Latest / The Director's Chair Network / Bonfire of the Vanities
Transcript
- 0:00 okay okay here we go hello and welcome back to The Goat a Brian Deama fan 0:07 podcast and it's my pleasure to bring back to the show for another appearance 0:13 my friend Ryan ryan welcome thanks Craig thanks for having me on i'm very excited very excited yeah this is an interesting 0:19 episode because I think I've made it pretty clear that I I don't try and get 0:24 too negative on this show who are trying to put forth the idea that Brian Deama is America's greatest living director 0:31 and it's kind of hard to do that when you showcase a big miss but I felt like this movie 0:39 there was a good opportunity to talk about it because it's so easily accessible at least here in the states 0:45 right now I don't know if anybody else is familiar but Warner Brothers has been uploading a lot of classic films on 0:53 YouTube completely free to watch nice okay yeah and Bonfire the Vanities was Why Bonfire of the Vanities Is Free on YouTube 1:00 one of those uploads so I was like "Hey it's free to watch on YouTube nobody has to you know pay to rent it or you know 1:06 or buy the you know Blu-ray or DVD to to watch it if you're in one of those territories where Warner Brothers has 1:13 uploaded it it's now free to watch so I was like it's a perfect time to talk about it and I rewatched it on on uh the 1:20 Warner Brothers YouTube channel after watching it when it was available on Max a couple years ago and I watched it and 1:26 I said "You know what This is this is a very deama film." So I said "There's 1:32 enough good stuff here to talk about and I know you were game to take on any 1:38 deama assignment I sent your way so I thought maybe the bonfire of the 1:44 vanities would be a good choice." So this is the 20th dipama film and it came 1:50 after casualties of war which is a brutal brutal diploma film and prior to 1:56 that he had made the untouchables so there's only one film in between what we talked about we talked about the 2:01 untouchables on your guest appearance and he made casualties of wars and then made this so I know this was your first 2:08 watch what did you know going in and what were your overall feelings when the movie 2:14 ended Well thanks for having me on and like I told you offline I'm up for anything you 2:20 give me anything from his catalog i'm down for it now I did do The Untouchables which I look I admit 2:26 probably one of his most successful films commercially uh critically it's just it's a flawless film in my books 2:32 and it's one that I grew up loving and I surprised nobody been in your show yet 2:37 are you going to get to Casualties of War If you need somebody for that I love war films i love Michael J fox and Shawn 2:42 Penn and I haven't seen that one in the spell but I remember seeing that as a younger person being quite disturbed but in a good way well that's the thing it's 2:48 it's a tough it's a tough movie so then Bonfire comes out and maybe Craig maybe 2:56 after doing Casualties and really on the untouchable some very you know tough darker violent maybe he wanted to do his 3:03 own I would say comedies strong but maybe his lighter fair this is the lighter 3:10 fair film and I think that might be um not excuse but uh pass number one I give 3:16 Brian for this but I hadn't seen this film so like you said I have not seen this film ever in my life it is one that I've heard nothing but terrible things 3:22 about all these years and so as years go on and my time on this earth gets shorter and shorter left i'm like am I 3:28 going to spend two hours of my life watching this film It's been so maligned by seemingly critics and fans and I will 3:35 say this I had a lot of fun watching this film i don't understand i don't I 3:41 mean I don't know i think it's um I think the book I never read the book of course i think the book 3:47 is a big hit yes i I find I I'd have to read the book because seeing this movie 3:54 and thinking about this in printed form sounds like a snoozefest i think it's more fun to watch the movie so I don't 4:00 know i think the I think the film is just fine i think the uh the criticism I think it's misdirected what are your 4:07 thoughts on the film Yeah I I'd agree and and I know we talked offline and you were going to wait until we recorded but 4:13 there was a a book that was written uh a journalist named Julie Salman was on set 4:18 the entire time she was friendly with Dama he invited her on set and she wrote 4:23 a book called The Devil's Candy about the production that came out I think the year after the movie was released and 4:28 and failed i have not read it i want to read that i want to read within the last couple of years I want to say 2022 maybe 4:36 uh they put out a podcast through Turner Classic Movies has a podcast channel and they put out basically the podcast 4:42 version of her book hosted by by Julie Solomon oh so if you listen to that 4:47 you'll get the entire story of the production and there's a lot of interesting tidbits there's a couple of things at 4:53 play here this was a big assignment for DAMA sure you know I mean I I I'm you 4:59 know I mean it was it was you know his filmography is pretty you know pretty heavy but I mean we're what eight years 5:07 removed from Scarface at this point which was not a critical or commercial 5:12 hit so that movie hadn't really