Working Girl

In this episode, Anna and Derek discuss whether rom needed to be part of this com, if Cyn was actually a good friend to Tess or not, and much more during their chat of Mike Nichols' Oscar-lauded flick Working Girl (1988).

Connect with '80s Movie Montage on Facebook, Bluesky or Instagram! It's the same handle for all three... @80smontagepod.

Anna Keizer and Derek Dehanke are the co-hosts of ‘80s Movie Montage. The idea for the podcast came when they realized just how much they talk – a lot – when watching films from their favorite cinematic era. Their wedding theme was “a light nod to the ‘80s,” so there’s that, too. Both hail from the Midwest but have called Los Angeles home for several years now. Anna is a writer who received her B.A. in Film/Video from Columbia College Chicago and M.A. in Film Studies from Chapman University. Her dark comedy short She Had It Coming was an Official Selection of 25 film festivals with several awards won for it among them. Derek is an attorney who also likes movies. It is a point of pride that most of their podcast episodes are longer than the movies they cover.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Do I look like I don't belong here? No. No, no. I'm sure you're a real ace at whatever it is that you do do. Damn straight. But how you look. I have a head for business and a bod for sin. Hello

SPEAKER_02 0:32

and welcome to 80s Movie Montage. This is Derek.

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And this is Anna.

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And that was Melanie Griffith as Tess McGill just having a few drinks and Valium along with Harrison Ford as Jack Traynor in 1988's Working Girl.

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Yes.

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Yeah.

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Working Girl.

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Yeah. So is there anything wrong with that? I guess not. It's a weird thing for her to say. It

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was an interesting thing for her to say. It was

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quite provocative.

UNKNOWN 0:58

Yeah.

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Especially because, I mean, look, it's a great line.

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Yeah.

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But considering what has presumably been her goal throughout the film to be taken seriously. She

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pivoted hard from that. What Harrison Ford does to a motherfucker, you know? It's like...

SPEAKER_01 1:19

Yeah, the number of times where people are like, oh my God, he's so gorgeous. Like, look, Harrison Ford is a handsome man, but it was just kind of a funny thing in the movie, too, that everybody kept remarking on how good looking he is.

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Constantly. The scene

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where

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he's like changing shirts in his office.

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Very funny.

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As people do. Yeah. He

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just had

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like a clean shirt in one of his desk drawers to pull out.

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He did a Clark Gable.

SPEAKER_02 1:43

Oh, is that what that was?

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Well, meaning he had no undershirt.

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Yeah, he never, never, no undershirts.

SPEAKER_01 1:49

That was a whole thing, right? We talked about that. We

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did, yeah.

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How Clark Gable started a whole trend of no undershirts. And it

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decimated the

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undershirt industry. It did. It did. It absolutely did. But in any case, this is Working Girl, not It Happened One Night.

SPEAKER_02 2:03

Hello and welcome to 80s Movie Montage.

SPEAKER_01 2:06

30s Movie Montage. So Working Girl, this was your first viewing.

SPEAKER_02 2:15

It was. Yeah.

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Do you want to talk about now how you felt or later how you felt?

SPEAKER_02 2:20

Oh, we can talk. We can talk throughout. I just... I thought it started like... When the movie started, I kind of felt like I had started watching it halfway through. Because it like...

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You mentioned pacing. The

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pacing was interesting. But overall, it was like once it got into like the real story.

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Yeah.

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Which is like the whole thing with the corporate espionage with her and Sigourney Weaver.

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Yeah.

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It was good. I liked it.

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Yeah. I... I mentioned at the tail end of the last episode when we announced this one that it had been a very, very long time since I had watched this movie. And I honestly couldn't remember having very strong positive feelings about the movie. And now coming away from it, watching it for the show, I think they did some things really well and in some ways very, would you say apropos? Yeah. Yes.

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Trying to be men. I don't know.

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It was very... I know what you're saying. Yeah. Yeah.

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But that kind of goes along with it, too. Just to try to succeed in that kind of corporate environment, particularly back then, there was... You had to act and look a certain way. And that was all based on trying to be as masculine, like the masculine traits, both in terms of how you acted and how you dressed.

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The movie is very... It's

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like a weird fetishization love letter of 80s corporate culture, if

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it was good. But it was made in the time, so it's interesting to see that snapshot.

SPEAKER_02 4:22

Well, at the very end, when it just zooms out of her... And all you see are like all these other people in offices and these big office buildings. I think I mentioned like if that was the ending of a movie today, it would be like some dark dystopian, like what a really sad ending. But it was super positive.

SPEAKER_01 4:41

Well, it was funny because like even when they were when they had that end zoom out, I was like, I think her office is a little depressing still. But it was like the super

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uplifting

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music. And it's

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like she won.

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Yeah, we'll get to the music in a minute. But yeah, let's dive in. Let's get to work. So this actually was an Oscar-winning film and also additional multiple nominations. Okay. So six nominations total, including Best Picture.

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Okay. Okay. All right.

SPEAKER_01 5:16

Now, I'm normally the person that advocates for films that would never be nominated nowadays. The one that I bring up all the time is Tootsie. Yeah. And how much I love the fact that at the time it was viewed in a way that it was Oscar worthy, I guess you would say. I don't know if it got its nom based on the strength of the fact that it's directed by Mike Nichols. I mean, look, it has a lot of positives to it. I thought it was interesting, did not realize that it was the Best Picture nominee. So we'll go through the other nominations, but... Let's start with the writing. So the writer on this one is Kevin Wade. And I have almost all films for him and pretty notable movies at that. So some of his other credits include True Colors, Mr. Baseball.

SPEAKER_02 6:09

With Tom Selleck?

SPEAKER_01 6:10

Yeah, I think so. Junior, Meet Joe Black. Did you ever see Meet Joe Black?

UNKNOWN 6:16

No.

SPEAKER_02 6:17

I have not seen all that, but I know it's Brad Pitt is like the sexiest iteration of death ever.

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Did you say I didn't see all that?

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All of it.

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All of it. Oh, okay. But I

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may have said all that. I didn't see all that.

SPEAKER_01 6:31

That's an interesting way. Maybe I misheard you. Yes, I do remember at the time there was like a weird kind of like, oh, Brad Pitt is death. He's like sexy death.

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Yeah, yeah. Basically,

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yeah. And then once the movie came out, I mean, look, I think he actually played it In a way that makes sense because he has like literally

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no... He's on vacation basically, right? He's like death on... He's like getting to experience...

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It's like Lucifer before Lucifer where he comes to Earth and wants to experience life as like a human.

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But it's Brad Pitt. It's not Steve Buscemi.

SPEAKER_01 7:10

No, it's Brad Pitt. But I think people at the time were saying that like there's like such a lack of kind of emotional dimension. But it's like, but that kind of makes sense, I think, if you're thinking about who the character actually is. Yeah. I don't know. It does. Anyway, made in Manhattan. And then more recently, although I think it just wrapped up, Blue Bloods. Oh.

SPEAKER_02 7:32

Yeah. Another Tom Selleck thing.

SPEAKER_01 7:34

Yeah. It is another Tom Selleck. Okay. So I just mentioned him a minute ago. I also did not realize until I was doing my research for the film that this was directed by Mike Nichols. Okay. Outstanding director.

UNKNOWN 7:51

Yeah.

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much lauded for very good reasons.

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Like Cindy Lauper?

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Didn't I say that right or did I say it wrong?

SPEAKER_02 7:59

I don't know. How

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do you say lauded? You're lauded. L-A-U-D-E-D. Yeah. Lauded. You're like celebrated.

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Yeah.

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Yeah. Yeah. Don't make fun.

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I'm sorry.

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So I think I say enough words wrong that like when I think I said it right, I feel I should be lauded for saying lauded correctly. Anyway. Please

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consider yourself so lauded.

