[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hi, I'm Jen.
[00:00:02] Speaker B: I'm Sophia.
[00:00:03] Speaker C: I'm David.
[00:00:04] Speaker D: And I'm Ryan.
[00:00:06] Speaker A: And you're listening to every Rom com, the podcast where we have fun taking romantic comedy seriously.
[00:00:12] Speaker B: This week we're continuing our sports rom com series with a look at one of John Cusack's early movies.
[00:00:19] Speaker C: We'll discuss the absurdist comedy of writer director Savage Steve Holland.
[00:00:24] Speaker D: We'll talk about the role of animation in this live action movie.
[00:00:27] Speaker A: And we'll take a brief look at the sport of sailing as we discuss the follow up to the cult classic Better Off One Crazy Summer.
Hello, everybody. Hello, Sophia. Hello, David. Hello, Ryan.
Hey, thanks for having me.
Oh, I'm very glad to have you guys. So when we started, when I announced the sports Rom com series, I had put a bunch of movies out there and kind of asked people what they'd be interested in and a lot of people wanted to be on Better Off Dead One Crazy Summer. It was like a whole bunch of people came through. And I didn't realize it at the time, but when I kind of picked you, Ryan, and you, David, for this movie. This is a movie where an artist falls in love with a musician. And I have invited his guests, an artist and a musician. So it's kind of amazing. You don't have to fall in love.
[00:01:39] Speaker D: Make out on a boat.
[00:01:42] Speaker C: I'm ready.
[00:01:46] Speaker A: It's not required, but, you know, it's just. I thought it was pretty great. Yeah. We have another episode we're doing on Better Off Dead. I haven't decided which order I'm releasing in yet, but that episode will have Chris Ianicone of the Get Me Another Podcast, Jason Kleberg of the Force 5 podcast. So we have some great guests that are going to come on to talk about these Savage Steve Holland movies that I think shaped many people's Gen X childhoods. So, yeah, I wanted to catch up with our guests, though. So we've had both of these guys on the show before. So first, it's been a longer time, so I want to catch up with Ryan Estrada. And Ryan Estrada, if you don't know, he's a pretty successful guy. He's a Freeman Award winning iser nominated artist, author and adventurer. His books include Banned Book Club, no Rules Tonight, Occulted and the Student Ambassador series. And he's made comics for Star Trek, Popeye, Flash Gordon and Garfield. And I'm really excited, Ryan, to hear about your new book. He's got a book that'll be coming out pretty soon after this podcast is released. Good old fashioned Korean Spirit, which is a spooky rom com about Korean history.
So, Ryan, oh, my gosh. I kind of said, what's new with you? But maybe you can talk a little bit more about some of these projects that you're excited about. Maybe especially you can tell us a little bit about Good Old Fashioned Korean Spirit, because this episode will be releasing sometime in September, and it looks like that book will be available in October in the States and looks great.
[00:03:13] Speaker D: Yeah, Good Old Fashioned Korean Spirit is with the same characters in my book Band Book Club, but it's a standalone story about.
I don't know if you ever went to the. Did you ever go camping on the farm with us?
[00:03:24] Speaker A: Yes. Remember, that was the year we came up with the idea for the Persominer.
[00:03:29] Speaker D: But, yes, and it is. It is based on those trips that we went on and about the people that went to it in generations before us. And it's about learning to love being Korean in a time where Korea is a scary place, which I think a lot of other people in the world can relate to, and about how everyone kind of is afraid of everyone else. And, you know, the political situation has made, like, the older generation afraid of the younger generation, the Americans afraid of the Koreans, the people in the military afraid from everyone else. And it's. It's. It's structured like a horror movie, but all of the. The fear is what people have inside themselves, and then they end up, you know, falling in love and kissing and making friends and. And learning to. To love their grandmas and. And just, you know, learning to love being Korean.
[00:04:21] Speaker A: Wow. It sounds great. I'm really looking forward to it because I've read Banned Book Club and I've read no Rules Tonight, and they're really great books. Like, they're kind of aimed. I would say. Would you say they're aimed at sort of a late middle school, early high school audience? But. But I can read it as an adult and get a lot of enjoyment from it.
[00:04:38] Speaker D: Yeah. Well, for me, every book I write, the target audience is myself. And then three years later, I find marketing materials and say, oh, it's a young adult book. Okay. But, yeah, I think these books are for anybody.
[00:04:49] Speaker A: Yeah. And they're very, like, related. Like, they're about Korea's political situation, you know, under dictatorship. But I mean, it's August 11th today, guys, so in America, and things are not looking real good at the moment, so we can. We can probably learn from the lessons of Korean history, honestly.
Oh, God, yeah. Yeah.
I don't know. I don't Know what to say. We're still trying to make our little podcast here, but I don't know.
Yeah. Ryan, are there other things you'd like to share that you're working on right now, or other messages for that matter, if you wanted to share anything?
[00:05:25] Speaker D: Yeah, I'm always working on so, so many things, but I don't want to flood your podcast with all those. I've done lots of things lately, but the main thing I want people to do is just keep reading books, support your libraries, because there are people literally trying to shut them down. And if you can go to meetings in your community, school board meetings, library board meetings, city council meetings, and just when they. There's opportunities to stand up, say something. Just say, libraries are cool. Please fund and support them.
[00:05:51] Speaker A: Definitely. 100%. Yeah. And, Ryan, where can people, like, go if they want to learn more about your work? I'll put it in the show notes as well.
[00:06:00] Speaker D: Yep. Just go to ryanestrada.com there's info about all the books and just thousands of pages of free comics you can read right now. Because I'm a terrible businessman.
[00:06:09] Speaker A: But a wonderful person. A wonderful person. Thank you, Ryan. Yeah.
And, David, really glad to have you on again. This is like your fourth time on the show. It's becoming a habit. I like it.
[00:06:20] Speaker C: Yeah, sounds about right. Yeah.
[00:06:22] Speaker A: Yeah. You were on the Once Bitten and yes man episodes, and then you were on one of my favorites, which was the Bill and Ted's excellent adventure episode where you got to hang out with my sort of genius brother guy.
We had a good time. We had a good time.
[00:06:35] Speaker C: All fun ones, definitely.
[00:06:37] Speaker A: And of course, I've been on your wonderful show, piecing it together, talking about a couple of Chris Evans movies, One Bad, one good. Love your show.
You continue to do that. I know. And you continue to be a podcast producer and you make music. I don't know which. What do you want to tell us about all of this? Like what. What's. What's been most exciting to you these days?
[00:06:58] Speaker C: If I speak like one of those auction guys, I could get in everything, and then I might be able to. But yeah, I mean, you know, piecing it together, I keep doing. I've been doing these live shows over the last couple of years around Las Vegas, and they've been super fun. Getting out there in movie theaters with a panel of guests, doing my whole piecing it together show like you've on, but with three guests in front of a crowd. It's been super awesome. And then with my music, I'm Continually putting my quote unquote, serious instrumental music on the back burner because I've been just having so much fun making these songs with my pets, the Pup Pups, which is a just a very silly, goofy novelty comedy album series all about pets and all the silly things that they do.
[00:07:41] Speaker A: Yeah, I love it. I love it. And I was thinking about you looking at the cone dog in this particular movie and being like, seems like it's right up David's eye rally.
[00:07:49] Speaker C: Oh, yeah. Anytime there's something like that, I'm. I'm all for it.
[00:07:53] Speaker A: I love those live shows too. I listen to. I always look forward to, like, if I finished a movie and I know you did an episode on it, I'd go and try to find it. Like Sinners was one that I listened to recently, which I really appreciated. All the different viewpoints that people offered on that show.
[00:08:07] Speaker C: Yeah, no, that was great. And it was such a, you know, a big topic for that week. Like everybody was like going nuts about it and had so many different opinions and so to be able to get there in front of a crowd at the movie theater just as everybody's just watching the movie, it's just. It's such a fun way to do a podcast.
[00:08:25] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, I wish I could hang out with y', all, but I'm a little ways away from Vegas, so one day.
[00:08:30] Speaker C: One day.
[00:08:31] Speaker A: Yeah, Perhaps. Perhaps we will hope for good things.
So, David, where can people go to find your work?
[00:08:37] Speaker C: Then you can find piecing it together on all the social medias at PiecingPod and you can find all my different kinds of
[email protected] Excellent.
[00:08:47] Speaker A: And you guys should visit both of these guys websites, check out their work. Fantastic people, great people and great artists. So very happy to have you both on.
Before we. Before we finish our intro section though, this is our sports movies series and I'm wondering if you have any favorite sports rom coms or sports movies other than the one we're talking about today.
[00:09:11] Speaker D: I was on this very podcast earlier to talk about a great Jerry Maguire. I won't talk about that because you can hear us talk about that for a long, long time. But my absolute favorite sports comedy is the Foul King, which is a South Korean movie about a banker who takes up wrestling to impress a girl.
But unlike the 80s comedies where they get suddenly good at it, he is never gets good at it, never gets a girl, never impresses anyone and just fails miserably. But it's still very, very funny.
[00:09:45] Speaker A: And I think you actually have that in our double features too. I mean we can talk about that again when we get there though. But it sounds interesting.
[00:09:51] Speaker C: Yeah, I will go with. Since I'm not a sports guy at all, I'll go with basketball because they make up their own sport and just make a movie around that and that's more my speed. And I feel like practically every sports movie is also a rom com at the same time. Or at least a lot of them are.
[00:10:13] Speaker A: Quite often. Quite often.
My friend Sybil and I, who's also my co host, Sybil, of course, we used to love that basketball in college. We would, we would do the thing where we'd say dude to each other repeatedly. Just forever.
[00:10:24] Speaker C: Yes, classic.
[00:10:28] Speaker B: So before we start today, a few notes first. As usual, the beginning of the episode will have a spoiler free section, but listen out for our spoiler warning when it comes. If you haven't yet watched the movie.
[00:10:40] Speaker A: We'D also like to remind you that you can follow the podcast on social media.
Our Facebook page is everyromcom podcast and blog. Our Instagram is veryromcom, our Twitter handle is veryromcompod and you can also find us on bluesky Very Romcom.
[00:10:58] Speaker B: And as always, you can find the
[email protected], send us
[email protected] and if you like what you hear, please rate, review and subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.
[00:11:13] Speaker A: And you can also now listen to our episodes on our YouTube channel at every rom com podcast.
It is still an audio only podcast there, but the videos have a really cool feature where you can skip ahead to certain timestamps. So if there's one particular topic you're really interested in within the episode, you can go right there. Love that.
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[00:11:37] Speaker B: And finally, if you'd like to help support the show financially, please visit our Buy me a coffee
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[00:11:51] Speaker A: And now let's get into the episode by listening to the trailer for One Crazy Summer. And guys, this is one of those weird trailers. So it's gonna. It reminds me of the one for Romancing the Stone. So just you've been warned.
[00:12:11] Speaker E: The movie started, the movie's done.
Not really. I just want them to come running in from the lobby thinking that they missed something. Hi, I'm Ed Stork, movie star, also known as Bobcat Goldthwaite and Me and my friends, John Cusack and to me more. I hate boats. I'm not getting on any boat.
[00:12:30] Speaker A: I beg to differ.
[00:12:31] Speaker E: Just had one crazy summer.
Your dad said you were collecting shells. Shells. 57 millimeter. We did all the normal things people do. Hey, little boy. Will you hold onto this for me? Made friends.
Sorry. Oh, no. Saw the sights.
[00:12:48] Speaker A: Please.
[00:12:49] Speaker C: You're a anything but chili.
[00:12:51] Speaker E: Killed our own food.
Dazzled women.
[00:12:55] Speaker A: Are you ready for me, Hoops?
