CINEMISSES! Crazy Stupid Love

Today's episode has Matt and Tug delving into the film Crazy, Stupid, Love, exploring its themes of divorce, love, growing up and, of course, picking up women. They discuss the film's direction, writing, and the performances of the ensemble cast, highlighting the balance of humor with emotional depth. The discussion highlights the unexpected connections between characters and the existential crises they face, culminating in reflections on love and life through plot twists and turns nobody saw coming. It's not crazy or stupid that you will love this episode. 

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Transcript

Matt (00:00)
I knew almost nothing about this. With the possible exception of Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, this is the movie that we've reviewed that I've known the least about. I think Steve Carell is in it. Ryan Gosling, I believe, was in it, and you've confirmed that's true. And I think he's shirtless in it a lot, or naked, or both. That stuck in my head from the ad campaign. And I'm pretty sure it's a comedy. And I feel like this was 2011, so I feel like there were a lot of rom-coms.

That was just very popular.

Tug McTighe (00:23)
Yeah, seems like this was,

yeah, this was like a nice big swath of romantic comedies, right? Cause I think I went Iron Man came out in 2008. So Marvel was only three, four years old, right? It was, it wasn't Marvel yet. It hadn't taken over like the way, the way it has. So yeah, I think you made a lot more romantic comedies in those days. In those days, I love about 2011 is those days. Jesus. I don't know what that means about us, but I know it means we're ⁓ well that's good. So that's a proper cinema. So.

Matt (00:33)
Fledged. Sure.

Right back in the day. Yeah, so I didn't know much.

Tug McTighe (00:51)
The log line is a middle-aged husband's life changes dramatically when his wife asks him for a divorce. he seeks to rediscover his manhood with the help of a newfound friend, Jacob, learning to pick up women at bars. So I've read better log lines than that, to be perfectly honest with you.

Matt (01:04)
Right

Tug McTighe (01:06)
So this was directed by Glenn Ficarra and John Requa. And unlike several or really most of our other podcasts that have some sort of a

Seminole director or an you know an artiste These are just two guys that wrote some movies directed some movies, but not a million so Really quickly they directed and their team they appear to be a team that I love you Philip Morris with Jim Carrey, Ewan McGregor Leslie Mann never heard of it crazy stupid love to 2011 heard of it focus in 2015 with Will Smith and Margot Rope

Robbie, which I actually have seen some of that. think they're like Grifter con con men and women. That's all I know. Whiskey Tango, Foxtrot, Tina Fey, Margot Robbie again, Martin Freeman, our friend, Martin Freeman, friend of the pod controversy, 2017 TV, starring Archie Punjabi, David Cornsweat and Greg Tarzan Davis. Now there's two things I find interesting about that. That list of actors is one is there's a guy that,

stage name apparently is Tarzan Davis. ⁓ Nice pick, Greg. But the really interesting thing is that David Cornsweat is the new Superman in the upcoming James Gunn, James Gunn's take on the Man of Steel.

Matt (02:04)
Of course.

I'm excited about that one. Yeah, did you know that Betty Davis and Tarzan got married and then their son took the last name? Tarzan Davis.

Tug McTighe (02:16)
I am too, actually.

No, no, right? No, I love it though. Yeah, that's

yeah. Yeah. Yeah, Betty Davis. She got around ⁓ Yeah, again, like we talk a lot and we have and by the way you guys we barely know why we picked these movies other than one of us hasn't seen them but We we have done a lot of movies with iconic directors and and no offense fellas. These are not iconic directors

Matt (02:28)
Yeah, for sure.

No, but I, you know, a little rabbit hole. prior to their big breakthrough, which was I Love You, Philip Morris, which was a Ewan McGregor and Jim Carrey, and they fall in love in prison and it's very, very weird. Prior to that, they worked for Nickelodeon writing cartoons. And then they had written Bad Santa and a Bad News Bear sequel or a reboot with Billy Bob Thornton, but just kind of slogging away and...

Tug McTighe (03:02)
Right? The reboot with both with Billy Bob Thornton.

Matt (03:08)
doing kid stuff, you know, that's how they got their start, which resonates with me because I did that for, you know, 20 years and still do.

Tug McTighe (03:13)
Yeah, you worked

solely on the kids branding and kids character development forever at that agency, C3.

Matt (03:19)
For sure. And then the writer was Dan Fogelman who wrote Cars and Tangled and Bolt, which you thought was pretty funny. I don't think I saw that. Was that John Travolta is a like a celebrity dog? ⁓ So they had just he had written a spec script based on his life, which I'm like, I would love to know which parts of his life, Dan Fogelman based based on having seen this movie, like what exactly did he pull from his life?

Tug McTighe (03:26)
I like both. think both pretty good, to honest with you. Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

I'm pretty sure it's

the scene where she asks for the divorce and he jumps out of the moving car.

Matt (03:46)
That definitely could have been. And he also is the creator and executive producer of Paradise on Netflix, which I don't know if you've seen that, but it's very cool. It's interesting, like a post-apocalyptic, but you don't know that until a couple episodes in, but sorry, I gave it away. Anyway, ⁓ between the writers and the directors, a lot of kid stuff, but having been in that world, you still build the stories the same way. You still flesh out characters the same way, even when it's...

Tug McTighe (03:59)
come on.

Matt (04:09)
whether it's for kids or it's for adults, you're still telling a story in their certain conventions.

Tug McTighe (04:12)
That's right. You

still need the same beats. You still need to have the same emotional resonance, all that stuff. And you know, that's it's that you sort of go down that rabbit hole. I think Robbie is maybe the most interesting character in the whole thing, which on this viewing is one I sort of uncovered. And I mean, you've got some couple things to say about Robbie as well. But I liked how I liked who Robbie was and I liked his arc in this. So it's, you know, it has to have something to with the guy. You know, the fact that these guys work with kids a lot and know how to know how to

Matt (04:24)
You might be right.

Tug McTighe (04:40)
get that kind of performance out of them. So very, very interesting. So yeah.

Matt (04:42)
I did think they respected that character. ⁓

even when at times I thought he was a little older than he should have been or a little more wise, but they didn't talk down to him and having worked in kind of kids marketing, you have to respect kids' intelligence.

Tug McTighe (04:50)
Sure, of course.

Yeah, you have to,

because it's the kids watching, they want it, they want it to, they're aspiring to that. Right? Right, right. So the film follows a series of interconnected love stories centered around Cal Weaver, Steve Carell, who recently separated a man who learns how to be more romantic and charm women. ⁓ Okay. Yeah. The term charm, wouldn't call, like I said, I wouldn't call what

Matt (05:03)
Yeah, and they don't want to be spoken to. Talk down to.

Does he though?

Tug McTighe (05:21)
What Jacob teaches him is being romantic and he's certainly rarely charming but I

Matt (05:24)
Right? We'll have,

I'll have so much to say about this later.

Tug McTighe (05:30)
But I mean,

it's just he teaches him how to pick up women, right? Right. Released in the United States by Warner Brothers on July 29th, 2011, made 145 million bucks against 50 million. Pretty good money in 2011, right? Well received by critics. Gosseng was nominated for a Golden Globe for best actor. Fogelman started writing the screenplay in 2009.

Matt (05:33)
Yes.

I bet.

Tug McTighe (05:49)
the notes say about love among a group of people, which is the further terrible description. Again, based on his own experiences written with Steve Carell in mind. I love this tidbit though, after he had gotten it written and sent to his manager, they had Carell was interested in Reddit and within a week he's in. So that I think rarely happens. There's seems to be a lot more Heming and Haun about this. But again, this was also Carell was getting in, was trying to become a bigger star.

15 years ago, right?

Matt (06:13)
Right.

That was Kismet because this guy had a spec script already written and Corel was looking for that kind of a role and that guy happened to have that exact role.

Tug McTighe (06:22)
Okay, so You know December 2009 Warner Brothers got the rights January 2010 pre-pro March 16 2010 Emma Stone started negotiating to star in the film She was in Kevin Bacon joins again. I wonder when Gosling came in

so they shot the whole thing in LA.

53 days Westfield County Westfield century City Mall Ventura Boulevard Boulevard Hollywood Hills after Jacob's house is the high school Taft High School Portola Middle School in Tarzana there Tarzana comes back again They wanted it to be Betty Davis Betty Tarzana Davis, but they they thought it sounded too feminine so they won't Tarzan ⁓ But anyway, you know just a lot of a lot of

Matt (06:56)
Nice.

Tug McTighe (07:03)
Classic LA, this is LA for sure, an LA movie for sure. But what I love about this is that the original cut was three hours long. For the love of all that is fucking holy, we cannot do another three hour film. Luckily, cooler heads prevailed and the cinema's gods were tapping on the buttons during the edit. Type 147.

which is a nice, nice feel versus the nine hour cuts we've been looking at. And again, 147 is about six and a half hours shorter than The Godfather 2 last time we did. anyway, nice movie, easy to watch this time.

