The Pope of Greenwich Village

We're waiting m because I'm ready to talk about how much I really apparently I'm not a fan of Eric Roberts in this film. I know, I know, I know, I knew I was gonna get back the moment I said it, But I don't have feed and putter in my mouth. You come on, I'm gonna come out swinging because it was one of those things where it was hard for me to get past it. And I know you guys, you guys can see where I'm coming from though, Right, it is a big character being played big and if you don't, if you don't resonate with it, it's it's yeah, yeah, that's it's a big character. It's a big performance.

And there are some choices that are right. Yeah, somebody, somebody poured krem dement in your drink. Somebody put a lot of cilantro on your burrito. I get it. They went for it.

As I would like to say that the listeners were deprived the image of Chris imitating Eric Roberts perhaps a bonus. Well, there's gonna be a lot of imitating Eric Roberts on this episode. Okay, everyone can do you go ahead and tape the zoom We're all going to get a shot at this Eric. Eric Roberts is here to le so, ladies and gentlemen, this is the culture Cast. I'm still your host, Krustachi Much is the shagrid of Many, and I'm joined by one of the hosts of Noise Junkies.

Your friend of mine, all the way from the weirding Way Media Network, fought him alone. Would you say to me? What'd you say to me? What'd you say it again? What'd you say to me?

Start smacking him real hard? That was implied, And all the way from a picket line near you, if you live in Los Angeles, your friend and mine, Richard had him. They took my thumb, Jolley, they took my love. Jolly. You did it better Eric Roberts than Eric Roberts did in the movie.

I don't know that last, Charlie. They took my bumb. The passing out Charlie. They took my thumb is a thing of magnificence. Beautiful scene, the greatest scene in the movie.

People that look, this is a movie they don't make anymore, the most nineteen eighty four movie you can ever see. I am telling you do not sleep on this go press pause on the podcast, go watch Pope of Greenwich Village and then come back and you you're welcome. So, yeah, like Richard just mentioned on this episode of the Culture Cast, we are talking about nineteen eighty four's Stuart Rosenberg directed black comedy and crime film. We're gonna talk about that. Yeah, I bet like this film is perhaps a mislabeling, but perhaps mayhaps even mayhap, But yeah, we're gonna be talking about the Pope of Greenwich Village.

We're talking cool the summer win and blowing in from across the sea. Two city boys, just one break from the big time Mickey Rook, Eric Roberts, Daryl Hannah our television premiere of Greenwich Village. So the film is directed by Stuart Rosenberg, written by Vincent Patrick, based off of a book of the same name, as stars the aforementioned Eric Roberts and Mickey Rourke, the guy who this entire month was about. And they play good friends, cousins even I mean again, they could be related. They don't have to be related there, They're friends, They're cousins.

They're related. They're wise guys, are wise fellas, are wise friends, and they get themselves into a little bit of trouble because one of them can't keep his mouth shut and the other one just wants to live his life. He just wants to exist folks and make money and take care of Darryl Hannah and his son who he doesn't see. And along the way they run into Bert Young, who plays one of the greatest named characters ever, Bedbug, Eddie, a whole lot of other people. A heist goes wrong.

Kenneth McMillan is there, Father Malone. I'm gonna kick it to you first, because I think we're talking about this movie because of you. Oops. But not in a bad not in a bad way. But why are we talking about this Mickey work performing?

Because I was staggered that it had not been programmed in a month about Mickey Rourke. It's it is perhaps his finest performance. There's something okay. I first saw this movie in high school on videotape because all of my theater nerd friends were all obsessed with the Method. Oh my god, could not get enough of the method.

If your name was de Niro or Puccino or any variant of Italian and we're emoting all over the place. We were very much into that The problem for me with this movie when I first saw it was I had seen mean Streets, and as much as I adore Mickey Rourke and Eric Roberts and kind of the movie overall as an actor's piece, the story that they were telling had already been really skillfully done. And everyone kept telling me that that movie that put the Pope of Greenwich Village was a comedy, and I didn't find it very funny. I found it kind of heartbreaking. So I had a kind of a conflicted feeling about the movie for many years, but then rewatching it, just settling into it and letting it be what it is, which is two of the finest method actors, actors uh of of cinema at at not maybe the pinnacle of their of their talent, but certainly close to it, hovering nearby.

And it's it's kind of a joy because as dumb as the plot is and as boneheaded as all of the characters choices are, I never don't believe them. Like I know we're gonna get into Eric Roberts and the histrionics of it, but hey man, this is melodrama and he's like playing he's he never doesn't believe his performance so uh, and Mickey Rourke is just beautiful and I love him and he's just so amazing in this particular flick. Like as a as a young Irish kid in Boston, I wanted to be Mickey Rourke. So that's why we're watching this movie, mister Hadham. I know you've never seen it before, right, Zach.

Oh, No, I've seen it had Okay, Yeah, so I saw it. I saw it in the theaters the week it came out, and then because because father Malon and I are approximately the same age, so I was in high school. I was a senior nineteen eighty four, saw it and then saw it the following week on a date with a girl named Heather, who I'm not sure this was a great date movie. I'll say that I'm gonna go out says it's not the best or the best, I mean, depending on who that person is. Heather was a lovely human being and and uh, but not I don't think she was a person who really wanted to see this movie or was really into what this movie was.

I watch it now and I'm like, this is an odd choice to take a girl on our first date. But okay, but we went and you know, it did not turn out to be one of the great dates of all time? Did you know? The content going in totally Oh okay, that's all. I have no one to blame it myself, but I liked it so much, and I'm just like, oh, this is a really cool movie.

This is great, this is great. Anyone should love this movie. That having been said, my id, I had an understanding of this movie or one of the dynamics in the movie. Because of I realized, now this is going to sound weird. But there's a you know, this is a show called The Rockford Files starring James Garner, and there was a character in The Rockford Files called Angel Martin.

And Angel was an old cellmate and prison buddy of Garners of Rockfords, and he was what the creator of The Rockford Files, Stephen J. Cannell, Angel was what he called the bad news friend because people were always asking him, why is Rockford still friends with this guy who was totally unreliable, would sell him out in a second, is always looking for a get rich quick scheme. The dumber, the better is always getting him into trouble. Why are they still friends? And Kendall was like, He's the bad news friend.

I think everyone has one. I think everyone has a friend that after a certain point, you just realize, well, I've been drafted by God to be this guy's buddy, and I do have genuine affection for him, even though it takes way more energy and way more faith to continue this friendship. But I will for reasons that have faded into the mists of time. I couldn't even diagnose and diagram exactly why I'm connected. And that's what this movie is about.

And Daryl Hannah nails it. She's like, speaking to Mickey Rourke's character Charlie, She's like, you're always one inch away from being a good guy. And when she says good guy, she means legit, like get a job, raise a kid, get married, put a down payment on a place, and be a middle class guy. Just straight, Richard, go straight, take one step out of your cultural milu and and and it's interesting because Mickey Rourke is fairly ambivalent about that. He realizes that that that Paulyie Eric Roberts character is an albatross, but in a weird way, it's an albatross he is willing to bear.

In this movie, we see him absolutely, like like steam coming out of the ears, furious at this guy who who time after time almost gets him killed. And yet the other half of the movie he's us He's he's looking at this guy through squinted eyes, and it's going, who the fuck are you? Where did you come from? You're You're crazy, somehow, You're charming. I can't help but love you.

I'm either gonna hug you or punch you in the face. I can't tell which one, but I'm never going to leave your side and I'm never gonna let you down. And it's that, it's that weird dynamic that carries the movie up until its final moment. I have a soft spot for this kind of thing, and I've got a big soft spot for this movie. No again, my my issues with Eric Robert's aside, and we'll get to him, because again, it is a performance that he has decided to take.

And it's fine. Other than that. I actually yeah, I mean, look, I'm a huge fan of mobster films and gangster films. There's a lot of sopranos folks in this movie. A lot a lot of them show up, including Bert Young.

I mean, I'm a huge fan of Burt Young. Obviously he's I don't know, he's just one of those character actor. I mean, this is a movie replete with character actors, Like we've already yeah, I mean, Jesus, they've been managed to get m em At Walsh in here, which is like the most surprising thing of all Like, and there's the stuffed dog man himself, m em At Walsh callback to chronicles from the Crypto Salwan Oh yes, collection completes. Yeah. But you know this, I think, for me is the best Mickey Rourke has been all month, hands down, in terms of a fully realized character that actually makes sense in the world that he's in.

I'm not saying Harley Davidson and Harley Davidson and the Marlborough Man didn't make sense, but this character lives in this world. He could bump into, you know, Henry Hill from Goodfellas and it would be believable. It's a believable character that's been well written. Obviously, the author adapted his own book into a screenplay, so there is a lot of that. But this, for me, is the best Mickey Rourke has been all all month.

