Charlie and Steve Watch Stuff

[00:00:00] Hi, friends. to Charlie and Steve Watch Stuff, where today we are watching The Birdcage. My name's Steve Selnick and joining me as always, he's got the Fosse, he's got the Marsha Graham, he's got the Michael Kidd, he's got the Madonna, but he's keeping it all inside. It's my good friend, Charlie peppers. Charlie, good to see you, man.

Good to see you too. What an introduction. And also what a great damn quote from that movie.

It's probably, there's a lot of good quotables in this movie. It's probably the thing that I say the most, just like in life, just kind of randomly, especially when I'm trying to like feel the beat or something. I default to the Madonna Madonna, but you keep it all inside. I say that a lot. And now I'm proud to say that my partner knows what I mean when I ramble about that incessantly. But. Very pleased to have another repeat guest back on the podcast to get us back into discussing the birdcage. And we, I think it came up in our first discussion when we had you on the first time or in just all of the popular culture that you post about. We see stuff about [00:01:00] the birdcage all the time, but we are so pleased to have Newsweek's Parting Shots, H.

Allen Scott back on the podcast. H. Allen, welcome back.

Hello. Hello. How are we?

wonderful. So good to have you. How has life been since we had you on the podcast all of those months, what feels like years ago, so much has happened

Wow. I don't even know. When was I last on? Do you know? Do you know the

The Oscar predictions

right, right before the Oscars. Yeah.

So since then, Ozempic is going great. I've lost lots of weight and and things are good. I have, unlike, unlike our friend Charlie here, I have not dyed my hair again. My hair is still the color that it has was last time, I believe.

And yeah, that's basically my life since then.

Just running a popular culture podcasts. That's very popular and crushing it as always. And yes, for,

for our YouTubers. Yes, exactly. I love it for our YouTubers for that are, or people that are listening to us audio only that want to go and see the glory that is Charlie's [00:02:00] very Frank Ocean

low cut tank top blonde hair I mean we might as well be talking about porn here

Put them on the album cover. Let's go.

shit. There goes like half my notes.

that's for the patreon. That's

We, we can, we can save that for when we're talking about the decorations in Armand's house. 'cause that, that's probably the closest we're gonna get in, in this one. Maybe. Who knows? We never know how off the roads we can get, but we, we kind of jumped right into it because we were discussing. The Birdcage, which is the film that we're gonna talk about today.

We're super stoked to be talking about it. But HL and I, this movie came out a long time ago. Came out in the 90s a long time

Let's not say a

Yeah, I know. I immediately just, that immediately hurt my chest too. Cause I was, I was definitely like old. I'm old enough to remember when this came out. So yeah, exactly. And, and that Charlie should also be old enough to remember when it came out as well. But we found out in our pre discussion for this episode that him watching it last night was the first time that he had ever watched this [00:03:00] movie ever. And both of them H. Allen and I kind of immediately clutched our pearls and went, how did you,

how did this happen?

So I want to actually start with you, H. Allen, and kind of discuss your history with this film and when you first consumed it and what it has meant to you in becoming the person that you are today. And then I want to kind of go into Charlie a little bit and his sort of first timers takes before we jump into like the plot itself.

Well, I want to say on the day that we're recording this, not when it comes out, but on the day we're recording this is the anniversary of Robin Williams passing. He died 10

years ago as of today's recording. and. You know, this film, and I was, I was lucky enough in my lifetime to tell Robin Williams how much this film meant to me.

It was

a, we, we had a, I did a show. He took us to dinner afterwards, and so I was having dinner with, or like a meal with him, he didn't eat very much, Hollywood. all I remember is that I said, I, cause I was so like in a fog in this, he was such a big person for me, that I, I, I made a Ruth Bader [00:04:00] Ginsburg joke, and he like did a belly laugh.

And it was, I have no idea what I said, but I will always remember that moment. So his passing. Hits for me very much but my relationship to this film, so when I was a kid, my family would go to the movies a lot, we were a big movie night family, like every Friday or weekend we would go to a movie, it was always a thing, which I am very grateful for because I'm still that person, and one weekend, And I usually was the one, Garrett, like steering us in what direction, what film to watch, because I was the one who subscribed to Premiere Magazine.

I'm that old that I had a subscription to Premiere Magazine when I was a little kid. Little kid, operative word. so I had all of the things, and I knew what movies were coming out, so I knew this movie was really big. And I, I knew the subject matter, and I really wanted to see it, but I knew I couldn't see it on my own, because I was too young to see it on my own.

And so, I needed I needed it to be the movie night movie that we went to go see. I couldn't just like get it from Blockbuster or something. I didn't want to wait for it to go to a rental place. So I was like, we're gonna go see it as a movie. Cause I had to see it the night it came out. [00:05:00] And we went to go see it.

And I remember watching this film. And I, and I, cause I knew, I knew I was gay. Or at least I didn't have words for it. I knew something was up with me. I was watching this film and I saw Nathan Lane's character in the film and I was terrified of him because I just related to him so much. And he was so, the type of person and the type of humor and the type of everything, the way I gesticulate, my aesthetic, like all of the things, not so much anymore my aesthetic, but all of the things that was that character I, identified with in a lot of ways.

And I was so frightened of it because it just, it concerned me that I would become that person, you know, or I was that person. And then I remember on the ride home, my, my mom, everyone loved the film. We kept quoting the film. I mean, the, the Madonna, like all of the things that we just kept quoting all of the things.

And it was, it was such a joyous moment after the film. And I remember my mom saying something about Nathan Lane's character. Cause we really didn't know Nathan Lane at that point outside of, I knew his voice [00:06:00] from, from The Lion King, but he wasn't like a household name at that point. And this movie made him a household name. And I remember my mom said that it was brave of someone like him to, like, be themselves. And it, it really hit me in a really sort of, like, wonderful way that I was like, Oh, my mom's gonna be cool. My mom's cool. My mom's gonna get it. She gets it. She loved him. I'm good. I don't have, I don't have anything to worry about.

And then of course now, So, you know, years later, I have very much become that character from the birdcage in my professional life, I do drag,

my comedy is very him, like, I am that person who in that movie and, and I'm really happy that I have become that person because they're fantastic. Yeah.

all that. That's really great. I also watched this film with my mom for the first time at whatever age. But I think what really struck me about watching the film that young with my mother, who was engaged in it, laughed at it over and [00:07:00] over loved it.

And it showed me as someone who could grow up and be a continuous ally to that community, that just for a young person in Northeast America to just be like two men loving each other is not just okay. It's normal. It's life. Two women loving each other is normal nowadays to they, them, whatever loving they, them, whatever also can just, everybody can love each other.

And it, and this was such a great example of that, that I think. That people were not ready for in 96, even though it did great in the box office when it first came out. And I think probably shocked a lot of people in that way. And I think a lot of people can learn from even right now. I think there's a lot of stuff in this movie that felt very true to things that are still happening today that can be pulled and can be related to, and this is a discussion I want to have later about how you could remake a movie like the birdcage right now, because I think you could absolutely do it now. with some differences, obviously, and some expansions. But Charlie, as someone who [00:08:00] saw it for the first time ever, what were your expectations going in, kind of hearing a lot of hype from people like myself and H Allen going, wait, you haven't seen this? How did this pass you by?

And then sort of your, and I swear we'll talk about also, if you don't, if you're listening to this and you've never seen the birdcage or don't know the plot of the birdcage, I actually don't know what you're doing here.

Go watch the movie before you listen to this podcast. Which is why we're kind of. Skirting around the actual like plot details because I think it's a little bit bigger than that in this situation So Charlie go for it, man

I was floored. I was absolutely floored and very moved, very emotional watching this movie. I did not see it coming. I thought the hype around Birdcage was purely hinging on Robin Williams performance. I thought, oh, people just like it because they like Robin Williams. I'm sure that It'll be great for his performance.

I have also [00:09:00] really slept on Nathan Lane for his entire career. I'm just like, oh It's Nathan Lane. I kind of took him for granted. Yeah, rightly so, finger wag. I should have

Known that I was going to be blown away and that Nathan Lane would be the heart of this movie because I Oh, man I got choked up when he Is Was dressed up in the suit and he was trying and he said The only thing I've done is try to be there for you and you hate me And then just walked out and I just thought oh, no I felt that way before, you know, and I kind of get that feeling of just What what agony to feel like no one will ever see you the way that you see yourself And will never just see the beauty that you are.

The way that you present yourself as [00:10:00] just adding value to the world. I love and I am so protective of that character. . You know who pissed me off the most in this movie? And it wasn't

it Val?

Yes!

Yes!

was so pissed off by Val the whole

Hated him

from the beginning. From day one,

That's funny.

just so mean! And

the street from that actor, and I have to tell you, I told him this to his face one day.

Ah! What did he say?

Oh, he laughed. I said it in a funny way. I'm not confrontational in that way, but I can be.

Yeah. It's like, have you addressed that homophobia yet? Yeah. And then all of a sudden it just, it will get to it, but then like it snaps. He's like, Nope, I'm good. Now I'm going to actually stand up for my parents at the 11th hour now that we've been caught. Anyway, we can get into the actual plot of the movie, but thank you for both of you sharing all of that.

Because I, I know that film and television can be so personal for people in so many [00:11:00] ways. And when you find a film. To latch onto like that, or you can find one later on in life that you can have that sort of realization that this was so important for people when it came out, or it can still be important for people now, which is why I'm, I'm going to start a remake the birdcage campaign.

Let's get it happening

wow. I love that. You know, I do want to add something. That,

yes, the film has an importance, queer, you know, queer importance to it for queer history and queer film history and all of that. But it also has a really important Comedy history and film history in that this is the first re teaming of Mike Nichols and Elaine May since they famously stopped working together in the 1960s.

