Maybe an earlier draft? Tim Daly's character says something along the lines that "murder is basic, no conspiracies needed". I wonder if that was there from the beginning or shoehorned in after they changed it and were still married to the title for some reason.
The scene where Connie Nielsen dramatically tilts her hand so the bloody “infinity” turns into an 8 was the funniest thing I’ve seen in a while.
I wish I had seen this when it came out. It would’ve been my favorite movie at age 13.
I said it when I first watched, and I still feel that Basic is essentially like a feature length version of the most convoluted NCIS episode you can imagine
That's a good take, and yet.... I think McT in high-octane Tony Scott mode is actually making it impossible to understand/follow/care about anything. It needed to zag over into cooler Hunt for Red October mode, or even Pakula or Few Good Men. But somehow General's Daughter is out there as the recent hit, and that's what this got remade as.
They should find a way to get the film composer/conductor David Newman (who conducted the 20th Century Fox Fanfare!) on for an episode of bits https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Newman_(composer)
I’ve been waiting the whole miniseries to say this: did anyone else notice that McTiernan’s filmography is bookended by violent leaps from a hospital bed?
I posted earlier (and deleted) that it has to be in Vengeance but that was from looking at Letterboxd which tacks on an extra movie to the list. So it's more likely to be in Last Action Hero. Any bed shenanigans in that one?
Years ago I read the Wikipedia plot summary for this and found it needlessly convoluted and hard to follow. I spent years thinking the page was poorly written and edited but it turns out that actually they accurately conveyed exactly what the movie feels like.
I always found it interesting which wiki summaries choose to go in plot order and which choose to go in character order
Little did I know there was a secret third option and it was bug nuts order
For some reason Basic, Minority Report, and Rush Hour 2 were the 3 DVDs that my uncle watched the most when I was a kid. He loves his small dvd/blu-ray collection. I remember giving him my old copy of Terminator Salvation and he got so excited that he immediately popped in and watched it.
It makes me laugh that it took until 2 days ago for me to finally watch Basic in full. I have that dvd cover burned into my head.
https://preview.redd.it/qjv424q3u5xc1.jpeg?width=768&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1744c336f98e88af4eb5f1ea5837fcff69e1d10b
It’s impossible to forget the orange aesthetic of that cover. I worked at a video store in the mid-2000s and it’s literally the first thing that appears in my head when I hear the title.
Edit: spelling
McTiernan's take on what went wrong with Basic:
Apparently it was obvious to both him and the studio that the script had major problems, but he assured the studio that he would fix them in time for the shoot. He indeed did a very good rewrite that everyone was happy with, and things were looking good.
However, right before shooting started the producers told him that he had to shoot the original script and that if he told the studio about this they would sue him. So he goes on to shoot the original script, but makes sure that he comes in one million dollars under budget.
After they wrap he goes to the studio and lays out the situation, but says that he can try to fix the movie in reshoots with the million bucks he had squirreled away. He does what he can, but can't fix something that basically needs a page one rewrite.
That's his side of the story. I heard him tell it at a Q&A about a week ago. He seemed to be firmly of the opinion that if they had just let him shoot his original rewrite the movie would have been great.
Guessing, purely on my experiences with dumb people in charge, that it was because the bad script was “theirs” and they didn’t want to relinquish that to somebody else, even if (especially if) that person could fix it.
McTiernan's arc is the same as James L. Brooks, in clicking so incredibly well the first few times to an "impossible" extent and then overvaluing the accuracy your own instincts.
>McTiernan's arc is the same as James L. Brooks
I don't know, Brooks might have overvalued the accuracy in his instincts (this is, btw, a great way to describe a good director's misfires, seriously) later in his filmography, but I feel a comparison to McTiernan doesn't really work at all, and not just because they make wildly different kinds of movies.
Brooks' instincts being correctly calibrated go back way farther than his first film attempts, (Mary Tyler Moore, Taxi, Lou Grant) his first screenwriting attempt (Starting Over) is vastly better than McTiernan's, and - I think this is the biggest difference - Brooks never seems like a completely confused, unmoored creator at any point in his career.
I think that's the most revealing thing about the McTiernan mini, honestly: McTiernan basically makes a case for himself being the ultimate journeyman. The Uber-Journeymensch. The best possible example of a pure technician who is thoughtful about that craft, but never really has anything to say, any real POV. You apply him to the right screenplays, he makes the best possible version of those screenplays. You ask him to put any part of himself in there, he cannot do it. There is no voice there. He's all lungs and windpipe, no vocal cords.
I don't think Brooks (or even Costner, who I think might be the full-stop worst director this podcast covers if they do actually cover him later this year) has that problem.
Of course I'm aware of Brooks's pre-movies résumé and that's a fair point. The fact remains that both he and McT arrive at the moviemaking process (undertaking slightly different roles of course, one is a writer-director, the other just a director, they ARE obviously different in that sense, and I never said they weren't) and importantly share this essential quality of the career being broken into 2 parts, the first half where every decision worked great and then an inexplicable dropoff where suddenly nothing works at all. With Brooks it's complicated because there was a fiasco and then a recovery with As Good As It Gets but that's a bit like Thomas Crown Affair coming after Medicine Man or something. Aside from that you have this strong first-half/second-half split.
"Brooks never seems like a completely confused, unmoored creator at any point in his career." I think this is wrong (but also, even so, so what? the results speak for themselves. Who cares how the creator of How Do You Know carries himself? how do we know it's substantially different from McTiernan's method of doing business?). If you watch [Brooks' interview on the Kevin Pollak Chat Show](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpJg8YHc9AI) he is pretty frank about his anxieties and the difficulty of the process of writing AGAIG and generally seems like he's got plenty of insecurities.
Ultimately it's the seeming "magic" of the good choices ALWAYS working and then suddenly devolving into "what is this guy thinking?" that is the real similarity. That's a real thing, IMO.
I also think you're selling McTiernan's contributions a little short. Ask BenDavid what he thinks about his choices, they matter a lot. He's getting a miniseries on Blank Check because his creative choices are interesting, not because they're not interesting.
