121: Sleepers (1996)

This is a podcast about “Sleepers” that runs deeper than blood. Alex and Nick discuss their favorite Barry Levinson film, “Sleepers.” Stray topics include the film’s quick pacing, childhood trauma, the timbre of Jason Patric’s voiceover, Robert De Niro as a good guy, Dustin Hoffman as a fumbling drunk, and Kevin Bacon as one of the vilest characters in movie history.
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Transcript

0:12

Well, that's what. Hey, everyone. Welcome to. What are you watching? I'm Alex Witt throwing. I'm joined by my best man, Nick Dostal. How are you doing there? King bending. Don't do it. Okay. I wasn't done and I'm not going to go. I was like, What are you going to do? No, no, no. How you do there. King Benny, I can't do it. If an accent. Hell's Kitchen. Well, his is hard. Well, yeah, it's hard because he's like, Italian, you know? I love, you know, more than one. Danny Snyder No. King Vinny, bring me the one you know. Yeah. So, like, matter of fact, to the point. All right, sleepers, here we go. this is one of my all time favorite coming of age films. One of my favorite movies about trauma, revenge, sweet, lasting revenge. I think it is a perfect nineties movie with the cast, the rich cinematography that never calls attention to itself. Like, Yeah, the movie opens with this like brilliant oner crane shot. Like they're all on the roof and it goes down to the street and like, no one ever talks about that. Like, no one ever talks about how actually well-made the movie is. The whole time I was rewatching this movie for this episode, I'm like, I mean, it was a hit when it was released, but like, no one really talks about it that much anymore. And we're going to get into all this. But this is a movie I watch. This is one of the movies I've seen the most. I watch it annually at least once annually. And this movie contains one of the most ice cold movie characters I've ever seen on film, one of the worst villains just ever. It's a solid courtroom thriller, and this movie pulls off something that's really hard to do. It convinces us that some motherfuckers deserve to die. How are you feeling today? Wow, that's. I was about to use the word cool, but I mean, that's a very true. That's a very true take, man. Like you do feel like that Like this. It actually makes me wonder if this movie would work today. If for that reason, there there is like, this gray area of what we're rooting for as an audience, which is in the general sense of like human justice. Yeah. Yeah. Do you really feel that strongly about something when someone is so evil? I'm feeling good about it, man. I'm feeling good. One thing I know for sure, I usually save like how well the movie did at the end. If this movie was somehow made today with the same caliber cast, because this movie was sold on the cast, the cast still plays as a wholly shit cast like, Yeah, and we're we're decades later and this cast still hits. At the time it was like, how the hell did they do this? How did they get all these people in one movie? So this movie cost $44 million, went on to make $165 million this year or two and a half hour movie that came out in October did not really have Oscar prospects, but it was made by a Hollywood veteran filmmaker, Barry Levinson. He has an Oscar for Rain Man. It stars so many Oscar nominees, Oscar winners. But then it also has this young emerging cast who would all grow to be famous. Some of the boys who are playing the boys, some of them grew up to be famous. So what I want to know is like, when did you first come of age for sleepers? When did you first hear about it? I'm like, This is one of the reasons why we're doing this. I was I rented this the day it was released on VHS. The Tuesday is released. I'm 11 years old. I had heard about it because it actually came out right around my brother's birthday and my dad took him to go see it in the theater. I was still probably a little too young for subject material like this to be taken to the theater. Yeah, they both saw it. They liked it. And I this is a family I grew up in. Like, I'm having serious conversations with my dad about sleepers at age 11, but I was. I was ready for this one. What about you, though? So I remember this movie, like in 96 being a thing, but I really wasn't tackling movies like this then. So to me it was always I had like, it's so funny. I had a stigma about movies like this at a young age being like, this is one of those like good movies. This is one of those like, prestige. Yeah, yeah. And I don't think I really cared for that at that time because I was like, Yeah, how old were we? Like ten, 11. So 11. Yeah, Yeah. So I just remember seeing the cover in a blockbuster, like, because me and my uncle would go and we'd rent videos. I remember always this cover of like that, that dark kind of like muted gold kind of coloring. And then the list of the cast. Yeah. Bacon to Nero Hoffman. Yup. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And it's great as remember looking at to go off this movie We're not renting this, we're not renting this. And so around when I was in college, I was told by basically everyone that I was the Kevin Bacon of the theater department that was the actor that I was like, okay, like the Kevin Bacon, but not the Sean. No, no, no, no. Yeah, no, no, no, no. The actor Kevin Bacon, the apartment you have going on. that'd be okay. Hey, I dig that compliment. I've always love Kevin Bacon, so I'm going to get to him today. Yeah, Yeah. So? So I was like, okay, all right, everyone, let's all calm down. If you're all calling me the Kevin Bacon of the theater department, then like, I better because I. I knew Tremors. I knew. I knew some of this. Yeah, well, actually, no, I never even saw Footloose, so I seen it since, but I wasn't really that familiar with much of Kevin Bacon stuff. And so I went to my professor and I was like, All right, so you've dug me this name. You're I'm the Kevin Bacon of the theater department. So what's a good Kevin Bacon performance? I should see. And he said, Sleepers and he didn't prepare me for it or anything. He just kind of just goes sleepers. And I was like, okay, all right, I'll watch it. So went home, watched it, had no idea what I was getting myself into. It was like, on one hand, you're kind of enthralled by this whole entire movie, and then you get a performance like that and it just shakes you like you're like, how? How, how am I even supposed to kind of, like, feel about now that I'm being called the Kevin Bacon of the theater? Well, that's what I mean. That's why I wanted the clarification. If it was because of this. Hey, good on the professor for recommending this and not like teasing it out, being like, you want a Kevin Bacon performance, Like this guy, this guy can do more than, you know, cut loose on a dance floor and yet, you know, kill giant snakes in the desert. There it is. Snakes are they call tremors or are the tremors like what they that's like the earthquake, right? The cobra bugs. Yeah, I don't know. I remember what they called giant worms or bugs because he was also in tremors was the first two was just one, too. Just one? Yeah, just one. Just one. Yeah. Fred Ward was in them all. I think. I think there's like. Well I don't know, Fred. All right. I love that. I love that. Yeah. What an introduction. There are a few things we're going to breeze by today as we go. They are a huge part of the sleepers Lore. I don't have any concrete information about it. I'm referring to the book the film is based on because after I saw the movie and became obsessed with the movie and loved the movie, movie really taught me a lot. I finally bought the book. I read the book. The book is written by Lorenzo Kaa Katara. Sorry if I'm not saying that right. That is who Jason Patrick's character is based on. He's based on a version of Lorenzo and as a literary text. The book to me is superb. If you like the movie, you will like the book now as a work of nonfiction, which the book purports to be. I just can't speak to that. I mean, we're not really going to explore that on the pod. So I just want to get all of this out of the way right now. And I'm quickly going to go through the book, the pre-production, because this they used to do this in Hollywood. This doesn't happen anymore. This is nuts. Sleeper. In fact, sleepers is the exact kind of mid-budget, you know, 40 to $50 million movie that we can play and doesn't exist anymore. It costs 44 million to make it stars a ton of A-listers. It's directed by an Oscar winner. It's scored by the most famous movie musician ever. It's shot by the guy who shot Goodfellas. So the movie comes together quickly. Lorenzo submits his book to a publisher, a smaller movie company, House, called Propaganda Films, which was co-founded by David Fincher. They buy the movie rights to the book in February 1995. Barry Levinson comes on to direct. Everyone is cast by July. They're filming in August 95. They film for a few months, edit the picture, and Warner Brothers distributes it wide in mid-October, 1996. Wow. Very fast for Hollywood. So while all this is going on, while pre-production and filming is going on, Lorenzo is claiming that his book is based on a true story and that the events in the book happened to himself and his friends in Hell's Kitchen when they were younger. That whole notion is coming under very heavy scrutiny. Everyone's involved. The Catholic school Lorenzo attended calls bullshit. The Manhattan D.A. gets involved. They call bullshit. They say no case like this has ever existed. Lorenzo maintains his story. Levinson said he believes the author and went ahead to make the movie is Sleepers, The book and Movie an exact representation of what this Lorenzo writer went through when he was 13. I don't know. But I do know that stories like this do happen. So that's. That's all I can say on it. That's it. You know, so obviously the the judicial part of the I'm assuming book and movie is fictional. Well, yeah, sure. Because you would. That's why the Manhattan D.A. got involved, because they're like, we have no cases of this, like, ever taking place of like, you guys with, like, a carte like doing some sort of carte thing and then getting two guys off of, like, you know, prison for killing a guard. So they're saying this doesn't exist. I you know, I do want to bring this up because I need to I kind of need to call myself out here because I've said so many times on this podcast that I hate when movies, say, based on a true story and then they're not. I guess why I don't have that big of a stain against this because I didn't know any of this was based on a true story. Like when I saw all this stuff that was not a selling point of the movie for me because I was so young, but I guess it was part of the marketing. So I don't know. I've never been a fan of people doing this, of people saying that something. Sure. And it's not. But ultimately, I just ultimately I don't care. Like this is from what was like 95, 96. The movie means so much to me. So if it didn't happen, okay, but I, I stories like this do happen. So that's that. That's enough for me. That's enough, you know? no, for sure. Like, I mean, the unfortunate reality of the abuse that happens that's reflected in this movie is very true. I was just thinking about, like the case, like coming together the way where this one boy actually became a lawyer. This case got dropped in his lap and they did all of this like complete smoke and mirrors type thing, because that, to me, in a great way for the movie feels like, what, a nineties, even like something like the Verdict or like in Justice for All like that yeah room drama that's over the top and not exactly realistic but you buy it right you go along for the ride Yeah I mean a few good men has so like yeah the thing about the courtroom scenes are believable, but they're fun. They're all Yeah. I mean, yeah, if we're going to, like, litigate the court, like the accuracy of the courtroom stuff, there's a whole host of things that, like, calling it a character witness. If it was going that poorly, you'd be like, Hey, Your Honor, we need to pause here. Yeah, I believe, like, we need. I guess I called the wrong character witness. Yeah, sort of like for about 15 minutes in. So we're going to do something a little different. I got her. Yeah, we're going to do something a little different. We're going to slow things down before we really get going about the movie. Before we really get going, we're going to get a little personal, which I've done a few times on the podcast, and I've always done it with a greater amount of resistance because I want people to listen to our podcast and here to knucklehead best friends talking about movies. That's all this should be. It should just be fun. I want us to have fun doing it. I want the people to have fun listening to it. But since you are listening occasionally, occasionally we talk about movies that transcend the art form. For me, sleepers. He got Game. Antoine Fisher which I brought up a few times. These are just movies to most people, if people have even seen them. But these movies changed my life. I found these films at a point in my life when I absolutely needed them. The perspective I gained from sleepers allowed me to live my life in a fuller way. If I'm going to do a podcast about sleepers and make grand declarative statements like Sleepers is the most emotionally important film I will ever see, That's not going to make sense unless I paint a fuller picture. So I talk about my brother a bit on this podcast, a bit more than I thought I would. I did not realize that was going to happen. And I do this again with resistance because I don't want I don't want to sound like a broken record or keep constantly bringing these, you know, things up. But my brother was not a mentally well person. And you know, who knows why? Family history, chemical imbalance, childhood trauma, all the above. Who the hell knows? And he was not a pleasant person. He was angry, explosive, irrational, paranoid. He would do things that did not make sense. If you challenged him on anything, he would get angry. That behavior was always there. He was three years older than me, and from when I was born, that was always him. When I got much older, I started going to therapy and I started to study things like bipolar one disorder, borderline personality disorder, paranoid schizophrenia. And through that I was finally able to identify my brother's behavior. But by then I'm off the couch. I had purposefully become estranged from my brother. I didn't have any of that psychological perspective when I was actually living with him when we were young. But thankfully, I discovered a few key movies like the one we're talking about today. That helped because things got way, way worse with my brother while he was already exhibiting combative behavior at a young age. When he was 12 years old, he was physically assaulted by a grown man that he thought he could trust. And that one single event was the turning point. I want to be clear here very, very, very clear. I am not saying that the single event, quote unquote, made my brother mentally ill. He it was already there. He was already strange. He was already angry. But this single event did turn a strange and angry child into a tortured, violent monster. Overnight. My brother went from doing well in school and playing in a ton of organized sports to isolating himself and violently challenging anyone who stood up to him. He could spin into a rage the likes of which I have never seen matched by another person in real life or on screen. I see things like Edward Norton in American history at the dinner table that gets kind of close for like every, you know, we're having a nice discussion. And then within 4 minutes, he spun himself completely out of control. That gets close. A few years after this event, when my brother was a teenager, a bad group of friends of which he was the leader of. And you start to mix in drugs and alcohol. And it just made all of this so much worse to his friends and his girlfriends. He was the tough guy. He didn't take shit from anyone. He was the crazy guy who was in all of their corners. He would punch a teacher