And it started this sort of double feature act, if you will, of them doing both the birdcage and primary colors. And her involvement, Elaine May, who is, you know, relatively elusive after she sort of stopped performing publicly with Mike Nichols She did things, she wrote, she was still very active, like, she still was very [00:12:00] active.

But this, but the birdcage and things to follow started sort of a, Renaissance for her for the last bit of her career just recently she became I think one of the oldest Tony winners ever in History just like a couple years ago or something for something she did on Broadway I live in LA so I don't know that but she she's like it started a whole different Sort of part of her career But this film was the catalyst for not only bringing those two iconic figures in history back together But also just sort of a new resurgence of Elaine May working again

Love that. That's the kind of historical revalence you're getting, or the historical revalence, revalence, relevance, relevance. I'm leaving that in. I'm not cutting that. Revalence and relevance from, from H. Allen Scott,

Also,

that woman

find your podcast.

That woman needs to be protected at all costs because 15 minutes into the movie. I was like, oh, no, no. No, I don't want to miss anything. We're watching this with subtitles.

If you are a film lover, if you're a [00:13:00] writer, and you love and, which is what I did, I mean, I immediately, as soon as I could get my hands on the script, I wanted it because I wanted, even though I knew it was based on something else, La Cage aux Folles, and I knew it was like, which got turned into a musical also on Broadway, Kelsey Graber did it, his version was horrible.

But, the, the French, but the French version is fantastic and the French film version. And, and, it, the script, Elaine May's script for this is just It's just so perfect on a

Impeccable. Impeccable.

And if you read it and you see how it's laid out, you see the mind of a comedic genius sort of working in layers and understanding the actors that she's writing for and how they work.

And I mean, from. Diane Wiest, who had just won her second Oscar. This was like one of the first films she did after winning her second Oscar to Christine Baranski, who we really didn't know much about at the time, except that she had just won an Emmy for Sybil and she had like, was a Broadway actress, but we didn't know her as the Christine Baranski we know today, Elaine May knew all of these actors and knew [00:14:00] how they worked within each other and what their strengths were.

And she wrote for their strengths in a way that like created this symphony of just brilliant performances.

Totally agree. Shout out to Callista Flockhart, AKA Allie McBeal herself, who just ate up looking bewildered for basically all 45 minutes of her screen time. It was fantastic.

Can we

talk about Gene Hackman and how perfect he was in

So

Someone who should not And, like, the thing that I thought was, all the press for this film was about Robin Williams playing against type. He wasn't the funny one. He should have been Albert's role. He wasn't the, he should have been Nathan Lane's role.

He wasn't, and he intentionally chose the other role because he knew how people saw him, and they thought they already saw this in Mrs. Doubtfire, so he didn't need to be doing this, and all this stuff. All the conversation was about Robin Williams, rightfully so, he's fantastic in this film. But I think Gene Hackman, this is a film that no one saw Gene Hackman doing. Ever. You know?

Totally. I mean, yeah, Gene Hackman's usually like, I mean, you can see him being the. [00:15:00] Like the general or this conservative center, but not in a movie like

not in a movie like this. He just, literally he won an Oscar in a western, Unforgiven, like just a couple years before this movie.

And then he's doing fucking a drag queen movie? Like,

where he's attracted to Nathan Lane in drag for the entire dinner

That's something that went totally over my head when I watched it as a kid what watching it this time around was absolutely hilarious

I want the image of him walking through the club in a wig. Looking the way that he did, looking so lost as a gift that I send anywhere now. I just, I want that. It is seared in my memory. It was so adorable, like, why is no one dancing with me?

Can I tell you, I do that every night as you both know, I do drag and every single time, every single time I'm in a bar in drag, I do that where I do the bit where I'm like, why is no one dancing with me? And I, and I only, I know the people who are my friends from the people [00:16:00] who they can just be fans in that if they understand what I'm referencing, I referenced, there's a great drag King out of Chicago called tender Roni, one of my best friends.

And, and we talk about the birdcage on a level that is like. Obsessive. So that's how we communicate with other drag artists. Often if, if they get our quoting, the references in this film, then they're in the family. They're in, they're in the circle. Come into the circle. It's like what we do.

it's a good litmus

Yeah. It really is.

It really is.

Well, let's, let's jump into some of the finer points of this fine film. We've already covered a whole lot of this, but just for redundancy's sake, we are covering The Birdcage. It was released on March 8th, 1996. Screenplay was done by Elaine May, based on, how did you say that, HLN?

La

I was going to, yeah, I was going to just make some joke about how this is the day after we just whooped France's asses in both genders of basketball. So I was going to say it how I say it. And yeah, see, this is exactly, sports reference.

yeah,

blah, go USA, whatever. Directed by Mike [00:17:00] Nichols, starring Robin Williams, Nathan Lane, Gene Hackman Diane Weist, Dan Futterman, Calista Flockhart, With Hank Azaria and Christine Baranski in supporting roles, and the plot of the movie is a gay cabaret owner and his drag queen companion agree to put up a false straight front, say that three times fast, so that their son can introduce them to his fiancee's right wing. conservative parents. And I just want to start right at the beginning, which is just the establishing shot of South Beach, Miami, the birdcage, the club itself. We get that opening number with something else that I didn't recognize when I was a kid. All of the drag queens lip syncing to We Are Family. A, didn't realize that they were drag queens when I was a younger child.

And B, didn't realize that they were lip syncing when I was a younger child because Nathan Lane later sings.

So I just, all of that went over my head that

Gene Hackman, is that you?

yeah, exactly. So that was a 34 year old who's, who's bid to a few, a drag club or [00:18:00] two in his adult life, recognize that a little bit easier now.

There's one cast member of this film that never gets any attention and, and they should.

It's I don't remember his drag name, but it's Meryl Streep's hair stylist. He won an Oscar for for, oh god, well his name is J. Roy Helen. But there's a drag queen in the film, the really tall one, that says Bob Dole is gorgeous at the end of the film. Do you remember that woman? And she's throughout the film.

She actually opens the film as well with Robin Williams. Like there's a whole, she's throughout the film. That is J. Roy Helland, who is a legendary drag queen. Did drag in the, you know, back in the day, but since has mainly only done Meryl Streep films. Her hair, and I think makeup sometimes, for her entire career.

And Meryl Streep thanked him in her acceptance speech for the Iron Lady. Thanking the Academy for giving her friend an Oscar. Like, he's in that mix too because he won for the hair that night. So like, that queen's iconic and always needs a shout out as [00:19:00] well.

Charlie, would you go to the birdcage as a club?

Hell yeah! I would go to the, I would, I would attend the birdcage, I'd tell people about the birdcage, I would leave 5 star. Reviews in the birdcage. I would just fucking make out in the birdcage. I just, what a beautiful place. And I think what's so special about that setting and about that club is that you can just, maybe I'm just in a really sentimental mood right now, you can just feel the love in that atmosphere.

You can feel the love And the willingness to embrace everybody as they are in that space and in that environment and as a gay man, particularly as a black gay man in LA, I think that spaces like that, they are pretty rare because they feel [00:20:00] very free. curated and you're supposed to be something and you're supposed to move a certain way, you're supposed to look a certain way, you're supposed to dress a certain way.

This looks like a place where people have forged relationships that they didn't know were going to be the most important in their lives. It seems like a very, very, very special place and the fact that We Are Family is the first song, not unintentional because the movie's book ended with that. This is a film about chosen family and it's about If you're able to just show up wholeheartedly as yourself, and people embrace you, that's your family.

And that's just, I think, the thesis statement of this film. So I would absolutely go to the Birdcage every night. What a beautiful place.

mm

I think a lightbulb just went off, actually two lightbulbs just went off for me as you were saying that, A, it's very similar to things that we say that we love so much about X Men, which is another thing that we just finished covering in our like last session of it is that X Men's always one of the main [00:21:00] parallels that you can draw between the X Men and the queer community is that it's all found family and a lot of the time it's people that find each other and are able to be themselves around each other despite whatever horrible things are being thrown their way by it. Outsiders of who don't understand who they are. The other is that I think it kind of spills us into the next part of this opening is when our minds, Robin Williams's character has to go and talk Albert, Nathan Lane's character into going on and, and he he's having a meltdown about and refusing to go on.

And I believe the meltdown is because he thinks that. Armand is cheating on him because there's white wine being chilled, which he never drinks. He likes,

he makes some excuse about tannins, but he talks him out of it and he, he gets him to go on. And,

The

Puran

clear the, the, the pure tablets, the, the period tablets, or he just, it's aspirin where he rubs the a and the S off of it.

Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. And so, but one thing I can pull from that, what you were saying, Charlie, is that It's very clear that this is not the first time [00:22:00] that Albert has had some sort of meltdown that has led to Armand and and Agador by association also quick aside to shout out Hank Azaria for Agador my absolute favorite character in the movie

And,

Always going a hundred miles

In a Speedo. I mean, Helen Hunt was hitting it in the nineties. She knew

who, she knew what she was getting at home.

Wow. Now we all do actually.

Oh, yeah big time He was bringing it and on a lot of fronts on all cylinders if you will

and

The front, the back,

profile, and back anywhere.

All of

the, the Simpsons voices, that's, that's really, that's why I know Hegezeria, cause he's like quite literally half the voices of the Simpsons. So you could, you could hear like the, the, the, the janitor voice come out every now and again when he was pretending to be a proper butler

Which then, does that make you then, since, okay, now maybe this is just for the two of us, but that would then make me have a complex in watching The Simpsons, [00:23:00] knowing that I'm sexually attracted to Agidor Spartacus. However, I hear him as whatever, you know, the bartender, whatever, on The Simpsons. Does that then fuck with my head on, you know, an attraction level?

Think about that. That's something. That's a deep thought.

