Latest / All The Right Movies / Grosse Pointe Blank (1997) | Ep. 62 - Part 1

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Grosse Pointe Blank (1997) | Ep. 62 - Part 1 · All The Right Movies

• 0:04
  All the right movies. So you look good.
• 0:06
  You sound good. Thank you.
• 0:08
  You may have 10 years, man. 10. Where have you been for 10
• 0:14
  years? I freaked out, joined the Army,
• 0:19
  went into business for myself. I'm a professional killer.
• 0:22
  Oh, does that do you have to do postgraduate work for that or
• 0:25
  can you can you jump right in? I'm curious about that.
• 0:27
  It's an it's an open market. Open market.
• 0:29
  That's good. Wow. 10 years, man, 1010 years,
• 0:35
  10 years. 1010 years, 10 years, 10 years.
• 0:41
  I freaked out. I joined the Army.
• 0:44
  I worked for the government. I went into business with
• 0:46
  myself. I'm a professional killer.
• 0:48
  That's what I did. OK, well, can I join up?
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  Yes. Professional killer Martin Blanc
• 1:00
  is invited to his 10 year high school reunion while being
• 1:03
  contracted to do one last job in the same location.
• 1:06
  All flames reignite and buried secrets surface as Martin faces
• 1:09
  his past and he looks to his future.
• 1:12
  Grosse Pointe Blank started out as a pipe dream from an unknown
• 1:14
  writer but was beaten into shape by John Cusack and his Chicago
• 1:17
  buddies to become a modest hit at the box office and later a
• 1:20
  genre defy and cult classic about American masculinity and
• 1:24
  moral flexibility. My name is Luke and the two
• 1:26
  fellas putting together a little concern are Westie.
• 1:30
  I'm doing a double shift. What does it look like?
• 1:32
  And Matt? I killed the president of
• 1:34
  Paraguay with a fork. How have you been?
• 1:37
  All the right movies are going back to Grosse Pointe, where you
• 1:39
  can never go home again, but you can always shop there.
• 2:01
  Hi everyone, welcome to All the Right Movies, a podcast on
• 2:04
  classic and hit films that's having its own reunion with the
• 2:06
  past. We revisited in the 80s by we
• 2:09
  have the 90s telling the story of Hollywood one film at a time.
• 2:12
  It's not a huge blockbuster of the era, but it's a very
• 2:14
  important film to us, a cult classic and charted the
• 2:18
  evolution of John Cusack as an actor.
• 2:20
  It is gross, point blank. Sure is.
• 2:23
  Oh, now we've been excited about this one for a long time.
• 2:27
  Very exciting. While.
• 2:28
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• 3:12
  and interviewed the Co writer of that and this DVD even sent us.
• 3:16
  We did. So check that out.
• 3:17
  And we've talked about countless more films.
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  episodes. Indeed you will.
• 3:37
  If you could, if you would, that would be very much appreciated.
• 3:41
  Oh, absolutely, yeah. Thank you very much everybody.
• 3:44
  Thank you guys. But now it is back to the
• 3:47
  reunion with Martin Blank. Matt, this was your choice.
• 3:50
  Why do you want to talk about Gorge Point Blank?
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  This one's very important and very personal to me because this
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  comes out in 97 and that was pretty much the year where I
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  realized cinema was the thing I was really passionate about over
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  anything else. And this sounded like such an
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  intriguing film. But the thing was House at six
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  form and all my friends at the time that just weren't that
• 4:07
  first about cinema like I was. So if it wasn't the latest
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  blockbuster or big comedy with a huge name attached, the one
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  interested. So I had this conundrum.
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  Either I didn't go and see this despite how much I wanted to, or
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  I had to go to the cinema by myself.
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  And I don't know if it's different now, but back then
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  going to the cinema by yourself, that was a big deal that.
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  Was not cool. It was not cool.
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  It wasn't something you told people you did.
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  Nope. Now obviously I did go and see
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  by myself and coming out of it afterwards, it wasn't just the
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  fact that I've seen this film that I'd loved and I was so glad
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  that I did go and see it. It was more the realization that
• 4:39
  it felt absolutely fine to go on your own, and I could easily
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  shrug off someone going well, it's not a bit strange.
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  I've got a geek. Yeah, exactly.
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  And it just gave me the confidence to keep on doing
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  that, which is a good thing because.
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  As you haven't looked back since, have you?
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  Well, that's absolutely it. That's because I've said this
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  before the end of the 90s. That's such a pivotal period if
• 5:01
  cinema was going to see the likes of Magnolia, Being John
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  Malkovich, The Insider, and that all stemmed for me.
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  Go on. No, I'm going to go seagulls
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  point blank on my own and I don't care.
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  And I think if I didn't have the confidence to keep on doing
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  that, which expanded my look for cinema, there's a very real
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  chance I might not be Saturn now with you fellas.
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  Oh, profound. That's how important this one
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  is. And the cherry on top is when I
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  got this film on VHS, every single person who are sure to do
• 5:26
  who didn't want to go to the cinema absolutely loved it.
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  Brilliant, very brave Matt and the pivotal film amazing.
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  Yeah, huge. Well, if my mind were a video
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  store, and let's face it, it pretty much is.
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  Yeah. This film would definitely be on
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  the shelf. Yeah, I didn't catch the cinema
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  like you might, probably wasn't brave enough to go and watch it
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  by myself, but I did read a positive review in Empire at the
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  time, so it was on my radar. I watched it when it first came
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  out on video and I've watched it well at least every year ever
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  since. Yeah, right.
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  It sits in that bracket of films that I'll always return back to.
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  I'll go for comfort. I'll put it on the background
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  when I'm doing something else. I've been a Cusack fan ever
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  since this film. I think this was like Patience
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  Zero in my Cusack fandom. He's amazing.
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  He is such natural charm and energy.
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  And obviously all of the cast are incredible.
• 6:20
  Mini Driver. Forget about it.
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  Oh yeah. It's been a constant and it
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  constantly surprises me. There are layers to the dialogue
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  that still reveal themselves. It's not flashy film and it's
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  never going to be pulling up trees, but it just strikes a
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  chord with me that is always playing.
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  It's an old timer for me. Yeah.
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  I'm very much the same. It was a late 90s VHS affair for
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  me. This one, I don't think I saw
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  it. 97, I could be about 99 I think when I started working at
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  the cinema and then I was with like minded people and like
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  you've got to see this, you've got to see this, you've got to
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  see this. And there was a lot of people
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  pointing me towards this film. What really put me off was the
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  artwork. Yeah, I just thought, yeah,
• 6:54
  yeah, I'm not watching that and we'll get into that later on,
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  but I think that was a real down point for me.
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  And then when I actually watched it, I loved it because I was
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  right into this style of film at the time.
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  It reminded me of like that really independent, young snappy
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  feel, a bit really fresh feel where there was like Clerks who
• 7:10
  had the comedy of like, so I married Maximo, that kind of
• 7:12
  field to it where it wasn't taking itself too seriously.
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  It was them films that I was kind of just devouring
• 7:16
  everything and not really in me pretentious pompouspheres just
• 7:20
  yet. So it kind of fit just right.
• 7:22
  I think that was about 2001 ish. Wasn't too long after that.
• 7:26
  Not the film, the actual year, but yeah, that's, that's where
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  it sat with me. And I just absolutely loved it
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  when I was younger and I love it now.
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  And I think it is a very personal film.
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  Once it gets you, it gets you. And it just seems to have so
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  much presence and memory for me when I want to think back about
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  this film. There's so many highlights.
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  And maybe that's to its detriment that it's not a really
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  solid, finished, kind of thorough narrative film where
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  you go, you know, you've got all these arcs and all these ups and
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  downs. Maybe it is just a collection of
• 7:54
  great scenes, but you know, some films, awesome films on and this
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  one for me definitely sits in there because I'm watching this
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  and I watch it with anybody and I'm looking forward to what's
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  coming next. Yes, it is a really exciting
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  film and a really good one. If it gets you at the right
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  time, it really gets. You.
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  It really does. Yeah.
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  Grosse Pointe Blank was written by Tom Jankowitz, Steve Pink DVD
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  Even Centers and John Cusack. Directed by George Armitage.
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  It was produced by Susan Arnold, Donna Arkoff Roth and Roger
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  Birnbaum for Hollywood Pictures and distributed by one of his
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  two pictures in the theaters on April the 11th, 1997.
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  Shot largely in California, it stars John Cusack as blank mini
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  driver as Debbie, Dan Aykroyd as lunatic hitman Grosser,
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  Amazingly. Yeah, he's unreal.
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  And there's a great supporting cast including Jeremy Piven,
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  Alan Arkin, John Cusack and many more.
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  Ready to take a trip up to Grosse Pointe fellas?
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  Let's do it. Yep, let's go.
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  Firstly, we're picking up with Martin Q Blank as he takes out
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  the target. 10 years. 10 years. 10, 10 years.
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  The beginning. The beautiful sounds of Johnny
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  Nash players. The credits roll, but violence
• 9:09
  erupts on the streets. Is it going to be a bright,
• 9:11
  sunshiny day, Westie? I think it might just be, you
• 9:14
  know, I think it might just be what a great scene this is.
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  Exposition, introduction of characters, introduction to
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  tone, introduction to plot, introduction to everything.
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  Yeah, in what, 3 minutes? Amazing with that song in the
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  background as well. Yeah, I mean, that really works.
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  And it's it kind of offsets everything that you're watching.
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  You think what on earth is going on?
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  He's making a rifle. Was back and forth between him
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  and John Cusack, which is always snappy.
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  It's always sharp. Yeah.
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  Always. Just know each other's kind of
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  tone. Even though they're not
• 9:43
  necessarily in the same scene. I think it's a really, really
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  good setup for them. And even when he snaps, as you
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  know what I do for a living. That's me.
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  That's great because it's the right Well, there's an element
• 9:53
  of threat there. He's got a little patience and
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  it's great that you get to see what he says.
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  Now he's going for the cyclist and that's totally out of the
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  blue. Takes him out.
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  Fantastic. And then Grosser shows up.
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  Oh man, I've never been so happy to see Dark Roy just pop around
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  the corner just wearing like a bellhop out in.
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  The full garb in. The full garb and just pulls out
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  them two massive guns and and I mean, he doesn't waste a bullet.
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  Let's be honest. He absolutely goes for this.
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  And it just shows he's very thorough.
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  He's attention to detail. This guy we've got to look out
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  for. He's going to be a problem.
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  And it's Dan Aykroyd who's the problem.
• 10:33
  And it's really harsh. It's really kind of it's
• 10:35
  hilarious and you just sit right, OK, this is going to be
• 10:38
  violent. It's going to be funny.
• 10:39
  It's going to be stylish, I mean.
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  Crosser just blasting everybody away.
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  Fantastic. Takes the court off, just walks
• 10:47
  back in the hotel. Yes, then we do finally make
• 10:50
  Rosa Martin. Martin, where are you?
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  Right there on the bridge of the den, you kid.
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  Yeah, I mean, the dialogue is so snappy and instant between these
• 11:04
  two. And it's immediately funny how
• 11:05
  since he gets out the car, he and Martin are both facing to
• 11:08
  the side on Martin's hands. Knee was good.
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  It's it's the most cautious handshake you'll ever see in
• 11:13
  your life. Now them trust the other.
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  I think this whole thing is about deconstructing the myth of
• 11:17
  the hitman because like, the cinematic trope of the hitman is
• 11:20
  he's sleek and he's cool. He's a person of very little
• 11:22
  words. Martin is that to some extent,
• 11:25
  Grosser Definitely isn't. You know, You know, he's packing
• 11:28
  a little weird. He's really verbose.
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  You know, this isn't Jean Renault in Leon.
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  Say the least. He's not a samuraiser.
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  Exactly. That was the other one I was
• 11:37
  thinking of. Yeah.
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  And this whole conversation is as far away as he can get from
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  this, like, kind of almost romantic version of the the
• 11:45
  Brood and Hitman because, gross. He's just talking about forming
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  a union. And I think one of the best,
• 11:49
  like, satirical running jokes, is how much been Hitman is just
• 11:53
  like any of the job. It's got its issues.
• 11:56
  Of course. It says work, let's make more.
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  Let's do consolidated bargaining because the markets flooded.
• 12:01
  Like, really, if you've ever worked freelance, you go, yeah,
• 12:04
  you know what? That is a problem.
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  There was too many people out there.
• 12:07
  You know. Stealing your jobs, undercutting
• 12:08
  you. This is a genuine issue and I
• 12:10
  think there's a great description of all the others
• 12:12
  who've come in, the Stasi guys and that description of the
• 12:15
  Filipino ladies. The status.
• 12:17
  The status. The status the.
• 12:19
  Queen's the hotel hit. It just sets up this world
• 12:21
  beautifully and I think talking to create dialogue.
• 12:23
  Just want to quickly mention John Cusack again because, Yeah,
• 12:26
  I mean, she's so funny in this. So great.
• 12:28
  And when Martin's on the phone about the reunion and she says
• 12:31
  she went to hers. Oh, how was it?
• 12:34
  It was just as if everyone had swelled.
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  Yes. The obvious sign is everyone got
• 12:39
  fat, but that's not a funny line.
• 12:40
  Yeah, everyone swelled. That's.
• 12:42
  Funny. Great sizzling dialogue.
• 12:45
  Grosser. If you want a father, I'll give
• 12:46
  you a spanget. And it is that rat attack tat
• 12:55
  that Dan Ackroyd saw famous for that Bing Bing Bang Bang
• 12:58
  popcorn. Amazing.
• 13:00
  And that comes up. There's a lot of recurring
• 13:01
  motifs. There is, yes.
• 13:03
  So after this, Martin goes down to Miami to take on a job, and
• 13:06
  despite a lot of people being blasted away in the opening,
• 13:09
  it's kind of being quite a light hearted affair.
• 13:12
  I mean, in no small part because of Johnny Nash thinking.
• 13:15
  I can see clearly now. But this scene does take a
• 13:18
  different turn, highlighting the different tones that the film is
• 13:21
  going to traverse for the next hour and 40.
• 13:24
  I think there's something terrifying about how vulnerable
• 13:27
  you are when you're asleep. You're at the mercy of anybody
• 13:30
  who holds a grudge. And this is quite the elaborate
• 13:33
  situation, plunging some unknown poison down a thread.
• 13:36
  But ingenious, yeah. Yes, absolutely is.
• 13:39
  There's that perfectly executed moment when the guy turns his
• 13:42
  face and the liquid drops and his little frightened inhale is
• 13:46
  wonderful. Yeah, Yeah.
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  And then he gets up, and this is where we see Martin burst
• 13:50
  interaction. This is where we see that he's
• 13:52
  not just a distance killer. He can get up close and personal
• 13:56
  in his line of work. That can be no hesitations.
• 13:59
  And he busts through that door with exact inefficiency.
• 14:01
  He's really good at what he does.
• 14:04
  And this thing starts the theme of his need to emotionally
• 14:07
  detach from his target. Whatever it is that I'm doing
• 14:10
  that you don't like, I'll stop doing it.
• 14:12
  It's not me. Yeah.
• 14:13
  Why do people keep on saying that?
• 14:15
  Another recurring motif. Yeah.
• 14:17
  In this attempted poisoning by string in this scene, that's a
• 14:19
  direct reference to the Bond film You Only Live Twice.
• 14:22
  Yeah, and that's not the only reference to Double O 7.
• 14:24
  When Martin was on the front of Marcella, he says I've got a job
• 14:27
  to do and I'm going to do it right.
• 14:28
  A similar line can be found in the song Live and Let Die, which
• 14:31
  plays a part a lot later on. Ah, yes, of course.
• 14:33
  Yeah. And Cusack's character called
• 14:35
  Martin Q Blank Q being a reference to Bond.
• 14:38
  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's such a strange tie in,
• 14:42
  isn't it? You wouldn't expect them to be
• 14:44
  natural bedfellows, but yeah, it works.
• 14:46
  Yeah. So our characters are set up,
• 14:48
  but cracks are beginning to appear.
• 14:49
  Marcella is getting a Black Cat Friday the 13th kind of feeling
• 14:52
  about this one. So the gods want Martin to go
• 14:57
  back home and they want him to delete somebody while he's
• 15:00
  there. But first he needs to do some
• 15:02
  soul searching. And this is where we see the
• 15:03
  other side of Martin. We've got the cold contract
• 15:05
  killer. But at his analysts place we see
• 15:09
  what's happening and all the surface.
• 15:11
  He's a well of regret and unresolved issues.
• 15:14
  He's failing, uneasy issues at work, concept execution stuff,
• 15:18
  you know, that kind of thing. Cusack's always had this knack
• 15:22
  of doing the whole straight to camera monologue, and this one
• 15:25
  is great to open the scene. Your quote at the Star Mass,
• 15:29
  when he's come and played and going back to the reunion, he's
• 15:31
  all his anxieties are laid out. They'll have husbands and wives
• 15:34
  and they can talk about what they do and what am I going to
• 15:36
  say? I killed the president of
• 15:37
  Paraguay, the fork. How have you been?
• 15:44
  But then we get Doctor Ortman, who's just taken a back seat
• 15:49
  because he's an absolute fear of his life.
• 15:51
  He's brilliant. Absolutely.
• 15:55
  He's taken Martin on as a patient, and after four
• 15:57
  sessions, he's revealed that he's a contract killer.
• 15:59
  And this has made Ortman very, very jittery.
• 16:02
  There couldn't be more perfect casting than Alan Arkin as this
• 16:05
  character. Yeah, exactly.
• 16:06
  He's amazing. He's spectacular.
• 16:08
  Just beautiful moments of great dialogue and irresistible
• 16:11
  delivery. Ortman lays it down straight
• 16:13
  away. I'm afraid of you, Martin says.
• 16:15
  Well, I know where you live. And he just jumps out of his
• 16:17
  chair. It fills with anxiety and you're
• 16:21
  left with the aftermath of that. I've got to be creative in a
• 16:23
  really interesting way. Are you going to blow me?
• 16:25
  Brits that. Wasn't very nice.
• 16:26
  That wasn't a nice thing to say. That wasn't designed to make me
• 16:30
  feel good. I love the way Martin says he's
• 16:35
  read both his books, both New York Times bestsellers and he
• 16:38
  said who both ghost written. Martin, he's just trying to
• 16:41
  detach himself from. It.
• 16:44
  And then he suggests that maybe part of his problem is the angst
• 16:47
  over killed. And a lot of people maybe just
• 16:49
  put it in the background there. And then after that, Debbie is
• 16:53
  thrown into the mix. And this is just great writing.
• 16:55
  After a few sentences, we know what she means to Martin, the
• 16:58
  play she holds in his psyche and his history and how that
• 17:00
  situation remains completely unresolved.
• 17:03
  And he says of the recurring dreams of lost and paying for 10
• 17:06
  years featuring the same person. Yeah, maybe it's a bit
• 17:10
  obsessive. Dreams.
• 17:13
  Yeah. You want to talk about dreams?
• 17:14
  It's your neck, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
• 17:16
  Yeah, yeah, she's got the Rose, Green his hands, like he's
• 17:18
  praying at the same night. Like, oh God, he's.
• 17:20
  Got a great detail. Yeah.
• 17:23
  And I love his reaction, that the Battery Bunny story.
• 17:26
  He just whips up Martin. It's a terrible dream.
• 17:28
  It's got no brain, it's got no blood, it's got no anima.
• 17:31
  It just keeps on banging those symbols and go in and go, yeah.
• 17:34
  Yeah. And right at the end, get out of
• 17:38
  town, go and see some old friends, have some punch, visit
• 17:41
  with what's her name, Debbie. Debbie and give it a shot.
• 17:44
  No, don't give it a shot. Don't shoot anything.
• 17:48
  It's I mean, I could go on and on about this dialogue in this
• 17:51
  scene. Yeah.
• 17:52
  It's simply in the performance is particularly Alan Arke.
• 17:55
  It's bubbling over with some amazing ideas, this scene.
• 17:58
  Yeah. So rewrites were being done on
• 18:00
  set, something we'll touch on later.
• 18:01
  The writing team were relatively inexperienced and soon learned
• 18:04
  the hard way about movie politics.
• 18:06
  Doctor Rotman, as we've talked about, was originally written as
• 18:08
  a more straight laced character, but Alan Arkin suggested the
• 18:11
  therapist should be scared witless instead, which is
• 18:13
  absolutely necessary. The licensing for that
• 18:15
  character. That's brilliant.
• 18:16
  Yeah. And Pink and Even Centre spent
• 18:19
  days rewriting the scenes and arrived proudly on set on the
• 18:22
  first day of shooting with the newly written pages completely
• 18:25
  unaware they should have run the rewrites past the studio or
• 18:28
  director first. Can you imagine how excited they
• 18:30
  would have been? I'm doing that.
• 18:34
  Pink said that he got a finger stabbing into the chest
• 18:38
  reprimand from one of the producers as a result.
• 18:41
  Don't do this again. So then after this, Martin's on
• 18:45
  his way to Detroit, we'll get one of the many perfect needle
• 18:49
  drops in the film with Blister in the Sun on the side back
• 18:52
  here. Then Walter introduced to the
• 18:54
  two feds who were tailing them, Laudner and Mccullers, and they
• 18:57
  both saw goodness as well. I think one of the great things
• 19:00
  that Gross Point Blank does is it makes every character, no
• 19:03
  matter how little the screen time, feel very rounded and
• 19:06
  believable and just this good-natured squabbling you've
• 19:09
  got going on in the car between these over the file.
• 19:11
  Have you read the file? I don't need to read the file.
• 19:12
  I know Martin well, maybe I'll take the weekend off and you can
• 19:15
  kill them. Well, all that stuff.
• 19:17
  It's really, really great. I mean, like I think we get just
• 19:20
  as much as we need of these two. The part of me thinks actually
• 19:23
  I'd like to see more of them. I'd like to see them wind Gross
• 19:26
  would be a bit more that they do here on.
• 19:28
  I'd like to see more of them trailer Martin around and doing
• 19:30
  things like ringing into Debbie's shore to antagonize
• 19:33
  them, you know, put them on alert.
• 19:35
  Great. And then obviously talking of
• 19:36
  Debbie, it's finally our introduction to her as well.
• 19:38
  I mean you get the great transition from like non
• 19:41
  diegetic soundtrack, violin fems into the diegetic soundtrack
• 19:44
  when Martin turns a radio on and it's it's that classic close of
• 19:48
  a first speaking into the mic, which Hawks back to Pulp
• 19:50
  Fiction, which harks back to the warriors.
• 19:52
  Warriors, yes. I mean, it's maybe a bit of a
• 19:54
  not set up a thing that this radio station is just like
• 19:56
  broadcasting onto the streets. Blaring onto the.
• 19:59
  Street like you don't listen to it.
• 20:00
  I don't know if that's an American thing.
• 20:01
  Maybe American listeners and say that's how it works.
• 20:04
  I don't know. I quite like that.
• 20:06
  I mean depending on like a. Particular speaker outside my
• 20:09
  house while we're doing this. Come along everybody.
• 20:14
  But. I think it's clear from this bit
• 20:17
  as well just how smart she is. You know, where all the good men
• 20:20
  dead in the heart or in the head, That's the Shakespeare
• 20:23
  court, and she's just casually dropping it in there.
• 20:25
  Brilliant. It's really funny how Martin
• 20:27
  just automatically slips in the hitman mode when he's trying to
• 20:30
  look, sneak a look at Debbie through the window, hat pulled
• 20:32
  down, glasses on, covering his face with his hand.
• 20:34
  So the music choices, the character introductions, it's
• 20:37
  all been set up for the rest of the film perfectly.
• 20:39
  Brilliant driving gloves as well.
• 20:41
  Driving classic move. Yeah, lovely.
• 20:45
  From there, he kind of loses the disguise, then courses, places
• 20:48
  that remind him of his past and we've all done this.
