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Grosse Pointe Blank (1997) · Scenes From The Screen

• 0:02
  Sean: Hello and welcome to Scenes from the Screen, the film-focused show for all ages, where we cover movies that flicker to life on screens both big and small.
• 0:10
  Sean: You'll find everything from comedy to horror, cult classics to major studio franchises, big budget to independent, theater releases, streaming premieres, and everything in between.
• 0:20
  Sean: Stick around and you might discover a new gem or be reintroduced to an old forgotten favorite.
• 0:25
  Sean: My name is Sean, and I'll be your host.
• 0:27
  Sean: Well, we're back with another episode, and joining me again is my lovely wife, Hollie.
• 0:32
  Sean: Say hello, Hollie.
• 0:34
  Hollie: Hello, Hollie.
• 0:35
  Sean: Well, that's perfect.
• 0:35
  Sean: So today's is going to be a little bit bittersweet.
• 0:38
  Sean: We were actually going to save this one.
• 0:39
  Sean: But unfortunately, we recently found out that a good friend of ours passed away a few weeks ago, someone I've known for almost 20 years.
• 0:47
  Sean: We were close friends in Vegas.
• 0:50
  Sean: We kept in touch over the years, texting almost every day about movies, music, sports, I mean, almost anything.
• 0:56
  Sean: So it's it comes as a real loss to me.
• 0:58
  Sean: You find so few people in this life who you know you could talk to on a regular basis like that.
• 1:02
  Sean: Thank God one is right here next to me.
• 1:04
  Sean: But it's yeah, it's a huge loss nonetheless, because he was, you know, I don't keep many people close, at least that close, but I mean to talk on a daily basis like that, but you know, he um definitely a great guy.
• 1:18
  Sean: And so he will be missed.
• 1:20
  Sean: He will be missed.
• 1:20
  Sean: And I know Hollie knew him not as well, but you did know him.
• 1:23
  Hollie: Yeah, uh he was a great guy.
• 1:25
  Hollie: He loved dogs, especially big dogs.
• 1:28
  Hollie: And anyone who cares about their dogs that much is a good person...
• 1:31
  Sean: Right.
• 1:31
  Hollie: ...no matter what.
• 1:32
  Sean: Yeah, he was that he was absolutely great with dogs.
• 1:34
  Sean: I mean, I remember babysitting his dogs when he was away for a few days when we lived in Vegas, and they were perfectly trained.
• 1:40
  Sean: I mean, for me to come in as almost a stranger and listen to me and be that good, he was he was really, really good with his dogs.
• 1:46
  Sean: And you know, I I'm sorry I missed his his 50th birthday last year with unfortunately with my illness, but uh I haven't seen him in a while.
• 1:54
  Sean: But uh you know, it is it's a just a definite loss.
• 1:57
  Sean: And uh well, one of the reasons I picked this movie is because now it wasn't our go-to movie together, it was that would be Wedding Crashers or Anchorman, but he was one of the few people that really loved this movie that kind of knew the lines to it and just appreciated as much.
• 2:13
  Sean: And I know Hollie does as well.
• 2:14
  Hollie: Yes, I do.
• 2:15
  Sean: Yeah, so that's one of the things that you know we learned about each other when we first started dating is that um she loved Grosse Pointee Blank.
• 2:22
  Hollie: Yes, I love Grosse Pointee Blank.
• 2:23
  Hollie: I I really like and his name is...
• 2:26
  Sean: John Cusack?
• 2:27
  Hollie: ...John Cusack.
• 2:27
  Sean: John Cusack, right.
• 2:28
  Sean: Yeah, we got John Cusack's fantastic in anything.
• 2:31
  Hollie: You know, our age group.
• 2:31
  Hollie: We grew up with John Cusack.
• 2:33
  Sean: Absolutely, absolutely.
• 2:34
  Sean: Well, I mean, uh if those of you don't know, Grosse Pointe Blank, John Cusack plays a uh hitman who goes back to his tenth high school reunion.
• 2:43
  Sean: When he was in high school, apparently he alluded to in the film, he was this very intelligent student and they expected great things from him, and he vanished before I want to say before the end because he stood up his date on prom night.
• 2:54
  Sean: So he is, like I said, he's a hitman, and at one point his secretary gives him to make amends for a missed hit, something that went wrong, he's forced to take on an assignment that just happens to be in Detroit, which is right you know right near Gross Po Grosse Pointe.
• 3:13
  Sean: Now, normally I would say that's kind of a forced plot twist, but when you find out what the assignment is, it plays into the story.
• 3:19
  Hollie: Right.
• 3:19
  Sean: So I mean that's that's just like I said, it's it's a great little twist, I think.
• 3:23
  Hollie: Well, it did it did give him the reason to go to the reunion, which he wasn't gonna do.
• 3:28
  Sean: Right.