I Moe's fuzzy in all the right places. That's all I'll say. Okay? That's all I'll say. Back to If What I What I was going to say, to Charlie's point, is that I I What I notice, or something that I'm noticing now, is that there's no moment where anybody, not just Robin Williams, not Val, not even the sound guy who goes to get Robin Williams in the beginning, there is no moment where people are like, I can't fucking put up with you anymore. I can't keep doing this. It's always embraced. It's always handled. It's always worked with, and it's very, and it's very clear that there's no, in fact, it's quite the opposite of tension. Like by the end of the movie, Robbie Williams signs the papers to make them essentially like legal partners. [00:24:00] And we're like, Whatever capacity they could be in the state of Florida in 1996.

So I

I think that's

a really good point, Charlie, that I think you actually see from the very beginning, even though this is very dramatic and the, the flares are high and I can't hold them back. He's being too crazy,

all of that stuff. Like, I think that's a really good point that shows throughout, but especially here.

Yeah, and also, I mean, I think, you know, to that point, like just me as the little kid, the little gay kid who was loud and obnoxious and like, always like, like my, my reading teacher in sixth grade said I had a voice that carried. She later died of a brain aneurysm. I'm just saying. But, I was

Shut the fuck up,

I was always, that I was always sort of like dramatic, you know, and the fact that like, you know, Albert's character was celebrated for being over the top and dramatic is like a win, it made me feel good because, you know, pretty dramatic.

I mean, there's, there's so much, even to this day, that Albert does in this film that I'm like, oh, I've done that. I have done that. I have done like, I have done that. I mean there's a joke in my, I have [00:25:00] a, my good friends in and out of drag. If I'm carrying a bag, if I'm carrying anything heavy, Everyone knows I don't carry things.

Cause I'm clumsy and fall and I walk like Nathan Lane in the birdcage. It's just, it's like a, it's, I could never do a John Wayne. And so people take my bags from me. And maybe that's a, maybe that's a factor of, you know, being old, the oldest usually in my group or whatever. But I, I'll take it because I'm dramatic and I don't like carrying things.

And so I've adopted it into my life. I am this person.

I love it. That's so good.

I will make a note about that character though. I, I think, is he somebody who tends to wear big feelings on his sleeves? Yeah, but none of those feelings, or none of those expressions is ever mean like. Not a mean fucking bone in his body, and I just, there's, there's no malice, and I, I really do think, I was talking about this with one of my friends, Polyus, a couple of nights ago.

When [00:26:00] you love people, there is a price of admission.

A thing about them that you're like, maybe this is something you need to work on, but I love you, and you're not harming me, this isn't toxic, it's just like, let's call it like a quirk.

Yeah.

and the quirk is not him obviously doing drag and fucking eating every night.

I think if I were to point out any flaw of the character, it's him not trusting the love that other people have for him.

Mm hmm

Which is an area of growth that we see him go on an arc with throughout the film. But yeah, that's just me. Also, he looks like Lucy's stunt double.

Yeah. Yes

and well in drag you mean

Yeah, that comment, that that line that Robin Williams said, I thought that was really funny.

That's when I, that's when I put on the subtitles, because I thought that line was fucking killer.

I mean, there are so many, the dressing room scene is just, is just, his [00:27:00] scream when, when Robin Williams takes his hand and just puts it all over Nathan Lane's face and pushes Nathan Lane off of him. And the way that Nathan Lane howls in a way that is just, Oh!

And it's just like, it's just so, it's so Forensic Files reenactment crazy.

And it's wonderful. It's like dramatic on a level that is not necessary, but is welcomed. You know what I mean?

All of his screams in general were just like his, I mean, they were shrieks truly, like when they, when they're going through the pinkies up and every time he slaps his hand down, he makes, he makes the little scream like it's the most surprising thing ever to him, even though it's just muscle memory that he puts his pinkies out

again what I do all

the time.

anything the smallest inconvenience. There is a scream. It's

many, how many times do you think he watched this movie before? Like 2002?

You know, it's interesting. I had to stop myself. There was a moment, a period that I would, and I have, it's, it's starting again. I have a [00:28:00] friend that, because I recommend it to everybody, and I have a really good friend who I constantly am telling her, you need, we need to watch this movie. You need to watch, to understand me, you need to watch this movie.

And I've gotten to the point now where I'm telling them that I'm taking it as a personal offense that they have yet to not watch this movie, that they don't want to be my good friend because, like literally that's where I'm at. So I. The amount of times I've seen this film, I can't even count. The amount of times that I've read this script over the years, I cannot even count.

Like, I, I know this movie backwards and forwards.

I love it. Well, Charlie, you just dodged a bullet there. Good job by you. You beat it

You understand

You finally watched it.

finally

Yeah, yeah, You

didn't even have to tell me. I instinctually was like, oh, oh,

And this is, when you ask, when you ask the question of would you go to the birdcage, I do have to say, one of the reasons that makes me so you know, Albert in this film is that my first response to that is not if I wasn't getting paid because like that is that is actually my response in like when people ask me to go out to bars here in LA.

[00:29:00] It's like, well, if I'm not working, if I'm not in drag, why would I go? Like, I'm not going to go if I'm not getting paid. And That is what I do. I don't go places. Unless, well, I mean, Charlie in a tank top like that probably would work. I would probably, I need I need some candy at the bar in order to, like, bring

everyone to me and

if I'm not in drag, I wanna, I wanna be surrounded by the cuteness.

You know what I mean? So,

maybe, maybe that's what Gene Hackman meant when he kept saying, I want candy.

maybe, maybe,

oh,

was trying to get that sweet tooth some way.

see,

He was trying to get something.

Ha,

Something.

ha,

ha.

Well, the, the, I, I, Really the inciting incident for the entire movie is that the, the secret rendezvous that Armand is having is with his son Val. Who is just really just telling him that and he has a son, it's his biological son.

He's the product of a drunken one night stand with a woman named Catherine. We'll, we'll talk about Catherine later. He comes home basically to tell him that he is engaged to a young woman named Barbara, [00:30:00] whom he's, he's going through with it, even though that Armand thinks that he's much too young. I believe he says you're 20, I think is, is the age.

maybe it's a

white person thing because I know we look older than we are, but like, I do think that it, there's, he just, he looked more like he was starting to consider a 401k. You know what I mean? Like he looked, he looked of that age. He looked

of that age. And I, like, you know, like in your early thirties, you're like, maybe I should think about the future, but not actually do it until your forties.

Like that, that's the age he looked to me.

There was some babyface, but I agree with you. He definitely didn't quite

oh below the neck he probably looked 22, but you know, but from the face up it was full on I haven't moisturized in 10 years

Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. I was like, motherfucka, do you remember the Dust Bowl? I'm kidding, he didn't look that bad.

he he didn't look that bad. So, there's a funny, fun story. While me and my boyfriend Cody were watching this movie, Cody was kind of like half [00:31:00] paying attention, just on his phone, and as soon as Val showed up, and Robin Williams, like, Grabbed the back of his neck and gave him a peck.

Cody was like, ooh, I was like, that's his son you freak. But

that is some, that is something actually, and that is something I turned to because Aaron, my partner Aaron, had never seen this before and I turned to her during this scene and I was like, oh, they kind of like, they don't. Make it clear that it's his son until they explicitly say that it's a son.

So yeah, part of, they make it very like, Yes, that is a way that a father would embrace his son if they have that kind of relationship, but also at the same time, like you, they do kind of play the like, Oh, what is going on here? Until they

Well, and that's what makes this, I mean, cause you have to think, now this, again history here, that you have to think about film queer history with this film in this time period in 1996. And mainstream queer film history, I should say. We have not seen queer characters on screen that weren't tragic. That weren't doing [00:32:00] something illicit.

That weren't bad or criminal or dying of something. Like we, audiences in general, there were no Comedies like this that featured queer characters, maybe an independent circles Maybe there are smaller films, of course, but the main films people were thinking were Philadelphia We're thinking you know the year before they had boys on the side which had whoopie Goldberg's a lesbian And but it's still like there weren't there weren't comedies like this and so I think in some way Elaine May, in her brilliance, knew that, knew that this was going to be an introduction to a queer story that was very different than what people had had for the past 20 some odd years. And, and we needed to go in a different direction, and I, and I, I have always credited this film with being sort of the first, Non post AIDS film that like allowed us to not talk about AIDS all the time Not not talk about death and destruction and horrible ends and all of these things all those stories are important, of course But this film [00:33:00] allowed a different lane for queer creators, I think to go in and queer stories

Correct me if I'm wrong, but they don't even mention it in this movie.

I don't think it's mentioned AIDS at all. I don't think it's

even mentioned

mentioned at

even as like a thing,

think there might have been something, a subtle nod to it or line with Christine Baranski in their scene. Because I mean, I think there may have, maybe, but I don't, I could be wrong on that even. I don't think there

is.

where, and we're about to end in a way that we're going to get into now, which, cause we're, this is where we flip over to. Barbara's parents, the, the ultra conservative Senator Kevin Keeley and the, the co-founder of a conservative group called the Coalition for Moral Order, just like the precursor for fucking MAGA right there.

And his and his wife, Louise. And one thing that I also notice about this film, just kind of thinking about it in retrospect, is that the, the, the antagonist per se. Or all of it, like none of this movie ever feels mean spirited in any [00:34:00] way, where I think it could be very, very easy to be mean spirited and where these people are more so just ignorant and a little stupid

and they have the capacity to enrich and they have the capacity to learn and become better on the other side of it, which is something I don't think we give people the space to do anymore.

And also a lot of people prove that they don't have the space to do it themselves

Well, you also see the characters longing for something, which I think is the ultimate sort of way to root for a character no matter how vapid or horrible they might be. You know, you see each one of the characters wanting to achieve something, wanting to grow from wherever they're starting. And like, That allows you to be on board with them, I think.

