[00:00:00] Blank Check with Griffin and David Blank Check with Griffin and David Don't know what to say or to expect Blank Check Women want him for his wit. The CIA wants him for his body. All Nick wants is his podcast back. Okay, so tell us your thought process.
[00:00:32] So we were talking about this with our guest who will probably be introduced 45 minutes from now after he's already said a copious amount of things. Okay, go on. I can say a few things. You could say a lot of things. You could say anything you want.
[00:00:44] I have a lot of thoughts but I want to hear your thought process first. So I was looking through the quotes page and there are not a lot of great options and you said,
[00:00:50] I just want my molecules back which is probably the most distinctive line in this film, right? Yeah, very badly delivered which we'll talk about. We will talk about. One might say.
[00:01:01] My problem was I said, I can't change that line because then it becomes meaningless if you just say, I want my podcast back. That could be any, that sounds like any Harrison Ford thriller. Yeah, right. Mel Gibson, give me back my son.
[00:01:12] Right, there's nothing distinctive there. The tagline offers a little more context. Now here's the thing, none of the lines are easily butchered in the way I like to cram in the word podcast. But this is one of those movies I've often talked about, David.
[00:01:26] How if you read the IMDb quotes page for you me and Dupree, a comedy directed by the most successful directors of the 2010s. The Rousseau brothers, that's true. The men who made Welcome to Colin Wood. Yes. Which made what? That make $2.8 billion? I think so.
[00:01:41] That's the highest gross price. When you read the quotes page for you me and Dupree. You go, oh is this the funniest screenplay ever written? Good. I have been directed by one of the Rousseau brothers. I will not hear people speak ill of them in my presence.
[00:01:54] This is my stance. My stance is I remember seeing you me and Dupree and going, okay. And then I read the quotes page and I go like, did fucking Noel Coward write this? Every quote in that context somehow is funny.
[00:02:05] And then you watch the clips and it's like, Owen Wilson's doing his job. Rousseau brothers directed it okay. But for some reason those things work better out of context.
[00:02:14] You look at some of these quotes for memoirs of invisible man out of context and you go like, does this movie fucking roll? Now you listen to me, you son of a bitch. I've lost everything but my soul. You're not going to take that away from me.
[00:02:28] Is that from a fucking early Michael Mann movie? I know what you're saying. So you're saying it's actually not that it's full of zingers. It's actually just kind of full of like weighty lines that you're sort of impressed by. I've dealt with people like this before.
[00:02:40] No close personal ties, no strong political beliefs, no particular interests. In fact, when you think about it, the man has the perfect profile. He was invisible before he was invisible. I'm not saying these are the best lines ever written,
[00:02:51] but I guess context and you're like, oh, there's like a little bit of salt here. I mean, part of the problem is that the movie was written to be one thing and made to be another thing.
[00:03:00] And so a lot of this dialogue I think would work in more of a thriller context, which the movie is sometimes and sometimes not. It's really all over the map. It's lonely, isn't it? When you're a freak. We will talk about lonely. It just sounds overwrought.
[00:03:15] I guess I just like the idea of this kind of like overwrought fucking like tough men pot. Someone else like that idea. Yeah, perhaps a small reminder of the state of things is in order. I'm the one who kills people war and not you.
[00:03:27] And if you screw up with me, I will cut off your testicles. I will lightly fry them and more see here will have them for lunch. I mean, that's I guess he got what he asked for, right? Which was a tough existential thriller about being invisible.
[00:03:44] About the loneliness of invisibility. Yes. And if you read it on the page, maybe you're like, well, you know what? We're going to have a great time making this great movie that people will like and see. Money for the promise.
[00:03:56] Then there's things like brackets while sucking on her finger. Alice Monroe. There's really only a few places in the Amazon that could still be considered virgin. What? Yeah. But here's one that I think is kind of the most telling. This is the Toboline.
[00:04:12] He said Tobolowski says to Sam Neal, it's not what it is. It's what it isn't. Yeah. And that's kind of the whole movie. It's not what it is. It's what it is not.
[00:04:22] God, I mean, I will say I was expecting to watch this movie and just be like outright flummoxed by it. Sure. I am I am oddly compelled by this film. Like I enjoyed watching it. Part of it is that it is like neither fish nor foul.
[00:04:38] It is a fish with a duck bill and legs and wings that don't function. Right? It's some weird, but like watching it walk is pretty entertaining. It was not like giving me a headache. It was not boring me. I was really interested.
[00:04:54] I would sort of say it was boring. I was expecting to be bored. Right. I cannot argue this movie is good, but it is compelling. It's yes. Well, it has a compelling idea. It has many compelling ideas. It has some compelling ideas and I was compelled by this.
[00:05:13] Is this not what we like talking about here on a little podcast called Blank Check with Griffin and David? I am Griffin. I'm David. So fast. He's getting quick. He's learning.
[00:05:23] But I'm like the guy who like the cowboy who shoots so quickly that he like shoots like a sign or whatever. He's not aiming. He's just like, I just got to shoot it really fast. You become Don Knotts. You're the shakiest gun in the west.
[00:05:35] That's a thought I had recently. By the way, I'll just pitch very quickly on air. What if we did Don Knotts as a Patreon mini series? Did he direct Don Knotts? He directed? No, that's why I'm saying Patreon. Oh, do you like Don Knotts and vehicles?
[00:05:47] Incredible Mr. Limpid. Right. I'm like there are like five Don Knotts movies that almost feel like a franchise. Now I'm taking a look. Go ahead. Shake is Gun in the West. The ghost of Mrs. Chicken. What does his voice sound like? I know he's got a feel.
[00:05:59] Oh, right. The actual lamb. That's what I remember. There's an episode of Matlock where Don Knotts. The love God question mark. Right. What's the one, the astronaut one? The reluctant astronaut. Is that what he called? The reluctant astronaut. Correct. I just like that Don Knotts movies were,
[00:06:18] what if Don Knotts was asked to do a thing and then the posters at him looking terrified? The ghost in Mr. Chicken, that's a haunted house. Of course. What if he had to go in a haunted house? No. Limp it is Don Knotts in the Navy.
[00:06:34] What if he turns into a fish? He's a very Rob Schneider kind of filmographer. Yes. Now Don Knotts is a stapler. Right, right. You know what he's so good in his pleasant fill. He's great in that. He's so menacing.
[00:06:47] I should mention to people, this is a podcast about filmography. Sorry. We're not talking about Don Knotts' filmography today, but maybe later I'm testing the waters and dipping the toe into that ocean and hoping I don't turn into a fish.
[00:06:59] But it's a podcast about directors who are given, who have massive success really on their careers, say directed film like Halloween and then are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion products they want. And sometimes those checks clear like escape from New York. Sure.
[00:07:16] And sometimes they bounce really, really fucking hard like memoirs of Invisibilty. Well, this is his biggest bounce I guess in terms of both economically calamitous and universally disliked. It has been a unique miniseries for us because even everything that had bounced at the time for him has kind
[00:07:34] of aged well. Everything has gone from at least bounce to cult classic and some have gone to universally acknowledged masterpieces. Right. And this is the first movie of his that like has not been reclaimed and for good reason. We're talking about John Carpenter,
[00:07:50] the miniseries is called They Podcast. And today we are finally opening up the memoirs of an invisible man. Are they memoirs? He does like a 45 minute video diary. Like it's not like he sits down and, you know, gets out the quill.
[00:08:06] Well, he was just foreseeing like the rise of YouTube and TikTok. I think he was, it's a forward seeking character. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. That's what Chevy Chase was. He saw the future. He knew what to, what to aim for. Yes. And that insight by the way, of course,
[00:08:20] is kind of the one funny thing about Allergy. He's been a big fan of the podcast. One of our finest cultural critics from Rolling Stone. Alan Sopman is here to say that he's called out the most quintessentially John Carpenter movie of the entire miniseries now.
[00:08:36] Now, Alan, we've talked about this on a, I think I mentioned this in a previous episode, but you've, you asked, if you could ever come on the show. And I said we're doing John Carpenter and we're both huge fans of your work. We're very flat.
[00:08:46] They even wanted to be on our silly show. I was very stupid. And so I was like, yeah, I mean most of them are grabs. Like what are some movies of his you like or would want to talk about it?
[00:08:55] And you give me a list probably. I can't remember the exact list, but probably had like escape from New York. Got it. Maybe you're, you know, I saw it on precinct 13 because I've seen every remake of real brava and
[00:09:06] at Starman on it. Cause I even watched all the episodes of the TV show. That would have been fun. Yeah. What'd have been fun? This is the thing. You should have stopped there. Yeah. You should have stopped. Leave well enough alone.
[00:09:15] You made a mistake. Maybe memoirs of an invisible man. And I was like, you've said the one I know one has asked you were immediately in the spreadsheet because it was just like, well, there are no bites on that
[00:09:26] and their bites on every other film and we're going to make you take the one you never should have offered. Yep. Good job by me. Very good job. But, but hey, I think I think it's a hot episode in a lot of ways
[00:09:35] because this is such a career shifting point for him. Yes. I mean, you have the 70s and the 80s are fucking unstoppable for carpenter. As we said, even the things that were speed bumps for him at the time, he is totally vindicated with through modernized.
[00:09:56] Yes. And then this is the beginning of the magic is sort of gone. His nineties are shaggy and he makes one movie in the 2000s, one movie in the 2010s and we're out. Is that really it's yeah? Yeah. Yeah. Cause that is rough. It's rough. The tail off.
[00:10:13] It's rough. He's made two films the last 20 years. Meanwhile, in the last 20 years, six, five, six of his movies have gotten remade or sequalized or rebooted on that like a guy like Steven Spielberg who's pretty much exactly his age has made like 15 movies or whatever.
[00:10:29] I mean, obviously it's Steven Spielberg. But like, right? You know, there's something conscious there. Mike Ryan, friend of the show just told me he interviewed him, I guess for Halloween. Oh, sure. Yeah. He's like around. He's around. You know, he's very around doing his thing. He fucking pours.
[00:10:44] Yeah, he's playing his video games, plays his video games. So I've made comments and episodes about how he's like, I don't want to make movies anymore. I'm old just paying me for remaking my shit. Let me play video games. And some people have corrected me and said like,
[00:10:56] he really wants to make shit. He had a fucking pitch at Blumhouse that no that couldn't get off the ground. And it feels like him sort of just Godfathering and blessing the Halloween reboot was like the sort of concession prize for him.
[00:11:13] Right. It's obviously a guy who contradicts himself a lot. We're like, we are reading all these interviews from him. And some of them he goes like, I don't give a shit. I don't care. And other ones he's like, I care so fucking much.
[00:11:23] So I believe that both things can be true at the same time. But it is somewhat surprising if, in fact, he still does want to do it, that Jason Blum doesn't just go like, Hey, John, I got an idea. Right. I'll give you 10 million bucks.
[00:11:36] That's apparently there's this pitch that leaked that's floating around for what he tried to set up at Blumhouse like eight years ago. I wonder if it's a I could see I feel like a lot of filmmakers like him who were very scrappy and bootstrappy when they were young
[00:11:50] and had these films that were failures at the time that they fought really hard to make that became cult classics are like, I don't want to have to make a three million dollar movie again. I'm old. If I'm going to do this, I want a proper budget.
[00:12:01] And I could see that maybe that's the case. And Blum is like, I can only get this made if it's under ten, which he doesn't want to do. Or I don't know. I don't fucking know. It feels odd that someone wouldn't take a flyer on him now.
[00:12:15] But I also think that The Ward is maybe a movie that killed a lot of his interest. This is the first movie of his that he kind of disowns. Like there are things like Dark Star and The Fog where he's like,
[00:12:26] I didn't fully execute what I wanted to do there, but it's my thing for better or worse. And this I've heard as a movie he just like doesn't like talking about like he doesn't like acknowledging. Yeah. Oh, no one liked it.
[00:12:37] But I mean, but you can tell it like just, you know, I've not seen every John Carpenter movie. I'm not like a big horror guy, but like the ones that I do know and the ones that you guys have been talking about in the mini series,
[00:12:46] like even when he does a hired gun thing, it still feels to a degree like a John Carpenter movie. Yeah. You've talked about this does not. There's some decent craft in there and some good special effects. But like anybody could have made this. But I recognize the craft.
[00:12:59] I recognize the craft. There's nothing in the worldview of this movie. Not really. There's no personality of his that seeps into it, I would say. And it's this funny thing where it's like it feels like he was
[00:13:11] brought on board because he's at this point well regarded in a way that. The Chevy chase will respond to his hiring, right? Chevy chase like I don't want to make a comedy you ingrate. Stop trying to make me make a comedy. OK, well who's around?
[00:13:26] Maybe John Carpenter and Chevy Chase is like, yeah, like I want that guy. Like so. No, do you think it's that they thought Chevy would respond to him or do you think it's that they thought at this stage of Carpenter's
[00:13:38] career where he'd been kind of in movie jail ever since they live? Yeah, he would be malleable because this has been a project that they were having a great difficulty getting off the ground. I think it's a two prong thing. I think it's that.
[00:13:49] And I think also he was at at this point for whatever failures he had notorious for he gets it fucking done. There's no drama. Bring it in under budget under budget. Most of his films are profitable and even the ones that flopped
[00:14:04] at the time pretty quickly established TV. But home video cult status. The but the right. The fuss is that he will, of course, fight you on. He's got strong opinions. Yeah. And the final edit of the movie or something like that.
[00:14:16] But he's like a consummate professional in terms of getting the movie making your days, delivering it, you know, I think that's part of it. And you know, the guy knows how to handle the effects of the thing,
[00:14:28] designing these sequences, which this movie is going to be sold a lot on those visuals. It is while watching the trailer for this movie that tries its hardest to frame. This is more of a comedy, but also essentially features every single special effect shot in the movie.
[00:14:41] So it just gives it all away because they're like, what else do we have to put on the screen? I love the trailer and I went like, does this movie cost 100 million dollars? Is every scene like this?
[00:14:49] And it's like there are a lot of gags, but the trailer features 98% of them. So Alan, yes, did you see this film in theaters? I did see this film in a theater. Wow. I was a big Chevy Chase family. Yeah.
[00:15:01] Fletch, which I know you've covered on the show, was a very important movie for me as an adolescent. You know, I've re-evaluated a little bit in the years since then, but definitely like just sort of the wise ass Chevy Chase persona really spoke to me.
[00:15:13] So you reevaluated and you're like, actually, this is greater than I remember. Yes. No. Okay. Okay. A part of it is just watching what Chevy has done since then both on screen and off screen. And you sort of, you start to recognize that Chevy, like the thing
[00:15:28] that I loved when I was 13, 14, like is really insufferable, you know, like in a lot of ways. And it's one of the reasons why, like if you read the Tom Shale's SNL oral history, Chevy is the one guy no one can say a nice thing about. Yeah.
[00:15:43] You know, why he got forced out at community, why just sort of he keeps having these big crashes and burns because he's just, he doesn't give a fuck about other people or at least he comes across in that way. Yeah.
[00:15:53] I mean, you will sometimes hear these weird contradictory stories about him, even from the people who hate him and talk shit about him where they'll be like, I will isolate this thing. And there's this thing I always think about. Yeah.
[00:16:05] One of, you know, many hours long interviews or podcast episodes that Harman did where he said too many things about Chevy Chase. Right. And Dan Harman is like talking about how they fucking fought and all the stories about his like absurd behavior and these horrible
[00:16:19] things will casually say to people where you can't tell if it's a joke or if it's actually him attempting to hurt someone, even if it is a joke. Probably. It's not a joke that someone should make. Right. Right.
