Episode 5

UNION SOLIDARITY: Norma Rae & Hoffa Script Analysis

UNION SOLIDARITY: Norma Rae & Hoffa Script Analysis

In this Labor Day episode, we dive into the world of unions, labor, and the intriguing figure of Jimmy Hoffa. We discuss two films with strong union themes: "Norma Rae" and "Hoffa," both shedding light on the struggles and triumphs of the labor movement. Amidst sips of our drinks, we analyze the writing, performances, and themes of these films.

"Norma Rae" takes center stage as the hosts explore its portrayal of a young woman's journey from a regular textile worker to a labor activist. Sally Field's passionate performance captures the spirit of the working class and their fight for better conditions. We also discuss the film's portrayal of unions and their significance in history.

Switching gears, we delve into "Hoffa," a biopic that delves into the life of the enigmatic Teamsters leader, Jimmy Hoffa. Jack Nicholson's performance shines as he embodies the charismatic yet complex figure, whose relationships with the mob and his pursuit of power shape the narrative. We dissect the writing, direction, and historical accuracy of the film, and reflect on Hoffa's legacy in the labor movement.

As the conversation evolves, we explore Hoffa's disappearance and the film's ending, contemplating the possibility of a different outcome that could have been more satisfying. We also touch on the fascinating connections between these films and other works, offering insights into the interconnected world of cinema.

Stay tuned for our upcoming Halloween special episode, where we'll compare and contrast the disturbing films "Silence of the Lambs" and "Midsommar," promising a mix of horror, analysis, and, of course, laughter. With Clubhouse as a new platform to engage with our audience, we look forward to interacting with listeners, discussing movies, sharing thoughts, and perhaps even letting loose with a drink or two (or three)!

The Wiegand brothers, Jerome & Chris, love movies, and they are fascinated by human nature and the art of great storytelling.

Jerome is a screenwriter and graduate of Columbia College, Chicago. He lives in northern California with his wife and two daughters.

Chris has been with Stellantis (Chrysler) since 1999 and lives with his wife, Jessie in Port Huron, Michigan. They have five adult children and 2 grandchildren (with another on the way!).

Follow Silver Screen Happy Hour on Instagram here:

https://www.instagram.com/silverscreenhappyhour/

Transcript
Chris:

If we can actually make this work with Clubhouse recording

Chris:

live, we'll see how it goes.

Chris:

It could go incredibly bad.

Chris:

We're drinking live with an audience.

Jerome:

I don't think there's anything wrong with that.

Jerome:

May Jerome's true colors come out.

Chris:

We'll either be cancelled after the first week, or we'll make it

Jerome:

Or I'm gonna get a lot of new followers on our Instagram!

Jerome:

Like, who's this Jerome guy?

Jerome:

I wanna fuckin drink with that dude.

Chris:

You're listening to the Silver Screen Happy Hour.

Chris:

I'm Chris Wiegand, along with my brother Jerome.

Chris:

I decided I'm gonna change the intro to this.

Chris:

If you wanna know who we are uh, read the description in the show notes.

Chris:

We're a couple of brothers.

Chris:

My brother Jerome has some experience with screenwriting, so if you're interested

Chris:

in all that, look at the show notes.

Chris:

Otherwise we're gonna jump right in.

Chris:

I'm really excited about this Labor Day edition of the show.

Chris:

So I am still gonna do the film reel thing 'cause I'm a nerd and I like it.

Chris:

And so, let me get the film reel going, and we'll get this thing moving.

Chris:

Welcome back to the Silver Screen Happy Hour.

Chris:

I'm Chris Wiegand with my brother Jerome.

Jerome:

Hello, I am here.

Chris:

Ha ha ha ha.

Chris:

Well, I'm, I've been looking forward to this.

Chris:

Right now, it's August we're coming up on September in a couple of weeks.

Chris:

which means Labor Day is rapidly approaching.

Chris:

And we had the idea, we wanted to record an episode dedicated to the theme of...

Chris:

Organized labor and unions and stuff like that.

Chris:

So, what movies do we go with, Jerome?

Jerome:

We are going with the 1990...

Jerome:

Well, let's start, let's go in chronological order.

Jerome:

The 1979 Norma Rae, which is Sally Field's first of her two

Jerome:

Academy Awards for Best Actress.

Jerome:

And it was her starting a unionizing the workers of a textile

Chris:

plant.

Chris:

And it was in the South.

Chris:

Do you remember what state it was set in?

Chris:

I'm trying to remember.

Jerome:

Well, I don't want to say deep South.

Jerome:

I want to say it was like, like North Carolina or something like that.

Jerome:

I think you're right.

Jerome:

Yeah.

Jerome:

But it was of course, she's met with a lot of opposition.

Jerome:

It's loosely based on a real person, though all the names are changed.

Jerome:

But it was really, you know, loosely based on a real event that happened.

Jerome:

The other one we're gonna do is really based on a real life character.

Jerome:

It was the the film Hoffa.

Jerome:

Starring Jack Nicholson, which of course is based not loosely,

Jerome:

but factually on Jimmy Hoffa.

Jerome:

This movie came out in 1992, directed by Danny DeVito who also appears in

Jerome:

the film as a, sort of his number two.

Jerome:

It's an amalgamation role.

Jerome:

It's not a real person.

Jerome:

It's, it's a mixture of, most people think three or four close associates to Hoffa

Jerome:

were sort of mixed into one character.

Jerome:

Right.

Jerome:

That his name is Bobby Charo, Charo.

Jerome:

But before we dig in to the script structures or non existent

Jerome:

script structures which I got I had problems with this too.

Jerome:

I got a lot to say about both and the funny thing is David

Jerome:

Mamet wrote the screenplay for Hoffa and I love David Mamet.

Jerome:

He's one of my favorite screenwriters and I don't know if he just needed

Jerome:

to pay the rent, so he took the paycheck, or if he's like...

Jerome:

Because I'm so good, and I know all the rules of screenwriting,

Jerome:

what happens if I throw curveballs?

Jerome:

Now, actually, I have less problems with Hoffa than I do with Norma.

Jerome:

I have way more problems with Norma Rae's script.

Jerome:

Yeah.

Jerome:

Which, oddly enough, Hoffa did not get nominated for

Jerome:

screenplay, but Norma Rae did.

Chris:

That surprised me.

Chris:

I actually went to look on the, I looked to see what awards it was up for or won.

Chris:

And I was surprised to see it was up for screenplay.

Chris:

I could not believe it.

Jerome:

Because the structure wise it's a mess.

Jerome:

It is an absolute mess.

Jerome:

It has some great dialogue.

Jerome:

One of my favorite lines in the movie, we'll get to that.

Jerome:

And good performances all around.

Jerome:

Definitely a worthy film.

Jerome:

But we'll get into why the script suffered.

Jerome:

My problems with Hoffa actually could have been fixed with editing, and

Jerome:

I'll get to that when we get to it.

Jerome:

But, what are we drinking today?

Chris:

Yeah, I was gonna say, put on the brakes we need to

Chris:

talk about something else.

Chris:

So, ironically, er, strangely, ironically, probably strangely, I expected there to

Chris:

be more alcohol drinking in these movies.

Chris:

Yes.

Chris:

There really wasn't.

Chris:

I mean, there was some, there was some beer drinking.

Jerome:

There was some beer drinking in Norma Rae.

Jerome:

And there were a couple scenes in Hoffa with the big shots and the

Jerome:

mobsters drinking scotch, you know, whatever, but your basic scenes.

Chris:

Yeah, so I just decided, I'm like thinking, I went to my, local party

Chris:

store that I've talked about frequently, Wolverine, went and saw Andy up there.

Chris:

And, I just went with a Union Made bourbon, whiskey, Jim Beam, and I went

Chris:

with Jim Beam specifically, not just that it's union made, but Jimmy Hoffa, right?

Chris:

So, Jim, Jimmy, it's just, I, it was a stretch, but I got my, and

Chris:

Jim Beam's not, not a bad bourbon, I like, I like bourbons, so.

Jerome:

Which, which is interesting that in the movie,

Jerome:

Hoffa, nobody ever calls him Jim.

Jerome:

It's either Jimmy or James R.

Jerome:

James R.

Jerome:

Or J R.

Chris:

J R.

Chris:

On the bottle at the top it does say, James B.

Chris:

Beam Distilling Company.

Jerome:

There you go.

Jerome:

Here's a,

Jerome:

here's a riddle for you.

Jerome:

What does the R in James R.

Jerome:

Hoffa stand for?

Jerome:

Hmm.

Jerome:

Ralphie.

Jerome:

Funny thing is, I just gave you the answer.

Jerome:

For those that know we're already laughing.

Jerome:

It's RIDDLE.

Jerome:

Oh, really?

Jerome:

It's a riddle.

Jerome:

Anyway, I, now I did not go buy this.

Jerome:

I got this for my birthday.

Jerome:

My birthday was just a couple of weeks ago.

Jerome:

Turning the tender.

Jerome:

Fruitly age of 48, and I don't know what fruitly means, I don't

Jerome:

know, but anyway, signifying I'm young, I guess, I don't know.

Jerome:

So I got this for my birthday, my, my neighbors in my town all know me very

Jerome:

well, they all know I drink, you know, whiskeys bourbons and all kinds of stuff.

Jerome:

So one of them got me a bottle of Kentucky bourbon.

Jerome:

Kentucky Straight bourbon whiskey.

Jerome:

But this shit is strong.

Jerome:

You know how most stuff is 40 proof, or I'm sorry, 80

Jerome:

proof, but 40% alcohol, right?

Jerome:

. So this is a hundred proof.

Jerome:

It's 50% alcohol and it's called Heaven Hill.

Jerome:

Mm-hmm.

Jerome:

. And I chose it for today because above the title of where it says

Jerome:

Heaven Hill, it says Bottled in bond under US government supervision,

Jerome:

So if there's anything that screams union and government, right?

Jerome:

That stuck out to me.

Jerome:

So I'm going with this, and because it's so strong, it signifies

Jerome:

the strength of the teamsters.

Jerome:

Okay.

Jerome:

So we are, we are, we are.

Jerome:

It is strong.

Jerome:

Wait.

Jerome:

Alright, here we go.

Jerome:

Are you ready?

Jerome:

Yep.

Jerome:

Did you get that?

Jerome:

I got it.

Jerome:

Alright, now how about this?

Jerome:

This is always the hard part.

Chris:

I like the cork.

Chris:

I like the cork.

Chris:

Oh, yeah.

Chris:

Oh, Jesus.

Jerome:

Well, because I have this problem every time.

Jerome:

First of all, I don't see it.

Jerome:

He

Chris:

does have ice in it, so it looks fuller than it actually is.

Jerome:

So here's the problem I have.

Jerome:

I want you to get the sound, so I will pour heavier than I usually should.

Jerome:

You do have a beer backup, right?

Jerome:

Which means I get drunk easier.

Jerome:

Yes, as usual.

Jerome:

Still looking for a sponsorship from Anheuser Busch.

Jerome:

I'm still backing up with some Michelob Ultra Tall cans, the 25 ouncers, to

Jerome:

signify the beer drinking in Norma Rae.

Chris:

We should be able to get Budweiser to sponsor us.

Chris:

I mean, they're asking everybody to sponsor us.

Jerome:

They need the help right now, right?

Jerome:

Let's do it.

Jerome:

So I I am backing up both films today.

Jerome:

My Heaven Hill Bottled and Bond is for Hoffa, and my

Jerome:

beer backup is for Norma Rae.

Jerome:

So...

Chris:

Hold on, wait.

Chris:

Before we start and get into the movies, I thought we should

Chris:

have a little chat about unions.

Chris:

Full disclosure, I'm a UAW member, local 1700 in Sterling Heights, Michigan.

Chris:

It's where we manufacture the Ram truck, and it is a contract year.

Chris:

Podcast is going to hit, hit the airwaves, or the digital waves, I guess it's not

Chris:

airwaves right before our contract is set to expire, and if you're watching

Chris:

the news it's, it's not looking good.

Chris:

It's, it's looking more and more like there's going to be a strike there's

Chris:

a lot of, a lot of demands the union membership has put forth, and it's been

Chris:

received With a wet blanket, basically.

Chris:

The, companies, are not happy.

Chris:

They've, some of them, I know Stellantis put forth their proposals

Chris:

and the UAW president, did a video where he threw them in the trash.

Chris:

So, that's kind of where we're at, with the UAW right now.

Chris:

It's bad.

Chris:

And they even threatened, for the first time, they've, I don't believe they've

Chris:

ever done this before, the UAW president, threatened to strike all three at the

Chris:

deadline So, if no one has settled and then resolve them one at a time.

Chris:

So Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis striking all three at the same time.

Chris:

I don't think they can do that.

Chris:

I think the federal government will get involved because the entire

Chris:

Michigan economy will come to a screeching halt because so much is

Chris:

connected to the auto industry here.

Chris:

I mean, it's not just the parts suppliers, but Everyone that supports them and like

Chris:

the restaurants and everything around an assembly plant It's it's pretty crazy.

Chris:

How like during During the Great Recession when a lot of the plants

Chris:

were idled the economy just was hurting out here So we'll see what happens.

Chris:

I just wanted to give full disclosure that I'm a union member and Yeah,

Jerome:

Well, okay, I'll add one other piece.

Jerome:

The article I read today in the New York Times, it wasn't published today.

Jerome:

It was just something I stumbled across as I was preparing for the show.

Jerome:

It was from March of this year.

Jerome:

So it's actually before the Writers and Actors Guild strikes, which is another

Jerome:

reason why we wanted to do this show.

Jerome:

Right, right.

Jerome:

Was to show solidarity for our brothers and sisters, on the front

Jerome:

lines of the SAG Screen Actors Guild Award, Screen Actors Guild Awards.

Jerome:

That's just, it's funny how that just naturally comes out

Jerome:

of your mouth when you say that.

Jerome:

Screen Actors Guild and the Writers the Writers Guild of America.

Jerome:

So, two unions that are on strike right now, and this article from

Jerome:

the New York Times was written.

Jerome:

Or published earlier this year.

Jerome:

Those, the strikes hadn't started yet, but they were talking about specifically

Jerome:

what's going on in Michigan where they did mention it was a contract here.

Jerome:

But they also mentioned that in the last election, I guess the Democrats took

Jerome:

over the Michigan Senate and the House.

Jerome:

And one of the things that they're doing is they're repealing this bill

Jerome:

that was opposed by Republicans prior.

Jerome:

Yeah.

Jerome:

That made it harder for the unions.

Chris:

Well, I believe it was the Right to Work bill.

Chris:

Yes, the Right to Work bill.

Chris:

I don't know.

Chris:

I don't know how much of an effect that actually had because...

Chris:

I know a lot of people that threatened to leave the union in, in some of

Chris:

our, you know, at work, where I work.

Chris:

I don't know anyone that actually did.

Chris:

You know what I mean?

Chris:

Everyone I know that's in the plants that are, that have an option of

Chris:

being UAW members are UAW members.

Chris:

So, regardless of where they stand politically, and I've

Chris:

held my nose, I gotta be honest.

Chris:

There's, I mean, it's no secret that UAW has just gone through, what, a decade

Chris:

of, of corruption and prison and...

Chris:

Like, it's, it's insane what has happened.

Jerome:

And what we're going to talk about in one of the films today, you'll

Jerome:

see that that shit goes back a long ways.

Jerome:

Oh, I know.

Jerome:

Yeah.

Jerome:

Wherever there's money, wherever there is money, there's corruption.

Jerome:

So, you

Jerome:

know.

Chris:

We are, I am hopeful that this is a new day in the UAW and we have

Chris:

new leadership that we just voted in.

Chris:

So, we'll see how this goes.

Chris:

I'm hoping, I'm hoping we don't strike, but it's looking more and

Chris:

more like we will, and and everyone I talk to is, has the same attitude.

Chris:

They don't want to, but they're willing to, because there's been so

Chris:

many bad contracts over the years.

Chris:

There's a lot to make up for.

Chris:

So anyways,

Jerome:

and as far as the writers and the actors for anyone that's listening

Jerome:

that doesn't know a lot about what's going on there, there's a lot since

Jerome:

the era of streaming and now artificial intelligence coming along and developing,

Jerome:

there's a lot of opportunity to sort of screw over actors and writers.