entered its re-evaluation stage yet so 5:17 getting this assignment was a was a big deal so I think that was part of the appeal to Apama is it's like hey I'm 5:23 going to get to make a big studio film with big studio money uh and and get that bag if you will a couple of things 5:30 happened though the producer on the film after they went into production took a 5:37 job as a head of another studio so the film in essence didn't have a producer 5:43 so Dealama became the deacto producer which is a difficult job on its own so 5:50 in addition to directing the movie he was producing it at the same time this was a Bonfire the Vanities the novel was 5:58 a phenomenon thomas Wolf who is you know a pretty uh acclaimed writer you know 6:05 had written this you know multiundpage book um about you know class in New York 6:11 City and I think a lot of people just had a lot of expectations about it but 6:16 it's funny they point out on the podcast that you know maybe it had sold a 6:22 million copies and if you transcribe that to the movies that's nothing you 6:27 know it's like so it's so the idea going in was like well we're not going to make 6:32 an adaptation of this book for the the million people that have read the have read the book we're making this for a 6:39 general audience of course that's going to go see it and you know they wanted to hit all of the all of the you know what 6:46 I forgot what they call that when you want to hit all the targets you know men women under you know under 25 over 25 6:53 the whole the whole shebang so that's what they did and 7:01 it this really is a a a fascinating fascinating movie and I'm glad there's a book that was devoted to it and uh I 7:08 wanted to check out that podcast though yeah oh it's excellent i'll send the link and I'll share the the link in the in the show notes um you know Deama 7:16 declined to talk for that podcast cuz he said "I feel I've talked about it enough." And it's still from from every 7:22 indication it's still a very very sort of sore subject for him in the 7:28 terms of you know it's not a great point in his career and I think it affected him in a way that you know he didn't 7:35 really want to go back and reflect on that but like you said it's an entertaining film and and also as you 7:42 watch it and we're gonna talk about the scene you picked but it's got a lot of those pama touches it starts with you De Palma’s Signature Long Takes & Technical Mastery 7:49 know the uninterrupted long take i don't I didn't time this one but it's 10 10 7:55 minutes or so and it's funny on the first episode of the show we talked about Snake Eyes which has that 14minute 8:02 take and how impressive that was and watching this back and we're not talking about the scene right now but Bruce 8:08 Willis had a lot of [ __ ] to do in that sequence yes yeah and if you watch I almost 8:14 picked that one i almost picked it because I thought it was that impressive but yes well if you if you watch it there's a steady cam operator 8:21 who follows Bruce as he approaches the golf cart if you watch that scene and 8:26 they talk about it in the podcast the steady cam operator was walking backwards and in addition to that he had 8:33 to navigate getting onto the golf cart and sitting down so Oh right yeah good 8:39 i'm never one for saying technical achievement trumps the quality of a film but when you watch 8:47 this film and you look at the care that was put into it it's pretty impressive so you've got the long take and then you've also got at least one split 8:54 diopter shot that I can recall yep and then we've got the the you know the split screen scene that we'll talk about 9:00 with you a little bit later can I tell you the one scene that kind of ties into what we're going to talk about before we 9:05 talk about that scene the one scene that I almost picked that wasn't necessarily a Brian Deal Palma as far as I I mean 9:11 I'm just getting to know him the way you do is when they were talking to the Reverend Bacon for the first time uh and 9:17 he's looking down from his pulpit and he's seems to be really high up there and he's looking down at the lawyers or 9:22 the district attorneys that came into to his church and he's got the the black choir singing gospel choir singing 9:29 behind him that will tie into the scene we are going to talk about but I almost picked that one till later in the film the other scene came up like oh cuz that 9:36 was more Bryant the Palomo we'll talk about but I just thought let leters know there was there was a lot of scenes as 9:41 I'm watching this film i'm thinking to myself okay well I'm preparing for the podcast but I'm trying to watch the film but I'm thinking this one okay maybe 9:48 this one so there's this one actually has a lot of fun scenes to talk about yeah and it it's interesting not to 9:54 spoil the podcast for you but there's a quote from the time period from Steven 10:00 Spielberg who was you know good friends with the Palama and he basically said he said "Any number of filmmakers 10:08 could have made Bonfire the Vanities." Sydney Pollock Norman Jison um a bunch 10:14 of you know those types of filmmakers but he said nobody can make 10:20 Body Double or Blowout you know saying that you know there were several people 10:26 that could have made Bonfire the Vanities but Deama was unique in the 10:31 sense that he could make Bonfire the