[00:16:29] And then he's like, there was this day when like one of the the craft services people came up to Chevy and I was just like, fuck, don't do it, man. Don't do it. And was like, hey, my sister's on the phone and she's like your biggest
[00:16:43] fan would you mind like just saying hi to her? And he took the phone out of the guy's hand and walked away for like 20 minutes and talked to this sister and then gave the phone back
[00:16:52] and the guy was like, that was like the best that my sister will never stop talking about that. He was so sweet. He asked her something questions about herself. Yeah. You know, he did all the voices she wanted to hear it said the lines
[00:17:01] or whatever and it's like, where does that come from? Like in isolation. Yes. He's obviously a charming guy. When he wants to be. Yes. Right. But when he picks his moments is odd. And the thing I wrote about and Harman actually like thanked me
[00:17:17] for this a few months later when I initially reviewed community I was sort of comparing because Joel McCall's character is named Winger. Doing kind of a. He's doing a Bill Murray thing and I'm sort of talking about the
[00:17:26] difference between Bill Murray and Chevy Chase is Chevy is a soloist. Chevy is on screen to do Chevy things. Yes. You know, if there's another person on the screen with him, they are a prop at best most of the time with the exception
[00:17:38] of a few movies here and there, whereas Murray is collaborative. He's he's always a leader type, but he will interact with people. And Harman said like I read that and I was OK, this is how I'm going to write that dynamic from now on. That's cool. So yeah.
[00:17:50] It's the community thing is so fascinating because he is good in it. Yes, but then the role is also this obviously evolving commentary on Chase now chase now like, you know, and what a difficult miserable guy he is to interact with both rewatch that show.
[00:18:07] Feel him seething at the performance he's having to get, you know, like it's anyway, go on. We both rewatched that show during lockdown. Yeah. And it is fascinating watching the evolution of it where he is so funny at the beginning of the show playing a very different
[00:18:19] character where it essentially is wouldn't be funny if we had Chevy Chase do that. He does the physical comedy. He's not. And it's also an old guy who still thinks he's Chevy Chase, but he's a little clueless, but he's sort of an innocent to when
[00:18:32] the character becomes like the most malicious. Yes, he becomes like the tube of anti God from Prince of Darkness, essentially like and he's good at both of them. But but there's that weird feedback loop of he's so good when they start writing the commentary about how much they
[00:18:47] hate working with him and that fuels his anger even further. But he remains good at playing. He can do it. Yeah, he's it's it's within him. It's bizarre. The Harman understands them, but he hates that.
[00:18:58] You know, he hates that Harman understands this is sort of the end for him. Like this really is you realize vacation is the only legit comedy he makes after this. Well, here's what he does after this, right? He does Cops and Robertsons, right, which is like a box.
[00:19:12] I feel like it's a movie where everyone's like Jesus fucking Christ. Put him back with Michael Ritchie and no. Right. And this movie at least like people are flummoxed by it, but it's like he's trying to do something different here.
[00:19:23] I don't know what or why, but there's at least an attempt to grow. And Cops and Robertsons, it's like this is just diminished returns. Then he does Man of the House with Jonathan Taylor Thomas, right?
[00:19:32] Which is like, I think sort of seen as like, is that the second rate to the getting even with the classic kids running the show now? What are you guys? JTT guys? Absolutely. No. Yeah. Hidden. Come on. Home improvement. Yeah. I'm aware of home improvement and Simba.
[00:19:49] Of course he was young. Wait, what? Huh? What? Huh? Right? I never saw Man of the House. I watched Man of the House a lot. I used to think Man of the House is like a classic. Have you seen Man of the House?
[00:20:04] I've not seen Man of the House. You probably have seen Cops and Robertsons. I reviewed Cops and Robertsons for the college paper. Wow. And it was very disappointed because again, at the time, I still really loved the idea of Chevy and Richie coming back together.
[00:20:15] This would be great. And it's also sort of like the first movie to cash in on Jack Collins' Oscar comedy. Right? Yep. Like it's less about that building off of his city slicker performance and more about can we build a movie around how funny
[00:20:28] it was when he did fucking. More shows. Yeah. But then after that is Vegas Vacation, which is his sort of like, all right, I'll do what you want of me. And everyone's like, no, we don't even want this. Right. That's his last look.
[00:20:40] I guess I go back to the franchise. Then his next movie, I believe after that is Snow Day, which is like, not his dirty work. Then Snow Day, he's got the part in dirty work, which you know, which is good. But like,
[00:20:51] but that's him essentially like, you know, doing a favor to the guy who he sees as his heir apparent. And then Snow Day, it's like his face is not on the poster. His name's not above the title. Now you're the crank. You're that's it.
[00:21:02] That's all you are now. Like he's in Orange County, like a cameo once right. He's in a piece. What is the vacuums? I don't know. Some of these things are like you hate to be in a project that Wikipedia doesn't have a link to. You know, that's always.
[00:21:19] He plays a kid in a movie called Our Italian Husband. He plays a character named Paul Parmesan. That sounds pretty good. I mean, he's the most actor in Hollywood history is Paul Parmesan. I mean, he was the voice of karate dog, I believe karate dog. Yep.
[00:21:34] His voice of Chocho. I don't know if that is the karate. I think that is the titular karate dog. Yeah. I think that's his given name, his Christian name. He played a train in the American dub of the Magic Roundabout movie was called Doogle. Yes, the American dub.
[00:21:48] Right. He was in and then it's like when he's in hot tub time machine, which is probably a year or two before community year. It's like that's the year when everyone is trying to revive. It's like, oh, right.
[00:22:01] And he settled into his older guy look at the gray hair and there's a little rounder and you know, so like it's little glasses. Whereas yeah, I don't I mean, like this is our first Chevy since Fletch. Right. We've not discussed the Chevy. Yeah.
[00:22:14] Right. No, I feel like it came up in some recent conversation, but I think this is the first. It's the first movie we've talked about. Yeah. Yeah. With him in it. Ben is racking his brain. I think we had it. Yeah.
[00:22:24] I think he's come up because we've like probably done box office games that mentioned like nothing but trouble or talked SNL shit too. I feel like somewhat recently like Patreon apps and stuff. But it is it is fascinating because he was it is easy to forget
[00:22:40] how big of a star he was, I think to a certain degree because a lot of his biggest hits have not particularly like lingered and the ones that did or ones where you can give credit to other people.
[00:22:55] The ones that have lingered the most are probably Caddy shack and vacation. Right. I would say Fletch is actually lingered less. Yes. Yeah. Then it maybe should have but Fletch is good. I think has been revived in the last 10 years. There's a little more Fletch love out there.
[00:23:08] Yeah. Three amigos, I feel like it's kind of forgotten. But that's an example also if you go like three amigos, what do you think about there? You do not think about short. Chase is the third one. Chase is the third.
[00:23:17] But I also think people just, yeah, don't talk about that too much anymore. They don't talk about spies like us. No, you don't talk about the Goldie Hawn movies, which were huge for him. You know, and foul play is kind of an interesting counterpoint to this
[00:23:29] because that's like the last time he was really trying to do something even slightly serious in between the Chevy's. Yeah. But that's like you don't think about those caddy shack. You don't think about his performance. Like their movies where he's like part of the soup, you know? Yeah.
[00:23:44] He's probably the least interesting member of the caddy shack stars. Right. As much as like, you know, at least two of the four vacation movies remain pretty beloved and Christmas vacation like most so I feel like it's just like. Well, that's like the franchise. It's the vibe.
[00:24:01] It's ensemble. It's he's reacting to everything. It's the set pieces, the hijinks. People like him in those movies, but. It feels like the franchise is bigger than he is in a certain weird way. Right? Yeah. Yes. I it's yes.
[00:24:16] I mean, he just will never have the legacy of his contemporary, like Bill Murray, Steve Martin, even a Martin short, maybe. Totally. I mean, we talked about this like part of it is that his reputation as a person is so toxic.
[00:24:30] This is what I remember bringing up recently, but like there's that moment where suddenly NBC says, will Green like community? If you can get Chevy Chase, right? Like that was the thing. They were like, he's on the poster. Want Chevy Chase back on prime time.
[00:24:43] We feel like it's a moment when people would like to see him again. And then hot tub time machines the same fucking year from my memory, or at least it happens right after right before. And I remember being fucking dumb, young, struggling actor, comedian,
[00:25:00] whatever, I go to LA and I do these like general meetings or I do them in New York or whatever. And there was that air of all these development executives being like, we want to bring Chevy back.
[00:25:09] I go to all these meetings where whoever I was meeting with who was like the new junior executive at some new fucking starter production company had a framed picture of Chevy Chase on their wall. And it was like, that's the moment where all the guys
[00:25:21] who were rising to these positions grew up thinking Chevy Chase was the coolest fucking guy in the world. Yeah. It was Chevy and Murray and Murray was getting his credit and Chevy wasn't. And everyone wanted to be the guy who brought Chase back.
[00:25:34] And this is the movie that kills Chase arguably that that but creates that dark period, the moment you're talking about. I mean, Alan, you were such a Chuck fan. Yes. He did several episodes of Chuck at the end of season two.
[00:25:46] And that's sort of like the creative high point of Chuck in my opinion. I would agree. And I remember he played Chuck's dad. No, he plays like the boss who like stole ideas from Chuck's dad. He's kind of a big bad of season two. Right? OK, yeah.
[00:26:01] We saw only three episodes. Only three. But I remember when you saw him when I saw him, I was like, oh, Chevy Chase is kind of putting in an effort here. This is exciting. Like there was a and then community is, you know, whatever the fall after
[00:26:16] that was the moment where it was like he's playing ball. The guy is he's here. We we we. Yeah, we get it. Lightning in a bottle. What if you could get him to give a shit again? Yeah. To your point, though, Alan, I saw some fucking algorithm
[00:26:29] recommending to me Quentin Tarantino talking about Chevy Chase and why he loved Chevy Chase movies in the 80s. And they're for me, why chase movies age less well than Murray movies. But it's the exact dynamic you're talking about, not just the fact
[00:26:43] that Chevy is just like a black hole in those movies who does whatever he wants and sucks everyone else into his orbit. And like as much as Murray has his bugs, Bunny, like wink to the camera. I'm not taking any of this too seriously.
[00:26:56] Shit, he likes the juice of playing off of other people in a way that Chevy does not necessarily. The other thing that Tarantino pointed out, which is true, is that like Chevy Chase movies have no art. Chevy Chase movies. Chevy Chase does not change.
[00:27:12] There is usually some part of a Bill Murray movie where he learns the lesson where he shows that he gives a shit. Yeah, where he's enough of an underdog that him taking it over on on the bigger guys, the scenes of victory.
[00:27:24] Whereas Chevy Chase pretty much always starts high status, remains high status, doesn't give a shit about anything the entire time, acts like an asshole to everyone, gets the girl and wins at the end of the movie. Like there's no moment where he needs to be humble,
[00:27:38] where he needs to gain a conscience. It's an odd thing that he was sort of this guy who just like, I'm a fucking asshole and I'm going to own it. And there's this element of wish fulfillment of like,
[00:27:49] what if I could be the dude who just walked through everything and was constantly making these fucking deadpan jokes that everyone else is expense and just like sleepwalks my way through to another victory. People were into it for a while.
[00:28:02] And yet this, like you said, this movie is sort of the end of that high status for him and like within a year he's doing the Chevy Chase show. Have either of you ever seen the other thing? The other thing, I have seen the notorious first episode.
[00:28:15] That's the only one I've seen but I've watched in its entire. I think I may have watched like a compilation of sort of bits once that he did. You know, like, you know, video like I've never seen any. How did you?
[00:28:25] I have to admit I've never watched an episode. I know what it is so bad. It's so weird. It's so weird because like the set is this like giant cavernous set. Yeah. That he can't fill it all with his personality because he seems kind of uncomfortable. Yeah. Yep.
[00:28:41] And like nothing about it works except some of the cutaway gags that are kind of dark. You're like, OK, I mean, I guess this is a new thing. But it almost plays like the Eric Andre show or something now.
[00:28:54] We're here like what if I talk show is put to my someone with complete contempt and the audience has held positive. No, I mean, that's what it is because like Letterman mostly does not really like or care about his guests, but he likes making the show. Loves making.
[00:29:10] Yes. So he likes engaging even if he does not necessarily care about who you are as a person or what you're there to promote. Right. Chevy just did not want to be there. Like maybe he wanted an excuse to play piano on national television and that's about it.
[00:29:24] But I feel like I've read interviews with him where he's just like, I don't know. They offer me a lot of money. It felt like a bad idea. I hate TV. I think it's stupid. I don't like talk shows.
[00:29:32] Like I didn't want to do it for very long. And it's like, so what's the point? They like renamed the theater after that makes me think so much of it was the failure of this movie. I mean, JJ and Nekka researchers dug up so much shit in
[00:29:45] researching for memoirs of an invisible man. But there's so many interviews from before, during and after this movie that are just about like he really felt like I have rung this dry. The Chevy Chase persona is done. I'm tired of these movies. I'm not putting effort into them.
[00:30:01] I don't like this persona anymore. I have contempt for the audience still wanting to see me do this shit. I need to figure out how to evolve. Yes. And this was a very, very awkward attempt of him trying to figure out how to evolve into a new era.
[00:30:13] And when this didn't work, I think he just became so contemptuous of everyone and everything. Like as much as you hear bad stories about Chevy from the 70s and 80s, the 90s are where things really kick into gear. And I think this failing, he's just like, fuck it.
[00:30:28] I don't know. Fuck you. I'm going to shovel shit into your mouth. Yeah. And but it's and also it's just once you're not a hitmaker, no one's going to put up with that. Right. So you'll hear more about it as well. Yeah. Yeah. OK, now here's the question.
[00:30:46] Do you think that his problem with this persona, the evolution is that he always had to be cool? I think that's the thing. I think I'm thinking about it because I think if he was like a loser or a bumbling idiot or just played into, he's always like
[00:31:03] the coolest fucking guy. But I think he likes that. No, I know. But I'm saying if he had what he could have evolved into, like how he could have maybe changed actually and like had a whole
[00:31:15] other era in his career, is I feel like pivoting in a way like that. I agree. I mean, Harman always talked about how he would like pull him aside and be like, you're writing for me wrong.
[00:31:26] Audiences like it when I'm the cool guy who's above it all and is unflappable. Yeah. And he would be saying that like season three, you know? And he would just be like, dude, and he's like, I'm like the cool,
[00:31:36] young handsome guy, like you should be giving me the things wouldn't say young. But you know, you should be writing for me the same stuff you're writing for Mikhail. You're getting my persona wrong and just like lack that self-awareness,
[00:31:49] even a point where physically he was not seen that way, aside from his reputation not being that I also think it is telling that like someone like Bill Murray, who Wes Anderson is able to finally cultivate the like what's what's the more serious darker side to this persona?
[00:32:03] Right. And brings it to the forefront and it fucking works and he has his run there, you know, arguably culminating or at least peaking with loss and translation. Everyone's like, fuck, you took everything that was interesting
[00:32:14] about this guy and he figured out a way to not like dampen his charisma, but give a dramatic performance that still retained everything we like about him as a movie star. I feel like this movie is trying to do that.
[00:32:25] But as much as he wants to make a movie about the loneliness of being invisible, and there was clearly such an anger and contempt to Chevy Chase where you see like he does seem like someone who should be able to do like an Albert Brooks and drive.
[00:32:39] Yeah, but this is my shirt. He will not give up. I agree with Ben the idea of being the guy who's above it all. I don't disagree with him. You need to lean into how sad and lonely and angry this guy is.
[00:32:51] And he still wants to have his little like the bon-mose to camera where he's like, well, I don't know. This is my larger. Hey, he's not as good an actor as anyone we're mentioning. Absolutely. He's not as talented a comedian as anyone we're mentioning.
[00:33:04] What he was was handsome, fit a certain profile. He is handsome. So charming. So charming and obviously had this sort of gift of the physical comedy. And I think he's sort of verbally dexterous in a way that like it's
[00:33:17] fun to hear a lot of people have been able to do. It's a good point. And that's why Fletch is so good because it's a lot of that. No, I still I'd love Fletch. But it's sort of like it's right now you watch it and you're
[00:33:24] like, God, this guy is such an asshole. Absolutely. But he's a funny asshole. He just doesn't have him in him, in my opinion, to do like whatever this sort of like performance that surprises you. And he knows it is my other tip.
[00:33:38] Like there's a half of him that doesn't know it, right? Where he's like, no, but then there's the thing with Pierce in community, the half of him knows like, yeah, this is who I am. And that's why he's so mad and like, you know, it sort of
[00:33:51] powers it. That's why it's like the good dramatic performance he could give would be very villainous. Right. It would be very dark. I would assume I tarred to imagine him playing like a kindly grandpa. Right. But I don't think he will let himself do that to a certain
[00:34:07] point. Because and again, and also even though there's that brief moment you're talking about, like now there's no one being like, is there a Chevy Chase angle we haven't found? Could we revive him again? Like no one thinks that anymore. I saw some 60 minutes interview with him.
