Welcome back to New Thinkery. My name's David Barn with me as always is my million dollar baby, I'm self-gragming to Greg McBrayer. How are you doing Greg? Aww, you're my little darling.
Thank you and my good friend Alex Priya, how are you all? I'm doing all right, my million dollar daddy. So today we're talking about something dumb. I mean, really philosophically interesting.
Sorry, Greg, what's on the agenda? And who in the group selected this episode? I did. You know, we should take a break from Hegel and Heidegger and you know, Foyerbach, all those recent episodes.
Oh, you're a rock. That's right. And we should do, we're doing a movie. So I thought it would be fun to do a million dollar baby.
It's a movie I saw years, so I go in. No, you know that Greg is desperate to like, knows that we don't have much to talk about because you solicited questions. Yeah, there were no questions. Yeah, yeah.
Can I point something out? No, no, no, let me point something out. Okay. Greg sends a tweet from the New Thinkery guy.
He says, this week we record episodes on Fort Apache with Adam Carrington, keep your eyes peeled for that fellas. And another on... And ladies, ladies can also keep their eyes peeled. And another on baby.
Send questions, maybe Hillary's strength, Morgan Freeman, and Clint Eastwood have some. So let me get this straight, Greg. You want Clint Eastwood to ask you questions about a movie that he made. That's right.
That's not the real Clint Eastwood account for the record. It's so crazy. If Clint Eastwood... I had a thought about it that way.
That's so interesting. But if Clint Eastwood, he's like, I'm 90. I'm asking if this is... I asked a question about my own movie.
God, man. I saw that. I was like, Greg, I think Clint Eastwood blocked us. Any block house?
Yeah. That's not actually Clint Eastwood, Alec. But it is really Hillary's strength and Morgan Freeman. I don't know.
I was just hoping maybe to give us a little traction. Maybe they'd say something like, hey, why are you doing our movie? I don't think it'd be flattered. Yeah, maybe we should ask them if they...
Well, it's the same thing happening with Norm McDonald. So Norm on his own. That's a very good point. I'd love to know which episode we heard or how we got on his radar.
It doesn't listen to the partially examined live. So he starts following us in Greg's head. So of course we were all excited. It's not just Greg.
I think Greg's like, I'm going to DM him and get him on the show. I did. I know it was a little thirsty. I didn't really...
He also died. He followed us because Mr. W. Bond tagged us and him in something.
And then within like an hour, he followed us. And then I think like an hour later, he died. Oh, that's right. He was on Twitter again.
I'm trying. I do think it would be nice to have a comedian on your own that might go terribly awry. I'd like to get Colin Quinn on. He's got a political but thoughtful.
I think he's hilarious too. If you think we should have a comedian... You guys laugh, but what if Clint Eastwood had seen the tweet and had tweeted something at us? You guys would have been so deep.
I think he's a funny sort of count. I like... Yeah, fair enough. That's right.
That's the first followers though. Their last tweet on June 16th was getting younger every day. And it's just a picture of an old, definitely looking Clint Eastwood. So why did I want to do this movie?
I watched this movie years ago. Because Hillary Swank gave you a boner. I got it out of my system. All right.
Well, she does look like Greg's old girlfriend. It was a horse, right? That was pretty good. Greg, that was pretty good.
That was pretty good. Folks at home, Alex and David, my immoral, despicable friends who were disparaging a beautiful woman and a talented woman solely on the basis of her affinity to equine. That's just shameful. I can't endorse it.
Why did you do this thing? Why did you do this thing? Why did you do this thing? They were crying.
That's how hard they were laughing by the way for folks. Why did I pick a movie? I don't know. I watched it years ago.
I thought it was good. I watched it recently on the flight back from Italy. I remember the time when it came out. I don't remember when it came out.
2004 something like that. It won Academy Word for Best Picture. It used to be one of the words for Best Director. It must be philosophically rich.
Swank won Academy Word for Best Actress. I think it was the one. It was also the one. Gold Ribbon for Trisage.
That sounds right. One of her many of them. I'm sure she'll tweet at us now. But one thing I will say is that I remember the time thinking people didn't understand the movie properly.
I remember thinking that it was people missed what it was about. That's what I remember thinking. When I re-watched it, I got home and I read this. I decided to read the short story which was by this guy named F.
X tool or at least that's his pen name. It's a short story. It's something like 40 pages. It's really quick read.
I think I read it in an hour. A couple of things. I thought the movie was a lot better than the book. That's what I thought.