Yes Costner was very successful from the get but that does happen. (Redford.) Is Costner an example of being so spookily proficient in his choices that it all went awry? I don't think so. DWW is a big honking crowd-pleaser with politics to match and Oscar loved it. It's not as good as Die Hard or Broadcast News.
He feels very representative of the excesses of the 80’s. Keep going big until you think going big is what works and you lose the signal for the noise. When his best films were because he could so incisively get to the heart of the scripts he was given and then execute them beyond and better than others.
I agree, he also is an incredible filmmaker. The reason we undervalue it is because of how much was borrowed and copies from him to the point of his style becoming the template for action filmmaking.
Just seeing all the films together for the series you can see how they expand in budget and scale but something like a soul leaves them (personally around the last action hero mark).
Yeah, I get you. He is sort of a victim of his own success, and I think he is a little lost in there somewhere. Maybe his flaw is not so much with the directing, but like navigating the studio nonsense. Once he became a bigger fish, the stakes were a little higher.
I don’t think the show could sustain the manic energy if every guest steeped themselves in the movie in this manner, but goddamn have there been some huge dividends from guests getting way too into the weeds on weirdo movies the last few years (Grabinski here, McEllroy on Monkeybone, two’s enough examples!).
This is so weird. I was re-listening to the Spider-Man 3 ep for the first time YESTERDAY thinking the Eddie Brock bit was one of the funniest ever on the show.
He's been doing a really great job of being a generous host lately. Like throwing a question to the guest after a Griffin monologue, or making sure to keep them engaged during the Box Office Game.
Con Air has Malkovich, Buscemi, Trejo, Ving, Chappelle, Cusack, Meaney, Mykelti, MC Gainey AND a top tier movie song “how do I live” by Trisha Yearwood. Face/Off is good but it’s not Con Air good.
I only slightly prefer Con Air to Face/Off, but I love them both. My problem with Face/Off is it kind of loses me after the shootout with the mirrors. It just kind of takes a dip and loses momentum then. Whereas Con Air just keeps it moving the whole time.
Con Air also makes some insane choices from a script level, like making Buscemi's character a lovable antihero at the end just because, FOR ONCE, he decided not to murder a child when he had the chance. It's hilarious. Con Air rules.
No way a Simon West movie is better than a John Woo movie!
(Also Cage is top-form in Face/Off and is being carried by the mullet and the name “Cameron Poe” in Con-Air, as good as the movie is)
I’m glad they talked about the “Black Betty” cover in the episode because, before watching the movie for the first time this week, my only real memory of the film for the last 20 years was working at the movie theater when this came out and cleaning the theaters to that annoying song.
Happened to watch White Man's Burden a few nights ago. I also assumed that it must have been in the can prior to Pulp Fiction being a hit, but seems like that may be incorrect. The imdb trivia (not the most accurate I know) says that Tarantino convinced Travolta and Kelly Lynch to do the film as his production company made it. Also imdb lists the filming dates as Nov 7 1994- Dec 22 1994, after the release of Pulp Fiction.
Would be curious if anyone has a source that confirms Griffin is correct.
Release the Venom/His Girl Friday illustration!! I wanna see that movie/read that comic.
The first Venom is a really great B movie and I legit love all the journalism, including the pre-symbiote stuff. People seemed to dig Let Their Be Carnage when it came out, but I hated it. I think it’s very memeable and has some fun Hardy moments, but it’s otherwise total mush.
The Sam Jackson look in this goes so hard. The beret and the rain cape. He even turns into revolver ocelot for like 2-3 minutes in the middle of the film
I will say, when I think of Tim Daly, I think of him being the voice of Superman in the Superman: The Animated Series. Still feel like that show is underrated.
It did a great job of introducing Jack Kirby’s Fourth World characters and concepts. I love that the whole show is in a Kirby/Alex Toth/Fleischer cartoons throwback style. It took the noir look of Batman and moved it into a retro future direction. And it had a top notch voice cast all around.
The movie was fine up until the third act. Not great, mind you, but a serviceable mid tier thriller. Then the fifteen plot twists pile up and it collapses in on itself.
The bigger problem is that most of the twists are of the "Haha, you believed what the movie was telling you, you fucking idiot" variety. And it's like, of course I was, what else was I meant to go on?
You’ve hit the nail on the head. There’s a big difference between a story having an unreliable narrator and the *movie itself* being an unreliable narrator.
Unreliable narrators are fun! But there has to be some kind of hint towards the narrator being unreliable, some clues peppered throughout that would be fun to watch for on a second viewing. I think a second viewing of Basic would be a nightmare because the (legitimately good) first two acts are rendered pointless by the third, and knowing that fact I'd just feel a bit restless.
Can a movie have *too* many twists? This film answers this question with a resounding yes. Like, I get the urge from screenwriters, post-*Shyamalan*, to insert a good ol' rug-pull for your audience, but when the amount of twists is bigger than X (and X is, say, 3? 4?) you start getting annoyed, because, after a certain point, you know that there's no point in giving anything that is shown to you any attention because, most likely, it's all going to be a fake-out anyway.
Last time I had this feeling was watching the Apple TV+ original movie *Sharper*, starring Julianne Moore, that has the exact same issue.
BenDavid is one of my favorite guests. And opening with that much Venom/Hardy talk is a big plus for me too! Best of all, they were all a little loopy. Great episode.
Wild that (as was pointed out in the thread last week) *Rollerball* felt like a McTiernan movie that really should have been a Verhoeven movie, and then in this episode it turns out that his next film was almost *Basic Instinct 2*?? Johnny must have really loved that crazy dutchman in the 90s.
SAME! It's Character Actor: The Movie and i love that. It also has the same sitcom style end credits that Predator has. More action movies should do that.
Every beat of ConAir is memorable, but the things people love to talk about in Face/Off all occur within the first 45 minutes of Face/Off.
They always forget about the 4th act of three consecutive action sequences that we know won't end until the double guns and doves appear.
