December 1, 2017 • 47 mins
This week Chuck sits down with Jeopardy's all-time winning champion, Ken Jennings, to talk about his all-time favorite movie - A Hard Day's Night. Beatles fans rejoice!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:24):
Hey, folks, and welcome to Movie Crush. It's Chuck Bryant
here once again in the hot Hot studio. I don't
know if it's the heat is on or if the
air is broken, but it's pretty warming here at any rate.
This week I had Ken Jennings in of Jeopardy Fame,
and I don't know if Ken is tired of people
saying the word Jeopardy of him or not, but let's
(00:47):
face it, that's where he made his name as the
all time winning US dude on that show. And um,
Ken and I got to know each other well. Actually,
there's a great time to plug his new show. I'm
met Kim through John Roderick with the Long Winters, and
they are friends in Seattle, and we're doing more shows
here on the network. And uh, I had the opportunity
(01:11):
to maybe throw my hat into the executive producer ring.
So my first thought was, man, Ken Jennings needs a podcast.
That guy is great. He's the real deal. So I
called up John. He put me in touch with Ken.
Turns out Ken wanted to do a show with John
because their pals flew out to Seattle hung out with
him for a bit to develop the show. And Um,
(01:32):
I gotta tell you it's called Omnibus, and it is
so good. It basically captures exactly what I was hoping
it would capture, which is to be a fly on
the wall in a Ken Jennings and John Roderick conversation
because those two guys are hysterical and so smart. Um,
(01:53):
and it's just it's just the best to sit around
and listen to those two guys gab about stuff about
smart stuff off. So it's called Omnibus and it premieres
next Thursday, December seven, And you can even go listen
to the audio trailer already right now online and you
can find that wherever you get your podcasts. Give it
a listen. I know you're gonna love it, especially if
(02:13):
you're a fan of stuff you should know it's um
is in that similar ilk of good knowledge learning and
also very funny at the same time. So anyway, executive
producing that show, it's going great. When they were here
in Atlanta to do some pilot recording, I said, Ken,
I gotta get you in here for a movie crush interview,
and he was kind enough to say, well, heck yeah,
(02:36):
and his favorite movie is A Hard Day's Night the
Great Great Beatles movie, and I had not actually seen this, uh,
and I've talked about this in the episode. Weirdly, as
a huge Beatles fan, somehow I have avoided their films
for the most part. So I got to watch a
new movie and it's a wonderful, wonderful film, and the
(02:56):
conversation was just fantastic. So here we go with Ken
Jennings and A Hard Day's Night. I was just reading, like,
eleven percent of Americans go to the eleven percent of
Americans go to the movies more once a month or more.
Only like one in nine Americans goes to the movies
every month anymore. But I feel like we go to
(03:17):
a movie every week or two and we watch a
ton of movies at home. My secret. We we have
a pretty nice like screen because nowadays you can buy
a projector for the same as a flat screen. Really,
So if you have a room that's the right, a wall,
a blank wall anywhere in your house, get a projector.
Is that what you have? Yeah? We do? And uh,
and maybe I don't know if it's embarrassing or not,
but we watch about a movie a day. That's sort
(03:38):
of my things. Yea, So I probably watch about three
dred and sixty five movies a year. Man, that's great.
I can't wait till my daughter is bedtime. Yeah, I
mean like she watches she already will watch a little
bit of movies. And I know that, you know, two
years old, you're not supposed to give them too much TV.
But she loves it. So it's really hard to can't.
I know you're not supposed to give a screen but
(04:00):
you don't understand my daughter is really into it. We're lazy,
and she just gets so much joy out of watching
uh Mo Wanna or Secret Life of Pets or these
these cartoon movies already, I guess you don't call them
cartoon movies? What are they animated films? There you go.
It's through that you never a movie never means as
much you as it does to you when you were
(04:20):
a kid. I mean yeah, I mean, she really digs it.
So I'm just looking forward to uh uh. I mean.
My brother has told his son is I think nineteen
or twenty nine and his daughter sixteen, and movie night
has always been like the biggest thing in their family,
and he introduces them to all the you know, Raiders
of the Lost Arc and Jaws and all these great
movies from our youth, and uh, I just can't wait
(04:43):
to do that with her. It worked pretty well for
a while. You know, you could tell my and my
my son's favorite movie would be come Back to the
Future or whatever I had just recommended. But then they
had a certain age and like you recommending something is
the Kiss of Death? You know, yeah, when does that happen?
For my son? It was like thirteen or fourteen, and
he's not some soli claude, but he's still you know,
we'll only like things he discovers on his own, and
(05:05):
me being like, no, dude, you've got to see Jaws.
That would be like, oh, that's a dad movie, right,
it's an anti recommendation. Yeah, you gotta get clever, that's right.
Don't watch Jaws. It's so scary. It starts with a
naked girl swimming. Um, oh, well, that would be a
good way to get him into it, exactly until he
sees it and goes. You don't really see much. You
don't see anything. Spielberg doesn't have nipples, No, he doesn't. Actually,
(05:29):
he's a nippless man. He does. A lot of people
don't know that. When you see him at the beach.
You're like, you're just like your movies. There's no nipples there. What.
So you grew up, grew up in Seattle but then
moved to Salt Lake City or the other way around.
It's a weirder Stary grew up in Seattle, but we
moved overseas Korean Singapore for a long time and lived
in Salt Lake briefly as an adult. Like at the
time I was on TV. So what were your kind
(05:53):
of formative movie going years? Where were you? You know,
the VHS was invented. You know, at the time VCR
were invented, we were living in South Korea and so
you know, everybody had the small video collection. You watched
the same movies over and over again, you know. So
you know, if you had five vivies, you would watch
Star Wars and the making of Thriller and you know
whatever was on yourself. And um, I think my parents
(06:15):
were big like VCR pirrators and copiers, so we started accumulating,
you know, just hundreds of yeah, you know, with the
homemade stickers they were say the name. Yeah. Basically, my
parents are still wanted in in several Asian countries. So
you didn't have. Boy, this is exciting because I haven't
had anyone. I mean I had John Ronson who grew
up in Wales, but he had sort of the regular
(06:36):
I mean whatever the equivalent of the shopping mall theater
was in Cardiff. But you're my first guest that that
grew up in a exotic, distant land. I mean, did
they have movie American movies in theaters or was it
all home viewing? Sometimes we go to American movies. I
think at the time, they would usually subtitle and not dubbed,
so you could actually go to see, you know, Indiana Jones,
(06:57):
The Temple to Doom and just ignore the subtitles, and
they'd have these beauty a full sort of Southeast Asian
looking hand painted really florid Bollywood looking marquees outside the theater,
where maybe the actors didn't quite look like themselves, but
it was still beautiful work. And we'd all seriously movies
on the army base, you know, the US has a
big military presence there and they always play the I
think they always played the American national anthem and then
(07:18):
the Korean national anthem, and then the movie would start,
so you'd have to sit through a patriotic moment just
to watch you know, meatballs or that's pretty good. Um.
When did you go back to the States for college.
So not till the early nineties, So you did not
get a thirteen year old at the mall experience. We'd
(07:39):
come home in the summer and you know, you'd get
dropped off the air condition multiplex or watch or whatever,
watch water World or whatever the big summer crap movie was. Yeah,
so you did get that experience, yes, Um, and those
were very and it was great. It was like a
treat because we did not have multiplexes. It was like
coming to U. I felt like a Soviet emigrant and
you know, get dropped off of the movie theater all
(08:01):
day and watched a double feature of Darryl and the
Goonies or whatever. Yeah, Darryl. I don't think I ever
saw that one. He's a robot. It's d A A
y O. He's a direct automaton robot youth life form
or something. I don't know what or something. I think
you probably just nailed. I think I think it is
robotic youth life form. I don't know what the d
A is. Yeah, I don't know why I didn't see
that because it sucked. Oh did it? I think, yeah,
(08:23):
that's my memory of it. It's weird some of these
movies that you realize uh got by you that by
all accounts you should have seen for sure. But if
you owned it, you saw that weird movie six times,
Like I've seen Cook and Dagger with Dabney Coleman and
Henry Thomas like times because we owned it. Yeah, you
gotta watch that crap. I love that movie. Was that crap?
Probably sometimes we you and I have not seen in
(08:43):
thirty years. We don't know. Maybe Cloak and Dagger with
Dabney Coleman is amazing. I know it's funny. Uh tig
nataros in here in one of her big movies, because
we talked about sort of when we first got HBO,
I lived, uh kind of in the woods. I didn't
live in like some big suburban neighborhood. I lived on
a house in the woods with like six other houses,
and um, we got cable very late compared to everyone
(09:03):
else and HBO late. So I just dug into it.
And she kind of had a similar experience, and she
her big movie was Under the Rainbow the Chevy. Yeah,
and she'd watched it over and over and over, even
though it wasn't any good. My grandparents got one of
those giant satellite dishes you know in the days, and
I think they eventually got a decoder when they started
(09:23):
scrambling them. And so that was the same thing. Summer
days And what weird movie are they showing ten times? Oh?
Never say never again? Okay, now, let's watch the West
Coast feed of it right as soon as it ends.
It's amazing when you're that age, you can just consume media.
And that's why I laugh about these days when everyone
gets so bent out of shape about screen time and
kids just sitting around. Right, we did the exact same thing.
(09:44):
We're the latch key kid generation. Man. That's that created
our brains. Like, if anything, it's better now because there's
better variety and content because there was no educational stuff
like when you were our age, you know, I guess
there was Sesame Streep. I think kids just plopped down
in front of Bree Bunch reruns and over and like,
if I want to make my kids watch something, you know, educational,
like there's a hundred fifty of them on right now.
(10:07):
We didn't have that, do you? And I know this
is I have to ask you about the if you
have any Jeopardy episodes of yourself that your kids have seen. Uh? Yeah,
my son was about three when it aired, so he
got very into it all summer. He called me Ken
Jennings instead of Dad because that's what the announcer said,
(10:28):
because he was addicted to Jeopardy. But the funny things
he forgot because he was only three. So when I
went back on like a couple of years ago, like
against the computer for example, then my kids were very
into it. They were old enough to remember, Yeah, that's awesome.
He always wants to watch Jeopardy at home and I'm like,
not Jeopardy please that you know, so you don't watch anymore.
I can't enjoy it, like as a fan. I hear
the music and I get very ten, like daddy's off duty,
(10:51):
like back you know, Sigon, I can't believe it's funny. Um. So,
did you have uh cable TV and like HBO overseas
or no? Not? Never? I think I think some of
my friends had some weird Asian thing called star TV
(11:12):
where you could get maybe MTV and some movie channel,
but we never had it. We just had our shelves
of vhs is ripped off from the Army base rental place. Okay,
so that's what you would do. You would rent them
from the army base and deck to deck them. My
mom would dub them whether or not she I think
maybe even before she saw them. My wife, my wife
(11:33):
grew up overseas too, and her family did a thing
where they would do the deck to deck dubbing. But
her mom would always be standing there trying to bleep
the bad words and the makeout scenes or whatever. She'd
be like the monitor of the of the deck to
deck and trying to time it out. So you trying
to watch one of these movies, and it's like, just
so what you do? Just pause the recording? I just
just pause the one that's recording and the other one
(11:53):
keeps playing, and then you it's not a it's not
exactly a Swiss watch. Um. So your movie is Hard
Day's Night, A Hard Day's Night, A Hard days Night. Um, yeah,
which I had not seen, as you know, um spoiler
for everyone else, but you knew that. I did not
see this movie until minutes ago I finished it, which
(12:16):
surprised me. You're a big music guy, Well this, yeah,
I would assume, yeah, they're just part of our culture,
but somehow you've never seen it. Well. Uh, And we
talked a little bit about the Elvis movies this morning,
um privately, but um, because that's how you talk about
Elvis movies, very hushtones. It's in dark corners. Um. I
(12:38):
don't know why I never because I am a Beatles fanatic.