Matt (07:40)
I said it's

like the weekend after a long but satisfying week at work. You just want to shut your brain off and kill it with alcohol.

Tug McTighe (07:47)
Yeah,

and you don't want it to take 20 years. How about the tomato meter, Matt?

Matt (07:50)
79%. Not bad.

Tug McTighe (07:51)
Okay, so solid

B there, coming up on a B.

Matt (07:54)
Yeah, popcorn meter is same, 78.

Tug McTighe (07:56)
Yeah,

so right. B minus C plus B minus, I think by the ratings to B. Yeah. Again, this grossed 145 million against a $50 million budget. I don't know. It seems like a lot. I mean, again, maybe. No, you know, you've got some

Matt (08:00)
I think it's a B. I think 80 % said... I don't even know anymore.

How is that possible? They were in LA the whole time. It's not like they were in Bora Bora doing it. Not a lot of green screen. I'm not sure where the money went.

Tug McTighe (08:24)
cast you got some cash in the cast but you know you're also not at the at the time 2011 the biggest star was probably julianne moore no you're right you didn't it wasn't will smith suddenly right so yeah but yeah 50 million seems a lot um but again this this this is a sort of indicative of the just the bloat i think matt of just modern filmmaking right couldn't

Matt (08:36)
Right, there's not a Tom Cruise in there. know, there's not a Tom Hanks in there.

Tug McTighe (08:53)
Couldn't you have figured out a way to get this done for 20 mil? And then if it comes in at 20, like it looks pretty good. 50 million budget and then you made plus 100. That's pretty good. But man, if you made it for 20, you're really looking pretty, I think.

Matt (09:07)
Yeah,

and then you can make more. Then you can make more movies. I don't know. I don't get it.

Tug McTighe (09:09)
Then you can make another movie, right? So again,

we've talked about the cast, great cast, lots to talk about here in the cast. Correll's Cal Weaver, Ryan Gosling is Jacob Palmer, Julianne Moore is Emily Weaver, Emma Stone as Hannah Weaver. As I've said, you know this about me, she's one of my all-time favorite actors. She's super hot, she's super funny, she's unique, she has a unique look, unique voice, a unique sensibility, which is on full display here. Don't tell Sarah, Sarah knows, but I've had a giant crush on her since Superbad.

Matt (09:19)
Thank

Tug McTighe (09:36)
And if you haven't seen the movie, ⁓ both Matt and our dozens of listeners, it is a great movie. That is a light, light, light retelling of the Scarlet letter, but I love that movie. it's really fun. And she's a, she carries the whole thing.

Matt (09:49)
Yeah, Stanley Tucci is like the guy now that everybody's like, he's so hot. He's such a hot dad, you know? But he's the dad in that movie, so. Yeah.

Tug McTighe (09:54)
Yeah, yeah. He's the dad in that movie, he's great in that. Marissa

Tomei, boom, as Kate Taferty, the teacher. Kevin Bacon as David Lynn Hagen. Like I said, this is a, Hagen? Hagen? We'll talk about the Hagen Hagen. Like I said, this is a murderous row of big time actors at the time. Everybody's a face, everybody's known. You know, you just, guess you, when you, you sometimes wonder how this all comes together, but.

Matt (10:01)
Always good to see you.

Wim Hagen. Wim Hagen.

Tug McTighe (10:18)
Think and we've talked about this just when we're boozing. I think they see so many shitty scripts Matt that like when a when a Something juicy that's to your point something that's has a twist has a hook It's different when I think when something comes across their desk. They're like, yeah, let me jump in here And you know, Tomé was probably only on set for five days So she comes in buzz does hers right but it's an interesting character an interesting script versus I just think

Matt (10:36)
sure.

Tug McTighe (10:42)
I think they see a lot of crapola every single day.

Matt (10:45)
I think you're right. I did a little research on this. The casting director is Mindy Marin. She started in 78 as a casting assistant for the TV show, Taxi, and in 89 started her own company and has cast more than 70 films. I don't know if you know Andrea Romano. She is kind of the queen bee for voice casting, or she might be retired for a long time. If you were a voice actor or if you were looking for a voice actor, she was the person to go to in Hollywood.

Tug McTighe (11:00)
I don't! Who is it? Tell me who Andrew Romano is!

Matt (11:14)
And I think Mindy Maron's the same way. She just has a sense of who would be right to cast, who's available, who she has personal connections with. that's all it is.

Tug McTighe (11:21)
Yeah, and again,

and again back to the question about how did it come together? Maybe it's like if if Minnie rings you up You better take the call Right. She's got something cool for you. Jonah Bobo is Robbie Weaver. I liked him a lot ⁓ And like Cal and Emily say at the end I just like I like him but I just like the haircut But I love the joke. Okay. Now it's really important that we talk about John Carroll Lynch as Bernie Riley, okay

Matt (11:28)
Yeah, I think so.

I did too, actually.

Right, yeah. Yep.

Love that guy.

Tug McTighe (11:46)
He's the undisputable that guy of this movie. John Carroll Lynch, you all know, everybody listening knows this guy. He has 134 internet movie database credits. He was in the Drew Carey show. He was in face-off. He was in the founder. He was in shutter Island. He was Margie's stamp painting husband in Fargo. He is an all time that guy and he's great in this and he's a great that guy in this and

Matt (12:06)
Yes.

Tug McTighe (12:12)
Once again, the proof is in the pudding. They keep putting these guys in movies, movie after movie after movie. It means they're really talented people that just don't always look like a leading man.

Matt (12:21)
Right, no, I have a Mount Rushmore of character actors and it's John Carol Lynch, CCH Pounder, Margot Martindale, who you'll remember from Justified. ⁓ And I would have said J.K. Simmons forever, but now he's like a big cheese. Who's graduated out of being that guy? But he got.

Tug McTighe (12:30)
course.

He's not a that guy anymore.

Well,

let's keep the Mount Rushmore of that guys going. So, okay.

Matt (12:41)
Yeah, we got a fourth we need to put up there and I

would entertain if anybody wants to email us at cinemassagemail.com with our idea for the fourth face on the Mount Rushmore character actors.

Tug McTighe (12:49)
face on the Mount Rushmore. Wilford Brimley's,

we're currently designing the bust of him. Leo Tipton, aforementioned is Jessica Wiley, who another interesting actress has a cool look about her. She didn't do a lot of stuff. She did a couple things and that was it. Yeah, speaking of someone who didn't do much with his career, Josh Groban is Richard in his feature film debut, which

Matt (13:05)
She was a model, think, mostly.

you

Tug McTighe (13:13)
I didn't know he was an actor, so well done. ⁓

Matt (13:15)
He did a good

job. He actually has a TV show right now. So yeah, it's a kind of cop procedural and I forget what the thing is. He's got autism or something.

Tug McTighe (13:18)
Dazzy!

Yeah,

I'm gonna recommend he sticks to Although he did play it. He played a really boring guy. And I love her. I love her best friend is like, you've got to get rid of this guy. Right. And then we've got Joey King as little Molly Weaver. Now, Beth Littleford as Claire Riley. Little remembered fact, Beth Littleford.

Matt (13:26)
Yeah, he was, he was, I he did a good job. was, yeah, he was terrible.

Right.

Tug McTighe (13:45)
was one of the pioneering correspondents from 96 to 2000 on the original Daily Show with not Jon Stewart, but with Craig Kilborn. Corralda looked it up. Corral didn't get there till 99. she was, Liz Winstead was an early adopter. think she was a stand-up or like we've said, an actress, hang around. But Littleford, what'd say? Liz, did I say Liz Winstead? It's Beth Littleford, but Liz Winstead was on there. Beth Littleford, Beth Littleford.

Matt (13:52)
I remember that.

Little fruit. Yeah. You said Liz Winslet, but I think she was on there too. You did. Right.

And Carell's wife in real life, whose name I can't remember, but she was on the show too. Small word.

Tug McTighe (14:13)
That's right. That's right. All right.

So let's dive in here. We've got Cal Weaver as a middle-aged man whose wife, Emily, asked for a divorce after she reveals an affair she had with her coworker, David Lynn Hagen. It's Lynn Hagen. It's Lynn Hagen.

Matt (14:31)
You know how many times they mention his name in the movie? 19.

Tug McTighe (14:34)
Do you have a count?

19, it feels like a thousand and 19. ⁓ But that is the one of Tug's indisputable comedy rules. You mistake the pronunciation of it and it's funny. Then you do it again and it's funny. Then you do it again and do it again and do it again and do it again until it's not funny. And then do you stop? No, you do it more.

