The Untouchables

Weird. Let's do something on this episode of the Culture Cast that we haven't done on a whole lot of episodes, which is be forced to talk about a Kevin Costner film, because, as we all know, Kevin Costner is a cool guy with a lot of cool opinions, and he also loves to make money. So I've heard. I just want to get this out in the open here before we go any further talking about the movie I am going into this movie. Was not the biggest fan of Kevin Costner, and that has kind of been I've talked about it a couple times on the show.

We did The Postman a couple of years ago, maybe like a I. Believe you mean cinematic classic The. Puffman afi him. Yes, Will pat is it Will Patton in that movie. I was about to say another wasted performance of Will Patten said.

God, but yeah, before we kind of talk about what we're gonna be talking about in this episode of the Culture Cast, The Untouchables, which is the first entry into Father Malone September, which we'll have a better name next year, I promise. We are joined by the projection boost Mike White. I also died like a stuck Irish Pig. And the aforementioned Father Malone. All Right, enough of this running shit.

And yes, if you can't tell. On this episode of the Culture Cast, we are going to be delving into the nineteen eighty seven film from Brian to Palmer, The Untouchables. But before we get to the movie, before we talk about the movie broadly, I want to go between the two of y'all, because I've already made it clear, how do y'all feel about mister Costner before we go any further here, because I know that people seem to have opinions about Kevin Costner in one way or the other, and it doesn't not that there doesn't seem to be any middle ground. But before we talk about The Untouchables broadly and specifically, I'm just curious where do you guys come in on Kevin Costner as an actor. I'd like a lot of his work.

I definitely like his earlier things, I believe more than his later things. There are some exorable films that he's been in, though I don't know if that it's been horrible performances or just bad films. I personally think that the film Dragonfly is one of the worst movies that's ever been made. A perfect good World, good Call, thank You, Thank You, a perfect World. Also not a big fan.

Of that one at all. Yeah, he is very hit or miss for me. I love things like Silverado, I love JFK. I kind of like the boy scout thing that he does sometimes, and then even seeing him as an anti hero with stuff like water World, I really like water World. I haven't I.

Shouldn't make fun of The Postman because I haven't actually sat down and watched all three hours of it. But yeah, you have. Our permission to make fun of the Postman. You don't need to watch a three hour movie to know it's not worth watching. Well, as far as his politics and stuff, I have no idea what he's up to.

Luckily, it sounds like I shouldn't know what he's up to, So yeah, I'm not happy that he had Horizon Fail. I thought that would have been nice for him to have a whole trilogy of Westerns. And yeah, I am pretty ambivalent about mister Costner's stuff. I like Kevin Costner in the right role. I liked him in Fandango quite a bit, and he's a little bit harder edged in that one than usual.

He's great in no way out like the boy scout thing that he does, like comes in handy there because spoilers. He's the villain. I think. For me, my opinion of him changed s right around with Dances with Wolves, where it was one of the worst movies I had ever seen up to that point, and it was nothing but accolades and riches like he put upon him. And at that point he kind of became the megamalaical boy next door, you know.

And I wasn't a big fan of a lot of this output in the nineties, although the you know, there are occasional things here and there, like when he's doing his Kevin Coster thing, he's doing it better than anybody. And uh, I think that this, this to me is his favorite, my favorite performance of his, This is my favorite film of his. But yeah, like JFK is fucking great man. He's he's really good in it too, like uh, but uh, I don't know, and like you, Mike, I know nothing about him beyond the film persona, don't want to, don't care. It's got to be the right movie and I will fucking love him in it, and if it's not, or he's wrong and.

It then things like three Thousand Miles to Graceland. Not a big fan of. But then you come to you know, going back to his comedies. In those early days, I thought Bull Durham was fantastic. But then I've never seen Field of Dreams.

It's like, I'm very hit or miss with what I've seen of his when I haven't. I like Robin Hood Prince of these, but not for him. I liked because of Alan Workman. So yeah, it's interesting. I think you're right as far as once Dances with Wolves comes out, it's very spotty afterwards, like JFK is up there, but then like WHYETTP.

I was just not a big fan of. So yeah, what do you think, Chris? What's your pill? Wait? Let me throw one more thing.

And I really loved him as pop Kent. He was my. This is a serious statement you're making. Yeah, No, I liked him. I liked him in that room.

Whoa hottest take today? Folks? I guess I like you was okay, he was Okay. That movie's one garbage, Like it's a movie I keep trying to rewatch, trying to crack the code, and the code is it's a fucking terrible movie. But the scene of him and young kyleel H as father and son, like, that's he pulls my heartstrings in those scenes.

So I can't say he's not good, but I know that movie's fucking putrid. Yeah, it's his philosophy. It's the character that I can't stand. It's not necessarily him, but like the character in the character's philosophy, he's just so one eighty from Glenn Ford's philosophy as that same character where it's like, yeah, a lot of powers, Yeah, you gotta be very careful. But for him, it's just like, yeah, go ahead, let me die just so your powers aren't shown.

Oh yeah. All the plotting was bullshit in that, but the writers had no idea what they were doing with super Mad, Like it was not there, not their guy. In terms of costner. For me, I think the things that I have seen y'all have already alluded to Dances with Wolves. I have a bone to pick with that movie, not just because of the movie, but because it won the Oscar over Goodfellas, which I will as much as I don't care about the Oscars, that might be the one time where I just I have a hard time taking the side of Dances with Wolves, which is I saw it in middle school and I was bored out of my fucking mind.

And I don't even understand what they showed it to us for other than to just be like, we don't want to have to teach for three days. So here's a three hour long movie, Seeing water World, Seeing the Postman seen thirteen days? Is that that's the JFK. Macnamerica? In a way?

What else do I have to say? Sorry, you know, I don't. I don't like Kevin Cosser because he, to me always seems very disinterested and very just kind of aloof. And also I will give him credit that he does have the Western look to him. He pulls that off really well.

I mean, whyat are the movie that came out that that? Again, whatever happened with that? I don't think we'll ever really know until someone says exactly what happened, but that, Yeah, those three movies that are not coming out now question mark? Uh uh, who knows at the time you're listening to this in the near future, when the world has been you know, glassed over by the heat death of our universe, maybe people have seen Chapter two. In Chapter three, but as of right now.

I don't think that those movies are coming out in theaters so Bella. They will not be only in theaters as the trailers like to say. Yeah, I don't know. I again, it's for me. It's not that I like him or don't like him.

I just the things that I've seen him in I don't think he's been very good in. So maybe it's to what y'all are saying he is good in the roles that he needs to be good in, or that that seemed to suit him. All of that to say, let's talk about The Untouchables. Paramount Pictures announces an extraordinary entertain experience, The Untouchables. Kevin Costner is Elliot Ness, Robert de Niro is Al Capone, Sean Connery is Jimmy Malone.

A story of good and evil, honor and betrayal, corruption and courage the Untouchables. So the film is directed like I had already mentioned by Brian de Palma, with a screenplay by of all people, David mammontt based on the book of the same name by Elliot Ness and Oscar Frehley. Stars the afore mentioned Kevin Costner, Andy Garcia, Robert de Niro, Sean Connery, Charles Martin Smith and the film is about Elliott Ness played by Kevin Costner and his task in taking down al Capone in the nineteen thirties of Chicago. We will be spoiling the movie. Obviously, it came out in nineteen eighty seven.

If you haven't seen it at this point, then you're just me or someone similar to me. So I'm gonna kick it to Father Malone. First, Father Malone, first question, why did you pick this movie? And secondly, what did you think when you say the first time? And what did you think revisiting it for the culture cast.

Now, you and I were talking about movies that you hadn't seen, and this is a Brian to Palmer film you hadn't seen, and it seemed absolutely criminal to me that it's This seemed like an opportunity to right some wrongs in your film history. So this is a pretty great one. And you and I are actually became friends because of Brian and to Palma, So it's only right that you should see one of his masterpieces that isn't from him, Like when we talked Brian to Palmer. Usually it's one of his thrillers and that you know generated from him. But this is one of his director for hire things here.

But if you're going to be a director for hire that you might want to have David Mammontt write your screenplay and have this fucking cast assembled. Jesus Christ, And to be fair for everyone listening, we became friends because of our shared leve of mission to Mars. So just so everybody understands, that's the movie that Father Malone and I bought it over. That is his first best mission film Mission Impossible, being a distant second distant God. We should all go to cinematic hell for these statements being made.

