Dreamcatcher, with Evan Dorkin

[0:00] On this episode, we discuss Dreamcatcher.

[0:03] Well, fuck me, Freddy, if you don't take a bunch of Stephen King ideas and put them in a blender.

[0:07] Yeah.

[0:09] Wow, it's like you stepped right out of the stories, too.

[0:11] Yeah.

[0:30] Hey, everyone, welcome to The Flophouse.

[0:35] I'm Dan McCoy.

[0:36] Hey there, Dan McCoy.

[0:37] I'm Stuart Wellington.

[0:39] I'm also on The Flophouse.

[0:40] I'm the third co-host, and my name is Elliot Kalin.

[0:43] And before we get started, I want to introduce, we have a guest today.

[0:46] I'm very excited to welcome today's guest.

[0:48] He is a comic book writer.

[0:49] He's a comic book artist.

[0:50] He's had an enormous impact on the three of us, myself especially.

[0:53] Among the many things he's done, he's the creator of the beloved characters Milk and Cheese.

[0:57] He's co-creator of the series Beasts of Burden.

[0:59] He's the writer of one of my all-time favorite comics, World's Funnest, the Bat-Mite-Mr-Mix-a-Pickle-it-Blick-Blick team-up comic.

[1:06] I guess they fight each other.

[1:08] And he's done a ton of work in animation.

[1:09] He co-hosts the horror movie podcast Tear Them Apart.

[1:12] And he just released an enormous book called Nerd Inferno, the Essential Evan Dorkin, which collects seemingly all of his solo humor comics,

[1:21] which makes it automatically the funniest book you will read this year, if not longer.

[1:26] So please join us in welcoming one of the all-time greats of comic book humorists, Evan Dorkin.

[1:30] Evan, thank you so much for watching this piece of shit.

[1:35] Thanks for having me.

[1:36] And I'm sorry that I picked this fucking movie.

[1:39] I really, really am sorry.

[1:42] I had already seen it.

[1:44] So obviously, you know, and it's just, it's a life-sucking, you know, if you hate Hollywood, this will be right up your alley.

[1:53] It's not going to change your opinion of Hollywood.

[1:55] Absolutely not.

[1:56] To pull back the curtain, Evan gave a list of a couple movies to watch.

[1:59] And when I saw Dreamcatcher on that list, I'm like, we're doing that fucking thing.

[2:04] This movie's crazy.

[2:05] No, really, we should blame Stewart.

[2:06] You can blame me.

[2:08] I'll be the little devil.

[2:09] Yeah.

[2:10] The problem is I haven't seen a ton of movies made after the year 2000 because the second Matrix film kind of just murdered me at that point.

[2:20] I know.

[2:20] I honestly did.

[2:21] I stopped going to see movies in the theater.

[2:24] I thought they peaked with the Matrix 3.

[2:25] It's never going to get bigger.

[2:26] Yeah, I mean, part of that is living on Staten Island because going to the movies in Staten Island is, you know, it's like making, it's like paying money to be kicked in the balls.

[2:36] Do you ever go to the Alamo out there?

[2:38] No, I haven't.

[2:39] I only, I walked in there just to see the Hong Kong kung fu posters and props, but I haven't actually gone to a movie there because I have no life.

[2:48] Okay.

[2:49] Well, now it's certainly the time now that they've abandoned their new phone call.

[2:53] Are you serious?

[2:54] Really?

[2:55] Wow.

[2:55] Yeah, because in case you want to hear Big Pete talk to Tina, I'm so disappointed when we went there because they're known for having food that they didn't have like Staten Island food.

[3:08] Like, I couldn't get like fucking Aaron Cheney or some shit with my, when I'm watching a good mozzarella and you get punched in the face just like you in the 7-Eleven parking lot.

[3:19] Or on Cochinos or whatever.

[3:21] Yeah, it's, I'm surprised that we're not just showing Ronnie Dangerfield films at that place, you know, nothing but the good, I saw Goodfellas out here on Staten Island and the place was filled with low-level made men.

[3:37] Well, not made men, low-level mobsters and their Asian girlfriends and my friend and I are watching this thing and it was a comedy to them.

[3:45] Anytime somebody got kicked, punched, shot, they were just laughing their asses off.

[3:49] So, yeah, the Alamo should be a, should be a pisser.

[3:53] I wanted to see some, there was a Godzilla film but I missed it, you know, what can you do?

[3:57] They'll probably play it again.

[3:58] It took them like four years, yeah, because they, yeah, they probably never returned the film.

[4:03] Before we get into, before we get into Dreamcatcher, is there anything you want to say about Nerd Inferno, your book, which has not, which comes out in a couple days as we're recording this.

[4:14] When this is out, the book will be out.

[4:16] It'll be out April 28th, so I don't know when this is going to air.

[4:19] But, yeah, it's a collection of almost all my solo, you know, purported humor comics to work, which was a catch-all for a lot of my stuff that I did for magazines and punk zines and fan zines and things like that.

[4:37] And a couple of things from free old weeklies that we used to be a thing, you know.

[4:43] And the milk and cheese is just, you know, it's just milk and cheese.

[4:48] There's really nothing else.

[4:49] There are two, you know, a carton of milk and a slice of cheese and they beat people up, yeah.

[4:54] Yeah, that's pretty much the whole deal.

[4:56] Who I'm bringing back because there's a deadline has come back, the magazine, the British magazine I used to do the strip for and they're back as a Kickstarter thing.

[5:06] So I told them that I would do some new milk and cheese stuff because, you know, it's so hard to find subjects to be angry about these days, but I'll try.

[5:15] It's a challenge.

[5:16] I'll try.

[5:17] It's a challenge.

[5:18] And does it have all the Eltingville Club comics?

[5:20] Well, that's the main thing.

[5:21] Oh, wow.

[5:22] It has the entire Eltingville Club, which was – which is about toxic nerd behavior, toxic fan behavior before they started calling it –

[5:31] Yeah, before that disappeared.

[5:33] Yeah, it was just called fan fame.

[5:35] You know, in this idyllic – again, in this – I quit right before, you know, things got, you know, idyllic in the world of fandom online.

[5:43] But that – yeah, all those things are – they're all out of print from Dark Horse.

[5:47] There's been a – I won't get – take up too much time, but there's been a weird revival of the Eltingville Club through TikTok culture and things like that, which spilled into my social media about three years ago.

[6:04] And the book – there's these memes based on the pilot, the Adult Swim pilot that failed but aired.

[6:14] And there's a Spanish dub of it, which – and there's just a resurging underground Eltingville fandom of younger readers in 2026, like about ten years after the book came out and flopped.

[6:28] It didn't sell out until about two years ago.

[6:31] And the demand for a reprint – my editor, Daniel Shaben, said – you know, we had done The Beast of Burden on the bus, so he said, let's throw all three books in.

[6:42] And it turned out to be a really nice idea at the right time.

[6:46] So it seems to be – there's some demand for it from the little I can gather.

[6:52] It's going to do okay.

[6:54] I mean, that's great.

[6:55] I mean, I was super excited when I heard about it.

[6:58] Despite owning, I think, most of the material already.

[7:01] I'm hearing that from – I appreciate that.

[7:04] Yes, I do appreciate that.

[7:05] The family appreciates that.

[7:06] But I'm excited.

[7:08] And I'll also mention that you're also on Patreon, and I'm a Patreon supporter of yours.

[7:14] If you ever wanted to have a Patreon membership where every now and then you just get a – you just get suddenly a surprise that there's a horror illustration in your email.

[7:24] Yeah.

[7:25] It's really great.

[7:26] I treat the Patreon like a job, you know?

[7:28] I mean, I try to always update every – well, at least once a week, if not more.

[7:34] And, you know, we do – I've got about 1,000 posts up there.

[7:38] It's a buck a month for most of them.

[7:40] And it's been the spine.

[7:42] It's been – you know, freelancing has been really bizarre, especially since COVID.

[7:46] And, you know, we had a cancer situation in the household, so that kind of clipped our wings for a couple years.

[7:55] And wasn't able to – we weren't able to get as much work done as we used to.

[7:59] So, you know, Sarah suggested doing the Patreon.

[8:02] It's basically been a lifeline.

[8:04] But, yeah, I put a lot of – I post scripts.

[8:08] I put new artwork up, new comics when I can.

[8:10] And I talk about all the failures of my career because I don't know how to teach by doing.

[8:16] I know how to teach by failing.

[8:18] It's like I don't have the – I just don't feel it in me to say here's how you should draw and here's how you should write.

[8:24] But I can't say here's where I fucked up.

[8:26] Here's where I blew my second pilot because I was a nutjob go-to-therapy man.

[8:30] Things like that.

[8:32] I mean, to me, it's more invaluable to learn about how you get screwed over in the comics industry or the animation industry or not.

[8:39] I mean, I was actually treated pretty well in animation, to be honest.

[8:42] I fell into – between Space Ghost and Yo Gabba Gabba, I mean, those were good gigs where they actually respected the writers and let you do what you wanted, things like that.

[8:54] I think it's been outlawed.

[8:56] I think it's actually been – I think the Supreme Court actually nullified that.

[9:02] You being on our show is at least a public service announcement for me who didn't realize that Nerd Inferno was coming out.

[9:12] And as an avid dork reader, now I'm like, oh, all of it?

[9:15] Please.

[9:16] Yeah, all of it.

[9:17] Plus extras, plus all the covers and things like that.

[9:20] The House of Fun one shot is in there.

[9:21] And I'm still doing – basically dork exists as stuff I put on my Patreon, and I have enough material that I will eventually put a dork 12 out and keep it going here and there.

[9:32] But I'm just – I'm in my 60s.

[9:36] I'm just ready to die.

[9:37] But you've got to put dork number 12 out first.

[9:40] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[9:41] I think you're –

[9:42] Somebody can assemble it.

[9:43] I don't know how to do the computer stuff.

[9:44] I don't know how to actually put an issue.

[9:46] I couldn't make an eight-page fanzine if you put a gun to my head.

[9:49] But the readiness to die may be more influenced by the fact that you had to watch Dreamcatcher for today's episode.

[9:55] Yeah, we've been beating around the bush.

[9:58] Dreamcatcher – like Dreamkiller.

[10:00] much more because it's kind of destroyed my will to live and create well I

[10:05] apologize that we're gonna probably even started we're gonna go through in

[10:11] reasonable detail actually watch all those wounds I'm very glad to have you

[10:18] guys steward me through this mm-hmm because I definitely yeah yeah I'm well

[10:23] I'm named after the steward a dreamcatcher the D with a D I didn't

[10:29] mean to invoke you know but yes I don't know a lot I don't know who a lot of the

[10:34] people involved with this war I mean I know who the old people who failed

[10:37] miserably are mm-hmm but I don't know the relatively young actors of the time

[10:42] I did they're all very old now yes usually you watch an older movie and

[10:53] there's actors in it who are become bigger stars and you're like oh wow

[10:56] look at how handsome they were then and this is the Timothy Oliphant looks he

[11:00] was terrible I'm not terrible he's the car salesman who holy good night what

[11:10] was his problem right didn't he look absolutely in fear half the time yeah

[11:17] grew into his face and he got a better haircut it's kind of Marco star wearing

[11:22] cowboy Marco Rubio face yeah plastic very sculpted very weird yeah cowboy on

[11:30] TV yeah is he famous from something well he was he was a star of justified and

[11:34] Deadwood and dead yeah I've heard of Deadwood Deadwood that's where the

[11:39] Cowboys curse right yeah charismatic and sexy later on it's everybody in this

[11:50] movie is stunted because it's not it's directed by a by a new guy and by the

[11:57] name of Lawrence Kasdan yeah a guy a guy who's never worked with an ensemble of

[12:04] actors before or written dialogue for them to say well I feel like the dialogue

[12:10] is the the work of one mr. Stephen King it is a it is this yes it is the

[12:14] Stephens kingiest of movies and the dialogue especially that there's so much

[12:19] there's so much made-up slang that nobody has ever used he just never had

[12:24] friends has he ever socialized you know the thing is to review this movie is

[12:35] really you got to talk about Stephen King you can't help it yeah I mean he

[12:40] looms so large over Hollywood and over books but I'm a fool I'm a I'm a fan of

[12:45] Stephen King as a person he seems a good guy who wants the world to be better

[12:51] I grew up as a big Stephen King fan I read everything as it came out I mean

[12:55] what was your cutoff what was that what was the last one because I feel like a

[12:59] lot of people yeah read everything and then yes there's okay mine was Tommy

[13:03] knockers okay my man is I could not finish that one and I love streaming the

[13:09] engines on my plane were already burning because thinner which was just a pulp

[13:16] goof but it was just you know it's just like oh wait a second this visit I see a

[13:20] dent in the armor this isn't great and it I fucking wanted to throw it across

[13:25] the room when they got to especially when they got to that yes when they get

[13:30] to the end yeah you know and and and Tommy knock and I mean makes you write

[13:35] crazy and he doesn't like Tommy knockers either and you know he's talked about

[13:40] how I don't remember writing that book what happens in that book you know can

[13:43] you imagine not remembering you're like it's a crazy night you're like what

[13:54] happened then I don't remember but to not remember writing an entire book I

[13:56] wrote I wrote one comic book script when I was breaking into the industry high on

[14:02] cocaine okay and I don't know I thought it was brilliant I woke up the next day

[14:06] and I would do over what I could not do all those things I it was barely English

[14:13] it was just it was just it was Esperanto up but 24 pages of nonsense I

[14:18] mean but I didn't have people who would buy it so I had to rip it up and do it

[14:22] over again unlike Stephen King but that kind of cooler head prevailing like the

[14:26] funny thing to me is that like yeah Stephen King writes this like weird

[14:30] gibberish slang that no one's ever seen or heard and I understand keeping some

[14:36] of the unworkable plot elements maybe because you're like oh that's the plot I

[14:40] got to keep the plot of the best-selling book or whatever but why

[14:44] William Goldman when typing is up didn't be like nope

[14:49] apparently that's what's fascinating about this film is that you've got

[14:52] Lawrence Kasdan whether you're a fan or not you got Lawrence Kasdan and William

[14:55] Goldman two people renowned for writing scripts yes and they turned this thing

[15:01] out which and the thing is he wrote it King wrote this in 2021 so it's not you

[15:07] know and turn around and he did write it after getting hit by a car and he was

[15:11] on oxy mm-hmm so it's back to his crazy it's back to his drug days in a lot of

[15:15] ways it feels like Tommy knockers I haven't read dreamcatcher and I'm not

[15:19] going to I'm kind of tempted after rewatch weird there's gotta be a lot

[15:25] more fuckaroo and fuckery and there's gotta be I keep saying to myself at some

[15:30] point I'm gonna read through all of his books the ones I've read before and the

[15:34] ones I never read but I like am I really gonna go all the way to to the

[15:38] last 25 years or so of them I'm not I'm not so sure but I'm curious to read

[15:42] dreamcatcher because it feels like one where if if it didn't have Stephen King's

[15:46] name on it you wouldn't try to make it into a movie yeah I know that I know

[15:52] that it's still bad material like it still probably doesn't work that well

[15:56] but I can imagine it working better in a book where your well brain is creating

[16:02] you can tell from the movie that there's an interior monologue going on in at

[16:06] least one of the major characters that's super important to the book and they

[16:10] literalize it I mean well I guess and it's just it's just awful but they do

[16:14] this again he brings back the the inner monologue thing with the the physicality

[16:19] of creating a literal space headspace yeah which works very poorly and they

[16:27] bring that back in dr. sleep which is one of the other at a few other

[16:30] adaptations I've seen but dr. sleep feels like this dr. sleep has a lot of

[16:35] the same problems any King adaptation has especially when it's bloated and you

[16:39] don't want to touch it because you'll piss the fans off but it feels like

[16:42] there's a sure hand I mean dr. sleep is it feels like a movie I feel like Mike

[16:47] Flanagan has a better understanding I didn't love dr. sleep because there's

[16:51] things in it that I feel are the Kings things that I just did not care for the

[16:54] superhero aspects of you know you flying and craziness and whatnot and also but

[17:00] the Stephen King villains you know they they talk like they're from the 60s or

[17:04] 50s I mean they just don't work for me the woman with the hat and all that I

[17:09] did not her name is the hat right it's called that Gooney it's just Gooney's

[17:15] you wouldn't want your D&D GM to be fucking turning these concepts into your

[17:20] game come on Brad this is bullshit I feel I feel like about Stephen King the

[17:27] same way that I felt about kind of later John Carpenter where it was like

[17:31] so he had felt like he needed to get things out of his system and then

[17:34] someone else had to be like well no one needs to see this let's just write it

[17:37] away and not publish that one or not make time to just go play video games

[17:40] and watch basketball that's what's great yeah Carpenter's just like you know I

[17:43] don't need to keep doing this I'm just gonna get high and yeah play and please

[17:48] send me checks for adapting my stuff god bless them yeah yeah but you know I mean

[17:53] still you know I could have said Ghosts of Mars we could be talking about Ghosts

[17:56] of Mars right now we could have been strong but we're talking about dream

[17:59] catcher should we start yeah of the movie dithered around the margins enough

[18:05] it's funny but now we have to stab it yeah it's funny that you say that you

[18:11] don't recognize these people because my first note is like I'm gonna use actor

[18:14] names for the most part because they're it's really hard to remember who they

[18:18] are unless they have a terrible nickname Joe beaver Eve and Jonesy is all I can

[18:24] yeah Thomas Jane is one of the ones not with a nickname that makes them more

[18:32] interesting so I'm just gonna call him Thomas Jane he's a therapist I'm not

[18:37] gonna get into too much detail because I think it would not serve us well I don't

[18:42] have plans well we meet him he is unethically using his psychic powers to

[18:47] look inside the bay the brain sorry of a patient that was just he's a bad

[18:57] therapist but the amount number of times I've been in therapy and I wish that my

[19:00] therapist could just look inside my head and see they never describe it that would

[19:04] be yeah if it was also you know you save a lot of money yeah I mean I'm going for

[19:10] six years now I don't have a shirt I can just go in there and go you know yada

[19:14] yada you hate yourself you have to work on it okay great I'm going to White

[19:21] Castle thanks for everything but because this is Stephen King the the guy

[19:31] collapses the bench class yeah the couch he's sitting on which is just it's

[19:37] insulting you also love that the movie does a very clever way to slip in that

[19:42] he went to Harvard by showing his Harvard degree on the wall yeah but

[19:47] they're like we got to make sure everybody knows he went to Harvard like

[19:50] he shoots it does he not he shoots it yeah yeah speaking of shooting this

[19:53] mysterious therapist psychic therapist pulls out a gun he's gonna kill himself

[19:59] but he's

[20:00] erupted by a call from Damien Lewis, who's Jonesy.

[20:03] Now, here's something, this is something

[20:04] that got to me a little bit was,

[20:06] he never, at no point was I like,

[20:08] yeah, there's inner turmoil in this guy

[20:10] that would lead him to potentially take his own life.

[20:12] Like, it seemed so-

[20:13] Well, we're just meeting him.

[20:14] I mean, you know what I mean?

[20:15] Later on in the movie.

[20:16] Okay, oh yeah, yeah.

[20:17] Oh yeah, I'm sure later on he'll fill in

[20:18] why all four guys are messed up.

[20:20] Yeah.

[20:21] Right?

[20:22] No, you're right, that does not pay off in any way,

[20:24] now that I think about it.

[20:25] No, he doesn't, none of it.

[20:27] You don't know why anybody's got a problem.

[20:29] No, they all seem like they've been really hurt.

[20:31] It's almost like the movie,

[20:32] something happened in the backstory of the characters

[20:35] that we never see and we don't know about.

[20:37] Because when we do see their backstory,

[20:38] it's just them being psychic together,

[20:39] finding missing kids.

[20:41] But you don't find that,

[20:42] you don't even have the trope of being psychic

[20:45] has fucked their lives up

[20:46] because it's too much noise in their heads.

[20:48] Yeah, yeah.

[20:49] You've got, you've got, the therapist is just suicidal.

[20:52] That's it, that's character trait.

[20:54] You've got suicidal, toothpick, other than that.

[20:58] Other than that, it should have been a nickname,

[20:59] instead of Beave.

[21:00] Yeah.

[21:01] Beavers eat toothpicks.

[21:03] Damien Lewis.

[21:04] Oh, I didn't think of that.

[21:05] Yeah.

[21:06] That's true.

[21:07] That's more brilliant than most of the film.

[21:09] Yeah, I changed my mind, it's a great movie.

[21:11] Fuck me, Freddie, it's right.

[21:13] Oh, shit, don't, don't.

[21:14] Because I'm afraid we're gonna have to start

[21:16] saying these things in real life.

[21:17] Yeah.

[21:18] These, these, yeah.

[21:19] Later on when they're like, is this a fuckeroo?

[21:20] No, it's a fuckery.

[21:21] I'm like, what, come on, this is, please don't.

[21:24] Same shit, different day, guys, that's SSDD.

