Today we dive into Dallas Buyers Club, a film that took nearly 20 years to get made, changed the trajectory of Matthew McConaughey’s career, and gave Jared Leto one of the most transformative roles of his life.

Joining us is Dr. Ben—orthopedic surgeon by day, comedian by night, and now a regular at Zanies Nashville. He brings both medical perspective and sharp comedic timing to the table, making this one of our most unique breakdowns yet.

We cover the brutal realities of AIDS in the 1980s, the insane lengths McConaughey and Leto went to transform their bodies, how the film almost fell apart days before production, and why director Jean-Marc Vallée’s handheld style made the movie feel more like a documentary than a drama. Plus, we get into the McConaissance, Hollywood’s obsession with body transformations, and whether True Detective or Dallas Buyers Club was McConaughey’s best performance.

⏱️ Chapter Time Markers

• 00:00 – Welcome & intro to Dr. Ben (surgeon + comedian)
• 05:40 – The 20-year battle to get Dallas Buyers Club made
• 07:30 – McConaughey’s career pivot & the birth of the McConaissance
• 09:00 – Losing funding mid-shoot & how they saved the fil
• 11:00 – Jared Leto’s Rayon & breaking barriers for trans representation
• 13:20 – Jean-Marc Vallée’s documentary-style realism
• 14:50 – Extreme body transformations: McConaughey vs. Leto
• 17:40 – Christian Bale comparisons & medical risks of yo-yo acting
• 22:00 – The McConaughey debate: True Detective vs. Dallas Buyers Club
• 25:30 – Early McConaughey roles (Angels in the Outfield, Texas Chainsaw Massacre)
• 28:00 – Legacy of the film & its Oscar wins

🔑 Show Notes & Takeaways

• Dallas Buyers Club was rejected over 100 times before finally being made on a shoestring $5M budget. It went on to gross $55M and win 3 Oscars.
• McConaughey lost nearly 60 pounds and Leto about 40 pounds, pushing their bodies to dangerous extremes for authenticity.
• Jared Leto’s role as Rayon broke ground for serious representation of trans characters in film, shifting away from decades of ridicule or parody.
• Director Jean-Marc Vallée shot with natural light and handheld cameras, giving the film its raw, documentary feel.
• The “McConaissance” began here—McConaughey turned down $20M+ rom-com offers to reinvent himself as a serious actor.
• The makeup team famously pulled off their Oscar-winning work with a $250 budget

Foreign.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the Movie wars podcast. I'm Kyle.

I'm Seth. And we got a. We got a new guest today. We got Dr. Ben over here. Say hello.

Howdy, folks.

Dr. Ben here, not only one of our best up and coming comedians here in Nashville, but an orthopedic surgeon. Correct.

Actual doctor.

Orthopedic surgeon. I specialize. And knees and shoulders. Broken bones. So.

Wow.

Have yet to break a bone. Yeah, we'll knock on wood for that one.

But, yeah, maybe you can help me with my Osgood slaughters.

There you go.

It's a big problem. I believe it. The doctor said it was the biggest he'd ever seen for a non athlete.

Oh, wow.

Yeah. So that's a compliment. I'll take it.

Yeah, we know you're definitely not doing football.

Yeah.

Size always matters. Of your patella. Well, we have an amazing show today, and just I want to remind everybody what the format of the show is.

We're going to do a little history of the movie here today.

We're going to.

We're going to go into randos, which are the most interesting things we uncovered during our research.

And then we're going to do the questions, which are funny or serious questions used to generate comedic or, you know, thoughtful discussion around the movies. And then we're going to close out with going back to our war theme. The war zone, which is.

We used to have the war card, is kind of this long standalone thing. Now we're going to do rapid fire.

Yeah.

Seth's going to go through his scorecard, Ben's going to go through his, and I'll go through mine.

And one thing to note, if maybe you came in here and you had maybe a different thought about the cast, but something someone else said shifted your perception, please talk about it, because that happens on this podcast all the time. Kind of working with the format here, tweaking things here. And you get to be a part of the first one.

Yes.

And let us know what you think. If you have things you want to hear from us. If you have things you don't want to hear from us.

I mean, other than just telling us to shut up, because we get that a lot.

And then I'm fat.

Yeah, yeah, there's that, too. But, yeah, we want to hear from you guys.

And. And that my kneecaps are too big.

But we knew that.

Yeah, we'll take a look after the show.

And we're so stoked to have you, because not only are we doing. We're doing movies. We're doing medical movies today we got Dallas Buyers Club. And after this, we're going to do FL Flatliners.

Tell us about the world of being a comedian and a orthopedic surgeon. What is that like? How did that even happen? And how's that going for you today?

Okay, thank you. Thanks for having me on the show, gentlemen.

Absolutely.

I would like to preface, as far as my medical knowledge, I am orthopedic surgeon. As we mentioned, I'm more of a glorified carpenter.

So don't come see me if you're having chest pain or trouble breathing or nausea, heartburn, indigestion, upset stomach, diarrhea. I'm closer to Bob the Builder on the job spectrum than House MD.

Oh, that's awesome.

All the side effects you just mention of medication, right?

Yeah.

But it came about. I was just going around telling dad jokes at the hospital.

An anesthesiologist had told me a dad joke and he said, you, next patient wants to do his own anesthesia. So I told him, go ahead, knock yourself out.

Oh, yeah.

And I thought that was hilarious. And I got a lot of mileage out of that joke. I'm like, ooh, this is kind of fun making people laugh.

So then I'm like, well, I gotta get new material if I'm gonna keep doing this.

And so I was just going around telling one liner dad jokes, and next thing you know, they're asking me to do stand up comedy at the medical staff meeting at the hospital where the doctors get together and.

Yeah.

And then. And then I'm doing employee awards banquets and other medical staff meetings at other hospitals.

And someone convinced me to do an open mic at the East Room and I sent that to Third coast where I did a couple shows and I sent that to Zany's and so.

And now you're Zany's regular man for.

Dr. Ben and Friends.

Yeah.

That's amazing. Got his own show at Zany's and that happened very quickly.

Right. This is probably since October. Less than a year. I've done seven shows.

Yeah.

I went from not having heard of Ben to this guy at Zany's all the time. And. And it doesn't h. Just for your knowledge, it doesn't happen like that all the time. You're very funny, very gifted.

And he also has a full time job as a. I have a full time job, but I'm in tech. You're a freaking. You have people's lives in your hand. You have people's ash. Good slaughters in your hand.

It was funny. I was at an emergency room promoting one of my shows and I just.

Imagine, hey, when we get your hand back on, please.

Well, the knee. Deep in someone's knee and you're just like, by the way, by the way, if you like this, you should, if.

You ever walk again, walk to my show.

Exactly. They're dragging a leg. Yeah, he sure is funny. But a nurse said, you're not Dr. Ben. He's famous.

So I had to explain the whole Clark Kent Superman thing.

Like, yeah, oh, that's.

I'm Dr. Ben, but I'm also a.

Yeah, but you're also Dr. Ben.

Right.

Tell us one thing. So that's interesting. Kind of going off your comment about like you were telling jokes and they. And the doctors enjoyed those jokes.

What's one thing maybe we would be really shocked by about behind the Scenes with doctors? Are they overall good sense of humor or like, what. What would be shocking about the medical profession?

Well, it's. That's a good question. It's. Some of.

It's like what you see the dramas and there's just a wide variety probably like in any line of work of personalities. So there are some that have a good sense of humor and others that do not and kind of the. Some egomaniacs.

That's probably not a surprise to you, but no. So. But my philosophy is laughter is the best medicine, unless you're treating bowel or bladder incontinence.

Yeah, I don't like to use laughter in those patients, but that's probably the worst medicine.

