Talking Pondo: Withnail and I and The Commitments

 In this episode, Marty gives Clif the movie Withnail and I to watch and Clif gives Marty the movie The Commitments to watch. 

Season 3 wraps with a British/Irish cult double feature.

First up is Withnail and I (1987) - Bruce Robinson’s chaotic, quotable portrait of two struggling actors at the tail end of the ’60s. Marty and Clif explore its “British Fear and Loathing” energy, cult status, and surprising influence on American indie cinema.

Then it’s The Commitments (1991) - Alan Parker’s story of working-class Dubliners forming a soul band with big dreams and fragile egos. What starts as a scrappy music underdog story becomes something sharper: a brutally honest look at ambition, creative tension, and why great bands fall apart.

Along the way, they talk British cult film, music realism, indie influence, creative partnerships, and closing out a season that covered 72 films in nine months.

Season 4 starts next week.

#TalkingPondo #WithnailAndI #TheCommitments #SeasonFinale #FilmPodcast #CultCinema #BritishFilm #IrishCinema #IndieFilm #AlanParker 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Like you don't suddenly hand drumsticks to Tommy Harper and he learns how to play overnight and he's just the other guy. Right. But it's a movie. It's a movie. It's putting move the story along. It's not trying to be realistic and that's the effect, I think.

SPEAKER_03 0:17

That is a perfect analogy, though. Man, you you fucking nailed it. Giving Mika Wallace the drums is like giving Tommy Harper a fucking pair of drumsticks. Now he does say he's breaking him in and fix and figuring him out.

SPEAKER_00 0:32

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_03 1:03

That's what happened after the end of it. Interesting episode, folks. I'd I'd probably strap in if I was you. Just make sure you've your five-point harness is fully secure.

SPEAKER_01 1:12

Of course, strap in because it's season three, episode 36. That's right, baby. Which means we have hit the end of season three, but don't despair. We'll be back next week with the beginning of season four. And uh, do you want to get us out of here on a quote? No, we're not to that point yet. Just kind of letting you know where we're at. But the interesting thing, because I like to say that word a lot, I'm not even gonna introduce myself yet, but first I want to say this that this season was today will be 72 solid movies we covered in nine months' time because seasons one and two had making episodes sprinkled out. So this is the first season where we did 72 movies. Woo, we I felt it.

SPEAKER_03 1:58

I felt it. There were there were weeks where it was like, whoo! I mean, it was like we talked about during Party Animal and BlackRock, where it's like, boy, it was nice to have two two movies under 120 or an hour 25 minutes. You know, because some I mean, some of these movies, especially once you're doing all the the reviewing and all the due diligence, right, along with watching the film. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:22

It's talking pond? Yeah, it's talking pondo, you're right. I'm Marty and I'm Cliff. And we're back talking movies again. And now you know what Pondo is if you listen to every episode.

SPEAKER_03 2:34

And if you haven't, then you need to not, there's yeah, you should go back and listen to that Pondo Pondo Synaptic.

SPEAKER_01 2:39

You might put it in the show notes now, that Pondo episode. You can just link people to oh, you want to know what that is? Here, listen to that. Our origin episode. It only took a hundred episodes to get there, but it was our origin episode. People start coming to up to us and going, so Pondo comes from that BlackRock movie? Yeah, sure. Sure, sure, sure.

SPEAKER_03 2:56

Yeah, yeah, Spencer Tracy.

unknown 2:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 2:58

We call him, we like to call him Pondo at home.

SPEAKER_01 3:01

Boy, did we do a lot of quirky British movies this season. And we did a lot of British movies, and some movies that you could say are quirky, but I'd be like, no, I I I'm gonna argue that one's less quirky. But that's for the season review coming up. But for today, we have two more totally quirky British movies.

SPEAKER_03 3:26

Well, I guess one's Irish and the other's British. Well, it's still all the thing, like, you know, all the Emerald Isles, right?

SPEAKER_01 3:34

Somebody over there is watching an American movie and a Canadian movie and a movie from Mexico and saying, ah, it's all that American stuff. And I'm okay with that. So but they all have that that that same kind of quirk.

SPEAKER_03 3:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:47

Right. Yeah. And so our movies today are not with nail and eye, which some American would call it. The guy's name was Withnell.

SPEAKER_03 3:56

Withnull.

SPEAKER_01 3:56

Right? Withnull and I.

SPEAKER_03 3:58

Withnull and eye.

SPEAKER_01 4:00

And that movie is is no surprise that that movie came out on January 1st, 1987, kicking off that big that stretch in style right away. Movie was shot in '86, of course, but wow, does it begin at belong at the beginning of that zeitgeist of the 1987 to 1994 stretch? And our other movie is where would so many of these other quirky British movies be without Alan Parker's 1991 The Commitments? A movie that really didn't do that well when it first came out, but got a cult following as time went on. Because I think for the average viewer, it might be too much subtext going on, but we'll get into that as uh maybe I talk about it.

SPEAKER_03 4:49

I yeah, I think you might be right. I think that it's one of those movies that rewards multiple viewings. The more that you watch it. In life experience. Yeah, in life experience. But the more that you watch it, and of course, especially if you're into music and you've ever been anywhere near a band or anywhere been near the dynamics of bands, or your friends have been in bands, or whatever, there's a little bit of that in there too.

SPEAKER_01 5:11

Um, but yeah. We have we have listener mail.

SPEAKER_03 5:15

Sweet, let's check it out. What have we got?

SPEAKER_01 5:18

Uh speaking of the party animal. Yes. Ray writes in, Ray Daniel writes in talking about that that movie and says, Oh man, party animal is literally imprinted and fried in my brain.

SPEAKER_02 5:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:33

And if you were around us in the 90s, it's it's imprinted in your brain as well. We did that. We did that.

SPEAKER_03 5:41

I don't feel bad about it either. I have no regrets in that in that regard at all.

SPEAKER_01 5:47

No, no regrets. I'm glad so. So, like we said, you know, listen to that episode.

SPEAKER_03 5:52

It's gonna be like that scene in Reign of Fire where Christian Bale and that other dude are reenacting Star Wars, right? Like we've we've pushed party animal on, and so when the the when the when the apocalypse happens and everything crumbles, and the necromancers are wandering the wastelands in caves somewhere, they'll be reenacting the party animal, you know. It'll be and kids will just be like, What the fuck is this? This is amazing.

SPEAKER_01 6:18

And this is simultaneously happening with reality shows about cooking.

SPEAKER_03 6:24

Hopefully. God, that's that's even more amazing.

SPEAKER_01 6:28

If you count that movie, it's 73 movies. But we didn't review that movie, we just talked about it. Cuisine daily apocalypse.

SPEAKER_03 6:39

Kyle and Zuzu Weingart. Definitely check that out on Tubi. It's definitely worth a watch.

SPEAKER_01 6:44

Uh so what do you want to start the season finale off with?

SPEAKER_03 6:49

That's an easy one. Uh, much like Party Animal BlackRock, I want to get with Null and I out of the way so we can talk about the commitment.

SPEAKER_01 6:57

With Nil. But uh with null. Look, I well, you never hear I's name. He's always just and I. Oh no, we get his name. No, we get his name in the phone. Oh, really? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 7:06

I'm I made a note of it. What's his name? Um I'll have to go through my notes and find it.

SPEAKER_01 7:11

But uh Wikipedia uh reader. What's his name?

SPEAKER_03 7:14

No, I wrote it down on my my my actual notes.

SPEAKER_01 7:17

Because there's the whole thing on Wikipedia, and they do write his name in the code.

SPEAKER_03 7:19

His name is Marwood.

SPEAKER_01 7:21

That's that's the common. But it is kind of a trip that even in the end credits, it just says and now this movie ends. Or no, this movie begins the way the other movie ends, and that alone sent goosebumps on my arm because whiter shade of pale creates that connection. What does that affect when an album ends and then the first song back into the first song? And these two movies kind of do that to each other no matter what order you watch them in. That really freaked me out, man, when whiter shade of pale showed up in both movies. It's just strange, right? It's just strange. What's going on there? Why why is that? Why?

SPEAKER_03 8:09

I yeah, I think it's it's a perfect use of the of the of the song in two very vastly different films. Um with Noel and I is a film about two, it's it's yeah, what is With No and I?

SPEAKER_01 8:27

Let's explain. That's a good call.

SPEAKER_03 8:29

Um, let me read that to you.

SPEAKER_01 8:30

Unpack as the uh AI likes to say with Noah and I, 1987, rated R.

