The Best Movies You’ve Never Seen podcast – Erin Brockovich

Episode: Erin Brockovich
Podcast: The Best Movies You’ve Never Seen
Date: 18 September 2026
Hosts: Stephen Fenech & Trevor Long

[00:01:44] Stephen Fenech: Hello and welcome to The Best Movies You've Never Seen, our movie podcast where I, Stephen Fenech— I'm the one who picks the movies, has seen the movies, and show them to my friend Trevor Long, who— these are the movies that he's never seen, hence the name of this podcast. Trevor, welcome. Maybe we should call it The Best Movies Trevor's Never Seen. Yeah, I think the best movies you've never seen.

[00:02:06] Trevor Long: I'd like that because I have a massive ego, but stick with what we've got because I think we— I love the fact that we introduce— especially I'm definitely Lone Ranger when it comes to being weirdo who doesn't watch a lot of movies, but it's more about the generational change that's affecting society today. You know, young kids today need to be exposed to great movies of your generation.

[00:02:25] Stephen Fenech: Of course. Well, the movie we're doing today is Erin Brockovich, and a warning, there's some— Erin Brockovich got a bit of a potty mouth, so a bit of explicit language. This was released in 2000, stars Julia Roberts, Albert Finney, Aaron Eckhart, directed by Steven Soderbergh.

[00:02:45] Trevor Long: Soderbergh.

[00:02:46] Stephen Fenech: Now Julia Roberts, uh, she's at the height of her powers here, received a— makes the first woman to receive $20 million for a role.

[00:02:59] Movie Audio: Wow.

[00:03:00] Stephen Fenech: First woman in history to break the $20 million barrier, and worth every cent. Solid salary. Now, you know, how did they come up with the idea for this film, do you reckon?

[00:03:11] Trevor Long: Well, I mean, it was obviously a high-profile—

[00:03:13] Stephen Fenech: well, case. Let me tell you, uh, one of the executive producers, uh, went to the chiropractor, and the chiropractor told her about one of her patients, Erin Brockovich. Oh wow. And so the woman who went to the chiropractic appointment then told her husband, who just happens to be producer Michael Schamburg. Who just said, that'll make a bloody good movie.

[00:03:38] Movie Audio: Wow.

[00:03:38] Stephen Fenech: And that was how they got it rolling. And then Erin Brockovich— her name's Ellen Brockovich Ellis now, she recently married a musician, but I'm going to refer to her as Erin Brockovich— she sold the rights to her story to Universal for a reported $100,000.

[00:03:57] Trevor Long: That doesn't seem like enough.

[00:03:58] Stephen Fenech: She says, uh, we'll take your life rights, here's 100 grand, and, uh, that was it, mate.

[00:04:03] Trevor Long: I wouldn't sell my life rights for that, not have a story as good as this.

[00:04:06] Stephen Fenech: There you have it. Well, this is back in late, in the mid-'90s we're talking, so still feels like unders. Yeah, $100,000. Yeah, I guess so. Now, the real Erin Brockovich is on record as saying that this obviously is a true story, right? She's on record as saying this movie was 98-99% accurate.

[00:04:26] Trevor Long: Wow.

[00:04:27] Stephen Fenech: So pretty high percentage.

[00:04:28] Trevor Long: Fact or fiction is going to be boring later.

[00:04:29] Stephen Fenech: Well, we'll see about that. But the, the— she married the musician Eric L. Ellis, so that's why her name is now Brokovich Ellis. Yeah. Now the other big star of the movie was Albert Finney. Yeah, who famously was Hercule Poirot in the original, uh, Murder on the Orient Express film.

[00:04:47] Trevor Long: Take your word.

[00:04:48] Stephen Fenech: Massive movie in the '70s.

[00:04:49] Trevor Long: I recognize him for sure.

[00:04:51] Stephen Fenech: British star, British guy. Um, now he turned it down. Oh, he said, 'Nah, not interested.' Oh wow. But you might have noticed in the credits one of the producers was Danny DeVito. And he convinced— he said, mate, oh, he knew Finney's partner.

[00:05:08] Trevor Long: Yeah.

[00:05:08] Stephen Fenech: And he said, look, if it helps, we can shoot all of his scenes together, closer together, so he won't have to be in LA longer than he has to be.

[00:05:19] Movie Audio: Wow.

[00:05:20] Stephen Fenech: And that's what turned him. He said, okay, yeah, we'll be right. So he obviously lives in London, right? So he made it, put on the American accent for the movie. But they said, look, let's cut it down and we'll We'll sort him out. And he's cool. Alrighty, had you any impressions? Heard of— you've surely heard of this movie?

[00:05:37] Trevor Long: Definitely heard of this movie, uh, and I could have told you that it was a broad story of illegal, uh, stash, um, and I reckon I could have even gotten to water. Um, okay, I feel like maybe I'd seen it but not enough to not feel like every minute of this movie was new to me. So, okay, yeah, I come in pretty fresh, but I was well aware of this as a Hollywood blockbuster.

[00:06:00] Stephen Fenech: Well, obviously it was a massive hit at the box office. Julia Roberts ends up winning the Best Actress Oscar at the 2001 Oscars, though that was the year that she won Best Actress and Russell Crowe was Best Actor for Gladiator.

[00:06:11] Trevor Long: Oh really?

[00:06:12] Movie Audio: Yeah.

[00:06:12] Trevor Long: Okay.

[00:06:13] Stephen Fenech: Now for her performance, now she was— became— Julia Roberts became the first actress to simultaneously win the Best Actress at the Academy Awards, right, Screen Actors Guild, the BAFTA Awards, Critics' Choice Awards, and the Golden Globes.

[00:06:29] Trevor Long: Wow, that is massive. She— for all 5 majors, often indicators between them but very rarely crossover.

[00:06:35] Stephen Fenech: Boom. Now this was one of 5 nominations. So was nominated for Best Picture, beaten by Gladiator, right? Nominated for Best Actor in a Supporting Role for Albert Finney, beaten by Benicio del Toro for Traffic. Best Actress in a Lead Role, Julia Roberts won. Best Director, Steven Soderbergh beaten by himself.

[00:06:57] Trevor Long: What?

[00:06:58] Stephen Fenech: For Traffic.

[00:07:00] Trevor Long: So he was guilty on himself.

[00:07:01] Stephen Fenech: He was nominated.

[00:07:01] Trevor Long: What do they do in the, in the 5 boxes on the Oscars night?

[00:07:04] Stephen Fenech: They have 2 of them. He was nominated.

[00:07:06] Trevor Long: What they should have done was have him look one way and mirror the other one.

[00:07:09] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, maybe. So he was nominated for Best Director. He never won it for, for Erin Brockovich. He won it for Traffic.

[00:07:17] Trevor Long: That's crazy.

[00:07:17] Stephen Fenech: So he won a Best Director's Oscar, but just not for Erin Brockovich.

[00:07:19] Trevor Long: He won a Best Director's Oscar.

[00:07:21] Stephen Fenech: Well, the odds were pretty good. He was 2 out of 5.

[00:07:23] Trevor Long: He did okay.

[00:07:24] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, he was going right. Now he became the 10th person to direct multiple Best Picture Opera nominated movies in the same year. 10th, 10th person. And we're talking, you know, Ernst Lubitsch back in 1932, Jack Conway 1936, Victor Fleming, Michael Curtiz directed The Adventures of Robin Hood and Four Daughters in 1939, and more recently Alfred Hitchcock in 1940, and, uh, he directed Foreign Correspondent and Rebecca. Even more recently, Francis Ford Coppola was nominated for The Conversation 1974 and The Godfather Part II as well. So plenty there.

[00:08:01] Trevor Long: There you go.

[00:08:02] Stephen Fenech: Righto, this is your last exit before the freeway. We're going to take a deep dive, uh, get it, in the water, deep dive.

[00:08:10] Trevor Long: It's tenuous, but okay.

[00:08:11] Stephen Fenech: Alrighty, well, we're going to take a solid look at Aaron Brockovich. If you haven't seen it, you can catch it on Fetch.

[00:08:16] Trevor Long: And Fetch is not just about movies, it's about entertainment in total. And TV is one thing you can get on Fetch just the way you like it, all in one easy place. Pause, rewind, and record free-to-air and premium TV channels. Uh, watch on demand with catch-up TV and buy the hottest shows in the TV store. You can view the episode guide, the EPG, in forward and reverse, which makes it really easy to find catch-up. You've got premium channel packs, so if you're looking for even more entertainment, you can add the Fetch channel packs with 5 to choose from at great affordable prices. You can get anything from kids, sports, drama, comedy, documentaries, and news. And there are 40+ channels available. Discovery, ESPN, BBC Earth, BBC Drama, Animal Planet, Discovery Turbo, Cartoon Network, HGTV, and much, much more. Plus there's that TV store so you can find everything you want and buy it. Things like The Sopranos, you could buy that and own it on your Fetch forever. Mr. Inbetween, another great TV show. Yeah, buy that.

[00:09:11] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, great show.

[00:09:13] Trevor Long: Yeah, you know what, I might rewatch that. That is that good, I might rewatch it.

[00:09:16] Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[00:09:17] Trevor Long: You can buy Fetch from major retailers, you can get it as a Telstra customer, or you can go to fetchtv.com.au.

[00:09:23] Stephen Fenech: All right, now you have now watched Erin Brockovich. Don't give us your full rating, just give us your first impression.

[00:09:28] Trevor Long: Yeah, I mean, this is a great story, well told. I think that's what I loved about it most, was it just tells the story so well. The, the, the— I think the writing is probably the best part of this movie outside of Julia Roberts' acting. Um, and you know, it's a compelling story because it Tugs on your heartstrings. There's— you can't help but feel for the people in the town.

