Latest / The Next Reel Film Podcast / Wag the Dog

Transcript

Wag the Dog · The Next Reel Film Podcast

• *This transcript is produced using transcription software and reviewed for quality. Despite our best efforts, some passages may be incomplete or contain errors due to audio quality or software limitations.* Pete Wright: I'm Pete Wright. Andy Nelson: And I'm Andy Nelson. Pete Wright: Welcome to The Next Reel. When the movie ends... Andy Nelson: Our conversation begins. Pete Wright: Wag the Dog is over. "War is show business. That's why we're here." All right. Wag the Dog. Andy Nelson: Wag the Dog, Barry Levinson, nineteen ninety-seven, yeah. Pete Wright: It's a different experience watching this after Bob Roberts, don't you think? Did you set me up for this kind of existential crisis in my movie watching? Andy Nelson: I don't think I did, but it was interesting. I thought so as well, because in Bob Roberts, we're really kind of following the politician around and we're kind of seeing what he's doing. We're getting a sense of the kind of message he has. And there is scheming going on, but it's behind the scenes. We're not following that. We're following the politician and his sales pitch, and we're seeing all of that. Wag the Dog is interesting because this one kind of pulls the curtain back and now we're following the machine behind the politician. We're not even following someone like Alan Rickman. We're following all the people that are way deeper than Alan Rickman, right? We're deep inside the machine. People we never would see in Bob Roberts. These are people who are working to protect not just their own jobs, but really their whole thing is to protect the candidate at any cost. And in this case, the president is running for re-election. And they are trying to ensure that the president wins that election. They've got 11 days and they need to bump his numbers up and keep it high so that he wins the election. In this case, we find out that these people are willing to fake a war, even kill people in order to get the job done. I think in both cases we are seeing how the media latches on to these messages, right? How the media follows what the story is, because it's juicy, it's interesting. As we saw back in our last series, Platformed Lives, with Nightcrawler—the bloody image of the person dying on the sidewalk, that sells, right? The politician having an affair with a little girl, that sells. In Bob Roberts, even though, as the politician says, that's my granddaughter's friend. She's sitting in the back seat, but they purposefully cropped the photo to cut that out. Here, nobody is doing any investigative journalism to actually follow what's going on in Albania. Going to Albania and talking to Albanians, going to the front. They're just buying into everything that is being told to them. And I think that's that's what we're seeing here with the machine now and how that really operates and how frightening it can be. Pete Wright: Yeah, it is. And I don't know, you talk about first principles—the whole movie hinges on this human frailty, right? A very human instinct for protection. The first instinct is not confession. It's not investigation. It's not resignation on the part of the president or anything else that might qualify as a feeble consequence to his actual behavior—the first instinct is to replace the truth. And everybody does it. Everybody says, yes, this is what we do. We take the real thing that actually happened, and we replace it. We're gonna stop talking about the real thing that happened. We're not gonna investigate that further because we have to replace it. And that's—I mean, you replace the president with an honest man and you don't have a movie anymore. Andy Nelson: Yeah, right. Pete Wright: It's like there's nothing left. There's nothing left. The entire industry of damage control is a blight that is on parade in this movie. Andy Nelson: Yeah, I mean this—unlike the last film where Bob Roberts' team kind of creates this fake drama around his opponent and this girl sitting in the front seat of his car, and creates a story out of it—in this particular case we have the president who took, not a Girl Scout, but something similar to a Girl Scout when they were on tour at the White House. Took one of them into a room just by herself for like they were gone for three minutes and now she's come out and saying—I don't know, we never really hear about it—did the president touch her? What happened? We don't know, but it's concerning enough that the president was alone with a young girl. And now people are talking about it. And now, exactly what you just said, that's the news, and this team is here to replace it. What is big enough of a story that we can manufacture to cover up the fact that the president was with a young girl? Pete Wright: Yes Andy Nelson: It's disturbing. It's disturbing. And all the more disturbing today. I mean, this came out at an interesting time, right? Like this movie came out right before everything broke with Clinton and Monica Lewinsky. Pete Wright: It does read like Clinton saw this movie and was like, I could do that. Andy Nelson: Yeah. No, it's not good. It really isn't good. And then, of course, right afterward, there's the bombing of the Al-Shiva pharmaceutical factory in Sudan. So the media very much drew comparisons between what was going on in the Clinton camp and this particular film. And then, of course, they started a bombing campaign of Iraq during his impeachment trial, and so it was just this constant barrage of things that they were doing, and yeah, it was interesting. It came out at an interesting time. And then you look at today—we have the Epstein Files, which has been a big story in the news, and again, it's the exact same thing that went on with Clinton, that goes on in this film, and happened with not just the president, but many people. And then all of these other things keep being created as distractions, including now a war, right? Pete Wright: Yeah, right. And so much of this is built on a foundation of events like Watergate—where you just get the feeling that the perpetrators are like, what if we did this better? What if we did Watergate better? I'll bet we could actually protect the president to the point where he wouldn't have to resign. As much as we have a foundation of government by the people, for the people, we also have a foundation of duplicity and secrets and damage control. And that, I think, is where this movie exists. So watching this movie was an interesting experience. Because I didn't get the feeling like I had with Bob Roberts that it was predictive, right? It's observational. And it does illuminate the fact that things haven't really changed, right? It was very much a history-will-teach-us-nothing kind of experience. But I didn't find myself getting more depressed by where we are today. It was more like, okay, well, Barry Levinson and David Mamet, they called their shot, and it was an easy shot to call because we were already living in an era where damage control was becoming a thing of great import, and we still live in that kind of an era. And so, on that, I'll say it was