or curse out a cop, and that was probably exciting to his friends. But at home at night, I would just myself and my parents, it was like the anger had nowhere else to go. So it exploded often. Quite often I was the recipient of the violence emotionally or physically. Other times I just barricaded myself in my room and watched movies and routinely, in his most explosive moments, I would hear my brother cry out the man's name who brutalized him. I would hear him go back to this event over and over and use it as a crutch, use it as an excuse for why he was the way he was. I saw him actively avoid any repercussions for his own behavior because of what he had been through. And initially I was nine years old. I felt terrible for him. But after a few years of him constantly taking his rage out on me and my parents who were innocent, I realize that we've all been through something bad or traumatic or horrific. We all have baggage and if you keep using that as an excuse to not explore your own mental health, then it could very well kill you. I have never seen any of this. All this stuff that I'm describing portrayed with more honesty than in Barry Levinson. Sleepers. In this film, four boys survive horrific abuse from men who were hired to guard them. And they do survive it. They do make it out of that dark, cold basement, but they are forever altered, as you're going to hear one is doing. He's okay. He works at a paper he gets by, the other one is a lunatic, but he's not psychotic. He he's just spent seemingly his entire adult life manipulating the legal system to bury the four cowards who tortured him and those other two boys have grown into full fledged psychopaths. They are not sociopaths. They cannot hide it. They cannot blend into society. They walk into a bar and you immediately know they're trouble. And when they get a chance to kill one of those guards, they do not spend years thinking about how to legally bury him. They shoot him eight times in a New York restaurant. I saw sleepers for the first time 18 months after my brother's attack, when he seemed to be well on his way to turning into the adult John or Tom from Sleepers and Sleepers. I cannot tell you how much this movie helped me understand. It helped me compartmentalize. It helped me survive. Good Will Hunting came out the next year. It did, too. That film made me realize it. Yeah, The horrible shit we've gone through is not our fault, but it is our responsibility to deal with it. Will Hunting has never left Boston. He has no capacity for love by the end of that movie because of what he's opened himself up to emotionally, he's uprooting his entire life for the sake of love. I got that. I got that. He got game, Dad, this is. Well, I got way too nervous on that episode to bring up everything that I'm talking about now. And while Jake and Jesus in that movie are father and son, that relationship is my brother. And I see that combative, antagonistic, aggressive behavior, the little boy trying to stand up to it, the innocent bystander to get hurt. And then years later, the aggressor wants solace. But the abuse little boy wants none of it. Just as I did, my brother apologized to me twice in my life and they were real apologies with tears. Both of these apologies happened in the same summer, the summer before I left for college. One apology happened after we watched the game together. The other much more emotional apology happened after we watched sleepers together. And he did mean what he said to me, but it was too little too late for me. That was 2004. He died in 2016. We saw each other a handful of times in those years. I never had his cell phone number or email address. The last time I saw him was 2013, and to his credit, he did seem to get his life together for a little bit. He had a good job. He made good money. He got master's degrees, plural, got along really well with my parents, which I could not believe. His life was never perfect, but he did seem to be getting on. And then in a snap, he had a complete and utter mental breakdown. There was no event that led to this. He woke up one morning. It was quite simply out of his mind. Tom Wilkinson, Michael Clayton. And he stayed that way for a little over a year until he died by suicide. So long story sleepers and part movie. I do think I needed to say this because I didn't want to tiptoe around my brother during this episode. I was extremely nervous to mention all this. But if you want to know why I'm so obsessed with certain movies and films like Sleepers in particular, this is why when I was not the Target of my brother's rage, I was hiding in my room watching movies, usually desperately trying to find movies that showed the darker sides of human nature so that I could understand my life better. And, you know, I know my dad is listening. I just want to say that I love him. And this is why he's my best friend, because we made it, you know, we're here the day my brother died. The day he died, my dad told himself that he would not let the death of his oldest son define who he was. And he hasn't had. I hope this is all okay. I hope you know, I don't get personal for sympathy. Believe me, that it's not my intention. But we're we're not defined by the worst thing that happened to us. We're not at the end of this movie. There's a passage. I can hear my voice cracking that has meant so much to me. When Brad Pitt and Jason Patric are talking after the court and Jason Patric says, Don't go too far, I may need a good lawyer someday, You can't afford a good lawyer. May need a good friend, though. Brad Pitt says, I'll find you when you do count on it. That's it. What do we do now with the rest of the podcast? That was, I think. Yeah, I know. Thank you. Thank you for being here and being a very, you know, warm presence, as I said, all that, you know, that story. This isn't something I talk about a lot, but there's a whole like there is a picture to paint here. It's not necessarily pleasant one, but this movie, I mean, this movie just helped me in ways I, I have just tried to articulate but really will never be able to fully. So that's it. Thanks for listening. Yeah, man. I mean, I mean, obviously, I know that story. I mean, I think the first time I actually learned that about you, I read it. It's something that you've that you've put into a piece of your art. Yeah. And my script and I remember being like, I didn't know any of this. I think it's really, really beautiful. And brave that you put that out there in this forum, because this isn't just it's not it's not you just putting out a diary entry, just like, hey, people, listen, there's a point and this is like I've always said, this is why we've started this podcast was because this is why. Yeah, these there are movies that help us either understand our lives or our help reflect, mirror anything. This is why we make art. This is why anyone does anything. I mean, it's crazy to always kind of think that whatever you possibly could put out there might be received by somebody in a way that you could never even imagine. I'm sure. Yeah. Yeah. You know, there's obviously, like, a reason to make a movie like Sleepers, if you are Barry Levinson and the producers and all this and that. But I don't think any of them could ever imagine that somewhere in a small Virginian town, there is young boys that are watching this movie where because one of the more like compelling things about, you know, this story with your brother is Yes, would it helped you? But that apology that he gave you after seeing this, because that means that. Yeah, in his like he was able to receive that movie and understand something about himself and I'm sure it great pain and great conflict to then apologize. That means that this movie touches on something very human and very real. And if it can connect with people on this way, then this is the point of why anyone makes anything, whether it's music, any kind of art form. This is why we need it. This is why it's it's it's always like that. Dead Poets Society. Ridiculous. I always say it's ridiculous because it's not though. Yeah, but it's it's, it's why we need things when we need them. And then when we receive them, whether we're ready for them or not. It stops us in our tracks and we need to pay attention because it's, it's healthy. It's a complete tribute to yourself and to the makers of this movie for being able to create something that means something so much. And that's the point of what we're doing, is sharing why it means that. So that's why it's not a diary entry. That's why it's not this or that. It's for this reason. And that's amazing. And again, I think this is really also a credit to how awesome you are as a person as such. Thanks. It's true. It's true. Well, you know, I talk to my dad about stuff and it's like, you know, let's we're here. Like we're safe. Everything's good. This is this is resolved. Trauma. I mean, it's there. Believe me, it's there. It doesn't go away. Right? And I have depression, in part because this and maybe, who knows, chemical imbalance, all the stuff I just talked about, like, who knows? Who knows? But it's, you know, everything's good. Like, Yes. Yeah. Whoever needs to be medicated is properly medicated. It's, you know. So I thank you again for saying that. And yeah, I, I this just isn't a movie that a lot of people talk about. And some people are like, yeah, that I saw that once. I saw that and I just I kind of like to pull these little, these little movies out kind of from semi obscurity. Like, this movie's never streaming everywhere ever. No, never. I don't know what the hell happened to the rights, but it's never anywhere. So that's one reason why I think it goes underseen a lot. And I'm just trying to pull them out and go, you know, this did this meant something to me. And it always has. And this is a movie. I get excited to put on. Like when we locked into this, I was like, Yes, sleepers, like, I love this movie and I'm so excited to like, do it. But we're going to talk about Barry Levinson next. Even among him and like his body of work there, he doesn't talk about the movie a lot. The DVD has never had any special features. The DVD doesn't on Blu ray doesn't. There's nothing on it. Barry Levinson is no stranger to doing commentaries. I loved his his voice. He was born and raised in Baltimore, which is, you know, close to where I grew up. And I just love that accent. So he's a lot of fun to listen to. It's basically, you know, Kevin Bacon's accent in the movie. It's like a pretty even though they're in I guess it's supposed to be in upstate New York, but it's a pretty thicker Baltimore accent. What's your relationship with Barry Levinson? Watch any of his. Are you a fan of his movies? I know we've talked about diner on this on the pod. We talked about our 1982. Yeah, 1982. Exactly. He's just he's one of those journeyman directors, basically a Hollywood studio director who, like, started in seventies and eighties and just he is still around, still making movies. And it just always kind of chips away. Sometimes his movies get nominated for Oscars, sometimes they bomb, but then the next year he's just going to make another movie. You know, Rob Reiner. Mike Nichols was like this. Yeah. Barry Levinson. These guys who were just good at it, just like a solid like director that can kind of take almost any kind of material. No, I'm a fan. Like, I made a top five list of, I want to hear dude. Yeah. Okay, good, good. What's your number five? So number five, is it probably one that a lot of people really like? Good morning, Vietnam. Yeah. Good. I'm glad. Okay. I'm so glad you're mentioning because there's he's made some huge movies that, of course, didn't make my top five because that's just how I am. But and I do want to say that in 2014, holy shit, it was ten years ago, but I hope my blog, I was like, my God, this was ten years ago. I covered him on my blog. So I've seen every I've seen all of his movies, which is just, you know, a thing. But. All right, Good morning, Vietnam. That's great. It's good. And it's it's Robin Williams. I think in some ways like his it's that peak, Robin Williams of where he was at in his standup comedy and then transitioning into film. I think it's also like that big introduction to that heartfelt I think that's like one of the movies where, yeah, we really get to start to understand that, this guy's more than just a funny, funny person. He is. He's got a lot in that. Well, true. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. My number five is a very little seen Barry Levinson movie. It's very autobiographical. It's called Avalon. He released it in 1990. This is a coming of age film based heavily on his own story growing up. But what's cool about it is that it perfectly captures the invention of television coming into the homes in America. So you get life before television when it was the radio. And as it shows in this movie, like people, you know, talked and then overnight, everyone was around the box in the living room and no one was talking and everyone was watching a box. So it kind of it traces that again, not not very well seen, but I've always loved Avalon. Number five. Do you think this is a crazy question? Really quick to maybe think of it. Do you think social media is like the new like television in that way? yeah. Like, yeah. Where dude, they say yes. And it's it's so funny you bring this up, I'm going to you know, I'm no, okay, just hold. No, where else would I fuck it? I just listen to his commentary. He does a commentary for Wag the Dog, a movie I love in a movie that is on my top five Barry Levinson films. And he it was recorded separately. Dustin Hoffman is also in the commentary, but in it so separately they are both lamenting about how just terrible commercials are for society. And I'm listening to this and I'm like, When did they record this commentary? They're talking about how commercials are going to kill us all. And the commentary is recorded in 1998, and I'm like, Wow, you guys have you think commercials are the worst thing for children? Yeah, All this wait, just wait a few years to social media comes along. So, yes, I do. I think social media became the new whatever whatever melting the brains of the of the youth. Yeah yeah. And like taking away from like like communication or. Yeah. Because like before the anything by the TV comes out what you just said, like everyone sits around, stops talking and looks at a box. Yeah, yeah. Now we're just doing that in our phones. It's crazy. Yeah. Yeah. We all talk to you, all communicate less. Number four from you, the natural. Okay, awesome. Great. I'm glad you mentioned that one, too. Robert Redford. Great film. Yeah. Barry Levinson Film. Yeah. But it's not on my list. But good. It's one of those romantic. It's like baseball's the most romantic sport for film. It just they they're able to do that shit with it. Yeah. Perfect ending, like. Yeah. Iconic ending. My number four is Bugsy, starring Warren Beatty and Annette Bening. Love that movie. Never seen this. I've only I've talked about this actually a couple of times. Yeah. Written by James Toback, who is, you know, an interesting voice in cinema. He's not. Maybe I'll just cut that out. Never mind. Yes, it's a good movie. Good movie. What's your. Well, he got it. He's been a bad, bad, bad man. But he did write some good screenplays back in the day. All right. What about your number three? There are three is I got to put it. I've really enjoyed this movie, Rainman. nice. One of my favorite Tom Cruise movies. I mean, that's like that's probably the biggest Barry Levinson film. One big picture won Best Director, one best actor. So many great stories behind it that Dustin Hoffman really fought him hard to try to get kicked off the movie. He wanted to get fired like he they were filming for a week and Hoffman's like, I don't have it. I don't have the character. I don't know what I'm doing. You need to go higher. Richard Dreyfus Like I've talked to him, He'll go, Wow, take my place. And yeah. And he's like, No, you were here. Like, Stick with it, You got to do it. And I think that's where you came from. The dependance on. Yeah, yeah. Like every time you don't think you're in it, go with do that state. Yeah. Yeah. And that's how they kind of found it. So does great stories. The unsung hero of that movie actually is Tom Cruise, and some people have wondered if he gives a better performance in Dustin Hoffman because he's he changes Tom Cruise changes in the movie. Dustin Hoffman. yeah it's you know he stays but yeah, it's it's next time you watch that movie you as in like everyone just kind of look at it with that one's looking like what Tom Cruise actually doing. I think he's doing more than people remember it. So it's always kind of fascinating to me just being on an acting point of it where you realize that someone had a really hard time with this. Yeah. And yet, you know, because it when it finally there no one would think in a million years that Dustin Hoffman struggled with this because he delivers it right. Very right very, very good performance. But to know that behind the scenes that this was not easy for him and that yeah that used to the point of like wanting to leave that that almost makes it even better in some ways that he was able to find it. And then the collaboration too. Yep, exactly. My number three already mentioned it Wag the Dog, written by none other than David Mamet. It is a absolutely biting satire. I love it. There are two really good satires, at least two that Barry Levinson has made and Wag Dogs just are tops. Great film tops, Top Aces, Aces, baby. What's your number two? Number two is I love this movie. What just happened? That's the that that is his other satire. I absolutely love that movie. I was trying to look of a movie like I'm watching all sorts of different shit right now for a director coming up. And it's that's really heavy. Last night I was like, you know, I should I should stick with Levinson. We're doing Levinson tomorrow. What just happened right on Hulu. I put it on I hadn't seen in a while. This movie's fucking hilarious. It's hilarious. 