New Podcast Preview: Are You Mad At Me? A Shattered Glass Podcast

[00:00:00] Hey, Seattle Nice listeners, David Hyde here. Today, we're giving you a chance to check out a new podcast from Seattle Nice co-host Erica Barnett and her Publicola co-founder Josh Feit. It's called Are You Mad At Me A Shattered Glass Podcast. Basically, Erica and Josh are obsessed with the movie Shattered Glass. It's a journalism thriller about a reporting scandal that happened back in the late 1990s when a young reporter named Stephen Glass was caught fabricating dozens of stories for the new

[00:00:29] republic. And he would have gotten away with it if not for those pesky kids at a digital startup called Forbes Digital Tool. Erica describes Shattered Glass as all the president's men updated for the 1990s, a time when digital publications were just emerging as competitors to print media. It's about how journalists used the tools of journalism to root out a fabulist in their midst. And Erica believes it's one of the few movies that gets how journalism really works. That's one reason why Josh and Erica think it's one of the few movies that gets how journalism really works.

[00:00:59] It's the greatest movie of all time. And for the next 12 months, they'll be watching it and telling you why. So here's a chance to check out the first episode of Are You Mad At Me here in the Seattle Nice Feed. And you can subscribe to Are You Mad At Me A Shattered Glass Podcast wherever you get your podcasts. Okay, here you go.

[00:01:18] Hi, and welcome to the first episode of Are You Mad At Me A Shattered Glass Podcast, where we're going to spend the next year watching our favorite movie, Shattered Glass and telling you why we love it.

[00:01:38] I am Erica C. Barnett and I'm here with my co host Josh Fite, the second biggest Shattered Glass fan ever after me. So before we get too deep into this first episode, here is basically what you need to know about the story behind this movie.

[00:01:52] It's about a young reporter who worked for the New Republic in the late 90s named Stephen Glass, who quickly built a reputation as a kind of wunderkind, who had the ability to find stories that were so good, they were almost unbelievable, which as we'll find out was because they were.

[00:02:10] Overall, I think Stephen fabricated something like 27 of the 40 stories he ever wrote for the New Republic. But the movie focuses on just one story about hackers from 1998, which ran under the headline Hack Heaven.

[00:02:25] Is anyone interested in hackers? Because I met this kid named Ian Restle, biggest computer geek of all time. He hacked his way into the database of a company called Juke Micronics and posted naked pictures of women and the salary of every Juke employee on Juke's website with a note saying the big bad bionic boy has been here, baby.

[00:02:49] The guys at Juke decided that it would be cheaper to hire him as a security consultant than it would be to try to stop him. So they met with him last week at the hotel where the National Hackers Conference was taking place. The story starts to fall apart when a reporter from this digital upstart called Forbes Digital Tool, which is an offshoot of Forbes, tries to do a follow up on the story and he realizes that nothing about this piece stands up to scrutiny. And the movie's momentum really gets going with a cascade of revelations from the team at Forbes.

[00:03:18] So I'm just going to go through some of the main characters in this movie. And these all, you know, for the most part, represent real life people. Yeah. And listen to this cast list, everybody, because this movie kind of has a low budget feel, not an already low budget feel, but it looks like something you'd see on TV in the 70s. It has a video feel. Yeah, it's an after school special.

[00:03:38] It's like an after school, thank you, an after school special. And this is the movie was made in the early 2000s. And this cast list is like a, go ahead, Eric. I mean, this cast list is nuts. It's a murderer's robe. Who were famous at the time, about to become famous, about to become really famous in the case of the star. So we'll start with him. Stephen Glass is played by Hayden Christensen. Adam Penenberg, who is the reporter at Forbes that bust the whole thing open, is played by Steve Zahn.

[00:04:04] There's a side character who's a composite character named Andy Fox, who's played by Rosario Dawson. Michael Kelly, who is the editor who gets ousted at the near the beginning of the movie, who's sort of Stephen Glass's mentor, played by Hank Azaria. Amy Brand, who is another composite character, one of his friends and fellow recorders of the New Republic, played by Melanie Linsky.

[00:04:27] Chuck Lane, Charles Lane, is played by Peter Sarsgaard. He is the editor who's sort of at the helm, replaces Michael Kelly, and was the guy who basically blew this whole thing up on the New Republic side and led to Stephen Glass's answer. He's the hero of the film. Absolutely. He's a remarkable, remarkable actor in this movie.

[00:04:47] And then finally, Caitlin Avi. I don't think these last names are in the movie, but Caitlin is played by Chloe Sevigny, who I think, I don't know what else she had been at the time besides kids, but just absolutely incredible cast. And of course, Hayden Christensen went on to be in the Star Wars movies. So that's our cast with a lot of just excellent supporting characters. So I thought we could start by talking about the first time we ever saw this movie, which we did pretty shortly after it came out in 2003. I mean, I think opening day.

[00:05:17] It might have been. Yeah. My memory is Eric and I were both working at The Stranger as reporters. I was a news editor. Erica was the city hall reporter. And what I remember is, and I don't know if I was with Erica this time, but I was at the movies and a coming attraction came on for Shatterglass. And I could not believe how excited I was to see this movie. I was like, this is too good to be true. I have to see this movie.

[00:05:44] And I think Erica had a similar experience seeing another movie and saw the movie. I think we were both like, did you see the coming attraction for that New Republic movie? Anyway, we were stoked. We took our friend Tom, who was kind of my movie going buddy at the time, and three of us saw this movie. And immediately it lived up to the coming attraction. Yeah. I mean, I couldn't believe I was watching this movie. I didn't want it to end. It was a delight.