refreshing. And I was able to pay more attention to the performances, and I really like the performances, right? De Niro and Heche and Hoffman are so much fun together to watch in this thing, that I was able to get a little bit lost in it, and I take that as a good sign. Andy Nelson: I think that the performances are really what make this film. I do enjoy the dialogue. If there's anything that I struggled with more with this film, it was actually the fact that the war gets faked. I found so much more to struggle with in this film with all of the machinations that they were actually performing to kind of create all of this. And just thinking realistically about every single person that De Niro and Heche and their camp are going to have to sign these—essentially, non-disclosure agreements with a death threat at the other end. It's not that we're just gonna sue you. It's basically like you're done. You're—we're killing you—if Kirsten Dunst ever tells anyone that she was this girl. Which again, it—I struggle with that because she's an actress working in Hollywood, and I know she's just getting her start, but at some point, people are going to notice that there's a similarity between her and this girl running through the bombed-out streets in Albania with a kitten. Pete Wright: Yeah, they're gonna see her on a Kleenex ad next and it's gonna be or maybe Tostitos, right? Andy Nelson: Yeah. Right, exactly. Pete Wright: [crosstalk] Andy Nelson: And so then that becomes my problem. And I think it's interesting because the original book that this was based on, Larry Beinhart's American Hero, speculated that Operation Desert Storm was scripted and choreographed just to get Bush Sr. re-elected for his second term. That's a real war. Again, with Clinton, there were real actions that the Clinton camp took in order to—well, we don't know, but let's just say, cover up, or push the Lewinsky scandal aside. Same thing with right now. My biggest struggle with the film is the fact that they are trying to fake all of this, as opposed to just saying, who can we bomb? Let's just get something going. They've been pissing us off lately. We're going to start a real thing in order to actually get the story of the president and the young girl out of the news. Pete Wright: Do you think, though, that becomes less satire? Part of the satire for me is the fact that they think it's going to be okay to fake the Albanian war. That's what, to me, is what's funny—that these people think it's possible to completely bamboozle the public with a fake war, and that they think they have the control and the authority. And then, what's the hat on a hat? It's that it works to a great degree, that they are able to do it with a fake war. That's the funny part for me. If it was a real war, it would be sad. It would be deeply dissociating. Andy Nelson: Well, and perhaps, and you know, this is interesting, perhaps that would end up being more in the Bob Roberts camp for you, where you'd watch it and go, it's so much more depressing now. Pete Wright: Yes. Andy Nelson: As opposed to now you're going, okay, it's really funny. And to your point, I agree—one of the things that makes the movie work for me so well is Dustin Hoffman's character, this Robert Evans-esque Hollywood producer who is brought in to essentially create this war. He's the one who's putting together all the footage of Kirsten Dunst running through the rubble and getting Willie Nelson to write all of these anthemic songs that are going to inspire the public—very “We Are the World” types of things, you know, Old Shoe and all these sorts of things. And that's the producer side of it—I think that's what makes it more fun. And I think that's where I sit. I struggle because I'm on a line. I struggle with how they're faking all of this and the fact that everybody just buys into it and nobody's questioning any of it. The satire is pushing to a point where I suddenly stop believing it, but I like the other side of it so much. And that's the line I'm on. Pete Wright: Well, and I think we have a similar line portrayed differently. When the movie stops working for me is when they reveal Schumann. The reveal of Woody Harrelson coming on this plane after having all the build-up in the world, right? He shows up and he is playing a character who is clearly ill, right? Andy Nelson: Mentally ill Pete Wright: Mentally ill, and he's incarcerated, and he becomes a vector of lampoon for the movie. We're making fun of him because their plan is falling apart. I think it breaks the natural parallelism that has been building in the film and the intensity of the parallelism. It starts with the fact that we never meet the president. We never actually see the president. And for me, what works about the Old Shoe line is that they're able to build so much intensity without ever meeting Old Shoe. I think that parallel is the movie—that's where it exists, that they're able to manufacture a hero that we never see. That would have been fantastic, but instead we get a character that is being played as a joke. He ends up attempting to rape a woman at a gas station and being shot by the woman's husband. They make that a joke. And then we have the incredible hard U-turn on behalf of Motss in the very last five yards of this movie, where he decides he wants credit and has to be taken away and killed. I think that is a horrible decision for the movie. The better decision for his character is to have him say, this is the greatest thing I ever did, and I am more proud of this than anything I've ever done, even though I don't get credit, because that pride is built on a house of crap. That's the satire. That's the joke—that he is proud of something that's so fake. And that he wants credit for it breaks that joke. It breaks his lunacy, and it makes me so sort of mad at the end of the movie that they take what was so good, and from the point we meet Woody Harrelson, they just crap it all over the runway. Andy Nelson: It's interesting. I like that Motss just goes forward with the decision, but I actually agree with your point quite a bit now that you voiced it. And I think that you're right. And I think that is one of the elements that hurts the film. It's tricky, and it's a tricky line, because there's a lot of rewriting that would have to be done. I think it's genuinely hilarious—I don't think he would have asked for credit had it not been for the producers of those crappy commercials, the Why Change Horses Mid-Race commercials that we've been seeing throughout the film, that are terrible, and those producers who produce those commercials are essentially taking all the credit for the president's victory. I think that's hilarious that they are doing that. I think that cracks me up that they're doing that. And I can absolutely see why Motss is so infuriated—that's the thing that pushes him over the line. He's not going to let those terrible C-level commercial producers take the victory for themselves. He wants that Oscar, essentially, right? And so I really like the way that plays in the film. To your point, though, I actually think your version of it makes a stronger film. It would