Talking Pondo: Give Me Liberty and Strange Darling with The Hoeys

 In this episode, Jim and Dani Hoey (from "Bravo for the B-Side") join the podcast. They bring along the movie Give Me Liberty, while Marty and Clif give Jim and Dani the movie Strange Darling to watch. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_07 0:00

For that too.

SPEAKER_08 0:01

Both. Both is good.

SPEAKER_07 0:03

Talking about it helps. That's true. Right.

SPEAKER_01 0:05

True. Yeah. Talking about it helps.

SPEAKER_08 0:07

Thanks for so thanks for bringing up a movie that basically dredges up a bunch of stuff for Marty that allows us to get it get it worked out on in therapy right through the podcast. That'll be good. So we appreciate that.

SPEAKER_04 0:17

Right. Well, see next time. I'm like, well, like the guy said, everything happens for a reason, right?

SPEAKER_03 0:30

Yeah. Welcome to season three of Talking Pondo. Talking Pondo is a podcast where Cliff and Marty give each other a film to watch and talk about them in detail. Some episodes will include a special guest.

SPEAKER_04 0:52

Alright, Marty, we're back. We're back. Back. We never left. We just we just stay here in your phone and podcast world until then you push play on another episode. So that's right.

SPEAKER_08 1:04

That's right. Hear us talk about something else that you probably don't care about. But you should because these are good to films.

SPEAKER_04 1:10

That's what we do, is we we try to tell you things that you should care about, right? Or at least give a chance. Right. That's right. It's talking fondo with guest. Once again, I'm Marty as always, except for the weeks where I'm Cliff, but we won't get into that. I'm Cliff this week. Yeah, this is not Biosphere, which our guests recently reviewed.

SPEAKER_08 1:32

So uh I gotta hear that one still. That's um that's uh you should definitely listen to that one, folks. Um that was a fascinating episode. I listened to it today on my walk. And uh yes, so you are our guests this time, so season three, episode 13. I have a bit of a c cold, so um, you'll probably hear me cough like right now. Um we have the hooys with us, and uh super excited about that. Is it the it's the hoo-ies, right? Hoys, hoys, the hoys. Always think like Chips Ahoy, Chips Ahoys. There we go. We have the hoys, we have the Chips Ahoys, our good friends Danielle and Jim.

SPEAKER_05 2:11

All right, guys.

SPEAKER_08 2:12

Hey, from Bravo from the B side. Yeah, we stuck their uh stuff in our movie. Yes, that's how much we like them.

SPEAKER_00 2:20

I still show people that picture that's fantastic. Then tell them to watch the movie. So they're awesome.

SPEAKER_08 2:26

Yeah, well, we were happy to do it. It's a lot of fun. Kind of just hey, put them in the background right there.

SPEAKER_04 2:31

Yeah, our returning guests. You may remember last time around where we talked with them about the African Queen and Friday the 13th. That was a good one. That was played back in season two.

SPEAKER_08 2:42

That was. I I feel like today's episode is gonna be our films, they are a little more kind of pol, like we talked about a little more polarizing. So I don't know if we're gonna, you know, it was like Friday 13th was kind of a love fest, and then so was uh African Queen, you know. It's like, oh yeah, great horror movie, great, you know, but maybe not for these. We'll see, you know? You never know.

SPEAKER_04 3:02

It's uh two indie movies today, I guess you would say. And also, I had never seen either one of these films before what either one of them was, so they were both total blind picks, yeah.

SPEAKER_08 3:15

I had never seen either one of these either.

SPEAKER_04 3:18

And they're both fairly recent, too, right? They just came out just uh within the last few years. I think Strange Darling's not even a year old.

SPEAKER_08 3:25

Yeah, it's 2023, and Give Me Liberty is 2019. So which those are our movies today, by the way, folks.

SPEAKER_04 3:32

Yeah, not doing our 80s classics today. We're doing a little more modern today. And so we gave them Strange Darling, or I should say Cliff gave them Strange Darling, and then they gave us Give Me Liberty. That's right. So which I don't even know.

SPEAKER_08 3:50

Well, first I want to I wanna I want to talk, I want to talk about something real quick, real quick. So, um, and we you know we we kind of tend to banter around for a little bit, but I I had this thought, and and and Danielle Jim, jump in here and and with your thoughts on this. But um, I was listening to an old episode and it was the Tootsie episode, right? Okay and then after that I listened to the Friday Barbie episode. And in the Tootsie episode, you were kind of like, ah, I don't really feel like this is culturally significant, and it's or it was at the time, but it's kind of dated now, right? And and cool.

SPEAKER_05 4:24

What it's yeah, for Tootsie.

SPEAKER_08 4:26

But then you're you when you're Barbie, you're like, this is gonna be influential for a long time. And all I could think of was like, I guess time is gonna tell on that. Like it will.

SPEAKER_04 4:57

But will it be will it have that cultural impact? I guess that's what we'll see.

SPEAKER_08 5:01

My my guess is I think it will, but you never really know. Yeah, yeah, you never you never do. That's why, but I just I had that thought while I was listening to both of them went. I should I may bring that up on the on the podcast and just you know talk about for it. But what do you what do you Jim, Danny, what do you think?

SPEAKER_00 5:14

So I actually listened to that episode just the other day uh while I was working. Um and I I was kind of like on on everybody's side there, like with with with Tootsie. When it came out, it was a mainstream Rocky Horror Picture Show did well in the underground movies because that's kind of what they were going for. Tootsie to me, because I saw it in the theater when I was a kid, it was quite different. It wasn't uh Walter Mathau and Jack Lemon dressing up as women, right? It wasn't 50s, 60s locky, oh look, fun stuff. This was a real examination on not really even role reversal, but you know, the idea that he's going to try and be a woman to get in to get a job. It was novel. Um, a lot of the humor was very similar for the time period. Very Blake Edwards type stuff.

SPEAKER_08 6:08

Yeah, very Blake Edwards, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:10

Yeah, I can see that. Yeah, I mean, I think I think Titsie should be culturally culturally relevant as a milestone of where we were and where we are. How we view that.

SPEAKER_08 6:24

And if we were to remake that maybe then it's good that it becomes culturally kind of trite. Like we've moved so far from it, we look at it and go, Well, that's true. That that was stupid. That was what that was a big deal.

SPEAKER_00 6:34

You know, yeah, we thought that was daring. Yeah. And the question is, is why would we ever think that was dare? It's that whole thing of it should just be. We shouldn't even be picking on these topics and stuff and and everything. Um, Barbie, I think, will remain culturally relevant simply because it has the name Barbie in it. And 20 years.

SPEAKER_08 6:56

That's what I think what Barbie is Marty is saying. It's been around so long and everybody knows what it is, right?

SPEAKER_00 7:00

Yes, and they're gonna continue to, and they're just gonna say, Oh, Barbie movie, what's that? And kids will see it, but maybe mom or dad will be watching it with them, and maybe it'll make them the same thing. Back then, this is what they were trying to you know throw out. We don't have to worry about that today. God, wouldn't that be nice? But you know, so I I think it will. Um, I would watch Tootsie over the Barbie movie again.

SPEAKER_02 7:28

If I might too, actually, yeah. Danny, what Danny, what do you think?

SPEAKER_06 7:34

So I've been thinking about this. So I listened to the episode where you guys talked about Barbie. I have not listened to the one where you talked about Tootsie. Um, but I haven't actually seen Tootsie.

SPEAKER_05 7:44

Oh, okay. Okay.

SPEAKER_06 7:46

So um I might have seen portions of it, you know, on TV or something growing up on, you know, whatever movie day. But um I think it's possible Barbie could create be a you know cultural touchstone movie. I brought we brought Lily to the drive-in to see Barbie and um she didn't pay attention basically at all to the whole thing.

SPEAKER_00 8:14

Well, we so we had uh we had one of Danny's friends, her her daughter's one of Lily's friends as well, so we brought them with us, and it was Lily's first drive-in theater experience. Oh, so great. And they used it to that advantage. They were sitting in the back of the car, we were sitting in lawn chairs, uh talking, eating popcorn, talking, eating popcorn, eating that awful, awful food.

SPEAKER_06 8:38

Concession canned pizza.

SPEAKER_08 8:40

Gotta have that hot dog that's been rolling on those rollers. Yeah. Uh-huh. Those scarab machos. With that nuclear orange cheese sauce, yes, please.

unknown 8:50

Right.

SPEAKER_06 8:52

Um, but I was also thinking about um more recent, you know, I feel old when I say more recent, but um uh movies that have become cultural touchstones, but maybe were not intended necessarily to be that. And one that comes to mind is Mean Girls.

SPEAKER_08 9:11

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a good call.

SPEAKER_06 9:14

You know, and I watched it a billion times as a teenager, it was great. Um, and I was waiting my entire parenthood, I was waiting for the day when I could show that to Lily. Right?

SPEAKER_08 9:30

When she so she with that's like wait was a time, then she knew she'd get it. Like you knew it would really have the impact, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 9:36

Yeah, yeah. And she loves it too.

SPEAKER_08 9:39

There you go.

SPEAKER_06 9:39

Right?

SPEAKER_08 9:40

And you're like, yes, my job as a mother is complete.

unknown 9:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 9:44

So with Barbie, I don't think like if I had, you know, if Lily was younger or whatever, or maybe I could show it to her, you know, when she was young, but I don't feel like I would feel the need to show her Barbie. Do you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 9:58

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

unknown 10:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:00

Well, I tell you what, if they remade uh if they remade Barbie with a mean girls vibe, I would absolutely I'd watch that. I'd pay for it.

SPEAKER_08 10:10

Sure, sure, sure, sure. Yeah, Barbie, I mean, I didn't have any problems with Barbie, and I don't want to, I don't want to recash hash the movie. I just, you know, I thought it because it's definitely, I think, culturally significant now, but will it be, you know, Tootsie is at this point 43 years old, Marty? It's 82. So it will think of Barbie in 2068. Right? Like that's that's a long fucking time from now. Depends on what the 2068, yeah. It's is I mean, were people even gonna fucking watch movies? I know a kid, I got a kid at work, he's I work with, he's like, I don't watch movies, I watch YouTube videos. Like, what what are you talking about? You don't watch movies. Oh, I don't like movies, it takes too long, it's too much of a commitment. I don't want to sit there for an hour and a half.

SPEAKER_06 10:54

That's what Lily does. That's what our kid does. She doesn't want to watch movies.

SPEAKER_00 10:59

No, so funny, Cliff, that you said that because I was just listening to the beginning of uh a Mark Marin episode and he was talking about uh he's not trying to take sides, but he's got a lot of young comedians on his show that are doing 20-minute YouTube videos, 10-minute YouTube videos. They're not doing specials, and he's he just he said someone explained it to him because he's like, I'm old school. If I do a special, it's one hour. That's how you do it. But it's the attention span. Someone said that they've done studies where people are, it's that whole thing. You can write a great article for the New Yorker, but can you read it while you're in the bathroom? Right while you're taking a dump. So you got like four columns beginning to end, that's gotta be it. Next story. I was thinking about that today. Our attention spans and movies and stuff.

SPEAKER_08 11:48

Um it it worries me. It it it it greatly worries me. It worries me that uh in my opinion, film is the greatest of art forms because it combines all of the other art forms together. It it you need cra you need construction, you need art painting, you need you need artistry, you need sewing, you need crafting, you need writing, you need acting, you need camera work, you need lighting, you you need logistic. Every alm almost the breadth of human existence. You need music exists within film. And I it scares me that it's that people aren't paying attention to it anymore, and I worry that it dies.

SPEAKER_04 12:27

Well, all of the kids are going to Minecraft, they just like that's true things and trashing the fucking theater.

SPEAKER_08 12:33

They're training it like it's Rocky Horror Pictures. And good on them. I mean, I get that, that's fun. But they I mean, I've I've I've I've ran a movie theater for seven years now, I won't clean up after Rocky Horror Pictures.

SPEAKER_06 12:46

I mean, can you can you blame them? They're being introduced to Jack Black, probably for the first time, most of them.

SPEAKER_08 12:52

Right, yeah, that's true. Yeah, and who doesn't listen to it?

SPEAKER_06 12:55

And Jack Black just inspires that sort of like free and wild behavior, yeah.

SPEAKER_08 13:00

And then they'll and then they'll discover uh oh uh School of Rock and go full circle, right?

SPEAKER_06 13:06

And Tenacious D.

SPEAKER_08 13:08

I saw them live. That was epic. So great. Um, well, anyway, so we so we digress. Um Marty, you wanna talk about a movie that we watched, maybe?

SPEAKER_04 13:17

Uh yeah, we watched two movies because that's usually what we do. Maybe one week we'll watch three movies just to mess you all up out there. No, that's too much work for us in one week. That's a lot of movies. Two movies is a lot in one week. Or one week we uh did four because we did two episodes, and that was like uh we barely had enough time for the week to watch all four of those and write notes. So brutal. Yeah. But of course, if this becomes a full-time job, like all podcasters would hope, then we'll be on seven days a week doing this shit.

SPEAKER_08 13:49

That's right. So smash that like the subscribe button and hit that like button and whatever, you know.

SPEAKER_06 13:55

And buy some movies.

SPEAKER_08 13:56

Buy some movies, something jump. Do it.

SPEAKER_04 14:02

And they also all went and drove to Revenge of the Sith, too, when that Netflix executive is like, the future of film is streaming, and then like meanwhile, Sith, a 20-year-old movie, makes it.

SPEAKER_08 14:11

Yeah, they released that show in the theaters, and my uh and just real quick, God bless Hayden Christensen. He finally they f it finally came full circle for him. He can go to these cons, they don't do anything. They they love him and they he, you know, they they seek his at his autographs and give him the love that he, you know. Rough for that guy back in the day. That was rough, yeah. You know, so good on him. Good good for him.

SPEAKER_06 14:34

Yeah, good for him.

SPEAKER_08 14:36

We love hated Christians. We love you, buddy. Uh, which one, Marty?

SPEAKER_04 14:43

What are we doing here? So we let's start with uh Give Me Liberty. Let's do chronological release date. This one came out when did this come out? 20 Give Me Liberty, 2019? 2019. So it's that's right. It was just before the pandemic. I remember on your all's podcast, the Bravo episode, which you all should listen to. Uh either right now or right after this, you're done listening to this, where you mentioned uh several things happened that if they hadn't gotten their funding right when they did, the movie probably wouldn't have happened. So they managed to get right in before 2020. COVID would have gone to this film.

SPEAKER_06 15:20

Yeah, perfect timing.

SPEAKER_04 15:22

Yeah. So um what is this anxiety attack of a film, Claire?