Okay, listen, I got this is one of these formative burvies for me too. It's another reason I chose it. So I got to say, in nineteen eighty seven, I was fourteen years old, I was in thirteen, I don't know. I was in eighth grade basically in the spring of that year, and this movie came out in Jared and I know that because it's grint growing up in a climate that has snow days when it comes to school. But if you have too many of those snow days, you have to make them lap at the end of the year which sucks, and this was one of those years.

And it was a Friday morning in June, and I know we had at least two more weeks at school, and I was called to the office by the principal over the loudspeaker, and so I thought I was in a lot of trouble. When I got there, my mother was sitting in the office, so I knew I was in a lot of trouble. And the principal said, oh, Michael, we'll see you on Monday. And she led me out and I said, what's going on? She said, well, you have a dentist appointment.

I forgot to tell you. And then when we got out of the building, she said, oh, there's no dentist thing. The Untouchables started today. Yeah, and then got me in the car. We went to this General Cinemas in Saiger's, Massachusetts.

It was a twin and I watched The fucking Untouchables, man, and it was fucking awesome. It was everything I wanted a gangster movie to be, you know. And then on top of everything, listen, everybody, I'm father Malone. My last name, my surname is actually Wallace. There's a character named Oscar Wallace in this movie, played by Charles Martin Smith.

And you could not make me prouder as a boy sitting in that movie theater that one of the untouchables, ostensibly the untouchable who brings them down, is named Wallace. I beam with I still beam with pride about that. So on top of everything else, it's to Palma, just being to Palma and freed up to be to Palma because he's not really worried about the story here. I mean, I know he did some rewrites on him. I think there was a writer strike at the time so he had to Mamma couldn't come back or something like that.

But it's just a fantastic filming, filmmaking and oh, we'll get to everything else. My experience was very, very positive to sort of. However, the thing about the Wallace character is many many years later, I was a tour guide at the Haunted Museum here in Las Vegas, and I was leading a tour group and while in the while in the ed geen room, I noticed one of them was Charles Martin Smith. And in the next room I do sort of a presentation but then allow everyone to sort of walk around and look at things, and I was able to pull him aside and tell him how fucking much he means to me because of that, and he was very very nice about it. So anyway, that was my experience then sort of and now and I rewatched it again last night this morning, and I still fucking love it.

I have some I have some quibbles, I have some problems, but overall I think it's I think this movie is a winner, and it's it's the DiPalma f them you forget to DiPalma film. Did your reliance change it change over the years to the Jim Malone character? What's that Jim Malone did? Did you drop Wallace and go to the Sean Connery character? No?

I know, but yeah, but that's see. That's the other funny thing about it is now I'm a Malone, but was a Wallace, So it was weird there. You. I was gonna say, you should have taken Charles Martin Smith aside and told him how much you love Never Cry Wolf. Which I do know.

I did tell him about that. Actually, I talked to aibout Zach. I talked about Terry the Toad, specifically fucking more American graffiti because his stuff that his stuff is the best part of that movie. So yeah, no, yeah, I bent his year for as long as I could, for like the five minutes I was allowed. And he also directed one of the films that has on to spawn how many fucking films at this point.

He was the original director of Airbud. Which was like one of the most profitable Canadian movies ever made. Yep, and it came out in nineteen ninety seven, and they're still making Airbud movies as recently as. A couple of years ago. So there you go, Mike, same question to you.

So I didn't program this month, so you really can't ask me the same question. Sorry, same question, but different. Okay. So I saw this when I was fifteen years old. I saw it at the fair Lane Theater, which was the UA Fairlane United Artist Fair Lane.

I don't think that my folks saw with me. I think they were either seeing something else or just shopping at the mall, because this was a mall theater. And yeah, I remember watching this all by myself fifteen years old. Very inappropriate for a fifteen year old. Yeah, right off the bat, with all of the violence.

I remember getting the soundtrack on set for Christmas that year because I absolutely loved the Morricone score. And this was before I really knew who Annual Morricone was. And yeah, I mean god, I had that whole baseball speech memorized for a long time, and then even just the end of day, I was like, Okay, I think I can repeat this along with Robert de Niro. This was before I really fell in love with Denni Hero. I think I had seen TEXTI Driver a few times, probably many many times by this time.

Also, good fifteen year old fair and yeah, got this cast just is incredible. I love it. I love the supporting cast. I love the faces, especially in the Gangsters. So many great faces in here.

And then, yeah, this was before I knew anything about anything. And this is before I knew well, you know, like Battleship Potemkett. You know, I'm watching The Odessa Steps sequenced in Film School three four years later, and I'm just like, holy, it's the Untouchables. I love this movie. And I just watched it again on an airplane in February and I was just gushing to myself how much I love it.

So when you asked me to be on this, I was over the Moon. I'm so excited to talk about this movie. Though I never seen this before and kind of I wouldn't say it's surprising again, my my, My dislike of Kevin Costner, I feel like, is the partial reason why. And so I mean, I'm not the biggest Kevin Costner fan. So that was the initial reason why I didn't see it.

But I mean, obviously there's a lot here that I would want to watch. I mean, the nero of it all, the Sean Connery of it all, Andy Garcia, I mean, you know, I. Mean, this is the only movie where I like Andy Garcia, by the way. I just I am hardcore anti Garcia and this is the only one that I like. What about And this is the real shame, And I'm disappoint it in both of you because the last time the three of us did a non culture cast thing together, we talked about Shariff J.

W. Pepper, for fuck's sake, just being. In this movie. It's amazing. Yes, not given, not given any uh overtly racist things to say, thankfully, but he's here as well.

I look, I enjoyed it. I think I would actually go as far as to say, like, I kind of wanted more of the movie. It just kind of ends. It's a it's a very anti climactic movie. And I'm not saying that when we talk about the one scene that I think the movie, and you've already alluded to it, Mike, the one scene that the movie's kind of known for.

That scenems great. But like I was expecting a lot more of the movie. I was expecting more movie, and it just kind of ends, and I was like, oh oh, and it's just it's just over now, Okay, Like I was. I mean, obviously it's based off of true life events, so we're not gonna have al Capone flying yeah, very. They did not die, right, he took over components.

I mean, this whole thing is fiction. Right, Yeah. So, and I say, you know, you know al Capone wasn't flying over Chicago in a dirigible, but you. Know, I, well you might have. I mean at this point, yeah, like that's the problem, and you've both already alluded to it.

Yeah, And doing the research for this episode, this is as a real this is based on true events, heavily based on is capitalized here, and I kind of was expecting more for a movie that is just based on events, like I was expecting it to do more if it's not trying to hold itself to the reality of the situation, because yeah, just doing the cursory research, it's like, so much of this is just not at all what happened. And look, it's being dramatized for entertainment, but you could have gone a little further, is what I'm saying. All that being said, I enjoyed it immensely. It's a very specific kind of movie set in a very specific time and place, and you know it, I think I am in an agreement with y'all before we go any further.

I think this might be the best thing I've seen Kevin Costner in and I think that this role suits him because we don't get to see him be unfrozen until the last line of the movie, and I mean it works. I actually think he's really good in this movie. And so is Sean Connery. Sean Connery in this movie. I'm sure we'll talk about it a lot, but Sean Connery is He's a fucking trip in this movie.

Let's just put it that way. He's a lot, but his characters meant to be a lot. Uh. I'm glad I watched it. I enjoyed it immensely so so yeah, so I will say to start the conversation in kind of an interesting direction, Sean Connery winning Academy Award, speaking of the Academy Award of it all, him winning the Academy Award for this movie is pretty wild, right.

It's well for me, it's that he won for supporting because he I mean, you look at things like Judy Dench walking on for five minutes in Shakespeare in Love. I think that's one of the most notorious ones as far as like she won an Oscar for that five minute performance, and then he come to Sean Connery and he's on screen maybe more than Kevin Costner is. He has very specific scenes where he is the only one of the four main leads on screen, especially him kicking the shit out of his boss, the chief of Police. I love that sequence, and especially the lighting when it comes to that the red and the blue that's going on. I mean the Pauma and yes, the Pam is just the man.