have possibly needed to remove those two producers kind of taking the credit, but I do think that your point makes a lot of sense. Pete Wright: I think going back to Motss's house at the end, and maybe there's an upgrade, like maybe there's a helicopter pad there now or something where he gets to be a real peacock about the fact that he knows and his team knows what he did, and it doesn't matter what those guys think, because he made the substantive contribution, and instead he was erased. And that erased the joke. That erased the joke. Andy Nelson: Here's a question for you. Based on how De Niro's character operates, and how the government would operate—again, on such a massive scale of getting so many people involved—Pete Wright: So many people. Andy Nelson: Sound mixers, camera people, makeup people, costume people, production design—it's a full film production of all these people doing all of this work. Willie Nelson, all of these singers, everybody who are kind of putting all this together—maybe you can buy into the fact that they don't know that it's all being faked. That side, maybe you can buy into. But certainly the production people who are involved in shooting the stuff with Kirsten Dunst—do you think, in the scope of all of this, say for example that Motss at the end is like, yeah, I'm gonna stay quiet? Kind of to your point—and then ended up dead anyway. We still had that final scene where he ended up dead, letting us know that De Niro's character was not gonna let anybody actually off. And there's probably a story about some young actress who also is found dead in a ditch after a car crash. Would that have played better for you? Pete Wright: I don't think so. I don't think so. Andy Nelson: You like them all alive. Pete Wright: And I like them all alive. I like them all alive because I think the sort of lesson of the movie for me is that all of this fraud—that the worst people are taking credit and pride from all of this crazy fraud. And that's the funny part. That's the satire of it. Anything else becomes too self-aware. And the one thing that I felt like this movie had a huge opportunity to address, even with a couple of lines of dialogue—It just seems like a massive miss—the fact that there will always be people spreading rumors. There will always be an editor who, you know, cut together this Albanian footage who says, yeah, that was faked. Somebody's gonna believe it, and then there's gonna be somebody who says, yeah, just like they faked the moon landing. To sow disbelief in the process as they were doing it, or shortly thereafter, is again central to a movie like this that I felt was missing. Andy Nelson: Especially because they've built it in, right? They actually have him talking about how that's how he fuels these ideas—he's like, “I don't know anything about the B3 bomber.” Pete Wright: Yeah, right, exactly. Andy Nelson: “What B3 bomber?” That's exactly the whole thing that he keeps doing, over and over again. Pete Wright: Exactly. Andy Nelson: And that's the sort of thing that you're talking about. Pete Wright: That's the setup to the joke. Andy Nelson: Like that—like Kirsten Dunst saying, “Oh, that was me.” Pete Wright: Yeah Andy Nelson: These actors just want to be everywhere. Pete Wright: Exactly. So was the moon landing. We need the punchline—is the public somehow believing it? The public is the punchline of the joke. And we never get that reversal, which feels like a miss. Less of a miss than the entire third act of the movie, which falls apart for me. Andy Nelson: Oh my goodness. All right, we're gonna take a quick break, but first, you can find the show on YouTube, and you can join us live when we record. We will even take your questions in the post-show chit-chat, and members get the full post-show conversation and always know what to listen to next. Subscribe to The Next Reel on YouTube. The link to this episode is in the show notes. We'll be right back. Pete Wright: The cast—we've obviously talked about De Niro and Hoffman. They're fantastic. I think they're fantastic. They actually work very well for me. Andy Nelson: Oh, I think they are spot-on perfect in their roles. And I think it speaks to the fact that De Niro—this was a project that he was behind and produced with Barry Levinson and Jane Rosenthal. He was really pushing to get this project made. I think that speaks to his desire to tell this story. And I think that he works well in the quieter role, right? He's not as big and bombastic as Dustin Hoffman, who is just so good. He said he took a lot of cues from his own father and from Robert Evans, to the point where Robert Evans reportedly said, “I was great in that movie”—good old Robert Evans. No surprise that was his reaction. Pete Wright: That's outstanding. Andy Nelson: Yeah. Pete Wright: I think you add to that the Anne Heche of it all, and it makes a lovely little trio. I think these folks together work very well. I think the, you know, Winifred Ames—first of all, what a great name for a presidential advisor. And she's always either just maybe a half step ahead, or two or three steps behind. She's never quite present. I love Denis Leary in this movie. I love Denis Leary in this movie. I really do. I think he is great. They call him the Fad King, as the trend consultant. And he's great, and he wears this weird trench coat, and he's kind of out of a goth Sergeant Pepper. I think he's wonderful. And Andrea Martin—I don't know that we get enough Andrea Martin. I think she's always just sort of in the sidelines trying to solve some copy line, but she's wonderful. And of course, Willie Nelson as Johnny Dean, the songwriter, who just wants to go get high. Andy Nelson: Pretty much. Yeah, pretty much. And you know what I really enjoyed? Going back to the original trio real quick—Hoffman, De Niro, and Heche. I think they really play well on the David Mamet dialogue. I think there are points where there's some great overlapping dialogue between the three of them. And they really get into that flow, which can be hard as an actor or just a person, because we've talked about a lot of David Mamet on the show. And there are some actors who really seem to click with it, and some actors who seem to kind of struggle with the way that Mamet's lines flow and everything. And I think those three worked really well. Although it's funny, because William H. Macy, who plays the CIA agent in the film, he's got a scene where they pull over De Niro and Heche. And they take them into a diner to have this conversation with them about, hey, we know that this is all faked, and all this sort of stuff. William H. Macy said that Robert De Niro did not have his lines down, that he had it kind of loose, and was just spitballing and ad-libbing stuff. And William H. Macy, who again we've talked about because he's been in a number of David Mamet movies, and is one of the core people who seems to have really tapped into Mamet and all of his work—he said it was frustrating for him as somebody who's worked with Mamet, because he said the Mamet dialogue was so much better than all the little random ad-libs that De Niro's doing. Pete Wright: Love