Matt (14:38)
I

No, you have power

through.

Tug McTighe (14:56)
You do

it more, you do it more, and then it becomes funny again. This is really well documented in Austin Powers after he gets unfrozen and he has to pee. And he's peeing for 40 seconds. And it's funny because it's a long time. Then he's peeing for another 30 seconds. You know, like, OK, we got it. The joke is over. And then they keep, he keeps peeing. And then it becomes funny again. So funny, not funny, funny. You just got to stick with it.

Matt (15:05)
Yeah.

Yeah, the computer keeps getting, the computer keeps trying to say

that he's Evacuation complete.

Tug McTighe (15:22)
Evacuate evacuation come Evacuation

cut complete right? so again funny not funny funny

so the divorce, she brings it up at dinner and then she's talking about, she's, she's giving her reasons and she's like, stopped doing this. And he goes, if you don't stop talking, I'm going to jump out of his car. And she keeps talking. And then he does jump out of the car, which was sort of a laugh out loud bit that I thought was really, really funny.

Matt (15:30)
good.

Tug McTighe (15:47)
But then what I thought was funny was he's just hanging out at a bar and his best friend, Bernie, John Carol Lynch shows up, and he orders a white wine and he just slams, he slams the glass of wine and says, by the way, I'm not allowed to be friends with you anymore. My wife said that we have to pick Emily. And he goes, Hey, just so you know, I picked you. But she said no. So just, yeah, it's cologne.

Matt (16:06)
Didn't he bring him a gift bag or something? No,

Tug McTighe (16:10)
There's a gift, and he goes, there's a

Matt (16:10)
that's what he bought at Palom.

Tug McTighe (16:11)
gift receipt in there.

But anyway, there's just a lot of great bits with these great performers.

Matt (16:16)
and subtle bits. mean, they weren't, it wasn't slapstick stuff for the most part. But the jumping out of the car, no, I think it's a balance. You you get that, you get physical comedy in small doses and it really works when it does. So when he just, just like, I'm out of here and he jumps out of the moving car, it was pretty great.

Tug McTighe (16:19)
No, no, not a lot of slapstick. is a little bit, but not-

He literally just opens the car door and rolls out.

Very funny. So what happens is he moves into his own apartment. Cal begins frequenting an upscale bar where he talks loud. This, I get the dumb, we call them the dumb dumb chills when cringe humor. I almost had to pause. Well, he just won't stop. Yep, she cuckolded me. David Lynn Hogan, I'm a cuckold.

Matt (16:51)
It was rough.

How many times does he say

couple?

Tug McTighe (16:57)
You know that's a word you don't hear,

because that's a word you don't use in modern society very often. Cuckold. But that's me. I got cuckolded.

He's just drunk and loud and sad and schlubby and right. then Jake.

Matt (17:10)
and schlubby and like that was part of

part of this. It wasn't and we'll talk about this too, but you always look for like a villain in a movie like there's he's a good guy and she's the bad guy. It's clear from the beginning that it's even though this isn't his fault. He's still he's not doing everything he can to be the man, you know. Yeah, there's a lot of show don't tell stuff that I like.

Tug McTighe (17:29)
That's absolutely right. No, this is for sure underlying motif. Yeah. Yeah,

for sure. And then Jacob, you meet Gosling in that same bar and he's talking to girls and he sees Hannah and she rejects him. And so later a few days later, he calls Carell over. He's actually in the middle of picking up a chick and he goes, can you give me five minutes with this guy?

And he calls him over and he tells him, look, do you know who I am? No, I'm Jacob Palmer. You know who I, yes, I know who you are because everybody in the bar knows who you are. You're Cal Weaver. You just got cuckolded by David Lynn Hagen. Hits Hagen actually. But he says, Hey, look, you've lost your manhood. I'm a little bit like Jules in Pulp Fiction when he says on any other day I would have killed you.

Matt (18:04)
Right?

Tug McTighe (18:12)
Today I'm in a transitional period, so I don't wanna hurt you, I wanna help you. She says, meet me at the mall, meet me here this day, I'm gonna help you find your manhood again. ⁓

Matt (18:20)
Yeah,

malls. So things that felt very of the time. That's Meet me at the mall. Right? You know what else I think are singles bars, but maybe it's just me. It's.

Tug McTighe (18:24)
The mall! Malls are gone! They're all but dead!

Single I get right right

because this is pre tinder pre phone right you only see a couple of phones But they're either flip phone Robbie had like the the one you flipped up the Had a little keyboard in it like but no iPhone. You don't see any of that No

Matt (18:48)
Yeah, with the blackberry. No, there was almost no texting in this. Very little

and a lot of phone calls, which I don't know about you, but I get mad when I get a phone call. No, schedule it, dammit. Schedule a call with me. My time's important. Anyway.

Tug McTighe (18:58)
Yeah, you don't pick any up, especially mine. Yeah. Right. ⁓

So anyway, I have this note that these write-ups, you guys, that we get, we cobble them together from the plot outlines from internet movie database or Wikipedia or some website. But like I said, this write-up totally ignored this scene of them shopping.

if this were an action film that's like the first big set piece because he because he's like He says Cal's like he goes we've got to go find jeans. He goes these are fine They're horrible jeans. He's wearing he goes he goes Let's just go to the gap and then he just goes be better than the gap Cal and he hits like he hits him here on the both his cheeks Be better than the gap be better than the gap And then he goes what what are those shoes you're wearing?

Matt (19:30)
You're not fine.

Tug McTighe (19:43)
What are on your feet? No, he says, what's wrong with your feet? These are my New Balance 407s. I offer a lot of support. He goes, are you in a fraternity? Are you the billionaire owner of Apple computers? And he goes, give me them. And he takes them and just throws them over the railing. And you hear the, ah, down the bottom. This is great. Right, it's great. But again, we introduce Jacob Slapping Cal, which will come back.

Matt (19:56)
great.

I thought the same thing. I'm like, there's people down there. He just threw shoes at him.

Tug McTighe (20:09)
spoiler alert at the end in reverse. again, then you know what happens here, Matt is a bunch of terrible attempts to talk to women. and then there's a big montage of just Jacob picking up a girl and leaving cow with the bill, picking up a girl, leaving cow with the bill. And then he ends up telling them, goes, you're not teaching me how to pick up women. goes, you ever see, that movie, karate kid? And goes, yeah. And he goes, what do I do when I

approach woman, you always buy her a drink, even if she doesn't want one. And he goes down the lit and he goes, Oh, Jesus Christ, you meagre me. Right?

Matt (20:38)
Right. Yeah, so it was, I think part of the reason this movie was enjoyable is that you like Steve Carell. Even when he's cringy, you still see that kind of Michael Scott, Steve Carell being, can quickly, you know, he's trying to pick up women and tell them about a cute kid thing as kid din when they were a baby. Like, that's not gonna work.

Tug McTighe (20:45)
You want to, yeah.

Yes.

Right, right, right. That's right.

And you're looking at two right here, ladies and gentlemen, non lady killers in Matt, Lauren, tug, Mattai. I got one. I'll know how I got that one. ⁓ But even we know bringing up your diapers, your kids' diapers at the high end singles bar may not be the right move. ⁓ But there's a lot of great business, as we say.

Matt (21:02)
Hey, I mean, don't swear yourself. Yeah, me neither.

second.

Tug McTighe (21:21)
in these scenes between between gosselin and and corral.

Matt (21:25)
So after some awkwardness and cringiness, Cal meets a woman named Kate, who's right up his alley, you know, a little older, attractive by herself, like maybe a little nervous, tries to get her interested the Jacob way, which doesn't work. And he finally manages to win her over by being honest and saying, you know, I got divorced and he says all sorts of embarrassing things. And she's like, take me home. Okay. So.

Tug McTighe (21:49)
Right.

Matt (21:49)
Right. ⁓

Tug McTighe (21:50)
Right.

Matt (21:51)
So he does. And he then has this, you know, she spends the night and leaves, you know, this is Marisa Tomei, ⁓ spends the night, leaves the next morning, you know, does the walk of pride, ⁓ looking disheveled. But at this point, then we have a montage of him going back to the bar and seducing all these women with his newfound confidence, but not using

Tug McTighe (21:57)
Yes.

Yeah, as it were. Right.

Matt (22:14)
any of the natural honesty or whatever, whatever he tricked Marissa Tomei into going to bed with him with. Now he's just being Jacob and it seems to be working and that just didn't.

Tug McTighe (22:17)
That's right.

