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Talking About Watching Movies

Published on Sun, 17 Apr 2022 13:00:00 +0000

Inside the freeze-frame world of watch spotting in movies.

Synopsis

This podcast episode celebrates the first anniversary of "Watching Movies," a weekly series on Hodinkee where Danny Milton examines watches featured in films. Host James Stacey is joined by Danny, along with colleagues Nora Taylor and Cole Pennington, to discuss the appeal and significance of watch spotting in cinema.

The conversation explores why watches in movies resonate so deeply with enthusiasts—from the simple joy of recognizing a familiar timepiece to the deeper storytelling potential watches offer. Danny explains how his column has evolved into a living encyclopedia, complete with timestamps so readers can find exact moments when watches appear on screen. He discusses his work with prop masters, revealing how product placement often works in reverse, with actors or directors specifically requesting certain watches. Examples include Ryan Reynolds asking for a Speedmaster in "The Adam Project" and the significance of watches in Christopher Nolan films like "Interstellar" and "Tenet."

The group shares their detective work in identifying mysterious watches, with Danny recounting his investigation into Dustin Hoffman's black chronograph in "Kramer vs. Kramer," which turned out to be a Lizure chronograph—a discovery that hadn't been documented before. They also discuss his ongoing quest to interview Robert Redford about his red Submariner, which appeared in multiple films. The episode touches on both successful period-accurate watch choices and notable mistakes, like the ceramic Sea-Dweller in "Argo," which is set in the 1970s. The conversation concludes with a fun exercise where each participant imagines what watch they'd wear if cast in a film, ranging from Nixon watches in early 2000s comedies to gold Rolex Day-Dates in 1970s financial thrillers.

Transcript

Speaker
James Stacey Hey, it's me, James Stacey, and this week we're talking all about watches in movies following the first anniversary of Watching Movies, a weekly series on Hodenki that has proven to be very popular. If you haven't read any of the past entries, it's our man Danny taking the watch spotting to the silver screen as he looks at some of the most prolific supporting roles that watches have played in many of our favorite movies. Joining me for this chat is a star-studded cast, including Danny, Nora, and Cole. So let's get to it
Cole Pennington . Hey team, how we doing? Doing good. Doing all right. It's been uh action. Action. Yeah
James Stacey . Everyone's ready for their big day on set, right? This will be fun. I think this is gonna be a cool one. I think it's nice for me because I get to take like a pretty good backseat as a host, as I can pretty much leave this uh, you know, this this whole sort of uh project with uh watching movies has really been carried out by Danny for the last Danny, how's the last year been? How's the how the how the stories been? Are you still enjoying uh trying to do watch spotting at as uh high a level as
Danny Milton possible? Yeah, I do get worried from time to time that I'll just run out of movies to write about, but uh I don't think that's gonna happen. It's been crazy. I I didn't even realize that it had been a year until the run-up to writing the one year post somewhere on a Tuesday. I I just realized. But no, it's extremely fun. It's something that I'm doing anyway. So if I can just turn something I'm already doing into a written product on the site, it doesn't really hurt that
James Stacey bad. Was the premise literally from the start like we should just have something more of a column about watch spotting in movies, or did you write one and it kind of snowballed into something that you're now you now get to do weekly? You know, it's kind of funny. The very first,
Danny Milton my very first like three days at Hodinky before COVID-19 and we all went home, I we had a uh one of our editorial meetings at Hodinki HQ. And I remember not having a ton of ideas of what to write about when I first got got here. And one of them was we were actually talking about what to do when we all go back home and how will the site look and what kind of articles can we do. And I remember bringing this up and a fellow editor, I'm not gonna out who that is, basically when I said the idea of we could we could talk about watches and movies. And the these the response was kind of something like
James Stacey You do need that person in every meeting though when when an idea is pitched to go like have we already done this or has somebody else already done it? But I I think there was some overhead. There was some room to grow For sure.