40 And it's you're like, is this satire or did they just let him put cameras here? Like, this is this is a very thin satire about one of the most absurd industries in America, which is the movie industry. Love it. Yeah. It's so fun. yes. That was your number two. My number two, his first film. Some may call it his best diner, maybe too heavily improvised. Love it just absolutely love this movie I dad turn me on to this movie so so young and I've always loved it. I actually was, like, really wondering how am I not putting this in there? Especially because we talked so fondly about it on our 1982 podcast. Yeah, I just yeah, it didn't make it. It didn't make it, but I like this movie so much. Yeah, that's okay. Number one. I mean, it's the movie we're here to talk about, baby. God damn right. I didn't know. I didn't know. I thought I was like, He has to talk about diner. He to talked about what's happening and B, what about envy? And so he's got some funny moments. It does. It does. But I mean, he's I wanted to spend a little more time on him because we never we're probably never going to do like a Barry Levinson episode. But yes, I'm so glad you got to mention the natural and good morning Vietnam. Other ones we missed like he's he's actually written a lot of his own movies. Some of them are his most personal ones. He wrote Diner. He wrote the screenplay for Ten Men. He wrote Avalon Other Barry Levinson directed films, toys with Rob Boys, not not not a very well-remembered movie. Jimmy Hollywood with Joe Pesci, not a very fondly remembered movie. He also wrote Liberty Heights Man of the Year with Robin Williams and Sleepers. I think Sleepers is his best screenplay. But yeah, he's got some it's got some interesting movies in their sphere. Remember? Sphere? my God, Bandits with Bruce Willis, Billy Bob The Bay, Which was like, Yeah, Billy Bob. Yeah, The Bay. Which was like found footage, horror movie. Not actually, not too bad. The Survivor, which no one talked about. It was Ben Foster played like a Holocaust survivor who had. Yeah, a boxer. Yeah, well, it wasn't that good, but that's okay. You know, I just like Ben Foster. Just. I did, too. He was good. He was good. He put, like, a lot into it. All right. You know, sometimes we start with the plot because this cast in Sleepers is so big, We're going to go through all these people first, and we're going to call out any scenes want from sleepers along the way. But after the cast, whatever we missed will go through the movie kind of in order. But it's going to be fun. Well, first of all, Sleepers, the title is a slang term for juvenile delinquents who serve sentences longer than nine months. And that is the fate of our four boys. Shortly after the movie begins, I'm going to start with who plays them as adults. We have Jason Patric as Lorenzo, better known as Shakes. Throughout the movie, Joe Perrineau played Young Shakes. He was an actor that he was one. I haven't seen much from him. Yeah, you know, Post Sleepers. But Patrick was in the Lost Boys After Dark. My Sweet Rush, which is a nuts movie. Geronimo. Jason Patrick, What can I say about him? He is your Mr.. I have always what you're missing the biggest one. So I see cruise control. I'm sick of doing everything pre sleepers. Speed two was what he took as sleepers clout. It went to like giddy movie. He's the star and decorator of a Barry Levinson movie. It is like, what am I going to use his clout for? So he had to be in jail. Got that right. I am. Yeah. Not yeah, I'm not talking about it to be there post careers because it's kind of interesting where everyone was at the time. But I got you. I've always loved Jason Patrick. He did not have a good time making this movie. It doesn't sound like he's ever had a good time making any movie. He's been notoriously difficult to work with, but well, I loved I love his performance, his shakes, and I love his voiceover in the movie. I've always been really, really drawn to it. I love his voiceover. The voiceover, I think, is perfect. It really it is a very, very good voiceover movie because not a lot of these voiceover movies because there's a lot of explanation and exposition and stuff throughout this. But I think I think it really serves the piece, and I think his voice is the type of voice that really helps a very there's a lot of gravity, there's a lot of way there's a, yeah, easy voice to listen to. Actually, the very first time I saw this movie, I had a big issue with the the, the separation between the kids and the adults. Didn't have that much. This this time around, a young up and comer named Brad Pitt played one of the sleepers. One of the adult sleepers. He's playing Michael Sullivan. Brad Renfro played young Michael Sullivan. He was. Yes, in the client. So he was used probably he was the biggest, you know, kid actor in the movie. And he went on to have Brad Renfro, went on to have a good career and then passed away too soon, unfortunately. But and we all know who Brad Pitt is now. Before sleepers, we had Thelma and Louise River run through it. California, True Romance. I mean, the dude is a white hot interview with the vampire Legends of the Fall 712 Monkeys, which he gets nominated for an Oscar for right up to the Oscar nomination. He's in sleepers. Brad Pitt did not like this performance of his at all which is sad but I just felt like mention that yeah he said he was a little too green. I liked the accent work it kind of dips in but again, I, I never I never said this was a perfect movie. I don't know if anyone never said Sleepers is perfect movie, but it's damn sure perfect to me. But if someone's going to be like, Yeah, I kind of problem with this performance, I'm like, Yeah, I get it, I get it, it's fine. And that's all that it is. This is not like, yeah, like my none of this takes away from the movie. I think it's actually a testament to the movie. I think it's also probably, it was kind of open this up a little bit. You spend so much time with this movie as a certain movie with these kids, you're kind of like really engrossed in. You've made these relationships with these kids and because you know what they've gone through, there is like an element of like, you're feeling a certain way. And then there is a very, very strong cut off to now. we're adults now. That's the way the story goes. But there is like an adjustment period where you're trying to separate the two. And I think almost I can say this across the board, and this is, again, not a knock on the movie at all. I like all the kids performances better than I like the adult performances. what a cool. Take that again. I love this. I love it. I really do. I really. And I did feel like that, too. The second time I saw it. I go, I really like these kids and I feel like the adults might not exactly match up. Maybe it's the look. Maybe it's just the attitudes. I think that was my Jason Patrick. One was like, He does not remind me. And so it's weird because I don't think Jason Patrick does a bad job at all, but he doesn't remind me of of young shakes. I don't see the the similarities. I do see the similarities in the two other ones that we're going to get to. John actually. Yeah. Yeah. Especially John. John Yeah, I'll do him next. Yeah. Yeah. Like he like that is the correlation. I'm like, that's totally that kid right now. And that's not it is hard to say because like, did these actors get to see the kids performances? How, what, who shot first was there. it was the, the grown ups were cast first and then they cast the kids to try to like match them. Also, the kids were trying to match the adults. Yeah. I don't know if they were, like, watching their takes or anything. I don't think there was anything like that, but I think it was. Yeah. Like, you know, all the adults had some work. Well, not not Billy Crudup, who played Tommy. I know. I said I was going to do John, but he plays the adult Tommy, and that's his first major movie role, which is crazy. And then, of course, young Jonathan Tucker plays young Tommy and John and Tucker went on to, you know, he's still in movies. We love Jonathan Tucker. yeah, he's great. And then, yeah, Ron Eldred plays the adult John Reilly, and it's Jeffrey Wigdor, who I've never seen again, is Young John. And that boy's great. Like, you know, give everything like all of his like he's a little one in the group, so he has the most fire to him. Like, I get that. But then he's also the first to get picked on Bryan Elder was Mickey and drop dead Fred personal favorite of mine. He's the guy who pulls I love drop dead Fred. I was solid. They played in Alamo like a couple months ago. Who even knows at this point? It was a blast. He was a blast. Watched that movie every Christmas Eve with my brother. Just the tradition. We are tradition. That's a good memory. That's nice. He played. He also played the cop who pulls Pacino over and Scent of a Woman and just like, what a shit cop. Like, he can't even tell the driver. He just pulled over his blind man idiot. He goes blind himself in deep impact. Good actor. I love him in this movie too. And he yeah, yeah, I, he he is my favorite of the of the boys grown up. if he's your favorite then let me let me get your ear on this one. Let me bend your ear on this one. There was someone already cast in this role, but he had to drop out because he got really, really busy. And that person was the mighty duck himself. Emilio Estevez. No. What do you think of that? That could have been interesting. I think he could have, because this is mission impossible. Same year's Mission Impossible one where he's like, you know, kind of scraggly and he like he's, you know, spike him out in the elevator. But it could have been interesting. I liked that they went with a more unknown actor, but I'm going to go through a few of these sliding doors. These cast. Yes. Sliding doors. Yes. Yes. But it's interesting. It's an interesting one. I like it because Ryan Elder, I like he has that huge scene in the restaurant. He's got to look at himself in the mirror. Yes. yeah. Change in that mirror. He has to be like you like, I can't wait to talk about that scene. So those were our sleepers. Now we'll go to the neighborhood. We have Minnie Driver as the grown Carol. She's a friend to all the boys. She was in circle friends, Goldeneye. I can't forget her cameo in Goldeneye. Take a hike. Sandra Bullock was originally cast as Carol, but she was already involved in a Time to Kill another movie about perhaps the justified killing of pieces of shit. But that's that's another sliding doors thing. There we have a little actor named Robert De Niro coming in as Father Bobby Carillo. This is his first collaboration with Barry Levinson. They went on to do Wag the Dog. What just happened? The Wizard of Lies, which I never seen and just watch for the first time the Bernie Madoff movie on HBO. Vittorio Grossman plays King Benny. This dude has 135 credits on IMDB. Sleepers was one of his last movies. He died four years later, have not seen a lot of his Italian movies. God, do I love him? Is King Benny just perfect casting? Perfect casting? The whole entire neighborhood is so well cast, ever so well cast, including Bruno Kirby is Sheik. His father doesn't have a lot to do, but he's so brutal early on, just the way like first of all, it's the beatings that are like taking, you know, kind of place off camera in the way he puts his arm around young sheiks and they see that dude is like fucking hanging from the streetlight and the the frequency of the beatings in hell. I mean, it's crazy how when sheik's gets in trouble, he's just flipping out at the situation. You think he'd be taking it out on sheiks? But he's like, You know, I've done enough time for everybody. Yeah, it's kind of. It's oddly endearing to watch him be flipping out on behalf of sheiks as opposed to flipping out on sheiks. I don't know. Yeah, really good performance. It's a good performance. Frank Medrano. Sorry about the last name as Fatman. I love this guy. A lot of people know him as Fat Ass and Shawshank Redemption. This poor guy who didn't survive his first night. He also has one of my favorite lines in sleepers. It is something I repeat often much of the chagrin to whomever I say it to. I give a fuck about most people. God, I love that line. The Dustin Hoffman Academy, a two time Academy Award winner, Dustin Hoffman showing up as what, like the ninth lead as Danny Snyder. You know, in addition to alcohol, I have a I have a slight nothing major like drug issue, like drug issue. I hear like it's so good. The this is one of my favorite like because he comes in like so late in the movie so and just bumbling and just like like what a character to introduce like a guy who's like, I dunno, I'm an alcoholic, I can't do this. I get on top of this, I got this and that. It's it's, it's a great character introduction and I am a huge fan. Dustin Hoffman in this movie and then George Georgiadis, I've never seen him before, but he plays hotdog vendor and I wanted to give him a little shout out because that scene when they show him like walking into the courthouse and they give him, yeah, you know, his like his justice with that narration, like we never saw him as a man. We just saw him as a free lunch and we didn't know about the family back home. I just I really, really love that. I love the this is this is a movie about the sleepers, but it is painting a perfect portrait of this whole neighborhood like, Yes, yes, we get it. So. Well, we understand, like may never been to Hell's Kitchen, New York, but we understand how important these square blocks are to this group. And and he does so much with no dialog. Yeah. Like in that scene where he's when the kids are looking at him and he's looking at them, there's like I to me I kind of took that is like, okay, you may have just destroyed my livelihood in a way, like destroyed my, my heart. But none of this was worth what we're both here for today. Like me chasing him didn't need to happen. Yeah, like Justin you had. But then there's also, like, there's doesn't seem to be any anger. Like, there's anger, right? He's right when he's chasing in, but not. Not right now. And that's such a nice choice because, like, that's like, it'd be so easy for him to see the kids and just be like, you motherfuckers like this. This is all your fault and