Jerome:

So they're trying to, and their contract was up this year

Jerome:

too, and they're trying to.

Jerome:

You know, get a piece of that action, and they should, right?

Jerome:

Because you don't have movies if you don't have writers and actors.

Jerome:

Right.

Jerome:

Not everyone can do what they do.

Jerome:

You know, you hear about it all the time.

Jerome:

You know, whenever you're at a party, you always hear somebody get

Jerome:

a few drinks in them and say, Oh, I was thinking about writing a movie.

Jerome:

Like, yeah, everybody says that.

Jerome:

But very few people can do it and do it well.

Jerome:

Right.

Jerome:

Right.

Jerome:

so yeah, 1979 Norma Rae, which...

Jerome:

I think was a big staple movie at the time because although unions have been around

Jerome:

forever, or at least, you know, they were popularized, long before 1979, That

Jerome:

was a big moment for, like I said, it was loosely based off a real story, so when

Jerome:

you started to get textile factories, right, and factories that made shit,

Jerome:

everything, furniture, chairs, couches, anything where you were sitting in a hot

Jerome:

warehouse with loud ass noise blowing your eardrums out with all the machines, how

Jerome:

long were we as humans At You know, we're not built to withstand that for so long.

Jerome:

You could probably speak better than I can about working in the auto

Jerome:

industry and the auto plants, how taxing that can be on the human body.

Jerome:

Oh, yeah.

Jerome:

Your your eyes, your ears, everything.

Jerome:

When was it going to finally be time for us to stand up and say you know

Jerome:

what, you gotta pay us better if we're going to do this, we need more breaks,

Jerome:

we need more vacation, you know, go

Chris:

to the doctor and not be burdened by the mountain of medical bills we're

Chris:

inevitably going to Pile up after our bodies break down from doing this

Chris:

job repeat, you know, the repetitive motions Yeah, I mean Physical therapy

Chris:

I can go down a list of things that I've had to do because of the being on

Chris:

the assembly line for many Years, but

Jerome:

so Norma Rae starts, the opening credits are, of course, the,

Jerome:

the mill is the background, right?

Jerome:

They want to kind of set up the shop where they work.

Jerome:

In the beginning, the first actual scene of characters interacting,

Jerome:

Norma Rae's mother's hearing is blown out, like it's just done, right?

Jerome:

Now, she gets it back, it's temporary, but it's, it's, that's the very first

Jerome:

First, that's kind of what starts the movie off, kicks the movie off, where

Jerome:

she freaks out that she's talking to her mom and her mother can't even hear her.

Jerome:

It's one of these settings where it's a small town and everybody in

Jerome:

that town, that's the job they have.

Jerome:

They work at this plant, right?

Jerome:

They work at this mill.

Jerome:

That's the only job in town, right?

Jerome:

If you don't have that job, you ain't working, you know?

Jerome:

So and, and there's no, the workers aren't unionized at this point.

Jerome:

There's no union.

Jerome:

I should say they're not organized.

Jerome:

And then, and this is just an indication of what people have to go through.

Jerome:

We'll get to it a little bit later.

Jerome:

But, so, normally we talk about, here's my problems with the script.

Jerome:

Let's just do a, we always talk about it, if you haven't seen

Jerome:

the movies, watch the trailer.

Jerome:

Yeah.

Jerome:

Okay.

Jerome:

The basic crux of this movie, what we always talk about is, if you could get it

Jerome:

down to a log line, which is what they, they call it in the industry, a log line.

Jerome:

It's like a one sentence explanation of the film.

Jerome:

Right?

Jerome:

What is this movie about?

Jerome:

Right.

Jerome:

And, generally that starts at the second turning point, or I'm

Jerome:

sorry, the first turning point, which is your jump to Act 2.

Jerome:

Right?

Jerome:

So, Act 1 is all set up.

Jerome:

You're introducing characters, you're introducing, you know, what, what

Jerome:

they do, what Blake Snyder used to call at work, at home, at play.

Jerome:

What do they do at work?

Jerome:

What do they do when they're home?

Jerome:

And what do they do when they're relaxing?

Jerome:

Right?

Jerome:

So you set up all that and then something happens that pushes

Jerome:

the, the story forward and the main character has to decide whether or

Jerome:

not they want to go on this journey.

Jerome:

And that jumps him into Act 2.

Jerome:

None of that shit happens in the first act of this film.

Jerome:

Okay?

Jerome:

There's setup, but that's all there is is setup.

Jerome:

And the logline of this film, I actually looked it up.

Jerome:

In fact, I'm gonna friggin read it to you.

Jerome:

Off of the Internet Movie Database.

Jerome:

The logline for Norma Rae is, a young single mother and textile worker agrees

Jerome:

to help unionize her mill despite the problems and dangers involved.

Jerome:

So, technically that should happen.

Jerome:

At the beginning of the second act.

Jerome:

Hmm, yeah.

Jerome:

When does Norma agree to help Reuben start the union?

Jerome:

At the fucking midpoint scene, dude.

Jerome:

It's halfway through the film.

Jerome:

Literally halfway.

Jerome:

Of an hour and fifty four minute film.

Jerome:

Somewhere around the...

Jerome:

56 minute mark, she agrees to help him set up the union.

Jerome:

What the fuck's been going on this whole time?

Jerome:

Half the movie is over before she even decides.

Jerome:

They spend so much time on set up and so much time on why the...

Jerome:

Bosses are bad, and the mill is bad, and, you know, she's such a loud mouth

Jerome:

that the bosses will teach her a lesson.

Jerome:

They'll make her in charge of, what they call it, spot checks?

Jerome:

Yeah.

Jerome:

Where she, you know, has to go around and check everybody's work, and of course

Jerome:

everybody hates her for that, you know?

Jerome:

Right, right.

Jerome:

That was the boss's way of sticking it to her, and all this shit, and, I

Jerome:

mean, poor Ruben spends the whole first half of the film, not the first act,

Jerome:

the first half of the film, doing all

Chris:

Tell the audience who Reuben is.

Jerome:

Okay, so Reuben is a labor organizer, right?

Jerome:

He is in town, and the movie starts off with him basically, he not, the, after

Jerome:

he gets, normally gets the mom home from the doctor because of her hearing.

Jerome:

Yeah.

Jerome:

Reuben's knocking on the door, so he's already there in like

Jerome:

the third scene in the movie.

Jerome:

Right.

Jerome:

And, has a fun interaction with Norma Rae's dad, who obviously

Jerome:

dislikes him, and the idea of unions.

Jerome:

Right.

Jerome:

And, and we can talk about that too, about why people feared the union.

Jerome:

It wasn't that they feared the union, they feared the boss's response to a union.

Jerome:

Yeah.

Jerome:

And what does Pat Hengel, who plays Norma Rae's father, Verne, He says to them,

Jerome:

People like you is how we lose our jobs.

Jerome:

Right?

Jerome:

Because that's what they're afraid of.

Jerome:

They would love to be part of a union where they get paid more, and get

Jerome:

more rest, and get more vacation, but they're definitely afraid that they're

Jerome:

just gonna get fired if they unionize.

Jerome:

Right.

Jerome:

Right, so that's really the crux of the whole thing, is they're not really

Jerome:

afraid of the unions, they're afraid of their boss's reaction to a union.

Jerome:

Right, the retaliation.

Jerome:

Right, so Reuben jumps in and we in scene three, and he spends

Jerome:

the entire rest of the first half Just trying to convince Norma.

Jerome:

Norma Rae.

Jerome:

Just, Hey, this is all a lot of good.

Jerome:

We can do a lot of good here.

Jerome:

Need some help.

Jerome:

What do you think?

Jerome:

I'm gonna go put some posters up.

Jerome:

That fucking shit happens the whole first half of the film.

Jerome:

Yeah.

Jerome:

Finally at the midpoint she says, okay, I'll help you.

Jerome:

And I'm like, now?

Jerome:

This shit should have happened in the first 20 minutes if you

Jerome:

want to tell this story right.

Jerome:

Right.

Jerome:

So that's my first problem is, is, the pacing is way off.

Jerome:

Now we always talk about the theme is stated in the first five minutes.

Jerome:

Well, since we don't even get to the turning point until halfway through,

Jerome:

this one comes a little bit later.

Jerome:

It's around 13 minutes in.

Jerome:

What did you pick up?

Jerome:

Did you pick up one?

Jerome:

No,

Chris:

actually, I don't, so here's the thing.

Chris:

I only watched it once.

Chris:

And I only watched it, I try, I usually try to watch these twice, and so, yeah,

Chris:

so I did not, I, I, like, I, I was trying to pay attention, like, in that first five

Chris:

minutes, five, ten minutes, and then, then I was like, forget it, I'm just going to

Chris:

try and pay attention to the story, and then I lost the dialogue a little bit,

Jerome:

you know.

Jerome:

So, we always talk about the theme that stayed in the first

Jerome:

five minutes, kind of sets up.

Jerome:

Yeah.

Jerome:

The character's goals, right?

Jerome:

Their tangible and spiritual goals.

Jerome:

What it is they want versus what it is they need.

Jerome:

13 minutes in, she's sleeping around with that one guy, right?

Jerome:

In the motel.

Jerome:

The guy that hits her.

Jerome:

Because he, she tells him she doesn't want to sleep around

Jerome:

anymore, so we're a classy guy.

Jerome:

Yeah.

Jerome:

He says to her, What the hell are you good for anyway?

Jerome:

And that kind of sets up, because at that moment you realize, Yeah.

Jerome:

Because she's sitting on the edge of the bed kind of all depressed

Jerome:

that she's sleeping around, right?

Jerome:

Right.

Jerome:

She's, I don't want to use a vulgar term.

Jerome:

Let's just say she's, She's very freely meets men and has relations.

Jerome:

Can we say it that way?

Chris:

Yeah, and I think, yeah, and I think because of, like, the

Chris:

situation she was in with this guy, she was feeling, you know, basically,

Chris:

probably low self worth already, and then he throws that at her, and, yeah.

Jerome:

Right, absolutely.

Jerome:

So, so we're setting up that she doesn't have very high self

Jerome:

esteem, but she's a fighter, right?

Jerome:

She's just looking for a cause to fight for.

Jerome:

Mm hmm.

Jerome:

You know, and so that's why it, if, if structured better, this could

Jerome:

have been a far better screenplay.

Jerome:

Right.

Jerome:

But...

Jerome:

I think because of these situa you know, the, the theme comes late, so

Jerome:

because the theme comes late, there's not even really a first turning point.

Jerome:

I guess if you really wanted to talk time wise, the first turning point could

Jerome:

be when they make her the spot checker.

Jerome:

That's where things really start to change for her, because all of a

Jerome:

sudden now she hates the job, right?

Jerome:

Because now everybody hates her.

Jerome:

Right?

Jerome:

But, here's the funny thing.

Jerome:

She wants out of it anyway, and they demote her back to the

Jerome:

line, so it's almost like that whole stint was for nothing.

Jerome:

Right.

Jerome:

You know what I mean?

Jerome:

So even that didn't make much of a difference in the story.

Jerome:

Right, right.

Jerome:

The arc of the story.

Jerome:

Again, the story doesn't really pick up until halfway through

Jerome:

when she agrees to help him.

Jerome:

Then all the shit hits the fan, right?

Jerome:

Yeah.

Jerome:

Then, then it's now she's on the front lines, and she's helping,

Jerome:

she's talking people into it.

Jerome:

They're putting up posters and handing out flyers, and then it really 100%.

Jerome:

But in the first half of the film, there is one of my favorite lines of the movie.

Jerome:

It's not one of, it is by far my favorite moment of the film.

Jerome:

My favorite line of the film.

Jerome:

And, a young Bo Bridges plays Sunny, who's, who's her next man up, right?

Jerome:

God, sounds bad to say, but she goes through men like,

Jerome:

like I go through cans of beer.

Jerome:

So, when Sunny comes along, he's just the next guy, but this guy's really nice.

Jerome:

He's a really nice guy.

Jerome:

He's got kids of his own.

Jerome:

He really just is looking to settle down.

Jerome:

And she gets with him because he seems like he's got some structure, right?

Jerome:

All the other guys she's ever gotten with have all been...

Jerome:

Loose cannons or whatever.

Jerome:

So, Sonny, so they're out having a beer.

Jerome:

She, Sonny, and the, and, and Ruben, played by Ron Liebman.

Jerome:

Those of you, younger crowd would know Ron Liebman played, Rachel's

Jerome:

dad on Friends for a few episodes.

Jerome:

Yeah.

Jerome:

So, and did a great job.

Jerome:

Younger crowd?

Jerome:

How?

Jerome:

Well, yeah.

Jerome:

Younger to me, I guess.

Jerome:

But anyway, well, if you, if you, if you watch Norma Rae in the theater...

Jerome:

Yeah, exactly.

Jerome:

You're an old fogey.

Jerome:

You don't, you weren't watching Friends, right?

Jerome:

So, you're not watching Friends.

Jerome:

But anyway, so, they're all together, the three of them, are having a beer.

Jerome:

Which is interesting because there's a hint of a Ron Liebman...

Jerome:

Sally Field's sort of love interest there, right?

Jerome:

Like they, they play around with this, Are they gonna hook up?

Jerome:

Right?

Jerome:

Right, right.

Jerome:

There's even a scene where they go skinny dipping in the river together.

Jerome:

Well, if Sonny knew that shit was happening, He wouldn't

Jerome:

have been too happy, right?

Jerome:

Exactly, yeah.

Jerome:

So there's a lot, They do everything but kiss in this movie.

Jerome:

Like, there's a lot of flirtation.

Jerome:

Right.

Jerome:

There's a lot of, you know, there's a lot of innuendo.

Jerome:

It just seems like they're gonna hook up, but they don't.

Jerome:

It's reminiscent, when I watch it today, of, Tom Cruise and

Jerome:

Demi Moore in A Few Good Men.

Jerome:

Right?

Jerome:

They never hook up.

Jerome:

Yeah, but they had chemistry, right?

Jerome:

But there's a lot there where you're like, well, these two

Jerome:

are obviously gonna bone, right?

Jerome:

But, but they don't.

Jerome:

Or at least we don't see it on screen, right?

Jerome:

Like, that's, that's A Few Good Men Part 2, right?

Jerome:

We don't ever see that movie.

Jerome:

But, but anyway, so that's, you get that hint with Ruben and Norma

Jerome:

Rae, but it never happens, right?

Jerome:

Right, right.

Jerome:

So, but anyway, in this scene...

Jerome:

They're out having a drink.

Jerome:

She spots Reuben in the bar and says hey, come on over and join us.

Jerome:

So they're all sitting there drinking and stuff and he starts

Jerome:

telling Sonny all about the union.

Jerome:

Of course, Sonny is just standoffish as everybody else in that town because

Jerome:

they're afraid to lose their jobs, right?

Jerome:

He says after Reuben explains what he's there for in the union.

Jerome:

Sonny says, I had to write this down because I love this line so

Jerome:

bad, I even rewound it, rewound it.

Jerome:

Can I say that anymore?

Jerome:

It was on digital.

Jerome:

I, I backed up.

Jerome:

There better be more than one of you because there's more than one of them.

Jerome:

And Ruben says, there will be.

Jerome:

So, what I love so much about that is, and Sonny says it with a smile on his

Jerome:

face, almost like it's never gonna last.

Jerome:

You guys have come, every few years you come and try to start a union,

Jerome:

and there's a reason why you don't.

Jerome:

There's only one of you.

Jerome:

And there's a shitload of them.

Jerome:

And they can always fire us, and you can't.

Jerome:

That's why unions never work in this town, and they never work He's

Jerome:

saying all of that in one sentence.

Jerome:

Right, right.

Jerome:

And that's why I LOVED that line.

Jerome:

Yeah, it was good writing that.

Jerome:

And, you know, from then I was like, that's the best line in the movie.

Jerome:

So, you know, as we talk about the second act in movies, after the midpoint scene

Jerome:

is when everything goes to shit, cause they think something good's gonna happen.

