Talking Pondo: The Hudsucker Proxy and Sunset Boulevard

 In this episode, Marty gives Clif the movie The Hudsucker Proxy to watch and Clif gives Marty the movie Sunset Boulevard to watch. 

In this New Year’s special, Marty and Clif take on two classics where time, success, and self-delusion collide: The Hudsucker Proxy (1994) and Sunset Boulevard (1950).

First up is the Coen Brothers’ fast-talking corporate fairy tale The Hudsucker Proxy. Marty and Clif dive deep into the film’s cartoon logic, rapid-fire dialogue, exaggerated performances, and elaborate set pieces. Along the way, they unpack the film’s connections to Sam Raimi, Roger Deakins, Preston Sturges, Buster Keaton, and the Coens’ evolving style.

Then it’s time for a much darker New Year’s turn with Billy Wilder’s Sunset Boulevard. Marty and Clif discuss Gloria Swanson’s iconic performance as Norma Desmond, William Holden’s doomed narrator, and the film’s lasting influence on decades of cinema. 

#TalkingPondo #FilmPodcast #MoviePodcast #ClassicFilms #FilmAnalysis #TheHudsuckerProxy #SunsetBoulevard #CoenBrothers #BillyWilder #NewYearsMovies #FilmNoir #ClassicHollywood

Transcript

SPEAKER_05 0:00

I wanted to I wanted to have a quick quote about subfranchising. Don't talk to me about subfranchising. We're making so much money in subfranchising and it isn't even funny. It's one of my favorite lines, throwaway lines from that film.

SPEAKER_02 0:10

It is funny because both movies have such much discussion about finances and business that I'm like, I can really relate to it over this last week with all the numbers I've been crunching.

SPEAKER_00 0:20

Same, same.

SPEAKER_02 0:21

Well, look, I've got a loan to the bank to the loan, and I'm paying off the yeah, okay, motherfucker.

SPEAKER_05 0:26

So I can get this so I can pay off my life shirt, so I can take out a thing on that. Yeah, okay, fine. Just say no.

SPEAKER_01 0:35

Welcome to season three of Talking Pondo. Talking Pondo is a podcast where Cliff and Marty give each other a film to watch and talk about them in detail. Some episodes will include a special guest.

SPEAKER_02 0:56

So we may bring you the following dingus. Happy New Year, everybody. It's our New Year episode of Talking Pondo. We're back once again. It's me, Marty, and we got Cliff as well with us.

SPEAKER_05 1:11

So happy New Year. Happy New Year, everyone. Welcome back. Welcome back.

SPEAKER_02 1:15

Doing our what's turned into a yearly New Year's special where we pick two New Year's related movies. And boy, those are kind of hard to find, but we found two good ones this week the Hudsucker Proxy and Sunset Boulevard. Yes.

SPEAKER_05 1:29

Yes, indeed.

SPEAKER_02 1:31

So we'll be uh talking about those real quick, like here, but first we're gonna do some uh Mathal mouth mathol mail.

SPEAKER_05 1:39

Oh guys, awesome. I love we always love the mail, folks, so keep keep writing in. And by the way, talking mathal is quite an episode. I really, really enjoyed that one.

SPEAKER_02 1:48

Yeah, uh it was it was good. It was a change of pace. Even even Joe wrote in and said uh, you know, thanks for inviting him along on the ride.

SPEAKER_05 1:58

Oh, he was great. He was uh he was a fun uh host. You could tell he had done some research, and one of my favorite things is I think several times we were all both like, yep, I got that note. Yep, I got that note too. Yep, I got that note.

SPEAKER_02 2:13

So this week's viewer mail comes from Dan Campbell.

SPEAKER_05 2:17

Really?

SPEAKER_02 2:18

Yeah. Uh he mentions uh Charlie Varrick, one of his favorite movies from around 73. That one keeps getting brought up, so very possible that could be on.

SPEAKER_05 2:30

I think that's probably gonna be on the next Talking Math Alright.

SPEAKER_02 2:33

If not the next, it'd definitely a future installment of Talking Math Al, because there's just so many good ones to choose from, and probably bad ones as well.

SPEAKER_05 2:42

Yeah, well, we talked about it on and after that episode, and we're like, yeah, there's he's got enough filmography that we can easily do three or four of these talking math owls e and and and not even not even and it hit any bad movies. Yeah. Charlie, Charlie Varrick, Grumpy Old Men, Odd Couple, you know, you know, all these movies over and over again that he's been in. You know, you're not even anywhere near Roman Polanski's pirates, you know. See a love. See a love, cruising.

SPEAKER_02 3:13

Pirates, but see, I would want to do pirates because it's such we always pick the oddball in definitely one of the stranger films of the mid-80s was Roman Polanski's Pirates. No, Walter Math Howard's a pirate. It exists, people. It exists. That's true, that's true. I remember having a mild fascination with it at the time when it came out on videotape, but we're not gonna go into the full episode about pirates right now, namely because I would have to watch the movie again. I don't remember it. But no, it's episode 101. Yes. Talking Pondo. We had our great uh Talking Pondo with Jessica Stone last week, the episode 100 spectacular, where we talked about the ever wonderful, the ever talented Jessica Stone. The violent Christmas Fair episode, because we like to talk about some violent Santa movies every year.

SPEAKER_05 4:07

I've really I've fallen in love with that genre, and the more the better. And she brought us that crazy one. Oh, yeah, rare exports. Yeah, and and it turns out that you know it's that it's that father-son with that same director, and you know, they end up doing Sisu together, and now there's a Sisu 2 coming out. It's insane.

SPEAKER_02 4:29

But yeah, we have uh two New Year's movies, I guess is pretty much in so much as a movie can be a New Year's film. We have Sunset Boulevard and we have the Hudsucker proxy.

SPEAKER_05 4:42

So both with scenes that happen on New Year's quite a bit.

SPEAKER_02 4:49

Which one do you want to start with?

SPEAKER_05 4:52

Um let's do the let's do let's do the Hudsucker proxy. Why not? Okay, get the Cohen Brothers going here. Little Deacons, little Cohen Brothers. Sit back and listen to some smooth movie jazz.

SPEAKER_02 5:12

So we uh have one movie that's actually from the 50s and another movie that's pretending to be the 50s because it's a movie set in the 50s. But this movie, what is this movie that I mistakenly remembered as being set in the 30s? Wrong. It's set in 1958. What is the Hudsucker Proxy? Going into 1959. The Hudsucker Proxy.

