Talking Pondo: Jawbreaker and Wrong

 In this episode, Marty gives Clif the movie Jawbreaker to watch and Clif gives Marty the movie Wrong to watch.

First up is the dark teen satire Jawbreaker. When a birthday prank gone wrong leaves the most popular girl at school dead, a trio of queen bees scramble to cover up the crime. The guys explore the film’s campy tone, its attempt at biting social satire, and whether its over the top aesthetic actually works.

Then things get truly bizarre with the offbeat indie Wrong. The story follows a man searching for his missing dog, but the journey spirals into dream logic, unexplained symbolism, and scenes that feel deliberately disconnected from reality. Marty and Clif debate whether the film’s surreal style is meaningful artistic expression or simply weird for the sake of being weird.

Transcript

Marty 0:00
Uh, these 30-year-old looking high schoolers, several of them have tattoos that are slightly faded. They didn't even bother trying to hide. You know, you see, drama dude's got this big tattoo on his arm in one scene, and then Rose has the big one on her back that you can tell it's been there for a couple of years.

Marty 0:19
And it's like you are not a high school student.

Clif 0:23
Welcome to season four 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.

Marty 0:50
Sweet treat.

Clif 0:52
Is it sweet?

Marty 0:54
I guess that's the question. Both movies are about kidnapping. I didn't even realize it until today. Oh, you're right. Holy crap. Well, dog napping. Well, you know, it's I'll I'll count it. Okay. It's uh talking condo. We're back once again. It's it's me, it's Cliff. My name is Me. It's like with Nil and me, right? Cliff and me. Uh we have a guest today. We have two guests today. I don't know where they are, but their movie is still with us. Yes. Their film they brought was wrong from 2012, but you watch it and you go, that's just wrong. And you go, wait a minute, that's why it's called that's why it's called that. Another movie that could have been called wrong. Jawbreaker from very early of 1999. Wow. Only in 1999 could you have a premise that fucked up. Well, it's Talking Pondo. We're back once again where we talk about movies, and it's gonna be just me and Cliff because you know, you podcast, and sometimes people can't make it. But their movie continues. Sometimes things happen, right?

Clif 2:04
Sometimes things happen, but the episode has to keep going because we don't have any we don't have the buffers like we used to, where we record an episode and six weeks later it'd come out. So unfortunately. Uh so yeah, we have uh they'll have to give us another movie and they'll come back on and we'll do it all over again. That'll be fun.

Marty 2:22
It's just the way it goes. And we have some listener mail. Sweet! Before we dive into it, already listener mail on season four, episode one, the uh Dragonheart uh jawbreaker episode. No, it was a Dragonheart and Roller Ball. Watch Jawbreaker every week now. And uh we had multiple mail on this one, but I'll just read the uh public mail. How about that? Okay. Dylan writes in and says, one of the better Schlenders to appear on the show. Talking about his brother. Yeah. And another person writes in about that episode. Somebody named Marco Waller. See, maybe ads do work because I don't know who this person is. But they said about Dragon Heart and Rollerball. No joke, two of my all-time faves. Wow. So there you go.

Clif 3:18
Rollerball and Dra Okay. Well, you have varied, varied tastes.

Marty 3:22
Are we getting that person on the show soon to uh yes?

Clif 3:25
Marco, that's uh that's that's an interesting that's interesting.

Marty 3:30
Fascinating.

Clif 3:32
Fascinating.

Marty 3:34
Fascinating, Captain. I even watched the music video for that song from Jawbreaker because it's one back when they had the little tie-in and Rose McGallen was her character and throwing jawbreakers at the singers of the band, and they throw us, right? No, they are in the movie, but I forget the band that does the uh you who song that you hear like three or four times.

Clif 4:00
Yeah.

Marty 4:01
That sounds like they're saying something else that I won't say because then you can take the sound bite of me saying that, Howard Stern style, and then make it sound like I'm saying that. But if you watch Jawbreaker and you listen to that song they play four times, Vision Quest style, you go what song is it?

Clif 4:17
What is it called?

Marty 4:18
Go ahead, sing it. Sing it for us. It's uh so super cool, you I am cool, or whatever the hell they're saying, right? But you it gets stuck in your head forever. It's like that song Steal My Sunshine from Go, another 99 classic. Jesus. Just the mixtape happening.

Clif 4:37
Yeah, that's uh that's that's uh or like like a crazy town's uh butterfly.

Marty 4:44
Yeah, was that in a movie? Probably. Yes. Oh god, yes. Yeah, I think it's like varsity blues or something, wasn't it? I think so.

Clif 4:55
Yeah, to the Dawson, and we lost, by the way, Dawson and Catherine O'Hara and Robert Duval.

Marty 5:02
Robert Duval, yeah. We changed gears to give you some newer movies this season, but if I hadn't, we'd already have our Robert Duvall tribute. But we will get to that movie soon enough, and you may already know what it is. It it involves a little yellow guy that walks around a board eating little dots. Oh god. And people don't like him, so they scream obscenities at him coming soon, eventually. But then we'll have a guess with that, and then we'll do our delayed Robert Duvall tribute. Yeah. Uh so what should we start with today? The weirdness that is jawbreaker or the weirdness that is wrong? Jawbreaker.

Clif 5:47
Let's let's go jawbreaker. Yeah. I want to get it out of my system.

Marty 5:52
In a time before Judy Greer was in everything ever made, was the film she was in where she had a really bad wig, worse than anything in Dragonheart, but maybe that was the point. At least in the beginning, when she was a character named Fern Mayo. God, I'll never forget. Fern Mayo.

