Ep. #331 - Six Weeks, with Alonso Duralde

[0:00] on this episode we discuss six weeks it's been six weeks since you met that kid

[0:05] cocked your head to the side and said you're deadly i don't know the rest of the lyrics

[0:10] like those are the real lyrics

[0:30] hey everyone welcome to the flop house i'm dan mccoy hey i'm stewart wellington certified beef

[0:50] seven days a week that's me stewart wellington what does that mean stewart then i'm certified

[0:56] grade A beef? I don't know.

[0:59] That like a guy came

[1:01] and checked my marbling. This is your new

[1:03] slogan? You're branding yourself? Yeah.

[1:04] I mean, I think it's the right time, right?

[1:06] I mean, what I like about it

[1:09] is you're a beef. You don't take

[1:11] any time off. You're not like Lazy God taking

[1:12] Sundays off from creating the universe. You're like,

[1:14] I'm beef all the time. I never stop being beef.

[1:16] Seven days a week, 23 hours

[1:19] a day. Unlike the beef

[1:20] you buy at the grocery store, the beef at the grocery

[1:23] store, as soon as midnight hits on Sunday, it turns

[1:24] into a pumpkin no thank you i want my beef seven days a week yeah well that that that's the exact

[1:31] opposite of what i was going to say which is that to be fair all beef is beef seven days a week so

[1:36] to elevate it above god just because god took a day off after creating the universe seems a little

[1:42] strange but i mean to be honest he did a pretty slapdash job we i think we can all agree there's

[1:47] a lot of rough edges hey my name is ellie kalin but i want to introduce our big guest today

[1:52] Who I'm very excited about

[1:53] Our guest is a film critic

[1:55] And a writer

[1:56] He writes reviews for The Wrap

[1:58] He co-hosts a number

[1:59] Of great movie podcasts

[2:00] Linoleum Knife

[2:01] A film and a movie

[2:02] Breakfast All Day

[2:02] And Maximum Fun's Own

[2:04] Maximum Fun's Own

[2:05] Not Maximum Fun's On

[2:07] Maximum Fun's Own

[2:08] Who Shot Ya

[2:09] And he's the author

[2:09] Of the classic

[2:11] Christmas film guide

[2:12] Have Yourself

[2:13] A Movie Little Christmas

[2:14] It's Alonzo

[2:15] Duralde or Duralde

[2:16] I always forget

[2:17] I answered it either

[2:19] Duralde is fine

[2:20] But which do you use?

[2:21] Yeah

[2:21] i usually say duralde technically it's duralde but i never want to make like

[2:26] white guys sound like they're saying nicaragua so yeah thank you okay thank you because i was

[2:32] having some empanadas for lunch and my son and i had a croissant

[2:37] it's the same thing i decided to have a big bowl of borscht yeah wow

[2:44] i'm uncomfortable with the whole thing hey i was having

[2:51] i was having some i was having some sushi right no what was that like a spanish thing

[2:58] it's some spaghetti and meatballs you know that's how you do that one

[3:03] uh but alonzo alonzo duralda and he's he's he's very i'm very excited to have him here one because

[3:10] he's great and i'm a big fan of his podcast two he's just a super great guy and a really nice

[3:14] guy when i first moved to los angeles he took me to get ice cream just me and him and it was very

[3:18] sweet and it was a great way to welcome me to a new city and three because it's christmas time

[3:23] everybody right so who better to talk christmas movies and christmas stuff than the man who

[3:28] literally wrote the book on christmas movies yeah although we asked you know we asked for a couple

[3:33] options of holiday movies and look i'll take a little bit of the um the blame on myself okay

[3:41] oh six weeks like a dudley moore movie from the 80s let's do that that'll be dumb thinking that'll

[3:48] be like a dumb like christmas comedy not doing any research into it and then to find that this

[3:55] holiday movie this so-called holiday movie is only a holiday movie in that the the nutcracker

[4:00] ballet figures into the plot at the very end and otherwise it's a tearjerker about a young girl

[4:05] dying of leukemia so also if it had been swan lake it could be a summer movie and no one would

[4:10] get exactly and uh to that end also yes content warning that this movie that we're doing is all

[4:16] about a child dying of a disease so if that is something it is it is barely window dressing

[4:21] i would say it is all about it is all about midlife romance between a woman with a very

[4:27] ill-considered perm and a very short man who's an american politician despite obviously being

[4:33] english this i mean that is all well and good that is all well and good and it may be accurate

[4:37] but if you are sensitive to the idea of a child dying of a disease it does not matter

[4:41] the degree to which the film is about that.

[4:44] You're right, okay.

[4:45] We will take that about as seriously as the film.

[4:48] Yeah, which is not very.

[4:50] There's something to make clear,

[4:52] that if we make fun of it,

[4:54] it is only because it is a maudlin melodrama.

[4:57] Not because the idea of a child with a terminal disease

[5:01] is hilarious.

[5:01] No, no.

[5:03] Only in the context of six weeks.

[5:05] So Lonzo, why did you pick this movie?

[5:07] Are you a huge Dudley Tyler Moore fan?

[5:11] That's their couple name, right?

[5:12] It should be.

[5:14] They would have been portmanteaued if anyone had seen this movie.

[5:16] You know, there are some Christmas bombs out there, certainly.

[5:21] And I didn't want to subject you to something like...

[5:24] Or was it Vietnam?

[5:25] The Christmas bombing in, was it Cambodia or Vietnam?

[5:27] Oh, God.

[5:28] I believe it was Cambodia.

[5:29] But yeah, way to bring the room down.

[5:32] You mentioned Christmas bombs.

[5:34] It's the most obvious Christmas bomb.

[5:36] They were really dropping bombs on Christmas.

[5:38] But anyway, you were saying...

[5:38] Technically correct, yeah.

[5:39] Well, yeah, I think Henry Kissinger may have also been responsible for the Nutcracker 3D where they put hip-hop lyrics onto Tchaikovsky and work in Holocaust metaphors and Nathan Lane plays Albert Einstein.

[5:51] And I was like, I'm not going to – we're not doing that.

[5:54] We're not doing that.

[5:55] But I did toss a couple out and I just thought that Six Weeks is just – it's a flop in so many ways because not just critically and with audiences, but it's one of those movies that derailed people's careers.

[6:09] Dudley Moore, hot off Arthur.

[6:11] Mary Tyler Moore, hot off Ordinary People.

[6:14] Tony Bill, the director, hot off My Bodyguard.

[6:16] And this collectively did for their careers what Moment by Moment did for Lily Tomlin and John Travolta.

[6:23] It launched them to new heights.

[6:26] Took them into the stratosphere, as you're saying.

[6:27] I mean, it is such a huge bomb that despite having, at the time, big stars and it being clearly a Hollywood-produced picture,

[6:39] I had never heard of it, and if you go to IMDb, I believe there's two reviews you can find from non-professional reviewers and maybe five from professionals.

[6:51] Yeah, if you type in six weeks into IMDb, they're like, not found, and you're like, uh, I don't know what you're talking about.

[6:59] Oh, that one.

[7:00] Do you mean two weeks starring Buster Keaton?

[7:02] No, no, no.

[7:03] That's not the one.

[7:05] Alonzo, I want to ask you about Dudley Moore, because here's the thing.

[7:10] Since you are Dudley Moore's authorized biographer, you're the man to go to.

[7:15] I think in terms of just acting, like, Dudley Moore gives the best straight acting performance in this film.

[7:25] But, like, let us stipulate that I did say straight acting performance as opposed to a comedy performance.

[7:33] You are about 10 years older than I am.

[7:37] Wow.

[7:37] So you lived through more of the Dudley Moore boom than I did.

[7:42] Can you explain to me why he was funny?

[7:45] Because I've never understood it.

[7:47] There was this magic snapshot of time in which you could make the original Arthur

[7:54] that was all about a total alcoholic, and it was still somehow charming and funny.

[7:59] And asshole.

[8:00] He's an asshole.

[8:01] And asshole.

[8:02] And super, super rich.

[8:04] And the movie Ten, where he's just like a horrible womanizer.

[8:09] Yes, and being very mean to his wife, Julie Andrews, by cheating on her with Bo Derek.

[8:15] And of course, Foul Play, where he plays like a complete sort of sex toy obsessed pervazoid.

[8:21] Which was really his launching pad in America.

[8:24] You know, he had obviously performed with Peter Cook for years and had done movies like Bamboozled.

[8:29] I mean, Bedazzled.

[8:31] Hey, I want to see...

[8:33] Sorry, yes.

[8:33] Although, Dudley Moore and Bamboozle would be a very interesting movie.

[8:38] That'd be a very interesting choice.

[8:40] I guess...

[8:41] Could we make that happen?

[8:42] I guess he'd play the TV executive character?

[8:45] No, no, Dan.

[8:46] No, no, no.

[8:46] He is playing...

[8:47] Well, he's playing the...

[8:49] Well, I mean, we don't even...

[8:51] Anyway, he's going to play one of the...

[8:52] He's going to play one of the blind actors.

[8:53] The mind reels.

[8:53] Bedazzled.

[8:56] The original Bedazzled.

[8:57] not to be confused with the the brilliant remake with uh with with the brendan fraser um so yeah

[9:04] but but after foul play it was like america could not get enough of that short perv and then uh and

[9:08] then they wanted and then arthur was like i want more of that short drunk perv and so then that

[9:13] led us to six weeks where yeah as ellie points out he is running for congress while clearly british

[9:19] and also is the funny politician because that dudley moore can't not be quippy in this he also

[9:26] by the way contribute let's let's not lose sight of fact he contributed the score to this movie

[9:30] which is oppressively terrible yeah no it is a terrible score but it i believe it won like a

[9:35] golden globe i was doing some like behind the scenes like i think it won or was nominated for

[9:42] a golden globe i think dudley moore was nominated for a golden globe and mary tyler moore was

[9:46] nominated for a razzie for this so well the early 80s golden globes is really like the peak period

[9:53] of like let me fly you to vegas for a weekend that is true you know this is right in the just

[9:59] before the whole piazzadora thing blew up in their faces but you could really charm wine dine and

[10:05] gift your way into a golden globe nomination in that period not that he did mind you no no but

[10:12] i think dan to defend dudley moore somewhat his early stuff is really funny like if you see beyond

[10:18] the fringe or you see what's left of what survives of his work with uh peter cook from then it is

[10:24] really funny but it's like by six weeks he seems to be on that path that a lot of comedy actors go

[10:29] to where they're like i don't need to be funny i'm charming and you know what yeah i'm an actor

[10:35] so it's like he's so not funny in this even though he's supposed to be the funny politician

[10:39] and it's such a snapshot of a time when it he is just taken for granted that he is

[10:45] somewhat of a vaguely liberal politician. He seems to have no firm stands on anything. He

[10:51] never gives the audience or the voters a reason that they should vote for him.

[10:55] Yeah, it's one of the real glaring weak spots of the movie is that we don't really understand

[10:59] his politics, right, Elliot? Well, more that I don't care if he's

[11:03] elected to Congress. I don't know why he wants to be elected to Congress. So if the movie is about

[11:08] a little girl who becomes so devoted to him that she wants to spend the last moments of her life

[11:14] getting him into the capital it's like when she's like what do you think about poor people he goes

[11:19] i'd like to help them what do you think about poor wars i'd like to stop them you're my man

[11:23] okay great like it's just i don't want i don't want to see him doing a lot of stuff but he he

[11:27] makes such a big deal in the movie about how he's not about issues he's about you know whatever and

[11:33] it's just like it just feels a different version i'm not about issues i'm about spending a lot of

[11:38] time away from my wife yeah and away and frankly away from the campaign like you know but it's

[11:43] yeah it's keeping his eyes on the prize no but it is it is a it is a movie where the hero

[11:48] basically abandons his family and there's the scene we'll get to i guess where his son goes

[11:53] i get it dad this and it's like it's like wait hold on a second like that's not the conversation

[11:58] this movie feels like it was adapted from a am i the asshole post on reddit like you read the

[12:05] headline you're like abandons your family what an asshole and then you get to the bottom you're like

[12:09] well it feels like that's dudley moore's filmography i guess look i'm a rich drunk guy

[12:16] but people love me am i the asshole i saw this i saw this this white girl with dreads on the beach

[12:22] and i had to have her am i the asshole like yeah i guess that's look i'm an advertising executive

[12:28] and i'm not doing good works they threw me in a sanitarium am i the asshole i'm a fair i'm is it

[12:35] Is he a therapist having sex with his patient or a patient having sex with a therapist and lovesick?

[12:39] I forget.

[12:39] I don't know.

[12:40] But either way, you're the asshole.

[12:42] Yeah, this movie emotionally is all over the place, I would say.

[12:47] And in terms of the sympathy it wants us to have for the characters, it's asking a lot.

[12:53] But let's get into the plot to explain why that is true.

[12:57] First, and this is going to be more detail-oriented than I get for most of it,

[13:01] It starts with that old Universal Pictures logo where it's like a planet behind a miasma of toxic gas, and that just brought me back to my childhood right away.

[13:09] So I really appreciated that.

[13:10] Dudley Moore, like we said, he's Patrick Dalton.

[13:13] He's a foreign-born but American-raised – or he's only been in America for like 10 years, I guess.

[13:18] An English-British man who is now a citizen who's running for Congress.

[13:23] He is a California state legislator, and the worst thing that he keeps complaining about is that he has to commute between Sacramento and Los Angeles.

[13:31] And it's like, yeah, I hear you.

[13:33] You're living a bad time, man.

[13:35] That sucks that you've got to take that 40-minute flight or whatever it is.

[13:38] Anyway, he's known for his humor and his pranks, and he gets to this – he's running late to get to a fancy fundraiser because an interview went long, which is bad planning on the part of his campaign manager.

[13:49] Like that's – he should have people who help him with that.

[13:51] But his campaign manager is already at the party.