everything. Yeah. And to give him the scene of him on the stand, my livelihood is ruined and all that stuff, which I'm not, you know, he would have been entitled to. But we've seen that so many, so many times. Yeah. Just giving us that look and some really empathic narration from sheiks. You're like, Shit, yeah, he is a human being. These people out here serving our food, serving us food, they are human beings. Yeah, they have families. Yeah. Yeah. And conversely, in the chase, when they're looking at each other from across the street and he's got that and there's the voiceover shakes, he's got that like you probably know it better, but he's like, He looks like he could go like ten more blocks. Yeah, just on hate alone. Just on hate alone. That was it. Yeah. Yeah. And. And you and and then see necessarily hate in the eyes. But I saw conviction like, what are you doing. Because I'm going to be going to and like what a great line to, to just mirror that on. it's so good. A lot of those best lines are plucked like straight out of the book. And it's just that's what I recommend. You know, it's not it's not a book that's like in rotation a lot. You know, we'll be able to do the coveted I should say coveted. You know, you said your book for bit coveted the hotly desired Sleepers audiobook is not out there. Tell you what's not desire these fucking guards. First off, I'm going to do Lenny Lofton, a Steeler actor. I never actor I don't know much about. They may have Jeffrey Donovan as Henry Edison, who was not well known when this movie was made, but he went on to star in Burn Notice. He was in chains. yeah. Says yeah, He wears the thick glasses in Sicario. You know, he's kind of a badass. Terry Kinney shows up as Ralph Ferguson. Ferguson? He's what a great character actor. I think his best role and probably his most famous one was as I was in Oz, the HBO show right after this, where he's actually playing like a counselor to the prisoners and he's trying to help them, which is not his role in sleepers. No, the head of the guards is Kevin Bacon playing one. Sean Noakes. Kevin Bacon. He was in, of course, Friday the 13th. But his first breakout is major breakout role was in Barry Levinson's Diner, goes on to be in Footloose, Quicksilver, Tremors, Flatliners, JFK, A Few Good Men. The air up there, The River Wilde Murder in the first Apollo 13. When I saw sleepers, I was pretty much meeting the guy from Footloose Tremors and the air up there. And he is really nice guys in all of those movies. And I was like, Well, I probably had the Apollo scene. Apollo 13, It's a small part. We're going to talk a lot about Noakes as we go. I just don't know where this character came from. I haven't seen him do anything like this before or since. There were some really heavy hitters considered for this role. We have Willem Dafoe, Gary Sinise, J.T. Walsh, John Travolta, and here he is, Ray Liotta. Wow. I like all of those actors. Kevin Bacon is the least likely choice among them and therefore, yeah. CS Is it the best in does just does something, I mean, just to complete, what do you call it, such stunt casting, but like a role reversal for what we're used to him as and he's gone on to play like villains and stuff. He's on a show City on the Hill. I watched the first season, I fell off it. He's a crooked cop and that he was in that movie Cop car like where those villains are. These are big these are big villains. Noakes is not a big villain. He's so menacing and terrifying, and everything he does is in the shadows. It's hushed when a priest is coming to say hi. Yeah, Make sure we don't talk about this. You know, everything's it's not it's not a loud performance at all. That's what makes it so terrifying. I like the way you just said that about the loudness, because the note that I had, like that there's just so many. But the one is, what is it about his voice in this movie that it's it's something that like you just hear it and it sounds pure evil because he's he's he doesn't have he's not putting on some type of like idea of a performance of like it's like, I don't know, like this idea of like a menacing type of like heavy, thick, deep voice, like the devil or something like that. It's yeah, this very not high pitched, but it's some it doesn't even sound like, like there's no there's this is a weird thing. There's no masculinity behind it in a way. Yeah. It's, it's, you know, your time here hadn't taught you shit. It's almost like. Come on, guys, stop. Yeah, Stop fucking around here. Like, stop doing it. He's not, like, yelling. There's no better. No, that's what makes him so scary. Even the first time. See him, like he's got the. He's got the cigaret. He's always spinning the baton, but he's standing in front of the door and you're like, I mean, it can like, how bad could this be? Like the guy who starts the cafeteria food fight, dash me hawk meal. Yes. Name who's been in a ton of stuff. Like he's a great character actor. He's an yeah, I've always loved him. He starts a fight, that dude. I mean, maybe if all four guards get on that guy at once, it's a different story. But that guy against Sean Nokes is. That's why he's like, he's kind of he's like, All right, go back to your room. You're done with lunch. That's how Nokes talks to him. You know, he's not trying to bully him because he can. He can't. Nokes very, very deliberately picks the smallest person. Who's John in the whole fucking in Wilkinson, Like he picks the smallest one on purpose. This is all. This is what these predators do. This is how they do it. You know, pluck them out. And yeah, there's it's just not a a masculine macho performance. It's it's not like a sweaty, drunk hulk out working out. It's why the medicine's there is because this could just be fucking anybody. Like it could be. Yeah. You don't. This dude does not look crazy. If you look at him, he doesn't know. I remember even one point. I just close my eyes during, like, a part of his speech. I couldn't shake it. I was like. Like, even though I've seen the movie and I know, like, the the atrocities that his character is about to do, but it's like, why is this voice just like, gnawing at me? So I close my eyes and to take it in and it was just I was like, This is so uncomfortable and like, so disturbing, but in the most compelling of ways, which is why, like, this character's so I almost don't know, How do you do this? Yeah, because it's so disturbing. Yet you can't not look at him. You actually you actually can't take your eyes off of him. That is so disturbing about it. Yeah. Since he just walks into a room, you're like, God, here it comes. Like, Yeah, but then yeah, you're so compelled to look at. I'm like, What is this guy going to do? Like, what's he going to do? And I think it's very easy to kind of play a character like this in a way that's almost so disturbing that you're you're looking away as opposed to being drawn in, which is crazy because you are you're drawn in to like, what is he going to do? What is he going to say? That's a that's a really a testament to how Kevin Bacon pulled this off so well. And because we wouldn't be talking about a character like this with such almost like praise in a way because of of how disturbing he made it. But it's so compelling to watch like it's crazy. He's he's he's excellent. He's like an excellent he really is of just a few others from the cast, James Pickens Jr plays the nice black guard who comes and saves the day. yeah, I love that little bit. Love that. Yeah, that's great. Yeah. John Slattery shows up as a teacher. Yup. These characters like that, like, I just want to say about them, like they're giving us the reprieve. They're giving these boys. Yes, I'm a breath of fresh air while they're just being suffocated by these oppressors and. And these physical assailants. So they are met with some decency by men. Decency in men in in this place with these two characters right here. And those are really jarring, too. Not everyone in Wilkinson is a monster like the teacher gives him, you know, the copy of The Count of Monte Cristo, which he still has all those years later. Like it means. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Huge cast of characters. And again, this is what the movie was sold on. But now that we've introduced everyone, let's start to dig into the movie itself because we open in Hell's Kitchen Summer 1966. We already mentioned I made a note that I love the The teMber of Jason Patrick's voiceover because it's just so he's got like a subtle New York accent that just barely pokes through. But then it's it can be very matter of fact. It's like even when he's talking about the abuse, there's no he's not going up and down like an emotional register. And I appreciate that. It's like it's it's obviously shakes his story but he's presenting it kind of like a journalist would, which, you know, I know he's what his character's trying to aspire to. So an all timer voiceover to me, for sure, I like that you use that word again that I was looking for earlier timber, that's what. okay. Okay. Yeah, I use the word with an olive. I think it's because yeah, the reason we get introduced to the core group of friends, we got shakes Michael, Tom, Little John. We meet the young hit priest played by Robert De Niro. I love the bit with the nuns clicker all folic it and under such easy targets. This is such a genuinely earnest character This is just Robert De Niro. Good guy. There's nothing shitty about this guy. I love him again. I think it's crazy. This was his first collaboration with Barry Levinson. But this is a priest who smoke cigarets who plays basketball, who, you know, is understands the danger that goes on in his neighborhood, but is also just trying to lend a helping hand when he can, even when he finds out like the shakes. And John were listening. The women's confession, it's just like hysterical. He just makes him do work. He's not he's not punished with, like, terrible stuff. He knows that the street could eat them alive and he's trying to save from that. Father Robert Carillo was a longshoreman son who was as comfortable sitting on a barstool in a back alley saloon as he was standing at the altar during time, as he had toyed the life of petty crime before finding his calling. Who's a friend? A friend? He just happened to be a priest. Crap like that does to your body. Come my father. That smoke and it's just such a good, good man. Like it's. It's really wonderful to watch DeNiro do this. I love him in this movie. Yeah. Yeah. De Niro as Father Bobby steps in to be a sort of surrogate father in some ways for shakes because, yeah, Bruno Kirby is just, you know, all sorts of bad. And then the other surrogate father is King Benny. King Benny is an ex hitman for Lucky Luciano. That's a tough job. And so we're getting to know him. We're getting to see the boys come to work for King Benny, the beginning of this movie very much is cut and assembled in movies like, say, Goodfellas. And I get it. I was going to say, Yeah, I'm okay with it. We, you know, in this podcast, I think we've talked so much about all of the Pulp Fiction imitators that came out in the wake of that film. Goodfellas was first like after Goodfellas. I mean, the the wave of shitty crime movies inspired by Goodfellas in the nineties. That was a real thing. And if you want to if some people were to write sleepers off as that, I hear you. I think this is the best version. A Goodfellas imitation to me. It's the community. Yeah. Yeah. It's the it's you're what you're doing this whole entire time is you're getting to on in the voiceover. It really helps you as you're getting to know the way of life in Hell's Kitchen. This is at the time, this is what people were like, this is how things were. I actually really appreciate how they talked about the domestic abuse in all the families. Like you were saying to your point about Bruno Kirby, you know, but the way that everyone this is how it was you know, it wasn't just about. Kirby. Yeah, No. no. Kirby doing this. This is all these families. This is how they are. And it's always kind of amazing to me in a movie, in any movie where, you know, you only have a chunk of time to show case the world and how well can you actually articulate and present this world to where the audience receives it. And it feels like they know it, like they get it. And this movie does that. Like I really felt like I this movie just absolutely cooks like it. Just, yeah, guys, it does that I never once known as time at all. It just it's like this flying machine just goes. So all of that is to also say that within a certain amount of time I feel like I know what this environment is or this world is like and I'm in it and I don't know how you do that. Like, think about it. Like you have like establishing shots, very quick scenes with these characters in, out, in, out, in, out. And then you got a voiceover on a script. Those are just the actions in the words, how you actually communicate that. And it works like, I don't know, I just don't know. Yeah, this was assembled by Stu Linder and we're going to get to some more of his credits. But it does it absolutely moves your cooking along, especially in these early scenes. The music's blaring. We get the pop music, you know, Walk Like a Man, which is going to come back around. I love Anna. At the end of this first little block of time is when they're all playing basketball and De Niro explains the Sistine Chapel and how long it took Michelangelo to paint it. And John goes, Hey, Father, how long did it take me to paint and ceiling? It took him about nine years. Nine years? That's right. I had a Puerto Rican guy do my whole apartment two days, and he had a bum like, I don't want to do it, you guys. And he had a bum leg. Yeah, but yeah, that man talking about, you know, the influence, like the danger, the danger of Hell's Kitchen, but how also everyone looks out for each other. Winter, 1967. The first scene we get is Robert De Niro threatening this massive guy who just beat the shit out of Little John. And this is just an Alzheimer's scene for me. I mean, the way De Niro carries himself with so much confidence and you see, you kind of see that flash like Jake LaMotta come back, you know, He's like, Yeah, you all need you'll need a you all need a doctor. You need a priest to pray over your body. I love that scene. it's it's really, really good. And it it's yeah, because the guy is so big. It is. It is also, you know, kind of like for that other actor to, like, he you know, he's probably not used to being called out on this because he does not he does not get defense. He does not like, you know, like stand up to De Niro. He just kind of like almost like shrinks in a way, because he was just sort of like how much you figure he weighs, you know, £80. You're a big guy. Like, he like the guy doesn't look like he's stupid. He doesn't realize what he's getting at, but he's just sort of like, yeah, you know, he's backing away, cowering almost to DeNiro, who, as you said, like, I'm I'm not as big as you, but I'm also not £85 and you're going to have a real problem. This happens again. Like it's just so good. What do you about to 20 to 30? Yeah. You're a big guy. How much you think John riding? With 80, 85, that's not even a featherweight. This were a fight. You'd be way out in division Slap. It was nothing. And next time you'll be meeting me. And I may not be in your division, but I do weigh more than £85. And you need a doctor when I'm done. You need a priest to pray over your body. I love it. And just that smile on his face, it's like, Yeah, he. He intimidates the big guy. He intimidates the boy. He stands up to him like, All right. Yeah, I'm not, you know, I'm not in your division, but I do weigh more than £80. That's what it was. So good. Yeah. And then we jump again to the summer of 1967. The temperature topped out at 98 degrees on the day. Our lives were forever altered. We have this great tragic five minute set piece of the hotdog vendor sequence. And for group city kids, it's it's a pretty solid scam. It just sucks. They have apparently been doing it to this one guy like overdeliver. But the scam is simple sheiks or whomever. But today it's going to be shakes, goes