• 3:28
  Sean: Yeah, he absolutely was not gonna go to that reunion, and it's got it's got a fantastic cast.
• 3:34
  Hollie: Amazing cast.
• 3:34
  Sean: I mean, and you know, uh I mean, Minnie Driver in this movie is one of my what?
• 3:40
  Hollie: Favorite girlfriends.
• 3:40
  Sean: No, one of my top five movie girlfriends.
• 3:42
  Sean: She's fantastic, she's great in this movie.
• 3:44
  Sean: I mean, it's it's such a well-written film, written by George Armitage, who worked for Roger Corman a lot, uh, as I found out.
• 3:51
  Sean: And I did record a movie unknowingly that he had written, and it was called Gas.
• 3:56
  Sean: However, we started watching that, and it was it was really not.
• 3:59
  Sean: I guess you really had to be there for the hippie counterculture.
• 4:02
  Hollie: Yeah, but it was not a good movie.
• 4:04
  Sean: No, it was it was really not.
• 4:06
  Hollie: It wasn't even good enough to make fun of.
• 4:07
  Sean: Right.
• 4:07
  Sean: Yeah, I mean, at that point it wasn't.
• 4:09
  Sean: So, but he also directed Miami Blues back in 1990, which I I remember not hating, but not loving either.
• 4:15
  Sean: So, so he's the director of this this film.
• 4:18
  Sean: Again, Cusack's in it, his two sisters are in it, Michael Cudlitz...
• 4:22
  Hollie: Jeremy Piven.
• 4:23
  Sean: ...Jeremy Pivin's in it, Alan Arkin.
• 4:25
  Hollie: The blonde.
• 4:26
  Sean: Jenna Elfman?
• 4:27
  Hollie: Jenna Elfman.
• 4:28
  Sean: Jenna Elfman's in.
• 4:28
  Sean: I mean, just an amazing cast of characters for this.
• 4:31
  Sean: And like I said, he plays the uh, the hitman who goes back and he tells everybody what he does, and nobody believes him because they think he's joking.
• 4:40
  Hollie: Right.
• 4:40
  Sean: Which I think is hysterical.
• 4:41
  Hollie: Right, well the way he says it too, he and it's John Cusack, he's very dry, and his his lines are very quick.
• 4:47
  Hollie: It's almost like quick one-liners.
• 4:49
  Sean: Right.
• 4:49
  Hollie: He doesn't say I'm a hitman, he always says I'm a hired killer, a professional killer.
• 4:53
  Sean: A professional killer, right.
• 4:54
  Sean: He said he he freaked out after uh high school, he joined the army, and he went, you know, he even he became he worked for the government.
• 5:01
  Hollie: Right.
• 5:02
  Sean: And he eventually became a...
• 5:03
  Hollie: Business for himself.
• 5:05
  Sean: Went into business for himself, right.
• 5:05
  Hollie: He's a professional killer.
• 5:07
  Sean: So the one thing I noticed this time about watching, I never really thought about before, but I it really I mean, maybe it is because you know, this is in honor of our friend, but I noticed there was a lot of a fate in this film.
• 5:20
  Hollie: Yes.
• 5:20
  Sean: It's there's a lot of talk about fate, which is again, I never noticed it before, you know.
• 5:24
  Sean: Kind of you know, you think it's kind of jokingly, but it's it's it actually starts with, and I just heard the song on the radio the other day, and I didn't connect it until later.
• 5:32
  Sean: I didn't connect it in the movie while we were watching the movie, but the first song is "I Can See Clearly Now" by Johnny Nash.
• 5:39
  Hollie: That's an interesting...
• 5:40
  Hollie: to think that's the first one because this is in the movie you you see the character change a lot and he becomes a like a better person...
• 5:52
  Sean: Right, right.
• 5:52
  Hollie: ...because he was he's retiring from the professional killer and he wants to have a life again.
• 5:58
  Hollie: And so that's that's I didn't put that together at all.
• 6:01
  Sean: Yeah, he's a and like I said, it didn't hit me till I was in the car listening to it.
• 6:04
  Sean: I said, boy, I always loved that song, but and whenever I hear that song, I think of that movie.
• 6:08
  Hollie: Right.
• 6:09
  Sean: But yeah, he because he's on he's at a crossroads, you know.
• 6:13
  Sean: He's again uh at the the 10th you know, reunion uh 10th year reunion from high school.
• 6:18
  Sean: I guess it kind of forces you to think things, rethink things like where where am I going?
• 6:22
  Sean: Where have I been?
• 6:23
  Sean: What's going on, you know, in my life?
• 6:25
  Sean: But you know, other things about fate in there too.
• 6:27
  Sean: When they use "The Killing Moon" by Echo and the Bunnymen, which is a a really good song about fate as well.
• 6:35
  Sean: His secretary also mentions that she gets a feeling he's supposed to go back to his reunion.
