 I'm Jay Fidel. This is Think Tech. It's the movie show. One of my favorite shows. And George Cason, he joins me for the movie show because we are a team on this thing. Co-hosts, if you will, because we both watch the same movies and report to you on them. And today we're reporting on the God Committee, which I want to be clear that it has nothing to do with God or religion, for that matter. It's a very interesting movie. George, you want to set the stage on this why is this movie different from all other movies really that we watch these days? Well, it's similar because it's educational. We're dealing with different issues, morality, medicine, and individual agendas. And that's what this committee is all about. It's the basic of the movie is the committee that makes decisions on who gets the heart for a heart transplant. And then we can get into the particulars, but it's a very good movie because it brings in all these peripheral issues and we'll talk about it. Yep. Yeah. Well, you know, the thing is, there's so much being offered in the way of movies. I don't know how they make all these movies in a time of COVID. They make them as if COVID didn't exist. And the movies that you watch that are made available to you by Netflix and Amazon Prime and a lot of these other cable movie channels are violent. They're vengeance and they're cops and robbers. And they're, you know, they're, I want to say, they cut the corners. They're giving you the pulp fiction again and again and again. And there's really, there's a benefit in having a movie like this. This movie is educational, challenging. This movie takes you into a real situation. If you go on the web, you will see a lot of questions about, is this a real story? Are these people real? The answer is no but. It's a guy named Mark St. Germain wrote a play that played on Broadway in 2006. And that was, that is where the story came from. So kudos to him for writing the play because it does feel real, does feel real. In any event, the environment that they portray in this movie is real. It is not violent. It is medical, technical, and moral. Just as you say, George. You know, you have to think about this movie. You have to think while you're watching it. And when you're done, you'll be thinking about it too. It's very well played. It has a very good cast. And, you know, you kind of accept that you get into it and you kind of roll with it. You feel the power of it. It's a powerful movie. So let's talk about the plot. What do we got here in terms of the plot? It's all about heart transplants. And by the way, hearts expire. I didn't know they used that term. A heart that you take from one person who maybe got killed. In this case, in the case of the movie, there was a young fellow got killed in an auto accident with a bicycle. And we're talking about, you know, the disposition of his heart and the committee decides, but the committee has all kinds of difficult issues in making that decision. And one of them is they got to make it right away because the heart expires in like an hour. So you have to really move on it. So talk about the plot. Well, as you said, the young kid with his girlfriend in Boston, and then right after that, the car hits him on the bike and they can't bring him back, but his heart is good. So it's already set up for Mrs. Sanchez. I mean, the committee already had somebody who was going to get the heart. But as they're preparing her for the heart, she dies on the operating table. Maybe they've opened her up or whatever. So then the committee, within a short period of time, as you said, the heart's going to expire, has to make a decision who the next in line will be to get the heart, right? So there's three people. There's this African American guy with three children, three daughters that he's sending to college. He was like a janitor. And then there's this wealthy white woman, no children, no support system. And then there's the third one is a young guy, Granger, Pip Granger, who is young, but he's got issues, but he's got his heart is bad. So those are the three options. And what starts to play in this, you've got each of these people on the committee. You've got Dr. Taylor, you've got Dr. Andre Boxer, who is the main protagonist, his girlfriend, Dr. Taylor. And then you've got Dr. Kim, Dr. Lau, and then you've got Dr. Wilkes. Each, they pretty much have a pretty good mix of ethnic and racial people on that. And then Dr. Gilroy, who is more like a manager, like she's the business kind of person at the hospital. This is in New York, right? It's a New York hospital, probably Manhattan, they said Linux. A midtown hospital, St. Augustine, they called it, but I'm sure that's not the name of the hospital that's filmed it. Exactly. So basically, then you look into all the different agendas, each person has an agenda, each person has an issue. Dr. Taylor is going to join that board, because her boyfriend, Dr. Andre Boxer, he's going to go into private practice, so he's not going to be on there. That's Kelsey Gramma. What's interesting is Kelsey Gramma used to be a comedian. And Dr. Valerie, I don't see her last name here. You mentioned her. She's one of the doctors too. And she's Jeanine Garofalo. Jeanine Garofalo was a comedian too. So here's two comedians playing a very serious role. Then of course, Julia Stiles, who, she has a funny-looking face, I think, a flat face, but she's very good. And she is the dynamic of this movie, probably even more than Kelsey Gramma is. She's the one who drives it. And what's so interesting is that Kelsey Gramma is in, I guess, in his 60s or 70s, and