[00:34:21] Maybe on the sand wants to reboot. Single-handedly. Man is going to sign Chevy Chase to a five-picture deal. Ham is doing. Ham is doing Fletch. Ham is doing Fletch. And Ham makes sense in so many ways for that role. More than a Zach Braff or even a sudsy.
[00:34:38] You took it might make more sense. Have you guys read the books? I have now after I love the movie so much, I went and read all of the books. No, I think Fletch. Yeah, they're they're very not all of them are good.
[00:34:49] Some of them are actually really terrible, but there's like four or five that are fantastic that I've read a bunch of times. They're basically all dialogue. It's sort of like, you know, you know, the Friends of Eddie coil, you know, it's sort of like banter.
[00:35:01] And Fletch in those is a devastatingly handsome guy, very confident, sort of. So like you can sort of see certain ways in which he's Chevy, but he is still invested in a way that Chevy as Fletch in those two movies is not part of his days.
[00:35:17] Who gives a shit? Right. Yeah, like, Ham's good for that. He's a great reader of dialogue. Yeah. He's handsome. Yeah. I'm funny. My whole thing with him is I feel like people are rude to him now because he's never hit gold in a movie. Yes.
[00:35:30] So I think people are a little down on him and I'm just, I want him to surprise people. Like I kind of want the hammers. It's so weird where I feel like every other year Ham will do a movie and people will be like, he's really goodness.
[00:35:43] I think this is the one that finally gets him out of the Don Draper box and then it doesn't work. And even some of them are hits like The fucking Town or Baby Driver or people are like, he's goodness and he's playing a very different part. Yeah.
[00:35:55] And then the movie is a hit and then maybe other people pop from it and then it goes back to, oh, he's like funny when you cast him in a cameo and a comedy show. And otherwise I'm always going to view him as Don Draper. Yeah.
[00:36:05] But the weird thing is like, why has no one built a whole comedy around him before because he always comes in and he's like the MVP on these other things, bridesmaids or whatever. Yeah. It was fucking keeping up with the Joneses,
[00:36:18] which is a bizarre train wreck directed by Greg Matola, who now also is directing Fletch movie. Right. Matola is doing the Fletch. I believe yeah. So maybe that's maybe, I mean, Fletch is what you're asking for. They probably shouldn't call it confess Fletch.
[00:36:31] I know that's the name of a book. They should call it Confession. Yes. And also that book is interesting because it's sort of a double act where without spoiling too much, like a lot of the plot is resolved by the other character and not Fletch.
[00:36:44] So I wonder what they're going to do with that in this movie. Interesting. I. Is that the female lead? No, no, it's there's a Boston police detective named Flynn who then gets a spin off series of books. No, it's just playing Flynn.
[00:36:56] Well, the other male actors in this movie who could play a Flynn are Colin McLaughlin and John Slattery. Be funny to have John Slattery in a double act. I don't know. Yeah. Yep. Don't really know. Marsha Gay Hardin and Roy Wood Jr. Also on board.
[00:37:12] Anyway, look, yeah, I don't know. Anyway, yes. If I went into a lab and was like, let me crack the Chevy Chase code and create a modern movie star, I would like throw my hands up in frustration after with what I got.
[00:37:25] I'd be like, this isn't a movie star. Like he's a movie star because he hits at the right moment. Yes. It's not like Chevy Chase is like a thing that Holly would endlessly repeat. No. And it is. I mean, we feel like we talked about to a certain
[00:37:38] degree. He's like the comedic mirror of Michael Douglas, right? Where you're like, why did this guy become such a big movie star? Obviously, I love Michael Douglas. He's a great actor. Right. But there's more malleable than. Yes. But there was a 20 year run there where his
[00:37:53] stocking trade is just what an absolute piece of shit. How are we rooting for this guy? Like, what's going on? This guy fucking sucked and it doesn't matter if he's in a comedy, if he's in a thriller, if he's in a drama, it's like this guy should be
[00:38:03] fucking murdered. And somehow you're still rooting for him scene after scene. What do you want to do? And I feel they also both are just like they do cocaine. Right. Right. They're just out of their fucking mind. Like it might be these guys, their
[00:38:18] careers followed the arc of cocaine in American culture so cleanly. Except like it's not like cocaine disappears. But you know what I'm saying? Chevy Chase playing Liberace. No, right. You know, Michael Douglas actually did find his way out of the bottom. He's got more cast.
[00:38:36] Chevy doesn't do characters. I mean, he like you look at what he did as Gerald Ford on SNL versus any other SNL president. Yes. He's not doing anything. It is just there. It is wild. It is wild for people who do not know what we're talking about.
[00:38:49] Talked about how like season one of SNL, you throw it on your like I can't wait to be electrified by the show that had people like fucking in the streets. And then you're kind of like this is just 12 minutes long. Yeah. His take on Gerald Ford is nothing.
[00:39:04] Look, the hit the hit to failure ratio on first season SNL is pretty much exactly the same as it is today, except when it's good, it's really electrifying. Yeah. But it's still only good 15 to 20 percent of any episode. And as for he's he's not like wearing a
[00:39:18] wig, makeup, not doing a voice. No, nothing. No, it's just this is a guy who's a clutz. That was that was Chevy Chase in a suit. Yeah. I don't know. Come on. He falls down. It's good. But no, it's really funny. It's just funny.
[00:39:30] It sort of speaks to this idea I'm talking about where Chevy is above it all. Yes. He's not going to wear a wig. He's not going to try to resemble Ford in any way. He's going to do this slapstick that he's brilliant at. Right.
[00:39:41] But like that's all in. But he's going to be doing it as Chevy Chase because that's all he is in all of these movies. It is incredible that I just always go. It can't be true that he only did one season.
[00:39:54] Like, but it's just wild how huge his cultural impact was on SNL considering he did one fucking year and then was already so huge that like a I think they thought this show was big because of Chevy Chase. Who knows if it can sustain itself without him.
[00:40:10] Bill Murray basically apologizing for not being Chevy Chase. Right. Yeah. And as much as Gilda and Belushi and Ackroyd were popping whatever they were like, but it's the Chevy Chase show. Right. Yeah. I think largely because he was the guy hosting update. He's doing the president cold opens,
[00:40:25] but he's doing them as himself. And he's the tall handsome guy. Right. You know, which the wilder thing is they hired him as a writer and he had to like fight to be on camera. Yeah. He was like literally doing prat falls
[00:40:35] in the street to convince them to put him on camera. Right. And like he was the guy, I believe reading off camera with everyone during the auditions, bringing people in, recommending people to Lauren. And he was like, why don't you fucking hire me to do the thing?
[00:40:49] And then he leaves and to go be a movie star and he becomes a movie star immediately. Like there's so many stories in the 70s of and the 80s through the 90s of someone's a hit on a fucking sitcom and they leave prematurely
[00:41:02] to go do movies and it it fucks them over or they have a couple hits and then the career is dead. And he just leaves and automatically works and everyone loves him. Yeah. And yeah, works her about in 15 years. 15 years. It works in 1990s, actually. Yeah. Foul weight.
[00:41:20] OK, so he leaves in 76. Foul play doesn't come out until 78 though. I'd forgotten this. Is that the first one? That's I mean, he was in something called Tunnel Vision. OK. Playing Chevy Chase. So I'm guessing it's a sketch movie or something. Yeah. But basically the first movie that
[00:41:35] is released after he leaves SNL is foul play, which was huge. Like my parents took me to see that right in the theater and I was like a zygote back then. And it sets up the oh my god. Look, now he's got chemistry with another movie star.
[00:41:46] We put them together. He's the new Carrie Grant. Right. That was the whole thing. They were like, which is still there in this movie that we're talking about today. Oh, right. This movie. The movie. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I apologize. No, the movie we're talking about today.
[00:42:01] I brought a lot of memoirs. His memoirs have been invisible, man. Yeah. And the reason we're talking so much Chevy and not much carpenter is this was a ultimate passion project for Chevy Chase. Yeah. And it's the knife he put in his own back, basically.
[00:42:15] And the everything like the research found about it. It's basically like at every turn the studio is like, we know how to make this a movie that will probably succeed. Yes. He's like, no. Yeah. Not only I not allow it fire the people involved and you
[00:42:31] must pick me. Chevy Chase. Did you guys? OK. Did you guys dig out the Bill Goldman stuff? So there's obviously our researchers. I but Alan has brought which line did I tell, which I believe is the second of Bill Goldman's. Yes. Memoirs. After Avengers and the Screen Trade.
[00:42:47] I was obsessed with those books when I was a teen. My dad bought them for me. And it's funny to think about now that I'm like reading about him being like, you know, Saul Sinet such a jerk or you know, like whatever. I'm like, who are these people?
[00:43:00] But I was just intrigued. And I remember the memoirs chapter mostly as a chronicle of an actor's ego, right? Like that's how he kind of puts it. And a good case study and just like, do you want to like get a sense of how big studio
[00:43:10] movies are actually made? Like all the weird back and forth and how you end up with a thing that seems to please nobody. When so much thought and hand wringing has happened over this one fucking thing. I mean, I guess we should start because the development is odd,
[00:43:25] but you get. I'll give you a little. Yeah, I'll give you a little. Yeah. It's a novel by Harry St. But even going back to he had one published story in Esquire like 20 years earlier. He had written a short story in Esquire in 1960s.
[00:43:41] And he, yes, he had not written anything else. Period. Because he wanted to like get a publishing contract because he's like, I'm not writing something if I'm not going to make any money or whatever. And he like has a successful career totally outside of
[00:43:55] writing because he refuses to be like a poor struggling writer in the back of his mind. He's like someday I'm going to come back to writing and figure out how to be successful at it. In 86, a version of the novel that's not even done
[00:44:08] gets in Chevy Chase's hands. But by his design, he goes like, I want to figure out how to write something that everyone will want to buy. So he comes up with this concept where he goes like modern prism, invisible man deal with the practical realities of it
[00:44:19] really focused detail oriented. He gets an agent. They sell the book. The advance on the book is like $5,000. But immediately they sell the book on tape rights and the movie rights for like a combined two million dollars. It was basic. Yes, exactly. And Chase set
[00:44:39] this whole deal up at William Mars and then left them for CAA. Right. Reading an unfinished book. Michael Ovid describes him. Yeah, he goes, fuck, this is the thing I've been looking for. Get CAA. What's my call? Sorry. A first agency is William.
[00:44:53] Gets them to buy it for him and then goes Sion Arce later goes over to CAA. And as I'm sure you, Alan, have read in the book, this is also when Goldman is going to CAA and Ovid says, like we can rebuild you. We have the technology.
[00:45:06] Like I know you're a pariah right now, but come on, like you're William Goldman, you've won two Oscars. Like how are you not? How are you on this like run of flops? And he was on this one. He's a famous screenwriter for anyone who knows. But also more
[00:45:18] than anything. And there was a good quote that JJ pulled up about it. But like the thing that was really hurting him was that he had spent the better part of a decade tilting at windmills with projects that didn't get made. And he's like, you can recover
[00:45:30] from a flop or a failure. The thing that that scares them the most is if they're like, is this movie not going to get done if we hire this guy? Alan, what is your takeaway from Goldman's memoir? So, you know, he's
[00:45:44] C.A. promises to get him out of movie jail. They said Ivan Reitman, he's coming off of Ghostbusters. It's a whole package. Yes. Chevy Chase and he lists like Chevy Chase is the number five box office star in the world after like Eddie Murphy, Michael J. Fox, Stallone.
[00:45:57] And I forget who the other one is. Yeah. So it's like this is obviously going to be a go picture. It's a special effect heavy comedy with the guy who made Ghostbusters. Reitman's whole thing was he went into the studio and he was
[00:46:09] like, I can make this into the next Ghostbusters. This is the first thing I've read that has Ghostbusters potential since Ghostbusters. Cannot miss. Goldman sits down with Chevy. First of all, it's very impressed that Chevy is tall because that's a hang up of Goldman's.
[00:46:22] It's also a hang up of mine. Like I think when you're above a certain height, you like gravitate towards, you know, similarly tall people. I shot's fired. Yes. One of my only person under six feet tall in this room. My wife is five foot three,
[00:46:34] so I'm also a hypocrite. Hey, no. All right. So he meets with Chevy. He finds Chevy charming because Chevy is capable of doing that on occasion. But Chevy says he wants an investigation of the loneliness of invisibility. Right. And Bill Goldman panics, runs to CAA
[00:46:51] and says, this is going to be a train wreck. Get me out of this. This will not work. They keep telling him, no, no, we're CAA. We package. Right. We can do this. Right. That's the whole thing where they're like, stop fussing. This is a go picture.
[00:47:05] And he's like, well, I see a lot of creative problems here. And they're like, these is your you're speaking Greek. Right. That's how it works. Budget set director actor will figure it out. Like it's fine. Like it's the sort of like 80s
[00:47:17] thing. Like if we can get a deal done, everything will work out later. Right. You know. And so what's described in his book, I think is just this constant thing of like right when we'll be like, write me a funny movie about a guy who turns
[00:47:33] into an invisible man. Think of him as like a Chevy Chase type. And then Chase will come in and be like, what are all these gags? What I'm like looking up ladies skirts. Get out of here. I don't want to play Chevy Chase.
[00:47:43] Can I read this quote directly? Oh boy. Goldman said, as it was said to him by Ovid's right in this meeting or iPhone called whatever he says, Bill, you've been away a while now. Things are a little bit different. Ivan is represented by us.
[00:47:59] Chevy is represented by us. It is what we at CAA specialize in. It is called a package and there will be no train wreck. Just write the script. It will all sort itself out. I know this is what you just paraphrase, but there's something
[00:48:13] of the wording of that. Of this like the age confidence of it. You don't understand. This isn't how it works anymore. Famous screenwriter. We got your two Oscars in the Paleolithic age. Disasters don't happen. Yes, of course on paper, all of this sounds horrible.
[00:48:29] But what will happen is the movie will be successful. Yeah. And Ivan keeps saying them over and over, let me handle Chevy. I know how to handle Chevy. I dealt with these people. Rightman is best at it. It's truly like rightman style. Like an ego manager.
[00:48:43] He is the best ego manager in Hollywood. And so that's the thing. And this is the Goldman line that I like. He's like, I have no problem investigating the loneliness of invisibility. I just don't want to do it with Chevy. Yeah, perfect.
[00:48:56] It just and like, but I will say, yes, there's something interesting to like write what if you were a king of the universe type and then no one could see you, the narcissism being reversed on you. I don't think that's a compelling move.
[00:49:09] It might be a compelling story. It's tough to be make a hit movie about loneliness, you know, and like no one can see me. You like it because you like the absurdity of the pitch. I know I don't know if you can make a hit movie out of
[00:49:24] that. I do think you could make a movie that I would find compelling. But yeah, God, I mean some of these these chase quotes here. I mean, the well, there's so many chase quotes, but we do have to know Goldman eventually fucks off and says
[00:49:40] no, no, no, right. Men gets fired first, which is right. Men eventually is so like and right in his manage Bill Murray four times at this point, who is like maybe the second most difficult guy in comedy and he goes to Warner Brothers and is like,
[00:49:54] I'm done either it's me or it's Chevy and make your choice. And hasn't he just made like wins Ghostbusters 2 and Robocop? It's like it's not like those movies are Robocop kindergarten. I mean, I wish this may have been earlier than that because I think the way he's talking
[00:50:07] about it still like 86 or so. So maybe circle legal legal maybe he leaves and goes and makes twins and is like, yeah, there you go. Fuck you. You know, like he has made Ghostbusters. He has made a single handedly made Bill Murray a movie star.
[00:50:21] I think my point was going to be like if he had just made twins, maybe the studio is like we can't fire Ivan right. And the man makes, you know, shit into gold. Like, you know, it's like he's just such a yes. Whereas maybe at this point
[00:50:33] they're still like now we have to side with Chevy. I guess it's still weird though. It is still fucking weird. They fire one but also Chevy has the rights to the material. Right. That is true. So you can't like kick him off the picture. He also right.