SPEAKER_05 5:38

Um okay, so the Hudsucker Proxy. 1994, rate of PG, one hour fifty-one minutes. Here's your log line. A native business graduate is installed as president of a manufacturing company as part of a stock scam. This is a Joel and Ethan Cohen classic, uh, written by Joel and Ethan Cohen and Sam Raimi. Stars Tim Roberts, Jennifer Jason Lee, Paul Newman, and a host of others, because that's just what the Cohen brothers do, is they work with top people. Um Storyline. When wearing Hodsucker When Waring Hudsucker, head of hugely successful Hudsucker Industries, commits suicide, his board of directors, led by Sidney Muskberger, comes up with a brilliant plan to make a lot of money. A point a moron to run the company. When the stock falls low enough, Sydney and his friends can buy it up for pennies on the dollar, take the company over, and restore it to its high fortunes. They choose idealistic Norville Barnes, who just started in the mailroom. Norville is wacky enough to drive any company to ruin, but soon tough reporter Amy Archer smells a rat and begins an undercover investigation of Hudsucker Industries. Is that what happens in that movie?

SPEAKER_02 6:45

Yeah, now that I've watched it with the closed captions on, I can say yes.

SPEAKER_05 6:56

Um, okay, so HUD Sucker Proxy.

SPEAKER_02 7:02

That was a log line in the synopsis. That was a log line in the synopsis.

SPEAKER_05 7:05

Um so first off, it starts with a narration.

SPEAKER_02 7:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 7:10

And all I can hear due to other events that have gone on is old Pondo was a virgin. That's all I can hear.

SPEAKER_02 7:19

Oh well, just all I can say is uh stay tuned on that one. Okay, alright. Which is funny because you know, we've we've had some uh Peter Deming cross between the party animal and some Pramey flicks. This one's a Roger Deacons. Roger Deacons, yeah, yep. But he worked with the Cohen Brothers quite a bit in their early movies. This is the fifth Cohen Brothers film, strangely enough. But that narrator at the beginning. Yeah, that's Bill Cobbs. And we've seen him a couple times. He was in Demolition Man, and he was also in the taking of Telem 123.

SPEAKER_05 8:00

Yep. It's that voice. You can tell him right right away by that voice.

SPEAKER_02 8:04

It's uh he plays Moses in this movie, the one of the people, the clock service guy.

SPEAKER_05 8:12

I think he's father time. I think I think even in the uh well, not the mythology, but in the um oh Christ, symbolism of the film. Uh I think he was meant to represent Father Time. And I think that old ball dude is meant to represent death, right? Which is why the two of them are fighting and why he stops time and they get into it and all that type of shit, you know. Because he's stopping him from getting his kill.

SPEAKER_02 8:38

You're good versus evil.

SPEAKER_05 8:40

Yeah. Well, your your kind of classic, like playing chess against death type of thing. You know what I mean? The uh classic, what is that? Bergman? Bergmar Bergman.

unknown 8:52

Anyway.

SPEAKER_02 8:53

So it's a movie about a a guy that goes all the way up only to fall all the way down and not quite squish himself. Right. And this time I was watching it uh because uh to preface a few years ago, I watched all the Cohen Brothers movies and all their etc. films, you know, even romance and cigarettes, the John Taturo movie that they helped produce, you know, like everything. It was like 27 movies or some shit. Wow. And so going back to this one, uh you start to see shades of some of their other work. Like, you know, he there's a scene where he's being getting getting shaved at the barbers, and I'm like, oh yeah, the man who wasn't there, you know, but they haven't made that movie yet, you know, how they like to do themes. But really, this one struck me as well, do you remember the movie Crime Wave? Sure. It's Sam Raimi's second movie, yeah. And it's the other movie he wrote with the Cohen brothers.

unknown 9:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:53

Because after Evil Dead was made, Joel Cohen was an assistant editor on Evil Dead, and he was like, Well shit, I can make a movie, and they were like, Yeah, you can. And so then they co-wrote uh Crime Wave with Sam Raimi. And uh there's even mentions of Hudsucker in that movie. Oh, that's cool. And it's got kind of like the feel of this one in a way, but it's just a train wreck because it's a notorious, you know, everything went wrong, over budget, uh, sure, sure. Editing taken away from them. And I'm like looking at this now, the Hudsucker proxy, and thinking, huh, in a way, this is kind of like a response to what happened to them making crime wave together. Like, first of all, we're gonna redo what we were trying to do here and do it well and be able to do it the way that we wanted to do it, freely without interference, right? And we did rise up quickly when we fell fucking hard with that movie, but we came back fucking strong. Nobody even talks about Crime Wave anymore. You go Evil Dead, Evil Dead 2. Well, there was that other movie in the middle. No, that's very true. That's very true. It kind of ties into like the Dark Man and all like when we were talking about Dark Man and the early Raimi stuff. This one kind of comes right at the tail end of that early vibe of both the Cohen's and Raimi of the a lot more quirky movies. But boy, do they do a good job of war of building a world that doesn't exist, I should say, in this. Raimi shoots all the second unit stuff. Yeah, I noticed that. Isn't that interesting?

SPEAKER_05 11:36

So he's the second unit director in this. And so, and that second unit stuff is gonna be, you know, those those montages of everything getting made, that's all second unit. That's all second unit. Um, you know, you can you can see his style in some of that too, those friggin' Dutch angles, you know, and and uh I it it and it seems to match what the Cohen brothers are doing and what Deacon's doing too. And I think it looks great, you know, and and I mean what Deacon's shooting is just fucking fantastic to even look at. It's it's just that the man, especially when playing with the Cohen brothers who want to do that thing where they like put put these weird-looking people on camera, flatten the fucking lens, exaggerate the features, get close in, you know, the that one where he Norval's trapped between those two big ladies and they're talking like this. And have you ever been to the Hapdams? You know, and it's just like, oh my god, wow, okay. Um the film is like a giant uh frenetic cartoon, in a way. You know, like the minute Jennifer Jason Lee comes on screen, she's a fucking verbal machine gun. She's just gonna call I absolutely the captions helped. I put them on, I remembered that and went, I gotta put the captions on. And but I really admire her her like I mean, it's like when when we were talking to Deborah Foreman and I asked about my chauffeur and said, Did you that rapid pace, that fucking that kind of thin man thought it was older? Yeah, it's that thin man sort of uh 1940s dame and maul and and and tough guy type of back and forth, you know, kind of rec-a, come on, doll, you know, all that type of stuff. And she's just hammering it for I mean, pages and pages of dialogue where you there's a scene where she talks non-stop. I it's I think it's early on when she's first kind of charming Norval and he's taking her out and all that shit, where she talks for like three or four minutes, maybe five, just not I I mean, I'm not even sure she breathes. It's insane.

SPEAKER_02 13:50

It's just holy mother of God. This whole movie's full of this these crazy set pieces like that. The one of the best examples is early on with the and you fuck up and they'll dock you. They'll dock you. And it's like you're walking down that long hill, and it's just it's so absurd and just it's out there.

SPEAKER_05 14:09

You punch in at 8 30 every morning, except you're punching at 7 30 following a business day, unless it's a Monday, then you punch in at 8 o'clock, punch in late, and they dock you. You know, you're just like, good God. And that goes on for what a minute? Oh yeah, they just really you live in it like it's uh like it's an uh the wrong colored voucher and they dock you. Yes. Yes. Oh, I love the and the the all the questions when he presents the hula hoop, all those inane questions. What if you tire before it's done? Does it have rules? Can more than one play? What makes you think it's a game? Is it a game?