[21:27] Unless you're gonna give me, like,

[21:28] a David Lynch Dune glossary program

[21:32] to look at during the movie, you know?

[21:34] No, this movie.

[21:35] Behave like it's a common term.

[21:36] Yeah, this movie doesn't understand.

[21:37] Like a clockwork orange.

[21:38] You wonder if the book has a clockwork orange

[21:40] glossary in the back, you know?

[21:41] Red, red, crabby, fuckeroo, fuckeroo.

[21:46] Jonesy wants them to go up to the cabin

[21:48] for someone named Dudditz.

[21:50] We'll learn that later on this is the way

[21:52] the character says his name,

[21:54] which is actually Dudley, I believe.

[21:57] Because Dudley Moore was gonna play the part originally.

[22:01] Early in the movie, audiences can be forgiven

[22:03] for being like, what's a Dudditz?

[22:05] Dudley Manlove, Dudley Manlove could've been in there.

[22:09] Jonesy's a teacher, he has an interaction

[22:12] with a student that shows he's also psychic.

[22:14] We get a car dealer, Timothy Oliphant.

[22:17] But he's the good kind of psychic.

[22:18] He's like, you cheat a lot on a test,

[22:20] but you know what, you're a good kid.

[22:21] You just, you're poor, so I feel bad.

[22:23] I feel sympathy for you.

[22:24] Because they had to show his dirty ripped up sneakers

[22:29] something like 17 times in that scene.

[22:32] They just kept putting insert shots of the,

[22:34] in case you didn't get it, he's poor.

[22:36] And they're from the same bad part of Maine

[22:38] because in Stephen King stories,

[22:40] like 80% of the country's population lives in Maine.

[22:43] Basically, yeah.

[22:45] We meet car dealer, Timothy Oliphant.

[22:48] He tries to hit on a lady with his own psychic powers,

[22:51] but only creeps her out.

[22:52] This goes on for so long that he uses his psychic powers

[22:55] to help her find her keys, and I think what creeps her out

[22:58] is the hitting on at the end.

[23:00] Well, yes, but I think that she's spooked

[23:05] by the fact that he seemingly has psychic powers.

[23:08] Except all I kept thinking, though,

[23:10] is that if I met somebody who found my keys

[23:12] using psychic abilities, I'd be like, holy shit,

[23:15] I should maybe get to know this person.

[23:18] Yeah, I would think it was cool.

[23:19] I would think it was cool.

[23:20] She's terrified by it.

[23:21] She's terrified by it, yeah.

[23:22] I mean, he does come off as absolutely creepy.

[23:24] Yes.

[23:25] Yes.

[23:26] Which is wild, because it's Timothy Oliphant,

[23:27] who we were talking about before we started taping,

[23:29] became a very handsome, charismatic.

[23:32] He's been slimy, but this is the first time

[23:35] he's seemed creepy.

[23:36] Yeah.

[23:37] But the scene comes off like you're supposed to feel

[23:39] that she's unnerved by his psychic ability.

[23:43] But I would think the entire audience is just like,

[23:46] you know.

[23:47] No, it's the way he's staring.

[23:50] He does have this book clamps.

[23:51] And asking her for clams,

[23:53] which is not a good first date.

[23:54] Bullfrog stare at her.

[23:56] She's very desperate.

[23:57] I don't know if he's supposed to be.

[23:59] He just.

[24:01] I got one more.

[24:02] One more member of the crew.

[24:03] That's Jason Lee playing Beaver.

[24:06] And his personality is he's always got a toothpick.

[24:09] And he's an asshole, because there has to be an asshole.

[24:11] He's the one who's like the wisecracker.

[24:13] He's a wisecracking asshole.

[24:13] And he's a Scientologist, right?

[24:17] Well, Jason Lee is.

[24:18] Jason Lee is no longer part of Scientology.

[24:20] He doesn't want to talk about it.

[24:21] Okay.

[24:22] He's not very protective of him,

[24:23] because he owns a store in my neighborhood.

[24:25] So.

[24:26] Really?

[24:26] Yeah.

[24:27] Okay, he made it through it.

[24:28] Okay.

[24:29] Yes.

[24:30] Elliot, if we pay you enough money,

[24:31] can you go in there and just yell dream catcher

[24:33] and punch him in the face?

[24:34] No.

[24:35] I mean, it'd have to be a pretty big amount of money.

[24:37] We'll talk about it afterwards.

[24:39] He's brought the enjoyment and other projects.

[24:42] 12 bucks.

[24:44] We'll talk.

[24:45] We'll talk.

[24:46] Yeah.

[24:47] Terms we're all agreeable with.

[24:49] 15 bucks.

[24:52] We can raise money.

[24:52] We can crowdfund this, I'm sure.

[24:54] He'll probably put in $5.

[24:57] What was the store selling?

[24:59] It sells camera equipment.

[25:02] He's on to photography now.

[25:03] So, yeah.

[25:03] Oh, cool.

[25:05] Well, Jason Lee tells Damien Lewis over the phone

[25:08] to be careful.

[25:09] He's got some kind of bad premonition.

[25:10] And on his way home, sure enough,

[25:12] Jonesy walks right out into traffic.

[25:15] Now, I would like to take him on.

[25:17] Yeah, he gets, what, blacked by those cops.

[25:19] He looks so funny.

[25:21] I thought he got killed by CGI at first.

[25:22] I thought, this is interesting.

[25:24] There's a couple of open questions here

[25:26] about Damien Lewis' character.

[25:27] One, this is a weird performance.

[25:30] Even before he has a British alien in his head

[25:33] that's taking over his body.

[25:34] It's already a weird performance.

[25:35] But also, they go out of their way

[25:38] to say that he is dead, basically.

[25:40] Like, you see from his point of view,

[25:41] they're like, there's nothing we can do.

[25:43] But then the next scene,

[25:44] he's just hobbling around with the other characters.

[25:46] There's definitely no support for that scene.

[25:49] They don't.

[25:49] Yeah, well, in the ambulance, we get Dudditz,

[25:52] our first viewing of Dudditz as a bully.

[25:55] He's got some sort of mental disability, it seems.

[25:59] And he says, watch out for Mr. Gay,

[26:01] and then fade out.

[26:02] And we're like, did he die?

[26:03] But I guess Dudditz's power brought him back to life.

[26:06] And this is 2003, this movie.

[26:08] So they could be warning people about gay people.

[26:11] It wasn't, these movies could still be

[26:13] on the wrong side of that thing.

[26:14] Yeah, yeah.

[26:15] Well, it certainly comes up, Mr. Gay,

[26:17] I mean, what are you supposed to make of that, right?

[26:19] It's just Stephen King being creative.

[26:21] You know?

[26:25] That is like old Southern lady level

[26:28] of damning someone by saying something nice.

[26:32] But I mean, you have a ghostly Down syndrome patient

[26:38] saying, beware of Mr. Gay.

[26:40] Yes, it's some of the worst.

[26:42] And Hollywood jumps up in their seats.

[26:46] We gotta do it, we gotta make this movie.

[26:47] Gotta do this as it is.

[26:49] And you gotta play it as it lies.

[26:51] And as we learned later,

[26:52] this is something that Dudditz has known about

[26:54] since they were children,

[26:55] but has not thought fit to mention it at any point.

[26:58] But he had to wait until you get hit by cars to tell you.

[27:03] It's all part of his grim scheme,

[27:04] because he needs him to have been hit by cars.

[27:07] Dudditz couldn't get a fucking notepad and a pen.

[27:09] No.

[27:10] We get a caption that says, six months later,

[27:13] and this plays over shots of a dream catcher,

[27:15] because that's the title of the movie.

[27:17] That's where I pointed the screen.

[27:18] Tell my wife that's the dream catcher.

[27:20] I was very happy.

[27:21] Leo DiCaprio pointing at the screen,

[27:23] except he's got a dream catcher for a head.

[27:25] I read a Wikipedia about the book,

[27:28] that at the end of it, I guess,

[27:30] sort of explains why it's called Dream Catcher.

[27:32] And I've already forgotten why.

[27:34] Honestly, even in the book,

[27:35] it seems like that's a dumb idea.

[27:38] It doesn't really.

[27:39] It's so forced on the film,

[27:42] but King likes to bring in Native Americans

[27:46] or black culture to throw this patois of folk horror

[27:52] or some grounding for the bullshit.

[27:55] The dream catcher in this is that,

[27:58] God damn it, a dream catcher is supposed to catch,

[28:02] is a Native American,

[28:04] they're supposed to protect you from bad dreams,

[28:08] which is absolutely stupid in the context of this film.

[28:11] Well, and it points to like,

[28:13] I bet Stephen King could write a pretty great movie

[28:15] about the collection of nightmares

[28:18] and get loose or something like that.

[28:20] That would be great.

[28:21] It's its own concept and they don't use it, really.

[28:23] It's that they have a big dream catcher in their house.

[28:25] They're like, yep, that's our dream catcher, all right.

[28:26] And then later they're like,

[28:27] to dud, it's our dream catcher.

[28:29] And I'm like, how, it doesn't make any sense.

[28:32] I don't understand.

[28:33] There's some, the book is probably,

[28:35] I mean, the book is thick

[28:36] and it's obviously got more time to delve into all this shit

[28:41] but there's probably all this stuff

[28:42] because later on when we get into the alien stuff,

[28:45] they have a-

[28:46] Wait, there's alien stuff?

[28:48] Yeah, I hate to tell you.

[28:49] I hate to tell you, but that's where this is going.

[28:51] But the aliens do this like, you know, falsity thing.

[28:54] They have this lying ability

[28:55] of projecting illusions and speak and talk.

[29:02] They do this bullshit and that's, I guess, the dream catcher.

[29:06] I looked up the end of the Wikipedia.

[29:08] It doesn't work.

[29:09] It doesn't work.

[29:10] So apparently in the novel, as it says here,

[29:12] it is revealed that Jonesy was immune

[29:15] to the alien fungus all along

[29:17] and Mr. Gray was only able to take over his mind

[29:20] because he believed it could.

[29:21] The idea of being caught as in a dream catcher.

[29:24] I'm like, that doesn't-

[29:25] Holy shit.

[29:26] That's way dumber than I thought.

[29:27] That's really dumb.

[29:28] That's idiotic.

[29:29] I'm sorry I said anything in the last five minutes about this.

[29:33] I feel like I'm not getting paid to work here.

[29:36] Are you kidding me?

[29:37] Let me go take a look at stenographer.

[29:38] Can you read back what Evan was saying?

[29:40] No, I don't want to.

[29:41] Yes, he said, Stephen King, master storyteller.

[29:43] It all comes together.

[29:44] It all makes sense.

[29:45] Yeah.

[29:46] I'm sure with more time to develop,

[29:47] it explains it super clearly.

[29:49] I gave dream catcher more credit than dream catcher.

[29:53] It's amazing because, you know, as writers,

[29:54] you know, and anybody listening,

[29:56] you know, you go into a work situation or try to get a job.

[30:00] and you bust your fucking ass trying to make your plot,

[30:03] make your characters, make things make sense,

[30:05] and then you get, you know, Dreamcatcher.

[30:09] Yeah.

[30:10] And you know you couldn't sell it in a million years

[30:12] on your own name.

[30:13] Absolutely not.

[30:14] Anyway, sorry.

[30:16] No, they've made it out to the cabin.

[30:17] All four guys are at the cabin.

[30:18] Six months later,

[30:21] Jonesy has recovered with mysterious speed.

[30:24] And he says that when he was hit,

[30:26] it was because he saw Dudditz gesturing to him

[30:29] from across the street.

[30:30] Now, we don't see this, right?

[30:31] And he walked out of the street.

[30:32] We have not seen this previously.

[30:33] Because I thought I had missed something.

[30:34] And he's like, oh yeah, I saw Dudditz there.

[30:36] I was like, I don't remember seeing Dudditz across the street.

[30:37] No, he's not in there.

[30:38] It's a cheat.

[30:38] It's a real weird cheat

[30:39] because they know that their idea is stupid

[30:43] and looks ridiculous.

[30:45] Your friend that you haven't seen in years

[30:46] shows up as his childhood, in his childhood, God,

[30:50] in his underwear.

[30:52] Either you go the other way or you go,

[30:53] hold on, wait for the light.

[30:56] I'll be right there.

[30:57] You take the paper bag wrapped liquor bottle

[31:01] you've been sipping off of and you dump it out

[31:02] and you're like, never again.

[31:04] I mean, he looks like,

[31:06] when they finally do show it,

[31:07] it's absolutely ridiculous.

[31:09] It's like a Gigi Allen concert's across the street

[31:11] or something like that.

[31:13] And it's like, but he walks into all the CGI track.

[31:17] It's not like that final destination car,

[31:22] the silent final destination car

[31:23] that wipes you out out of nowhere.

[31:26] There's cars go, he just plays the worst game of Frogger ever.

[31:30] And he doesn't seem as if he's about to run across,

[31:33] like, oh no, an emergency.

[31:34] He just steps right in.

[31:35] And it looks like he's possessed or something,

[31:38] but he's not.

[31:39] That's never discussed.

[31:41] And also like, if you saw your friend gesturing

[31:44] at you across the street,

[31:46] you would still like look, right?

[31:47] You wouldn't be like, oh man,

[31:49] I gotta get smooshed first.

[31:50] Yeah, and it is an amazingly bad way

[31:53] to start your drama off.

[31:55] You know, he gets hit by multiple cars.

[31:58] He's destroyed.

[31:59] People say he's dead.

[32:00] Then he's told not to look out for him escape.

[32:02] And then he's in a cabin six months later.

[32:04] Yeah.

[32:05] I mean, it's the only flaw in an otherwise perfect film.

[32:07] If only we could all,

[32:08] our bodies could all recover this quickly.

[32:10] That's the joy of being what?

[32:11] He's what, like 30s?

[32:13] I don't know.

[32:14] We don't know.

[32:15] We don't know.

[32:16] And time is interesting in this film

[32:17] because I think that it's been a 20 year gap

[32:19] from when they were kids,

[32:21] but they all talk like they're from the 50s.

[32:24] They talk like they're still kids, yeah.

[32:25] Well, that's the standby me bullshit.

[32:28] That's the next thing.

[32:29] They all have some unfunny banter for a while.

[32:31] The idea of a memory warehouse is introduced

[32:35] and we get, as Evan suggested,

[32:37] some very literal visual representations

[32:40] of Jonesy going through his memory warehouse.

[32:42] And a thing that might work in a book.

[32:45] Yeah.

[32:46] Yeah.

[32:47] We also get Stephen King's, you know,

[32:49] Hey, fellow kids.

[32:51] We get him holding a skateboard and playing,

[32:55] what's his face?

[32:57] I'm blanking out on the thing.

[32:58] Stephen Simmy?

[32:59] Yeah, no, no.

[33:00] The thing, Roy Orbison.

[33:02] We get Roy Orbison rock and roll from these guys

[33:05] who grew up in the 90s or the 80s.

[33:07] And-

[33:08] Toss on, Ooby Dooby.

[33:09] Oh, that's right.

[33:10] Yeah, he's like,

[33:11] don't forget the words to Blue Bayou, right?

[33:13] And I'm like, what the, what are you?

[33:15] They have Blue Bayou.

[33:16] That was a big hit in 1980, 90.

[33:19] Sure.

[33:21] But yeah, we get a lot of this slang

[33:23] that was previously mentioned.

[33:24] Fuckaroo, fuckaro.

[33:26] Jesus Christ bananas comes in.

[33:29] So later on, someone says a real job-a-nava.

[33:32] Job-a-nava.

[33:33] Well, that's, what's funny is

[33:35] that when Morgan Freeman gets something,

[33:37] it's like he's trying to outdo them.

[33:39] This is like, hey, buddy buckaroo.

[33:40] Okay, buddy boy, buckaroo.

[33:42] He's going back to easy reader days or something like that.

[33:45] That's a real job-a-nava there.

[33:47] Pissing on the same latrine.

[33:48] All the gorilla.

[33:49] The thing that's really bad about that sequence is,

[33:53] are we gonna go through the whole thing

[33:54] and then talk about it?

[33:55] I don't understand if I-

[33:56] No, no, we can talk as we go.

[33:57] Okay, so what's really terrible about that whole

[34:01] getting to know these guys,

[34:02] which you don't actually get to know them at all

[34:04] because it's just horrible banter,

[34:06] which is why we were joking before,

[34:08] does Stephen King have friends?

[34:10] Does he talk to people?

[34:11] Because it seems to be this whole inner life writing.

[34:16] It's just devoid of real life.

[34:18] And, but, I mean,

[34:20] whatever you want to say about Kasdan and Goldman,

[34:22] watch these.

[34:23] These are actors on a set speaking lines,

[34:27] wearing makeup, being lit.

[34:29] It is such a phony, synthetic sequence.

[34:33] It is just so,

[34:34] it doesn't even reach the level

[34:36] of commercial advertising reality.

[34:39] It is just so forced and it's depressing

[34:42] because it's like,

[34:43] it really does feel like,

[34:45] hello, fellow, hey, fellow kids.

[34:46] I mean, it's just-

[34:48] Yeah.

[34:48] But you're kind of right.

[34:49] If they started talking about,

[34:50] have you ever,

[34:52] I mean, they do start talking about Viagra at one point,

[34:53] right?

[34:54] And it fails to reach the level of reality

[34:55] of a Viagra commercial,

[34:56] where people are like,

[34:58] I've been having a little bit of trouble with the old lady.

[34:59] Well, my doctor gave me some advice.

[35:02] Like, it feels like they're failing to meet that level.

[35:04] Viagra is also the most recent,

[35:06] I think, pop culture or world reference

[35:10] because we also have Mars Bars,

[35:11] we have Louisville Sluggers.

[35:14] I mean, I'm old enough to get this shit.

[35:16] Maybe you guys are close enough,

[35:18] but it's like,

[35:19] when's the last time you heard the word

[35:20] Louisville Slugger in your life?

[35:22] Yeah, yeah.

[35:24] It takes you,

[35:25] I mean, there's just no way into this film

[35:27] to try to avoid it.

[35:28] It's just impenetrable.

[35:32] Yeah.

[35:33] And it's filled with seemingly irrelevant stuff.

[35:37] We get a flashback to Derry,

[35:40] one of Stephen King's favorite locations.

[35:44] Derry, I loved, yeah.

[35:45] The Troubles.

[35:46] It's Toronto.

[35:47] It's like the cheapest place to film or something.

[35:49] We see the four,

[35:51] our four leads of kids.

[35:53] He's like,

[35:53] it's cheaper to write a novel set in Derry.

[35:55] You don't know,

[35:55] it's just like,

[35:56] everything's cheaper.

[35:57] I know people there.

[35:58] I have deals.

[36:00] Our child versions of our four leads

[36:03] find a shirt and a Scooby-Doo lunchbox

[36:07] and that's because they've been ripped off of Dudditz

[36:09] by some bullies.

[36:10] The Scooby-Doo references may be the worst

[36:12] of the references in the film.

[36:13] Yeah.

[36:14] Yes.

[36:15] To have a character in a,

[36:18] just to spoil something,

[36:19] but to have a character in the serious climax of the movie

[36:21] go,

[36:22] Ooby-Dooby-Doo,

[36:23] we got some work to do now.

[36:26] It is amazing.

[36:27] It's amazing that that survived

[36:30] at every level of filmmaking.

[36:32] So this poor kid

[36:35] is being bullied by some high schoolers,

[36:38] I think,

[36:39] and one of them's the captain of the football team

[36:41] who is trying to force feed him a dog turd.

[36:44] And I'm like,

[36:45] just to do that means he has to touch a dog turd.

[36:47] Yeah.

[36:48] Right?

[36:49] Also,

[36:50] he is shamed into backing off.

[36:53] Basically like,

[36:54] oh,

[36:55] we'll tell everyone in school how you get your kicks.

[36:56] I'm like,

[36:57] I hate to tell you guys,

[36:59] but little kids are sociopaths.

[37:01] They're gonna side with the captain of the football team.

[37:04] He says,

[37:05] we're gonna tell the world,

[37:06] which was pretty hilarious.

[37:09] We're gonna tell the world that you feed this guy.

[37:11] And also,

[37:12] the idea that they've somehow never met this kid before,

[37:15] like where did he come from?

[37:16] I believe he went to a different school.

[37:18] I think they do address that he went to like

[37:20] a special needs school.

[37:21] They actually backed something up in this movie?

[37:22] My God.

[37:23] I mean,

[37:24] I don't know how well,

[37:25] but.

[37:25] I mean,

[37:26] there must've been some scene that got cut

[37:27] that shows why they don't get the shit kicked out of them

[37:29] the next time they leave the house.

[37:30] It makes no sense.

[37:32] And it's funny because they really are a,

[37:34] you know,

[37:35] a Temu,

[37:36] Stephen King bully group.

[37:38] They seem to be,

[37:40] I mean,

[37:41] what's really sad about it is that the first shot you get

[37:42] in the flashback is them walking.

[37:44] And no one on earth can see that without going,

[37:47] this is standby me.

[37:48] Yeah.