[00:06:11] And to that proof, Erica, the famous thing for me about seeing this movie is, you know, we were nearly bumping. I was nearly bouncing in my seat. And I look over after the film is over and Erica is scrolling her hand in a circular motion right above her head and says, roll it again, roll it again.

[00:06:34] And I mean, and Tom, I don't want to, you know, my friend Tom, he was a new dad at the time. So understood, but I think he was kind of dozing off some of the movie. So it was sort of, it was sort of funny that Erica, I think we were just beside ourselves. I remember him being asleep between us somehow. That's not how it happened. But yeah, I remember when we saw this movie, I was just beside myself with how good it was.

[00:07:00] Just from not just, you know, a storytelling perspective, but also just the fact that it got things right, that movies never get right about being in a newsroom and working as a reporter. And, you know, what it means to be a reporter who works really hard and to watch kind of a hot shot, a hot shot, in this case, fabulous, get all the attention and all the praise and the applause and all that stuff.

[00:07:27] It was just, there's just something very gratifying about watching Stephen Glass's downfall through the course of this movie. I also think it was satisfying to both of us or this authenticity you're talking about. I think separately, we lived in different cities and we were both young reporters. We experienced this in real time. And so remembered this, this scandal. Remember, I was working in DC and I remember Stephen Glass, his ascent and he was, his name was everywhere. These stories were everywhere.

[00:07:57] No one could believe how good he was. And I was in that sort of DC milieu or whatever word you want to use where it is so competitive and it's so, the movie gets the personalities in the DC politics and journalism world spot on. Hey, Seattle nice listeners. Seattle politics got you low.

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[00:08:55] That's Ikes.com. Yeah, I mean, there's, there's like, there's something very oily about Stephen Glass from the very beginning of this movie. And you're just kind of like, ugh, this guy, man. I know this guy. Yeah, I know this guy. And, and for me, you know, I was watching it. I was watching the story unfold myself. I was living in Austin.

[00:09:19] And I was a huge Stephen Glass fan and reader because he did, he got these stories that like, it just seemed unbelievable. And one, one of the characters in the movie just kind of says this during a pitch meeting where everybody's cheering. I mean, unbelievable. Yeah. Every station on the radio was talking about it. Mike Tyson biting Evander Holyfield. And these are supposed to be news stations. So on Tuesday, I started calling a few of them and finally got through to one.

[00:09:46] A Bible talk station in Kentucky. And I managed to convince the screener that I was a behavioral psychologist who specializes in human on human biting. I told the guy that I'd done all this extensive research on, on people who chomp flesh under extreme stress. They put me on the air. I took calls for 45 minutes.

[00:10:15] And, and, and so I, I mean, I remember clipping out his stories from like Harper's and I mean, I was a big magazine subscriber then, still am. And, and just being like, wow, this guy's such a great writer. You know, I want to be like this guy. It's incredible. How does he do this? So yeah, I was, when he, when he had his downfall, I mean, it was both like, I told you so. Because it did always seem too good to be true. And it was very gratifying because it was like, oh, it actually is a slog to be a successful journalist. It was a lot of work.

[00:10:45] Well, that's, yeah. And that's a theme that's sort of at play in the movie is he kind of talks a big game about practicing journalism and says all the right things. But what he's really good at is making things up. And, and it's funny because there's this focus on details. And I, I guess like most sophisticated liars, all these details are lies. So he's able to make stuff up on the spot with his lies.

[00:11:10] But he's not very sophisticated in a way because he tells, he puts too many details in things. Yeah. Sort of what ends up getting him in the end. So let's, let's jump in with our, with our scenes that we want to talk about. And we're going to talk about a lot more of this movie in coming episodes, but. Well, that's all we're going to talk about in coming episodes. Literally the only thing we're going to talk about in the coming year. In the coming year. So just to kind of frame this first episode, we decided to just talk about some of our favorite scenes from the movie.

[00:11:39] And we're going to go in roughly chronological order through the movie. So why don't we start with the first one you picked and then at the end, we'll have our, the best scene in the movie. Which I think we both agree on. Yeah. So what's your first scene? Well, before, before, let me just say, this was a hard assignment to come up with. Every scene in this movie is so good. This, this movie reminds me of, you know, and everyone has their own. Think of your favorite movie, but some of my favorite movies like Bonnie and Clyde, Psycho, Rosemary's Baby.

[00:12:07] Like every scene is critical, is key. It's like a play. Like you feel it also like a short story. Yeah. You feel like the curtain drop and then the curtain lies again. You feel like these are plays and, and, and they just have the momentum and you know every line. But it's just such a delight. And so this movie is like that, particularly as it escalates. Yep. And I just want to say, you might think listening to this, that we are in some way being sarcastic or wry or like tongue in cheek in some way.

[00:12:36] Cause we're so crazy about this movie, but just trust me. We are not. We are being a hundred percent sincere. Yeah. And this is the greatest movie of all time. And they'll try, watch it. Go watch. If you have not seen this movie, watch this movie. It's riveting. So the scene, the first thing I'm going to go with is a scene when Chuck Lane is back at home in the evening in bed with his wife. They're reading books before, before bed.

[00:13:02] And Stephen Glass calls Chuck Lane on the phone. Stephen Glass is checking in to apologize that Chuck Lane maybe got a call from the CEO of Juked Micronics, which is the subject of a story that has come under question.

[00:13:27] And what's really happening for Stephen Glass and what's revealed here is that Stephen's actually kind of doing some reporting here and he's covering his ass. He's essentially trying to make sure that his cover up is in play and he wants to make sure that Chuck did get a call from this CEO. He's pretending to apologize for this call because he knows that the role of the CEO is to be kind of a jerk.