Yeah,

this is a bit of a clunker for me at this moment in the story. Because as you said, what really works on Kate is honesty and his awkwardness and just his being transparent. And in fact, it's the line that he used on Emily, which was, the perfect combination of sexy and cute. And he says that to her, and she's in. ⁓

Matt (22:47)
Right.

Tug McTighe (22:47)
And again, the idea here I think is that while all the, while the Jacob schtick works for Jacob, it's not real or authentic. And we'll see later on spoiler alert that being real and vulnerable and an actual person is what actually works for Jacob later.

Matt (23:01)
Right. When it matters. And I think the reason it doesn't, that it works, him being Jacob and being a player and a hustler and a Lothario works because he's Ryan Gosling. Because he's an attractive guy and he's hitting on these women. But Steve Carell is not that good looking guy. That's just not going to work for him.

Tug McTighe (23:02)
when it matters, right? ⁓

Right. Right.

Right, that's right, that's right.

So there, again, there's a lot going on. And that being said, to your point about after he takes Kate home, there's a great montage of him meeting all these women and it working. And it's a beautifully done, it's not a one shot. It's a series of cleverly hidden edits, but he's in one part of the bar talking to a girl on one evening and it pans over and then he's at a...

different table talking to a different woman in different clothes. It pulls to the bar, he's there talking to it. So this time is passing and it's just nice piece of cinematography, which again, I think there's one later too where the camera goes up on all the main characters and revealing them that just there's a couple of nice, know, we now that we shit on the two directors earlier, we didn't really shit on them, but there's a, there's a very well, they are, they're at the helm here and they know what they're doing. So there's a couple of really nice pieces.

Matt (24:07)
You know who

else does that a lot? Edgar Wright. That's classic where he pans into a shadow and then comes out the other side and the scene is changed. Yeah, I like that.

Tug McTighe (24:11)
That good right?

That's right on something else.

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Matt (25:00)
That's great. You should do this for a living. You're really good at it. You should. Maybe. Me too. Hold on.

Tug McTighe (25:01)
I know right? Maybe I should get back to the radio biz. I've got a face for radio as they say.

Matt (25:07)
Not bad.

Okay, that was great. I really enjoy your commercials. I think they're called S.T.A.P.

Tug McTighe (25:12)
Well, thank you, sir. Well, I enjoy

your, I enjoy Little Bear Graphics. They are called spots in the biz just for everybody's edification. ⁓ all right. So Cal, he's been, you know, spending a lot of time picking up ladies, hasn't been talking to Emily, the wife, the strange wife much. so eventually they, they reunite at Robbie's who is 13 eighth grade, his parent teacher conference where she's impressed by Cal's.

Matt (25:15)
They're called spots in the business.

Okay.

Tug McTighe (25:35)
Confidence and he looks good and Cal Cal says turns out I was wearing the wrong size suit for 20 years ⁓ Yeah, the reunion goes well until they meet Robbie's teacher who turns out to be Kate the first woman that Cal had sex with Marissa to me this goes as you may imagine Matt poorly ⁓ So he right he

Matt (25:41)
I think he was.

Marissa Tomei.

Not well.

Tug McTighe (25:59)
She spitefully reveals, she reveals everything. She spills the beans. He never called. You said I was the perfect blending of sexy and cute, which really ticks off Emily, who that's who he first said it to. And then he accidentally confesses to having had sex with nine women. goes, and now I've had sex with nine, wow, nine women, right? Like he's blown away. So Emily is disgusted. Well, yeah.

Matt (26:17)
I

was little disgusted. I'm like, how long have you

been apart? Like a week?

Tug McTighe (26:24)
Right, right.

There is a bit of a time problem. You learn later that the whole thing took place over a year, because Robbie graduates from eighth grade. But yeah, it's a little shaky on when things are happening or how long this has been going on. I also, right, yeah, that's again the dumb, dumb chills. That's where you're like, no, you're just Homer trying to get into the bushes.

Matt (26:40)
But that was tough to hear. When he said that, was like, dude, no, no, I was doing the Jonah.

Tug McTighe (26:49)
on the gif. But again, I was also a little annoyed. Hey, Emily, you shouldn't have banged Lynn Hagen, man. Right? Like, you're... And she even says I have no right to be angry, but I am. Well, then get some therapy.

Matt (27:00)
Right, okay, except lines like that feel really genuine and relatable to me because I said this before, I'll say it again, there's not a bad guy in this movie. These are nuanced people. have actual feelings. They're not cartoons, they're not two dimensional, they're not cardboard. So she knows that she's been shitty and she's still mad. And I'm like, yes, you were shitty and you kind of do have a reason to be mad.

Tug McTighe (27:09)
That's right. That's right. Yeah. No, they're not.

Yeah,

and these are complicated. This is complicated. It's not, like you said, it's not a fucking one note character. These are rounded. Everybody's pretty rounded, which is really nice. ⁓ I know, right? No, right? He's trying so hard because he really likes her. So this is right, the midpoint. This is Cal's gigantic false loss.

Matt (27:31)
yeah, even Linhagen's not that bad. I mean, he's not great. He's not great, but.

Tug McTighe (27:46)
Of course he gets caught in the rain. starts raining. Um, and even he calls it a cliche. He goes, God, what a cliche. It's raining. Um, now we haven't seen him in a while. And so we cut to her and, uh, a nice bit where they, he passes, Cal passes by the outside of the bar she's in. So there's a little bit of that passing like ships in the night kind of thing. Um, and she's, she's passed.

Speaking of passing the bar, she has passed the bar because she's an attorney or she's trying to be an attorney. And she, in the last scene with Josh Groban, he said something like, and when you're going to go study for the bar and when you pass, and I know you will, I think you will, I know you will, there's going to be a big life change waiting for you right back here at this spot. And she leans over to friends like, do you think he's going to propose? And her friend goes, oh my God, I hope not.

Right? So there's a little bit. Huh? He didn't. Yeah, he offered her a job at the firm and.

Matt (28:40)
And he didn't. He offered her a job. ⁓

Okay,

so I feel like she should have seen that coming.

Tug McTighe (28:49)
Yeah,

I know he's up and he says I Need to figure out how I feel about us and she's like what? You and then she one of my favorite scenes. She does a spaulding from Caddyshack Where she just starts drinks everybody's drinks and she has a great bit of Emma stonery where she's like, it's just gin Yeah, I hate gin. It's really Ginny and she just but then she's guzzling it down So there's just

Matt (29:01)
He just drinks everyone's drinks.

If there is

a villain in this movie, it's Josh Groban. There is one villain in it, so he's just the worst.

Tug McTighe (29:14)
Yeah, for sure. For sure.

So, so this is also now they've done a nice job at these character arcs. This is also sort of her midpoint too, right? Where this is her false loss. She also gets caught in the rain and, she, she, again, this relationship between her and Josh Groban is a little wonky. I'm not sure that you're supposed to buy it.

Matt (29:32)
Got it, boy.

Tug McTighe (29:34)
Because like I said the whole time her friend is like he sucks and you're freaking awesome Right and she goes if you have to settle for him, what do I have to settle for? So anyway, but She returns to the bar Jacobs bar. She's all wet Remember, she's already rejected him and she's like, hey you Do you still think I'm attractive? I do you want to go home? Yes, and then they cut to the shot of the woman. He was chatting up

Matt (29:39)
Yeah, you're Emma Stone. What are you doing to this guy?

Tug McTighe (29:58)
very disappointed that she doesn't get to go home with him. and then there's a lot of stuff. They go back to his house in the Hollywood Hills, which is a beautiful map kind of Hollywood mountain, all glass modern. He puts a record on he, there's a scenes of him, you know, muddling, mulling, a nice sugar cube to make a drink. He's, he's like GQ come to life, ⁓ making old fashions and

Matt (30:20)
Yeah, he's making old, he's making old fashions.

Tug McTighe (30:23)
She she throws her so fat and and she's like she's like after with this drink, we're gonna bang And he goes do people still say bang. She goes I do we are gonna bang And and she says I don't want the pg-13 End to this I want the r-rated because i'm not i'm i'm r-rated i'm not pg-13 And and again and what I think upon this rewatch

Matt (30:34)
You

Tug McTighe (30:48)
Probably my favorite now part of the movie is this 10 minutes of them actually being people and Jacob actually becoming a person and in her bringing that out of him, they spend the night talking and drinking and laughing and Getting to know one another and developing genuine chemistry And and again, I think your idea was that you you you knew who Jacob was or you thought you knew

Now you're starting to find out a different side of him.

Matt (31:11)
Yeah, he had a line where he asked her to... Maybe you'll remember. He asked her for something.

Tug McTighe (31:17)
He says, ask

me something personal about myself.