SPEAKER_02 14:45

Will it break you know what if you tire before it's done? They throw that one back in again.

SPEAKER_05 14:50

Is there a larger model for the obese? Is that a boys' model?

SPEAKER_02 14:54

It's all speeches and set pieces. Yeah, big time. Big time. Yeah, don't look for a whole lot of like deep plot or anything. They're going for just a lot of style and inspirations from other movies and kind of a wonder.

SPEAKER_05 15:10

You know, if it you know what, you know what it also it feels like? It feels very um Preston Sturgis. Oh, yeah. I mean, it feels very Preston Sturgeon and and uh I mean I uh I really adore this movie. I think it's really fun and cool. I I also think it's kind of clunky and it's got its problems. Oh, of course. Yeah, it's still early on, yeah. But it's a big it's a big swing for them, you know what I mean? And like later on they would do this again and it would be called the big Lebowski.

SPEAKER_02 15:42

Yeah, that was like shh, was that the no that they did Fargo after this, then Lebowski. So it was all ramping up to you. Notice how they had that dream sequence in this one, the gazelle thing, and then this is what I'm talking about mirrors the what's coming up in the yeah, that's what's interesting about watching all their movies in a row. Yeah, yeah. You see that stuff.

SPEAKER_05 16:03

Well, you mentioned earlier you were talking about that, those themes that you had seen throughout the films, and I think that's like you said, that's one of them. And it's um it but again, Lebowski kind of like this didn't do well in the theaters, but found its audience later. I think Hudsucker kind of found its audience. People who like the Cohen Brothers in particular like this movie. This is a this is a sharp movie for them, and I think it's just but only Lebowski kind of pulled it off and did it in a way where not only found its audience, but if it's like Rocky Horror Picture Show where it found a a massive audience, you know, critics were completely wrong about it, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_02 16:39

They did a a sharper version of themselves, but that's what most you know artists do. It seems like, oh, you're doing the same thing over and over again. No, I'm doing a better version. I'm trying to get a sharper rendition.

SPEAKER_05 16:54

Yeah, yeah. The H over the Snow in the beginning of the of the film that that kind of screams citizen Kane to me.

SPEAKER_02 17:03

I mean, seeing this in the theater the day it came out, yeah, only knowing it was a movie that Raimi wrote with the Cohen brothers from the back of a Fangoria interview, not knowing a thing about what the movie is, taking friends to go see it, and then you just get assaulted by you know that, and that big H in the beginning and sitting up in the front row and being a lot more baked than I realized I was, and with everybody talking real fast, but yet you still can follow the story, but uh it like Lebowski it it rewards upon repeat viewings because once you know the base story, you can start to appreciate all the intricacies that make the story.

SPEAKER_05 17:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:47

Much like Bart and Fink, their film before this, which has a lot of that hallway stuff that they get more to this, that by the time you're getting to Fargo and Lebowski, it seems like it's just this golden time with deacons they were writing right there. Yeah, I agree. Not to mention no brother and then go off into the whole other decade at that point. Well, you can see this as one of their jewels, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 18:11

Yeah, you can really see them kind of playing with space and making things big and small and uh again with deacons and shooting and you know all that type of stuff.

SPEAKER_02 18:21

And um They have a thing for weird faces, don't they?

SPEAKER_05 18:26

Or just in general, they they really do. Um that's what I that's what I mentioned earlier, is like you you put these weird faces on camera that alone, but then you flatten them out with these lenses and you get up close and it just it exact like the dude who plays the the elevator guy, right? Yeah, first time you met the case. It reminds me of that crank caller we used to. Hey buddy, yeah, the crank caller on that we used to hear on the show all the time. Drive poor Jeremy crazy. Hey, buddy. Yeah, it reminds me of of that guy because the first time you meet him, he sticks his head out the elevator door and right into the camera lens, and it's hey buddy, and his nose, his features look so exaggerated. It's almost like a cartoon. Yeah. That that must-have experience. I love that one of my favorite sequences is the the uh the hula hoop sequence where they put the hula hoops into production and it goes into the store and it you know gets marked down, and then it it they he throws them out and rolls down to that one kid, and that one kid figures out what's like, oh, I understand what this is, starts doing it, and then all the other kids, which I love, come are screaming in a pack and come because they're the lemmings and come rushing down and see them, and they're all just like and the next thing you know, hula hoops are everywhere, and it's that they really nail that, and because everybody growing up at one point has had the must-have experience where you've seen something as a kid where you're like, I I absolutely have to have that. And if I have to pester my parents or do whatever I have to do to get it, I I need that, I have to have it, whatever it is, you know. Uh, and sometimes it's you know a piece of candy, and then other times it's you know a Walkman or you know, a TIE fighter or whatever the hell it is, you know, as a kid that you want.

SPEAKER_02 20:09

But that's uh but they I felt that like they captured that really well on film. That scene's really reminiscent of things like the red balloon or even the Tati, a little bit. Yeah, yeah, that's a good call. If it got free, and it's gonna, of course, it's gonna you know circle that kid like kid, like I'm nudging you, and it's like, well, of course a kid's gonna know what to do with this. You know, and that's what it needed to happen. You can't just sit in the well, of course, not selling, nobody knows what it is, nobody's seen it before. But when that first kid has the contact with it, like he said, you know, for kids. That's it. That's it. And this isn't the real story of how the hoop was invented.

SPEAKER_05 20:54

Of course not. It's just a fun, it's but it's a really fun, especially because he in the movie at the beginning, you know, and of course there's the circle over the ad, right? You get the coffee stain circle over the ad. They do. And then later he pulls the circle out of his shoe and shows it to the guy, and it's like you know, for kids, and everybody is like, this guy's an idiot. And then it, of course, even Buzz later shows him a circle and it's a straw.

SPEAKER_04 21:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 21:21

Right. And so the circle is just, you know, it it's this kind of brilliant thing where because every time you look at it, you go, What the hell? And then you realize, oh, it's a straw. Oh, it's a you know, this, oh, it's a that. Okay, it's a hula hoop, that makes sense. You reinvented the wheel, kid. Yeah, I love it. That's this whole movie. It's like I said, it's just it's a collection of of supporting actors with weird faces.

SPEAKER_02 21:45

Yeah, world building. But yeah.

SPEAKER_05 21:47

It completely. The the steel balls clicking together during that Newman scene adds so much tension to that scene every time because it they just they I think they kind of keep slightly Increasing the volume of it too as they clack, you know. Uh and when he screams, wait a minute, they just stop, which is so great. I love that. But the bit after with Newman on the phone and the bumpstead contracts and the single stitch and the double stitch, it goes on and on and on. Where it's like this is this is where they're kind of needing to learn. You know, they're still kind of getting it. Because they don't do this in Fargo or in they don't do this in the Big Lebowski.