Yeah.

Nothing funny about that.

Yeah.

Clean up and.

Yeah, yeah.

And my, my favorite Seinfeld, one of my top five episodes all time. When they, when Kramer accidentally drops the Junior Mint into the surgical patient and it staves off the infection, that saves the guy's life.

Yes.

That was a great.

One of the best. Well, your knowledge is going to come into. Into really great way into this.

We're talking about Dallas Buyers Club, and I haven't been this excited a long time. I mean, I'm always excited to do Movie wars, but sometimes we cover a movie I'm passionate about.

Yeah.

Since this is a historical drama, like, this is about a guy who existed and situations that were actually happening. I'm very excited to get your perspective on this because I, I have my own just artistic opinions about how much I love this movie.

But yeah, it's going to be very interesting to get kind of the. The history side of it from you. So I'm excited.

And this is a movie where a lot of people point to and say, this is when what they call the quote, unquote, McCain began.

Yeah.

Dallas Buyers Club. It was a passion project for nearly 20 years, from the time it was written till the time it was made. It was passed around.

It was rejected over 100 times. Screenwriter Craig Borton, his. His girlfriend gave him an article in Rolling Rolling Stone called Staying Alive.

And it was about how the media was lying or giving a lot of misinformation about the AIDS pandemic. And I don't. Based on my research, it wasn't necessarily that they were giving misinformation. It's just that it was a very fear driven time.

There wasn't a lot of knowledge. And so the way the media was grappling with it was creating a lot of fear. And the medical industry was grappling with it.

So there was a lot of fear about it. But he thought this article was interesting. It was about Ron Woodruff.

And so he actually got a hold of Ron Woodruff and spent three days straight with him, picking his brain and finding out.

So this was like back in the 90s.

Oh, wow. Okay.

Yeah.

And so he spent three days with him and he was finding out all about the stuff that the movie depicts. But. And then he started shopping the screenplay around, kept getting rejected, but at one point, Dennis Hopper was slated to direct.

Actors like Woody Harrelson, Brad Pitt, Ryan Gosling, and this was early Ryan Gosling were attached to Star, but every time they would get down the road with it, it would get either dropped or rejected because people were just. They just didn't really want to do an age drama. It just. That's what it came.

I mean, yeah, especially I can see that in the 90s, like, it was such a taboo subject that I feel like maybe certain TV shows might touch on it, but doing, like, a full movie about it would be very hard back then.

And so one of the. So one of the reasons Matthew McConaughey ended up getting selected, so. And I have to.

You cannot talk about the history of this movie without talking about the book Green Lights. It's one of my. I do not. It's funny. I do a movie podcast. I do not care about celebrities.

I do care about Matthew McConaughey, because if I had to say, besides Keanu Reeves, who's a given.

Yeah.

A celebrity that I say, I think would probably be pretty cool to hang out with. Oh, yeah, I think it's Matthew McConaughey.

It's just one of the most real guys that is famous like you. You feel like no matter whether he's playing a character or whether he's just talking as himself, you feel the honesty come from.

Yeah.

And he's a Texas Longhorn fan with them. And hook him.

Yeah, hook him.

Horns.

Hook them. Horns. But this. This role was born out of something he talks about. And it's my favorite part of the book. It's an incredible book.

I. I gotta say, for a celebrity thing, it's. And if you listen to it, he narrates it. And he narrates it like Matthew McConaughey would.

And he talks about that at this time, he had kind of started getting typecasted as a romantic comedy guy.

Yeah.

And he had made a decision for himself. He said, I. I'm a serious actor and I can be, and I'm not going to do this anymore. And there was so much demand for him in those roles.

Like, 10 things I hate about you. All those movies he was doing that he was starting to get offers for between 20 and 30 million dollars to. They were trying so hard.

Rom coms to get him back in rom coms. But he said to himself, he's like, I'm done.

Yeah.

He says, and if it doesn't work out, it's a red light, and if it does, it's a green light.

Yeah.

And so you can thank that mentality for him doing this movie, because even though they were looking at Ryan Gosling and Brad Pitt, they were like, it would make sense. He's a Texan.

Yeah.

Let's get a Texan to play this Texan part.

Seriously, though.

Yeah.

And so they got Matthew McConaughey in. But the thing is, is it was rejected over 100 times.

And when they finally got it slated and funded, they actually lost their funding a few weeks before filming started. Jared Leto had already started losing that weight.

Yeah.

Matthew McConaughey was. He was on his way to losing 50 pounds. Had lost 30.

Yeah.

And so. But it was Matthew McConaughey who said, we're going to do it.

Yeah.

He's like, we'll find money.

They help fund it.

And.

Yeah.

Well, he didn't actually end up helping fund it, but they did end up finding three and a half million dollars from, I think Voltage Pictures and Truth Entertainment stepped in.

Oh, wow.

After it was relinquished by the first production company that was going to make it. And it was all because McConaughey said, It's too late.

You know, I got to be honest, like, you can. You can tell that. Again, we've had.

So we've talked about enough movies at this point that you can just tell on screen when the entire cast and crew is just 100% dedicated to making this movie happen. And you can feel that so hard in this movie.

Yeah.

Everyone clearly wanted this to happen, and I feel like that makes so much sense. Losing your funding right before you're about to shoot and then getting it back from a totally different place.

It's just like, no, you're like, this has to happen now. We have to put everything into making this good.

You're spot on, because Jared Leto. Even Jared Leto, in a lot of interviews about this movie, said he was kind of done acting.

This was his first role in, like, six or seven years.

Yeah.

30 seconds to Mars was growing, and they were doing. They were starting to do international tourism. That's your boy.

They just won the Guinness World Record for the longest continuous rock tour of 311 shows over two years. I actually got to watch the. The actual live stream of them winning that award.

Yeah.

Doing the concert. It was absolutely incredible. Actually, just was in L. A seeing them at the Kia Forum last weekend.

So, yeah.

What a great time to be doing this movie.

And he was fully content. He was like. He wrestled.

But he said this movie and the role of Rayon was enough to pull him out of what he was considering an early retirement from acting.

Yeah.

And this was honestly, like, one of the first serious points in film where you could.

You could start talking about transgender people and it not be just kind of a dig or a joke, because I feel like a lot of times before this and a lot of, like, sitcoms and certain comedy movies, like, being trans was just kind of the butt of a joke.

Yeah.

This. He. He took it so seriously and was like, no, I am going to give as much honor to transgender people as I possibly can in this role. He just. Ah.

And the state in role, too.

Yeah, yeah.

He. I mean, he would go shop. Grocery shopping.

Yeah.

Yeah.

He and Matthew McConaughey, and I mean, I feel like when you lose that much weight, which, before this, Jared Leto had been on the opposite side of it. He did a movie called Chapter 27, where he played Mark David Chapman who killed John Lennon.

And it was, like, the 72 hours leading up to him killing John Lennon, and he gained 67 pounds in two months for that movie and then lost it all in another two months after they finished shooting.

Wow.

But so he'd been on that side of things, and so he decided, yeah, I'm Gonna. I've got to lose, like, the. I think he lost somewhere between 30 and 40 pounds for this role.

And then Matthew McConaughey, like you said, lost almost 60 pounds.

Yeah.

So it's just the dedication that they put. That they both put into it. There's a reason they both won the Oscars that year, which to me, this was like one of the last great Oscar years.

Yeah.

Was when this.

I agree with you.

Especially doing on such a low budget.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, God.

For three.

The makeup was like.

Yep.

250 budget. And.

Yeah. Yeah.

And they won an Oscar for best makeup.

Yeah.

That's actually one of my randos.

Yeah.

And they made $55 million. Won three Oscars. Yeah. And.

Yeah.

