Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, Welcome back to the Surely You Can't Be
Serious Podcast. This week, we are diving into two of
the most beloved comedies, one from the eighties, one from
the nineties. I'm here with my good friend Dee Graves.
You look a little stressed out, man, What's what's going on?
Speaker 2: I just I want to be a good man and thorough. Yeah,
a good man and thorough. But there's a lot of
strands to keep straight in old Duder's head. Man, I'm
really I'm stressed out. I'm like, I'm like, there's this
beautiful girl who takes my picture when I get arrested,
and I got this big crush on her, and I
just can't work up the right words to speak to her.
Speaker 1: You look way more stressed than Hi when he gets
arrested and it's getting his picture taken by Edd. Yeah,
it's very undoued of you to be so stressed out, man. Yeah,
you mind if I do it? Jay, I think you
mathembnig anymore. Today we're diving into Raising Arizona versus The
Big Lebowski. Do the best from the Coen Brothers. Yeah,
the Coen Brothers. I love their movies. I have not
seen them all.
Speaker 2: I think every movie that I've seen of theirs, I
loved it the first time that I watched it. I
started with Raising Arizona. I know that I watched Barton
Fink close to the time that it came out. I
watched The Hudsucker Proxy close to the time that it
came out. I had no idea that these guys were related,
probably until I get to The Hudsucker Proxy and I'm like, well,
these are the same guys. And then of course Fargo
came out and I was like, whoa, these are guys
who've done something completely different. Now, I hadn't seen Blood Simple,
which is kind of their tough rr slash thriller thing,
but Fargo seemed far removed and I totally bought it.
Like when they start Fargo with everything in here is true,
I was like, oh wow, okay, yeah, no, So that
turned out to be a total lie, but it was
such a different experience. And so then by the time
Big Lebowski rolls around in nineteen ninety eight, I mean
that's eleven years after Raising Arizona, I go and watch it.
And by the way, this time in my life I
was doing Jay's pretty pretty and I kind of had
an idea about what it was about, and so when
I went, I was definitely under the influence, right, I.
Speaker 1: Was feeling the vibes. I walked out of that movie.
Speaker 2: The first person that I talked to, first friend that
I talked to about it, they were like, what'd you think?
And I was like, I loved it, and now I
have to see it not high to make sure that
I really did love it. I saw it again in
the theater when I was living in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and
I was like, this is one of the best movies
I've ever seen in my life.
Speaker 1: Really, Okay, these are two sort of off bullseye movies
for me.
Speaker 2: Well, and you're not alone there. Like, both of the
movies were not widely accepted when they first came out.
I mean, there was kind of a with Raising Arizona,
the critics were expecting something different because the only experience
they'd had was Blood Simple, and I mean you go
from you know, thriller horror to basically a Looney Tunes episode, right,
And then with The Big Lebowski kind of the same thing.
They've just come off of Fargo, very deep, dark, risly
murder movie and then you come in with The Big Lebowski,
and the initial reaction from everybody but a handful of
folks including me, was man right until a couple of
years later, and then somebody shows, you know, one of
the film critics shows up at a midnight showing of
The Big Lebowski like two years after it's come out,
and it's developed like a rocky horror picture show style following,
Like people show up say the lines to each other.
I mean, you know, we use the word cult following
all the time. This is genuinely a cult, and so
I'm not a member of that cult. I'm gonna be right,
there's gonna be no information for me as far as
those cultish things go. But I am a lover of
the movie, and so the beginning was sincere. I am
stressed to the max, but I've decided I'm just gonna chill.
I'm just gonna you know, the do divides.
Speaker 1: Just take a look at the rug man and just
realize that, you know, it all pulls the episode together, right,
really ties the episode. Hey, you mentioned something I wanted
to touch on before we got off of that. My
understanding is that one of the Coen brothers went to
the movie one day and there's a big line of
people and he's like, what's going on here? They were
like in costumes and stuff, and she's like, Oh, we're
all dressed up for this great movie called The Big Lebowski.
It's a lot of fun. You should come. You probably
like it.
Speaker 2: To the Coen Brothers, Yeah, yeah, to Joel, Yeah, that's hilarious. Well,
before we get fully rolling in the episode, there's a
couple of people we need to talk about.
Speaker 1: Yes. Absolutely, So last week we dropped our top five
songs of nineteen eighty eight. Yes, and we've got all
kinds of feedback on that, most of it positive. A
lot of people disagreed and wanted to plug with their
own songs, and that's great. We encouraged that conversation. We
love it. But I'll tell you one doubt to me. Okay,
we got an email from a woman named Beth Sloan
Okay that we hadn't really interacted with. I think she'd
hit us up on Facebook a couple of times, but
nothing really really personal. And she took issue with the
fact that I called Father Figure a giant panty dropper.
Speaker 2: Okay, Oh yeah, well you you kind of went over
you gushed on that. It was the girls are chasing
after you, throwing their panties as you have the car.
Speaker 1: The music from your car's that's right. She said it
was gross. Well, she wasn't real comfortable with the lyrics
of you know, call me your daddy and all this
other stuff. I think she used the word EU. Yeah,
but here's what she said. Okay, So she didn't just
trash my list. She said, guys, here are the top
five panty droppers of nineteen eighty eight.
Speaker 2: So not just the top five songs, but the top
five panty droppers.
Speaker 1: Panty droppers of eighty eight. And when a woman tells
you this is the top five panty droppers.
Speaker 2: You probably should listen. You listen, Okay, Yeah, so what
is it?
Speaker 1: I'm dying?
Speaker 2: It is all right, all this build up and tell
me what she said.
Speaker 1: Okay, So according to our new best friend best Loan, Yeah,
this is what she says. Number five, Hands to Heaven
by Brief. It was a good one. That's on my
low dance. It was on my last yeah for sure
eighty eight. Okay, Number four, she says, Eternal Flame by
the Bangles. Well, sure, she's anna Hoffs.
Speaker 2: I mean, say no more, my gosh, those are you know,
boxer droppers.