[00:12:57] Speaker E: We were party animals.
Everyone loved us. My car.
And we loved every minute.
Gone. By the end of the summer, I felt I've grown a lot. Personally, I felt a little bit better about who I was and where I was going.
Okay, let's move it out. Here we go.
Wait.
It really was one crazy summer.
[00:13:33] Speaker B: Oh, man.
[00:13:35] Speaker A: What do you guys think of that one? Oh, my God.
[00:13:38] Speaker D: That's how you say when. When you hear how Bobcat Goldthwaite used to talk it. It always, like, it takes a moment to be like, okay, let me. Because it Bobcate. Goldthwait cracks me up because he's one of those, like. There's always one of those comedians that.
That they do a funny voice once and people like it so much, they're like, I guess this is my personality. No, I have to do this and everything. And you have like, Gilbert Godfrey, where, like, after his death, people like, you know, I heard his real voice once, but Bobcat Goldthwait was one day just like, I'm never gonna talk like that again. That was terrible. Why did I do that?
[00:14:13] Speaker A: The sad thing is I kind of like it, but not that much at once. I like it in spurts. I like it, like, just occasionally. It just works for me for some reason.
[00:14:22] Speaker D: But you don't necessarily give the guy a monologue.
[00:14:25] Speaker A: Yeah, the 80s were like a weird voice, like, era too. I feel like you also had what, like Sam Kinison, the guy who just yelled all the time. You know what I mean?
Would this have induced you to see this movie in the theaters in the 80s, do you think?
[00:14:40] Speaker C: Oh, definitely in the 80s nowadays, too. Because I would be like, wow, this is different from anything that's happened in the last 20, 30 years. But back then, it wasn't that insane. It was like, just kind of par for the course for how crazy the 80s were. But, yeah, I'm all for it, even though it's completely nuts.
[00:15:01] Speaker A: Truth and advertising. Truth in advertising.
[00:15:05] Speaker B: That's funny.
So One Crazy Summer debuted August 8, 1986. It's written and directed by Savage Steve Holland, and it stars John Cusack as Hoops, Demi Moore as Cassandra, Bobcat Goldthwaite and Tom Villard as the Stork Twins. Joel Murray as George and Curtis Armstrong as Ack Ack.
[00:15:28] Speaker C: So the basic premise is that Hoops McCann has just graduated high school and decides to join his friend George on Nantucket island for the summer. On the way to the island, the friends run into Cassandra, a musician who's trying to save her grandfather's house from greedy property developers. The friends decide to help Cassandra, eventually leading to their entry in a local sailing race.
[00:15:51] Speaker A: Isn't that the greedy property developers? That was, like, the plot of, like, half the 80s movies. It feels like sometimes, doesn't it?
[00:15:58] Speaker C: Yeah, it was Ernest Goes to Camp.
[00:16:02] Speaker D: Definitely cliche. There was a period where after the tsunami in Thailand, I moved to an island, helped volunteer, and there were greedy property developers trying to buy up all the land. And then we were like this ragtag group of young Americans coming in to fight back, and I'm like, oh, my God, I'm in an 80s movie.
[00:16:21] Speaker A: Oh, wow.
How did that work out, by the way?
[00:16:26] Speaker D: Well, I just revisited that island this year and got to see that the people still own the land and the. The developers were out, so we won.
[00:16:35] Speaker A: It's like an 80s movie. I love it.
You weren't in any regatta in the process of this, were you?
[00:16:42] Speaker D: No, not in the process. I do have a regatta story for later that I'll tell you.
That made me really hate the villains of this movie.
[00:16:50] Speaker E: Good.
[00:16:51] Speaker A: I look forward to it.
So there are a lot of interesting facts to know about One Crazy Summer. And there's. I got to tell you, though, listen to the Better Off Dead episode too, because the interesting facts I found out about Better Off Dead absolutely blew my mind. But here's the interesting facts about One Crazy Summer. So One Crazy Summer was writer director Savage Steve Holland's second movie, filmed in Cape Cod and on Nantucket Island. Before Better Off Dead had been released in theaters, Better Off Dead had tested well. So the studio thought it would be a success.
They asked Holland if he had another movie ready to go. He didn't, but he went home and outlined the story for One Crazy Summer in a Weekend. I mean, you gotta hustle, right?
[00:17:33] Speaker B: It's. It's obvious it was written in a weekend.
[00:17:36] Speaker A: Okay, you can tell Sophia's general opinion isn't gonna necessarily be good just from here.
The little sister character in One Crazy Summer is named Squid, after Holland's sister's own nickname, John Cusack. Curtis Armstrong and much of the crew had previously Worked with Holland on Better Off Dead.
Demi Moore was cast in the movie because Holland loved her voice and figured she'd be able to sing, which is a hell of a risk. But she does use her own vocals in the movie.
And partway through filming one Crazy Summer, the cast saw a screening of Better Off Dead, which John Cusack famously hated. Holland said Cusack told him the next day, I'll never trust you again.
In an interview with Robert V. Galuzzo, Holland talked about the aftermath of Cusack's reaction to the screening.
It was horrible, I have to admit. It was just so sad and heartbreaking, and it bummed me out every day. But what happened was other people stepped up. Bobcat, as Egg Stork, was a minor character who stepped up and took over the movie. Bobcat came in and saw this tension and sadness and. But came at it as, I'm going to make this the funniest movie I can and do everything I can.
And speaking of supporting cast, this was the first movie for Joel Murray, who is Bill Murray's younger brother.
Several very recognizable actors also appeared in supporting roles, including Billy Byrd as the grandma of Murray's character, William Hickey as the ritual grandfather of antagonist Teddy, and Joe Flaherty of SCTV fame as Ack Ack's dad.
And while many of the supporting cast members really enjoyed filming the movie, they also reported dangerous incidents they faced during filming.
So Curtis Armstrong jumped into the water at one point and didn't realize his long socks would fill up with water, so he had a hard time staying afloat. At one point, Bobcat Goldthwait had to perform inside the Godzilla suit because the stuntman fell over when he got into it. And so Bobcat was doing better than the stuntman, but at one point, it was in danger of catching fire. And their plan, if that happened, was to throw him in the pool, which they didn't immediately realize might have caused him to sink. But then they put a scuba diver at the bottom of the pool. So, yeah, and Joel. And Joel Murray was shooting in the water while crew members would shoo jellyfish away with a broom between takes. So, oh, my God. Yeah, this is an action movie here.
The movie included two weeks of shooting on boats, but Holland allowed his actors a lot of license to improvise during the movie, which I think a lot of these comedians really enjoyed.
Original titles for One Crazy Summer had been My Summer Vacation or My Nantucket Vacation, but the studio insisted on their title.
The movie had a budget of $9 million and made 13 million so even though it made more money than Better Off Dead, it was actually less profitable than that movie.
Director Savage Steve Holland told the website Inside Hook that he considers One Crazy Summer not as good as Better Off Dead. He wrote a sequel to it, however, called One Epic Fall, but so far it has never been made.
[00:21:01] Speaker B: Oh, man, this is our chance. We can resurrect it in me.
[00:21:06] Speaker A: I'm kidding.
I mean, in the Better Off Dead episode, I did talk to the guys there and I was like, I really need Savage Steve Holland to make a fall and a spring sports movie and somehow John Cusack has to come back in some improbable way. I'm just saying.
[00:21:21] Speaker B: Oh, man, I don't think Bobcat. I want Bobcat to come back.
[00:21:26] Speaker A: Yeah, he can come back. Diane Franklin's coming back. They're all coming back.
Let's talk now about our general opinion of this movie. And I don't know who wants to go. Actually, Ryan, I think I'll have you go first because you. I think when we talked about this, you were like, I do Better Off Dead or I do One Crazy Summer. So, like, how did you come in contact with this movie and how have you felt about it over the years?
[00:21:47] Speaker D: I mean, it was the 80s, man. These movies are out there. They're out in the zeitgeist. But I mean, as a young cartoonist, like, these are two movies about cartoonists. Not that they seem to understand how cartooning works, even though Savage Steve Holland is one. Like, he's sitting there with a box of Crayola crayons, drawing.
Drawing giant single panels on like, you know, three foot wide paper. But, but yeah, I mean, it's, it's. It's fun, it's silly, it's weird. I definitely think that the, the first one feels more like the passion project that he had a lot of ideas for. And this definitely feels like in a weekend, he's like, oh, man, I don't have any ideas when I just remake the same movie and like mad lib it into something else. But that gives it this weird, like, improvised quality that you never know what's gonna happen. And the. How one scene flows the other doesn't quite make sense, and that makes it funny. So I, I enjoy this film and its weirdness and it's just, it's just fun to watch.
[00:22:50] Speaker A: So it sounds like you saw it around the time it first came out, probably on TV or something like that, or tape or whatever.
[00:22:56] Speaker D: Yeah, probably. I, I think I, I think I saw Eek the Cat first. Okay, that Was Saturday Morning show. I love that. And then when I heard. Yeah, that's where it was. I.
You know, his name is definitely noticeable in the credits. Like, you don't see many people with Savage in quotation marks at the start of their name. And then when I heard there were other movies by this guy, I watched them and it. It and I was, like, amazed that, like, wow, these are like, rough drafts for Eek the Cat because, like, it's more so in the. The first movie where the. The mom is like, directly the same character and the animation style and everything. And then I just fell in love with, like, man, I can't wait to see what this guy does next. And unfortunately, it moved on to him doing, like, I think, because even though Eek the Cat was like a very dark show for a Saturday morning show and more adult than you would expect, it did lead to people only hiring him to do, like, yeah. Children's movies after that. And I wish we got to see more of his. His darker side.
[00:23:57] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. No, that's really cool. That's very cool that you came to it through Eek the Cat. I've been thinking. I'm not. I don't usually watch a ton of an, but I watched a little bit of Eek the Cat and I definitely want to try to get into some of that too. So that's cool.
[00:24:10] Speaker D: Yeah. I don't know how it hold up.
[00:24:11] Speaker A: But, you know, and so I think David and Sophia, you both have, like, more recent stories. I'm gonna go in with mine first, which is that I also watched One Crazy summer in the 80s, and definitely after I had seen Better Off Dead, they were on TV a lot, and also we rented a lot. And, like, I watched Better Off Dead a lot more times in the 80s, but one crazy summer, I don't know, it's an easier movie to just throw on and kind of relax and just laugh a little bit and you don't have to pay strict attention all the time. Although I have realized, re watching these movies for the podcast, that if you aren't paying strict attention, you will, like, three or four jokes will go by you. Like, when we were doing the Better Off Dead episode, we each of us caught visual references in that movie we had never seen before. Like, jokes we had never noticed before. All of us had watched the movie multiple times.
One Crazy Summer isn't quite as dense with the visual gags, but, like, there are a lot of them. And I noticed a new one this time, which I'll talk about at some point. I think. But yeah, I liked it a lot when I was a kid and then do prepping it for the podcast. I keep going back and forth which one I like better, One Crazy Summer or Better Off Dead? I think I have settled onto Better Off Dead now, but for a while, One Crazy Summer was edging ahead, probably because I like the summer. So, yeah, they're fun movies for me. Very nostalgic. And then, David, I think you're more. You saw this longer ago than Sophia, so you get to go next.
[00:25:32] Speaker C: All right. Yeah. I actually had never heard of either movie or the name Savage Steve Holland until somebody, you know, as a puzzle piece on Piecing It Together, brought up Better Off Dead and then was like, you haven't seen these movies that are like, right up your alley? Like, because I. I love absurdist weirdo humor and outsider art kind of stuff and, and all that. And yeah, these movies both just fit perfectly into the kind of stuff that I like.