I mean, let's start with that overhead shot and the way we come down and there and like you know, like this is. Not only not only that that first shot looking down he used the Art deco square on the floor to frame the subtitles to let us know that the this is the time of the Ganglords. It is beautiful. Oh yeah, and yeah, I think that Sean Connery really deserved the I mean Best Actor oscar for me when it comes to this, But yeah, I love his performance in this and he's not the best lights. I mean the whole thing about the Chicago Way and making a blood oath.

And all that. I mean, these are so good, like between him and Hero, they've got the movie sewn up. When it comes to the dialogue. Don Connery in this movie is amazing and it that to your point, that is exactly where I wanted to go with this is I don't know why it was a supporting actor. This is like the lead, like Kevin Cosser is great, but like Sean Connery, when he's on screen, he just dominates the screen.

And look, the last time we did a non culture cast thing, we're talking about James Bond and we were off the heels of you know, Connery as Bond right then and there, like you know that was we were seeing one actor taking over the role that this guy made famous. And there is a reason for that because Sean Connery, I don't know everything I've ever seen him in, even things as I'm not gonna say bad, because I don't think it's a bad movie, but I think as all over the place as something like Zardaws is, it's still a movie worth watching because he's in it. And I think that, you know, with someone like Sean Connery, unless we're talking about maybe Darby O'Gill and The Little People, I would say that most things Sean Connery's in are worth watching because he's in it, even something like League of Extraordinary Gentleman, which I know rightfully dumped upon.

I don't think it's really as bad of a movie as everybody seems to think it is, but he's not bad in it, and it's effectively other than that skateboarding veterinarian movie that he voiced. It's his last role, which I will never miss an opportunity to bring that up when talking about Sean Connery. My God, well, he's rarely bad in the things that he is in. I think he couldn't have won as Best Actor because then they would actually have to consider his accent. Because it's a Skyvish accent, and at an Irish accent a little bit.

Yeah, you know, if he can. Be a stuffed Irish or sorry, stuffed Egyptian peacock in Islander, I'm okay with him having a Scottish accent instead of an Irish. I am too as a supporting character. That's fair. That's I mean, I get it, that's fair.

He's really good though. He's fantastic. Look, yeah, here's the thing. As great as his performance is, the part is fucking fantastic, right, it's. A well well written part obviously.

Oh god. Yeah. For me, the whole movie really comes together as a whole in the sequence when they're in the cabin and they're waiting, both when they're waiting for the guys to cross the bridge from Canada and also in the subsequent after they've crossed the bridge, because you get that moment of Conery checking in with everybody. When he goes over to Andy Garcia, he's like, you already checked that gun, well, then quit doing it, you know, And he goes over to Charles Martin Smith he's like, oh you're cold, well, ampy feet as a beat cop, I know this stuff, And he's like checking in with everybody. And then when Kostner ends up having.

To shoot the guy and he's really upset, and that's really hasn't had to murder anyone or you know, kill or shoot anybody at all yet and he has to, like, you know, hey, you know you're gonna go home after this job. That's a good day. You know, that's rule number one of police work. And I just love how he's got the little rules and stuff that he's doing that whole here end at the lesson kind of thing. And then when he goes fucking crazy and is counting to three with that, with that corpse with the gun in his mouth, I'm just like, this is amazing.

Like everything in that whole sequence, it could just be that, and I would be happy. It reminded and I just rewatched it a week and a half ago, it was the scar scene in Jaws. In this movie, That's what it reminded me of. It's like the moment where everything just kind of takes a pause for a second. We know that like shit is about to hit the fan.

The movie has made that very clear, but let's take a momentary and do the thing that. Look one of my favorite writers period, does David Mammont. I mean he wrote one of my favorite movies, Glenn Gary, Glenn Ross. I mean, he just does that better than anybody really like I mean a or he does it as good as the best, which he's I think up there with the best. I mean, he's just his ability to have characters interact with each other in a believable and engaging way is I don't know.

It's not something to be taken for granted. And when it's put in a movie like this, it gives the time for the movie to breathe, which a movie like this, you know, other directors and writers may not have done that. They may have wanted to just have you know, I would say action scenes, because this movie doesn't have action scenes per se. Scenes of a tention I think are a better way of putting it. But other writers might not have given these characters a time to kind of interact with each other the way that Mammott does.

And I appreciate that because I think it does help flesh out the characters and make them more interesting and likable and relatable. I think I think this is Mammont's most accessible work. Okay, I think this is one of the few cases I can think of where he really is a four hire guy like the palmbay Art Linsen just said, Hey, do you want to write the intelligibles is not based on the series. We're going to base it on the original guys. We want it to be gritty.

You want to do it, do it. And so it isn't necessarily bound by the mammut kind of speech patterns here. And even if even if the script was written in that way, you can tell that either the palmer or the actors have thrown that all out. So because the dialogue here is completely and totally natural, even while being as stylized as it is, because nobody actually speaks this cool. The only real stylized dialogue for me is a lot of what elliot Ness says when he's just like, I have beheld what I didn't want and blah blah blah blah blah.

I'm like, Okay, that's pretty poetic there, but yeah, the rest of it, I'm just like, okay, yeah, this works. But for his character, I think that works perfectly. He went, yeah, I think in moments of stress, thisss Wood sort of lapse into a more poetry. At least this version of Elliot nests you know what we were saying earlier about this being based on the true events, Like, I think it's laughable that it's based on that book, because if I've read that book, there's not a scene from this movie in that book. Like, like I think they mentioned the the which might be apocryphal, the baseball bats scene in that thing.

They mentioned that that may have happened, that Capone beat a bunch of and cohorts beat a bunch of guys to death with baseball events, but very little else came out, Like none of the character names are the same, you know, the Untouchables as a unit, there was like twelve of them. The facts even half as many in the movie, right. No, which is smart and economical from a screenwriting point of view, like because he's able to flesh out four characters with twelve, Just like, who's this what it'd be like bucker ubon'say, it's like there's another interesting guy. I whish we were following him for a little while. I'm glad you said Buckerubondsi not the Hobbit, because that was the next example I was going to.

They're just they're all the same. They're all Italian, American or Irish, American. All right. Well, the thing I like is I love a good building the team sequence, and you know, like, of course the classic is that Dirty Dozen wherever you're just like, okay, I'm yeah, I think the first third of the movie is building the team. But here it's just like Charles Martin Smith shows up in his office in his chair and he's just like.

What the fuck are you doing? Like the way he approaches him, and then Charles Martin Smith immediately it's like we could get this guy for tax evasion. He's just like uh huh yeah, and like leaves the office and I'm like, okay, well there's one. The way that he meets Malone is another fantastic scene, especially when he's littering, and then he'd get the whole thing of like, oh, you know, you want to make a difference in this city kind of thing. And then Andy Garcia again, what a great thing, especially that they try out the one guy.

They try out the redhead guy, and he's just a complete moron, and I love Conter is like, well there's the next chief of police, you know, and then bring out Garcia and then just start throwing those racial slurs at him. I'm just like, yes, this is great. And when he goes, oh I like him, I'm just like yes, like again, wonderful scenes. I just love the way these come together. Yeah, you know, Mike, Mike, you mentioned you're you're not that, You're not that hot on mister Garcia.

I run hot and cold on him, like he can be. He can be a lot, but here it's as sweet as he's ever been as a character like this. He seems like a very genuine, genial guy here. I think this is his best performance. It's when I think of Andy Garcia and and if I'm thinking fondly, it's this part and that this scene in particular, like because it does get that violent that quickly, but he's always so in control and sort of smiling in a way like the mused.

So yeah, I just want to turn out there. Yeah. Well, when they have the scene where Porpor clarkson, she just like drives out of the movie for quite a while. But when they there's a threat against Nessa's family and you know it's like, oh, this guy was sent by Stone, I'm like okay, yeah, and then you find out that this other guy was Malone's cousin. I'm just like this is great.

You know. I love that they have this camaraderie and you just trust them. And that's the thing with George Stone that I love so much, is just like he's so solid and you're just like, oh, if he says he's going to do something, he's going to do it. He just seems like the most honest person who's not Elliott Ness but. Old Patricia Clarkson.

All I can think of when I think of her father Malone is mute Witness to Murder. You remember that, you remember that? Yeah? Yeah, grip, yeah yeah, yeah, good in that, You're good in everything. This is her first, She's it's it's it's.