Speaker 1: I think we love Susannah Hoffs. Here at the Shirley
Candy Series podcast number three, she said the Flame by
Cheap Trick. Okay, that was my first out okay, and
we had talked about that. I think Brad Moore that
was one on his list. So we are totally with
you on the Flame by Cheap Trick. And number two
she's got I'll Be There for You by bon Jovi. Sure,
New Jersey can't beat it. I'm not gonna split hairs
with her, but that's definitely an eighty nine song for me.
That's like Summer eighty nine. Yeah, okay. And then number one,
her top penny dropper of nineteen eighty eight, Yeah, I
Want Your Sex by George Mine.
Speaker 2: So she she throws you for picking father figure, but
her number one is I want your sex.
Speaker 1: Hey, I don't care. Yeah, that's a good answer. That's
a good answer, good answer.
Speaker 2: That's right, she's right and you're wrong.
Speaker 1: But yes, yeah, I believe. When we did the George
Michael episode we called that that song sounds like a
wet pornographer.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so yes, so having to edit that one.
Speaker 1: Beth, that was amazing. She's actually Chris Webber's cousin. Oh cool,
and Chris had turned her onto us. So Chris, thank you, Beth,
thank you, thanks for reaching out. Good to hear from
both of you guys on our top five of eighty eight.
If you miss that, go back and check it out. Awesome.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, well you know that's just like.
Speaker 3: Your opinion, man.
Speaker 2: Okay, So for this episode, we've got a new Patreon
member that is our executive producer of our Cohen Brothers episodes.
This guy joined our YouTube page. If you haven't done that,
go do that. We don't put out a whole lot
of YouTube stuff, but when we do, it's it's gold. Yeah,
you can check out Jason going to all of the
locations for Rumblefish and the Outsiders.
Speaker 1: That was a lot of fun, right, I was. Yeah.
And then he joined Patreon.
Speaker 4: I know.
Speaker 1: So you you texted me this morning, Yeah, and you're like, hey,
we got a new Patreon. I'm like, awesome, who is it?
You're like this guy named Cason Grover, like Caseon Grover
went to high school with Cason Grover. Oh there you go,
So Cason, thank you very much, buddy. We appreciate you.
I'm so glad I didn't even know he listened. It's
so good to hear from you and appreciate your support
and Caseon I've been friend for decades. Wow, that's awesome,
So thank you, Caseon. Appreciate your sport. Guys.
Speaker 2: If you want to help support the podcast and listen
to all our super special top hits you frequently one
hit wonders of the eighties and nineties, go to atreon
dot com backsplash and then again every time Backslash Shirley
podcast and you can join for his little five bucks
a month. Okay, are you ready to jump into the
Coen Brothers.
Speaker 1: Okay, then I'm glad you said I.
Speaker 2: There are so many quotes in these two movies, and
some of them overlap like that. Okay, then right, These
are both movies that we routinely quote in my house.
I cannot tell you how many times I say, if
you're not into the whole brevity thing or phone's ringing, dude,
or okay, then one of.
Speaker 1: The things I quote around my wife all the time
is just I do the t ig e R yes, mine,
you don't cut yourself Mornecai take these huggies and whatever.
I can't.
Speaker 2: Yes, college friends, if they're listening right now, they're gonna
they're gonna be waiting for me to say this right now. Yeah,
you got the balloons that come in the funny shapes,
not unless rounds funny.
Speaker 1: My buddy Bomber, who's a patriot. I remember Chris Bauer.
We used to He used to get me in trouble
in church all the time. He cracked me up in
sunny school and stuff, and he'd always be quoting that
seven hundred and nineteen one hundred and twenty ah Bush.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're gonna have a hard time quoting the Big
Lebowski without dropping the F bomb.
Speaker 1: Okay, listen to this before we get started. You got
a statistic dute, I do, I do? Huh. We have
one hundred and forty seven man's okay, we have one
hundred and sixty one dudes. Yeah, we have two hundred
and ninety two F bombs, two hundred and ninety, two
hundred and ninety two.
Speaker 2: The dude is said about half as much as the fop.
Speaker 1: Yes, okay, yes, and we have five Shut the f ups.
Speaker 2: Donnie, Donnie, you're like a little child who wanders into it.
Speaker 1: Hey, what's the better ass? Shut the f up, donnye.
Speaker 2: Okay, So I'm gonna give a little history here, a
little history, a little history, just a little.
Speaker 1: I can't, I just I cannot.
Speaker 2: I could spend years like sinking into these movies and
devouring what they are. And I can tell you that
there are a ton of people who have analyzed these
movies and said, oh, this is about the reagularra and
the economics and the relationship between the rich and the
poor and all this other stuff. And I can also
tell you that the Cohen brothers basically turn their noses
up at everybody who does that. So I'm not about
to start doing it. I'm not going to try to
do it. What I'm gonna do is I'm going to
tell you about the cool things that I like that
they do, and I'm going to I'm going to abide, Okay.
So Joel Cohen born November nineteen fifty four Ethan Cohen
born September nineteen fifty seven. First, let me just say this.
Their paternal grandfather was Victor Cohen and a barrister of
the Ends of Court in London before he retired to
Hove with their grandmother. But that's the only kind of
old time information I'm going to give you on that,
all right, Okay, I'm not leading all the way up.
So they're born in the fifties, they grow up, and
their movie experience stems largely from the movies that come
on late at night in the sixties. And you'll find
with those movies, the later you get, the kind of
weirder you get. And a lot of the movies that
were that they were watching. Are we the old black
and white private detective movies that were movies based on
Raymond Chandler or dash O Hammett or these other kind
of pulpy mystery writer guys. Right now, I didn't mention
where they were born. They were born in a small
town just outside of Minneapolis named Saint Louis Park. Okay,
are you familiar with another park in Minneapolis?
Speaker 1: How about Paisley Park? Yes, Prince, Paisley Park is not
again suburb of.
Speaker 2: Minneapolis, right right. And it turns out that they got
together later on. They said, hey, we like your stuff.