• 20:50
  When you go back and you kind of reminisce, you just drive past
• 20:53
  somewhere and you're like the memory start could come flooding
• 20:55
  back. But the first one is when he
• 20:57
  visits the school. I absolutely love this back and
• 21:00
  forth with Mrs. Kay. I think she is wonderful because
• 21:04
  you can tell that couldn't fucking stand each other when
• 21:06
  they were at school. She couldn't stand him And it's
• 21:09
  like you've always been really good at that without sound like
• 21:11
  a kiss ass like straight down the line and it's just them
• 21:14
  little back and forth. Where have you been?
• 21:16
  As if they've put bets on and she's lost and just kind of
• 21:18
  pissed off. You know, we all lost and say
• 21:20
  no, I'll win this world. That's a barrage of imagery.
• 21:23
  That's fantastic. That's great, yeah.
• 21:25
  He starts one line of conversation and then she just
• 21:27
  changed. That's a nice tie you've got on.
• 21:28
  You look like a mortician. It's like a really backhanded
• 21:31
  covenant. And then he's like, you've got
• 21:32
  that married to Elmore thing going on.
• 21:34
  I love. That it's just.
• 21:36
  The kind of slapping each other around and just like, where you
• 21:39
  going? I'm going home.
• 21:40
  Oh yeah. Really.
• 21:41
  Yeah. Yeah, yeah, you've got surprise
• 21:43
  coming. Yeah, Wait until you see that.
• 21:44
  Sorry. Later on and when the bell goes
• 21:47
  off the plane, the song. I love that.
• 21:49
  Yeah, that's good. So from there, we'll come to the
• 21:52
  probably the second best needle drop, which is live and let die
• 21:55
  as he pulls up the ultimate. Yeah.
• 21:57
  And I always think, and I know that you interviewed division
• 22:00
  sent us about this and the change the music and we'll get
• 22:03
  into that, but I do think that this cut leaves me wanting
• 22:06
  slightly. I think it cuts to the Ultimart
• 22:08
  slightly too early. Yeah, I know what you mean, OK.
• 22:11
  This song doesn't kick in. Yeah, it kicks him when he walks
• 22:14
  into the frame. And that should have been the
• 22:17
  cut of the Ultimart. It should have been him getting
• 22:19
  out the car, just his reaction, and then walking up to the
• 22:22
  camera just as the song's kind of building and then cut to do.
• 22:25
  And then as it kicks in, there's the Ultimart, and he's walking
• 22:27
  towards it. Yeah, I think that would have
• 22:29
  had a lot more of an impact, but it's it's wonderful.
• 22:31
  He goes in this back and forth with this kid is just so good.
• 22:35
  It feels like this is completely ad libbed.
• 22:37
  I don't think they wrote a line of dialogue here.
• 22:38
  Yeah. They basically said to the kid,
• 22:40
  look, you're on a double shift and you work here, You've been
• 22:43
  here a couple of months. That's all you need to know.
• 22:45
  Yeah. And that's all he says.
• 22:46
  He's I'm on a double shift. What does it look like?
• 22:47
  How does he know he's on a double shift for a start.
• 22:50
  That's great stuff. He's working a double shift and
• 22:52
  say what the fuck do you want from is where is where's your
• 22:54
  manager live? I'm not telling you.
• 22:55
  Where do you live? I'm not telling you that.
• 22:56
  Yeah, it's. Just going to hitman mode,
• 22:58
  hasn't he? Where do you want to find you?
• 23:01
  He's just trying to find sense out of this nonsensical
• 23:04
  situation. He's got no idea what's going
• 23:06
  on. And he's like, I used to what
• 23:08
  are you doing here? What?
• 23:10
  Are you doing here? I used to, he's just, I used to
• 23:13
  live here, but he can't say that because I used to live like
• 23:17
  here. You know, I'm standing where my
• 23:18
  living room used to be and then he phones and it's just that
• 23:21
  wonderful moment from argument. He just wakes up and he goes and
• 23:25
  he's just shocked with the with the phone ring and he's like,
• 23:27
  OK, And he walks over to it really slowly.
• 23:29
  And then he says, oh, it's Martin Blank.
• 23:30
  He's just not, I'm not picking the phone yet.
• 23:32
  He just hovers over it and then just walks back and.
• 23:34
  Cushion over the head. In fetal position.
• 23:37
  God leave this alone. Which is absolutely wonderful.
• 23:40
  Really love that sequence. Again, I'm straightened.
• 23:43
  Oh, it's wonderful. Yeah, what's done is done.
• 23:45
  Let's forget. The whole let's just let's do
• 23:46
  the whole thing that the kids just looking team looks around
• 23:48
  kind of at the camera. He's kind of like, is that the
• 23:51
  scene? Is that me Done.
• 23:55
  So with Martin's existential crisis in false wing, the ghost
• 23:58
  of his pastor colliding with his present, Yeah.
• 24:04
  The director. Let's talk about the man behind
• 24:08
  the camera who brought this cult classic to life.
• 24:11
  A man who will probably not show up on classic again.
• 24:14
  No, no, although he has shown up on one of our Pit Run shows in
• 24:17
  the past when he directed Hitman the remake of Get Carter.
• 24:21
  Oh, that's right, yeah. Right.
• 24:22
  OK, yes. OK, yeah, Yep.
• 24:25
  Still not check that one out, no.
• 24:27
  Don't bother. Yeah, I'm still trying to absorb
• 24:28
  that one. George Armitage, who prior to
• 24:32
  this had made one film in the last 21 years.
• 24:36
  An unexpected mix. What are your thoughts of his
• 24:39
  work? He Westie.
• 24:40
  I mean, he's steering the ship, isn't he?
• 24:42
  He is. I think there's so many people
• 24:44
  here. There's such a mountain pot of
• 24:46
  opinions and humor and direction that it does feel quite muddled.
• 24:51
  But what he does is he takes the threads, and I think he does
• 24:53
  neatly put them together and he does actually make this make
• 24:57
  sense because it could so easily not make sense, I think, because
• 25:00
  of the nature of it. And we've said that rewrites are
• 25:02
  being done literally on the set, but it does kind of stitch
• 25:06
  together OK. I think if you look for it,
• 25:08
  you'll see cracks everywhere in this film.
• 25:10
  If you want to RIP this from the pieces, it's very easy to do.
• 25:12
  So the second shot in this film that I was going to mention
• 25:15
  later on with the DP, Jamie Anderson, I was going to say,
• 25:18
  well, the second shot in this films of Dutch angle in an
• 25:20
  office for no reason whatsoever. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 25:25
  Why? It just makes no sense.
• 25:28
  There's crane shots in here. There's really fast editing.
• 25:31
  There's really slow editing. There's cuts where there
• 25:32
  shouldn't be cuts. There's cuts that don't
• 25:35
  necessarily match. Our lines are pretty much all
• 25:37
  over the place. But he makes it work and he
• 25:39
  keeps that tone consistent. Every scene is on the same
• 25:43
  level. It doesn't necessarily dip in
• 25:44
  quality no matter where we are and what we're talking about.
• 25:47
  If it's the romantic comedy, that works as a romantic comedy.
• 25:49
  If it's an action sequence, it works as an action sequence.
• 25:52
  If it's a dialogue sequence, it works as a dialogue sequence.
• 25:54
  It keeps the tones. Exactly.
• 25:56
  The tone is consistent, and I think that's what Armitage does
• 25:59
  with this. He's a very consistent
• 26:01
  storyteller and a very consistent filmmaker to just
• 26:04
  say, right, the first scene of this film and the last scene of
• 26:07
  this film are as good as each other.
• 26:09
  There's that shoot out in the house and the assassination at
• 26:11
  the start as both as good as each other.
• 26:14
  So and everything in the middle does keep that consistency and
• 26:17
  he does a really, really good job with that.
• 26:18
  I think he's just a really good no man.
• 26:20
  He's like, I'm not, we can't do that, no.
• 26:23
  Yes. He's probably the most mature
• 26:25
  person on the set, needs like a father figure just to kind of
• 26:29
  go, look, we can't do everything that you want to do, Let's just
• 26:31
  pick the best bits and put them in.
• 26:33
  And I really, truly believe that that's what he's done.
• 26:36
  Well, I think the thing about this, it's clearly a John Cusack
• 26:38
  passion project, produce and star it.
• 26:41
  So he's going to want someone who he knows is going to deliver
• 26:44
  what he wants. And I agree with Wesley.
• 26:46
  I don't think it's a case if he wants a yes man, but I think he
• 26:49
  wants a good collaborator and Cusack.
• 26:51
  I think a good collaborator is someone is going to be able to
• 26:53
  come in and put what Cusack sees on the page, or is it in his
• 26:57
  head and put it on screen from he doesn't want someone who's
• 27:00
  going to come in and start pulling this thing to pieces and
• 27:02
  go, you know, I've got a different vision for this.
• 27:04
  Have you thought about doing this instead?
• 27:05
  What Cusack wants to hear this? Well, this could be tricky, but
• 27:08
  this is how we can do it. That sounds slightly dismisses
• 27:12
  of Amnish, but don't mean to because ultimately he's doing
• 27:14
  what Cusack can't. And it's not even as if this is
• 27:18
  an absolute home run for anyone on the page.
• 27:20
  The tone of this is so unique. It's funny, but the humor is
• 27:23
  very offbeat. It's romantic, but it's not a
• 27:25
  typical Hollywood romance. And then it has action sequences
• 27:28
  in there. And then in amongst all that, it
• 27:30
  does have these questions about having an existential crisis of
• 27:33
  morality. So there's a lot of balance.
• 27:36
  And I think that's what I think Cusack trusted Armitage with the
• 27:39
  ability to balance everything. And, you know, at this point in
• 27:42
  history, Cusack could have probably shocked this around to
• 27:44
  quite a few people. I mean, he's worked with Rob
• 27:46
  Reiner a few times by this point.
• 27:48
  He could have got robbed, Ryan Win, but he doesn't.
• 27:50
  He he wants Armitage. He repairs every single bid of
• 27:52
  trust because this film agreed it could be all over the place,
• 27:55
  really, but it's not. It's sharp as a tack, and that's
• 27:58
  what Armitage deserves so much credit for, because he totally
• 28:01
  guess what this film needs to be.
• 28:03
  Yes. Yeah, he knows his place.
• 28:04
  Homage doesn't. He does, yeah.
• 28:06
  Yes, I think we're we're all on the same page and I think it's
• 28:10
  very similar to Stephen Freeze his work on.
• 28:13
  He. Said very similar things when we
• 28:16
  covered that. Yeah, he's not a flashy
• 28:18
  director. He services the material well.
• 28:20
  He runs a good tight ship, and he's clearly In Sync with Cusack
• 28:24
  and his buddies. And considering he's quite a bit
• 28:27
  older than them, just like Stephen Freeze, I think the
• 28:30
  collaboration really shines. I'm not tightened down with fear
• 28:33
  and prayers either here. I mean, again, I think we said
• 28:36
  the same thing on High Fidelity. There's no call for a flashy
• 28:39
  director here or somebody trying to elevate the material.
• 28:41
  It already speaks for itself. What really impresses me about
• 28:44
  amateurs work here is the location.
• 28:46
  I mean, it's in the title. It's got to be a character in
• 28:49
  the film, and there's something quite beautiful about the way
• 28:51
  that he establishes Grosse Pointe and this idealized
• 28:55
  American suburb or manicured lawns, perfect facades.
• 28:58
  I think it works great with the story.
• 29:01
  It feels like the kind of place that exists more in memory than
• 29:03
  in reality, which kind of is representative of Martin.
• 29:08
  I think I would have understood that he wasn't just recreating a
• 29:10
  location. It was a state of mind or memory
• 29:13
  or an idealized memory. Martin left.
• 29:15
  Everybody else stayed behind and never changed.
• 29:18
  And what is amazing is that despite being set in Grosse
• 29:21
  Pointe in Michigan, the production spent only a half a
• 29:25
  day in the real gross point, mostly in that helicopter aerial
• 29:28
  shots that you talked about when he's driving into Detroit.
• 29:32
  Yeah, because budget constraints meant recreating the Detroit
• 29:34
  suburb in Los Angeles with John Marshall High School, Dublin,
• 29:37
  for Grosse Pointe High after the real school board refused
• 29:40
  permission, feeling it inappropriate to show someone
• 29:43
  graduating from their system to become a hitman.
• 29:45
  Fair enough, fair comment. Yeah, That is on that.
• 29:47
  Yeah. Absolutely justified.
• 29:49
  Yeah. I mean, the transformation was
• 29:50
  so convincing. The crime novelist Elmore
• 29:52
  Leonard, who lived in Oakland County, Michigan, thought the
• 29:55
  entire film was shot in Grosse Pointe.
• 29:57
  Wow, that's unbelievable, isn't? It Yeah, brilliant.
• 29:59
  Yeah, because Auckland County is only about 35 miles from Grosse
• 30:02
  Pointe, so he knows what he's talking about.
• 30:04
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 30:05
  And it really is. It really makes its presence
• 30:08
  known in the film. Yeah.
• 30:10
  And just like Martin Blank itself, the movie is presenting
• 30:12
  one thing while being something entirely different underneath,
• 30:15
  which is a nice tie in. I like that.
• 30:17
  When the project was initially picked up by producer John
• 30:20
  Kaley, he asked Pink and Devicentes which director they
• 30:23
  had in mind. Without missing a beat, they
• 30:25
  said Stanley Kubrick. Natural fit.
• 30:30
  It's like a reflex, isn't it? Stanley Cubic.
• 30:33
  He did the spiral of me, didn't he?
• 30:34
  A bit of it. No touch angles for Stanley.
• 30:39
  Kayleigh immediately put in a call back to his assistant.
• 30:42
  Marcy, get me Stanley on the phone.
• 30:43
  And then the call came through. Hi Stanley.
• 30:45
  I'm sending you a script. It's great.
• 30:46
  You'll love it. Speak about that other thing
• 30:48
  later. But looking back the right,
• 30:50
  there's reckon that Kayleigh was probably just stringing them
• 30:52
  along and his assistant was probably thinking, oh, he's
• 30:55
  doing that fake Kubrick thing again.
• 30:59
  So after this, the project found the perfect home with the
• 31:01
  producing team, Susan Arnold and Donna Roth, and they've been
• 31:04
  searching for exactly this type of script, Arnold said.
• 31:07
  We wanted a script with a fresh, original feeling.
• 31:09
  We were thrilled when John Cusack brought the material to
• 31:12
  us and asked us to produce it. So then and George Armitage, a
• 31:16
  Roger Coleman protegee who had disappeared from the movie scene
• 31:19
  for well over 10 years but had made a splash direct in 1990s
• 31:23
  Miami Blues star in Alec Baldwin Cusack like this blend of
• 31:26
  violence and quirky dark comedy with improv.
• 31:30
  So he thought he was perfect for this script.
• 31:32
  And he brought a unique filmmaking philosophy to the
• 31:34
  project. He essentially shot 3 different
• 31:36
  movies simultaneously, one that struck to the script, one that
• 31:40
  was mildly understated, and one that went completely over the
• 31:43
  top with improvisation and energy.
• 31:45
  And usually it was the third version.
• 31:47
  I made it into the final cut. Nice.
• 31:49
  That's amazing, and I'm drawing comparisons to Kubrick here.
• 31:52
  Isn't that how he shot Doctor Strangelove?
• 31:54
  Yes, yes, very much, yeah. Yeah.
• 31:57
  So if you can't get Kubrick, yeah.
• 32:04
  And this was an approach he used when cast in the film as well.
• 32:06
  He did the act, Let's read the script and throw it out and say,
• 32:09
  okay, let's improvise. This method helped them find the
• 32:11
  right chemistry and energy for each rule.
• 32:13
  Knowing what would happen when the cameras are rolling.
• 32:15
  I think that's a really, really good, smart way to do it.
• 32:17
  That's great. Yeah, absolutely brilliant.
• 32:19
  I love it. The script went through dramatic
• 32:21
  changes under Armitages guidance.
• 32:23
  When he first met the writing team, the script was 132 pages
• 32:27
  and he told them that he wouldn't shoot anything over 100
• 32:29
  pages. And they did a rewrite and it
• 32:31
  came back 150 pages. We talked about this a million
• 32:37
  times, but no, I want, I want less.
• 32:39
  You've given me more, no? It's like me answering paper and
• 32:44
  questions. Wesley, I want three only.
• 32:48
  Well. Got 13.
• 32:52
  And then Albert just told all the writing team that they were
• 32:54
  fired, tongue in cheek of course.
• 32:55
  And According to him, he spent most of pre production rewriting
• 32:58
  the screenplay himself, getting it down to 1 or 202 pages.
• 33:02
  Yeah. And he also said he could have
• 33:03
  taken a screenplay credit for his rewrites, but he chose not
• 33:06
  to because he failed. It would reduce the percentage
• 33:08
  for the other writers due to the Writers Guild regulations.
• 33:11
  But does he put it added as much as anyone did in terms of
• 33:14
  writing? Nice.
• 33:15
  That's nice. Yeah, sweet man.
• 33:16
  And the production was intense, shooting 750,000 feet of film
• 33:20
  over 45 days. That sounds like Kubrick.
• 33:24
  As Armitage noted, it was like using the Rodger Coleman method,
• 33:28
  getting everything in the can, then using whatever time was
• 33:30
  leftover to embellish and mess around.
• 33:32
  During a Yeah. And the man in charge of messing
• 33:35
  around was editor Brian Burden. He had worked with Oliver Stone
• 33:38
  and David Lynch, so he wasn't adverse to working with a lot of
• 33:40
  footage and it being weird, I suppose, Yeah.
• 33:44
  Yeah, the improvisational style meant Burden dealt with an high
• 33:47
  volume alternate takes and unscripted material.
• 33:50
  The edit focused on maintaining pace and ensuring the film's
• 33:53
  unique blend of tones were coherent.
• 33:55
  Variety layer praise Burdens ratatatat editing for
• 33:58
  accentuating the film's spirited pace.
• 34:00
  I mean, I can go along with that.
• 34:02
  Yeah, definitely. And for a highly dynamic or
• 34:04
  improvised scenes, Armitage would ask actors to occasionally
• 34:07
  face each other and pause. This was to facilitate smooth
• 34:10
  cutting, minimizing the risk of drawing edits from improvised
• 34:13
  movement. Multiple cameras captured scenes
• 34:16
  from various angles to provide material for coherent and
• 34:19
  energetic editing. It's quite the elaborate set up
• 34:21
  for Grosse Pointe Blank isn't. It it doesn't feel that
• 34:24
  elaborate, does it? It doesn't.
• 34:26
  But the improvisational freedom did create some pressure already
• 34:29
  to remember that one actor saying, I've never felt so much
• 34:32
  pressure to improvise. And Cusack went over and
• 34:35
  apparently chewed him out and said, are you kidding?
• 34:37
  This guy's the first director who's offered you the freedom to
• 34:39
  improvise and actually stuck with it.
• 34:41
  Yeah, and this approach did create some generational
• 34:43
  friction as well, Pink and deep and sent as recalled that they
• 34:46
  weren't always on the same page as Armitage, which is perhaps a
• 34:50
  generational disconnect because he had a more traditional style
• 34:53
  which ruled up against their very of the moment idiosyncratic
• 34:56
  humor. Though they did say that
• 34:58
  Armitage just rolled with it all in production.
• 35:00
  Parallels with Stephen Free is on, Yeah, yeah, definitely.
• 35:04
  Yeah, he did this exactly the same thing.
• 35:06
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 35:07
  Probably one of the reasons why they hired somebody like Stephen
• 35:10
  Freeze on that because of the experience working with Armitage
• 35:12
  here. Yeah, I think so.
• 35:13
  It's kind of a blueprint, isn't it, that the.
• 35:15
  Following like that so one and done for Armitage on ATRM
• 35:18
  Classic. But if Grosse Point Blank is the
• 35:20
  high point of your career, you've done something very
• 35:22
  right. Absolutely.
• 35:23
  Yeah, the cast. A great cast on Grosse Pointe
• 35:32
  Blank. We're talking about the main
• 35:33
  players, starting with my boy John Cusack as Martin Q Blank.
• 35:37
  Where's our boy? There's something quite
• 35:42
  remarkable about what Cusack achieves here for me, and it
• 35:44
  starts with the fact that Martin gets away with just a lot of
• 35:48
  shit. Yes, in his wake in this film,
• 35:50
  yeah. I mean, there's no comeback from
• 35:52
  the Ultimar explosion. No.
• 35:54
  No, even though there are witnesses, the guy pulling a
• 35:56
  double shift would have definitely spoken to the police
• 35:58
  about his place of work exploding.
• 36:00
  Yeah, he just pissed off. He's got to find a new job.
• 36:06
  And when he kills Lapu Bell, he doesn't try and clean himself
• 36:09
  up, just straight downstairs for a club soda where everybody else
• 36:12
  is. Yeah.
• 36:13
  Yeah. But somehow we let that pass.
• 36:15
  And I think that's entirely down to Cusack's performance.
• 36:18
  Casing for me is when he calls Upman near the end and he gives
• 36:21
  him this brilliant pep talk. Take a deep breath.
• 36:23
  Realise this is me breathing. You want me to realise it?
• 36:26
  You want me to see it? Yeah.
• 36:27
  See it. This is me breathing.
• 36:29
  Good work. Keep it up.
• 36:30
  Don't kill anybody More. Great stuff.
• 36:32
  Yeah, and that's a turning point for Martin.
• 36:35
  He leaves his gun behind before he picks Debbie up.
• 36:37
  He's looking in the mirror, contemplate in his past, looking
• 36:39
  for his future. He repeats the You're a Handsome
• 36:42
  Devil line that his mother said earlier.
• 36:43
  So it's really good, right, Because it's a one person scene
• 36:46
  and we get all that character development without any dialogue
• 36:48
  being explicit about what he's thinking and what he's doing.
• 36:53
  Cusack in that one person saying pulls it off magnificently.
• 36:55
  You can see that he wants to make that change and go
• 36:57
  straight, but he's clearly struggling with it.
• 36:59
  There's a little bit of manic energy bubbling underneath that
• 37:02
  performance in that specific scene.
• 37:03
  Yeah. And I think just the fact that
• 37:05
  he can pull off being a cold blooded assassin in any scenario
• 37:09
  is pretty remarkable because it's John Cusack.
• 37:11
  He's quite honest, human. He's in every man.
• 37:14
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. But Martin's a complex
• 37:16
  character, despite us knowing very little about his past or
• 37:18
  what's gotten him to this point because his family unit is
• 37:21
  completely destroyed, his mother's unstable, his dad is no
• 37:25
  longer with us. And from that word, Lucene at
• 37:27
  the grave, I can only imagine it was self-inflicted.
• 37:30
  Yeah. So you can draw some conclusions
• 37:31
  about why he's taken this path. But Cusack makes a character
• 37:34
  with so many holes and so many questions feel fully rounded.
• 37:37
  The dialogue's not there. It's in his performance.
• 37:40
  I think he's made a habit of kind of nostalgia in his best
• 37:43
  roles this High Fidelity, and I'm going to throw it in there.
• 37:47
  Even Hot Tub Time Machine. Okay, I was waiting for that.
• 37:51
  Yeah, obviously. The 14 away.
• 37:55
  Definitely not. I was saying you gonna.
• 37:58
  Go stand by me. But no.
• 37:59
  No, no, no, no, no. Nothing like that.
• 38:03
  No. But they're all about a grown
• 38:05
  man lost in his world, retracing his past to improve his future.
• 38:08
  All three of those films are. And it all started here.
• 38:12
  I find it an interesting that Cusack was a staple of 80s teen
• 38:15
  films. And so it's almost like he's
• 38:17
  really visiting his own cinematic past here by looking
• 38:19
  back to the 80s. And I mean, there's none too
• 38:22
  subtle double meaning in his name.
