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May 8, 2023

The Firm

The Firm

Tom Cruise, Gene Hackman, Ed Harris, Jeanne Tripplehorn, Gary Busey, Wilford Brimley, and David Straitharn (+ Holly Hunter) all "star" in this John Grisham adaptation that ends up being the 5th biggest movie of 1993.

How did it happen? Is this the first movie Tom Cruise does the now famous Cruise run? These questions and more answered by Jeff and JT within the episode. 

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Transcript

[Music] Welcome to Movie Life Crisis.

Join us as we watch the best movies from 30 years ago.

[Music] Jesus, I didn't know it was going.

I thought we were going.

Listen to the whole thing.

Here we go.

Lawyers at your firm sure seem accident prone.

No lawyer has ever left your law firm alive.

Why are you asking questions about dead lawyers.

Do you know what's going on here.

We keep each other's secrets.

If we run, they find us.

I know you'll do your best to protect the firm Watch it.

Get out of here.

They don't count Tom Cruise.

The firm.

Red bar now playing at theaters.

Sorry, I had to listen to that twice.

I didn't know.

I didn't know.

Oh, that was that was a great diabetes commercial.

Well, for Brimley, I loved him and that thing that I saw him in.

I saw him in.

Ah, well, for Brimley's great.

I like how no matter what H.

E.

He looks exactly the same.

He's just got his big-hound dog face and his big giant bushy mustache is like glasses that all go dark in the sun.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- He's like, "Why is he wearing sunglasses inside.

" - No, they just always tinted like that.

- Movie-life crisis, season three, episode nine, the firm.

- Man, I tried to watch this not on HBO Max.

I was gonna quote Barrow it from the internet.

So that way I could play it back at a faster speed for the second watch through.

And it turns out I didn't have time for the first watch through until today.

But in addition to that, I downloaded six different movies before I got the firm with Tom Cruise from 1993.

Turns out there's a lot of workout videos and other types of videos with stepmoms and people like that.

A couple of Nause albums.

Yes.

Yeah, I watched it on HBO Max.

I powered through.

I also watched it with the HBO Max eventually 'cause this was not working.

I don't think I could do the like watch it at a higher speed.

I mean, I can listen to stuff that way, but I don't think I could watch movie that way.

- I only do that when I want to watch it twice 'cause when I get to the end, I'm like, oh, I don't have any best characters or best scenes.

I want to go back and like watch it again, but I don't want to just like look at highlights on the internet.

I just hit it all the way through.

Watch the whole movie in an hour.

- Cool.

So anyway, season three episode nine, the firm Tom Cruise based on the John Grisham novel, which at the time, if you remember the early 90s, like Jeff and I do, this book was huge.

Huge.

A time to kill was his first one.

The firm was his second novel, but the firm was the one that really took off and then after that, a time to kill also went.

But did this thing was on the New York Times best killer list for the entire year, 47 weeks.

That's pretty crazy.

Back in the day when you couldn't just purchase your way on there like you can now.

You really, can you really.

Oh, yeah.

Is that really a thing.

I had no idea.

So it's just like the JD Power and Associates thing.

You just paying for it.

- Yeah, well, they just, it's based on sales, but so book companies will just buy like 10,000 copies of hardback books and put them in a storage unit and then sell them on eBay.

And that gets you on the list.

And then it's like, "Hey, I'm a New York Times best seller.

" Plus the best seller list itself.

Instead of just being top 10 now has like 75 categories.

So it's like, "Hey, best seller, Asian American cookbooks, like on Amazon.

" like, oh, I'm 76th in this category you never heard of.

- So it's like our podcast when I tell people we're really huge.

- Yeah, yeah, like we're like number seven in Holland.

(sniffing) - There's only seven in Holland.

- Worldwide bitches.

The point is that this movie was huge and this book was huge, but the weird thing is looking back at it, it's good, but I didn't, it's not like, I looked at our list for this year and I was like, oh dude, I've sleepless in Seattle's this year.

I forgot about that.

I can't wait to do that.

- Yeah.

- I don't need to go back and watch the firm.

I've seen sleepless in Seattle 15 times since that movie came out.

- Right, right.

- I guess it's kind of weird.

It made a ton of money.

It was actually, I felt it was really good, but it made no impact.

- It's also impact with people though.

- Yes, it's impact with people.

- Tom Cruise is in it.

- But I'm saying even Dazing Confused, which made like $6 million, people still talk about it.

I don't think anyone's still talking about the firm.

- When I mentioned it in the hallway that I was doing it, the lady who teaches next to me was like, that's on HBO Max.

We just watched it like two weeks ago.

I was like, all right.

- Good for her.

- You remember Wilford Brimley's The Bad Guy.

I was like, no, didn't remember that, but thanks.

- Oh, I remember how this sounds.

It turns out-- (laughs) Hey, all right, Tom Cruise is in this, right on.

- Yeah, dude, did you remember this movie at all.

- Yes, I remembered it, and I remembered the book, but I didn't remember how it ended and all that stuff.

Like I didn't remember it.

- Not me neither.

- Yeah.

- Well, the book and the movie ended differently, so I didn't remember it.

- I also think my problem was, is my mom likes to read, so she would be like, "Oh, yeah, you should read the book first, 'cause I bet the book's better.

" She's always that person.

And I read the book and then I saw the movie.

And I think I saw the movie again since then, but I think I meshed them all together in my head.

I'm saying like I didn't realize it was that different until I watched it and then looked at the difference on the internet.

- Yeah, same.

Well, we talked about for our calendar, the movie life crisis this season three, It's like we got Pelican brief and the firm both come out in this calendar year.

And both of them are top 10 movies with really big like Tom Cruise, Densel Washington, Julia Roberts.

I was like, I don't really want to do, I don't want to like not do the Sandlot or something to do the Pelican.

We don't want to do both of them.

- Right, right.

- Even though they made a ton of money and had really fun.

- Both of them.

- Yeah, dude, I, um, - Well, I feel like after I haven't watched the firm, which I think is the better of the two made more money, I think is the right call.

Like I would rather watch some of the smaller movies, even like so I married an ax murderer, I would rather watch that than another John Grisha movie based into it, like, you know, that did really well.

- Looking forward, unless you wanna make the Pelican brief, like the bonus Halloween episode, I don't wanna change any of 'em, 'cause I like all the ones coming up.

- No, we even talked about trying to do the 93 Super Mario Brothers movie, which was horrible, but people still kind of talk about it, and they just came out with a new one, we're like, we could squeeze that in somewhere.

- Yeah, and we're leaving off a bunch of 'em.

I mean, we're even in a bunch.

- Striking distance.

- No, we did striking distance, which in there's less.

You just didn't watch it.

- Right, right.

No, I'm just saying, stuff like life with Mikey and Free Willie and all that, we're leaving it.

- And life with Mikey, I know.

- I love that song.

Me too.

- Me too.

- What were you playing.

- But yeah, this is the number five movie on the year.

It's the most successful John Grisham adaptation ever.

$270 million gross on a $40 million budget.

Tom Cruise, Sydney Pollock, Directs, you know, Gene Hackman, Ed Harris, Holly Hunter, Wilford Brimley, the frickin composer as an Oscar winner.

Like it was just a huge movey that did really well.

But actually my main takeaway after was like, it was good, it was fine.

But like, no, I don't.

It made no impact in the 30 years since it's been released.

And a lot of the stuff we're looking at that made no money.

I don't know, maybe it's just me.

I just still remember them.

- Yeah, yeah.

I don't, I don't-- - I can't want the huge melons to get that gun again, Jim.

- Right, nobody's quoting this movie.

- Yeah, I'm not quoting the firm.

- The other thing too is I know it's supposed to be like a, like a thriller, a legal thriller in your night, it's supposed to know who done it.