The same, you can say the same with Diane Weiss, with Gene Hackman's character. They all just want something. He wants to run for, or you know, he wants to be successful in his political career. She wants him to pay attention to her. The

daughter wants to marry this dude and she's trying to convince the, like all, everyone wants something that we all can get on board with.

And I think that [00:35:00] allows the story to flow in a way that then stops us from judging people too much, you know?

That's a great point.

Thank you.

I think it's a testament to the strength of the writing and the performances that I didn't immediately hate these people Because i'd never seen this before and as soon as we switched to the parents and we were ripped out of the birdcage Part of me was like, why? No, I don't want to watch conservative white people being trash.

But, but, the specificity of everything that they were saying, and the family dynamics, and just, like you said, HLN, everybody wanting something won me over. But this film, I love that you just, you just know everything's gonna be alright for some reason. So, I never had any reason to fear the family. I never had any reason.

Also, I would argue, [00:36:00] writing wise, if you want to make any kind of character likable, just make them funny. If a character is funny, and they can make me laugh, like, I think I liked the family from that first season, from that first scene. I mean, Just because they were, they were quick. They were funny. Just like, oh, I thought you said he was, and why are you on the phone?

Sorry. You know, I think, yeah, there's just a lot of zingers. What were you about to

Well, also, there's the time Again, I'm the most annoying person with history. But I do think that, like, just like now, a Republican, a film with a Republican in it would have a very Audiences would take it very differently than, I think, back then. And at that time, it was Newt Gingrich had just gotten control of Congress, the government shutdowns had just happened, and Republicans were made to look a fool, and like, and Clinton was about to have the affair come out just like a year or two later, so like, we were in a place where we kinda were okay with making fun of Republicans, Clinton was still very popular, he had just won re election, or was on the way to winning re election, and [00:37:00] he, you know, like, things were happening in that like, We kind of wanted to laugh at Republicans a little bit.

And I think this film came out at the perfect time where we could maybe look at a Republican and be like, okay, we're on board with this. Let's have fun with this. You know?

I think we could definitely do it again now. I would love to see it again. Well, we kind of have done it again now, a little bit. I mean, if you think about Don't Look Up,

Yeah,

or movies like that, it's very, and I think a lot of these themes could continue to be rolled over into right now,

The

is, I don't know if that's good or

I think, don't look up, I think don't look up in that. I think the difference though, is that. Back then, we had the ability to humanize the Republican in a way that we were almost rooting for them. We

wanted to get them out of the apartment. We wanted to make sure that they didn't get caught in this drama, or whatever it was.

And we wanted to get them to a place that everyone eventually was happy. Whereas in Don't Look Up, it literally was a cartoon. We were, she was only there to be, and even the last bit where she comes out and she's naked and she's coming out of the spaceship and gets her head bitten off by [00:38:00] the alien or whatever the bird was.

Like, that. It was comical because all it was is like, oh, these are figures to only laugh at. There's no way we can humanize them so we can just make fun of them, you know?

Fair enough. I do, and I do think that's a good picture of how we've evolved to think about each

Yeah, I know.

then, as

yes, Anne. It's not just that the sociopolitical climate has changed. I also think the commentary around com, around comedy has changed. To where there's a lot of lines in this that I personally, for the mastery of the writing, found hilarious. Impeccable. So good. If some of these lines were to come out today, particularly how they talked about the black underage sex worker, there would be a BuzzFeed is BuzzFeed still around?

I think so. I don't know.

Okay, alright, there would be a Vulture article tomorrow. About just, like, all of the offensive things [00:39:00] that are said in the movie, and I'm not, I am truly neutral on that, I think people can feel however they want to feel about anything, I don't fucking care unless you're paying my rent, personally, so I have no feelings about that, but I do think just looking at this from a purely Looking at this as not just a piece of art, but something that studios would take a chance on,

I think that a couple of things would need to be different.

I think they would want two openly gay actors to play the parts. They would be like, all right, these two actors need to be gay. I think

know about that

I don't think they

you don't

tell me, tell me your thoughts.

You just look at Red White and Royal Blue. You got two very

straight actors who are out here in the biggest gay movie that came out in the last year maybe and, and they had to play and I even interviewed one of them, which pissed me off.

I'll be honest. But, that they had to play that game of like, I'm not gonna say I'm [00:40:00] straight, but I'm also not gonna say I'm not. Wink

that really happen?

That was the entire campaign. That was the entire campaign for that movie. And

that's fucked up.

But I mean, that is the culture we live in right now. That is

Yeah.

we live in.

And so I do think that it would be, it would be, I do think that it wouldn't be openly gay actors playing these parts necessarily. I think there might be one, you know?

Well, perhaps, and Charlie, I don't know if you know this, technically, Nathan Lane was not out when this movie came out. There

was actually a whole, there was a whole moment on Oprah in the promotion for this movie where her line of questioning kind of got towards that, like, You could possibly publicly out somebody if they answer you honestly, and so Robin jumps in and I've seen this clip before too, and kind of like does his Robin Williams things and sort of redirects the conversation away from it. But there's this whole, and then I believe like three years later he came out publicly.

God love Robin Williams.

for like, having the wherewithal to understand that Nathan Lane, cause that to me, that [00:41:00] moment is so, I mean that moment to me, I'm so glad that Nathan Lane talked about that moment. He only recently talked about that moment too.

last year, I don't know, it was a recent conversation that came out. What's so interesting about that, Nathan Lane, like I said, was relatively unknown. He was like, he was a Broadway actor, Tony winning Broadway actor. I think at that point, like he, but he was mainly Broadway and he had a couple of voice things, a couple of character things, but he was not a household name.

And this film of course exploded and made him a household name. And Robin Williams. Knew everything, but he also knew how to be newly famous and he knew how to do that dance and protect people and help people and do the things. I mean, he just real minch, just like a full that that's Jewish for a good person, people listening. But he's just like, he's just like, it's just a real mention that like he just kind of just stepped in and used what we love about him that we just think, oh, this is funny, LOL. But really, I mean, reality, he's being the biggest ally possible, you know?

big time. And Charlie, if I may try to like. Extract what you may perhaps what you [00:42:00] meant from that. I think maybe in an ideal world in the same way that we're sick of seeing white people playing characters that are not historically white in an ideal world, we would see two main characters that are gay men playing gay men.

representing that community to its fullest. I think what in a challenge response is that that's still not happening today, as nice as it would be.

In a remake of this movie, I, I would love to, I would much rather see two gay men as the main characters. And instead of maybe a black underage sex sex worker He gets caught in bed with a male sex worker because that would that would catalyze the coalition of world order.

I do think and I'm kind of putting us back on the track of the plot a little bit here because this is the sort of the inciting incident that gets us into the dinner, the collision course of the two families.

We find out that Kevin's Senator who is like his co founder in the Coalition of Moral Order was found dead in the bed of an underage black sex worker, of [00:43:00] which they go way harder on the fact that the sex worker is black than the fact that they're underage. I noticed that, and I honestly think that's a weirdly, like, maybe still relevant thing that the coalition is doing. Conservative media would probably still push on these days, but we'll, we'll, I'll just leave that one out in the

Oh, they'd be worse today. They'd be worse.

about it. And that his wife, Louise convinces him that Barbara's wedding, as much as they're not into it, would help shore up this image of him being an upright family man.

And you know, like this will show that they're a proper family of the highest moral order and they're going to go to South Beach, Florida and escape all the paparazzi outside of their house. To, to meet the parrots, the totally not gay couple that are, that don't run a drag club down in South Beach, Miami, that they don't register at all.

One more point before we move on because I don't want to get too in the weeds about this. If this movie were remade today, I would I would kind of want it to just still be set in the 90s. [00:44:00] I don't know if I would want it to be modern because politically we have so much baggage. Like, not that we didn't have baggage before, but I don't know how we could make a lot of the hijinks hilarious in the way that they are back then now.

, you benefit, you benefited from their lack of access to the internet. I mean,

basically, like, because, you know, a couple Googles, and you could have figured out things real quickly about this, about this person. So, like,

That's fair.

plot would have been compli I mean, that, that also hinges on Dianne Wiest understanding how Google works, which, you know, even back then, or to this day, I don't think she probably does love Dianne Wiest. But, I, but I do think, yeah, I do think the 90s aesthetic, something to, add something to this that like, just brings something. I also want to say too, that, you know, in the conversation of would it be gay actors or queer actors in general? I actually think that there's value in straight. actors [00:45:00] playing these parts.

And I, and I say that in terms of just, you know, again, history, but you look at a film or a television series like Roots and how they utilized white actors playing horrible slave owners in a way that allowed us to then, it basically brought people to the stories. It allowed people to connect to the stories.

And I think of the same thing with, with Tom Hanks in Philadelphia. And I actually spoke with Tom Hanks about this in an interview that, that. There's a power and a depth to someone like Tom Hanks playing that part because for whatever reason yes We understand that the infrastructure of Hollywood is what it is and it amplifies straight and straight white actors more than anybody else in this industry we get that and but once that actor gets to a place of super stardom like a Tom Hanks or like in the case with roots like a dad on the Brady's or or Carol O'Connor or any of those actors where they played a These sort of these people that we all know and love that we that we see in such a positive, [00:46:00] healthy, loving light all of a sudden go in a direction that is either dark and dramatic, like with Tom Hanks in Philadelphia or dark and sinister, like with the roots. And and and what it does then is it brings you into the story and makes it real. It makes it so real that Tom Hanks, big, splash, a league of their own, Tom Hanks, has AIDS. And that then makes people talk about AIDS. Whereas, unfortunately, because of the system we live in, you know, an actor who is a queer actor maybe, but they're not as famous as Tom Hanks, maybe that film's not gonna get seen by as many people.

