. I brought this, I brought this,
I brought this T shirt for you. I wore this
T shirt for you. I should say I saw these
T shirts and I and they when they're online, and said, like,

(06:36):
directed by Martin Schrissese, directed by all these people, and
I was thinking, well, I have been directed by Jane Campion.
That's great, that's awesome. So it's it's like, this is
a yeah, literal interpretation of the shirt. Yeah, everyone, he's
wearing it, directed by Jane Campion. Shirt because you were
We'll take it. We'll take a picture of it later. Yeah,

(06:57):
well yeah, we're going to get a photo. Um. One
thing I always appreciate about you, though, is that you
sort of have a aside from obviously having to make
a living, you've always seemed to have a take it
or leave it attitude, Like I always get the feeling
that you could just go away from it all at
any moment. Well yeah, sure, yeah, I always was it.

(07:20):
Rick moranis who just like up in and and to
be with his kids after his wife died, like to
be a father who could possibly be offended by that,
and and I one thing that I've always thought about
is in acting and sort of this bologny celebrity culture

(07:41):
we live in. If you're not if your next thing
isn't double the size of your last thing, if you're
not constantly being more, if your image is not constantly
more and more propagated, if people don't seem more and
more of you, then the idea is somehow things have
gone wrong. And I you know, when I left Parks

(08:04):
and Recreation, I was this like this was I was
doing the size movies, you know, like Bright Star that
I really love doing. Um, you know, I have financial
concerns like everyone else. I want things, you know, I'd
like to spend summers in Spain or whatever. But my
overhead is, my personal overhead is really low. And I

(08:27):
like the idea of being sort of a a middle
class actor, if you know what I mean. Like I
of course I want to work with great I want
to work with Jane Campion and and you know, the
people that I really really loved when I was growing up. Um,
but I but I just can't. I can't see myself

(08:50):
doing something that I don't really like. Two for what like,
what's what's the payoff? Is it? Is it money? Well? Yeah, sure?
And and that's great. But I've I've met a lot
of insanely wealthy people, and the general vibe I get
is not and I mean like at film parties or

(09:11):
film festivals or at panels or whatever, you know, And
the vibe you get from some of these folks that
are at the tippy top of the acting profession, it's
not a contented dolli lama esque vibe. Man. It is
like bundles of insecurity and bundles of nerves. And I
have that just just myself. You know, I don't need

(09:35):
to go get more of that. Um. And so you know,
I was talking to my wife about this and and
I just I mean, obviously it's all about the material.
Everyone says that, but it's it's true. I'm not concerned
about where I shoot or how much money I make.
It's all about, like, do I feel attached to whatever

(09:57):
this guy is there suggesting I play? And do I? Um?
And it doesn't even have to be like a great
entire script. I might want to do a character just because,
like I I don't think the script is great, but
there's something I like about the character himself. Um. But
it's like there's there's there's got to be something that

(10:20):
I can add to it. But I feel like only
I can add to it. Um. Not that anybody else
couldn't do a good job, but but I but there's
a reason why I could say, excuse me, let me,
let me take a crack at this. Um. And oftentimes
characters written you know, I think I think sometimes the

(10:42):
larger the budget and the larger you might be paid,
and the larger your image, you know, the more your
image might be propagated, and the more quote famous you
might get. Oftentimes those roles because they have to appeal
to the broadest possible audience to make back their cap investment.

(11:02):
It can't be that specific, it can't be that interesting.
It has to be sort of a bland lead character
that everyone can sort of find something to invest in. Um,
it's it's a it's a broad a broad drawing, not
every deep drawing. Yeah, because I mean you get into that.

(11:22):
You got the Parks and Wreck, which was a great show,
and that's sort of the golden goose for a lot
of actors to get that weekly network series. Um. But
you know, I've read and I've talked to you about
it and read articles and interviews and stuff. It just
that seems to kind of have been the case. There's
like it just wasn't character wise, didn't offer you enough,

(11:46):
and you were I think brave enough to say, like,
you know what, this isn't my bag. Yeah yeah, and
you know, and and they were brave enough to say
this isn't your bag. I mean it was a mutual Uh,
it was mutual. Um us not being into it, but
but the you know, because you know, the forces being

(12:08):
what they were. I kind of signed on for one
character that I thought was specific and interesting that being
a guy who he he was this really promiscuous guy,
but he was kind of an Eddie Bower guy, like
I really kind of buttoned up dude. But he had
also had sex with everyone in town and I couldn't
remember who he had had sex with, and but he

(12:30):
was very polite about it. And I thought that was
super funny. Um. And then later kind of because um,
you know, as the characters were kind of shaken down
and and I guess they figured out like how do
we you know, wait, these characters properly. Um, I think
my characters specificity sort of you know, was diluted, and um,

(12:56):
I think both they and myself realized that I, you know,
for myself, I just need to go in there and
be challenged. It's not um. If the way I think
of it is like this, I've got twelve, you know, horrifying,
angry sled dogs in my head. And if those sled

(13:19):
dogs have nothing to pull, I'm screwed, you know, free time,
not being challenged not you know, And I think this
is probably true for all of us. But when those
sled dogs have something heavy to pull, I'm you know,
like like in Bright Star, I was terrified. I had
a lot going on. I was asked to do a
lot of things that I was pretty sure I couldn't do.

(13:40):
And that made me kind of, you know, sort of
terrified and satisfied at the end of every day. Well,
those sled dogs want, they want to run, that's all
they want to do, you know, And I can't. I'm
not the solo artist, you know, I'm the collaborator artist.
And I can't. I can't. I can't give them a

(14:00):
sled to pull myself usually. UM. But anyways, are you
looking to direct again about Yeah? I'd love to. Um.
I mean, directing is certainly something that I feel most
like wrung out doing um, even when I was teaching
and talking about directing with the students, it was wrung

(14:23):
out in a satisfying sense, absolutely satisfied, you know, like
like a just like a rag, completely you know, wrung out,
and um yeah, yeah, I think of that as a
very positive thing. Um. So yeah, as far as directing,
uh performance is concerned, you know, there's there's you know,
some things being written. There's some you know, play ideas

(14:45):
being kicked around. Um. You know, I'd love to direct
theater and that's kind of you know, those those projects
are all in sort of germinating stages. And I had
Tony shalubin here yesterday. He said he met you a
few times. Really have you met him? Or was he
thinking of someone else? He uh? He and I may

(15:06):
have terrible memories. Okay, that's possible. I love Tony Shalub.
Yeah he was great. It was very cool. It was
Barton Fink was like the first thing I saw him
in this one of my altimp faves, so totally. In fact,
in fact, I have the kind of memory where if
I had met someone that I really admire, I would

(15:28):
not remember it because my brain would convince me that
I I wouldn't be so lucky to have met him.
That's funny. I have a pretty poor memory for a
lot of things, but like when it comes to stuff
like that, it's locked. See I can tell you the
first American to to climb out Everest, who wasn't Jim
Whittaker um or the or the first you know, the

(15:49):
first person to climb it without the oxygen um ryin
Hold Messner. But but I can't. You know, Yeah, wife's birthdays, right,
I mean, it's just sort of a mess of congratulations
on getting married too. By the way, thank you very much.
Since i've seen you last that happened. Yeah, it's good. Huh.
She's a lot smarter than me. Yeah, well that's that's

(16:11):
what you should always do. Yeah, it's a it's a
terrifying prospect um. So as far as you're like, you
grew up in North Carolina, I did, right, No, No,
I lived. I moved there when I was four. Okay,
where are you born? I was born in outside of Oakland, California.
Oh wow, so you end up in uh, what part

(16:34):
of North Carolina? Was it? It was when I grew up.
It was just outside of the Asheville city limits. This
was pre cool hip Asheville. I just went last year.
Actually yeah, and when I sure, but you know, hometowns
are sort of you know, I have a sort of
a love hate relationship with it because you sort of

(16:55):
want you were you grew up outside of yeah, just
outside of Atlanta, right, and you know you kind of
want your hometown to stay like a little um, like
a snow globe. You know, we live these crazy transient
lives and everybody's changing, but you want this memory to
stay completely fixed, and it's just it just doesn't. Um,

(17:17):
and it's you know, it's of course it doesn't. That's
my fault for wanting to wanted it something to happen.
That's impossible, but um. But yeah, I when I was there,
you know, there was only one you know, the only
music scene was like one trip concert a year. And
the last time I went there, like well a few
years ago. I went there and then like ghost Face

(17:37):
Killer was playing. I was like, what the hell. Yeah,
it's like if we if we had this. But when
I was there, you know, we would read the liner
notes of a you know of of like physical graffiti
or you know, another Leeds up on album, and we
would just say like, who are these people? Yeah, you know,
it just seemed like they were making this music on
Mars or something. It was just so far away from

