Idiotalk Presents: My Chemical Bromance
Season 3 out now, a deep dive into My Chemical Romance.
Catch up on previous seasons covering Radiohead and Fiona Apple, available in feed.
Idiotalk is a deeply analytical, yet lighthearted and fun discussion hosted by brothers Walker and Zach Glenn about their shared favorite musical artists and more. Full of meticulous research, wild speculation, scorching hot takes, and a lifetime of inside jokes waiting to be shared with you.
Idiotalk Presents: My Chemical Bromance
Bottle Rocket (1996)
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Walker and Zach discuss the ultimate "brothers movie"- Wes Anderson's directorial debut Bottle Rocket (1996).
But fans of our Radiohead season rejoice! Before discussing the movie, Walker catches up with Zach about a horrifying incident of ageism he recently experienced while trying to connect with a young fan of the band.
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Idiotalk theme song by Walker Glenn
Hey listeners, welcome to Idiotalk, or should I say video talk, one of our little side project episodes. Little, why am I saying little? These are not little. These are sometimes our most substantial episodes, at least in terms of uh length and girth. Yes, absolutely. But welcome to Idiotalk. I am Walker Glenn. I'm Zach Glenn. And listeners, if you are just jumping in, can't imagine that, but I don't know. Every episode is probably somebody's first episode. This is one of our video talk episodes where Zach and I discuss a movie that we're both obsessed with or is very important to kind of our shared sensibility, right? Of the our our shared askew view of the world. Often it's a movie from childhood. Earlier this season, we talked about the film Clifford, uh, also King of Comedy. Not a childhood staple, but definitely a share, definitely a shared obsession. And uh last season, our movie episodes were all about the late 80s and 90s Batman films. But normally, this show is a music podcast. This season we're discussing the music of Fiona Apple. Last season we did the music of Radiohead. About 35 Radiohead episodes sitting out there for you to catch up on. But every once in a while we like to just, you know, change pace a little bit and talk about a movie. We're well-rounded people, aren't we, Zach?
Speaker 4We don't just listen to music.
Speaker 2No, not at all. Do you think there's any people that are like, I don't watch things, I just listen to music. I don't read, I don't watch things.
Speaker 1Yeah, I do. You think so? Like decided how to maybe not decidedly, but I had a music teacher uh who was one of the least well-rounded people I've ever met. And one of the he was a square.
Speaker 3Yeah, he was one of the exactly.
Speaker 1He was uh he was definitely probably the best in terms of just skill musician I've ever met or hung around, but no, no, no interest in uh in anything. Actually, you know what, he was quite he was a pretty big reader too, I would say, but also limited to like the history of music and like different types of music theory stuff. So it's pretty rare, but I have, yeah. I would say most of the artists though that like that we've covered on the show, even just Fiona Apple or you know, the boys of Radiohead, they they seem to have a wide array of interest. And I think that's pretty key to pulling in interesting inputs into whatever it is that your craft is kind of focused on. Absolutely. Yeah, like I mean, obviously Fiona Apple, an amazing poet, and just you know, amazing at a lot of different things, but obviously poetry and songwriting, there's a very strong overlap in terms of Venn diagram. You know, you could argue like are they really different or not? But I think with Fiona, it's very clear, you know, we talked about Maya Angelou, the music of John Lennon, and just so many other different artists, and then just sticking with the songwriter kind of front man, like Tom York, you know, we know has a huge interest in a lot of different stuff. So I I do think it's really critical. It's probably not an absolute, but I think it's it's in my experience, it makes for a more well-rounded individual.
Speaker 2Certainly with art, right? I mean, I certainly think that it's like you need to take in things outside your immediate bubble. I mean, this comes up in comedy a lot, right? Is it like you you gotta you gotta have some interest in the world around you or live some kind of life to then commentate about it. Yeah, you know, and sometimes I feel like, and this look, I'm in the Bay Area. There's famously a rivalry between the northern and southern parts of the state of California. Um now, I think Southern California would say this is a one-sided rivalry, but but Zaxon, Sacramento, I am in the Bay Area. We are we are NorCal to our bones. Oh yeah. It's a different world down there. It is right. That's right. I get down there and I'm like, there's a Southern California? Who the hell knew Bakersfield? What is this shit?
Speaker 1I know.
Speaker 2Now, Fresno, is Fresno Southern or North? That's Central California, isn't it?
Speaker 1The central, yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2That's really, that's really the bastard child of that.
Speaker 1That is the Ramsey Snow of Yeah, or the um the Tuttle kid from True Detective Season One that like they they keep a secret.
Speaker 2Wait, Zach, what were this is I'm totally interrupting myself, but I feel like we were having a real LARF on text recently, and maybe this is something we'll have to cut out because maybe this was gossip about like real people. But we were talking about what is like we were making fun of someone and referring to them as a bastard child, and uh, and I was like, their last name is this, and it was like, what is the what is the like because on in Game of Thrones, like bastards from the north are given the the last name Snow. Uh-huh. Do you remember this? No. I feel like we were like, his last name is Sand or something.
Speaker 1I picked a bag bell, but I can't remember.
Speaker 2Well, whatever. Listeners, just know that we're we're funny off mic, too, I guess. But uh listeners, if you had, yeah, if you had been there and we could remember what we were talking about, might the laughs you would have. Oh yeah. If we could supply a context and tell this. A joke?
unknownYeah.
Speaker 2We're so we're so close. We have like one of the three essential ingredients for an anecdote, which is a vague memory that something happened. Um boy, what the hell? Oh, yeah, but like sometimes I have done now, obviously, uh tons of very funny comedians in in Los Angeles, but yeah, sometimes I have done shows with folks from LA up here in the Bay Area, and I've noticed there is a tendency to have a set sometimes where it's like all your jokes are about like going on auditions and stuff. And and and okay, I've heard I've I don't need to have done commercial auditions to appreciate a funny story or experience, but but I don't know, observations about the minutiae of that, maybe not maybe not that universal or relatable. And my point is is that you've gotta you've gotta do other things. You gotta go on Tinder dates. Right. And then have observations about Tinder to do comedy people relate to, seemingly.
Speaker 1I love the there's a bit in the last season of 30 Rock where they're trying the last season of 30 Rock was made in 2012, and the the the the presidential election ends up in this show, ends up being decided by Jenna Moroney. Um it all hinges on her. And there's this like sideline bit where Tracy is trying to predict how the whole country is gonna go, and he like does it like down by each region of the state, and it's so it's like such you. I don't know if Tracy Morgan wrote it or if the writers of that show are just so tapped into I whatever. I don't know. I mean Tracy Morgan's obviously an amazing writer and comedian himself, but it's so funny when he's talking about like uh people in Cincinnati versus people in other parts of Ohio, and then he has this one bit where he's like, because it all comes down to Florida, and he's like, people in northern Florida, I could never quite fully figure out, you know, and I'm just like, God, what an amazing, what an amazing career that would be to just get to know the continental US. I mean, it's just so such a large country. And, you know, obviously it's for the sake of a bit, but I also feel like there's a lot of like tangibility and realness to it, because Tracy Morgan's been a touring stand-up comic for, you know, 20, 30 years at this point. I don't know. I it just really it's really impressive, like kind of quick moment, but I'm like, ooh, I feel like there's a lot of substance to this.
Speaker 2Yeah, I mean, it would be an amazing career to just make incorrect predictions about how elections will go. And I feel like America has a huge, incredibly well-paid industry. Yeah. But I don't know, Zach, if you remember 2016. Oh, yeah. But uh, but it it went differently than most people thought it was going to go.
Speaker 1Yeah, including myself, yeah. Yeah, including me.
Speaker 2I I know I really wanted to be able to be one of those, like, you know, like I'm a true cynic and I I see America for what I saw this coming a mile away. But I I was shocked.
Speaker 4Now nothing will surprise you.
Speaker 2Uh yeah, I mean, it's funny because I do find myself, and look, we love to we love to get political on this show. Uh where you know, there is another presidential election a year from now, right? Almost to the almost to the day. And certainly as when people are listening to this, and um, you know, and it's coming down to will the crazy old man or the slightly crazier old man take it this time, uh, and you know, you pick who's who for you. But I already have found myself saying, you know, uh, like, I I don't see I don't see how Donald Trump can win again, but it's now it is always tempered with a CYA of like, but you know, I've thought that before. Basically the lamest prediction possible, where I'm like, man, this could really go two ways.
Speaker 1Well, I I was really proud of myself for uh a comment I left on the Smiles Reddit page where it was like I think I sent it to you a screenshot of it, but the post was like this really like sincere, heartfelt that was like the band could put out another album this year, but also they might not. Yeah, there's still no, there's still October or there's still November and December left. You know, that's a long time. And it was like, but it was like written as if it was like this like late breaking story, and it was and I commented, and it's now up to 25 upvotes. Uh, late breaking news, the band could do something at some point.
Speaker 3Wait, you wrote this? Yeah, I commented that on it.
Speaker 1Oh, nice. Dumbest post I've ever seen. It was just like they could do something, but they might not. And it was like, yeah, no shit, like something could happen, or something might happen. It's not like that's not a hot prediction. And I was like 50-50, because I really, as somebody that actively posts on like different radio or uh different Reddit boards that I like, not like super frequently, but like I'll put thought into like what I want to say. Um I don't think it's like cool to just go around like teasing people that have also seemingly done it, but this was so stupid. It was like, yeah, like something could happen or something might not. It was so dumb.
Speaker 2I people really feel like uh well, first of all, thank you for maintaining our celebrity status on Reddit because I have not been active on any of the boards lately, but I was thinking the person who I most like to dunk on their Reddit posts is you, and Zach will say something that I totally agree with, and I like to just comment like this is stupid, like just like the most or I think I think one time you like made a really well-articulated and specific point about some Radiohead thing, and I just wrote, This is insane.
Speaker 3That's sound crazy. It got negative nine upvotes.
Speaker 2Yeah, no one ever was just like, what a dick. Um Zach, I'm actually glad that you brought up Radiohead. Well, I bring up the smile, but yeah. Oh, fair enough. Well, by bringing up the smile, you are always bringing up Radiohead, right?
Speaker 1Two fifths. Yeah, totally.
Speaker 2Now, I I had a little Radiohead experience recently out in the world. Not okay. I I would say not um another barbecue or not as not as big as the listeners. Go listen to the radio anti-radiohead hate crime I experienced at a supposed friend's barbecue by listening to our episode Analyzing Radiohead with Brad Osborne. Um, this was not as uh vicious of an attack on my Radiohead fandom, but it was kind of an experience of having. You know what I was, Zach? I was a victim also. I I wasn't so you know, listeners know I'm I love to go out into the world and be a victim. And this time was no exception. And and it's you know, look, it's not easy for a uh a straight white millennial man to find himself a victim that often, at least culturally. And nowadays. Nowadays, yeah. Can't a man just be a man? Can't a man just yeah. I mean, of course, you know, people are always getting mad at me about things I things I can't say, but I still go there.
Speaker 3So what happens?
Speaker 2And of course the job of the comedian is to be mindlessly insensitive. Oh yeah. While bringing while reinforcing old bigotries. This is the job of the comedian, and I embrace it. And so yeah, I'm fine. Okay, listeners, I'm kidding. Um, but what I was but so often, Zach, when I'm a victim, um it is not because of something inherent to my identity, but it is because people will say something slightly rude or condescending about Radiohead and how much I love them.
Speaker 4Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2With this time I was a victim of ageism related to Radiohead. So I don't think we've talked about this, but I am working at an elementary school right now in my day job. Uh, you know, until we until we get enough subscribers to justify a like a merch run and a Patreon and uh a separate OnlyFans, Zach and I each doing an OnlyFans where we post pictures of our tiny butts. Right now it's it's important that I have a day job. And I work uh I work at an afterschool program at an elementary school, and we have the program has a couple of like high school interns who help out a couple days a week. And first of all, I, you know, never talk to them. So the the story that I'm about to share with you is the first and last conversation I have had with one of these high school interns. And I feel like that is a mutually, a silently mutually agreed upon dynamic between the two of us. I don't have anything to say to them, they don't have anything they want to hear from me. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Um, I also live right by a high school in Oakland, and it and nothing has made me more aware of my advancing age than just when you, as an adult, when you become invisible to young people, meaning that like I feel like I could walk out of my house nude and screaming, and they would not look up. Like, it's like I'm that profoundly uninteresting. Just my existence is that profoundly uninteresting to people 20 and under. Right. In any case, one of these high school interns walks in. Um, now you know, now you know, like this Gen Z and below. I don't know if high school people currently in high school are part of Gen Z or if they're part of the Alpha. Gen Alpha, which is Ollie's generation, or if they're on the cusp. But in any case, I'm sure you've noticed they are dressing um in early 2000s fashion. Cargo pants are back, big giant cargo pants are back. Uh like hot topic, like, you know, pants with all the crazy straps and zippers and shit, like all that kind of stuff. Yeah. Which is tough. And I, you know, I um it's it's there's a certain comfort in seeing things come back into fashion and just like comfortably knowing, like, oh, I don't have to try to do this. Like, I'm just uh like when I was a lad, skinny jeans came into style, and now I'm going to wear some variation of that and a flannel for the rest of my life, and that's going to be fine, and people will be able to very quickly identify what was cool when I was uh attempting to be cool, right? In any case, I while I'm not a fan of the giant pants and things like that, and I and I do look asconce at these young people wearing those things, and just because just because I've already learned those lessons, and you wish you could you wish you could sit them down and say, oh honey, you don't have to do this, but you know, you can't. They wouldn't they wouldn't listen to you. But they also wear a lot of stuff from our time. Like a lot of stuff from our youth is now nostalgic. Right. And that's very interesting, and I guess this inevitably happens to everybody. And I have mixed feelings about it. I'm like, oh, it's fun that I can walk into a cool coffee shop and hear Blink 182 playing, but it also, of course, makes me feel ancient. So this high this high schooler wearing a very cool Radiohead shirt. It's a Radiohead shirt that is a close-up of Thom's face, possibly a still image from the No Surprises video, but it's like blown out and kind of like that like photocopied like 90s style. Yeah. Where the c where the saturation of the image is like turned way up, and it's basically just kind of like, oh, this like stencil is like Tom's face. Yeah. Purple shirt says Radiohead. And we're passing by each other, going opposite directions. Again, never spoke, don't even know this person's name. Never spoken to them in my life. And I go, um, oh, cool Radiohead shirt. And and she goes, What? And I go, Oh, I like the Radiohead shirt. And she's like, Oh, okay. And I and then I and then I like can't help myself. And I go, yeah, they're like my favorite band. And she goes, I didn't even know adults had heard of this band. Listeners, that dead space was left in intentionally. I want you to feel, I want you to feel the wince and the and the and the just speechlessness that Zach felt. Zach, please, please speak on it.
Speaker 1Well, just to take ownership of a band and and assume that adults hadn't heard of them, but to do zero research to find out when their most successful run of albums were is frustrating to me.
Speaker 2Oh my god. Zach, I mean, I I like I couldn't I couldn't believe internally how mad I was. Like it was like indignant. I didn't know adults had heard of this band. The people in the band are all in their 50s. I know. When do you think they were popular? Like it took a thing that I love that it's like that high schoolers are still discovering Radioheads, something that I think we've talked about from Reddit. Like it's like it's definitely still happening.
Speaker 1It's awesome.
Speaker 2Totally. And it like speaks to the it speaks to what I perceive to be like a timeless nature to a lot of their best work. It's hard to, it's hard to say that objectively because you love the stuff you love, you get a certain age, and I think every old person has some variation of the experience of like, hey, check this out. It really rocks at a kid like staring at you like you're a fucking idiot, right? But I do think Radiohead hated.