And I understand now why you both feel the way you feel about this movie because this is the this is my favorite that I've seen Mickey Rourke be this month. He's really good in this movie. Well, and it comes down I think, I'm glad to hear you say that. And I think this is where it's funny. I think the question of whether it's a comedy or in what ways is it a comedy, that's a discussion to be had, because it's if it is a comedy, it's almost a comedy of manners or character comedy based on the behavior of people within this world.

And it's it's not a comedy the way The in Laws, a contemporary film, is a comedy. This is a comedy drama. It's a it's a it's a mob movie that's sort of barely about the mob. It's a thriller that has one crime. There's great violence in the movie that sort of occurs, and then we move past it.

It's it's it's almost without a genre other than people people in this in this area during this one month period of nineteen eighty four of this part of New York, and we're just going to talk about them. And it is funny when the when Okay movie opens and Mickey Rourke is getting dressed. It's almost a montage of of of the cuff links and the tie clip and the shoes and just just the beautiful, beautiful costumes that this fucking suit he's wearing, the first of many, and we're listening to Frank Sinatra sing Summer Win And that's what the movie feels like all the way up until we meet Daryl Hannah, who's in you know, leggings and and uh, you know, leotard and the states of undress from the moment we see her.

But she's practically throw out through. Oh yeah, I mean she isn't. She walks into a scene with clothes and removes them in promptly. Oh yeah, yeah, you can barely keep her in clothes. But but when she walks on screen, it's nineteen eighty four.

We're we're we're we're in in her you know, we're in the aerobics class, you know, and they've got the real high waisted one piece outfits. I mean, all the women in that class are so funny. And in that one scene where Mickey Rourke and Eric Roberts come in and they are just little Italy out with the with the tight slacks and the open shirt and the gold chains and they're walking through an aerobics class and it's like it's like two movies meeting. You're like, and they both everyone's looking at the other people like they're watching a movie. Eric Roberts is looking at these women like like what's this?

When did this land? And the women are kind of looking at him like what movie did this guy come out of? And it's kind of great because it hits the nail on the head for the scene we're about to see, which is Daryl Hannah saying to Mickey Rourke, I don't think this is gonna work, Like you're just you're over there, I'm over here. Were this close to making it work, but that last inch is the inch that will never be crossed. And he basically says, you might be right.

I can't argue with you. Oh, he says more than you might be right. Perhaps my favorite scene in the movie where she slaps him and then slaps him again, and then his response is hit me again. See if I change, because at that point he has decided I'm no longer interested in the Wasp dream. You're peddling me.

You know, I'm going to do whatever I end up doing my own way. It's also a scene that indicates to me what my problem with the movie is is that I wish there was no mafia at all in the movie. I wish there was no crime in the movie Thank You. It seems kind of unnecessary. In the same way that A Prayer for the Dying made it about mobsters, this movie should have taken some of that out, because I just it kind of gets in the way of a more interesting story.

It Uh, I agree, we all have a bad friend. I listen, I grew up with fucking hoodlums, so I have had more than my share of this sort of nonsense. But there comes a point in the movie where you're like, Okay, you have to cut bait now. This isn't just like you took money out of my wallet, or you know you took my car, or where's this or that thing of mine? This is like you did not tell me we were going to rob a mob boss's safe you you know, you then ratted me out to said mod boss like it's it's it's it's more than the movie con bear, it's more than the relationship compared.

And the problem is that like the relationship that the characters are so good, and I'm enjoying all of their interactions, every scene of drama in the movie. I am one hundred percent on board for. It's just like all of the other stuff sort of weighs it down, like I don't know, well, you know, typically what I'll do with a movie, like a finished product, is I'll be grappling with what it's ultimately about, and then my rule or instinct is, however it ends tells you what it's really about, and then you just have to Then you just have to. It's like it's like echolocation. Once you hit the end, then you have to bounce back through the entire movie and just make everything line up with that ending, because that's clearly what they wanted.

Now what this ending is, and we're going to talk about the ending, and it's a forty year old movie, so please you know, spoiler alert, But it ends with both of them doing something kind of risky to get out of a predicament that they're in. But it really ends with the two of them in a weird way, in even bigger trouble than they've ever been in, and they're still friends and they're just walking down the street going you're crazy. No, No, you're you're crazy. And they're going back and forth, and the movie is telling you the friendship survives, and the music tells you it's okay. You don't need to worry about this.

These guys are going to make it, by guess or by gosh, They're going to somehow, no matter how stupid Paul he is, They're going to be okay, and this is their friendship. And and you can leave the theater feeling all right again with the summer wind playing. So if that's what we're if that's what we're being given in the very final moment, then I just sort of, you know again, bounce back through all the scenes and go okay. He The one character that made a decision in this movie is Mickey Rourke. He made the decision I'm going to stick with my own kind and I'm going to do what I have to do.

He does something really interesting though, in the last ten minutes of the movie at the racetrack he gets smart about Polly. Polly has a plan. We're going to put all of our money on this horse. He's got this crazy scheme. He's been following this horse.

He's invested in this horse. The horse is gonna win, and we're we and we got to bet him to win. And the horse doesn't win. The horse loses by a nose, and Paully is devastated and he can't understand even though time after time after time his starry hopes fall short, he's devastated. Mickey Rourke isn't because Mickey Rourke didn't bet the horse to win.

He bet the horse to show, and so he got money and they're gonna be okay. And it's the one moment in the movie that says, maybe Mickey Rourke has figured out a way to deal with this guy. He's never going to solve him, but it's like, I'm going to be able to mitigate the damage of this guy. I know how far to trust him, I know how to listen to him. He's not one hundred percent wrong.

I just got him make sure I protect myself. I don't disagree with any of that. Their relationship is the center of the movie. It's it's about the love of these two guys for each other, and it's wonderfully portrayed, portrayed in a way that's kind of shocking to see that it was in nineteen eighty four. They're walking arm in arm a lot in this movie.

Uh, oh my god, I love that. I love that. I'm like, what am I seeing here? Is this just well observed behavior from from this from this particular culture. But I love like literally, Eric Roberts kind of slips his arm into Mickey Works in a very sort of like I'm your girlfriend kind of way.

They're not they're not gay, they're not in love, but it's this sort of you. It's almost like Paully is saying, Charlie, you're my man, You're you're the older brother, and I'm I'm I'm sort of the plus one. It's beautiful, absolutely, But I think what you're saying is where we end up with these two characters, is I agree. Now Charlie has figured Polly out and he's settled in his mind that that's the life for him. I just don't think the stakes needed to be so ridiculously high and the boneheadedness of everyone involved, because because Charlie has a pretty good dream at the start of this movie, he wants to save up enough money and start a restaurant.

He's on his way and he's getting there, and he's not following any scheme of Polly's here, he's telling him, stop your shenanigans, you're going to get fired, and he ends up getting fired as well. And that's just that's like the least thing he does. If somebody got me fired, we would be taking a break from each other for a little while, cousin or not. And then he ropes him into a bone headed crime and then I don't know, it just cascades and cascades, and the thing is, ultimately that makes me not like the characters, Whereas if it had just been this human drama, which is what we're getting out of it because of these two acts. Here's the thing.

Would this movie work as well for you, both of you if it were not these two fellas playing the leads? Oh no, these guys are perfect. These guys should win four Academy Awards a piece. It's the ultimate I've never enjoyed. Eric Roberts More Coca Cola Kids a great movie.

But this is my this is my jam, and I think it's funny. I think, Chris, for for every time your dial goes down, mine goes up. For this performance. There's certain there are I don't always love over the top performances. But if they if this played as straight drama, I would recoil.

But because it was so clearly like who is this guy, and we're so clearly supposed to always kind of laugh at him. I was laughing in this scene where he's he shows up, He's got the big bandage around his hand. They've cut his thumb off. I mean, this is horrible. This is terrifying.

And then the scene is funny. He's he's like Mickey Rourke is like, did they give you anything? Yeah, they get they gave me. It's it's in my sock. They gave me this.

I took all of them already. Then he starts walking around doing this insane monologue about how you've got to terrorize women every once in a while, and he's trying to be tough, and he keeps punching the punching bag in the room with one hand, and then the reverberation hurts the hand where the thumb's been taken off, and he keeps punching the bag and going oh, punching the bag and going oh, and then he collapses on the floor. It's so over the top that but but for me, that's what it's about. It's just like this guy literally is too much for us, but for Mickey Rourke apparently it's within range of dealability. But I think I agree with Father Malone though, because because Mickey Rourke is a gangster in the mob, he would just kill Eric Robert.