[00:50:46] I mean that because of the thing he got Warner Brothers to buy it for him, which is why CIA was able to package it after he left William Morris who had him at the time the purchase was made. Like he had so much sway
[00:50:57] that he went to Warner Brothers and was like I think I would like to do this novel that is not even finished. And they were like a lot of money for absolutely salivating at the idea. When rightman leaves the project Goldman leaves pretty soon
[00:51:11] after and then does not get paid for it as a result of the studio being addictive about it. Right. And but he has the great kiss offline. I'm sorry, but I'm too old and too rich to put up with this shit, which is
[00:51:24] a powerful thing to say in Hollywood. That's the line when they try to bring him back. Oh, yeah, they right. They when carpenters taken over or is it the Richard Donner version? I think it might be Donner at that point, but right there.
[00:51:34] Like, come on, punch up the script. It can be like this and he was just like, no, I'm not getting on that treadmill again. I mean, the Chevy thing is like, you know, he goes into Warner Brothers and they're like we obviously see
[00:51:46] big money in this and he's like, cool. Of course, it's a drama. We agree it's a drama. Right. And whatever this is like, no. And he keeps on thinking he's going to win them over. He speaks about it as if it was such an obvious thing and he
[00:51:59] did not understand their opposition. And he said they they said to him, you can make this book as long as it's hilarious. And his response, you know, let's see a comedy with Chevy Chase and visible. He'd say read the book and you'll see it's not about that.
[00:52:15] So they read the book and they said, well, there's a lot of funny parts in it. It's 450 pages. You take 150 of those pages. Funny. And my response was I want to maintain the integrity of the book. I wanted to have substance and death where there's comedy.
[00:52:30] I'll have it in there. They just sort of looked at me. And finally, I said, look, fellas, I swear to you, you've known me a long time. Please give me this break. I see that it's funny where I'll see that it's funny where
[00:52:39] it needs to be funny, but I'm not going to distort it. I want to tell the story that's there. He's talking in this way that people talk about great projects that were sort of wrestled away from them by an evil studio. Right. Like he's using the same
[00:52:52] sort of language, but it's like, I don't know that I was consigned with it. Or projects where the person has totally vindicated the thing turns out to be a masterpiece. Or exactly. Or everyone knows like, well, they have a cut and I've seen it.
[00:53:06] Right. And their cut is good. Like there's nothing like that with this. No. No. Please not to go off in a digression when we're an hour into this and have not talked about the plot of the movie at all yet. And there's a lot of. OK.
[00:53:17] Have either of you seen the movie True Identity with Lenny Henry? No. No. Early nineties, it's sort of it's remember the Eddie Murphy like White Like Me short film from SNL. One of the best SNL. It's that as a movie. I'm not sure if it was
[00:53:30] technically based on that short film or not, but Lenny Henry, who is a big deal in British comedy at the time, comes over. Still a hugely. He's kind of a mocked figure in Britain as a comedian, but he's a huge figure. Yes. Huge figure. Charles Lane is directing
[00:53:43] this movie and the idea is Lenny Henry is running from the mob and to avoid the mob, he disguises himself as a white man. OK. And apparently it was originally Andy Breckman wrote it and it was supposed to be a big broad comedy with a lot
[00:53:55] of the jokes like the thing in the Eddie Murphy short film. And Lenny Henry and Charles Lane start making it and they realize right away, like we don't find this funny. This is just kind of sad. The idea of him being able to like enjoy white privilege.
[00:54:08] So there's literally one scene early on reason the white makeup where like he sees a black guy trying to hail a cab and the cab will not stop. So he then hails a cab, stops it, points to the guy says, Hey man, you get into
[00:54:20] that. That is it. The rest of the movie, there is none of like him enjoying being white at all. And it's very clear, like why did you make this movie where you're putting Lenny Henry in white face? Right. If you're like you this is not
[00:54:35] a premise that really works as sort of a dramatic thriller thing is just so absurd on its face. This isn't quite that. But like when you're making a movie with Chevy Chase as an invisible person, why are you trying to do it as like this poor man's hitchcock
[00:54:50] with the tragedy of invisibility? But I mean, you look at the reviews of the time and everyone's like this movie totally makes no sense. If it's supposed to be a comedy, why did John Carpenter direct it? Sure. It's supposed to be a thriller. Then why is Chevy Chase
[00:55:04] starring in it? People cannot get over this fundamental divide. What I find fascinating about it is that like that tonal imbalance was forced upon the movie by Chevy Chase, who was adamant it's going to be this thing. I'm going to be able to make this working out.
[00:55:18] People are going to see me in a new light finally. Like he just like hated his audience at this point. He did the movies he was in. Hated the fact that they were successful. Like he hated the fact that he could sleepwalk through these
[00:55:30] things and people like that. And now he hates that he's not successful. He's a hateful man, probably. He's a hateful man. And that that that that center, that nucleus of hate is what you put in theory where he more malleable build an interesting dramatic persona around, right?
[00:55:45] But what I find fascinating is there are so many scenes in this movie that he overplays for how much of the movie he is muted and sad and angry and kind of lacking in energy. Right. There are scenes where he goes way too big and is delivering
[00:55:59] his lines like fucking Caddy Shake Shaq style. And you might listen to the episode before now and just be like, is this movie totally bleak? And it's like, no, it's not. It's still a like there are there's been a business with like the chopsticks. Yes, that's like classic
[00:56:14] heavy slapstick physical comedy. They're line deliveries that are so jarring and they don't feel like well, the studio forced him because the story sounds like he fucking was so stubborn that they let him make it his way. It feels like he is still insecure enough
[00:56:29] that he cannot let go of the security blanket of doing the Chevy Chase moves as much as he thinks he's putting them into a darker, more adult package. Yeah. Yes. The fucking Tom Fullery of this movie is absurd. Yeah. I like my molecules back
[00:56:45] is like that's a Clark Griswold read. Yes. That's how Clark Griswold would say that line. That is not how the character in this movie would be saying it as upset as he is about it. The character in this movie who we all know is called Nick Holloway, Holloway.
[00:56:58] Holloway. But it's just that fundamental difference of like when Wes Anderson puts Bill Murray in Rushmore, Bill Murray is very funny, but he never feels like he's in stripes. Right? Yes. He's able to be funny in a very different way. And there's obviously some,
[00:57:15] you know, sort of like dark comedy to be had from this premise. But when he goes for a laugh in this, he goes for a laugh in full European vacation mode, both in terms of pitch and success. Right? He's not a talented enough actor.
[00:57:30] This is what I keep going back to it's like the man wants to be something he isn't. But when I watch him on screen, I'm like, you're just basically doing Chevy Chase or you're just sort of not doing anything. Like there's no pay-foss to him.
[00:57:44] I think there's one. There's the one scene where he's been hiding out in Sam Neal's office all day. Sure. And then Sam Neal confronts him and like he's like, I know you're in there and they talk. Right. Sam Neal talks to him nothing for a minute. Yes.
[00:57:57] And finally, he eventually gets frustrated. He puts Sam Neal on a choke hold. He's like, I don't sleep much. I see through my eyelids. And for like 15 seconds. Yes. Yeah. Wait a minute. This is the movie they wanted to make. Yeah. That's the biggest one.
[00:58:10] There are a couple moments for me. I don't even know if I can name the other ones, but there are individual line readings. There are looks he will give for a moment where I go, fuck. They almost had it there. Yeah. If he could have sustained this
[00:58:22] for the entire movie, at least it would have a consistent viewpoint. Yes. But I just don't even know what this character is beyond a sort of generic yuppie. Well, I think the idea is like here's a problem. I think if this movie is ever
[00:58:39] going to work, Chevy Chase needs to be full on unstoppable Chevy Chase for the first 20 minutes before he turns invisible. That's right. Do a Jim Carrey thing. Yeah. Where, right, we get a good chunk of him. Right. Antic. You know, like, you know, like wild. Right.
[00:58:54] He gives powers. Yes. So that there's a sense of loss and the loneliness of the movie comes from this guy no longer has his bag of tricks. No, he can't perform for anyone. He doesn't have the looks. He doesn't have the speed. Look, here's the thing. Yeah.
[00:59:09] It has nothing to do with Chevy Chase. I just have to say it before I forget it. There's a character in this movie called Richard. He's played by a guy called Gregory Paul. Oh my God, I want to talk so much about Richard.
[00:59:20] Who is I believe the son of George Martin, the Beatles producer? Oh, wow. This is this is a this explains a lot, actually. OK, this is Matt Berry we're talking about the longer hair. Yes. Who has a voice that sounds like it's being run through a machine.
[00:59:33] He sounds like Matt Berry or it's being dubbed. Right. Where is that just a guy who talks that way? It has to be. Here's the reason I bring this up apart from the fact that anytime he's on screen, you're like, is this guy what is going on?
[00:59:47] Anytime he was on screen, I forgot Chevy Chase existed. Absolutely because I was just immediately distracted by something more interesting. So compelling. There was no pathos to Chevy Chase. No. Unfortunately, also none to Daryl Hanna, who I guess we'll get into at some point.
[01:00:00] Not much of a character there either. No. And so when a weird supporting character came on screen, I would just kind of be like, well, who's this guy? Like Jim Norton, that Irish actor when he shows up and he's Bishop Brennan on Father Ted, like he's an actor.
[01:00:13] Kind of I'd be like, what's up with this guy? And then we back to Chevy Chase and I'll be like, oh, right, the a sensible hero of this movie. The Samuel scenes have a similar energy. Yes. And and Carpenter obviously must have liked
[01:00:27] because he puts him in his next movie. He was like, that was my only friend on this production. We were in the box. Hold it. Samuel seems like a right. Like a guy who does his job. And but like tonally, it even comes into like the climax
[01:00:41] of the movie because they've been doing this whole quantum leap thing throughout, which we can talk about where it's like a lot of the time you're just seeing Chevy Chase on screen, even though he's supposed to be invisible. Right. Even because you don't make a whole movie
[01:00:52] where you can't see your leading man. Right. All right. So there Chevy and Sam Neill, they're on the construction site. Appreciate you calling that a quantum leap thing. That's a good point. It's not a good way to put it.
[01:01:03] I just think there are other movies that you set to FICE and it's almost a really good representation of a person's worldview to see which one they pick. No, but hot chick. You're like you're seeing them as other people see them. Quantum leap. You've seen Scott Baccala.
[01:01:15] It's more having can wait. Having can wait of course. Yes, having can wait. Yeah, right. OK, I'm trying to think about it. Anyway, OK. So they're on the construction site. Sam Neill has decided like I'm not going to be able to recruit this guy.
[01:01:25] I'm just going to kill him. Yeah. Chevy has gotten construction dust all over half of his jacket. So his jacket is visible. You see the jacket before you see Chevy and it looks like Chevy is standing on the edge of the construction site.
[01:01:38] And he's talking about I'm done. I can't live like this anymore. I'm going to kill myself. Yeah. And Sam Neill starts talking to him when you cut back, you see Chevy Chase and he is holding the jacket and he is pretending to cry and it is all bullshit
[01:01:52] and it undercuts every last bit of tension and he throws out of the scene and it is just being played for yucks. It is bizarre. And then of course he's using that to commit murder. Right. And then the murder is like we I mean him tossing
[01:02:07] Sam Neill off the is weirdly sort of underplayed as well. And he's like take that. Yeah, Ola you son of a bitch or something. Yes. So once again it's that that all feels like he just can't not go to his old bag of trash.
[01:02:19] Because it's all these fucking. It's all he's got a fucking guy. He doesn't have death. But is that a Chevy choice or is that a Carpenter choice? That feels like a Chevy choice to me because I feel like at this point
[01:02:27] everyone is fucking like in for a penny in for a pound on what Chevy thinks he's going to be able to pull off on this movie. And Carpenter talked extensively about like I just lost control of that fucking thing. I couldn't get my voice through.
[01:02:38] I mean we should back up a little recent of this around Carpenter a little bit. But he has this for movie deal with alive pictures. He does. Coming off of big trouble and little China, which is now his new biggest bounce. Right. So he goes right.
[01:02:51] He then he's made two alive pictures Prince of Darkness and They Live both for low budgets. But deal as we talked about is you can make whatever you want wheel green light it with no notes and full creative control off of a one sentence pitch.
[01:03:02] But your budget is three million dollars. It's fixed. And but he's in a fight with them at this moment. He wanted a little more money and they were like, well then we want a little more control. So it's kind of one of those things that doesn't get resolved.
[01:03:18] He has lots of things he thinks about. He does three for four years, which is a long time for him. Not for pretty much makes a movie every year. I believe since we've started this mini series there have been two two year gaps and that is it.
[01:03:34] Yeah, pretty exactly. Exactly. So he pretty much makes a movie every single year. He circles a sci-fi adventure movie called Pincushion starring Cher, which sounds cool because he says it would have been a real cool picture. Someone should do it. Yeah.
[01:03:47] He circles exercises three and then he said, realize William Peter Blatty wanted to make right. Like he was like, you know what? This is your movie. Yeah. He tries to remake Creature from the Black Lagoon. That one sounds pretty cool. Pretty fucking cool.
[01:04:00] He's all in on doing like a 3D movie. They're working on the design of the creature, right? You know, doesn't happen. He's attached to both fatal attraction and Top Gun. Mike, I don't have to read his quote for this. Yeah. Fatal attraction. I've no idea.
[01:04:16] They wanted Adrian Lyne of no idea why. I guess because he'd done another hit for them. I didn't like them. Fatal attraction was just plain misty for me. I didn't want to do that. And Top Gun, come on. They fight the Russians in the third act.
[01:04:28] Come on now. There'll be World War Three. Stop that. Yeah. Come on. That's his quote. He's now wrong. But I just feel like every other movie we've covered on this show, we're setting up like here are the things he almost made before he made this movie.
[01:04:41] And you're like, wow, he went through a lot of failed projects and somehow still got another movie out 12 months later. And this is the one time where you're like, he's just stuck in development hell for four years, jumping from thing to thing.
[01:04:52] There are his own things he wants to make. There are things he attaches himself onto because he wants to work with a certain star. There are things that studios court him for that become big hits later. But nothing's getting off the ground.
[01:05:04] And Chase is the one who pushes him through the studio. The studio doesn't want him for this because they think he'll make a horror movie. Carpenter, I mean, his line. I got into this business because I wanted to direct Westerns. I can do any type of movie.
[01:05:18] So don't give me your shit. Apparently, so that a boardroom meeting. The other part of that quote is that the first part of the quote is long, but it's him pretending. They were like, don't you can't do any of that bloody carpenter stuff.
[01:05:29] And he's like, oh, shoot, because my plan was to have the invisible man stab a person in the gut, take his rap, his own invisible body. Yeah. I mean, he's ornery. He comes off ornery in these. So weird match for Chase, in my opinion. Another ordinary guy.
[01:05:46] Can I tell you my my pet theory about why he did this? You can. But I just want to say one other thing. It's like two ornery things. And then the third ornery thing you hear is because of the visual effects.
[01:05:56] This movie was a nightmare to make a nightmare. Body suits and you have to bring in the Vistavision camera to shoot the visual effects. You have to essentially shoot the whole movie twice because you have to get all this reference footage. So it was miserable.
[01:06:08] Miserable. But wait, what's your theory? You know, there is this element of carpenter where I feel like he constantly has a grasses greener view of things on top of also constantly feeling like, well, but I was younger than
[01:06:22] if I tried this again now I could handle it, right? So he's in this zone where it's like, I'll make a big movie for a studio. That was a fucking nightmare. I want to go back to making my smaller things, right? I want complete control.
[01:06:33] Eh, I'm tired of complete control. I want a big budget. I know how to politic. I know how to deal with the studio again. Right. So there's that oscillation where for some reason he does this movie just because
[01:06:43] he was ready to try the other thing after having done two movies on his own terms, after having done two movies on their terms, after having done like it's just the back and forth, right? But the other part of it is this running theme we've seen
[01:06:54] in all of these development stories is he keeps on wanting to work with big ass stars. And you go like, yeah, dude, do you not realize you're going to have a really hard time battling for control with someone who is protective of their own persona
[01:07:09] rather than someone like Kurt Russell, who is collaborative and is going to give you what the movie needs. And he's like, ah, but what if Clint Eastwood did it? And it's like, dude, it's not going to fucking work if you work with Clint.
