The Last Detail & Last Flag Flying Double Feature

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[00:00:40] You're the hot joe.

[00:01:58] But this is not the time to argue about it, because if I don't win, we don't leave New York, eh? I think we're going to a party. Yeah? This could be the big one, huh, Meadows? All we gotta do is get rid of that silly-looking creep there, and we got these three chicks all to ourselves. Doing a man's job.

[00:02:30] It's like a big penguin, don't you? What do they do in this man's navy? Everything they can.

[00:03:01] You know what amazes me about you? Well, it could be anything. I'm a pretty amazing guy. You turn the keys to your bar over to the guy who's asleep on your pool table, and then you jump in your car, and you drive me to hell and gone, and you don't even know where we're going. Ask the question, am I willing to surrender to God? What the hell happened to Mueller the mauler? First-class drinker? Gambler? I see we have some visitors amongst us here today.

[00:03:29] We were in the service together with your pastor. I haven't seen these men in decades. They represent a dark period in my life. That went down awfully quick. Drinking for two now, you got old and boring. Because of my son, I came here, found you guys. A year ago we joined the Corps, and then two days ago they told me that he'd been killed. He's gonna be buried in Arlington, and I was wondering if you guys could come with me. Yeah, I've come to you and searched your son.

[00:03:59] He sent him off to a godforsaken desert. Why? I'm taking Larry home. With all due respect, sir, he deserves to lie at Arlington. You're gonna take Doc back and try to make it fun? You're cutting off your nose to spite your face. Did you look at these faces? They've already been spited. I thought we were going to a funeral. We are going to a funeral. Just looks like it's gonna take a little longer to get there. What you gonna do, strap the coffin to the roof of your car? We could do that. The thing that made Larry different from the rest of us, he had a happy childhood.

[00:04:29] He said that? Yes, sir. If there's one minute that's not too terrible, I'd like to try to enjoy it. His holiness can hardly walk, let alone handle a big rig with a hydraulic lift. This is a rental with an automatic transmission. You guys ready for an adventure? Let's go. Urine, I love it. It's like the official scent of the city. Things are coming to your head and out of your mouth.

[00:04:59] You worry too much. That's why your hair went so gray. Could you resist a man in this uniform? I don't think I could. You're there for your brothers. That's all that really matters. Get out of the way. Okay, you wanna play? Let's play. Hey, move! You trying to get me killed? I will bury you!

[00:05:29] We loaded it. We edited it. Sometimes we get so deep into conversation that we have separate segments worthy of their own place in the sun. The reshuffled mini-episode.

[00:05:51] Welcome, all. We're here to wrap up the week of Jack Nicholson June. That's right. It's got an interesting flow to it, but it was slick.

[00:06:17] We gotta cover something in June with some celeb whose name either starts or ends with a J. And that was who we picked. It's been fun. You know, we pretty much had an excuse to talk about his collaboration with Aaron Sorkin and how that changed his resume. We then went even further. It's like, hey, let's talk about The Shining and its loose sequel, Dr. Sleep.

[00:06:42] Let's talk about the Chinatown movies, because that's as close as we get to a franchise that also stars Jack. You know, and we've already covered him in the past before, but it's like, yeah. And then it gave us an excuse to split up that chat and talk about his collaborations with Sean Penn on The Pledge and The Crossing Guard, as well as Penn's earlier movie, The Indian Runner, because that's always been cited as kind of an unofficial X-Con themed trilogy. So yeah, here we are at the last detail.

[00:07:13] Again, I've known about this movie since college. I've always wanted to see it. It rarely comes on TV. It might once in a blue moon come on after midnight on Turner Classic Movies or something. It's one of those, it's not blunt or straight up graphic, but it's just emotional language. And so, yeah, don't watch unless you're a mature individual. But I've always wanted to see this because I am a huge Robert Towne fan. Rest in peace.

