Did Don Draper really buy the world of Coke? Did Tony Soprano really die or just order more onion rings? The finales of our favorite shows can make us argue, make us cry, and make us crazy. From Spotify and the Ringer, I'm Andy Greenwald, and this is Stick the Landing, a new podcast where we'll be telling the story of modern TV backwards, one fade out at a time.
Find Stick the Landing on Wednesdays on the Prestige TV feed on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Sean Fennasy. I'm Amanda Dobbins. And this is the Big Picture A Conversation show about Philip Seymour Hoffman.
Today we have a very special episode of the show, a tribute to a giant of the movie. It's momentarily we will get into a Hall of Fame discussion of Philip Seymour Hoffman's career. But before we do that, I wanted to say a few words about what he meant to me as an actor. Ten years ago, we lost one of the world's great performers.
Philip Seymour Hoffman died on February 2nd, 2014 at the age of 46 from a reported drug overdose. Hoffman was in his my favorite actor, equal parts of volcanic and subterranean. He could take over a movie with one scene. Say your favorite!
Did you know that's that? Or quietly carry another appearing in every frame. I know he just handed them the final scene when the bell hopped, told me I had a phone call. And it was my stepfather, Joe Capote, calling to say that my mother had died.
He was the ultimate character actor, a performer who could transform his appearance, his voice, his posture, his manner. And he was also an exceptional, if unlikely leading man in the mold of Spencer Tracey, or Humphrey Bogart, or Bob Hoskins, Richard Dreyfus, Dustin Hoffman. He was a widely admired theatre dweller who defined independent film for decades, and he also elevated Hollywood franchises. He won an Oscar for a biopic.
He redefined a classic American protagonist on Broadway. And when he dained to appear on TV after his career had been established, he was nominated for an Emmy. Both times he appeared. The second time he was revoicing a cartoon dog theatre director.
Of course, he directed in Real Life 2, a feature film and many, many times in the theatre, and he's performed the work of the greats. O'Neill, Chekhov, Shakespeare. He played spies, terrorists, baseball managers, rock critics, mattress men, nurses, teachers, actors, classical musicians, priests, political operators, journalists, alcoholics, madmen, monsters, sycophants, game makers, and masters. He could do it all.
I saw Hoffman for the first time in 1994. It was sent of a woman on cable. As George Willis Jr., he played the first of many venal ugly little men compensating for their sadness and insecurity with the kind of cruelty. I was in the library and taking my glasses off, and I was going to put my contacts back in.
Hoffman specialized in what I called the thwarted man. This game in many strikes. The next time I saw him was a few years later, Scotty J, the boom operator in Paul Thomas Anderson's Is it? Eddie, this is Scotty J.
He's a friend. He works on some of his films. They speak with me. Yeah, me too.
Are you going to be working? Oh, maybe. Oh, that's great. That's great.
How'd you meet Jack? Because I work on the film. Scotty was an emotional inversion of Willis. He was a sad gay kid looking for community and connection in the world of porn.
It was the second of five collaborations between Anderson and Hoffman. He became a kind of talisman for the director. He wasn't always there, but when he was, you knew it would be good. And then it would tie the piece together in some way.
Like so many legendary actors, Hoffman has a very specific set of tools that had his disposal that made him unique. The first tool was the face. He had a face like a rain cloud. Dower, frowny, withering, but it could explode with lightning when angered.
His eyes bulging, his eyebrows elevating, face reddening, hair flopping about curling at the years. He was preposterously vivid, unmistakable. He could look mean and sad simultaneously. It was a gift.
Also a gift, the voice. What an instrument. In Capote, it's shrunken down, reduced in tambour tone and strength to a playful, almost childlike sound. There's not a word or a sentence or a concept that you can eliminate from me.
There is one thing you'll hear the reason. I keep coming here. True. In a master, it roars and rumbles.
What do you want? In Mission Impossible 3, it's a sinister whisper. You put an explosive charge in your head. Is that something there?
The rabbit's foot. Where is it? In Heart 8, it's a performative chortles. You want big time!
In next key New York, it's a defeated croak. I won't settle for anything less than the brutal truth. Brutal. Brutal.
In Charlie Wilson's war, it mumbles until it rages. Out of my office, sir. For Andrew Career, asshole. Yes, sir.
Yeah, my friend, I'm in it. I need you for a second. Try to get it! My loyalty!
For 24 years, people have been trying to kill me. People will know how. And then there's the body. Hoffman had an unusual body, especially for Hollywood star.
A bit round, rumpled, but also deceptively springy. He was completely unashamed and exuberant in his physical expression. Think of Scotty's ill-fitting tank top, or Freddie Miles leaping out of that convertible in the town of Mr. Ripley.
Think of Sandy making it rain from downtown in a long-game poly, or Brant bounding down the hallway with the dude in the big Lebowski. Picture him leaping out of that pickup truck and twister or getting pushed out of the car by Michael Madsen in the getaway. Hoffman was like an athlete, like a dancer, even though he looked the way that he looked. He was born in 1967.