Danny Milton And it didn't happen then for the record. It actually took like another year. And uh the way this kind of was born was we did a a written exercise as a team. Uh it was called St Write a Story in an hour. And all of us uh had this meeting together. I think this was Nick Marino's invention. It was very interesting. We all literally in an hour wrote a story. We couldn't pre-write it. We just had to do it in the in the hour. And what I did was I basically thought, oh, this would be a nice weekend story, what you could stream this weekend, what movies that I've watched is in them and did like a roundup of eight or nine. I think Nick took a look at it and said, This is a waste as one story. Let's break it up and do it as a weekly column. And here we are. It started with Three Days of the Condor, Robert Redford. And then at the one-year mark, it was all the president's band with Robert Redford, with about uh nearly fifty entries in between there. So it's kind of insane to think that I've repeated that concept over basically fifty times, and yet and yet I have. And a redford on either side. You've yeah
Cole Pennington , there's worse outcomes really. Can't go wrong. Yeah. I remember when we were meeting up one time over the summer of the pandemic or something like this. Do you remember this, Danny? We went we actually went to go see a movie. We went to go see a movie. We did. We saw Tenet together. But on the way there, I remember in the car, you had some and I don't remember the exact details, but you were on a major quest for like the Grail story of Robert Redford's X, Y, and Z or something like that. Was that this last article? Was the the this the culmination of that? Was that this? What's the story? Like, let's go back to the beginning. What
Danny Milton was that story? It wasn't the culmination. In fact, it's an ongoing investigation. And it's it's a story, it's like the story that I hope to someday write. It's it's it and it has to do with with Redford's Red Submariner. Like it's it's a watch that it is um has never been auctioned. So for all intents and purposes, it exists either in Redford's personal collection or on the wrist of someone in his family. But it to me represents one of the first really truly recognizable non-product placed watches on the silver screen. It had a multi-movie run, it's his watch, and I've just been obsessed with it. And I've and I'm I've been very close to getting an interview with Mr. Redford himself, but haven't yet gotten to it. I like see
James Stacey ing things in movies, whether things I recognize, whether it's uh uh like the car stuff or it could be like interesting weapons in in you know, in that sort of a movie, or watches, or houses you recognize, or or that sort of thing. What do you think it is about, especially about watches that as long as there's been a watch internet, they have been uh taking screenshots and trying to figure out what the watches are. And some of them were like decade-long kind of hunts for specific watches to uncover the history of these watches. But wha what do you think is kind of the core of this? Is it just this is an easy part of watch enthusiasm where, you know, it's like that meme of Leonardo DiCaprio in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood pointing at the screen because you see something you know. Is it just kind of that? I
Danny Milton mean it is for me. Uh I I can never separate the enthusiast in me from like the normal human being. Like I don't know who I am outside of loving watches, so I can't tell if if this is like specific to being into them as a baseline, like as a like just a base-level interest. But I had to think that especially when it comes to movies and television shows, and you and it's just like low-hanging fruit, but like a James Bond as an example, when you use the watches in a fantastical way and they take on sort of a character of their of their own, and you you inject them with you know gadgetry, then that is it is interesting. It gets you thinking about a watch as opposed to a pair of shoes or you know what jacket is he wearing. I mean, obviously, like when you look back at older movies and things like that, you you have a sense of what style is, but that stuff it just becomes like a general style. But a watch is a specific watch, it's a specific thing that lives on. And I think it I don't know, especially for you know, for guys. We we always talk about this. There's really very few accessories that we, you know, have. And I think that that's really just something that we lat
Cole Pennington have latched onto over time. I think you're right about that. One thing I will say though is that I I like you know Miles who works at Hodinky and so forth, there are guys out there that are they can like reference the specific tailor that did this jacket and this movie. Oh, sure. So the fashion world has something like this too, like this level of sure depth and so forth. But you're right, like the the watch world. I don't really know where it came from because prior to watching movies, I will say, I think you you are the godfather of the the movies and watch thing. I will say because like where did I I would go on forums like hey I was watching 24 this is a long time ago like I that show has got to be 20 years old or something. And the conversation did take place there. Like it it's easy to see the progression of the enthusiast conversation. Now it's neatly packaged in an area that you are kind of exploring. Because we used to do this just with each other, like watch meetups or or on forums, like, hey, did you see that watching that movie? Or we've all done it, right? I've just never seen it centralized. So I like what you've been doing with watching movies, Dan.