SPEAKER_01 8:23

Mike Nichols, he... There are a number of people behind the scenes in this movie who unfortunately have passed away. He passed in 2014. And... Wow, what a career this guy had. One of the nominations for this film was for him as Best Director. Okay. And also, because it doesn't fit in with his other filmography, I thought it was interesting. I'll get to his other directing nominations and very notable win. But he also had a Best Picture, so he produced on the film The Remains of the Day.

SPEAKER_02 8:57

So

SPEAKER_01 8:58

you got to– there's nowhere else to put that in. So I just wanted to bring up that he had that nomination as well. But as far as his other credits go, there is a possibility that we could talk about him in the future. I don't know if any of those other films that are in the 80s will be ones we want to like immediately– We've

SPEAKER_02 9:20

talked about one. It's come up a few times now. Oh,

SPEAKER_01 9:23

yeah, we have. Yeah. Yeah, there are a number of films. So, I mean, by the time he got to this film, he was very well-known, very, I'll say, celebrated. His very first Best Director nomination, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Classic family comedy. What a fucking film. Jesus Christ, that movie. It's not a comedy. That movie is just like... Rough from start to finish. But excellent. Excellent movie. I mean, my God. I do think that that is Elizabeth Taylor. Well, she's also really great in Cat on a Haunted Roof. But her and Burton, holy shit. Like, they just, on and off the screen.

SPEAKER_02 10:04

Fireworks. The mayor of Amity was in that. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:09

Yeah. So he gets a nomination for that. Then... He really is a specialist in these films that just make you feel uncomfortable sometimes. He gets his one and only win for The Graduate. Okay. So have you seen The Graduate? Yeah. Yeah. So he gets that. The film that you were referring to, so preceding this one, but also in the 80s, he gets another Best Director nomination for Silkwood.

SPEAKER_02 10:37

Yeah, we're just going to have to cover that at this point. It's come up

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several times. It's not the most depressing movie. It's just, it's a drama.

SPEAKER_02 10:44

That's Meryl Streep, right? And Cher. So in terms of like depressing Meryl Streep movies, it's... It's

SPEAKER_01 10:51

almost a lighthearted comedy. Yes, it is. So he gets that. Another Meryl Streep film, Heartburn. So he must... Must have had a nice collaboration with Carly Simon because she also– I'm actually really surprised because the Carly Simon song that I know really well is from Heartburn. And I kind of was like, oh, did she not get even nominated for that? She didn't. I

SPEAKER_02 11:18

just love the choice to name a film. I'm assuming it has nothing at all to do with gastroesophageal disease. No.

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No, so... There's no

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reflux involved?

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That was based off of almost, I think, the real life of Nora Ephron.

SPEAKER_02 11:32

Oh, really?

SPEAKER_01 11:32

Yeah. Okay.

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Heartburn.

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And the acrimonious dissolution, is it? That might be a word I'm not saying right, of the end of her marriage. I think

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that's a real word.

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So that's what that's about. And it's her and her husband, so to speak, are played by Meryl Streep and Jack Nicholson.

SPEAKER_02 11:50

Well, if it's Jack Nicholson, then I know he's probably... He's

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the dick. Yeah. Yeah. In the movie. He's the cheater.

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No, not Nicholson.

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So he does that. Biloxi Blues. Another Meryl Streep film, Postcards from the Edge. Oh,

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yeah.

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So he does that. Regarding Henry. So another Harrison Ford film. Another Jack Nicholson. So he definitely liked working with certain actors because isn't Jack Nicholson weird? Like he's essentially wolf and wolf. Oh,

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he's the werewolf. He's the werewolf,

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yeah. He does The Birdcage, Primary Colors, Closer, and Charlie Wilson's War.

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Which Charlie Wilson's War takes on like a lot more significance if you watch it now, knowing what we know now. I will say that much.

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Okay.

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Yeah.

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I don't know that movie.

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Yeah.

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Heard of it, don't know it.

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I mean, it's, yeah. Just look it up. Okay. Educate yourself.

SPEAKER_01 12:49

Educate yourself. All right. Moving on to cinematography, Michael Ballhaus. So he also has passed, passed in 2017. He, frankly, it's shocking that he never won an Oscar. He was nominated multiple times, but it's actually really– and again, I– oscillate in terms of like caring about the oscars and not caring about the oscars but if the oscars are supposed to be representative of the best of the best it's like fucking ridiculous that he didn't actually win

SPEAKER_02 13:23

is it though yeah is that no no not is it is that what they're supposed to be about

SPEAKER_01 13:29

oh that's a good question that's how i view them that's how i think they view themselves

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perhaps yeah i think i think that should be

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yeah

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But

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it just makes me sad. Look, people know he was an amazing cinematographer. And I'm about to go through all of his credits, which prove that out. So he was German. He started in German entertainment. Some of his early work, which honestly, we will. This isn't even the first time we've brought him up, but it has been a minute. And it almost certainly won't be the last time. I'm just not sure how quickly we'll get back to him. But some of his earlier credits include The Marriage of Maria Braun. after hours so that's one we could do we could also do color of money oh yeah i actually would like to do that at some point

SPEAKER_02 14:15

we can't do the hustler and the hustler is a crushingly depressing movie surprising i don't know if people realize just how like how depressing that movie is color of money same character in terms of like eddie but um yeah i'd i'd for sure do that one

SPEAKER_01 14:33

yeah I think that's a cool like I I like when they do those like interesting casting choices you know to have Paul Newman with Tom Cruise and just to see like an older generation of actor with like at the time yeah a very up-and-coming actor so so the time that we covered him was for broadcast news which we did with Jennifer so he gets his first Oscar nomination for that film definitely go check out that conversation Jennifer is such a I'm a huge fan of that film. I mean, it's an amazing movie. So did that, I think, this is season six. I think we did season four.

SPEAKER_02 15:11

This is what now? This is season six?

SPEAKER_01 15:14

Yeah. You didn't know that? So, okay. He then goes on to have a longstanding collaborative relationship with Martin Scorsese. Okay. So he is the DP on The Last Temptation of Christ. Not everything is Scorsese, but that's a notable one. He does Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. We should do

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that

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one. Sure. Yeah. He gets his next cinematography nomination for The Fabulous Baker Boys. He does another Scorsese. They do Goodfellas together. He also shoots Postcards from the Edge. Okay. He does What About Bob. So here's what's really interesting about... I don't have like a screenshot to prove this out, but I'm almost positive that in IMDb, it used to be officially called Bram Stoker's Dracula. And now it's just Dracula.

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It very much was Bram Stoker's Dracula. Yeah.

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I clocked that. I was like, that's weird. Anyway, he does another Scorsese, The Age of Innocence, Quiz Show, Outbreak, Air Force One, Harrison Ford. He also shoots Primary Colors. He does The Legend of Bagger Vance. His last cinematography nomination was for Gangs of New York.

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That is probably my favorite of, like, the Scorsese movies.

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Same.

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Yeah.

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I think so, too. It is

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an amazing movie.

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It is an amazing film. I mean... It's a little long. Jesus Christ. Too many

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notes?

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Well, that's what he...

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Too late, but... That's

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what he's known for. I mean... Not to sound so just like silly about it, but I probably could watch Daniel Day-Lewis watching Paint Dry and be like completely captivated. He is so astounding in that movie. The Butcher, basically, yeah. Bill the Butcher. Yeah. It is– it's just incredible to watch him. He shot Something's Gotta Give. So here's what's hilarious to me. Two of his final credits– He does Something's Gotta Give and The Departed, both starring Jack Nicholson in two wildly contrasting roles. They're very

SPEAKER_02 17:28

different. Very different

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characters. I think it's so funny. I don't know why. I just thought that was hilarious. Okay, moving on to music. So really interesting the way that they credit music. Yeah. Yeah. I'm not a music person, but I guess I'd say maybe different arrangements of it, is Carly Simon's song, Let the River Run. That was the one Oscar win for this movie. Okay. So she wins Best Original Song. She is credited as music for this movie. However, Rob Muncy... it does credit him as composed by...