Speaker 1I think they're timeless that way, yeah.
Speaker 2Yeah, and their spirit, their sphere of influence. I think like I think like bands that are starting now probably still really love Radio Head. So I it's like it's always a nice, pleasant surprise to find out that people still give a shit about this thing that I love. But to say I didn't know adults have heard of this band, it's like pull your head out of your ass. What are you talking about? Like, what I mean seriously, I don't know. Honestly, where do you think this person thinks Radiohead is from? I don't know. Do they think they are a new band?
Speaker 1On her shirt is like a new image or something.
Speaker 2Yeah. Or does it and the shirt is from like okay computer era Tom? So do are they like watching no surprises and being like, What a cool thing that came out yesterday.
Speaker 1Yeah. Wow, this video has 50 million. Views and it just came out.
Speaker 2Yeah. And like, I mean, honestly, I I think this is the thing of because people discover things on TikTok all the time now. Yeah. So it's like Portlandia or whatever. It's like they're not watching it on cable. They're not sitting down and fucking watching it on IFC. It gets clipped and put on TikTok and then has like, I feel like people even like that's like part of the persistence of the American office, is it's like it's on TikTok. But Zach, I actually left a part out of this story. What this high schooler did, um, they did a thing that I've always heard shitty, basically, guys like the stereotype of guys like us who care super deeply about like a a band will then sexistly quiz women in a band t-shirt about like to test the authenticity of their fanship, right?
Speaker 1Well, I've never done that before.
Speaker 2No, neither have I. Neither have I. But you know that are you aware of this kind of like stereotype? Oh, okay. Because it's like it's like something the hard times rip.
Speaker 3So I've probably done it.
Speaker 2I doubt it. I doubt it. But like the thing of like you see some you see like a young lady in a nirvana shirt and you're like, name five of their songs.
Speaker 1I again I would never Is it an aggressive way to flirt, maybe like negging around? Sure.
Speaker 2Probably it's it's a way it's a way to like establish some sort of dominance expert.
Speaker 3Yeah. Um this this high school girl did that to me.
Speaker 2And Zach, Zach, Zach, I did it. I did it. I could have participated. Yeah, I like the the the transition, the immediate change from hey, like, hey, cool Radiohead shirt, to like to like the stress, the like the to the stress I felt to like prove that I know Radiohead to this high schooler that I have again, don't know their name, don't care about them at all. But like when they I was like, cool radiohead shirt, they went, can you name five of their songs? And then I don't know, but Zach, it was stressful because it was one of those things where people are like, because it's one of those things where someone's like, name a state, and you're like, uh Canada. Like you can't, like, it's like, you know what I mean? Like basic knowledge that you have can suddenly kind of like fly out the wind. It's like how people like bomb Jeopardy questions that you know everyone on the panel knows. Totally. But like I I got five songs, but it was like I I remember as I was saying them, it was like, I'm picking weird songs. It was just like whatever once jumped jumped into my head.
Speaker 1You're like, punch at a wedding, punch up at a wedding, we suck young blood, sit down, stand up. See, you're doing big and fitter happier.
Speaker 2Yeah, or like uh Pop is Dead, like the single they released before Pablo Honey came out that is like considered the cringiest song they ever did.
Speaker 1But then those high schoolers still had more dominance over you and whatever songs you name. They're like, those aren't songs.
Speaker 2Yeah, well, yeah, it's like, oh, those are all just TikTok videos. Yeah, those are all 30-second uh diddies that they that this new band has released on TikTok. And like, and so okay, so not only did I name five songs, like it is so pathetic how much I needed to prove that I like Radiohead to this high schooler. Uh-huh. Um, Zach, I mentioned the podcast.
Speaker 1Oh, okay.
Speaker 2And uh I this is this is the first and last time I have told and also I edit the podcast at work. I'll sit there if I have extra time in my day, I'll sit there and edit the podcast. And if people go, what are you doing? I go, editing a podcast. Right. Right. I don't say editing my podcast, I say editing a podcast, could be editing.
Speaker 1Editing one of the many podcasts that I edit.
Speaker 3Yeah, exactly. But this person goes, I didn't do no adults even like this band. And I went, I have a Radiohead podcast.
Speaker 2Yes. And she ran away. She ran away. No, I don't, it's just like it was the most awkward conversation of my life. And I walked away just feeling so utterly violated that it's like, like I walked away. It was so gas, it was gaslighting to use the parlance of this generation. I was just like, I was just nagged and gatlit by a high schooler. Like I tried to connect with her on her level as two radiohead fans. I didn't, I didn't go, oh, you're too young to have heard of it. Oh, did you get that show at or sorry? Oh, did you get that shirt at Target? Do you even know Radiohead? Have you can you name five of their songs? Do you have a Radiohead pot? No. I'm not here.
Speaker 1That's how most people would assume it would go.
Speaker 2Exactly, Zach. But I just was like, hey, we're too, we're too nothing about our backgrounds is the same, except that we both love the head. And I'm gonna treat you as and and I'm gonna treat you as an equal. I'm not gonna throw that I have a Radiohead podcast in your face. I'm not gonna throw that I am a self-styled expert on this band and their side projects in your face. And not only that, Zach, if I see you at a Radiohead or let's be, or if I see you at the smile concert and I catch one of this band's fans, one of these Gen X or millennial fans, right, who looks like me, one of these flannel bros, talking down to you. That's when I'm gonna step in and and be my ass an ally and go, hey, we're just all here because we love Thom, right? Yeah. But I can step in on Reddit once before with that, but please keep going. No, that's it. But it's just like, but it's it's clear to me that this is a one-sided arrangement. Like, this is what it feels like to be old in America. This is it's like they want to sweep you away with the trash, don't want to acknowledge. Like, we've had guests on who are older than us and have been into Radio Head way longer than we have, and they treat us with respect, but we also treat them with the reverence of having done their time and paved the way.
Speaker 1No, totally. I don't know. I'm sickened. I'm sickened. The more it's the more things change, the more things stay the same. Like we have all these high expectations about the new generation. Well, about our generation, the way that we're going to uh surpass, you know, previous generations and how we can talk about things, be open, different, you know, different styles of of discipline or understanding of different types of people, you know, whatever. Pick your pick your semi-political issue or political cause or whatever. And yet, now that we're getting uh, let's see, I'm 34, you're 30. Are you 37?
Speaker 2Yes, sir.
Speaker 1So yeah, so I'll about to be I'm about to be, you know, in the back half of my 30s. But yeah, I mean, and then it's like you have this interaction and it's like, oh no, things aren't changing. People are still shitty.
Speaker 2I think high schoolers being shitty is is not new. Not new and what is not going anywhere. But like, yeah. No, please go ahead.
Speaker 1Uh, I mean, this is really along the same lines, but it's just it's um not having any kids of my own, like who would, you know, be in high school or have high school friends over whatever it is, it is very limited engagement and interaction to like spend time around teens. I think we've mentioned on the show that like we have a our youngest sister is 20, so that's kind of like a nice insight into that world, you know, limited though it may be, like might not get as much exposure otherwise. But we had Kailani and I had uh her I say her niece, but it's our niece, I guess. But her sister's eldest daughter over on Saturday night, and we watched Alien, and it was her first time. And it was really she's only 15 and really, really, really smart girl. It was really, really fun to uh watch somebody that like appreciates like classic movies and is getting into them, like see it for the first time and hear what she thought about it.
Speaker 2So, you know, it can go both ways. Yeah, but Zach, you raise a really of course it can. And like, I mean, like I I guess I'm a cool story. Well, thank you. Cool story, Hansel. But I guess that I guess though that I am specifically like um kind of concerned about not just young people, but this generation of young people. And your alien example is a good counterexample of neither of us were born when the movie Alien came out, and when we got into that franchise, I don't think either of us went, oh, this movie came out yesterday. No, and that is the thing that I really am having a hard time with is it's like, does this generation think that things start existing the moment they become aware of them? And that's crazy.
Speaker 1No, but I think that I kind of did maybe they do, but I think that in a way, and this is something I've gotten a lot better about when I find my way into something classically loved. So listeners know we both, but I love Stanley Kubrick, Stanley Kubrick films. He's been dead for 24 years. Listeners know, you know, we love Radiohead or whatever. I I do think that I've gotten generally more aware of like, oh, just because I'm finding my way to something that is uh beloved, but like I don't know, like Radiohead still, I we've talked about a bunch of times that they occupy like this totally mainstream, but like semi not underground, but like alternative, maybe or something like that, like status. And they've been able to maintain that. I think very carefully because I wonder where that person did get that shirt, because I don't think Radiohead merch is available available in like Target and uh all big box retailers.
Speaker 2It looked I'm not sure, it looked vintage. Like I don't know if it was, but it's like it was like was legitimately like a really rad shirt that either was styled in a way to like look like authentic 90s Radiohead merch, or was in fact that.
Speaker 1But yeah, I don't know. I remember just being like, actually, if Brad Osborne said this on the episode that you mentioned earlier, like he said something like when he got into them, he started proselytizing them like all radiohead fans do, and that made me laugh so hard because I was like, oh man, I could definitely relate to that. So I think it that's that is an exercise of ego too, of being like, hey, I just found out about this thing, let me tell you about it, or let me I don't know, you know what I'm saying? Like you just kind of like, yeah, so I don't know. I I think that's a an area I've at least strove strove to improve, to have improved on, improved. I don't know what the right word is, but yeah, that's a pretty big manifestation of ego.
Speaker 2I'll tell you this. I've seen this high schooler wearing the Radiohead shirt a couple times since, and now I like uh look at the floor when they're doing it.
unknownWalk by.
Speaker 2I just really I just really got my ass handed to me. That is really funny. I think this counts as a mini episode of our Radiohead season on this episode of video talk. Should we should we talk about the subject at hand today? Should we talk bottle rocket? I think we should. Well, just like in the most general terms possible, Bottle Rocket is a favorite movie of Zach and I'm for a very long time. Um, this movie came out in 1996, but we discovered it, I would say, in the early 2000s. And we'll get into like how we were hipped to this movie. But Zach, should we like let the folks know? Do you think we should let them know kind of a brief summation of what the movie's about or a brief summation of kind of who made it and uh its background?
Speaker 1No, give them give them a quick summary of the plot if you don't mind.
Speaker 2Okay, well, I'm not gonna, I'm just gonna refer to character names and not talk about you know who's playing who or directors or anything like that, in case this is anybody's uh, you know, is coming to this totally blind. Bottle Rocket is a movie about three friends in small town suburbia, Texas, basically kind of to escape their boredom and suburban ennui, maybe kind of uh, maybe also kind of like life of privilege to some extent for some of them. These three characters, Dignan, Anthony, and Bob, embark on a life of a mishap-filled and ill-fated life of crime. Um, these are not people who are turning to crime because, you know, uh they're growing up in an environment where that is the only option that they see.
Speaker 1Yeah, it's not the wire.
Speaker 3Yeah, it's not a it's not a mechanism of survival.
Speaker 2It's like a it's played out.
Speaker 3Mechanism of choice.
Speaker 2Yeah, mechanism of choice and of fantasy. Like I believe the tagline of this movie is they're not really criminals, but everybody's got to have a dream, which I think is a great, which is a great tagline. Not really a tagline that I think like tonally suits the movie, but is a good, is a good uh kind of encapsulation of like the joke of this.
Speaker 1I think that was the tagline on our VHS copy, actually.
Speaker 2I that's right. Sure was. Um so yeah, Dignan is the kind of like the self-styled alpha of this group. He is the the mastermind who is making the plans. His long-suffering kind of best friend is Anthony, uh, who maybe is the not maybe is probably the smarter one and knows a little better, but uh is is very loyal to his friend Dignan and is willing to uh doesn't have enough going on in his own life that he's willing to embark on this life of crime with Dignan. And then Bob makes it.
Speaker 1I think we can just say, too, that Dignan is played by Owen Wilson and it and Anthony is played by his brother, younger brother Luke. I think we could at least say that much.
Speaker 2Okay, fair enough. So fair enough. Yeah. So this is the debut of the of the Wilson brothers. Yeah. They're not playing brothers in the movie, but the the chemistry between these two characters is uh uh you know unbelievable. Unbelievable. The back and forth is so natural, and and Zach and I really consider this like a brothers movie. Um and anyway, so like just the the movie's not a super plotty movie. It's very much kind of a 90s like hangout movie, indie comedy, and has that vibe. But in terms of story, uh the these three rob a bookstore in the town they live in, um uh go on the lamb. That is a quote. It's not at all clear that anyone is pursuing them, the perpetrators of this crime, but they they go on the lamb. And then while they are hiding out uh in another unnamed Texas town, things kind of deteriorate between the three of them. Uh the group kind of breaks up. Bob is their getaway driver. He he ditches out on them uh and leaves them stranded in this town. Anthony falls in love with a maid who works at the hotel they're hiding out at. Uh the group falls apart and eventually they all come back together back in their hometown to pull a big job to rob a cold storage, Hinckley cold storage. And this is all under the tutelage of Abe Henry, who is Dignan, Dignan's hero, uh supposed crime boss, Abe Henry, who is kind of Dignan is kind of under the tutelage of, and the job goes belly up. They they are, I mean, it should be clear, they are completely um inept uh what it inept. Thank you. That was the word I was searching for. They're totally ineptist criminals. The job goes belly up, and uh Dignan takes the fall, ends up going to prison, and that and that's bottle rock. And we're gonna talk about it in more detail, be like just the vibe of this movie, and of course our favorite parts and stuff, but that's that's what the movie is about. How did I do? Any big things I missed that you think we want to cover in the general?
Speaker 1Uh no, not at all. I mean, Abe Henry is played by James Kahn. He's sort of the like face, I think listeners. I mean, now if you watch it for the first time, it's not necessarily like a who's who. I think you would definitely recognize Owen and Luke Wilson. And I think you can't help but recognize that the side character future man is played by another Wilson brother. He's not had an illustrious career by any means, but they just have such a distinctive draw and look and jawline. Yeah. But uh James Conn is sort of the he was sort of the the draw, and he sort of did it as a favor, I think, to producer Mel Brooks. James, I'm sorry, James Elbrooks, not Mel Brooks. James Elbrooks.
Speaker 2Uh he was the but he he's the star attached to, you know, yeah, that that they to get this movie made. And at the time that it came out, he would be the only face that you knew. But Zach, I think that's kind of naturally getting us into the who's who of this movie because it's not just the first movie of the Wilson brothers, it's a first of another very prominent voice in American cinema. Why don't you talk about, you know, who's who's behind the camera and crew? Like what's the what's the background of this movie?
Speaker 1Well, it was directed by Wes Anderson. So Wes Anderson's still very active filmmaker today. Um, I would say very up until maybe the last five years or so, I would say a very, very critically lauded, like, and and you know, just a very uh famous and prolific American filmmaker. This is his debut film. It was the screenplay was written by Wes Anderson and Owen Wilson. And uh, you know, we'll probably talk about it as we go. I don't know how much we want to talk about all those other movies, but I think Wes Anderson's first four or five movies were co-written by Owen Wilson. I know. It's actually just the first three. Oh, okay, because Life Aquatic's Noah Bombak, he co-wrote with, right?
Speaker 2Yes, and Life Aquatic followed Royal Tenonbaums, right? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so it's just the first three. And I don't believe that Owen Wilson has been the co-writer on anything since Royal Tenonbaums, although he has appeared in in movies since.