He goes, hey, I like your stuff. They said, maybe
you should.
Speaker 1: Be in our movie. He said that sounds great, and.
Speaker 2: So if you look at the closing credits of Fargo, yeah, you.
Speaker 1: Will see next to.
Speaker 2: The character name Victim in Field, not Prince Rogers Nelson
because he wasn't going by the right you will see
the sign of.
Speaker 1: The artist formerly known as prent.
Speaker 2: I don't even think he was actually in the movie, Like,
I don't think they could make their schedules work, but
they thought, well, we'll just give him credit anyway.
Speaker 1: That's cool.
Speaker 2: So you if you'll watch the scrolling credits of Fargo,
you will see the sign of the artists formerly known
as Prents back when he was going by the symbol exactly.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 2: So in addition to those detective movies that they were
watching on late night TV, they also saw Fellini stuff,
They saw a Son of Hercules, they saw Tarzan films,
Jerry Lewis, Bob Hope, Doris Day. And you can see
from just that little bit there's a wide spectrum of
influences that are coming into play once they start making movies.
So in the mid sixties, Joel saves his money from
mowing lawns and buys a Super eight camera and they
started remaking movies with their friend Mark Zimmering, who they
called Zeimer's as the Star. Okay, all right, all right,
they had They remade a sixty five movie called The
Naked Prey and called it Zimer's. In Zambizi, they remade
the nineteen forty three lassie Come I'm a Home and
they called it Ed a Dog, and Ethan played the
mother role and his sisters two to two.
Speaker 1: This, I mean, this sounds like the same stuff we
used to do with the our parents' cameras when we
were kids. You know, I had an.
Speaker 2: DL movies and we would make dumb movies. I had
a stop animation with all of my he Man figures
as they attacked the Castle of Gray School. So after
they get done with high school, they go to a
local college for a little bit together, and then Joel
goes to NYU and starts studying film. He then goes
after he graduates, he goes down to University of Texas
in Austin, but going down there because he was following
a woman he had married who was going down there
for linguistic studies, and that marriage didn't last and so
he dropped out once he was divorced from her. Ethan,
instead of going to NYU, he went to Princeton University,
got an undergraduate degree in philosophy in nineteen seventy nine,
and his senior thesis was a forty one page essay
on the two views of Whittingstein's later philosophy. Whitting Stein
is considered the greatest philosopher of the twentieth century. Okay,
fascinating stuff, right you, I got you.
Speaker 1: I can tell right now, I'm with you. Okay.
Speaker 2: So, after Joel gets done with NYU and his brief
stint at the University of Texas, he goes and starts
working as a production assistant and he works on a
whole bunch of industrial films and music videos. And then
he has a very special movie that he works on
where he makes a very important friend. And that movie
is a movie that my friends have asked us to cover.
And that movie is The Evil Dead by Sam Raimi. Yeah, okay,
So he and Sam Raimi hit it off. He is
he is the associate or assistant editor in Sam Raimi's
The Evil Dead. Sam Raimi talks to them about some
of their stuff. They've started working on a script together
for Blood Simple, and he says, you guys have got
to get this thing made. He starts introducing them to people,
and they shoot a brief kind of teaser pitch thing
with a guy crawling along in the highway. The guy
is Bruce Campbell, the star of Yeah. And so they
start going door to door showing this to people, and
they build a budget for their first movie by talking
to dentists. For some reason, dentists always seem to be
the guys that are investing in movies.
Speaker 1: Rights. I have a lot of money, and they're always bored.
Speaker 2: Yeah, right, I have to be a dentist every day.
How about I get to be the producer of a
Hollywood movie?
Speaker 1: Right, That's right. So they get that.
Speaker 2: They get the guy who invented the pump for Windex.
He donates some money to it. Wow, Sam Raimi's dad
donates some money. They just they get all of this
money together, basically get I think something like seven hundred
and fifty thousand dollars together and decide to make their
movie called Blood Simple.
Speaker 1: Hey, you know you mentioned the name Sam Raimi. And
I've got a list of people who call The Big
Lebowski one of their all time favorite movies. Okay, and
this includes people like Jennifer Lawrence, Seth Rogan Jonah Hill.
And one of those people is Sam Raimi. Yeah I
didn't know they were friends though. Yeah, yeah, so Sam.
Speaker 2: I mean the First Evil Dead was a struggle for Sam.
I mean he ran out of money in the midst
of production. Bruce Campbell gives him his own money so
that he can finish production. And so that's why Bruce
Campbell is in every single one of Sam Raimi's films,
just about is because I mean, this is the guy
that saved his very first movie, right right, And so anyway, yes,
they've made this special meeting with Sam Raimi, who's now
influencing their movie career. He ends up being he's got cameos.
I think he's got a cameo in a couple of
their movies. One of them is Miller's Crossing. I think
he's got a kind of good shootout scene in Miller's Crossing. Okay,
But anyway, Blood Simple, the girl that they want to
play the kind of key part in Blood Simple.
Speaker 1: We all know Holly Hunter to hurry it up coming
touch with Daft, Yes.
Speaker 2: But she wasn't available, so she says, hey, how about
you use my roommate. People say, we're a lot alike
the roommate Francis McDermott.
Speaker 1: That's crazy, right, they're roommates. Yeah, which you know, part
of the reason why they have such great chemistry and
raised in Arizona because they know each other exactly. By
the way, just to come in on that, Holly Hunter
does give an uncredited voiceover for Blood Simple. Oh really, yeah,
she does.
Speaker 2: So the other very important person that they meet when
they make Blood Simple is this guy named Jeff Dawd.
So they produce Blood Simple, they write and direct it.
They for a long time just one would get the
writing credit and the other would get the directing credit.
I think until like Brother where Art that was finally
the first one where they finally got to get double
billing as directors.
Speaker 1: But they always work in conjunction, both writing and directing.
Speaker 2: And producing, and so they make Blood Simple, and with
that very first movie you get their genre twists where
they're taking things that don't seem to belong together and
smashing them together, like horror and film noir, and they
put in simple story, but they've got crazy plot twists.
