Talking Pondo: Fast Times at Ridgemont High and Fighting with My Family

 In this episode, Marty gives Clif the movie Fast Times at Ridgemont High to watch and Clif gives Marty the movie Fighting with My Family to watch. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Is your premise that maybe Linda would have made it work with Brat? He wouldn't have gotten up and run if she had tried to give him a blowjob before jumping his move.

SPEAKER_04 0:08

It might have eased things in a little bit. He jumps right. It's like, whoa!

SPEAKER_01 0:16

Oh my fucking God, that's the best fucking thing.

SPEAKER_03 0:20

She doesn't know any better and fucking, you know. It's like, ooh, from a clinical point of view, it's like, ooh, that's rude. That's ouch, you know. And of course they break the cycle by the end of the movie, but it's Welcome to season three of Talking Pondo. Talking Pondo is a podcast where Cliff and Marty give each other a film to watch and talk about them in detail. Some episodes will include a special guest. Jeff Spicoli is late for wrestling class, will not be seen this week, so we may bring you this body slam of the show.

SPEAKER_02 1:07

They write themselves. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:13

It's US history. I see the globe right there. Oh, Jesus.

SPEAKER_02 1:18

Talking about Cuba, having some food.

SPEAKER_03 1:22

Right? Having a disturbance on our time. So it is talking Pondo. Which number is this? Is this 12? Season three, episode 12. Oh, wow. Fighting with I was gonna say fighting with your family. That's a different movie. Let's not bring that up. Fighting with my family. Right? Is that what it's called? Fighting with the family. Fighting with my family. And fast times at Ridgemont High. We basically were going through the alphabet and we pulled out two F movies this time. Yeah. Yeah, that's the ticket. That's what we did. Well, it's Marty and Cliff doing that movie review analysis thing once a week. Uh guest, but guests are soon to be happening, and other proper sentences.

SPEAKER_02 2:18

We've got some special, special uh themed weeks coming up for you soon. We're gonna get into spooky season pretty soon. Marty and I in particular are going to a spooky convention, I guess you could call it. Um and that's one of the reasons these movies were picked is that um uh well I think Soraya's gonna be there, and then oh god, Amy is it Amy Wynn? Amanda Wis.

SPEAKER_03 2:45

Amanda Wis. Fast Times, yeah. This is the total Mad Monster episode. Yeah, total mad monster episode.

SPEAKER_02 2:52

Yeah, and we make no uh make no make no uh apologies for it, you know. Mad Monster's a good time, and we think you should go, and we also think you know, honestly, Mad Monster should probably sponsor us.

SPEAKER_03 3:06

Yeah, we're just getting ourselves hyped up for the convention by watching movies that feature people who are at the convention. And in the case of fighting with my family, fighting with my family, fighting with my family, I think with somebody's family. Uh I learned who one of the guests were because I don't pay attention to wrestling, so I didn't know who Paige was, and now I do. And it's like, oh okay, so now I know who that guest is. But in Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Amanda Wiss is uh Brad's girlfriend. Brad's girlfriend, what's her name? Julie? Uh oh gosh. Well, anyways, uh yeah, she works at the burger place with them. That's big, but she's also in the background of the movie all the time. What's something I noticed different before I guess I guess let's start with Fast Times, and before I go too far into a spiel about a joke and ask you what is Fast Times at Rhodes Month, I do want to say this time uh I paid much more attention to the background actors than I ever used to. And it's kind of fun because you see all the other students over and over again, they keep recycling all of them, so she's in a lot of the back. Uh the uh Pat Benatar clones are constantly in the background. Very much so like, oh shit, they're much larger part of the movie than I would give them credit, usually, because they don't have a lot of dialogue, but they're always there. That was kind of fun. But anyways, what is uh times at Richmond High for those who don't know? There might be some people who still don't know.

SPEAKER_02 4:47

I I mean I think there's a uh uh generation growing up that probably hasn't seen this movie, and and and I would tell them well, I'll tell them at the end. Anyway, Fast Times of Ridgemont High, 1982, rated R One Hour and 30 Minutes, directed by Amy Heckerling and written by Cameron Crow.

unknown 5:10

Damn.

SPEAKER_02 5:11

A group of yeah, a group of SoCal high school students would rather ignore their studies and indulge in their teenage distractions. That's the log line. Storyline A look at the lives and loves of a group of high school students. It's the final year of high school for Brad Hamilton, who decides he should break up with his longtime girlfriend to play the field. He's at a loss, however, when she breaks up with him first. Jess Bacoli continues to take delight in getting under the skin of his teacher, Mr. Hand. Others are looking for love, sex, and just plain having a good time, which for the most part they all seem to find, though sometimes in unexpected places. What a terrible storyline.

SPEAKER_03 5:47

Yeah, that's a real romanticized strange outlook. But it's a lot bleaker of a movie if you really I remember the one time I saw this at the theater a few years back at the loft, I was like, this movie is fucking bleak. It's so dark. The abortion thing sticks out on but I'm saying if you watch it at the theater, it feels so different than watching it at home. I've seen a million times at home. I laugh my ass off. It's in the theater, I'm like, ugh.

SPEAKER_02 6:15

I think it I think it's uh since you want to talk about that real quick or bring it up, I'll say this. I had this thought about it. This is early on when like uh this kids were doing this, but films and television weren't reflecting it, right? Like this was this was a truth in society that that wasn't really being talked about. And so to I think to put it on film in that manner was pretty uh uh you know, pretty pretty edgy, I guess, and and uh uh well handled. You know, um because they could have lingered on it and made it, but it was it you're right, it's kind of bleak, where you're just like, oh man, it's not pure comedy, there's some there's some real dramatic stuff, and it popped more larger for me.

SPEAKER_03 7:01

Usually I'm like, yeah, that's there and that's fucked up, but it just the imp it felt more emphasized for some reason off the uh film print that one time I got to see it.

SPEAKER_02 7:11

My first note is I'm glad they didn't have Sammy Hagar do a fast times theme song because God that would have sucked.

SPEAKER_03 7:19

But but they did. You drive drive, you navigate.

SPEAKER_02 7:26

They just didn't say the lyrics, but that is that's but it's not the fast times, you know, it's not heavy metal, you know. Yeah, that's what I meant.

SPEAKER_03 7:38

It's funny, there's several fast times theme song in the movie. There's that song, which is just called Fast Times Ridgemont High. There's I don't know, which I feel is based off of I Don't Know. That's nice. And then there's uh sh there's uh oh what is it, this could be the best years of our lives? The football song, because Brad's all this could be the best year of my life, you know. I'm just gonna successful guy. And I'm like, oh, I feel like they took those three ideas from the movie and then kind of put a score around it. You know, they might not be the greatest songs ever, but I thought it was kind of neat how they well.

SPEAKER_02 8:18

I think that Jackson Brown plays well with um.

SPEAKER_03 8:20

Oh geez, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:22

Whoever did the timing of the uh editing of yeah, especially when they pull back to the dugout, and it's just that that that shot.

SPEAKER_03 8:35

Um my god, Brad. How old is this guy? Why are you taking her to the point? He's 26 years old.

SPEAKER_02 8:45

He's 26 years old.

SPEAKER_03 8:46

Yeah, it's all fucked up.

SPEAKER_02 8:48

Um, so right on, I want to say, right over we got the beat right over the Universal logos credits, is for me like the most dopamine nostalgia hit. Like every time I watch this movie and it starts like that, I'm like, yeah, fuck yeah, here we go. And uh the copy I watched was a Blu-ray copy that looked just amazing. Um and I was also had a thought of if you if you didn't live the 80s kind of 90s, maybe even early 2000s mall culture, you're gonna kind of miss a bit of this movie. Like it's it's it'll still it'll you'll still get the jokes, but it won't you won't get it like yeah, it won't hit like that that way.