Her usage in this movie reminds me a lot of early Steven Sigall movies where he has like a love interest or a family member that just has to go away for two thirds of the movie. That's like, don't I don't think that there's no stakes here when they just have to leave, like and it's it's kind of a shame because yeah, she's. Her chemistry with Costlers great. I actually like the two of them a lot on screen. It's just there's not enough of it that I mean again, like there feels like there's thirty forty minutes of this movie just kind of missing.

I mean again, I can understand why they would want to keep it under two hours, but with something like this, with a story like this, I would say that this you could watch. This with Goodfellows is like a double feature in terms of like again just getting like a different flavor of this kind of movie or this again a time in a place talking about similar things that Goodfellows is talking about, or at least on the face of it, But it does feel like there needs to be more movie here, because like a lot of Patricia Clarkson and Kevin Costner just kind of isn't there. I think I speak for the three of us and saying I would like more Robert de Niro. He's in a lot of ways like he's being used like Hopkins in Silence of Lambs, like use him sparingly and don't have him on screen very often because he's clearly like looming large over the events of the movie, but he doesn't necessarily need to be on screen at all times.

I think it's kind of a shame regular effect. Or the Jaws of it all right, like the Shark of it All, Like don't show the Shark until you need to, Like, that's fine, but beat yeah, I mean he's so good though, it's like I kind of I want more of him, and I wanted more of him and Kevin Costler together because that, I mean, that's the real thing you obviously want by the end of the movie, is you want more even more just in the courtroom even But you know, again, given how al Capone actually went down rather ignominiously, I mean, I know that they can't make it more exciting than it was. But the late great Alphonse Capote, he was also railroaded by New York Federal. Joe's a great guy. I'm telling you, he's a good man.

Didn't commit any crimes tax evasion. Who doesn't like paying their taxes? Am I right? Chris, you know what, I want more from this movie as well, But that just because I love the movie and want more. I don't think it's lacking it anyway.

Like the stuff with Patricia Clarkson, the ness family home, family stuff, like all of that angelic kind of stuff like leans so heavy into DePalma's sort of worse tendency was just a sort of melodrama. And Patricia Clarkson is so fucking good that she manages to even that stuff. Out right again, it's all maybe I should have had. Any more of that. It was not gonna do the movie any favors.

Maybe again, Like I don't want you to think I don't like the movie. It's just I do. I enjoy the movie enough to want more of it. That's never I mean, that's never. A bad thing.

It's just, oh no, it's a problem to have. It's just it is a problem to have. It's not a bad problem to have, per se. Like I love this movie through and through it, and that cabin sequence we've been talking about is fucking amazing. However, the stuff leading up to it, the Canadian mount These sequence on the border, like that never happened historically, So why is it happening?

Like I don't I still. Love a good mounty chase, am I right? I can't know? And like anticlimactic is it's so the action. That's why I said there are action scenes in this movie.

There really are, Like all the stuff with the horses stuff, I didn't care about any of that. That scene comes alive to me when Stone gets shot and Wallace sort of like comes alive and starts blasting people and stuff, drinking whiskey from the fucking buckshot opened casks like that. Stuff's great. But I don't think I thought about it before. But rewatching it now, I was like, why isn't this Why isn't this just like the docks like somewhere, you know, Like, why isn't this in Chicago?

Like I don't think we needed a respite from it? You know. No, it's it's a bizarre side tangent in a movie that takes place in Chicago until it doesn't, and then it really doesn't all of a sudden, like I know, Chicago's near Canada, right, Like it's a couple hour drive, right, Why you're closer to Canada and Detroit. You got to go all the way up through Wisconsin into Minnesota to get to Canada. Yeah, it's not that quick.

I don't think I have to have to Google map it and then also backdated for the period accurate cars as well. Thank you for doing the research, Mike, thank you, no problem. But my favorite part of that scene apart from what I've already mentioned, and then also yeah, I find him alone when Charles Martin Smith becomes a badass, which I fucking love. But I love Brad Sullivan. I love Georgie with his big fur coat and everything.

And I just love when he freaks out after Malone puts that bullet through that corpse's head. I just love that. I just wish it had taken place within city limits. Well, and the thing I never really picked up on was when he says something like Malone when he comes in, he goes, you can clean himself up later, and I'm like, oh, okay, so you know that he should just should himself get himself. Yeah, because he was so scared.

I picked up a lot more dialogue this time, and the dialogue just sings throughout so much of this. And I tell you another thing that I love is Billy Drago. I've never seen Billy Drago better than in this movie. He is just the personification of evil. And I love that he just eggs nests on at the end.

That's fucking crazy. I love it. Yeah, the Angel of Death, Fallen White, Frank Frank Nitty, the coponsten Forcer, like so much scarier than the actual guy if you put them signed by side. Let me tell you, but yeah, I agree. I love Billy Drago, but he's never been better than here because he's so restrained, but when and when he speaks, it's it's something to listen to.

Ah. The other sort of performance here that that I just adore because I adore the man is the Alderman character played by mister Dell Close who comes in to bribe them. He's got the he's got the he's got the credit line, he's got the title, Lila, what do you guys are in touch of? It is that it Dell Close, for those of you who don't know, basically created modern improvisation comedy back at Second City there in Chicago and was a Chicago fixture. He's in The Blob.

He's the priest in the Blob movie. Unfortunately, because he's such a great improv guy, like all of his work is sort of in the ether because you perform it and it's gone. But I would recommend everyone go check out He's got an album called how to Speak Hip from like nineteen sixty four. If you go pick that up, you will fucking you will enjoy it. Anyway.

That whole scene is great. By the way, that's. All looks like it take you ten hours to drive to from Chicago to Grand Portage, which looks like it's the closest. It would probably actually be shorter for you to drive to Detroit and go through windsor well, they fly there. Yeah, they fly there.

They fly there in the movie, which is even more Yeah, which is even more excessive. Frankly, all of a sudden it becomes Indiana Jones. Yeah, I can't pull up flying to Oh wait, flights let's see, probably no flights up the Grand Portage. Oh about five hours for four hundred and fourteen dollars. That's not bad.

That's so bizarre to set it in Canada. It just said, I don't understand the purpose other than they just wanted to film them on horses, which is wine. Yeah, but I mean the Treasury agents have have the jurisdiction to go to the Canadian border, like he's he's centered in Illinois, like. Right, well, he is a federal agent as supposed to a state agent. But yeah, I agree, I have no problems with that, especially because coming from Detroit, I mean, we had the river here and that's where all the booze came from, right into the hands of the Purple Gang.

What oh what purple fucking but bugs Moran, that is that him? I can't remember, but yeah, it was a big bush gang here in Detroit, the Purple Gang. If you listen to the lyrics of uh and this is how I found out about them, listening to the lyrics of jail House Rock and they talk about the whole rhythm section was the Purple Gang. Oh yeah, yes, I'm thinking of the Purple Flower Gang in Chicago though. Oh okay, yeah, man, how brutal is that when that little girl, hey.

Mister your briefcase. Oh, dear God, where's Erica Schultz in her book on Dead Kids when you need her? Huh? Kids getting blown up in the first five minutes of the movie. Dear Jesus Christ.

You know what I will say to my mother's credit when we were watching that, When I was seeing this movie for the first time and they blew up the kids, she went, oh, come on, like, really, you have to blow up a child to get our attention? Like, you know, we know the stakes, you know, Do I have your attention now? Really? With that? Uh?

So, I don't really see the palma. Going back to the Canadian border scene and kind of what you're talking about earlier, Chris, you don't tend to see a lot of action scenes. I mean, like he would definitely have more in things like Mission Impossible and of course the far superior Mission of Mars, but like, yeah, it's usually more like the slow burn thing, like those things like yeah, like Harry where you're following the rope up into the rafters and then following it over and you gets stuff like that here with the step sequence right in the train station. But yeah, like it was very unusual for me to see, you know, these four guys on horseback riding, you know, how bent for leather coming up to these trucks and stuff.

I was like, this doesn't feel the palma, but I was there for it. Well, he did your Mission Impossible, so he does have the action, but hug, but it's not This isn't that movie. I mean, this is the history first. Is the first Mission Impossible movie an action movie? Anyways?