[13:53] He's running late, and he runs into a teen on the road.

[13:57] Now, by that, I made it sound like he hit the teen with his car.

[13:59] That's not what happens.

[14:00] He stops and asks this teenage girl, or adolescent girl, I guess, for directions.

[14:06] She's about 13.

[14:08] I looked up the actor.

[14:10] And I would say that one of the major problems with this movie is it does not treat it as

[14:14] weird that this middle-aged man immediately befriends a 13 year old girl in a like a kind

[14:22] of a beautiful girl's style flirty way i would say well it's because she's she's a very movie

[14:28] style precocious like super flirty 13 year old where she immediately asks if he's a pedophile

[14:33] and if he's attracted to her and he navigates that i guess as as well as someone that's actually

[14:40] actually he navigates it poorly but not as poorly he navigates it poorly like the movie does not

[14:44] over like the there's a there's a bar the movie has to reach to make this relationship not seem

[14:52] a little creepy and it does not clear it i would say it repeatedly you have to remember audiences

[14:57] at this time had just gotten out of watching foxes and pretty baby so pretty much like for

[15:03] some reason pre-pubescent girls were just like open season in hollywood at that point yeah as

[15:09] opposed to the other periods in hollywood when it was hands off these we have to guard these

[15:12] super you hear that charles chaplin anyway so the uh so she's also we know that she's quirky

[15:19] because she's elliot's naming names guys watch out yeah watch out i don't care i don't care

[15:25] whose toes i step on uh i gotta think of somebody else who's another graves i step on

[15:31] uh so uh she's collecting dead birds she cuts their head and feet off to make what she first

[15:38] was a fetish kind of a voodoo item but she doesn't say why and this is one of those things where it's

[15:42] like again just because it's a crime on or paymon or whatever yeah it's like a garden state type

[15:47] thing uh real just a quirk her name is nikki and he uh she says go up there to the house and he

[15:53] invites her as his guest and she shows the party and keeps from getting kicked out and this is a

[15:57] plot line i wish they'd carry through which is the owner of this house is this rich middle-aged

[16:01] bald man who hates this little girl and they have a really antagonistic relationship and it's kind

[16:06] of dropped halfway through and i wanted to know what why do they they're so openly sniping at each

[16:11] other and that was the most interesting relationship in the film to me so i want to see a movie about

[16:15] a rich old man and a rich adolescent girl who hate each other and are just like like just feuding all

[16:21] the time i think that'd be really oh that's a war with grandpa sequel i want to see the same way

[16:26] that like i walked out of the irishman being like i want to see a movie where joe pesci and another

[16:30] old man are just and al pacino are arguing over the affection of their friends like trying to be

[16:35] The best uncle to this little kid because that was the part of the movie I liked the most.

[16:39] Okay.

[16:39] Nikki's mom is Charlotte Dreyfuss, played by Mary Tyler Moore with the hair that – I guess I'd describe it as there's this – in the old Ninja Turtles comics, April O'Neil gets a weird perm and everyone talks about how much they love it.

[16:51] And that's the haircut that Mary Tyler Moore has in this movie.

[16:54] I hate to linger too much on actors' appearances in movies.

[17:00] It seems untoward, but like it does represent some of the worst of 1980s, like rich lady fashion, the way that they style her in this movie.

[17:11] It's that moment in the early in a decade where you're still sort of dealing with the last refuge of the previous decade.

[17:19] So this is like the worst of like 1978 still kind of subsiding away.

[17:24] Yeah, not since Gary Oldman as Butthair Dracula in Bram Stoker's Dracula have I been so distracted by a haircut in a movie.

[17:32] And she has it the whole movie in every scene.

[17:34] I'd just be like, I can't.

[17:36] I'm sorry.

[17:36] I can't take you seriously with that.

[17:37] And she works for like a cosmetics company, right?

[17:41] You would think Images.

[17:42] Yes.

[17:42] She owns a cosmetics company.

[17:44] She owns a cosmetics company that operates out of her house slash factory slash cultural community art center.

[17:49] But anyway, we'll get to that.

[17:51] It's like in American Crime Story, O.J. Simpson or whatever, when Marsha Clark gets her new hair and everyone is like, what did you do?

[17:58] Except nobody in the movie thinks there's a problem with it.

[18:01] Anyway, so she is a cosmetics magnate who hates politicians.

[18:06] They're always asking her for money, and she thinks that Dudley Moore is just another one and that he's using her daughter to get to her money, and she does not like it.

[18:14] And this is when we see that Dudley Moore has only the barest hint of an ideology or a personality, to be honest.

[18:20] He's just kind of like a guy who's used to – he seems like he's the guy who's like if I'm in any situation where I have to like do anything, I'll just sit down at a piano and play a Billy Joel song and everyone will sing along and then I can leave and I don't have to like actually exert myself to connect with other human beings.

[18:36] based on this young girl she seems to inspire he seems to inspire this bernie-like uh devotion in

[18:42] the youth like these these like whatever his uh policies are she immediately wants to sign on and

[18:50] volunteer yeah uh does no one talk to this girl she seems very excited about the fact she's getting

[18:56] any attention you're right the scene with mary tallemore reveals his one scruple uh what is his

[19:02] one scruple that he what yeah i guess that he doesn't want to be a babysitter later on or well

[19:07] that and that just the idea that that he has no idea who she is and he resents the implication

[19:12] that he would dare befriend this girl just to get to mom's bank account yeah he's got his pride you

[19:17] know he is he's he's got his honor even though as we'll see he's a man who will cast aside his

[19:21] family without much thought who are his family will meet him he has a wife and he has a son who

[19:25] has a broken leg like a high school age son and uh she doesn't like politics keeps right off right

[19:31] off the bat we see his family not as good as his other possible family right no not as good

[19:37] his son his son is a real void just like a nothing and his wife she just is always nagging

[19:45] him about how he's never at home ever because of politics always nagging him about how he

[19:51] apparently as we learned later had another affair earlier and now seems deeply ambivalent about his

[19:58] family yeah we see it's the and it's i would say the only relationship with less chemistry in the

[20:03] movie than dudley moore and mary tyler moore is dudley moore and his and the wife character where

[20:07] they're in bed together and they're talking about stuff and he's like being a little flirty and i

[20:12] was like have they met like was this like did the son introduce them that day and they're and this

[20:17] is their first night together and they're just feeling out how they are as a couple you know

[20:22] and and whoever styled her i'm sure probably the genius behind mary tyler moore's perm

[20:27] is not doing her any favors like she looks like she went to the the beauty parlor with a picture

[20:32] of the mom from footloose and said make me look like this yeah they're they're really setting her

[20:36] up as like the the dowdy nag back home that you want him to get away from which was not fair i'll

[20:42] say so charlotte dreyfus she calls him to her or dreyfus as they always say because i guess they

[20:46] don't want people to think she's jewish i don't know calls him to her office slash factory which

[20:50] also has an arts warehouse and nikki has a ballet class studio there and she wants to contribute

[20:55] money to him because Nikki believes in him so much. But she wants Nikki to be a part of the

[21:00] campaign. And he's like, what? I'm not going to like just babysit your daughter to support my

[21:06] political campaign. I'm a serious candidate with no stances on any issues. But this is one of the

[21:13] few scenes in the movie where I like Dudley more because he responds to this objectively strange

[21:20] offer of i will give you a bunch of money if you uh like take my daughter around and give her a

[21:26] slot on your campaign staff with no lady like this is like the one time in the movie where i'm like

[21:32] okay this is like a reasonable way for a human to act like he's like this is weird and it is weird

[21:38] to be fair i do wish i do wish it had been more of a cop and a half type thing where she's like

[21:41] you can have the money but nikki's your campaign manager now and now he's doing like a kid's idea

[21:46] of a political campaign, but it works.

[21:48] People love it.

[21:49] They find it so refreshing, you know?

[21:51] Where the other guy's hurling mud in attack ads,

[21:54] this guy's hurling candy from a clown car.

[21:57] Water balloons.

[21:58] That was the original draft of the script,

[22:00] and then they turned it into crazy people.

[22:02] They're like, what if a kid is good at politics,

[22:05] but what if a crazy person is good at advertising?

[22:07] And what if an advertising man is good at lion-taming,

[22:12] but what if a lion-tamer is good at ocean exploration?

[22:15] What if that ocean explorer is the best stripper in the world?

[22:18] There's any number of ways you could take it.

[22:20] So she gets upset, and she's like, Nikki wants to accomplish something in her life.

[22:24] And he's like, she'll accomplish something when she grows up.

[22:26] And she goes, she's not going to grow up.

[22:28] I've said too much, and runs off crying.

[22:30] That night, Patrick goes back to see Charlotte and kind of just walks into their house, which is weird.

[22:35] Well, he knows the secret entrance now.

[22:37] I guess that's true.

[22:39] But there are rich people who live in a warehouse in an industrial district, and I guess the doors are not locked.

[22:44] But Nikki is practicing ballet like a regular kiddie pride, and they have a heart-to-heart where he gets – he admits – by admitting that he once cheated on his wife, a story he says he didn't tell anyone before, he gets her to admit that she has leukemia, and she's tired of having everything in her life handed to her and wants to work for something before she dies.

[23:03] Now, when her – spoiler alert, but at the end of the movie, she has her dream come true literally handed to her, and she doesn't seem to have a problem with it.

[23:10] But Stuart, what were you going to say?

[23:11] Take down this dying girl.

[23:13] Take her down.

[23:14] I never would have realized that when she asks him—so, like, you know, she's a precocious kid, and she asks him, like, straight to his face if he's ever had an affair.

[23:22] And at first I'm like, is she, like, testing to see if he'd be a good candidate?

[23:26] But no, she's testing the water to see if he'll abandon his family to join her family at that point, right?

[23:32] Yeah, she's grooming him.

[23:33] They call that grooming in the kids that are being predators on married middle-aged men community, yeah.

[23:40] Well, she is taller than he is.

[23:42] That's true.

[23:43] I mean she is also – she has the most emotional control of anyone in the movie, the character I mean, where it's just like the adults do a lot of like crying and not being sure what to do.

[23:52] And she's a kid in the movie, so she's super confident and like kind of is always in charge.

[23:58] A real curly Sue.

[23:59] I would like to say at this point, like, so other than the potentially worrisome nature of this relationship, which is a huge hurdle, again, that I do not think the movie, like, quite sort of, like, jumps on it and, like, stumbles over the hurdle.

[24:16] But other than that, other than that, I think this movie.

[24:21] Ouch, my jewels.

[24:21] Why were you carrying them in your pocket when you were jumping over those hurdles?

[24:26] That's a good question.

[24:27] for the first like 20 minutes to half an hour of the movie i'm like okay like i don't like this

[24:34] one element but i could see how this movie could work and if later on we want to do our

[24:38] script doctoring i i might be up for that but like yeah in our classic segment

[24:43] doctor doctor give me the news i got a bad case of rewriting you yeah but but the script flopped

[24:51] but this this part of the movie could be interesting this like young girl who's like

[24:59] idealistic but is is is dying and this politician and a friendship they strike like that could be

[25:06] an interesting part of the movie and like for the first part of the movie i'm like oh okay

[25:10] i'm not loving this but we watch a lot of genre movies it's nice to see a like a human-sized

[25:15] drama and this is the point of the movie where the movie stops being interesting at all to me

[25:20] Because it veers into a long romance between Dudley Moore and Mary Tyler Moore.

[25:26] And as referenced before, they have less than no charisma together or chemistry.

[25:32] And it is like it is just it becomes a very boring slog peppered with like me yelling at the screen about the way characters are acting.

[25:41] I mean, there's three there's I would say there's three major flaws with the story of this movie.

[25:45] One is not a very interesting story.

[25:48] And I say that as someone who has found that I have a real appetite for older weepy melodramas, like 40s weepy melodramas, like they get really over the top.

[25:56] But this one is, it's neither over the top enough nor is it believable enough.

[26:00] Two, Nikki is not a real person at any point.

[26:05] She's like a movie perfect kid who, she never gets upset.

[26:08] She never throws a tantrum.

[26:09] Like, I have two great kids and they're constantly pissing the shit out of me.

[26:13] Like, they're always getting me mad.

[26:15] When she, like, gets, when her illness finally overtakes her, at no point up to then does she ever really seem sick, right?

[26:24] Like, unless I was in, oh, that's, we'll get there.

[26:27] I mean, not only does she never seem sick, she dances in a ballet.

[26:32] And three, the two romantic leads, they don't have a sense of, the romance doesn't feel palpable between those performances, but also, like, it feels like the movie is giving you so many reasons to not want them to be together.

[26:45] Like, there's so many good reasons they should not be in a relationship.

[26:48] There is no reason—like, I do not know why they fall in love with each other other than they are bonding over this dying child.

[26:56] Pure animal magnetism.

[26:59] Yeah.

[27:00] And also this sort of, like, vague sense that, like, Dudley Moore wants out of his marriage, which is not, like, a—like, look, life is long, and we all have things that happen in our lives.

[27:13] That's true, Elliot.

[27:13] like I'm not gonna like people have complicated lives I'm not gonna like necessarily pass judgment

[27:18] from afar on people but as a movie protagonist I'm not like yeah leave your family for these guys

[27:25] there's there's the idea of like okay this girl is she's an adolescent girl and she knows she's

[27:32] dying so of course she's going to be sort of intellectually sexually precocious she's going

[27:38] to want to talk about this stuff because she's not going to get older it's not a thing where

[27:42] she can wait until it's appropriate of course she's going to ask questions and blurt out

[27:45] inappropriate things and all that's up fine whatever but in the context of a movie in which

[27:50] there is already this weird creepy relationship between her and dudley moore and just that era

[27:56] of movies that was tending to sexualize girls at far too early an age anyway none of that plays

[28:02] and so i think that that's a thing you could you could cherry pick out of this movie and put into

[28:06] a smarter film but in this context it's just gross yeah at any point at any point i expected

[28:10] Travis Bickle to show up and blast Dudley Moore

[28:13] and get that little girl out of there.