SPEAKER_02 22:28

They wean out of it here. It's like the last of the crime wave stuff. But see, those movies aren't co-written by Sam either. Right. Right. So you're losing a little bit more of the three stooges.

SPEAKER_05 22:39

Kind of like Sam's three stooges, Buster Keaton stuff, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 22:43

So when we do eventually get the crime wave at some point, it'll be like, what if Sam Raimi directed the Hudsucker proxy? It's like who handled that type of quirky material a little better. A few years later, they're like, let's redeem ourselves and do it this way instead.

SPEAKER_05 23:01

And then the laughing montage is insane. You know, that laughing montage is insane.

unknown 23:07

Oh.

SPEAKER_05 23:08

But it's also but it's also so cohen that I I I can't help but kind of love it. Yeah. You know, uh, I got gas, Benny.

SPEAKER_02 23:18

It's those, like I'm saying, it's these set pieces like that. We're just gonna have the narration of the two guys at the diner.

SPEAKER_03 23:26

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_02 23:27

She is, and they you know. That stuff didn't seem to play really well in the theater. I remember Duncan liked it so much he went back and saw it at least one more time. Nice.

SPEAKER_00 23:40

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 23:41

And yeah, we just did we didn't know what the hell it was gonna be. I'm like, well, I know Bruce Campbell's in it somewhere, you know. And then uh dude from uh Frasier, he was in Barton Fink, so it makes sense they're carrying over.

SPEAKER_05 23:54

Yeah, Dan Mahoney shows up in this thing, and I was just like, hey, it's the dad from Fraser, and he's got that great gravelly voice, and I have to say he's a good foil to Jennifer Jason Lee, where they're barking at each other and hollering back and forth, and that's a lot of fun. You know, it's a lot of good again. You gotta kind of watch the there, it goes so fast, you gotta watch the subtitles to really catch it and catch the funny stuff at times. Right. But she's a machine with that, with that, that dialogue. The quality of her performance is excellent, and that it's almost annoying, the exagger exaggerated.

SPEAKER_02 24:31

Oh, I've known it to drive some people crazy.

SPEAKER_05 24:34

Noir, yeah, delivery. But there's a point to it. You know, she's trying to be that career lady, you know, hard-driven, tough. She's trying to be one of the guys, you know, and be that tough talking, you know. And it's also, I guess, the kind of a style of film, too, that that the Cohn brothers are putting on there, maybe. I don't know, but it's it's definitely different than most of the other characters. It's it seems to be everybody from the paper. You know what I mean? Yeah. You know, except Bruce Campbell kind of he does it, but he talks slower. Yeah. But he's still got the same sort of like that city draw. I don't know. I'm going on and on about this, but yeah.

SPEAKER_02 25:10

So it's Victanata, ladies and gentlemen. Oh yeah, Blinkin You'll Miss Peter Gallagher. That's right. Uh this there's a scene where there's silhouettes and they're trying to figure out what to call the dingus. Well, if you listen closely, you can hear it. That's Bruce Campbell and Sam Raimi arguing about what to call it. Oh, that's great. The daddy okay. Oh, it's totally them. And also, they're the silhouettes as well, and also John Cameron is one of the silhouettes who's also their fellow filmmaker who's been working with them since Evil Dead, and he's got some B credits as well. So it's just like a way of cramming everybody who's known each other into the film. But if you watch it again, you get to that silhouette part, you'll totally hear both of them, you know, yucking it up right there.

SPEAKER_05 26:10

I think Tim Robbins was an excellent choice uh for this role. He he uh I'm not sure what this is '94. So in 86 or 87, he played Nuke Lelouche in Bull Durham. And he plays kind of a naive seven, I think, right. Yeah, he plays a naive pitcher, right? A young, naive, talented pitcher who kind of has a catcher kind of walk him through, grow him up, basically, into a man type of thing, along with the help of this woman. But he he plays a good like a kind of a rube, I guess, or a an innocent or a or maybe just a naivete quality to his acting that I really thought was effective. You know. His Norval is lovable, but he's just he's just kind of clueless, you know what I mean? Right. At least to the machinations of what's going on around him.

SPEAKER_02 27:12

I like how we installed plexiglass.

SPEAKER_05 27:16

Yeah, plexiglass. Had it installed last week. Yeah. We fade to white with that weird dance sequence. Yeah. You know, that fade to white weird dance sequence is really strange.

SPEAKER_02 27:28

It was really strange. Echoes of what's to come and bowling montage and the scissors, and and then they don't really do those montages anymore, right? It's just those two movies, I think, have those odd Cohen montages, and then they've moved on to full-on musical sequences and Oh Brother.

SPEAKER_05 27:54

Yeah, did they do one in Raising Arizona?

SPEAKER_02 27:57

Well, that would be before. That's their second movie. So it's just I feel like those things are relegated to their early work. The odd montage. Which is perfected with the Kenny Rogers one and Big Lebowski that just dropped in to see what condition my condition was in. And it's like, okay, we've we've figured out that montage now.

SPEAKER_05 28:20

Yeah, there's some interesting montages in this one. The laughing montage being one of them. Uh, I quite enjoy the making the hula hoops montage. I think that's really good. Um and then suddenly it's Buscemi.

SPEAKER_02 28:34

Oh, yeah, they can manage to find a spot for him in the movie. Martinis are for squares, man. And it's like, wow, this is years before inside Lewin Davis, they're already into the beat culture here.

SPEAKER_05 28:48

But in the end, it's its pacing is weird, and it's too long. Like it's just too long. It's it's too long. And and and again, it has those scenes like that Newman scene I talked about where Norval's trying to put the fire out and all that running around and the contracts. It just takes too damn long. And it's just too, it's like it's that kind of ridiculously long three stooges Buster Keaton S thing that you know eventually Raimi would figure out to a certain extent and put into some of his other movies, but it's just not firing right here. But I still chase it though. Chasing him down the street like he's Pondo Sinatra. That's ridiculous. And then suddenly it's magic, right? Like, that's the this is uh the one part of the film where it kind of this is where it kind of loses me, is like, okay, now it's magic, and this this guy, this guy can stop time, and this other dude and him are gonna fight over it because they want Norville to die, I guess, and it's like this is well, I guess it's been magic the whole time, right?

SPEAKER_02 29:54

Because he's been there, but you know, he's kind of like the Sam Elliott and Lebowski, isn't he? The the Yeah, I I feel like it's the narrator at the beginning. There was a man for his place, and it was Norville.

SPEAKER_05 30:06

Yeah, I feel like they're they're kind of both revealed to be sort of like fairy tales in a way, right? Like there's a mo there's a moment where the Cohen brothers go, Well, this isn't really based in reality.