[37:49] It just looks like a terrible standby me flashback.

[37:53] And in fact,

[37:54] I think the next time we flashback,

[37:55] they're walking by train tracks,

[37:57] which is like,

[37:58] it just should not be allowed,

[38:00] you know?

[38:01] It'd be illegal.

[38:02] Yeah,

[38:03] dead bodies littered everywhere.

[38:05] It was,

[38:06] it was,

[38:07] it's vaguely insulting and kind of really cheap and,

[38:10] and,

[38:11] and beneath filmmakers to go that far.

[38:14] I mean,

[38:15] the film is such a grab bag.

[38:18] It's King things in the first place.

[38:20] It does,

[38:20] it does feel like,

[38:21] Christine driving by,

[38:23] Cujo runs by.

[38:24] It feels like they're,

[38:25] they've ordered Stephen King by the pound.

[38:28] And they're just like,

[38:29] yep,

[38:30] 10 pounds of Stephen King.

[38:31] Do we specify what parts we get?

[38:33] No,

[38:34] no,

[38:34] they just slop it all into a bag of Stephen King.

[38:35] Yeah,

[38:36] it doesn't matter.

[38:37] Yeah.

[38:38] Snouts.

[38:39] Yeah,

[38:39] but they,

[38:40] they befriend duddits.

[38:41] That's the whole point of that.

[38:42] Back in the present,

[38:43] Damien Lewis is in a hunter's blind and he sees this

[38:46] injured man walking through the show and brings him inside.

[38:48] To the show?

[38:49] To the snow probably,

[38:50] right?

[38:51] To the snow,

[38:52] sorry.

[38:53] Yeah,

[38:53] he doesn't,

[38:54] he's not walking through the show.

[38:55] He's not doing a production of Schmigadoon on Broadway now.

[38:56] I hear Smash Mouth is playing in this forest,

[38:58] he says.

[39:01] I'm being called by the siren song of Smash Mouth.

[39:03] It's the perfect band for this film.

[39:04] They bring,

[39:05] oh,

[39:06] excuse me,

[39:07] Roy Orbison and Linda Ronstadt.

[39:09] They did an all-star.

[39:12] Is Del Shannon performing around here?

[39:13] Oh yeah,

[39:14] a huge superstar,

[39:15] Del Shannon,

[39:16] yeah,

[39:17] of course,

[39:18] yeah.

[39:18] Yeah,

[39:19] he brings him inside.

[39:20] Del Shannon.

[39:21] He brings this man inside,

[39:22] where the man can't stop burping and farting,

[39:24] and he's got an attitude.

[39:26] So this movie gets super pleasant.

[39:30] So this is when the movie,

[39:31] I feel like the movie reaches,

[39:32] it's had a number of tests that it has failed

[39:34] up to this point,

[39:35] but this is when it reaches the hardest test,

[39:37] and the easiest to fail,

[39:38] and they,

[39:40] which is,

[39:41] can this movie maintain a tone of horror

[39:43] when you have a character who's just burping

[39:44] and farting as loud as possible?

[39:46] I think,

[39:47] like Roger Ebert had a quote where it's like,

[39:49] this movie has too many farts for a movie

[39:51] that's supposed to be taken seriously.

[39:54] Something like that.

[39:55] How many farts is there that,

[39:57] you know,

[39:58] Mr. Owl,

[39:59] he's got a lot of farts.

[40:00] Oh, he can get the tourniquet figured out without biting, yeah.

[40:05] Yeah, um, this, and the thing is also, it's just, the actor, it's just such a sitcom level

[40:11] kind of everything.

[40:13] The guys make, I mean, it's just ludicrous.

[40:16] It's like, this is like, you know, an episode of Alice or something with it, you know?

[40:20] But also, he's clearly, there's clearly something seriously wrong with him, and they're like,

[40:23] you okay, buddy?

[40:24] Well, his belly's just ended like there's a thing in there, so.

[40:26] He's got a balloon in his chest, and he's got red makeup all over his face, and he's

[40:30] acting really badly.

[40:33] And one of them's like, yeah, go sleep in my bed.

[40:35] Yeah, exactly.

[40:36] Well, these aren't the nicest guys.

[40:38] If you're ever being fed a turd by bullies, they will show up to stop you.

[40:44] But that's what Jonesy and the Beef are up to.

[40:46] They're all having farts.

[40:47] Farting.

[40:48] Yeah, the Beef shows up eventually and says some criminal, oh, I can't remember that one.

[40:53] He has some other great bon mots.

[40:56] Fart-related references.

[40:57] Yeah.

[40:58] Meanwhile, what?

[40:59] I was going to say, what's Tom Jane up to?

[41:02] Tom Jane and Tim Oliphant are coming back to the cabin.

[41:06] They see someone sitting in the middle of the road, and they swerve to avoid them, flip

[41:09] their truck, and investigate this woman in the snow.

[41:13] She's nearly frozen.

[41:14] This whole trip of theirs is not going well for fuck's sake.

[41:17] These guys are really boring.

[41:18] This woman is also farting a lot.

[41:20] Super fuck-ups.

[41:21] Yeah.

[41:22] They're very bad at what they're doing.

[41:23] I don't know why they're driving so fast down a snowy woodland road that you can't stop.

[41:29] They do cover this in a very Stephen King way, how they have their buddy Schtick.

[41:36] But they've got to get over this hill, so they start making this, come on, pump it or

[41:41] some dumb thing.

[41:42] And it's terrible.

[41:44] That's right.

[41:45] It makes no sense.

[41:46] It gets us to them crashing outside the farting woman.

[41:53] This is up there, maybe ahead of Deliverance in terms of guys trips out that don't go well.

[41:58] Farting woman would be a good alternative to Burning Man, I think, but that's to the

[42:03] side.

[42:04] Sorry.

[42:05] To the side.

[42:06] Or like a...

[42:07] Booby-dooby-doo.

[42:08] An inn or a tavern with a farting woman.

[42:11] Yeah, it's like a pub in a particularly poorly run Dungeons & Dragons game.

[42:15] Oh yeah, that's good.

[42:16] You can beat the bard up.

[42:17] Get a tanker to bail on the farting woman.

[42:18] That's when you beat the bard up, right?

[42:20] Always got to kick the bard's ass.

[42:23] Bite my bag.

[42:24] He says, bite my bag.

[42:25] He's trying to bite my bag at one point, yeah.

[42:28] At the cabin...

[42:29] His bag of holding, of course.

[42:32] Very good.

[42:33] Very good.

[42:34] Beev and Jonesy, Lee and Lewis see a bunch of animals running away.

[42:39] They also have the rash and a helicopter arrives hovering above them with a megaphone.

[42:44] This whole area is under quarantine.

[42:45] They have to stay put.

[42:46] It will be resolved within 48 hours.

[42:50] Inside the helicopter, Morgan Freeman, our other big star of the picture.

[42:53] With some great eyebrows.

[42:54] Those eyebrows are amazing.

[42:55] George Whipple's fucking flying this thing.

[42:57] That's amazing, those eyebrows.

[42:59] I mean, you can't stop staring at them in every scene.

[43:03] Regional newsman, George Whipple.

[43:06] Oh my God.

[43:09] Jonesy and the Beev, they see a blood trail to the bathroom.

[43:12] They check on the sick man.

[43:14] He is dead on the toilet, bleeding from the rectum.

[43:17] Something's swimming around in the toilet.

[43:20] This is when they got to this part of the script and they said, green light it.

[43:23] Yeah.

[43:24] Off OBO.

[43:25] This is the part where everybody needs to go into people's houses and remove Oscars.

[43:30] Lee is stuck on the toilet, trying to hold it down.

[43:34] He's like Danny Glover in Lethal Weapon 2.

[43:36] He can't move.

[43:37] Definitely, yeah, yeah.

[43:38] You got to get to the toothpick.

[43:40] You got to get the toothpick.

[43:42] He drops his toothpicks.

[43:44] They're dropped in the bloody feces.

[43:46] There's blood everywhere.

[43:48] They drop on the floor and he is trying to reach for one, but still trying to hold down the toothpick.

[43:53] He's like, let your toothpicks go.

[43:55] They're covered in blood.

[43:56] It's one of the dumbest things you've ever seen in a film.

[44:00] Not only that, but they give him a chance to think about it because he reaches for a toothpick

[44:06] and the creature tries to, it bounces him up in the air.

[44:10] Yeah.

[44:11] He gets, you know what I mean?

[44:12] Somebody actually says, hang on, Kemosabe.

[44:15] Yeah.

[44:17] There's an ass monster in the toilet below you.

[44:19] If you reach for that, it can come out.

[44:21] I mean, he's clearly given the choice and he does it again.

[44:26] Yeah.

[44:27] Well, yeah, he's alone because Jones is going to get some duct tape or whatever to tape the toilet seat down.

[44:33] But yeah, guys, we've all been there, right?

[44:35] Yeah.

[44:36] So Beef.

[44:37] Yes.

[44:38] Beef is like reaching for a toothpick that's fallen.

[44:40] He does like go for the one that's like not in the blood, but it's still on the bathroom floor.

[44:47] He doesn't need a toothpick to live.

[44:49] Yeah.

[44:50] There's no reason.

[44:51] I mean, I realize his whole personality is he has a toothpick in his head.

[44:55] Okay.

[44:56] But he's not going to die without the toothpick.

[44:59] This is definitely the behavior of the type of person who wears shoes in other people's houses, right?

[45:04] Yeah.

[45:05] What?

[45:06] I mean, what?

[45:07] It's written as if he's reaching for like his insulin shot or his inhaler.

[45:12] You would think that this is the asthma, you know what I mean?

[45:16] The asthma scene that's going on.

[45:18] Even if it was a cigarette.

[45:19] If it was a cigarette, at least I'd be like, okay.

[45:21] That's what I was saying.

[45:22] Okay, he's nervous.

[45:23] I don't know.

[45:24] But I mean, he can't wait for a toothpick.

[45:27] Un-fucking-believable.

[45:29] How do you read that script?

[45:31] This is one of two scenes where someone fumbles with something.

[45:33] Yes.

[45:34] And you see a whole bunch of things fall because they're dealing with matches later.

[45:36] It's a little emotional.

[45:37] Yeah.

[45:38] Because you might miss it.

[45:39] You might blink and not know that they dropped the object.

[45:42] It's not germane to the movie, but you had to drink every time there was an insert shot

[45:49] or two guys looking at each other so that you know that the point was made.

[45:53] It is such an obnoxious movie.

[45:56] Yeah.

[45:57] It really doesn't think that audiences have eyeballs.

[45:59] Yeah.

[46:00] It's constantly, you know, did you see that?

[46:02] The toothpicks?

[46:03] Well, there's also the point when all the animals, my wife pointed this out, all the

[46:08] animals are going away from whatever came.

[46:10] The Disney scene, yeah.

[46:12] And the one guy's like, hey, Beave.

[46:14] And Beave doesn't do anything.

[46:16] And he's like, Beaver, Beaver.

[46:18] Until he turns around and looks.

[46:20] Or Jonesy, I don't remember which one.

[46:22] But it's like, no, you would react.

[46:24] Human beings react to things.

[46:26] You would have turned around.

[46:28] The reactions are horrible.

[46:30] You would probably hear, but you didn't have to see.

[46:32] I mean, that kind of stuff happens in movies all the time where you don't notice the thing is

[46:34] happening until you see it, even if it's a loud, it would be a loud thing.

[46:37] I saw that happening.

[46:39] I like that the animals are also really orally.

[46:41] You kind of expect Sleeping Beauty, Disney's Sleeping Beauty, to walk through.

[46:43] Birds on her, you know, adjoining her.

[46:45] It's a ridiculous scene.

[46:47] Speaking of another Disney movie.

[46:49] It sounds great in the book.

[46:51] I bet.

[46:53] Because that's an interesting, you know, the reaction of flora, of fauna, you know.

[46:55] Oh, the frogs.

[46:57] There's no noise.

[46:59] I always enjoy that in a movie where you know something big and bad is coming.

[47:01] But it's like, what is it reacting?

[47:03] You don't know what it's actually reacting to.

[47:06] Staying on the Disney thing.

[47:08] I would think, oh, Bambi.

[47:10] Like, if I saw that happening, I would be like, oh, there's a forest fire coming this way.

[47:12] We have to leave this cabin.

[47:14] I wouldn't be like, let's hang out.

[47:16] But they've been told by the helicopter they're quarantined.

[47:18] Which Jason Lee seems to take very personally.

[47:20] He's like, we got a sick man down here.

[47:22] Like, yeah, you're quarantined.

[47:24] He goes, no, he's sick.

[47:26] They set it up as if Beave is going to have a, you know, a pole fight with Morgan Freeman later.

[47:28] Because, you know, he's like, I don't want to be quarantined.

[47:30] He's like, I don't want to be quarantined.

[47:32] He's like, I don't want to be quarantined.

[47:34] With Morgan Freeman later.

[47:36] Because he gives him the finger.

[47:38] And then they show Morgan Freeman staring him down.

[47:40] It's like, wow, is it bad?

[47:42] Jason Lee doesn't have that finger for very long.

[47:44] No, no, no.

[47:46] He gets asthma for his toothpick idiocy.

[47:48] And he like slips.

[47:50] The thing comes out of the toilet.

[47:52] It's like this worm penis tentacle with big rows of teeth.

[47:54] And it immediately eats his fingers.

[47:56] It's an okay kind of slimy alien launch thing.

[47:58] It's all right.

[48:00] It's not crazy.

[48:03] I'm just saying.

[48:05] For the audience.

[48:07] Does it bite him in the crotch the first thing it does?

[48:09] I think no.

[48:11] There's two.

[48:13] Two crotch shots.

[48:15] This thing comes out.

[48:17] And it starts fucking with him.

[48:19] And then it eventually gets him.

[48:21] It takes his finger.

[48:23] But I believe it bites him in the crotch.

[48:25] Because later on we have a second crotch.

[48:27] Oh, it could be.

[48:29] Either way, he gets killed.

[48:32] Yes.

[48:34] I think he gets his crotch grabbed and bit on the back of the neck.

[48:36] Jonesy locks it in the bathroom.

[48:38] Some people like that.

[48:40] It gets out.

[48:42] It crawls past him towards this new strange creature who's just arrived.

[48:44] It's a big gray alien.

[48:46] That's sort of vaguely Close Encounter-ish.

[48:48] This alien leans in towards Lewis.

[48:50] Before his head explodes into a red mist.

[48:52] That I guess Lewis breathes in.

[48:54] The mist.

[48:56] Yep.

[48:58] Cut to the local military.

[49:00] The local military encampment.

[49:02] Where Morgan Freeman.

[49:04] This is where plot three of the movie.

[49:06] Ramps itself into plots one and two.

[49:08] You get these nice.

[49:10] Sub Spielbergian.

[49:12] Military music.

[49:14] And shots with a budget.

[49:16] You just kind of see money coming.

[49:18] Going through Thomas's face.

[49:20] We're opening this up.

[49:22] Morgan Freeman.

[49:24] Talks to his second in command.

[49:26] Played by Tom Sizemore.

[49:29] That's a good sign right there.

[49:31] Just need Michael Madsen to walk in.

[49:37] That's the problem with casting Tom Sizemore.

[49:39] I was waiting for that character to lose it.

[49:41] The entire movie.

[49:43] But he's very nice.

[49:45] Weird stuff happens.

[49:47] You think weird stuff happens?

[49:49] We get some info dump stuff.

[49:51] That doesn't really clear much up.

[49:53] But these gray aliens have been here before.

[49:55] They're trying to infect people.

[49:57] With some kind of fun.

[50:00] fungus, which also causes people to sprout these things that are called shit weasels.

[50:05] They call the fungus virus Ripley, as a reference to aliens, they have to mention in the movie

[50:11] as a reference to aliens. It's really bad when you're ripping something

[50:14] off and then you actually acknowledge it. Well, he's also called Colonel Curtis, which

[50:20] is obviously an allusion to Colonel Kurtz, which he actually was Colonel Kurtz in the

[50:26] book. So I guess that was one case where William Goldman was like, this is too obvious.

[50:30] We got to settle this up a little bit. And he's a special unit of the military that

[50:35] just tracks down alien outbreaks and does not answer to anyone else.

[50:38] Yeah, they're the blue boy buckaroos or whatever.

[50:41] They don't answer to logic. 25 years they've been doing this and they know like 12 sentences

[50:47] about what they're doing and they give it all to you.

[50:50] It's also one of those things where if you've been doing this for 25 years, it seems like

[50:53] the thing that would probably help you is for the public to be aware of this issue and

[50:57] being on guard against it so that you would have so that you can help to deal with it.

[51:01] And so they've kept it a secret all this time. But it's not even like and we've gotten all

[51:04] this stuff from the alien technology or something like that when you find out about this, when

[51:08] you see later in the film what the alien invasion comprises, it makes absolutely no sense that

[51:15] everybody on Earth hasn't seen this. Yeah, you know, this is not like they don't

[51:21] send like a SEAL team. You know, it's a it's a close encounters, big ass bunch of ships

[51:28] they have. Yeah, and there's hundreds of aliens coming

[51:31] out of it when we see it. At the very least, you think there would be like public service

[51:35] announcements like if you see this worm, step on it or don't reach for a toothpick.

[51:41] In New Jersey, they're like, if you see a lantern fly, step on it immediately and it's

[51:45] like there's not a secret government operation that goes around killing lantern flies to

[51:49] protect the trees. You know, like people can actually do have a panic all about that.

[51:56] One of the biggest failings in the film, and that's a long list, is that we're never told

[52:00] whether the Ripley disease is a new item in there, in there, you know, is a new weapon.

[52:08] Because if it turns out that they've had this before, the movie makes even less sense.

[52:14] Well, I do think they try and paper over it a little bit because they have like Tom Sizemore

[52:20] being like, there's studies showing that like some people recover at Morgan Freeman, which

[52:24] means that which is actually bad for the film, because if this should be a new disease, yeah,

[52:29] that they don't exactly know how to deal with, because otherwise not only they're incompetent,

[52:33] this movie ended before it began. Yeah, there's no dumbest alien.

[52:38] Basically, the problem with this movie is that this is a movie about an advanced alien culture

[52:43] that has massive spaceships, interstellar travel, weaponry, and they don't know how to

[52:49] do something that the Joker can do in an average. That's true.

[52:53] They do not know how to drop a worm into a reservoir or an ocean. It's just on.

[53:03] When we see the gray aliens, they're big and they seem very strong, but they've got to like

[53:07] get into Jonesy's body when he's injured already and try to lift a cap off of a reservoir.

[53:14] Well, they're trying to get out of the quarantine as a hitchhiker. That's the

[53:18] idea. And I guess the idea is that they crashed. But I 100 percent did not like

[53:23] about this film. The bullshit set up is that they crashed. Yeah.

[53:29] But it is it's really stupid aliens versus stupid people.

[53:34] Yeah, yeah. No, it's totally like a mobile game, by the way. Yeah, that's great. Yeah.

[53:41] They should have been able to drop the worm before they crashed.

[53:44] They could have done they could they could do it next Tuesday. They could have done it.

[53:48] And also they show they they show later that the the the aliens can impregnate their eggs

[53:55] in animals. So, yeah, one of those Disney animals. And there were hundreds.

[54:01] Yeah, they seek out water. None of the none of the soldiers are told look for animals court.

[54:07] You know, it's it's an idiotic premise that just does not get contained at any moment.

[54:13] It does not make sense. And this is one of the many movies we've watched this

[54:16] podcast where there are aliens that are advanced enough that they have like spaceships.

[54:20] They probably genetic testing. They do have not discovered clothing.

[54:23] They do not seem to have any sort of we're just going to advance beyond clothing.

[54:29] He says in the scene that we were just that that you were talking about, he says

[54:33] Morgan Freeman's character says they he's he infers that they don't they haven't met a planet

[54:39] yet that they haven't wanted to conquer or something along those words. I wrote it down

[54:44] somewhere. But how does he know that they can't even tell what they're doing on Earth?

[54:49] How does he know what they're doing on other planets? He read their newspaper.

[54:53] He gets this. What the fuck? How do you leave it as a viewer and as somebody who has written words

[55:05] for money? How do you fucking not let how do you not have somebody just go,

[55:10] dudes, this makes no sense. But we can think you can fix this.

[55:14] Yeah, you can fit. These are things that you could paper over, as you said, in a weekend.

[55:20] You know, that's what professionals are supposed to do. And this whole movie is just

[55:25] really flying craziness. You know, it's not what not to do in Hollywood,

[55:30] except that this is a real film that got made. So all bets are off.

[55:34] I pulled out my copy of What Lie Did I Tell? And I'm like, man, it's a shame that William

[55:39] Goldman wrote this before he did Dreamcatcher. It's off before I would love to hear him talk

[55:44] about the last page of the book. It says and then I wrote Dreamcatcher. And then it's the last.

[55:48] I can't wait for this next thing I'm writing. The next thing I'm writing will be the best one.

[55:53] We get a brief scene where Freeman shoots an underling in the in the hand.