Matt (31:20)
Yeah, and in that line, you sense that nobody cares, all the women that he's with don't care anything about him, right? They'd never ask him about something about himself. So I thought that was great. A couple of things about this scene, these scenes, the scene where she asks him, like, how do you get women to fall for you? Like, does this work? And he's like, well, we recreate the scene from...

Tug McTighe (31:22)
Like really craving it.

That's exactly right. Exactly right. Exactly right.

Yeah, what's your move? What's your big move?

Matt (31:43)
Dirty Dancing where you run and I lift you up in the air and she's like, that you can do that? And he's like, yeah. And she said, does it work? He said, I don't know why, but it works every time. he puts the, he put the music on and she ran and.

Tug McTighe (31:52)
Every time.

Yes. She goes, well, it's not going to work

with me. And then cut to the music's on and she's like, okay, do I run and jump or what do I do?

Matt (32:01)
and she ran and jumped and he lifted her up and held her there and that did the trick. So that wasn't actually her because as a kid, she fell in gymnastics and broke both her arms and had a panic attack doing that during this. Now she had to leave and go watch Labyrinth. Right. But I love the detail that she had to watch the movie Labyrinth. David Bowie, Jennifer Connelly, 80s movie.

Tug McTighe (32:13)
my gosh, really? ⁓

She's like, I can't watch this. I can't even watch this. my gosh, that's great.

I have to go to my trailer, the Jim Henson.

Yeah, Jim Henson. ⁓

Matt (32:29)
So they

had a stunt double do that. And all that dialogue that they did during that night together, the scene where she's doing her impersonation of Lauren Bacall doing a coffee commercial. That's all, all that's improvised. So they improvised a lot.

Tug McTighe (32:39)
Yeah, Yeah, it's just

they have a natural chemistry, these two actors. Tell me about the bottle of booze he was using.

Matt (32:45)
For sure.

Yes,

yes, when he was making his, so this drives me crazy because when he was, when they're, oh, this is when they were drinking together. So it wasn't the old fashions, but they were drinking bourbon in bed and it was a Pappy Van Winkle family reserve 20 year, $3,000 bottle of bourbon. So.

Tug McTighe (33:07)
Yeah, a gigantically

expensive bottle of booze. ⁓

Matt (33:11)
but interesting

to know that he just has money and he's still not happy.

Tug McTighe (33:13)
Yes, well, he, okay, so

yeah, so he tells you when he asks for something, because I was wondering, because there's a couple of bar tabs they showed, they're like 800 bucks. I it's LA after all, right? But when he says, ask me something personal about myself, he says, my mom was this, my mom was cold, beautiful. My father wasn't strong, but he was loved her, but he was really great in business. He says, my dad died a long time ago.

Matt (33:22)
yeah, a thousand bucks, yeah.

Tug McTighe (33:37)
He was really, but he was really successful in business. left me. That's why I have all this. And there's also great banter where they're making fun of his consumerism. Do you have this? Yes, I have that. And then goes, do you have a massage chair? No, no. Yes. Do you have it? No. And she goes, I want to sit. He goes, I hate it. It's in the garage. And then she goes, can I sit in it? And then they cut and she's in it. And she's like, she goes, I hate it. He goes, I know I won't use it twice.

Matt (33:47)
Yeah, with this massage chair.

She said, what did you pay for it? $5,000. She's like, damn it.

Tug McTighe (34:03)
$5,000.

So, and then she said, I'm not going to fall asleep. I know how this happens up in the PG-13 movie. get drunk, I fall asleep. You put a blanket on me and kiss me in the forehead and we go to sleep. That's not going to happen because I'm R rated. Well, what happens? He falls asleep. She takes a drink out of his hand, puts a blanket on him, kisses him on the forehead and then they go to sleep. So.

Just a really, really great flop of who he has been and who you now hope he is.

Matt (34:32)
And I didn't see, another, so I got blindsided here too. I didn't see him as being a character that was going to have an arc, a transformational arc. I didn't think it was gonna happen.

Tug McTighe (34:38)
Right, right, right. You

thought he was gonna just be straight ahead that Lothario the whole time? Yeah.

Matt (34:43)
Yeah,

my hot take for later is I don't know that I don't think this movie is about who we thought it was about. OK.

Tug McTighe (34:49)
I know I can't wait for a hot take ⁓

So now Cal is calling Jacob like Cal can't get a hold of Jacob Essentially because he's spending all this time with Hannah David Lynn Hagan Hagan is on a date with Emily gets gets caught kissing him by Jessica the babysitter at the door and Jessica is just Busting because she's in love with Cal. We haven't even mentioned she's trying to figure out how to how to

Get cow to look at her like an adult and she's like, don't want your slutty money. She's She's like slutty. What do you mean? I don't understand Meanwhile Robbie is in love with Jessica the babysitter So he's made numerous grand gestures to win the heart of Jessica who's Bernie's daughter And who uh, she and Emma Stone are like the same age basically Three days apart

Matt (35:17)
Sly money.

Three days apart.

Yeah, Emma Stone's three days older.

Tug McTighe (35:43)
that funny one's playing a 17 year old one's playing a 25 year old so anyway she's like trying to Robbie down easy says I like someone older she doesn't reveal it's his dad and then she goes yeah he built yeah he builds the he goes hey did you like the gibbet I built or whatever the fuck he calls it did you like that the he's like did you like it it folds up and I rolled it up here

Matt (35:53)
He makes a big grand gesture at school. He goes to high school.

I don't know, looked like a gallows.

Tug McTighe (36:07)
It's like so he's handy too. So she's like you've got to stop So Jessica gets the advice of a promiscuous class classmate who says I just send him some nude pics And she's taking the nude pics Robbie's on his way to her house With the flowers cuz he's just not he just cannot give up. He says you're my soulmate Right, and you got to fight for your soulmate And then He leaves the flowers

that David Lindhagen gave Emily and it said, me a chance. David Lindhagen just is in love with Emily, he wants a chance. And Robbie scratches out David and writes Robbie. And so there's all this cross pollination of these love stories happening.

Matt (36:44)
I do feel like nude pictures has also not aged well. I'm not sure.

Tug McTighe (36:49)
Yeah, yeah, I agree with you. And also you

noticed she got out digital camera and had to print them.

Matt (36:54)
Yeah, right. She had a printer in her room. It must be doing all right back then.

Tug McTighe (36:55)
which is like, it's, yeah, so right, ridiculous. ⁓

So then Cal, who in the darkness of night has been trimming the hedges at his old house and watering the lawn and walking around in his aerating spike lawn mowing shoes. He's been doing this because he wants to feel a part of it and take care of it. And this is out to the date. Emily calls him.

Julia Moore calls him and he can see her in the window and she makes up this story about needing help relighting the pilot light and he says I'll walk you through it and she never leaves the room and she says okay go see do you see yep there's a door yeah I see it lift it up you'll see that I put a sign on that says push okay get the match she goes yep I got it and she's smiling he's smiling and and like you you know this is a

He's been doing the yard work a couple of times. And again, a lot of good stuff here where she's made up a story just because she wanted to talk to him.

Matt (37:47)
Which is nice.

Tug McTighe (37:48)
Right, and the pilot light is, you said, you asked me when we were talking, you're like, I think it's a metaphor. No, it's a, yes, well caught. It's the pilot light of their relationship, And they have to, they have to relight the pilot light. ⁓

Matt (37:55)
Right.

I had an English minor. I mean...

But don't you think

also the landscaping is he's maintaining their relationship?

Tug McTighe (38:07)
Yes, he's

trying to keep it looking right and keep it... And he tells her when he's leaving the first time in the U-Haul, you got to do the azaleas, you got to... He's trying to tell her you've got to do all this stuff and you know she's not going to do it. Right. So Jake finally calls Cal back and says, okay, man, I'm sorry I've been off the grid. And again, we lose the track of how long this has been. It's been some time.

Matt (38:19)
She wasn't doing them. Yeah, exactly.

Tug McTighe (38:31)
And he says, I am in a place, I'm seeing this girl and I don't want to see anybody else. And I don't know what to do. he's like, I need, and he right, he told Hannah that his dad died a long time ago. So now he's reaching out to Cal for fatherly advice on, I don't know how to do this. I've been this other thing for so long. I thought this was not what I wanted, but it turns out I want it with this girl.

Matt (38:57)
Yeah, was neat to see that relationship kind of flip where now he's asking for advice. I don't know how long they were apart. We did get a montage of Cal calling and leaving messages on his voicemail.

Tug McTighe (38:59)
Yeah, for sure. ⁓

We did

yeah, we and he was in the bar and other places and said hey and Jacob says hey Sorry, I fell off the grid there for a while. So it might be it's a couple weeks Um, okay, so then Jessica's mom finds the naked photos It says cow on the envelope. She flips out She thinks they're in an illicit relationship Bernie the dad furiously drives to cows a lot of rising action here Matt as we careen towards the third act What's that?