Vanities but he could also make Blowout which I think is great praise yeah yeah 10:38 which is interesting uh another little uh factoid I will I will give you from the podcast and and that will be this 10:44 last one I do because I don't want to spoil it but the character of Maria in the movie 10:50 played by Melanie Griffith mhm dama's first choice and she was screened for 10:55 this was Uma Thurman wow it's a tough call cuz boy I I have a crush on her as 11:01 you know i think you know that don't you Yeah yeah yeah uhhuh that's why that's why I mentioned Okay yeah yeah i'm in 11:06 fashion with her she's Yeah she's one of my favorites of all I mean she literally is one of the reasons Kill Bill one and 11:12 two is my favorite Quenton films of all time i just Uma just steals those movies yeah and this was uh before Pulp Fiction 11:19 so this would have been one of her very very very early films and they go into detail of the hows and wise of of her 11:25 not ending up in the picture so it's definitely worth a listen she might have been a little bit too young maybe 11:31 maybe uh another detail I was wondering if you noticed is okay uh and this is comical and this ties directly into what 11:38 a disaster this film was melanie Griffith in the middle of filming got 11:43 breast augmentation well okay okay so I was I thank you for 11:50 bringing up the breast because I was going to bring this up i didn't realize or I'd forgotten i don't know what but 11:55 seeing her in her lingerie or bazier outfit I was like "Wow that's I don't 12:01 Wow they looked fantastic." I was uh very much impressed so she didn't start the film that way is that No it it's 12:07 it's And she she didn't tell anybody either um I guess there was a period 12:12 where they filmed I guess in New York and then they moved to LA so there was a period of weeks where I guess she hadn't 12:18 filmed so she arrived in LA and I guess she was doing a costume fitting or something and the costumemer was like 12:24 "Um these measurements aren't matching up with what I have." Well I do find it interesting that her 12:30 her uh underwear scenes she was in full augmentation mode then yes i wonder I I 12:36 wonder if she knew those honestly if she knew those scenes were coming cuz you know she read the script and and said yes to the script i wonder if she's 12:43 somehow maybe you could argue subconsciously or consciously said you know I'm going to get prepared for this 12:48 she looked fantastic oh yeah and she did and 100% and and I mean it's 30 plus 12:54 years ago at this point and very little has changed but she was an actress of a 12:59 certain age at that point she was closer to Yeah and the standards in Hollywood 13:05 they haven't changed much she had just had a she had just had a baby within the the last couple of months so Oh really 13:11 Wow yeah um what's um Dakota Um her daughter Dakota oh of course yeah that's 13:17 right so yeah no she was very much aware of the fact that she was going to be doing the you know that scene so that 13:23 I'm sure she focused on getting in shape and then got the little extra help from the doctors it's funny if you watch the 13:29 movie and you're aware of that you can see there's scenes where she doesn't seem as pronounced oh I have to go back 13:36 and do the before and after in her in her costumeuming but before we talk 13:41 about the scene because uh Melanie and uh Tom Hanks are not in it do you want 13:46 to talk a little bit about both their performances Yeah uh I I do enjoy Melanie Griffith she is but she might be 13:53 an acquired taste for some people the way she is uh the way she speaks her voice and that's not an insult i'm just 13:59 saying she is not a she she's a different character amongst just the way she is like she just might seem a little 14:06 bit I hate the term ditzy she she reminds me of an A-list Suzanne Summers 14:11 if that makes sense like she could her looks in some ways get her like when 14:16 you're when you're really when you are really pretty uh sometimes it's hard to not be that way in films if you know so 14:23 uh but I've never had an issue with her i've always enjoyed her in films uh I don't go see her because she's in film 14:28 like Uma Thurman i've literally or Jodie Foster those are my two top actresses i literally go see everything those two 14:33 actresses are in so I I do have less people think it's a misogynist statement I'm making uh there are female actors 14:40 that I I love and go see all the things are in uh but Melanie when she's in a film I have no problem with her like of 14:46 course Pacific Heights was a fun one working Girl I I enjoyed her Shining Through she had a really good run there 14:52 and I enjoyed her in those films so she doesn't turn me off i did find her character in this film 14:59 and that's it's not her fault but the way she was written it was a little bit too I I found like she thought maybe she was 15:06 in more of a comedy than the film that she was in i don't know if that makes sense but it it does make sense it does 15:12 make sense and this was a really challenging role and a and a tough character too because Maria is supposed 15:19 to be the type of woman that a successful powerful man like Tom Hanks would be basically be willing to throw 15:26 his life away for right Oh and his wife played by Kim Catrell yeah now Kim 15:32 Catrell I I didn't realize or