[28:15] I'm here to save you, kid.

[28:19] I do want to say

[28:21] about the actor, the young girl,

[28:23] the

[28:24] character is completely unworkable.

[28:27] But,

[28:29] I will give her credit. She does

[28:31] a good job

[28:33] trying to make it work, especially because

[28:35] this is her only acting

[28:37] credit. She was

[28:38] an ice dancer and

[28:41] a very

[28:42] acclaimed ballerina, but this is

[28:45] her one acting role.

[28:46] Yeah, so if her grandkids

[28:49] put this podcast on for her so she can

[28:51] listen to it, she won't feel bad.

[28:53] I mean, she's not that old.

[28:54] She was

[28:56] 13 in 1982,

[28:58] so I don't think she has grandchildren.

[29:00] This isn't a fucking math podcast,

[29:03] Elliot.

[29:03] I want to give the movie the credit

[29:06] I can. You know me. I always

[29:08] want to like say the thing that like look it is a character that does not go along with the premise

[29:16] that you always want to say nice things about movies i'll buy into that premise for this

[29:19] episode i'm just like look this is a terrible character but and but i've seen much more

[29:28] experienced child actors do much worse jobs with better material oh no i think she i think if

[29:34] If anyone is trying and somewhat succeeding to make their character work a little bit, it is her.

[29:41] And her name is Catherine Healy.

[29:42] She can hold her head high.

[29:44] Yeah.

[29:45] I mean, she can hold her head higher than Deadly Moore, certainly, because he's very short.

[29:48] Well, he's dead, Elliot.

[29:51] He has passed away.

[29:53] You're right.

[29:54] When he died, he got six feet tall.

[29:55] You're right.

[29:56] So the joke's inaccurate.

[29:57] No, I'm saying his head, he can't lift his head.

[30:00] So you're saying she can lift her head even higher than him.

[30:03] after you die that's what they say that's why that's why coffins are expandable that's why

[30:07] they have those accordion sides on coffins yeah that's why they had to dig up uh lincoln's body

[30:15] at one point and he had grown to 17 feet tall so uh so anyway long story short uh through things

[30:21] like going to carnivals together uh and avoiding patrick's family charlotte starts falling in love

[30:26] with patrick patrick doesn't want to hurt his family but he's been disappearing for days if

[30:30] not weeks and so he has been hurting his family his wife assumes that he loves charlotte and he's

[30:34] like i don't know and dudley moore's wife asks him are you in love with charlotte and he's like

[30:39] um well um and she says don't come home until you're done with this pick a lane mofo

[30:45] well she very reasonably says you can't have two families yeah he says i am not involved with

[30:53] charlotte which very much is not the question that she asked him no it also implies that he's

[30:58] involved with Nikki which is worse which is terrible so Nikki loves this situation she loves

[31:05] that she finally has a dad and her mom is finally falling in love uh and advises them to have sex

[31:10] with each other and is like it's so gross it's so sitcom kid gross where she's like tonight I'm

[31:14] gonna sleep with my headphones on are you going to make love to each other she says are you gonna

[31:18] make love to each other tonight I'm sleeping with my headphones on so I wouldn't hear anything

[31:22] And they both say –

[31:24] I left a few tasteful toys in your bag.

[31:27] Here are my Barry White albums.

[31:31] He goes, I think you'll find this little blue pill can help you past any qualms you might have, Patrick.

[31:37] But they – then she – they have a conversation that is so – it felt like the kind of thing that I see usually in like an Alan Alda project where it's two middle-aged kind of upper middle class rich white people saying like,

[31:51] I have such feelings for you.

[31:53] I think you should go because if you stayed tonight, I'd just never be able to let you go.

[31:57] Yes, that would be the mature decision to make because I'm so torn by lust for you and love for you.

[32:03] We do love each other, and that's why I have to leave right now.

[32:06] And I was like, they are so –

[32:08] Let's shake hands.

[32:08] Yes, let's shake hands and say goodnight.

[32:11] And it was like this very like, I don't know what love feels like anymore or lust for that matter, but I assume that's it now.

[32:18] So I think I'll leave now.

[32:19] Like, it felt like two robots that have been programmed to tell each other they love each other.

[32:23] There could be, like, a complex movie made about this, but this movie does not pick a lane, as Alonzo said before.

[32:32] Like, either you don't give Dudley Moore a family, which is what I would advocate for, or you make it much clearer that, like, you know, like, everyone's tortured over this.

[32:47] maybe he realizes that he's kind of a dick.

[32:50] Yeah.

[32:51] Also, who is Nikki's dad?

[32:56] Is he dead?

[32:57] Were they divorced?

[32:58] Is it a virgin birth?

[32:59] Like we're never told anything.

[33:00] It's true.

[33:01] It is a huge, it is a gaping,

[33:03] there must be something that they cut out, maybe.

[33:06] Because it is a gaping void

[33:07] that we never find out what the deal is with that.

[33:09] Because it's a very different situation

[33:11] if her parents are divorced,

[33:13] if her father died,

[33:14] did she ever know her dad?

[33:17] Did her mother have a child out of, like, not married?

[33:20] Like, those are all different situations that a child would react to differently, but it kind of doesn't matter.

[33:25] Was her father, like, a short, fast-talking Englishman?

[33:28] Because that would explain her connection with him, right?

[33:31] No, yeah, her dad was Bob Hoskins.

[33:32] That's the thing.

[33:33] I mean, Bob Hoskins would be incredible.

[33:35] Anthony Newley.

[33:36] I think there's a feeling, yeah, that God created this family out of whole cloth for Dudley Moore's character to like escape from his family, which is fine.

[33:47] Ultimate temptation.

[33:47] Yeah, exactly.

[33:49] Anyway, they have this kind of like simulacrum kind of like kind of, you know, Jordan Wolfson animatronic character conversation about love.

[34:01] The Dreyfusses throw a big fundraiser at their factory community center house, and Patrick's wife and son show up.

[34:07] Oh, shit.

[34:08] Things are going to go down, except they don't.

[34:11] It's super awkward.

[34:12] But then, as I mentioned earlier, Dudley Moore's son goes up and goes, Dad, don't think I don't understand.

[34:17] And it's this weird moment where it's like, so is it that your son also wants to have sex with Mary Tyler Moore, and that's why he gets it?

[34:23] Well, he watched the Dick Van Dyke show on Nick at Night when he was young.

[34:27] I guess.

[34:28] He saw those capri pants.

[34:30] look that that dying girl is so precocious i totally understand why she needs your attention

[34:36] more than more than i do it look look dad i'm going to college soon i want to cut ties with

[34:42] this family too like let's just make a pact you and me we're not this family doesn't exist anymore

[34:46] shake on it this never happens yeah you me mom this never happened mary tyler moore like sort

[34:53] of pulls the wife away and they have like a conversation off screen it could be an interesting

[34:58] scene but they don't show it where like i i assume what happens is mary tyler moore is reassuring the

[35:05] wife that nothing has happened even though there is this emotional affair going on and this this

[35:11] scene is very strange because it is the closest the movie comes to acknowledging that like this

[35:18] is a really shitty thing that dudley moore is doing right now but the rest of the movie and

[35:23] particularly the ending, seem to make us, like, want to make us think, like, no, no, no, like, you should be with Mary Tyler Moore.

[35:30] We get it, too.

[35:31] And we never see his family again after this scene, right?

[35:34] Like, they're just not in the movie anymore, I think.

[35:37] Yeah, I don't think so.

[35:38] But if so, they might, like, be on the other side of a phone or something.

[35:43] Yeah, yeah.

[35:44] So Charlotte tells Patrick during a very subdued grown-up phone call, again, this is kind of like Alan Alda emotions,

[35:52] That now that she's met his family and they have faces, they can't do this anymore.

[35:57] And she and Nikki are going to fly to New York and maybe go, who knows, travel all over the world together.

[36:03] And Patrick is like, well, you know.

[36:04] Yeah, like it's a bucket list situation.

[36:06] Yeah, I mean literally it is a bucket list situation.

[36:09] And Patrick is like, no, no.

[36:12] And he chases after them and catches them at the airport.

[36:15] And it is like, and they're all like, yay, we're together again.

[36:18] And there's a segment – there's a brief moment where Dudley Moore is having trouble with the metal detector at the airport.

[36:25] He just can't seem to get all this metal out of his pockets.

[36:27] And I was like, I can't figure out if this is supposed to be funny or if I'm supposed to be like, no, no, he's not going to be able to catch up with them.

[36:33] Or if I'm going to be like, good, stay there.

[36:35] Don't – like, get stuck.

[36:36] I don't want you to be with these people.

[36:37] And this was even – this is before the current, like, TSA.

[36:40] Like, it should be – like, he should be, like, waltzing through the checkpoint.

[36:43] This checkpoint didn't happen after 9-11, Dan?

[36:48] But I'm just saying, like, to have, like, this ostensibly funny set piece about, like, a guy who I assume is a senator who travels all the time being like, what?

[36:59] He's a state senator, yeah.

[37:01] I take a strange out of my pocket.

[37:02] I mean, although I do see people like that.

[37:04] He just walks up to the gate.

[37:05] Yeah.

[37:06] These days, he's still flying.

[37:07] Those days, it was like, let me check your gun, sir.

[37:11] It has bullets in it?

[37:12] Good.

[37:12] That's the way to the gate.

[37:13] Just go up there.

[37:14] Oh, would you like me to light your cigarette?

[37:16] Is your flamethrower fully charged?

[37:18] Okay, good.

[37:18] You're cleared.

[37:19] Now, this is the line for people who want to take the plane to Cuba.

[37:23] Do you want to get in that line?

[37:24] True story.

[37:27] My family went to Spain in 1978 to celebrate my parents' silver wedding anniversary because that's where they were both born.

[37:34] My grandmother had in her house an unexploded, defused Spanish Civil War bomb.

[37:42] Wow.

[37:43] We took it apart, put the pieces in different pieces of luggage, and brought it home.

[37:48] And I still have it as a doorstop.

[37:49] That's pretty fantastic.

[37:52] That's pretty great.

[37:53] And yet Dudley Moore's change is somehow making it impossible for him to get to the LAX New York game.

[38:01] Back then, every now and then, they'd stop you and they'd say, actually, can you check that bag?

[38:05] Someone wants to bring a bomb on in the overhead compartment.

[38:07] We'd really appreciate it if you could make space for it.

[38:09] But yeah, he can't get through there.

[38:12] But he catches them on an escalator.

[38:14] I will say I was like, oh, LAX really has not changed very much in the past 40 years because I recognize the tunnel that he was running through.

[38:20] But he catches them.

[38:22] They all fly.

[38:23] Also, when did he buy a ticket?

[38:24] Did he buy the ticket on the plane?

[38:26] Like, come on.

[38:27] What's going on around here?

[38:28] The conductor comes down the aisle.

[38:30] Oh, we're going to New York.

[38:33] It's a $5 surcharge you bought on the plane.

[38:35] Click, chick, chick, chick, chick, punching out the holes on it.

[38:37] That was the earlier era of plane travel.

[38:41] Yeah, the guy walking back, punching out holes.

[38:44] I mean there were times – I don't think you could ever do it on cross-country flights, but there was a period in the 70s where there were commuter flights where if they had empty seats, they would sell them to you on the plane.

[38:53] Like you could just walk up to get on the plane and find an empty seat, and then you could buy it on the plane.

[38:58] Okay, so they're in New York, and they have a magical Christmastime weekend.

[39:02] What better place to be in on Christmas than New York because it's got all the things that Christmas is all about.

[39:09] Snow that is covered in dog feces.

[39:11] Homeless people dying under newspaper blankets.

[39:14] What other great things are in New York in Christmas?

[39:17] I haven't been there in a while, guys.

[39:18] What do you remember?

[39:19] The Rockefeller Christmas tree, Elliot.

[39:20] Oh, yeah, yeah.

[39:22] You got Christmas trees infested with owls.

[39:24] All sorts of stuff.

[39:25] Do they go skating?

[39:28] I assume I looked away from the TV and they went skating.

[39:31] She goes skating and they watch.

[39:33] All the pizza stands sell holiday-themed reindeer-flavored pizza sausage meat.

[39:39] Do they?

[39:41] Reindeer-flavored pizza sausage meat.

[39:44] Well, the thing is they grind up the pizza.

[39:46] They grind up the pizza.

[39:48] Not reindeer sausage, reindeer flavor.

[39:49] They grind up the pizza and they stuff it into the sausage casing and they sprinkle a little artificial reindeer flavoring.

[39:56] It's not natural, but it tastes like, you know, bears say it tastes just like real reindeer.

[40:01] uh yeah and yeah but the weird thing then is that that was a problem uh it's a bad uh that's a bad

[40:09] uh business plan where your pizza is mostly marketed towards bears that wander into new york

[40:14] yeah i mean we used to back in the olden days when more bears wandered in yeah and that's

[40:19] christmas time all the bears come in just for the holiday tourists the other thing that's weird is

[40:23] they take the sausages and tie them into a pretzel shape so it's also a pretzel now uh they they got

[40:30] one thing that i i wonder if now if i should talk about how much i've come to dislike christmas as

[40:35] a as i get older or should we save that i mean sure alonzo's here why not you know yeah just

[40:43] say it to my face alonzo i i didn't want to have to tell you this way massive christmas tree

[40:49] there's a huge display there's a nativity scene it looks like it's handmade did you make that

[40:53] yourself out of butter yes i mean i i will say alonzo's real christmas tree and i you know look

[41:01] there's no way to say this i was like i don't want to insult alonzo and i'm like there's no

[41:06] way of saying this it looks a little like the charlie brown christmas christmas tree there

[41:10] well large gaps in it i would say it is it is a silver tip fur which is a very intentional choice

[41:18] and they're harder to come by because they it's the kind of thing you see in like 40s movies all

[41:22] the time but now if you want one you have to really look for it they really show off the

[41:26] ornaments well so i know people's go-to for this kind of thing is charlie brown but you know i'll

[41:31] tell you the we come back at night you'll see it all lit up it'll you'll get all right i will come

[41:36] back to this the skype call at night now that no the problem is dan's a vampire so now alonzo he

[41:42] can just walk into your house whenever now you've invited oh no i've invited him now here's the

[41:47] thing i used to be agnostic on christmas by which i mean i was like whatever someone else's holiday

[41:52] But now that I have children and they are bombarded by Christmas stuff at school, I'm like, we've got to stop.