[55:58] Just to show how serious this is. Yeah, he's a not a good dude.

[56:02] He's not a normal boss. He's a cool boss. Yeah.

[56:04] Yeah. This is how we know that he's crazy.

[56:07] Yeah. Because he's so bored with the movie that you can't tell otherwise. Also, I love

[56:13] that the guy's shooting like his equipment. Yeah.

[56:17] Letting bullets off in his hide. Inside of his trailer.

[56:20] Yeah. Absolutely brilliant.

[56:23] And it's one of these things where the story is probably more interesting if Morgan Freeman

[56:27] characters isn't his character is not crazy. Yeah.

[56:30] He's like, no, we're under attack. And the only way to stop all these people, you know,

[56:35] I mean, he's not he's not completely wrong. Yeah.

[56:38] I mean, you hate him as a villain because he's willing to sacrifice people for the greater good.

[56:44] But. That's kind of what you have to do.

[56:48] Yeah. When you deal with aliens.

[56:50] Yeah. Alien plague.

[56:52] Jonesy is now acting weird, making weird faces. He gets on a snowmobile.

[56:58] Tom Jane is trying to walk to the cabin. So Timothy Olyphant is alone,

[57:04] getting drunk with the farting woman. He's not alone.

[57:07] Who has died. Yeah.

[57:08] He doesn't realize that she has died and not just asleep.

[57:11] And his friend told him, don't don't leave her alone to go get beer from the car,

[57:15] from the. Yeah, but he's drinking.

[57:17] Yeah, he fucked it up in his pockets already. She has exposed.

[57:21] He leaves her alone and she passes out. Yeah, yeah.

[57:24] Yeah. This is the initial farting sequence.

[57:30] It sounds like now that sounds like something that should be in the space ball sequel is like

[57:33] a farting sequence. He does a little soliloquy.

[57:40] He talks about how it gave them all psychic powers.

[57:43] And he's been having these dreams. So just an alien sent there to prepare

[57:48] them for something. Oh, just the movie.

[57:51] Considering there's so much bonkers stuff in this movie, it's so it takes it for granted

[57:55] that we assume that they are kids who got telepathic powers from their friends,

[58:00] the mentally challenged kid. The movie is just like, yeah,

[58:03] yes. So then Duddix gave us these powers. That seems like the kind of thing you'd spend

[58:06] some time on. They they show them later.

[58:10] Well, we'll get to when they get the powers and realize they have the powers and they take it as

[58:14] if they just found an extra nickel in their coat. You know, it's just it's a nothing.

[58:18] They don't have time. It's a two hour. How long is this movie?

[58:21] This movie is two hours. Yeah.

[58:23] And they don't have time to establish things, you know.

[58:26] Yeah. They just don't.

[58:28] So many ideas. Too many parts.

[58:30] Psychic powers. Thumbs up for psychic powers. Yeah, they just accept these things. And you

[58:35] still don't. Even with this exposition dump, you still don't know why they're upset with life.

[58:41] Yeah. Yeah.

[58:41] Because he's an alcoholic. They've dealt with him a little bit before he's drinking.

[58:46] And I think I think you're right. I think there is one of the many missing pieces

[58:51] is that they don't address that. The reason these guys have struggled like

[58:56] emotional problems is because of these powers, this or responsibility they've gotten from their

[59:01] friend, which is really weird if you're a Stephen King fan or an ex Stephen King fan,

[59:06] because that's one of the things he was always good at. Yeah.

[59:09] You think about The Shining or Salem's Lot, you understood the trauma aspect because everybody

[59:14] had, you know, especially all the writers, they had to have writers all had to have trauma because

[59:19] sometimes you're a writer, you might go you might go walk out of your million dollar house and get

[59:23] hit by a car someday. So but they don't they don't even attempt to lock in why why their friends or

[59:32] even why they stay in touch. There was a great scene, though, where one of them, when they get

[59:36] into the cabin and somebody says something like, well, we've been doing this for 28 years or

[59:41] something like and it's just it's just the the dialogue is such a on the nose garbage slop.

[59:48] It's such it's a it's an A.I. movie, for God's sakes.

[59:53] You know, we've been coming to your house for 15 years now and it's it's unbelievable.

[1:00:00] Please, please go on.

[1:00:01] Gilbert Gottfried, on his podcast,

[1:00:03] you talk about movies for someone to go like,

[1:00:05] Marty, I'm your brother, for crying out loud.

[1:00:07] Don't you remember?

[1:00:08] Let's go establish this.

[1:00:09] They literally say,

[1:00:10] how do you not remember the memory warehouse?

[1:00:14] Yeah.

[1:00:15] Oh, that's right.

[1:00:16] That we have to live in.

[1:00:17] And I'm like, I guess that was clever.

[1:00:19] But it's just stupid.

[1:00:20] Your friends don't remember that you have a memory.

[1:00:22] And you're all psychic,

[1:00:23] so you should be fucking talking

[1:00:25] with your mouth closed anyway.

[1:00:26] Yes.

[1:00:27] Yeah.

[1:00:28] But that's actually something we haven't even dealt with.

[1:00:29] They don't really need to be psychic in this movie.

[1:00:32] No, not at all.

[1:00:33] Except to find each other later.

[1:00:34] They're like, well, I gotta find Doug.

[1:00:35] They find each other later,

[1:00:36] and it's just the simple flip of the top.

[1:00:39] I mean, two of them definitely

[1:00:40] don't need to be psychic. Thomas Jane does use it

[1:00:42] to convince.

[1:00:42] Yeah, yeah, fingers doesn't need, you know, beef.

[1:00:44] Tom Sizemore.

[1:00:46] Oh, that's true.

[1:00:47] Thomas Jane uses it to convince,

[1:00:48] and then they talk to each other over the gun phone later.

[1:00:50] Yeah.

[1:00:51] Well, that's amazing, yeah.

[1:00:53] Well, we'll get there.

[1:00:55] Oliphant goes to pee.

[1:00:56] Shitweasel lunges at his penis.

[1:00:59] He fights it off with fire.

[1:01:02] Tom Jane thinks the snowmobile coming towards him

[1:01:05] is his friend to rescue him,

[1:01:06] but his psychic link allows him to realize

[1:01:09] that's not Jonesy.

[1:01:10] I would like to stop you here for a moment,

[1:01:12] because this is an amazing bit of film making.

[1:01:16] So it's actually one of the few times

[1:01:19] that the psychic thing comes into play,

[1:01:22] and it's a cute bit of business to a degree.

[1:01:25] They move the camera from Thomas Jane

[1:01:29] to the oncoming snowmobile,

[1:01:30] and he basically goes, that's not Jonesy,

[1:01:32] which is hilarious.

[1:01:34] And then they pan back, and we follow the snowmobile.

[1:01:38] Thomas Jane is gone, okay?

[1:01:41] And he reveals himself to, he's under the snow

[1:01:44] on the other side of the road.

[1:01:46] And this, to me, is the greatest scene in the movie,

[1:01:49] because there are no footprints,

[1:01:52] and there is no impact where he jumped into the snow.

[1:01:54] It's like a fucking Wile E. Coyote cartoon.

[1:01:57] There is no physical evidence of him

[1:02:01] going over to where he ends up and hiding.

[1:02:03] You cannot just, they don't say that they're telekinetic.

[1:02:09] And these are professional filmmakers

[1:02:12] with decades of experience,

[1:02:14] that nobody said, hey, hey, Hank,

[1:02:16] how the fuck did he get over there?

[1:02:18] You know, one of the PAs.

[1:02:19] How'd he get over there?

[1:02:20] Add that to the goofs.

[1:02:22] The goofs, yeah.

[1:02:23] I'll put it on the goofs.

[1:02:25] The goofs overflowing, I would imagine.

[1:02:28] It is amazing.

[1:02:29] But I'm like, hey,

[1:02:29] he literally just teleports under the snow.

[1:02:32] And not even where he's standing.

[1:02:34] Well, he probably does, yeah, he jumped up in the air,

[1:02:37] clicks his heels, dives under the snow, and burrows.

[1:02:41] He dives and spins around.

[1:02:42] Yeah, even a Pismo Beach thing.

[1:02:46] The snow, the ground still pops up where he traveled.

[1:02:50] Chuck Jones covered that.

[1:02:51] But he does get into-

[1:02:52] His head stays in one place.

[1:02:53] His body spins around like a top,

[1:02:55] and he drives down like a drill.

[1:02:57] But that does explain why later he shows up

[1:02:59] in a bullfighting ring,

[1:03:00] and he asks for the Coachella Carrot Festival.

[1:03:03] And he has to fight that bull.

[1:03:05] It's absolutely like,

[1:03:06] I didn't catch that the first time,

[1:03:08] but it's obvious,

[1:03:09] but you're so gobsmacked by everything else.

[1:03:12] So, Damien Lewis-

[1:03:15] We're almost done with the movie, right?

[1:03:16] No.

[1:03:17] Damien Lewis has the task-

[1:03:20] Did any of you actually, at one point,

[1:03:22] look up how much left?

[1:03:23] And the first time I looked up how much is left,

[1:03:27] I was only 45 minutes in,

[1:03:28] and I thought I was gonna cut my throat with a fork.

[1:03:32] I could not fucking believe

[1:03:33] there was another hour and a half of this shit.

[1:03:36] Well, I had to keep stopping it to take notes,

[1:03:38] so it was a-

[1:03:39] So, for Dan, it was like a three-hour movie.

[1:03:41] Yeah, it was, it was-

[1:03:42] It feels like a three-hour movie.

[1:03:44] Damien Lewis has the unenviable task

[1:03:46] of having to converse with himself

[1:03:49] between Jonesy and Mr. Gray,

[1:03:51] the alien who's taking over his body.

[1:03:53] And that's what, of course,

[1:03:54] David's trying to say,

[1:03:55] beware Mr. Gray, not Mr. Gay.

[1:03:57] And later on, in totally extraneous dialogue,

[1:04:00] someone says that,

[1:04:02] someone realizes, like, oh.

[1:04:03] Oh, yeah.

[1:04:04] They're like, oh, the audience-

[1:04:05] Mr. Gray.

[1:04:06] They've made it this far.

[1:04:07] Mr. Gay is Mr. Gray.

[1:04:08] If the audience has made it this far,

[1:04:10] they're idiots.

[1:04:12] Mr. Gray is also,

[1:04:13] where does that name come from?

[1:04:16] I guess he's a gray alien

[1:04:16] when we first encounter him.

[1:04:17] Does he call himself Mr. Gray

[1:04:18] until they start calling him?

[1:04:19] No.

[1:04:20] I think they just come up with it.

[1:04:21] It just feels like another Stephen King thing,

[1:04:22] where suddenly a bad guy has a name

[1:04:24] and it doesn't come from him.

[1:04:25] Yeah.

[1:04:26] Morgan Freeman's character calls them grays,

[1:04:28] and he's, you know,

[1:04:29] when he's, like, talking about,

[1:04:30] literally, E.T.'s out of the ass

[1:04:31] and things like that.

[1:04:32] Yeah.

[1:04:33] So they call them grays

[1:04:34] because they're bait,

[1:04:35] but the funny thing is,

[1:04:36] they don't really look like grays.

[1:04:37] They're not really grays, yeah.

[1:04:38] The only thing,

[1:04:39] the things you see have these giant, bulbous heads.

[1:04:42] They're colored gray.

[1:04:43] Yeah.

[1:04:44] When they come out of the red mist thing,

[1:04:46] it makes no fucking sense.

[1:04:47] And that's supposed to be

[1:04:48] their, like, nice presentation

[1:04:50] to not scare people

[1:04:51] versus the real, like, more lizard-y.

[1:04:54] But you never see.

[1:04:55] It looks terrifying.

[1:04:57] Yeah.

[1:04:57] I don't understand.

[1:04:58] Their whole concept falls apart.

[1:05:00] Well, the first grays that came to Earth

[1:05:02] arrived on Halloween,

[1:05:03] and they thought this was the stuff

[1:05:04] that we like to see around.

[1:05:04] Yeah.

[1:05:05] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1:05:06] I mean, grays are supposed to be

[1:05:07] those little, spindly E.T.,

[1:05:09] you know, close-encounters aliens.

[1:05:11] With the big eyes and yeah, yeah.

[1:05:13] Yeah.

[1:05:14] And, you know,

[1:05:15] the minimalist music.

[1:05:18] They loved it.

[1:05:18] The Eric Saté,

[1:05:19] they come in with the Eric Saté.

[1:05:20] Wait a minute.

[1:05:21] You know.

[1:05:22] Is it possible?

[1:05:23] They just came to the planet

[1:05:24] to find Philip Glass.

[1:05:24] Yeah, to be like,

[1:05:25] do we have Philip Glass?

[1:05:26] Over and over and over again.

[1:05:29] I just want to note that Mr. Gray

[1:05:31] talked with a British accent,

[1:05:32] an English accent,

[1:05:33] and even though Damien Lewis is English,

[1:05:36] it sounds unconvincing somehow.

[1:05:37] Yeah.

[1:05:38] It really sounds Dick Van Dyke-based.

[1:05:40] He was bouncing between two fake accents

[1:05:42] the entire time.

[1:05:43] And changes his facial expressions.

[1:05:46] He's got like, you know,

[1:05:46] one mad, back and six-faced face.

[1:05:48] Yeah, he's joker-fied, yeah.

[1:05:49] Gray's mad.

[1:05:50] I read that he,

[1:05:51] I read here that he was basing that

[1:05:53] on Malcolm McDowell.

[1:05:54] That was his.

[1:05:55] That's what it sounds like.

[1:05:56] Yeah, yeah.

[1:05:57] That's exactly who it sounds like.

[1:05:58] And the facial expressions made sense to me

[1:06:00] after I read that,

[1:06:01] because it's like,

[1:06:02] he's doing it right now.

[1:06:03] Yeah, he's got a good choice.

[1:06:03] He's got a good performance now.

[1:06:04] Yeah.

[1:06:05] Yeah.

[1:06:06] Except the problem is,

[1:06:07] it's not Malcolm McDowell of If.

[1:06:09] It's Malcolm McDowell of

[1:06:11] The Substitute 1999.

[1:06:13] Yeah.

[1:06:13] Class of 1999, The Substitute.

[1:06:17] Mr. Gray finds Timothy Oliphant.

[1:06:19] He tortures him until Jonesy,

[1:06:21] who's trapped inside his mind warehouse,

[1:06:24] gets him to stop.

[1:06:25] This is,

[1:06:26] all the mind warehouse stuff here is too,

[1:06:27] so I don't like it when it's this literal,

[1:06:29] where it's like,

[1:06:30] hmm, there's information I need

[1:06:31] from your mind warehouse.

[1:06:32] So he's literally burying it

[1:06:33] under boxes of other material.

[1:06:34] Yeah, later on he's going to burn it.

[1:06:35] I'm like, that's not how it works.

[1:06:37] Like, even in his metaphor.

[1:06:40] I've tried to burn things in my mind

[1:06:41] and it just doesn't take.

[1:06:42] No, yeah.

[1:06:44] Never the subtle oxygen.

[1:06:45] I just think about it more and more,

[1:06:47] you know, all that time that I,

[1:06:48] that time that I stole a copy of Fantastic Four

[1:06:50] from my friend, Marshall German.

[1:06:52] You have the-

[1:06:52] I'll burn that.

[1:06:53] Well, shit, it's just kind of in,

[1:06:56] you know,

[1:06:57] the embers are in the rest of my head forever.

[1:06:59] I'll never get rid of it.

[1:06:59] You know, the fuel and the heat,

[1:07:01] but not the oxygen to burn it.

[1:07:02] It's so bizarre.

[1:07:03] I mean, I can see it working in the book,

[1:07:04] but I really would never have tried.

[1:07:06] I would never,

[1:07:07] not that I'll ever be in this position.

[1:07:08] I would have absolutely shit-canned that entire,

[1:07:12] and the monster's running around.

[1:07:13] At times they show the monster running around

[1:07:15] in his dream warehouse.

[1:07:18] And the memory warehouse is hilarious too,

[1:07:19] because it's just this like,

[1:07:21] Pirates of the Caribbean looking fake.

[1:07:23] Yeah.

[1:07:24] Yeah, yeah.

[1:07:25] Name the Rose Dials.

[1:07:26] Giant strut spiral staircase.

[1:07:28] Why would you have to hole in your mind stuff on a-

[1:07:31] It's like in the movie Identity,

[1:07:33] where it's all taking place in one person's head anyway,

[1:07:36] but then they go back-

[1:07:36] What?

[1:07:37] And then the killer killed each of the other characters

[1:07:39] when no one was looking.

[1:07:40] It's like, well, they're not real.

[1:07:41] So it doesn't matter.

[1:07:42] Like, you could just say it happened.

[1:07:44] You just made it up.

[1:07:45] It's like the idea that you have to spend movie time

[1:07:48] running through your memory,

[1:07:51] and you're being chased in this like,

[1:07:52] Raiders of the Lost Ark nonsense.

[1:07:54] And then a monster is in your brain.

[1:07:56] It's literally chasing you.

[1:07:58] Like, it's just, it's so bad.

[1:08:01] I mean, you can see them grappling

[1:08:05] with how to kind of make this film more interesting.

[1:08:09] Yeah.

[1:08:10] And it never-

[1:08:11] In this movie about aliens and psychic people,

[1:08:13] they're like, let's juice it up a little.

[1:08:16] Yeah, we gotta get inside this guy's head and show him-

[1:08:19] Doing some library stuff.

[1:08:20] Yeah, let's see his dark, twisted fantasy.

[1:08:22] Library shit, yeah.

[1:08:23] In Doctor Sleep, they redo this,

[1:08:25] but it's kind of less awful.

[1:08:28] Yeah.

[1:08:29] Somebody has a memory bank in their head.

[1:08:32] I think that they stylize it more,

[1:08:35] which I think makes it more acceptable.

[1:08:37] It looks like it's a better organized memory.

[1:08:42] And it's got, you know,

[1:08:43] it doesn't have 1950s fixtures and Roy Orbison.

[1:08:46] It's really funny because you can,

[1:08:48] I didn't want to stop the film and look at it,

[1:08:50] but you can see that they paid people

[1:08:52] to go through every file and write down.

[1:08:54] I mean, somebody is very proud of the fact

[1:08:57] that when he opens up a file

[1:08:58] to put the music of Blue Bayou in,

[1:09:01] there's a punk section.

[1:09:03] I did catch that, and I was like,

[1:09:04] yeah, I believe that.

[1:09:06] Yeah.

[1:09:07] Yeah, please listen.

[1:09:08] Yeah, the same guy likes all these things.

[1:09:10] The punk, it's probably like-

[1:09:11] It contains multitudes.

[1:09:12] It's a new wave band,

[1:09:14] and it's the Village Voices punk record.

[1:09:19] Grey takes Oliphant with him on the snowmobile briefly

[1:09:22] because he wants,

[1:09:23] I think he thinks he can help get him through.

[1:09:25] His direction pointing powers.

[1:09:26] Yeah.

[1:09:27] This is the only time that his power is used,

[1:09:28] and it's a good thing that he runs into the guy

[1:09:30] who somehow has the map quest.

[1:09:32] Mm-hmm.

[1:09:34] And he does it by swirling,

[1:09:35] and then a toilet bowl appears.

[1:09:37] It's a bad effect.

[1:09:39] It's a bad effect, and also, it's just so useless.

[1:09:42] I mean, it's like, why did he get one extra power?

[1:09:46] Why is he the dowsing rod of the team?

[1:09:48] Right, exactly.

[1:09:49] It's possible they all have extra powers,

[1:09:50] but they just don't show up in the movie.

[1:09:52] One of them is like, you show me a food,

[1:09:54] I can tell you all the calories.

[1:09:55] I don't even need to look it up on the box.

[1:09:56] That's true.

[1:09:57] I can do nothing.

[1:09:58] Yeah, that's true.

[1:09:59] It might have been.

[1:10:00] I think you're lying Thomas Thomas Jane makes it back to the cabin he sees blood

[1:10:05] and red fungus all over he finds dead beef he's got a he gets a vision of mr.