[01:07:19] I think there was this part of him that finally wanted to work with like an A-list star and he made the mistake of picking the A-list star at the absolute last moment of his A-list status,
[01:07:30] trying to do the exact opposite out of what everyone wanted out of him. But we keep on hearing the things of like, I want to try different genres. I want to see if I can prove that I can do it within the studio system.
[01:07:41] But also how do I make sense of a movie star's persona? How do I use that weight and that power that comes with that? And it was the wrong. Correct, Chase is like, well, I don't want to do that. Right. I don't want to use my persona.
[01:07:52] Also say, look, I have no first hand experience as to what this feels like. But it sounds like it's pretty difficult when you have a lead actor playing the title character in a project that because of its very concept involves a tremendous amount of special effects
[01:08:11] and the person doesn't want to do it. The person does not want to wear the thing. It doesn't know. And he would like not do it. He'd be like, I'm done today. Right. I have no personal experience,
[01:08:21] but I would imagine that's a thing that pushes everyone to the brink of insanity on a daily basis when you have an entire day built around the guy imagine what you're talking about. This thing all day and then the guy decides he's tired to hours it.
[01:08:33] That's just the thing that I could imagine maybe puts a tremendous amount of strain on everyone else sure and makes it very hard to put together coherent things because the footage you have is very misshapen. That seems like a challenge to me.
[01:08:46] It seems like a challenge and I'm so happy I have never had to experience that. Now, in memoirs of invisible man, you could think they would be like, you know what? Chase doesn't want to do it today. Fine. Put a telephone on a string.
[01:08:58] We're doing a phone call. Get a double. Have me dub it in post. It is bizarre how much they were sort of held captive by like if they put him through all the makeup and then 15 minutes
[01:09:08] and he's like, I don't like it and walks off set and Carpenter's like, the whole day is ruined now. He should just be like, yeah, well, he's not in this scene. Guess what? Because he's invisible. Right. Don't call him to set.
[01:09:20] I mean, he's not invisible that much in the movie. Again, this sort of gets back to the whole quantum leap thing. No. Most of the time you are watching Chevy Chase. And when he's not invisible, it's just Chevy Chase in a fucking suit.
[01:09:32] And it should not be that much of a hassle for him to do it. The clothes that he had on him are invisible, but no other clothes. David makes no sense. But then there are times he wears other things.
[01:09:41] I was not quite sure how to figure it out. It's an invisible suit. I've thought about this a lot because I... It has been invisibilized. Yes, it has been invisibilized. So he has to keep track of these clothes for the rest of his life.
[01:09:53] Because anytime he wants to go out into the world and be invisible and not be naked, this is his only option. I'll say that. I appreciated not to spoil the end of this movie, but that he is invisible at the end of this movie. He ain't going back.
[01:10:07] I like that too. That is something that would be a good ending to a good movie. Yep. He's got to figure out his new life as an invisible man. Yeah. Let's just say like quickly that part of this movie is
[01:10:18] he's a fucking Chevy Chase guy except not like a stock guy. Right. He's a guy who flirts with women and hates his job and fucking sleep. And doesn't try and his secretary is super impressed with him despite him being like right.
[01:10:29] He's like going to the club and she's like, what? You know, but yes, that's his thing. He meets Darrell Hanna. He love it first sight. He gets as vulnerable as he is capable of getting with anybody. Drinks too much. I love the weird note that it's like
[01:10:43] what fucked him over was that after he met her, he went back to the bar and had more drinks. That they like met made out connected. She was like, it's too soon. I'm not going to let you go home with me.
[01:10:54] Then he just goes back to the bar and really ties one on as a victory lap. Yep. By himself. He might be an alcoholic. Yeah. Oh my God. But then as he explains the narration, that's what fucks him over
[01:11:05] because the next day when he's supposed to go report on this fucking scientific presentation, he's so hung over that he as one does walks out of the presentation and tries to find a place where he can take a nap. Yes.
[01:11:17] And this this electronics physics lab, whatever it is, they've got like a sauna on site that he can go lie down. Right. There's of course a room with a thousand computers where the door is wide open. He asked where's the bathroom?
[01:11:28] The guy casually, but with all the clumsiness of a Chevy Chase protagonist knocks over his coffee, electrocutes a computer. Chevy Chase opens the wrong door, some executive suite where there is a private sauna. He locks the door. He decides to take a nap.
[01:11:42] And at that point, whatever happened with the coffee on the computer causes the entire building to be demilitarized. The entire building explodes. They evacuate everyone immediately. Disappearing. Everyone else. No one else. Chevy is such a sound sleeper because he's so hung over and he does not hear.
[01:11:59] Soundproof sauna, baby. Oh, there I see it. There we go. One of those classic soundproof sauna. Well, you know what I mean? Yes. Hate hearing things in the sauna. I hate that. In my office, my personal sauna.
[01:12:14] Yeah, I don't know if there's a cleaner way for him to fall in front of the invisible ray or whatever, but yeah, it's a little it's a little convoluted. I don't know. Yeah, I feel like the book is a different thing. I was reading through this.
[01:12:28] It's also the book that the Daryl Hanna character is kind of only at the beginning of the film and Corpender was the one who was like he has to have some human connection. There has to be a reason why he wants to keep going.
[01:12:38] So it's not just a man on the run. In the book, a bunch of Marxist protesters caught off power to the building and that's what causes the accident. Right. Not a cup of coffee in the book. The she is his love interest at the beginning of the book.
[01:12:53] It sets it up. She's a journalist. She gets into the lab and then when he turns invisible, she marries someone else instead. Yes. Can we talk about the rules of the visibility? Please. I hate that he can't see himself. It's so annoying. It makes it invisible. He's invisible.
[01:13:12] No, I know, but it's like the whole fun of being invisible is that you could sneak into a bank and like go into the vault, but he like can't see his hands. You can't like feed himself. Well, do you know what I'm saying?
[01:13:23] But that's it's the loneliness of invisibility. That's what you're not going to beg attention to, Jerry. Shit go down. The whole pitch on the book then was that like you have the invisible man, right? That's this huge fucking hit in the universal makes like the invisible
[01:13:36] woman and the invisible agent and the invisible man returns. Like that idea is explore. Like the sort of fun of what the invisible man could do, right? It's all covered. And the pitch of this book that got Hollywood salivating is like it
[01:13:51] would be a real pain in the ass being invisible. Like that was the whole thing that everyone was attached to. And I think for Warner Brothers, they go that pain in the ass could lead to a lot of hijinks. Right, which makes sense.
[01:14:04] And then for Chevy, he's like that could lead to someone living a miserable existence. Those right. And they both have like the incorrect reading of the thing and commit too hard to it, but there they both believe that the success
[01:14:17] of this movie is caught up in the minutiae of how difficult it is. I went back and I read some reviews of the movie that were published at the time and several of them go to town on the chopstick sequence.
[01:14:27] Like, thank God, like there's this great Chevy chase slap six set piece in the movie. It's like 10 seconds. Yes. But they're just like anything, anything they can grab on to. Yes. Because the other thing in those reviews that I like briefly noticed
[01:14:43] and it's so rude, every time there's a carpenter movie, they're all like, here comes Mr. Special Effects again. We get it. You've got a computer. But where's the humanity? And it's the guys made great movie. Like, yeah, but every time they're just like I could barely
[01:14:59] like stay in my seat because there were so many special effects. Right. It's bizarre. It's bizarre. And it's also like this guy's fighting to put humanity into this movie, I think. Yes. I guess so.
[01:15:12] I mean, he's finding to put more of a normal narrative and Chase is like, ah, what if no one could see me at all? Maybe that's what I crave. I think there's also there is a real intelligence and wit to the way
[01:15:26] the special effects are employed in this movie. Not only are they incredibly well executed. This is like maybe that perfect sweet spot of digital effects just starting to come into the picture, being able to clean up more traditional
[01:15:38] techniques where you just have this perfect kind of tactility to these things you cannot believe they could execute. They look so good. They look so good when she puts the makeup on his face and it's just his face floating in midair.
[01:15:51] And then they cut to the reverse and you see like the hollow inside. Yeah, it's insane. It is insane. They barely would need updating. You know what I mean? Like they look pretty much pretty how I would imagine now.
[01:16:05] I think those are also the parts of the movie that work best. It is weird that the reviews are like, enough of the effects. Give me more chopstick hijinks. I'd be like this movie should just be invisible. Man effect.
[01:16:15] Also, this movie seems to work better when Chevy Chase is not on screen when he is not even like in front of camera. Yes. And you just have some fucking gag happening because it's more interesting than a sad fucking guy who's whatever. I don't know.
[01:16:33] There's also not even mentioning being charming. There's also Hollow Man, a half successful movie at best, right? Invisible Man, the recent remake, which I think is a pretty terrific film in my eyes. Both of those movies get away with being like and once the guy turns
[01:16:50] invisible, it can't really be about him anymore. Right. We need to expand out. Right. I think you can do it a little easier in a book where it's all the guy is kind of internal monologue where it's structured as
[01:17:02] his memoirs when they get into narration on this movie, it ends up just feeling like like dead men don't wear plaid. Like it's like a parody. The narration. No, no. So stiff. It's so. Yeah. Oh, so yeah. And like just exhausted sounding. He sounds so fucking tired.
[01:17:19] And also like sometimes it's like this purple prose, which is a little more interesting, like the shit I was like. More memory. Right. Other times he's like I realized I had to go out. But before I did, I'd have to put on my pants, but it's hard to
[01:17:32] put on pants when you can't see your. Yeah, I'm imagining someone actually watching this and being like, we get it. Guy describing exactly what's happening on screen. Like, and then I realized, wait a second, and he's doing the way to second phase.
[01:17:44] And you're like either trust us enough or trust his performance enough to carry us through it. Anyway, when he becomes demilitarized in the movie becomes something of a man on the run thriller. This was part of Carpenter getting the job was pitching them like it's like Starman.
[01:17:59] I just did this. It worked. The government wants him and he's got this love and that's the thing carrying him through the ET thing. They they can't get their hands on me because they'll dissect me or whatever. Sam Neil gets sent in to investigate this bizarre building.
[01:18:12] That's also the best fucking imagery in the whole. Yeah, the Swiss cheese building. This was that's very cool. That is yeah. An eerie ish. I remembered that from when I saw it back in the 90s as being like a longer set piece than it is.
[01:18:26] Like, I really would have loved to see him wandering around this building for a while. Do more in the building. It feels like something out of like a Michelle Gondry video or something. Yeah, it's like very bizarre kind of like MC Escher. Yes. Like from the inside perspective.
[01:18:40] They're doing that. That sequence does go on fairly long and is compelling and he's just playing panic there. But there's sort of a perspective shift where you're mostly seeing it from Sam Neil's eyes and then when I cut that Chevy, its first person POV sort of worry.
[01:18:56] Yeah, which sort of maybe works better for how to play his internal life at this point. But the idea is that Sam Neil very quickly realizes there's a guy in there. This guy could be the greatest intelligent asset in the modern world, especially because his whole take
[01:19:13] is like, look at this guy, no family, no life, really it's like all his job. Like he basically can disappear. He's anonymous. It's almost like he was already an invisible man. I'll use him. I'll train him to right be a super soldier.
[01:19:29] Basically, what's weird is that crystallizes for me the best version of what this movie is, at least if you're doing it with Chevy Chase, right? Which is it's Chevy Chase trying to create a slightly deeper comedy in that it's about a superficial
[01:19:42] Chevy Chase protagonist who once he no longer has his looks to rely on, everyone realizes like you're nothing. You have no life. You skate through shit. You have no attachments. There's no depth to anything you've ever done. You're meaningless now.
[01:19:56] It's why the carpenter road trip take might be the wrong one because actually maybe we should stay put with him. I think so. Maybe. I don't know. What do you think? Anything but what they actually do would have been more interesting.
[01:20:09] It's just such a weird misshapen collection of ideas. And then he's like hanging around at Michael McKeen's like Beach House. Well, that's where the movie is so dead. Yeah, apart from the crazy guy with the deep British of what?
[01:20:23] In which I'm like, give me more of this guy. What's going on with him? But I mean, no, I mean, or why do you like the Beach House Griff? You're giving me a mischievous Griffin look. It's Michael McKeen. He got a Patty Heaton, right?
[01:20:34] Is it for some young Patty Heaton and Michael McKeen or the couple? Neither of them are given anything to do. No, they have a very unsatisfying sex scene on the beach. That's just that. Maybe his only good moment. And I love Michael McKeen.
[01:20:48] He's not doing anything wrong in this. No, he just. I do not think I've ever seen anyone, any project fail to milk Michael McKeen. Because the guy so versatile can turn anything into something watchable. Yeah. And this movie just strands him. Yeah. And then you've got Daryl Hanna,
[01:21:05] who were picking back up and George Martin's son, who's trying to hit on her. Right. Bloody purchase. I'm an author. It's like, OK, are we back in Fletchy kind of territory, which have he chases, like pulling his pants down? Right. He says something mean and like, right?
[01:21:26] Like he's sort of trying to like get one over on the guy who wants his girl. Yeah. Eavesdropping and spying. And you know, like scaring the delivery boy. It's yeah. But like back to comedy. Wait, aren't we is the FBI CIA or whatever after you?
[01:21:41] Right. I mean, the thriller aspect of it is so incompatible with everything else this movie is doing. And Sam Neill plays it totally straight and his good is actually pretty scary. But then even no disrespect to him. But Tobolowski, it feels like is hired to be
[01:21:56] the number two in the comedy version of this. Yes. Dude. And Sam Neill is in the series. Tobolowski swings in. Yeah. And I saw him in the credit. He's like fourth or fifth bill. Yeah. I was so baffled.
[01:22:08] I was like, why is he showing up all of this? And he's doing his thing. He's doing his thing. Do you know him? I feel like, yeah, I know. I know. I know. Like, does he have any stories? This we know he's telling stories. Probably 87 stories about this.
[01:22:22] Hold on. I think I think you guys keep going. I think I may have one. Because like he and he is he in another carpenter? Am I crazy? Had he worked with him before maybe? Let me. I don't think we've seen him in one yet.
[01:22:34] Right now. You know what? I just rewatched Thelma and Louise and he's in that. And look, it's his brand. But obviously anytime he pops up, you're like, oh, there he is. I think I'm awesome. I think both of them are doing what they do
[01:22:47] and what they were hired to do well. But they are representing the two contradictory ideas of what this movie could be often in the same scene with the two of them together. But also this is pre-groundhog day. So while he definitely did comedy stuff before this,
[01:23:00] he was more of like a heavy, you know? He'd been like, Mississippi burning things like that. Kind of a big guy. But I still think there's that weird. I mean, there's the there's obviously the folksiness to him. Yes, you know, the voice, the yeah. That's right. Yeah.
[01:23:16] I feel like even when he's playing someone scary, part of it is that like this guy is going to be made to look a fool at some point in some way, even if it's a menacing fool.
[01:23:23] Yes. You know, it's just am I wrong that he comes in really late? Or maybe I just sort of like when the building disappears. Yeah, he shows up. Sam Neill is testifying before Congress or something. Right. Yes, because he's the one Sam Neill sort of says like,
[01:23:40] look, this is good for both of our careers. If you kick this up to the superiors, you're not on this case anymore. Yep. Whereas you can get the credit for doing this and I can get the credit for developing the invisible agent.
[01:23:52] He's there for exposition and to sort of establish Sam Neill's bona fides because Sam Neill can now threaten Tobolowski. Right. And Sam Neill, I guess it's kind of doing James Mason a little bit because this is very like North by Northwest with the score
[01:24:05] and the scene on the train. Decent score by Charlie Walker. This is by most accounts and perhaps someone correct here, but by most accounts, it is accepted that this was the first for solo composer by a female composer in a major studio film period. What? In 1992. What?
[01:24:27] It's the one of at least, you know, like to hedge. It's like one of the earliest instances. 1992. I was alive. Ninety two. Like the question is whether it is the first or it's like the third.
[01:24:39] Right. But and I think she still might be the have the most credits correct as a female composer. And she died 15 years ago and she still has the most credit. No one's been able to catch up with her.