Clif 6:16
What is Jawbreaker? Uh Fern Mayo. Here we go. Jawbreaker. Uh, okay, so Jawbreaker, 1999, rated R, hour and 26 minutes, blessedly short. Uh here's your line, I guess. Three of the most popular girls at Reagan High accidentally kill the prom queen with a jawbreaker when a kidnapping goes horribly wrong. Written and directed by Darren Stein, starring Rose McGowan, Rebecca Gayhart, Julie Benz, and uh Judy Greer. Um let's see. And Greer. We get Greer and Greer. That's two. You do get Greer on Greer violence in this. Um in a no-holds barred birthday prank, three of Reagan's high school's most popular girls, Julie, Marcy, and Courtney, pretend to kidnap the most popular, Liz Perr. Courtney shoves a jawbreaker into the victim's mouth, ostensibly to keep her from screaming. Their plan goes awry when the girl accidentally swallows the jawbreaker, choking to death. The cool and calculating Courtney tries to cover the crime, but is found out by school geek Fern Mayo. In return for her silence, Courtney transforms transforms the gawky Fern into the stylish beauty Violet, leaving the conscious stricken Julie out in the cold, threatening to set her up for the girl's murder if she breaks her silence. Tagline Some of the sweetest candies are sour as death inside.

Marty 7:37
You know, I don't blame the guest for not showing up today in part. You know, I I I wouldn't want to talk about this fucking movie either honestly. Didn't they watch Pulp Fiction? You look at the GIMP. The thing is not gonna go in your mouth. You know, it's got a device to keep you from fucking out the GIMP. Oh man. Uh which movie has the more fucked up beginning? This or wrong, not to get into that, because that has a very striking opening shot where you're like, this is a fucking weird beginning, too. But I think this must be one of the most terrible premise for a movie. And only in '99, when you could still put something like this out as a mainstream movie, that's so fucking disturbing. I think in my 20s, I was like, whatever, it's another WB movie. I didn't think twice, but watching it now, it's like that is so fucked up. What a way to start the movie by kidnapping your friend. And then it's so it's so morbid how it's like she chokes to death, and then it's like, is this like River's Edge was a comedy? It's just too fucking too weird in the beginning. It's very morbid.

Clif 8:50
Yeah, it's um I I feel like it's really pulling from Heathers a lot to kind of it's this morbid berry. Yeah. And you know, of course, you know, this is definitely a a a a pregenitor to like, you know, Mean Girls later, which I think Mean Girls does this, but does it in a much better way because nobody dies, you know, but it's it's still about the dynamics of high school and and the sort of ugly duckling and that type of thing, and popularity and power through popularity, and and you know, those sort of teen dynamics in high school, right? Whereas this one's definitely done through a much darker sort of macabre sort of tone, right? Dark comedy. Yeah. But I the thing about it is that dark comedies need to be funny. Well, and this fucking thing just isn't funny.

Marty 9:35
This is a horror movie. It's dressed up as a dark comedy, but it's really a horror movie. It's like when you turn the laugh track off on a sitcom and it's suddenly really dark. Yeah. But if you can extrapolate yourself from that and just focus on the costumes, the makeup, the hairstyles, the general attitude, you go, wait a minute. It's not necessarily the movie for me, but I can see how this is a camp classic. It's almost like drag queen Heathers in a way, right?

Clif 10:09
I don't know that it's Yeah, I don't know that it's camp, but I mean, it feels like it feels like what a gay man thinks when he closes his eyes and he goes to bed at night, how women in high school or girls in high school interact with each other. Like I, you know, it's so far removed from any sort of reality of how you know everybody's amped up and kind of uh the actions are amped up, everything's overdone. They try to treat it like a cartoon, overly dramatic action, melodramatic, you know, and and uh we're like that.

Marty 10:44
I was complaining about CBGB, but then you see the transitions here, and you're like, you're forcing a cartoony tone. See, it's just a joke, but it's not. But it is.

Clif 10:56
I guess. Yeah, I guess.

Marty 10:57
Like I was telling you, this director went to an all-boys school, so he doesn't know from an actual public school writer. I had no idea what girls in high school do. We watched Heathers and Carries, and then he made this movie.

Clif 11:10
I mean, I I like I like all the actresses in the film. I think that they do a fine job. Um, you know, I mean, Rose McGowan back in the day was just absolutely gorgeous, stunning, stunning woman. Uh, and and still still very pretty. I'm not don't mean to imply that she isn't, but um, I it's not as smart as it thinks it is, right? Like it it's really trying to have uh that sort of Heather's dialogue, you know, and that sort of mean girl's dialogue, but it doesn't, it's just kind of falls flat a little bit. Yeah. Um but like you said, but the production looks great.

Marty 11:48
Oh yeah, they they went insane with trying to match everything to jawbreaker colors.

Clif 11:54
Yeah, the girls are all red, blue, and green. And you know, a lot of times all these you know classic, you know, they never dress the three girls in the same colors, they're always in different colors, and uh they always look really good. The the the costuming, the makeup always looks fantastic, you know. Um, which makes sense. I mean, throughout the movie, that's what they talk about is how you know obsessed what they are with how they look and so on and so forth.

Marty 12:15
That's what ramps it up for as camp classic to me, where I'm just like, oh yeah, if you're into the drag culture, you're probably gonna find a lot to enjoy stylistically in this, where it's like, who cares about the story? This is fucking gorgeous. You know, I could see that kind of attitude towards this. Uh, one of the reviews I read said something like, if anybody in this movie questioned anything, it would be over in like five minutes. It's one of those logic comes in, it's it's done.

Clif 12:44
Yeah, it's it's a it's a it's a uh my cousin Vinny world where the characters do what they do. And you know, and yeah, the misunderstanding has to happen so that this can move forward and and so on and so forth. Um, you know, they could have played it so the main characters were likable or at least had some sort of redemption worse. Yeah, but instead, nah, they make them, you know, they make the mistake, and every choice after the mistake is just them being more and more unlikable and kind of doubling down on it.