SPEAKER_03 9:27

Anyway, um I I yeah. Yeah, I realized this time uh that the mall it's their escape, right? When I noticed when they're at the mall, everybody's kind of smiling. And when they're not at the mall, there's usually no expression or a blank look. There can be smiles outside smiles outside of the mall, but usually when they're at the mall, that's like the happy place for everybody. I noticed. I never really caught that before, but it makes sense because it's their internet, it's the place to go where everything is happening at that time.

SPEAKER_02 10:03

Smoking is upstairs to your left. Smoking smoke. Smoking is upstairs to upstairs to your left. In a movie theater, Marty. I mean, I I don't think I can maybe as a kid I remember going to a movie theater where somebody smoked, but it was it's very early on.

SPEAKER_03 10:24

They cut that out before we were even 10. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:27

I smoke I smoked in a in a in the movie theater at the site at the Sayufi chain where we worked early in the morning. I think I was probably what 19 or 20 years old.

SPEAKER_03 10:38

Yeah, for more information on that, listen to our Adam's Family Values episode. That's right. Wasn't that the movie where that's right. That's exactly how you nailed it. I think you do tell that story on that one. Uh in that theater is showing the best little whorehouse in Texas. I never noticed that before because of the HD copy, but that's the Dolly Parton joke. Well, that's 1982 for you. And also like 1982, and we still haven't covered Poltergeist, but we were talking about it, how it's that Toby Hooper, Steven Spielberg, who did what? It feels so similar. Well, right here we got the same thing going with Cameron Crowe, Amy Heckerling. They merge so well together that it's almost indecipherable what's what, you know, it just becomes this unique thing.

SPEAKER_02 11:29

The dialogue is is exceptional in in the fact that it it not it says has a lot to say and it moves the story along. There are several characters in this movie who have speeches that basically reveal so much about themselves, but without being expositive. It's not about moving the story along, it's about revealing like when Damone does the whole, you know, you it doesn't matter if where she comes, stays, praise, you're like blah blah blah. My toes are tapping. You're just like, oh, okay, you're that guy. Then you have the attitude. Yep. And then you you hear, you listen to um uh Stacy's girlfriend played by the adorable Phoebe Cates. Oh, Linda, yeah. Linda talking about, you know, oh, you know, you know, guys have to last 45 minutes, and you know, oh, he's a young kid, and blah, blah, blah. It's like, oh my god, you're you're you're a young kid. What are you talking about? Exactly right. You watch this movie as a kid. So they're revealing themselves very much through their in it. It's great dialogue. It's really, it's really fan well done.

SPEAKER_03 12:34

Right. You watch this movie when you're younger, and it's just like, oh, they're just young people being young. You watch it older, and they're doing this perfect job of capturing the naiveness of a young person. And you go, oh, Linda and Damone, they're both completely inexperienced.

SPEAKER_02 12:51

Yes, completely. That's exactly it. That's what I'm talking about. They they review it. Yeah. It's that classic, it's that classic trope of like in in the these kind of sex comedies, and this is an early, I think this opened up sex comedies for the 80s. This is 82, this thing's huge, and here they come. Yeah. Um and you get all these different ones, but one of the things in a sex comedy that's classic is this um uh this idea that um uh you have a friend who is uh offering advice that is uh that you know they try that always ends in some sort of ridiculous, farcical uh result because the guy doesn't know what the fuck he's talking about. And then and then when that guy is confr actually confronted with the moment, of course he crumbles and can't get it done. It's it's always how it works, right? And and that's why you know uh rat's character gets up when she's trying to get all over him and he's like, I should go, right? Like he's you know, he's what the what people in his uh you know a time period would call a nerd or a loser, but at the same time, he's the only one with kind of an an ethic and a clear idea of what he wants, right? He's not just trying to to to be something or do something.

SPEAKER_03 14:16

She's a very aggressive girl, rat. Do you know what I mean? No, I don't know what you mean. It's like oh, I I have a different interpretation of the movie now, a more Dr. Drew Loveline interpretation of the film. But it is funny, like they go back to Linda uh being like, oh, if I didn't have a fiance and blah blah, I'd go for it. It's like there is no fucking fiance and blah blah anymore in weird science and Anthony Michael Hall's got a girlfriend in Canada. You know, it's the same bullshit. It's like you're just you're talking shit. Yeah. But analyzing the movie now, watching it all these years later, and you go, oh my god, this is very feels very real and lived in for its time period. But if you look at it through the 2025 goggles, which you're not supposed to do because it makes the movie seem really bizarre. It does. You go, oh my god, so Stacy goes out with this much older guy, she's a minor, basically gets sexually assaulted at the fucking school grounds of all places. And then what does she do? She proceeds to start reenacting the event by sexually assaulting every guy she comes into contact with. So what happens is the only piece of advice that, and of course, this is farcical a bit, but it's funny. Listen, hear me out. Uh, the only piece of advice that Linda gives her that's practical at all is to how to give a blow job, right? But do we see Stacy engaging in any sort of park play? It's close off and we're fucking. And she's like, what the fuck?

SPEAKER_04 15:55

It's like because that's weird. She's a very aggressive brittle rat. Well, I don't understand what you mean, you know.

SPEAKER_03 16:03

And it's like, wait a minute, maybe everybody's a little fucked up here. Ron shouldn't have gone to her house, obviously. But Stacy's got some issues going too there. She's acting out, you know. So is your which makes his new scene in the uncut version make more sense, you know.

SPEAKER_02 16:24

Um is your premise that maybe Linda would have made it work with Brat, he wouldn't have gotten up and run if she had tried to give him a blowjob before jumping.

SPEAKER_04 16:32

It might have eased things down a little bit. She jumps right. It's like, whoa!

SPEAKER_01 16:40

Oh my fucking god, that's the best fucking thing.

SPEAKER_03 16:43

She didn't know she doesn't know any better, and fucking, you know, it's like, ooh, from a clinical point of view, it's like, ooh, that's really that's that's ouch, you know. And of course, they break the cycle by the end of the movie, but it's just like, oh my god, I never thought of it like that before because I'm old now. And you look at it and you go, Oh, these people are not experienced. She should have just been given the bloody's. She tried to the only practical thing she ever taught. Everything else is a crock of shit. Bad advice all the time, but that one thing was practical.

SPEAKER_02 17:18

I'm gonna fucking do it. No, she doesn't do it. You're right, you're absolutely right. She she chokes herself on a carrot in front of the entire cafeteria.

SPEAKER_03 17:28

It never gets brought up ever.

SPEAKER_02 17:30

It never gets brought up ever again.

SPEAKER_03 17:37

She's like, take clothes off, Mike, bam, couch from the awkward fucking Jackson Brown song, and he's like, I really gotta go.

SPEAKER_02 17:45

He flops like he flops like a fish on top of it.

SPEAKER_03 17:47

So it's embarrassing for everybody, but it's supposed to be. It's supposed to be. That's why in the uncut version Demo's hang's dong pretty much. Ah that was cut because they needed to make an R because they were an Amy Heckerling. It's like, no, everybody, it should be equal because it makes the awkwardness more, and so the Criterion Blu-ray has the extra two seconds in the movie.

SPEAKER_02 18:13

The hang of the dong.

SPEAKER_03 18:15

It makes it a little more like, oh, it's just a little more awkward.

SPEAKER_02 18:19

Yeah, the hang Demon extra two seconds. Smoking is upstairs on your left. Right.

SPEAKER_03 18:25

Um, we thought we'd come over and help you with your math homework on such a hot day. Your friends messed it up. Who are your friends, Stacey? Yeah, who are your friends?

SPEAKER_02 18:35

I guess. So, one of the things I want to talk about for a moment is besides trying not to pass out from your your your uh piece, your bit there, that was great. Um, this is a Nexus movie and a very big one. Like you can point out Forrest Whitaker, Nicolas Cage, Sean Penn.