(18:00):
But same with movies, and same with actors, and same
with directors, and you know the idea of being involved
with that world was really just in fact, the idea
didn't occur to you. Yeah, I've talked about that very
thing on this Um. I've had friends that have that

(18:21):
knew that. It seems like they almost had to have
grown up in l A and maybe New York, but
definitely l A to know that, like that's a job
that you can go get. But for dudes like us
that grew up in the South, in these kind of
smaller southern cities, I didn't know that that was an
option or even I mean, I guess, I guess one

(18:43):
way it could happen is if you know your dad
or mom had a friend who ran the community theater
in the small town or something. But but I but
my parents didn't know those people either. So even someone
you know in the the small town version of the
arts did, I didn't know those people. And um, my

(19:06):
parents weren't even big movie or music people. Not. Yeah,
I was on my own. My brother was obviously an
older brother always helps o sibling. Yeah, but you need
those influences. Yeah, otherwise you're just adrift. And and the
times that you're adrift, you know, when you do you know,

(19:27):
when I did discover Peter Greenaway, like on my own,
you know, when I saw you know, when I saw
the cook, the thief, his wife and her lover when
I was I guess like eighteen, Yeah, I saw that
in the theater. For some weird reason, I did too.
Like that, when you find something like that on your own,

(19:49):
you feel like this is mine, you know, like nobody
knows about this, you can be the influencer. Yeah, exactly.
And I feel like that kind of stuff is a
little more you know, it's little more hard one and
it's a little more um, I guess it's a little
more specialty because because nobody gave it to you, you you
just kind of you kind of. But that was why

(20:10):
I got into That was why I went to film
schools because my I mean I've told this story before,
but because my parents and I saw the piano. Oh
really wow, and then you end up working with her.
Yeah that's pretty amazing. Yeah, before the piano, it was
I think I really didn't have any career. I just

(20:32):
didn't have any career thoughts. I mean, it was just like,
you know, I just thought I would smoke pot and
that would be whatever job that whatever job that is.
And then after I saw the piano, it was it
was really just like a light switch. Like before it
was no film school, and then after it was you know,

(20:54):
film school. So that was the North Carolina School of
the Arts. Yeah, that's right. Wow. So before that, were
you did Were you going to movies with your parents
or friends? Do you have siblings that I do have
an older brother, um My, we we liked we went
to movies as a family. And I think we probably

(21:16):
you know, if if if one is a family that
doesn't go to movies at all together and ten is
a movie Yeah, and ten was a family that went
to like every movie together. We were probably like a
A A four. Um. And but I do remember my
dad taking me to see die Hard in Pretty Cool.

(21:39):
That was and I was twelve, and that just ripped
my brain open. And and uh, and I you know,
in the list of questions that you sent me, you
asked about R rated movies. And I don't remember my
first R rated movie. But I did remember going to
see I Harve and my dad and yeah, and then

(22:04):
Good Fellas with my dad, and both of those were
very um, well, you know, impactful, affecting. Yeah. So when
you get to UM and we can get into however

(22:25):
much of this you want to. But at North Carolina School,
the arts is where is that where you met David,
Gordon Green and um, Danny McBride and all those guys. Yeah,
so you were all just dudes in school together. We
were all just duding dudes in school together. That's kind
of crazy. Yeah, we were making short films together. Wow,

(22:47):
I was you know, David. David was in my short film.
I mean, we made many short films, but like you
know one, David was one of in one of my
short films. I was in his short film. I was
in Danny short film. And actually Danny had made a
short film that was a riff on back to the

(23:07):
Future where I was wearing this, you know, this facsimile
of of Marty's um the vest you know that everyone
mistakes as a life life vest. But but yeah, we
were all there and it's it's it's very strange too.
I actually watched a really amazing documentary series recently about

(23:33):
if I'm not mistaken, it's it's about the like the
the avalanche or a mountains services rescue team in Shamony
in France, and it's just this great group of French
guys and women and they get on helicopters and they
save tourists that are like have fallen down these ice
you know, chasms and U and I you know. And

(23:56):
then the series ended and I realized another guy that
we went to school like with produced it. Yeah, so
this guy named Brian Mandel. Yeah, that's crazy just to
have that amount of talent come out of a smallish
town one of the lesser uh known film schools probably
well and when we were there was we were in

(24:17):
the second class. What does that mean? Like it was
ever yeah, like so when we graduated, we were in
the second graduating class. So yeah, that's crazy. You know
the movie I can't think of the name of it now,
like A Dummings did and look it up. But the
indie that I saw you and not too long ago
they Goodbye to all that Yeah, yeah, with Heather Graham

(24:42):
and so good. Yeah, and Angus McLaughlin who we shot
that in in Winston Salem. Oh really who directed that?
Angus McLaughlin. He wrote, um, fu, you gotta edit this.
He wrote, uh, what's that's right? We can what's the
movie with the one that Amy Adams got really famous?

(25:02):
It's Alexandra Novola and it's like set in North Carolina
about an art. Oh, June Bug. June Bug. Yeah, Angus
wrote june Bug and then he uh, I believe this
was his his directorial debut, that one based on his script. Well,
and I've talked to UM. I do these smaller UM

(25:26):
non interview shows now for this where I have a
lot of interaction with like people from the listeners, like
emails and top ten lists and stuff like that, and
I do a recommended viewing. And I did All the
Real Girls for one of the installments. And still just
one of the great great romance movies ever to me,

(25:49):
such a sweet, genuine movie. Yeah, it really, I mean
it's such a weird it's you know, it's like looking
in your own It's like it's like it's like looking
at your photo album with an audience. Yeah, and it's
very I mean, you know, I have obviously, I've mixed

(26:11):
feelings about it because you know, it's like I can't
it's hard to get totally on board. I mean as
a piece of sort of if I can view it
as a piece of separate art, like yeah, it's it's
I like it for that reason. I also like it
for the reason that it was just a group of
friends and we're just trying to do this thing, and
I thought that was really great. Um, but also it's

(26:34):
kind of it's kind of tough to get it. You know.
My memories of it were so you know, it was
about such a horrible uh uh, you know, it was
about such a horrible breakup in my early life, and
you know, all the amount of emotion that was poured
into it and pain that was poured into it, and
and uh and maybe that's what makes it enjoyable for

(26:56):
other people. But it's sort of you know when you
when you make something, you know, when you kind of
make something out of a a crappy situation, you know,
and it's and people love people love it, and then
you think like, oh that's great, but yeah, man, it
was hard, was it? Yeah? Sure, yeah, well, I mean

(27:17):
it was it was so real and everyone I think
I think the reason why people love that movie is
because you can just so identify with that raw emotion
of being that age and just how important those first
loves were. Yeah, you know, I mean there's nothing like it.
You can go on your life and have a million relationships,

(27:39):
but those first ones are just so impactful and raw
because you don't know how to deal with any of
those feelings yet, and the chemicals in your brain are
like roaring all over the place. I mean it every
day feels like a Mogwai song. You know, it's like,
you know, missing missing a phone call, especially that you
know in those days when there was you know, when

(28:02):
there were no cell phones, you really must have you know,
when somebody when you get home and your mom said
some a young lady called it felt like it's like
a Magway song did start in your head and you
were like, what was her name? She's like, what does
she sound like? I don't And You're like, so, yeah,

(28:23):
that's so funny, that's so true. All right, Well we
can get the back to the future now. Yeah, um,
I should tell everyone that the original not the original plan,
but the plan that you hatched a couple of days
ago was Hey, why don't you come over and watch
it the night before, and I thought that was a
great idea. But then you, very wisely, I think, said

(28:45):
you know what, maybe, um, maybe we should not watch
it together because then we'll be recreated, because there's no
way we could have sat down and watched it and
I talked about it, yeah, in real time. Yeah. So
I think I watched it last night and said a
lot of the lines out loud, and I just, you
know it, think it was better that I was, better

(29:06):
that I was alone, Yeah, for sure. And I did too.
So I like to think it's kind of funny that
you and I were both in New York here. Let
do you want to go through the questions first? Because
I don't want to forget your questions because I like
the idea of a beat. Yeah, because I like the
idea of your like consistent you know, like consistent questions

(29:27):
for each guest. I think that's great. Um. Also, I
have a great first movie for you. All right, Well,
then let's go into five questions. Was the first movie
you remember seeing in the theater? Uh? The Elephant Man
by David What? What's going on? This is a this

