Lawrence Tierney cannot win because he is a bad actor rather than an overactor; it has to be Chris Penn, bad for about ninety seconds after he shoots the cop, spit flying and eyes bulging, trying too hard like he is taking a shit, though he is really great overall; Sean Penn or James Woods are imagined in the scene.
Another nominee is the last thirty seconds of Keitel, climbing on Roth almost romantically after their father-son bond; they bet on the Brewers.
Tarantino wanted James Woods and made five cash offers, which Woods' agent refused without telling him because they were below his salary; Woods fired the agent after learning the story, and Tarantino never told him which role; online speculation says Mr. Orange, which the hosts doubt given Woods' age, preferring him as Mr. White.
Tarantino wrote Mr. Pink for himself; Madsen auditioned for Pink, Vincent Gallo turned it down, which is doubted as half-assed research, Tim Roth almost played it, and Tom Sizemore was a finalist, which could have broken brains.
Sizemore's Natural Born Killers character is the brother of Seymour Scagnetti, one of the most messed-up characters in movie history; asked which part he wanted and why, Sizemore told Tarantino 'the action is the juice'; Buscemi originally auditioned for Mr. White.
George Clooney read for Mr. Blonde, which the hosts can see, and later did From Dusk Till Dawn; Christopher Walken refused Mr. Blonde, almost too obvious a choice, perhaps never even replying to the script.
Robert Forster auditioned for Joe Cabot; one host never thought Forster was that great, including in Jackie Brown, and never bought the attraction with Pam Gray (as transcribed), which the others call a crazy, bad take given his Oscar nomination; he would still have been better than Lawrence Tierney.
Tony Scott read both scripts, wanted Reservoir Dogs and was told he could have True Romance; his version would have shown the heist with more cop stuff, a Hans Zimmer score instead of seventies songs, and Gary Oldman as Mr. Blonde with dreadlocks and gold teeth.
Cross-echoes with True Romance: 'a diddle-at-joe' to Drexel's 'damned if I know', and Mr. White saying he used to work with Alabama; the theatrical release has no female speaking parts beyond the woman who shoots Mr. Orange, nor does this podcast.
The N word stuff was controversial even in the nineties and has gotten worse; Tarantino goes for it here and in Pulp Fiction and Jackie Brown, where Spike called him out and Sam Jackson came to his defense.
It is weird that none of the six is Black or Latino, which would play differently now; but the movie is purposefully about bad, racist people, no character stands outside it, and even the cop is implicated when Tim Roth kills the woman in the car after watching Keitel gun down cops.
Tarantino is quoted at the time of release wanting the characters to say very ugly things and profound things, idiots one moment and geniuses the next, guys who did time in San Quentin; it is not palatable now but it is self-conscious.
Buscemi's theory on Black women is a tough two minutes, complicated by Tarantino's obvious adoration of Black culture and the characters' talk of Pam Grier, Honey West and the E. Lois story; in general these guys are idiot crooks.
Lawrence Tierney as Joe is called bad, with disbelief that Keitel could not call in a favor from a good old actor; one host disagrees, and the comparison is Mike Francesa if he could not act; Tierney visibly muffs a line before 'my way or the highway' in a take left in the film.
Tierney's fat Skeletor body brings a presence; a podcast interview is cited saying everyone had a hard time with him because he was distracted and forgot lines, and he was fired after the third day, so he is kept out of the third act until the last scene.
The opening diner scene is the first candidate: the Madonna 'Like a Virgin' theory leads into the tipping argument, and the clip of Mr. Pink refusing to tip because society says he has to is played.
A lot of guys came out of the movie with a new vision of the service industry; one host, who had worked as a busboy and waiter for two summers, was offended by Buscemi's character and says anyone who has worked food service knows you tip.
Mr. White is teased as woke for dropping knowledge that waitressing is the number one job for non-college-educated women; the scene is said to foreshadow the rat, since Mr. Orange snitches on Mr. Pink when Joe demands to know who did not tip.