[00:13:53] And Peter Sarsgaard, master actor, almost plays the whole scene with his face and he's just kind of evaluating what Stephen Glass is saying. And this, by the way, the next morning, they have a phone call with Forbes Digital Tool that's going to be asking them some questions about this story.

[00:14:16] So up until this point, Peter Sarsgaard, who's always been a little befuddled or bemused by Stephen Glass, like not a fan like everyone else. He's not he's not persecuting Stephen Glass like Stephen Glass thinks as a bad guy or he's just like a good editor. Anyway, he gets this call, kind of hears Stephen out. Yeah, I got a call from the CEO. What was he like? What was he like? You know, Stephen Glass wants to know and I don't know, says Peter Sarsgaard.

[00:14:46] And then, you know, he's just kind of processing everything that's happening within the call. This call now with Stephen Glass. And then he just says, see you tomorrow, Stephen. See at nine and hangs up. And he turns to his wife and he just says. Weird. Yeah. And it's even it's like so understated. And that whole scene, I think the other thing that's going on besides Stephen doing some reporting to make sure that because he could have called it.

[00:15:14] So as it turns out, the person who's playing the CEO is Stephen's own brother. And so he could have called his brother to find out. What I mean? I see what you're saying. He wasn't fact. He was he was fact checking on Peter Sarsgaard. He wanted to know what Peter Sarsgaard was kind of where Peter Sarsgaard was at. That's what I was going to say. He's like he's trying to get a vibe check because he knows there's this big meeting coming up and he's he's panicking panicking. And we've all seen people do this. Yep.

[00:15:40] Where they just they're sort of like, hey, just texting to make sure I didn't do anything weird last night. Or that's what it felt like. It felt like texting to make sure we're OK. Yeah, that's good. And just this is where you finally see Sarsgaard, who, again, is never. I do sound so serious about this movie. Really? Do I love this movie? Sarsgaard. But this is where Sarsgaard.

[00:16:05] This is where this is where Sarsgaard is finally on the right path of suspicion. Like earlier, he just kind of befuddled. Well, I think he wanted to believe his writer. He sort of led to believe through the whole movie that, you know, from Stephen's perspective, he just doesn't have his. He doesn't have my back. Chuck doesn't have my back. Chuck doesn't have my back. That's how he talks. And he does. He's good. Absolutely does. He's really concerned with the new. To the right point. Yeah. And he's concerned with the paper. Yeah. He wants good stories.

[00:16:31] So anyway, I just love that moment because I feel like, and this is the, and I think as we exchange our favorite scenes, you'll see the energy of this film is the collapse of Stephen Glass. And, and this, I think when he says weird is a signal to the audience. Here we go. Stephen Glass is no longer pulling the wool over everybody. The dominoes are fun. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Something is, something's weird. Something's up.

[00:16:57] Says this character that you really like, which is Peter Sarkisard. Yeah. Yep. So the scene that I picked for my first scene is a little bit before that, but it's, it's, it's, again, it's one of those dominoes that's falling. Um, and this is a, this is a scene that actually takes us away from Stephen and away from Chuck to the offices of Forbes digital tool, which is a very hard title to say. I don't know how long they stuck with it, but you know, anyway, Forbes.

[00:17:23] Um, so we're in their office, which is contrasted with the offices of the new Republic. It's shinier. It's sort of more modern looking. It looks like a tech office. You know, people are sitting at these long benches instead of in offices. And, and so it just feels more modern and 21st century than the new Republic office, which is just, you know, kind of a newspaper office. Uh, and additionally, I'd add the, the casting at Forbes is very multicultural. Right.

[00:17:52] And the new Republic is very, totally white and mostly dudes. So this scene involves one of the editors who is identified by IMDb. I don't think he is given a name in the, in the movie, but it's the character's call is named Kumbis Faruhar. And he's played by an actor named Kasa Anvar. And he is talking to Adam Penenberg, who was going to be the reporter that blows this whole thing open. Um, and Adam again is played by Steve Zahn.

[00:18:19] So, um, the editor comes in to this reporter and says, uh, why didn't you get the story? And he's got a copy, I think, of the new Republic. He throws the story on Adam Penenberg's desk. And he says, uh, why didn't you get this? And Penenberg says, hmm, I don't know. You know, and you think, I mean, of course we all know what's going to happen, but Penenberg is sort of in an embarrassing situation.

[00:18:45] Like, there's this huge story, and the story is what's going to take Stephen Glass down. It's a story about a hacker who has been hired, who's so good that he's been hired by this big-time software company, Juke Micronics, to do digital security for them, basically. And, uh, and so it's embarrassing for Penenberg that he doesn't have this story because it's, that's their job. They're the digital guys. They're the ones who know all this stuff. And this fusty old magazine has gotten it.

[00:19:09] So we see Penenberg at this moment kind of get competitive and be like, I mean, he's embarrassed at first. He's like, I don't know how I missed this story. And then he's like, I'm going to find out about this fucking story. And so we see him going off to do a little bit of reporting. And moments later, he comes back, bursts into the bathroom, and where his editor is peeing. And the editor's like, Adam, can you give a man a minute?

[00:19:37] Adam, can you give a man a minute? Oh, yeah. I'm sorry. Uh, it's just that, uh, Stuart Public piece. The fucking Civ. Yeah, Stephen Zahn. He kind of plays this insouciant, cocky, kind of guy with swagger a little bit. He's got swagger. The girl James Dean, kind of cool. He kind of seems like an asshole. Yeah, yeah. In a fun way. In a fun way.

[00:20:06] He's a little bit, he is the comic relief. A little bit. And the scene goes on. You see, like, sort of almost a montage of the reporters, including Rosario Dawson comes in. And they're just, they're unpacking this thing. And they're, you know, they're doing actual reporter stuff. They're, like, looking through the Yellow Pages. They're calling, you know, all these state authorities to sort of just figure out that, you know, this law that he says is going to pass in 50 different states. It doesn't exist in any state. And some of the people that he's talking about, they don't seem to exist either.