SPEAKER_08 15:29

Give me Liberty, 2019, an hour and 50 minutes long, not rated. Um, I if I was to rate it, I would say PG 13. That's probably the first time. Um in this freewheeling comedy, medical transport driver Vic risks his job to shuttle a group of rowdy seniors and a Russian boxer to a funeral, dragging clients like Tracy, a young woman with ALS, along for the ride. This is directed by Kirill Mikinowski. Um it's uh written by Alice Austin and Kirill Mikinowski, stars Chris Gallust, Lauren Lolo Spencer, and Maxim Stoyanov. Uh, let's see your storyline. In a freewheeling comedy, medical transport driver Vic risks his job to shuttle a group of rowdy seniors and a Russian boxer to a funeral. It's the same fucking thing. And that's basically the movie. It's it now it happens within there's a milieu like a riot going on that you know in the city that is very important to the story because he can't it's it's he's constantly late throughout the film because he's having to drive around this riot and he's driving people that he shouldn't be driving here and there. Um but yeah, so that's that's the film. The film is basically about this kid. He wakes up, he he uh gets his grandfather out of bed, his grandfather tries to burn the fucking place down by spatch cocking some chicken and a fucking cast iron skillet. Like uh in the I didn't know it was a comedy, and I was sitting there going, what the I didn't either I didn't either I didn't know it was supposed to be funny, so for me it was so fucking stress-inducing to watch this thing. It was just like Jesus Christ. I wanted I like I I I got up at one point and made sure I had extra blood pressure medication because I was like, I'm just just a case, but it was it was stressful.

SPEAKER_07 17:03

Well, you know, I totally get that.

SPEAKER_04 17:05

I have a really nightmare for years about uh either I'm late or somebody else is late. Sir, yes, my I just need 10 more minutes, just five more minutes, just 10 more minutes, just 20 more minutes. And that's and that's all this dude says to the whole fucking movie. So I'm just like, oh my god, oh my god. He just makes one bad decision after the other. It's like, oh fine, all you get in here, let's go to the funeral. They're not your responsibility, you're horrible at your job. Just take the people to their jobs. He feels for it, you know, and he's he also gets the guilt repped a little by them, too.

SPEAKER_08 17:41

But I'll I'll say this about the film. Um I the I like that what I really, really adored about the film is James. I like James a lot, of course. Oh, yeah. He's my favorite, he's got that great voice, and he's the only person in the movie talking any fucking sense. You know, you're right. You're right. Everybody else is off on their own fucking just waah! And James is like, listen, you know, you just you gotta fucking I love life and life's great, and here, bash that cigarette for me because I don't have arms and shit, and or if I do, I can't use it. Um so and the and you know, listeners, what you need to understand about this movie is that there's a lot of disabled people in this movie. It's he he car his he works for a service that you know he has a van and he that's what he does, is he carts disabled people around. He lives in a Russian community with his grandfather, and um he ends up having to transport a bunch of Russians to a funeral while also transporting these disabled people around. Um, you know, you've got the girl who is, you know, needs to go to get to get to the concert so she can sing rock around the clock, which she fucking does constantly in the movie. You've got you've got um Steve, who's my favorite fucking other favorite character, who's who's uh he can't vocalize.

SPEAKER_04 19:00

Yeah, he rings clock.

SPEAKER_08 19:02

All I could think of is like, what fucking job are they gonna get Steve? Like, okay, I mean, cool, but what job are they gonna get Steve? That's interesting. But I love that Steve's, he's like, you you think Steve's not there, but like every time they talk to Steve, Steve responds. He's like, or whatever. Steve totally knows what's going on. Yeah, he totally knows what's going on. He's with it. Steve's got his own agency, he's not fucking around.

SPEAKER_06 19:24

Yeah. Yeah, I was dying to know what you guys thought of this movie, and it seems like it caused a lot of anxiety.

SPEAKER_08 19:32

Oh, it's uh it did, yeah. Um the the the uh I love the fat guy too. Like at one point, he's like, I'm on four, I'm on four shots of insulin a day, and I was like, God damn, four fucking shots of insulin. That's one every six hours, my guy.

SPEAKER_06 19:50

You need special permission from insurance to do that.

SPEAKER_08 19:52

Really? Wow, man, that's that's insane. And then I love the part where he leaves him at the restaurant and he goes to pick him up, and he's like, six hours in my favorite fucking restaurant. They just kept bringing me food. That's not good for me. Because of my weight loss. Yeah, I lost 90 pounds at the hospital. I could think it was fucking rare, dude. Jesus boy. I mean, I feel bad for that guy. He's big, he's a big guy. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 20:18

And I love how that guy just never stopped talking. The actor that they got to play him. He was great, he awesome.

SPEAKER_08 20:25

Yes, yes. And that's and the the performances in it for the people as limited as they as they were were were good. It was it it felt very it felt like Sean Baker on methamphetamines.

SPEAKER_04 20:39

No, I was gonna say it did remind me of like Starlit, and people compared it to uncut gems. I haven't seen that much. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh god. Okay, so anxiety inducing as well.

SPEAKER_08 20:49

That's another one that I did not enjoy to the due to the anxiety-inducing factor of it. Yeah, and it is. It's it's uh Adam Sandler, and it's all about chasing it, chasing uh some jewels in the hard.

SPEAKER_04 21:02

Starlet uses actors, but they feel like they didn't use actors. Well, I guess the older woman in that she wasn't an actor, so I guess it's kind of kind of like a half and half.

SPEAKER_08 21:11

It's that slice, it's that more that slice of life.

SPEAKER_04 21:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 21:14

That it's very slice of life, and I I I worry. I watched Denora and I watched it win those Oscars, and I was happy, happy that Sean got those Oscars, but they were like, it's a comedy, and and the comedies don't usually win at the Oscars, and I thought, that was a comedy? Like, am I am I a miss like and then I'm like, give me liberty is a fucking comedy? Am I not getting comedy beats anymore? Am I you know?

SPEAKER_06 21:41

I think there's a level of comedy where it's like when it causes you so much stress that all you can do is laugh, like you can't you can't help but laugh at the situation that's going on. That's I feel like the kind of comedy that it was.

SPEAKER_00 21:56

I I I want to tell you why I enjoyed this movie so much. Please, yeah.

SPEAKER_08 22:00

I'd love. I mean, I I definitely think our listeners should hear, and I should too.

SPEAKER_00 22:04

It it reminded me, and this one we just saw, Come As You Are, we um that'll be the next episode coming out. I think I recommend it. Okay, Give Me Liberty reminded me so much of you guys and your storytelling and why we love it so much. Because even though it is uh you know, heightened circumstances, the guys getting at each other, and they're on this side, they're on that side, you guys deal with the real life stuff, the little quibbles, right? So, you know, Billy is a giant asshole, and now he's like, you know, the the savior, and he's bringing around to people what he's learned and just the interactions that they have, the dialogue that they have. You guys do that so well, and it's what makes it so much fun. And this movie that frenetic energy we stopped almost halfway through, and I turned to Danny and I said, I am so uncomfortable. Oh shit, dude.

SPEAKER_08 23:03

I stopped this movie three or four fucking times.

SPEAKER_00 23:06

But but I told her, I said, but not in a bad way. Um, because I under I've had so many of those days, especially as a young man, where you get up and the sh the the shit bomb starts dropping and they don't stop. And it's you were saying like he makes one bad decision after another. Yeah, I was watching it as there isn't a good decision he can make. This poor guy could bite him in the ass.

SPEAKER_08 23:29

Yeah, yeah. He he he doesn't take the old people, then he goes home and ice hated amongst all the old people, right? And they won't watch his grandfather or some shit like that. Yeah, I hear his grandfather burns the apartment building down, his grandfather burns a fucking apartment building down. It's like, how the fuck did you get that much smoke into that apartment building? Like, where the hell did you film that? That that's the part to me, the logistics of how they shot a lot of it was to me the most impressive part of it. Like, I really didn't enjoy the anxiety in the story as much. I I definitely hated the ending. I did not like that that smooth to black and white riot ending. It just did not work for me. Um, one of my other favorite scenes is where he's cooking the chicken with the old lady and she kind of just having this whole conversation and and like I love that scene too. And then again, coming back to James at the end and listening to him kind of, you know, I'm just asking you man to man, you know, are are you doing this? Or what are you doing with your life? Kind of get your shit together, you know. I I liked that quite a bit because watching Vic for an hour and 50 minutes, that's what I would tell him, dude. You gotta get your shit together. Like, what the fuck? Yes, this is a nightmare. Like, you can't, you're gonna have a fucking heart attack in your 30s, or you're gonna have a stroke or something like that.

SPEAKER_04 24:40

Something bad's gonna happen at this job because I think there was one decision that probably could have been made differently. They they could have waited to bail that guy out of jail. He could have sat there for a little bit longer.

SPEAKER_06 24:56

Tracy's brother could have spent the night. I mean, he would have been fine.

SPEAKER_04 24:59

Hey, just come back later. We're in the middle of a riot right now. That'll teach him now. I was like, oh geez, he you know what? He went out there, he got himself locked up. Let it let him sit there for a day or two. Then he'll get you out eventually.

SPEAKER_08 25:19

Yeah, one of one of my notes is this is a young man with way too much on his plate. Oh, absolutely. He's got too much.

SPEAKER_04 25:27

He's really good at conveying how tense he is that that actor who plays Vic. Yeah, he's he is.

SPEAKER_06 25:33

Yeah. Yeah, that was it was in our episode, but he reminded us of a young Leo DiCaprio.

SPEAKER_04 25:39

Right. Little Casey Affleck, you know, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 25:42

Yeah. Just his his total seriousness and his, you know, just the way he arranges his face, it's it's really good. I think that he could be really good in in the future.

SPEAKER_04 25:57

Now for me, this this movie this movie caused me a lot of uh PTSD and anxiety because I basically did this job. I worked in group home for developmentally disabled people for four years. Okay. And it was really hard for me to go back there and watch this again. It's the effectiveness of the movie, but for me personally, this was hard to sit through because it reopened a lot of old wounds from the past. Uh I was fired from that job for lack of support. They made me move an entire group home at night by myself, and then because we forgot toilet paper for five hours, I was shit-canned. No pun intended. A few years later, the guy that fires me sees me at my new job and says, We never should have fired you. That place was disorganized. They fired a lot of people since. We're sorry that that happened. I'm like, hey, you did me a favor. I'm in a really good job now. I I don't regret doing the job. You learn a lot about human nature and stuff, but it's a very intensive job. And I would I wasn't a van trans driver per se. I would do the overnights at the houses and then I would drive them to their jobs. So I do have kind of the experience with everybody going bananas in the back seat while you're trying to drive down the street in a big van. I even got into an accident one time, which was the bane of my existence because of a lawsuit filed against the company. And so when I see this guy get into an accident and they basically drive away, I'm like, I know it's a movie, I know it's a comedy, but inside I'm screaming, that's bullshit, no way. That's the end right there. You don't drive with your clients around, get in an accident, and you just leave. Well, of course, in the movie's narrative, the cops are busy with the protesters, they don't have time to follow these people. Right, right. Uh things like the Ben character. I do find comedy in it, but it's also too close to home. I had a client who was overweight like that. He ate himself to death. So it just reminds me of him, you know, and it's just the sad. But that's also the effectiveness of the movie, too, right? Because it's it's ringing true in this respect.

SPEAKER_08 28:11

Um I think that's the problem with the movie, the effectiveness of the movie. It's too real. It's too fucking real. Yeah, it's gangless. Yeah, I I struggled with it too.

SPEAKER_04 28:20

I really did. Based on the guy's personal experience of doing this job. And I'm thinking if he was late all the time like this guy, then he probably wasn't that great at it.

SPEAKER_00 28:30

Uh that's how he had time to become a director.

SPEAKER_04 28:33

Yeah, right. Right. I never would have thought to make a movie about the my group home experience, though, but this guy did. So uh things like the client singing. It's cute, but to me, it's a scar I still carry around. I can't listen to Kat Stevens, guys, because I heard my client singing badly for four years. So it's forever.

SPEAKER_06 28:53

Oh, that's a shame.

SPEAKER_04 28:54

There forever. And so, you know, you know, if you've ever wanted to know what it was like being stuck on a city bus for a couple hours and you can't get off, this does a really good job. That's a good observation. That's true. Let's see. I have a few other things that are probably more minor. Oh, so they go to this rave, right? This disco party. And look, everybody's got different you know diagnoses, but one of the main things my people had was epilepsy. They wouldn't be around the blinking lights like that. Now, of course, maybe this is a different situation, but immediately I was like, oh my god, that's that's gonna be a problem. And later on, when they're drinking with the clients, when they break into the apartment later, it's like, well, there's another thing where it's like you are not gonna have a job anymore after that. But then again, there's people like, what is his name? Steve. He's an independent person. I love Steve. You probably could get drunk with Steve and nothing would happen because none of these people necessarily have caretakers, they're more independent. So, you know, I think that's one of my notes is when they when they were drinking with Steve, I was like, Don't give, don't get Steve drunk. Don't that's not good. Steve probably drinks all the time, he's just a regular guy, he just has an impediment, you know. And it's kind of nice that they're showing them do their jobs, and it's like, oh yeah, everybody's got a purpose, and you know, not everybody's completely happy all the time, you know, everybody has moods and shit too. But I think that was trying to juxtapose the more of like what our narrator is showing like, hey, just calm down and enjoy the beauty of life. That's what we're doing. You're frantic and crazy all the time. And so I do appreciate the movie for that, but for me personally, it was just like now you could say, well, does that mean you have unresolved trauma from that time? No, I think it means water torture still hurts.

SPEAKER_07 30:49

Maybe no, maybe a little bit of both.

SPEAKER_04 30:54

Maybe a little bit. Why not both podcast helps for that too? So both, both is good.

SPEAKER_07 31:00

Talking about it helps.

SPEAKER_01 31:02

That's true, right? True, yeah. Talking about it helps.

SPEAKER_08 31:04

Thanks for so thanks for bringing up a movie that basically dredges up a bunch of stuff for Marty that allows us to get it, get it worked out on in therapy right through the podcast. That'll be good. So we appreciate that.

SPEAKER_00 31:15

Right.

SPEAKER_04 31:16

That's what you said in your podcast. I hope this movie didn't affect anybody negatively. Well, see you next time. I'm like, well, like the guy said, everything happens for a reason, right? Yeah, yeah. And you brought this to me for that to help me work through a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 31:31

And I knew we put this out to it like everybody we knew after we watched it. Like you should see this, should see this, should see this. And I know people are not gonna like it for one reason or another.

SPEAKER_06 31:40

My and it is one of those the reviews online either love it or hate it.

SPEAKER_08 31:44

Yeah, it's polarizing. I looked on the letterbox and it was like, oh Jesus, this is either like a one-star or a four-star, five-star. Like, there's not a lot of twos and threes in there.