• 38:23
  Blank, the man who's emotionally vacant.
• 38:25
  But Cusack brings such charm and vulnerability to a making an
• 38:28
  unlikeable person likeable. Yeah, his chemistry with
• 38:31
  everybody, he's fantastic driver, obviously, but also with
• 38:35
  Jeremy Piven and the great dynamic he has with his sister.
• 38:38
  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Love it when he calls Marcella.
• 38:41
  So he says, listen, Sergeant Pepper, that's.
• 38:44
  Great. I think he understands that
• 38:50
  Martin isn't a traditional action hero or even a an anti
• 38:53
  hero traditionally. He's deeply damaged man trying
• 38:55
  to figure out if he can change. He wants to, but can he?
• 38:58
  And Cusack plays all those contradictions very well.
• 39:01
  Yeah, I think yeah, it's a career defining.
• 39:04
  It's top three Cusack. Oh, yeah, yeah.
• 39:07
  Without doubt. As he often does, Cusack
• 39:09
  populated the film with his family and friends.
• 39:11
  Three of his siblings, John, Anne and Bill, all appear in the
• 39:14
  film, along with Piven, who had been part of a Chicago theatre
• 39:17
  circle since they were teenagers.
• 39:19
  The core group of Cusack Pinked even sent this Piven had all
• 39:22
  studied acting together at the Piven Theatre Workshop, which is
• 39:25
  run by Jeremy's parents. Yeah.
• 39:27
  Oh nice. And Co writers DVD Vincentis and
• 39:30
  Steve Pink both appeared in the film as Don Karetsky and Terry
• 39:33
  Rostan respectively. And the film are connections to
• 39:36
  Cusack's previous work too. Because both Jeremy Piven and
• 39:39
  Patrick O'Neill and he plays Nathaniel had a piece of Cusack
• 39:42
  and say anything. Brilliant, Debbie.
• 39:45
  It's Nathaniel. I love that.
• 39:47
  Guy, I'm not. Feeling any remorse here dude?
• 39:50
  I'd make you wear that progress. The film's success came from
• 39:56
  embracing chaos and creativity over rigid planning, as Cusack
• 40:00
  explained. He said, I like to take risks
• 40:02
  with acting. You want to see if you can get
• 40:03
  into trouble without knowing you're going to get out of it.
• 40:06
  It's the exact opposite of war, where you need an exit strategy.
• 40:09
  When you're acting, you should get all the way into trouble
• 40:12
  with no exit strategy and half the cameras rolling.
• 40:14
  Yeah, yeah, great. Nice.
• 40:15
  Yeah. And just linking.
• 40:17
  And into all of his siblings playing a part.
• 40:19
  Here we've got our first Patreon question from Alistair Block.
• 40:23
  Hello, Alistair. Like Alistair, you can become a
• 40:26
  parent of all the right movies. Ask us questions for the film
• 40:29
  that we're covering. And this is what Alice has got
• 40:30
  to say. First of all, he says hi gang.
• 40:32
  Hello. Well, hello, good start.
• 40:34
  Yeah, Alistair from the block. He'll love that.
• 40:39
  Yeah, of course he will. He says thanks for consistently
• 40:43
  great podcasts. I've been listening for a while
• 40:45
  now and finally decided to take the plunge to support you in
• 40:47
  period as this is one of my all time favorite films and I really
• 40:51
  wanted to get on asking a question.
• 40:53
  Now is my chance to get stuck into the rest of the archive as
• 40:55
  well. Thank you for doing it Alistair.
• 40:57
  You can do it listening as well if you want to.
• 40:59
  Yes, definitely. As this question is this, he
• 41:02
  says this is one of several films that John and John Cusack
• 41:05
  appeared together. Notably, this one also has an
• 41:07
  and Bill, and none of them are related in the film.
• 41:10
  What other notable performances can you name star and relatives
• 41:13
  playing characters who are not related?
• 41:15
  He says off the top of his head he could only have the
• 41:17
  Sutherlands in the Time to Kill and Frank was in The Disaster
• 41:20
  Artist, so those are off the menu.
• 41:22
  OK, yeah, thanks for the question, Alistair.
• 41:24
  Welcome to the period community. Yes, welcome mate.
• 41:27
  Thank you. And this is actually trickier
• 41:29
  than it first appears because most of the time when you get
• 41:31
  civilians in a film together, they are playing related
• 41:33
  characters or one of them just has a small cameo.
• 41:35
  Yeah, John and John have appeared in 10 films together.
• 41:38
  Wow, didn't realize there was not many.
• 41:39
  But a thought of the Wilson brothers in Tenenbaums.
• 41:44
  Of course. Personal favorite.
• 41:45
  Yeah, I've got that, yeah. Yeah, I've got William, Daniel
• 41:48
  and Stephen Baldwin in Born on the 4th of July.
• 41:51
  Yeah, yeah. Nice.
• 41:52
  Right. Nice, Yeah.
• 41:53
  Deep Code and I've got a few more.
• 41:55
  I'll leave them. But my favorite out of the lot?
• 41:57
  Emilio Estevez, Chuck Sheen. The film is Men At Work.
• 42:01
  An. Absolute banger.
• 42:02
  It is a banger. Best friends, yeah.
• 42:06
  I've got Estevez and Sheen, young guns.
• 42:09
  Brilliant. Of course you are, young guns.
• 42:11
  Yeah, fantastic, brilliant film. And I just, I love John and John
• 42:15
  in High Fidelity. I think that is them.
• 42:17
  The pit bull for me are. You going to do Wesley?
• 42:19
  I'll do it if you want. Do it.
• 42:20
  Yeah, go for it. Hey Rob, you fucking asshole.
• 42:27
  And the big Claudia Westies neighbors there.
• 42:29
  Yes, sorry. And the one for me, it's not
• 42:35
  necessarily a great performance and it is more a cameo, but in
• 42:38
  researching this I found this out and I absolutely love this.
• 42:41
  Robin Williams, his older brother, is the bartender in
• 42:45
  Mrs. Doubtfire in the run by freaking scene.
• 42:51
  They're not related. Love that.
• 42:53
  Brilliant. Of course they're not related.
• 42:56
  Not the film. That's wonderful.
• 42:59
  That is a deep cut where I love. That one, and I want to be very
• 43:01
  favorite teens. What about you, Matt?
• 43:03
  Yeah, I mean, you can cheat a little bit on this question
• 43:06
  because there's a few examples of actors getting relatives in
• 43:10
  for very small walls. Like White Russell has small
• 43:13
  walls in Soldier and Escaped from LA, both his father's
• 43:16
  films. Brilliant.
• 43:17
  Yeah. Tom Cruise, his cousin William
• 43:19
  MAPPA there, who is more famous for being and lost the TV
• 43:23
  series. Yeah, he's in quite a few.
• 43:25
  I mean, we've mentioned born on the 4th of July.
• 43:26
  He's one of the troopers now. He's in Magnolia.
• 43:28
  Brilliant. Minority Report.
• 43:30
  But you've mentioned Chuck Shane Sheen and Sheen senior in
• 43:34
  potshots too. Pod.
• 43:35
  Yeah, of you in All St. Excellent.
• 43:37
  I love you in Wall Street. Yeah.
• 43:41
  And then what? I had to double check and I'm
• 43:42
  sure I'm right because I've got different surnames in the film,
• 43:44
  but Ben and Casey Affleck on playing brothers in Goodwill
• 43:47
  Hunting. They are not.
• 43:49
  No, they're not. Yeah, that's easy for cleanup.
• 43:53
  He's. A fucking double burger.
• 43:57
  Yeah, they're in Chasing Amy as well.
• 43:58
  And they're. Not.
• 43:59
  Yeah, that's right. Yeah.
• 44:00
  Yeah. Fantastic.
• 44:01
  OK. Well, thank you very much for
• 44:02
  the question. I'll still keep them coming.
• 44:04
  Yes, thank you. Thank you.
• 44:05
  I'll step. Anybody you've got any of your
• 44:07
  own, let us know. Yes, please do.
• 44:08
  Yep, and back to Cusack, surely one of the best characters in
• 44:12
  his very career. Definitely.
• 44:14
  I think so, yeah. Next up it's the sharp, toned
• 44:19
  Grosse Pointe DJ Debbie Newbury. She's as wonderful as she is
• 44:23
  forgiven. Isn't that right, Matt?
• 44:24
  That is absolutely right. Because The thing is, drunk, he
• 44:27
  was like a so goodness, he's so sharp, so stylish, so
• 44:30
  charismatic that the girl he's been pining over for 10 years,
• 44:34
  it better makes sense when you meet her.
• 44:36
  And that's the thing about me driving this.
• 44:38
  As soon as you meet Debbie, you go.
• 44:39
  This makes complete sense. Yeah, that checks out.
• 44:42
  I would be obsessed for 10 years over Debbie, no question.
• 44:45
  Yeah, no question. And I think Minnie Dreyfuss just
• 44:49
  has this very unique vibe and looked at as well.
• 44:52
  Like not be too superficial about, but if you think about
• 44:54
  the actress who plays Jenny Slater later in the film, you
• 44:57
  might think, would she not be the perfect fit for this girl
• 45:01
  that's obsessed? Martin for slang because she's
• 45:03
  blonde, she's glamour. She turns to people's heads the
• 45:05
  reunion. But Debbie has much more of the
• 45:08
  girl next door type of quality. But as well as that, she's whip
• 45:11
  smart, really confident, very funny, has a great job and
• 45:15
  amazing tears of music. So if she's the girl next door,
• 45:19
  then she's the girl next door who, to all one of Wesley's
• 45:21
  favorite phrases, is also as cool as ice pops.
• 45:24
  I. Like you think I'd love.
• 45:26
  To live next door to her because she has the measure of
• 45:29
  absolutely everyone in this film.
• 45:31
  Like she would get her composure so quickly when Martin rocks
• 45:34
  back up on the scene, you know, mid and broadcast and she has
• 45:37
  him at arm's length for the most of the film.
• 45:40
  She knows exactly what he wants, but she's going to make them
• 45:42
  work for it and she's going to enjoy making them work for it.
• 45:45
  Every time someone tries to say something really smarmy to it at
• 45:48
  the reunion so just has this wither and sarcasm that cuts
• 45:51
  them down. Like Debbie Radio.
• 45:58
  Like she has this self-confidence to where that
• 46:01
  elevates her above everyone else at that reunion, but not in a
• 46:03
  way that's cocky or annoying, just the way they go.
• 46:06
  She's just got this innate coolness to her, you know, and
• 46:08
  she's got this like little celebrity around town.
• 46:11
  And you know, I think I've made this point before by ROM coms
• 46:14
  and that a reason a lot of them aren't great is that you can
• 46:16
  cast a great actor and a great actress.
• 46:18
  They can both do good work. You can't really fake that kind
• 46:21
  of chemistry on screen. And I think Cusack and Driver
• 46:24
  have incredible chemistry in this that just crackers off
• 46:27
  screen. Like, absolutely not suggesting
• 46:29
  anything untoward here, but it's just the chemistry lab.
• 46:32
  It's not just the chemistry of physical attraction.
• 46:34
  You can tell these two characters make each other laugh
• 46:36
  really hard, and they can. You're dropping references that
• 46:40
  only like when Martin turns up the house.
• 46:43
  Of course, you can't cure me in with something.
• 46:46
  Specials to references. Yeah, you can come in.
• 46:50
  It's like really playful, but it kind of lets you in as well.
• 46:53
  So ultimately, I think Driver is every inch and much for Cusack
• 46:56
  and every sense in this film, and you can't really pay a
• 46:59
  higher compliment than that. No, she was amazing.
• 47:01
  Very self assured character. She's just adorable.
• 47:05
  She is just. Amazing, yeah.
• 47:06
  Yeah, she really is. There's so much magnetism in her
• 47:09
  performance. Yeah, there is.
• 47:10
  Yeah. In that scene when Martin can't
• 47:13
  come in, man, Debbie mentions that her apartment burned down
• 47:16
  on Devil's Night. Yeah, it's a specific reference
• 47:19
  to Detroit, where traditionally there's a significant spike in
• 47:22
  vandalism and arson. All right.
• 47:24
  The night before Halloween. Yeah, right.
• 47:26
  Anyone who's a massive fan of The Crow will know of this night
• 47:29
  OK, as I am and I do. Brilliant.
• 47:32
  That's not news to me. Excellent.
• 47:37
  Mini Driver landing the role was a dream come true when she first
• 47:40
  arrived in America from England for a publicity tour of 1995.
• 47:44
  Circle of friends. She was often asked by
• 47:47
  interviewers to name actors she most wanted to work with, and
• 47:50
  unbelievably, she often said John Cusack and Alan Arkin, not
• 47:53
  known either of them personally, or imagining she would work with
• 47:56
  both in a single film in less than a year.
• 47:59
  What A twist of fate. Yeah.
• 48:00
  And just with you saying that, Matt, I wouldn't be surprised if
• 48:03
  people thought many driver was American.
• 48:05
  All of the accents Faultless, yeah.
• 48:07
  It really is, yeah. And Driver was completely
• 48:09
  embraced by what she affectionately called the
• 48:11
  Chicago Boys Club. As she explained, it all works
• 48:15
  in this sort of strange, symbiotic way between the lot of
• 48:18
  them. When one leaves off, another
• 48:20
  begins. Yeah, I think you can feel that
• 48:22
  in the writing. Yeah, you can't.
• 48:23
  Yeah. She said she felt part of a
• 48:25
  revolutionary new way of Megan films, something that she hadn't
• 48:28
  been exposed to in a fledgling career.
• 48:30
  Yeah. So a performance full of charm
• 48:32
  for Mini Driver. A real standout in the film.
• 48:35
  Definitely 100%. Finally, a man we have a lot of
• 48:40
  affection for, a man who puts in probably the last great
• 48:44
  performance of his career. Yeah, it is Dan Aykroyd as
• 48:49
  hitman. Grosser.
• 48:50
  Just Grosser. That's it.
• 48:51
  Yes, Westie, it's over to you. Oh.
• 48:53
  Man, I absolutely love this guy. He's amazing.
• 48:56
  Razor sharp, isn't he? Yeah, and he's a bit crap, but
• 49:00
  amazing at the same time. You know, when he's running up
• 49:03
  to the house with the two guns draw at the end, you'll score.
• 49:05
  This guy not capable of much, is he?
• 49:07
  It's really podgy and just really focused.
• 49:09
  But then the start you're like, I'm not crossing this guy at
• 49:12
  all. Yeah, it is out of character for
• 49:14
  him to play. It's out of type and he plays it
• 49:16
  really well. You know, the the bad guy, the
• 49:18
  angry bad guy. It's literally just the the left
• 49:21
  hand side to his character in in Dragnet for me, just that razor
• 49:24
  sharp delivery. That's speed of it.
• 49:27
  Just it's really great. I mean, there's a great moment
• 49:29
  in the bathroom when he's torn to the feds and he's like, well,
• 49:31
  you shoot the fuck that's. Him.
• 49:35
  That's him. Yeah, I know people around.
• 49:36
  It's just great. And then he's like, he's coming
• 49:38
  back and he's like, fuck you guys.
• 49:39
  I don't appreciate being hosed. It's absolutely great.
• 49:42
  Just he's back and forth. He could easily override this
• 49:45
  character easily been really tiresome and he could have
• 49:48
  pushed and pushed. He hasn't got much else to say.
• 49:49
  He hasn't got any more motivation than what he's got to
• 49:52
  make this clue and kill Blank and then that's it.
• 49:54
  That's his motivation. I love that.
• 49:56
  But it's just so, so good when they're together.
• 49:59
  It really sizzles for me. But even when he's by himself,
• 50:02
  just sat at a computer screen spitting out a pencil, it's just
• 50:06
  spits that fucking alternative vendor.
• 50:13
  Absolutely. And he's like, preparations have
• 50:15
  begun in good faith. It's just a brilliant way he
• 50:21
  sets it all up. I love the way they're just so
• 50:22
  standoff with you that I like Matt said when the first meeting
• 50:25
  at the start and they've just got their hands back kind of
• 50:26
  behind the back. The meeting in the diner.
• 50:29
  Probably better than heat. I think it's just, I mean.
• 50:34
  It's definitely funnier. It is definitely funnier, but
• 50:36
  you could see where the drawn influence is from.
• 50:38
  And I think it's wonderful when the order and the food and they
• 50:40
  don't look at the waitresses, look at each other, yeah,
• 50:42
  staring at each other straight down.
• 50:44
  And just that quick, snappy dialogue.
• 50:46
  And I'll tell you who doesn't get enough credit for that style
• 50:48
  of dialogue delivery is Cusack, because he's so good at it.
• 50:52
  He is. He's in a just enough.
• 50:54
  He's incredible every time he's on the screen.
• 50:56
  He's so funny, he's so likable and he's such a Dick at the same
• 51:00
  time. I don't think anyone rat me
• 51:01
  brains, but nobody but Dan Outro could have pulled off this
• 51:04
  performance. I think it's just a wonderful
• 51:06
  character and a wonderful, wonderful performance from
• 51:08
  Macro. Oh, it is.
• 51:09
  It's great. Such a surprise and turn from
• 51:12
  him and just kind of thinking back.
• 51:14
  Some perspective is needed here because I remember this coming
• 51:17
  out and thinking, thank God Dan Aykroyd is back.
• 51:21
  Yeah, right, because he'd been missing for a long time.
• 51:23
  Yeah, yeah. Because he's got so much talent
• 51:27
  and this really, really showcases that, yeah.
• 51:30
  So according to Aykroyd, his character's nickname came from
• 51:32
  fellow hitman after he did a hit while wearing a grocer's smock.
• 51:38
  We had never played this type of body role before, so he did
• 51:41
  extensive research and completely got into character.
• 51:44
  He even showed up on set with his own overgrown buzz cut
• 51:48
  military style, something that the film makers hadn't
• 51:51
  requested, hadn't written into the character.
• 51:53
  Perfect, that little bald patches that's.
• 51:55
  Perfect. Great.
• 51:55
  It's wonderful. He also came up with an amusing
• 51:59
  character quirk, suggesting that Grocer would never reload his
• 52:02
  gun, but instead just toss away empty weapons and pull out
• 52:05
  another one. Yeah, that's great.
• 52:07
  Yeah, that's great. Steve Pink, he said that he came
• 52:09
  up to him and says, if possible, can I have a collection of 22
• 52:13
  caliber or revolvers? Pink was like, yeah, go for it
• 52:16
  of. Course you can.
• 52:19
  And that first scene between him and Kiyosak, which I talked
• 52:22
  about earlier, that featured what Pink called some of the
• 52:25
  most extraordinary improvising I've ever seen.
• 52:28
  Akroyd was so inventive during the shoot that Pink reflected.
• 52:31
  To see someone like Dan Aykroyd join in the phone and just be so
• 52:34
  inventive all the time, I'm so grateful to have been able to
• 52:37
  watch that and have a guy like him in our movie.
• 52:40
  Yeah, amazing. You can tell as well.
• 52:42
  And that's the main cast of Grosse Pointe Blank, a wonderful
• 52:44
  mixture of three leads. And of course, we've talked
• 52:47
  about the great support from John Cusack and Arkin and the
• 52:50
  rest. A great cast overall, Yeah.
• 52:52
  Yeah. What have come from Piven
• 52:53
  though. Oh yeah.
• 52:54
  Don't leave me hanging, man. The middle.
• 53:03
  We're picking back up with Martin, who's having a little
• 53:05
  memory lane, but it's all gone bad and now he needs his mom.
• 53:09
  And that right, Matt? He does need his mom and it's
• 53:12
  just such a quietly tragic seen this because it sheds more light
• 53:16
  on Martin, you know, Marcella said from earlier.
• 53:18
  I just find it amusing that you came from somewhere.
• 53:21
  So he's clearly tried to erase his identity to start again,
• 53:24
  leave everything behind. As we've said, the surname is
• 53:27
  being very deliberately chosen by the writers here.
• 53:30
  But he does come from somewhere. And the fact that all the time
• 53:33
  we realise he's felt the guilt about abandoning his mother.
• 53:36
  So he's been sending of this money, but that's it.
• 53:39
  So he has no idea where the money's gone.
• 53:40
  He knew nothing about her losing the house.
• 53:42
  If you find out who was responsible for that.
• 53:45
  But I think he was like is particularly gritty because you
• 53:48
  can feel that overwhelm and guilt had not been there for his
• 53:52
  mother, who clearly has because he has dementia.
• 53:54
  Maybe there's? Obviously something.
• 53:56
  You know, badly wrong with that. And it's just all in, like, the
• 54:00
  mannerisms and, you know, when he's kind of like, throwing his
• 54:02
  brow with his thumbs and he's doing that.
• 54:04
  He's like trying to work out, oh, God, what have I missed?
• 54:07
  What have I missed? Why wasn't he?
• 54:08
  Yeah. You know, Cusack has just got
• 54:11
  those really expressive eyes. And when she gets wheeled away
• 54:14
  by the nurse and she's off in the one little kind of, you can
• 54:17
  see just that haunted look in his eyes, like, could have done
• 54:20
  more. You know the money wasn't
• 54:22
  enough. Yeah, but then you get the
• 54:24
  complete contrast with his attitude towards his father at
• 54:27
  the grave. Doesn't bring flowers, bring up
• 54:30
  booze. Has nothing to say, no kind
• 54:32
  words, just pause it over the grave.
• 54:36
  And then what's key to me is he doesn't take the empty bottle
• 54:38
  with him, he just drops it there and walks off Like you don't
• 54:42
  deserve to have a clean grave. You can have the bottle as well.
• 54:44
  No word of dialogue, just the expression on his face in a 22nd
• 54:48
  scene. Maybe you totally understand
• 54:51
  what his relationship with his father was like, which explains
• 54:54
  a lot about him now. It's great because a lot of the
• 54:56
  things that you've said there, Matt, they're not written down.
• 54:59
  We don't, we're not told those things all on Cusack.
• 55:02
  Sure, don't tell exactly. Classic.
• 55:05
  How much room is that taken up in the screenplay, by the way?
• 55:07
  And they come back 152 pages. And it should just be stands
• 55:10
  over grave, pours out booze. But it's like, you know, it's a
• 55:13
  really good kind of minute of this.
• 55:15
  It's really passionate and really powerful.
• 55:17
  The date on the grave as well puts his dad in his 50s, I
• 55:20
  think. And he left in the late 80s.
• 55:22
  So obviously he wasn't sticking around for long.
• 55:25
  Maybe he left before his dad died or after.
• 55:26
  That's really. Yeah.
• 55:28
  So powerful that. Yeah, it really is.
• 55:30
  Yeah, for a very, very short scene as well.
• 55:33
  So after that, he visits Debbie at the station.
• 55:36
  She's at work. She's having a great time,
• 55:38
  fucking loves the clash. Yeah, that's fine.
• 55:42
  That's not a problem. And I think it's just a really
• 55:44
  great touch when they walk in and that chemistry we've been
• 55:46
  talking about, that math touched on, that's insanely obvious,
• 55:50
  incredibly quickly. The walkthrough, just, like,
• 55:53
  shake my hand. And there's just real tension.
• 55:56
  And there's this energy and there's this kind of
• 55:58
  electricity, the sexual tension between them, which then just
• 56:02
  has to explode into this case. And then they're like, right,
• 56:04
  OK, all right. But yeah.
• 56:05
  And then they start the conversation and just like,
• 56:07
  right, I've got you right where I want you.
• 56:09
  This is where I'm comfortable. You're now going to get put
• 56:12
  through the ringer because he sat here and you're just going
• 56:15
  to have to deal with it. Really love the touch of he not
• 56:18
  sitting with his back to the door because he has to check the
• 56:20
  blinds. That's really, really great
• 56:22
  because that's. Going to get taken out.