That's what I've been reading, Greg. That was really the screenwriter in Eastwood philosophically enhanced it. The screenplay written by a guy named Paul Haggis. Is that right?
That's right. I was one of the things that doubled down on me being impressed. I just thought, wow, they took this story which was bare bones and it was kind of okay. I thought they made it really good.
I don't know if it's quite philosophical. It does touch on a spoiler alert here in a matter of minutes. It's hard to discuss this movie without giving away the ending. It does touch on some very serious point.
It's been out almost one year. I think it does touch on some serious moral questions. You're jokes about the philosophic points. I actually do think that there's something philosophic going on here.
I do suspect that ultimately one of the main, and I don't know, I suspect that this is what they were up to. I'm not sure. I think one of the main things that this story is trying to teach us is about the difference between the life of the mind and other kinds of ways of life, life to honor and just more simply just bodily. The main character will go through this a little bit later, but he reads.
Countless scenes when he's alone, we see the Clint Eastwood character reading. We learn a little bit later about what he's reading and this kind of stuff, but whereas the Hillary Swain character is, we don't see her reading. I think there is something philosophic might be too strong, but at least intellectual. Well, I do want to say, Greg, for Gris for your Mac, Dougal Mill, that Eastwood does make philosophically rich.
I think he's one of the more serious filmmakers. Alex, turn me on to High Plains Drifter, pale writer. You could watch it and just be entertained, but you think about it and it starts unfolding in nice ways. I think Eastwood makes fantastic films.
His westerns, the two that you mentioned, seem to rescue the western from the nihilism of the spaghetti western and bring out this sort of, it accepts the harshness and therefore looks for divine providence. And the fact that we got through it at all. This movie has some different, I mean, look, it's hard to be a thoughtful filmmaker, at least on Eastwood's level and not have big human questions at play. It's just the case of all poetry can be read, good poetry can be read philosophically.
But you know, you look at this film and it's got this theological element and this question. And I didn't read the whole short story. I compared a few moments that seemed crucial, where I didn't know exactly what was going on. I looked at the script as well.
And there's this story was almost more open about the atheism or more embracing of the atheistic aspect, whereas this seems to be actually a guy who's wrestling with it a lot more, is a relationship to God, much more at odds with it. And when he has to make a hard decision on his own, I think he has to sort of live with that and somehow come to terms with it. And I think Eastwood himself is wrestling with this. That's just my, that's what I suspect on the basis of some of his other films in this film as well.
You did have many wives and many kids and conflict. So Greg, one of the names of the main characters where they played by are obviously three Titans. Yeah, the three main characters. And I can also lay out the plots of what he's like.
You kind of got to ruin it. I don't know how we can talk about it without ruining it. Like Alice has been 20 years, but they're three really big actors in it. Hillary Swank, Lenny Swank, Lenny Swank, Lenny Swank plays this old guy.
He plays an old guy who runs in Jim, a boxing gym in California, I guess it's LA. His name is Frankie Dunn. And then Morgan Freeman plays his buddy, a guy who used to coach back in the day. Morgan Freeman's name is Eddie Scrapiron Dupree, although he goes just by scrap from time to time.
But the main character, I think, is the Hillary Swank character, her name is Maggie Fitzgerald. She's from, actually, where she's from. She's from somewhere where we're a rule of the Ozarks or Arkansas or something like that. And so there are these three characters.
Morgan Freeman, we later learn is blind in one eye. The Morgan Freeman character is blind in one eye from a fight that he fought. He was getting the daylight spunched out of him and Eastwood didn't throw in the towel and some Morgan Freeman character losses his eyesight. And he's basically a janitor, you know, fixer, uppercut guy at Eastwood's gym.
The Hillary Swank character, Maggie Fitzgerald, she's from rural, extreme poverty, extreme ignorance. She's moved out to California and she wants, she's decided at 30 years of age that she wants to become a professional boxer. So the very simple plot line is, I mean, this is sort of, on the one hand, I really like this movie, he's very good. But the plot seems kind of simple and it seems a little ridiculous, right?
Girl comes out, she wants to be a boxer, he sort of refuses to train her because he doesn't train girls. Through the help of Morgan Freeman, somehow she finally persuades Eastwood to take her on. He decides to coach her, turns out she's very talented. Eastwood says at one point, like you're very old, you're too old to start, right?
Imagine trying to become an Olympic champion at 30, like it's too late, it's just too late. But she wants to become the first, or Eastwood thinks she could become the first female boxer to win $1 million. That's the idea, hence the title, Million Dollar Baby. Eastwood takes her on, turns out she's very good.