to a hotdog vendor, orders one hotdog and runs off without paying. The vendor then has two options. They can accept the loss of the hotdog or he can chase after shakes a abandoning his cart, leaving the other three boys to feast in his absence. It's a fun scam. It gets underway, a chase begins. But Michael thinks it's a good idea to move the carts that with them so that when the vendor comes back carts in a different place, things get way out of control. The cart is held over a subway staircase, cart slips, thunders down the stairs. That is a great scene when they're just cutting back and forth between the slow motion. Then you get movement how loud that cart is going. You're like, yeah, it would be the sound o loud and the echo would just go and go. And you're like, my God. And then, yeah, you see it Smash an innocent businessman at the end of the kind of train platform at the bottom of the stairs. And that great matter of fact delivery from Jason Patric via voiceover. To this day, I don't know why we did it. And yeah, I can just hear like I did dumb shit when I was a kid. I didn't do anything like this, but I did dumb shit like I look back even the next day, let alone later. And I'm like, What the hell were you thinking, man? What was that? I mean, that's what that's what time gives us. But they say, like, it's like one of the hottest days of the year. You can actually feel like the heat and looks this haunted. It does even just like the lived in reality of Zen like on the roof. You know, in that one is they're talking they're on something. Yeah they're on the roof, right? Yeah, they're on the roof. And it just makes you think like that's just what kids did. Like, like there's nowhere to go. Worse plane on the roof. I love that. Also, like, it's. It's kind of stereotypical, but it's like the broken fire hydrant and it's playing cool themselves down. Yeah. Planes people Yeah but that's what and all the adults are like now The kids are fine. They're just playing. This is what they do. Yeah. Like there's this very laid back community again. But you're getting all that in the scene and. Yeah. And then, and then for the chase to actually start like the What is that really cool. Like that slow motion that the movie never looks like this again. I don't even know what kind of it's like a filter almost that they put on the guy, the hotdog vendor chasing shakes. It's got I know. I mean, it's definitely like an in-camera trick. It's like they jacking the shutter speed, but then ran it in slow motion or something. I don't know. But yeah, really cool. Like in-camera tricks. It's just like in the cinematographer, Michael Ballhaus. It's just like in his bag. This guy shot Color of Money. Yeah. Goodfellas. Like this dude, like, knows how to do cool stuff, but not it's not an effect we're seeing over and over throughout movie versus just using it right now. Even slow motion is not done a lot, only in very, very key sequences and I love that. But yeah, it's a really cool fact like, cool, now we got this like chase sequence in the middle of this kind of movie and there's fun music playing and it's cool. This is fun until it's not, but until it's not. And that's exactly my next point is like the tone change going from like it's very beat by beat. Like it's fun. And then as soon as Michael gets the idea to move the car, like we all as the audience are like, No, we really needed to go here. I mean, it's what's one step too far, You know, the gag is already happening and they're like, Yeah, all right, all right. Now they're doing it. And and so now we're building that tension and then now they're near the subway and you're like, Guys, you're now you're in a really crowded area. Like, What are you doing? What Do you do? And then like what? Like do did they think that they were. yeah, like again, like his voiceover. It's like to this day, don't know why we did it. Because you're not thinking like, why would you even try to do that? I guess the idea is if they hold it over the edge instead of the guy coming in, like the vendor coming in, tackling or B or like being, stay here till the cops get here, he's going to have no choice but to grab the cart. But I guess they think their eight young hands are strong, as strong as two adult hands, and they're not. And it just it just slips out of their hands like that. As John as Little John says, these carts are heavier than shit. And yeah, we tried to hold it over a steep staircase. That's what happens. But man, I will. I'll just never forget the first time seeing this and hearing the sound of that hot car. And it also looks really scary. Just it looks terrifying out every like flying. Yeah, everything's flying it, but. And you don't even know if it's going to hit someone. But it just it's a terrifying image. Straight on and it's just brilliant filmmaking. Just a nice little slice of like brilliant filmmaking right here in the middle of the movie. The plan, as it turned out, was as simple and as dumb as anything we had ever done. We were to hold the cart at the top edge of the stairwell, leaning it downward and wait for the vendor. We were to let it go. The second he grabbed the handles, then we'd leave the scene as he struggled to ease the cart back on the sidewalk. To this day, I don't know why we did it, but we would all pay a price. It only took a minute, but in that minute everything changed and I can I wonder. I wonder how many takes because there's so many cuts and so many different angles that they're capturing this hot dog and this this hot dog stand falling down these stairs where like, you know, they just couldn't have been one take. So how many carts did they get? How how much did they have to clean up, do this again, get it from this angle, get it from that. Like that's that's a lot. These are the stuff that, like a commentary would be great for just a little like whatever I'm making of on that Blu ray. Just something I don't I would think $44,000,000.19 96 you might be able to get two or three takes because you need a different card every time. Yeah, two or three times. But I bet they had a lot of cameras rolling. A lot of cameras. You have to so you can just catch it all and. Yeah Yeah. And then just edit it. They probably in a lot of footage were like, this is all looks good. Just put it all together, put it all together. But then this is yes, this is the event that unfortunately, well, directly after the event we get Father Bobby consoling shakes and again De Niro's just the way he's so gentle with that actor and he's like, you know, just smoking and, you know, every door I try to open, it's get closed. I can't I can't do anything. There's scenes between DeNiro and Joe Perrineau Yeah, that are just they have great chemistry, I think. I think there's just a, there is a very honest vulnerability that both of them get to in their scenes. There's one coming up that we're about to get to in the prison that I love. Yeah, but like, just when, when Farina says to me it was, I don't want to face it, Father, you know, like. Like that. That's just the truth, man. That's just like. Like, I don't want to go and do this thing that I'm that I have to do in DeNiro's. It's like, you got to face it. Like you have to, because if you keep running, you run the rest of your life. You might think when you're 12 or 13, I can outrun this. But my God, you've never been out of Hell's Kitchen. You're not running anywhere. The court case does not go their way. I like that. They kind of breeze through it. We're going to get to a court case. So we breezed through this one, but they're off to the Wilkinson home for boys for 12 to 18 months and is more than enough time to destroy a few lives as soon as they are out of the neighborhood. The pop music stops. It's been kind of wall to wall pop music, which I've loved up until then, and now it stops. And now the even the temperature of the colors changed. It's not all sweaty in Hell's Kitchen. It's cold, ice, cold and blues. The blues, the very, very deep blues. We've already talked about Kevin Bacon as folks bit, but in terms of that, the banality of evil. I see there's I don't know what makes Knox tick. I don't know where he's come from. It's Yeah. my God. Again, just the hair is parted in such a way. There's a coldness and a blankness to his eyes. It's so terrifying. Even the way that he smokes is terrifying. In I found some trivia. I just love this that he's playing a very tense, scary person on screen that as soon as they called cut, he would just like throwing footballs with the boys and stuff and like playing around with them and just being really, really cool with him. Not staying like method at all. And I love that. I mean, if you just take that opening scene, the introduction of him through like, that's the thing. You don't even see his body. You just see his face. And and again, you're like, How bad can this be? This the guy from Footloose and then, you know, take off your clothes and it's like, okay, well, this is can be kind of normal. No, all of it. And you're like, Yeah, why? And man. And there's a moment and it's so gross. It's so fucking gross. But like, when he's naked and you can see his eyes dip down. yeah. In, in that moment, there's like, actual desire, like, right then and there and, you know, you just kind of, I mean, but that's the that's the fucking commitment of that character like that. That's his fucking truth and it's fucking awful. But like, he was not afraid to go there a right away. Yeah. And then. And then. And then you, you, you'd have to shake it off. Okay, well, fuck it. And, you know, let's go do something else right now. Yeah, we're going to, you know, as we get to the section, we're going to start to talk about some not very pleasant things. But yeah, you see an acknowledgment in his eyes of. Here's my new toy for my friends and I and that I don't enjoy saying these words but that that's what's going on here. We don't necessarily know that yet, but we're like, all right, what is this? You know? And then we get though, yeah, you get it, though. You get this some very sinister thing going on here. Yeah. Yeah. It's something that's just not right. Like this is not right. And, like, what are you doing? Yeah. Who? And then they have the, you know, the food fight of sorts. Not really a food fight. It's just a fight in the cafeteria. They're told to eat off the floor and kind of like, Man, this is gross. I really hope it doesn't get any worse than this. And then, yeah, they were just down here in this basement hallway and this scene. I mean, keep in mind, I saw this movie. I was alone. First time I saw it, I was 11. I was very confused about some of the words that were being chosen. I didn't know what these things were I was shocked. I was terrified. The way we hear that chain banging against a light bulb that's going to come back as a motif, really for everyone involved, the perpetrators and the victims. It was also disconcerting. Yeah, this is the first scene of abuse. And what I want to say is that it's terrible what is insinuated in this scene and even words that are said. But this is this is a movie that's going there, Right? So for going there and this is what it's about, you, us, as much as I can tolerate. And I appreciate it for that. That's that's all I can say, that this could have gone so much worse. It could be so much worse in what they do, but they're there is a weird word to say for sleepers, but there is a restraint to some of these scenes in terms of what they don't show us, that we get it. Everything that needs to be said has been said. We understand it strikes a really good balance between going there and then not like, yeah, it's not playing it safe. It's very, very well handled for that material. You've explained everything sufficiently. No one watching the movie has questions about what these boys have suffered, but we did not need to see it. We all understand what they suffered. We don't need to see it. And they're going to show us more flashes later when they're flashbacks. They are adults that are that that's honestly like some of the most positive stuff. Yeah. Yeah. That's actually worse in a lot of ways. Like at least. I mean, my viewing experience like this got to me more as I chronologically thought, this is when Father Bobby shows up, De Niro comes and visits Sheik and visits shakes and even like bacon, like walking down the stairs, going, you know, like, let's just keep everything quiet here. And you're like, And he's like, staring at him through the window. This is a very important scene. We already mentioned it, but it's very important for what's going to happen 15 years later, because Father Bobby admits, you know, that he and his friend were sent here and it's a little bit of a question to the movie. I don't know if Father Bobby knows what's going on in terms of the abuse. He knows they're not having a good time. But does he know the extent it does he know that guards are involved? So basically, does this impact his decision later to lie on the stand and departure? There's a there's a moment that I took from scene where De Niro, like he's asking them, like, is everything all right in here? Like, what's going on? And Shakes is particularly in that moment, not answering de Niro, like looks up in like a way and like his eyes do that De Niro thing where he, like, clinches him up and is like thinking I in that moment I was sort of like, is he thinking that the worst that possible thing could be happening right now? Yeah. Yeah. And he de Niro has that great line when he's talking about his friend because he's going to visit his friend, you know, who's in actual prison for committing a triple murder. And he said this place killed him. It made him not care anymore. And he is describing who young John and Tom will turn into, that they're going to become these powers who just don't don't care about anything more. And then because the personal story I told earlier, there, there are some scenes that really get me from this movie and they can just be lines of voiceover. And when we see Ferguson walking out of young John's room and you kind of understand that he's in a lot of bad stuff has gone on. Jason Patrick says a number of the inmates, as tough as they acted during the day, would often cry themselves to sleep at night. There were other cries to these differed from those filled with fear and loneliness. They were low and muffled, the sounds of pained anguish. Those cries can change the course of a life. Their cries that once heard can never be erased from memory. On this one night, those cries belong to my friend John. When Ralph Ferguson paid him a visit, those cries can change the course of the life. Their cries that once heard can never be erased from memory. I a very, very good line. Very, very good line. Slattery We just touched on Slattery, but I do like that he shows up and you do need that. You need like this reprieve of like, there, there's actually a good adult in this hell. Like, it exists. Yes. Yeah. And then we get to, my God, it's this touch football sequence. Because even the first time I saw this, I didn't get satisfaction watching it because I knew what the repercussions were going to be. I knew that even though all the sleepers in Wilkinson, they recruit this young star, Rizzo, played by Eugene Bird, who was wink an eight mil. He was also the kid in Dead Man. He's good actor, but he kind of like, you know, runs stuff a little bit. You know, the guards will miss them physically, but all the guards are racist. So the sleepers are four sleepers. Convince Rizzo to basically like, we're playing touch football with these guards. Let's just beat the shit out of them and get a little for ourselves and it's, I want to talk about the sequence because first I want to talk about how you feel about, like, how it looks because it's very like blue and overexposed and all that stuff. It's almost like a music video of that. Yeah, it reminds me of like, it's very experimental, It's very, very choppy, very kind of like, just get these images and they're moving, but they're not moving at the normal rate of like how things are. It's almost like a flipbook in, a way you understand that this was a very significant moment for