SPEAKER_02 30:18

You know, but you could you can figure that out from the flipping thing with the job requirement stuff. Yeah, but to the element of like I know it does take it a little bit further, but it's what I mean. That nice sequence where he can just kind of roll out of the instead of getting crushed, it's like, no, they can't do this to you. That's why I was saying it's like it reminds me of the crime wave fiasco, like no, just go make Evil Dead 2 and get your career going again. Okay.

SPEAKER_05 30:50

I mean, I like and I I like it as a device. I just think like yeah, I know. It's part of the clunkiness. It's a it's a weird, yeah, it's it just makes it an even, you know, the movie's weird enough as it is already. But I I I enjoy this one, I think it's a good film.

SPEAKER_02 31:08

Which brings us to the fact of why this is a New Year's movie. Haha, see you thought I was almost done talking about it. But no, we haven't mentioned why this is a New Year's movie. Well, this it takes place uh in well, a large part of it takes place on New Year's Eve towards the end. That's what the part we're talking about where the clock gets stopped right before the stroke the stroke of midnight. So New Year's does play uh a role. Okay. And so that leads us to our second movie where you can have a really depressing New Year's, the kind that I always like, like watching depressing movies on Christmas, where if you sync this movie up just in time, you can ring in the New Year right after somebody is recovering from trying to kill themselves. What is Sunset Boulevard? Um, well, before that, I'd have we got to give our ratings for the film. I forgot.

SPEAKER_05 32:07

We got to give our ratings and subfranchising. I wanted to I wanted to have a quick quote about subfranchising. Don't talk to me about subfranchising. We're making so much money in subfranchising, it isn't even funny. It's one of my favorite lines, throwaway lines from that film.

SPEAKER_02 32:19

It is funny because both movies have such much discussion about finances and and business that I'm like, I can really relate to it over this last week with all the numbers I've been crunching.

SPEAKER_00 32:29

So same, same.

SPEAKER_02 32:30

Well, look, I've got a loan to the bank to the loan, and I'm paying off the yeah, I'll pay a motherfucker.

SPEAKER_05 32:36

So I can get this so I can pay off my life shirt, so I can take out a thing on that. Yeah, okay, fine. Just say no. So yeah, um, I I I like this movie. Again, I I it for me it ends up being too long, but I like what it's doing and I like how it looks. Um I think it's kind of a weird early classic for the Coens. Uh, I'm gonna go like three and a half stars, almost four. Yeah. I don't think it's four stars, but I think it's up there.

SPEAKER_02 33:06

Yeah. It's really weird and good. Yeah, I'm going four. I like its swings. I know what you said, but it came along at a really good time too. This came out when it was like 19, and it was it was still in film school, and it was kind of like the perfect thing to come along. Like you can you can go outside the box kind of.

SPEAKER_05 33:31

No, I know what you mean.

SPEAKER_02 33:32

It's a trip to think back to these early Cohen Brothers movies because we saw Miller's Crossing in the theater when it was new, and that's like their third movie, so it was like they were still like this new kind of thing.

SPEAKER_05 33:47

I remember I remember walking out of Miller's Crossing and being completely blown away by Tutturo and by the scene in the woods, the begging scene in the woods. Yeah, of course. And just being like, What this is is like a this was like a gangster movie, but a completely different type of gangster movie I'd never seen before. And that's when I started really following, and I think that was they'd done Raising Arizona right before or right after. And I had really enjoyed that, and I was like, I'm gonna start watching these guys, and they're their movie style has always been so weirdly hit or miss. Like, but you can always tell it's them. Yeah, they're one of those filmmakers that just like you put it on, you go, that's Cow Brothers.

SPEAKER_00 34:26

You know.

SPEAKER_02 34:27

And to think I went to Miller's Crossing because I knew Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell were hidden somewhere in the movie. Much like Maniac Cop, but I don't know if we're gonna cover that one. Uh never say never. So that does move us to Sunset Boulevard. We do need more Tom Atkins on the show, so thrill me with Sunset Boulevard.

SPEAKER_05 34:52

Uh more Tom Atkins on the show. Okay, Sunset Boulevard. Um, original title, Sunset Boulevard. Thank you, IMDB. Uh 1950, approved. One hour fifty minutes. No ratings back then, folks. Log line: a screenwriter develops a dangerous relationship with a faded film star determined to make a triumphant return. This is directed by the great Billy Wilder, written by Charles Brackett, Billy Wilder, D.M. Martian, Jr., stars William Holden, Gloria Swanson, Eric von Stroheim. Uh, let's see, storyline.

SPEAKER_02 35:28

The man you love to hate was the Jim Morrison quote about Eric von Stroheim.

SPEAKER_05 35:35

Desperate for cash, screenwriter Joe Gillis has a chance meeting with a faded silent film star. Norma Desmond lives in her crumbling Sunset Boulevard mansion with only her butler to keep her company. She has become a sad, demented recluse, convinced that the outside world is clamoring for her dramatic return. Enticing him with the prospect of scr uh enticing him with the prospect of script work, she puts him up in her mansion and he becomes even more involved and entangled in her life.

SPEAKER_02 36:04

So we talk about like being on the cusp of one decade or the other, and so this is 1950, right on the freaking nose. So in a way, it's still got a lot of 40s elements to it. It's such a trip to look back at this movie and realize that the film business had been going strong for what 30 some years at this point, so it could be meta on itself and start turning out movies like this that were not completely cynical, but more of a reflection on you know life in Hollywood before anybody even knew what it was to be a star and crash and burn, because they were the first ones to ever do that before movies existed, kind of, you know.

SPEAKER_05 36:46

I've I feel like the this movie in particular has echoed out throughout the decades into other movies. Oh yeah. It is just I mean, just one of those movies that people keep referencing or echoing over and over and over. I just see it all the time. And not that that's a bad thing, but this movie did it in a way that was amazing. Um so that's our second, so both our pictures, by the way, start with narrators. They do. Mm-hmm. And this is our second William Holden film.

SPEAKER_02 37:24

At least. Our third. Yeah, because we did SOB as well, which has echoes of this film in it.

SPEAKER_05 37:30

That's true. And Stalog. So two William Holden films that have narration in them that we've done too.

SPEAKER_02 37:36

And two Billy Wilder films, because Stallock 17 he'd do three years after. And now, having watched that one and revisited this, I have more of a feel for that director, and I enjoyed this movie more this time because I kind of knew what to feel from it.

SPEAKER_05 37:53

Yeah, good, good. I um I saw this on the big screen about six months ago, and I had seen it long time ago, I think in the 90s, on on a you know, small television some point. And I just I don't I wasn't paying attention, I guess. But I went to see it in the theater and was just kind of blown away by it. Like it's really, especially on a big screen where everything's big, and you've got this Gloria Swanson's face and these these massive facial pulls that she's pulling off and those big frickin' eyes, and she's she's so intensely insane on screen at that height that you're just like, Jesus, this woman. Like I I I remember looking turning and looking at my wife with just this big smile on my face at her performance, thinking, like, she's just going for it. Like she is just completely going for nuts, and it's awesome. Like it's just awesome to watch. She's fucking crazy.