It ends with a fucking helicopter chase. It's the tunnel, yesact. That part is for sure, but like the biggest, but the biggest gonna elevate and then the biggest I would say, the biggest set piece. Admission Impossible is not an action scene. It's the Yeah, it's the tension, yes, because yeah.

I just I think, but I think that's I think that's I think that is the one spot that this movie may have needed someone a little less like to Palma would have been if you wanted to lean into the action of it bore. I mean, because here's the thing, reality being what it is. If you were to do this now, which someone totally should do this as like a TV show. I'm not saying the Untouchables, I'm not saying the movie. I'm talking about the story of Elliott Ness.

And I know that they did a TV I know, I know, I know I'm talking about now now like when in my head? Just now, Oh okay, because I know I did a TV show in like fifty six, right, but I know. And they did another one in the nineties. But did they I didn't realize. No, William Forsyth was Capone in that series.

Oh okay, it's actually it was actually pretty good. Honestly. I know. Fuquah was talking about doing a prequel, which. Would have been the Rise of Coon.

Yeah, okay, I mean, what's that Tom Hardy movie. Isn't that enough? Well, the Boardwalk Empire covered a lot of that thing, right also that Yeah, yeah. I guess that's the closest thing, right it is, just like just go, let's just go watch Boardwalk Empire, which is you know, just essentially No, that's Sopranos. Yeah, but that's the young Capone.

Like if you want the you know, the fine the final Boss Cappon, you gotta watch it here. And yeah, that's the other thing, Like, you know, I don't I don't want any more Capone in this movie than we've got. Like it's a perfect amount that one face off sequence between Capone and and Ness after Wallace has been fucking murdered. Man, holy shit, by the way, when when w Wallace got murdered, my heart fucking felter my feet, like it was so goddamn shocking, and then the ignominy of it all to right touchable in his blood on the fucking elevator door. How dare you throw that guy off a fucking roof.

I love that shot of the close up shot of the elevator and you see them getting in and then the guy turns around. You're just like, oh no. O oh, well then he kind of moves this gun right at the very last second. I'm just like, did he actually shoot him? And gives you like a little pause where you're like, what's happening in that elevator?

And then when they find out that he's in the elevator, Oh my god, we have to get to the elevator. And when those doors open, and not only does he rate touch ball in his blood, but then he fucking hangs the poor guy from the top of the elevator. I'm like, how much time did you have here. Frank after shooting him through the eye on top of everything else. Oh yeah, which again I think that's another Peduccin reference, because I was the woman on the stairs who gets her eye caught out or or bashed in from the soldiers coming down.

Well, what's funny is so this movie came in eighty seven. By then they'd already see In Brazil, which also has a Potemkin homage, And in my mind, I was like, damn it, thing you've ripped off Brazil. So funny. It's so funny when you think that stuff, because yeah, I've been in similar situations where you're just like, oh, that's totally rip off of this other thing, only to find that everybody is to drink it from the same well, and that well's like almost one hundred years old. But you know, look, I think it's a fucking great sequence.

I think it's better than the stem consequence. I think, you know, and it includes I mentioned Depoma's pension for melodrama here that like he basically has a cherub in that in that thing, like the most angelic child, unbothered by the fireworks going around around. I believe a bullet goes through that pram at one point, and the baby's still smiling, which is a nice change from any other filmmaker who would cut to baby crying because things are bad right now, Like it was a weird juxtaposition. I'm talking myself out of the melodrama of it all. Like now I think the baby is an integral part of this.

I take it back, Well, that wonderful moment when the camera's coming down the stairs and like the sailor stands up only to be shot down almost immediately, and I'm just thinking, like are they It felt so similar to the end sequence and blowout where they're in the train station there and then they're all the all the navy guys, all the sailors that are there, and I'm like, oh, these are the same Sailors, but just so many years earlier, I guess. But I love the violence of it. And I swear that John Will must have been influenced by this movie because Andy Garcia running in slow motion with the two guns, and when he's just got that perfect shot of the one guy and he's just like got him, yeah, and it's just like.

He doesn't even say anything. I think just it's cost Or says take him, and they just you get all the gore. Oh, the gore on the marble wall is so great. I like that scene Affair Out. I mean, I I remember seeing the parody of it and Naked Gun thirty three and the third.

Was it in that win or was it the Smell of Fear? Wait? Isn't that? Is that not? Isn't that the same movie?

No? Is the second one the Smell Fear? It was two half Noh. I think it's it's in the it's in the last one because it takes I think it. I think it takes place at the Oscars, and that's where it takes place.

I think I want to say, uh. Yeah, I just remember it's Frank's dream at the right More and more people, but I think by that time he hooked up with Priscilla Presley, So that's why I was saying it might be the second one. Yeah, but that's that's the only time I've ever seen that scene. And so I mean, look, obviously, I mean it's kind of the it's the scene that the movie is known for, and I mean it's really well done. It's really well shot.

I love the amount of tension that is built leading up to it, where you have Costner sitting and looking at the at the clock and then looking at the door, and then looking at the stairs and watching the world's oist mother take her baby up the stairs. It's like, oh my god, it is It's horrifying to watch that woman drag her baby up the stairs because you know where it's going. But as you watch it happen, you're just sitting there with Kevin Costner going oh, Jesus, oh, Jesus oh, and it's like the tension just keeps building. And you know, while, like we've alluded to, Brian to Palmer may have been the director for hire here, there are some scenes in this movie that he really knocks out of the park because he's the only one who could do him that well.

And that is one of the scenes, and that the scene alone has probably been dissected a million, bajillion gazillion times in film school and will continue to be in Perpetua. So oh yeah, I mentioned that man I wrote the script and to Palma didn't really, but you know that as soon as they said you're going to be doing this gangster movie, went, I know we're going to have a scene in a train stage. It's gonna be the potentmpkin sequence. Like put that in there, David, I need, I need the finale to be this. I mean, christ you say that that's the sequence that the movie's known for.

But for me, for all those years, it was just that baseball sequence, just that going around the you know, because you get the beautiful topamme camera work going around the table, especially once the four guys right before they have their picture taken and you're just whipping around that. But to have this big circular table with all of these gangsters at it, and just the way that they keep parroting what he's saying, just. Like oh yeah, deep, deep, yeah yeah. Just like it's so many business meetings that I've been at and I just wish that I could be al Capone in one of them. I mean, that's probably the second best scene in the movie, and then the third best scene would be anytime Sean Connery does that accent, because the.

Accent it's so fantastic. Absolutely, the baseball scene. I think that is the most iconic statements from the movie. At least it certainly wasn't the time. It's the one that they parodied on Saturday Night Live, which at the time, like there was a Supreme Court Justice situation where think it was Robert Bork.

Was that his name, like like he just would not like give up the idea, like he was never going to get the nomination. Uh, but he kept persisting. So they had a sketch with Phil Hartman as Ronald Reagan and John Lovetts as as Bork, and he's like, it's the same sequence, but then as a lot of Reagan like beat some of the bats, So, uh yeah, it's a great sequence. My other favorite sequence in the movie a side of the ones you two mentioned it is another one that you mentioned earlier, Mike. It's when when Malone goes to get the information from his captain.

The two old fucking Irish fucking donkeys just kicking the shit out of each other. There's so much history. These guys have maybe six lines amongst each other. Uh. That character in particular is fucking great.

The captain character, like that, where do you look at you with your soft clothes? You know, like he is great. Where are you going the circus? I love that guy. I love that whole sequence.

I love how brutal the fucking fight is. I love how sharp the goddamn dialogue is. I love those two actors going at it. It might be my favorite sand the whole movie. Honestly.

Yeah, this dialogue is just so good. And yeah, that's what makes that baseball scene for me is the lead up, I mean, the violence is. It's very what Tarantino would do, especially in things like I know you didn't direct this, but in the script for National Born Killers, like where You've got you know, the the Mickey Knox joke and telling the joke, and that's such a Tarantino thing where you're telling a joke and then the punchline leads to violence, and this one is not a punchline, but it's just so unexpected and just that build up of like, you know, the whole thing of like what is the team you know, okay, when you're when you're at the you know, man stands out of plate. It's the time for what individual achievement, and then he starts talking about But when you're out in the field, you know, then it's all we all have to be working together.