I would even say, but I've never really thought about
seeing the movies for some reason until now. I think
there is some assumption on people, by people who haven't
seen them, that they're just cash in schlock because they
should have been like Elvis movies, you know, like, hey,
this doesn't have to be good, this has Elvis. Let's
just make some cheap piece of crap and everybody will
(13:00):
go see it. And the Beatles movies could have been
like that, and they're all pretty good. And I think
Hard Days Night is is great, Like it has so
many things about it that I love that even if
the Beatles weren't in it, even if the biggest band
in the world weren't in it, it it would still be
like this is a classic Marx Brothers e comedy, you know. Yeah,
I mean the first thing that struck me was first
of all, just how beautiful that that black and white looks.
(13:23):
Um in sixty four were they filming and color then yeah,
there would have been color movies. But um yeah, that
kind of cinema verity from a from an English language movie.
I don't think you saw much. You know, you've got
French directors doing that stuff. The idea that some massive
box office thing, you know, imagine if like Spice World
or you know whatever, something justin Bieber movie comes out
(13:45):
and it's a shot like a European art film and
be like, what the hell? Yeah, And that's that's very
much what it felt like him. It felt like a
breathless or something exactly the way it was shot. And um,
who was it? Richard Lester? Yeah, I think he was
a TV director the Beatles like because he worked with
some comedians they like, and so I don't think that
maybe the guy had not even made a movie or
not many at least well it was it was the
(14:06):
height of Beatlemania. It's shocking too, especially as like middle
aged dudes now to realize that these guys are like
tree years old, like half our age. Yeah, I mean,
they were just kids, and what's funny to remember now,
I mean you have to remember that in you know,
we live in a world where the Beatles are on
statues and stamps and they're like the faces of the
(14:27):
twentieth century, that they're like melt Rushmore with Einstein and
Disney and whatever. But at the time, everyone was like,
these guys are a fad, you know, these guys are
a Hulu when is this This will go away by
December and my daughter will like stop screaming about the
weird the kids with the weird hair. Yeah. Um and
then you know, this movie, so the movie doesn't even
(14:47):
have to be good, you know, like it's a surprise
that anyone would try. It's like, let's put this out
quick before they fade. And then but it's still a
movie we're watching, you know, fifty years later. Yea, and
I think that um I did a reading up on
just like trivia notes and stuff, and um I think
you know, uh, United artists even didn't care much about
(15:08):
the movie. Apparently it was just like, this is a
way we can get another album out as a soundtrack,
and let's just put this thing together. And they were
surprised that it was just a huge, uh financial hit.
It was a huge critical hit and it really kind
of blew everyone away. It seems like the Beatles, just
for being young guys, really made some smart decisions. Like
I think they were the ones that wanted Richard Lester,
(15:30):
this TV director they like because he worked with Peter Sellers,
and they wanted Alan O in this Liverpool um playwright. Yeah,
would be just because they thought he would understand their
language and their jokes. And you couldn't get a Southern earl.
You couldn't get a London or to to understand that
Ringo even has that line in the SOUTHERNAA. Uh so. Yeah,
Like I feel like they for twenty year olds or whatever,
(15:51):
Like they made all these really smart decisions and then
they turned out to be good actors too. That's not
even fair. Well yeah, that was the other thing that
struck me is just how funny they are. Um. We
had a conversation yesterday, uh while you're here in town.
Actually we should tell everyon when you're in town. Um
piloting a podcast with John Roderick called either Omnibus or
(16:12):
the Omnibus. I'm not sure what it's going to be.
Definite article to be named later. Uh so, And I'm
sort of executive producing this thing and got you guys
over here. So you guys have been in town and
we were hanging out and having dinner and stuff, and
we were talking about humor and rock and roll and
humor and music and how it's kind of not much
of a thing. Right we were talking about a weird Al.
(16:33):
Yeah we should. I don't know if I want to
go too deep into my feelings on weird Al, but uh,
but yeah, he's a pushback against this idea that, you know,
rock is not funny, and that's what's funny. That's what's
nominally funny about a weird Al is that he's taking
this very self serious, authentic art form and adding funny
lyrics about lunch meat. Well yeah, and I was like, yeah,
rock is funny. It never is rock and roll is
(16:53):
it funny? But I kind of and although the music
is it funny, I kind of forgot about the Beatles
and the Monkeys and what a sense of humor these
guys had. Yeah, and I think that's pretty authentic. Like
I think Elano and hung out with him, if I
remember that, he hung out with him for weeks and
sort of watched the interplay and then just you know, said, hey,
this is the this is the movie because it's it's
plotless the movie. Yeah, it's a it's a week in
(17:16):
the life of the Beatles during Beatlemania, right, and it's
a little bit heightened, but it really is just them
sort of doing what they would do, like head of
tell room to hotel room and they even made jokes
about that in a car in a room, and a
train in a room, in a room in a room.
It's yeah, the unglamorous life of the world's biggest band.
That was supposedly when they You're right on they met
with Alan Owen for weeks and that was supposedly what
(17:39):
McCartney said their life was like. So he ended up
using that as a real line in the movie. Oh
that's something he said. Yeah, he said, you know, this
is what our life is, and um, it really just
captures that kind of like did you ever get to
see I know we talked about when I was in Seattle,
the Ron Howard documentary. Did you see that? I haven't
seen it yet. Well, similarly, it captures that the beatle
(18:01):
Mania thing, just how isolated they were and it was
just these four dudes sort of against the world. Uh.
From room to room to room, and it's it's probably
what cemented that amazing chemistry on stage and then probably
also what ended them, you know, because how no matter
how good your relationship is, you spend sixteen hours a
day with those people. For the funny thing is the
(18:23):
Beatles were around for like they were an international rock
group for what seven years. It's it's shocking, like it's
been like seven years since the last you know, Christina
Aguilera record or something. You know, that's nothing today. Yeah,
I think about that fact about ten times a year.
My entire life was that the Beatles went from you know,
hard days night to let it Be and everything in between,
(18:44):
and that just the musical progression that they went through
is insane over that amount of time with the busy, Yeah,
the schedule they kept and they're still producing the most
innovative music in the world. That's really what makes me
angry when it turns out there gifted actors and comedians,
it's really you are also that you were the tightest
rock band in the world even when you were a
garage band, and you're turned out to be the best
(19:05):
songwriters of the twentieth century, and you're the mark Brothers
screw you well. It truly was like uh, lightning in
a bottle, like the the musical gods coming together to
put these four dudes in a room together. That's that's
why they are the Beatles. I think what I reacted
to in the movie as a kid, because I already
liked the music. You know, I grew up with boomer
(19:25):
parents that always had the Beatles on the turntable. I didn't,
but is that you did not. You're from the South
and they were evil. They're your parents were burning Beatles
because when you know, my parents listened to like Kenny
Rogers and ship like that. My parents do like Kenny
Rodgers now. To be fair, I like how you put
that in case he's listening. I don't don't worry Kenny.
We love Islands industry. My parents did watch their share
(19:45):
of Lawrence Walker or whatever. But my dad had been
in a band and he always had the Beatles, and
it was really just the soundtrack of my childhood. But
watched so watching the movie, I already knew the songs
and liked the songs. But um like what I reacted
to as a as a kid watching that, it's just
sort of their the sense of fun, like you're not
even watching a performance. It's like it seems like these
people who actually are just loving every second of their
(20:08):
lives and just that that's care free. Like to me,
they were adults at the time, which I don't see anymore,
but it was like, these guys are adults, but they're
still having this amazing lark, you know, And I really
feel like that might be pretty central to how I
have tried to live my life since then. It's based
on watching Hard Day's Night as a kid a million times. Well,
oh so you saw it when you were younger, watched
(20:29):
it a lot. It's a VHS we got from I'm
sure you could get Hard Days Night at Blockbuster, but
you remember how video stores sucked, right, and you couldn't
get anything. But my grandparents lived in this little, tiny
Oregon backwoods town that for some reason had a great
video store that didn't throw stuff away, So you could
go in and get anything. You get old Michael Powell
movies from the forties, or you can get weird eighties.
You know. You could just get anything there because they
(20:51):
didn't throw anything away. And one night we saw Hord
Days Night, and I think I watched it again the
next day. I liked it so much. That's the way
to do it when you're a kid, that sir, kids
can watch, kids can rewatch anything. You're talking about them
(21:12):
having fun, though, Like that really comes through like it
feels it feels like of that movie. There is kinetic
like moving around fast, like they're either running from fans
or from place to place. And they're very few, like
really kind of still scenes. They're always going from place
to place, and I thought it was really funny. They
were always going somewhere really fast, except when they stopped
(21:34):
to like talk to the ladies. There's so many scenes
where they're just like, oh, well, hi, how are you.
I think that there might be scenes where they leave
stage right and then they come back in they're like, hey,
what's going on? You know, because they saw a girl
out of the corner of their eye, which is of
course the Monkeys, Uh was very much inspired by this,
and that you could tell that that show just completely
I don't say ripped off, but it was heavily inspired
(21:55):
The Monkeys, Seeing Hour Days Night and Help. Yeah. I
think maybe because the piece of it is just blistering
even to that movie, and imagine in nineteen four, where
comedies were sort of these pink panther snooze fests. You know,
the idea that this movie goes boom boom boom boom. Yeah,
maybe because there's four of them, you know, like there's
always something to cut to. Let's see what George is doing. Oh,
he's getting up to some monkey shines. Yeah, that's true.
(22:16):
It's like how the you know, the only other quartet
in comedy I can think of is the Marx Brothers
before Zeppo left, and those movies are also boom boom boom.
So yeah, that's true. Maybe that's some comedy secret. Have
four dudes, man, we've been getting wrong for a while,
or ladies. Another favorite sequence was the Ringo sequence where
he disappears and goes in uh quote unquote disguise and
(22:40):
just a hat and overcoat. But as soon as he
puts those on, he's just a regular dude. For the
next whatever twelve twelve minutes, Ringo gets an arc and
gets to hang out with a with a speed chin kid.
You know. Yeah, it's really kind of cool though, like, uh,
it's one of the only sort of slower paced sequences
in the movie, and you really get the sense that
(23:01):
Ringo kind of needed that. You know, I guess I
never thought about that, that that it's really him, you know,
getting to put on a disguise and not be Ringo
for a second. It's like it's like Henry the Fifth
going and hanging out with the troops in disguise. You know.
He because you never really see the Beatles regret anything
about this life. You know, they know, they're they're they're
loving every second. But I guess when you think about
that Ringo scene, it is you know, I guess there
(23:23):
are some trade offs to the pinball life. Yeah, and
he um has been lauded by critics for his how
forlorn he was in the Riverbank scene, but apparently I did.
I looked it up. He was extremely hungover that day,
so that was supposedly why he sort of brought that
to the table. He's a good actor. I feel like
maybe McCartney is the one who I don't think as
(23:46):
gifted an actor, because he seems like he's trying very hard.