everything, like it was this in the big moments. It was a significant moment for the boys as, as in the voiceover and all of those flashing clips where they're like, We're taking this back for us. And you get that the guards, like they're humiliated. Yeah, and, and just getting the shit kicked out of them. So it's a cool way to as opposed to let's just film this like, touch football thing and actually show it this way. Like, let's just go a different direction. And because it's fast to like, what do we need to get and how do we just evoke emotion? I like that this movie kind of does that, that it's the only time the movie ever breaks away from its. Yeah, the look that it's set up for itself. Very true and it the only time it does it again is when they're having those like abuse flashbacks to be used to have sex and yeah it makes those I'm glad they did that for those flashbacks and then we've already been introduced this technique and I'm like okay, cool. I get why they did that. And yeah, you're right. Like the camera is moving, but everything's kind of shot from like a low angle and there's usually only one or two people in the frame at once. But yeah, you know, tough scene, tough resolution to the scene they throw at these poor kids. These are teenagers. I mean, they've thrown them in solitary confinement. There's rats everywhere. And then they do pay a huge price for the game. I mean, Rizzo is killed. And then I just want to say this is a point of I just want to call out that the bruising they have on their face in the hospital, the yellow bruising, is so accurate. I never see movies get that right, that just before your bruise heals, especially a big face bruise, it turns that like yellow puke, green color. It's very strange. But so basically that insinuates that they've been they've been down there in solitary or in the hospital for a long time. It takes a long time for a wound like that to heal when they're not done. They have that really heartbreaking scene where the four of them talk about how they're never going to talk about this again. This is going to bury as deep as it goes. And I thought, I'm going to bring this up later. But I think that's true. I don't think any four of these guys have ever talked about this, even though they're hanging out. I don't think it has been buried. I think the first time all of this is brought up again is when John goes and sits at that bar next to Billy Crudup and says, look over there. I I think it's the first time Nokes has been mentioned. WILKINSON All of it. So it's buried. And yeah, I don't think that that those two because obviously they're the ones who have stayed in touch because they're the killers. I do not that they have talked about that. I don't think that's something that they commiserate about then I think that's certainly nothing that they have talked about healthily in a way like, hey, let's be there for each other. Maybe in a way that Patrick and Pitt's characters kind of allude to that like, maybe I'll need a friend. I don't think the other two did that. And I think you're right. Like as soon as they see Nokes, it's you're the only person I can say this to go over it and look who that is. But and that's why they both just know what needs to happen next. Yeah. And the final scene, Wilkinson, is it's so disturbing how like you're you're back in the hallway because it's you know it shakes is last night and these guards are just like arguing about fucking work work and their bosses and it's like it's so evil again. It's nothing. Yeah, just small talk on her way to, like horrific abuse. my God. It's terrible. It's. It's really tragic that those kids, like, have that reaction as they're all together at that young age, saying that I don't think we should ever talk about this. We should bury is because of just like no matter who you are, Like, that's that's how you feel in that moment. But like that's just going to build up and become such that, like therapy can even begin to kind of like like that scene shown in 1996. You show that to someone now. And with what we've discovered about mental health and like the differences of the time, I really it's really interesting to kind of see how would that be handled differently today? Would that like if like would there be a dialog more open now? Interesting. Interesting thought. When I get out, I guess I'll make a couple phone calls, She even wants to. There's nothing to talk about. There's A lot to talk about all these people. Who's going to need to make a move? I don't want anybody to know. My father. Bobby King. Many fat man show and my mother body. Yeah. I don't need. I mean, I wouldn't know what to say to anyone who did not. I can't think of anybody who needs to hear about it. I mean, you won't believe it. I won't give a shit. Yeah. Don't even think to talk about it whatsoever. You know, we got no choice but to live with it. And talking makes it harder, so might as well not even talk about it. The truth stays with us. I love this thread because that was something I thought about. I've always. That scene has always meant something to me, but it really hit this time, knowing everything that we have such open dialogs about mental health. Even, you know, 1996 when this movie came out was when my brother was at his his worst. No one was talking about mental health. It wasn't like these stories weren't around. Like no one's talking about this stuff. And no one, these four young kids clearly don't have the perspective to know what can happen if you bury this, because very wisely, the movie does something that I don't know. I just feel like I'm not saying movies don't jump ahead in the past, but a lot of movies now, everything's just jumping around constantly and we're like, back in present, back a present. But this is just one hard jump and it really hits just like Place Beyond the Pines, Like when you walk thing comes on screen. It's like 15 years later. You're like, What? What, what's? So yeah, so in this goes, you know, slo mo and then we're in fall 1981. I love everything about this sequence meeting. Adult John and Tom, they're walking in slow motion through that steam. They just sit down at the bar. You know, if you haven't seen the movie, you're not entirely positive, which to these kids it is yet. But, you know, this is just one of my favorite scenes just to watch. Like, I love this. I love just the murder of Sean Nokes, the set piece. I love this set piece so much. I love it. I love when they sit down. You know, John and Tom are clearly regulars. They hear the guys talking. They're like, you tell them that Republicans are not welcome in Hell's Kitchen. I love that either a political conversion or a change of conversation is necessary in order is in order. Yeah. So then John walks off, you know, he's got to take a leak and that fucking double take, he does go slow motion does a double take reed. It looks left and you hear the light come back and then you just see this like pathetic. He looks like a, like a rat now. Like this pathetic man just, like, hunched over, drinking his beer, eating meatloaf. And in some. What are those people called like guard money in a uniform like that? Ron Eldred is John It's like staring at him and I, you know, Can I help you with something, Chief? And not right? Yeah. Like I love his voice. He's probably, like, on drugs and just, like, coked out of his mind and drunken, you know, we haven't seen this stuff, but we know that they abuse drugs. And then, God, he just goes in that bathroom and is washing the face and taking that beat. That song, you know, queuing up and all that. And it's I love this. I'll be honest with you know, right now. Enjoy the rest of You mean like one day? wow. I love that. my gosh. I think this is the most well-done sequence of the whole entire movie. And that's good seeing a lot because I think there's a lot of really well done scenes, which we've talked about a lot of them already. But I think just like it almost could almost work as a short film on its own. Yeah, like in some ways, even though we know what this history is like, there's so much of it. But they even say the history, even if it was a short film. Yeah, the two guys, even like I thought you just liked Blank, blank little boys. Yeah, like you're right. yeah. Could you. Perfect standalone set piece. Yeah, it's. Yeah, you actually could because like you do then get revealed that information. Yeah. Through it. That's interesting. That's interesting. But you know what is I wondered again this is just the way that I took it. But when, when he's in the bathroom and he's looking himself in the mirror, there's at one point where he gets like a smile and, and I was like, he's he knows he's going to kill him, right? yeah. yeah. And then he's so had revenge and he's so he's like, thank God that this we wandered this bar and this guy's here because now we can do this. Yeah, I'm now my life has purpose. It's like, well, I've always wanted to watch you die. Like, Yeah, he's. Yeah, Happy. Yeah. my God. It's such a great choice. It's so great that he lets them just have that moment in the mirror like, my God. Yeah. And it's. It's a complete switch from like, in those moments where we see Jason Patric having those flashbacks and it's of pain and all this. And it it would be so easy for that actor to go into that bathroom and feel the same thing like, like have those flashbacks for himself and just get into a place of like, revenge, revenge. But he got into a like, sublime state. Yeah. Like, yeah. just really, really great shit right here, man. Good, good shit. my God. This is my favorite staged scene of the movie. Because we know the entire geography of the bar in this. We know where it's located. Even the quote unquote, insignificant shot of Aida Turturro sitting there drinking her wine a little too loosely, like which is going to come up later. You know her? Yeah. And then, yeah, Eldred is just well, they'll first see they go back to Billy Crudup and even Crudup plays it a little different. Crudup's, you know, take it. He goes, take a good look. And he's looks and he's like, more. There's no smiles. He's like mother fucker. Like, he's almost in shock. Like, I can't believe this. And there's no need to communicate this. There's no need to communicate. Well, I guess dinner's canceled. Let's go over and shoot this guy to fucking bits. It's just. It's like they get up, they walk over. Love, love. Then they're staring at him. You know? I love that shot of them at the top of the stairs, loading their guns, talking their guns, and the way they just turn that corner like Ron Eldred. If you've seen, like, Santa Woman Drop dead. Fred Snell Like, intimidating guy, fucking terrified of these two in this sequence. Just they got those, like, gloves on where their fingers are exposed and they just love there goes this stand there and he's talking to like he's talking to Doakes like he's all yours. Hello. Been a long time. I'd love it. He's like, What the hell? God. So yeah, they sit down and they have it out. They have this little conversation and I love when they lay everything out and, you know, take and take a minute, it'll come to you. In Bacon's response processing. All this is simply it was a long time ago and he just nods. So how you been? man, it's like it's just everything for me and, you know, like, this is how you're responding to it. Okay? Is not going to be like a difficult decision for me to make as John and Tom. Great scene. Yeah, great scene. It's amazing. It's so good and it's it's also kind of like crazy to think to like this was probably the very first time this is ever encountered because now this he's been doing this for so long that now people that had a chance to grow up and it's like met you didn't think about that did you like Yeah, exactly. You definitely did not think about the ramifications of horrific abuse. Yes. Yes. This is amazing. Hello. It's been a long time. In fact, you guys, the fuck asked you to sit down? I thought you'd be happy to see us. So I guess I was wrong. You know, I thought you do a lot better. You know? You know, and all that training, all that time you put in to stand up watching someone else's money, it seems like a waste. I'm asking now for the last time. What the fuck do you want? Don't you take? Your time. It'll come to you. I could see how you might forget us. Yeah. You know, we would do something for you and your friends to play with. It's a little harder for us to forget. You gave us so much more. Remember? Can't quote places, can the chief? Let me help you out. You looking at John Reilly and Tommy Marcano? And then I love when they pay for their meals and leave. It just. It's great. So could we cut to Jason Patrick, you know, walk walking all seriously down the hallway. Now we're getting getting to meet adult sheiks. And I you know, he sits down with John. It's hard but they're so excited. They're like one down, shakes one down. I just I love that. And again, it's part one, John notes. It's probably the first time they've said that name to each other in the 15 years that have passed and, you know, it doesn't sound like Jason Patrick as Shakes has been dealing with this a lot. Again, he's just trying to like, survive. Then he goes middle of Queens or he goes to Queens in the middle of the night to meet with Brad Pitt, who's the adult? Michael, this is just great setup. I love the set up so much. I love that as Pitt gets going, he's like Cruise and Cruise and Patrick just interrupts and he's like, How long you been working this? Michael and Pitt just blows past. It keeps going. But the set of fairly simple ish, Michael's a lawyer and he has to take the case for the city. He is going to prosecute John and Tom in the murder of Sean Knox, but he is secretly taking the case to lose so that he can set his guys and hopefully expose Wilkinson in the process. If all goes according to plan, everyone wins and they're just going through each person. I love that Ralph Ferguson is like, Well, he seems clean, right? Yeah, that's exactly what I want. The piece of shit. Yeah, Yeah. But here the movie's really starting to change into like, bit more of like, all the President's Men vibe. You know, they got the right head man and the top section of the metro, the top corner of the metro section. Like, I just love that. All that little shit. It's a good setup. I mean, it's. It's a move. It's going to be tough to pull off. But I also loved it. Presumably the only reason Michael has become a lawyer was to be able to get access to, like, all these files and just take these guys down. Because as soon as this case is done, he's gone. He moves to a country and spends the rest of his life alone. man. Boy. Ralph Ferguson works in a social service agency in Long Island. I won't even work on this. Was recently divorced, got one child, and on weekends. Teaches Catholic Sunday school. Seems clean then, right? Exactly. Why one piece of shit plan is to call Ferguson in as a character witness. Get them talking his best friend Sean. Not once I got him on the stand, I'm gonna open the door to work. We get to meet Danny Snyder. Who you know he's been brought on as a lawyer and lawyer, and they're like, we'll get it changed. And Pitts goes, Now he's perfect. He's perfect. I just I again love so much that a guy who won an Oscar for Barry Levinson movie is coming in. It's like the eighth lead and just kills it. I loved his performance He's it's it's so subtle too. Like sometimes he's just mumbling over his lines and he's speaking them so low because you want to know how long this take and it's very Dustin Hoffman like, but like, almost like done like for a reason. It's like, this guy's just a loser of a dude. Yeah. Just like a Hell's Kitchen shitty ambulance chasing lawyer. He's an admitted alcoholic. He had four cases last year. He lost them all, and he sees essentially told by King Benny, you know, you have nothing to lose, just like the rest of us. So essentially, if if you mess this up, it would kill you. But it's no big deal like, you know, you have nothing to lose because you're going to be given the questions and the answers. All you have to do is be sober, show up and read and read. Yeah, this is the fumbling at the