Marty 13:18
You know what I mean? Yeah, they get worse. Rebecca Gayhart's character becomes nicer. And every time we see her, she's a little less of their style, right? Like every time it seems like she's a little bit more earthy each time we cut back to her, you know. Yeah. Well, it's because she's hanging out with the drama kid, man. You know. And these all the drops, jocks, and the drama kids don't match. And I'm like, you gotta grow up, dude, because those two things are more have a lot more in common than you realize.

Clif 13:49
Well, you know. They really, really gotta keep the clicks, you gotta keep the clicks going, man, in high school, you know. Stuff doesn't mix, man. It's like oil and water, bro.

Marty 14:00
Uh, these 30-year-old looking high schoolers, several of them have tattoos that are slightly faded. They didn't even bother trying to hide. You know, you see, drama dudes got this big tattoo on his arm in one scene, and then Rose has the big one on her back that you can tell it's been there for a couple of years.

Marty 14:18
And it's like, you are not a high school student.

Marty 14:21
But this movie also does something that movies nowadays will not do. Simulated scenes of people who are supposed to be underage doing it. Uh huh. So that whole weird Marilyn Manson scene, they wouldn't show that in a movie now. It's funny, this movie is is really disturbing in many ways. It comes from the Marilyn Manson era of when she was momentarily.

Clif 14:46
His appearance and what he was doing in that film was so perfectly appropriate that I was just like, oh man, out of all the things in this film to sort of nail it, he was robbed of the honor. And and for and to get exactly right is oh, look, look at what a fucking absolute creep Marilyn Manson is. I I appreciate its attempt to be creative and do something different, but it plays more like a music video than a movie. Oh, totally. Um, it's got that uh music video feel. Everybody, you know, Rose McGowan in particular looks like they've they've sprayed her with some sort of candy coating. Like she just has this strange sort of shine to her. Um and then of course, you know, that we have the the friends turn on each other, and we know 20 minutes in that Fran's gonna be the overall winner of all this. Like it's there's no surprise that Fran becomes who she becomes. You know, it's it's the movie's very, very straightforward. And my my favorite surprise of the whole movie is Jeff Conaway is the father.

Marty 15:44
Yeah. Another person who didn't have the greatest end of life. No, a lot of disturbingness going on and surrounding this movie. I think the youngest cast member of the main might have been Judy Greer, because she's closer to our age. But like uh oh, who's the uh other friend? The blonde woman. Oh, Julie Benz. Yeah, and you go, fucking eh, you're like pushing 35. You don't you're not a high school student. But then you realize everybody in the movie is pushing, but then I'm like, that's part of the camp, I think. Maybe it's purposely, you know.

Clif 16:25
Well, I mean, look, there's a there's a I mean, we talk about this with Vision Quest, right? Like, I mean, he's he's 23 or 24 at the time, playing an 18-year-old kid. She's she's old, you know.

Marty 16:35
They feel like they could be teachers at that school.

Clif 16:37
These girls feel these girls definitely feel, yeah. I mean, she was born in 73, so she's 26 at the time of Jawbreaker. Yeah. Um, so yeah. You know, I honestly I'd I'd rather watch Heathers or Empire Records or other reviews.

Marty 16:57
Why would you waste time watching The Impersonator when Heathers is right there? Exactly. Because we're studying it for the show. You know, when this came out, I was going to see like every movie, saw this at the drive-in, and I'd watch every kind of WB type movie and stuff. But at that point, like I was saying, we were about the same age as a lot of the people in the movies. So it was that fun, weird, sweet spot where it's like, okay, these movies are aimed at younger people, but they're all starring people that are my age pretending to be the younger people, so it's still aimed at me a little bit.

Clif 17:30
It's still kind of aimed at you.

Marty 17:31
Yeah, I get that. Yep. Strange time period. Yeah, very Heathers yet pre-mean girls. Uh style over substance, a study of art design, costuming, hair, and makeup, except mother of all bad wigs on Fern Mayo in the beginning, but I feel like maybe that was on purpose, you know.

Clif 17:51
Well, you know, they had to make her, they had to frump her up. You know, you have to do the whole ugly duckling turn, which is a classic, also another we've always seen that classic in the 80s movies and in these type of high school movies where of course you get the I mean, the the the one that comes to mind is Allie Sheedy in Breakfast Club, you know, that classic.

Marty 18:09
And people complain about that one, and I think you don't know that character. Maybe she was tired of having dandruff. Maybe she always wanted to be glammed up and never had the balls to do it. But people want to project themselves on, like, no, you stay frumpy forever. Maybe that's a different character. That's my editorial on the breath.

Clif 18:27
Maybe, maybe, maybe frumpy was an outward reflection of her how she felt inwardly. And later, as she felt differently, she decided that it was okay to reflect that outwardly. Yeah, exactly. I don't know. Why not both? And suddenly Rose McGowan is talking way too much at lunch. And um we don't eat at school. It's uh she does begin to get worse and worse, like making that dude suck the suck that fucking uh lollipop shit. It's fucking weird. This girl's getting weird with it, man. Like she's starting to get really kind of fucking like that. John Walker's proud. Yeah, exactly. God bless her.

Marty 19:08
It they go full that's what I say, they go full camp. It's like tropical wonder. You never go full. You gotta pull back a little bit to get the connect to.

Clif 19:18
Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's something missing from it for some reason. Like it doesn't it doesn't go far enough like um like I'm gonna get you sucker to be complete to be completely ridiculous and you know not rooted in some sort of um uh reality, but at the same time, it also doesn't nail the camp right. Yeah, right. So it just feels it feels weird and I don't know, awkward.

Marty 19:44
And Carol Kane's in the movie is principal, I guess, right? And at one point she says, this is not a brothel, and I'm like, Yeah, you would know all about that from the last scale, right? Yep. I thought that was kind of a fun little bit. She would too. She'd definitely show that. Uh I have been haven't necessarily met, but have been in contact with four people from this movie. Isn't that nothing weird? Like we saw Pam Greer last year at Mad Monster. We saw Rose McGowan before the year before that, but we didn't actually talk together about that. But then strangely enough, uh Elizabeth's parents are played by William Kat and PJ Soles in a blink and you'll miss it. Both from Carrie. And I met them at the first Mad Monster I ever went to, but I had completely forgotten about Jawbreaker. Interesting. And I was like, oh, look at them, still chummy after all the years after Carrie, forgetting completely that they've worked together several times since. But still chummy. All movies still be so Kevin Bacon close to this one. Weird.