Danny Milton Well, that is kind of the idea is to build uh pre first of all th,ank you, but is to build sort of a um like a living encyclopedia that just continues to grow. But I want it to be more active, and that's why the way that we build it out is yeah, we spot the watch, but we tell you when to watch the movie to spot the watch. So I'll put a timestamp in every single article so that you know exactly when you're watching to see it, because how frustrating would it be just to know it's there and not know when it's going to be there. I mean, a ca lotuse of people might just want to check out the movie just to see when the watch is in it. And I'm here to to help make that a reality
Cole Pennington . I'm sure the director is very happy that you're guiding people to watch two minutes at the entire time. Or something like that
James Stacey . It's true. It could be two seconds. In some cases it is two seconds. Nora what what do you think is kind of the the key behind this? Is it just fun to see something you know and love in a movie that you're enjoying or seeing and and it's like uh you know, is is that is it that easy or do you think there's more to it? I think there's ye
Nora Taylor ah yes. And then also I think because the watch world moves so slowly, you can see a watch that you know and love across a like breadth of movies and like different time periods. I feel like fashion in movies often dictates to the audience. So it's like you see the way that you know um Jennifer Garner looks in 13 going on 30 and all of a sudden everyone has that like one Jennifer Garner dress. I think in watches and movies, there are so there's the trends are so slow moving. There are so there's just like fewer watches to choose from that it feels more like an even playing field. Like you, the audience, are more in conversation with what's happening in the movie. Whereas I think often in fashion and style, you are kind of looking to movies and pop culture to tell you where to go next. I think it is just more of a conversation between audience and movie in watches than in other arenas, if that makes
James Stacey sense. It definitely makes sense to me. And you know, and I think the other consideration is something I was chatting with Danny about while we were planning this episode is this isn't exclusive. The statement that I'm about to make is not exclusive to the timeline, but in the last decade, we've seen a lot of movies use watches as parts of the storytelling. Obviously, James Bond did it before that quite extensively before that, but that was almost in its own genre. Whereas now we're seeing major plot devices. You know, just to go easy, we say like you could pick a couple Christopher Nolan films where there's you know, major parts of the film are tied to the action use interaction they're in with a watch. Yeah, I me
Danny Milton an obviously Interstellar and Tenant like spring to mind, I'll be honest, when Interstellar came out, I guess back in 20, I can't even, I don't remember if it was 2017, 2014, whenever it was. I remember being uh really interested in watches, but more interested in non obvious watch choices. And to be honest with you, now I know that Hamilton is sort of the you know, they they serve the movie industry very well, movies and television in terms of sourcing watches. There's it's kind of an interesting sort of product placement idea, but in Interstellar, it was a sort of a one-off watch was created for the movie. But more than just the Murph watch in Interstellar, I remember seeing uh Matthew McConaughey's character, Cooper, wearing just a standard steel uh Hamilton khaki pilot day date. So many words in that watch name. Um but I remember looking at it and thinking, you know, I I I know what a steel sport watch looks like, but I've never really seen that one before and it's just interesting to me. Like I don't know why it's there. The product placement I guess worked on me at the time as sort of a naive movie goer, but that's what movies do, because a movie like that, when you inject watches into the plot and make them an emotional through line, which watches are some of the only things that can do that. I I I truly think. You know, there's a famous scene in the film where Cooper's holding his watch and the Murph watch in each hand, and trying to explain to his daughter how they can track time when he's gone and time will move more slowly for him when he's you know traveling through space into a black hole. But that's powerful stuff. I mean it if I I don't think that it when used correctly, it's it's not like we're we're being tricked as a consumer. I think it's a really interesting way to get in into
James Stacey watches. And I think if it wasn't effective, the Murph wouldn't have been like the watch to own when they launched it, right? Like I think there's a lot of things that the watch enthusiast base, ourselves included, gets right or wrong, but typically the ability to sense out things that are completely disingenuous that we're just being fed a line or a a sales pitch or something, that's that's a pretty refined sense among people in general, especially, you know, through social media these days. So I think if that didn't resonate with the audience of that film, they wouldn't have sold five of those watches. Right.