(29:49):
is a true thing. Uh. It came out in when
I was four, And this is right before we moved
from California to North Carolina. UM, and my mom had
she did daycare, so she brought a gang of us
to the movie Song of the South, a movie that

(30:10):
was rereleased in nineteen eighty and now banned because it's
horrifyingly racist. But at that time it was Disney. Um,
and we all know Disney is is lily white and
pure and perfect, remember the re release for sure. Yeah.
And when I worked in in Raleigh, North Carolina, do
I worked in a tape duplication place, duping videotape and

(30:33):
a lot of people wanted they wanted pale transfers to
NTSC of Song of the South on videotape, So I
would make up a lot of those transfers. But what
happened is my mom took all the kids to uh
the Song of the South, I think, not having any
idea of its racist overtones. Um. And then I needed

(30:57):
to use the restroom, and I remember was one of
those early situations where uh, you have to go into
the ladies restroom with your mom when you're a kid,
and that's a little whatever, it's strange, and so uh
we walked out of the restroom together and she, I
guess wasn't paying attention, but I walked right into uh,

(31:19):
The Elephant Man, which was playing in the theater next
next to Song of This House. And I walked in
and it was you know, it was black and white,
and I was sitting I was standing there staring at
the screen, and it was a moment where, uh, John
Merrick is in the in the hospital and this nurse
is bringing him up some tea and she sees him

(31:42):
for the first time and she drops the the the
the tea tray. And when I, as a four year old,
saw his face and his hair and in you know,
in a suit, the way he was addressed, I just
you know, it was like, it's probably traumatizes. It was.
It was really shocking, like my whole nervous system was

(32:04):
kind of stopped. And to this day, strangely, it's sort
of it's it's um, it's become something where the song
Zippity Dude from Song of the South terrifies me. But
I love the movie The Elephant Man. That's like it
still is you know, you only you you have like

(32:24):
a hundred top five films, well twenty top five films,
and it's definitely one of those, but that song that
conjures up fear still the song uh yeah, the song
Zippity dudea um not unlike the Magician's Apprentice from Fantasia.
Those kind of happy, happy sounding things are just like

(32:47):
a broken carousel for me. Yeah, it's funny how those songs, Uh,
whatever trauma is going on in your life when you're
a kid, those songs years later. I have one from
the BGS, How Deep Is Your Love? I had a
very dark, scary day in elementary school. Uh one day
and my father was my high school principle, ran into

(33:08):
my dad's office crying and that song was on. So
to this day, I mean, all these years later, that
fucking song comes comes on and it just triggers something.
It's like it's science in my body. I guess Oliver
Sacks would have talked about how the song, the music
would imprint deeper than the visuals, because when I'm gathering

(33:31):
when I'm telling you that story, and I'm gathering together
the visuals of what happened that, you know, the dress
my mom is wearing, I know, is a dress I
saw in a photograph of you know, like I'm sort
of cobbling things together. But the feeling of the song
is not cobbled together, it's it's in there. Yeah. Um,

(33:51):
what was your first R rated movie? I don't know.
What I do remember is somebody in a couple of
neighborhoods over had HBO and Clan of the Cave Bear
was playing. I never saw it, but the rumor around
school was Darryl Hannah and her boobies were on We're

(34:16):
on screen, um, and and I had I didn't like
the guy who had HBO. But I tried to get
involved in the sleepover that was happening, but I just
I wasn't. I couldn't do it. Those early cable TV
days were pretty special, totally. There's a lot of clandestine viewing. Yeah,
late night viewing, even setting your alarm clock at midnight

(34:39):
so you wake up exactly. But I do you know, obviously,
you know, die hard like we said. And Good Fellas
was pretty massive. And there was a moment where I
rented My mom loves a good mystery, and uh, she's
also a very a very good Christian woman and delightfully

(35:03):
so and so at the video store that I later
worked at when I was a teenager, Ah, I convinced
her to uh to rent the name of the rose
based on the invererto echo right, and it's sort of
like a monk as Sherlock Holmes. And she was like,

(35:26):
this is great, you know, it's Jesus and the Lord.
It's Sherlock Holmes coming together. Yeah. And what she didn't
take into account was this insanely explicit sex scene between
Christian Slater and this woman whose name I should have
looked up. She was this beautiful I think she was

(35:46):
an Italian actress that I'd never seen and have never
seen again. Um, but she was this sort of peasant
who who picked through the trash that the monastery throughout
the back of their castle ball or something. And when
she you know, ripped off Christian Slater's clothes, it was

(36:07):
my first watching the sex scene with your mom situation.
Nothing worse in the world as a as a young boy,
as a nothing more uncomfortable. I don't know was it
eleven or twelve or some somewhere in there, but it was,
you know, you just lock up. That should companically yea

(36:28):
completely and it was. And I think part of the
panic was due to the the the you know, the
battling forces of you know, titilation, you know, because blood
is still rushing to your penis, whether you like it
or not. Biology exactly. Science can't fight with science. And

(36:48):
then your mom's sitting right there and um, and you
hear her her hand moving more and more and more
slowly to the popcorn bowl into her mouth, and finally
it just she just stops eating popcorn and the chewing
of her popcorn completely stops. And I, um, and I
remember as I was looking at it, ah, well, two things.

(37:13):
I wanted to go to the bathroom or I act
like I, oh, excuse me, mom, I just needed to,
you know, use the rastroom. But I felt like I
was would make more of a deal had I done
that than I wanted to. And I thought, well, this
will be over soon. It wasn't over soon. It was
really explicit and incredible and um and and also uh,

(37:36):
you know, you just wanted to stay completely still. But
then you think, well that's not very natural. So you
do like you so you stretcher, you yawn, but that
seems very self conscious. And I remember at one point
my mother said, um, after the chewing and the popcorn
eating had stopped. I remember she said, um, she said,

(37:58):
well that's very explicit. Yeah, And I didn't say anything
and then and then it stopped, but I knew. I
think I looked at the VCR like counter, you know,
the time coach, that fake time code, and I had
an idea where that scene was so that when she
went to bed, you could rewatch it. And I think

(38:19):
she even yeah, so I think I think she even
like took the video cassette and like put it by
the by her car keys or something like I'm taking
this back immediately. Um. But of course I went back
and watched it later that evening, and it was gorgeous
and delightful and and well, it's good filmmaking. It's wonderful.
It's a beautiful woman, it's a beautiful man. Everything was

(38:40):
nice about it. Yeah, if your mom was like, um,
my parents, that for them, that probably let them off
the hook from ever having to talk to you about sex. Yeah,
I'm sure she she checked some box in her head.
I don't have to do that now. Uh. Number three,
will you walk out of a bad movie? I will.
I will walk out of a bad movie. And it's

(39:01):
horrible today in New York because it's like a seventeen
dollar situations. It's a loss. It's a it's a big loss. Um.
Supposedly you can get your money back if not too
much time has passed. I've heard really Paula Thompkins said
that he's asked and that if it's within a certain
time frame, then they'll they won't give your money back,
but they'll give you a pass to come back. That

(39:22):
Well that I did that with um god him blanket
on the movie now it's it's that German film about
the mother and the father and he come. It was
like the best film of last year or something. It
was Erama or footballs. Anyways, I did that recently at
the soon to be closed Lincoln Plaza cinemas because there

(39:44):
was nowhere to sit. Oh yeah, there there were seats
at the you know and at the Vario Edges. Yeah,
and because the guys there have to deal with so
many cranky septagenarian New Yorkers because it's like right there
at Columbus, you know, it's it's a couple of blocks
up from from Lincoln Center. Um, my friend and I

(40:05):
just so politely and patiently, I'm you know, I'm sorry
to bother you about this, and they give us a pass.
So actually, no, they did give us our money back. Yeah,
because I didn't go back. What do you have you
walked out of one lately that you just hated not lately?
And I and I did, Um, I did try to

(40:27):
remember the few that I have. I walked out of.
The one that I remember from a long while ago
was Strange Days, all right, Katherine Bigelow. Yeah, and I
think I even saw that. I remember the movie. It
was pretty bad. Yeah, and it was great too that
that just must have been a missed up. Yeah, I'm
I'm I don't know, I don't know where I am

(40:49):
with Katherin Bigelow. Well, I thought the h and Zero
Dark thirty were both great. I'll say that. Yeah, I
think you're definitely right. Um. But there was some There
was a san in Strange Days where there was some
kind of like there was some you know, sort of
future hairnet you put on your head where you see

(41:11):
through someone else's eyes who you know. I put on
the hairnet and I see you looking at me in
my brain, and uh, it was some sort of future
contraption like this. And there was a woman, if I
remember correctly, there was a woman being raped and this
bad guy had stuck the hairnet on her, so she