SPEAKER_00 31:52

Right. This is the kind of movie that to me gets a dialogue, not just about the movie, but people getting talking. Uh so how how you guys perceive the uncomfortableness and the and the stress is very different than me. Because, you know, at in that early age on, I had just gotten out of the service. I by what is he, 21 in this? Did they say? I can't remember. That's probably about right, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 32:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:19

So, you know, at 22, I had just relearned to walk and you know, trying to figure out my life, and you get these shit jobs, and so many days, so many days in a month you wake up and it just does that. It's this cataclysm of stuff. But also growing in that growing up in that kind of neighborhood, growing up in an Irish neighborhood where nobody had much of anything. Um I still look back at it. I don't want to relive it like physically, but I look at it with a fondness. You know, um that that wisdom bit. And when I I don't know, I just when I watched this, I loved pretty much everything about it, from the technical to the storytelling. Um my biggest thing was the disabled people who were part of the story. They were the world that that Vic was uh revolving around. And it seemed the first real representation to me. That really struck hard and heavy inside because, like I said on the podcast, so many people do this, and it's more of a okay, we're checking off the list so we can look culturally sensitive and politically correct, and blah blah blah blah. I don't know, I just felt super grounded in this.

SPEAKER_08 33:34

Well, it definitely wasn't. I heard you mention that in the podcast, and I was I it it it reminded me the Fairley brothers did a movie with some with some disabled people. Uh what was it with with Johnny Knoxville as the lead. Um the ring. Special Olympics, yeah. The ringer. And that one to me was you know, it was them trying to say, look, they could be in a movie and we can have jokes about them, and it's funny and it's fine. And it just it didn't come off very well.

SPEAKER_04 34:04

Yeah, well, at least they got a good paycheck for that, I'm sure. True.

SPEAKER_08 34:07

But in this movie, I feel like I agree with Jim. I think that they're it's more authentic, it's a much more authentic and natural. Um, and and if they had done that, it wouldn't have I don't know.

SPEAKER_06 34:18

I I again I don't think it's in Johnny Knoxville to pull that kind of thing out of people. I think it's in him to pull the the worst out of people. Yes, that's that's a good call in front of a camera.

SPEAKER_04 34:30

That's a good call. The Farleys have a track record of that stuff. You look at something about Mary, and a big chunk of the jokes are are pointed right at developmentally disabled. I remember watching it in the theater and people cracking up all around me, and I was doing the job at the time going, oh man.

SPEAKER_08 34:50

Stuff on you's got got a bit of it too, I think.

SPEAKER_00 34:52

Franken beans, Frankenbeans. I mean, how many times is that said during that movie?

SPEAKER_08 34:58

Have you seen my wiener?

SPEAKER_00 34:59

Yeah, that gentleman's sole contribution was that bit, you know.

SPEAKER_04 35:04

It's kind of like Tootsie, right? It's like that's where we were at that time, and then comedy transgresses so strangely as time passes. It's weird.

SPEAKER_08 35:13

Yeah, I mean, I I get I I see, I don't have the problem with Tootsie, I think. I still think it's culturally a little bit wrong. Oh, I just probably think, right, yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. All comedy kind of does, yeah. So somebody that we haven't talked about is Dima.

SPEAKER_06 35:27

And yeah, I wanted to bring up Dima. I was gonna ask, but we were hopping around a little bit. So yeah.

SPEAKER_08 35:33

Yeah, uh loved him. Uh one of my favorite shots is when he goes upstairs in the beginning with Vic and grandpa's burning the fucking house down, the apartment complex down, and Dima's like fucking lights a cigarette, and he's like, dude, what? You crazy ass Russian. Um I really like that. Dima's uh, you know, of course, eating the diabetics candy and hiding the wrapper when she's having the diabetic moment is great. Um, I liked him quite a bit, but I also felt he was kind of slea he was kind of sleazy and kind of, you know. Well he was a con artist, yeah. You know, but he's just like he's hitting on every woman in that movie. Every woman in that movie that he comes in contact with, he hits on. From from from Lolo in the chair to fucking Vic's sister to, I mean, it doesn't I mean he gets drunk and tries to tries to kiss the security guard too.

SPEAKER_00 36:26

His Vic's sister, I think, is the funniest though. When because he's he's kind of getting like a little sway with mom, and then she says the word sister, sister, you have a sister, you have a sister, yeah.

SPEAKER_08 36:41

And he's and he's all over her five seconds later. Like, I mean, all over. A widow. Yeah, two months, yeah. Two months, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 36:54

Um, you know, and where did he even come from? He wasn't that woman's nephew, no, no, from New York. No, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 37:03

It's also another thing that rings really true was uh a lot of immigrants do that job. That was almost everybody who did that job when I did it, because most people here won't work with mentally disabled people and stuff, and it's a shame. But that also rings very true. I was watching going, Yeah, yeah, I work with these people. But as you were saying, Danny, before I got excited there.

SPEAKER_06 37:28

No, it's okay. That Dina, it was just sort of, you know, where did he even come from? What's his goal? But he was very much uh sort of a comedic element in the film that brought it back a little bit later when it started getting a little heavy.

SPEAKER_08 37:48

Yeah, yeah. He was the only guy that I could tell is like, okay, that's for comedy. The rest of me I was just like, some of this shit is horrifying. I and and then later I'm like, that was hilarious. And I'm like, no, not for me. All you can do is I don't find that funny at all.

SPEAKER_00 38:03

I think Dima's a good example of what I liked about like all the characters. Nobody was like one specific thing, yeah. So we know we know Dima, and I I think we had talked about it um uh on how you know there's always that guy in the group, the slightly greased hair, leather jacket, just sort of a almost smarmy looking fellow. But he's also a really good dude. He's not just like a con man prick, like when he's in there in the beginning with grandpa, right? Vic's trying to get shit done. He's distracting grandpa with boxing and yeah, you know, all that stuff. And he's done that a couple times. Like when Lolo's chair breaks down, he's just like Lolo up and just walks her.

SPEAKER_08 38:37

Yeah, not even a question. Pretty spright. I mean, yeah, she's gotta be a hundred pounds or so, just be carrying that around. I mean, I wonder how many times he, you know, cut. He's like, All right, I'm gonna have to put you down, you know, and then because I'm gonna have to pick you back up in two minutes when we go again, right?

SPEAKER_00 38:50

Like I thought about things like that watching the movie. There's a lot of stuff like that where it's like, how many baits?

SPEAKER_08 38:55

He's holding on to her for a good in the movie. I want to say 10 minutes or so during that that funeral scene where they which really one of one of my favorite bits is fucking uh the fucking uh when Israel was in Egypt's land. I started laughing immediately when they're in the van doing the course, the guy just busts out a fucking accordion and here we go, you know. And then they get to Lilia's and they sing the song, and it's like, oh, that's not her grave, it's over there. Okay, that's that's good shit too.

SPEAKER_06 39:24

That that was pretty start all over.

SPEAKER_08 39:27

Yeah, it's all over exactly. It's like, oh my god, okay. And it's and but at the same time, you're going, fuck, move. Nobody has any time for this shit. That's my anxiety. So my anxiety is like, fucking do complete the task, please. Complete the task.

SPEAKER_04 39:44

Ah, you know. Then they do, and we're on to the second half of the movie. So I think on a second viewing, I might be like, okay, take a breath.

SPEAKER_08 39:51

I know what it might be built, it might be a little bit better, actually. You know, I've been thinking that in my head this the exact same time, going, you know, even knowing that it's supposed to be comedic and coming from a comedic place. Play different, I bet. Yeah. Plays a little bit different. Yeah. Like I just I didn't know shit about this movie, just put it on and was like, what in the fuck is going on?

SPEAKER_04 40:09

If you don't have Dima, everything falls apart for everybody. He's an interoper, but he kind of makes everything move along through his outgoing personality and just treating everybody like they're just, hey, who are you? I want to know your story. What are you doing?

SPEAKER_06 40:26

Yeah, he's the one who brings everyone to Lilia's apartment. You know, he's the one who gets the door open for everybody. He's the one who helps Vic, even though Vic doesn't walk around.

SPEAKER_08 40:36

He's got the bail money, yep, money at the end.

unknown 40:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 40:39

Um, I knew he was gonna get that fucking sauerkraut on him. Like the minute he brought that jar up and he couldn't open it and he put it in his bag. I was like, he's gonna open that jar and get sauerkraut all over it at some point. Guaranteed.

SPEAKER_06 40:52

And he just didn't even worry about Grandpa's half-burnt, half-raw chicken. He was just like, all right.

SPEAKER_08 40:58

Blackins chicken. That is another part that was super scary for me because it's just like, dude, that oil's gonna catch and we're all gonna die. Please don't let grandpa cook. And I will say that he's taking that kettlebell and beating the shit out of that chicken in the morning. I was like, is he spatchcocking that fucking chicken with a kettlebell? And then I listen to the episode, and Danny, you're later like, and he's spatchcocking a chicken with a kettlebell. I'm like, okay, that's exactly what he was doing.

SPEAKER_07 41:24

Yep.

SPEAKER_04 41:28

So it is kind of like a story in that respect, where it's like, you can either cry or you can laugh. What are you gonna do with your life? And they're like, Well, the world is burning around us. Let's smile. That's kind of what I get from this movie, in a way. Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 41:43

One of my notes here says, you know, it moves with a like a frenetic manic pace and it context switches so fast you have trouble keeping up with it.

SPEAKER_04 41:51

Yeah. Um, first hour work in the stories screaming on top of each other.

SPEAKER_08 41:55

Yeah, the story's so vague, especially in the beginning. I remember the I have notes in the beginning where it's like, where is this fucking going? Like, where is this gonna be the whole movie? And it turns out that's exactly what it was. Like, this is the whole movie, guy. Just fucking sh put your seatbelt on because this is it. We're not doing anything else but this.

SPEAKER_04 42:11

It does kind of slow with that first hour where it's like, oh, he made it through that day. I thought the whole movie was gonna be that day, and now it's the second part where everybody's getting to meet each other a little bit more, and then it gets a little crazy because we got to go back to the riots and wrap it all up. Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 42:27

Yeah, and that's the part that I struggled.

SPEAKER_04 42:29

Incomprehensible editing towards the end, but I'm sure that was some production issues, you know, because you can't show a full-scale riot, so it gets a little confusing. Like you're saying, is she dead? What's going on here? You know, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_08 42:39

Yeah, that's what I thought. I was like, they're gonna kill her, and this movie is gonna have a really stupid fucking ending. And no, it didn't have comedy. It it wouldn't have an ending like that, right?

SPEAKER_00 42:49

Or it might. I've we've seen I mean, and I don't mind the mix-up. I mean, if that's what they want to do, if it works for me, then you know, go for it. But uh, like you had said earlier, Cliff, you know, slice of life. That's you'll win me over with a slice of life film pretty much nine out of ten times. Um, this one was the most chaotic slice of life that I've watched, but I do still compare it to uh like Station Agent and um you know uh even like Lost in Translation, it's not a whole one day. Okay, you know, I can see that stuff. I just to me, even though it was this this frenetic energy, I just my experiences and memories from having gone through shit like that just made it really more intimate. That's what I like about Slice of Life movies, they're usually a little more intimate. Um then when when the music by Bonavera kicked off for me towards the end, that was it. I've seen it like four or five times since. And it's still the same for me. I just this is awesome.

SPEAKER_06 44:00

I will say it got better on a second watch because I did it. I enjoyed the first watch, but we watched it twice for the podcast, once to just watch it through and once to take notes. Thank God. Yeah, thank god, because the first time I don't think I could have done it the first time going through. I'd have been like, I have no idea what's happening.

SPEAKER_02 44:18

But what the fuck is going on?

SPEAKER_06 44:25

I remember during the first watch through, I was like, I was very, very stressed just the whole time.

SPEAKER_08 44:32

Oh my god, yes.

SPEAKER_06 44:33

Yeah, but I was like, there's something here though, like there is there's something here. And then the second watch through you're a little more prepared for it, you know. And so you can kind of instead of trying to like absorb every bit of information that comes flying out of the screen at you, um, it it it you let it wash over you a little gently.

SPEAKER_08 44:55

Right, right, right, right. Yeah. Okay, I can see that. Um it reminded me of Mon Uncle. Early on, Marty gave me a Jacques Tati film called Mon Uncle. It's Jacques Tati is a famous French film. Slice of life, I guess, right? Um, it's very slice of life, but what it really reminded me of is in Mon Uncle, basically it's just French people fucking screaming at each other the entire movie. That's what they do. That's I guess that's how French people communicate. If they just yell at each other in French, I think a lot of give me liberty was literally just people yelling at each other in Russian. So I'm like, and I'm not a big fan of people yelling, anyways. Like I don't, I don't really, I don't really like it in my home. I grew up amongst it, so I I'm right I keep it at arm's length for that reason. Uh I which is weird because I happen to I tend to be a loud person. So fucking take take with that way you will.

SPEAKER_04 45:44

Yeah. But I don't like always sunny in Philadelphia, where they're all screaming over each other all the time.

SPEAKER_08 45:49

Yeah, I that's why I don't like that show either. It's they're always screaming at each other. I just I don't I don't like I don't like watching people screaming at each other, I guess. I guess it's just my thing. So it Jacques Tati and and this, I struggled with that in in those instances. But I did like, I mean, like I like the I I didn't necessarily like the color. You guys mentioned the coloring, it wasn't my favorite, but I definitely liked um the camera work, and I liked I I thought it was really well made for a half a million dollar movie. Like this is a really well-made movie. What they they pulled the riot off, it looks like a riot, which is hard to do, you know, for on a small budget, you know, all the all the different locations they were able to get a hold of, these the the group centers, the restaurant, the the apartment complexes, the house, you know, all these different things. It was um it was really well done, and the cast was pretty good. Lolo in particular has got a just a great movie face. She just looks like an actress, she just looks like a fucking gorgeous actress. It really does. And she's good. Yeah, she's really good in it. Um, but it again, that uh anxiety was just whoo that's convincing though. So it sticks with you. Screaming and the anxiety. I imagine this fucking script has got to be 150 pages.

SPEAKER_06 47:02

Probably. I would think all the shouting over each other. The color, I will say, Cliff, I don't know if you've ever been to Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

SPEAKER_08 47:10

No, ma'am.

SPEAKER_06 47:11

Okay, that is that is the color of Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

SPEAKER_08 47:16

Okay.

SPEAKER_06 47:17

It's it's right off the lake, it's always overcast, everything is gray and dreary, and it is and I think we mentioned it in the episode.

SPEAKER_00 47:26

Uh, the director, he it absolutely has to be shot in winter. Yes. He was not going to consider it any other way. Which um Milwaukee is more attractive in the winter. It as it hides all the dirt. Well, it yeah, it gets it just looks I don't know, it just doesn't look like it hides all the red mud. Um but the the that Milwaukee was itself uh a background character, and I just I like the coloring because we know what the cold is like. I know what being in Milwaukee and that lakefront ship feels like, and um I it just felt kind of it looked like how kind of like how I actually perceive it when I'm there. Like every time we go, I know Danny will will vouch for this. I know she hates going to Milwaukee with me, or if we have to go, because the second we get in there, I'm like, I can't fucking wait to get out of here. Really? God, yeah, I just I gotta go. It smells. I hate the bridges. I'm I don't give a shit about baseball or the brewers or any of that, but it's just Milwaukee.