[00:20:36] And there's this great scene. Then there's this great scene where he's looking at Yahoo. I think it's like you at Yahoo.com is the website. And he looks up Juked Micronics and there's zero hits. What I, yeah. And it's, it's Scott. It's just the look on his face is priceless. Yeah. He knows he's on something. And one thing I love about this scene, it's one of many instances in this movie that alludes to all the president's men. So, you know, when you guys think of all the president's men, right?

[00:21:04] You think of Dustin Hoffman, Robert Redford kind of doing this footwork. And there's all these kind of montage scenes of them, like, clicking through stuff and yellow pages and looking stuff up and library of Congress cards. This is kind of a somewhat comedic version of that. And super low budget. It's in one room. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And they do, and they do that great phone trick. Eric, I know you love that. I love this. Yeah. So they, they're, they're calling this big time software company that doesn't have a website and isn't on you.yahoo.com.

[00:21:31] And, and they call and it's like an outgoing voicemail that's like, hi, you reached Juke Mike Chronix, please leave a message. And you can see Steve Zahn kind of make this like, huh, face. And so he and Rosaria Dawson decide to try calling it at the same time. And what they discover, of course, is that they have one phone line. One gets a busy signal, one gets through. And that is like, I mean, it's such a 1990s kind of reporting because I mean, that wouldn't work today, obviously.

[00:21:59] But it's just, yeah, it's just such a great like shoe leather kind of moment. Yeah. That's captured again in this like incredibly, I mean, your point about the Library of Congress scene, which is like, of course, one of my favorite scenes in All the Presidents Men where there's an overhead shot of them, you know, and it gets wider and wider and wider panning out from Woodward and Bernstein looking through card catalogs. Yeah. And yeah, at the Library of Congress. And this is like, this is like a miniature, miniature, miniature version of that. But like in what was the digital age? I mean, this was the cutting edge at the time.

[00:22:29] Yeah. I mean, the funny thing, I think we should remind people this movie, Shattered Glasses was made in 2003 as Erica said up front. And it's about a thing that went down in 1998. So we are talking in both instances of really kind of early internet era. And I mean, you know, digital journalism was happening. We were all super aware of it, but it had not. No one was really practicing. Well, and you and I were at The Stranger, which did not have a blog yet.

[00:22:58] That started, I think, in 2005. I think that's right. And so, yeah. So even watching this, you know, I'm sort of laughing at some of the technology that they had and the tools that they had at the time, you know, and a lot of it is now obsolete. But yeah, I mean, this was for 1998. I mean, I was working in a newsroom then, too. You know, and this is not how everybody was doing recording at the time. Yeah. You know, a Forbes digital tool kind of thing where it wouldn't be a New Republic kind of thing. Yeah. I mean, later on, we hear that Chuck Lane say that he doesn't understand computers.

[00:23:27] Yeah, that's a great scene. All right. What's your next scene? My next scene is we're in, I call this sort of a kind of a collection of scenes, but I call it The Sweep of Bethesda. And the scene starts, Chuck Lane gets off a private phone call with Penenberg, Steve Zahn's

[00:23:51] editor at Forbes, after they've done this group call where Forbes has eviscerated Stephen's story. Stephen is covered in flop sweat. Yeah, yeah. It's clear if things are coming apart. Yeah. And so Stephen is like on the floor of the mailroom closet or whatever, talking with Chloe Sevigny and Amy and kind of getting their sympathy. They're totally on his side. I think he's being persecuted by Chuck Lane.

[00:24:17] And Chuck Lane just enters the room and says, we need to take a ride to Bethesda, which is where the action of Stephen's story had taken place. There was a hacker's conference. Anyway, they go to Bethesda. And so a couple, there's kind of a triptych of, there's kind of a triptych of events here. So the first, the first part of this triptych of this sweep of Bethesda is this restaurant where Chuck wants to see where a scene took place in, in, in Stephen Glass's story where

[00:24:45] this hacker kid is issuing all these demands. Wrestle's just laying out all of his demands. I want a Miata. I want a trip to Disney World. I want X-Men comic book number one. I want a lifetime subscription to Playboy. And throwing pentests. They're complying with every single word. And it's kind of small. The restaurant is small. It doesn't look like... He has so many details, though. So we've seen this scene before. We've seen it in Stephen Glass's memory. Yeah. Not his, well, not his memory, but his mind palace.

[00:25:15] Yeah. And, you know, and he just has, in this scene you're describing, he has a lot of irrelevant details designed to make it sound real. Yeah, someone's smoking at the other table. Right. So they have to move. So he's sitting over here and she's sitting over here. Yeah. Yeah. But this scene's sort of the initial one that leads to, okay, things are about to go awry. The next scene is the one that I really, is what I like the best of this little triptych. And they go into the hotel where the hackers convention took place.

[00:25:45] Where is that? You know, oh, it's next door, Stephen says. And they go and they go into this building. They kind of ascend the escalator. And you see this is a tiny lobby at the top of an escalator. And Chuck Lane here? 200 people here? And Steve starts panicking. And again, a Watergate reference, All the President's Men reference.

[00:26:10] There's this elder African-American guy who's kind of the guard there. And his head is going back and forth. He's kind of watching Chuck Lane interrogate Steve Blass and Steve Blass fall apart. And it happened here? I swear I was here. I know I was here. And this guy is sort of amused a little bit. And he's like, what's going on? And Chuck Lane turns to him and says, excuse me, would you know about a conference that took here two Sundays ago?