SPEAKER_04 18:57

Nicolas Cage, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:58

The three stoners are Eric Stoltz, Anthony Edwards, and fucking Sean Penn, man. Yeah. Are you fucking kidding me? And then of course that's not those those aren't even the stars of the fucking movie. That's Jennifer Jason Lee, fucking, you know, um uh uh uh Judge Reinhold, fucking it's it's it's it's oh my you just keep pointing them out, going, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god.

SPEAKER_03 19:25

It's ridiculous. Speaking of extras, uh Kelly Moroney and uh Amanda Wis, they're all over the background of this thing. That's what I'm talking about. That's Kelly Moroni again, again, again, again. And you know who the other cheerleader is, other than Kelly Moroney, who's doing the little thing at the front? Kelly Moroney from Night of the Comet, if you don't know. Yeah. Pamela Springsteen. It's Bruce's sister, who some of us know from Sleepaway Camp 2 and 3. But there she is going, really? You know, I think might be her one line in the movie where you know it takes a lot of guts to get up here and do something you know people will make fun of. So one of the things Martin Brest, director of Sin of a Woman, he's the abortion doctor. Wow. Unless I got that wrong right in.

SPEAKER_02 20:19

Um to go back to your blowjob thing. Oh, that's kind of a joke, you know. Mark is wearing a sparkly Popeye t-shirt. And I would assume that it's probably hard for a girl to give a blowjob to a guy wearing a sparkly Popeye t-shirt. Oh, she doesn't try to do it to anybody.

SPEAKER_03 20:36

Even in 1983. She just jumps right all over Damone. Oh okay. It's like it's like, hey, slow things down.

SPEAKER_02 20:44

Yeah, it's it it's it exactly. So stay Linda and Damone, that's the that was my thing. One of my things is uh her their speeches about blowjobs and putting out and vibe and attitude. It really I don't know if that that trope is before or after Fast Times, but I see it a lot later on in other movies. There's always those friends who give that terrible advice.

SPEAKER_03 21:05

It crystallized it if it didn't come up with yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:09

In the first 20 minutes of this movie, I saw references to Wasted Youth, Surf Nazis Must Die, and several other punk references, which made me very, very happy. And Gogo's, I guess, are a punk band from the 80s considered.

SPEAKER_03 21:22

The uh the record store is licorice pizza. Really? You can see that sign briefly in the mall with oh daddy. He's talking to the standout, the cardboard stand up.

SPEAKER_02 21:38

Uh Ron the stereo salesman, that guy, that guy's a douchebag in a lot of movies. Like I don't know if he got a typecast, but I I mean I saw him do pull that same thing in a lot of movies and say what you want about Ron, but at least he brought a blanket. You know, he he did bring like a flower, you know, send flowers, you know.

SPEAKER_03 21:58

But why did he already have a blanket? We all know why. We knew we were going to the point. The point, it's it's just so nasty. What's there to do with the point, Brad? We've been going together for two years. We've been going together for two years. Not everybody goes there. Oh, geez.

SPEAKER_02 22:13

No, we don't have any blue oyster cult. Um, this movie's infinitely quotable, folks, in case you haven't noticed already. It's it's literally they're literally just everywhere hanging from a tree for you to grab. Um it has this weird bit of realism and charm while also staying a comedy. It deals with serious events that uh truth. The truth kid, there are girls that were having abortions that go to high school or were in the 80s. Maybe, maybe still. And probably in college too, right? So, you know, it's dealing with that. It's dealing with this idea of you date a guy in high school, but maybe you don't want to date him forever, type of thing, you know, dealing with the guy, the kids who just want to kind of sneak through school and be high and worry about getting stoned and having a tasty wave and a cool buzz. And, you know, even the nerd kids who are wondering how they're gonna get a date, you know, how things are gonna go for them.

SPEAKER_03 23:12

You know, it's set in California, but it has several unaccounted for New York accents. Yeah. I mean, obviously there could be transplants, but it is it is kind of funny. Damone's very Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:29

Yeah, yeah, that's true. Damone's the only one that lives in an apartment, too. I noticed in the whole movie.

SPEAKER_05 23:36

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:40

The little prick.

SPEAKER_03 23:46

Stacy's house, and he turns around and the light turns off. Dude, she's still awake.

SPEAKER_04 23:51

Yeah. Go back and knock it out. Go back. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:55

Yeah. So here's something that's always bugged me. And this is because I jockeyed a bunch of registers, but um I think I finally also figured out why. But when Stacy is ringing the guy up for pizza, she says, a dollar ten and you get five cents back. Which always seemed like it was incorrect. It was like, why is if something's a dollar ten when I get five cents back, I give you a dollar. I why would I give you a dollar fifteen for you to hand me the nickel back? That doesn't make any sense, right? But like, am I if I lost my mind and and given you a dollar fifteen when you said a dollar ten, anyway. But what she means is the total is a dollar five. You gave me a dollar ten, and here's a nickel back. And I was always just like, it always caught me like, even as a kid, going, what the f what is she stupid?

SPEAKER_03 24:54

I must resolved.

SPEAKER_02 24:56

Yeah, anyway, I figured it out. Um, Breakfast Mail Karen is my favorite character almost in the entire movie.

SPEAKER_03 25:03

Um, yeah. So good. And then you know, watching that as an older person, it's like, Brad, you didn't fucking handle this incorrectly. Started giving the guy like almost right away.

SPEAKER_02 25:17

Yeah. What you do is you go get your manager, and your manager who gets paid$30,000 to deal with these assholes deals with it.

SPEAKER_03 25:25

Because you're not a cashier, Brad. And you know what? All that's fucked up. Where's the cross-training? He should know how to run that register, especially if he's employee at the fucking market. You're damn right, Marty. Well, I believe you have to fill out a form for that. Well, then go get the fucking form. Why are you there? You wanted to fight with that guy, Brad. It was getting to your head. Well, and he kind of gives Dennis that look like all this fucking guy, you know, and it's like, oh no, you're fired. And the classic, I hope you had a hell of a piss, Arnold. Which I always share in my mind in the TV version is I hope you had a hell of a break, Arnold. Yep. Plays these weird voiceovers.

SPEAKER_02 26:04

Fool with it version.

SPEAKER_03 26:06

Oh, the TV version's great. It's also on the Criterion Disc, so you don't have to hunt for it anymore. But there's maybe 20 minutes of alternate scenes that are pretty funny, and all of the weird cursed words. Like, don't fool with it. Oh, that's my man. Last scene in Ghost Dog, another Forrest Whitaker movie, another excellent uh Forrest Whitaker film, I must say. And this is his first movie, I believe.

SPEAKER_02 26:37

So uh yeah, he ghost dog himself, Forrest Whitaker in this thing. That's awesome. Um, I love when Rat takes uh is it Stacy, Stacy out on the date. Um Damone tells him to put on side one of Led Zeppelin four, and he ends up putting on physical graffiti. Yeah. And he's like, dude, come on, man.

SPEAKER_03 27:00

That scene has Cameron Crow imprinted all over it.

SPEAKER_02 27:03

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 27:03

Oh, they're talking about Led Zeppelin.

SPEAKER_02 27:05

Talking about music and Led Zeppelin, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 27:07

And then the HD copy, I could finally see the smashed window from whence the stuck car stereo was stolen. Yes, yep. The old full frame VHS, you couldn't see that. And I was always like, How do they break in the car? I don't see anything. Why did they steal the stereo at such a nice place? And then she still says, Do you want to come in for a suck? I mean, sex. Yeah, sex. But it wasn't for a suck. For a suck. The movie's doing it.