She starts knocking people out, girls out, left and right. There's some question about whether or not she should have any real sort of prize fights where she's like, the competitor is actually someone who's ranked and stuff like that. Finally, she does get some of these ranked opponents. Finally, Eastwood can see to let her fight this very bad guy.
There's only one bad guy in the film. I guess bad girl in the film. I forget her name, but East German, is that right? That's our first tell.
Yeah, she's exactly. She's German. And this is the only part that we were up, sort of like, yeah, this isn't very good. It seems just a little too easy.
Like she's so nasty, she's known for fighting dirty. And Hillary Swank and her, they're fighting, they're fighting in the boxing match. The first round that East German's beating her up, but then Hillary and the second round starts staging something to come back. At the end of the comeback, her competitor is sort of not very happy that Hillary started beating her back.
So at the end of the bell, the bell's over. Hillary's turned her back to her opponent. She's kind of happy that she's actually gone back on good footing with her opponent. The opponent punches her in the jaw, knocks her out, of course, therefore, because she's clocked her really good.
As she's knocked out, she falls to the ground on her way down to the ground. She hits a stool, her head hits a stool and cracks her vertebra at the top near her skull. She's a quadriplegic. I don't know what, that's a good ways into the film.
And the last portion of the film is very painful to watch. It's hard to watch. It's what the life of a full quadriplegic would like. She can breathe on her own.
There's a machine to help her breathe. She can't bathe herself, this, that, and the other. And life has become so bad for her that at the end of the film, near the end of the film, she asks Clint Eastwood to help her die. I'm skipping one important point here because I'm trying to do it quickly.
But she had told a story earlier in the film about how they'd had to put down a dog at some point in their life because the dog had become so physically incapable of taking care of itself. And she told the story as an expression of like it was sort of the noble, decent, philanthropic benevolent thing to do with this dog out of its misery. And at the end, when she's completely incapable of taking care of herself, she resorts Eastwood to kill her. And she says, do like we did for the dog, kill me.
Eastwood, by the way, initially refuses. And so she tries to commit suicide by biting her tongue off and bleeding out. It's unsuccessful, so they sedate her. And at that point, that's when Clint Eastwood decides, okay, I got a killer.
And he does. Now, I've skipped a lot. Like Eastwood has this really important discussion with a priest about whether or not he should do what that, that we hope we talk about when we talk about. We're pretty.
We're pretty antagonized. But now he goes to for advice. Right. Right.
Yeah. I get a point all through the movies. Well, he's been antagonizing him, but in a kind of gentle, friendly way. But at the end, he goes to him for advice and he says, you'll never be able to do this.
And he does it anyway. So to ruin it for folks, at the end of the movie, Clint Eastwood helps this woman commit suicide. He sort of euthanizes her. And if memory serves you guys should recommend this.
This was about the time when there was a lot of question in public policy in a number of states about the justice or non justice of euthanasia. Now, one of the reasons you asked why I think this film was so interesting, one of the reasons for me this film is interesting is because at the time, I remember people being very upset with this film as supporting euthanasia and saying that this is a show to goodness of this policy. And I just, I didn't know that really. That's what the, yeah, yeah, yeah.
And there was some conservatives who boy got it. He's like, well, this is see this is nihilistic and sort of showing. Okay, good. So that's what I think I think it's a misreading or misviewing or involved.
I think that there's actually deep criticism of her decision to commit suicide at the end or decision to be euthanized. Is that why the Republicans like Clint Eastwood talked to an empty chair and make an asset himself? Yeah, whoever PR person suggested that. Okay, so I think yeah, you're right.
It isn't because it seems like it comes with a huge price, right? And this is where I think boxing is really a central metaphor for the film, right? Because boxing is, you know, she's from, this is not an uncommon story for boxes, right? But she's from nothing.
Her family, it has nothing. They're nasty. They only look at her as a source of money. They don't support her.
They show no interest in it. They're snide towards her, even though she's the only one who's able to get out of this whole and make them independent of welfare and stuff like that. And when she's dying, what do they do? They try to get money from her to sign the money over.
And she's smart enough to recognize it at that point. This is all BS. But, you know, one of the things about boxing that makes it so appealing both to the competitors and to viewers is that it's a way to come from nothing to something and to be wholly self-reliant and autonomous, right? And that's the line on your own arms.
Yeah. And at its peak. I really love boxing. So it was really interesting to watch this film, which I never seen before.