SPEAKER_06 48:30

The second you get to the edge of the inner city of Milwaukee, like uh past the outer suburbs and stuff, right? The actual inner city inner city, um, your heart rate's gonna like just spike.

SPEAKER_00 48:46

Well, it's gonna look like just what you saw. And the energy is about the same. It's just wild. I fucking hate Milwaukee so much.

SPEAKER_08 48:54

And you mentioned the traffic's terrible, so oh I mean I lived in New Jersey for a while and and did some did some trips to New York City and and and and the anxiety level in New York City is kind of that way, like until you get used to it, and then it becomes very common. But at first, you're just like you're you know, you've got your head on a swivel, you're constantly looking behind you, or you're looking up, and there's people fucking moving past you and yelling, and there's god, you know, hey, look, there's a bum taking a shit. What's going on? Hey, somebody's flipping me off. I don't even know what I did, you know.

SPEAKER_04 49:22

Cliff, that's why Dima is so calm. Yeah. He's the New Yorker in this. Yeah, that makes sense. That makes sense. No, yeah.

SPEAKER_08 49:31

Why is it like Siberia? It's cold like Siberia. That was that's one of my favorite lines.

SPEAKER_00 49:37

Siberia, fucking Wisconsin.

SPEAKER_06 49:40

Yeah. And it even has its own weather patterns because of the lake.

SPEAKER_08 49:45

Yep.

SPEAKER_06 49:46

Which creates its own weather pattern over the city.

SPEAKER_08 49:48

Lovely. Yeah. I think Chicago is kind of like that too, right? It gets their own.

SPEAKER_06 49:53

It is.

SPEAKER_00 49:53

Yeah, they get lake front.

SPEAKER_08 49:54

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 49:55

You have to get 10-15 miles away from the lake before you're out of that little weather bubble that the lake creates.

SPEAKER_08 50:02

Um this is this is um it's great moments and visuals, but it's just uh it for me, it got drowned in a frantic in insanity that I just couldn't kind of get past. And maybe it's like like you said, maybe second viewing. You know, sometimes when you do something new that it's really frenetic or crazy, you sort of are like, I don't know if I like that, and then you go try it again, you know, and you're like, actually, that wasn't too bad. Now that I'm kind of getting, you know, the steps of it or the rhythm or the cadence of it down. It makes a little more makes a little more sense to me, right? Like, you know, maybe trying to, you know, go line dancing or some shit where you're like, I, you know, I didn't make any sense. You know, I couldn't get the steps, and I couldn't not that I line dance, but I couldn't get the steps, and everybody and I was bumping into people, but it was kind of fun. I could see other people having fun, and I enjoyed being out at the bar. I'm gonna try it again. And then it's like, you know, maybe it's a little better. Um I I yeah, the other the only other note I have is Dima's like a Russian Billy Zane. That's my other he reminded me of that's a great comparison.

SPEAKER_05 51:12

Easily.

SPEAKER_06 51:13

Oh man, I love Billy Zane. I love seeing him pop up in just about anything. Hell yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I once watched the movie purely because Billy Zane was in the trailer, and the amount that he was in the trailer was the amount that he was in the attack.

SPEAKER_04 51:29

Yes, that was unsatisfying. That's part of a good segue of one of my points about the next movie is uh watching every movie that an actor you likes, movies, like watching all of those and the results you get from it, as opposed to watching all of the director's movies. And I think with the director you can get a little more consistency, but with an actor, they gotta pay the bills, so not everything is gonna be the most amazing thing in the world, and some things you'll go, what an idea is to watch. But if you like the actor, you sit through it, right? Because you you're watching it just because you know they're good.

SPEAKER_06 52:07

Yeah, sometimes Billy Zane shows up in an asylum film for 15 seconds so that they can put him on the billing link.

SPEAKER_08 52:14

Shit. I mean, Bill, I mean, fucking uh Bill oh Bruce Willie did that shit for the last five years of his career. You pay him a million dollars, he'd show up for it was a day's worth of work for a million bucks for Bruce Willis to be in your movie. Awesome. You want Bruce Willis in your movie? Million dollars. Boom, he'll show up for a day.

SPEAKER_04 52:31

They could have got half a Bruce Willis for this movie, but then they wouldn't have had anything else.

SPEAKER_08 52:36

Right. That's true. Can we get a half a Bruce Willis? Can we get Bruce Willis for a half a day? How much for half of a Bruce Willis?

SPEAKER_04 52:46

I think we're better off hiring who they did and making a movie. How much for just one rib? Just put it in my hand. Just put it in my hand. No, we're doing I'm gonna get you suck of lines. It's nothing to do with any of these movies. Did you have a favorite quote from the movie, Marty? Oh, for Give Me Liberty? Yeah. Uh not offhand. I if I watched it again, I'd probably pick one.

SPEAKER_08 53:10

I did I picked one. Um it's James, and it's uh God does not like ugly. I thought that's a fucking tough statement coming from that dude. You know, that's a that's a tough statement coming from a guy in that position. But it's also it's also you know, that's what I like about James is that James is telling the truth the whole time. James ain't James ain't trying to paint your pretty picture, he's not trying to make you feel good, he's just telling you the truth.

SPEAKER_06 53:36

He's he is, you know, come and go.

SPEAKER_04 53:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 53:41

They say that, you know, when you die, your heart gets weighed against a feather. Right. And I feel like I feel like that's James's philosophy, just about life in general, is you know, just don't do things that make your heart heavy.

SPEAKER_00 53:57

Yeah. I I liked him, his his role in it, how it was written, or what they whatever they did. Um that bit in the beginning caught me so off guard. Yeah. And that's why I had to put it on the episode of like, you gotta listen to this. I can't explain it, you know. God damn if he wasn't right.

SPEAKER_08 54:23

Yep. Yep. Yep. Did you did you guys um happen to have a favorite quote from the movie?

SPEAKER_06 54:34

Uh from I mean, I think it would probably be James of the World.

SPEAKER_00 54:38

I'll be gonna do it, right?

SPEAKER_06 54:39

After it wasn't right.

SPEAKER_00 54:42

I mean, that's pretty much it.

SPEAKER_06 54:43

Um I was just with the salt.

SPEAKER_00 54:46

Oh salt cabbage, yes.

SPEAKER_06 54:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 54:49

Um I I think my my catchphrase is you know, 10 minutes. Just give me 10 minutes. I'll be there in 10 minutes. No shit. Because that fit in with the whole vibe that really struck me.

SPEAKER_02 54:59

Because I heard that. It's a nightmare of you can't walk any faster.

SPEAKER_04 55:06

You just need more time. What is it, 10 minutes, 20 minutes, five minutes? You need it 10 minutes, 10 minutes ago. Look, I'll be there when I'll be there. Well, we're gonna fire you, but we're shorthanded. Here, go out and get somebody else.

SPEAKER_07 55:18

Yep.

SPEAKER_04 55:20

I can imagine that actually city bus drivers probably living that sort of a life. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 55:25

Probably.

SPEAKER_00 55:26

Yeah, you in in Madison. I I took the bus a lot as a kid and witnessed a lot of that.

SPEAKER_06 55:34

Well, oh, I mean, even more recently, just a few years ago, when I was taking the bus to and from, you know, where I was working at the church. I've got the west side. Oh, man. I had I had one bus driver that on the way back, he would just fly through downtown. And if you weren't up and ready to hop out the bus to his stop, you know, you were not getting out there. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.

SPEAKER_00 56:00

He'll he'll give you a rolling stop at 1.25 miles an hour. And if you're not ready enough to go, then you're going for a ride. Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 56:06

Hope you're wearing not wearing heels. That's all I gotta say.

SPEAKER_04 56:10

Yeah, I guess Vic could have been a little more transparent with everybody, but he wouldn't have been Vic that way if he would have stopped and go, look, I'm taking them to a funeral, the blah, blah, blah. Just tell everybody what you're doing. He's just he's not communicating with anybody. He's just, you know, having a cigarette and driving like a lunatic.

SPEAKER_05 56:26

That's what I mean by that's what I mean by his bad choices. Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 56:29

Yeah. He just refuses to address the shit that's going on. Like he's instead, he's just letting it pile on as he smokes and jerk tries to make the next stop.

SPEAKER_04 56:38

You know, that's what that narrator character is basically telling him, you know, like you're you have no plan, you're not seeing people on their level, you know. Well, I like talking about it more than I liked watching it. So it's me too. But that's that's a mark of a good movie, though. Because sometimes you can't capture everything on the first viewing.

SPEAKER_06 57:00

Well, yeah, and I think one of the reasons he doesn't tell all the you know writers and the elderly Russians and everybody else what's going on is because he doesn't want to put that on them, like and stress them about about it.

SPEAKER_00 57:14

I mean, that's kind of the thing. Um that's I mean, I don't know how many siblings you guys have. Um I grew up in a house with 14 people. So that was my mother, my aunts, older cousins, grandparents. Used to the cacophony. And I mean, that's why this was just like I've I've lived this. But in in Vic's defense, that is a very because like Russian immigrant society uh communities are very tight-knit. Uh the Irish neighborhood I was in was like six blocks, it's very tight knit. And that is just how it is. You're gonna take them right, and but but still in in his head, because he's so young, he's like, Well, I'm gonna get him there and I gotta get this done, I gotta get this done. And I think one of my my favorite funny bits is the dispatcher, you know, you're already a half an hour late. How's ten late ten more minutes gonna help you? You know. And he's just trying to just trying to do it and then deal with his own thing, you know, that everyone has a thing. But yeah.

SPEAKER_04 58:22

So you probably relate most to uh the guy from New York then, because you're used to being around a house full of people talking all at once and uh having 12 people in the house.

SPEAKER_00 58:35

Oh, yeah, like sunny, always sunny in Philadelphia. That's one of our jams. We were just talking about how I love it when they're all talking, because if you do it right, you can hear everybody. And you know, you don't just it doesn't just go right and then it's over.

SPEAKER_04 58:53

And they get a review of their bar one time where it says something like it's just basically people screaming on top of each other, and we're like, that's why I don't like the show.

SPEAKER_02 59:02

At least they acknowledge it, you know. It's kind of fun. It's like Jesus, stop screaming.

SPEAKER_00 59:06

Lily watches it. We let her start watching it, and she's been blowing through it because now it's on Disney Plus. Wow. What the fuck? Yeah, because they own they own Hooler.

SPEAKER_08 59:16

I just I just read an article that they that they made um they made when the when the book of Boba Fett came out, they made them change the name of Slave One to Fire Spray. They made him return it by its model. They don't make they'll put fucking it's always sunny in Philadelphia on Disney. Okay, sure.

SPEAKER_00 59:33

Yep, because they own it. Who mouse has lost its goddamn mind? And they're yep, they're trying to do all this stuff. So she's like, I don't care. I'm watching it. And um, she can she can, depending on how intense they are, she can only watch a few episodes, and then she's like, gotta take a sunny break. Yeah, because it is a very high energy for her, and she is not she's not doesn't handle that easily. So yeah, she's an only child.

SPEAKER_06 59:57

And I grew up in a in a sort of brady bunch situation, and so there were always people talking over each other, and you know, so now one of my comfort shows is the thick of it, in which you know Peter Capaldi just yells at everyone for the whole show.

SPEAKER_08 1:00:16

Well, speaking of yelling, why don't you uh yell out a a rating? How about that? Uh what are we doing?

SPEAKER_00 1:00:24

Yep, it's five stars. Um solid five for me. Solid five. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:00:29

Five.

SPEAKER_07 1:00:30

Five.

SPEAKER_08 1:00:32

I'm gonna go two and a half. I am also I didn't hate it, but I didn't really like it.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:37

I am also two and a half, yeah.

SPEAKER_08 1:00:39

I re I reserved the right to upgrade that because I will probably try this again because I think, again, I didn't know it was a comedy. It definitely didn't have comedic beats for me, other than Dima's stuff. Like I literally thought, Jesus Christ, that old man's gonna burn everybody down with that fucking chicken and kill everybody. That's not funny, but apparently it was supposed to be funny, right? So I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna reserve the right after we watch to maybe bump up my score.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:05

Yeah, in the fine tradition of guests bringing movies on that they adore, and me and Cliff go, welcome to the club. But don't worry, Cliff does this to me almost every other week, and I do it to him as well. And we've been screenwriting partners for like almost 40 years, so it's good to have the diversity in our tastes. That's true, it's true. I think I think we help lock each other's bad ideas that way.

SPEAKER_08 1:01:30

Yeah, we need to start warning, we need to start warning our guests that we don't guarantee that we're gonna love your movie.

SPEAKER_06 1:01:36

No, that's totally okay because I'm actually kind of curious about everyone's thoughts about the next movie. So am I I think Jim and I have differing opinions on this film. Okay, so I'm wondering, you know, Marty and I do too.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:53

I think I think Marty and I do too. I just want to throw out there for the record, uh Marty. One of these days I would love to sit down and talk to you at length about Dark Star. Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:05

They're putting a 4K release of that out, by the way.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:08

They are. Yeah, I heard you make a comment, I can't remember which episode, it was a couple, but but it had it come up, you had made a comment about Dark Star in reference to having done something on it before. We did all yeah, we reviewed it early on in our pair podcast. Yeah, yeah, very early episode. Yeah. Um, you know, not everyone has to like it. I just like I think people like us, and this is what is so fun having met you guys, is we can talk film without trying to draw blood, right? This isn't uh oh yeah, yeah, no. Fuck you, Clinton, you know, yeah, it's not personal. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_08 1:02:47

It's like yeah, no. I mean, at the bottom of the that's just just because we don't like the same movies doesn't mean we can't be friends. Yeah, it's art.

SPEAKER_06 1:02:54

I will say I've genuinely I feel genuinely bad, Marty, that this movie sort of triggered that. I am really sorry. Bad memories for you.

SPEAKER_08 1:03:03

I mean that just means it was effective. It was it you know, as we talked about it, and I talked about my how it affected how it hit me, I started to realize how effective the movie was. I was gonna give it like one star because I was just like, Oh, uh here's how it made me feel, and how and then but as I talk about it, I'm like, fuck, you know what? That's kind of the point of art, it's supposed to affect you and to get an emotional response. So if it did that, and in fact, the worst films are the ones that you have no emotional response to, where you're just like it's like watching fucking paint drive for an hour and a half. Dear God, I wasted my fucking time. I don't even remember it. But if you have any kind of a visceral reaction to it, the art has done its job, right?

SPEAKER_05 1:03:42

Yes.

SPEAKER_08 1:03:43

So that's why that's why I was like, I gotta give it at least two and a half stars. I gotta at least say it's watchable, it's well made, the production value was good, it's not, it's everything's in focus, you can hear it, you know, all these technical things that it needed to be, it achieved, and then it told a story. One that I had to literally stop the movie and like walk around my apartment for a little bit and then put it back on. Because I was just like, Jesus, okay, this movie's really testing me.

SPEAKER_06 1:04:09

Hard, it's hard, yeah. Yeah, it's challenging.