SPEAKER_02 27:39

It's not me. I'm just picking up on it. Uh well, and then we get, then I think it's the next day that we get the scene that launched a million masturbations or more. Which is fucking knocked out. Which is fucking Phoebe Cates, yeah. Phoebe Capes jumping in the, you know, taking her top off and going to Brad.

SPEAKER_03 27:58

Um, you'll never hear moving in stereo the same way again. Never. You'll never hear it moving in stereo. I hear it at work sometimes. I always Google to myself. And one of the younger generation was like, Oh, I love this song. They know it from something else. Yeah, you'd love it from yeah.

SPEAKER_02 28:14

And I'm like, oh, you don't know it from this. Okay. So good. Um, so in the Blu-ray version that I was able to watch, the 1080p version, something shocking was revealed to me. Spicoli has braces. Oh, yeah, I think you can kind of see that, right? Yeah. He full on in in the scene where Taylor Negron shows up with the pizza and he's talking to Mr. Han, you can fully see these braces. And then later on, when Mr. Han comes to his house and he, Aloha, Mr. Hand, he's got straight up friggin' braces on his teeth. And I was just like, What the fuck? What are you kidding me? I never knew Spacoli had braces. And by the way, learn about Cuba, having some food, and sp and Spicoli's face when Mr. Hand is eating his pizza is just fucking so good. I love it so much. I really do. Um There's no throwaway on this film. It's a tight, compact 90 minutes. It doesn't linger, it hits, it keeps going, it never circles back on itself, it never falters, it never pauses, and it's just it's just tight and compact. It's it's literally like one minute or one hour and what 29 minutes, one hour, 30 minutes. It's fucking, it's perfect.

SPEAKER_03 29:48

Excellent pacing, like a thought. Yeah, it's so good. And I know that Amy Heckerling didn't like the music choices. She wanted a lot more punk stuff and the studio wouldn't allow it, but I can't imagine this movie without even the cheesy songs. Same. So even though there's a version, uh one of the early videotape copies of it we had years ago, has like an alternate score. Like the songs weren't there, but it was the Joe Walsh score placed and shit. I don't know if I even have a digital copy of that version anymore.

SPEAKER_02 30:23

That's interesting. So I had a thought, and it was what if the robber shoots Brad and then Spicoli and takes all the money and leaves, and that's the end of the movie. Well, then that's the clerk's ending. It's the clerk's ending.

SPEAKER_04 30:38

Like, there goes your ride home.

SPEAKER_02 30:43

And Bradley. I was just gonna say Brad moves on to clerkin' at the 7-Eleven. That's what you do when you got tired of the fucking fast food restaurants as you go into the 7-Eleven clerking.

SPEAKER_03 30:54

Judge Reinhold's in the clerk's cartoon.

SPEAKER_02 30:57

Is he?

SPEAKER_03 30:57

And they there's a scene where early on Jay slips in the quick mark and he decides to sue them because there was coffee on the floor or something. He slips on it, and then at the end of the episode, because Judge Reinhold is the judge when they go to court. And then like by the end of the day, I remember this one. They reenact that scene and he slips on the coffee and he's like, I'm gonna sue you, Brad Hamilton, or something like that. I don't know. But so so yeah, Kevin Smith already thought of that one. That's great. But yeah, that would have been that would have been the bleak ending.

SPEAKER_02 31:33

And then we get the Animal House credits that you hate that you hate so much.

SPEAKER_03 31:38

The Animal House credits. But uh, I think does this movie have one of the same producers as Maul Rats? Because didn't they want him to do that for Maul Rats? Because he's always I want you to do the Animal House credits, and he's like, What? And he's like, Because we done it on this movie and this movie, and you know, I can't think of names, but I could be wrong on that, but I still think those are funny, you know. Blows his money on Van Halen as opposed to the next movie, which ends with, and then Dwayne the Rock Johnson went on to a big career. Well, no shit. Did you really need to put that one in there? The other's okay, but we know who The Rock is. Are you talking about Erzing Irving Azov? No, I think it was like John Jax or something like that. Was his name CO Erickson or Art Manson? I could be off on that, but there was a TV show. The 1950s. Yes, there was Square Pegs, right? It was called Fast Times, and it ran for seven episodes. Oh, I thought that I thought that was Square Pegs. Well, there is Square Pegs as well. That's very similar to the TV show. Yes. Patrick Dempsey as Damone. Uh guy who plays Chainsaw and Summer School is Spicoli. Yes. You got Mr. Han and Mr. Vargas are both in it. Uh Courtney Thorne Smith, is that her name? From E Stacy. The lovely Courtney. And then everybody else, I think, is relatively, you know unknown.

SPEAKER_02 33:18

What kind of story are you gonna tell about this?

SPEAKER_03 33:20

And Leaving is even in an episode, I remember from Fear. And it's not the greatest thing. It only lasted seven episodes, but it almost serves as this weird kind of pseudo-sequel. Like, how do you continue this? And I remember by the end of it, they were trying to hook Brad and Linda up. They were trying to make a couple out of them, so that was that was different. It was like, oh, we're trying to go further with the story. I think Amy Heckerling directed a few of the episodes. Interesting. And also, what's funny is the cutaway shots are like corndogs from the mall. You know, it's all the shots from the movie that are interspliced with the episodes in an attempt to give you that feel.

SPEAKER_02 34:03

Yeah, yeah, that that inner that inner pause in between fucking different scenes. But they just yeah, the cutaway little montages, sure.

SPEAKER_03 34:12

They can't recapture it. I think Fred Willard is in an episode. Yeah, very weird oddity, and it's never been issued on DVD or any kind of streamer. You would think just as a curiosity, maybe, but nope, Lost of the Ages, YouTube.

SPEAKER_02 34:28

One of the one of the things that uh I want to I think is important about this movie is that it it um it sets the stage for setting the stage. Well, it sets the stage for a lot of movies, but it also it also cements like it's along with Valley Girl and some others, um, it's it sets that tone, that California tone, that thing, that California sound of talking and and the way that you you talk that way rolled through the Midwest as a kid. I I I literally remember people literally changing the way that they talked overnight to talk like that and sound like that forever. Awesome.

SPEAKER_03 35:11

And then it and then it's awesome. That's a great movie.

SPEAKER_02 35:14

Yeah, and then it rolled over into a whole new sound, right? It's it's it's wild. That the oh my god, totally awesome. Yeah, that holy shit, dude. That all comes from this.

SPEAKER_03 35:28

It all comes from this. Awesome entered the pop culture lexicon because of this movie.

SPEAKER_02 35:35

Yep, absolutely awesome, totally awesome.

SPEAKER_03 35:38

Awesome, totally awesome until this. No, no, fucking at that wave and saying, hey bud, let's party. That's a big one too from back then.

SPEAKER_02 35:48

The whole stoner thing was fucking uh and Sean Penn looks high as fuck in this movie. If you if like if you look, he looks high as shit.

SPEAKER_03 35:58

Uh I don't know if he's just met he's the surfer stoner. But holy crap, he looked high. Different type of stoner than we see in a lot of the other movies because he just wants to surf. He probably wants to surf more than he wants to get high, if I had to guess.

SPEAKER_02 36:16

Well, if I had to guess, what would you give it?

SPEAKER_03 36:19

And checkerboard vans come from this board. Oh shit. That that's another gone in style many times.

SPEAKER_02 36:26

But vans off the walls literally explode from this movie. That that style, the vans off the wall style, comes straight from this movie. That's a massive, massive, huge cultural impact. I remember when I finally found a store that sold more than just the checkerboard top designs where you could get others. There's like, oh shit, you can get other designs.