[00:09:49] Stephen Fenech: It also helps that it's based on a true story as well. So you're thinking, wow, this actually happened.

[00:09:54] Trevor Long: You're thinking, how does this happen? Like, that's what you're thinking. You're thinking this really went on or goes on, like, who knows? And, you know, it felt real because of the locations of shooting. Like, it felt like they went to this remote town. It, you know, we know America well. I've driven that, you know, rural part of America between LA and Vegas many times. So those roads just felt familiar and those little towns are real. Yeah, I love that part of it.

[00:10:19] Stephen Fenech: So for the record too, the events of the film is in the mid-'90s, right? So this was sort of 4 or 5 years after those events is when this is.

[00:10:28] Trevor Long: Is that recent?

[00:10:29] Stephen Fenech: Very much a '90s movie.

[00:10:30] Trevor Long: The movie was made only 5 years after, I think.

[00:10:33] Stephen Fenech: I think it was early '90s, I think it's '93, you might have said.

[00:10:36] Trevor Long: Because today, like, it's not unusual today for a big thing to happen and then they turn that into a Netflix documentary or something, right?

[00:10:40] Stephen Fenech: Takes a few years.

[00:10:41] Trevor Long: No, but I would have expected it was like decades before, you know.

[00:10:44] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, it's interesting you should mention that. Like, imagine if this had to happen now, how would this have been treated? You reckon it would have been a standalone movie or a Netflix?

[00:10:51] Trevor Long: This would have just been turned into a Netflix series, a court drama and all that kind of stuff.

[00:10:54] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, they would have stretched it out.

[00:10:56] Trevor Long: Okay, um, and your social media post here on this one, um, I can say the story of Erin Brockovich is well known, and while the story— while it's the story of a great legal battle, it's also a fantastic story about a woman who knows her worth, works hard for a family, and won't take no for an answer. Julia Roberts is an absolute blockbuster performance here as Erin Brockovich.

[00:11:17] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, I agree.

[00:11:18] Trevor Long: You cannot walk away from this movie thinking anything but holy crap, she's a great actress.

[00:11:24] Movie Audio: Absolutely right.

[00:11:24] Stephen Fenech: You know what, I think this is the movie where she established herself. Like, she was already a star, but she was a great actor, right? You know how there's the— you know, you, you talk about Tom Cruise as a big star. Yeah, he's a good actor too, but he's more a star than an actor, don't you reckon? Julia Roberts, star, but I can act. Yes. This nails it. Yeah, I saw this at the movies. Shock! It was released on April 13th in 2000, uh, in Australia. All right, uh, has been a popular rewatch. My most recent rewatch was on 4K, 4K disc.

[00:11:58] Trevor Long: When, when Stephen goes to London, he just buys up—

[00:12:00] Stephen Fenech: oh yeah, I bought that in Australia because they do sell the, um, these studios, um, discs in Australia. Uh, let's look at the cast. Of course, Julia Roberts plays Erin Brockovich. She was of course in Pretty Woman, which we've done. My Best Friend's Wedding, Notting Hill. And have you seen Leave the World Behind on Netflix?

[00:12:18] Movie Audio: No.

[00:12:19] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, that's a good movie. Her and Ethan Hawke, great movie. Uh, Albert Finney plays Ed Masry, and he was in Murder on the Orient Express.

[00:12:27] Trevor Long: Where else have I seen him from?

[00:12:28] Stephen Fenech: Because he played Scrooge in, uh, Ebenezer Scrooge, was in Miller's Crossing, did a lot of TV as well. Died in 2018 aged 82.

[00:12:38] Trevor Long: I've just seen him before because his voice is so Yeah, or just actually his mouth, the way he— I reckon if he talks is weird, and I love it.

[00:12:46] Stephen Fenech: If you own BritBox, you would have seen him on a few shows.

[00:12:48] Trevor Long: Maybe my mum does love a good British crime drama.

[00:12:51] Stephen Fenech: So Aaron Eckhart plays George. He was in The Core, which, which is on my list. That's a favorite guilty pleasure movie where they have a mission to go to the core of the Earth. They need to change the rotation of the core. Okay, something happens and they've got to try to fix the planet.

[00:13:07] Trevor Long: Right, not bad.

[00:13:08] Stephen Fenech: He was in The Dark Knight as well. Maybe he played the guy who ends up becoming Two-Face. He was in another funny movie called Thank You for Smoking. It's like an independent, but you had pretty wide release as well, right? Okay, before we get to the top scenes and the run-through, let's have a chat about Hisense. And Hisense, not only known for their amazing televisions, but also for their incredible projectors, and in particular the XR10. Now, if you're serious about creating a cinema in your home then you need a serious projector like the XR10. The XR10 can project an image up to 300 inches in glorious 4K, 600 lumens brightness as well. This is a triple laser projector, so the quality you get is amazing out of the projector. So it has an optical zoom as well, so you can set this in a, in a smaller room yet still achieve a big image thanks to that optical zoom, which does not impact on the picture quality at all. Also has lens shift as well. So if you want to mount it on your ceiling, put on a coffee table, the lens can shift upwards or downwards and give you the perfectly square image. And it is also— you have, just like on your Hisense TVs, it's got the VIDAA operating system, so you can access Netflix and Disney+ and all your other framing streaming, favorite streaming services. You can connect your gaming consoles and set-top boxes and everything else you want to connect and enjoy your movies, your games, and your sport on the biggest screen possible. The XR10 also has built-in Dvalia speakers. So not only getting great image, you're also getting great sound quality at the same time. It's the ultimate all-rounder if you want to enjoy the big screen experience. Check it out for yourself at hisense.com.au. Okay, we, uh, we meet Erin Brokovich. She's a single mum. We sort of see her, you know, looking for jobs and going to interviews. And after one interview She gets in her car and we see the camera follows her. She crosses the intersection and bang, she gets broadsided by a speeding ER doctor.

[00:15:16] Trevor Long: And what's really interesting about that crash is that as she drives away, she drives away not in a rapid pace, but she drives away. She doesn't appear to slow for that intersection and the lights are red.

[00:15:27] Stephen Fenech: The lights go green.

[00:15:29] Trevor Long: Yes. Yes. And I thought to myself, I wonder how they did that. They timed that for her because The lights go green. She's 5 meters from the crossing. So basically, if they hadn't have gone green, I reckon she would have run the red is what I— that was the vibe I got. So it was fascinating.

[00:15:43] Stephen Fenech: Just went green for her.

[00:15:44] Trevor Long: That she then got hit. And that's what led to her being with lawyers.

[00:15:49] Stephen Fenech: My interjections are going to be called class actions.

[00:15:52] Trevor Long: Oh, not bad.

[00:15:53] Stephen Fenech: Class action here.

[00:15:54] Trevor Long: Not quite a tram stop, but we'll go for it.

[00:15:56] Stephen Fenech: My class action is here. That car crash in the opening sequence. Was done by digitally compositing shots of Julia Roberts taken off with the car and a radio-controlled car being hit by the stunt driver. So they switched it digitally.

[00:16:13] Trevor Long: Yeah, right. Mid-shot. I didn't even think about the fact that she was in the car and it was a concept.

[00:16:17] Stephen Fenech: It was, it was like, it looked like one shot. Yeah, I'm thinking, oh my God, how'd they do that with her in the car?

[00:16:21] Trevor Long: But it wasn't. They didn't even think about it. That's amazing.

[00:16:23] Stephen Fenech: Digitally composited around her.

[00:16:25] Trevor Long: Wow.

[00:16:25] Movie Audio: Yeah.

[00:16:26] Stephen Fenech: So Erin decides to hire an attorney, Ed Masry, for a personal injury lawsuit. And in court, we discover her personality— pretty fiery language.

[00:16:35] Trevor Long: Ed's obviously giving her the sense that this is an open and shut case, she's gonna win.

[00:16:40] Stephen Fenech: So she— her language though alienates the jury, leading to a lost trial despite being the victim. So you must have been feeling pretty desperate that afternoon.

[00:16:51] Movie Audio: What's your point?

[00:16:53] Stephen Fenech: Broke, 3 kids, no job. A doctor in a Jaguar must have looked like a pretty good meal ticket.

[00:16:58] Movie Audio: Objection, sustained.

[00:16:59] Movie Audio: He hit me.

[00:17:01] Stephen Fenech: So you say.

[00:17:01] Movie Audio: He came tearing around the corner out of control.

[00:17:05] Stephen Fenech: An ER doctor who spends his days saving lives was the one out of control?

[00:17:10] Movie Audio: That asshole smashed in my fucking neck. Open and shut. Open and fucking shut. That's exactly the kind of language that loves to be used.

[00:17:19] Movie Audio: Oh, please. It was over long before—

[00:17:20] Movie Audio: I told her that Christian Swank No, you told me I'd be set.

[00:17:25] Movie Audio: I never said that.

[00:17:26] Movie Audio: You told me I had a good shot. I had no shot.

[00:17:28] Movie Audio: Okay, let's try and settle down here.

[00:17:30] Movie Audio: Oh, fuck settle down. I've got $74 in the bank. I can't afford to settle down.

[00:17:34] Movie Audio: I'm sorry.

[00:17:35] Movie Audio: Yeah, do they teach lawyers to apologize?

[00:17:41] Trevor Long: Because you suck at it.