He's a little hammy in the movie, and that goes
with everything you think you know about Paul, that that
he was sort of a taskmaster who always had the
plan and you know, always had the idea and he
seems like he's maybe trying a bit hard. Well, I
was going to ask you just character wise, even though
they are playing themselves, like who who did you like
(24:07):
the best? I feel like it's an age girl. I
feel like compermentally and very much a George guy. And
I like the scene where sort of there's sort of
this social critique scene where these style arbiters are you know,
trying to you know, use their wiles on George. They
see him as as a typical youth, and he just
has no time for it. He's like bozos um. But
(24:28):
I think in the movie, John comes off very well. Actually,
he's always doing these sort of crazy sort of Peter
Seller's ee bits of stick. You know, a lady holds
up a measuring tape and he cuts it like he's
opening up bread. You know. He's playing around in the
bathtub and doing you know, German accents with the battleship.
He's very good in it. I think, Yeah, I agree.
I think John was um came across as very playful
(24:50):
and mischievous, and especially like watching it now, like knowing
who these guys really were, it's kind of fun to
see John, who was you know, kind of a heavy
dude in real life, with what he went through in
his life, and uh, to see him just be so
kind of playful and all of them just at that
age together having fun before things got heavy and they decided, like,
(25:14):
we can't even play shows anymore. It's so sweet now,
wants John be so sweet and goofy and be like
heroin addiction for you. And in three and a half
years he's like the countdown timers, I mean not even yeah,
and then the real countdown timer I guess for all
of us. Yeah, sure, you know you could from McCartney
is still touring, Ringo still touring, you know. Uh, but
(25:35):
you see him today and you know they can't quite
hit the high notes. And there's the real grace in
hearing you know, Paul's voice sort of crack now as
he sings these old songs or sings about his youth. Um,
have you seen him lately in concert? So I'm three
years ago maybe, and he is still amazing. He'll carefully
space out the piano songs so he can sit for
a while, but he never stops. He was on stage
(25:55):
the whole time, and it was a yeah, I don't know,
five nine minutes show. Yeah, he plays a lot of
songs now maybe more, maybe it was longer. Yeah, it
was a long show. I could not believe how long
he was playing. Yeah, I mean his set lists are
I mean you see, uh, young bands go out and
do like twenty songs and he's doing like thirty five.
It's nuts. Um. Do you have any favorite lines from
(26:19):
the movie? Do you remember um or sequences? Yeah, there's
stuff we still say in our daily lives from that movie. Uh.
I often think, you know, because I sometimes get recognized
now from Jeopardy, but people aren't sure it's me because
it was it was a very vague and fleeting and
long ago kind of fame. I often have a reenactment
(26:41):
of the scene with John and the lady who's like her,
Are you him? You know? It's like, I don't, I
don't know, it's Anni quoile and uh. And I often
get that too, are you are you who I think
you are? Do you ever do that? Do the John?
Sometimes I do the Ames. I get to do this job,
which is very exciting. That's such a great scene because
it could have been like just one quick exchange, but
(27:01):
they really kind of drag it out and we're playing
with each other, and uh, yeah, that that was really funny.
We often say he's a very clean old man. We
say that a lot. They said that a lot in
the movie too. I was very disappointed. I thought that
was a beautiful non sequitur, and then I later found
out that it's a it's a it's just a TV
sitcom reference because that guy played the Fred Sanford character
on the British Steptoe and Son. He's he's the junkyard guy.
(27:24):
He was a dirty old man. So it's a joke.
It's a running gag in the movie that this time
he's a very clean old man. They really hammer at
home too. Yeah, but I like I like the running gags.
It's funny how they they have that guy to be
the troublemaker. You know. Much is made of about how
the Beatles are such a force of anarchy and their
free spirits in that movie, but really they're not rebels
at all. Like what do they want to do? They
(27:44):
want to have the window open on the train or
they want to like they they they're a little late
for rehearsal because they wanted to go jump around in
the Field. I mean they're not They're not Marlon Brando
style troublemakers. Like at the time, parents were like, what
is up with these guys? But we watched an O
and they're just like goofy. They're not rebels at all,
and they put the old guy in the movie to
actually make trouble and do all the things the Beatles
(28:06):
couldn't do. Good. Yeah, it was funny that the Grandpa
McCartney was the king mix of the group. They say that,
you know, if you were in John says, if you
lived in Boston, you'd be a senior citizen in Boston.
You're just a chevy old man from Liverpool or whatever.
Those accents are just the best. Yeah, I wonder how
much of the Beatles appeal is just Americans being like, oh,
those cute, weird accents. You know, they seem so cheeky.
(28:28):
You know, we have to invent words because we don't
really you know, in a British person hearing that, I
don't know if I guess it's still a regional accent.
Maybe they're charmed by the accent as well. But when
when when Grandpa McCartney keeps saying you've got your nose
in a bloom And book because the ring goes reading
Lolita or whatever he's reading. Oh is that what he
was saying? I didn't understand because some of the stuff
(28:49):
you literally almost need a little glossary. Uh, just not
only just the words, but some of the terms they
use or are lost on me. So yeah, the stuff
they say on the train in that early scene, when
you're quite into the lingo yet you're like, what are
they even talking about? Yeah, it had a bit of
a train spotting effect on me. At first. I was like,
oh my god, that is a funny thing in movies.
How at the beginning of the movie, you're like, Okay,
(29:10):
I'm not gonna understand these Irish people ever in this movie,
and then like twenty minutes in your brain somehow adjust
and you're you kind of you get to Ireland or whatever. Yeah,
for sure. Oh. Another one of my funny, uh the
funny bits I thought that was just so kind of
dumb and slapstick was the disappearing doves oh the magician. Yeah,
it just it just really speaks to the humor of
(29:32):
that time, and I found myself literally laughing out loud
at that part, probably more than any other Yeah, the
implications the doves have died, right, like the feathers come
out and off standards from this terrible act of animal violence. Yeah,
and then like he's running it's well again. Grandpaul McCartney
King Mixer is running by the magician and says, oh,
you know, I used to see your father perform and
(29:53):
if you back, it's just so silly. I love it though,
like that that mid sixties slapstick there's like this purity
to that kind of comedy. Definitely was free Monty Python
kind of and a lot of its non sequiturs, like
you know, the bathtub drains and John Lennon disappears somehow,
(30:16):
you know, he goes down the drain. This is the
scene where George is shaving on or I guess he
shaves their manager on the road manager on a mirror.
He sprays the shaving on the mirror and she's him there.
It only makes sense if the cameras at that one angle.
You know, it's a very silly bit, but yeah, I
love that sounding. You can totally see like a whole
school of wacky British comedy sort of being created out
of the out of the rubble of the goon show
(30:36):
and it's like Milligan and Peter Sellers. Yeah, it's very
kind of sweet to see that kind of comedy. I think,
uh these days, like when you look back at it,
it's very innocent. When you mentioned the stage magician, I
sort of forgot that. Um, you know, in that rehearsal
scene when the Beatles are act are performing, they've got
big insect beatles on the wall behind them. But you
(30:57):
know what, the word Beatles is never spoken in the movie.
I'd noticed that, Like that's the confidence of that movie
that they never say, here's the Beatles. You girls love
the Beatles. Yeah, the hula hoop uh, like they had
the biggest fat in the world, and they never name it.
You know. I think they sort of show you the
backstage of it where they're not the Beatles, they're just
the four lads. Yeah, they were the lads. You said.
(31:17):
You see it on the drum kit and then it
says it on ringos drum and the helicopter at the end,
and no one ever speaks it. That giant helicopter mid
sixties giant helicopter, which is hysterical, I guess. And the
idea is that you know they're lifting off into the sky.
But they're not really you know, it's just all gonna
happen again. You know, the next day is gonna be
another hard day's night. Yeah, And I think, um, I
(31:37):
kind of always wondered, I don't know, I never looked
at it before where that phrase came from. And I
supposedly that was a Ringo line when he was being
interviewed or something. They we're in the studio so long,
and he said it was a hard day to an
interview or something, and then they came out and it
was night, and then he said a hard day's night,
and that's kind of where they got it. Yeah, I
think I've heard the Ringo is often just saying these
(31:58):
sort of unconsciously like dumb, naive but like brilliant, sideways
little coinages um, which I guess is it probably comes
from the Irish, you know, like the a lot of
those Liverpool people of that era where came from Irish
stock who had come over a generation or two ago,
and they love the music of the language. Yeah, and
(32:19):
they still they still sort of have that sort of
sideways manner of speaking and coming at an idea. And yeah,
you see it a lot in the movie. What what
about the other Beatles movies? Because now I feel like
I'm gonna dive deep. It's the problem is it's a
little disappointing after Hard Day's Night. Yeah, I like them all.
(32:40):
I mean maybe not like Magical Mystery or it's just
a goofy TV special which is sort of has some
creepy vibe. Actually, um, help us bring it, help us
sort of a bigger budget color um Hard Day's Night,
but that sort of robs it of all the breathless
stuff and just makes it into a pink panther movie,
you know, just like a caper and uh, you know
were Central Asian cult has stolen Ringoes ring and they're
(33:03):
trying to cut off Ringo's finger and it's like this
around the world, this bigger budget, more James Bondy kind
of a thing. Why do you keep begging on the
Pink Panther? I love the Pink Panther. This whole interview
is to me, it's just sort of the epitome of
some comedy that um seems so funny in the sixties
and you watch it now and you're like, yes, she's
in a bikini. That's you think those movies are funny today. Yeah,
(33:24):
I love them if I when I watched them now,
they feel very slightly The first Pink Panther movies like
a thirty minutes and I'm like, well, that's that's way
too long for sure. I'm like, that's a little long
for a comedy. I just remember when I was a kid,
Inspector Cluso, that character. I thought it was one of
the funniest things I've ever seen. My wife family loves
the Pink Panther movies and she's always quoting Inspector Cluso.
I think she'll so always say a moth instead of
(33:46):
a moth, and I still pull out some of those.
I love Peter Sellers like so so so much. Um
but to me that you'd st have to wade through
so much just David Niven plot garbage and the Pink
Panther movies that t actually get to Peter Sellers doing
something funny. Yeah, maybe they were a little contrived plot
wise for sure. So so it helps more like that,
it sounds like you'll be into that. You love flabby
sixties British comedy, Yeah, maybe that's my jam. And then
(34:10):
what else? There's Magical Miss Tour. Then I love Yellow Submarine. Uh, right,
that was animated. Have you seen it? The I think
it's great because it's got this amazing Peter Max sort
of sixties art thing going on. The Beatles are not
even in it, like they were so done with hanging
out together and you know, it's like, let's get our
United Artist contract done, so they it's not even their voices,
(34:30):
and I think I've heard that. Then they saw the
movie and we're like, wait, this is actually gonna be
good and we're not even in it. So there's a
little live action tag where they appear. Um, but that
movie was very funny and it's full of puns. The
screenplays by like Eric Segel who wrote Love Story, and
like it's it's a weird and it's a weirdly literary screenplay,
full of like really amazing puns and wordplay. And I
(34:54):
love that movie almost as much as Hard as Night,
even though it's very different. And Let It Be is
just depressing. Yeah, actually I have seen Let It Be.