SPEAKER_03 36:47

Cool. You and you had to go to the van store in the mall. It was real see, it was mall culture. Yeah, this was a very seismic shift when this came out. Uh huge. The studio hated it. Of course they didn't want to put it in what the fuck they're doing. They never have. It explodes. And I remember wanting to see it from the moment I saw the commercial. Same. And then I knew it was coming on cable like the next month, like HBO or whoever was gonna show it. And my uh brother-in-law at the time rented it, and I was like, Oh man, it's coming on TV. Like, I'm a stupid little kid. I'm like, we gotta just wait a month, you know? And he's like, I rented it for you, and I felt so bad, you know. Oh, that's funny. You didn't understand. And we ended up watching it, and it was just like it was fucking great. So everything, you know, nine-year-old kid who probably shouldn't be watching that movie anyway, all is forgiven. And then I didn't see it again for a long time until oh, probably right around the time I met you. I started, I had rediscovered it probably and was watching it like once a week. Yeah, we had that movie on loop quite a bit. I had the soundtrack on vinyl. Uh yep, yeah, same, same.

SPEAKER_02 38:10

I I watched that movie.

SPEAKER_03 38:11

The checkerboard shoes, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 38:13

I wore that movie out on on cable and um I saw it, I don't I don't think I got to see it in the theater. I don't think I was allowed to, I can't remember. No, I I saw revival screening years later. But I saw it, yeah. I saw screening years later, and it was on cable in '83, I think. And so I was 10 when I saw it. And I just it was like around those movies that I shouldn't have been watching, like Porkies, Fast Times, some of those uh Breakfast Club came in and I wasn't allowed really to watch that. But those that's what I feel like is like without this movie, you don't get Fast Times. You don't, or you don't not Fast Times, without Fast Times, sorry, you don't get Breakfast Club, you don't get some of the John Hughes movies, the more teen driven. Feels like these were the this was the the the opening of those teen-driven kind of comedies and and and tales that you would have mischief, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 39:12

So it's starting to like actual 80s movies can happen. But yeah, you look at 81 and there isn't a movie like Fast Times, those type of movies are still more if they exist, they're more for older Animal House, a college thing, you know. Yeah, I actually saw the Fast Times TV show when it was on. I remember that summer of 86 where they burned out those few episodes. Just thinking this is weird. And Danny Elfman does the theme song. Of course he does. Just like in the perfect ending song for this movie, too, where goodbye, goodbye comes on. Which watching it with the subtitles on and actually seeing what the words to the song are are a trip. But you know, I'm just like, what is he fucking saying? He's going so fast. Uh it's it's you know, we bring a Forrest Whitaker movie on the show, and I guess I have to give it five stars. That's what happened with Ghost World, Ghost World Ghost Dog. So I give Ice one five because I think it's perfect.

SPEAKER_02 40:22

I have no problems with this movie. Like, I I haven't seen this movie in probably five years. And I put it on, and immediately I'm like, mm-hmm. Again, you know, fucking uh we got the beat right over the universal credits into the fucking thing. Here comes all the mall stuff, right into Stacy, right into Linda, bam, bam, bam, off and running. Brad's a fucking dork, but he's still somehow got a girl. The weirdo dude who just wants to work from Bronco Burger at all American burger. It just keeps rolling and keeps you going, and then suddenly Spicoli shows up and you're off with that shit. And then the and the it just keeps going, right? And it never lets up, and it's fucking great. And I I just I don't I think it's an American classic, I think it's kind of perfect, yeah. Watching like I think it's it's hard to argue with it, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 41:17

You know how we say watching movies at different ages and you get different things, yeah. And I go, Oh, well, is this one gonna hold up because it's a teen movie? And it's like, oh, it totally does because, like I said earlier, they're perfect encapsulations of even though they're too old to be high schoolers, they exude that feeling of a realness in their scenes, and the movie's so simple, basic sets, you could tell they didn't have a whole lot of money. The the Karen yelling about his breakfast. You look at that scene, and I look at it now and I'm like, this is so simple. The coverage is bam, bam, bam, and it's just so effective. But as a kid, it I didn't notice any of that, it just felt like it was a real restaurant and shit.

SPEAKER_02 41:59

So, yeah, and it's it's it's the it's the perfection of the in its simplicity in getting over exactly what it wanted to say and what it wanted to do. It wanted to talk about a bunch of kids and talk about a time where these kids are living, and there's no telling if you know uh what the future movies like this will hold. But I'd love to see some great version of this much later. There's but I think this is also as as a as a movie kind of trote kind of died out, like it's sort of got perfected, repeated over and over again, and now it's sort of done.

SPEAKER_03 42:37

That's what happens, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 42:38

You know, but this is sort of the perfection of it. I give it five stars.

SPEAKER_03 42:42

I can't this might be our first five-five.

SPEAKER_02 42:45

Yeah, I I there's nothing in this movie that I can't look at and go, oh, it's terrible. It's it's fucking hilarious all the way through. And it never lets up, it just keeps going.

SPEAKER_03 42:56

And think about another part of it through 2025 eyes. Driving down the street in your Captain Hook fish and chips uniform might actually get you somewhere nowadays. That's true. That's true. There was no cosplay back then. That's true. It was like he's wearing his fucking fast food outfit. Loser. Now it's like, look, you're being an ironic pirate. Somebody might be into that.

SPEAKER_04 43:22

Show a little pride. What? Show a little pride and chips?

SPEAKER_02 43:27

No shit. Nobody wants to fucking show pride. The only people who want to show pride at work at a fast food restaurant are the fucking people getting paid good money to push everybody else around to work at the fast food restaurant.

SPEAKER_04 43:37

Right.

SPEAKER_02 43:38

You know, I remember working uh the first time I worked at when we worked at Sayufi and they gave us those little bow ties and vests.

SPEAKER_03 43:45

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 43:45

And by the time you've been there six months, that vest stinks of fucking butter. Well, in concession, you're in box office, so it's not so bad, but in fucking concession, it's just like, damn, dude, you can't wash these vests hot enough to get them fucking. Butter out of this thing. It's ridiculous.

SPEAKER_03 44:03

Box Office had its own odor.

SPEAKER_02 44:05

Yeah, I bet it did.

SPEAKER_03 44:07

I used to have the book of this. And it's the book's quite expensive because it's never come back in print, unfortunately, after all these years. I'd like to read that, actually.

SPEAKER_02 44:17

I'd like to read that. I I knew Cameron had written a book. I'd like to read that. He did write the screenplay for it. And I think it was kind of crruelly ignored at the Oscars.

SPEAKER_03 44:27

Of course, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 44:29

But that makes but that makes sense. Because that had that's how it goes, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 44:32

You got a campaign for stuff, and yeah. And people are like, why didn't this get nominated? Because the people who put it out, nobody unfortunately had enough money to push or whatever. For more on that, watch the Dove Simmons two uh the two-day film class, whatever that was called. Talking about how you know they can pour money into making people famous. But that's a bit of a diversion there. But uh yeah, five stars all around, probably our first double five, I think. I have we said five on uh both on a movie.

SPEAKER_02 45:06

No, that's this is this would be it. No, this would be it. Amy Heckerling is my Amy Heckerling is one of my absolute favorite directors of all time.

SPEAKER_03 45:15

And um she fucking nails it here. I hear Chris Katan's book, Autobiography, has some interesting stories about Amy Heckerling in it. So might be worth a look. Apparently she uh was uh the mother of Harold Ramis's uh kid out of from from another uh another relationship. That kid's like 20 and then found out that Harold Ramis was their dad. Wow. So talk about fast times. Yeah, she's made a bunch of interesting movies. She made like Look Who's Talking and Loser with Jason Piggs, but she's also made some some good stuff too. Like this one. It's like, well, you made this one, so you don't really need to do anything else. Where do you where do you go from here? You know. Well, I mean uh the uh give her pro ends up having a really solid give her some credit. She she wrote she wrote and directed Clueless. That's the other big one, that's right. And that was a TV show, too.