SPEAKER_08 1:04:12

And that's not a bad thing. I don't I don't think that's a bad thing.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:15

Well, yeah, speaking of things affecting you in ways that you might have liked or disliked. Here we go. That brings us to the uh Strange Darling. The next film, which I like to refer to as cigarette the movie. Oh, come on, my boy Kyle.

SPEAKER_08 1:04:32

My boy Kyle handles a cigarette like no other fucking. I didn't say that in a bad way.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:37

I'm just saying there's a lot of cigarette smoking in the film.

SPEAKER_08 1:04:40

I'm just there is. There's a shitload of smoking in the film. All right, strange darling.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:44

Strange Darling, a movie that I started, and then after a few minutes, as I'll get into a little bit, uh, I paused it and I went, Oh, I'm sorry, give me liberty. We we had a pretty good thing going there. I'm on you. I'm watching this. What is Strange Darling, Cliff?

SPEAKER_08 1:05:06

2023, Strange Darling, rated R. One hour and 37 minutes. Nothing is what it seems when a twisted one-night stand spirals into a serial killer serial killer's vicious murder spree. Directed and written by JT Molner, stars Willa Fitzgerald, Kyle Gallner, and Madison Beatty. We've seen Kyle on this program before. In fact, we've seen him twice. He was in CBGB that we reviewed, and then he was in Dinner in America, which, in my opinion, is his best work in a great movie. If you haven't seen that, um we have it on our up next. It's fucking great.

SPEAKER_06 1:05:38

Yeah, we have it on our watch list ever since Marty was like, Hey, watch this movie.

SPEAKER_08 1:05:42

It's kind of like Dinner in America, where you'll go, Okay, this is I at least fun people laptop. Yeah, give it Dinner in America's like Gimme Gimme Liberty, where it's like it's gonna challenge you and kind of force you to kind of okay. I I I mean, yeah. So anyway. Storyline for Strange Darling during the night. A man and a woman talk to each other in his truck in front of a motel. They drink and smoke in the car while discussing whether they will have sex or not, and the rules. The woman who loves K sex asks him whether he is a serial killer or not, and they decide to go to a room. On the next morning, the woman flees from the motel while the man hunts her down. You're telling it in order. That's the uh that's the story. It is told out of order, seven chapters told out of order.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:24

I thought it was six. Yeah, it was six.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:26

Well, six chapters, it's six, and then the epilogue.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:29

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:30

Yeah, one out of seven.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:32

Yeah, because when six when when six flashed off, I was like, the um fuck. We went what? Then epilogue popped up, and I'm like, thank you.

SPEAKER_08 1:06:44

Um I want to start by saying I love Kyle Kyle Gowner as an actor. I think he's great in anything he's I've seen him in.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:50

Yeah, I don't fault actors usually. I fault the people that put him in front of the camera and make them do the stuff. The actors were good in this, I thought.

SPEAKER_06 1:06:59

The actors are doing their jobs. And he was very good.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:04

He was excellent. So, should I do my little uh tangent to start and then get that out of the way? Because there's there's various things in movies that don't sit well with me, and this one does a bunch of them all within the first couple minutes. So, in the sake of comedy, and this is supposed to be a funny bit, uh, I've had to pause the movie several times in the beginning. So it starts shot on 35 millimeter. I immediately pause the film and it's like, oh fuck you. Come on, don't be that pretentious, be a little modest. Put it in your end credits or something. Almost every movie ever made was shot on 35 millimeter up to about 20 years ago. But whatever.

SPEAKER_08 1:07:42

Yeah, but the prevalence is the prevalence is digital now, which is why they're pointing out they shot it on 35 millimeter. That's my in my opinion, that's why. I don't find it pretentious. I think it's telling the audience, hey, we're not going the digital route.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:54

And then we get, even though it's narrated by Jason Patrick, which is nice, you know, we get this Texas Chainsaw Massacre type scroll in this deep cherry red font that I can barely even read. And I pause it again and go, oh God, we're doing this again. You can't ate Texas Chainsaw, guys. That's lightning in the bottle, but whatever. Fine. And then Love Hurts comes on. And I pause it again, and I'm like, oh movie, fuck you. Come on, man. Let's not do this Rob Zombie pastige, please. Hit pause again. A thriller told in six chapters. Oh god, if there's something I hate in a movie, it's chapter one, chapter two. It's not a book, it's a movie. Just go to the next part of the movie. And then it starts with chapter three, thereby boarding the pulp fiction train which left the station 25 years ago. Why are we telling movies out of order? But as Cliff pointed out earlier, and a thought that I had as well if you told this story in order, well, you'd give away your your twist a little soon. And yeah, but anyway, that was my little diatribe there.

SPEAKER_08 1:09:05

So it's not it's definitely not as effective in order, in my opinion. No, I think it's much more effective out of order. You don't know if Kyle's the killer or if she's or if Will is the killer. There's a lot of there's a lot of rough play back and forth in the beginning where you're like, oh shit, is he? And then you know when she calls the safe word and you're like, oh shit, okay. Now what you know, who is the okay, who is the perpetrator here?

SPEAKER_06 1:09:30

Okay, I'm gonna jump in here.

SPEAKER_08 1:09:33

Go, baby.

SPEAKER_06 1:09:34

Okay. When it shows them in the hotel and they're doing rough play, as as a woman, I know immediately she's on a rampage. Because really, no woman who is right in her mind is gonna jump into rough play with someone she doesn't know on a one-night stand. That's stupid mistake number one.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:58

Okay.

SPEAKER_06 1:10:02

Yeah, you can't do that with stem and just like a man, kind of, in a way.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:05

It's weird. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:10:07

Yeah. As soon as I saw that, I was like, okay, she's on a rampage of some kind. She wants to die or she wants to kill him.

SPEAKER_08 1:10:15

I didn't pick that up. I mean, I definitely felt like it was an unsafe thing for her to do. Like, well, that's not that's not very safe with some of the that you don't know, but I didn't pick up on like, oh, that means she's the killer.

SPEAKER_06 1:10:26

You can't do that stuff without somebody that you trust.

SPEAKER_08 1:10:30

Fast like okay. I I I I mean, I could definitely agree with that. I just didn't consider it.

SPEAKER_06 1:10:36

But um, and then from that point on, I was trying to figure out well, is she the killer or does she want to die?

SPEAKER_08 1:10:44

Is she trying to find somebody who's going to kill her?

SPEAKER_06 1:10:48

Yes.

SPEAKER_08 1:10:48

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_06 1:10:49

Which is maybe why she asked him a whole lot about, you know, the serial killer thing in the truck, which I know annoyed you, Jim. Will come to me when it's still kind of a twist. Right? But my view of it was a little different. Like, is he the killer or is she the killer? It was more like, is she trying to die or is she trying to kill him?

SPEAKER_08 1:11:15

I I think I was just so focused on whether or not Kyle was the killer. I wasn't, I was missing maybe some some tips or giveaways. Um I I'll say this about the scroll, the tech scroll. I don't think just because it's a tech scroll, it's fucking Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:33

Well, getting in the freezer is.

SPEAKER_08 1:11:34

But I but I hate, I absolutely hate having it having a tech scroll read to me.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 1:11:40

Uh imagine if they'd done that shit with Star Wars. Where it's like a new hope, you know, you'd be like, oh God, no, no, please don't. So like this movie to me is like a lot of great choices with some bad choices. Like, there's a lot of good things that this movie does that's a lot of fun to watch, and there are some things that you're just kind of like fucking trope, dude, or a little too easy, man. You know. Um, but it I have to say, unlike Marty, this was a relief to watch because I watched it after um Gimme Liberty, and I was just like, oh, okay, well, I mean, it's just a it's just a straight up serial killer total out of sequence. That's good. Thank goodness. No anxiety here.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:23

Yet they were trying to create anxiety, I think.

SPEAKER_08 1:12:26

The horror movie, the horror movie that I'm watching is not giving me the same anxiety that the fucking comedy that I just watched was giving me.

SPEAKER_06 1:12:36

Yeah, I feel that.

SPEAKER_08 1:12:40

The fuck? Anyway.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:47

But like I was saying, you know, you watch act movies just because an actor is in it you liked, and that's why we picked this one. And I enjoyed Kyle's performance. I enjoyed Willow's performance. I just didn't care for the movie that they were in, you know. I was like, oh, they're chewing it up. Even Ed Begley and Barbara Hershey are having fun.

SPEAKER_08 1:13:04

I fucking love the hippies. That was one of my some of my favorite shit in the movie was the two of them drinking whatever tea that was and then making a giant. Can we talk about the breakfast? That's really chewing.

SPEAKER_06 1:13:19

What's wrong with people who make a breakfast like that?

SPEAKER_00 1:13:23

Nothing.

SPEAKER_06 1:13:24

What?

SPEAKER_00 1:13:24

Oh my god. I see a stick of butter hit that pan. Am I a whole fucking stick of butter? What was the most shocking thing so far in the movie? I actually out loud. Are they gonna cook something in all that fucking butter?

SPEAKER_08 1:13:41

It's a note. My one of my notes is a whole fucking stick of butter. God damn, a whole stick of butter, hell yeah, and more with jam. These people are high as fuck. That's my note.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:53

When we paused it, I you know, I looked at Danny. I'm like, there is no fucking way they could eat like that every day and be that old. There is not. Oh my god. I felt like stomach cramps watching that get put together. When he served it up, I'm like, no shit, that is actually what he's doing.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:11

Apparently, audiences went nuts in the theater when that breakfast was made.

SPEAKER_08 1:14:15

So it's fucking hilarious. Just because it's so it's so ridiculously over design. It's it's what a high person would do, you know, because you're like, I'm fucking stone, man, I'm so hungry, and you make you would make six eggs and three pancakes and six sausages. You wouldn't eat it all. But you whipped cream and some you know jam on it and shit. Why not? Because that's what you know, that's that's what you do when you're highs. You mix flavors together. That's how you get that's how kids came up with flaming hot Cheetos and Nacho cheese to dip it in. Because those little high school fuckers were stoned and they were like, oh no, so I take this flaming hot Cheetos, stick in this cheese sauce. Oh man, it's delicious. And you go to any high school football game, they sell that shit like hotcakes.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:54

Its only existence is so Willa's character could have some energy if she scarps a bunch of it down, you know.

SPEAKER_08 1:15:01

Yeah, that's true.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:02

And we get our weird jigsaw puzzle game they're playing as well.

SPEAKER_08 1:15:06

Oh, with Scott Bale. Oh my god, we're not into Scott Bayo.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:09

It's just the puzzles they have they give.

SPEAKER_08 1:15:11

Yeah, it's so good.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:13

That's the part that really stuck out at me is that breakfast. Like, forget the rest of the movie, what's going on there? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:15:21

Yeah, that breakfast was very troubling to me.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:23

Well, Ed Bagley and Barbara Hershey struck because I don't pay attention to what was going on with the credits and stuff. You know, we're getting situated and then you know, oh text, okay, I'll read it. But when they popped up, I was like, holy shit, this is awesome. Because, you know, I love both these guys.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:43

In front of the film doctors, probably. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:15:46

And their whole house, the set of their house was just really, really fascinating to me. There was always something to look at in that house. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_08 1:15:55

Yeah. It was a great I and I'm I imagine that's somebody's house. Like they didn't just build that in the middle of the fucking woods for reason. That had to have been somebody's house up in the northwest that they got permission to shoot in. It was a dope house.

SPEAKER_06 1:16:05

It's so cool. I would live there.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:07

Did you think did you think it was a period piece? It wasn't. But for a while there, I was thinking, is this supposed to be set in the past?

SPEAKER_08 1:16:15

No, it's because when it opens, he's in that, he's in, he's chasing her down in that brand new truck, so that you date you date it right away. It's the pinto, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:26

He's driving that perfect classic pinto, yeah. As we learned from Top Secret a few weeks ago, shouldn't that pinto explode at the slightest?

SPEAKER_06 1:16:36

It really should.

SPEAKER_08 1:16:39

So, and that's you know, I'll say this. I really like the opening of the movie. You know, it starts car chase, he he hits, you know, he hits the brakes and then grabs that that gorgeous lever action rifle and fires his, you know, and she you know swerves off the road, and then we follow her into the woods, and all I can think of is you're wearing red, so you'd better get as far the fuck away as you can because you're in a green forest. And what does she do? She immediately finds some hobo's stash and drinks a shitload of vodka. I know.

SPEAKER_06 1:17:09

She looks like she just escaped from the handmaid's tail running through a forest.

SPEAKER_08 1:17:13

Yeah, and smokes a fucking cigarette, stops to smoke a cigarette the first mini that we that we see smoked, and then takes off running again. So it's almost like she wants him to follow her. Like you look back and you realize she's the killer, it's like, oh, she's doing that because she wants him to follow her. And I love that freeze at the beginning where she's running and they freeze, and you realize her fucking ear's been ripped off. And it looks like it's been like when they're making out in the hotel a little bit later, I'm convinced he's gonna bite her fucking ear off. I'm convinced that's what's gonna happen. Because it looks like it's been chewed or bitten off, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:17:47

I did at one point when you're talking about when he was doing the the the pinchy bit with the I thought I thought. I I'm sure I'm I'm sure I figured out where this is going, but now is he got a thing he's just gonna rip that shit off like Conan and Bacon style?

SPEAKER_08 1:18:06

Just well, and then he he goes down, he's kissing on that ear a little bit later, and I thought he's gonna fucking bite that fucking ear right off. He's just gonna cra cry, you know, and here we go, here comes the savage out of him, you know.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:19

And I did think it was weird that some chapters were like a minute long and then the other chapters like 20 minutes long. That was a little uh jarring. I felt like it was paste good.

SPEAKER_08 1:18:33

Go ahead, Danny. Sorry.

SPEAKER_06 1:18:35

I think it was paste good. The one thing that really seemed to stick out at me as I was watching it is the first movie or the first of the half-ish of the film seems really like meticulously and artistically shot. They have that overhead shot of him in the garden with all the frozen packages around him. They do all these really like artsy type shots. They have the the whole truck, you know, them sitting in the front seat of the truck.

SPEAKER_08 1:19:04

I love that blue. I absolutely adore the blue in that truck. I really do like that. I thought it was really good looking.

SPEAKER_06 1:19:12

Uh but then the second half of the film just got I don't know, it was like they lost it somewhere. Like it was just much more practical. Like they were like, we don't have time to to figure out the artistic angle for this shot. We're just shooting it head on, and it was a very strange like change. They had it was like a key change in a song.