Jerome:

Again, false victory usually happens at the midpoint.

Jerome:

Norma Rae's false victory was, I'm gonna help Ruben get this union started,

Jerome:

and everything's gonna be great.

Jerome:

Well, not everything is great after that.

Jerome:

Everything starts to go to shit.

Chris:

Was that around the time her dad died?

Jerome:

So, okay, so...

Chris:

I mean, spoiler alert, her dad dies.

Chris:

Yeah, can we just talk about how cheesy that was?

Chris:

I laughed out loud when he died.

Jerome:

Oh, you laughed?

Chris:

I laughed out loud because it's like...

Chris:

So he was obviously having some, some issue and I'm like, oh, he's

Chris:

having a heart attack, you know.

Chris:

They, they, in, in the, the line boss wouldn't let him get, take a break,

Jerome:

take a break.

Jerome:

You in 15 minutes.

Chris:

And I'm like, oh, he's gonna die.

Chris:

So I, I called it, you know, as soon as I saw it, I'm like, oh, he's going down.

Chris:

And then he literally just goes face plants right in the parts

Chris:

bin or whatever the, the...

Chris:

What was it?

Chris:

A fabric bin?

Chris:

I can't remember.

Chris:

He just went face

Jerome:

down.

Jerome:

It's the rollers that the fabric is usually on.

Jerome:

And he's loading all the empty...

Jerome:

He's unloading all the empty rollers from one bin to another.

Jerome:

I can't believe you're laughing.

Chris:

It was almost comical.

Chris:

I'm getting loud.

Chris:

I can't believe you're laughing.

Chris:

It was almost comical because he literally just went face down, right into it.

Jerome:

What was weird is that...

Chris:

But it looked so fake.

Chris:

That's why I thought it was funny.

Chris:

I'm like, come

Jerome:

on, man.

Jerome:

You and I disagree a little bit on that.

Jerome:

I, I thought it was kind of freaky, because not just how quick it happens,

Jerome:

but both his arms fucking go limp, and then he just keels right over.

Jerome:

Yeah, I'm just a,

Chris:

I'm just an asshole,

Jerome:

that's all.

Jerome:

And right into the part spin.

Jerome:

Like you said, right into all the

Chris:

rollers.

Chris:

I shouldn't be laughing at it, because I literally, I literally was working

Chris:

with someone that died on the line.

Jerome:

Oh my god.

Jerome:

Yeah, literally.

Jerome:

Did you, did you laugh then?

Jerome:

No, I did not.

Chris:

No, I did not.

Chris:

No, this was 20 years ago.

Chris:

It was horrible.

Chris:

The guy just, we're like, hey, where'd he, where'd he go?

Chris:

Because he was on the other side of the line, the vehicles were going by,

Chris:

and then the vehicle went by, there's a little gap, and he's laying on the ground.

Chris:

Oh my god.

Chris:

It's horrible.

Chris:

So they, you know.

Chris:

Yeah.

Chris:

Temporarily stopped the line, but that, this crazy thing about the auto assembly

Chris:

plants, that line did not stop for long.

Chris:

They barely, basically got his body out of the way and kept it going.

Jerome:

And, you know, I thought about some other movies that

Jerome:

we kicked around for this show.

Jerome:

We, we originally, were gonna do 9 to 5.

Jerome:

Not so much for unions, but about workplace harassment and stuff like that.

Jerome:

We were gonna do a, because of Labor Day, we were doing an

Jerome:

all lit, just work show, right?

Jerome:

So we originally had 9 to 5.

Jerome:

Another one I kicked around was Gung Ho.

Jerome:

You remember that Michael Keaton movie in the 80s?

Jerome:

Where the Japanese autoworkers come and set up in Ohio.

Jerome:

Yeah.

Jerome:

And there's just the clash there is so great, the whole movie.

Jerome:

But something like that happens, the guy gets his hand caught in

Jerome:

the thing on the line, right?

Jerome:

Mm hmm.

Jerome:

And they're like, oh my god, and all the American guys rush over to

Jerome:

get his hand free, and it's gushing blood, and the Japanese guy gets on

Jerome:

the horn and he's all, Back to work!

Jerome:

Right.

Jerome:

Back to work, right?

Jerome:

Like, what the fuck, dude?

Jerome:

This guy almost lost his hand.

Jerome:

Yeah.

Jerome:

But like you're saying, that shit's reality.

Jerome:

Yeah.

Jerome:

For real.

Jerome:

Oh.

Jerome:

That's a next man up.

Jerome:

Talk about football.

Jerome:

Next man up, whoever gets hurt, the next guy comes up.

Jerome:

It's like that in the auto industry apparently.

Chris:

Oh yeah, it still is.

Chris:

So a movie that I was going to propose, but when you said Hoff,

Chris:

I thought that was a good choice, but that it's like a rom com.

Chris:

They, Renee Zellweger and, Harry Connick Jr.

Chris:

is, they play, they are both in New in Town.

Chris:

That's the name of the movie, New in Town.

Chris:

It's a pretty good rom com.

Chris:

But, Harry Connick Jr.

Chris:

plays the union rep.

Chris:

And Renee Zellweger, she plays the executive that comes to

Chris:

the plant to change things.

Chris:

And of course, they fall in love,

Jerome:

right?

Jerome:

Right, of course, yeah.

Jerome:

The union in that movie is just a backdrop.

Jerome:

It sounds like the whole movie is really about the romance,

Chris:

but you know, the way it felt it felt very much like a, almost like

Chris:

a Tommy boy, you know, Callahan parts, you know, that kind of, that kind of

Chris:

environment with the, with the, the worker, it's very pro worker, right?

Chris:

So that's why, yeah, that's why I thought it would be a good choice.

Jerome:

So, so Norma Ray culminates in her all is lost moment.

Jerome:

Well actually, before the all is lost moment, culminates in

Jerome:

her big Oscar scene, right?

Jerome:

Yeah.

Jerome:

Or anyone that knows the movie knows what I'm talking about.

Jerome:

She's having it out with the bosses.

Jerome:

They're trying to send her home, she doesn't want to go anywhere.

Jerome:

They tell her, we're gonna have the police come and get you out of here.

Jerome:

Right.

Jerome:

She ain't having it.

Jerome:

It's the big scene where she stands up on the table, writes Union on the

Jerome:

cardboard, and holds it up, and one by one, everybody turns their machines off.

Jerome:

It's very reminiscent of...

Jerome:

Dead Poets Society's final scene, where they all one by one stand up on the desks.

Jerome:

Exactly.

Jerome:

That's, that's the vibe I got, and I was getting chills

Jerome:

because it was shot so well.

Jerome:

Yeah.

Jerome:

Where there's people staring at her, including Seinfeld fans, Mrs.

Jerome:

Ross!

Jerome:

The woman who plays Susan Ross's mother on Seinfeld is one of

Jerome:

the mill workers, but anyway.

Jerome:

Yeah.

Jerome:

God, talk about, you laughed at the, at the, at Norma Rae's death scene.

Jerome:

Every time they showed her face, all I could hear in my head was,

Jerome:

Look, Henry, I spilled wine on me!

Jerome:

From Seinfeld.

Jerome:

So that's all I could think about when I saw her.

Jerome:

But anyway, so, it's a great scene, one by one they turn off their machines.

Jerome:

They escort her out of the plant, and what's waiting for her

Jerome:

outside the plant is a cop car.

Jerome:

She is getting arrested.

Jerome:

Now, what's interesting is that Hoffa and Norma Rae are two opposites

Jerome:

when it, when they, when it looked at, arrests and the cops, right?

Jerome:

Right.

Jerome:

Hoffa was the kind of guy that was like, Fuck it, bring it, you know what I mean?

Jerome:

You wanna take me down?

Jerome:

You ain't takin me down, whatever.

Jerome:

That's another bullshit, trumped up joke.

Jerome:

Norma Rae starts fightin like they're takin her to the execution, like...

Jerome:

She looked at arrest like the biggest blemish you could have in your reputation.

Jerome:

She even comes home from the jail that night, and wakes up all her kids.

Jerome:

And tells them, yeah, mama's a jailbird.

Jerome:

. Right.

Jerome:

Jailbird

Jerome:

. Chris: Well, and she was worried about

Jerome:

what the town would say around the kids.

Jerome:

Exactly.

Jerome:

And it getting back to the kids.

Jerome:

So yeah, they did a good job playing that out though.

Jerome:

Yeah.

Jerome:

So they, they did.

Jerome:

And, and then of course that pushes you into the, the third and final act where,

Jerome:

She's obviously given up everything now and the workers, that was all they needed.

Jerome:

That was the final straw.

Jerome:

They decided to have a vote.

Jerome:

Right?

Jerome:

And it, and it goes good.

Jerome:

They, they, they, they win it.

Jerome:

So, so again, we talk about tangible and spiritual goals.

Jerome:

If you would've, if you would've said in the beginning of the film

Jerome:

to normal raise character, how would you like to be out of a job by

Jerome:

the time this movie's over, right.

Jerome:

That she would've said, no way.

Jerome:

I'm not doing anything that's gonna risk my job.

Jerome:

This is the only, this is the only job in town.

Jerome:

It's the only way for me to make money for my kids.

Jerome:

So her job, her goal, her tangible goal is to have the job, right?

Jerome:

To be, to get a raise.

Jerome:

That's why she takes that job that she hates.

Jerome:

Yeah.

Jerome:

The, the spot checker.

Jerome:

Right.

Jerome:

Which I did a little inflation, adjust for inflation.

Jerome:

Yeah.

Jerome:

For fun.

Jerome:

I can't remember the number he used.

Jerome:

I think he says it'll pay you an extra buck fifty an hour.

Jerome:

Something like that.

Jerome:

And she jumps at it.

Jerome:

Yeah.

Jerome:

A buck fifty in 1979 is like seven bucks today.

Jerome:

Yeah.

Jerome:

It's like giving her a seven dollar raise.

Jerome:

Right.

Jerome:

So imagine if you're talking to a worker who works at anywhere and

Jerome:

they make, say, seventeen, eighteen bucks an hour, and you tell them

Jerome:

they're going to make twenty five.

Jerome:

They'd jump at that, right?

Jerome:

Right.

Jerome:

That's something they're going to, that, so it's a, it's very realistic

Jerome:

why she jumped at that, at that job that she, you know, hated so much.

Jerome:

So that's, you know, that leads to the third act where, and then again

Jerome:

we talk about the tangible goal.

Jerome:

She just wants a job, but she wants to be able to put food on the table

Jerome:

for her kids, find a nice guy like Sonny, and live happily ever after,

Jerome:

but her spiritual goal, which she did not know she needed, was to be the

Jerome:

basically the hero of the town, right?

Jerome:

Mm hmm.

Jerome:

She gets the union there.

Jerome:

Now, Reuben, you know, he doesn't even stop for a second to take

Jerome:

all the credit at the end when she's walking him to his car.

Jerome:

He's praising her.

Jerome:

You know what I mean?

Jerome:

He's basically telling her, I couldn't have done this without you.

Jerome:

You know what I mean?

Jerome:

She's the hero.

Jerome:

She's the hero of the story.

Jerome:

And, and she did not intend for that to happen.

Jerome:

That was, you know, not what she thought was gonna happen.

Jerome:

But that's, that's what you get with...

Jerome:

Your spiritual goal.

Jerome:

It's, it's what you didn't know you needed.

Jerome:

Right, right.

Jerome:

You know, and, and you achieve it.

Jerome:

So what were your, what are your thoughts overall?

Jerome:

I mean, otherwise, like I said, I think the first act was,

Jerome:

was not written very well.

Jerome:

Nominated for screenplay, oddly enough, but not written very well.

Jerome:

Yeah.

Jerome:

And it had some problems.

Jerome:

It really picks up in the second half.

Chris:

Yeah, and I, I couldn't put my finger on it because you

Chris:

analyzed it closer than I did.

Chris:

And I just, it kind of...

Chris:

I think the first half of the movie kinda, it feels like it drags,

Chris:

because of that, so it didn't move, you know, as quickly as I'd hoped.

Chris:

But it does, it does pick up, and, you know, I totally understand the best,

Chris:

you know, her award for best actor.

Chris:

Absolutely.

Chris:

Female actor in a lead role, or whatever the, I can't remember.

Chris:

Is that how you say it best?

Jerome:

Best actress in the leading role.

Chris:

Actress in the leading role.

Chris:

Yeah, I totally get that.

Chris:

She was fantastic.

Chris:

But yeah, I was still shocked that they nominated it for screenplay.

Chris:

So,

Jerome:

and, and, and Ron Leman did not get a best supporting

Jerome:

actor nomination, oddly now.

Jerome:

And he did a great job.

Jerome:

So he did it and he, he's like, you know, when you talk about the Obiwan,

Jerome:

he's the Obiwan basically, right?

Jerome:

Yeah.

Jerome:

He is the, he's the driving force for the main character and.

Jerome:

And he didn't get shit.

Jerome:

I, I wanna say it got nominated for Best Picture.

Jerome:

It was, I think it got four or five nominations.

Jerome:

And it only won, it only had two wins.

Jerome:

Best Actress and I think Best Song, which is the song they played at both the

Jerome:

opening and closing credits, I wanna say.

Jerome:

Right.

Jerome:

So, but, but podcast

Jerome:

because they like the writing tips, you can look no further than pacing.

Jerome:

Pacing...

Jerome:

is everything with writing.

Jerome:

I mean, you could try to write great dialogue.

Chris:

Especially in the day and age of streaming.

Chris:

I mean, who's gonna sit through a movie I mean, unless they're gonna

Chris:

be talking about it on a podcast.

Chris:

If you lose them in the first half hour...

Chris:

They're probably not going to finish it.

Jerome:

Well, and it's funny you should say that because, recently, the movie

Jerome:

Oppenheimer came out in theaters.

Jerome:

I went to see that opening weekend.

Jerome:

Oppenheimer's three hours long.

Jerome:

Right.

Jerome:

And it doesn't feel like it at all.

Jerome:

That's how good the pacing is of the writing of that film.

Jerome:

Yeah, I have yet to see it.

Jerome:

I really want to.

Jerome:

Because the scenes...

Jerome:

They're, they're coming, right?

Jerome:

They're one after another.

Jerome:

It's like, this happens, and then this happens, and then that happens.

Jerome:

I remember going, holy shit, I'm not, this, we're moving right along.

Jerome:

Like, this seems like a quick movie.

Jerome:

Mm.

Jerome:

But at the same time, it's not rushed to where any of the story is lost.

Jerome:

Right.

Jerome:

It's, it's, I think it's the early, came out in July, I think, so it's the early

Jerome:

front runner for, you know, your basics.

Jerome:

Best picture, best director, best actor, best screenplay.

Jerome:

It was fantastic.

Jerome:

Oppenheimer is fantastic.

Jerome:

And like I said, three hour film, you don't feel a minute of it.

Jerome:

Some films, you feel every minute of it, right?

Jerome:

Like, like, I remember telling people...

Jerome:

Like the English patient.

Jerome:

Oh, God.

Jerome:

That one actually felt double than it's...

Jerome:

Seinfeld did a, did a, Yeah, the Seinfeld episode.

Jerome:

JUST DIE ALREADY!

Jerome:

JUST DIE ALREADY!

Jerome:

WHO HAS SEX IN A TUB?

Jerome:

IT DOESN'T WORK!

Jerome:

But anyway But, another one that I was thinking of, which actually isn't

Jerome:

a bad film, but it's definitely only watched once, it's not a repeater

Jerome:

The Curious Case of Benjamin Buttons.

Jerome:

Oh yeah.

Jerome:

The movie with Brad Pitt where he ages backwards.

Jerome:

Right.

Jerome:

Man, you feel every minute of that movie.

Jerome:

That is, it felt like the longest movie I have ever seen.

Jerome:

And when I came out of the theater, people would ask me, how was it?

Jerome:

And I was like, you know, it was alright.

Jerome:

But god damn, I'm not watching it again.

Jerome:

There's no way.

Jerome:

Like, we could never do that show for the podcast, because

Jerome:

then I'd have to watch it again.

Jerome:

Right?

Jerome:

And it's just, it's the, it felt like the longest movie ever.