[00:26:36] And this guard desk guy says, well, we're closed on Sundays. So like derails the whole thing. The reason I say All the President's Men Watergate reference, I want to say his name was Frank Church. But there's like an older African-American who was the night watchman that kind of, you know, luckily discovered the taped door in All the President's Men in the garage that let him know there were burglars there. I just think the characters are similar. Yep. I agree.

[00:27:03] Anyway, and then the next scene, Stephen is like, you know, almost crying. And Chuck is saying, where can I jump in? He says, all I know is I was here. We all were here. And he's just so, he's just, he knows he's now, he doesn't even have lies anymore. He just has to keep insistent. Yeah, get louder. Get insistent. And then the next scene, well, they, and then, and Chuck is, Peter Sarsgaard is very even keeled. And he's doing reporting now, right? He's like, let's go to the restaurant. You say they went to a restaurant after to celebrate.

[00:27:33] And, and he's like, oh yeah, it's right across the street. It's right across the street. And they get to the door and you see the camera zooms in on the door and Chuck Lane sees what we see. Stephen does not. And the restaurant closes at three. So there, there's no dinner. And so Chuck Lane turns back. We know he has information that Stephen doesn't have. And he says something like, here, three o'clock for dinner. For dinner. Thank you. Eight people. Yeah. And he, and he says, uh, the restaurant closed at three.

[00:28:03] And of course, Stephen Glass in his kind of flow. That's right. That's what I told you. He was rushed and they let us in. They knew. And Stephen Glass says, I mean, the hacker kid, he was about to cry and they let us in. And Stephen is about to cry as he's saying this, which is another thing in the movie. Like Stephen is the hacker, right? He's inventing, he's invented this character that is essentially him. Yes. Fantasy. Yeah, that's right. That's right.

[00:28:28] And, um, and then this is when Peter Sarsgaard, who has been so stoic this whole movie and even keeled and listening to Stephen Glass and always kind of as an actor responding with his face with some suspicion. And he's kind of freaking out himself because he knows that Forbes is running an article on this. And he's kind of said, okay. And, and gone with a story that Stephen was maybe duped, but not a fabulist.

[00:28:58] And he says, these Forbes guys, they're highly suspicious. And his, it's the first time that Sarsgaard kind of breaks and escalates. And you see it in that one line. These Forbes guys are highly suspicious. And they're surveillance cameras. They're going to have this. They're going to have this. Yeah. They're going to have this, Steve. And he, and Steve's like, what do you want me to do? He's like, I just want you to tell me the truth. Right? Yep. It's such a good scene. And then they get back in the car and they drive to Bethesda and Stephen is behind the

[00:29:26] wood, almost gets them killed because he's so freaked out and almost sits in a car accident. Anyway, that's the next on my list. What's your next one? My next one is in the same vein. I mean, this is, this is Chuck sort of having the wool pull over from over his eyes. So this is in the conference call. Oh, yes. And this is the, the scene after, you know, Chuck gets that call and says weird. And before the sequence I just described. Yep. So this is in between those two.

[00:29:53] So, so, so he's, he's sitting there in the conference room. They're on a conference call with the guys from Forbes and, and Stephen has, has stayed up all night. He's been at the New Republic all night long and, and we find out why. So they, he says, uh, he's, you know, he's giving them all these numbers and saying, this is a number of this person, this is a number of this person. But he also gives them the URL for juke my chronic. And the, uh, the URL, I'm just going to, I'm going to, I'm going to read it.

[00:30:21] It's members.aol.jukedn.html. So, so they, so they load up the website and the guy from Forbes, the editor from Forbes looks at it. You can see the Forbes people looking at each other over in the Forbes office. And they're, they're laughing at this website because it's basically, it's a gray screen with a little bit of text on it in black. And the text is something that Stephen has written in creating this fake website.

[00:30:51] That's like an attack on the New Republic. They're just like, what the hell is this? Yeah. They show Rosario, they show all, they're all gathered around, uh, and their faces, their jaws are on the floor in display. The thing Erica mentioned this earlier, but that, that Chuck is, has, says he doesn't know what computers are on. And that's a really, really good detail about this scene is that the, the, the New Republic, this is back in the day, like someone like Chuck Lane wouldn't know that what the Forbes people know. Yeah. Like you could fool Chuck Lane kind of with this website.

[00:31:21] Kind of. And so, so what the Forbes editor says, he's trying to explain to the, the New Republic guys what their concern is. He says, quite frankly, it doesn't look like a real website. It looks like a website that was created to fool someone and Chuck, you know, asks him, could you do that? And he says, oh yes, very easily. And so easily it's almost incredible.

[00:31:46] And, uh, and meanwhile, Steven Glass is like running around in the background, like frantically pulling out notes, you know, and giving, giving them more fake numbers for fake people. And, and, and we know, and, and shortly after this is a scene between Chuck and the Forbes editor about Steven. Chuck knows it's over. I mean, at this point, I think this is when he's like, okay, I don't understand computers, but these guys understand computers. And they're saying that this does not look like a real website. And also by the way, yes.

[00:32:15] And earlier when, when Chuck gets fooled by the website, um, he also hand, Steven also has made up a, printed out a business card for one of these fake juke CEOs. And that looks fake. And anyone can see that's fake, right? So yeah, it takes kind of an expert back in 1998 to maybe see if a website is fake. I think, I think Chuck has a sense of, he's looking at it suspiciously. Then he gets this car and then he gets supposedly the, uh, the agent for this hacker, Ian Restall. Yeah.