And yeah, I watched it both of them, back to back two years ago for the first time. And I think I like One Crazy Summer better, but because it's just so absurd and so ridiculous. But I. I have only seen Better Off Dead the one time, and I do need to re watch it at some point to see if maybe that one will kind of leapfrog it. But yeah, this kind of humor is, like, totally my wheelhouse. And it's so weird watching these movies. I wrote it in my letterboxd review when I watched it that first time two years ago that, like, I was in such a haze of absurdity watching this movie that, like, I feel like I missed so much. And you mentioned how you, like, miss lots of little jokes and stuff. I missed entire plot points watching this movie and I'm like, wait, what's happening now? And I don't feel like I'm any closer to getting the 100% total story arc at this point. So I'm gonna be a little wishy washy as we go through this conversation, but just know I love this movie.
[00:27:03] Speaker A: Nice. Nice. Yeah, Yeah. I believe I was one of the people who commented, like, you should watch One Crazy Summer next. When I saw your Better Off Dead review, I was like, get on it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Nice. And Sophia, I. I feel like you're gonna be the, the one, the. The minority position here, but that's okay because it's always fine.
[00:27:22] Speaker B: Yes.
So I had never seen it before. I had not seen Better Off Dead.
[00:27:30] Speaker A: Have you. Have you since watched Better Off Dead? Out of curiosity?
[00:27:33] Speaker B: You know, I Watched. I watched the preview, and I'm like, oh, this looks a lot better than one crazy summer. Just the preview alone. I was like, oh, I could probably watch that. And. And I have. Not yet, but it's.
[00:27:50] Speaker A: We'll find out.
[00:27:51] Speaker B: Maybe you will find.
So I started watching it, and I was like, so, Jen, where's the sport?
[00:28:01] Speaker A: I was like, oh, what's happening here? I'm not really feeling it, but I.
[00:28:06] Speaker B: Was like, that's gonna be okay.
[00:28:07] Speaker A: That's gonna.
[00:28:08] Speaker B: Yeah, hopefully that'll add. And as I went along, there are moments that I start to enjoy, and I'm like, okay, that's. You know, it's got this earnestness to it, and then one of those very absurd things happens, and I'm like, oh, God.
So I don't know.
[00:28:31] Speaker D: It didn't.
[00:28:31] Speaker B: It didn't quite hit me right this time.
[00:28:34] Speaker A: That's okay. That's okay, Sophia. Yeah, I mean, it's. It's kind of the same with Better Off Dead. I think Better Off Dead has, like, a slightly different tone, and I think there's a little bit more time given to the romance in that one.
But. Yeah, but it's very. They are similar. But you're right about the sports thing, because, like, in my memory, both of these movies had a lot of sports in them. And then when I actually watch them, it's like, about half an hour before the end of the movie that anybody gets on a boat in this movie?
[00:29:02] Speaker C: Yes, Right. I was thinking that, too. The whole movie, I was like, I'm glad I'm re watching this movie because I owe it a re watch. But, like, I thought this was a sports thing.
[00:29:10] Speaker A: That's right. Yeah.
[00:29:12] Speaker B: I will say things that made me happy, like seeing Billy Bird, who plays the grandma. She also plays one of the grandmas in Sixteen Candles, and she's in, like, Home Alone. She pops up, and she popped up a lot in the 80s, and I enjoyed that bit. And I had completely forgotten about Bobcats. Seeing him again, like, oh, my God, that guy. I forgot all about him.
It was funny. I. I do think that had I seen this in the 80s as a kid, it would have been one that we watched repeatedly.
Do you know, I feel like there's a couple others again of this, like, absurd, ridiculous vibe. Like, maybe. I think we were watching Weekend at Bernie's.
Yeah, we watched that one a lot.
[00:29:57] Speaker A: So, yeah, similar kind of feeling. Like a Saturday morning TV kind of experience.
[00:30:01] Speaker B: Yes. Yes. And had we. Had. We watched this in the 80s, I think it would have been in the repertoire. We missed our moment.
[00:30:11] Speaker A: We're now going to talk about the cast and crew. If anybody has anything they'd like to jump in and say while we're going through, please do so.
So first, first cast and crew member is writer director Savage Steve Holland.
Savage Steve Holland was born in 1960 and grew up on the East Coast. Like, funny enough, he's one. Like most of these people that we talk about on the show, you can find out their birth date and the exact city they're born in. Savage Steve has kept a low Internet profile, so harder to pin down.
Savage Steve Holland told the Speech Bubble podcast that his name, Savage, started off as a joke about him. So when he was playing soccer at about 8 years old, he accidentally kicked a kid whose tooth, whose loose tooth then fell out. And then Holland started crying because he felt so bad. So the other kids called him Savage as a joke.
But then once he got to high school, no one knew why he was called that, and it sounded kind of cool, so he held onto it. I love this story. Like, basically the guy was called Savage for being a softy.
[00:31:14] Speaker C: Yeah. I love when nicknames like that stick. That's a very 80s thing too.
[00:31:20] Speaker D: Yeah. And the fact that, like, the Director's Guild let him credit himself is that, like, there's so much paperwork and work to be able to be allowed to do stuff like that that he's like, no, I need to make sure people know this.
[00:31:31] Speaker A: Oh, that's interesting.
Yeah. I guess there's another actor named Steve Holland. I wonder if that made it easier for him or not, but. Yeah, I didn't know that. Interesting.
So Savage Steve Holland's inspiration to become a filmmaker came when he saw Planet of the Apes in theaters. And in fact, he gave one of his daughters the middle name Nova, after a character in Planet of the Apes.
[00:31:53] Speaker C: Nice.
[00:31:55] Speaker A: Holland's grandmother gave him a Super 8 camera as a kid, and he made short movies and. But then he turned to animation when he wanted to film stunts that he couldn't get real people to do.
Holland went to school at CalArts, initially based on his animated films, but while attending the school, he became more interested in filming live action movies.
He told the Speech Bubble podcast that he got art and animation jobs while going to CalArts by working at the reception desk and referring himself to people who called in looking for students to work on their productions.
Sneaky.
[00:32:31] Speaker E: It is.
[00:32:32] Speaker A: He's hustling, I guess. Yep.
His first job out of school was working as Michael Eisner's assistant, but then he was sent to Entertainment Tonight, where he made little cartoons that occasionally ran on the show.
That led to him then animating a character called the Whammy on a game show called Press yous Luck.
So around the same time, one of Holland's autobiographical student films screened at a film festival in LA.
It was called my 11 year old birthday Party and depicted a true story of Holland's childhood birthday party where nobody came to the party except a drunken clown.
[00:33:09] Speaker B: Oh.
[00:33:10] Speaker A: Yep.
Holland had viewed the story as being sad, but the film fest audiences laughed at it. And he received a lot of calls about the movie, including one from Henry Winkler, who then took Holland under his wing and gave him an office space to write at Paramount, which is how Holland wrote his first feature, Better Off Dead.
[00:33:30] Speaker E: Whoa.
[00:33:31] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:33:32] Speaker B: That's amazing.
[00:33:33] Speaker A: Yeah. Henry Winkler just lifted him up. Yeah.
[00:33:37] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:33:38] Speaker A: And as I said, test screenings of Better Off Dead suggested the movie would be successful. So Holland was asked if he had another film, which led to him quickly writing One Crazy Summer, which went into production before Better Off Dead was released.
And though neither of those films lost money, they were considered to be unsuccessful. And to date, Holland has only made one more theatrically released movie, How I Got into College, in 1989, which he directed but did not write before that. However, in 1987, Holland wrote and directed the show the New Adventures of Beans Baxter, which was one of the first shows on the Fox network, is a live action comedy adventure show about a teenage spy.
Did anybody watch that? I tried to watch a little for the podcast, but no.
[00:34:26] Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, it sounds pretty fun, but from his point of view, it sounds pretty fun.
[00:34:32] Speaker A: Yeah. So far it wasn't as absurd as the movies, unfortunately, but yeah.
Holland was active in shows for kids and teens in the 90s, including directing episodes of Encyclopedia Brown and Honey I Shrunk the Kids, the TV show.
He also wrote and directed a 1991 TV special called the Last Halloween and a movie called Safety Patrol, and began writing for Sabrina, the animated series in 1999. But, you know, as Ryan had mentioned before, his most well known 90s work was creating the character of Eek the Cat and writing on that show, which ran from 1992 to 1996.
In the 2000s, he continued directing for kids and teens TV series, including VIP, Lizzie McGuire, Ned's Declassified School Survival Guide, Zoe 101 and Unfabulous. He also directed TV movies including Stuck in the Suburbs and Legally Blondes, which I really. I wanted to have time to watch Legally Blondes, but I did not. It seems like it's something about British teenagers who are out of place in California or something. I don't know.
Holland continued to be prolific in the 2010s. He wrote and directed the TV movies A Fairly Odd Christmas and A Fairly Odd Summer. He also created, wrote and directed the Netflix movie and series Malibu Rescue and Malibu the Next Wave.
Other directing jobs included work on the shows Level up, big time rush, 100 things to do Before High School, Kirby Buckets, and Bizaardvark, which has got to be one of the best titles I've ever read off on this show.
[00:36:09] Speaker C: Love it.
[00:36:10] Speaker A: Bizarre Vark. Yep. He also directed TV movies including Big Time Movie and Adventures in Love and Babysitting. And that latter one, I don't know. That one might not be a kids movie. That might be like one of those Hallmark rom coms. I'm not sure.
But Holland has no upcoming projects listed on IMDb. He's got to get busy writing those fall and spring movies, I gotta tell you.
[00:36:31] Speaker D: Well. Well, you know, I. I didn't realize until just now when we were reading this off that there is last year, a secret Savage Steve Holland movie that came out in theaters.
[00:36:39] Speaker C: I remember hearing about this, too. Yeah.
[00:36:42] Speaker D: The Luckiest man in America. That is a movie about Press yous Luck and specifically about his animations. Because the way that show worked, it's basically like you. You're gonna hit a button as a little animation is going and hope that it doesn't land on a whammy. If it lands on a whammy, you lose all your money. But because they hired an animator to do it, they only did, like, four of them and assumed, like, no one will ever figure out the pattern.
And one guy just sat at home watching tapes and memorized the pattern of the four animations that they had and went on the show and just won every single time because he had Savage Steve Holland's animations memorized. And it's like this thriller of, like, they think he's cheating and like, he's just. He just memorized those animations. It's with Paul Walter Hauser. Very good film.
I don't. The Luckiest man in America. I don't know if they recreated Savage Steve Holland's animations or if they use the original in it, but technically, that's a. They never say his name. But technically, that movie is about his mistake leading to a huge incident.
[00:37:42] Speaker A: Oh, my God. That's amazing. I did not know that. Thank you for. For mentioning that. That's good to know.
And. Yeah, just one last fact, Holland is married and he has four kids, but like I said, his personal life's kind of hard to find anything out about online. But he's given a lot of interviews for podcasts, so he's pretty generous in terms of taking time to talk about his movie making, which I like.
[00:38:04] Speaker B: So here we go. For details about Demi Moore, she was born Demetria. I don't know how to pronounce her last name, so I'm gonna go for Gynes.
She was born November 11, 1962 in Roswell, New Mexico. Moore's parents split when she was a child. Her family moved 30 times before she turned 14, eventually ending up in Los Angeles.
And according to Britannica.com Moore was raped at 15 years old by a friend of her mother's and at 16 she dropped out of school.
Moore soon after married a musician named Freddy Moore and took his last name. They were married from 1981 to 1985.
Before acting, Moore had worked for collections agency and as a model, but it was in 1981 when she took a role on the soap opera General Hospital, which is one that I grew up on. Also in 81, her first role in a film was called Choices.