that. Andy Nelson: Yeah, I thought that was pretty funny. Pete Wright: Yeah, that's really good. And it makes me want to just reverse a little bit of my fondness of Robert De Niro as somebody who can deliver Mamet if he's not delivering Mamet. And still, I think you're right—I don't think anybody in here stumbles over Mamet. And it makes me wonder if Mamet was softening the dialogue a little bit. As one of the sort of extreme auteur dialoguists working in Hollywood, this movie felt softer to me in his approach. Andy Nelson: I wonder, because initially it was Hilary Henkin who adapted Larry Beinhart's novel into this script. Once Levinson was attached to direct the film, he brought on Mamet to rewrite her script, because he'd worked with him before, and he told the studio he wanted Mamet to have sole credit. Of course, this is what happens—the Writers Guild gets involved, and they go through the whole script, and they said, nope, Hilary Henkin's script—there's enough of the original screenplay that's still in there that she should have first position credit. Mamet can have second position credit. And, you know, her screenplay structure—a lot of the story and dialogue came from her. And Levinson actually threatened to quit the Writers Guild. He didn't end up doing that, because he said Mamet wrote all of the dialogue, and so it was quite a debacle. And he said he created the characters of Motss and Old Shoe, and originated most of the scenes set in Hollywood and everything in Nashville. And so he was very frustrated with the fact that Mamet wasn't getting sole credit. So I don't know—I've not seen any of the versions. I am curious, though, based on what you just said, if some of that is because of Hilary Henkin's work on this, and some of the stuff that you might find not as strong, or a little softer, could have come from her instead of Mamet. Pete Wright: That does make sense. It does make sense. And saying that as an unabashed fan of David Mamet's dialogue—I really love David Mamet's dialogue—I feel like I can see the fingerprint, and it's here in this movie for sure. But it does seem softer, and it felt to me like actor-friendly. But maybe it's just him, you know, leaning on Hilary's work. Andy Nelson: Yeah. Or it could be Robert De Niro ad libbing it. Pete Wright: It could be Robert De Niro just making it up. Andy Nelson: That's right. Pete Wright: Yeah. Going on vibes. Andy Nelson: All of these things could be true. Absolutely. Pete Wright: The Levinson part Andy Nelson: Yeah, good old Barry Levinson. Pete Wright: So Levinson is one of the fantastic comedy writers, performers working with Tim Conway and Carol Burnett and Mel Brooks, and now he turns to major studio American film—Diner, Avalon, The Natural, and Good Morning, Vietnam. And this—how does this fit with some of those principal Levinson pieces? When you look at Rain Man and Bugsy, how does this fit? Andy Nelson: Levinson seems to be a person who's interested in character, and the way that the characters interact and unfold and affect each other over the course of the story. And I think that's what we're largely getting here. And I think that was his draw, with how this story is going to be told, particularly with Brean—how Brean makes these big decisions in order to kind of create these stories and get the president re-elected—working with Ames, and then bringing Motss into the fold, and the way that these characters interact to create this big show. Yet always with the subterfuge of this has to be a secret. Nothing here can ever be revealed to anybody. And I think that's, for me, what makes it interesting. And I think that's probably where Barry Levinson works the strongest. I really enjoy his character work. I mean, looking at some of those films you mentioned, like Diner and Rain Man, I mean, he is a director who understands actors and how they work together. And so I think that's the real strength of the story. Pete Wright: Every word that you just said, I agree with, and I would also say, for the 1999 pilot of The West Wing from Aaron Sorkin—this movie comes out in 1997, I cannot disassociate the two properties. The West Wing feels very much like a studio—NBC, in this case—saying, hey, we could capitalize on the Levinson-ness, and maybe we can find that with Sorkin. And this is our small-screen answer to Wag the Dog. Does that seem like a real fever dream? Andy Nelson: I think that's a great pathway to kind of look at that progression of how things went. You know, I think that fits. Yeah, because this is the thing that matters so much for Wag the Dog, and why it's different than some of the other sort of presidential stories that we have, is that it's a workplace-like action drama, right? It's just—we're gonna put a lot of fast-talking people in a room together and roll a bunch of cameras and see what we capture. Levinson's ability to capture rhythm of people on screen together is really good, and to have Heche and De Niro and Motss all solving problems together in real time, and Hoffman's constant optimism and his refrain—he has this beautiful refrain, which is, “You think this is a problem? This isn't a problem. You should have seen it when we had XYZ.” Yeah, because this is the thing that matters so much for Wag the Dog and why it's why it's different than some of the other sort of presidential stories that we have is that it's a workplace like action drama, right? It's just Like we're gonna put a lot of fast talking people in a room together and roll a bunch of cameras and see what we capture. Like Levinson's ability to capture rhythm of people on screen together is really good and to have Heche and De Niro and Motss all solving problems together in real time, and Hoffman's constant optimism and his refrain. He has this beautiful refrain, which is, you think this is a problem? This isn't a problem. You should have seen it when we had XYZ. “That was a problem. This we can solve. We can solve anything”—because he's a producer. Those kinds of sequences work so well in this movie. And I think that's one of the huge highlights, one of the gifts, of Levinson. Just going lean and making this a workplace thing. And we're gonna see how normal people go to work, and yes, they're gonna have to hang up their ethical backpacks at the door, because they've already made the decision that the job means sacrificing that. That's okay—now let's have him solve problems. I love it. That part I love. Andy Nelson: Yeah. What's funny is Barry Levinson was making Sphere with Dustin Hoffman, and there was a break that they needed midway through, and this is the film that they decided to get done in that break. Just like Robert Zemeckis, when he was shooting Cast Away and he had the period of time where he was like, “Okay, now Tom, you need to go lose a whole bunch of weight. We're gonna come back and film the rest of the movie once you're done”—and he goes and shoots What Lies Beneath. Pete Wright: Yeah. Andy Nelson: And so I love these stories of these directors who are just like, okay, you know what, let's get another project done. So they shot this in 29 days. They busted it out and made it happen. But