For. For three to $5 million budget.

That's incredible.

Yeah, absolutely.

And I noticed it again, especially in this.

But you watch, like, Big Little Lies or Sharp Objects or any of the other movies he's done, he has this really interesting way of making it visually feel like a documentary. But even it's. Even though it's a narrative film.

And like, the whole time I was watching Dallas Buyers Club, I was thinking it's like, it's literally as if he's walking around filming Ron Woodruff and it just happens to be cameras there.

Yeah.

Like using the handheld style instead of putting everything on sticks or on a dolly. Like, it really just added to the realism of how he was telling the story.

Yeah.

And just. It blows my mind every time.

Share Movie wars do it. It's. We got Dr. Ben here. He's. You're going to see him on TV in, like, in no time. His dude is climbing the ladder of comedy here.

He's climbing the ladder of the medical world.

He's going to be the Judge Judy of surgery.

Judge Judy. Just follow him on. We'll get. We'll give his socials in the. In the description at the end of the show. But he's hilarious.

Welcome, Dr. Ben, and share Movie Wars.

Yes.

Rando Randos. So we talked about extreme confirmation transformations. Let's go into the nitty gritty of what they actually did to transform.

So Matthew McConaughey, actually, during COVID did an interview with Joe Rogan. He said he ate egg whites, ate fish and vegetables, and drank all the wine that he wanted.

Yeah.

That was literally his diet, every meal.

I think he also said that he was running for A while. And then talked to the doctor. The doctor was like, yeah, that's not doing anything else. Like, you're not losing any more weight by running.

So he's like, cool, I'm gonna stop running. I'm just gonna stop doing that.

Guess that he was living in my hospital's cafeteria. That food will give. Make you lose the will to eat.

Yeah.

Oh, I know.

30 days and you're ready for an emaciated character role.

Yeah.

Every time I've been in the hospital, they bring out that food. I'm like, I'd rather die.

Give me Soylent Green.

Yeah.

Pull the plug. Yeah, the jello. So I don't eat jello. Apparently, it's the only thing people like, and I can't.

Every time I eat jello, I throw up because of my upchuck reflex.

Oh.

Like, it jiggles on my tongue.

I can't do it.

I feel like that's supposed to be a what's up, Chuck? Joke.

Yeah.

Oh, my gosh. Jared Leto lost 30 pounds and he went on an all liquid diet, dropped weight fast for the roll, and he lost ten pounds in five days.

And he said even before transforming into rayon, he felt like a different person and talked like a different person because he was so depraved.

He's already a tiny man.

Yeah, I know. When you said he gained 67 pounds, like, is that possible?

Have you seen those pictures?

I need to keep talking.

I'll pull him up.

Yeah, I was. When you said that, I was like, how could he? Like, because some people have such a hard time gaining weight.

Oh, yeah. Well, what he would do for that is he would literally melt down Haagen Dazs and put soy sauce and olive oil in it and mix it up and just chug it.

Really?

Yes.

That actually sounds really tasty.

Okay.

Yeah, they were.

Yeah.

What do you think?

It gets me extra bloated.

So from a medical perspective, that's not healthy.

Yeah. Yeah.

They're about one cheeseburger away from a feeding tube.

Yeah.

People talk about Christian Bale. And I actually have a question about this later, but what do you think from a medical perspective? I mean, because Christian Bale, he said he's done.

He said it's hell on his body because he went from the machinist. Have you seen the machinist?

No.

119 pounds.

Yeah.

Oh.

Literally went to Batman begins at, like, £240.

You can see every bone in his body.

Yeah.

He ate grapefruit and coffee.

Yeah.

Three meals a day. What does that do? To your metabolism in your body.

That is definitely not healthy. Folks. Do not try that at home. Yeah, it's. It. Yeah. Your muscles will waste away. It'll. You'll be very malnourished.

And it affects all systems of your body. Cardiovascular, renal, your kidneys. So that is not good to fluctuate like that. There's an ideal body weight and you want to stay within.

Right.

So unless you're gunning for an Oscar, baby. Yeah, that's Hollywood, baby.

And then. All right, all right, all right. Get this guy a protein bar because.

Yeah.

I mean, you look at Matthew McConaughey, he never fully recovered his old physique back. I mean, reasonably soon before this one, he did Sahara and he was jacked in Sahara. And then he did this, and then he did True Detective right after.

And you can see, like his body has never fully gotten back to where he was before this. Like, it's clearly wreaked some havoc on him.

He's gaunt in the last half of True Detective. I mean, he's skinny in the beginning, but he's like, when he does the long hair version, he is gaunt.

Yeah, yeah.

And that literally, that came out the year after this did. And he did Interstellar in the same year and again. So still very skinny guy in that.

Yeah.

So next Rando. So the final stretch of production was dramatic as the film itself because the financing fell through, like I said earlier.

But going deeper into that, McConaughey was already so thin for the role, and I think part of the reason he wanted to keep going is like, I'm already here and I'm fading away. This isn't for nothing. And so actually, it was not just his desire to keep going, but also he was like, I didn't do this for nothing.

Right.

And so that's how he was able to go out and help get new funding. Jean Marc Vallee was also part of the reason they were able to keep going, because he says he had to make the decision.

He's like, that means we're going to have a smaller crew.

Yeah.

They had to do. They had to sacrifice everything. So basically they moved down to a two camera shoot.

That makes so much sense.

Gorilla guerrilla, handheld. Yeah, Guerrilla style filmmaking. And that was a lot of that. So some of that was McConaughey saying, let's keep going.

And then the director, Jean Marc Vallee, saying, I'm willing to go with a smaller crew.

Yeah.

And just keep going.

Well, he's also known for trying to use as much natural light as possible. If you look through this. None of it really looks that fabricated.

Like, I'm sure some highlights going on here and there where they would put in some lights like we have here in the studio.

But for the most part, he loves or loved just using the light around him and making sure that, like, if there is a practical light on set, then we're gonna make sure that that is what is influencing how the look of it is. So. Oh, my God.

This was all natural lighting.

Yeah. Wow.

All natural light.

Yeah.

He did it with this, and he did it with Wild right after that. So I'm not. I'm not surprised. It's incredible.

And if you know me at all, if you listen back to our Snyderverse episodes, you know where I stand with the overuse of cgi. This is my speed.

Yeah.

This type of filmmaking, I'm not saying it makes CGI bad. I like movies with cgi. But this.

He wants his actors to almost be dead while filming a movie, and that's. That's what gets him.

I want them dead.

Yeah.

I want them almost dead. I want no light. I want barely any makeup.

Yeah.

I want people passing out on set.

And yet you want them to win the Oscar for makeup.

And you got to win the Oscar. You got to win the Oscar for makeup, which is great. Bridge to my last. Or to my last rando. It's kind of a multipart.

Randall, you hinted at it earlier, this one Oscar for best makeup, $250 makeup budget, which, when you just look at Jared Leto alone.

Yeah.

You know, just what they did. And so that part of it. And so Rayon was actually created. This is kind of funny.

Craig Borton, the guy that wrote the script, when he met with Ron in real life, he said the one thing about him was he was actually a pretty big racist.

Oh, yeah. 100%.

And he said he's a big racist.

And he said, so they created Rayon because they needed an opposite, something that he could kind of have hatred for, but those opposites attract and then become a team towards the end. They needed that element.

Yeah.

But they didn't think racism would have been as easy of a vehicle, which is why the character of Rayon was created.

Yeah.

And so, you know, and people were just shocked, like. And there's an interview with Jared Leto where he's talking about this character.

He just didn't think that there was going to be a lot of reaction to this role.

Yeah.

And he was so shocked by the positive reception and how people praised him for it, and that was all a surprise to him.

