Rewatchables Reference

• The second scene between Cage and Mrs. Matthews (Amy Morton) – she's dressed up, making dinner, and he asks whether she'd rather imagine her daughter alive or know the worst truth.
• Joaquin Phoenix's intro at the porn shop reading 'Anal Secretary' (actually Truman Capote), offering 'Can I interest you in a battery operated vagina?'
• The Meatpacking District showdown with the crossbow, particularly when Dino Velvet reveals he knew Cage wasn't legit.

• Machine as a villain – the reveal that there's no disfigurement, no tragic backstory, just 'I did it because I liked it.'
• The conspiracy-with-no-conspiracy theme.
• Van Lathan: the overall desperation of the movie – 'everyone feels desperate in the movie, and that seems like it's aged fucking pretty well.'
• Anthony Heald as the scumbag lawyer.

• Every Catherine Keener scene / the wife-and-baby subplot.
• The entire concept of physical porn shops and the seedy underground – in the internet age, 'this movie makes so much less sense in 2020.'
• The decision to kill Max California.
• The first 8 minutes of the movie are completely unnecessary.

• David Fincher was initially approached to direct.
• Russell Crowe was originally the lead before Cage.
• Mark Wahlberg reportedly turned down Max California – would have been odd 2.5 years after 'Boogie Nights'.
• Mel Gibson was reportedly offered the lead. William Friedkin and Paul Verhoeven were mentioned as potential directors.

• Nicolas Cage during the scene where he tortures Gandolfini and makes the phone call to Mrs. Matthews – 'he dials it up to 17 out of 10.'
• Peter Stormare as Dino Velvet – 'never does a single normal line reading,' including his death scene: 'I thought I would die in a much more cinematic way than this.'

James Gandolfini – all three hosts agree. 'This is a part that in the wrong hands with the wrong actor, it just is not going to have the same impact and he really does it amazingly.'

• The tall blonde guy in the S&M outfit at the seedy shop – same actor is Adam Sandler's doctor in Funny People.
• Norman Reedus – roughly 12 years before The Walking Dead.
• Anthony Heald (Dr. Chilton from Silence of the Lambs).
• Amy Morton as Mrs. Matthews.

• Bill: 'I would recast the part with Nick Cage's wife and not have her in the movie. I would replace her with nothing.'
• Chris Ryan suggests a role-swap remake: Phoenix plays the detective and Cage plays the washed-up guy working at the adult bookstore.

• Eddie Poole drives a Stutz Blackhawk, a prestigious 70s-80s car that Elvis and Sinatra owned – 'kind of way too expensive for what a scumbag this guy was.'
• Bill read Andrew Kevin Walker's original script online. The main difference: extensive child pornography subplot and much darker underground scenes, all cut by the studio.

• Snuff film movies – yes, they couldn't come up with a better Hollywood treatment of a snuff film plot.
• Seedy porn shops (cinematically) – probably yes.
• Fake seedy LA red-light district – yes.

• Catherine Keener's entire subplot is unnecessary.
• The lawyer never undermines Cage or burns the film when he opens the safe.
• Cage's 1999 digital imagery technology is impossibly advanced for the era.
• Cage is a terrible PI who never disguises himself when going undercover.
• The score by Mychael Danna has a 'vaguely Middle Eastern tinge' that doesn't fit.

Bill: 'Yes please. Let's do the 2020 version of this now.' Chris Ryan wants a Dino Velvet prequel. Van Lathan wants a storyline of an LAPD vice officer going after Dino Velvet.

Joaquin Phoenix – 'far and away the best part of the movie.' 1B: Machine.

• After Cage kills Machine in the cemetery, what happens next? Is there an investigation?
• Did he have to answer for any of the killings?