I mean, at its peak, it's two individuals in the center of a ring, you know, and there's obviously cheating. There's gaming the system. And that's all part of it as the movie shows. I think really well that you can.
You have to learn how to cheat slightly, especially if you're dealing with somebody like that. But it's, and you get to prove to yourself and to everyone around you that you are the best, right? That you're better than the person in front of you. And that you're also worth watching to the tune of millions of dollars, right?
Many times over if you're really successful. And so there's a kind of autonomy and independence, which is great for pulling yourself out of poverty. But then when she's injured, these deeper questions about whether a life is worth living, even in this to paired situation, impaired situation is worth it. And her ultimate reason she gives is that she really loves her glory and how well she did.
This is what happened. The woman had to cheat to kill her effectively, right? To put her in this position. And she's worried that if she stays alive much longer, the cheering that's ringing in her ears still will go away.
And that's the real sadness. And so she wants to end. It's almost like she wished she died in the ring. So she would have always been at the peak.
So ultimately it's about self-reliance, I think, versus relying on God. And the film contrived such a situation where that debate about whether you could be wholly self-reliant and the relationship to God, where those two meet is a very difficult question that I think the movie ends up confronting. I think also another major question for me was the relationship between a student and a teacher and the insufficiency of Eastwards education. So he's a begrudging teacher, of course.
But the fact that Swank, maybe you guys will disagree with me on this, that she wants to exit life means that Eastward hasn't taught her enough of the lessons that he learned throughout a very difficult journey with him. He has that relationship with his daughter. And rather than trying to revive Swank and build her up from nothing, right, paraplegics aren't nothing, but the metaphor can still be able to. He took somebody who was not able-bodied and turned them into a championship boxer.
Now she is basically not able-bodied. And he could repeat that success, but he doesn't. So I don't know if it's insufficiency of the wisdom he's trying to impart or what's going on. But something I thought about.
That's kind of where I was headed, actually, with my criticism of it, that on the one hand, I think the Eastward character himself exhibits a nation's intellectual virtue. We see him reading. In particular, he's trying to teach himself a foreign language, which is who does that at 80 years old? I mean, the Clint Eastward character is trying to teach himself Gaelic.
I don't think that's Gaelic, but he's reading Yeats poetry. And so I wonder if his concession to euthanize her. One, I'm a two mind, especially what you just said. One is I think maybe it is expressing his limits as a teacher, which might be also an expression of his limits for his own intellectual virtue.
Maybe this late in life is the only just now turned to these things. That's the question I have in mind. But he has become aware of it. So that's the one.
Or does he sort of see that- and this is really nasty, but he might see the appeal of the intellectual life, but that it has no appeal for her. So this, I guess, does underscore your point. He's not pertrephetic. He can't turn her to- he tries.
He reads her this poem. He actually reads her the Yeats' home. The movie does this thing where he reads it to her in Gaelic, which Yeats actually wrote in English. And she has no interest whatsoever.
And so they cut two ways. One, did he see that he put in teacher or was it also? Or what, or alternatively, was it just a recognition that there's no way to- she's so limited. She's already 30-some-odd years old.
I can't turn on- I can't ignite this fire in her mind. I don't know what the answer to that is. But all of the characters are broken in some way, right? Eastwood's old, broken, no relationship with his daughter.
That's never explained. The Morgan Freeman character is missing his eyesight and never has been successful, right? And so how do they all deal with the body breaking down in different ways? Eastwood's the only one who seems to turn to something like the life of the mind.
The only one that seems to learn anything would be Morgan Freeman, because he's more of an observer. You know, that's funny. You mentioned that because Morgan Freeman, so there's the Clint Eastwood-Hillary-Swank relationship where he's coached athlete. There is this minor side story where Morgan Freeman seems to take this other young kick boxer under his wing.
I forget the character's name, but the skinny white guy after himself. Danger, that's right. And by the way, when they're first encounter, but this is, I thought this was one of the beautiful parts of the movie, this dumb young kick, the first time he encounters Morgan Freeman uses the N-word and says, well, I don't hate all N-words or something like this. And you just kind of imagine like the magnanimity that Morgan Freeman character realizes that it's just out of ignorance, the sixth saying it, and he takes him under his wing anyway.
And this young kick gets his butt handed to him just like Eastwood, right? Like even worse than Eastwood. He gets duped into making this guy vulnerable. If you remember like some guy's play trick on the Morgan Freeman character just sort of distract him so he can go beat that guy up.