His family was from Western New York. He was a child of divorce. He played baseball and wrestled as a kid. He suffered a neck injury at 14.
And so he turned to the theater. And that's the altar that he worshipped at for the rest of his life. He was first switched on by Arthur Miller's All My Sons, a playwright whose work would recur for him. And after graduating from NYU, he was hired by the beloved character, Austin Pendleton, but the Williamstown non-equity company.
Within a few years, he was booking parts in Hollywood movies. I never got the chance to meet Hoffman, and he rarely did the kind of lavish press and promotion that is expected of big stars. Most of his interviews are thoughtful, but reserved, considerate, modest. He was a private guy, and he had demons.
Not in a sexy, self-methologizing way, either. He struggled with addiction early in his life. He talked about recovery publicly, but he never really valorized himself for frame that struggle self-pityingly. He was able to harness the kind of blank, dependableness in his public persona, but I think hugely aided his ability to transform from part to part.
No one was ever disappointed to find Philip Seymour Hoffman in a movie they'd chosen to see. He always looked like somebody's dad. And he was one, the three children, including a son Cooper who's taken a backing as well. If you've seen Lickerson Pizzo, you know he has the same wily charm as his father.
I did get to see Hoffman in person a couple of times, fortunately for me. The first time was in 2000. My oldest friend Ryan was at the Circle on the Square Theatre opposite his friend, John C. Riley, in Sam Shepard's Play True West.
It's one of the best and most memorable cultural experiences of my life. I've talked about it a couple of times on the show. Shepard's Play is a two-hander about estranged brothers, Austin, a screenwriter, and Lee, a thief. Hoffman and Riley famously traded roles night to night.
The night that I went Hoffman was Lee, he was sort of main gene, untrustworthy as a character. Together, he and Lee were like Roman candles in a hot house. They really recreated the furious tension of these desperate men bound by their common fate. Hoffman in particular seemed to be sweating through his shirt the whole time, oozing a kind of greasy destiny.
Both men were eventually nominated for Tony's. I was wedded to see everything Hoffman would ever do by this point. He was completely bought in on his experiences as an actor. Twelve years later, just weeks before I moved to Los Angeles from New York, as saw in his Willy Lomond in Death of a Salesman, which was directed by Mike Nichols.
To that point, four men had played Lomond on Broadway, Lee J. Cobb, George C. Scott, Dustin Hoffman, and Brian Denny, four very unlikely leading men with Titanic power, and also this ability to come shrivel up with human frailty. You can feel Hoffman channeling all of them in his interpretation of Lomond.
It's a terrifically sad and unforgettable performance. I think about Hoffman a lot. Certainly about the profundity of what his work means to me and a little bit about what we lost and we lost him as fans of movies and acting. But more simply because he is unavoidable in the recent American canon of movies, he makes us laugh so hard in The Long Game Poly, our heartbreaks, watching some next King Anytime I throw in Anderson's the master, my head is swimming all over again, lapping like the waves against Lancaster Dodds yacht.
He smiles, he scowls, he bellows, he races off into that infinite desert of nothingness on that motorcycle, vanishing, vanishing, vanishing. It's a paradox. I miss seeing him, but I see him all the time. Okay, Amanda, you're back.
Hello. Thank you for joining me in this exercise. It's really not a chore. It's really a delight because this is one of the great filmographies of the last 20 to 30 years.
And even more so, one of the most interesting collection of performances, you know, because it's not just that he was in great movies. He's in a lot of movies that don't work or that are not like beloved, but he's so special in them that there's something really interesting about looking at what he contributed, like what his life's work was. Do you remember when you first saw Hoffman? It's got to be talented Mr.
Ridley, right? Because I saw that when it came out and anything before that, oh no, it was probably actually Patch Adams, which I saw certainly in theaters or Twister, I guess, but those are smaller roles. I mean, he is like truly supporting in those and I'm not sure that I would have been like, wow, that guy is one of the great actors of his generation or it's not that he wasn't in those movies. I think he's great in both of those movies, but that's not really his performance in Twister was giving that.
I mean, he has a certain like presence, you know, he's psyched to be launching that thing into the storm. He notably said that he'd been living in LA for two years when he made Twister and he took that part so that he could effectively get enough money to move back to New York to where he really wanted to be. So that explains the Twister situation. But nevertheless, Twister fun movie.
I like Twister a lot. Do you have a favorite performance of his? Tell him to Mr. Ridley.
I mean, but there are several and when you first mentioned doing this, I think the first thing I said was Charlie Wilson's war, which is kind of like a very classic. There was just one absolutely lights out scene that he has in an office with John Slattery that is outraged and hilarious and three minutes and then you go on with your life. And but it stays with you. Yes.
It's really the how do we make the whole plane out of the black box of movie scenes? We're like, can't this movie just be about this guy yelling at people? Wouldn't that be a wonderful film? Nevertheless, yeah, that's interesting.
Ripley, because I think that's a good, a really good pick because it's really indicative of the fact that he could effectively take over a movie that is surrounded by huge stars and beautiful people. But his energy was so overwhelming. And this isn't just one of those things that you say after someone has passed away and you're trying to raise the level of their importance or their greatness. Like in real time, people will come down to the movie and like Tommy has the people.