SPEAKER_03 8:37

One hour and 47 minutes. Uh directed and written by Bruce Robinson, stars Richard E. Grant, Paul McGann, Richard Griffiths. Uh, let's see, your log line is two sloppy actors spend a weekend holiday at an uncle's country cottage. Is that what happens? Oh, that's a part of it.

SPEAKER_01 8:54

I don't really isn't a plot.

SPEAKER_03 8:57

Uh London, 1969. Two resting, unemployed, and unemployable actors, Whithnall and Marwood, fed up with damp cold piles of washing up, mad drug dealers, and psychotic Irishmen, decide to leave their squalid Camden flak for an flat for an idyllic holiday in the countryside, courtesy of Whithnell's uncle Monty's country cottage. When they get there, it rains nonstop, there's no food, and their basic survival instinct turn out to be somewhat limited. Matters are not helped by the arrival of Uncle Monty, who shows an uncomfortably keen interest in Marwood.

SPEAKER_01 9:30

And it's set in the late 60s. It's the very, very end of the 60s this morning.

SPEAKER_03 9:35

So I never caught that. Like I I don't know if I missed it, if they were somehow Oh, yeah, you missed that.

SPEAKER_01 9:41

Yeah, they established it very early on.

SPEAKER_03 9:43

I I did not, yeah, I missed I missed them establishing that it was. I think a title comes from it.

SPEAKER_01 9:47

Maybe a title or something.

SPEAKER_03 9:48

Okay, I must have looked away for a second and missed it. But uh, and that makes a little bit more sense, I guess. Uh the opening reminded me of Tootsie for some reason. I don't know why. That very beginning opening with the the song and the thing. I just such a Tootsie feel too is freaking weird to me. I don't know. Well, it's a very grainy movie. And watching those eggs just swim in grease at the beginning, I'm just like, oh fuck, the Brits.

SPEAKER_01 10:15

Yeah. I called it uh the British Fear and Loathing, but I also call it the British clerks slash SLC Punk. And it predates those too. It has that kind of a precursor.

SPEAKER_03 10:30

It's it's like someone took the young ones to the next level. Yeah, yeah. If you like Rick Mile, yeah, if you like that, you'll love this. Um, it's it's like watching two well-educated English meth heads run around for an hour and a half.

SPEAKER_01 10:47

They are speed pressing.

SPEAKER_03 10:49

They're fucking entertaining as shit, but I mean, you're 40, 45 fucking minutes of this movie going, where is this going? What is the point of this? What's the story? Where's the plot? And there really isn't one. It's just watching these two assholes kind of careen into shit for an hour and a half.

SPEAKER_01 11:05

It's it's the end of the crazy. It's like, here we go again with the fandango or any of these, like now it's gonna switch. It's not gonna be this anymore. I have to get my shit together, and you you're not gonna get your shit together.

SPEAKER_03 11:19

It's that weird crashing out of fear and loathing. Fear and loathing is a good example, too. That weird crashing out at the end once they've you know threatened the girl at the restaurant and they're finally leaving Vegas and it's just sort of frizzled and frazzled and fried the fuck out. It seems like that's that has something to do with it, too.

SPEAKER_01 11:37

And that's why I say SLC punk, like the okay, now I'm gonna clean up and I'm gonna I'm gonna you know do this, but you're always gonna be you're on a whole other adventure over there.

SPEAKER_03 11:50

Well, you're never gonna get a real job as an actor, so you're never gonna be called upon to you know, these guys are it's it's it's my feeling that these guys are like this because this is where they are in their lives and their lots, and if they were making better money or getting more work, they wouldn't be as much like this, right? Or at least Marwood wouldn't. Whithnell maybe, right? But it's sort of, well, here's here's the madness that we're for. Like MASH, right? Like we're doctors and we're forced into this butchery shop and hacking these kids up who come in from uh from the from the front line. So let's drink and be merry for tomorrow we die, type of thing, right? And Whithnell and Marw would very much seem to be in that mindset due to where they are as actors and their employment prospects and that type of thing. Yeah. Kind of a OG train spotting and my note literally says it's gross and dirty like train spotting or the young ones, but where's the drugs?

SPEAKER_01 12:47

Well, they've done them already.

SPEAKER_03 12:49

Right, but that's the only thing missing from this movie that I don't really see is any real serious drug use.

SPEAKER_01 12:53

Yeah. And what I really like is towards the end when the guy rolls that carrot thing that he needs 12 papers for, yes, and you see, oh, he's made a cone, the 60s version of a cone, and he fixes the run at one point. And you're like, oh now that's authentic. Because you don't see somebody fix a run in a movie too much.

SPEAKER_03 13:14

Well, that's the dude, he's the legendary, he's the legendary roadie from Wayne's World 2. He is, isn't he?

SPEAKER_01 13:21

That's why he's so familiar.

SPEAKER_03 13:23

As soon as I heard his voice, I was like, that's the legendary roadie.

SPEAKER_01 13:28

Wow. Yeah. Yeah. That's why he's like the greatest decade of mankind is ending. That's why he's telling them, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 13:37

He's got such a distinct way of talking. It was um it's it's got this early moments of like mumble core, early moments of Tarantino.

SPEAKER_01 13:47

That's why I say January 1st, 87 couldn't have arrived at a better moment.

SPEAKER_03 13:52

Like, especially once once our boy from Waynes World 2 shows up and he's talking in these long stretches about where he is and who he's from and drugs, that's so goddamn fucking Quentin Tarantino, it's not even funny. It's like that guy pulled his whole career from that one scene and just went, oh, well, if I just regurgitate other people's movies and do this with it, and look, I'll be Quentin Tarantino. It's insane. It's absolutely insane.

SPEAKER_01 14:19

Another thing they share in common, there's a person named Peter Frampton who worked on both movies. It's not the musician, it's a makeup artist. A guy, I think, who actually won Oscars for like Braveheart and stuff, did the makeup on both movies. So you have that and the lighter shade of pale connection.

SPEAKER_03 14:39

Marwood and Whitnell both drink sherry. This is 1987. They drink everything. They do, but they but at one point they're both like Sherry, and I had to look it up.

SPEAKER_01 14:51

And so I did this 1969.

SPEAKER_03 14:54

Yes, but the film is made in 1987, right? Well, six, yeah. Six, right? But it comes out in '87. Yeah. Being a British classic and uh um Frasier being such an enophile, he and his brother being enophiles, when Frasier starts, he and Niles, Frasier and Niles exclusively drink sherry. And it's always Sherry Niles, Sherry Frasier, and I wonder if they kind of like the writers kind of pulled that weird moment from this for the show. And it feels like they did, because this is kind of this is the sort of British kind of humor and counterculture that would feed that that American writers I think would discover and really feed into.

SPEAKER_01 15:35

Yeah, apparently it was already getting a cult following. Makes complete sense. I I think it might not have been released here on video till the mid-90s. Yeah, but I think some people were already, you know, seeing it, of course. Because sometimes it takes a while for it to seep over stuff to get over here.

SPEAKER_03 15:53

That's that's why Canada's like it is. Um, I will never play the Dane. I'm stealing that for our script. Um, that's gonna be my reference to withnell and I will be why not?

SPEAKER_01 16:06

Because we already got something from the other movie and in the script, and I went, that's where that's from. Yeah. Well, I thought you made that up. That's what I get for not doing my research.

SPEAKER_03 16:18

I'm not I'm not that good. The driving scenes have a fear and loathing feel. They have a very feel and load fear and loathing feel, especially in the middle of the night where he's driving and he's like, You move farther to the right, and he can't see, and you know, he's just driving. I gotta pull over. Oh, yeah. My favorite quote from the whole movie is give them a dose of ulnar give them a dose of unadulterated child's piss, and they have to give you your keys back. But yeah, I'm 35 minutes in and there's no plot. They've gone out to the country for some reason, they're actors. At no point do they establish that Monty is his uncle until he arrives later. You know, in fact, in the beginning, when I when they first meet Monty, Monty seems to be one of those kind of classic fringe character actors, you know, kind of theater hanger-on, gay type of people, right? Like he's and it's there's no mention of be of him being with nils that they're related at all, as far as I can tell.

SPEAKER_01 17:25

They did in that first.

SPEAKER_03 17:27

I couldn't tell for the life of me.

SPEAKER_01 17:29

It's so quick. You talk about repeated viewings, they're cramming so much because they don't hold your hand.

