Rain Man

In this episode, Anna and Derek discuss just how much we need to know about EPA car standards, if Dr. Bruner was a bit of a dick, and much more during their discussion of Barry Levinson's Best Picture winner, Rain Man (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

you remember this thursday very snowy out 7.2 inches of snow that day is this just after mom died new year's yeah mom died january 5th 1965 and you remember that day you remember that day that you were short and sudden illness you remember that day yeah yeah Was I there? Where was I? You were in the window. You waved to me. Bye-bye, Rain Man. Bye-bye.

SPEAKER_01 0:35

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

SPEAKER_03 0:38

And this is Anna.

SPEAKER_01 0:39

And that was Tom Cruise and Dustin Hoffman as Charlie and Raymond Babbitt, respectively, in 1988's Rain Man.

SPEAKER_03 0:48

Rain Man. Another Oscar Best Picture winner.

SPEAKER_01 0:52

Yeah. This

SPEAKER_03 0:53

might be the quickest succession. Succession? Sure. Of us doing Oscar winners because we did Amadeus not too long ago.

SPEAKER_01 1:01

And this was also the highest grossing film of- Was it really? 1988. After a slow start, it built up momentum after word of mouth.

SPEAKER_03 1:08

That's really interesting. I didn't know that. Yes, Rain Man. It had been a while since I had watched this movie, but I had seen it in its entirety a couple times at least. You told me this was the first time you've seen it in its entirety.

SPEAKER_01 1:26

Yeah, there are a lot more movies from the 80s than i think i realized because i certainly had like

SPEAKER_03 1:34

there are a lot

SPEAKER_01 1:35

i had like my niche i guess of action action adventure your niche was blood sport so basically uh kumite any movie with kumite basically so yeah a lot of these movies i have like awareness of i know how uh acclaimed they were and the oscar winning and everything but i had never sat down and watched the whole i'd certainly never seen it the I never watched it from start to finish. So last night was the first time that I watched the whole thing.

SPEAKER_03 2:05

Yeah, I knew that it had won Best Picture. I knew that Dustin... And we'll go through everything, respectively. But I knew Dustin Hoffman had won Best Actor. I didn't realize the extent to which, though, it got... I mean, I guess if you win Best Picture, you're doing something right. But it had a total of eight nominations and four wins for this film. So... It did pretty well, and we're going to dive in. Before, though, we start, for almost every category, we will go through who's behind that anyway, because that's just our normal format. The one, though, that we wouldn't touch on is that it did get a nomination, or no, it won for Best Art Direction Set Decoration. Interesting. Yeah. Am I right about that? They decorated the hell out of the road. Or was it just a nom? Let me just make sure I got it correct between nomination versus win. Just taking a look. Oh, it was just nomination. Apologies. Yeah. But that was one of them. So just wanted to get that in there before we start. And like you said, 1988. And as we do, we will start with the writers. So we have two gentlemen who are credited. And they shared the best original screenplay Oscar win for this. This was a win. And the first gentleman, Barry Morrow. I think this is going to be the first and last time we ever bring him up. So he has both a story by and screenplay by credit. So my guess here, because these two guys, they're not writing partners. They both just share credit for the screenplay. So my guess here is that he's the first writer on this. He originated the story. And then they wanted somebody to like maybe polish it up, flush it out, what have you. And so that's when they brought in the other guy because he has a much more– Well, I guess, though, a lot of his credits came after this film. So he was still relatively new as well. But that's what I think probably happened. Okay. Is that they brought the second guy in just to polish it up a bit. For Morrow, this was his very first feature screenplay, so not too shabby. As far as the rest... Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:26

Wrote one, won one.

SPEAKER_03 4:27

He's probably like, wow, so it's just this easy? You just write a screenplay, you win an Oscar for it? I do have a couple movies. Unfortunately, none that I'm familiar with. Gosspa, Race the Sun, Mercy of the Sea, and All You Ever Wished For. Great titles. Yeah, pretty decent titles. And then other than that, a lot of TV movies. He worked on about seven, I counted, TV movies. So that's what we have for Morrow. And then the other gentleman, people might be more familiar actually with the name, although the bulk of his career came after this film, Ron Bass.

SPEAKER_01 5:07

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 5:07

So he is also... like I said, share the Oscar win. He just has a screenplay by credit, but I have two notable TV series, but mostly films for him and almost entirely films that people I think would know. So some of his credits include Sleeping with the Enemy. He's all over the place in terms of...

SPEAKER_01 5:31

It's just the most dramatic title, maybe. Oh,

SPEAKER_03 5:33

totally.

SPEAKER_01 5:36

Second only to Not Without My Children.

SPEAKER_03 5:38

Not Without...

SPEAKER_01 5:40

Now without

SPEAKER_03 5:41

my child? Now

SPEAKER_01 5:42

without my daughter?

SPEAKER_03 5:42

Now without my son?

SPEAKER_01 5:44

Now without my kid? The

SPEAKER_03 5:47

Sally Field one, right? That's it.

UNKNOWN 5:49

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 5:51

I don't remember if it's a son or daughter. Now without my kiddo. Yeah, but you're right. Sleeping with the enemy. Although, you know what? If we were doing a podcast about- We

SPEAKER_01 6:03

are. Oh.

SPEAKER_03 6:05

We were doing a podcast about films from like the 30s and 40s. There are some hella dramatic titles for those films back then.

SPEAKER_02 6:12

Fair enough.

SPEAKER_03 6:13

Yeah. In a way, Sleeping with the Enemy is kind of a throwback to some of those films. Anyway, Joy Luck Club, When a Man Loves a Woman. Oh, yeah. It's a little dramatic. It's a song. Dangerous Minds. Oh, okay. Okay. Waiting to Exhale. So he also has a credit for the TV series that came from Dangerous Minds, also called Dangerous Minds.

SPEAKER_01 6:37

Makes sense. Capitalize on that. Got to build on that success.

SPEAKER_03 6:40

Another TV series called Maloney. So he has a couple of credits for certain actors. So Sleeping with the Enemy was headlined by Julia Roberts. He also did My Best Friend's Wedding. So it's another huge Julia Roberts film.

SPEAKER_01 7:00

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 7:01

How Stella got her groove back.

SPEAKER_01 7:03

Uh-huh, uh-huh. It was with some other guy, right? It was like some young dude?

SPEAKER_03 7:06

Yeah. That's what did it? Taye Diggs? Yeah, I think so. I think Taye Diggs.

SPEAKER_01 7:09

He got her groove back.

SPEAKER_03 7:10

I think that's, yeah. What Dreams May Come, another Julia Roberts film, Stepmom, Entrapment.

SPEAKER_01 7:18

Oh, yeah, that's the one where it's, like, older Sean Connery and Catherine. Oh, it's so gross. Catherine Jeter Jones.

SPEAKER_03 7:26

Yeah, yeah. In that infamous scene where she's, like, trying to avoid, like, the lasers or whatever. I think

SPEAKER_01 7:32

that's a legit way to just stick your ass straight up. That's usually how they tell you to avoid the lasers. That's literally the

SPEAKER_03 7:41

only thing I remember from that movie is being like, okay. And she's wearing, like, this, like. Tight

SPEAKER_01 7:45

leather. Tight,

SPEAKER_03 7:46

yes.

UNKNOWN 7:47

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 7:48

Yes, I have not seen that movie probably since it came out, but I remember that. Snow Falling on Cedars and Mozart and the Whale. Oh, okay. So those are some credits. All right, director. There's definitely an opportunity for us to bring him up again, but this is, I think, the very first time we have talked about Barry Levinson. Barry. Yeah, and he won Best Director for this film. Okay. So good on him.

SPEAKER_01 8:15

Yeah. And, of course, he was in the film, too.

SPEAKER_03 8:19

He was!

SPEAKER_01 8:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 8:20

Yeah, it's kind of a fun little cameo. It's always interesting to me when directors choose to be in their films.

SPEAKER_01 8:26

I mean, he was the doctor, I guess, at the end of the movie when they were trying to decide what is the best situation for Raymond. He was the

SPEAKER_03 8:38

court-appointed psychiatrist.

SPEAKER_01 8:40

Yeah, so that was like a legit role.

SPEAKER_03 8:42

Yeah. To be quite honest, though, I mean, he won for Best Director, so he obviously got great performances out of the other actors. I'm not sure if I thought that that character himself behaved in a way that a court-appointed psychiatrist would, because towards the end, he's clearly like... intentionally speaking to Raymond in such a way as to get him upset.