And then you sort of, that guy goes away and you sort of think, well, that's it. He's not done his job as coach. But then the guy comes back at the very end of the movie and says, I'm back and it's because of what you said. And so there is this idea that the Morgan Freeman may have been the better coach in that regard.
And it's also clear that Morgan Freeman- He under- He under- Right. And it's always a difficulty which is when do you want to take risks? Right? You don't want to take excessive risk because if you move too much up in the level, right?
Somebody gets knocked out, you get whatever you don't want to lose, right? And you want to make sure you're making the right steps, especially with a talented fighter. And so he's really risk averse. And it starts actually moving with him training another fighter who leads for a manager, right?
Who gets him to fight that Eastwood's reluctant to make. And the guy wins. That's what he was. He was ready.
And so it seems like he's risk averse because of what happened with Freeman's character with the other one. You mentioned that risk averse and the guy's name is Danger. Yeah, that's true. And so the major coaching relationship is that the Morgan Freeman character, it's clear that Danger is never going to be like the guy you mentioned.
He becomes a champion champion of the world. And Eastwood's reluctant to let him fight. But Morgan's not reluctant to let this kid fight Danger who has no prospects whatsoever. And I think that's because Eastwood, I suspect that Morgan Freeman, I mean, who knows, right?
The Morgan Freeman character seems to be wanting to coach this kid up, not because he'll be a good boxer, but because the lessons from boxing seem to transfer over to life. Like you need to learn how to get back up when you've been knocked down. It's the moral component of the boxing education that he wants to instill in this young guy. That's at least what it seems to me.
Yeah. So I think that's the main problem with Eastwood's character is he's so risk averse. It seems like he's stuck in this situation where he trains someone initially, gets them really good, gets them through the sort of first stages of their career, which is usually just fighting journeymen, like, you know, people with tons of losses just to get you used to it. But he does let the Hillary Swank character go fight the big shot.
Yeah. So it seems like he's corrected the risk. Yeah. But it's only because Hillary turns down the manager, right?
Because Morgan Freeman goes around, he's just looking. Right. Oh, right. And so she's so committed to him that finally he makes that move and ends up being the wrong thing, but not because of the she wasn't ready for it, but because of the dirty fighter.
Right. Right. Which by the way, look, I mean, it's over the top in the dirtiness. Well, yeah.
So first of all, when a ref, it went around ends, the ref gets between the fighters and makes sure both go back to the corners. Right. Right. And then they're usually going from corner corner and then also.
Yeah. The most offensive thing about this movie to me was how unlike the Rocky movies, it's just the boxing part was unrealistic. Right. No, but I mean, and so they're supposed to go back and then she walks back to Hillary's face here and punches her and then she falls.
And this is after like a ton of illegal moves that would have gotten you disqualified. And I feel like people would have stormed the ring at that point. Yeah. The other thing that's unreal.
Also, she doesn't win the match, right? Like that's what's awesome. Like they should have disqualified. But Hillary's the loser.
Like we learned like she says in one of the later scenes. Yeah. I mean, if you don't get who knows what would have happened. Like German, German machinations.
Right. Fair enough. Yeah. That and also Hillary's strength character knocks out everyone, which is rare even for a mailbox or but it's unheard of for a female boxer.
So this also came out before a female boxing is really on the horizon. I mean, now you see it. True. Or one thing I'll say is it's hard to do it because boxing is so technical that a lot of it, a lot of the action is just like, obviously trying to.
Can I ask a question about boxing? I mean, this isn't strictly about boxing. So I apologize. But I'm going to say this isn't empirical facts in which you guys can dispute.
But it seems to me that some of the best sports movies ever in American cinema have been about boxing. Boxing movies remain popular, right? I mean, Rocky, Raging Bull, this movie, I mean, there's so many, right? Cinderella story.
But boxing is not popular. So and you laid out a really compelling case for white boxing is compelling. It's like you versus another individual other in the ring. Like it's sort of raw sort of a test of your metal.
But I think boxing, Alex will. It was. But with the rumble in the jungle. I mean, these are matches that have captivated audiences.
I think there's a history of boxing that is complicated. I think it goes up and down with the heavyweights. Boxing's audience. Yeah, it is.
I mean, it's more popular than UFC and UFC is usually team popular. I mean, the money that top fighters make, the difficulty with boxing is one, it's international. Right? And so if like Mexican fighters always can make a lot of money because especially if they can speak English, like Oscar Delaue, the only reason he's a household name is because he's Mexican American, so he brings in the American English speaking audience as well as the Mexican.