(41:32):
was seeing her own self being raped in her brain
and eyes. That's and I just I just said, this
is this is this is enough. By the same token,
I saw it Irreversible for the fourth time last weekend,
and I still think that's a brilliant, amazing movie. What
is that It's gas bar and away Monica Blucci in

(41:53):
a ten minute, horrifying rape scene, right. And And the
reason I like that film so much is because I
don't think it treats rape cheaply. It's so it's it's
definitely the most visceral film I've ever seen in my life.
When they there was a murder on on on screen,

(42:15):
I thought it was I thought to myself, Jesus, they've
kidnapped someone and they've murdered a vagrant on on on screen.
And I feel like in that film they treat these things.
It's like, if you're gonna mess around with something like rape,
you know, let's let's either do it or not do it.
You know, let's you can't go halfway on this. And

(42:36):
I think part of the reason I was so offended
by it in strange days was because he was going halfway,
or they were going halfway well, and to use it
as a as a plot device. Yeah, and and and
in Irreversible. And there's lots of people that hate that
film and I just don't care. But um, I mean,
that's what the whole movie is about. And I feel like,

(42:57):
if you're gonna explore that subject, well then I should.
It should be what the whole movie is about. We're
making something else. And also, Monica Bluetoo deserved a fucking
Academy Award for that movie because she I mean scraping
cement and fingernails and bloody knees and you know, he said.

(43:17):
Gas barn Away said that she had watched a lot
of Deliverance and I spit on your grave And when
she did this ten minute scene with this kickboxer who
was the guy, um, I mean besides the nudity, I
mean it was like every she was kind of throwing
everything with his performance, and it was and to be

(43:39):
one of the biggest stars in Europe and and in
the world, especially at that time, I mean, I just
haven't seen um, I haven't seen actors, definitely female actors. Um.
I hadn't seen anyone go for it like that in
a physical way. I would like. I saw her. It
was it was terrifying. I gotta check that out because certainly,

(44:03):
you know, certainly in films, we have this way of
you know, we keep we keep the very beautiful actresses
in a glass box on on film, and we kind
of let the less attractive people kind of do the
dirty work or do the stunts, or do the you know,
the supporting role type stuff. You know, they're the ones
who goes through the death scenes or have the gore

(44:24):
splattered on or whatever. And this was Monica Blucci taking
the whole film like by the throat and saying, no, no,
I got this. And it was I don't know what
year was that. It was the year No, no, it
was two thousand one. Maybe it was the year that

(44:45):
All the Real Girls was at Sundance, because I saw
it At Sundance, people uh, somebody fainted, somebody threw up.
An enormous amount of people walked out, and they didn't
just walk out, they screamed obscenities at the screen. While
they were walking out. The girl next to me sort

(45:05):
of jumped over my legs and collapsed into the lap
of What I came to understand was her boyfriend who
was sitting on this side of me, Um, and spent
the whole the whole rest of the movie sort of
crying in his lap while he was like he was
holding her and you know, staring at the screen. That's crazy. Yeah,

(45:30):
it was. It was the nuttiest time I've had. And
then and then of course after the screening, Guess Barnoy,
you know, he stood on on stage and said, what's
the big deal? You know that's all the European exactly. Uh,
do you have guilty pleasure movies or a movie? Well,

(45:54):
I don't know. If I don't guilty pleasure movies, I've
got guilty pleasure to be. If I were to throw
out some guilty pleasure movies, it would be like Sound
of Music. But that is an incredible, incredible film. So
it's not like yeah, yeah, that's that. But but what

(46:15):
about guilty Pleasure TV? Then? But I what we watch
a Sound of Music every Christmas, and then I think
every time it's sort of maybe it's just a very
that's not guilty, that's just a very pleasurable movie. Um.
And I was I was thinking about this, and all
of my stuff is like, to me, these are legitimate pleasures,

(46:37):
but it's America's funniest videos. Um still yo, yeah yeah, yeah, Well,
I know I don't watch the Alfonso Roberto stuff. I
watched Tom bergeron the o G. Well, no, Bob sag
it was the o G and then it was John
fuel sang in Daisy Forentez. Yeah, okay, so you go

(46:57):
deep and well I go, I go just the Tom
bergeron this sort of section and uh and so I
do that. That's that's what I do. Um, and that
that was like the one show that my all my
family could get get on the pot. Yeah and uh
and then I do um. Bud Greenspan made these Olympics

(47:23):
documentaries for every like every for every Olympic games. Um.
I don't know if he still does them, and I'm
not exactly sure how far they go back, but I
just will turn on YouTube and grab one of these,
like you know, the Calgary Winter Olympics, and it's like
all the backstories of all the Olympics or all the Olympians. Um,

(47:48):
you know this, you know check Skier and how her
father passed away and he you know, all that kind
of stuff, and and how they they carried rocks up
the mountain to train and all that stuff. And for
some reason, definitely like sports documentaries are do it for me?
Remember Wild Wild World of Sports when we were kids.

(48:08):
That was just like appointment television on Sunday afternoons, and
that's where as a kid we would be exposed to
stuff that you had never seen before. And I felt
like they always told a bit of a story to write. Yeah,
it wasn't. It was like the prep story like yeah, yeah,
uh that and and Great British Baking Show okay, oh

(48:29):
those yeah that I love any kind of the I
like the Kids Baking Championship. Yeah. I'm a big cooking
show guy. Really yeah, top Chef yeah forever. Yeah, see
I could. I had to do Great Great British because
it's like it's so multiculty and everyone roots for each other.
And you know that one of the winners was this

(48:49):
beautiful young you know, a Muslim woman who you know
with an English accent, and she's got four kids, and
they showed her at home and every time someone gets,
you know, voted off, they surround her or him with
hugs and and it's not it's like the anti Gordon Ramsey.
You know, there's not a lot of yelling or anything
like that. And then and then it's so funny because

(49:13):
they do all the competitions on the grounds of some
Downton Abbey looking estate and so the b roll it's
always like baby lambs and like or like drips of
you know, do sort of coming off a blade of grass.
Like it's so anti what America is right now. And

(49:33):
uh and that is Yeah, when Fall hits, I just
kind of rewatched all those seasons. I've heard that other
people talk about the show. I need to I need
to get into that. Well, now it's become something else.
I mean, they change rations and so the first I
think the first four seasons are kind of where um
and that you know, they've got these two hosts, these

(49:54):
two comedians mel and another woman whose name I can't remember,
who are who just you know, and it's it's such
an amazing mix of like soft and sweet English gentility
plus like insane sexual innuendo. Yeah, it's just that it's
like that that britt humor thing, you know, this very

(50:16):
kind of like this kind of upright, upright presentation but
with a little sort of dark underpinning. And then the
craziest cookies you've ever seen in your life. Yeah, and
then you get that Yeah, and then I head to
the store sadly movie going one on one? What's your

(50:40):
jam at the theater? Um? I wear a hoodie okay
to block out sounds? Oh, you wear it during the movie? Yes,
to make sure I don't hear any talking. Physically isolate yourself,
I do. I do. Also. I also it kind of

(51:01):
like cuts out the visual field, right, so I like
just have the screen. And also people around you think,
is that Paul Schneider or I don't think they just
creep in a hood? I think I think they think
it's just a creep in a hood. And they're right.

(51:22):
If they said I was a creep in a hood,
they would be more right than if they said I
was Paul Schneider. I mean, deep inside, I feel more
like a creepy hooded guy than I do. Like whoever
Paul Schneider is. Um, are you by yourself or do
you go with Do you shut out your wife and friends?
Do they do they just? I mean I would say no,

(51:44):
but you'd have to ask my wife and friends. But
so you do it when you go with them though
a little bit, yeah, because sometimes I'll tuck my ears
out of the hood, so I don't miss any of
the surround um. And that's either. Lately it's been a
lot of um like cold water and sour patch kids. Um.