It was very memorable. Don't you want to just fuck everything just once? When we did the screening at the at the arrow for Talent Miserable and there were many people in the theater who had never seen it for the first time. It was my first time seeing it with a group of people.
And when he comes on the screen and is like bounding out of that car, just being like, don't you want to just fuck every woman you see just once. Just like the whole room erupted. And it was amazing to watch it in real time. Someone like a whole group of people be like that guy.
Like there, there goes the movie with him. Yeah, that's pretty special. I wish I could have been there with you there for that. But it came at a time too when he was doing a lot of parts like that.
And we'll go through in this exercise every single part that he played, which is very many because he wasn't even like a Tom Cruise, that's movie star where the movies built around him. He popped into movies. He had years where he was in three, four, five movies. So he's got this long and very career.
It was very hard for me to think about what is my absolute favorite. It's probably the master for a variety of reasons. I mean, I know what your favorite is. And it's the master.
But that's like one of your favorite. And that's an amazing movie. And that's also an example of he is like, I mean, that's a that's a true person movie. There are other people in it, but that is it that is a movie about Walking Phoenix and Philip Z.
Broughofman's characters. The two halves of the brain. And so he is he gets the main role. He is the guy.
And but that character is a great synthesis of so many things that he does. But and like normally when the character finally gets the main role, you know, they sort of also have to take on like a more matinee type thing. And it's like that role, like also honors Philip Z. We will discuss the greatness of that performance.
It is probably my favorite. When you think about him as an actor, I've just delivered this whole speech about it. He's so great about him as an actor. Like what makes him exceptional?
What makes him so memorable? What makes him so everlasting? It's a lot of things. I mean, there is like a versatility to he he plays like a lot of different roles by virtue of the fact that he was for such a long time, a character actor.
And he was like kind of a character actor that could turn the people who are normally forgotten from a movie or one dimensional into the focal point of the movie. So he often plays like a spiritually ugly person. Yes. That is the exact phrase that kind of phrasing I use.
Yeah. What's funny is that we're recording this, but I still have not read your monologue. So or your speech, I don't really know what you said, but you can tell me how on or off I am. It's good if we disagree about things, but I think we're pretty synced on.
Yeah. Yeah. He he's sort of like a his characters are often very unhappy in all the different ways that someone can be unhappy. And the point of most movies is for an unhappy person to find some sort of happiness and resolution.
And his characters often don't they are fixed in that discontent in like many different shades, which is what is so fascinating about him. I think a lot of him yelling one of the great yellers and one of the great physical movers and just like bursts of like, are you absolutely kidding me speaking of, you know, Charlie Wilson's war. He says it with a lot more f-bombs. I never ever sick at sea, you know, it's really good.
And but he also can be very quiet. He can be very still. There's that amazing scene in the master when Joaquin Phoenix and Philip Seymour Hoffman are both in jail. They're on opposite jail cells and like Joaquin is just absolutely going for it.
Bucking Bronco. Yeah. And Philip Seymour has a move and everything that he says is so it's like quiet in register. I mean, I guess he'd let it go at some point, but you know, the dichotomy is purposeful and palpable.
So he could do everything and it always felt he was both like an incredible actor, but everything felt lived in even the performances where he's got like a new voice or some new grooming and there is that like Peter Sarsgarde moment of like, oh, so you're doing this. But by the end, he's just that person. There's something like very raw about the way that he is doing. Capital A acting, I guess.
I find that historically you're pretty allergic to that. So you've got to be really talented to not have to be to not feel the energy that comes off of an actor sometimes, you can feel them making a choice. You know, he made a lot of choices as an actor. Yeah.
That could be perceived as showy, but you also felt you read this all the time when his cause he would never talk about the stuff, but his colleagues would often talk about his process or the way that he worked. And you never heard about him talk about the same way that say Daniel Day Lewis would work where he would become a cobbler for five years and then never make a movie about being a cobbler. But there was clearly a huge intellectual exploration and emotional exploration that went into every part and that he chose parts in two ways. One way was obviously like, I will do the Hunger Games because I have to make money and it's good to have money for your family.
But also, if I'm going to do that, I'm going to try to do it with something. And then otherwise, what does this mean to me artistically? Who is this person and how can I make a human? And he, you didn't, the work didn't show, you know?
Yeah. I mean, that's the other thing speaking of his choices. He had amazing, like his movie choices, an amazing taste. The directors that he worked with, but like, I mean, these movies, this is just a list of movies that we either are like the top of our list movies.
Yes, hello, moneyball, which, you know, he's barely in and is doing like his favorite to the director because not even a little director, Capote. Yes. But he's college together. But he's wonderful.
And you know, I like, speaking of stillness, by the way, last night, I watched Moneyball until the moment where they trade, Pena and Jiambi and love to hear you say Pena and Jiambi. And he just, as you know, Moneyball is one of my favorites and he just sits there. Like he doesn't even move behind the desk, like his disgust and it's just this role, but unspoken at Brad Pitt. So, but all of the movies, even some of the movies that like are not good movies, he's in plenty of bad movies.