It's you know, it's it's cringe. It's it's sort of
difficult to watch, like for curb your enthusiasm reasons, except
you know, they are actually fighting and it's unpleasant. Yeah,
I didn't know that officially counted as a Beatles movie,
so I think it got them out of their contract. Yeah,
(35:16):
like they had to make four movies, and so that's
why you get this one sort of tossed off animated
movie that's good, and then this one documentary that's sad,
just like like they're there's sort of the that is
sort of a little like life. You got the young,
you got the young, uh, exciting innovative youth, and then
the flabby middle age and then try to recapture with
a brilliantly colored cartoon, maybe make some bad choices like
(35:39):
Magical Mystery Tour, and then finally it all goes to ship. Well,
why is it? Uh? Why is it your favorite movie?
Why is it your pick? Part of it is watching
it very young, Like I'm very suspicious of people whose
favorite movie is something they saw in their third ease
(36:00):
or whatever, like like really like, how did uh, how
did Dead Poet? Society means so much to you at
thirty five? Um? Because when you watch a movie as
a kid, it really that's what's forming your brain, you know,
like You're synapses are still being created and personalities are
still being formed. And you know, the movies you watch
are like the crucible that creates you. And so you know,
(36:22):
part of Hard Day's Night is just loving that music
and the music never getting old, and maybe part of
me that sort of wishes i'd I'd actually been there
for it instead of some you know, eighties kid listening
to R A M And sort of thinking, you know,
like the real golden age was the sixties, although you know,
it turned out that the alternative scene was its own
(36:43):
little golden age, and you know, maybe I just didn't
know it. Right. The only thing we know for sure
is that now is not the golden age. Right now
is never the golden age, though, you know, like in
the eighties we were always making fun of that music,
and now like now it's like, oh man, you guys
had Michael Jackson point uh um. So part of it's
just that sort of fake nostalgia for an air I
(37:03):
didn't really know and I'm sure it was nothing like that,
and the anglophilia of it, you know, like being able
to watch sort of this funny British sensibility that seems
a little exotic to me. Um. But mostly just it's
so good and it doesn't have to be and I've
never seen a movie that has that infectious air of fun. Um.
I imagine it was not improvised at all. I think
(37:24):
it's all pretty tightly scripted, but it never feels that scripted.
You know. It always feels like, turn on the camera,
the beals are doing something. Goofy, look look, look, look
look exactly. You know. So you've got this thrill of
seeing the most magnetic, charismatic people in the twentieth century,
you know, actually going about their day and being hilarious. Agreed. Well,
that leads us into our final couple of segments. Here
(37:47):
we do we meaning me well and you to my
part of this segment, you are The first part is uh,
I call what Ebert said is a complete disappointment. Roger
Ebert's my favorite critic of all time, and I like
to always read a little um bit from his review.
(38:09):
And he gives it four stars. By the way, this
is the first four star movie so far in movie Crush.
Oh really, I'm in the lead. You're you're you're winning.
I'm winning the challenge. Um. And this was this review
was obviously not from nineteen four, but um, I think
it was a re release many years later that the
theater in the eighties, so he had this to say.
(38:32):
The Beatles were already a publicity phenomenon, but they were
not yet cultural icons. Many critics attended the movie and
prepared to condescend, but the movie could not be dismissed.
It was so joyous and original that even the early
reviews acknowledged it was something special. After more than three decades,
it has not aged and is not dated. It stands
(38:54):
outside it's time, it's genre, and even rock it is
one of the great life affirming d marks of the movies.
How about that. It's not even you know, not even
a good rock mill movie. It's a life affirming landmark. Yeah,
pretty pretty heavy and I totally buy that. Like that's
he's just said in a better Pulitzer winning style, like
sort of the same reaction I have, Like this is
(39:15):
not I've never seen a rock movie like this. I've
never seen another movie like this. It just makes me happy. Yeah,
I totally agree. That's why he's my favorite film critic. Okays,
so good, Alright, Yes, have you seen that documentary? It's
it's very good. It's yeah, you know, you really admire
him as a person, totally. You don't get that sense
of you get a senseident like I read a lot
of his reviews and you really do get a sense
(39:36):
of like that he must have just been a great
open man, you know. Yeah, I agreed. Uh. And their
last bit that we'll finish with here, Mr Jennings is
five questions with Ken Jennings. In this case, it's just
five questions, not usually five questions with Ken Jennings. And
these can be you can answer as succinctly or as
long as you want. But uh, here we go. Question
(39:58):
number one, what's the first movie you remember seeing in
the theater? It's easy, Dumbo. Yeah, my parents my dad
was still on in law school and they did cheap
screenings on campus, and my parents were trying to remember them, explaining,
it's like watching something on TV, like watching Saturday Morning cartoons,
but it's gonna be really big. It's a big room
that has like a big TV. Yeah, and I'm like three,
(40:19):
and I couldn't even picture that. And Dumbo was still
one of my favorite movies too. We could have done Dumbo, um,
but yeah, that was my first movie. When did you
start taking your kids to monies in the theater? Because
I'm kind of curious when I should do that. When
when they were babies and we thought they'd be asleep,
we would just take them to random stuff. And you know,
we're not monsters. We would have taken them out of
fake cried. But we we could often take our kids
(40:39):
to a late movie and we would just sit through
the movie and they would sleep. But I feel like
we took them to cartoons fairly young. Um, you know
there's so much there's like, there's genuinely great cartoons now
grown up in our age. You know, the Disney cartoons
of the seventies and eighties were you know, Oliver and Company,
and you know they weren't good. And you know an
hour in some golden age where there's like six pretty
(41:01):
great animated movies every year. Yeah, like my favorite still
is The Jungle Book, but that was not from our childhood. Yeah,
to me, we saw this all the rerelease right when
he would reput them out every seven years. You get
a new old Disney movie every summer. Exactly, let's write
a passage. I used to go to every one of
those question to what was your first R rated movie? Oh,
that's a good question. I'm pretty sure it was the untouchables,
(41:25):
the diploma untouchables. I almost think it was like some
church youth thing where it was like, let's put on
a movie, and the the sort of the hip young youth,
fasty guy who was doing it was like he almost
put on like which is funny because it's not a
hip movie at all. No, a good movie, but right,
but it was you know, typically you would not show
(41:46):
some diploma movie to a group of church kids. And
he was gonna put on something some comedy like maybe
Trading Places or something. And his wife was like, um rick,
no boobs, and he was like, right, no boobs. So
what's the intouchable? You know, bloody death in Chicago. He's like,
I gotta put body double back on the shelf. Sorry, honey,
nobody double tonight. Don't blow out? Uh? Number three? Do
(42:09):
you will you walk out of a bad movie? And
if so, can you name one? Like in a theater
or at home? No? No, everyone stops him at home.
But like, have you walked out of a movie in
a theater? No? Like I commit yeah, And I feel
I feel like people who walk out of movies are
actually like they're weak, you know, I want I want
them called from the herd, like you paid your money,
(42:30):
Like what if what if the director really sticks the landing?
You know? What if this turns? And I think there's
something to be learned from bad movies, like it's really
about you know, why didn't you like it? Like what
about you? Did you did you not react to that?
I agree with that. I remember seeing Big Top Pee
Wee as a kid and just being like I love
the first one and this is so bad and almost
wanting to walk out. And I don't. It's not like
I stayed and learned anything. Big Talk People is pretty terrible,
(42:51):
but you're like you're a kid. You're like, where am
I gonna go? Exactly? My mom's not coming back for
forty eight minutes. And I feel like if I can
stick out Big Top Pee Wee, I can stick out
any thing. Yeah. My move used to be too um
And I don't walk out of movies now because so
rarely get to the theater. I'd make sure it's a
really good movie, you know. I don't take a chance
like let me go see Demolition Man, which I walked
(43:13):
out of. Oh you did? Yeah? My move that was
to walk out of that movie and try in time.
It didn't go see something something else. Of course you
pay it twice though, because otherwise that would be dishonest.
That's right. Number four. Can you name a guilty pleasure
movie that you kind of go back to. I don't
think this is a bad movie per se, but um,
(43:34):
like my wife grew up watching a lot of sort
of goofy comedies, like her family loves um seems like
old times the child things. For example, that's not my
guilty Pleasure, and I'm working up to him from my
actually Guilty Pleasure, which is a pretty good movie. Um.
And turned out her family watched um, what's Up, Doc?
Like all the time Barbara sprays end right on't you know?
You know that's sort of screwball Bogdanovitch thing from the seventies.
(43:56):
And my family also watched that a ton and so
we both come from these, you know, families that can
like recite What's Up? Doc. In fact, on my first
date with my now wife, at the end of the date,
she said, uh, let's not say goodbye, Let's say are
of what? And I said, no, let's say goodbye. And
(44:17):
we realized we were doing a bit from the movie,
and we're like, how do you even know? That you
know what's up Dog ninety two and you know, so
that actually really cemented the relationship, like having the same
movie tastes as somebody that's called the meat cute, and
it's a very meat cute, but it comes from a
movie with a meat cute, a meta meat cute. It's
a net cute. That's fantastic. And so yeah, I've we
(44:38):
watched that movie a lot, even though you know it's
not it's not a classic or anything, but it's funny,
all right. Number five finally, Ki Jinning's movie going one
oh one? What what is your movie going ritual at
the theater? Do you try to sit sort of in
the same place? Do you get the same thing at
the concession stand. I'm pretty picky about seats, like you know,
(45:02):
it really has to be dead center, you know, two
thirds of the way back or whatever, like like I
will I will actually go to a different movie if
I can't. If you can't sit somewhere good. And nowadays
that there's reserved seating, often they will be like with
these big recliner type seats. If you've got these here,
like you know that there might be like three seats
in the theater that actually have a good sight line.
You know you gotta get there early. Um. I'm not
(45:24):
a big movie snacker because I find that I just like,
I just eat it all by the time the previews
are over. Like, I'm not good at rationing out my snacks.
There's a theater by us that will do chocolate popcorn
and you so you can do half chocolate popcorn half
salty popcorn, and that's sort of my go to snack.
I'm from a family of sneak snacks into movies. You
grew up like that? Oh yeah, my mom would sneak
(45:46):
in a gallon of pop popcorn somehow. How do you
sneak good popcorn large purses? My brother to this day
will do a thing where he will cough and then
as he coughs, he'll pop open his dr pepper that
he's too. I don't sneak in, so does anymore. But
in like college, when we would sneak in beer and stuff,
I would do that and my friends would just open
(46:08):
it because they didn't care. I'd still had that Southern
Baptist boy. I was like, well, let me at least
cough while they opened my beer. God will not here
if I cough? Yeah, exactly. All right, thanks man, because
a pleasure check. I really appreciate it. Alright, everybody, I
hope you enjoyed that sit down with a great Ken Jennings.
(46:31):
I gotta tell you, Ken, it's just just a great guy.
He's so nice. Uh and he is he is not
at all the nerd that you think he might be,
just because he is super book smart and just because
he destroys all humans on Jeopardy. Uh kids. Actually, very
cool dude, has great taste in music and movies, and uh,
(46:52):
just great fun to hang out with. Very funny guy.
You can check him out at Twitter. He has a
really really funny Twitter feed. Actually it's at Ken Jennings. Hopefully, Ken,
I'll be going on tour with the Omnibus. For the
very least, you should check out the podcast Omnibus with
the wonderful John Roderick and I really just had a
good time and I hope you enjoyed it. This week
(47:12):
on Movie Crush and until next time, I will just
be sitting here with my legs crossed because I hate
having to pete during movies. Movie Crush is produced, edited, engineered,
and scored by Noel Brown from our podcast Studio at
(47:33):
Pond City Market, Atlanta, Georgia.