No, I don't think they're gangsters. But the ork is a gangster in this movie. I don't think he is. I don't think either one of them really. No, they have no Eric Roberts is not I'm not saying he is, but he's putting on airs like you.

He's trying to become as as socially stable and as wealthy as them, certainly, but he's not. He's not doing it by elicit means. He seems to have given that up when they're when they're on the roof and and Eric Roberts is like, look, I forget a job. I got a score, And Mickey Rourke says that guy's a professional. You're not a professional.

I'm not. I'm not a professional thief. You're not a professional thief for amateurs. We're just these dudes, We're just guys. I work at a restaurant.

I'm not you know, I'm not adept at this And we are not accepted into those ranks. We're not hanging out with with Eddie Grant, We're we're adjacent to We're we're we're in the maulu, but we're not those dudes. And you want to and you and you're you're dumb enough to think we can be, but you don't have it and don't have the grit, and I don't have the grit. So let's not joke around it. But then he gets talked into it, and he only does it because Daryl Hannah says she's pregnant.

This is true, certainly, but I would also add that they're sort of capering ends up killing my favorite character in the movie, which is Jack Kehoe's Bunky, the detective. Who whose side is he on? I still don't know, but everyone was going down when Bunky was involved. I love Jack Kehoe. I love seeing him here.

One of my favorite faces of all time. He was in literally everything in the nineteen eighties, it seemed. The Untouchable is obviously being a super highlight in my young life, but also in Midnight Run I'll go get donuts He's anyway. So anyway, My point is that you know, like there are higher stakes here than their own lives. They end up.

You know, they didn't push the guy down that thing, But if they hadn't been there, he wouldn't have fallen down an elevator chef like he went in a hole like a gofa. Yeah, that scene is wild. When he goes down the elevator cheft. I can't even figure out what I watched it back a couple of times. I couldn't really figure out what the hell happened.

Did he just shoot his gun and in shooting his gun, the recoil threw him down an elevator cheft as if he had never shot his gun before. It was bizarre. He became startled and and then stepped backward, not knowing it was there, I think, or something. It was a little weird. There was no stepping there.

He flew through the air like a like a like a mannequin being thrown at David Warner. He flew down that elevator shaft. Okay, so this is the this is the novel part of the movie. That that again, I think they did a really good job with Again. You know, Chris and I just talked about another Mickey Rourke film based on a novel Prayer for the Dying, based on a Jack Higgins novel, and I think and I think that one suffers because of its consistently melodramatic tone and it and also it's over reliance on the plotting in the novel that may not be as interesting as other things.

This one, I think gave. This movie gave itself over two character moments. I think where the novel comes in is the sort of the Irish cop element they're running through this movie is is you've got the Italians and then and there and sort of the criminal element, and then you've got the Irish cops and they're also a criminal element, a horribly criminal element. Yeah, it's clear like they don't. It's not a lot of screen time, but it's pretty clear that, Okay, these Irish cops are on the take from who knows who, but definitely from Bedbug, Eddie Grant so so and the And it's been going on for a while, I mean MMT Walsh says, I you know, I've been I've been trying to work this for twenty seven years, but the inflation keeps going up and it's like I haven't done anything at all.

So it's like the cop are investing in the organized crime world, cutting deals with these mobsters and pocketing the money as a hedge against their retirement. And that's absolutely what Bunky is doing. I mean, we get a scene and the mom is Geraldine Page. Geraldine Paige is suddenly in this movie. Two scenes spectacular.

My god, I keep saying, my favorite scene in the movie, the scene where she faces off against Emmett Walsh is the actual best scene in the movie. It's better than Eric Roberts. Actually nice Galerie's own Geraldine Paige, right, and she's great on Night Gallery. Well, she's in this movie. And again, this is the kind of role that gets written to win somebody Best Supporting Actress in nineteen eighty four.

It's like two scenes. You crush it, You're a legend, you're in You're at least going to get a nomination. God only knows what the rest of the movie world has. Anyway, she shows up, but suddenly we're with like not even tertiary characters. We're with like characters off down some alley that it takes us a minute to even understand why we're spending time with them.

But Jack Kehoe is Bunky. His mom is Geraldine Page. She is a grizzled old broad, tough as nails, but they have a plan. He has been taking bribes from organized crime, from bed Bugetty Grant, but he's been wearing a wire. He's been tape recording it.

And his plan is I'm going to take the money, but if things go sideways, I've got him on tape and I can use that to deal my way out of trouble. Got it. He's the guy who falls down the elevator shaft. But they had a dream and the scene where they talk about their future is the scene where you know he's going to die, Because no way a movie spends five minutes talking about some way down the list character's dream unless that character is doomed, and of course he is. But this is all part of the fucking brew goal painting wide scope of this neighborhood, the Italians, the Irish, the cops, the bad guys, the good guys, the girl from the other side of the tracks, Daryl Hannah.

So it does just enough to suggest a wide canvas of characters. And in the middle these two guys who who just can't quit each other, whoa you really were picking up on the gay subtext of this movie. Huh. I always love it when movies play the homooticism way up front. You know.

It's like, because people always think they're clever, oh, Buddy Cutt. Movies are just you know, they're lightly veiled homoerotic. I always love the ones where it's like, great, they don't even veil it. Just have them kiss each other. It's like they love each other.

They're holding the riggs. Don't you die on me, man, you know, and they're just they're bleeding on each other. It's like, great, just go for it, as we say, just fuck already, that fuck already. I don't I guess I don't know what would have been the point of having Eric Roberts's character be written that way if not for that. I mean, I just there, there's no there.

There's nothing else like that in the movie other than that. One's that that one kind of weird interactions. There is uncle uncle Pete, Uncle Pete. That's right, yeah, I mean, I mean it's a very It's like this, this is the world we're in, This is and and and men. It's all about men and their relationships.

I mean, Susan would just mock the fuck out of this movie. I couldn't watch her with her. She's like, yeah, you can watch that one on your own. I'm like, oh yeah, you bet, I'm gonna watch it on my own. One.

You're ruining it for me. This very testosterone, Yeah, Nicky Rourke, it's basically that glimmer you see, it's it's not sweat, that's all testosteronem just pouring out of him in every scene. It's the sweatiest movie. They're literally just ripping with liquid all the time. Angel Hard however, Yeah, that that takes the cake as far as the perspiration, Yeah, that's fair.

I will say there is a scene where Mickey Rourk's hair is not up and he's wearing what I can only describe as like a quilt shirt. And it's funny. It's a funny scene because Mickey Rourke doesn't look at all like the character of them for like one scene, he looks very like dressed down, Yeah, and at his meanest in that scene, So that she's dressed the way, So that's that's the version that she's looking for of him. The hair is matted down and he's in boxers and you know, the the stylish shirt. Yeah, yeah, because she wants to change him, like you said, father and bring him to the suburbs.

She's from Maine. There was a there was a weird moment in what you said was your favorite scene and I love that scene too, but that it almost felt like we had missed something or maybe I missed it where she said something about being in Maine or working for somebody in Maine. It was clear that they went up and had lunch. He was going to meet with somebody, but I feel like I didn't quite get what that what that formation was, like, maybe we missed a scene. What do you think, Well, he was supposed to be meeting somebody there and then told them to like give them their regards, Like I know, we're just going to hear to lunch.

But I think I think this was a potential out moment in the in the film, this was going to go straight kind of thing. Yeah. Yeah, let's take a look at the landscape where you want to go to and see if I can't fit in there? Am I crazy? I have to tell you if if if you look at this film as as a choice that Mickey Rourke has to make between Daryl Hannah and Eric Roberts, I'm so glad he chose Eric Roberts Well.

And I will say that's the kind of a weird thing about this movie, that Daryl Hannah character. While I appreciate where they're going with it, that we've we've seen that kind of character so many times before, it's it's a genuinely ununique character in this kind of narrative. It's, oh, this is the character you're trying to or supposed to go straight, but they end up being kind of not unlikable, but almost in every scene a nag And it's like, I kind of have no interest in the character ultimately being with you. That's her unfortunate role here in this movie. But the one distinction is that she steals all the money, and that made me like her character a great deal.

It was hilarious because you almost get the feeling she like, in some weird way, didn't really think of it as stealing. It's more like, I took the money, it's for our kid. Like it didn't seem to be a like a real twist of the knife. It was almost like you did what and he tears up the I've never seen a man beat up a refrigerator before. He dents the fuck out of it.

I think he were a attacks the refrigerator. He's punching through walls, he's punching through doors, he's destroying his apartment. He was genuinely concerned for his safety during that sequence, honestly, And I watched it twice and both times I was wincing at how hard he was going for it. Yeah, And don't you get the feeling that that was all like real, Like they didn't there was not a special proper refrigerator. No, I believe that.