SPEAKER_08 1:19:36

So the execs at Mirimax hated this film. Okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:19:41

So the directors and they stopped it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 1:19:43

So this is Giovanna Rubisi is the cinematographer on this film. It's his first film he's ever he's ever he's ever shot. The JT Mulner is there and he's sending dailies back to the to the executives, and the the the feedback they're giving him is we hate everything that you're sending us. Fire Miller, she's terrible, fix this immediately. Right. And so he gets it done. He he soldiers on gets it done because it's because and at one point they shut production down on him. And his producers went to Mirimax and said, We've already fucking spent millions of dollars. You're just gonna throw money away, let us finish the production. We demand that you let us finish, we'll take you to fucking court over it. Mirimax said, Fine. Let him finish the picture, and then Miramax hired a fucking editor behind the director's back and had it edited in a linear fashion and said, That's what we're gonna release. And JT said JT said, Fuck you. My my contract says I get one screening in front of an audience with my cut. And he said, I'll make you a deal. If the audience doesn't like that cut, we'll go with your cut. And so apparently, 30 minutes into the movie, somebody in the audience screamed out, This fucking bitch is crazy, and the whole audience was just like lost their shit. And and the reception of the movie was really good. And Miramax backed off and let him let him do the movie as well.

SPEAKER_04 1:20:56

Yeah, you have to do it that way. Because if you tell it linear, it's gonna be boring.

SPEAKER_08 1:21:01

Yep, yeah, it's you have to, you know, have a choice.

unknown 1:21:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 1:21:04

If you do the the the suspense and the buildup of who is the killer and how that's gonna happen is a big part of the movie. And if you if you tell it linear, you fuck that all up.

SPEAKER_06 1:21:15

That's yeah, it's just you know, like, oh sorry, go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:20

Well, I don't know. It's is it my turn?

unknown 1:21:24

Go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:24

I I have some I have some feelings I'd like to share in this safe space.

SPEAKER_08 1:21:30

Um it's not safe, but go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:32

Okay, so I feel like uh uh Marty was speaking for me when he he started out. Um let's talk about music real quick. I will sum it up. This is uh tied as the worst music in a movie with um um oh shit. Sleepless in Seattle. Um I love the movie, but the music disjointed me so much. And this stuff, I know it was trying to be uh artsy, it was trying to be, you know, I I I don't even know what the words for it would be, but it immediately turned me off. I saw it coming and I was right. The whole way through was just not great. Um I also don't like scrollers now. With Star Wars, when I was a kid, it was super big and super slow.

SPEAKER_08 1:22:24

I don't mind it, I just don't want fucking red to me. I can read.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:26

Well, yeah, I don't want to read to me at all.

SPEAKER_06 1:22:28

Yeah, but I read much faster than people talk.

SPEAKER_08 1:22:31

Exactly. And it's annoying to get ahead and have to hear.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:35

And and I'm dyslexic. So if I'm not on the same page or the same word as this guy, I'm trying to process the words. I got someone shouting in my ear, right? Yeah, so it must be really annoying. Yeah, but that's like a small piece. That's a small piece. Um, I usually absolutely hate movies presented out of order for the sole reason uh pulp fiction, bam. One in probably 5,000 attempts at it actually do it well, and it actually feels like it serves the story. I like you said, if they did this in linear order, it would burn the twist. To me, that's that was bad writing from day one. Your twist should be able to survive anything, any presentation. Um, because we get and I know I'm just thinking back to like days of adult swim when they're making fun of uh uh you know Sixth Sense and um like Samalamading.

SPEAKER_08 1:23:36

If you tell Sixth Sense in a different manner, it doesn't it doesn't work, right?

SPEAKER_05 1:23:40

The twist is right.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:42

Well that's what I'm saying. It's just a twist, it's a twist. Okay, you have your twist, but A, don't make it obvious, and B, it it has to feel like a twist. It can't feel like it's something, it's a twist only because you you cut out the first five minutes of the show and save it until the end.

SPEAKER_08 1:23:58

Yeah, I mean I think the story works. Like, if you want to tell a story about a woman who's a serial killer who's go hunting this guy and you tell it linear, it it works. It's just not as good. The suspense that's that's built up by trying to figure out who's actually doing the deed here in the first 30 or 45 minutes is what kind of for me made the movie really cool, right? Like, and then we just and then we spend the next 30 or 40 resolving all that, right? That's yeah, and I think that's what you're talking about, Danny, is art to art to one point and then resolution to the next point, right? And we're just right, maybe rushing through it a bit.

SPEAKER_06 1:24:30

Yeah. Yeah, and I mean I don't think every story told out of order is you know necessarily bad. Like I was actually just thinking about uh Tombstone Roshimon with a friend Eric in it, and it's it's told in a different sort of nonlinear storyline, but mostly this person and then this person's point of view and then this person's point of view, but all of that kind of converges into one right, maybe not cohesive storyline.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:57

But not everything's a failure out of order. This to me for this it didn't do it. Um I think what yeah, what this movie walked me out back and put two in my head during that during that truck scene where they're just talking, talking. I found that so tedious. Oh fuck. I'm like I loved it.

SPEAKER_06 1:25:23

Oh, I could she was baiting him the whole time, and you can see it. Like she's trying to she's trying to bait him, she's trying to provoke him.

SPEAKER_04 1:25:33

I just got a feeling right then that this was not gonna be good. Like the beginning of Monster A Go-Go, where they're like, I don't know, well, I think this one's gonna suck. No, this could be good. This I don't know. There's just a vibe of something about this one, and they're like, Oh, this is gonna hurt. And so I just strapped in and it's the moment I liked, but yeah, it was my personal deep hurting.

SPEAKER_06 1:25:58

That one the movie just touched you in all the wrong ways right from the get, yeah, and then you couldn't like it after that.

SPEAKER_04 1:26:04

It was like, uh-oh. And I guess uh I was right in my own opinion there.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:10

It kind of I think my biggest handicap with this movie was I couldn't connect to anybody. I honestly I f I and we were talking, uh Dan and I were talking, like, you know, you don't need backstory and you don't need to connect. But I'm talking about like even watching like Halloween, right? I don't know that anyone could really connect with Mike Myers because he was presented as this just embodiment of evil. So how do you do that? But I didn't find myself asking why for anybody other than Barbara Hershey and Ed Bigley Jr. And why do they have all those fucking speakers outside their house? And why are they playing like like underground NPR?

SPEAKER_08 1:26:50

That was something I I wondered about. Like, why oh, you know why? Scare off the squatch. Oh yeah, wouldn't it have been better off the squatch? That makes sense because squatch can't drive no pickup. You know how you make this movie better?

SPEAKER_04 1:27:08

Squatch goes up at the end and kills the Willa character.

SPEAKER_08 1:27:15

No, Jam. No, Will is waiting for that last ride at the at the end of the road. Can you help me? And you see Squatch just come out one side of the road and just skirt across the other side into the bushes again, right? Like, and then you'd be like, was Squatch killing people, or was it Squatch?

unknown 1:27:30

Squatch.

SPEAKER_04 1:27:31

And it had the world's dumbest cops in it, too.

SPEAKER_08 1:27:34

Yes, he's carrying fuzzy handcuffs with him. That's fucking brilliant.

SPEAKER_04 1:27:38

And the world's dumbest cops show up at the end of the movie, too.

SPEAKER_08 1:27:41

You know, that's always one of them is the other one's the other one's he let the other one. He knew better.

SPEAKER_04 1:27:48

Yeah, he knew better. That's some straight thousand corpses shit. A little bit of fatal attraction, a little bit of natural born killers, and stick it in a blender.

SPEAKER_06 1:28:03

I don't know. I thought it was fun. Uh Jim, do you have other thoughts? I know you kept like you had some more things.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:10

Oh, I just I mean that was it. I couldn't feel like I cared about anybody. I just didn't get that connection. And I don't need to know her whole backstory, but there was just nothing like sparked. Yeah. You know, I cared about breakfast.

SPEAKER_04 1:28:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:24

I mean, the breakfast was the big concern. The bullhorns, which makes sense. I never I was so busy trying to wrap other shit together. The whole squatching thing just actually.

SPEAKER_08 1:28:35

Squatch can't drive no pickup truck.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:38

Um strange switch. Anytime I did start getting a groove, they played some music, and that just totally flushed me out of the running. And that's a personal thing. Yeah, okay, okay. You know. Um, but yeah, I I I thought they the concept uh her going through this whole thing. Like I was I'm really curious, why does she go through this giant ass process, which could go badly for her at any second, you know, until she gets the guy to take you know fistful of ketamine. Um and then right away when she pulled out the bottle and put his ass in a khole.

SPEAKER_08 1:29:22

I was like, God damn.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:24

Somebody is somebody's in for a rough fucking night.

SPEAKER_08 1:29:27

Yep. And they cover it with cocaine. That's because he's snorting it in the truck. Yeah. And I'm like, that's what he's doing. He's just trying to get out of the fucking K-hole and keep his heart going, right? Like, holy shit. I liked that shit. I thought that was fucking cool.

SPEAKER_04 1:29:42

One of my few notes is nobody puts coke in a baggie. It gets all stuck in there. You can't get there's all this residue you can't get out of the bag.

SPEAKER_08 1:29:56

Tell that to fucking Uma Thurman, man. She's all she's fucking, you know, got Vincent fucking Vegas fucking heroin in a baggie, and she's smoking that shit like it's fucking coke.

SPEAKER_04 1:30:03

Oh, there's that pulp fiction again. There's that pulp fiction again.

SPEAKER_08 1:30:06

My last no.

SPEAKER_06 1:30:08

It was very pulpy.

SPEAKER_08 1:30:09

Yeah. Uh it had a it had an essence of pulpy in it, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:30:13

Some of the reviews that absolutely hated this movie, and I don't necessarily agree with them, they were saying that this movie was misogynistic, like it's the only reason it existed is so they could beat up a woman and yell at her. I don't think the movie was smart enough for that. I think they were thinking of a different movie. That's all it's trying to be, I think. I think people were reading into it a little bit too much there. I liked the fact that the woman was the aggressor in this film.

SPEAKER_08 1:30:37

You'd you rarely get a strong killer female. Like when she's when you when you walk into the room and she's fucking stabbed Ed Begley and he's dead, and the and she's just high looking like, oh fuck. It's like look, lady. The quote is, I'm not trying to fuck up your day already any more than I already have. It's like, yeah, gee, thanks. You know, thank you so much. You're just in my way. And and you know, this has to be done because I'm not gonna get caught. You know, that's the you know, I'm not gonna get caught for this.

SPEAKER_04 1:31:07

So he should have known better than just talk to her while she's handcuffed into the freezer, you know. It's like, come on, that's rookie mistake. She's gonna pull a thing out, blow it in your eyes.

SPEAKER_08 1:31:20

I loved I loved the gun where he's where she comes in to kill him and heat. Suddenly that gun comes up and blows your ear off. I thought, oh shit, that's what happened to her ear.

SPEAKER_04 1:31:28

And now you're and we get a full mag as she drives away and dies at the end. One last little piece of I'm shooting on 35. Okay, we get it, but most of the audience doesn't know what the hell you're even talking about.

SPEAKER_00 1:31:45

So can I address that? Yes, I get where they're coming from. I do and uh like you know, when Tarantino announced, you know, I'm shooting this at 70 millimeter and da-da-da. I I look at that. Um, if uh uh because we met someone through the podcast, Julia Marchese, she works at like the Hollywood cinema and has met all these people. She did a documentary about the the where film is going, basically is dying. Um knowing all these people from Hollywood, she had a whole stack of like old shit on 35 millimeter, and it was just rotting. So so it's now at the National Archives. Uh they're you know restoring it, taking care of it. Um, my whole thing is in a movie theater, I would be all about that. But when I see something like that and I'm watching it on my fucking television, yeah, it's like I get what you're saying, you shot on 35 millimeter, and God bless you for sticking to the craft and and pushing that media, but on this end of it, you could have you know shot it on your kid's fisher price, it is gonna mean jack shit to me. Yeah. Because it's gonna it's digitized anyway. And it's got a point too, or you can't tell as much to.

SPEAKER_08 1:32:53

The question is is, you know, it's like didn't um it's like um Gimme Liberty. Gimme Liberty, you could see like some of that was shot on film. They they talk about, hey, we shot some of this on film. You know why? Because there are several camera and film techniques that they intentionally used in that film that you can't fucking do on digital. Over saturation, under crank, all these different things that you you can kind of do them on digital, but they don't fucking look right. They just don't look if you if you really have the the eye to catch it, right? Yeah, and I look if it's I think it's awesome that they shot this on 35 millimeter. I think it lends a look to the film. However, if they didn't put it out on fucking 35 millimeter prints in theaters, like you said, it's going to some sort of digital cinema package and it's being digitized. So kind of what's the I I I see what you're saying. If there's a bit of a like, especially in the theater, what's the fucking point, right? Because you're gonna watch it on a some Blu-ray digitize something in your home eventually.

SPEAKER_06 1:33:47

I don't know any theaters that use 35 millimeter anymore. They can't really use digital projectors, yeah. They can't.

SPEAKER_08 1:33:53

The distributors don't. The distributors don't. So I so that funny enough, I ran a movie theater and and it closed due to the conversion to digital. So, and in fact, I'm in a documentary about that that's uh that played on PBS.

SPEAKER_00 1:34:05

Julia's documentary had that.

SPEAKER_08 1:34:07

It's the same thing, yeah. We ran full and 10 10 theaters for eight years.

SPEAKER_00 1:34:11

Yeah, get rid of the film projector. Yeah, you had to or we will never send you a movie again.

SPEAKER_08 1:34:16

Yeah. Well, it's because they they they they literally said, look, all these comp there's two companies that they're that create that film uh basically make copies of the movie and ship them out. And they said, We're done. We're not doing that anymore. We're doing digital. We're shipping hard drives now, we're not shipping film, it's cheaper. You know, I used to get these massive cans from from freight, these massive cans of film, you know, seven reels, six reels for an hour and 45 minute movie. That's 40 or 50 pounds of film that you then have to cut and put together. No two bars.

SPEAKER_04 1:34:47

No two prints are identical. Yeah, there's there's a lot of issues on both sides though.

SPEAKER_08 1:34:52

It's living and breathing, and it's visceral, visceral, and it's awesome, and I prefer it 100%. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:34:57

So I was listening to one of the recent Roger Deacons podcasts, and he was talking about somebody showed him a movie, and he was like, Oh, that was Sean of Film, right? And you're like, No, that was all digital. And he's like, I can't even, I can't even tell anymore. And I'm like master TOP. And so it's like, yeah, it's who knows, but I I appreciate it. I just don't think they needed to lead with it. Because it was immediately like, I shot this on 35mm, and I'm like, just show me the movie, man. And it's if that's if that you know, that's not the most important thing of your film, is it? I I don't know.

SPEAKER_08 1:35:32

I mean, it's a it's a four million dollar film, four million dollar budget shot on film, which means they probably spent a half a million dollars on stock alone to fucking shoot.

SPEAKER_04 1:35:42

I think Give Me Liberty looked better, you know.

SPEAKER_08 1:35:45

Um, so I just think it's a balls move. Like, and that's that's why you tell people up front. You're like, look, I'll put my balls on the table here. I shot this on fucking 35 million.

SPEAKER_04 1:35:53

Cliff, right? They got it about it. We watched it, the movie's got like a 96 on Rotten Tomatoes. Does it really? Wow, yeah, it's impact. So I guess I guess they pulled it off. The getting away with it, right? Isn't that what you always say?