Other films released before One Crazy Summer included Parasite, Blaming, On Rio and the films that made her part of the Brat Pack, St. Elmo's Fire and About Last Night.
And she had a part in the TV series Moonlighting, where she met her future husband, Bruce Willis.
Moore and Willis were married for 10 years from 1987 to 2000, separating in 98. Together they have three daughters, Rumor, Scout and Tallulah, and they have maintained a good relationship over the years.
The 90s were a very successful time for Demi Moore. It was in 1990 when Moore starred in one of her most famous roles in the romantic movie Ghost.
Other important 90s roles included a Few Good Men, Indecent Proposal, Disclosure, the Scarlet Letter, voice work as Esmeralda, and Disney's the Hunchback of Notre Notre Dame and Striptease.
Striptease earned her what was at the time the highest paycheck for a Hollywood actress, making 12.5 million for the role.
And lastly in 97 there was GI Jane, famous for the physical work she put into the to play the part of the first woman trying to be a Navy SEAL and for shaving her head on screen. She was also a producer of that film.
Moore produced other projects in the 90s. I didn't realize this but it the Austin Powers trilogy, Very Cool now and Then, which she also co starred and if these walls could talk, she was a executive producer and an actor.
Demi Moore also had cultural significance in the 90s beyond her acting and producing.
In 1991, when she was pregnant with her second child, she posed nude on the COVID of Vanity Fair for photographer Annie Leibowitz. The COVID photo was originally a picture Lebowitz took for just Moore and her family, but then they both decided it would make a great cover.
Moore talked to Interview magazine about the COVID in 2017 and said, I thought about how people in this country don't want to embrace motherhood and sensuality. They're afraid to imagine a pregnant woman is sexy. So a lot of the response to me being naked, although you saw nothing but a belly and the little bit of my butt, was realizing that a sexy picture featuring a belly that had a child in it. Funny how when the child is born, it's this glorious moment in everyone's life, and you're the most wonderful woman that ever existed. But while you're pregnant, you're made to feel not beautiful or sexually viable. You're either sexy or you're a mother. I didn't want to have to choose, so I challenged that.
I totally remember that cover, too.
[00:41:52] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. That was a huge cultural moment, and it got parodied a bunch of times, too, then after that. But.
But, you know, being a young girl, I didn't really think about, like, you know, look at. Look at what a bold move that is to be pregnant and to celebrate that, like, because I, you know, was far away from thinking about being pregnant or a mother or anything. Never have become a mother. But now that I've. I, you know, have been the age and how many of my friends have become mothers, I respect what she did quite a bit, you know, and now.
[00:42:20] Speaker B: My gosh, everybody takes those belly pictures.
Like, if you don't, which I didn't.
You're like, a lame. Oh. I was like, no, no one needs. I don't want to take a big belly picture.
[00:42:32] Speaker A: I didn't want to.
[00:42:32] Speaker B: No, you're not a lame. Oh, but it's like, it's a thing. And everybody, you know, so many people do do it and get, like, you know, sensual ones done, too, you know, with, like, soft backlighting and whatever.
[00:42:45] Speaker A: Wow.
Yep. A whole trend. A whole new trend.
[00:42:50] Speaker B: She did it.
Moore's career slowed down in the 2000s, but she did appear in movies including Charlie's Angels, Full Throttle, Bobby, Mr. Brooks, and Flawless, as well as appearing on TV in Will and Grace.
Also in the 2000s, Moore met and married Ashton Kutcher, a relationship that became famous for their 15 year age gap. They met in 2003 and were married from 2005 to 2013, separating in 2011.
In the 2010s, Moore appeared in a number of movies including LOL, Very Good Girls, Wild Oats, Rough Night, and Corporate Animals.
She also appeared in seven episodes of the TV show Empire.
In 2019, Moore published a memoir called Inside out where she talked about her relationships and her struggles with drug and alcohol abuse.
The 2020s saw Moore appearing in movies including Please Baby, Please and the Unbearable Weight of massive talent.
In 2024, it was Moore's newest breakout year for her performances in the TV series Capote vs. The Swans and in the horror movie the Substance.
The Substance, which deals with the struggles of an older woman in the entertainment industry, earned Moore both a Golden Globe award and an Oscar nomination for acting. The Golden Globe was her first major award as an actor.
Moore's acceptance speech was heavily shared on social media and included Moore saying a producer had once told her she was just a quote, popcorn actress, unquote, as well as this quote about the meaning of the film.
I'll just leave you with one thing. I think this movie is imparting in those moments when you don't think you're smart enough or pretty enough or skinny enough or successful enough or basically just not enough. I had a woman say to me, just know you will never be enough, but you can know the value of your worth if you just put down the measuring stick.
[00:45:02] Speaker A: I was really glad to hear that Moore got this award and glad to hear her speech and she had so much emotion. I was really sorry she didn't win the Oscar. Like I, I was rooting for her. I don't know.
[00:45:12] Speaker C: Yeah, me too. Me too.
[00:45:15] Speaker B: Yeah.
You know, I thought, I read when I was doing the research too, she talked about, like, feeling like her time was up and like it was over. But then the, you know, the, the feud part came and, and then this part and the substance came and it's.
[00:45:28] Speaker A: Like it's not over.
[00:45:29] Speaker B: And I love that for her.
[00:45:31] Speaker A: Yeah. And she's got some great stuff coming. I mean, you're going to mention in a second, but she had some very interesting stuff coming up. Yeah.
[00:45:36] Speaker B: Yes. Currently on Paramount. Plus you can find more in the TV series Landman along with Billy Bob Thornton and Jon Hamm.
Looks good.
Other projects in various states of production are Strange Arrivals, I love boosters and voice work in the Magic 7.
[00:45:55] Speaker A: Yeah, and I was looking. And I love boosters is going to be another Boots Riley movie. Who did Sorry to Bother your. And I'm like, damn, Demi Moore is like, vaulted right into the cool kids club there.
[00:46:06] Speaker C: That is super cool. I was not aware of that. And, yeah, I'm excited to see what he does next.
[00:46:11] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, no, she's with the substance. She definitely put herself right in the. Right in the center, you know what I mean? Like, she found, like, the new thing and she's like, like, whatever the new thing is, the substance has it. You know what I mean? Like, it's sure kind of picking up on where cinema is right now. I think. So. Good for her.
[00:46:28] Speaker C: Hell, yeah.
[00:46:30] Speaker A: We're gonna get into the movie now, and we're gonna start with a clip from the beginning of the movie. And this clip from the beginning of the movie is all animation with a John Cusack voiceover. And then we will discuss that in a little bit about animation in the movie.
Once upon a time, there was a lonely kind of a guy who had.
[00:47:01] Speaker C: Resigned himself to the fact that love was blind.
[00:47:05] Speaker E: Now, if love is blind, he thought to himself, how will it find me?
[00:47:11] Speaker A: It honestly seems such a crime.
[00:47:13] Speaker E: For how many times has love knocked.
[00:47:15] Speaker A: On a door when it should have been knocking online?
[00:47:21] Speaker E: And so one day, he went off.
[00:47:23] Speaker C: In search of the aloof creature.
[00:47:25] Speaker E: He soon happened upon the cute and fuzzy bunny gang. Perhaps they could help him.
Pardon me, cute and fuzzy bunnies, he said, I wonder if you could help me find love.
[00:47:40] Speaker A: Love would have nothing to do with such a stupid looking creature, said the.
[00:47:44] Speaker E: First cute and fuzzy bunny.
With that love and those shoes and that stomach and those eyes and those ears.
Flowers are bad, violets are blue, but love one has nothing to do with you.
[00:48:02] Speaker C: They chanted and danced around him.
Naturally, our hero was very saddened by this.
[00:48:08] Speaker A: So he actually, he.
He reached into his suitcase and pulled.
[00:48:17] Speaker E: Out a Israeli submachine gun, and he. He stalked those two.
Hey, stop. No.
[00:48:28] Speaker A: No.
Okay, so that's the opening of the movie. And it really gives you a great idea of, like, what the movie's tone is going to be like, I think. And just to give a little bit of a visual reference for people listening on the podcast, the main character that Cusack is voicing, it's kind of like a rhino sort of creature wearing a pair of shorts and sneakers, but no shirt. And he encounters, like, what he says cute and fuzzy bunnies, but they're kind of bullies at the same time. So what do you all think about this opening to this, this animation opening?
[00:49:02] Speaker D: Well, I'll say that it is such a joy to see messy traditional animation. It's a thing you don't see anymore.
You know, traditional animation has kind of gone away. Everything's become digital. But, like, there was a thing of what, like, you know, the, the big budget movies had, like, the really clean, fluid animation. And then independent movies always had this, like, messy animation that, like, looks like they, they did it fast with a bunch of people and like, had, you know, lines move weird and weird expressions happen. And it's, it's such a cool look that nowadays when someone does cheap animation, they just do, like, digital animation that look with like, flash animated puppets that looks really stiff and boring. But I miss this feel.
That said, his character, I think, is a terrible cartoonist and writer.
It's like, even, like the script is like, half the time it's poetry. And then he just gives up on making things rhyme and like this and like, also, like, hey, maybe write a script before you start drawing it so you don't have a mountain of papers. But again, it's a movie.
It doesn't know how to draw a comic. Like, there's no panels. He's just draw one character per page. But again, that's to make it look, but make it work in a movie. But I loved in Better Off Dead. I felt like the animation was so unique in the ways that they worked it into the story. And I think he just wanted to do animation, this movie too, and just like, let's just do the same thing. John Cusack's always carrying around a giant sketch pad and is drawing characters that we can then animate. And it doesn't feel like it fits in the movie as much. And there's more creativity of different types of animation. Like, there was in Better Off Dead, there was the clay hamburgers and stuff. And here it just kept returning to the same characters that, like, I get, I get the metaphor. Like the, the fuzzy bunnies. Like, you, you think they're perfect, but they're jerks. And it's the same as, like, the, the jocks that everybody likes, but they're jerks. But it, I, I, I really don't think adds much to the movie. I love looking at it, but I, I wish they'd found more creative ways to introduce the animation and make it fit in the story.
[00:51:09] Speaker A: Yeah, like, the whole, like, the sort of conceit is supposed to be that he's drawing this cartoon that's gonna get him a scholarship to Rhode Island School of Design. But, like, I kind of forgot about that. Like, he Barely brings it up. Like, is his goal ever? Like, yeah, it just kind of keeps popping up. But, yeah, it seems like it's an excuse to have the animation in. I did want to. I did want to shout out the actual team here. So let's see. Savage Steve Holland was working with Bill Kopp, who is the chief animator and supervisor on One Crazy Summer, and on the YouTube channel Chance Raspberry, Bill Kopp gave an interview, and he said that he and a team of animators created the animation for One Crazy Summer from Savage Steve Holland's original sketches and storyboards. And Kopp and Holland had met each other at CalArts, and Kopp also worked with him on other projects, including Eek the Cat and also on Better Off Dead and Cop. And two of the animators from One Crazy Summer, Wesley M. Archer and David Silverman, went on to work on the Simpsons. So that's just a little bit of background on some of the people who worked on the animation.
What do you guys think about the little character and storyline? Like, John Cusack is a rhino.
[00:52:24] Speaker C: I'm all for those. And, like, they're just, like, so weird and out there and just very ridiculous and, like.
[00:52:29] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:52:30] Speaker C: I mean, they don't really necessarily make sense, but, I mean, it's just for the sake of the movie. I just want to add also, you know, voiceover is not always the best, you know, thing for a movie to do, but John Cusack's voice is so perfect for voiceover work that, like, it's just. It's so much fun to listen to him while all this weird stuff happens that I actually really like this opening.