I believe that he said, okay, just say action. That's kind of what I think. I expect nothing less from Mickey Rourke. But that's okay, right, Like that's that's the magic of Mickey Rourke as far as far as I'm concerned, Like he's he's just an actor. He just acts.

That's what I do. Will And it sets up what is maybe the most genuinely comedic moment in the film, the scene we already talked about where he where where Eric Robert walks in, you know, with a bloody bandage wrapped around his hand. We're still living in the horror that they have cut his thumb off and and he walks in and he's crying, they took my filmb they took me my thumb. And then he looks around, he's like, what happened here? Everythink he's all broken up?

What happened? He's like, totally just practice. That was actual comedy. Yes, Oh that's a great thing. You know what I love about the end of that scene is when when Eric Roberts is on the mend, it starts with Mickey Rourke like fixing a tray for him of food and at which he then carries to him, which I did not realize until watching it again now that that is the ultimate sacrifice for Mickey Rourke because in the midst of having no job, he's offered a waiter job and that is so offensive to him if he kicks the guy in the ass and sends him on his way.

And so now here we see him doing this for Eric Roberts, and it's so beautiful. This movie is about the choice between Daryl Hannah and Eric Roberts. For this character, he's he's taking care of him in a way you could never picture him doing for Daryl Hannah ever, and then and he brings he brings the stuff and and Eric Roberts is like lying in the bed and his hand is still bleeding and he sort of wakes up been and Mickey Broke's feeding him soup and Eric Robert's sort of like spitting it out, going, what did this is canned? What is the white bread? He's complaining, it's the ultimate bad news friend, Just eat it, Just eat it on.

Frank Vincent in that scene to tell him to go home and get his fucking shine box before he cuts his thumb off. I do like that. It's Frank Vincent that cuts off Eric Roberts, though, don't get you're appropriately of course, Hey, he kills kills Joe Peschi and Casino, so you know, I think it's I think it's fitting. Let me mention another scene I love. It's not my favorite, but it just sort of only illustrates the relationship of these two.

When they're making the rounds to all of these delhies. We never get to see their interactions in the delis. They just keep popping in and out and popping in and out. And what they've been doing this entire time is building a sandwich. They've now got all the ingredients and if you haven't done this, folks, you should do this because it's great make your own sandwich.

It looks incredibly crazy. What the amount of meat. There's got to be at least town of meat. I did not see the cheese then chosen. I'm assuming it was Provolone.

By the way, Joe Grafassi shows up late in this movie as what Joey the cheese Man, And that's another great character moment where Eric robs just like, yeah, you're you're your mozzarella. It's a little tough, a little tough. I'm not saying, you know, not all of it, maybe, but you know, it's a little tough, little tough on the monzarella. Sometimes you're not even sure what's happened. Like I watched the scene twice.

I watched it, and then when when Dashel got home, I'm like, I'm trying. I was trying to describe Pope of Greenwich Village to my sixteen year old son and failing miserably. I'm like, I just gotta just come and watch this one scene where he's making a sandwich, and just watch the behavior and watch the way Mickey Rourke is watching him. And and it was only when I went back that I realized Oh, they're walking in and out of these places, getting meat, getting the cheese, getting the bread, and I'm like, oh, that's so beautiful. It's just happening.

It's just happening. A lot of behavior in this movie. And then he sits down and now he's explaining his plan about artificial inspiration and how you do it with horses. And this guy jacks off a horse and gets the horses jism. And then he knocks up this female horse because you don't always want him getting together because sometimes the male horse gets so excited he kicks her in the head and kills her.

So so now now this is how you get because it's all about the jeans. Because he hears the thing about horses. See, and this might be the theme of the movie. A horse can't ever make itself any better than what it is when it's born, right, it's all it's just jeans. It's like when the horse is running that it's the jeans running.

The horse has nothing to do with this. It's hilarious. It's the theme of the movie. Can you make yourself better than your jeans? That's the theme of the movie.

And as he's doing it, and as he's doing this monologue, just handful of meat going into this enormous bag, get chunks of cheese, this thing. So at the end of the scene, he picks up a sandwich that you've watched him build, and yet in the shot it's four times bigger than you could ever have believed you zucker Abram Zucker gag. When he picks it up, it's like a comically large sand might be a yard long. And he just sinks his teeth into the very end of it. And and Mickey Rourke, who has been listening to this idiot for for five solid minutes, is just smiling at him.

He just loves this guy so much, and he's just he wipes his face off and he's like, you ought to get a license. You're ship in the streak, you're eating like a horse. That's nothing. Point out that this movie is now, this movie now, would be get would be would be less of being coded gay and straight up, and I think it would be I think it would be an interesting I think it would be an interesting story. I mean, how many gay mobster films have we seen?

Or mobster? Actually, because you would you would look, I don't care what kind of a friend you are if you're getting me involved with the mob and they're gonna come kill me and potentially others that I love, that's not ever going to happen. But uh, if it was my girlfriend, uh, and she was doing something crazy and I would want to go along just to make sure that makes more sense to me. Okay, But I gotta say this that that cinema and uh, everything all Western storytelling has has this thing. And we talked about it earlier, but it's like, how do you show male love that that isn't at its base sexual?

So because we know it exists, we know that's sort of like I love you like a brother thing exists now in Western culture there it always carries this this you know, the question, the fear, the paranoia. Yeah, but are the is it wait? Is it gay? Is it not gay? Visit?

I think I think this movie does a beautiful job of illustrating like their third cousins. So it's not family love. It's not literal brother. It's not like you're my brother so I have to stick with you. It's we have a bond.

You know, Polly has had a bladder problem ever since he was a kid. When Mickey York says that you do realize suddenly, Oh they they've known each other's from the crib, like they literally grew up. He has always been on the schoolyard. He was probably beaten up people who were bullying Polly. Polly has not probably he was right.

Yeah, okay, So how do how you know, how does a movie, how does a story talk about this sort of male love that that isn't sexual? And how do you do it? And I think this movie does it really well. I agree with you. I don't think that this is necessarily a homerrotic movie.

But my mind goes there because they raised the stink so fucking high with the plot that I you know, like, just what choice could he make? It beggars belief that Mickey Rourke never said, who are we ripping off? Right? Yeah? I mean that that part is hard to believe that he would not ask that.

It makes me dislike Mickey Rourke's character a great deal. Well, I'm telling you the whole mom thing. Take it out of here. It doesn't belong here. We don't need those steaks.

The stakes are the character, these characters and their relationships. Well, that's why I said, Roberts, because like if it's the mobsters. Those guys aren't are not gonna hesitate, and that and and and but but Mickey Rourke not being one. I don't know. It's yeah, it's it's a weird fatalism of the stakes that doesn't need to be there because I don't think that's the interesting story to be told here.

But my question is, I don't know what story you would tell. And for me, the mobster story, it doesn't. It doesn't ruin it because again, it's like it's mobster adjacent. These guys are so low rent. I would compare it more like it's going to sound crazy because it is a movie that is I don't think really a comedy at all.

But I'm gonna shout out Boys in the Hood. Okay, Boys in the Hood is a movie but very dramatic, even melodramatic, about you live in this culture where you are crime adjacent, and the question is you're coming up is always are are you getting in or are you getting out? And I think there are elements of that that exist in the Italian crime world in New York. In the movie that we're talking about, are you getting in? Are you getting out?

There's advantages to getting in. There's girls, there's money, there's cars, there's advantages to getting out. You keep both your thumbs, you don't die, So which do you do? So I'm gonna buy it. Even though it's not a Scorzzy crime movie.

It's about guys who live in a world where that's part of the world they live in, and you you got to decide where you fit in that world. And a guy like Pollie is just dumb enough and has that I want to be the cool guy who gets the tickets to the Sinatra show and sits two seats away from Tony Bennett. You know, he wants it that the glitter draws him and fools him in a way that it doesn't quite for Mickey Rourke's character. For Charlie, Mickey works a little smarter. He's like, we're we're dealing with dangerous people.

We got to really watch what we do. And it starts at the very beginning of the movie when they're both working at sALS and Mickey Work is the one saying, you're you're fucking with your checks. You know, your your dupes, and they call them in the restaurant business, it's like you're bringing out twelve entrees, but you're only charging them for six because you want to get in good with that guy, but you're getting in bad with our boss, who, by the way, is a dangerous guy too. So so don't be dumb about this. We've got a nice gig here.

I get to dress nice, I get to wink at the coach check girl, even though I've got a girlfriend Daryl Hannah at home. I get to be a cool dude. And that's good enough. Don't fuck it up. Well, guess what, he fucks it up.