had a full medical life, very successful, transplant surgeon. And she's like 40, but they got a thing going, don't they? Yeah. But he won't commit to her. They had a kid, and I sort of confused it that she was pregnant again, but I think it was just the one kid. And he won't commit. He'll give money to help raise the kid, but he's not going to commit to her. And then what complicates this is each of them have their own agenda. So Dr. Wilkes, an African-American, of course, I guess she feels sensitive to the African-American guy, with the three daughters he's sending to college. And then Dr. Lau, Asian-American guy, the physician. But Peter Kim, played by Peter Kim. Right. I got a lot of other things, so I got to look at it. You've got it on the thing. And then Emmett Hedaya, Emmett Granger is played by Dan Hedaya. He's a very wealthy benefactor to the hospital. He's given money before. He's supporting Dr. Boxer's research, which is into finding... Big hearts. Big hearts that can be transplanted into humans. Exactly. And we need to talk about that here sometime in our half hour. We'll talk about that. And I've got major things to talk about that. Okay. And then, of course, you've got, you talked about Dr. Gilroy, Janane Garfalo, and then Peter, and then Dr. Dr. Wilkes is Patricia Floyd. So those are the main characters, right? Now, when... A lot of the scenes are in that committee when they're discussing the different things. And then there's also... Wait a minute, what's his name? Coleman Domingo, he plays Father Dunbar. Coleman Domingo, he plays a priest, minister, Father Dunbar. And he's an extraordinary, extraordinary character with the past. With the past. I don't know if you caught that. Former attorney disbarred because of phony baloney stuff. He's a very powerful, very powerful character in this movie. I have to say they're all powerful. All powerful. They all come from their own agendas, and they're all powerful. And the agendas meet at the table of the God Committee and clash. Exactly. So Emmett Granger is the father of Tripp Granger, who's the young guy who needs the heart. And he's putting his money in his power. He's playing, you know, his power games, right? And he's telling boxer, you know, Dr. Boxer, you've got to be my son, right? He's a corrupt real estate operator in New York. And I found this Dan Hedaya is the actor. Dan Hedaya was was from Syria. I think he was born in Syria. He was very interesting. And grew up in Brooklyn and became an actor in the early 70s. And you know him because you have seen him. He must be 50, 60, 70 films already. He's in his 80s now. But we know him as a character actor through our whole lives. Tough as nails, hard, you know, and he's perfectly cast for this hard driving real estate guy who has $25 million on the table to the hospital to break the rules of the God Committee. That is the center issue of the movie. Exactly. He's a former school teacher, Dan Hedaya. And he went into that's right. Yeah. Just like I was a former school teacher. And I said, Well, why don't you go into stage and screen, George? Oh, because we'll talk. I can get into this a long time. I want to stick with the subject, right? But I did take the acting classes. So bottom line here is, as you said, $25 million on the table. And then Dr. Wilkes, you know, as I said for the African American guy and so they're all playing and Dr. Gilroy, she likes that $25 million. That's that's what's really driving her. Now, then what happens is father Dunbar, I think he sort of plays games because, you know, he he goes, he's playing one against the other. He goes and he meets with the he's not a voting member of the committee. No, but they sent him there, I guess, as a former lawyer to be sort of an observer and a counselor to the committee. And he makes he makes a bit of trouble on the committee. He makes trouble. And he's playing games, you know, behind it all. But then if you get into that, the nitty gritty here for me, right, and I'll get it, you can we can get about the pig hearts. Here are people who are not taking care of themselves. They've got coronary issues, just like my dad, 42 years old, his first heart attack, and then died at 62. And smokers, Dr. Boxer is a smoker. And then at the end, we find out that he needs a heart. And then you're finding a way to save people who really have lifestyle issues that they have heart conditions, right. So basically, this is new technology as it's in the news right now recently as well. And Mike, if Michael, if you want to bring up that article quickly, just to show it for a second. Yeah, that just the last few weeks, they had the first pig heart. Well, it's so interesting that this this play was written 2006, the movie was made what this year. I'm not sure exactly when it came out. It was this year, this year, June of 2021. Yeah, that's extraordinary. And then like immediately after I saw this movie and you saw this movie, there's a piece on 60 minutes about big hearts. And the movie is driven by that because the last scene, which is so powerful, the Kelsey Grammar character, Dr. Boxer, has been doing research for decades on pig hearts in order to get the DNA right, so that they would be accepted by human beings. But you can't get it to work. And in the last scene, they they actually transplant a pig heart into a I think it's into a person monkey. This is the way they, you know, they're doing the science. Right. And they could not get the heart to beat. And so in the last moment of the last part of the movie, you you get him or rather his successor, another African American. Yeah, it