[00:17:43] Stephen Fenech: Another class action here for you. That really happened. The real-life Erin Brockovich wrote a piece for CNBC to talk about the accuracy of the show. Now, she said that, her quote, the movie was 98% accurate. And yes, I had a potty mouth in the movie and I still do. But in real life, Masri wasn't the lawyer who represented her. Did you notice in the office it said Masri and Vitato?

[00:18:11] Trevor Long: Yeah.

[00:18:11] Stephen Fenech: Joe, Jim Vitato represented her, but not Masri.

[00:18:15] Trevor Long: I also just question how they lost that case because she was T-boned. Side of her car was damaged. You see it later in the film.

[00:18:21] Stephen Fenech: See, man, if she had a dash cam, open a truck case.

[00:18:24] Trevor Long: You know, it's because the lawyer, she goes, that guy hit me, hit me. He goes, that's what you say. I'm like, it's in the side of the car. How do you— you can't make that up.

[00:18:32] Stephen Fenech: Dispute it.

[00:18:32] Trevor Long: Yeah, bring in the evidence, folks.

[00:18:33] Stephen Fenech: Well, no, was she— he might have—

[00:18:34] Trevor Long: she might have— old Hazem El Masri stuff to hear.

[00:18:36] Stephen Fenech: He might have said to, uh, he might have said, suggested, oh, you ran the red. And yeah, and she even mentions him coming around a corner. There was no corner.

[00:18:43] Trevor Long: No, that's true.

[00:18:44] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, it sort of just went there anyway. So now, um, she's desperate for a job. Erin walks into Ed's law office and pressures him into hiring her as a file clerk.

[00:18:56] Movie Audio: Aaron, how's it going?

[00:18:59] Movie Audio: You never called me back. I left messages.

[00:19:02] Movie Audio: You did? Well, I didn't know that. Uh, Donald seems to think that you said—

[00:19:06] Movie Audio: There's two things that aggravate me, Mr. Masri: being ignored and being lied to.

[00:19:11] Movie Audio: I never lied.

[00:19:12] Movie Audio: You told me things would be fine. They're not. I trusted you.

[00:19:16] Movie Audio: I'm sorry about that.

[00:19:17] Movie Audio: I don't need pity. I need a paycheck. And I've looked. But when you spend the past 6 years raising babies, it's real hard to convince someone to give you a job that pays worth a damn. Are you getting every word of this down, honey, or am I talking too fast for you?

[00:19:30] Movie Audio: I'm sorry about that. I really am. We have a full staff right now.

[00:19:34] Movie Audio: Bullshit! If you had a full staff, this office would return a client's damn phone call. I'm smart, I'm hardworking, and I'll I'll do anything, and I'm not leaving here without a job.

[00:19:45] Stephen Fenech: And at the end of that, she whispers to him, don't make me, don't make me.

[00:19:49] Trevor Long: She's loving making a scene, to be honest. Oh yeah, loving it.

[00:19:51] Stephen Fenech: But she eventually relents, and, uh, she does, she does get the job.

[00:19:56] Trevor Long: Yep, yep.

[00:19:56] Stephen Fenech: She gets hired as a file clerk. Now back home, Erin meets her new neighbor, her—

[00:20:01] Trevor Long: because she's in even more trouble because her neighbor before had been her babysitter.

[00:20:05] Stephen Fenech: Yes. And she moved away with a daughter.

[00:20:08] Movie Audio: Yeah.

[00:20:08] Trevor Long: And so now she's got this new neighbor who's got this loud hollering neighbor at nighttime.

[00:20:11] Stephen Fenech: But even before this I think during this time she had another babysitter that she went to pick up, remember? So we meet George, who's a motorcycle guy.

[00:20:23] Trevor Long: Yeah.

[00:20:24] Stephen Fenech: But yeah, he ends up becoming the new babysitter. But long story short, he's a Harley-Davidson loving motorcyclist. And who—

[00:20:34] Trevor Long: but he looks like a proper bikie. Yes. Wears the gear, got the beard, all that kind of stuff. But actually, yeah, he's a bit of a softie.

[00:20:41] Stephen Fenech: Pretty soft-centered.

[00:20:42] Trevor Long: Yes.

[00:20:42] Stephen Fenech: And also he falls for her immediately. Yes, he does. He automatically asks her out and then he goes, "You wanna come out with me?" I've got the quote later. In the quotes, I've got the really good, her good reply to that. Now meanwhile, Erin, who's now got a job at Ed Masry's office, is noticing she's been asked to sort some real estate documents and she notices medical records mixed into a real estate file for a Donna Jensen in Hinkley, California.

[00:21:10] Trevor Long: And she goes to ask one of the clerks, "I don't understand why would this be in this file? Can you tell me?" And the other clerk's like, If you don't have a job, yeah, because they all want her gone because they don't like her.

[00:21:21] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, I know. Yeah, but yeah, they're pretty rude to her, although she was rude back to them too.

[00:21:26] Trevor Long: Uh, so remember she asked, she goes, look, look, do you mind if I look into this?

[00:21:29] Stephen Fenech: Do you mind if I look at this? Says, yeah, go for your life. So Erin goes to visit Donna Jensen, who explains that PG&E had paid for her family's medical treatments and other ailments. She believes PG&E are just simply being charitable.

[00:21:43] Movie Audio: I don't mean to be a pain in PG&E's backside, especially after all they've done for Hinckley, but I look around out here, and I think if they want this place, they're going to have to pay for it.

[00:21:54] Movie Audio: So you didn't put the house up for sale. They just came to you and wanted to buy it. Oh, yeah.

[00:21:59] Movie Audio: Yeah.

[00:22:00] Movie Audio: Oh, I don't want to move.

[00:22:01] Movie Audio: Mm-mm.

[00:22:02] Movie Audio: Uproot the kids? I've got a couple of girls. Honest to God, I don't know if I have the energy. Uh, you know, I've been sick. Me and Pete both have. So the whole The whole idea of selling this house, if they're not going to pay us properly, I just don't see the point. Yeah.

[00:22:21] Movie Audio: Yeah, I can see that.

[00:22:23] Movie Audio: But—

[00:22:24] Movie Audio: Well, I guess the only thing that confused me is— And not that your medical problems aren't important, but how come the files on that are in with all the real estate stuff?

[00:22:36] Movie Audio: Well, there's just so much correspondence. I just keep it all in one place.

[00:22:42] Movie Audio: I'm sorry. I just don't see why you're corresponding with PG&E about your medical problems in the first place.

[00:22:51] Movie Audio: Well, they paid for the doctor's visit.

[00:22:54] Movie Audio: They did?

[00:22:55] Movie Audio: You bet. Paid for a checkup for the whole family. And not like with insurance where you pay and a year goes by and maybe you see some money. They just took care of it, just like that.

[00:23:07] Movie Audio: That.

[00:23:07] Movie Audio: We never even saw a bill.

[00:23:09] Movie Audio: Wow.

[00:23:10] Movie Audio: Why'd they do that?

[00:23:11] Movie Audio: Because of the chromium.

[00:23:14] Stephen Fenech: So there's the magic word we learn. And by the way, my class action here— Donna Jensen, played very well by Marg Helgenberger. Okay, remember her from CSI?

[00:23:22] Movie Audio: No.

[00:23:22] Stephen Fenech: She was also in Species.

[00:23:24] Movie Audio: Great show.

[00:23:25] Stephen Fenech: Um, she is actually not a real person. She's a composite character.

[00:23:30] Trevor Long: I, I— yeah, did it say that at the start? No, I didn't. Something else.

[00:23:33] Stephen Fenech: She's a composite that does that of several people that were involved in the real case.

[00:23:36] Trevor Long: Yep.

[00:23:37] Stephen Fenech: More specifically, she sort of— there was a woman named Roberta Walker that they sort of modeled her on.

[00:23:42] Trevor Long: Which just makes sense. In a case like this where there's literally hundreds of plaintiffs, you've got to go, what are the things that are going to make this engaging and whatever we're going to, you know, make it—

[00:23:48] Stephen Fenech: make that's what she did. So she, Roberta Walker, who in real life actually enjoyed a larger payout just like Donna did in the movie, that they were forced to pay in the settlement.

[00:23:59] Movie Audio: Right.

[00:24:00] Stephen Fenech: So what does Erin do? She hears about chromium and she consults a toxologist. And learns what chromium is and what it can do.

[00:24:10] Movie Audio: What kind of chromium is it?

[00:24:11] Movie Audio: There's more than one type?

[00:24:12] Movie Audio: Yes, there's, uh, straight-up chromium, does all kinds of good things for the body. There's chrome 3, which is fairly benign. And then there's chrome 6, hexavalent chromium, which, depending on the amounts, can be very harmful.

[00:24:25] Movie Audio: Harmful how? What would you get?

[00:24:28] Movie Audio: With repeated exposure to toxic levels, God, anything really. Really, from chronic headaches and nosebleeds to respiratory disease, liver failure, heart failure, reproductive failure, bone or organ deterioration, plus, of course, any type of cancer.

[00:24:43] Movie Audio: So that stuff, it kills people?

[00:24:46] Movie Audio: Oh, yeah, definitely. Highly toxic, highly carcinogenic. It gets into your DNA too, so you pass the trouble along to your kids. It's very, very bad.

[00:24:54] Movie Audio: Well, what's it used for?

[00:24:55] Movie Audio: Huh.

[00:24:56] Movie Audio: A rust inhibitor. See, the utility plants use these piston engines to compress the gas. The engines get hot. You've got to run water through them. Chromium's in the water to prevent corrosion.

[00:25:05] Movie Audio: Well, how do I find out what kind of chromium they use in Hinckley?

[00:25:09] Movie Audio: Have you been to their water board?