SPEAKER_02 18:22

Music scorer. Yeah,

SPEAKER_01 18:24

I'm sorry. Music scorer, I should say. So, like, I presume that means that, like, so she was responsible for that main song that was heard in different ways throughout the film, and then he did whatever kind of supplementary music that was needed for the movie. Okay. So Carly Simon, I mean, I think most people know her as, like, a popular music artist. So as far as, like... movie credits there are some i mentioned heartburn so she has another really i'm not going to sing it but i do really love that song that she does for heartburn she also uh works on postcards from the edge so another meryl streep film and this is my life so those are some of her credits and then muncie some of his credits i pulled out credits that are i mean i don't know it's a little bit of a mishmash he was the music arranger for the warriors amazing He was the theme music composer. I don't know this series, which is kind of crazy. A series called Texas?

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I'm not familiar with that series.

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But he's credited for 324 episodes of the show.

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What?

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So I'm not sure how that

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was on a radar. Who's in it?

SPEAKER_01 19:38

I don't even know. And then he was an additional music composer for Bright Lights, Big City. Okay. Okay, so moving on to film editing, Sam Osteen. So he also has passed away, passed away in 2000. Also, multiple Oscar nominations. When you hear what the films are, it's also kind of insane that in addition to the ones that he specifically got nominations for, the fact that he never won is a little sus. So he gets his first nomination for Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf.

SPEAKER_02 20:11

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 20:12

So he was also a frequent collaborator with Nichols. He cuts Cool Hand Luke. Okay, cool. He cuts The Graduate, didn't even get a nomination for that. He cuts Rosemary's Baby. He gets– so I guess he had a bit of a collaboration with– I'm forgetting his name, but I could also just say Who Shall Not Be Named because– Voldemort? No, the guy– Rosemary's Baby, and then he also gets a nomination for Chinatown.

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Oh,

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okay. So what's his name? I don't even want to give time to this guy. Well, what's... Okay. The director who's been in France because... Oh, Polanski? Thank you. Okay. Yeah. That's what I thought. I'm like... Totally blanking on the name. So he does those. He does... I know you love this movie. Backslash S.

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Yeah.

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Amityville 2 colon The Possession. I

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mean, I don't have the same... Oh, yeah, that's what I'm thinking. At

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times. Even the first one.

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Yeah.

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Yeah. And then Amityville. All the other ones. Because they were trying to do 3D. 3D,

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yeah.

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That one is just ridiculous. They're all

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pretty bad. Although there's one that I would rank above all of the others, primarily because of this one detective's performance was so fucking good.

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Yes. It blew me away.

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I loved it.

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Loved it. Yes.

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I'm not joking.

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And I agree with you. Yeah. And if you want to know more about that amazing person who did that amazing performance, go check out our episodes, Back to the Future, Grease 2, and Back to the Future 2, because, oh, and Prancer.

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Yes. Yeah.

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Because he is on all of them, Mr. Casey Campbell. That's right. All right. So moving on, he also gets a nomination for Silkwood.

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We're just going to have to fucking cover that movie.

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God damn it. He Does Heartburn. So very frequent collaborator with Nichols. Bloxy Blues, Postcards from the Edge, Regarding Henry, Wolf, and Night Falls on Manhattan. Okay. Okay. We are at the stars of the film. So I did a little rearranging of the way that they credit everybody here.

SPEAKER_02 22:52

They were just like the studio just went full studio. And they were like, well, we can't. even though Melanie Griffith is the main character, she is the protagonist of this film, we're just not sure if people know her well enough. So let's have Harrison Ford and Sigourney Weaver to lead the top billing for this.

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It's like, okay, I get it, but come on. You're absolutely right. She is the lead. She gets a Best Actress nomination for this film.

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It's also why Alec Baldwin played Mick instead of Jack Traynor, who they originally... thought was going to be in that role,

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but

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Harrison Ford was more of a known, popular commodity, if you will.

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Interesting. And so they had to go

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back to Baldwin and ask him, like, hey...

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Will you take a small role?

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And he apparently was very gracious about it and super cool with it, so... I

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might be saying something controversial. I think Alec Baldwin would have been better in that role.

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As Jack Traynor?

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Yeah.

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Well... I don't know what the timeline is between this and like Glenn Gary, Glenn Ross, but there was like a moment with Alec Baldwin where I'm like, holy shit, he's like going right into that mode.

SPEAKER_01 24:05

Because he... Look, I love Harrison Ford. I have always thought that while I love each individual actor, especially Ford and Weaver, the casting felt not completely gelled to me. Yeah. And again, I've said this a million times. What the hell do I know? Because I got a Best Pitcher nomination. And so I don't know. But anyway.

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I'll say I could totally see Alec Baldwin as a Jack trainer. And I think Baldwin would have been more intense with some of the business

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parts

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of the role.

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Yeah.

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And...

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I think there would have been more chemistry, to be quite honest. But I don't think

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Harrison Ford would have been a good Mick Duggan. No, he would just not be part of the film. Yeah, he would have been gone.

SPEAKER_01 24:56

Yeah, he just would have been gone. I think Harrison Ford can be a really great comedic actor, but he's– the way that they play the comedy for this character in this film– I'm not sure if it hit all the time for me. Yeah. But in any case, let's talk about Melanie Griffith a little bit. So she is Tess McGill. I'm going to call her out first because she's the star of this movie. She is. And we have not covered her before. This is, I think, the first time. Maybe not the only time, but it probably will be a minute before we would. Is she

SPEAKER_02 25:34

in Silkwood? No.

SPEAKER_01 25:36

Okay. But I think it'll be a minute before we come back to her. Okay. So Griffith, she, now at one point it was really interesting to me because you called out a hairstyle she had.

SPEAKER_02 25:51

Which one? Oh, yeah. The updo. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:54

And when I saw that, I was like, hold on a second. And I pulled up the fact that like, I think, I don't know if I didn't even do any research to see if there's anything about it online. I think that was a very subtle wink to her mother to be Hedren.

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Yeah.

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Who is very well known for having the same kind of upswept do.

SPEAKER_02 26:16

When you showed me that picture, it seems like that's

SPEAKER_01 26:18

the case. Yeah. Yeah. And so, yeah, Tippi Hedren, the birds, that is Melanie Griffith's mother. And, you know, so Nepo baby we're talking about here. But she's great. She's great in this film. Some of her other credits, I mean, I have... almost all films for her. So much earlier in her career. This definitely, not only was this like a breakout in terms of she got a Best Actress nomination, this I think was a film that got people to see her in a different light. They still kind of lean on what I think she was known for, which is like, look, tremendous physique. And the films that she did prior, like Night Moves and Body Double, lean into that in terms of her appearance. And, you know, I felt like it just was on the cusp of gratuitous the number of times we saw her in her underwear in this movie. I think

SPEAKER_02 27:17

for an 80s movie, I'll give them credit for reigning themselves in a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 27:24

I mean, I get it. That is part of her character. People don't take her seriously because she's gorgeous. And she also, you know... doesn't necessarily come from the privileged background that somebody like Sigourney Weaver, even though she's also a woman, is looked at as a certain way because she has, like, that...

SPEAKER_02 27:47

Pedigree.

SPEAKER_01 27:48

Yes, exactly. Thank you. That was the word I was trying to come up with. So I get it. That is part of who this character is.