[00:07:42] The man truly is very, very fascinating to read about, know about. And, you know, again, much like Nicholson, he used to be, you know, a Roger Corman vet and then, you know, wrote a bunch of Tom Cruise's hit movies, you know, like The Firm, Days of Thunder, Mission Impossible, one and two.

[00:08:04] I was always mixed on other stuff like Personal Best, but, you know, Tequila Sunrise and his Chinatown movies. Absolute just masterpieces. We're going to vary on a sequel to Chinatown, but it's still interesting how this man, you know, started off doing syndicated TV shows, then some other just westerns that he basically.

[00:08:31] He basically helps out Paramount producer Robert Evans for a while. And, you know, I personally think he needs more love because, you know, he worked this man worked on the Parallax View and rewrote speeches. You know, for the Godfather and Armageddon. And so it was like then works with Paul Schrader on the Yakuza.

[00:08:51] And, you know, a few years after this, he does work with Nicholson again on the Missouri Braggs as well as other movies like the Like It or Hate It, Heaven Can Wait. As well as the infamous Orca.

[00:09:06] But, yeah, I mean, even when a movie just flops, you know, it's like he's so close to so many different things and he's even rewritten other stuff like Frantic and 8 Million Ways to Die. He's a crime thriller master full genre guy. I did not like his final movie, which he also directed called Ask the Dust.

[00:09:33] That was just a very, very, very, very just lesser convoluted romance. It just felt like an old man's fantasy. And he's even been a consulting producer on Mad Men and he was gonna work with David Fincher on a new Chinatown prequel for Netflix. But unfortunately, he will not live to see it, which is a shame. But.

[00:10:03] Yeah, no, I have no poodles about him. I think he fucking rocks. He's so masterful at just making epic movies as well as just his dialogue. It sticks. And it's a shame that because he got in the business of being the script doctor, the uncredited rewriter they hire, he so often just would be like, oh, you know, don't give me credit. It's like, well, kind of have to.

[00:10:34] You're fucking awesome. You many of your uncredited revisions are making the final cut. So. He's done all kinds of stuff. He's even had all kinds of other made for TV movies that have been rejected. Other unmade stuff. He was going to make another project with Coppola called The Brotherhood of the Grape, as well as a few other Warren Beatty and Cindy Pollack projects.

[00:10:58] He was going to originally adapt The Night Manager and remake the 39 Steps, even did a rejected script for Beverly Hills Scott Free. That would have arguably been way better. So, yeah, no, I got nothing but love for the man. I still love him to this day and sorry to go on a tangent. But so, yeah, even though Hal Ashby is part of the new wave of filmmakers that follow in the wake of Coppola and Sidney LeMay and what have you, I.

[00:11:26] It's a Hal Ashby film, but it's more of a Robert Towne film. Like the dialogue is all his just such raw energy. So in this 1973 film, we follow two Navy petty officers. Badowski, played by the lovely Jack Nicholson, and Mahal, played by Otis Young. Some background on Otis Young. You know, so he was the second African-American to star in a TV Western.

[00:11:55] The first would have been Raymond St. Jack's on Rawhide, and he was on The Outcast with Don Murray. So I've seen plenty of his other just slashers and horror movies. He came from the neighborhood playhouse and appeared on Broadway. I've seen his work on Counterpoint, The Clones, The Capture of Bigfoot and Blood Beach, to name a few. So he's a B-movie guy, unfortunately. There's nothing wrong with B-movie guy.

[00:12:24] It's just he clearly had so much more talent than he was given a chance to. So it's been another TV show. I've definitely seen his Hill Street Blues guest appearance. He was on The Walking Tall show, as well as Palmerstown, USA, and other stuff like Columbo and Cannon and McCloud. So go to recurring TV guy of the week. I would argue this is his best known movie. Just like there's no N and S or buts about it. Maybe Hollywood Nights, but come on.