strike that treads constantly, constantly flipping that notepad over and over, like running into the desk. I love them. We're constantly getting like the peanut gallery commentary during the trial from Minnie Driver and Jason Patric, usually about Danny Snyder's poor performance. They're just all into it. So It's it's like pulling teeth. So good touch. I love catching up with his dad, Bruno Kirby, at dinner and you're like, this dude cannot anything beyond trivial small talk. How's work? How's the food? You think this is the guy that shakes can go to about his abuse like, Of course not. He's not going to know what the hell would even say to that. He probably just wouldn't even talk. Where's the chicken that's always concerned about? Yeah. man. Yeah, it's. It's. It's that unfortunate reality to that closed off. But I love that they ground us in that they show us that like they state that the mom is still there. How much abuse is that all taken you. She loves shakes so much you can tell it the way that the community comes back into this movie is so yeah that's so like yeah it it really makes you know like that's just how it is. Like it is. And I think that's almost why I have such a big like push pull with the kids and the adults because the community stays the same. All those actors are the same, you know, it's just now and I just just never felt like the adults fit back in the way that the kids do. But that's the point also, too, because they can't like they what's happened to them is just like it's it's the same Yeah that's true it yeah it's not but with the Wilkinson like with our trip to purgatory there with the colder like temperature of the film, there's no pop music playing. There's no one from the neighborhood except Father Bobby showing up. Yeah. You feel that? And when we're back with them, even though it's years later, it's like, okay, everyone's doing like, kind of okay. Like, it's okay, it's good. And everyone's going to be in on this grift. Everyone knows it. That's not really talked about that much. But King Benny knows the Deal, Fat Man knows the deal. Everyone's got their part to play, and that's what I like about it. Speaking of Father Bobby, we're meeting him as an adult now. And after a particularly horrible flashback that shakes as he goes to Father Bobby's house with Carol, with Minnie Driver. And this is this is one of the anchor scenes of the movie, like talked about some really good set pieces that have happened. But this is one of the scenes in the movie that grounds the movie in what is really happening. So let's start with, like the funny zingers and the scam and like all this, you know, cloak and dagger stuff. This is when all is revealed as Shakes tells the story of the abuse that they all endured at Wilkinson. It's a tough scene. It is tougher if you watch the film with subtitles on again, going back to the restraint of the movie, let's just assume that whole speech lasted 30 minutes, an hour in. And I'm sure Shakes got as horrifically graphic as he needed to. I'm sure he was telling the truth or like. And what we hear are, it's tough to hear, but it is it's restrained speaking. It just it's because we know how much worse this all was. And then at some point, Levinson just makes the bold and wise decision to finish the scene by just holding on. Robert DeNiro stays for like 45 seconds as he hears this horrific stuff. And, you know, when we're watching it, we're like mint. NIRO God damn. He can he can just do it. He can do it. But already what's spinning in its head is this picture is being painted for me because I'm going to have to potentially go against God in order to help here. And I mean, it's it's a great in that scene you're like, when is it when is it going to cut from? I love this whole sequence in particular. I love the way Minnie Driver plays it, how she's just quiet and standing there. Really good scene. No. Yeah, it's the hold on De Niro that's just so like, you could have shot that scene in so many ways. So many ways that would have all been impactful. But and if you notice too, like De Niro in that moment, he's not super expressive. It's not just like a priest. Yeah, it's his face is not really changing that much. It's more like this. His job is to listen right now, and in the end, it's and it's almost like because we're hearing what these words are to it is sort of like that we get to kind of paint whatever we want as an audience on his face. If he's doing too much, then we're being told what to what he's thinking. But this with the way he does it, by just listening and taking it in, we get to kind of like wonder, like, what is he feeling or What am I feeling? It's a great, great choice. Yeah. I totally agree. The courtroom scenes are fun. They move really well. There's really three stand out scenes. I've broken them out. The first one is Mrs. Silliness. I love how he often just keeps calling her that. And you know, the back half of this movie, this plot does largely play out as a courtroom thriller. It a lot of the same conventions of the courtroom thriller. But I, I just love the way that Dustin Hoffman tricks her and catches her with her words. You you glanced miscellaneous. You glanced. And then when he puts together all the alcohol that she and, you know, the shock of the gunfire and God, I just I really love that. I forgot to mention that gunfire is so accurate in that restaurant. They. I don't know how they did it, but it sounds to me it sounds like they actually took like a real gun with blanks, of course, down to that restaurant and fired them off because it doesn't sound muffled. It does it? They sound so real, like you jump when you see them. Some gunshots. You don't they're not effective because of the sound design. And I love that that comes back up. But yeah, Have you ever heard a gun go off? No, I. he just. He takes her apart and I love it. I love it. Yeah. I stumbling through everything. Yeah, but just flipping the papers. Where did you a and as you know, as the sleepers are working, we get to see Jason Patric Shakes is burying Styler in the back of that cop car giving all the evidence over to eternal affairs God. And then I love that scene of Brad Pitt. Minnie Driver on the train. he's like sitting behind her. Tell him to explain all the abuse to Father Bobby. And then she admits that she knows and I mean, you you see that because we we've gathered back story that these were once like great loves Michael and Carol like we're in love. And even she gives him a hug at the end in that restaurant and he it's such a meaningful hug and he can't even look at her. He can't even look her in the eye because of the stuff that's his cross to bear. He's Michael has kept himself busy. He's kept himself busy with act of work, of taking these guys down. But I don't think he's once done any sort of work internally on himself. None at Pitt plays that really well. Yeah, I agree. And yeah, especially when he just disappears from it because she even says in one part where she's like, Michael and I could have worked if but it was just this wall. And, and she goes, I just couldn't break it down. So when he leaves he's like yeah that, that, that do hasn't changed. Yeah. Yeah. The wall is the wall still up. But with Styler going down you get to see him being dragged away in a cop car and then we get, we get a great scene with little played by Wendell Pierce. It's bunk from The Wire in King Benny I love This is just like too old school dude. Yeah, a lot of respect for each other and you're on your side of the battlefield. I'm on mine. We keep everything. Everything's cool. But then, because King Benny has acquired Addison's debt to little Caesar, he just. King Benny offers him right up. And that's. That's a great death scene, just blasting him under the plane like that so you can't hear it as good as another very Goodfellas moment right there. I thought. Yeah, yeah, I was I was just like, Thank God Wayne and Garth are at that airport under the. you just planes go by. But yeah, very like Goodfellas were out in the city like boom boom it's great. Yet the boss in the car just lighting a cigar with the guards going down. One down now, two, now, three. That leaves us with Ralph Ferguson. And that opens up to courtroom scene, too. This is an extreme movie, difficult scene to watch. It's one of my favorites in the movie with Ferguson left to be buried. And he seems to have changed his life a little bit. We see the sack piece of shit walking into the courtroom and he intends to justify to the strength of Sean Nokes his character. Yeah. So already he's lying because this motherfucker is not a not a guy who's worth defending. I love when he realizes what's happening. And finally, it's the truth. You know, I believe when he looks down at John and Tom and they changed to the little boys, that's when Ferguson gets it. I think it clicks for him. Yeah. Here's new. Wait, The noise coming back. That light, you know, the chain against that light bulb. It's just a huge scene for like at a time, a really not very well known character actor coming in and crushing it. And I mean, he's perfect the way he uses out that. Yes. And everyone's like, even Brad Pitt's like weight. And Dustin Hoffman's like, Yes, Yes. And, you know, Fatman has a line where he's talking about Danny Snyder, Dustin Hoffman, he goes, he is a drunk, but he is not a fool. This is when you see it. This is when you see him. You know, just the little things he like eases out. I was torture part of the job, you know, and just easing out that stuff. It's brilliant. And instead of him kind of tripping, misses, silliness, his words, her Ralph Jurgensen just breaks on the stand and he and Danny Snyder is the one there to brilliantly catch it. Boys were tortured. One day, Mr. Ferguson, to find torture. Well, let's define torture. Cigaret burning, random beatings, solitary confinement with no food and no like. So that took place on occasion. Who torture them? Guards. Which guards? I don't. I can't remember all of them. I remember one person. It's a it's a very, very fascinating observation on someone that, you know, like we see when Nokes was presented with, those boys being right in front of them, that he just took a whole entire, like double down and and emotion care careless just being like, Yeah, well, I was trying to do this with you boys and all this and that, but this is another human being that did these things. But his reaction was very different. I like, who knows? Like he's I'm sure he's probably never told anyone about what he had done. So now that he's here because it all comes out of him like a waterfall, like as soon as that dam breaks, he, he, he just confesses everything. And it's hard with each question, but he's not putting up a front about it. He isn't he? It's just a and I think that's a very real moment. I think that's a very like I mean, it works in a lot of ways because. Well, script and story dictate that we need him to do this. But how do you as an actor like, like on the page, I just come clean. I haven't even this is I'm not even here for this. I'm here exactly. I'm just here to defend notes and defend his character. But all of a sudden now, like now that you've now that this is what was going on, like, that's the choice of the actor is like I almost in a way like I have been waiting for someone to get this out of me. Like I need to, like, purge my soul of all of this. And that's and that's what it almost looks like as each thing is. He's crying. It's just more and more. And then, you know, unfortunately for him. Well, fortunately for for justice to the judge is like, so, Mr. Ferguson, don't go, don't go, go too far. We're going to do this movie. People are in need to talk to you. You understand? Yeah. He's his his life is as he knows it is done. But yeah, he lets out at first. Yes. Which seems unprompted. It kind of startles everyone and then he just keeps answering. Yes. These questions that are more and more horrible. And at one point Hoffman even says, like, you know, a boys were abused and it's something like more than once. Yeah. And the look, Terry Kennedy is like, looks like, yeah, way more than once like Yeah. And God, he has that perfect line. He goes, I was drinking then and just throws that like, God, I was a fucking drunk then and, and you can that's what it is. It's almost like, I don't know, I'm not trying to look too much into this, but if he says that maybe this dude is in some sort of, like program, you look at it. Step nine, making amends. Here you go, buddy. Even if that means you got to go to prison for the rest of your life. But yeah, yeah, that's what I mean. Like the way that he does that, it doesn't come off unrealistic. It comes off. Yeah. Like, as a way of like, wow. Like there's something going on with this guy so that when this starts coming out, like, that's how this is happening. It's a that's a very challenging scene, I think, for an actor right there. Like, like you don't have much to go on, but yet you need to just let the world out. And I love like when people are in these situations, just asking an extremely like basic some like just an obvious question, like, okay, if this guy was your best friend, would you trust him alone with your children? Was Sean Oakes a good babysitter? And he's like, there never be a reason for that to come up. It's like, Yeah, that could be a reason for your best friend to babysit your kids. But I just love that. And the look on his face like, no, that would of course, of course. You wouldn't ask him to watch your kids. You know, he's capable of. Yeah. so Ferguson goes down. I mean, fuck you, buddy. Yeah. Bye bye. Yeah, there are. I love. Of course, there's a little levity, and it would be. Did they call him up to the, you know, the judges table? And he's like, what's going on? He's like, I don't know. I guess I called the wrong character witness. Yeah, It's like, Yeah, I think so. And then our last big courtroom scene is devastating to watch him do it. But Father Bobby gets up there and DeNiro really makes you feel the conflict he had at arriving here. You know, he's gone absent like this guy's porter, Claude Rains. Nobody's seen him. We Don't know like where he is. There's this whole scam just ticket stubs involved. Moreover, you're asking a man who's dedicated his life to God to betray that as he sees it, as he sees it. What I love most about this scene is that once he starts going, he delivers his answers. Well, because he's been thinking about this constantly. Yeah, he's been running it through that. He's been going through this scenario over and over, and he's prepared. So that's why there's no like, hesitation. And I love how shocked John looks at the table. He's like, What the hell? Like, my God, he's doing this for us. Pitt looks down almost to shame because he knows, you know, what he's asked. And that final when he looks at and he goes, Thank you, Father, like there's so much in there. It's not that it's thank you. And so different. It's so layered. It's a very, very layered. Thank you. And, you know, I do also think it's interesting that we find out what happens to all the major people involved in this movie. We don't find out what happens to Father Bobby. It just says yes. I mean, Shake says he never recovered from seeing him live for us. I mean, I. I hope he stayed as a priest. I hope he cut himself a break because I don't know. I'm glad he did it. That's all I can say. Well, I mean, it's going it's just going to open up so many other conversations because John and Tom, they do get off in this case. But where does their life go? Where your life go? Yeah. What is it all for? Yeah, Like, yeah. What was that? Did that matter? I mean, I guess you could chalk it up to, like, they didn't change their, their direction in life, but in that moment, maybe this was the right thing to do. But Yeah, but then. All for what? Yeah. De Niro is great in that scene, though. it very much. To me, it seems like he's done whatever prep or not. Not. Not as De Niro's the actor, but as as the as Father Bobby. When he looks down at that Bible and puts his hand on it, he it's like he's he's already, he's like, yeah, I knew this. I knew what I was going to do this. I'm about to lie to