SPEAKER_03 17:35

They're kind of like no, this movie definitely is not holding your hand at all. This movie is it's very waiting for Godot, very weird, like no reference, no exposition, stream of consciousness. You have to just kind of keep up with the dialogue. In fact, wow, very much like our next movie, The Commitments, which is if you've ever read the Roddy Doyle's book, The Commitments, it's just basically like lines back and forth. And unless you know the staccato and the pace of who's talking in what position, you don't you get lost in who's saying what, right? And that's kind of like what this movie's like. It's just so much dialogue and so much, you know, almost like a Kevin Smith Clark's movie, for fuck's sake. It's like you said, it's insane. It's insane how much other uh filmmakers pulled from this movie.

SPEAKER_01 18:24

Oh yeah. Same for the other movie, yeah. Yeah. Some of the movies we watched this season I feel pulled from it.

SPEAKER_03 18:39

And this movie too. When he brings dinner and it's just a live chicken, and Whitnill's like, how do we make it die? Like, oh my god. It's it has a weird charm to it. It really does. It's it's it's strangely charming and strangely funny, but it's also I guess because I'm an American, kind of strangely at times perplexing and head scratching, where I'm just kind of like, what the fuck is going on?

SPEAKER_01 19:07

Um But it explains itself if you stick with that.

SPEAKER_03 19:12

Dude, when they stand that chicken up in the oven, we're like, take the feet off. He's like, No, he's gonna need him, and he stands the chicken up in the oven before he closes the oven door. I was fucking howling, man. I could not stop laughing at that shit. That was hilarious.

SPEAKER_01 19:24

Yeah, I was thinking it was gonna result in a fire or something. Life goes on.

SPEAKER_03 19:36

So the actor who plays Marwood, he shows up in another movie a little bit later. Do you know what that movie is, Marty? Oh, uh, hit me up for what it is. Um, okay. Well, it's pretty pretty unexpected, to be completely honest with you. No, it's the 1993 Three Musketeers with Charlie Sheen, uh, Kiefer Settling, and Chris O'Donnell.

SPEAKER_01 20:04

So it was the Hotshots connection.

SPEAKER_03 20:07

So it's the uh Hotshots connection. But yeah, he plays the offended brother. Early on, Chris O'Donnell is leaving his country home where he has had sex with some country daughter, and he is moving to Paris to become a musketeer. And her brothers have found out that of course he is departing with her maidenhood, and they have decided to kill him for that, and he's one of the brothers. And he plays kind of this very fancy kind of fop, you know, with uh the wig and the the you know fake mole on his cheek and the pale powder and shit. It's pretty funny. So that's him. I can't remember his name, but yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:44

He's a solid as a very solid. There's there's uh they everybody is in this movie, but there's one part where uh they're eating at the table, and with nil says uh some bullshit to the other guy, and then and I just gives him this fucking stare, like, and one half of his face is shocked, and one half of his face is pissed. And it's interesting to see somebody carry both emotions like that through one eye and the other eye. It's like you're an interesting actor to be able to do that. Richard Griffiths say those parts.

SPEAKER_03 21:21

Richard Griffiths is an amazing actor. Um, that's the he's the he's Monty, the uncle. He's he's he's been around for for a long time. He's been in a bunch of movies. He's a fantastic actor. Really, really good. Look, so and speaking of Monty, speaking of him, Monty at one point is basically like it's telling Marwood, like, look, I gotta have you. We're fucking whether you like it or not. Like, he's just like, Look, it's I'm I know it's bad, and I know it's wrong, and I know, I know, but it's here, you know, here you go. Here it comes. Fucking grease yourself up and think. Of England, it's happening, right? And fucking Marwitz just like horrified. And I'm laughing so loudly that I can't like I can't get the air in to make the noise. That's how hard I'm laughing. But I'm also just like, what the fuck is this script? What is going on? And then you find out, of course, that it's all been a setup so that just because Whythnill just wanted to go to the country, he was so sick of the city that he basically just offered his friend's ass up to his uncle so they could stay at this fucking country estate. It's insane. It does, but also you start to realize how fucking diabolical his friend is. Like how absolutely fucking diabolical his fucking friend is. It's just wrong.

SPEAKER_01 22:45

Yeah, it's another one of these where it's like, does it play today? But then you go, well, remember, this is set in 1969. Things are different in the 60s. I think it plays.

SPEAKER_03 22:56

You know, I think it plays.

SPEAKER_01 22:58

Of course it does because it's a period piece.

SPEAKER_03 23:00

Yeah, it it not just because it's a period piece, but I think you could probably you could update this and kind of do it, and it would still be funny. And it would still kind of play without having to really change much as far as the you know landscape goes, the political landscape goes. What do I know? Uh as I like to say often on this show. But hey, what do I know? A toilet trader. What the fuck is that? Now you know. Yeah. I enjoyed it. Um I had a hard time following it. I really had a hard time following it. I I just I think it's just so goddamn British that it's so deep into its own culture.

SPEAKER_01 23:40

Oh, yeah, there's parts where I was just left going, I don't even understand.

SPEAKER_03 23:45

You know, it's it's like watching clerks, where if you're not American, clerks, some of the jokes are gonna play really well. Hey, nice cat, what's its name? Annoying customer. That joke's gonna play anywhere, but some of the other shit is gonna, you know, isn't gonna play as much because it's just it's bet about cultural reference.

SPEAKER_01 24:03

But there's that tone, right? Right. So no no wonder Smith is so popular over there. Because now this movie makes that experience make more sense to you.

SPEAKER_03 24:13

Completely. I mean, these things feel like what are they connecting to? And now you're like, oh it's just the difference is just in the kind of the cultural lingo, the slang, and the reference, but the whole thing is still there, the whole, you know, sort of working class, downtrodden, you know, making it making it, you know, making it making ends meet hand-to-foot, you know, hand-to-mouth type of thing, hand-to-foot, hand-to-mouth type of thing. It's uh that's you know, culturally, I think that's that's uh plays anywhere, right? Everybody struggles. These two though, Whithnol and Marwood, they seem to struggle kind of because they want to.

SPEAKER_01 24:57

Well, yeah, it's the 60s. We're we're still kind of free-floating and experimenting and finding ourselves, and like the guy at the end, very similar to Easy Rider, is kind of like, well, it's over now, guys. Yeah, yeah. Not so much we blew it, but it's just that you can't keep it's done. You can't keep going down that path anymore. You gotta figure something else out, and then the switch happens.

SPEAKER_03 25:19

Well, and that's you know, a movement, you know, when they call they called it a movement because you know, movements move to a certain point and then they stop moving, you know what I mean? That's what that's what a movement does, and that movement had stopped. So um, but yeah, what did you think? Would you enjoy it? I liked it. Yeah, it sticks with you. It does. It does. I I I it's well shot. It is. Another thing I'll say is you're not gonna see another movie like it. Even for its even for its basic premise of what it is, you're not gonna see another movie. You know, you could give this script out to 50 different people and get 50 different movies, but this is gonna be the version you're gonna want to watch because it is the wildest, craziest version that you can get.

SPEAKER_01 26:03

It's very much these actors specifically. Another movie with barely any women in it.

SPEAKER_03 26:13

Yeah, no, you're right. And the actors, Richard Grant and Paul McGann, really carry the film. I mean, they're really, really close to a two-hander.

SPEAKER_01 26:23

Yeah. Um so much is just those same people over and over again. And they have a rat-infested place too, just like in the other movies momentarily mentions. I was gonna cook onions.

SPEAKER_03 26:40

I think it's a movie that I will probably enjoy more the more I watch. Um, because it'll reveal itself more and kind of all understand its cultural references more and that type of thing. Um I don't know that it's the greatest well, you know, the most well-made movie, but at the same time, I don't necessarily care about that. It's like clerks, right? Black and white, rough camera, not the best movement, whatever, who gives a shit?

SPEAKER_01 27:08

Um, this is this is British clerks, that's why it's totally seven years before the cycle. I'm gonna have to go four stars. I'm gonna have to. Yeah, you can go you can go with null to clerks. Yeah, that's a cycle.

SPEAKER_03 27:20

So it's it's it's they're so it's it's insane how closely tied together they are, and just tone and feel, and just overall that like I don't know how to else to put it. It's it feels like Kevin watched Whitnell and I and was like, I'm gonna make my own version of it.

SPEAKER_01 27:36

It it's neat that we watched a bunch of those other movies and then we got to this one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because it allows us to reflect on all that.

SPEAKER_03 27:44

And it's it's it's amazing that this came up so organically, it makes sense that people were telling us, oh, you should, you know, that's what you're talking about, then you should probably watch this too. Yeah, you're absolutely right.