(52:07):
If I feel like it, I can do some snow
caps um. And a couple of times my wife and
I have sat at the way back of the theater
and brought in some boxed wine. Oh and popcorn. Yeah,
we had an amazing screening of the live action Beauty
and the Beast um and sat at the back and

(52:28):
got drunk as a couple of ship house rats and
eat you know, a popcorn and had the greatest time
watching that. That's great sneaking in booze. And with the
box wine, you don't have to cough loudly while you
open a beer can. No, yeah, no, you just twist
it right off and you're you know, you know shabli. Yeah,
that's a good idea because my wife and I can't um. Well,

(52:50):
we have a kid now, so we never get two
movies much anymore. But even before that, we would go
to dinner and then you know, have a little wine
at her and then she's not one. She's like after
I've had she didn't want to drink in the movie.
She's like, after I've had a glass of wine or two,
I don't want to go sit in a movie there.
I'll get tired, or I'll say we'll go or stop

(53:11):
drinking is her thing, So we'll go to the We'll
go to the theater where you can have the glass
of wine. But that never worked either, And well now
they have a lot of them. You know, all the
theaters have food. And he was there, but that's also
us walking to the movie theater. You know that, it's
not like you have to drive blocks away. So that's
why we like where we live. That's great. Uh, where

(53:34):
are you guys? You in Brooklyn? No, h okay, that's
what I thought. Alright, back to the future. Bring it
all right, let's do this. I watched it last night
again for the I don't even know how many times.
I assume the same is probably true for you. Uh.
It's a damn near perfect movie. And I did see

(53:57):
where USC Film School uh rots it out as the
perfect screenplay and their classes. Um, so let's talk about it,
which to me means oftentimes that I won't like it
because it's if it's the if it's the perfect screenplay,
because when I was in film school and I was

(54:18):
watching movies like Mike Lee's Naked and uh, keys lov
Skis the Three Colors Trilogy and yeah totally and um
and or Peter Greenaway or whatever, I felt like for
something to be good, they had to be vaguely negative.
You know. It was sort of like they had to

(54:40):
be sort of dark and talking about serious things and
that's what made them good and smart. Couldn't be just
a big Hollywood feel good fundment, right and then and
of course I saw you know, Back to the Future
when I was a kid, and it was great, and
then I didn't see it for many years. And then
I saw it after film school, and I start sarted
to get into the idea of like the science of

(55:04):
plotting and the science of you know, you take Joseph
Campbell and then you lay in math and then you
get you know, you get you know, inside in incidents
and lock ins and second act breaks and you know,
um um, these elements that when I was when I

(55:26):
was younger, I thought were sort of you know that
that's too prescriptive and it's too formulaic, and it's just
not you know, that doesn't create a pleasurable experience for me.
And also the subject matter has to be dark for
it to be good. And and then when I saw
Back to the Future later, I kind of really got

(55:46):
into and started to admire, like the science and the
math of amazing plotting. And then it was so tight
it's it's last night. I I I was thinking about
how many clocks there are in the movie. I never
thought about that before. Obviously it begins, yeah, obviously that,

(56:08):
But then, um, you know when when he you know,
when he oversleeps, when he's headed out to meet Doc Brown,
you know, at the Twin Pines Mall to see the
DeLorean for the first time, there's a clock at the mall. Yeah,
and there's a and there's a clock on his like
a an alarm clock on his um on his bed
as he wakes up and goes, oh, shoot, I'm late

(56:29):
or whatever. And actually there was another moment last night
where he pulls out the video camera to start recording
Doc explain, you know, the DeLorean and the flux can
pastor or whatever, and uh and actually Marty looks at
his watch and he shakes it, this little digital Washington
shakes it as if it's not working. And then yeah,

(56:51):
it's just all over. Yeah. So they were really toying
with the idea of time and and at the end,
you know, one of the things that interrupts Doc from
fixing the wire that connects to you know, the lightning. Yeah,
the pole to the thing. It's the it's the the
alarm or the bell of the clock tower, and it's
it's ringing and he can't hear anything. Um, and it's

(57:14):
all over. I just I mean, if you see I
think part of the enchantment of the Sea dance. I think,
if I'm not wrong, it might pull out from the
clock face. At some point, there's you know, of course,
and then there's George McFly looking at his his watch,
going I'm late to save Lorraine from this fake right,
fake assault, right, which turns out to be a real assault,

(57:36):
which turns out to be super insanely um serious and
and man like. When when I was a kid, it's
just seems so light, but now when you see things
to adult eyes, that scene, yeah, I mean it was
an attempted rape, totally and scary. Well. I I remember

(58:00):
when I was a kid seeing it and thinking, um,
seeing seeing it and thinking this is really bad and
I don't. I don't grasp exactly what's going on, but
especially when Leah Thompson leans up and says, George help me. Yeah,
she's really panicked totally and and at that moment, and

(58:23):
it's like last night when I watched it, I was like,
this is really serious, Like this is this is really bad, um,
And I'm surprised that I that that it was. I
don't think it was treated lightly back then, but I
don't I don't know if they would film it the
same way now. Probably not. Yeah, Yeah, there's a couple

(58:45):
of things. Anytime you go back and watch movies from
the eighties, uh through today's lens, there can be problematic, sure,
but there was that. And of course the The White
Man really discovers rock and roll, Chuck Berry copies him, right,
And I'm sure at the time they just thought, what
a clever little thing here, this is how Chuck Berry

(59:07):
got his thing, and they don't think about, oh wait
a minute, what are we saying here really, or Goldie Wilson.
It was a very sort of step and fetch it
stereotyped black character with a gold tooth, and you know,
kind of I'm going to clean up this town, and
that was sort of like, it was surprising to see
that character so one dimensional when all the other guys

(59:31):
were fully realized and definitely pretty pretty lame way to
do that. And the Libyan terrorists in their p W butts,
yeah exactly, that could drive as fast as a DeLorean. Yeah,
and and well whatever that. You know, obviously terrorism is
a whole another deal. But part of the reason I
liked um I liked well, what when I was thinking

(59:54):
about it last night, I was thinking, why is this
thing so enjoyable? And I think part of what I
came up with is seeing doubles. Yeah, Like we see
one version in and we see one version for almost everything,
even the dog Einstein, who would never live for thirty years,

(01:00:14):
but we see a puppy in you. And I think
in general, there's like this deep sort of brains sort
of reptilian brain stems satisfaction in seeing growth and decay
in time. We see you know, the the you know,

(01:00:36):
the pediments of um Um of the lion estates, the
concrete line estates. In the future they're kind of crumby,
and in the past they're bright and shined up. And
and obviously the same is true with the town and
we see how people have turned out, and just like

(01:00:56):
we see um, you know, just like when we see
YouTube videos some father taking a photograph of his daughter
the first day of school for eighteen years, right, and
there's there's it's some it must be some deep human
enjoyment of seeing time pass um and sort of seeing

(01:01:16):
how things work out. And and you know that that
movie gives us a real thirty year jump. You know,
we don't have to wait thirty years to see how
George turns out or Lorraine turns out or whatever. Um.
I mean, we're seeing these things through Marty, and he's
just as kind of blown away as we would be
if we, you know, if we were in that situation.

(01:01:38):
I feel like there's something in like seeing doubles and
seeing time pass in an instant well, and obviously backwards
and forwards. But I mean like, if that's your sort
of central core idea, then I think it's automatically enjoyable
to a human being. Yeah, and it's there's uh I forget,

(01:02:00):
I forgot what a magical feeling it was. As soon
as he uh, he crashes into the barn, gets shot at, leaves,
ditches the DeLorean and walks into town and right when
he comes around that corner when Mr Sandman started, it's
like it was magic. It was like all of a sudden,
like you're right, Like he goes back to the glory

(01:02:22):
days of that town before it was graffitied up and
there was the porno theater I think multiple porno Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly, sure,
uh and yeah, it's it was a magical experience even
as an adult watching that when he comes around and
you hear that bum bum bum bum bum, because I
think we all sort of idealize that time. But what

(01:02:45):
he what he learned was it was mom drinks and
mom will get into a car and make out with
a guy. And it wasn't idealized under once he once
he scratched the surface, you know know. Yeah, it was
interesting because sort of people have obviously, people have all
the I mean, I mean, clearly people have all the

(01:03:09):
problems you know now that they did then and then
as they do now. But um, but there was a
real I don't know if this is a real term,
but I always think of it as like psychological logic.
Like as much as they didn't draw the Goldie Wilson
character correctly, they drew so many other characters correctly. And

(01:03:30):
I remember I just wrote a note, so I wouldn't
I wouldn't forget it, Oh right, right right, So like
the psychological logic of when Larraine, when when Marty's back
in at the very beginning of the movie and he
comes home and they slapped down Uncle Joey's you know,
parole cake with that sound effect that is really it's

(01:03:53):
always been really jarring to me, that whack the metal
pan on that table. Yeah. Um, there's a real logic
to when Lorraine describes the night she met George. Um,
she talks about him having been hit by the car
and then her father bringing him and bringing him in,
and she says he was like a little lost puppy.