• 6:40
  Sean: But one of the other things I really thought about was his character reminded me of Anton Chigurh, played by Javier Bardem in No Country for Old Men, because John Cusack at this one at several points in the film as the hitman.
• 6:56
  Sean: He says, I show up at your door, chances are you did something to bring me here, right?
• 7:01
  Sean: And in a way, he again he's like Anton Chigurh because Shigur said something very similar.
• 7:07
  Sean: You know, he he chalked everything up to fate in No Country for Old Men.
• 7:11
  Sean: So maybe is it maybe a hired killer thing, a hitman thing that they feel that way?
• 7:15
  Hollie: It might be just a way to validate why you're killing people...
• 7:19
  Sean: That's true.
• 7:19
  Hollie: ...to justify it to yourself.
• 7:20
  Sean: Well, that's in Chigurh's case, yes, it was, but yeah...
• 7:23
  Hollie: ...I think that's his that's...
• 7:24
  Sean: ...in Cusack's case.
• 7:25
  Sean: I don't I think it I think he did, but I don't think he believes it anymore.
• 7:29
  Hollie: Well, he doesn't anymore, but that valid, like he said, that validates his job.
• 7:33
  Hollie: You know...
• 7:34
  Sean: Right.
• 7:34
  Hollie: ...he didn't if he's he in his mind, he doesn't kill innocent people, he kills only bad people, you know.
• 7:39
  Hollie: You know, if you did you did something bad to someone and that's why I'm here, you know, I'm just not I'm not a random murderer, but in the same token, you're still you're still someone who kills people, but he's trying to make it sound like it's not as bad as that.
• 7:53
  Sean: And then it's not up to him because when he kills the one guy, he said the guy says to him, Whatever it is I'm doing, I'll stop doing it.
• 8:02
  Sean: And Cusack says it's not me.
• 8:04
  Hollie: It's not me, right.
• 8:05
  Sean: So yeah, he yeah, he is just basically like a you know, oh he doesn't bear responsibility for anything...
• 8:12
  Hollie: Right, right?
• 8:12
  Hollie: It's not...
• 8:13
  Sean: ...but I think that that that really weighs on him, yeah.
• 8:15
  Sean: Through the well, it has been because he's getting to this point where, and I think the high school reunion really, really kind of puts that into perspective.
• 8:24
  Sean: But you know, even his secretary again, played by Joan Cusack, she's she's fantastic in it.
• 8:29
  Hollie: She's this my favorite movie with her in it.
• 8:32
  Hollie: This is, I mean, her in a movie, yes, this is my favorite movie.
• 8:35
  Sean: Yeah, I mean, she was really good in In and Out as well.
• 8:37
  Sean: But I think, yeah, this for this for me is is uh pinnacle Joan Cusack.
• 8:42
  Hollie: Right, and they only have really one scene together where they're they're actually on camera together.
• 8:47
  Sean: Right.
• 8:47
  Sean: They they talk a lot.
• 8:48
  Hollie: Right, but they're there, you can feel their natural chemistry immediately with the two of them.
• 8:54
  Hollie: They're back and forth the way Joan Cusack, the way her the his secretary and him talk to each other...
• 8:59
  Sean: Yes.
• 8:59
  Hollie: ...it's very you could you know like they have a very odd relationship...
• 9:04
  Sean: Right.
• 9:04
  Hollie: ...but it for a secretary and something, but knowing who they are, the actors, they're like, that's brother and sister, and they they talk to each other like brother and sister, and they have such a natural way of doing it, even when they have the scenes where they're just on the phone.
• 9:16
  Hollie: I just couldn't wait for him to talk to her.
• 9:18
  Sean: Absolutely, yeah.
• 9:19
  Sean: And they his little dig at her, what she's wearing, too, which is we don't ruin it because it is a very funny, you have to see it.
• 9:26
  Sean: Yeah, but also his relationship with Jeremy Piven, who plays a co-graduate, like he graduated...
• 9:32
  Hollie: His high school friend.
• 9:32
  Sean: ...with, right?
• 9:32
  Sean: Yeah, yeah, his high school buddy, and yeah, another person that's uh the one of the co-writers of the film, Steve Pink, plays a security guard that he works in the right in the housing uh development.
• 9:44
  Sean: Yeah, I mean, like I said, it is there's so the the character is so well drawn that it's amazing.
• 9:50
  Sean: Uh and like I said, in the banter back and forth.
• 9:52
  Sean: Even even Alan Arkin is his his psychiatrist.
• 9:55
  Hollie: Right.
• 9:56
  Sean: Is that's that's a relationship that I would love to see have seen in a way more of.
• 10:00
  Sean: Not in the movie, but I'd like I'd love to see almost what happened before that in the couple sessions.
• 10:05
  Hollie: Well, they do talk about that, how how the psychiatrist doesn't want him as a client, keeps trying to not have him, and he keeps telling him, you know, I don't I don't want to be your psychiatrist anymore, but yet you keep coming back.