SPEAKER_01 27:54

That makes complete sense. Like, what is that? I mean, even the artwork is that uh Ralph Steadman drawing, it's like it's telling you it's a fear and loathing type. Yeah, it's yeah, it's giving you a good indication right away. This is what you're getting into. It's such a trip because they made it at the end of 86, and like five months later it was in theaters, you know, because you had quick turnarounds. So it gets that, like I've mentioned time and time again, that last of that hippie filmmaking, right? Because it's a little bit of the psychedelic, but it's pure 87 to 94 vibe. It like it totally straddles that fence better than anything. Because like before that is Manhattan Project, you know, we're just talking about getting rid of the news. Yeah, it's like you said, this is a this is a great herald to what's coming up.

SPEAKER_03 28:45

Like, hey, this is kind of what you're gonna start seeing. You're gonna start seeing these weird buddy pictures, these strange, these movies with these long monologues like Pulp Fiction and Clerks and you know, fucking Slacker, and here comes all these other films. You know, this makes a lot of sense. It really makes a lot of sense.

SPEAKER_01 29:03

And and I wonder how much this informed things like Slacker.

SPEAKER_02 29:07

Right.

SPEAKER_01 29:08

Well, the the next movie is got those 1987 vibes in a way, too, because it's based on a book from 1987, and then that got turned into a movie that they shot in late 1990, and that makes sense when you think about it in that respect. And then it comes out in the fall of 91. What is uh the full Monty of Music film? The commitments, or the other way around. Yeah, the other way around, actually, because Full Monty comes out. We'll take that and we'll replace the music with stripping.

SPEAKER_03 29:46

That's it. Uh the commitments, 1991, rated R, an hour and 58 minutes. Jimmy Rabbit, an unemployed Dublin boy, decides to put together a soul band made up entirely of the Irish working class. This is directed by Alan Parker. It's written by Roddy Doyle, uh, rewritten for the screen by Dick Clement and Ian Lafrein. Finae, sorry. Uh stars Robert Arkins, Michael Ahern, Angelina Ball, a fuckload others. Um let's see, your log line is just what I told you, the Jimmy Rabbit thing, and then your storyline is funny musical and occasionally dramatic. This is the story of a tumultuous rise and fall of a Dublin soul band called The Commitments, managed by Jimmy Rabbit, an unemployed wheeler and dealer with a vision to create the world's hardest working band.

SPEAKER_01 30:35

Sure.

SPEAKER_03 30:37

Um I'm I'm glad that we finally get to get to this movie. Uh listener, you know, look, just take everything that happens from here on out with a grain of salt because I just want to say this is my favorite movie of all time. So if I sound defensive, it's because I probably am. Um but yeah, this is I I think that this is this is an out absolute banger classic of a film. I can't think of many other films that handle bands better than this. And I can't think of many films that do what this movie has done. Because once once we get into it, we start breaking it down, you're gonna see what a kind of a fucking miracle this movie was in the first place. And secondly, I mean these Alan Parker's doing shit that that um uh Sean's doing, uh a lot of these other guys that are doing the cinema verite stuff where they're you know uh safty who's bringing oh I'm gonna put you next to some people who don't really act because I want it to seem gritty and real. Well, guess what? Parker's doing that with an entire fucking band. None of these people are actors. None of them are actors. A few of them had been in things before, but like the lead guy, the guy who plays Jimmy Rabbit, he's a he's a musician. The lead singer in the commitments, he's just a 16-year-old kid whose dad happened to, you know, be working as the as a music thing and doing some work with Alan Parker and said, Well, here my kid can sing. You know, it's insane. Anyway, I'll I I I I'll start wandering if you don't keep me in check. So the commitments.

SPEAKER_01 32:14

This is another trilogy, apparently. Yeah. This is the first part of a trilogy. I had no idea. Yeah, the van comes next. Yep. And the other movies are The Snapper and The Van. I think they not the Danny DeVito.

SPEAKER_03 32:33

I think the Snapper comes after the Van, but I could be wrong.

SPEAKER_01 32:37

And uh so who knows? Maybe we'll have to bring those on. They are not directed by Alan Parker, but they are all from the same authors. Roddy Doyle. Yeah, Roddy Doyle wrote the van. The family or something. There's some kind of connection.

SPEAKER_03 32:51

The van is about a chippy van. It's about the you know, that you know, the the kids run around in that chippy van, and the van is about the chippy van. And you know who runs the chippy van in the van? Fucking Colmey. The dad from fucking the commitments. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:05

So there's some nice, there's some nice always sunny. Yeah. But you know him best from Star Trek.

SPEAKER_03 33:10

Yeah, this would have been right around the time that he was starting to get Star Trek work as uh uh Chief O'Brien.

SPEAKER_01 33:16

And wasn't he also in Get Him to the Greek? Yeah, later on, yeah, hell yeah. He's become one of our most watched actors. Love him. Love Colmey. Well, yeah, he's Charlie Day's dad on It's Always Sunny when they go to Ireland. Of course he feels pretty good.

SPEAKER_03 33:33

Um so let's start from the beginning. So so we started an Irish SWAT meet in this film, right? And we hear one kid singing some song about a Cumberland mine, and he's singing like it just happened, and he's trying to commemorate the whole thing. And we follow Jimmy Rabbit, who's moving through, trying to move some merchandise, and we see right away that he's kind of a hustler. He's trying to make money, he's doing things, and we pass by another guy who's singing Jackie's clown on a friggin' acoustic guitar. And you know, we think it's Everly Brothers, right? Yeah, Everly Brothers right away, right? And setting some tones, but we also realize this is working class, poor people, Irish SWAT meet. This is not no ain't nobody got money here, right? Um, and then immediately cut to a wedding. Right? We immediately cut to this wedding with this terrible dude singing fucking what is that song, Needles and Pins. He's singing needles and pins, and the fucking band, the the crowd is eating it up, and and he in turn is wiggling his ass like he's fucking Tom Jones or some shit. Like he's you know, and the two dudes playing the guitar and the bass are so fucking over it. You can tell they're so over it. Like, because the guitarist is literally playing the slide with his beer glass. That's how bored he is.

SPEAKER_01 34:53

One of them is Glenn Hansard. Yes. And I know him because he performs with Pearl Jam every now and then. Him and Eddie Vedder do throw your arms around me occasionally as a duet. They've been doing that on and off for the past 20 years. You're fucking kidding me. I was like, oh, I know. I didn't even know. You're fucking kidding me. Yeah, man. Cool little thing.

SPEAKER_03 35:13

Yeah, Glenn Hansard is he plays outspan Foster. So Glenn Hansard also, just so you know, he was, I think he won an Oscar. Yeah, he won an Oscar for once. For once. Yeah. Best achievement in music written for motion picks or for an original song. So he's been around for a bit, and as an actor and a musician, he's very, very talented guy. Um, but yeah, so they, you know, Jimmy Rabbit shows up at that at that uh yeah. Well, first off, I love the fact that he's on the bus basically selling movies that he's dubbed onto VHS tape. That's that's so much something like I don't know. I because I used to sell shit at like school all the time. It feels like something I would have done, you know, if I'd had the balls. Um but then he shows up at that wedding and the dude goes. Well, look, that's the only way you were getting stuff back then.

SPEAKER_01 36:04

True. He didn't have internet.

SPEAKER_03 36:05

Yeah. But he shows up at that wedding and immediately the lead singer's like, Well, we'll be back, so stay in the groove. And they cut to Jimmy's face and he looks like he's about to puke. It's so perfect because he's just like, What? And then we get drunk deco singing. That's uh, I don't know if you know that song, but that song from um that he's singing, the one Letters from America, that's a fucking commitment. The proclaimer song. The same band that did uh I Would Walk 500 Miles, another Irish band from Leith, I think. Anyway. Like and subscribe. But yeah, he's so he's um he's approached to manage the band, and what does he do? He immediately fires the lead singer and then and and because he knows that the dude that he just heard singing drunk that fell over off the stage and ended up piling into a bunch of people is the guy that he wants to sing for the band, and we're off and running, you know.

SPEAKER_01 37:01

And then we get that whole great audition montage with it is the uh birth of the uh American Idol format or British Idol, but it's not because remember, Alan Parker brought us a movie called Fame, which brought us that first. This is kind of like a sister movie to fame, I feel, from him.