He's in so many bad movies, but like a lot of them are sticky, you know, like they, you remember them. His radar was really good. So, when Norm McDonald passed away a few years back, very quickly became clear that a lot of fans of his, and I am a huge fan of his in a similar way to them, too. I am a film Seymour Hoffman.
A lot of fans of his built their fandom around watching YouTube clips of him appearing on talk shows or doing bits on YouTube. I would argue that film Seymour Hoffman is the signature YouTube actor of his generation, which is to say that even though he appeared in maybe not bad movies, but a plenty of mediocre films or smaller films or films that were meant to be big, but didn't totally take off. But if you go to the PSH scene, you get your money's worth. Yeah.
You know, that it's going to be a fun three minutes, a fun six minutes, and he always brings the goods. Now, he does the same thing in big, great films. When he has small parts and big movies, he tends to steal them. When he has big parts and big movies, he tends to carry them very, very well.
But scene stealer is like an overworked phrase these days, but he was a true blue classic Hollywood scene stealer. If you put him in your movie, you better compare it as a performer because he will take it from you. And not in a selfish way. He was often cast as characters or outsized, you know, who were ridiculous, who were often very ugly or, or venal or dangerous in some way, or who had like a kind of vulnerability and frailty that was undeniable and that made you feel something for them.
So what do you think is like the signature part? Is it Capote? Is it Truman Capote? I mean, I guess so.
That's what he won the best actor Oscar for. But I don't know that that's like the most remembered. I would say that the master's up there among the people who know, know, you know, and obviously he was in so many PTA films and that this was like, if you ask your mom, what's your favorite? We have to ask my dad.
You're dad's a cinephile. You can't have don't have to ask my mother, but like she's just, you know, watch as the local news. So I'm working with her on it. And I'm saying, please stop watching the local news because it's not giving you the information that you think you want.
I see. For the for the average, you know, the civilian movie goer. I don't know. I mean, Mission Impossible 3.
Wow. That's interesting. I mean, that might be the most widely seen movie. Almost famous, but even that was like a person apart, you know?
He is, but that was my thinking that that was a very well seen, well loved, many times rewatched movie in which he is not the star, but is critical to the film that he is a guardian angel of that movie. I mean, for a certain generation, it's definitely Hunger Games. Absolutely. Absolutely.
But he's doesn't show up until the third Hunger Games movie in that quadrilogy. Right. So I don't know. Plutarch happens to be though.
He can't, there's not a better name in movies in 2014. That's an elite name. I assume that's Susan Collins. I assume she can get that.
That's ****. Bob, what about for you? What do you think is the signature films you're often performing slash movie? I don't know.
That's a really tough question because I feel like it's probably very different depending on who like how old the person that you're asking us. I mean, for me, it's the master, but that's just because that is like him flexing the most of the things that I identify the most that I like about him. I think the fact that he like crops up in a sports movie is really funny because he perfectly encapsulates like a baseball manager energy. But in the rest of his performances, I don't see anything that is really like that guy probably like sports, you know, which is kind of amazing and a testament to his flexibility.
I guess it's probably mission impossible for me in terms of like average movie goer, not average film bro. He immediately comes on screen and he does the thing that he does in so many of his parts, which is that you want to know so much more about what happened before the movie started with this character. Like you want he to your point about like his intellectual exploration of the characters, even if he wasn't doing the DDL, I became a copler for six months thing. It is very clear that every character that he portrayed had like a whole life before he became the character and you don't see a lot of actors who are that consistent in that type of thing.
And it's not like showy and annoying and sort of hoity-toity and actorly like when an actor is like, well, I sat down and I thought, what was this person doing in the seventh grade? You're like, all right, well, we could kind of fuck off with this. Like, this we don't need to hear all of this process necessarily. But with him, you know, he didn't obviously talk about it a lot.
But in all of the performances, you can feel a reality to the character, even though it's exploding off of the page and you probably never really met anybody like that in your life. I wonder if the movie that people would be quickest to reference from our generation? I think there's a couple of things. I think Pugate Nites is one of them, because that's a memorable character.
I think he might be a long-term poly. Hugely, hugely important within a like, not good movie. A fun thing to do, which I actually did recently is just to watch a long-term poly but just fast forward to when Philip's. There's a spot on YouTube.
That's just P.H. scenes. Yeah. The super cut is phenomenal.
It's like nine minutes. It's gold. It is so funny. Yeah, he's amazing.
He is so, so funny. And I know that the basketball scene is like the iconic scene, but when he's doing it's Jesus Christ super, is it Jesus Christ super? It's God's God's bill. When he's doing God's bill.
And then at the end, when he's giving the insurance, I mean, it's beautiful. They don't make best friends and romantic comedies like they used to. I know. It's a good point.
He's actually in the mold of usually the female character has a friend that is like that. And he's the, oh gosh, what is the actress's name who always played Judy Greer? Judy Greer. He was the Judy Greer archetype.