I've never really watched her in anything because I know she's big in Sex in the City was her big 15:38 um one of her biggest roles right But boy what a beautiful woman holy so I had 15:44 not realized I actually had a Google I saw her name in the credits of course in the credits and when she came on screen 15:51 I didn't recognize that was her i was like "Oh that's her." I actually Google "Who's Tom Hanks wife?" Well it's Kim 15:57 Catrell i mean she's a stunning woman yeah yeah and and that's that's the confusing part i mean Melanie of course 16:03 is a beautiful woman too but if I'm in this universe and she is my wife I don't 16:09 know who I'm stepping out on here did you catch who played their daughter 16:15 Oh did I Okay wait I got to cheat and look uh she went on to she she she worked as 16:23 a child actor but she went on as an adult or in you know in her you know late teens and early 20s to make a lot 16:28 of films including the first uh Spider-Man trilogy with Toby Magguire 16:34 Kirsten Dunst yeah wait a minute did I get out of here I'm not even Okay 16:43 did I not I'm going to go insane here this is embarrassing no it's not i mean I I had a look oh I I am a huge I am a 16:51 huge Kirsten Dun i love her there's another great She's an actress that I'll see her stuff in did you ever see her in 16:57 um her season in Fargo I have not i have not yeah she was killer in that anyway 17:03 that was her she played she played their little daughter i mean she's got maybe like what three scenes or something 17:09 but Craig this is ridiculous how did I not Well the thing is in typical DAMA 17:16 fashion the coverage in her scenes isn't traditional coverage so you're never getting like super tight you know 17:24 close-ups on her a lot of the interactions in her sequences are are wide shots which is I'm so I'm 17:32 embarrassed i'm because I'm so good at this stuff i'm absolutely ashamed of my people who are listening should be 17:37 ashamed with me i'm looking at the stills of her right now online of her in the film no wonder I didn't She has red 17:43 hair almost in the film i did not We could see it now 17:48 just think she was only four years away from Interview the Vampire yeah right that's weird in fairness to you Ryan 17:55 this was not a detail I picked up until I watched it a couple weeks ago for this show like when I watched it on Max a 18:02 couple of last year or whatever it didn't register with me i'm just bowled over this is like a Mandela effect i'm 18:08 literally bowled over like cuz I even looked at the cast when I was researching the film how did I even not even see her name I'm This is Mandela 18:15 effect this is what it is like my memory is blown away that I didn't even catch her name in the credits wow crazy okay 18:21 yeah so uh Tom Hanks and just a little bit note here yeah I know and I always I 18:26 always I wanted to apologize and because you always want to make these so short i do i was like man every time I'm on with 18:32 Craig I'm always talking too much okay tom Hanks i think this might have been the problem with the film and he was 18:39 great in the film this isn't but the the point is is he plays somebody who's not likable and I think of an actor that's 18:47 right i think audiences weren't ready for this he was the lovable guy and Splash and movies like that and uh the 18:54 money pit all these other type of comedy films i think the audiences weren't 19:00 ready Craig for a a and he did he did a good job but if you didn't know Tom this 19:06 was your first Tom Hanks film of all time this is you're an alien from another planet you're seeing Tom Hanks film for the first time you would think 19:11 he did a fine job but I think people did not see Tom Hanks in this role maybe it should have been Bruce in the Tom Hanks 19:17 role possibly Tom Wolf wanted Chvy Chase that's better well Chvy Chase is a 19:23 naturalb born [ __ ] so Why you 19:30 I I I Boy he's funny though he Oh he is it doesn't mean he's not an a-hole i 19:36 know but I know the two could exist it's just it's crazy how terrible he is but 19:41 boy he's funny yeah no so and this is something you'll you'll discover in the 19:46 podcast the whole approach to the film sort of revolved around 19:53 making the Sherman McCoy character likable enough that audiences wouldn't 20:00 be turned off by him so apparently in the book he's a lot worse cuz he Yeah he is in the book i read that but cuz he 20:06 kind of wins in the end so you're you're sort of rooting for him and you kind of feel bad for him to a degree but he he 20:13 is he stepped out on his marriage it's kind of hard to root for him he is an adulterer he's kind of like I don't know 20:18 it's it's out it's out of character for the Tom brand and I think this was not a 20:24 sell at the box office yeah no no you're 100% on point and as you delve into the production of the film you'll see that Analyzing the Split-Screen Scene with Bruce Willis 20:30 so let's get to the sequence here it's about 49 minutes into the film yep the Bruce Willis character um uh Fallow 20:38 what's his name uh uh duh Peter Fallow is starting to put a story together 20:44 about uh the victim and this is where the bulk of the comedy of the film comes 20:50 from and it it kind of leans into the class warfare at play and he they're basically trying to 20:57 turn the the victim of the hit and run this black kid