It just keeps going out and out about this, and just every single line when he says like babe, roof tyite Cob would have you, and I'm. Like, oh, and this is you know, what we forget is there are a lot of years where DeNiro and de Palma weren't working together, but there were a lot of years where they were working together, those early days when they were both really hung and you get. Things like hi mom and greetings, and then you go all the way to this point, so many years later, both men have taken such different paths, and then they come back together with this. And you got fucking DeNiro contacting the original tailor for Capone. You got him wearing fucking silk underwear, so he knows how Capone felt when he was in these drawers.

You got him having his hairline moved back by plucking out every single and not shaved. He didn't shave it. They plucked out those fucking hairs so that he could get that hairline back. I know he was already famous for gaining and losing weight and especially things like Raging Bull, but this transformation of his character without that mole on his face, sometimes I get who this guy is. Yeah, a thousand percent and you know, okay, so he was always the first choice.

But I saw an interview with Bob Hoskins. I love this story. Yeah, and so de palmacall Simmon says, hey, listen to we're doing the Untugibles. We have Robert de Niro as al Capone, but he might not be able to do it because it's scheduling. Would you be my al Capone if he doesn't do it?

And Bob hast is like, yeah, come be fucking al Capone. That sounds great, thank you. So then obviously it doesn't happen, and they in Hoskins says like he's he reads about it in the paper that they've gone ahead with his and he doesn't think more of it. And then a check arrives for two hundred thousand dollars from what you universal, I guess produced this movie, and uh, and it was like a payer play thing that he never signed a contract or anything, but because he was loyal and would have stepped in and made that agreement to Palma paid him. And so he sends a note back saying, you know, thank you for the check.

If there are any other movies you don't want me to do, let mean it at It's pretty amazing. The list of people that turned down the elliott Ness role is also pretty crazy. Last year's August Focus, Mickey Rourke turned the roll down, which is interesting. Yeah, Jeff Bridges, William Hurt, who I've already mentioned, Michael Douglass, and then the one that I guess I don't. I mean, look, I think if you had gotten this actor in the movie, sure it probably would have been it would have been different.

But Harrison Ford is elliott Ness. I just I mean, it would have elevated the project a lot more. Nineteen eighty Harrison Ford, I think could have I could have seen doing it, like. Yeah, eighty seven. I'm not sure this would have been like Mosquito Coast Forward or maybe Witness.

I think might have been more content with Weird Watts. Yeah, I could see Jeff Bridges doing this role. I could see that sincerity, especially you know, but again, like Winter Kills was what seventy seven and this was eighty seven. I don't know if at the same Well, I guess this was probably Baker Boy's time for him, so I guess he could do it. But I think Cosner is actually really perfect for this role.

Like I said, he exudes this or can exude this boy scout ness. You know, it's the same thing why like Jim Garrison, it's just like, I'm going to do what's right and damn be all consequences. I will be on this quest. And that's the thing I'd like about the structure of this movie is it starts with copone and it starts with this guy basically the new sheriff in town coming in, Okay, forms his team, he puts Copone. Away, that's it.

Movie's over. And by that time, also half of his team is dead. So when he says goodbye to Stone, you're like, he's probably never going to see this guy ever again in its life, and you know, he's ready to go off with Patricia Clarkson to whatever new adventures he and the little girl and this new baby boy wherever they're going to take him, hopefully to someplace very quiet. The Untouchables too. Not you don't want to see that.

There was no they made it. They meant a television movie that was a sequel to the original series that ness had one other famous case it was a serial killer Kate or anything. So like, there's no part too to this story. Plus the Capone breaks out of jail, yeah. Catee beer style.

Yeah yeah, He latches onto the underside of a boat and just holds his breath for two hours as he crosses from Alcatraz. In the In the end, the character of Wallace is based on an I R. S Agent named Frank Wilson. So really, in the end of The Untouchables and did nothing, the I R. S Is the one who stepped in and took down al Capone.

So but we don't need more of that, Chris, I dare you. But here's here, here's one other thing, one other sort of like slightly personal connection to this week. This is Abound nineteen eighty three or four. And I was living in la at the time and had my mother was living in Las Vegas and I had visited. So I was driving back from Las Vegas to Los Angeles and I arrived at was about three am.

And I lived in Santemonic at the time. I got off the freeway and I was at a guest So I went to a seventy sixth station and I'm listening to the Untouchable soundtrack right the cassette of it. The opening theme in the opening credits for this movie are so fucking phenomenal. It's one of my favorites of all. So I'm I'm listening to that theme.

Pulling up to the gas pump. There's one of the car at the gas station and I look over. It's Don Harvey. Don Harvey plays the cop who's in the cat in the car with ness in the opening scene. It's good to have a It's good to have a family.

Oh yeah, it is, sir, that guy. So he's just standing in the pumping cast and I'm sitting in my car like blaring me Untouched soundtrack, and like he looks over, like what the fuck is happening right now? And so like I turned the car, I turned the coff and I went sort of talked to him. He's like, are you what I said? I'm as mystified as you.

I had no idea you were going to be here when I pulled up listening to the Unteutible Center, and then we talked about Brian de Palmer for like twenty minutes. So anyway, that story of Elliott and Neess and the Cleveland Torso Murderer was turned into a comic book graphic novel. It's pretty good by Brian Michael Bendis Adlie named Torso So, and they've tried to make it into a movie for like as long as it's been in publication, which is like nineteen ninety eight, So like a. Perfect Kevin Andrew, Kevivan Walkerner, David Fincher joint. Yeah right, I was gonna say that you mentioned the boy scoutness of it all.

When I think of actors playing boy scouts, I think of Jake Gillenhall playing the consummate the movie version of Rich of Robert Graysmith, which similarly to this movie, not like the real person at all in a lot of ways. I think of that like ability of Jake jillenhol to play a boy scout in that movie the same way Kevin Cosner does in this movie. And I think that that is a a well that I am not necessarily super into. But when actors do it really well, it works in the movies that they're doing it in, but I think it works kind of when juxtaposed against other things, like in Zodiac and like in this movie, because we have, like we've already talked about great supporting actors and supporting characters surrounding this kind of I wouldn't say one no character, but very he is this way, and he is this way, and he is this way.

He's incorruptible, as it were, and that's a big part of the character in the person. So you guys really are on touch Jesus. Well, that's the thing, you know, Like the triumphere at the end of this movie is he's become as bad as everybody else. He not only throws an unarmed man off of a roof, he then blackmails a judge effectively tells it, tells him I'm going to fucking rat you out as one of the people on this list if you don't fucking do what I tell you to do. So he's just as bad as everything else in the movie.

Yeah, but that's the Chicago way, you know, it's the only way to get things done. He'd be held what he whatever that he held? Yeah, Oh one more thing. So I was just effing around on Twitter, as I usually do, and somebody had posted the shot of Caruso being Palliacci and the split diopter that is going on in that shot, Because you get a nice, real good split diopter in the chirt scene with Malone and nas but here you've got Caruso on the other side of the screen, and you've got Capone in the background, and that the Palma zooms in on a split diapter shot and they have to eventually move the diopter, remove the diopter as they continue to zoom in on on de Niro. Fucking crazy beautiful.

I love you, Brian to Palmer, well, you are in peak form. You are one of the best. Is this his last movie? Oh no? Is this is what last best movie?

Eighty seven? Oh? Well, I like Impossible? Actually, I really love Mission Impossible and car. This too, so I taken it back.

Yeah. After this, he does Casualties of War, that he has that major misstep with Bonfire, then coming back with Raising Kine, which I did like the first time I saw it, but now I've grown to actually love the movies. Step of Bonfire, the Vanities, Wow, dare you? Oh? I know everybody loves that I think I for me, he lost his way after Snake Eyes.

I know you're a huge Mission to Mars fan fatherm alone, but I think that was the first big misstep because after that, it's fem Fatal the Black Dahlia, which I just absolutely hated. I hated it equally hated retected. I shouldn't. I don't know. If I've seen the Domino.

I have not seen. That's currently rocking of four point five stars. I got to watch fem Fatal again the one time when it came out, and I kind of liked it, but I wasn't. Wow, weird like mini city thing that's going on. Yeah it was.

It was strange. I just it didn't connect. I I haven't seen. I saw Mission to Mars in theaters. My parents took us to see it.

For whatever reason. I was so excited a new Branda Palm movie and it's a science fiction film. This is gonna be fucking great. I want to rewatch it. I don't.