Speaker 1But yeah, and this movie I'm including Life Aquatic. I'm not gonna go through the cast, uh, you know, because we covered like kind of the three, but this movie does a thing I would say the Cohen brothers also do very well. And maybe Wes Anderson, you know, pulled from them. Cohen brothers famously like to set their movies in kind of Middle America. Uh this is set in like northern Texas. Um, and it just does this wonderful thing that I think Wes Anderson and the Coens do so well of blending in people of either a different ethnicity other than the white male leads, or just people that aren't actors, right? And they don't have like prominent lead roles. Although the third friend of the group, uh Bob Maplethorpe, is played by Robert Musgrave, and he has only two film credits that I could find. And he's an excellent actor, I think, in this. He puts in a great performance. But, you know, uh uh Kumar.
Speaker 2Now I read on Reddit he was in one of uh Wes Anderson's most recent features that he has a small part in the French Dispatch.
Speaker 1Oh, I saw the French dispatch. I don't remember him in it.
Speaker 2Well, I don't know. I I didn't verify it on IMDb or anything. No, I believe he's like a cab driver or something in the French Dispatch. Um but yeah, I mean it's wonderful in this movie. I didn't know. He's so good. I really wonder if it's like a if uh I couldn't I did some research, like trying to figure out if, you know, there's an article or whatever about like that he decided to retire from acting, or I couldn't I couldn't find anything about that. I but I I don't know why I haven't at least seen him in other kind of small budget indies, or like he's got a great like character actor face and vibe. Yeah, and I love him in this. He's very funny in this movie. I don't know why he's not in stuff.
Speaker 1Yeah, um, I mean, we could talk about Bob a little bit more as we go through, but just like just kind of general things. The the movie was made after a 13-minute short film that Owen and Owen Wilson and Wes Anderson made in 1992. Um, as we talked about, this wasn't released until as a feature until February 21st, 1996. It's a tight 90 minutes. The budget, they did get a $5 million budget eventually lauded. It was a uh box office failure, but it did do pretty well with some major critics. I know there's a really positive Los Angeles Times article that helped kind of propel it into being a cult classic. Yeah, it only made $560,000 at the box office, and I love this little detail. Uh um Owen Wilson did contemplate joining the Marines after the failure of this. Uh, I'm glad that he didn't and he stuck with the film career. But I like it because there's this little bit. I think it's at least might just be one time, but in the movie, people ask Dignan if he's in the army because of his his haircut.
Speaker 2And I just which is Owen Wilson's a good looking guy. This haircut is so unflattering.
Speaker 1Oh, I don't mind it. That's so funny.
Speaker 2Oh, I think it I think it like knocks like three points off his like whatever number you would give him on the one to ten scale. I guess it does.
Speaker 1I just I think it's cool to see Owen Wilson with such short hair because he did kind of rock the like long, not shoulder length, but like semi-surfer guy hair that like Luke really has style. It's not a good looking haircut, but um yeah, there's there's a lot more in the making of and all that, but I do want to say there's a really fantastic um 25-minute documentary that is very loosey-goosey. It's not super like tight or anything like that, but it has interviews with all the cast. It's on the Blu-ray DVD extras, or you could even watch it on YouTube. You can also watch the 13-minute short film if you like. It's that's really, really kind of informative to see how much Owen and Wes grew as writers and as filmmakers from the short, which is really good and really fun. I know Walker watched it too, but um I think there's there's more interesting data we could kind of call upon as we go through it. But those are kind of the basic things I wanted to highlight.
Speaker 2Yeah, I mean, I think that's great. I think that it just like what really needs to be underlined here is that this launched the career of Wes Anderson. And like people, if they've seen any Wes Anderson movies, they have a very specific sense of like what a Wes Anderson movie is and looks like in terms of like the way people speak, and and most, I think, uh probably most prominently the look of his films, which is like they're incredibly art, uh, they're incredibly art directed, everything kind of exists in this like dollhouse world um where it's like it's it's a period of period that didn't exactly ever exist. Yeah. Right. And this movie feels like a Wes Anderson movie, but it does not have it, it is grounded in like it seems like everybody exists in the time they're live. The aesthetic of the characters in terms of their dress is very like Gen Xy thrift store slacker like type of thing. Um people are not spe the the dialogue is I do think like is reminiscent of like the kind of style of humor that he does continue to have in his movies, but it's I would say by far the most naturalistic dialogue of any Wes Anderson movie.
Speaker 1Sorry, I already said that, but like Clerks, Richard Linkladder, uh maybe a little bit of Cohen influence. It's very naturalistic, as you said.
Speaker 2It's not Yeah, people repeat themselves or misspeak. There's like almost constant kind of overlapping dialogue. Like it's just it's even the movies that Owen Wilson wrote with him, Rushmore and Royal Tenenbaums, like, which uh I will just say now, are the I and then this is becoming a little bit of a take that people have, but I do think the best Wes Anderson movies are the ones he wrote with Owen Wilson, those ones even even uh a very heightened aesthetic like Royal Tenenbaums, I think the ones he wrote with Owen Wilson, the characters feel much more real and much more human. But even in Rushmore and Royal Tenenbaum's, I do feel like the dialogue is really tight and it's mu and it's and it's uh there's more of an aesthetic choice being made about the rhythm of there's a very Wes Anderson-y rhythm in how people speak in every movie after this. And and I don't mind that at all, but I do love that Bottle Rocket is its own little standalone thing where, like I said, it's a it's a it's a hangout movie in a lot of ways. It's just kind of like the way these characters that seem like they have known each other I since high school or maybe since childhood, and then very much so in the case of your two leads, they obviously have known each other since childhood. They're brothers, even though they're not playing brothers, and just that natural chemistry is like I love this. I love the way these people hate and love each other, and I'm down to just hang out in this movie and watch that happen. And and I don't think any other Wes Anderson movies are quite like that.
Speaker 1No, and I think that I think that's so well said, and I think that I was mentioning like the contemporary influences that, you know, this movie does feel like a little bit of a product of like the studio. The I mean, in that um in that short documentary that I was referring to, I think we have a probably right, especially right now with like strikes and things going on, we just don't have like a high opinion, generally speaking. I'm not speaking for everybody, about like producers and the studios and all that. It is really, really cool to see how supportive like major names in terms of producers and then producers I'd never heard of, but I have a great admiration for in pushing for Wes Anderson was a genius, essentially, and this movie had to get made. You know, it's really, really cool to see. I think that it's also clear though that like Wes Anderson and Owen were a beneficiary of like the Kevin Smith and the Richard Lincoln and you know, like just that whole bubble of indie cinema that happened in the early 90s. But it's it but Wes was a contemporary of theirs, with like if his film came out in 1992, his short film, even though there was the delay, but uh talking about their influences and the way the actors interact and talk over one another and such like a funny and some of my favorite lines in this movie are when people are kind of cross-conversation, is very um Robert Altman. And uh if you kind of like not only Robert Altman, but if you look at like great cinema of the 1970s, like there's this like really I was talking about Alien earlier. Alien is a perfect example directed by Ridley Scott, but the dialogue is very Robert Altman in that like the characters over at the at the dinner table or when they're trying to figure things out, even before the alien attacks Kane, there's a lot of cross-conversation that establishes like who is in certain tier of science, the way like Veronica Cartwright's character talks to uh Tom Scarrett is more science-y versus the way so you establish class there, the deer hunter. That's not a Robert Altman film, that's um uh I forget the name of the director. Uh I I yeah, I do too. It'll come to me, but um uh also directed Heaven's Gate. Like there's a lot of cross conversation, it's a lot about class too, right? And I think bottle I like in the Deer Hunter, they're back from the war, and it's sort of how do we function in the society? So I think that what's really cool about that is that you could see Owen and Wes's influence as they were the type of cinema they probably grew up on, and then sort of bringing it into this 90s sensibility is just really because I do think Bottle Rocket has a little bit to say about like even within the three friends, you briefly kind of gestured at this. I want to talk about it more later, like that they might be from different socioeconomic classes themselves, even though they're both like you know, white American men or whatever. I do think that that's gestured at. It's really, really cool to see. That's all.
Speaker 2I dude, I agree, and I mean I do think that like this gets this is this like the 90s is such a fun period for movie lovers because you know, like not radio and headpans, though. Not yeah, no, yeah. I know I can't wait until this high schooler to see this movie and go, like, oh, what a great new movie. Um and then when I could be like, oh, that's in my top 10 movies, she could be like, I didn't know adults knew about this movie, and I can uh feel the fool. No, I mean it's so fun this period where uh you know big studios would buy these little indie movies, and and that it resulted in, I'm sure to like good and bad net effect, but it resulted in all these, you know, voices getting uh pushed into the mainstream and you know, like, and then you like Quentin Tarantino can have uh a heist movie that opens with people talking about a Madonna song. Like, you know, that like I love that. Oh, is that Res4 Dogs? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, just these things, just these things that like, you know, 10 years before it would be like, what the hell is this? And then and then audiences really like it. They like to spend time hanging out with characters. But I think what makes Bottle Rocket such a special movie is where you have a movie like Clerks, where it's like a bunch of friends shooting the shit, essentially. Right.
Speaker 1That's like the hangout movie, right?
Speaker 2But it's also like uh, you know, and I think it's both established for like fans of uh of Kevin Smith. But for me, it's like I'm kind of more a fan of the guy. I I am a big fan of some of the movies, but it's more that like I'm kind of a fan of the guy and career, personally, speaking for myself. The point I'm getting at is I'm glad Clerks exist. I see its influence on like the film, and that a movie like that could be a modest hit, probably resulted in a bunch of other stuff that is some of my favorite stuff, but it's not like well composed, in my opinion, in terms of it's like uh the way like shots are staged or anything. It's not like interesting to look at. Wes Anderson is incredibly meticulous behind the camera. And even though he doesn't have the budget or experience, maybe at the time that Bottle Rocket gets made, to have it look like Royal Tenonbaums will look a few years later, where it's just like, oh my God, every single frame is so like gorgeous to look at and so meticulously composed. It does have that uh that incredibly competent and um what and just like it has his super strong aesthetic eye behind the camera, and so it's really nice to look at, even though it's a fairly low budget $5 million movie, and there's not a ton visually going on, it it is such a perfect combination of the hangout movie and the strong aesthetic eye of a director who will go on to have an aesthetic that you specifically think of as the Wes Anderson aesthetic.
Speaker 1Did I say the word aesthetic enough times? No, but I love oh yes, I love what you're saying too. I mean, it's the second scene in the movie, um, but where Dignan and Anthony are sitting on the bus together. I love this is my favorite like moment of camera operation, at least that I've keyed in on. It starts on the driver of the bus, and you hear Dignan on the side go, driver, what's our ETA? And it pulls it uh whip shot. Whip shot, thank you. Yeah, whip shots to Dignan and Anthony. And I'm just like, that's like a really sophisticated way to set up the shot. And then there's one more, I'll just say my other favorite, there's one more shot in the robbery scene where it starts with, and this is something Wes Anderson's really good at in general, but in this movie it's really impressive of three characters walking, and the camera is probably like on a dolly track or something like that, or maybe not, maybe it's just handheld, and the characters are walking.
Speaker 2He doesn't do a lot of handheld, but I think it kind of like shakes as it follows them to the entrance of the bookstore. That I think that's the same thing. Yeah, it does that.
Speaker 1So, like this is this is during the robbery at Hinckley Cold Storage, though. It starts with Dick Kumar and Applejack, I think, in frame, and then they go onto one of those old-style elevators that you like drop the gate on. They're probably actually pretty dangerous, and it goes from them like in the hallway, and then you realize, oh, the camera's in the elevator as they're going up, and you see Dignon climb the stairs from like a bisected POV and then come back. And I'm like, that is really, really like there's that's not easy to set up and establish. And I feel like he maybe got away from that a little bit. I don't mean to like stray us so far, but I feel like he gets away from that a little bit, like even within ten and bombs, where he's not focused so much on movement, it's more still frame photography. And so you don't get as much of an interesting, like frenetic. I mean, you do get it in ten and bombs, like because there's still action in those, but I don't know. I'm not trying to make it about like how he declined. I think it's just where his interest maybe was. And I don't know if Bottle Rocket is a story that maybe required him to do whatever, but I just like there's just little things like those two shots in particular, where I'm like, oh, this is really cool how much we're moving. And anyways, that's all. Well, I love those two shots.
Speaker 2In the in the I mean, uh great observation about the elevator shot. I hadn't thought of that. I mean, to me, it's like I I don't want to make this about bashing on his later work or whatever, but it has become really hit or miss for me. And and I feel like I have ridden with Wes Anderson more than not like I mean, he's incredibly successfully as a huge, like, so it's it's not like it's like, oh, my little guy, Wes Anderson, or whatever. But I remember like The Life Aquatic is a movie where the aesthetic gets really, really amplified. And I know that that is a point of departure for a lot of people where it's like, okay, the aesthetic has kind of just taken over. I love that movie. I think it's very, very funny, warm, has heart, I makes me makes me laugh, makes me emotional. I still really love that movie. It also is like now there's like animated creatures in the aesthetic, and there's, you know, there's there's all these little like kind of like toy model sets that he's really interested in shooting very slowly and stuff. I think it looks great. I think the movie's very funny and I love it. And then uh the Darjeeling Limited is another one that I notice if people were on board still for Life Aquatic. That's kind of the jump-off point for a lot of people. I still really, really like that movie. The first one for me that I was like, this feels empty to me was Moonrise Kingdom. And I've liked stuff that's come out since, and I've really not liked stuff that has come out since. All that to say, I do think there is a point where, as a director, his interest in the sets and the clothing and the shot composition does to me seem to be at the sacrifice of like care character development and these things that I am and and and jokes and these things that I'm a little more. It's gotten a little cute for me, I guess is what I'm saying. And in these in these first three movies, I do feel like the style of it all and how stylized it is, it's sort of it's just another cool element of these very funny, heartfelt movies that really know their characters and really know what they kind of want to say about them. And that is, and that exists in Bottle Rocket, even though there aren't all these like little rinky dink sets and stuff like that. It's like the shot of the messy um bedside table in the hotel room and Bob's hand reaching over to it, is like it's the most beautifully composed messy table you've ever seen. And there's an anecdote I've heard about that where producer James L. Brooks saw the way everything was perfectly arranged in that, and there's a like a cup with like uh cigarette butts, cigarette butts and like liquor in it, and and and it's so prominent in the shot. And apparently James L. Brooke watched Brooks watched the dailies and was like, there better be poison in that cup. Like basically be like, why the fuck are you spending so much time perfectly composing this shot of the cup? But it's awesome. And then like the Wes Anderson-y thing of like close-ups on cute little objects. I feel like the first time you see that in his work is Dignan's notebook and all the little jokes that are contained if you stop and read what is written in this notebook and the way it kind of like it's like again, it's like it's like messy, and he has like messy handwriting and kind of looks like a like a typed font, even though it's messy, because it's like still symmetrically messy.
Speaker 1It reminds me very much of how in Movie Crush, when they talk about the shining, how it's like even the way the girls are perfectly the twins are arranged as a murder scene when Danny closes his eyes, it's like Kubrick messy. Trying to it's like not how like a murder scene would actually look. And I feel like what's so great about the shot you're talking about of Bob grabbing the keys is it's like very human because it's like he pauses, he hesitates. You only see his hand. But we know it's Bob because he's the one who owns the vehicle.
Speaker 2Bob Scott stole his car.