in the Bronx into a 21:02 little bit of a saint even though he wasn't and you know this is something you typically see the media do where 21:08 they'll you know they'll find a 12-year-old picture of a victim uh or 21:13 perpetrator of a crime and say "Look it's just a little 12-year-old kid or whatever." And then not realizing he's 21:19 17 and you know a lot can change in 5 years so uh they're doing an on the street 21:26 segment with uh with the Reverend Reverend Bacon and an uncredited Heraldo 21:32 Rivera who's not playing Heraldo no he's playing the he's what's his name again in the film I don't even It's uncredited 21:38 so I I I did watch the scene again and I was going to write it down and I missed it because I wanted to see is he 21:44 supposed to be Heraldo and and he and he's not but he might as well have been and this is when we get the split screen 21:50 technique and the one thing I wanted to sort of get your opinion on do you think 21:56 the way the split screen scene works and functions do you think this was an editorial choice Like what do you mean 22:03 by that Like meaning that Deama didn't plan on doing this split screen until he was in the editing room No I think he I 22:10 think No they acted accordingly i think this was done legit this was scripted like this was storyboarded to be this 22:17 way okay yeah because I mean if you watch it you're like I could see it being cut in a traditional manner right 22:23 You know you've got your coverage of Bruce and Haraldo watching what's going on on screen and then you have the Reverend and his people so I mean you 22:30 could have really cut back and forth between it but the split screen's really effective because you get to see them 22:37 reacting to the reverend and how the actions playing out and it really is 22:42 perfect use of split screen so regardless of of what the intent was the execution was great and then the way the 22:48 scene pays off with F murray Abraham it makes for a great transition as well 22:54 it's it's incredibly done so yeah for our listeners it's it's the Reverend Bacon who's going to uh talk talk to the 23:01 news agency about this great tragedy and he has his reasons to get on camera to get his face on camera and if you'll 23:08 notice as the reverend is meeting uh Bruce's character and Heraldo's character that did you notice the 23:14 background What was going on in the background Did you catch that I don't mean to be a trap question but it wasn't until my second viewing that I caught 23:20 was going on in the background well like with all the signs and stuff no okay 23:26 when you watch it again this is fascinating Craig is this is a real Now I'm not trying to 23:31 get conspiratorial here okay this isn't my intent but the media will sometimes we sort of talked about the media will 23:38 they have a message or they have an agenda or whatever you want like they're trying to portray something to the 23:43 audience us the audience at home mhm all behind the reverend there are people with prop pieces and sets that are 23:50 setting up to make the area look more urban bllighted they got guys running around putting 23:56 tires up against cars uh you know there's actually a scene this is almost like an air This is what I mean movie i 24:02 think Brian truly wanted to make a comedic film but it's a little highbrow 24:08 like it's this part is very Airplaneesque because if you watch the watch it again in the background they 24:14 have people getting the shot ready and you'll miss it because you're focused on the reverend yeah yeah there's actually 24:20 a person that walks by with a wardrobe uh you know the wardrobe on wheels walk behind with all the wardrobe people are 24:26 putting on their clothes and getting ready for the shot because to make it look like Yeah they're all 24:32 getting ready they're paid protesters now this is I don't want to get conspiratorial these people these people 24:38 were brought in to be angry they were brought the reverend paid everyone off to make this seem like a natural event 24:46 and that's why Bruce's character says "This is all like a little too much." Yeah he's like "I'm just I'm a 24:52 journalist i want the truth." He's like "This seems a little theatric." And he's like "No I heard you." The reverend kind of gets defensive goes "Well I just 24:58 heard you were drunk." That was his deflection so uh yeah I I found that really I didn't catch the first time cuz 25:05 the uh the reverend played by John Hancock which is an interesting character like actor uh he he was such a 25:12 fun person to focus on you almost watch it again and tell me I'd like to hear 25:17 your thoughts on the the activity that goes in the background getting ready for the shot yeah no that's a great a great 25:22 detail and then you've also got even that bit where Baraldo even asks him he's like "Hey is this kid really Yes as 25:29 as good as everybody says he is because by the time this piece is done he's going to look like a saint." That's 25:35 right as uh his name is Caruro or something like that Haraldo character haraldo he's always looked Haraldoish 25:41 you know like this is this is 35 years ago he looks the same this is how he's 25:49 he's got his look and he's never deviated from it like the barber knows how to cut his hair he knows how to trim 25:55 his mustache um yeah and again I don't know if while we're running