SPEAKER_03 37:22

That's a great call. I I feel that Alan Parker is the one after fame to perfectly be positioned to make a movie like this and to pull this off. Because again, he shows up in Dublin and starts going, okay, how are we gonna do this? And they just start having open casting calls. The guy who plays the saxophone, Dean, the jazz saxophone player, he was hired just to be in the audition band. He was hired to play the background music for the people who were coming in to audition for parts. And Alan Parker spotted him and was like, I'm gonna use that guy as my saxophonist. The lead guy who plays the trumpet, Joey, he doesn't know how to play trumpet. He's an actor. He has no fucking idea, he's never played an instrument his entire life. Jimmy Rabbit, the guy who plays Jimmy Rabbit, he plays eight fucking instruments and he played, he tried out for four different musical parts in the film, and they went, nope, you're gonna play the one fucking character who doesn't play a fucking instrument at all. Which must have been frustrating as hell for him to have to fucking literally, because the whole band is an actual band. They're playing these songs live. Alan Parker and his sound producer figured out early on how to do something that they called off-phase recording, where they could have live performances and they could record the vocal tracks live. So then everything feels right there and in the moment. So all the things that Deco are singing are live. In the very end, where he's singing Try a Little Tenderness, and he takes the microphone off the stand, you can hear the rustle of the microphone as he's pulling it off the stand because it's all fucking live. So, anyway, very, very cool. In case you haven't noticed, this is one of my favorite films. But yeah, we get that great audition scene. Elvis was a Cajun. Uh, you get that traditional iron's folk music, and they cut to all the girls and this mom dancing in the fucking kitchen. You know, and then you get fucking Coconut Joe and all these weird auditions, you know, the fucking punk rock guy who claims that Barry Manilo is his is his uh inspiration.

SPEAKER_01 39:31

Anyway, that's some good shit in there. I mean, I do enjoy the film, but I find it incredibly frustrating to watch. I think it's gotta be the slowest getting the band together sequence of any movie. Don't they spend like the first half of the movie just getting the band together and they even say we're not allowed to rehearse? And I'm like, and then once they start playing, they never stop playing for the last hours.

SPEAKER_03 39:59

I don't remember ever hearing we're not allowed to rehearse, but um I mean it does it does take, I think it's 34 minutes before they have the entire band together where they've got all the pieces together. You know, Joey the Lips Fagan shows up, they get the commitment at, you know, um, because he's you know he's got to go to Bernie and ask Bernie to bring in a Mel De Quark, which brings in the other girl, so he's got the three backups singers he needs. Um but yeah, I mean it's interesting that you say that.

SPEAKER_01 40:29

I think it's just an older movie, and I think that's what my was getting the pacing on it. Because and yet, you know, it's Alan Parker, he's always gonna be weird. This guy brought us the wall, which also kind of fits into the themes of this as well. And but yet I see pieces of Tati in this.

SPEAKER_02 40:48

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_01 40:49

Like there's those little moments here and there where you're like, oh yeah, he's he's such a strange, he's such a strange director. His movies are always challenging and bizarre. And this is definitely one of his better movies. I would agree. But it's still it was much like the other movie, once you get to the end, you go, now I see the bigger picture. I see what this whole thing was. And like I mentioned earlier, you it mentioned really earlier, like you get different things out of different movies watching them at different times in your life. You know, I've watched the commitments in my 20s, and I would think it's about one thing, but then I get into my 50s, and having made several creative ventures with many different people, and then you start to realize what kind of subtext Alan Parker and the author are putting into this that I don't know if everybody's catching on to. And that's and so the frustration was the real life of the oh my god, because you're experiencing what you've gone through in ways reflected on the screen, and that's why it can be a hard watch, because it's not entertaining for me to go down those roads again, but it's a true watch. It's a true watch.

SPEAKER_03 42:11

That's why I love it more than anything, is because it I saw these. You this is what I'm talking about. This is why I mentioned if you've ever been around bands, you and I have been around bands. We've seen our friends go through bands, we've been around bands, and you know, we've we've brought bands on shows, you know, we've seen kind of that aspect of the music business. We've seen watched bands fall apart literally in front of our fucking eyes. You know, we've seen friendships shatter because of them. And so a lot of that feels so realistic, you know, and and I mean shit. I watch this movie now and I can literally tell the moment that the band starts to tip over into falling apart. There's a moment it's you know, when when he gets electrocuted, they have their first big performance, right? At the church heroin kills sign and all that shit. And and he gets shocked because he somehow crossed the audio mics with the with the ant mics, right? And he was the ground. And so he gets electrocuted, and the whole band's there to fucking, you know, get him out of the hospital, and they're excited to see him, and they're all kind of chatting and they're all excited, and there's this energy. And then literally the the next scene is is them practicing and deco being a dickhead and make and and upsetting the baby and them having to practice fucking with the baby crying, right? And you can see it kind of start to fall apart. Fucking Joey the Lips is starting to fuck all you know, all the different girls in the band and you know create that havoc, and then you know, all this other shit that starts to go on and it starts to slowly fall apart. My favorite part of the movie is when Jimmy gets the fucking record deal. He's talking to Agent Records, he's got the, you know, we're not gonna give you a front, but we're gonna pay for money in a studio and this. And he goes, yeah. And he's he runs back to the back to tell the band that he's got this record deal, and they're fucking just completely. These shit ass people who have completely fallen apart all over each other and their egos have driven them to this. And he just looks at him and goes, Fuck all of you. Like you're not fucking worth it.

SPEAKER_01 44:11

Get the fuck away. It's like when when they all beat each other up in the motel room and Tom Savini's like, Well, what the fuck? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 44:17

Because it's kind of the same themes of, you know. Yeah, no, I totally. But then that's that's why it's so beautiful that he's walking down later and and Joey explains to him, it's like, dude, it's you know, yeah, we could have fucking made records and been famous, and that would have been fucking predictive.

SPEAKER_01 44:34

Yeah, I don't think Joey wanted to say that though. I think Joey wanted to make the albums and be a success. I think that's kind of the little band-aid he's putting on it.

SPEAKER_03 44:42

I still think it's a but I still think it even if it's a band-aid, it's still a valid bandage. It's still a valid way to look at it and say, yeah, you could, we could have been famous, it could have worked all out. It could have been great. But if nothing else, look at what you did for all these people who went on to be in bands and do other things and and and have some sort of success in some way that they may not have had they not joined this one band and you done what you did, right? Which is that's the coolest thing, I think. It it's it's like you and I used to have a television show on public access, and there were several shows that spun out of us. Several shows that spun directly out of us. The David Ken show, the fucking the Jason show, right? And so without the without us having a show, would that show have happened? What who knows, right? So it's a it's a fun way to look at it, I think. Um there's some my favorite, there's some some of my favorite stuff is you know, I love Mika Wallace. Um, I love that they give Deco a huge ego immediately. It makes complete sense. Um I love that Outband Foster gets so upset that his mom shows up to the first viewing and they're like, well, just have Micah throw her out. And he's like, My mom would beat the shit out of Micah Wallace any fucking day of the week, and the whole band's just laughing at him. You know, they're just like that's hilarious that your mom would and and if you go back and watch the film, when his mom shows up, Micah Wallace is like, Oh, Mrs. Fastman, come over right over here. He's very, he's very conciliatory towards her, which I find very funny. The movie's been thought out very well so that these things pay off. Like a lot of things are you know, pay off these things that you see earlier on, they pay off to a joke or to a comment or to something else that happens. It's a really well thought out movie, I think. Um, I one of my other favorite parts is I love Jimmy's dad's obsession with Elvis and when Joey shows up and is telling those Elvis stories. You remember? He was like, well, and then Werner puked in my trumpet. What? Verner puked in your trumpet, and yeah, and then what then what happened? And the the twins come in and and Colb's like, get out, get out, because he's desperate to hear, you know, this whole story about Werner and Elvis. I just thought that was hilarious. Um, you know, the whole did you ever see Elvis using drugs? Nope, never, brother. That's the thing, is Joey lying throughout the movie or is he telling me the truth, Marty? He's telling the truth. Is he?

SPEAKER_01 47:23

Well, of course. About all of it? About all of it.

SPEAKER_03 47:27

He's so so Joey's truthful. You think Joey's truthful throughout the movie? Joey's the only truthful one.

SPEAKER_01 47:33

You think so? Yeah. Because Wilson Pickett shows up. So, right, but when he says like Big Knight, but the guy actually shows up. See, Big Knight pulled from this too, I think. But when he says, Oh, oh, that's a good call.

SPEAKER_03 47:45

That's a great call. Um, but when he says, I got a note from uh Joey's mom says he got a note from Joey, and Joey's on tour with Tex Ritter. The only problem is Tex Ritter's been dead since 1982. Well, so Joey's a fucking liar, right? Like it's the whole, it's my it's another one of my favorite scenes, is where he and he and that girl are gonna have sex, and he's like, he puts on the fucking shaft record and starts fucking doing that whole, come on, baby. You know, and just she's like, Would you stop talking shit, dude, and just get down here?