Clif 20:55
Yeah, I mean, I think it's you know, for I think it's one of those movies, again, we keep having these movies on the show that like for people who grew up at a certain time with this film, this is going to be a guilty pleasure. I was thinking maybe the guest or a uh a big type nostalgia type of movie to it. You know, um three and a half million dollar budget opened with uh you know to uh one and a half million and gross three million worldwide. So it did well enough to make its money back, and then it probably went on to do its DM money rental and cable money.

Marty 21:27
But it certainly didn't help the director make more movies. No, no, probably not. But you could still get something like this out in the theaters back then.

Clif 21:38
Well, and and you could still as a sort of I mean he he I think he'd done uh Sparkler maybe, and then you know Yeah, that makes sense, dude. He's uh he didn't really do Much before, but at least, you know, in in n back in '99 in the nineties, you could make a small movie that did okay and kind of get yourself leveraged into something a little bit bigger. Oh shit, his first movie starred Jamie Kennedy, dude.

Marty 22:12
Hmm. Well, why not? You know, you already got Screamcast. Keep going more Screamcast.

Clif 22:20
And Freddie Prince Jr. Well, of course.

Marty 22:22
Like I'm saying, I went to every WB movie back then.

Clif 22:28
Oh, that's great. Um, I will say that there's a shot in the movie, and it's Elizabeth's death death announcement where Rebecca Gayhardt is walking down the halls, and the director's chosen to have all the students freeze in the hallway so they're not moving. And the camera's doing I think a camera's doing a slow dolly back with us with just a very, very slight pull in of focus or zoom in. So it gives it this very weird ethereal effect, and she's walking all. I thought, damn, that that's the probably the best shot in the whole fucking movie, right? But I was watching wrong for a second. Yeah, well, but in a good way, like it it it perfectly matched what the character obviously was feeling in that moment of hearing her friend's death be announced and knowing that she was responsible for it, right? I thought, man, that that's the it's a good out of every everything in the movie, that's the best moment, you know.

Marty 23:17
It does, it does showcase that the tone is bizarre because that's like a serious scene, and then were transitions of Hanna Barbera sound effects, you know. What doesn't it's trying to you know be everything. That's why I was hoping for the guests because they were younger than us, and maybe they would have had that. Well, I saw it then, and this is how it I feel about it now.

Clif 23:41
So the heartbreaker cover by is is really bad in this. Uh I love being a good cover, but that heartbreaker cover has gotta go. It's really awful. Um the movie is fine for what it is. It's not it's not great, it's not terrible. It's just about people that you really that you know, I don't really care much about, you know. I don't really have much of a reason to care about Rebecca Gayhart's character. I really don't understand why she doesn't just go along with um Rose's character because, you know, because there's really no sudden flash or impetus for her to have this altruistic moment and you know, I don't know, of the shock of seeing her best friend dead, and then suddenly she's like, Okay, I'm not, I don't want to do this anymore, and I'm gonna take it.

Marty 24:31
She's the only one who had the conscience. Ruin her life pictures and remembering. Remember when we used to hang out with Martha Dump Truck and wait a minute, that's the other movie. Sorry, I was yeah, I guess getting those Heathers elements mixed up again where she's the pseudo and her writing. Suddenly she has a conscience because she's halfway poisoned the other Heathers, but then she has a change of mind after. Yeah. It is a lot, it is very similar. It's how you get from Heathers to Mean Girls. There's this movie called Jawbreaker, fits right in the middle there. And even though it wasn't 90 minutes, wow, it certainly felt like it was longer to me.

Clif 25:12
Did you notice that all the move men in this movie are like other than the drama kit are pretty fucking dumb?

Marty 25:18
Oh, yeah, they have no agency, which made me sad that this movie that's so female powered is not very good because you don't get a whole lot of movies that are like this, and then you get one and you're like, oh, but it's not that great.

Clif 25:32
I don't know that it's I mean, I I wouldn't I don't know. I don't know that female powered is is is a movie where men have no agency. I just I do like that it's I know what you're saying about female forward, but I do think it's weird that the men in this movie, you know, you got the one kid who's forced to lick the lollipop.

Marty 25:49
Yeah, they're not in charge, is what I mean.

Clif 25:51
Lollipop, like it's all the dad who does. It's not one of those. Yeah, the the the dad who she just basically tells him to fuck off and ignores him. You know, everybody, all the men in this movie are just kind of there. They're it's um but it makes sense. I mean, it is it's like you said, it's it's it's female driven. Um female forward, I guess. But and and it is trying, I guess, like making a statement about that, maybe a little bit. I don't know.

Marty 26:18
The license plate bitches or whatever.

Clif 26:22
Yeah, that's it feels like someone was fucking bullied in high school a lot, right? Like, you know, and and people now they want to bitch about online bullying. Like, imagine having to put up with this shit in high school.

Marty 26:33
Well, speaking of online, I remember this movie being one of the first that had a its own website, and that was a big deal. You know, you'd go to the website and look at the dumb little flash animations and shit. Oh god, flash animations. Wow. Probably on the Internet Archive if you want to.

Clif 26:51
Go to the lifesavers website and play all the flash games.

Marty 26:55
And yes, kids, butter rum lifesavers have always existed. Memes are just the National Enquirer and the Weekly World news in your face constantly. But we remember when that was called tabloid journalism.

Clif 27:13
Mom, you're not calling the weekly world paper the news, are you? Sorry. Uh what do you give it?