SPEAKER_02 46:18

And the Look Who's Talking, I mean, that's just money. And I mean she wrote a TV show. That was also her idea. So she she made a fuckload of money writing and directing Look Who's Talking and made a buttload with it, you know, and you know, did Clueless and did loser, and you know, I I think yeah, that's what I was saying. I I think she interweaves kind of the artistic artistic thing of like I can work on an indie salary and be an indie filmmaker, or I can make my own things that are within that more commercial realm. Anyway, uh that was Fast Times of Res My High.

SPEAKER_03 46:58

Yeah, a movie that probably we would have covered much later, but oh Mad Monster is happening, and we wanted to get excited about it again. And you know, after we did Oppenheimer in Nashville, I think all bets are off. We can watch any movie now.

SPEAKER_02 47:16

Oh, dude. Two others that we missed on Amy Heckerling's list. She directed Johnny Dangerously. And she directed European Vacation.

SPEAKER_03 47:26

Oh god, I forgot about that. Try finding a copy of Johnny Dangerously. It's I think that's horribly out of print as well.

SPEAKER_02 47:37

Well, I mean, that's maybe that's for a reason. We'll see. I haven't seen that long. Maybe I haven't seen that one in a long time.

SPEAKER_03 47:42

So anyway, that brings us to Fighting with My Family. Fighting with My Family theme song, not by Weird Al. That's right. But it is weird to hear Wild Side by Motley Crue with the lyrics removed. So my first thing about this movie before I ask you what it is, is it reminded me of CBGB, but you could tell they had the money to have all their music cleared. Except in one instance where they couldn't get a song and they had a cover version of it, I guess. And did this movie have wigs? Because if they were wigs, they were much better wigs. But, anyways, what is Heart Like a Wheel? I mean, Fighting with My Family.

SPEAKER_02 48:28

Fighting with my family, 2019, PG 13, an hour and 48 minutes. A former wrestler and his family make a living performing at small venues around the country while his kids dream of joining the World Wrestling Federation. Uh written and directed by Steven Merchant.

SPEAKER_03 48:48

That was a surprise how how utterly British this film was was a complete surprise to me.

SPEAKER_02 48:54

Stars Dwayne Johnson, Lena Hetty, Vince Vaughn, Nick Frost, uh uh Florence Pugh. It's it's uh quite a cast. Uh your log, your storyline is former wrestler Ricky and his wife Julia make a living performing with their children Soraya and Zach. When brother and sister get the chance to audition for WWE, they learn that becoming a WWE superstar demands more than they ever imagined possible, based on an incredible true story.

SPEAKER_03 49:25

It's like LeRoy from Fame. He goes just to support his sister, and he ends up getting the dancing gig, and the sister gets all bitter and storms off. We get the whole movie of it until eventually, spoiler, Zach realizes hey, this is awesome. And I'm helping a blind kid learn how to wrestle. So what the fuck am I bitching about? The blind kid learning how to wrestle is pretty fucking dope, actually.

SPEAKER_02 49:52

I kind of like that. Um the dad's introduction along with the mom at the very beginning of the movie really sets the tone for the film. Um, it's definitely you know wrestling with my family.

SPEAKER_03 50:05

Um it was so densely British in the first 10 to 15 minutes that I was like, oh my god, this is made for people who actually live in the UK, I think. Because I'm not catching the slang and the references, but then as it goes on, I kind of you get used to it and it pulls you along. And once the Vince Vaughn thing kicks in, it's like, okay, now we're watching a pleasant little tween movie about you know, you can do it. You can do it, exactly. Yeah, I'm like, oh okay, this is this is Rocky.

SPEAKER_02 50:37

All right. Um, I love the scene where Nick Frost is negotiating. Or sorry, I should get closer to the microphone, sorry about that. Where Nick Frost is negotiating that that wrestler's salary by going, will he do a what? Will he take a hang on, will you do this? And he hits him with the thing in the face, and the guy's like, Yeah, all right. He's like, Will he do what? And he hits him with the other thing when he do that, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 50:59

Um it reminded me of Youngblood a little. But instead of Youngblood where he couldn't fight, it's like this one's like, oh, she can't talk shit. So she freezes up on the mic, so she has to learn how to be more of the personality kind of yeah.

SPEAKER_02 51:15

Well, that and and dealing with like yeah, again, it's fish out of water, you know. So you've got that, you know, she doesn't fit in with the girls that she's working with, you know, she's being pushed a lot, you know, and and dealing with you know somebody asking a lot from her and that type of thing.

SPEAKER_03 51:33

Very tropey, but when you realize that the movie's kind of meant for 14-year-olds, yeah. It's like, oh, okay, I'm asking too much of this. This is a it's a pleasant kids movie in a way, you know.

SPEAKER_02 51:44

It's it's definitely crafted in the film too, so you know it's gonna hit certain beats. Yeah. These I was thinking about this, like these biopics like Oppenheimer, also Florence, they pull out, yeah, also with Florence Pugh, they pull out like five years of somebody's life and show it to you, right? And so and and some things they really zoom in on and other things they ignore, even within that five years. And it's like it's hard to know a lot about a person and really tell who they are from something like that. And one of the things like with this the reason that she's called Soraya now is because that's her mother's wrestling name. Yeah, they mention it like in passing towards. They mention it in passing, yeah. And she what they don't mention is like in the I read in Wikipedia is that she and her mother used to wrestle together as a tag team partnership. Oh, they don't even show that, yeah. And that she wrestled all around Europe and was wrestling in the States, and that she and her mother even had like a whole, you know, classic falling out where they became enemies, bitter enemies, and did that whole heel type thing. And so by the time that she got to to auditioning for the WWE, it wasn't like she wasn't known or that she was just some girl who was just coming in, you know, because she wrestled with her family. They knew who the fuck she was. Yeah, they had to hype that up to make a you know, she had belts and she had she had been doing things, and so and they did hype that up. And it sucks that her brother didn't get in. I'm not saying that or anything, but um I do like the story of her brother. There's a nice parallel with her brother kind of dealing with that and dealing with the loss of it. And I do think that the way that Vince Fawn's just like just let it go. Like, you're not gonna, you know, and then later on explains to his sister, like what? So he's chasing around and like what because that was me. He gets, you know, yeah, he gets the bigger. Oh, the rock was the other guy.

SPEAKER_03 53:39

That means I'm the rock.

SPEAKER_02 53:41

That's it. You're the rock. Now you can smell what's cooking.

SPEAKER_03 53:48

And your brother is Vince Vaughn. And your brother is Vince Vaughn.

SPEAKER_02 53:55

Um, let's see. Oops, I gotta quit saying um you know, it's an in the end, it's a working class family trying to make a wrestling living. And, you know, it's it's not faked, it's fixed, is one of my favorite. Oh, so you're gonna bring this up. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 54:10

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_05 54:11

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_03 54:12

I sure am. Okay. Let's start with. I've heard uh well, I must start even further back. Words, words are just words, they're describing things. And some of us should be a little less stick up our ass about what the words mean, perhaps in certain cases, like skit versus sketch. Some people get so upset when they refer to a sketch as a skit. You know what I'm trying to say. I'm not trying to insult you by saying skit. Who the hell gets upset about that? Some comedians. So also when you go to wrestling, the people who love all this extreme violent sport are so sensitive. Somebody says the word fake as if anybody is actually saying you're not beating the shit out of each other. We're referring to the fixed part. When we say fake, we're talking about the soap opera, the predetermined. We'll say predetermined. Well, I'm not gonna say sequential art. It's I'm not gonna say sequential art. I'm not even gonna say graphic novel, it's a comic book. These are words. That's fucking hilarious. But I do think it's funny that the movie points that out where they get so butthurt. But dude, I'm not saying you're not physically hurting yourself. Now come on, what is the insecurity here? It's not fake, it's fixed. It's a difference. So sensitive. You know what we're trying to say. We're talking about your storyline. Oh, having crushing your knee up. That's obviously real.