I mean, it was very risky at the time, especially for him to do that. Granted, this was before the Danish Girl, which I've seen some.

Some actors who were in the movie already look at the Danish Girl and feel like it's incredibly dated. I would agree with that. And I honestly felt like it was kind of dated at the time because I think.

I think at that point, like, Jared Leto had broken the barrier of being able to have positive conversations about trans people. And so after that. Yeah, I don't think Eddie Redmayne should have played a trans person.

I think they should have gotten an actual trans person to play it at that point, because, like I said, the barrier was broken.

You.

You had the floodgates open, and it wasn't as taboo of a subject anymore.

Yeah, I think a lot of. There's a. There's also a lot of hatred for him for that, but a lot of people are looking at that retroactively because it was.

There was a lot of hatred at the time.

Yeah.

Because same thing. It was like, why don't we just get an actual trans person to play? And I get it. You want. You want someone with a name.

Like, the whole point of a big movie is to have someone with a name attached to it, so people go see it for that name.

But in that case, I think it would have made people look back on the movie more fondly if they'd actually been able to get a real trans person to play the character. But I don't think it could have ever happened in general if Jared Leto hadn't done what he did. Done with this.

Yeah.

Yeah. I thought this was interesting how they created that character. And Jennifer Garner's character, too, was created.

Yeah.

So.

And I mean, it makes sense because I'm sure just being in those communities, like, I'm sure there was a doctor that he was semi talking to for most of the process he was going to work with.

Yeah.

And I'm sure there were trans people that he was dealing with at the time, because that was just who was suffering from AIDS at that point in time. So it's like, I could see how you could pick elements of real life to create these characters.

And I think it was done in such a beautiful, respectful way.

The question, the questions, the questions.

All right, there we go.

We got in on it some harmony.

We don't. We don't. We don't, like, necessarily tell the guests to get in on it, but we hope they just feel the vibes.

Our music budget is low, too.

Yeah.

Much like the makeup budget.

Yeah.

250 coffee beans.

Yeah.

So. And Azia, it is kind of funny you say that. Like sometimes they did. The guest just naturally falls into the role. They're like, I gotta say it. Randos.

I gotta say questions.

I love it.

I got some divisive questions today. It's hard to. It's hard to.

I'm excited.

I know. Let's go. Let's go. So there's a lot of what. We'll talk a lot about the McConnon here in this.

In the set of questions, but better performance for Matthew McConaughey. True Detective Season 1 or Dallas Buyers Club.

Oh, my God. That is. That is because they're so different.

Yeah.

They're two vastly different characters and. Oh, my God, that is. I hate you for this.

That is so kicking it off strong today.

Making me pick. What do you think? Have you seen True Detective season one?

No. So I'll. I'll have to defer. I apologize.

In my opinion, it is the greatest TV that has ever been filmed is specifically the first season of True Detective. Masterfully written. Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson are incredible. Incredible on screen together.

The story it tells, the way that it reveals the mystery. As the season goes on, the. The seven minute one take where they literally go through.

The camera goes through three different houses and there's a helicopter and police cars involved. Like, it's just. It's magic. If you haven't seen it, go watch it.

You can forget about the rest of the series, especially the most recent season, but that's.

Three is good.

I still need. You know, I actually need to.

Three is really good. I'm not going to say it hits the highs of one, but it is really good.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That being said, I am going to have to give it to Dallas Buyers Club because there was clearly just a different level of dedication that Matthew McConaughey was giving to this role. As I'm sure True Detective was kind of a passion situation for him. This clearly was 110%. He was completely into it.

He was trying to help them find funding. Like, he was doing everything he could to make sure that they got the best possible performance out of him for this.

And trying to give tribute to an actual man.

Right.

Yeah, I think. I think I'd have to give it just a sketch over, just. No, it's a squeak. It's very close.

It's tough.

Yeah.

Because of all the off camera.

Yeah.

That he did.

Yeah.

Just like that movie.

And it translates into the movie because it's yeah. There's nothing, absolutely nothing wrong. And in fact, his performance in True Detective is one of the best things he's ever done.

Like the fact that he did Dallas Buyers Club, True Detective and Interstellar all within a 12 month period.

Right.

Is just crazy. But yeah, I think. I think I got to give it to Dallas Buyers Club in this situation.

Yeah.

So even though you haven't seen True Detective, what do you just think about this versus his other performances?

Yeah, just amazing. All the off camera, losing 50, 60 pounds and. And very convincing performance.

Yeah.

Did you ride the wave? Were you like, did you see some of the earlier rom coms and then see this?

Like me and was like in shock, like.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

No, I. I didn't believe it. I just was like, when he was casting, I was like, he was transformation.

I was like, what?

Concerned for his health.

Yeah.

Oh, my gosh.

Did you know he was in Angels in the Outfield?

No.

Yeah.

I was flying back from Europe and I was going through Delta's selection of movies, and that is the only place you can stream Angels in the Outfield is on a Delta flight. International Delta flight. So. But I saw it and then his name popped up in the opening credits. I was like, are you serious? Matthew McConaughey?

And yeah, he. He has two lines in the whole movie, but he. He killed it. It's so funny.

Shout out to Delta Airlines for nabbing the rights.

Yes. And Disney put it on Disney plus young Joseph Gordon Levitt, Danny Glover, Matthew McConaughey, Adrian Brody. Come on, Tony Danza. What are we doing?

They'll be sponsoring the show soon.

Yeah.

The better Delta.

That's how bad the streaming industry has gotten. You know, like, you can't even find your favorite movie. Like True Lies with like, some people think that's Arnold's best movie.

And we covered on the podcast. You couldn't find it on any streaming service, but then you get on a flight.

Yeah.

And your movies on that. It's like, how did that happen? Delta. How about Delta? You stand your lane. How about my bag? Can I get my bag?

I would have much rather covered Angels in the Outfield than the Goonies.

Yeah, same, same. And. And going back to that, you know what's funny? I always go back to this.

It's so funny to me because Dazed and Confused was the movie where most people met Matthew McConaughey the first time.

Yeah.

But Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3 the Next Generation with Renee Zellweger, it's a bad.

I forgot he's in that. I need to see it.

It's funny. It's. It's funny to watch. And it's. You know, it's nothing like the first. It's really goofy.

Yeah.

But you know that I always think.

How most of those series end up going, though.

Yeah.

Oh, no. They have so up and down, up and down. Then they remake it, then they reboot it, then they remake it again.

I will say I was very surprised that the First Friday the 13 was as terrible as it was.

Oh, the.

It's horrible.

The one. The Pamela Voorhees one.

The. Whatever. The original. Yeah, the original.

Yeah.

Friday the 13th. I hated it at the time.

Did it seem terrible or in retrospect, I don't know.

Like, I just. Even compared to, like, the first Halloween movie or like the first Evil Dead movie, like, it just.

It.

It felt so much worse and so much cheaper than all of the other ones.

I. I prefer the. The ones with Jason, but I do. I. I do kind of like the first one, but, yeah, I do prefer the. My favorite ones. Chapter four, final Chapter.

That's good to know.

That's a good one.

Yeah.

And then there's six more after that.

Yeah, that's the one Corey Feldman is in.

Oh, okay. Yeah, that's good to know.

Yeah.

So I'll give my answer on this. This is really tough, and I admire how you handled it. It's. It's. Even when I wrote this down, my skin started to grow.

I give, I think, his performance in Dallas Buyers. I got to say this at first is a perfect performance. His dedication, 100%. The fact that he's.

He's breaking out of the rom com shell and this is in his Oscar speech is almost more legendary than the movie itself because he almost, you know, if you didn't know about him before the Oscar speech, then every household knew within.

I love that the moment he decides to break out of his old habits and. And just goes for a role like this, he just wins the awesome.