SPEAKER_02 27:55

They definitely made a point of her taking the ferry to get over every time just to show that she was on... The wrong side of. Cracked. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:03

Yeah. So some of our other credits, I would actually really like to do something wild at some point. I've never seen it, but I've heard so much about it. Is that a movie

SPEAKER_02 28:11

title?

SPEAKER_01 28:11

It's her and, oh my goodness, from Dumb and Dumber. Jeff, no, Jeff, Jeff Daniels. Jeff

SPEAKER_02 28:18

Daniels, Jeff Daniels Goldblum.

SPEAKER_01 28:20

Yeah, so I would love to do that at some point. She is in the Milagro-Beanfield War. The Bonfire or the Vanities, I listened to an excellent podcast about just what a disaster that movie was. Born Yesterday, I think she also got a lot of– I think Born Yesterday and Nobody's Fool, she got some– notoriety from for just doing really well in those roles. She's in Now and Then, Mulholland Falls, Celebrity, Crazy in Alabama, Cecil B. Demented. The one TV project I have for her is a TV series called Twins, and she also was in The Disaster Artist.

SPEAKER_02 29:01

The Disaster Artist? What is that?

SPEAKER_01 29:03

Isn't that... What's his name? Tommy? The guy who did... Yeah, right? Yeah,

SPEAKER_02 29:07

I think you're right.

SPEAKER_01 29:09

So, I... I haven't seen her in anything lately, but yeah, she's had a really long career as primarily a film actress and some really good roles.

SPEAKER_02 29:22

I mean, the fact that she was nominated, right, for Best Actress, to get that nomination, and I thought it was a good performance, knowing that she was going through as many challenges as she was during the filming of this movie with addiction. Mm-hmm. That's impressive, but like also kind of like really sad. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:46

Yeah. I mean, you were telling me off the record, I guess, about what was happening behind the scenes. That's frustrating to hear because it's like, oh, my God, you're working with Mike Nichols and all these other amazing creatives and.

SPEAKER_02 30:03

Yeah, they got to a point where they had to fine or deduct from her pay amounts for loss of production and hired a nurse to stay on hand to test her sobriety. So it got pretty

SPEAKER_01 30:15

intense. I mean, I guess the argument that could be made is like, well, that is what addiction encompasses. Yeah. they're human beings who deal with real problems. And I do vaguely remember, it's been probably already a couple of years since I listened to that podcast about Bonfire of the Vanities. So it was an addiction that she was dealing with. But at that point, if I remember correctly, already they were claiming that she had like aged out of being sexy anymore. And I think she had had a baby. And so probably Dakota Johnson. And so I know that that at that time was the struggle for her getting that role because of that. It's just, It's all such bullshit, especially with like the aging out and you're too old to be. Yeah. Like in the movie when they're both her and Sigourney Weaver are both like, oh, I'm turning 30. I'm like, you're both 29 right now. Okay. All right. So Harrison Ford. He is, like you mentioned, Jack Traynor. So he, a little bit of a love triangle going on with Harrison Ford. Or even like, I don't know how many angles you can pop in there because every single woman is in love with this

SPEAKER_02 31:23

guy. I mean, if it's a love triangle, it's not equilateral. No. I'm going to say that there's more of this triangle for Tess.

SPEAKER_01 31:31

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 31:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:32

I would agree with you. So, oh my gosh. I mean, we have talked about Harrison Ford. I'm trying to think of the last time we brought him up, though. Probably The Empire Strikes Back? Possibly Blade Runner? Oh, yeah. Blade Runner. That's the one. So... You can go back to a couple episodes that we've covered with him. We encourage you to do so. I mean, at this point, there still are movies we could cover with him that are still from the 80s.

SPEAKER_00 32:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:01

But we have done Empire Strikes Back, Blade Runner, and even Raiders. We've done Last Crusade. I mean, my goodness, we have brought him up a lot, huh?

SPEAKER_02 32:13

Yeah. One of these days we'll cover Witness. We will. Just so we can see that horrifying scene of the guy getting killed in a silo. Geez. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:21

Well, I thought you were going to say that because that's his one and only Oscar nomination so far. Oh, really? Yeah. Oh. So he did get a Best Actor nom for that. But let's do a quick run through. I mean, up until very, very recently, he was strictly like a film actor. Yeah. And my goodness, the number of amazing films that he has been a part of, he is going to be, I think, forever stamped as, like, one of the greatest actors of all time just because of, like, you know, we're not talking, like, Citizen Kane type stuff, but, like, the films that stay with people, the films that, like, mold people's childhoods and, like, what they love about cinema, he's part of so much of that. So... Very early in his career, American Graffiti. He is in The Conversation. And then here we go. So, of course, Star Wars Episode IV, A New Hope, is what first cements him in movie history as Han Solo. He does a bit part in Apocalypse Now. He does both, obviously... Well, I mean, he's part of so many of the films. Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi. I'll get to the later films in a second. And then he... cements his second iconic character, Indiana Jones, with Raiders of the Lost Ark. He does Blade Runner. We already mentioned he gets his one and only Oscar nom for Witness. He does a series of very serious films. I probably misspoke when I was like, it's not Citizen Kane. He has done films that I think people would feel are part of kind of that sphere of cinema. He does Mosquito Coast, Presumed Innocent, Patriot Games, The Fugitive. Love that movie. Clear and Present Danger, Sabrina. Eh, they didn't have to remake that one. Air Force One, Six Days, Seven Nights, What Lies Beneath. He comes back to Indiana Jones in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. We got a more Indiana Jones coming up in the future that I'll get to in a second. He does Ender's Game and then Star Wars comes back. So he is in The Force Awakens as well as The Rise of Skywalker. Blade Runner comes back. All these films coming back. So he does Blade Runner 2049. He does Call of the Wild. And then he... I presumably starts doing television. I'm not fully aware of like anything else he had really done prior. So he's part of the Taylor Sheridan world, an offshoot of Yellowstone. He does 1923. And then we started watching. We need to catch up with it because we're a little bit behind. He's on the show Shrinking.

SPEAKER_02 35:17

Yeah, he was really good in that.

SPEAKER_01 35:18

Yeah. So he does that. And then again, he does Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. We have

SPEAKER_02 35:25

not seen that.

SPEAKER_01 35:27

No, I know. We need to. I know.

SPEAKER_02 35:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:31

And then more recently, he's Red Hulk.

SPEAKER_02 35:34

He is President Thaddeus Ross, formerly General Thaddeus Ross, who had been played by, I think, William Hurt.

SPEAKER_01 35:42

I love the name Thaddeus.

SPEAKER_02 35:44

In like the Ed Norton.

SPEAKER_01 35:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 35:46

In the older Hulk movies. So same character, different actor. And

SPEAKER_01 35:51

he's Red Hulk, right?

SPEAKER_02 35:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:53

Yeah. Okay. In Captain America Brave New World.

SPEAKER_02 35:56

Yes. No spoilers, but you might be wondering, how does one become a Red Hulk? They explain it.

SPEAKER_01 36:02

Okay. Yeah. Moving on to Sigourney Weaver. So she is Catherine Parker. She is Tessa's boss, who... They're very subtle about it. It's like, did she know? Did she not know? Did she try to steal the idea? But I think... It

SPEAKER_02 36:21

was so weird because... Tess is at Catherine's home, and she finds a record of her... Once she's playing some voice memo dictation... Yeah,

SPEAKER_01 36:34

like she's

SPEAKER_02 36:34

giving notes to

SPEAKER_01 36:35

herself.

SPEAKER_02 36:35

Yeah, and she finds that, and she finds a file that suggests that Tess's idea for this business acquisition, for a media acquisition, was getting stolen by Sigourney Weaver's character. And then at the end... I'm like, is Sigourney Weaver some mastermind evil genius? Did she know that Tess was going to find this and set everything up? Because the way that her character comes back from her skiing trip after breaking a leg, I guess it was supposed to be the impact of the pain meds, but it was like a different character.