SPEAKER_02 55:59

Yeah, I mean, when you when you when you fall on a bunch of fucking tacks in the backyard wrestling shit, obviously it's real. So I'm watching this movie and I'm so used to Florence Pugh having blonde hair that watching her with the black hair, and I do think it's a wig, uh, is kind of she doesn't look exactly right. But then when she goes blonde, she looks less right. So when she goes back to black, she looks normal.

SPEAKER_03 56:25

I don't know. I just know her from the Oppenheimer movie last week, so I'm just used to the dark.

SPEAKER_02 56:31

Yeah, she's in Dune, she's been in both Dune movies and then the Oppenheimer movie. That's what I know her from.

SPEAKER_03 56:37

Um speaking of Heart Like a Wheel, this movie did something that that movie didn't that I wanted it to. Uh-huh. Why do you why do you want to wrestle? Why do you want to do nobody asked Shirley in that movie why does she want to drive? Remember, I was like, What why isn't she favored her passion? Yeah, I do remember you talking about that. And they they just totally do it in this one. I was like, ah, okay, that's good.

SPEAKER_02 57:06

Nice, nice. Uh, an interesting movie for Lynna Hedy after Game of Thrones and 300 and all these great movies for her to be like, yeah, I'll play this crazy uh ex-homeless wrestling person and did a great job of it, you know. I really uh I thought that even Nick Frost was a perfect, especially when you see the credits, you see the actual pictures of them, you're like, oh, nailed it.

SPEAKER_03 57:32

Yeah, nailed it. You know. I was such a surprise when I see that credit list start, and then I'm like, Steven Merchant? I'm like, what, what? Yeah, he's actually in the movie briefly.

SPEAKER_02 57:45

So you were talking about the bad, so you were talking about the cover on the soundtrack, and it's taking care of business as well as it's like.

SPEAKER_03 57:52

Oh, that's right. So these are like, well, we can't get the small on, let's do a cover.

SPEAKER_02 57:55

And I'm like, I feel like Stephen, I feel like Stephen or Merchant owed someone a favor and was like, it's like it's gonna be it's gonna be someone's brother's band or some shit, because that shit was terrible.

SPEAKER_03 58:07

I'm not saying it's good, I'm just saying we couldn't get the song, but at least we got a version of the song. This movie also, or speaking of songs, and they're singing all the metal as they're driving around, and it reminded me of Oli G in the House, where that's another highly British movie where they're influenced by the American culture.

SPEAKER_01 58:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 58:31

So much. It always trips me out because there's always the some of the snobbery of I only watched uh British television, and it's like then you look at some of this, and it's like, well, some of them are obsessed with some of our weird culture, like wrestling and shit. It's like, okay, what's going on here? It's one of my that they love friends in the UK. You know, it's okay to love, but we always want to love our other things, and like we act like our culture is like mud. It's like, wait a minute, TV's good if TV's good, you know.

SPEAKER_02 59:01

Well, it's it's Frasier, it's it's all that stuff. If it's good, it's good. If it hits, it hits. If it hits, it hits, right? Yeah, yeah. If it hits, it hits. That's just the way it is. I I I've I spent so much time of my youth sort of gatekeeping certain things, and I just started realizing you just want to. Well, that was a fine period.

SPEAKER_03 59:18

It was inventory to gatekeep in the early.

SPEAKER_02 59:21

It kind of was, but now you now what you do is you just you watch it, and if it if if you enjoy it, you enjoy it, and if you don't, you don't, and who gives a flying fuck? But yeah, back in the day you could be ostracized for like some shit that other people didn't like. That was how it was. Um, don't you touch his dirty horn is one of my favorite lines in the film.

SPEAKER_03 59:39

That might be the best line in the movie. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 59:42

Uh sex tape nickname is a kind of a weird one, but okay. Um, one of the things that I I I thought about this that would have been interesting was we don't see any determinations of matches. Like we don't see any, we don't see them agreeing to who's gonna win, how, who's gonna lose. Because a lot of the the a lot of wrestlers, when they're doing these matches, they talk to each other through the match. That's how they set their moves up and things, like, hey, I'm gonna throw you in, I'm gonna do a hip throw, I'm gonna push you, push you that way, blah, blah, blah. You know, and then, but they they know who's going out first, right? They they have that discussion ahead of time, and and I feel like it would have been a little bit more realistic or believable, maybe. But maybe maybe it would have taken away from the kind of fairy, because it is a bit of like a fairy tale story aspect to it, right?

SPEAKER_03 1:00:29

That's why I say it's more of like a tween movie. Yeah, I think a little bit early on. Yeah, you're a cover, right?

SPEAKER_02 1:00:35

You're exactly hard, or you know, and so exactly, but we don't see it later on with like who's gonna win, who's gonna lose. Like, like there's a great um documentary on Andre, where they talk about Andre uh going for WrestleMania 3 to fight Hulk Hogan, and Hogan was freaking out because uh he was supposed to win, but nobody had promised, nobody had like gotten that from Andre. Like he Andre had signed the contract, but there was no guarantee even then that Andre would fucking lose to Hogan. And when Hogan would approach him, Andre would kind of wave him away or be like, we'll talk about later or whatever. And so Hogan's kept complaining to the WWE going, with we don't know who's gonna, he won't talk to me. And you know, we got to script it out. And Hogan had written down like the whole match on two pieces of of yellow legal pad and wanted to go over with Andre, and Andre just wouldn't do it. And then finally they got out to the ring and they they were doing the match, and then finally Andre was like, All right, here put put me in this, you know, do the slam, okay, you know you can pin me. Which but he just did it to fuck with him, you know. He just did it to mess with with with Hogan, which I thought was hilarious. But I but I want to see something like that I thought would have been cool in this movie.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:49

Well, what you pointed out earlier also is you're bringing up what is the biggest shortcoming of the entire film. How are we supposed to kind of root or be suspenseful for the uprising of this character when we know everything's predetermined? They act like she suddenly won that belt at the end, but we know that everything is worked out ahead of time. So it's kind of like don't think about that part too much, much like wrestling itself, right? You're supposed to disbelieve the fairy tale aspect of it, like you're saying. They didn't want to show it.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:30

Maybe that's the point is showing the determination takes away from that whole like you because if you know ahead of time that it's all settled and everything, then you go out and watch them do it, and you're like, oh, it's not that big of a deal. Other than the artistry of doing it and selling it to the crowd, it's not that big of a deal, right? And also maybe I'm maybe I'm stupid.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:48

To me, I thought it was kind of weird the ending of the movie, where she tries to frame her speech like this is for all the outcasts, like it's the speech at the end of Revenge of the Nerds or something. I'm going, I'm sure there's a percentage of wrestling fans that are this, but I don't necessarily think that's who the majority of the wrestling fans are.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:07

She's playing into that outcast dollar, Marty. That's a big dollar. That's a big dollar. She's playing into that outcast dollar. That's a big dollar.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:13

I'm trying to act like everybody who's into wrestling is a Bill Hicks knows you got to play into that outcast dollar.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:19

That's a big dollar. If you're involved in marketing, kill yourself right now. I do like the credit seeing them wrestle as kids is fun. Yeah, that's good. It really it drives home how much of a life has been for them and what a lifestyle it is, which I thought was pretty neat. Um, it's gonna be uh interesting to get to meet her.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:43

So that's true. Now I'm gonna be like, oh, now I know who that is.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:47

The real that'll be fun, right? I enjoyed your movie. Tell me about Stephen Merchant. Well, you have a movie made about you. I'd be curious to see how she felt about whether, you know, how it represented her and her family, so it'd be fun to ask.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:03

Meanwhile, Florence Pugh, is that how you say her name? Pew Pew is not attending any conventions anytime soon because she has probably a pretty large acting career and too busy for that right now. Maybe one day in about two. Comic-con is probably a big biggest thing she's gonna be. Yeah, that's where you gotta go to the butraya's only doing one day. So she's the busy kind of I'm in, I'm out. That's it.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:26

Well, she's still wrestling, I think.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:28

So oh yeah? I thought she had retired a few years ago. I don't think so. I think she's still like a neck injury or something.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:35

Yeah, I think she wrestled after that. I could be wrong, but uh listeners write in and tell us about Soraya and her wrestling for that.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:40

Am I confusing this with David Arquette, who will also be there?