• 10:17
  Hollie: And I really like that back and forth with them.
• 10:20
  Sean: Yes.
• 10:20
  Hollie: He when he says that to him, he goes, I he goes, I told you I can't treat you anymore, and every week you come back.
• 10:26
  Hollie: So that was he was really funny.
• 10:28
  Hollie: He he really every oh, we forgot about Dan Aykroyd too.
• 10:33
  Sean: Oh, that's right.
• 10:33
  Sean: Dan Aykroyd's in it, yeah.
• 10:34
  Hollie: And Hank Azaria.
• 10:35
  Hollie: Hank Azaria. K Todd Freeman, who was in, played Mr.
• 10:38
  Hollie: Trick in Buffy again.
• 10:40
  Hollie: Like you could just I mean everyone is a is a known face.
• 10:42
  Hollie: Carlos Jacott, who was in but he was in Firefly, he was in Seinfeld, he played the pool guy in Seinfeld.
• 10:49
  Hollie: Oh, yeah, yes.
• 10:49
  Sean: Uh like I said, there are so many people in this, and you may not know them by name.
• 10:53
  Sean: I unfortunately I do because I commit that weird stuff to memory, but yeah, you would know them by their face.
• 10:58
  Sean: Yeah, I just totally forgot about Dan Aykroyd.
• 11:00
  Sean: Like, that's how good this cast is.
• 11:02
  Hollie: Right.
• 11:02
  Sean: But yeah, he plays a kind of a nemesis to he wants to get Cusack's character Martin Blank to join his little, I guess almost like a union for hitmen...
• 11:13
  Hollie: Right, like a little club.
• 11:13
  Sean: ..so that you can that they can avoid all this stuff that that's been going on.
• 11:18
  Hollie: Yeah, and and just seeing hit Dan Aykroyd as a hitman is just hysterical because that's so off-brand for him...
• 11:27
  Sean: Exactly.
• 11:28
  Hollie: ...that type of role, and he he kind of plays a real jerk, and you know, and like he's he's this big tough guy, you know, and that's just not your Dan Aykroyd feeling, but he does it very, very well.
• 11:39
  Sean: He does, he does, yeah.
• 11:40
  Sean: He's this is one of my favorite movies with him in it, and I know they did, it wasn't really a direct sequel, but it was called War Incorporated.
• 11:46
  Sean: I've never seen that.
• 11:47
  Sean: I almost don't want to because I this movie ended perfectly.
• 11:49
  Hollie: I don't I won't want to.
• 11:50
  Sean: I mean, I maybe someday I will, but I again I I it didn't get as good reviews as this film, and and again, this film is not a lot of people know about it.
• 11:58
  Sean: I mean, they may have heard the name, and in fact, I just mentioned it to someone earlier, today, like, oh, I haven't seen that in a while.
• 12:03
  Sean: And it and I don't know why it's not held in higher regard because it is it's it's I think it's because it's a dark comedy.
• 12:10
  Hollie: Yeah, yeah, I think dark comedies are hard for people.
• 12:13
  Hollie: I mean, we love them, but they're not they're not something that the everyday person just sits down and watches for for shits and giggles, you know, for entertainment.
• 12:22
  Sean: Right.
• 12:23
  Hollie: But I think this movie has a lot of really good stuff.
• 12:27
  Hollie: I think the the one-liners in the in the banter, like you said, is just some of the best that has ever been written.
• 12:33
  Hollie: Like it's so and it's quick, and you have to watch it multiple times to hear it to really get everything they're saying.
• 12:38
  Sean: Yeah, and it's so it's a dry sense of humor, especially the the scenes between you know Cusack and Arkin and Cusack and Aykroyd.
• 12:45
  Hollie: And Cusack...
• 12:46
  Sean: Very dry.
• 12:47
  Hollie: ...and Piven. They're very...
• 12:47
  Sean: And Piven, right.
• 12:48
  Sean: Well, those, yeah, those two have they've been they grew up together, so they have that dynamic where you...
• 12:52
  Hollie: ...picked all the right people for this role, and knowing all the people have a relationship with Cusack, except for Minnie Driver, which I mean they may have before this, that I don't know about her their chemistry was really great.
• 13:05
  Sean: It was...it was great.
• 13:05
  Hollie: ...great for someone like she's definitely an outsider when you look at the cast because she's British and they're all like these Detroit people...
• 13:12
  Sean: But I back then I didn't know she was British.
• 13:14
  Hollie: I did.
• 13:14
  Sean: I don't think I don't think I did when I saw this.
• 13:16
  Sean: When I first saw it.
• 13:17
  Hollie: You didn't see the movie Circle of Friends.
• 13:19
  Sean: I did not, right?
• 13:19
  Sean: So I didn't see that.
• 13:20
  Sean: Yeah, so I yeah, I mean I had no I had no idea, but yeah, here and here's an interesting question I thought about too.