Speaker 1Yeah, there's something symmetrical though about like the cigarette butts, and like it's like um, it's not even party poppers, but whatever maybe it is like those I think it is, yeah. Like, yeah, those little teeny dots that come out of it. It's all just like perfectly arranged to look messy, and it doesn't take you out of the movie. It's just somebody that, and I think in that making of what really stood out to me is the cinematographer talked about how Wes Anderson he did understand like camera operation and like what a focus puller was. And I I highlight that because there's a really great moment of Luke Wilson saying he didn't know he and Owen didn't know what a focus puller was, so they didn't know where to stand and frame. Yeah, and um, but I think Wes did understand that, but I think where he was still relatively green is he had everything sort of like color-coded, and uh and what the cinematographer talks about is he's like, I'd never really seen a director be that intent on color phasing. He's and but what I think for me, I'm like, oh, that's like somebody that understands photography really well. And I think that yeah, his movies, as he's gotten more control and more understanding and everything, they look more like still photography setup, whereas I think Bottle Rocket feels more movement-oriented. And I don't know if that was by necessity, if he had less control or what. Anyways, I didn't mean to just keep harping on the same.
Speaker 2I do think it's probably, I mean, like it's like I I think that is a good way of saying the point that I'm trying to make, which is like the monumental talent of Wes Anderson as a director, I think is very much on display, even though this is an incredibly lo-fi movie compared to even their second one. But I also think that it is one of those things of like seeing what somebody that talented with that strong and specific of a visual artistic sensibility, what they do within the limits of both budget and this being their first movie, and them just not having the experience to execute the fully realized visions that they would later. I think there's something more exciting about that in this case, in the case of his movies, than getting to see him do exactly whatever he wants. Now, some filmmakers, the more they get to do exactly whatever they want, the the better and better their movies get, in my opinion. But he's just somebody who I think the limitations serve him a little bit. Yeah, absolutely. Now, Zach, I already feel like in terms of talking about like Wes Anderson and who made this and shot composition and stuff, we're already kind of slipping in some of our favorite parts. So should we just like talk about like how this movie came into our lives and then we can just like free form talk about the the movie and what we love about it? Yeah, I'd love that. I think we might have seen this movie at the same time. What do you want to talk about like how this movie came into our lives? I think in this case, like it's just we we don't need to each say our background with it because I think it's like the same point of origin for both of us, if I'm not mistaken.
Speaker 1Yeah, we had this, uh I think so too. We had this uh family friend who went to our church um by the name of it's okay if I mention his name, right?
Speaker 2I think so. I mean, we're about to praise him for bringing Bottle Rocket into our lives.
Speaker 1Yeah, we had this young family friend, uh, his name was Steve Bozo, and he I this is what I think, and feel free to correct me along the way. I think he introduced it to our cousin Levi, who then introduced it to his mom, our Aunt Michelle.
Speaker 2That sounds That sounds right.
Speaker 1Yeah, and we had talked about that, like there was some some uh our parents were pretty strict with movies, but like there were ones that just got in that then became like staples. Yeah.
Speaker 2Because this movie is rated R, but like this rated R only for swearing.
Speaker 1Only for swearing, yeah. There's there's a very, very sweet love scene that has no nudity or anything in it like that. And yeah, and I mean, you know, people are gonna parent and and and show their kids movies as they please, but I really am grateful because I think because there was a little bit of a limitation on kind of what was let in, I think that what was let in really, really shaped like our sense of humor and engagement.
Speaker 2And I just we would latch on super hard, especially something that was like for adults.
Speaker 1Yeah, and I I I just am so grateful because Bottle Rocket, I I want to let you chime in any at any time, but where it really influenced me is Bottle Rocket is.
Speaker 2Well, I just I just think the only thing that's like getting left out is just that our Aunt Michelle introduced this movie to us and and like a bunch of our cousins and stuff like that. And we kind of and I Zach have a very specific memory of us all being in uh Aunt Michelle and Uncle Tim's bedroom at their at their house, and like all sitting on their bed watching a VHS copy of this, like a ton of people in that bedroom watching this movie for the first time.
Speaker 1No, I agree. I mean, I don't I I kind of have a memory of that too. I mean, it's just like, and then I just remember us having a VHS copy and just watching it a lot. And I do want to again uh cite my Aunt Michelle because she said something that I've never forgotten and I really latched onto. And it it's that it's the first film I can remember consciously thinking that film and movies are meant to have potentially more to say than what you see on the screen at first glance. And it's not that Bottle Rocket has some hidden message or something like that, but it's I remember her talking about the goals of each character. And I remember her saying. Oh, it's so interesting. Each character gets what they want in it. And I think that what she was speaking to, I remember her saying is like Anthony uh finds love and he just wants to be loved. Dignan gets to go to prison because as Walker already said, when he's summarizing the plot, like the crime goes belly up and he is more or less happy that he gets validation for his failed crime to go to prison. Yeah, he's a good thing. Yeah, Bob Maplethorpe gets a relationship with his brother, even though it's really uh not an actual relationship, but that's that's at the very end of the film. But I also like think well, I don't know. I want to let you interject anything on that if you have.
Speaker 2No, I mean I think it's true. Like, I think like for for like a a movie that is so like loosey-goosey in terms of like vibe and story, like I do think it like follows a pretty traditional structure of like just you know, the characters. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And the care and the characters start out one way and they end up another way.
unknownExactly.
Speaker 2And in this case, it is it is a even though the movie, um, and we'll talk about the end and the final shot and stuff, because it ends in an extremely melancholic way in for me, like it always like I I I adore the ending of this movie so much. But it so it feels like this like pretty like funny movie ends in kind of a sad way, but it is a non-traditional happy ending because Dingon all he wants through the whole movie is to be cool, and his definition of cool is be like be like Mr. Henry, which is like his dream is to be a petty criminal, and he does accomplish that dream.
Speaker 1Yeah, so I mean it was definitely somebody else's analysis that I'm even quoting now that I said like kind of more or less taught me. I don't know if that's true. You know, we have a way of like applying this like linear hindsight, like this was the moment, you know. I I'm not pretending that I'm not doing that a little bit, but there are you know, I can talk about it an hour later. There are a couple shots in the film where I'm like, I wonder if that's intentional, like visual like uh metaphor or something like that. And um, but you know, the other reason why I love Bottle Rocket so much is you've already spoken to the chemistry between the Wilson brothers is so familiar and yet unmatched. I would say I don't have this in my notes, but where I do think it's matched and where it reminds me of a little bit is something like Goodwill Hunting, which came out the next year. You know, Matt Damon and Ben Affleck famously not brothers, but behave like brothers and have had this really long and fruitful collaboration, are excellent writers. Kevin Smith again had a uh hand, not in that movie, but in sort of bringing that movie up. He produced it. Um yeah, he produced it. He I believe he uh got it to Harvey Weinstein. And it's it, but like Kevin Smith actually has a quote about the end of Goodwill Hunting, where he talks about. I just remember him saying so specifically, Athlete gives the performance of his lifetime when Chucky goes to Will's house and he looks in and sees that he's gone and there's been all this foreshadowing. I think similarly, Owen Wilson gives the performance of a lifetime in that last shot that you were just speaking about. I mean, it's definitely, and this goes to Wes Anderson too, he slows it down and it's very melancholy, but that look he gives back to Bob and Anthony as he's going back in the prison gang is so incredible. And it's just like I don't even know what he's saying on his face necessarily, but it's I think Owen Wilson is a fantastic actor and a fantastic comedian. But like, isn't it so interesting in something like a Goodwill Hunting or like Bottle Rocket that somebody could just start at such a high level? I don't know.
Speaker 2I mean, I can't believe we're talking about the ending first, but I mean, like, listeners, watch the movie, and like hopefully you have if you're listening to this. But I I I that's a little bit of a weird place to jump around. No, but I think that that is why the ending is so like touching and emotional, because like the dynamic between Owen Wilson's character Dignan and these other two is he really is like he is kind of like emotionally blackmailing them into like doing crime with him through the whole movie. Like that is you know what I mean? Like it is like it's always kind of like, come on, man, like literally is a thing he says a lot, is it's just like I need you guys to do this, and like, you know, and he and he's like acting like it's for all of them, but it's really them being overly supportive and kind of not having enough of their own identities and own stuff going on that they keep getting like wrapped up into his harebrained schemes. And the ending bit of the movie is that Anthony and Bob are visiting him in prison, and as he's going, like Zach said in, he's in line with all the other inmates. They're between there's a fence between them, and he's going back into the jail, and they're saying their goodbyes, and then Dignan starts saying, like, did you bring the stuff? It's like he for the escape plan, did you bring the grappling hook? And he starts going through all these instructions, going like, okay, you're gonna climb up here. And Bob, shield me from the bullets, and like and all this, and they're freaking out and acting as if against their better judgment, they're acting as if they're gonna start doing they're all freaked out because they feel like they have to do this prison break with him that they didn't know he had been planning on, and then he like laughs at it, he was joking and he and he gets them.
Speaker 1So, wait, can we talk about that? What do you think that scene is saying? Do you think Dignan is exercising a little bit of like showing his power and influence, or do you think he's finally he's showing them that he finally gets it? Or what do you think?
Speaker 2I think he's showing them that it's like it's okay, you guys can live your lives. I'm okay. Oh man, I want to cry. Oh, he because he laughs, and then and then the final line of the movie is yeah, or yeah, or yeah, I guess just like, hey, don't worry about it. I think that's like I think it's like acknowledgement that they've like been good friends to him and that now and that he's okay and they don't like have to take care of him anymore.
Speaker 1And what what is the line after that, Walker?
Speaker 2You were about to say well he said the final line of the movie is to Anthony. He goes, Ain't it funny how you used to be in the nut house and now I'm in jail? Because the opening scene of the movie is Digned, quote unquote, breaking Anthony out of a voluntary hospital where he's and yeah, and then it goes into the slow motion shot. Wes Anderson ends a lot of his movies with a with a slow-mo shot.
Speaker 1And it has an original score. I forget the name of the show.
Speaker 2Original score by Mark Mothersbaugh of Devo. It's so good. And then it yeah, it's like it ends with this very like sad slow motion shot of Dignan and a bunch of people going into the jail. Yeah, and um, but he but like he turns around and looks back at them and it's to camera, but he's looking at Bob and Anthony, and yeah, that's what I think the like that's what I think is being communicated in the moment.
Speaker 1And in that shot that Walker just described, that's the moment where I think is like the performance of wet of Owen's life. It's it's really serious. It's so serious, it's so good. And I mean a lot of that goes to Wes Anderson. It's like because I think when a movie is this small, you really can just praise the actor and the director singularly because he does just give this look that's very serious, and I think is the most serious, earnest look we've seen from Dignan yet in the film. It's very earnest, and and that line, too, of isn't it crazy how you used to be in the nighthouse and now I'm in jail? That is like Kurt Vonnegut level like irony, like satire. It's just funny on its own, but then you're like, well, what does it mean? And you don't quite know what it means, or at least I don't.
Speaker 2It's well, it's funny too, because Zach, I'm just thinking of this at the moment, but it's like both things are like kind of voluntary. Like, I know it isn't like technically voluntary that he's in jail, but it's like, again, so like we're I like that we're talking about the ending is getting us to talking about the beginning, but the opening bit of this movie, and it's a very kind of like gag, like it's like the most like kind of overt gag in the movie, I think, is this sequence of Dignan breaking Anthony again, big air quotes, breaking Anthony out of the voluntary hospital. It's like it's very funny, but it's like a little more overtly goofy than I think a lot of the other jokes in the movie are. But so it's like Anthony, it's revealed again, just like suburban on Wii, bored, kind of sad, small life. He is checked into uh this hospital for quote exhaustion, and we'll maybe talk about that exchange where that's revealed later. And Dignan's breaking it out. And Dignan goes to jail by being in a place where he didn't have to be doing a crime he didn't have to do, and has the opportunity to flee the crime scene before the police get there and chooses not to, chooses to kind of like in this very martyry way.
Speaker 1Yeah, he was going to take the fall of form.
Speaker 2Which is also but it is but it's totally Dignad's ego trip because he is because like he literally, you know, give me this one. Right who is in charge here, you know, and you are you dumb son of a bitch.
SpeakerNow will you please leave?
Speaker 2That's the only point I wanted to make, is I just never caught until this conversation the kind of the beauty of that line. Ain't it funny that you used to be in the house and now I'm in jail? And both things are things that were like it either volunteered for or incredibly avoidable is also funny.
Speaker 1Well, what we're talking about, I mean, this is this is the last thing that I have like kind of bulleted out my notes, and then I really just want to go through as we're doing, just free form, whether it's the ending, middle, or beginning. But I in a way, and and I did this for another film that we talked about that I think asked you to do this. I think this movie asks you to sort of fill in the backstory and the relationship of these characters, just like I think King of Comedy does. And I think in doing so, you can totally run away and create a narrative. But I think I don't think that Bottle Rocket has necessarily the same amount to say about class as King of Comedy or something like Taxi Driver does, even though it's about a white character and it's made by a white filmmaker. I think it does a little bit ask you to do. So I have created just a really quick backstory about Dignan and Anthony's relationship. If I could just kind of read that to you really quick. Yes, please. So I think Dignan and Anthony have a codependent relationship that has that goes both ways in terms of its toxicity. So you were talking about Dignan kind of blackmailing Anthony a little bit. I think Anthony also has what we would call like a savior complex a little bit. And and it's impossible to trace something like that in a relationship this intimate to one event, but I've tried to do that. So um I think it's a codependent relationship that has an intimate and caring foundation. Just because something's codependent does not always mean it's toxic. And if you take a step back and you use the little bit of information that's actually given to us, you learn a few key things about Dignan and Anthony. So the first thing is, and this is this is me hypothesizing, I think Dignan comes from more or less poverty and a single parent mother. Because there's a very key scene, it's the second or third scene in the movie where they're they rob their first practice job. Yes, they rob Anthony's parents. And I don't know if Anthony, I think Anthony likely comes from a more stable home because there's stuff to rob um with a more middle class background. It's unclear if his younger sister, Grace, is a half-sister from the same marriage or from a new marriage given their age difference. But whatever.
Speaker 2She's also in a private school. He's visiting her.
Speaker 1She's in a private school, exactly. And uh there Dignan has a line too because he takes something that he wasn't supposed to take from Anthony's parents, and Anthony says, Why don't we rob your parents? Or do you ever think of that? And Dignan gets hangs his head in sadness and he goes, You know, there's nothing to steal from my mom and Craig. So I think what that is signaling is that Dignon was raised by, I'm not saying something like tragic, like she was a street walker or whatever, but I do think a single mother specifically, and now she's with Craig, right?
Speaker 2And there's also And can I just interject too? I think this is it, I think this is a like a role Owen Wilson really likes to write for himself, where he is somebody kind of grafting himself into somebody else's family or community because that's the same thing his character is doing in ten bombs. Yeah. And kind of to he didn't write it, but it's kind of what is happening it with his character in um life aquatic, too. Yeah, no, totally. So I that's just he he likes to be like, I'm this like kind of like fuck up loner out here, and I'm inserting myself into somebody else's more stable environment.
Speaker 1Yes, 100%. I mean, big time intended bombs. And I think Anthony has likely been to college and was afforded the luxury to stay at an expensive mental health clinic because that place is nice. And there's another incidental. And voluntary, as he says, where Stacy Sinclair, uh Elizabeth sorority sister, that's how she knows him. So I think Anthony went to college and dropped out, but went to a nice college.
Speaker 2And now he's just bumming around.