Marty 27:24
I give it a one. Wow. This movie's terrible. But if like I said, if I was gay and I had a certain aesthetic, I'd be like, oh, fucking four-star camp classic. Who cares about the story? I just want to watch the fucking costumes. But for me personally, I think I liked it more back when, but now I'm just like, well, nice try, guys, but I don't think I sit in this example.

Clif 27:49
I I feel like I feel like Priscilla is like that to a certain extent, where I'm where I'm like, you know, I don't care too much about some of the other stuff. I just kind of want to watch the craziness in the costumes.

SPEAKER_02 28:00
I get that.

Clif 28:02
It's no, it's it's it's it I agree. It's a for me, it's a two, mainly because, like we've talked about. It's it's pretty well shot, looks good, sounds good, production value's good. I think it for three and a half million, it looks like quite a bit more. Um well done, but also just not a great fucking movie. Not a great movie.

Marty 28:24
Well, that was great movies. Strange road that we went down here. Oh, and then uh so our guest movie was Wrong from 2012, the strangest episode of Entourage I've ever seen. I didn't know what it was, and the other choices were I'm like, those could have been good choices, maybe they were the better choices, maybe they were the worst choices, but then I realized I just gave Cliff another French movie, strap in. What is wrong from 2012, as opposed to the other movies called Wrong?

Clif 29:01
Wrong from 2012, not rated, an hour and thirty-four minutes. Dolph Springer wakes up one morning to realize he has lost the love of his life, his dog Paul. During his quest to get Paul and his life back, Dolph radically changes the lives of others, risking his sanity all the while. Is that what happened?

Marty 29:21
That's what I was gonna say.

Clif 29:22
Let me keep going. Sorry. Director and writer Quentin DePew stars Jack Plotnick. Um, your storyline is Dolph Springer wakes up one morning to realize he has lost the love of his life, his dog Paul. During his quest to get Paul back. Oh, it's the same thing. Um, Dolph radically changes the life of others, a pizza delivery nymphomaniac, a jogging addicted neighbor in search of completeness, an opportunistic French Mexican gardener, and an off-kilter pet detective. In his journey to find Paul, Dolph may lose something even more vital, his mind.

Marty 29:55
You know, we talk a lot about subtext and allegory, and as you're reading that description, it makes me think, okay, is this movie about more than what it's showing? Oh, sure it is. Is it is the whole weird subplot about the woman with the baby and he's lost the love of his life? Maybe it's something about losing a child or something was in there. I don't know. I didn't thought I'd think about that until just now when you're reading that synopsis. It's definitely surreal. Yeah. It's got a little Magnolia, little Donnie Darko, little serious man, but overall Lynchian kinda. It's from the guy who made rubber about the killer tire, which I didn't realize till after. And I've never seen that, but if I had known that, I would have been like, oh, well, of course this is gonna be fucking weird and surreal. We always watch the secondary movies, right? We don't go in to the to the main movie from somebody. But an early digital low budget uh effort, right? Isn't this from like 2012? So around then that's when you were first starting to get some of these high def because it had that kind of feel to it, right? That kind of sheen.

unknown 31:07
Yeah.

Marty 31:11
It grossed$106,000 worldwide.

Clif 31:14
I don't think it played very well many places at all. Well, it's a it's a it's a it's a um what do you call it? It's a film festival movie. Like this is not a movie that you're gonna put in front of audiences and expect people to go see. This is a movie for for film lovers and cinema people who like to sit to think to say that they watch things that aren't normal Hollywood type of films. That's what this is.

Marty 31:40
Yeah, it's like between these movies today and the movies we watched with Izzy last time, the Paprika and Lost Boys. I feel like we went to the loft two weeks in a row, and these are like these four movies, we would have seen all of these at the loft. And that's our local art house here in Tucson, where you'd see a revival screening of the Lost Boys, and oh, what is that trailer for this anime called Paprika? And here's this weird movie called Wrong.

Clif 32:07
And so so why let me so let me just start. Why at the beginning of this movie are we watching a guy read a newspaper, a firefighter read a newspaper while he takes a shit?

Marty 32:21
That's what I thought, right? Talk about strange opening shot, but then when you see it pulled back, I don't think he's taking a shit. I think he's just squatting in the road reading the newspaper. But it's strange, right? Because later on he's revealing. He's bare assed. He's got his pants down. Well, because I thought he had his shorts up. I didn't go back and look at it. What a exact my thought exactly. What a fucking weird way to start this movie. It's all the symbolism in the movie. You find out later that that's the van that had kidnapped Dolph's dog had crashed. And that's why we're focusing on that. But the dog got away, and I know because I have psychic dog connections. But it's there's a lot of weirdness that I don't think there is an explanation. I don't think the filmmaker has an explanation. I think people purposely put questions in movies sometimes just to start discussion. Like you have his clock that goes to 760 instead of starting a new hour. He checks his mail, and there's an envelope with no address and a stamp that hasn't been postmarked. And you go, okay, so obviously nothing is normal in this. I mean the whole conversation he has at the beginning on the phone with a pizza person, and then he goes to work and the sprinklers are on while he's working. It's just one surreal. Why do you keep coming to work? We fired you three months ago. Well, I just like pretending to work. Is that okay? No, it's not okay. As a matter of fact, you can't come back here anymore. And the whole time sitting here going, this guy looks so much, not so much, but it reminds me of Bradford. It's that Gene Wilder school of actor. And I'm like, look at the French Canadian Bradford working with the French Canadian Brian Mulligan, a guy who was in our comic book diaries movie. Both of these actors look like people that we've worked with as actors in our films, which made the movie even extra surreal to me on a personal level. Because I'm like, I got when when we share this one, I'm gonna have to put a picture of Bradford and a picture of Dolph side by side and be like, hmm, separated at birth? Wrong part two, the Billy Shaw story. But I know you have thoughts on this film.