[00:25:11] Movie Audio: Uh-uh.

[00:25:11] Movie Audio: What's that? Every county has one. They keep records of anything water-related within their jurisdiction. You should be able to find something there.

[00:25:18] Movie Audio: County water board.

[00:25:19] Movie Audio: Uh-huh.

[00:25:20] Movie Audio: All righty. Well, thanks.

[00:25:21] Movie Audio: Well, good luck. I wouldn't advertise what you're looking for if I were you. Incriminating records have a way of disappearing when people smell trouble.

[00:25:32] Movie Audio: I'll remember that.

[00:25:33] Trevor Long: Thanks. I love her. Good little line there too. Yeah, I love how she goes to the waterboard and charms the heck out of that young one, which is a theme of the movie, which I've noticed your quotes will get to later. But you know, she uses her, her personality, her assets, her looks, and everything to essentially charm her way through a lot of situations, including just getting people to open the door to her in homes and stuff.

[00:25:52] Stephen Fenech: And she tells them She says, "I'm not a— heck, hell no, I'm not a liar." Which is true.

[00:25:56] Trevor Long: She's just completely honest.

[00:25:57] Stephen Fenech: That's sort of her badge of honor that she's not a liar.

[00:25:58] Trevor Long: She's actually genuinely honest in every way she acts, which is a pretty cool thing to see. But she spends a lot of time at that waterboard. Yes, she does. Photocopying files, finding files.

[00:26:07] Stephen Fenech: I love how she says to the bloke, "Listen, it'd be a lot easier if you just let me back there." She just does what she wants.

[00:26:13] Trevor Long: She literally spends a week meeting with residents and finding and researching this case, which is exactly what she asked Ed if she could do.

[00:26:21] Stephen Fenech: Absolutely. But after being MIA for a few days doing the field research, Erin is fired by Ed.

[00:26:31] Movie Audio: You said to fire me.

[00:26:32] Movie Audio: I'll call you back. You've been gone for a week.

[00:26:35] Movie Audio: I left a message. I've been dealing with this real estate thing. I was gonna write a whole damn report.

[00:26:39] Movie Audio: That's not how we work here. You don't just leave a message and take off.

[00:26:43] Movie Audio: Well, what am I supposed to do, check in every 2 seconds?

[00:26:45] Stephen Fenech: Yes, it's called accountability.

[00:26:46] Movie Audio: I'm not talking to you, bitch. Excuse me.

[00:26:50] Movie Audio: Look, Erin, this incident aside, I don't think this is the right place for you, okay? So what I'm gonna do is make a few calls on your behalf and find something else.

[00:27:00] Movie Audio: Don't bother.

[00:27:01] Movie Audio: Come on, I'm trying to help.

[00:27:03] Movie Audio: Bullshit. You're trying to make yourself feel less guilty about firing someone with 3 kids to feed. Well, fuck if I'm gonna help you do that. Get back to work.

[00:27:13] Trevor Long: What I find interesting here is I assumed, because obviously I get the sense of this story, I assumed at this moment she'd be, you know, looking through the files, but she takes the files.

[00:27:22] Movie Audio: Yeah.

[00:27:22] Movie Audio: And she gets home and you kind of And you're like, I mean—

[00:27:25] Stephen Fenech: She's still looking through it.

[00:27:26] Trevor Long: Well, she's taken this file away from her. You're thinking to yourself as a first-time viewer, how does this go on from here? Because how does the lawyers and everything now reactivate this? But that's what's really cool about it is essentially, you know, Ed comes back to her because he gets a phone call.

[00:27:45] Stephen Fenech: That's right. He reviews the documentation.

[00:27:47] Movie Audio: Yeah.

[00:27:47] Stephen Fenech: And then he comes to her house. This is a really good scene where he rehires her. Goes, I think I need a raise.

[00:27:52] Trevor Long: He goes, I've got this message from these people with this result about the chromium. Yeah, tell me more about it. And he realizes she wasn't taking the mickey, she was actually researching, and she negotiates a pay rise and comes back to work.

[00:28:02] Stephen Fenech: And that's right, he says, righto. She, she gets back in there, spends now months driving around Hinkley interviewing residents, documenting cancers and miscarriages, all failures.

[00:28:11] Trevor Long: This whole scene segment makes you really buy into both her passion for the story, but also the reason she has this passion for the story, because it's heart-wrenching, you know, the stories, the kids, the cancer.

[00:28:23] Stephen Fenech: This is a large, large montage here where she's going around, she's seen, she's knocking on doors and interviewing people and taking waters out of wells and stuff like that and getting chased off properties and stuff. And then the lawyers from PG&E now visit Ed's office offering a lowball settlement.

[00:28:42] Movie Audio: Let's be honest here, 20 million dollars is more money than these people have ever dreamed of. Oh, see? Now that pisses me off. First of all, since the demur, we have more than 400 plaintiffs in. Let's be honest. We all know there are more out there. They may not be the most sophisticated people, but they do know how to divide, and 20 million dollars isn't shit when you split it between them.

[00:29:04] Movie Audio: Erin.

[00:29:04] Movie Audio: Second of all, these people don't dream about being rich. They dream about being able able to watch their kids swim in a pool without worrying that they'll have to have a hysterectomy at the age of 20, like Rosa Diaz, a client of ours, or have their spine deteriorate like Stan Bloom, another client of ours. So before you come back here with another lame-ass offer, I want you to think real hard about what your spine is worth, Mr. Walker, or what you might expect someone to pay you for your uterus, Miss Sanchez. Then you take out your you get your calculator and you multiply that number by 100. Anything less than that is a waste of our time. By the way, we had that water brought in special for you folks. Came from Welland Hinkley.

[00:29:49] Trevor Long: Yeah, and she doesn't drink it.

[00:29:51] Stephen Fenech: She does not drink it.

[00:29:53] Trevor Long: This lawyer freaking out.

[00:29:54] Stephen Fenech: She mentioned a demur.

[00:29:56] Trevor Long: So yeah, so they'd been elected for this.

[00:29:57] Stephen Fenech: They'd taken this, they said they had a case.

[00:29:59] Trevor Long: Yeah, so they, they went, so righto, they got a successful ruling in front of a judge to say no, no, this is something. Yes, which was huge. Huge. Win for her. And her passion here is just, you know, unbelievable. She has that passion again, even internally later on, where she's just even a kind of partner lawyer. She has that huge frustration again. She knows this is right.

[00:30:19] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, Potter and Associates. Yeah. She— now there's another big montage of her doing a lot of work. In the meantime, George is sort of being left in the cold looking after the kids.

[00:30:29] Trevor Long: Yes.

[00:30:29] Stephen Fenech: And he delivers a bit of an ultimatum. He feels like he's been sidelined, but she's sort of working around the clock.

[00:30:36] Trevor Long: Honestly, she's taken advantage of him broadly.

[00:30:39] Movie Audio: Aaron, what I'm thinking is that either you got to find a different job or a different guy. I mean, I mean, there may be many men out there who don't mind being the maid and getting nothing in return, but I sure as shit ain't one of them.

[00:30:56] Movie Audio: I can't leave my job, George.

[00:30:58] Movie Audio: Yes, you can. You can just quit. People do it all the time.

[00:31:03] Movie Audio: Mm.

[00:31:04] Movie Audio: How can you ask me to do that? This job— For the first time in my life, I got people respecting me. Up in Hinkley, I walk into a room and everybody shuts up to hear if I got something to say. I never had that before.

[00:31:23] Movie Audio: Ever.

[00:31:25] Movie Audio: Please don't ask me to give it up.

[00:31:28] Movie Audio: What about what your kids are giving up?

[00:31:30] Movie Audio: Look, I'm doing more for my kids now than I did living with my parents.

[00:31:33] Trevor Long: Mm-hmm.

[00:31:34] Movie Audio: One day they'll understand that.

[00:31:36] Movie Audio: Well, what about me?

[00:31:37] Movie Audio: What about you? You think either one of the men who gave me those children asked me what I wanted before he walked away? All I've ever done is bend my life around what— Men decide they need— well, not now. I'm sorry, I won't do it.

[00:31:58] Movie Audio: Well, Aaron, I'm not them, so I mean, what more do I have to do to prove that to you?

[00:32:07] Movie Audio: Stay.

[00:32:09] Trevor Long: Which is honestly, that whole scene was so well written. Yeah, because he made great points, she made great points, she stood a ground.

[00:32:18] Stephen Fenech: That's what usually causes arguments. Everyone thinks Right.

[00:32:21] Trevor Long: But, but yeah, so I could have sworn he'd stay, but he didn't. No, he's out because he's like, yeah, why?

[00:32:27] Stephen Fenech: He's out.

[00:32:27] Trevor Long: You know, it— yeah, she doesn't really hold the cards, but then neither does he. So it's this really weird imbalance.

[00:32:35] Stephen Fenech: He also mentions in that little snippet too earlier, he said, oh, you can afford a babysitter now, like you got your own money.

[00:32:40] Trevor Long: And that's it.

[00:32:41] Stephen Fenech: Yeah. So, uh, as we move on with the case, Ed Mazri realizes it's too large for his small firm, and he partners with a big city attorney, Kurt Potter.

[00:32:51] Trevor Long: And this is where they sit in a boardroom at this point, isn't it? Where, you know, the associate for Potter, the proper lawyer, apparently—

[00:32:59] Stephen Fenech: Do you recognize that woman?

[00:33:00] Trevor Long: I recognize. I know where from though.