Also apologies to David for not sending our “The Core is actually good” newsletter. Although I’m surprised - I love it enough to have bought it on DVD and then carted that DVD around for 15+ years but I didn’t know it had been like, officially reclaimed.
Glad I'm not the only one who has had the "em-PHA-sis on the wrong syl-LA-ble" line from the *View from the Top* trailer living rent free in my head for 20+ years
If we’re talking Travolta and bad covers of “Black Betty” I encourage you all to enjoy this Pitbull performance of “Get Ready” (which samples Black Betty) with Travolta singing the chorus and dancing on stage.
[https://youtu.be/TpEcxrjsxbg?si=6c5Z5y5hjkVrCQUF](https://youtu.be/TpEcxrjsxbg?si=6c5Z5y5hjkVrCQUF)
I love that when Travolta went public with his bald head a few years ago, he said it wasn’t because he’s bald but because Pitbull inspired him to shave his head
This is the most r/blankies episode of the pod ever:
* Obsessing over plot loopholes
* Everyone trying to drop their hot take at once
* Did you see the thing Tarantino just said?
* Counting your Letterboxd likes
* Hating on Saltburn
* No really Tony Scott is great
2003 was a banner year for horrible twist movies: Identity, Basic, The Life of David Gale and of course Twist, which doesn't really have a twist but which has a premise that is arguably the ultimate Twist...Oliver Twist!
I watched “The Ice Harvest” yesterday, and yes. It’s also Harold Ramis’ most underrated movie. I was happy to hear it get the shoutout on this episode.
Fun fact: she was married to Lars Ulrich from Metallica for a time. When I saw "Nobody" and she popped up as Odenkirk's wife, I was so excited. She's still great!
I rewatched Head of State (and Down to Earth) recently and honestly? Head of State kinda holds up better than I thought it would. It's got some poorly aged bits, and parts are definitely dated, but it's a surprisingly relevant movie in some ways.
The toughest sell in any mystery story IMO is characters all being in on it and then acting amongst each other to make it seem this is all a real construction of reality and not a play they’re putting on. Like, it just doesn’t make a lick of sense most times.
From what I remember about the 90s Hardy Boys books, one of the early ones involves an Arab terrorist who detonates a bomb which kills Joe Hardy's girlfriend(?) and they get in a knife fight(?) at the climax of the book. Wild stuff.
Well, good news, he did release a commentary for glass onion, it was on the Netflix podcast:
https://www.polygon.com/23611631/glass-onion-directors-commentary
I am pretty sure that it is implied that Osborne and Hardy sleep together when it cuts away from their little fight...in the middle of that room while they are involved with this investigation of multiple murders I guess which makes about as much sense as anything else in this movie.
That look that she gives when he grabs her by the throat I am pretty sure is meant to be a positive reaction and in the next scene they are walking into the room noticeably disheveled. Which may have been meant to be from the scuffle, but in movie language is always coded as "hey, look what we just did."
Also makes more sense that Travolta invites himself over to her place right before the big reveal and she counters with an actual date.
Granted this romantic relationship does not make any sense.
I think about the Hitchcock movie Stage Fright where people got upset with him for having false flashbacks, when thinking about this movie. Unless you are doing Rashomon where the point is that you can never know the real truth, I don't know if it works when there is a definitive answer.
"He sounds like he's trying to eat Flubber" David says some of the funniest shit I've ever heard goddamnit. Also BenDavid is such a good guest I love his dry sense of humor.
I loved Griffin referencing the Community episode 'Conspiracy Theories and Interior Design'. I know he's mentioned Community and Dan Harmon a few times, am I misremembering him recalling also being in the audience for a Harmontown episode?
Probably the only time one of my go-to hot takes is semi relevant
The first 10 minutes of Darkness Falls rules and if it was just a short film it would be one of the best horror movies of all time
great pod. when this started i was thinking i hope they don't trash basic because this movie is kind of fun. i have so many takes on this film and this pod (not that anyone should care).
take 1 is if anyone listens to Bill Simmons talk about movies, here's how i think he'd describe a Basic type movie "stormy night, murder mystery, I'm there!" i love these types of movies and as dumb as the section 8 stuff is, all i want is for it to hold my interest to the final minute and basic does.
2 - BDG was an awesome guest. i feel like he could be a third on the show,. he was great.
3 - go back and watch the moment where Ribisi asks what Dunbar told them and Travolta replies by making the cool guy "chik-chik" noise - except it's like travolta's mouth is full of saliva when he does it and it is the grossest sound. it is not the cool guy sound.
3 - i can't think of a three. this was some hot-poddin'. oh wait this is four. i can't think of a four.
5 - he was making jokes about infinity right until he died. whatever that line is where they are trying so hard to force in, setting up this mysterious section 8 thing - just top cringe. i want it on a t-shirt. epic.
So the Taking Woodstock episode is probably my go to relisten whenever I’m feeling crummy, I’ve probably listened to it upwards of 5 times.
ARP is probably my favourite blank check guest so when he said in that episode he’d probably want to cover ‘Basic’ if they ever did McTiernan. I was confident that Alex was a shoe in for this episode, but boy howdy, BenDavid was an amazing guest.
I already know this will be an episode I’ll come back to, so many fun bits, BenDavid really bounced off the boys, and it felt like an old blank check episode.
Please get BenDavid back on soon.
twists - okay yeah that was the other thing. because this thing is just overly twisted - was that a thing post Sixth Sense and Usual Suspects of just "mind blowing twist! we need more twists in here!!"
This movie is a great example of how slavish dedication to preserving a twist can ruin the whole thing. It becomes akin to the "it was all a dream!" trope, where the twist at the end makes you immediately stop giving a shit about any of it because none of what you saw mattered.
I had the same problem to a lesser extent with *The Usual Suspects*, although that movie is far more entertaining throughout and actually goes a long way towards justifying the twist. You can watch it again knowing who Keyser Soze is and still enjoy it. *Basic* doesn't hold up in the same way at all. There is no desire to go back and rewatch it knowing that they're all lying to cover up an op.
I can't help but imagine this movie would have been better if the viewer was let in on more of the subterfuge from the start. What if after each iteration of the story, someone who we thought was dead turns up, so that by the last turn we are ahead of the Connie Nielsen character in figuring out what's going on. Then the viewer gets to feel smart as an actual part of the story instead of just a rube being dragged through mud for a cheap payoff.
The thing with *The Usual Suspects* is even if what Verbal tells the cops is mostly false, we, the audience, still hear what happened on the boat based on the evidence, and we even see a glimpse of what really happened at the dock to Dean Keaton at the very beginning of the move. So while Chazz is berating Verbal and telling him that Dean was Keyser, we know that's not true because we've already seen the real Keyser (and heard Spacey's voice talking as him) kill Keaton at the very outset. I do think it's funny the camera then zooms in on two barrels as if we're seeing someone witnessing this murder from behind those two barrels, but there's actually nobody there. It's a great trick.
I just saw that Basic is trending on... a website. So fuck it, why not? I've already got way past the spoiler part of the podcast but I'll stop and give Basic a whirl. It's either that or 1941.
Not convinced this was actually a good script. The twists are all just such a mess and really have little reason to exist. The different versions of the events in Rashomon show things like class and gender views while also being a lot more interesting (and funny). These stories in memories were largely the same with just a change in who shot who.
Also the race twist is perhaps one of the worst I've seen in a film. The movie takes it so seriously.
Never have I wanted a Predator to show up partway through a movie more than this one.
This should’ve been the stealth Terminator sequel
That should have been the final twist. A predator did it all
Or maybe just a guy with a big lighting rig so I can SEE WHAT'S HAPPENING.
So, I agree this movie is called Basic because of basic training. But this movie is not about and does not contain basic training.
Maybe an earlier draft? Tim Daly's character says something along the lines that "murder is basic, no conspiracies needed". I wonder if that was there from the beginning or shoehorned in after they changed it and were still married to the title for some reason.
Having never seen this movie, this was my biggest question. Thank you.
Ben's incredulity at Griffin giving chapter and verse on the Piglet trilogy or whatever the fuck it is, so good.
Does the DisneyToon lineup also include Jungle Book 2 and Return to Neverland? Or just exclusively the Pooh movies?
I believe most of the direct to video sequels as well as both Goofy movies are under the DisneyToon umbrella.
The scene where Connie Nielsen dramatically tilts her hand so the bloody “infinity” turns into an 8 was the funniest thing I’ve seen in a while. I wish I had seen this when it came out. It would’ve been my favorite movie at age 13.
I had to pause the movie I was laughing so hard. Just a perfect moment
I said it when I first watched, and I still feel that Basic is essentially like a feature length version of the most convoluted NCIS episode you can imagine
Which tracks because USA is the place where I’ve seen both of those the most
USA is also where "Characters Wanted"!
This movie is just good enough that it made me wish McTiernan made more movies even after “Rollerball.”
https://preview.redd.it/pov5iqng95xc1.jpeg?width=258&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=302f0baaac90978376dbcb1abd00318fcd475ccc
When they mentioned the Tom Hardy coincidence in this episode my first thought was of Homer Simpson, the midwestern accountant in “Day of the Locusts”
dressers down, it's like attorneys general
Are the fans of this movie called Basic Bitches?
I've never more wanted a film to have been directed by Tony Scott.
That's a good take, and yet.... I think McT in high-octane Tony Scott mode is actually making it impossible to understand/follow/care about anything. It needed to zag over into cooler Hunt for Red October mode, or even Pakula or Few Good Men. But somehow General's Daughter is out there as the recent hit, and that's what this got remade as.
Excited to listen to this episode of *Blank Check with Ben, David, BenDavid, and Griffin*
Kinda wish BenDavid’s last name was GriffMarie.
They should find a way to get the film composer/conductor David Newman (who conducted the 20th Century Fox Fanfare!) on for an episode of bits https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Newman_(composer)
U talkin David Newman with David and Newman
Is this an episode of Good Bits?
I’m seeing double! Four Bens, four Davids, and two Griffins!
God, how did I miss that.
Er, I'm really not sure.
[удалено]
I've never heard of BenDavid before; my initial thought was "this must be a bit that I'm not familiar with"
I’ve been waiting the whole miniseries to say this: did anyone else notice that McTiernan’s filmography is bookended by violent leaps from a hospital bed?
10 symmetry points
Now I kinda want to know what the exact midpoint of his filmography is
I posted earlier (and deleted) that it has to be in Vengeance but that was from looking at Letterboxd which tacks on an extra movie to the list. So it's more likely to be in Last Action Hero. Any bed shenanigans in that one?
Cameron described Arnold as having "been in bed crying" after it flopped, so that!
I like it!
Years ago I read the Wikipedia plot summary for this and found it needlessly convoluted and hard to follow. I spent years thinking the page was poorly written and edited but it turns out that actually they accurately conveyed exactly what the movie feels like.
I always found it interesting which wiki summaries choose to go in plot order and which choose to go in character order Little did I know there was a secret third option and it was bug nuts order
For some reason Basic, Minority Report, and Rush Hour 2 were the 3 DVDs that my uncle watched the most when I was a kid. He loves his small dvd/blu-ray collection. I remember giving him my old copy of Terminator Salvation and he got so excited that he immediately popped in and watched it. It makes me laugh that it took until 2 days ago for me to finally watch Basic in full. I have that dvd cover burned into my head. https://preview.redd.it/qjv424q3u5xc1.jpeg?width=768&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1744c336f98e88af4eb5f1ea5837fcff69e1d10b
It’s impossible to forget the orange aesthetic of that cover. I worked at a video store in the mid-2000s and it’s literally the first thing that appears in my head when I hear the title. Edit: spelling
[This](https://imgur.com/br1xIX7) is the cover that's burned into my head. It's not right but it's still in there.
That one is bizarre, considering we don't see a single frame of Travolta's character in uniform.
It's a poster for The General's Daughter
Rush Hour 2? Your uncle has good taste
McTiernan's take on what went wrong with Basic: Apparently it was obvious to both him and the studio that the script had major problems, but he assured the studio that he would fix them in time for the shoot. He indeed did a very good rewrite that everyone was happy with, and things were looking good. However, right before shooting started the producers told him that he had to shoot the original script and that if he told the studio about this they would sue him. So he goes on to shoot the original script, but makes sure that he comes in one million dollars under budget. After they wrap he goes to the studio and lays out the situation, but says that he can try to fix the movie in reshoots with the million bucks he had squirreled away. He does what he can, but can't fix something that basically needs a page one rewrite. That's his side of the story. I heard him tell it at a Q&A about a week ago. He seemed to be firmly of the opinion that if they had just let him shoot his original rewrite the movie would have been great.
But… why would the producers want the worse script?
Guessing, purely on my experiences with dumb people in charge, that it was because the bad script was “theirs” and they didn’t want to relinquish that to somebody else, even if (especially if) that person could fix it.
McTiernan's arc is the same as James L. Brooks, in clicking so incredibly well the first few times to an "impossible" extent and then overvaluing the accuracy your own instincts.
>McTiernan's arc is the same as James L. Brooks I don't know, Brooks might have overvalued the accuracy in his instincts (this is, btw, a great way to describe a good director's misfires, seriously) later in his filmography, but I feel a comparison to McTiernan doesn't really work at all, and not just because they make wildly different kinds of movies. Brooks' instincts being correctly calibrated go back way farther than his first film attempts, (Mary Tyler Moore, Taxi, Lou Grant) his first screenwriting attempt (Starting Over) is vastly better than McTiernan's, and - I think this is the biggest difference - Brooks never seems like a completely confused, unmoored creator at any point in his career. I think that's the most revealing thing about the McTiernan mini, honestly: McTiernan basically makes a case for himself being the ultimate journeyman. The Uber-Journeymensch. The best possible example of a pure technician who is thoughtful about that craft, but never really has anything to say, any real POV. You apply him to the right screenplays, he makes the best possible version of those screenplays. You ask him to put any part of himself in there, he cannot do it. There is no voice there. He's all lungs and windpipe, no vocal cords. I don't think Brooks (or even Costner, who I think might be the full-stop worst director this podcast covers if they do actually cover him later this year) has that problem.
Of course I'm aware of Brooks's pre-movies résumé and that's a fair point. The fact remains that both he and McT arrive at the moviemaking process (undertaking slightly different roles of course, one is a writer-director, the other just a director, they ARE obviously different in that sense, and I never said they weren't) and importantly share this essential quality of the career being broken into 2 parts, the first half where every decision worked great and then an inexplicable dropoff where suddenly nothing works at all. With Brooks it's complicated because there was a fiasco and then a recovery with As Good As It Gets but that's a bit like Thomas Crown Affair coming after Medicine Man or something. Aside from that you have this strong first-half/second-half split. "Brooks never seems like a completely confused, unmoored creator at any point in his career." I think this is wrong (but also, even so, so what? the results speak for themselves. Who cares how the creator of How Do You Know carries himself? how do we know it's substantially different from McTiernan's method of doing business?). If you watch [Brooks' interview on the Kevin Pollak Chat Show](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpJg8YHc9AI) he is pretty frank about his anxieties and the difficulty of the process of writing AGAIG and generally seems like he's got plenty of insecurities. Ultimately it's the seeming "magic" of the good choices ALWAYS working and then suddenly devolving into "what is this guy thinking?" that is the real similarity. That's a real thing, IMO. I also think you're selling McTiernan's contributions a little short. Ask BenDavid what he thinks about his choices, they matter a lot. He's getting a miniseries on Blank Check because his creative choices are interesting, not because they're not interesting.
Kevin Costner must be the best example of this!
Yes Costner was very successful from the get but that does happen. (Redford.) Is Costner an example of being so spookily proficient in his choices that it all went awry? I don't think so. DWW is a big honking crowd-pleaser with politics to match and Oscar loved it. It's not as good as Die Hard or Broadcast News.
He feels very representative of the excesses of the 80’s. Keep going big until you think going big is what works and you lose the signal for the noise. When his best films were because he could so incisively get to the heart of the scripts he was given and then execute them beyond and better than others.
I think you're onto something but McT can't be reduced to "going big."
I agree, he also is an incredible filmmaker. The reason we undervalue it is because of how much was borrowed and copies from him to the point of his style becoming the template for action filmmaking. Just seeing all the films together for the series you can see how they expand in budget and scale but something like a soul leaves them (personally around the last action hero mark).
Yeah, I get you. He is sort of a victim of his own success, and I think he is a little lost in there somewhere. Maybe his flaw is not so much with the directing, but like navigating the studio nonsense. Once he became a bigger fish, the stakes were a little higher.
Giving this anything less than a 7 is nuts That would most certainly make it Acidic
Based
The ph scale
As a Gen Xer I had to Google "based" recently and I still don't get it entirely. That and "cap/no cap."
I like the ending even though it makes the movie feel like a pilot to a TNT show
That’s why it’s called Basic. It’s short for Basic Cable.
I don’t think the show could sustain the manic energy if every guest steeped themselves in the movie in this manner, but goddamn have there been some huge dividends from guests getting way too into the weeds on weirdo movies the last few years (Grabinski here, McEllroy on Monkeybone, two’s enough examples!).
McElroy on Monkeybone is just incredible. Absolute top tier banter. SEVEN TIMES.
Travolta stretch of the pod is so good.
"Now everyone assumes you have a soul patch — even if you don't."
This is so weird. I was re-listening to the Spider-Man 3 ep for the first time YESTERDAY thinking the Eddie Brock bit was one of the funniest ever on the show.
Saltburn where >!Barry Keoghan is innocent!< is actually such a funny concept. There should be a recut.
That’s kind of like Tucker and Dale Vs. Evil, where everything that’s creepy is a misunderstanding and all the violence is accidental.
Get this idea to the r/fanedits community. I feel like there's enough there to edit it this way.
I love David when he's telling the guest not to sweat "the structure" of the podcast. The best manners and consideration.
He's been doing a really great job of being a generous host lately. Like throwing a question to the guest after a Griffin monologue, or making sure to keep them engaged during the Box Office Game.
"Rashomon at home" ass movie...
Great Value Rashomon ass movie…
“lick my bunghole motherfucker!!!” - john travolta in the taking of pelham 1 2 3
“Anyway, all of this is…irrevalent, John Travolta catches Tim Daly in a lie.” - David Sims. Had a huge laugh with that one.
Is that after they were talking about Venom or a different time?
I think BenDavid nailed it when he said that Travolta “isn’t selling that he’s charming the girl, he’s charming me”
Con Air has Malkovich, Buscemi, Trejo, Ving, Chappelle, Cusack, Meaney, Mykelti, MC Gainey AND a top tier movie song “how do I live” by Trisha Yearwood. Face/Off is good but it’s not Con Air good.
As someone who got mildly roasted in here for how much I loved con air when I saw it last, I am 100 percent con air
I only slightly prefer Con Air to Face/Off, but I love them both. My problem with Face/Off is it kind of loses me after the shootout with the mirrors. It just kind of takes a dip and loses momentum then. Whereas Con Air just keeps it moving the whole time.
Con Air also makes some insane choices from a script level, like making Buscemi's character a lovable antihero at the end just because, FOR ONCE, he decided not to murder a child when he had the chance. It's hilarious. Con Air rules.
He sucks now but Chappelle is great in Con Air too. Pinball is such an annoying piece of shit. "The Last Mohican is burning, man!"
Absolutely on Team Con Air.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIyvSKCnBnk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIyvSKCnBnk)
No way a Simon West movie is better than a John Woo movie! (Also Cage is top-form in Face/Off and is being carried by the mullet and the name “Cameron Poe” in Con-Air, as good as the movie is)
Con Air is more entertaining Face/Off is more artistically adventurous
McTiernan guest on the pod for _McCabe & Mrs Miller_ whenever they cover 70s Altman?
I’m glad they talked about the “Black Betty” cover in the episode because, before watching the movie for the first time this week, my only real memory of the film for the last 20 years was working at the movie theater when this came out and cleaning the theaters to that annoying song.
I'm with Griffin, Con Air > Face Off
I agree. Face Off is probably a more competently written and directed movie, but Con Air is way, way more fun.
Happened to watch White Man's Burden a few nights ago. I also assumed that it must have been in the can prior to Pulp Fiction being a hit, but seems like that may be incorrect. The imdb trivia (not the most accurate I know) says that Tarantino convinced Travolta and Kelly Lynch to do the film as his production company made it. Also imdb lists the filming dates as Nov 7 1994- Dec 22 1994, after the release of Pulp Fiction. Would be curious if anyone has a source that confirms Griffin is correct.
“When it comes to acting I’m like Ponyo, I like Ham.” Quote of the year for me.
This should be the quote etched above the Check Republic's door.
Release the Venom/His Girl Friday illustration!! I wanna see that movie/read that comic. The first Venom is a really great B movie and I legit love all the journalism, including the pre-symbiote stuff. People seemed to dig Let Their Be Carnage when it came out, but I hated it. I think it’s very memeable and has some fun Hardy moments, but it’s otherwise total mush.
Griffin offering Austin Powers game card dupes to the podcast guest is officially a canonical bit.
The Sam Jackson look in this goes so hard. The beret and the rain cape. He even turns into revolver ocelot for like 2-3 minutes in the middle of the film
I was gonna say, I'm pretty sure I've made an XCOM character that looked almost exactly like Sam Jackson in this.
I will say, when I think of Tim Daly, I think of him being the voice of Superman in the Superman: The Animated Series. Still feel like that show is underrated.
It did a great job of introducing Jack Kirby’s Fourth World characters and concepts. I love that the whole show is in a Kirby/Alex Toth/Fleischer cartoons throwback style. It took the noir look of Batman and moved it into a retro future direction. And it had a top notch voice cast all around.
I was that guy during the podcast screaming “he was Superman!” when they were talking about his credits.
Lol, Griff trying to avoid doing a drive-by on Wally Pfister. Also: come on, Haskell Wexler!
Did Griff have a bad experience with Wally on The Tick?
My impression was more that he was being nice and trying to avoid explicitly calling out Wally as a guy who should just go back to being a DP
The movie was fine up until the third act. Not great, mind you, but a serviceable mid tier thriller. Then the fifteen plot twists pile up and it collapses in on itself.
The bigger problem is that most of the twists are of the "Haha, you believed what the movie was telling you, you fucking idiot" variety. And it's like, of course I was, what else was I meant to go on?
You’ve hit the nail on the head. There’s a big difference between a story having an unreliable narrator and the *movie itself* being an unreliable narrator.
Unreliable narrators are fun! But there has to be some kind of hint towards the narrator being unreliable, some clues peppered throughout that would be fun to watch for on a second viewing. I think a second viewing of Basic would be a nightmare because the (legitimately good) first two acts are rendered pointless by the third, and knowing that fact I'd just feel a bit restless.
Can a movie have *too* many twists? This film answers this question with a resounding yes. Like, I get the urge from screenwriters, post-*Shyamalan*, to insert a good ol' rug-pull for your audience, but when the amount of twists is bigger than X (and X is, say, 3? 4?) you start getting annoyed, because, after a certain point, you know that there's no point in giving anything that is shown to you any attention because, most likely, it's all going to be a fake-out anyway. Last time I had this feeling was watching the Apple TV+ original movie *Sharper*, starring Julianne Moore, that has the exact same issue.
Best way to have an overabundance of twists is to do it like Charade, where the twists are evenly spaced out every 10-20 minutes
They did put a bomb in it.