And then the fancy you know, film school word mesensong
where they've got special set decoration with special blocking of
the actors to create this real picture. Because the thing is,
they won't explain their films, right. That's what I was
consumed by, like understanding the depth of these movies, but
they won't talk about them in that way. They'll talk
about what inspired them to write the movie, but they
won't say what it means, right, And that's kind of
the point. They want you to get your own meaning
from it. They want you to just sit there and
enjoy the movie, but also leave it broad enough and
vague enough that you draw your own conclusions. Their real
key to their success is the art that they create.
The combination of lighting, cinematography, the beauty of the pictures
that they shoot, the creativity of the language that they use,
and the combination of these weird styles that no one
would expect to come together is really what makes a
Coen Brothers movie a Coen Brothers movie.
Speaker 1: That and usually somebody sitting behind a desk.
Speaker 2: Okay, So I'm saying that to say, I'm not going
to try to figure out what raising Arizona means. I'm
not going to try to figure out what the Big
Lebowski means. I'm just going to talk about how much
I love watching them. Okay, Okay, yeah, sounds good. So
they have great success with Blood Simple. It gets awards
at the Sundance Film Festival and the Independent Spirit Awards.
And the next project they have is with Sam Raimi.
Sam Raimi is directing a script that they write, and
that one was called Crime Wave, and that is a
lesson on how other people should not direct scripts that
the Cohen Brothers.
Speaker 1: Write, really because it was.
Speaker 2: Too weird, Like Sam Raimi is a great director, but
he didn't get their feel right.
Speaker 1: It was just too weird.
Speaker 2: But Sam Raimi and Joel that next year, in nineteen
eighty five, they have a cameo in a movie okay,
and you know this movie, okay, wearing machine guns and
they're dressed in suits, okay, in suits, in suits and suits, yep.
And the guy who is on screen with them as
they're guarding a drive in movie is BB King and
he suggests to Dan Aykroyd and Chevy Chase that they
go in have a pepsi cola.
Speaker 1: Have a pepsi. Spies like us, you got it, Spies
like us. Yes, so spies like us.
Speaker 2: You've got a cameo by Sam Raimi and Joel Cohen
before they were ever big.
Speaker 1: Yes, okay, that's cool. That's a great little nugget. Thanks. Okay.
Speaker 2: So then two years later they do their second movie,
the movie that we're here to talk about to day,
raising Arizona.
Speaker 1: Hey, I'll tell you the first time I watched this movie,
a couple of guys went over to a friend's house
after football practice. We did the classic you know, swing
by Blockbuster, grab a couple of movies and some you know,
popcorn or whatever, went over to a guy's house and
we laughed our rears off at this movie. So right
from the get go, I thought this was a hilarious movie. Yeah,
now it was odd, it was odd, but man, it
was funny. Well, it is completely in your wheelhouse.
Speaker 2: Because we talked about them mixing up some kind of
weird combination. How about a kidnapping movie. It's combined with
Looney Tunes style?
Speaker 1: Absolutely right, absolutely.
Speaker 2: And how different of a movie to do right after
you've done blood simple. I mean, it's just their night
and day different, which turned off a lot of critics
they're not expecting it, But I'm with you. First time
I saw it, I was like, this movie's fantastic. Hilarious.
I was eating up the dial that they exchanged because
it's so crazy the way that they write. I mean,
these buffoon kind of you know, trailer trash characters speaking
in this way. And what they did was they combined
the style of writing that they found in magazines of
the time with the Bible.
Speaker 1: I know that was with the two things they slammed
together to write this script. It's crazy. And you know,
after watching Raised in Arizona, it took me a while
to allow Nicholas Cage to be a movie star, action hero,
a list actor, because I'd seen him be a complete goofball,
weirdo trailer trash guy, yeah in Raised in Arizona.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and we know from even from when we talked
about his first.
Speaker 1: Really big movie, Rumblefish. Rumblefish. Yeah.
Speaker 2: He likes to improv things and he likes to put
his own spin on things. And Joel and Ethan are
meticulous about how they write scripts, and so even though
they had mutual respect for each other, their ways of
doing things did not line up, which is why this
is the only Cohen Brothers movie that he is in.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I read a little bit about that, and they did
allow him to improv and then they just cut most
of it out. Sure, go ahead, Nick, do whatever you want. Yeah,
you can tell the true Nicholas Cage moment when he
falls over being tied to the chair, his head slams
on a cheese wall and he just starts screaming his
head off. You know, there's so many funny parts of
this movie. When he gets in a fight inside the
confined spaces of the mobile home and he raises his
hands to like do an overhead karate chop punch. Yes,
and he scrapes his fingers on the on the bubbled ceiling. Yes,
And he's like, I mean, it's such a cartoon. And
if you get it wrong just a little bit, yeah,
the whole thing goes in the tank. You can just
take the movie and throw it in the trash Allah
Last Action Hero. He tried to make it a satire
kind of funny, kind of poke funny, and it didn't work,
and the whole movie is trash yep. And instead they
hit it right on the nose and it's it's hilarious. Right.
Speaker 2: So, in addition to People Magazine and The Bible, they
had influence of a film director named Preston Sturgis and
I sent you this. I think this is probably their
favorite film director and his style. You can definitely see
how they've drawn their influence because his is all about
that dialogue. The story is secondary to that fast paced,
kind of cutty, fun speaking that all of these characters have.
And then the in addition to the crazy things that
they say, the characters themselves are.
Speaker 1: Bigger than life, right.
Speaker 2: I mean you just you think about the brothers John
Goodman and William Forsyth and the goofball nature that they
have and still their kind of educated way of speaking.
It is perfect poetic. It's surprising, and it's wonderful to watch,
and if you've got the right actors doing the job,
you don't have to work too hard at it. So
in addition to Preston Sturgis in that style, they also
had William Faulkner, they had Flannery O'Connor, who's one of
my favorite authors. She's Southern style author. They took it
influence from her. They put their script together and they
showed it to the film company and they said, this
is our complete opposite movie of Blood Simple, and the
company named Circle Films, agreed to finance the movies.