Matt (39:15)
Right. Sure.

Yeah, hang on one second. She

comes downstairs and just wordlessly hands an envelope of naked photos of her 17-year-old daughter to her husband. My wife would never do that and I would not want her to. Just tell me what's in there. I don't need to see this. I thought that was bonkers.

Tug McTighe (39:39)
naked photos, right

Right Tell me what happened, right?

and and i've so so This starts this this mousetrap game They're heading over to cowls jacob when he was talking to cowl says i'm Going to meet her mom right now and meanwhile cowl has built this miniature golf game in

Matt (40:02)
Right.

Tug McTighe (40:05)
their backyard because that was their first date. He and Robbie are working together to win mom back. So all this is happening at the house. and I just want to do a quick public service announcement to Jessica. You cannot leave evidence bombs like that around. Were it today, I would say clear your search history, empty the cash, get rid of your cookies. Right. You, you, she just left. She never, she chickened out and never gave the photos to Cal.

So she just puts them in her drawer in an envelope labeled Cal.

Matt (40:33)
Yeah, we can get to this later. I think a lot of things happened in this movie in service of the story that in and of themselves would not have actually happened. Yeah.

Tug McTighe (40:41)
Don't disagree. Yeah, I would say this

is one of them because she didn't give him the photos and that should have great where in real life Nobody ever finds him. But again, I would urge you not to leave evidence bombs around just in case somebody does Yeah, good idea. Good That's right good safety tip Egon don't cross the streams. So so Cal and the kids have created the golfs mini golf They're taught they're they're talking Jacob shows up with Hannah

Matt (40:51)
Good idea. Throw that gun in the river. Don't leave that, don't keep it in your house. Right, when you murder that hobo. ⁓

Tug McTighe (41:05)
Hannah is revealed to be Cal and Emily's first daughter born to them as teens. So let's talk about this scene, Matt, because when I saw it, my jaw was on the floor.

Matt (41:14)
yeah, I had no idea. So they're in the backyard. Emily's got a blindfold on. The two kids are there. Tweet, think they're the only two kids they have. They have talked about Nana in the past and you assume Nana is someone's grandmother or someone's mother or something. And he's gonna unveil this recreation of a miniature golf.

Tug McTighe (41:26)
That's right.

Right?

Matt (41:35)
course hold that they went on the first date and who walks in. But the other people that have been in this movie the whole time, because Nana is actually Hannah, but they called her Nana because for whatever reason, there was a

Tug McTighe (41:41)
That's right.

She says I

couldn't I couldn't say Hannah when I was a baby. I said Nana

Matt (41:49)
Yeah. And

so there was some, what are you doing here? Well, what are you doing here? And how do know each other?

Tug McTighe (41:53)
And she's like, you know

him? Yeah, I know him. And then he's like, this is the girl. And he's obviously appalled, Cal is, that this is, that it's his daughter that Jacob is dating. First of all, I love that you were surprised. It's one of your favorite things to be. So I know it's great. And it's like a punch in the stomach in a great way.

Matt (42:01)
Right.

I didn't see that coming at all. I was like, wait a minute, what happened?

yeah, no, it's because you, because we're so inured to thinking romantic comedies are going to play out exactly the way you expect them to. ⁓ I didn't expect any surprises. So yeah, they just, and they just walk in and I'm like, wait a minute, what's going on here? It was great.

Tug McTighe (42:23)
Right. Right.

Cal? Jacob? Right,

it's great. So he forbids her from seeing him, course. Bernie and Jessica then arrive, revealing Robbie's feelings. I love Cal. Robbie, I love you. And Cal's like, my god, Robbie, she's the older woman. my god, Jessica, he's the older man. Then Bernie tears the windmill off the... And he starts to try to kill Cal with it. And then who shows up to bring back...

Matt (42:50)
Right.

Tug McTighe (42:56)
Emily's sweater that he left, she left in his car, David Lindhagen. My favorite part of the scene outside of the view is when Jake goes, you're David Lindhagen, he takes off his ring and punches him. You know what you did to my, my friend Cal, blah, blah, blah. So just all this then cut.

Matt (42:58)
David Lienaga. David Lienaga.

Just like a puncher.

And then

Cal's mad at him and Bernie's mad at Cal. Everybody's mad at somebody else.

Tug McTighe (43:16)
Every right. Who? then, and Lynn

Hagan goes, I don't even know you. Right. So there's all this and then cut to the women. All the guys were there. There's the two cops were there. And I think the cops says something like, I'm just going to call it. Domestic disturbance, all clear. And he goes, Hey, if you're going to fight, just stay inside. So nice little bit there. ⁓ but again, the whole, this whole kerfuffle is really great where everything.

Matt (43:21)
Right.

In the future, just stay inside.

That was funny.

Tug McTighe (43:42)
everything lands coming together at the same time. Now Cal is worse off. He's broken his relationship with Jacob is broken. His relationship with Hannah's broken his relationship with his kids is broken. His best friend, everybody. And again, what is this? All is lost. This is the beginning of the third act. it really is a gigantic mess and, and Correll really sells how angry he is. And he says, he says to Robbie,

Matt (43:55)
Third act, baby.

Tug McTighe (44:03)
Go bigger go home right pal and Robbie goes just go home dad like he's even lost Robbie So then you get another passage of time where corrals alone cows alone Jacob is hanging out with the family Everybody warms to Jacob their romance blossoms Jacob finds Cal at the bar finally and says look I'm in love with her, bro I thought that people who wanted this were saps and it was stupid but she She's changed everything for me

And goes, she is too good for you. And he goes, I know, but I'm not going to stop seeing her. and Cal says, what's something like, Matt, he says something about, I'm happy that you've changed and I'm happy that you've figured out this is what you want, but it just can't be with her. Right? This is my amazing daughter.

Matt (44:42)
There were a couple actually funny moments in this, even though it's a low point for Steve Carell. One, he orders a drink and the bartender has to remind him that it's 2.30 in the afternoon. And the second, and I laughed out loud at this, Jacob comes in and says, you been hanging out here a lot? I'm like, they've been there the entire movie. That's the only place they've been. Yes, I have.

Tug McTighe (44:52)
Right, right.

Yeah, right, right, right, right. And he says to the bartender,

thank you for the sarcastic comment about the clock cocktail serving wench or whatever. And then he goes, sorry, I'm sorry. Right. He does that bit. yeah, he, and then he, yeah, but there's this great sort of, again, this sort of end.

Matt (45:13)
and

She's gonna spit in my drink. Yeah, she definitely spit in my drink.

Tug McTighe (45:23)
The true flop, right? The true reverse for Jacob and Cal for Jacob for sure. He comes close to saying, want to, I don't know how to be like you. want to be like you. Right. He doesn't quite say it, but he definitely does.

Matt (45:27)
Thank

He doesn't quite say it, does he? He's like, I

thought I, says, he almost gets there. He's like, I thought I wanted you to be like me. And in reality, then he says, you know, you're gonna make me say it. And then he doesn't say it. So I think he gets that he understands Cal and that he's not going to approve and he gets it.

Tug McTighe (45:49)
That's right. But he's,

but again, it's once again, when you find your soulmate. Yeah. I, he says, I don't care. Hannah says I'm gonna, I'm to stop seeing him. He says, I'm not going to stop seeing her. know you're mad. And he says, I'll never give you, give you my approval. So, um, cut to Robbie's eighth grade graduation. He's the salutatorian. Um, and he gives a fantastic, pessimistic speech about how he no longer believes in true love. Before we get into that, I want another public, I'm along on public service announcements tonight.

Matt (45:58)
Right.

Holy shit.

Tug McTighe (46:16)
Hey everyone out there, I wanna let you know, no such thing as a preschool graduation, a kindergarten graduation, a sixth grade graduation or an eighth grade graduation. Let's save the graduations for high school, college and advanced degrees. Because when you put a fucking four year old in a cap and gown and give him a cupcake, you're diminishing someone's PhD. Here endeth the lesson. Again, there's no such thing as a eighth grade graduation. But Robbie's the salutatorian, which means he gets to give a speech.

Matt, what did you think about his speech?

Matt (46:45)
I thought the idea that you would just A, have this kid give a speech for his eighth grade graduation is insane. B, that you would not vet that speech. That it's like, you know what, just wing it. Say whatever you want to. Whatever stupid thing you say, it's fine. Just get up there. I didn't even need to see it. I trust you because eighth graders are notoriously thoughtful and well spoken. Yeah.

Tug McTighe (46:57)
Just swing it, kid. We don't need approval.

Well spoken, thoughtful, stay

on point, on task, on message, right?