Yeah, he does.

I mean, it's. It's a great story. And then he. He ends up becoming one of my favorite actors of all time.

Yeah.

You know, I do go True Detective Season 1 and see, that's fair.

I can't fault you for that because they're both so good.

And it's at no fault of Dallas Buyers. It's just that he made me squeak over. It's a pretty big one.

Okay.

It's a pretty big one because. True. He made me feel so many things in True Detective.

It's true.

I'm a big philosophy guy, and that's one of the biggest things about that show, is how they. They weave philosophy into it.

Yeah.

And some of the rants that he goes on in the car, I'm just like, that was incredible.

And the way Woody Harrell's is just like, can you not say that in person ever again?

Yeah, yeah.

It's just.

And. And again, it has the benefit of being a series, so you. You get time.

Yeah.

But I know a lot of people talk about Walter White, and all due respect, Walter White deserves that, but there are layers to rust Cole, that by the end of it, you're just like, he showed us the whole thing.

Yeah.

And I. And it stuck with me. And I watch it every year. I try to go through True Detective season one again.

Yeah.

But it's not because anything negative about Dallas Buyers. It's just. I just think True Detective is that good.

Yeah.

That's fair. I can't fault you for that at all.

Tough decision. Tough question. I hated myself for writing it down.

Let us know what you think in the comments.

Yes, please. I would love to see that all over the place.

Yeah.

Here's another divisive one. Better body or the Craziest Body Transformation. Christian Bale and the Machinist or Dallas Buyers.

I mean, they have such different reasons for doing what they did. Like, it's, it's, it's very. You can compare them, obviously, because they both lost just.

I mean, all three of them lost so much weight for these roles. But it's like you're getting something else.

Like you're getting a darkness and something so sinister out of what Christian Bale did for the Machinist. But also, I don't think it's quite as good of a movie as Dallas Buyers Club. So it doesn't quite hit me the same way as Dallas Buyers Club did.

Also, you had two of them who did it for Dallas Buyers Club. So I'm going to have to give it to Dallas Buyers Club.

Right.

And for you, how much did he lose? Do we know? I mean, Christian Bale for the.

Between 220 and 240 for Batman Begins six months later.

That's a better one.

Wow. Just skin and bones.

Yeah.

Amazing.

Literally, just skin and bones.

Yeah.

Absolutely not Hollywood, baby. But even though you haven't seen the Machinist, what do you think?

From a purely body transformation, probably Machinist Christian Bale. But, yeah, I'd recommend they do CGI in the future transformation. Look.

I mean, from what I remember in. For all three of them, they were being heavily monitored by doctors. Like, they weren't just doing it for the sake of doing it.

Like, they were making sure that they weren't going into renal failure and they weren't going into liver failure and that their bodies were actually going to be able to recover from certain things. And I have a feeling if they'd hit a certain weight, the doctor would have been like, okay, stop.

You can't.

Yeah, it's dangerous. You're gonna.

Yeah.

Kill yourself.

Absolutely. I. I think I go Dallas Buyers, because I. I think the transformation and the Machinist is the best thing about it.

Yeah.

You know, unfortunately.

Yes.

Yeah.

That twist was good the first time, but it doesn't hold up as well later on.

The first half of that movie is menacing. The second half is kind of like, all right.

Yeah.

And I always associate that movie with Memento, because even though it's not filmed in a different order, you can tell that it was kind of drifting on that type of energy.

Yeah.

With the twists and things. And I'm always like, it just doesn't even add up.

And, yeah.

Where Bale is in it, it's electric. But the script itself is a little. Whereas in Dallas Buyers, you know, it plays into the film. And, you know, I think what.

What Matthew McConaughey did that was really great was he continued to transform throughout the course of the film.

Yeah.

To where at the end of it, he was. He looked, you know, the most emaciated.

I mean. Yeah, I. I forgot about that. And then watched it again last night.

Yeah.

Like, oh, my God, he really looks even worse at the end of it.

Yeah.

Yeah. It's not just for shenanigans. It actually, you know, made. Made the story made sense. And Jared Leto also just. You get a ton of credit for.

Because Jared Leto also had this weird. The. The acting that he paired with his.

Becoming more emaciated with the skin lesions and and the way he also acted, like, when he was becoming more unhinged.

Yeah.

Over time was really crazy.

Like.

Like, when he starts getting back into drugs real hard, it becomes not dependable. You just. You just feel. I just felt so much for Rayon's character. So. Yeah, I give it to. To Dallas buyers, but, you know, definitely.

One of his best death scenes.

Yes.

Which prior to this movie, he was kind of known, like Sean Bean, to either die or just get completely obliterated. Like, messed up.

Yeah.

Either getting his arm cut off or his face be.

Yeah, yeah.

That Requiem for a Dream scene at the end, that stayed with me for a long time.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That one's. That. That one's a lot.

Did you see Requiem for a Dream?

Sorry. No, I'm.

It's all good now.

It's a great movie about heroin.

Yeah.

Okay.

The first half of the movie makes you really, really, really want to do all the drugs. And the second half of the movie makes you never, ever, ever, ever want to touch drugs. Ever.

Yeah.

Say no to drugs, kids.

Yes.

Yeah. As a medical professor, what are you a professional? What do you think about drugs?

I'm just kidding. Say no.

Say no. Just say no to him. And. Awesome. So do we think so.

A lot of people point to this as the mcconnaissance moment, but for you, was it Dallas Buyers True Detective or was it Interstellar? Three examples of.

I mean, I think it was all three.

Yeah.

This. I mean, this was the beginning of it. This is what showed the world he was a serious actor. And then he just had banger after banger after Banger.

Banger come out after that. Didn't the Lincoln Lawyer come out around this time, too?

Yep.

Yeah.

Like, there was just. So.

2011, actually, so.

Actually, that was before this was.

But that wasn't a great movie. He was great in it, but it wasn't a great movie.

No. Every time I've heard people talk about it, it's always that his character is really good in it. So. Okay, that makes sense, I guess.

Yeah.

That was him, like.

Yeah.

Dipping. You know, the movie I'm thinking about, Mud. Mud came out shortly after this one.

And that was not only an incredible movie, but he delivered such a great performance in that.

Jeff Nichols. I just want to take a minute to have Jeff Nichols appreciation. He's from Arkansas and where I'm from, and he's a marvelous director.

Mud is the one he gets a lot of credit for, but he did take Shelter with Michael Shannon and Jessica. That was Jessica Shastain's coming out party. And he's a great Southern. He. He. He depicts Southern films just like no one else.

But yes, Mud came out the same year as Dallas.

You should do Tom Sawyer.

He should.

If anybody does it, rush with that.

He just doesn't get enough credit. Yeah, people just don't talk about him enough after the show.

Can you teach me how to call the hogs?

Well, I'm actually a Longhorn fan.

Okay, okay. But from Arkansas.

But here's what I'll say. Calling hogs is a natural thing to do even without the football team in Arkansas.

Yeah.

You call the Copenhagen. You call. Yeah, it's.

It's a.

It's a. I can't. It can't be taught.

You're either born with it or you're not.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Wow. Let's see. What are some other ones? Free State of Jones.

Yep.

Heard good things about that one.

Yep. Sing, which my children love.

Nice.

He plays Buster Moon and then Gold, the Dark Tower, Bo and now we're getting out of that range. But that the bulk of those great movies came out between 11, five years.

Yeah.

Oh, my God. Just. Yeah. What a great time for him. And yeah, it was like.

Like you said, it was just really great to see him be able to pick roles, not be given roles, but pick them.

Right.

And yeah, I. I think all three of those just starting with Dallas Buyers Club, Middle being. Being True Detective and then just putting a nice little bow on it with Interstellar. Just all such magical performances.