Speaker 1: Hey, before you leave that, I called you the other
day and I told you that their style reminds me
of Elmore Leonard, who is Southern and dialogue based. Yep.
There's a sort of rhythm to their speaking. Yep. So
think justified. Right, it's all about edgy dialogue and unusual
characters like a drug dealer or a marijuana grower, Texas
ranger and all that stuff. We're asked in raising Arizona
to cheer for kidnappers. Yeah, you know, trailer trash kidnappers,
kidnapping babies, kidnapping babies. Yeah, they got more than they
can handle. High. By the way, d while you are
gathering your thoughts there, David Wright and Van Allen Plexico
about a podcast that we're going to be recording with
them tomorrow, a Ready Player One, the movie.
Speaker 2: Yeah, if you haven't caught the Ready Player One, the
book that we did with Van and Allen Plexico and
David Wright last week, go check it out. It's on
the White Rocket podcast with Van Allen Plexica.
Speaker 1: That's right, and the sequel coming this coming week.
Speaker 2: Okay, I'm gonna jump back to what I said before. Okay,
I mentioned that they had met a guy who's helping
produce this movie whose name was Jeff Dowd. Right, the Dowter,
the Doubter, Eld Douderino, if you're not in the whole
brevity thing. So Jeff Dowd had a definite way about him.
He was a part of a group, the Seattle part
of the Seattle seven, that was a real group. It's funny,
you never know with Cohen Brothers movies when they bring
stuff up whether this is going to be a real
thing or just they've made something up. So when the
dude says he's he was a part of the Seattle seven,
you know, me and six other guys. He that was
a real thing. Right, So they meet Jeff Dowd and
they they love this kind of kooky guy that smokes pot,
has his beard belly. Now, the guy that they have
who is the cinematographer for Raising Arizona is a guy
that you probably heard of named Barry Sonefeld.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right. Do you know why you've heard of him?
I mean he did. He's been a director for other
famous movies.
Speaker 2: Men in Black, Yes, that's kind of a big one.
Men and Black's all of them. He also did get Shorty.
Speaker 1: I mean he get Shorty Elmore Leonard. Yeah, there you go.
Speaker 2: Right before that, he was a cinematographer also for Big
which we've got coming up pretty soon, we do, so
that'll be very soon, very soon. Yes, he introduces them
to this guy named Peter x Line. Peter Xline is
a vet. I know where you're going. It's not the
Walter character yet, all right. Yeah, but he's a guy
who is retired and he lives in a ratty apartment
and he has this rug that really ties the room together.
So Peter x Line he introduces them to his friend
named Lewis Abernethy. Lewis Abernethy is also a vet, and
Lewis Abernethy is in the guns. He's a private investigator
and one time Louis helped Peter track down.
Speaker 1: A high school kid.
Speaker 2: Who stole his car because when they found the car,
Lewis Abernethy found the homework in the seats.
Speaker 1: That is unbelievable. That made it all the way to
the big screen of Big Lebowski. It was hilarious. Yes,
it's crazy to think that these are real events that
actually happened.
Speaker 2: So obviously, Lewis Abernethy is a key inspiration for the
Walter character. Jeff Dowd is a key inspiration for the dude,
as is Peter x Line. And in this process they
also meet John Millius. John Millius, the director of Conan
the Barbarian, John Millius, the writer of Apocalypse Now. John
Millius close associations with Francis Ford Coppola and George Lucas,
but a different cat altogether. And if you haven't seen
John Millius, you go take a look at his picture
and you're gonna immediately think of Walter.
Speaker 1: That's exactly right. I He also worked on Dirty Harry
and Jaws. Yes, this guy's a heavy hitter from Hollywood, absolutely,
but he's one of these sort of kooky right wing
military lots of guns.
Speaker 2: We got hired to write a script. You know that
we want you to stay in this place and write
a script. And his requirement was that there were babes, beer,
and motorcycle as much as he wanted. And that was
that was how he wrote the script.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: So the first movie that John milly Is directed was
this movie called Big Wednesday. Okay, okay, it's a surfer movie.
Jan Michael Vincent I believe is the kind of Key.
Speaker 1: The world's greatest athlete. Jan Michael Vincent got it? You
got it?
Speaker 2: So Jan Michael Vincent's character was based on this guy
named Jim Ganzer, and John Millius introduces the Cohen's to
Jim Ganzer and Jim Ganser's name. Nobody calls him Jim Ganser.
They call him the dude.
Speaker 3: Wait, let me, let me explain something to you. I
am not mister Lebowski, your mister Lebowski. I'm the dude.
So that's what you call me, you know that? Or
his dudeness or duder or you know, el dud Reno
if you're not into the whole brevity thing.
Speaker 1: Ah, this is great. This is a hodgepodge of real
people they pull together and it all lands in.
Speaker 2: This movie exactly after raising Arizona. They had gone on
and done Miller's Crossing in nineteen ninety. And that's a
gangster flick. I haven't seen it, but it's supposed to
be very good. It came out the same day as Goodfellas,
which you know, it's hard to have another gangster movie
out the same day as Goodfellas. But I'm sure that
this one holds its own in an entirely different way.
Then they do Barton Fink, which is not terribly successful either,
the Hudsucker Proxy, which does even worse. Both of those
movies I absolutely love and they.
Speaker 1: Want terrible names. That's the big thing. Maybe I did.
I saw Madonna on the Arsenio Hall Show talk about
how much she enjoyed the movie Barton Fink. Wow, pulling
that right out of the nineties, that's awesome. And then
of course Tim Robbins is in The Hudsocker Proxy. Both
of those movies went completely under my radar in the
nineties just because that title didn't captivate me.
Speaker 2: So I'm telling you and all of the Shirley fans
out there, the Hudsucker Proxy is worth the watch. It
is great fun. I mean, if you like Raising Arizona,
this is movie watch. It is full looney tune style fun.