A low-key favorite detail is the Budweiser bottles at breakfast; Tarantino scenes often happen in the morning with people behaving as if it were night, like the wolf arriving at six in the morning.
It occurs to one host that the crew, dressed in uniform right before the heist, should not be seen together in public; it is called ludicrous and parked for nitpicks, defended as pre-surveillance state, and the waitress they stiffed would remember five guys in black suits smoking like chimneys and drinking Budweisers at nine in the morning; Joe should never be seen with them.
A nerd question asks whether the roving camera around the table, shooting backs and sides of heads, was stolen from someone; Terry Gilliam loved it at Sundance, it is Scorsese-ish, and the handheld over-the-shoulder following of Madsen going for the gas can feels like a flex.
The Copacabana tracking shot in Goodfellas is the comparison, called the greatest tracking shot in movie history; a Goodfellas episode could run four hours and needs a live audience.
The shooting style is read as naturalism, putting the viewer inside the conversation, and the scene characterizes everyone at once: a beef between Blonde and White, jumpy Pink, Orange lying in the cut watching, Nice Guy Eddie showing who runs what, and Eddie Bunker as pop critic preferring the early stuff.
It is one of the hosts' favorite opening scenes; an opening-scene week bracket is floated, half of Tarantino's openings would qualify including Inglourious Bastards (as transcribed), and openings and kickers are what matter most.
Keitel versus Buscemi over the bleeding Tim Roth is the second candidate: a long, escalating, well-acted scene; it is argued as the best Buscemi performance, intense, neurotic and imposing, and the two guns pointed at each other was the first John Woo reference one host caught.
Buscemi rankings: this first, The Sopranos second, Domestic Disturbance third ahead of Fargo and Miller's Crossing; Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead, remembered for 'boat drinks', Amongst Friends and Very Bad Things are recalled as the Tarantino rip-off era.
The ear-cutting scene followed by the unexpected Tim Roth murder is the third candidate; Madsen gets the gleam in his eye once White and Eddie leave, talks to the severed ear, and the cutaway to the graffiti above the door at the perfect moment is why the scene does not gross one host out.
Tarantino, for someone so violent, often does not show things: Marvin's head in Pulp Fiction is quick and the trunk dummy is obvious, though Hitler's body and Jamie Foxx's forty kills in Django are counterexamples; he also had no money and never shows the suitcase, and Mr. Blonde's speech before the torture is recited.
The movie does not get many Fraternal Order of Police screenings; Mr. Orange's unexpected murder of Mr. Blonde is a great twist nobody saw coming the first time.
Tim Roth performing the commode story, from meeting his boss at the diner through the different settings, is a candidate, with the 'panic hits me like a bucket of water' passage recited.
He had never seen anything like it at the time: the color palette shifts to the graffiti background and the movie comes alive, Roth's energy changes completely as he learns to be the character, and it layers Tarantino's recurring themes of story within a story, seeing Freddy instead of Mr. Orange, and the former actor's process of memorizing lines in the apartment with the Silver Surfer poster; the jumps between settings were unlike anything he had seen. — Chris Ryan
Roth gets to flex his chops with some of the most anguished yelling in a movie, but his accent is called very bad even though a dialect coach was on set the whole shoot; is he supposed to be Dutch? A rare bad accent inside a great performance.
Roth delivering the monologue in the bathroom to cops who stand still while the German shepherd watches showed one host that writing could do that.
Buscemi arguing about the name selections is a shorter but iconic scene, with the trade request and Joe's 'city council meeting' refusal recited; the Joe Cabot bit is saved for later.
Chris Penn doubting Mr. Orange's story, and Vic Vega's return from prison with the Scagnetti talk and the wrestling with Chris Penn and Tierney, are thrown in as further candidates.
The final choices split three ways: the commode story; the ear-cutting scene, taken as the whole twenty-five-minute stretch from the Mr. Blonde and Mr. White showdown to learning what a psychopath he is, since the shootings are never shown; and the ending with Chris Penn figuring it out in seven minutes, which displaced the opening diner for one host after twenty years. Three-way shootouts in general are loved and are said to have influenced one host's later work.