SPEAKER_02 1:04:44

Oh, it's gonna be a wrestling and honky talk, man. It's gonna be a wrestling extravaganza folks.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:49

There's a crossover but the Venn diagram of horror, wrestling, and porn.

unknown 1:04:54

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:55

Tracy Lord's also gonna try to do that. True, Tracy Lords will be there. Yeah, and they they cross over into each other. I can't necessarily say that I completely understand it, but I kind of kind of get it, you know. Kid Scared gives me a boner. I used to really like uh reality TV and Big Brother and stuff, and so this is kind of that type of thing, you know. It's like a soap opera. If you you know some people listen to podcasts, some people watch wrestling, I don't know. Or do both. So what do you give it? I give it two and a half. It was pleasant, you know. It didn't like blow me away, but I was like, I don't know if I'm the audience for this, but I could appreciate it.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:35

I've I've seen it two or three times now. I've liked it each time I've seen it. I think it's one of those easy kind of go back to it's family friendly, like they they did the right things with it. So it's it's I'm shocked it's not a Disney movie.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:50

Um it's a WWE movie though. Three stars is what I'm three stars.

unknown 1:05:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:55

You know, I started from like just 'cause I think it's smooth and polished and slick and really well done.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:00

I started and I'm like, oh my god, just hit me with the British stuff again. And I you know, audiences, I'm not really too keen on it. I'll always watch because you never know what's what, but it's never my go-to for whatever reason. And then I tell myself, well, wait a minute, we're not inflicting punishment or torture on each other. We're showing each other movies that influenced each other as filmmakers, and it's important to learn each other's filmmaking language a little bit. Obviously, this movie inspired Cliff in some way, and maybe I should watch it and maybe derive something from that. So that's why I tell myself, it's like it's not about getting hit over the head with more British stuff. It's like, no, he genuinely likes this and thinks there's something of value in it, and maybe I should watch it and pay attention for it. So tell myself that sometimes. And it's never an endurance test. It's a it's a reason, there's a reason for it.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:53

There's a ton of sports movies out there, but um, you know, then this this is uh this is probably in the uh above average of them, you know. But uh I think it's those are fun and have their own sort of valid space in film where it's like, you know, eventually we'll get to those, you know, miracle and some of those other awesome, amazing vision quest. Yeah, we'll get to some of those eventually. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:16

The trope that I thought was pretty funny was why is she coming in last place when she's trying to flip the tire? And she's like, shouldn't you be in better shape than these other people who aren't even athletic? But you know, you got to put that in there so she never mowing a doubt and all that, you know.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:33

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:35

So the movie itself is like wrestling, right? It's the mythological fairy tale story of reality, much like a lot of biopics are like Bohemian Rhapsody. That's not really the story of Queen. That's like a lot of people, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:54

It focuses on a very short point of her life and it minimizes and exaggerates certain things, right? Like again, the movie would have you think that she just kind of wrestles with her family a bit, and not that she's gone to multiple countries in Europe and then she's gone over to America and tag team wrestled with her mother through America at 14 and 15 years old.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:16

We're not supposed to know that.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:17

We're not supposed, but but but if we do, then the movie's different, it's a different type of movie, right? Then when she shows up with her brother to try out, you find out, oh, this isn't her first time trying out, by the way. She she failed her first time and she got it in the second time. So it's a completely different story at that point, right?

SPEAKER_03 1:08:34

Never never let the truth get in the way of a good story. Exactly. Like that's a George movie, Jim Morrison. I quit. No, you actually graduated from college. Oliver Stone is the one who quit.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:46

Exactly. Exactly. So that's that's it. Well, and you that's why you have to take them with a grain of salt, all of them, you know. And and folks don't meet your heroes because your heroes you think are people that you just have made up in your head and they're not the real people that you want to meet, and they'll in that you're gonna be disappointed. Just enjoy what your heroes make and analyze it and talk about it, and then every now and then you might meet one. But if you do, I wouldn't suggest that you you drop all your preconceived notions because there's no telling who you're gonna meet.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:18

But if you if you go to the mad monster party, they book people who like to talk to their guests. So that's true. I've rarely met anybody up at that one in particular where I've been like, fuck, I wish I hadn't even talked to them. There are some comments for that option, but maybe they're having a bad day because they're humans too. So like the rock getting irritated over and over again. Oh, that was fucking I really enjoy this.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:45

Can we ask you for some? You want some fucking and then he just goes off and you want some advice? Leave me the rock, leave the rock alone. He's blah blah blah. There you go. That's what you need to do. And they're just like, holy shit, that was amazing. Right. Speaking of the rock, it's a it's a fun movie. It's it's that's what I'm saying. It's light, it doesn't, you know, delve into like serious, like should nobody get seriously injured or has to live through pain or you know, all this type of stuff. It it it moves.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:10

You want to watch that David Arquette documentary exactly and I kill David Arquette. That's my uh recommend side recommendation of the week for for future uh like bibliography work on this topic. Further research. Well, speaking of further research, speaking of The Rock, uh this show kind of had that ballers feel to it, that kind of sports-y kind of like, and a a lot of uh a lot of uh athletes also really enjoyed this other thing that was kind of similar to ballers, even with some of the same creative forces behind it because they felt that they could relate in some way too, in a way coming up and stuff, and and so your movie next week tying into Mad Monster Party again is Entourage the Movie because Johnny Drama will be there, Kevin Dylan. And that's another not a biopic, but let's do a movie about making movie, but kinda, but not really. How does it work as season nine? The first movie I took on Reels of Justice that I think is now on this show, but I wouldn't have brought it up, but the Kevin Dylan thing happened, and I didn't really want to go for the job just yet. So Entourage the Movie, it is.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:33

Entourage the movie. Wow. Okay. That's unexpected.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:39

Yeah, I didn't want to barrage you with horror. We're saving that for the spooky season. These people within the other films.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:45

I just figured you would have given me some other Kevin Dillon movie.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:52

Well, haven't you helped us? But so many else. Or the Doors film, but no, I decided to go for Doors film would have been fucking cool. Okay. Maybe then when we do a talking Kilmer episode, perhaps.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:06

Alright, so I promised you I'd go top down, and I avoided it last week due to the long nature of the films that we had been given.

SPEAKER_05 1:12:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:15

And I see that uh Entourage is not that long.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:19

Not too bad. It's like watching a season as a movie.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:22

Yeah, not too bad. It's uh it's uh hour and 45, so that's pretty normal. So I'm gonna give you the this movie, which is probably a little bit longer, and it's called Tar. Tar, we're finally gonna go watch Tar.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:35

Uh what was that other movie we watched? Was it was it Whiplash? Whiplash. Where it was like, and then Tar got brought up, and it was like, oh, this is kind of another extra Ari Gold screaming type person. I'm hoping we'll see. You you'll you you'll have to watch it and tell me what you think. There should be some commonality in this. Some show biz commonality. Yeah, it should be interesting. All right, well shit, there we go.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:10

Tar and Entourage the movie.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:13

Sure. Kate Blanchett and Vincent Chase together at last. Victory. Yeah, that'll be the line for next week.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:23

Right.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:26

Learn it. Know it. Live it.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:31

Learn about Cuba. Have some food. Later, later.