(01:04:16):
He was so helpless. And that is not the makings
of a good marriage. People don't start great marriages with
that first attraction being of of something that is helpless.
It just doesn't. And and you and it, and it
makes sense that they'd be kind of in this kind
of fracturess laborious, drunken relationship, or at least her her

(01:04:39):
half of it was drunk um. That raised a couple
of sort of you know annoying kids, and you know,
a father who's totally withdrawn living in the past through
Jackie Gleeson and everything else. And of course, in the
same way that that same woman, Lorraine, who who friendly,

(01:05:00):
you know, needed some kind of feeling of protection. She
got it from George and the second version of the
past when he said to Biff, no, if you leave
her alone. And then and what did he do. He
punched her out, or punched Biff out, and then he
brought Yeah, definitely, and Crispin, I mean Crispin Glover's performance

(01:05:20):
we could talk about for an hour. But he punches
Biff and he's looking at his hand and he's going yeah,
and then he turns back to Lorraine who's on the ground,
and Leah Thompson is looking looks gorgeous and that you
know in those moments, and he um. He turns to
her and he stops his his sort of heavy I

(01:05:42):
can't believe what I just did breathing, and he goes,
are you okay? You know, and and he's sort of
he's just enough of a hero, like you're not going
to take that guy and turn him into into John McClean.
He it's a believable version of hero, and he's just
as amazed that he did what he did as as

(01:06:03):
as his schoolmates are when they run up and say,
was that George mcfive. Yeah, I mean it's a little
ham fisted, but also very sweet when it's is that George?
You ever thought about running for class president? Yeah? For sure,
But I mean that punch was that was what changed
the future and set up that perhaps the most satisfying
ending in movie history. Totally Uh well, we'll we'll get

(01:06:27):
to that in a second. But um, but that that
and there was another moment that I saw last night,
or that I've seen forever, but I love at the beginning,
right when Marty meets George, the young version of George,
and the diner at the diner um and Biff comes
in with Billy Zane and I didn't realize it was
Billy's anti last night. Yeah, and Casey size Maco and

(01:06:51):
the other actor who's who's I'm sure as brilliant and
a great person whose name I can't remember, but they, um,
they you know, Biff starts bullying George about you know,
him having to you know, recopy some some reports he
was going to play giarize um and uh and the

(01:07:11):
guy in the back with the you know, with the
cut off fingered gloves, he says to be if like,
look at this guy, he's like, you know, he looks
like he's in the navy here, what's with his life preserve?
And so Biff turns to him, and the whole gang's
focuses back onto Marty and they're kind of the there's
like a moment of making fun of Marty. And in
that moment when they cut back to Biff, Crispin Glover

(01:07:34):
as George is also making fun of Marty. Yeah, yeah,
what a dorky guy. And it was the perfect right,
It's the perfect moment of like, this guy is the
victim and now the focus of the bullies and the
gangs are on someone else. And what does he become.
He becomes his own version of a bully, just he's

(01:07:55):
desperate to get to not be a victim. Man, I
never noticed that. Oh man, it's the great I don't
know if it's Bob Zemeckis or Crispin Glover or what,
but it was such the most real, like that's the
psychological logic that I don't that I don't see in
Hollywood A ton and I certainly don't see in those

(01:08:15):
you know, very formulaic screenplays A ton and Um, I
just didn't. Uh again, I don't know if it's Crispin
or Zemeckis, but oh man, it was like to me
and and for and for an audience member, I see that,
I see that serious, sort of scalpel lesque version of

(01:08:38):
truthful behavior, and I can believe sort of the rest
of the movie. You know, I'm on board with so
much of the rest of the movie based on a
couple really seriously observed moments. I'm sort of on board
with kind of whatever they do, and of course what
happens is great, but but they can make mistakes along

(01:08:59):
the way, I'd still be on board. Yeah. Another moment
that I thought was really kind of subtle, as that
you see differently as adults is when at the end
when Marty says, you know, if I only had more time,
I could go back and save doc. I got a
time machine ten minutes all to do it. And as
an adult, I'm thinking, oh my god, give yourself ten hours. Yeah,

(01:09:21):
the day before, like, why do you want to cut
it that close? So I was laughing at that, but
then I thought, no, you know what, that's exactly what
a sixteen year old kid would do. Yeah, because you
don't think in those terms at sixteen you would because
I never noticed that when I saw it as a kid,
I probably thought, yeah, ten minutes is great, Yeah, plenty
of times, plenty of time to save him from Libby

(01:09:41):
and terrorists. And I don't remember that the last time
I did this, the car cut out and I couldn't
get it started, right, you don't consider those things, yeah,
and I just now, you know, And and just after
he types that in the car wouldn't start us, clearly
a problem with the car start. Well, and that's that's
that's that's that's the true of DeLorean. Well yeah, that's right, right. Uh.

(01:10:04):
But there were so many little like the car not
starting them at the end, DOC not being able to
plug in the thing. Like just when you think all right,
they've got it, Zamkas throws one more little wrench in
the plan. And all that does is just ramp up
the tension and the stakes. And as a fifteen year old,
you don't know that's what's happening. You just know you're like,
oh my god, not that, not that right? And and

(01:10:26):
of course the lightning scene is is my wife actually
came in and we we you know, like that scene
was on and it's just like it's undeniably tense, you know,
I mean, it just keeps on working. And I think
part of the reason it works so well is because

(01:10:46):
all the all the moments of ratching, all the moments
of tension being ratching it up are realistic. You know.
Of course, the branch comes down, and you know what
I mean, like it's it's it's there's not really a
jump into unrealistic action. I mean, maybe the one moment
is when he drops that connector and it rips into

(01:11:06):
his pants. Maybe that's a little hard, but like you said,
you're already on board, right because because other things seem
to realistic. Um, which makes me think you know, the
other thing that made made me really you know, I
think admire that film once I started acting in films,
was this idea of um, the courage it takes for

(01:11:32):
especially Christopher Lloyd and Crispin Glover to be so out
there in their performances before they knew that the that
that out their style of acting would fit into this movie. Yeah, Crisp,
I mean the casting of Crispin Glover and that performance

(01:11:52):
just gave it enough weirdness totally, you know, But the
movie it's you know, like I I you know, when
I'm making films, I'm always not sure at the beginning,
like is it, you know, is this small realistic acting?
Is this kind of does this have a mumble core
vibe or is that what we're doing? Or is this
you know, is this um you know, you know Charlie

(01:12:16):
and the Chocolate Factory. I mean, are we like really
out there? Can we do anything? Or are we or
can't we? And you know there are moments in you know,
there's Robertson Here's performance in Cape Fear the remake. He's
so out there and his Southern accent is so bad.
But for some reason, I'm into it, like I buy

(01:12:37):
it for some reason, and he knew how far to
push it, and I'm I'm really interested in performances like
Christopher Lloyd's and Crispin Glovers where they can push it
as like like as far as they can to the
edge of a realistic performance and then they stop. Whereas
that another actor who was maybe less ballsy, sort of

(01:13:00):
keep it, keep it in the middle somewhere because they
weren't sure what style of movie was around them, right.
So when when we meet Christopher Lloyd and he says, Marty, yeah,
I mean that's like if I was on set and
I saw that, I'd be like, oh man, this guy
is going back way too far right exactly, And same

(01:13:21):
with Crispin Glover. But those guys are so locked in
and it's almost like the movie itself sort of rose
up to meet their performance. Um. I mean, granted, it's
a it's a time machine movie, so you know, obviously
there's some some room to play well. And they got
to shoot a lot of that twice though, because you

(01:13:43):
know the Eric Stolts thing. Yeah, I mean they shot
five weeks. Um. If you listen to the Thomas Wilson
the guy played off, he will say that they shot
most of the movie. I don't think that's quite true.
But uh, I did think it's interesting and I have
seen have you seen some of the footage. Definitely freaky,
you see, but I think it's interesting to get a

(01:14:04):
redo for the other actors. Uh. And what if that
changed anything on their end? You know? Yeah, I mean,
especially if they saw any of the dailies, which I
bet they didn't. But um, I mean the idea of
a redo is. I mean, that's I would be incredible
as an actor to be able to oh man, because

(01:14:25):
all I mean, all you do after or all I
do when I'm done acting is um, you know, a
couple of weeks go by and then I just you know,
I just think like I could have done that better,
or I think natural Yeah, yeah, but it's it's surprising
to me sometimes, you know, when you perform, how you know.