So really, he wasn't good. He was good. But I mean, he choked at the highest levels. And so I think it is popular.
But it's different. It's not like, it's not like football where you support your local team or something like that. It's always tied to the individual. And that's why I think it can always have that broader appeal.
So when you get like a big fight, like Mayweather, Pacquiao or something like that, or even Mayweather McGregor or something like that, but Mayweather, Pacquiao is like the sort of exemplar of the super fight. It draws everybody in, even people who don't watch because there's an intrinsic appeal to two men at the highest level going toe to toe and deciding who is the best in the world. And there's no team, right? There's strategy, but it's one person executing it on the fly in the ring and they have, they get advice and all that sort of stuff, but it's one person against one person and it's intelligence, it's stamina, it's everything.
And it's, and it's got, and I think when you watch it at its highest level, what you see somebody is using all their faculties as an individual against the sort of peak opposition that they could have. I don't know if you know the trainer Teddy Atlas, he has a podcast, which if you like boxing, you should check it out. It's called the fight with Teddy Atlas. Great analysis.
Brilliant psychologist from the angle of boxing understands it. I mean, I could point to you guys to a lot of interesting episodes, but the one thing he says always is that it's, you know, it's, it's a 48 minutes to make life fair, right? This is one of the few places where you can be from nothing approved that you are at the best of the world, right? And show that you are excellent.
I think the human appeal and what makes a movie like this or a movie like Rocky really appealing is somebody can overcome somebody stronger, smarter than them. If they have the heart and they dig deep enough, right? And they can overcome the obstacles. And because it's centered on the individual and we've all been in fights.
I was actually about to ask you to be relatable. Have you been in a fight? Yeah. As an adult?
No. I have. Oh, yeah? Yeah.
That's completely true. I'm sorry. Somebody tried to fight Greg. Oh, I was in a fight.
This is a complete your story. I was a man. I was a man. I was a man.
I was a man. It was the year of the first. What is the BCS was that the one before we have right now for the football championship? Yeah.
It was like the first or second BCS. It was 2000 or 2001. I was with two of my high school friends. One of whom is a business true story, by the way.
I'll try and it's kind of amusing. I was that. I had too many times now. I'm getting suspicious.
I just believed you at the beginning. Sure, sure. So I was Florida State versus Ohio State. That could be wrong.
Maybe Miami versus anyway. So it was a national title game. I was there with two high school friends, one of whom is a preacher and the other is the three of us have been friends for as long as I can remember. So we show up at this.
Hooters, you guys know the establishment. Hooters to watch the game. This is your decent Greg. Just keep in mind is your decent Greg doesn't make filthy jokes.
Right guys. You have to defight said Hooters. Those are not how you hit them. You should save that for the end of this fight.
So the very the game hasn't started yet. We're sitting this game and get this does get kind of funny. So we said the table and right across from us is another group of men sitting at table. It's two just two guys.
I think and you guys know me. I'm like, I'm a modest sized guy. I actually was significantly slumber back then and I'm the biggest of my three friends. Okay.
So it's three small guys. And there's a picture on the table where these two guys are sitting and one of them is a girl that I had gone on a single date with. And so my friend the preacher is looking at their table and says, Hey, that's that girl that Greg went on to date with. And I look over and like, Oh, yeah.
And these guys, they're like, What are you talking about? And they're like, Well, you know, it was once it was a long time ago. And so and then literally they're like, What's your deal with that? I was like, I don't know what you're talking about.
So like we just go our merry ways. This is before the game starts. We watch the entire football game. We're getting ready to leave.
I go to the bathroom. I come back from the bathroom expecting to leave and these two guys are now at the table with my friends. It's now me, my two friends and these other two big guys. I'm in my early twenties at this point.
Maybe I'm 23. I can remember 25 and these guys are clearly adults, 35, 40, some of her again, Greg was the college wrestler. So yeah, which this guy doesn't know. Yeah, yeah.
So the funny part that is actually a factor in hearing the story. So like I get back to table and I joke around and like, Oh, hey, how's it going? We're all friends. I assume they're there because we're chatting and they're all laughing and the guy looks and he goes, So you dated?
What's your name? And I'm like, you know, not really. It was like one date and it didn't go well. And it was just true.
Like I don't think she was actually that busy. And he's like, what's your deal with that? And I was like, I'm sorry. He's like, what's your point?
He's always always asked the dumbest questions that you can't even know. I know. I didn't even know how to answer that. And he's like, do you think you're what?
And I was like, what's the deal with that? And he goes, do you think you're tough? And I was like, excuse me? And he goes, do you think you're tough?