Speaker 1: Okay, it is great. By the way. Yeah, you know
what company h I McDonough works for in Raising Arizona.
Hudsucker Industries. There you go. They have this own little
universe that everything lives in.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and they also have like a go to cast
that they always use. You've got Francis McDorman, which is
she's been in virtually everything that they've done.
Speaker 1: You know why, Well, she and Joel got married. They
got married. I mean that helps. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So she's in Raising Arizona. You got Steve Bushimi who's
in Big Lebowski. You've got John Goodman who's in both.
You've got John Polito who's in Big Lebowski. You've gone
John Tuturo who's in Big Glebowski. These guys are in
so many of their movies. And they also have go
to Cruise.
Speaker 1: Right. They've got Sir Roger Deakins. I mean, he is
the man.
Speaker 2: He's the godfather of cinematography and probably wouldn't be there
had it not been for his work with the Coen Brothers.
Speaker 1: Wow. Okay.
Speaker 2: So also in that time in between Raising Arizona and
The Big Lebowski, they see this play called Miputa vide okay,
where they see a guy named John Taturo who's playing
a Hispanic character who is sort.
Speaker 1: Of a pederaste. What's a pederaste? Shut the Jason John
Tuturo who goes on to star as Jesus. Nobody else
with the Jesus.
Speaker 5: You said it, mom, Nobody was with the Jesus Jesus
Roles was a movie that came out later that was
not directed by the Coen Brothers, in which failed miserably.
Speaker 1: I didn't even know that thing was a thing.
Speaker 2: I was excited about it, and then it was like,
oh no, this is an absolute trainer.
Speaker 1: So hey, you know what, though he was in The
Batman and we loved him in The Batman. He did great.
He was he was great.
Speaker 2: He's I really I don't know that I've seen him
in stuff that I don't like him. Man, I just
haven't seen that Jesus Roles movie. But talk about one
of the best character introductions in all of TV and
movie history. I mean the Gypsy Kings playing their version
of Hotel California and his his one painted cokenail on
his pinky with all those rings and the pink unitard
bowling suit.
Speaker 1: And the hairnet and the licking of the ball. Yeah yeah,
I mean it is art. You know, they amazing. They
gave him plenty of space to do what he does
and it was John Detrro's idea to lick the ball.
And to you know, he put a sack of birds
eat in his pants when he had to go door
to door telling people. He was a pederass. Yes, and
he just was over the top, he said when he later,
Yeah he was embarrassed. Oh no, he's like, ah, really fantastic.
But yeah, it's fantastic. He created a character that's very memorable. Indeed.
Speaker 2: Okay, so they've done Fargo and it blows up. I
mean Fargo, Francis McDorman wins the Oscar, It gets all
kinds of Oscar nominations. They are they have moved from
you know, movies that don't make back their budgets into
this massive hit, and that brings us to them writing
the movie that falls around all of these crazy stories
that they've heard from these guys that they've met in
their time in the movie business, and they they decide
to take it and write it in a Raymond Chandler
style episodic Private Dick style kidnap adventure. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The plot on this is a little bit fuzzy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I had to write it down.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it's it's a little bit weird. He
just kind of whinds. Yeah, and even the Coen Brothers
has said, the plot's really not that important. It's just
hang out with these characters. Yeah, it's and they are right.
They are right.
Speaker 2: Like, after my first probably two or three viewings, I
probably couldn't have told you exactly what happens in the
movie other than there's this really cool guy who's laid
back who gets involved.
Speaker 1: With this weird kidnapping for this trophy.
Speaker 3: Wife.
Speaker 1: I had to call you and I'm like, okay, so
is my understanding this right? Is this what actually happened?
You're like, yeah, that's what happened. So yeah, So this
was only my second time to see this movie. Oh nice,
So but I was hilarious. I laughed my butt.
Speaker 2: Off, right, awesome, Well, what do you think Let's talk
about casting. Let's jump back to Raising Arizona and talk
about casting. Now we've already talked a little bit about it.
We got Nicholas Cage was his first choice for h
I McDonough.
Speaker 1: Well he won the audition. Okay, but you know Kevin
Costner auditioned for this three times. Wow, he almost got
the part. Could you see that? This is eighty seven?
I mean that was this is pre Untouchables? Wow. Okay,
So Kevin Costner had been in Fandango, but he was
an up and comer. But this is pre Boulderham. This
is pre Field of Dreams. This is pre Untouchables. Wow,
Kevin cost auditioned three times and almost got this part. Nice,
We should go ahead and mention raising. Arizona released on
March thirteenth, nineteen eighty seven, on a budget of a
little over five million bucks. That is super tight.
Speaker 2: Yep, they had They said they had to have it
very well organized before they started production because the budget
was so tight.
Speaker 1: Yes, wake up, son, I've been taking these Huggies and
whatever cash you got. Okay, here I'm gonna throw I'm
gonna blow your mind on this one.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 1: You know who else auditioned for the role of h
I No, Richard Jenkins? Does that name ring a ill
with you? Yes?
Speaker 2: Richard Jenkins? Oh, man, I saw it and I can't
bring it. I can't find him in the mental mansion.
Tell me who he is.
Speaker 1: Richard Jenkins is the dad in step Brothers. Yes, the
guy who's like you crash my boat, you goons.
Speaker 2: Yeah, see, he's another he's another standard Cohen Brothers.
Speaker 1: Go to guy. That's right. Yep. How about that nice,
that's a good one. Okay, this was mind blowing to me. Okay,
you know who auditioned and turned down the role for
Edwina No, Miss Willie Scott. Kate Capshaw herself turned down
this role.
Speaker 2: Wow, okay, And let's see that was eighty seven. That
would have been post Temple of Doom.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean she's hooking up with Steven Spielberg at
that point.
Speaker 1: She doesn't need to work. She doesn't need to work.
You know what other role she turned down that was
like been huge for her, Diane Chambers in Cheers. Oh wow,
she turned down that role.
Speaker 2: Interesting, okay, Kate Nuggets Capshaw, nice, Okay.
