#1292 - Lex Fridman

Hey.

What's going on?

The sequel, part two.

You have a very similar, if not the exact same suit on.

This is all I wear.

You look very professional. Yeah, very. Reservoir dogs.

Reservoir dogs. Well, let's go to the best sequel of all time. Godfather part two.

Is that the best sequel of all time? I think John Wick might be.

Haven't seen John Wick.

Same.

Sick.

How dare you, sir? Godfather, part two. I mean, that has to be the best sequel. Okay, if this is Godfather part two, let's definitely not do part three.

Yeah, part three was terrible, right?

Well, let's not offend anyone, but it.

Was up to as good. Yeah, I don't remember it.

It was the older Pacino with that.

Deeper voice that was like, way later, right?

Yeah.

That was ninety s. Okay, so it's like point break. The remix.

Yes.

Right. When they try to redo things, like way later. They almost never. Except the alien franchise. They've done a pretty fucking good job with the alien franchise. They had a couple of duds in there, but for the most part, I've.

Actually never seen the alien franchise.

What? Who are you? What's wrong with you? Aren't you in a science?

Intelligent men can disagree, but you're not in the science. I don't know. I prefer Al Pacino. I would say that the older sent a woman Al Pacino. You know that?

Really?

Yeah.

What? That's alien.

Come on. Yeah, he got the Oscar for that one.

What about the one when he played the devil? And the devil likes to rant.

Okay, there's two. There's duds for everybody.

What was that one?

Devil's advocate.

There you go.

That was with Keanu Reeves.

Keanu Reeves from John Wick. I heard John Wick, part three is right.

Or the Matrix, the better movie.

Not true.

Did you see this? That happened this high school in North Bergen, Jersey, put on the alien play a couple weeks ago.

And Sigourney Weaver showed up, right?

Oh, she showed up just the other day to say thanks or whatever. Tell them they did awesome, but it looked like crazy. And I was just wondering if they did this when you were in high school, do you think you might have joined drama? Like, if they did the alien play?

No, I would have loved it. Would have watched it.

All right.

I'm not getting into drama. Those people cry too much. There's too much work. It's a cool suit, though.

Yeah. Okay, let's talk about this. There's two kinds of movies. There's fun, movies. And there's movies that are, like, transformational for society get sent to a woman.

What? Okay, listen. Are you going to say scent of a woman is transformational for society?

That's one of the greatest scenes between a man and a woman on film. The tango scene.

Are you not married?

No, I'm not married.

Yeah, it's like someone talking about French who can't speak French.

I see.

Yeah, it's nonsense. That movie sucked.

I read about French in a book. Talking about France without ever being to Paris.

Is scent of a woman your favorite movie?

No, it's not my favorite.

I don't really think that movie sucked either. By the way, if you get mad right now, I barely remember it, but.

It is up there.

I'm sure it's a good movie.

It's one of the greatest performances by any actor ever.

Jesus Christ.

We're off to a good start. Yeah, I bet you there's thousands of people agree with me right now.

Yeah. There's millions that don't.

And they're called haters.

Everyone who disagrees is always a hater.

Okay, so what's your favorite love scene in a movie? Not, like, between.

You need to get married, bro. Okay, you're into love movies and shit.

No, I'm not.

Find yourself a gal. Settle down.

We're not talking about romantic comedies, Adam Sandler here, rom coms. We're talking about serious, like, dramatic moments. Right? Okay, so godfather, good movie. Yeah, great movie.

Great movie.

Does it have to have two guys, like, shooting each other, or, like. Okay, so you ever seen Sentinel woman?

Yeah, I'm sure I saw it. Yeah. But I barely remember it.

All right, well, I could watch it today.

It'd be like a new movie to me.

Okay, there's this broken man. Spoiler alert. Considering suicide. Right? Okay. It's deep. So he is tortured by his involvement in the war, by being irresponsible, all this kind of stuff. He's now mentoring a younger version of himself who has more character, more integrity. And throughout all of this, he meets this beautiful young woman. He's blind. He asks her for the dance, and there's this beautiful moment where they connect. Okay, listen. What's the purpose of film, right? Entertainment or make us think?