it was interesting, because Levinson isn't somebody who I normally think of with some snap zooms, and the camera work was a little looser in this. It's not exactly documentary-style, but there was a vibe to it that definitely had a different feel from kind of what I typically picture as Levinson, you know? It was kind of a little looser, and a little, I don't know, edgy. Not really edgy, but there's a tone to it, you know? Pete Wright: Yeah. Well, and that's why I go back to The West Wing, because so much of what The West Wing's visual vernacular, visual language, is—is exactly this. It is not Levinson. It's almost like Sorkin saw this show or this movie and was like, wait, why is he speaking my natural language? I do this. This is what I know how to do. And took it to TV. Because you brought up Sphere, I have to say—if you haven't listened to Make Me a Nerd, the episode just came out a week or two ago, Kynan Dias from The Devil's Details, Every Minute of Everything Everywhere All at Once, and Sitting in the Dark with me and the others on TruStory Network. Joined Mandy Kaplan for, I think, a visceral defense of Sphere on Make Me a Nerd. Andy Nelson: Yeah. Pete Wright: It is a fascinating journey with somebody who likes that property a lot. And I just need it out there. Andy Nelson: The film, not the book, or both. Pete Wright: Well, celebrating both and recognizes the shortcomings of the film, but is a vocal Andy Nelson: Okay, interesting. Pete Wright: Defense of the property. And I bring that up because it might be interesting to somebody who listens to this particular show. Andy Nelson: I didn't think anybody Pete Wright: I don't—let me tell you, if you've never seen Sphere, it doesn't matter. Go listen, you'll enjoy this conversation better. Andy Nelson: You don't need to watch the movie. In fact, just don't watch the movie. Pete Wright: Yeah, yep. Andy Nelson: Oh my god. Yeah. Dustin Hoffman has worked with Barry Levinson how many times, off the top of your head—do you know? Pete Wright: Four Andy Nelson: Can you name the projects? Pete Wright: No. I've got two. Rain Man, right? Andy Nelson: Rain Man, yeah. And—Pete Wright: So I've got three then. Wait, was Hoffman in Sleepers? So there's four. That's where I've just run out without looking at a list. What else do you have? Andy Nelson: Let's see. Sphere, Sleepers, Rain Man, this, Tootsie—which he didn't direct. Pete Wright: Andy Andy Nelson: He didn't direct. You would never have guessed that because he did uncredited script rewrites. So it kind of is a little bit of a cheat. Pete Wright: Okay. Andy Nelson: So I will say you did a good job otherwise. Pete Wright: That four was a lucky guess, because I did not have the movies—I just said the word. Sometimes my life is just saying things and hoping for the best. Andy Nelson: Now here's a challenge for you. How many movies have Dustin Hoffman and Robert De Niro been in together? Pete Wright: Wait, this seems like such a trick question. Andy Nelson: It's not, it really isn't. Pete Wright: How many? I don't want to break my one-answer streak by screwing this one up. Andy Nelson: Okay, I'm gonna tell you, but then you're gonna have to see if you can guess the movies. Pete Wright: Okay. Andy Nelson: Four Pete Wright: Seriously Andy Nelson: Four movies together. Potentially five with an upcoming film. I'm not exactly sure if Dustin Hoffman's in it. But okay, so there's this one. You've already mentioned another one that Barry Levinson also directed. Pete Wright: Sleepers. Andy Nelson: Yeah, Robert De Niro also is in sleepers. Pete Wright: Of course. Okay, all right. Andy Nelson: I'll give you a clue. It's about meeting other family members. Pete Wright: It's a Fockers. Andy Nelson: It is, it is—Meet the Fockers and Little Fockers. Pete Wright: Those were the two. Andy Nelson: And that's why I said there's a new movie coming out. I don't know if Dustin Hoffman is gonna end up being in that one. Pete Wright: Yeah. Andy Nelson: I don't think he was in the trailer. Robert De Niro is, but anyway, so those are the four movies that they've been in together. Pete Wright: Wow. Andy Nelson: Yeah. Pete Wright: Yeah, no, I wasn't tracking. Andy Nelson: That's a tricky one to have remembered all of those, you know. Pete Wright: Yeah. Okay. Andy Nelson: But to that end, Pete, you're not on IMDb, are you? Because I was gonna do the IMDb game with you. Pete Wright: No, I'm not on IMDb. Andy Nelson: Okay, Dustin Hoffman—who, out of the four that IMDb says Dustin Hoffman is known for—Pete Wright: Dustin Hoffman's top four—is it Sphere? Is one of them Sphere? Andy Nelson: That would be awesome if Sphere was actually in there. Can you even imagine? Oh man, I'm not sure if you're not going to be able to do that. Pete Wright: Okay, so we have to think. You already mentioned Tootsie, I'm gonna give Tootsie. We mentioned Rain Man, but with regard to Levinson, I'm gonna say Rain Man. So there are two for sure. Andy Nelson: Okay. Pete Wright: I'm gonna say this Wag the Dog is not one of them. Andy Nelson: Okay. Pete Wright: Okay. How about—oh, The Graduate, Mrs. Robinson? Andy Nelson: Okay Pete Wright: I'm gonna say The Graduate. And what else, Andy? What else—he's been in like seven hundred movies. Andy Nelson: Yeah, he's a very busy, very busy actor—ninety-three projects that he's been in, with one upcoming. So yeah. Pete Wright: Is it Kung Fu Panda? Andy Nelson: That would be awesome. Okay, we're just gonna say that's what you're going with. You actually did good—three out of four: Tootsie, Rain Man, The Graduate. Pete Wright: Okay. Andy Nelson: It's another one from the 60s. Pete Wright: Everybody's talking about me. Andy Nelson: There you are, there you are. Pete Wright: I don't know what they're saying. Andy Nelson: Midnight Cowboy. Pete Wright: Yeah. Andy Nelson: Yes, there you go. Pete Wright: Yep. Andy Nelson: Those are his top four. That's a great set. That's a great set. Pete Wright: Yeah, that's a great set. Andy Nelson: Can you do De Niro? Pete Wright: Oh, God, man, De Niro. Andy Nelson: A hundred and twenty-three projects, one upcoming. Pete Wright: A hundred and twenty-three. Andy Nelson: Yeah. IMDb game with Robert De Niro. What does IMDb say are Robert De Niro's top four? Pete Wright: I'm gonna say Taxi Driver Andy Nelson: Probably a good one to pick, okay. Pete Wright: I'm gonna say—oh, he's done so many movies that I can only think of just a couple of them right now. Andy Nelson: Do you want me to give you some decades? Would that help? Pete Wright: Sure. Decades are good. Andy Nelson: Okay. 70s, 80s, 90s, and 2010s. Pete Wright: Twenty tens. Andy Nelson: 2010s, yeah. And I'll tell you, it's not a Meet the Fuckers with me. Pete Wright: Oh, God Is it—is it CG old-man De Niro kicking a guy? Andy Nelson: Yes. Pete Wright: It's the Irishman Andy Nelson: All four of them are Martin Scorsese films. Pete Wright: Oh. Well, that's easier. Andy Nelson: It's The Irishman, it's Taxi Driver, and then you're missing 80s and 90s. Pete Wright: What does that leave? Eighties? When was Raging Bull—the seventies? Andy Nelson: Nineteen eighty Pete Wright: So I'm gonna say Raging