And that's another

conversation that we should have, and more queer actors should have the ability to be at Tom Hanks level. But, There is a power, there was a power to Robin Williams playing this part. Because it got people in the theaters and got people seeing a queer couple on screen in a major motion picture that was a huge, massive hit. And got people maybe seeing queer people in a different way. And I think there's a lot of weight and power to that. So I don't want to necessarily get on the bandwagon of like, queer [00:47:00] actors can only play queer parts and they should be, they should have a first pass on this part. Because I don't necessarily think that's the case. Especially in a case like this with this film.

That's a great take. I've never heard anyone articulate that the way that you just did. I wish more people said that when they were like, but because then I think the conversation could be different.

I'm available for interviews, scholarly papers, college classes.

Dissertations.

I'm actually not, I'm very busy. I'm not available.

The last, I'll, I'll put us back on the, the redecoration and the dinner track soon, but the, the only other thing I guess that feels relevant now is that the person who is being considered most heavily for Albert's part, the Nathan Lane part before it was given to Nathan Lane was Steve Martin. I

Yeah, I think Martin Short would have done better, but that's just my opinion.

Like how it ended up, but yeah, that's an interesting, like,

yeah, I think they were maybe trying to swing for obviously at that point, Nathan Lane, his biggest theatrical [00:48:00] credit is a cartoon animal in Africa. So like the, it's not exactly like what you're saying, like the facial recognition game and coming off of this, obviously with the performance, he's a household name after.

I mean, yes, complete, instant character actor. Everyone knows who he is, gets him to the producers. He becomes an icon. You know what I mean? Like, yeah.

He's one of those actors, and I guess we'll still stay off the rails a little bit. Nathan Lane, honestly, now that I think about it, is one of those actors where if I see him on my screen as I'm flipping, but not like flipping through channels is a thing you do very often,

but I think he's one of those actors that gets me to at least stop and like, if I'm scrolling through Netflix trying to figure out something to watch, I'll read the synopsis.

I'll watch the trailer. I don't think there's a lot of actors that get me to do that.

mean, along the same lines of Tom Hanks in Philadelphia and what I was saying before about gay actors, Nathan Lane in the people versus OJ, the Ryan Murphy series and playing that. You know, he played F. Lee Bailey, who, he, F. Lee Bailey had that very famous moment during the O. J. trial where he was this white man on television saying the N word left and right. In a, in a, [00:49:00] in questioning Mark Furman and all of that. And there's a power and a weight. Now, Ryan Murphy flipped the script a little bit, as a, as a, one of the gay creators in Hollywood working today, one of the, probably the biggest. That, that, he took an openly gay actor that everyone knows, and put him in a, in a role that is of a very straight, basic, white man, essentially, you know, doing what he's doing to try to out, and, and, and call out the racism of this police and the cop system.

Like, literally, you know, Ryan Murphy was kind of flipping the script in a different way, saying like, No, gay actors can also do this. And, and, and that, I think, has a lot of weight to it as well. So like, Nathan Lane. Powerhouse. The Meryl Streep of faces. Yeah.

That's awesome. Well, we, we, we get the sharing of the plan with Val, and essentially Val's like, here's the thing, dad, I love you, but, You need to pretend you like your street and change everything about who you are and everything about your life [00:50:00] and also everything in your apartment needs to go and Also, we need to yeah, but it's okay It's just for dinner it like because we'll never have to do this again Even though we're gonna get married and be around each other for our entire lives so he tells them that their last name is Colvin because they also can't be Jewish and That he's a cultural attache to Greece And, while Armand really dislikes the idea of being forced back into the closet, he agrees to play along in listening to the help of his friends and club employees to redecorate the apartment, literally take everything out, and this is the part where we get to see just how many penises are hanging around Armand and Albert's home. Lots of them. Plenty of them.

And honestly, like I, I, I actually just visited some friends of mine that currently live in DC and they have a hand drawn photo of a penis plant, which is just literally a drawing of a dick coming out of a a fern

and it made it to their bathroom. It's, it's now I've seen it in three different homes.

It's [00:51:00] great.

So I totally get it. And, and I I wouldn't want to redecorate either.

Could I play

yeah, I feel like everyone asks gay people if we could do straight, which, of course, you know, I cannot. I'm, I'm, Charlie, I assume you probably could. I feel like you probably could, like, you know, do something. But, I wanna, I, I feel like straight men are never asked if they could actually convincingly pretend to be gay for, like, a night, a dinner.

Could you do it?

I

would you do it? How would you

I This is how I'm gonna respond, because I think you might understand, if I think you're plugged into, like, City Gay Life. I teach seven classes a week at Barry's in the Castro.

Oh. Okay. Yeah.

So, yes. Yeah, I think I could. Yeah.

makes sense.

Oh man, H Allen, H Allen,

the whole, the, the decibels of your voice went down with understanding. You're like, you're like, oh.

Okay,

yes. I mean, the word buries Ancastro. Really, [00:52:00] for anyone not in the world of California or San Francisco or Los Angeles or understanding queer culture, that, that is, those are two loaded words that say everything you need to know. The things you must see in the locker room.

Ha

Oh, I don't, I know which times to walk

ha.

to, to maybe avoid it unless I'm looking for it that day. Yeah, no, there would be many a client that'd be knocking on my door if they ever found out that I had come to a life realization.

Yeah. Well, there you

go. There you

and I'd be

But also

all look amazing.

bless.

outside of outside of the Castro and outside of Barry's I think Steve would be mistaken for gay cuz he's not a piece of shit and

thing. I, I, I understand how to like listen and be engaged in a conversation, like genuinely.

So I think that gets mistaken for

also, there's a difference, too, I

think, now with straight men, because, like, you know, women have had to take being hit on by straight men. Well, everybody[00:53:00]

for history and I, but straight men have not had to take being hit on in a direct way, really ever. And now I think they're having to, they're having to, you know, contend with even men hitting on them because of the culture we live in, especially if you live in a big city. And and I think that's a good thing. I think they should, they should learn how to communicate that kind of thing, you know?

I'm gonna say this very clearly and I'm gonna look right into the camera when I say it. I love it.

I love that. I love it. I love it. I

love

Just if, if I'm going to say it full throated and I mean that

Oh, I mean, I

have to tell you, I mean, I

probably talk about penises more with my straight friends than I do with my gay friends half the time, and I think I've probably seen more of my straight friends penises than I have my gay friends penises, so I'm just saying, straight men,

I love where you're going.

Yeah, it gives that scene from Moonlight where they're all standing in a circle just kind of being like, why is yours look so weird?

yeah. I'm into it. I'm here for it, guys. Keep them coming. DM me.

Well, speaking of being a huge dick, let's get back to Val and how he's treating his dad.

[00:54:00] speaking of not having a huge dick,

Oh, yeah, I guess. Yeah, exactly So they they like changed quite literally everything to like the wallpaper and like they put a huge cross on the wall Although originally it was that Buckhead which I thought was pretty funny being like, yeah I just got it down the

in Florida? In Florida?

it for this cross I

Florida? Have y'all been to Florida before?

haven't been to South Beach.

Have no desire well except maybe Disney

Okay, let me tell you. I, I love Florida. I'm a Florida person. I don't go to Florida often. I don't like hot weather. I don't leave my apartment very much. I love, I love air conditioning.

But, I do have a love for Florida and South Beach. I've, I've been there many times. I've performed there many times. And, the people there are amazing. The audiences there are incredible. People, the clubs there, the queens there are so good. I love Florida. That said, One of the things that I love about Florida so much is very similar to what I love about Las Vegas in that walking down the street You will [00:55:00] it's like a it's like a self esteem boost because you will always see someone worse off than you And you will feel good about yourself and that is florida for me and that is las vegas for me too in that it is a constant ego boost of You know what?

I'm doing okay in life I think i'm fine and just walk down the street and you will you won't even need therapy for the week. You're good

I've

Yeah

never been to Miami, but now I feel like I

You have to, it's so

I know, I do need to go. It's one day, when maybe, if they figure their shit

I just can't,

put it

Florida since I was 14.

I can't believe,

I can't believe that Florida has that collection of different cultures inside of that place. It just,

it's so, it's so, oh, no, no, no, not diverse, I just mean that I can't believe that there are just so many, like, People that I probably never want to meet, but at the same time, like, hot people [00:56:00] in the gay community at a different part of Miami, but then also someplace, like, I definitely want to go to Disney World at some it just, like, Florida is just so schizophrenic to me with the different pockets of what it has going on.

It's very, like, I want to do this, but I don't want to do this. I want to do this, but

don't put the politics of the state and the crazies on the people who live in the great cities of some of these states. I

will, like, I will go to Florida and have fun in Miami and parts of Orlando, although Orlando is filled with a lot of crazy Republican,

Ooh.

And but it also has a cool scene to it.

One of my favorite drag queens is from there, Roxy Andrews. And then, you know, Texas, another great state. Austin, Houston, Dallas, these are wonderful cities that you can go have, you can get turnt. Ah! You can have fun. There are cool people there having great times. It's just the rest of the state's kind of fucked up.

Yeah, New Orleans,

Yeah, New

Orleans, a great example. A

love me some New Orleans. Yeah,

totally. So, go have [00:57:00] fun. Suck a dick. Sorry.

on it.

I will, plural. Plural.

that, let me put that in my planner really

That's the shirt that I think we all need. Go have fun. Suck a dick.

Well, that feels like a fitting time to pivot back into the plot of the movie.

So after, after they've done the, the, Or, I guess in the middle of the remodeling, Albert walks in, and they kind of tell him what's going on, and how they need him to kind of just like, not be there for a little bit. Which, if, honestly arguable if you know how Albert reacts to things, kind of being like, you gotta not be here is maybe not the most prudent way to say it, but Albert handles it somewhat well, being like, well maybe I could be his uncle.

And they're like, okay, uncle of what, what are you going to be the uncle of?