[41:58] This has got to end now.

[41:59] And I'm finding myself becoming –

[42:01] You've got to stop this?

[42:01] Yeah.

[42:02] You think you're going to stop Christmas?

[42:04] I must stop it from coming.

[42:05] So anyway, I've enlisted in the war on Christmas, and I'm now going to be just burning down Christmas trees.

[42:10] But now I'm getting much more militant about him understanding what Hanukkah is all about than I would have been otherwise.

[42:16] I'm like, we're going to talk about some Maccabees, Sammy.

[42:19] Like, it's time to tell a Maccabee story.

[42:20] And he's like, can I open my present now? And I'm like, um, Antiochus wouldn't let you open that present. Let's talk about it, Sammy.

[42:26] I apologize, by the way, as a Gentile, that Christmas has caused, has forced you to elevate a minor holiday in the Jewish calendar to...

[42:37] TL, TL, Dan, too little, too late.

[42:39] I mean, I appreciate that.

[42:41] I appreciate you taking on the shoulders of 2,000 years of anti-Semitism.

[42:46] Oppression.

[42:47] But it's too little, too late.

[42:48] And just when the shoe's on the other foot in a couple hundred years, and when Judaism's the world religion, just get ready to be bored of Passover.

[42:56] Look, I guess if by apologizing I have now become the subject of all ire, you know, like that's a sacrifice that I've got to take.

[43:06] I've got to take it.

[43:07] Hey, I watched Love Lights Hanukkah on the Hallmark channel last night, so I like to think I'm doing my part to bridge that.

[43:13] I appreciate that.

[43:14] You know what, Alonzo?

[43:15] You're one of the good guys.

[43:17] I appreciate that.

[43:17] Yeah, yeah.

[43:18] Alonzo Duralde, good for the Jews.

[43:23] That's the goal of my life.

[43:27] If you need that blurb attributed to me, I'll take it.

[43:32] Good for the Jews.

[43:33] You'll sign off.

[43:34] I like it.

[43:35] So anyway, but Christmas in New York yet is a magical time.

[43:37] Anyway, they do all the ice skating.

[43:40] They go see the Nutcracker, which did bring back memories to me because my family every year did go see the Nutcracker when I was young, which was fantastic.

[43:46] They step in wet cement and ruin a construction project, and I'm just hoping it's Trump-related, in which case, great.

[43:54] Keep ruining it.

[43:54] Ruin away.

[43:55] And Nikki reads them her list.

[43:58] They're sitting in – what is it?

[44:00] In Sherman Square.

[44:01] is that it's like right by the by the big statue but of uh of general sherman uh at the corner of

[44:06] the park and they say she's reading this list of things she's never done or had and mentions i've

[44:10] never had sex and i was like movie this cannot turn into dudley moore being a hero by having

[44:16] sex with nikki this cannot turn into that is not here's the thing like if this was a if again a

[44:23] smarter movie yeah if you're gonna if you're gonna put that in you gotta do the work movie

[44:27] no no no no this is about a 13 year old girl who is dealing heavily with her you know her basically

[44:37] her death sentence rather than this like weird backdoor like tragedy romance like if it's really

[44:44] about this girl dealing with things like i would understand this as a conversation she has with her

[44:49] therapist you know like she's of an age where she's like beginning to have these regrets like

[44:53] i will not this is a thing i will not experience in my life adults get to experience i won't but

[44:58] like saying it as part of her list to her mom and her like the the guy she's trying to like

[45:04] manipulate into being her dad yeah he's weird yeah or that i was working i've never seen an

[45:11] x-rated movie was also on that list yeah that's true and it's like i wonder there is i mean i

[45:17] guess there is a there is a if they were making this movie in like the late 60s early 70s i could

[45:22] see a version of where they're like well let's do all those things and they're like taking her to a

[45:25] to a porno theater we're off to time square and they're just hiring like a hiring a hustler to

[45:31] sleep with her for one night like all right let's not go far down can we watch midnight cowboy does

[45:36] that count yeah i mean technically x-rated but it's one of those i could see it being one of

[45:39] those like those comedies that were very oh trey in the late 60s and then you watch them now and

[45:43] you're like this is not aged well this i understand that you're rebelling against something but this

[45:47] is not this is not something most french comedies of the 1970s certain certain things you wanted to

[45:54] rebel against should not have been rebelled against yeah yeah uh so uh but she is instead

[46:00] uh they just uh have her drive a horse carriage around central park uh so i was like okay this is

[46:05] good movie you know what that's that's basically like making love that's good enough yeah potato

[46:11] potato the feel of being in control of a big dumb animal sure steward as someone who's had sex like

[46:16] two three times like you know that it's just as good as getting in a horse-drawn carriage and

[46:21] guys but have you driven a whole yeah of course i did that was when i was on my way to that x-rated

[46:27] movie i watched which one was it uh which one well it was a short it was a short video i saw

[46:36] it on somebody's computer it was about i don't know like 15 seconds long wow and it had it was

[46:43] Myra Breckenridge. It had some very

[46:45] interesting sound design. Let me say

[46:47] that.

[46:48] I'm so confused about what

[46:51] the reality of this bit is.

[46:53] So, that

[46:55] night at Nikki's instigation, they

[46:57] have a little sort of play wedding with her

[46:59] dead bird voodoo fetish, which she

[47:01] brought with her. It's amazingly not rotted

[47:03] by this point, as the priest. And Nikki

[47:05] conducts the ceremony where she

[47:07] has them proclaim

[47:09] vows of eternal memory of

[47:11] the love of this moment and they're a family now and it is so it's like so it is such a midsummer

[47:17] type scene where i'm like but they think it is touching and beautiful it was this is so upsetting

[47:22] that this young girl yeah is like forcing again these two adults one of whom has a family into

[47:29] this mock wedding it feels like uh the twilight zone episode it's a good life where it's like

[47:35] it's good it's good that you're making us marry each other it's good you're making me abandon my

[47:40] wife and child yes it's good you're making me sleep with your mom yes nikki these are all good

[47:46] things it's a very it's like it's it's this weird someone who like it feels like someone who lives

[47:51] in a movie made it like someone who's not not fully aware of human emotions but like lives in

[47:57] movies and it's like isn't this adorable and it's like there's there's so much going like and what

[48:01] what has what has gone wrong in this in this girl's relationship with her mother that she's like this

[48:06] is an okay way to do things like i'm like we've kidnapped this man and now he isn't this isn't

[48:12] this scene like like mentioned on the poster like the poster is like the girl's dying the guys the

[48:18] groom is already married and the bride is in her sweatpants or something i'm obviously a different

[48:24] poster yeah it's on the it's on the poster if not i love that or maybe it's like the tagline

[48:29] listed on imdb after you have to search for it three times because it keeps telling you

[48:33] not found one of the things i've never heard of this movie one of the things i did read about it

[48:40] was that uh the uh the promotional release for the movie uh made a big deal about how mary tyler

[48:46] moore and dudley moore have the same last name which is if that's what you're selling the movie

[48:50] on you do not have much you do not have much to go on i'm so glad they pointed that out because

[48:55] i would have missed yeah it'd be like if the avengers press material was like there are so

[49:00] many chris's in this fucking movie actually that should be the avengers re-released on christmas

[49:07] time and they go merry christmas and they just show all the paul newman and gary oldman in the

[49:13] same movie yeah if they touch will they explode that is what happened but anyway uh because

[49:23] they will become man the movie was called the incredible exploding man uh so they uh they have

[49:30] that ceremony they're a family now in the eyes of whatever whatever demon is living inside the

[49:34] dead bird fetish that nikki has has created uh and which is driving them to their doom uh the

[49:40] next day patrick arranges or rather demands a ballet audition for nikki who is running these

[49:46] auditions is it the hotel manager from ghostbusters i believe it is uh and she really impresses them

[49:52] with her audition and they're like you know what we've got to use her today because i know this is

[49:59] an all kids production of the nutcracker and it will destroy our young star that she is being

[50:03] replaced by a new person we've only known for a day but we are doing this right now yeah yeah

[50:08] they don't just stick her in the fuck they she's like the lead all of a sudden and i i like looked

[50:15] away from the movie for like for like a minute and then i came back and i'm like what is going

[50:21] like how is it possible that in one day she auditioned and now they were putting her in

[50:28] opening night of the nutcracker at lincoln center and then i'm just like you know what movie no

[50:35] explanation you're gonna give me it's gonna make me swallow this so well it's like the dress

[50:40] rehearsal i think like that's their excuse for this thing and and she sort of comes in midway

[50:45] through but she gets like the meatiest part of the dance oh yeah she's clever yeah i think there's

[50:49] an unspoken conversation about how Dreyfus

[50:52] Cosmetics is underwriting their next season

[50:54] there's also a great scene

[50:55] where all the young ballerinas

[50:57] are applying their own makeup

[50:59] for this production and they're all

[51:02] kids and it's like they wouldn't

[51:03] all be able to do the same fucking thing

[51:06] I don't have kids but I'm assuming

[51:10] you're the master of stagecraft

[51:11] I like that that was the thing

[51:14] you really bumped on in the scene

[51:15] you're like where's this

[51:17] where's the makeup person so yeah she's

[51:19] She gets to be Clara for a little bit in it.

[51:22] Well, to be fair, okay, the movie makes it seem as if this is the New York Ballet Balanchine production of The Nutcracker that they do every year.

[51:31] This is like some kind of kids' theater, different choreography production.

[51:34] So the movie pulls a little sleight of hand there.

[51:37] And meanwhile, while she's rehearsing all day, this sick girl who's dying of leukemia, they are pushing her to the brink with this ballet rehearsal.

[51:45] Patrick and Charlotte go out and buy a Christmas tree and carry it by hand into a hotel.

[51:49] If I walked into a hotel with a Christmas tree in my hands, I bet the hotel would have some questions.

[51:53] But I guess things were looser back then.

[51:55] It is an extremely poorly attended Nutcracker performance, but I guess it is the dress rehearsal.

[52:01] But I was just amazed.

[52:02] I was like, they couldn't fill these seats a little more.

[52:04] This is a big Hollywood movie.

[52:05] There's nobody there.

[52:06] But she dances in the Nutcracker, and this section feels like it happens for six weeks.

[52:14] There is a lot of Nutcracker dancing in this.

[52:17] You say that as someone who has gone to the ballet and enjoyed it.

[52:20] Someone who loves ballet, especially loves the Nutcracker, loves the music.

[52:24] I was like, oh, they're putting her in right after they kill the Rat King.

[52:28] Oh, this is the part where she and the Nutcracker takes off his mask and he's a prince now.

[52:32] But seeing afterwards that it's a professional ballerina they have playing the part, I was like, okay, I get it now.

[52:39] But it is a long time where you're just watching Dudley Moore and Mary Tully Moore watching a children's production of the Nutcracker.

[52:45] And I kept looking at how much time was left in the movie and being like, they're really running out of the clock with this Nutcracker performance.

[52:51] Like, there can't be too much going on after this.

[52:54] They throw flowers at the stage.

[52:57] Everyone applauds.

[52:58] Her final dream, as it turns out, is to take the subway home.

[53:01] This also took me back because it is 1980s graffiti-covered, like, disgusting subway train.

[53:06] It's so, wow.

[53:07] It really, it was what it was like when I was a kid.

[53:10] But she has some kind of illness spell, movie sickness spell.

[53:14] And she's in pain and they can't – they have a – Patrick and Charlotte argue for a while over whether they should stop the train or not.

[53:21] And it's like, we've got to stop the train, my baby.

[53:23] And Dudley Moore is like, oh, but we'll just go to the next stop.

[53:26] That would be quicker than if you – and it was so funny that they're having the same conversation that I would have with my wife if our train was just stopped in a tunnel.

[53:32] It's like, do we get off at the next stop or do we just like – should we take a cab from here?

[53:36] And all the New Yorkers try to help, but they mainly just bustle around and there's nothing they can do.

[53:40] Nikki passes out.

[53:42] i will say about this scene it would it would be very hard to make a scene where a child dies

[53:47] on a subway and not be moved but i i so maybe it's a low bar but i i it was a distressing scene

[53:53] because you see all of these uh other people on the subway watch this play out watch this drama

[53:59] play out and i thought that that was actually kind of a smart directorial choice like the amount of

[54:04] time they they spend on like the faces of other commuters who are like holy shit there's a child

[54:10] I thought you were going to say

[54:13] I thought you were going to say it'd be hard

[54:15] to have a scene about the death of a child

[54:17] and not make it moving and somehow they did it

[54:19] somehow they managed

[54:20] because as Stuart pointed out earlier

[54:23] she has not displayed a single

[54:25] symptom, a moment of discomfort

[54:27] like nothing, this whole movie

[54:29] she has been carrying on like everything's

[54:31] great, she has just exerted

[54:33] herself through this very exhausting

[54:35] ballet performance and then suddenly

[54:37] it's on the subway where she literally just

[54:39] says it hurts and then bam drops dead i'm like that's oh come on movie like you know i i get

[54:46] that as a dancer you leave it on the floor but like this is just to the another level of ridiculous

[54:51] and then they keep cutting to like other people watching including this one boy who's like about

[54:56] 10 years old who just stares as though he has no interest in what's going on and they cut back

[55:02] well that's new york three yeah that's that's new york i mean they keep and i kept waiting like is

[55:07] he gonna break is he gonna start like is he gonna show emotion and be overwhelmed by this moment

[55:11] nope nope no that was i mean ironically that like dancing when they were cutting through these other

[55:16] people in the train i like that because it was the one of the few times they broke the like hermetic

[55:20] seal on this relationship it was like oh they do exist in a world of other people but that kid

[55:24] alonzo his total lack of response i was like yes that is what that is that's a real new yorker

[55:30] response yeah on the subway is you're seeing that but and like oh i don't know whatever uh and i

[55:37] I mean, maybe it could be more of a critique than a compliment, the more I think about it.