And I was like, yeah, man, sure, I think I'm tough. And he stands up and pushes me against the wall inside a Hooters restaurant, which is a respectable establishment in Georgia in the Georgia Greater Atlanta Metropolitan region. The manager of the restaurant comes over and like, sir, please call the police and have this man escort. And he's like, no, that's not one of his buddies.
So it's one of his homeboys, apparently, because the guy's like, we're not calling the cops. And I'm like, fine. So we go outside. Oh, wow.
And like, this is my friend's like, let's just leave. Let's just leave. And I'm like, no, I'm not leaving. I'm talking this.
I mean, he's easily six foot. He's at least six inches taller than I am. But he's much bigger. But of course, as you mentioned, I wrestled college.
So I'm like, not the least bit afraid of this guy, which is probably stupid. But like, he pushes me two or three more times. And I'm like, I'm also have just gotten into this credit philosophy. So I'm like, you know, a little pet joint, little jerk.
So I'm like, I just need you to explain to me why blah, blah, blah, blah. Just pushing me, pushing me. Reveal your file. And finally, I'm like, oh, wait, like it dawned.
I mean, I was like, oh, you're just a, and then I said a word that I shouldn't repeat on. And I said, you're just a sissy. I get it, basically. But at that point, of course, he just engaged in full fight mode.
But I took him down. I was on top of my start game and then the manager was like, call the police. And then we screwed it. But this is like, I got it and a real adult outside of a place, you know, like a real restaurant.
As an adult. I couldn't. Well, I found out later that my other, my third friend, the non preacher, had apparently procured an tire iron in the interim and was ready if things went sour to bash this guy's brain. And which is really smart.
Because listen, you're in the Netherlands and yeah, it's one of those things where they're friends with a proprietor. So clearly, if you were getting your headcave thing, Greg, they weren't going to call the group. Can we get to the end of this three hours story? I'm about ready for Clint Eastwood.
Well, that's the end. Greg won. That was the end. That was the end.
I won the cops game and we fled. Nobody went to prison. So anyways, as you can see boxing. Yeah, boxing.
I think one of the things that film we can cut that by the way, if that was too long enough, like that's a good story. No, no, no, no. This is the only way this episode will get long enough. But I think one of the things that the film does really well is it recognizes that aspect of boxing the promise as an individual, the self-reliance.
And it makes that thematic. And then it tries to situate that mentality within the larger question of, you know, should I live by my own guidance, which is boxing in a similar way, a very physical version of versus should I live by divine guidance. And there's just one line. So Eastwood will go to this priest and ask questions about the Trinity.
Does it make sense? Circastic jokes about it. Is he one or is he three? I don't know.
He's helped. He's helped everybody. The Eucharist. When does it turn into the enemy?
Oh, so he's like, oh, so he's the son of God, like a demi-god. He's like, oh, pagan. And then, but by the end of it, the priest has to, when he's troubled by this dilemma, he's in the priest has to, he's like, look, the only people who come to church as much as you do are troubled. And he's obviously trouble.
He's got this issue with his daughter. He's running this gym that is losing money. He's developing boxes. He just gets swept out.
He's obviously searching because he's studying poetry and learning another language. He's looking for something beyond the familiar. And there's a sense of what she's facing this. I think the ending though struck me as ultimately nihilistic.
Let's talk about that as a kind of final portion of this episode. The end of the story. What happens? Yeah.
So he puts her to death. And so at one point they go back and visit her family after she's needed a bit of money. And she's used her money to buy a house for her family, for her mother and all of a sudden, they can live and comfort outside of a trailer. They've been living in a trailer.
And they're upset. Her mom is upset because this could compromise the welfare checks. And so she doesn't sign the papers, whatever. Eventually she sees what's going on.
But as they're leaving this meeting with the house and everything, they stop at this diner. And it's like kind of the woods. It's pretty like just on the side of a highway. It's out of the way.
But she gets him a slice of lemon meringue pie, homemade. She's been working at a diner in LA. And it's all canned stuff. And he really likes lemon meringue pie.
So he eats it. Film ends. She's dead. And it's Morgan Freeman writing a letter to Clint Eastwood character's daughter.
Right? Tell him what kind of a man. And he has been actually him writing this letter since it's the frame. And then he says, I don't know.
This is, this is very difficult to figure out on a sort of a cinematic level. But he's writing this letter and he says, I don't know where he went. He never came back to the gym at night. And so the question I had is, how does Morgan Freeman know what Eastwood did?