Cole Pennington What would have been a bad pick? Like let's let let's flip this on its head here. What watch would have just been like you're you're sitting in the the you're like, what the hell did they pick this watch for? Like what what what is a a watch? Like most might work, and I think you're right. The Hamilton does nail it. Speedy nails it and yada yada. Like what what what could you see just not
James Stacey working? It's just a Jacob and Co., right? They're just out there. They're they're farmers way in the future, uh, you know, with special flying GPS controlled combines and that kind of thing, and he's just wearing a big astronomia. It's all full of dust from from what's going on. Yeah, that's exactly like a Jake and Co. it just wouldn't make it. It just wouldn't make sense. I mean there's other movies where it might, but uh may maybe not in Interstellar. Uh you know, and beyond Interstellar and Tenant, we have um uh most notably I think in recent bonds is you know this is a spoiler alert for people who haven't watched Spectre. So shut it off now, you've got about five seconds and then I'm gonna say what I'm gonna say, which is right about now. You know, the watch is used essentially as the final piece of weapon action sequence in the film a watch that you know a functions as a grenade um which you know not sure that's a feature I would want on a watch I care for uh necessarily but I guess in a pinch it uh it certainly helped out. You know I think, there's something really fun, or at least it's the way my brain's wired to memorize things about movies, the actors that are in it, the year it came out, how much money it made the first weekend. In being able to memorize all these things, it's like another little data point
Cole Pennington . There's a parallel here. You know how I like to do the government archives watch spotting thing. For sure. Like I love to dig deep. It's actually very similar to movie watch spotting. Like these little tidbits here and like you look in the background and and you you get excited when you see something, you go, Oh yeah. And I keep this like master file, uh express Excel spreadsheet of you know, linking to the database, the picture and the watch and so forth. Do you have something like this, Danny? Trade secrets. I feel like you might. You might have some master document with all these things.
Danny Milton I am tracking I d I I mean, sure, I'm not going to divulge a lot, but I do I do track because there's um the the movie industry is big, but it's also small in the sense that there's a lot of overlap in terms of who the top prop masters are and what films they've worked on and who they know in the costume department and what directors they know and so like there's a a web that I'm trying to build out to find and and it and I find that I'm speaking to the same people over and over again which is great because when and a lot of them are still active in the in the industry so when a new film or a new TV show comes out, case in point Cole, you and I wrote about the show Severance. And it just so happened that I was I was looking up who worked on the show, 'cause you and I wanted to write about it, and it was someone that I know very well in the industry that I've worked with countless times for watching movies and otherwise. So it's really a cool thing. And and and Propmasters are the unsung heroes of Hollywood. I mean a little shout out to Propmasters for a second, but they don't get awards. Their credit is buried, you know, at the end of the film somewhere under art art department. You know, they literally there's no Oscar for them. But other than the actors and the clothes the actors wear, everything else you see in a location is their responsibility. Everything you can touch on screen, they found. And that includes a watch. Somehow, watches are out of the purview of costume designer. Oh, sometimes that like overlaps, but for the most part, it's the prop master. And it's really remarkable, especially in period pieces, what they have to do. And when a period film gets the watch right, for me, it's the coolest thing ever. Most of the time it doesn't happen that way. Um, but it's sometimes they're off by a lot. By uh by uh and they don't care. What are some examples? I I've uh we've talked about them, I forget what they are, but there are some examples. There's a huge famous example. Somebody might correct me if I'm wrong but I'm pretty sure Pearl Harbor is a pretty, a pretty big no-no. Um it I if I remember correctly, it's a very modern Hamilton khaki field mechanical. I I th um but but there's um we're we're gonna do this this story in uh in a couple weeks, but I think it's fine to say. Argo is is one of the most famous examples with Ben Affleck, directed by Ben Affleck. Great movie to be said. Very, very, very good movie. In fact, like it is the movie where everybody kind of like realized this guy's a legit director. I mean, not that like I mean he directed The Town and Gone Baby Gone, which are also really good films, but he's wearing a I think a ceramics of Mariner and the movie takes place in the set in the nineteen seventies. Or a ceramic sea dweller.