[00:52:55] Speaker A: I hadn't really thought about how he was a bad animator, though, and how he should have made the story first.
[00:52:59] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, that is a very good point. But of course, that's an animator talking about second, so.
[00:53:05] Speaker A: And also, like, I think it's a way to. For us to see that he's bad at basketball because he keeps throwing away pieces of paper and none of them have gotten into the garbage can. 1. Not one at all. So this is like, another one of, like, Better Off Dead had a lot of different sports referenced in it. This one has two main sports. Basketball, which hoops is bad at, and sailing, which somehow he knows how to do, despite we have no evidence that he's ever been on a sailboat before.
[00:53:31] Speaker B: Hoops, trying to get a scholarship, playing basketball that he's bad at. Awesome.
Yeah.
[00:53:42] Speaker A: That's the world we're in here. Yeah.
And any. Anything else anybody wants, we can of Course, talk about the animation more as we go through, but anything other thoughts people have on it.
[00:53:51] Speaker D: Yeah, I love that it came back as part of the plot later, when he was doing the animation for.
For Demi Moore's show.
That was a nice way to bring in some more animation. It was very quick there. But I also think that in that point, like, projecting it onto the movie that people are watching might make people less likely to go because they're mad at you. But still. Hey, it's a nice thought.
[00:54:13] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah, It's a fun idea. Yeah, for sure.
Oh, and then right after this animation opening is a joke that I only noticed the first time when I was watching it for the podcast this time, which is we see a cat that's in front of him while he's working. The cat gets down onto the ground, and the cat goes into a litter box, but the litter box has taxidermied small animals stuck to the side of the litter box. Did you guys notice this?
[00:54:38] Speaker B: No. Gross.
[00:54:40] Speaker D: No, it's not.
[00:54:41] Speaker C: So many random things.
[00:54:42] Speaker A: That's funny, Sophie. It's not because it's not, like, real, but it's like, there's a little taxidermied squirrel and a little bird, and they're all, like, mounted on the side of this cat's litter box. And this is literally the first time I've noticed it. I've watched the movie, like, 10 times.
[00:54:59] Speaker D: And I love how there's all these jokes that, like, are referencing something that doesn't actually exist. Like the. When you. The. The thing where, like, if you pat someone on the back when they're making a face, it'll stick. Not a thing. But they make. And then, like, the idea of, like, you know, a human would have big animal taxidermied heads in their bathroom, and a cat would have small ones. No one has that in their bathroom.
But, hey, I wanted to make this joke, so let's pretend that's a thing.
[00:55:25] Speaker B: That's a thing now.
[00:55:26] Speaker A: Yep.
All right, so let's move on to the high school graduation. Yet another joke that. I might have noticed this when I was a kid, but, like, it felt fresh again when I saw it. This time, he is graduating from generic high school.
[00:55:38] Speaker C: Love that. Yeah.
[00:55:39] Speaker B: Yeah, I love that, too.
[00:55:40] Speaker C: That was one of my first things I wrote down while re watching it.
[00:55:46] Speaker D: That was a joke back in that day because, like, right after Eek the cat, I used to watch Bobby's World, and Bobby's last name was generic, and everyone mispronounces generic. So, like, calling something generic Was the funniest joke in the world back in the 80s and 90s.
[00:56:00] Speaker A: I did not realize that. No, I just, I thought it was funny because most people feel a responsibility. Well, let's name the high school something. He's just like, nope, forget about it.
And we find out at this graduation that Hoops didn't get the basketball scholarship, is now trying to get into Rhode Island School of Design. But he must create an illustrated love story like we just talked about. But he's never been in love. This is one of his problems.
And they all. Then George, his friend George Calamari, by the way, that's the last name, convinces him to come to Nantucket with him. And his little sister's name is Squid Calamari. And we see her introduced with her sad cone dog. Well, he's not really a sad, he's a happy dog. But he has a cone and he has a couple like, wounds on his face. And everyone is always making fun of her dog. And her mission in life is to defend this dog.
What do you guys think about all this? Squid and her dog?
[00:56:54] Speaker C: It's just nonsense. And I, I'm, I'm always here for nonsense. I love that.
[00:56:59] Speaker D: That's the thing that's missing today in movies is the character that has one joke. Yeah, this kid mess with their dog, she'll mess you up.
Grandma. She seems nice, but she'll actually bill you for all the things she's doing for you that like that. There's so many characters in this and better off dead that like, they have one joke. It's like, let's take a comedy sketch and just stretch it out through the film. That's your role. I wish they did more of that these days.
[00:57:24] Speaker C: Yeah, I love that. About Hundreds of Beavers last year there were characters where it was like, that character exists for one thing. And they just do it a few times for the movie and it's like, like perfect.
[00:57:37] Speaker A: And Ryan, you referenced the joke about if you slap someone, if you make a fat face and someone slaps you on the back, your face will stay that way. While the little, little girls are making fun of Squid's dog and the, the crossing guard tells them that their face will stay that way if someone slaps them on the back, sure enough, they make the face of the dog again and Squid goes and slaps him on the back. And then you see their faces are horribly contorted and, and they're Cabbage Patch Kid dolls. Face is also being contorted into a crazy face. And then these girls are Scaring all the passerbys. Like, what is. Joel Murray says He's like, gee, there sure are some ugly kids around here.
[00:58:14] Speaker B: I actually like that part. I'm like, that's right. That's right. Don't be mean. Don't be mean. Your face is gonna stick that way. And they got what they had coming.
[00:58:24] Speaker A: Yep. I mean, I think that's the funniest joke in the movie for me. It's funny because, like, it's not actually surprising to me that Savage Steve Holland ended up as a kids director because the paperboy character is maybe the most memorable part of Better Off Dead. And this scene is one of the most memorable parts of One Crazy Summer. He must be good at directing kids. I don't know.
[00:58:44] Speaker B: I like that.
[00:58:44] Speaker C: Possible. That's possible.
[00:58:47] Speaker A: We now introduce Cassandra, played by Demi Moore.
She is a musician running away from people who want money from her. And I want to note that Demi Moore also played a struggling musician in a 1984 film called no Small Affair with Jonathan Cryer. Not a really great movie as it turns out. But you know, I just thought it was an interesting coincidence. She does not do her own singing in that movie. However.
[00:59:12] Speaker D: The thing that is wild to me about this scene is the teen punk that is after her is seemingly played by a 60 year old man. It's a football player, but I'm sure he wasn't 60, but like, you know, back in the 80s you could have been like 19 and looked like you were 60. But this is like a man that clearly at the last second they put like a karaoke bar wig on them. They're like this jacket fit. No, whatever. You're punk now and is not right for the part. But somehow that makes it funnier.
[00:59:39] Speaker C: Yes, exactly. I love that. That is so funny and just so random. And it's just like, it's that energy of like, let's just try this and Maybe it'll make 20 people laugh and maybe the rest of them will be like, what's going on here?
[00:59:58] Speaker D: And the rest of his gang is filled out with like, you know, middle aged character actors. And they just like, yeah, this is who we got.
Put some jackets on him.
[01:00:09] Speaker A: Like Holland said that he didn't really like the pink wig, but he didn't want to offend the costume people. So he didn't say anything about it. But then he said that, he said that the pink wig did kind of work. When the punk guy eventually falls in the water and there's like fishes, fish attached to it, he thought it Looked okay then. But. Yeah. He also thought the costumes were somewhat absurd, but I guess he was too nice at the time.
[01:00:32] Speaker C: No offense to Savage Steve Holland, but not exactly a good, you know, thing to have as a. As a director is you don't want to offend the crew.
You're not getting anything done at that point.
[01:00:47] Speaker A: Yeah, he said he got over that, but, yeah, he got over that. Partly probably due to that experience.
[01:00:54] Speaker D: Well, probably after having been yelled at by John Cusack in front of the crew for having all the wrong instincts. Maybe. Maybe that happened right after that conversation. And he's like, I don't want to get yelled at again.
[01:01:07] Speaker C: Yeah.
[01:01:08] Speaker A: I mean, nobody came to his birthday party when he was 11. Man. He's got. He's got a. He's got a lot to recover from. Yeah. Anyway.
Yeah. And then, so, yeah, Mora's like, sorry, Cassandra's running away from these guys and, like, she's hidden her money in this, like, paper towel dispenser. And then John Cusack's character helps her by.
Yeah, exactly.
By throwing all the money that she was trying to hide at the punks because they're harassing her. And I'm like, yeah, exactly. Does he, though?
[01:01:42] Speaker D: Yeah. This. This movie would not. Like, she would have already had the money to save the house if he hadn't done that in the beginning of the thing. And then thanks him for it. Like, if you wanted to help either, like, nobody's looking, pull it out, go outside, wait for her to come out and give it to her, or just scream, I have the money, and run. So they chase you so she can get it. Like. Yeah, either way, everything he did made it worse and made the entire film necessary.
[01:02:07] Speaker C: Yeah, exactly. Gotta have.
[01:02:09] Speaker B: Somehow she gets into the car.
[01:02:11] Speaker A: Yes. I'm pretty sure she got away and.
[01:02:13] Speaker B: Got into the car. Even though she's the last one out of the bathroom. Running out of the. Whatever.
[01:02:18] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's a deliberate joke.
[01:02:21] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[01:02:24] Speaker A: Because they all look surprised that she's there. I'm pretty sure that was just a gag. Like, oh, like she's magically appeared in this car. And then another gig. The car magically jumps onto the ferry. Like, completely improbably. I think. I think Holland. I think Holland was making fun of 80s movies conventions at this point.
You know what I mean?
[01:02:44] Speaker C: Yeah, no, totally.
[01:02:47] Speaker A: And then we never see these punks again. My husband pointed that out. It's like, and then we're never gonna see this pink haired guy and these other guys again. They they can't cross water, apparently.
[01:02:56] Speaker B: Right. I. I noticed that as the movie went on, I'm like, what? They never come back? Yeah. There's a whole.
[01:03:02] Speaker D: They already have the money where they come back for.
[01:03:04] Speaker B: Right.
[01:03:05] Speaker A: That's true.
[01:03:05] Speaker B: I guess so, yeah.
[01:03:07] Speaker A: All right, so we have the arrival on Nantucket. We're introduced to the Stork twins, Egg and Clay Egg is, of course, played by Bobcat Goldthwait. And we also are introduced to the Foam 2 dolphin, a dolphin with rabies, which. The movie is being made by Mondo Pictures, which has to be a reference, I would think, to New World Pictures, I would almost swear.
Wouldn't you think so, David?
[01:03:32] Speaker C: Yeah, that makes sense.
[01:03:34] Speaker A: I think Mondo kind of means world, so I think it's kind of making a Corman reference, more or less.
[01:03:40] Speaker C: Sure, yeah. Yeah.
[01:03:41] Speaker A: But foam to a dolphin with rabies, and I love it. And also in this universe, foam one exists.
[01:03:49] Speaker D: Yeah. This is where they're shooting. This movie is right where they had just shot Jaws. And so I'm sure that's like all anybody in town talked about. When another movie comes in town to shoot, everybody's going to be comparing it to the Jaws. So there's so many Jaws references throughout, whether it's the. The dolphin, or mentioning Woods Hole, which is the Oceanographic Institute.
Or the fish in the. In the swimming pool. No, sorry, the lobsters in the swimming pool.
[01:04:16] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:04:16] Speaker D: And similar music. So, yeah, I think it was just kind of acknowledgement, like, we all know what you're thinking. We know what was just. What film just took place here.
[01:04:24] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, it's just funny, too, having. Having this parody. So it's, It's. It's not something you would think of necessarily, but it works.