I saw Interstellar again last year when it came out for the 10th anniversary on 70 millimeter IMAX film. And that was just. It was so good. So good.

Yeah.

When do you think the McConaughey's began?

Oh, gosh. Yeah. I guess. Right in that area.

Yeah.

Dallas Buyers and those three that you mentioned.

Yeah.

Shows how talented he is as an actor.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

How he can transform.

When did you go through medical school and become a doctor?

Right.

Well, in med school, did they ever give a lot of time talking about the AIDS crisis and how it was handled or was that just kind of brushed over at the time?

Not a whole lot. So we were kind of. Yeah. It would have been around the time that it was what. It would have been the 80s.

Yeah.

So we didn't talk a whole lot. We probably should talk about more. Just like, didn't talk a lot about the business side of medicine.

There's a lot of things in medical school they should teach medical students that they don't. But.

Right.

Because.

Yeah.

I'm just curious. I know bits and pieces about the AIDS crisis.

I know a lot of people want to blame for like, mishandling it, but I know it was way more complicated than that. So I just didn't know if you, if you had any, any knowledge or information about, about how things were at that point in time.

Right. We're more learning about like the disease process and pathology and infectious disease and not necessarily the epidemiology and.

Gotcha.

Yeah.

How it was handled in the public health.

And you think they would have talked about that more if your specialty had been in epidemiology.

Right. Or if you're interested in like public health and.

Okay.

Yeah.

You might want to slide this way a little less.

That was my crisis. Every morning when I get out of bed, my, my knee bone just hates me. It's great.

Yeah.

The audience can probably appreciate his Osgood Slaughters.

Yeah.

Is that how you say it? Osgood slaughters.

Good slaughters.

Biggest one my orthopedics had ever seen on a non athlete.

Patients like hearing that for some reason. Was it the worst one you've seen, Doc, or so they can break to.

Their friends, go through hell? They want to know. It was.

Absolutely. My doctor said it was.

They want to know when insurance only covers a small portion or declines your, your claim.

Yeah.

That it was worth it.

Yeah.

Well, at least the doctor said it was the worst he'd ever seen. When I paid my thousand dollar ER bill because I fell down the stairs.

That's funny. He told me it was the worst he'd ever seen.

Yeah.

Telling everybody.

You tell all the patients that you've seen bigger.

Bigger is better.

Oh, no, it's just, it's, it's, it's, it's. The big ones are so ugly.

Oh my God.

We're talking about knees, folks.

Yeah.

Talking about knee bones, talking about Oshkod slaughters.

Before we do the last couple questions, though, I do want to kind of break out and see we haven't had an opportunity to talk about, like, from a medical perspective. When you watch this movie, what were just. Were your thoughts about? Obviously, a lot of it was.

I guess later they found out that AZT was helpful in small doses.

Right.

With other. Because it said at the very end.

In conjunction with others.

Yeah.

Now it's used in conjunction. And they were using at too high a dose. So there was toxicity.

Yeah.

So they had to back down the dose. But if you use probably any of the drugs, you got to find a therapeutic range that's helping but not causing untoward side effects.

And so in washing, wasn't that AZT was a bad drug? It was just being used too high.

Yeah.

And then the other medicines that he was going to Mexico for, actually, they studied and found out they weren't that beneficial. Right. The peptides and the. Yeah, and that. But of course, supplements and minerals are helpful for anyone.

But yeah, the medicines he was bringing back, actually they studied and looked at and weren't that beneficial to incorporate it in the AIDS treatment?

Okay, so the. In the movie, they depict a major rebound in health. What is. What is the movie trying to. What is it either getting wrong or what were they.

Were they trying to just attribute it to all the things he was bringing up from Mexico? So was that like a falsity?

I think they were trying to attribute it. And then we found out that those medicines that he was bringing back aren't that helpful. But it was good, good drama.

It was.

And then.

And I know there was the. I forget which one it was, but maybe it was peptide tea, where he was saying it was specifically to help with dementia.

Right. And they're finding not that helpful for. For treating aids.

Okay.

Yeah.

Okay.

But there were a lot of accurate depictions. Like the hospital, I feel was run kind of like the dmv. So he's in there saying, I need meds.

And they're saying, well, fill out this form with triplicates and come back in six months.

Yeah, yeah.

Meanwhile, he's running a drug smuggling ring in a motel. And so is.

Is. And obviously I'm not.

I doubt it's, like, common, but is it kind of a real situation where you see some doctors lose their license in America and they go to other countries to continue practicing some sort of medicine? Like, is that a thing that does happen?

That is something that does happen. And so you'll read about it in the news. Some people using their DEA license or writing prescriptions and receiving. So, okay, money or cash or.

Yeah, because I'm sure it's not like super common that it happens, but yeah, it's one of those.

I didn't know if this was like a very particular incident where this guy that did happen to him or if that is like a thing that does happen in general.

Probably not that common, but it does happen. So.

Okay, nice.

That leads us to the next question. Was Woodruff a heroic underdog or a dangerous outlaw?

I mean, I.

The big thing that I think he accomplished is, is I do think that if someone, like they said in the movie, is terminal and is going to die regardless, they should be able to have a little bit more control over what treatments they want to do.

I mean, that's why Ozzy Osbourne went to Switzerland for, I think a year or two to help treat his Parkinson's was because he couldn't get the medicines that he thought he needed either in the UK or in the US So he got to make that choice for himself. But at the same time, yeah, I do feel like I do somewhat feel for the evil DEA guy who.

Because at some point there is, you know, there does have to be a balance of. The regulations are here for a reason.

But obviously you shouldn't just be able to let, you know, pharmaceutical companies lobby the government to just do whatever they want to do with full immunity. So, I mean, I kind of. I kind of could see both sides of it.

Like, he did do things for people being able to take control of their own medicine like they had been in the past. But at the same time, they're, they're.

There can be some dangerous things because like you were saying, they found out later that most of the drugs he was taking weren't actually helping with, with the AIDS situation that he was dealing with. So I don't know.

I, I think there is a little bit of danger in with him being the underdog because he was fighting for the individual liberties, but also was kind of ignoring the bigger picture.

Yeah.

What do you think?

I agree. And I, I think he had that kind of sense of survival, like, I'm gonna die, I'm gonna do everything I can.

And I think it's sensationalized little that he was given 30 days. So that might have been a little dramatization.

But I mean, visually it was really cool because I did love that moment where he was having, you know, his, his drunken drug induced moment. Where he was about to pass out. He looked at the calendar, and the only thing he saw was the Red 30. Like, visually, that was kind of a cool thing.

But, yeah, I get it.

It's. It's very hard to be like, no, you have exactly 30 days.

But.

And the medicines he was bringing in weren't that harmful. And so I think when you're terminal and you're surviving, I think you should have some say. But it's somewhat of a slippery slope.

Exactly.

Of everyone can't just be wild, wild west maverick, I'm going to bring in.

Right.

Also, it's like, how. How do you define terminal? Because some people could be given three years and they would probably define that as terminal.

Other people are given, like a month or two, and that could be defined as really the only version of terminal that you're allowed. So. Yeah, I see. I could see how it would be very, very hard to.

And probably cause even more deaths if everyone's just allowed to do whatever they want.

Right. Because you could argue life is terminal. We're all gonna be.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Now there's a great quote from MacGyver where he's like, we're all dying. We're just some of us doing it faster than others.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's funny. I. I struggle with this one because I. I'm pretty crunchy. To the. The hest of many of my medical professional friends, I'm very crunchy.

I have a major respect for the medical industry, but I also believe in balance.

Yeah.

You know, and I think. I think science is kind of funny sometimes because, like, sometimes it's like, science is really cool, but then you find out science is complete.