Hey, folks, and welcome to Movie Crush. It's Chuck Bryant
here once again in the hot Hot studio. I don't
know if it's the heat is on or if the
air is broken, but it's pretty warming here at any rate.
This week I had Ken Jennings in of Jeopardy Fame,
and I don't know if Ken is tired of people
saying the word Jeopardy of him or not, but let's
(00:47):
face it, that's where he made his name as the
all time winning US dude on that show. And um,
Ken and I got to know each other well. Actually,
there's a great time to plug his new show. I'm
met Kim through John Roderick with the Long Winters, and
they are friends in Seattle, and we're doing more shows
here on the network. And uh, I had the opportunity
(01:11):
to maybe throw my hat into the executive producer ring.
So my first thought was, man, Ken Jennings needs a podcast.
That guy is great. He's the real deal. So I
called up John. He put me in touch with Ken.
Turns out Ken wanted to do a show with John
because their pals flew out to Seattle hung out with
him for a bit to develop the show. And Um,
(01:32):
I gotta tell you it's called Omnibus, and it is
so good. It basically captures exactly what I was hoping
it would capture, which is to be a fly on
the wall in a Ken Jennings and John Roderick conversation
because those two guys are hysterical and so smart. Um,
(01:53):
and it's just it's just the best to sit around
and listen to those two guys gab about stuff about
smart stuff off. So it's called Omnibus and it premieres
next Thursday, December seven, And you can even go listen
to the audio trailer already right now online and you
can find that wherever you get your podcasts. Give it
a listen. I know you're gonna love it, especially if
(02:13):
you're a fan of stuff you should know it's um
is in that similar ilk of good knowledge learning and
also very funny at the same time. So anyway, executive
producing that show, it's going great. When they were here
in Atlanta to do some pilot recording, I said, Ken,
I gotta get you in here for a movie crush interview,
and he was kind enough to say, well, heck yeah,
(02:36):
and his favorite movie is A Hard Day's Night the
Great Great Beatles movie, and I had not actually seen this, uh,
and I've talked about this in the episode. Weirdly, as
a huge Beatles fan, somehow I have avoided their films
for the most part. So I got to watch a
new movie and it's a wonderful, wonderful film, and the
(02:56):
conversation was just fantastic. So here we go with Ken
Jennings and A Hard Day's Night. I was just reading, like,
eleven percent of Americans go to the eleven percent of
Americans go to the movies more once a month or more.
Only like one in nine Americans goes to the movies
every month anymore. But I feel like we go to
(03:17):
a movie every week or two and we watch a
ton of movies at home. My secret. We we have
a pretty nice like screen because nowadays you can buy
a projector for the same as a flat screen. Really,
So if you have a room that's the right, a wall,
a blank wall anywhere in your house, get a projector.
Is that what you have? Yeah? We do? And uh,
and maybe I don't know if it's embarrassing or not,
but we watch about a movie a day. That's sort
(03:38):
of my things. Yea, So I probably watch about three
dred and sixty five movies a year. Man, that's great.
I can't wait till my daughter is bedtime. Yeah, I
mean like she watches she already will watch a little
bit of movies. And I know that, you know, two
years old, you're not supposed to give them too much TV.
But she loves it. So it's really hard to can't.
I know you're not supposed to give a screen but
(04:00):
you don't understand my daughter is really into it. We're lazy,
and she just gets so much joy out of watching
uh Mo Wanna or Secret Life of Pets or these
these cartoon movies already, I guess you don't call them
cartoon movies? What are they animated films? There you go.
It's through that you never a movie never means as
much you as it does to you when you were
(04:20):
a kid. I mean yeah, I mean, she really digs it.
So I'm just looking forward to uh uh. I mean.
My brother has told his son is I think nineteen
or twenty nine and his daughter sixteen, and movie night
has always been like the biggest thing in their family,
and he introduces them to all the you know, Raiders
of the Lost Arc and Jaws and all these great
movies from our youth, and uh, I just can't wait
(04:43):
to do that with her. It worked pretty well for
a while. You know, you could tell my and my
my son's favorite movie would be come Back to the
Future or whatever I had just recommended. But then they
had a certain age and like you recommending something is
the Kiss of Death? You know, yeah, when does that happen?
For my son? It was like thirteen or fourteen, and
he's not some soli claude, but he's still you know,
we'll only like things he discovers on his own, and
(05:05):
me being like, no, dude, you've got to see Jaws.
That would be like, oh, that's a dad movie, right,
it's an anti recommendation. Yeah, you gotta get clever, that's right.
Don't watch Jaws. It's so scary. It starts with a
naked girl swimming. Um, oh, well, that would be a
good way to get him into it, exactly until he
sees it and goes. You don't really see much. You
don't see anything. Spielberg doesn't have nipples, No, he doesn't. Actually,
(05:29):
he's a nippless man. He does. A lot of people
don't know that. When you see him at the beach.
You're like, you're just like your movies. There's no nipples there. What.
So you grew up, grew up in Seattle but then
moved to Salt Lake City or the other way around.
It's a weirder Stary grew up in Seattle, but we
moved overseas Korean Singapore for a long time and lived
in Salt Lake briefly as an adult. Like at the
time I was on TV. So what were your kind
(05:53):
of formative movie going years? Where were you? You know,
the VHS was invented. You know, at the time VCR
were invented, we were living in South Korea and so
you know, everybody had the small video collection. You watched
the same movies over and over again, you know. So
you know, if you had five vivies, you would watch
Star Wars and the making of Thriller and you know
whatever was on yourself. And um, I think my parents
(06:15):
were big like VCR pirrators and copiers, so we started accumulating,
you know, just hundreds of yeah, you know, with the
homemade stickers they were say the name. Yeah. Basically, my
parents are still wanted in in several Asian countries. So
you didn't have. Boy, this is exciting because I haven't
had anyone. I mean I had John Ronson who grew
up in Wales, but he had sort of the regular
(06:36):
I mean whatever the equivalent of the shopping mall theater
was in Cardiff. But you're my first guest that that
grew up in a exotic, distant land. I mean, did
they have movie American movies in theaters or was it
all home viewing? Sometimes we go to American movies. I
think at the time, they would usually subtitle and not dubbed,
so you could actually go to see, you know, Indiana Jones,
(06:57):
The Temple to Doom and just ignore the subtitles, and
they'd have these beauty a full sort of Southeast Asian
looking hand painted really florid Bollywood looking marquees outside the theater,
where maybe the actors didn't quite look like themselves, but
it was still beautiful work. And we'd all seriously movies
on the army base, you know, the US has a
big military presence there and they always play the I
think they always played the American national anthem and then
(07:18):
the Korean national anthem, and then the movie would start,
so you'd have to sit through a patriotic moment just
to watch you know, meatballs or that's pretty good. Um.
When did you go back to the States for college.
So not till the early nineties, So you did not
get a thirteen year old at the mall experience. We'd
(07:39):
come home in the summer and you know, you'd get
dropped off the air condition multiplex or watch or whatever,
watch water World or whatever the big summer crap movie was. Yeah,
so you did get that experience, yes, Um, and those
were very and it was great. It was like a
treat because we did not have multiplexes. It was like
coming to U. I felt like a Soviet emigrant and
you know, get dropped off of the movie theater all
(08:01):
day and watched a double feature of Darryl and the
Goonies or whatever. Yeah, Darryl. I don't think I ever
saw that one. He's a robot. It's d A A
y O. He's a direct automaton robot youth life form
or something. I don't know what or something. I think
you probably just nailed. I think I think it is
robotic youth life form. I don't know what the d
A is. Yeah, I don't know why I didn't see
that because it sucked. Oh did it? I think, yeah,
(08:23):
that's my memory of it. It's weird some of these
movies that you realize uh got by you that by
all accounts you should have seen for sure. But if
you owned it, you saw that weird movie six times,
Like I've seen Cook and Dagger with Dabney Coleman and
Henry Thomas like times because we owned it. Yeah, you
gotta watch that crap. I love that movie. Was that crap?
Probably sometimes we you and I have not seen in
(08:43):
thirty years. We don't know. Maybe Cloak and Dagger with
Dabney Coleman is amazing. I know it's funny. Uh tig
nataros in here in one of her big movies, because
we talked about sort of when we first got HBO,
I lived, uh kind of in the woods. I didn't
live in like some big suburban neighborhood. I lived on
a house in the woods with like six other houses,
and um, we got cable very late compared to everyone
(09:03):
else and HBO late. So I just dug into it.
And she kind of had a similar experience, and she
her big movie was Under the Rainbow the Chevy. Yeah,
and she'd watched it over and over and over, even
though it wasn't any good. My grandparents got one of
those giant satellite dishes you know in the days, and
I think they eventually got a decoder when they started
(09:23):
scrambling them. And so that was the same thing. Summer
days And what weird movie are they showing ten times? Oh?
Never say never again? Okay, now, let's watch the West
Coast feed of it right as soon as it ends.
It's amazing when you're that age, you can just consume media.
And that's why I laugh about these days when everyone
gets so bent out of shape about screen time and
kids just sitting around. Right, we did the exact same thing.
(09:44):
We're the latch key kid generation. Man. That's that created
our brains. Like, if anything, it's better now because there's
better variety and content because there was no educational stuff
like when you were our age, you know, I guess
there was Sesame Streep. I think kids just plopped down
in front of Bree Bunch reruns and over and like,
if I want to make my kids watch something, you know, educational,
like there's a hundred fifty of them on right now.
(10:07):
We didn't have that, do you? And I know this
is I have to ask you about the if you
have any Jeopardy episodes of yourself that your kids have seen. Uh? Yeah,
my son was about three when it aired, so he
got very into it all summer. He called me Ken
Jennings instead of Dad because that's what the announcer said,
(10:28):
because he was addicted to Jeopardy. But the funny things
he forgot because he was only three. So when I
went back on like a couple of years ago, like
against the computer for example, then my kids were very
into it. They were old enough to remember, Yeah, that's awesome.
He always wants to watch Jeopardy at home and I'm like,
not Jeopardy please that you know, so you don't watch anymore.
I can't enjoy it, like as a fan. I hear
the music and I get very ten, like daddy's off duty,
(10:51):
like back you know, Sigon, I can't believe it's funny. Um. So,
did you have uh cable TV and like HBO overseas
or no? Not? Never? I think I think some of
my friends had some weird Asian thing called star TV
(11:12):
where you could get maybe MTV and some movie channel,
but we never had it. We just had our shelves
of vhs is ripped off from the Army base rental place. Okay,
so that's what you would do. You would rent them
from the army base and deck to deck them. My
mom would dub them whether or not she I think
maybe even before she saw them. My wife, my wife
(11:33):
grew up overseas too, and her family did a thing
where they would do the deck to deck dubbing. But
her mom would always be standing there trying to bleep
the bad words and the makeout scenes or whatever. She'd
be like the monitor of the of the deck to
deck and trying to time it out. So you trying
to watch one of these movies, and it's like, just
so what you do? Just pause the recording? I just
just pause the one that's recording and the other one
(11:53):
keeps playing, and then you it's not a it's not
exactly a Swiss watch. Um. So your movie is Hard
Day's Night, A Hard Day's Night, A Hard days Night. Um, yeah,
which I had not seen, as you know, um spoiler
for everyone else, but you knew that. I did not
see this movie until minutes ago I finished it, which
(12:16):
surprised me. You're a big music guy, Well this, yeah,
I would assume, yeah, they're just part of our culture,
but somehow you've never seen it. Well. Uh, And we
talked a little bit about the Elvis movies this morning,
um privately, but um, because that's how you talk about
Elvis movies, very hushtones. It's in dark corners. Um. I
(12:38):
don't know why I never because I am a Beatles fanatic.