• 56:24
  Yeah, it's just the end of the theme that just runs all the way
• 56:27
  through it. It's a really, really good
• 56:29
  setup. And this humiliation is public.
• 56:31
  She wants to punish him. She wants him to explain what
• 56:34
  he's done. She wants answers and then the
• 56:36
  feds are outside. They're ringing in what you're
• 56:39
  doing. A tough guy in the then they
• 56:41
  just need us go. Yellow ribbons.
• 56:44
  Absolutely brilliant. No one we like.
• 56:46
  We like tough guys, Marty. Yeah, tough guys like you.
• 56:50
  Yeah, wonderful. And that gets cut off and never
• 56:52
  mentioned again. Normally you'd go, that's a bit
• 56:54
  weird, what's happening here, and then the story would spin
• 56:56
  somewhere else. Debbie just dismisses it,
• 56:58
  doesn't she? And it's just dismissed.
• 56:59
  It's just not interested in that tone whatsoever.
• 57:02
  It's just playful. You can see that she's almost
• 57:04
  too big for this job. She's too, too good at it.
• 57:07
  She is. It's just, you know, a big fish
• 57:09
  in a small town and she needs an opportunity to get somewhere
• 57:11
  else and do something bigger because she is genuinely
• 57:14
  lovable. She's genuinely likeable.
• 57:16
  She's got an incredible personality and that just comes
• 57:19
  across on the radio. Imagine putting her on
• 57:21
  television. Do you know what I mean?
• 57:22
  She's just got this presence and this whole scene sets that up.
• 57:25
  He's so uncomfortable. She is so comfortable.
• 57:28
  It's just, like I say, putting them through the ringer, and it
• 57:30
  is an absolute joy to watch Cusack squirm and watch Driver
• 57:34
  relish in that. It's a great, great sequence.
• 57:36
  It's been building for a while as well, and they've finally
• 57:39
  come together. Yeah, 10 years.
• 57:40
  Yeah, We talked about the improvisation earlier, and one
• 57:46
  of the most memorable moments came from that improvisation
• 57:49
  when Martin walks in. You said it's this spontaneously
• 57:53
  kiss. Yeah.
• 57:54
  And that was done completely off the cuff, Really wasn't
• 57:57
  expected. You're massive, yeah.
• 57:59
  Yeah, Ahmed had said. It was just wonderful,
• 58:01
  completely out of the blue. You should have seen the smile
• 58:04
  on Johnny's face afterwards, I bet.
• 58:07
  Yeah, I can imagine. Yeah, I think that would have
• 58:09
  been the third take the improvised 1.
• 58:13
  And then from here, Martin leads the radio station and all his
• 58:16
  paranoia is overflowing. He sees the ghoul, the two
• 58:19
  Spooks completely on the edge. But then he he is a familiar
• 58:22
  friendly voice from the past. Paul, his all high school buddy.
• 58:26
  What a sight for sore eyes. And who doesn't love Jeremy
• 58:29
  Pepper? I mean nobody.
• 58:32
  And Paul's got the same reaction to Martin that everybody in town
• 58:34
  has. He can't believe his eyes.
• 58:36
  He's looking at a ghost. You can tell that the two actors
• 58:39
  know each other. They've got such a great
• 58:41
  chemistry. And I think that Cusack
• 58:43
  naturally brings that out of people anyway.
• 58:45
  He's got a great knack for that throughout all of his films, but
• 58:48
  particularly in this. And we see Paul at work.
• 58:50
  He's got a couple who have got a decision making disorder.
• 58:53
  He says Martin's waiting outside the house while Paul does his
• 58:57
  thing. And then Terry Rostan shows up,
• 59:01
  which is it's just Steve Pink. All right?
• 59:04
  Yeah, He's dressed up just like a cop, but he's very forthcoming
• 59:08
  with the information that he isn't.
• 59:09
  He's basically a security guard, but in heightened circumstances
• 59:12
  he has the authority to shoot you.
• 59:17
  Two weeks. Yeah, yeah, that.
• 59:18
  Was a two week course. That's brilliant.
• 59:20
  Well, that's it. How did you get the cake?
• 59:23
  Well, they were hiring well, obviously.
• 59:28
  It's great performance from Pink when he's just kind of fighting.
• 59:30
  He's a little bit. He's like, yeah, yeah.
• 59:32
  And just looking around. Yeah, yeah, it's great all.
• 59:34
  These people in hush hush, yeah, we all know these people who try
• 59:36
  to make things more important than actually, yeah, just to try
• 59:39
  and justify their existence. And this guy is no different.
• 59:41
  The two week course, it's a nice scathing commentary on gun
• 59:44
  control as well in America. Done very swiftly, very
• 59:47
  humorously. Yeah, Terry's obviously the
• 59:49
  scourge of the town, throwing his weight round as if he's a
• 59:51
  policeman. Yeah.
• 59:52
  And Paul obviously can't stand it.
• 59:55
  And showing up around to get the quarter together.
• 59:57
  I was just driving and by and I saw some people milling around
• 59:59
  and Blank says no, it was just me, it was just one guy.
• 1:00:01
  He's like, all right. And then at the end, there's
• 1:00:08
  this wonderful little gag where Paul asks if Blank has seen the
• 1:00:12
  house. He broke the deal.
• 1:00:14
  Oh, thank you for profiting my on my childhood.
• 1:00:16
  Yeah, amazing. Yeah, great.
• 1:00:18
  I love Blank's delivery when he's just trying to fit into
• 1:00:21
  this over like everyday life. And he's like, I want I'd have a
• 1:00:24
  house like this. I want a wife like you.
• 1:00:27
  And you'll be safe. Very temporary about myself.
• 1:00:30
  And you'll be safe, Terry. Rubbish.
• 1:00:35
  I think Blank does more to torpedo that situation than
• 1:00:38
  Terry does to be. Quite honest.
• 1:00:40
  But Paul just takes it out on Terry.
• 1:00:42
  Oh. That's wonderful.
• 1:00:46
  Yeah, it's great. So Martin is revisiting his past
• 1:00:49
  and the puzzle pieces are beginning to slot together.
• 1:00:55
  Leaving the house. We're still with Martin and
• 1:00:56
  Paul. Paul struggles to contain his
• 1:00:58
  emotions. It has been 10 years, Matt.
• 1:01:01
  It has somehow. So he's driving him around.
• 1:01:04
  Look, all past Debbie's house. Kind of crept up.
• 1:01:06
  And you, didn't it? No.
• 1:01:07
  You drove us here. Brilliant.
• 1:01:12
  As we've said, the chemistry between these two, it's
• 1:01:15
  incredible. And you do get this like,
• 1:01:17
  implicit shared history between them, which is somehow very
• 1:01:20
  understandable. You know, just shooting the
• 1:01:22
  beat, you know, did your sister ever marry that guy?
• 1:01:24
  Kenny, Kenny, Kenny Kenny. He's got A tag on his like 3.
• 1:01:28
  Years of Juliet, Yeah, Let's not go there, yeah.
• 1:01:31
  Let's not go there. See, you feel like you've just
• 1:01:34
  dropped in on two offense catching up, but then out of
• 1:01:37
  nowhere there's that explosion from Paul.
• 1:01:40
  Brilliant. Just the blast on the car horn.
• 1:01:42
  First of all, 10 years, man, 10. And then the conversation comes
• 1:01:48
  back to Martin trying to justify 10.
• 1:01:50
  He's a hit man. And it comes back down again.
• 1:01:53
  Oh, do you have to do a post grad to do that or can you jump
• 1:01:56
  right in? I'm I'm curious about that.
• 1:01:58
  Not to not market. OK, 10 years man, 10 years 10,
• 1:02:03
  10/10. Years. 1010 years, 10, It's so
• 1:02:07
  funny. I mean, this is clearly one of
• 1:02:09
  the most simplified scenes by clearly.
• 1:02:11
  Oh, yeah, absolutely. It really feels like they've
• 1:02:13
  just said, Jeremy, 10 years is the line.
• 1:02:15
  Do what you want with it. Because when he blasts that car
• 1:02:18
  hard, John Hughes like, really dropped.
• 1:02:19
  It's a surprise. What where's he going with this?
• 1:02:23
  One of the most memorable scenes in the film, obviously.
• 1:02:25
  And it just makes that point again, though, about no one
• 1:02:27
  questioning Martin's job, despite the fact he's really
• 1:02:30
  honest about it, because who would make up something like
• 1:02:33
  that? Yeah.
• 1:02:33
  It just really sells the friendship these two hard, which
• 1:02:36
  is really important because you need that for Paul helping them
• 1:02:38
  to sports the Felix later on. Yeah.
• 1:02:41
  But yeah, once you've seen this, anyone says 10.
• 1:02:43
  Yeah. Instant reaction in 10.
• 1:02:45
  Years 10 years 1010. It's fantastic that laugh that
• 1:02:53
  they both share right at the end, just before a cut that was
• 1:02:56
  clearly genuine. Genuine, yeah.
• 1:02:59
  I love it right at the end. And he drops him off and Paul
• 1:03:02
  says I'll see you at the peaks and I'm kidding your party.
• 1:03:05
  Yeah. Brilliant, brilliant dialogue.
• 1:03:08
  From there we're back at the Ultimate and this scene is just
• 1:03:13
  fantastic stuff. It is fantastic.
• 1:03:14
  So there's a lot of nods here with the films that came out
• 1:03:17
  before. Great touch with that kid
• 1:03:19
  playing Doom 2, probably one of the greatest video games about
• 1:03:23
  all the time. It's still amazing.
• 1:03:25
  I've just downloaded that after watching this this morning.
• 1:03:27
  So I've downloaded that for me, son.
• 1:03:28
  So we're going to play that later on.
• 1:03:30
  He's got the two guns out. There's a massive John Woo
• 1:03:33
  reference here. There's the suit that he's
• 1:03:35
  wearing that's kind of flying all the way through.
• 1:03:37
  The destruction of this whole place is fantastically set up.
• 1:03:41
  Just when he just turns up just running through the door. 2
• 1:03:45
  Oozies. Just brilliant.
• 1:03:47
  Just. Did not expect them.
• 1:03:50
  And it's just right here we'll go and we're into the action and
• 1:03:52
  it's got a real Dustal Dawn vibe for me, opening a Dustal door
• 1:03:56
  and it's very, very similar to that, just with everything
• 1:03:58
  exploding. The way it goes and even the
• 1:04:00
  explosion itself is excellent. I will say this, it's very fast
• 1:04:05
  and I remember it being longer. Just like the fight later, yeah.
• 1:04:07
  Exactly. Quite fast I.
• 1:04:09
  Think you fill in a lot of the gaps and I think a lot of that's
• 1:04:11
  down to the editing as well. This this rabbit at just this
• 1:04:14
  real kinetic vibe to the energy. But what I will say is that the
• 1:04:18
  most childish explosive device you've ever seen made in your
• 1:04:22
  entire life. Did you used to do the same
• 1:04:24
  thing with just like a lump of plaster scene and some speaker
• 1:04:27
  wire. You find light in the third
• 1:04:28
  drawer down in the kitchen. You just like, let's get all
• 1:04:31
  this, put some drawn pins in it and then stick it in the
• 1:04:33
  microwave. It's just really takes me out.
• 1:04:35
  But you just go, you know what? That's really, really fun,
• 1:04:37
  because that makes sense. Yeah, he was caught on the hot,
• 1:04:40
  wasn't he? Had limited time.
• 1:04:41
  It's great because you just look at it and you know for a fact
• 1:04:43
  that's an explosive. There's no research that doesn't
• 1:04:47
  say, say 4 on it or anything. You just look at it and go,
• 1:04:49
  that's going to explode. Brilliant, Perfect.
• 1:04:51
  Like it's like something that Wallace and Gromit would invent.
• 1:04:56
  It's just really, really great. And you've got that look from
• 1:04:59
  Cusack where he's like just thinking about it for a second
• 1:05:02
  and he's like, oh shit, he's got to like move and get out of
• 1:05:05
  there. When you're looking at that
• 1:05:06
  counter, it's in the teens, it's in like 14/15/14, which you
• 1:05:09
  think great, he's got time to get out of there.
• 1:05:11
  He's got enough time. But then think about the whole
• 1:05:13
  thing. He gets away with murder all the
• 1:05:14
  way through the film. So it's grosser, but you just
• 1:05:17
  think that's unrealistic if that didn't count down in the right
• 1:05:20
  amount of time. So they've got to make some
• 1:05:22
  parts of it realistic for you to buy the actual tone, which
• 1:05:24
  totally, totally works. It does.
• 1:05:26
  And then it cuts to the outside and I've watched this good
• 1:05:28
  couple of times. I don't think the hard
• 1:05:30
  necessarily a huge explosion here because it's not
• 1:05:34
  necessarily shot very wide. It's very close.
• 1:05:37
  It's like I made. It's.
• 1:05:38
  Quite tight, which makes it look a little bit more.
• 1:05:41
  It makes it look bigger, Yeah. And I think when it cuts back to
• 1:05:45
  blank and the kid on the floor, you can tell that people are
• 1:05:47
  just off camera throwing shit out.
• 1:05:51
  Yeah, sure. Like Ping and Devil said this
• 1:05:54
  sort of behind the cameras throwing milk cartoons and just
• 1:05:57
  be like. Brilliant.
• 1:05:58
  Hit him with that one, right? Yeah.
• 1:05:59
  Absolutely. Tell.
• 1:06:00
  And when the kid just walks off, are you OK?
• 1:06:03
  That's the last thing he says. The kid, which is also the first
• 1:06:05
  lady, says to Martin when he walks in the first time, say,
• 1:06:08
  are you OK, man? He's like, yeah, yeah, I'm fine.
• 1:06:10
  And he's like, are you OK? He's like, no, I'm not, I'm
• 1:06:13
  going to go find another job. That's it.
• 1:06:15
  And then it is, it is over with no consequences.
• 1:06:19
  A lot of fun and a lot of nods to, you know, classic actioners
• 1:06:23
  like John Woo, like Tarantino, like Rodriguez.
• 1:06:26
  It's all in there and it really works.
• 1:06:27
  And shooting up that Pulp Fiction stand up as well, I
• 1:06:29
  think is a really nice touch. Yes, indeed.
• 1:06:32
  Yeah, I mean, talking about that bit, Yeah, Armitage had called
• 1:06:34
  Tarantino personally to ask if he could use that Pulp Fiction
• 1:06:37
  lobby card. Nice.
• 1:06:38
  And QT was a fan of Armitage work and he knew infamous days
• 1:06:42
  of working in video archives as well, so it was actually wide
• 1:06:45
  with scripts and shot up during the scene.
• 1:06:46
  And Tarantino even wanted a cameo where he'd be shot up,
• 1:06:49
  blown up, but sadly that never materialized.
• 1:06:51
  That would have been great. That would have been beautiful.
• 1:06:53
  Yeah, right in the sweet spot for Tarantino as well.
• 1:06:57
  The danger is set up during the shootout.
• 1:06:59
  Added real tension in the film and said my biggest memory of
• 1:07:02
  the Civil Infant Shootout is that the place was wired to
• 1:07:04
  blow. The explosives were being set up
• 1:07:07
  as we were filming so it was a little nerve wracking.
• 1:07:09
  Dangerous, that. The whole place could have gone
• 1:07:12
  up at any time. It's really dangerous.
• 1:07:14
  I'll tell you what as well though, what a cool move is
• 1:07:17
  sliding on his knees towards the microwave.
• 1:07:20
  Yeah, that's great. That looks great.
• 1:07:22
  Not great comic code, just the kid playing Doom oblivious to
• 1:07:25
  the police. Gamble ownership.
• 1:07:27
  It's great, but I'm picking up after the whole Altamar tobacco.
• 1:07:32
  Martin and Debbie meet for drinks at the Hippo Club and
• 1:07:35
  it's a little bit of exposition. We find out that Debbie's been
• 1:07:38
  married and divorced. The fact that Martin knows this
• 1:07:40
  already reinforces that he's obsessed over Debbie for 10
• 1:07:43
  years. 10 years, 1010 Martin has Debbie to go to the reunion with
• 1:07:48
  them. Revisiting a film that I've held
• 1:07:51
  near and dear for almost 30 years and being critical of it
• 1:07:54
  is a difficult thing. But I suppose this is a bit of a
• 1:07:56
  stretch in the narrative for me. We know how emotionally damaged
• 1:08:00
  in the last 10 years of being for Martin.
• 1:08:02
  We can assume that it's been equally heroin, if not more so
• 1:08:05
  for Debbie. She's just said for the last 10
• 1:08:07
  years she's been left wondering what did she do or could she
• 1:08:10
  have done to stop and running away.
• 1:08:11
  She's been married and divorced, suggesting the state of Arrested
• 1:08:14
  Development as a result of Martin's cruel dawn departure.
• 1:08:17
  Maybe she forgives Martin very quickly and doesn't put up too
• 1:08:21
  much of a fight. We all know that she's going to
• 1:08:23
  that reunion 100%. Nothing's going to stop her.
• 1:08:26
  So I'm struggling to buy this a little bit from the character if
• 1:08:29
  I'm being. Critical.
• 1:08:30
  I know what you mean. Yeah, Yeah.
• 1:08:31
  But I do level when Amy shows up completely pissed somebody else
• 1:08:34
  from Martins past asking them where the hell he's been for 10
• 1:08:37
  years still. Together, yeah.
• 1:08:39
  Drivers creative yeah. Marv, where you been?
• 1:08:43
  That's fantastic. And Amy is and Cusack, John
• 1:08:47
  Sister. Yes.
• 1:08:48
  And then finally, the scene in the bathroom where the two
• 1:08:51
  Spooks are just hanging out there scoping out their target.
• 1:08:53
  Yeah. They did not think it was a
• 1:08:54
  possibility that Martin would need to go to the toilet at some
• 1:08:57
  point. Yeah, just one of them not want
• 1:08:59
  to stay out, just keep an eye on him and the other one just go in
• 1:09:01
  one at a time. They've done a terrible job of
• 1:09:07
  remaining inconspicuous up to this point.
• 1:09:09
  And when Grosser comes out of that cubicle, that's him.
• 1:09:12
  Yeah, why did you just go and shoot the fuck?
• 1:09:16
  But that's great because it explains why they don't.
• 1:09:18
  They have to wait until they see him in an illegal act and then
• 1:09:22
  they can pounce, which is why they show up right at the end.
• 1:09:26
  Yeah, that's great, right? Yeah.
• 1:09:28
  And then when they fool him into going back into the stalls and
• 1:09:32
  oh fuck you guys not. The fact he's got a paper with
• 1:09:35
  him, he's obviously reading. So it's all set up.
• 1:09:41
  Martin and Debbie have rekindled Bethlehem.
• 1:09:43
  What could possibly get in their way?
• 1:09:45
  Nothing truly. Let's find out the crew.
• 1:09:53
  An eclectic mix in the crew on Grosse Pointe Blank.
• 1:09:56
  Firstly, we're starting with the right in collaboration with an
• 1:09:59
  unusual back story. We'll get to that in a moment.
• 1:10:02
  Firstly, our thoughts on the screenplay by Steve Pink DVD
• 1:10:05
  Vincentis, Tom Yankovic and and John Cusack.
• 1:10:09
  Now, what I love about the writing here is that it takes
• 1:10:11
  story beats we've seen quite a few times before, but then gives
• 1:10:14
  them this completely fresh spin. Yeah, on paper you've got a
• 1:10:18
  reunion movie, a hitman movie, a ROM com all rolled into one.
• 1:10:22
  But somehow it doesn't feel like any of those things.
• 1:10:25
  The film is very talky. There are action set pieces and
• 1:10:28
  comedy moments, but generally the comedy is in the dialogue
• 1:10:30
  and in the delivery. We've talked about that.
• 1:10:32
  Yeah, But I think that could easily become tedious and has in
• 1:10:35
  many other films in the past. Yeah.
• 1:10:38
  But the writing's so sharp that you're hanging on every word.
• 1:10:41
  Blank is in crisis. He's getting sloppy at his work.
• 1:10:43
  His friendly rival with his colleague is getting less
• 1:10:46
  friendly by the minute. His therapy sessions aren't
• 1:10:48
  giving them the Cathars as he needs.
• 1:10:50
  And he's a professional hitman. Very, very key piece of
• 1:10:54
  information, which is very unusual.
• 1:10:56
  Yeah, I think it's just smart writing, perceptive about
• 1:10:59
  nostalgia, relationships, friendships, feeling out of
• 1:11:02
  place with what's expected in society, those natural steps
• 1:11:05
  that people take from school to family life and Korea that are
• 1:11:08
  expected in society, the feeling of being a square peg in a round
• 1:11:12
  hall, Blank says. I've always felt very temporary
• 1:11:15
  about myself. That line could come from any
• 1:11:17
  romantic comedy lead, but here it's coming from a contract
• 1:11:19
  killer, which is great. What really impressed me.
• 1:11:22
  The film recognizes people's flaws and doesn't judge them.
• 1:11:26
  Everyone's got their own idiosyncrasies and the right and
• 1:11:29
  captures the nuances of personalities very well, and it
• 1:11:31
  feels like a natural fit for Cusack's voice as both an actor
• 1:11:35
  and just a person. This doesn't feel forced.
• 1:11:38
  No, not at all. It feels like every character is
• 1:11:40
  actually based on someone they know.
• 1:11:41
  Yes, very much, Very much, yeah. And then there's that dialogue,
• 1:11:45
  multiple meanings embedded in everything.
• 1:11:47
  Start with the title and there's got to be a nod to point Blank,
• 1:11:50
  the mean Marvin film in there to begin with.
• 1:11:52
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 1:11:53
  The script just drops in enough clues about Martin's trauma.
• 1:11:56
  We've talked about it already. Might you mentioned it about the
• 1:11:58
  the mother and father scenes. Mother's in a psychiatric
• 1:12:02
  facility. His father's presumably drank
• 1:12:04
  himself to death. It's never too explicit trust in
• 1:12:06
  Cusack's performance to do all the heavy lifting.
• 1:12:09
  So yeah, familiar territory made completely fresh by the
• 1:12:13
  intelligence in the writing, which is unusual for a four way
• 1:12:17
  writing team. It's usually too many cooks
• 1:12:19
  spoil the broth. But not in this case, no.
• 1:12:21
  What about UMass screenplay? It's all about the characters
• 1:12:24
  for me. It's just full of stand out
• 1:12:26
  character moments where everyone feels very real, very relatable.
• 1:12:31
  The scene Westie mentioned, the old high school teacher, Mrs. K,
• 1:12:34
  totally by that. We'll we'll probably get into
• 1:12:36
  this, but everything with Bob Destefalo later on, yeah, you
• 1:12:41
  totally understand that character.
• 1:12:42
  And maybe 3 scenes and that's actually everything they do
• 1:12:44
  about him. When Martin and Debbie turn up
• 1:12:46
  at the Union and you've got Arlene handed out the badges,
• 1:12:49
  there's clearly some tension there between her and Debbie for
• 1:12:52
  whatever reason. Love the show?
• 1:12:54
  Love the show like they're good at.
• 1:12:56
  You're our demographic. So something's happened, but we
• 1:13:00
  don't know what. But we don't need to know.
• 1:13:02
  But then later on when Felix turns up, she still sat at that
• 1:13:05
  desk with the last of the badges, looking really
• 1:13:08
  depressed, like she's been crying.
• 1:13:09
  And I always think, you know what, this has been her whole
• 1:13:12
  thing for years. She's wanted this reunion to
• 1:13:14
  happen. She's probably been planning
• 1:13:16
  this for months and now it's over with.
• 1:13:19
  She's not even enjoying the party and.