[00:33:02] Stephen Fenech: Seinfeld. She's the one who loses the pinky toe. Yes, she's the one who— the comedy show. Oh, that's so right! And she starts Boo and Jerry.

[00:33:10] Trevor Long: Yes, remember that one? That's cool.

[00:33:11] Stephen Fenech: You're so right, I'm so excited.

[00:33:13] Trevor Long: And so she's filthy— she's just asking Aaron to come to another room and start working through some logistics, you know. Basically, she says your case— it like—

[00:33:23] Stephen Fenech: there's not enough detail. Yeah.

[00:33:26] Movie Audio: Excuse me, Teresa, is it? There are no holes in my research. No offense, there's just some things we need that you probably didn't know to ask. Don't talk to me like I'm an idiot, okay? I may not have a law degree, but I've spent 18 months on this case, and I know more about these plaintiffs than you ever will. Aaron, you don't even have phone numbers for some of them. Whose number do you need?

[00:33:48] Trevor Long: I love this.

[00:33:49] Movie Audio: Everyone's. This is a lawsuit. We need to be able to contact the plaintiffs. I said, whose number do you need? You don't know 600 plaintiffs' numbers by heart.

[00:34:00] Trevor Long: Whose number do you need?

[00:34:04] Movie Audio: Annabelle Daniels. Annabelle Daniels, 714-454-9346. 10 years old, alleged 11 in May. Lived on the Plume since birth. Wanted to be a synchronized swimmer, so she spent every minute she could in the PG&E pool. She had a tumor in her brainstem detected last November. An operation on Thanksgiving shrunk it with radiation after that. Her parents are Ted and Rita. Ted's got Crohn's disease. Rita has chronic headaches and nausea and underwent a hysterectomy last fall. Ted grew up in Hinckley. His brother Robbie and his wife May and their 5 children— Robbie Jr., Martha, Ed, Rose, Rose and Peter also lived on the Plume. Their number is 454-9554. You want their diseases? Okay, look, I think we got off on the wrong foot here. That's all you got, lady, two wrong feet in fucking ugly shoes.

[00:34:54] Stephen Fenech: I mean, great lines.

[00:34:55] Trevor Long: She is a bitch, let's be honest. Erin Brockovich doesn't know how to talk to people, let's be honest.

[00:34:59] Stephen Fenech: She's got no filter. Yeah, my class action here is is that while that little incident, her and clashing with the Potter people, we don't know if that actually happened. What we do know is the real Erin Brockovich has an amazing memory, right? Her memory. And she memorized all those details in real life about all of the clients. And she said afterwards that she actually suffers from dyslexia. She's dyslexic.

[00:35:24] Trevor Long: And she—

[00:35:24] Stephen Fenech: this— that was her way of managing the information, was memorizing rather than having to read it.

[00:35:29] Movie Audio: Huh.

[00:35:29] Stephen Fenech: Because, yeah, dyslexia, they have trouble reading and writing.

[00:35:33] Trevor Long: Yeah, yeah.

[00:35:34] Stephen Fenech: So that was her way of getting around it. She knew she had to commit to memory.

[00:35:37] Movie Audio: Wow.

[00:35:37] Movie Audio: Yeah.

[00:35:38] Stephen Fenech: Now, to avoid years of corporate appeals, the legal team opts for a binding arbitration.

[00:35:46] Trevor Long: Yep.

[00:35:46] Stephen Fenech: This means they need signed consent forms from 90% of the 600+ plaintiffs.

[00:35:54] Movie Audio: Because before we even go to arbitration, we have to get the plaintiffs to agree. How many? Usually they're required to get about 70%. PG&E is demanding 90. In other words, everybody. Now, do you understand? This is serious.

[00:36:08] Movie Audio: And what? And I'm not serious?

[00:36:10] Movie Audio: You're emotional. Look, you're erratic. You say any goddamn thing that comes into your head. You make this personal, and it isn't.

[00:36:16] Movie Audio: It's not personal? That is my work! My sweat! My time away from my kids! If that's not personal, I don't know what is!

[00:36:24] Movie Audio: Buddy, go home, get well, because you're no good to me sick. I need you, all right? This case needs you. Binding arbitration isn't all that different from a trial.

[00:36:40] Stephen Fenech: So they're like a town hall meeting?

[00:36:41] Movie Audio: Overseen by a judge. Evidence is presented in much the same way. And then a jury decides. Oh no, sorry, I forgot to mention that, uh, There's no jury binding arbitration. No jury, no appeal. Well, what option do we have if we don't like the result, huh? Well, you have none. The judge's decision is final.

[00:37:02] Movie Audio: Was that a good answer?

[00:37:02] Movie Audio: No, no, but we don't anticipate that being a problem. As I already told you, it's definitely between $50 and $400 million.

[00:37:11] Movie Audio: Well, well, which? There's a big difference there.

[00:37:14] Movie Audio: I wouldn't like to speculate at this point.

[00:37:17] Movie Audio: Well, how does it get divided?

[00:37:19] Trevor Long: Yeah, who gets what?

[00:37:20] Stephen Fenech: So that was the other issue.

[00:37:24] Trevor Long: Excellent question.

[00:37:24] Stephen Fenech: That we'll cover later. Yeah, but, um, Erin, they decide, well, okay, we need to go door to door, visit every family, secure signatures, recalling exact details, phone numbers, medical histories for every individual, uh, that they can get their hands on. Yep.

[00:37:40] Trevor Long: And that's what she does. She says, well, Does it?

[00:37:41] Stephen Fenech: While she's out on the road, did you remember there was a guy who approached her at a little cookout?

[00:37:45] Trevor Long: At the cookout, and he was also at that town meeting.

[00:37:47] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, and you're thinking, and he's looking at her funny. I'm thinking, what the— who is this dodgy? Anyway, we find out that his name's Charles Embry, and he approaches her in a bar.

[00:37:58] Trevor Long: Yes, and again, she's thinking this guy's a creep.

[00:38:01] Stephen Fenech: He says, I'll take my coffee to go, thanks. Yeah, but she realizes, she learns that Charles Embry is a former PG&E employee.

[00:38:14] Movie Audio: My cousin passed away yesterday. He had kidney tumors, no colon. His intestines were eaten away. 41 years old. I remember seeing him over at the plant, he'd be cleaning the cooling towers wearing one of those— what do you call them?

[00:38:37] Movie Audio: Masks?

[00:38:38] Movie Audio: Yeah, yeah, doctor's masks. And it'd be soaked in red from the nosebleeds. I was working in the compress presser. And out of nowhere, the supervisor calls me up to the office and says, "We're going to give you a shredder machine and send you on down to the warehouse to get rid of the documents we got stored there." You said what?

[00:39:14] Stephen Fenech: Nope.

[00:39:16] Movie Audio: And I didn't ask.

[00:39:21] Movie Audio: Did you get a look at the stuff you destroyed?

[00:39:24] Movie Audio: There's a lot of Dull stuff, vacation schedules and the like. But then there were a few memos about the holding ponds, the water in them, head readings from the test wells, stuff like that.

[00:39:37] Trevor Long: You're thinking, oh no, but then you were told to destroy those.

[00:39:44] Movie Audio: That's right. Of course, as it turns out, I wasn't a very employee.

[00:39:52] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, so it's such a well-scripted scene because you're like, oh man, would you remember before that?

[00:39:58] Trevor Long: Remember when— how's he going to be as a witness without the documents?

[00:40:00] Stephen Fenech: Would you remember before that when he says, I used to work there, and then she rushes out to the phone box? And while she couldn't get a signal on her mobile, it's a payphone right in front of her. Yeah, payphone there. And she rings up Ed and he goes, okay, let him tell his story, remember? And then she goes back in there, he goes, okay, then he—

[00:40:14] Trevor Long: then she did a really good of letting him talk.

[00:40:16] Stephen Fenech: Yes, that's what he said, let him tell his story. Yeah, he reveals he was ordered to destroy internal memos from G&E's headquarters in San Francisco, which remember they were trying to link.

[00:40:24] Trevor Long: They were trying to link headquarters because if it's Hinckley only, it's not a big case, but if it's San Francisco, it's huge.

[00:40:29] Stephen Fenech: So instead he kept them out of anger over his cousin's death from chromium exposure. Yeah, so they now have—

[00:40:36] Trevor Long: what's interesting because the cousin hadn't died, but, but how sick were they at the time that he was ordered to do that?

[00:40:40] Stephen Fenech: Well, probably very sick because remember he was saying he used to see him, his blood.

[00:40:44] Trevor Long: That's right, that's right.

[00:40:45] Stephen Fenech: So cleaning the clothes, something going on, he knew there was something doing it, right?

[00:40:48] Trevor Long: Good on him.

[00:40:49] Stephen Fenech: So they now have the documents to prove corporate executives in San Francisco knew that the water was contaminated.

[00:41:00] Movie Audio: Good morning. Good morning.

[00:41:01] Movie Audio: Morning.

[00:41:02] Movie Audio: Ed, Erin, what's this?

[00:41:05] Movie Audio: May I? Yep, go ahead.

[00:41:07] Movie Audio: Well, you know what, Mr. Potter, we completely forgot your birthday this year, and Seeing as how you've been so good to me, it seemed a terrible oversight. So what Ed and I have been doing the last few days is putting together a present for you. 634. They're all signed. Every single one. Holy shit. Now don't go getting jealous, Theresa.

[00:41:31] Movie Audio: Jealous.

[00:41:31] Movie Audio: We have something for you, too. Internal PG&E documents. All about the contamination. The one that I like best says— and, well, I'm paraphrasing— I'm paraphrasing here, but it says, "Yes, the water's poisonous, but it would be better for all involved if this matter was not discussed with the neighbors." It's to the Hinkley Station from PG&E headquarters. Stamp received March 1966.