SPEAKER_01 37:14

She comes back in a very markedly different way.

SPEAKER_02 37:17

So I wasn't sure. I thought that maybe this was just like... a brilliant masterstroke by Sigourney Weaver. Turns out it was not.

SPEAKER_01 37:25

Well, yeah, because she has this whole weird conversation with her. Yeah. Where she's like saying, like, if you had listened to the recording, I would hope that you would have come to me. I think she was just

SPEAKER_02 37:38

trying to cover her ass.

SPEAKER_01 37:40

I think so. I think that's what that was.

SPEAKER_02 37:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:44

But it was a weird conversation because you can't quite suss out Is she being on the level or is she manipulating her?

SPEAKER_02 37:53

At first, I thought that she knew that this was the best way to get this deal done was to set it up for Tess to get everything rolling. Right. But no. No, she was just saying all this stuff to make Tess feel like she wasn't getting her ideas

SPEAKER_01 38:06

ripped off. Yes. But it was an interesting way of... Anyway. So Sigourney Weaver, she does get a Best Supporting Actress award. nomination for this film

SPEAKER_02 38:16

sure she should get two she played two different characters

SPEAKER_01 38:20

so um same as Harrison Ford I mean we have well we haven't brought her up as much but it kind of in a way feels like we have I don't know we brought her up for Ghostbusters and we brought her up for Aliens yeah maybe that is it as of

SPEAKER_02 38:36

now it might be yeah

SPEAKER_01 38:38

um I mean as far as other options was she

SPEAKER_02 38:43

in Silkwood no

SPEAKER_01 38:44

No, but Gorillas in the Mist is 80s, so we could presumably do that. I thought it was kind of funny that she came back from her trip and she did have a huge stuffed gorilla

SPEAKER_02 38:52

that

SPEAKER_01 38:53

she made Tuscary. Anyway.

SPEAKER_02 38:55

Maybe we'll do a Mosquito Coast Gorillas in the Mist double feature.

SPEAKER_01 39:00

Double feature! So her very first film credit was in Annie Hall, and I think it's fun because her credit is LB's Date Outside Theater. Nice. And then, of course, we know her best, presumably, as Ellen Ripley from the Alien franchise. Yep. So I say this every time. It's such a shame that the first film is 79. We just missed the cutoff.

SPEAKER_02 39:26

We're going to start doing some—we're going to do Alien— We're going to do Presumed Innocent. We're going to find a way to do these movies.

SPEAKER_01 39:35

No, we're not.

SPEAKER_02 39:36

We'll

SPEAKER_01 39:37

just talk about them. I'm just going to...

SPEAKER_02 39:40

I'm going to create

SPEAKER_01 39:40

my own podcast. Okay, go for it.

SPEAKER_02 39:43

It's going to be called Everything You Didn't Get to Hear from 80s

SPEAKER_01 39:47

Movie Montage. That can be our Patreon. Just other movies. So she gets her first Oscar nomination for Aliens. I love that they nominated her for Best Actress for that movie. Yeah. She does Alien 3, Alien Resurrection, Alien Isolation, which is a video game, but I put this one in for you. So

SPEAKER_02 40:11

good. So good.

SPEAKER_01 40:12

Because she's Ellen Ripley. She's the voice of that character.

SPEAKER_02 40:15

Yeah. You're basically playing her daughter in that game. Okay. Yeah.

UNKNOWN 40:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 40:19

So she is in the film The Year of Living Dangerously. So she also has had a longstanding involvement with the Ghostbusters franchise. So she's in, obviously, the first and second films. She comes back as a different character, a very minor character, in the 2016 Ghostbusters. And then she also– have we– wait. What was the second? What's the of the two newer Ghostbusters?

SPEAKER_02 40:48

Afterlife.

SPEAKER_01 40:48

Afterlife is the one that we saw, right? Yes. Because she's in that. But then what's the one that just we haven't seen that either?

SPEAKER_02 40:54

Well, no, there's like the second of that.

SPEAKER_01 40:59

Yeah. What's the subtitle?

SPEAKER_02 41:02

Fucking Ghostbusters, everything gets icy or something.

SPEAKER_01 41:05

I don't know. Yeah, it's Ice World. I don't know. She's not in that. Ghostbusters, cooling down. She is in the first one. The first one that's Jason Reitman.

SPEAKER_00 41:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 41:15

So, okay. As mentioned, she gets another nomination for Girls in the Mist. Moving on, she is in 1492, Conquest of Paradise. Dave, Death and the Maiden. I know she got a lot of really high acclaim for that. Copycat, The Ice Storm. She is amazing in these next two movies. Love her in Galaxy Quest. Oh, yeah. So good. Everybody, everybody is so good in that movie. Even Tim

SPEAKER_02 41:41

Allen.

SPEAKER_01 41:42

Even Tim Allen because he kind of plays himself. So, so great in that. And then I, it is not a great movie, but I do really love Heartbreakers. She's in that. She's great in that. It's not the worst. No. It's fun. It's just like, yeah. It's fun. And she has like a really interesting rapport with, what's his name from Goodfellas? Joe Pesci? No. Robert De Niro? Nope. You know exactly who I'm talking about. I'm forgetting all the names today. She, come on. What? Help me out. It's the guy. The main guy in Goodfellas. Holy shit, Derek. And he passed away. Ray Liotta. Thank you. Thank you. So they're great now. She's in the village. And then lately. Oh, yeah. The Shyamalan. Am I Shyamalan? The village? Yeah. I didn't hate that. I didn't hate it.

SPEAKER_02 42:38

Yeah, I liked it. It was fine. I liked it, in fact.

SPEAKER_01 42:41

Okay. She has been part of Avatar because obviously her and Cameron have a great relationship. So she's been in both the first and second. And I'm not sure. I presume she's involved in all the other 26 other Avatar movies that are going to

SPEAKER_02 42:54

come out. At the paces putting those out, she'll only have to live to be like 150. She

SPEAKER_01 43:00

is one of the best cameos, I think, of all time. Cabin in the Woods. Yes. I think... They had wanted to go for Jamie Lee Curtis, but I'm so glad it's Sigourney Weaver. She's great in it.

SPEAKER_02 43:12

I would have been fine with either of those, but Weaver, I think, is better at having this sinister kind of

SPEAKER_01 43:21

vibe. Yep. And then more recently, The Gorge. Okay. Moving on to Joan Cusack. So she plays Sin. I think it's short for Cynthia. And she also... So they were... put up against each other because she also gets a Best Supporting Actress nomination.

SPEAKER_02 43:38

Her hair should have got its own Best Supporting. Hair and makeup?

SPEAKER_01 43:44

Yeah. I love Joan Cusack. She elevates anything that she's in. However, I don't think she's a great friend in this movie. No, she's not. I was getting more and more annoyed with her as the film went on because it seemed to me that Like, the way she kept reprimanding Tess, like, I get it. It's not great to lie. It's not great to pretend you're something you're not. Whatever. But she would know better than anyone exactly why Tess was doing what she was doing. She wasn't doing it to needlessly, like, fuck someone over. She wasn't doing it to hurt anybody else. She was doing it because she knew that that was going to be the way that she could finally– make some progress in her career. Yeah, I think... Because nobody was taking her seriously, and she kept getting taken advantage of.

SPEAKER_02 44:39

At a certain point, I wondered, is Sin more worried about Tess getting in trouble, or is she more worried that she'll succeed?

SPEAKER_01 44:48

Thank you. Exactly. That's... I guess from that character's perspective... I suppose I could understand why she's like, why don't you love this world we're a part of? Like, I love my life. I love our community. I'm proud of who I am. I don't need to be something else. That's great for Sin.