[1:10:10] gray possessing Jonesy and he sees the shit weasel laying eggs in the bedroom

[1:10:16] he blows it away with a shotgun he squashes some babies and he drops the

[1:10:20] eggs and the whole cab and that's got to be an homage to a racer head right yeah

[1:10:25] stepping on those little baby yeah baby weasels yeah it's like a scene of like

[1:10:29] the dream catchers being torched I'm like oh no the dream catcher you can

[1:10:34] tell that that was supposed to really catch in the fields and the whole place

[1:10:39] actually goes up yeah nothing you feel absolutely nothing and they've been

[1:10:43] going to for 20 years flashback kids making dreamcatchers they ask done it's

[1:10:50] to find a missing girl because he's mysteriously good at finding things

[1:10:54] they'll put their hands on him and he uses his powers to make them all like

[1:10:57] they form like a little dreamcatcher with him in the center yeah yeah that

[1:11:01] was clever yeah and they find the girl in a drainage pipe and they rescue her

[1:11:05] this really is is that they they're like oh she's in this drain pipe and one of

[1:11:12] the kids lowers in there and then it cuts to just dud it's his face and

[1:11:15] they're like hey she's here and he's smiling like we don't even see them find

[1:11:20] this movie does not want women in this this fair argument yeah there are I

[1:11:28] think speaking roles for like four women and none of them go on for more than

[1:11:33] like to the woman that plastic is hitting on mm-hmm

[1:11:39] the girl in the drain pipe mostly off-camera you can tell it's his mom who

[1:11:45] becomes seems in a character with gravitas in that scene but we've never

[1:11:51] seen her it doesn't matter and some random people who have the disease who

[1:11:56] say help me help me yeah yeah they couldn't even there's not even one

[1:12:00] farting lady did we say farting lady oh wait there is the farting lady she has I

[1:12:03] think one line yeah when she punches him in the nuts there's the third parts

[1:12:07] herself yeah I forgot there's a thing about you know this is Kevin Smith pass

[1:12:11] on the strip everything up but yeah it's an incredibly a male yeah I mean

[1:12:19] the army has there are no I believe there were women in the military in 20

[1:12:23] 23 right her 20 2003 yeah you know um but it's weird yeah well cuz it has such

[1:12:31] a it's so much about male friendship not punching all that being said need for

[1:12:38] toothpicks the guys actually sound slightly misogynistic when they do in

[1:12:43] their bed yeah all that being said though I mean we we still could cut this

[1:12:52] straight-ish pipe girl because all it tells her like we already knew that

[1:12:56] dud it's gave them all psychic powers we don't need to show them going on like a

[1:12:59] little mini adventure with their kids two seconds when they're having dinner

[1:13:02] in the cabin they go remember when dud it's gave us those powers and they're

[1:13:05] like yeah it was crazy okay when they get the powers they just basically shrug

[1:13:10] and run off literally one of them makes the toilet swirling thing uh-huh and

[1:13:16] everybody goes neat and it's funny also because they lower the little guy they

[1:13:20] lower beaver who's a little probably gonna be least able to look like it

[1:13:26] physically doesn't look like they could save her that way and then he'd be

[1:13:30] stuck down there with her it's a it's wonderful wonderful heartwarming scene

[1:13:34] of old Americana and I feel like there's any any grouping of people who

[1:13:40] would love to have their minds able to be read by their friends it's teenage

[1:13:43] boy yeah fuckery fucker ooh criminal God back in the present we get another

[1:13:49] sequence that I would argue is unnecessary where some hot helicopters

[1:13:53] bomb the shit out of the crashed ship well luckily it also looks bad oh boy it

[1:13:58] really does it really does look like a house of the dead early house of the

[1:14:02] dead coin-op game and it's really confusing because the aliens are

[1:14:06] sending the telepathic messages saying help us we need help we're fine and and

[1:14:11] Morgan friends like you hear that they're sending lies into our brains

[1:14:14] blow them up boys Morgan Freeman has already been established as an insane

[1:14:17] man yeah I was like is the is the movie making a point that actually they're

[1:14:21] misunderstanding what's going on with the aliens but no it turns out not and it

[1:14:25] just it's but this whole again this whole scene could be if it wasn't the

[1:14:27] most expensive scene probably yeah it's it's it's it's a budget-buster scene to

[1:14:31] put some big action into it yeah and it's it's off also you this is where you

[1:14:36] get to see this the scope of the enemy and a ship that is the size of you know

[1:14:43] a cruise ship giant cruise ship not just these weren't these guys were not like

[1:14:48] parachuting out of a ship into you know and it crashed and somehow nobody has

[1:14:54] found it on radar yeah nobody has seen this happen outside Maine I would

[1:14:59] imagine a like a meteor of this size would be a planet ending event yeah it

[1:15:04] would be a big deal and the aliens with all this technology deep core drillers

[1:15:10] up there and break that apart yeah the aliens come out of the ship and their

[1:15:15] their play is to just jump up and down like they're at a rave and say you know

[1:15:21] hi we're nice people how does that even work because you don't ever see them as

[1:15:26] anything that a human being an American you know a human being would go hey that

[1:15:31] they could project themselves as cuddly teddy bears or Pokemon or or I can't

[1:15:38] remember Tinky Winky like which which Pokemon's like Mewtwo or if they turn

[1:15:48] themselves into a group of Pikachu's okay a lot of people would run over to

[1:15:52] them and hug them yeah people they just look like garb they just these gray no

[1:15:59] it's true they don't even look like an alien the weird thing is that when they

[1:16:03] there's a moment that when they start getting fired on they spin around and

[1:16:08] they're they kind of revert to their like right form but it doesn't look that

[1:16:13] much visually distinct from their nice form no like these space doughboys he's

[1:16:20] poppin fresh doughboys jumping up and down I mean it's really an embarrassing

[1:16:24] scene on all and the effects are terrible and it's you know they send

[1:16:27] their crack for tele helicopters cuz mm-hmm yeah this is so important we see

[1:16:32] the biggest you have to get blown up so that you have to lose a couple of

[1:16:37] Porkins mm-hmm I mean that's and it's also like a really big ship for these

[1:16:42] three or four helicopters to do anything about it's massive it's an IV

[1:16:46] for kind of ship yeah and and it blows up very easily it has no defenses

[1:16:52] apparently they know they self-destruct to try and I don't know kill these oh

[1:16:56] that's right I think that's that's their only their only plan is to I guess to

[1:17:00] kill the helicopters is to destroy all of them so right they think they've

[1:17:03] never invented a gun maybe not they because they've been really good at just

[1:17:07] throwing their weasel babies all they have is special pleading they just have

[1:17:17] this like you know they get these like watery eyes and they look up at you and

[1:17:20] you go but there's still an ugly alien to go help us but then you get close and

[1:17:25] then you get weasel baby that's actually I'd like to see a Western where instead

[1:17:28] of six guns I also love the idea that they've done so little research in the

[1:17:35] 25 years that they've been trying to invade the earth that they don't realize

[1:17:38] that humans are shit I don't want to help anyone help us fuck you we will

[1:17:46] simply go we'll play upon the sympathy they hold for all living creatures

[1:17:50] sounds good three blacks yes we won't wear clothes we'll just be these naked

[1:17:58] little mud hippies face mud hippies all the research was they read the comic

[1:18:04] strip love is and that was a little Ziggy dumb fucking aliens man they

[1:18:13] really really are Timothy Oliphant won't tell mr. gray about dud it's so great

[1:18:19] eats him where we've narrowed our focus we're down to that's only two characters

[1:18:23] my bag scene right it's an amazing scene too it just it is so on it just does

[1:18:29] does not care about its own characters yeah also one of those times where it's

[1:18:32] like that seems like a useful power to eat a whole person yeah but and that's

[1:18:39] it your character is gone which I was glad I'm very happy when the characters

[1:18:42] leave this movie uh-huh you know I was so excited that Beaver was the last

[1:18:46] first one to go because yeah it's horrible yeah he had the most yeah I had

[1:18:50] the most quips and when a guy himself in a British accent that's that another

[1:18:58] character that's worth to you're rooting for him to stay around longer

[1:19:02] you know you hate your character the characters yeah has big a kid in the

[1:19:07] wheelchair from Texas Chainsaw Massacre where you're like I don't want the

[1:19:10] heroes to die but this kid yeah I'm gonna get rid of her pretty soon right

[1:19:14] yeah great such an unglamorous death it's an undramatic yeah great grabs a

[1:19:22] truck he's trying to spread the infection beyond quarantine he notices

[1:19:25] that Jonesy's up to something in his memory warehouse this is where the

[1:19:28] burning of Dutton's memories happens Thomas Jane so he should not remember

[1:19:34] Dutton's when he sees you're right right he's burned so much when Dutton shows up

[1:19:38] he should be like who is this what are you doing but you're asking tell the

[1:19:42] ghost of a woman that's who it is I'm crazy I got to meet Liam Goldman once

[1:19:47] very briefly yeah but I had not seen this movie yet so I think it's about it

[1:19:52] you would have barked his shins with right now I know Princess Bride buys him

[1:19:57] a few dreamcatchers I'm one of the few people on

[1:20:00] who still hasn't seen that so i don't have the uh i know i'm reading the book i actually read

[1:20:05] the book before the i've seen dreamcatcher twice i have not seen billy the kid uh i have not seen

[1:20:11] uh butch cassidy you mean butch cassidy sorry i think i have seen billy the kid but he was

[1:20:15] fighting dracula at the time but i have not seen the william goldman hits i don't believe have you

[1:20:20] seen uh magic the ventriloquism movie no i have not i have not seen magic i i i don't write that

[1:20:27] he wrote the book and and the movie i think he wrote he wrote the book it's based on that's one

[1:20:31] where uh i found it after seeing it that they wanted gene wilder to play that role and i'm

[1:20:34] like oh what a better movie that would that would have been fantastic yeah as i mean he did misery

[1:20:39] so he did the good stevie i haven't seen misery i've seen garbage films i've only seen

[1:20:47] misery every author's fantasy i liked your book so much i did read the book though and i remember

[1:20:53] liking it but uh yeah thomas jane's trying to get out of quarantine uh by cross-country ski uh

[1:21:00] and he's stopped by army dudes he gets pulled into the quarantine zone uh he reads morgan freeman's

[1:21:06] mind as like freeman is monologuing at tom sizemore he's like being like fuck your studies

[1:21:13] that show that we don't have to kill all these people you know um the the fight against aliens

[1:21:19] has driven him mad he says he'll kill americans if he has to uh thomas jane does not take the

[1:21:25] opportunity to use his psychic powers to stop morgan freeman no killing all these people he

[1:21:30] decides to go after tom size they don't really seem to use them at all well i don't know whether

[1:21:34] they can do like brain fighting or whether they can just read oh wait they can do psychic battles

[1:21:39] yeah well that's what dan just said is he knows for a fact guys guys it feels like he underutilizes

[1:21:47] psychic battle is our psychic link dan said he said and i quote i dot dot dot know if they can

[1:21:53] use psychic battle because he probably has a fetter that allows him to summon a psychic saber

[1:21:59] and then a psychic saber is going to pierce through uh tom sizemore's psychic shield

[1:22:04] abilities oh yes he only has a level three psychic we're getting into that i see i never

[1:22:07] used i never used psionics in our dnd game oh man you're missing out what adventures

[1:22:13] mind flayer bullshit i could we was only thomas jane had focused the totality of his psychic

[1:22:18] abilities into say like a side blade that came out of his fist you know like it would have been

[1:22:23] cooler if the guy if the four guys were fire starters at least there would have been something

[1:22:26] like you know superior fire starters and fighting yeah yeah yeah exactly um no but he doesn't do

[1:22:33] that i was about to sing the song but boy yeah instead of targeting freeman uh thomas jane

[1:22:44] costs uh tom sizemore uses his psychic info to encourage him to do the right thing uh

[1:22:51] i'm telling you things about yourself i would only know if i could read your mind yes

[1:22:55] tom sizemore takes this in stride just like everybody this is this inscribed like

[1:23:00] psychic america this is this is everyone in america is just waiting for psychics to show up

[1:23:05] it all made sense if like instead because he's always like looking at a picture of somebody

[1:23:11] and i think he should have been looking at his like big book of psychic phenomena that he's like

[1:23:16] the timeline my guiding moonlight you've been with me always i guess he sees so much weird

[1:23:21] shit at this point he's like yeah sure whatever but he does have like the same like a bunch of

[1:23:25] aliens today size more size more is an is a is a rock in this film yes in a good sense i mean he

[1:23:33] just actually everybody in this movie feels stunned that they had to come back to work the next

[1:23:39] nobody looks happy to be in this film or like they're having a good time being freeman looks

[1:23:43] pissed that he really does he really looks he honestly looks unhappy yeah i do like that uh

[1:23:49] that they cast against type there they made freeman like the crazy guy and tom sizemore

[1:23:54] is the guy that you think is going to be evil because he's tom sizemore but he's very reasonable

[1:23:59] it's true because it was a it was an interesting decision it really increased the boredom

[1:24:05] it really turned it off you know it was just like when john belushi and dan akroyd and neighbors you

[1:24:10] know you didn't get anything you wanted but it was an interesting decision the biggest problem i have

[1:24:15] with this honestly is that like tom sizemore isn't just like oh you've got psychic powers you're an

[1:24:20] alien i'm gonna shoot you rather than like just going along i'm gonna haul you into the uh the

[1:24:25] trunk of of alien knowledge that um he uh convinces uh him to get morgan freeman superior general

[1:24:35] matheson to assume command he busts thomas jane out they drive into the storm and uh and he answers

[1:24:42] a phone call from jonesy by putting tom sizemore's handgun up to his head and tom sizemore still

[1:24:48] believes thomas jane after that this is good writing at the beginning of the movie put a gun

[1:24:53] to his head as an act of self-destruction he's putting the gun to his head as an act of global

[1:24:58] preservation that's why they pay william goldman a lot of money to do that kind of stuff i think

[1:25:03] he also literally says i wish that i could call jonesy i believe it is prompted by it but so that

[1:25:08] kind of derails the good writing it kind of you know anti-matter matter it's just i boy i wish i

[1:25:15] could call your phone your gun is ringing and i forgot to josey like did mr gray go to the bathroom

[1:25:20] in the in the in the mental path in the memory palace to get a call out yeah yeah that's probably

[1:25:24] what happened i don't know how to do something don't call maybe the closer they get to dud it's

[1:25:29] like the you know like the phone lines get better essentially and but i yeah tom sizemore i can't

[1:25:35] believe like he looks at him jonesy like he's crazy but also like i'll allow it you know he

[1:25:41] actually says give me the gun back which is silly because he already took the bullets out of it so

[1:25:45] it kind of did derails the joke this is the first uses use of checkoff's phone uh so that's

[1:25:53] incredible but put that on the trivia and an exciting feature of this gun is in addition to

[1:25:58] functioning as a phone it also has like an apple air tag in it yeah there's a tracking there's a

[1:26:02] yes three minutes that's how morgan freeman is able to complete his job of saving the world by

[1:26:09] hunting tom sizemore yeah they go to anyway these guys he's nuts he's really nuts no really

[1:26:17] like he shows up at the end he's like seems to have totally forgotten his mission um well he's

[1:26:22] been relieved of his mission too so he's mad that he was it's i could see this time it's personal

[1:26:27] they left him in his high tech nick fury it's very funny so they're like you gotta call in

[1:26:34] this other army guy and the rbi comes in we're taking over this operation now and he's very

[1:26:38] reasonable they're so he's the nicest army man you could you could watch he's so nice he's like

[1:26:42] so uh general insane morgan freeman uh anything uh you want to tell us nope i'm fine just give

[1:26:48] me another couple minutes inside my uh inside my room with all my machines that do all my things

[1:26:54] my spying devices guys say that there's some machine work going on in here he's like nope

[1:26:58] i don't think so that's just my domino's pizza tracker working overtime here's the thing

[1:27:03] works up an appetite this is from 2003 where we didn't believe these things of the army but

[1:27:08] if it was made now we right you know i mean they're kind of like we believe that our american

[1:27:14] military is capable of any stupid fucking thing yeah it was made now i'd be like there's too many

[1:27:18] nice people in this movie exactly everybody should be at tom sizemore on 11. i do believe this movie

[1:27:25] more if it is trump and hegseth make calling the shots yeah they're like yeah yeah blow up to the

[1:27:30] town in maine whatever i don't know uh go after those guys i don't know like it yeah i do believe

[1:27:34] that yeah um so they go to dairy to pick up adult but it's it was played by donnie walberg

[1:27:40] oh my god what a coup what a casting coup well that's the thing they're like hey donnie just

[1:27:46] to let you know uh the water supply for the city of boston is in danger and he's like i'm in

[1:27:54] that's it i'm gonna play some dropkick murphy's

[1:27:56] i'm good that water powers my walbert's restaurants that's right but you also

[1:28:02] you're you're dressed like walter mathau in that movie about survivalists and uh you have

[1:28:09] you're also possibly not human yeah and this script is terrible

[1:28:15] i get to have to dangle a stuffed animal from my hand and carry a lunch

[1:28:19] you get to say the most important line in the movie

[1:28:26] and um you got to wear these depends we got to do a lot of character work here

[1:28:31] well donnie walberg uh he was that's true when he was on set he was just dud it's he would only

[1:28:35] answer today yeah you called him donnie you're getting mad and we get to meet we get to meet

[1:28:38] dud it's his mother who you think would be an interesting character though but we don't meet

[1:28:42] anybody's parents really we don't know anything about those kids those kids i assume all except

[1:28:46] for dud it's they all live in a house together they have no parents they live in a tree house

[1:28:50] come on sorry they all have sleep car they'll sleep in race car bunk beds yeah

[1:29:00] like damn you can take this kid off my hands she's she's like dud it she's like go save the

[1:29:06] world and she seems to know that she's not gonna see him again too she goes she's so happy when

[1:29:10] you were showing up that now he'll die happy so please take him off my hand he's got he's

[1:29:15] got leukemia he's got leukemia yeah he carries his meds in the scooby-doo lunchbox now it's been

[1:29:20] repurposed what does leukemia add to when the later reveal happens it feels strange

[1:29:29] unlike the rest of the movie that's an understatement yeah so locates mr gray

[1:29:36] this character is just thrust on you yeah with all the importance of the the mouse

[1:29:40] droid in the first star wars movie i mean are we supposed to care about this yeah his mother his

[1:29:48] mother basically does a via condia she's like i'm getting drunk i'm going to bingo yeah it's

[1:29:56] unbelievable like how could why have they not been in touch with him yeah that wasn't something

[1:30:00] I thought was they talk about him all the time as if he's dead already

[1:30:03] And they kept saying we're going up to the cabin to see Duddits. It's like well Duddits isn't at the cabin

[1:30:08] So I don't understand what he's like the most important thing in their lives is all they're talking about

[1:30:12] He gave him these great not-so-great psychic powers one of them can find car keys, and they don't

[1:30:21] In many ways it's a story about children and their parents, you know they give us everything

[1:30:25] And you forget about I thought you're gonna say in many ways finding your keys is the most useful

[1:30:31] Power I think he never finds anything else though. No

[1:30:41] This is all started by a guy who had to have a toothpick

[1:30:45] Fucking beef, but you got to admit that whole scene right the way they kept cutting toothpick him Hitchcockian Wow

[1:30:53] I

[1:30:54] Mean I also it's also strange that that earlier

[1:30:57] It's like we can't let this thing out of the toilet the aliens whole plan is to get into the reservoir right so you know

[1:31:02] What's connected to water?

[1:31:16] Oceans and rivers and

[1:31:18] Water supplied

[1:31:21] Of the earth is water and the whole fucking M night Shyamalan signs argument

[1:31:27] Us can go out and and end the world with their worm tomorrow. We just go out. I've got a reservoir a mile from here

[1:31:34] I walk over and run in the world with my worm for you Stuart does have a good point

[1:31:40] Fly over Lake Erie. Yeah, if the toilet directly into the reservoir you would have other problems

[1:31:46] But it's you could you could get you get through there you that's fucking believable

[1:31:51] It's don't your toilets to go into the reservoir. That's a good point. Yeah

[1:31:54] Anyway, they were probably making fun of the Martians from War of the Worlds for not testing the air first

[1:31:59] It was like when the Dave Matthews band emptied their their tour bus toilets in the Chicago

[1:32:04] They did more damage to the earth

[1:32:08] Yeah, I mean they should have who knows maybe there's a mr. Gray hiding in Dave Matthews

[1:32:16] Well, we've talked about a lot already say to that Dan we've talked about it a lot already

[1:32:20] Dad, it says psychically located great

[1:32:22] He is going to the reservoir where just a single worm in the water supply would kill the world

[1:32:28] They're in they're in a dog also at this point worms are in a dog

[1:32:33] Driving in a car and the car hits it gets a flat tires

[1:32:35] They got to get out of the car right and in I was reading I think in the book the heroes do something that stymies him

[1:32:41] But here it's just yeah

[1:32:44] Whatever they need to yeah, I I read the Wikipedia. Yes. This is another bizarre

[1:32:51] thing from the books indicating that maybe William Goldman did make some good choices along the way which was

[1:32:58] done its implants a

[1:33:00] hunger for raw bacon in mr.

[1:33:02] Gray's brain and mr.