SPEAKER_02 38:51

So much like I theorized Stalog 17 was responsible for the sex comedy ultimately, because you'd get Animal House after Stalog 17 in a way, there's like a direct line, and you go back to this one and you realize, wow, Billy Wilder helped launch another genre as well. Because Sunset Boulevard is the basis for every Skinemax movie ever made. Oh, yeah. Of what would turn into the erotic thriller. Let's see, you're hooking up with the older woman because she's got the money, and then you hook up with the younger woman, and then you end up dead. How many times have we seen that? That's what I'm talking about in a few years' time, just genre creation or bending, you know. I'm sure other movies lent to that too, but I feel like since this one echoes so much, yeah, and it's not that type of movie, but it helped create that type of movie, I think.

SPEAKER_05 39:54

Well, and and look, I mean Gloria in the film is completely aw, I mean, she may be crazy, but she also knows how to spin this guy out and keep him string strung along. She knows exactly what she's doing when she when she lets his car get repossessed, when she gets all of his stuff out of his apartment and he doesn't live there anymore. Now she's completely now he's completely dependent upon her, which is exactly what she wants. You know, she threatens to kill herself, cuts her wrist. She knows, I mean, this is deeply, deeply psychotic, obsessive, compulsive, fucking uh um uh yeah, what would it say? Like a codependent. This is where you get fatal attraction. This is where you get the secretary and these other type of movies, you know, and uh these these you know I think they even split into these like you know, killer best girlfriend type of movies over you know, poison ivy, shit like that. Um, this I think I feel like a lot of this comes from this, and it's such an important film, and and and fuck if it's not a it just looks great. It's so well done. The acting's just fantastic. I love how creepy it is. It's creepy as hell, and I love how they explain. Like, he even says at one point, like the wind would come through the house and it would creep through the pipe organs that were in the house that the dude plays, and so at times in the movie you just hear the pipe organs groaning or you hear him playing them, and it's just like this weird gothic creepy aspect to it at the same time.

SPEAKER_02 41:27

It's it's also very funny, though. Oh, it's hilarious. It's constantly poking fun at the business. Absolutely, which is why this pairs well with SOB with another William Holden where it's like, yeah, that makes sense like in that movie because he's dude from this movie, you know.

SPEAKER_05 41:45

Yeah, yeah, he yeah, that I I I do like how much they they poke fun at the business. Uh Jack Webb is in this. Oh, yeah. Yeah. You almost don't recognize him. I love how the girl talks about being, you know, she was gonna be an actress and they didn't like her nose, and so she went and spent$300 to get her nose fixed, and they decide that they didn't like her as an actress.

SPEAKER_02 42:06

Right? How many movies are talking about that in 1950? Yeah, exactly. What it's doing, groundbreaking alone.

unknown 42:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 42:14

Has the same ending as Menace to Society. I'm a narrator and I'm dead. Yep.

SPEAKER_05 42:22

Well, it starts with that great shot of Holden floating dead in the water, and and it looks so great. It immediately reminds me of Knight of the Hunter in a way. That shot of Shelly in the water and and and that that iconic shot. Um it's really great. And I I like Betty Schaefer, I like the girl, she's smart, she's pretty, she's fighting for lives.

SPEAKER_02 42:45

She is 97. Oh, really? That's awesome. Isn't that wild? Because I saw a movie that's 75 years old. I was like, oh, is anybody still around? No, she's still here. She's still here. Wow, that's amazing.

SPEAKER_05 42:57

Now wait a minute. If we made it a girls' softball team, put in a few numbers, it might make a nice musical. It happened in the bullpen.

SPEAKER_02 43:04

Yeah, that's all that's all my favorite stuff of the movie, is that that stuff. It's much like when I watched it the first time, I had some of the same issues with it this time. It's much like our other movie. It's a little too long, I think.

SPEAKER_04 43:18

It is a little clunkier in it.

SPEAKER_02 43:21

And this one, it kind of loses its way about two-thirds in because it's top heavy. That first part is so sharp and so funny and awesome that kind of about oh two-thirds in or so. I'm kind of like, okay, we're an hour and 20 minutes in, this should be ending. But instead, we have to go more with him with the young woman, and then the suicide, and then the I'm gonna shoot you because you and then I'm like I'm like, I still enjoy it, but that's the part where I'm kind of like Well, you need Okay, you know, I know you need it, but Yeah, you need him to fall in love with the girl, so she shows up and and begs him to leave, and he

SPEAKER_05 44:00

Breaks that he in it's the only good thing he does in the whole movie because he's very selfish. He understands what he's doing to a certain extent, right? But like when he when he figures out that she's in love with him and that she's left this guy and he's like, I'm a piece of shit. This is ridiculous, and kind of spurns her to make her go away, right? So that it's kind of the only worthwhile thing the dude does, you know, because he's taking this old woman's money and every other thing, and then finally at the end, he's like, you know what? All right, I'm just gonna I'm gonna leave. Like, I'm just gonna, I'm gonna, you know, take my original clothes and get the fuck out of here. Here's all this shit you gave me.

SPEAKER_02 44:36

Turns into Bequest at that point, yeah. Uh I looked up everybody's age, the actors, just to kind of get an idea. And so uh she's about uh Gloria Swanson, she's she's 18 years older than uh William Holden, and William Holden is about I think 11 years older than the other woman, so he's really right in between these different age groups, and it's it's funny because it's like you know, I watched this movie maybe a decade ago, and then you get a little older and you watch again, and then it's like, yeah, so the whoever wrote this really understood a lot about uh life. And it's well before a a lot of movies were doing material like this. I think it's why it sticks around. But also like that other one you mentioned, the uh you know, the Robert Mitchum movie, Night of the Hunter. I feel like it's it's been dissolved into the mixture of pop culture for so many years that I do appreciate it, but it I'm not like I liked it more this time, but I'm still not completely overly wild. But I really do like that first two-thirds of it a lot. That's the real sharp, you know, and they're just going back and forth in the writing, and then even the early part with her and the script, and and then once it starts to turn in like oh, you're hooking up with her, it's like, well, you know, this is not gonna fucking end well, but I guess we're gonna end the movie somehow. Yeah, he and it's it's gonna be a happy ending, obviously.

SPEAKER_05 46:11

You know, it's when he decides to stay, and he's she she's guilted him into having a relationship and staying, and we and he starts to get more and more bitter, and we get we you know it's it's just it that's I get it. That that part can probably start to lag a bit, but I uh to me it's still especially on a big screen, it plays so well, it's also shot so well.

SPEAKER_02 46:34

It looks like HD was better than the ratty DVD I watched, yeah. Nice, good, good, good. This is why cons are important because people can get secondary income for being a film star or whatnot from 20 or 30 years ago. They didn't have that in the 50s, and so you see what happens.