• 1:13:21
  She's not even. She can't party because she's
• 1:13:23
  got to hand out the badges and I don't think she's moved on from
• 1:13:26
  high school at all. And I get that from 2 scenes
• 1:13:29
  with very little dialogue. But I told you, get that
• 1:13:30
  character great. And I think that speaks to how
• 1:13:33
  you wanted the rightness, whether it was on the page,
• 1:13:36
  whether it was improvised. We'll get in all that because he
• 1:13:38
  got all the big elements of Modern's existential crisis, his
• 1:13:41
  relationship with Debbie, the hit that's out on the father,
• 1:13:44
  the people out to kill Martin. But in amongst that, all these
• 1:13:47
  little character details that really stand out and everything
• 1:13:50
  lands as it should and nothing makes you think, well, why is
• 1:13:53
  that in there? Why do you only see Martin's
• 1:13:55
  mother for one scene? You only need one saying what
• 1:13:58
  happens to Marcella You don't need, no.
• 1:14:00
  She gets a payoff, happy ending affair.
• 1:14:01
  That's all you need. So I think it's really, really
• 1:14:03
  clever and strong and quite complex character writing.
• 1:14:06
  Yes, it is. Yeah.
• 1:14:07
  Yeah, I mean, the whole writing, for me, there's a complete
• 1:14:09
  personality here. It's a personality in itself,
• 1:14:12
  and they have to stick to that. They know what this personality
• 1:14:15
  is. They know what's funny, they
• 1:14:16
  know what's what to avoid. And the zero threat throughout
• 1:14:19
  the whole thing. And I think that comes down to
• 1:14:21
  the writing as well. It's got a very light touch, a
• 1:14:23
  very deaf touch. I mean, it's not a history of
• 1:14:25
  violence, is it? No, you know, and it's not like
• 1:14:28
  the fastest gun alive, you know, it's not these where he's got to
• 1:14:31
  prove himself. He's a hit man and somebody's in
• 1:14:33
  danger. Yes, that does happen.
• 1:14:34
  But still it's done with just a very light touch and a very
• 1:14:37
  accessible touch. And I think that that's what
• 1:14:39
  they do. They make it feel accessible and
• 1:14:40
  they make it feel fun, no matter what the subject matter is.
• 1:14:43
  I mean, you have got ball, man. He's addicted.
• 1:14:45
  The cocaine, obviously, you know, he's really troubled, and
• 1:14:50
  there's a lot of people who are really troubled in this town.
• 1:14:52
  And this whole reunion, you know what?
• 1:14:54
  It cuts back to him in the dance floor.
• 1:14:55
  He's punching himself in the head.
• 1:14:56
  It's absolutely. Hilarious.
• 1:15:00
  But it's kind of like, you know, the might have written that down
• 1:15:03
  to that is how this guy needs to act because it just does seem
• 1:15:06
  like it's within the tone of the film.
• 1:15:08
  Like that's not just thrown in there to be funny.
• 1:15:11
  It's thrown in there because it totally works with the rest of
• 1:15:13
  the film. It doesn't stand out.
• 1:15:14
  The character definitely. And to me, I think the dialogue
• 1:15:18
  is definitely better than the plot.
• 1:15:19
  The dialogue, it's sharp and it's relatable.
• 1:15:22
  Even though it's a small town in America, you can still relate to
• 1:15:26
  these characters. You can still relate to the
• 1:15:28
  dialogue of what they're saying and where they've been.
• 1:15:30
  And it has this real universal theme all the way through it.
• 1:15:33
  You can't kind of tap onto that. Oh, that was me.
• 1:15:36
  Oh, that's how I felt with that. Very much, yeah.
• 1:15:39
  It's so personal in the writing. And like I say, the personality
• 1:15:42
  that comes across is excellent. And the tone is consistent.
• 1:15:45
  Whether you wanted it to go a little bit darker, whether you
• 1:15:47
  wanted it to go a little bit more serious.
• 1:15:49
  And it kind of spins on its head and it turns into something
• 1:15:51
  totally different. I don't think they were
• 1:15:52
  interested in that. I think they were interested in
• 1:15:54
  making this full film with this tone, with this personality.
• 1:15:57
  And I think they absolutely nailed it, to be fair.
• 1:15:59
  Yes, I think we're all on the scene and page there.
• 1:16:01
  Yeah, well, the story of how the writing on Grosse Pointe Blank
• 1:16:05
  came to be is a complicated 1. And here comes starts off In
• 1:16:09
  1991, screenwriter Tom Yankowitz received a letter that would
• 1:16:12
  change his life forever, an invitation to his 10 year high
• 1:16:15
  school reunion in Madison Heights, MI.
• 1:16:17
  At the time he was struggling to make it as a screenwriter in LA,
• 1:16:21
  substitute teaching and working at a retail store at night to
• 1:16:24
  pay the bills. Big Lots retail store, Yeah.
• 1:16:27
  The prospect of facing his former classmates when he hadn't
• 1:16:29
  achieved his dreams filled him with absolute dread.
• 1:16:32
  Yeah. But it also lit a fire
• 1:16:34
  underneath him. He sat down and got serious
• 1:16:36
  about what he always wanted to do, screen writing.
• 1:16:38
  He started working on what would become gross Point Blank.
• 1:16:41
  Amazing stuff, yeah. And ironically, Yankovic never
• 1:16:44
  actually attended his reunion. He decided to have his fictional
• 1:16:47
  hitman Martin Blanco for him instead.
• 1:16:49
  But he did use the real reunion invitation as inspiration, and
• 1:16:52
  the real invite was pretty much used verbatim for the invite in
• 1:16:55
  the film. Nice.
• 1:16:56
  Yeah, you can feel that. It's personal.
• 1:16:59
  And he even borrowed the names of former classmates for
• 1:17:01
  characters. So Pivens, Paul Speretti was
• 1:17:04
  named after the Yankovic's best friend.
• 1:17:06
  John Cusack's Marcello was named after his manager at Big Lots as
• 1:17:10
  well, right? Nice.
• 1:17:11
  And Jankowicz chose the upscale Detroit suburb of Grosse Pointe
• 1:17:14
  over his own working class hometown of Sterling Heights
• 1:17:17
  because it sounded better in a projected the right image of
• 1:17:20
  power and wealth, the Beverly Hills of Michigan, as he called
• 1:17:23
  it. And as his brother later
• 1:17:24
  observed, Grosse Pointe Blank is a better title than Sterling
• 1:17:27
  Heights Blank. Yes, definitely, with no double
• 1:17:30
  meaning, no double treble meaning or anything like that.
• 1:17:34
  The title itself came to while he was substitute teaching.
• 1:17:36
  He wrote gross point blank on the whiteboard to see how it
• 1:17:39
  would look on the cinema marquee, and you would
• 1:17:41
  immediately look in Tyson on a movie site.
• 1:17:44
  Yeah, it's a fascinating title. It's a great title.
• 1:17:47
  It is, yeah. And there was an urban legend
• 1:17:48
  surrounding the making of the film that it was actually based
• 1:17:51
  on. Real point blank student who
• 1:17:53
  became a hitman. This is completely false.
• 1:17:56
  Janglins loved the myth but admitted there was no truth to
• 1:17:58
  it. He just didn't think a film
• 1:18:00
  about a cashier at Big Lots attending his reunion would be
• 1:18:03
  that sexy, so he drew on his love of crime fiction to create
• 1:18:06
  a hitman premise. Yeah, really is.
• 1:18:08
  And there were several production companies interested
• 1:18:10
  in the concept in the early 90s, but they struggled to see a
• 1:18:13
  market considering the mix of comedy and violence.
• 1:18:16
  This despite Kiefer Sutherland shown strong interest in the
• 1:18:19
  script at the time. All right.
• 1:18:21
  And of course, that was before Tarantino blew the market open
• 1:18:23
  with his particular brand of movie making, which kind of made
• 1:18:27
  Hollywood see new movies in a different light.
• 1:18:30
  And this is where Cusack entered the fray with his Chicago
• 1:18:33
  buddies. He made a production deal with
• 1:18:34
  Paramount in 1992, and Steve Pink and DVD Vicentes, his old
• 1:18:39
  buddies, had both moved out LA as well.
• 1:18:41
  And Stephen Sandus discovered the script in an unusual way
• 1:18:44
  because at the time he was living in his car, just
• 1:18:46
  bartending and making extra money doing script coverage for
• 1:18:49
  kiosack empowerment. Yankovic's story arrived at
• 1:18:52
  Cusack's New Crime Productions in a Manila envelope, and it was
• 1:18:55
  a mystery script that Pink and Stephen Sandus were told not to
• 1:18:58
  read as it was unsolicited. But the opened and read it
• 1:19:01
  anywhere and it immediately tapped into ID that already been
• 1:19:04
  discussing. Brilliant.
• 1:19:05
  Yeah, the concept, it actually emerged from conversations
• 1:19:07
  between Q second David sent us about what constituted the
• 1:19:10
  ultimate American man. David sent us said.
• 1:19:13
  I remember one day we were playing baseball and we cracked
• 1:19:16
  ourselves up because we just decided the ultimate American
• 1:19:18
  male will be somebody who kills for money.
• 1:19:23
  Makes sense, and what followed was a complete rewrite to match
• 1:19:26
  Cusack's specific tastes and talents, with the Chicago crew
• 1:19:29
  essentially taking over the whole project.
• 1:19:31
  Yeah, Jankowitz basically was not involved from this point
• 1:19:34
  onwards. He was paid and that was it.
• 1:19:36
  And he gets a sole story credit for that reason.
• 1:19:38
  Right. And even Send has described the
• 1:19:40
  creative process as us sitting in a room with a computer and
• 1:19:44
  beginning a free for all competition to make each of the
• 1:19:46
  laugh. That's when the good stuff
• 1:19:47
  comes. We've been doing this since we
• 1:19:49
  were 15, so it's become a pretty natural thing.
• 1:19:52
  Yes, the story ended up being a satirical take on American
• 1:19:54
  values, Cusack said. I grew up fascinated by people
• 1:19:57
  in the Reagan administration, people who plan wars and then go
• 1:20:00
  home to their wife and kids. How do they live?
• 1:20:02
  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, he said. To me, growth point blank was a
• 1:20:05
  metaphor for the people in the Bush White House, a tongue in
• 1:20:08
  cheek look at American value system.
• 1:20:10
  Nice. And a journalist who attended
• 1:20:12
  high school with Cusack in Evanston, IL, found numerous
• 1:20:16
  illusions to their actual school in the finished film, as he
• 1:20:18
  noted, if I'm not mistaken, the heroin's last name?
• 1:20:21
  Newberry belong to a pair of cute artistic Evanston sisters,
• 1:20:25
  and the bully is a thinly disguised and inexplicably cruel
• 1:20:29
  parody of another classmate who I pray hasn't seen this movie.
• 1:20:35
  And the general consensus around the original script with that,
• 1:20:38
  it just wasn't very good, Minnie Driver later said.
• 1:20:41
  The script wasn't really that good and everyone knew the
• 1:20:44
  script wasn't really that good. We shot a couple of days and I
• 1:20:46
  remember it wasn't that it was disastrous, it just wasn't
• 1:20:49
  funny. But you can see that they've
• 1:20:52
  added that secret sauce, haven't you?
• 1:20:54
  Yeah. Cusack realizing that the film
• 1:20:56
  was in trouble at that point, he made a bold move and he went to
• 1:20:58
  Disney, the studio chief, Joe Roth, And he essentially said,
• 1:21:01
  can we just improvise? Will you just give us, like, a
• 1:21:03
  week and then watch the dailies? And tell me if you don't think
• 1:21:07
  that It's great. And the film is packed with
• 1:21:09
  clever references and details that you only really pick up on
• 1:21:12
  repeat viewings. We've mentioned the Bond
• 1:21:14
  references. And Martin's reunion invitation
• 1:21:17
  requires attendees to dress to kill the camera uses in the
• 1:21:20
  reunion is a minox, a miniature camera popular with Cold War
• 1:21:23
  spies and stands out a mile for me when he pulls out a.
• 1:21:27
  New word. A new word.
• 1:21:29
  A Minox. I'm getting very excited.
• 1:21:34
  And then Felix Lapu Bell, Beni Urquodessa's character name
• 1:21:37
  that's pronounced the same way as Poo Bell, which is French for
• 1:21:40
  garbage can. Yes, OK, yeah, a nice fit and
• 1:21:42
  moniker for a disposable assessor.
• 1:21:44
  Yes, and I love the way Marsalis says it earlier on Felix Lapu
• 1:21:48
  Bell. It's great.
• 1:21:50
  Yeah, I mean, it's one of the greatest character names in
• 1:21:54
  history, and we'll be talking more about that guy very soon
• 1:21:57
  indeed. Unfortunately, there's a sad
• 1:21:59
  quarter to the gross point blank story.
• 1:22:01
  Original screenwriter Tommy Ankowitz continued working in
• 1:22:04
  Hollywood as an uncredited script doctor and journalist.
• 1:22:07
  He never wrote another screenplay apart from this one.
• 1:22:09
  Oh really? Oh.
• 1:22:10
  Wow. He stayed largely out of the
• 1:22:11
  spotlight. In January 2023, he accepted an
• 1:22:15
  invite to a college screening of the film and participated in AQ
• 1:22:18
  and a session with the studio, something he just never did.
• 1:22:20
  He avoided interviews, invitations for interviews and
• 1:22:23
  screenings. During the discussion, he
• 1:22:25
  collapsed and died and hospital later that night.
• 1:22:28
  He was only 49. Wow.
• 1:22:30
  Sad news. That was sad.
• 1:22:33
  But he's left the lasting legacy.
• 1:22:34
  Oh, definitely. Lit the spark for this one,
• 1:22:37
  didn't he? Certainly did, yes.
• 1:22:39
  And talking about the screenplay, we've got our second
• 1:22:41
  question from ATR MP and this one is from Gav Newton.
• 1:22:45
  How are you doing, Gav? Gav?
• 1:22:47
  Now Gav says this is one of my top ten favorite films, he said.
• 1:22:50
  I once showed it to a mate of mine who after 30 minutes asked
• 1:22:53
  when does it get going. Right.
• 1:22:56
  I hate that question, That old. Chest Devastating.
• 1:22:59
  Yeah. Devastating.
• 1:23:00
  When do you get going now? Like I've said, it left me
• 1:23:06
  shaking my head. My question is what film that
• 1:23:09
  you love? Have you shown a friend or
• 1:23:11
  family member only for them to be unimpressed, leaving your
• 1:23:13
  question in their taste in film? Now I chose this question
• 1:23:16
  because this is straight up your alley, Westie.
• 1:23:19
  This is if we know someone, we know that.
• 1:23:23
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, great.
• 1:23:25
  If someone is not in the tune with your tastes, we know that
• 1:23:29
  you just never need to speak to that person again.
• 1:23:31
  Correct. That's a hill I'm going to die
• 1:23:34
  on. Yes, yeah.
• 1:23:36
  And this is awful when it happens because you find
• 1:23:38
  yourself forced in a laptop preempt in the next good bit.
• 1:23:41
  Yeah, try and desperately refer to resonate, but the race is
• 1:23:44
  already run and you've lost. It's terrible.
• 1:23:46
  Yeah, it's awful. Have you got an example of this
• 1:23:49
  West? I've got loads.
• 1:23:51
  Of course, you have to be honest.
• 1:23:53
  And no friends as a result. I prefer to understand by
• 1:23:58
  myself. I'm like, well, I mean, there's
• 1:24:00
  there's a fair few that but I mean, found love of film and I
• 1:24:03
  just really love a film as you know.
• 1:24:05
  I mean, speaking about length, I mean The Assassination of Jesse
• 1:24:08
  James, I've recommended to so many people and they've said,
• 1:24:11
  oh, that's good, it was too long.
• 1:24:12
  Yeah, bollocks. That's not an argument.
• 1:24:14
  That's like saying that Phillips Day, it's too big.
• 1:24:16
  It's it's stupid, one that I never get away with now because
• 1:24:21
  it was just one. I know you're going to agree
• 1:24:22
  with this Lucas Highlander. I'll show that so many.
• 1:24:24
  People and they kind. Of go.
• 1:24:26
  What on earth is this? What is the matter with you?
• 1:24:28
  That's another one. Mass is a prime example.
• 1:24:31
  Yeah. It just.
• 1:24:32
  It only works in your own little vault, I think.
• 1:24:35
  Another one of mine that nobody gets in the world apart from who
• 1:24:38
  made it, Mike Lindsay and me, Raiders of the Lost Ark.
• 1:24:43
  I've recommended that to some people that I work with, and I
• 1:24:46
  think they just went. It was just pretty boring and
• 1:24:49
  we've seen it all before and they've missed the boat on it.
• 1:24:52
  That's when you need to follow through on you.
• 1:24:54
  You never need to talk to. Those people, again, I've quit
• 1:24:56
  the job, left the whole thing, not interested.
• 1:25:02
  They're the ones for me. But the my films, it's fine, you
• 1:25:05
  know, That's OK. It is, that's your journey
• 1:25:07
  waste. Of course it is.
• 1:25:08
  What about you, Matt? Assured the Exorcist to flatmate
• 1:25:13
  to university at the time. OK, good start.
• 1:25:16
  Well you would think but they just laughed at it.
• 1:25:18
  They couldn't get past like the head turning bit the cursor
• 1:25:21
  expect which OK yeah fair enough, it looks a bit enough.
• 1:25:24
  But if if that's the main thing you're taken from the Exorcist,
• 1:25:28
  then I don't know what to say to you.
• 1:25:29
  Well, yeah, you know, it's so much more than.
• 1:25:31
  That that's, that's just a question of respect for you and
• 1:25:34
  the materials. And they're showing a lack of
• 1:25:35
  respect. So lack of response.
• 1:25:37
  I moved out the next day was good.
• 1:25:39
  So there you go, beautiful. And another one showed someone
• 1:25:42
  you know top secret, the Abraham Zucker film you thought I was on
• 1:25:46
  to an absolute winner because she loved aeroplane Stony faced
• 1:25:51
  thought the whole thing. No, nothing.
• 1:25:53
  Nothing. Not one laugh.
• 1:25:55
  Not one laugh. Surely there's one in there?
• 1:25:57
  Yeah, that's a decent film. Yeah, I mean, OK, it's not
• 1:26:00
  airplane, but still really funny.
• 1:26:01
  No, no, it's not. I know that laughing thing had
• 1:26:05
  that with Elm Street in the past.
• 1:26:06
  And that you don't obviously know what this means to me.
• 1:26:10
  Yeah, exactly. If you did, you wouldn't be
• 1:26:13
  laughing. Yeah.
• 1:26:15
  And I've had this experience with this very film, Right?
• 1:26:18
  Oh wow. OK.
• 1:26:19
  Yeah, personal favorite of mine, obviously, as discussed ad
• 1:26:21
  nauseam. I thought it'd be straight up my
• 1:26:24
  wife's alley. Girlfriend at the time, a big
• 1:26:26
  job. Obviously she knows I like
• 1:26:28
  Cusack, she loves Ackroyd. I thought it would be a
• 1:26:31
  beautiful coming together. Not a bloody bit of it, no.
• 1:26:35
  Didn't love Ackroyd. She said he was being over the
• 1:26:37
  top, couldn't connect with Cusack and the least said about
• 1:26:40
  her thoughts on Mini Driver the better.
• 1:26:42
  Wow, what? Needless to say, she hasn't
• 1:26:46
  revisited the film with me this time around when I've deep dived
• 1:26:49
  interest. Yes.
• 1:26:51
  But thank you very much for the question, Gav.
• 1:26:53
  A great one, yes. Thank you, Gav.
• 1:26:54
  Thanks, Gav. And a great piece of writing on
• 1:26:57
  Grosse Pointe Blank with a great Hollywood story.
• 1:27:00
  A sad ending, yeah, but a great legacy left behind.
• 1:27:03
  Yeah. And now it's over to the music
• 1:27:07
  in the film, scored by Joe Strummer with some incredibly
• 1:27:11
  curated songs from the 80s. Yeah, top five Westy.
• 1:27:15
  Not for me. Oh, I think it's not really my
• 1:27:19
  cup of tea. I think a lot of the music in
• 1:27:21
  this, it's a very mixed bag. So there is something for
• 1:27:23
  everybody, but I just feel like I've heard all of these songs so
• 1:27:26
  many times before and it's almost a cliche of itself, you
• 1:27:29
  know, kind of like Mirrors in the Bathroom and Live and Let
• 1:27:32
  Die. You would expect to hear them, I
• 1:27:34
  guess. But I think the thing for me is
• 1:27:36
  it's all just a little bit too reggae tinged.
• 1:27:39
  You know you're not a regular fan.
• 1:27:40
  Not a massive fan of regular. I've really tried and I just
• 1:27:43
  went, you know, it just makes us feel seasick.
• 1:27:45
  Just it makes us feel a bit off kilter.
• 1:27:49
  It's not the rhythm for me. Yeah, I'm a four, four man.
• 1:27:52
  Can be John Bonham any day. There's just too much of the
• 1:27:57
  specials in there, I think. Right.
• 1:27:59
  Which kind of pulls us out a little bit.
• 1:28:01
  The standouts though, I mean, I love Blister in the Sun.
• 1:28:03
  I think that's an absolute banger by the Violet Firms.
• 1:28:06
  That's brilliant, Brilliant song.
• 1:28:07
  I'll never get tired of that. I love In between days by the
• 1:28:09
  Cure. I think that's really beautiful.
• 1:28:11
  It's great to hear white lines in there.
• 1:28:13
  It is. That's the flash reminders of
• 1:28:15
  Journey today. But it's just it's nice to have
• 1:28:18
  it in there. It's just some songs that I just
• 1:28:20
  think could have been a little bit more intelligent.
• 1:28:22
  They've just went, oh, do you want to get that one?
• 1:28:23
  Because that's what people have heard.
• 1:28:25
  And some of them feel a little bit on the nose and a little bit
• 1:28:27
  obvious, like Take on Me by Our heart doesn't need to be in
• 1:28:30
  there. But wouldn't you think that
• 1:28:32
  that's the exactly the kind of thing that will be played in an
• 1:28:34
  80s high school reunion? Very possibly, yeah.
• 1:28:37
  But there's also a far, far more songs and not as obvious, like
• 1:28:41
  it's ignorable, that song, it's so it's so popular and you've
• 1:28:45
  heard it so many times, it doesn't have an impact.
• 1:28:47
  It's too obvious. So for me, yeah, it is a great
• 1:28:50
  collection of songs, but not one that I'm just going to stick on
• 1:28:52
  when I'm driving to work or anything, because once them
• 1:28:55
  songs come on, I've heard them a million times.
• 1:28:57
  Right. Wow.
• 1:28:58
  OK, I likened it to, I don't know if anybody listening knows
• 1:29:02
  the history of the album The River by Springsteen, but it's a
• 1:29:05
  double album and he envisaged that as part of the songs of
• 1:29:10
  what the characters in the album would be listening to.
• 1:29:13
  And the other half are about those characters.
• 1:29:16
  And I feel that about this. The songs that Debbie players,
• 1:29:19
  the songs that are playing throughout the film and
• 1:29:21
  thematically relevant to the narrative, right?
• 1:29:24
  The ones at the reunion are the ones that are just on and the
• 1:29:27
  big hitters that they would be listening to anyway.
• 1:29:29
  That's my problem where I think the ones that do tie into the
• 1:29:31
  narrative, I much prefer that from a soundtrack.
• 1:29:33
  I think it needs, it needs a little bit more attention for
• 1:29:35
  me. Right, OK, no Springsteen on the
• 1:29:37
  soundtrack, but you've still got them in there.
• 1:29:38
  I love that. Well, he's not on the
• 1:29:41
  soundtrack, so that's good. She wants Springsteen in there.
• 1:29:45
  Come on. What I like about the soundtrack
• 1:29:48
  is that it functions on quite a few levels for me.
• 1:29:51
  For Martin, these songs represent his youth, that period
• 1:29:53
  before everything went wrong. But for me and for other people
• 1:29:57
  who discovered this film in the in the late 90s, we were
• 1:30:00
  offering discovering the music at the same time, either through
• 1:30:03
  our own endeavors or being introduced by the film.