SPEAKER_01 9:05

Yeah. Like he was, he would know better. He was antagonizing everyone.

SPEAKER_03 9:10

Yes. Yeah. Uh, like just the number of times he said to Charlie, don't get defensive. You don't have to get defensive about this.

SPEAKER_01 9:19

So many times.

SPEAKER_03 9:20

It's like the same thing when somebody is like, just calm down. Yeah. Anyway. So Levinson, uh, so, so many great credits to his name. And, uh, other Oscar love for a lot of those projects so and they kind of switch off well there's a little bit of variety there because for like I said for this best director he also I am going through his directing credits but for some of those projects he gets other types of nominations so like for instance for Diner which we could do at some point he gets best original screenplay

SPEAKER_01 9:57

is that a TV movie Diner? IMDb is saying that's a TV movie. No. I didn't think so.

SPEAKER_03 10:04

Diner? They haven't, okay, now I gotta go find this. 1983.

SPEAKER_01 10:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 10:12

Yeah,

SPEAKER_01 10:12

it says TV movie, Diner. No. I don't think that's right.

SPEAKER_03 10:18

I don't think that's right.

SPEAKER_01 10:20

Anyways.

SPEAKER_03 10:21

That would be, no, that was like a feature release. I thought so. Oh, you're looking at a different version of it.

SPEAKER_01 10:29

God damn it.

SPEAKER_03 10:30

There was like the film, and he did both, I guess. That's interesting. Because there was the feature film in 82. Oh. And then a TV movie in 83.

SPEAKER_01 10:41

That is weird. Okay,

SPEAKER_03 10:42

well.

UNKNOWN 10:42

Huh.

SPEAKER_03 10:43

That's really interesting. Case

SPEAKER_01 10:45

closed.

SPEAKER_03 10:46

Case closed. So he gets Best Original Screenplay Oscar nomination for that. We could certainly do this. He directs The Natural. You like that movie.

SPEAKER_01 10:54

I do. It gets a little full of itself at times. A lot. Extensive use of slow motion.

SPEAKER_03 11:00

It's very melodramatic.

SPEAKER_01 11:01

Yeah. Like every single time Roy is up at the plate. you know there's going to be a slow-mo sequence of like the ball getting ripped out of its casing or the ball causing like every single light in the stadium to simultaneously explode, showering everyone in sparks. That's like the big moment. Yeah, of

SPEAKER_03 11:24

course.

SPEAKER_01 11:25

Yeah, but it's a fun movie.

SPEAKER_03 11:27

So he directed that. He directed Tin Man. He directed Good Morning Vietnam, which maybe at some point we would do. Maybe. So he gets this next Best Original Screenplay Oscar nomination for Avalon. Now we're moving into the 90s. So he gets a twofer. He gets Best Director nomination and Best Picture, so he's a producer on it, for Bugsy. He directs Toys. This one's kind of an interesting outlier, in my opinion. Disclosure. Who does that?

SPEAKER_01 11:57

Well, that, I think, was a... Was that a

SPEAKER_03 12:00

Michael Crichton... Oh, I

SPEAKER_01 12:02

don't know.

SPEAKER_03 12:02

But that sounds right.

SPEAKER_01 12:03

Because there are a couple. Sphere, I know, is one of his. So that might be why. Maybe.

SPEAKER_03 12:07

Maybe they have some kind of relationship. He directed Sleepers. So I'm pretty sure Hoffman's in this one, too. He's in Wag the Dog. Or he directed... Dustin Hoffman is in Wag the Dog, and Levinson directed Wag the Dog.

SPEAKER_01 12:21

If he directed it, he's in it somewhere, because that's apparently his thing.

SPEAKER_03 12:25

Oh, well, I don't know. Maybe he made a cameo in that.

SPEAKER_01 12:28

He did. Oh, did he? Without even seeing it, like, apparently, like, when I saw that he was in this, in Rain Man, I saw that that was his thing. I did not

SPEAKER_03 12:36

list Barry Levinson's acting credits, because I just didn't think that that

SPEAKER_01 12:41

was...

SPEAKER_03 12:41

Necessary. But then Hoffman's also in Sphere. Yeah. So he directs that. The film Envy. And then more recently, see, I think this is really interesting because sometimes these TV movies do get, because I think they have gotten a lot of Golden Globe attention. He directed the TV movie You Don't Know Jack about Jack Kevorkian. Oh, okay. And that, I believe, starred Al Pacino. It did, yeah. And then he also directed Wizard of Lies, which starred Robert De Niro. And that was about the Ponzi scheme guy.

SPEAKER_01 13:13

What was his name? Bertie Madoff.

SPEAKER_03 13:17

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 13:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 13:18

Good, good pull. So, yeah, he did both those. Okay. Which I think both of them got a fair amount of acclaim. Okay. Moving on to cinematography. This is not the first time. that we have brought up John Seale. He got a Best Cinematography Oscar nomination for this project. And the one time, which maybe not the last time, but I don't know if we'll bring him up again soon.

SPEAKER_01 13:48

Not soon, but we will bring him up again at some

SPEAKER_03 13:50

point. Probably, yeah, probably. We brought him up for Dead Poets Society. Okay. So definitely go check that one out. That was a couple seasons ago for sure.

SPEAKER_01 14:00

Oh, Seale, my Seale. Oh, geez.

SPEAKER_03 14:05

So among his other. I mean, he multi he did. He does get one win, but a lot of Oscar love for this guy. And when I go through his filmography, it's kind of obvious why. So he gets his because this preceded. Yes, he gets his first cinematography nomination for Witness.

SPEAKER_01 14:27

That's the one. That I think we'll possibly cover. I

SPEAKER_03 14:31

think we maybe one day would also cover The Hitcher. Yeah. It's kind of like a horror.

SPEAKER_01 14:35

Is that Rutger Hauer? Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 14:37

Yep. So he did that. He did Children of a Lesser God. The Mosquito Coast. Another Harrison Ford film.

SPEAKER_02 14:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 14:47

Yeah. Gorillas in the Mist. As I mentioned, did Poet Society. Did you ever see the film Lorenzo's Oil? No. I don't know really why I saw it. I saw it. really young and especially for someone who is a kid I it's a good film it's Susan Sarandon and I believe Nick Nolte and their child has this like very very rare condition that there's virtually no like research and certainly no cure for and so they kind of just do they start doing their own

SPEAKER_02 15:15

to

SPEAKER_03 15:16

try to figure out how to help their child he shot the film so now he gets his Oscar win for the English patient

SPEAKER_01 15:24

okay

SPEAKER_03 15:25

so it is a beautiful film and Ghosts of Mississippi, At First Sight, The Talented Mr. Ripley, another really beautiful film. He actually was the DP on the very first Harry Potter film.

SPEAKER_01 15:37

Really? Okay.

SPEAKER_03 15:37

So he shot Harry Potter and, right? Sorcerer's Stone's the first one.

SPEAKER_01 15:41

I believe so.

SPEAKER_03 15:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 15:43

And he gets two more nominations for Cold Mountain. And he actually shot, I think he should have fucking won for this. He shot Mad Max Fury Road. He didn't? No, he did. Oh, he shot it, but oh, your question was in reference to him winning. He did not win. So I'm like, who fucking won that year? That would have been 2015? He

SPEAKER_01 16:06

was nominated, though, at least, right? Correct. Yeah, okay. Yeah, that's crazy, because that was amazing.

SPEAKER_03 16:11

Yes! I mean, especially like he was a much older cinematographer at that time. That, I would presume, was a very robust shoot. Yes. Yeah. So that wasn't just like a

SPEAKER_01 16:25

quiet little drama. There was a lot

SPEAKER_03 16:28

of practical stuff. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, crazy. I wonder who won that year. In any case, so that is Mr. John Seale. I'm sure we will talk about him again in the future at some point. Yeah. I was actually really surprised. I was convinced we had talked about Hans Zimmer before. I am actually, like, I was so, I was first so wrong, but so surprised. I'm like, really? Really? We haven't talked about Hans Zimmer before? But no, I don't think we have. We must have just brought him up in passing, I guess.

SPEAKER_01 17:02

Yeah, because this is 88, and this was his first feature film that he composed on.