Clif 34:46
Uh I, you know, I uh I found the dialogue to be circular and um at times pointless. Um it's you know uh it's I think Patton Oswald said at one point, it's like going to the French circus where somehow everything's wet and on fire at the same time. And it is you know, and there's a guy running around, you know, with a monkey smacking his bear ass, and you know, and there's two two Siamese twins laughing and fucking tutus, and yeah, it it you know we spend five minutes having them call this pizza place and whine about some ambiguous logo, and the woman's like, this is the most interesting conversation I've ever had. And I'm I'm going, I'm and my note is like, I bet you ten bucks she's the romantic interest in the movie. And boom, of course she is. Yeah, yeah. Right. And it's the movie's mostly half the movie's just scenery. Half the movie is just shot. It's like a it's like Napole, it's like a fucking French Napoleon dynamite, Walter Midi ass sort of spotless mind type of shit that I really don't enjoy watching. I I don't like this type of filmmaking. I never have. It just I I I I don't know. I don't want to watch, you know, a set of clown on a unicycle on a high wire with you know laughing behind it and be told that it means something. Like fucking come on.

Marty 36:20
It felt like to me like it was a short idea where it was about the guy who set up a dog kidnapping thing to make people care about their pets more, right? And when we reunite you with your pet, you suddenly realize how much you missed your pet. And then it seemed like, well, that's not long enough for a feature. So let's put this weird subplot.

Clif 36:39
Let's make it sweet that she's surrealistic.

Marty 36:43
But then she knows it's not him, but then you can't make sense of the surrealism. It's obviously not supposed to make sense. But it almost feels like a separate movie inside the movie, right? And then Dolph, you go, for me anyway, I'm thinking, okay, he's he's lost his dog, he seems to care about the dog, but at the same time, it almost seems like he doesn't care about the dog, right? Like he's almost emotionless towards I don't I mean, uh at parts of parts of the times, I don't even think there is a fucking dog. That's what you're led to believe sometimes too. But he's on the bus, like the guy told him he wouldn't.

Clif 37:21
No, I mean, I I mean, part of me is like, oh no, this dog is gonna be like a kid that he's lost. Maybe that's what it is, you know. A wife or something that, you know, something somebody close to him that he's lost, and you know, it's it it's it's forced him into sort of depression and denial, and he's lost his job, but he continues to do the same things.

Marty 37:41
Stabs her on the beach and he's reunited with the dog, and he visions that other part of himself being buried. Maybe he's finally reached the closure of that trauma and he can move forward now. Is that the I guess maybe? I fuck I you can bring so much to a movie like this, but it's hard to yeah, it's hard to follow it.

Clif 38:03
Yeah, it's one of the things that again that I don't really enjoy about the movie is like I don't want to sit here and argue what the symbolism of the movie meant. I do like what you come up with, yeah. I do like it in bits and pieces. I mean, I definitely like it, but when it's a movie like this where every everything nothing is anchored in any sort of reality, and everything is it just makes no fucking sense, right? Yeah, the palm tree is a pine tree.

Marty 38:32
Well, I want a palm tree. Well, you gotta get the pine tree out of here. Well, we can't do that. And then when he does it, it causes that guy to have a heart attack and die. There's a lot of people.

Clif 38:42
But then he immediately but then he immediately shows right back up.

Marty 38:46
He doesn't know he's dead or something. Fucking weird, man. It is weird. It's one of those. I'm glad that I at least watched it a few days ago so I could process it. Even though I didn't think about it much after I watched it, now that we're talking about it, I'm like getting new ideas from it. I think what I read is this director made a few movies in America and then just went back to France and just decided to make things there. Like it didn't pan out for him here, like so many. But you were gonna based on that.

Clif 39:18
Uh I mean, uh rubber, really? What did I mean?

Marty 39:21
People think they like that one though.

Clif 39:23
I don't know I'm not saying that I'm not saying that. That's a horror movie.

Marty 39:27
Yeah.

Clif 39:28
You make that and fucking expect, you know, uh a modern American audience to get onto that, or this, and you're gonna yeah, you're gonna go back to France with stuff like this. I'm sorry, but this is not just not what an American audience expects at all. Well, after a few horror movies, it's not creative enough in an American sense, like a centers or something where you could grasp onto it and culturally, you know, really move with it. It's just this weird fucking thing that floats around. It doesn't have a lot of make a lot of sense at times, you know, until oh look, he's back with his dog at the end. That's nice. You know. Oh, maybe maybe it's more creative. We this this girl's basically just like, oh, we had sex, so I'm gonna dump my husband and I'm gonna move in with you. Hi. What? Well, you know, it what is that representative of?

Marty 40:12
Yeah, obviously the whole thing is is representative of stuff that you can't try to piece this together as a narrative, act one, act two, act three, because then you're just gonna be left going, no, there's it's something else.

Clif 40:24
It's also it's also kind of I feel like it's kind of trying to be it's trying to be artistic for the sake of trying to be artistic.

Marty 40:32
Like oh, much like Jawbreaker, yeah. They both went to the water.

Clif 40:34
Yeah, much like Jawbreaker, right? But we've got this the technique. Oh, it's raining in the office. Okay, well, it's raining in the office. Well, we don't ever understand really why it's raining in the office, but maybe if they had done some other atmospheric shit in other parts of it where it was like maybe there was snow in a house or you know, something else, where it was at least, but no, it's just now we're just gonna make it rain in the office. Why? Because it's weird. Okay. Rain in the office, you got it.

SPEAKER_02 40:59
Mm-hmm.

Clif 41:01
I don't know. It it reminds me of West Anderson movies, and I I fucking hate Wes Anderson movies.

Marty 41:06
I enjoy it more than Wes Anderson movies, though, because I don't really like this stuff that much either, but it's I like this more than some of those. I did like Life Aquatic, though. I I like that one. I I okay, I'll give you his earlier stuff's easier to digest, I agree.