[01:24:51] It is such a weird thing where you're like, yes, Hollywood's a boys club. Yes. Of course, there's only so many directors. Of course, the turnover is going to be so much slower and all that. But like, yeah, like why is composing like this?
[01:25:03] They're also there are positions and high level positions like editor that where like those roles have been held by however. But it does feel like that there was this divide of like women get to do things that are organizational.
[01:25:17] Men get to do things that are creative creative or or roles of no female cinematographers or composers. Right. Lots of designers and editors. They can be right casting. They can be editors. But Shulia Walker had done like she's was it Apocalypse Now?
[01:25:34] She's on one of the early Coppola movies. I can look at what she does a lot of like additional material. She does a lot of like. Yeah, she did. Hope you're close to it is doing synthesizer and Apocalypse Now.
[01:25:44] Right. And then her big thing is she works with Elfman on the Batman scores, which leads to the same year as this for being the composer on Batman in the animated series. It's the next year she worked. Oh, yeah. Well, the animated series, right?
[01:25:59] And then she worked on Mask of the Phantasm and Batman Beyond. She won an Emmy for that. But this score is very Batman to me. It sounds very similar to the Elfman Batman. And then her score on Batman in the animated series is sort of running
[01:26:15] further with a lot of the initial ideas of the notes of the tones of the Elfman thing. The score I think is really fucking good for this actually. And then Batman in the animated series is this like rare animated series
[01:26:26] where you have like a full or castrol score. Of course, with original material for every single episode. This is what I was going to say is interesting, though, that JJ pulled up. This is one of only three times that Carpenter seeds
[01:26:41] composing duties to someone else entirely at least. Right. Christine and the thing. And then this are the three, right? This is the third time. This is the time that the person is the least established that he's actually giving someone their first breakthrough solo credit, right?
[01:26:58] You have to imagine that it's because of his respect for her, especially because like it's such a big concession deal that he's like, well, more Coney wants to do it. I'll let more Coney do the score for the thing, right?
[01:27:09] Yeah. That he was a man who respected his his female collaborators and gave people opportunities and all that sort of stuff. Do you know how Shirley Walker got this job? I don't know. Shelly Chase. Really? Yeah, I think it was maybe spies like us.
[01:27:24] It was one of the Chevy Chase movies from the 80s. Chevy goes into the scoring session and sees that she's conducting. They hired someone else to do the score for this movie and they quit and Chevy Chase.
[01:27:36] Yeah. And Chevy Chase was like, I don't know why you hire that woman who did it. Fletch Lives. Fletch Lives. She conducted Fletch Lives and he was like, hire that woman who did the conducting. Good for Chevy. Yeah.
[01:27:46] But we are he doesn't feel like anyone who would be paying attention to anybody phone call. Yeah. We're like, you know, he's got it in him. George Steinbrand or some people tell stories about him being the most
[01:27:57] wonderful man they've ever met and then the rest of the time he's a monster. It's just odd that he broke a glass ceiling single-handedly and treated it like, I don't know, like I saw her once. She seemed like she knew what she was doing.
[01:28:10] But here's what I wonder because like the music of Carpenter is so anemic to the things he makes. Do you look at the fact that like he is willing to see this and not fight
[01:28:21] to say, I want to do it myself as another sign that like he is just a hired gun on this, like there's really so little of his personality in this movie. What's interesting is that with Christine and the thing you have
[01:28:32] composers who it feels like have enough respect for Carpenter as a composer and how much the sound of his movies is part of the DNA that both of them are doing scores that are kind of half carpentry.
[01:28:44] Yes, whereas this is Shirley Walker doing what feels like it could fit into any episode of Batman the Animated Series. Right. Like it's an adventure score. It's not a solid score. Right. It's it's a big sweeping orchestral sounds.
[01:28:57] No, apart from the visual effects, there's nothing in this movie that you're like, that is incredible. You know, like that is really distinctive. Like it's a movie that's going for a certain tone that we are familiar with just doesn't really match it in plot or lead actor.
[01:29:15] No, like that's the problem. I think he said like, you know, he wanted to prove that he could work within the studio system and fight it and that it was just like absolute non starters all the time that they were questioning everything he did
[01:29:27] that he was yelling with them about everything, but he still thought I can get a good movie out of this and then he gets on set and then the two actors don't want to work. And it's like, well, now I'm just fuck.
[01:29:37] Now there's like nothing for me to fight for. And that, yeah, they would do things like that scene with the makeup that we talked about. It's like the most striking visual effect in this movie. You watch it. That seems really fucking quick.
[01:29:48] And they have less shots of him than you think you would want considering how stunning that effect is. Well, the story is he had to be in this blue jumpsuit and they had to cake his face in this makeup
[01:29:58] and they had to paint his inside of his mouth blue. And then they had to have these blue contact lenses that were the circumference of his eye or eyeball, which just sound awful. And that does not sound pleasant. Yeah, any pinholes to see through.
[01:30:10] It was so physically like your body does not want to accept something that they had to inject him with medication to numb his eyes so that they could get the things in and they shot for 15 minutes. And then he was like, I hate this.
[01:30:22] And he took them out. I mean, I sort of sympathize with him on that one. Yeah, I guess still don't work on that. I get it. But my one point is, Chevy, you desperately wanted to do this movie that you knew what you were fucking doing.
[01:30:36] The whole concept is it's going to be this big fucking effects thing. Whether the argument is if it's funny or serious enough, you know the nature of this is going to be you having to do these complicated things.
[01:30:45] There's some quote in the dossier that's basically him being like, yeah, I didn't realize it was going to be all this visual effects shit. And it's like, I get that it's 1992 and that stuff isn't like entirely baked into moviemaking as it is then now. Yeah. But right.
[01:30:59] No, you're playing the invisible man. You didn't see this coming. His line was like, I knew it was going to be bad, but not that bad. And it's like, that sounds like the worst of it. That sounds like a really difficult day.
[01:31:09] And he was often apparently left to sort of like holding the bag going like, I don't know how to cut this into anything. We everything now is unusable because we only got coverage from one side. You know, whatever the fuck it is.
[01:31:21] But it is bizarre that the production did not at some point start working around him and going like, OK, assume he can't handle this. How do we get doubles in here? How do we reorganize sequences?
[01:31:31] Whatever the fuck you do and that he kept on sort of acting like, no, no, I can handle it. He goes through all the hair and makeup. They put him in the fucking thing and then after 30 minutes, he's like, I'm done.
[01:31:43] I'm done for the day because there's that really cool sequence when he's in the park in San Francisco, he's trying to talk to the scientists from Magnus Copics. And then it turns out that Sam Niels guys are there and he's like peeling out of the suit and running.
[01:31:55] That's what like maybe the second best effect after the face. I think the rain kind of blows my fucking mind. No, the rain is very. Yeah, but I'm saying is like you could do a bunch of scenes of like a double in the suit moving around.
[01:32:09] There's ways to do it. And look, and once again, it's a thing I would have no experience with. But sometimes maybe that happens. I don't know what you're implying. Sometimes maybe you realize an actor is going to have two hours of energy all day.
[01:32:20] So you've structured your filming around making sure you get all the stuff with them first and that it's clean and that no one else is in it. And then you have a series of doubles in costumes who are filmed from very specific angles.
[01:32:31] Yeah, and you use the voiceover of the audio from the takes where he was on camera or have them stitch it in post. Talk about memoirs. I don't know. It's difficult for the other actors in the cast, but that's maybe how you get workable material.
[01:32:44] There is a part where it's just pants. You can see our running. Yes. That was the movie needed more pants is what you're saying. You like that? I think that's a fun guy. It was a pants are running.
[01:32:56] Look, but he's in some sort of wasn't that the Pixar movie? Onward. Onward. Yes. Have you seen that movie, Ben? I've not. A pair of pants, disembodied legs. That might be your favorite movie. Oh, yeah. Yeah, is a major point in Onward.
[01:33:12] Yes. They're they resurrect their dead father, but only up to the waist. They fuck up. So it's just pants and like, you know, shoes, oxiders. I got to watch this. Yes. So the whole movie is just like slacks and shoes underrated
[01:33:27] movie and they have to communicate with their father through like stumps better than memoirs of an invisible man. You said that like, there was about to be a real. Are we going to talk about Daryl Hannah? I mean, it's a shitty role.
[01:33:43] It's nothing. I mean, her problem is bad. No, JJ pulled up all these quotes of just how fucking mean the press was to her at the time. Like, like here's this fucking trust fund kid. She was like born rich and then her mom remarried even richer.
[01:33:58] Yeah. And she's like Hollywood royalty through being like, you know, daughter in law through marriage of Haskell Wexler. Like everyone held that against the right that the Wexler fortune. But like it's also isn't it partly like they were just mad that like
[01:34:15] she was a blonde who played a Bimbo one time and they just were sort of like, well, that must be her whole thing. She played these ethereal. I mean, it's like Splash and Blade Runner are getting hit on her. Right. Right.
[01:34:27] And Splash is obviously such a big deal. But then everyone's just like, we'll do that again, be magical lady. And she wants to play people with interiority. Steel Magnolia's was like a thing she fought for.
[01:34:38] There are other things that JJ pulled up that she really wanted to do. Like she wanted to make a movie about Nicaragua where she played like a photojournalist who wanted to do a show on Broadway. Yeah, she wanted to play this sort of
[01:34:50] yeah, this sort of like heroic female journalist in Nicaragua that was, you know, she wanted to like what sounds like a very Oscar kind of biopic there. Right. She wanted to do theater, you know. And she took this with no delusions about what it was.
[01:35:05] She had to run there in the 80s. She had her on. She's obviously really striking physically. She's got a great camera presence. I don't think for the most part, like when she's not when she's actually being given characters to play,
[01:35:20] it's not necessarily in a great movie like legal eagles. I'm not sure what anybody could have done. Yeah, right. That role for instance. Probably was not helping. Yeah. Yeah. Same with Wall Street. That's like a terrible role. But like she's funny in Splash.
[01:35:33] It's not just that she's beautiful. Yes. Yeah. She's good in Roxanne, right? Yeah. And she has like four or five genuinely kind of big performances in big movies. Steel Magnolia is I guess is kind of the end of her and being in serious.
[01:35:50] That was the beginning of her wanting to be like, I want to be a character actress. I'm going to take the part you don't expect me to take. I'm not going to take the Julia Roberts young, Angelina right after after Steel Magnolia.
[01:36:01] She does crazy people and then she does it play in the fields of the Lord. OK, then she does this and the thing she does immediately afterwards is the HBO version of Attack of the 50 foot woman. Oh, yeah. Which yes.
[01:36:13] And like the 90s are rough because it's like, OK, grumpy and grumpy. You're old man. A lot of kids movies like Little Rascals, my favorite Martian. Yes. The straight to video Adams family movie that recast everyone. Tisha. Yeah. Yeah. Which is I don't think very good.
[01:36:29] No, it's terrible. I just remember like her being very big as I was growing up because she had been reclaimed me. A. My parents were like, these movies are good. You should watch. I definitely like. And Roxanne. Yeah, Roxanne is wonderful. And she's very good at it.
[01:36:43] She's starring in mediocre Disney winter comedies. And you know, and then, you know, when she's in Kill Bill, it's like the classic Tarantino thing. Oh, shit. He dug up like this sort of faded star. Right. This is how you should have all been using her all along.
[01:37:00] She's so good. Fantastic. In that movie and then like too many people in Tarantino movies. Nobody bothers to like try to duplicate. There's the Weinstein element here. Like she says that Weinstein harassed her so hard
[01:37:12] that one time she had to escape a hotel room out of a balcony and that after that moment, she was kind of like she did not get any of the follow up Kill Bill roles that she clearly should have got.
[01:37:23] I think it's also just like the industry at large is it does not know what to do with women in their 40s, which at that point she was. I don't think there was a clear pathway and I have no doubt that Weinstein made it exponentially harder for her.
[01:37:36] I agree. I do also think it's this thing with the Tarantino where when he does these revival, right? He has this very specific idea of how to use this after and he kind of puts it on a plate for other people to borrow it.
[01:37:51] And like that worked with Travolta, but usually it doesn't work. It usually no one else like picks up on the idea. Robert Forster at least kept working, but certainly never as well as in that. No, like it's like he just got this guy. It's same with Pam Grier.
[01:38:04] Yeah, like he just got this person for you. Out of the, you know, the disused bucket or like it's and then the studio is like great job in that one movie. Anyway, right? Yeah. But this is just an utterly thankless role.
[01:38:17] Like this is sort of classic the woman in a guy movie in the eighties or nine. And she disappears for so long on unintended in a movie where she's supposed to sort of be the emotional thrust of the thing is like that relationship is what's keeping him.
[01:38:33] Right. Keeping him alive almost. Yeah. It's like, well, the always got to fight for. And but like why does she like Nick? What draws her to Nick? I mean, this is the problem with him being so sad and lonely
[01:38:45] at the beginning of the movie where it's like he's doing a half ass Chevy Chase flirting, right? Where you're like, if we're going to believe that she still wants to be with him, at least give me fucking like best of times or what's it called?
[01:38:58] Seems like old times. Seems like old times. Best of times is Carusel and Robin Williams playing football. That's been on my mind recently because it hurt. Yes. But like or do something where like the invisibility thing works for her? Yes, like she likes that for some reason.
[01:39:13] But I give her some degree of like independence. That's probably too high concept for Chevy. I mean, she talks about like her her interviews from the time of this movie are like, I don't know, this movie is what it is. I had no delusions about it.
[01:39:26] I like Chevy Chase's movies work with a big star. It's a nothing part. It's light entertainment. It's fine. Like she very much spoke of this like I need to do a big movie where I'm above the title while I'm biding my time still struggling to get
[01:39:37] these projects off the ground that will reframe me as a legitimate actress. And Chevy is like, this is the movie that will reframe me as a serious actor, but I don't know how to do it.
[01:39:46] And Carpenter said both of them were nightmares to him that they were both just like, I don't want to fucking be here. I don't want to do this. Chevy, I think because of the technical realities of this, but also
[01:39:57] that was always the story about him on community was like the biggest problem is he hates the hour. He does not want to have to work the hours of an actor. He wants to just show up and do his thing and go, you got it good.
[01:40:08] And then they go, no, we have five other pieces of coverage to get. Yeah. You know? And I think she just didn't like being in this movie and having to be the the innocent Anjanoo again, like this sort of ethereal, beautiful woman.
[01:40:23] And they both were apparently assholes to him. Right. They're both mad about their place in Hollywood and taking out on him. And he's kind of just like, look, I'm just trying to make a studio movie here. Right? Like he doesn't have enough passion for the project, maybe to
[01:40:37] have perspective. I don't know. And the shit ran down to him and he was like, they were both like spoiled children who knew they were never going to experience repercussions for this. The studio was always going to have their back. So I just had to deal with it.
[01:40:49] But it ends up kind of just killing all three of their careers. Yeah. I mean, Carpenter keeps making movies. And then Sam Neill gets to make Jurassic Park the following year. That's funny. Like it's not like he becomes an A-list leading man.
[01:41:01] No, no, no. He does have the fucking biggest plugbuster. No, it's a year later. It's a really big part. He's also the best thing in this movie. So it was acting wise. And a year later is also the piano.
[01:41:11] Like a year later, he has his fucking heavy duty Oscar movie and his giant colossal. The other thing is that and he's basically kind of co first choice to play James Bond. Yes, right. And they go with Pierce Brosnan for, I think, a variety of reasons.
[01:41:26] But like that was also he was right there. He was right there. You know, like, yeah. Well, he's good. I got to be for Sam Neill. Seems like it is good. There's the scene where Chevy is in theory holding him up at gunpoint, right? Yep.
[01:41:42] And then you do your reveal where it's like, OK, you see Chevy, right, then Chevy's not there anymore. Then you see just the gun to Sam Neill's head and he's leaning way back. Like how is he still upright in that fucking thing?
[01:41:53] So that scene, which heavy when when Sam Neill is playing being held at gunpoint, he's walking through the hallways of like the offices and whatever. You're like, this is unbelievable physical acting. Imagine how good this movie would be if the other people who had to play
[01:42:09] these scenes were committing this part. Yeah. You know, who are working with the effects and with the gags. And he's like playing the stakes of the thing. He's playing the tension of the thing. But he's really making you believe that there's an invisible man there.