• 1:30:06
  So you get this double hit of nostalgia.
• 1:30:08
  The character is nostalgia for the 80s and hours for
• 1:30:11
  discovering both the film and the music.
• 1:30:12
  So it hits on really a number of levels.
• 1:30:15
  The way that the songs are woven in the narrative is smart for
• 1:30:18
  me. When Debbie players, Rudy can't
• 1:30:20
  fail, Martin tries past the radio station.
• 1:30:22
  It's not just atmospheric and a banger, but those lyrics about
• 1:30:25
  going to the market to realize your soul perfectly foreshadows
• 1:30:28
  Martin's journey to his childhood home turned into an
• 1:30:30
  ultimate. I don't think it's just
• 1:30:33
  declaration. It does do storytelling work.
• 1:30:36
  The soundtrack works because it's not trying to be cool or
• 1:30:38
  hip. I think it's generally
• 1:30:40
  reflecting what these characters would have been listening to in
• 1:30:42
  the 80s and what Martin would still be emotionally connected
• 1:30:46
  to. I think it's comfort music for
• 1:30:47
  damaged people, which is exactly the what the film's about.
• 1:30:50
  And it really helps that they are, for the most part, bangers
• 1:30:53
  for me. Even they take on me or walk
• 1:30:56
  like an Egyptian. Yeah, I don't think they've got
• 1:30:58
  the tired feel that those familiar songs usually do
• 1:31:01
  because they're in this specific set.
• 1:31:03
  Right. Fair enough.
• 1:31:04
  Yeah. That's why it works for me.
• 1:31:05
  Yeah. Matt, what about you?
• 1:31:06
  Music and the film. It's another aspect of the film
• 1:31:09
  that's quite personal to me because when this film came out,
• 1:31:12
  I was well into Empire magazine at the time.
• 1:31:14
  And I remember when this came out on VHS, as was back then,
• 1:31:18
  there was a competition in the back of Empire to win it.
• 1:31:20
  So I ended and I was one of the 10 winners.
• 1:31:22
  And as well as the VHS, you got the CD soundtrack, so this was
• 1:31:25
  one of the first. Amazing.
• 1:31:27
  Yeah, one of the first soundtracks I've won, so you
• 1:31:29
  know, I have played a lot and. That's the big winner.
• 1:31:34
  Gross point, Matt. He's all over this.
• 1:31:38
  I did not know this about. Yes, this is a revelation.
• 1:31:41
  I think the soundtrack though, I mean, it's clearly John Cusack's
• 1:31:44
  own personal players to you. You know, he's always made his
• 1:31:47
  own musical tears very clear. That's why you have to clash the
• 1:31:50
  jam Toots and the metals. That's very much what he's into.
• 1:31:53
  And I do think it works well for the film.
• 1:31:55
  I do think it's also quite clever because I take Wesley's
• 1:31:58
  choice about, you know, our heart, take on me and the
• 1:32:00
  Bengals. I don't ever need to hear them
• 1:32:02
  again in my general life. But in context, I think they
• 1:32:05
  work really well because I'm with with you on this, Luke, the
• 1:32:08
  other types of songs that play reunions to get people.
• 1:32:12
  So you've got these choices which are clearly personal to
• 1:32:14
  Cusack. You've got choices which are
• 1:32:15
  very obvious, but I do think necessary.
• 1:32:17
  And then you've got songs which fit into the narrative.
• 1:32:19
  But at the time, I've never heard them before.
• 1:32:22
  You know, I've never heard Mirror in the Bathroom by the
• 1:32:24
  beat, which I think works really well for the fighting cities of
• 1:32:27
  just by Susie and the Banshees. I think that's an amazing song,
• 1:32:30
  that one in there. And I think if you said to
• 1:32:32
  someone you're putting together a soundtrack for a film which
• 1:32:34
  includes the porks, but it's not a Christmas film.
• 1:32:37
  I think everyone will go, ah, going to be Fiesta, is it?
• 1:32:40
  But it's not. It's lockers Novena, which is
• 1:32:42
  what plays around grocery attacks Debbie's house, which I
• 1:32:44
  think works really well really since the piece of music.
• 1:32:47
  So to me, this is a really, really great soundtrack because
• 1:32:49
  it's not one song that doesn't earn its place on it for a
• 1:32:53
  particular reason. Big praise.
• 1:32:56
  Well, one of the most memorable music moments in the film is the
• 1:32:59
  ultimate scene that you talked about, Western GNR blasting out
• 1:33:02
  Live and Let Die before it switches to that supermarket
• 1:33:05
  Muzak. And when we interviewed David,
• 1:33:08
  even sent this for our High Fidelity podcast, he told this
• 1:33:11
  amazing story. So the original concept was for
• 1:33:13
  Smells Like Teen Spirit to play. They were sent a set of personal
• 1:33:17
  connection to make this happen. He knew Courtney Love from
• 1:33:20
  before she was famous. When they were teenagers, he
• 1:33:22
  reached out to her and she said she would run it past the
• 1:33:25
  Nirvana guys. Brilliant.
• 1:33:27
  Nice, nice. Yeah, OK.
• 1:33:29
  So this led to an arranged screening for Dave Grohl where
• 1:33:33
  Devin Sandez sat next to the Nirvana drummer watching the
• 1:33:36
  entire film with the song in place.
• 1:33:37
  But when they were watching it, the same comes on, and Devin
• 1:33:40
  Sandez realizes immediately it just doesn't work for the scene,
• 1:33:44
  which is awkward because he's sitting right next to the
• 1:33:46
  drummer who's come out of his way to watch this film with his
• 1:33:50
  song in place. Amazing.
• 1:33:51
  Yeah. So he said that the watch the
• 1:33:53
  whole film, the rest of the film and he's got this bubble in a
• 1:33:56
  way underneath thinking I'm going to have to tackle this.
• 1:34:00
  Dave Grohl loves the film, but Dave incentives has got to have
• 1:34:02
  this awkward conversation. But thankfully Grohl was of the
• 1:34:05
  same opinion. It doesn't work.
• 1:34:07
  They both kind of like edged each other.
• 1:34:09
  Well, he's and Grohl's like, well, it definitely doesn't
• 1:34:13
  work. Yeah, but thinking about it, and
• 1:34:15
  that's obviously with hindsight, retrospect and with it already
• 1:34:19
  in place as Live and Let Die, I just don't feel as though it
• 1:34:22
  could work. No, I can't.
• 1:34:24
  In keeping with the Bond love in they set their sights on Live
• 1:34:27
  and Let Die, they couldn't get the rights to the original, but
• 1:34:29
  got the GNR version instead, something which DVD said was the
• 1:34:32
  best of all three ideas. And of course, back to something
• 1:34:36
  he learned on High Fidelity, that the script is never
• 1:34:38
  finished. He said that a totem, you can
• 1:34:40
  have this idea and it's by no means correct until it actually
• 1:34:43
  works. It's like setting up two friends
• 1:34:45
  of yours and a blind date. It could also be a disaster.
• 1:34:49
  Yeah. I mean, what seems like the best
• 1:34:51
  thing doesn't necessarily plan out like that.
• 1:34:53
  Definitely. And Grosse Pointe Blank had a
• 1:34:55
  larger music budget than High Fidelity.
• 1:34:57
  He said that both wouldn't have the soundtracks they have
• 1:34:59
  without the guidance of music Supervisor Kathy Nelson do the
• 1:35:03
  sentence described as the grand queen of soundtrack records.
• 1:35:06
  If you consider this and high Fidelity as well, you've got 2
• 1:35:09
  for me. Really, really distinct
• 1:35:11
  soundtracks. Yeah.
• 1:35:13
  To the best of the last 30 odd years.
• 1:35:15
  The connection to the Clash ran deeper than just obviously the
• 1:35:18
  soundtrack selections. Just drummer.
• 1:35:20
  He was brought in a compose this film's original score.
• 1:35:23
  His involvement was a natural fit considering Cusack's deep
• 1:35:27
  appreciation for the Clash. Yeah.
• 1:35:29
  And strummer supporter to create in the skull was spontaneous and
• 1:35:32
  collaborative. He worked with musicians Rats,
• 1:35:34
  Scabies from the Damned and Sex Jennings from the Rutz recording
• 1:35:38
  Dune studio downtime in sessions that was so informal that
• 1:35:42
  sometimes sex has captured their Airpod would be waiting outside
• 1:35:44
  while they're finished recording.
• 1:35:46
  Brilliant. Then Strummer's cues typically
• 1:35:48
  appeared in the film's action heavy scenes, providing what was
• 1:35:51
  described as a nervy Sonic signature with anxious synths
• 1:35:54
  and dynamic percussion. The perfectly complemented
• 1:35:57
  Martin Blanc's conflicted psychology.
• 1:35:59
  And so subtly, in fact, that we don't necessarily notice them.
• 1:36:04
  No. Very, very subtle, yeah.
• 1:36:07
  So that isn't the only place to find references to Strummer and
• 1:36:10
  the Clash. The high school hallway features
• 1:36:12
  a banner read, and the future is unwritten, a quote from
• 1:36:14
  Strummer. And there's even a poster for
• 1:36:16
  the clashes out of control to a visible on Martin's wall as he
• 1:36:19
  prepares for the reunion as well.
• 1:36:21
  So it's stuffed with it. Yeah.
• 1:36:23
  So a huge soundtrack for Grosse Pointe Blank.
• 1:36:26
  Not just amazing songs on their own merit, but thematically
• 1:36:29
  resonant for the most part. For the most part.
• 1:36:34
  Finally, a cinematographer who, again, we'll almost certainly
• 1:36:38
  never talk about. No, it's Jamie Anderson who made
• 1:36:41
  a name for himself at the time by shooting films like Unlawful
• 1:36:43
  Entry and The Juror. Matt Jamie Anderson's work here.
• 1:36:48
  Well, the first thing in my head when I was thinking about this
• 1:36:50
  one was, you know, we're following on from talking about
• 1:36:52
  Roger Deakins on Plato. Exactly the same.
• 1:36:55
  Like, Yikes. And like, that was stuck in my
• 1:36:59
  head to the point where I'm only going to sound like, really
• 1:37:01
  dismissive about Anderson Hale. But then I thought, actually,
• 1:37:03
  you know what? The thing is, ATV has one drop,
• 1:37:06
  and one drop only make the film look good.
• 1:37:09
  And Grosse Point Blank looks good.
• 1:37:10
  Yeah, it's not about huge vistas and incredible use of contrast
• 1:37:14
  and shadows because that's not this film and you can take any
• 1:37:17
  frame of this film and you think, you know what?
• 1:37:18
  I can tell who's important in the shot, what the relationship
• 1:37:21
  between the characters is and what emotion Armitage wants you
• 1:37:24
  to feel. It's like I initially thought
• 1:37:26
  I'd be given very faint praise here, but I think I've just been
• 1:37:29
  over inflating in my head how big or notable cinematography
• 1:37:33
  has to be to say no, that works. And that's easy said than done
• 1:37:37
  because we've done a video on Deliverance in the past, which
• 1:37:40
  for the most part looks great. Then you've got the diff and I'd
• 1:37:43
  sequence. And that's yes, yes.
• 1:37:46
  So stuff can go wrong. Grosse Pointe Blank didn't need
• 1:37:49
  to look as good as sisters. And I think Anderson just
• 1:37:51
  delivers what this film needs. And yes, he's not exactly ripped
• 1:37:54
  up trees in his career, to be fair.
• 1:37:56
  And his filmography is quite workmanlike, But only if you
• 1:37:59
  talk to him about his career, he could turn around and say, yeah,
• 1:38:02
  you know what? I'm not a household name, but I
• 1:38:04
  shot Grosse Pointe Blank and the thing anyone would be proud to
• 1:38:07
  say on that? I think that anybody in the
• 1:38:08
  crew, anybody who worked on the film would be proud to say that
• 1:38:11
  the work he's done here is grace.
• 1:38:13
  We're very interested in your thoughts on Anderson's work
• 1:38:16
  here. It's very much like Armitage's
• 1:38:18
  work here. I think he's brought on to make
• 1:38:20
  something work irregardless of what he thinks should or
• 1:38:23
  shouldn't work. But what he does is he makes
• 1:38:25
  everything accessible and it's believable.
• 1:38:28
  There's a lot of scenes here where it could have been
• 1:38:31
  underexposed or he could have tried to go for something a
• 1:38:33
  little bit more clever. You know, they throw a lot at
• 1:38:35
  this. If you watch it from a technical
• 1:38:37
  point of view, from a cinematography point of view,
• 1:38:39
  we're going, I mean, that Dutch angle is a mistake.
• 1:38:41
  You know, these things happen. Probably the tripod was broke or
• 1:38:43
  something and that it's enough time to fix it.
• 1:38:45
  We never can tell light and wise it's exposed.
• 1:38:48
  It does the job. But we're going from handheld
• 1:38:50
  cameras, we're going to cranes, we're going to track and shots.
• 1:38:54
  We're going to, you know, some really clean over the shoulders
• 1:38:56
  and dirty over the shoulders and you know, you know where you are
• 1:38:59
  with everything that's going on. Really interesting if you just
• 1:39:01
  take, let's just say the Diana sequence between grocer and
• 1:39:05
  blank, that shot where it goes to the waitress and it's that
• 1:39:07
  low angle giving her massive presence in the frame.
• 1:39:10
  Doesn't need that doesn't need to happen, but it really works
• 1:39:13
  and makes it seem a little bit more interesting that what the
• 1:39:16
  you know, the mid shot he chooses where you see what the
• 1:39:18
  holding underneath the table to then go onto the table and then
• 1:39:20
  punch you to a closer. That's all considered because
• 1:39:22
  you then brought into the conversation, the threat's been
• 1:39:24
  taken care of and you can move into it.
• 1:39:26
  A lot of what is happening technically has been really
• 1:39:28
  considered when at the reunion and Martin's holding the baby
• 1:39:32
  was holding Robbie and then when he puts Roy back at least
• 1:39:34
  looking at the baby. And it's an incredible shot of
• 1:39:37
  the baby just looking straight up and it's just beautifully lit
• 1:39:39
  and it's just really nice catch lights.
• 1:39:41
  And then it cuts to the side shot and that is beautifully
• 1:39:43
  lit. That rim light is just perfect.
• 1:39:45
  Yes, because of the situation that he's in.
• 1:39:47
  It's not taking you out of the location because yes, there's
• 1:39:50
  lights over there and that's going to happen.
• 1:39:51
  But still really nicely considered, really nicely shot,
• 1:39:55
  really nicely lit, and a really lovely moment that calms the
• 1:39:58
  whole film down while some guys are over in one corner talking
• 1:40:02
  about what's funny. And what the dialogue should be,
• 1:40:05
  and you've got Armitage and you've got Anderson in the other
• 1:40:07
  corner going. How the foot.
• 1:40:08
  We're going to shoot this. Let's listen to what they're
• 1:40:10
  saying. Yeah, we're going to do some
• 1:40:12
  whip pants. It's going to be handheld.
• 1:40:13
  Don't tell them because the last get to change it.
• 1:40:15
  Just go in there and shoot it the way you want to shoot it
• 1:40:17
  without an opinion. You're a cinematographer and you
• 1:40:19
  don't look at the cinematography.
• 1:40:21
  You've done a really good job. Yes.
• 1:40:22
  And I think he has done a really good job.
• 1:40:24
  Yeah, very nice. Yeah, I think I'm very similar
• 1:40:27
  to both of you. It's understated work.
• 1:40:29
  There are some artistic flashes, like that moment in Miami near
• 1:40:32
  the start where you get those beautiful neon pinks and greens
• 1:40:35
  from the streets in the hotel room.
• 1:40:37
  Really atmospheric, but without being showy.
• 1:40:39
  Yeah. And what I really appreciate is
• 1:40:41
  he's functional. Anderson.
• 1:40:42
  We've talked about this kind of thing with the director, George
• 1:40:45
  Armitage. He stays in his lane.
• 1:40:48
  The cinematography serves the plot, never overshadows the
• 1:40:50
  narrative, never makes its presence known.
• 1:40:52
  It's kind of like Martin himself.
• 1:40:55
  It's a ghost that you don't know is there, but you can sometimes
• 1:40:58
  feel its presence with those Korean shots, for example.
• 1:41:01
  Westie. Yeah, yeah, he knows when to
• 1:41:03
  pull back and let the performances breathe.
• 1:41:04
  But there are some nice touches scattered throughout a few Dutch
• 1:41:07
  angles that work. The one at the start doesn't.
• 1:41:10
  They can't all be winners. That's too early.
• 1:41:13
  Yeah, the visual approach maintains A naturalistic quality
• 1:41:17
  that keeps the film grounded. Because the action can sometimes
• 1:41:20
  get cartoonish, the dialogue is heightened.
• 1:41:22
  Grosser gets outrageous, the camera works, stays realistic,
• 1:41:26
  which helps sell those elements, those larger than life moments.
• 1:41:29
  I think it's a kind of cinematography that doesn't win
• 1:41:31
  awards because not flashy, but it's absolutely essential to
• 1:41:33
  make a film like this work as a whole course.
• 1:41:35
  Like professionalism there when you need it, invisible when you
• 1:41:38
  don't. Exactly love it.
• 1:41:40
  Imagine that it reduced Mrs. K like the reduced Shawn Young and
• 1:41:43
  Blade Runner just walking down the corridor of a shaft of light
• 1:41:46
  Martin. It wouldn't work but it.
• 1:41:49
  It wouldn't. It just wouldn't work it.
• 1:41:52
  Doesn't need it. Anderson's approach perfectly
• 1:41:54
  complemented Armitage's improvisational style.
• 1:41:57
  The director fostered the highly collaborative environment
• 1:42:00
  frequently used in three cameras and simultaneously, and rarely
• 1:42:03
  had to instruct Anderson on camera placement.
• 1:42:06
  This gave Anderson and his team the freedom to respond
• 1:42:09
  dynamically to the actors, improvisation and evolving mood
• 1:42:12
  on the set as well. Yeah.
• 1:42:13
  So they're all one fluid hall, Yeah.
• 1:42:16
  It's an Atlas film, isn't it? It is, yeah.
• 1:42:17
  Anderson style was characterized by versatility and flexibility,
• 1:42:21
  able to pivot between comedic, romantic and action scenes
• 1:42:25
  within the same day of shooting. He employed multi camera
• 1:42:28
  coverage to catch various angles, especially during scenes
• 1:42:31
  of improvisation or intricate choreography like the fight
• 1:42:34
  sequences. Yeah, those fight sequences, the
• 1:42:36
  shootout scene, I think he captures those really, really
• 1:42:39
  well. He does, yeah.
• 1:42:41
  So no real household names in the crew on Grosse Pointe Bank,
• 1:42:44
  apart from John Cusack, who is the lead, of course.
• 1:42:47
  But they all understand the material and they create
• 1:42:49
  something greater than the sum of their parts.
• 1:42:51
  Yeah, Definitely, yeah. The end.
• 1:42:59
  The third act is upon us as the reunion draws near.
• 1:43:02
  Martin and Debbie are taking an important step in their
• 1:43:05
  burgeoning relationship and Martin gets the skinny on the 2
• 1:43:07
  Spooks and the Google One Felix Lapu bell.
• 1:43:11
  But it is the morning of firstly and I'm starting off with Martin
• 1:43:15
  being grocer for breakfast. Lovely.
• 1:43:18
  Yeah, there's a lovely little detail as Martin pulls up
• 1:43:20
  outside the restaurant. The two Spooks are in the car,
• 1:43:22
  one's shave and the others brushing the teeth.
• 1:43:24
  So they're just constantly telling them and sleeping in
• 1:43:27
  their car, just waiting for him to step out of line, and then
• 1:43:30
  they can take him out at any moment.
• 1:43:33
  Yeah, great. And then they're there,
• 1:43:35
  presumably because Grocer has fed them in the information that
• 1:43:38
  he's going to meet them at this place, which is great.
• 1:43:41
  And this coming together between Grocer and Blank, I mean, it's
• 1:43:45
  just, I mean, it's just wonderful.
• 1:43:46
  There's a slightly complicated story here about little Boutrod
• 1:43:49
  the dog, the retriever who got mixed up in something way over
• 1:43:51
  his head and got exploded. And that's the reason that Lapu
• 1:43:55
  Bell is on the scene, to also take Blank down.
• 1:43:58
  It's a little muddy for me that. Just a bit, yeah.
• 1:44:01
  It's a little too complicated, but it does work if you're
• 1:44:04
  paying attention to the dialogue.
• 1:44:05
  It does work, but it doesn't stick.
• 1:44:07
  Easy. No.
• 1:44:08
  And the script knows that as well, too, because it has
• 1:44:10
  Grosser stop blanking his tracks.
• 1:44:12
  He says, Whoa, whoa, whoa. Chatty Cathy, clip your strings.
• 1:44:14
  I don't need to know. He's doing our job for us.
• 1:44:18
  Yeah. And there's some really, really
• 1:44:20
  wonderful range here from Ackroyd.
• 1:44:22
  Grosser tries again to get blank on side for his Gun for Hire
• 1:44:26
  union, and he looks genuinely depressed when Martin turns him
• 1:44:29
  down, his face pressed against the wall like a little puppy.
• 1:44:32
  Yeah, yeah. And then he draws his gun.
• 1:44:35
  Tell him they're going to do a little job.
• 1:44:37
  Oh yeah, Tell me about it. And then he erupts into this
• 1:44:40
  geyser free. I'm going to put a bullet hole
• 1:44:43
  in your fucking phone. I'm going to fuck the brain
• 1:44:45
  hole. Nice talk, sugar mouth.
• 1:44:52
  It's. I mean, that is grotesque
• 1:44:55
  dialogue. Yeah.
• 1:44:56
  It's just, it's the character, so.
• 1:44:58
  Well, but nice talk, Sugar mouth is an ultimate comeback, isn't?
• 1:45:01
  It it is. I say that often.
• 1:45:04
  Yeah, often. I might have even said it when
• 1:45:07
  you've been swim Westie on the in the past, I'm sure.
• 1:45:11
  Possibly first person who could find that and put in the group.
• 1:45:13
  Yeah, definitely. It'll have to be a parent
• 1:45:15
  though. If you find it, let me know
• 1:45:16
  which which one. Yes, if you do.
• 1:45:18
  There's a task for you, yeah. So after this moment, he
• 1:45:24
  actually turns up blank, turns up.
• 1:45:26
  Debbie thinks he's not. Going to a little late.
• 1:45:28
  Post a little late happening again.
• 1:45:30
  There's a little bit of tension that's really great.
• 1:45:32
  Shows it with the flowers. Who loves that?
• 1:45:35
  That's really good. It's really kind of sour is now
• 1:45:37
  to put these rub and alcohol. Yeah, that's really, really
• 1:45:40
  good. It's a great moment as well.
• 1:45:42
  Just before this where it's a little bit of exposition, but it
• 1:45:45
  could really play out to be cheap just depending on your
• 1:45:48
  opinion. Like she's ringing the phone and
• 1:45:50
  then the invite's right next to it and the hands and picks up
• 1:45:52
  the invite and then leaves it. All right, This guy's going to
• 1:45:55
  show up. That's how he knows where it is.
• 1:45:58
  Is it a little cheap? Is it a little lazy?
• 1:46:00
  I don't know. But it works either way.
• 1:46:01
  It works. It's kind of a bit like a horror
• 1:46:03
  trope, isn't it? It is a little.
• 1:46:04
  It's kind of like, look, we've ran out of pages.
• 1:46:08
  Yeah, come and do this. Yeah, George, do something here.
• 1:46:10
  Yeah. Yeah, quickly please.
• 1:46:13
  So it's just the ringing form, which I think it works.
• 1:46:15
  I think it's alright. It does.