Clif 41:22
Um I'll give him credit for making something interesting to look at. Uh I I but overall, I don't like the movie's aesthetic. Like, and and I'm starting to realize this is a big part of what the this podcast is great for me. Is I'm really starting to understand my aesthetic, your aesthetic, and and other people's. And it's just, and there's nothing wrong with that. Like, you like a movie for a certain reason, cool, man. I'm not gonna yuck your yum, but I don't like that shit. You eat that. Like you said, get it off my plate. If you want to eat that, you eat that. I don't want to eat that, right? So he's a fussy eater. I don't like the look of it. I don't like soundtrack, I don't like its tone, I don't like its humor. However, it's well made, it looks good, it's creative, uh, it's doing some interesting things. I'm just I'm just not moved by it, and I'm not following it. And it for a 90-minute movie, it felt three fucking hours ago. Both movies felt long today. Holy shit. I would much rather watch Jawbreaker over this.

Marty 42:23
Yes, I like this more than Jawbreaker.

Clif 42:25
This kept my I'm not it's not about like, it's about which one I would rather watch again.

Marty 42:29
And I would much rather watch this over Jawbreaker as well. It kept it kept me interested, you know.

Clif 42:38
I would much rather watch this than French Canadian Bradford going around uh doing all the weird dialogue. Although I do, you know, God bless you, Bradford. I love you to death. And and I I think you should have probably been casting this, you would have met.

Marty 42:50
Right. That's part of the reason I was so intrigued because I kept thinking about Bradford while I'm watching the movie. And I was also like, well, what the hell's gonna happen next? You know, is I kept thinking it was gonna go real morbid and dark, and thankfully it didn't. It kind of stayed into a kind of a comedy almost. The tone is is light for the most part.

Clif 43:12
It didn't feel funny to me. You know, it's a lot of fun. It doesn't feel scary or gross or tension or missionary. Maybe this is rather one of those French culture things like we talked about with with like with Whitnol and I, right? Where it's like, I'm I I liked Whithnol and I, but I'm sure that there was cultural things I didn't pick up on, and maybe this is a part of that too.

Marty 43:30
Do you think don't you think that this movie was trying to be f funnier more than it was trying to be creepy or off-putting? It it felt like I just rubber ducked myself there.

Clif 43:40
It didn't it didn't it didn't feel like it was in particular trying to be funny. It I felt like it was trying to be whimsical or humorous to a certain extent, but it it didn't feel like it was a comedy. And what it felt more like was like like Stranger Than Fiction or Everything Has to Go, these character study. About these people who live these weird sort of surreal lives, secret life of Walter Mitty type of thing, but you know, these people who live either surreal lives or lives inside their heads or lives disconnected from reality. Amelie was is a much better ex example of that to a certain extent. This is Amelie directed by David Lynch. It's someone's capstone project.

Marty 44:26
Like it's just it feels like somebody's some movies are moving paintings. You know, they're not really stories. They're more just expressions.

Clif 44:41
I get that. But uh if if they're going to be like that, then for me they're gonna have to connect with me in a a better way, I think. This one, this one just doesn't connect with me, right? I'm not I'm not really um jiving with what it's throwing down, you know. And and there again are scenes in the movie that I enjoyed and moments that I enjoyed, but for the most part, it was just kind of fucking strange. And and the dude showing up, uh Mr. Wong, I think is was his name.

Marty 45:12
Oh, the Mr. Chang. Master Chang, Master Chang, William Fickner, who's been in so many different things, yeah. So many different things.

Clif 45:20
It was insane.

Marty 45:21
I liked his weird character though, and then you think he's full of shit, but then you find out, oh, what he really is the dog psychic. And and then it was like, this has never happened before. You know, like I'm supposed to capture the dog, give it back to you, but the guy got in a wreck. What the fuck? Why did this happen to me? And then and then it's kind of reminded me of a serious man with like the why me, why me? But then I also liked at the end where it was like, ah, he's so satisfied seeing the reunite. He's like, Where next? Okay, so-and-so is getting back with their cat. Yes, take me, take me there, take me to that. Because he just wants to see these people get back with their pets. So the real meaning of the movie is your pets are awesome. Don't forget that. You don't get bored with your pets, continue to cherish them and love them and have fun with them on a daily basis. Because if they're not there, you're gonna miss them. Now that's kind of like the normal, but then maybe there's something more about you know stillborn or something going on deeper because of the weird subplot. Hey, we just heard from our guest. They're at a wedding out of town, they're not even home. My bad. They forgot it had been over a month since I fucked them. Hey, it's kind of like you were on the show anyway. Well, we'll try to get you on it. There you go.

Clif 46:34
Well, thanks for making us watch wrong and not being here to listen to me complain about the fact that I didn't like it. Uh no, I'm just kidding.

Marty 46:42
And they had the reason that was gonna tell you why I never thought of that before. Genius. Genius.

Clif 46:50
I think it's uh I get like I said, I give him credit for making it interesting to look at.

Marty 46:55
Uh I just not too many stuff. Uh good use of not a large budget.

Clif 47:03
It's trying way too hard to be quirky and surrealistic and and it's just not pulling it off. But I mean, he's a good filmmaker. He's he's uh he lets his actors act. I'll give him that. You know, he may yeah, that's another thing, is he he boils his scenes way too long. Like he's just it's like beat after beat after beat, where I'm like, okay, cut. Okay, cut. Okay, why are we still looking at his face? Cut. Like there's a lot of that. Although it, you know what it felt like? It felt like uh a little bit like Broken Flowers, which that that girl is also in. Oh, I fell asleep playing that one, Alexenia. Xena.

Marty 47:40
Oh, she's the other entourage person. Who she gives Pypecast is playing the crazy girlfriend, right?

Clif 47:46
Yeah.

Marty 47:47
Over and over again. I had to look up how tall she was. She's 5'2. She seems like she's shorter than that. She does. She does seem like she's shorter than that.

Clif 47:59
Yeah, she does play a crazy the whole movie's very weird.