I don't remember it at all. I just remember there being like a giant face and like, I don't need too Okay, I mean, I don't know. I you know, I don't know. According to the Internet, we don't like a lot of things, so maybe your opinion is wrong. You know, there was an interesting really things like that.

You know, there's a. Book about the Palma, I want to say, it's called Double the Palma, and the author of that gives a really good reading of Mission to Mars where he starts to compare the three main characters of Curiousnise, Tim Robbinson, Don Cheatle, I believe, don Cheatle. What a fucking lineup, by the way, weird. Now I want to watch it again. He starts comparing them to the three Diplomement brothers, and just like Brian was kind of the near do well and then you had like the you know, the brother that he you know, everybody loved the you know, and then the brother that died early.

And this reading, I was like, oh, this exactly this, This makes me want to like this movie. Then I rewatched. Sh It, No, it's still. Ship bottom alone. I bought them alone.

You're gonna end up watching and you're gonna text me and be like it was ship it was still ship. You know what I was doing? This nonsense. I don't know which is worse than a red planet myself? Oh my god, Carrie and moss joint in Avout Kilmer film.

Yeah, I think Red Planet is worse. Actually I had the neck and neck, neck and neck? What is that? Was that the summer of Mars movies? Just like the couple of years earlier, this was the sum of asteroid movies, except in this scenario they were all bad.

Yes, exactly. There was no Vermageddon to save that. What about Ghosts of Mars wasn't that around the same time. I think it was. It's an interesting remake of Assault on Precinct thirteen.

But yeah, that's a terrible a new show. I I I guess I would. Yeah, I haven't seen Snake Eyes, but looking at the list, I would say, mission impossible. Oh man, go Tyler, go, Tyler go. I mean it's Nicholas is doing a really good Jimmy Cagney.

It's it's yeah, you should watch so good. And the ending is fantastic because they make reference to stuff that was cut out of the movie, like, oh man, we were in that tunnel and those waves were coming in and you're like. What what. That's amazing. Yeah, it's really good.

I I didn't care for it the first time I saw, but I really agree. To love that movie is wise guys worth watching. No, no, God, damn it. I really wish it was. But it is so just not funny.

I don't know if there's a version of it out there that is funny, but what possible. And he's not doing anything with the camera to like compensate for anything. He's just shooting. He's hoping the comedy is working with the with the people in front of the camera, but it is not. Yeah.

Yeah, he bet on the wrong verses with that one. It's too bad. Yeah, I you know, I you know, you guys are asking the question. I again, I haven't seen Snake Eyes, but mission impossible seems to me to be outside of possibly one later movie. The last thing of his, That's Black Dolly, is just oh dear gosh, it's like a foot run.

Good book and horrible, horrible adaptation. And I've read screenplays that were adapted from the book and they were much better. Saw it's the movie. That movie. Josh Hartnett, Yeah, I love, Yeah, he's great.

Yeah, but like, what's your name? Like, look, okay, uh playing Elizabeth Short in the film is what's her name? Mira Miya Kirshner, Mia Kirshner right, Okay, So she's the Dahliah. They have cast as her doppel ganger, Uh, what's her name, the fucking, the fucking boxing. Girl, Hilary swankankster, Hilary Swain.

Yeah, and she they would be, it'd be indistinguishable, right, yeah, yeah. Yeah, okay, yeah, because yeah she is. That's the that's the her basis of the movie. She is definitely as beautiful as Mia Kirshner. Wow, Big Girls Don't Cry or whatever the hell the name of that movie was.

I can't tell them. I'm trying to sort them out of my mind. Big Girls don't Cry as a Frankie Valley, So, oh god, I don't. I guess I don't think when I think of Brian de Palma, I do think of a certain time and a place of to Palma, kind of like with Scorsese, like and I know that'll that'll, I know that'll really ruffle some feathers with people. But like, I don't like a lot of Scorsese's like later stuff either, So you know, I think I'm.

A negative a bunch of Wolters. Wokesters, the Wokesters. This summer on Fox. DePalma's always been kind of hit or miss I mean. Yeah, but his hits are real, big hits, like oh yeah, like Father Malone said, Phantom of the Paradise is literally one of my favorite movies, Like you know, what do you say to that?

But then you got stuff like Bonfire the Vanities, which is an affront to everything, including the goddamn book it's based on. Yeah, I just because I read that book, that Double DiPalma book. I went and watched Bonfire and I was just like, wow, yeah, this is a real mess and just. That's a fun you're being diplomatic. Well, just the the miscasting of I mean, even if Tom Hanks and Bruce Willison switched spots, it might have worked a little man oh man.

And we've been talking about how bad Tom hanks is British accent was bruverers. Willis didn't even try to do it. It's like, I'm just not gonna do it. Fuck it. But yeah, I think between nineteen seventy two and nighteen gosh eighty four, I mean there was definitely more hits than misses.

I mean there were some things like Obsession, It's interesting, The Fury is fucking hilarious, and I love every moment of it. But yeah, like Sisters, Fan of the Paradise, Carrie Dressed to Kill, Blowout, Scarface, Body Double. I mean it's just one after another after another. I think Body Double is where he runs out of personal stuff to say. I think every filmmaker kind of does that, right, and then whether or not they like it, they are kind of directors, even if they're hiring themselves, you know what I mean.

Like, I think once he gets to once sequally and now he's just concentrating on, you know, whatever comes down the pike as it were. Yeah, well you had that big purge between Home Movies and Body Double, Dressed to Kill. I mean, the Keith Gordon character is basically him and I Suggressed to Kill, and then I think I can't remember. Yeah, Gordon was in front of. The camera as well.

If not, he was definitely at Sarah Lawrence when they were doing that. Yeah, he's in at it. Yeah, Okay, thank you. It's been a while, because that's an interesting one. It's so small compared to those other films that he was doing, and it makes sense because it was for a class but as a class project, it's fucking amazing.

Yeah, well, that's a situation where like when he like to Palma call all of his famous movie brad friends and said, give me one thousand dollars making a movie and they are like, okay. Sure, yeah, wild. Yeah, he's a fascinating guy. And if you guys haven't seen the uh No Bomb Back, I think it is documentary yeah to Palma so good where he's amazing, sits and talks for what an hour and a half and you're like, polity, tell me more. Yeah, there's not enough about fanom the Paradise and that documentary.

That's that's my only criticism. It's it's sort of briefly mentioned as sort of like one of the stepping stones to his greater work, and I'm just like, I'll take a documentary about that. I mean, I know you just go get the disc and it's all on there. But I'm just saying, like stepping stone'numental film, stepping Stone. Yeah, I'll you stepping Stone exactly.

Yeah, the fandom of the film more. I did mention the score and just want to shout it out again. It's it's one of my favorite morn Cooney scores. I think this is sort of my first introduction. I think I had Obviously you couldn't get away from the good, the bad, and the oblique theme.

It's always been everywhere and reused and used and used. So I was familiar with his work, but this is the first time I feel like I connected with any of Maroccony, and I feel like where the work really reflects his work reflected what I was seeing on screen rather than on occasion Marcony just feels like, here's a score for your movie, and this felt a little more integral. Yeah. Well, I was saying before we start recording that he was actually recycling himself and I think it's the ballad of Hey McCain or something. I was trying my best to find what it was.

And it's interesting because it's just that like. And I'm like, Okay, that works, but it works so well in this context, and I think, yeah, the whole thing just fits together so perfectly. And this was probably one of the first scores that I ever owned. I know, Chris, when we talked a long time ago about rag Time, I was talking about the Randy Newman score for that. I had that on vinyl, but I had this on cassette and I just remember listening to it in the headphones so often and just enjoying just that that pounding theme and then like that great uh the big band version.

With that Oh my god, so spectacular. It's so good, you know how opulent Capone has it. But you know that one blast of that hard. Say rag time, Holy shit, that's like that's like an echo from another to don't even remember rag time at all anymore? My god.

Oh, I did so much research for that episode. Three maybe, like God, even like a year ago, God, in and out, in and out. Twenty twenty four has been pretty rough, y'all. Yeah, twenty twenty four has been a hell of a year, folks. Yeah, what is it?

The last couple of days have been a hell of a year. What is it? The last month's been a hell of a year? God, that was June second, twenty twenty three. Wow.

