I Don't Speak German - PREVIEW: Bonus Ep38 Absolute Power (1997) Aired: 2025-04-11 Duration: 06:51 === Movies About Presidents (01:59) === [00:00:00] IDSG bonus episodes are a regular extra just for Patreon backers of myself or Daniel. [00:00:06] Here's a preview of the new one. [00:00:09] Wanted. Ambitious individual for leadership position. [00:00:14] Be prepared for difficult application process and stressful work environment. [00:00:19] Challenges? Many. [00:00:21] Rewards? Numerous. [00:00:24] Failure? Possible. [00:00:26] Your employer? [00:00:27] The American people. [00:00:29] The few chosen have been... [00:00:31] The Presidents. [00:00:37] Okay, welcome back everybody to the IDSG bonus episode series on movies about presidents. [00:00:45] And yeah, there's no... [00:00:47] Reason to stop? [00:00:48] I mean, there's no reason to be, you know, like, existentially terrified whenever anybody mentions the concept of the President of the United States or anything like that. [00:00:54] I mean, you can just carry on talking about this. [00:00:57] So yeah, another episode in that series, movies about presidents, and the movie that we are talking about in this bonus episode is Absolute Power. [00:01:06] And you should probably get used to me saying it that way, because every time I say the title of this movie in this episode, I'm liable to say it, Absolute Power. [00:01:16] power. Daniel, I know nothing about this. [00:01:22] I've just realized I've completely failed to do the normal basic baseline minimum bloody research that I should normally do before coming. [00:01:29] Sure. So, this was released in 1997. [00:01:46] It was based on David Baldacci's first book, which it was optioned even before it was published. [00:01:52] This was kind of a hot property moving around Hollywood for a little bit. [00:01:56] Directed by and starring Clint Eastwood. === Gene Hackman's Legacy (03:56) === [00:02:00] He also produced, because he produces everything he's made for the last 30 years or so. [00:02:04] And written by William Goldman. [00:02:06] And William Goldman is the reason that I knew about this film or kind of had it in my memory. [00:02:14] William Goldman, among other things, he wrote Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and The Princess Bride are probably two things that you would know him best for. [00:02:21] But he was a Hollywood screenwriter for decades and decades and decades and wrote two very good books about screenwriting, one of which included The Process of Writing Absolute Power, which I read back in 2003 or something like that. [00:02:34] The book was released in 2000, so I probably read it in 2001 or 2002. [00:02:39] And I reread bits of that book for preparation of this because he goes into some detail about the problems of adapting the script. [00:02:48] And so I'd always had this movie in my memory because, A, I'd seen the trailers back in the day, although I'd never seen the film, but also... [00:02:56] I knew it because of that book by William Goldman. [00:03:00] Also, we were kind of decided to do this because Gene Hackman just died and he plays the pivotal role of the President of the United States in this. [00:03:08] So, that's kind of the background here. [00:03:11] There you go, yeah. [00:03:12] As you say, it's topical because we just lost Gene Hackman tragically and his wife in a very grim I mean, we talked a little bit about Gene Hackman in the run-up to recording our last episode, [00:03:36] not the one with Craig, the one with just you and I. And your thoughts on Gene Hackman, Daniel? [00:03:43] Gene Hackman is someone I have always, like, he's, you know, his kind of run of Prolificity. [00:03:51] He made a ton of movies in the 80s. [00:03:54] I think he starred in more movies in the 1980s than any other person. [00:03:57] I think I saw that statistic somewhere. [00:03:59] That sounds right. [00:04:01] I think at one point he was doing six or seven movies a year. [00:04:06] He's one of those actors like, I think we mentioned Tommy Lee Jones and Jack Nicholson, but Tommy Lee Jones in particular, or Harrison Ford, excuse me, who my dad always liked. [00:04:17] Gene Hackman, I always think of my dad when I see a Gene Hackman movie. [00:04:22] And in that pleasant way, you remember your father from when you were single digits. [00:04:29] And so, yeah, I think he's an actor who's had so many different phases in his career. [00:04:37] You can look at his 60s stuff where he was just doing TV work. [00:04:42] And, you know, you think about like, that could have been like a full career of just, he was an actor who was in, he was a, who killed in a bunch of great sixties cop movies or cop shows or whatever. [00:04:52] Then you look at his early seventies work or his late sixties, early seventies work. [00:04:56] And you get into the, you know, the conversation and night moves and Scarecrow and these like very like detailed, like character focused works. [00:05:04] And that's some of his great performances are, you know, at that time. [00:05:08] And then he does the run of great stuff in the eighties, you know, and it was like, each decade could be like a, [00:05:20] And so Hackman has always been, and he was always just Gene Hackman. [00:05:24] Most people would probably think of him, obviously the biggest role he ever did was playing Lex Luthor in three of the four Superman movies. [00:05:34] But actually when he died, that was like fifth down the line of the things that I thought of. [00:05:39] I was like, oh right, he also played Lex Luthor, right? [00:05:43] Thinking of Mississippi Burning and Crimson Tide and all that other stuff that just kind of came to mind more as like, oh, that's a Gene Hackman performance. [00:05:51] And obviously, The Conversation and Night Moves, which are two of my favorite Gene Hackman movies. === Night Moves Obscure Gem (00:54) === [00:05:56] This one I had never seen until yesterday. [00:05:59] So this is not... [00:06:01] Really? Yeah, no, never seen it until yesterday. [00:06:04] Had you seen it previously? [00:06:06] Yeah, just doubling back a little bit before I get into that. [00:06:09] Gene Hackman is... [00:06:12] He's a really interesting actor. [00:06:14] I mean, you name-checked The Conversation and Night Moves. [00:06:17] Conversation, absolutely brilliant movie. [00:06:20] Very much one of those movies that I saw when I was younger and was a real game-changer in my appreciation of cinema, amongst other movies. [00:06:29] Night Moves is a movie that I didn't see until years later, and I think even today it's a semi-obscure movie. [00:06:36] And I'm afraid that's all you're getting of that, at least for the time being. [00:06:39] If you want to hear the rest of it, you'll have to give myself or Daniel as little as $1 a month on Patreon. [00:06:44] When you do, you'll have access to this episode and all our previous bonus episodes, the entire back catalogue.