Polly Fox it up for both of them, and that's just the beginning of the spiral. In fact, the scene at the end, which is a great scene with Bert Young Bedbug Eddie the stair down between Burt Young and Mickey Rourke is something to behold. But my point is about that final scene is Mickey Rourke has now an ingenious solution for their problem, and then Polly fucks that up as well. Yeah, but that for me is that's the funniest scene in the movie when Burt Young drinks the lie and then takes off like a character out of Looney Tunes, running down the street, because that's what you do when you drink Lie did did? I laughed every time I watched it, especially because Burt Young threw himself out that fucking glass door.

That is Burt Young doing that stunt. They don't, they don't cut away. It's very clearly Burt Young throwing yourself through a glass door. Well when you're I mean, it's horrible to think about, Like, literally, this guy just down, Lie, it's a cup full of he's going to die. I mean, he's dead, and he's going to die because acid is going to dissolve his internal organs.

That's bad. In a way. You love it because you're like, fuck that dude. On the other hand, you're like, God, we were again, we were an inch away from actually just legitimately getting him over a barrel in a way that could have allowed us to exist in our lives. But then you pushed it all the way into the red zone.

And I guess, I guess. In the sequel, Pope of Greenwich Village Too, Miami Nights, they're in Miami somewhere getting into more Goofy trouble because Polly can't keep his mouth shut. I want to see if they should make it right now, those guys are still kicking I would be love. We said that last time Harley Davidson and Marlboro Man episode. These guys still around, why not?

Yeah? I got the guy though, you could do it with them. But if I was saying, I'm like, who does this guy remind me of? This won't mean anything to you, guys, I don't think, because I don't think you watched Titans. But there's an actor named Kuren Walters who played Jason Todd on Titans, and I'm telling you Kuren Walters has has that Eric Roberts energy.

If Kuren if I said, Kurrent, I want you to watch this movie and then we're going to remake it, he would watch it and he would go, oh, I get exactly what this is, and he would deliver a performance within one percent of of Eric Roberts eric Son in part two, There you go, There you go. He has a son, and I mean Mickey or could have a son, and then it's his son tracking him down, right Like, That's that's where I would go with this. I mean, that's that. I mean, it's a logical direction. And you could even rope Daryl Hannah in for a scene or two.

Why not, beautiful, I'm in. I would I would watch it. That's I mean, that is the sobering thing about movies from the eighties. It's like, you know, so many movies from the eighties have been remade in the last twenty years, but it's only things that were ips of known value. I mean, this is this is a book that became a movie that no one ever heard of.

This isn't Harry Potter. No one's ever heard of this book. I didn't know it was based on a book until two hours ago when I watched the movie again. I'm like, Oh, I didn't really clock that this was based on a book. Not I want to read the book.

I'm like, what the fuck is this book? Yeah, you know, at this perilous time for the Writer's Guild of America, I don't want to bag on any screenwriter necessarily, but Vincent Patrick wrote one of my least favorite movies of all time, The Devil Zone. It's an IRA drama. Oh. We talked about that on the last episode.

You know. They say, like I hear often like, what's the worst movie you've ever seen? And to me, the answer has always been whatever bored me last, Like, I'm not holding on to a bad movie. However, However, if you you bore me and I feel insulted, then that might be the worst movie of all time, because that what a subject with a big studio behind it and all the potential and then take no stand at all and just spin their fucking wheels with a very important topic. That so you just describe a prayer for the dying?

Yeah, but I mean Richard mentioned it on the episode. He was like, Richard mentioned it, like the IRA is a hard thing to do an entertaining, uplifting, upbeat movie about Well, but the movie I mentioned was I mean, we talked, we name checked devil Zone, which I don't remember. Maybe I saw it, maybe it was so boring I forgot, But I talked about blown Away. Oh, let's talk about blown Away as a Bostonian. Okay, A side of Jeff Bridges doing the worst Boston accent I've ever heard.

I love Jeff Bridges, We all love Jeff Bridges. Who doesn't love the dude? Nevertheless, the worst Boston accent of full time, which makes zero sense care wise because he's from Ireland. He leaves Ireland when he's in his twenties and somehow develops a Boston accent. Do you hear my Boston accent.

No, okay, I don't shut up, Chris. So I heard it last time we talked, But you're right here. I'm not hearing it now. I gotta be riled. But then, just to set an IRA drama, and it's just it's not an IRA drama.

It's a mad bomber drama dressed in the cerements of the grave of the IRA. It was, yeah, okay, maybe that's worse than Devil's Zone. As far as the subject matter, I haven't seen Blown Away. I want to watch. I'm sure.

I mean, you should watch it and review it. So, father, what I was saying is that is that blown Away It kind of exactly what you said. Was not trying to be a drama. It was trying to be a big summer blockbuster, a big thriller. You know, a guy is setting bombs.

But but it's an old grudge from you know, the old country. And again, I don't remember it clearly in enough except that I knew I remember it be it feeling like it was trying to be an exciting, you know, thriller, and and that's certainly what the what the trailer indicated it was going to be that that Tommy Lee Jones was, you know, this legendary guy who you know, you know, can he be captured. It's a cat and mouse game against you know, Boston, between the best and the best, and and that's a great build up. Again, don't remember if the movie was any good, but uh, it was trying. Yeah, it fails on all those levels because what they're trying to tell effectively is mad bomber versus bomb squad movie.

But they've said it in the town and then brought the fucking IRA to the party and then don't deal with that at all. Patriot Games deals with the IRA in a more nuanced fashion. Mentioned Patriot Game. That was funny. This was the There was this like five year period of time when suddenly the IRA was was fodder for films and I think we've named all of them that you know that that we were finally things were going somewhere in Northern Ireland and so the IRA was becoming more political and less less actually active.

So it was easy to now use them as characters in your drama and spice up your drama, give it, give it a bit of a heft for no good, god damned reason, right, exactly because well, and what we were saying was that it's it's a you can name check it, but at and you can have Western actors play those roles, so you're not doing South America. You know, you know revolutionaries, you're you're you can get you know, British actors and American actors and cast them in major roles. But when the dust settles, the troubles are called the troubles for a reason. As a fucking downer, there's nothing fun about that conflict, and I think everyone realizes it too late. Women and children being blown up is not fun.

What Yeah, No, certainly they hadn't gotten that particular memo in Hollywood or you know that that what was actually going on was a fucking decades long nightmare, and it had been it had lasted so long that nobody knew what the fight was anymore. They just it was all about the fight. But I totally agree with you Rich the everyone is always looking for the next great white villain, right, who can we who can we cast who can we get the white people to play that that it's acceptable because we don't want to we don't want to piss off anyone. And white people are fodder, but we need a new version. Yeah yeah, not a ton of amazing movies about the Contras and the Sandinistas.

It's it's overdue the treatment. I mean, those would be interesting movies, maybe probably be just I mean, I'm really waiting for the uplifting film about pole pot or dy A mean, you know, you know, I mean again, we're going to talk about the IRA and you know, really tactics and stuff like that. Why don't we talk about Killing Fields and Genoa? I mean you know, well, yeah, I'm lifting you know, a pole plot comedy. Well, well you know you could.

That's the other thing you can do Vietnam movies because you just center it on five young American men who were sent to Vietnam. There's your movie. We're not casting major characters. I think Killing Fields was one of the few that that that sort of took into account. Oh there were people in that region who you know, native to that region, Cambodia, you know who who experienced the war and it's after effects from there from a point of view that we have not really looked at other than you know, collateral damage.

And that's what made Killing Fields so interesting. It's like, oh, well this is like really about what happened and and yeah you don't that's what made that And it was a good movie too, So some things you just can't make fun and entertaining. I mean this this on the other hand, I mean it is like that's the thing, like American model upsters as fucked up as it is, if you go and read any of the actual stuff about what they were actually doing, cutting each other up, burning one another a lot, just doing all terrible things, like it's not fun, but yet here we are. And you know, look, I think it might have been two on the nose if Puccino and de Niro had been in this movie, I don't really know what the what like what that would have been.

It would have been such a departure from what this is. Niro would have to play Charlie's part. Yes, yeah, yeah, Jimmy the Gent, Yeah he had the underwritten of the two. Yeah, he already played Polly in Main Street. Yeah yeah, no, no, it was Jimmy the Gent is Mickey Rouric And then I don't know, I don't think.

I don't really think Polly is Tommy. But but Tommy was definitely the more volatile of the two. In Goodfellas, not on the level of Eric Roberts performance, But if you're looking for a could you see Casino cast with Eric Roberts and Mickey Rourke, Oh my god, no, no, I could see. I could see, but not Eric Roberts and that, And you know what, that's the thing because and let's talk about this for a moment. I could see Mickey, I could see Eric Roberts in the Joe Peschi roll.