SPEAKER_03 17:09

I mean, first best original score Oscar nom. So that's something. He got a nomination for this, not a win. I mean, still very much going strong. He has over 260 composing credits. I mean, I don't want to... I try not to... feed the gossip mill I've heard that he kind of has like a team underneath him I mean how else are you like cranking out over 260 projects

SPEAKER_01 17:43

yeah

SPEAKER_03 17:43

so

SPEAKER_01 17:44

yeah I've heard that too I don't know how upset I'm supposed to be I

SPEAKER_03 17:48

don't know either

SPEAKER_01 17:48

about it because I I don't know how how that works right from like a business actual production standpoint creativity

SPEAKER_03 17:58

Like, are you just like bogarting other people's work and claiming it as your own? I don't know. I don't know how that works.

SPEAKER_01 18:04

All I know is that I like the end result. He's somehow part of it. Yeah. Good for him. Sure. Great. Sure.

SPEAKER_03 18:13

So I guess we've never really gone over his filmography, so it's going to take a minute because I have 25 different credits, and obviously that's just like a fraction of what he's done. Yeah. You know, we always do this in chronological order. So here we go. And I don't... I mean, he's pretty faithful to film. I don't have any TV credits for him. My Beautiful Laundrette. So maybe, maybe we would do that one day because it's like very early Daniel Day-Lewis work. So possibly. Just as likely, more likely, I don't know. We would maybe do Driving Miss Daisy one day because it's at the tail end, 89. I think the score for Thelma and Louise is great. He did that. He did Backdraft. A League of Their Own.

SPEAKER_02 19:01

Okay. It's

SPEAKER_03 19:01

another Geena Davis film. True Romance. So he gets his very first Oscar win. He, I think, just has two so far. He gets his first Oscar win for Best Original Score on the... What was it? 94's Lion King. Oh,

SPEAKER_01 19:16

okay. The

SPEAKER_03 19:17

animated one.

SPEAKER_01 19:18

The first. The actual Lion King. The

SPEAKER_03 19:19

actual Lion King. So I don't know how many more there's been since. So he wins for that. Now... Apologies. Okay, so the next

SPEAKER_02 19:29

one,

SPEAKER_03 19:30

two, three, four, five films that I'm going to name, he gets nominations for all of them for Best Original Score. The Preacher's Wife, As Good As It Gets, The Prince of Egypt, The Thin Red Line, and Gladiator. All nominations.

SPEAKER_01 19:45

I bet it's come up with the Thin Red Line. I bet his name's come up when we've talked about that.

SPEAKER_03 19:49

Maybe because I was just about to say that I actually... So old school here. I have the soundtrack. I have the CD. I mean, I guess I do have a fair number of soundtrack from different films. But the music for that film, especially certain sequences, is... haunting and beautiful and maybe some of the just the most stunning music I've heard. So if he's involved in that in any way, I thank him for it because it is gorgeous music.

SPEAKER_01 20:24

What if it was just his team?

SPEAKER_03 20:26

Well, I don't know, but it's it's gorgeous, gorgeous music. So

SPEAKER_01 20:32

for this score, he was specifically asked not to include strings as the concern was that it would be too sentimental.

SPEAKER_03 20:39

that's a good note yeah so okay so he also so he starts I think here this is where he would start a long collaboration with Christopher Nolan he's done a ton of Christopher Nolan films at this point and he does the score for Batman Begins The Dark Knight The Dark Knight Rises so pretty identifiable I would say for those films he also did the trio of our weird comfort film The Da Vinci Code laughing He does that. Angels and Demons and Inferno.

SPEAKER_01 21:14

What's more comforting than watching some guy mutilate

SPEAKER_03 21:17

himself? I don't know. I don't know why. Why? We just like, oh yeah, okay, let's just keep that on whenever it's on. He gets another Oscar nomination. I don't think, because sometimes we do composers where they do a little... you know, not double dipping because that sounds negative, but they might get attention for both scores and original songs. Not the case here. He's like pretty strictly scores for all his nominations. He gets another nomination for Sherlock Holmes. He gets his first Nolan project nomination for Inception. That is a great score. It is.

SPEAKER_02 21:51

Yeah. Very

SPEAKER_03 21:51

identifiable. He does Man of Steel as well as Batman v. Superman, Dawn of Justice.

UNKNOWN 21:58

Right.

SPEAKER_03 21:59

12 years a slave.

SPEAKER_01 22:00

Did he have a deal with Nolan or Warner Brothers?

SPEAKER_03 22:04

That's a great question. Don't know. But Nolan, I think, can pick and choose who he wants to work with. So I don't think he'd be working with Zimmer if he didn't want to work with

SPEAKER_01 22:13

Zimmer. I'll wait and see. Did he work on Oppenheimer? No.

SPEAKER_03 22:17

Okay. He does Interstellar. I think that's another pretty identifiable

SPEAKER_01 22:23

score. It's really good. Yeah, it's a really good score.

SPEAKER_03 22:26

He does Hidden Figures. I have not seen this, but you have, right? He does Dunkirk.

SPEAKER_01 22:30

Yeah, it's not... Like, I don't really... I can't think of the score. Like, the movie itself was...

SPEAKER_03 22:38

Sometimes I can,

SPEAKER_01 22:39

like... I'm

SPEAKER_03 22:40

like, oh, no, I remember loving the music for that. And sometimes I'm like, I don't know if I really clocked it. He does Hillbilly Elegy. So that's another Ron Howard film. Okay. He gets his next Oscar win for Dune Part 1, so very recent.

SPEAKER_01 22:56

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 22:57

He does the, so he kind of in a way, I'm not going to say re-teams, but he works on another Tom Cruise project because he does Top Gun Maverick.

SPEAKER_01 23:05

Nice.

SPEAKER_03 23:06

And then even more recently, he, of course, is the composer on Dune Part 2. Okay, moving on to editing, Stu Linder. Okay. Okay. He gets his first and only Oscar win for Grand Prix, which was extremely early in his career.

SPEAKER_01 23:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 23:47

Very, very early in his career. That

SPEAKER_01 23:48

was like 1966.

SPEAKER_03 23:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 23:52

Yeah. He was just a baby. So he gets out the gate, gets that, and then goes on to work on My Bodyguard. He works on Diner with Levinson. He also works on The Natural, Tin Men, Good Morning Vietnam, Bugsy. Quiz Show, Disclosure, Wag the Dog, Sphere, and his final credit was Envy. So a very close collaboration with Levinson over the course of his career. Okay. Oh, did you have a... I know you had mentioned off mic, you had some Oscar trivia.

SPEAKER_01 24:27

Well, it was relating to Dustin Hoffman.

SPEAKER_03 24:29

Oh, well, there you go. Perfect. Perfect segue because we are at the stars of the film. Do you want me to go through all his stuff first and then we can talk about it?

SPEAKER_01 24:38

Well, I mean, spoilers, but he does win the Best Actor Oscar. And it was presented to him by Michael Douglas. And he preceded that with And the Oscar Goes To. Before, it was always The Winner Is. But this was the first time they either changed it or they preceded the award winning with And the Oscar Goes To. The Academy intentionally made that switch because To avoid the implication that if you're not... I think they made the

SPEAKER_03 25:09

right call there.

SPEAKER_01 25:11

So it's been in effect ever since then.

SPEAKER_03 25:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:13

So that was the first time, the first recipient of that

SPEAKER_03 25:17

change. Well, the first recipient or the first year of that ceremony. Because Best Actor is not the first category.

SPEAKER_01 25:24

It's not clear to me if they used that verbiage for all of the preceding awards. Got it. Or if that was because... I don't know if it was... They wanted to make that change, but I don't know the specifics. I just know that when he got it,

SPEAKER_03 25:41

that's

SPEAKER_01 25:41

what was said.

SPEAKER_03 25:43

Got it. I think that's a good call. I mean... Look, it's probably hard enough to not win the Oscar. You don't want to be thought of as like, oh, well, you lost. You're a loser. I mean, technically speaking, that's exactly what it is. But all these like little egos and we got to we got to take care of in this industry. So it's fine.

SPEAKER_01 26:03

You think someone said something you think like people had said, like the people who didn't win were like,

SPEAKER_03 26:08

why did you say it like that? I don't know. That's a good question. I have no idea. But I mean. People do get very particular about stuff in this industry and have sensitive, sensitive egos. I just, I'm not going to go into detail because it's work related, but like something like that came up this week. So anyway. Okay. So Dustin Hoffman, Raymond, Ray man. If you, if anybody out there didn't put that together, that's how that name came about. Yeah. Raymond Babbitt. And yes, to your point, he does win the Oscar for this. And, you know, we talked about this after screening the film for the show. All the implications of what that means for somebody who, to my knowledge, is not in any way neurodivergent to portray someone who is. Yeah. Yeah. You know, we can just like get into it now. I think we both came to the conclusion that we just don't know. We don't know what considerations there should be for, you know, this is a huge conversation in so many ways.