[01:42:22] It's not a digital effect. It's very clear there is just a gun glued to his head. And he's just selling it himself. But it makes sense that, like, to a certain degree, obviously the carpenter wants to work with him again.
[01:42:34] But to someone like Spielberg, you're like, well, this guy is going to do the work. Like there are all those stories about how when Jurassic Park was bought, they were like, I don't know, is it Harrison Ford? Do we do it with like the biggest stars?
[01:42:46] And Spielberg was like, the star of the movie is dinosaurs. Either we pull off the effects or we don't. But that's what people are going to come to see. So let's just hire three really good actors who are not going to be divas
[01:42:58] and are going to just do the work in what will be a very laborious process. And it's a certain degree doing an invisible man movie. You kind of need to do the same thing.
[01:43:07] Yes, you need to hire Elizabeth Olson, who still wants to like do the work around. Moss, excuse me. Who's the boss? Elizabeth Moss. You want to get in the moss? But but she's going to fucking show up and go through this very what difficult process?
[01:43:23] What isn't what does that movie not really concerned with? The practical everyday realities of being invisible. That is yes, but also visual effects. Like the visual effects in that movie are really simple. Yeah, like not like they're like this.
[01:43:37] I mean, they're like this, but in a digital era where you could get away with so much, they're not show off. They're simple guys. You know, right? It's a knife floating in the air. It's the most like effective. It's impactful. Yeah. It's did you see the Lee Wannell?
[01:43:50] I did not love it. It's good. Big fan. It's better than memoirs of an invisible man. It is like in all the years you guys have been doing this, like how low down does this particular movie rank? I'm just curious. We've done some real stinkers.
[01:44:06] I would not put this at the bottom. OK, there are movies that make me angry and there are movies that fail to elicit any sort of response. There aren't that movie. Many movies where a character puts up
[01:44:15] ground face to play a cab driver, which we have not mentioned. It is incredible. Yeah, because you're like, at least Chevy's made it this far without doing anything that's age poorly. And then boy, does he ever. Oh God. Well, it's just so unnecessary because he's playing a cabbie.
[01:44:33] Yeah. But he doesn't have to have no, he doesn't make up on his face. He really feels like a Chevy pitch. Exactly. You just have the regular old makeup on his face to the end earlier. Yeah. Or you use some of the liquid paper that Alice had,
[01:44:48] like in her line of makeup stuff with the camera pans across it. Something. Yes. But the brown face. No. No, don't do it, Chevy. And it's so late too. Like you said, like you're like, all right, we're like.
[01:44:58] And again, it's like, wait, you want to do this weighty, serious existential thriller and you're in fucking brown face. Right. I found some quote from him where he was like, you know, they kept on writing gags and I was like,
[01:45:10] I want to lean into the adventure of this thing. Adventure was the word he kept using. Adventure. I want the audience to see me. I think they're going to join me on this journey into becoming a different type of star. I want to do adventure.
[01:45:22] And it's like, you know what adventure requires, Chevy? Long hours. Right. A bunch of people just said yes. Yeah. To everything. To everything. And then it's just a movie that isn't anything. It's just a mix of a bunch of shit. Here's an interesting thought. He's contradicting himself. Constantly.
[01:45:39] Yes. He's like, I don't want to be funny. I want to be serious. I wanted to be an adventure. Yes. Like I also want the premise to be boring, essentially. I don't think he has a clear enough vision. I mean, the other thing with Chevy Chase is like,
[01:45:50] he was a heir to a massive, massive fortune who resented being a rich kid and was like, I want to be in the dirt with real people and then got very quickly tired of everything he ever tried to do, all of which he was very successful at.
[01:46:05] He would just get so ornery. Like he wouldn't want to work for it, you know? And he was just like, yeah, I don't know. I'm bored of being a movie star. I don't know, dude. Then shut up. Like then don't do movies, whatever.
[01:46:18] Well, fortunately this movie absolves him of being a movie star. It does. It relieves some of the burden. And then he becomes angry about the fact that he's not a movie star anymore. This is what we're talking about. He sees, he watches whoever in 1992 has eaten his lunch.
[01:46:34] I mean, Bill Murray kind of comes back. That's the other thing. Bill Murray was gone for five years. But whoever it is, he's like, well, I'm better than that guy. I want to do something. And then they're like, OK, what do you want to do?
[01:46:43] I want to do this. All right, well, we'll see you for the next 20 weeks. Wow. Like that's a lot of work. The community thing. Like, well, I know better than you. OK, Chevy. I also don't want to be on the show that much.
[01:46:55] And I don't want to do the work. And I'm not going to read this guy's coverage or anything. And I won't show up for like, remember Harman hated him for not doing the final bit in the video game episode. Yes, like that broke my heart.
[01:47:08] That was this big thing. And Chevy was like, fuck you. He just doesn't want to put in the effort to be better. You just I mean, really mean to Chevy Chase on his. But we have to look. It's obvious comparison point you have to keep on going back
[01:47:21] to but for all the stories about Bill Murray being this like a Luth dude who can be really nasty and fuck with people, you know, and like you cannot get him on the phone. You cannot get him to commit whole quick projects in a material way.
[01:47:35] He by all accounts when he is on a movie does the fucking work. Like he is a guy who actually likes the process of making movies and is collaborative if he enjoys the process of the project, you know, and like there's a lot about being there off camera
[01:47:52] for other actors to give them something to play off of. And Chevy feels like a guy who treats the act of filmmaking the way a Chevy Chase character treats whatever ostensibly the movie is supposed to be about where it's like, I don't know,
[01:48:04] fucking gives a shit about this. There is an interest in, you know, I love my sort of like pulling together accidental trilogies of like a weird trend at a time where Hollywood was trying to do a thing that never worked. Right. Right.
[01:48:18] There is a weird analog to this movie in vampire in Brooklyn. Oh, which is when is that it's three years later? It's 95. Right. It's the last Eddie Murphy Paramount project is essentially the movie that kills Eddie Murphy until Nutty Professor brings him back.
[01:48:32] And again, of course, he's also working with a horror tour. Absolutely. Quake Craven, my God, a project where people can't decide is it funny for a horror movie? Is it more scary for a comedy? Right. And he kind of is like, I'd like to play a villain.
[01:48:46] I'd like to not be Eddie Murphy. There's a reason I hired Wes Craven and they were like, but it's going to be the comedy about like how do you brush your fangs? Right. Like there's that weird balance of it.
[01:48:55] And it's like, what's the third movie in this trilogy? Right. And I've always talked about the trilogy of the let's make fucking hypersexual literary monster movies of the 1990s, the first strike at doing Dark Universe, which is Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and Bram Stoker's Dracula, obviously.
[01:49:16] But the third one in that equation, which you always say is kind of different, is more in line with this, which is Mike Nichols' wool, where it feels like that movie can't decide if it's a satire about like, what's the modern day? Have you seen this monster?
[01:49:28] Wolf? I have not. Is that the one where the Jack Nicholson nodding meme is from? That's where he's saying, where he's just going, yes. I think that's anger management. That is from anger. The one where he has the yellow eyes is bull. OK, there we go.
[01:49:41] Wolf also has a notorious scene where I feel like it's kind of like the meat Joe Black car accident scene that like every six months someone's like finds it on YouTube and is like, what is this? Right. Where he pees on someone's shoes. Yes.
[01:49:54] Like I'm marking my territory. Right. The thing with Wolf is there's a concept. You kind of get it, but then Mike Nichols clearly so much is so disinterested in shooting action, right? That the action is shot in super slow mo because they clearly have like 15 seconds. Right.
[01:50:12] And then the other movie on the other end of this that predates those two, but I think is like the if you combine this with Wolf, it's the third film in the trilogy, I would argue is Scrooge direct by Richard Donner, who almost does this where it's like,
[01:50:26] here's a guy who does not have the background in comedy, right? Who's done effects, who's done drama, who's done action, who's done like spectacle and he wants to do a comedy. And the idea is can we elevate this to like mythical status
[01:50:37] with this funny man as well established persona. And there was a weird battle in that movie between like Bill Murray comedy and like overly designed set pieces. What do you think is screwed? A big bigger hit than any other much. I've seen it once.
[01:50:53] It's not a big impression. No, I'm not a big fan. You watch it and you go like this should be a slam dunk. This is so. It really should be. Yeah, I really should. And I think there is that weird incompatibility of like,
[01:51:04] what does the movie star want to be at this point in time and a director who's an odd match for the material and all that sort of shit? Yeah. But I just remember seeing this movie in a theater
[01:51:14] and like I said, me and my best friend, Mike, we love Chevy. We saw all of his stuff. We go to this. We're very excited. The trailer has obviously made it look like a comedy. With amazing special. And we're just like, what is this? Be funny.
[01:51:27] You know, it's like Homer Simpson banging on the TV. Like be funnier. Yeah, we just wanted the version that Ivan Reitman wanted to make. What you're describing also right. It is because like me going in watching it and being like,
[01:51:39] I know this thing is famously kind of not a comedy. Right. I'm still kind of like, geez, this is really not a comedy. It is crazy to imagine what you're describing sitting down being like, all right, Chevy, what do you get? You don't give me a heat.
[01:51:51] Let's get those molecules back. Right. And then like half an hour in just sort of being like, why is there no jokes? But the weirdest thing is this movie still does have more jokes than something like Prof. Dundee 2 where you're like, but now the jokes stick out.
[01:52:04] The jokes don't fit with the rest of what this movie is doing. Yeah, I find it kind of like. He's dick that one time. Yes. Let's see where he's got. Right. He's got a black hole. Extended dream sequence.
[01:52:15] I will admit as a kid, I was like obsessed with invisible man stories and the universal movie. I think I would get very hung up on the logic of monster movies. And like I went through a weird like Jekyll and Hyde phase, you know,
[01:52:31] I was always really like fascinated by transformation movies. Yeah. And I think asking those sort of questions about like what happens when you're invisible. Just the fact that this movie is taking the time to bother to be like, oh, the food is visible until it's digested. Right.
[01:52:48] There's some part of my brain that still gets activated by that where I enjoyed watching this, even though it is of misshapen. Lammity can't say I enjoyed watching this. I do own it now. I do too. It was only one dollar more to own the classic iTunes thing.
[01:53:03] Yeah. Rent it for four. They're like, just buy it for five. And I'm like, you guys, you bought it. Extra dollar. You should never watch that again. I'm going to watch it again. I'm going to watch the effects again. I'm going to go to my favorite.
[01:53:17] That's should we play the watch Richard the Richard scenes again and try to figure out like, is he being dubbed? Like it feels as if someone else is doing that. Like like really done. Grey Stoke. The first time I saw Garth Brandi's Dark Place,
[01:53:31] I assume the same with Matt Berry. Right. I was like, the guys poorly dubbed. And then you realize the guy can just fucking do that. Did this guy ever act again? The other thing is he looks like
[01:53:41] that he visually this actor for those of you who are not watching this movie in preparation for the episode, which good on you. He looks like the guy who would play like the dude at the country club that Chevy fucks with and flex. Yeah, he's got an Ascot.
[01:53:55] He's got long blonde hair, sort of Roman nose. Very right. Like sort of blue blood looking. And then this voice comes out of him and you're like, what the fuck? Yeah. Yeah. He's George Martin's son. He might just have an incredible way of controlling his voice.
[01:54:09] I don't know. Yeah. He did act for a few years after this. In fact, he's in. Something called Lily's Light, the movie that's credited as being from 2020, but it also in 2010. So this may just be IMDB being stupid. Okay. The box office game. The box office game. Griffton.
[01:54:28] Well, final thoughts on the movie. Alan Moore anymore. It's not good. But I mean, did we talk enough about like its impact on Carpenter? Since this is in theory, the Carpenter miniseries. Its impact seems to kind of just be like in the interviews at the time,
[01:54:46] he's like, I think it's good that I'm not doing a horror movie. Like I like branching out. It was his first movie forever that didn't have John Carpenter's blank on it. And part of that is because the author of this movie is Chevy for better or worse.
[01:54:59] Part of it too is that he wanted to be like, look, I can do fucking other genres. Before this movie came out, he was like, look, they're offering me bigger projects. That's the quote where he's like, for once in my life, I'm not just getting horror scripts.
[01:55:11] But it's like his next two movies were horror movies. Not The Madness and, you know, the settlement of the alive deal is that he makes a deal with Universal, who of course we're supposed to be the home video TV
[01:55:22] sales output for the alive films where he has a higher budget, but more control. And then he goes back and does more Carpenter genre movies for Universal that flop. Like it's like he just the other side of this movie is him trying
[01:55:37] to go back and do the thing that everyone liked in the 80s. And it never works as well again, but he doesn't get to elevate to the new levels of studio filmmaking that he hoped this movie would at least cynically.
[01:55:49] This is the thing, Alan, we've done to this is I think the 12th episode, but we've done 11 episodes where it's basically always like what a picture and the narrative is like, oh, maybe people didn't like it at the time. Maybe it didn't make enough money.
[01:56:01] But still everyone in the room is just kind of like, wow, hell of a film. And now pretty much every movie that we're going to do, mouth of madness, I think is very well like. That's the one.
[01:56:11] But the rest of them, you know, escape from LA is kind of bananas. I guess some people go to the bath for that, but it's mostly going to be us wrestling with like, oh, he's like trying to get the magic back and he doesn't quite have it.
[01:56:21] Like we talked about this. I'd probably wax too long about this without ever settling on a real cohesive point, but in the they live episode, we were talking about like tonal weirdness, especially when it comes to genre movies, right?
[01:56:33] And how some people don't know what to do when a movie is like combining different elements and you have high camp and comedy along with like violence or gore or whatever it is. And Alcarpenter was a guy who always had his hand really
[01:56:45] firmly on that dial that he was able to make a lot of different energies, gel, and that arguably the two movies where people kind of push back on it were they live and big trouble where the reviews are like, why is some of this so fucking cartoony? Right.
[01:57:01] Those movies have both aged well. But I do feel from this moment on accepting Mouth of Madness, all the movies are like, is he in on the joke or not? Right. Like when people talk about Escape from LA, when they talk
[01:57:14] about Ghost of Mars, when they talk about vampires, even the people who defend it, they're like, I don't know, you kind of can't tell if he's just like being swallowed up by the ridiculousness of the thing or if he's being kind of panicky about it.
[01:57:26] And up until this point, you always know that he's pulling off exactly what he wants to do. This is the movie that maybe breaks his tonal dial a little. Yeah, Chevy Chase broke him. That's that's sad. Not the only one. Right. As he did many people.
[01:57:40] I mean, there's that incredible story that like, you know, fucking Spielberg mentored Chris Columbus. Spielberg. Spielberg. Got to watch out for him. Big bad Beetle Spielberg. We're out of Spielberg license plates. Spielberg mentored Chris Columbus after he writes this
[01:57:59] respect script and then he has him develop all these other ambulance scripts for him. And then he was like, you should be a director. Right. And what was I believe supposed to be his debut film was Christmas Vacation. Sure.
[01:58:12] He like was selling the studios, bring him in development meetings and he goes on to Christmas Vacation. And I believe calls Spielberg like a weekend and is like, Chevy is going to break me. I cannot handle this. Like am I sabotaging my career and shooting myself in
[01:58:26] the foot if I stick with this because it probably will be a hit, but he just I never recover from everyone at that point is so like we know that they're like, you know what? There's this John Hughes has this home alone script.
[01:58:40] Just why don't you just it's a mulligan. No one will hold it against you if you quit a Chevy movie and he does in his career is fine. Whereas the people who finish a Chevy movie maybe kind of never come back. Sad.
[01:58:51] He is just such a piece of shit. Yeah. But I like his. Fletch is good. Fletch is working overtime. And but like what are the other Chevy's that you would go because like you're saying you were the biggest Chevy fan?
[01:59:04] I mean, I think he's probably the fourth person you remember in Caddy's show. But that's more because Dangerfield and Murray and Ted Knight are so good. But that also might be the exact right amount of Chevy in a movie. At least through a lot of eyes.