Okay. I don't know. I don't have really an answer for this thing. Sure.
Part of me wants to say almost famous because it's the ultimate fusion of mainstream movie that did well at the box office when it opened, got a lot of awards recognition. He's very memorable. Everything he said in that movie is quotable. Yeah.
Yeah. There's a kind of like we all saw this at Christmas together kind of a feeling about that movie. Sure. But but if I'm gay, you are also a former music journalist of a certain age.
Do you know what I'm saying? Like when you're like, we all saw that at Christmas together, many of us did. It's great. I want to I want to encourage all the young people listening to this show to go back and try to read some Lester Banks reviews and see if the guy the very calm, quiet, nice guardian angel of almost famous matches up with some of the hysteria in Lester Banks's reviews, the speed adults hysteria.
I'm wavering now and wondering if it's not just copote. Like if we're not overthinking, yeah, because he won the best actor for that role. Yeah. But it's not like that.
True. It's a figure in American history that like people tend to think that they want to know and probably only know through this movie, most likely. Yeah. But also like that movie is not that widely seen.
That's a real like you start that movie and you're like, oh, you're doing this. And it's not like also like not a hero's journey, not that he does many heroes journeys. That's what I like about the movie actually. It's just about how journalists are all.
Yeah. I think in the like for the YouTube, like generation that you were talking about, like Charlie Wilson's war is up there because it is just that three minute clip and another like otherwise forgettable movie, even though I like Tom Hanks and Joey Roberts very much and Michael's and Aaron's again. YouTube is bad because it taught Chris how to stretch wrong and probably like broke his hip bone, but it's good because you did that happen? Oh, that's right.
I just, I thought I like missed an update. I thought there was some sort of other channel where you were going to update on studio six and a full body cast. I just saw him. You guys are going away for a while.
I was like, I just thought I was like really out of the loop on the bulking and stretching pod. And okay, thank you both for you for weeks. Yeah. Just didn't know because you haven't been potting with him.
We put a microphone in front of him though. He's still doing great stuff. Great work from him. It's a good thing because we can be completely felt I can get a building collapse on top of me.
But if my mouth works, okay, the money maker right here, we got it. You want to go through the whole theme? Yeah, there are a lot of movies. I've seen I have seen like a lot of these movies.
I went back and looked at movies that I hadn't seen. And there's still at least a third of them. I have not seen. There's a big old chunk in the beginning that hardly even show us what he's going to be.
I would say from 1991 to 1994, we only really see glimmers when he's at the early stages of getting out of NYU and starting to book parts and Hollywood movies of what he's going to be. A couple of really small movies to start Triple Bogey on a par five hole. Do you know what that's going to be? What would that score be?
Triple Bogey. So it's an eight. That's right. Very well done.
Yeah. I haven't seen this film. And then a film called Zoolar from 1992, and then a film called My New Gun from 1992. But those three films are hard to see.
1992 is Leap of Faith. It's not Steve Martin. Are you familiar with this film? No.
Steve Martin plays a televangelist type like a road televangelist, a Deborah Winger that's like a big group of evangelical ministers and they put on a show like a faith healer style show. And he plays one of the effects of one of the roadies for this crew, very small part. But it's his first big Hollywood movie directed by Richard Pierce I think. And then in the same year, he books Senate of a woman, which is a huge breakthrough for him where he plays a kind of sniveling privileged kid opposite Chris O'Donnell.
And he really falls under the ire of Al Pacino's character in that movie. And I feel like his career base takes off after this. He does this part. It's a pretty small part, but it's a pretty critical part to a movie that eventually did become a big box office hit.
It was a big Oscar movie, Al Pacino famously won an Academy Award for his performance in this movie. And because of that, we saw the clips of, you know, I take a flamethrower to this place, you know, those moments which feature several cutaways to Philip Seymour Hoffman. I think a lot of directors and a lot of actors saw this movie and saw this stuff. And so he gets like imprinted in their mind.
We always do the thing of like, is it in the Hall of Fame? This would be pretty early and pretty small for a part, but I want to mark it as a yellow for a big current one. I do. That's great.
I am going to defer to you on this. I mean, I have some opinions in some places where I will, if not exercise veto power than shame you. But I think yellow is good for your historical record. Then he makes a couple of more studio movies, my boyfriend's back comedy.
Do you remember this? Maybe a little too young. Just being my age as my starter going to the movies is trailer plus playing for every movie I saw in this year in 1993. Big, big year for me.
Joey Breaker and Money for Nothing, which is a junk use that kind of thriller comedy. All pretty minor. But getaway remake starring Alec Baldwin and Kim Basinger married at the time. Oh yeah.
Not a great movie. Not a bad movie. Kind of a standard Hollywood thriller. Philip Seymour Hoffman plays one of the one of the bank robbers, one of the heist guys.
And he eventually gets shot and kicked out of a car by Michael Madsen, tragic end for his character. Not in the Hall of Fame. When a man loves a woman, I mentioned this to you on the show a few weeks ago. I said, I just watched this for the first time I'd never seen it before.