was very powerful actor. Who was it? The styles. It's his doctor. Oh, yes, styles was there, but hope was there. Hope was the assistant in the research. Okay. And they put the pigs heart in the monkey. And lo and behold, it starts beating. It's really a tingler. I tell you, and then that's not your socks off closing on this movie. They actually do it. And then shortly after, it's on 60 minutes. And the article that you put up on the screen. So, you know, we have all kinds of ethical issues when you're selecting hearts from a limited supply, you know, to a to people who depend on them to live. So this ethical issues. And that brings me to a viewer question. Our host in Japan has given us a question, George Steve, Steve Zercher. So this is an interesting ethical challenge to consider. Is there some online forum for discussion for viewers to discuss the movie after they watch it? I don't have a ready answer on that, but I'll tell you that when I was looking at this movie, there's always a lot of, you know, reports and reviews over a movie like this. And there are on the web. And of course, they allow public comments. And the public comments were really good and really interesting. And they were saying the same thing that Steve Zercher is saying. This is a very interesting ethical question. It deserves some, you know, some context. And it deserves a public forum. Well, the comments made that you can find on the web raise all these ethical issues. So it's worth looking at the comments to the movies. I found the comments very intelligent, very thoughtful on this movie, because the kind of people who watch this movie are people who care about medicine, who care about the way hospitals and doctors operate, who are care about ethics. And the other thing I wanted to mention, so Steve, thank you for asking that question. It's the best we can do now. But, you know, I'm sure there are other medical journals and forums that will cover this, because it's something that's coming of age. Although I want to add this, that the science of putting pigs hearts in human beings takes the pressure off. All of a sudden, the supply is not nearly as limited as before. And the other thing that we really need to talk about is what we learned about the standards that the God Committee follows. Because I'm sure that this is the true part, absolutely true. What do they do? Is it based on, you know, the $25 million gift? Is it based on, you know, youth or vitality? Is it based on, you know, state of health? And it's all of the foregoing. Well, not the $25 million gift. That should not have been in the play at all. I mean, in the mixture, in the ethical consideration. And later at the end of the movie, we find out that it wasn't. They voted against the $25 million, which is, I think they did, didn't they? It was a little vague there at the end. He got the heart. The kid got the heart. And six months later, he OD'd. Oh, that's right. That's right. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, he OD'd. And Boxer also dies at the end on the plane going to Turkey where they were going to do a heart transplant on him. And that was interesting too, because the Black Market Heart, that Granger, my friend, Dan Hadaya, the multimillionaire, the real estate guy, found a heart outside of normal channels that was not within the structure of transplants in the United States. He founded in Istanbul. And he provided a jet plane, a Learjet, to take the doctor, that is Kelsey Grammer Boxer doctor, to Istanbul for the surgery. And he brought with him the team from St. Augustine's Hospital on the plane to Istanbul for the transplant surgery, but he didn't make it. It's really ironic. Anyway, so his girlfriend was there and she found him dead on the plane. Yeah, what a plane that was. But what I want to get to is that the question is raised by Steve Zercher. I mean, there are standards that the committee is supposed to follow. And they talked about that in the committee. They talked about whether any of these people or all of them met the standards. And at the end of the day, it's a subjective determination, but they're supposed to follow the standards. And that is whether you have a support system to keep you alive. It's a waste if they give you a transplant at heart and you die as in that kid, the overdose kid six months afterward, then you've given it away to somebody who couldn't use it, who didn't use it. That's one thing, the state of their health in general, whether they smoked, whether they drank, whether they abused themselves, whether they will, I guess, if you had to put it at the bottom line, it's whether they are going to make good use of the heart. The heart, exactly. And the African American guy, he had committed, he had taken pills that commit suicide about 10 years before. So he was a question, tripped with his drug use. And the woman, the wealthy woman, she sort of got an arrogant attitude. And she really doesn't want to do a heart transplant either. So there's those three things. And then all the people on the committee, they keep showing boxers smoking. I mean, smoking, both my parents were smoking. We've talked about this before. And when my mom passed, for the doctor asked me after, was she a smoker? I said, yeah, she was a smoker years ago. She gave it up. But then years and years and far as still smoking, you know, and my dad in far as stills, the doctor had, he was under a lot of stress with his job, top secret job. So the doctor told him, get a pack of Chesterfields, it'll relax you. This was the doctor in far as stills. And then Dr. Meierstein, their friend