[55:41] The fact that I'm more moved by the bystanders who we've never seen before in the movie

[55:46] than either of the characters who are supposed to love this other character.

[55:50] Yeah, that's a pretty strong critique, I would say.

[55:53] That's the movie not doing its job.

[55:55] When you're like, who's this kid?

[55:57] I did think that kid was more interesting than anything else going on in the movie.

[56:00] I was like, who's this little jerk who doesn't care that this girl is dying?

[56:03] Who's this hearted badass?

[56:07] so uh one other thing he grew up to be stephen miller no oh god oh they should have thrown him

[56:13] under the train uh as a child i would never advise doing that now to a human being but

[56:18] uh so they're they run off the train that's when we see it was an m train from lincoln center

[56:22] whatever we don't have time to worry about that because because it's the next because we're in an

[56:27] ambulance all of a sudden going across a bridge i know we're going down uh well it doesn't matter

[56:31] what street we're going to anyway anytime i see new york in a movie that i'm like geography i

[56:35] understand i know this stuff so uh the next morning nikki has died we know because patrick

[56:41] is reading to her mom nikki's last testament and journal and she talks about how she had a

[56:45] wonderful life and she tells them not to be sad donate all her things and she would like her ballet

[56:50] shoes to be worn by a famous ballerina yeah and she implies that her last i think the implication

[56:55] is her last wish is for patrick charlotte to finally have sex it was not totally clear but

[57:00] it was like you know what i want you to do hint hint wink wink or just just be together which is

[57:06] like wow what a manipulative dead kid if you love me she was like donate my entire inheritance and

[57:15] you're like what that's like wait do i have to do you want me to die now do i have to be buried in

[57:22] your fucking tomb kid yeah mary mary tyler moore is supposed to give away all of her money and

[57:26] and throw herself on the funeral pyre of Nicky's grave.

[57:29] Like Ramsey's.

[57:30] I would like you both to be buried in my pyramid with me,

[57:35] to take care of me and be my parents in the afterlife.

[57:37] I would like Dudley Moore's organs in a jar.

[57:40] Yeah, of course.

[57:40] A very small jar.

[57:42] And then stuff his corpse with sawdust.

[57:43] So is this when we finally get to their heartfelt goodbye

[57:50] at the TWA terminal at JFK?

[57:53] Because I recognize those landmarks.

[57:56] And also, but first we get to see them very, we get to see the whole process as they pick

[58:01] out and buy a magazine at the newsstand of that airport, which it was only afterwards

[58:06] that I was like, that was a weird choice that we spent that much time watching them pay

[58:09] for this magazine.

[58:10] Well, you see the men in black in the background.

[58:14] That was what that scene was.

[58:15] Oh, I see.

[58:15] To set up the later franchise.

[58:17] That would be amazing.

[58:20] It was like, yeah, the whole thing was a backdoor pilot for this men in black group.

[58:24] So they say goodbye.

[58:26] She says, I'm going to go to France for a while.

[58:28] I have a house there that we used to go to with my dad just to remind us that she's super rich and has essentially used this congressional candidate as her family plaything for a few weeks and kind of wrecked his life.

[58:42] Not really.

[58:43] I mean, doesn't he get everything he wants?

[58:44] He's equally guilty.

[58:45] I guess he does.

[58:46] They say they love each other.

[58:47] First they take a walk in Central Park.

[58:51] Then they go to the airport.

[58:52] They buy that magazine.

[58:53] And then the last scene is we see the text of a telegram that Patrick is writing over footage of Nikki and Charlotte dancing together in the ballet studio.

[59:02] And he says, hey, to France, hey, I won the election.

[59:06] How are you doing?

[59:07] Am I still a thing with you?

[59:09] We'd love to hear from you.

[59:11] It's basically like it's kind of like a booty telegram in a way.

[59:14] It was like, hey, I'm a congressman now.

[59:15] You up?

[59:16] What's going on?

[59:17] Who's you up?

[59:19] Who was on the fucking politics beat who just didn't break this story about a congressional candidate?

[59:24] Yes, that was the other thing.

[59:25] He wins the election after abandoning his family during the campaign.

[59:30] Like, we just saw a guy lose a Senate race because he was texting with some people.

[59:35] Only in California, you know.

[59:36] It was the 80s.

[59:39] I guess, I mean, at the time, we did have a president who was the president also of the Hellfire Club Inner Circle and was presiding over S&M orgies.

[59:48] Guys, I'm trying to start this rumor that Reagan was head of the Hellfire Club.

[59:52] Let's get it on the ground floor on this one.

[59:55] Yeah, this is going to be a bit, I mean, in 40 years, it's just going to be established fact.

[59:59] But now I'm trying to get it started.

[1:00:00] Yeah, I guess it's weird that the, I think of the 80s as a much more like uptight time.

[1:00:06] But you're right.

[1:00:06] We said earlier, it's like the remnants of the 70s are still floating through.

[1:00:10] And the 70s was the time when middle-aged people wanted their 60s, I guess.

[1:00:15] and were just, like, just doing what they wanted and forgetting about the damage.

[1:00:19] Yeah, well, that is definitely the, like, fucking wheelhouse this movie is in.

[1:00:25] This is, like, this is the, I don't know, like, 70s soft rock male ballad of movies.

[1:00:32] But it also, like, you know, there wasn't the media presence, I think, at the time to be, like, constantly on Scandal Watch.

[1:00:39] But it did seem strange watching it today being like, someone's going to break the story, right?

[1:00:45] That's going to be a plot point.

[1:00:46] Why isn't this on HuffPo right now?

[1:00:49] And this was literally a very 70s kind of thing in that this is a script that knocked around for quite a while before getting made.

[1:00:56] Like, there's this insane array of people who were attached to it at some point and who were going to be in it.

[1:01:02] It was like, you know, Nick Nolte and Audrey Hepburn and like all the like this just list of actors and actresses before they got to the magical combination of the Moors here.

[1:01:14] Well, also, screenplay by Alan Moore.

[1:01:17] That's why the characters were the characters.

[1:01:21] He took his name off of this, too.

[1:01:22] Yeah, well, the characters were originally Mr. McCobber and Little Nell.

[1:01:26] That's why it was an Alan Moore project.

[1:01:28] Yeah.

[1:01:28] Well, speaking of the screenplay and speaking about how it bounced around for a while, thank you for giving me the opening to say that this is based on a novel.

[1:01:36] And the novel is written by someone named Fred Mustard Stewart.

[1:01:41] Fred Mustard Stewart.

[1:01:44] And the screenplay is by David Seltzer, and Seltzer will take out Mustard.

[1:01:48] This was a joke that I considered making and then decided not to,

[1:01:52] where I was going to be like, oh, they're halfway to a deli in this movie.

[1:01:54] Mustard and Seltzer.

[1:01:56] Oh, wow.

[1:01:56] Wait, wait, wait.

[1:02:01] That's one that you wouldn't say?

[1:02:03] Yeah.

[1:02:03] I felt like I am not yet an old enough Jew to tell that particular joke.

[1:02:09] And then the waiter brings you a Tony Bill.

[1:02:14] that's the director's name oh the portions are so small i do want dudley moore uh so

[1:02:22] by the way this is the same guy who directed crazy people so clearly he loved working with

[1:02:28] dudley moore so much they opened up a restaurant together it turns out uh tony bill and dudley

[1:02:33] moore they they were real they were real friends uh and uh so it's the but anyway so dan you had

[1:02:39] you had do you want to talk about the other anything about this about the novel or just

[1:02:42] that the guy's name had mustard in it just the guy's name had mustard in it that's all although

[1:02:46] i will say like in terms of what we were talking about earlier like script doctor stuff i think

[1:02:52] that there could be an interesting movie and the idea of like okay there's this idealistic girl

[1:02:57] who's dying okay pitch it to me pitch it to me really give us the enthusiasm dudley moore has

[1:03:03] no family let's let's let's okay let's uh correct that right now so you're saying dudley moore has

[1:03:10] less people in his life okay great i love it no strings there is uh no romance between him and

[1:03:19] the mother maybe even like there's a mother and a father both of whom are sort of like uh reasonably

[1:03:24] suspicious that this is a weird relationship but you know come to accept this man but like it is

[1:03:30] more about this young woman who is dying who is idealistic uh and believes in this person this

[1:03:36] and this uh politician who maybe like does hold these ideals on the outside and like

[1:03:45] and believes in them but doesn't necessarily make human connection well and does with this

[1:03:52] young girl and it would still be kind of a cliche story but i think it would eliminate a lot of the

[1:04:00] like emotional problems i had with it okay i'm so the dying girl's interested in politics and

[1:04:06] Not so much in pimping out her mother.

[1:04:07] Okay, exactly.

[1:04:08] Okay, fair.

[1:04:09] That's my first fix, my screenplay fix.

[1:04:12] I think that's a good – and you're saying that he's like a – he's a real policy wonk.

[1:04:17] So she knows from following the blogs – we're updating it.

[1:04:20] It's not set in the 80s anymore.

[1:04:21] She knows from following the blogs that like he's got all the answers.

[1:04:24] He's this young progressive or maybe he's an older progressive.

[1:04:28] I don't know who's got – but he's not good at talking to people about it, and she gives him the human touch.

[1:04:35] Now, do you have a climax where they're at the election headquarters?

[1:04:38] It's election night.

[1:04:40] He has to race from the party to her bedside, and she dies just as he wins the election.

[1:04:46] So there's a big party going on.

[1:04:50] There's confetti falling.

[1:04:51] But you know what?

[1:04:52] The light just went out of his life.

[1:04:54] It was also crazy because election night happened to be the same night as the dress rehearsal for the Nutcracker, right?

[1:05:02] Yeah, it's an off-election that's happening on Christmas for some reason.

[1:05:06] And so it's filling us so that the previous seat holder died under mysterious circumstances.

[1:05:12] Maybe the girl killed him.

[1:05:13] And that could be a thing, that she's like a Hannah-type assassin, you know.

[1:05:17] And so she wanted to make an opening for this guy to run for office.

[1:05:22] So it's a special Christmas election.

[1:05:24] The Nutcracker thing is a fundraiser.

[1:05:26] She collapses during the show.

[1:05:28] I love it.

[1:05:29] In the middle of the climactic moment when the Nutcracker is about to hold her up in the lift from Dirty Dancing.

[1:05:35] That's when she collapses and they have to take her to the hospital.

[1:05:38] And he runs out.

[1:05:40] It's a fundraiser on the last day, on election day, which is pretty late, that I guess he still has bills that he owes.

[1:05:45] Oh, yeah, yeah.

[1:05:46] What if she's at the big party and he wins, the balloons fall, the confetti.

[1:05:51] He gets up to make a speech.

[1:05:53] He goes, I have to acknowledge I couldn't be here without Nikki.

[1:05:57] And he brings her up, and she's been thoroughly healthy the entire film.

[1:06:00] And she gets up behind the microphone, and suddenly her face turns deathly white.

[1:06:05] She says, it hurts and collapses as all the cameras snap photographs.

[1:06:10] And he's standing there holding her lifeless.

[1:06:12] Yeah, like a piada.

[1:06:12] Now, Alonzo, can I plus this idea?

[1:06:15] What if instead of just collapsing, her head explodes Scanner style?

[1:06:20] So she has some sort of disease that leads to exploding heads, and they're looking for a cure.

[1:06:26] Yeah, she has a Scanner's disease.

[1:06:27] Okay, she has scanner syndrome.

[1:06:29] And scanner syndrome, it's...

[1:06:31] Cronenberg sarcoma.

[1:06:33] And also, it's a pandemic.

[1:06:34] That's the thing.

[1:06:35] He's running for office during this time

[1:06:37] where their scanner syndrome could hit at any time.

[1:06:39] Nobody knows.

[1:06:39] And they think they've beaten it.

[1:06:41] But in the end, Nikki proves that they haven't.

[1:06:44] Yeah.

[1:06:45] Yeah, yeah.

[1:06:45] So you can expand the scope quite a bit.

[1:06:47] You got scenes of, like, riots in foreign countries

[1:06:50] because there's only so much vaccine for scanner syndrome.

[1:06:52] And it's like World War Z or something like that.