• 1:46:16
  A big shout out to Mitchell Ryan here who really, really nails
• 1:46:20
  this is like the dad who's like, look, I don't really give a
• 1:46:23
  fuck. You so old enough now to deal
• 1:46:25
  with this by yourselves. Like just obviously been banging
• 1:46:28
  on about this guy for 10 years. He's.
• 1:46:30
  Sick of hearing about? And he's so sick of you.
• 1:46:33
  He's not just talk to him that much.
• 1:46:35
  He's. I've been surprised to see him.
• 1:46:37
  Yeah. He's like, I know you're left,
• 1:46:39
  and I'm glad you did. Nobody else has said that.
• 1:46:43
  So he's just straight down the line because he's like, if you
• 1:46:45
  just stuck around, this would have been a hell of a a lot more
• 1:46:47
  bother for me. So it's fine.
• 1:46:48
  I've had to deal with it and you've come back and again, it's
• 1:46:51
  just one of them wonderful scenes where you've got 2
• 1:46:53
  incredible actors. I mean, it's a far cry away from
• 1:46:55
  the general Lethal Weapon isn't? It yeah, he's McAllister and
• 1:46:58
  Lethal Weapon, isn't he? Anything just really narrows
• 1:47:01
  this down to like the guy who's just look at me, daughter's too
• 1:47:04
  old to be living with us now. Yes.
• 1:47:06
  Just fucking sort this out and get out, please.
• 1:47:09
  Yeah. But some really, really snappy
• 1:47:12
  dialogue, like you've beaten the millennia.
• 1:47:13
  I've lost me bet. Like just himself, I think.
• 1:47:16
  Yeah. But it's like, you know,
• 1:47:18
  mercenary sensibility Sports X no real relationships with
• 1:47:20
  anyone. How have you been?
• 1:47:21
  How the years treating you? Yeah, yeah.
• 1:47:24
  You know, he's just. Naturally, I.
• 1:47:26
  Love his honesty. He's just like really down the
• 1:47:29
  line contractilizer to growth industry, you know, classes back
• 1:47:32
  on reads again and he's maybe thinking about what he's done.
• 1:47:36
  Is Martin there for him, as we'll find that out later on?
• 1:47:39
  Yeah. And potentially.
• 1:47:40
  These little tones in there, that's just down in the whiskey
• 1:47:43
  at the end, but it doesn't linger on it.
• 1:47:44
  It doesn't make it obvious. It doesn't kind of pull you out.
• 1:47:46
  The film. Again, keeping the tone light,
• 1:47:48
  keeping the dialogue snappy. Fantastic sequence.
• 1:47:50
  And then they get the reunion. Finally, finally, finally, we're
• 1:47:55
  meet Nathaniel. I'm not hearing any real remote
• 1:47:57
  here. So it's that guy love.
• 1:47:59
  It. We'll meet Bob de Seplo, high as
• 1:48:01
  a kite, but also this real passive, regressive attitude to
• 1:48:04
  Mark. I'm drawing a real blank.
• 1:48:07
  Blank right in. His face, right in his face.
• 1:48:11
  All these are the random people from the past.
• 1:48:13
  Terry's there freaking out with a gun, and then Paul turns up in
• 1:48:17
  that cushion encounter he has with Jenny Slater, who clearly
• 1:48:20
  takes a fancy to Martin. Yeah.
• 1:48:22
  Remembers nothing about Paul. Hey, Jenny Slater.
• 1:48:26
  Hey, Jenny Slater. Hey, Jenny Slater.
• 1:48:28
  Paul like this, made like this would be the nightmare of going
• 1:48:33
  to school reunion, no one remembering who you are or
• 1:48:36
  having nothing in common with each.
• 1:48:37
  There is no. Way I would put myself in this
• 1:48:40
  situation. Absolutely.
• 1:48:41
  Jenny is my worst nightmare. We've got a Patriot question
• 1:48:44
  about have you been to your high school reunion?
• 1:48:47
  I didn't choose this. It's a great It would be a great
• 1:48:49
  question. It's not really a thing over
• 1:48:50
  here either. No.
• 1:48:52
  But I just know that none of us would go no.
• 1:48:54
  Definitely not, no. Exactly.
• 1:48:56
  But the bit that always stands out to me, it's one of my very,
• 1:48:59
  very favorite bits in the film is when he sees his old friend
• 1:49:01
  Tracy, who has the baby. And this actress KK Dodds only
• 1:49:06
  seen in very small role since a couple of things seen there, but
• 1:49:09
  she's so good in the same. And it's it's another great
• 1:49:12
  example of how this film can establish past relationships
• 1:49:15
  between characters very quickly. Because with Tracy, I don't
• 1:49:19
  think there was anything romantic between her and Martin
• 1:49:21
  at all. But I get the feeling there were
• 1:49:23
  really great platonic friends. And I'd have really like special
• 1:49:26
  close friendship because he's delighted to see you and
• 1:49:29
  everyone there. She's the one he's most excited
• 1:49:31
  about. And Tracy is the one that gives
• 1:49:33
  him this glimpse of maybe committing yourself to one
• 1:49:36
  person and not running away from them.
• 1:49:38
  It's actually a good thing. Like he says to her, it's not
• 1:49:41
  like how it's meant to be, right?
• 1:49:43
  Interest straight back. No, it's not true.
• 1:49:44
  Gets better and better. How's your life?
• 1:49:46
  Well in progress, just more great dialogue.
• 1:49:49
  And we've talked about the music and obviously, you know my
• 1:49:51
  taste, so it takes a lot for me to say Queen on the soundtrack
• 1:49:55
  is a great choice, but I think Under Pressure is so well used
• 1:49:58
  here. Yeah, it is.
• 1:49:59
  And it could be on the nose when she asks him to hold Robbie and
• 1:50:02
  he just stares into into Robbie's eyes and he sees the
• 1:50:05
  innocence in there. But it's so effective.
• 1:50:07
  It's like I have like a psychic connection all of a sudden.
• 1:50:10
  You know, this is the turning point, I think, for Martin,
• 1:50:12
  again, with no dialogue, but with the head tilt that he does,
• 1:50:15
  the way he just looks at the baby, you can see his
• 1:50:18
  perspective on everything changing.
• 1:50:20
  Like a hired killer listening to Tracy say you spend the first
• 1:50:23
  year just trying to keep them alive.
• 1:50:25
  And it's like, that's what it's about.
• 1:50:28
  It's the opposite of what he does.
• 1:50:29
  It's the opposite what he does exactly So about take and life.
• 1:50:32
  It's about having one and living it and protecting it for other
• 1:50:35
  people and not running away from it.
• 1:50:37
  And I think that's the message Martin has been eating here.
• 1:50:39
  And once he has this moment, that's when he can have the
• 1:50:41
  moment with Debbie when they're up on the sands where the
• 1:50:43
  watching over everyone from a distance and he just says,
• 1:50:46
  sorry, I fucked up your life. It's not over yet.
• 1:50:48
  It's not over yet. That's a great line.
• 1:50:50
  Wonderful because this is when both of them just take their
• 1:50:53
  defenses down. Like she's been keeping an arm
• 1:50:55
  saying he's been the all snappy and charming and this is just
• 1:50:58
  pure honesty. And he gets off from this PVC
• 1:51:01
  with Tracy. I think the whole reunion scene
• 1:51:03
  is key to the whole front. But that bit in particular, I
• 1:51:05
  just absolutely at all this. But yeah.
• 1:51:07
  Yeah, it's beautiful. Couple of moments here that I
• 1:51:10
  really like when Nathaniel takes them over to see those two guys
• 1:51:14
  strictly, Greco Roman also saw. Yeah, what's that about?
• 1:51:20
  Really. Yeah, brilliant.
• 1:51:22
  And the interaction that they have with Tanya, who's played by
• 1:51:27
  Jenna Elfman, Yes, she's in that full body brace and she's
• 1:51:30
  talking about being taken up by aliens in this wonderful
• 1:51:33
  experience that she had. And Martin goes, Pardon me, I
• 1:51:40
  cannot believe I wouldn't be. Told.
• 1:51:45
  Yeah, Tag is played by Jenna Elfman, her film debut, and she
• 1:51:48
  wears that body brace as a tribute to John Cusack's
• 1:51:51
  character in 16 Candles. Right.
• 1:51:53
  Nice. Touch OK.
• 1:51:55
  Yeah, and we mentioned it earlier, but DVD Vincentis plays
• 1:51:59
  Dan, he's greeted by Martin and Debbie just before Bobby Beamer
• 1:52:02
  barges his way into the conversation.
• 1:52:04
  OK yeah, a beautiful scene. So with Blank and Debbie doing
• 1:52:07
  the wild thing in the nurse's office, we're hoping for All's
• 1:52:11
  Well that ends well instead of All's well that ends Well we get
• 1:52:17
  All's well that ends. Lapu Bell as Felix changed the
• 1:52:21
  party. Very good, Westie, it's over to
• 1:52:25
  you. It is I, Sidney Feldman, you
• 1:52:28
  love it. Reply Been overseas.
• 1:52:32
  Been overseas? Oh God, like that was that
• 1:52:41
  crippled me when I watched it again last night and I watched
• 1:52:43
  it again like last week and every time she said, oh, been
• 1:52:46
  overseas a fucking I don't know why it's so funny.
• 1:52:49
  It's so funny and just that now you have changed.
• 1:52:51
  It's one of the strangest looking guys in the.
• 1:52:55
  World, Yeah. Sure as shit doesn't look like
• 1:52:57
  Sidney Feldman, but Martin's gone back to his locker.
• 1:53:02
  He's got a joint in there that he had there maybe 10-11 years
• 1:53:05
  ago, and it just crumbles away. But it's just that little bit of
• 1:53:08
  nostalgia that he needs, which is nice.
• 1:53:11
  That's good. And Love Bell shows up, and this
• 1:53:13
  to me is the scene that I definitely remember the most
• 1:53:16
  about the whole film. Yes, I'll come back every time I
• 1:53:19
  hear Grosse point blank, I think at this fight in the corridor,
• 1:53:22
  because it's so visceral, it's so real.
• 1:53:25
  You can tell that they absolutely know each other and
• 1:53:27
  they've trained together, which is fine.
• 1:53:29
  But the great thing about this fight is the swings and misses.
• 1:53:33
  There's not everything hits. Everything's really scrappy.
• 1:53:35
  It's really violent and sweaty. And then when he's grabbed
• 1:53:38
  Martin's hair and his head, his head's just like pulled back and
• 1:53:40
  just think, fucking hell, they're really going for it
• 1:53:42
  here. He cuts that wide shot and he
• 1:53:44
  kicks him against the locker that kicks.
• 1:53:46
  That's me. And then there's that smash
• 1:53:48
  cutting, hitting the locker. Yeah, Blank can really look
• 1:53:51
  after himself from that double kick where he kicks the gun out
• 1:53:53
  of his hand, which is fucking fantastic.
• 1:53:56
  And then that close up with the pen so you don't actually see
• 1:53:58
  the pen go in. There's not that much violence.
• 1:53:59
  It's just that close up, which is far more effective for me,
• 1:54:02
  where you see it and then the move, but you don't actually see
• 1:54:05
  anything happen, which really, really works.
• 1:54:07
  It's lit under a minute and it's fantastic.
• 1:54:10
  And then you get Debbie running up her reaction to it.
• 1:54:13
  That's. The end of it.
• 1:54:14
  Amazing. And her reactions excellent.
• 1:54:15
  Because we're thinking about how is this going to get darker now?
• 1:54:18
  How are they going to get this tone back up?
• 1:54:20
  How do you do it, Piven? That's how you do.
• 1:54:22
  Where's our boy? Where's our boy?
• 1:54:24
  And he's like, is that that guy's book?
• 1:54:26
  He's like, yes, and then, you know, he's leaving fingerprints
• 1:54:31
  on the walls, blood everywhere. And he's just a little bit of a
• 1:54:35
  clean up, throws him in the furnace and then that's it.
• 1:54:37
  It's great when he goes down, pivot opens, he orders the
• 1:54:40
  whiskey and he's I'll have a club soda, you know, and he's
• 1:54:42
  just not fazed by anything that's gone on.
• 1:54:44
  And then there's just that this timing from Cusack, this moment,
• 1:54:47
  this timing is so funny because he's like, have you seen Debbie?
• 1:54:53
  The guy said no one walks away, have you seen Debbie to the
• 1:54:56
  other guy and it just holds that.
• 1:54:58
  It's just fantastic. You just tell he's like, oh fuck
• 1:55:00
  this up again and she's gone. What am I supposed to do?
• 1:55:03
  The fight seems so good though, It really works.
• 1:55:05
  It's really realistic. There's really loose edits as
• 1:55:07
  well. Fantastic, really memorable and
• 1:55:09
  it's under a minute long. Yeah, incredible.
• 1:55:12
  Cusack turned to his real life kickboxing instructor, Benny the
• 1:55:15
  Jet Ercadez, which is the greatest nickname for anybody
• 1:55:19
  named Benny. Yeah, he's a world champion with
• 1:55:22
  9 black belts who'd been training Cusack since Say
• 1:55:25
  Anything. Right.
• 1:55:26
  OK. I mean, you can tell they're
• 1:55:27
  really close. Yeah, there's a lot of.
• 1:55:28
  Trust. A lot of trust, yeah.
• 1:55:30
  It was choreographed in two days with both men taking real hits
• 1:55:34
  or authenticity. As Erkadas remembered, John
• 1:55:37
  kicked me so hard and fast that my back hit the dial on the
• 1:55:40
  locker and it had the numbers drilled into my back in imprint.
• 1:55:44
  That's that shot was we talked about.
• 1:55:45
  When that was shot, is that sidekick?
• 1:55:48
  Yeah. Brilliant.
• 1:55:48
  Yeah, yeah. But Pratyush Sarotra Binbaum was
• 1:55:51
  understandably stressed about the safety of a starting in
• 1:55:54
  these scenes, he said. It wasn't shot with wild
• 1:55:56
  abandoned. It was sort of very carefully.
• 1:55:58
  It wasn't something where we said go on, go out of guys, best
• 1:56:00
  man wins. He was highly controlled.
• 1:56:03
  Best man wins Which? Wouldn't have been used like the
• 1:56:06
  9 black belts for the jet. And Arbitrage kept the Mont
• 1:56:11
  Blanc pen as a moment and on still used it until his sad
• 1:56:14
  pass. And yes, and yes, this
• 1:56:17
  interaction between him and Lapu Bell, wonderful in the hallway.
• 1:56:22
  But there's another interaction in the hallway as well with
• 1:56:26
  Bobby Beamer. Yeah, absolutely amazing.
• 1:56:29
  It's a lovely moment. Because we get two sides of the
• 1:56:32
  blank coin in that sequence. The sensitive type who talks
• 1:56:35
  Bobby down and then the one who takes care of Lapu Bell with
• 1:56:38
  absolute precision. Yeah, it's brilliant.
• 1:56:41
  When he's talking about his poem.
• 1:56:43
  Do you want to read me? Poem is it?
• 1:56:46
  Why didn't you just skip to the end?
• 1:56:48
  The very end. Yeah.
• 1:56:50
  For a while. Oh wow, for a while.
• 1:56:53
  That's good, man. Do you want to do some blow?
• 1:56:56
  No, I don't. That's great.
• 1:57:00
  But it just shows you the character.
• 1:57:01
  And it also shows that Debbie's looking on lovingly as well, and
• 1:57:05
  that's a great contrast to what she then comes back to Lapu Bell
• 1:57:09
  with a pen in the neck. And we talked about the
• 1:57:11
  improvisation. Perhaps the most creative
• 1:57:13
  improvisation came in that scene.
• 1:57:15
  It had a more straightforward altercation in the original
• 1:57:18
  script, but Michael Cutler's, who plays Bema, came up with a
• 1:57:22
  completely different approach. Yeah.
• 1:57:23
  Kiosak asked him of another the way the scene could go, and he
• 1:57:26
  said. I presented a version where Bob,
• 1:57:28
  this big drop knucklehead, had actually been in love with Blank
• 1:57:32
  all through high school and had penned a poem about it.
• 1:57:35
  Cusette wrote part of the poem and Cudlitz wrote part, and they
• 1:57:38
  improvised the entire scene from scratch.
• 1:57:40
  To this day, people still quote Bobby Beamer to Cudlitz,
• 1:57:43
  particularly his line. Hey, do you want to do some
• 1:57:45
  blow? No, I don't.
• 1:57:50
  I don't. That's great.
• 1:57:52
  So with Debbie scared off, I'm going to talk about the
• 1:57:54
  following scene where she comes back to visit Martin.
• 1:57:58
  Just before that, though, there's a beautiful sign off
• 1:58:00
  from the reunion when Blank. Thanks, Ken, for the pen.
• 1:58:04
  Yeah, that's great. Martin fires open, then he gets
• 1:58:07
  an unexpected knock on the door. And this is where Martin's
• 1:58:10
  chickens come home to roost. He's been telling people all
• 1:58:13
  over town that he's a professional killer, and
• 1:58:15
  nobody's believed him. Yeah, that's a great recurring
• 1:58:18
  and gag that and he tries to justify it.
• 1:58:21
  A psychopath kills for no reason.
• 1:58:23
  That kill for money. It's just that didn't come out
• 1:58:26
  right. And he probably doesn't need to
• 1:58:30
  tell her that. Sooner or later you kind of get
• 1:58:33
  to like it. Omit that information.
• 1:58:35
  That's not relevant. That's not designed to make her
• 1:58:38
  feel good. But as he explains himself to
• 1:58:42
  Debbie, we realize how absurd the situation is, and that
• 1:58:44
  there's no way that Debbie could be part of this or share her
• 1:58:47
  life with somebody who kills for any reason.
• 1:58:50
  The fact that he can emotionally attach him from his line of work
• 1:58:53
  means that he'll always be a loner.
• 1:58:55
  So this scene hits, it works, and it makes sense.
• 1:58:58
  It doesn't necessarily stay like that, though, because Debbie
• 1:59:00
  leaves. You don't get to have me.
• 1:59:02
  That makes sense. Yeah, that's great.
• 1:59:03
  Yeah. And just a final word on John
• 1:59:05
  Cusack as Marcella. Hilarious when it cuts back to
• 1:59:08
  her and she's doused in the office with petrol hammer and
• 1:59:11
  the hard drive with the cigarette in the mouth, I mean.
• 1:59:13
  Incredibly dangerous. I love that, yeah.
• 1:59:16
  All right, I. Mean Spoon worries about her as
• 1:59:23
  well at the start of the film when she's talking about the
• 1:59:25
  bullet order and then she starts talking about the soup straight.
• 1:59:28
  Soup. It's just a beer.
• 1:59:30
  It's. Not a boring soup.
• 1:59:32
  Yeah. Brilliant.
• 1:59:35
  She's excellent. She is wonderful.
• 1:59:36
  So then we get the end, the final shootout in Debbie's
• 1:59:38
  house, because obviously the big revelation is Bart has been the
• 1:59:41
  target all along. And when they get the house, I
• 1:59:44
  mean, Ackroyd's been following them in the van.
• 1:59:47
  And he seems genuinely deranged during this shootout.
• 1:59:50
  He does. You know, singers should be
• 1:59:52
  coming around the mountain when he's got in the house.
• 1:59:54
  I'll be bone if I can head off. Whacking your fucking mind out.
• 1:59:59
  I love him man. Shouting out these, like,
• 2:00:02
  biblical quotations about the beast.
• 2:00:05
  It's like, where's this maniac come from?
• 2:00:07
  I mean, again, clearly improvised would work so well.
• 2:00:10
  Yeah, but just another example in the scene how well that
• 2:00:13
  action in the comedy blend because Cusack sneaking around
• 2:00:16
  the house, taking all the other hit men out, pulling the fridge
• 2:00:19
  door open to take refuge behind that.
• 2:00:21
  And you can see the bullet in it.
• 2:00:22
  That's all great. But at the same time, he's just
• 2:00:25
  trying to get his true feelings out for Debbie in the most
• 2:00:28
  inappropriate moments. Like, there's one guy who shoots
• 2:00:31
  numerous times and then bashes his head in with a frying pad
• 2:00:33
  and then says, Debbie, I'm in love with you.
• 2:00:35
  And I know we can make this relationship like stretched and
• 2:00:38
  sweat and blood. That's excellent.
• 2:00:41
  And you could say Debbie and Bart are just so confused.
• 2:00:43
  Like there's about half a dozen people trying to kill them.
• 2:00:46
  And Martin is talking about redemption in your way and
• 2:00:49
  driving over the dudes and seeing the seas on fight.
• 2:00:51
  Like, can you take care of those guys first please?
• 2:00:54
  That's great. You make this good work.
• 2:00:58
  That's the important thing to him, not Grosser.
• 2:01:00
  And you can see that scene where he says you can see the look of
• 2:01:02
  annoyance on his face when he's trying to talk to Debbie about
• 2:01:05
  their relationship. But Grosser is ranting way
• 2:01:08
  downstairs and he says hold on a minute, I just got to go deal
• 2:01:12
  with that guy first. But then obviously it's going to
• 2:01:14
  come down to this final shootout between Martin and Grosser in
• 2:01:17
  the kitchen. Lautner and Mccullough's turn up
• 2:01:19
  to try and ambush them. Amazing.
• 2:01:21
  And it's really notable that Martin, he's firing really
• 2:01:23
  defensively at them. He's trying to shelter Grosser
• 2:01:26
  enjoying the hell out of this. He's he kills them.
• 2:01:30
  Just straight up brutally murders and grinning away and he
• 2:01:35
  thinks this is going to make him and Martin connect?
• 2:01:37
  Like after he kills him? What, because of the world
• 2:01:38
  unite? That's great, no?
• 2:01:41
  Squad of the line, yeah. No meetings going to be means in
• 2:01:43
  this unit. No meetings, no meetings.
• 2:01:46
  But then the way that Martin takes him out because Grosser
• 2:01:48
  knows he's empty. He thinks he finally has him
• 2:01:50
  where he wants him, but he just doesn't anticipate Martin
• 2:01:52
  putting a massive telly through his head, which is such a great
• 2:01:56
  visual gag. Popcorn, Popcorn.
• 2:01:58
  Popcorn. Yeah.
• 2:01:59
  Brilliant. Yeah.
• 2:02:00
  So yeah, this sequence, all the jokes land, the action's really
• 2:02:03
  convincing and just a perfect end.
• 2:02:05
  Martin going back up to the bathroom where Debbie and Bart
• 2:02:09
  are hiding out. Debbie, will you marry me?
• 2:02:12
  And then Bart's head just popping up out of the bath.
• 2:02:14
  You've got my blessing. It stays on the right tone just
• 2:02:17
  because it does get a little bit overblown, this sequence and
• 2:02:22
  their reactions to things, and it just manages to stay in Leon.
• 2:02:25
  Yeah, the film went through multiple endings before finding
• 2:02:28
  the right one. After seeing audiences react
• 2:02:31
  negatively to Alec Baldens death in Miami Blues, Armitage was
• 2:02:34
  determined to let Martin Blank survive.
• 2:02:36
  They showed several different conclusions, including extended
• 2:02:38
  talk and scenes between Martin and Debbie, and even discussed a
• 2:02:41
  dark end and featuring the ominous image of their future
• 2:02:44
  tiled Take an aim at the camera with a finger gun.
• 2:02:48
  Right, okay, it's really. Weird.
• 2:02:49
  Outrageous. Is outrageous.
• 2:02:51
  Steve Pink later said. I still wake up going.
• 2:02:53
  Why the hell didn't we put that in?
• 2:02:55
  Maybe it was too dark or artsy or esoteric, do you think?
• 2:02:59
  Yeah. A bit, and eventually it was
• 2:03:01
  Disney's draw Roth who suggested the solution.