SPEAKER_05 46:57

I I love that there's a lot all kinds of lines in this movie, like you mentioned. I am big, it's the pictures that got smaller, is a is one of my favorite lines. Right.

SPEAKER_02 47:06

You know right away what her ego is. Yep. I talked to a couple of her, calm down, just just calm down. Get this lady a pre-roll or something. She's taking all this way too seriously. And then I love like as soon as she gets she thinks she's getting her foot back in the door. Now remember, I don't work before this time, or after this is why. This is why you're not working. Well difficult to work with. Yeah, true, but it's also it's also gonna have five cars from somewhere else before we rent her car.

SPEAKER_05 47:40

But I I think it's also like you when you start to learn that that the butler has A, her ex-husband.

SPEAKER_02 47:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 47:48

And B has basically been supporting this. She lives in a in a world that's not real. She lives in this world where she's where people are still dying for her to come back, and and it turns out that it's just him writing these same letters to her to keep her thinking that you know she's actually still relevant because relevancy is the only thing that matters to her. You know, fame is the only thing that matters to her. Being famous is the only thing that matters to her. You know, she's because she's she talks about like, I've got a million dollars, I've got land, oil, what do you want? You know, it's that doesn't matter. What matters to her is that people want her again.

SPEAKER_02 48:25

And yet she's not willing to do the work. I don't work before this time, and I don't work after. Oh God, here we go with this diva shit. Well, she's still a star.

SPEAKER_05 48:35

She's still a star. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 48:37

Right. I do like as soon as they put the light on her, everybody goes right over.

SPEAKER_05 48:42

Right over to her. And I and I'll say this about that scene too. Uh, one of the things I really love about that scene more than anything is that A, they don't treat her like she's some sort of crazy and try to duck her. Cecil B. DeMille's like, no, that that woman built Paramount Studios. Like, you treat her with respect. She's, you know, and then even when they put the light on her and people are like, hey, it's a they they're happy to see her, which weirdly sort of reinforces this terrible world that she's living in, this perception of the world that she's living in that isn't real, right? It's uh it's it's great. I also love how they put those the words in William Holden's mouth of saying things that like women in these movies would have said, and in particular, what right do you have to take me for granted? You know, and I'm just like, oh, that's a I love that he had to say that line, and she's the one that's kind of good, the power dynamic is up is flip-flopped there. I like I love that. Yeah. You know, and this is and look, I'll be crude just for a moment, but this movie is literally in 19, what is it, 1950? 1950, Hollywood screaming it at people, don't stick your dick in crazy women. The only thing that can happen is one of you's gonna die.

SPEAKER_02 49:56

I told you it's the basis for every Scanamax movie ever made. They just took it further to a further extreme. Because you know the moment, it's like, why are you hooking up with her? That's the part where you get to kick in your new year if you time this movie correctly. So now you understand what I'm talking about, a really interesting way to start your year. True. You still have a couple days to do it by the time of this release.

SPEAKER_05 50:22

There's there's a moment in the film where he goes from employee to kept man. You know, and it's such a shift. Like you because you could tell, like they because they suddenly do this like transition, this dissolve, and suddenly he's you know, wearing the cigarette, got the cigarette case and the platinum gold lighter and the nice suit and you know, all this type of thing. And you know it's uh it's it's it's wild. And he begins to chafe at that, which is kind of funny and quick and crazy. But she's a controlling and needy, like it's it's amazing how much she manipulates him with her money and her fame and her promises and uh and just her insanity. She's fucking insane. Yeah, she's 50, he's 32, and she's like 22.

SPEAKER_02 51:14

I love Triangle.

SPEAKER_05 51:17

Well, and Gloria Swanson was actually, from what I read, she Hollywood had given up on her by 1950, and she was working in New York. I mean, she was in the silent film, she'd been working since 1915 or something like that. Wow. And and so she came back intrigued by the part and and took it, and it was probably one of her biggest parts she'll ever do.

SPEAKER_02 51:39

And and both of these actresses are in that airport 75 movie, I think, as well. Yes, they are, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 51:45

In fact, I think that's one of the last movies she ever did.

SPEAKER_02 51:49

Strangely enough, an SOB would be the last William Holden movie. Wow. So we have to talk about Gordon Cole. Uh Gordon Cole is David Lynch's character on Twin Peaks. Ah. Obviously named after the Gordon Cole from Paramount who wanted to rent their car. Right.

SPEAKER_05 52:17

Wow, that's a fun little piece of trivia there. That's one of my favorite things about looking back. Oh, and by the way, the fact that they got Cecil B. DeMille and Buster Keaton and H.B. Warner to be in this thing, it's like it is a very Max Eric von Stroheim, you know, it's a very cool, like you said, this very cool Hollywood film that it that feels very real. It almost feels like a real story about some Hollywood woman who tried to make a comeback and who was crazy and shot her lover.

SPEAKER_02 52:49

You know, it just got enough money, she's gonna be out of jail very soon. Sure. Sure. But she's also famous now, like she wanted to be all over again. It's natural born killers. There's so many movies that come from this.

SPEAKER_05 53:04

It's melodrama, but it still fits. It the the melodrama is organic to the film. She's an over-the-top washed-up film actress with money and a psychosis. Of course she's got to be melodramatic in the world. Yeah, nobody learns in this movie. No, it's yeah, I love and I love that ending. My you know, you get that famous, I'm ready for my close-up, Mr. DeMille, and and you know.

SPEAKER_02 53:25

And yeah, she's not acting that much different than she does for the most of the movie.

SPEAKER_05 53:29

So it's true, but but at by the end, she's completely like she's not even answering the cop. She's just looking at herself, yeah, and she's only listening to her butler. She's she's completely gone. She's it's pushed her over the edge into her own world. Like, you know.

SPEAKER_02 53:45

Yeah, what happens a couple days later when she comes to at the loony pen. Yeah, no telling. That's when it's like, you use that money. Let me start. What is the line? Now let me start writing my fucking book. There you go. Sunset Boulevard 2, Sunset Park. Where she then where she then teaches urban kids how to play basketball. There you go.

SPEAKER_05 54:13

No, no, she teaches them how to act, and they offset it. They they and they put on a play about their about their their things that they're overcoming and their feelings, and it gets the it gets the attention of the mayor. They start a program. Wow. I I love how she slowly transforms Holden into what she wants him to be. Like his resistance is futile, he's he's desperate and she knows how to kind of keep him on the hook. Like if she paid him, he'd go live in his apartment and pay his car off and be and be demanding to zip back and forth, right? So she keeps from paying him. She, you know, you want clothes? Let's go get you clothes. Here's clothes, you know. She even gives him money so she can so he can run to the store to get cigarettes. You know, it's it's like uh which he forgets. Yeah, which he forgets. But he's totally on the hook for her. It's it's great.