[1:06:56] You know, so we can open this up

[1:06:57] because it's based on a stage play we got to open it up from the stage play it's based on which of

[1:07:00] course was called uh scanners girl election day christmas and we uh which i maybe it's a segment

[1:07:06] from forbidden broadway i don't know maybe that's it uh so so dan the uh no no no no no casting who

[1:07:13] are you casting in these parts who's the who's the girl who's the who's the progressive policy

[1:07:17] wonk and who is the uh who's the opponent who's trying who will do anything to take down the

[1:07:23] progressive even if it even uh blackmail theft and and in an amazing sequence taking the super

[1:07:30] bowl hostage so who's the uh who do you play these parts okay here we go here we go we got

[1:07:36] christmas super bowl christmas super bowl yeah it's it's again everything's thrown out of whack

[1:07:41] because of the special elections they're holding the super bowl on christmas as well yeah the

[1:07:45] politician of course has to be adam driver he's very hot right now you know he's good at playing

[1:07:50] intense and i think the young girl uh to avoid any possible like weirdness should be uh andy circus

[1:07:58] doing motion capture okay so you're not kind of an elita battle angel type thing where there's a

[1:08:04] little bit of an uncanny valley about the girl i would say if you want to avoid that problem even

[1:08:08] entirely you cast amy adams as the girl and she just has pigtails and it's okay because she's an

[1:08:13] adult playing a little girl i mean that's weird in a different way can we get to the ending and

[1:08:17] who plays the bad guy who plays the bad guy yeah who's the bad guy uh uh dan ackroyd wow okay

[1:08:25] yeah that's a big big uh nothing but trouble yeah yeah sure um yeah let's get to the let's

[1:08:33] get to the uh final judgments because i don't know what's going on in stewart's corner of

[1:08:38] brooklyn it looks like it's much later there than in my my part of brooklyn the sun is going down

[1:08:42] so let's uh let's do what's so baffled right now um is this a good bad movie bad bad movie a movie

[1:08:49] kind of like i will start i said i looked this movie by the end of it it put me in a bad mood

[1:08:55] i was angry at the movie i got out of it i don't hold it against alonzo but i

[1:09:01] you know i walked out of it in a sour mood i thought the people were were bad i didn't like

[1:09:06] it it was boring you snapped the dvd that you had ordered from amazon

[1:09:10] go on amazon prime if you want to shake it okay uh i'll i'll go next yeah it is a bad bad movie

[1:09:19] it's terrible it's terrible uh it is it was i wish it like there's uh there's a version of

[1:09:26] this movie that is a good bad movie but this one is a little a little dull but there was part of

[1:09:30] me that like and i want to thank alonzo because there's part of me that was like i there is no

[1:09:35] chance in hell that i would ever have seen this movie and it was like a little taste of the kind

[1:09:40] a movie that I imagine like my parents going to go see when I was a kid and then just being so

[1:09:45] disappointed and coming back and not telling me about it and it's it really took me back to a

[1:09:50] year when movies like this could come out and it's like okay that's there was a there was a

[1:09:54] period when they made this stuff so I appreciated it yeah not not as a movie it was terrible but I

[1:09:59] appreciate it as a snapshot of a worse time Stuart yeah yeah yeah I uh no this is uh this is a bad

[1:10:04] bad movie and um yeah it's it's fun to get to watch you know a bad movie from another era uh

[1:10:12] and bad in ways that are like it didn't feel bad in the like boring modern kind of like overproduced

[1:10:19] hollywood way it felt like a little bit of a little bit of that but also a little bit of the

[1:10:24] like this is somebody's passion project even if it wasn't it felt a little bit like somebody cares

[1:10:29] a lot about this dumb movie that doesn't make sense who is this movie for nobody knows uh so

[1:10:35] yeah bad bad uh yeah i i will i'll close the loop it is totally bad bad my my friend joel ryan

[1:10:43] tipped me off to it years ago and the line that she always quotes from it is one that dave and

[1:10:47] i have turned into a running joke in our house which is after she says the thing about are you

[1:10:52] going to make love dudley moore says you're an outrageous child nicole i just love throwing that

[1:11:00] into conversations because it's a it's a guaranteed laugh getter uh much like this movie in general um

[1:11:06] but yeah it is bad in the way of like someone thought this was a good idea like somebody

[1:11:11] really committed to the bit of this thing it certainly doesn't feel like it was created by

[1:11:16] committee or you know the studio thought uh we're gonna cash in on the i don't know what

[1:11:21] dying girl gotta cash in on the abandoning your family trend yeah yeah yeah it's it and knowing

[1:11:28] that the script was around for so long that like people were trying for years to tell this story

[1:11:33] is it's crazy because you're watching it you're like it got developed a lot it's amazing like

[1:11:38] you're watching it must have been a big the book must have sold well yeah i figure this is like

[1:11:43] oh but what if like love story was about a kid instead of a lover i don't know i yeah it's weird

[1:11:51] yeah they're like it's love story but a lot of people's lives are ruined as collateral

[1:11:56] by by the two by the leads like it's to to go into the movie and be like yeah yeah we're gonna

[1:12:01] make this movie it's about a guy who uh who becomes friends with a it's about a grown man

[1:12:06] who becomes friends with an with a 13 year old girl okay but uh why does he do that well he's

[1:12:11] falling in love with her mother oh that's great he's already married and he has a child what what

[1:12:14] What are you doing?

[1:12:15] What is going on?

[1:12:16] I got to read the book one of these days just out of curiosity, but I haven't brought myself to that yet.

[1:12:22] What's weird is it's a Western.

[1:12:23] Yeah.

[1:12:24] I listen to Bullseye because Jesse always has really good questions.

[1:12:35] What did John Malkovich wear when he was 20?

[1:12:39] I don't know how to describe it.

[1:12:41] There's always that moment where Jesse asks a question that the person he's interviewing has not thought of before.

[1:12:48] I don't think anyone's ever said that to me or acknowledged that to me.

[1:12:52] And that is so real.

[1:12:53] Bullseye.

[1:12:54] Interviews with creators you love and creators you need to know.

[1:12:58] From MaximumFun.org and NPR.

[1:13:01] Hi, I'm James, host of Minority Corner, which is a podcast that's all about intersectionality.

[1:13:09] It's hosted by James with a guest host every week.

[1:13:11] discussing all sorts of wonderful issues nerdy and political pop culture black queer feminism

[1:13:18] race sexuality news you're gonna learn your history their self-empowerment and it's told

[1:13:23] by what feels like your best friend why should someone listen to minority corner why not oh my

[1:13:28] god free stuff there's not free stuff the listeners of minority corner will enjoy some necessary lols

[1:13:33] but mainly a look at what's happening in our world through a colorful lens people will get

[1:13:38] the perspective of marginalized communities i feel heard i feel seen like you said you need

[1:13:44] to understand how to be more proactive in your community and this is a great way to get started

[1:13:47] join us every friday on max fun or wherever you get your podcast minority corner because together

[1:13:52] we're the majority the flop house is sponsored in part by squarespace now you all know squarespace

[1:14:00] you've been listening for a while unless you uh are listening to the first episode in which case

[1:14:04] welcome i hope you enjoy the nonsense but squarespace is a service that allows you to

[1:14:11] create a beautiful when you said when you said listening the first episode you meant listening

[1:14:14] to this episode listening to the show for the first time i'm saying this is the first episode

[1:14:18] that you may perhaps i don't you know i don't want to assume every episode might be someone's

[1:14:23] first episode yeah but they're not you're not saying if you're listening to the first episode

[1:14:27] of the show in which case there were no sponsors and i wasn't even on the show yeah yeah and it's

[1:14:31] And also any episode could be somebody's last episode of the show.

[1:14:35] Oh, wow, you're right, Dan.

[1:14:38] Just get with the ads.

[1:14:38] Sorry, I'm wasting time.

[1:14:39] Okay, so Squarespace can help you turn your cool idea into a new website.

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[1:15:11] should head to squarespace.com flop for a free trial and when you're ready to launch use the

[1:15:18] offer code flop to save 10 off your first purchase of a website or domain now dan i had an idea for a

[1:15:28] website uh based on today's movie and i was wondering if squarespace might be able to help

[1:15:31] me with it you know what i had an inkling you might have one of those yeah i mean i'm a little

[1:15:37] troubled i'm a little concerned but i'll hear you out so let's say here's my customer base let's say

[1:15:42] you're a little kid a precocious adolescent kid you don't have a dad you want a dad but even more

[1:15:47] that you want the thrill of poaching that dad from another family. Well, at secondhanddads.com,

[1:15:52] you would be able to come and look through our extensive catalog of dads who are, let's say,

[1:15:57] losing steam with their current families and looking for new families to become the dads of.

[1:16:01] This is not a dirty site. This is not people who are interested in physical relationships with

[1:16:06] adult people. This is about emotional relationships with children and their single parents. So just

[1:16:13] Log on to secondhanddad.com to know that you're getting someone who has the skills to be a dad and the enthusiasm for a new family that will get them falling in love with your mom over, let's say, a whirlwind Christmas New York weekend.

[1:16:25] So that's secondhanddads.com.

[1:16:27] Do you think Squarespace would be able, legally or ethically, to help me with that?

[1:16:30] I don't know about the second, but I'm sure that they could help you design that website.

[1:16:36] Hey, we got another sponsor.

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[1:16:43] And you know what?

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[1:16:47] Not all of us.

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[1:16:52] And God bless you if you're out there putting yourselves at risk just because you have to make a little money, I feel, for you.

[1:17:00] But if you are working from home, you're probably spending a lot more time with your cat.

[1:17:04] You're getting to see what they do during the day.

[1:17:06] It's a lot of sleeping in my experience.

[1:17:08] A lot of staring out the window, crying whenever the kitten walks through your backyard, the stray cat in the neighborhood.

[1:17:15] But one thing, and you're loving it.

[1:17:19] You're loving all this extra time with your cat, you know, your furry friend.

[1:17:22] You're getting extra time, face time with your cat.

[1:17:25] But what you don't love is having—

[1:17:27] Case closed.

[1:17:27] Sounds like a great product, Dan.

[1:17:28] Well, no, no, no, no.

[1:17:29] Hold on.

[1:17:30] There's a problem this product's going to solve, and that's that you don't love dealing with the litter box.

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[1:18:01] And right now, Kitty Poo Club is offering you 20% off your first order when you set up AutoShip by going to kittypooclub.com and entering promo code FLOP.

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[1:18:22] That's kittypooclub.com.

[1:18:24] And don't forget to enter promo code FLOP at checkout to help support our show.

[1:18:29] I hope you didn't hear the burp I stifled partway through

[1:18:33] because I'm a middle-aged man

[1:18:36] who can no longer control the emissions from his body.

[1:18:39] Sounds like somebody needs kiddie poop club for himself, too, man.

[1:18:45] Killed them all, burp. Killed them all.

[1:18:48] Cool. Well, that was great.

[1:18:51] We got two cool sponsors.

[1:18:52] Oh, we also have a couple of Jumbotrons, I believe.

[1:18:57] Elliot, why don't you take the first one?

[1:18:59] sure here's the jumbotron for you and you know what i'm gonna have a secret surprise spoiler

[1:19:04] it's a personal endorsement every week on marvel by the month brian stratton and rob milne milney

[1:19:10] i can't remember his last name's pronounced sorry about that rob chat with your favorite

[1:19:12] podcasters and comics professionals like john hodgman matt fraction clint mcelroy fred hembach

[1:19:17] jordan morris and tom scioli about the best worst and weirdest parts of marvel comics history

[1:19:22] one month at a time look for marvel by the month at marvelbythemonth.com or wherever you download

[1:19:28] podcasts and i was on an episode of this podcast it actually was just came out right before we are

[1:19:34] recording this episode uh and i had a great time it's a really fun podcast where they are reading

[1:19:38] through marvel comics in their heyday month by month and talking about the issues and i think

[1:19:44] it's a really good show so go listen to my episode where we talked about the birth of adam warlock

[1:19:48] and modok among other characters oh fun and then go listen to the other episodes it was lots of fun

[1:19:53] marvel by the months wow synergy cool and i have a jumbotron i'm an artist and throughout the

[1:20:03] pandemic i've been working on a project called pornemon it's like a mash-up of pokemon and

[1:20:10] jurassic park if the creatures were all designed by a pervert me now i'm assuming that's talking

[1:20:16] about the creator and not me stewart wellington but who cares i was gonna ask i gotta we gotta

[1:20:21] to be honest yeah uh yeah i mean it it doesn't matter uh it's mostly safe for work despite how

[1:20:29] it sounds also there are some tainted uh pornemon who resemble certain political figures in cathartic

[1:20:37] ways so visit pornemon.com that's p-o-r-n-e-m-o-n dot c-o-m for all the stuff made with squarespace

[1:20:49] oh synergy uh and there's a couple trailers up on youtube uh looks like a lot of fun my

[1:20:56] pornimons let me show you them at pornimons.com one of the more unusual jumbotrons so perhaps

[1:21:07] it catches your ear i believe there's a another plug uh that your household steward oh yeah

[1:21:13] The household, the Wellington household.

[1:21:15] Oh, but now you can't hear.

[1:21:18] Oh, that's okay.

[1:21:18] Oh, all right.

[1:21:20] Hi, guys.

[1:21:21] Hi.

[1:21:22] Hello.

[1:21:23] Hi, Charlene.

[1:21:24] How are you?

[1:21:24] Good.

[1:21:25] How are you?

[1:21:26] I liked your last episode.

[1:21:28] It had a very high SPM, Charlene's per minute.

[1:21:37] Oh, of course.

[1:21:38] Yeah, there were a lot of Charlene's, a lot of mentions.

[1:21:39] So, Charlene, what would you like to talk to us about today?

[1:21:42] I have a new podcast, guys.

[1:21:44] Have you heard about podcasts?

[1:21:46] I heard it's like the radio of the future.

[1:21:49] It's of the future.

[1:21:51] I have a new podcast.

[1:21:52] It's called I Know the Owner.

[1:21:54] It's me and a guest.

[1:21:56] Sometimes the guest is Stuart.

[1:21:58] Sometimes the guest is somebody else in the bar industry.

[1:22:01] And we talk about bar stuff.

[1:22:04] And it's fun.

[1:22:05] You can find it on iTunes.

[1:22:10] Sounds fun.

[1:22:12] I know the owner.

[1:22:13] What kind of bar stuff do you talk about?

[1:22:16] We talk about how I got into the business, how other people got into the business.

[1:22:21] We have a section called, wow, I forgot what my section's called.

[1:22:28] It's called, you won't believe the fucking day I had.

[1:22:35] Where it's supposed to mimic people belling up to the bar and telling me about their day.

[1:22:42] And then we, you know, talk about it.

[1:22:43] And we have so far recorded in the bar while it was open, so anything can happen.