Jerome:

But, but anyway.

Jerome:

Oh, I

Chris:

forgot to show you.

Chris:

I'm wearing my my UAW

Jerome:

t shirt.

Jerome:

So, again, for those of you that listen to these podcasts, we can see

Jerome:

each other, you just can't see us.

Jerome:

Yeah, yeah.

Jerome:

We are 2, 300 miles away from each other, but we can see each

Jerome:

other through the beauty of Zoom.

Jerome:

Right.

Jerome:

But we're not advanced enough to where you guys can see us.

Jerome:

Someday, someday we'll have video along with this.

Jerome:

And then, then the shit will really hit the fan.

Jerome:

Because you'll see, you know, what happens to my eyes when

Jerome:

I drink too much of this shit.

Chris:

Hey, I'll throw this out there.

Chris:

We're going to start experimenting on the, the app Clubhouse.

Chris:

So if you're, if you're on Clubhouse come, come over and look at us.

Chris:

If you're not on Clubhouse, download the app and come check us out.

Chris:

We're going to experiment with the idea of basically...

Chris:

Doing our show, except live, and we'll be able to have people come

Chris:

up and converse with us, talk to us, ask questions, give their input

Chris:

on movies that we're discussing.

Chris:

So, we're gonna, we're gonna start toying around with that in the...

Chris:

And the cool thing about it is if it actually works and it doesn't turn into

Chris:

a total shit show, but because there's drunk people live on the, on the app,

Chris:

then then we were able to record it and upload that as a episode as well.

Chris:

So you, you might see it on, in the, in the podcast feed that we have a live,

Chris:

some live episodes coming up soon, but.

Jerome:

We played with it last week, just for fun.

Jerome:

Yeah, we

Chris:

just went on to check it out, and I'm intrigued by it.

Chris:

So, yeah, I go on there a lot.

Chris:

I like going into Clubhouse and listening and enjoying it in some different houses.

Chris:

You know, there's different themes.

Chris:

So we'll be in the, film talk house.

Chris:

So that's what you want to look for film talk and Find that house still

Jerome:

say silver

Chris:

screen happy hour and when we open a room It'll be the silver screen

Chris:

happy hour room inside that house.

Chris:

Yeah So anyways, let's you wanna are we done with normal rate?

Chris:

Did you want to jump to Hoffa?

Chris:

Where we are?

Jerome:

Yeah, I think I think we can move on.

Jerome:

Is there anything else you wanted to add about normal Ray?

Jerome:

I mean, I think we pretty much covered the bases.

Jerome:

Yeah,

Chris:

not really, you know,

Jerome:

I mean It's worth seeing if you haven't seen it.

Jerome:

For the performances alone.

Jerome:

And, and fairly decent.

Jerome:

Go ahead.

Chris:

For Hoffa.

Chris:

We're, I'm just gonna, I'm already.

Chris:

Need another double.

Chris:

Oh boy.

Jerome:

I'm telling you, I'm already feeling this fucking,

Jerome:

this hundred proof shit.

Chris:

I'm not, I'm just doing them neat too.

Chris:

I ain't got no ice, no water.

Chris:

I do have a bottle of water here though.

Chris:

So.

Jerome:

Oh, man.

Jerome:

See if I get my notes right, because they all look like blurry now.

Jerome:

Alright, so so Hoffa.

Jerome:

Alright, first impressions, right off the bat.

Jerome:

Now, we, I tell you another thing I got serious vibes about is when we

Jerome:

did the Walk the Elvis show, where we did Elvis and Walk the Line.

Jerome:

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jerome:

A lot of things stuck out to me when you're doing biopics, right?

Jerome:

One of the things...

Jerome:

From Elvis.

Jerome:

What was our big critique on Elvis?

Jerome:

Whose story is it?

Jerome:

Right?

Jerome:

Right, right.

Jerome:

Whose story is it?

Jerome:

Because it's supposed to be about Elvis, but it's all from the point of view of

Jerome:

the Colonel or whatever his name was.

Jerome:

The guy that Tom Hanks played.

Jerome:

Tom Hanks character, yeah.

Jerome:

Hoffa starts off the same problem.

Jerome:

Right?

Jerome:

Whose fucking story is it?

Jerome:

Because it's, it's set up to be Hoffa's story, but it's all through

Jerome:

the eyes of Bobby Charo, who's played by Danny DeVito, right?

Jerome:

So it seems like his story...

Jerome:

Who also

Chris:

happens to be the director.

Jerome:

Yeah, right.

Jerome:

He's the director.

Jerome:

At least he

Chris:

didn't write it.

Chris:

I mean...

Jerome:

Right, he didn't write it.

Jerome:

David Mamet wrote it.

Jerome:

And again, again, if David Mamet ever hears this, let me preface

Jerome:

this by saying, sir, you are a genius and I love your movies.

Jerome:

And someday I'm going to get you drunk and I want you to talk to me about Hoffa.

Jerome:

Because I, there's a few things at play here.

Jerome:

Either you sat in the theater when it came out and said, The

Jerome:

editing fucked up my writing!

Jerome:

Yeah.

Jerome:

Or, you said, well, you know, I had to pay the fucking rent

Jerome:

and shit, I needed a paycheck.

Chris:

Well, I mean, since, I don't know, I mean, wasn't that

Chris:

Danny DeVito's debut as a director?

Jerome:

No, no, no, no, no.

Jerome:

He had done other things.

Jerome:

I think he directed War of the Roses before this.

Jerome:

That was a late eighties movie.

Jerome:

He's directed some, but the critique on Danny DeVito's movies, and I've read

Jerome:

this online because I was looking up, you know, to see what other people thought.

Jerome:

I was like, Hey, I.

Jerome:

Curious to know what other people thought.

Jerome:

First of all, Siskel and Ebert both gave this movie a thumbs up when it came out.

Jerome:

Oh, okay.

Jerome:

But one of the critiques I came across, not from Siskel and Ebert, but from

Jerome:

somebody, some other writer, Mm hmm.

Jerome:

Was that Danny DeVito's movies, his signature director theme is that

Jerome:

the movies always start with him.

Jerome:

Yeah.

Jerome:

They always gotta show his eyes.

Jerome:

And sure enough, in Hoffa, there's a fucking close up of his eyes looking

Jerome:

pensively or thoughtfully off the window.

Jerome:

You know, out the window or whatever.

Jerome:

We always gotta see Danny's eyes.

Jerome:

I love Danny DeVito,

Chris:

by the way.

Chris:

I did, and I did like a lot of his camera shots and different things he did

Chris:

with the, you know, the cinematography.

Jerome:

He did a lot of tricks.

Jerome:

By the way, it was nominated for cinematography.

Jerome:

Yeah, I

Chris:

liked it.

Chris:

I thought, yeah, I thought it was visually,

Jerome:

I liked it, so.

Jerome:

We're gonna get to some of those director tricks a little bit later.

Jerome:

Yeah, okay.

Jerome:

Because I did have, I did write down a couple of those that were interesting.

Jerome:

Some people might call it I don't want to say amateurish,

Jerome:

because he's not an amateur.

Jerome:

He's been around, he had directed a lot of stuff.

Jerome:

He had directed a lot of episodes for TV as well.

Jerome:

You know, he was on Taxi for a long time.

Jerome:

I want to say, I want to say he directed some episodes of Taxi as well.

Jerome:

Probably, yeah.

Jerome:

So so he knows what he's doing.

Jerome:

He's not an amateur at all.

Jerome:

But there are little sort of director tricks that people do

Jerome:

that, somebody like Scorsese might say, eh, it screams of a novice.

Jerome:

You know what I mean?

Jerome:

Even though he's not, he's not, but you know Danny's got his own.

Jerome:

But he likes the tricks.

Jerome:

Yeah, Danny's eccentric, so you know, he likes to do his little things.

Jerome:

But anyway, so that's the first problem I think with the script right off the

Jerome:

bat is who the fuck story is this?

Jerome:

Because everything is through Bobby's eyes.

Jerome:

Bobby, when I say Bobby, I mean Bobby Charo.

Jerome:

When I get to Bobby Kennedy, I'll probably say RFK so that there's no confusion.

Jerome:

Okay.

Jerome:

But Bobby is Bobby Charo who plays his right hand man.

Jerome:

Like I said, it's an amalgamation.

Jerome:

It's a made up character of people that were, you know, truly in his life.

Jerome:

Interestingly, and we're going to get to the Irishman as well, because there's

Jerome:

things about the movie The Irishman, which was directed by Scorsese, that make you

Jerome:

suggest that possibly Bobby Charro, one of the people he's based on, is Frank

Jerome:

Sheeran, who is the Irishman, who was known as the guy that killed Jimmy Hoffa.

Jerome:

Or thought to.

Jerome:

There's a lot of people that dispute that.

Jerome:

But he also was supposedly the mobster that killed Crazy Joe.

Jerome:

I think his name was Crazy Joe Gallo.

Jerome:

He was a mob boss.

Jerome:

All this is in The Irishman, which is another four hour movie.

Jerome:

But, but, there are some things that connect these two together.

Jerome:

But anyway, so whose story is it?

Jerome:

We're not really sure.

Jerome:

Because all the plot points seem to be Jimmy's.

Jerome:

But Bobby's almost never off screen.

Jerome:

He's in every damn scene.

Jerome:

Because even if it's a scene involving Jimmy Hoffa, and Jack

Jerome:

Nicholson is larger than life, right?

Jerome:

We know that already.

Jerome:

And he commands the screen like he's larger than life.

Jerome:

But every scene he's in, there's Bobby in the background, right?

Jerome:

It's almost like he's witnessing everything.

Chris:

I do have to say, man, the way, I don't know if it's just

Chris:

makeup and like the way they cut his hair and Jack's presence on the

Chris:

screen, he became Jimmy Hoffa to me.

Chris:

Two

Jerome:

Oscar nominations.

Jerome:

Yeah, he did a great job.

Jerome:

Yeah.

Jerome:

Cinematography and makeup was the other one.

Jerome:

Okay, there you go.

Jerome:

Yeah, because of the nose, you know that was a fake nose.

Jerome:

Okay, well that's...

Jerome:

They put that nose on and then they did something with his teeth Yeah,

Jerome:

they did something with his teeth.

Chris:

Yeah.

Chris:

But it, I mean, he, he became Jimmy Hoffa to me and that was a big part of it.

Chris:

Yeah, absolutely.

Chris:

I mean, his acting had something to do with it too,

Jerome:

but, and Roger Ebert said that too, although I disagreed

Jerome:

with their review for most of it.

Jerome:

The first thing that re Roger Ebert does say when he does his review back

Jerome:

in 92, is you, it doesn't take you long to accept that Jack is Jimmy Hoffa.

Jerome:

Right.

Jerome:

Like in the first frame.

Jerome:

You buy it right away, just because of how good Jack is, and because

Jerome:

of how good the makeup was, you accept it right away, you know?

Jerome:

I felt that way with Elvis, too.

Jerome:

I thought that Austin Butler, who played Elvis, did a fantastic job, you know?

Jerome:

So, some movies, it takes you out of it, but this wasn't one of them.

Jerome:

Like, this, he really pulls off a pretty good Hoffa.

Jerome:

In fact, I would like to, I would venture to say that Jack makes Hoffa tougher.

Jerome:

If you watch some of the old YouTube videos of the old congressional

Jerome:

hearings and shit, the real Jimmy doesn't come off as tough.

Jerome:

Yeah.

Jerome:

Jack makes him tougher in this movie,

Jerome:

It's almost like Danny DeVito told him like, Hey, you know, we got a

Jerome:

lot of footage to go on where you can get sort of like his mannerisms

Jerome:

down and maybe how he talks down.

Jerome:

But I want you to make him tougher , like he should be tougher.

Jerome:

And Jimmy Hoffa was a tough badass to begin with.

Jerome:

Yeah.

Jerome:

But he knew

Chris:

when, yeah, he knew when to turn it

Jerome:

on.

Jerome:

Right, so when you watch old video clips, like you know, one of the things

Jerome:

that we're going to talk about is the McClendon Committee, and the 1957 Senate

Jerome:

hearings where he's talking to RFK.

Jerome:

In real life, those are on YouTube, you can watch those.

Jerome:

In real life...

Jerome:

He is answering questions now.

Jerome:

He's he's it's not like he's being delightful, but he's answering

Jerome:

questions But in the film off Jack's fucking pissed man.

Jerome:

He's he's giving it to him, right?

Jerome:

Yeah, he's really giving it to RFK.

Jerome:

He's really letting him have it.

Jerome:

So But so okay, so we're getting off off the rails here as we usually do.

Jerome:

So let's get back to okay Whose story is it?

Jerome:

We're gonna assume it's Jimmy's through Bobby's

Chris:

eyes cuz the name of the movie is Hoffa

Jerome:

It's not Bobby Charo, it's Hoffa.

Jerome:

Alright, so what's the theme stated?

Jerome:

Did you catch a theme?

Jerome:

I caught one in the first ten minutes.

Jerome:

No, I didn't.

Jerome:

Okay, so...

Chris:

Which is funny, I usually, you know, like I said, I usually

Chris:

watch them and then re watch them.

Chris:

Well, I've seen this one before, but it's been a long time.

Chris:

It was in the 90s, I think, that I last saw Hoffa.

Chris:

So this time I kind of just watched it again for the first time, and I

Chris:

didn't analyze it as much, but so,

Jerome:

you remember when we talked about, we actually skipped

Jerome:

this part with the normal array, we can bounce back for a second.

Jerome:

The theme...

Jerome:

Is usually the central question given to the main character, right?

Jerome:

Yeah, and they spend the rest of the movie with that tug of war that emotional

Jerome:

tug of war of will they or won't they?

Jerome:

Succeed in whatever theme was dropped on them, right?

Jerome:

Right in normal ways We said it was the guy said what good are you anyway?

Jerome:

And and I will say one thing about that film in the screenplay.

Jerome:

There is a lot of back and forth there You know half the

Jerome:

scenes She's feeling down again.

Jerome:

Like, I am worthless.

Jerome:

I am a piece of shit.

Jerome:

I can't do anything right.

Jerome:

And the other scenes, she's really hammering people.

Jerome:

Right.

Jerome:

We gotta do this.

Jerome:

Let's go.

Jerome:

Rah, rah, rah.

Jerome:

Defending her mom.

Jerome:

Right, right.

Jerome:

So there's, there is back and forth in Norma Rae.

Jerome:

I'll give it that.

Jerome:

Hoffa, interestingly, I, I did detect ten minutes in, although it's not said

Jerome:

to the main character, unless you think the story is Bobby Jarrow, because,

Jerome:

let's face it, the movie starts and ends pretty much with Bobby, right?

Jerome:

Right.

Jerome:

That's the other thing, and that's one of my other problems with it.

Jerome:

Another thing that other film critics praised, I thought, was a bad decision

Jerome:

by Mamet and DeVito and everybody else.

Jerome:

There is no backstory on Hoffa.

Jerome:

When we start, he's already a Teamsters boss.

Jerome:

He's not THE boss, he's not the president.

Jerome:

But he's already a Teamsters guy.

Jerome:

And, and what is it?

Jerome:

Halfway through the movie we find out he's got a wife and kids?

Jerome:

What the fuck?

Jerome:

When did that happen, right?

Jerome:

Like, there is no discussion of any of that.

Jerome:

And the praising that came from a lot of critics was, Well, that's how Hoffa was.

Jerome:

He cared so much about the union that his private life didn't matter.

Jerome:

Well, if I'm a filmgoer...

Jerome:

I want to know, both Walk the Line and Elvis showed them as kids.

Jerome:

Yeah.

Jerome:

Right?

Jerome:

Yeah.

Jerome:

Because there's a lot that makes you who you are.

Jerome:

I want to know why Hoffa got into the Teamsters.

Jerome:

Yeah.

Jerome:

I want to know how does that, they mentioned that he used to be a trucker.

Jerome:

Well, big fucking deal.

Jerome:

I want to know more.

Jerome:

I want to know how That story happened.

Jerome:

And none of that shit is in this movie.

Jerome:

It starts with him meeting Bobby.