out of time 26:00 here you want to talk a little bit about that transition to uh F murray Abraham's office because again I think there's a 26:06 great bit of timing there where you've got I think one of the funniest moments of this of the movie for me is when uh F 26:14 murray Abraham is like that's my name like he's like they got personal here like they've they've they've targeted me 26:22 yeah it's it's a crazy edit because we're seeing we're seeing three different things here we're watching the 26:27 movie then we're watching the news broadcast of the Reverend talking to the audience which is actually kind of us 26:33 but then I'm also watching uh Bruce and Raldo watching the interview watching 26:38 their interactions with each other they're kind of like you know looking around and Bruce's character he looks 26:44 around too he actually is looking at the set around him so I was more curious why 26:50 did Brian want us to show Heraldo and Bruce at the same time without any cuts 26:55 and unedited I just found it fascinating watching them just chilling and I think 27:00 I don't know why but that's kind of cool to see the side characters just chilling and Bruce looking around looking at the 27:07 setups but Heraldo seems to be more engaged in the actual interview because this is you know his news piece on the 27:13 line and I don't know I I really like that choice um I almost before we we 27:19 forget or I forget I love the bit of the Reverend cuz it's all showed circumstance where pop pomp and 27:25 circumstance where he's walking out yeah with he walks out with that singing gospel choir with him i love how he has 27:31 a trampoline this is what I mean this is very airplane like this is maybe people 27:37 weren't expected to be this um you know this is like the equivalent it's the same type of humor and actually the same 27:44 year of release I believe as Oscar with Sylvester Stallone it's the same type of 27:49 humor it's a different I don't know how to describe it it's airplane without being too like goofy yeah 27:58 and unless you over unless you overtly say this is a comedy certain audiences 28:04 just aren't going to get it and it's it's it's not taking anything away from the audiences cuz the audiences go in 28:10 with expectations but audiences laugh at the wrong thing sometimes and they don't laugh at the right thing sometimes yeah 28:17 yeah but this was good to see because you know Deama's got a great uh touch 28:23 for comedy and it's it's rare that we get to see it but it's definitely on display here and I I'd eventually like 28:30 to talk about Wise Guys cuz I think that's another of his you know mainstream comedies that I think is 28:35 really successful and he he basically started his career his career making comedies as well okay interesting yeah i 28:41 was going to ask you what else he's done comedy wise but yeah I think maybe the tone I I know I brought up Oscar and I 28:47 don't mean to i I don't want to tarnish your podcast by bringing up Oscar but I think when people don't know the tone of 28:53 the film it can be off-putting and I don't know how this was uh advertised what the trailers were like uh but this Production Chaos: Casting and Marketing Missteps 29:01 is a it's an interesting film it's not a bad film these little cutaway moments these split screens and uh long shots 29:10 in this it's it's good all around i just think people might have expected something different from Tom uh I don't 29:17 know i I don't know why it feels so bad it failed badly it was a bad fail at the bottom it was a $45 million budget and 29:24 only made 15 like this was Yeah i feel bad for Brian listen to the podcast but 29:29 I'll I'll spoil one more moment the the basically the marketing guy the guy that was tasked with marketing this film he 29:36 watched the first cut of the movie and said to Dealama you've got a you you made a great film i have no idea how I'm 29:43 going to sell it okay there you go so I'm speaking to it right now by that's what I mean how do we sell this film How 29:50 do we show the trailer for it And I did watch the trailer as I've I've mentioned to you before i'll watch the trailer 29:55 after I watch the movie to see Yeah the trailer I would say it's misleading but it's 30:00 like all the shots are there from the film but it was the feeling of the trailer was not the feeling of the film 30:06 yeah i I think at the end of the day this was a really really ambitious film 30:12 and the one of the biggest risks you can take when you do something that's ambitious 30:18 is you can fail and and that's one thing I've always appreciated about DAP and I've said this before you know if you're 30:25 going to make a big swing sometimes you have to you're going to you're going to have a big miss uh and that's the case 30:32 here but I I do think like you said when the movie was over you you were 30:37 entertained so watching the movie in a vacuum without any of the knowledge of the production history behind it and 30:44 what critics thought of it and what audiences thought of it it's a good 30:49 entertaining movie i wouldn't rank this in my top 10 of DAPA films sure sure but 30:55 I'll I'll definitely watch it again yeah I I have no problem with this film and I 31:00 I'm glad I got to watch it i don't think I ever would have put it on had I not been a guest on your podcast so I like 31:06 doing that and