What an interesting movie. Andy Garcia and Meg Ryan are married couple Meg Ryan is an alcoholic. The movie really slow play is the fact that she's struggling with alcohol and eventually she goes to rehab and in rehab, she meets a man who's also struggling played by Philip Seymour Hoffman. This is a skeleton key performance.
It's very small. He's only three scenes. The nature of his relationship with Meg Ryan's character is very unusual because they are clearly closely bonded and he is depending on her. She's not his sponsor, but they are in it together.
And Andy Garcia is amazing in this movie. I thought he was it was like a revelation of what a good actor he is and complicated actor he is. But he can't make sense of their bond. He can't make sense of what's between them because he can't access their struggle.
And you only get that because Philip Seymour Hoffman is so good in this part as this like really vulnerable guy who really needs Meg Ryan and she's the only one who understands him. I would encourage people to see that movie. It's not a perfect movie, but it's another good it's another movie where I'm like a lot of people saw this and made like $80 million of the box office and casting director saw it and we're like this guy this guy because this is really where from here on out it takes off starting in 1994 nobody's fully because of very small part in this Robert Benton movie starring Paul Newman and then after that he appears in Hardee. You're laughing at that.
I just said fuck you the man Jesus Christ. The way you look I think you know what I'm saying old timer. I think you do Jesus Christ. Why don't you have some fun fun.
Hardee is Paul Thomas Anderson's first film. He's in one scene in the movie. His character is called Young Crap's Player and he mercilessly mocks Sidney the filmmaker hall character from one end of the craps table to the other. The movie gets a title which is not the title PTA wanted from this scene and you can see the love affair that Paul Thomas Anderson's camera is at beginning by filming and giving this character all of this time and attention.
The character that doesn't deserve it. That does exactly what you just talked about before which is like we would have just forgotten about this guy and now this is I'd love to know what the view count is of the YouTube videos of this scene. Because the idea that a movie that was a little scene like this would be rewatchable is fascinating. Young Crap's Player and the film scene were often hall of fame.
Probably not but I would like to give it an honorary yellow. That's great. That's what yellow was made for. I got the view count.
What is it? You count? 460,000 views. That's a lot for a small scene from what you know we've seen.
Okay, Hardee is yellow. Twister. I got to give credit to the screenwriter of the film Twister for naming his character Dustin Dusty Davis. Dusty Davis.
I mean speaking of baseball. Jesus. That guy should be a Lugie. That's a great name.
Also a lot of dust you know with the tornadoes. Thank you. You guys have got the name or do you think you got it when he was a little kid? You think he went into Twister chasing because he was named Dusty?
Exactly. So you got to be careful picking naming your children. Nominative determinism. That's right.
That's right. Will Alice be a beautiful girl who falls down a rabbit hole because I named her Alice probably? That's why she loves rabbits right? Because who came over when Alice was six months and brought her giant rabbit?
Amanda. That's true. I did. Yeah.
So is it nature a nurture? Who knows? He had the white rabbit. You sound like Jill Hall and the diner at the end of Zodiac right now.
Like casing together. I've walked it. Twister's not in. No, it's not.
Boogie Nights. Wait, wait, wait. What the hell is that? What the hell is that?
Why did you do that, Scott? You look at me sometimes. I want to know if you like me. Well, yeah, I like you, Scottie.
I kiss you. Scottie. When's the last time you made it up and sat down and watched the film Boogie Nights? Like four days ago?
Oh, great. That's wonderful. Because I knew who I was going to be sitting across from doing a podcast. I didn't even visit it for this conversation.
Well, you don't need to. And this is so annoying. Whenever you were like the reason that I guess I would be serious because I deal with a version of you at home is like true because I was in there watching Boogie Nights and Zach didn't even come to the room and to the room. But he heard the music and he was like, oh, what are you watching this one for?
And I said to him when I said to you, which is like, you don't need to rewatch Boogie Nights to remember every single moment and scene, but I do to be able to honor Sean's conversation about Philip too often. So that's what I did. I appreciate your support. Yeah.
Yeah. Scotty Jay is a very small part and a complicated part that portrayed insentatively could be disastrous, especially a movie like this at a time like this. And frankly, if you watch the interviews of Paul Tom's interview at the stage, he's played pretty fast and loose, he was willing to make some mistakes. And it's just such a sensitive, funny, devastatingly sad portrait.
All of a person just trying to fit in, who just wants to be accepted and wants to be a part of this world. And he might not be pre-greened and frankly, he's right to do so. Why wouldn't I? I mean, this is just this is top 10 stuff easily.
I agree. The way the character is like, he's often in the frame just off to the right or left a very important moment. I'm thinking of when Mark Wahlberg and Bergrennall tether like by the pool showdown. And then but Scotty is just like right there behind Mark Wahlberg.
And like the look on his face is just like priceless, you know, like hopeful and also what's happening. And also I'm so close to him. Like all it wants. It's very, it's amazing.
Someone's got to get the Scotty Jay fancams cooking, my Gen Z friends out there, all of the like facial reactions to everything that's going on just in and around the pool. Perfect fan cam material right there. I saw this movie in the theater for the first time a couple of months ago. And a man literally stood up and clapped the first time he came onto the screen.