[00:12:54] He's the second build person in this. And yeah, he's he's even became a professor years later at the Monroe Community College. And I think he's so dynamite here because he just had much like Nicholson. He has that raw energy, has that whole I don't want to I don't know what I want to do after this life, you know, after I get done with the Navy.

[00:13:20] But it's a good self-loathing kind of damn if you do, damn if you don't. Because these two Navy petty officers that they're portraying are asked to escort the young, naive seaman Meadows played by Randy Quaid. Years before he went off his rockers. He's a good actor here. Understand? Yeah.

[00:13:49] Where you from, Mulhall? Buggaloosa. Where's that? Above New Orleans. Hot down there, ain't it? Yeah. Listen, man. Call me Mule. Everybody else does. Mule. Okay? Sure.

[00:14:20] Mule? Yes, sir. I always used to have trouble with my name, too. But Dusky. Always wanted to call me badass. Badass. And so, yeah, they're escorting him from Virginia to Portsmouth, New Hampshire Naval Prison.

[00:14:46] And they're going to have Meadows serve an eight-year sentence for petty theft. He allegedly stole $40 million from a high-ranking officer's wife. So, that's why they got the harsh sentence. So, they indulge him. The trio stops in Washington, D.C., in New York, indulging in bars. They then have him take a visit to a brothel they know about, which a young Carol Kane, years before her Rob Ryder collaborations.

[00:15:16] You know, she's always a good actress. She's done a lot more serious work than people give her credit for. And they show the character in a positive light. No sex. They just show the aftermath. Everyone's having a smoke in bed. They also show Meadows to a restaurant. A life he never had. They're like, hey, you're going away. And we hate this assignment. But we can't say no. It's orders are orders. But along the way, we'll get a little lost. So, Meadows has personal growth. And the trip is bittersweet.

[00:15:46] As caretakers know, his fate is sealed. Meadows does attempt to run away at one point, leading to a physical altercation where our guys, Podusky and Mohal, chase and restrain him, making a turning point in his emotional state. They deliver the devastated Meadows to the prison. And upon arrival, a Marine officer harasses him about bruises on Meadows caused during the chase. But they ultimately successfully complete their assignment.

[00:16:13] And, yeah, it just shows there's very little hope around the tunnel. They just don't feel like they're going to be in much of an existence. So, they're having to just really question themselves. That's why people gravitate towards this. I love when they are dropping Meadows off and they go to a young Michael Moriarty.

[00:16:35] You know, years before Pell Rider, TV shows like Holocaust and Law and Order, as well as, you know, the Shiloh movies, Who Will Stop the Rain, Courage Under Fire, and Larry Cohen Productions. And it's like, I love his lines. Like, you're asking for trouble, sailor. It's like, they're, it's like, basically, they're escorting, you know, the young sailor.

[00:17:04] And, uh, Podoski and Mahal are just demanding to see the XO. They're just trying to defy the strict authority, briefly. And, and I like how they, you know, refer to this whole assignment, the whole movie, as a shit detail. And, and again, just, you, you're won over by the emotion.

[00:17:34] And you, you just never want to do anything else. Like, it's slow, but it's, it's perfect. It is how to make a movie, how to make a rewarding drama. And even Nicholson fans only know him from his later stuff. Watch this damn movie. Like, you've seen him get emotional in other stuff, like about Schmidt and, you know, as good as it gets. But this is a whole, whole other story.

[00:17:59] And other bit parts here for Gilda Radner, Nancy Allen, Clifton James. But I love how the guys, you know, have nicknames, you know. Podoski's known as badass, while Mahal is known as mule. They pretty much refer to each other only by those nicknames. And having come in from a military family, you know, I just, I think I react to it even more. Because I just kind of know the different call signs. I understand the culture.

[00:18:29] So wild when I look at some of the trivia here. How Robert Town was asked to tone down language and he refused. So the project remained in limbo until Nicholson, who was then bankable, got involved. I'm like, that is garbage. I would not have liked it under Robert Altman. Jerry Ayers remembers. I thought this was a picture that required a skewered perspective. And that's what Hal had when hiring Hal.