SPEAKER_01 27:24

Not just with, you know, his performance in this movie, but the individuals that were in the beginning of the movie when they first get to, was it Walbrook?

SPEAKER_03 27:35

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 27:36

Where he was living. So yeah, there's a lot in terms of having something look exploitive or people being taken advantage. I don't know how any of that process worked or if the individuals in that opening scene were also given direction, perform, and here's what you should be doing. But it's something that I would imagine at a minimum you have to be really cognizant of. And I think for Hoffman, I feel like this could be said of a lot of movies that end up being wildly successful and Oscar-winning films, where at the time that they're filming it, they're like, what are we doing? So he for sure was questioning, I don't know about this. I'm not sure about this. I'm not sure if I'm happy with my performance. This is something that he had talked to the director about. The director was on the Rich Eisen podcast show, I think this year, or 2024, 2025, talking about it. And it's not that he ever wanted to leave or stop, but he was concerned. He wasn't completely sure of how this was all going to work.

SPEAKER_03 28:55

Right. No, I mean, it is... And I mean, this is not the show or the episode to do a deep dive into this, but this is a huge conversation just in terms of like, what can an actor do or not do? What kind of roles? Like, look, there are certainly instances in where we have come a real long way. Like, we don't do blackface anymore. We don't do brownface anymore. Like, we understand that people of certain ethnicities should play those ethnicities, although there are still controversy at times when that doesn't happen. And so that's like one facet of this conversation. There's the facet of like, you know, somebody playing, portraying someone who is gay or somebody who is trans and they, they in their own lives are not gay or not trans, you know, like, is that appropriate? And then there's, that's another facet of the conversation. And then there's like this facet of the conversation.

SPEAKER_01 29:51

There's yeah. There's so much to, to like unpack with all that from like, what does it mean for like a role or performance to be authentic? Right. Tied to that individual's identity tied to like a larger group. Because

SPEAKER_03 30:05

you have actors who are like, I'm an actor. I can do any– like that is what I do. But then also it takes away opportunities from people who– are legitimately a trans actor or a neurodivergent actor who then don't have those opportunities where otherwise they may not be able to play, quote, I'm doing the air quotes, other types of roles.

SPEAKER_01 30:29

But then there's so much more to what we see on the screen. And we were talking about that in terms of that opening scene, like how much is going on in the background and all around people actually like just... Right. Right.

SPEAKER_03 31:05

I knew you were going to fit that in somewhere. I

SPEAKER_01 31:07

mean, in all seriousness, it is kind of brilliant how it like jokes about all of this stuff that we're talking about.

SPEAKER_03 31:15

Because it does kick off, so to speak, a whole flurry of... So like for male actors, it like... pivoted to a lot of male actors taking on roles for individuals who had some kind of neurodivergent or cognitive or intellectual disability. I mean, we get Forrest Gump. We get other... Yeah. Well... Milk is music.

SPEAKER_01 31:41

No, no. I'm Sam.

SPEAKER_03 31:43

I am Sam.

SPEAKER_01 31:44

Yeah, I knew that's what you meant.

SPEAKER_03 31:46

So we get that. And then for women, it's always like ugling them up, you know, like how Charlize Theron. Monster. Yes, that's exactly the one I think everybody talks about. So it's like respectively, that's like where a lot of these categories go to. But all I can say is this. The best answer I can give is that I think Absolute consideration should be given to anyone who presumably could fill this role who maybe I think and I think nowadays I think I'd like to hope that people in the industry are recognizing that and and at least giving consideration real consideration to people who could potentially fulfill those roles who have like a innate intimate connection to a certain aspect of the personality of that character or I shouldn't say personality but like just the who they are as a person. I

SPEAKER_01 32:32

mean for this movie to be fair like. in large part, the Rain Man character is based off of Kim Peek. Okay. So Hoffman met with him and his dad.

SPEAKER_03 32:44

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 32:45

And tried to be as like authentic for that character, even going so far as to like really going to battle for the end of the movie where they wanted it to be that he, he like stays with, with Tom Cruise, with Charlie and, And he's like, that does not, it doesn't really feel right for this character. Like that doesn't make any sense. So it was something that they like put effort into for sure to try to be authentic to that individual.

SPEAKER_03 33:13

I don't know, Dustin Hoffman. I did not do a deep dive. But from what I– the sense I get from the entirety of his filmography is that he takes his craft incredibly seriously to the point where sometimes I think people have said he's like a little bit of an asshole. But he– I would–

SPEAKER_01 33:29

I mean I don't know him either, but I've heard that.

SPEAKER_03 33:30

Yeah. And I think that like he, if anything, gave the utmost respect into– this performance and was not pandering, was not doing anything other than what he felt was a truly authentic and faithful depiction of somebody with this life.

SPEAKER_01 33:50

The real life individual, Kim Peek, he was incredible. He trained himself or he was able to open up a book and similar to, um, you know, Raymond's memorizing half of the, half of the phone book

SPEAKER_03 34:08

up to G

SPEAKER_01 34:08

up to G the name that the last, the last name that he, that he says for the G's his in-laws, by the way.

SPEAKER_03 34:14

Oh, fun.

SPEAKER_01 34:16

But the real life guy can, he could read both pages. Like he'd open a book and his left. I would read the left pages, right? I would read the right

SPEAKER_03 34:24

page. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 34:26

And he would, he like went, he would go to a library and just read everything that way. And then he would keep it.

SPEAKER_03 34:31

Wow. That's amazing. Yeah. I mean, it is absolutely phenomenal what the brain is capable of. Like that's, that's astounding. I don't even have words for how

SPEAKER_01 34:43

magnificent that is. He was Google maps before Google maps was a thing because he could give instantaneous directions from any point to another point on the world.

SPEAKER_03 34:52

That's phenomenal. I mean, it's like the people who, what's the proper term where they just never forget anything.

SPEAKER_01 34:59

Like photographic memory type thing? Not

SPEAKER_03 35:01

photographic memory. They literally don't forget anything from their lives.

SPEAKER_01 35:04

Oh, I don't know. Like I

SPEAKER_03 35:05

think Marilu Hunter from Taxi, I think she has that. Like she just doesn't forget anything. She knows dates. I'm

SPEAKER_01 35:12

totally cool for getting some stuff.

SPEAKER_03 35:13

She doesn't forget anything. I'm pretty sure she has that. Wow. That capacity. Anyway, Hoffman. So obviously a storied career. He is probably considered like an actor's actor. I think he grew up with a method acting. You know, there's that like funny story about him and Laurence Olivier.

SPEAKER_01 35:36

Yeah, I thought that was him. Yeah, I

SPEAKER_03 35:37

know. We brought that up a couple of times and we'll get to that in just a second. But yeah, I mean, so many Oscar nominations as of now, two wins. So this was actually the second win of his. Let's go through in chronological order. So I think a lot of people know he came on the map strong in 1967's The Graduate. So that's when he gets– and all his nominations are all Best Actor. So he gets his first nomination for that. And, I mean, this guy is known for being able to just do– he takes crazy swings in the type of characters that he portrays because he, like, goes from The Graduate to Midnight Cowboy. So he gets another nomination for that. He does Straw Dogs. He gets another nomination for Lenny, Lenny Bruce. He does All the President's Men, Marathon Man. Again, so like, what was it? He stayed up for a couple days.

SPEAKER_01 36:32

Yes. He was like, he wanted to really be able to feel the sleep deprivation. And Olivier was like, you could just try acting or something like that. Right, right. Which is interesting. I wonder if he took that to heart because... In the filming of Rain Man, when they were doing the Vegas stuff, he would just disappear and go start playing games. So they eventually would have people keep eyes on him.

SPEAKER_03 37:02

That's funny. He gets his first win for Kramer vs. Kramer. And of course, I just bring this film up all the time because I love it. He gets another nomination for Tootsie. I thought you were going to say Ishtar. That's the very next film I was going to bring up. He is Hook in Hook. That's

SPEAKER_01 37:20

right. I forget about that.

SPEAKER_03 37:21

Yep, he does that. He does Hero, Outbreak, Sleepers. So he, yeah, I mean, I presume he had like a good relationship with Levinson because he's in a couple more of his movies. He does get a Best Actor nomination for Wag the Dog, so I guess he was in that movie. As mentioned, he does Sphere. I heart Huckabees. He's Stiller's dad, right? In Meet the Fockers?