I guess he saw him with the syringes and everything. Right. But then he leaves and the last shot is just very faint, but he's back in the diner eating. Right.
It's not clear. Is this a recollection or I think maybe he just went there, right? So like share this moment. It's very hard to know because if the whole movie is narrated, why would the film show a shot that, right?
He has no idea where he is. No, sure. So there's something strange going on there. Maybe it's just a sort of dramatic sort of point.
You guys, how does the daughter receive that kind of letter? Do you think we don't know the monster I always thought he would? We don't even know why they had a falling out. It's never just, it's never just running.
We just imagine it's a bad father. Yeah. A teacher, a bad father. I think that adds to why the movie works because they don't make clear what it is the cross that Eastwood's bearing.
You guys ready for some straws, he's new neurological stuff. Yeah, again, just the nihilism point, just to wrap that up. Sure, sure. He obviously decides against what God tells him he should do, right?
No, no, the priest decides against what the priest tells him. Yeah, yeah. Okay, fair enough, fair enough. And he goes down this other road.
Why does it have to be nihilistic? Why can't that be that all these jokes all along about the Trinity solving this? Why can't it be just a sort of recognition that these priests, what I kind of playfully was insinuating all along that they don't actually have the answers? They're wrong on this fundamental question.
Well, I mean, you can answer from a priest whether you should inject somebody with a thing that will kill them. I, well, let me put this right. He does have an answer on this question, right? About whether it can be.
Yeah. But Eastwood. But it might be the thing you should do. Yeah.
So the mystery of the church is different from the mystery that Eastwood is wrestling with. Maybe that's what you're trying to get at. Maybe, but I mean, the priest says you'll never be able to live with yourself, which might be true, but it might still be the thing that he ought to do. I mean, there's no, I mean, we think, I think we'd like to think that, you know, doing the right thing is, I mean, my dad.
I know where you're going with that. I think that'll help clarify this. Okay. So the first thing I'll say is my dad always said going up doing the right thing isn't easy.
And I think that the thing that Eastwood does is not easy and it comes at great sacrifice to Eastwood. And I think the priest might be right that Eastwood can't, he can't live with himself if he does this and he can't live with himself. He doesn't do it. And I'm not sure.
I think where you were going is, I mean, I'm going to say something really controversial. Maybe we treat dogs more humanely than we do human beings when it comes to end of life. I don't know what that says about us. I mean, like my grandmother passed away last year and in the months and months leading up to it.
I mean, it was clear that she was, I mean, she told me she was ready to go and she was angry with me for not helping her in that in some way. It was very strange. And you know, you can't help. There's nothing you can do.
And I don't know what is it better to live as a quadruplegic. You can't breathe these things. You know, just especially if you don't have a life in mind. I don't know.
My response that would be like, well, okay, but to what extent is Eastwood solution a boxer solution, right? I'm going out on my own terms. I'm going to do it myself. He helps her.
She's like, I'm her last fight, right? Really is to try to die. And she bites off her tongue. And she can't do it herself.
Yeah. And so they sedate her after she mentioned this. And so he helps her, but it's a self-reliant one, right? It's not.
Yeah. So I mean, there's self-reliance and then there's religion. And then I guess the question is, to what extent is he listening to God's voice in his head? Is God's voice in the city, in the church?
I think that's right. It's almost like a Protestant Protestantism. No, that's not true. So the neurological thing just to, and it does touch on the religious component is they consistently, and this is not in the book.
This is only in the screenplay in the movie where in the book, she's old, but the age is not made explicit. She's 30 when she comes to start training and it's two and a half years later, something like that. She's 33 when she's paralyzed and then ultimately killed. And only, I didn't rewatch this to make sure, but I did double check, I think.
In the last scenes when she's a quadruplegic there, it's very sort of obvious that she's wearing a gold cross around her neck. And so I don't, you guys have to help me with this because I can't quite figure it out, but it seems as clear as daylight to me that they are trying to draw a comparison between the Hillary Swank character and Jesus. But I can't quite figure out what it is. Is it like an inverted Jesus?
Because he's dying for her, because he's what's dying for her, Sam. I can't quite feel. He's obviously the father figure. Okay.
So he's like the God. It would be the Holy Ghost. I guess. Sorry.
Okay. I'm being serious. No, I'm being serious. No, I think there's meant, but the question is, what is the status of this mirroring of the Trinity?
Right. So he sees God the father who sacrifices his child for the sins of the world or something like that, right? Okay. The Trinity didn't make any sense.