• 13:27
  Sean: Do you think that in Say Anything, if John Cusack's character Lloyd Dobler, if he would have gone the other way, that would have been him?
• 13:37
  Hollie: I mean, there is a lot of Lloyd Dobler in Martin Blank, I think, but at the same time, I don't think Lloyd was as intelligent as Martin Blank.
• 13:45
  Sean: No, I don't either.
• 13:47
  Hollie: I get the impression that Martin was like kind of your quiet emo evil genius in high school, like that really quiet kid that was really smart and gonna do something...
• 13:57
  Sean: A few friends...but yeah, although a lot of people knew him though, which was...
• 13:59
  Hollie: Well, because I think he he was like he he wasn't like the athlete or anything like that.
• 14:04
  Sean: I don't think he was yeah, the popular.
• 14:05
  Sean: He wasn't the jock, he wasn't the he was he was a nondescript...
• 14:08
  Hollie: Right.
• 14:08
  Sean: ...that didn't fit into any mold, but he was intelligent.
• 14:11
  Sean: You knew he was intelligent.
• 14:13
  Hollie: The teachers knew him.
• 14:13
  Sean: Right, the teachers did know, but again, like he had a lot of people know maybe that's because he he disappeared, and maybe they talked about him for how many years.
• 14:19
  Hollie: And I think Lloyd Dobler was just your genuinely nice person that everyone knew because he was so kind and friendly and a good guy.
• 14:26
  Sean: Right.
• 14:27
  Hollie: So, but there is very a lot of similarities with the typical John Cusack way of talking and his mannerisms and his you know his good-naturedness.
• 14:36
  Hollie: I mean, even though he's a professional killer, he has a good-natured quality to him at the same time.
• 14:41
  Sean: Well, that's a thing I thought of only because I and not only for that reason because it's John Cusack, but there's he dispenses of someone with a fountain pen.
• 14:50
  Sean: And in the movie Say Anything, you know, she gives she has to break up, she gives him a pen.
• 14:55
  Sean: He goes, I gave her my heart and she gave me a pen.
• 14:58
  Sean: So I mean, maybe that I don't know whether that was meant...
• 15:00
  Hollie: Meant to happen?
• 15:01
  Sean: Yeah, I don't know whether it was intentional, but yeah, that was a nice, you know, whatever it was, It was a nice little nod.
• 15:06
  Hollie: Yeah, yeah, definitely.
• 15:07
  Sean: Um, and one of the things that I really I love about this movie is the soundtrack.
• 15:11
  Hollie: It yeah, I didn't really didn't remember how great that soundtrack was.
• 15:15
  Hollie: Like, if you like any music from when is this mid-80s?
• 15:18
  Sean: Well, this is the 80s, right.
• 15:19
  Hollie: Yeah, really good music.
• 15:20
  Sean: I mean, it's almost any any time, except for that first song, which is again, I sort of think...
• 15:24
  Hollie: It's more alternative.
• 15:25
  Sean: It is more alternative...
• 15:25
  Hollie: Except for the first song.
• 15:26
  Sean: Yeah, it's I mean The Clash, uh, you know, the Pete Townsend got who did Mirror English Beat, who did Mirror in the Bathroom.
• 15:33
  Hollie: Right.
• 15:34
  Sean: Yeah, Nena, 99 Luftballons.
• 15:36
  Hollie: Yeah, but they also play the the guy.
• 15:40
  Hollie: I'm not gonna remember from the at the reunion when they're dancing.
• 15:43
  Hollie: What's that song they play?
• 15:44
  Hollie: When he sees the baby?
• 15:46
  Sean: Oh yeah, I can't remember either.
• 15:49
  Sean: I can't remember what the name was.
• 15:50
  Sean: Yeah, that's actually just a great oh well one is Under Pressure...
• 15:53
  Hollie: Right.
• 15:53
  Sean: So yeah, he does play under pressure by Queen and David Bowie.
• 15:56
  Sean: Yeah, so who I mean, whoever I mean, well, I I noticed that, and I never noticed it before, probably because sometimes I don't pay attention to the credits, but the opening credits said that the music was done, not not the obviously not the you know every song was done, but it's that music was done by Joe Strummer, who was with The Clash and The Pogues, which is I never knew that.
• 16:16
  Sean: I mean, that was that was just kind of an odd thing to to see.
• 16:19
  Sean: So I mean like there were so there were a lot of uh really good people, really talented people involved in this film.
• 16:25
  Hollie: Yeah.
• 16:26
  Sean: And it is, I would I would honestly say that it is one of my it's one of my top films in the 90s.
• 16:34
  Sean: I it might even be in my top five because it's so...
• 16:37
  Hollie: Just of the 90s?
• 16:39
  Sean: Just of the 90s, right?
• 16:40
  Sean: Just of the 90s, yeah.