SPEAKER_01 37:49

Yes, I think so. Because they're like kooky.

SPEAKER_03 37:51

Yeah, they're kooky. And is Streisand the mom?

SPEAKER_01 37:55

I don't know. Oh, my God. They sound so different from the other parents.

SPEAKER_03 37:57

So he's in Meet the Fockers and Little Fockers. He is in Mr. Is it Major or Magor?

SPEAKER_01 38:05

Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium.

SPEAKER_03 38:07

Thank you. He is part of the franchise known as Kung Fu Panda. Yeah. So he's been in one, two, three, four and all the like offshoots with like videos and. Things like that. And then more recently, I didn't realize this, he's in Francis Ford Coppola's Megalopolis.

SPEAKER_01 38:24

Yeah, that movie was just like a breakout hit. I heard box office bonanza.

SPEAKER_03 38:30

Out of curiosity, I'd like to watch it.

SPEAKER_01 38:33

Yeah, it'll be on something. It'll

SPEAKER_03 38:36

be on something. Yeah. Okay, moving on to Tom Cruise, who is Raymond's younger brother that he didn't know he had, Charlie Babbitt. So we've Brought up Cruise a couple times.

SPEAKER_01 38:50

At least twice that I can think of, and we'll probably bring him up a couple more times.

SPEAKER_03 38:55

Yeah, and there was even... There were a couple movies where I'm like, have we actually not done this movie yet? And I thought we had. Maybe just you bring him up. So, okay, Tom Cruise. I mean, arguably still the biggest star, movie star right now.

SPEAKER_01 39:11

Complicated thoughts aside, he has been... like one of the strongest advocates for like this industry and for, uh, seeing movies like a theater theater movie theater experience. Yeah. Yeah. Like going to see top gun Maverick and having like a five minute intro from him thanking everyone and talking about the process. Like, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 39:34

Yeah. I'm glad we did see it in the theater. So, um, Yes, he is, I would say, hands down right now, the biggest movie star. And he supports, like you said, specifically the theater experience. Cinema. Cinema.

SPEAKER_01 39:53

Peak cinema.

SPEAKER_03 39:55

And of course, being a movie star, I have no... no TV work for him. It's all, it's all films across the board. Well,

SPEAKER_01 40:03

that's a bit elitist, but okay.

SPEAKER_03 40:06

And, and yes, there are going to be several more opportunities for us to bring him up. So

SPEAKER_01 40:12

maybe it's cause like he's on that one, that one Oprah show in like just never TV ever again.

SPEAKER_03 40:17

Yeah. That yes, yes. We, we all know what that's about with the jumping on the couch and all of that. Um, as far as his film work goes, taps, um, The Outsiders, I'm kind of surprised we haven't done that yet. Well, there's a lot that I'm kind of surprised we haven't done yet. But he's in that. Risky Business. That's come

SPEAKER_01 40:38

up. I get the sense that you're not a fan of that movie.

SPEAKER_03 40:41

I'm not. I'm not a fan of that

SPEAKER_01 40:44

movie. The music is amazing.

SPEAKER_03 40:46

But that doesn't mean that we shouldn't cover it.

SPEAKER_01 40:48

Yeah, I love the soundtrack to it. It's super cool. Yeah,

SPEAKER_03 40:51

no, it is. A

SPEAKER_01 40:52

lot of synth, a lot of Tangerine Dream.

SPEAKER_03 40:54

Yes. So, Risky Business, which... That's probably his breakout role. I

SPEAKER_01 41:00

think so.

SPEAKER_03 41:01

Because the first two are ensemble casts. And this is like he headlines risky business. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 41:07

It's his risky business.

SPEAKER_03 41:09

It is his risky business. He does all the right moves, which I think would be actually just kind of a funny one to do in a way. So we've done Legend.

SPEAKER_01 41:17

Yep.

SPEAKER_03 41:18

So go check that one out.

SPEAKER_01 41:20

Fantasy movie where he fights the devil, basically, and of course his character's name is Jack.

SPEAKER_03 41:28

So we have also done Top Gun, of course. So go check that one out. That's a couple seasons ago. We just mentioned that one of the few times, in my humble opinion, that a sequel 30 to 40 years later has actually worked I'm looking at you, Ghostbusters. Damn.

SPEAKER_01 41:49

But yeah.

SPEAKER_03 41:50

And actually, I didn't remember, but Maverick did get a Best Picture nomination. And since he produced on it, he was part of that nomination.

SPEAKER_01 41:57

Cool.

SPEAKER_03 41:58

So he does We Could Do This. I mean... All these Color Money, Cocktail.

SPEAKER_01 42:03

We've talked about these. I mean, they will be upcoming. Yeah, for

SPEAKER_03 42:07

sure. Born on the 4th of July. That

SPEAKER_01 42:11

is 89. Yeah, that is a real downer of a movie, but it is a really good movie.

SPEAKER_03 42:17

And I've never seen it. But it is his first Best Actor Oscar nomination.

SPEAKER_01 42:23

It's basically an alternate world of what would happen to Lieutenant Dan in Forrest Gump.

SPEAKER_03 42:29

That's the sense I get.

SPEAKER_01 42:30

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What if it wasn't?

SPEAKER_03 42:34

Because he also becomes a paraplegic, correct?

SPEAKER_01 42:36

He does. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's like from a kid aspiring to be a soldier to... Yeah, getting shot himself and killing someone else through friendly fire, just through a moment of confusion and how his views change on war generally. It's a really good movie, but it is a tough one to watch.

SPEAKER_03 43:01

I feel like, I don't know how it's aged. I feel like when it was a newer film, people were saying, oh, it's just him trying to get his Oscar love, which, okay, he did, but it's still a legitimately good film.

SPEAKER_01 43:15

Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I think the message on what it means to be an actual patriot is as relevant now as, as it would have ever been then.

SPEAKER_03 43:23

That's fair.

SPEAKER_01 43:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 43:24

He does. Okay. So now we're getting into the nineties. He has a very strong nineties days of thunder.

SPEAKER_01 43:32

So his character's name again, Cole trickle there, there was the actual race car driver's name was Dick trickle. Okay,

SPEAKER_03 43:42

I'm

SPEAKER_01 43:43

making a Cole Trickle. That's a terrible

SPEAKER_03 43:44

name.

SPEAKER_01 43:45

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 43:46

Oh my

SPEAKER_01 43:46

God, is that a terrible name? So Cole Trickle, actually a better, better, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 43:51

Way better. Okay. So he does that. And that's where I think he meets Nicole Kidman. They do Far and Away together. Another weird comfort film for us, if you can

SPEAKER_02 44:03

imagine. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 44:04

That's on a lot. The Firm. I, I love, I love, I love, I wish he would take bigger swings like this again. I think he is phenomenal in Interview with the Vampire.

SPEAKER_01 44:15

He is,

SPEAKER_03 44:15

yeah. He's so good. He makes that film. I'm sorry, Brad Pitt, but you are a fucking downer of a character. And I mean, I think-

SPEAKER_01 44:24

Oh, I'm so sad. Now I'm a vampire. I'm even more sad. He,

SPEAKER_03 44:29

Cruise, brings, ironically, so much life to that character. I see what you did there. And fun and whimsy and- It's crazy to me because Cruise is obviously having so much fun in that role. Yeah. Really chewing the scenery, as they say, enjoying himself in every scene. And Brad Pitt is just the fucking wah-wah. I don't remember the details. I know Pitt did not want to be part of the film, but contractually he couldn't get out of it. I'm just like, what the fuck's wrong with you, man? Just like... Anyway, it's like so clear. It's so clear that he is just like... I mean, I know that Louis is supposed to be a very melancholy character, but

SPEAKER_01 45:16

oh

SPEAKER_03 45:17

my God.

SPEAKER_01 45:17

I think he did his job. He was the character that he was supposed to be, so it's just that... I

SPEAKER_03 45:24

hate... But like, okay, so spoiler alert, but the film's 30 years old at this point. There comes a part of the film where... Louis and I forget her name, but Kirsten Dunst think that they've killed. Yeah. Killed Lestat.

SPEAKER_01 45:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 45:41

And so he's gone from like, I don't know if I'd say the second half, but like a good chunk of the film.

SPEAKER_01 45:48

His return is amazing.

SPEAKER_03 45:49

His return is amazing. But like all the time that he's gone, I'm just like boring, boring movie. Don't care. So he just makes the movie for me anyway. Okay. So here we go. The huge franchise that is Tom Cruise, Mission Impossible.