SPEAKER_02 45:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 45:08

But I would think as like a good friend, if your friend wants to do different things with her life and succeed in a different way, you should support her in that. And so it was really bumming me out the way that Sin kept– Discouraging her.

SPEAKER_02 45:24

But she did have the great line where she's like, I can dance around in my room, but it doesn't make me Madonna.

SPEAKER_01 45:30

Yeah, there's some great lines in this movie. And it never

SPEAKER_02 45:31

will.

SPEAKER_01 45:32

And I think what... I'm not going to say put the nail in the coffin, but I really was very upset with Sin when she was almost on the verge of advocating that Tess get back with Meg.

SPEAKER_02 45:43

It was so weird. Like, she literally walks in on... Alec Baldwin, Mick having sex with one of their friends. Yes. Who then also showed up to Sin's engagement party. Yep. Where they all encouraged Mick to propose to Tess. Yes. It was. And then Mick is like really offended that.

SPEAKER_01 46:07

Yeah, wild. What is going on? Absolutely insane that he was offended that the person that he had cheated on three days earlier didn't want to say yes to his marriage proposal.

SPEAKER_02 46:19

It very much reminded me of like the skit with Alec Baldwin, I think David Spade, Chris Farley, Adam Sandler, maybe where he's just like cheating on all of them. and trying to like talk his way out of it. It felt, it was giving me a lot of that energy. I wonder if it

SPEAKER_01 46:36

was inspired by that. You just made me think of that really awful, I mean, it's funny, but it's awful skit where he's like a camp counselor and the innuendo is- Alec Baldwin? Yeah, right? It's him. Maybe. Where like he is not being appropriate with like the campers. I swear there's a skit out there like that. I will have to double check that. I believe you. But in any case- Yeah, it was very strange for me. And I was trying to– like, I don't know if I've actually come to a conclusion because I'm trying to think, like, what is the movie saying with that part of the story? Like, Tess 100% stands up for herself. I, though, was even upset that, like, even at the party– You know, like, when Sin's like, I want happy people here tonight, I want to be like, fuck that. He cheated on her. He doesn't deserve anything. The fact that you're telling your friend, please be nice to him, please make him happy tonight, is absurd. It

SPEAKER_02 47:29

was weird. Tess had a couple real bad days in this movie.

SPEAKER_01 47:32

Yeah, and the fact that, like, you know, I guess he— bought a boat or something and she was like, oh, I'm so happy. Like she's then all of a sudden happy for him. And then I understand why she would have gotten emotional. I could tell when that one song came on and she was like tearing up. I understand that because you did, you did have a history with this person and you're sad. You're sad that it's over, even if they were an asshole to you. But to agree to dance with him, like it was just, That was a very strange part of the story for me. I couldn't quite tell what the film was trying to say with that. At

SPEAKER_02 48:04

no point did I really think she was going to go back to him. But that's what they were trying to create this tension or conflict. Like, will she succeed in her new life?

SPEAKER_01 48:13

Yeah. All to say...

SPEAKER_02 48:15

That's, I guess, part of the love rectangle.

SPEAKER_01 48:19

Sure. Yeah, it was more of a rectangle. But Joan Cusack, she's amazing. Um... I mean, it's not the first time we've talked about her, and it almost certainly won't be the last. But some of her credits, and she's still very much working to this day. She's been doing great, great stuff. My Bodyguard, 16 Candles. We covered her. We've talked about her twice now. So we did talk about her in broadcast news. Yep. So another reason to go check that one out. She's in Married to the Mob. She's uncredited in this, which I think is interesting because I think she has like a– More than a cameo in this film. Say anything?

SPEAKER_02 48:56

Yeah, she's... Yeah, it's weird that she would be uncredited.

SPEAKER_01 48:59

Yeah, so we brought her up in that. She is in My Blue Heaven, Hero, Toys, Adam's Family Values, Karina Karina, Nine Months. She is outstanding. And grows point blank. She is. She is outstanding. She's better than her brother in that movie. You think? Oh, yeah. She makes that movie. She is so good. Look, John Cusack's great, too. And it's fun to see them play off each other. Yeah. But she steals every scene. Every scene. She is also an Oscar nominated, well, for this movie and In-N-Out. She gets another Best Supporting Actress nomination. She's in Runaway Bride. She, I didn't write down who, but she's been with the Toy Story franchise. She's a character and she's voiced in Toy Story 2, 3, and 4 and probably the other offshoots. She's Jessie. Oh, is she Jessie? Yeah. Oh, okay. Yeah. I didn't clock that. Where the Heart Is, I presume this is like her own show. She was in the TV series What About Joan. She's in School of Rock. She does voice work. So she voiced on Peep in the Big Wide World as well as Kloss that we watched.

SPEAKER_00 50:16

Oh, yeah. That was excellent. Not that long ago.

SPEAKER_01 50:19

She was in The Perks of Being a Wallflower. And then I think this show is also wrapped up. She was on Shameless.

SPEAKER_02 50:25

and one more with her brother, High Fidelity.

SPEAKER_01 50:28

Oh my God, I'm sorry I missed that.

SPEAKER_02 50:30

No, no, which was really fun because she's like a mutual friend with John Cusack and his ex throughout the movie. And when they both give their stories about why they broke up, she gets to just lay into her brother and just call him a piece of shit, basically.

SPEAKER_01 50:48

Do they play siblings? No, she's a mutual friend, you said. She's a mutual friend, yeah. They never actually played siblings in... But

SPEAKER_02 50:56

the way

SPEAKER_01 51:00

that she gets to like lay in him, I always thought was like really- Which is

SPEAKER_02 51:16

two names,

SPEAKER_01 51:16

right? Two names. Yeah, it's not McDougan. It's McDougan. Mr.

SPEAKER_02 51:22

McDougan.

SPEAKER_01 51:23

McDougan. And also not the first time that we have brought him up. But there will probably be, I think, an opportunity to bring him up again. So... He is Tess's boyfriend who cheats on her and goes on to have his own love story. Yeah, I mean, again, that's interesting that you– I did not know that he was originally probably going to have the role of Jack Traynor. I think he could have been great in that role, but he's great in this role too. So long, long career, still going. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So we're not going to go down that rabbit hole today. But some of his other credits, so very early in his career, he was on a couple different TV shows, The Doctors and Knott's Landing. So he did some primetime soap opera work.

SPEAKER_02 52:30

Knott's Landing.

SPEAKER_01 52:32

We covered him for Beetlejuice. That was all the way back in season one. So definitely go check that one out. He was in, I think, Married to the Mob. That's an 80s film, right? We could presumably do that.

SPEAKER_02 52:43

Where he plays Cucumber Frank DeMarco.

SPEAKER_01 52:45

Wow. So there's that. You have mentioned, although it's 90s, right? Right on the cusp for Red October.

SPEAKER_02 52:53

That's going to be part of my new separate podcast.

SPEAKER_01 52:55

So he's in that. Alice, you also mentioned Glenn Gary, Glenn Ross.

SPEAKER_02 53:00

So 92. So yeah, it's like he was auditioning for that Blake role in Glenn Gary, Glenn Ross in this movie during their fight after the engagement party.

SPEAKER_01 53:11

He's in The Getaway, The Shadow.

SPEAKER_02 53:14

That is a... Underrated movie.

SPEAKER_01 53:17

Oh, really?

SPEAKER_02 53:17

Yes. It is a really fun, I guess it's like technically a superhero movie, but yeah, it was a fun movie. Okay. Really liked it.