So, yeah, we're also introduced now to Teddy, the young, rich antagonist, and he shows up with his girlfriend, Cookie. I find it interesting that there's not one evil rich guy. There's not even just two evil rich guys at first and not the whole time. But first you're led to believe there's a whole family of evil rich guys.
And he's also got his rich guy gang, and he also has his hot girlfriend, Cookie.
Any. Any thoughts on the. The rich, preppy guys in the film?
[01:04:59] Speaker D: They. They. They could be the rich, perpie guys in any film. That's what's great about. It's a bit. It's a parody of so many films, films that, like, as soon as they walk on screen, you're like, oh, it's those guys. Okay.
[01:05:09] Speaker C: Yeah.
[01:05:10] Speaker A: Why Were they always blonde in the 80s too? Like, the bad guy was always blonde.
[01:05:15] Speaker C: Always blonde. I do love, you know, again, to go to the absurdist nature of this movie. Like, I, I, I love little things like when Teddy, instead of saying, did you just touch my car? He kind of mouths it.
Stuff like that is like just, you know, that great thing that just kind of a little bit does something different with, you know, the, the total of those 80s bully type things.
[01:05:39] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Teddy's, Teddy's got some weird quirks about him that we can get into a little more as we go.
[01:05:46] Speaker B: Yeah, and it's the red car with, like, specialized license plates. Isn't this one catch you later or something like that?
[01:05:54] Speaker A: I think it's like, see you later.
[01:05:56] Speaker B: See you later.
[01:05:57] Speaker A: That's it. See you later. Which isn't actually mean. It's kind of.
[01:06:01] Speaker B: It's not mean, but it's a specialized, you know, cool, dude, extra cool. See ya later.
[01:06:08] Speaker A: All right. And then we go to Grandma's house, and Grandma, as you mentioned, Sophia, played by Billy Bird, who had recently played the grandma who has the exchange student Long Duck Dong in Sixteen Candles. So she's that one, that grandma. Yeah. Really funny lady. And then we're introduced to perhaps my favorite character in the movie, Uncle Frank. And I have a little clip of meeting Uncle Frank that I can play here.
$1 million.
This is it.
[01:06:35] Speaker E: We guarantee it. This is your summer to win. Keep it here and listen for this jingle 95.5 music.
If you. Yes, you are our 50th caller. $1 million is all yours. That's right.
[01:06:55] Speaker C: Hey, Uncle Frank.
[01:06:58] Speaker E: Georgie, what the hell are you doing in here?
[01:07:01] Speaker C: Still at it, huh?
[01:07:02] Speaker E: My God, would you get out of here? What do you think, I'm playing games? I need to be left alone. Why don't you just leave me alone?
[01:07:08] Speaker C: Every summer he sits there trying to win that radio show.
Every summer he loses a little bit.
[01:07:13] Speaker A: More of his mind.
[01:07:15] Speaker D: Why don't they just leave me alone with my dream?
Yeah, when, when you suggested this film, like, I was trying to.
You mentioned both films, and I was. There's so many bits that I remember that I'm like, I don't remember which film it's from. Most of them were from Better off Dead. But the only thing I for sure remember about this movie, I'm like, oh, yeah, that's the one with, with Uncle Frank.
[01:07:41] Speaker A: Yes.
Oh, man, I love this character. I don't really know why. It's like I feel so much. I feel so bad for him. I Think it's because I have an obsessive streak myself, and, like, I could see myself in some context ending up in a similar situation with the desk and the phone and the. And the tools of my trade, sometimes doing podcast research. I get a little bit like that. But.
But Uncle Frank's at that desk. He's got his pills, he's got his cigarettes, he's got his phone, and he's got the radio, and that's his whole world.
[01:08:11] Speaker C: He's set.
[01:08:14] Speaker A: And, yeah, these. Radio Collins, I. Did you guys ever try to win one of these prizes on the radio where you had to be, like, the certain number of caller or something like that?
[01:08:23] Speaker B: No, I never tried because I always lose.
[01:08:25] Speaker C: So, yeah, I always just assumed I was gonna lose and waste my time, so I just never tried.
[01:08:32] Speaker D: Yeah, I. I never did back then, but now, living in Busan, when I was working at the local radio station here, they'd have lots of, like, things where you text in like that, but no one ever texted in. And sometimes I'd be in the. I'd be in the.
Like, I was up next on the radio, and I'd be in the waiting room, like, watching them record, and then, like, see them being like, no one's calling. And so I just text in and answer it and win from the lobby. I couldn't collect the prize because I worked there, but I'm like, hey, no one else is calling in.
[01:09:01] Speaker A: That's funny. They've all assumed that they're not gonna win. I don't know. Yeah, never assume. Yeah, I did try to win a few things from the radio. I was never like, uncle Frank about it, but, like, I tried to win, like, concert tickets or things a few times in the 80s. Sitting there with your landline.
Man the days.
[01:09:18] Speaker D: But, yeah, I actually did once during a period where I wasn't working there, I did text in and. And won a trip to Hainan, China.
[01:09:28] Speaker A: Oh.
[01:09:29] Speaker D: So, yeah, I. I didn't. I. I wasn't able to take the trip because I had to work, but I. I gave it to my wife. But, uh. But yeah, I. I did technically win one.
[01:09:38] Speaker A: That's awesome.
[01:09:40] Speaker C: That's a nice one, too.
[01:09:41] Speaker D: Geez, I really wish I'd gone too, because I found out after she got back, someone texted me that in Hainan, there is a themed. There's a bootleg themed restaurant about one of my comics.
[01:09:53] Speaker A: Really?
[01:09:54] Speaker D: I'm like, I want to go there and see it. But I. I gave away my ticket.
[01:09:59] Speaker A: No way.
Which book?
[01:10:02] Speaker D: Learn to read Crane in 15 minutes. They, they, they covered the walls with, with bootleg versions of that comic.
[01:10:08] Speaker A: No way. That's amazing. Well, I'm glad it exists. I mean, I hope if, because you put that out there pretty freely. I don't think you care that much about keep. Right. You were, you were pretty okay with that one being out there.
[01:10:20] Speaker D: Yeah, yeah, I, I am. I'm thrilled that there's a bootleg Chinese themed restaurant about my comic.
[01:10:25] Speaker A: It's pretty brilliant. That's amazing.
[01:10:29] Speaker D: Well, I did also around the time this movie, shortly after this movie came out, I did throw away a million dollar game piece. So I know how I won a million dollars from Taco Bell, but realized I'd thrown away the game piece.
So I, I know how, how Uncle Frank feels.
[01:10:47] Speaker A: Oh my. But you did not shoot a rocket at Taco Bell, I'm assuming.
[01:10:51] Speaker D: No, it. Well, actually, it's also connected, this movie because it was in a Godzilla contest where it was. If you collect all the, all the letters to spell Godzilla, you won a million dollars. The first time I went, my friend won a free taco and I got a stupid Z, so I threw it away. But then I started playing and got G, O, D, I, L L A and realized I had thrown away the piece. And I was at Taco Bell every single day, three meals a day, ordering multiple drinks, even, you know, we have free refills, right? I'm like, I don another one. And then Finally I called 1-800-TACO-LL to ask what my chances were of getting another Z and they said, oh, there's only one Z. Oh my God.
[01:11:26] Speaker E: Gosh.
[01:11:29] Speaker D: I know how Frank feels.
[01:11:30] Speaker C: Think about it this way. We, we wouldn't be here having this conversation today if you had won that million dollars.
[01:11:35] Speaker D: So, yeah, when, whenever I tell the story, I always say, like, I was really upset at that moment. But every decision that came after that has led to the life that I have now. And it's worth more than a million dollars. So I'm, I'm happy.
And if I had become a millionaire at a teenager, I probably would become an A hole.
Don't give a million dollars to a teenager. It's not going to come out. It's not going to turn out well.
[01:11:57] Speaker A: You'd be driving around in a red car that said, see you later.
[01:12:01] Speaker C: There you go. Yeah.
[01:12:02] Speaker A: Local youths.
[01:12:04] Speaker C: Pretty cool. Pretty cool.
[01:12:08] Speaker A: So, yeah, now we have a, we now have a scene where we have a dinner at grandma's house. And dinner at grandma's house is. She's serving them all the food like she's there like, do you want any more? They're like, oh, no, this was great. And then she charges them for their meal. And Savage Steve Holland says that his actual grandma would charge his family when they visited on the one crazy summer commentary track.
[01:12:31] Speaker C: Oh, that rocks.
[01:12:32] Speaker D: I love.
[01:12:35] Speaker A: Like for more of these autobiographical things, you gotta listen to that Better off Dead episode when it drops too, because like, like the things that turn out to be based on truth are kind of intense at times. I'm like, wow.
[01:12:47] Speaker B: Wow.
[01:12:48] Speaker A: We now get introduced to Curtis Armstrong's character in this movie, Ack Ack, the son of General Raymond, who is a kind of crazy militaristic guy who also leads the Pioneer Rangers of Nantucket, played by Joe Flaherty. The father has sent Ack Ack out to, quote unquote, collect shells. Which, you know, this being a movie set at the beach, you assume is going to be like beach, you know, shells from animals. But it turns out to be bomb shells from a military training ground. And they are still actively bombing while he's collecting them. So we have this whole like dodging bombs scene that is in there.
[01:13:22] Speaker D: Joe Flaherty. I love Joe Flaherty. I will always love Joe Flaherty. He. I actually got to work with him. I didn't meet him because I. It was the director that went and worked with him. I was an animator on the show. But I worked on a show called the Super Popular show, which was made in Canada and it was trying to be the most Canadian show ever. And they wanted as many like Canadian legends on it as possible.
And they.
One of the main characters, they really wanted Joe Flaherty to play him. And they contacted his agent and the agent was like, you are not getting Joe Flaherty in the door for less than some ridiculous sum of money. I don't remember what it was. And also like, I don't think your show is big enough to even have him on it. Like, very insulting.
And they're like, they felt bad about it, but then a few days later they saw either online or in the newspaper or something, they saw there was a comedy festival on the other side of the country where Joe Flaherty was a guest for one night. And they're like, get in the car.
And they road tripped, did some little trickery at the front desk to find out his hotel room number, knocked on the door and when he answered, they presented him with, I don't know why. This is what they chose. They chose a travel size bottle of maple syrup, a six pack of tighty whities and a wood chopping ax and presented them to him and said, we want you to be in our show. We'll trade you these items if you can record it right now in your hotel room.
[01:14:49] Speaker A: Oh, my God.
[01:14:50] Speaker D: And he's like, okay. I don't know if it was because they were holding an axe, right? We're holding one. But then they gave it to him and he just started recording lines. And then they. Because it had happened so suddenly, they had only written two episodes and it was like an eight episode season.
So they're just like, can you just say a bunch of stuff and we'll just write the rest of the scripts around what you say? So he just said the weirdest nonsense and they had to figure out how to make that work in future episodes. And he did it all in one night. He was one of the stars of the show.
And. Yeah, great, great, great guy.
[01:15:25] Speaker A: That's amazing.
[01:15:26] Speaker E: Wow.
[01:15:27] Speaker C: Nice.
[01:15:29] Speaker A: I guess he did a lot of improv in this movie too, where he just, like, kept giving. There's that one scene where he's instructing the scouts about how to, like, deal with a rescue scenario. And he kept just doing monologues about all this gross stuff that the kids were gonna have to deal with, just over and over and over again. So. Funny guy, funny guy.
All right, so after this collecting shells sequence, the guys encounter this pile of seaweed with a baby doll on it, which strikes me now as a Jaws reference too, because there's that scene at the beginning where Chief Brody finds the remains of the first girl who dies in Jaws, you know, and it's in kind of a pile of seaweed.