Speaker 1Exactly. And I think that Anthony is the embodiment of the popular nice guy, which we don't often see in film, but he's proof that in order to be popular in high school, especially in that era, one doesn't need to be a jock douchebag. He probably like I think that he actively rejected the jock douchebag archetype and kept Dignon around closer, like throughout high school, to show that one doesn't need to be a jerk to be popular. And I've met people like this that are like nice popular guys, and it's not really a fun person to portray on film because we had the 80s before that, where every single jock was a jerk. And then this is the last little fantasy part I have is what was the event that tied Dignan and Anthony together? And I think it, I mean, that this is just speculative, but I think their moms could have been friends. Maybe they were friends with each other, but I like to imagine that Dignan stood up for or saved Anthony at a very young age, like similar to something like George Bailey saving his younger brother in the beginning of It's a Wonderful Life, but with none of the charisma or heroics. So, like, for example, I imagine like Dignan and Anthony, I imagine Dignan standing up to like their first school bully and getting his ass totally beat, but doing it on behalf of Anthony, and Anthony forever having that, like, I can't abandon Dignan because Dignan has done this thing for me. But I don't think the movie asks you to do this because on the surface, Dignan and Anthony and Bob are all misfits that are like beaten down by the system or their malaise in life. But it is true that Bob is beaten down by his older preppy brother, Future Man. And but Bob has a lot more going on for him than Dignan and Anthony does. And the difference between Dignan and Anthony is that Anthony can pull out of his station at any time he needs to. He's incredibly handsome, he's socially aware, he's genuinely smart, he can be realistic when he focuses, he makes friends easily. He's he makes friends with Mr. Henry incredibly easily. And while I don't think that he'll ever stop loving Dignan, I do think that he'll quickly rise above him and have a nice career and a family. And that that's kind of my backstory and and and hypothesis of what could have tied them together.
Speaker 2I mean, I love all of it. I think you like under kit understand these characters really intrinsically well. I definitely do see Anthony as like the nice popular guy. I I was gonna say was on the football team, smoked weed once. That's kind of what I was thinking is he's the I think he's kind of like the because you know who else is like that kind of protagonist? His name has been said a few times, but the protagonist of Richard Linkladder is dazed and confused. Is the nice popular guy who's on the football team, but you know, super hot, easily likable guy, but he would rather kind of like he wants to hang out with the people who are into like the music he digs and smoke room. Freaks and geeks a little bit, like Lindsay, maybe. Totally, totally. And like I I think that I like the backstory of Dignan having stepped up for Anthony in some way. I and and I could easily see that because their relationship dynamic is so funny because it's like it's a relationship dynamic where Anthony is actually in way more control, but lets Dignan think he's the alpha at all times. Because the whole thing is Owen Wilson like bossing everybody around, but he actually has no authority whatsoever.
Speaker 1Come on, Dignan. Because Anthony gets exasperated with him and he has to let the facade down at a certain point and at a couple moments. Yeah.
Speaker 3Sorry, like when he won't leave him and Inez alone and he has to go Dignan and like signal, get the fuck out of here. Yeah.
Speaker 2Um, but I I think for me, the way I kind of always filled it in is it's just like Anthony's a guy who easily moves from social group to social group and would maybe just rather hang out. It's like easier to kind of hang out. This isn't a drug movie or a pop movie, but I had the kind of same thing. It's like maybe these are the guys we like smoked pot with in high school. And as the people from maybe his more the upper part of his social strata, the high achievers or people with, you know, a lot of like uh uh financial uh privilege going for them or whatever, as they go on and graduate college and buy houses and have babies and get good jobs or whatever, he just kind of got stuck hanging out with these guys. And he doesn't even necessarily, I don't even get the impression that he necessarily like resents it, but he's not um it. I think so, yeah. I think it's the wrong word.
Speaker 1I don't know.
Speaker 2Well, I mean, I think you see him the whole movie is him going against his better judgment to try to make his friend Dignan happy. So I think that's where the savior complex thing comes in, too, because it's like that isn't really doing like a service to your friend, right? To keep going along with shit you don't want to do because they seem like they really need you to, and you kind of resent them for it.
Speaker 1Which is like the hardest lesson in life to learn is like if I keep doing giving myself for this person, they're never gonna learn anything. It's so easy to give that advice to other people, and it's so hard to see when you're doing it yourself.
Speaker 2Totally. Well, Zach, okay, this is like this actually very organically gets me into something I wanted to point out about this movie that I I just really love as I get older. And and and I I'm sure we've talked about this in other movie episodes, but the the best movies to me are the ones that age with you and that you're able to like experience from different points of view as you get older. And sometimes you watch something and it's like, oh my god, this was so exciting to me when I was Fight Club is a great example. And I recently just re-watched Fight Club, and I gotta say, it was it held up as incredibly entertaining more than I did. But the part of me that deeply connected with Fight Club is I do watch it and laugh at it now and go, I can't believe I thought this was so deep and so profound, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It's a fun movie or whatever, but it's like it, I'm not, it, I'm not aging with it. It's a very young man's movie. And this is a movie that as I get older, I feel like I can see this movie from the part of me that was a teenager and was like, oh wow, like Luke Wilson's really cool or whatever. And I can see, I could see it from an adult that go, oh yeah, you go through these lot, you could go through these long periods of life where you're just fucking stuck, and see it kind of from that vantage point too, and and from being a little removed of that vantage point. Um all that to say, this move this movie came out in 1996. Let me lay on you some other movies that came out in 1996. So we've got Heart Eight, the first feature film of the GT Anderson. GT Anderson. Great movie. I've only seen it once. It's really great. And like, I mean, kind of like this or like Mean Street, it's very much like a like kind of yeah, exactly. Of like it's like uh a lo-fi version of what they'll they'll do, but Heart Eight's awesome. Um Scream. Yeah, that's right. Uh Waiting for Guffman. Oh, I I thought that was 94. Okay. No, that's 1996. I'm listing these ones. There was obviously like every year a ton of but these are these are either actual favorite movies of mine, or you know, in the case of Heart Eight, uh a very impactful early movie. I I didn't see Heart Eight until after I'd seen everything else that had come out. But But Waiting for Guffman was part and parcel for us growing up on Waiting for Guffman is a huge movie for us. Scream like revitalizes the slasher genre. And then la and then another movie that is in my top 10 uh is Train Spotting, and that also came out in 1996. Now I say all that to say train spotting in this on their face, like pretty different movies, and train spotting is most thought of as a drug movie and specifically as a heroin movie, but it is also a hangout movie, and I honestly watching Bottle Rocket this time, I didn't know that they came out the same year till afterwards, but I was thinking about train spotting a lot because I just recently rewatched it and I was like, this kind of feels like the American train spotting to me, or train spotting feels like the European bottle rocket to me, in that I think that at its core, they're just both movies about that kind of ask this question of like, do you actually choose your friends? And they address how Hard it is to change, like how hard it is to change without kind of like abandoning your roots and surroundings. Yeah. Like the idea of, like you said, like Anthony like knows that he shouldn't be like kind like to put it really harshly, it's like I should there is a sense of like I shouldn't be mixed up with these losers in this bullshit. But how do you actually and he doesn't really kind of start to better himself until the midpoint of the movie where he and Dignan break up and there's like a montage of all the stuff he's doing that is like more in line with probably how he-still invokes Dignan, though, in his letter to Grace.
Speaker 1Sure. When the part Walker's talking about where is he's writing a letter to his younger sister Grace, who chastised him for hanging out with Dignan earlier, because he's got some associates. Is one of them Dignan? Yeah, one of them's Dignan. So she kind of gives him shit for it, and it's a very quick scene, it's a very funny scene. But then the part Walker's talking about where he's writing this retrospective letter to his younger sister Grace, he talks about how he's doing a paper route, working construction, and coaching a little league soccer team uh called the Hurricanes. They got a lot of heart and a lot of spirit. They remind me of Dignan in that way. They don't let defeat get them down. So he still is always ready to invoke Dignan, which I think just goes back to that fantasy childhood scene I was talking about of Dignan doing something for Anthony because he clearly loves Dignan. Like he loves him.
Speaker 2Of course. Of course he generates. I mean, that's I think no, not at all. No, no, I don't want to monologue here. It's I but I think that you're getting it like what makes what gives this movie kind of a melancholy. And train spotting is another movie that I think is is very, very funny. It's like it's it's you know even some of the darkest moments are funny, even some of the darkest moments, but it is very similar to this movie. It's characters that have all known each other since they were very, very young and love and fucking hate each other. And if you enjoy the way they interact with each other, you're gonna enjoy the movie. And it's also about the protagonist, Renton, trying to fucking get the fuck out of his surroundings and do something better. And in the case, and I think in the case of Bottle Rocket, Anthony is in the relationship with Inez and seems to have found some real happiness. But I do think that him growing and being able to do that and being able to like better himself is kind of conditional on him and Dignam being forced apart. And in train spotting, spoilers for the end of train spotting, he does a drug deal with his friends. It's like this big victorious moment where they've all they've all each made four thousand dollars from this drug deal. And it's like the movie always makes me really just really sad in the end, but in a way that I love. But I always leave it with this like kind of big like knot in my chest where it's like it goes from this moment of everybody being like, oh my god, look at us, we did it, like the boys. You know, it's this very it's this big victory lap where they're all having a pint, and then his violent psychopathic friend Bagby immediately starts a crazy brawl in the bar and like really brutally hurts somebody. And it's this moment of just like uh it's always just gonna fucking be this way. I'm always gonna be getting into the same shit with these fucking idiots, and he robs his friends, steals their steals their uh share of the money, and the end of the movie is him walking off with a voiceover monologue about how he's gonna like change his whole life, right? And I don't know, they just feel really, really similar to me. I don't know if that's even an interesting point, but I just happened to just re-watched it and I was like, I mean, I don't know. It's just two movies, it's only two examples, but I wonder if it's uh I wonder if it's kind of a Gen X mentality and thing of just like I guess is this all there is is a pretty existential question that's been asked in art for all time. But it's interesting to me. Yeah, like they do kind of call Gen X the like lost generation. I think it's the millennials are the first generation that like you know, on large are not doing as well as their parents, but Gen X there is like a display. Warming you up for that a little bit. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, maybe you can take it from there if you even have anything to say about I I I'm now posing a question that I don't really have an answer to, but I did just find there to be such a shared point of view between these two movies that even even that the two movies, like again, train spotting, people think of it as a drug film, but it actually is a film about old friends trying to get out of their shitty circumstances through like petty schemes and crimes and fucking each other over. And I think Bottle Rocket is you know, is about pretty exactly the same thing. And I just am wondering why two movies the same year made in different countries that were that both have gone on to kick off huge careers for those directors and and the casts, why they seem to be asking such similar questions about how do you how do you get away from your shitty friends and your shitty circumstances?
Speaker 1Well, I think it I I I think it's a great observation. I mean, I'd only seen train spotting uh one time, to my knowledge, before this. I recently watched it all the way through in prep because you were Oh you didn't tell me Yeah, well, that was the only only off-pod discussion we did as Walker kind of hinted at that this reminded him of it about Rocky Minds.
Speaker 2Just real quick, I want you to make your point, but and be totally honest, and we won't debate it. But do you do you what do you think of the movie? Because I've been telling you how much I love it.
Speaker 1I think it's great. I think it is one of the it does this really amazing thing that I don't even know if Danny Boyle did again in his career. Of like, I mean, there's some really heavy stuff in it, both both like just thematically and then what you actually see playing out, obviously the most being like the baby scene. I mean, I wouldn't say that they managed to make that funny, but it it is sort of fits into a larger hole of just like how small your world can become, I think, when you are wrapped up in that stuff.
Speaker 2Right.
Speaker 1And and I don't think heroin addiction is funny at all, but like I do think that there's a way to talk about it in a way that isn't like masturbatory, kind of like Requiem for a Dream is or something like that, right?
Speaker 2Yeah. And some of the stuff they do in pursuit and service of their heroine addiction is really funny. Some of the really fucked up stuff they do in service of that addiction is really funny.
Speaker 1Totally. I think that, um, and I think the way they're the points of departure of the various people at the end is different, but it reminds me a lot of it. I was even thinking about like we were talking about, I think Ewan McGregor is more traditionally handsome than Owen Wilson, who I do think is also really handsome. But like they both have like not even shitty haircuts. Uh uh Ewan McGregor has like a bit, not a bit, but like a very tight buzz cut in it. But you know, has a great head of hair and like every other movie since then. And kind of oh I don't know, that's not like an aesthetic choice or whatever. But I just yeah, I think that's a really, really well-made point. Um, I have a little thing about what you said much earlier, though, how you said it's kind of a movie to grow up with, unlike Fight Club, maybe. I I really, and I don't know if this was the first time, but like since I was thinking about it sort sort of in terms of like relationship dynamics and like how we, you know, in today's vernacular and parlance, we'll use things like codependent or hero savior complex. I use that about not that exact, but like about myself. You know, it's like understanding our psychology and why we may make moves that feel really good in the moment, but are kind of detrimental to our own long-term growth or our partners or our friends or whatever, is is a is a good thing. And I think it's really cool that we live in a society with that vernacular. Like I said, I was really connecting to um Dignan, played by Owen Wilson, sort of the unfairness of how much Anthony, like I I think we've had friends like this. There's a couple key moments where it's like Anthony is maybe more of the alpha than he lets on, and he kind of lets Dignan think he is. But I feel like Anthony is a little bit annoying in moments too, like when they're ha when the relationship is completely falling apart. It is vindictive and annoying that he gives all of their money to Inez. It's a sweet thing, but it only benefits Anthony and it actively harms Dignan. Yeah. It's really selfish. It's really, really selfish. Yeah, as Dignon says, inappropriate.
Speaker 3Yeah, and then in that scene. You don't give a $500 tip to the housekeeper. That's inappropriate. That's inexcusable.
Speaker 1Right, and and Anthony gets visibly upset and starts walking towards him as if he's going to like push him if Dignan says one more wrong thing, and you see that Dignan kind of gets a little bit scared. And but then Do you think they've ever do you think they've ever fist fought before?
Speaker 2My answer would be yes.
Speaker 1Yeah, I think as but I don't think since they were been like 12 or 13. I think it's been a long time.
Speaker 2But it reminds me of like me and like my, you know, like we talk about like I I recently had dinner with my like oldest childhood friend, and we both ended up, and it was really we were laughing about it, but we both ended up apologizing to each other for stuff we did when we were like 13, where it's like, I would not talk the way I talk to you to like my worst enemy. There's something about people you just know your whole life that it's like you will say and do wild shit to them.
Speaker 1Absolutely. And I mean, but in that scene, though, I'm sure if listeners are this deep with us, they've seen the movie or or whatever. But in that scene, there was a moment I never thought of as really annoying of Anthony. And I've I don't know that I've had friends like this, but where it's like you get really steeped in their emotional journey and you don't realize how selfish it is of them to like kind of put that much on you. I'm sure I've done this before to people too. I just want to say. But Anthony goes and he grabs their bags and he says it's over. The the the fact that he gave all their money to the housekeeper, I think it was really selfish, even though he's sort of making it the selfless thing. And Dignan says, and this is where I was like, oh, I'm seeing the movie way more from Dignan's perspective this time and how unfair this is. He's like, Do you ever think about how um or no, Anthony says, I'm sorry, he says, I don't think you really know what I was going through back there. And Dignan goes, please don't lay this on me now. And I'm like, Oh Anthony is like elevating his own emotional journey above others a lot.
Speaker 4Uh huh.
Speaker 1And then how Dignan says, Do you ever think about I mean it's a funny summation of it, and it's a little bit a smart observation, dude.
Speaker 2Yeah, and how he's not about that.
Speaker 1He's like, Do you ever think that I would enjoy like going uh running out, you know, at the nut house getting a tan? And I'm like, oh, he's envious. This is where I think Anthony's family has more money, and Dignan can't afford to take these like excursions for his mental health healing.
Speaker 2Not only that, but also what you're talking about too, like how easy, how easy, like like friends and also like women probably are for Anthony too. And like Dignan is probably like just no trouble. Right. I'm I'm I really get the impression in Dignan's dynamic with Inez, too, who Anthony's in love. Like, this is this is his friend who he has sat on the sidelines and watch him make friends and get laid for their like entire journey together.