[00:32:44] And it's made out of like, it's not even, it's a printout. It's a printout that you could do and cut out with a pair of scissors. And so you see him kind of folding it and looking at it and just being like, yeah. So yeah, that's when I was, I'd say, tell you what I like about it. No, I'm just bringing up the scene earlier. I'm saying there's an, there's a foreshadowing. Yeah. And, and, you know, and the feeling like for me as a reporter watching that scene and a lot

[00:33:11] of scenes in this, in this movie is just like, God, what a great feeling. Like you're jealous of Adam Penenberg at that moment. You're so, you just so like, I want to be him. And I relate to him. And I, to be honest, like, you know, Steven is just not relatable at all. Like nothing about him is particularly likable. I mean, even though it's like played by Hayden Christians, he just does a great job of this kind of, this character who knows how to turn on the charm and knows how to be charismatic, but it's just a real slime ball deep down and a really kind of hollow, empty person. Yeah.

[00:33:41] Yeah. Yeah. So what's your next scene? I'm going to do my next scene, but Eric, I do want to say you left out, I think what might be your favorite part of that scene. What? And for not working. Oh, fuck. You're right. So that. Yeah. Take two. Take another minute and do it. Okay. Okay. I'm not, I'm not even going to take two. I'm just going to tell you guys that in that URL, which was bizarre and long, and obviously, you know, only accessible to AOL members.

[00:34:10] He's reading it out to them. Steven is reading it out to the guys at Forbes on, you know, on this conference call. And he says, it's, you know, AOL dot whatever juked N and, and they enter it in and over at Forbes and Steve's on says that I'm not getting anything at that URL. And he says, is that, is an M or an N? You gave us members.aol.jukedn.html. Wait, was that an M? I'm sorry? After juked, was that an M as in Micronics? No, it was an N.

[00:34:40] As in not working. And it's just, you know, it's great. It's just a great, you know, a little, just a little writing flourish that I just, I love about this movie. My, my next scene is a character we've talked a little bit about before, but Hank Azaria who plays Michael Kelly, who was the initial editor before he gets fired for other reasons that play into the movie, but who is a hero to the new, the young New Republic staff and Chuck Lane takes over from him.

[00:35:07] Anyway, after Steven bites it in this sort of climactic sequences of climax as he keeps going down. He's not fired. He's suspended. He's suspended. Two years. For two years, which I don't know. It's a little bizarre, but we're not here to criticize this movie. Um, so Steven is kind of hanging out at the offices of the National Review where the National Journal. Oh, sorry. The National Journal. The National Review. Nah, very different. National Journal, where Michael Kelly's now the editor.

[00:35:38] By the way, P.S. Michael Kelly goes on to tragically die covering Afghanistan, the war in Iraq. Yeah. Yeah. Which is mentioned in the movie at the end. And in a just great DC scene setting, it's that kind of 547 and Michael Kelly kind of comes traipsing around the corner with a colleague, a woman. And she's probably another editor or something. They're kind of discussing. They're in the middle of a conversation about, you know, DC politics and coverage and just

[00:36:08] a great little moment. And Steven's sitting there. He's sitting down looking like- On the floor. On the floor. He's very childlike. He wears a, you know, he's a little kid. He wears socks around the office. His backpack is funny like a third grade backpack. Like a chance for her. Yeah. And, um, he's sitting there and at this point kind of depressed and he, Michael Kelly's a little startled and he obviously knows what's happened at this point to Steven. And, hey, Steve, what's going on? And then we cut, you know, and the next thing they're both, they're both, the woman has

[00:36:36] left and so it's clear that Michael Kelly and Steven Glass are having kind of as hard to hard. They're both sitting on the floor at this point kind of facing each other. And, you know, these marble DC offices. And, uh, and Steven is kind of going through this anti-chuck rap. Personalizing it. Yeah. Like, yeah, personalizing it and kind of trying to flatter Michael Kelly. I think, again, this is a panic as you, like, he's kind of trying to repair or something and make sure that he's not maybe hated.

[00:37:05] I think this is similar to the scene we talked about earlier with the phone call. Yeah, he wants Michael on his side. He's kind of checking in. No, but I'm saying it's a vibe check, like you said about that phone call. Yeah. He wants to make sure that, you know, at least Michael Kelly agrees with him that Chuck Lane is an asshole. That's right. And we kind of see it. And again, and Michael Kelly, there's a scene early in the movie where Michael Kelly is kind of offered a moment to be suspicious of Steve. And Steve kind of trams his way out of it. Yeah. I mean, he's suspicious, but not for very long. But not for very long. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:37:35] But it's a nice foreshadowing. Anyway, at this point, Michael Kelly has kind of a, you know, not smirk, but he's just looks chill and he's kind of not buying it. And he says, you know, Steve, even though as Steve's trashing Chuck Lane, you know, Steve, those were fireable offenses. He says, and oh, I know, I know. But, you know, Chuck always had it in for me. And then Michael Kelly says, you know, I have to ask you something, Steve.

[00:38:06] When I was your editor, did you ever cook one for me? And this is a reference to what I just said earlier. There's a story that kind of gets challenged that that's how kind of the movie starts. You know, there's a moment when one of his hit stories about CPAC gets questioned by CPAC because he talks about these mini bars and these little bottles of alcohol and it becomes a thing. And so Michael Kelly's like, did you ever cook one for me?

[00:38:35] That story, the mini bars, CPAC, the mini bars and the camera just kind of pulls back and we don't, Steve doesn't answer. And the scene ends. Because, yeah, he knows, he knows if he doesn't have the great Michael Kelly on his side, he may not have anybody on his side. Yeah, that's right. This has been his kind of phantom, phantom mentor, friend, protector. Yeah. And he doesn't have him anymore. I mean, it was a fireable offense.