SPEAKER_08 1:36:06

Art is yeah, art is yeah, Andy Warhol says art is getting away with it. So and I think Strange Darling gets away with it.

SPEAKER_04 1:36:12

So I think and I think um well, she almost got away with it, but then she got shot because she was in Texas, I believe, where they just pull up the gun and boom. Everybody's armed. Was she trying to pull out a weapon and thinking not to as she was dying, or was she just gesturing? What do you think?

SPEAKER_08 1:36:28

I think she was in shock and thought that she could pull a gun out and take away.

SPEAKER_04 1:36:32

But she had a second gun that she never got to, maybe moving against the game.

SPEAKER_00 1:36:35

I was wondering that because she took both the cops' guns.

SPEAKER_06 1:36:38

She did, yeah. She had three guns on.

SPEAKER_00 1:36:40

And so we lost the one. But as it was happening, I think to me, she was in such a state of disbelief.

SPEAKER_04 1:36:48

Oh, yeah, she said to herself that this is it.

SPEAKER_00 1:36:51

This is it. She knows wherever this woman's going, she isn't gonna live. Yeah, and she's just literally in shock. And you know, so and that, you know, having experience with people in that situation, you they do repetitive movements and it just doesn't make sense. But something's locked in their head, and physically they just can't, you know, because the look on her face was like this was I if anything, even close to connecting, this was the moment when I came connecting with her because I uh the actor did a phenomenal fucking job of putting out muted terror, meaning you can tell the level of terror in her, but physically the body isn't responding to it, and hence the movements. And I thought she she is sitting down with death and having a long talk right now.

SPEAKER_08 1:37:44

That's a good way to put it. Danny, would you did you have any thoughts? Uh we've been I'm curious because it seems like I think you've probably liked it a bit more than Jim did. So maybe you're on my side. Maybe you're on my side of the fence here.

SPEAKER_06 1:37:57

I think I am a little I'm I'm a little more on your side, Cliff. I think that the I liked that it was shot in 35mm. I think that it's worth it to shoot things in you know, traditional methods. Like, even if you don't necessarily like the film as an outcome like that was shot on 35mm, I think that it is important to put it at the beginning of films and let people know, like, we did this on this media, because some people don't even think that film exists anymore, to be honest with you. There are very few places in in the world that can still develop film. You know, and people collect the old, you know, like film cutting machines and stuff, but they don't actually use them. And so I think it's nice that it's like an homage to a dying art form. You know?

unknown 1:38:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:38:54

I hate that. Well, I used to shoot black and white film, so I've got an old 1962 camera I'm staring at, and I love shooting black and white, but I've always bitched you can't shoot black and white on digital. Because there is no such thing as true black and white. It's just removal of color and the color, it the whole all of it's wrong. The only way you get it is black and white film. And I developed my own stuff in photography school. I developed it early on. I'm too old to be playing with chemicals and developing film and have a dark room and all that stuff, so I kind of gave it up. But I do it, I do admire that they did shoot it on 35 millimeter. I I guess I just I've seen these things before, and the problem is in the digitation digitization process color correction, color. They they take it and make it like the same thing. It's like we talked about Netflix. You know a Netflix movie or series when you see it, because it smells the same, it looks the same, the reds are the same kinds of reds, the depth of field is the same kind of depth of field, it's just cookie cutter stuff. And I felt like I didn't get, and I wasn't looking real hard because I'm trying to watch the story, but I just didn't get that. I guess that benefit. It just it's it's flattened on a digital screen, period. Okay. So I think that worked against them.

SPEAKER_08 1:40:20

Interesting. Um there's a there's a story that um the director was talking to his production designer who's a pretty experienced production designer, and was they went to see uh Lost Highway together. They got out to the north northwest and they were checking locations and talking about the production. They went to see Lost Highway together. And he was saying, you know, how do they do that? How do they stick to their guns and and keep the the look of the film consistent throughout? And and he said they talked about primary colors and and he saw blues and reds and blacks in the movie, but no tertiary colors, and you know, and she said, Well, you gotta fucking be super disciplined. You have to be super fucking disciplined. You have to stick to your guns at all times. And he said, and in that opening shot where she's running through the forest, she's wearing, she was in the beginning, she was wearing teal. And the production designer said, I thought you were going for red and blue and primary colors. And he goes, I was. And she goes, Then why the fuck is she in teal? And he goes, because I thought it'd look great in the forest. And she goes, What the fuck? Are you gonna stick to your guns or not? And he was like, change the goddamn outfit. That's why she's wearing red in the forest, because he wants this red primary color, this blue from the hotel, this red that she's wearing in the and and other things to sh you know to be these primary colors of the film. I thought so. I thought it was interesting. Um, I don't know that it uh it doesn't speak to like the digitizing and losing of the color, or at least, like you said, changing the color palette so the reds match or the blues match or whatever. But I I wonder if he took time to make sure that happened while he was shooting in camera, or if he did it in post.

SPEAKER_04 1:41:49

Um I'd be curious. It's definitely harder to do now because that's a almost a loss craft. And back when they were making lost highway, people were still shooting on film all the time, and people know how knew how to do the lighting and the color more because they were doing it constantly. And now it's like, how do we recapture the technique they did like 25 years ago that people don't do anymore? And so they're trying to kind of relearn that in a way, and so it's kind of Rabisi was the cinematographer, I and I feel like he's been around film a lot.

SPEAKER_08 1:42:18

He's been around film a long time.

SPEAKER_04 1:42:21

He used, I read.

SPEAKER_08 1:42:21

He was on his equipment. He did a great job. I think as as a first-time cinematographer, if I made this movie and it looked like that, I'd be pretty goddamn happy with myself.

SPEAKER_04 1:42:29

I've watched a DV shopping and it looked muddied. So maybe if I saw it in 4K, it might pop. I don't know. It's possible. Like that thing scrolling. I mean read it.

SPEAKER_06 1:42:40

Color theory transcends film or digital.

SPEAKER_04 1:42:43

Oh, that's true, too.

SPEAKER_06 1:42:44

You know, uh, you think I I don't know if you guys watched the show Severance, but if you notice, there's only like three colors in every frame, really, or variations of those three colors, unless there's something they want you to pay attention to, which that thing is a different color, right? Something that pops. You know, it's all blues and grays and whites.

SPEAKER_05 1:43:04

Right.

SPEAKER_06 1:43:04

Unless they want you to see something, and they're very careful to make sure that no other colors lead onto their set. You know.

SPEAKER_00 1:43:13

I'm just saying, I'm I'm thinking about the the first choice being teal for the clothing. Yeah. If they were gonna do black, because again, as you know, as a photographer, again, black and white is a whole different set of rules on what you want the picture to look like and what the actual colors they need to be wearing. And I'm just trying to think, teal would be one of the worst choices to begin and then fade in. Because I I did enjoy that. Um it's been done a lot, and some people do it better than others, but I thought this was really well done because the whole picture as I was watching it wasn't colorizing, it was like in little little shifts, very subtle, not everything was at the same pace. And I thought that was really cool. I you know, from a technical aspect, I can't bitch about a whole lot about this. Right.

SPEAKER_08 1:44:05

Um both films technically you can't really make you can't really you have to you have to kind of bitch about story or yeah or logic or something like that because they're they're both really well made, and both go to black and white at certain points, which was very true.

SPEAKER_04 1:44:19

There we go.

SPEAKER_00 1:44:19

Yeah, what did you guys think of the the titles The Demon? Oh, I love that shit. I love that. That caught me straight away, and I'm like, I loved it.

SPEAKER_08 1:44:31

I it's because she says sometimes all I see are demons. Oh it's like and it's like you're the demon. That's why she's trying to kill him.

SPEAKER_00 1:44:39

Yeah, I I liked that.

SPEAKER_08 1:44:42

I thought that was smart.

SPEAKER_00 1:44:43

It was in the beginning, it was nothing. It's just like it didn't make any sense, yeah. Well, it was actually you're you're pulling a page out of Tarantino's book, you know. You don't get a first and last name, you're just the fucker and the guy, right? And that's all he has time for. Yeah, and that's how it he that's how he wrote it, and that's how he's presenting it. So yeah, when she's that that whole bit, you know, I see demons. I like that.

SPEAKER_08 1:45:10

Now I understand. Zoom. Yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:45:14

Yeah. I mean, and I want to actually talk a little bit more about the color theory because there are a lot of hints in the beginning of this movie if you pay attention to who's who, you know. Um, so we start out with her, she's wearing red. Red is typically the color associated with, you know, bad guys while she is running, right? And then we jump to them in the truck, and the truck interior is blue.

SPEAKER_08 1:45:39

It's his truck, it's his face, it's you know it's calming, it's calming, it's the whole lightway.

SPEAKER_06 1:45:46

It is, but she looks wrong in the truck, right? All her colors are wrong in that blue light.

SPEAKER_08 1:45:52

Oh, you're right, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:45:55

Her hair is wrong, her clothes are wrong, but she's dressed like she's on the hunt, and she is asking, you know, like women dress up when they go out to, you know, what they dress up for what they're doing, right? She's on the hunt, and she's she's controlling the whole narrative between them. He is just following her, yeah. Right? Yeah, and so there are all these hints, and then she's in the hotel room, she goes into the bathroom, and the lights red while she's in there. You know, there's all this stuff that's supposed to be.

SPEAKER_05 1:46:29

Well, she's sitting on the toilet. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:46:32

Yeah. They're supposed to point you towards subconsciously what she's doing. And I just thought there were like there were a lot of things that were clever, but also very classic moves for them to do that might have even come off as tropish, like, oh, they're overdoing it with this. Why is everything, you know, washed and red? It's just, you know, some weird choice. But they were doing it intentionally, and they were doing it basically by the book, right?

SPEAKER_08 1:46:58

Yeah, but the thing about it and then just doing the chat, and then just moving the chapters around to build the to change the suspense and kind of make you guess on who what on what what the real motive is or who the real Yeah.

unknown 1:47:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:47:10

Yeah, and then kind of jumping between those different chapters made it into more of a fun ride than I think it would have been if it were told in order.

SPEAKER_08 1:47:18

Completely agree.

SPEAKER_06 1:47:20

Yeah. And I really liked when he was going through the house, and you know that she's in a box of some kind, right? You can see the little bit of silver behind her, but you don't really know where she is. And he's going here, kitty kitty, and he's you know, shooting the box and then opening it up, right?

SPEAKER_08 1:47:38

Yes.

SPEAKER_06 1:47:40

And that's not necessarily like the behavior of a serial killer. It's scary what he's doing, but a serial killer isn't gonna try and kill the person before they open the box. They want to see. Yeah, yeah. You know, so there are like all these contextual clues that they give you, but they're all very subtle. And I just like I really liked that sequence him going through the house and shooting the boxes before opening them. And I was like, he's scared of her.

SPEAKER_08 1:48:09

He's very scared of her.

SPEAKER_06 1:48:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 1:48:11

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:48:13

It's interesting. So we've been watching Andorra season two, and uh, they had an interview with the actor who plays Dedra, and to play her part, she studied up on women psychopaths.

SPEAKER_08 1:48:24

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 1:48:24

And she said that what most people have found is a woman psychopath actually is less likely to do the killing, but more likely to ease someone get someone else to do it. Sure. Right? And but but has to be very close to that whole thing. And I I didn't learn that before this, but it made me think about it. Um, where this was more than just she's I guess one thing I liked about the character is she just wasn't a psychopath. We don't know what damage and when it started. But there's there's still something I don't have the answer to. Like I said, why the elaborate seems like a whole lot of work for very little payoff, especially at one point you're missing an ear, you got a fucking hole in your shoulder, you it just gets worse from me.

SPEAKER_08 1:49:15

She gets she gets the shit kicked out of her in this movie for sure.

SPEAKER_00 1:49:18

But she doesn't stop. No, she doesn't stop. You can see she has that immediate switch that she flips.

SPEAKER_07 1:49:24

I'm the victim the thrill of her life.

SPEAKER_00 1:49:27

Yeah, just bullshits everybody into helping her in a heartbeat. And then, you know, they're sorry that they did.

SPEAKER_08 1:49:34

Can you help me, please? It's like, oh no, hit the fuck away from me.

SPEAKER_00 1:49:38

I actually did think that could, if they wanted to mark it, that could be like on a t shirt.

SPEAKER_08 1:49:42

Oh yeah, easily. You know, could you help me this way? Um, so two things that I had that was the movie resolved them for me, sort of. But like first, I was like, why does he continue to chase her? Like he's gotten away from her. She tried to, you know, she tried to put him in a Khole. Tried to kill him. He's free. He doesn't have to go after her. Why is he going after her? Then we find out he's a cop.

SPEAKER_04 1:50:06

He's already been going after her.

SPEAKER_08 1:50:07

So it's like, oh, okay, that makes sense. And then and then later on, when he's in the house, why doesn't he just fucking kill her? Why not kill her and then call it in and go, look, I'm in a situation, here's what happened. Right? Because I mean, the the forensic evidence alone is probably going to be in your favor. You didn't stab Ed Begley Jr. and fucking and we're still looking for Barbara Hershey, God knows where she is. So it's just like, why the fuck didn't you? And of course she shows up at the end, right? But it's like, why the fuck didn't you just kill her?

SPEAKER_04 1:50:41

Well, you know, it's the character's morality. He's supposed to be, you know, he thought he had killed her. He's supposed to be a good guy. He's not dead. Well, she's handcuffed. She won't be a problem.

SPEAKER_08 1:50:51

I thought about that, but he does say, he does say, because I'm not fucking going away forever for you. Like he does say that. I'm not fucking going down forever for this. Thank you.

SPEAKER_04 1:51:00

Do it by the book, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:51:01

Yeah, he thinks he could do it. Morality standpoint, I was trying to uh bring together Johnny Law and you know a guy who was just nearly killed. How would the two react? But you know, he's an adulterer and he's an ex-drug addict, and he's getting like into all this stuff. And I thought, dude, I don't know what's going on in your life, but this chick is way too much work, man. Why are you still here? Why are you even in that room? I would have here you go.

SPEAKER_08 1:51:28

Relationships.

SPEAKER_00 1:51:29

Here's but she says it.

SPEAKER_08 1:51:31

She says it. Guys will do anything to get a beat. And that's she said, and he's like, Oh, don't give me that shit. And it's like, no, look at you. Look where you are, look at where you're still here. Yeah, he proves the point, you know.

SPEAKER_00 1:51:43

And I'm like, maybe this is a little more rural than even we are, but god damn, what is wrong with this guy? Um, but I think it works in that it helps perpetuate he's the bad guy. She's wacky as shit, he's just putting up with it so he can stick a knife in her. I mean, that's what I feel like they were going for.

SPEAKER_08 1:52:09

Um, I love the red throughout the movie. Um at 50 minutes, we have an excellent diopter shot. God bless you, Giovanna Rabisi. I'm I'm a big fan of a diopter shot. And at 50 minutes we get a really good one. Like you can't see the the Lalin separation at all. It's very clean, it looks like they're both supremely in focus. Love it.