[00:41:53] Trevor Long: Pottery's gold spec.

[00:41:57] Stephen Fenech: How did you do this?

[00:42:00] Movie Audio: Well, um, seeing as how I have no brands or legal expertise, and Ed here was losing all faith in the system, am I right?

[00:42:06] Movie Audio: I completely— no faith, no faith.

[00:42:07] Movie Audio: I just went out there and performed sexual favors. 634 blowjobs in 5 days. I'm really quite tired.

[00:42:14] Trevor Long: She sits down. Yeah, it would have been— I mean, this is crude, but it would have been funny if she had like sat down and kind of just yanked at her jaw a bit, you know?

[00:42:23] Stephen Fenech: Maybe not, maybe not. So with undeniable proof of corporate negligence, the judge orders PG&E to pay $333,000 $33 million in damages, the largest direct action lawsuit settlement in the US history at that time.

[00:42:39] Trevor Long: Wow.

[00:42:40] Stephen Fenech: Now Erin, remember she takes George, he goes, just come with me.

[00:42:43] Trevor Long: She's like, George, I want you to see what I've been doing. I need you to see what I've been doing. Because you've got to remember, and it's a funny thing, and I've had this argument with my wife, you know, she tells me, just quit your job. I'm like, I can't.

[00:42:55] Stephen Fenech: Quit your job, your wife told you.

[00:42:55] Trevor Long: If you're arguing about how much you're working or something, you know what I mean? It's like, but you know, It's a very specific thing we do.

[00:43:01] Stephen Fenech: Funny, Jo's never told me to quit my job.

[00:43:03] Trevor Long: She told me to work harder. Old George can't appreciate that a 9 to 5 isn't the same for everyone.

[00:43:09] Movie Audio: Yeah.

[00:43:09] Trevor Long: And so Erin needs him to understand what all that sacrifice was about.

[00:43:13] Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[00:43:13] Trevor Long: And that's why she takes him.

[00:43:16] Movie Audio: I wanted to come out here instead of calling because the judge came back with a number.

[00:43:28] Movie Audio: Um, for the whole group or for us?

[00:43:35] Trevor Long: Both.

[00:43:36] Movie Audio: Both. He's going to make them pay $333 million. And— And, um, and he's going to make them give $5 million of that to your family.

[00:43:57] Movie Audio: $5 million?

[00:43:58] Movie Audio: $5 million.

[00:43:59] Stephen Fenech: I don't even know how much money that is.

[00:44:06] Movie Audio: Well, it's enough. It's enough for whatever you could ever need, or whatever your girls need, or your girls' girls need, it'll be enough.

[00:44:18] Stephen Fenech: Oh, Aaron.

[00:44:20] Movie Audio: Oh God, thank you so much.

[00:44:28] Stephen Fenech: So great result for Donna there.

[00:44:29] Movie Audio: Wow.

[00:44:30] Stephen Fenech: Now you'll notice this next scene where, you know, the settlement's been paid out and they're in these shiny new digs.

[00:44:37] Trevor Long: The whole law floor, because they've got 40% of this, uh, $333 million. So Yeah, they've got their— they're doing very well. Um, but it's, it's a clear upgrade. They're in a big tower. It's, it's not your, uh, little, uh, local office.

[00:44:49] Stephen Fenech: Now back in the office, Ed hands Erin her bonus check.

[00:44:53] Trevor Long: Yep.

[00:44:54] Movie Audio: Because after careful consideration, I felt that figure was not, uh, appropriate. Although you may not agree, uh, you have to You have to trust my experience and judgment. Trust?

[00:45:10] Movie Audio: You want me to trust you? Do me a favor, Ed. Don't use big words you don't understand.

[00:45:14] Movie Audio: It's a complicated issue, Erin.

[00:45:16] Movie Audio: You know, I did a job. You should reward me accordingly. It's not complicated. You know what? That is the fucking problem. All you lawyers do is complicate situations that aren't complicated.

[00:45:26] Trevor Long: Do you know why people think all lawyers are backstabbing, bloodsucking scumbags?

[00:45:29] Movie Audio: Because they are. And you know, I cannot believe that you were doing this to me now. Now, when I'm up to my ass in Kettleman plaintiffs, which, by the way, looks like it's going to be double the amount that we had in Hinckley, and you expect me to go out there, leave my kids to be looked after by strangers, knock on doors, get these people to trust you with their lives, and the whole time you're screwing me?

[00:45:46] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, she did say that.

[00:45:47] Movie Audio: I want you to know something, Ed. It is not about the number.

[00:45:50] Stephen Fenech: She did say that.

[00:45:50] Movie Audio: It is about the way my work is valued in this firm.

[00:45:52] Movie Audio: Yeah.

[00:45:53] Movie Audio: It's about how no matter what I do, you're not—

[00:45:56] Stephen Fenech: She says it's for $2 million.

[00:45:58] Movie Audio: As I was saying, uh— Um, I decided that, uh, the figure you proposed was, uh, inappropriate, so I increased it. Do they teach beauty queens how to apologize? Because you suck at it.

[00:46:19] Trevor Long: That's such good delivery.

[00:46:21] Stephen Fenech: I love how when he goes to the door, he sort of does a little dance.

[00:46:25] Trevor Long: His performance in that scene should have won in the supporting actor thing because it's the little smirks during the two-way and her rant, and then it's the little dance. It's everything. It's still delivery, mate. So well done.

[00:46:36] Stephen Fenech: My final class action is, uh, Erin did receive that massive windfall, but it wasn't $2 million, it was $2.5 million that she received.

[00:46:45] Movie Audio: I don't know why they didn't put that in the movie.

[00:46:46] Stephen Fenech: $2.5, give it $2.5. Yeah, now, uh, we'd say she deserved it. Now only if she could learn to apologize.

[00:46:52] Movie Audio: Jaws.

[00:46:53] Trevor Long: Yeah.

[00:46:54] Stephen Fenech: Now at the very end, those credits said that the settlement awarded in the plaintiffs in the case of Hinckley versus PG&E was the largest in a direct action lawsuit in the United States, in United States history. PG&E claims they no longer use hexavalent chromium in any of their compressor plants and that all of their holding ponds are lined to prevent groundwater contamination. Erin and Ed have 7 other cases pending, including one against PG&E in Kettleman Hills. That's what she mentions, Kettleman.

[00:47:20] Trevor Long: Yep.

[00:47:21] Stephen Fenech: In California. End of movie.

[00:47:24] Movie Audio: Wow.

[00:47:24] Stephen Fenech: Let's get into the favorite lines, and there's plenty to choose from here, starting with this one where she's only just met George and he's asked her for her number.

[00:47:34] Movie Audio: You give me your number. I mean, I already got your address, so you can't get away, huh? And I'll call you up proper and I'll ask you out and everything.

[00:47:43] Movie Audio: You want my number?

[00:47:45] Movie Audio: I do. I do want your number.

[00:47:48] Movie Audio: Which number do you want, George?

[00:47:52] Movie Audio: George. Now I like the way you say that, George. Uh, well, how many numbers you got?

[00:47:56] Movie Audio: Oh, I got numbers coming out of my ears. For instance, 10.

[00:48:00] Movie Audio: 10?

[00:48:01] Movie Audio: Yeah, that's how many months old my baby girl is.

[00:48:04] Stephen Fenech: You got a little girl?

[00:48:06] Movie Audio: Yeah, yeah, sexy, huh? How about this for number 6? That's how old my other daughter is. 8 is the age of of my son. 2 is how many times I've been married and divorced. 16 is the number of dollars I have in my bank account. 850-3943, that's my phone number. And with all the numbers I gave you, I'm guessing 0 is the number of times you're gonna call it.

[00:48:26] Trevor Long: Boom, slams the door shut. He walks out and collapses on the front lawn because he's besotted by her at that moment. It was a great little moment, I loved it.

[00:48:33] Stephen Fenech: Now this is when Ed comes back.

[00:48:35] Trevor Long: This is the line of the day. How did you do this?

[00:48:37] Stephen Fenech: What did you do?

[00:48:37] Movie Audio: How? What makes you think You can just walk in there and find what we need.

[00:48:46] Movie Audio: They're called boobs, Ed.

[00:48:47] Stephen Fenech: She did have the push-up bra happening, mate. And this is my favorite. Remember when after— remember that young guy came and offered him $250,000?

[00:48:56] Movie Audio: Yeah.

[00:48:56] Stephen Fenech: And then he says, oh, $20 billion, you're a $20 billion company, great. That's in other words, more we can sue, take off.

[00:49:02] Movie Audio: Yeah.

[00:49:02] Stephen Fenech: And this is, uh, you know, it's pissed him off.

[00:49:05] Movie Audio: And they sent a male clerk down to jerk me off, waste my time.

[00:49:09] Movie Audio: Why would they do that?

[00:49:10] Movie Audio: Because they can. You heard what that kid said, they have $28 billion at their disposal. They can afford to waste all the time in the world.

[00:49:17] Movie Audio: And you can't?

[00:49:18] Movie Audio: You think I made the money?

[00:49:19] Movie Audio: What are you yelling at me for?

[00:49:20] Movie Audio: Because I'm pissed off.

[00:49:21] Movie Audio: Good.

[00:49:23] Movie Audio: Fuck you.

[00:49:23] Movie Audio: Fuck you back.

[00:49:28] Movie Audio: Fuck you.

[00:49:29] Stephen Fenech: Fuck you back.