Wow, you could have told me it was twenty nineteen. I would have fucking believed to God, starting with you, Mike and then Father Malone. Final thoughts on the Untouchables. Well, I'm just so glad that you had an opportunity to see this. If people haven't seen it, I don't know why you're listening to this episode.

That's kind of a weird thing, but yeah, to each his own, and if you haven't seen it, definitely go check it out because this is Yeah, we keep seeing the Palma director for hire, this whole thing with Mammutt director writer for hire. But you know what, everybody comes together. This feels almost more like an old studio film. This really feels like they're throwing back to the old twentieth century or sorry, Warner Brothers films with just capturing the spirit of the you know, the bad guys must be punished. This whole beautiful thing that they had.

It feels like a code film, especially with those great bursts of violence. So yeah, definitely check it out. Yeah, let me go ahead and echo that the sort of call back to the old Warner Brothers things, because I think with DePalma had already done the modern interpretation of the Warner Brothers crime films with Scarface, and he pushed the violence in that and the grittiness and the realism to a fucking absurd level. And here he gets to actually make one of the old Warner Brothers gangster movies. So he ends up I think transporting a lot of that, the sort of grit, the weight, the realism, but like mercifully holds back on the rest of the violence because it's because ultimately this is just kind of a pot boiler of a movie, like you know, it isn't.

It isn't sort of the historical document on the way they brought down to Capone and it's not. It's not as sort of a lightweight as the old TV series that most Americans had known. By that I mean, I know I had seen it by the time this movie. I had seen this movie. It was in reruns all the time.

Robert Stacks tough guy elliot ness and not sweet family man elliott ness. But I think for a late era film, particularly by this time, a lot of the filmmakers in the nineteen seventies were stumbling all over themselves, and de Palma had his share of that. But to make this then it's really fucking remarkable. I love this movie. I can watch it at beginning to I keep putting it on over the past week just to like watch one scene like, oh, let me remind myself, And then I watched the whole fucking movie.

I watched it like three times in the past two days. Anyway, that's my thoughts, those are my thoughts on The Untouchables. Yeah, I'm gonna I'm gonna echo everything that y'all have said. I enjoyed it a men. I you know, in terms of it being a Brian de Palmer movie from the eighties, you just said it pretty succinctly.

Father Malone, other directors of his caliber were doing a lot worse in the eighties than this, And this is not even bad. This is quite good in fact. Yeah, and I enjoyed it. I think it's an interesting entry into the Palma's filmography, into De Niro's filmography. It's a Kevin Coster movie that I don't run away from at the first mention of it, though I have yet to see JFK, and I await the opportunity to see that at some point in the future.

But yeah, no, I enjoyed it immensely. And yeah, the Sean Connery of it all probably put it over the top for me, even because who doesn't love Sean Connery As someone who has raised on seeing a lot of Indiana Jones in the Last Crusade over and over and over and over again, because that was my parents' favorite Indiana Jones and still is. I am someone who is a big fan of Connery and getting to see him in anything I haven't seen him. In before is welcome. So yeah, on that note, we'll take a break, will play some ads, not as many as Spreaker would like for us to have.

Apparently, you fucking assholes. Hey, let's do that thing like the Simpsons did on Fox. Fuck Spreaker, everybody, because Spreaker is now injecting more ads into his content than we know what to do with. But we'll be playing our own ads. We'll take a break, We'll play a preview for the next culture cast.

Hi, I'm Susan and I'm Sharon, and where are the hosts self? Eighties tv Ladies Check us out wherever you find your favorite podcasts, and please like and follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. At Eighties tv Ladies you. Can find interviews is an exclusive behind the scenes content on all of your favorite eighties TV ladies. Eighties tv Ladies is the place to go.

Please join us right. Hi, this is HP from Noise Junkies and this is follom Alone from Dark Destinations. Please join us as we examine one of the greatest sitcoms in television history, Taxi on Night mister Walters a taxi podcast. Good night, mister Walters, good evening, and welcome to Night's Gallery. Thank you, Rod, and I want to welcome everyone to Midnight Viewing, where once a month we talk all about your follow up to the Twilight Zone, Rod Serling's Night Gallery.

They say it's Rod two las Night Gallery, and it isn't really Rod to L's Night Gallery. It's somebody else's. Oh, we know, we talk about it a lot. Your curators at Midnight Viewing are the projection booths. Mike White?

What can happen to human beings when trust is wiped out by suspicion and culture casts? Chris Dasher, Small Boy incasionally Crystal Ball, and I'm Father Malone. The kind of thing that usually infests nightmares. Join us monthly at Midnight Viewing. The Night Gallery podcast at Weirdingwaymedia dot Com doesn't remotely belong to me.

I have no proprietary interest in that at all. From the supers of Gotha unubility birches from the rooftops. The perfect Enemy. Comes to life. I am cattle, and.

The only one who can save this city is a creature of the night. Michael Keaton, What do you want Danny DeVito? You don't really think you'll win to you, Michelle Feifer. But that Man Returns June nineteenth, directed by Tim Burton from the Teaching thirteen. Sorry of the next Culture Cast, We're gonna be talking about a movie that I was roasted on a podcast for not having ever seen and apparently quote my opinion on Batman is not a valid one without ever having seen this movie.

On the next episode of the Culture Cast, I'm finally watching Batman Returns for the first time. You were right to be roasted, Yes, you were. Yeah, even though my opinion was my favorite Batman is Michael Keaton. Yeah, it's still in valid. You haven't seen the entire.

Oove I guess so, no, you're I mean I've seen two of the three. I've seen Batman and The Flash. You're right, son, Oh yeah see that. Oh if this was a visual medium, you could see both of their heads shaking and disgusting me. Uh huh, Well do I didn't do anything.

They did it, and he cashed a pretty big fucking check for it on top of everything else. Good for him. And between now and then, we the three of us, will also be doing a bonus episode on Beetlejuice. Beetlejuice speaking Michael, I'm not going to because we'll say it for a third time when the third movie comes out in ten years and Father Malone and Mike White will be joining me for that. Until then, where can people find you?

Mike White? You can find pretty much everything that I do over at Projection Booth. Also over at waiting Waymedia dot com, which is the one stop shop for all your entertainment needs. Though, if you want to hear Chris and I talk about James Bond with a third person little guy named Richard HadAM for Richard Adam's Fair Normal Bookshelf that is available on our respective patreons over at patreon dot com, slash Projection Booth or patreon dot com slash culture cast. And he is a little guy because he's like what five foot four foot two?

Does he like sit on your shoulder like a like a parrot? Yeah, it's more like two feet one inch, so oh like Nelson Devil Rosa. He looks up to that guy. He's he's two. He's actually just two prairie dogs in a trench coat.

Thought of alone, What about you for refrigerators? Yeah. Where if people find. You, I'm also weird in Way Media. Check out Midnight Viewing.

It's on Mondays and Fridays. Mondays is a weekly wrap up show, and Friday's alternates between tales from the Dark Side and anthology movies of many different varieties. You can also I've got my Patreon go to patreon dot com slash father alone. You get all those episodes early and add free. And I've started I'm starting a look at for the Patreon subscribers.

I look at John Logan's series Penny Dreadful starting starting very soon actually, so. We'll make sure to pass that information along to John since he's tell him to watch or listen to the round up next week, because I go real heavy on my love for Penny Dreadful sort of in a general way. In fact, recording that episode made me want to deep dive, as it were, into every episode individually. And you know what they say in light of Alien Romulus coming out, I think I'm a bigger defender of Alien Covenant than I was before I saw that movie. So yeah, you know it's okay.

As for me, you can find me at Weirdingwaymedia dot com as well, where all the things that I work on are when they're posted. Yeah, this show has been all over the place in the last month and a half do to all sorts of fun things in my personal life, which I won't delve too far into because that's enter your goddamn business. Yeah. So, as someone who makes content for a living, sometimes I don't get to do it as much and as often as I like. But I being given the opportunity to do this still weirding way media as where we can go for the foreseeable future to find all that stuff.

So yeah, As for this show, culturecast dot com, Patreon dot com, slash culturecast ten dollars level rank it on bond Mike already mentioned it. Father Malone, thank you so much for helping program the month, or just programming it in its entirety, which is what you did. And Mike for joining us to talk about the untouchables. So there you go, and as always, we'll catch you on the next episode.