And so they, they kind of decide to call up Catherine, Val's mother, who. As far as we can tell, they've never interacted. Val and his mother have never interacted before. I believe they have their first conversation on the phone ever a [00:58:00] few minutes later, or as the dinner is happening. And so we get this sort of like detour scene as the house is coming together where. Armand goes to see Catherine with Albert and Albert has to wait outside in the lobby as they sort of catch up and have some champagne and redo all of their dance scenes and You can you can see and I wrote this in the notes and I love this scene specifically.

I love how Albert's jealous I love how Armand and Catherine fall right back into how they were when they were young And this film perhaps knowingly, perhaps unknowingly covers a lot about the spectrum of sexuality and the spectrum of love and how different people can love each other at different times for different reasons and how that,

too. Different types

and parenting too, and, and how physical love can be shown differently and how it can happen once and never happen again but people can still have a lot of love for each other for other reasons and I just

relationships, too. I

mean, you look at, you look at Albert and Armand, and you know those two have not fucked in a very long time, but that is [00:59:00] the tightest relationship possible. That is love. That is, like, that is

love.

in that, that

is, like, deep.

the effort.

Exactly. That is deep, deep love, but it also shows the complexity of the sort of like queer romance and how, you know, it doesn't have to be defined by sex, babies, life, marriage, all of these things.

And these characters define this moment really shows you sort of the, the fluidity of sexuality, relationships, sex, how we interact with each other, how we, how we grow old together. I mean, there are so many layers with these three characters. These really these three characters specifically and how they're all kind of connected in their own way And they need each other at the same time even would they even need her they need her in some way To help in this situation because she's the she's the missing link that finally she can do something for her son when in reality She didn't really ever want to she went off and had a great life for on her own and she knew that That, that this, this other couple were doing a great job, so why did, that wasn't her story, and it was an accident, and she figured [01:00:00] it out, like, I applaud it.

I applaud it too. I just, in my headcanon I think that psychologically, where a lot of vowels treatment of The dad comes from is the longing for that mother figure.

I think that a lot of residual shit for him is coming up that he may not be aware of.

And I, it's so funny when I try to imagine him as a kid, I imagine him just being the chillest, most accepting, helping drag queens count their tips, ass kid that is just comfortable with everyone. So it took a lot of Mental work for me to buy that he would be so Scared also to buy the fact that he would be attracted to his fiance the way that he is I'm like really that's somebody that you would go after with the

don't know, I think I understand it, in a way that like, [01:01:00] it feels like he's stuck in the gender binary, in that, Which the world puts on a lot of kids, when they grow into the world, and when they're away from their parents, and they're away from the lives that they live. I mean, look at anyone, like, Anyone who grew up poor and then somehow was lucky enough to get into an Ivy League school or whatever and then all of a sudden their entire friend group are people who grew up with money and wealth and they go into debt because they keep trying to like maintain the appearance of being like all these other friends.

It's the same concept to me in that like Here's this man who yes, grew up in a very sort of like around drag queens and in a very flamboyant environment, and then goes off clearly to an institution that his parents could afford to send him to, but that is very different from the lives. And he saw a different side of life and it's sort of exciting and new to him. That normalcy of this basic ass lady that he was falling in love with is like, actually kind of like. to him. Like, it's the o ever seen in his life. So different and interesting But I [01:02:00] also get like how h To him, it's just this binary of gender of, this is just a man. This is, these are two men in a relationship when in reality, if we really look at it, Albert is like definitely a, they, them on

every level. and, and and does not exist in the orbit of any gender really at all, except for the fact that like that that they have to shave their facial hair and body hair whenever they're doing these performances and stuff, that's about the most masculine thing he's done in this movie. And so. I think, I think, you know, Val is just stuck in a little bit of a, you know, has a, he saw a different side of life, and he's a little lost in it, he's a little confused, and that's okay, that's okay.

and I think you just touched on a little bit of some of the next part that we get into after the Catherine scene which is Albert and Armand essentially going through like straight coaching camp I don't even know [01:03:00] how to frame that. Straight Camp, where they're trying to get him to talk about sports, and about the dolphins, and Old Al, you son of a bitch, how are ya?

Put her there with the big handshake. And this is honestly some of my favorite scenes in the whole movie, where they're trying to He's trying to teach him how to hold the glass like a man, and how to walk like a man, and that old lady who keeps trying to, he keeps trying to do the John Wade walk, and she just keeps staring at him, and and I think some of the things that you're getting from this is that it's very clear, and Albert even says so, he's like, this just isn't who I, like, it's just not me, this is how I'm wired, like, my pinkies are gonna go up when I pick up my glass.

I'm going to walk like this. It's who I am, and I, like, it's, I'm not just gonna flip a switch and do it differently.

yeah.

And that leads to that scene where Albert comes out in the suit and has that final sort of like, heartbreaking, I failed you moment, where he just walks out and you can just feel how uncomfortable he feels and how uncomfortable they feel looking at him, sort of like, trying to be this caricature of himself that he [01:04:00] isn't.

the line that I constantly say to this day, out of context, in context, doesn't matter. One does want a hint of color. Mm hmm. It's

just, I don't know why, it just stays with me, you know? And,

I did not even clock the fact that he had pink socks Because who doesn't want a fucking bright color? Sock to go with their suit So many straights that I know do that, and it's so funny that I didn't clock that. I didn't clock that until they were

how far we've come!

How, yeah,

what, from everyone being fucking straight laced, graysley, brown, after that line, Erin did look straight at me and she was like, That's you.

You're, you, you're

hint of color,

yeah, I need a hint of

Except nowadays you would do the whole thing of like a suit with no socks, and I'm just like, girl, put on some socks.

Yeah, you need

I, she's got eczema. I can't

What, what is interesting about this scene that we talked, we talked a little bit about at the top, but one of the things that I, I found, I see [01:05:00] the depth that you spoke to earlier, Charlie, of this scene and like the importance of this scene and why and how heartbreaking, and it is very heartbreaking, but it also, and this to me goes to the brilliance of the performances and the script, and that, Even Albert's reaction, like the first you hate me is genuine.

It's real. You feel it, you feel it in your soul. But then he goes a little bit deeper and he's, he's back into the drama queen. He's back into the over the top. Like he, he goes to the terror. So we never lose. The flamboyance of the drama, the flamboyance of the moment, he will always have that, that always exists, even in the most heartfelt, emotional, tender moments like this moment, he's still, and then even you see Robin Williams character kind of roll his eyes because at first their hearts are breaking when he says you hate me, but then he says it again, and again, and then he gets up to leave, and then you see Robin Williams be like, oh brother, okay, and like, and you see like where this is going, and it becomes [01:06:00] The Honeymooners, it becomes Lucy and Eth, or Lucy and Ricky, it becomes the, the couple fighting moment that, that this script is about. Is so perfect at in that it is essentially just an episode of I love Lucy this whole movie is Essentially the fundamentals of a couple fighting and the wife trying to get what she wants in the end Which is to be in the show except the show and this one is the dinner and it like it that it's all it's a big Lucy episode which I find the dance of that so perfect and this scene does it so well.

Albert's gone at this point and they're like, all right, well we gotta, we gotta go to dinner, we gotta make this happen. They, they make agador. Now, Agador Spartacus, who's passing as the Greek butler, they make him put shoes on and he's like, Mm-Hmm. I can't. I can't do shoes, I'll fall if I wear shoes.

Hank Azaria does his honestly like expert level Pratt falls, even though he was wearing shoes that are clearly three sizes too big for him.

So he's even got. He's even got the physical acting down. He's got the voices and the physical chops. unfortunately, [01:07:00] Catherine's stuck in traffic. Although earlier, I guess we didn't talk about this. We skipped over the part where Catherine calls, and She talks to Val, and Val and Catherine get to talk for the first time, and it's cute, and you can, you can, To, to your point that maybe he's longing, a gender stereotypical representation of a mother, I think you see that a little

mm hmm,

In that conversation, but Catherine's in traffic bridges up little tiny boats going through. It's going to take a long time I did laugh at how little the boat was to cause that huge

traffic jam with the huge bridge going up

But as as the keelies are there and starting to wonder where mrs Coleman is suddenly albert enters dressed and styled as a conservative middle aged woman and Armand val and barbara can't fucking believe it Aaron was like shrieking next to me in delight because I don't think she saw it coming

Oh,

And

oh my god the joy. Oh my come on.

Wait, wait, wait wait The joy of a first time [01:08:00] watcher seeing and not knowing Nathan Lane's about to show up in drag Oh, I would love to get that moment back in

And that they were just gonna be totally fooled by it the entire

That was, that was really, that was so fucking, that was so funny. That whole sequence, that whole sequence just had me and Cody then cutting back to the kitchen, and just the Pratt Falls in the kitchen. I'm like, this movie is doing comedy on a level that I have never seen before. I, I can't compare it to anything.

Maybe like, I love Lucy, kinda, sorta. But like, it's just so, there's so many things happening.

You see, there's a rare moment, it's one of my favorite, because I mean, I've watched a lot of Robin Williams stuff over the years, and there's a rare moment, I think I heard this on the director's commentary, I don't know, not so much I've seen this movie but there's a rare moment of, of Robin Williams breaking, where you see, he's, he's, he's going to get the soup or something from the kitchen, and it's him and Hank Azaria in the [01:09:00] kitchen, and, you know, Hank Azaria's doing Agador in such a ridiculous way, and you see, Like, you know I think, I think Robin Williams falls and he starts to laugh and then he gets back up and he has the pot in his hand somehow and he's just throwing shit in the pot at the same time and you see him laughing at himself falling and it's all, it's all just crazy and Mike Nichols kept that because it, it's just, it's just so real.

You have to go back and watch it because you'll see Robin Williams laugh at

Mhm.