• 16:41
  Hollie: No, I don't know dates.
• 16:41
  Hollie: I could never do that.
• 16:42
  Sean: I know, yeah.
• 16:42
  Sean: This was this was 97.
• 16:46
  Hollie: I think it's definitely in my top 25 movies of all time. That I can just sit and watch.
• 16:47
  Sean: It's that good, and they don't show it enough.
• 16:49
  Sean: I I I never see it anywhere, which you know, again.
• 16:51
  Sean: So we'll do the you know, ask the question to you.
• 16:53
  Sean: Uh, you know, would you be glued to the set?
• 16:55
  Sean: Would you be doom scrolling and peeking at the screen, or would you be just changing the channel at this point?
• 17:00
  Sean: Yeah, when you if you saw Grosse Pointee Blank come on, which what would you choose?
• 17:04
  Hollie: Oh, I'd most likely stop whatever I'm doing and just watch it.
• 17:07
  Sean: I would be glued to the set.
• 17:08
  Hollie: But I do have one flaw in this movie, and I'm sure you're not gonna agree with me.
• 17:15
  Sean: Okay.
• 17:16
  Hollie: I do like how how it's like it's it's you know, it's him finding himself again, but at the same time, it's also that whole you can't go home again, because he actually does try to go to his house.
• 17:27
  Hollie: In his house, Jeremy Piven, the real estate agent, sold the property, and now it's a Quick Mart or something like that.
• 17:33
  Hollie: So he actually can't even go home to his home to his house.
• 17:36
  Hollie: And his mother, I think the whole idea of they didn't need to show us his mother.
• 17:43
  Hollie: I didn't like that.
• 17:43
  Hollie: I didn't like him going to see...
• 17:45
  Sean: No, I agree.
• 17:45
  Sean: It's it's a little awkward for the movie.
• 17:47
  Hollie: It doesn't fit in with everything else.
• 17:48
  Hollie: And then he talks later about he didn't have such a great childhood, which is I don't know, it almost like it it took a turn for like deep emotional thing for for and it didn't go there...
• 17:59
  Sean: It's almost like they wanted to go a little bit darker but then pulled back.
• 18:01
  Hollie: Yeah.
• 18:01
  Sean: For some which which was a good idea.
• 18:03
  Hollie: Yeah, but they never talked about his father.
• 18:06
  Hollie: They you knew he died because his mother's saying something about his father, and he's like, No, I'm Martin.
• 18:11
  Hollie: So you knew that the father either died or left, but I always got the impression he died.
• 18:15
  Sean: He did die because that's who he that's the grave he visited.
• 18:18
  Hollie: Oh, yeah, you're right.
• 18:19
  Hollie: Okay.
• 18:19
  Sean: Yeah, so he did die, but...
• 18:21
  Hollie: ...but it was a very like like that whole part of the movie is the only part I really don't like because it shows this side of Martin, like, you know, we didn't need to know he didn't have a great childhood and then he became a hitman.
• 18:33
  Hollie: We didn't, I didn't need to know that he didn't have a very good relationship with his father because you really I got the sense that in that scene he didn't like his father.
• 18:41
  Sean: That's I got that sense too.
• 18:42
  Sean: Yeah, and I you know...
• 18:44
  Hollie: It's just out of place.
• 18:45
  Hollie: It just didn't need to be there.
• 18:46
  Sean: Right, it is it is a little awkward.
• 18:47
  Sean: Yeah, if that yeah, if there's one I agree with you, no, I see you thought I wouldn't, but I do.
• 18:51
  Hollie: See, I didn't think you would.
• 18:51
  Sean: Yeah, I always I always think that that was that's just very...
• 18:53
  Hollie: We never talked about that.
• 18:54
  Sean: No, we didn't, and that's why...
• 18:55
  Hollie: I kept it!
• 18:55
  Sean: Because like I said, it is a it's a very odd choice for them to do because I noticed that too, and and like one of the things I was thinking about, you know, he obviously had it was we talked about the relationship with his parents weren't maybe great.
• 19:07
  Sean: I don't know.
• 19:07
  Hollie: Yeah, they weren't he wasn't close with his parents at all.
• 19:10
  Sean: Yeah, it was complicated, definitely not healthy.
• 19:11
  Hollie: No.
• 19:12
  Sean: But I mean it is brief enough just to let you know maybe this is why Martin was all screwed up.
• 19:17
  Hollie: Right...
• 19:17
  Sean: Maybe it is that relationship...
• 19:19
  Hollie: ...but I didn't care to know why he was all screwed up.
• 19:20
  Sean: Right.
• 19:21
  Hollie: Like I liked his his his reason, you know.
• 19:24
  Hollie: I didn't know what to do, so I just joined the army.
• 19:26
  Hollie: They gave me a test and found out I had a certain, I forget what he calls it...that he...
• 19:30
  Sean: Like a dispensation to be a killer.