SPEAKER_01 53:25

He's all over the place. I mean, he's done every genre. He does Ghost in Mississippi. As of right now, his one and only Oscar nomination, Best Supporting Actor for The Cooler. He's good. It's not a huge role, but he's in, actually he's good in both these, both Scorsese. He is in The Aviator and The Departed.

SPEAKER_02 53:45

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 53:46

You had a

SPEAKER_02 53:46

great moment with Mark Wahlberg in The Departed. They had a lot of banter.

SPEAKER_01 53:54

Good banter, bad banter.

SPEAKER_02 53:55

It was excellent banter.

SPEAKER_01 53:56

They were like jiving each other.

SPEAKER_02 54:00

Giving each other shit the entire movie.

SPEAKER_01 54:02

Oh, okay, okay, gotcha, gotcha. Yeah, I think I, although there's obviously a notable exception, I think I prefer dramatic Alec Baldwin to comedic Alec. Alec Baldwin, but he's really great in both.

SPEAKER_02 54:15

You get both in that.

SPEAKER_01 54:16

Yeah, you do. But I don't know. I just like him in those types of roles. He's in Rock of Ages. And here we go. There is, I'm sure, a huge, huge kind of, I'm not going to say generation, but a group of people who know him primarily from Third Rock. Oh, yeah. So he does that. So, yes, he is amazing at comedy. He is amazing. Still Alice. That's why he's been on SNL, like, how many times? That's my last credit for him, notably. Yeah. As Felon 47, right? What? Well, that's what I'm going to call him. Okay. Yeah. Okay. The person who calls himself our president right now.

SPEAKER_02 54:53

Oh, my God. Yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 54:55

And then he's been in a couple of the Mission Impossibles. Yeah. Yeah. So Rogue Nation and Fallout. Okay. So I mentioned a lot of cameos. There are a lot. Yeah. Yeah. So... Crazy. Crazy. There's so many people who just have these little bit parts. So I'm just going to go over them really quickly. So first there's Nora Dunn. So really interesting role for her. I mean, I guess it is somewhat comedic, but I know her mostly from SNL. So she plays Weaver's friend Ginny.

SPEAKER_02 55:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 55:30

And she's just in like two quick scenes, I think.

SPEAKER_02 55:33

She's in a couple scenes and when they're at the party, you see her and she's like there, but she's not.

SPEAKER_01 55:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 55:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 55:42

Oliver Platt. So he plays one of Tessa's former bosses who kind of throws her under because he claims that this guy is looking for a new secretary. That guy, Bob Speck, is played by Kevin Spacey and it is very much not true. And Kevin Spacey's just trying to make a pass at her. And because of that, she quits on Lutz. Another really interesting cameo is Olympia Dukakis, who is like criminally underused. I was like, I want to just see anything with her in it all the time. That's what was...

SPEAKER_02 56:20

Like, I was watching it. I'm like, wait, that's–

SPEAKER_01 56:21

but it's just this– what's happening? Yes. Every day– because it had been so long since I saw this movie, every time I saw somebody who was really notable, I was like, oh, are we going to see more of them in this movie? Because I couldn't remember. Nope. Nope. So she is– she doesn't even get, like, a real name. She's the personnel director who helps Tess find the job with Catherine. Well– There you go. Then there are two really funny cameos. So first I'm going to do Rikki Lake because she actually gets a line. So she's one of the bridesmaids at the wedding that Tess and Jack crash. And then I don't think he gets a line, but David Duchovny is in the film when Tess has like the surprise birthday party. They're all like hiding in the closet or something. Yeah, I guess he's there. I didn't even clock him, but he's one of the friends. All right. Okay, film synopsis. When a secretary's idea is stolen by her boss, she seizes an opportunity to steal it back by pretending she has her boss's job.

SPEAKER_02 57:24

That's it. It's like a great Uno reverse card.

SPEAKER_01 57:26

Yeah, that's pretty much it. I mean, when it comes to all the, like, corporate lingo...

SPEAKER_00 57:35

I

SPEAKER_01 57:36

kind of kind of lose focus for a little bit. But that's essentially it. And

SPEAKER_02 57:46

that is what happens. I mean, the whole like stealing an idea and then her trying to like take advantage of Weaver's character being gone. That's really like the movie. But it takes a little bit to get it to that point.

UNKNOWN 58:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 58:02

So you see some of those cameos where it like gets you to where the real story begins. And that was like my pacing issue was I'm like, what is happening with this movie?

SPEAKER_01 58:11

I'm not sure how I feel. I mean, like, look, women can obviously do bad things too. But I think it's interesting that they made a choice to have her female boss be the one to fuck her over in that way. Yeah. I get it because it also plays into the love triangle or rectangle. It

SPEAKER_02 58:38

made sense from the perspective of... Like Tessa's character was more willing to like lower her guard and offer this stuff because she felt like she had an ally. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 58:49

Which is why I feel bad that that wasn't the case.

SPEAKER_02 58:52

But then you get to the end where she like realizes that she has a secretary, an assistant now.

SPEAKER_01 58:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 58:59

So you get a chance to see how she is going to treat. Do it differently. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 59:03

Yeah. It just makes me feel a little bad. Like, look, they do set up that she also had a bad male boss prior to Catherine. like Lutz and what he pulled. Yeah. You know, so it's equal opportunity, bad behavior, but it, I don't, I don't know. I don't know what the fix is. I don't know if there is a fix, but like in terms of like Catherine being the one to screw her over and then she, so to speak, not get saved, but then like gets her, and it's not redemption, but she gets her second chance through a man like Trask then, you know, hires her on.

SPEAKER_02 59:38

Well, I would say that she got that opportunity with Trask, right? Because of, based on her merit, based on what she brought,

SPEAKER_01 59:51

But it would have been interesting if it had been like a different female boss, but then that probably would have been very, maybe at that point in time, disingenuous with like what things were in 1988. There are

SPEAKER_02 1:00:01

three women

SPEAKER_01 1:00:01

bosses in this movie? Yeah, exactly. Totally unbelievable. Exactly. So I don't know. It's just something I clocked. I don't know. Yeah. And you see her walk in and it's just all women in that like common space area with the cubicles. And I was like, oh, that's so interesting. Catherine, which I'm like, why would I think that Catherine hired all those women? But I was like, oh, that's so great. They like have all women there. I was like, no, it's because at that time only women were like secretaries. So it was like kind of like, oh, I'm such a dummy that I thought that that was progressive. But it was like not at all. But yeah. Yeah. It was

SPEAKER_02 1:00:53

like a nine to five scene almost.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:55

Yes. And I guess they do show like, you know, I've already said my piece about Sin, but like they do show women being supportive of women.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:04

When she leaves her job at Catherine's and all those women say goodbye to her. I mean, she

SPEAKER_02 1:01:11

was fired, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:01:12

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:13

Yeah. I mean, and I get why they would fire her.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:16

Sure. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:18

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, no, like she didn't she did not really have many options available. She was either going to like. What, like go to H.R. whistleblower kind of thing, that's not going to help or do nothing and just take it. I don't think she was going to do that. And that would make for a real boring movie. So she did. And I think she like she didn't like apologize, but she explained like you have sometimes you have to. Do the wrong thing to... And

SPEAKER_01 1:01:46

it's one of those tropes where it's like, my God, the number of films that I've seen where, like, somebody portrays themselves to be something that they absolutely are not, even if it's for good reasons. Yeah. And they, like, fall in love with somebody along the way. Then that person finds out who they really are. Oh, my God, yeah. And then they're mad for a minute, but they eventually come around.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:07

I'm just like... It's like old-school 80s catfishing.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:09

Yeah, it's like... I... As far as her and Jack being a good match, I guess. I don't know if there really needed to be a love story there. I think there could have been a mutually respectful business relationship. They went

SPEAKER_02 1:02:32

into that side of things pretty fast.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:37

They did. I mean, when he's like, I love you, I was like, come on. Yeah. That line didn't even need to be said. He

SPEAKER_02 1:02:46

said it like... A time where I'm like, what are you doing? She's got like...