[01:16:05] Speaker C: Oh, is that what that was? I didn't understand that.
[01:16:08] Speaker A: So I think.
[01:16:09] Speaker C: I'm not sure that makes sense. That makes sense.
[01:16:11] Speaker A: But this shot was also connected to a cut plot of subplot from the ship from the movie. So there was going to be a subplot where Kurtis Armstrong's character finds a hermit crab in the seaweed pile who becomes his friend for the rest of the movie, but the. The hermit crab puppet or whatever looks so crappy that they ended up cutting out that entire subplot. And like, later, there's a scene where Curtis Armstrong's dancing alone at that dance, but the hermit crab was supposed to be dancing with him.
[01:16:39] Speaker B: Like, wow.
[01:16:42] Speaker D: It felt like something was cut there, though, because, like, I mentioned before about how I love those characters that have one joke, and it felt like that collecting shells was like the best joke in the movie. And then it feels Like Akak didn't have anything to do with the rest of the movie. He was just there. And it feels like, I guess like plot line was cut. But it also felt like he was there for that one great joke. But then like he's a good friend of Savage Steve Holland. So he's like, I don't know, just be in the background of every scene, I guess. Generic lines.
[01:17:10] Speaker A: He does have a character arc though, because he does like. Well, I don't want to spoil things, but he does have a character arc.
[01:17:16] Speaker B: I feel like. Yeah, he may not do much then in the middle, but I feel like he comes back around at the end.
[01:17:22] Speaker A: Yeah.
Now the central problem of the movie is introduced. Cassandra's grandfather has died and now she has one week to get $3,000 to buy pay the back mortgage on her house. Or the evil rich guy wants to buy the house and turn it into a lobster log restaurant which will be part of his Beckerstead Estates condominium development.
And this, the main antagonist, who's Teddy's father, is introduced listening to a lobster scream through a stethoscope before he eats it.
Like he has these maids bring him a pot where the lobster is boiling and then he listens to it screams with a stethoscope. My God.
[01:18:04] Speaker C: Great sound design work.
[01:18:08] Speaker B: That's awesome.
[01:18:10] Speaker A: And unfortunately though, for the rich guy, he has a problem where his rich father is not going to give him the money for the development unless his son wins the upcoming regatta, which apparently the son wins it every year. So I'm not really sure why he has to win it again. But you know, rich people problems, I guess.
And then Cassandra and Hoops take a walk on the beach and he draws a gorilla next to her. Yeah, I don't know if a guy. I feel like I wanted to see a guy draw something. I don't know if I would choose draw a gorilla and then a gorilla with me. I don't know.
[01:18:47] Speaker D: Yeah, well, Steve Holland mentioned that he the only reason Godzilla's in the movie because he had already done some Godzilla animation he wanted to find a way to include. So it might have just been he really wanted to draw some gorillas.
[01:18:59] Speaker A: It's true, it does seem like something he would want to draw, but not necessarily the first thing a girl would ask you to draw if she wanted to see your drawing talents.
And yeah, in general, what do you think about the sort of chemistry between Demi Moore and John Cusack or Cassandra and Hoops in this movie? I personally feel it's a little undercooked compared to better off Dead. But what do y' all think? Think?
[01:19:23] Speaker C: I. I mean, I thought they were good together. I mean, I think it's more that I just like them. And I think it kind of works partially on their own charismas and especially 80s versions of them. Is really fun to see.
I can't say in comparison. I. I don't. Like I said, I don't really remember too well about the. The other movie, but.
But, yeah, like, I like them in this. I thought they were good.
[01:19:49] Speaker D: It felt like it. It felt like it was. It was trying to make the kind of story where, like, they. They don't know they're interested in each other until the end. Like, because, like, he goes on the date with Cookie. But, like, it really felt like they. They had a moment and, like, she invited him on a date. So it, like, the whole next part that we're gonna get into felt really weird because, like, wait, you already set up that they're becoming a couple? Why are you setting us on this? Like, it. It felt like.
Like a scene that would have come after a different type of meet cute. But it felt like. Like they really were starting to become interested in one another. And then we were expected to treat it like they. They were just friends. I don't know.
[01:20:29] Speaker A: Sure. Yeah, It's a little bit disorganized in terms of a romantic plot, for sure. I think structure is not savage. Steve Holland's forte in his early projects. But, yeah, he has other skills, but structure, not as much.
Sophia, any thoughts on them?
[01:20:47] Speaker B: I think David was saying a lot of what I thought it said.
I like both of them and they did well just being cute.
So I thought their chemistry was okay. But I kept thinking about other films that they were each in where I felt like they were, you know, the. There was a better romantic story or better chemistry with the other performer that they were in, but it wasn't the worst.
[01:21:15] Speaker A: So it's interesting to me, like, watching it back to back with Better Off Dead. Diane Franklin feels very present in Better Off Dead. Very like. Like very. A very good actress too. Like, it's a shame that she wasn't. I mean, she's worked her whole life, but, like, not as prominent as. To me more obviously. But she feels very present, very fully acting the part, very in there. Whereas Demi Moore feels a little bit, like, vague sometimes. And it could be the script or it could be just where she was in her life at that moment. But I don't feel hers presence in the movie as strongly as maybe Franklin's in Better Off Dead. But that's just my observation.
[01:21:49] Speaker B: It made me feel like what my feeling was for Demi Morph through this whole film is that she knew, like, what a crackpot, ridiculous situation this was in. This was. And was just kind of like, doing her best to be present in real.
[01:22:04] Speaker A: But was just like, this is ridiculous. All right, but I will.
[01:22:07] Speaker B: That's my feeling.
[01:22:08] Speaker A: I will say that I've seen some of her other movies from this era, though, and, like, okay, if. If she feels like. And some of them were not as good as this. Let me just. Okay, okay.
[01:22:19] Speaker B: Fair, fair.
[01:22:21] Speaker A: Like, anyway, I don't know. I don't know what's. What's. What the thing is that's going on here, but. Yeah, I mean, it's. Check out Better Off Dead sometime. Yeah, for sure. See what you think about Franklin compared to more.
All right, so now we have what I guess you could roughly call the wacky beach time part of the movie, which. It's a summer movie. You want to have some time at the beach.
I have a bunch of notes here, but, like, if I let you guys talk about, like, what do you. What did you think about all these things that were happening at the beach with our various characters?
[01:22:53] Speaker C: The fat guy on the chair, I could do without.
[01:22:58] Speaker B: I was actually waiting for a big fart to happen.
[01:23:02] Speaker C: Yeah.
[01:23:02] Speaker A: Something.
Disappointed.
[01:23:03] Speaker B: It didn't.
[01:23:04] Speaker A: I'm like, where's. Oh, really?
It's an impression.
[01:23:07] Speaker C: Didn't get as gross as it could get, that's for sure.
[01:23:10] Speaker B: Right.
[01:23:10] Speaker D: I think the. The cut. The. The. The cut from him eating beans to.
[01:23:14] Speaker B: Oh, okay.
[01:23:15] Speaker D: Joel Murray dead. I think imply implies that there was a big, big fart that happened.
[01:23:22] Speaker A: That's right.
[01:23:23] Speaker C: It did happen there.
[01:23:25] Speaker A: Yeah. Joel Murray is, like, buried up to his head in sand, so, like, only his head is sticking out, and then somebody puts a launcher over his head for shade. And then this guy goes ahead and plunks down. And at first, like, the joke is just the guy's eating chicken or something, and Joe Murray tries to keep biting at the chicken when he.
But then the beans come out. Yeah, I mean, it's a pretty juvenile joke. Like, it seemed about the average of. Of the juvenile jokes that one would see in this type of movie. But yeah, not a favorite. Favorite.
[01:23:56] Speaker D: The. The thing was that was funnier to me. That was before the guy in the chair came. There was, like, a shot of, like, a bunch of, like, toddlers running around him on the beach. And, like, yes, I love it. And it was not, like, cute movie toddlers and it was not like earlier when they're prosthetics. This was just like a toddler with it's not coming out of its nose, like, chewing on its fingers. And it was shot like it was a horror movie, like, from a low angle, and it was terrifying. And I just love that they were able to get that shot that. Like, not that there's anything wrong with this kid, but just in the way that, like, in real life, toddlers are just bodily fluids pouring out of their face. Like, gross.
And it really captured that in a way that just made it look scary.
[01:24:41] Speaker A: Like, Kaiju toddler. Yeah. Pretty good.
Let's see. I like the part on the beach when Cookie and her friends tried to get, you know, Hoops and his friends to help them move their boat. And Bobcat Goldblade's character is just like, got anything else we can carry? Like, anything heavier? Like, he really doesn't want to do it. Like. Like. Like the stereotype is that all the guys would want to, like, help these hot chicks move their boat, but. But Egg Stork is having none of it. He doesn't want to, like, help these ladies with the boat. And that is, of course, when Cookie asks out Hoops, which it's interesting to me. I wonder why she's taking a fancy to Hoops.
[01:25:18] Speaker D: She's just stirring up trouble.
[01:25:20] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:25:21] Speaker B: And does she really ask him? She tells him. She's like, stop your messing around. Come and get me or I'll come and get you or whatever. She's like.
Because doesn't he.
He's already gonna go with Cassandra, and he's like. And he doesn't want to get beat up by the boyfriend.
[01:25:38] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:25:38] Speaker B: Mm.
[01:25:40] Speaker D: Yeah. That plot line felt really weird to me because, like, he doesn't want to go on this date. He has zero interest in her. It's also gonna ruin every one of their plans. It's also gonna get him beaten up. But just because his friend was like, oh, you should. He's like, okay. Like. And also, like, what was your plan? Like, he keeps saying, like, I'm gonna go the one and then the other. But then he's like, like, you're going to see a movie at a drive in. Like, how long do you think she's gonna sing, guy?
[01:26:05] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. She's supposed to see. Because he's supposed to see Cassandra's show. Yeah. And support her when she's playing her music and. Yeah, but he thinks he's gonna go to Cookie's movie and then go to the. Yeah, it's a whole thing. And then there's this also this elaborate plan where like they're supposed to warn him if Teddy leave. If Teddy leaves this party so that, that he won't find them at the drive in. But then this gets screwed up because Egg starts playing around in the prop truck with the Godzilla suit. He's the one who's supposed to be watching and making a call. It's a whole thing. But that leads to the Godzilla scene, which is like one of the best things in the whole movie in my.
[01:26:39] Speaker C: Oh yeah.
[01:26:42] Speaker A: Do you want to tell about that, David? Anything that your thoughts about the Godzilla seeds? We may as well move into it.
[01:26:47] Speaker C: I mean, as far as like just random things that you don't expect to see when you put on a movie. Bobcat Goldthwait in a Godzilla outfit just rampaging is pretty high up there, I feel like. And yeah, it's just, it's, it's just filmed.
I mean it's a mix of, of improv and. Well, I don't really know. Maybe one of you guys could shed light. But how, how exactly this unfolds, it just seems like they just let him loose and yeah, just anything goes. When they started this scene, the thing.
[01:27:23] Speaker A: I, the thing I love about it, it's one of those jokes that like, you start to sense it coming on.
You know, it's building. Like first, like there's the whole pre existing giant model of these condominium estates has been unveiled for this party. Right. And then Egg is trying on this Godzilla suit just sort of for fun in a totally different location. Right. And like he gets stuck in it, but because he gets stuck in it and he has something to do, he gets frustrated and then he starts walking like he's a monster. And like then when, when you start to see him get close to the party, you put the pieces together and you know what's gonna happen right before it happens. And I think that's what makes it fucking funny.