Speaker 1: She also auditioned for some roles in The Outsiders, which
we talked about at the time. Yeah, okay, so some
other people in raised in Arizona. We talked a little
bit about John Goodman.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's in Coen Brothers movie after Coen Brothers movie,
after Coen Brothers movie. You know, if they call that recidivism.
Speaker 1: They got a name for people like you, Hi.
Speaker 4: That name is called recidivism, repeat on Fender.
Speaker 1: Not a pretty name, is it high? No, sir, that's
one bonehead name. But that ain't me anymore. You're not
just telling us what we want to hear, No, sir,
no way, we just want to hear the truth. Well, then,
I guess I am telling you what you want to hear.
Speaker 3: Oh I didn't we.
Speaker 1: Just tell you not to do that? Yes, sir, Yes,
I think he got the part in Roseanne right around
the same time. I mean, that's on his way to superstardom. Right,
he had played the coach in Revenge of the Nerds.
You know, Wow, okay, good one. You guys lost to
a bunch of g D nerds.
Speaker 4: Nerds, you just got your asses whipped by a bunch
of nerdsrds.
Speaker 1: All right? Then you mentioned William forsythe I mean he
goes on. He plays like a battie in like Steven
Sagall movies and stuff.
Speaker 2: He's so much better as the goofball. I like him
so much better as the goofball than as the bad guy.
I guess probably because that's where I saw him first.
Speaker 1: Was that right? Right? He was in Cloak and Dagger,
the movie Cloak and Dagger. Was he Yes, he was
like the computer guy that Henry Thomas brings his disc
to for him to check it out. It's been a
few decades since I've seen Cloak and check it Out.
Childhood favorite of mine too. Okay. You also have Sam McMurray,
who plays Glenn.
Speaker 2: Yep, he's also in Christmas Vacation, which we covered a
couple of Christmases ago, that last Christmas.
Speaker 1: Is he in Christmas Vacation? Yeah, he's the coworker of
Chevy Chase. That's right, he is. Okay, So anyway, he plays.
Speaker 2: Glenn, and I guess that's a way Homer.
Speaker 1: It's Pope wear a funny hat. Yes, it is kind
of funny Glenn. This character is hilarious. And then of
course you got Francis McDermott. I want to mention m
Emmett Walsh, the guy from The Jerk. He's been in
a million different movies. He's kind of a that guy.
Speaker 2: He was a go to for them. He was the
kind of he was a key character in Blood Simple.
Speaker 1: Okay. Interesting. He was in Blade Runner, which we talked
about early in twenty twenty two. Yep.
Speaker 2: He is the guy who I quote routinely when I
say no, not.
Speaker 1: That mother scratcher. All right, And we would be remiss
if we did not talk about the great random texts.
Cobb as Leonard Small's Lenny.
Speaker 2: Small's Lenny Small's name right out of John Steinbeck's of
Mice and Men. They said text Cob was a little
tough to work with. He's more like a instead of
an actor. He's more like a force of nature. I
don't think they will be hiring him again as what
they said back then. Obviously he's passed away since then.
Speaker 1: He was in Uncommon Valor, right, Yes, yeah, he was
in Fletch Lives.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, Okay, he's got a very unique face. And
I think they must have done something with his nose
in this particular movie because it was even bigger. They
said he was part bloodhound, but he.
Speaker 1: Was a heavyweight contender. Yeah, this guy is a badass,
Yes he is. You don't remember when Fletch Lives. When
he when Chevy Chase gets thrown in jail and he says,
bend over. Chevy's like Ben good to meet Jenny. No,
And then finally, TJ. Kewne is one of the many
children who played Nathan Junior, which, interestingly enough, they had
to fire several children because they kept getting too old
and they would walk instead of crawl, so they had
fire kids left and right. Yeah. Tjkewn is now a
realtor in the Phoenix area. Wow.
Speaker 2: Okay, so this is a sad bit of trivia here
that I just happened to know. Okay, the kid when
he's having his dream at the end of the movie
and he's seeing one of those he's seeing Nathan Junior
scoring touchdowns on the football kid who played that older
Nathan Junior was tragically murdered in like a street rage
incident when he was only twenty three years old.
Speaker 1: Really, yeah, man, that's terrible. Okay. So casting on The
Big Lebowski, Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah. Now, then they got
Jeff Bridges to play the dude. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Now, I will tell you that they had John Goodman
in mind for Walter the whole time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they worked with him many times before.
Speaker 2: They had Steve you Shimmi the whole time in mind
for Donnie, But they didn't know who they were going
to have play the dude, right, top contender mil Gibson.
Speaker 1: Yeah, how about that. Yeah, he didn't really take it seriously. Yeah,
I don't think he quite got the gist of the character.
He would have been wrong.
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm sure he has the acting chops to
do it, but he would have been wrong.
Speaker 1: I Mean, we're talking mid nineties. Yeah, this is Martin Riggs.
This is Braveheart Mel Gibson at the peak of his
Hollywood powers. Yeah. I think Jeff Ridges did an awesome
job and they didn't need mel Gibson for this.
Speaker 2: No, Jeff, I mean, Jeff Bridges is a force himself.
I mean, but I really props to him because he's
frequently playing the handsome man, right, I mean, he's a
good looking guy and is typically playing that part, and
so he keeps himself in pretty good shape. But when
he got the part and he met Jeff Dowd, he's like, oh,
kind of let my waistline go for this, and they
said they didn't. The only direction that they needed to
give him, and the he would ask for is before
each scene he would go, so, guys, do you think
that the dude burned one down on the way over
to this scene? And they said most of the time
the answer was yes, And so if the answer was yes,
he'd go over the corner and rub his eyes really
hard and then go and do the scene.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Jeff Bridges says, he's basically playing himself from the
sixties and seventies. Yeah, he can identify with this character, right, Sure, yeah,
all right, so you mentioned John Goodman. Julianne Moore plays
maud Lebowski. Yes, she got this script while she was
working on Jurassic Park The Lost World.