Jerome:

So we basically see Bobby's story.

Chris:

Right?

Chris:

You know, and that would make it a more powerful story.

Chris:

If you can identify with the struggle of being an over the road truck driver.

Chris:

I mean, I know so many people who, over the years, who were

Chris:

over the road truck drivers.

Chris:

And, you know, it would add a dimension to the character knowing that he lived it.

Jerome:

And for anyone saying it would make it too long of a

Jerome:

film, I'll take any three or four hour film if it's made right.

Jerome:

We just got done talking about Oppenheimer.

Jerome:

I don't give a shit.

Jerome:

Somebody, I was on an alien's site on on Facebook.

Jerome:

And somebody was like, yeah, James Cameron's director's cut or something

Jerome:

is like three and a half hours long.

Jerome:

I was like, I don't give a shit.

Jerome:

I don't care how long it is.

Jerome:

I want to see that.

Jerome:

If it's good, I will fucking take in whatever you give me.

Jerome:

I don't care if it's funny.

Jerome:

Five hours long.

Jerome:

Yeah.

Jerome:

Kenneth Branagh did his version of William Shakespeare's Hamlet that was four hours.

Jerome:

I loved every minute

Chris:

of it.

Chris:

Case in point, the, the special editions of the Lord of the

Chris:

Rings trilogy, it's like 20

Jerome:

hours long.

Jerome:

I was going to say, Jesus Christ, those movies are as long as they

Jerome:

were, but Peter Jackson gets it.

Jerome:

Yeah.

Jerome:

I don't, they won't care how long it is.

Jerome:

Right.

Jerome:

My audience won't care how long it is if I do it right.

Jerome:

Yeah.

Jerome:

And I think that's where Hoffa misses the boat, is they probably

Jerome:

thought, We can't show any of that.

Jerome:

It's gonna be too long of a movie.

Jerome:

I don't give a shit, man.

Jerome:

I wanna know the motivation.

Jerome:

How did Jimmy become Jimmy?

Jerome:

And we don't see none of that!

Jerome:

Yeah.

Jerome:

So that, that's a problematic right off the bat.

Jerome:

But, that leads to my theme stated.

Jerome:

Usually it's to, to the main character, which gets them on this

Jerome:

sort of journey, back and forth.

Jerome:

This one, Jimmy says himself.

Jerome:

He says it to Bobby.

Jerome:

Ten minutes in after Bobby puts a knife to his throat, and then his

Jerome:

then number two comes up and puts a gun right into Danny DeVito's nose.

Jerome:

And of course he drops the knife, right?

Jerome:

He's like, oh shit, well, your gun is better than my knife.

Jerome:

So he puts the knife down.

Jerome:

Hoffa walks up to him and he pats him on the shoulder and

Jerome:

he says, Life is a negotiation.

Jerome:

It's all give and take.

Jerome:

And what's interesting, why I pointed that out as the theme, is look at

Jerome:

the whole rest of the movie, right?

Jerome:

All the scenes where they're back at the roadhouse, waiting for

Jerome:

this mob talk they're supposed to have, that's him giving in, right?

Jerome:

It's him not being tough.

Jerome:

Who the hell does Jimmy Hoffa wait around four hours for?

Jerome:

Jimmy Hoffa don't wait for nobody.

Jerome:

But he waits for them, right?

Jerome:

So it's him giving in.

Jerome:

All the other scenes, present day scenes, it's taking.

Jerome:

Right?

Jerome:

So that's the back and forth with Hoffa's character is there was only

Jerome:

certain times with D'Alessandro who, again, is not the real boss.

Jerome:

I wanna say, they mention it, again, in the Irishman.

Jerome:

I think his name was Anthony Previzenzo or something like that?

Jerome:

That was the mobster that, that what they called Deli Dela, Deli?

Jerome:

That was the nickname for D'Alessandro, was the mobster that Armando Asante plays.

Jerome:

So, here

Chris:

we go.

Chris:

This is gonna be something to ponder.

Chris:

Maybe something's been written about it and I just don't know.

Chris:

But, so do you think when they were making this movie they didn't want to use the

Chris:

real names of the mafia because they

Jerome:

were afraid?

Jerome:

Some of them are still alive.

Jerome:

Yeah, exactly.

Jerome:

Some of these guys died like in the early 90s.

Jerome:

Yeah, they were still alive then Maybe cuz I

Chris:

mean that happened with the Godfather right they consulted

Chris:

the mob when they were When the

Jerome:

mafia, when they were, those families were

Jerome:

completely made up as far as,

Chris:

they were completely made up, but they were even concerned about

Chris:

how they portrayed them, right?

Chris:

Right, right.

Chris:

So they actually consulted

Jerome:

the mafia.

Jerome:

Well that's why the Irishman was able to get away with a lot of it, because

Jerome:

they based their shit on a book.

Jerome:

Called I Heard You Paint Houses, which by the way, if you haven't seen

Jerome:

The Irishman yet, it's a great title for a book, and the movie starts

Jerome:

with that as like a title, like a chapter one, I Heard You Paint Houses.

Jerome:

You know what that means?

Jerome:

No.

Jerome:

I Heard You Paint Houses?

Jerome:

It means you kill people, because the blood from their brains gets

Jerome:

splattered all over the walls.

Jerome:

Oh, God.

Jerome:

So when they say, so when Hoffa says to Frank Sheeran, the Irishman, in the movie

Jerome:

The Irishman, I heard you paint houses.

Jerome:

That means I hear you kill people.

Jerome:

I could use a guy like you.

Jerome:

Wow.

Jerome:

Right?

Jerome:

So, so...

Chris:

Yeah, and that is a movie I haven't seen yet.

Chris:

Yeah,

Jerome:

we should do a mob show one of these

Chris:

days.

Chris:

I think the length of it, I just didn't make the time when it came out, you know?

Chris:

So, no, it's definitely one I

Jerome:

need to get back to.

Jerome:

So, Anthony Provenzano, that's what it is, I wrote it down here,

Jerome:

I couldn't find it in my notes.

Jerome:

Provenzano is the character that D'Alessandro is based on.

Jerome:

He was a mobster, and he was the one that was doing all the direct ties

Jerome:

with Hoffa, as far as the Teamsters.

Jerome:

They wanted to use the pension fund to funnel money to launder money for the mob.

Jerome:

That's the, that's the crux of it, that's basically what

Jerome:

their connection to the mob was.

Jerome:

So, as I wrote my notes down, I wrote down act one, and the first

Jerome:

word I wrote was, it's fuzzy.

Jerome:

Like, I don't even know.

Jerome:

Like, there's so much weird shit going on that there's no back,

Jerome:

and I wrote this down, there's no back story for Jimmy at all.

Jerome:

Not, not how he got to the, how he came to the Teamsters, how he got

Jerome:

to be who he is, none of that shit.

Jerome:

The character of Bobby Charo is fictional, so they can make up whatever they want.

Jerome:

And there, and, you know, again, the movie really starts with them

Jerome:

meeting each other in the truck.

Jerome:

Yeah.

Jerome:

Right?

Jerome:

So I think there's more of a clear so that's kind of the setup

Jerome:

of who these guys are, right?

Jerome:

The death of Bobby Flynn happens, and when they set that laundry place on fire.

Jerome:

Yeah.

Jerome:

And...

Jerome:

There's a lot more there too, but there's, that kind of leads to

Jerome:

the first turning point was, why does Bobby get to take his spot?

Jerome:

Why does Bobby get to slide right in as the number two?

Jerome:

The, it, what, what they, Hint to, anyway, is that because he speaks Italian, right?

Jerome:

So the very first turning point is where they're at that big ruckus, where

Jerome:

they're all got the bats out and shit, and they're all doing this teamster riot.

Jerome:

And those two mobsters start walking towards Jimmy, and he's like, Fuck,

Jerome:

I'm either gonna die right now, or this shit's about to get their hands on me.

Jerome:

So he grabs a pipe.

Jerome:

Right?

Jerome:

He's like, I'm not going down without a fight and they really just want to talk

Jerome:

to him because they're from the mob.

Jerome:

They want in on this.

Jerome:

So that's when he gets Bobby to translate for him because he doesn't

Jerome:

understand a word they're saying.

Jerome:

So that's how Bobby gets in.

Jerome:

So that, to me, that I felt that was a strong sort of jump to act two.

Jerome:

Now we know why Bobby is his new right hand man.

Jerome:

Right.

Jerome:

Billy Flynn dies.

Jerome:

Bobby takes his spot because he speaks Italian and he can translate for the mob.

Jerome:

Sure.

Jerome:

So then it starts all this setup.

Jerome:

Now here's where I get a problem around the midpoint scene, right?

Jerome:

So, the midpoint scene is supposed to be the thing that happens that

Jerome:

changes the direction of the story.

Jerome:

Right?

Jerome:

Or the main character gets their tangible goal.

Jerome:

Right.

Jerome:

Okay?

Jerome:

If you go by minutes...

Jerome:

If you go by the actual timeline, the midpoint scene is the

Jerome:

McClellan Senate hearings with RFK.

Jerome:

Right.

Jerome:

Nothing is gained there.

Jerome:

Right.

Jerome:

There is nothing gained there.

Jerome:

20 some minutes later is what I feel is the story's midpoint.

Jerome:

Wow.

Jerome:

Jimmy wins the election and becomes president of the Teamsters.

Jerome:

He says early in the first act, My goal is some day I'm going to

Jerome:

be president of the Teamsters.

Jerome:

He's telling you flat out what his tangible goal is.

Jerome:

Right.

Jerome:

Right?

Jerome:

And he achieved, and remember we said the characters always achieve their

Jerome:

tangible goal, what it is they want.

Jerome:

At the midpoint scene.

Jerome:

So he becomes elected president, 20, 20, 23 minutes past the midpoint scene.

Jerome:

That's his midpoint scene.

Jerome:

So the timing is off there.

Jerome:

Here's why it takes 23 fucking minutes.

Jerome:

They do a three scene sequence where, after the RFK hearings, he gets

Jerome:

stopped in his car by Tom Harmon of the Detroit News, who tells him, we got

Jerome:

shit on you, and we're gonna run it.

Jerome:

And Hoffa says, I'd be careful about that.

Jerome:

You know, blah blah blah blah, I'd be Now, mind you, he isn't president yet.

Jerome:

Right.

Jerome:

This is before he wins the presidency.

Jerome:

In fact, that's a sticking point.

Jerome:

Is this gonna hurt your run for the president in the Teamsters?

Jerome:

All this dirt we have on you that we're gonna run.

Jerome:

Bobby next scene, Bobby Charo is at the morgue.

Jerome:

Gettin his hands on a jar with a dude's dick and balls in it.

Jerome:

And then the third scene of this sequence is delivering that box to

Jerome:

the Tom Harmon at the Detroit News.

Jerome:

Who sees this dick and balls in a jar and kills the story.

Jerome:

Right?

Jerome:

And then the next scene after that is he's elected president.

Chris:

That dude was he played a part in CSI.

Chris:

That's what I remember.

Chris:

He's been in a shitload of stuff.

Chris:

I remember him from the original CSI, series, I can't remember

Chris:

his name in that, in that series.

Jerome:

It's, it's Guilfoyle or something?

Jerome:

Yeah, great actor, I love that guy.

Jerome:

Yeah, yeah, he's been in a lot of shit.

Jerome:

He's been in a lot of stuff.

Jerome:

And and that's his only part in this movie, is that three scene sequence.

Jerome:

Yeah, yeah.

Jerome:

There's a lot of cool moments in that sequence, but it could have been after.

Jerome:

In fact, here's where I think it's not so much the writing as it is the editing.

Jerome:

If they would have ended the RFK Senate hearings...

Jerome:

And then went to where he's elected president of the Teamsters.

Jerome:

It does a couple things story wise.

Jerome:

It shows that the Senate hearings didn't hurt his reputation, but strengthen it.

Jerome:

Yeah.

Jerome:

Because he gives RFK, puts him in his place, right?

Jerome:

Yeah.

Jerome:

He trumped, he trumped him.

Jerome:

Trumps him.

Jerome:

So then, he becomes president.

Jerome:

I, I meant that in a Euchre way, you meant it in a political way, yeah.

Jerome:

You meant it in a Donald way.

Chris:

That's, I mean, if we've learned nothing since 2016.

Chris:

Trump had a way, and,

Jerome:

He had a way, he had a way with it.

Jerome:

He has a way with words.

Jerome:

He has the best words, just ask him.

Jerome:

So, anyway, so, so, so...

Jerome:

So he so then if you would have shown him winning the presidency

Jerome:

of the Teamsters right then, it shows that that strengthened.

Jerome:

And then, if you did that three scene sequence right after, it

Jerome:

shows, look what I can do now.

Jerome:

Yeah, exactly.

Jerome:

I got the power.

Jerome:

Look how powerful I am, right?

Jerome:

Yeah.

Jerome:

Instead, they put it before that.

Jerome:

And it pushes the story's midpoint scene too late.

Jerome:

Yeah, dragged it, yeah.

Jerome:

And it almost fucks up with the pacing.

Jerome:

And again, people are probably listening to this going, Well, who gives a shit?

Jerome:

Look, as a writer, if you want to learn pacing, Things

Jerome:

have to hit at certain points.

Jerome:

Yep.

Jerome:

And the midpoint scene, which is halfway through your movie, Your

Jerome:

main character gets what they want.

Jerome:

Yeah.

Jerome:

Not what they want.

Jerome:

After thinking about that...

Jerome:

It'd be fun to re edit the movie and just re release it.

Jerome:

Well, that's what I'm saying.

Jerome:

See how it

Jerome:

would feel.

Jerome:

Did David Mamet watch it for the first time going, I did not fucking

Jerome:

write it that way, they re edited it.

Jerome:

I had that scene after, or whatever.

Jerome:

I don't know.

Jerome:

I love you Mamet.

Jerome:

If you ever hear this, I love you.

Jerome:

Anyway, so, I've got, this is the same problem I had when it was Mark Hamill.

Jerome:

I have to make sure Mark Hamill knows how much I love him, even though I was

Jerome:

trashing him a little bit in some of those Star Wars podcasts we were doing.

Jerome:

Yeah.

Jerome:

I do, I do love you Hamill.

Jerome:

Anyway, alright, so.

Jerome:

So that's my problems with the, with the midpoint there, right.

Jerome:

This is 1957.

Jerome:

He becomes president.

Jerome:

He's president of the Teamsters.

Jerome:

I want to say for 10 years before he finally gets convicted,

Jerome:

RFK finally gets him, right?

Jerome:

But here's actually, no, it's not even RFK because after Kennedy is assassinated.

Jerome:

Yeah, he was assassinated, yeah.

Jerome:

Which, which, but here's the thing.

Jerome:

They, they don't show it.

Jerome:

And the Irishman, and they certainly don't show it in this movie, but

Jerome:

anything you look up in the history of how this all went down, when JFK was

Jerome:

assassinated, there are reports that Hoffa stood up on the chair in the

Jerome:

cafe that he was eating in and cheered.

Jerome:

Whoa.

Jerome:

Because he knew that with JFK gone, RFK is not going to be Attorney General anymore.

Jerome:

Whoever the next president is is going to change that.

Jerome:

And he'll no longer come after us.

Jerome:

Plus, he also knew something else, that the mob was probably involved

Jerome:

with JFK's killing to begin with.

Chris:

Well, yeah, makes you wonder what he knew.

Jerome:

Right, exactly.

Jerome:

But they don't show it in The Irishman.

Jerome:

The movie with Scorsese, the Scorsese director Al Pacino plays Hoffa in

Jerome:

that movie, and he's very subdued.

Jerome:

He just goes back down, he's on the TV, and he sits back down and finishes his...

Jerome:

They don't show it then either, but any report, if you look it up, there

Jerome:

was a lot of reports that he cheered.

Jerome:

That's crazy.

Jerome:

That were like, this guy's fucking standing on a table cheering.

Chris:

The whole country's mourning and he's up there cheering.

Jerome:

And he's on, and he's on his, he's on his chair cheering.

Jerome:

Okay, so so I talk about that a little bit here in my notes.

Jerome:

Okay, so, so that's the tangible goal.

