What’s Aged the Best?
Dialogue; Tangerine Dream; Frank's collage; "I want a boy" exchange; film debuts; 1980 Caan and John Belushi in Chicago; Belushi's sideburns; Tuesday Weld; Mann's nihilistic ending
In the discussion (12)
Approx. transcript time · 00:47:10Read transcript
- The dialogue: Mamet-influenced; per a Belushi video interview, Mann insisted the characters never speak in contractions because they are so precise; it never dumbs down the Chicago underworld lingo for criminals or cops, including the beating speech. — Chris Ryan
- Tangerine Dream, fresh off Sorcerer and before Risky Business; with Vangelis and Faltermeyer they were the cool music of the early 80s.
- Frank's collage of children, a car and a house he doesn't have, his jailed mentor Willie Nelson and 12 skulls; jokes about a personal collage of Sean that is now an NFT, and Mann inventing Pinterest.
- Caan saying "I want a boy" and Prosky answering "Done"; the second meeting in the bar is a favorite conversation ("Wham-Bam Magic Sam").
- The film debuts of Jim Belushi, William Petersen, Dennis Farina, John Kapelos and Prosky; Farina was a Chicago policeman during filming, and Belushi was inspired casting.
- A participant saw it in a Boston theater in 1981 at 11 or 12 with his dad and was puzzled by Jim Belushi, who looked like John Belushi, then still alive.
- John Belushi visited the set, and the cast and crew hung out free all night at his Blues Brothers bar in Chicago; 1980 Caan and Belushi together must have produced stories.
- Belushi's sideburns were fantastic.
- Tuesday Weld: Wesley approved the take that Jessica Lange market-corrected her; she is terrific and perfect here, an Oscar nominee famous from Dobie Gillis who hasn't acted in 20 years, and, with a weak Best Supporting Actress category that year, could probably have nailed that down.
- These films shortchange wife and girlfriend roles, but this one gives her a big scene to come off the bench and score 22.
- Mann on the final decision, from the Ringer piece: having something makes Frank vulnerable, so the nihilistic act of destroying it returns his power.
- A joke about deleting the feed after the last Mann movie, with Heat as the 500th episode alongside Tom Sizemore.