I'm glad I got to pick a film or you've asked me to do this film i can't remember quite the order but I'm glad I got a film to watch cuz it's like 31:12 good I get to watch a film I haven't seen before and this was one of those films it's been on it's it's been in the 31:18 my mind you hear about it you hear about all this and like good I want to tackle film that everybody maligns but I'm like 31:23 oh I don't get it yeah I don't get it one bit before we we start wrapping 31:28 things up sure we talked about Melanie Griffith we talked about Tom Hanks yes do you want to talk a little bit about 31:35 Bruce Willis's performance said "It's always hard nowadays to talk about Bruce Willis's performances or just Bruce 31:41 Willis in general because he's gone i mean the Bruce Willis performer is isn't 31:48 with us anymore." Um so it's always hard to watch these performances and these good performances 31:55 and I I don't know it just I've always thought Bruce Willis was a 32:01 good actor but I I almost wonder if watching this stuff in retrospect has changed people's opinion of him h uh I 32:09 don't think it has for me i I it doesn't make me uh like oh gee look at me you 32:14 know I can separate the two the his medical condition uh and his performances in these films i've always 32:20 been a Bruce fan i've always enjoyed him i like his charisma i like his screen personality some people don't it goes 32:26 with every actor every actress there's there's people that like the way people are i've always enjoyed Bruce i get why 32:32 they picked him i think they did pick him just to give this movie a bit of oomph because Bruce was big at the time 32:38 coming off Die Hard and Moonlighting he didn't have to do this role like he 32:44 didn't add anything to the film in the sense of other than a marquee on the on 32:50 the uh uh well sorry a name on the marquee so he was fine he was good 32:57 i think that's the thing with this film it's weird i've talked about the three main people how they were all I feel like they're all kind of miscast but 33:03 they all did a good job i don't know if that makes sense i don't know if that makes sense well yeah the other thing I think you definitely hit on something 33:09 when you said Bruce Willis would have been a great Sherman McCoy but at the same time until you see the final scene 33:15 of the movie Fallow is not really that important of a character except for the fact that 33:23 they're framing this around the book that he wrote about right Is he in the book Is his character in the book He's 33:29 British in the book too which Tom Wolf had a huge issue with so that's what I mean i feel like Yeah it's like the old 33:34 Stephen King when he starts barking I don't like what they've done with my films like come on man stop burying the film before it even comes out so yeah i 33:42 I what an interesting experiment this whole film was yeah well and we've also talked about this too uh if not on this 33:48 podcast on other podcasts we've done but in 2025 33:53 the Bonfire of the Vanities would probably make like a great 8 episode amazon show yep flush out the characters 34:01 flush them all out yeah that and maybe it will one day in fact it was just announced kind of off topic but they're 34:07 redoing Cape Fear which I believe was based on a book April whatever yeah apple TV show or something well they did 34:13 that with Jay Gyllenhaal for um uh the Harrison Ford film Presumed Innocent 34:19 so they're they're doing that i like kind of how they're revisiting these movies that were you know made from 34:24 books but books as you know you got to flush them out i love the eight story eight hour basically eight hour film and 34:30 some of these books deserve that so I would love to see a proper 34:35 Tom Wolf adaptation of this movie and I'm fine with that it's not a slight on this film but I'd be curious to see this 34:41 film tackled in modern day times yeah yeah no absolutely so yeah i mean a Final Thoughts: Is Bonfire a Flawed Gem? 34:46 final thought here is it's a a painful entry in the Pomus filmography sure but 34:52 it's such a fascinating production with so much backstory that you can explore 34:58 it's a film I'm glad he made sure yeah i I love it i don't think we've said 35:04 before no director is without their Bonfire the Vanities part of their 35:09 collection so yeah yeah well Ryan thank you for this discussion i don't know if 35:15 this is the last time we'll talk about Bonfire the Vanities on this show but if if it is it it was a good discussion 35:20 about the movie and uh hopefully we can connect for Casualties of War because again oh yeah that's a you've got a lot 35:27 you're you're not done with this guy man i you haven't even found the surface okay cuz I know you've talked about this 35:33 is your last kick at the cannon for a podcast and that breaks my heart so if this is your last show then you you 35:38 better not end it till it's covered properly so this and I've said until I'm 35:43 not able to do this show anymore for whatever reason this this will be an ongoing podcast again we've I mean we've 35:50 we've devoted multiple episodes to the same movies there's movies we haven't gotten anywhere close to 35:56 of war you better get down for that one uh yeah so we'll we'll we'll definitely make that happen we'll make it happen in 36:01 2025 but Ryan for people listening do you