Jerome:

So we all know what happens after a character's midpoint scene.

Jerome:

Where they get their tangible goal.

Jerome:

Everything starts to go to shit, right?

Jerome:

Sure enough, that happens in the second half of this film.

Jerome:

Some bad things start to happen.

Jerome:

Now, here's where we get into some of Danny DeVito's little tricks here, right?

Jerome:

I love the courtroom scene.

Jerome:

Where they have the interjected the big face.

Jerome:

And then there's like, intercut with like Jimmy and Bobby Charo and Petey.

Jerome:

Pete, Pete Connelly, I think his name is?

Jerome:

Little Petey?

Jerome:

Played by John C.

Jerome:

Reilly in an early movie for him.

Jerome:

Yeah.

Jerome:

Sitting there, and the guy's big face is like, in the foreground, and it says, We

Jerome:

have one more witness for the prosecution.

Jerome:

And then the camera sort of pans over, and Petey disappears.

Jerome:

Mm, yeah, that was cool.

Jerome:

It's a cool scene!

Jerome:

It is.

Jerome:

Little, little director trick there, but you know what's going on there, right?

Jerome:

Yeah, I thought, yeah, it worked.

Jerome:

I thought it worked.

Jerome:

It worked.

Jerome:

It definitely works.

Jerome:

Again, these aren't, these...

Jerome:

These work.

Jerome:

That's why Danny does them.

Jerome:

But, so, you know, so, obviously then he gets convicted.

Jerome:

He has to go to prison.

Jerome:

I think he goes to prison in 1967.

Jerome:

So, I want to say for 10 years, he was elected president in 57.

Jerome:

So, from 57 to 67, he's running roughshod over everybody.

Jerome:

He's the president of Teamsters.

Jerome:

Things start to go to shit, though, with, with all the stuff that's

Jerome:

going on with the pension fund, and, and laundering money, wiring money,

Jerome:

illegal wire transfers, all that shit.

Jerome:

They finally get him.

Jerome:

What they don't show is how he gets out.

Jerome:

Right?

Jerome:

They talk about how he gets out in 1971, and they talk about there was a deal.

Jerome:

A deal that got him out.

Jerome:

Which, story wise, we're going to talk about because that leads

Jerome:

to the all is lost scene, right?

Jerome:

What isn't discussed is how he got out.

Jerome:

And again, this is interesting as far as history.

Jerome:

Nixon wanted the Teamsters to vote for him.

Jerome:

Right?

Jerome:

So he told the Teamsters, I'll get your guy out.

Jerome:

He told Fitz, the guy that JT Walsh, I think, plays Fitz,

Jerome:

Fitzsimmons, the guy that takes over as president when Jimmy's gone.

Jerome:

And he tells them, I'll get you, I'll get your boy out.

Jerome:

I'll pardon him.

Jerome:

But you gotta get your Teamsters union.

Jerome:

And I'm talking nationwide to vote for me, because the union vote

Jerome:

is what we missed out last time.

Jerome:

Right, right.

Jerome:

Right?

Jerome:

So we need it this time.

Jerome:

What year, what year did he get him out?

Jerome:

He got him out in 71.

Jerome:

Now, he was elected president in 1970.

Jerome:

Interesting.

Jerome:

So he tells them, vote for me, and when he got elected president, his his next

Jerome:

move was wait, was it 60, was it 70?

Jerome:

Or was it 72?

Jerome:

Yeah, it was 72.

Jerome:

Sorry.

Jerome:

The election of 72.

Jerome:

So, it was a promise that was made.

Jerome:

I'm gonna get him out.

Jerome:

Wait, he was already president.

Jerome:

Am I getting the years mixed up?

Jerome:

I thought he got out in 71, but Nixon...

Jerome:

Oh, Nixon was elected twice.

Jerome:

Sorry.

Jerome:

Blame the fuckin Heaven Hill with this fuckin proof.

Jerome:

So, Nixon wins the 68 and 72 elections.

Jerome:

Yes.

Jerome:

Correct?

Jerome:

Yes.

Jerome:

Okay.

Jerome:

Alright.

Jerome:

So, he's already president.

Jerome:

But he tells the Teamsters, I need your vote in 70, in 72.

Chris:

It's interesting.

Chris:

This, this sheds some light.

Chris:

There's a guy I work with.

Chris:

I've known him since I've been, I've been at Chrysler since 1999.

Chris:

And he was, he was my team leader.

Chris:

He hired in, he's got like 50 years seniority now.

Chris:

He's still there.

Chris:

And I love this guy.

Chris:

His name's Terrace.

Chris:

Shout out to Terrace.

Chris:

But Terrace and I would always get into political conversations.

Chris:

I knew he couldn't stand this back in the, it was George W.

Chris:

He did.

Chris:

He couldn't stand he, well, no, you know what?

Chris:

Actually he was, he was, he thought George W.

Chris:

Was an idiot.

Chris:

So he was graceful to George W.

Chris:

He hated Reagan.

Chris:

He was, you know, he was an old school guy, old school union guy.

Chris:

He hated Reagan and all that, but he loved, he thought he liked Nixon.

Chris:

And I bet you this has something to do with it.

Chris:

Right.

Chris:

The unions kind of gathered around Nixon around that time

Chris:

when they, when he let Hoff out.

Chris:

Yeah.

Chris:

And that's when, that's when my buddy Terrace hired in to Chrysler

Chris:

and joined the union in 71.

Jerome:

So it all makes sense now.

Jerome:

So, so Nixon gets the Teamsters to vote for him.

Jerome:

They, they promised their 72 elections.

Jerome:

So he's already president in 68.

Jerome:

His problem was he was afraid when was RFK shot?

Jerome:

Was it 68 or 69?

Jerome:

No.

Chris:

I can look it up.

Chris:

I thought it was 68, but no.

Chris:

Let me look it up.

Jerome:

I think it is, because that's also when Martin Luther King died, right?

Jerome:

It was 1968.

Jerome:

It was June of 1968.

Jerome:

So he was it is.

Jerome:

So he was going to run for president in 68, right?

Jerome:

Because November would have been election time, right?

Jerome:

So he was running for president.

Jerome:

In June, he announced, remember?

Jerome:

Because it was at the hotel in Chicago that he won the Democratic primary.

Jerome:

Yeah.

Jerome:

And he was like, let's go to the White House, you know what I mean?

Jerome:

He's killed there.

Jerome:

In June of 68.

Jerome:

So that paves Nixon's way.

Jerome:

Now keep in mind, all that's connected too.

Jerome:

Because they believe that the mob's role in JFK had the mob also

Jerome:

had a role in killing RFK to pave Nixon's way to the White House.

Jerome:

It's crazy, isn't it?

Jerome:

Yeah, so, wait, it gets better.

Jerome:

So, Nixon's now in office, and Jimmy is already, Jimmy's already in prison at this

Jerome:

point because he went to prison in 67.

Jerome:

So maybe Nixon promised it in 68, or maybe he said, you know what, it looks

Jerome:

bad if I do it right away, let's wait.

Jerome:

I gotta wait for the second go around.

Jerome:

But either way, he cons the Teamsters into saying, Okay, we're all gonna

Jerome:

vote for you if you get our boy out.

Jerome:

Jimmy can't be in there any longer, we gotta get him out.

Jerome:

He says, okay.

Jerome:

But, the mob was still making so much money on the pension fund.

Jerome:

Yeah.

Jerome:

By the way, Jimmy went to jail!

Jerome:

And there's still, the mob was still cyphering money out of the pension

Jerome:

fund, using it to launder money, that they liked how things were going

Jerome:

with Fitz, the president in place.

Jerome:

So they told...

Jerome:

The Teamsters then told Nixon we want him out, but we're

Jerome:

still making money without him.

Jerome:

So, we don't really want him back.

Jerome:

We want him out, we don't want him back.

Jerome:

So Nixon made that part of the deal.

Jerome:

He had to resign from the Teamsters the second he's released.

Jerome:

Yeah, he was pissed about that.

Jerome:

So that leads to, so none of that is in the movie except

Jerome:

for when he's told that, right?

Jerome:

Yeah, yeah.

Jerome:

The all is lost scene.

Jerome:

He gets released from prison, and he's getting ready for his

Jerome:

big announcement, and he's, he's even tell, he's telling Fitz.

Jerome:

In the, the back room, Hey, you did a good job, but now that I'm back,

Jerome:

here's what I want to do on day one, here's what I want to do on day two,

Jerome:

and he's like, yeah, about that.

Jerome:

Right.

Jerome:

One more thing I forgot to tell you as part of your release condition.

Jerome:

So that's the all is lost.

Jerome:

Jimmy's out.

Jerome:

He has to resign from the Teamsters.

Jerome:

He's forced out.

Jerome:

And he's pissed, right?

Jerome:

Which then leads him to start threatening the mob.

Jerome:

Yeah.

Jerome:

You need to get rid of Fitz.

Jerome:

You need to get me back.

Jerome:

I'm the reason you're here.

Jerome:

I'm the reason you're making all this money.

Jerome:

And he threatens him.

Jerome:

If you don't get me back in, I'm going to the press.

Jerome:

And I'm going to tell him fucking everything.

Jerome:

Well...

Chris:

Well, we know what happens.

Jerome:

Well, we know what happens after that, right?

Jerome:

Well, we think we know what happens.

Jerome:

Yeah, we think we know what happens.

Jerome:

So so there's that dark night of the soul, which usually happens before

Jerome:

the, the turn, the real turning point.

Jerome:

The real turning point, of course, of the story is right after the All is Lost

Jerome:

is where Bobby goes to D'Alessandro.

Jerome:

And that's when he gives the threat.

Jerome:

And that's when he says, we're gonna go to the press.

Jerome:

That to me changes the whole direction of the story.

Jerome:

Because now it's not, they're not friends anymore.

Jerome:

Right?

Jerome:

That moment, they're no longer buddies, they're no longer

Jerome:

friends, D'Alessandro and Hoffa.

Jerome:

They're now enemies.

Jerome:

And it leads to a third act, rather quick third act, where you know, sort of the

Jerome:

resolution of the film it all comes into fruition about what's gonna happen next.

Jerome:

Now again, some real life things that make this film a little

Jerome:

bit where people question it.

Jerome:

In the film, The guy that's been hanging out at the Roadhouse all day, Frank

Jerome:

Whaley, by the way, who's in numerous movies you've seen, he's in Pulp Fiction.

Chris:

It's funny, his, his name in the movie is Young Kid.

Jerome:

Yeah, Young Kid.

Jerome:

They didn't even give him a name.

Jerome:

And you know who he is in Pulp Fiction.

Jerome:

Check out the big brain on Brad!

Jerome:

He's the guy in the beginning that Samuel L.

Jerome:

Jackson kills, right?

Jerome:

Cause he stole the...

Jerome:

Briefcase from

Chris:

he's got a very recognizable face too.

Chris:

I think he's been in a bunch of stuff

Jerome:

He's been a lot of stuff.

Jerome:

He has been a lot of stuff So he's in a he's actually the lead in a movie

Jerome:

called swimming with sharks, which came out in 95 with Kevin Spacey He was

Jerome:

in the doors about the film industry.

Jerome:

Yeah, he's in the doors as well.

Jerome:

So anyway, he's been in a lot of stuff, but anyway, so he, he's been

Jerome:

hanging out at this roadhouse all day, which, by the way, the roadhouse

Jerome:

is in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan.

Jerome:

I don't know if you know that.

Jerome:

Oh, wow.

Jerome:

Not where it was shot.

Jerome:

I'm talking about in real life.

Jerome:

Yeah, yeah.

Jerome:

That's where Jimmy was last seen.

Jerome:

Oh.

Jerome:

He was at that roadhouse waiting to meet with the mob, because he said, you

Jerome:

know, we gotta meet and talk this out.

Jerome:

Again, to tie this into The Irishman a little bit, the movie The Irishman,

Jerome:

they kind of tell it a little bit more of how it's happened.

Jerome:

Most evidence says.

Jerome:

Jimmy's car was left there, by the way.

Jerome:

In the movie, it's not.

Jerome:

They kill him.

Jerome:

They shoot Bobby Charo.

Jerome:

They throw them both in the car, and then they drive his

Jerome:

car into the back of a, a rig.

Jerome:

Right?

Jerome:

Right.

Jerome:

An 18 wheeler.

Jerome:

And they drive off, never to be seen from again.

Jerome:

Right.

Jerome:

In real life, his car was left at the roadhouse.

Jerome:

It was left unlocked.

Jerome:

Oh, wow.

Jerome:

And there was no evidence of foul play.

Jerome:

The car is just there.

Jerome:

There's no bloodstains or spilled coffee.

Jerome:

Nothing.

Jerome:

Interesting.

Jerome:

So what they believe, what investigators believe is, the mob did show up.

Jerome:

And they said, we gotta, we gotta go somewhere to meet.

Jerome:

And he got in the car willingly.

Jerome:

Yeah.

Jerome:

Right?

Jerome:

The reason why people think Bobby Charo, part of who makes up his character,

Jerome:

is Frank Sheeran, the Irishman.

Jerome:

The one who eventually kills him.

Jerome:

Is because, in the book, I Heard You Paint Houses, Frank Sheeran

Jerome:

says that's what happened.

Jerome:

We got him into the car, we drove him to another house, and when we

Jerome:

went in, it was just me and him.

Jerome:

And he saw there was nobody there.

Jerome:

And right then he's like, we gotta go.

Jerome:

And when he turned around, Frank shoots him in the back of the head.

Jerome:

That's how he depicts how he killed Hoffa.

Jerome:

And that's what's in the movie, The Irishman.

Jerome:

Now there's a lot of real life mobsters that dispute that.

Jerome:

They're like, that didn't fucking happen.

Jerome:

That guy's telling all kinds of bullshit stories.

Jerome:

Whatever.

Jerome:

It may, the evidence shows that he, that his car was left behind at the roadhouse

Jerome:

and there was no signs of foul play.

Jerome:

That's why it's such a mystery, right?

Jerome:

Nobody knows what happened to him.

Jerome:

The movie sort of makes it an interesting sort of how they think it happened.

Jerome:

This kid was waiting around all day at the roadhouse.

Jerome:

Bobby Charles talking to him all day.

Jerome:

And then when he says I really want to thank you, he says, no, take this

Jerome:

coffee over and you go thank that guy.

Jerome:

What does he do?

Jerome:

He takes out a gun.

Jerome:

Right.

Jerome:

So, so it's an interesting ending.

Jerome:

Again, my only real problem with the writing.

Jerome:

And again, now here's where you talk about, this is another problem right here.

Jerome:

I just remember before we recap he never achieves a spiritual goal or so we think.

Jerome:

Right.

Jerome:

Right?

Jerome:

His tangible goal was to be the president of Teamsters.

Jerome:

Jimmy was always in it for himself, and he was always in it for money.

Jerome:

Right?

Jerome:

He claims he was in it for the working man.

Jerome:

But really, he wanted power.

Jerome:

Because the second half, when the mob was telling him, We don't need you

Jerome:

anymore, He doesn't go down lightly.

Jerome:

Right.

Jerome:

You know what I mean?

Jerome:

He doesn't just roll over and say, Oh, I guess you don't need me anymore.

Jerome:

He's pissed!

Jerome:

He wants his power back.

Jerome:

Right?

Jerome:

So...

Jerome:

It's, it's evidence to me that his goals were to, to be in power.

Jerome:

So, remember that the spiritual goal is something you didn't know you needed.

Jerome:

Right.

Jerome:

Well, as a union man yourself, you tell me, what is Jimmy Hoffa's legacy?

Jerome:

Is it bringing like helping millions of labor workers

Jerome:

over the United States for...

Jerome:

60, 70 years now?

Jerome:

Is Jimmy Hoffa one of the things we can say, one of the people we

Jerome:

can say is responsible for that?

Jerome:

Would you give Jimmy Hoffa that credit?

Jerome:

That he was part of creating what we know of the Teamsters?

Jerome:

Yeah, I would say that.

Jerome:

Right, so what I'm saying is, did he know then that his spiritual goal

Jerome:

would be That he would change the landscape of labor would be his legacy

Jerome:

for 70 years plus right probably not He probably did not think that that

Jerome:

was gonna be his spiritual goal.