[1:22:49] And what happened is the bar is going to be closed, so that's not going to happen.

[1:22:54] So after today, we will record in other locations.

[1:22:58] So in this unfortunate time period, if you want the old Hinterlands experience,

[1:23:06] you can't talk to the bartender now, but what you can do, I guess, is on a weekend,

[1:23:11] get a takeaway drink, pop the podcast in.

[1:23:15] Maybe you've sent in a complaint about something that happened in your week,

[1:23:18] and you can have that experience of chatting with a bartender

[1:23:21] while sipping your drink.

[1:23:22] Exactly.

[1:23:24] So thanks for letting me plug it on your show.

[1:23:27] Sure.

[1:23:28] Our pleasure.

[1:23:29] I guess that's the end of the segment.

[1:23:34] I think that's the end of that segment, yeah.

[1:23:36] All right.

[1:23:37] And now back to the show.

[1:23:40] moving on to our next segment which is letters from listeners like you who are listening right

[1:23:47] now i assume um hey that's right because dan it's the most letterful time of the show

[1:23:57] it's the part of the show where the letters are read and we answer the letters it's the most

[1:24:05] letterful time of the show if you thought there were other parts of the show that had letters

[1:24:13] in them you'd be wrong it's just this part that has the letters in them this part of the show

[1:24:19] right here because it's the most letterful time of the show oh man you gotta give it to him

[1:24:27] i i will give it to him that that is like the most accurate yeah letter song i think we've

[1:24:33] had in a long time if you're trying to destroy christmas elliot caitlin you're going about it

[1:24:38] all wrong because that just my heart grew three sizes oh no well what about what about this goes

[1:24:42] here's letter q's there's letter q's q's from the letters will answer q's letter letter letter

[1:24:47] q's letter q's letter letter q's letter letter letter letters letter letter letters what about

[1:24:52] this uh wait are there other christmas songs i can't think of any no not not a one okay that's

[1:24:58] too bad oh dan's looking for a way to turn off his computer i guess he's done yeah uh yeah oh okay

[1:25:06] so here we go with the first here come letter cues there go letter cues hope you sent us some

[1:25:12] cues q stands for questions i guess i should have been clear about that at the start letters

[1:25:19] sometimes have questions in them and we're gonna answer those letters in this part of the show

[1:25:25] right now how does the rest of the song go i don't know anyway that's the end of that song

[1:25:30] or is it it seems to be going still i don't understand i've lost control of it i'm as annoyed

[1:25:36] as you believe me i wish i could stop it at this point it's kind of like a medical problem i'll

[1:25:42] talk to my doctor after the show because i can't get this song to end dan you gotta interrupt me

[1:25:48] i'm sorry this is you gotta slay this beast now your war on christmas feels real um this one's

[1:25:55] from alan last name withheld who writes inspired by the flop house and because of our desire

[1:26:00] to not make life worse for health care workers thank you we have decided we've enough time to

[1:26:06] celebrate cagemas this year by watching a different nicholas cage movie every day in

[1:26:12] december what are some much must adds to our list um uh this brings up a good point i want to just

[1:26:21] uh say quickly that our cagemas episode will release in early january uh you know like

[1:26:28] it's a movable feast guys you don't know it's in our hearts yeah it's not necessarily gonna

[1:26:35] come before christmas or even slightly after christmas maybe in the next month guys cagemas

[1:26:41] Cage is a made-up holiday, like Christmas.

[1:26:43] We can put it wherever we want to.

[1:26:45] So that was the most inflammatory thing I think I've ever said.

[1:26:51] Yeah.

[1:26:51] And I apologize immediately.

[1:26:53] Okay, what do we got?

[1:26:56] So Nicolas Cage movies.

[1:26:58] Look, if you haven't seen Bad Lieutenant, Port of Call, New Orleans,

[1:27:02] throw it on there.

[1:27:02] Oh, yeah, it rules.

[1:27:06] well i'm trying to look through like what's like a more a more you mean love i mean you get like

[1:27:13] obviously moonstruck you gotta put moonstruck on there i mean he's great on there you gotta

[1:27:18] put raising arizona on there maybe uh vampires kiss vampires i don't know i'm not a huge vampires

[1:27:26] kiss fan but you know whatever really nope really i mean just for the scene where he goes through

[1:27:31] the alphabet it's worth watching i mean it's not good yeah um well out of space wild at heart yeah

[1:27:41] give me some wild at heart yeah or like red rock west yeah sure like uh i got a real into the

[1:27:48] spider-verse oh yeah he's great why not i've got a real fondness for the national treasure movies

[1:27:55] they're dumb but they're a lot of fun speaking of dumb but con air con air yeah what a movie that

[1:28:03] is is so gifable it's wonderful i mean just the beginning of face slash off before the faces get

[1:28:10] switched because nicholas cage doesn't get that much to do once the faces get switched yeah

[1:28:13] just the opening tracking shot from snake eyes yeah yeah uh if you're gonna celebrate cage was

[1:28:22] in december i'm not a giant fan of it but family man is his technically one big christmas movie

[1:28:28] oh if you want to be seasonal about it you can you can you can do cage miss earlier than these

[1:28:33] guys i uh some of his recent output i enjoyed his performance in uh what is that mom and dad

[1:28:39] where he demolishes a pool table even before he goes crazy yeah and on the little scene uh

[1:28:49] side of things we watched the trust for the show and i think we all enjoyed it a lot more than we

[1:28:54] suspected we might the trust is not a particularly good movie but him and elijah wood in that they're

[1:28:59] they're they're the way they relate to each other in it is so much fun to watch and i would i wish

[1:29:04] that they would make something else together uh there's uh he did finally get to play superman

[1:29:09] in teen titans go to the movies which i'm a fan okay uh people don't really talk about adaptation

[1:29:15] That's Nicolas Cage's dying wish, to be Superman.

[1:29:18] Mm-hmm.

[1:29:19] Yep.

[1:29:20] Dudley Moore burst into D.C. offices and demanded to see who was in charge of allowing him to play Superman.

[1:29:28] Why not go watch It Could Happen to You?

[1:29:30] Why not?

[1:29:30] It goes down easy.

[1:29:31] Yeah, that was a fun one.

[1:29:33] That's a fun, nice one, you know?

[1:29:35] And probably, and of course, Arsenal, right?

[1:29:40] Shut up.

[1:29:42] All right, moving on.

[1:29:43] Valley Girl?

[1:29:44] Yeah, Valley Girl.

[1:29:45] car yeah valley girl uh carly from uh i will say i will say do not see do not see dog eat dog avoid

[1:29:52] that one if you're you're gonna avoid plenty of them but avoid that one particularly and uh you

[1:29:56] should probably fit in uh his performance as fu manchu in grindhouse in that in uh in the ad for

[1:30:02] werewolf women of the ss don't do that uh carly last name withheld writes my brother has worked

[1:30:10] for all of his adult life in the hospitality industry in las vegas we were watching home

[1:30:17] alone 2 with his eight-year-old daughter and she said of the tim curry character he's the bad guy

[1:30:23] right after a long pause jt said well he's just trying to do his job and i could feel the two

[1:30:32] decades of hard work and shitty guests in his tone my question is how have you ever watched a

[1:30:38] movie in which a character inspired a strange sense of pathos in you because of your own experience

[1:30:44] love you so much cheers carly last name withheld i i love that anecdote

[1:30:50] you know he's just a guy trying to make his way in the world like he's

[1:30:56] kevin's kind of a shitty kid i don't know he's been put in an untenable position where he is

[1:31:02] He is trying to keep a child on his own in New York from, I guess, you know, stealing from a hotel, best case scenario, worst case scenario, being murdered in the middle of the night by, you know, his kid shouldn't be on his, like, he's the hero of the movie in a lot of ways.

[1:31:16] I feel the same way about Tim Curry in The Shadow.

[1:31:19] I mean, in some ways, I guess the wet bandits are the heroes of the Home Alone movies because all property ownership is theft at a certain point.

[1:31:28] And so they're just trying to fix the iniquities in the system.

[1:31:32] comrades yeah sure so i don't know go you go i think all film critics all film critics have

[1:31:42] empathy for the uh bob balaban character and the lady in the water like what's your problem

[1:31:48] m night shamala we're just out here trying to make a living i think anytime there's a character

[1:31:53] in a movie who is the like exists in the movie only to be the butt of a joke this is not necessarily

[1:32:01] based on life experiences except that people i've been made fun of many times in my life

[1:32:05] but like when a character exists only so the other characters can score jokes off of them that always

[1:32:11] bothers me i'm always like don't don't create this character and bring them to life just to

[1:32:15] it's one it's okay to create a dumb character and have to be funny for the audience but when it's

[1:32:18] like your heroes are like ripping on somebody yeah and you know it's like you created this

[1:32:23] character just for this purpose like come on don't do that yeah it's it's one of the reasons why

[1:32:27] there's never a character in a movie named stewart that isn't like i mean it feels like the character

[1:32:33] is only named stewart because they couldn't get away with naming them like nerd bert or something

[1:32:37] like yeah i have a friend named gary he's very angry about how he's been handled yeah

[1:32:44] i will say that i have a special antipathy for uh movies about slackers

[1:32:50] like or the slacker character we've noticed we've talked about that anytime there's a character in

[1:32:55] movie who's like a slacker and it's like why can't i just stumble into my dreams i'm like who's i

[1:32:59] don't care about this person not interested your your hero is the uh the uh principal in back to

[1:33:06] the future who hates slackers as much as you i mean that's not my hero uh necessarily like ogre

[1:33:12] and the revenge of the nerd series is my hero because we both hate nerds and sleeves we hate

[1:33:19] sleeves too and uh any anytime someone in a movie is like like in the story anytime someone's trying

[1:33:26] to do their job and it involves customer service of some kind and the hero is being uh the

[1:33:33] protagonist is being like un uh just like difficult or unreasonable and we're supposed to get mad at

[1:33:39] the at the customer service person for not bending to their will i'm always like hey do these the

[1:33:44] right way come on this it would mind it reminds me of working at barnes noble and having people

[1:33:48] come in and demand books that didn't

[1:33:50] exist and then get mad at me when I

[1:33:51] see the manager when I could not

[1:33:53] magically produce them

[1:33:55] they'd come in and be like

[1:33:58] where's that red book I saw

[1:33:59] someone came in and said where's the book with the blue cover

[1:34:02] that I saw a month ago

[1:34:04] and I was like I don't know who was it by

[1:34:06] I don't know what was the title I don't know

[1:34:07] what was it about I don't know and I said to the person

[1:34:09] why do you want to read this book

[1:34:11] and they got mad at me

[1:34:13] it's a really gorgeous shade of blue

[1:34:16] um hey let's move on why don't we so the final segment which is recommendations

[1:34:23] of movies you might actually want to watch rather than this and trust me you do not want to watch

[1:34:30] this i uh i'm gonna go first and i will give you i'm not recommending this oh that's very that's

[1:34:37] very generous of you dan i'm not recommending this movie as a traditional good movie by by any

[1:34:45] means although there are elements of it that surprisingly work but i'm recommending dan you

[1:34:51] better you better not be about to tell me that you watched hillbilly elegy on your own and we

[1:34:55] can't do it for the podcast no no no no no i close though i'm recommending 2002's the country bears

[1:35:04] because oh boy i watched this movie and like you know like it is the movie bad movie that has made

[1:35:14] me laugh the most since seeing cats like i almost laughed as much at some of this as i did and the

[1:35:23] funny thing about this movie is like okay it is a weird idea objectively to be like oh we're gonna

[1:35:29] make a movie that is about the the disneyland attraction the country bears which is just

[1:35:36] a bunch of bears singing country songs a bunch of animatronic bears not real bears let's clarify

[1:35:41] before Elliot jumps in.

[1:35:42] Animatronic bears singing country songs.

[1:35:44] Before you disappoint a generation of listeners

[1:35:47] who can't wait to get to Disneyland again

[1:35:49] so that they can see real bears singing country songs.

[1:35:51] And this is during the period...

[1:35:53] You're going to bring the artificial reindeer sausage with you.

[1:35:56] They'll be like, oh, these bears are going to love this.

[1:35:59] Reindeer pizza sausage, but yeah, yeah.

[1:36:00] This is during the period when Disney had a real fever

[1:36:05] for making movies of its attractions,

[1:36:09] Which only struck gold with Pirates of the Caribbean

[1:36:12] And I guess they're making Jungle Cruise

[1:36:13] So it's not like this period is over

[1:36:15] They made it in

[1:36:16] One of the more misbegotten ones

[1:36:20] And the funny thing to me about this movie is

[1:36:22] This movie is about

[1:36:24] A group of bear musicians

[1:36:28] Who are famous bear musicians

[1:36:30] Who broke up

[1:36:31] And a young bear wants to get them back together

[1:36:34] It's basically the plot of the new Muppets

[1:36:36] And no one in the movie

[1:36:40] Particularly makes any sort of deal

[1:36:43] About these bears being bears

[1:36:45] The fact that there are bears

[1:36:47] Is basically immaterial to the story

[1:36:49] And yet they are bears

[1:36:51] This movie posits a world

[1:36:53] In which 90% of people

[1:36:55] Are not bears

[1:36:56] But 10% are bears

[1:36:58] And everyone just

[1:37:00] Does bear stuff or not

[1:37:02] But they don't do bear stuff

[1:37:03] They're at a buffet

[1:37:05] they're like singing songs and the thing is the songs are actually like there's a lot of talent

[1:37:11] behind this movie this the songwriter is like a famous songwriter i can't remember like he

[1:37:16] john hyatt uh wrote a lot of the songs brian setzer wrote some of them uh bella fleck was

[1:37:23] involved elton john bonnie rate and don henley are some of the singing voices and in this movie

[1:37:29] you've got christopher walken hayley joel joel osmond is the tiny bear mc gainey is the human

[1:37:36] member of the bear band amazing you got toby huss in it uh brad garrett stephen root are some of the

[1:37:44] bears like there's a lot of talent put behind this movie but the fatal flaw is this is a movie about

[1:37:49] the country bears none of this talent can overcome the fact so it's one of those cat situations where

[1:37:54] You're like, wow, they are really trying to make this work

[1:37:57] and putting all their energy into a totally misbegotten idea.