• 2:03:03
  When Debbie Father gives Martin his blessing in the bathroom
• 2:03:06
  after the shootout, simply cut to them leaving together is
• 2:03:09
  armage reflected. I thought, let's give it a shot.
• 2:03:12
  And it worked beautifully. It does.
• 2:03:14
  Like I said, that works for that character that absolutely Debbie
• 2:03:18
  should be nowhere near Martin Blanc in that hotel room.
• 2:03:20
  Yeah. But really, how great is it that
• 2:03:23
  they ride off into the sunset? Yeah, beautiful thing, Yeah.
• 2:03:26
  And now it really is all as well that ends well.
• 2:03:29
  Some people say forgive and forget.
• 2:03:31
  We say forget about forgiven and just accept and get the hell out
• 2:03:34
  of town. Nice.
• 2:03:35
  Wonderful. Reception and awards.
• 2:03:42
  Made on a respectable budget of $15 million gross, Point Blank
• 2:03:46
  was released in the US in April 97.
• 2:03:48
  It went on to earn $28 million domestically and only an extra
• 2:03:53
  3,000,000 internationally, 31 in total.
• 2:03:56
  It was well received in most critical circles.
• 2:03:59
  Yeah, An Empire gave it 4 out of five, saying the result is one
• 2:04:02
  of the smartest, most original offerings to roll off the studio
• 2:04:05
  conveyor belt in a long while. Hugely recommended.
• 2:04:08
  Agreed, Empire. Well, that's the review that we
• 2:04:10
  all read. Yeah, Yes.
• 2:04:12
  And all wanted to see for that reason, yeah.
• 2:04:14
  And Rolling Stone loved the film's unique appeal, describing
• 2:04:18
  it as a bright burst of action and comedy with the cast that
• 2:04:20
  makes for rousing good company. And they also said that the
• 2:04:23
  character of Martin Blanc was a cookie full of arsenic.
• 2:04:25
  Agreed. Yeah.
• 2:04:26
  Lovely. Yes, and as we usually do, our
• 2:04:29
  third and final critic at the time, Roger Ebert, The man, the
• 2:04:32
  myth, the legend. What do you think he gave it out
• 2:04:35
  for? 3.
• 2:04:37
  Geography. 30 A little bit generous there.
• 2:04:40
  He gave it 2.5 out of. Oh, right.
• 2:04:43
  OK. He said John Cusack is one of
• 2:04:45
  those rare actors who can convincingly look as if he's
• 2:04:48
  thinking about words of many syllables.
• 2:04:50
  He seems smart, and that's crucial for the character he
• 2:04:53
  plays in Grosse Pointe Blank because, like so many really
• 2:04:55
  smart people, this one is clueless about matters of the
• 2:04:58
  heart. Yeah.
• 2:04:59
  All right. OK, didn't like the romantic
• 2:05:01
  element of it. Oh big ship.
• 2:05:04
  But it did bring high profile prayers in the industry as well.
• 2:05:07
  The brutal killing of Lapu Bell with a ballpoint pen drew
• 2:05:10
  prayers from QT, who called it probably the best fight scene
• 2:05:13
  he'd ever seen. Wow, come on.
• 2:05:19
  When Cusack worked with Clint Eastwood on Midnight in the
• 2:05:21
  Garden of Good and Evil, Eastwood told him how much he
• 2:05:24
  loved the film. Abitage said Clint loved the
• 2:05:26
  fight scene, but the scene where Blank and the baby exchange
• 2:05:28
  close-ups was so cute. He was on the floor with that
• 2:05:31
  one. And now Grosse Pointe Blank has
• 2:05:35
  it. 2% on Rotten Tomatoes and a score of 7.3 out of 10 on IMDb.
• 2:05:40
  Absolutely no awards recognition to speak of, and with a
• 2:05:43
  relatively quiet showing at the box office that could have been
• 2:05:46
  the end of gross Point blank forever.
• 2:05:48
  However, it's real cultural impact came through its post
• 2:05:51
  theatrical life. The film found its lasting
• 2:05:54
  popularity mainly through home video, cable television, word of
• 2:05:57
  mouth, establishing its reputation as a cult classic
• 2:06:00
  resonating strongly with so-called Gen.
• 2:06:03
  X viewers. Yes, thankfully the film did
• 2:06:06
  have that second life, and we certainly wouldn't be talking
• 2:06:09
  about it here if it didn't, No. Definitely not.
• 2:06:15
  Equals and influence The possibility of a sequel to
• 2:06:19
  Grosse Point Blank was discussed for years.
• 2:06:22
  Co right. Their Co producer Steve Pink
• 2:06:23
  remained enthusiastic about the prospect.
• 2:06:25
  He said. I think a sequel would be great.
• 2:06:27
  There's been talk about it for a long time.
• 2:06:29
  I mean, I would make a Grosse Point Blank too.
• 2:06:31
  I'd love that. However, a sequel never
• 2:06:35
  materialized. Instead, what emerged was an
• 2:06:38
  informal spiritual successor. According to John Cusack, 2008
• 2:06:42
  War, Inc served as an unofficial sequel.
• 2:06:45
  Both films share similar style and theme, starring John Cusack
• 2:06:49
  as an assassin with John as his assistant and Dan Outroyd in the
• 2:06:52
  supporting role. While not directly connected to
• 2:06:54
  Grosse Point Blank, it allowed the team to explore similar
• 2:06:57
  themes. Yes, that kind of went under the
• 2:06:59
  radar, that one. Yeah.
• 2:07:02
  So we're not talking about warring.
• 2:07:04
  Instead, we're talking about the influence and the legacy of
• 2:07:06
  Grosse Point Blank, Matt. It's hard to say, isn't it, when
• 2:07:10
  a film's like this and it doesn't make that much of a
• 2:07:12
  critical splash at the time doesn't know much the box office
• 2:07:15
  and this one just falls into that category of being a cult
• 2:07:18
  film. There's been endless hitman
• 2:07:20
  films after this, but none like this.
• 2:07:22
  And I think that is probably it's legacy.
• 2:07:24
  It's it's such a one off. As we've said, it's a word of
• 2:07:27
  mouth film. You're only going to watch it if
• 2:07:29
  people recommend it to you. And so maybe it's overriding
• 2:07:32
  legacy as well. Is it is a bit of a time capsule
• 2:07:34
  because John Cusack's career, it really fell away in the mid
• 2:07:37
  2000s on which which we talked about in the High Fidelity
• 2:07:41
  episode because I know we have a similar question for this one.
• 2:07:43
  Mini drivers had a decent career.
• 2:07:45
  She's always working, but she's never had a year that she had
• 2:07:48
  with 1997 with this ungoodwill hunting.
• 2:07:52
  So maybe that's what it's legacy is.
• 2:07:54
  It's the definition of what is an underground 90s cult classic,
• 2:07:57
  which goes point blank. That would be nice.
• 2:07:59
  What to answer? So then in terms of influence,
• 2:08:02
  there's been this weird recurring theme for us 2
• 2:08:04
  episodes where we're talking about directors making films
• 2:08:07
  that are then their next steps. Or Denis Villeneuve had to make
• 2:08:10
  Blade Runner before making Duo. David Dean had to make with a
• 2:08:13
  quite before he could make Lawrence Arabia.
• 2:08:14
  I think this one, you don't get High Fidelity until Cusack and
• 2:08:18
  his writing team do this one first and know how to go about
• 2:08:22
  making a film. And I think that that is
• 2:08:24
  obviously it's because you get High Fidelity a few years later.
• 2:08:28
  Very much we'll see what about you legacy and influence on
• 2:08:31
  cross point blank. I feel very much the same as
• 2:08:33
  Matt does, to be honest. There's not much to talk about
• 2:08:35
  here is the reason It's been like, I'm going to remake that
• 2:08:38
  because I think it was such a great melting pot of ideas and
• 2:08:42
  three guys who grew up together. So they have a very specific
• 2:08:46
  outlook and a very specific sense of humor.
• 2:08:48
  And you can't replicate that. Even if you want to do, even if
• 2:08:51
  you tried to do it, it would just come across just a little
• 2:08:53
  bit stupid and dumb and it wouldn't work.
• 2:08:55
  So you need these people to do it.
• 2:08:57
  And I think that its influence was on itself.
• 2:08:59
  Its influence was on, like Matt said, it's high Fidelity for me,
• 2:09:02
  which I think is a better film. I'll put that out there and see.
• 2:09:06
  I think it's just it's it's just got more to say.
• 2:09:08
  It's more enjoyable for me. The acting slightly better in
• 2:09:11
  it. I think the characters are a
• 2:09:12
  little bit more defined. I think it's got a better
• 2:09:14
  soundtrack, obviously. But at the end of the day,
• 2:09:17
  Grosse Pointe Blank is a very lucky film, very lucky to exist
• 2:09:20
  in the in the style that it does and in the way that it does in
• 2:09:23
  the runtime that it has. And it worked.
• 2:09:25
  I think it's a lot of this was shut your eyes and throw
• 2:09:27
  something and see if it lands. And fortunately it did.
• 2:09:30
  But who's going to try and repeat that formula without
• 2:09:32
  panicking? Nobody.
• 2:09:34
  So I think it it took a chance and it worked, but no one else
• 2:09:38
  has put the cards on the table. Yeah, it's a very quiet one,
• 2:09:42
  this isn't. It's very lucky.
• 2:09:44
  Quiet. Oh my God.
• 2:09:47
  I think the immediate influences cited at the time for this were
• 2:09:50
  QTS films, the influence of those films on this, But I think
• 2:09:54
  with the benefit of hindsight, I think this is very different and
• 2:09:56
  something quite influential. Like we said in a quiet way, The
• 2:10:00
  Criminal Face and an Existential Crisis came up a couple of years
• 2:10:03
  later in The Sopranos and then in analyze this, that and the
• 2:10:07
  other thing as well, something which was never really tapped
• 2:10:10
  into in popular culture before, I don't think.
• 2:10:13
  Then other pieces like TV show Barry, I think has its roots
• 2:10:16
  here, if you've seen that. OK.
• 2:10:17
  You know. A hit man facing a similar
• 2:10:20
  existential crisis. OK highly recommended.
• 2:10:23
  Brilliant. OK, even something like John
• 2:10:25
  Wick book kind of roles reverse coming out of retirement as
• 2:10:28
  opposed to going. Into OK yeah, yeah.
• 2:10:30
  Also killed a dog, yeah. Also killed a dog.
• 2:10:32
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Legacy.
• 2:10:36
  I guess it's a case of they don't make them like they used
• 2:10:38
  to. No.
• 2:10:39
  A sad state of affairs. And he's another one you
• 2:10:41
  mentioned. That junk you sack just hasn't
• 2:10:43
  been a mainstay in mainstream movies because he is really
• 2:10:47
  magnetic on screen and we haven't seen that since, like
• 2:10:50
  you said, Matt's the mid 2000s maybe.
• 2:10:52
  So I think Grosse Pointe Blank left a subtle influence in pop
• 2:10:55
  culture and a legacy leaving you want and more for certain, yeah.
• 2:10:59
  Yeah, all the right movies ranking.
• 2:11:06
  We've been back to our reunion. Now it's time for us to
• 2:11:08
  summarize and give our score out of 10 for growth.
• 2:11:10
  Point blank. And I'm starting off.
• 2:11:12
  The film means the world to me, and revision for the podcast is
• 2:11:16
  only reinforced why I love it so much.
• 2:11:18
  I thought it was one of those where I would be starting to
• 2:11:20
  pick holes and I'd start to think I'm a little bit
• 2:11:23
  embarrassed by that, that. Yeah, yeah.
• 2:11:26
  Same. Yeah.
• 2:11:29
  And I think I did feel that about certain parts of High
• 2:11:32
  Fidelity, which I didn't really notice before.
• 2:11:34
  I really, really dove deep interest at the character of Rob
• 2:11:38
  Gordon's an absolute asshole and the right and I think is skewed
• 2:11:42
  in the final third. I don't feel like that here.
• 2:11:45
  I think it's endlessly rewatchable, packed with loads
• 2:11:48
  of amazing dialogue and and one of Cusack's finest performances.
• 2:11:52
  The improvisational approach created something I think quite
• 2:11:55
  special, and I think it feels alive with spontaneity in the
• 2:11:58
  way that films now really achieve.
• 2:12:01
  And I know that. All right, Granddad, I know that
• 2:12:04
  I sound like a boron or fart, but that's the way it is.
• 2:12:06
  There are a few plot holes here and there.
• 2:12:08
  Martin gets away with a few more things than he realistically
• 2:12:11
  should, but I don't think that's what the film's about.
• 2:12:14
  I think it's about identity and nostalgia and redemption.
• 2:12:18
  It's about whether people can really change and whether the
• 2:12:20
  past can be truly escaped. I think it's very intelligent.
• 2:12:24
  I think it's got a stellar soundtrack, great casting, and I
• 2:12:27
  love that script. A trusted audience.
• 2:12:30
  It's really brave, right? And I think because it it just
• 2:12:33
  treats the audience with respect and it assumes that the audience
• 2:12:37
  have got an intelligence. Yes, yes, yeah.
• 2:12:39
  So yes, I am probably taking a little bit off for a few of the
• 2:12:44
  issues that I have because I really couldn't give Grosse
• 2:12:47
  Pointe Black 10 out of 10, Right.
• 2:12:48
  No, like up there with, you know, The Godfather or whatever,
• 2:12:52
  but I am going to give it a 9.5. I really, really love it.
• 2:12:55
  Probably an extra .5 for nostalgia.
• 2:12:57
  OK. It's probably a nine out of 10,
• 2:12:59
  but I'm going to give it a .5 for nostalgia.
• 2:13:01
  Right. Nice.
• 2:13:02
  OK. What about you, Matt?
• 2:13:04
  I'll just come back the fact that this is a very personal
• 2:13:06
  film for me. I watch this and I do feel like
• 2:13:09
  I'm the only person who's we've seen this film in the world.
• 2:13:12
  And on one hand I want as many people to watch it as possible,
• 2:13:14
  but on the other, I want this one to remain just for me
• 2:13:17
  because everything about this plays to my sensibilities.
• 2:13:19
  The offbeat sense of humour in that dialogue, the musical
• 2:13:23
  choices, every performance is not perfect for me.
• 2:13:25
  The comedy is hilarious, the action is really good, the
• 2:13:28
  romance is really heartfelt and convincing.
• 2:13:30
  You want these two to get together and it mixes all those
• 2:13:33
  elements together while addressing genuine themes like
• 2:13:35
  morality and the crisis of conscience.
• 2:13:37
  And ultimately, this film is about making peace with your
• 2:13:39
  past and who you are and revisiting past events.
• 2:13:43
  Or if I could go back in time to see 17 year old Matt who was
• 2:13:47
  worried about what it would be like to go see this film by
• 2:13:49
  himself, I'd be able to tell him, don't worry about it.
• 2:13:52
  It's going to be a beautiful thing and it's going to change
• 2:13:54
  your life forever. And that's why this this one for
• 2:13:57
  me is is one of those yearly rotation films.
• 2:13:59
  I'll always come back to this because it does feel like I'm
• 2:14:02
  really acquitting myself with a really cool old school friend.
• 2:14:05
  Every time he finishes, I'll just think, I can't wait till I
• 2:14:08
  catch up with that person again. So it is a shameless indulgence
• 2:14:12
  of nostalgia for me as well. But this is a 10 for me. 10/10
• 2:14:19
  Ten. Wow.
• 2:14:21
  Pulling out Matt big guns Bartley there it is very nice.
• 2:14:25
  The big guns. Westie, how on earth would you
• 2:14:28
  follow that? I mean, I don't think I'm going
• 2:14:30
  to, but let's just leave it there.
• 2:14:31
  That's fine. No problem.
• 2:14:34
  Yeah. I don't have the nostalgia that
• 2:14:36
  you guys have. I was kind of late at this one.
• 2:14:38
  I didn't go to the cinema in 97 to see it, and I didn't see it
• 2:14:40
  as soon as it came out on VHS. It was part of a pile of videos
• 2:14:43
  that I was getting through at the time and it kind of stood
• 2:14:46
  out, but not at the point where I'm going to watch this like
• 2:14:48
  every year. And it's one of the ones I need
• 2:14:50
  to come back there, which is maybe caught you guys a little
• 2:14:53
  bit earlier than it caught me, which is fine.
• 2:14:55
  Thoroughly enjoyable film. Really do love it.
• 2:14:57
  It makes us feel good. Having said that, I'm more akin
• 2:15:00
  to films where I will leave feeling a lot but like I'm going
• 2:15:03
  to cry for a bit and just sit in the dark room and feel like I've
• 2:15:06
  been moved. I think.
• 2:15:08
  Oh. My God, the depth of this.
• 2:15:10
  Do you understand what it has been through?
• 2:15:12
  You know what I mean? So it it does live there.
• 2:15:14
  There is a place for this, but that place doesn't really get
• 2:15:17
  used as much as it should really.
• 2:15:18
  But this is definitely one of them films that lives in that
• 2:15:21
  space. It's wonderful.
• 2:15:22
  I mean that all the characters are great, all the acting is
• 2:15:25
  fantastic. I love the improvisation.
• 2:15:27
  I just think it's a very lucky film.
• 2:15:30
  Like I've said, they've thrown a lot of ideas at this and I took
• 2:15:34
  a lot of deleting things to get things where they are now.
• 2:15:37
  I think if they'd left everything and it'd be very
• 2:15:39
  confused. It's not massively focused.
• 2:15:41
  Like I said, the dialogue's better than the plot.
• 2:15:44
  I don't really feel like I get much of A reward from it, apart
• 2:15:46
  from a pretty good time. Alan Arkin's performance alone
• 2:15:50
  is worthy of a rewatch, you know, because of that.
• 2:15:53
  It's not perfect by any stretch. There's a lot to love and
• 2:15:56
  there's a lot to kind of just have a little bit of a frowner.
• 2:15:58
  And if you don't tap into this kind of humor, you are lost from
• 2:16:01
  the start. So I think if it connects with
• 2:16:03
  you, it really does. It does with me.
• 2:16:05
  Not to the level that does you guys, but still.
• 2:16:07
  Give me an 8.5 for me. 8.5 Still a damn good score.
• 2:16:11
  Yeah, yeah. So those are three down, one to
• 2:16:13
  go. Our 4th and final score for
• 2:16:15
  Grosse Pointe Blank comes from our wonderful, trusted
• 2:16:18
  confidants, our period community.
• 2:16:20
  Lovely. Yes, yes, the score will come in
• 2:16:23
  a moment. I've got some comments as usual.
• 2:16:26
  Nice firstly from Matthew Williams, he says great laughs,
• 2:16:29
  amazing soundtrack and some of the cast career best
• 2:16:31
  performances in my opinion. This went into my top ten when I
• 2:16:35
  first watched it and has remained there ever since.
• 2:16:37
  Yeah. Wonderful, strong, forget it and
• 2:16:39
  a lot of top 10. Yeah.
• 2:16:42
  That's the kind of film it is. Yeah, from Dave Sedgwick, he
• 2:16:45
  said. My good lady brought this home
• 2:16:47
  from the rental shop and I was furious.
• 2:16:49
  What does the name even mean? I don't get it.
• 2:16:52
  Gross. What?
• 2:16:53
  What's this artwork? What's this crap?
• 2:16:58
  However, Dave did a 180, he said.
• 2:17:01
  I absolutely loved it from those first frames and still to the
• 2:17:04
  classic sleeper hit hitman. Explosions, romance, nostalgia,
• 2:17:07
  comedy, hand to hand combat to the death, A terrified
• 2:17:11
  therapist, a bangin soundtrack, Cuban civilian rivalry.
• 2:17:14
  Ackroyd Piven. An absolute joy. 10 all day.
• 2:17:17
  Nice. Wow.
• 2:17:18
  OK. Brilliant is everything in the
• 2:17:19
  film. It really is.
• 2:17:21
  It's like the movie review equivalent of We Didn't Start
• 2:17:24
  the Fire. Wonderful.
• 2:17:34
  And for all you Billy Joel fans out there, very good.
• 2:17:39
  Our final review comes from Damien Lennox.
• 2:17:42
  And Damien says, I think it's one of those that is nostalgic
• 2:17:45
  for those who seem that young. I didn't see it till I was maybe
• 2:17:48
  30, so ages ago. Damien showing his age and he
• 2:17:51
  thought it was OK. We watched it recently and it's
• 2:17:54
  just all right. I don't think John Cusack is
• 2:17:56
  convincing as a tough, ruthless hitman.
• 2:17:59
  OK, I'll tell you what as well. Damien was not alone in those
• 2:18:04
  thoughts. There were a few people that
• 2:18:06
  came back and maybe didn't hit them because they didn't watch
• 2:18:09
  it at a certain period of time. They've come back around and
• 2:18:11
  thought, you know, it's fine, 7-8, you know, that kind of
• 2:18:14
  thing. Yeah.
• 2:18:15
  So on average, what do you think it got from our parents 9.
• 2:18:18
  Out of 10 majority. Loved it.
• 2:18:21
  Which means our combined score for Grosse Pointe Blank.
• 2:18:24
  Is 37. Out of 40, massive.
• 2:18:27
  That's not bad at all. That is huge for Grosse Pointe
• 2:18:30
  Blank. Definitely join us again in all
• 2:18:32
  the right movies. In two weeks.
• 2:18:33
  When John and the two fellas here will be bringing you the
• 2:18:36
  much anticipated, long-awaited behind the scenes story of
• 2:18:41
  Amadeus. John is over the moon.
• 2:18:43
  He's over the moon. Yeah.
• 2:18:45
  I mean, you've said Maine W you're on it.
• 2:18:46
  We're not. Not really it.
• 2:18:49
  Will just be drawn. It will just.
• 2:18:50
  We'll just take the week off. Also coming this month at 2
• 2:18:54
  brand new shows. For our patrons, double feature
• 2:18:57
  in the watch list. So if you'd like to listen to
• 2:18:59
  those, and why wouldn't you exactly, then join us on
• 2:19:02
  Patreon, patreon.com/all the Right Movies, or YouTube.
• 2:19:06
  That's where it's. At absolutely.
• 2:19:08
  If you haven't done it already, please give us a positive rate
• 2:19:10
  and wherever you listen to podcasts doesn't matter.
• 2:19:12
  Where you listen. Just do it.
• 2:19:14
  Yeah, yeah, of course. Most like us, if you come this
• 2:19:16
  far, definitely five stars all the way.
• 2:19:18
  Don't knock about. Of course not.
• 2:19:19
  And as ever, social media is where it's at for your daily fix
• 2:19:22
  for ATRM. We're on X.
• 2:19:24
  We're on blue sky, threads, Instagram and TikTok.
• 2:19:26
  As always, our making of movie threads, Corp on X, blue Sky and
• 2:19:29
  threads. And just like our podcasts, they
• 2:19:31
  are extensively researched with information corroborated by at
• 2:19:35
  least three sources or information coming from the
• 2:19:38
  mouths of the cast or crew directly.
• 2:19:40
  Yes. And you can join our Facebook
• 2:19:43
  group for another of our wonderful movie communities, our
• 2:19:45
  YouTube channel, youtube.com/all the Right movies, all videos
• 2:19:49
  going up there all the time. So don't forget to check back
• 2:19:52
  regularly. Yes, please do.
• 2:19:54
  And our website is All the right movies.com and that is a wrap.
• 2:19:58
  Everyone. We're off to.
• 2:19:59
  Grab ourselves a couple of reunion drinks, club soda for
• 2:20:02
  the Westie Yep, Whiskey firmat Yep, and reminisce about the
• 2:20:06
  good old days. Absolutely different drinks,
• 2:20:08
  different needs. Come back for Amadeus in.
• 2:20:12
  Two weeks. Thank you everybody for
• 2:20:13
  listening. Yes.
• 2:20:14
  Thank you so much guys. Take care.
• 2:20:36
  Hey, if you want a father, I'll give you a spanking.