SPEAKER_01 48:20

Now you're tapping into my overall interpretation of the movie, which isn't something I caught until I got to the end of it. It was certainly not something I could have caught at age 20 or 30 or even 40. I would had to go through, like I was saying, experience with people and making movies and stuff and dealing with different people who respond differently to different things and whatnot. And uh watching this movie, I get to I go through it and I'm I'm aggravated, but then I get to the end of it and I realize it's not about the act one, act two, act three story. It's not even about figuring out if dude's a liar or not. It's it's more of allegories for things. It's kind of like when Harry met Sally feels like it's not about two people, but it's more about just the overall relationships. There's definitely some themes, right? It's like because if if I follow just the story of it, it becomes very unrealistic, right? Because like you don't suddenly hand drums to Tommy Harper and he learns how to play overnight and he says he said the other guy, right? But it's a movie, it's a movie, it's putting that to move the story along. It's not trying to be realistic in that respect.

SPEAKER_03 49:42

That is a perfect analogy, though. Man, you you fucking nailed it. Giving Tommy giving Mika Wallace the drums is like giving Tommy Harper a fucking pair of drumsticks. Now he does say he's breaking him in and fix and figuring him out. So yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 49:57

Because that's what happens. Well, I mean it's funny.

SPEAKER_03 49:59

I mean, this is the guy who made fame drums. The only other instrument you're gonna get into quickly on a band is bass, right?

SPEAKER_01 50:06

But but this is the guy who made fame. But then you get to the end of this and you go, oh, it is similar. Because just like in fame, you must want it. You can't chase somebody else's dream, it has to be your dream. Otherwise, it doesn't it falls apart. Like, of course the commitments fell apart. Because to me, it's a movie not about a band that almost made it and fell apart, it's about a band that never should have existed in the first place and ended up entitled. What Alan Parker seems to show us in his films is that you must be devoted to your craft, like in fame. And even then, eventually it could drive you crazy, like in the wall. But it's not about the story. It never is with Parker. It's about the themes and the caricatures. It's not bleak, it's kind of stark. It's kind of like there's always hope after going through hell in his movies, right? There's always a little, we went through the, it was rough, but there's still hope that if we have our dream, we can do it the right way with the right people that want to do it, instead of the people that you find who weren't really into it and they got a taste of it, and they immediately become entitled, and then everything falls apart. And I'm sure Alan Parker's experienced this. I'm sure Roddy's experienced this. And I feel like there's a lot of that subtext in the movie. It's kind of like uh you got to be devoted or go home. It's like that quote from Q in Star Trek, you know, it's there's all sorts of wonders out here, but it's not for the timid, you know. You might want to stay home and stay under your bed or whatever the quote is there. You know, I almost feel sorry for Jimmy. And at the same time, I kind of hate him. Because it's like, you see what happens when you force it? It's like full Monty. It's like, dude, just go get a fucking job or move to somewhere where you can manage people. Because people have lives and shit, and only the most devoted people in the world are gonna show up and do a gig because they're musicians. But see, that's where I go, wait a minute, Marty, you're paying attention too much to the story. It's not the story. He's presenting the story so he can show you what happens in this business over and over again, that it's really only about the people that truly wanted it. And everybody else can come along for the ride a little bit. But like in that thing you do, sometimes their ride is only for a year or two, and they're not going to be a part of it forever. And you thought maybe they were gonna be the ones who were gonna be around forever, but it turns out you're just the one because you're the crazy one who's devoted who never stops. So maybe Jimmy goes on and finds some people who really do want to do it. But for a moment, these people did want to do it, and it's good, it helped them in their life further on, but you know, it just made me realize it's not about the story with Alan Parker, and it made me think of his other movies in a different light, too. Same with fame. I'm glad I watched that not that long ago. We'll have to bring that on pretty soon, too, because he's definitely telling us something in his themes, right? Something about it made me even think, like, remember when Leroy shows up in fame and he gets famous, and his sister was the one who wanted to do it. It's he always does these weird things. And so the more I think about the movie, it's like talk about growing on me as throughout the years, because now I don't look at it as, oh, it's this band, they almost did it. And I'm like, oh, like you said, you see dude turn into an asshole almost right away, and then everybody's sleeping, and I mean he's like these things just start to chip away, and he's very I mean, he's very clear, in my opinion, Roddy, is that what breaks the band up is ego, right?

SPEAKER_03 54:03

What breaks the band up is is success, right?

SPEAKER_01 54:07

Yeah, they think the more he thinks they're better than they are successful.

SPEAKER_03 54:10

You guys are okay, but more not successful, they're good. I mean, they're they're literally walking into a record contract at one point. That's that's where they're heading. They're heading into a record contract, they're heading into Sam Cook showing up to jam with them if they had just fucking stayed long enough to actually have it happen, right? So it's not that they weren't, it's not that they didn't have the talent or that they weren't going to make it. It's the it's the the whole fact of like you have to fucking not keep your you have to keep your ego in check. These things will fucking wreck you, you know.

SPEAKER_01 54:42

And the ones who can't keep their egos in check are the horses that you drug to the water and force them to drink over and over.

SPEAKER_03 54:49

No, I mean, look, I mean, there are yes and no. I mean, the music business is fucking inundated with talentless fucking clones who have been fed shit because they're fucking show ponies who know how to trot. Okay. And this is not that, right? This is the opposite of that. This is, you know, and I think the movie makes that really clear, like, hey, working class, fucking coming up from the ground up, you know, having to fucking go get amplifiers and instruments and microphones from fucking, you know, from basically Irish mafia and shit, getting into fights with them about payments, you know. At one point he calls them the hardest the working band in Dublin. I completely agree with that. Um and uh so it is watching a band kind of get get inundated with its own success and then fall apart. There's also a lot of other shit. Like it's also the inner dynamics of the band. That's not its whole thing. Like the fact that Joey's pounding every fucking backup singer in that band has a fucking contribution to that. Those girls weren't mad about Joey. It's like one of them says to Joey at one point, they go, This is your problem. You and your dick started this. And he just kind of puts his hands up, like, oh no, because the girls were fighting over him, right? If you don't have that, then you don't have the other problems. You know, then you've got the the the saxophone player who's desperate to be a jazz musician, right? To the, you know, you know, soul soul solos have corners. You were spiraling, that's jazz. You know, you're not fucking, you're not supposed to play jazz in a soul song. What the fuck are you doing? So you've got all these different elements that are contributing to this band breaking down. It's a wonderful kind of menagerie of egotistical shit going on to watch them fall apart.

SPEAKER_01 56:40

They thought they shared in Jimmy's dream for a while, but after a while it was like, no, they didn't.

SPEAKER_03 56:45

Well, it was Jimmy's, yeah, and and I think that the whole thing was like Jimmy's dream was to create something and he wanted it to be successful. And when it wasn't, he was really disappointed. But it's like fucking Joey told him, like, in time you'll step back and see what you did. And what he did was first off, he learned a lot because later, you know, later on, apparently, the way that goes, he's in the music business and he's hooked up with um the girl from the band that he talks about.

SPEAKER_01 57:13

It makes more sense. That makes more sense. Makes a lot more sense.

SPEAKER_03 57:15

Yeah. This is how he got his start. This is how he got his start managing. This is how he realizes he all these things he's been doing in the film, all the t-shirts he's selling, all the recorded VHSs he's selling, all the salesman shit he's doing, all the different things that he's doing to glue this band together. He's gonna be a music producer. He's gonna have something to do in the music industry in that way. He's not gonna be a musician, he's not gonna be an artist, he's gonna do the other things, you know, which I thought was really fucking cool.

SPEAKER_01 57:45

Well, the the lessons are surround yourself with like-minded individuals, and don't be too surprised when people that you thought were the absolute ones turned out aren't. Because there's always gonna be somebody else out there who can play that saxophone as well, you know. Who wants to play their saxophone, who wants to be there, it's it's who's not gonna be an egotistic.