(01:14:49):
I mean, I was in this Janumo film, uh, Flowers
of War, I was. I was in it for like
thirty seconds. But when we shot it, um, it was
Christian Aileen. I in a scene and the English translation
of the Chinese script was it was just kind of
wonky and it just didn't It was like a literal

(01:15:10):
translation which is not which doesn't work. And I asked
Jenumo sort of politely, I said, hey, can I can
I monkey around with the script a little bit? This
doesn't sound American at all? And he said, what does
monkey around me? Exactly? Exactly exactly. I know. His daughter
is his sort of translator and assistant and editor, and

(01:15:30):
she's just this, you know, really super intelligent, capable woman
and um, and so Christian Bale and I sat down
and kind of scooched the script around, at least this
English part of the script around, and we kind of
came up with what we were going to say, you know,
fifteen minutes before we shot it. And the budget on

(01:15:51):
this thing was insane. Um. You know, there were a
hundred extras as dead bodies as I'm running through the
streets of this doubt, you know, uh Chinese village. And
it was amazing to me that we had sort of,
you know, not written the script, but we've sort of

(01:16:11):
come up with the script or that scene minutes before
we shot it. We shot it on a steady cam
um with this hot shot operator. I think we had
just done Old Boys. So everyone was I really wished
that I really, I really wanted to have some I
wanted some to get some stories for him, but he
was clearly busy. Um. But you know, we did it. Uh,

(01:16:36):
you know, we probably did it four four times on
my side, we probably did it four times on Christian side.
And that was it. And it's it's it's crazy that
most of the time while I'm acting, I'm doing something
for basically the first time ever in my life as
someone who I'm not ever supposed to have been, and

(01:16:57):
we're filming it and that's pretty much it. Mm hmm.
So every movie is like me getting on the you know,
the pictures mound during the World Series. I've never pitched before.
And then it feels like the next movie is like
me in the NBA Championship. I've never played basketball before,

(01:17:19):
you know, and then it's like the finals of Wimbledon.
I'm not a tennis player. You know. It feels like
every movie is me doing something for the first time
at the highest level. Are kind of with the most
nerves attached, and you kind of have to to just
kind of do it. Yeah. That doesn't sound to me though,

(01:17:39):
like like a typical actors in security though, that sounds
like something different, almost like you just have to have
faith of saying, all right, well, this is this is
what I'm gonna do. I'm want to try to throw
a fastball. Yeah. And and I obviously a lot of

(01:18:01):
it is is kind of learning how to look like
you know how to do something. And because I edited,
I studied editing in film school. I I mean, the
acting thing is very kind of late coming, and I
didn't really mean to do it. But um, because I

(01:18:21):
spent so much time editing performances in film school, you know,
you kind of learn how much, ah, how much power
you have in changing or or um or improving a performance,
secure a secure feeling. Yeah, definitely. So I think in
that respect, when I'm acting, I'm sort of into the

(01:18:45):
idea of kind of giving someone options, I mean, options
that are within the bandwidth of what I think is
realistic for this character in this situation. But I don't,
you know, when I when I hear awards, acceptance speeches
or people refer to some you know, supreme authorship of

(01:19:05):
their performance, I think to the actor, well, you know,
I always want to see the shot of the editor
when you know, when an actor is getting an oscar
saying yeah exactly, and they say like, I couldn't have
done this without X, Y and Z, and I want to.
I want to. I want to think to myself, like,

(01:19:26):
you absolutely couldn't have done this without the editor. You know,
like you think the editor no, and that they should
thank costuming and hair and makeup and directing, but they
never thank the editor. But I would say, I mean
all that stuff is as clearly it's legit and a
big deal. But there's nobody in the in the filmmaking
process that's spending more time staring at you and your

(01:19:49):
body and your ticks and your mannerisms and your behaviors
endlessly than the editor. Yeah, like stressing over individual frames
of film aims you see as good as possible. Right,
So this person has seen like the pixels of your performance.
And what do you do? You thank the producer or

(01:20:11):
the studio exactly. And I mean, obviously that's about getting
your next job, and I understand that, but I mean
as far as as far as what who's really making
your performance happen, it's you and the editor, not even
the director. You know, the directors there is they're sort
of you know, they're they're you know they are. I mean,

(01:20:33):
if you're um, they're kind of a passenger on your
particular journey. UM, and they're helpful to point in certain directions,
but you're you have to get there. And that that
brings me back to Michael J. Fox and how you
know how a lot of times the lead character, like

(01:20:57):
we've talked about, has to sort of he has to
be bland, you know, to be able to glom onto
as an audience member and go on his journey. He
can't be too specific. I thought Marty was very specific,
you know, obviously not quite as sort of out there
as Christopher Lloyd or or Crispin Glover or Thomas Wilson um.

(01:21:20):
But he was in no way bland. And I think
part of what I really enjoyed about his performance, like
like after I watched it again last night, was the
physicality of it. He is sprinting from one scene to
the next. He is playing guitar, and when he plays, uh,

(01:21:40):
you know, obviously he didn't play guitar, but he learned
the chords apparently to Johnny be Good, so he was
he was sinking along with the chords. And I also
respect a movie where the drummer because I used to
play drums, the drummers were both drummers were on point.
The drummer for the Pinheads at the beginning where Hummy
Lewis is one of the judges. He was playing the

(01:22:02):
drums properly, and then the drummer for um Marvin Barry
and the Starlighters. There you go. Um, he was on it.
But but Michael J. Fox is jumping off of the amp,
landing on his knees, you know, sliding on his knees
when he when he sees Um Biff sort of slide

(01:22:23):
off the back of UM. I guess it's probably Doc
Brown's car that he borrowed, right, So when he slides
off the back of Doc Brown's car after George just
punched him out, UM Marty's and then the people behind
him say, you know, is that is that George McFly
and um. When Michael J. Fox sort of realizes what

(01:22:45):
time it is and sort of busts through this crowd
of extras to go get the guys to get back
on stage. He sort of climbs over this one woman's
like for you know, mink stole or whatever she has on,
and really he pushes them out of the way. That's
just not something that happens on a movie set. You

(01:23:06):
don't sort of grapple with the extras. He's a flip
over a lady at one point too, onto the sidewalk
um where he like he bombs into her and sort
of like he runs into her with the skateboard. Now,
I can't remember which part it was, but it struck
me as well of like how he kind of went

(01:23:26):
for it physically totally as a but well, like if
I'm if I'm running through a bunch of extras, maybe
I'm a bad actor, but like I don't, I don't
sort of check them with my shoulder as I'm going
past them. But he I mean, but it makes total sense.
I mean, this guy is you know, the stakes used

(01:23:49):
to be that he would be stuck in That sucks.
But then once once he starts seeing his brother and
sister disappear, he's his life. His life is threatened, and
so that whole formulaic script, those whole like you know,
the math of a great script. You know, you have
to have the same goal, but the stakes of that

(01:24:11):
goal have to keep rising, and the strategy for which
you achieve that goal has to change. According to um
the skills that you've learned along the way, and the
only way you're going to completely achieve the goal is
if you can finally do at the end what you

(01:24:34):
were scared of at the beginning. That's like deeply Joseph
Campbell ship, well, yeah, and at the beginning the pinheads fail.
Right at the end, he succeeds as a musician if
he didn't know how to play guitar because it's just
so perfectly set up totally with Marvin hurting his hand,
so Marty has to literally save himself and his life

(01:24:57):
by getting his parents to kiss. And even when even
there you think, alright, great, he's playing guitar, they're gonna kiss,
Zemeckis throws that dickhead in there who breaks in and
so this is my dance or whatever? Can I cut
in just another little level of oh my god, will
you plead? Like yeah? And I realized so scared that
it wasn't gonna happen. Yeah, the red haired kid bothers me,

(01:25:21):
maybe as much as Biff bothers me um as an actor. Well,
just because he comes in at that moment of like
a moment of high stress. I mean like he sort
of adds like the top layer of sweat on my
forehead in that scene. And I realized last night he
was one of the three kids who was kicking Crispin

(01:25:42):
Glover in the butt in the hallway when he had
to kick me sign on his back and Strickler Strickland
guys name, um, he said, you know he you know,
he grabbed the sign off his back and said, you know,
get your ship together. But he but the red Haired
kid was one of those least I don't think I
realized that any old man. And he had that laugh

(01:26:04):
and the and Alan's Sylvestry's music at that point was
just like at its crescendo. Um, yeah, like that that's
the last scene, you know, that scene and then the
one leading up to the lightning bolt scene. It's just
like if you're falling asleep, which you shouldn't anyways, but
like if you're falling asleep and in that screening you're awake,

(01:26:25):
then yeah, it's just so expertly put together. Uh. And
then that ending, of course, satisfying ending in n and
then I just remember being fifteen or whatever, um when
did'st and um, when the future had changed and his

(01:26:47):
parents had money and he had that money ruck and
Biff was the car waxer. Uh. It just doesn't get
any better than that. Even though seeing it as an adult,
I thought, why is his brother having at home? Yeah?
And it suits so you know, of course now I
thought that was kind of fun, but um, it's just

(01:27:07):
such a satisfying ending for a kid to see, and
as an adult because I think all kids think like
especially if you become like you know, we did, like
little middle middle class kids like man, I wanted the
shiny truck. I didn't want the hand me down Volkswagen Beetle. No. Um.
I was happy to have it or the or the ninety. Yeah.