SPEAKER_01 1:02:50

Yeah, also the timing of it's terrible.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:51

The super important thing she's got to do. Why don't you just wait till after

SPEAKER_01 1:02:55

maybe? Yes, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:56

Just let her do the work, okay?

SPEAKER_01 1:02:58

Yeah, I agree with you. It's like when somebody graduates from like... Like I've seen stories where somebody, you know, they successfully defend their PhD or something of that nature. And then their partner takes that as an opportunity to propose right there. I'm like, come on, let them have that moment and keep this proposal separate. Anyway... That's just me. So, at the end of the day, like, I'm really glad I saw this movie again because I do, more than anything, think it's a really interesting snapshot because it was made in 1988. It's made in the time that it was set. Yeah. And I do think that, like, in a weird way, it does show, like, accuracy. And look, man. Yeah. There's a whole rabbit hole that could be gone down today that I will not do in terms of what is happening right now in terms of regression of... I

SPEAKER_02 1:03:51

will say that policies and procedures were specifically put in place to ensure that people as capable as Tess got the same type of opportunities to get those roles. And... Now there is very much pressure to eliminate those programs. And that's–

SPEAKER_01 1:04:17

But then you have like lately in the news, Harvard just said that anybody who's combined like parental income is under$200,000, that that will be taken into consideration as far as like whatever their like tuition will be. I don't remember if I read that it's totally free or if it's a sliding scale based on what that income is. But it's amazing that an institution like that is recognizing that people who come from a certain socioeconomic background should not be– Should not have the same opportunities. Top

SPEAKER_02 1:04:57

education or quality education or educational opportunities generally should not be trapped behind a paywall.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:03

Exactly. And that comes up in the film too. Like, I don't know, whatever. It was like a very vague way of talking about, but there's some program that Tess talks about that she keeps wanting to be part of.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:12

It was like just one of the guys. Wait, was that- I didn't use the right title, huh?

SPEAKER_01 1:05:16

No, you did. Was that it? Okay. Wait, just one of the guys. Yes. Yeah, okay. Yes. Not she's one of the guys. That's it. Just one of the guys.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:21

She's one of the guys would really spoil the movie.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:26

And as kind of crushing as it is, the one guy who's not Lutz says to her, kind of like, well, what do you expect? You're competing against people who have Ivy League education. Yeah,

SPEAKER_02 1:05:39

and you went to night school.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:40

And you went to night school. Yeah. That still, to some degree, holds true today.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:47

Which speaks to me because I started law school in night school.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:50

There you go.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:52

Yeah. I felt that personally.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:54

Yeah. I mean, it's still a thing today, but it's like in a time where there's a lot to be despairing about, very legitimately so. Yeah. Little things like Harvard saying that. Yeah. And also Harvard and not just Harvard, I know a lot of schools offer this like totally free online classes for certain things. Yeah. And that's great too. Like all to say, and then I'll zip the lip, is like education and access, like you perfectly stated, should not be hid behind a paywall.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:30

Yeah. And I'm not saying that it all should be– or make sense for it to be free, but that shouldn't be the reason why someone is unable to get that education. There should be paths forward in spite of that.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:46

Agreed. Would you watch this film again? I

SPEAKER_02 1:06:49

mean... Maybe. I'm not going to avoid it or not watch it.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:55

You're not going to avoid it?

SPEAKER_02 1:06:56

I'm not going to avoid it. I enjoyed it. It was– I don't really know what I expected. For some reason, I thought Harrison– I didn't know Harrison Ford was in this and Sabrina. His character kind of like

SPEAKER_01 1:07:10

blends over. Yeah, that was interesting that you completed it.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:14

But yeah, there were like funny moments in it. It was a good movie. It was good to see Sigourney– play like a hardcore business person and then a drug addled weirdo from a ski trip.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:27

Her personality really flipped.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:28

It was

SPEAKER_01 1:07:29

so weird. It's fun to see her. I mean, like she's just great in everything, but it's very fun to see her being a little devious.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:35

Getting her, like getting her, seeing her put on the spot, seeing her in a position where she gets put on the spot at the end.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:42

When Tess had already given the story of like how she like had this idea for this deal. And then the guy like pretty like wisely just asked her because that's like a great way of discovering like who really had this idea. That was fun. I feel like I don't see Sigourney Weaver in many roles where she's really put on the spot like that. So that was interesting.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:05

It was really interesting. I thought that was one of the best moments, the different tactics that she used.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:11

I'll have to check my files is a great corporate answer.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:13

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that was a great moment for her. So anyway. She had

SPEAKER_02 1:08:20

to get her bony ass out of there.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:22

Yeah, she did. So... Call to action. I mean, I don't know. I'm just really curious about what people think of the way that the corporate world was portrayed at that time and if it feels like there's been significant progress since or not and just kind of their thoughts on that. That would be what I would be most curious about. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:46

Yeah, I don't really know what these businesses did. I know that they had a mergers

SPEAKER_01 1:08:51

and acquisitions department. That's what I was saying. I kind of fade when they get into the details of it. Our business is business. Yeah, exactly. We're in a business so hard. And I was like, why do they want a media company so bad? I was kind of like, why is it the play? Were they

SPEAKER_02 1:09:06

consultants that were helping make this deal?

SPEAKER_01 1:09:08

Yeah, that's the other

SPEAKER_02 1:09:09

thing, too. Why in the fucking world does no one else understand that you can't have this foreign company also- I've

SPEAKER_01 1:09:17

brought that up so many times. They're so concerned with the Japanese takeover.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:22

And did you know that a foreign company can acquire a radio?

SPEAKER_01 1:09:25

I was like, yes, we've heard this

SPEAKER_02 1:09:27

already. Did you know that the FCC prohibits this? And I'm like, shouldn't some of these massive corporations have no in-house counsel? Yeah, I know. They're like,

SPEAKER_01 1:09:38

oh my God, really? I had no idea.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:40

The look of shock on their

SPEAKER_01 1:09:42

face is like, what? So if you want to get in touch with us, we would love to hear from you. You can reach out through Facebook, Instagram, or Blue Sky. It is the same handle at all three. It is at 80s Montage Pod and 80s is 80S. So I did tell you what the film is. Oh, right. That's actually pretty good. Although it's slightly Keanu Reeves.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:09

Yeah, it was. That was less Spicoli and more Keanu Reeves in Point Break.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:16

And there you have it, Spicoli. Yeah, the

SPEAKER_02 1:10:18

movie.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:19

The Spicoli, the movie. That actually would be great. Man, that's what they should do. The way that they went astray with Cobra Kai, that would be amazing if they did a follow-up to Spicoli's character with present-day Sean Penn.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:34

I'd be all about that.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:35

Sean Penn would punch in the face whoever suggests it, though. I just feel like that's what he would do. So dumb. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:40

That's how you got to start in

SPEAKER_02 1:10:42

Fast Times at Ridgemont High. Yes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:45

Crazy to think that we have not gotten that. gotten to that film yet in season

SPEAKER_02 1:10:49

six. There was a brief moment of panic when we reached this stage of the podcast, because you did tell me right before we started, and I'm like, oh shit, what was it?

SPEAKER_01 1:10:59

So that's another film that I have very complicated views on. Although I think ultimately it's a very noteworthy film for the Absolutely. Yeah. Very much

SPEAKER_02 1:11:25

so. Yep. Yep.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:41

Fully agree. So that is what we have next up on tap. And in the meantime, thank you to everybody for making the choice in your very busy schedule to listen to our podcast. We really do appreciate it. And we will talk to you again in two weeks time.