[00:18:56] And again, remember, this is the same guy who's done stuff like Harold Ahmaud. His best movie is easily being there. That is a wonderful Peter Sellers performance. But it's so wild, the other people who auditioned for this. John Trafalto, Robert Englund, Rupert Cross. But yeah, they were even thinking of Burt Reynolds and David Cassidy and Jim Brown and a new writer.

[00:19:25] But yeah, this producer stood by his grounds and was like, nope, I know exactly who I want.

[00:19:33] And he said, I'm going to tell you what you better do, Mr. Citizen Bartender. You take your beers and ram them up your ass sideways. Can you dig it?

[00:20:03] Whoa there, sunshine. We're going so you can take your hand off that horse cock you got stashed under the bar. How do you know I don't have something with a little more bark to it? Ho, ho, ho. This redneck is talking about firearms. Well, I know that you ain't got nothing but wood under there, my man, because I happen to be in here one night when a certain sailor got it laid up the side of his fucking head. What do you think about that, redneck?

[00:20:32] Plus it loses license for sure if I serve that. I'm going to kick your ass around the block for drill, man. You try it and I'll call the shore patrol. Shore patrol, motherfucker. I am the motherfucking shore patrol. Give this man a beer. I don't want a beer anymore. You're going to have a fucking... I like one right now. Come on, man. Come on. Come on.

[00:21:41] And they shouted at the CFD Borden, a major training base in Ontario, so that's how they got around a lot of this stuff. And the costumes look fine, I think, but I'm sure. I don't know. There's plenty of other just blunt stuff in this. And Michael Chapman's cinematography is wonderful. Many will know his camera work for movies like Raging Bull and The Fugitive. And again, it just...

[00:22:11] He's already been a camera operator for Jaws and The Godfather, but... Yeah, I mean, he's on fire by this point. You know, working with Scorsese and Philip Kaufman and Ivan Reitman. You're just like, yeah, that man's had a good life. And you really, truly do. Just... It gets you in the moment. And I did not know prior to doing this, but... You know, hence why this is on the show.

[00:22:40] And we came up with this whole themed week. I was like, yeah, if you think about it. The author adapted his... The sequel, which is Last Flag Flying. And I'm like, oh, that's right. So, Daryl Puniskan has done all kinds of stuff. He's adapted some of his work, like Random Hearts.

[00:23:08] He's done similar movies involving Navy guys, like... And military, like Cinderella Liberty. Taps. Written for medical stuff and other crime movies, like Vision Quest. The Boost. The Legendary Life of Ernest Hemingway. And my personal favorite, School Tizen. The Enemy Within, which is a HBO TV movie. It's pretty good. So, I like this cast.

[00:23:35] It's not as dynamic, but it's cool seeing Richard Linklater stretch himself here. He also co-writes. But Dynamite cast. You know, obviously it's a big all-star cast already. Yole Vasquez. Graham Wolfe. Kate Easton. Cecily Tyson. But that matters not, because let's look at the main three leads. Steve Carell in Drama Duty as Doc. Lawrence Fishburne as Reverend Mueller.

[00:24:02] You know, so this is a fun return to form to see him do, you know, a military role. Much like what he did with Coppola in Gardens of Stone and Apocalypse Now. And the one and only Bryan Cranston. You know, obviously immortalized for TV viewers. There's, you know, Malcolm in the Middle and Breaking Bad. But it's like, yeah, at this point he was already an award-winning darling. And so, it was so cool seeing them all play against each other.

[00:24:31] Carell is playing it so straight. It's scary, you know, with that mustache and all. And so, let's go into it. 30 years after they served together in Vietnam, a former Navy corpsman, Doc, reunites with his old buddies, former Marines Sal Needan and Reverend Mueller, to bury his son, a young Marine killed in the Iraq War. And yeah, Bryan Cranston, he is always just, he is talking inappropriately during sermons and everything and getting very feisty.