Bull. And 90s I'm kind of a blank on—do I have one more clue? Andy Nelson: It's a remake. And he's the villain. Pete Wright: It's a remake. Andy Nelson: Yeah. Pete Wright: Oh, he's the villain. Oh, Cape Fear. Andy Nelson: Yes, there you go. Pete Wright: That's on now as being remade with Javier. Andy Nelson: Yeah, the new re-remake. Pete Wright: Yeah, re-remake. Andy Nelson: Exactly. Yeah. So there it is. That's Robert De Niro. Cape Fear, Raging Bull, Taxi Driver, and The Irishman. Pete Wright: Okay, now then hold on. Don't you do anything. Andy Nelson: Okay. Pete Wright: Cause you're gonna do Anne Heche. Andy Nelson: Oh good God, okay. Pete Wright: Yeah, that's right. Andy Nelson: Jeez, I don't know if I know four Anne Heche projects. Pete Wright: Oh. Andy Nelson: All right. Pete Wright: Go for it Andy Nelson: Okay. Well, I'm going to say—I just don't think she's been in as many prominent projects. So I'm actually gonna say Wag the Dog is one of them. Pete Wright: She—let me just tell you this—she's got ninety-two previous credits, with one upcoming. Andy Nelson: Oh my goodness. Pete Wright: And this is the bit of trivia. Do you want one more clue? A date clue? Andy Nelson: Sure. Pete Wright: They're all from the 90s Andy Nelson: Okay, so I'm gonna say Wag the Dog, Six Days, Seven Nights, Volcano. Was it Volcano, or was it—no, she was in Volcano. And, oh wow, I think I've run out of Heche knowledge. I can't think of a single other Heche film. Pete Wright: Okay, one more clue. They're all released within two years. Andy Nelson: Well, okay, that still isn't helping me. Do I have any of them? Pete Wright: You're doing very well. Andy Nelson: Okay, so give me a clue on for my fourth one. Pete Wright: Oh, god. I will say that the last one co-stars Bruno Kirby. Andy Nelson: The Anne Heche, Bruno Kirby vehicle that everyone was talking about in the mid-to-late 90s. Pete Wright: Neither of them are central characters. This is a fun game. How about James Russo? Zeljko Ivanek? Andy Nelson: Oh my God. Pete Wright: Michael Madsen, Johnny Depp, Al Pacino, Mike Newell film, Andy Nelson: Okay, Johnny Depp—oh, yeah. What is it called? Pete Wright: You got it. I mean, it's there. Andy Nelson: Yeah, I'm totally blanking on the name of it. Pete Wright: DB are the initials. Andy Nelson: D... Donny, not Donnie Darko—Donnie Brasco! D.B., D.B.—yes, Donnie Brasco! Pete Wright: It's the other Donnie movie, yes. Yeah. Six Days and Seven Nights is nineteen ninety-eight. The other three are nineteen ninety-seven, and you got them all. I'm gonna give you Donnie Brasco, even though that was—Andy Nelson: It was—it was the Anne Heche window. Pete Wright: Yeah, that was the window. Andy Nelson: That was her window. She was—yeah, she was in everything at that time. Pete Wright: Yep. Uh-huh. Andy Nelson: Okay. Whew, that was a tough one. Pete Wright: I know. That was really hard. Andy Nelson: Give me Woody Harrelson. Let me see if I can do Woody Harrelson. Pete Wright: Oh, this'll be really fun. Okay, stand by. Andy Nelson: This will be hard. Pete Wright: Sergeant William Schumann, Woody Harrelson, what do you got? Andy Nelson: The Old Shoe. All right, I gotta say, well, I think The People vs. Larry Flynt probably is one of them. Natural Born Killers seems like it would be one of them. I don't—the Messenger, was he nominated for an Oscar for The Messenger? I think he was, but I wonder if that would be in there. That's a tricky one. I'm gonna say The Messenger. I don't know. Hmm, should I? Give me some hints—years, or something. Or decades. Pete Wright: Two thousand—the two thousands, and the two thousand tens. Andy Nelson: Oh gosh. So I've got—I'm guessing that the first two are probably good. Two thousands and two thousand tens with Woody Harrelson. Oh, I think Zombieland would probably be in the 2010s. Pete Wright: I'm gonna have to give you another clue. Andy Nelson: I don't know. Your face told me I was wrong. Pete Wright: I'm gonna give you another clue because this is gonna break you if I don't. One of the entries is not a feature film. Andy Nelson: Oh, well, okay, 2000s or 2010s. I don't know if I know of any Woody Harrelson TV. Oh, yeah, I do—True Detective. Pete Wright: Yes, you do. Andy Nelson: Yeah, true detective, of course. Pete Wright: All right. And the last is in the two thousands, and you love this movie. Andy Nelson: Oh crap. Great. I love it. Well, it's in the 2000s, so it's not gonna be one of the Hunger Games movies. And I don't—I wouldn't say that I totally love those, but he's not in that. Or it's not gonna be one of those. Pete Wright: It is a little strange. You know how, usually, you go to the IMDb entry, and you see the director, you see the writers, you see the stars, right, in the little list? Andy Nelson: He's not in the top. Pete Wright: Woody Harrelson's name is not in any of those credits Andy Nelson: Yeah. Okay. So he's supporting. Any other clues—director or something? Pete Wright: The director's gonna give it away. Let me give you one more. Oh, how about this? Cormac McCarthy. Andy Nelson: Oh, which Cormac McCarthy was he in? It's not The Road. Oh, yeah—duh. It's No Country for Old Men. Pete Wright: No Country for Old Men. Andy Nelson: Yeah, wow. Pete Wright: Yep. Yeah, so you got the first two out of the gate. Andy Nelson: Yeah. Pete Wright: The People vs. Larry Flynt, Natural Born Killers. Andy Nelson: Yeah Pete Wright: But yeah, true detective. It was a good season. Andy Nelson: I wasn't thinking TV. That would have made total sense. I should have been thinking of that one. I wouldn't be surprised if that's in McConaughey's top four also. So Pete Wright: Yeah, I probably Andy Nelson: Yeah. Wow. All right. Well, the IMDb game is always fun, and it's a little bit of a challenge with some of these people. So that was an interesting one. Pete Wright: Nice work. Andy Nelson: All right, well, should we move into the back half? Pete Wright: Let's do it. Andy Nelson: All right, let's take a quick break. Pete Wright: The Next Reel is a production of TruStory FM. Engineering by Andy Nelson. Music by Tzabutan, Max Hixon, Oriol Novella and Eli Catlin. Andy usually finds all the stats for the awards and numbers at The-Numbers.com, BoxOfficeMojo.com, IMDb.com, and Wikipedia.org. Find the show—and the full archive—at trustory.fm. You can follow us from there, too—plus you can find out how to become a member and go further with every episode. Check out our merch store at thenextreel.com/merch. And if your app allows ratings and reviews, please consider doing that for our show. Sequels and remakes, Andy—are we going to get a sequel to Wag the Dog? Dog Wags Back? Andy Nelson: You know, just like last week's episode with Bob Roberts, I would love Tim Robbins to do a Bob Roberts Today story. I think that would be a really interesting remake. Interestingly, for this one, Barry Levinson, Robert De Niro, and Tom Fontana started developing a TV series for this as of 2017. So almost a decade ago, they started developing a TV series for this that was gonna be on HBO. That's the last that anyone heard of it. I'm assuming, by now—I mean, it's been almost a decade—I'm guessing