I would like to see Joe Eric robertson the Joe. I think Joe Peshi has a level of self awareness that Eric Roberts doesn't in terms of being an actor, and Eric Roberts just goes for it without any limitters in this movie. And I honestly think it would have been interesting if it had been DeNiro and Peshi in this movie, because that would have been an interesting energy because you know, again we kind of mentioned Peshi kind of plays a fuck up character in Goodfellas, a similar kind of problematic fire starter who starts fires and then pretends like he doesn't have any need to put them out. It's everybody else's prob ultimately, just of mikes and men again, right, I mean, I mean kind of. I mean, that's the thing.

It's like, how many of these stories are just about the one guy who's having to clean up the messages of the other moron constantly. So I am not my brother's keeper, right like, but apparently Key Rourkey you are. He went from this overly aggressive to the point of that I'm still frightened by his performance in that movie, honestly, yes to yeah, the role here where he's so frail. I mean, my god, like he needs protecting in this Yeah, Eric roberts Man, But can you believe that those two movies came out? I remember thinking, oh, well, this guy's going to be famous forever.

I mean, we're gonna be I mean, this is the Paccino, the new Denaro, whoever. It's like, it's like, we're gonna we now get forty years of this guy. Same thing with Mickey Rourke. It's like, well, this guy's so cool, he's like the entire rat Pack excellent distilled into one human being. We're going to be watching this guy forever.

And and here we are thirty nine years later, and I'm devastated that we are not. We don't have thirty amazing Eric Roberts movies. Instead, we have fifty terrible Eric Roberts movies. Eric Roberts has seven hundred credits to his name, Yeah, and it's six hundred and ninety five of them are reprehensible. And sci fi movies need big actors.

To direct to DVD movies need big actors. That's I mean, that's what I think of. What I think of Eric Robert is a guy was in a lot of like DTV stuff or direct to video, which is kind of where Mickey Rourke is now too in a lot of ways. Like but we talked about it with Mickey Rourke that something went wrong, like like there literally might be like concussive brain damage for Mickey Rourke that has placed him where he is in the world right now. Eric Roberts, clearly there was also something going on, some emotional thing that didn't allow him.

You know someone I think it was George Bernard Shaw who said actors are insane people who are just sane enough to capitalize on their insanity, and those are the best actors. In a way, I think you could, you know, you could look at Al Pacino and say that, you can look at a lot of people and say that. But but I think it tilted the other way for Eric Roberts. I think that whatever those demons were, and I honestly don't no if it was substances or mental illness or just personality, that that kept him from getting great role after great role after great role and just dominating in the way that those other guys that, you know, Jack Nicholson, he could have had a career like Jack Nicholson will always have King of the Gips.

Oh yeah, that's a great movie with Eric Roberts. Also, how about how about this guy's How about these two Southern boys playing the ultimate New Yorkers in this flack? I think you know, Oh yeah, Eric Roberts Georgia and New Orleans and Mickey Rourke was raised in Miami. Yeah the deep. Mickey Rourke did a great Irish accent in Prayer for the Dying.

I mean I would have assumed he was Irish. I will say his accent in this movie is not It's not it doesn't feel like a put on. It's more of an it's more of an invocation less than impression of an accent. He's just kind of, hey, yo, wait, he's kind of doing that thing. He's not really like, he's not saying and shit, like he's not new in that, he's not really leaning on it, which I mean I appreciate.

Lookpiche, Yeah, he says that a lot. He says it a lot. He says KU's at one point, which I do appreciate, and he gets punched in the face right for it. God damn it. God, at least they weren't dropt.

Well, I was gonna say, Father Malone. In keeping with last year's You've Never Seen September, we do get to hear Eric Roberts say you have fucking fag, So I did appreciate that. I was hoping you would say queer at some point, just just so we can hear that. To be fair, Mickey Rore countered at one point with you look like half a fag? Yeah, yeah, yeah, don't don't keep on talking or you selling like half a fag?

Which what did they say that Good Fellas? Right? What do you have? As you say in some in some mobster movie that I watched fairly regularly, what do you half a fag? Or something?

Oh, it's in Good Fellas, It's what he says to the guy who owns the restaurant to Paul Sorvino. Yeah, yeah, I love that term. A fag. I don't even know what does that mean. I don't even know.

You're not full, you're just half. I think it's the worst to be half. I think it's a way to call someone in your circle a big insult, but blunt it just enough that it doesn't turn into a fight. Half you're half. Yeah, yeah, you're getting you're getting close.

Don't make me call you all the way? Yeah, acting like half a fag? Stop now before I love it. Oh my god, it's such a great term. You know how I fully feel here, But I don't want to get punched for it.

So yeah, we were settling on Yeah, good lord. Hey we haven't even mentioned the Baron is in this movie. Kenneth McMillan is in this movie father Oh, Vladimir Harkonen. Yeah, very fantastic. Again, another aspect of this movie that like, I'm so invested in him and his wife in their story, just like I'm invested in Jack Kehoe and Geraldine Page.

They're from a whole other movie. I want to watch their movies, and I want to watch Eric Roberts and uh and Mickey Rourke's movie They Don't Belong Together. This is the same year as Dude, by the way, eighty four, I just want to point that out. Well again, it's it's the hinting at the at the wide canvas of the movie. And and by the way, that the novel thing you're mentioning like that there seems like it's this probably spilled over the edges and we'd probably get more out of that book because it is a two hour movie, like to the to the like two hours in one minute, so you know they couldn't go over that.

Yeah, And I think I don't know how I feel about Stuart Rosenberg as a director. I think there's a lot in here that's great and then some stuff in here that's sort of like what. But there's something about the tone and the feeling of this movie that I really love. And maybe it's just reminds me of my senior year of high school. So I will totally cop to watching this movie through through some nostalgic glasses.

But but it's also kind of beautiful and it kind of evokes a New York feels like you you kind of want to be there, and it's like, oh, I think I would have been happy living in some of these neighborhoods and at least visiting them. It doesn't feel it's on no level. Is it trying to make New York seem horrible and dangerous and awful and a scary place you don't want to be. It's beautiful, the bridge lit up at night, and the little just that little scene, the stickball scene where a bunch of fucking looks like middle aged guys in blazers and slacks playing stickball. It's what is this?

I'm I'm literally going, what planet are we on? Except that I want to be on that planet. I just the feel of the movie. Even the Dave Gruson nineteen eighty four soundtrack and nineteen eighties soundtracks often do not age well. Little too much saxophone, little too much Dave Gruson, a little too much, you know, David Sanborn.

But this one as as out of places it was sometimes I fucking loved it. I'm going to second that this is his best score as far as I'm concerned. Oh no, that's not true. Uh. He did Friends of Eddie Coyle, which is fucking incredible.

Uh, But Dave Gruson's score is just as schizophrenic as the film itself, Yes, constantly changing and morphing. When we meet Jack Keyhoe's character, it's suddenly the synthesizer tune that's just his, and it recurs every time he appears. When they're driving off to the racetrack. The it's the music letting us know, okay, this is now a caper. Okay, it's just we're It's almost It reminded me of Midnight Run almost in in how buoyant it was with these two guys driving together and and bantering and you know, even though more bad is on the way, like it, I don't know.

I loved the Dave Gruson's score, uh in this like so, and sometimes it goes way into scary. You know, we're crawling across rooftops at night in New York, you know, and it really leans into whatever the dictionary definition of that music is. But you're right, and then and then of course it's other egregiousness is every time they go to the cops or Kenneth McMillan, it's a little do Irish jig. And that's why it's not better than the Friends of Eddie Coyle, which we're actually dealing with Irish characters on a human level instead of the butt of the joke, the literal exploding butt of the joke. My god, by the way, you know Polly as a fuck up as he is, he's also clearly a serial poisoner and that's going to be a real problem for Charlie at some point later in their lives.

Well loves killing cops and other people with poison. But it was funny because I thought, are they trying to set it up to feel like he's doing the exact same thing he did the copies? He is? It? Like, are you putting a laxative in this guy's coffee for some reason that we're gonna then is that where we're going with this?

And then and then it's like, oh no, oh, I took it way beyond that. I have now I've put acid in his coffee. But they're playing off that, right. Yeah. During that initial scene the he dosing the cops so he'll have massive explosive horse induced diarrhea on the street.

I'm watching it and my thought was, is this why everyone's calling it a comedy? Because it's really an outrageous scene and it's nineteen eighty four. So like, yeah, this could qualify why they would call it a comedy. And that's all I thought the scene was. So when the cup comes out at the end, it went ooh nice, very nice construction there planting and payoff.

One might say, oh, yeah, exactly exactly. There was an expectation that got paid off in a more surprising way. But I love his performance in that scene where he's literally like like dancing, he's like spazzing out in the street, going coup shitt in his pants, cups shitt in his pants. He's he's like he's out of his he's mentally ill, he's mental and I love it. You can never accuse Eric Rombers if not being in touch with every one of his emotions.

Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, And that's and that is again, like that's the thing for me about Eric Roberts, Like he's had a crazy career of all the things that he's been it and I mean, like this is a pretty high profile thing, but then go and look at all the things he did in twenty twenty one. I beg you to tell me if you've heard of half of those, let alone even seen where you could watch them. So like he has like twenty five credits in twenty twenty one alone, and most of them don't even have a clickthrough. So yeah, it's just it's it's fucking wild to me because we I mean, I do with Stephen Seagal podcast obviously, and we kind of drag on him about that, but like he's turned into Stephen Seagal. He's done literally two hundred movies you've never heard of.

Yeah, yes, because they wanted to have Eric Roberts in it. It's because he's a working actor and he wants to work. Like, yeah, maybe they wanted a higher profile actor, but like Steven Zigall, they're banging on his door like we want you Steve to come. I would be fascinated to know. I mean, have there been recent interviews with Eric Roberts, Like, has he'd been on Mark Marin or something?

Do we know how he's doing? I do not. The last interview I heard of recently regarding this flick, I heard an interview with Mickey Rourke from about four or five years ago where he described this as his obvious best movie and that Eric Roberts is one of the three best actors on the planet. Nice. I'm happy to hear that Eric Roberts was actually talking about this movie a couple months ago on an interview that he did where he was singing the pre I mean, obviously, Eric Roberts was singing the praises of Mick because this is not a movie people know, like like you mentioned it, like people know movies from the seventies, like you can say Dog Day Afternoon or something, and people, even if they haven't seen it, they're like, yeah, I've heard of it, but use a pope of Greenwich Village.

Do not know what this movie is. And if they do, they know the one scene, which is unfortunate because it doesn't it doesn't hint at the rest of the movie. Yeah, if you're expecting the histrionics from moment one, you will be very disappointed with this film. And it does the film a disservice to go into it thinking it is going to be there. Yeah.

Can I echo something you said, Rich? The stickball scene is a thing of beauty. Uh, it's it's my favorite scene in the movie. No, but it is a little bit of poetry. I've read a lot of reviews of the film, and a lot of them calling that movie the scene out saying like, well, you know, it's really dumb because they're all dressed in their suits and doing this.

And I would say, I don't think you've ever lived in an urban environment. If a stickball game happens, you're playing stickball. It's just what you have to do. That's this movie's top gun playing with the boys moment, is it not? Yeah, But these guys dress.

That's every day. They put on their blazer and they're they're fucking healed shoes, and that's how they're dressing. And like you said, if a stickball game breaks out, that's how they're dressed. I mean, Paul Walnuts would go out there and a wife beater and his slacks and play stickball and he's not getting dressed in fucking running shorts and sneakers like that. If I was in an astronaut outfit and a stickball game happened, I'm playing in an astronaut outfit.

That's fair. I've never by the way, stickball. That's that's that's an urban city thing that US rural folk don't know. You know, you know, David Chase watched this movie and loved it. You know, Martin Scorsese watched this.

I mean, there are moments that feel like in Good Fellas, that feel like they're from this when he knocks the espresso cup out of the guy's hand, the young guy who's working at the club that that little to hang out place. When Burt Young does that, it feels like when Joe Pesci gets angry at Michael Imperioli Spider Good Spider. Yeah, Yeah, yeah, in Good Fellas, it's like, oh, it's got that same feeling. There's like a couple of moments where it's like, oh, I see this reflected in later films. Oh, certainly, I think the right people saw this movie if it wasn't a hit overall to begin with and hasn't been as seen as it should have been.

Yeah, And I would actually say that this movie does a similar thing that one of my favorite Scorsese does, After Hours, which is give us an interesting kind of travelog of mid eighties New York as well. I mean, like, you know, the movie is more or less set in Greenwich Village obviously, but it's a part of New York that we're not necessarily getting to see all the time, and it's the main setting, kind of like After Hours with Soho. So but I would say what you mentioned earlier, Rich, Like, this isn't New York. This is this is a fairy tale New York. This is like Paris in Amlie that Paris does not exist, that belongs in that world, and we all want to go there, just like I want to go to this New York.

It doesn't exist, it never existed, but it is beautiful and idealized. And after hours, isn't the one of those people are like, like I watch I'm like, is it a comedy? I love? It's weird, that's weird. Is a comedy?

Oh my god, it's dark. It's a comedy. There are horrifying moments, there are just surreal moments. Then there are laughs. You're telling me everything bagel and cream, cheese, paperweights doesn't make you laugh.

But it is like like, I'm I'm a lover of King of Comedy. That's maybe my favorite movie. And and there are people who just again they're like, no, that flavor not in this mouth, and I'm like, but it's for me. It is like if you hate black licorice, I love it for the if in this film, I get every beat of it, And is it a is King of Comedy a comedy I'm laughing, but I'm laughing from a broken place within myself that recognizes Rupert Pupkin and is bird Popkin. Right.

After Hours, I think embraces what Chris and I apparently respond to, which is everything is so nervous and going to explode in our lives that you can't but but laugh. Yeah, and it seems like it all explodes all at once, which is the best part. Yeah, yeah, in one night, baby, Yeah. Man, after it just makes me want to watch After Hours. And I already watched it this year like four times, but I just want to watch it again.

I'm my girlfriend. Don't put that on again, just recently, don't. Yeah, don't put that on again. You have watched it too many times in my presence. Oh wow, geez, Louise, Hey man, I get it.

That's I mean, that is the thing about a movie like After Hours that this movie doesn't have. Like that, there is an overwhelming sense of foreboding in that movie that's played for laughs, and I mean this movie doesn't have that. It could have, given that there are a bunch of mobsters in the in the kind of in the wings waiting for everybody, but again they kind of downplay that these guys are mobsters, Like, yeah, you know, the guys that they're dealing with are mobsters. This is not a movie that that is screwing up the tension and the you know, the unbearable paranoia. They play it a little, but it's that's not the major flavor.

No, there scenes kind of like the rest of the film, which just kind of meander into there's no there's no sense of urgency toward these things. Necessarily, it's like, oh and now what was a very funny scene. He's his thumb is now gone? What what the has happened? And in a way that almost resolves that storyline.

It's like, okay, we we've we have even the score, you're gonna come work in my place. Yes, there is still that sense of okay, but we know there's another guy and we're just waiting for Polly to rat out Charlie and we know he's going to. But in another movie, this would be the most tragic moment and and the movie would end tragically, And in this movie, it's just sort of like I fucking knew it. I knew you were going to do it, You motherfucker you You could not rat on me, you said my name Barney, didn't do it? You did it.

This is a movie where they were where Kenneth McMillan's character gets ratted on and he leaves, he gets away, He essentially just leaves, like and what in what of these kinds of stories have you ever seen someone like that just get to walk away with their life like they normally get into a car and then the person pops up behind him and garrots them like that is that is what I've seen? That movie? That's It's yeah, this movie is a little tame for what it is trying to be. But I think again, like I think that kind of speaks more again to the idea that this movie, in a lot of ways maybe put its eggs in a different basket than I would have if I had been telling this story. But again, in eighty four, are you really going to have any more of a gay undertone to this movie than there already is?

Not? No, no, no, no, they're not. They're just not. And that's a shame, because if I were making this movie now, I would probably go more in that direction. I think it'd be a more interesting story, it'd be a more interesting it would speak more to what the movie should be talking about, which is a person having to make a decision between two disparate parts of your life.

And you have those two characters of Daryl Hannah and Eric Roberts filling in those two parts, but the movie ends up not really wanting to have that conversation. Well, and we've been joking about it for forty years, but we haven't done it. I mean, I've yet to see the Buddy Cop film where they're gay lovers. It's like, and yeah, Richard, you wrote one of the great action movies. I know that only one of your lines exist in it, but I'm not going to let you live that down.

You should write it. Samuel L. Jackson in The Rock in the eighties, I think we would have all assumed that somewhere in the next forty years someone was going to do that. Someone's a career. It's like, well, it's got to happen, right, We're just we're not doing it now, but maybe in ten years, twenty years, it's been thirty nine years.

It's like, just do the genre movie with the gay relationship at the center and see if you could if you can still hit your genre moments through that relationship. And deliver on all of it. Deliver on action, deliver on comedy, deliver on sexy, deliver on romance. Wow, why couldn't you gay lethal weapon? I'm down for this.

It's going to happen sooner or later. That's what it should be called, by the way, gaily just but gay lethal weapon. You couldn't do it forty years ago because there weren't enough artists who were out and planting their flag on their identity in a way that would allow them to do it. And now the marketplace is open for that. The marketplace is like, we'll take it, We'll take that.