• 19:30
  Hollie: ...that he was able to kill and not care that much about it.
• 19:34
  Hollie: So they trained him to be a hitman.
• 19:36
  Hollie: I was fine with that being all we needed to know of Martin.
• 19:39
  Hollie: I didn't need to know that he had a shitty childhood.
• 19:44
  Sean: Yeah, absolutely.
• 19:45
  Sean: I mean, like I said, I agree with you.
• 19:46
  Sean: That seems it's just out of place.
• 19:48
  Hollie: It's almost too predictable.
• 19:49
  Hollie: It's almost like, yeah, every serial killer, every hitman, you know, had a bad childhood, was abused, whatever.
• 19:54
  Hollie: And it was just too predictable and too it it almost like they they did that extra just to put it in so people would like Martin because he didn't have good parents.
• 20:02
  Hollie: I liked Martin...
• 20:04
  Sean: Well, right, Cusack makes Martin like able.
• 20:06
  Hollie: Right.
• 20:06
  Sean: It's the actor...
• 20:07
  Hollie: The actor, right.
• 20:07
  Sean: ...that makes him...
• 20:08
  Hollie: Nobody else could have played that role where you actually love the hit man, like you really like him as a person, like he's just funny and he's a good person, and he really believes he's not doing anything bad.
• 20:19
  Sean: He does.
• 20:20
  Hollie: I mean, yeah, so I just that part's the only part of the movie I didn't like.
• 20:24
  Sean: No, I yeah, I completely agree with you there.
• 20:26
  Sean: But he is he I thought about this too.
• 20:28
  Sean: He, if I think of all the movie characters I've ever seen, and you could pick a couple that you'd want to interview, just the character, not John Cusack, the actor...
• 20:38
  Hollie: But Martin Blank.
• 20:40
  Sean: Martin Blank. I I would love to speak to Martin Blank.
• 20:41
  Sean: I think he'd be an interesting person to talk to.
• 20:43
  Sean: Hopefully, not before he killed me, hopefully it was after his, you know, maybe his little crisis of faith that he had.
• 20:50
  Sean: But not to say he's not gonna do anything again.
• 20:52
  Sean: We don't know, we almost don't know where it's headed when the film ends, it's..
• 20:55
  Hollie: See, I got the feeling that he he's back with the the love of his life, and she grounds him, she keeps him...
• 21:04
  Sean: That's I mean, that's a feeling I got too, but you know...
• 21:06
  Hollie: ...and I...
• 21:07
  Sean: ...who knows?
• 21:08
  Hollie: ...that they're gonna they're gonna go off and just live this crazy happy life.
• 21:11
  Sean: That yeah, that I mean that that could be the case.
• 21:13
  Sean: That really, you know, that definitely could be the case, and you hope so because for his character, because you like him and I like those two together.
• 21:19
  Sean: Like I said, they they had just fantastic chemistry.
• 21:22
  Sean: Let's see, was there anything else you could think of that of the film?
• 21:30
  Sean: Like I said, uh when Chad and I used to talk about it, you know, if he would call me or something, or or I'd walk in and see him maybe out at the bar.
• 21:37
  Sean: You know, the one line is when Martin gets a telephone call and it's from Grocer, who is uh Dan Aykroyd.
• 21:45
  Sean: And he goes, "Martin, where are you?" And Martin says, "I'm in Budapest".
• 21:51
  Sean: And Dan Aykroyd's character, he's just pulling up right next to him.
• 21:54
  Sean: He knows where he is.
• 21:54
  Hollie: Right.
• 21:55
  Sean: You know, and he's like, "Oh, there I see you in the banks of the Danube kid".
• 21:57
  Sean: Yeah, we used to we used to use those kind of lines.
• 21:59
  Sean: to to get back and forth because he knew that he knew what I was talking about.
• 22:03
  Sean: You know, like I said, so few people have seen Grosse Pointee Blank that they would know how to respond to that.
• 22:09
  Hollie: Right.
• 22:09
  Hollie: Yeah.
• 22:10
  Hollie: There's there's a lot of the poetry line we we say a lot to each other.
• 22:14
  Sean: Right.
• 22:14
  Sean: When he has for a while.
• 22:16
  Sean: For a while.
• 22:16
  Sean: And when you see the movie, you'll know what you're talking, but it's it's a great line.
• 22:20
  Hollie: Oh and don't don't be too quick to judge.
• 22:23
  Sean: Don't rush to judgment before all the facts are in it.
• 22:26
  Hollie: We talked about this when we watched it and this one I never put eyes really paid attention to Jeremy Piven, you got the a sense that they were good friends growing up, but maybe not best friends, but really good friends.
• 22:38
  Hollie: And then at the reunion Jeremy Piven helps him with something that you just don't do for someone you haven't seen in 10 years.
• 22:46
  Hollie: But he just goes along with it and does it and you're like oh my god you haven't seen him and you're helping him do this.