The panic of them swinging the whiskey bottle and then throwing stuff around in the kitchen and then they the soup is served and they all take a bite of it and then they all immediately reach for the bread in the middle of the table.

But,

so good. But even, even before that, the bulls, I mean, the bulls having little

Oh yeah,

people on them and like, and, and everyone

being

all realizing

all real. I have some little girls, don't you have a little girl? Like, I mean, it's just, it's just so, it's

Like that would make it better.

Yeah, I know. I mean, it's so like, what I love about it is that like here, these are middle [01:10:00] aged gay men in the nineties, you know, and it just goes to show you that even back then, cause I mean, even like gay, I mean, we know there's like gay people in our lives now, like we're very, very loose in the use of nudity in homes and pictures and sort of it's around us or whatever. And then when a straight, you, you feel very much when a straight person comes into your orbit, where then what is normal to you, which is just seeing a penis on a wall, all of a sudden. You're, you're, you're hyper aware, oh, there's a straight person in the room, the penis on the wall is not normal to them.

You know what I mean? Like, it's just a weird thing to them, and I love, I love that they, they, that Elaine May was smart enough to add that in. You know she knew some gay dudes in the 80s in New York

as we approach the finale of this movie, my favorite part of this dinner scene, although there's a lot of favorite parts to be had, but. My favorite part is again something that I didn't catch when I was younger that I clearly caught this time around is how attracted Gene Hackman's character is.

to Albert's drag character the

entire time. Like you can tell that like it's [01:11:00] adorable. You could see his wife getting pissed because that's exactly the attention that she's been starved for her entire, like last 20 years.

Yeah.

drag?

Oh yeah.

is something that I've only recently learned, and I think it's a cultural thing that's happened. I mean, I think there's always been clown fuckers, which is the term that is

used in the drag world for straight men who are attracted to, yes, straight men who are attracted to to drag queens.

But,

I will say, I will say, that, When I'm in drag and when I'm around straight men specifically, it, the, the reaction, even on Instagram too, the reaction and the DMs. are wild, are wild. It's this play on gender that I don't really quite understand how straight men react to drag queens. Some straight men, not all straight men, obviously. And it's probably even a small amount, but it is really interesting. Drag, gay guys are gay guys around drag queens and they do what they do and sometimes they can be very problematic. But

straight men are just like the, I mean, they, I mean, it's not, I mean, everyone can be problematic, but like, it's, but the most, for the most part, everyone's good.

But what I'm [01:12:00] saying is straight men and the small percentage who are, interested in drag queens and who are Confused and eager to understand more that's gene hackman's character in this movie that he doesn't know even doesn't even know it then It fucks with his head when he I mean, it's just it's so fascinating to me

I wasn't it when it's revealed and we're, we're sort of jumping a little bit, but isn't it. Like, and I guess we can get to this part, the dinner happens, hilarity ensues. Unless there's more specifics that we want to talk about about the dinner scene, go watch it. Highly recommend going to watch it. But we, we get this, like, it's starting to come apart at the seams.

Like, Albert stands up at one point and the wig is ajar. And yeah, and, and Barbara sees it and immediately is like, Take me to the powder room, please. Like, w

point. Wigs bring people together every

time. And when a wig goes wrong, like people will circle around the girl and the wig, the wig will be corrected. Like the wigs bring people together. But it is in this moment. I do want to go for this moment after it's revealed, of course, that they know that Albert is a man. [01:13:00] And Diane Weiss has the whole thing being like, this is a man. They're both men. That

moment, Albert's line. When he goes up to Gene Hackman's character and tries to, like, settle things, being like, It's still me. There's nothing exchangeable, just except one little difference. And then he goes, It's

so perfect.

I knew it's perf

not so

it's perfect.

It's such a,

it's a

knew, you knew that correction was coming too. You knew that correction was coming. It was so funny.

And it's so, and it, and what's so amazing about it is it really, it, it, It grounds Albert in, in that if we had any doubt that this was, this is a, this is someone who identifies as a man, this is a per, this is a man here, and he still has the wherewithal, however he, I mean, today he probably didn't identify, not as a man, but back in this character, identifies as a man, and this joke grounds him in the masculinity of the character, saying that, yeah, he might be all of these things, [01:14:00] and gender is a spectrum, and he can be all of these things, But he also has a dick, and he's gonna make a joke about his dick.

And,

and he knows how to use

he knows how to use it, and I love it. I love that. I love that line so much.

It is really good. And that was one of the, like the, and I guess we sort of, if there's one thing to kind of skirt over, it's the pursuit of the paparazzi of, of the, the Congress family the whole time. Like the, these two skeevy paparazzi dudes back way back on the East coast. They bribe the driver. They find out they're going to South beach.

They follow them down there. They're essentially. a plot device to keep things moving and to go into this final, I think confrontation goes in

Well, and they went on, they went on to, I mean, one of them went on to become an Oscar winning Best Picture winner. He, he, he's George Clooney's producing partner. Oh, what's his name? Grant has something. And then the other guy, Tom, who, he is like an amazing character. I love it. Tom Mick something, I'm sorry I'm blanking on his last name, but he

was on Everybody [01:15:00] Loves Raymond, and like, all these different things, and he is, he's a fantastic character actor, but yeah, they're, they're, they're, they're just as important.

They're, they're, they're doing things. They, they cause a couple of traffic incidents. They're staking out the apartment as the dinner's happening. They see the note that's left for Catherine being like, don't come. We've got it handled.

It's all good. They rip it away immediately.

We chuckled at the cell phone being the size of his head, the brick cell phone that you had to flip and pull the antenna.

That was a nice little throwback moment. Very, very GTA Vice City. If, I'm, I'm showing my straight colors again, I guess. And, yeah, we're back! We're back, man stuff! And, and Catherine actually comes in. And it's like, oh, hello, it's nice to meet you. I'm Mrs. Colvin. And they're all like, hold on a second. And that's where they, all the truth comes out as they come back out of the bathroom. And they're like, hey, this lady says that she's your mother. Like, what's going on here? And I do love that it, of all of the truth that's revealed, The hardest thing for Gene Hackman to wrap [01:16:00] his mind around is that that is not a woman who he's been talking to the whole time because he is in real time coming to grips with the fact that he's been attracted to this person for the last two hours.

And now he goes, what does that say about me, Mr. Head of the Coalition for Moral Order?

I love that Gene Hackman just plays it as Quietly befuddled instead of enraged and just really vi That would've been a di

Or

or disgusted even. That would've been such a different movie. Like, the movie would've been different if that were the reaction and I don't think we could've gotten the The ending

because like Mike Nichols. I don't think we've talked

Incredible.

Classic.

And there's a great documentary on Mike Nichols, also a great autobiography that came out a couple of years ago on Mike Nichols. And he's just one of, like, one of the geniuses of the last part of the 20th century of film and theater.

I mean, he's the reason why we have [01:17:00] Whoopi Goldberg. He's the reason why, you know, I mean, Whoopi, or Working Girl became a thing. Like, he gave us Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, The Graduate. Like, literally, this man, Somehow, went from being an improv comedic actor, massive, massive due to them being like, I'll try directing, and he kinda was a, a, Jordan Peele in that, not that he went on to direct horror films, but like, that he was known for this one thing, and it could have pigeon held him into this one thing, and then all of a sudden he's like, no, I'm so much more than this one thing, and he went off to direct The Graduate, and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, and these amazing films that, We're so far and beyond comedy and we're not comedies at all, and he just became something else, and he's just a genius director and he's dead now.

So RIP

shouts out,

shouts out to Mike. Well, this is,

and so this is the, and I mean, if we're going to, if we can pick knits, I think this is one of my few nitpicks [01:18:00] where, The resolution is Val pretty much stepping forward and being like, Yeah, that's the woman who birthed me. But then he puts his arm around Albert and goes, But this is my mother. And I was like cool, you could've saved just like an hour and a half of movie If you just like, did that in the first fucking place. But I get that all of this like, had to happen, but I just went, oh, it was that easy? That's basically what I said when he said that. I was like, okay, so it's just that easy.

You just had to make your parents go through literal hell and redecorate their entire home and pretend that they

you know, you know what I,

lesson. But I'm finally

I'm gonna, I'm gonna push back just a tiny, tiny, tiny little bit. I don't think that that's because of the story or the script. I think that that's because of the acting choices that the actor was making. I think that he kind of hit the same beat a lot of times of, ah. Why is no one ready?

Like that was just his energy the entire movie. I think that if there were a different [01:19:00] rhythm or a different moment of And this didn't this didn't have to be in the writing. I think just a little bit more softness Than relenting and be like no, no, fuck that. This is about me. I think seeing more of a push and pull with his character would have You Heighten the performance a little bit more, but then again, I'm not too mad at it though.

I do see your frustration Steven I'm not too mad at it because the film isn't really about him. You know, it's it's about this family It's about what's happening around an event incited by him, but I I truly I think that if that actor would have kind of Diversified his choices a little bit more. I'm not saying that it was a bad performance.

I just think that it was a bit Limited compared to what it could have been. I think that that could have been a very

you want to see, you want to see him go from point A to point B, [01:20:00] like every character. You want to see resolution in every character and, like, that is because he isn't the main character and you also want him to go, like, literally all we've wanted from him this entire time is to accept the parents that he has and, in the way that they are. That's his moment. And then from this moment, we're able to get Albert saving the

day. We were able to get Albert using his personal strength and how he exists in the world to then help these people to get to the place that they need to get to, which is the hell out of the birdcage. And like, just as a writer and a narrative from a narrative perspective, I think it's actually kind of like the only place that character could go.

Mm hmm.

agree with both of you and I do think I agree with you Charlie that if it doesn't seem like he feels

No No

white men ever feel bad in movies? Like they never have that feeling.

life

Yes, in life, in life.