in Farmingdale, tried to save him just to go to the meat market and cut out all the fat in the meat. So I mean, bottom line, bottom line is, our whole system is screwed up. And I get back to the whole thing. Why do we have to heart disease for most people, not for my ex, because that was another story. But for most people, it's a lifestyle thing. If you're if you're if you're not watching yourself, not getting enough exercise, eating a poor diet, you're going to come down with coronary heart disease. So bottom line is, and then we have to go and kill pigs, you know, and you know, being a vegan, that bothers me too. So bottom line is, what's what's wrong with our society? There's some real issues and Steve Zucker brought in all these ethnic and then Granger, you know, Emmett Granger with all his money. But this is not an isolated thing. Money plays into everything. And money plays lobbyists in Washington playing for the meat industry, the tobacco industry. We know in the fifties, they covered up all the problems with smoking, you know, and now we know. So bigger ethical issues that, as Steve Zucker said. Well, you're right. I had forgotten that the kid got the heart and he was not deserving. He was he was a druggy. He injured his girlfriend, something awful. Right. And then they try to muzzle her so that she wouldn't say anything to any member of the God Committee, because if she said something, it would it would, you know, affect their judgment on the on the org on the heart. Finally, Julia Stiles, that is Dr. Taylor got got got her to talk about it. I'm saying, though, is that is that the the the corruption prevailed. I do remember now what happened. It went to the wrong person. After all of that careful study and argument and soul searching, it went to the wrong person, the gift of somebody who shouldn't have gotten it, who couldn't use it, who died six months later, and and and and deprived someone much more deserving of having the heart. And the committee essentially was bought off by the 25 million and it failed. Dr. Gilroy. It's the business manager, doctor. She played because they found in in Tripp Rangers blood something that showed cocaine use, but she brought up this ampicillin issue that maybe he was taking ampicillin. She took ampicillin and stuck it in his pocket, you know, while he's lying there in the hospital in a coma or whatever. So she's playing games that he was a he was a junkie. He was taking cocaine, but she made it look like it was an ampicillin thing because that's that's another way that he engaged in criminal conduct. That was criminal, what she did was criminal. She planted evidence on him knowing that it was a life and death matter. And they caught her. They caught her. And the bottom line is with Tripp, his girlfriend, she was pregnant. And when she told him she's pregnant, he threw her out of the car, but then her coat was caught in the door. So she got dragged by the car. That's how she got all bloodied, right? Well, he didn't beat her up. It was just that he threw her out of the car. Well, he was he was busy under the influence of the drugs, I think. Exactly. So he didn't notice it. I know people, my dad used to take Valium and they come crazy. My ex too much puckleolo and they become crazy. So yes, definitely I'm again. But bottom line is there's a lot of ethical issues as Steve Zucker said. And it plays this whole movie makes you think about what is wrong with and this is not an isolated thing. Money plays into everything in our society more and more as the years go by big bucks, making decisions in Washington and everything. Citizens united and now everything is money. Who's got the bucks? They and the little people don't have a prayer, you know, when you got Emmett Rangers that can throw around $25 million and make it the committee to make a decision and then get Dr. Gilroy to do dishonest, illegal stuff to get that money because the hospital is deteriorating. It's all about money. Everything's money. And we've talked about that before and some of our former reviews. So I'll leave it at that, Jay, you can take this from there and you can take it where you well, I think you're right. I mean, the movie is loaded with ethical issues. And as I said, the God Committee failed, the hospital got to $25 million, but it's sold out. And Granger, I mean, a great actor, Dan Hadaya, was a really low, a low end character. He was a crumb, you know, but very wealthy and very, very hard-nosed tough, you know, in roles that he's played in the past. He's been a sort of street criminal type of guy. And in this case, he was a street criminal type of guy with $25 million and a lot of real estate. So you're right. I mean, it's a reflection on the American, the American ethic. At the same time, we learned a lot. And there was no violence per se. There was no vengeance per se. None of the street scene kind of thing you see in so many other movies. So for me, it was an experience to watch it. I didn't know how it was going to end up. And they were very subtle about how it ended up. And it almost made you feel it was a true story. The whole thing made you feel it was a true story. That's how realistic. And I thought the acting was very good. Junior Styles was excellent. Kelsey Grammar was never better. You know how I feel about Janine Garofalo. She's great. Dan Hadaya, Mr. Badman, and Coleman Domingo are a really powerful personality. I mean, everyone involved was doing a terrific acting job. It was very well written. The Ray Partay, I turned to my wife in the middle of the movie, I said, this is moving very quickly. And