Yeah.

Just like everything else. So, you know, it's funny. I think there's a balance. Like, I think, like, I have a friend who. Who has really late stage cancer. Late stage. Sorry.

That men get Prostate. Prostate. Sorry. I don't know why. But, you know, and he's. He's trying to figure out, you know, it's like, do I do the radiation? Do I. Yeah.

Or do I go to Mexico and. And figure out they got treatments down there they can't do up here? And.

Yeah.

And it's. I think it's easy as a person who's not afflicted with it to think, well, why would you take a risk and go to Mexico? But, like, when you.

When you have a. Like the red 30 on your calendar.

Yeah.

It's like, God, like, if I can take a chance.

And, you know, so I think this, if anything in Inaccuracy, Inaccuracies aside, this movie does depict like, that when you're faced with death and you. You have an expiration date on the calendar, you know, what. What can I do? And that, to me, is the reverence that this movie pulls.

So, yeah, probably some danger in that.

Yeah.

And we know that stuff that comes out of Mexico these days is tainted with fentanyl.

Yeah.

And it takes. It takes a salt grain to kill someone of fentanyl, but if it's not tainted with fentanyl, take a chance.

Yeah.

You know, so that's kind of where I was with it.

Yeah.

You know, I think. I think it does do a good job at showing what the red tape looked like. Yeah. I do think if someone is dying very quickly, exceptions need to be made.

Yeah.

You shouldn't just throw them and be like, no, we'll just make you comfortable and that's it. Like, there should be a way that doctors can go a little beyond and help their patients who are that close to death.

Especially if there is a chance that he could live for seven more years.

Yeah.

Like, that's obviously, it's different if you're talking like two months versus eight months or, you know, 30 days versus seven years. Like, I don't know.

I think it really did showcase how some of the red tape doesn't need to be there, even though a lot of it is there to protect people.

Yeah, totally. And also, there's another thing.

Like, if you like football, you know, and you enjoyed Peyton Manning's last Super Bowl, I mean, the only reason he was able to play that year is because he went to Switzerland or Sweden and got stem cell treatment on his neck.

Oh, yeah.

Because his neck was. They just kept trying to fix it. It wouldn't heal.

Yeah.

He went overseas, got it healed, came back, won a Super Bowl.

Yeah.

So for football fans can argue with results.

Yeah.

And I don't, you know, as just a layperson, I don't know how to deal with that. Like, well, why couldn't you do that here? You know, And I don't know, you know, so.

Yeah.

What do you think?

Yeah. So that's kind of tricky, but I don't. I don't fault him for that.

It's kind of have to weigh risks and benefits and if there are a lot of risks, but the potential or perceived potential benefits.

Yeah.

Super bowl, baby.

Big benefit.

Yeah.

Big benefit. And you got to say Bud Light on screen and do that big Bud Light promotion, which was cool. Sorry, I'm a sports nerd.

Last falls.

Yeah, they're. Oh, you falls fan.

Well, with main Peyton Manning, so, yeah.

Oh, yeah, that's true. Good point. Okay, so we'll close out the questions with this. Who or what won the movie and who or what lost the movie for you?

Well, both Leto and McConaughey's transformation, but I'd have to say McConaughey won it with his. The acting and the body transformation.

And just the convincing role that he just depicted of this is a guy trying to survive, and I'll do anything at within reason to prolong my life. So that definitely won.

And then from a medical perspective, I guess, lost on the fact that he's smuggling a lot of, at the time, illegal or drugs that are approved, unapproved drugs.

They're not illegal, they're unapproved.

Not to be helpful, but. And that may have prolonged his life too, just having, like, a purpose and a desire to survive and live. And so.

Yeah.

And that's what Craig Borton said when he. When he met with him for three days. He said that this gave him purpose. He said he felt purposeless before and.

Right.

And his death sentence gave him purpose. So incredible.

Yeah.

Well, won it and lost it for you.

Yeah.

I mean, I think we'll probably mostly be in agreement that Jared leto and Matthew McConaughey completely won it for me, but outside of that, it genuinely was the way Jean Marc Valet was able to showcase realism. Like I was saying earlier with kind of how it feels like a documentary, because even just down to where he would put the camera at times, it just. It.

It felt like you're looking in from the outside as opposed to the camera kind of being a character, which. That. That can be a thing in some movies where the way, like, the camera can almost be a narrator.

And in this, I feel like the character or the camera was completely a viewer. There was nothing that the camera was doing to necessarily, like, push the story forward. It just was letting it unfold naturally in front of us.

So I think that especially just the way Jean Marc Vallee was able to take this script and turn it into such a real feeling story, I think that's especially what won it for me. I mean, at this point, just learning about the medical inconsistencies, I think that's the only thing that kind of loses it for me.

But if I hadn't heard you talk about that, I would have said nothing would really lost this movie for me. I saw it in theaters when it came out. It blew my mind then. And every single time I'VE rewatched it. It continuously blows my mind.

Love it. I had to preface this by saying my rewatch of this movie. I made a decision that I had to kick something out of my top 50 and.

And put this in his place. And I did.

Texted me about that.

I.

What did it replace?

I want to say Rest in Peace, Darjeeling Ltd. Wes Anderson. I love you, Wes. But man, the shit you're doing lately, I. It's all the same. I'm sorry. I think you. I.

For a while I told people you were one of the greats.

You.

But what are you doing, bro? It's like, we get it.

You like symmetry.

We get it. You like French filmmaking and Bill Murray. But seriously, I'm telling you, man, I just. I had to find something and that was it.

And this movie, I just decided it made me feel so many things, so it's hard to say anything. Lost me one me. I'll go a little different route.

For me, a lot of times I'll research something and that will solidify my thoughts about movie when I find out stuff about it. I think what wins for me is this. It's a win for this style of filmmaking. Low budget gorilla.

Yeah.

Little lighting, minimalism, giant performances, great script. You don't have to have cgi. You don't have to have giant budgets. You can do so much.

Yeah.

And this is a loss for those big budget films that have giant casts that have just infinite CGI and money and marketing and they fall flat on their face. I think this is a win for. For low budget filmmaking. Yeah, it's a loss because what's funny about the script, I said it got rejected over 100 times.

And again, this is me just having to pick nits. Right. To find something wrong. Kind of along the lines of the medical thing. He got a lot of mileage out of something that wasn't necessarily true.

Like, you find out it wasn't really the drugs and he was a giant racist. And like.

Well, I mean, they definitely portray that in the movie.

Yeah.

Like, he says the N word so many times.

Yes, he does. Yes. Apparently he was such a bad racist in real life, though. That's like, yeah, we're gonna put a trans person in.

In black people's place and make that the. The, you know, the target for his hatred.

Yeah.

But that was one of the crazy juxtapositions though, was watching this.

Yes.

This. This objectively kind of awful person. Like, become a caring person while still being awful. Yes, yes.

Defending that community.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So it ended up being a beautiful story, and there's a lot to love, but I. I can't believe how much, like, kind of inaccuracy there is in the medical aspect of it, which is kind of a vehicle for the movie. Yeah, but that's post. You know, when you take that out of it, you know, it's in my top 50 now.

Yeah.

Sorry, Wes. And we're gonna close it out. We're gonna do the scorecard a little differently now. We're gonna close out, do rapid fire. Four categories.

Cast, writing, directing, what's in front of us. And we're gonna use that to give our final scores.

For me, the. The four categories. We're gonna be going over.

Cast, writing, directing, and everything that's in front of us, which we are going to include sound and music and all that kind of stuff.

Basically, just the entire package of the film itself, outside of just specific cast writing and directing, obviously, the cast absolutely crushed it. For me, it's 100% a yes on that. For me, the Matthew McConaughey, even. Even down to Jennifer Garner and all of the background characters.