it's died, but it would be interesting. I think there's room for something like this. And I just wonder—I don't know—maybe in today's politics, De Niro is that much less interested in jumping into that story. Who knows? Pete Wright: You know, it's interesting that you say it that way. I was walking my dog this morning. I was listening to the Smartless podcast, and Tim Robbins was the guest, and they asked about Bob Roberts, and he said this in an interesting way. He said, “I knew I needed to give up something as I was getting older, and now I'm sixty-five, and I think what I gave up was disagreeing strongly with other people. I just found myself enraged all the time, and I had to give that up and try some yoga, because it just wasn't—I wasn't healthy.” And so that just sort of describes my sense of De Niro's participation in a revamp of this movie. Andy Nelson: Wow, interesting. Pete Wright: I think what it's gonna need is a new generation of filmmakers and writers telling a story. In seven years, let's say—let's get some distance from where we are today. Then we might have a retrospective or a perspective that will be compelling. Andy Nelson: I think even now would be interesting, you know. I'm curious to see what people have to say about these stories as they're happening. I think that those are always interesting. I mean, this happened as things were happening. Bob Roberts happened as things were happening. Pete Wright: Yeah, you're right. Andy Nelson: Even Bulworth, to a certain extent. It'll be interesting, especially moving from this series into our next one, where we're looking at Iannucci and his satires that are also tapping into some of these things. There's a filmmaker who's telling some more timely stories, you know, with In the Loop, for example. So—Pete Wright: Yeah. Yeah. And I really like the idea of approaching it as a limited series. I can really imagine giving this movie eleven days of narrative time—ten hours, or eight hours—to play out. I think this would be something we could invest in as an entertainment property. Andy Nelson: Do you think, perhaps, we've seen too many stories now that are similar—the duplicitous machine working behind a politician, doing what they need to get the job done, killing people as needed, faking stories as needed? Have we seen too much of that? Pete Wright: But you've forgotten, I already rewrote the ending where we didn't kill anybody. Andy Nelson: That's right. Pete Wright: That was just a few minutes ago, Andy. Andy Nelson: That's right. I know, I know. You already did, right? Pete Wright: I don't think we'll ever have seen enough of these kinds of things. You know, have we seen enough? Probably. But will we ever get enough? No. Andy Nelson: Yeah, there'll always be room for more. Pete Wright: Yep. How did it do at award season? Andy Nelson: It did okay for itself. It had two wins with 23 other nominations. Over at the Oscars, Dustin Hoffman was nominated for Best Actor, but lost to Jack Nicholson in As Good as It Gets. And it was nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay, but lost to L.A. Confidential. That's one—I mean, I'm happy L.A. Confidential won, but I would love to have seen the Oscar speech between Hilary and David. It would have been one of those very conflicted speeches, where Hilary wants to do her speech, but David is pissed and he wants to do his speech, because they both probably are mad at the other for getting any credit at all. It would have been fun. Anyway, BAFTAs, it was nominated also for Best Adapted Screenplay, but lost to Primary Colors, another political movie that came out that year that people have kind of forgotten about. Over at the Casting Society Artios Awards, it was nominated for Best Casting for a Feature Film Comedy, but lost to Boogie Nights. The Political Film Society, again, Pete—we talked about this with Bob Roberts last week, getting nominated for Democracy. This film likewise got nominated for Democracy, but lost to the film Four Days in September. Last but not least, the 20/20 Awards, back in 2018, looked back at this year and gave this two nominations: for Best Adapted Screenplay, but lost to L.A. Confidential, and Best Score, Comedy or Musical, but lost to Men in Black. Actually, I have a question for you—what did you think of the score? Mark Knopfler did the music for this. Pete Wright: I liked it, right up until the last track where Knopfler starts singing, and it kinda takes me out of the movie. I don't know why. But I'm a big Knopfler fan, so—Andy Nelson: I am too. I mean, The Princess Bride, I think, is gorgeous. But for this score, it was so casual that it gave the film no energy, and it just felt like a weirdly lethargic, casual score that just—I don't know, it didn't fit. It didn't feel like behind the scenes, you know? I didn't feel like anything tense at all. It was a strange score for me. I just felt it was miscored for the project. I didn't like the score at all with this movie. Pete Wright: Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. I do get a little misty-eyed when I think about some of the music—not the score, the sequence where Willie Nelson sits down to write “Old Shoe” with the producer in the studio. I think that's just a very touching sequence. And so what's funny is, I think about that before I think about the music, long before I have a sense memory of the score. So maybe I'm just misremembering. Andy Nelson: You brought up another point that I actually thought was a bridge too far for me, is where they fake this old recording. Willie Nelson's character sits down with this singer, and they sing this “Old Shoe” song. They burn it to a record, and they file it away in the Library of Congress. And then they have one of their staff members, who's sleeping with a reporter, kind of drop something like, “Don't you remember that old song? I feel like I've heard that song.” And suddenly people go find this record, and it becomes this thing. And these are the eye-rolling moments for me. I'm like, oh, come on, I have a hard time buying that. That you guys are gonna be able to Mandela-effect the entire world into thinking this song had been written and had been created. I struggle with that so much. Pete Wright: That's so funny. I see it—I see that point. But I also go back to my tired old refrain—that feels like the satire. That's the joke, that people can allow themselves to be so easily bamboozled. Andy Nelson: Yeah, it worked for me better the first time. I had a harder time with it this time, so—Pete Wright: Okay. How did it do at the box office? Andy Nelson: Well, for his political satire, Levinson had a budget of fifteen million, or twenty-nine point five million in today's dollars. After a limited one-screen premiere in Century City on December fifth—or December 17th—the movie opened Christmas Day, December 25th, 1997, still limited, on an insanely stuffed holiday weekend. Listen to what opened that day. This is going from smallest to biggest. Ready? The Winter Guest, which I think might have been directed by Alan Rickman—anyway. Kundun, Martin Scorsese's film. Mr. Magoo, everyone's favorite Leslie Nielsen