• 22:52
  Hollie: And this and he was so nonchalant about it but he he goes I just love that scene where they go back into the reunion and they're all bloody and messed up and they're just like you know...
• 23:02
  Sean: Right and it's...
• 23:03
  Hollie: ...what's going on?
• 23:04
  Sean: Yeah but he he never directly asks him because at that moment he believes him...
• 23:08
  Hollie: Right.
• 23:09
  Sean: ...at that moment he believes what Martin does and like I said not you know they didn't they they didn't first he's kidding around but yeah at that point is a well yeah now I I kind of see that he was not lying to me that yeah he is he's absolutely what he says he is.
• 23:22
  Hollie: And if anyone out there who knows this movie and you happen to listen to this podcast and you know what Minnie Driver is saying when he gives her the airplane please let me know because I looked it up and I cannot find it.
• 23:34
  Hollie: It it's definitely another language...
• 23:36
  Sean: It almost sounds like French or German something like I couldn't really make it out.
• 23:39
  Hollie: She says something and I keep looking it up and I can't find it and it's that is one of the cutest scenes too I think in the whole movie.
• 23:45
  Hollie: It's very sweet and endearing and you see their...
• 23:48
  Sean: It shows their history.
• 23:49
  Hollie: Right you see the high school young love there in that scene and he puts Minnie Driver on his he lays on his back puts Minnie Driver on his like on his feet like her belly on his feet and he lifts her up in the air and she pretends she's an airplane.
• 24:02
  Sean: Right.
• 24:02
  Hollie: And he she won't let she won't say answer him until he does that for her.
• 24:06
  Hollie: It was just so cute.
• 24:07
  Hollie: And she's when she's up there flying she says something and it's just his I just want to know what that is.
• 24:12
  Hollie: It's very annoying.
• 24:13
  Sean: And it's those little things too that that make the movie you know that make it's almost like a personal touch that someone had to have maybe done that or at some point in their lives because that's something just conjure is difficult to conjure out of thin air.
• 24:26
  Hollie: Right.
• 24:26
  Sean: You know something like that.
• 24:27
  Sean: So that's that you usually that good stuff comes from personal experience.
• 24:30
  Sean: Whether it's yours or somebody else's...
• 24:32
  Hollie: Right.
• 24:32
  Sean: ...it's always nice to throw into because if somebody else isn't going to use it for a story you might as well be in there.
• 24:37
  Sean: But yeah I think like I said that this is a fantastic movie.
• 24:42
  Sean: Find it wherever you can it usually you'll find a streaming service sometimes you have to pay for I just say buy it because it's that good of a movie.
• 24:48
  Sean: You know you you'll want to watch it again and again and sadly I hadn't watched it for a while but I said well this is the perfect one you know other than like I said the other ones are Anchorman and Wedding Crashers but this one was special because so few people know about it.
• 25:02
  Sean: Well at least can quote it back and forth and and appreciate it for what it is.
• 25:07
  Sean: But I'm glad you do.
• 25:08
  Hollie: So yes very much so good.
• 25:10
  Sean: All right well is there anything else that you would like to discuss about the film that I haven't thought of or that you you know that you you've come up with?
• 25:18
  Hollie: No I I think the movie it's just a good story and it ends with a very it has a positive happy ending there's just a lot of cute in it at the same time being a black comedy.
• 25:29
  Hollie: Like it it kind of has everything.
• 25:31
  Sean: It's got heart.
• 25:31
  Hollie: It's a...
• 25:32
  Sean: It's it's endearing it..
• 25:33
  Hollie: It's got heart.
• 25:33
  Sean: ...it really is so it's got you miles and miles of heart miles and...
• 25:35
  Hollie: Miles of heart.
• 25:36
  Sean: Okay.
• 25:36
  Sean: All right well hopefully we're definitely gonna have you back again because obviously you were here for the last one we thought it might be some time before we did it again but yeah fortunately again fate has brought us uh not us together but for this reason and which is unfortunate...
• 25:51
  Hollie: I'm gonna start charging you for my...
• 25:52
  Sean: ...for your services?
• 25:53
  Sean: Sure yes I mean as soon as it starts reeling in some cash I'll be more than happy to fork it over yeah so we'll do a come come back and do another movie we'll just have to find one something right again this was more recent than the last one so it was more recent than The King of Comedy...
• 26:05
  Hollie: Right definitely.
• 26:06
  Sean: ...which we may do something even more recent next time around.
• 26:09
  Hollie: Yeah something newer maybe.
• 26:11
  Sean: Correct.
• 26:11
  Sean: That's all I have for today so as always thank you for listening if you liked it make sure you hit that subscribe button so you're the first to know when new episodes become available on your favorite podcast platform.
• 26:22
  Sean: For Scenes From the Screen, I'm Sean and until next time don't let your screen go dark