[00:49:30] Trevor Long: Yeah, that's really cool.

[00:49:31] Stephen Fenech: That's awesome.

[00:49:32] Trevor Long: I want to mention there's a moment in the movie Yep, we don't really over-explore the relationship she has with the other office members other than to see that there's a bit of— they don't really love her being there because they don't like the way she got in.

[00:49:43] Stephen Fenech: They don't like the way she dresses.

[00:49:45] Trevor Long: There's a twist in it in the middle of the movie where Erin's there late night one night reading, and then a lady leaves the office and walks past and says, 'You're still reading?' And Erin's like, 'Piss off, I'm a slow reader.' Yeah. And rather than the lady walking away, she turns the light side on.

[00:50:00] Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[00:50:00] Trevor Long: And then walks out.

[00:50:01] Stephen Fenech: That's sort of acceptance.

[00:50:02] Trevor Long: Yeah, I felt that was the moment in the movie where she was accepted, even though they don't go into it. She doesn't go out with the girls and all that kind of stuff. You could have— they could have written in a subplot, but it was unnecessary.

[00:50:11] Stephen Fenech: No, no, it was enough.

[00:50:13] Trevor Long: Yeah, it was. I thought that was enough to show a twist.

[00:50:15] Stephen Fenech: Of course. And there was also a scene where, um, the— she has her kids in the office too, and one of the ladies goes over and gives them a lolly.

[00:50:23] Movie Audio: Yeah.

[00:50:23] Stephen Fenech: And but the other one too, really nice scene, was when son looked at the documents.

[00:50:27] Trevor Long: Yes.

[00:50:27] Stephen Fenech: And he said, oh, this girl's my age.

[00:50:30] Trevor Long: Yes. And then as he walks out to go get dinner, he's like, do you want anything, Mom?

[00:50:33] Stephen Fenech: Like, he— yeah, oh, eggs would be nice.

[00:50:35] Trevor Long: Yeah, yeah.

[00:50:35] Stephen Fenech: So he's got— he got it why she was sacrificing all this time.

[00:50:38] Trevor Long: Yes, that's great. I thought that— see, isn't it interesting that all of those things could have been played out in much greater detail?

[00:50:43] Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[00:50:44] Trevor Long: But they didn't need to be.

[00:50:45] Stephen Fenech: You know what, in movies, in good movies, less is more. Yes, less is more.

[00:50:48] Trevor Long: I agree.

[00:50:49] Stephen Fenech: Uh, how did that happen? Uh, I've got a— I've got one plot hole. If Erin had memorized every number, why did it— why didn't they put— she put them in the dossier? Some are missing, some are not. Just, she should have just written them all down.

[00:51:04] Trevor Long: She was just in a rush. She was— it's also, she also isn't a legal clerk, so she doesn't know how important that is.

[00:51:09] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, okay.

[00:51:10] Trevor Long: Especially given she remembers them, so she's thinking, I don't need to write it down because I remember it. So no, not a plot hole.

[00:51:14] Stephen Fenech: Okay, now some reality bites here, some, some stuff from the film. Now the— it's the Hollywood ending, okay, seems it's nicely wrapped Wrapped up, the good guys win, hink the PGE loses.

[00:51:25] Trevor Long: I'm tipping it went to appeal.

[00:51:27] Stephen Fenech: 3/3, no it didn't, $333 million settlement. Now that number sounds big. Many of the victims were not happy with how that was divvied up.

[00:51:35] Trevor Long: Yeah, because you think about it, that $5 million is huge, but on average it would've been half a million dollars, no more than half a million dollars 'cause 600+ complainants over $333 million, right?

[00:51:45] Stephen Fenech: So it's supposed to be distributed.

[00:51:45] Trevor Long: But put that in context of they were offered $65,000 for a house. So actually $150,000 for the people that had already left town. is a compensation for their real estate loss.

[00:51:55] Stephen Fenech: So it was distributed based on how much each family's health was affected.

[00:51:59] Movie Audio: Right.

[00:52:00] Stephen Fenech: How much they've spent on health, on medical bills. And some did receive large payouts, but others only received amounts in the tens of thousands. Right. Now, as they mentioned, the PG&E, the $333 million, of course, 40% of that, which is $133.6 million, $1.2 million went to Masaryk and Vitato's law firm and not to the actual victims of the contamination, which could— that kind of accounts for why some of them feel they got shortchanged. But he stated that in the movie. He said, "We'll take all the risk, but we'll take 40%." Which is kind of the way it is in law for cases like that.

[00:52:39] Trevor Long: Which is also another great scene where he's trying to convince just these two families to sign and she takes over and does the whole, "I'm not a lawyer" thing. But tells her personal story, which Ed's standing there and he could have— this could have gone bad for her because he— she thought he lied and all that kind of stuff, but she tells it in the way that they need to hear it. And that was really, of course, really great scene.

[00:52:56] Stephen Fenech: We learned too that she was a beauty queen. She was, uh, she says Miss Wichita. In reality, uh, Erin Brockovich was from Kansas, so she was, uh, she was a beauty queen, but she won Miss Pacific Coast in 1981.

[00:53:09] Trevor Long: Okay.

[00:53:09] Stephen Fenech: Yeah. Uh, the speaker workout, great music in this, uh, on the 4K disc. It was a Dolby TrueHD 5.1 on the 4K, sounded great. The car crash was an unexpected little bit of audio as well.

[00:53:23] Trevor Long: Yeah, yeah, for sure.

[00:53:24] Stephen Fenech: But just the general music, I think that they had a fair bit of that. It was subtle montage music. Yeah, it was nice. Thank God I got a big screen.

[00:53:31] Trevor Long: You know what, I love to hear those, those big wide helicopter/drone shots of her just driving down the highway. America is this strange place, it doesn't look like anywhere else with those country roads and just those shots.

[00:53:43] Stephen Fenech: How far— so sure, this was in LA she was, so how far Basto.

[00:53:47] Trevor Long: Yeah, okay, so it's a fair drive, about an hour a bit.

[00:53:49] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, I did say there were nice shots of Hinkley and also nice shots of Julia Roberts. Yeah, they were some very nice shots, you know, shocking wardrobe decision. The business, now the business here is I'm talking about global class actions over the years, some big ones. Biggest one would be the tobacco master settlement agreement in 1998. Remember we did The Insider? Yep, this led to $206 billion payout. Uh, Enron securities class action, $7.2 billion. WorldCom class action, $6.1 billion. BP Deepwater Horizon, I hear the explosion, remember they made a movie about it, $20 billion. Volkswagen emissions scandal, the diesel emissions scandal, $14.7 billion.

[00:54:36] Trevor Long: Still thousands of cars just sitting in the desert somewhere.

[00:54:37] Stephen Fenech: There you have it. That was called Dieselgate.

[00:54:40] Trevor Long: Dieselgate, yes.

[00:54:40] Stephen Fenech: Volkswagen one, there you go. If this movie was made today, really non-NA, it'll still have to look the same.

[00:54:47] Trevor Long: This is it, this is the movie. That's it. Like, imagine being a Bollywood producer going, "We should remake Erin Brockovich." No. I mean, it's just stupidity.

[00:54:54] Stephen Fenech: Definitely. Every day is a school day. What is the theme or lesson here?

[00:54:59] Trevor Long: Yeah, I think, here's the weird thing. There's a lot you could say you should learn from the way Julia Roberts—

[00:55:05] Stephen Fenech: Don't treat a water.

[00:55:06] Trevor Long: Yeah, true. But I actually think there's a bit of a lesson there in even though she succeeded, I don't think, I think she should have learned her tone and things could have been different. She could have been better.

[00:55:17] Stephen Fenech: Mind her cues, you mean? Yeah, I think like you said. She could have been, mind her manners a bit.

[00:55:20] Trevor Long: Yeah, it's actually a bad story for trying to teach kids manners.

[00:55:23] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, I suppose so. But it reminded us too that the sort of a favorite saying of mine is the squeaky wheel gets the oil. She stood out and made noise.

[00:55:31] Trevor Long: And I think the other one is just have a heart. Heart.

[00:55:34] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, you know, I think the whole background is corporate greed and corporate responsibility. Yeah, as well. And stand up for your rights.

[00:55:41] Trevor Long: Yeah.

[00:55:42] Stephen Fenech: Uh, best use of the pause button. Did you recall when she receives the check, the check appears at Van Nuys, California address? That address is a gas station at the intersection of Sherman Way and White Oak in Reseda, right, California. Now I've got another best use of the pause button, but it's the audio pause button. There's a bit of audio that you can play back. Do you remember the scene where the kids are having like a card game, playing a card game with George, and they say, okay, kids go to bed. Um, the, the son gets up and says, good night, Aaron. Oh, his name's Aaron Eckhart, right?

[00:56:19] Trevor Long: Oh, the actor.

[00:56:19] Stephen Fenech: So you hear it, you hear him say, you hear it, Aaron, rather than George. He says him good night, Aaron, while referring to George.

[00:56:26] Trevor Long: That's funny.

[00:56:27] Stephen Fenech: So obviously Aaron Eckhart is the actor, right? Uh, things you might not know. Now, the George character was real, right? Uh, was based on Erin Brockovich's Mexican-American biker boyfriend George, spelled J-O-R-G-E. Yeah, Erin and George did break up, but he did not leave her life. He was hired as a live-in nanny for those years when she was paid by the law firm. So that was It was pretty much saying the same, the same.

[00:56:55] Movie Audio: Yeah.

[00:56:56] Stephen Fenech: Now, after the movie was a massive hit, Erin Brockovich was the target of a blackmail threat from George. He threatened her to smear her reputation as a parent. She called the cops on him, who recorded the shakedown threats and arrested him. Arrested him.