[00:39:05] I love that he says that. Yeah. It was a fireable offense. By the way, in this movie, Hank Azaria looks exactly like Talking Ahead's era David Byrne. I mean, I kind of disagree, but I see what you're saying. See what I'm saying? He's not wearing a giant suit. Same haircut. All right. So my final scene, and then we'll get on to the best scene in the movie. That we agree. That we agree. We'll choose. Yeah. My final scene, this is again, I really love the denouement of Chuck kind of realizing.

[00:39:34] I guess it's just because even when I watched this in 2003, when I hadn't been a reporter for that long, I really identified with Chuck so much. Oh, yeah. Because I could just see my sex. I knew charlatans already, and I knew people like this. And so I just, there's something, something very delightful about it. Anyway, this is a scene near the end where Stephen's already been sent away. I believe he has not fired him. He has suspended him, but he has told him he needs to leave.

[00:40:01] And one of the interns has asked Chuck, what happened to Stephen? He's so upset. He's calling and he says that he's going home to stay with his parricks. And, you know, what did you do, Chuck? What did you do? And we learn that Stephen's brother lives in Palo Alto. And that's when Chuck realizes that the CEO of Juke Micronics has been played by Stephen's brother, because it's a Palo Alto number.

[00:40:27] And so he goes in to the New Republic, and he's looking at this giant wall of magazines, and he's taking down all the New Republic issues that Stephen Glass wrote stories for, because he's got to check them all. And then Stephen walks in, and this whole scene is just so devastating. So he says, you hired your brother to play George Sims. And, you know, Stephen starts sputtering like he always does. No, Chuck, I wish you believed me, Chuck.

[00:40:59] And Chuck fires him. He says, you know, you're fired. You're not suspended. You need to get your things, and you need to go. And there's, you know, a very dramatic scene in Stephen's office where they're, like, fighting over what he gets to take with him, because this is all going to become part of, you know, a lawsuit later on, which we see closer to the end of the movie. And then we see all these shots from the previous scenes of the movie where Stephen's been pitching.

[00:41:24] And people are, you know, laughing at his pitches and these pitch meetings and clapping. And it's kind of a montage of people just loving Stephen and lapping up, you know, everything he's selling. And it's Chuck realizing, I think, the extent of what a charlatan Stephen really was, and that he really just made it all up. All of it. And he's just, and so there's this montage of Stephen reading these, his own stories out loud.

[00:41:53] You can hear it as Chuck is slamming the magazines on the floor. You know, you hear, you hear parts of his, his bullshit. And it's just, there's something, there's something really satisfying about, about seeing Chuck have this realization. Like, oh, okay, this guy. This is, this is a serial. This is, this thing that I think sticks out to me about that scene is Chuck is kind of, he's flipping through these stories.

[00:42:18] And what, I don't remember the montage as much as what I remember is you see the camera zooms in on lines from each story. Yeah, from Chuck's eyes. Right. And, and, and you as a viewer, he, you see those lines, you see them the way Hayden Christensen would kind of pitch them and deliver them. Right. So you see, oh my God, it's riddled with this nonsense. Well, and it's a voiceover. So Hayden Christensen is like reading the, oh, it is Hayden Christensen's voice. Yeah.

[00:42:46] And so what, what I actually, my reaction to that is actually, as he's reading them, you know, he'll sort of, he'll be reading them and then, you know, he'll stop in the middle of a word and Chuck will throw the magazine down. That's right. And, and it, and to me, he sounds like he's lying. Like the way that he's reading them, it's subtly, you can tell that he's, that it's all lying. Well, you're just hearing it in a new way now. Yes. Because you're, you're hearing Peter Sarsgaard hear it in a new way. Yes. And so Steven comes in. That's brilliant. Yeah. Oh, it's incredible. Yeah. I think some of the style of the voice actor.

[00:43:16] I'd forgotten about the subtlety of that scene. Yeah. Like they replay, and you're right, the montage, they replay the whole movie now as a lie. It's so good. This is a good movie. Yeah, it's a good movie. So, so then, so, so Steven's been sent away. He somehow gets back in by charming somebody. And. You hear it in the background. He charms the guard. The guard. Yeah. The guard that's unseen guard. And, and so, you know, he's, he's pitching, he's, he's trying to get his job back and trying to convince this last dish attempt.

[00:43:47] And, and Chuck says, stop pitching, Steven. It's over. So that scene is like, it's, it's almost like a coda. I mean, there's going to be more codas in this movie. It's like. It does end kind of like four times. Because they're as satisfied to be getting him as we are. Yeah. And, and the crazy thing about that is this movie is an hour and 35 minutes. And it's very compact. But it does have like four endings. I mean, I will, I will slam it up for that a little bit. They're all great endings. Pick your, pick which one you think is best. The very last one is great.

[00:44:16] I almost chose that for one of my scenes. With the reading of the cases. Oh, yeah. The other deposition scene that, that we're not going to get into. So this doesn't become three hours long. Yeah. Instead of two hours. As long as the movie we're talking about. Yeah. So we've been hyping the greatest scene in the greatest movie of all time. This is, this is one I think we, we agree. This is just, I mean, fantastic acting. It summarizes, it comes at the very, very end of the movie. It's before one of the four endings.

[00:44:44] But it summarizes kind of the conflict here. Because everybody at the New Republic, except for Chuck, loved Stephen Glass. They were all friends with him, you know, kind of played all of them. And so they're very defensive and they don't want him to get fired. And Chuck is the bad guy who came in and replaced, you know, their, their beloved Michael Kelly. And so, so this is the central conflict. Now, Stephen is sort of, you know, in some ways out of the picture.