Speaker 1There's one other scene too, earlier in the movie, when uh this they're at Bob's house, it's a very funny scene, and uh Stacy Sinclair, Elizabeth Sorordi's sister, we a character we never see before or after, she's flirting with Anthony so hard, and you see the joy on Dignan's face, and Dignon is not even in her purview. And Dignan is not in the city.
Speaker 2And Anthony also like seems to not at all care or represent.
Speaker 1That's part of his shtick, though.
Speaker 2That's that's something that she loves. And so, yeah, I really think. Yeah, he's cute and aloof. That's what and that's what you that's all you had to be in the 90s.
Speaker 1Yeah, and I mean, and and Luke Wilson is stunningly hot in this movie, he's so good looking. Like anytime it pushes in on his face, it's just like this jaw, and like he's very uniquely good looking. They both both Wilson were.
Speaker 2I was really taken with how I like, I mean, and he's still a good looking guy. He's aged into his looks well, but I I was just like, wow, Luke Wilson is hot. Why wasn't he like a huge star? Well, I don't know. I'm just like, this guy is so good looking, and clearly Wes Anderson and Owen Wilson knew that because they know to like Owen Wilson, not only is he smart enough to write this movie, he's smart enough to put his super hot brother at the center of it.
Speaker 1Totally. I mean, I want to talk about that in just like two seconds. There's another scene though when their relationship is falling apart, when Dignan has a good idea and he says, the only thing I want to do is get the fuck out of this town, and and Anthony wants to stay there to develop his relationship with Inez. It's totally impractical. And Dignan has a good idea. He says we could steal a car. I've been thinking about this. Inez has a it's not a very advanced idea, but Anthony won't let him do it. I think for good reason, it'd be totally unethical. It could cost Inez her job. But then Dignan says, Well, then we're gonna have to hotwire a car. And a hot wiring a car is such a movie trope. But I love the way Wes Anderson does it because you see Dignan poorly looking around to like steal a car, but then he finds a convertible, and the very next scene is them away in the convertible. And I'm like, oh, Dignon has skill. And I just I don't know. I I really, really, really saw it from his perspective in that it's not helpful to people if you're like making them feel better, which Dignan or which Anthony does again by joining the robbery. I want to take a breath, but the last thing I want to say is how fucking awesome is it of Owen and Luke to put, as you said, his younger brother, who he recognizes as really good looking, to give him a job. Luke had no acting experience, and to put himself in sort of this lower role, I just think it's Owen is a is a brilliant actor and writer. I mean, that is not an easy thing to do to set yourself in sort of a uh a beta role like that and elevate.
Speaker 2Yeah, but he wrote himself an amaz I mean, and this doesn't take away from what you're saying, but he wrote himself an amazing character and like Dignon is the funniest person in the movie and gets to do the funniest stuff. And I love and I love every performance and character of this movie. But I mean That's interesting, Zach, that you're saying you see it. I'm sorry, am I interrupting you?
Speaker 1Well, I but no, I really want to hear last little thing. I think part of it comes from though, is I do think there's an alpha probably dynamic. I always thought Luke was the older brother because of the way Owen set himself. But the eldest Wilson brother is in this movie and he plays the arrogant douchebag so well. And even in the small doc, he's like he kind of talks about his younger brothers. Yeah, he kind of talks about his younger brothers, like this little idea they had. And you could tell he is supremely confident in who he is. And I wonder if Owen and Luke were kind of nerds growing up. Yes. Like, I wonder if Owen and Luke were like nerds and it erased that sort of like hierarchy a little bit. Sure, I could see that.
Speaker 3I could see that.
Speaker 2And it is funny to write your oldest brother to be like, hey, we wrote you a part, and it's like this like truly sadistic, like evil bully. To the point that Zach, I in my notes in the scene where uh Future Man is is is uh dominated by Mr. Henry in front of everyone, which is like possibly the sweetest scene in the movie in terms of like all the losers at this table like getting to be cool for a second.
Speaker 3Yes. But they there was a thing that bunch of misfits at the bunch of misfits and then and then Mr.
Speaker 2Henry. And the fact that Mr. Henry is the cool guy out of this group is also amazing. Um, and I have more to say about this. It's every scene makes me want to say 500 things, but I will just say the moment of the waiter at the country club that they're all sitting at. Bob Bob is rich, yeah, his family's rich, and so he's eating at a country club with Dignan and Anthony and the gang, Mr. Henry, the whole gang. And the he clearly has I I think it's like um not to make like everything about race in class or whatever, but I don't think it's a coincidence that the later is a the waiter at the country club is a black man and he has to interact, yeah, and he has to interact with the uh patrons of the country club in a certain way. And so Bob is this little rich kid or whatever, but he clearly has like a nice small talk relationship with this waiter where they're on a first aid basis with with each other, and they're kind of going back and forth or whatever. And I say all that to set up when Bob's older brother, Future Man, walks in, Jackson look his eyes go wide, and he looks at Bob and he goes, Oh, I'm gonna go, and takes off. And it is such, and we've already seen Bob, or I'm sorry, we've already seen Future Man like physically and verbally abuse his brother, but it's like, oh, this is the the fact that there's like two children of this very wealthy, privileged white family, and there's one that the like older African-American server at this country club can interact with in a really like positive and like uh you know, like pretty like first name casual basis, yeah. Yeah, casual. That is the word I was searching for in like a casual way, and one that walks in and he jets, they're like really telling you like future man is like an evil guy.
Speaker 1Even the way he introduces himself to everyone at the table with the handshake is very dominant. And future man played by Andrew Wilson. The Wilson brothers, Owen and Luke, are about six foot tall. Andrew's like six foot three, he's just bigger and more imposing than his brothers. And then so well.
Speaker 2And there's I've agreed with you that like I'm sure Andrew Wilson is not Future Man, right? I'm not putting that on him that he's like but I wasn't high school, though.
Speaker 3It's very funny to write a movie, give your older brother a role, and the role you have written for him is a truly monstrous, sadistic bully, is really funny.
Speaker 2Who then gets humiliated for his behavior.
Speaker 1Yeah, and he just beats up on Dignan specifically so well. And I think that that is where you really see Anthony come in. Like, can we talk about that's literally the moment Anthony decides to do the robbery against his better judgment?
Speaker 2Is he and and that scene, Zach? That's when I saw them back in high school. Is me too, me too. Dignan gets beat up, not physically, but he gets verbally humiliated by future man. Looks like a radio club.
Speaker 3Yeah, what's that you got on? What's the name of the little the the his delivery that he can't stop laughing when he's making fun of the group? Lone Wranglers, Malone Wranglers, and they can't stop laughing.
Speaker 1Keep up the mowing, Kimasabi. And they're in their awesome vintage Bronco, and Anthony tries to help Dign. What did you see what he was wearing? Come on.
Speaker 2Yeah, it was pretty cool. I also love too when Dignan is going to, you know, I'm not always as confident as I look. So what is what does Anthony decide to do as a result of that, though? That's when Anthony, it's like after the point they've broken up and they're on good terms again, but Anthony's like kind of, you know, what a this whole movie is like the growth. What I love about this movie is it's very true to life. And I think that people's the way people grow and change is very like small to like the naked eye, you know. But Anthony is like on a different path. He's like slowly on a path of self-improvement after getting out of the gang, as they refer to themselves multiple times. And Dignon keeps wanting him to do this big job, rob the cold storage, and he's sticking to like, no, I'm not gonna do it. Even he's being peer pressured to do this job. Dignan about it. You know, exactly. Yeah, we can hang out, but no, I'm not gonna do a robbery with you. And then after it's in that moment where, again, emotional blackmail, that seed starts with Dignad saying, I'm holding your position open for you. Anthony's like, Yeah, I wish you wouldn't do that. And then he gets verbally undressed by these two bully characters, and Anthony literally goes to himself, God damn it, and says, I'm in. And then at the end of the scene, uh, Dignan goes, You're doing the right thing, Anthony. And you hear him go, Yeah, I know. Yeah, I know I am, but he's like bummed.
Speaker 1Like he's well, that scene starts off so hilarious, too. Dignan is on like a little like 50, like a really tiny motorcycle, and it's so funny. You see the kid dynamic that Dignan wants to like go back to being kids again. Yeah, but he's like, Come on, jump on. He goes, It's too small for both of us, Dignan. We won't fit. Yeah, come on. And it's just like I wonder, there's that there's that scene where I'm like, is this like a little bit of a visual or like even verbal metaphor for their relationship? Where it's like Dignan wants Anthony to like come on like his tiny rocket that's like too small for the both of them. And there's another scene where I don't know if I'm making my point correctly, but like there's another scene too where they're in the shit town before their relationship has fallen apart the first time in this just this this middle of nowhere, Texas town, where uh Bob stole his own car. He like left the gang and he was their only means of transportation and uh Dignan is depressed, like in like a field lighting off various fireworks, and he lights a sparkler and he hands it to Inez, who's now Anthony's girlfriend. And I'm like, is the visual metaphor something like he's passing the baton, the torch, if you will, of who is sort of Anthony's focus of who to take care of? Oh, I like that. It's I don't know if it's intentional or not, but it's a really sweet, sad moment because Anthony comes up with Inez. He's like, Why don't you just come with us to this little bar, which you could see is a pattern that's been going on a lot. Come on, hang out with us. It'll be okay. No, you won't, you we won't get beat up, but then Dignon gets beat up. I don't know. It's just like there's a so I think there's like some really sweet foreshadowing at that point of like sort of like handing over Anthony's central focus of who to take care of.
Speaker 2That's I love that. You and your visual metaphors, man. It's it's great. I love to hear that.
Speaker 1I love that scene so much.
Speaker 2I I want to talk about you were talking about the alpha dynamic between the two off-screen, the two brothers, on-screen, the two friends, but like like we said, if they're friends who are close enough to be brothers. So it's it's it's perfectly cast. I was thinking about the title of this movie. And I gotta be honest, I don't think I ever really had given given a great deal of thought to the title. There are the there is a there's a um montage when they're on the on the lamb after robbing the bookstore again, volat more voluntary hardship of since they drove like a hundred miles too.
Speaker 1It's exactly far.
Speaker 2It's funny. One of my early notes is do they ever leave Texas? And then it was confirmed for me moments later that they do not leave Texas because when Dignon is beat up on the bed in the hotel room that he's eating from a bag that says Texas burger. So they don't even leave the fucking state. Like this whole thing is so stupid. Like they just go from one shitty town to like a slightly shittier town to hide out with their what seems like is hundreds of dollars that they got.
Speaker 3It's like $700, yeah. Yeah, from this bookstore robbery.
Speaker 2The whole thing is so low stakes.
Speaker 3It is so funny.
Speaker 2Um but anyway, so like in the most literal sense, this movie's called Bottle Rocket, and Zach just referred to there's a scene where Dignad is depressed and lighted off a bunch of fireworks in the daylight in an open field. Uh there's also that great moment where he throws a firecracker and it scares Inez and he turns and like glitches.
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 2Like he's like, um, but they there's a scene, a montage of them on The Lamb where they stop at a fireworks booth and get a bunch of fireworks, and Dignan is excitedly lighting off uh bottle rockets out of the car window and throwing firecrackers and stuff. But even in that little documentary, they talk about the title, and I think it's Andrew Wilson who's like says, I don't really know what the significance of the title is. I think this gets back to the kind of shifting status among Anthony and Dignan in their dynamic, where it's like kind of, you know, is the tail walking the dog who's leading who? And I I do think it is somewhat fluid between them. Anthony is the protagonist of this movie, I would say, because he is the character who changes the most.
Speaker 1I agree. Um that's what the producer said too, Richard uh I forget his name. Sakai. Yeah, I thought that was really interesting. He was the only person who made that point. Oh, okay.
Speaker 2Yeah, so just in like terms of like what we think of in the structure of a movie, right? It's about like in the most barebone sense, like a story is about a character changing. And Anthony is definitely the character who like grows and changes the most, I would say, in this movie. But again, I think Owen Wilson kind of cleverly has written himself the starring role of this movie. You're talking about you I first wanted to say this when you were talking about how Dignon displays some competence competency at different points. So it's probably obvious where I'm going with this. I do think the bottle rocket it refers to Dignan, right? It's this thing that he's not just stupid or just pathetic or whatever. It's like he has a charisma, he has a leadership quality, but he's like directionless.
Speaker 1He doesn't get mad, it's a little bit intimidating. Sure. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2He's not meaningfully hollow. I do think that both of these guys are probably like have grown up in an environment where they've like had to like scrap or whatever. Yeah. And and I could see, like you were saying, in your little character background, I could see either thing have I could see either one of them having saved the other's ass at a at a different point. But like, yeah, I think I think the bottle rocket of the title does refer to Dignan and just this like this bright, kind bright, aimless shooting star, you know, it kind of a it's better to burn out to fade away type of energy, where it's like it's never gonna end well for this guy, one way or another, but he is driven in a certain sense. And as far as like why they hang out with Dignan, I feel like this guy always had something for them to do. They're in like clearly a boring place. They are like these people are so bored with their lives. And Dignan, I guarantee, from the second that they met him, always had a bunch of shit for them to do. And I think that they have to and and that is also, I think, like again, gets back to like, do you choose your friends, or do you just get stuck with the people who happen to like live on the same block as you or work at the same place as you, whatever it is, right? Or your moms were friends. Like, do you actually choose your friends or are they just is it all just timing and space? And that I think gets into the the tiresomeness of Dignan that Anthony has, where it's like, I've outgrown this, but I can't, because this is the guy who always came up with something for us to do, and now we're still just doing the stupid shit that he came up for us, came up with for us to do. You know, but that also does display that at least at some point in my mind, I do think Dignan was actually the leader of this group. And maybe maybe he's kind of maybe he's not anymore, and he's holding on to that, and that's where a lot of the trouble that they get into kind of starts.
Speaker 1Yeah, yeah, I could definitely see them as like a three-pack in high school. Um and like diverting briefly in like eighth grade or freshman year, but like coming back together. Like maybe Anthony was on the football team and got caught smoking weed and like had to like take a year off and went back with like Dignan and Bob or something like that. I don't know. I don't know. I mean, Anthony is like definitely the glue between Dignan and Bob. They their history goes back really far, but I think Anthony sees more promise in him or in uh Well Dignan and Bob don't like each other. Dign and Bob don't like each other, but their history goes back.
Speaker 2I think their history I think it's what you're saying. I think that they're both friends with Anthony. And so they like, it's kind of like as you referred to um Masha and uh and and uh Rupert. I think there's a little bit of a marriage of convenience between Bob and Dign, where it's just like, well, we both like we're Anthony's two friends. I also mentioned working at the school. This is a dynamic I see a lot between groups of three at school. I'm gonna be able to do that. Working with fourth and fifth graders, and I'll think the three of them are best friends, and then find out two of the three like cannot stand each other. They just both really like the third person, and the third person likes both of them, and I'm just like, that's wild. Like, literally, I had two girls telling me how they don't like each other, and I was like, How long has this been going on? And they said, since second grade. And I went, you guys hang out all the time, and I'm just gonna make up a name for the third person. They went, Yeah, we both like Mary. Like I'm an fucking idiot, right? Like, yeah, obviously that's the price we pay for getting to hang out with Mary.