[00:57:15] Movie Audio: Wow.

[00:57:15] Stephen Fenech: Yeah.

[00:57:16] Trevor Long: So idiot.

[00:57:17] Stephen Fenech: The, uh, the attorney the attorney that was representing George to try shake her down, uh, served prison time.

[00:57:23] Movie Audio: Wow.

[00:57:24] Stephen Fenech: As a result as well.

[00:57:24] Trevor Long: Yeah, nice.

[00:57:25] Stephen Fenech: Now, Hinckley's toxins actually made the real Erin Brockovich sick at one point. Did you remember she had like a cold or something?

[00:57:34] Movie Audio: Yep.

[00:57:35] Stephen Fenech: I reckon that they probably filmed a lot more of her being sick, but then— and they decided against it. So Steven Soderbergh filmed a scene set at the hospital but later cut it out. Here's what he said: I didn't want people to think that this was going to turn into one of those movies where the protagonist terminally ill. This is what he said on the Blu-ray commentary. It was a tough call because Erin really did get sick and was hospitalized for a while.

[00:57:59] Movie Audio: Wow.

[00:58:00] Trevor Long: Yeah, Jesus Christ.

[00:58:01] Stephen Fenech: Now I mentioned earlier that she does— the real Erin Brockovich actually has dyslexia, and that's what shaped her citizen activism career.

[00:58:08] Trevor Long: Yeah, right.

[00:58:09] Stephen Fenech: Uh, did you notice? Cracking. Did you notice? Okay, the real Erin Brockovich is in the movie.

[00:58:16] Trevor Long: Where?

[00:58:17] Stephen Fenech: In the diner scene, the waitress at the start is Erin Brockovich, the real one, and she's wearing a name tag that says Erin Julia.

[00:58:25] Trevor Long: Oh, Julia, as in Julia Roberts, right?

[00:58:28] Stephen Fenech: And it gets better, the real Ed Masry is sitting behind them at the diner.

[00:58:33] Trevor Long: That's funny.

[00:58:34] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, so they've got a cameo.

[00:58:35] Trevor Long: That's cool.

[00:58:36] Stephen Fenech: So pause, pause it for that as well.

[00:58:37] Trevor Long: Nice.

[00:58:38] Stephen Fenech: Uh, what's the meme? First one that says simple one here is they're called boobs.

[00:58:43] Trevor Long: Yeah, it's the greatest.

[00:58:45] Stephen Fenech: I like, fuck you, well fuck you back. I like that. Oh, and I do love it when she says, are you writing this down, honey, or should I talk slower?

[00:58:52] Trevor Long: Yeah, that's pretty good. Two wrong feet in ugly shoes.

[00:58:55] Stephen Fenech: There's a lot of good lines in this, eh? Uh, by any other name. Here's my suggestion. Hinkley could have been one, maybe. Uh, watershed.

[00:59:04] Trevor Long: Oh, that's not bad.

[00:59:05] Stephen Fenech: You're like, watershed moment, watershed. Yeah, what's that? It's about a watershed, uh, or right to justice.

[00:59:13] Trevor Long: Yeah, I mean, that you could— Erin Brockovich means nothing. Yeah, so you could convince— like, you could have made Hinckley the same. You could have all these different things.

[00:59:21] Stephen Fenech: I think having the name worked. She was, she was the movie, mate. Yeah, she was the movie for sure.

[00:59:27] Trevor Long: Uh, The One Thing You Want, it's Mercedes as a, as a movie prop on the wall. The check.

[00:59:33] Stephen Fenech: Yes, the $2 million check. Good call. Yes, I will receive I've also written George's Harley. Yeah, I've also put Ed's glasses. Yeah, and Aaron's push-up bras.

[00:59:43] Trevor Long: Do you know, I, I love Ed's wardrobe. Yeah, he was— he always had these ties, these weird shirts that were matching. It was very strange.

[00:59:55] Stephen Fenech: One time as well. Yeah. All right, uh, 3 questions for Trev.

[00:59:58] Trevor Long: Hit me.

[00:59:58] Stephen Fenech: Were you aware of Aaron Brockovich's consumer advocacy Did you know that this was what she did?

[01:00:05] Movie Audio: Yeah.

[01:00:05] Trevor Long: Oh, I, I knew that that's what this movie was about.

[01:00:08] Stephen Fenech: So you knew they're going in?

[01:00:09] Trevor Long: Yes.

[01:00:10] Stephen Fenech: Okay, well, let me tell you, I've got an update for you. In the spring of this year— so this year, Erin Brockovich has started monitoring the aggressive push for AI data centers and increasing the opposition on various grounds. She launched a crowdsourced project to map centers that are proposed, under construction, and that are already operational. Yeah, you think about it, they need water to cool it, so they're gonna, they're gonna affect the surroundings. So she's already on the case. Yeah, she's still going.

[01:00:43] Trevor Long: Interesting.

[01:00:44] Stephen Fenech: Uh, number 2, did the accuracy of the movie surprise you?

[01:00:47] Trevor Long: Yes, very much so, because it was so accurate. You have to tell me so many times that this and this had to be changed for artistic license, but even the George story there, to know that, yeah, That broadly really did happen. He's excellent.

[01:00:58] Stephen Fenech: Absolutely. Number 3, too long, too short, or just right?

[01:01:01] Trevor Long: It was a long movie, but I didn't feel it.

[01:01:03] Stephen Fenech: Yeah, mate, this went back into 5.

[01:01:05] Trevor Long: So here's what happens. I sit at my desk and I go, right, yeah, so I'm gonna watch the movie now. I look at the clock and I go, okay, it's 4 o'clock, how long's— ah, it's 2 and a half.

[01:01:12] Stephen Fenech: So hang on, it's 4 o'clock, by 4 o'clock you mean 4 AM?

[01:01:14] Trevor Long: It was actually in the afternoon. Oh, was it? Wasn't it? Yeah, it was, it was Monday afternoon. And I went, I'm gonna be home at 6:30, that's okay, righty And so like, I think, oh, it's 2 hours, but mate, didn't feel like it at all.

[01:01:24] Stephen Fenech: It went, it went, that's a sign.

[01:01:26] Trevor Long: Did not feel like a sign of a great movie.

[01:01:28] Stephen Fenech: Alrighty, that was Erin Brockovich. Give us your wrap-up and rating.

[01:01:32] Trevor Long: I'm gonna need to see Gladiator before I can really truly understand why this didn't win more Oscars, right? Because this, this is a stunning performance, you know.

[01:01:40] Stephen Fenech: It is, yeah, absolutely.

[01:01:41] Trevor Long: This is brilliant. It's a, it's just so well, everything, it's, it's well told, great script, great acting, it's well shot, good, well, well cast as well, you know. It just really felt like a uniformed approach to this story.

[01:01:55] Stephen Fenech: Steve Soderbergh.

[01:01:56] Trevor Long: And to know, I think it adds value that this is so true.

[01:02:00] Movie Audio: Yeah.

[01:02:00] Trevor Long: That you didn't need artistic license too much. Yes, there's dabbles of it here and there, but mate, really, really well done. If you haven't seen it, you're mad. Like I'm an idiot. 9.5 for me.

[01:02:12] Stephen Fenech: 9.5?

[01:02:13] Trevor Long: Yeah.

[01:02:13] Stephen Fenech: I've given it a 9. I'm a 9.

[01:02:15] Trevor Long: 9 it is.

[01:02:16] Stephen Fenech: 9.5, wow. You're generous.

[01:02:18] Trevor Long: That's a great movie.

[01:02:19] Stephen Fenech: You gave The Warriors so like a 6 because it's a crap movie. Now, fair call, 9.5, and I'm a 9. All right, uh, should we look forward to next week? Let's go. Next week we are watching Planes, Trains and Automobiles, released in 1987. Have you seen this?

[01:02:34] Trevor Long: Heard? No. Is it Airline Style?

[01:02:37] Movie Audio: No.

[01:02:37] Stephen Fenech: Oh, it's Airline— Planes, Trains and Automobiles, right?

[01:02:39] Trevor Long: No, but isn't it like—

[01:02:40] Stephen Fenech: it's Planes, Trains and— is it like Flying High?

[01:02:43] Trevor Long: No, it's not that No, is it Steve Martin?

[01:02:46] Stephen Fenech: Steve Martin and John Candy.

[01:02:48] Trevor Long: Yeah, so it's funny.

[01:02:49] Stephen Fenech: Written and directed by Johnny— it's a comedy. Yeah, written and directed by John Hughes. Okay, now how many times— John Hughes and John Candy, apparently, right?

[01:02:57] Trevor Long: Because I got no idea.

[01:02:58] Stephen Fenech: Great, great mates, right? Uh, off-screen, good, good friends. How many times has John Hughes and John Candy worked together?

[01:03:07] Trevor Long: Oh wow.

[01:03:08] Stephen Fenech: A, 2. B, 4. 6. C, 6. 6, D, 8.

[01:03:14] Trevor Long: 6.

[01:03:15] Stephen Fenech: It's 8. They were on National Lampoon's Vacation, Planes, Trains and Automobiles, She's Having a Baby, The Great Outdoors, Uncle Buck, Home Alone, Only the Lonely, Career Opportunities. Wow, 8 times.

[01:03:27] Movie Audio: Wow.

[01:03:28] Stephen Fenech: But that's next week. I'm glad you enjoyed Erin Brockovich. Until then, mate, see ya.

[01:03:32] Trevor Long: See you then.