[00:25:01] He's basically the Nicholson equivalent. It's so fun seeing Fishburne have some feistiness and then tell everyone, hey, quiet town. We're going to make trouble in this bar as they're going town to town. Because, you know, when people get emotional and they're off their, they're not off their rockers per se, but they're just, you know, they're facing emotion that they usually don't allow themselves to face with that stoicness.

[00:25:29] And so, yeah, I don't like this as much as the last detail. And I didn't see them in order, mind you. But both are very well worth seeing. Do I think it's Linklater's best? No. He's done some way better comedies.

[00:25:54] But, yeah, even then, like, this is kind of more of what I would say a mercenary job. He was just trying to do something atypical and different. So it's not so much a Linkletter movie. I would never remember, oh, this is by Linkletter because it doesn't really have his signature style. But it is a great acting course. I usually don't like movies that, you know, rely on actors. But this is an exception because it takes a stage play kind of concept.

[00:26:23] So I'm like, okay, that's fine. You know, as long as you're not trying to do Oscar bait type stuff and, you know, don't have a premise. But, yeah, Correll's fine. Fishburne, excellent as always. And Cranston steals every scene. It was like, there's a reason this man around the same time had already played Lyndon B. Johnson on an HBO-aclaimed TV movie. It's like, yeah.

[00:26:50] All these guys just have the right rhythm, the right chemistry to play whatever the script demands of them. And do the homework, do the research before characterizing these personas. But, yeah, they both stand out pretty well. And they're only here because they're both based on novels by the same author and kind of a loose sequel. But it's basically a similar theme. And that's why they appeal. Because it's like, yeah.

[00:27:17] It's like, what else are you going to do besides betray just the daunting task? You know, it's like movie one was about we got to get one of our fellow ship hands. And we got to make them just basically just surrender.

[00:27:46] And you don't want to ever tell a sailor you got to surrender. And it's like, well, got no choice because you disobeyed orders and you did some petty theft. You know, 40 million. That's a bunch. Bunch. So, overall, I mean, Masterclass would definitely be the last detail. But script-wise aside, Last Flight Flying is kind of more emotional.

[00:28:13] So it's like they both have their own special oyster. They both have their special sauce that's well-prepped and everything nice. So, yeah. I mean, two different movies related only in that, again, they're a similar concept. And the music you're hearing throughout this episode was by Johnny Mandel.

[00:28:38] I like how it's kind of a comedic take on, without making it campy, of the military type, you know, marching themes. And I think, again, they're both interesting in that they're both road trip movies also. So it's like, yeah. I mean, if anything, definitely look at how you can make something like this very relatable, very compelling.

[00:29:06] Because, again, that is not easy to do. These easily could have been very uninteresting movies. And fortunately, they're not. They're both very fascinating. Fascinating. So, yeah. If you got any relatives who observed, they'll definitely relate to this. And you might even get closer to them as a result. So I can't stress it enough, guys. Seek them both out. Especially if you're a completist of the actors. You won't let yourself be let down at all in any way, shape, or form.

[00:29:36] And so, Sully is... I've been here talking to you, but I'm out. We have completed Jack Nicholson June. So, come back next week for another all-new theme. Till then, thank you for listening. I really do appreciate it. I implore you to leave some reviews or interact with us on Instagram and Twitter. On JackDuckReviewShow. Please, let us know what we're doing.

[00:30:04] If you want to make a recommendation, we'll take it. We might even bring you on to the show. We don't require a Patreon. Come have some fun with us. We'll return after these messages. Hi, folks. How's that here? We've got a 90-minute weekly shack stop. It's growing all over the world. Find it at 2 p.m. and 10 p.m. Eastern Time on Mondays. Then 3 p.m. on Wednesdays.

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