SPEAKER_03 58:08

Sure, it's like it's like the Beatles, right? Like nothing gold can stay. Like, no matter how good you are, uh your band is always gonna fall apart. And if it doesn't, that probably means that it probably should have. You know, the fucking Eagles should not be out playing fucking concerts at their age. Like, what the fuck? The Rolling Stones need to retire. Like it just becomes it becomes kind of pantomime after a while, right? I l uh I love the priest correct uh, and by the way, this is Alan Parker's favorite scene in the movie, is the when the piano player goes into the fucking conversion box and he's like, Oh, you know, I used to oh, you know, I have unclean thoughts about all three girls that are in the band. And I used to think of this when I was uh studying, but now all I can think of is when a man loves a woman by Marvin Gaye, and the priest is like, that's Percy Sledge. I have that record. Um you know, perfect for that film in my opinion. But yeah, that's uh I I like it. I like the film. It's both strangely intellectual and also strangely gross. You know, they they steal the van, and of course he has to, you know, Deco has to fart in the van, so they have a whole scene about Deko's stinky fart, which is pretty juvenile compared to what else that you're getting, you know. Um but again, it's a movie, so trying to make the audience laugh.

SPEAKER_01 59:31

Like I said, it's like the it's the it's the the essence of that character. Not so much what he is or what he does, but what he represents. He was a guy who didn't even know he could sing. They got him, they got him to do it. He built himself up, and now he thinks he's the God's gift at music.

SPEAKER_03 59:53

Well, he knew he could sing, he just all falls apart. Yeah, he knew he could sing, he just didn't realize he'd sung in public and he didn't realize other people had seen him. Because like at one point, uh, when they're watching the James Brown uh concert, and they go, Can you sing that? He looks at him and goes, I can sing anything. Like his confidence is there. He knows he can sing. He's just like they were like, he was like, I saw you sing at that wedding. He's like, I did. I was like pissed on 15 Rummin blacks. And they were like, Well, you did, and you were awesome. Well, sometimes create a monster, is what I was saying. I was just about to say, you're right. It it begins to, I mean, because right from the beginning, as soon as it starts, his ego begins to inflate constantly. Yeah, you get you know, his ego's inflated until finally at the end, he's like, When I come off stage, I want a fucking towel and a bottle of mineral water, and the drummer's like, God, I fucking hate you. I'm gonna have to punch you in the fucking face. This is how much I hate you because you're a fucking douchebag. And that's eventually what happens. He eventually punches him in the fucking face because he's a fucking douchebag, right? Like this is the asshole who wants the brown MMs taken out of the bag, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:00:59

I'm not saying don't give people opportunities and don't try to if you see talent, don't try to foster it in some way. But what I'm saying is if they say no, you walk away and you you find somebody you don't even think twice about it, okay? That's one of the best lessons in show business that you can take from this movie is it you can lead a horse of water, but you can't make them drink. And if you do, they might want all the water.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:25

Well, that's I was about to say that's not true. You can make them drink. The the thing that you can't predict is not always the thing that you can't predict is how they're gonna react to the water. And this movie kind of shows that some of them may love the water, some of them may think the water is the greatest thing on earth, some of them may try to keep you from having any water. There's no fucking telling, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:01:46

And so it is much like fame in different ways, because but it handles it differently, but it's the same thing because fame is all these people who are I'm devoted, I'm fucking blah, blah, blah, my craft, and bam, bam, bam, bam. And here's kind of oh, I'm talented. Yeah, you are. I'm gonna put you together and then I'm gonna force you to do your craft. But at this end of the day, it's those who continue are the ones who were driven.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:07

Well, you also have to look at, I mean, you have to also think about where this is. This is Ireland in 1990, 91. So it's you know, war-torn. And at one point they ask Jimmy, they say, you know, you've been on the dole for two years, you can't find a job. He goes, What are you gonna do? We're a third world country. He's gonna start tripping like two months. It's a bunch of it's a poor, it's a poor country. There ain't a lot of work, there's a lot of people fucking struggling, right? It's working class. And in fact, Roddy Doyle in the original book, the line is not, I'm black and I'm proud. You know, it you know, when he's when he's uh when he's explaining a bit, he goes, the the you know, the uh the Ireland is the is the uh are the blacks of England, Dublin are the blacks of Ireland, and the North Dublinders are the blacks of Dublin. So say it with me, I'm black and I'm proud. In the book, it was the N-word. So it was Ireland are the N-words of of England, and apparently he was convinced to change it to black, and he he disagrees because he says that's the whole problem is when you start treating that word like that, I guess. But you know, we that's a debate for another time. But the point being, it's this it's this I'm black and I'm proud thing that ends up being I don't know, pretty funny, and also a very fun way of identifying kind of what they're struggling with and what they're struggling about. These are a bunch of poor ass people who are trying to rise above where they're at, right? And so when they're given an opportunity, you know, they run and they jump for it.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:39

Everything and then start playing in a band. Because God knows I've had try to get people to do just the most minor things and they can't do it because they got to work. But then I go, wait a minute, movie's not realistic. Well, but that's the allegory.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:52

Imagine that you could. Imagine that's the thing. Imagine you could get everybody, and they're showing up three hours a night, and they're and they're sacrificing time with their families and all this, and you know, three or four nights a week, right? And then suddenly it falls apart. That's pretty terrible.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:05

That's kind of why I hate Jimmy, because he's he he doesn't know well enough that he's these people need to just do their jobs, he's he's fucking their lives up.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:14

But it's his first time doing it. He doesn't know what he's doing, nor does anybody else.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:18

I know, but that's that's why I feel sorry for him simultaneously.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:22

My favorite part of the film happens at one hour, 37 minutes, and 42 seconds. Um it's the try the litter tenderness song. Um deco finishes the lyric, it's very beginning of the song, try a little tenderness. The camera cuts to Dean talking uh or taking a drag off of his cigarette, uh, and then they cuts back to this uh deco who whispers into the mic fandango. And this is a very subtle little thing that unless you're not if you're not watching the movie and catching it, that runs throughout the theme of the film. And uh always for me, it's just the perfect moment in the movie. It's a moment where everything in the movie ties together, it's the last moment of perfection before everything falls apart. And uh I really, really enjoy that moment. Uh it ties back to, of course, the the talk about you know we skipped the light fantastic while he's playing it, you know, in the church. And they're talking about he, you know, it was Percy Sledge and he nicked it from Bach. Sorry, it wasn't Percy Sledge, it was uh Otis Redding. And he nicked it from Bach, of course. And then there's there's other mentions of the song, like you said, threads of that song throughout both movies, right? And so to get to the end and to hear Fandango is really nice. It brings a chill chill to my spine every time. Yeah, I love the end where Pickett shows up and Rabbit realizes the truth of it.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:43

It still would have fallen apart in it.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:45

Yes, absolutely. But it's the difference between whether or not Joey was lying or telling the truth. He wasn't completely full of shit. He wasn't completely full of shit. Exactly. But so what do you think broke the band up? Was it ego?

unknown 1:05:59

Well I

SPEAKER_01 1:06:00

I I think they I think it was everything. I think it never should the the what broke the band up is it's it shouldn't have existed in the first place. It's it was the ring of power. It was gonna drive men insane, you know. It's just from the moment they put it together, it was they had problems because he was forcing something to an existence that wasn't supposed to exist. That's why it fell apart because not everybody was supposed to be doing that, which is what I feel is one of the main lessons of the movie, which is a subtext that I didn't catch till I was in my 50s because I hadn't lived enough, and I bet Alan Parker certainly had. I mean, the guy made fame, he knows all about show business, you know.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:41

I I completely I completely disagree with your take. Like I like not only do I disagree with your take, I it's weird, it's weird to me that you that you that's what you take from it. I what I take from it is the fact that you try things and those things can grow and extend to a certain point and then they'll fail. And that doesn't mean that you stop going, you pick up and do the next thing. Everybody else in that band ended up going on to almost ended up going on to other things. And even if they didn't, they still remembered fondly what they had done, and probably still late at night in the deep dark as they're going to sleep, wish they had continued to try and pursue it, right? Because it's like a fucking virus once it gets into your blood. And to me, that's what the movie is about. It's about catching the virus, it's about trying to join the circus, it's about it falling apart, some do. And continuing to try and push and join that circus to try and you know, you know, burning with her bad fucking country music.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:48

Yeah, she was supposed to go that way, dude.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:50

It was supposed to go be jazzed, but you gotta start somewhere, and it's gotta go somewhere, and it's it's gotta fall apart. You know, um, it's gotta start, it's gotta go somewhere, and it's gotta fall apart so that it can go to the next thing and the next thing so that everybody can eventually be where they're wanna be, right? And so that's what I take from it, and that's what I I really love about it, is that it's got this sort of uh positivity, positivity from the discovery of who you could potentially be, right? None of these kids without that band possibly, and that's what Joey tells him. It's like, it's not about fucking being famous, and I know you don't you think that line's about something else, but for me, what it means is it's not about being famous and making records, it's about the fact that you showed these kids that they could be something else other than fucking gutting fish and fucking, you know, working with the hogs in the slaughterhouse that they can do something else with their lives, right? One of my that's one of my one of my favorite scenes is where we literally see the bass player warming his hands up and practicing when he's in the middle of that that that slaughterhouse, you know, and they're wheeling fucking pigs by that have been slaughtered and he's practicing on the bass, right? These kids are definitely coming from nothing.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:02