Jerome:

So here's the problem We can assume all that But we don't

Jerome:

see it in the movie and why?

Jerome:

Because here's what they could have done what they do with

Jerome:

almost every biopic ending, right?

Jerome:

Give me An epilogue, right?

Jerome:

Yeah.

Jerome:

Gimme something at the end as that truck drives off into

Jerome:

the sunset and it goes black.

Jerome:

Yeah.

Jerome:

Before you run the credits, give me something on screen.

Jerome:

Yeah.

Jerome:

That would gimme

Jerome:

something that says,

Chris:

yeah, that would,

Jerome:

Jimmy Hoffa disappeared.

Jerome:

In 19, whatever it was was it 75?

Jerome:

Whatever it was Jimmy Hoffa disappeared on this, you know, blah, blah, blah,

Jerome:

blah, blah his legacy lives on.

Jerome:

The teamsters union today, or the, or, or, people that are organized,

Jerome:

unionized, organized union laborers, whatever you want to say, today, in

Jerome:

America, is 40 million, or whatever.

Jerome:

Back then it was...

Jerome:

A hundred thousand.

Jerome:

Whatever.

Jerome:

You know what I mean?

Jerome:

You could say, this is thanks to Jimmy Hoffa.

Jerome:

That he created what we know of the Union today.

Jerome:

Right?

Jerome:

They had a great opportunity to give us a nice printed epilogue right on the screen.

Jerome:

Yeah.

Jerome:

And they didn't.

Jerome:

So, that's my other problem with the writing is, we never get a chance

Jerome:

to really see his spiritual goal.

Jerome:

Right.

Jerome:

It's all left shrouded in mystery.

Chris:

So, you couple the other problems with that, and it does, it leaves you...

Chris:

I don't know.

Chris:

It leaves you wanting more, right?

Chris:

It just leaves you wanting more.

Chris:

Because yeah, so it starts off with, Who's this about?

Chris:

Yeah, who's the

Chris:

story?

Chris:

Who's this about?

Chris:

Some editing problems with telling the story.

Chris:

And then the finish, it just leaves you unsatisfied.

Chris:

Yes.

Chris:

Because you know that's not exactly how it happened, right?

Chris:

Because the evidence tells you otherwise.

Chris:

Right, right, right.

Chris:

You know, he's gone.

Chris:

We know that.

Chris:

So yeah.

Chris:

Yeah.

Jerome:

So, a couple other notes I'd put down.

Jerome:

So, one of the other little tricks that Danny does.

Jerome:

There's little things like this.

Jerome:

Danny DeVito's driving, right?

Jerome:

And it's a side shot.

Jerome:

Right?

Jerome:

He's driving.

Jerome:

And then it superimposes his face.

Jerome:

Walking.

Jerome:

Right?

Jerome:

But it's the same, it's the same head.

Jerome:

Yeah.

Jerome:

Right?

Jerome:

But he goes from the car to walking now.

Jerome:

You know what I mean?

Jerome:

So there's a couple little cool things like that.

Jerome:

One of the ones I really want to talk about.

Jerome:

Because it really, to me again, I'm not...

Jerome:

A master of screenplay.

Jerome:

First of all, I got to grab a beer for this.

Jerome:

I got to grab one of my talls, because I actually loved this part of the movie,

Jerome:

but I thought how I could make it better.

Jerome:

Okay.

Jerome:

And again, writers, anyone that listens to this podcast, it's all about what

Jerome:

can you do to improve something, right?

Jerome:

What can you do to make something better?

Jerome:

In your own screenplays, if we ever talk about something and you're like,

Jerome:

Yeah, maybe I could change that.

Jerome:

This is an example.

Jerome:

Oh, did you hear that crack?

Jerome:

I didn't hold it close enough to the...

Jerome:

Yeah, we heard it.

Jerome:

It's okay, I'll have another one in a minute.

Jerome:

So, alright, so the bathroom scene.

Jerome:

Oh, so, Bobby is telling the Billy Flynn story for seemingly the 100th

Jerome:

time, and the story gets better every time he tells it, right?

Jerome:

So he goes to the bathroom, he's half in the bag now, and a guy follows him

Jerome:

in the bathroom, and they're shooting this shit, they're talking, and then he

Jerome:

realizes the guy's from the government.

Jerome:

Right?

Jerome:

And he's trying to get him to turn heel and and, and be a witness

Jerome:

for the prosecution, right?

Jerome:

Yeah, yeah.

Jerome:

It's a, it's a great scene because they're standing side by side of

Jerome:

the urinal, but they're looking at each other through the mirror.

Jerome:

Yeah.

Jerome:

Right?

Jerome:

He's looking at the mirror to see the other guy, and he's looking

Jerome:

at Bobby through the mirror.

Jerome:

Which is, you know, a director trick of this is sort of,

Jerome:

we're not really communicating.

Jerome:

We're talking in languages.

Jerome:

You know what I mean?

Jerome:

Because the guy is not saying flat out yet.

Jerome:

Only when he turns to him and faces him does he say flat out.

Jerome:

Like you, you could turn, you could be a, for the prosecution.

Jerome:

You know what I mean?

Jerome:

Before he says that, it's all double talk.

Jerome:

Yeah, and they're talking to each other through the mirrors.

Jerome:

Yeah, but what's the best part is when it's over He says you want me

Jerome:

to you know to rat on Jimmy Hoffa?

Jerome:

Yeah you know you want me to turn on him and the guy leaves and there's

Jerome:

a shot of DeVito next to a mirror right and The mirror goes on forever.

Jerome:

Oh, yeah.

Jerome:

Yeah, right It's his face reflected in the mirror reflected in the mirror

Jerome:

reflected in the mirror and it goes on forever Yeah as he's laughing.

Jerome:

Yeah, great shot.

Jerome:

But here's how it would have been better They should have saved that shot, and I'll

Jerome:

tell you where they should have put it.

Jerome:

At the end.

Jerome:

So, you're telling me that Hoffa sat in that car for four to six, seven

Jerome:

hours, God knows how long, waiting for the mob to show up for this meeting.

Jerome:

They were drinking coffee all day.

Jerome:

He had to use the bathroom.

Jerome:

You're telling me he didn't take a leak once?

Jerome:

You could have ended the film, not ended it, but part of the

Jerome:

ending, he goes to take a leak.

Jerome:

Yeah.

Jerome:

Right?

Jerome:

And maybe he has a conversation with the kid that's gonna kill him.

Jerome:

And as the kid leaves, Hoffa's there.

Jerome:

But his mirror image goes on forever.

Jerome:

That would signify his legacy.

Jerome:

Lasts forever.

Jerome:

Yeah, I like your version better, man.

Jerome:

That would have been a better director move for DeVito.

Jerome:

Instead, DeVito's gotta make him the guy that lasts forever.

Jerome:

You're not even playing a real fucking guy!

Jerome:

You're playing amalgamation, bitch!

Jerome:

And you want your image in this mirror lasting forever?

Jerome:

Fuck you!

Jerome:

That should have been Hoffa lasting forever!

Jerome:

He's the one that lasts forever!

Jerome:

Nobody knows who you are, you amalgamated bitch!

Jerome:

But anyway, that's how I would have made it better.

Jerome:

Bobby who?

Jerome:

Bobby who?

Jerome:

You ain't even a real fucking person!

Jerome:

Anyway.

Jerome:

That's great, man.

Jerome:

So I love the shot, but I even wrote in my notes it should have been Hoffa.

Jerome:

Yeah.

Jerome:

That's what I wrote.

Jerome:

No, that's brilliant.

Jerome:

That shot would have been way better.

Jerome:

I want you to re edit it.

Jerome:

And put it, again, don't put it halfway through the middle.

Jerome:

Put it at the end, where he's at the roadhouse, taking a leak, because

Jerome:

then it signifies his spiritual goal will have been achieved.

Jerome:

Right.

Jerome:

We would have seen it visually.

Jerome:

Yeah.

Jerome:

Man.

Jerome:

Sometimes I amaze even myself.

Chris:

I'd like to know, man, is there any footage on the cutting room floor that

Chris:

you could re edit that scene and use it?

Jerome:

Not without Danny's blessing.

Jerome:

So, couple other thoughts I wrote down here.

Jerome:

Okay, so I wrote down, so it's known that the mob helped JFK get in office.

Jerome:

And then he turned on them, because the second the mob rigged the election

Jerome:

in Chicago to get him in to get him enough electoral votes, right?

Jerome:

To win, to beat Nixon, because Nixon was supposed to win that election in 1960.

Jerome:

There's a lot of talk that JFK stole the election, rigged it.

Jerome:

By help, with use of the mob.

Jerome:

But then what does he do?

Jerome:

He makes his brother Attorney General on day one of his presidency, and he

Jerome:

goes right after Hoffa and the mob.

Jerome:

So they felt betrayed.

Jerome:

Right?

Jerome:

Yeah.

Jerome:

Like, we got you in office, motherfucker, and now all of a sudden, you turn

Jerome:

around and now you're going after us.

Jerome:

Right.

Jerome:

So they didn't like that.

Jerome:

They, he turned his back on them.

Jerome:

He, they got him in office, they, he turned his back on him.

Jerome:

He puts Bobby in charge of I'm sorry, RFK in Attorney

Jerome:

General and goes after the mob.

Jerome:

And then we talk about how the film The Irishman, you know what I mean,

Jerome:

kind of plays on that a little bit.

Jerome:

So, there's a lot of disputing of, of what really happened, right?

Jerome:

The end of this film is highly disputed.

Jerome:

The end of The Irishman is highly disputed.

Jerome:

There are people that said Jimmy was buried under a giant

Jerome:

stadium in New York, you know?

Jerome:

So, so there's, there's all kinds of things.

Jerome:

You can look them up on the internet.

Jerome:

There's no shortage.

Jerome:

I doubt they'll ever find any remains.

Jerome:

Well, they never, I don't think they ever will.

Jerome:

Because the most obvious...

Chris:

Even if it was in concrete, someday, a thousand years

Chris:

from now, they would find him.

Chris:

I don't think they're gonna find him, because I think

Chris:

they probably cremated him.

Jerome:

Yeah, he was cremated.

Jerome:

He clearly had to have been cremated, because how else

Jerome:

are you gonna get rid of that?

Jerome:

You know what I mean?

Jerome:

Yeah, I mean, so...

Jerome:

And they even say, although if you're a fan of the show Forensic Files,

Jerome:

that's interesting because there was a guy who killed his wife, burned her.

Jerome:

Like, cremated her.

Jerome:

And they still found her!

Jerome:

Cause they found little pieces of her teeth!

Jerome:

Oh my gosh.

Jerome:

In this flower planter he had.

Jerome:

He put all her ashes in.

Jerome:

So, it is still possible.

Jerome:

But if you took the ashes of Jimmy Hoffa after you set him on fire.

Jerome:

And you took all his ashes.

Jerome:

And you, say, threw him in the Hudson River in New York, or something like that.

Chris:

Or then put him in a cement mixer.

Chris:

I mean, then he ain't gonna find him.

Jerome:

Right, then he is part of the foundation, right?

Jerome:

Yeah.

Jerome:

But, yeah, you'll never find him.

Jerome:

You're never gonna find him.

Jerome:

So so, just to give you another little thing.

Jerome:

So the movie Ghost came out in 1990, right?

Jerome:

I was 15 years old.

Jerome:

I didn't know all this stuff about Jimmy Hoffa then.

Jerome:

I had heard of the name.

Jerome:

Yeah, of course.

Jerome:

You know, but I, I didn't know.

Jerome:

Especially you grew up in the Detroit area.

Jerome:

Yeah, so, but I didn't know a lot about him or his history.

Jerome:

So I was 15 years old watching Ghost.

Jerome:

And one of the characters in that film is tied up with a mob.

Jerome:

Patrick Swayze takes the money, right?

Jerome:

Gets the money out.

Jerome:

Gets Whoopi Goldberg to get the money out.

Jerome:

For those of you that are fans of the movie Ghost, you

Jerome:

know what I'm talking about.

Jerome:

The next scene, Patrick Swayze is there as a ghost, right?

Jerome:

He's watching his friend frantically try to look for it on the computers.

Jerome:

And he goes, you're never gonna find it.

Jerome:

They're gonna get rid of you, Carl.

Jerome:

They'll never find you.

Jerome:

They're gonna bury Hoffa.

Jerome:

And, and he says that line, and again, as a 15 year old, when you have no

Jerome:

idea of the history, you don't get it.

Jerome:

The greatness of that line.

Jerome:

Until years later when you understand and you're like, Ah, that's what he meant.

Jerome:

Yeah, of course.

Jerome:

Fuck.

Jerome:

You know, so, as a 48 year old man now, I want to go back and, I have

Jerome:

actually gone back and re watched a lot of movies I grew up with.

Jerome:

Yeah.

Jerome:

Because I get more of the jokes now as an adult.

Chris:

There's so many cultural, like, references to Hoffa.

Chris:

I mean, yeah.

Chris:

I mean, in...

Chris:

Just about every, every aspect of entertainment, like, I'm sure

Chris:

SNL, I mean, there's, there's been tons of references, you know.

Jerome:

And it leads into...

Jerome:

So much mystery is fascinating.

Jerome:

Speculation is fascinating.

Jerome:

And when you can't tell me a clear cut who killed Kennedy or a clear cut what

Jerome:

happened to Hoffa and knowing that those two things are basically connected.

Jerome:

That makes that whole story even more intriguing.

Jerome:

So, you know, if you really wanted if anyone listening to this, if you

Jerome:

really wanted to have fun you should watch maybe in order JFK Uh, 13 days.

Jerome:

Hoffa.

Jerome:

And the Irishman.

Jerome:

And the Irishman.

Jerome:

And that might explain a little bit about what the fuck happened.

Jerome:

Right?

Jerome:

And 13 days only to show how much the government really was against Kennedy.

Jerome:

Yeah.

Jerome:

And during the Cuban Missile Crisis they wanted him to invade Cuba and he wouldn't.

Jerome:

Right.

Jerome:

So, and that's key to why he was killed.

Jerome:

So if you watch those movies all at once, like all, like one after another,

Jerome:

JFK, Thirteen Days Hoffa, and The Irishman, it might explain a little

Jerome:

bit the mystery that we don't know.

Jerome:

Yeah.

Jerome:

it's interesting to note too that both of these scripts that

Jerome:

we said we have problems with, the first acts have problems.

Jerome:

Yeah.

Jerome:

They usually clean up a lot of this in the second act.

Jerome:

Both second halves of these films are better than the first halves.

Jerome:

Right?

Jerome:

And you can say, well, it's like that for every movie.

Jerome:

No, not necessarily.

Jerome:

If you have a really good written first half, it, it enhances the second half.

Jerome:

But if you have a second half that has to redeem the first half, you're

Jerome:

gonna, like you said, you're gonna lose your audience in the first half hour.

Jerome:

They're gonna walk out.

Jerome:

Or they're gonna turn it off or turn the channel.

Jerome:

Right, right.

Jerome:

Right?

Jerome:

So, both these films suffered from poor first halves, great second halves great

Jerome:

performances all around, although, like I said, Jack usually could fart into a

Jerome:

jar and get nominated for Best Actor, did not get a nomination for this movie,

Jerome:

which is important to note because you know, it's the kind of movie that

Jerome:

gets nominated for Best Actor, right?

Jerome:

You're playing a biopic.

Jerome:

I mean, when we did Walk the Elvis show, both Joaquin Phoenix

Jerome:

and Austin Butler were nominated for Best Actor for their roles as

Jerome:

playing biopic, you know musicians.

Jerome:

This is an Oscar type of movie that got left out in the cold.

Jerome:

It got two nominations, cinematography and makeup, and

Jerome:

I don't think it won either one.

Jerome:

I'd have to look that up, but I don't think it won either one.

Jerome:

I

Chris:

can't even count how many times Jack has been nominated.

Chris:

I'm looking at it right now and it's like...

Chris:

There's so many.

Chris:

It's like, Best Actor in a Leading Role, Prissy Honor?