me right now. This isn't the Bible is almost kind of what it feels like. Yeah, I see this. I've already had this discussion myself. It's not what it is. Like, whatever you need to do to forget that you're about to betray your word of God. That's such a good scene. He's so good to Nero. Yeah, he really is. I mean, he really makes me feel the conviction of a priest, which is not as this is. What we say is that some things like transcend film because I'm not like I'm just personally not a very religious person, but I care so much about his faith. Yes, I really I really care about it. And that that's a tough thing to pull off. Yeah, that is that's a great point. Like, you know, like when when you really sense the man's conviction, like it's almost like winter light, you know? Yeah, right, Right. In this back here, like, all I care about is that man's faith, you know? Yeah, I'm shaken. Like, that's all I care about. So in this one, it's a similar thing, but I'm like, my God, please don't let this lose. Like, don't. Don't lose your faith, too. Like, yeah. So that is something when when a priest character can make you feel the love for their faith. my absolute favorite scene of the movie where we're coming I mean, it's like basically the rest of the movie. But if I had to pick just one thing, this would be it. This would be the one scene when Michael and Shakes are talking. Yeah. Outside When Michael and Shakes her. And I already said, you know, I may need a good friend though. Find you when you do. You can count on it. I just love all the there's so much resignation within Brad Pitt of like I've seen all the law I want to see like this is it. I'm I'm done. I'm packing it up. He's been so laser focused on one thing and now that it's done, what do you do? It's time for quiet shakes. I just want to shut my eyes and not have to see the place that I've been. And wearing and maybe I'll get lucky. Forget I was even like, Well, don't disappear on me. Counselor may need a good lawyer one day. You can't afford a good lawyer. Mean may need a good friend, though. I'll find you when you do count. And I love that. In their very final meeting, we're told that everyone has reverted back to normal. So despite them winning this case and burying the four guards, life goes on and shakes. They go back to work. Tom and John. They go back to the street. Michael resigns, and then when they get this meeting, I love Ron Elder discovered it so big it boisterous. He's like, you know first what I you know when I first thought he was taking the case, I was going to burn. It's like because they never told him that Brad Pitt was it on it. But it's like that so much. And the way that like Minnie Driver and Brad Pitt hug and you've already mentioned that, but you feel all the love there and that when they separate he can't even look at her You just you know let's get a drink and. This is I mean, it's just such a good scene. The the circular table and singing Walk Like a Man for Carol. And then that brilliant coda of brilliant and tragic that within a few years, John and Tom are dead from the street. Shakes has gotten a promotion at work. Carol has a child. And that leaves Michael, who we're told has moved to the English countryside, works part time as a carpenter, and lives quietly and alone. And if you go all the way back to episode 13 of What Are You watching Place Beyond the Pines, I dedicated my What do you Watching segment to sleepers and that line. He lives quietly and alone. And as I was growing up and as I was becoming a young filmmaker, that was the person I wanted to know. I wanted to know the person who survived all this awful stuff and then had decided to isolate themselves to. Go look at some of the work I've made. Like, that's so much. It's just in there. It's just right there. And that's, you know, it's why I love Good Will Hunting so much, because I do think we're finding him. Good Will Hunting basically takes place like if it was five years later instead of 15 years later of sleepers. You know, he's received all this horrible abuse has, not even begun to process it and is just weaponized it. And you know, no one can fuck with me like I'll beat anyone who are from minds me of someone I went to kindergarten with. Yeah, but I love this final meeting in Sleepers. It's just it's so good. And the ending, the resolution of all the characters is very accurate. It's not like John went on to be a fucking center, you know, this is not that movie. It's the replacements ending, you know? It's just kind of sad. Exactly. Everyone goes back to life, which actually like The Replacements. That's exactly what it reminds me of. I love endings like this, though, because, like, they're not they're not the Hollywood ending. They're but they're the real ending in and yeah, and it really kind of you get introspective about it. On March 16th, 1984, John Reilly's bloated body was found face up in a tenement building right next to the bottle of boy legend that killed him At the time of his death, he was a suspect in five unsolved homicides. His two weeks best is 29th birthday. Thomas Marcano died on July 26, 1995. He was shot at close range five times. The body lay undiscovered for more than a week. There was a crucifix and a picture of St Jude in his pocket. He was 29 years old. Michael Sullivan lives in a small town in the English countryside where he works part time as a carpenter. He no longer practices law and he's never married. He lives quietly and alone. That's it. That's our movie. I love this movie. I'm so glad we got to talk about it. I mentioned that these people along the way but Michael Ball house, he he was the cinematographer. He did so many movies for Rainer Werner Fassbinder that was in Germany and then came over to America, did a ton for Marty after Hours, Color of Money, Last Temptation of Christ, Goodfellas, The Departed. He did Bram Stoker's Dracula, which looks amazing. Shot Air Force One, great film. Yes. He was nominated for Oscars for broadcast news, a movie that I need to rewatch. I have not rewatched that years and it's need to rewatch broadcast news, The fabulous Baker Boys and Gangs of New York. The movie was edited by Stu Linder. He's collaborated with Barry Levinson a lot. He was nominated for actually, he won an Oscar for Best Editing in 1966 for the film Grand Prix, directed by John Frankenheimer Sleepers, received one Oscar nomination in 1996 for the music by the great John Williams. Is This Bad? Never Not nominated. He lost this year to Gabriel Gerard for the English Patient. That was the English patient here. Just real quick, John. This was his 35th Oscar nomination. He has been nominated at 54 times. He has won five. I don't know if I've ever said him. Thought it'd be fun to say him. 1971, His first Oscar Best original score, Fiddler on the Roof, 1975 Jaws 1977. Star Wars 1982. E.T. And the last time John Williams won an Oscar was for the Was in 1993, the best original score for Schindler's List. So that man gets invited to the party a lot since 1993 and does not win. He's going to be there this year, or at least he's been nominated. I had one, you know, kind of a prompt here, just one acting Oscar sleepers can win. Who wins it? It's Kevin Bacon. It's Kevin Bacon. I mean, it's to be he got a lot of praise. Dustin Hoffman actually got a lot of praise for like a supporting part De Niro did too. I don't know what the hell happened here. I mean this was this was the year Fargo, which was like the big indie movie, I don't know if they didn't market this or distribute this enough. I lost sight of like, where this was in the Oscar conversation. I don't know. But it's crazy that that he that it only got one nomination for music like there's so many. Yeah it's wild I mean yes cinematography it could have gotten in there a screenplay but also just someone for maybe all the actors cancel themselves out. I don't know. But. Bacon Yeah, I would I would love that. And this is also don't know how fashionable this game is anymore, but we were kids. Six degrees of Kevin Bacon was like a thing. It was a huge game that people would play and the two biggest movies I always had in my back pocket that no one ever remembered was Sleepers, which has so many, which is everybody. And Apollo 13, the Apollo 13, everyone, he made those back to back. So if you can, it's very easy to do six degrees of Kevin Bacon when you can remember Apollo 13 and sleepers boom that's a little and so tip there will tip little tip even dash me hook is you can love throw him in there Damn right you can then and then you're right in the thin red line and everyone's in that and then everyone's in there. God, I love it. I was. I was a fucking king of six degrees of Kevin Bacon in middle school and high school. the Internet. I would crush it. Crush it. People be like, I bet you can't do this one. And I do it like one jump in one jump all the time. But you know what I would add, Doug sleeper sleep that. Yeah. What are you watching? We've arrived. This is a fun episode. I know. We got serious there early on. Appreciate everyone listening. Appreciate you being on board. I wouldn't be able to do this unless you were like, you know, giving me your your love and your energy. I feel your look and it feels good. I get everything's all good. Everything's all good here. You made it. Go watch Sleepers. Tell me about a movie that means a lot to you. For whatever reason. I don't care. I love talking about this shit. Well, speaking of movies, that. That mean a lot to me. You. You gave a you gave a prompt for this that I'll put out loud because that you were like, you can pick anything. But I honestly love to know about a tough movie that helped you emotionally. There's actually a couple and this is crazy like that. I always, I always kind of like, gravitate towards Leo because two of two of my biggest movies growing up that were very tough but helped me emotionally were and I already referenced one on a what are you watching recommendation that was this boy's life. and the second one I'm going to do is Basketball Diaries. So that's going to be my my recommendation, because that was a movie where, you know, like drugs were close to the family. And my mom was just very like she like I was a good kid. But my mom, I think I think she went out of her way to make sure that I didn't end up in that type of world or that type of life. Same. So, yeah, she showed she showed me basketball diaries right around the time that came out on video. So you would have been like ten, nine or ten, nine or ten. I just want to say, I think this is fantastic parenting. And I'm not I'm not being I'm not joking. My dad said series the same thing to me. The yes, I'm dead serious. Yes. And and she goes, I want you to watch this and I want you to watch it not just as a movie, but I want you to watch. This is almost a cautionary tale of sorts. And and and she told me, she goes, I when we got when it got to that end argument, that end site where Leo is trying to ask his mom for money when he's outside the door. what is outside the door. she, my mom is like if you ever do anything like this to me, like this would be the ultimate worst thing you could ever do. As like a son to to me is to do this. So, like, when I this scene, I was like, okay, like not I was not I was not doing drugs. I did drugs weren't even on the radar, but I was like, I never wants to end up like this, I never want my life to go in a direction where this could be a reality for my mom. And weirdly, I watch that movie all the time and it was not filmstrip describing my slippers. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And, and, and so it was just a very, very real moment that I think meant more for my mom. I think it was more like I need to do what I need to do so this doesn't happen to me. But me being a nine, ten year old, taking in basketball diaries, how's that whole My God, I'm terrified. I don't I don't want any part of this. So it worked really, really well. And and some schools have never put my mother in that position so good. But it's also a really fucking good movie, and it's like what? It really is. Best performances. And Bruno Kirby is in this one. Good call. He does it as a bit of a creeper. bit of it. A little bit more. So Big Creeper Young Mark Wahlberg is in this. He's very, very good And then you're you're the earlier recommendation This boy's life is De Niro then this is the complete opposite of Father Bobby this is one of his most I mean I'm not I'm not making a joke. You bring this up like Max Cady in Cape Fear is like a psycho. Yeah, but that's so obvious. This boy's life is like this, dude. It gets along in society, but he is a fucking monster. Yeah, that's a grip. I don't think a lot of people have seen that one. Maybe a few more have seen Basketball diaries, but people definitely got to check these out. Yeah, Yeah. I mean, this boy's life is just a really, really it. I mean, for me, it was tough because, like, being with a single mom, that was like the fear that like, yeah, we would end up in a family situation with a guy like this. And Leo is just so good in it, like plays off DeNiro and Ellen Barkin is such a great because she's such a strong female for a little bit, but then loses it because of just this man and then you know yeah it's it's a great movie. Both of them are really good, but very hard hitting. Very hard hitting. Those are good. A good double feature, tough double feature, but a good one. I don't know if I do a double feature, but. Well, I would. Yeah, you would. That's why I mean mine. I've talked about this movie before. I already referenced it in this episode, but it is Denzel Washington's first movie as a director. Antwone, I've brought this up so many times, we will have to do an episode on it, and this episode will have to include my dad and it'll be, you know, the three of us. And it'll just be it'll be great. It'll be nice. And, you know, we'll probably get serious about some stuff because this is this movie helped me in ways that I think I talked about all the way back in episode five, our most memorable moviegoing experiences, but which I'm not going to rehash now. But yeah, it helped me in so many ways as much, if not even more, than Sleepless did. And then I didn't even know everything that was going on with my dad at the time, and it helped him to our family dynamic. Look, nothing like Antoine Fisher in real life or in the movie, but that didn't matter because what I'm talking about transcends all that. I've never been to like a a school for boys. This stuff doesn't matter. We're talking about like, really cutting through. So that movie will come up someday. I don't know when, but that's another one that if you just. If You've seen it and you're like, yeah, that was a good movie. I cried, Yeah, good movie, man. A movie changed my life for the better. All for the better. I'm a I'm so indebted to it. Thank you. Denzel Washington. Love Denzel. Obviously fucking Denzel. This is. I know. God, this is great. So, so happy to finally talk about Barry Levinson. Talk about one of his movies. Our favorite, Barry Levinson. I know. Idea Sleepers is your favorite. Let us know what you think about sleepers. Go check it out. If you haven't seen it on Twitter or out there. Letterboxd at W AIW underscore Podcast. But as always, thanks for listening and happy watching with j tie like that. Rob Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Hey, hey, hey. No, I get it white guy coming around on the double run of government. wow. Wow. Hey, everyone. Thanks again for listening. You can watch my films and read my movie blog at Alex Withrow dot com Nicholas Dose Dotcom is where you can find all of Nick's film work. Send us mailbag questions at what are you watching podcast at gmail.com or find us on Twitter, Instagram and letterboxd at W aiw underscore podcast. Thanks again for tuning in to this episode. It does mean a lot to me. Next time we're going to do one of the things we love most, which is argue about who is going to be winning Academy Awards. The ceremony is on Sunday, March 10th. We're going to predict every category, talk about all the most up to date narratives. Is it Oppenheimer's year? Here we go. Stay tuned. my.