[1:33:04] And Jonesy's human body gets so sick by this that slows down the progression to the reservoir

[1:33:10] Listeners who can't see that what we're seeing right now. It looks like Evan is experiencing actual pain

[1:33:16] You gotta be kidding me

[1:33:18] This is what the wiki says, you know

[1:33:22] I'm hoping they're wrong. Yeah get some lust for bacon and it slows them down

[1:33:26] I mean, I imagine whatever pain meds Stephen King was on were bonkers. That's that's but that that's Warner Brothers plotting

[1:33:39] I love floats on the

[1:33:43] sense of raw bacon

[1:33:45] Oh my god, that's

[1:33:48] They put the bacon under a box

[1:33:50] Gets to it. They pull the string

[1:33:52] The stick is holding the box. He's someone else

[1:33:55] Package of raw bacon based on the references. I feel like old-timey cartoons fit the

[1:34:02] Yes

[1:34:03] Inspiration here while he was tripping on Oxycontin

[1:34:07] at the reservoir

[1:34:09] Great carries this infected dog

[1:34:13] I do like this sequence. They really take the time to have him walk up to the door find that it's locked

[1:34:20] Put the dog down find a rock. Well blast through the window with the rock

[1:34:24] Also, you don't need to take all this so he has to go to this fucking like

[1:34:31] Baconator dreams were like going through his head and shit. He was all mess. He was all also he was really messed up

[1:34:36] So I didn't quite get why I think there must have been something that they that they cut out

[1:34:41] You only seem to be addled constantly like physically. Maybe it's the bacon. Maybe they kept the bacon. They got the gout real fast

[1:34:50] But I think it's like he spent so much time getting to this building like trying to pry up a manhole

[1:34:55] I'm like, why are you taking it to the water line?

[1:34:57] Like why does it have to go down you can see water when he gets to the water in the background?

[1:35:03] But that's that's the place that a because it says alien worms here

[1:35:09] It's like rollable he doesn't get the point unless he jams it in the hole

[1:35:16] Our heroes have arrived

[1:35:19] Sizemore's tells Thomas Jane and does to stay in the car. He tries to sneak up on mr.

[1:35:23] Gray with his automatic right says goodbye. He says he knows what he read the script

[1:35:28] He seems to know that it's a really strange moment because it doesn't seem like rodeo. It was shoot this guy. Yeah

[1:35:34] Well, he can't because he's thwarted by Morgan Freeman in an helicopter. You strafes him this this scene

[1:35:40] I thought this was so funny

[1:35:41] Morgan Freeman and Tom Sawyer's were essentially kill each other and I'm like, well

[1:35:44] Don't know what the point of them being in this part of the movie. What exactly what there's no point

[1:35:48] It turns out there's really no point in them being in the movie at all. Yeah. Yeah, they're movies on a separate track. Practically. Yeah

[1:35:55] About there's never been a movie about people in a cabin in the woods dealing with some kind of killer that hasn't

[1:36:01] Been hurt by the fact that doesn't have a major military presence. Yeah place in a side and a war between two men

[1:36:08] formerly comrades

[1:36:12] Like a son insert projectiles into one another there's a lot of stuff going on in this film

[1:36:17] There really is the original title the movie was dick catcher. Yeah, he shoots the helicopter blows up blah blah blah

[1:36:24] using the gun

[1:36:26] Yeah, he uses the gun. Finally. Yeah, it's pretty it's a pretty interesting rap for Morgan for you

[1:36:33] Like is it like we don't even see a reaction when he's dying

[1:36:39] Yeah

[1:36:41] Thomas Jane comes in he shoots a shit weasel that jumps right onto the barrel of his gun

[1:36:45] Mr. Gray tries a job known for having a particularly

[1:36:50] Good

[1:36:52] Thought it was notable

[1:36:54] Mr. Gray tries to fake about

[1:36:58] Movies where the aliens are killing machines until the time when the heroes have to kill them which case they are

[1:37:04] Fools and morons and they can't accomplish anything. Yeah

[1:37:08] Great pretends to just be Jonesy

[1:37:10] Jane

[1:37:11] Reasonably doesn't trust him and asked for proof with something that great couldn't possibly know which is dumb because he's in his brain

[1:37:16] I don't

[1:37:18] He's in the warehouse for God's sakes. Didn't you see the movie? Yeah

[1:37:22] But it gets interrupted by dud. It's anyway, who's managed the strength?

[1:37:27] Yeah, because his leukemia was killing him. Apparently not that entire time. He was fighting the leukemia to get into the

[1:37:35] Gray

[1:37:37] He's gonna save the day gray leaves Jonesy to reveal his true alien form

[1:37:41] He grabs Dutch it cut it out when he leaves Jonesy to reveal his true alien form. What organic mass is very confusing, isn't it?

[1:37:48] It seems like he's writing him as a family red dust that came out of his poor it doesn't make any sense

[1:37:54] he felt like he would have been ripping out of him or

[1:37:58] the whole way that they do the

[1:38:01] Possession makes no sense. Yeah. Yeah, but also as I think you you're saying Ellie he seems to be creating

[1:38:08] Actual matter he seems to create a body out of nothing, you know, yeah, it doesn't yeah kind of like a writer

[1:38:13] You're saying this is kind of like a look I made a hat active creation artistically, you know, he's Validi the

[1:38:21] the big alien

[1:38:23] stabs

[1:38:24] Duddits with his spiky tail, but that's what does what did I guess because he turns into his own alien is more more instead

[1:38:31] Great with his tail so much penetration in this film. Now is this and so

[1:38:36] I thought this was revealing that miss that Duddits was an alien

[1:38:38] But in the Wikipedia summary, it describes this as being a consequence of the infection of Duddits by mr. Gray

[1:38:44] So what's going on here guys? What do you think is happening here? Is this that it's I assume he was an alien monster

[1:38:49] Yeah, there's all that stuff where like all offense like I think that he's an alien. Okay, talk early

[1:38:54] Yeah, throughout the movie you're led to believe he's an alien because in the exposition dumps

[1:38:59] He's like I think he's an alien from another planet and I gave his powers to do something for the world

[1:39:03] I mean, that's my so he's some kind of like traitor to his own people. I think he's a different type of alien

[1:39:10] He's red as opposed to gray. We all know from from war the gargantuas and

[1:39:17] From we all do that there you have to have different colors to be able to tell the difference. Yeah, I think he's an alien

[1:39:24] And from

[1:39:27] That there you have to have different colors for the way that you feel about the world and and from um,

[1:39:31] What's it called? Not rock'em. Sock'em robots there. Yeah

[1:39:34] And when he transforms, he looks more like a stone cat. He looks like a sleepwalker kind of oh don't invoke that

[1:39:42] Well, anyway, he infects the bad alien they both explode into red dust

[1:39:48] Much like in the movie red dust where clark gable, I was gonna say not to be yes, very very yes

[1:39:52] Good one good one more thing a worm crawls toward the manhole. Is he gonna get there? No jonesy squash

[1:40:00] Visited the last moment, proving that Grey is gone, it's really him, the end, the tale

[1:40:04] of Dreamcatcher, copyright whenever.

[1:40:06] It is such an abrupt ending too, it's just swish, hey it's me, Jonesy, credits.

[1:40:13] The dog, we've been shown to see that the aliens lay money eggs, and the dog apparently

[1:40:20] had a big belly, the dog is whining, the fucking dog, right?

[1:40:24] The dog is alive throughout the infestation, it just keeps complaining.

[1:40:28] Good actor though.

[1:40:29] Yeah, it was probably the best actor in the film, he had real motivation, he wants these

[1:40:34] eggs the fuck out.

[1:40:35] But the dog never farts, and the dog never, true, and dogs in my experience are not farters.

[1:40:41] They're much more open about it, you know, they would definitely let him rip.

[1:40:46] The dog sits throughout that part, because he gets the dog when he gets the truck, and

[1:40:51] he puts the eggs inside the dog, and only one egg comes out, the dog never goes through,

[1:40:55] I mean there's just such a lack of attention paid to this thing, that for the money spent

[1:41:01] is just incredible.

[1:41:02] You heard it here folks, not enough farts, Ray Zevender.

[1:41:05] Well, that's not, you know, but if you're going to have Jacko's fart, you need to.

[1:41:12] I kind of wish the ending was, they squish that last one, and they're like, we did it,

[1:41:16] and then you see that dog has dragged itself to the water, and just kind of falls in.

[1:41:21] Well, there's another ship above you, it's like the end of, oh god, what's the movie

[1:41:30] with the slugs, Tom Atkin?

[1:41:33] The Creeps, or no?

[1:41:34] Yeah, Night of the Creeps.

[1:41:35] Night of the Creeps.

[1:41:36] You know, and there's more happening, but it's, the ending really is just such a fizzle

[1:41:42] of badness.

[1:41:43] Unlike the other Stephen King adaptation starring Tom Jane, The Mist.

[1:41:49] I did not see that.

[1:41:50] Oh, it's got a fun ending.

[1:41:52] The problem is, I know the ending, so, and I did read that book, I reread it, it's not

[1:41:56] as good as I remembered it, but you know, it is what it is.

[1:42:00] But I mean, this movie feels like everything, King, it's every King.

[1:42:03] Yeah.

[1:42:04] It's like a Stephen King fever dream, kind of.

[1:42:08] It feels like a Stephen King stamp.

[1:42:09] You were saying real quick about the end credits, we get to share.

[1:42:13] We see them laughing and joking with each other, as if the audience has forgotten what

[1:42:18] movie they just watched.

[1:42:19] It's supposed to be like, oh, our heroes in better times.

[1:42:24] We love them.

[1:42:25] Didn't you love them?

[1:42:26] Let's bring it back.

[1:42:27] Let's bring it back.

[1:42:28] This is a new playground, this magic moment, you know.

[1:42:30] It's a really cowardly way out.

[1:42:33] That's a sex, a beach sex romp ending, credits ending, you know, when you see everybody hopping

[1:42:39] up and down and, you know, throwing hot dogs around, and whoops, my top came off, and I

[1:42:45] didn't we love that scene where, you know, you know, we basically had a hilarious rape,

[1:42:51] like in, you know, Revenge of the Nerds.

[1:42:55] This movie actually, yeah, goes back and says, remember all the terrible scenes that we had

[1:42:59] in this film.

[1:43:00] Remember how annoying all the fake conversation was?

[1:43:04] The only thing that would have made that ending work is if the four of them are sitting around

[1:43:07] that table and then there was a fifth chair and it was one of those shit weasels just

[1:43:12] like, oh, buddy, you got me this time.

[1:43:15] The next time I'll get you.

[1:43:17] Or a glowing Jedi gun, and he's just, you know, he's doing his waving, he's playing

[1:43:23] with his scooby.

[1:43:24] I cannot believe at the end of this fucking and this crazy that he goes, ooby dooby, ooby.

[1:43:31] I can't even say it.

[1:43:32] Ooby dooby doo.

[1:43:33] Yeah.

[1:43:34] And he says, we got some work to do, got some work to do.

[1:43:38] And I would have loved to have seen this in a theater with an audience just for that

[1:43:41] scene, because I would feel like that it would have been like Times Square, 1986.

[1:43:45] Bullets would have flown, laser lights would have been hitting the screen, fights in the

[1:43:53] aisles.

[1:43:54] Like Rite of Spring.

[1:43:55] I feel like they wasted all their money on the special effects because they could have

[1:43:59] gotten the musical sting of the actual Scooby Doo song to play.

[1:44:03] Oh, wow.

[1:44:04] You're right.

[1:44:05] They didn't have it when he shows up.

[1:44:06] That would have been great.

[1:44:07] Maybe they would have had the right casting in this movie, because I think if it was the

[1:44:11] Golden Girls instead of these four guys, it would have been a different movie.

[1:44:13] Yes.

[1:44:14] A better movie in some ways.

[1:44:15] What do we do now?

[1:44:16] What we do now is we do our final judgments, whether this is a good, bad movie, a movie

[1:44:20] that you enjoy because you get maybe a few laughs out of it because it's a bad, bad movie,

[1:44:26] a movie that you do not care for at all, or a movie that you kind of like.

[1:44:30] Sometimes we actually like these movies.

[1:44:33] I'm going to go bad, bad.

[1:44:38] But I'm going to say that if you are a...

[1:44:40] You need a hug.

[1:44:41] If you are...

[1:44:42] Do you need a Dudditz hug?

[1:44:43] Do you need a Dreamcatcher group hug?

[1:44:48] Dan has often told me that he needs a Dudditz in his life.

[1:44:50] Yeah.

[1:44:51] It's a little...

[1:44:52] We all need a Dudditz.

[1:44:53] The problem is it's so long and kind of dry for a movie that's so weird that I can't quite

[1:44:59] recommend it as a good, bad movie.

[1:45:01] But if you're the kind of person who's interested in when things go wrong, you might like to

[1:45:08] see this because it's sort of fascinating how they're working so hard to make sort of

[1:45:13] fundamentally impossible material work and how there's so much talent on and behind the

[1:45:20] screen that was thrown into this thing that doesn't work at all.

[1:45:24] But in terms of my actual enjoyment, I'm going to say bad, bad.

[1:45:26] What do you say, Stuart?

[1:45:27] Yeah.

[1:45:28] I feel like for me, I think it tips into a good, bad movie.

[1:45:32] It's like such a mistake and there's so many wrong choices.

[1:45:35] It is tough to get through, but that's a challenge for you bad movie sickos out there.

[1:45:41] So I think it's a good, bad movie.

[1:45:43] I'm going to call it a bad, bad movie, but I think if it was like 30 to 40 minutes shorter,

[1:45:48] I would call it a good, bad movie because so many times during it, I'm like, what is

[1:45:55] this movie about?

[1:45:56] They felt like they needed to shovel more stuff into this movie and it careens around.

[1:46:00] It does feel like someone took a bunch of Stephen King books and just kind of like threw

[1:46:03] them in a blender and chopped them up and then poured out like a Stephen King smoothie

[1:46:06] with all the things he does.

[1:46:08] But it's just so long.

[1:46:09] It just takes so long to get through.

[1:46:11] I'm going to call it a bad, bad movie.

[1:46:13] And Evan, you were saying before the recording, this is a movie you kind of like, that you

[1:46:15] kind of enjoy it quite a bit.

[1:46:17] No, I almost hung myself for the second time in my life because we were watching this thing.

[1:46:22] I was so sad that I was so angry at myself for sponsoring this film.

[1:46:28] I should have picked something else.

[1:46:30] I really did not.

[1:46:31] I watched it.

[1:46:32] I had a week to watch it and I waited till the last moment because I don't think it's

[1:46:38] a...

[1:46:39] I think it's a bad, bad movie, but I would suggest the category of fascinating bad movie

[1:46:46] because especially if you like films, you know, or if you're a writer or, you know,

[1:46:53] a creator, it's a fascinating disaster of how bad...

[1:46:57] It's fascinating because it is a distillation of everything King wrote.

[1:47:03] That even he admits that it's a, you know, a best of almost, but it really is.

[1:47:09] It's dream logic, Stephen King.

[1:47:13] And the movie is...

[1:47:14] There's so much talent involved.

[1:47:15] So it's fascinating to watch, you know, terrible films made by people who have made good films.

[1:47:22] And it's just, it's so stupid.

[1:47:26] It breaks so many laws of filmmaking, screenwriting, acting, logic.

[1:47:33] It just, it just, it should never have been made as is.

[1:47:37] So I think it's worth seeing because it's a, it's a, it's a, it's an object lesson,

[1:47:42] you know, and everything going wrong in a Hollywood production.

[1:47:46] It's I always wonder with, with movies like this, at what point did the people making

[1:47:49] it know that they were in trouble?

[1:47:52] And this was not...

[1:47:53] How did they?

[1:47:54] You wonder when you see so many films like of this sort, or even successful films that

[1:47:59] you just don't like.

[1:48:00] I mean, you just wonder why wasn't there the, why weren't the breaks applied when you're

[1:48:06] going to spend $70 million or whatever it costs.

[1:48:10] When are the breaks applied that somebody just goes, wait a second, we have a lot of

[1:48:14] problems in this.

[1:48:16] Now, supposedly I didn't do too much looking into it.

[1:48:19] David Goldman did a pass and he threw out a ton of material.

[1:48:25] Oh, really?

[1:48:26] He seemed to, if I remember correctly, he was more interested in the main story of four

[1:48:30] guys up in that cabin and things happen, blah, blah, blah.

[1:48:35] And Kaz then came in and put back a lot of it.

[1:48:40] Now I don't know who made the decision to silly putty Stephen King's dialogue, because

[1:48:47] even people who love King, I mean, it's not like it's a secret that Stephen King's dialogue

[1:48:52] does not play well in film about where you're trying to portray life as somewhat realistic.

[1:48:57] Yeah, like actuality.

[1:48:58] It doesn't even have a verisimilitude.

[1:49:00] I mean, he makes up social interactions and behavior and bonding between these people,

[1:49:09] these characters and dialogue that does not exist anywhere on this planet.

[1:49:15] Stephen King is forced and dated.

[1:49:18] It's dated to a television version of the 50s.

[1:49:24] Maybe Stephen King is one of these greys.

[1:49:29] Maybe he's a Dudditz, you know?

[1:49:32] The thing that's amazing, the other thing is, if Dudditz is an alien, where the fuck

[1:49:35] did he come from?

[1:49:36] Because he grew up in this town.

[1:49:39] He has a mother.

[1:49:40] She's probably an alien, too.

[1:49:41] Yeah, my stepmother's an alien.

[1:49:42] I've seen that.

[1:49:44] I believe he's not an alien in the book, if I have that right.

[1:49:52] But I mean, if he's not an alien in the book, then this breaks the law of the two miracles

[1:49:57] in writing.

[1:50:00] which is one miracle and then you deal with that, but then you've got aliens, but you've also got

[1:50:03] psychic humans. And in film, you know, that's just a little too much to ask for. It might work in a

[1:50:09] book. It would have been so easy to just cut all the military stuff out. It really would have.

[1:50:16] You could have just had local police. This could have been the first time this ever happened,

[1:50:21] the same way like in The Thing, which this also makes you think of.

[1:50:25] I mean, it just also it just does not feel original in any sense.

[1:50:29] Yeah. And the fact that it feels like he's cribbing from himself is the worst.

[1:50:33] Oh, definitely. I mean, definitely. It's the stand. It's the shining. It's Carrie. It's

[1:50:40] King, you know, which he does, which he does a lot in his later books.

[1:50:44] It's possible that he read his own books, forgot he had written them, wrote a book. He's like,

[1:50:51] I'm going to write like this author that I like a lot, but I'm going to make it. I'm going to

[1:50:54] exaggerate it. I'm going to make the dialogue even crazier. This is what happens when you write

[1:50:57] on painkillers after a traumatic. Mm hmm. He got through it. Yeah. Yeah. I'm glad he got through

[1:51:04] it, but we had to get this one out of his system, I guess. She probably didn't need to turn into a

[1:51:07] major motion picture that maybe didn't need to publish it. The thing is that that's the

[1:51:11] other thing with Stephen King is and I know that the way he because, you know, I read his writing

[1:51:14] book. He's like every day, every I write 10 pages. I don't do much rewriting. And and his best books

[1:51:20] that you could there's this like momentum to it. You know, everything keeps moving.

[1:51:24] But in his worst books, you can really tell like, oh, he didn't really go back and and just typing.

[1:51:29] He's just it's funny you mentioned momentum, because one of the things I kept thinking

[1:51:33] through this is that it really felt like there was no urgency. You know, the only time there's

[1:51:39] any urgency is when there's a bunch of helicopters flying around, you know, the music is good.

[1:51:45] But otherwise, I mean, that and that end scene is a masterclass in how not to get an audience

[1:51:50] interested. I mean, cars just pull up. People walk out of them. They go to this very boring

[1:51:54] looking reservoir building. They didn't you know what I mean? And then it's a set. There's so many

[1:51:59] sets, which is, you know, the cabin is clearly a set. The reservoir is set. Yeah, it looks phony,

[1:52:06] especially for a movie where money was spent. But I mean, they get out of the car and then they have

[1:52:11] made it clear one worm gets in the reservoir. The earth. Oh, humanity is gone, right? It's the thing

[1:52:18] thing. If the thing gets out, we're done. But at least you understand the way the thing works.

[1:52:22] You've seen the thing. And that's gross. You get it. And it's going to it will

[1:52:26] immediately it will not fuck around and fart around. It will end the earth. This is the way

[1:52:31] that the thing works. The worms. They lie to you. OK, they lied to me, you know, they're going to

[1:52:39] lie. So but so they tell you we have this is this is the this is the goal. The alien is going to try

[1:52:46] to dump a worm into the reservoir. You know, it's going to put a joker fish in the in the

[1:52:50] Gotham Reservoir. We've got to stop this thing. So Tom Sizemore has already displaced the obstacle

[1:52:59] in the army. Morgan Freeman has been sidelined. And they know they're fighting aliens. At no time

[1:53:05] does he go to Mr. Nice General and say, we need to do it all points bullet and get everybody in

[1:53:13] those helicopters to the reservoir. That's something we skipped over. It's true, which is

[1:53:17] which baffled me. The time is he brings in the other general to be like Morgan Freeman has lost

[1:53:21] it. You've got to take over. And then he smashes a truck into the place where Thomas Jane is being

[1:53:26] held captive and goes, we got to get out of here and runs out. It's like he doesn't have to do

[1:53:30] that. You think I was in control right now? He's in charge. He has the ear of the general.