James Stacey The prop master part, Danny, is interesting because I I think that's kind of in my world or or from my view, the sort of defining elevation that you've brought to the the sort of watch spotting game is it's not just a screen cap and some sleuthing and maybe some photoshopping to figure out what it is and then some agreement. Like in many cases you've spoken to the people who made the decisions for these movies and not not exclusively for watching movie stories, but for you know, stories in this sort of genre, right? Oh, for su
Danny Milton re. Being able to write in this space is it seems somewhat like an uncharted frontier. I mean, of course there's lots of writers in the watch world who operate in this arena. But I've taken the opportunity to reach out directly as often as I can. A lot of times I'll cold call prop masters. They you'd be surprised how like publicly available their contact information is. They're quite frankly pretty surprised how publicly available their contact information is when they answer when they answer the phone. But you find fun stories that way. I've gotten a solid 25 minute interviews off of a cold call that wasn't scheduled just because, you know, they answered the phone. Most recently we wrote about the Adam Project and I got sort of the the real story of how those Speedmasters ended up in that film, a brand new Netflix movie, where they they actually got it right. You know, they filmed the movie in 2021 and they knew not to use 3861 Speedmasters. You know, they they knew to use the 1861 calibered Spe Ease because the movie took place when the kid would have gotten the watch would have been somewhere in the mid-2000s or whatever it is. Like it's just that's the kind of stuff that I find really interesting. That was a product placement that came because Ryan Reynolds asked for a Speedmaster. So it was sort of like reverse product placement. It ended up working out for the film financially. But you know, that that's w I I think it's important to point out when I talk to a lot of these prop masters and I learn about what product placement really is, we misuse the term pretty often because sometimes it's an effect, not a cause. And when it is the effect, it comes from a good place. You know, it it just it it serves the story. I wrote about the French dispatch, which was not a watching movies entry, but more of like a broader reported piece where I I talked to that prop master for probably two and a half hours about that movie. Um, and I learned that Wes Anderson detests product placement. And, you know, there's just all these kind of things that you learn, shows and movies that I love. For example, I spoke to the Prop Master who sourced Tony Soprano's gold day date that everybody, you know, knows very well. And it's really cool. And that's one of those things where I didn't know that story was going to come up in conversation. And it the closer that you get to the stuff that you kind of came up watching as you develop as I develop my taste in movies and TV, it's really weird to go behind the scenes of those things and realize, you know, these things aren't quite as far away as I originally thought they were, you know, back when I was just watching it on HBO. You know, it's kind of a it's an insane thing
James Stacey . Absolutely. And I the series has covered some movies that I I think are are are really interesting and and movies that I really appreciated. You know, obviously you kick it off with three days at a condor, which I'm a sucker for because one pretty solid movie, two, one of my favorite Redford fits, and three a Doxa. Like that's a though, Trifecta's pretty pretty strong there. But like Moneyball, Nightcrawler, like these are these are you know life aquatic. You know, I'm I'm curious to think if you guys were in a movie tomorrow, you know, if you're Ryan Reynolds, you're asking for speedy, do you think it's because Ryan wants a free speedy at the end of it? Maybe. For us, like if you're in a movie tomorrow, you're shooting and they say, oh, by the way, you want to wear a watch? Like we we think you probably need or we need a watch for this this scene where you check the time before you get on an off a subway or whatever, make a flight. What sort of movie would it be? Give me the genre of movie
Cole Pennington and what watch you would want on your wrist. On the podcast I, was trying to make it fun, you know. So I'm gonna say do you know early 2000s raunch com? Like uh like V- Like American Pie? Yeah, like American Pie Van Wild, like Euro Trip or Dude, where's my cool okay so I I would be in one of those and I would be playing like a Sean Williams Scott slash Ashton Kutcher in order to make it period correct. Like I'm thinking back to the early two thousands, what was cool. Honestly, like the hype watches of today are not that cool. So all right, I'm a rom-com, so I'm like a normal guy or something like that. I would probably be wearing like a oh my god, a Nixon. Yeah, I was gonna say Nixon. Yeah, I would probably step out of a car and check my Nixon real quick and then you know Maybe go surfing or Yeah, exactly. Surfing or playing like an American Pie, the guy who plays lacrosse or something like that. And that that would be my vibe. That's it. Done. All right.