I would even say, but I've never really thought about
seeing the movies for some reason until now. I think
there is some assumption on people, by people who haven't
seen them, that they're just cash in schlock because they
should have been like Elvis movies, you know, like, hey,
this doesn't have to be good, this has Elvis. Let's
just make some cheap piece of crap and everybody will
(13:00):
go see it. And the Beatles movies could have been
like that, and they're all pretty good. And I think
Hard Days Night is is great, Like it has so
many things about it that I love that even if
the Beatles weren't in it, even if the biggest band
in the world weren't in it, it it would still be
like this is a classic Marx Brothers e comedy, you know. Yeah,
I mean the first thing that struck me was first
of all, just how beautiful that that black and white looks.
(13:23):
Um in sixty four were they filming and color then yeah,
there would have been color movies. But um yeah, that
kind of cinema verity from a from an English language movie.
I don't think you saw much. You know, you've got
French directors doing that stuff. The idea that some massive
box office thing, you know, imagine if like Spice World
or you know whatever, something justin Bieber movie comes out
(13:45):
and it's a shot like a European art film and
be like, what the hell? Yeah, And that's that's very
much what it felt like him. It felt like a
breathless or something exactly the way it was shot. And um,
who was it? Richard Lester? Yeah, I think he was
a TV director the Beatles like because he worked with
some comedians they like, and so I don't think that
maybe the guy had not even made a movie or
not many at least well it was it was the
(14:06):
height of Beatlemania. It's shocking too, especially as like middle
aged dudes now to realize that these guys are like
tree years old, like half our age. Yeah, I mean,
they were just kids, and what's funny to remember now,
I mean you have to remember that in you know,
we live in a world where the Beatles are on
statues and stamps and they're like the faces of the
(14:27):
twentieth century, that they're like melt Rushmore with Einstein and
Disney and whatever. But at the time, everyone was like,
these guys are a fad, you know, these guys are
a Hulu when is this This will go away by
December and my daughter will like stop screaming about the
weird the kids with the weird hair. Yeah. Um and
then you know, this movie, so the movie doesn't even
(14:47):
have to be good, you know, like it's a surprise
that anyone would try. It's like, let's put this out
quick before they fade. And then but it's still a
movie we're watching, you know, fifty years later. Yea, and
I think that um I did a reading up on
just like trivia notes and stuff, and um I think
you know, uh, United artists even didn't care much about
(15:08):
the movie. Apparently it was just like, this is a
way we can get another album out as a soundtrack,
and let's just put this thing together. And they were
surprised that it was just a huge, uh financial hit.
It was a huge critical hit and it really kind
of blew everyone away. It seems like the Beatles, just
for being young guys, really made some smart decisions. Like
I think they were the ones that wanted Richard Lester,
(15:30):
this TV director they like because he worked with Peter Sellers,
and they wanted Alan O in this Liverpool um playwright. Yeah,
would be just because they thought he would understand their
language and their jokes. And you couldn't get a Southern earl.
You couldn't get a London or to to understand that
Ringo even has that line in the SOUTHERNAA. Uh so. Yeah,
Like I feel like they for twenty year olds or whatever,
(15:51):
Like they made all these really smart decisions and then
they turned out to be good actors too. That's not
even fair. Well yeah, that was the other thing that
struck me is just how funny they are. Um. We
had a conversation yesterday, uh while you're here in town.
Actually we should tell everyon when you're in town. Um
piloting a podcast with John Roderick called either Omnibus or
(16:12):
the Omnibus. I'm not sure what it's going to be.
Definite article to be named later. Uh so, And I'm
sort of executive producing this thing and got you guys
over here. So you guys have been in town and
we were hanging out and having dinner and stuff, and
we were talking about humor and rock and roll and
humor and music and how it's kind of not much
of a thing. Right we were talking about a weird Al.
(16:33):
Yeah we should. I don't know if I want to
go too deep into my feelings on weird Al, but uh,
but yeah, he's a pushback against this idea that, you know,
rock is not funny, and that's what's funny. That's what's
nominally funny about a weird Al is that he's taking
this very self serious, authentic art form and adding funny
lyrics about lunch meat. Well yeah, and I was like, yeah,
rock is funny. It never is rock and roll is
(16:53):
it funny? But I kind of and although the music
is it funny, I kind of forgot about the Beatles
and the Monkeys and what a sense of humor these
guys had. Yeah, and I think that's pretty authentic. Like
I think Elano and hung out with him, if I
remember that, he hung out with him for weeks and
sort of watched the interplay and then just you know, said, hey,
this is the this is the movie because it's it's
plotless the movie. Yeah, it's a it's a week in
(17:16):
the life of the Beatles during Beatlemania, right, and it's
a little bit heightened, but it really is just them
sort of doing what they would do, like head of
tell room to hotel room and they even made jokes
about that in a car in a room, and a
train in a room, in a room in a room.
It's yeah, the unglamorous life of the world's biggest band.
That was supposedly when they You're right on they met
with Alan Owen for weeks and that was supposedly what
(17:39):
McCartney said their life was like. So he ended up
using that as a real line in the movie. Oh
that's something he said. Yeah, he said, you know, this
is what our life is, and um, it really just
captures that kind of like did you ever get to
see I know we talked about when I was in Seattle,
the Ron Howard documentary. Did you see that? I haven't
seen it yet. Well, similarly, it captures that the beatle
(18:01):
Mania thing, just how isolated they were and it was
just these four dudes sort of against the world. Uh.
From room to room to room, and it's it's probably
what cemented that amazing chemistry on stage and then probably
also what ended them, you know, because how no matter
how good your relationship is, you spend sixteen hours a
day with those people. For the funny thing is the
(18:23):
Beatles were around for like they were an international rock
group for what seven years. It's it's shocking, like it's
been like seven years since the last you know, Christina
Aguilera record or something. You know, that's nothing today. Yeah,
I think about that fact about ten times a year.
My entire life was that the Beatles went from you know,
hard days night to let it Be and everything in between,
(18:44):
and that just the musical progression that they went through
is insane over that amount of time with the busy, Yeah,
the schedule they kept and they're still producing the most
innovative music in the world. That's really what makes me
angry when it turns out there gifted actors and comedians,
it's really you are also that you were the tightest
rock band in the world even when you were a
garage band, and you're turned out to be the best
(19:05):
songwriters of the twentieth century, and you're the mark Brothers
screw you well. It truly was like uh, lightning in
a bottle, like the the musical gods coming together to
put these four dudes in a room together. That's that's
why they are the Beatles. I think what I reacted
to in the movie as a kid, because I already
liked the music. You know, I grew up with boomer
(19:25):
parents that always had the Beatles on the turntable. I didn't,
but is that you did not. You're from the South
and they were evil. They're your parents were burning Beatles
because when you know, my parents listened to like Kenny
Rogers and ship like that. My parents do like Kenny
Rodgers now. To be fair, I like how you put
that in case he's listening. I don't don't worry Kenny.
We love Islands industry. My parents did watch their share
(19:45):
of Lawrence Walker or whatever. But my dad had been
in a band and he always had the Beatles, and
it was really just the soundtrack of my childhood. But
watched so watching the movie, I already knew the songs
and liked the songs. But um like what I reacted
to as a as a kid watching that, it's just
sort of their the sense of fun, like you're not
even watching a performance. It's like it seems like these
people who actually are just loving every second of their
(20:08):
lives and just that that's care free. Like to me,
they were adults at the time, which I don't see anymore,
but it was like, these guys are adults, but they're
still having this amazing lark, you know, And I really
feel like that might be pretty central to how I
have tried to live my life since then. It's based
on watching Hard Day's Night as a kid a million times. Well,
oh so you saw it when you were younger, watched
(20:29):
it a lot. It's a VHS we got from I'm
sure you could get Hard Days Night at Blockbuster, but
you remember how video stores sucked, right, and you couldn't
get anything. But my grandparents lived in this little, tiny
Oregon backwoods town that for some reason had a great
video store that didn't throw stuff away, So you could
go in and get anything. You get old Michael Powell
movies from the forties, or you can get weird eighties.
You know. You could just get anything there because they
(20:51):
didn't throw anything away. And one night we saw Hord
Days Night, and I think I watched it again the
next day. I liked it so much. That's the way
to do it when you're a kid, that sir, kids
can watch, kids can rewatch anything. You're talking about them
(21:12):
having fun, though, Like that really comes through like it
feels it feels like of that movie. There is kinetic
like moving around fast, like they're either running from fans
or from place to place. And they're very few, like
really kind of still scenes. They're always going from place
to place, and I thought it was really funny. They
were always going somewhere really fast, except when they stopped
(21:34):
to like talk to the ladies. There's so many scenes
where they're just like, oh, well, hi, how are you.
I think that there might be scenes where they leave
stage right and then they come back in they're like, hey,
what's going on? You know, because they saw a girl
out of the corner of their eye, which is of
course the Monkeys, Uh was very much inspired by this,
and that you could tell that that show just completely
I don't say ripped off, but it was heavily inspired
(21:55):
The Monkeys, Seeing Hour Days Night and Help. Yeah. I
think maybe because the piece of it is just blistering
even to that movie, and imagine in nineteen four, where
comedies were sort of these pink panther snooze fests. You know,
the idea that this movie goes boom boom boom boom. Yeah,
maybe because there's four of them, you know, like there's
always something to cut to. Let's see what George is doing. Oh,
he's getting up to some monkey shines. Yeah, that's true.
(22:16):
It's like how the you know, the only other quartet
in comedy I can think of is the Marx Brothers
before Zeppo left, and those movies are also boom boom boom.
So yeah, that's true. Maybe that's some comedy secret. Have
four dudes, man, we've been getting wrong for a while,
or ladies. Another favorite sequence was the Ringo sequence where
he disappears and goes in uh quote unquote disguise and
(22:40):
just a hat and overcoat. But as soon as he
puts those on, he's just a regular dude. For the
next whatever twelve twelve minutes, Ringo gets an arc and
gets to hang out with a with a speed chin kid.
You know. Yeah, it's really kind of cool though, like, uh,
it's one of the only sort of slower paced sequences
in the movie, and you really get the sense that
(23:01):
Ringo kind of needed that. You know, I guess I
never thought about that, that that it's really him, you know,
getting to put on a disguise and not be Ringo
for a second. It's like it's like Henry the Fifth
going and hanging out with the troops in disguise. You know.
He because you never really see the Beatles regret anything
about this life. You know, they know, they're they're they're
loving every second. But I guess when you think about
that Ringo scene, it is you know, I guess there
(23:23):
are some trade offs to the pinball life. Yeah, and
he um has been lauded by critics for his how
forlorn he was in the Riverbank scene, but apparently I did.
I looked it up. He was extremely hungover that day,
so that was supposedly why he sort of brought that
to the table. He's a good actor. I feel like
maybe McCartney is the one who I don't think as
(23:46):
gifted an actor, because he seems like he's trying very hard.