film. Pete Wright: Of course. Andy Nelson: The Postman, which we had fun talking a little bit about when we were talking about Waterworld. Pete Wright: Yep. Andy Nelson: An American Werewolf in Paris. Pete Wright: Wow Andy Nelson: As Good as It Gets. Jackie Brown. Mousehunt. Tomorrow Never Dies. And here's the biggest one, Pete. Titanic. Pete Wright: Oh no Andy Nelson: Holy crap. Yeah, almost all of these open on somewhere between eighteen hundred and twenty-seven hundred screens. It's insane. Pete Wright: Wow. Andy Nelson: Movie theaters, man—those were the days when you had an opening like that with all of these big movies. So—Pete Wright: That's crazy. Andy Nelson: Anyway, this one eventually went wide in mid-January and jumped to number five at the box office and stayed in the top ten for five weeks. All told, the movie did well, going on to earn forty-three million domestically and twenty-one million internationally, for a total gross of 126.6 million in today's dollars. That lands the film with an adjusted profit per finished minute of 907,000, showing that in 1997, a movie like this could do well at the box office. I don't think that this movie could play in theaters these days and make that much money. Pete Wright: I don't think it would go. I think it would go straight to Netflix, or, you know, some Disney property. Andy Nelson: Yeah, that's where we are. Pete Wright: Yeah. Yeah, it's interesting. And it's interesting, though, too—this is, I haven't watched this movie since it came out. This is it. And I haven't carried it with me as a movie that has been at all important to me. And I'll say, given that, I enjoyed it more than I expected. I laughed out loud more than I expected. And I was moved emotionally at the end, when they whiffed the ending. Because the movie became more important to me as a sort of an artifact of a period. It's better than I remembered, and worse. And that's maybe perfect. Andy Nelson: Yeah, that's interesting. I think for me, I ended up enjoying so much—the characters, the dialogue, the way that all of that worked across the film. I struggled so much more with the plot mechanics of all of the faking, which, to your point, you're saying is the satire. And maybe I just wasn't clicking with the satire of it all. And I just wanted to find a different way to make it work. But, man, do I love these characters? I have so much fun with Hoffman and De Niro on screen together, and Heche. That trio, I think, worked really well. So—Pete Wright: Yeah, me too. Andy Nelson: All right, well that is it for our conversation about Wag the Dog. Next up, we are wrapping up our Smoke & Mirrors series with Warren Beatty's Bulworth, about a politician who decides he's done with it all—he's gonna hire a hitman to kill him. And then he decides, he realizes, you know what? I want to start telling the truth. It's gonna be a really interesting one to wrap this series up. Let's do our ratings. Pete Wright: Letterboxd.com/thenextreel, that's where you can find the HQ page for all the films that we watch across the Next Reel family of film podcasts. What are you gonna do for this one, Andy? Andy Nelson: This one—I think, when I walked into this, my memory probably would have said it was a three-star film, or a four-star film. I think now I'm sitting at three stars. I think I enjoyed it, but I think it stumbled more than I remembered. But I love the characters as much as I struggle with the story. That's where I'm at. Pete Wright: That is exactly how I was gonna put it. I walked in, you know, even halfway through the movie, I was like, this is a solid four-star-and-a-heart movie. And then, the stars fell. Woody Harrelson smiled and asked for a beer, and the stars fell. Andy Nelson: Yeah, there we are. Pete Wright: So there we are. Still, it's a movie I enjoyed my time with. Andy Nelson: Well, I absolutely still recommend it to people, especially today. I think it's an interesting film to look at through today's eyes, and through the perspective of our modern political machine. Just so you can get a sense—I think that there is still something to be said with how the machine is depicted as running in this film, which means it doesn't feel comforting to watch, because it does make you think about what sort of machinations are actually going on behind the scenes today. Well, that averages out to three stars and a heart. You can find the show on Letterboxd @thenextreel. You can find me there @sodacreekfilm, and Pete at @petewright. So, what did you think about Wag the Dog? We would love to hear your thoughts. Hop into the Showtalk channel over in our Discord community, where we will be talking about the movie this week. Pete Wright: When the movie ends Andy Nelson: Our conversation begins. Pete Wright: Letterboxd giveth, Andrew. Andy Nelson: As Letterboxd always doeth. Pete Wright: What do you got? You got a long or a short? Is it funny or is it serious? Andy Nelson: Short and funny. Pete Wright: Okay, mine's a little bit longer. I'm gonna go first. Andy Nelson: Okay. Pete Wright: I'm gonna give you the punchline. All right, this one's a three-and-a-half star from Jamelle Bouie. Watched for the podcast. Andy Nelson: Hey Pete Wright: “Somehow this movie is both incredibly cynical—the American people fall easily for a manufactured war against an otherwise anonymous country, sounds familiar—and not cynical enough. The precipitating incident, after all, is that the president was caught in a sexual tryst with a young woman. This, the film tells us, will derail his bid for reelection if his team can't successfully distract the press. The eventual fate of Bill Clinton—he left office among the most popular presidents of the post-war era—seems to say this is nonsense. And from the vantage point of 2025, the idea that anyone would blink at a presidential affair is ludicrous. In the modern media cycle, the president's affair would have been resolved in 24 hours! No fake war necessary. I would bet legitimate money that this movie was a powerful influence on the Bush White House. Speaking of which, rest in piss, Dick Cheney.” Andy Nelson: Wow. Pete Wright: Well played, Jamelle. Andy Nelson: Wow. Okay. But I think that really is interesting. The fact that Jamelle calls it out as incredibly cynical and not cynical enough—I think that speaks to a lot of the points that we brought up. Pete Wright: Yes, I did too. Andy Nelson: Yeah. Great one. That's a great one. Pete Wright: All right, what do you got? Andy Nelson: I've got a four-star and a heart by Danzel Vaughn, who says, “Absurd! My government would never go through this much trouble to lie to me, and no Hollywood producer is this insufferable or self-centered! Four stars!” Pete Wright: Okay, I like that one a lot, but also look at the date that it came out. Andy Nelson: June twenty-seventh, twenty twenty-one. Pete Wright: Yeah. So how far after the lockdown, in the middle of our government lying to me about masks, do you think we were when watching this movie? Andy Nelson: Yeah. Yeah, right. Pete Wright: Cut context, I think, is fascinating. Andy Nelson: Right? Oh my goodness. Pete Wright: All right. Thanks, Letterboxd.