James Stacey All right. Not what I was expecting. I love it. Uh a raunchy mid two thousands uh comedy starring Cole Pennington and a Nixon watch. Yeah, sure.
Nora Taylor Uh Nora, what are you thinking? I feel like I've definitely got quirky best friend in a rom-com energy. And I feel like that could be uh that could go two ways. If I'm going real quirky, I would wear like a weird 80s pattern swatch, where it's just sort of like I'm an a woman child, or I could be too busy and take like no nonsense, high power best friend, and then I would wear one of the new Vasheron 222s. Good pick. Either way, I'm giving out great advice
James Stacey . And and I I think like if you're gonna ask for a watch that that they may let you keep at the end along with wardrobe and that stuff. A two two two is the move. Maybe not a Nixon. Yeah, a little a little uh a little calculating with that one.
Danny Milton I like it. I like it for sure. That's great. Danny, how about you? I think I would go something like this like a seventies esque uh like king of comedy situation where I'm like a wannabe talk show host that not w not one that's taking other talk show hosts hostage. Okay. But j just like in a vacuum. I want to be a talk show host. And I think if if that's my vibe, I'm gonna go with a a solid gold date just uh blue dial with a with like a gold jubilee bracelet. Like really re really cement that uh gaudy look sure kind of o over the top. It's not, you know, I'm not going full president. Just bring things down. I feel you. I feel you for sure
James Stacey . Yeah. In my case I, think I would like to be the bad guy in like a financial based thriller. Good pick. Like a like a like a a a Wall Street sort of thing. May maybe I'm doing hostile takeovers. I'm seeing lines that I don't understand as an actor. I know that much. We're shorting something. We're hedging this to do that. And it's about that, you know, you know, the dark pools are really working on our side today. That's not the bad guy though. The bad guy is
Cole Pennington the FBI investigator. He's the bad guy. I think he might be watching these movies a little bit differently. Really
James Stacey depends whose side you're on cool. This is a real political litmus test, right? Yeah, yeah. So yeah, I want I want to be the the the bad guy in a in like may maybe I run a big mean company or or something like that. My hair's slick back. I'm I got one of those shirts on where the shirt's blue but the collar's white. And I got I wear braces all the time like suspenders. And and I think for that it's it's gonna be a solid goal, Royal O. And maybe like a matching cigarette case from some some, you know, you know, perfect eighties luxury brand of some sort. Real obvious cup links. Oh yeah. I don't know. I just watched the game with uh Michael Douglas. You know, give give me give me a role kind of kind of like that or or uh similar. So I think I think that's where I would land. I mean there's four very different movies, which uh I'm thrilled about. I think so too. I think we should get all of these green lit immediately. Or make the movie about the four of us kind of like in an entourage sense where but we're all Vinny Chases. And we're all always talking about the movie we're about to be in. But it never happens. Did I get that right? Is his name Vinny Chase? It is Vinny Chase. Yeah. That's Aquaman or
Danny Milton something. One friend who loves that who loves that show will be very happy. He he is he does play Aquaman, but I think he doesn't get Aquaman too. I think Jake Gyllenhaal gets Aquaman too. I would have given it to Jillen Hall as
James Stacey well. As much as I like um Adrian Grenier. One of my favorite roles in Devil Wars Prada
Danny Milton . Yeah, I mean uh honestly one of the coolest things about watching movies is that is being able to and you we brought we talked about this before the pod also James about Jaws. Yeah yeah yeah that was a big one. And how I guess the brand's Ulsta didn't was defunct, you know, I don't know, ever since I would imagine the quote unquote quartz crisis, but people were unable to spot that watch and until one day that it was sort of identified, then someone actually went and bought the IP for Ulsta and started the ULST brand. Yeah. Kind of hel
James Stacey ped the kickstart kickstart it. It's it's a really strange story 'cause it took a long time for people to figure out what watch that was. There were the it was always the also was always kind of on the list, but I think these things being these things, people wanted like direct confirmation and the bracelet really threw a lot of people off. I remember that being like a kind of a a major ongoing thread on Watch You Seek when I was first getting into watches was uh a lot of watch spotting, uh certainly, but certainly uh with a direct focus on like what what is uh Richard Dreyfus wearing in um in Jaws. And I it is funny now to see that they figured it out what it was, and there was enough people who were like jazzed about the watch that they essentially someone restarted the company. But you've you've broken a couple, like like we didn't. That that's that's that's to the no to the the world of the internet and and the fantastic sleuth thing they're in. But we have um we have figured or you have figured some stuff out that was kind of previously unknown