(01:27:28):
And what was great is that, like during the opening
sequence of the clocks and the dog food and the
plutonium and all that stuff, there was a you know,
during that kind of Rube Goldberg machine, the robot arm
or whatever. At some point the um, the radio gets
flicked on, I mean the TV gets flicked on as well,

(01:27:50):
and she talks about the plutonium being stolen and um,
and they say that it's just a clerical error. Um,
it's missing being a clerical error. At some point the
video has turned on and there's an advertisement for Statler Toyota. Oh,
I didn't notice that, which becomes, you know, the Toyota
truck that he has at the end. So dense. It's

(01:28:11):
so dense, but for some reason it doesn't. That crap
can get very annoying in some movies, and I don't
understand why it's not this time. I mean it's it's
because you can't say it's subtle either, you know, like
it's not it's one of those weird things that all

(01:28:32):
just worked, you know. I mean there was that you know,
when he jumps into the there was one point where
Marty jumps into the Dolorean and there's a tiny tilt
down to the video camera and his walkman um. And
of course those become such big deals later on when

(01:28:53):
he gets you know, when he convinces yeah, exactly, um
van Halen, it's great. Uh. And then maybe one of
the best. I'm a big fan of movies that have
great last lines and um, and usually it's like an
indie film and not some big Hollywood movie where I
think it has a great last line. But Roads, where

(01:29:14):
we're going we don't need Roads, is like Hollywood history
right there. And I don't think they. I don't think they.
I would really like to know what what was, what
was improved, or what moments they because I think it's

(01:29:35):
easy to to think that nothing was nothing wasn't pre planned.
But I also don't think that if you do that,
you get the life and the vitality. Sometimes it unless
you know how movies are made in reality, right, But
you know, when you get that much pre planning, you

(01:29:57):
know that much kind of you know, over Hitchcock, you know,
movie making. To me, it really presses down on on everything. Now. Granted,
if you're dealing with like a mathematician like Hitchcock, you know, yes,
he was the best mathematician, and so we enjoy a
lot of his films. But you know, you could feel

(01:30:20):
Jimmy Stewart or you could feel Carry Grant like trying
desperately to like kind of you know, kind of molt
out of this snake skin of of oppression. And certainly
we know that the women he worked with were just
like put in a you know, trapped in a box,
um and you know, gazed at with you know, insanely

(01:30:43):
creepy eyes. Of course, when Grace Kelly, you know, leans
in in rear window. I mean, you know, who's not
a creep looking at Grace Kelly? Um? But uh, but
a lot of times when you feel that that math
happened in a screenplay, for me, it it sort of
strangles the ability for anyone to pop out like David

(01:31:07):
Fulis in Naked. You know, you never get that much
of a barf of like humanity. But for some reason,
Back to the Future still has that, And I wonder
how much was pre planned, how much was improved and
I and I bet as much as that movie feels

(01:31:30):
like a constructed, rudimented, structured affair, I bet that there
are moments in there of just happy accidents of of
of you know, because when you sort of set everything
in a very particularly particular direction, I think you you

(01:31:53):
make you know, you make those other moments possible. And
you know, I'm sure this is not the case, but
but like you make possible someone. You know that last
line someone could you know, Christopher Lloyd is so in
the head of Doc Brown that I'm sure if they
didn't write that line for him but instead said, you know, uh,

(01:32:16):
if you if there's anything you'd like to say during
this last point in the movie, like go for it,
you know, improvo line, say whatever is on your mind.
I bet you wouldn't. It wouldn't be so bad, you know,
it would probably be in line with what they wrote anyway. Um,
but everything was so popping in that movie, Like you know, Leah.
I was looking at Leah Thompson and I was just like, man,

(01:32:37):
of course, like she was great. Yeah, and the whole
cow you know yeah, I mean, like it still makes
me laugh. It totally calls him Calvin and and the
amount of physical comedy that that Michael J. Fox throws
in when he's putting on his pants and then fall
to the floor and he's like getting out of her bedroom.

(01:32:58):
There's at Dean Cundy actually sets the mirror of her
in her bedroom at like this vanity mirror in the bedroom,
so so so we can see the door as she's
leaving the bedroom. We can see her at the doorway
and we can see um, uh Michael J. Fox in
sort of like the you know, the right third of

(01:33:18):
the frame, and we see in the reflection of the mirror.
She opens the door and looks back at one more
you know, one more view of a male in his
underwear and then runs out. You know, she smiles with
those bouncing curls and then she like and she runs out.
But yeah, so cool. Uh really quickly, I need to

(01:33:39):
tell you about them. When I went to visit my
brother who was in the DJA training program in the
early nineties, I had never been to l A, went
and visited him. He was working at Universal at the time,
and uh I went to get him pick him up
very late after work one night, and it was it
was empty. There was no one there at UNI and

(01:34:00):
he said here, go down here, go around the corner
and pull around here. And sure enough, man, I pull
around the corner. And this was in nineteen like probably ninety,
so not very long after this movie was out, and
I look up ahead and it's fucking Hill Valley town Square.
Oh yeah, the back lot. I mean it may still

(01:34:21):
be there as part of the tour, but there was
the strip of road that was the movie theater, that
was the clock tower, and I just a chill ran
up my spine. It was like the coolest thing ever.
That's amazing. Yeah, it was great, and it was empty,
that was It was probably one in the morning. And
I wonder if they you, I mean, certainly they must
have used that in another films. Yeah. Actually, um Tony

(01:34:43):
Shaloubzin movie was The Sting, and the diner from The
Sting was the same as it had already been there.
They used it for Back to the Future, So it's
just a working back lot um that they tricked out
with certain things, obviously to make it Hill Valley. But
I think it's probably still there. I haven't been on
the touring forever. I've never done it. Yeah, they I
mean they left it for years because Back to the Future,

(01:35:05):
of course went on to be one of the legendary
movies of all time. But it's definitely cool man, even
as adult, like to walk around that set and that
lot with that clock tower. And there's some documentary they
just had out about the DeLorean. I think, oh, yeah,
that was a hotshit car. It was for a minute,
and there was um there was Oh I lost what

(01:35:31):
I was gonna say. That's all right? Do you feel
good about this? Yeah? Did we cover it? Yeah? We
sure did you see if I had any other notes
that I wanted to Goldie Wilson, Toyota Rt. Lorraine space Cample.
Oh yeah, god, that was great totally. I just watched

(01:35:51):
some kind of wonderful again The End of the Night. Yeah,
I haven't seen that for I've seen that once. Speaking
of Eric Stolts, Yeah right, I forgot. Yeah, they were
in that together. Yeah, and um, I should know this,
but who was the who was the young woman with
the short the drummer with the short blonde hair. Oh

(01:36:12):
Mary Stewart Masterson right as Um, she was like the
ducky character in that movie. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's a
good one. Um that that she may have started my
um my her and Carry Lowell in License to Kill

(01:36:33):
the I think the second Timothy Dalton James Bond film.
They both sort of jump started my insane sexual attraction
for women with short hair, the pixie haircut. Watts that
was her name, some kind of wonderful. Of course it
was a masculine name. Well he named it was after

(01:36:53):
Charlie Watts. All the characters were named after Rolling Stones.
I well, good for him. I never would have thought that.
All right, man, thanks amazing, this is great. I might
have to go and watch the DVD extras now I
think maybe we should do that. Yeah, all right, thanks,

(01:37:19):
all right everybody. That was Back to the Future with
Paul Schneider. Back to the Future plus and a whole
lot more. It was fun to talk to Paul, and
I wish we lived in the same town because I
think Paul and I would be pretty good buds, is
my hunch. He's a good dude, and it was great
of him to come in here and watch the movie

(01:37:39):
the night before and take notes. It always is better
when people do that and take it as seriously as
you can take a fun little show like this. So
many thanks to Paul. I can't wait to see what
he has coming out in the hopper next. He's a
discerning guy as uh as you learned, so I guarantee
whatever he's gonna be in is gonna be pretty great.
So thanks a lot, everybody, Thanks for joining, and until

(01:38:00):
next week, remember it's one point one chick Abats movie.
Crush has produced, edited, engineered, and scored by Noel Brown

(01:38:22):
from our podcast studio at Pond City Market, Atlanta, Georgia.
For more podcasts for my Heart Radio, visit the I
Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows.