BONUS The Friday Show - On The QT: Reservoir Dogs
Guest:And he interviews this guy with a weird name and a weird disposition.
Guest:And he's like, this was the best movie I saw up here at the Sundance Film Festival.
Guest:It is not for everyone.
Guest:And I want you to be aware there is an extremely grisly scene in it.
Guest:It's not going to be for everyone.
Guest:And I was like, one ticket, please.
Guest:Right.
Guest:When and where can I see this fucking movie?
Yeah.
Guest:Chris, what's up?
Marc:Brandon, did you watch the Super Bowl?
Guest:Oh, I did.
Guest:I watched the good version of the Super Bowl.
Marc:What does that mean?
Marc:Did you have the Apple Vision thing on your head?
Marc:The Vision Pro?
Marc:Yeah, the Vision Pro.
Marc:What is the good version?
Guest:No, but I wonder if you could have watched it like that, yeah.
Guest:No, we watched the SpongeBob SquarePants version on Nickelodeon.
Marc:Oh, that's great.
Guest:It was it was delightful.
Guest:I mean, look, I haven't watched football in a long time.
Guest:And in fact, you know, I think I've skipped a few Super Bowls even.
Guest:But most of the time, like if the Super Bowl's on, I watch it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:If there's a close playoff game, even I'll turn those on just to see what what happened at the end of the end of the game.
Marc:So the SpongeBob telecast, did you do that because your kid wanted to watch it?
Marc:Or was it just like, oh, let's watch?
Guest:Well, here's how it all went down.
Guest:I didn't even have any intention to watch the thing.
Guest:I never even brought it up.
Guest:And my kid brought it up in the middle of the day to watch.
Guest:He was like, are we going to watch the Super Bowl tonight?
Guest:never watches football or anything but i was like yeah sure go ahead we'll we'll we'll have dinner and then we'll start the super bowl be fine yeah and i i had work to do that night so i was like i'll watch it for a half hour or whatever and then i'll go back to work yeah and uh we started watching it and they in the in during the game it's a boring game at first really bad not just boring but bad play so i was like oh i'm gonna be out of here real quick and
Guest:and they showed like an augmented reality right ar version of spongebob and the other guys in the booth like up in the skybox right yeah i mean they're just shooting this thing in a studio right but they're like oh over on nickelodeon right now it's the bikini bottom telecast and like my son was like what is that spongebob and patrick are at the game and
Guest:And I was like, I don't know, let's flip over to that.
Guest:So we flipped over and we never went back.
Marc:No kidding.
Guest:It was amazing.
Marc:Really?
Guest:I mean, apparently they've been doing it.
Guest:I don't know if every week, but multiple weeks they've been doing the Nickelodeon telecast where they like slime the players while they're playing.
Guest:And I'm like, not really, but they put those AR graphics on the screen.
Guest:So they get slimed and whatnot.
Guest:There's all these graphics going on.
Guest:But this was like full on Spudgebob, which is like one of my kids' favorite shows from forever.
Guest:And he knows all the characters.
Guest:He knows all the in-jokes.
Guest:And they were making all the jokes.
Guest:Oh, no kidding.
Guest:You know what was really great about it?
Guest:What?
Guest:It was good beginner, like rudimentary football training.
Marc:I saw a clip of Dora the Explorer, like explaining why there was holding and why that's a penalty.
Marc:And I was like, this is brilliant.
Guest:And even the guys, like it was like Nate Burleson, right?
Guest:Who used to be a player.
Guest:And he's now like, he's actually great.
Guest:I caught him one day on like, I was watching like the CBS show.
Guest:uh, early show or whatever.
Guest:Like we used to be with like, you know, Charlie Rose or whoever.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And, and he's one of them now.
Guest:And I was, I didn't know like who he was.
Guest:And I was like, this guy is really good broadcaster, whoever he is.
Guest:And then they kept calling him Nate.
Guest:And they were like, well, Nate, when you played football and I was like, football, Nate Burleson, like,
Guest:from the seahawks sure enough it was like i looked it up and it was him and like he's excellent so not only is he excellent as a broadcaster but he like fully got the conceit of this that this was like i could play along with yeah he played ball yeah right and and what they had was tom kenny who does spongebob and uh gosh i'm forgetting the name of the the other guy bill fakerbake is that how you pronounce it he's the guy who played dauber on coach and
Guest:He does Patrick Starr.
Guest:I'm not kidding.
Guest:And so the two of them are in like an adjacent room with like kind of visual headsets on almost like reverse GoPros, like the camera's pointing at them.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so they're doing this live so that the cartoon that's in the shot with these broadcasters is mimicking whatever...
Guest:these two actors are doing.
Guest:So the mouths move at the same time.
Marc:Oh, wow.
Marc:So they smile, they're smiling.
Marc:Okay.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:If you've ever been to Disney World, there's an attraction called Turtle Talk with Crush, the turtle from Finding Nemo.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:And it's the same premise.
Guest:I'm sure there's other things in other parks or live events that do this, where the cartoon interacts with the audience.
Guest:So
Guest:So like you bring all your kids in, they sit down in front of a screen that's got like the turtle on it and he's swimming around and he's like, Hey, little kid in the hat.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Right.
Marc:You know how they do in that?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's that technology.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And you know, this is some dude who's looking at a, you know, infrared camera sees through the darkness.
Guest:So he's looking at the whole room backstage and then just acting.
Guest:And it looks like he's just the turtle is talking to these kids.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So it's great.
Guest:And they were doing that for SpongeBob and Patrick.
Guest:And the way they treated it was like, this is SpongeBob's first football game.
Guest:He's never watched a football game in his life.
Guest:So the announcers were explaining things to him, but not in a good way, like in a way that made things make sense.
Guest:And I was sitting there, I'm like, to my wife, I'm like...
Guest:I bet you're learning more about football than you ever learned in your life watching with me.
Guest:And she's like, oh yeah, this is great.
Guest:She said, I would watch every game like this if they did it like this.
Guest:This is delightful.
Marc:I showed that clip of Dora explaining the rule to my wife.
Marc:And she was like, oh my God, can we watch this right now?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So I plan to watch this next time we watch a big game, I suppose.
Marc:But yeah, really fun.
Guest:But you guys got to enjoy it in different environments, right?
Marc:Yeah, we were in Aruba, which was... Look at you.
Marc:I know, look at me.
Marc:It was hard to find the Super Bowl, but yeah, I was able to connect a cable box and it was great.
Guest:Wait, there's no bars showing it or anything like that?
Marc:There was, but this was like day three of my trip.
Marc:And I'm not spending like 500 bucks at a bar to sit at a bar.
Marc:Also, all the bars packed together.
Marc:Oh, okay.
Marc:All the beachfront properties have bars all packed and reserved, and Taylor Swift is playing.
Marc:I'm convinced this was the most watched Super Bowl ever because of just Taylor Swift.
Guest:They said it was.
Guest:I mean, it was in terms of raw numbers, like on television, but then those raw numbers don't factor in what you just said, like the number of people watching it at locations, right?
Right.
Marc:Yeah, I'm pretty sure the number, like, beat the moon landing, which is... It kind of did.
Guest:I was looking it up.
Guest:It's like the moon landing, you can point to individual channels and say that it beat it, but it did not if you consider, like, that the moon landing was airing everywhere all at once.
Guest:Oh, okay.
Marc:Gotcha.
Guest:And you know what?
Guest:It's like, this is what we're very...
Guest:american-centric on this stuff like these numbers are huge they're enormous whatever but like do you know how many people watch the world cup like one and a half billion watch the world cup final so like take it calm down yeah yeah but amazing that mark has not watched this super bowl he's never watched a super bowl
Guest:i get i mean i definitely think he's and he acknowledges he's like been to super bowl parties and like yeah i don't think he cares and he's not like i do remember i remember even when we worked at air america he was mad about like any any conversation that came up about the commercials like he would immediately mock it he's like oh did you watch commercials last night you really like those commercials huh
Marc:Yeah, commercial watching is a weird thing that the Super Bowl does.
Marc:And I got to say, as a kid, I loved the Bud Bowl.
Marc:So yeah, I'm guilty.
Guest:That was a genius stroke of marketing.
Guest:I think it's actually probably, I mean, everybody points to the Apple 1984 commercial, the Ridley Scott one.
Guest:That was like the first big Super Bowl ad.
Guest:But I do think the Bud Bowl was the thing that made sticking with every commercial break
Marc:thing to do because they would run it through the whole game first quarter second third yeah yeah it was a whole game of commercials brilliant stuff like yeah and and people would bet on it oh yeah i remember it got to the point where like the bud bowl was so popular it was like getting bet on and everyone's like you know they like made a long time ago
Marc:No, Bud Light is going to win with a three-point spread.
Marc:It's going to be great.
Guest:Oh, it's why it's so dangerous, all this sports betting stuff.
Guest:I hate it.
Guest:Do you know how easy it is to get people to gamble on things?
Guest:It's so easy.
Guest:That addiction is insidious.
Guest:And the fact that it's now just like, yeah, you can do it anytime.
Guest:Just pick up your phone while you're watching the game.
Marc:Yep.
Marc:And just smash some numbers and withdraw hundreds of dollars from your bank account.
Marc:I do not enjoy sports betting.
Marc:I think it's going to be like the downfall of things.
Guest:I got to say, though, thank God I don't have it in me.
Guest:Like some people, oh, yeah, like you have the like the urge to do it.
Marc:Yeah, not only just sports betting, but also just gambling, like casino stuff.
Marc:So like I stay far away from that sort of thing.
Guest:But why?
Marc:What do you, like you think like you- There's a thing in my brain where I'm like, I can make so much money right now.
Marc:And yeah.
Guest:You have to beat down the mark inside you.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Yeah, basically.
Marc:Like, you know, just like Mark has to- Strangle him and tie him in a chair.
Yes.
Marc:Just like Mark is like still working out because like, that's like, it's just who he is.
Marc:Like I have to not go to a casino every week to, to gamble.
Marc:Not that I would do that, but.
Marc:Scary.
Marc:Yeah, it really is.
Marc:Just like Mark, when he saw his x-ray, I really enjoyed that.
Marc:He thought it looked bad.
Marc:And, and his first reaction was like, oh, well, you know, obviously I need surgery.
Marc:He's like, oh, the doctors, no, it's fine.
Marc:And like,
Marc:My first reaction to that was a line from the movie we're going to be talking about today.
Marc:It's like, oh, I didn't know you have a degree in medicine.
Marc:Are you a doctor?
Guest:Are you a doctor?
Marc:But that was Mark looking at an x-ray.
Marc:Like, I know what an x-ray looks like.
Marc:That's bad.
Guest:Yeah, I like that he was like applauding the doctor for overriding his bad medical analysis.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:His second opinion right there.
Guest:Yes, he found his own second opinion in the doctor he was supposed to see in the first place.
Guest:uh i but that feeling is a great feeling like that that like you know clean bill of health thing i mean i know he's still not totally out of the woods with it but it's like he's progressing and and you know just avoiding the surgery is the key yeah and so like anytime that happens it's such a great great feeling tell me about it yeah yeah you know what else i liked in the thursday episode uh all the discus discussion yes so much discus yeah
Guest:I was like, oh my God, there's like, this is the only other time I've ever heard about this much discus is like about the Von Eriks.
Marc:I was like, wow, there's a lot of discus happening in my life right now.
Marc:I'm pretty sure my phone is going to serve me up a bunch of discus ads pretty soon.
Guest:Well, what it honestly made me do is go watch clips of discus.
Guest:Like I was like...
Guest:Wait, the way she's describing this, and this is Divine Joy Randolph, who talked about being on a Discus scholarship when she went to college.
Guest:Like, I was watching Discus, and I was like, oh, yeah, this is... Like, I could see why people would want to do this.
Guest:It's like...
Guest:Yeah, it's like clearly involves a lot of technique.
Guest:It's not easy.
Guest:There's something to it that's like both math but athleticism at the same time.
Guest:Like, you know, like like geometry, like you have to figure out like you're watching these people do and you're like, whoa, they knew exactly when to twist their body and let it go.
Guest:Uh, and, but then also it's just like the calm of it after it happens is so cool.
Guest:Like to have this thing that you need all this force and violence behind your, like your intention.
Guest:And then it just results in a thing going.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:It's a lot of brain and brawn.
Marc:And yeah, it's the combination of the two for sure.
Guest:But that is sad that she thought it would be like the lesser Olympic sport to brag about.
Guest:Like, it's like, oh, you're going to the Olympics?
Guest:Yeah, for discus.
Guest:That's totally fine.
Guest:I completely disagree with her.
Guest:Yeah, me too.
Guest:I would go, first of all, not an athlete.
Guest:So if I ever would be like, oh, you're in the Olympics for, you know, you can do beer pong.
Guest:Great.
Guest:You know, it's like whatever.
Marc:How about curling?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Right.
Marc:You know what?
Marc:People love curling and there's nothing wrong with that.
Marc:You're just mopping ice and rolling out a rock.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know, so it's like, come on.
Marc:Discus is totally fine.
Marc:There's nothing wrong with that.
Guest:By the way, sometimes those curling guys, it's just the same thing as the discus where like I'd be watching that curling and you're like, there's no way.
Guest:that they could put it in that exact spot.
Guest:Like, there'd be, like, one spot that they need to get it to win.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And this guy does it, and he just knows, like, exactly when to let his hand off that stone.
Guest:Impossible.
Guest:And it gets into that exact spot, and it's like, what dark wizardry is this?
Like...
Marc:Like if this happened in 18th century, we'd be burning him.
Marc:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:This is when you're convinced there's magic.
Guest:Like this is like, I love those moments in life where you're like, oh, this is why someone thought there was a wizard.
Marc:Yes.
Guest:Like imagine like the first guy who was just smart enough to figure out weather patterns.
Marc:I'm going to fucking tell everybody I did this.
Marc:Let's sink him in the ocean.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:no that's the guy who's like don't touch me because i'm gonna have lightning strike you and they're like oh god guess we gotta listen to him back off uh i loved i love both episodes uh ed zwick uh was great i love that he was hesitant to say woody allen's name like he's voldemort like you can say who it is
Marc:I like, at first I was like, oh, is it, is it a surprise?
Marc:Are we supposed to read the book to find out who he's talking?
Marc:Oh no, it's that guy.
Marc:Gotcha.
Marc:Gotcha.
Marc:That's a bad surprise.
Guest:That's like, it's like a scary pop-up book.
Guest:Oh, it just jumped out at me.
Marc:Also the, I am Sam, Tropic Thunder stuff.
Marc:The fact that Mark got to say it to him.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And he's like, yeah, I agree.
Marc:Like made my day.
Marc:It was so good.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I haven't read that whole book yet, but some of the parts I got to page through just when doing prep for the interview, it's a very satisfying showbiz.
Guest:I don't want to call it a tell-all.
Guest:He's not speaking out of school.
Guest:It's just a good instructional thing that also involves some times where you're like, well, that's kind of juicy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:like all this stuff about Matthew Broderick's mom just running rough shot on the set of glory.
Guest:Like it's, it's very, you know, he doesn't spare, he doesn't pull any punches with it, but he's also, he's not like, Oh, and let me tell you this dirt.
Guest:It's just like, he's like matter of fact, here's what was hard about doing this movie.
Guest:Like this guy showed up.
Guest:He was, you know, pretty much,
Guest:a star you know coming off of some hit films and he didn't trust me thought it was like a tv nobody because i made 30 something and you know he brings his mom along and she's like you know rewriting the script every day and uh yeah it's it's it's definitely worth it definitely worth checking out and uh also worth checking out was the bonus episode uh that was uh that was
Marc:I gotta say sad.
Marc:And also like, just reminded me of that time.
Marc:And I was like, just a dark time in my life.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:What was even going on back in New York during those days?
Guest:Like, was it, did it, cause you know, I'm out there making that thing with him.
Guest:What was the vibe at air America?
Guest:Like,
Guest:Right after Morning Sedition left.
Marc:Bleak.
Marc:It was like the lights were half on the entire time.
Marc:Wow.
Marc:I remember doing the Mark Reilly show at five in the morning.
Marc:I remember being on the board and chatting with you, I guess, through Google Mail.
Marc:Yes.
Guest:or something or or a chat or aol instant messenger and that because i would just be getting back to my to my uh where i was staying my furnished apartment at like you know it was like 1 a.m uh la time and it's four o'clock for you so you're just getting ready you're prepping your five o'clock show
Marc:yeah and so so i was like chatting with you while doing the you know his show and it was just it was just a hard time i remember once you were actually actually listening to the broadcast on like the internet feed like it was like old you know oh you you can press a button and stream the the mark riley show and uh i remember one day i think uh i think mark was like out sick and we were supposed to have i think some guest host
Marc:yeah it wasn't wayne gellman because no no it was just some guy who was like around for like a week and yeah he was never around after this no he like he just didn't show up one day so yeah you had to do like a best of and uh and his mark reilly's uh producer he he was instructed to just toss to some clips and uh and like you know and everything and he would get on the mic and he would be like hey everybody it's
Marc:It's Tuesday at 5 in the morning.
Marc:And I was like, wow.
Marc:I got on the mic.
Marc:I was like, wow, look at you.
Marc:You have a bit of a radio voice there, huh?
Marc:He's like, well, yeah, this isn't my in the office fucking around voice.
Marc:I was like, yep, can't say that, buddy.
Guest:You had to dump him immediately.
Guest:But I heard it because I'm listening.
Guest:There was no dump on the internet.
Guest:On the internet, yeah.
Guest:The dump was only for over the air.
Guest:And I just remember that happening.
Guest:It's very funny that you brought this up because it's like the one kind of very vivid memory I have of anything going on at Air America at that time.
Guest:And it was that.
Guest:And I remember being like, what the fuck is going on over there with you guys?
Marc:It was a sinking ship and we were taking on water.
Marc:It was just bad.
Marc:And yeah, then Rachel had her show and it was all just a sinking ship that we knew was sinking and wasn't even quicksand.
Marc:It was just going down.
Marc:So yeah, it was a dark time.
Marc:And yeah, I'm bummed that it was a dark time for you and Mark.
Marc:And when you – I got to know, like when you went to Mark's like kitchen table, like did you have – like did you know like what to do or a plan?
Marc:Like it just felt like –
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:The only plan was make the show.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:We've got two hours and a budget.
Guest:And what are we going to do?
Guest:We knew we had Mark and we had Jim Earl who could contribute somehow.
Guest:But we knew that wasn't going to be enough, which is why we struck these deals with the improv comics and people who write monologue jokes and that.
Guest:And we did that all under budget.
Guest:You know, that was all good.
Guest:And really, you know, it was basically us sitting there figuring out how do we take, you know, essentially what I've done ever since doing Morning Sedition was Morning Sedition provided a template for how to harness Mark's talent on the microphone, audio format.
Marc:You've, you've been, I mean, absolutely the best producer for Mark, like hands down, there's no one better.
Marc:You are the Mark, you know, Marin Wrangler.
Guest:Well, we, we definitely are on a very similar wavelength and it's, it's, you know, it's good to, it's good to work with someone who, you know, you know, that, that you understand where they're coming from.
Guest:They understand where you're coming from.
Guest:And those two things aren't in opposition to each other.
Guest:They're working together.
Guest:We are kind of opposite people, but our motivation is the same, getting to an end point.
Guest:And we both kind of understand how the other one does the job.
Guest:And I said it on that bonus episode.
Guest:When he said to me, I'm not going to go do this without you, I was 26 years old.
Guest:I was like, well, that's a real vote of confidence.
Guest:I got to go do this then.
Guest:This guy thinks...
Guest:I'm the guy to do it, that meant something to me.
Marc:Right.
Marc:A similar thing happened with me with Rachel Maddow.
Marc:She was tasked to do like a 5 a.m.
Marc:show.
Marc:Right, right.
Marc:She was like, look, I'll do this, but only if you come with me.
Marc:I'm like, sure.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:You said she gave you like a bottle of scotch or something, right?
Marc:Yeah, a bottle of scotch, yeah.
Guest:Yeah, absolutely.
Guest:For the type of people we are, the job that we have been trained to do and the thing our brains are geared to do, that's something you can't put a price tag on.
Guest:You can't put a price tag on the trust that you engender in the people who are doing the public-facing job.
Guest:Just invaluable.
Guest:So having that, knowing, you know, sitting down with Mark, OK, we got a two hour show.
Guest:Here's the kind of ideas we have for getting comedy.
Guest:It was basically like, how do we do morning sedition at night?
Guest:And I definitely thought of David Letterman.
Guest:doing his morning show, which was basically where he started out on TV, and it wasn't that successful, and then they moved him to late night, and it's like, okay, but he just brought that sensibility to late night and stretched his legs with that.
Guest:And then, like I said on the bonus episode, my concept of the show was like, well, let's just do...
Guest:like almost, it's not a parody, but it's like, this is our version of a late night show.
Guest:Just like Morning Sedition was our version of a morning zoo.
Guest:And that doesn't mean we're making fun of morning zoos.
Guest:We're just putting it through this prism that it wasn't previously going through.
Guest:And so here it's going through this prism, a late night show where you hear like a band gets struck up and it's a fake band, it's on tape.
Guest:But then we also, Jim are all sitting there playing his guitar.
Guest:He'd play in and out of the breaks, like with his guitar and stuff.
Guest:And, you know, it was a, the idea was it's late at night, come hang out with these guys, right?
Guest:So that wasn't so difficult to do.
Guest:What just became difficult were all, it actually was a fairly easy show to mount.
Guest:Like once you were on the air doing the show, it was easy.
Guest:Like I said, I would walk away after doing it and being like,
Guest:Man, that was fun.
Marc:Right.
Guest:And walking away with this like, you know, sound effects box we got here and look at all these crazy things I put on it tonight.
Guest:That was hilarious.
Guest:And I think the difficulty was just all the roadblocks that just kept getting thrown in our way over and over and over again.
Guest:And it's just like...
Guest:Look, if anyone out there is listening to this and has worked in commercial radio, I'm not telling you anything you haven't experienced.
Guest:I'm not saying it was unique to us.
Guest:It was very typical of the struggles that go on in commercial radio outside of three or four shows in the country that get some freedom.
Guest:No one else has any freedom.
Guest:They're programmed to within an inch of their lives.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So, uh, it's just, that was the, that was the struggle at that time.
Guest:And then on top of that, trying to interface with an Air America company that was struggling and wasn't able to deliver on what it said it was going to deliver on.
Guest:And so all of that was frustrating.
Marc:Man, the fuck episode.
Marc:I don't know what was...
Marc:Harder to know that that happened.
Marc:Like, I've fucked up segments.
Marc:Like, I didn't have a curse go out.
Marc:But I remember, like, I messed up Dan Pashman's, like, produced pre-recorded show once.
Marc:And I was, you know, pretty bummed about it.
Marc:But the fact that all these curses went out and no one said anything, that – I think that –
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:Do you think Mark in the moment was like, oh my God, I'm relieved.
Marc:But also like, wait a second, is anyone listening?
Guest:Yeah, I think it was both.
Guest:It was like relief, but then also, oh shit.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:pretty sure like holy shit i can say anything because no one this is going nowhere yeah yeah well we got off the mics after recording that thing the other day and he was like man i'm really bummed out like yeah talking about that it's like it reminds me of how hard that was and like he he took it on in a way that i didn't have to and it was in an embarrassment because it's his name right yeah
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And also his career and his trajectory at the time, like it was, it was kind of underlining his prospects or lack thereof.
Marc:Right.
Guest:That it's like, yeah, this is what you're doing.
Guest:Right.
Marc:Right.
Marc:This is like in Goodfellas, like this is the bad time.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And it's like, again, it got worse.
Guest:That's for sure.
Guest:But also it's like, you know, these that's that type of show is the reason why a lot of times, especially in the early days of WTF, he had this like resentment of people who would come on and resentment of the idea that he's just somehow supposed to interview them.
Guest:That it's like, oh, I'm less than you, huh?
Guest:Right.
Guest:And it's like, well, yeah, like you spent this time like on a radio show no one was listening to.
Guest:And like Sarah Silverman came on and was clearly a big star at the time and was doing you a favor for, you know, coming over to the Burbank radio studio, you know?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Oh, man.
Marc:That's a tough spot to be in, right?
Marc:You're seeing your peers and they're just, you know, kind of flying past you.
Guest:Yeah.
Yeah.
Marc:Oh, man.
Marc:That's a down time, man.
Marc:I feel for Mark.
Marc:I really do.
Guest:The downness of it, though, I can take that with the positives.
Guest:And the positives were really doing something...
Guest:new for me in my life, living somewhere else, even though I was just trying to start a family, it's like going somewhere else, living there, getting fully immersed in a new culture, that of LA show business, even though we were on the lowest rung of the ladder.
Guest:There was a reason why...
Guest:that was one of my ideas was that every show, Jim Earl would open it up like, you know, the way the late night shows are open.
Guest:Like, well, going back to like Ed McMahon, you have like the announcer, right?
Guest:Right.
Guest:And his thing would say, live from Burbank, it's the Marc Maron show.
Guest:And that was one of the things I was like, I want this to feel like that, that feeling of like, you're in the magic place of where like TV and media happens.
Guest:And it's like, to us, that was a joke.
Guest:Cause it was like, we were,
Guest:it was shit.
Guest:But I still like, I love the idea that every show would open live from Burbank, California, you know?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Uh, did, did you and Don ever think about just moving out there or was that never, never, never, never, not even, not even a heartbeat to think of it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:Why?
Guest:Uh, Oh, just didn't, just, it doesn't vibe with me and there would be no, there was no reason to do it.
Guest:And, uh,
Guest:Yeah, I mean, when I came out there, I was very adamant that, like, I enjoyed my time, but that's a nice place to visit, and I'm never going to live there.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:Wow.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Never, never a possibility.
Marc:Fascinating.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Yeah, I mean, especially now.
Guest:Like, now, you know, it's like...
Guest:When it comes time for me to pick up Anchor and I can go wherever I want, I ain't going out to LA.
Guest:That's for sure.
Guest:Why?
Guest:Because there's a million other places in the world I would rather go to.
Marc:Sure.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But okay.
Guest:If you haven't listened to those, those are our three episodes from this week here on The Full Marin.
Guest:Ed's Wick on Monday and our bonus episode of...
Guest:The Marc Maron Show and WTF Origins on Tuesday.
Guest:Dave, I enjoy Randolph was yesterday.
Guest:Go check those out.
Guest:And if you have any comments about any of them, send them in to us.
Guest:Just click on the link in the episode description.
Guest:Got your comment form there, questions and anything.
Guest:And a couple of weeks ago, someone sent us a comment through there was our listener, Ryan, who asked us to give our thoughts about Quentin Tarantino's movies.
Guest:And Chris and I thought this was a great idea, mostly because we've seen them all and we love Quentin Tarantino films.
Guest:And this year is the 30th anniversary of Pulp Fiction.
Guest:It premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in May of 1994 and then was released in American theaters.
Guest:in october of 1994 so we're going to do one quentin tarantino movie per month leading up to that october anniversary the nine tarantino movies as he sees them because uh he considers kill bill to be one movie and uh and that's how we will count it to go along with his weird 10 movie fetish that he has
Guest:And so, you know, we're going to start at the very beginning.
Guest:It's a very good place to start.
Guest:I guess the best way for us to do this before we get into Quentin Tarantino's first movie is let's look at each of us.
Guest:what our current rankings are of his films because i think a good thing to do is kind of what's the reason for re-watching these other than you know we could talk about and we give our opinions on them we can talk about where we were in our lives when they when we saw them in the first place but i think also like an evaluation do they hold up
Guest:Do they move up our rankings?
Guest:Do they move down in our rankings?
Guest:Are we committed to what we think his best or worst films are?
Guest:And, you know, is there any flexibility in that after, you know, the period of time that it's been since whenever it was the last time you saw any given one of these movies?
Guest:So why don't you go first here, Chris?
Guest:What is your current ranking of the nine Quentin Tarantino films?
Yeah.
Marc:So at number nine is Death Proof.
Marc:Number eight is Hateful Eight.
Marc:Seven, Django Unchained.
Marc:Six, Kill Bill.
Marc:Five, Inglourious Bastards.
Marc:Four, Reservoir Dogs.
Marc:Three, Jackie Brown.
Marc:And two, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
Marc:And one is Pulp Fiction.
Marc:So that's my listing before I rewatched Reservoir Dogs.
Guest:All right.
Guest:So I have my list for before I rewatched.
Guest:And it's similar, but there's some notable differences.
Guest:So Death Proof is the last on my list.
Guest:Then Kill Bill.
Guest:Oh, wow.
Guest:Kill Bill's number eight.
Guest:Inglourious Bastards, number seven.
Guest:The Hateful Eight, number six.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Reservoir Dogs right in the middle, number five.
Guest:Jackie Brown, number four.
Guest:Django Unchained, number three.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:That I feel is like a controversial pick.
Guest:That is.
Guest:But I am prepared to defend it.
Guest:But we could talk about that more when we talk about Reservoir Dogs.
Guest:And I have the same top two as you.
Guest:Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, number two.
Guest:Pulp Fiction, number one.
Guest:And that was before my rewatch, which I thought... I didn't think about this in these terms.
Guest:I was just literally...
Guest:gauging each movie against the other ones, right?
Guest:Like, how does this compare to all eight other ones, right?
Guest:And Reservoir Dogs lands right in the middle from my list.
Guest:Yours is at number four, you said?
Guest:So, okay, we're roughly around the same spot.
Guest:So I think that's a good place to start with this.
Guest:And the other place I wanted to start with this is find out, how did you see this movie?
Guest:Was this your first Tarantino movie?
Guest:Did you only watch it after Pulp Fiction?
Guest:Or how did this happen for you?
Marc:Appropriate for a Quentin Tarantino movie, I watched this movie after I saw Pulp Fiction.
Marc:So I watched it.
Guest:Out of chronological order.
Marc:Yes, which is, you know, a theme for this guy.
Marc:So, yeah, the first time I saw it, after Pulp Fiction, and honestly, I didn't know this movie existed before.
Marc:when I saw Pulp Fiction.
Marc:It was only after Pulp Fiction came out that I became aware that this guy made a movie.
Marc:But I saw it because my brother worked at Blockbuster Video, and he... By the way, when this movie came out, I was in eighth grade, I want to say.
Marc:So...
Marc:very appropriate i did not see this movie when it came out uh so i'm glad i didn't as well but uh but yeah my brother uh rented it from blockbuster it was a hot commodity i think there was like one copy in the entire store um so so yeah that's that was the first time i saw it uh and how about you
Marc:So this came out in 1992.
Guest:And at that time, I was living in upstate New York.
Guest:So I'm 13 years old.
Guest:And this was like the Albany media market.
Guest:And one of the things they would have on the nightly news up there, the local news, was what we are aware of now as junket interviews.
Yeah.
Guest:And there was a guy, I remember his name, Dan DiNicola.
Guest:He was the like the entertainment reporter for the Albany, you know, whatever affiliate this was.
Guest:And he would, he like was at every one of these junkets, you know, that you now come to understand as one person is sitting in front of, you know, the poster and they are interviewed by 30 different people.
Guest:But for me, I'm like, wow, this guy, you know, he talked to Sylvester Stallone about Demolition Man.
Guest:amazing right right because you don't see those other 29 people you only see him yeah so i remember he and he was also the he would do movie reviews to this guy he was like the all-purpose like uh media lifestyle guy yeah like you know they now go to dina cola's world right right so he's at the 1992 sundance film festival and
Guest:And he interviews this guy with a weird name and a weird disposition.
Guest:And he's like, this was the best movie I saw up here at the Sundance Film Festival.
Guest:And here is this first time director, Quentin Tarantino.
Guest:And...
Guest:And he interviews this guy, and it was mostly the interview about, like, how'd you get the chance to do this?
Guest:And it was all about how, you know, getting Harvey Keitel on board with him.
Guest:And I was like, oh, I know who that guy is.
Guest:Wow, that guy was in this movie?
Guest:So I was already, like, aware of it as a movie.
Guest:And then it came out, and this same guy, Dan DiNicola, he, like...
Guest:did a review of it again, like after the Sundance thing, whatever months later when it got actual distribution.
Guest:And he was like, you know, I want to recommend this movie.
Guest:I started Sundance.
Guest:It is not for everyone.
Guest:And I want you to be aware there is an extremely grisly scene in it that, that it's, it's, it's not going to be for everyone.
Guest:And I was like, one ticket, please.
Guest:Right.
Guest:When and where can I see this fucking movie?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like now I'm already, I also remember that like, this was at the age where you're starting to like have, you know, thoughts and dreams about your life and whatever.
Guest:And I'm like, maybe I can make movies.
Guest:It's like that same thing that with Kevin Smith, that it infected your brain and like the idea that it was possible.
Guest:And so it's like, wow, this guy, he never made a movie before.
Guest:And then he sent this idea to Harvey Keitel.
Guest:And now here he is, he made this movie.
Guest:So like, it was way in my head of like,
Guest:oh, this guy, this might be, this is a possibility, right?
Guest:And then I hear he makes this movie and this guy on TV is raving about it and it's got some grisly violence in it, whatever.
Guest:But okay, it's an R-rated movie.
Guest:I'm 13.
Guest:I can't go see it myself or anything.
Guest:So I wait, whatever it is, six months later,
Guest:It's at the video store.
Guest:And, uh, my brother goes and rents it.
Guest:Cause he could, I wouldn't have been able to rent it myself.
Guest:Cause R rated.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:So my brother rents it, brings it home and we watched it as a family.
Marc:Like we all, yeah.
Marc:Your family is wild.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But like, like it went over well.
Guest:And I think a big reason was we saw a lot of stuff together.
Guest:They were okay with us seeing, you know, R rated things.
Guest:They felt like we had good, like sensibility around things.
Guest:I'm sure there were certain lines they weren't going to cross.
Guest:Like we weren't going to sit around and watch basic instinct together or something like that.
Guest:But like, I think they had a sense of what we could handle, particularly like me at that age, my brothers, you know, was older and,
Guest:And one of the things I think was obvious as soon as this movie started was, wow, this is like a play.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:And we were, we went to lots of plays.
Guest:We saw plays all the time.
Guest:We were in plays.
Guest:And when I say we, I mean the whole family.
Guest:Like my father did plays up in the community theater and like my parents met doing plays and like,
Guest:Yeah, my wife and I met doing plays.
Guest:It's all connected on that level.
Guest:So we watched this movie together, and the stagey dramatics of it felt very comfortable.
Guest:We all liked that.
Guest:And I think that's what I noticed and liked about this movie way before noticing anything about the filmmaking.
Guest:It was just like, wow, this is like... It felt like the movie of Glengarry Glen Ross, which came out shortly before this, which I also saw.
Guest:at that time, like on VHS.
Guest:And I was like, I was way into this as an idea too.
Guest:I think another thing was I was probably junior high or ninth grade or something taking French and the French teacher would show a lot of French films.
Guest:Like, you know, like just the same way that like, you know, you have a hungover teacher.
Guest:They don't want to do the work they put on, you know, Star Wars, right?
Guest:This guy would be like, oh, we're going to watch the 400 blows today.
Guest:without subtitles.
Guest:So then you have to tell me what he's saying.
Guest:And I was kind of getting into the idea of, oh, movies don't have to have a three-act structure.
Guest:They don't have to have happy endings.
Guest:That was the awakening moment of differing narratives in my life.
Guest:And it's happening right at the time I'm watching this guy who is famous for doing that.
Guest:How would we know?
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so that was my initial experience with this movie.
Guest:And, and I fucking loved it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:My whole family liked it.
Guest:We were all on board with it.
Guest:There was nothing about it that, that like any member of the family was like, that was too violent or to this or to that.
Guest:We were all on board.
Guest:And, and, and I was hooked now on like, I'm going to follow everything that guy does.
Marc:Oh wow.
Guest:So like, it really is the only guy in my life that,
Guest:filmmaking wise, who I have like felt like I've been on the ride with from start to finish.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:It's why he's, he remains one of two guests.
Guest:I have flown across the country to be at their WTF interview.
Guest:And that was Barack Obama and this guy.
Guest:Yeah.
Yeah.
Guest:who i told and he was thrilled he was so happy like it was like one of the great moments of my life that i made him happy about something you know it was after the interview i didn't want to like ruin the vibe of just him and mark and it was like we're waiting there before uh his assistant came back with the car which is the kill bill car by the way he literally drives around in the pussy wagon
Guest:Well, apparently he does drive the pussy wagon around LA.
Guest:People haven't spotted that.
Guest:What's the other car?
Guest:It's a Mustang, yellow Mustang with the black stripe over the center of the car.
Guest:So it looks like her suit.
Marc:Okay, but it's not in the movie, is it?
Marc:Not in the movie.
Marc:Okay, gotcha, gotcha, okay.
Guest:It's like a special Kill Bill Mustang.
Guest:and awesome uh yeah and he uh he's waiting for his assistant to pull up and i'm like i just want you to know uh you're only one of two guests i've ever flown out here to to be here for the interview and the other one was barack obama and he's like oh my god and he like reaches his hand out shakes my hand he's like i can't believe i made the list you are the list yeah
Guest:that's awesome he was such a giddy kid after the interview he was so happy with that WTF interview like he was like yeah like it was over and he's like I can't believe that that was like it was so fast that was just like amazing just what a real conversation he was so happy with it wow thrilling moment that's awesome
Guest:But all right, so all of that background for the two of us.
Guest:We obviously have had our opinions of his movies over the years and his trajectory, and we ranked them.
Guest:And now we come to this moment where we're going to start watching all of them in a row, and we each sit down within the past week with Reservoir Dogs, 1992, his first film.
Guest:What did you think overall?
Guest:You could start us out, Chris.
Guest:What are your thoughts going into Reservoir Dogs?
Marc:Well, I'm reminded immediately that this movie is not just the movie.
Marc:It's also the soundtrack.
Marc:Unbelievable.
Marc:The soundtrack, not only that it plays throughout the movie, but it was a staple in my Toyota Celica.
Marc:I would...
Marc:I would be playing this on repeat in my car.
Marc:Like, it was part of my life, you know?
Guest:It was such a big deal that it had clips from the movie in it.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Marc:So, like, oh, you know, I'm hungry.
Marc:Let's go get a taco.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:The fact that I can re-listen to that on a CD was awesome.
Marc:It was just awesome.
Guest:It was like what you said when we talked about the Siskel and Ebert show, how you got clips from the movies in the show.
Marc:Yes.
Guest:Like it was the same thing.
Guest:I remember with the Reservoir Dogs soundtrack and then later the Pulp Fiction soundtrack that it was like, oh, I can't wait until someday I have access to watching this movie whenever I want.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I have this, like at least this, it placated the beast within me that wanted to devour everything about this movie, but there was no internet or anything like that in our imagination.
Guest:So we just had to wait.
Guest:You had to wait until someday you'd be able to watch it on whatever cable, or maybe you'd tape it off of something.
Guest:I got at this point too, that was when things would get released.
Guest:you know, on video to rent, but you couldn't buy them.
Marc:No, it was like a hundred bucks or something.
Marc:Exactly.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:The only things you could buy were like Disney movies, right?
Marc:Yes.
Guest:Or like, you know, Jurassic Park.
Marc:Yeah, absolutely.
Marc:But the opening scene is still iconic.
Marc:You know, it's, you know, because it's funny to watch, you know,
Marc:Quentin Tarantino talk about Madonna, of course.
Marc:But there's also, on the rewatch, knowing that Mr. Orange is the rat, you can kind of see that Tim Roth is just kind of groaning through.
Marc:He's pained to have to listen to Quentin Tarantino talk about dicks and Madonna.
Marc:I really enjoyed that on the rewatch.
Marc:I don't think I've ever actually noticed that the first time.
Marc:And the tipping, I do have a kind of controversial tip thing because I do think the world has turned to where Mr. Pink was talking about where, you know, oh, you know, society didn't deem some industries tip worthy.
Marc:Well, guess what?
Marc:I'm tipping everywhere now.
Marc:Like it is just tip, tip, tip, tip, tip, you know, instead of dick, dick, dick, dick, dicks.
Marc:It is just tipping is everywhere.
Marc:I'm tipping at pizzerias now.
Marc:You know, I'm tipping at coffee houses.
Marc:It is just excessive.
Marc:Like I am honestly kind of annoyed with tipping.
Marc:And on my trip to Aruba, the last place I went to, this lovely restaurant right before the airport, we got drinks and food.
Marc:It was lovely.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I remember at the beginning of the meal, I saw, oh, yeah, look, there's a thing where it says 15% tip is included with your bill.
Marc:And by the time the meal was over, I forgot.
Marc:And I gave my card.
Marc:They came with the machine.
Marc:And they asked, do you want to include a tip?
Marc:So I do the tip.
Marc:There's a tip line on the thing.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I gave 20%.
Marc:So I just gave 35 fucking percent tip.
Marc:And I feel like a fucking schmuck for doing that.
Marc:Like the gall to have a tip line after also having a 15% added on to anyone's meal.
Marc:And now I'm just like, I'm looking back or thinking back.
Marc:I'm like, oh my God, how many other meals did I do this?
Marc:Because I tip 20% at normal.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So now I'm just tipping 35% everywhere, apparently.
Marc:So I'm kind of exhausted with tipping.
Marc:How do you feel about tipping?
Guest:I go more of the My Blue Heaven tipping route.
Guest:I tip everybody.
Guest:I tip everybody.
Marc:Yeah, I get it.
Marc:I get it.
Marc:Especially, you know, you're like a known commodity.
Marc:You're like a known person.
Marc:Like I remember when Rachel, I sat down for dinner with Rachel and she was like, the first thing about being, you know, kind of relatively famous is you have to tip.
Marc:You have to be, not only tip, you have to be a good tipper.
Guest:Rosie O'Donnell, who I used to work with, would tip 100%.
Guest:100%?
Guest:Yeah, she would, her tip would be whatever the cost of the bill was.
Guest:Oh, man.
Guest:And she loved it.
Guest:She said multiple times in her life, she'd run into people on the street and they'd be like, you saved my life.
Guest:Oh, wow.
Guest:Cause that day you tipped me.
Guest:I was able to afford my rent and I was on the verge of getting kicked out, you know, evicted and missing my rent.
Guest:And you, that, that bailed me out.
Guest:And I, and then I was able to pull everything together.
Guest:Like it definitely paid off in that sense, but I don't think any of these guys kicking in their $1 tip.
Marc:That's the other amazing thing.
Guest:It was $1 for each of them.
Guest:Like, oh my God.
Marc:And there's only six.
Guest:There's six guys.
Guest:Seven.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Nice guy, Eddie.
Guest:So there's seven guys.
Marc:They have beers.
Marc:They have a whole meal.
Marc:Like, how are you only... It's also breakfast.
Guest:And there's beers on the table.
Guest:And...
Guest:But the thing that I love about it, this scene, this opening scene, all the things you mentioned are true, but you're coming into this cold, or at least I was when I saw it.
Guest:I didn't know who... I knew it was a movie about robbers and that something goes wrong.
Guest:That was all I knew.
Guest:And so I don't know what any of the personalities are.
Guest:And I know these guys are going to be robbers, but for all, you know, watching that scene, like Mr. Blonde, he seems like a pretty cool guy.
Guest:Like he's like, he's the one who's like, what if she's just too fucking busy?
Marc:Right.
Marc:Right.
Marc:He's the coolest guy.
Guest:And Mr. White is like, he's like immediate.
Guest:Like he's like, he's the one who's like laying out all the facts about the tips.
Guest:This is, this is the number one job for a non-college educated woman in the age of this.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he's like adamant.
Guest:This is a hard job.
Guest:These girls work really hard.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so there's this dynamic in here where you're like, oh man, I like all these guys.
Guest:Like these are, these are fun guys.
Guest:And that like, to me, obviously is like part of the allure of this movie and the rewatchability of it.
Guest:Same with Goodfellas, same with, same with
Guest:all these movies that fall into a kind of crime genre where you are enjoying people who do terrible things, right?
Guest:There's something very cathartic and, uh, easy to work through your own challenges of morality through bad guys, right?
Guest:That's always the allure of something like this.
Guest:And it's just funny to me how this movie sets it up with this scene where
Guest:Which is all surrounding, it's all the conversation, but it's all surrounding this like pop cultural conversation that happens again when we're going to watch Pulp Fiction.
Guest:We'll notice it a million times, but specifically around the Royale with cheese and all the McDonald's talk and that.
Guest:And it reminded me that in this kind of pre-internet time, and especially the movie starting out with Tarantino talking about the Madonna thing, and then you have this whole scene, and it goes to the K-Billy sound of the 70s and Little Green Bag, and you realize this whole movie's going to have all this music, because they already talked about the station.
Guest:They talked about the night the lights went out in Georgia.
Guest:And there's all this stuff where I'm like, man...
Guest:there was value at some point.
Guest:It's not necessarily now because you can pull any Wikipedia page up whenever you wanted, but there was value in kind of mentally curating pop culture trivia so that you,
Guest:It's the same thing that happens with Kevin Smith with those Star Wars references.
Guest:Like, they hit these little lightning bolt synaptic things for people that they're like, oh, I remember that.
Guest:Oh, that's interesting.
Guest:And to have this guy, this steel trap guy, Tarantino...
Guest:have all these things that are swirling in his head from his time in the video store and his time going to movies and his time listening to records.
Guest:And he just remembers it all.
Guest:And he holds onto it.
Guest:It's very, also very much like David Chase, who made the Sopranos worked exactly the same way with his brain to have the movie open up with this.
Guest:you saw Pulp Fiction first.
Guest:And I remember you talking about how it was like this revelation to you, but this was an equal revelation for me that like this movie starts out and they're just like talking about like a virgin's bit about dicks.
Guest:And then they're talking about, you know, Vicki Lawrence and there's all this conversation and you're, you're just like, man, like, so I'm not crazy when I think these things are important.
Guest:Um,
Guest:Because that's how I kind of felt at that point in my life.
Guest:Like, man, I spend all my time like remembering lines from movies or like, you know, weird songs or whatever.
Guest:And like, oh God, this is in a movie now.
Guest:And these guys who are going to go do a bank robbery or a diamond heist, whatever they're doing, they're talking about it.
Guest:That's crazy.
Marc:You know, it's funny you say that because I think about that.
Marc:And it's a moment that I – another moment in the movie where everyone's getting their names.
Marc:You know, Mr. Blonde, Mr. Blue, White, Orange, Pink.
Marc:And Joe is listening to these guys shoot the shit and giggling like schoolgirls, as he says.
Marc:And it's like this moment that won this rewatch really caught me.
Marc:It's like these two different generations –
Marc:of how there's Joe and his generation and Quentin and our generation are on two different continental plates, so to speak, you know?
Guest:Oh, and the Quentin generation just wants to sit around and fuck around and tell jokes.
Guest:100%.
Guest:And so that's what, you're totally right about this popping out in this watch because it did for me.
Guest:That like, when you start the movie with this diner scene and then you have like the scene of them in the car and they're talking about like-
Guest:get christy love right yeah pam greer all that when you're in those scenes aside from like the racism yeah it's it feels like fun guys to hang out with it feels like the way you might shoot the shit with your friends again without the racist stuff which is there because they're bad guys i want to point that out too like right that
Guest:But as the movie goes on in when it's not those scenes, when it's the scenes of the heist having gone wrong or even in the flashback scenes or anything like that, these guys are childlike.
Guest:They are uncool.
Guest:Like Harvey Keitel is not a cool guy in this movie.
Guest:Like he's a dork.
Guest:Like, you know, like his like kind of like weird, like paternal instinct around Tim Roth and that, like he's very kind of sentimental and mawkish.
Guest:That's the other thing.
Guest:They're very emotional.
Guest:These emotional outbursts.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And, and all this like insistence all the time throughout the movie that you act, you got to act like a professional.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And it's like none of them are professionals except, you know who is like the most professional guy, the actual only professional?
Guest:Mr. Blonde.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Who's a psychopath.
Guest:Yep.
Guest:Right?
Guest:And so to be professional at what they're doing, you have to be an insane person.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You have to just be willing to kill at a whim.
Guest:You have to be, because if you watch the movie from the perspective of
Guest:uh, their personalities, trying to dial into each of those things.
Guest:Oh, Steve Buscemi, he's like the, the blustery hothead.
Guest:And, uh, Harvey Keitel, he's way too, way too connected by his heart to these people.
Guest:He doesn't know how to like remove himself the way they've all been told to do, to tell, to take these names on and that Mr. Blonde comes into this thing halfway through the movie, by the way.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Guest:And he's like, I didn't care that I had to kill those people because they rang the alarm.
Guest:They shouldn't have done that.
Guest:We're just going to wait here because that's the plan.
Guest:And if anybody wants to leave, I'll kill them.
Guest:And it's like you start to realize like, oh yeah, they're doing a bad thing.
Guest:The whole premise of this is breaking the law and amorality.
Guest:And to do that properly, you have to be bad.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Ultimately, like Quentin Tarantino knows that.
Guest:Right.
Guest:He's like at that age that he was when he wrote this and put this together.
Guest:He's like, bad guys do these things.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I'm not a bad guy.
Guest:But if I were pretending to be a bad guy, like I'd lead up to it talking about blaxploitation movies and to and like having fun with these people.
Guest:And then ultimately we all get killed because we're not those guys.
Guest:We're not the bad guys.
Yeah.
Marc:It reminds me so much of Glengarry Glen Ross in retrospect.
Marc:It's just amazing.
Marc:So for you, you watched it with your family at home.
Marc:How did you take the intercutting of jumping back in time and stuff?
Marc:It seemed fine.
Marc:You guys weren't disoriented?
Guest:It's so easily done in this movie.
Guest:There's...
Guest:Cause there's title cards, right?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:It made sense the way a play would make sense.
Guest:Like you're ending this act and now you start a new one, the curtains up and now you're, you're in Joe's office and you're going to learn about, you know, Mr. White.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:And, and it would say Mr. White, right?
Guest:Like that was the, okay, this part's about Mr. Blonde.
Guest:And in fact, I was so into every minute of it.
Guest:And, you know, you can knock me for being 13 at the time.
Guest:Maybe it was out of naivete, but I don't think so.
Guest:I remember not knowing who the cop was.
Guest:Like, I remember very clearly that when Mr. Orange shoots Mr. Blonde because he's torturing the cop, that I thought he just did it because he was like, enough of this sadism.
Marc:Oh, no kidding.
Guest:I thought he was just saving a guy's life because he himself was dying and he didn't want to watch a guy get lit on fire.
Guest:And then when he said, I'm a cop, I was like, it was like, oh, no, I have to play everything back in my head.
Guest:Did you know that this guy was a cop the whole time?
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So and again, like I was young.
Guest:I don't know that I would react that way if I watched it this time.
Guest:But the reason I did react that way at the time was because everything narratively was pulling in a total straight line.
Guest:Like there was no funny business.
Guest:There was no sense that, you know, you didn't know what was going on at any given time.
Guest:And those flashbacks are so crystal clear, particularly the cut in where Mr. Pink is running, is explaining how he got out of the heist.
Guest:And then it cuts to that chase scene.
Guest:Look,
Guest:From this era, this was a VHS era for me, big time.
Guest:We watched a lot of stuff that we got from the video store.
Guest:And a lot of it was like low budget indie fare.
Guest:This scene, which within the first 20 minutes of the movie meant something.
Guest:That it's so good.
Guest:It's such a good chase.
Guest:And the shots are...
Guest:so effortlessly composed.
Guest:That scene where he jumped, that shot where he goes out into the street and hits the windshield of the car and then you get the shot from inside of the car with his body hitting the windshield and it's all cut so beautifully.
Marc:So fast, yeah.
Guest:That did not happen a lot in that era.
Guest:People need to understand that.
Guest:If you were not alive in the early 90s watching a lot of like indie film and arthouse film and just low budget schlock that came to your video store.
Guest:Right.
Guest:This looked like a million bucks.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I mean, for me, the scene that elevates this movie is the torture scene.
Marc:Like it's, it's the music, it's the acting, it's the camera panning, the dolly shot, the one long take out to the car.
Marc:Right.
Marc:with the song disappearing and then the sound of the real world in your ears.
Marc:And then he gets the gas tank from the trunk back to the warehouse where the music comes back.
Marc:Like it's not one element in particular, but all of them together in this like perfect, like cocktail of a scene that to me was like, Oh shit.
Marc:I'm watching, I'm watching like something new, something different, something like this is, this is, this is good.
Guest:Oh, that's a masterful scene.
Guest:And he said, you know, I was doing research for the interview Mark did with him three years ago.
Guest:And I remember writing this quote down that he was like, I wanted to sucker punch you.
Guest:Basically, like I wanted to, I wanted this movie to be, I am making you laugh and have fun and enjoy this right up until I say you can anymore.
Guest:And then it's just like, what the fuck is this?
Guest:And as off-putting as that scene is, and thanks to Dan DiNicola's warning, I knew there was going to be a grisly violent scene in the movie.
Guest:But I do remember at the time, even as a kid, thinking...
Guest:He did this in a way where this is all in my brain.
Guest:Right, right.
Marc:This is being suggested.
Marc:You're imagining it.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Granted, he's got the ear in his hand after he cuts it off, but you never see a single slice of a razor on the ear, right?
Guest:Right, no.
Guest:You're putting that all in your brain.
Guest:And I have watched this thing so many times that now anytime I hear stuck in the middle with you, I know where every grunt is.
Guest:I know where the moment is where the sound cuts out because it goes out to the parking lot.
Guest:I have it...
Guest:all in my brain.
Guest:And again, it's the value of Tarantino knowing the exact right pop cultural reference for the moment and having that song, which was completely obscure at that time.
Guest:It is exactly what...
Guest:uh uh steven wright says as the dj where it was like oh this was like a lesser british invasion song right like yeah nobody was thinking about stealer's wheel and that this guy knew here's what's going to work exactly perfectly in this moment is stunning that's a stunning stunning scene and you're right to point it out that it is a um it is a defining moment of the movie
Marc:Yeah, absolutely.
Marc:A defining moment of a generation, I'd say as well.
Marc:Like it is, it is like the moment.
Marc:And so did you know of, like, did you see True Romance and Natural Born Killers?
Guest:Yeah, but they're all after this.
Marc:Oh, okay.
Marc:Wait, wait, True Romance, isn't True Romance like written beforehand or something?
Guest:Yes, but made and released after this.
Guest:Gotcha.
Marc:Okay.
Guest:Cause like, cause, but I was way into it as like all of those movies, like anytime I'm telling you, as soon as this guy was, was on the scene, I was like, that's my guy.
Guest:And I was like, I, I wanted to know everything he was working on, everything he was doing.
Guest:Uh, I remember that when I heard about Pulp Fiction getting, you know, going into production, uh,
Guest:It was like, oh, you know, Quentin Tarantino making a new movie with Uma Thurman.
Guest:And I thought it was going to be a movie.
Guest:Like I had just until the movie came out, I was assuming she was the lead.
Guest:Like, I don't have any conception of what it would be, but I was just like, oh, he made a movie with Uma Thurman as the lead.
Marc:Hmm.
Marc:Hey, a woman.
Marc:That's a high bar.
Guest:And he winds up making a giant epic movie with her.
Marc:Yes, absolutely.
Marc:And this movie, by the way, has not one woman in it.
Marc:And it is very, very jarring to see on rewatch.
Guest:Not one woman in it.
Guest:And I want to point out,
Guest:The one character of any prominence that is not white, and it is the cop that is in Mr. Orange's flashback, played by a guy named Randy Brooks.
Guest:And he is so fucking good, that guy.
Marc:Yeah, he really is.
Guest:And what it really underscores is, because this movie came out and-
Guest:Tim Roth, Steve Buscemi, Michael Madsen, they all get opportunities after this.
Guest:This guy doesn't.
Guest:Nothing.
Guest:Not a thing.
Guest:Crazy.
Guest:And it really, you know, I don't know what his history was.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:You know, it's like, he's got credits.
Guest:He's working.
Guest:But like...
Guest:It really speaks to the poor representation and opportunities for African-American actors in even as recently as the early 90s.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Like there was this whole pool of actors who were fighting and scrapping for like three roles, like even like someone like Samuel L. Jackson.
Guest:Right.
Guest:he doesn't pop until Pulp Fiction.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And, and, and I just, I can't imagine what it could have been that kept this guy, because he's so good in this part.
Guest:And, here's the thing I would point out about the Mr. Orange flashback.
Guest:That,
Guest:This time, watching the movie, was the first time it occurred to me that this is the point of the film.
Guest:The Mr. Orange flashback is the point of the film.
Guest:That when he shows up, so he's undercover, and this is his cop friend.
Guest:You must assume it's his superior, who's the guy who's training him through his undercover assignment.
Guest:So he's giving him the download, all the stuff that he's learned on this meeting with Joe.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And, uh, he tells him that there's some guy, Long Beach Mike, who worked as a, as a, uh, to vouch for him.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And they say, oh yeah, it worked out great with Long Beach Mike.
Guest:And he's like, oh yeah, you know, you gotta, gotta give it up to Long Beach Mike.
Guest:No, he's a scumbag.
Guest:This guy, he's immediately clear.
Guest:This is the only good guy in the film, right?
Guest:He's the only guy who gets that all these people are bad guys.
Guest:If you, like, Quentin Tarantino gets a lot of knocks on him, much like Scorsese does, that, like...
Guest:Oh, these guys just want to show bad people being cool.
Guest:And he thinks this is cool.
Guest:And he's, and it's like, look, I get it that like, if he made these movies today, he probably would choose differently in terms of like the racial language that these guys are using.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But like, they're not using these, this language.
Guest:So you go, man, that what, how cool that he just said the N word you're supposed to react by going like, Oh yeah, bad guys.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yes, exactly.
Marc:It's reminding you that these are not good people.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And that's, and that's why that scene in the diner with the cop is he's like trying to shake Tim Roth out of this.
Guest:Like, and he's just about to pass the point of no return.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:If you start to treat these guys like they're good dudes, like you like them, then you're finished.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And,
Guest:the reason this is like the crux of the film is like, it's twofold, right?
Guest:It's for one to establish to you that this is not a world that you're supposed to want to live in.
Guest:Right.
Guest:It might be fun to visit, but when you see the reality of it, it's bad.
Guest:And that's what this cop is, is holding up to him.
Guest:He's holding up this, this mirror, right?
Guest:But the other reason is that then the subsequent scene is Tim Roth learning the story, right?
Guest:That he's got to, the commode story, how he's got to go in and present this.
Guest:So it seems like it really happened to him.
Guest:And...
Guest:The way that this cop, Randy Brooks' character, teaches him is like an acting lesson, essentially.
Guest:Right, yeah.
Guest:It's like what you'd learn in like a Stella Adler course.
Guest:Learn all these things, get all the granular details, live in it, make choices, all this stuff.
Guest:And it's like Tarantino, if you know anything about his background, he sat through tons of these classes.
Guest:Like he wanted to be an actor.
Guest:And now he's being a director.
Guest:And what is this comprised of?
Guest:This scene, but also this whole movie.
Guest:It's pretend.
Guest:Pretend.
Guest:Right?
Guest:We're making pretend.
Guest:We're making something out of nothing here.
Guest:We're play acting.
Guest:And if you do that behind a camera, you make this movie.
Guest:But if you do that in the world of crime and criminality and amorality, ultimately, the only way to accomplish it is to get rid of the pretending.
Guest:Right?
Guest:You have to become it.
Guest:Which is why Tim Roth...
Guest:Ultimately has to shoot a civilian.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:In the car.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then when you become it, well, then you're dead.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Which is like very clear with Mr. Blonde, who Mr. Blonde is the guy.
Guest:He's not pretending.
Marc:Right.
Guest:And his only outcome is kill other people and then get killed yourself.
Guest:That's the only outcome for that guy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So watching it like after all these years, and I've seen it so many times and
Guest:I give it so much more credit than I have ever given it for actually being responsible about the morality in it.
Guest:It was he like it's one of those things that all those post Pulp Fiction Tarantino knockoffs missed.
Guest:They thought the thing was the snappy dialogue.
Guest:the sudden ultra violence, the bursts of, you know, gunfire and, uh, you know, people having a Mexican standoff with pistols or whatnot.
Guest:And Quentin Tarantino, because he was such a student of storytelling of, uh,
Guest:films from all over the world.
Guest:The apocryphal tale is that the name of this movie comes from Au revoir les enfants, which is, you know, he didn't know how to say the name or somebody he knew didn't know how to say the name.
Guest:So they'd call it the reservoir movie.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Oh, funny.
Guest:He fully absorbed all those influences.
Guest:And to have this be the first way he put it out on the screen is amazing.
Guest:That like, listen, we're praising the movie.
Guest:It's not without its flaws.
Guest:There's plenty of it that you can see he would get better at over time.
Guest:Or, you know, like some of the framing is very rudimentary.
Guest:They didn't have a lot of money.
Guest:So there's that.
Guest:But for what it is, as a first effort, it's crazy good.
Marc:Oh, and I mean the storytelling of that backstory where we're seeing a flashback of Mr. Orange and then a flashback to the flashback.
Marc:And then we're in a flashback to something that has not – is just a fabrication.
Marc:Like it is –
Marc:it is next level storytelling.
Marc:It's like what they actually call three dimensional chess.
Marc:It's like, it's that good.
Marc:Like this is expertly done and it could have fell down at any point and it doesn't.
Marc:And it is brilliant.
Marc:That scene alone is worth the price of admission.
Guest:Well, and then when it gets to the end and it ends with just, you know, a, you know, very inevitable conclusion.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That's neither satisfying or unsatisfying.
Guest:It's like, it just is.
Guest:It's like, yep, that's how it has to end.
Guest:And I had the same feeling watching it this time that I did when I first watched it as a kid was the balls on this guy.
Guest:Like, just like, wow, that is some balls to just do, to be like, yep, this is my first movie.
Guest:Here's how we're ending it.
Guest:Everybody dies.
Guest:And, you know, there's, they just all reached their inevitable conclusion, much like Hamlet did.
Guest:Like, there's no, there's no wiggling out of this.
Guest:And then to sit there with a Harry Nilsson song playing.
Marc:That's the thing that gets me.
Marc:Like, oh my God.
Marc:That's like the cherry on top of the sundae.
Marc:Of the coconut.
Marc:Yes, of the coconut.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:I mean, yeah, the ball's on him for sure.
Marc:But I am reminded, you know, it's interesting.
Marc:You know, we were talking about Kevin Smith and like Quentin and Kevin, they, you know, they're both, you know, video store clerks, right?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:This movie came out in 92.
Marc:I think Clerks comes out like the same year as Pulp Fiction, right?
Marc:Right.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:So you can kind of see Kevin Smith going down the same road at Quentin Tarantino is like laying the track for, you know, like, you know, they're both, you know, these similar backgrounds and stuff.
Marc:And like, you know, I can I can picture Kevin Smith.
Marc:Seeing Reservoir Dogs, reading True Romance, and seeing, oh, look, this guy is creating his own shared cinematic universe, right?
Marc:There are all these characters that are referenced, like the parole officer Mr. Blonde has.
Marc:And this movie is the brother of Tom Sizemore's character in Natural Born Killers, right?
Guest:Alabama.
Guest:He brings up Alabama, who's from True Romance.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Right, Alabama.
Marc:Then there's, of course, Mr. Blonde is Vic Vega, brother to— Right, Vinny Vega.
Marc:Yeah, to John Travolta's character.
Marc:You know what?
Marc:This time around, I actually read the script while I was on vacation.
Marc:So I read the script of Reservoir Dogs.
Marc:And you know who's referenced—
Marc:It's Bonnie.
Marc:Bonnie, who's a nurse, is going to come by.
Marc:And Bonnie is the same profession, same name, as the character who plays Quentin Tarantino's wife in Pulp Fiction.
Marc:So I can kind of see Kevin Smith seeing Quentin, similar backgrounds, similar movie nerd background, and that influenced him to put Jay and Silent Bob in his subsequent movies.
Marc:But...
Marc:where Quentin basically will abandon this sort of shared universe like real quick.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Like he, I know he wanted to make this like Vega brothers movie, but the actors got too old and stuff.
Marc:And I honestly think like Quentin scrapping this shared cinematic universe was like the best thing that he could have done.
Guest:I'm glad he had it in his head, but I didn't need to see it.
Marc:Yeah, you know, yes, exactly.
Marc:You know, it's great that, you know, he wanted all of his work to be connected loosely.
Marc:But I didn't I don't want to see like the brothers or fathers of these characters popping up in all these other movies.
Marc:So, yeah.
Marc:So just something that that I thought about while rewatching this where like, oh, yeah, you know, Kevin Smith took this.
Marc:Maybe a step too far, I mean, for his fans, and for a time, I didn't think it was too far.
Marc:I loved it.
Marc:But yeah, I like that Quentin stopped doing that and kind of just repositioned himself.
Guest:Well, and as we'll go through the months here when we watch all these films, I think...
Guest:At least from my memory, there was a period of time where I kind of lost hope in him being able to kind of get out of that kind of creative stagnation.
Guest:And yet he does reposition himself and I think goes on to do some of his best work.
Guest:But in terms of this one, in terms of Reservoir Dogs, now that we've rewatched it and you have your list, you have your rankings, where would you put this one now?
Guest:Do you think it stays at four?
Guest:Does it move up or down?
Guest:Or what do you think?
Marc:So all of his movies are incredible.
Marc:And I got to say, I think this movie moves down.
Marc:And it moved down.
Guest:Like after you watched it, you're like, that was great.
Guest:But it's now I'm thinking it's not as good as something else.
Marc:It's just that all his other movies are so like widescreen.
Marc:They're all so cinematic.
Marc:It's all like I can, I want to watch this on the biggest screen possible.
Marc:This movie is,
Marc:I can watch it on my phone.
Marc:I can watch it at my local playhouse.
Marc:They can make a version of it.
Marc:It is not cinematic.
Marc:And I think because of that, it moves down in my rankings.
Marc:Okay, so to what position?
Marc:I think I move it to number seven in my positions.
Marc:Wow, number seven.
Marc:Yeah, above Hateful Eight and Death Proof.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:So here's where I go with that.
Guest:I am not going to hold it against him that this was his first film and no budget.
Guest:And that all those things you're talking about, his expansive cinematic vision are the benefit of a movie like this and then of Pulp Fiction, right?
Guest:That his success was able to allow him to expand his...
Guest:Right.
Guest:And so not only do I not hold that against this movie, I think back to when, you know, maybe before Once Upon a Time in Hollywood was made or maybe before Django Unchained was made.
Guest:I just basically figured Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs are always going to be this guy's best movies and everything else comes after that.
Right.
Guest:And now watching it again, I feel like, you know, maybe it's not his second best movie like I used to think, but maybe it is his third best movie.
Guest:And the movies that I have ranked above this right now, which is Django Unchained and Jackie Brown, I am going to put the onus on them on my rewatch to show me that they are better.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So I'm going to move Reservoir Dogs up to number three.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:Reservoir Dogs is going up to number three on my list.
Guest:And, you know, it's kind of like I'm encouraging the competition.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:Bring it to Jackie Brown, which we will watch in April.
Guest:Let me know why I should consider you to be better than this movie I just watched, which is just an outstanding debut effort for somebody who only got better as their career went on.
Marc:Hmm.
Marc:Great.
Marc:I think you're wrong, but great stuff.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, we'll see too.
Guest:Cause I, I, you know, if you could take this movie, which you had ranked at number four and drop it three positions, you know, what's going to happen to the other ones on.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:There might be a lot of jockeying for positions.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, that's our opinion.
Guest:If you have thoughts on this or if you have other suggestions of things like Quentin Tarantino films that we could take a look at, we would be happy to consider those.
Guest:And hey, if you haven't brushed up on your Oscar movies, I'd suggest...
Guest:maybe getting cracking on that because in the next few weeks at WTF, we're going to be doing a lot of Oscar content, not just with the guests we have coming on, but you know, Mark and I are going to do bonus episodes and we have a compilation show with past guests who are up for the awards this year.
Guest:The Oscars are a, a big time for media consumption.
Guest:I think if you want to put it that way in a, in a simpler way, our numbers always go up around Oscars.
Guest:Oscar season.
Guest:So, uh, we, we do a lot of Oscar stuff.
Guest:And if, uh, if you're interested in the kind of conversations that we're going to be having around that stuff, yeah, catch up on some of the movies.
Guest:Uh, if I could, uh, you know, hint at some suggestions of maybe you want to watch things, uh, definitely poor things and, uh, definitely killers of the flower moon.
Guest:If you haven't watched that already.
Guest:But yeah, anything else.
Guest:And any of your suggestions are always helpful here on The Friday Show.
Guest:As we always say, it's your show as much as it is ours.
Guest:So let us know what you want us to be covering.
Guest:And until the next time, I'm Brendan, and that is Chris.
Guest:Peace.