Like he stood up and he was like, let's go. He clapped in the theater. And I was like, these are my people. And this is my fucking movie.
It's one of the greatest movies ever made. Yeah, he's fan. Of course, it's a green. I love his work in it.
1998 he makes a thriller called Montana. Just got quite a star study cast. I believe I saw this one on HBO, Cures Sedgwick Stanley Tucci, Robbie Coltrane, John Ritter, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Paul Calderum. Great lineup there.
Robin Tunny too. The great Robin Tunny. It's not a great movie. 1998, the Big Lebowski.
Wonderful woman. Rolbert Fondaver, very free spirited. Branchette Wach thou. Branchette is behind it.
That's marvelous. Boy, how many times will I peer like roll back in my seat and just say like, gosh, I don't know what to do. He plays Branchette, who is the kind of secretary slash attache of the titular Big Lebowski executive assistant. Yes.
Slash Butler. The funniest scene of the 1990s is Branche showing Jeff Bridges, Jeff Lebowski, the office and the photos of the little first lady of the nation, not first lady of California. Without the necessary means, necessary means when when when bridges looks into the mirror of the Time magazine. That's just good stuff.
I honestly, it's just good wholesome entertainment. You love to see it. There's obviously like the Branche character is so clearly based on someone's assistant that he met and we know exactly who that guy is, or whoever it is, or whoever it is. That person in a powerful person's life who is so annoying and always correcting every little detail about the person they are assisting his life to another person is so spot on the constant reaching for the glasses and adjusting the glasses, the tense posture, the uncomfortable laughter, the chuckle, the moment when he's outside with Tara Reed's character and she says, I'll suck her cock for $1,000.
Branche can't watch though and he goes, marvelous and then he dashes away. Just honestly, what a fucking legend. I love Phillips. You can yellow that.
He's in three and a half scenes for five minutes in a two hour movie. It's fine. I mean, he's very special. Yeah, this is going to be qualitative non-quantitative.
Yes. In the 1998 film Next Up Wonderland, which is a big Sundance movie, Star Hope Davis, he plays a mansplaining ex-boyfriend named Sean. I have to beat the Chargers here. I know what to say.
This is a tough one for me. He's later seen in the film on TV protesting an ecological disaster. So it's my woke daddy. Sean from Next Up Wonderland, not in.
1998's Happiness also revisited this film. One of the most discomputing movies of the 90s, Todd Solons movie, that is a little bit lost in time, not a bill of physical media, not streaming. You can buy DVD, which I did. Todd Solons has a movie coming out I think next year and I think there will probably end up being a big retrospective of the work that he's on over the last 30 years, one of the key figures of the American indie of the 1990s.
PSH is amazing. This movie is very, very uncomfortable. If you haven't seen it, try to seek it out. I think it's available on YouTube, if that sounds right.
It's not going in but a very notable role that I think shows when you go PTA, Cohen's Solons, that this is a darling of the independent cinema and would stay that way effectively until the 2010s. 1998, your favorite movie, Patch Adams. I was 14. I don't know what to say.
I watched the movie for the first time a few weeks ago. Wow. Absolutely. Yeah, really bad.
Terrible. Actually quite dangerous as a movie. Message of the movie. I didn't read it.
Treat patients with kindness. They will heal. That's dangerous. I love when you call movies dangerous.
Every movie is going to break containment and change the psyche of America. Patch Adams ruined society. I do miss Robin Williams. Robin Williams was wonderful.
That's not a controversial statement, obviously, but he's a very saccharine movie. Do you know who directed this film? No, I don't remember. His name is Tom Shadyak.
He also directed Ace Ventura Patch Tech. I'm going to another master film. When will we do the Jim Carrey-Hulf? The next time he's in the movie.
Yeah, he's not doing anything. He's like having birthday parties and putting it on Instagram. Right. Like with Dave Speed and who was the third person in that photo?
Was there one other huge celebrity that was with that? I can't remember who it was. This is a great content. 1999's Flawless.
What a curious film. Have you seen this? This is a Joel Schumacher movie. It's a drama about a New York City police officer played by Robert De Niro, who has a stroke.
He lives in an apartment building and adjacent to his apartment building is a drag queen and with many drag queen friends, the drag queens played by Philip Seymour Hoffman. A movie that probably doesn't feel like it was aged well given our understanding of this back community and really good performance from Philip Seymour Hoffman though. I think some people might think it's a little bit ridiculous and whether or not an actor like him would have been cast in a part like this in 2024 is an interesting question, but definitely not in the Hall of Fame. It was an interesting rewatch.
I hadn't seen it since it came out. Again, another movie where like a movie doesn't really work, but he's doing something that is worth paying attention to. And then 1999 the talented Mr. Ripley.
That's going in. That's going in. Okay. It's a green for the talented Mr.
Ripley. I have a lot of proffert theory that he's actually the hottest person in this movie. What do you think about that? I don't know if that one's going to sail.