[1:53:35] And he's also the general has not had this experience with the 25 years fighting the

[1:53:41] sheet whistles. And he was going to give Tom. Tom Sizemore was supposed to inherit

[1:53:46] Morgan Freeman's role. He was supposed to. So not only does he not, does he does he act as if he's

[1:53:53] a felon? You know, he's like, you know, the fugitive. He busts him out and then says,

[1:53:59] me and you, no one else. They don't get the helicopters. They don't get more men.

[1:54:03] They could have ended this. So I kind of I'm I stepped out for a second. I missed it. Was

[1:54:08] Evans review. Was your review kind of light? I loved it. I love better than better than Star

[1:54:19] Wars, better than alien. Yeah. But again, and at the very end, we know that the earth is at

[1:54:26] risk, but they keep stopping the action for these moments. I mean, Tom Sizemore watches the

[1:54:31] helicopter do do circles to come back to shoot him again. But because they're in there fucking,

[1:54:37] you know, they don't care. All that matters now is he doesn't want all he has to do. He could just

[1:54:41] run. He could have run into the reservoir and save the earth. Doesn't do it. Luckily,

[1:54:47] multiple times this helicopter. OK, hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Luckily, Mr. Gray has picked a body

[1:54:53] that is very bad at lifting manhole covers. And Thomas Thomas Jane has to spend all this time

[1:54:58] making sure that it's as comfortable and beloved. Are you OK? I OK. I want you to be comfortable.

[1:55:07] I OK. How's your leukemia doing? Fine. But meanwhile, the earth. Hello.

[1:55:17] He doesn't even run. He just kind of wobbles over. It is such a.

[1:55:21] If you didn't know that it was going to be there staying in the car, it's like I got to protect

[1:55:25] that it's in the car. If you didn't think that it was key to defeating this alien,

[1:55:29] why did you stop and get that? It's then bring him over. Yeah, it is just a phony.

[1:55:34] It is the phoniest, crappiest waste of money. I mean, there are plenty of bad films out there,

[1:55:40] but it's just it's just it's it's a real shame because this money could have fed people.

[1:55:45] Yeah, it could have cured leukemia. I mean, it did feed people.

[1:55:50] In the cast and crew, there was a crafty, I'm sure. Yeah, yeah.

[1:55:57] Thank you to all the Max Fund members who supported us during Max Fund Drive.

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[1:57:09] Sleep is important, but it's difficult sometimes. I'm John Moe on sleeping with celebrities. Famous

[1:57:16] people help conk you out by talking in soothing voices about unimportant things. Maria Bamford

[1:57:23] on parking. I parked in a bus stop. That's just not right. I am not a bus. Roxanne Gay on airports.

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[1:57:40] You hand somebody a yardstick, yardsticks become part of the family. Granted, it's a weird idea,

[1:57:46] but it's lots of fun and it works. Listen wherever you get podcasts.

[1:57:53] We're just gonna take a little break from the chatter. The fun times we're having with

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[2:01:35] And now, back to the show.

[2:01:39] We should quickly do our other brief segments.

[2:01:44] So what do we do next, Dan?

[2:01:45] It's-

[2:01:46] I hate this movie.

[2:01:47] I fucking hate this movie.

[2:01:48] In case I haven't made it clear,

[2:01:51] because I may never get this shot again to say this,

[2:01:54] but I hate this.

[2:01:55] No, we'll have you back once a year to watch Dreamcatcher.

[2:01:56] Tell us how you feel about it, yeah, yeah.

[2:01:58] I'm stupid enough to do that.

[2:02:01] I'm just gonna read this one letter.

[2:02:03] It's from Ian Lastname Withheld, who writes,

[2:02:06] Ian Holm.

[2:02:07] Dan and Elliot's discussion of Gold Diggers of 1933

[2:02:11] reminded me of one of my favorite movie conventions,

[2:02:14] namely when a movie attempts to reproduce another art form

[2:02:16] in a way that only works on film

[2:02:18] and wouldn't work in the medium it's supposedly evoking.

[2:02:21] Berklee is an obvious example

[2:02:23] since his dance numbers involve close-ups,

[2:02:25] dancers in formations that only make sense

[2:02:27] when seen from one specific angle,

[2:02:29] and transitions that would be impractical,

[2:02:32] if not impossible, to pull off live.

[2:02:36] Other examples I can think of are the ballet

[2:02:37] in The Red Shoes and the stage show in The Bandwagon,

[2:02:41] which could be performed on stage,

[2:02:43] although I have no idea how the individual numbers we see,

[2:02:45] like triplets, Louisiana Hayride, and Girl Hunt Ballet,

[2:02:50] could possibly fit into the modern retelling of Faust,

[2:02:53] that's the show within the show's ostensible theme.

[2:02:56] With that in mind,

[2:02:57] do you have any favorite examples of this phenomenon

[2:03:00] regards Ian Lastname Withheld?

[2:03:02] This is another one that, like,

[2:03:03] I think it's a really interesting question.

[2:03:04] I'm coming up a little short,

[2:03:06] other than things that are similar to, you know,

[2:03:09] like there's so many examples of theatrical productions

[2:03:12] where I'm like, that, okay, I accept it

[2:03:15] because this is a movie,

[2:03:16] but that would not be the way it is.

[2:03:19] Yeah, it drives me nuts that in any film

[2:03:23] where you're watching something and there's no,

[2:03:26] it just makes no sense.

[2:03:28] Yeah, The Bandwagon is a perfect example.

[2:03:30] What does this have to do with the plot of the movie?

[2:03:33] I get that musicals are a fantasy, you know,

[2:03:35] that everybody breaks into song and whatnot,

[2:03:38] but what kind of play would they make?

[2:03:40] It has nothing to do with Faust.

[2:03:42] Having Oscar Levant in a baby outfit

[2:03:45] has nothing to do with,

[2:03:49] actually, no, I don't think Oscar Levant

[2:03:50] is in the baby outfit.

[2:03:51] I think he's not, it's Fred Astaire,

[2:03:55] Nanette DuBray.

[2:03:56] There's the character who plays, like,

[2:03:57] the director of the play.

[2:03:58] Right, who was a theatrical actor.

[2:04:01] Oscar Levant was supposed to be in it,

[2:04:03] but Oscar Levant was busily engaged in drug-taking.

[2:04:08] And I think, if you noticed in that movie,

[2:04:12] in Oscar Levant movies,

[2:04:13] he literally walks off screen in a couple of musical numbers

[2:04:16] because he cannot do things.

[2:04:19] I love Oscar Levant.

[2:04:21] Unfortunately, he was a horrible drug addict

[2:04:23] that had a lot of problems.

[2:04:25] But there's a scene, I forget,

[2:04:26] is it like the show, there's a show business number,

[2:04:28] and everybody walks towards you,

[2:04:29] and Oscar Levant goes, nope, he just goes up.

[2:04:33] But yeah, it's funny when you have a movie,

[2:04:37] and they go, we're doing this great production,

[2:04:38] and they do nothing towards that.

[2:04:42] But yeah, I mean, the question is kind of getting to

[2:04:45] what is it that film,

[2:04:46] what works in film that wouldn't work?

[2:04:50] Because Dan only sends us the questions,

[2:04:51] he doesn't send us the context.

[2:04:52] Well, I gave you some clarifying context

[2:04:54] for this because it's more complex.

[2:04:55] So my thing I was going to say

[2:04:55] was the ballet and the red shoes.

[2:04:58] But it's like, when it comes to Meinl,

[2:05:00] it's not exactly the same thing as like

[2:05:02] in the Laurence Olivier version of Henry V,

[2:05:05] how it starts out with them doing it Shakespeare-style

[2:05:08] on a stage, and it turns into reality.

[2:05:11] And I feel like that's a really successful way

[2:05:16] of showing what happens to you when you're engrossed

[2:05:18] in a theatrical production,

[2:05:19] which is you stop seeing it as a show,

[2:05:21] and you start seeing it as a real thing.

[2:05:22] Yeah, it's a really neat choice.

[2:05:23] I mean, also because it grounds it in

[2:05:27] the reality of the time to a degree.

[2:05:29] I mean, it's a neat device.

[2:05:32] I think that though we're overlooking the greatest,

[2:05:36] it's not necessarily a creative thing,

[2:05:38] but I think that Jonesy's mind warehouse

[2:05:44] as shown in the fabulous film,

[2:05:47] the underrated film, Dreamcatcher, 2003,

[2:05:52] Laurence Kasdan, director, screenwriter

[2:05:55] with the great William Goldman.

[2:05:56] And I believe that nothing has matched this

[2:05:59] in showing the inner mind at work,

[2:06:02] the mind of a creative person at work,

[2:06:04] person involved.

[2:06:05] Psychic person, sure.

[2:06:08] Oh, there's that, sure.

[2:06:09] If you wanna bring that into it.

[2:06:11] I do.

[2:06:12] But yeah, Dreamcatcher.

[2:06:15] I'm also, you know, you always have,

[2:06:18] you have scenes where people are envisioning their book

[2:06:22] and you, you know, the scene changes to the book

[2:06:25] or animation certainly can do things.

[2:06:29] I'm trying to think of a film that actually

[2:06:32] does that though in animation.

[2:06:36] Coming up short.

[2:06:37] The thing that's coming to me is like,

[2:06:38] Dreamcatcher?

[2:06:39] It's less that like, oh, it's doing a thing

[2:06:41] that can only be done in film.

[2:06:42] The animated series.

[2:06:45] It's less it's like doing the thing

[2:06:46] that can only be done in film that doesn't make sense

[2:06:49] and more like just me being like,

[2:06:52] okay, there's some shorthand that needs to happen here

[2:06:54] for the story, but it's a silly one

[2:06:58] because like, it's a Muppet movie,

[2:07:01] but it's the Muppets Take Manhattan.

[2:07:03] And even as a kid, even as a kid,

[2:07:05] watching a Muppets Take Manhattan, I'm like,

[2:07:09] is this the whole musical that we're seeing right now?

[2:07:11] Like, it doesn't seem to be telling a full story.

[2:07:15] They're going to Broadway

[2:07:16] with a roughly 10 minute musical.

[2:07:18] Yeah.

[2:07:19] And then at the end, I guess these new people

[2:07:21] can come straight into the musical without rehearsing.

[2:07:24] Yeah, yeah.

[2:07:25] The idea that everybody bursts into song.

[2:07:26] I always thought that it'd be funny

[2:07:27] if there was a scene where a musical

[2:07:29] just kind of like started up and a lot of people

[2:07:30] are like, what the fuck are you doing?

[2:07:32] Yeah.

[2:07:33] And off that table, well, we're singing.

[2:07:36] Singing what?

[2:07:36] You know, it's, yeah, but I mean, musicals,

[2:07:39] especially something like Busby Berkeley,

[2:07:42] I mean, because montages was something that,

[2:07:44] you know, montages in general,

[2:07:45] but you can do montages in comics.

[2:07:49] You can lay out a montage on a page of comics

[2:07:51] and it creates, you know, you got your Eisensteinian

[2:07:53] hoo-ha going there.

[2:07:55] That is what they taught me in film school,

[2:07:57] Eisensteinian hoo-ha.

[2:07:58] But, but so that's not just film, but yeah.

[2:08:03] I mean, musicals, because musicals

[2:08:06] are just such a, can you do that in a,

[2:08:08] you can't do it in theater unless the mechanics,

[2:08:11] I mean, can you do Busby Berkeley in theater?

[2:08:13] I know they've tried.

[2:08:14] The closest thing I've seen to it is a,

[2:08:16] like, yeah, with mirrors.

[2:08:18] Like when the producers was on Broadway,

[2:08:19] they had a big mirror so you could see

[2:08:21] that they were dancing in a swastika.

[2:08:23] Yeah, but that's not, yeah, it's not,

[2:08:24] I was like, not for the stage, no, yeah, no.

[2:08:27] I understand what you mean.

[2:08:28] Yeah, I don't think it's.

[2:08:29] Yeah, no, but like, but you can't,

[2:08:30] but the stuff that Busby Berkeley does in his musicals

[2:08:32] is so much, so far beyond just they're all in formation

[2:08:35] or something like that.

[2:08:36] You know, there's the ones where,

[2:08:38] I forget which one it's in now,

[2:08:39] where they're like all flying towards the camera

[2:08:42] really fast, each of the dancers.

[2:08:43] Like they have like big blow-up balls in their hands

[2:08:46] and like that, and they're all like flying

[2:08:48] into the air towards the camera.

[2:08:49] And it's like, what, are they flying,

[2:08:50] supposed to be flying towards the audience?

[2:08:51] Like it doesn't, you know, it's a,

[2:08:53] they just give up on the idea of a theatrical space.

[2:08:55] Right, there's that one film,

[2:08:57] I can't remember the name of it,

[2:08:58] but all the stars appear in the sky, in outer space.

[2:09:02] At the end of the, at the gang's all here, I think.

[2:09:04] Yes, that's it, the gang's all here.

[2:09:05] And all of a sudden everybody's bursting out of like,

[2:09:07] you know, it's like, that's some,

[2:09:10] that's some amazing theatrical production.

[2:09:13] We can only do it once.

[2:09:17] They're like, well, to achieve these effects,

[2:09:20] we do have to get LSD into the system

[2:09:22] of everybody in the audience.

[2:09:25] Everyone, lick your programs.

[2:09:28] Honestly, I was thinking about LSD

[2:09:29] because I was thinking about like the end of 2001

[2:09:32] or movies like The Trip where, you know, they get all,

[2:09:35] but you can sort of still do that in comics, you know?

[2:09:40] I mean.

[2:09:42] Well, it's less than like you can or can't do it.

[2:09:44] It's whether it like makes sense

[2:09:46] when you're depicting another thing.

[2:09:49] But I mean, a light show in your face

[2:09:52] with movement and music is obviously something

[2:09:55] you can't do in other medium, media.

[2:09:59] Yeah.

[2:10:00] I'm just going to say, on my end, I'm going to do a little reference for the kids in the

[2:10:05] audience and I was going to say, there's a, in the second season of Euphoria, there is

[2:10:10] one of the characters, one of the teenagers puts on a fucking play that she wrote herself,

[2:10:16] they approve this, they give her a lavish budget to have the sets done, and it's basically

[2:10:21] just like shit-talking the main characters in the show, it's really crazy, it's like

[2:10:27] the silliest thing. And it is presented as a series of like scenes that make sense if

[2:10:32] you're like, you know, in a TV show where you're like moving from like memory to memory,

[2:10:36] but I'm like, what is this show? Yeah, it's barely a show. What do you play and how long

[2:10:40] is it? It's basically just like, hey, remember when my sister did all this crazy stuff? I've

[2:10:47] seen plays like that. There's also just stuff like Maya Deren's films, which are, have to

[2:10:53] be films, you know? Did she do Meshes of the Afternoon? Was that her? She does short

[2:10:59] films, I can't remember the names of them, unfortunately, but I mean, they're like a

[2:11:02] talk show. I think she may have, Elliot. Yeah. They're, you know, you can't write that what

[2:11:07] she's doing, you can't, you can't really even draw it necessarily, but it's a series of

[2:11:11] images and music, you know, like Eun Shin and Deleu type, but more personal and even

[2:11:18] probably less representational. I'm trying to sound smart here, I don't know what the

[2:11:22] fuck I'm talking about. I mean, you know, experimental film, you know, I don't know,

[2:11:29] Andy Warhol's Sleep or shit like that, you know what I mean? I don't know if that falls

[2:11:33] under it, but I certainly wouldn't want to write a book about a guy sleeping. He's just

[2:11:38] sleeping. He's still sleeping. He's still sleeping. Page 400. He's still sleeping, you

[2:11:44] know? This isn't the exact same thing, but like the movie The Clock, the art installation

[2:11:50] movie where it's seen, it's shots from other movies that all have a clock or a watch on

[2:11:54] screen and it's timed with the time that you're watching it. And so you're seeing time pass

[2:12:00] in front of you through these clips. And it's not, it's almost like adapting, adapting film

[2:12:05] into it, into an art film, you know? Or adapting film into a clock. Yeah, it's actually adapting

[2:12:10] film into a clock. I haven't seen this, but have you, it's funny, it comes back to Stephen

[2:12:15] King, but talking about art, that weird version of the Langoliers TV set? Oh yeah, the one

[2:12:21] that they did with like the torn up paper, they like cut it down and like Xeroxed the

[2:12:27] actual images and like animated the Xeroxes. I mean, it's, it's, that might count. Timekeepers

[2:12:35] of Eternity. Yeah, I mean, that's what it's called. I mean, yeah, it's film commenting

[2:12:41] on film in a, in a, you know, tactical way. I mean, that's supposed to be pretty cool.

[2:12:49] I haven't seen it. I, I have it on my computer. I like dipped into it and I was enjoying it

[2:12:54] and then I stopped it and I forgot about it. So I guess this is a good reminder to. The

[2:12:59] Langoliers is not, I think, is that the one that's a vampire in a plane? Yeah. Or is that

[2:13:06] Nightflyer? Oh, you know, I have a feeling it's Nightflyer. Langoliers is the one, they're

[2:13:10] in a plane, but they fall through a hole in space or something like that. It has like

[2:13:14] stuff that like chomps up space time. It's like vampires do that. Floating Pac-Man. So

[2:13:20] technically correct. They don't, they don't. I want to chomp your space time. We should

[2:13:24] move on to our final segment. The guy kind of answered his own question and we're fumbling

[2:13:28] around here. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That often happens. That's a good question. That often happens.

[2:13:32] Lots of academics play with that. We're doing Dreamcatcher here. Yeah. Uh, the last part

[2:13:37] of the show is where we recommend movies. We forget Dreamcatcher. We push Dreamcatcher

[2:13:41] out of our minds. Yeah. To recommend a movie. We're burning it. We're burning it while being

[2:13:45] chased by a bad special effect. Let's instead recommend movies that we saw and enjoyed.

[2:13:50] I'm pretty sure I recommended this in the past, but I have seen a dearth of, of new

[2:13:55] things that I'm really enthusiastic about. So I'm just going to return to, uh, I, I rewatched

[2:14:02] the movie orgy, uh, you know, listed from 1968, but it was reedited several times. It's based on

[2:14:10] even older materials. So, you know, release dates mean nothing for something like the movie orgy.

[2:14:14] This was Joe Dante's, uh, montage movie that started out. Or, well, at one point at least

[2:14:22] was like seven plus hours now exists in the sort of final cut of a mere four hours and 40 minutes

[2:14:30] or, or, or close to that. Um, and it is, you know, uh, material cut from several movies of the fifties,

[2:14:41] mostly, uh, some like TV stuff, commercials, new, like it's just all sorts of footage.

[2:14:49] And it feels like kind of, um, both like, I dunno, like the pop culture boomer, uh, psyche,

[2:14:59] uh, but also a skeleton key to like all the stuff that Joe Dante particularly loves and like comes

[2:15:06] up in his movies. And, you know, it is montage, uh, that is juxtaposed in ways that make it

[2:15:14] funny. Sometimes it just is like the, he let something play out for a while and you just enjoy

[2:15:20] a clip. Um, but it was designed for you to like, kind of walk in and out. It used to play colleges

[2:15:26] like people could just sort of go out and have a smoke or get some pizza or whatever and come back

[2:15:31] and they haven't really missed anything. Cause it's not a story, but you can sit down and watch

[2:15:36] it all. And I have, uh, it is four hours and I believe 40 minutes now. When did he,

[2:15:45] when did he do this? Um, so this was like really early on. I think this was when he was a college

[2:15:52] student, right? Yeah. He was a college student. And, um, and it has been hard to see for a number

[2:15:59] of years because of obvious rights issues, you know, it would screen, but you would, they wouldn't

[2:16:05] like make people pay for it because then you would get into real trouble. Uh, but now somehow

[2:16:11] vinegar syndrome, I believe it is put out a disc. I don't know what they did to do it, but you, uh,

[2:16:18] well, the process of putting out a disc, um, but it is available more widely than ever before.

[2:16:25] You would hope Dick Miller is in it multiple times. Uh, really? He's not in it. I don't know.

[2:16:32] I don't know. Dan, watch it again. Yeah. Oh, whoops. I missed something. I went out for pizza

[2:16:39] during the Dick Miller. So I'm going to recommend a movie that is, uh, has nothing in common with

[2:16:45] the other movie. Well, maybe a little, um, it's, uh, I'm going to recommend a movie that came out

[2:16:50] last year, uh, from, uh, director Craig Brewer. And that is the, uh, biopic about a Neil Diamond

[2:16:59] impersonation act, uh, song sung blue starring Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson. Uh, it, I am quite

[2:17:07] vocal in saying musician biopics are my least favorite type of movie. Um, and I think that

[2:17:13] Craig Brewer has a skill when, uh, at depicting, um, kind of lower level artists who are kind of

[2:17:24] seeking for something more and they have like kind of a humble blue collar background and they're

[2:17:31] kind of reaching for something and, you know, they're never going to get it, but that doesn't

[2:17:35] stop them from trying. And I think that was on display in, uh, his movie. Dolomite is my name

[2:17:39] that has an amazing performance from Eddie Murphy to even something like hustle and flow.