[1:38:01] And somehow that makes it all the more exciting to watch.

[1:38:04] So I had a lot of fun.

[1:38:05] Do bears in this world do anything besides sing?

[1:38:08] Do they have a bear agent?

[1:38:10] There's a bear janitor just cleaning up after them in one scene.

[1:38:15] There's the kid bear who wants to get the country bears back together

[1:38:19] who has no job because it is a kid bear

[1:38:23] who has been adopted by Stephen Tobolowsky's family.

[1:38:26] And the other son,

[1:38:29] in the one joke referring to the fact

[1:38:31] that there are bears in this universe,

[1:38:33] the other son is mind-boggled

[1:38:37] that this child doesn't realize that he is adopted

[1:38:40] because he is a bear.

[1:38:41] Which is not a bad joke.

[1:38:43] And then the rest of the movie

[1:38:45] doesn't really make hay about it at all.

[1:38:47] It's a strange movie.

[1:38:48] I can't quite get across how it bent my mind.

[1:38:53] I like the idea that the people making the movie were like, no one's going to be interested in how a bunch of bears started and became a band.

[1:39:00] We got to pick up after the band's broken up.

[1:39:03] Nobody's interested in the origin of a country bear band.

[1:39:06] Isn't there like a montage of Christopher Walken gleefully destroying scale models of country bears, like music halls or something?

[1:39:15] He is committing, Christopher Walken.

[1:39:21] He is not phoning this part in.

[1:39:23] He is very angry about these country bears for reasons that became clear late in the movie.

[1:39:29] Don't spoil it, Dan.

[1:39:30] As all good nemeses do with their heroes.

[1:39:33] But it is a wacky movie.

[1:39:36] Now, Dan, you said MC Ganey was the human member of the band.

[1:39:39] Why do they have a human member in the band?

[1:39:41] I don't know.

[1:39:42] He's a drummer.

[1:39:42] Is it possible he was supposed to be a bear and they just ran out of bear costumes?

[1:39:49] Or that he, like, walked onto set and they were like, oh, yeah, that's a bear.

[1:39:53] And you're like, uh, okay.

[1:39:56] Well, the other thing this movie has in common with cats is obviously that the main characters are these anthropomorphic animals.

[1:40:05] And it is not as disquieting as the CGI, like, cat fur put over normal people.

[1:40:11] But it is sort of, it is a weird look because these are people in bear suits, it seems, with animatronic bear heads.

[1:40:19] And they fall square in the middle of the Uncanny Valley.

[1:40:22] So it's an unusual experience.

[1:40:25] Well, it's on Disney+.

[1:40:28] You can watch it after the Mandalorian.

[1:40:29] Talking just now reminded me that Cats is on HBO Max.

[1:40:35] So I think this may be the night when I force my wife to watch it.

[1:40:38] Oh, man.

[1:40:39] Report back.

[1:40:41] My wife and I talk about watching Cats the same way that some couples talk about having a threesome.

[1:40:48] i don't think she where she's like not that into it but she she'll do it for me you know so she's

[1:40:53] like yeah i guess i'd watch cats with you and i'm like maybe tonight's the night

[1:40:56] she wants to be ggg yeah uh okay so i'm gonna recommend a movie the year

[1:41:05] 1990 the city detroit michigan the movie martial law that's right it's a martial arts movie

[1:41:15] set in michigan uh we have uh it's about a pair of police officers one played by uh the son of uh

[1:41:25] what's his name give me a second i fucked that up it's okay don't no don't don't erase it don't

[1:41:29] erase what i just said i'm fixing it okay i'm almost there yeah uh yeah so it's played by uh

[1:41:35] the the lead is played by chad mcqueen who is the son of screen legend steve mcqueen

[1:41:40] and his partner steve mcqueen is the name you couldn't remember yeah yeah okay yeah i mean

[1:41:45] that's fair that's pretty clear um and his uh and his partner is played by the always wonderful

[1:41:51] cynthia rothrock she's amazing um and it's a movie filled with karate mullets uh it opens with a

[1:42:00] hostage scene where our hero dresses up like a pizza delivery guy and then beats the shit out

[1:42:06] of a bunch of criminals and the action is shot well in that every time uh somebody gets hit

[1:42:13] there's always some kind of a reaction shot so like when uh when our hero martial law blasts

[1:42:19] somebody in the jewels the guy it cuts to a shot of the guy being like oh my nuts it's great uh and

[1:42:24] of course the villain in a world of hockey mullets uh the villain is the only unmulleted karate

[1:42:29] fellow that's right david carradine is in this movie and he in every scene he's got a really

[1:42:34] cool stick and he practices the technique of dim mock where he punches people in the chest and they

[1:42:40] die from it it's great martial law is the movie steward is me thank you

[1:42:46] i'm glad i'm glad we're both we're all bringing out the real big guns on the day we have alonzo

[1:42:55] here someone who knows film better than any of us uh i mean country bears and martial law where's

[1:43:03] elliot gonna go how much deeper can we go i feel like i need i feel like i need to rework my

[1:43:08] recommendation i was uh seeing as this movie today involved a child and uh and uh trauma i decided to

[1:43:15] go with a movie that i watched just recently that i had only learned of recently this movie called

[1:43:20] ladybug ladybug from 1963 and it's a movie about uh a group of school children there's an elementary

[1:43:27] school that gets an alert that a nuclear bomb is going to be dropped in the area that the war has

[1:43:33] started. And they so they go through what they're supposed to go through, which is that the teachers

[1:43:37] take all the kids home. And it's kind of about how the adults are at a total loss to really know what

[1:43:44] to do in this situation. They don't know if it's even a really real alert a lot or not, and how

[1:43:48] the kids are left to fend for themselves more or less. And it's not like a Lord of the Flies type

[1:43:53] thing. It's more of a, the children trying to mirror and make sense of the emotions that the

[1:44:00] adults are feeling and taking on those roles. And by doing so, kind of showing how ridiculous they

[1:44:05] all are. And seeing it really brought home to me some things that I kind of didn't want to admit

[1:44:11] to myself about children during the pandemic right now, and specifically about me and my kids

[1:44:16] and how I need to pay more attention to kind of how they're reacting to this whole situation

[1:44:21] through my reaction to it.

[1:44:23] There's one scene in particular

[1:44:25] where this girl runs home

[1:44:26] and her dad is like a farmer

[1:44:27] and he's shoveling some stuff.

[1:44:28] I don't know what he's doing.

[1:44:29] And she's like,

[1:44:30] the bombs, the war started,

[1:44:32] the bombs are dropping.

[1:44:32] And he's like, what?

[1:44:33] And she's like, the war,

[1:44:34] they're dropping the bombs.

[1:44:36] And he's like, I'm busy.

[1:44:37] I've got work to do.

[1:44:37] Go talk to your mother.

[1:44:38] And I was like,

[1:44:39] well, that hits home.

[1:44:40] I've had that conversation

[1:44:41] with my son a bunch of times

[1:44:42] in the past year

[1:44:43] where he's like worried

[1:44:45] about something and I'm like,

[1:44:45] I've got work to do.

[1:44:46] Like, we'll deal with it later.

[1:44:47] So it really struck home for me,

[1:44:50] not in the way

[1:44:51] because the movie is almost 60 years old.

[1:44:54] But it's called Ladybug, Ladybug,

[1:44:55] and I think it just got released or re-released on DVD,

[1:44:59] but I found the whole thing on YouTube,

[1:45:01] so that's where I watched it.

[1:45:02] But it was really good,

[1:45:03] and it's got some very early performances on film

[1:45:06] from William Daniels and Nancy Marchand

[1:45:09] and Estelle Parsons,

[1:45:10] so there's a bunch of really good actors in it.

[1:45:12] But it's mostly about the kids,

[1:45:14] so that's what I'd recommend.

[1:45:15] Alonzo, what have you got?

[1:45:17] Is it going to be my bleak end

[1:45:18] or their fun end of the spectrum?

[1:45:21] Oh, well, you know, I'll tell you, I this is because when you write a book about Christmas movies, you get asked to do a lot of podcasts in December.

[1:45:29] And I love that. But I figure anybody who wants to hear me recommend Happiest Season has heard me do it about 10 times.

[1:45:35] So I'm going to go firmly in the Elliot camp and bum everybody out.

[1:45:38] an amazing romanian documentary about health care called it's called collective and it is basically

[1:45:48] about how um there was this uh though it begins with like a a fire in a in a in a nightclub where

[1:45:57] all these people died because there weren't enough exits and it sort of exposed this like government

[1:46:01] corruption so this other government gets to come in for a year and take over and they're trying to

[1:46:06] work out the health care stuff because like a bunch of people who should have survived that

[1:46:10] incident didn't and it just the onion unravels and it's just more and more levels of corruption and

[1:46:15] of chicanery and awful stuff and just when they get really close to nailing the people responsible

[1:46:21] the people responsible figure out how to use the media to change the subject entirely so it feels

[1:46:27] very much about america in 2020 this is a film that's made in a very kind of frederick weisman

[1:46:34] documentary style in terms of like there's no interviews you don't get a lot of on-screen

[1:46:38] things identifying who the people are necessarily uh but at the same time it is edited like a

[1:46:44] thriller it is it it's intense and breathless and uh very you will be very upset by the end of this

[1:46:52] movie but in the in a way that ideally you'll maybe want to change everything so yeah collective

[1:46:58] i really i love this movie it it infuriated me but it also was that that came out earlier this

[1:47:03] year right uh it opened earlier this month it is in theaters in a few places where theaters are

[1:47:10] open but it's also streaming it is romania's pick for the oscars so it might be a an international

[1:47:17] film nominee but i don't know how docs do in that category so yeah i've seen it on a couple of like

[1:47:21] best of the year lists so great stuff i gotta see that i wasn't aware of it well alonso i want to

[1:47:29] say thank you uh sincerely for appearing on our show and for inflicting it comes uh he's gonna

[1:47:36] give you the business on us no no i mean apologies for the six weeks part this is this is a good kind

[1:47:42] of pain i uh i didn't i didn't like it while watching it but it was a lot of fun to talk

[1:47:47] about with you guys so it's the kind of movie that reminds you how good good movies are yeah

[1:47:51] because you're like oh yeah this is a bad movie well i'm like and we were getting text messages

[1:47:56] from dan while he was watching and he was like oh if only it were as good as country bears the movie

[1:48:02] where are the jamborees in this film we're out there country bar the country bears have

[1:48:10] those forsaken me so few jamborees uh but uh let's let's uh say goodbye for another episode

[1:48:20] wait before we do it now i'm imagining dan that you're now imagining dan you're a film critic and

[1:48:24] You have your criteria.

[1:48:25] You rate every movie on them.

[1:48:26] One of them is Jamborees, question mark.

[1:48:28] Yeah.

[1:48:28] Dan, you don't want to.

[1:48:29] Once again.

[1:48:30] Dan doesn't want to lead into this bit as Dan, the like, exhausted dilettante movie fan.

[1:48:35] Why is everyone wearing pants?

[1:48:38] Why can't it be like the country bears?

[1:48:40] A vest is all they need.

[1:48:44] Zero fur on the actors.

[1:48:49] No stars.

[1:48:50] I went into Paddington to.

[1:48:51] I don't see one banjo.

[1:48:53] I went into Paddington 2 hoping for the best.

[1:48:55] The lead is a bear.

[1:48:56] Check.

[1:48:57] He does not wear pants.

[1:48:58] Check.

[1:48:59] Does he have a jamboree?

[1:49:00] Alas, still no jamborees in Paddington's world.

[1:49:03] Okay.

[1:49:07] I'm giving this movie one out of six banjo strings.

[1:49:10] As I pine for a jamboree, I think it's time to sign off.

[1:49:20] Thank you to Maximum Fun for having us on the network.

[1:49:24] Go to MaximumFun.org for a lot of other great shows,

[1:49:28] some of them about movies, some of them have Alonzo in them.

[1:49:31] Yeah, Alonzo, do you have anything you want to plug?

[1:49:33] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1:49:34] Oh, golly.

[1:49:35] Yeah, if people want to follow me on Twitter,

[1:49:37] it's A.Duralde, A-D-U-R-A-L-D-E.

[1:49:40] Come for the Christmas news, stay for the socialism.

[1:49:43] And yeah, I do a crazy amount of podcasts,

[1:49:48] And if you would listen to them, that would make my day.

[1:49:51] Thank you to Jordan Cowling for editing and producing this show.

[1:49:56] Please rate, review, and subscribe, as they say.

[1:50:01] But for the Flophouse, I have been Dan McCoy.

[1:50:05] I'm Stuart Wellington.

[1:50:07] I'm Elliot Kalin, and our special guest has been...

[1:50:11] Alonzo Duraldi.

[1:50:12] See you later, guys.

[1:50:14] Bye.

[1:50:14] I don't know what that voice was.

[1:50:16] No, I love it.

[1:50:18] This is how I feel about Alonzo right now.

[1:50:27] This is how I feel about him for making us watch this.

[1:50:29] Yeah.

[1:50:30] It was very hard to jerk to.

[1:50:32] That's what I mean by it being a tearjerker.

[1:50:33] I was crying because I was like, I can't masturbate to this.

[1:50:36] Well, I feel like you're not creative enough, my man.

[1:50:39] Maximumfun.org

[1:50:47] Comedy and culture.

[1:50:48] Artist-owned.

[1:50:49] Audience-supported.

Ep. #331 - Six Weeks, with Alonso Duralde

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