SPEAKER_00 1:52:29

I I noticed that as well. Yeah, and I'm a fan of those because I'm thinking when they first tried, how we, you know, yeah, how fuzzy and weird they were back then. And yeah, like one third of the screen in between is just fuzzy as shit. And they're not in this one. It's perfect. That was really well done. And on film, right? You know, digital, I'm not so marveled at it because you can click, click, click, click. I mean, they sell shit like that in bundle packs for 50 bucks, you know.

SPEAKER_08 1:52:56

That's and that's that's the other big thing about telling saying it's on digital. It's like, look, I didn't have the I didn't have the luxury of just saying delete the take, we'll do another one. Delete the take, we'll do another one.

SPEAKER_00 1:53:07

Yes.

SPEAKER_08 1:53:08

I've got I've got fucking 1200 feet of film in that magazine and 10 minutes worth, and I've got so much film to work with, let's go. We gotta get this. You know, I I admire that for sure.

SPEAKER_04 1:53:19

I I felt like those techniques were nice, but they almost distracted me from the movie. Like, look, I'm doing this because I can. Not that it necessarily connects to the next sequence. That was just me, though. I thought it was a little showy.

SPEAKER_00 1:53:36

I I can see that. I didn't actually feel like that. I the one thing about this movie, I I did admire all the technical stuff. But I was already so entrenched in none of this to me is contributing to the story. I don't need to worry about critiquing this shot and that shot. I'm just looking at it as that was actually pretty good. I like that, you know. And you know, if I ever get behind a camera, I would be cool if I could do that. You know, I mean, photography and cinematography are kind of the same, but you know, even the rules of light work differently for the mediums.

SPEAKER_06 1:54:10

But I mean I can understand feeling, I can understand feeling kind of like this movie is just a vehicle for all the like techniques and stuff they wanted to play with on film. It's a resonance. And I get that. Yeah. But I mean, the gore was really good. I like just a good old-fashioned slasher, you know, serial killer chaser. And it was it was still fun for me.

SPEAKER_00 1:54:34

Yeah, I agree. That was my last, I think, weak point because I turned to Danny at one point and I said, Okay, this is supposed to be a serial killer, not just a killer. If somebody in this movie doesn't fucking kill more than one person in the next two minutes, what am I doing here?

SPEAKER_04 1:54:52

Oh let's list it more of a thriller than a horror, is it's what it shows up as.

SPEAKER_08 1:54:58

I would agree that it's it's a it's a it's it's a horror, it's a thriller, serial killer type vibe. But I I think it's it definitely ratchets up that tension and and really keeps you guessing at times and reminded me of high tension, not you mentioned that.

SPEAKER_04 1:55:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 1:55:12

Um, I love how she knows that he used to live on the edge. Like that he could tell, like she can tell that there's something in him that she can pull on to keep him there and to keep him enticed and and then and then take him out, right?

SPEAKER_04 1:55:28

I'm surprised they didn't play that Aerosmith song, Living on the Edge. That would have been right there with Love Girl. She probably couldn't afford it, though.

SPEAKER_08 1:55:35

That's hilarious.

SPEAKER_04 1:55:38

That's hilarious.

SPEAKER_08 1:55:39

Um, and of course, I love the Scott Bayo puzzle. That's that shit. Right. It's the broad. As soon as I saw that, I was like, holy shit, that's hilarious. We ain't into Scott Bayo.

SPEAKER_00 1:55:57

I think that whole piece lent to one of the most uncomfortable moments in the movie movie for me was um when when they're sitting staring at each other across the table. Nothing's going on, and it's like that weird smile, weird smile, weird smile. And we were just talking about something that happened on Sunny like that, and it did get to a point where I was thinking inside, I hope they stop, because this is weirding me out more than anything else. This is just unsettling.

SPEAKER_08 1:56:30

Jesus Christ, people sitting and smiling and smiling at each other. What the fuck is going on around here?

SPEAKER_00 1:56:35

And not even like a smile. Smile and then not smile. Cut to the next one, smile back, not smile. Cut to the other one. I'm like, did they fucking mental in the mountains or what's going on? But then after all that, Scott Beo. So I'm like, all right, I get it. They're fucking weirdos, they're eccentric hippies, cool. And they've been living up there for a very long time.

SPEAKER_08 1:56:57

Trying to trying to stay away from the squatch, you know.

SPEAKER_06 1:57:03

Stay off the bed and keep the squatch off their backs.

SPEAKER_08 1:57:05

That's right. Squatch can't drive no pickup truck.

SPEAKER_04 1:57:09

So do you think that movies paid more attention to the color and the lighting back in the day than they do now on average? I do. I do. I think there's some that do it, but I feel like it's kind of a lost art a little bit.

SPEAKER_08 1:57:25

I do, and I think I think a lot of especially the smaller films, the smaller budget films, they tend to shoot more natural light or just some fill or some key. They don't really, you know, if you watch The Godfather, there's a reason that it says that you know every frame of the film is a painting, right? Like they lit it that way, it was shot that way, it was intentional, very thought out. Um, I don't go I don't think that they do that as much now.

SPEAKER_00 1:57:50

No, I will go back to black and white films. We didn't have color as an option, right? Even when colors started coming out, everyone was coming from a black and white industry, and they absolutely had to pay attention to colors, right? You know, there's yeah, there's whole volumes written about the series The Monsters and the nightmares they had. And then Gilligan's Island when it began, everyone arguing you can't don't wear that color on set. That's not gonna show. And transmissioning transitioning to color, I think a majority of people who understood it and were good at the black and white understood this as this is a new artistic medium. This is color, not colorized, it's color. And I can tell a story with color as I'm telling this other story with movement and dialogue. And I do agree, I think over time we're losing that because so many directors would would pride themselves on, you know, oh, you noticed that, yeah. And I every scene with him, there's this thing, or it wears certain colors, or the color red starts as an earring and it spreads out, you know, throughout the film. Um it's it's almost like um unbreakable, you know, the subtleness, it's not color, but his his rain poncho, Bruce Willis, starts out wearing a security poncho by the end, it's you know, Superman level cape and flowing kind of thing as he comes into his own. I love when they use color to help toil the story or to tell its own story with it to accentuate it.

SPEAKER_04 1:59:21

It makes sense they have a data influence, yeah.

SPEAKER_08 1:59:24

Good. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:59:25

I I um well, both films today did good use of their color palette, which is unusual around here. A lot of times just pick up the camera and shoot, you know. But today that's like they paid attention.

SPEAKER_08 1:59:37

Or or they get into post and they start jacking with the the LUT so badly that you're just like, Jesus, god, god, that green just looks so fucked up, you know, and like, oh um, but anyway. So um anybody else got anything on this one? I think I'm I I do agree that that Love Hurt song is is so Tarantino and it was better than like 31 or some of the other Rob Zombie films that it's aping, I thought.

SPEAKER_04 2:00:08

So The Monsters, for example. Oh, the Monsters. Um I I wish they could have done better with that, but they did what they could do.

SPEAKER_08 2:00:19

It wasn't no goddamn Adams family, that's for sure.

SPEAKER_04 2:00:21

Oh boy.

SPEAKER_06 2:00:21

Love hurts is overused, but it there's a reason it's overused, is because it it you know it does sort of fit.

SPEAKER_04 2:00:28

It does fit, right? And every time you hear this song, you will think about her for the rest of your life. Isn't that what she says to him in the movie? That is exactly what she says to him. That's true, too. He knows, he knows that's true. Yep, yeah. It's like I'm gonna be dead here in a few minutes, so uh I don't have to think about that song anymore. Oh, and I'll do the Everly brothers anymore. What do you give it, Marty? I give it one and a half. One and a half. Yeah, yeah, I knew it was gonna be pretty low.

SPEAKER_08 2:00:56

No, I can tell by the way you're talking about it was not gonna be good.

SPEAKER_04 2:00:59

Things to admire, though. You know, but for me, I don't need to watch it again.

SPEAKER_08 2:01:03

Yeah, watchability is a big, big, big factor for us. I'm glad I watched it.

SPEAKER_04 2:01:10

If for the breakfast alone, I'm glad I watched it.

SPEAKER_00 2:01:12

So Jim, what about you? Uh I will give it two because I'm not ratting other than the music. Uh the technical stuff was was online, like Danny said. There was some really nice shots. Made me wonder is you know, is like is that fucking frozen meat? What's going on?

SPEAKER_08 2:01:34

I couldn't, yeah. I couldn't speak into that. I just couldn't figure out why she'd throw the frozen meat out like that. Like, why not hide it? Because it's a giveaway that you're in the freezer.

SPEAKER_00 2:01:41

Yeah, that's well, that's a whole separate part. That's in the three stars I didn't give. Um gotcha. But yeah, technically, uh I it was nice and clean. I I always love clean and the stuff that they did, they tried it. I I think it worked. So I'll I'll give them that, you know, for for what they they did get. Danny, what about you?

SPEAKER_06 2:02:05

I'm gonna say three and a half. I don't think it was a masterpiece of a film, but I think it was solid. I think three and a half is a good score, you know. And I don't know. I enjoyed it. I thought it was a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_08 2:02:19

I am right there with you. I cannot give it four stars because I have some very good movies that are at to me, four and above, you're starting to talk serious classic. But three and a half is something eminently rewatchable, something that you can kind of pull something from that looks good and that type of thing. And I think this movie, for what it was trying to do, it did a pretty fair job of it, especially for four fucking million dollars. That was quite a shock when I found out that's how much money I spent on it. Yeah, that is not much, and it and I I'm a little biased. I love my boy Kyle, so um, I just ever since then in America, I'm just like, I'll watch anything this guy's in, I don't give a shit.

SPEAKER_04 2:02:50

For me, it's like they used to make movies on 35mm for four million all the time that were equal quality to this, so it doesn't really stand out too much to me. There's a lot of good movies in the past that were shot for four million dollars on 35 Cliff, you know that.

SPEAKER_08 2:03:09

Well, yeah, I mean, good, but I I don't know.

SPEAKER_04 2:03:12

I mean, I think this is a that's why I didn't think this was that big a deal. Technically doing a really doing a lot for the city. Oh, you're redoing the 90s for me.

SPEAKER_05 2:03:19

Okay.

SPEAKER_08 2:03:20

You know, I mean, if I can I think for today's it's not a it's not a two, it's not like a two-hander walk and talk movie, right?

SPEAKER_06 2:03:28

In this economy, four million dollars.

SPEAKER_08 2:03:30

Four million dollars.

SPEAKER_00 2:03:32

Well, look back to so like one of our top five, you know, five's B movies is Bubba Hotep. All right, five million dollar budget. Um this they look the same, right? So let's just say shave off a million and say it was four million.

SPEAKER_06 2:03:48

Okay. Was it five or was it one, Bubba Hotep?

SPEAKER_00 2:03:51

No, it was it was it was five million because it was it wasn't indie, it was B movie. They had money because Bruce Campbell and Doncall.

SPEAKER_04 2:03:59

I think it was one, Danny.

SPEAKER_06 2:04:01

Yeah, it wasn't.

SPEAKER_04 2:04:04

It's like Kenny Elvis. I'm like, oh, he wouldn't like Bubba Hotep because he doesn't like Elvis Impersonators, that Ben character from giving delivery. That's true.

SPEAKER_08 2:04:16

That's what I would say, honestly, though. I th I would say that a million dollars when this was shot in 2003 is about four million now. Yeah, it's probably right. It's maybe two to maybe maybe three million. That's true. Well, and that's what I was gonna say is today. Four dollars just doesn't stretch today like it like it did back then.

SPEAKER_00 2:04:35

It's it's not a lot of money. It's not I know we've had this conversation way, way, way back.

SPEAKER_05 2:04:40

Is that in this economy?

SPEAKER_00 2:04:42

You know, Cliff, I think one of my favorite things from you when we did um was it revenge, it was Revenge of Zoe when we had our first get together. Um, your almost your exact words were I wouldn't know what the fuck to do with$50,000 if you gave it.

SPEAKER_08 2:04:57

You give me a million dollars, I'm gonna make 10 movies. I'm just gonna talk to them.

SPEAKER_00 2:05:00

Um but that's the kind of thing is I I numbers don't mean a lot to me, you know. Uh, but right here, four million dollars, that's not a lot today, but it is big on an indie scale. And if they're shooting film, like you said, there's there's a half million dollars just in stock.

SPEAKER_08 2:05:17

Yeah, God knows what the stock's gonna cost you.

SPEAKER_00 2:05:19

Let's talk about development, let's talk about what real editing, what time that costs, and the people you have to pay to do that with film as compared to digital because you can they can edit a Marvel movie like that because they got 700 people clicking away and shit. You got you got one film, you've got one strip of film. You can't have 50 people in the room working on it, you know. So I look at that and I think that's it is impressive.

SPEAKER_04 2:05:46

Yeah, and you know how they inflate the numbers for the budget, so that means they had even less.

SPEAKER_08 2:05:51

Yeah, it could have been, yeah, it could have been two or three million. That's very true.

SPEAKER_04 2:05:54

Yeah, well, it makes it more impressive. But I like the nitpick here. That's point of the point of the podcast. Oh, that's the whole point of the podcast.

SPEAKER_08 2:06:01

Yeah, what's oh yeah, that's why we're here. Because we love movies and we love to fucking nitpick them to death.

SPEAKER_06 2:06:06

That's right.

SPEAKER_08 2:06:06

That's why we have podcasts.

SPEAKER_06 2:06:08

That's what's fun about it.

SPEAKER_08 2:06:09

Yes, exactly.

SPEAKER_06 2:06:10

Yeah, take it apart.

SPEAKER_08 2:06:11

Well, guys, thanks for coming on. We really appreciate you. Yeah, oh, thanks for having us.

SPEAKER_06 2:06:16

It's a blast every time talking to you guys about film.

SPEAKER_08 2:06:20

All the filmers. I think we broke a record today. This is the longest. This is our record. In fact, I think you guys had to set the record last time. Probably you set it again for the longest podcast.

SPEAKER_00 2:06:30

We're chabby little shits, so yeah. Um I never showed so it's yeah.

SPEAKER_06 2:06:36

Oh, and we're from the Midwest, so we could just talk forever and ever and ever and ever.

SPEAKER_08 2:06:41

Yeah. Hi, how are you? Natural born podcasters.

SPEAKER_00 2:06:45

Natural born podcasters. Oh, you know what? Right here, it's been put out into the world. Let's noodle that. I love I I I could think of some fun ideas. Natural born podcasters. We could bring some stuff together. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_08 2:07:10

Well, let's let's talk about it. Who knows? Who knows, guys? That may be the next project. We'll see. All right, let's get out of here. Risky Daddy. Guys, thanks again. Yeah. Um, and again, I've said it before and I'll say it again. Squatch can't drive no pickup truck.

SPEAKER_04 2:07:25

Squatch can't drive. Motherface, why'd you cut the door down? Oh, wait, that's the wrong sorry, wrong movie, sir. Wrong. And there we are.