Chris:

I never even

Jerome:

heard of that movie.

Jerome:

You never heard of Prissy's Honor?

Jerome:

No.

Jerome:

Oh my god.

Jerome:

Everyone that's listening on this podcast, you'll have to forgive my brother.

Jerome:

I don't know.

Jerome:

I mean...

Jerome:

That's a classic 80's mob movie.

Jerome:

I've never seen it.

Jerome:

Here, just do this.

Jerome:

Just do this.

Jerome:

How many times has Jack Nicholson been nominated for an Academy Award?

Jerome:

Twelve.

Jerome:

Twelve Academy Award nominations make Nicholson the most nominated male actor

Jerome:

in America, in the Academy's history.

Chris:

He was nominated for About

Jerome:

Schmidt.

Jerome:

Oh, that's another good one.

Jerome:

Tell me you, haven't seen these movies.

Jerome:

I've never seen About Schmidt.

Jerome:

Oh my god.

Jerome:

About Schmidt has got one of, you want to talk about tangible and spiritual goals?

Jerome:

Watch About Schmidt.

Jerome:

Okay.

Jerome:

The last 30 seconds of that movie is the ultimate spiritual goal.

Jerome:

Okay.

Jerome:

The ultimate!

Jerome:

The ultimate!

Jerome:

Because you'll watch this two hour movie, and you'll think, Man,

Jerome:

nothing is happening in this movie.

Jerome:

I have no idea where it's going.

Jerome:

I have no idea what this message is, what they're trying to tell me.

Jerome:

This is just a miserable old man.

Jerome:

He's just an angry old fuck.

Jerome:

And there's no point to this.

Jerome:

And then the last thirty seconds will make you cry.

Jerome:

It will fucking make you cry.

Jerome:

I'm getting goosebumps right now thinking about it.

Jerome:

You've gotta watch the last, you've gotta watch the whole movie to get it though.

Jerome:

Don't go on YouTube and say fucking show me the ending of About Schmidt.

Jerome:

That will ruin it.

Jerome:

You gotta suffer first.

Jerome:

You gotta suffer through it because it makes the ending so much better.

Jerome:

Plus you won't get it.

Jerome:

You won't get it.

Jerome:

You won't know what's going on.

Jerome:

You have to watch the movie.

Jerome:

Watch About Schmidt and the last 30 seconds is one of the biggest examples of

Jerome:

a character reaching their spiritual goal.

Jerome:

Okay.

Jerome:

That you'll ever see.

Chris:

That came out 21 years ago.

Chris:

2002.

Jerome:

The fuck was it that long?

Chris:

Yeah.

Chris:

Alright, so...

Jerome:

Let's land this plane?

Chris:

Yeah, you wanna do 6 degrees.

Chris:

We gotta do 6 degrees yet.

Jerome:

So, for those that are listening, remember that it's not a stumped Jerome,

Jerome:

we just wanna see if it can be done.

Chris:

Yeah, we wanna see, so the idea is, we believe, Jerome contends.

Chris:

Firstly, I mean, I haven't, I'm a believer, cause you've, you've

Chris:

gotten even the most difficult ones that I threw at you.

Chris:

You contend that any two actors that have graced the big screen...

Chris:

Can be connected within six degrees.

Chris:

Right.

Chris:

It's a play on Kevin Bacon, the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon.

Jerome:

But unlike those guys, we don't use TV shows and we don't use directors.

Chris:

Exactly.

Jerome:

You have to be an actor or actress on the big screen

Jerome:

in a feature length film.

Jerome:

No short films.

Jerome:

Right.

Jerome:

Feature length film.

Jerome:

And we've, we've yet to find two that cannot be.

Jerome:

Everyone can be.

Jerome:

Yep.

Jerome:

But this one, and I was gonna say, that usually sometimes I will admit,

Jerome:

sometimes I'm like, oh, I gotta fuckin look that up, like, I need some resources

Jerome:

on this, I don't know it off the top of my head, you know what I mean?

Jerome:

This one I did with no resources.

Chris:

Yeah, and so, because of the movies, I didn't take any of the B

Chris:

list actors that are, had a scene, and you didn't even know who they were.

Chris:

How dare you?

Chris:

How dare you call them B listers?

Chris:

Whatever, I mean They're listening right now, and they're

Chris:

like, that fuckin asshole.

Chris:

But you know what I mean, there's people who just got roles, and they

Chris:

were great, you know, they, they gotta, they, their face was on the screen.

Chris:

They might even had a line.

Chris:

Wow.

Chris:

But I didn't pick any of them.

Chris:

I didn't pick any of them.

Chris:

I picked, I picked two guys in these movies that I was

Chris:

like, all right, I don't know.

Chris:

I knew it wouldn't be that hard, but it's fun still.

Chris:

So I picked a Rob Liebman Ruben who played Ruben in a normal Ray

Chris:

and Kevin Anderson who played R.

Chris:

F.

Chris:

K.

Chris:

Junior.

Chris:

Er, R.

Chris:

F.

Chris:

K., not Junior.

Chris:

Bobby.

Chris:

Bobby.

Chris:

Bobby Kennedy.

Chris:

Now we can call him Bobby.

Chris:

Bobby Kennedy.

Chris:

Now, here's the funny thing about those two.

Chris:

Kevin Anderson was actually the easy one.

Chris:

Cause that motherfucker's actually been in a lot of shit.

Chris:

Yeah.

Chris:

You know what I mean?

Chris:

A lot of people might see his face like, Yeah, I've seen him before.

Chris:

He's been in a lot of stuff.

Chris:

Ron Liebman, for as big as he was, Yeah.

Chris:

And he seems larger than life in Rorimer Ray, He doesn't have a huge...

Chris:

Filmography, right, but he's done a lot,

Chris:

but he's been in movies with some big people

Jerome:

and he's and he's done a lot of TV work Yeah, sure, but he's not huge

Jerome:

like a huge name He's not like an a list, you know, Ron Liebman's not gonna

Jerome:

be your lead that sells tickets, right?

Jerome:

Yeah Like a Sally Field or Tom Hanks, you know, yeah, he's

Jerome:

Jack Yeah, or Jack, you know.

Jerome:

But neither is Kevin Anderson.

Jerome:

So, Ron Liebman was actually tougher than Kevin Anderson.

Jerome:

Okay.

Jerome:

But I, when you say Kevin Anderson, I was like, I know a lot of movies

Jerome:

that motherfucker's been in.

Jerome:

He's been a lot of shit.

Jerome:

But when you said Ron Liebman, I was like, fuck, I really only know one other

Jerome:

big film of his that I've seen was Night Falls on Manhattan, which is a 90s movie

Jerome:

with Andy Garcia and Richard Dreyfuss.

Jerome:

And it's a really interesting sort of corrupt cop.

Jerome:

With Street gang subplots going on, and Ron Leman plays a district

Jerome:

attorney and who's trying to prosecute this, this gang leader drug dealer

Jerome:

who shoots in, who shoots a cop.

Jerome:

Mm-hmm.

Jerome:

, the cop's son is the lawyer he puts in charge of the case.

Jerome:

And that's Andy Garcia.

Jerome:

The cop, by the way that gets shot is Ian Holm.

Jerome:

You know him.

Jerome:

He was Ash and alien.

Jerome:

So so anyway, it's, it's, it's a decent film.

Jerome:

So you connected him to Andy Garcia.

Jerome:

Andy Garcia, which was, because again, I don't know a lot of Ron Liebman

Jerome:

movies, and I can't use friends.

Chris:

So, let me guess, did you go to, Oceans?

Jerome:

I went to Oceans 11, because why not?

Jerome:

There's a shitload of people, right?

Jerome:

And that led me right to you know who, Julia Roberts, who was in Oceans 11.

Jerome:

And she was in Sleeping with the Enemy with Kevin Anderson, who

Jerome:

plays her love interest after she leaves her abusive husband.

Jerome:

When she goes to that small town, he's the first guy she meets.

Jerome:

So, Kevin Anderson and Rod Leibman, it took three degrees.

Jerome:

Yeah.

Jerome:

Not bad.

Jerome:

And I did that without any help.

Jerome:

I did that one in my head.

Chris:

Yeah, not bad.

Chris:

And you said if you used this, well, if you used one

Chris:

of the movies...

Jerome:

If I used Hoffa, it was done in two.

Jerome:

Yeah.

Jerome:

Because who did I say that the guy that plays Tom Harmon from the Detroit news?

Jerome:

Yeah in Hoffa Paul Gilfoyle, I think his name is he oh shit.

Jerome:

What was he he was in He was in a movie with Ron Liebman.

Jerome:

Oh, he was in Night Falls on Manhattan.

Jerome:

He was in that movie too.

Jerome:

So he was in that movie too.

Jerome:

So if I used Hoffa, it's only two connections.

Jerome:

Yeah.

Jerome:

So, remember, again, the point of this game is not to stump me, it's to, can we

Jerome:

find two people that can't be connected?

Jerome:

Alright, next time I am gonna pull two actors who maybe had one

Jerome:

line.

Jerome:

Dude, the one you did for Everything, Everywhere, All at Once, that was tough.

Jerome:

Alright?

Jerome:

Yeah.

Jerome:

You picked a kid.

Jerome:

No, no, no, no, it wasn't that.

Jerome:

Oh yeah, maybe it was that.

Jerome:

Was it that one?

Jerome:

Who did you pick where it was like the kid's only been in one movie?

Chris:

No, so everything everywhere all at once I picked the uh, the girlfriend.

Jerome:

I think it was the Hugomans.

Jerome:

Oh, yeah.

Jerome:

Where the kid was the only movie to sit.

Chris:

Yeah, that was his first movie.

Chris:

Yeah, that was his first movie.

Jerome:

So I had to use that movie.

Chris:

You had to use it.

Chris:

Yeah, yeah.

Jerome:

That was fun.

Jerome:

That was fun.

Jerome:

It was.

Jerome:

Yeah.

Jerome:

Dig deep on the next one.

Jerome:

Dig deep.

Chris:

Well, so was this, and I'm glad we got to do a union theme.

Chris:

This is, these are difficult times with inflation and everything

Chris:

going on with AI and the, you know, as far as Hollywood goes.

Chris:

These are difficult contract negotiations, and I thought it would

Chris:

be good to do a couple of movies that were uh, union themed for

Chris:

Labor Day, which is coming up here.

Jerome:

So, we have to announce, I'm so excited about this, we're gonna

Jerome:

edit well, as you're listening to this, we are actually already edited

Jerome:

and released this one for Labor Day.

Jerome:

It's our September...

Jerome:

Episode.

Jerome:

Yes.

Jerome:

We have two episodes left.

Chris:

October is recorded and waiting to be edited at this point.

Jerome:

We have three episodes left.

Jerome:

We have October, November, and December.

Jerome:

No, two of them are.

Jerome:

October's is recorded and November's is recorded.

Jerome:

Yes.

Jerome:

We're gonna do a special Christmas episode.

Jerome:

Yeah, we haven't decided on that yet.

Jerome:

We haven't decided yet on that, but I cannot tell you, I'm so excited.

Jerome:

The October Halloween special.

Jerome:

Will blow your fucking mind We compare and contrast Can I talk

Jerome:

about I gotta talk about yeah time.

Jerome:

I just go for it man.

Jerome:

Silence of the Lambs and Midsommar and it is a Fantastic show not only is it

Jerome:

a great show because it's movies that we love Or are very disturbing films.

Jerome:

But I, I want to say that's the show where I almost killed my brother.

Jerome:

I almost killed him.

Jerome:

I almost killed him.

Jerome:

Because we get into, I, I, I don't know, we get into a laughing fit.

Chris:

I may have lost control of my bladder at one point.

Jerome:

He almost chokes to death.

Jerome:

So, so, you gotta look forward to the October episode.

Chris:

Yeah, absolutely.

Jerome:

So, so, as you're listening to this one, this is September,

Jerome:

this is our Labor Day Union Show.

Jerome:

And we hope you've enjoyed all the shows up till now.

Jerome:

We're really trying to get on this where we do 12 shows a season.

Jerome:

Which is one a month.

Jerome:

And we're already preparing for our recordings for 2024.

Jerome:

Yes.

Jerome:

So that we can kick the ball off right in January.

Chris:

I feel like, I feel like we've gotten into a groove here.

Chris:

And so I, you know, editing for a couple amateurs, editing's always

Chris:

been a pain in learning how to do it.

Chris:

And if we can actually make this work with Clubhouse recording

Chris:

live, we'll see how it goes.

Chris:

It could go incredibly bad.

Chris:

We're drinking live with an audience.

Chris:

I don't think there's anything wrong with that.

Chris:

May, may

Jerome:

Jerome's true colors come out.

Chris:

We'll either be cancelled after the first week, or...

Jerome:

Or I'm gonna get a lot of new followers on our Instagram.

Jerome:

Right.

Jerome:

Like, who's this Jerome guy?

Jerome:

I wanna fuckin drink with that dude.

Chris:

So anyways, yeah.

Chris:

Stay tuned, be sure to follow us on, whatever app you're listening to podcasts

Chris:

on go to Clubhouse, make a, make a profile on Clubhouse and look around.

Chris:

Clubhouse is a neat space.

Chris:

Basically it's live audio.

Chris:

They call it social audio.

Chris:

And you can basically follow any type of club or room or

Chris:

house or whatever they call it.

Chris:

They call them houses now.

Chris:

And on just about any topic.

Chris:

So there's a lot of nonsense on there, but man, you can find some

Chris:

good houses and uh, get to know some people that lead those houses and

Chris:

they have conversations and I really enjoy it, so I think it's made for us.

Chris:

I really think it's gonna be Something we can play with and it'll be a way

Chris:

for us to talk movies, have some beers and engage in our audience.

Chris:

So, we'll see how that goes.

Chris:

We'll see how that goes.

Chris:

I'm nervous, honestly, but it's gonna be

Chris:

fun, so.

Jerome:

Yeah, yeah one of the benefits we take from this, doing it the way

Jerome:

we've been doing it, is that we can always say, oh yeah, let's stop.

Jerome:

Yeah, edit it we can edit this out now the good thing is

Jerome:

doing live shit It's gonna be

Chris:

yeah with Clubhouse you can mute yourself and others now What we'll have to

Chris:

get good at is muting ourselves whenever we need to burp Yeah Yeah, otherwise it's

Chris:

like, you know, we're just gonna gross everyone out the whole show So, anyways,

Chris:

so, hey, you wanna land this plane?

Jerome:

Yeah, let's, let's land it.

Jerome:

So, we're, we're excited.

Jerome:

We hope you like this show.

Jerome:

We're excited for the shows that are coming up.

Jerome:

We again, the November one we were gonna do a Thanksgiving theme,

Jerome:

but we actually have a war movie theme coming up in November.

Jerome:

Yes.

Jerome:

Where we do All Quiet on the Western Front and The Thin Red Line.

Jerome:

So, another good show there.

Jerome:

I really enjoyed making that.

Jerome:

That one's already done in the can.

Jerome:

So that one's coming out in November.

Jerome:

We haven't done our December one yet, our Christmas show.

Jerome:

We are going to do a Christmas episode.

Jerome:

But this has been, I hope you enjoyed it.

Jerome:

This was fun.

Jerome:

This is our Labor Day show.

Jerome:

All for the unions.

Jerome:

And uh, what do you think?

Jerome:

You have anything to add?

Chris:

No, I would just add get to your local theater and

Chris:

support your local theater.

Chris:

Go watch some movies.

Chris:

Go watch Barbie again.

Chris:

I know you've seen it already.

Chris:

If you haven't, your wife wants you to see it again.

Jerome:

It's reached a billion dollars worldwide.

Chris:

It's amazing.

Chris:

I haven't seen it, but Jessie really wants me to see it.

Chris:

I'll go see it.

Chris:

I've got no problem seeing it.

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About the Podcast

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Silver Screen Happy Hour
With the Wiegand Brothers

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About your hosts

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Jerome Wiegand

Born and raised in Metro Detroit, Michigan. Graduate of Columbia College Chicago with a degree in Film/Screenwriting. Have lived in California since 2001. I enjoy screenwriting, script consulting and film analysis.
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Chris Wiegand