want to let them know uh a little bit about your other podcast adventures 36:08 and what they can expect and what they can find right now Okay so I'll quickly plug uh I do one with my brother called 36:15 the worst of the best podcast that's one that general audiences can get into right away we do a variety of topics we 36:20 take a best of of of a topic and then we say what is the worst from that best of list uh I just completed at this time of 36:27 this recording the Edwick Zwick Flicks podcast which you guess it on three times uh we we're finished his 36:34 filmography i am proud to announce and you will be invited on again so don't you worry that we are sort of changing 36:41 this was discussed in the last episode I did with Doug when we did Trial by Fire that it's going to become its own little 36:46 network meaning I decided that the the I love doing Edwick's filmography and 36:52 Bryant the Palm fits right in there but we can talk later uh where we create like a director's network of films and 36:58 my next director that I'm going to tackle is Michael Man oh okay it's funny cuz I think on our our last episode you 37:05 had mentioned another director he's still there he's still there he's still there and but it's funny michael Man 37:11 we're talking about Terrence Mall that's not a spoiler he'll probably be my third one but Michael Man was actually in the 37:16 running for the beginning and I forgotten about that that was one that was between him and Edwick so I went 37:21 with Edwick first but Michael Man has stuff in his filmography exactly like Edwick where it's like I love these 37:26 films but he's got films I haven't seen yet so yes you'll be cordially and uh officially invited to tackle a Michael 37:33 Man film yeah I would I uh Manhunter huge fan of Manhunter done you already 37:38 said it that's your first choice well I I also think The Insider is a great film 37:43 yes and I also think in fairness Heat should probably be some kind of 37:50 super show um if you remember the Slycast we used to do Slycast super shows um which would be more than one 37:56 host like a multi-host well just I Heat is the type of film that demands 38:02 Sure um that kind of the big guns well just in I mean I I just think if you're 38:09 doing a Michael man season in my opinion as a humble podcaster Oh yeah i 38:14 appreciate you super Show Heat Super Show is the way to go or make maybe like a threeparter like I could uh have a 38:22 someone cover come on and cover the first you know 50 minutes somebody come on the second 50 whatever they divide it 38:27 up in three parts that might be an idea yeah because it is a big movie it's a tremendous film it's a tremendous film 38:33 and uh I don't know if we're getting into spoiler territory here but I don't know if you know that Michael Man remade 38:42 Heat yeah he did the book well no Heat the movie he had made already as another Oh 38:49 that's right yeah what was something that It's on YouTube i forgot it's like LA Takedown or something yeah that's 38:55 right that's right i did know that i forgot but I did I've seen it i've watched parts of it I should say and uh 39:01 that might be an interesting I think I might be doing the same as a difference as just tackling legit the ones that made it to the you know this is like I 39:09 said if you're going to do a heat super show it might be worth Oh yeah covering that TV movie that you know but but 39:16 either way I'm looking forward to it i think Michael man's a tremendous tremendous filmmaker he's got a great 39:22 filmography it's the same amount as Ed officially only has 12 directorial movies if you could only 12 yeah well 39:29 he's been threatening uh Heat 2 which um they already wrote the novel the novel 39:34 sitting on my bookshelf Heat 2 and I'm visualizing it as a movie and just 39:40 really curious to see what he did i or what he does cuz I know there was talk of 39:47 casting younger versions of those characters because he too gets into backtories and stuff i I believe Adam 39:53 Driver was mentioned for that makes sense for one of the roles but either way Ryan that's great so uh yeah so I'll 40:00 include links to as many of your shows as I can remember but Worst of the Best Zix Zwix Flicks you've also got the um 40:08 the Rocky Going the Distance the Rocky series podcast and at some point in the 40:14 next couple months you're going to be doing uh a soft relaunch of your Rambo 40:19 series right As like a trivia driven experience yes and you're going to be coming on hopefully for season two or 40:25 three uh season one got grabbed pretty quickly from people so I'm only doing four episodes per film so I I it's a 40:31 limited re-release so to speak of the series so I I need to get you on cuz you were definitely a uh a Rambo head as 40:38 long as it's not Last Blood i'm I'm good for any movie but Last Blood fair enough i really don't want to watch 40:44 that movie again to prepare for a trivia contest well you know that makes you just want to get you on there that much more i 40:50 know i know either way I think this is officially now the longest episode of the goat um sorry it's my fault i know 40:59 it's always my fault who knows I might edit start editing this and realize it needs to be a two-parter but either way 41:05 Ryan thank you so much and I look forward to talking to you for Casualties of War awesome 41:21 [Music]