There's no like courtroom scenes, and you know what I'm saying.

Like-- - Yeah, another tax lawyer's.

There never is a courtroom.

There's never a judge.

- Right, right, I don't like that.

(laughs) - I don't know.

- Well, let's, I don't know.

Let's just do this and I'll just get into it up.

- Yeah, let's do it.

- We're getting ahead of ourselves.

- The Firm is a legal thriller film released in 1993 and directed by Sydney Pollock.

Tom Cruise plays the lead character, Mitch McDier, a young and ambitious lawyer who is recruited by a prestigious law firm in Memphis.

However, he soon discovers that the firm has ties to organized crime and must navigate dangerous waters to survive.

- Dun dun dun.

- Except, yeah, that dun dun dun has way too many instruments, 'cause we all know it was just a piano through the whole gosh darn movie.

42 million dollar budget, $270 million gross.

Number five.

- Oh, no idea.

- Did it okay.

- Did it all right.

Did pretty good.

Dude, huge movie.

I mean, I don't know.

Did you find any awards.

- So there's two Academy Award nominations.

Holly Hunter had best supporting actress who she lost to Anna Pacquan and the piano.

She actually won that year's best actress though.

Holly Hunter did up for the same film, which is ridiculous.

- It's completely ridiculous.

- Yeah, the best original score, losing to John Williams for Schindler's list slash Shriken Distance.

- Dude, as well they should have.

- Yeah, yeah.

For me, I don't understand why this was even nominated.

It was bothering me.

- But I think just because how big the movie was, I mean, I think the Oscar nominations are kind of based on a really huge movie that everyone talks about.

I mean, they're also kind of like, they're very much like it's a, you gotta be in the in group, like you gotta be the cool kids club to be nominated for stuff.

- I mean, that's why I don't really watch those anymore.

But like, so there was like soundtrack songs, but man, most of it was on the, like the whole thing was on piano.

And he was going for the percussive like, (imitates singing) - And like he just did.

- Well, it was crazy.

Dave Groosen, who's a jazz composer and a film score guy, who's won Oscars before, and was nominated for this movie.

When the movie was happening in my head, I was going, "This guy definitely scored sneakers because it's exactly how that movie was.

" - Did he.

- No, he didn't.

But I just-- - It sounded, yeah, it does sound so much.

- It just sounded just, it was the same like piano, percuss, percussion, like, it was like a dark, minor, Randy Newman, like, "I'm gonna play what you feel right now on the screen.

" (laughing) And it was, there was times when it was really like, like, "Dude, that piano is like five times louder than it should be, but there's times when I was like, I really like that.

That part was awesome.

- Yeah, when he plays suspenseful music, it was definitely a suspenseful time.

- Yeah, they just need to turn it way down, but I really liked what he was doing.

- When you said Randy Newman, it reminded me, CZ's been doing this thing where she walks around the house just singing what everybody's doing.

And all I could think of is a freaking family guy.

Redhead lady walking over, picking an apple.

- Wipes in all the sherry.

- Man, the whole time I was just like, I, and part of it was okay, but man, it was so much of just the piano.

- Yeah.

(laughs) - I didn't like it.

- I liked it, I got it in my best.

- Nice.

- But sequels, I found a TV show, Spinoff, it was in 2012, one season.

And there's actually a book sequel coming out this year, October of 2023.

- Nice.

- Yeah, nice.

- Gonna be published in a hardback, picking up Mitch McDier, the adventures of Mitch McDier 30 years later.

- Really.

- Yeah.

- The TV show, I was actually, I kinda, I don't want to watch the whole thing, but I remember watching episodes of it.

I just, I really like, what's his name.

Josh Lucas, I think, is the guy who played the lead.

- Yeah.

- Yeah, I like him.

- Yeah.

- Do you remember when and where you first saw this.

- I am 99% sure I saw this at home, like HBO, Cinemax Showtime thing.

- Yeah.

- Dude, thinking about it though, I think I remember renting it also.

And did this have like a, you know how like, Johnny Namanik was like a bright orange tape and some of those Nickelodeon tapes were bright orange.

I think this one was like purple or something.

I feel like I remember it being a different color.

- It's blue.

- Nice.

- What color blue.

- A dark blue.

- No, it's like a kind of a royal blue.

- Nice.

- I'll see it.

- Yeah.

- I feel like I remember that.

I don't know why I remember that.

- That's funny.

I definitely did not remember that.

I must have rented this too, because I didn't, I definitely, I was too young to see it in the theaters, but I went through the phase and my junior high years, which would have been right around this time, which is like if it was a thriller, I wanted to watch it if stuff was gonna explode or someone was gonna run really fast and I probably was gonna rent that.

- Right.

- So I know I must have, but I also, I read these books too.

I mean, I was a teenager when it came out, but I just, I liked that type of stuff.

- Yeah.

- So I read the firmer at the time to kill I read Pelican.

I read all the John Grisham stuff until I was about 10 books and I realized he was kind of out of ideas and that was like 25 years ago and he's still writing books.

- Yes, still doing the same thing.

- Good for him, by the way, but I was like, I think I'm good.

- Yeah, I can remember reading this book.

I don't know that I've read any other John Grisham books.

- I know I read the first 10 to 12, and I was like, oh, he's kinda doing the same thing over and over again, and then I just kinda stopped.

But yeah, so I don't really have any, I have no like firm memories of this movie, even as I was watching it.

And the crazy thing is firm memories.

- Firm, I didn't mean to do that.

Yeah, just like, I mean, the highest grossing R-rated film in '93, the biggest John Grisham adaptation ever, Oscar nominations, like a great cast, great director, great film composer.

I just like, I don't know, it's just so weird to me how much this movie completely disappeared into the, like, ether after 1993.

- And I'm the same way, 'cause the whole time I was just like, huh.

And sometimes I'm like, oh, that wasn't that good.

Or, oh, that was good.

- Well, even if I got to like, if you said, like, sit down and make a list of the best Tom Cruise movies, where would I put this on the list.

I don't think it would be in the top 20.

- No, no.

- But I feel like I could probably name you 15 Tom Cruise movies I really like and I would not even consider this and he was good in it.

- You think you could name 15 Tom Cruise movies.

- I definitely do.

- Really.

- Yeah.

- Yeah, I'm not gonna do it like right here live in studio, but yes, I feel sure that dude, you could name 15 Tom Cruise movies.

- I don't know if I could, dude.

- You can name seven Mission Impossible movies.

- Oh, the Mission Impossible I would just count as one.

Well, I mean, he's spread over a 15 year period, but I'm saying like, you could definitely do that.

Do I have to count both top guns as one.

They came out 30 years apart.

- Yeah, yeah, top gun just counts as one.

(laughing) - What's the other one we did with him where he was a lawyer.

- Yeah, a few good men.

- Yeah.

- That's what I'm saying.

It's not even my favorite Tom Cruise lawyer movie from the early '90s.

- Yeah, no, I totally agree.

- And like, if I'm making a list of Ed Harris movies, this isn't gonna be on the list.

If I'm making a list of Holly Hunter movies or Gary Busey or Gene Hackman, this isn't gonna be on the list for any of them, but they did good jobs.

- Yeah, they weren't bad.

I did like them.

Holly Hunter's fantastic in the show, The Married.

Did you see that with Ted Danson.

- Yes, I did.

- Oh my God.

Why are you wearing sandals in the office.

Oh, their prescription.

I have podiatric claustrophobia.

- Why did you bet $800,000 for Ted Danson skeleton.

- An idea for a sitcom.

- Oh, he buys the whole lot of the entire, every single one.

- We can't just sit here all day, listen to your classical music.

I don't like big butts, I can't block.

- All right, how'd you rate this.

- Yeah, so we can't give it seven.

- No.

- And I don't want to give it an eight, so I gave it a 6.

5.

'Cause like you said, it was good.

I only gave it a 6.

5 because I felt like I had to.

I think I would have given it a 5.

5 or a 6.

- It's weird, man.

I also got a 6.

5 out of 10.

- Ooh, nice.

- For the exact same reason.

And the first, it's two and a half hours.

It's way too long for me.

- Oh, I wonder I couldn't finish it.

- The first third I was going, this is good.

This is really moving.

I like the music.

Everyone's doing a good job.

The attention's building.

- Oh man.

- And then, so we're 45 minutes in.

And there's an hour 45 left.

And that hour 45 left really drug on.

- Dude, I had the same issue.

So like, I was watching it in spurred.

Do you know how I roll.

I can only watch it for so long before somebody walks in and I gotta make sure there's no guns or boobies on the TV.

And like, I'm watching it and I'm like, hey, this is all right.

And I pause it to turn it off to watch the rest later.

And I'm like, I must be halfway through or we're getting pretty close to the climax here.

We were not, we were, like you said, 45 in.

And I was like, what the heck's going on.

But the thing is, it was a 500 page adaptation.

The book is 500 pages long.

The book is as complicated as this movie as the book is considerably more complicated.

They actually simplified it a lot for the movie.

And I think it was the right idea, but it still is just like, man, there's way too many characters and factions and there's way too many storylines.

And it's like the whole conclusion is way too convoluted.

And it just made it take way too long.

I could tell that the director and the editors and the writers were trying to keep it tight, but there's just too much stuff going on.

- Yeah, there was too much.

- Like the beginning was freaking, like the first five minutes where like tight is can be, like I had it like great opening, like great music.

They did the whole setup, he's graduating from Harvard, he's going on his interviews, interviewed and graduated from Harvard and moved to Memphis, like by the time the title card hits.

- Right.

- I was like that's awesome, they jumped right into it, I love that.

- Dude, even after they did all that, like there was a bunch of montages all together leading up to that.

- Yeah.

- And then I had like a montage, but.

- I love it.

That's not so much a training montage of fighting, but he blew through a lot of the stuff and they were moving it forward and I was like, "Hey, all right.

" And then she came to a screeching halt.

- But I don't know, Mike, maybe have we gotten less patient in the last 30 years.

- Oh, that's definitely a thing.

- I know, but like movies are still super long, dude, for like, and Christopher Nolan puts out three and a half hour movies and like the Avengers movies are three hours plus.

- Yeah.

- But they're not complicated.

It's just like action set piece.

- The action set, that's what I'm saying.

- Alance boobs, explosions, aliens and big exploding breasts.

(laughing) It's not, it's not, but I don't, so I'm like, are we not able to sit through complicated plots anymore.

- Because clearly everyone saw this one a bunch when it came out.

- Yeah, so I think that's definitely a thing.

I know that if my stories go on too long in class, I can see kids just start drifting, drifting, and they're out.

I'm like, y'all haven't even got to the funny part yet.

I had to tell you all this to set it all up.

Like a freaking John Grisham thriller.

You gotta hear all the beginning parts, Steve, and understand what's going on in the background.

- Right, I'm sprinkling story dust on this, and I need to just get up there, like trip over something, do a TikTok dance, and then walk out of the room, and they'll be like, this is the best class ever.

- Like I like Stephen King, you like Stephen King, people try to tell me like, oh, you gotta read the two towers, I'm like, yeah, try to read it, but it was kind of boring.

Like, yeah, it gets really good around book three.

I was like, well then, I'm not reading, make it good from the first book.

- Yeah, I don't like that.

gotta read two not good books to get to the good shit.

That's not how that's gonna work.

Yeah, I've never read two towers because I knew there was just too long.

Like I got stuff to do.

Right.

Like I got to sit through this movie while I'm trying to watch the freaking the Lakers warriors at the same time because of LeBron and Stetford and the playoffs.

What about the stupid show in HBO with the dragons.

Yeah, didn't watch that.

Yeah, neither.

And that's when people are like, I just just trying to watch it.

You'd like it.

Like dude, but the second season it really jumps off.

I was like, all right, so it's an hour a piece and there's 10, I gotta spend 10 hours watching this.

Well, the first one has some good stuff.

I was like, oh man.

I'm out.

It's funny how people have patients for a slow burn with like TV, because I guess you can just put it on at the house and if it's boring, you can like go to the fridge and do something.

Right.

But if it's a movie, it's like, no, that sucks, I'm not doing that.

But it's like, the people will literally say like, yeah, the first season is not very good.

Just sit through that.

It's like, sit through eight to 10 hours of not very good to get to the okay part.

Yeah.

That's crazy.

Yeah.

But that's, people just, that's how it is.

That's how it goes.

I think if you don't catch it in the beginning for TV, it's very rare that I go back and watch anything because I'm not going to sit through.

The best, best scenes.

I didn't, this is, I mean, I kind of like, I was confused.

I didn't even have any scenes.

I mean, I did.

But I'm like, I was trying to think, like, this movie was so long and so convoluted at the end, I was like, there weren't really, It's like points that jumped out to me.

There was just like, I liked the first third and not after that.

But I got a couple.

The first one I had was the park bench, like Mitch is joined the firm, which turns out they're actually all crooked and they're front and for the mafia.

And they sent him to DC to go to some seminar.

And the FBI like meets him there and there's some cloaking dagger stuff and they pull him out to talk to him.

And he finally figures out that the firm is crooked AF and they explain to him what's going on.

And he realizes that he's kind of screwed because if he tries to leave, they'll kill him.

And if he testifies, they'll kill him.

And if he doesn't testify, the FBI will arrest everyone, including him anyway.

- Right.

- And he's like, been only been at a law school like three weeks.

So he's worked his whole life towards this job and now he realizes that he's immediately screwed.

- He took the wrong job.

Even though, and I like that part in the beginning where they're offering him the money.

And he's like, what's in the envelope.

He's like, they never say an actual number at first.

- Yeah, I got that part too.

- Yeah, well, he never says an actual number.

He just said, "Well, I wanted to find out, you know, "whoever had the highest bid, "and then I just went 20% higher than that.

" I was like, "Holy.

.

.

" - Yeah, I got that as I seen too.

- Nice.

- Yeah, he chose the wrong one.

Chosed the wrong firm to work for, but it looked really good.

- Well, the crazy thing is that he's, like this guy's supposed to be graduating top five in his Harvard Law class, and then like the whole movie, he's supposed to be like this crazy smart lawyer.

He's a wonder kid, everyone's loving him.

- Right.

smart enough to listen to his wife who when they go to visit the firm, she's like, I don't like it, I get a weird vibe.

And he's like, "Not gonna be great.

Let's move to Memphis.

It's hottest balls.

They're gonna pay me a lot of money.

" Like, dude, if you're that smart, you don't know to listen to your wife if she gets a weird vibe from the company.

I also got a weird vibe.

It was weird.

The whole thing was weird.

It's super weird.

Not like, I don't know.

Eyes wide shut, weird.

Another movie with Sydney Balak and Tom Cruise.

Tom Cruise.

But like, it was definitely weird.

Yeah, but I didn't have a I didn't have a sorry I would the park bench scene with him and talking to the FBI guy There was a good quote there, but I didn't because I had an hour 45 left I didn't want to go back and rewind it to write down the quote, but it was something like It's like, yeah, if you test if you testify will put you in witness protection You'll have your life back and he's like it's not mine.

He's like that's not my life He's like I go live somewhere else and like change my name and I can practice on him more I get this bar And then I just hope every time I start my car up it doesn't blow up.

He's like that's not he's like yeah That's pretty cool.

- I'm not doing that.

- Yeah, he brings up the car blowing up again too.

He's like, "You think I'm not gonna sweat "every time I turn the ignition.

" - Yeah.

- Yeah, dude, that is a good scene.

And I guess I should have put that down, but I did not.

The first and only scene that I put down is the scene at the dog track when he meets with Ad Harris.

(laughing) - Yep.

- You got that one too.

- Yeah, yeah, they're going back and forth.

I like how he was playing both sides.

And Ad Harris was trying to play hard ball and I was saying how he's an FBI agent and he can't do that kind of stuff.

I'll just, I'll get the local cops take care of you.

It doesn't even matter.

And he was recording him the whole time and then Holly Hunter calls him up and says, is this, what is his name.

Wayne Terrence, I think.

Is this Wayne Terrence.

He's like, yeah, this is he and he's like, plays back the thing that he just recorded.

Man, it was great.

And then he upped the amount of money.

He goes up to a million five just for that.

That was good stuff.

I like that whole back.

- Yeah, I had that one too.

- The Ed Harris was one of the FBI agents that was trying to get Tom Cruise to testify against the firm.

He's like, "Hey, you got to smuggle out documents.

We know these guys are crooked.

We just need some documents.

" And he's like, "If I give you documents, I'm gonna be disbarred.

" And then I'm gonna be in witness protection and then I'm gonna be exploded.

- Right.

- And Ed Harris is like, Tom Cruise is finally gonna do it.

But he's like, "Hey, here's what I need.

He's like, I want a million dollars.

" And it came in a Swiss bank account.

I want my brother at a prison.

- Right.

- And Ed Harris gets all mad and starts yelling, You can't tell me what to do.

I'm an FBI agent.

I could beat the shit out of you.

No one would even know and did and Tom Cruise is recording him and Holly Hunter's helping out.

Yeah, I was freaking awesome.

Yeah, it was way good.

I got that I got that scene as well.

Yeah, that was a good scene That to me was how like hey, he's pretty resourceful and he was getting stuff done I like it.

Yeah, totally and the third one I had as the one you already talked about Which is the interview scene like really in the first five minutes in the movie.

Yeah, when he's Tom Cruise Mitch McDeer is going through interviews getting out of Harvard Law School, he's gonna be top five in the class.

Everyone wants to throw money at him.

And the firm, Bendini, Lambert, and Locke, and at this Tennessee, they go, they sit him down, they offer him an envelope, and they, he goes, everything in there, bonus structure, pay, and he goes, should I open it now.

And like the oldest, whitest-haired firm guy, is like, yeah, you can open it now.

He's like, but I would think that a lawyer of your caliber wouldn't need to open it to tell us what's inside the envelope.

Nice.

And so he starts like question him.

He's like, did you put the offer together.

And he's like, what were your instructions.

And he's like, did you follow them to the letter.

And he's, and the guy's like, yep, he said that we need to make you an offer.

We don't want to lose you.

And to just, it's like, right, so what'd you do.

Is it 'cause I bribed the clerk to tell me what your other offers had been.

And then I added 20% to that highest one.

- Yeah.

And the whole time they're sitting in like this, it's overly opulent room with like, a chair that's built for, that you put in the 4.

0.

Have a really big mansion in case you have a gentleman collar and he has to wait for your dog.

- Yeah, the chair had like wooden legs and like wooden arms, been like like a floral like cushion, like looked really uncomfortable.

Like because of my grandma's house, I wouldn't be allowed to sit on it, but I wouldn't want to sit on it anyway.

And like the legs were probably carved into like a lion's feet.

Like that type of chair.

- Yeah, I like the lion's feet.

- There's an egg for that, but I don't know what it is.

If it's not broke, don't fix it.

(laughing) - I believe your kids don't end to that.

What's wrong with him.

(laughing) - But yeah, but then he takes the envelope home and he's like celebrating with his wife and he still hasn't opened it.

- Yeah, 'cause he knows.

- Which he just loved.

I love that touch.

And he said that at $96,000.

- $93,000.

- No, $96,000.

- Yeah.

- Which is $193 now.

Just like the $750,000 is like $1.

8 million.

- Yeah, although in the book, it was $2 million and not $1.

5 million.

- Nice.

- I thought you was.

- Yes, inflation has basically doubled that money.

- That's pretty crazy.

The inflation hasn't doubled my money.

- No, it definitely hasn't doubled my money there.

But yeah, that's it for, I got three scenes.

You got just the one.

- I mean, the scenes you said also stuck out to me because I remember them.

- Man, I had a hard time, honestly.

I'm like, what, I mean, the end of the movie, the last, you know, like the last kind of, maybe 15 or 20 minutes, it starts to pick up speed again as they're tying up loosens.

- Right.

- But that's not one scene.

There's like, there's a group that's in the Caymans.

He's at the frickin' firm and he's also in the new office that he rented.

- Jumping back before us.

- Yeah.

- Chasing, like I can't really count that.

That's like a whole sequence of the movie, but I like to that part.

- Yeah.

- There's the really weird chase scene where he's on a frickin' monorail or something.

- Yeah, like the gondola.

- Yeah, yeah, yeah.

- Yeah, gondola.

- And the dude's like running on foot with it.

- Yeah, 'cause what I do is when I get to the end of the movie, if I don't have anything written down for scenes, I just think back, like what's the parts.

If I just think of the movie, like what's the first stuff that jumps out.

- Right.

- And that's where I got my scene from.

- What about the part where he's like doing the Jackie Chan up on the thing and his sweats dripping down on the ground.

- Oh yeah, that's a good one.

Like at the very end, when Wilford Brimley's - Heading on top of the sprinkler pipe.

- Yeah, yeah.

- Wilford Brimley and you know the other guy is.

- Um, no.

- Jigsaw from the song movies.

- Oh nice, yeah.

- Yeah, that guy's name is Tobin Bell.

- Holy hell, yeah, that is him.

That guy's a weirdo.

- Super weird.

- Very weird.

- I like him.

- Quotes, and the quote that he had from the FBI, where he's talking to Ed Harris and the FBI guy on the park bench was good, but I didn't, again, I did not write it down.

- Yeah.

- So I kind of didn't do my job there.

- No.

- What do you got.

- I have two quotes.

One is where Ed Harris and Tom Cruise are talking and it's after everything's all done and Ed Harris meets up with him and he walks, like Tom Cruise is like, "I got mine, you get the rest of them.

" He's like, "Get him with what.

Overbilling male fraud.

" Oh, that's exciting.

And then that's when Tom Cruise is like, shows like how well he did on the bar and stuff like that.

He's like, it's not sexy, but it's got tea.

$10,000 in five years in prison, that's 10 and five for each act.

Have you really looked at that.

Talking about the folder that he gave him.

He's like, you have every partner in the firm on over billing, that's 250 acts of documented mail fraud there.

That's racketeering, that's a minimum, 1,250 years in prison, and a half million dollar in fines.

That's more than you had on Capone.

I was like, ooh, he knows all this stuff.

That's pretty awesome.

- Yeah.

And now it's a good scene too, because I mean, it's a little weird that this, the FBI guy who's been trying to get the firm doesn't understand that he's just been handed a bunch of mail fraud enough to make it a rico indictment.

Right, right.

But yeah, but I like the cruise, because that's one thing that the book versus the movie crowd was actually like in the book, he goes from this really smart lawyer to like pretty soon he's actually Tom Cruise, he's jumping out of helicopters and shit.

And one thing the movie did well is that he was a smart lawyer in the beginning and he He ended up getting out of this situation with the firm by being a smart lawyer.

He didn't do it by kick and asses.

He didn't learn how to shoot people.

He just was like, he figured out how to like, he was just like a crafty lawyer and he got his way out.

Like I liked that part of the, how they wrapped this up.

And just I wish we could have gotten there a little bit sooner, like 45 minutes or so.

- Yeah, start playing them off halfway through.

(laughing) The other thing is, when I reloaded Stain, finally gets his boat and he's standing there looking at Halle Hunter.

And he's like, I love your crooked little mouth.

And she's like laughing.

She's like, well, that's not my best feature.

He's like, wow, what is.

I don't know what it was about the way he delivered that.

'Cause this character is different from every character I remember him playing.

- Yeah, I thought he did it.

- 'Cause he's Aura Loonsteen and, and Aliega Theron, he's Frickin, Whistler and Sneaker.

- Yeah, Whistler.

- That's what I'm saying, I do.

David's, David Strathtern, I love that guy, but this was a really against type for him.

And I liked it.

but I thought he did a good job.

Like I liked the way he played it.

- He's great.

My first character is Gene Hackman.

- I have Gene Hackman on there.

Avery Tollar.

That wasn't a very good work though.

It was something else in the book I feel like.

- It might have been something else in the book.

I think it was actually.

He's, he's Mitch's mentor at the firm.

He's Tom Cruise's mentor, dude.

He's just, he's always a delight.

He plays like a classic scoundrel in this movie, but he's totally believable.

Like he's clearly a scumbag.

Like he's in the Caribbean, like just sleeping with prostitutes.

He's like, defraught in his clients.

He's crooked as hell.

But he's also like, he's like funny.

And he's like, yeah, the firm frowns on drinking.

And then he has like orders of freaking martini.

He's like, I can do whatever I want that.

Yeah, or whatever he says.

I'm allowed one or something like that.

Yeah.

Dude, again, what's not to love about Gene Hackman.

I know.

And I know we're past in '93, we're past like peak Gene Hackman, but still when he's popping up in movies, I'm so happy.

And he's, I just love watching it more.

I, I really like it.

I did read a little blurb about him and Tom Cruise, though.

Hackman's contract called for his name to come before the title in all the promotional materials.

- Yeah.

- Tom Cruise's contract called for his name and his name only to come before the title in all the promotional materials.

So Hackman opted to leave his name off of it, making his presence a surprise to most audiences.

And by the way, his name comes after Tom Cruise's but before the title.

- That's awesome, man.

- Just, I love stuff like that, the like contractual stuff about whose name comes where on the movies and in the poster and then you have to work it out.

- I like it when they show the poster and there's like three people on the poster and they're standing there like, guiding the middle's cross in the arms, the other guys like hold their bat and the other guys like holding the gun.

And the names don't match up because the names are in there 'cause they're contractually obligated to put them in.

- Right, yeah, so the name is not over the right person.

- Right, right, right.

- Yeah, and dude, looking at the Gene Hackmovie's, we're gonna get to do, like we got Little Bill Daggett, Sheriff Little Bill Daggett, and then, forgiving we got him there.

We get him in the firm.

Next year, we got Wyatt Earp, and the quicken, no, and then 95, the quicken the dead, from Sentai, get Shorty.

- That's my jam.

- Quicken the dead.

- 96, the bird cage.

Like, 98, enemy the state.

Like, we got some good Gene Hackman stuff still coming, even though he's kind of on the downhill side of things as far as his career arc goes.

We're gonna get some really good Gene Hackman movies.

Dude, in a state it was really good.

Under suspicion, has Morgan Freeman, and I bought it in the 550 beds, it's in the year 2000.

It's way good, we should do that one.

Yeah, well, talk to me in that 2030 about that.

Yeah, yeah.

We'll definitely do replacements in the year 2000, and what she's also in.

Oh, man.

We could talk again about Keanu's football skills.

Keanu quarterback.

By that time we might be able to get Keanu to come talk to us and we'll have to be nice to him.

- No, because he's awesome.

- He's gonna be dead.

No, dude.

Keanu's gonna outlive me and you both easily.

Yeah, he will.

He's not.

That's seven years from now.

Keanu's gonna still look like he could be in Bill and Ted's and me and you are gonna be dead.

It's so weird that 20, 30 is seven years from now.

[laughs] Yeah, it's so weird that if you made Days in Confused now, it'd be set for graduating, people graduating in 2006.

Yeah.

Whenever that stat was from last the last episode Jesus ridiculous.

All right, who's your care.

Who's your next.

I had Gene Hackman.

I also had Wilford Brimley.

He's the main hitman, but they have the full-blown diabetes.

I, every time I looked at him, I thought two things.

Diabetes and the natural dude.

He plays the manager on the natural with my favorite actor Robert - Or a reference.

- Yeah.

- And I don't know, dude, I just really like that movie.

And it's not even a really good movie for bass, it's not even a good baseball movie.

- No, it's not.

- But it's a good movie though.

- Yeah, I liked it.

And now that I've watched it, now that I'm older, I get more references and I understand more about what it is, but he played freaking popfisher on "Natural" and I really, really liked it.

- He's good, he's good in this.

I mean, this movie was, again, how did it completely disappear with everyone being good and doing a good job.

Every time I was like, "Oh, dude, well for Brimley, that's awesome.

He's in this.

" Gary Bucy is in the movie for 15 minutes.

That's awesome.

This is my question.

Do you think it's one of those things where it's like, "Oh snap, it's so hard to figure out what's going on.

" And I was a little confused.

Nobody wants to say that they didn't get it.

So they just been like, oh yeah, that was good.

Let's never talk about it again.

So every time somebody brings it up, they just change the subject because they don't want to be found out that they didn't know what was going on.

- I don't know, man.

I don't think you can make $270 million on a $42 million budget if it's not good enough for people to leave and then talk about it.

- No, I'm with ya.

I mean, maybe to show that they're smart, they were like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

I saw that, it was really good.

Really good.

Tom Cruise in it.

And he does the thing.

It's just weird for me, 'cause I mean, maybe this was like a groundbreaking genre movie and now we've seen a bunch of these.

But when you left Avatar, you go, God, you gotta freaking see Avatar.

- Right.

- Wendy and I went and saw Air this week and I text you and we left, like you gotta go see Air.

It's freaking awesome.

It's funny, the soundtrack is incredible, it's super interesting, everyone's great.

I can't imagine leaving the theater after seeing this and being like, you gotta see the firm.

- So, it's good, it's fine.

Did all right.

Did okay.

That's fine.

So I clicked on legal thriller and it has like 1959 anatomy of a murder.

And then the next one jumps to jagged edge in 1985.

There's a few good men in '92, the firm, the Pelican brief, Philadelphia, a time to kill, devil's advocate, the rain maker, Aaron Brockovich, Runaway Jerry, Michael Clayton, stuff like that.

- Yeah, and the least favorite movies on that list that you just read are the ones that are Grisham adaptations.

That's what I'm just kidding.

- Yeah, and that's what I'm just kidding.

- That's what I'm just kidding.

- That's what I'm just kidding.

- That's what I'm just kidding.

- Yeah, and the least favorite movies on that list that you just read are the ones that are Grisham adaptations.

That's what I'm just kidding.

- Yeah, and that's what I'm just kidding.

- That's what I'm just kidding.

- That's what I'm just kidding.

If you could count me in, yeah, absolutely.

Like Philadelphia, yes sir, I'm there.

I got this, but the Grisham adaptations, can do it when the year comes, but I'm saying like, I don't know how to, I can't spend like, we're already 40 minutes in, I don't know why this happened the way that it did.

I'm not mad.

- I'm not mad.

- I'm not mad with what's his name.

- Array.

- Macon A.

- Array, Array, Array, Array.

Yeah, dude, we can totally do that.

I don't think I know what to say.

- I like legal thrillers.

- Yeah.

- This one is confusing to me because I don't know why it did so well.

Like I'm not upset about it.

It's not like, Captain Ron, like, which did do well.

Like I just don't get it.

If you were in charge of all the money, you wouldn't have given it as much.

- I mean, I would have given it my amount of money, which I'm sure I did, I rented it, but it's just confusing that it did as well as it did, honestly.

- Yeah, I looked at the list, I own it, so I don't know, it's probably still in the plastic.

- Yep, so you got Hackman and Wilford Brimley, my second character is Cruz, just because I think he's, it's hard to do this movie with someone else in this role.

I mean, it probably would work, but he's just, duties like that maniacal intensity that he ends up being so well known for is like full display.

Like he's, like now we just know, like Tom Cruise is always turning it up to 11.

That's the thing that he does.

But I don't think we knew that in '93.

- Right, right, right.

- And you know, back to back, he's playing really smart lawyers.

So luckily he does not get typecasts.

He's able to break away from that and do other stuff.

- Right, do you think he's really smart.

- No, no, I don't think he's really smart at all.

But I think he's insanely driven.

- Yeah, so I always wonder that because I see like, not that Morgan Freeman's not smart.

He's probably way smarter than me.

He's older than me.

The point is, is when I see him talk on like, when he gets interviewed, they're talking to him like he is God or that he came up with all that stuff that he said about the universe, but he was just reading it for the TV show.

- No, I think Cruz is like, is an insane person.

As far as making movies that I enjoy, that's good.

And as far as being a human on the world that I'm on, that's not good.

- Yeah.

- But dude, like I heard Matt Damon talking about in the last couple of weeks on a podcast or something, I think he was like, "Oh, I was in London when he was doing Egypt tomorrow, and I'm friends with Emily Blunt, we all went out in a dinner, and he was telling me about an idea he had for an action sequence in a movie that he was gonna do.

" And he was like, "Yeah, I had this idea for this killer action sequence, and the safety guy said that I couldn't do it, so I got a new safety guy.

" - Oh, man.

- And so Damon was like, "Okay, that's why this guy is Tom Cruise, he's a maniac.

" Like if I was doing a born movie, I had an idea for a cool action sequence and the guy that the studio hired to keep me safe so that I couldn't do it, I would just go, well, that was a cool idea, it's too bad I couldn't do it.

But Tom Cruise is like, "F*** that, let me get a new safety guy.

" And so I find someone who will tell me I can do this thing.

- Yeah.

- That's just how he's wired, that's how he is.

- That's crazy to make.

- Yeah.

- He wants it and he goes and gets it.

Again, he is crazy.

And there's a lot of stuff that I don't agree with he does, but man, every time he starts running in a movie, I get excited.

Yeah, I'm trying to think, because this isn't the start of like I run in every movie, because he full on sprinted in this one, and I don't think he had to.

Like I wonder, what's first of all, his wife, do you know how to say her name.

Is it just Jean Triple Horn.

Yeah, I think so.

Okay.

Jean Triple Horn.

She almost made my list.

She did a really good job.

I didn't like her character, but she did a good job.

Right.

And she's been around forever, and she's always good.

- Right.

- But yeah, she sprints out of the house and he sprints her after and it's like a really long tracking shot of him sprinting like in a suit with spenders.

- Yeah.

- I feel like Tom Cruise really asked for that.

- Yeah.

- I feel like he went to Sydney, Paul, I was like, "You know what would be great "as if we sprinted even further "because I'm good at running.

" (laughing) - Is he though.

Do you feel like he's good.

- Not really.

I don't think he's good at running but I think he thinks he's good at running.

I think it's important to him that he runs a lot.

I'm not gonna lie, he's like whatever 60 something now.

I'm 40 something.

If I try to sprint, all my shit would explode.

- Ankle's knees, hips, growing hamstrings, they would all go immediately.

So props to Tom Cruise.

- Let's see.

There's a whole, dude, there is an entire website called It's a Stampede.

com, which is Tom Cruise running movies in order.

- All right.

- Wow.

- Not enough theater written in a universe for that.

- I kinda wanna know though, which one that he runs in first.

- What's the first movie on that list on that website.

- I already closed it off 'cause she said about the adieu in cyclist.

So don't worry about it.

- Yeah, I'm going back in my head.

I'm like, did he sprint in risky business.

I don't think he did.

I don't think he did and born on the 4th of July.

I'm sure he did and what's the Reven's race in.

- Days of Thunder.

- Days of Thunder.

- Yeah, he definitely runs in that.

- He definitely runs in the end.

- And that's 1990.

So I think he does.

- Yeah, he runs.

- Yeah, he runs to get his land.

I think that's, I think, days of Thunder might have been the first one, 1990.

- Well, you know what I'll have.

By the next time we do a Tom Cruise movie, is a list of all of his movies that he runs in.

- That's good 'cause we're gonna do plenty of Tom Cruise movies.

Anyway, who's your next character.

- I have Tom Cruise, Jean Hackman and Wilford Brimley, so that's all three.

- Nice, Holly Hunter's the third for me.

- She's great.

- She's such a good actor.

This is such a random part, but she, I thought she did a lot with a little, It wasn't like that was an amazing part, but she just is so delightful.

- Yeah, she was on, she had 20 scenes and she was on the screen for an average of 18 seconds per scene for a total of five minutes and 59 seconds.

- Yeah, like she wasn't, she wasn't, I mean, she played an important role in the movie, but she's just so good that I was like, "Cat, she's awesome.

"I'm just so happy she's here.

" I mean, like, I gotta leave out Jean Triporn, who's really good.

I gotta leave out Ed Harris, who's really good.

I gotta leave out David Strathen, really good.

I got to leave out Wilford Brimley.

I got to leave out Gary Bucy, Paul Sorvino, as the Bob guy.

Like there's, yeah, from good fellows.

There's a bunch of good people in this movie, but Holly Hunter.

I love Holly.

- Even Jelly was in it.

You want a fresh one.

- Was Doc's Chrome.

I can see my reflection.

- Doc, I can't get it up.

You mean sexually.

No, for the big game against Michigan.

Yes, sexually.

- I analyzed this.

I think that's in the late '90s too.

We should definitely do that.

- That would.

- All right, writers, directors, kind of bonus good stuff.

I got Sydney Pollock as the director.

- Yeah.

- Oscar winner, best director and best picture for 1985 out of Africa.

Starring Merrill Streep and Jeff, do you have anyone else who started that.

- I don't know, Robert Redford.

- Robert Redford.

- Yeah.

- Pollock also directed in the early 80s, Jeremiah Johnson and three days of the condor.

Both also starring, Jeff, you want to guess.

- Very good, Robert Redford.

- Robert Redford.

- Yeah.

(laughs) - Goodie Pollock.

- Goodie Pollock, great director.

Oscar winner, works with the same people like the same cinematographers and the same, yeah, Tutsi, same editors, same composers, the same actors over and over again.

Yeah, yeah.

I seriously didn't realize he was a director.

Yeah.

I thought he was an actor.

I remembered him from the random things he was in.

He's been in a couple of random things as an actor.

I always get him confused with both Sydney Poichier and Jackson Pollock.

So he's the bachelor, love child of the both of them.

He's the secret third person between those two and the Venn diagram.

But yeah, but he's great.

He's a great director.

He's gonna do, we'll do some more Sydney Pollock.

Yeah, sure.

I think, looking at his list, I'm like, oh, he's got some stuff on there that we're gonna do.

And he also, he produced some stuff that we also really like.

Like executive producer, talented Mr.

Ripley.

Nice.

Sliding doors.

Oh, that was a good one.

Yes, it was, Michael Clayton.

Yeah, so, and then as a director, Actually, he's not directing a ton after this.

- Yeah.

- We may not do another movie of his that he directs, but we'll definitely do some stuff he produced.

- Writers, there was two guys, David Rafe and David Rafe, Rafe Hill.

I didn't recognize anything else they did.

- Yeah, David Rae, Robert Town, David Rafe Hill.

One of those guys works kind of just with Sydney Pollock, so I feel sure he kind of was brought in to do a little script, "Doctoring.

" - Yeah.

Robert Town did some stuff that I recognize, though.

He's uncredited for writing on the Godfather Bonnie and Clyde, Chinatown, Heaven and Weight, did Days of Thunder with Cold Trickle.

Mission Impossible, one and two, and Crimson died.

Robert Towne is the most like accredited of all of those guys as far as that goes.

Unless you count John Grisham, and he's been on the New York Times bestseller 47 weeks, 42 weeks, whatever you said.

A lot.

A lot of weeks.

That's just rid of this book.

consecutive number one sellers.

- Wow.

He has a whole bunch of them that made movies, though, time to kill the firm, the chamber, the client, a painting house, Pelican brief rain maker, runaway jury and skipping Christmas.

- He's doing okay, he's doing fine for himself.

- Probably, he's probably doing okay.

- The composer, Dave Gerson, jazz composer, film composer, he's got Grammys and Oscars.

The score is basically only piano, nothing else.

And there, again, there's parts of it that I really liked, and there's parts of it I was like, that's way too loud.

- Yeah.

but I think part of it's just that this movie's too long and there's not a lot of action happening.

Like it's literally a steady shot of Tom Cruise riding a freaking gondola.

What are you supposed to do there except have some music playing to make that interesting.

'Cause it isn't interesting.

- Can you keep flipping back to freaking Jigsaw running on the side.

- Yeah, gotta go back to Jigsaw, who's sprinting to, so I got, you know, I don't blame him and he got an Oscar nod for this music, which I guess, good for him.

- Good for him.

Dude, I'm not lying, the first 45 minutes, I wrote down, this score is awesome.

I really like the piano score.

And then an hour after that, when we still had 45 minutes to go, I was like, all right, I could take a less piano at this point.

- It's like when you go see a guy play music and all he has is the piano, so he's fancy it up and he's doing all, he's like beating on the side of it and plucking the strings with his fingers.

- Yeah, or it's like he goes see Cara top and you're like, "Ah, this guy's hilarious.

" And then an hour later, he just keeps pulling stuff out of his trunk and then saying what it is, that's the whole thing.

That's all there is.

- I like that.

You know how I feel about Carrot Top.

- I do too.

I went and saw Carrot Top.

I don't know.

When was that that he came to Southeast.

- That was so good too.

- I was in my high school or maybe in my early 20s.

It was great.

It was hilarious.

- That was way before he started like lifting and going like-- - Yeah, it was before he got all jacked and we were looking.

- He definitely wasn't wearing looking before.

- All right, he was wearing looking before.

Carrot Top by the way is worth like $75 million.

So anytime someone rips Carrot Top, I also like to point out like, If you list the comics who are really loaded, you're talking about like Seinfeld and Sheppell before you name Cara Topp.

You don't get very far down the list.

That dude has crushed it.

- He's doing a great thing, that's why.

It's super funny.

- And everyone loves to hate on prop comics, including me.

But anyway, let's go into the worst.

I already said my first worst.

Why is this guy smart enough to graduate top five at his law firm not to listen to his wife when she says that she gets a weird vibe.

- It's not even not listening to his wife.

Is he just blinded by the money.

Like, can't you see that there's some kind of nefarious stuff going on.

Like, maybe I'm a cynical person, but if someone tries to be nice to me for no reason, I'm immediately like, you can't have any of my money.

I'm not buying it.

I don't want to.

I don't care what you're giving me for free.

I don't, I'm not interested.

- Yeah, I can see that a lot.

I haven't you ever tried this before.

It's gonna make you feel rejuvenated and your skin's gonna look beautiful.

All you gotta do is sleep on this pillowcase and I'll give you the first one for free.

(laughs) - Dude, I went to Team Noble to get a new cell phone, to get a new number added to our cell phone plan for like, nanny.

- Yeah.

- And I was like, "Hey man, we just need to add a line to the plan.

" He's like, "Oh, cool.

" He's like, "Have you heard about our new.

" And I was like, "Dude, I don't wanna hear about the new.

" Whatever, I don't care.

And to please don't, he's like, "Yeah, do you do any, like, streaming home, do you do Netflix or anything.

" I was like, "Dude, I'm not buying anything other than I want an extra line added to the plan.

" - Right.

I don't want to hear about the new things that you guys have.

Like I don't care about whatever deals to your bundling.

Like just, I know you have to, but like, I'm telling you, just skip it.

I just want the one thing.

- You don't need a brand new I-14, I found 14 pro.

- Yeah, that I can finance for four years.

- Right.

- Like I don't blame the kid, 'cause like he's making no money and he has to do that or he gets yelled at.

- Right.

- But I was like, just skip to the end of that and then just go where I hand you money and you give me the extra SIM card.

- Dude, there's a lot of people that don't want to take your money.

Other worst is that they take Tom Cruise down to the Cayman Islands, like they do a bunch of banking down the Caymans.

He goes with Gene Hackman and they're on the beach and like some Caribbean prostitutes hitting on him in the bar and he's like, "Hey, it's not happening.

" And then he leaves and he stumbles across some kind of altercation with a guy who's like beating his woman and he breaks him up and then the woman's like, sprained her ankle and so he's gonna like tear off a part of a shirt and wrap it around her ankle or something.

- Yeah.

- I mean, I've taken first aid a bunch of times I never learned that move.

But then he ends up hookin' up with that girl that he saved, and then the firm takes pictures of him, and will for Brimley's like, "Hey, I found these pictures.

"You should be really careful, "because the FBI could use those to blackmail you.

" - He had to back them.

- I got your back though.

- Right.

- And I'm like, "Okay, so also, how does a guy this smart "get literally taken in by the honey pot.

" That's one of the oldest maneuvers that there is.

- And she was cute, I guess, but not that hot.

- Well, I mean, it's not even about that.

It's like his firm was clearly like, "We're gonna take the young guy down to the freaking Cayman's, "get him loaded on rum drinks, and then have someone have sex with him, and then take pictures of him, and then use that to blackmail him.

Like that's literally the, that's the honey pot.

That's why he oldest tricks in the book.

- Right.

- Yeah, all those are worse scenes.

Dude, I don't even write down any worse scenes.

It's the same problem I have with the main scenes.

Like I couldn't remember any of them.

So like-- - It wasn't that that was worse.

It was just like, if this guy's supposed to be so smart, he can take down this whole firm of mafia lawyers.

How is he not smart enough to know that they just did that to him.

- Right.

Why doesn't he immediately recognize those things.

It wasn't that was a bad scene.

Like, actually, I understand why the firm does that and why it works, but why didn't he recognize it.

If an idiot, like a me, recognizes it, why does not top five Harvard Law, Tom Cruise recognize it.

- Maybe you only recognize it 'cause there's this guy playing percussive piano over it, so you know you're supposed to feel a certain way.

- I definitely felt a certain way.

Worst effects, I didn't, there's not really a lot of effects in this movie, do you have anything.

- No, I didn't.

I had some old tech though.

- Well, yeah, shit loads that.

Go ahead.

- Everybody's using payphones, their fax and stuff back and forth.

He's typing on something called WestMate4.

02.

So I looked it up, that's not a real thing.

It was never a real thing.

It's just made for the movie, apparently.

- All their copy machines are like the size of rhinoceros is a freaking huge.

- Dude, the copy machines at school are like that.