On any level, like not even intellectually. He's not the hottest person. He's a real asshole. He's a real asshole.
Yeah. He's got a he's an asshole right until he gets the, you know, bust of whoever in his head. That scene is underrated in the movie when he comes to his take- It's like, oh, is it just along so until like across the front of the course hour, whatever, it's really good. Yeah, he's amazing.
1999 Magnolia, probably the most open-hearted and empathetic character that Hoffman ever played. He plays Phil Parmen, the nurse who was tending to Jason Robardses, dying legendary TV producer, character who was also the father of Tom Cruise's Frank TJ Mackie. It's hard to act against a phone. He has two different scenes where he's talking on the phone.
The one where he like calls the hotline to try to track him down. And he, I mean, you know, it's great writing too, but that speech of like, this is like, you know, in the movie, this is the scene in the movie, but it's like the movies really have it's amazing. Yeah, really great. But the kind of scene that could only be written by a person who watched 9,000 movies.
Right. And also like, once again, when Tom Cruise finally shows up and is sitting like by Jason Robards bed, like in the frame, he's over there in like, he's in the frame for a huge part of the movie. And like, he's out of focus or whatever, but to like, to know what to do in that moment, it's a pretty amazing performance. It is.
I like to read it as a little bit of a metaphor for how Anderson thought about Hoffman in terms of him being like the caretaker of certain parts. And he really like looked after these really challenging roles in his movies. He made five movies of Thomas Anderson. And most of them are small parts, but they are essential parts.
The best part of Magnolia to me is Tom Cruise's arc and him returning to see his father before he dies and the performance that he gives. But you can't have that arc, that part of the story, because Jason Robards character can barely speak. He's always, you know, he does give a speech at a certain point in the movie, but he's losing the grip on his life. And so Hoffman is entrusted with basically holding that entire section of the movie together and it's great in it.
Is Magnolia going in? I would think so, but why don't you yellow it for now? Yellow. 2000 State and Main underrated movie.
Did you see this? Yeah, but and I meant to rewatch it, but I didn't get to it. This is like a political thriller of sorts? No, no, it's not a comedy.
Oh, it's actually a romantic comedy. What am I thinking of? I don't know. It's written by David Mamet.
Oh, this. Okay, I'm confusing. I've seen him in his romantic cohort, isn't this movie? No, Sarah Jessica Parker.
So he plays the writer of a movie that is getting ready to film in a small town in New England. Alec Baldwin is the lead in the movie. Sarah Jessica Parker is his opposite William H. Macy as the director.
Julie Stiles is a local girl. Rebecca Pigeon, of course, is in the film because she's in every David Mamet movie. And it's got a pretty, zippy, kind of ernst-lubich, Frank Capra, Billy Wilder, kind of lightly satirical, but also some earnest moments of connectivity. And it's a pretty big part for Hoffman.
And he does torture writer very well. It's not in the Hall of Fame, but it's a good movie. It's worth seeing. David Mamet is not the easiest person to cheer for these days.
He's got some complicated views on the world, but it's a different speed for the Glenn Gary Glenn Ross guy and pretty good movie and Hoffman's great. Not in 2000, almost famous. These people are not your friends. These are people want you to write sanctimonious stories about the genius of rock stars and they will ruin rock and roll and strangle everything we love about it.
Because they're trying to buy respectability for a form that is gloriously and righteous. He's now only in for supporting parts right now. Boogie Nights, Townsend, Mr. Ripley, almost famous.
I mean, that isn't keeping with the crew. Can I say one thing about almost famous, which has nothing to do with Philip Seymour Hoffman's performance in it. He's wonderful. But I was just rewatching it.
I got to the famous Tiny Dancer scene. The edit that they give Tiny Dancer the song and they cut out the buildup to the chorus. He's a crime. Okay.
And I would like every edit. Thank you for your time. You think maybe a fan cam? Sure.
Tiny Dancer. You need that like you need the pre-chorus before the chorus of Tiny Dancer. Just that's just like basic pacing and rhythm of music and film. Sorry.
I need a Patrick Fuchsia fan cam. Okay. ASAP. William Miller.
Show me that. 2002 Love Liza. Very, very, very sad movie about a guy whose wife has committed suicide and left him a letter that he does not want to read. And he huffs gasoline to get through the sadness and discontent of his life.
Movies directed by his friend, Tahdoeezo. Just like kind of funny, but also punishingly sad. It's meant to be a comedy, but Hoffman is so pathetic and on purpose. This movie also features a scene where he plays basketball in a gym.
And I was like, did the producers of a long game policy this movie and think to cast it? I called Hoffman an athlete in my little speech and he really, you're right. You keep kind of bursts on the scene in some ways. But he also is like very bad at basketball in the scene.
And so I'm like, is he bad at basketball actually? Or did that movie just change the traumatic tension of Love Liza? Good movie, not going in Hall of Fame, of course. Punch Drunk Love.
Did you revisit this? I watched the scene. The Mattress Man. You know, I don't think it's enough to go into the Hall of Fame, but the phone call, again, a man on the phone knows how to act against a phone.