SPEAKER_01 46:04

Oh, I thought you were going to say Eyes Wide Shut.

SPEAKER_03 46:07

So I'm just calling it out now because chronologically the first film comes out next. So he– I mean he is the franchise. Like he's everything about the film.

SPEAKER_01 46:19

That first movie was incredible. You could tell that it was– like this is meant to be like– They could have as many movies as they want to, and they have. Of course, then they had the second one.

SPEAKER_03 46:35

But that seems to be the only clunker. It

SPEAKER_01 46:36

is. They course-corrected real quick because that was such a departure from everything that made the first one so good. I

SPEAKER_03 46:44

mean, look, I don't follow the franchise that closely, so I know I've seen the second one. I don't really see anything where I'm like, oh, this is so bad in comparison.

SPEAKER_01 46:54

You know what? I'm not sure... But I feel like the reason why I was paying attention to the beginning of Rain Man with the musical opening, the song, I think it's the same song that they have in the beginning of Mission Impossible 2 when he's rock climbing.

SPEAKER_03 47:11

I think you might be right. Or is it in Cocktail? Is it also in Cocktail? Oh, my God. Because I was thinking that too. It's like. I feel like this isn't the only Tom Cruise movie with this song. But that would be, in a weird way, the funniest little wink. Yeah, right? So yes, Mission Impossible 2, 3, Ghost Protocol, Rogue Nation, Fallout, Dead Reckoning Part 1, and this summer is Dead Reckoning Part 2. So, and I think it's opening at Cannes, I want to say.

SPEAKER_01 47:41

And that's for sure the last one, right? Because in all the trailers, it's like, I need you to trust me one more time. I

SPEAKER_03 47:46

think so. I think, I would think that Cruise is actually astute enough to be like, to know when to end something. The

SPEAKER_01 47:54

first part of this- He's in his

SPEAKER_03 47:56

60s now. I mean, he's

SPEAKER_01 47:58

in great shape, but- Like the first part of Dead Reckoning, we also saw it in the theater. And in many ways, it wasn't even- better theater cinema experience than Maverick.

SPEAKER_03 48:08

Yeah, but it didn't perform well. It

SPEAKER_01 48:11

didn't. I don't know why. I don't know

SPEAKER_03 48:12

either. So he gets his next Best Actor nomination for Jerry Maguire. I don't know who won, but he did do a good job in that role. There's a lot of problematic stuff about that movie, but his role was solid. To your point, Eyes Wide Shut, which was the whole thing.

SPEAKER_01 48:29

Got all weird.

SPEAKER_03 48:30

Got all weird. And again, he swings big because he plays a very unlikable character in Magnolia. Even

SPEAKER_01 48:37

weirder.

SPEAKER_03 48:38

But he gets Best Supporting Actor nomination

SPEAKER_01 48:40

for it. It rains frogs at one point in that movie, I think.

SPEAKER_03 48:43

Yeah, it's an interesting movie. As is Vanilla Sky. We brought that up not too long ago because of Cameron Crowe. Minority Report. He is phenomenal. again in collateral

SPEAKER_02 48:54

oh yeah

SPEAKER_03 48:55

I feel like collateral well okay there's like one little asterisk but I feel like collateral is the last film where he really he really went for it in terms of kind of kind of do

SPEAKER_01 49:09

Well, that's Grossman in Tropic Thunder.

SPEAKER_03 49:10

Well, that was my asterisk. Okay. That was my asterisk.

SPEAKER_01 49:13

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 49:14

So, yeah. But he's great in that. War of the Worlds. Like you said, Tropic Thunder. Very notable role. I guess Rock of Ages, maybe. Kind of. He does The Mummy, which unfortunately, you know... I

SPEAKER_01 49:29

can't talk about that movie.

SPEAKER_03 49:30

Yeah. I don't really feel too bad because it's like that's... Although... You know, that was supposed to be part of the universal new monster. That's why I can't talk about it. Monsterverse. And then, yeah. And then he's been just like focusing a lot on the films we've already talked about, which were Maverick and then the other Mission Impossible movies.

SPEAKER_01 49:48

Yeah. I feel like Oblivion and Edge of Tomorrow both get a lot of like positive reception, but I haven't. Yeah. Sorry. I didn't

SPEAKER_03 49:56

even really bring that up. Yeah. But yeah. Okay, moving on to... We honestly... Look, there's a lot of tiny characters in the film, but really, this is a very, very limited cast, and I'm only bringing up four actors because they hold the most weight of the film. So we've already burned through two. The next person, it's the character of Susanna, played by Valeria Colino.

SPEAKER_02 50:22

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 50:23

So you recognized her for more than... more than I did. And you were right about the films you called out. Oh, really? I really only know her from this movie.

SPEAKER_01 50:32

Well, I mean, I recognized her from pretty powerful, hard-hitting movies such as Hot Shots Part Deux and Big Top Pee Wee.

SPEAKER_03 50:42

And I guess she was in Hot Shots. Did you know her from the first

SPEAKER_01 50:45

movie? Oh, I didn't. No, I didn't realize that. Was she in both?

SPEAKER_03 50:48

According to her filmography, she was. Well, that

SPEAKER_01 50:51

never lies.

SPEAKER_03 50:51

But yeah, I really only know her from this, but she is... continuing to work i have all films for her so you already mentioned a couple of them so she is in big top peewee and she also was in hot shots and hot shots part two um some of her other film work immortal beloved leaving las vegas

SPEAKER_01 51:11

hilarious family comedy uh

SPEAKER_03 51:16

four rooms she's an escape from la huh I know you don't like that film as much as Escape from New York, which we did go check it out. Never watched it. You've never... Okay, that was my question.

SPEAKER_01 51:29

Yeah, I've seen the basketball scene, which is ridiculous. It was just odd. Oh, that's right. So I tuned in and I'm like, I can't.

SPEAKER_03 51:35

Yeah. So it's really that much worse.

SPEAKER_01 51:38

I'm pretty sure he surfs a tsunami.

SPEAKER_03 51:40

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 51:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 51:41

Sure.

SPEAKER_01 51:42

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 51:43

So she's in Frida. I put this one in. Actually, it's kind of funny. So she's in a movie called... Anna, or maybe it's called Anna. I don't know. But she's in a movie called Anna, and she's also in a movie called Maria. Okay. Which is just kind of funny because it's my first and middle name.

SPEAKER_01 51:59

If she's in a movie called Danky, then I'm going to be like, what the?

SPEAKER_03 52:07

So, yeah. She's in both of those. And then also Portrait of a Lady on Fire. Okay. Okay, so here's what's really interesting. Like I said, I did not list Levinson's acting credits, but also what's really interesting about this film is that Dr. Bruner, so he is what I would say is the final major character in this film. Yeah. Yeah, he has some acting credits, but he's really not an actor. He's a producer. And so I'm not really sure what... was said for him to take what is i think a substantial role he's really good i think he's great yeah in this movie yes um but he only has six acting credits so

SPEAKER_01 52:54

i mean i i recognize him i feel like i've seen him in something oh

SPEAKER_03 52:57

he works with spielberg all the time

SPEAKER_01 52:59

okay

SPEAKER_03 53:00

um and then i guess a little bit of because uh he's in days of thunder so another Another Tom Cruise. And that was Ron Howard, right? So he's in Days of Thunder. I don't remember who he is, though. Do you remember who he is in Jurassic Park?

SPEAKER_01 53:15

No.

SPEAKER_03 53:16

He must be like a scientist or something. Somebody maybe early on in the film. He's in Amistad. And catch me if you can. However, like I said, he's a major producer. And in fact, he's an Oscar winner. He won Best Picture for Schindler's List. Okay.

UNKNOWN 53:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 53:31

And I don't normally do this. I mean, he was a co-producer on Rain Man. But yeah, I mean, that's kind of what he does. So some of his credits, not acting credits, I don't normally do this where I... shoot off credits for something that the person was not involved with although he was a producer on on Rayman um but he produced on Days of Thunder he produced on Hook um he was a producer on Jurassic Park like I said Schindler's List Twister Minority Report um yeah I mean he's he's just like a big-time producer so kind of interesting huh

SPEAKER_01 54:11

that is yeah no I

SPEAKER_03 54:12

I

SPEAKER_01 54:13

I wouldn't have guessed that. I thought he was like a really convincing, good performance doctor at this facility. Yeah, he was great.