[2:17:44] Um, it's very sad. And I think there's some choices made, uh, with the life of the real

[2:17:50] life people to like add to the drama in places. Um, but also it helps that there's a lot of music

[2:17:56] from Neil Diamond, which is, uh, a plus for me and Kate Hudson is great in it. Uh, no surprise.

[2:18:03] So I liked it. Song sung blue. It's very sad at times. Warning. I haven't gotten to see many

[2:18:11] movies of worthwhile note lately because I've been watching so many flop house movies, but since Dan

[2:18:16] recommended a really long movie, I'll recommend a very short movie, which is, uh, I think I'm

[2:18:21] going to recommend Apocalypse Poo, which is a mashup movie from 1987 that mashes up Apocalypse

[2:18:27] Now and, uh, footage from Winnie the Pooh, the Disney version of Winnie the Pooh. And, um, they,

[2:18:32] they do a pretty, the, the, the guy who did it was, uh, Todd Graham. And, uh, he does a very good job

[2:18:38] of finding images from Winnie the Pooh that fit with the monologues and dialogue from Apocalypse

[2:18:42] Now. Um, so this is, uh, it's just been floating around for a long time. Is that also a vinegar

[2:18:48] syndrome release? I don't believe it is, uh, but you can find it online. It's only about eight

[2:18:53] minutes long. Yeah. And so, um, but it's a, and even at eight minutes, you're like, I got it.

[2:18:57] But, uh, but there's some, but there's some fun juxtapositions in it. So that's what I'll

[2:19:01] recommend. Uh, and have you had any movies you'd like to recommend for us today? I, uh, I don't

[2:19:05] watch, I watch mostly garbage, uh, as we were saying before we started this, I really don't

[2:19:10] like, you know, I still, I I've seen dream catcher. That's the William gold recommend good

[2:19:15] garbage. I was going to recommend you. Well, so I've got, I've got two, if you don't mind,

[2:19:19] they're both. Okay. I've tried to pick something that was made after 2000, but I didn't realize

[2:19:25] I could go to 1987. I went, I go through phases. Like I spent, I, I, I write the movies down that

[2:19:32] I watch. I admit it. It's sad, but I admit it. My kid makes fun of me because I forget a lot

[2:19:37] of the things I watched. I don't have time to push it on letterbox. Uh, also if I go to letterbox,

[2:19:42] I'll read some of the reviews and I'll, I'll want to kill people. And, uh, you know, it's,

[2:19:47] it's like IMDB for college people who've been to college. It's just, it's stupid,

[2:19:52] but it has better words. Uh, so I was trying to like, Dan has a great letterbox.

[2:19:58] I also believe in whatever.

[2:20:00] saying I've wanted to, you know, strangle a stranger for no bigger sin than they were dumb

[2:20:06] about a movie. So like have you, you know, you got the plot wrong, your entire thesis, Mr. Smartass.

[2:20:12] But so I just thought, what if I like that, you know, that's fairly recent. For some reason,

[2:20:17] two movies popped up and I looked them up and they're both 2017. The first one is is called

[2:20:21] November. It's an Estonian folk horror. It's the, I don't really want to get into the plot because

[2:20:32] but it's an overt folk horror film. It's not one of these folk horror where you go, well,

[2:20:37] you know, the folk horror was really kind of just on the side. It was all our trauma all along.

[2:20:42] It comes straight from the, it's a period piece. It's probably the only Estonian film I've ever

[2:20:50] seen, but it is gorgeous. The photography, the black and white photography is crisp and gorgeous.

[2:20:57] I enjoyed it as a film as well. Some people only like the photography,

[2:21:01] but it just worked for me. It's deep in folklore. It's a depressing, sad film with some

[2:21:13] laughs in it. But if you just look it up and you look at a couple of screenshots,

[2:21:18] if that's what you're into. But I really like it. It's slow. It's a slow burner, but I think it's

[2:21:24] beautiful and really well done. And I enjoyed it much more than a lot of these, you know,

[2:21:30] elevated horror A24 things that people jump up and down over. It's got also an amazing opening,

[2:21:35] just a crazy, bizarre opening. It's got a dark, mordant wit to it, which is a phrase I will never

[2:21:42] use again, and I apologize. I'm trying to sound like an actual film fucking critic.

[2:21:47] What is this, Letterboxd? Yeah, what is this, Letterboxd?

[2:21:49] I know. The other film is, you know, this might have been discussed on your show or

[2:21:54] by somebody, but it's also from 2017. It's called One Cut of the Dead.

[2:22:00] That's one I've been meaning to watch for a long time.

[2:22:03] So for once, I can't talk much. You won't have to, you know, me and my jabber jaw,

[2:22:08] but One Cut of the Dead is a book that literally people say, don't say anything about it,

[2:22:13] just go into it blind. And it's a 2017 film, Japanese film.

[2:22:21] And the only thing I would say is I think that everyone should see it, especially film fans.

[2:22:28] But you have to commit to it. You have to watch the entire thing.

[2:22:32] It's not a movie where at the last minute you get some stupid, you know, James Wan twist,

[2:22:38] you know, the ventriloquist puppet was a corpse. Somehow you never smelled it.

[2:22:44] But the movie turns people off the first third and people get bored with it and they don't watch

[2:22:50] it. You've got to watch the entire film. And I won't say anything more about it.

[2:22:54] But it's one of my favorite films that I've seen in the last few decades.

[2:23:00] I think it's pretty scrappy. I really like the scrappiness of it.

[2:23:04] But I mean, I don't even want to tell you how you might feel at the end of it,

[2:23:07] because I don't want it. I don't want anyone. I don't want anyone going into it cold going,

[2:23:12] well, at the end, we're going to end up being depressed. And I'm not saying you will.

[2:23:16] But because you've got to be you've got to you've got to sit through it.

[2:23:21] And you've got to engage with it. And by the end,

[2:23:24] I think you'll be very surprised and pleased that you watched it.

[2:23:27] I kind of watch it. I've heard such good things. I've been trying to keep myself

[2:23:30] from hearing much about it. That's why you should just aren't they?

[2:23:33] Are they remaking it or that already happened or there was a sequel?

[2:23:36] They did it. There was a covid sequel. They got the cast together and put them in character

[2:23:43] and and did made a film shot online of all dealing with each other.

[2:23:52] But but it's a it's a it's it's a film that I'm surprised still hasn't penetrated more than

[2:23:58] because there are so many there are so many ways to grapple with it.

[2:24:03] But I think one of the reasons it hasn't is because people really keep the secret.

[2:24:08] Yeah. Whenever I talk to people who I know who like film, I'm surprised that more people

[2:24:12] haven't seen it. But generally, it's a movie where you don't want to know.

[2:24:17] And so people reviews don't really give you much reason to go.

[2:24:20] Yeah. Oh, you know, basically,

[2:24:22] you're selling a car with the tarp over it. Trust. Well, it's like it's like, you know,

[2:24:27] it's like religion. Trust me. It'll work out. Trust me. But you got to go through all this.

[2:24:32] You might have to go through all this shit first. So you just don't trust it.

[2:24:35] But one cut of the dead is one of my favorite recent, you know, fairly recent movies. And I

[2:24:40] recommend it to everyone. But it's it's hard because you're like, you know,

[2:24:44] you got to watch it. I can't talk about it. I'm like, OK, well, it's only 96 minutes.

[2:24:49] I think I'm not rated. So, Dan, that's perfect for you. Yeah, I finally I finally last night

[2:24:58] just started watching a movie that was a movie of my choice and not flop house choice.

[2:25:02] And so when I finished that, I feel good, right? It felt so good that I could finally watch this

[2:25:06] Czech comedy from the 70s. That's a parody of American pulp mystery. Oh, oh, it's on Tubi,

[2:25:14] right? Yeah. Yeah. It's on Tubi. It's like Adele hasn't had supper yet or something.

[2:25:17] Yeah. I watched one of the other films and I'm dying to see Adele. I watched the

[2:25:24] castle in the castle, the mysterious castle in the carpet. I haven't watched that one yet.

[2:25:28] I really want I want to. But the same guy did a movie called Lemonade Joe that I

[2:25:32] recommend. That's that's a trio of films. The same villain. The guy plays the villain

[2:25:36] in all three films. The same guy. I didn't realize how dorky this part is.

[2:25:40] The Carpathians is a is it's the only one of two Jules Verne. It's a Jules Verne

[2:25:47] book. And it's it's the driest comedy. And I laughed my ass off for it. I just I just found

[2:25:54] it. It's droll and weird and it's steampunky, but it doesn't call attention to itself.

[2:26:02] It does. It's very it's like it's like it's like if Terry Gilliam had restraint.

[2:26:10] Would he be Terry Gilliam then? I don't know. And I don't I don't care.

[2:26:13] He can eat my underwear. But that's what you're going to hear, folks.

[2:26:20] I was going to watch that next, but I'm going to watch it again.

[2:26:23] His film was hilarious. And I'm dying to read. I just haven't been in a mood to watch the other

[2:26:28] two because they're not, you know, slapsticky. They're almost like, you know, droll slapstick.

[2:26:34] People aren't smashing into each other. But the art direction is I mean,

[2:26:38] I laughed at this film just from like art direction. You know, there's one scene where

[2:26:43] they just show an entrance to a to the mysterious castle. And I laughed because it was just so odd

[2:26:49] ball. But it's and it's also a great looking film. I don't know how the other ones are,

[2:26:53] but I don't want to look good, too. I mean, the Lemonade Joe looks like a

[2:26:56] almost like a silent Western. Yeah, but it looked like they pull it off.

[2:26:59] But I love the idea that he made he made like a Jules Verne steampunk. He made a Western and

[2:27:03] a pulp. And I only I forget where the the mother country where he's from is. It's just

[2:27:10] what an odd choice. Yeah. So it's Czechoslovakia. Yeah. But an odd choice. And then he was able to

[2:27:15] make a triptych is worth looking, you know, just fascinating because, you know, that,

[2:27:20] you know, the government didn't shoot him. I don't know for something.

[2:27:25] You're incensing teenagers. Yeah. I love the fact that the

[2:27:29] Tubi has this just it's I mean, Tubi is amazing. It's got it's got such a great

[2:27:34] library to be. Yeah. Tubi is the only streaming service that it's my first go to. And it's got

[2:27:43] all this horror that I love. Oh, my. A lot of comfort horror is Messiah of Evil

[2:27:48] and and and and things like that. And and all this Giallo and it has good stuff. I mean,

[2:27:55] it actually has good films to stuff that you used to be able to only find if you went to the

[2:27:59] Thalia. You know, you had to go to Manhattan and go to the where I watch my gym and the holograms.

[2:28:06] Yeah. And it's got stuff, too. And they've got yeah, they've got like multiple seasons of Common

[2:28:11] Rider and Ultraman. I'm like, it's that's all I need. Practically, this was it's dangerous,

[2:28:17] though, because they have like they have an extensive collection of Doctor Who episodes.

[2:28:21] And I'm like, is this the year I get into Doctor Who? Yeah, I I'm a recent Doctor Who convert for

[2:28:28] making fun of my friends for liking it. And I I'm sitting there going through the Pertwee era,

[2:28:32] going through the it's it's charming garbage. I mean, there's nothing funnier than watching

[2:28:39] a guy in an alien get up that involves Frogman's outfit and he trips on his flippers and they keep

[2:28:46] I mean, the sets move. I mean, I just all of that breakneck BBC pace. Yeah, I mean,

[2:28:54] it's just I actually find myself really enjoying it on multiple levels because I'm like,

[2:28:58] it's funny, goofy stuff. It's amiable as hell. They're they're taking it. It's cheap

[2:29:05] and dirty and fast television making. They don't really know what they're doing.

[2:29:11] And but they're also but the actors are all taking it extremely seriously.

[2:29:15] Yeah, you know, and it does. And the thing is, it has a sense of humor. It has always had a

[2:29:19] sense of humor about it. But then you get to see Gene Mars show up in five, you know, looking awesome

[2:29:24] and, you know, fascist soldiers outfit. I mean, it's just you could the actors that show up are

[2:29:30] also interesting. So I guess it's got that Twilight Zone Outer Limits, Alfred Hitchcock.

[2:29:35] Yeah. So this is this is the year I get into Doctor Who. Well, we've talked enough about to be

[2:29:40] Evan, would you like to tell us again about your book that you have out? Let's promote.

[2:29:43] What would you like to promote? Well, if any of my jokes landed for you today, you might

[2:29:50] you like my might like my cartooning because it's very pop culture saturated. It's very

[2:29:55] much like me goes on too long and there's plenty of it. But

[2:30:00] But Nerd Inferno's available at better comic shops,

[2:30:04] at book shops.

[2:30:05] I don't like plugging Amazon,

[2:30:06] but if that's where you have to get stuff,

[2:30:08] not everybody has a comic shop, obviously.

[2:30:12] I mean, I think you have like a Scrimshaw.

[2:30:15] You might have a Scrimshaw shop more easily

[2:30:18] than you have a comic shop in your neighborhood,

[2:30:19] unless you're...

[2:30:20] It's like I ordered it through my local

[2:30:22] independent bookstore.

[2:30:23] Good for you, man.

[2:30:24] Seriously, good for you.

[2:30:25] So yeah.

[2:30:25] That way they get a dime and I get a nickel.

[2:30:29] Yeah, and stores will do that for you.

[2:30:33] People don't talk about it much,

[2:30:34] but if you don't wanna support a big,

[2:30:37] possibly evil retailer.

[2:30:39] I go through my local comic shop.

[2:30:41] I try never.

[2:30:43] I don't personally buy things through Amazon.

[2:30:45] But a lot of people who have found Eltingville

[2:30:49] in the last couple years,

[2:30:49] a lot of them do not have...

[2:30:51] I mean, they're in other countries

[2:30:53] and they do not have access to a bookstore,

[2:30:56] a comic store, let alone one that sells English work.

[2:30:59] So, I mean, Barnes & Noble,

[2:31:03] you can go through Books A Million

[2:31:06] at local bookshops and things like that.

[2:31:08] But, or you can pirate it, torrent it.

[2:31:11] That's what you kids do.

[2:31:14] If you like it, throw me a dime.

[2:31:17] Throw me a dime on my page.

[2:31:18] Yeah, and again...

[2:31:20] I've been doing...

[2:31:22] I've been writing horror stories

[2:31:23] for the EC Comics revival,

[2:31:26] Catacomb of Torment.

[2:31:27] I've got a third story just came out

[2:31:29] in the collections of that.

[2:31:30] That's from Oni Press and EC Comics.

[2:31:35] And my stuff's been getting reprinted.

[2:31:37] I'm old enough that DC just did

[2:31:39] the Superman Adventures, big books of that.

[2:31:42] World's Funnest has been reprinted multiple times,

[2:31:45] somewhat recently at DC.

[2:31:48] The Deadpool stuff that I sort of did,

[2:31:50] it's a long story.

[2:31:51] It's not really Deadpool,

[2:31:52] but it is Deadpool, has been reprinted.

[2:31:56] My Predator work has been reprinted.

[2:31:58] Things keep recycling the same way

[2:32:00] that Vinegar Syndrome or whoever

[2:32:01] keeps putting out weird old stuff.

[2:32:03] Even my...

[2:32:04] What about your Bill & Ted books?

[2:32:06] Bill & Ted books, I don't know

[2:32:08] if they're still in print,

[2:32:09] but the Bill & Ted run from Marvel

[2:32:12] was put out by Boom a couple years ago.

[2:32:14] There's a hardcover that's out there.

[2:32:15] I think that's the collection I have, yeah.

[2:32:17] The softcover collection might be there too.

[2:32:19] I don't make anything on that,

[2:32:20] but I still promote it

[2:32:21] because I'm happy with the work.

[2:32:22] I mean, I stole it.

[2:32:23] No, no, I mean, I bought it.

[2:32:25] No, no, I don't.

[2:32:26] Please, you know, I don't.

[2:32:28] What are you gonna do, right?

[2:32:29] I mean, we're all...

[2:32:29] Oh, I've never watched a movie

[2:32:31] that my friend Paul downloaded from somewhere.

[2:32:33] We didn't all watch Kid...

[2:32:36] We didn't all watch Kid...

[2:32:38] We weren't all watching anime.

[2:32:39] Kid bleeped films in the 80s that were on VHS

[2:32:42] and you could barely see what was happening

[2:32:44] or anything like that.

[2:32:45] You know, let's be honest about it.

[2:32:47] I mean, I know, Kid,

[2:32:48] if you don't have the money,

[2:32:50] do what you gotta do,

[2:32:51] but give an artist a buck,

[2:32:52] do something for another artist or myself.

[2:32:55] That's all.

[2:32:55] Spread it around.

[2:32:56] Certainly don't use AI.

[2:32:57] I think we can all agree.

[2:32:59] Yeah, I did a talk with an art class

[2:33:03] from CalArts yesterday and it ended on a big...

[2:33:07] And I was very glad to see all these little messages

[2:33:10] coming up, you know, fuck AI.

[2:33:13] It's a thief, it's a world killer,

[2:33:15] it's putting money into the worst people's pockets

[2:33:18] and it's just awful.

[2:33:19] It doesn't even produce good work, you know?

[2:33:22] It's just, it's blue balls.

[2:33:26] It's like the least nourishing fast food option.

[2:33:29] Yeah, and we're all paying for it.

[2:33:30] And it'll make you sick eventually

[2:33:32] because it's making people sick.

[2:33:33] I mean, you really are pressing a button

[2:33:35] to poison somebody's down when you do that.

[2:33:39] I mean, it sounds crazy.

[2:33:40] It sounds like something out of Dreamcatcher,

[2:33:41] but you really are fucking up the environment

[2:33:43] and people's lives and stealing people's work,

[2:33:47] writing art and money.

[2:33:48] And it's just, it's contemptuous garbage.

[2:33:51] And it's a shame that when the...

[2:33:53] I'm looking forward to the bubble finally popping,

[2:33:55] but it's gonna be a economic nightmare

[2:33:59] because so many idiots have bet the house on this.

[2:34:03] And on that sheer note,

[2:34:04] please buy my comic book before we all die,

[2:34:09] because that's what you need is you need to...

[2:34:10] It'll help ferry you across the river.

[2:34:17] You need those two coins.

[2:34:18] Yes, you can.

[2:34:19] Yeah, that's true.

[2:34:21] In comics, that's about what your royalties will be.

[2:34:23] I know.

[2:34:24] Two coins.

[2:34:25] What more perfect note for a chat with Evan Dorkin.

[2:34:27] We could end on.

[2:34:29] They're both Canadian nickels.

[2:34:32] At least you have a beaver.

[2:34:33] Because Sharon said,

[2:34:34] oh, you want to get across the river, eh?

[2:34:35] Oh, okay.

[2:34:36] Well, yeah.

[2:34:37] Now we're back to the beaves.

[2:34:41] Before we go,

[2:34:42] we should thank our network, Maximum Fun,

[2:34:45] whom you should also support

[2:34:47] because they're not AI

[2:34:48] or putting money in some bad person's pocket.

[2:34:53] You should say thanks, as we do,

[2:34:56] to Alex Smith, our producer.

[2:34:58] He goes by the name HowlDotty on the internet

[2:35:00] where he does music and comedy

[2:35:03] and streams and all sorts of stuff.

[2:35:05] But for this episode of The Flophouse,

[2:35:07] I've been Dan McCoy.

[2:35:08] I'm Stuart Wellington.

[2:35:10] I'm Eli Kaelin, and we've been joined by.

[2:35:13] Hello.

[2:35:15] Evan Dorkin.

[2:35:15] We've been joined by him.

[2:35:17] Sorry, the feed froze,

[2:35:19] and then Elliot's voice came out

[2:35:21] like he was on helium.

[2:35:23] Just say your name.

[2:35:26] So, your name,

[2:35:29] Evan Dorkin.

[2:35:38] So we're going to do a quick intro,

[2:35:40] and then we are going to introduce ourselves,

[2:35:42] and then Elliot will introduce you, Evan.

[2:35:44] Yes.

[2:35:45] Oh my goodness.

[2:35:47] He is not going to be kind.

[2:35:50] Okay, that's fine, that's fine.

[2:35:52] I don't blame him,

[2:35:53] because I know what I did to you guys.

[2:35:54] It's a real gotcha, I guess, situation now.

[2:35:56] I understand why you might.

[2:35:58] The unofficial roast of Evan Dorkin.

[2:36:00] Have any of you seen this before?

[2:36:03] Yes.

[2:36:03] Oh, I've seen it multiple times before.

[2:36:05] Oh God, I'm so sorry.

[2:36:06] My wife watched it with me,

[2:36:07] and when I woke up in the morning,

[2:36:10] she was gone.

[2:36:13] Maximum fun.

[2:36:14] A workaround network.

[2:36:16] Of artist-owned shows.

[2:36:17] Supported.

[2:36:18] Directly.

[2:36:19] By you.

Dreamcatcher, with Evan Dorkin

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