[00:45:08] And so the conflict is between Chuck Lane and Caitlin, who we haven't talked about a lot, but she's a central figure in the movie. She's one of the reporters played by Chloe Seventy. She's an editor, I think. She's, she's like an associate editor or something. So, so they're having a confrontation. Chuck is leaving the office after that scene I just described with the magazines. And he's walking out and he sees Caitlin walking in. I mean, let's, let's just take a breath here.

[00:45:37] This scene is a cascade of comeuppance for the character you hate. Victory for the character you love. Everything comes true in this scene. And it's just like there was a cascade of kind of climaxes of Steve, different scenes in the movie of Stephen getting busted. This scene is a cascade of vindications. Yep. And Caitlin is not the bad guy here. I want to say.

[00:46:06] So she is, she is, she still has some trust in Stephen. And, and so she is defending him, but she's not stupid either. And so this is kind of her last defense of Stephen. And Chuck, this is like the proxy for the audience. He says. If you were a stranger to you, if he was a guy you were doing a piece about, pretend that guy told you he'd only done it once. Would you take his word for it? Of course not. You'd dig and you'd bury him. You'd be offended if anybody told you not.

[00:46:33] And by the way, this is something that Josh and I say to each other approximately seven times a day. And so they have some back and forth about, you know, whether this is possible. And Caitlin is convinced that this is because Chuck knows that the staff is not loyal to him. This is. Of course. What are you going to do, Chuck? Pick us off one by one? Everybody that was loyal to Mike? Do you have a staff that belongs to you? Is that the kind of magazine you want to run?

[00:47:01] Caitlin, when this thing blows, there isn't going to be a magazine anymore. Every competitor that we ever took a shot at, they're going to pounce. And they should because we blew it, Caitlin. He fed us fiction after fiction and we printed them all as facts just because we found him entertaining. I know that whole scene by heart. And that last part, I think Josh and I were just looking at each other like engrossed in this amazing writing. And they just deliver these lines.

[00:47:27] And so, I mean, Caitlin is defensive, but she's also, I think she's doubting. She's doubting. Caitlin, he's got the goods. He's got receipts, as you would say. Yeah. And Chuck is just so frustrated because it's like he has more than enough evidence. He has all the evidence you could possibly need to bury this guy. People are not willing to believe him. Can I pick up? There's a beautiful touch. Is that the end of the script? So, there's the scene.

[00:47:57] Even after that, there's a part that I look forward to seeing. The scene doesn't quite end. Caitlin is standing there in the lobby. Chuck is leaving. He's walking. He opens the door. He leaves. And it's one of those. And again, this is perfect for so many reasons. I think this was impromptu or this happens by happens. This is happenstance. But he shuts the door. The door closes behind him. One of these DC glass doors in the evening. And a gust of wind comes from under the door.

[00:48:28] And it ruffles. It moves through Chloe Sevigny's hair. So, she's standing there looking kind of. The photo furious, upset. Scales falling from eyes. Like all of it, right? And her hair just kind of goes woof, woof. And it just seems like a comment on what just happened. It's like, yeah. The reality is coming through her brain. Through her brain. It's like a shock. And her hair stands up. I mean, it's nuts that this happens. And I don't think that was scripted. Yeah. How could you script that?

[00:48:58] It's incredible. And you can just see she's almost crying. But she has this very stoic look on her face. And then the movie ends with a scene the next day where all the editors and writers of The New Republic have written an apology letter. And so, you kind of see, like, this is what happens after Chloe Sevigny, you know, goes in, goes upstairs, reads them all, going back to when Mike was there. I love the.

[00:49:23] And she takes the evidence and she weighs it against, you know, what she thinks she knows about Stephen. And she decides she agrees. And that it's obvious that this guy has been fooling all of them all along. Yeah. So they do the right thing. Yeah. And they apologize. And that's actually not the last scene because, as we said, there's a legal scene, which, again. There's literally four endings to this movie. And the legal scene is, again, an allusion to all the president's men because they kind of get in this.

[00:49:52] Stephen will not. It's the lawyers. It's New Republic lawyers versus Stephen. Stephen's lawyers and it's Chuck Lane, New Republic's lawyers on one side of the table and Stephen on the other side of the table. And basically they're getting to kind of some legal agreement. And Chuck Lane is saying what stories they're going to list as having been fabricated. And he's trying to confirm from Stephen that, you know, tell me if this is fabricated or not.

[00:50:19] And Stephen's lawyer jumps in and says, well, we're not willing to say. And then Chuck Lane cuts him off and says, here's what we're going to do. And he kind of sets up this. He says, here's what we're going to do. If a story was fabricated, if it's if it belongs on this list, don't say anything. Stay silent and it'll stay on the list. Right.

[00:50:40] And that is a direct literal, a direct allusion to the acclimactic scene in All the President's Men when Dustin Hoffman is on the phone with a source. And he's trying to confirm something that his editors are questioning. And he sets up a thing. He says, I'm going to count to 10. And if you're still on the phone at 10, I'm good. And they do that. And Hoffman says, we good.

[00:51:09] And the guy says, we're good. But we then, so in a kind of twist, we learn that the source misunderstood the convoluted game. And so Hoffman gets it wrong. And it's very similar kind of verbal, reporting, confirm, not deny, deny, not confirm, you know, kind of thing. Yeah. Very funny. All right. Well, that is it for our first episode. Oh, do you have one? No, no. I'm just starting.

[00:51:37] We'll talk about the fourth ending, perhaps on a future episode. And we'll get into a lot more. The scenes. I mean, we forgot, but we haven't even done the outfit. People will learn. The framing device. The school room. The major framing device that you see at the beginning. You'll see that that's my one criticism of this movie. Hopefully, we're going to have some special guests, too. But we'll see about that in a future podcast. But for now, I've been Erica Barnett. Josh Feit. And thanks for listening.