Speaker 1I I I just want to say, I mean, I love how much we've talked about. I want to talk about one other amazing thing that Owen Wilson does as I don't know if it's an acting technique or just something that they came up with on the day. But during the robbery that eventually goes awry, oh, there's another like cool uh Wes Anderson thing. The the um the the the logo that's painted on Hinckley Cold Storage feels like a Wes Anderson font. So there's these little like like pre- nah, what are they what would you call them? There's these little like visual previews of what you're gonna get in later movies, but um including the opening title card. Oh yeah, which I think is very clockwork orange. And if I had to say one movie that in Kubrick's catalog that reminds me the most of Wes Anderson or vice versa, it'd be clockwork orange from a visuals perspective. Sure. At any rate, Owen Wilson does this amazing thing during the robbery that goes awry that is sort of something Walker and I quote to each other. It's it's impossible to quote like through text, but they have this tag-along that is a protege of Mr. Henry, supposedly, who's meant to crack the safe. And you could tell Owen Wilson is really anxious about this guy's like participation and like levels.
Speaker 2Very old Indian man named Kumar.
Speaker 1Kumar. And Owen Wilson, during the whole like front half of the robbery, is anxious about Kumar's level of engagement and keeps checking on him by shouting his name. Kumar, Kumar, can you do it walker with him? Keep up the intensity, Kumar! Kumar, where's Kumar? Yeah, he's just worried, and Kumar is meant to crack the safe.
Speaker 2Do you think that Dignan is that is Dignan's like subconsciously is Dignan's first clue that Mr. Henry's fucking them over? Oh, maybe. Them getting saddled with Kumar? May uh or do you think it's like more of a do you think it's more like genera generous? Like he's actually like worried about the old guy on the crew. I think it's generous. Looking at it.
Speaker 1I think it's that. And I also think that it's like the first time we see how you know when you like maybe, I don't know if this is a good you know, but I've had it where I make like broad assumptions about people's level of depth, not a lot, but like, and then something will happen where you see you'll have a conversation or you'll see something and you're like, oh no, they're like a person with like anxiety and and like a lot, I don't know. It's they become like a full human to you. Yeah, when you know when you're shitty and you have a negative assumption about somebody is basically what I'm saying. But like, I don't know. I think that in that moment you really see a lot of Dignon's internal anxiety and insecurity, and it's very funny, but it's cool because it's like you see just like the depth of this person. And I I don't know, maybe I'm pulling too much out of that. No, I love that. I love that.
Speaker 2I mean, I because I don't think Dignan is like a bad guy. I think he's like a low on self-awareness and pushy and manipulative and dishonest, but like I don't think he like, I don't think he's like knowingly trying to fuck people over. I I think that it's kind of like through his blind spots and a neptitude. I mean, also, Zach, the part you're talking about, we should just say, again, if you haven't seen the movie, this whole the big job that they pull in the end that go it it it is almost slapstick in terms of how wrong it goes and how fun it's very anxiety, though.
Speaker 1But still funny.
Speaker 2And it's also very Cohen brothers in terms of very much so uh like how often crime like we're so used in movies to seeing like criminal masterminds and the or just smoothness, like fast and the fury smoothness, yeah. You and just 10 steps ahead, and everything is perfectly predicted and executed. And then it's like in real life, like read read your fucking police report of your town or city the night before. It's full of just like poorly planned crimes being poorly executed, and you know, and often people like dying as a result of that or whatever.
Speaker 1It's much darker in Fargo, but it reminds me of the clunkiness of them kidnapping the wife in Fargo. Exactly. How it's like they peek in on the windows. The bottle rocket has more comedy to it. Please go ahead. Sorry.
Speaker 2No, no, not at all. But I was just gonna say, just in terms of plot mechanics, this whole big job that they're failing at, it turns out is actually so Mr. Henry can rob Bob's house. It's just to get rid of all of them. So, and Mr. Henry, the criminal mastermind, that it's this is the kind this is what he does, is it's just like, you know, this is the level of of caper that he's pulling off. This is the guy Dignan idolizes. It's it's very funny. And I'm interrupting myself, but I for the first time I noticed, oh, Dignan is in love with Mr. Henry, and Mr. Henry just is Dignan. He's just, he's ever slightly more successful than Dignan.
Speaker 1Oh, that's why I think Dignan was raised by a single mother, too, is he he treats Mr. Henry like the father he never had. Totally heartbreaking.
Speaker 2Totally. Oh, yeah. All just to say, I'm set I'm saying all this just so I could say one of the funniest lines in the movie uh about Kumar. So, you know, like Mr. Henry saddles him with this supposed safe cracker who can't crack the safe. There is a one of the most hilarious cuts I've ever seen where everything has gone wrong in the robbery. There's a smoke bomb has gone off, the alarm is going. Yeah, Dignan threw down a smoke bomb in a panic. Somebody's having a heart attack. Like everything is going wrong. It's total chaos. Dignan runs in to see if Kumar has at least opened the safe, and this old man is just sitting in the room, staring off into space with an unopened safe.
Speaker 3And then it cuts. It cut, I'm not gonna do the accent, but he has a very heavy Indian accent and it cuts to them in the elevator. And Dignan is going to Kumar, what were you doing in there, man? And he's going, I don't know, man. I don't know. And he goes, I don't know. I lose my touch. I lose my touch. And then Dignan goes, Did you ever have a touch to lose, man? Which I think is one of the funniest lines in the whole movie.
Speaker 1So I have a question for you, and I think this is almost an intentional omission and not meant to be buttoned up. But what happened? So I this is a genuine question. As much as I've seen the movie, and I've been wondering this for years.
Speaker 2I bet I know what you're gonna ask. Applejack?
Speaker 1So, yeah, so Walker already said that this was he gave Dignon this job and saddled him with Kumar basically to take as long as he could. He doesn't care if they if the robbery goes well or not, but he needs them away from Bob's house so that they can rob it, right? And Applejack, who's somebody that goes along with the robbery, um, this is another Wes Anderson thing, is to have people named nouns that are just around, um which also feels like a Cohen influenced choice, but I don't actually know. But at any rate, the robbery goes awry and Bob's gun goes off, and Applejack pretends he's shot or that he's having a heart attack.
Speaker 2Well, actually, I guess it's an open question for me too. Um, is the heart attack a diversion? I think it is. But how you couldn't have planned that though? I yeah, and I I kind of was more this watch leaning to that it's just another thing that's going wrong.
Speaker 1Because Applejack is in the hospital afterwards. Well, that's why his case got dismissed, though, which makes it sound like he's in league with Mr. Henry, but maybe not. Maybe not.
Speaker 2Well, I think he is, but I think it's I think he I I don't even think him locking Dignan out of the car is. Well, that's what I was gonna say. Like, why would he do that? Because I don't think it I don't think it benefits Mr. Henry to have there be police attention on this robbery. I think it's more what you said that it's like the robbery can be successful or not, and it doesn't really make any difference. The the the con is that they're gonna rob Bob's house. So I kind of was this time leaning towards it is an organic thing that actually happens. Okay. And even him, because Dignan goes in, rescues him, puts him in the VW bus, right? And then it's a super, it's a super cool car. And oh, and yeah, and then and then he does that. Yes. It's like one of one of the few unselfish things you see Dignan do throughout the movie. It's very plaintive. And he uh puts him in the cart and Applejack locks the door and then doesn't let him in, and then you know he's arrested. The police come, yeah. But I don't know. I think it's I think it's kind of just because Applejack wouldn't want to be sitting there when the police get there. Right. So that's what I can't figure why he'd lock it. I think it's just a I think it's just a reflex, and he is genuinely in need of medical attention and not really thinking, and it's just another thing that is going wrong in this colossal fuck up.
Speaker 1So I love that. I think that that's great, and that totally satisfies me because I was like, I if it's not, I don't think it's like they made some error. I think if it's just meant to confuse you, that's fine. The other, the last part, not the last part, but the one thing I wanted to highlight, it's just kind of occurring to me now. I've always really liked the scene of so, like Walker just said, he drops Applejack, the sirens are coming right there, it's the end of the line. He has a big old gun on his belt that he, you know, has no intention of using, I don't think, to actually like Dignon isn't a murderer, but he chases he runs back into Hinckley Cold Storage as the police are coming and they beat the shit out of him. It's not a particularly graphic scene, but it's like cut really well. And they it's not I don't know, it's interesting because it's just like I almost feel like it's like not to overembellish everything, is it like sort of Dignan like losing his virginity in a way, finally, or something like that? Because it's very like visceral and like he doesn't look totally ungrateful about what's happening, maybe not losing his virginity, and it's not a sexual scene. No, but it feels cool. Yeah, is this sort of like Dignan's next step into manhood? Because we never see him have any chemistry. I don't think Dignan is gay. I think Dignan is just has never had any luck and is sort of maybe he's had sex like once, you know?
Speaker 2Like, yeah, I mean I wouldn't even go that far, but I definitely don't get the impression this is somebody who would be like gifted in like the dating or sex arena.
Speaker 1Yeah, and this scene feels like he's lacking self-awareness.
Speaker 2Like, I mean, he just is like he's he's not good at picking up people's like signals.
Speaker 1No, and I love the police that there's a really great use of music, as Wes Sanderson has always done and continues to do, of a Rolling Stones song that like I'm so glad they could only get the rights to like lower tier songs because it's such a great song. It's off of their failed Sgt. Pepper imitator album. But you hear the police because Dignan has his big old magnum like in his belt.
Speaker 2Is the song. Yeah.
Speaker 1Such a good song. Oh, Daddy, but anyways, you hear the police go, drop the gun, asshole. Like he doesn't even realize that he represents a huge existential threat to them with like a giant ass gun in his belt. And uh yeah, it's not a joyful scene of him getting the shit kicked out of him, but it does feel like, and you can kind of see the police talking to him, like, why'd you do it, son? You got your whole life, like, is what I imagine the dialogue to be as they're loading him into the car. It's just it's a really interesting way to see your secondary protagonist like get. I don't know. I don't even know what I'm trying to say. It's just such an interesting scene.
Speaker 2Well, it's one of three scenes of people getting the shit beat out of them in this movie, which does lead me to believe that like these guys are like younger than our dad, but like not by a ton. And like our parents. They're like 1970, probably when they're born. Our parents are like the young, they're like the youngest that like boomers are, right? The last year, yeah. Yeah. So it it does make me kind of think of our dad and like the just that generation of boys, I think, especially, kind of just out roaming the streets and like getting into fights and doing dumb shit or whatever. I do feel like that and the Texas of it all, like the the kind of like there, these guys are kind of like dorks and like social misfits, but there still is like a time and also like the like place of like this good old boy's like energy where it it very much seems to be like a part of these guys' life and upbringing to me, is like having to get the shit beat out of you at like different points. And two of those things happen in the background. This movie is so good at hilarious scenes. Zach talked about the scene where Anthony is getting hit on, and in the background of that entire scene, and Anthony, no one is reacting to it, not the girl, not Anthony or Dignity. Well, she kind of looks back once. You hear Bob getting beaten in the background by his brother for leaving a leaf in the pool that he was supposed to clean. And again, that very Wes Anderson-y shot of a hand holding a leaf, and you only see the hand and it's perfectly in the center of the frame, and you hear Future Man go, What the fuck is this? about the leaf, and then goes out and beats the shit out of Bob, and you hear Bob scream, Ow my ear, and he has a bandage on his ear for the rest of the movie.
Speaker 1Yeah, that feels like a very Cohen or King of Comedy choice, too, with the tape on the nose and the injury that's never explained. It's a little bit yeah, it's cool.
Speaker 2It's so great. And then also when Dignon gets beat up at the bar, that is all happening in the background of the shot behind Anthony and Inez having a conversation about their community.
Speaker 1Which just from a filmmaking perspective, the timing of that is incredible because you're focused on Anthony and Inez and Anthony. Anthony is expressing insecurity about not being able to speak Spanish because some former boyfriend or dude who thinks Inez is hot, which she is really hot. I'd never really noticed that before this, actually, either. Yeah, she's super. Is like motor mouthing at her and it's all in Spanish, and Anthony is insecure because in the background, though, you see it's really well timed. Dignan get his ass kicked by this like cool Mexican dude in a bar where he has no business being. And it's just it's the timing of that is really, really cool.
Speaker 2And they'd made they'd made super fast like drunken bar friends like moments ago. Yeah. Uh I I love Anthony's reaction to that guy talking to Inez. And it does it seems really innocent, but there's like clearly like chemistry of either a friendship or or whatever, like uh or more there. And the and they're just talking in Spanish, and it's like probably like 45 seconds, 60 seconds long. It's really true. And the guy walks away, and Anthony goes, Boy, that guy was a real shatter box, wasn't he? I didn't think he was ever gonna stop with the story there. Zach, I want to make sure that we talk about just like a few scenes. And again, like clearly, Zach and I love to quote this movie. I don't want to necessarily put the, but I just feel like there are scenes that I can't talk about this movie and not acknowledge my favorite scenes. Mainly, first of all, second scene of this movie is after the the mental hospital, the bus, Dignan is laying out what is referred to later as the 75-year plan. But it's it's like the movie starts so the movie just hits the ground running in such a great way. Of they meet up and it's like, okay, here's our plan. Like, here's how we're gonna be criminals. That's what the plan is, right? And it's a notebook and it's doing close-ups on the notebook very quickly, but you're able to like quickly read hilarious things. I paused it and wrote down a bunch of stuff on the notebook. Uh and some some of them that I saw for the first time, believe it or not, or at least don't remember seeing. But I didn't write down everything, but um some of the funniest things from the 75-year plan. Do you want to hear? Yeah, please. So I wrote them in the chronological order that they're displayed. Okay, the first page says initial, I've I've died. These are so funny to me. Um, and it's so Wes Anderson-y the way this stuff is. But this is like one of those moments where I'm like, this is like the this is the seeds of like close-ups of kind of funny objects, is like something that you will see for the rest of his career. But initial five years through constant regimen of activities, we begin to learn a craft, is the first thing that it says on this. Okay. Then cultivate relationship with Abe Henry. That would I'd be a hilarious sentence.
Speaker 4I'm sad.
Speaker 2And now, and now they're getting broken down in their like lettered D, second five years. One, make wise investments, two, the Robin Hood principle. A establish goodwill within community, b anonymous donations, e develop outside interests, a travel, b art, c science. Okay.
Speaker 3This is all this is again, listeners.
Speaker 2What cannot be stressed enough is what we see them do in this movie is rob Anthony's house. So they rob one of the two protagonists' parents, rob a bookstore, and then fail at this cold storage robbery. And this is that's what we see carried out from this plan that we're seeing written out. And then the last page that we see says living in, and also while Dignon is showing all this, he's being like super like business and like almost like militaristic, almost militant about how he's laying all this out. And you're just hearing Anthony mumbling, like, wow, you've really got it well planned out. Like, you know, next 25 next 50. The next 50. And then the last page says, living into the 21st century. Okay, hilarious. It says, H Anthony, as you know, there can be no way of looking this far ahead. One, remain flexible, two, don't be too derogatory, which to me perfectly sets up their dynamic. That it's like, I know that you're gonna try to uh deviate from the plan or like shit talk the plan. Right now I'm saying you need to like stick with me on this. Oh, yeah. Also, another page Zach.
Speaker 3This is so funny. The next 25 years, obviously, these years will be heavily influenced by the years that preceded them. It's almost like a shooting script for like Dignon's life. It's so crazy. The next 25 years, obviously, these years will be heavily influenced by the years that preceded them. Like what that is, what does that mean?
Speaker 1Uh, I think it's speaking to their dynamic. Right, right. I don't know.
Speaker 2Also on that page, you don't see it says remember what Huey Long said.
Speaker 3You don't see what Huey Long said, but it's it is in it's an influence on Dignan and his plan.
Speaker 2Let's just go, let's go tit for tat. Like, what's is there a particular scene that you I wonder if we have the same favorite scene. My there's a comedy set piece for me that is my favorite scene of this movie, but what is there in a scene that you want to call out or a moment?