He's a little hammy in the movie, and that goes
with everything you think you know about Paul, that that
he was sort of a taskmaster who always had the
plan and you know, always had the idea and he
seems like he's maybe trying a bit hard. Well, I
was going to ask you just character wise, even though
they are playing themselves, like who who did you like
(24:07):
the best? I feel like it's an age girl. I
feel like compermentally and very much a George guy. And
I like the scene where sort of there's sort of
this social critique scene where these style arbiters are you know,
trying to you know, use their wiles on George. They
see him as as a typical youth, and he just
has no time for it. He's like bozos um. But
(24:28):
I think in the movie, John comes off very well. Actually,
he's always doing these sort of crazy sort of Peter
Seller's ee bits of stick. You know, a lady holds
up a measuring tape and he cuts it like he's
opening up bread. You know. He's playing around in the
bathtub and doing you know, German accents with the battleship.
He's very good in it. I think, Yeah, I agree.
I think John was um came across as very playful
(24:50):
and mischievous, and especially like watching it now, like knowing
who these guys really were, it's kind of fun to
see John, who was you know, kind of a heavy
dude in real life, with what he went through in
his life, and uh, to see him just be so
kind of playful and all of them just at that
age together having fun before things got heavy and they decided, like,
(25:14):
we can't even play shows anymore. It's so sweet now,
wants John be so sweet and goofy and be like
heroin addiction for you. And in three and a half
years he's like the countdown timers, I mean not even yeah,
and then the real countdown timer I guess for all
of us. Yeah, sure, you know you could from McCartney
is still touring, Ringo still touring, you know. Uh, but
(25:35):
you see him today and you know they can't quite
hit the high notes. And there's the real grace in
hearing you know, Paul's voice sort of crack now as
he sings these old songs or sings about his youth. Um,
have you seen him lately in concert? So I'm three
years ago maybe, and he is still amazing. He'll carefully
space out the piano songs so he can sit for
a while, but he never stops. He was on stage
(25:55):
the whole time, and it was a yeah, I don't know,
five nine minutes show. Yeah, he plays a lot of
songs now maybe more, maybe it was longer. Yeah, it
was a long show. I could not believe how long
he was playing. Yeah, I mean his set lists are
I mean you see, uh, young bands go out and
do like twenty songs and he's doing like thirty five.
It's nuts. Um. Do you have any favorite lines from
(26:19):
the movie? Do you remember um or sequences? Yeah, there's
stuff we still say in our daily lives from that movie. Uh.
I often think, you know, because I sometimes get recognized
now from Jeopardy, but people aren't sure it's me because
it was it was a very vague and fleeting and
long ago kind of fame. I often have a reenactment
(26:41):
of the scene with John and the lady who's like her,
Are you him? You know? It's like, I don't, I
don't know, it's Anni quoile and uh. And I often
get that too, are you are you who I think
you are? Do you ever do that? Do the John?
Sometimes I do the Ames. I get to do this job,
which is very exciting. That's such a great scene because
it could have been like just one quick exchange, but
(27:01):
they really kind of drag it out and we're playing
with each other, and uh, yeah, that that was really funny.
We often say he's a very clean old man. We
say that a lot. They said that a lot in
the movie too. I was very disappointed. I thought that
was a beautiful non sequitur, and then I later found
out that it's a it's a it's just a TV
sitcom reference because that guy played the Fred Sanford character
on the British Steptoe and Son. He's he's the junkyard guy.
(27:24):
He was a dirty old man. So it's a joke.
It's a running gag in the movie that this time
he's a very clean old man. They really hammer at
home too. Yeah, but I like I like the running gags.
It's funny how they they have that guy to be
the troublemaker. You know. Much is made of about how
the Beatles are such a force of anarchy and their
free spirits in that movie, but really they're not rebels
at all. Like what do they want to do? They
(27:44):
want to have the window open on the train or
they want to like they they they're a little late
for rehearsal because they wanted to go jump around in
the Field. I mean they're not They're not Marlon Brando
style troublemakers. Like at the time, parents were like, what
is up with these guys? But we watched an O
and they're just like goofy. They're not rebels at all,
and they put the old guy in the movie to
actually make trouble and do all the things the Beatles
(28:06):
couldn't do. Good. Yeah, it was funny that the Grandpa
McCartney was the king mix of the group. They say that,
you know, if you were in John says, if you
lived in Boston, you'd be a senior citizen in Boston.
You're just a chevy old man from Liverpool or whatever.
Those accents are just the best. Yeah, I wonder how
much of the Beatles appeal is just Americans being like, oh,
those cute, weird accents. You know, they seem so cheeky.
(28:28):
You know, we have to invent words because we don't
really you know, in a British person hearing that, I
don't know if I guess it's still a regional accent.
Maybe they're charmed by the accent as well. But when
when when Grandpa McCartney keeps saying you've got your nose
in a bloom And book because the ring goes reading
Lolita or whatever he's reading. Oh is that what he
was saying? I didn't understand because some of the stuff
(28:49):
you literally almost need a little glossary. Uh, just not
only just the words, but some of the terms they
use or are lost on me. So yeah, the stuff
they say on the train in that early scene, when
you're quite into the lingo yet you're like, what are
they even talking about? Yeah, it had a bit of
a train spotting effect on me. At first. I was like,
oh my god, that is a funny thing in movies.
How at the beginning of the movie, you're like, Okay,
(29:10):
I'm not gonna understand these Irish people ever in this movie,
and then like twenty minutes in your brain somehow adjust
and you're you kind of you get to Ireland or whatever. Yeah,
for sure. Oh. Another one of my funny, uh the
funny bits I thought that was just so kind of
dumb and slapstick was the disappearing doves oh the magician. Yeah,
it just it just really speaks to the humor of
(29:32):
that time, and I found myself literally laughing out loud
at that part, probably more than any other Yeah, the
implications the doves have died, right, like the feathers come
out and off standards from this terrible act of animal violence. Yeah,
and then like he's running it's well again. Grandpaul McCartney
King Mixer is running by the magician and says, oh,
you know, I used to see your father perform and
(29:53):
if you back, it's just so silly. I love it though,
like that that mid sixties slapstick there's like this purity
to that kind of comedy. Definitely was free Monty Python
kind of and a lot of its non sequiturs, like
you know, the bathtub drains and John Lennon disappears somehow,
(30:16):
you know, he goes down the drain. This is the
scene where George is shaving on or I guess he
shaves their manager on the road manager on a mirror.
He sprays the shaving on the mirror and she's him there.
It only makes sense if the cameras at that one angle.
You know, it's a very silly bit, but yeah, I
love that sounding. You can totally see like a whole
school of wacky British comedy sort of being created out
of the out of the rubble of the goon show
(30:36):
and it's like Milligan and Peter Sellers. Yeah, it's very
kind of sweet to see that kind of comedy. I think,
uh these days, like when you look back at it,
it's very innocent. When you mentioned the stage magician, I
sort of forgot that. Um, you know, in that rehearsal
scene when the Beatles are act are performing, they've got
big insect beatles on the wall behind them. But you
(30:57):
know what, the word Beatles is never spoken in the movie.
I'd noticed that, Like that's the confidence of that movie
that they never say, here's the Beatles. You girls love
the Beatles. Yeah, the hula hoop uh, like they had
the biggest fat in the world, and they never name it.
You know. I think they sort of show you the
backstage of it where they're not the Beatles, they're just
the four lads. Yeah, they were the lads. You said.
(31:17):
You see it on the drum kit and then it
says it on ringos drum and the helicopter at the end,
and no one ever speaks it. That giant helicopter mid
sixties giant helicopter, which is hysterical, I guess. And the
idea is that you know they're lifting off into the sky.
But they're not really you know, it's just all gonna
happen again. You know, the next day is gonna be
another hard day's night. Yeah, And I think, um, I
(31:37):
kind of always wondered, I don't know, I never looked
at it before where that phrase came from. And I
supposedly that was a Ringo line when he was being
interviewed or something. They we're in the studio so long,
and he said it was a hard day to an
interview or something, and then they came out and it
was night, and then he said a hard day's night,
and that's kind of where they got it. Yeah, I
think I've heard the Ringo is often just saying these
(31:58):
sort of unconsciously like dumb, naive but like brilliant, sideways
little coinages um, which I guess is it probably comes
from the Irish, you know, like the a lot of
those Liverpool people of that era where came from Irish
stock who had come over a generation or two ago,
and they love the music of the language. Yeah, and
(32:19):
they still they still sort of have that sort of
sideways manner of speaking and coming at an idea. And yeah,
you see it a lot in the movie. What what
about the other Beatles movies? Because now I feel like
I'm gonna dive deep. It's the problem is it's a
little disappointing after Hard Day's Night. Yeah, I like them all.
(32:40):
I mean maybe not like Magical Mystery or it's just
a goofy TV special which is sort of has some
creepy vibe. Actually, um, help us bring it, help us
sort of a bigger budget color um Hard Day's Night,
but that sort of robs it of all the breathless
stuff and just makes it into a pink panther movie,
you know, just like a caper and uh, you know
were Central Asian cult has stolen Ringoes ring and they're
(33:03):
trying to cut off Ringo's finger and it's like this
around the world, this bigger budget, more James Bondy kind
of a thing. Why do you keep begging on the
Pink Panther? I love the Pink Panther. This whole interview
is to me, it's just sort of the epitome of
some comedy that um seems so funny in the sixties
and you watch it now and you're like, yes, she's
in a bikini. That's you think those movies are funny today. Yeah,
(33:24):
I love them if I when I watched them now,
they feel very slightly The first Pink Panther movies like
a thirty minutes and I'm like, well, that's that's way
too long for sure. I'm like, that's a little long
for a comedy. I just remember when I was a kid,
Inspector Cluso, that character. I thought it was one of
the funniest things I've ever seen. My wife family loves
the Pink Panther movies and she's always quoting Inspector Cluso.
I think she'll so always say a moth instead of
(33:46):
a moth, and I still pull out some of those.
I love Peter Sellers like so so so much. Um
but to me that you'd st have to wade through
so much just David Niven plot garbage and the Pink
Panther movies that t actually get to Peter Sellers doing
something funny. Yeah, maybe they were a little contrived plot
wise for sure. So so it helps more like that,
it sounds like you'll be into that. You love flabby
sixties British comedy, Yeah, maybe that's my jam. And then
(34:10):
what else? There's Magical Miss Tour. Then I love Yellow Submarine. Uh, right,
that was animated. Have you seen it? The I think
it's great because it's got this amazing Peter Max sort
of sixties art thing going on. The Beatles are not
even in it, like they were so done with hanging
out together and you know, it's like, let's get our
United Artist contract done, so they it's not even their voices,
(34:30):
and I think I've heard that. Then they saw the
movie and we're like, wait, this is actually gonna be
good and we're not even in it. So there's a
little live action tag where they appear. Um, but that
movie was very funny and it's full of puns. The
screenplays by like Eric Segel who wrote Love Story, and
like it's it's a weird and it's a weirdly literary screenplay,
full of like really amazing puns and wordplay. And I
(34:54):
love that movie almost as much as Hard as Night,
even though it's very different. And Let It Be is
just depressing. Yeah, actually I have seen Let It Be.