Well, it's good to get people excited about things. I'm I'm not saying that. I just I I don't think the story's realistic, but I don't think it's supposed to be realistic. I think it's an allegory.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:13

No, I mean, no, of course not. It's a I mean it's a fairy tale to a certain extent. I don't I don't think at all it's supposed to be like a verit slice of life or a verite type thing where you're supposed to believe that this actually happened.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:24

Um, yeah, the p you you don't suddenly start.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:27

You know, I didn't I don't think Back to the Future actually happened, even though you know Marty McFly had a shoe that came out or whatever, you know.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:33

It's but no Yeah, but they're not time traveling, and they had a drummer who was good, and then they have another drummer who True just as good as him who I don't think rock and roll high school fucking happened.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:44

I don't think you know get crazy happened, nor do I think all these other movies happen. No, this is more this isn't trying to this isn't trying to tell you that this is Alan Parker, though.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:56

You're right. He made Birdie, he made the wall. These are he always puts a little surreal, but when you get to the end of them, like the end of Birdie, and the guy looks up like, what? Like, it's not that bad. You made it up to be like it's gonna be horrible, birdie guy. Remember? And then he jumps off the ledge and then he looks up, like, what? And it's like the whole thing, it's like with Alan Parker, it's like there's that keep calm and carry on thing, right? There's always some hope after going through hell. I guess it must be this very British thing.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:27

I mean, I think he's a very layered director, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:10:30

Like, I think that there's a lot, there's a lot going on in his movies for sure. I just think some people think this is just a simple thing. It's like, oh, there's a lot, there's a lot more depth in this than a simple movie.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:40

I think it's yeah, I would agree with that. Um, I mean, I think his his thing is that he tends to there's a lot of realism in his movies, but the movies aren't necessarily realistic.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:53

There, there you go.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:54

If that makes sense. Like fame is not it's it's realistic in a way, but it's also not super realistic. He does things to show what he's trying to do. He takes a realistic situation and and injects a bit of non-realism into it, I guess. Like it's like you said with the kid who suddenly shows up and he takes over his sister's thing, and then you know, now he's a comedian, and then he's gonna go off and be his own thing, and he falls apart. And it's like you're taking he's showing us the process, yeah. You're showing us the process, you're amalgamating a bunch of different things to put together this linear thing you're doing. And so it's not necessarily realistic, but it is based on the thing. Yeah, I was like, oh, I see what he's doing here. But you're not, I don't, I don't think at any time are you supposed to believe that the commitments is a like based in reality, grounded in reality type movie. It's it's supposed to be a fun comedy journey, enjoyable type thing, you know, where you kind of watch a thing that almost could have been, you know.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:52

Well, to me, what some people get when they watch whiplash, that's what this movie did to me. Where it's like, I liked it, but boy, it's frustrating as fuck because you just want to tell Jimmy, dude, do this, do that, but he can't because it's his first and he has to figure this stuff out because that's life. Yeah. But oh, it's rough watching him go through it.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:15

I think it's I think it's fun watching him go through it. I I love his I love his bathroom scenes where he's in the bathroom and it's like as big as the Rolling Stones, and he's like, Who the fuck are they, Terry? You know, and he's he's always got his little interviews with Terry that he's doing and shit. And I mean, and he's a smart kid. Like he he knows to get the three girls because that adds an element to the to the band. He knows that that to listen to Joey the Lips, he knows that like okay, if we're gonna do soul, the band needs to have a the name. All the best bands from the 60s have a the name. He really knows what he's about in the film, which is what I like about Jimmy, is Jimmy's out of all of them, knows the most about where he's going, what he wants, and how he's trying to get there. It's just the band itself that ends up fucking it up for him, right? Which is why you know he's gonna be successful later on.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:06

Hey, band members, what are you into? Oh, you're not into this soul thing? Get out of here. We'll find somebody else who is. And the commitments go forever.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:15

He gives an entire fucking speech on the subway about what soul is and what it means. If you ain't into it at that point, maybe you should get the fuck out. Like at that point, that's your problem, not Jimmy's fucking problem. Jimmy's very honest and transparent about what he's building, right? Like it falls apart, though. He's very oh it well, and it falls apart because Deco's a fucking got an ego out the fucking wazoo. You know, again, Joey's having sex with all three of the girls. If the the saxophone player isn't satisfied just being a soul saxophone player, the fucking bass player and the guitar player are fucking nuts, the drummer's literally a fucking thug. Yeah, of course the band's gonna fall apart. Like Jimmy's lucky that band stayed together for as long as it was, if we're being completely fucking honest. Right. You know, not that it never should have been, it's just kind of a miracle that it's it's like a car that you parted together from nine different cars and you're shocked it started and went anywhere.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:13

Well, that's what I mean.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:14

And it's magnificent to see, and it's really glorious, and you cheer for it because you really want it to keep going, and then when it falls apart, you're kind of like, yeah. That that that that that tracks, that makes sense. I I get it. Anyway, uh that's a five-star movie for me.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:32

Yeah, it's three for me.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:34

Yeah, yeah, I've kind of figured.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:36

I I I never cheer, I just wait for it to fall apart because I know that's what's coming.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:43

Listener, I I highly recommend that you go watch the commitments. Stop this right now and do it, and then come back and then listen to it, and then tell me what tell us what you thought. Read it. Write us in. Tell us what you thought. I'd love to hear your thoughts. On that or with nail and eye.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:01

But it doesn't matter which order you watch them in, because the whiter shade of pale will freak you out in either direction. If you watch if you watch second, right? Because then you'll have the end of commitments with whiter shade. And then Whitnell starts with whiter shade and is like, wait a minute, did I just hear this fucking song? How are these connected? Well, they just are somehow. And it definitely gave me goosebumps at the end of the commitments, and I was like, well, that was one of the weirdest pairings just because of how that went. And it was the music that connected it, strangely enough. And somebody named Peter Frampton, who wasn't a musician, but a makeup artist who worked on both films. Damn, the Kevin Bacon rabbit hole is weird. It's like it's like a plate of shrimp, and then somebody will say plate of shrimp out of nowhere, and it doesn't mean anything. And you're gonna look for a reason for the connection, and you're never gonna find one. But I tell you what, you are gonna find one of these air conditioner fresheners in every car. So Alex Cox fits in this somehow.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:07

So um we've got two guests uh next uh for the season opener, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:16:13

Yeah, we have uh guests, and then the next week we have guests, and then the week after that, we're back with the solo episode. We'll do a fewer of those in the next season because we want to get more guests on. And uh we'll also do the season review at that point. And uh man, it's just I I don't know what to give you at this point. I have a couple of things here, and I'm just not certain which one to pull from. I don't think any of them are bad choice. I do have one that I'm pairing as movie 199 with your 200. I'm guessing that'll be fun because our 200th movie covered is coming up soon. But for our first actual season four, that's not a guest. Let's just let's just go at the top here. Uh so there was this director, his name was Josh Becker. He worked on Evil Dead and some other early Raimi films, and uh he recently passed away. Now, this isn't the reason I'm bringing this movie to the show. I was gonna bring it anyway, but I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the fact that he just died a couple months ago. And this is one of uh movies that he made really quickly with Bruce Campbell around 97. It's called Running Time. And so uh figure let's let's see what you think of that. It's kind of uh it's kind of a little experimental, but it's also kind of a little action thing. It's no budget, but it's something. So we'll see what you think of that.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:46

I'm gonna give you centers.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:48

Oh, I get to watch that finally. That's got broke the Oscar record.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:53

Yeah, Oscars are coming up. Um I've been talking about getting away from these older movies um and things that we haven't seen before.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:04

Well, I thought maybe you hadn't seen that one before.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:08

Uh well, you have. I mean, you have I haven't seen Sinners. It's a good complete blind pick for the both of us.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:13

So I have well, I do have some blind picks coming up, but I had a couple more, you know. Right. It's always gonna be a little different.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:20

Um, so centers it is. And uh okay, yeah, sounds good. You want to get out of here on a quote? You should never mix your drinks. I have several. Um it's ride Sally Ride, not Royd, Sally Royd. That's true. Um pick a nipple and try it again. And then, of course, I'm black and I'm proud. All right, let's get out of here. See you soon.