Danny Milton , right? Yeah. I mean w I'm sure nobody was ever Googling what was Dustin Hoffman wearing in Kramer versus Kramer. Just like not a thing people are spending their internet time doing. But it's a I have like a obsession with seventies cinema, just the way that those films are shot, the way that they deal with the real human situations, the way that the drama isn't heightened and just like the movies feel very real. And Kramer versus Kramer is kind of emotionally draining a film as that is, is sort of like the pinnacle of that idea. So I've seen that movie several times and I never I didn't know what watch that Dustin Hoffman was wearing. But what complicates that whole thing is that he is known to wear a Pepsi GMT. Uh sixteen seventy five, I'm pretty sure. Great watch. Fantastic. Great watch. Can't argue with that watch. He wears it in Marathon Man. Great movie. Great movie. Great actor. Great actor. Can't argue with that. Great era. Great medium. Great era. Great great medium. Uh great music. Great casting. Great directing. Uh so he in the press photos for uh Kramer vs. Kramer. So basically after the movie's shot, they get the actors together and should do like a photo shoot for the poster to advertise the film for billboards, whatever. And for those, he's wearing his uh Pepsi GMT. So for years, if you were to Google what is Dustin Hoffman wearing in Kramer versus Kramer, you would you'd get all these answers in the forums that it's a GMT from someone who never watched the movie. That Google image searched, found the promo photos photos, went on Getty, and that's what you'll see. Um, when you watch the movie, you realize he's wearing a black, like PVD-coded or DLC coded or whatever it is, chronograph on what looks to be a black bracelet, but then in certain shots, you can see it's a s it's a rubber strap. It's one of those straps that's meant to look like a bracelet. I forget what you what you actually call those, but we had no idea what it was. And when you watch movies from the 70s, it's not like they're shot in Ultra 4K where you can, you know, freeze frame and get a nice clear image of the watch. So I was spending a lot of time in the living room of my Brooklyn apartment just in front of the TV, like a child that's too close to the TV when their mom asked them to step away from the TV. Just like playing, pausing, playing. Specifically in a scene where where Hoffman's character is showing his son how to make French toast and like dunking bread into a a cup of egg yolk really fast movements. Like these aren't these are like you really have to pause quickly. And so I was working with at the time um one of our our vintage managers, Brandon um trying to figure out what watch this was and we we narrowed it down to it we knew that it was a a certain kind of black PvD chronograph that Hoyer had made at the time. A lot of watch brands had made them. Basically you could I guess the the term is like white label you could you could put your your logo on this on this watch so it was it was easy to identify basically what the case was and ostensibly what the movement was, but not the brand that it was until I did some creative photoshopping, some over sharpening, the whole deal, and we figured out it was a Lizure chronograph. Long story to get to the point of like, does anybody really care? Well, I mean the story has a fair amount of page views, so whoever did read that story, I think w walks away knowing something that nobody knew before. And I like the idea that for future Googlers of what is Dustin Hoffman wearing in Kramer versus Kramer, we now know, you know, what it is. And that's that's fun for me to know that we we kind of broke that. That is fun, I agree. Very cool. Good job, Danny. Great, great story, Danny. It was a great story, you know. Great, great
James Stacey , great audience to be honest. Great audience. Great audience. Yeah, great audience. Love the audience for sure. For sure, for sure. It's it's cool to see that there are like things to uncover still. I'm curious, are there any on your list that seem unconscionable? You won't be able to figure it out, or you know, these kind of grail spottings. First of all, what I will say