Speaker 2: Yes, so glad that she did both, because had she
only done Jurassalic Park The Lost World, I don't know
that her career would have been as successful.
Speaker 1: As it was. Right, So her character was based on
Yoko Ono. Carolee Schneeman.
Speaker 2: Yeah, CAROLEE Schneman actually created art naked hanging from a string.
Speaker 1: I know. I googled that right before we got started.
I thought this can't be right, is it?
Speaker 2: Did you find her work strongly vaginal?
Speaker 1: Sorry? Did they make you uncover word itself? And find it?
Hard to say? But, oh my gosh, the Google pictures
that I looked at it was it's just so weird
for me. She's swinging around, just making marks on the floor. Hey,
to each their own. So but this is the one
that really got me. Okay, yeah, so big Lebowski, Yeah,
the big Jeff Leboski, the older man, right, this is
who they wanted for the role. Robert Duvall would have
been great. Anthony Hopkins would have been great. He didn't
want to play an American, which I think is strange
because that's what we call acting. Yeah, okay, Gene Hackman
would have been great. Yeah, all these guys, George Scott
would have been perfect. Yeah, Jerry fallwell, wow, that's weird. Okay,
stay with me. Andy Griffith, Okay, that was that would
be odd. And then finally Marlon Brando is the guy
they really wanted, but his health wouldn't let him do it. Yeah,
so they end up hiring David Huddleston.
Speaker 2: Yeah, which I does a great job blazing saddles. Like
immediately I'm like, oh, there's the guy for blazing saddles.
Speaker 1: But yes, he's brilliant in this. Yeah that is he
wasn't blazing saddles. There you go. Okay, let's talk about
Tara Reid for a second. Okay, Tara Reid in nineteen
ninety eight. Yeah, she's bringing the heat. Yeah that's just
before she went crazy.
Speaker 2: Blow on them to blow on Yes, I can't blow
that far.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh. Remember her. She had that TV show
Terodise where she was in a reality show on VH
one and it's all about her just being crying. Did
not watch Terrordise. I didn't watch Arodise either, but I
mean she lost her mind in the eighties.
Speaker 2: In the nineties, yeah, yeah, but she was. She was
very young and beautiful and the perfect trophy wife back then.
Speaker 1: For the character of Bunny Labowski. They wanted Charlie's star
and you know, would have been a good choice. I mean,
she would have been a good choice.
Speaker 2: You know, interesting comparison of the two main female characters
in this. You've got Maud, this headstrong independent feminists and
the trophy wife and infomaniac.
Speaker 1: Right, And when you talk about Maud, when I'm watching
her do those weird things in bed and I'm like,
what's she doing? And then I realized, oh, she's trying
to get pregnant. Yep, okay. And then of course you've
got John Tuturo as Jesus. By the way, Sam Elliott,
they had in mind the whole time.
Speaker 2: Of course, Now, Sam Elliot, you know you've we've talked
about this being a Raymond Chandler thing, and then you've
got these unusual hippie character and Vietnam vet bowling and
this random adventure. But the movie starts off with a
tumbleweed and the narration by the most Southern drawl narrator
that you can imagine, perfect voice.
Speaker 1: You're just like, what is this a Western? What is
this here? Right?
Speaker 2: Yeah, but it's this great comparison of the Do and
his anti herooness and the standard American cowboy.
Speaker 1: And Sam Elliott didn't get it. It didn't matter.
Speaker 2: He's just got to say his lines and act like
Sam Elliott, just like the cowboy. But he's like, I
really don't understand what I'm doing.
Speaker 1: But he was there for two days. He shot his
parts in two days. Two days. There you go. Sometimes
you eat the bar, sometimes the bar each you. Okay,
that's pretty much what I have for the cast. But
I do have a nugget that I want to blow
your mind with. Okay, Okay, I'm excited. Okay. So the
Big Lebowski Mansion, Yes, is a famous filming spot in
Beverly Hills. Okay. So it is a stand in for
a lot of quote unquote rich people's homes in movies
and stuff like that. Okay. It's actually owned by the
city of Beverly Hills. Oh Okay, it's called Graystone Mansion. Okay, Okay.
It's actually very very close to the Playboy mansion. It's
like you can see it from the front lawn or whatever. Nice.
That's perfect. Okay. So it has starred as the rich
person's home in these movies all of me. Gold Member
Death becomes her Ghostbusters two, which we did with the
guys at the film by podcast.
Speaker 2: Yep, which I'm trying to remember. I can't remember a mansions, don't.
Speaker 1: I don't really remember that either. Maybe it's like where
they were doing the artwork or something. Maybe yeah, maybe
Indiecent Proposal, Spider Man one, two and three. You mentioned
Sam Raimie, Yeah, yeah, perfect x Men yeah, okay, okay.
And these music videos okay, brace yourself here, I Do
Anything for Love by meat Loaf Okay. And a video
that we've talked about before, Oh, Pretty Woman by van
Halen was shot at the Greystone Mansion. Wow. The van
Halen video where the midgets are assaulting that woman at
the beginning of the video. That's awesome. The big Olebowski mansion.
That's fantastic, man, that is great. Okay.
Speaker 2: So my only bit of trivia for this last little bit. Yeah,
the car that was actually stolen that belonged to Peter
x Line, that was found by Lewis Abernathy was a
Chrysler LeBaron, and that's what they wanted to use for
the movie, but John Goodman was too big to fit
inside of it, and so they had to use a
Ford tourn.
Speaker 1: Oh Man, John's lost some weight since then.
Speaker 2: He I'm sure he could fit inside the LeBaron at
this point, but I just thought that was interesting.
Speaker 1: He was a big dude. It was a big dude.
Speaker 2: Okay, guys, that does it for the first part of
our raising Arizona Versus The Big Lebowski episodes come back
next week. We're going to talk to you about production itself.
We're going to talk to you about composers and the
music used in the movies, and our final judgment on
which of these two movies is the best Coen Brothers
movies of the eighties and nineties.
Speaker 1: Come back next week.