Like, never once did I feel like anyone was out of character. Everyone felt so natural being there, so that was incredible. The writing in general. So we have two sides of the writing, from my perspective on this.

We have the historical accuracy side of it, but then we also just have how the story itself was told. And I think it's an absolute 100% yes on how the story was told.

But finding out about some of the medical inaccuracies does kind of pull it down for me. So it is going to be a squeak over. It is that. That does kind of bum me out because for the longest time, I thought it was pretty medically accurate.

But then you get into the nitty gritty and you hear from an actual doctor and find out it's, you know, it's only. Okay, so it's a squeak over. It's still good. Jean Marc Valet. This is his true masterpiece, in my opinion. I.

As great as Big Little Lies was, I don't think it ever got better than this for him. So it's 100% a yes for me. And again, just. I mean, yeah, it's going to be a yes on the visuals and everything, because it was so.

Because it was so close to home and so low budget and everyone was there to make it happen. They weren't there to make money. They were there to make a great piece of art. Yeah, absolutely. It's a yes for me. So it's four yeses on my end.

Boom, boom. I like it.

Dr. Ben, what's your. What's your diagnosis?

Diagnosis. I almost had prognosis diagnosis, cast, for sure. I agree. 100. Yes.

Just that transformation and more so that Matthew McConaughey as an electrician is reading medical journals like he's studying for his medical board. So.

Yeah.

Yeah, that was a big one for me. The writing for sure. Aside from some medical. But inaccuracies. But definitely yes on the writing and the storytelling and the directing.

With such a low budget, I was very impressed. Almost kind of had like a Breaking Bad type feel where you're.

And then just overall, cinematography, production, definitely a yes and very impressive with the budget. And winning the Oscar for makeup on such a low budget.

Yeah.

Like you guys alluded to, just the way it made you feel. It kind of tugged on your heartstrings and where you're pulling for him to survive and.

And never once did I feel like we weren't in the 80s.

Yeah.

It just. For such a low budget especially, it felt so realistic.

And Matthew McConaughey's Stetson hat. Cowboy. Cowboy game was a win for me on point. Rocket rocking the yes and cowboy hats.

Awesome. So four yeses from Dr. Ben.

Damn. All right.

Yeah.

Listen. Cast. Absolute. Yes. Some of the best performances ever captured. Not just great on screen, but performances that stay with you for a long time.

This is one of those movies where in the credits rolled, I was kind of just sitting there and quiet.

Yeah.

Kind of just processing those. Everything I had just seen and, you know, getting, you know, the. This being the McConnaissance for Matthew McConaughey.

But Jared Leto had already had a lot of cachet as a method actor and a committed actor, and he somehow was considering retiring from film.

Yeah.

Comes out of the 30 seconds to Mars life for a minute to come out and do another masterpiece. And he's a guy that I kind of fight a little bit.

Like, I don't know how I feel about Jared Little, but every time I see him, I'm like, damn, he's a good actor.

Yeah.

So huge. And also Jennifer Garner and Steve Zahn.

Yeah.

Should get a major. We didn't mention.

We should have. Yeah, they. They. Steve's on. And Matthew McConaughey reunited for the first time since Sahara, which I thought was. Was great.

Yeah.

Literally every person the doctor that. That was over the study. Fantastic. The guy that played the dei. The DEA director said. Dei, The DEA director. Incredible. This cast is a hell yes writing.

I like you agree. I think as a script and as a piece of fiction and a film, it's a masterpiece. And it's. It's incredible. But I do think it's.

It's kind of a squeak over because they got a lot of mileage out of something. A lot of it is because of how it's filmed. And it feels like a documentary. It's not. It's not lit. It's.

It's so natural that you almost kind of think, oh, this is such a true story.

Yeah, it's.

It kind of presents itself as a true story more than it really is. It's pretty fictionalized in some ways. It doesn't take away from how great it is, but it takes away from how true the story is.

Exactly.

So. But overall, like I said, you almost look at it in two ways. Yeah, I give it a yes. Directing, just incredible decisions.

If I could give this two yeses, I would.

Yes.

Low budget, low crew, little crew, great actors doing big things with a little budget. Every decision that was made, this final cut is precise.

It tells an amazing story, and I think, you know, RIP Jean Marc Vallee should get a ton of credit for everything he accomplished here. Lastly, what's in front of us? You know, there's very little of the things in these categories.

Cinematography, it's two handheld cameras, guerrilla style filmmaking, there's very little makeup. Even though it won the, you know, it won the award for it.

This is crazy to me.

250 budget. There's not a lot of stunts besides some of the bull riding and stuff.

But it looks like the 80s, the aesthetic is there again, everything they did with a three million dollar budget crushes here. It's a resounding yes. And I think across the board, minus a few factual issues with the writing, a resounding yes.

Yeah, absolutely.

And I don't think Leto sent any dead rats to any of his castmates in this one.

Not on this one. No. It was a live rat, actually.

Oh, live rat.

He said Margot Robbie. And she kept it as a pet. She loved it.

Yeah.

Sorry, just vials of aids.

Yeah.

Just vials of AIDS in the mail to everybody. Yeah, it was kind of a weird thing, apparently. Sent it to the head of the academy too, over there at the Oscars.

But you get AIDS and you get AIDS.

AIDS, Oprah of AIDS.

Yes, you get AIDS. You get. We're not in the 80s anymore, baby. The AIDSies. I mean, it's so funny.

One thing I thought about with this movie is like, I don't know if you're a basketball fan, but Magic Johnson, when he got his diagnosis, there was a lot of players that didn't even want to play him. They didn't want to touch him. They just thought that they sweat or.

Yeah.

They just thought by guarding him.

I will say that is something that it really did communicate well in. This was the ignorance behind it at the time.

Yeah.

How you just, you just heard, oh, gay people got it. So obviously it's the fag disease.

Yeah.

The fact that like he. You watch him when he realizes, oh, I got it from doing heroin with the prostitute that I was hooking up with, like, that's how he got it.

That watching him realize that that's what it was. It was such a powerful moment.

And when he went into the bar and then when he left. Everyone wants to like, wash their hands.

Yeah.

Worried that they're going to trans. He's going to transmit.

Yeah.

Really showcase the ignorance for them.

It wasn't even the fact that he got it. It was that he might have been gay.

Yeah.

That's the crazy thing. They were almost more worried about that. It's like, wait a. You're gay?

Yeah.

Yeah.

But.

Yeah, dude, September 7th is when the show's coming out. What kind of shows you got coming up?

Well, I'll be in Hendersonville at Halfbatch Brewery on September 19th.

Nice.

And then.

Is that Dinky Scugs?

It is.

Oh, what a great show. You're gonna have a great time.

Thanks.

Hendersonville, Tennessee, for our non.

Yes.

Sorry. Yes.

It's all good.

And the following week, actually, you have to be a doctor to attend, but I'm gonna be at the Music City Convention center in front of thousands. So I'm a little nervous about that. But they want me to be a keynote speaker. But just do stand up comedy for like 30 minutes.

Amazing.

So my largest group has been Zany's with 300. So it'll be a little different being in front of thousands, but there you go.

And then I have Dr. Ben and friends at Zany's so be on the lookout for two Dr. Ben and friends. The next.

What's your social media?

Dr. Ben comedy. Dr. On all platforms. Dr. Ben comedy.

Follow him. You'll keep up with all of his schedule. He is an amazing guy. We're so happy you're here.

Thanks for having me.

Next week we're doing flatliners. So come back, y'.

All.

It's gonna be amazing.

I'm Kyle.

I'm Seth.

Dr. Ben.

Peace. It's a beautiful day to save lives.