Cruising (1980)

[00:00:03] Speaker A: Welcome, listener, to the return slot of homo erotic thrillers. No. [00:00:11] Speaker B: Looking good. [00:00:12] Speaker A: Thank you. I got my leathers on. Tonight, a podcast recorded in the basement of our video store. After hours, when the doors are locked, the vhss are rewound, and the moon is glowing pale blue on a brisk and breezy night, we'd like to hang out in the basement, light a scented candle, crack open a drink, and discuss our beloved genre, horror. Every episode, we invite you to join us for a frosty libation as we discuss a film selected from one of our painstakingly curated subsections of the video store. That's right, for the uninitiated, or anyone unlucky enough to have grown up without an independent video store. Mickey, can you elaborate on this? [00:00:50] Speaker B: Of course. Thank you for asking. Back in the day, before there was streaming and even before Blockbuster, there were these independent video stores. And to appease the appetites of movie nerds like myself and Michelangelo, they would fill their shelves with anything they could possibly get their hands on. My personal favorite were those video nasties. These mom and pop shops were responsible for taking the horror genre from limited theater runs and late night drive ins to every rural suburb, east West Village in America. But what really made these video stores special were the people working in the store, curating personalized sections based on their interests and the interests of their patrons. Recommendations based on conversations, not fucking algorithms. So here at the return slot, we keep that spirit alive and strong. We hope you enjoy perusing our sections or cruising our sections and joining in our conversations. [00:01:44] Speaker A: This week, we find ourselves in the true bromance section of the video store, also more popular amongst the employees of the store, the bromancing the bone section. [00:01:55] Speaker B: Bromancing the bone. [00:01:58] Speaker A: Now, before we jump into things, I am going to warn the Linzener. This is a hangout and drink and talk with Friends podcast. It's really about us and how we see ourselves reflected in these horror films, what they say about our lives, our relationships, and how we can better understand ourselves through these films. So if you're not into that, I. [00:02:23] Speaker B: Don'T know if you're going to. [00:02:26] Speaker A: Tonight especially. Oh, man, tonight's going to be. [00:02:29] Speaker B: Man. [00:02:29] Speaker A: I'm going to do my best tonight to not go off the deep end too much. Okay? But I will say tonight is. I don't know if you. Hold on. I'm going to let the boys see me in full. Please describe what you see. [00:02:50] Speaker B: All right, well, you're pantsless. You're absolutely pantsless. And you have on a leather jacket. It and a nice dark gray deep v looking very. You're so strikingly. For those who don't know our listeners, Michelangelo looks like a young. Oh, thank you, man. [00:03:14] Speaker A: Fuck you, Chris. Mickey, keep talking. [00:03:17] Speaker B: He looks like a mixture of, like, sly when. Sly stallone when he was in his best shape and young Al Pacino. [00:03:26] Speaker A: You've got the sensitivity. [00:03:30] Speaker C: I don't care. I will interrupt it. [00:03:32] Speaker A: Horse shit. [00:03:33] Speaker B: The sensitive eyes of an al Pacino. But the nice solid chin and nice shoulders of, we'll say a rocky three sliced is. [00:03:47] Speaker A: This is. Oh, my gosh. This is the best episode we've ever done, I think. [00:03:53] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:03:53] Speaker A: Tonight is leather and boxer briefs night. I invite you guys to put on a leather coat. I brought you guys leather coats. They're not wonderful looking, but that's what you get secondhand. And we got some boots. Take off the pants. We'll do the boots. And also, I have our Halloween group costume for next year. [00:04:15] Speaker B: This movie. [00:04:16] Speaker A: This movie from this movie, for sure, which we'll get to that in just a moment. But tonight we are joined by dentist enthusiast Chris. Chris, thank you for joining us. [00:04:28] Speaker B: Again. [00:04:29] Speaker A: This, please can you explain to maybe Mickey and the listener and like myself, we started a little late tonight because you just had to have this wonderful experience today with the dentist. [00:04:43] Speaker C: Well, so I was out of town, and I flew in about a day and a half ago. [00:04:50] Speaker A: Out of the country. The man was out of the country. [00:04:53] Speaker C: And when I was flying back, thankfully, I started to feel this when I was coming back into the country. But whenever I was flying into the country, I started getting, man, I'm getting some horrible shooting pains in my jaw. And so I got an emergency dentist appointment this morning, and they're like, oh, you need to go see an endontist. Endodentist. [00:05:11] Speaker B: Whatever. [00:05:12] Speaker C: And so I saw it this afternoon. He's like, oh, we're going to dig into that tooth, and we're going to give you old root canal. [00:05:19] Speaker A: Fresh off. [00:05:20] Speaker C: Root canal is for you all. I'm fresh off it. I can barely feel half of my face. Did I give you any pain? Weird. Oh, yeah. [00:05:35] Speaker A: That'S going to go good with the cocktail. Great. What a trooper. Chris, thank you for joining us in the basement. Despite traveling, world traveling, country traveling. You're all over the place. You have the dentist, and you make the time to be in the basement. Thank you. [00:05:55] Speaker C: I had to be here to partake in our shared history. [00:06:00] Speaker A: We'll get to that. We'll get to that. That's my job. Saying the name of the film. [00:06:06] Speaker C: Sir. Now, last time I said, I don't know if I can say this yet. You're like, they're going to know. [00:06:13] Speaker A: And now if I say it, you're. [00:06:15] Speaker C: Going to yell at me. [00:06:15] Speaker A: I can't fucking win with it. No, you can't. You were interrupting Mickey when he was saying some really nice things about me that were very truthful. [00:06:26] Speaker C: You look like modern day Al Pacino. [00:06:29] Speaker A: Doing Dunkin donuts commercials. [00:06:33] Speaker C: Talking about donkeys or whatever he does anymore on Instagram. [00:06:38] Speaker A: That's Schwarzenegger is with the donkeys. So before we get to the film tonight, I got to ask, boys, what are we having down in the dungeon tonight? That's what we're calling the basement this evening. Chris, did you prepare a spooky cocktail mixed with some sort of hydrocodine or something? [00:07:03] Speaker C: You go see your local and get his painkillers. Well, I'm not currently sipping on a cocktail. However, I did plan one. And so I will review my little cocktail that I have to call, of course, a giant black man in a cowboy hat and a jock strap. [00:07:23] Speaker A: That, of course, is the name of it. [00:07:26] Speaker C: You go into your local bar and you say, excuse me, sir, I'd like a black man, cowboy hat and a jockstrap. And you see what happens. [00:07:36] Speaker A: We're going to have to cut all of this. [00:07:41] Speaker B: Just continue, Chris. Continue. [00:07:43] Speaker C: And it's a little play on, actually, a popular cocktail from the 70s called the golden cadillac. [00:07:50] Speaker A: Do you need a yellow handkerchief in your right front pocket for this? [00:07:55] Speaker C: Yeah, but you can't be into just watching, or else you're going to get. You want to drink it, you can't. [00:08:01] Speaker A: Want to watch it. Okay, got you. [00:08:04] Speaker C: It's an ounce of a dutch cacao white creme de cow. That's a chocolate liqueur, a half ounce of galliano, a popular liqueur from the orange juice, an ounce of vodka, and an ounce of heavy cream. Incorporate, serve on ice. [00:08:24] Speaker A: That sounds delicious. [00:08:26] Speaker B: I wish. It's going to punch you right in the face. [00:08:31] Speaker A: It sounds like a hefty slap to me. A hefty slap to the mouth slap. That might as well be a punch. It's like his slap is, like, the hardest punch that I could ever throw. Yeah, not even. [00:08:46] Speaker B: Probably, no. [00:08:49] Speaker A: Mickey, what are you having? [00:08:51] Speaker B: What's going to loosen you up and. [00:08:53] Speaker A: Get you ready for this evening? [00:08:54] Speaker B: I actually went really local. I mean, for me, it's like, I thought, if I'm going to get a drink for this one, I'm going to go to a place that's local somewhere. I would go and hang out for a night. So I went down to my local brewery, inner groove. And I grabbed the bright eyes. They're hazy IPA made with mosaic and eclipse hops. And it's in a little town called Verona. I always like to say my fair Verona. And so that's what I'm taking down. [00:09:23] Speaker A: Am having also, I went local. I went down to the pond shop and bought some anal nitrate. And I'm just going to be huffing on that a little bit. [00:09:30] Speaker B: Right? [00:09:31] Speaker A: It's anal nitrate, right? Is that like hoppers? Is that what it's called? [00:09:36] Speaker B: Anal nitrate. [00:09:38] Speaker C: Anal, right. [00:09:39] Speaker B: Anal. Yeah. I think you said anal nitrate. [00:09:42] Speaker A: Yeah, I said anal for sure. Okay, get to the point. That's what you're using for. Yeah, I get where your butthole. [00:09:49] Speaker C: So what I said was bad, but this is all cool. [00:09:53] Speaker A: Fine. I'm just talking about opening up your butthole. Okay. So on top of huffing a little bit of that, I also went to my local brewery, single cut for a frequency lager. Because I don't want to get too drunk tonight. I want to feel everything. [00:10:18] Speaker B: Feel. [00:10:25] Speaker C: Quick. [00:10:25] Speaker A: Yeah. Before we get to the movie, I do want to say coming soon, this is going to be a movie. You're going to want images to a podcast where we can have images to it. You really want to see what we're talking about. And if that happens, you really want that, you can go to our YouTube channel, which is coming in early March. Mickey, can you explain what's happening there to our listeners who might want a visual aid with what we're doing? [00:11:00] Speaker B: Yeah. I also agree there's so many great visual cues for this that it's going to require some actual, like, you want to see stills from this film? We partnered with this great company, Red Tower Entertainment. They're a spooky, fun YouTube channel showing original short horror films, many of which came through the Red Tower spectacular festival. So we're partnering with them and we're going to have a YouTube channel where you're going to see past episodes that we've done with a mixture of visuals. There'll be some animation and. Yeah, that's basically it. Yeah. [00:11:31] Speaker A: And at some point, I can't say when, we will have a exclusive YouTube episode that you can only listen to on YouTube for a limited time. [00:11:46] Speaker B: Yeah. Okay, guys, I got to ask you. [00:11:53] Speaker A: What do you do when you're coming off of a huge financial and critical failure and malaria? Why you make a film? No one wants a film that alienated everyone involved, including its audience. Tonight we are talking about William Freakin's 1980 murder mystery slasher cruising, starring the great al Pacino. So pull up your bootstraps and grease up your arms because we're really going to dig into this tonight. [00:12:29] Speaker B: Okay. [00:12:30] Speaker C: You really tickled yourself on that one, didn't you? [00:12:32] Speaker A: I did tickle myself. I'm going to be tickling myself a lot tonight. [00:12:35] Speaker B: You tickling yourself a lot this past week. [00:12:38] Speaker C: I think that you're just overjoyed the fact that this is actually happening, aren't you? [00:12:45] Speaker A: On a separate note, completely not connected to what we're talking about right now. I hate to get off track, but I've been having really rough sex with my partner, Allie, and I don't know why. I just like really just going at it in between sessions of doing research for the film. [00:13:08] Speaker C: Was that supposed to go somewhat? [00:13:10] Speaker A: No, I think it's the truth. [00:13:13] Speaker B: I think that this may be a film that you. Yeah, we'll get into it. We'll get into it. Yeah. [00:13:21] Speaker A: So, obviously, why cruising tracks for you? Why cruising in our history with the film? I picked cruising, obviously. I'm just oddly fascinated and obsessed with this film. In 2006, I bought the book. [00:13:42] Speaker B: I got it here. [00:13:44] Speaker A: Here comes al Pacino in conversations with Lawrence Gorbel. And it's a compilation of the journalist Lawrence Gorbel's interviews with Al Pacino. And as a young man obsessed with Al Pacino and wanting to know everything about him, I devoured this book. And while reading this book, I learned there were all these films that I had never seen of his that I thought I had seen all of his early stuff. And in it, during the first interview, he's giving an interview for the first time ever, really. And at this point, he's like a gigantic movie star. He had done Dog day and Serpico and the Godfathers and all that stuff. And during these interviews, he's doing this film called Cruising, and it's got all this controversy behind it. And I was like, what is this movie? So eventually, I think I watched it. Did I watch it for the first time with you, Chris? [00:14:45] Speaker C: Yeah, we watched it together. [00:14:47] Speaker A: We watched it. So I get my hands on cruising. I'm like this obscure because at the time, this must have been, I don't know, 2009. [00:14:59] Speaker C: Yeah, 2008. Nine, probably somewhere in there. [00:15:02] Speaker A: We're hanging out and we're becoming friends, and I get my hands on cruising, and I'm so excited to watch it. And I'm like, of course I want to watch it with my buddy. We used to do these epic movie nights. And I was just, this is interesting, weird film that doesn't quite work but has everything going for it, but it's just too much. And we're going to get into all of these mixed emotions that I'm talking about. But I was blown away by it. I am very fascinated by it. It's a movie that I'm like, if you're a good friend of mine, I make you watch it. [00:15:59] Speaker C: How many times have you seen it, would you say? [00:16:03] Speaker A: So here's the thing. Because ultimately, and we're going to get into this later, because ultimately, I don't think it kind of fails as a good film, but it has all of these elements that I'll talk about later about why I love it. [00:16:19] Speaker C: Sure. [00:16:20] Speaker A: I've only seen it maybe five or six times. [00:16:23] Speaker C: Okay. [00:16:25] Speaker A: Some of the other films we talk about on the podcast, I've seen like dozens of times. [00:16:29] Speaker B: Sure. [00:16:31] Speaker A: And I will say to the listener, if you haven't listened to our nightmare on Elm street two episode and our American Psycho episode, I would go back and maybe listen to those because I kind of feel like there's like a through line that we're going through because this is our second Valentine's Day episode that goes along with the american psycho and we'll get into it. Anyways, I remember watching the film with you, Chris, and having a weird revelation at the time that we're sitting there, we're watching it, and we're like, I don't know, we're like 30, 40 minutes into the movie, and I'm like, hey, man, I dress like these guys, right? [00:17:17] Speaker C: Yes. [00:17:20] Speaker A: Not the s and m angle, but like the Levi's, the t shirts, the leather jacket, not the leather cap, the boots, all of which I've taken off now, but I own. And I like, and I was just talking, I showed Allie my outfit earlier today, and she was like, she likes it. You know what I mean? And I'm like, it's this weird paradox I have that a lot of the things that I consumed when I was younger I thought were like, oh, this is what women want. As a heterosexual young man, I was like, this is what women are attracted to, Danny Zuko. Women are attracted to big muscles. Women are attracted to these things. And then as I grew older, I discovered, oh, these are mostly things that other men either are gay or straight, are attracted to. You spend all this time, I'm speaking for myself, of course. You spend all this time trying to embody this look, trying to. [00:18:31] Speaker B: Execute this. [00:18:32] Speaker A: Look, and you discover it's like, oh, I'm only getting attention from other men, not really from, and I was trying to discuss this with my partner, Allie, and she was like, you look good in just the boxers and the boots and the leather jacket, but that's not a look I would seek out, but on you, it works for me, which is, I think, why we're a good fit. Anyways, this is going to be. I'm going to ramble. Please stop me if I'm rambling too much. I got stuff to work out. I think freaking got stuff to work out, and I think Pacino had stuff to work out, and I don't think they worked it out. I think that's the failing of this movie and we're going to talk more about. So that's, that's sort of my experience. I've watched know we're the return slot of horror. So is this a horror movie? [00:19:19] Speaker C: This is like on the fringes of it. [00:19:22] Speaker A: It's kind of a slasher. It's got the slasher element to it. There's a killer with a knife stabbing. [00:19:31] Speaker C: Does that mean that every hour show on CBS, Law and Order is a. [00:19:39] Speaker B: Horror series, is a horror anthology? [00:19:41] Speaker A: Hey, this is a Valentine's Day episode, and you love me. And that's why we're doing cruising, which isn't technically all. It's definitely a murder mystery thriller. So it's like horror adjacent. Cop procedural. Yeah, cop procedural for sure. [00:19:58] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:19:59] Speaker C: And the procedure is pretty bad. [00:20:06] Speaker A: So I'm going to go to Chris now because Chris is going to piggyback off of a lot of what I said. So, Chris, what is your experience with cruising, and how many times have you watched it as a result? Have you only watched it when I've made you watch it? [00:20:22] Speaker C: Well, actually, yes. This is my second viewing of the. [00:20:25] Speaker A: Film. [00:20:28] Speaker C: The first being that first time with you and now this. [00:20:35] Speaker A: What were your first impressions? [00:20:41] Speaker C: Well, so, I mean, you've obviously told pretty much the story of it. I think that was funny because at that point in time, I had seen all the, of course, major Pacino films, but I hadn't seen, I would say, his, I don't know what you call it, his secondary third. [00:21:01] Speaker A: Revolution. [00:21:02] Speaker C: And you were a big part of me at this time. We were watching a lot of like, because we watched this. We watched, was it chinese coffee? What was the Chinese? [00:21:11] Speaker A: I had bought a box set as well around this time. That was like the local stigmatic chinese coffee. Looking for Richard and like a documentary esque type thing called Babylonia, where he's just talking about acting on the stoop of the actor. [00:21:29] Speaker B: We. [00:21:30] Speaker C: We were watching all these pacino films, and then we watched this, and I was just, I think, just mystified a bit by it because I like to think that this is a bit of the catchphrase of the podcast, but we'll get more into it later. But yeah, it's getting kind of a film. Well, it's a film that has. I mean, it's almost like you could say that they're trying to be somewhat progressive, what they're hitting on, but they're regressive. I don't think that's the intention, though, is to be dogmatic towards gay culture or anything. Very odd by it. But at the same time, though, I think they're just so aloof in what they're doing that it comes off very small minded. And especially on the second watching, I kind of forgot a bit about it. But it's almost like I don't feel like anyone in this film has human emotions. Everyone feels like they're just a weird one note even, like, I don't feel like anyone has any depth to them, which is od, considering what we're doing in the film. I don't know. It's such a weird experience. I don't know what to make of it, really. [00:22:54] Speaker A: I would agree with you there that it's a weird experience. I don't know if I necessarily agree with the depth thing, but I think some of the things we'll get into sort of unveil that. But I totally would not argue that if someone feels that when watching this. [00:23:12] Speaker C: Also, too, sometimes you see something and you're like, oh, I think that's what they were referencing. This was a film that was like, oh, that's what the blue oyster bar joke and police academy is referencing. [00:23:27] Speaker A: Right. [00:23:28] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:23:31] Speaker C: I got it. [00:23:34] Speaker A: There we go. [00:23:35] Speaker C: That was my experience. I think since then, though, it's one of those things that even though this is only the second time I've viewed it, it's a film that its legacy lives on in the jokes and in the cultural references that have been made to it. For instance, if you ever seen, like, the skit, like SCTV did with Dave Thomas of cruising Kitchen Mickey, I don't think I have. So, SCTV, the old skit show from Canada from the late 70s, early 80s, Dave Thomas. It's a bit like it's a cooking show, like any sort of network cooking show, but it's like cruising. And so he's dressed up with, like, a black wig. It's like he's smoking a cigarette. He's wearing a leather vest, and it's like him stuffing a chicken or a turkey, and it's on, like, a chain that spreads it open. He's greased up his hand, like stuff. [00:24:26] Speaker A: It's definitely. We should have images on YouTube. [00:24:31] Speaker C: It's a great skit. But then also, too, then. It's wild to see it now. And to think that that was something that could easily be joked about and referenced in much more of an open, like, in modern world, you wouldn't have something like that. You know what mean? Like, that wouldn't happen. So it was great to see it. But, yeah, that's been my kind of. [00:24:54] Speaker B: Legacy with and Mickey, is this your first time? First time watching it actually wasn't even on my radar. Other than your jokes about it and knowing kind of the. Knowing the source, like, understanding what the movie is about and the jokes that you guys have about cruising. I had no relationship to this film at all, and I forced myself to not read anything, not look into anything, and just watch the film first and look. Freakin is a master. I like the camera play in this movie. I like the look of this movie. I kind of get a little lost on the ambiguity of who the killer is, whether it matters, I don't know. This is one that would require more watches for me to, I think, have a solidified. You know, I got know. I agree to a lot of what both of you are like. The sum of all parts don't really work, but parts of it totally work. And I like seeing Pacino at this level. There's something really nice about. I think that over the last decade or so or last 20 years, there's been a different kind of Pacino we're exposed to. And I like this quieter, softer, introspective Pacino. You said you saw people without emotions or that weren't really playing one note. I felt Pacino did a lot with very little. He could just be in stillness, and you're feeling like this person's struggling, and maybe it's the struggles I'm putting on him, similar to Michelangelo, because I think that Pacino is one of those guys that if you're of a certain age and you're really into acting and you went to any kind of acting schools or film schools, you got your Pacino and your De Niro, and just there's certain mean, I'll even say guys. Like, I consider Ed Norton somewhere in that category of just guys I really looked up to. And I almost feel like I give them a pass. If he doesn't say anything in a scene and just looks, I'm like, oh, that's brilliant. [00:27:05] Speaker A: That look was know when it could just be. [00:27:08] Speaker B: He was, like, not even paying attention. They just caught him on camera in between. So for that part of it, I actually thought the performances were fantastic all around the board. And again, Friedkin's camera is a great way to watch a film. [00:27:21] Speaker A: It is visually stunning, the film. I don't think you can argue that the film doesn't look good. Like the shots, the composition of the shots, it looks amazing. If you're a fan of Grimy seventy s New York cinema, I think this is something you might enjoy. Chris, you're making no face. What's going on there? [00:27:52] Speaker C: I'm not completely disagreeing with you. I guess I feel like seventy s New York is like something that's incredibly easily captured at the time. And so because of that fact, it doesn't feel very unique or special to me. You know what I mean? I feel like, yeah, you're capturing it well, but it's also like, it's a. It's a softer level than know. Going to having the backdrop be something more unique or interesting. I mean, there's so much, I think, film tv that always caught that grimy's New York look to varying levels of success, but so much so that it just doesn't lend it really anything to me. [00:28:34] Speaker A: I thought this was like, that's one of the stronger, like, as confused as this movie gets, it's never like, whatever it was that we're trying to capture, they visually capture it in a stunning manner. Like the shot where Pacino and Steve Barnes and who is his name? Skip. Yeah, skip. The guy who gets slapped by the big police officer when they're walking to the room. It's that shot where it's like, in the foreground, you see the meat hooks, and in the background, they're walking in the building and has this red stripe that split where they're walking with the brick. It's just visually stunning. And I always appreciate that look. I never take it for granted because to me, I kind of feel like there's a finite amount of it. [00:29:36] Speaker B: You know what I mean? [00:29:37] Speaker A: Which is why it's. [00:29:39] Speaker B: Go ahead. I was just going to say it's intentional, rather than just like, yeah, we're doing. I guess one of the things I was going to mention just as far as the visual language, the cinematic language, he only does it like a two or three times in the film, but he does a par focal lens zoom in, where he zooms in. And you're not losing the focus of your central character. But it kind of has a thing where it cues with music and you feel like it kind of goes there, but it kind of takes a little bit of time to get onto it. It's pretty traditional shot used in the 70s going into the 80s. Kind of got dumped as we got into more of, like, the Spielberg thing. But for some reason, when freaking does it, it's effective, it makes sense, and it's completely logical versus it just being like, well, here we're going to zoom in on the character. So I just think that's really important. And it's one of the last. [00:30:26] Speaker A: It's like 1979. This is shot. I think it's hilarious that if you're familiar with the. Are you familiar with the Waldens television show? [00:30:39] Speaker C: I know the name. I've never seen it. [00:30:41] Speaker B: So. [00:30:42] Speaker C: Not really. [00:30:42] Speaker A: So the Waldens was like a wholesome american family television show that was hugely successful and kind of like, if you've ever read sex, drugs and rock and roll, how the. [00:30:56] Speaker B: Fuck. [00:30:57] Speaker A: I can't remember the name of the title now, but it's about how when the studios were failing, like, easy writer. [00:31:05] Speaker C: Easy writer. [00:31:06] Speaker B: And what's it called? [00:31:08] Speaker A: Easy writers. [00:31:09] Speaker C: I've read that book, Raging Bull, how. [00:31:12] Speaker A: The sex, drugs, rock and roll generation saved Hollywood. That's the name of it, anyways. The monkeys basically were so successful and they're sort of responsible for that generation of filmmakers, of the Scorsese and all that stuff that happened. So it's funny to me that the Walton's television show made cruising know. I just want to do a brief little breakdown of what goes into making this movie. So you have two guys who come onto the scene freakin and hugely, they have some huge successes and then they're having some failures. Freaking is coming off the failure of two films, one was sorcerer and the other one was, which is awesome. Peter Falk. It is awesome, but it was not appreciated in the time that it came out in Sorcerer's. And then a bank heist movie with Peter Falk. That didn't do well either. And then Pacino, who is, like, untouchable at this time, does Bobby Deerfield. It's not very successful. He does Richard II on the stage and it's like no one likes it. Apparently he has a little success with injustice for all. And then they're doing this movie together, the two of them, and again, freaking's coming off of having malaria. [00:32:35] Speaker C: Did he catch that? From sorcerer. From shooting Sorcerer. [00:32:37] Speaker A: Yeah. It was when he really. Yeah. [00:32:40] Speaker B: Okay. [00:32:41] Speaker A: And he has a heart attack after he finishes cruising, which is interesting. So this movie is a combination of things. If you were to read the book that this is based off of, it's going to be a very different book. It's not that book. It's a combination of the book. The Arthur Baer articles that he read about this subculture in New York and the undercover stories of Randy Jurgensen, who plays Detective Lefrenski, the guy with the mustache at the beginning when they find the arm. [00:33:18] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:33:19] Speaker A: He is the detective who went undercover to these SNM bars to find out this killer. [00:33:27] Speaker B: Right. [00:33:28] Speaker A: There were these killings happening, and the police department was trying to wrap it up. You know what I mean? Like in this film. So it's this hodgepodge of these different things coming together. And the movie ends up being very different than the screenplay, which I think leads to its confusion and the SNM culture part of it. [00:33:57] Speaker B: Right. [00:33:57] Speaker A: It's supposed to be this exotic background to this murder mystery. Freaking and Pacino want to make born on the 4 July together that falls through. And then that stuff happens with Tom Cruise and Oliver Stone and all that stuff, which is fantastic for them. And then this, while it's being made, you'll notice a lot of ADR in the film. [00:34:20] Speaker C: Yes, pretty much the whole film. [00:34:23] Speaker A: There were thousands of people screaming and protesting and throwing cans. And there was like 300 cops that got hired to protect the cast and the crew while they were filming in the streets of New York. It was just all that ADR is because of all the protesting that was happening while they were making the film. [00:34:43] Speaker C: So why was there protest? Exactly. [00:34:46] Speaker A: So the gay community felt like this was representing them in a very negative life that people would assume. People would assume. Well, no. So this captures a minute subculture of gay men's lives that doesn't represent all gay men. And what they were worried about is that it was going to regress any progress that had been made. Right. That people were going to watch this and be like, see, I knew gay people were weird because this is a very homophobic time we're in. And it's that thing of. [00:35:26] Speaker B: Without having. [00:35:27] Speaker A: Seen the movie and without having only knowing bits and pieces, you qualify something as negative. Can I ask a question? [00:35:38] Speaker B: Of course. About it and my little bit of knowledge of this. This is based on true killings and murders that were happening in these clubs in the 70s in New York City. [00:35:53] Speaker A: So it's still pretty in the clubs, but there was a connection. [00:35:56] Speaker B: Yeah. There was a killer that never solved. Yeah. I watched the whole american horror story season about this, which was pretty good. NYC. Yeah. [00:36:09] Speaker A: The 11th season. [00:36:10] Speaker B: Yes. I can imagine. I'm more asking than. But I'm assuming that also, that, too, is kind of fresh in people's minds where it's like, how they were portrayed by. Well, how the police portrayed it and how some news organizations portrayed those killings. They kind of portrayed the community as, like, bringing it on themselves. So I wonder if there's a little bit of, like, don't add more fuel to this. I don't know. [00:36:39] Speaker A: That's absolutely part of it. And, Chris, what you were saying earlier. [00:36:43] Speaker B: About. [00:36:45] Speaker A: The point of view of the film, and it's adding to the regression of the acceptance of homosexuals within normal society. [00:36:57] Speaker B: Right. [00:36:59] Speaker A: I think in his effort and freakin's effort to present this without a point. [00:37:06] Speaker B: Of view, as just like, this is. [00:37:08] Speaker A: This thing without a point of view, I think, is where you're getting that. And then that's something I wanted to talk about. So it's like, okay, this is interesting. These clubs exist. This is interesting. You're capturing it on, like, the clubs. You're actually capturing the clubs on film. [00:37:30] Speaker B: These are. [00:37:30] Speaker A: That he actually shot in some of two of the clubs that existed that were like this. And he's recreating the things that he saw in his research. How does that propel our story forward? What does it add to the film other than this is really interesting. You know what I mean? That's where I'm at a loss because there's so much time spent on it. [00:38:04] Speaker B: Again, opinions here, please don't anybody, if. [00:38:08] Speaker A: You know, of course, nothing but opinions. [00:38:12] Speaker B: There's like, no effects. This is not history. [00:38:14] Speaker A: But I will say, look on Chris in the face, by the way, as I say these things is just. But Mickey, please. [00:38:23] Speaker B: Well, I was going to, like. I think at the time, you've got a finger on a subculture that's not been exposed at all. Or maybe it's not been exposed much to mainstream. [00:38:37] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:38:38] Speaker B: So him going in there, it's like you probably linger on it. You spend more time in it, because you're like, I really want people to understand. If you do a quick shot inside of it and say, yeah, it's like an establishing. Like, we're here, then we go into a tight two person shot of them having a relationship or whatever, then you kind of ignore what I think he was trying to do, like you do in a documentary where you let people sit in that world for a little bit so that they make their own opinions about it and kind of just. It becomes a wash, right? So you get washed over by it. So it's not necessarily him saying, this is what this is like what you were saying, michelangelo. I'm not making opinions, but I do make an opinion. If I don't let you sit in this for a little too long, because then I almost present it to, like, here's the quick Disney version of this. And then let's go to interpersonal conversations. They're having know, having sex with each other or something. But I do think there is something to that. And I say that because it's similar to the, oh, my gosh, Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise movie, eyes wide shut. [00:39:44] Speaker A: Yes. [00:39:45] Speaker B: Far and away. [00:39:46] Speaker A: You really got to establish what it's. [00:39:48] Speaker B: Like to be an irish immigrant. You really have to sit in that irish immigrant in eyes wide shut because there were times, the first couple of times I watched that film, I did not like it. This is where I think I will go with this film as well. The only reason I even spent time on eyes wide shut because after a little bit, I was like, no, he's exposing you to a world that does exist with extremely wealthy people, that they can live these lives. And rather than just like, here's a quick summation of it, now let's move on because it makes you uncomfortable. He's like, no, I'm going to sit people in it for a while and let them really feel like you have to be in it. And I think there's something to that, to this, too, where it's like, he wants you to sit in this club with these people and really be face to face with it, because this is the truth of it. [00:40:32] Speaker A: But he goes back so many times. He goes back. He comes from documentary films. [00:40:38] Speaker B: I don't know if you guys knew. [00:40:39] Speaker A: This, but his first documentary was set an innocent man free from. [00:40:48] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, go ahead. I don't know the name of. [00:40:50] Speaker A: It's interesting. Check out his. He has an audiobook that I listen to. I recommend listening to it. The freaking connection. By freaking. [00:40:58] Speaker B: It's. [00:40:59] Speaker A: I could listen to him talk for hours. [00:41:00] Speaker B: The people for that one. [00:41:02] Speaker A: You want to talk so bad. [00:41:05] Speaker C: Oh, I don't know about that. I don't know. I feel like, honestly, I can't remember what the start of the question was that you had. [00:41:17] Speaker B: You want to be in that club? [00:41:18] Speaker A: Chris, the documentary esque feel of being in these clubs is interesting, but we cut back to it a lot. I will say this movie is an hour 41, and to me, it feels like a two hour and 45 minutes movie. It slogs for me. And how does going back and really showing so much of what's happening in these clubs, how does it propel our story forward? I think there's a more efficient way to express what burns with Pacino is going through, Chris, and I feel like. What's your opinion on that, Chris? [00:42:01] Speaker C: Well, I guess just real quick, I think that's one of my biggest problems with this, is that, if anything, it hinges upon being almost exploitive of wanting to shock you or wanting to try to show, I think, a subculture at a level that has no contextualization to it and thus feels voyeuristic. And with that, it doesn't do anything. And I think, for me, as a viewer, I think that's a bit of what I was talking about, being regressive. That's almost my problem with it, is that doesn't give any of those people within that world humanity. They just seem like automatons that are built on nothing but pleasure, which is the classic anti gay, LGBTQ kind of rhetoric, right. Of like, the AIDS crisis is their fault because they're just like animals that just want to have sex, you know what I mean? Like that type of thing. And that's where, to me, then it becomes that, like, I get why there would be protest. [00:43:13] Speaker B: I guess that was the thing. [00:43:14] Speaker C: Going back to one of my earlier questions was, and I did not do any research really, into this at all. So why was there protest? Was the book as almost kind of. Did it come across as homophobic as the end result of this film? You know what I mean? The source material, was it known to. [00:43:32] Speaker A: Be kind of, like I said, the source material in this are complete opposites. The source material is like a murder mystery, and it's like genteel bars on the Upper west side. [00:43:47] Speaker B: Gay bars. [00:43:48] Speaker C: I guess that's my question then, right? Why was there protest? Why was that known? Like, you would think that if anything, like a film of these kind of stars of caliber being involved within. [00:44:02] Speaker A: That's how it gets made thing, right? Yeah. [00:44:05] Speaker C: It comes off as all of this can be a positive thing, like, what was the known element? [00:44:12] Speaker A: It's exploiting this extreme subculture and the gay community. Very rightly so. Knowing that the straight community is going to think this is what gay people have their crystal ball, right? In the way that my mother hates the Godfather because for her, all the dumb white people that she went to school with when she was a little girl assumed that if you were italian, that you were in the mafia. And she dealt with this sort of racism about being in the mafia and like, yeah, what do you got, a machine gun in your violin case? That sort of thing. It's this, but to a way more extreme point. And then we're ramping up to the AIDS crisis at this time as well. [00:45:00] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:45:00] Speaker C: 79. It was technically happening. It was starting. Just not recognized. [00:45:04] Speaker B: Known to be a devil's advocate. Al Pacino. Keanu Reeves. Yes, Al Pacino. Because I want to talk about devil's advocate. Since we're on Pacino. [00:45:14] Speaker C: That's actually a horror film. [00:45:15] Speaker A: It is actual horror film. We should be talking about. [00:45:21] Speaker B: Those lingering scenes with this redhead that he has and this thing. Okay. I love redheads. No, just being a devil's advocate. Don't know. [00:45:36] Speaker A: I'm sorry, Mickey. I'm sorry to cut you off. I just wanted to add to something Chris said. [00:45:40] Speaker B: I'm going to take a second context. [00:45:42] Speaker A: You said something about context, and it's like, yes, context. This is what this movie is missing is context and a character connected to the subculture that you can identify and understand with. Yes, I agree with you there, but, Mickey, please go on. I'm sorry. [00:45:57] Speaker B: I just wanted to get that out there. It's fine. I completely understand where you're coming from. As far as know, dumb middle America. People who are never exposed to anybody. [00:46:07] Speaker A: Not even middle America. It's happening all over America. [00:46:11] Speaker B: I understand. But this time, I use middle America as an example of, like, just not exposed to this kind of. [00:46:16] Speaker A: Yeah, you're talking to two middle Americans. [00:46:23] Speaker B: The most regionalism, most middle of Americans. Are you defending middle America? [00:46:29] Speaker A: Listen, don't mess with middle America, man. That's the backbone of America, buddy. This went real weird real quick. [00:46:38] Speaker C: It's bound to happen. [00:46:39] Speaker A: Oh, it's going to go weirder. [00:46:41] Speaker B: But I do say this, if you don't linger on it, and I do agree with you that, yes, having a character that you can empathize with, that is from this culture, that makes it more palatable. Sure, that's great. But the more time you spent, it takes away the tantalizing, sensational nature of it. So the more time you spend in it, it not desensitizes you, because that's the wrong word. I don't mean that, but it just gets you more comfortable in that space to be like, okay, I'm going to see this. This is normal. This is okay. [00:47:12] Speaker A: Because, again, I'm never comfortable in this space. This is a club. If this is Friedkinsang. [00:47:19] Speaker B: This is what he sees. The people participating are from these clubs. This is what you see in these clubs. Then he's not presenting you with something that is exploitative or sensationalized, even if it's exploitive to the film itself. He's not adding things to it to exploit. Right. Does that make sense? That's my reading of it. [00:47:39] Speaker A: Yes, I understand. [00:47:40] Speaker C: I don't necessarily agree, but I understand what you're saying. [00:47:43] Speaker B: And the longer I spend time there, the less sensational it becomes. And I'm more like, okay, this is a subculture. This is the same way in which I would watch a film about a swingers club. It's like the longer I'm in the Swingers club, the more it makes sense that this is just. I mean, it's carnal in some ways, where it's like, this is about sexual pleasure and this is about kinks and things of that nature. And I feel towards the. As the movie progresses, for me, it feels less sensational and more like, okay, this is just people and their kinks, and I feel comfortable with it. I don't know. I just think that if you not been able to swim in it long or if you had swam in it shorter amount of time, it could still be sensational to me. Or feel like, oh, man, that's tantalizing. 15 minutes shot. But no, it's like you spend half the movie in it. I guess. [00:48:45] Speaker C: I hear you that. [00:48:46] Speaker B: I think, if I may. [00:48:47] Speaker C: So you're saying is by being overly exposed to it, it's almost like getting you, the viewer, used to it. But at the same time, though, would you say that's true? [00:48:58] Speaker B: Yeah, but I'm careful how we phrase that because I don't want to feel like the big argument people make. It's like if you're exposed to it, they'll become gay. I'm not saying that. [00:49:08] Speaker C: Just comfortable with viewing. [00:49:09] Speaker B: Yeah, just comfortable with not viewing it. It's not as sensational. [00:49:12] Speaker A: It's like, okay, yeah, I guess, though. [00:49:15] Speaker C: For me at least, it kind of touches back on the point I was saying earlier. It's just like. [00:49:20] Speaker A: It doesn't, though, advance the story. [00:49:25] Speaker C: All it does is seemingly give you shots of it to almost either say, look at what this poor handsome man, hetero man is doing for his. Whatever, to solve the crime, or it's just like making you. It's kind of like rubbing you, the viewer's nose in it a bit. [00:49:45] Speaker B: Which when he's dancing, like when Al Pacino's dancing in that scene. [00:49:51] Speaker C: Did you not feel very hard the first time? [00:49:58] Speaker A: That's really hilarious. Even within the context. [00:50:05] Speaker B: Almost crispin glover level. Yeah. [00:50:07] Speaker C: Yes, very. [00:50:08] Speaker A: But weirder. [00:50:09] Speaker B: Yes. [00:50:12] Speaker C: Shooting of the arms before a moment. [00:50:15] Speaker B: Do you not kind of want him just to give in and let go and just go for it? Do you never feel that? [00:50:23] Speaker C: No, because that's not my read on him. [00:50:28] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:50:28] Speaker A: I'm going to go with Chris a little bit. I'm glad. Part of me is glad that he captured what was happening. But then the other part of me, who's the moviegoer, who is the film Watcher, is like, what does this have to do with what the story is about, this killer, this exotic background? I just think it's a little repetitive. [00:50:55] Speaker B: Do you not think it's a little, like, intentional metaphor? [00:51:00] Speaker A: Here's the problem. Okay. I want to read you a quote. [00:51:09] Speaker B: Okay? [00:51:10] Speaker A: This is from the director's mouth. [00:51:12] Speaker B: You're not allowed to. [00:51:15] Speaker C: No, no. [00:51:16] Speaker A: That's not what's happening. [00:51:17] Speaker C: I'm trying to. [00:51:22] Speaker A: Assholes. Context. Context. You're just talking about context. But I think this gives you an idea of his point of view going into this. [00:51:32] Speaker B: Got it. [00:51:33] Speaker A: My sudden success in Hollywood after years of failure had convinced me that I was the center of the universe. Many were waiting for me to crash, and I obliged them in spades. I had flown too close to the sun and my wings melted. My films became more obsessive, less audience friendly, and would turn even darker in the future. They would continue to portray the american character as psychotic, fearful, and dangerous. I think he's trying to work something out. He's also trying to present freaking. This is freaking because this is where Pacino has failed. And we'll talk about how Pacino fails freaking in the background of this. But Pacino has failed in that freakin takes all of the article, the book, the cop stories, he puts them all together. He's trying to present a non objective point of view. And by doing that, I think he ends up ultimately, what Chris was saying, being regressive in a way, as opposed to progressive. Now, people don't feel this way necessarily. Now it's sort of being reevalued as, like, some people call it a masterpiece. I wouldn't agree with that. But it's a confused movie. It's a very confusing movie. Can we get into the murders and the plot? For sure. [00:53:01] Speaker B: I have many questions. [00:53:02] Speaker A: Okay, so I'm going to break you down. There are three. Surprisingly enough, there's only three murders we see on screen. All right, you tell me if you can follow this. Okay, the first killing. [00:53:16] Speaker B: All right. [00:53:18] Speaker A: The very handsome man at the club. [00:53:21] Speaker B: Yes. [00:53:21] Speaker C: Right. [00:53:24] Speaker B: I look just like him, listener. Yes, you do. [00:53:27] Speaker A: You look a lot like. [00:53:28] Speaker B: I don't look like him at all, but thank you. [00:53:31] Speaker A: I mean, your quads look exactly like. I look at your quads and I see him. We have a similar booty. Arnaldo Santana. So the first victim is played by Arnardo Santana. And the killer is played by Larry Atlas. [00:53:49] Speaker B: Correct. Okay. [00:53:50] Speaker A: So the second killing, dubbed by. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. [00:53:54] Speaker C: Don't. [00:53:55] Speaker B: You're fucking it up. [00:53:57] Speaker A: Am I not allowed to talk? Wow. No, because I'm getting to that. [00:54:01] Speaker B: I'm getting to that. [00:54:01] Speaker A: Hold on. So, the second killing. I know, I'm ridiculous. I know I'm ridiculous. [00:54:06] Speaker B: Okay. [00:54:09] Speaker A: Can we get through it? Let me get through this. So, the second killing, the victim is played by Larry Atlas, the killer from the first scene. And the killer is played by Richard Cox, who plays Stuart, the guy that we ultimately think is killer, baby. [00:54:27] Speaker B: Right. [00:54:28] Speaker A: So the third killing. [00:54:29] Speaker B: Right. [00:54:30] Speaker A: The killer who walks into the peep show is played by our first victim, Arnaldo Santana. But inside the peep show, the killer is played by Richard Cox Stewart. [00:54:41] Speaker B: Right. [00:54:42] Speaker A: Now, on top of all of this, like Mickey was saying earlier, all the actors playing the killer in these scenes are dubbed by one actor, James Saturius, who's never physically seen on the screen. James Saturius also dubs Stuart's father in the scene in the park where Stewart is having the confrontation with his father. [00:55:02] Speaker C: Oh, I didn't catch that. [00:55:04] Speaker A: Yeah. And add to that, at the very end of the film, when Stuart's in the hospital, the last line, he says, I never killed anyone. That line only is also dubbed by James Saturius, who dubs all of the. [00:55:19] Speaker B: Killers in the film needlessly complicated. [00:55:24] Speaker A: Yeah, you tell me. How does that make any sense? Well, whatsoever. [00:55:33] Speaker B: Okay, go ahead, Mickey. What do you got? I think it's intentionally ambiguous because I think that. I'm sure you have this in your notes that the person he worked on with the exorcist who told this story. [00:55:45] Speaker A: Paul Burns. No, Steve Burns. [00:55:51] Speaker B: It's Paul. Damn it. I have my paper here. It's okay. [00:55:55] Speaker A: But, yeah. Paul Bastin is the radiologist in the NYU medical center in the exorcist, who is the trash bag killer, which is a part of the pot that is being mixed into all of this. [00:56:08] Speaker B: Right. [00:56:08] Speaker A: So Stuart is sort of Paul Bastin, who is in the know. Like, that MRI scene. That's Blair. Like, that's an actual radiologist, and that's his nurse. And that guy turned out to be this killer who the cops got to make admit to more murders than he thought. He says, I don't remember. I must have been really high. He remembers killing definitely one person, but the police wanted to clear the board, so he confessed and was released. I don't know if he's still alive, but he was released in 2004. [00:56:48] Speaker C: Very common thing in the 70s for the police to just get a killer and have him confess to everything that was unsolved at the time. [00:56:55] Speaker B: And sometimes when people tell you things like that in your life and it just baffles you or blows your mind, which I'm sure, again, I'm putting a lot of assumptions on people that I do not know and have no actual evidence. But I think that that was like one of those thought worms where you're sitting there and freakin's like, he knows of one. Were the other five pinned on him? Were the other five actually know? It's like, how does this happen? And in an artist's way of trying to explore that, he makes it super ambiguous intentionally for us to be in the same position he was in. And probably hearing that story where it's like, I can't make sense of it either, because I think that's kind of the story of same with american horror story, where it's like people are being wrongfully accused, people are going to jail for murders they didn't commit, because first of all, they don't care enough about the subculture to do the amount of police work they need to do. And number two, it's like the police are just trying to pin it on somebody so they can get the media and everybody else off their ass. And I think that there's something there. Yeah, the thing. You love the movie. The thing. I love the thing. [00:57:59] Speaker A: We all love the thing. Imagine if John Carpenter didn't work out like you asked. John Carpenter nowadays, do you have an answer to the end? Right? Do you have an answer? He's like, yes, I do. I clearly know, but I don't tell you. [00:58:16] Speaker B: Right? [00:58:17] Speaker A: The difference being freaking. You give him enough money, he'll tell you. But my point is, and like, take David lynch, for example. My point is David lynch in his films, John Carpenter, you leave something ambiguous, but you have a point of view on something and you know what it is. I'm leaving you the audience to decide it, but the creator of it doesn't know. And that leaves us wanting. That leaves us confused. That leaves us. [00:58:47] Speaker B: I agree with me and I do agree with you. It's the part of the movie that I'm like, it doesn't work with me. Right? But I get it. I get it. And I have to go back to him being like I would have been. Art is about exploring yourself. And I do think the freakin is a true artist. And I think part of what he's exploring there is like, how do I create a film that creates that feeling that I have where how can somebody know that one murder was his, but not know the other five, or but still admit to it? And I think that we in his a lot of assumptions here. I think, in my way of watching it, what I take away is that the intentionality is that to put people in the place that he was in hearing the story for the first time. And that means that you do walk away being like, we don't know the answers. Is it burns? [00:59:35] Speaker A: Did he actually end up being the killer? Is that what we're saying? [00:59:38] Speaker B: Or is it. No. Is it this one guy killed one and it was these other people doing it? Or maybe they all look so similar, they can all be pinned on this together. So it's like the artist is saying, I'm going to intentionally make these actors play these different characters and really just make you see how confusing this situation is. I don't know because he doesn't give us an answer. But after subsequent, if I watch it more times, I will be able to solidify a better understanding of how I feel. [01:00:07] Speaker C: I don't think so, ma'am. [01:00:11] Speaker A: I think if you do some research and you give yourself context through research, you'll understand why decisions were made. But it still doesn't make arc to a story that makes sense for me. [01:00:26] Speaker B: Challenge accepted. Watching cruising once a week for the next year. Yes. [01:00:30] Speaker A: And I want to add to who's the killer? Is it burns? Is it know so that the next to last shot with Pacino, quoting, freaking. When you look at someone, do you really know who they are? Do you know who I am? [01:00:48] Speaker B: Do you know what I am? [01:00:50] Speaker A: Do I know? And who are you? That was his idea in Pacino looking into philosophy. I can appreciate the sentiment, but again, it's too much. All of these things. You really need to have a clear point of view and opinion on something. I think you can leave things ambiguous as long as you know what the answer is. In a way. I mean, I like that. [01:01:22] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:01:23] Speaker A: How often have you looked in the mirror and been like, who the fuck am I? You know what I mean? How we present ourselves one way I'm one way with a group of friends, and then I'm another way with my family, and I'm another way at work. I think we can all understand that duality that we have in life, how we portray different characters in different places and how those things sometimes leak into one another and how they. [01:01:52] Speaker B: And also, we're different people based on different circumstances. Right, of course. I mean, you know what I mean? As part of my job, I'm not spending every night in an s and M club. It's like, who would I be if I were put in that position? [01:02:08] Speaker A: Lady doth protest too much if I can get to something, though. [01:02:13] Speaker C: What we're touching base on is exactly a big part of the problem of the film, right? To be ambiguous, to do a lot of those choices with the film, with the killer, is completely fine. I think that in and of itself works. But whenever you don't give any humanity to the subject matter and then you give that level of ambiguousness, it almost leads it to a bit of, again, that kind of exploitiveness of almost like, oh, yeah, these people that are part of this culture, they're just about fucking. And then if they get there fucking and killing, you know what I mean? It almost makes it so seem like it's a pathway, like it's a part of the niche. And even if you take away kind of even the subtext, these are elements that are out there for just the heteronormative SNM community as well. You know what I mean? Of those sorts of ideological. How many 90s sex thrillers were based around. There's an SNM community, there's a killer. Not surprising, you know what I mean? That type of thing. This is just like this easy playground to just toy around in and then walk out of without doing anything. And that's almost one of my biggest annoyances with there's no seemingly effort put into making it something rich and interesting, which you easily could have done. [01:03:39] Speaker A: Right, Ted? [01:03:40] Speaker C: The neighbor could have been a part of the community. You could have given him that kind of humanity, that kind of morality, and you didn't. [01:03:47] Speaker B: Well, that's kind of where american horror story NYC kind of does. It's not my favorite of the anthology, but it does a pretty good job of humanizing all the people that are within the different cultures and not just putting it as like one subculture either, but just like everybody has different kinks. Yeah, but I do agree with you there. It's like one of those things where you take a collective anxiety of a nation and you don't do anything to make people chill. You just kind of ramp it up more. It's like, yes, they are killing in those communities. Yeah, I see what you mean. I do agree with good. Those are all valid points. But let me tell you what Mary Heron said. [01:04:30] Speaker C: That means I win the podcast. Right? [01:04:33] Speaker A: Thank you. [01:04:33] Speaker B: You win, Chris. Take your pants off. Take your pants off. [01:04:38] Speaker C: Okay. [01:04:39] Speaker A: Yes. [01:04:40] Speaker C: Michelangelo said I had you to come down here. [01:04:44] Speaker A: Speaking of women, Karen Allen. [01:04:47] Speaker B: Karen, one of my favorite. One of my all time favorites. [01:04:50] Speaker A: What a list. Yeah. Not giving anything really to do, but poor Nancy. I love Nancy. Nancy's place, by the way, is fucking ridiculous. Oh, my God. That place is awesome. And I like, man, like, more of them would have been interesting because he's obviously going through stuff and he's. Oh, he's bringing something, I think they tried to add. So Randy Jurgensen is the cop who went undercover and quoting freaking here. I think it's pretty funny. He went undercover for months and it messed up his mind. I didn't ask for. That's. That's an important part of what's happening, is Burns is going through something, and his anchor is Nancy. Right. And that's like, I made the joke about it earlier about having rough sex with Allie. It's like he's being turned on. Maybe it's confusing. What is this? [01:05:51] Speaker B: Not maybe. That was a very clear yes. Yeah. [01:05:54] Speaker A: He's being affected by these things, and I don't think he understands. Is it titillating? I think he's both titillated and disgusted by some of the things. Some of it's so extreme. [01:06:06] Speaker B: But maybe. [01:06:08] Speaker A: You know what I mean? [01:06:13] Speaker C: That's part of the problem. It's all hinted at. It's all touched on, but it's not explored. [01:06:19] Speaker A: It's not explored. I would love to have seen an actual conversation, a fight between him. [01:06:27] Speaker B: But I will say that without exposition, there was no question. In my multiple decade living life, I had no question that he is turned on. That's why he's coming home and given some hard, rough sex to his wife. There was no question in my mind or his girlfriend. But there was no question in my mind. I didn't need an exposition dump of anything. It's like I got. [01:06:55] Speaker A: No, not an exposition dump. [01:06:58] Speaker C: Isn't it? Not like, though. To what end, though, right? To what end is he like? You know what I mean? Is he actually having some questions of his own sexuality? Is he just having some base eroticism based off of it? It's not fleshed out. You know what I mean? That's the problem. And it doesn't take him just having a voiceover, a scene in which all he does is just talk about it. But I just feel like too much is put upon you, the viewer, to put your own reading on it. You know what I mean? That's something that I think you can like, and you don't even have to finite it down to a perfect point in which you've got his perfect psychological review of what his sexuality is. But it's not, given the power and the gravitas that I think that it could use, considering what the film is. That could have been the main arc of the film, even. You know what I mean? Is his voyage of his own sexuality in this world. [01:07:53] Speaker A: Yeah. Which would have progressed. That would have been progressive. [01:07:57] Speaker B: You never got cruising to greenlit, and it was going to be all that. [01:08:01] Speaker A: Cruising to cruise control, cruising to the. [01:08:06] Speaker C: Banana boat, and they go to Fire island. [01:08:08] Speaker A: The banana boat. Yeah, there it is. There could have been a progressive in what you were saying. Like, you connect Ted to the subculture, and that humanizes, like, an individual who's into SNM, who is a normal. It's just I have a kink function. There's nothing wrong with my kink. Right. Everything's consensual at these. Like. But then also to have your protagonist be like, I think, to insinuate that he's a murderer. But also going through these homo erotic thoughts definitely would feed someone without a very progressive point of view to be like, yeah, because when you're gay, once. [01:08:51] Speaker B: You go snM, you know what I mean? [01:08:53] Speaker A: Which is a very common thing. You made a character gay in a movie, and he's evil at that time. So it's like to have your character, maybe I am gay. Or like, oh, no. I could be turned on by certain things, but it doesn't mean my sexuality doesn't define who I am as a person. Right. Because that's the crisis he's going through. [01:09:17] Speaker B: Having a kink that's not mainstream does not make me mentally ill. Yeah, absolutely. [01:09:22] Speaker C: Right. [01:09:23] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:09:23] Speaker C: The only people that we know of from the SNM subculture world in this film, beyond the club, know Burns, of course, the killer. I'm sorry, what's his name? The waiter that gets taken to the interrogation. Skip. Skip, who's referred to as being. Having mental disorders and being all trouble, too. You know what? Like, those. Those are the only people that you see outside of the scene, and there's something wrong with. [01:09:59] Speaker B: The other woman. Well, before we do the first murder. What was his name? Arnaldo Santana. Yeah. I do think for a moment, obviously, they could have done a much better job, but I do think for a moment they gave him me. At least I felt some empathy with him. When he's sitting there, he goes, I've got nothing. When he says, like, you ever been robbed? Or however he says it, he's like, I got nothing for you. Get. [01:10:29] Speaker A: Go. I love him. He's like, yeah, come here. Because I want to be worship. You know what I mean? It's like, immediately I identify. I get this guy's point of view. [01:10:37] Speaker C: Identify what is, like, I need to be worship. [01:10:44] Speaker A: You came in with a jacket wide. [01:10:45] Speaker B: Open, no pants on. [01:10:48] Speaker A: Reveal. No. But he's a vulnerable character. And then, oh, man, it is a really awful, brutal and uncomfortable and unsettling murder scene. It really is. Just like. [01:11:01] Speaker B: Really is. [01:11:02] Speaker A: And then the autopsy right afterwards, we're, like, describing what happened after the fact. [01:11:11] Speaker C: You'd think that SNM murderer would have a more interesting weapon than a steak knife. [01:11:19] Speaker B: Steak knife. [01:11:20] Speaker A: Would you go to the outback from a restaurant? [01:11:24] Speaker B: Yeah, not even. [01:11:26] Speaker C: I got the ribeye special down the. [01:11:28] Speaker A: Street from the outback steakhouse. [01:11:34] Speaker B: Not a sponsor. [01:11:35] Speaker A: See, that's where you mess up, Chris. You don't have a unique weapon. By having a nondescript weapon, you avoid being caught. Kind of like Henry, portrait of a killer. [01:11:50] Speaker B: Good point. Good point. [01:11:55] Speaker A: Also, real quick, the woman, this movie, the waitress whose face you don't see, who splashes hot coffee on Ted and Pacino. [01:12:06] Speaker B: I do love that waitress. [01:12:07] Speaker A: I get it. [01:12:08] Speaker B: I'm like, she's rushing around. [01:12:11] Speaker C: They're kind of like, yeah, little struggling writer. [01:12:15] Speaker B: He's not leaving a tip. [01:12:17] Speaker C: Who cares? [01:12:18] Speaker A: Yeah, he's fucking in here all the time, and he pays exact change. He ordered a water. [01:12:23] Speaker B: He's not, like, paying for that now. [01:12:26] Speaker A: You think Ted landed James Remar? [01:12:31] Speaker C: Man, James Remar looks great. I'm a huge James Reymar fan. And, yes, this is his sexiest look, for sure. [01:12:43] Speaker A: There's crossover between the warriors. [01:12:46] Speaker B: And I was thinking the same. [01:12:49] Speaker A: Not just James Remar. There's the scene where Pacino is meeting with the detective of the bridge after Ed O'Neill goes to the steakhouse. And they figure it out. Oh, it's this knife meets up with Pacino, and Pacino has, like, a leather vest on and a bandana tied around his head, and it's a look that he's not really doing in the rest of the film. And it looks like he's a gang member in the warriors. [01:13:15] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:13:15] Speaker A: But, yeah, Remar's fucking fantastic in this. And that's one of the few scenes where Pacino really pops. [01:13:22] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:13:25] Speaker B: He'S doing the thing. That's. You know what I mean? [01:13:28] Speaker A: He fucking loses. [01:13:31] Speaker B: Everybody knows the thing. I love it. [01:13:34] Speaker A: Remar's just like, man, I'll fucking go. You know what I mean? Like, you're crazy, but I'll fucking dance with. [01:13:43] Speaker C: The. It's funny, too, because he's supposed to be like the hothead, possessive boyfriend when really, Pacino seems more like it. [01:13:52] Speaker B: Really? [01:13:52] Speaker C: In that scene? [01:13:53] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:13:54] Speaker C: In his action, absolutely. Yeah. It's funny. [01:13:57] Speaker A: He's a little passive aggressive, but understandable. You know what? Like, all we're told about him is through Ted's lens. [01:14:08] Speaker B: Sure. [01:14:08] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:14:09] Speaker A: And it's not great. He's like. [01:14:13] Speaker C: Making me work how Ted describes. [01:14:15] Speaker A: I mean, but think about what's. What's Mars Gregory's point of view is like, hey, man, I worked and supported us for this amount of time. [01:14:28] Speaker B: Right? [01:14:28] Speaker A: And now. Now it's your turn. [01:14:30] Speaker B: You know what I mean? [01:14:32] Speaker A: I see both sides. You know what? [01:14:35] Speaker B: He's so. It's like, does. [01:14:38] Speaker A: Okay, what happens to Ted? Does Gregory. Does James Remark kill him? Did Pacino kill him? [01:14:46] Speaker B: Did. [01:14:47] Speaker A: Like, what is that? We don't know. No, because freaking doesn't know. You know what I mean? It's very frustrating because it's like. [01:14:59] Speaker B: At a loss. [01:15:02] Speaker C: All that happens in this film is questions are made, and then it's like the. Like, I feel like he would just be. [01:15:11] Speaker B: Like. [01:15:12] Speaker C: He would act like he would know the answers, but in reality, he has no idea, you know what, asking questions really? [01:15:20] Speaker B: Yeah. It was intentional. [01:15:23] Speaker C: He doesn't say anything like, oh, there's definitely a concept to it. I worked from blah, blah, blah. He's just asking questions and not answering. [01:15:33] Speaker A: John Carpenter and the David lynch thing. David lynch is like, people want an answer and he'll be like, fuck you. That's not my job to tell you what this means. And I can understand doing that, but it's this just homogenization of all of these ideas that are good but don't work. [01:15:56] Speaker B: I'll also say in response to, like, lynch and carpenter, the know, it's a little bit different. But I will say that typically, he does put at least one character that shares the opinion of the audience of, like, wait, what? So then you're like, yeah. And here there's no character that has. [01:16:20] Speaker A: Nancy could have been that character. Right? Nancy could have been the peanut gallery at that moment. Like, she is for burns, our grounding point of view. It could have been the captain. It could have been Paul Servino. The opportunity to be this great mentor, but he just uses Pacino all the way through. And when Pacino's like, thank you for being there for me. And you are such a good guy, and I got my shield, and it's all because of you, and you're wonderful. It's like he just fucking used you the whole time. He left you hanging, man, all the time. [01:16:53] Speaker B: But at least he corrected him on his name. Yeah, it was so nice of him. [01:17:00] Speaker A: The grape. [01:17:01] Speaker B: Paul Sorvino. Chris, did you know that Michelangelo and I studied at the same school? Paul Sorvino did. [01:17:06] Speaker C: Really? [01:17:07] Speaker B: Studied acting at the same school. No, I had no idea. No, I was cruising before I knew it. [01:17:13] Speaker C: Did you? [01:17:14] Speaker B: We all had similar careers, you two. [01:17:16] Speaker C: And, I mean, I feel like that's also part of my frustration, though, is I feel like I really like Paul Servino. And he's not mean. [01:17:27] Speaker B: He's playing one note. I agree with you there. He's playing one note. [01:17:30] Speaker C: Nothing there. He's the drabest guy in the world. [01:17:34] Speaker B: Did you notice? And this was like a little deep thing that I didn't notice. And I had to, like, when I saw the IMDb page, I was like, oh, my God. I went back and looked at the scene. Do you notice Ed O'Neill was in? [01:17:44] Speaker C: Yeah, no, he's one of the cops. [01:17:46] Speaker B: Yeah. I didn't recognize him when I saw him. I was blown away because I grew up with. Married with just. It was very funny. You didn't think that scene in which. [01:17:55] Speaker C: He talked about retiring and we're starting to work at a shoe store was weird? [01:17:59] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:18:05] Speaker A: I didn't realize that he was going to marry a beautiful young latin woman. Woman. [01:18:14] Speaker B: So married with children's in the cruising universe. [01:18:18] Speaker A: Also modern. Modern family. [01:18:20] Speaker B: Modern family. [01:18:22] Speaker A: It's all wrapped up in the cruising universe. I would disagree with you about Paul Servino. I can see why. Obviously, one note. I understand that. But I thought it was a quiet and interesting performance. And I think ultimately the performances are lost and failed by the editing and the directing. The ultimate editing and directing of the film. [01:18:49] Speaker B: Well, I would like to see the cut before the MPAA got involved. [01:18:55] Speaker A: Yeah, it's just porn. It's just porn. [01:18:59] Speaker B: You know that. [01:19:00] Speaker A: 40 minutes. Yeah, it's just like, what was cut was an additional based off of what we were talking about earlier about the clubs. It's just 40 minutes of just, like, graphic sex. [01:19:11] Speaker B: There's no storytelling at all. [01:19:13] Speaker C: There's nothing to it at all. [01:19:16] Speaker A: Freakin's idea was, a, he wanted to capture all of this stuff because he found it interesting, but also, b, he was like, I knew that if I overshot the sex stuff, that when they asked for cuts, I'd be able to keep more of. [01:19:32] Speaker C: What a classic move. [01:19:35] Speaker A: It's a good move. So there is no cut of this film that's going to exist that works because of the confusion between him and then Pacino, who instead of two great artists working together, what happens is two egos clash. Pacino. Pacino. His hair is interesting in this, right? A little different looking than usual. He went to a real homosexual barber, according to him, and to get a haircut like the homosexual men of the time. And it was know he was known for his hair. And they cut it, like, almost crew cut. And he showed up at production just like, he barged in the room. It was just like, they ruined my hair. They look at me and they had to, like, look at me. They had to delay production for, like, six weeks, and they were, like, rubbing potions in his head and getting extensions. And he had a stylist that was, like, constantly working with his hair on it. [01:20:45] Speaker B: Listeners, listen, before you finish the story, this is not far off from what we have to do with Michelangelo. [01:20:54] Speaker A: The cat was my hair person. Actually, no cat came down to the basement. It's my hair person. I refer to them as a cat. But is it looking? It's good. You look great. It looks great right now. [01:21:05] Speaker B: Thank you. Thank you. Got a great sheen. [01:21:07] Speaker C: Better. [01:21:09] Speaker B: God damn it. [01:21:14] Speaker A: Freaking likes a stand and deliver actor. You show up on time, you say the lines that are written, you're good to go. Pacino would show up hours and hours and hours late, completely oblivious to the time. It was a thing he was doing at the time where he just had no concept of time. He had all of this success, and I think that allowed him to be this sort of eccentric actor artist that he was. So he would show up and freaking would be pissed, and he would be hurt by it. Like, what did I do? I don't understand what I did. And he would notice that all of his actors would be fresh, be ready. They would know their lines, and in the first few takes, they would be amazing. And Pacino was the opposite. Pacino needed to do 50 takes to ramp up. He would ramp up to something and then bring it down into something that worked. And it just completely different from what freaking was, I guess, used to and wanting in a performer. And it's just such a shame that they couldn't figure out how to work together. And I think that, again, adds to the confusion, the confusion of his. He is amazing at times, but then his performance is at times confusing to me because what is he actually going through? What's happening? I love it when an actor cuts out dialogue. There's so much to be said with just the glance of an eye, but classic actor answer. [01:22:43] Speaker C: The writing really gets in the way of my making face. [01:22:47] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm going to cut this. I'm going to cut this. [01:22:49] Speaker C: I'm going to cut. [01:22:51] Speaker B: Was the Steve McQueen, was that the one that was like, you know, early on his career, he was really good about the words, but as he got older, he was like, they give him a script and just cut, like half the script out and be like, I'm not saying that. I'm not saying that. [01:23:03] Speaker A: There's a lot of actors like that, especially around that time, that would just be like, no, I'm not saying this. Bronson, Charles Bronson would do that a lot. But on, you know, I think there was a limitation he had as an. [01:23:19] Speaker B: That I'm just going to pull the gun up and shoot the, you know. [01:23:22] Speaker A: Speaking of actors who are good, who can explain things, let's talk about powers Booth. [01:23:27] Speaker B: Love powers booth. He grew up next to mean, I didn't know him, but he grew up in the same. [01:23:38] Speaker A: Did he teach you about the bandanas and the colors? [01:23:40] Speaker B: He did, but no, he is from my little town of Texas, so everybody freaks out when they see powers Booth in something. [01:23:48] Speaker C: It happens every time. I have seen this film and it's come up like the scenes cultural and whatever. Michelangelo, you and I have talked about this. Why is he in career? His career was beyond the point that he would be in a film for 5 seconds talking about playing that role. [01:24:09] Speaker A: Was it at this time? I saw it. Hey, man, this film is littered with, like, New York stage actors. And I think at the time he was a New York stage actor and maybe there was more to his part, I don't know, but light blue left, you want a blowjob. Light blue, right, you want to give it green left, hustler, green, right buyer, yellow left, you give golden showers. Yellow, right, you want one now. Red. What does red mean? What does red mean? He never explains red. [01:24:45] Speaker C: You could look it up if you really wanted know. [01:24:48] Speaker A: I know. [01:24:48] Speaker C: It begs the question, why exactly did Burns choose yellow of all the colors? Once he had it explained to him. [01:24:55] Speaker A: Yeah, it is od, right? It's like, you know, what this means now, Chris, did he just forget? [01:25:02] Speaker C: Yeah, yellow seems good. [01:25:03] Speaker B: Chris, I have an answer for you on Powers Booth. [01:25:07] Speaker C: Okay, shoot. [01:25:09] Speaker B: He was in the ensemble for the goodbye girl, and that's it until cruising. [01:25:14] Speaker A: Okay, there you go. [01:25:15] Speaker B: Wow. [01:25:15] Speaker C: I thought that his career was further along. [01:25:17] Speaker B: No. After cruising, that's when he hit. That's when the plutonium incident, which is not. These are. I don't know. [01:25:24] Speaker A: This is probably it. [01:25:24] Speaker B: Guyana tragedy. The story of Jim Jones replayed. Jim Jones. Yeah. That's probably what launched him right there, because you see, his crew changes very quickly after that. [01:25:33] Speaker A: But he was lighting a New York theater scene on fire around that time. He was great stuff. [01:25:39] Speaker B: Only film is what I'm talking about. Yeah. [01:25:43] Speaker A: Like most of Ted was a New York stage actor who has gone on to be nominated and win a bunch of emmys for television shows. He worked a lot on 30 rock. He works. To this day. He's worked on a bunch of television shows, directing, producing, writing, acting. He was in a lot of soaps at the time. He got a kick out of all the stuff going on with Pacino, the protesting and the bodyguards and everything. It was like when they were shooting one of those films in the cafe, they had to get a bunch of bodyguards to create, like, a wall of bodyguards for Pacino to run into a police car and be driven off. And he was like, hey, can I come with you? He's like, why you want to come with me? This is a nightmare. He's like, because I'm never going to have a moment like this. I just want to experience what this is like. He was, like, laughing and having a good time, and Pacino is just, like, mortified and just feeling awful the entire time he's shooting this. [01:26:50] Speaker C: That's funny. So powers Booth explains to the world the handkerchief system, and then he's a star. [01:26:58] Speaker B: Yeah, that's what did. [01:27:01] Speaker A: Also, around this time, Chris. Chris will vouch for this. Around this time, I also was wearing handkerchiefs in my back pocket. I had really long hair, so I always had a handkerchief to tie my hair back. And I went to hobby lobby and bought some blue ones, some red ones. [01:27:19] Speaker C: I remember your concern. If you were sending signals out in the world. It's like, I don't think that. [01:27:25] Speaker B: I think you're fine. Yeah. [01:27:26] Speaker A: I was like, is this the thing I have to worry about? You're like, it's 2009. No, it's still a thing. No. When I moved to New York and I was living in Chelsea, I was like, okay, I need to stop with. [01:27:38] Speaker C: These pocket certain parts of the world, it could be taken the wrong way. But for Kansas City in the early two thousand s, I don't think it really. [01:27:46] Speaker A: Although there was the pastor who was a regular at our coffee shop, who. [01:27:50] Speaker B: Was like, you're going to the big city. [01:27:52] Speaker A: And these are gang signs, these bandana. [01:27:58] Speaker B: Listen, you're a pretty young, al Pacino looking american italian male. You wear that red bandana, you will definitely be confused for a blood. So please be careful. Yes, but no, I will tell you. I was in a show two years ago, american rust, that aired on. It was a show. Yeah. Hey, I was in episode number five. Look it up. [01:28:21] Speaker A: But no, you and your wife, right? We're on the show. [01:28:23] Speaker B: My wife was in two episodes. It's a competitive thing. I don't like to mention it, but on one of the episodes, they go through the bandanas because he goes to a truck stop to make money, and they're like, put this bandana in if you want to do this. Put this bandana on you if you. [01:28:39] Speaker A: Want to do this. [01:28:40] Speaker B: And they do a whole thing about it. And it's set in present day southwest Pennsylvania, so it's kind of interesting. I was like, still a thing. Still a way of announcing your intention in a certain group of people in a community. [01:28:58] Speaker C: I wonder if it only works, though. You know what I mean? I wonder if, like, a young 20 something year old person, if that means anything, though, or if that's only for older people. You know what I mean? [01:29:11] Speaker B: Oh, you mean like, the older guys. [01:29:12] Speaker C: Are like, yeah, I know that something. But, like, the 20 younger people are. [01:29:16] Speaker B: Like, we go on grinder. [01:29:18] Speaker C: Exactly. [01:29:24] Speaker A: Like truckers. It couldn't even be taking it from. It could just be like, just like, its own thing that forms through the trucking community. Because it's like, how much do we know about the trucking community? And then that shows written, and it's like, when was that conceived? That was conceived these many years ago by this person who maybe had some experiences these many years ago. So it's like, at what point? You know what I mean? But it makes sense that it's like, oh, what's something someone might have on them a lot? A bandana. You use it for all sorts of things. What if we came up with a color coded system that signifies, like, I'm looking for speed. Do you have speed? Because I'm not supposed to be doing speed. I'm looking for someone to drive to do this or do that, to have a shorthand at these way stations in life. [01:30:15] Speaker B: Interesting. The green room and shoelaces. [01:30:18] Speaker A: The what? [01:30:20] Speaker B: The green room and shoelaces. [01:30:22] Speaker C: I don't know. [01:30:25] Speaker A: Check out our green room episode. [01:30:27] Speaker B: Please go back. It's a great episode, actually. [01:30:32] Speaker A: So, speaking of context, let's talk about the gigantic man in the room with the cowboy hat and jack strap that slaps skip. Oh, I don't know if you had this, Mickey, when you were watching it, were you just like, what? You're saying exactly what Pacino says and what skip says? Who is that? What is happening? What the fuck is that? [01:30:59] Speaker B: I was like, this is out there? Yeah. [01:31:03] Speaker A: It felt. [01:31:04] Speaker B: I was like, what the fuck are they doing, Mickey? [01:31:06] Speaker A: Do you know the context of it? [01:31:09] Speaker B: I don't. Please tell me. [01:31:12] Speaker A: So the context is, and you would only know this by doing research, is that this is what police officers literally did back then, is they would get, like, a gigantic dude, like, jock strap in a cowboy hat and to slap up the person and beat them into getting a confession so that when they were in court and they were like, well, you confessed to this? And was like, no, I was being beaten. Well, what happened? Well, a giant black man in a jock strap and a cowboy hat came into the room and slapped me around. The judge wouldn't believe them. They would be like, that's insane. No, that didn't happen. [01:31:49] Speaker B: So it wasn't a homo erotic thing. It was just a thing that they did to all perps? [01:31:54] Speaker A: It was attached. [01:31:56] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:31:57] Speaker A: It was a style of cops would do these things to get confessions out of people, to wrap up their cases, because wrapping up the case was more important than solving the case. And they would use tactics like this. And I think this just fit in with the themes that were happening in the movie. But it's scary. It's like a mostly naked, gigantic man comes into a room and smacks you around, and there's no one to believe you. It's absolutely terrifying. But I like Pacino's. Like, why you hit me so hard and throws his hat out the window? Who is that guy? Do you know who that guy is, Chris? Is that like, a football player or something? [01:32:38] Speaker B: Got to be a football player. [01:32:40] Speaker C: You know, I was just actually giving that a. [01:32:44] Speaker B: It's the other guy from raid with children. The other security guard at the mall. [01:32:49] Speaker C: His friend. No, I can't find it, but I think it's interesting. I hadn't really thought of it before, but you guys are familiar with, like, tom of Finland, right? The gay artist who tied macho masculinity into that whole classic mustache kind of SNM kind of like. It's interesting. Lyn, do you know Michelangelo? Was that kind of a reference point that they used in a lot of the settings of the film? Or is that. Just think. [01:33:33] Speaker A: I think they were oblivious to that. I do know that Mapplethorpe was inspired by that actor's costuming and betrayal in this film for a project that he worked on. Really? But I am familiar. I didn't know the name, but I am familiar with that. Ultra masculine, fit, mustachioed. I remember I watched a documentary. It wasn't about him specifically, but it was about a movement that was happening around that time. Yeah, I don't know if that was directly reflected or not. Maybe it was the difference between this and nightmare and Elm street two. I think you have a bunch of oblivious men making something that they had no idea, just completely oblivious to the homo erotic themes in it. And this was very intentional, but is kind of failed through its storyline. It's like the opposite of the two. For me, at least. I know you guys don't feel this way, but for me, at least, I think nightmare two kind of becomes this really awesome story in retrospect now that's been reclaimed. And with this, which was made with the best of intentions, I think. And through his effort to not objectively show you something without a point of view, ultimately ends up suffering as a result of it. And you can pull some of those regressive opinions from it as a result of not having a point of view. [01:35:27] Speaker C: You had mentioned that the viewpoint on the film has been a bit revitalized later in the years. Is it kind of taking a bit of a nightmare on Elm street to hern that maybe was seen as being very backwards in thought, is now maybe being embraced lately? [01:35:47] Speaker A: Well, once you understand that he wasn't oblivious to these things and he wasn't trying to intentionally make an anti homophobic film, and you look into it in that aspect and you can let go of any ideology of homophobia within it because this movie is not homophobic in its intention. I think people like, minus the controversy now, it's been sort of lauded by some to be a kind of masterpiece in a way, but not in the way with nightmare, where it's like it's so circumstantial, the arc of everything in that film. Listen to the episode listener if you're curious about that. We dig into ThosE things. I'll quote pacino here. This is WHIle he was making it. This is what he was hoping would Happen. It's a film about ambivalence I thought the script read partly like Pinter, partly like Hitchcock, a whodunit with an adventure story. And I do see Those aspects of, like, a HITCHCOCkian pinter type play in here, BUT AGAIN, it doesn't succeed in THose things. And later he was like, I felt Pacino said, I felt that freaking cut out the meat of what was going on. [01:37:30] Speaker B: The 40 minutes that got Cut. Yeah. [01:37:32] Speaker C: I was going to say, is that the 40 minutes. [01:37:38] Speaker A: There you go. [01:37:39] Speaker C: He did say meat. [01:37:40] Speaker B: Meat. [01:37:42] Speaker A: He LITERALLY says meat. It's in the book. [01:37:45] Speaker B: I have to pee. I'll be right back. OKAY. [01:37:49] Speaker A: Why'd you whisper it? [01:37:50] Speaker B: Well, no, you can continue, but I just want to have a place where I just. [01:37:53] Speaker A: Yeah, the listener, if you whisper it. [01:37:58] Speaker B: I'm going to go pee. [01:38:00] Speaker C: The listener is like, why are they so quiet all of a sudden? I can't hear what theY're saying. Hey, so can we talk about. Oh, sorry. [01:38:06] Speaker B: What? [01:38:06] Speaker A: Are you going to go. I wAS gOINg TO MAke a stuPid. [01:38:08] Speaker C: Joke, and I Don'T know, we COuLd Wait unTil Mickey gets back, but can we get into, what is the pOint of Joe Spinel, the paTroLman charActer? [01:38:19] Speaker A: Oh, I wanted to bring this up. So Joe SpiNel, wHo'S AwesoME, I lIke hIm. I love Joe SPINEL. He's in maniac. He's in godfather. He's in rockY. Yeah. One of my favorite jokes in ROCKY, too, is Joe SPINEl is Like, rock. You got to think ABout investments. What are you thinking ABout investing in? Condominiums? And he's LIKE, I don't use them. [01:38:47] Speaker C: Condoms. It's a good one. [01:38:48] Speaker A: But Joe SPINEl, so is he playing multiple parts? So this is where it becomes an issue because of the whole the killer victim switching thing that happens and the dubbing thing. Is Joe Spinel always Joe Spinel, or is Joe Spinel sometimes a cop and sometimes a guy in the club? [01:39:12] Speaker C: I have never had that thought in watching it, if anything. To me, that's a whole, like, they open up a can of worms with his character and then they never explore it because, well, we do know, though, that the sex worker, who's the Da Vinci he talks about, that's his character's name. [01:39:32] Speaker B: Da VINCI. Yeah. [01:39:33] Speaker A: GEne davis. Da VINCI. [01:39:35] Speaker C: I actually, again, talk about someone in the film that would be much more interesting if you explored his story. He's LIkE C'S story in this film. And it would have been so much more interesting to follow his mean. He's sexually accosted by Joe Spinel. [01:39:54] Speaker A: From dumb and dumber. [01:39:59] Speaker B: Yes. [01:40:04] Speaker A: That's how you get out of having to give a cop a blowjob. [01:40:06] Speaker B: You're like, do you want to hear. [01:40:07] Speaker A: The most annoying sound in the. [01:40:16] Speaker C: I think that, like, that's an interesting story, right? Like, he's this ANgrY GuY in his LitTLE story in the cop caR, joe SPINEL. Then he sexually assaults a sex worker. Then you see him in this subculture. He's staring at Pacino. Is he staring at pacino BECAUSe he wants to fuck him? Is he staring at Him BECAUSe he's LIKE, that guy looks FAmiliar BECAUSe they're BOTh cops? You know what I mean? Is he possibly a killer? It's touched on, but it's not evolved. It's not fully fleshed. Like, again, interesting things are not so. [01:40:48] Speaker A: Okay, the scene in the bar and the park before he meets with the captain for the first time. [01:40:56] Speaker B: Right? [01:40:57] Speaker A: I have a question. Do you think Pacino is hooking up with those guys in the bar? He's getting rubbed on the chest by a guy, and then it cuts. And then later, when he's in that scene with Joe Spinel, and he's like, under the bridge in the park, and they have that eye contact scene that you were talking about. Gary Atlas is in that scene. He walks by, stares at Pacino, and then they both walk in the same direction. So what's happening? Engaging. Is he actually engaging in sexual activity with other men? Is he not like it? [01:41:35] Speaker C: But I don't know. Do you think that that's something that is left purposely ambiguous, or is that just something that. You know what I mean? Is that something that the expectation is for you, the viewer, to do the work? [01:41:55] Speaker B: I think speaking as a straight heterosexual or speaking as a straight heteronormative kind of guy, I would think if that were a guy who had that situation with a female, like a straight male with a female, my mind would immediately go to, yeah, they're hooking up, or they're taking it further. But I think that's why I'm like, I can't put myself in the places of somebody that I'm not. But it seems like if you're having those interactions and you're walking off in the middle of the night together or following each other, I feel like you're pushing it further than where? [01:42:33] Speaker A: Pushing it. [01:42:34] Speaker C: But doesn't he have to do that, though, because of the fact that he's undercover? Right? It's like the undercover agent. The undercover agent in the drug trade, right? They very commonly do get hooked on drugs because they're really doing drugs. [01:42:47] Speaker B: Donnie. [01:42:48] Speaker A: Brad. [01:42:49] Speaker C: Yeah, exactly. [01:42:50] Speaker B: But it blurs the line of, that's the mean. It does intentionally blurs that. [01:42:59] Speaker C: Yeah, but then to what end? You know what mean? [01:43:01] Speaker A: Like, I think that's the ultimately confusing storyline that doesn't quite make sense. It doesn't match up with motivations and some of the other scenes. But I would agree. I think that saying. It's saying, yes, he is experimenting at the very least, not just thoughts, but then he's getting tied up by that one guy, and it's like, how far is he willing to go? And I think that fingers that guy is conflicting. [01:43:30] Speaker C: But then he doesn't. The scene with the handkerchief, now that's a little earlier in the film, but still, that scene, though, shows this aloofness. [01:43:42] Speaker B: Of someone that I thought it showed a willingness. [01:43:45] Speaker A: I thought that was like, that's the crossover almost. [01:43:48] Speaker C: But the second that it gets pointed out by someone that he's not really into it, he pockets it. You know what I mean? [01:43:54] Speaker B: No. [01:43:55] Speaker A: Okay. I thought you were talking about the. [01:43:58] Speaker C: Huffing the yellow hair. [01:44:01] Speaker A: No, I think that's him toying with it. And I think when he finally huffs it, he's finally like, you know, maybe I'm going to let go a little bit and I'm going to experience this. [01:44:11] Speaker B: Really experience. [01:44:13] Speaker A: As much as I'm going to really push my boundaries, I also think it's intentional. [01:44:19] Speaker B: When the cops come in early and they haven't, I think that he was going to allow this to go as far as it can go. And I think that he's not. Yes, of course he's mad because they didn't get. Because they busted in too early. But I also think that plays on two levels, right? And I do think that's intentional. [01:44:40] Speaker A: How far would that have gone, do you think? I think it's so sad because Skip is like, I don't want to do that. They can't hear what's going on, but we hear enough. It's like, I don't want to tie you to. I'm not into this. This is weird. This is weird. I just wanted to fucking hook up. I didn't want to fucking. Which is interesting because Skip is at all these underground sex clubs. So maybe he's just like. [01:45:07] Speaker C: And the bartender says that he's trouble. You know what I mean? That he's a mental case and that he gets into fights and stuff like that. [01:45:15] Speaker A: Maybe he's very similar to Pacino where he's like, I'm toying with the idea of exploring my sexuality, but what does that say about myself? [01:45:23] Speaker C: Is he undercoverly gay man. [01:45:26] Speaker A: Yes, he's undercover for the. [01:45:33] Speaker B: It's like two things can be true at the same time, right? Absolutely. You can be doing your job and put in uncomfortable situations and find yourself tantalized, wanting to explore a part of your sexuality. Those both can be true at the same time. You can be a kid who has some kind of mental illness, not accepting his father's death, trying to seek approval from his father, while also not being the murderer. Right. I think this movie plays a lot in that gray area of, yes, both things can be right. And I do agree with you. It doesn't do a good job of bringing us to any kind of catharsis. Right. It's like it gives you nothing. [01:46:25] Speaker A: What do we think of Stewart then? What did you get from that? And I will say this time, upon viewing it, I always forget that it's like, oh, his dad's dead the entire time. So what I did was that scene with boy meets world dad, William Russell. [01:46:42] Speaker C: Hilarious. Every small. [01:46:45] Speaker A: He's really good in this. His two scenes are so when he's with the cops and he's like, yeah, his dad's been dead forever, but he talks like he's still alive. [01:46:58] Speaker B: It was weird. [01:46:59] Speaker A: I immediately went back because Stewart's talking about, like, my dad's not going to give me money for a stiff. He's like, he's not going to give me any money right now. And his friend who knows his dad is dead. Right. He seems like a really good friend. [01:47:19] Speaker B: I agree. [01:47:19] Speaker A: Hey, are you going to come hang out with us tonight? [01:47:22] Speaker B: I'm not worrying about that. I'm worrying about tonight. Are you hanging out? Yeah. [01:47:26] Speaker A: It's like, maybe my dad will adopt you. You know what I mean? He seems like this good friend for this troubled kid who I don't think is the killer. [01:47:37] Speaker B: Agreed. I agree. I agree with that. McLaren slow. [01:47:40] Speaker C: Is he a killer? Do you guys think that? [01:47:45] Speaker A: I don't think so. [01:47:47] Speaker B: I don't know. There's a bit of abatement in there as well, where it's like he could have killed one person, but he's the scapegoat for multiple murders. And I also think it's possible that he carries that knife for protection, not just to shank people. [01:48:08] Speaker A: I don't think he's a killer at all. I look at it very much from the viewpoint of, like, he is being stalked by this crazy man who's outside his room. [01:48:22] Speaker B: It's true. [01:48:23] Speaker C: Why does Chino stare at. [01:48:31] Speaker A: I know. You know and you know. I know. And we know. [01:48:38] Speaker C: You'Re undercover. The point is not for them to know you're suspecting them. [01:48:43] Speaker B: No. [01:48:46] Speaker A: If you do some research, I think the character is supposed to have schizophrenia or some mental thing going on, but I don't think he's a killer. [01:48:56] Speaker B: Killer. That doesn't make you a killer to have. [01:49:00] Speaker A: In that final scene in the park, right? It's Pacino who's the one. Things happen, and he's the one who steps on his pants and pulls out the knife. [01:49:11] Speaker B: Pulls him down. [01:49:12] Speaker A: He pulls the knife out, like, which, basically Pacino gets his shield for harassing and stabbing. This help. [01:49:26] Speaker C: Mental be fair. That's still true to this day by most of the. [01:49:33] Speaker B: That conversation right there is where I think this film actually does kind of win me a little bit. Because I hate the fact that it's so ambiguous. But I also like the fact that it's like. It's not trying to give me any answers. It's not trying to give me shit. I have to make these decisions on my own or just be frustrated with it and give up on it. Yeah. [01:49:53] Speaker C: And I agree with you in that I like a film that's ambiguous. I like being given that. But I want at least, I like craftsmanship. [01:50:05] Speaker A: That leads me to it. [01:50:06] Speaker C: You know what I mean? [01:50:07] Speaker B: Yes. [01:50:08] Speaker C: There's no craftsmanship. That's me. There's some. [01:50:13] Speaker A: Lots of craftsmanship. [01:50:14] Speaker C: It's just not enough. [01:50:16] Speaker A: Too many things. It's too many things. It's a never ending maze. That doesn't make sense. [01:50:21] Speaker C: I think even talking about this now makes me realize that that's also a big part of my frustration, is that a lot of the areas of this film that I think are much more interesting. They don't go down the pathway at all. You know what I mean? There's so many ways that it could have been done, you know what I mean? And just chosen not to. [01:50:44] Speaker A: I agree with you there. It's like you have so many talented, amazing people in such an interesting time in one of the greatest cities in the world, and it just doesn't quite follow through for me. The police night at. I think it's district 13, I think is the name of that club. You don't have the right vibe. [01:51:09] Speaker B: Yeah. You feel wrong, buddy? [01:51:14] Speaker A: It reminded me of a memory I have with my brother, one of my brothers. [01:51:19] Speaker C: Oh, boy. Therapy hour. [01:51:23] Speaker A: Just the costumings. So one of my brothers was going to be a soccer player, and he hurt himself his senior year. So he ended up going to not a good college. Not like a really good college. For soccer. And he basically just spent a semester going wild at college before he went back home and ended up getting into the profession he's in. And I remember when I showed up to visit him in the middle of nowhere in Missouri. I like, knock on his door and he answers it. And he's completely naked except for a riot police helmet and some gloves. [01:52:04] Speaker C: Nice. [01:52:06] Speaker A: And he's like, give me 510 minutes. And then like an hour later, he shows up finally. But every time that scene pops up, I forget about it. Every time the scene pops up, I think of my brother. I think of police academy. I think of. [01:52:26] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:52:29] Speaker A: I also think it's okay. Victim three, the peep booth guy, right? [01:52:33] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:52:34] Speaker A: I think it's crazy that he parks his mercedes convertible with all of the expensive fashion stuff for the shows and movies or whatever that he has going on. He parks it right outside the peep show in a very dangerous area in New York, uncovered. [01:52:49] Speaker C: And the scene before it even, like, why is there set up for him? You know what? [01:52:56] Speaker B: Backstory here's a little. [01:52:59] Speaker A: That's. I believe that's freaking going. Hey, these are normal people. They work in the fashion industry. They work this, they work that. But at night they have a day job. [01:53:11] Speaker C: And he's a successful fashion guy. That's the real. The common people. [01:53:20] Speaker B: Successful career in the fashion business as we all do in middle America. [01:53:24] Speaker A: Yeah, you have a place on the island, fire islands. [01:53:30] Speaker C: And then I think it's funny, too, that in his little backstory scene, it's almost like he's the one that's like, we got to be serious. There's so much to be done. [01:53:38] Speaker B: I'm going to go to a peep. [01:53:39] Speaker C: Show and get murdered. [01:53:40] Speaker A: I got to get a fucking blow job real quick. The Internet doesn't exist yet. [01:53:44] Speaker C: That's true. Fair. [01:53:48] Speaker B: That probably is the convenient, fast way to get your rocks off at the time. [01:53:53] Speaker C: Yeah. Orange theaters were incredibly successful for all communities in the late seventy s. Eighty. [01:53:59] Speaker A: S. Ask Travis Pickle. [01:54:02] Speaker B: Yes. [01:54:05] Speaker C: We'll take a moment here for you. [01:54:07] Speaker A: To have a moment. It's a good first date. The porn theater. [01:54:14] Speaker B: For those of you who don't know what we're talking about, we have not done an episode on probably to come. [01:54:22] Speaker C: Into the video store. You should probably know what we're talking about. [01:54:25] Speaker A: If you are of our ilk, then. [01:54:27] Speaker B: You know who Travis Bickle is, right? [01:54:30] Speaker C: It's true. [01:54:30] Speaker A: Travis Bickle, Stuart Little. These are paramount characters in cinema history. [01:54:37] Speaker C: Iron giant. [01:54:39] Speaker B: Iron giant. [01:54:44] Speaker A: Vin Diesel, Michael J. Fox, Robert De Niro. Yeah, it all comes back Al Pacino and this guy. [01:54:53] Speaker B: Third victim. [01:54:59] Speaker A: Yeah. So. [01:55:03] Speaker B: What? What's going on? What happens? What does this all mean? [01:55:11] Speaker A: Who's the killer? Who's not the killer? What's going on? What do you guys. If we remove the bakers of it, what is your experience? How's it changed from before? Chris, Mickey, this is your first time. So let's start with you, Mickey, as this should be your first movie. What do you think the point of it is and what happened? What's going on? [01:55:48] Speaker B: Wow. [01:55:49] Speaker A: Explain it. [01:55:51] Speaker B: So many levels of a question. [01:55:52] Speaker C: What the fuck? [01:55:55] Speaker B: As a first time viewer of this film, immediately upon credits, I was baffled. I was like, what? I was like, what? Wait. I was already kind of confused. I was like, because at first I thought, oh, I know who the killer is. Then I'm like, oh, wait, no, it's another person. Oh, wait, no. Is it multiple people? Oh, wait, what is going on? And then at the end, I'm like, oh, I have no fucking clue. I started off not knowing. I finished not knowing. And it took me a minute to sit in it and be at first like, this is dumb. And then go, okay, well, no, it's Friedkin. Right? For Friedkin, I'm willing to be like, I'm willing to do some work. He's earned the audience to do him some work. And that's where I started to feel like, okay, it's obviously intentionally ambiguous. So for me, on my first viewing, based on a dumb kid who grew up in the south who was not exposed to anybody of the LGBTQ community that had come out. I know I had been exposed to people, but they had not come out until I was almost 20 years old. I feel like this film is wrestling with a series of murders in the 1970s that were so sad and so underserved by our police forces. And it did mistakenly profile a group of people as bad and when really all they had was a sexual kink that we all have. So for me, it's a giant metaphor of a time when police got shit wrong and misprofiled a group of people, which seems to happen to this day. So, yeah, that's what this film is. It's giant metaphor of a very sad part of our law enforcement. I think that's where I landed as my final thesis of this first watch. [01:58:09] Speaker C: What is the meaning of cruising? Acab? [01:58:20] Speaker A: One clear message that you totally get from this film is it's like the sort of nihilistic, brutal, apathetic viewpoint of the police force and how they fail us. [01:58:34] Speaker B: Right? [01:58:35] Speaker A: Which is like, this has not changed much. [01:58:40] Speaker B: No. [01:58:41] Speaker A: Oh, boy. It's another fucking job where you got to get stuff done. [01:58:46] Speaker C: Especially whenever you take into consideration, like the film starts with a body part being found off the coast, you know what I mean? [01:58:56] Speaker A: And it goes. And then we finish. [01:58:59] Speaker C: And that's not even touched on throughout the course of the film, you know what I mean? That's the point is the level of ambivalence to murder of a section of the community. [01:59:15] Speaker A: There's a name for it. I didn't write it down, but it freaking was blown by it. But it's like if the police find a body part, right, it's not immediately a murder investigation. At that time, it was like circumstances unidentified. I can't remember the name of it right now, but if you do read the book, if you do look into this, there's a name for it. And it's obviously in the. They show it at the very beginning, but it's like, yeah, it's a pending police investigation, essentially. And it's like you don't find an arm in the water. It's like 99 times out of 100, it's something went. Some foul play is at hand to. [01:59:57] Speaker B: Talk about this is an obvious statement, but for anybody who hadn't put two and two together, it's a police cruiser. After you get that initial shot of the boat, you go straight into a police cruiser. Who's cruising? And what do they do? Yeah, they pick up two gay men and they use their authority to sexually assault these two men or women. However, they. I don't know how they want to be seen. I don't know. [02:00:34] Speaker C: They don't gender themselves. [02:00:35] Speaker B: We don't have. [02:00:37] Speaker A: They're sex workers. They're definitely sex workers. [02:00:44] Speaker B: Another abuse of the power of the police. But I just thought also, you open it up and the police are cruising. [02:00:54] Speaker A: That whole storyline is based off of like, there were these men who were pretending to be police officers would go around and have sex and beat and steal money from and I think possibly kill these sex workers. But it did turn out that they were not police. [02:01:13] Speaker B: According to the records, they probably weren't police. But that's the. [02:01:21] Speaker A: It's like, oh, this really interesting, horrible fact. We're going to pull it. I'm sure you've experienced this, Mickey, where it's like you're working on something, you're writing something, you're with a group of people and you're like, hey, you know that one thing in this story, it doesn't make sense. And then someone's defense is like, well, this is how it happened. It really happened that way. And it's like, well, that doesn't. Just because something really happened doesn't mean that it fits into a compelling story arc. [02:01:52] Speaker B: Right? [02:01:54] Speaker A: It's a compelling piece of information. It's a compelling thing that happened. It's a horrific thing that happened. How do you fit this in and give it context and make it make sense within the arc of everything else? You're giving us in an hour and. [02:02:10] Speaker B: 45 hours, 40 1 hour 41. But I'm saying it's the duality of a documentarian who turns to narrative filmmaker who just trying to shove too much into a narrative film. That's the thing, right? It's like documentaries are supposed to sit back and just let people kind of. They're not supposed to be narrative, right. In nature. Now, there are many that are. And I don't want to be like, more often than not, we're in the. [02:02:37] Speaker A: Era of the bullshit documentary, in my opinion. [02:02:41] Speaker B: But in essence, a documentary is really about the filmmaker stepping back and you forming your own opinions about what they're filming in the reality of what's happening. Narrative filmmaking is not that. Right. It's like we are crafting a story with an end game in sight. Right. And I think that there is a duality that happens with people who have a documentary background that sometimes try don't. I would say Terrence Malik falls into that camp a little bit, but, yeah. [02:03:14] Speaker A: It worked for him with. [02:03:19] Speaker B: You know. [02:03:20] Speaker A: It didn't work at the time, but there it works sometimes for Chris. What did you pull from it, and has it changed? [02:03:36] Speaker C: I don't think it's changed. I think that it's one of those things, right. To take the glass half full for the film would be. Excuse me, the glass half full for the film would be that it is this story of, like, showing this ambivalence by the police force towards a community, the power struggle that forces itself on the community, that we kind of talked about with the sexual assault by the police, and then the way the community is under served by everyone, really. And then at the end is left with this unsatisfying ending because there is no resolution. The problem is just that again. Right. We could write all that out and it sounds great. Problem is that the film itself doesn't work in pulling a lot of those things off you. The viewer can do the work, you can flesh that in for it, and then you can take that out of it. The problem is that it just doesn't play. I think really, the film is best served as watching this outlandish film that clearly is just taking, I think, just taking these swings and not caring about forming a classic narrative story, you know what I mean? And then seeing these ridiculous things, like the portrayal of some of the nightclubs, the Al Pacinos dancing these things, and then they take it in just some sheer entertainment value, you know what I mean? I think that's just really what it is. Michelangelo, what does it mean? [02:05:29] Speaker B: Michelangelo, what does it mean? [02:05:30] Speaker A: What does it mean? What did it do? [02:05:34] Speaker B: Why was this a part of let. [02:05:36] Speaker C: Me rub your chest. [02:05:39] Speaker B: I'll rub your back. [02:05:40] Speaker A: He'll rub your. [02:05:41] Speaker B: Oh, okay. [02:05:42] Speaker C: Actually, real quick side note here. Whenever Michelangelo and I first saw this film, one of my favorite jokes used to be at the time would be, Michelangelo would wear western shirts that all had buttons, and I would just come up to him randomly, all snaps. I just come up to him randomly, and we just rip them. [02:06:01] Speaker A: You weren't in the middle of people. You are not the only male friend that would do that to me when I was in my pearl snapped western shirt of my life, which I would love to return to, actually. [02:06:16] Speaker B: Yeah. Bring back, though, at least a denim shirt, like a black tank. [02:06:23] Speaker A: I have pearl snap denim shirt. [02:06:24] Speaker B: Yeah, leather, black leather jacket over. [02:06:27] Speaker A: When I'm dressed up. Nice to go out. The denim pearl snap Levi shirt comes out, my friend. [02:06:34] Speaker B: Do you do belt buckles? [02:06:36] Speaker A: You know what, Mickey? I actually do have something here that I've been meaning to give to you. [02:06:42] Speaker B: Is this just your move? Why would you like. [02:06:47] Speaker A: Oh, my God, that's a lone star belt buckle. It's got a bottle opener. [02:06:54] Speaker C: Oh, I was wondering if it did. [02:06:56] Speaker A: I bought this in my twenty s, and what I thought what was happening is like, girls will ask me for a drink at a party. I will go, hey, let me open that beer for you, and I'll undo my pants to subtly suggest sex and open the bottle of beer for them. [02:07:15] Speaker B: And then you take a bottle and move the bottle closer to your crotch. Yeah, I get it. [02:07:20] Speaker A: But what happened the first time I did it, I spilled beer all over my crotch, and it was embarrassing. [02:07:27] Speaker B: Look like you peeled yourself all night. [02:07:29] Speaker A: And the buckle is just extremely heavy and not really that functional, but it is cool. And I wear it in honor of Joe Bob Briggs. Whenever I watch the last drive in. [02:07:43] Speaker B: I have quite a few belt buckles. [02:07:47] Speaker A: To get the podcast back on track. [02:07:50] Speaker B: Sorry. [02:07:52] Speaker A: What do I think all of this means? You know, watching it recently, not this time, but the time before that. I watched it. I'm like, you know, we start in the harbor and we end in the harbor. In the end, nothing changes. In the end, it's like we're right back where we started. It doesn't mean anything. And I think that's the ultimate message, it's trying to say about the police system there. You know what I mean? You see these themes in the French Connection, right? Corrupt police department. Nothing changes. Things just repeat themselves. I do think it's a confusing film. And I think it's know freakin is working through something while he's making this. And I think Pacino is working through something when he's making this. But there's a lost communication between the two most important elements, I think, of this film. And ultimately the movie fails as a complete film. But it, for me, stands triumphantly as capturing these two great artists, an aspect of a subculture, the justice system. And this time place in New York. It's this time capsule that I greatly appreciate exists, but could not defend it as some great piece of cinema. But I love it. And I will continue to double feature this with pumping iron. [02:09:36] Speaker B: Two very heterosexual on Valentine's Day. [02:09:42] Speaker A: In defense of freaking, I will say, quoting him, it was never meant to be emblematic of anyone's lifestyle, but it did exist, and it was meant to be a background to a murder mystery. And I think if he had made some decisions and worked some things out, I think that would have been seen more clearly in the time. [02:10:05] Speaker C: Well, in the quote alone, when the background is the foreground, then you've. [02:10:09] Speaker A: Exactly. And I think that we go back to too much time, maybe in the clubs, but we want to explain what's. Anyway, do we want to make recommendations now or do we have other things we'd like to say? [02:10:26] Speaker B: I feel like I'm good. [02:10:28] Speaker A: I got to say, we usually do thank yous at the end, and we'll do more thank yous, but thank you. [02:10:33] Speaker B: The two of you, because I obviously. [02:10:36] Speaker A: Needed to talk about this. [02:10:37] Speaker B: And. [02:10:41] Speaker A: I understand the movie more now as a result of talking to the both of you. And I'm looking forward to watching it here. [02:10:54] Speaker B: Valentine's Day. We're doing this. We're cruising every Valentine's Day. [02:10:58] Speaker A: So, Mickey, who do you recommend this movie to? [02:11:01] Speaker B: At the video store? Yeah. Do you like american horror story, season eleven NYC? You got to see cruising. Do you like my friend Michelangelo? Then you got to see cruising. Okay? [02:11:19] Speaker A: Those are my stipulations. Yeah. If you like those two things, you got to see cruising. [02:11:24] Speaker B: If you're a William freakin completeist. If you're a Al Pacino completeist, you got to see cruising. I'm glad I saw it because I respect both artists. So glad to have another one of their films that completely I had a blind spot for. So thank you for bringing it to me, and those are my recommendations. I'll move it on to Chris. [02:11:45] Speaker C: Mickey, if I can give my recommendation to you. You don't need a champion this film on Michelangelo's behalf. He will do more than enough. [02:11:56] Speaker A: I appreciate the support. I feel like Chris knows me too well. Maybe that's why I get more support from. [02:12:07] Speaker C: Know. I would recommend this film to anyone who is mature enough to watch it in that this film. To me, this is a fascinating train wreck. I think that it's like a car crash. I get a lot of joy out of watching it, just like I do all car crashes. [02:12:30] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:12:31] Speaker C: No, but it's such a mess. It's enjoyable to watch. I think that in talking about it, I actually realize how annoyed I am by it because there's just so much more. There's so many worlds out there of such a better film. But at the same time, though, if you can take the joy out of it for what it is, I think it's definitely worth watching. I think the biggest thing is just making sure that you are mature enough to contextualize it, to know that this isn't endemic of a people or a place even. You know what I mean? I'll say, even for a place, I'll say this. I like that kind of like gritty New York seventy s look and all that. At the same time, too, I also get kind of annoyed. Maybe this is just a modern statement. I get annoyed at people trying to make it sound like, oh, yeah, it's a war zone in inner cities and the blah, blah, blah. You know what I mean? It's like, no, it's not. You know what I mean? [02:13:27] Speaker A: It becomes a prison in New York City, and it already did. The president ended there, and Snake had to come get him out. [02:13:38] Speaker C: I knew what you're going for there. [02:13:40] Speaker A: They should blend. There's your remake. We blend escape from New York and cruise. [02:13:47] Speaker B: Well, cruising New York would definitely be cruising when they come to him. And they're like, we stick you with this serum. Yeah. [02:13:56] Speaker C: For one last recommendation, I would say, michelangelo, you made a fun twofer watch. Between watching cruising and pumping iron, I'll offer this do a double feature of watching cruising and the. I think it's 1983 canadian film Siege that Mick Langel and I also watched together which is about a group way. [02:14:19] Speaker A: More progressive of a film. [02:14:20] Speaker C: Yeah, way more progressive of way more. [02:14:23] Speaker A: We're definitely talking siege one night. We have to talk about it. That's a progressive film with a clear message. [02:14:33] Speaker C: That's actually a very good point. But funny enough, when I was watching it again, it reminded me of that film. [02:14:39] Speaker A: You watched it again too? I watched it again too, by myself. [02:14:45] Speaker C: But Siege is a 1983 canadian film about a group that terrorizes. [02:14:51] Speaker A: I talked about it on a previous episode. Oh, did you really? [02:14:54] Speaker B: Yeah, we talked about. [02:14:55] Speaker C: I just missed that one. [02:14:56] Speaker A: Yeah. Do you remember what episode? Mickey, for the listener? I can't remember. I'm sorry. [02:15:01] Speaker B: It was a Marika episode, so it would have been. Was it the Halloween playlist? Maybe not. Let's not spend time on this because I don't know. [02:15:23] Speaker A: Do you love a police academy? [02:15:25] Speaker B: Do you love. [02:15:26] Speaker C: Wait, which one? [02:15:26] Speaker A: CTV. The first one or the second one? Is it the second one? [02:15:32] Speaker C: The bars in, like, I think all of them. [02:15:35] Speaker A: I think all of them, but I think. Is it like the first one? It's mentioned and they go to it, but we don't see the inside until the second one anyways. [02:15:45] Speaker B: I don't know. Yeah. [02:15:47] Speaker A: Anyways, is Karen Allen's filmography. Is this a blind spot for you? You got to check this out. [02:15:53] Speaker B: Love Karen Allen. [02:15:54] Speaker A: She is wonderful in this, despite having not much to do. Richard Gere. [02:16:04] Speaker B: Do you like Richard Gere? [02:16:06] Speaker A: Imagine him in this part, because he was originally supposed to play this part. It's interesting. I want to see the. [02:16:15] Speaker B: Steamy in. [02:16:16] Speaker A: That part, in the multiverse of things. It's like Richard Gere is in cruising and Al Pacino is in Pretty Woman. [02:16:24] Speaker B: You know what? Pacino. [02:16:27] Speaker A: That would not work with Pacino. I'm sorry. I love. I think, obviously, echoing a lot of what you guys are saying. If you're a Pacino completeist, you have to see this. This is in his 70s, Pacino, he was doing so many. I think even his fails are worth watching. And I was listening to Christopher Nolan talk about working with Pacino, and he has a very different take than freaking had, where it's like, pacino does these big. He's known for going really up high and down low and doing 50 takes. And Nolan sees it as a net positive because he's like, what Pacino knows is that the film is made in the editing bay, and what he's doing is he's giving me a multitude of options to edit into what I ultimately want out of a scene. [02:17:34] Speaker B: Right. [02:17:35] Speaker A: And Nolan is like a masterful filmmaker who can contextualize these crazy storyboards and ideas, but it doesn't work for somebody, like, freaking. And also at that, know Pacino's like a veteran when he's working with. This is. This is a movie. I love the idea of recommending this to someone who knows absolutely nothing about it and is not prepared for this at all and being like, yeah, you should definitely check this out. This is fun. Do you like Pacino? [02:18:07] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:18:07] Speaker A: Check it, like, oh, you like mobster movies? Check out cruising. You like cop movies? Check out cruising. And then seeing their reaction and eventual canceled membership to our video store. [02:18:19] Speaker C: Is it like the cruising vhs? Like in a leather jacket wrapped up and covered in blood. Put it in the return slot. [02:18:28] Speaker A: We keep this. And there's a sub basement to the basement. It's a special club. That's basically how we're able to make our money. It's actually underneath the porn section. [02:18:36] Speaker B: Yeah, it's where. [02:18:40] Speaker A: And that's where we keep all of our versions of cruising. [02:18:47] Speaker B: You better have some cop vibes when you show up getting kicked out. [02:18:51] Speaker A: We got the deluxe collectors edition that was released in 2007 and 2018 by Warner Brothers home video with all of the commentary and the documentaries, the bonus materials on it, which is the history of cruising and exercising. Cruising, which I highly recommend you check out. They're very interesting. And also the Blu ray restored print from Arrow from 2019. And also you will find one single copy of 2000 and thirteen's interior leather bar by James Frank. [02:19:29] Speaker B: James Frank. Oh, my God. Yeah. You'll find one little arcade game called Cruising USA. [02:19:40] Speaker A: Very retrofitted fit. [02:19:44] Speaker B: The movie. [02:19:46] Speaker C: That was a racing game, right? [02:19:47] Speaker B: Yeah, it's a racing cruise in USA. [02:19:49] Speaker A: This movie is a race to find out who the killer is. [02:19:56] Speaker C: It would be so great if someone did that. They made a cruising the video game in 1980s nes. A lot of people do that. [02:20:04] Speaker A: Mickey, you'll appreciate this. There is an uncredited actress in this who is in a Friday the 13th film. And I have a crush on her. Part three. [02:20:17] Speaker B: There is the girl that. [02:20:18] Speaker A: The sleazy guy hits her ass. He's got the close up of her ass. He hits it with a slingshot. She ends up getting killed when she goes skinny dipping. [02:20:28] Speaker B: Oh, yes. [02:20:29] Speaker A: She is an uncredited jog. [02:20:33] Speaker B: She was in this, essentially in this. I saw her jog, actually. Yes, I know her jog. He's getting out of the car and she's jogging by as Pacino gets out of the car to go to his apartment. It's when he first gets that apartment. [02:20:47] Speaker A: I got to go back and watch it. I was trying to look out for it this time. [02:20:50] Speaker B: And he stands out. She stands out. [02:20:52] Speaker A: Does she have short shorts on? We got to get straight up in here. [02:20:58] Speaker B: Well, all I'm saying is that she's very attractive. She steals that scene, and I did have some familiarity, so I'm sure that. Yeah, there you go. [02:21:09] Speaker A: She's a stunner. [02:21:12] Speaker B: Wow. [02:21:12] Speaker A: Thank you, listener. If you've listened to all of this rambling. Three straight men talking about this film directed and starring straight men. [02:21:24] Speaker B: I don't. Straight man. [02:21:25] Speaker A: Was there one homosexual involved other than the men in the club behind the scenes, in a way that was shaping the story. I don't think this was touched by anyone who understood anything about that culture at all. Agreed. Although Freakin did direct the version of the boys in the band. [02:21:51] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:21:53] Speaker A: Which was recently made on Netflix. Yeah. Mickey, we did scenes in acting school from that play. [02:22:03] Speaker B: Looking back. We should have done something from cruising, though. [02:22:06] Speaker A: We should have done something from cruising. Just from the interior, for sure. [02:22:12] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:22:13] Speaker A: No dialogue. [02:22:14] Speaker B: Yeah, I don't like dialogue. [02:22:15] Speaker A: We shouldn't have done remembering dogma. We should have done cruising dogma. [02:22:20] Speaker B: That was fun. [02:22:21] Speaker A: We did do a scene from Dogma. Anyways, so thank you, listeners, so much for joining us. Thank you, Chris. Thank you, Mickey. Not only are you hosting this and running the video store with me, but you're the editor and the backbone of this. Thank you, Molly. Thank you, Ali. Check us out on can. If you subscribe now, you'll be notified once videos start showing up. [02:22:53] Speaker B: Yeah. And to our partners, Red Tower Entertainment. Thank you for helping us get onto YouTube. And they got some cool things going on as well. They got a lot of original short horror films you can check out, as well as a spooktacular film festival. If you want to submit to it. Check it out. You can submit via. [02:23:17] Speaker A: Redtower and Fangoria. We're not sponsored by you, but if you listen this far, enter code Red Tower on the Fangoria website and you get 20% off an entire order. You could literally order a year subscription to Fangoria and get 20% off a. [02:23:35] Speaker B: Fifth off of something you already fucking want. Fangoria is awesome. Grew up with them, love them so much. I'm using my 20%. Very happy about that. Very happy to have them be any part of this show. That's awesome. [02:23:49] Speaker A: Yeah. And YouTube should be a way for you, the listener, to be more interactive with us, which I know you want. [02:23:55] Speaker B: No, you want it. You want to see us. [02:23:57] Speaker A: You want to be like Chris in the flesh. Go from a fan to a co host buy into the pyramid scheme. [02:24:04] Speaker C: All hail the red tower. All hail the Fangoria. [02:24:08] Speaker B: We got some animations coming out. I want to say a quick thank you real quick to studio negative kitty for the animations they're doing for our show. You'll see those in March when we launch the YouTube channel again. Subscribe? Yeah, yeah. [02:24:21] Speaker C: Rate. [02:24:22] Speaker A: Review us. Follow us on Instagram. Where can they follow us? [02:24:26] Speaker B: You can follow us on Instagram at the return slot underscore of horror pod. You can follow us on YouTube at the return slot of horror podcast. Cast. I don't know what our YouTube is. [02:24:42] Speaker A: No, you got it. You got it. Just edit the gap. [02:24:45] Speaker B: I got it. Yeah. I'm just going to say all the words. The return slot of horror podcast. I'll make it work. All right. [02:24:55] Speaker A: And thank you, Al Pacino. [02:24:57] Speaker B: Thank you. Happy Valentine's Day to all. [02:25:01] Speaker C: Happy Valentine's Day. [02:25:03] Speaker B: We hope you find the love that Al Pacino found with. [02:25:10] Speaker A: Karen Allen. [02:25:11] Speaker B: With Karen Allen. That's it, Ted. [02:25:13] Speaker A: Sure. Because when you love someone, you stab. [02:25:16] Speaker B: Them to death and leave them in. [02:25:18] Speaker A: A pose reminiscent of a David Bowie album cover. [02:25:22] Speaker B: Yes. [02:25:24] Speaker C: What they say. [02:25:26] Speaker A: That's what they say. That's what they say. [02:25:29] Speaker B: Okay. [02:25:33] Speaker A: Let'S take off these leathers and get comfortable. [02:25:35] Speaker C: Now, you did the beginning. You've been standing in front of the door the whole time. [02:25:44] Speaker A: Magic. The magic of it's.