they're, you know, they really got their hands on what these doctors would say to each other in real life. Junior Styles is like five feet tall. And she's facing a whole bunch of surgeons that were brought in. If they don't know who she is, then she tells them to stop doing something that was inappropriate in the hallway to remember this. And they say, who are you? And she says, I'm the chief of transplant surgery. Now get your ass out of here. That was the way it works, you know. Yeah, she was really tough. She, you know, she played, she played, she was excellent actress, right? Yeah. Dan Hadaya, he played his role to a T. Of course, he's played that role before, you know, bad guy, but he was. Well, I say, I saw the movie and I wanted to be a doctor. I wanted to be a surgeon. I wanted to get involved in this. And you know, this is, this is not boring. And by any means, this is very, very exciting, both at a, at, well, at number of levels, at the medical level, at the research level, because he was doing research with the pigs the whole time, but successfully, even though posthumously, and the relationships with the other doctors, with the hospital, with the business manager of the hospital. I mean, there's so many different relationships and issues going on. It was a look inside, you know, and the fact that the hospital was having financial trouble, hospitals have financial troubles, especially now, George encoded, you know, and investigated all of those issues. It's a remarkable examination of something we didn't know before. You know, the movies I like best, I think you're in the same place, are the ones that teach me something. And this taught me something. Yes, a lot of taught me a lot of different things. So many different angles here in this movie, you know, the medical, the financial, the personal, all of that, you know, medical ethics. Yeah. So I thought this movie was excellent. As you said, really educational. They're going to be a doctor now? No, I don't want to be a doctor. I'm more into the arts. You know, you know, I'm going to school on my old age for arts, artsy fartsy kind of stuff, all was one of them. So no, I mean, everybody, I went out of relatives that are medical dentist doctors, you know, in my family, you know, my ex was a medical nutritionist, you know, she, so I mean, it's very important we understand the issues around medicine about doctoring and how they operate, how they work, what their strengths and weaknesses are, what their issues and challenges are. That's why, you know, this was so educational for me. And so I made a little commitment to myself after watching this movie, I was going to try to find other movies like this, because a lot of the movies that you and I have reviewed over the past couple of few months have been movies that take us away from the ordinary, you know, ordinary vengeance and violence movies. And this is the kind of genre that I really appreciate. Wish they had a special channel just for this kind of movie, but unfortunately they don't. We have to find them, George. You picked a really good one on this one, Jay, because it really, really hit home for me in so many ways. And the bigger picture is the big thing, you know, looking at the big picture of all the issues that are in this movie, so good choice. Yeah. So let's adopt a new scale, George. Okay. Instead of the scale of five stars, you know, which Rotten Tomatoes uses, why don't we adopt a 10-point scale? Okay. So if I ask you now here today at a given Wednesday, how many points you would give to the God Committee, what would you say? With all the minor issues, I would give it a 10. Whoa. And the one thing, you know, the romantic thing between Dr. Boxer and Dr. Taylor, you know, that's sort of an aside, you know, but there's a lot of doctors that have the younger women, wives and girlfriends. So, but I'd give it a 10. I like this movie for all the different angles we get into. We agree on that. I would give it a 10 also, but I want to add one thing about that relationship between, you know, the senior transplant surgeon and his junior neophyte. She was a neophyte, but successfully so, is that it happens. If you're busy and committed to medical practice and research, and if you're the top dog in your field, at least in that hospital, you don't have time to fool with romance. And here is a young woman, you know, a nice looking, smart young woman, a doctor who understands your situation, who works with you every day. It's not amazing that you would sidle up to her. It's not amazing that you would have a relationship with her, even though it's like a 20 or 30 year difference. You know, it sort of works because the primary commitment was not to romance or, you know, even being known as a couple in public. The primary commitment was to medicine and transplant surgery and, you know, being involved in the decisions they had to face. So that teaches you something too. Romance is different when you're so committed to a profession. Oh, thank you, George. Any ideas about the next one? You would have made some suggestions, you know, but we can discuss, you know, I'm trying to think of movies. I haven't seen a lot of movies recently, because I'm academically involved, but something that brings up some major issues like this one did, you know, we'll do a little research on that. Yeah, okay. We'll find something good and we'll be back to join forces again in two weeks. George Kason, my co-host of this really wonderful experience we have on the movie show here in sync tech. Thank you so much, George. Thank you, Jay, for your insights. Yes. Aloha.