Marty 48:04
Yeah. Like I said, I'm not going back to Jawbreaker. I'm probably not going back to this one again, but I am glad I watched both of these. If just for a reference point. And then you're watching wrong, and I don't know if you're like me, five minutes into it, saying to yourself, that's just wrong. Wait a minute. Now we have our title. Wait a minute, that clock went to 760. That's wrong. It's all wrong. It's all wrong. And much like a lot of David Lynch movies, I think I don't think he had the answer to a lot of those type of movies. I think he just like putting the question out there that's like, what does your painting mean? It just means whatever you think it means. If it infuriates you, then that's what it does. But somebody else might see it and be like, oh my god, right? How you always see people in the museums going, This is amazing. And the other person's like, This is shit. That's art, right?

Clif 49:06
Well, yeah, I mean, I I would agree with you that art's supposed to evoke an emotional reaction and a best art does. That's and that's why you know art's working, right? Um, whether you when you go, I fucking hated that, then you know, as long as if as long as you didn't hate it because it was poorly made, right? Like it was just poorly made. Like if you hated that because you hated the character or the story or something like that, then the art's done its job and evoked some sort of emotional reaction from you, right? However, at the same time, I feel like throwing a bunch of shit onto a screen and then going, what do you think? It's supposed to be whatever you think it is, is a fucking cop-out.

Marty 49:41
Well, no, it's right.

Clif 49:43
I've known people who paint, artists who paint, who do that.

Marty 49:46
Oh, yeah.

Clif 49:47
Well, what do you think it means? Well, what did you name it? Oh, it's called unknown. Okay, well, then it doesn't mean a fucking thing because you don't even know what it means. You just put some shit onto a canvas. If you don't have a purpose for your art or a direction and you're not clear, have a clear set statement or something to say, I don't want to watch it. I don't want to have to muddy it out from you, right? And I and and nor do I think it's Arch's job to basically just go, here, here's some what do you think?

Marty 50:13
You know, that's yeah, it's the same thing with like this AI slap, I see. No, I I I I don't think that's always how it is. I think sometimes it does mean something to them, but it they don't have to tell us what that means to them. It can still mean something. It might not mean anything to me, it might mean something to somebody else, but I'm not gonna say they didn't know. No, that's fine.

Clif 50:37
I just don't know people that would do that. My problem is my problem is is when you it's when you don't have a purpose. You don't have to tell me, but I think a lot of times they're not saying it because they don't fucking know, because they didn't really again, like you said, I just threw the question out there. I didn't I don't know the answer, I just threw the question out there.

Marty 50:54
Okay, well I think there it doesn't necessarily mean that there is an answer to a question sometimes. Doesn't mean that there isn't valid in asking the question. Like and subscribe. I think that the guy who made wrong, I think all the symbology means something to him deeply. I don't think so.

Clif 51:14
I think if you're gonna ask a fucking question, you should have an opinion on it at least. Well, you're very and and and at times at times this movie, this rook movie wrong, doesn't feel like it has an opinion. It feels like it's just asking the question, which I think is what annoyed me about it to a certain extent. That's interesting you brought that up because I think that that is I don't feel like the movie took a stance at all.

Marty 51:35
You know. I could see that. Um anything else you want to uh surprisingly, no. I don't know. It's gonna be short and the other two guests to fill in the gap a little.

Clif 51:52
That's alright though. Yeah, it's fine. Uh maybe our our listeners will bless us for giving them something under an hour. I'm sure. They were both short movies, too. So yeah. Although they again both did feel much longer than uh uh they were.

Marty 52:09
I will say Amazon Prime doesn't have as many commercials as I would think they would. Watching Wrong on there was not bad.

Clif 52:17
Wrong had quite a few on there. I was really annoying. So it must have just been me then.

Marty 52:22
Like you're watching this again, you're getting more commercials. Well, we won't tell you what the movies are next week because this was a guest episode, and we don't announce that, so just just tune in and who knows what next week is, but it'll be that's right. Oh, uh two stars. Two stars. I give it two and a half, so we are pretty close. There were some of the weird swings, and I did like the craft of it, the way it was shot. I feel like they had craft as well. They pulled off what they were trying to do. Whatever that was, I feel like they accomplished it. I don't think they compromised themselves on that one. Yeah, I I mean I uh I don't think there was notes that they uh listed.

Clif 53:12
It's just like I said, I I I had no problem with the craft of the movie or what I was trying to do. I just hated the aesthetic of the movie itself. I just didn't I didn't I didn't like it. You know, uh that that whole that whole we tapped into the we tapped into this dog shit subconscious and we can watch it through video as it comes out of the dog's ass and lands on the city. Oh god, I forgot about that.

Marty 53:32
Now that was bad. What the fuck? That was bad. Okay, that was that was kind of dumb. But then it also leads to the comedic part of you didn't fucking tell me. I thought he told you. And then we're back to if people just communicate with each other, the movie would be over in five minutes. Yep. I I I killed the clerk. So Rose McGallen starts a dog kidnapping. Oops, I accidentally killed your dog. I I kidnapped Rose McGallen. But don't worry, it was Marilyn Manson who killed your dog. I'm gonna frame him.

Clif 54:10
Well, he had sex with it first, then he killed him.

Marty 54:12
And then we just, you know, play the little recording at the prom, and that's enough. You're going to jail. Go back to the jawbreaker. And then she does all the mashed faces that puts Divine to shame at the end there, and I'm just like, yeah, this is this is over the top on purpose. Remind me of Hatchet Face from Crybaby. You know that.

Clif 54:37
You want to get out of here on a quote?

Marty 54:39
Uh I don't have a quote. I didn't remember anything that anybody said.

Clif 54:46
I have one. Uh it's been proven that all Brunos eventually hang themselves.

Marty 54:53
Oh God. Bruno's a bad name. Don't say that.

Marty 55:00
Oh, you mean. Later. Later.