Danny Milton is the obvious films, as obvious as they are, we have built in this kind of security blanket into the into the column. Where and you might notice this as you read it, that there has to be a reason why we're writing about the movie when we're writing about the movie. And that's sort of a nice insulator to make sure I don't run out of movies to watch also, because I could front load every movie that I know that the watch is in right up front. And so I really do try to see what movie anniversaries there are. What news story is there that involves an actor that's in the movie or the director of the movie? Orb is, there a Formula One race going on? So now I'm gonna write about a movie that deals with Formula One or whatever whatever whatever the case may be. So it's hard for me to answer if there's a watch necessarily that is a grail that I can't spot. Like I'm sure that it will come in front of me in a time when I'm trying to find a movie that fits sort of the event of the moment. So I think next time that we have this conversation, I might have a better idea, but so far I will say the the film that um I guess this is airing on a a Sunday, this past Friday's film, uh Ghostbusters Afterlife. Watched it on a plane. Great plane movie. Was fully stumped uh on this watch. Uh the Paul Ruddwares. It's a Timex expedition. It took our friend Miles, who Cole brought up earlier. Uh so shout out to Miles for helping me un uncover that one. This is always a remarkable human thing. I can't always take credit for these. This is very often a team effort. Uh and um in that case he really. We we really do. I mean that's a thing. Just to bring this kind of full circle. Like I have noticed an insane enthusiasm internally. We have our a Slack channel on Hodinky. I can't tell you how many times, and I appreciate it every time I get it that one of my coworkers or colleagues slacks me, like, here's a movie with a watch in it that you should keep on your radar. And even, you know, my followers on Instagram, I love that. To me, it's like a mini community inside of a community. And I've I, you know, the enthusiasm's there. And you know, we we talked about the why do we love this stuff. I just think it's fun. And when stuff's fun, people want to continue doing it and and staying, you know, close to it. I have a
Cole Pennington request, Danny, just saying I'm a huge X-Files fan, and I know this is outside of movies, but massive X-Files fan. And I always personally try and, you know, keep track of the watches in the show. But one day I would like you to look into X-Files, please. Done. Just a re
Danny Milton quest. Co-by line. Thank you. Thank you so much. Another co-by-line. Another special. When it's TV shows, it's you and me cool
James Stacey . You know that, right? Boom. Awesome. I'm in it. I know that there there were some really cool watches in in X Files. This is a derivation and we're at the end of the show, so why not? But there's some like DeCovney had some rad watches and he changed them a couple times in that show. I need to go back and rewatch uh rewatch some X Files. It's been too long.
Danny Milton Well there must be a watching TV spinoff. I mean, even like friend of Hodinky Daniel Day Kim where wears a two-tone Daytona and lost. And that's we're talking like two thousand and four was the pilot for that show, which is a super throwback. And I think that was a real a real watch. Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised, yeah. Um not like a Fugazi on the other hand. A Fugaz
James Stacey i. A full exi. Look, guys, I think this has been super fun. We do have to get to another meeting, so these shows can't go on forever. Uh I'm sure we'll do another one. I actually think you know there's a a a basis for a whole you know series of uh of chatting about uh watches in movies and that sort of thing that case could be made and X-files as well, of course. Uh but a big thanks for being on the show. As always. And for everyone listening, you know what I ask. If you enjoyed the show, if you had a good time, let us know in the comments and send the link to a friend. Uh share us, uh get us out there. Uh and we'd love to uh kind of have some new folks listening to the show and and weighing in and maybe offering up some some great watch spotting challenges. Uh so swing by the comments if that sounds exciting. But uh Nora, Danny, Cole, thanks so much for uh being on another episode. Pleasure to be here. The truth is out there. Oh yeah. And if the audience knows Robert Redford, please uh introduce him to Danny. Robert, if you're listening, uh just just drop into the comments on Hodakey. I'm more than happy to uh get you my cell phone number. We can we can chit chat about denim jackets and uh and and watches for sure. And and then you can talk to Danny about things for for work. So that works for me. Uh tell a friend, especially if they're Robert Redford. Until then, uh we'll chat to you in about a week's time. And cut