SPEAKER_03 54:21

I thought he nailed it. So film synopsis. What do we got? After a selfish L.A. yuppie learns his father left a fortune to an autistic savant brother in Ohio that he didn't know existed, he absconds. with his brother and sets out across the country, hoping to gain a larger inheritance.

SPEAKER_01 54:45

Look, that might be one of the most accurate synopses.

SPEAKER_03 54:50

Fancy words being used.

SPEAKER_01 54:55

Yes. Yeah, no, that's a he is a selfish L.A., Is he, is he a yuppie? I don't know. I

SPEAKER_03 55:03

clocked that too.

SPEAKER_01 55:04

Yeah. I don't, I don't think he's successful enough. I

SPEAKER_03 55:06

don't know if I'd call him a yuppie.

SPEAKER_01 55:08

Yeah. He's barely professional.

SPEAKER_03 55:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 55:10

He seems almost like a scammy kind of guy, whatever his business is. He's like, there's, there's a lot of time dedicated to me learning about EPA license requirements for imported Lamborghinis.

SPEAKER_03 55:24

Apparently. Yeah. And, and I think that maybe if the, if the film, uh, has any weaknesses it's just like I don't know it seems like he's been doing this forever he obviously is a car aficionado like he knows everything about cars so I'm like why is this even a problem right now like wouldn't he have known that the cars would have had to have gone through all this testing or whatever it seems like a little bit of a bump to me that this was a problem in the film

SPEAKER_01 55:52

yeah they if they needed to show that he had like an extensive knowledge about cars and somehow that dated back to like the classic car that he ends up inheriting when his father passes. Fair enough. That's fine. If you need to find like a way to make him need money quick, it feels like there could have been like a better

SPEAKER_03 56:16

way. I mean, yeah, I feel like that's me. That's like the weak spot in the film

SPEAKER_01 56:21

because like the, the whole thing is that like, he can't, he can't fly fast. uh, Raymond back because he's terrified of flying and he, he won't, he would never be able to get him on a plane. Interesting fact about that is that if you watched rain man on an airplane, they cut out the scene where he talks about all the crashing.

SPEAKER_03 56:42

That's a very smart move.

SPEAKER_01 56:44

Very, very smart move. I don't know why they didn't think of a train. Like at the end when they take a train back, I'm like, Oh yeah, that, that would have worked.

SPEAKER_03 56:52

I mean, no, you brought up a really good point when we were watching that. I mean, I guess it makes sense to me with, um, with Charlie being a car guy that he would just be like, fine, we'll just take the car. Although I don't think that car, I said that too. I was like, I don't think that car would have made it across country. I

SPEAKER_01 57:06

mean, it would have. Yeah. I don't know. It would have needed some work. And also it seemed like they were on

SPEAKER_03 57:11

the road a long time. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 57:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 57:14

In a way that, like, I've not, not from coast to coast, but I've made almost a similar trajectory, Chicago to L.A.

SPEAKER_01 57:22

He said three days. He said it was going to take three days. It

SPEAKER_03 57:24

seemed like that was way more than three days of them being on the road.

SPEAKER_01 57:26

Maybe, again, because, like, he had to take side trips. Yes. Side roads. He wasn't taking major highways.

SPEAKER_03 57:33

But then he's like, at the end, when they are meeting with the court-appointed psychiatrist, he says something like, a week ago, I didn't know I had a brother. So I don't know if that's just a turn of phrase. But I'm just like, how much time has passed in this movie? I couldn't really get a sense,

SPEAKER_01 57:49

to be honest. His whole business, though, the reason I was bringing that up is because there was this... relating to him being able to pay off the loans so that the cars wouldn't be repossessed. None of that, his whole business was gone. The cars got taken back.

SPEAKER_03 58:07

Yeah, it was kind of interesting because at the end that just kind of went away.

SPEAKER_01 58:10

I don't know what he's going to do because that's all done. He got enough money. They made a point of... showing us that all the card counting blackjack money was enough to like get him even. Yeah. So whatever he does, he's like starting fresh, I guess. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 58:24

And he obviously has enough like just cash on him because even once his credit card started getting declined, he was just paying in cash. Yeah. for hotel rooms and what have you. He drops a couple hundred dollars on like that little portable TV for it. So it's not like he's hurting for money in an everyday kind of sense.

SPEAKER_02 58:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 58:44

But so, yeah, so that I know you can't cover a little thing in a movie, but but those were some questions that I had.

SPEAKER_01 58:52

Those were so, so minor compared to like what they were trying to. Yeah, sure. But yeah.

SPEAKER_03 58:57

And just in case anybody doesn't know, because I don't think I knew the proper definition abscond just means to Leave hurriedly and secretly. Yeah. Well, I don't use abscond in everyday language. Sorry. Sorry. Every

SPEAKER_01 59:11

morning, Winston absconds with a little chew.

SPEAKER_03 59:16

That's true. That's true. He does. We have never once in our lives taken a treat away from our dog after we have given it to him. But especially with those chews, he

SPEAKER_01 59:25

runs away like we're about to... If no one knew who Winston was when I said that, thank you for... for elaborating.

SPEAKER_03 59:32

He always thinks we're about to take... Never, never once have we ever done that. Nope. We'd never do

SPEAKER_02 59:38

that.

SPEAKER_03 59:38

Anyway, I will say the one thing I wanted to bring up, because we're coming to a close on this one, is this whole sticking point, which I think is valid, of Charlie being upset that nobody ever told him he had a brother. I think it's extremely... It's valid. It's valid that he'd be really upset about that. Um... It's very strange to me that– because what– look, he was about two years old when his mother died. So I understand he doesn't have any memory of her. Probably doesn't– he barely has– he thinks Raymond was an imaginary friend. So that's as much as he recalls of Raymond. Raymond was sent to Walbrook maybe two weeks after the mom died because I think the mom died. I think they said like January 5th and he was sent away like January 21st or something.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:27

After the– After the tub incident. Yeah, which they're

SPEAKER_03 1:00:33

a little vague about. It does seem like there was some kind of incident where Charlie maybe would have gotten hurt and they thought that Raymond had a part to play in that. But so he gets sent away. But I'm like, you're telling me because then Charlie says that once he did the joyriding in his dad's car and he left him in jail for a couple of days, he was only 16 years old and then he took off. There were 14 years where. Not once it was mentioned that he had a brother that Charlie never noticed that at some point his father was going off to visit his brother. Like, it seems that nobody else in the family, maybe, maybe, I don't know. I don't know for that time in history. I know a lot of things are kept secretive and maybe there's shame or whatever around that. But it just seemed very strange to me that he had no idea and nobody ever thought to say anything to him.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:22

So that kind of reminds me of like something that I read when I was looking up the movie. Michael Caine has talked about how much he enjoyed Tom Cruise's performance in this movie. That's one of his favorites. After Caine himself found out later in his adult life that he had a brother that he had never been told about who had lived most of his life in Caine Hill Mental Hospital with a debilitating epilepsy diagnosis. So I guess it could happen. Yeah. Yeah. Cause it did. Yeah. But it seems, it seems like something when you're watching it like that, how could that actually, it

SPEAKER_03 1:02:03

just is wild. These family secrets that like, I mean, and look, maybe the most notorious, although it wasn't a secret per se in that her existence wasn't known of, but like Rosemary Kennedy,

SPEAKER_02 1:02:12

you

SPEAKER_03 1:02:13

know, where she, I'm not sure the, the, the nuance of like her, her, cognitive or mental challenges, but then obviously like famously the family got her a lobotomy and she was just put away for the rest of her life. And, you know, so I do know things like that happen. I know that like, there's often like shame tied around that embarrassment. Um, especially,

SPEAKER_01 1:02:38

especially that I feel like there are hopefully, I don't know anymore, but different perceptions, different, um, Reactions or levels of understanding for people that that face those circumstances

SPEAKER_03 1:02:53

and maybe I'm just having a hard time you know now that we're watching the movie through a 2025 lens I'm like how could you not tell your kid that they had a sibling but maybe even as far back as 88. It wasn't as unheard of.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:06

Yeah. But... There's still... I mean, like, there's so many... Look, there are a lot of really inappropriate interactions in this movie, just in, like, language that's used and derogatory terms. Oh,

SPEAKER_03 1:03:18

absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:19

And saying things like, what's wrong with him? And, you know...