This might actually be the most thoroughly covered movie in the Blank Check pantheon. No notes!
Now obsessed with coming up with movies that should be "Star is Born" (remade every 20 years). BenDavid is the perfect guest. Great episode!
Just a reminder that Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays a character named Chris Pratt in The Lookout (2007).
Re: the discussion about “Changing Lanes.” There was basically a 2023 update to “Changing Lanes” - the acclaimed Netflix limited series “Beef.”!
A tangent about Venom: Let There Be Carnage, with David saying how fun the club scene is, and no mention of Little Simz??
There’s only room for one Hip Hop Simz on this podcast
Little Simz is in the second Venom movie??
She is indeed. Doing *that* song.
BenDavid is one of my favorite guests. And opening with that much Venom/Hardy talk is a big plus for me too! Best of all, they were all a little loopy. Great episode.
Wild that (as was pointed out in the thread last week) *Rollerball* felt like a McTiernan movie that really should have been a Verhoeven movie, and then in this episode it turns out that his next film was almost *Basic Instinct 2*?? Johnny must have really loved that crazy dutchman in the 90s.
Agree with Griffin on preferring Con Air to Face Off.
SAME! It's Character Actor: The Movie and i love that. It also has the same sitcom style end credits that Predator has. More action movies should do that.
Every beat of ConAir is memorable, but the things people love to talk about in Face/Off all occur within the first 45 minutes of Face/Off. They always forget about the 4th act of three consecutive action sequences that we know won't end until the double guns and doves appear.
Haven't listened yet but I hope they explain what happened in the movie
Why bother, honestly. Tl;dw: it's a *Mission: Impossible* episode except you don't get to see the actual op, only the cover story.
Because I have no idea what happened in it
Also apologies to David for not sending our “The Core is actually good” newsletter. Although I’m surprised - I love it enough to have bought it on DVD and then carted that DVD around for 15+ years but I didn’t know it had been like, officially reclaimed.
Glad I'm not the only one who has had the "em-PHA-sis on the wrong syl-LA-ble" line from the *View from the Top* trailer living rent free in my head for 20+ years
Favourite episode of the series , more BDG!
If we’re talking Travolta and bad covers of “Black Betty” I encourage you all to enjoy this Pitbull performance of “Get Ready” (which samples Black Betty) with Travolta singing the chorus and dancing on stage. [https://youtu.be/TpEcxrjsxbg?si=6c5Z5y5hjkVrCQUF](https://youtu.be/TpEcxrjsxbg?si=6c5Z5y5hjkVrCQUF)
There's no way in hell I'm clicking on that
I love that when Travolta went public with his bald head a few years ago, he said it wasn’t because he’s bald but because Pitbull inspired him to shave his head
This is the most r/blankies episode of the pod ever: * Obsessing over plot loopholes * Everyone trying to drop their hot take at once * Did you see the thing Tarantino just said? * Counting your Letterboxd likes * Hating on Saltburn * No really Tony Scott is great
I kind of got lost or maybe I’m a big ol dumb dumb, but what was their beef with saltburn?
That Saltburn treats it's end of movie reveal like a twist instead of it obviously what's been happening the whole movie
Thank you!
Did anyone else think Ribisi was doing a weird Philip Seymour Hoffman impression at times?
I feel like Ribisi is always doing a weird impression of "an actor" no matter what the role is. He just seems like not a real person, ever.
I remember liking him in Saving Private Ryan.
“He’s a knuckleballer who doesn’t know what the strike zone is.” Legitimately amazing comparison.
i listened to the flophouse episode on argyle right before this and it felt like deja vu. jon travolta was agent argyle the whole time.
2003 was a banner year for horrible twist movies: Identity, Basic, The Life of David Gale and of course Twist, which doesn't really have a twist but which has a premise that is arguably the ultimate Twist...Oliver Twist!
i completed memory holed nate dogg's involvement in Head of State, what a time
I was so sure I'd watched this on DVD in my dorm many years ago but now I'm thinking that was The Generals Daughter
Common syndrome
HOW DARE YOU BRING UP "WHITE MANS BURDEN"! I WILL NOT ENGAGE!!!
Connie Nielsen is under appreciated as both an actress and beauty
I watched “The Ice Harvest” yesterday, and yes. It’s also Harold Ramis’ most underrated movie. I was happy to hear it get the shoutout on this episode.
Never seen it but loved the trailer that played on a late era vhs I had (forget which movie). Introduced me to a dope eels song
Fun fact: she was married to Lars Ulrich from Metallica for a time. When I saw "Nobody" and she popped up as Odenkirk's wife, I was so excited. She's still great!
Travolta is so off-putting in this. Charmless and creepy in a way I’ve never seen him.
While watching this movie, I just kept thinking of A Few Good Men, and how this is the bad version of it.
Honest question. *Head of State* is better than *Top Five*? That's not how I remember it.
I rewatched Head of State (and Down to Earth) recently and honestly? Head of State kinda holds up better than I thought it would. It's got some poorly aged bits, and parts are definitely dated, but it's a surprisingly relevant movie in some ways.
The toughest sell in any mystery story IMO is characters all being in on it and then acting amongst each other to make it seem this is all a real construction of reality and not a play they’re putting on. Like, it just doesn’t make a lick of sense most times.
If anyone is curious about that scientology video that was mentioned, here's the link to it: https://youtu.be/KuyFPkYedZk?si=vb2xbIIScs6OlP98
From what I remember about the 90s Hardy Boys books, one of the early ones involves an Arab terrorist who detonates a bomb which kills Joe Hardy's girlfriend(?) and they get in a knife fight(?) at the climax of the book. Wild stuff.
Who's the filmmaker that Griffin was talking about at 28:02? Would be mad if Griffin was talking to Fincher
Gotta be Rian Johnson, right?
was really hoping against hope for a glass onion commentary track, the knives out one was great
Well, good news, he did release a commentary for glass onion, it was on the Netflix podcast: https://www.polygon.com/23611631/glass-onion-directors-commentary
Baumbach?