Why not? And there's artists and actors and people who can do it, who who are not risking their career. And you would probably end up casting, you know, queer actors and have a queer writer and a queer director and do it. Michael or what's that, Matt Boehmer, He's got to be in the right. I will say, if if a movie like that had been made in the eighties, it would have been like soul Man and it would have just been played for laughs and and cringe humor and isn't it weird that they're gay and isn't it an abomination that they're gay?

And by the end of it, maybe the characters would be together. But they could have done it in the eighties. It just would have been something something like soul Man, where when you're watching it forty years later like whoa, what that's a choice? Yeah? Yeah, can I can I derail the conversation for a moment and talk about one of the actors in this movie we're probably not going to mention and doesn't get mentioned enough.

Guy named John Finn. He plays Ginty, the Irish bartender at the bar where Eric Roberts doses the cop. John Finn was also in blown Away as one of the leads of the bomb squad You Now and in the same film that Jeff Bridges delivers what I consider the worst Boston accent of all time, John Finn, native of New York, delivers and I considered the best Boston accent of all time that I was shocked when I discovered that he was not from from Boston. Michael kritchgo from the X five goddamn right, Well, in this movie he's doing an Irish accent. He is, yes, but I'm saying later in blown Away, I'm saying I noticed him first in blown Away.

That was the only thing I took away from the movie. It's like, oh, look, that one Boston guy was doing such a great job. To see him here again, having not seen the movie for ever and knowing it was a Boston guy, and yeah, oh he's a New York guy who was doing a Boston accent and blown Away and in Irish accent in this. Yes, I love John Finn. Everyone wats John Finn movies and TV shows.

Good cool. I'm glad you called him out. Anything else, We've got no Father Malone, I'll kick it to you. First final thoughts on the Pope of Greenwich Village. It's an acquired all the best things are.

I recommend the movie overall, I have major problems with it. I mad at it for not being a great movie. It's a really good movie. And but if you want to watch a performance piece, well you're not going to get better than this. And that's ultimately where the movie, this movie rises and falls.

It is on the performance of those two guys who are as bright as they're ever going to be in cinema. Right here, and do yourself a favor and seek the movie out everything else sort of falls by the wayside. While watching these two on screen together, I couldn't agree more. And and I remember while I was watching it, thinking, you know, this is not a perfect film on any level, but personally I almost I love it in the way you love your Teddy Bear with the with the missing ear. I almost love it for its flaws, even it increased is my love because it is a movie that is also from another time, and that time was my time, and and watching it reminds me of the eighties and seeing movies and seeing performances early on in my creative life and when they impacted me in a particular way, and has brought so much of that back that that I loved it like I like we were saying for it's it's it's whacked out score and some of the whacked out performances, and it's and it's you know, all over the place tone.

So I definitely recommend it as long as you know you're not going to get It's not a straight ahead scoresse mobster movie. It's not a straight ahead midnight run or The in Laws two dudes comedy. You know, two personalities that you know clash. It is all of those things and a few others. So walk in with your mind wide open and enjoy it, most specifically for this relationship and these performances between Mickey Rourke and Eric Roberts.

Shame on you, Rich, Your time is now, sir, as it is for all of us. It's true. I will say I did enjoy this movie. Again. I have my quibbles with it, obviously, but you know, I'm a I'm a sucker for a good mobster movie, especially one that doesn't necessarily take itself overly seriously.

And hey, having Bert Young drink on espresso cup full of lie at the end that don't lie. That's a fun movie. And this is a fun movie, and it is ultimately about, you know, giving the actors a lot of rope to run around with and just kind of see what they come up with. And Mickey Rourke and Eric Roberts are a good duo together, better than I think any other duo could have brought to the script. So no, I enjoyed it immensely.

So on that note, we'll take a break and we'll play the first preview for You've Never Seen September, programmed by the One and Only Alone, Get ready for the biggest fun party ever. Nineteen seventy four's most hilarious, wildest movie is here, mildest. Would you believe this? There's a couple hold dispusted to me, the real dustus mill far Me. You go that to govern slow, I'm gonna meet up No plus, please Lily Wollow Jenny Garney breakfasts down the game.

We didn't get a name out again with you here in the ship? Will you wanted to go out of the window. That was really great. I really loved it, Monny, it was funny. It was really good.

I thought it was a Ryan. I thought it was really great. I really liked it a lot. It was Joyney, It's crazy about it was really good. The Groove too.

But don't just take our word for it. The New York Times said, anyone who ever suffered that Chinese torture known as American television owes it to himself to see The Groove Too. That's right. On the next episode, we're gonna be talking about The Groove Tube, a movie that I have been told ahead of time is an unrelenting piece of shit. So I've been told it's not good by several people.

So I don't know why you know, I don't know you've been talking to psychopaths. I may have. I both of my I think both of my in laws worked on that movie. I know I know that Joyce worked on I think John did too. I think I think they were they were there.

Rich Could you perhaps talk to them and then come on that podcast with I'll bring them on. I'll have them, all of them tell you their stories right on. But yeah, well, we'll be covering the Groove Tube for the first episode of You've Never Seen September, which Father Malone did program. We'll also be talking about the Kentucky Fried movie, mister Mike's Mondo video, and we'll be rounding out the month with Amazon Women on the Move. Yeah, So until then, where can people find you, mister Richard HadAM.

You can find me on the picket line, usually outside Disney, although I did hit Universal this week for Dungeons and Dragons Them Day took the kids. It's just turning into a block party every day in front of it. Sounds like you guys have like a Ferris wheel out there and concession stands. You got fair games, prizes you can win. And the beautiful thing is that these guys, these fucking you know, heads of these companies.

They keep thinking their doom, moralizing us. And the joke among all of us is that they're they're they're in their buildings looking at us, and they're like, look, Christmas came anyway. It came without buttons, it came without booze. I thought you were going to say, they look out the window and go, what is that they're doing down there, engaging in camaraderie. Shut the fuck up the rest of you.

They seem like they might be enjoying one another out there. It is. It's like, it's like Christmas came anyway. It's like we can't. Every time we try to break them, it only makes them stronger.

I don't understand it. And we're just like, look, we're riders. We're consumed with incandescent rage and fear all the time. This is just Tuesday for us. Only now we get to hang out and there's a there's an ice cream truck.

So yeah, here's here's what we're doing now, and we'll do it until it's over with and then we'll go do something else because we've That's the other joke is that they don't know what it's like to work on a bag show. When I when I say a bad show, I don't mean a show where the the the end product isn't good. I mean a show where it is a nightmare to work on that show with those people, those producers, those actors, those whatever, and you're there and there's no way out because writers don't quit. Writers don't quit a show that's no fun to be on. They fucking suffer, They cry in their car in the parking lot, and they show the fuck up the next day.

And that's what they don't get about us. There's no breaking us. We'll just do it forever. The term I like to use as you're too stupid to know when to quit. Yep, that's right.

Yeah, we've got moron strength and we're just going to keep They're just like I don't get they're still they're down there, they're still doing karaoke in the strait. We call it big Moron energy and big Moron energy. Man, it's all over the town nowadays. Have you guys sung over there by any chance, standard I would really love it if you did. I'm sure it's happened.

I'm sure that well, not that the actors are are windows. It's it's gone to a whole other level of dust. Theatric ability just like yeah, just insane energy, just like God, we thought we were unstoppable. These guys are are out of their minds. So yeah, so yeah, they have unleashed something that may not ever be put back in its bottle.

You may never get to see Dune two folks and all that. Note Father Malone, where if people find you, you can find me over at Weirdingwaymedia dot com. I have a bunch of shows over there, like Midnight Viewing, the Night Gallery podcast, or Noise Junkies. Chris mentioned at the top of the show it's a music podcast I do with Mondo, Heather's Heather Drain and my brother from Another Mother HP. You can hear your You can hear all of that stuff over there over there over there.

As for me, you can find all my stuff at weirding Way Media as well. Uh. You know, Father Malone and I used to work on a show called Chronicles from the Crypt. Richard and I am the Projection Boothstone. Mike White hosts a show called Ranking on Bass, and Susan Lambert had him and Sharon Johnson have a little show that got nominated for an award.

It's called Ades TV ladies and you should be listening to everything I just mentioned and more and you can find it all at Weirdingwaymedia dot com. As for this show, Patreon dot com, slash culturecast, culturecast dot com all the place you can go to find the show. Support the show ten twenty fifty dollars. If you want to make us watch Mickey Rourke movies for an entire month, that's how you can do it. So yeah, Richard father Malone, thank you both so much for joining me.

This was fun and unexpected. This was not on the calendar at the beginning of the month, but here we are. So that's two yo me Junior. Yeah, you're You're welcome, Senior, and as always, will catch you on the next episode.