Matt (47:11)
my God, the whole light.

So this is another moment that's in service of, does this guy have a kid? Does he think this happens? Does he think that we think this happens? Cause you know what doesn't happen? This thing. A great graduation where they get free rein to just pontificate on whatever stupid BS they want to, doesn't actually happen in real life. But in this movie, it had to because that's what the story demanded.

Tug McTighe (47:21)
Right, right. This this thing. Yeah, for sure.

Right, right, no.

Yes, because then as Robbie

is talking about that there's no such thing as love you're all suckers. Corell in the audience stands up and says, Robbie stop. And there's a great. Gosling goes, boy. Right. Gosling goes, boy. And then Cal comes up and sort of takes over. at that point, Kate Marissa Tomei sitting in the front row and she just goes like this.

Matt (47:47)
Ha ha!

Right.

Tug McTighe (47:56)
to Cal, which I adored. Cal recounts his courting. said, I met Emily when we were 15. And my dad was making fun of me like dads do when I came home after I bought her that ice cream. And I said, Dad, it's not that big a deal. I'm going to date lots of girls. he goes, turns out I didn't. And she was the only one I ever wanted. that's right. That's right.

Matt (48:15)
It's the only time I ever lied to my father. Is that what he said?

Tug McTighe (48:18)
And then with renewed faith, what does Robbie do? He stands up and says, Jessica, still love you. Jessica, who is inexplicably at the eighth grade graduation.

Matt (48:26)
All the people that needed to be there are all there.

Tug McTighe (48:27)
That's right. ⁓

but the audience applauds and everything about this gives me the feels, especially like I said, gossiping with the old boy and then the flip off from Tomei. so then at the ceremony, Cal, with his own renewed faith in true love and soulmates, he gives Jacob and Hannah's blessing. He says, I bought a firearm and I will shoot you in the face. Right. And then he, he slaps.

Matt (48:48)
It's... It

might have been an improvised line.

Tug McTighe (48:51)
He's like,

right. He slaps her or he slaps Jacob because Jacob's never slapping him a lot. And he says, all right, you can date her, blah, blah, slap. And then Hannah looks and then he slaps him again and she goes, Ooh, this is going to be fun. So there's a great sort of re the beginning of the rebuilding of the relationship. And then, um, there's one, one last grand gesture by Jessica. Now what, uh, what was that grand gesture?

Matt (49:14)
my God.

Jessica who will recall is 17, I think.

Tug McTighe (49:21)
Yes.

Heading to Stanford though. She's smart.

Matt (49:24)
Yeah, also Robbie that what's a is there a between a salad at or in a valedictorian I was neither so I

Tug McTighe (49:30)
Well, I'm telling you, yeah, because there's no such fucking thing as an eighth grade graduation, so they gotta make up a word for what the valedictorian would be. So yeah, he's a salutatorian. I don't even wanna look it up. I'm not gonna look it up.

Matt (49:37)
Yeah.

Do we really think he's that smart? I didn't. I had nothing against him, he didn't seem like, I mean, enough that, enough that Marissa Tomei would gush about him even after his dad like, dicked her over. Anyway.

Tug McTighe (49:40)
Right. Right. Right. Nice kid!

Right, right. Well, don't forget, we

didn't even bring it up, but he said asshole in class about 75,000 times and got in trouble.

Matt (49:54)
He did.

So at the close, Jessica kind of beckons Robbie over and she hands him an envelope. And what's in that envelope? Nude pictures of her for him to pleasure himself to, because that was the very beginning of the movie. We didn't mention that she walked in, which brings up something else. He's 13 years old, she's 17. Does he really have a babysitter at that point?

Tug McTighe (50:03)
The nude pictures. Yep. That's right. She caught him. Right. Right.

He says it a couple times, I don't need a babysitter, yeah.

Matt (50:21)
He doesn't need a babysitter, I think that's crazy. ⁓

Tug McTighe (50:23)
No, he could he's smarter

than 90 percent of the movie. Now the characters

Matt (50:27)
He's the smartest kid in eighth grade. My 14 year old could move out at this point and she'd be fine. Yeah, so this...

Tug McTighe (50:33)
100 % yeah when they get to be 12 or 13,

dude, you're like, yeah, just don't burn the house down Don't turn the stove on and then for yourselves for two hours while I'm

Matt (50:42)
So I thought that was nuts, I thought it was inappropriate that she gave nude pictures of herself to a 13 year

Tug McTighe (50:47)
Well, 100%.

In many states, it may be also a sex crime.

Matt (50:52)
Yeah, I'm not sure what happened there. ⁓ But again, very, you know, there was the Me Too era. There's this guy named Harvey Weinstein, and there was a lot of stuff that happened before Harvey Weinstein that seemed normal. ⁓ All right, so that's the end.

Tug McTighe (50:53)
Right.

Right, right, right. And yeah, right. And again, right, right, right. So anyway, so, okay, so,

so yeah, that's the end. that's, and then you see Cal and Emily reconciling. So you're gonna, you're gonna extrapolate that they're gonna pull it back together at some point and closes on Robbie. And yeah, what you, you've got a thought about Robbie and all this really a big hot take.

Matt (51:15)
But it closes on Robbie.

My God. Okay, so closing thoughts. My biggest hot take is that of all the people in this movie, and there were a lot of people in it, and a lot of good actors, the only one who's really going through an existential crisis in this is Robbie.

He's at a crossroads. Go ahead.

Tug McTighe (51:37)
Yeah, he's he's this is the the literary term built buildings Roman buildings. It looks like buildings Roman, but it's buildings Roman. It's the coming of age story. It's catcher in the rye. It's they start in a place and they so I hadn't considered this until we put this together. Maybe it's his movie. There's you know what head Canon is so you know, like the camp that is that Canon where King Kong. Oh, yes. Yes, it's that.

Matt (52:01)
It's like a cannon that shoots heads out of it.

Tug McTighe (52:05)
But where there's a thing that people are doing like, so canon, is like all the expanded universe books that were written for 25 years about Star Wars are not canon. They just exist as a thing. So people have created, the only thing that's in the canon is the nine movies plus these two shows. That's the true. That's Star Wars canon. But people are starting to write, that really happened.

Matt (52:27)
Those really happened and anything else that's not canon

maybe didn't.

Tug McTighe (52:31)
But people

have what's in their heads is headcanon. And they're like, I believe these are these people's theories like, hey, Kiefer Sutherland from when he was playing ace in Stand By Me, when he dropped out of high school, wandered out to California, met the vampire leader of the Lost Boys and then became, right. And that's like, that's headcanon. I believe it to be true. So there's a piece of headcanon that this is really Robbie's movie.

Matt (52:46)
Right, the last one is.

Tug McTighe (52:54)
Just everybody else is complicating his story. Cause he's the only one to your point who's really going on an existential crisis. Everybody else is an adult. Of course you're dealing with their shit, but he's trying to figure out who he is. And it's all about, do I believe in love? Is love real? Is soulmates real? And so it's a, think it's a really interesting, interesting take. And again, it does, cuts to him at the very end. And right. I think he's our proxy, right? We can.

Matt (52:57)
Alright.

For sure, I think that's why.

Tug McTighe (53:19)
We could say he's our proxy. We're watching this through, because we're not really Cal. Maybe we're Cal, but Cal and Jacob, I think it's Robbie. Robbie's the through line.

Matt (53:27)
Cal and Emily ended up right back where they started in a good way, but stronger for it. ⁓ Jacob, with the help of Hannah, ended up where he should be. But...

Tug McTighe (53:29)
Right, that's right, that's right. Right.

And Hannah, with

the help of Jacob, ended up where she should be. Not with Josh Groban.

Matt (53:43)
For sure, but the only one that

really made it an existential choice, like how am I going to believe that love is garbage and it sucks, or am I gonna believe in the power and the truth of love the way that Huey Lewis would? I think that's, that's the power of love. I think that's Robbie, so that's my take on that.

Tug McTighe (53:49)
That's right.

I got it. think so too. like it.

Yeah. So you mentioned before really likeable cast. Obviously everybody's a fricking pro. Great performances throughout, but nobody like, know, like you said, nobody was the bad guy. You were mad at Emily maybe for sleep. We were for sleeping with David Lynn Hogan, but then, but cows like I quit, I gave up. sorry. I, I could have been better.

Matt (54:17)
I was, but I got also why she did it, because.

Tug McTighe (54:23)
in so many ways so there's there's just a lot of everybody kind of realizing maybe they had a they had a hand in it all into it falling apart and Jacob is sleazy and a cheeseball but he's good looking and he's hilarious and you like to hear what he has to say ⁓ and again I yeah yeah you love that he falls in love with with Hannah because you didn't think he was gonna

Matt (54:38)
And you like to see him get better.