They're like, look, if you gotta run copies, just go into the copy room and it's just literally a room that holds four machines and it takes up almost all the space.

- Everyone's smoking all the time.

Holly Hunter's smoking like Virginia Slim, 1000s like my grandmother used to.

They're like nine inches long.

- They're like tiny little coffee stars.

You can fall in one drag.

Yeah, people are like smoking inside and stuff.

It was weird.

At restaurants, like just smoking at the counter where they were eating.

But when my students realized there was used to be a smoking section in the restaurant and that it was right next to the non-smoking section.

They lost their minds.

They were like, "What do you mean.

" I was like, "No, just literally, "on the other side of a half wall was the smoking section.

" - Yeah, the smoking section and the non-smoking section were separated by air, basically.

So there was nothing to keep the smoke from going all over the restaurant.

And it was before our day, but like, dude, planes are still built with like, actually on them.

- Yeah.

- I mean, not the new ones, but like a lot of planes that are still in service, especially in our lives as we were flying.

People would just be like, just freaking lighten up in planes, like in a sealed tube, like sailing through the earth's atmosphere while people are smoking all around you.

- It's funny you mentioned that 'cause while I was on HBO Max, I came across the goods.

- Yeah.

- Do you remember that movie.

- No.

- It has Jeremy Piven in it, and he's a car salesman.

And it's got Ving Rames in it, And there's a part in there where he wants to smoke on the plane and the girl tells him he can't.

And he points at the ass trays like, "Honey, don't you realize back when everything was good.

" 'Cause the whole idea is he can talk his way into any situation.

- Yeah.

- And he talks his way into smoking on the plane.

- If you tell me that your pitch is Jeremy Piven as a car salesman, I mean, 'cause that sounds amazing.

- I thought it was gonna be way funnier than it was, but it was still pretty funny.

Neil Brennan is the guy who directed it.

- Thanks.

- The guy that I got.

- That does all that stuff we should fill.

Do you have any more worst.

- No, I don't.

- Five questions.

Is it okay for kids.

No, it's rated R.

- Yeah, it's rated R, but dude, so I don't think I said 13 was my age that I said would be okay for 13 or 14, but there wouldn't be into this.

They would halfway through, they'd be like, "What the hell's going on.

" Turn this off.

- Well, that's what I'm saying.

Like, there wasn't really any nudity.

There was like one or two shootouts that weren't even very bloody.

- Right.

- There wasn't a lot of swear, it's not like a kid couldn't watch this movie, but I don't know why they would want to.

- Right, that's what I'm saying.

- I mean, I watched this when I was this age.

Maybe I probably was one of those people like you were talking about who didn't really get it, but was telling people it was really good.

- Oh yeah, I saw it.

It was really good.

- 'Cause I don't get it as an adult, so I don't know how it was like 13-year-old older.

- No, Tom Cruise did the thing.

It's on the beach and he's got-- - He ran, he had suspenders on.

- It's great.

- With the briefcase and stuff.

- It's very firm.

- Would this movie get made if it were pitched now.

I mean-- - Probably.

- Yeah, who pitches it.

It's not very expensive.

- Yeah.

- It's not very interesting, but yeah, they still make plenty of legal thrillers and people still go see 'em.

So I don't know how you sell them.

- TV show, I'm sure.

- How do you sell this.

All right, so it's a whole firm full of tax lawyers from Memphis.

- You just say John Grisham and they go, sold.

- Oh geez.

- Well, dude, the story about how this script got optioned is actually crazy because he'd written a time to kill, which didn't do very well.

He just got in at a law school and he said, I'd give it another half or many months and then I'm just gonna go get a job.

And the day he finished the time to kill, he started writing the firm.

And then when the firm was not quite done, like he had an early draft of the manuscript, he sent it to his agent.

And his agent was like, this is great, keep working on it.

And his agent shopped it to some studios.

And before the manuscript was even done, the studios were already bidding on it.

- That's crazy.

- So it was pretty clear before he was even done with the book that like, oh, this one's gonna do really well.

And we're gonna throw money at you.

I think it was like $600,000 to option it before it was even published.

- So yeah, I could get pitched.

It could get done again if it was pitched.

- I think, yeah, as a TV show, I think, right.

- Sure.

- I mean, the movie was a lot more successful than the TV show, but it just seems like the sort of thing that would be better is like episodic television.

- So I would definitely say a TV show.

Did you find a lead.

- I was thinking, I feel like this kid, if you were gonna redo this as a movie, I could see it being like a star vehicle for somebody like Tom Holland or Timothy Shalame, like somebody who's like almost leading man, but not quite, but wants to show that he's intense and he can run while wearing a suit.

- Right.

- Kind of thing.

- Yeah, yeah.

- And I'm sure there are other people in that same kind of class, but those are the first two that I thought of.

- I, yeah.

- Like Miles Teller is another one, like a kind of young, like leading man type of guy.

- I wanna-- - You'd be cool to do it.

Now when they reduce stuff like high fidelity, they'd redo it and they have a female lead instead of a male's it.

- That's better to put like a female in there.

- Dude, this one was supposed to be a female in the movie.

That's how Sydney Pollock wanted to do it.

- Oh nice.

- It was gonna be Meryl Streep that played it, but then they nixed that, which is why Gene Hackman and Tom Cruise's relationship seems really weird in the beginning.

- Right.

- It's like a bromance, it's because of that.

- The person I picked is Dillon O'Brien.

I think I picked him for something else once before, but I like that dude.

He's the guy from like Maze Runner and like, I like that guy.

There's a movie, something American assassin or.

Yeah, American assassin.

I really liked him in that movie.

Yeah, he's 31.

I feel like he could.

31, see.

That's the thing.

Tom Cruise is 60 now.

Yeah, he is.

He's 60.

So he was 30.

He played it.

So this is perfect.

Definitely.

I'll write it.

Final answer.

Done and done.

Done and done.

Can you still watch and enjoy this movie in 2023.

6.

5 out of 10 I can.

- 6.

5 out of 10, yeah same.

I can definitely watch the first third.

- Yeah.

- If I had more time I would try to do like, 'cause I wanna, like this movie did really well, I'd like to do more like, how do I fix this.

I just, I didn't have the freaking movie took so long.

'Cause I got so much other stuff going on plus it's the playoffs right now.

I would have liked to have spent some time thinking about how I could have fixed this.

Like the first third I liked, in the last 20 minutes was good.

That means there's an like an hour 15 in the middle, I gotta somehow either get rid of or tighten away.

- Yeah, and you're always really good at going through and being like, yeah, we just didn't even need this character, that would have been fine to get rid of them.

- Dude, I just do the David Ryan Harris music producing philosophy.

You just take out everything that you don't have to leave in.

- Right.

- That's a good one.

- Everything that's not mandatory, you just get rid of.

- That's a good way to do it.

- Cool.

- So what's the next movie.

- The Sandlot.

- Sandlot.

Bad ass.

- Yeah, we're gonna try to get, see if we can get one of the actors coming to our shows.

I don't know how much time we'll have, whether we'll be able to set that up.

We're gonna reach out to a couple of them and see if anybody wants to come talk to us about that movie.

It's being released on my anniversary.

Can't wait.

That's what we'll do.

For the, uh, we'll listen to our podcast.

My wife likes listening to us talk.

That'd be cool.

That'll be a good change for you to listen to the podcast.

I listen to it every time.

So, yeah, hopefully we'll have a guest.

We'll see if we can get that figured out, but if not, we'll have a movie that we really like.

And we're talking about that.

Really like.

If you like what we're doing and you want to support us, you can always go to our website, www.

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Support the artists.

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Or you can join our Discord.

Or you can just keep listening here.

We always really like that too.

Yeah, it's freaking great.

(laughs) Bye, Candias.

Bye, Candias.

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