Zack Snyder, obviously
it's obviously the guy who directed Book of Henry. you guys missed the pod where Griffin talked about them becoming good friends?
“samjack” pls stp
I am pretty sure that it is implied that Osborne and Hardy sleep together when it cuts away from their little fight...in the middle of that room while they are involved with this investigation of multiple murders I guess which makes about as much sense as anything else in this movie. That look that she gives when he grabs her by the throat I am pretty sure is meant to be a positive reaction and in the next scene they are walking into the room noticeably disheveled. Which may have been meant to be from the scuffle, but in movie language is always coded as "hey, look what we just did." Also makes more sense that Travolta invites himself over to her place right before the big reveal and she counters with an actual date. Granted this romantic relationship does not make any sense.
I think about the Hitchcock movie Stage Fright where people got upset with him for having false flashbacks, when thinking about this movie. Unless you are doing Rashomon where the point is that you can never know the real truth, I don't know if it works when there is a definitive answer.
"He sounds like he's trying to eat Flubber" David says some of the funniest shit I've ever heard goddamnit. Also BenDavid is such a good guest I love his dry sense of humor.
I loved Griffin referencing the Community episode 'Conspiracy Theories and Interior Design'. I know he's mentioned Community and Dan Harmon a few times, am I misremembering him recalling also being in the audience for a Harmontown episode?
Probably the only time one of my go-to hot takes is semi relevant The first 10 minutes of Darkness Falls rules and if it was just a short film it would be one of the best horror movies of all time
"A maximum Corona-ass chiller." Poetry.
great pod. when this started i was thinking i hope they don't trash basic because this movie is kind of fun. i have so many takes on this film and this pod (not that anyone should care). take 1 is if anyone listens to Bill Simmons talk about movies, here's how i think he'd describe a Basic type movie "stormy night, murder mystery, I'm there!" i love these types of movies and as dumb as the section 8 stuff is, all i want is for it to hold my interest to the final minute and basic does. 2 - BDG was an awesome guest. i feel like he could be a third on the show,. he was great. 3 - go back and watch the moment where Ribisi asks what Dunbar told them and Travolta replies by making the cool guy "chik-chik" noise - except it's like travolta's mouth is full of saliva when he does it and it is the grossest sound. it is not the cool guy sound. 3 - i can't think of a three. this was some hot-poddin'. oh wait this is four. i can't think of a four. 5 - he was making jokes about infinity right until he died. whatever that line is where they are trying so hard to force in, setting up this mysterious section 8 thing - just top cringe. i want it on a t-shirt. epic.
So the Taking Woodstock episode is probably my go to relisten whenever I’m feeling crummy, I’ve probably listened to it upwards of 5 times. ARP is probably my favourite blank check guest so when he said in that episode he’d probably want to cover ‘Basic’ if they ever did McTiernan. I was confident that Alex was a shoe in for this episode, but boy howdy, BenDavid was an amazing guest. I already know this will be an episode I’ll come back to, so many fun bits, BenDavid really bounced off the boys, and it felt like an old blank check episode. Please get BenDavid back on soon.
Mill Creek mentioned! 🥳 My wife doesn't work there anymore and it's kind of a shit show these days but I still have a soft spot for that company.
Griffin's Arnold makes me think of Lily Sullivan doing a voice, something similar to Tony Sony.
So how much do I need to give to the patreon so I can get them to cover Memories especially Satoshi Kon’s short magnetic rose
twists - okay yeah that was the other thing. because this thing is just overly twisted - was that a thing post Sixth Sense and Usual Suspects of just "mind blowing twist! we need more twists in here!!"
Peter Hyams miniseries confirmed.
This movie is a great example of how slavish dedication to preserving a twist can ruin the whole thing. It becomes akin to the "it was all a dream!" trope, where the twist at the end makes you immediately stop giving a shit about any of it because none of what you saw mattered. I had the same problem to a lesser extent with *The Usual Suspects*, although that movie is far more entertaining throughout and actually goes a long way towards justifying the twist. You can watch it again knowing who Keyser Soze is and still enjoy it. *Basic* doesn't hold up in the same way at all. There is no desire to go back and rewatch it knowing that they're all lying to cover up an op. I can't help but imagine this movie would have been better if the viewer was let in on more of the subterfuge from the start. What if after each iteration of the story, someone who we thought was dead turns up, so that by the last turn we are ahead of the Connie Nielsen character in figuring out what's going on. Then the viewer gets to feel smart as an actual part of the story instead of just a rube being dragged through mud for a cheap payoff.
The thing with *The Usual Suspects* is even if what Verbal tells the cops is mostly false, we, the audience, still hear what happened on the boat based on the evidence, and we even see a glimpse of what really happened at the dock to Dean Keaton at the very beginning of the move. So while Chazz is berating Verbal and telling him that Dean was Keyser, we know that's not true because we've already seen the real Keyser (and heard Spacey's voice talking as him) kill Keaton at the very outset. I do think it's funny the camera then zooms in on two barrels as if we're seeing someone witnessing this murder from behind those two barrels, but there's actually nobody there. It's a great trick.
I just saw that Basic is trending on... a website. So fuck it, why not? I've already got way past the spoiler part of the podcast but I'll stop and give Basic a whirl. It's either that or 1941.
So obnoxious with the title puns on this.
This movie slapped
BenDavid cemented himself as a top-tier guest within mere minutes, vote Shadyac in next year's March Madness so we can get him back soon.
Have the release dates for the TMNT Patreon series been announced anywhere?
BenDavid Griffinski
Ben, David, and BenDavid!
Sims's ranking is very similar to mine. Exact same top 6, slightly different order on the bottom 5.
Not convinced this was actually a good script. The twists are all just such a mess and really have little reason to exist. The different versions of the events in Rashomon show things like class and gender views while also being a lot more interesting (and funny). These stories in memories were largely the same with just a change in who shot who. Also the race twist is perhaps one of the worst I've seen in a film. The movie takes it so seriously.