SPEAKER_02 55:04

Um he paid his bills in the first place, none of this would have happened. He wouldn't be running from the credit people and pulling into strange driveways.

SPEAKER_05 55:21

Yeah, I I I I I I the the only part of the film for me that's kind of weird is this idea that he just pulls up to this ratty old house and parks in their driveway, especially when there's another car in there. Um But he he explains it away pretty quickly, I guess, in the narration, and then the they they know he's there right away and they sort of address it. So I I don't I feel like it's it's it's smo it's a while it's a like a little bump in the road, it's it's not a very big one, and it's smoothed over pretty quickly.

SPEAKER_02 55:51

Um It turns out that uh he actually comes to after the credits, and then he s turns to the camera and says, Well, how else did you think I was narrating this thing? Obviously, I was still alive. See, I was in a state of shock as well after being shot three times. And then we all lived happily ever after. Because then the studio green lit her script at that point. It is kind of like SOB, right? Felix Farmer gets shot, and then his movie goes through the freaking roof, you know.

SPEAKER_05 56:25

Dear Diary, I met a rich old lady, but it turns out being a cat man isn't what it's cracked up to be. Plus, she won't pay me in cash, just clothing and cigarettes. Gotta go her creepy ass husband Butler wants to talk to me. Uh there's nothing tragic about being 50, not unless you try to be 25.

SPEAKER_02 56:45

Yeah, so you can even bring up the real age, too.

SPEAKER_05 56:48

That's um that is probably the most now statement that I think a lot of people out there could hear. I see a lot of grown-ass women in their 50s trying to be 25 and you need to knock it the fuck off.

SPEAKER_02 57:02

And the stigma 75 years ago of being 50, you they thought you were real. Yeah, there's nothing wrong with being 50.

SPEAKER_05 57:11

No blood in the pool.

SPEAKER_02 57:12

Uh I hate to think of how old that makes me. Right? Well, well, I mean, it's this is nothing wrong with being 50.

SPEAKER_05 57:19

Yeah, own your age, man, you know, and stop with the getting your face done, you know. Because if you do it, if if everybody stops doing it, everybody will then the directors will just have to deal with women who look like their age, and there's nothing wrong with that. Good lord.

SPEAKER_02 57:33

Commenting on this for 75 years. Yep.

unknown 57:37

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 57:39

Stars are ageless, aren't they? This is as old as Francis.

SPEAKER_05 57:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 57:45

Right, you could have seen both of these movies.

SPEAKER_05 57:47

You could have seen you could have seen a double feature and seen Francis with your kids and then and then made them sit through Sunset Boulevard where they're like, I don't understand what's going on.

SPEAKER_02 57:57

Why is he dead? I thought he was dead. No, he he's reincarnated as the donkey, you see.

SPEAKER_05 58:05

William Holden is Francis.

SPEAKER_02 58:07

Oh, heavenly Francis. That's why the donkey has such a bad attitude. Oh man, that's great. Don't give it to a another writer, they'll steal your work. And the readers know all the plots.

SPEAKER_05 58:27

Yeah, readers know all the plots. There's just some great dialogue, great back and forth in this film. I I I really again I really enjoyed it. Um And I think I I won't have any other notes. If you don't, what do you give it?

SPEAKER_02 58:42

I think it's it's the things that I like in Entourage are present in this. People are always like, that shows it, blah blah blah, but it's the it's it's that type of stuff. The commentary on the business. That's what I've always thought was the funniest. Uh like I said, I like it, but it's it's it's top heavy. And if it had been a modern movie that had been top heavy, I would have been all over it, right? For being like, oh, you shit the bed in the third act. But this movie's 75 years old, and it was very breakthrough, and it did a lot of things. So I give it a bit of a nudge for that. So objectively, I would probably say three, but for me, it's two and a half. Wow. Wow. Uh I'm gonna go the ending just falls apart.

SPEAKER_05 59:23

So I'm gonna go four. I don't I think the ending falls apart at all. I think it's brilliant. I'm gonna go four. But you know. Uh no, I just I just I see where you come from. I just but I'm gonna go four, and I'm probably gonna reserve during the review to go four and a half because I think it's I think it's brilliant. It's one of those films that's singular. You put it on and it's it's it's doing what it's done. If you've I've watched a lot of noir, and some of them are crap, and some of them are really good. And this is one of the really good ones. Well, one of the ones that everybody wants to r repeat, wants to do, and it's it's been referenced over and over again. It's spawned entire, like we've talked about entire themes of films, you know. Um, so yeah, four, probably probably leaning towards four and a half in a remote.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:10

Yeah, that's why I was struggled with giving it the three, you know. But then I was like, well, let's do the old Pondo uh uh talking pondo objectivity. There you go. But I did like it more than last time and probably rewards more on repeat feelings.

SPEAKER_05 1:00:31

Yeah, I I I uh for me that gets better the older I get. Like I said, I saw it my in the early 90s, and I didn't really think much of it. Saw it six months ago, and then I just saw it this I just saw it this week and thought, damn, it's it's still a great watch. It's an easy watch. The dialogue, the story is very easy to listen to, it's very fun to follow, and it looks great. Like I love that opening scene where we're just following the road down Sunset Boulevard, and then suddenly he's you know dead in the pool and we're right into it, you know. Love it.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:03

Yeah, for a full frame or a four by three movie, they really make it work. They do. They really do. It feels like it's widescreen almost. Well, what do you got for me next week? Next week. Uh your film next week is Hot Shots.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:20

Woohoo!

SPEAKER_02 1:01:23

Because uh for reasons. For reasons. Yeah. So I already know the movie you're giving me. Yeah. Yeah, Hot Shots and uh uh what was the other one? Well it was a movie that was given to us, I could say. Yes, that's right. They came together. That's right. That's next next time for our first show of 2026. Tune in, folks. That's gonna be a wacky one. Yeah. We got a lot more guests coming up next season. That's right. Smash like, subscribe.

SPEAKER_05 1:01:59

Share. Yep. We really appreciate it. The more people that listen, or at least the more people who know about it, uh, you know. Right. Better for the podcast, and the more crazy stuff that we could probably do.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:09

Five-star reviews, Apple Podcasts, all that fun stuff. That's right. Alright. Well, let's get out of here, man.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:18

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:19

Until next time. Let's skedaddle out here because uh Billy Wilder also directed Skidoo. Did he? He really did. That's hysterical. Where Groucho Marks takes LSD and plays a character named God. We might have to watch that.

SPEAKER_05 1:02:38

Yeah, we might have to watch that. I can see why. You got a quote you want to get out of here on?

SPEAKER_02 1:02:45

That was last year. This year I'm trying to earn a living.

SPEAKER_05 1:02:50

Facts, figures, those are the tools of the news trade. Not anymore. Alright. Talk to you, buddy. You know, fake news is a comment. For kids. Alright, we'll talk to you later.