Make us think. You're going to think if you want to think. Nothing makes you think. A film can engage you. It can resonate with you or not. I have a movie that I throw by people whenever I want to find out whether or not I want to listen to anything they have to say about movies. The Big Lebowski?

Yeah. That's one of the greatest movies of all time.

Oh, look at you.

Okay, that could be slightly better than sent to a woman.

Oh, boy.

That also has one of the greatest scenes between a man and a woman, when the fine young lady is painting her toenails, right.

And she's offering him sex for money.

Yeah. That's a beautiful moment, too. Yeah, really?

That girl that used to be a hot mess, what's her name?

Tara Reed.

Tara Reed, yeah. Is she still a hot mess or she get her shit together.

She's been like the Sharknado series, is what she's been.

Oh, she's in that?

Yeah, yeah. So I passed the big Lebowski test and you failed the Senta woman test?

Well, I don't remember it.

I gotta wrap this conversation up.

I legitimately don't remember it, okay. I mean, I'm sure it's great. I'm sure it's great. If you're a wise man. If you like it, I'm sure it's good. And you also recognize that godfather three kind of sucks.

Yeah, but I like the old Pacino reminisce. Listen, godfather is about your people. The italian people have dominated the brilliant mob movies, right? I mean, godfather is about family, right? There's something deeply genuine about that in our modern society, we really crave for. So it's, like, bigger than the individual, bigger than the rules of society, the government, the man. It's family above all, right? I don't know. That's timeless.

I agree with that.

The moment with the young Pacino when he talks to what his brother Fredo says. Don't ever take sides against the family again, ever. That's one of the greatest moments.

That's a great.

I'm romanticizing movies here.

You didn't like John Wick, though.

Never seen it.

Whoa.

Never seen it.

It's a good movie to watch on the treadmill.

Is he playing a russian mobster in that?

No, he kills a bunch of them, though, and he speaks Russian. He works for the Russians. Kills people for the know.

Keanu Reeves is one of the greatest human beings ever.

You think so?

Yeah, he's, like, the nicest guy.

I heard he's a really nice guy, but he plays a badass gangster. Oh. I'm going to be a little bit more fit, work out a little bit more. I'd see him without a shirt on. You're, like, not quite buying it, but that's okay.

Average man.

Yeah, but the average man's not the fucking best assassin. Of all time with all this martial arts skill.

Fedor.

Yeah, but Fedor's big. Fedor might have like a gut, but he's a thick motherfucker, okay? Especially the young fador. You ever see young Fedor when he was in his prime? Like back when he fought? Like back when there's a picture of Fedor standing around with a bunch of ketlebells? You ever see that picture?

Nope.

That was Fador in his lifting days, I suspect. And this is coming. That's one when Fador was fairly young up there. But that's not the one I'm talking about. You know that one with the Kettlebells? Is that picture up? See if you find that picture.

Never a six pack in sight.

No no six pack. But I suspect that Fador might have been on some performance enhancing substances during his prime.

You mean like hard training, lots of drilling technique? Sort of steroids. How dare you, sir?

Dude, he was in pride. Everybody was on steroids. Yeah, that's him. Look at him. That's him in his prime. That's a big motherfucker. Now I do not know if he was on anything, but everybody else was. I mean literally everybody. They had it in their contract that we will not test for steroids. Ensign Inue told me that they essentially encouraged people to take steroids.

Yeah, the pride days. That's right.

And it's not like Russians don't have a long history of using performance enhancing substances. I'm sure you saw that movie Icarus. Did you see it?

Yeah.

Fascinating, right?

It's fascinating. Steroids often feel to me like a bit of a witch hunt. Oftentimes you assume people are on steroids. Maybe I'm naive or an optimist, but I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt until proven otherwise. But Icarus obviously proves that.

Kind of throws a monkey wrench of those gears.

But with Vador, the technique on that, the technique, the execution, the timing, the brilliance of his movement, no doubt the heart.

No, he's phenomenal, if not the greatest heavyweight of all time. He's certainly one of them.

And I don't think steroids would help that guy.

Yes, they do. They help.

Okay? Yeah, they help that guy in particular.

Yeah, they help everything. They help your training. They help your ability to recover. They help your explosive power. They help your speed. They help everything. But it's not just steroids. Like a lot of them are on EPO.