Speaker 1Uh probably the the moment where um they are planning the robbery of the bookstore. Favorite scene of the movie. That's my favorite scene of the movie because it's after they bought the gun, and you really see the dynamics of what everything we've discussed, you know, which is in the movie, or if it's in the game.
Speaker 2The gun that they bought because it's the biggest gun. It's not said outright, but clearly. It shows them shooting a ton of guns, and then the the biggest one is the one that they're like, yeah, this is the gun.
Speaker 1Yeah, and they're planning out the and you see like Anthony is more responsible because Dignon starts getting hot about the gun being passed around, and Anthony grabs it and is like, hey, hold on. Like, we you know, we need to like have our emotions and guns be separate, which I really like. And uh then they they get into a verbal spat, and this is one of the things I love. James L. Brooks said that he would ADR specific funny Owen Wilson lines into a scene, and you hear Anthony and Dignan have to go out of the room to kind of calm Dignon down, and their argument ends with how does an asshole like Bob get such a great house? And then they come in back into the room as if it solved everything. And the thing I love so much is that uh Dign says, I'm the one, Anthony, you're the star, Bob, you're the zero.
Speaker 2No, no, uh uh you're close. It's uh it's like, all right, so you see the star, they're looking at like a Dignon's map. And again, like the 75-year plan, there are shots of this, and it's like you and through dialogue, a brilliant dialogue, it is revealed like how insanely ambitious and over the top uh this plan is. But yeah, it's uh all right. So so you see the star. Here is me, Anthony. You're the ex, Bob, you're the zero out here in the car. But yeah, and it and it's a fight.
Speaker 3Is that your favorite comedic set piece?
Speaker 2Or that scene is the is the best scene of the movie. It is so funny. It's also in the short, and I feel like it's the funniest scene in the original short, too, because it is it's a fight that only people who have known each other for like 20 years would have, where everyone's like, you know what I mean? Like they're so comfortable yelling at each other, and you immediately see them as like high. It reminded me of being like in my high school band where it's just like everyone's just like yelling at each other and shit. Like boys are so like loud and mean and dumb. But it's mostly between Anthony or I'm sorry, Dignan and Bob, and Anthony's kind of having to peacekeep. But what they're fighting about is Bob won't stop picking up the gun while Dignit is explaining the plan.
Speaker 3And that's what how much bullets does this thing take? How much bullets does this thing take? What? I'm paying attention. God damn it! You're not paying attention if you're messing around with the gun. And then Anthony.
Speaker 1And that's when Anthony takes it away to have to be like, hey guys, whoa.
Speaker 3I love the line too of put the gun on the table, put the gun on the table. I can't focus unless the gun is on the table. I know. Owen Wilson is such a fucking good actor. Like that it's so lived in.
Speaker 2Anthony, but Anthony's kind of Anthony's kind of being insubordinate too, because you hear again, background over like all three of them are talking at the same time, but quietly in the in the dialogue mix, you hear Anthony go, it's not just your gun Dignon, it's all of ours. Right. Which is hilarious. I know. Uh but oh, what did I want to say? Oh, there's also again revealing how overly complicated the plan is. There's a point during the fight where you see Anthony pick up the papers, you know, that all the plans are drawn out on it. And Anthony goes, Whoa, whoa, are the explosives really necessary here? I think it'd be a lot simpler if I just walked up to the guy. And again, I think all of this is so funny compared to what you see them do, which is walk up to the door, wave a gun in a guy's face, and take the like hundreds of dollars in cash that there are at this bookstore.
unknownYeah.
Speaker 3The ambition of the plan versus what you see executed is so funny.
Speaker 1It's so funny. And I think in the robbery, you see a nice like distillation of what we were talking about of like Anthony kind of getting his way really easily, because he walks up to this bookstore that's closing or close, they're closed, but they're closing, and he says, uh, oh, I left my sweater in there. And the guy goes, Can't you come back for it? And he goes, I I can't. And the guy just goes, Okay, well, why don't you come inside and wait here? Which it's like, fuck you, Anthony. But like it feels very genuine. And then Dignon just walks up trying to ride the coattails of their good interaction. And the guy goes, Excuse me, sir, excuse me, excuse me, what are you doing?
Speaker 3It's so funny. Like Dignan, like, is not smooth ever.
Speaker 2No, and it's all unnecessary because what they do is just point the whole play acting of the sweater that was left inside is completely unnecessary because once Dignan gets the guy, gets close to the guy, just puts the gun in his face, which is all he or Anthony had to do in the first. So the sweater is all just a totally unnecessary diversion that helps them in no way. Yeah. I left my sweater in here. Yeah, we got a sweater situation. Uh, it reminds me of, I think I said this in our King of Comedy episode, that and the yellow jumpsuits that they're all wearing during the Hinckley Cold Storage robbery reminds me of how wearing the blind glasses and having the blind canes in King of Comedy is a completely unnecessary added detail to their caper in that, too. It's really funny. I mean, those the scenes that I was like, as far as just set pieces that I wanted to make sure we talked about were the planning of the robbery and the Hinckley Cold Storage robbery. We talked about both of those, but there's another just joke of this movie that I want to call out that I think is maybe my favorite single joke. Sure, which is we referenced Anthony has a much younger sister, Unclear. I get second marriage kid vibes, probably. Um but you know, he has this moment where he has to tell like his sister that he's gonna be leaving, and and she's kind of like has more awareness about what a bad influence, a dynamic him and Dignan have with each other.
Speaker 1I think she's parroting her parents. For sure. Especially with the you've never worked a day in your life. How would you know what exhaustion is? That sounds like something she picked up from her mom and dad saying.
Speaker 2Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1But go ahead, please, go ahead.
Speaker 2But yeah, I would say so. Sister's probably like 11, 10 to 12 years old, somewhere in that, junior high. And Anthony's really hurt by the conversation they have, where she basically is just like it's not the dialogue of the movie, but like that what's intonated is like, what the hell are you doing with your life? And it's a younger sibling being disappointed in an older sibling, and it really hurts him, and it cuts to him kind of freaking out, having like an existential crisis about what am I doing? And and Dignit is trying to talk him down and be encouraging. And and Anthony goes, uh Anthony about his sister Grace goes, she thinks I'm a failure. And Dignan goes, she called you a failure? What's she ever accomplished with her life? That's so great, man. Nothing. Nothing.
Speaker 3This is like a 10-year-old child.
Speaker 2Well, that's possibly my favorite single joke in the movie. And Dignan is 100% earnest in that comeback.
Speaker 1It's interesting that that's your favorite part because my favorite kind of like micro comedy moment that I would like to even disclose on personally is in that scene and then following it. It's so there's a few scenes like this. Like there's one where Anthony has to break up a fight and he holds Dignan back, and you see Owen Wilson go, Oh, he popped my back. Um, just like little incidental things. But in that scene that Walker just talked about, he said, Dignan goes, What's she ever accomplished with her life that's so great? And this is before we've met Abe Henry, and you get the feeling that he's been doing this. He goes, Let me show you something. Let me show you. And he shows him a picture of he and Mr. Henry together, and you hear Luke offs or Anthony off-screen go, Oh, come on, Dignon. And then they get back in the car, and Bob is kind of recklessly driving, although you can't, you can only see the three of them in the car. And you see Anthony start to get anxious and like build up tension because they're going fast. And then you see you hear a car horn hock, and he goes, That was a stop sign back there. But it's so great because you see Anthony anticipating the running of the stop sign.
SpeakerI'd never noticed it before until but he starts, he goes like this, and then it happens.
Speaker 3Those are my favorite two.
Speaker 2I also love that scene too, because we haven't talked about Bob a ton, but I also what I also love is that out of the three of them, Bob is the one that like no one listens to. Like both of them kind of dismiss Bob.
Speaker 3Yeah, they kind of Bob, what the hell?
Speaker 2And also, I want to call out too this movie has a beautiful style of editing where they do a thing at several times throughout the movie where they will uh uh edit together several different locations and scenes, but it flows as one conversation. And the scene we're talking about where Anthony's freaking out, him and Dignan are outside the car and Bob is in the car, and that scene ends with Bob going, uh, I hate to interrupt your guy's conversation. Cut, they're in the car, and Bob goes, but I think I know what you've been going through, man, because I've been through some pretty heavy shit myself.
Speaker 3And like it's there's so many scenes like that where it all that's what he tells us. He says, I my older brother beats the shit out of me all the time. Yeah.
Speaker 2Well, and I also love too, again, that kind of very natural and Koody Brothers dialogue where people are not nearly as clever in real life and how they talk with the the way Bob repeats and in real life, people kind of repeat themselves or get stuck. I do it all the time on this podcast. I get stuck on a word, and I'm like, why can't I think of a synonym for this word right now? Uh and the way Bob goes a but I I mean, I know I have it memorized. It's like, but I think I know what you've been going through, man, because I've been through some pretty fucked up shit myself. If you're feeling alone, like nobody cares, nobody in the fucking world gives a shit. And meanwhile, in the back, Anthony's going, uh, that's a stop sign. And like no one's listening. That's a stop sign back there. Yeah. And it's like he's he's clearly like pouring his heart out about like what a miserable person he is, and nobody is listening to it. But I just love that. If you're feeling alone, like nobody in the world cares, and nobody in the fucking world gives a shit, like to repeat world twice like that, but you just escalate it to gives a shit.
Speaker 1Well, I want to credit you really quick with something. Uh, I think like, and this is this is truly my last thing. We can go as long as you want, but Walker, I think, and I think this might come from like doing comedy or seeing sitting through a ton of stand-up, is you start to realize what people's fixations are, and you can do this without doing comedy, but I'm sure that that maybe like sharpened that instinct, right? Or observation. There's a scene, and it's within this scene, it's actually a little bit back, but where uh where Anthony is rattled from the dismissal and sort of whatever that Grace gave him about what he's doing with his life. As he's jumping back into the car, you have no context for it. You hear Dignity telling Bob, When I was a little kid, I wanted to know what caused thunder, which is so funny. But I remember Walker and I were.
Speaker 2But it said, like whatever he's talking about, it's clearly talking about it's some sort of brag and self-mythologizing about like what a inquisitive, smart, curious, special guy he is. Yeah, and we've always thunder.
Speaker 1Yeah, and that's that's where it gets cut off because Anthony goes, can we just go, please? And Walker's like, that is very similar to the what one of his funniest lines in Zoolander when we're meeting and getting to know Hansel. When I was a kid, I I was more interested in knowing what bark on a tree was made out of.
Speaker 2Well, the other kids they wanted to be astronauts, but I was more interested in what bark on a tree was made out of.
Speaker 1It's so great.
Speaker 3And I was Walker is like, that's like an Owen Wilson thing, is to like talk about something in nature that is totally known and like isn't that interesting? Yeah, they're elevating your depth.
Speaker 2And just like, I feel like it is a thing that people do. Is it's like, uh let me like, let me kind of through an inane anecdote display to you how interesting I am is like a very humid behavior.
Speaker 3Yeah, so that's all that's and and Dignit just is not Dignad is less good at maybe people are able to do it in more subtle ways, but he just has no self-awareness, so he's just bragging about how he wanted to know what caused thunder when he was a little kid.
Speaker 2And it's like he doesn't finish the anecdote, but I don't speculate that it's followed up with him finding out what causes thunder. It's just like it's just showing up he wonders.
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 1And the fact that they left that in, and you were talking about how brilliant the editing is. I mean, that's a way that people will critique movies often, is that like, oh, well, they're having this conversation across different locations. It's intentionally movie-like and unrealistic, and it is beautifully edited, as you said. But there's so many uh listeners, if you haven't watched it in a while, please go back and watch it. If it's a movie you love, but you know, it's been a while, or if you have been with us this long and haven't seen it, my God, uh, we must be very interesting. But it's just such a treasure. Taught me so much about understanding humor in detail, and I really like to think that it influenced my sense of humor overall. And I know that I love it because of the brothers aspect. Um, so you know, yeah, it's just it's such a great piece of art, as as silly as that could sound. It's totally true in my opinion.
Speaker 2Yeah, I mean, I do think the brothers thing feels really, really lived in. And again, it's like it it's it family is a pretty, you know, I it's certainly not specific to Wes Anderson, but it certainly is a theme that he seems really, really interested in in his work overall, and and uh and I think it's very on display in this movie, brothers and brother dynamics specifically is the central yes, and I yeah, yeah, I was gonna say though, but is also the kind of central um area of exploration of the Darjeeline Limited, which I know you're not a big fan of, but I really like for that same reason the way the way it captures the way like brothers love each other and are mean to each other. And I don't know. I mean, is that kind of the Wes Anderson thing? I think he really likes exploring love between people who don't know how to express it very well, you know, because that seems like kind of what all of Royal Tenenbaums is it's like all these like very smart but emotionally stunted people who love each other and it are not gifted at expressing it, and so you instead get to way see the way they kind of like torture each other, you know?
Speaker 1Yeah. And you yeah, it's a great way of being like not saying like the way that will sometimes be like, oh, it's fine because it could be worse. Like that is a terrible axiom and philosophy to live your life by. But I do feel like he's really but there is a part of you though, a part of me I should say, where I'm like, yeah, that's not a good way to live your life because if things could always be worse, then we'll never progress. But you do at a certain point go, okay, well, that's not how I'm gonna adopt and like raise my kids or live, you know, exist in my marriage or whatever. But things really could be worse, and I do need to appreciate where they're okay. And I feel like in Ten and Bombs and in this movie, he like, especially in Tenenbalbs, he does that with like Ben Stiller's character and like Chaz, and and the way he and uh Owen Wilson's character, I forget his name, uh Richie. The way he and Richie like kind of Wait, no, no, Richie is hold on Luke Wilson. Eli. Eli is Owen Wilson. The way he and Eli both acknowledge they need help for different reasons at the end, and he does like have this like healed relationship with his dad, even though his dad didn't actually change that much. So I think he's really good at being like things are what they are, but and we do need to improve that and acknowledge we need help, but we're not gonna ever fix it all, essentially.
Speaker 2Yeah, that's all. I think it's a nice moment to end on. I really uh adore this movie. I love talking about it with you. I will say, I guess just one last thing I'll say is that when I watched it, I was like a little bit kind of like, uh, like, do I really need to like sit down and watch a movie I've seen like 30 times right now? It was two minutes into it that I was just like, oh, it's just washing over me. I'm laughing out loud, and I'm and I'm legitimately noticing things that I hadn't noticed other times I watched it. It really uh just keeps aging with me. I hope I could show it to Ollie someday. Like if you're if you're listening to this because you're a bot, and I've had the experience of showing it to uh multiple people, not showing it like they weren't aware of its existence, but I've been with multiple people who like Wes Anderson's movies, a lot the ones immediately following this a ton, and just had never gotten around to this. And it's it's very, very satisfying. It is one of those movies where it's like I have to kind of strain to not like watch people's reactions to every part I like, but um, it's really, really satisfying to see it hit. So if you have a friend in your life who hasn't gotten around to this one but likes this kind of thing, strongly recommend that experience. And yeah, man, I'm just really glad I got to watch it again and talk about it with you. Yeah, me too. I loved it. Uh, we're gonna be back doing Fiona again next week. Um, in the meantime, thank you for listening to our movie episodes. It really makes me happy that people uh roll with this when we want to do it. And and I I feel like this one, I hope, was an extra treat for the folks who have been riding with us since the beginning, since you got a mini episode of our Radiohead season in there. Yeah, absolutely. And in the meantime, we will see you next week on a Friday. I have been Walker Glenn. I'm Zach Glenn. Talk to you soon, listeners. Bye. Bye. Ideotalk is a Glenn Brothers production. Get in touch with us at ideotalk.podcast at gmail.com or follow us on Instagram at idiotalk.podcast. Thanks for listening to the
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