Look at how good we got it

bad about a lot of my choices. Let me tell you

well

I mean,

I've seen

pictures. I've

[01:21:00] I'm, we're,

we're talking personal versus intrinsic here, so I

think

just,

it's like, it's like, and I want to protect Nathan Lane so fucking much in this movie that I look at that, I look at Val and I'm like, do you not see what I see right now? And it makes me so frustrated with that character.

Do you see what I see? Sorry.

Do you love what you see?

Yeah, I, I think it just, it, yeah, he really, he really frustrates me, though I would definitely tap. If I go back in time machine, but I digress

Well, there's, first of all, we've been separating feelings from physical since the start of time, so I think we can, we can figure that one out. For sure, but we'll get into the, the,

I guess the resolution of the movie. And if you've watched the movie, I, I guess you could, you already know why I'm saying, I guess, cause they literally just kind of dance off into the night. But the, the [01:22:00] paparazzi writ large has been alerted of what's going on is that these, these two guys that live here are the owners of the drag club downstairs. And they're the Senator and his wife are definitely up there. They paid They paid the driver again to let him know as much I also want to say this this driver is giving them up for Like 2.

They're handing them singles like he got handed singles and I know it's 96 But like

come on You're gonna have to at least give me a tenner like

let me fill up my gas tank if I'm gonna rat out my employer

You can get a lot at 7 Eleven for two dollars, but still, like, you can get a full meal for ten. You know?

Yeah,

Back then? Holy crap.

Yeah, I mean, I

wonder what a hot dog co I'd love a

Big bite. I love a big bite. They're so good

have, we

Ooh, I love a big bite. I love a big

I'm a taquito guy, but you know

a taquito. We'll

Yeah, I like to I like to I like to to play roulette like that with my best friend [01:23:00] with my GI system. Anyway, the their solution to get them out of there is to dress them in drag and have them be a part of the show and to be a part of the dance out.

So as you said, Charlie, we get the book end with the sister sledges. We are family and we get this amazing seed of both of them dressed up and dragged to the nines. Gene Hackman looks amazing. And as they get, they get out of the club, all of the paparazzi don't even give them a second look because they, they apparently look that good.

And when they get out to the driver, he's like, meet me at these two blocks in 10 minutes, and he's like, not in a million

So good.

so good.

You know what's so interesting about this moment is that, like, I mean, if someone would have recognized them in drag, if would have recognized this man in drag, it would have been the end of, like, it would have been the end all for everything. And even today, as we're recording this, a picture of J.

D. Vance in drag just got, just came out just this

That man has no integrity. Sorry, keep going

Sure. I mean, yeah, that's, that's a separate podcast, [01:24:00] but but the, the, the, but the fact that that picture comes out, I mean, I just think about, like, what would have happened if someone would have, like, how easily, I think it's very, I mean, one of the reasons, one of the things I like about drag is that I am not recognizable as myself in drag, oftentimes.

Like, people don't know who I am when I'm in drag, and I like that. I like the ability, the fluidity of my identity. The way I can navigate and how I can communicate and all of those things. Those are good things. But, for someone like him, it's definitely beneficial in this moment. I just think it would have been, it could, it was a high risk move for him to do, because if he would have gotten found out, ooh, that would have been worse than the, his friend sleeping with an underage, you know, sex worker.

Like, it would have been a whole other conversation.

Ironic, but probably still true these days as

Yeah. Yeah!

if that was the thing.

Isn't that crazy to think about that it probably like the him and drag would have been worse than the there's Sleeping with an underage sex worker

Unless it were Halloween because Americans are that basic.

That's true. That's

That is true.

That's true

[01:25:00] Well, I, I was. Actually, I didn't think this hard about it, but usually we, for our ratings of the film, we usually try and think of something that is from the film. So

in, in, to, to, well, you know, that was a close second. And so in order, or in honor of Albert's breakdown, where he was telling Agador that he could have all of his worldly possessions, including his wigs, and he has immediately stops crying and asks, Which wigs? We're going to rate the birdcage on a scale of one to five wigs. And H. Allen, I would love for you to go first.

I have five of course, I mean there's no doubt

it

most obvious five, yeah.

And they all would be laced front. They all would be human hair. They all would be very expensive wigs. Every single, all five of them lined up.

All of my best

Yes, exactly.

Charlie, how many wigs would you give the birdcage?

I am gonna give the birdcage a Five out of five wigs because it would be a [01:26:00] damn insult to give it anything other than that and I'm gonna tell you why this movie just I want to save this script. I actually want to print it out and just own it because the lines

Yeah, it's pulled up on my laptop right now.

Yeah, I just need to download it. I'm so excited to just dig in and see the scene work and see how everything was constructed. I really think that this was I learned a lot from watching this and I can't believe that it took me so long to get into it. And funny fact My dad owned this on VHS when we were younger, so I remember holding and looking at the VHS, but you know what's so funny, I think that in HLN you're gonna, you're gonna fucking roll your eyes or like find my address and throw a Molotov cocktail at the second floor window.

I think,

I think that I wrote [01:27:00] over the VHS of Birdcage to do

Two episodes of charmed at one point because I thought I mean, I mean it was a very faggoty thing to do So at least I wasn't

at least I wasn't Recording over like WWF or like wrestling or something it was

I mean I almost would have rather you have done WWF because that's hotter than Charmed at least. Like, you could jerk off to

Yeah, I'm not sure if the wrestling pole is less gay than doing Charmed, but

yeah, true.

Well, it's good. I still appreciate it.

Yeah, but now 25 it's that good

And make sure, make sure you get the shooting script. Cause there's a book out there on the shooting script of it. And I feel like it might be different than what the internet AI probably came up with. But like the shooting script is like amazing. Also I want to say just one other thing before, cause I know Stephen has to do his wigs.

But there's a great book that I read on Elaine May that people should, it's a new book. Oh, who wrote it? Well, it's called Miss May [01:28:00] Does Not Exist, and I'm, I'm blanking on the author's name now, but she's, she's a great writer, and it just came out earlier this summer. I read it because I'm a big fan of Elaine May.

People should go read that book and the book on Mike Nichols. Those two books are fantastic if you want to know more about these two amazing creators.

Beautiful. Miss May Does Not Exist, The Life and Work of Elaine May, Hollywood's Hidden Genius by Kerry Corrigan.

you, Carrie. Yes.

. Was Meryl Streep's performance in Devil Wears Prada partially influenced by Mike Nichols? I think I read that.

Well, no, it wasn't, yeah. So there was, she did use, I remember her talking about something that there was like a, cause she collaborated with Mike Nichols quite a bit. I mean, famously on Silkwood, which is an incredible film that also has Cher in it. Everyone should watch that. But and Cher plays a lesbian in it.

But then there's a great scene where she's all like, Why won't you sleep with me or whatever? And Meryl Streep's like men. But anyway. And then they also work together on Angels in America years later as well. Incredible, the TV adaptation of it. But yeah, I did read that.

I

[01:29:00] Hm.

He was kind of mean.

He was kind of a mean

one. Married to Diane Sawyer. Like, he was a complicated dude, but really fun.

It's five weeks from me, obviously. A, because I'm not trying to get canceled today, but B, because I actually believe it. I was actually, I said this to Charlie on text message, he texted me this morning being excited to talk about this podcast and also asking me if I was doing the outline because we communicate at last second like that.

I, I was thinking about it like very genuinely and, and HL, I'm sure you can identify with if it's not in this, like, I think that this movie is legitimately in my top 10.

Like I haven't sat down and like written out my top 10 favorite movies in a long time, but I don't think I would get very far before writing this movie down.

And it was really nice to come back to it after a long time and sort of like reaffirm that. And I actually think a lot of them are movies with Robin Williams in them. Like my, I think my number one favorite movie of all time is still Goodwill hunting, but. Mostly because of Robin Williams

and, and, and just the, the powerhouse performance that he puts forward in a movie like that.

I'm a, I also like grew up pretty close to Boston, so I love me some Boston.

But anyway, I love this [01:30:00] movie. It deserves everything that it gets and everyone should go and watch it because it, it, it ages really wonderfully too. Like there

it's 30 years old, I can do math. it's, it's aged really, really

Yeah. It's wild. It's, and to me, that is like, it's kind of like a lot of, I mean, a lot of my favorite things like the Golden, my favorite things that I'm like known for, quote unquote, like the Golden Girls or like Birdcage or the things I talk about a lot are those things. I think there is something to a writing like Elaine May, which I'm going to say her name again.

That. It is ageless, it's just, it's just, funny is funny, and when someone understands human nature in a way, and how people communicate in a way, and then is able to find the funny in the way that we just organically communicate, I think, is just, that's a, that's an Albert Einstein, that's a brilliant person, that's someone who is just on a, working on a level that We can only strive to be but probably never will be and so all we can be grateful for is that we get to watch it and read it and absorb [01:31:00] it and if, and if you're cool enough to be able to know that it's great, then you got a great group of people to be around to talk about it all the time and I love that.

Amen. Well, I think we can, we can leave it on that. So H Allen, thank you so much for joining us today on another episode of Charlie and Steve Watch Stuff. Other than parting shot, where can the people find you quickly before we head out?

HL and Scott on everything, you know, Google a bitch.

Yeah. SEO optimized. Hell

I guess I

am. I don't even know. I've never, I don't Google myself, but yeah, I probably am. Yeah.

if it's the same on everything, I'm sure you're, you're doing a good job. Well,

we're, we're happy to be back. We didn't really talk about much. Maybe we'll talk about it later. We took a little break from the podcast so Charlie could just casually raise a couple of G's, a couple, a couple of tens of G's for a short film called Stakeout.

So there'll be more coming about that very soon. But for myself, Steve Selnick and my good friend, Charlie Peppers and our good friend, H. Allen Scott, thank you so much for watching Charlie and Steve Watch Stuff. And we will.

Bye!

one.[01:32:00]

Bye.