SPEAKER_03 1:03:22

Yeah, I mean... Yeah, that's something that we should have brought up when we were talking about Cruise. I mean, he is a capital A asshole at the beginning of this movie.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:32

They go real hard to show what an absolute piece of shit he is. Yes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:38

And how he has absolutely no understanding. I mean, that's one thing that I... Okay, so the other side of that is that I... Loved to see a facility where Raymond and everybody else who was housed there were treated with respect and kindness and compassion and interest and love.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:53

That

SPEAKER_03 1:03:54

was amazing to see because I think that, like, legitimately so, you hear a lot of horror stories about facilities like that. So it was nice to see that, especially between Dr. Bruner and then Vern. who, you know, seemed to be... At first was Raymond's main man, but I think by the end, Charlie was Raymond's main man.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:15

He was his main man,

SPEAKER_03 1:04:16

yeah. You know, they seemed to very much care for Raymond. And even though Dr. Bruner, in some ways, I felt was, like, a touch cold because it's like, yeah, how could you... Like, if at the point Charlie comes to the facility and you're still holding back on the truth that he has a brother that lives there, eh, I don't know about that, you know? But

SPEAKER_01 1:04:36

he wasn't there. He didn't show up there because... he he was trying to get the money back he didn't

SPEAKER_03 1:04:43

but maybe just maybe if you would say well hey the reason why i was entrusted with the money is because you have a brother yeah who has been living here for the last 20 years yeah i mean just say that up front why do you got to hide that i know he had every right to i guess legally but it was a little weird to me and i mean charlie at least calls it like it is and says i'm pissed at my dad i'm pissed that like nobody told me i had a brother so i'm trying to hurt him you know like he does say exactly why he's doing what he's doing

SPEAKER_02 1:05:13

it's

SPEAKER_03 1:05:14

not right um and you're you're absolutely correct that like for a good maybe even two-thirds of the film he treats raymond in a despicable way You know, with no regard for his well-being.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:28

Even at the end when you can tell that he has made that connection that they talk about and he cares for him and he's glad that he has this big brother, he's still not equipped to deal with Raymond on a daily basis.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:43

No. What I wish, which maybe this would have just been too much of a, like, movie... happy ending is that he could have been placed in facility just closer. Yeah. To Charlie.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:54

Yeah. I mean, he's comfortable with the place that he was in. Yes. Financial issues aren't a problem. And when I, like, I shouldn't have said like, he's not equipped to deal with him. He's not equipped to give him the care that he needs. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:04

Yeah. But I mean, that's going to be a really hard, I think circumstance for, you know, unless Charlie decides he's not going to stay in LA. Yeah. To, to be making any kind of like regular, uh, commute and connection with Raymond between Cincinnati and LA. So, you know, I guess maybe that's also a realism about, I don't know, but it's just interesting. I'm glad that they didn't do like a ending that you alluded to where they were maybe thinking about having Raymond stay with Charlie because I think you're absolutely right. Charlie just does not have the, the really, the very real skills and consideration and training to, to, be able to give Raymond the life he should have

SPEAKER_01 1:06:47

like he has the care by the end and his attitude has changed but he lacks the time and the resources yes

SPEAKER_03 1:06:53

yeah because it's very clear Raymond can't be alone

SPEAKER_01 1:06:55

yeah

SPEAKER_03 1:06:56

so in any case that's Raymond so I mean so given that this is the first time that you've seen it in its entirety would you watch it again

SPEAKER_01 1:07:08

I probably would. Yeah. I mean, there are parts where it's just like uncomfortable, but having seen the whole thing and knowing what the resolution is, I enjoyed it.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:18

It had been a while since I had seen it, and I'm glad I got to see it again because I wasn't really sure how I felt about it. I did remember liking it. I wasn't sure how it's aged.

UNKNOWN 1:07:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:33

I mean, we've gone through all that. I'm glad I saw it again. I don't think I need to see it again anytime soon.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:38

I mean, I was... Full disclosure, I was real tired last night when we started watching this movie.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:44

But you stayed with it.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:45

Yeah. Yeah. I was completely, like, wrapped up in it, wanted to see what was going to happen. So it... I really liked it. But you're right. Do I need to see it again immediately? Probably not.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:58

I mean, I think... Because I noticed that. I knew you were tired. And I was like, oh, I wonder if he's going to fall asleep. But I think it's because of the strength of the performances. Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, Call to Action... I'm not really sure where to start with the call to action. I mean, the truth is that I would just like to open up the conversation and see what other people think about, like, how do they feel the film holds up? Do they feel like it's a respectful portrayal? I mean, I mentioned this off mic that like, okay, so at the time, I think it was in a way groundbreaking that a film about somebody with autism was made in 1988. Yeah. So there's that. However, given the character that Raymond was from what I read, it unfortunately sparked kind of a misunderstanding of what it means to be somebody with autism. They call it a spectrum because there are just so many different ways that it presents itself. And Raymond is probably– I say this with so much ignorance on the subject, but I think he is not a– a reliable like example of what, like not, not everybody can immediately count 246 toothpicks on the floor, you know,

SPEAKER_01 1:09:15

like. No, the, and the, the individual Kim Peek that he based that character off of had exceptional abilities. Yes. And that's not. And so if the expectation is that for anyone who may be like on that spectrum is going to have similar abilities, that's, like really unfair and ignores all of the other like real idiosyncrasies associated with that individual. Like, like you would have to think about for any person.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:43

Right. And I think there's maybe kind of a throwaway line in the film where somebody says, you know, he is exceptional. A lot of people with autism are maybe nonverbal or like, I think that's said at some point.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:57

I think the doctor, maybe when, when he stops in a town to, because he's just frustrated. Cause he, I think he thinks that he's just going to like medicate his behaviors away or something.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:11

I think that was the intent. And the guy's like, I'm not a psychiatrist. And they're like, what do you want me to do?

SPEAKER_03 1:10:15

I mean, I don't know how many people would have picked up on that line, but I think that at, I guess at least it was said, but, but again, I think that is that that's it is that I would just like to know how people feel about the portrayal of this, this particular character. And if it was helpful, hurtful, Just kind of curious. Yeah,

SPEAKER_01 1:10:36

it's a good one.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:36

If you want to reach out, we'd love to hear from you. You can do so through Facebook, Blue Sky, and Instagram. The handle is the same for all three. It is at 80s Montage Pod, and 80s is 8-0-S. It is. Okay. Sneak peek. I got

SPEAKER_01 1:10:53

nothing.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:54

Uh, I have like this one clue I have, but I feel like it's just like so easy to immediately give it away. Perfect. That's

SPEAKER_01 1:11:00

exactly the kind of clue that I'm looking

SPEAKER_03 1:11:02

for. Um, okay. The clue that I can give is that we very recently did fast times at Richmond high.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:11

That's a clue.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:12

And I mentioned that one of the actors has a very, very minor role in this film. So minor that I don't even know if we'll bring them up when we talk about it.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:20

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:21

Wait, but I'm bringing it up now. What?

SPEAKER_01 1:11:25

Okay, I'm just going to guess here. If that was the clue that makes it super obvious. I

SPEAKER_03 1:11:32

don't know if it

SPEAKER_01 1:11:33

makes it super

SPEAKER_03 1:11:33

obvious. No, it's not.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:34

Okay, okay. Are we going to cover Valley Girl?

SPEAKER_03 1:11:38

No, but that would have been a really good guess. Right? And I still desperately need to get to that movie. I was thinking Judge Reinhold.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:47

Oh, okay. Because I was thinking of...

SPEAKER_03 1:11:50

Nicolas

SPEAKER_01 1:11:51

Cage. Yeah. Yeah. Who's like in it, but doesn't do a ton. Judge Reinhold in something else, but he doesn't do a whole lot. We've already done Beverly Hills Cop. I don't think we're doing Ruthless People. Nope. So I got, that's all I got. In

SPEAKER_03 1:12:04

preceding, just by a year, I think.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:09

Nope. Harold

SPEAKER_03 1:12:09

Ramis. What?

SPEAKER_01 1:12:13

He's not... No, nothing. Now we're going to have to- Now I'm going to have

SPEAKER_03 1:12:19

to just tell you the clue.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:21

Tell you the obvious clue. Yeah. Oh, wait. I still haven't gotten the obvious clue? No. Please, give me the obvious clue.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:27

Lighten up, Francis.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:29

Oh, stripes. Okay. And if you're still listening, sincerely, thank you.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:40

So that is next on deck. And in the meantime, just thank you to everybody who is still listening. And we appreciate the time because there's just the business of life and then the maybe millions, I don't know, a podcast out there. So thank you for taking the time to listen to ours. And we will chat again in two weeks' time.