[01:59:19] I love the vacation movies, you know, especially the first one. He's good in them. He's great. You know, the first two. And Fletch. Fletch I loved at the time and Fletch Livus is a disaster. Fletch Livus is sort of in defense. No one has a good take.
[01:59:33] Throw something out though. What? The vacation movies are the only movies where he allows himself to be a little low status. Yes, yes. It happens to Gus Griswold. Clark Clark. Gus is the kid like he still tries to keep his like Chevy Rosses. What I said Gus.
[01:59:52] He still tries to keep his like above it all quips. But like he fucking falls down and things pay at him. And he's embarrassed. I think that's why they've aged better because like in this day and age, no one wants to see a comedy leading man who is
[02:00:04] just an asshole who wins. Yeah. And he's in the handsome asshole. It's sort of like the inverse of Dangerfield. Like Dangerfield, they didn't unlock him as a movie star until he started playing rich guys. Right. And once he's a rich guy, oh, everything else about him is funny.
[02:00:19] Right. Chevy's kind of the opposite. He's too perfect. Yes. Like we need to take him down a peg a little bit. But in in fucking Caddy Shack, you can have him play Golden Boy and it's not insufferable because he only has to do 25 minutes of the book. Yes.
[02:00:33] Um, and I like him in community. I really do. Yeah. Pretty much everything about that performance. I like it's great. The whole time, the whole time you're watching it, you know, there's all this stuff churning behind the scenes. I mean, my favorite community episode is the Dungeons
[02:00:47] and Dragons episode and it's a incredible performance. It is both a great comedic and dramatic performance. It is so scary and so mean. And now it doesn't exist unless you own the DVDs. Is that true? It's really gone. Yes, I know it got pulled from.
[02:01:01] Yes, because of the Ken Chiang and Blackface. Yes. Are they going to make a community movie? Would he be in it? I can't imagine he would be in it. Um, I feel like it would probably be like the five who were there at the end.
[02:01:14] But Donald Glover went back and did that. I remember Glover kind of made noise about like, ah, we're having a good time doing this live read. Right. Yeah. He was so good in it and then he was telling all these stories afterwards that were just like, oh,
[02:01:25] you have like funness for this. I don't know who knows if they ever fucking make it. I mean, it's bizarre that also just like between Rick and Morty and the Avengers movies. Yeah. Or even Justin Lin is the backup director. It's like there's enough juice behind it
[02:01:40] that you want to believe from a creative side. If they want this to happen, they get it made as a one for me, one for them. Right. Yes. Deal. But I think Harman has talked a few times about he was having a hard time cracking it.
[02:01:52] So but he's also working on so many projects now that. 18 TV shows. Right. Yeah. Box office game. The movie came out February 28, 1992. Not a confident release slot. So like as much as the studio may have once been into this, they are dumping this movie.
[02:02:07] It opened to four million dollars. OK. It made 14. I think it cost 40. It's no one's happy. No. And they live costs three. Like he's made two three movies in a row. It makes they lives gross. Right. But costs like 10 times as much.
[02:02:23] How does this compare to like the thing or Starman like the other studio stuff he's done? The thing are both in like 20s, right? This is the thing. It's not like almost twice as much as anything he's ever done.
[02:02:36] Apart from Halloween, which is like just an insanely profitable movie. Yeah. John Carpenter does not make hugely successful movies. Right. Yes. You know, Starman made 28. Right. I think everyone was OK with that. Right. But that was sort of the high end. I think that cost like 10 or something.
[02:02:54] Right. And then big trouble and thing costs like 25. Big trouble was right. Made 11. Yeah. But then right. They live in Prince of Darkness. Both make around 14. Right. Everyone's happy. All right. And cost anything.
[02:03:07] And the whole point of his live deal was like even if it bombs in theaters, eventually his movies make profit on TV and VHS. Like you're playing a long game with him. But this $40 million is a whole different budget strata for him.
[02:03:20] Number one at the box office is a comedy film that I'm sure we all have seen in love. It's in its third weekend. Maybe it's our classic film. It's still no, no. It's in its third weekend. It's a huge hit. Three weeks in number one for a comedy.
[02:03:34] Three weeks in number one for a comedy that's Ben's trying to sneak a peek. That's come is it's not Groundhog Day. Is it? No, it's not that good. Right. But it's Groundhog Day is 93. 93, I think. Yeah.
[02:03:46] But it's certainly a major comedy star emerging from Saturday Night Live much like the stars of Memoirs of Invisible Man. Is it Bill and Madison? No. Wayne's World? Wayne's World. Wayne's World. Right. That movie comes out in like January. That movie came out in early February.
[02:04:04] First weekend it made 18. Second weekend it made 11. Third weekend it's making nine. Like it's just. 130? Yes. Did you see Wayne's World in theaters? I did see Wayne's World. Yeah, no. This was like my senior year of high school. I was like going and I had a car.
[02:04:17] So we went to the movies like all the freaking time. You know what movie is great? Wayne's World. It's real good. Our friend Rob Shear, a friend of the podcast, he brought up a great point
[02:04:30] to me which is like Wayne's World is one of the only movies of that era that is like a Boys Will Be Boys comedy that has no homophobia in it. That's interesting. Like there was some. Wayne's World probably, yeah, weirdly largely unproblematic
[02:04:42] because it's sort of just goofy and innocent. Like, yeah, no. Look, there are things I'm sure people will correct us as they say that. But I do think that movie is like so weirdly good hearted. Because like that's the thing with what's it called Bill and Ted
[02:04:54] where you watch it and you're like, I love this. This is so sweet. We showed it to the kids and I literally had to like have the mute button. The right one thing. That's already for that one bit.
[02:05:02] It's not just that it's eight for me but it's like it feels like an opposition to everything the characters have been established as up until that point. And like Wayne's World has that consistency of like there is a pureness to the worldview of these guys.
[02:05:15] Like they are good. They are good people. It's a fucking masterpiece. Wayne's World rules love it. I would love to do Penelope Spheras one day. Hey, she was on the bracket. She was on the bracket. She was on the bracket. Number two, Memoirs of an Invisible Man.
[02:05:28] Number three now it's a comedy that I'm sure was a big razy winner. Can you imagine how angry Chevy is about that by the way? That's not getting his ass kicked by like the fourth Chevy type. SNL leading man.
[02:05:40] I've been a proven movie star for 15 years, a $40 million movie. And here's a sketch adaptation from a guy who was on the show for six years and was never the big breakout star of the show. This feels like a Ben movie. I think you've shouted this out before.
[02:05:55] This is like a very memorable in the rental store cover. That's true. What genre? A comedy but it's starring an action star. Is it Oscar? Oscar? No, it's not Oscar, but that's the correct actor. So it's Stopper My Mom Will Shoot. Oh boy.
[02:06:13] Oscar is a better movie than Stopper My Mom Will Shoot. It's also, it's a funnier cover because she's doing the Herald Lloyd. The cover of this one is still pretty good. Well, the cover of this one is just every fucking background poster gag
[02:06:26] on 30 Rock of a Tracy Jordan. Like the poster is just exactly what the movie is. Right? Like there's no artist for you. The poster, the poster is just... The mom's got it gone. She's pointing it at the person looking at the poster. She looks delightful. Right.
[02:06:38] She looks like... You know, she's still a still-gallie. Oh, it is Stopper My Mom Will Shoot. I mean, this is also... I know you have to leave out and I'll say this as quickly as possible
[02:06:47] and add time to it by saying I'll say this as quickly as possible. It is a phenomenon I love which is in France. American comedies always get translated to titles like this where it is the main character exclaiming something. Like every French comedy title is like,
[02:07:00] Honey, I Shrunk the Kids or Stopper My Mom Will Shoot. It is just a great way to title a comedy, I think, is what would the character be saying if they were trying to convince you to pay attention to what they're doing right now?
[02:07:14] Number four at the box office. There's a film that comes up on this podcast once in a while. I think Basic Instinct has released in a few weeks so we've done some of these movies. It's a... What they called a chick flick back in the day.
[02:07:27] But it's sort of like kind of a serious literary movie. It's based on a hit book, Fried Green Tomatoes. Yeah. How do you just find Fried Green Tomatoes? Look, that was a period of time where they said... That was a kind of movie.
[02:07:42] You can get a bunch of good heavyweight actresses and put them in a movie about women crossing over generational gaps. Right, and telling each other stories and learning things. And like now it would be a 10 episode Netflix mini-series and way over your lifetime. Yeah, right.
[02:07:59] But yeah, it's just like, you know, that's a movie about listening to your elders. I don't even know how to define it. And you're like the biggest box office drawer in that movie at the time is Jessica Tan... Coming off an Oscar. Hopping in her 90s.
[02:08:13] Number five of the box office is a movie that I've never seen but we will do one day because the director has mostly made hit blank check films. Okay. But this is the one in his career that you kind of forget about. It's in between...
[02:08:26] Well, it comes after two of his hugest hits. Is it Medicine Man? Medicine. John McTurnan's Medicine Man with Sean Connery and Lorraine Braco. Lorraine Braco, Melphie. The big two. Yeah. Everyone was waiting. When's Connery gonna unite with Braco?
[02:08:43] It's still just a funny look at the poster for that which is like Connery, Braco. Like he's... Connery's like kind of hands on his hips. I'm the medicine man. And like also Lorraine Braco is here. And it's like Predator, Die Hard, Humphred October, Medicine Man.
[02:08:59] And then you've got Last Action Hero which is the classic balance. Big blobs. That's his only movie that doesn't exist and it's starring one of the most legendary movie stars of all time. I don't... I think I saw that in the theater too
[02:09:12] because I think we were hoping it would be like a romancing the stone type of thing. What is the purpose of that movie? He's a medicine man? What does he do? He is like a pharmaceutical rep and he's like a researcher in the Amazon
[02:09:24] and she has to get something from him. Like some wonder drug that can cure 16 things. Exactly. And then it's like an odd couple, I assume romance. So it's like Jungle Cruise. I don't know if this is a thing. It's like Jungle Cruise.
[02:09:37] You've got to find the flower that will... No! Stop talking! The flower talking about that movie. We'll cut your all illnesses. We don't even have to say what this flower can do because the answer is it can do everything.
[02:09:48] No one will ever get sick if we have this flower. I'm just saying, I did my own research and I think you don't need to get vaccinated if you have the flower from Jungle Cruise. Griffin. I did my own research! Griffin, no. Some other movies, The Hand Rocks,
[02:10:05] Hand That Rocks The Cradle, Big Hit, Good One. Movie called Final Analysis? I don't know this movie. I'm looking it up. I feel like I've seen this. Neo Noir erotic thriller with Richard Geer and Kim Basinger. There you go. Sort of a Hitchcock knock-off thing, right?
[02:10:21] Beauty and the Beast. Big Hit. Mississippi Massala, which is a great movie. Denzel. Early Denzel, Mirror and Nier movie. The Prince of Tides. One day we'll do it. We have to. Which takes us back to Lorraine Braco because Tony eventually give... Oh, I don't want to score.
[02:10:38] Griffin's watching Sopranos now. For the first time. And then 35 Up! The latest in the Michael Apted Up series. Opening it where? It's at number 11. Made $312,000. Wow. This weekend or in total? In total. Yeah, I don't know. Anyway, funny. Can I speak on the Prince of Tides? Of course.
[02:11:00] You're yourself for Prince of Tides. Starting to sex this man alive, Nick Nolte. Damn right. So we had to read that book and I was like, not going to read it. So I got the movie and the movie stunk too. So I don't know anything about it.
[02:11:13] We should watch it though someday. A necessary introduction from our finest film critic. Final note from our finest film critic. It was way too boring. Yeah, we're going to do it. I mean, Marie Barty constantly... I'd say on a weekly basis now texting us,
[02:11:31] we got to do Barbara. Babs. Quick and brief. Quick and easy. As long as you talk about them all some more. Yeah, we got to talk about them all. Bonus episode on them all. We're going to it. Yeah, that's a Patreon goal now. How? We open a storefront.
[02:11:46] We're going to break in? But like the Patreon's are they would have to pay for your bail. Yeah, we open a storefront. The Idiotic Podcast hosts arrested in an attempt to meet Patreon goal. We're like in front of a judge. Well, podcasting, it's kind of like radio,
[02:12:02] but it's stored on your phone. Now I know that. Well, Patreon is kind of like a per person. But what's the premise of the show? What's the premise of the show? Well, we started out like... It was like, what if the Star Wars movie? I know.
[02:12:15] In front of like a night court, you know? Yeah. Anyway, we're done. Alan, thank you so much for coming. It's been my pleasure. It's really... I've been talking with David for like a while about coming on, and I'm glad we could finally make this happen.
[02:12:28] You got to come back. Yeah, absolutely. Got to come back. Anytime. Let me do a better movie next time. You just... You got to learn your lesson. Don't offer to do the one that's stupid. No, it was a rookie mistake. I'm stupid. I know better now.
[02:12:39] I'll tell you off, Mike, Alan, because it's a little ways away. We had a very big guest star potentially like floated to us. Yeah. And we sent the list of like six movies of which there were like five big beloved classics and one absolute stinker.
[02:12:55] And this very notable person wrote back, essentially, I only want to do the stinker. I have no interest in this director's other films. I'm a big fan of this movie that no one likes. Excellent. That'll be a good one. Magnificent. Yeah. So sometimes it happens.
[02:13:11] But more often it's what you're doing, which is I'll happily do any of these five and we're like you're doing the fifth one. No, and I've been listening to the whole mini series and it's like every episode at some point either
[02:13:20] you will talk about like the incredible run carpenter is on and then comes memoirs of Indivisible Man or one of the guests will say, well, at least I'm not doing memoirs of Indivisible Man and you're like, yep, I'm the schmuck who's doing it. Oh yeah. But that's...
[02:13:34] We needed you to make this episode, so it's saying Alan, people should check out your work on Rolling Stone. You're constantly writing good shit. Is what's Alan watching? Can I still go to the blog spot? The blog spot still exists. It hasn't been taken down.
[02:13:50] It hasn't really been updated. You don't understand every day, 15-year-old David going to his blog spots. It's sort of funny to imagine that now. Click on your individual little blog spots. Yeah, not going on social media, just going straight there.
[02:14:01] So yeah, you can find me on Rolling Stone on social media. I have my own podcast which is on hiatus right now but should be coming back hopefully later this fall. Called Too Long Didn't Watch, where every episode of Star, including the aforementioned John Hamm... Hey!
[02:14:16] Yes, we will pick a show that they have never seen before. We see the first episode and the last episode and nothing in between and they have to figure out what the fuck happened. Oh, that's a cool... John Hamm watched Gossip Girl, Allison Brie watched Game of Thrones,
[02:14:30] Kumael Nandjiani watched Veronica Mars, Nick Offerman and Megan Mullally watched My So-Called Life. You've got a whole bunch of great new ones coming up for the second season. My So-Called Life is an all-time pilot. It is. Incredible pilot. I like this show, but the pilot's incredible.
[02:14:44] Eventually I will have all of Chevy Chase's former co-stars on the podcast, but I'm guessing after this, Chevy will not want to come on. No, but I think that's the way to do it is talk to everyone but Chevy. Yes.
[02:14:56] That seems to be the way that the best oral histories get put together as well. If you just do not let his voice into the picture and you let everyone else speak, then you can go back to the show and I'll speak for him.
[02:15:07] Chevy, Chevy, we love it when you fall down, but I wish that you were falling, falling for me. It would be nice. And look, he took his biggest fall ever on this movie from Grace. Well, well put. Thank you. Yes, very good. And thank you all for listening.
[02:15:24] Please remember to rate, review and subscribe. Thank you to the aforementioned Marie Barty for our social media, Pat Rounds and Joe Bowen for our artwork, J.J. Birch and Nick Lerga. For our research, A.J. McKee and Alex Barron for our editing, go to blankies.red.com
[02:15:43] for some real nerdy shit and go to patreon.com. Or we are doing the Mummy movies. Tune in next week for... Tune in next week. Tune in next week. Oh boy. For... Mouth of Madness, right? Next week is In the Mouth of Madness. Maybe the last good one.
[02:16:04] People... We'll see. I'm excited. I'm excited to watch. And as always, Chirpiches really is an asshole. I just wish it would stay it again.