It's you know, it's it's cringe. It's it's sort of
difficult to watch, like for curb your enthusiasm reasons, except
you know, they are actually fighting and it's unpleasant. Yeah,
I didn't know that officially counted as a Beatles movie,
so I think it got them out of their contract. Yeah,
(35:16):
like they had to make four movies, and so that's
why you get this one sort of tossed off animated
movie that's good, and then this one documentary that's sad,
just like like they're there's sort of the that is
sort of a little like life. You got the young,
you got the young, uh, exciting innovative youth, and then
the flabby middle age and then try to recapture with
a brilliantly colored cartoon, maybe make some bad choices like
(35:39):
Magical Mystery Tour, and then finally it all goes to ship. Well,
why is it? Uh? Why is it your favorite movie?
Why is it your pick? Part of it is watching
it very young, Like I'm very suspicious of people whose
favorite movie is something they saw in their third ease
(36:00):
or whatever, like like really like, how did uh, how
did Dead Poet? Society means so much to you at
thirty five? Um? Because when you watch a movie as
a kid, it really that's what's forming your brain, you know,
like You're synapses are still being created and personalities are
still being formed. And you know, the movies you watch
are like the crucible that creates you. And so you know,
(36:22):
part of Hard Day's Night is just loving that music
and the music never getting old, and maybe part of
me that sort of wishes i'd I'd actually been there
for it instead of some you know, eighties kid listening
to R A M And sort of thinking, you know,
like the real golden age was the sixties, although you know,
it turned out that the alternative scene was its own
(36:43):
little golden age, and you know, maybe I just didn't
know it. Right. The only thing we know for sure
is that now is not the golden age. Right now
is never the golden age, though, you know, like in
the eighties we were always making fun of that music,
and now like now it's like, oh man, you guys
had Michael Jackson point uh um. So part of it's
just that sort of fake nostalgia for an air I
(37:03):
didn't really know and I'm sure it was nothing like that,
and the anglophilia of it, you know, like being able
to watch sort of this funny British sensibility that seems
a little exotic to me. Um. But mostly just it's
so good and it doesn't have to be and I've
never seen a movie that has that infectious air of fun. Um.
I imagine it was not improvised at all. I think
(37:24):
it's all pretty tightly scripted, but it never feels that scripted.
You know. It always feels like, turn on the camera,
the beals are doing something. Goofy, look look, look, look
look exactly. You know. So you've got this thrill of
seeing the most magnetic, charismatic people in the twentieth century,
you know, actually going about their day and being hilarious. Agreed. Well,
that leads us into our final couple of segments. Here
(37:47):
we do we meaning me well and you to my
part of this segment, you are The first part is uh,
I call what Ebert said is a complete disappointment. Roger
Ebert's my favorite critic of all time, and I like
to always read a little um bit from his review.
(38:09):
And he gives it four stars. By the way, this
is the first four star movie so far in movie Crush.
Oh really, I'm in the lead. You're you're you're winning.
I'm winning the challenge. Um. And this was this review
was obviously not from nineteen four, but um, I think
it was a re release many years later that the
theater in the eighties, so he had this to say.
(38:32):
The Beatles were already a publicity phenomenon, but they were
not yet cultural icons. Many critics attended the movie and
prepared to condescend, but the movie could not be dismissed.
It was so joyous and original that even the early
reviews acknowledged it was something special. After more than three decades,
it has not aged and is not dated. It stands
(38:54):
outside it's time, it's genre, and even rock it is
one of the great life affirming d marks of the movies.
How about that. It's not even you know, not even
a good rock mill movie. It's a life affirming landmark. Yeah,
pretty pretty heavy and I totally buy that. Like that's
he's just said in a better Pulitzer winning style, like
sort of the same reaction I have, Like this is
(39:15):
not I've never seen a rock movie like this. I've
never seen another movie like this. It just makes me happy. Yeah,
I totally agree. That's why he's my favorite film critic. Okays,
so good, Alright, Yes, have you seen that documentary? It's
it's very good. It's yeah, you know, you really admire
him as a person, totally. You don't get that sense
of you get a senseident like I read a lot
of his reviews and you really do get a sense
(39:36):
of like that he must have just been a great
open man, you know. Yeah, I agreed. Uh. And their
last bit that we'll finish with here, Mr Jennings is
five questions with Ken Jennings. In this case, it's just
five questions, not usually five questions with Ken Jennings. And
these can be you can answer as succinctly or as
long as you want. But uh, here we go. Question
(39:58):
number one, what's the first movie you remember seeing in
the theater? It's easy, Dumbo. Yeah, my parents my dad
was still on in law school and they did cheap
screenings on campus, and my parents were trying to remember them, explaining,
it's like watching something on TV, like watching Saturday Morning cartoons,
but it's gonna be really big. It's a big room
that has like a big TV. Yeah, and I'm like three,
(40:19):
and I couldn't even picture that. And Dumbo was still
one of my favorite movies too. We could have done Dumbo, um,
but yeah, that was my first movie. When did you
start taking your kids to monies in the theater? Because
I'm kind of curious when I should do that. When
when they were babies and we thought they'd be asleep,
we would just take them to random stuff. And you know,
we're not monsters. We would have taken them out of
fake cried. But we we could often take our kids
(40:39):
to a late movie and we would just sit through
the movie and they would sleep. But I feel like
we took them to cartoons fairly young. Um, you know
there's so much there's like, there's genuinely great cartoons now
grown up in our age. You know, the Disney cartoons
of the seventies and eighties were you know, Oliver and Company,
and you know they weren't good. And you know an
hour in some golden age where there's like six pretty
(41:01):
great animated movies every year. Yeah, like my favorite still
is The Jungle Book, but that was not from our childhood. Yeah,
to me, we saw this all the rerelease right when
he would reput them out every seven years. You get
a new old Disney movie every summer. Exactly, let's write
a passage. I used to go to every one of
those question to what was your first R rated movie? Oh,
that's a good question. I'm pretty sure it was the untouchables,
(41:25):
the diploma untouchables. I almost think it was like some
church youth thing where it was like, let's put on
a movie, and the the sort of the hip young youth,
fasty guy who was doing it was like he almost
put on like which is funny because it's not a
hip movie at all. No, a good movie, but right,
but it was you know, typically you would not show
(41:46):
some diploma movie to a group of church kids. And
he was gonna put on something some comedy like maybe
Trading Places or something. And his wife was like, um rick,
no boobs, and he was like, right, no boobs. So
what's the intouchable? You know, bloody death in Chicago. He's like,
I gotta put body double back on the shelf. Sorry, honey,
nobody double tonight. Don't blow out? Uh? Number three? Do
(42:09):
you will you walk out of a bad movie? And
if so, can you name one? Like in a theater
or at home? No? No, everyone stops him at home.
But like, have you walked out of a movie in
a theater? No? Like I commit yeah, And I feel
I feel like people who walk out of movies are
actually like they're weak, you know, I want I want
them called from the herd, like you paid your money,
(42:30):
Like what if what if the director really sticks the landing?
You know? What if this turns? And I think there's
something to be learned from bad movies, like it's really
about you know, why didn't you like it? Like what
about you? Did you did you not react to that?
I agree with that. I remember seeing Big Top Pee
Wee as a kid and just being like I love
the first one and this is so bad and almost
wanting to walk out. And I don't. It's not like
I stayed and learned anything. Big Talk People is pretty terrible,
(42:51):
but you're like you're a kid. You're like, where am
I gonna go? Exactly? My mom's not coming back for
forty eight minutes. And I feel like if I can
stick out Big Top Pee Wee, I can stick out
any thing. Yeah. My move used to be too um
And I don't walk out of movies now because so
rarely get to the theater. I'd make sure it's a
really good movie, you know. I don't take a chance
like let me go see Demolition Man, which I walked
(43:13):
out of. Oh you did? Yeah? My move that was
to walk out of that movie and try in time.
It didn't go see something something else. Of course you
pay it twice though, because otherwise that would be dishonest.
That's right. Number four. Can you name a guilty pleasure
movie that you kind of go back to. I don't
think this is a bad movie per se, but um,
(43:34):
like my wife grew up watching a lot of sort
of goofy comedies, like her family loves um seems like
old times the child things. For example, that's not my
guilty Pleasure, and I'm working up to him from my
actually Guilty Pleasure, which is a pretty good movie. Um.
And turned out her family watched um, what's Up, Doc?
Like all the time Barbara sprays end right on't you know?
You know that's sort of screwball Bogdanovitch thing from the seventies.
(43:56):
And my family also watched that a ton and so
we both come from these, you know, families that can
like recite What's Up? Doc. In fact, on my first
date with my now wife, at the end of the date,
she said, uh, let's not say goodbye, Let's say are
of what? And I said, no, let's say goodbye. And
(44:17):
we realized we were doing a bit from the movie,
and we're like, how do you even know? That you
know what's up Dog ninety two and you know, so
that actually really cemented the relationship, like having the same
movie tastes as somebody that's called the meat cute, and
it's a very meat cute, but it comes from a
movie with a meat cute, a meta meat cute. It's
a net cute. That's fantastic. And so yeah, I've we
(44:38):
watched that movie a lot, even though you know it's
not it's not a classic or anything, but it's funny,
all right. Number five finally, Ki Jinning's movie going one
oh one? What what is your movie going ritual at
the theater? Do you try to sit sort of in
the same place? Do you get the same thing at
the concession stand. I'm pretty picky about seats, like you know,
(45:02):
it really has to be dead center, you know, two
thirds of the way back or whatever, like like I
will I will actually go to a different movie if
I can't. If you can't sit somewhere good. And nowadays
that there's reserved seating, often they will be like with
these big recliner type seats. If you've got these here,
like you know that there might be like three seats
in the theater that actually have a good sight line.
You know you gotta get there early. Um. I'm not
(45:24):
a big movie snacker because I find that I just like,
I just eat it all by the time the previews
are over. Like, I'm not good at rationing out my snacks.
There's a theater by us that will do chocolate popcorn
and you so you can do half chocolate popcorn half
salty popcorn, and that's sort of my go to snack.
I'm from a family of sneak snacks into movies. You
grew up like that? Oh yeah, my mom would sneak
(45:46):
in a gallon of pop popcorn somehow. How do you
sneak good popcorn large purses? My brother to this day
will do a thing where he will cough and then
as he coughs, he'll pop open his dr pepper that
he's too. I don't sneak in, so does anymore. But
in like college, when we would sneak in beer and stuff,
I would do that and my friends would just open
(46:08):
it because they didn't care. I'd still had that Southern
Baptist boy. I was like, well, let me at least
cough while they opened my beer. God will not here
if I cough? Yeah, exactly. All right, thanks man, because
a pleasure check. I really appreciate it. Alright, everybody, I
hope you enjoyed that sit down with a great Ken Jennings.
(46:31):
I gotta tell you, Ken, it's just just a great guy.
He's so nice. Uh and he is he is not
at all the nerd that you think he might be,
just because he is super book smart and just because
he destroys all humans on Jeopardy. Uh kids. Actually, very
cool dude, has great taste in music and movies, and uh,
(46:52):
just great fun to hang out with. Very funny guy.
You can check him out at Twitter. He has a
really really funny Twitter feed. Actually it's at Ken Jennings. Hopefully, Ken,
I'll be going on tour with the Omnibus. For the
very least, you should check out the podcast Omnibus with
the wonderful John Roderick and I really just had a
good time and I hope you enjoyed it. This week
(47:12):
on Movie Crush and until next time, I will just
be sitting here with my legs crossed because I hate
having to pete during movies. Movie Crush is produced, edited, engineered,
and scored by Noel Brown from our podcast Studio at
(47:33):
Pond City Market, Atlanta, Georgia.
Movie Crush News
Host
Chuck Bryant
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