Yeah, you figured it out.

Tug McTighe (54:46)
And again, I think it's so funny. This was 11, right? 2011. So that's 14 years ago. ⁓ everything has different now than it was when this movie was made. Phones, singles bars, malls. Like you said, everything is just like, you know, there's a bunch of people that will say have written about

Matt (54:50)
Mm-hmm.

Maybe.

100%.

Tug McTighe (55:08)
The whole series of Seinfeld would not be able to exist if one of them had a cell phone.

Matt (55:13)
Right.

Tug McTighe (55:13)
If they just had a cell, whoops.

Can hear me? I kicked out my microphone cable. I was, I was fired up.

Matt (55:16)
Yes.

No worries. You were so excited. You were about to say,

you're about to say if they just had a cell phone.

Tug McTighe (55:23)
Yeah, the Seinfeld, right, there's this whole idea that nothing in Seinfeld would have played out the way it played out in the entire series if everybody's had a cell phone. Like there's a whole episode of them trying to find each other in a movie theater and you would just call me and say I'm at Oak Park 6.

Matt (55:39)
yeah, there are, there's at least one episode that was just focused on a voice answering machine. of the word George was trying to not get broken up with. Right.

Tug McTighe (55:47)
They're trying to steal the tape back. Yeah. Because you left her the mean message. So

but but yeah, and you mentioned before, right? Me too has happened since this, you know, or maybe

Matt (55:57)
That was

about halfway between now and then. So I think that was around 2018, 2017. And it's amazing to me. I've always said this, that you can't judge the time you live in, like realistically. Yeah. You can't be like this is in 1983. You can't be like, this is why, know, Rocky is what it is. 20 years later, you can, 30 years later, you definitely can. 40 years later, you're like, oh yeah, we can write books about it. But this is different.

Tug McTighe (56:00)
Okay, yeah.

Right, you can't judge art of a different time. Yeah.

Matt (56:26)
Like since Harvey Weinstein, he's so closely associated with it, was a huge part of that. And that broke in, I think, 2018. So we're about halfway between then and now. And it's just amazing to me how quickly we saw things change. How ⁓ just things that just didn't work for me in this movie, because people wouldn't behave that way. And the idea of...

Tug McTighe (56:34)
Okay, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Matt (56:47)
of Jacob being a lethario and you're like, oh yeah, that guy's awesome. He's great. We should be like that as opposed to, no, that's gross. And you shouldn't be like that. Carell's the guy that you want to be like, honest, decent guy. That was a hard sell in 2011. They're like, no, no, obviously you're, apparently Ryan Gosling based his performance on a character from Jersey Shore. The situation, I don't.

Tug McTighe (56:52)
Right, right. No, that, yeah. Transp, right. Right.

The situation

you bet!

Matt (57:13)
I

don't know the situation, but don't you feel like he's trying to do a Jersey New York guy? Yeah, and they had to tell him.

Tug McTighe (57:17)
Yeah, there you it's a nondescript. Yeah When he's naked in front when

he's naked in front of cali is like i've had my Your face is my swans has been in your space for 20 minutes in your face for 20 minutes If you don't have a problem with it now, we've got a problem right

Matt (57:31)
That's pretty awkward.

So anyway, it doesn't mean I didn't enjoy the movie, but like I could watch Blazing Saddles and have a hundred times and ⁓ still find it amusing. But if my 20 year old watched it, I'm sure her brain would explode or she'd say, I don't know what I'm looking at.

Tug McTighe (57:40)
Yah! Yah!

Yeah, she wouldn't even know what to do with it, right? Because

yeah, she doesn't have any kind of frame of reference that we do, right? That's not her fault. Yeah. That's exactly right. All right. So, Sinna hit or Sinna miss?

Matt (57:50)
Yeah, so even though things don't age well, I think we can still enjoy them.

I don't know. I really don't know. I would say if you are a fan of romantic comedies and you, like me, despise formulaic romantic comedies, this is one that throws you a couple curveballs. And there was not a bad, there wasn't a bad performance. I don't feel like anybody was flexing too hard. Like nobody was really working that hard at this

Tug McTighe (58:16)
no, they're all just, they know what to do. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Matt (58:18)
Yeah, it was perfunctory, but it was enjoyable.

I liked it. It's, if you like romantic comedies that will maybe surprise you once or twice, though you won't be surprised because we told you everything that happens.

Tug McTighe (58:29)
Now that's the

problem, but this is a spoiler-laden podcast. yeah, yeah. So, but you were surprised. That's all that matters.

Matt (58:36)
Yeah, no, I like that. I really enjoyed being surprised. So I appreciate the recommendation.

Tug McTighe (58:39)
Alright?

Well, there you go. All right. So what are we going to do next? I think you know.

Matt (58:45)
I'm excited about this. We are going to watch the 2012 Dread starring Karl Urban as the titular Judge Dread. Now, worth noting, this is not the Sylvester Stallone terrible, I can't even tell you when that was, 1996, 97?

Tug McTighe (59:03)
Yeah,

90s. Yeah, brutal. I never saw it and I'm not gonna see it.

Matt (59:06)
Right, ⁓

what do you know about Judge Dredd and or this movie?

Tug McTighe (59:10)
Okay, so again, Little, which is, it's always exciting when you don't know a lot. I know Carl Urban is in it. He's one of my favorite fantasy sci-fi actors. I've probably known Matt the past 25 years, right? I first saw him as Aomir in Lord of the Rings, one of the writers of Rohan. He's Butcher on the Boys, ⁓ Scourge in the Thor films, ⁓ right? ⁓ But also,

Matt (59:27)
Yes, he's gone.

Yes, he was Scourge, the Executioner. He was also

in Star Trek. He was Bones. And you know, I'm a Star Trek guy.

Tug McTighe (59:37)
He was bones. Gosh, he

was with a lot of great bones hair in the JJ Abrams, Star Trek's. know, anyway, I love him. think he's great. He's a weird, he's in the middle. He works like he's the that guy, but he's a good looking dude. So he's sort of somewhere in the middle of leading man and that guy. He works a lot and he'll do a weird scourge role. But then, you know, he goes and

Matt (59:42)
fantastic.

Tug McTighe (1:00:03)
They put him in dread as the main guy and put him in butcher or the boys is butchers the main guy. So, I like him so regarding the character of judge dread, I know it's a comic book I I think he's allowed to just grab And I think he's the judge the jury and the executioner He can just murder anybody he wants at any time

Matt (1:00:18)
You're right.

not exactly. yes and no. It's funny because I wrote that, I wrote that down without telling you. He is the judge, jury and executioner. He dispenses justice on the spot. So they live, they live in a future, America, which is interesting because this was a British, comic book, AD think 82,000 or something. but, they live in mega cities.

Tug McTighe (1:00:31)
On the spot.

Matt (1:00:43)
So it's a city that stretches from New York City to Boston. It's one city and it's block after block, mega blocks, mega cities. Mega city one is the one where he's the judge and he dispenses justice. Yeah, it's awesome. Dispenses justice on the spot, but he's a thousand percent by the book. He's all about the law. he doesn't, so that's a problem I had with the 1990s Stallone dread is that

Tug McTighe (1:00:54)
Mega City.

Okay. Okay.

Matt (1:01:10)
Like he gets framed for something. So he goes on the run and starts committing all these crimes and killing people. I'm like Judge Shred would never.

Tug McTighe (1:01:15)
which is just the opposite of what the character is all about.

Matt (1:01:18)
Yeah, it's really important to know he is 100 % by the book. He's all about the law, but it's a great movie and I love it.

Tug McTighe (1:01:21)
Okay, well I

can't wait to watch it. Just like I can't wait to shout out our sponsor Little Bear Graphics one last time before we go.

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Matt (1:02:00)
unbelievable and hey before we go I want to say hello and a shout out to my buddy Jay Leek who is a new listener I know he listened to one of our recent episodes yeah he's in the Quad Cities which is home of home of Quad City style pizza which you can only get there and no place else

Tug McTighe (1:02:09)
Thank you, Jay Leek.

Okay?

There you go. All right, Ben, before we go, part two, if you like what we're doing here, if you think Jay is alone and needs a friend to listen to this with, please find us at Cinemassage on any of your podcast services. Give us a review at Apple or Spotify. really does help people find the show. As I say, smash that like button and hit subscribe and also hit us up at Cinemassage at

gmail.com and let us know what movies you think we should do or or you could just Drop a shit ton of praise on us that'll make us feel great as well or even some criticism we try to take it all to heart but That we do like praise just a little bit better, but that being said thank you for listening This has been sin and misses. I'm tug And we will see you next time

Matt (1:02:51)
We like praise better than them.

I'm Matt.