[01:28:02] Speaker C: Oh yeah, yeah.
[01:28:04] Speaker D: And I, but I was nervous when this started happening because the banker is meant to be a Japanese banker. And I'm like, this is an 80s movies movie. Oh no. Oh no, this could go wrong.
But then the, the joke that they have with him is just that he's delighted by Godzilla.
[01:28:22] Speaker A: Yes.
[01:28:22] Speaker D: And, and I'm like, that's, that's not a racial stereotype. That's a, that is a Japanese character. And he would be like, oh, did they do this for me? Like, yeah, I think it wouldn't be any different from like if there's an American in Japan and, like, saw Iron man fly by and be like, oh, hey, I know that guy from my.
[01:28:40] Speaker A: That's right.
[01:28:40] Speaker D: From movies in my country. Like, I thought that was an adorable.
They could have done.
80s movies have done much worse with characters like that. So I was thrilled that it was like, oh, it's Godzilla. I love him.
[01:28:53] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
And I would be delighted, too, if I was at a really boring party and a guy came in, like, dressed in a Godzilla suit and trampled the stupid looking model of the real estate development.
Oh, and the kicker on this is the old grandpa character has thrown a cigar into the Godzilla mouth. So he's also spewing smoke at the same time that he rampages through the party. But what gets me is that, like, everybody runs away from him just like in a Godzilla movie, even though he's the same size as they are.
Like, everyone's running around screaming. This would not happen in real life.
I mean, it's artistic license, right? But, like, if you were at a party and a guy came in with a Godzilla suit, you wouldn't. Your instinct wouldn't necessarily be to run away, right?
[01:29:35] Speaker B: Correct.
[01:29:36] Speaker C: Yeah, I'd say so.
[01:29:38] Speaker A: You'd be like, the floor shows arrived, great. Anyway.
Mayhem. I can't. We can't really properly tell you how funny this show, this scene is, guys, but you got to check it out. Did you like this scene, Sophia? Because I know you're kind of down on the movie in. In various ways.
[01:29:55] Speaker B: It was neither here nor there. It's, you know, it was.
[01:29:58] Speaker A: It wasn't the worst. So I'm married to a huge Godzilla fan, so in my house, anything with Godzilla references is. Is a go.
[01:30:07] Speaker B: That's awesome.
[01:30:08] Speaker D: It's always. It's always weird to see how it plays out because so many movies then had a Godzilla scene, and the owners of Godzilla were notoriously litigious, and there were, like, very clear rules about, like, how much it was allowed to look like Godzilla. This one really looks like Godzilla. And, like, I don't know if this low budget of movie got permission or, like, if they just, like, it was just enough. Not like Godzilla, but it really looked like Godzilla.
[01:30:34] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know. I'm not sure. I didn't see any details about that. I wish I could share, but yeah.
Oh, and we missed some stuff about the drive in, so just some stuff I wanted to put in about the drive in. Did you guys notice what movies are playing at this drive in?
[01:30:50] Speaker D: No.
[01:30:51] Speaker A: So on the marquee, the drive in movies are Chainsaw Date and Hemorrhoids From Hell.
And if you go back and watch, like, some of the background movie scenes, they actually filmed bits of those two movies. In fact, Bobcat Goldthwaite was sent out to film the two fake movies. I don't know if they did whole movies or just probably bits from them. But Holland told Robert V. Galuzzo, it's funny because I had a B unit with Bobcat while I was shooting Jeremy Piven in Cusack. Bobcat went with this other unit into the woods to shoot all the horror movie stuff for the drive in. When I'd check up on him, I was so jealous. He had the fog machines going and the horror atmosphere. I was like, you bastard. I have to shoot stuff with Piven and John hates me.
[01:31:39] Speaker D: That must have been fun to film, because when you're shooting the movie, everything has to be just right. But when it's like, let's get a bunch of clips that'll be in the background of other scenes, they probably could just go nuts and be like, let's get weird.
[01:31:54] Speaker A: Yes. And I mean Chainsaw Date and Hemorrhoids From Hell. Come on.
Seriously. When you do a rewatch, check out for those, like, little bits from the movie in the background. Really funny stuff.
And now the chase scene. So there's like sort of a chase scene that develops with Teddy is now chasing after Hoops because he found out that he went out with Cookie and freaking Bobcat Goldthwaites and his Godzilla suit chasing after people. And now meanwhile, we see Ack Ack's dad teaching kids about rescuing people on the beach, telling, like, a gruesome story about how a plane just crashed and they're gonna have to, like, put eyeballs back into people's heads. Yeah. So he's telling this gruesome story, and then the kids are taught that they're supposed to rescue people.
So Hoops. Cookie and Hoops are on the beach, and the scouts come to, quote, unquote, save them, which results in Hoops ending up covered in bandages by all these children. And then he's running down, like, the street looking like a mummy. Bobcat's looking like Godzilla. There's, like, preppies and cars chasing people. It's. It's pandemonium here.
[01:32:58] Speaker D: Yeah, just like it.
Let's. Let's get as many weird costumes as we can. Even the costumes to begin with, the preppy costumes, those are already movie prop costumes. We got some actual movie within a movie prop costumes. Let's just make it look wild. And chaotic.
[01:33:13] Speaker A: It is indeed. One crazy summer.
And, like, again, there's a lot of kids in this movie. So in Better Off Dead, we had the paperboy with the $2.
In this movie, we have squid. We have the Kaiju toddler. Now we've got these scouts that are, like, rescuing people by basically capturing them and bandaging them against their will. I kind of like that Holland works with all these kids in his movies.
[01:33:38] Speaker D: I think a lot of times, especially in that era, like, people. Whenever there's a kid in a movie, people kind of cringe. But, like, I think what Savage Steve Holland does is, like, let's make these kids either really annoying or really creepy or really weird.
[01:33:50] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, for sure. Like the dark side.
And, like, kids are kind of dark sometimes, so it's more realistic that way.
All right. And then there's a scene, like a sort of typical 80s movie scene where Hoops gets cornered by Teddy and his preppy gang, and they're gonna beat him up. But then Cassandra says she bets they can't beat Hoops at basketball. Of course, we, the audience, know Hoops is terrible at basketball, and of course he loses.
And then Cassandra says that she knows Dao. Like, and he's like, what is some kind of martial art? And she's always like, no, Dao is the chemical company that makes Mace, and she makes mace is the Preppies. And they're defeated. But Cassandra's mad at Hoops because she didn't. He didn't come to her concert. And it's kind of like the. Where we're left right now.
[01:34:42] Speaker D: The other weird joke about this scene is that since they didn't have a basketball, they're apparently playing basketball with a.
[01:34:49] Speaker A: Light bulb that can bounce a globe lamp. Yes. Yeah, the hoop, too.
[01:34:57] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:34:59] Speaker A: They, like. They, like, somehow hook him onto the side of the building because that's the kind of thing preppies did in 80s movies.
Yes.
[01:35:06] Speaker D: And Ack Ack is like, since it's a human hoop, like, he's actually trying to cheat and, like, move his arms to help John Cusack, and he still can't get it in.
[01:35:14] Speaker A: Yep.
[01:35:14] Speaker D: The Preppies don't even, like, complain about him cheating because, like, yeah, he's not gonna get it anyway.
[01:35:19] Speaker A: Yep.
[01:35:19] Speaker D: Let him do whatever he wants.
[01:35:22] Speaker A: All right, I'm gonna begin our spoiler section now. So if you have not seen One Crazy Summer and you don't want to be spoiled as to the rest of the movie, please turn it off now and come back later.
Now we come to a montage. John Cusack. Hoops feels really bad about missing out on Cassandra's concert, and he wants. Wants to help her raise the money to get the house back. So Hoops and his friend are in a montage passing out flyers for her show and making an animated advertisement that they. They're going to show at the drive in which Ryan mentioned before. They get a great song for this montage, like the movie. The music in this movie overall doesn't feel too inspired to me, but Would I Lie to you by the Arithmics on a montage is beautiful.
[01:36:04] Speaker C: Killer. Absolutely. Killer choice.
[01:36:07] Speaker A: Yeah. David, actually, what do you think about the. The music choices in general? Because, like, I. I know, like, you. You do like composing for movie soundtracks at times.
[01:36:15] Speaker C: Sure, yeah, absolutely. But, yeah, this is like a, you know, such a specific era. And I mean, this is one of the most 80s movies, like, ever, even though there's obviously much more famous ones. This movie is just so damn 80s. And the music reflects that really well, whether it's the, you know, the actual song she sings or just the background music.
It's all really good, though. It all fits really well.
[01:36:42] Speaker A: Like, there's a lot of Beach Boys. They managed to get a lot of Beach Boys songs on this soundtrack.
[01:36:47] Speaker C: Yeah, it's kind of a pretty big mix. But it all just feels so at home in what we think of when we think of 80s movies.
[01:36:55] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. I, like, personally, it wasn't one of my favorites, I will admit. Like, I think they got good, good songs, but, like, they didn't kind of, like, cohere to me the way some soundtracks do, you know, where, like.
[01:37:04] Speaker C: Sure, that feels like that makes sense. It's. Yeah, it's kind of a little all over the place, but it's all good, though. So that's why I was. I was with it.
[01:37:13] Speaker A: Anyway, so. Yeah. Any comments about the montage?
[01:37:17] Speaker B: Yes, this. This is when it started to endear itself to me because I think I enjoy these, you know, gotta save the.
[01:37:26] Speaker A: The.
[01:37:27] Speaker B: The show and, you know, and they, you know, this ragtag group gets together and they. They're gonna make it happen. And yes, I got a big kick out of them sending the page down, you know, the table and everybody drawing on it or something. I'm like, what's happening here? But.
And then the little sister's there and I think the dog is at the end too, coloring. So I was like, okay, that's kind of cute. I kind of like that. And then Cassandra sees, you know, what they're doing, and there's a cute little look across the street between H.
Sandra. I'm like, oh, that's nice. I like that. So, yes, it's. This is. This is the turning point for me, actually, of starting to be like, okay, can handle this.
[01:38:10] Speaker A: Good, good. The montage worked for you.
[01:38:13] Speaker B: It did.
[01:38:13] Speaker D: I. I love any time that, like, a creator's weird, personal art is, like, put into one of their, like, major, like, narrative pieces.
Like, it's kind of like Miranda July. Like, you've seen the movie. You and me and everyone, we know where it's like, she does, like, really weird experimental art pieces and galleries that, like, it's experimental. But then, like, my thing is, like, when you have an experiment, what are you then going to do with it once the experiment's done? And she found a way to fit all of her pieces into a narrative, and it works in the story. And this, you know, these weird sketches that he does that maybe, you know, they wouldn't necessarily fit in a story. It's not like characters. It's just like, hey, I have this character who's trying to impress a girl by making art. Why don't I just have him do the art? And we get to see everyone coloring it and you get to see, like, very personal, savage Steve Holland art injected into the story. And I love whenever that happens.
[01:39:09] Speaker A: Cool. Now, Ryan, is it usual practice of animators to have a dog in the animation line?
[01:39:15] Speaker D: Absolutely. It's necessary. Part of the process, us.
[01:39:21] Speaker A: All right, so, yes, now we. We have. So that the show is being advertised. That's underway. But they also decide they're going to get revenge on Teddy for just being a jerk in general, I guess, by throwing lobsters into his pool, where he practices swimming while wearing water wings, mind you, he likes to wear water wings in the pool. And apparently the cat. They actually did dump lobsters in a pool. Like, real lobsters.
And then they ate lobsters for lunch that day. But that does not seem economically smart to me somehow.
Like, I don't know, would a fake lobster or a real lobster cost more? It's hard to say.
[01:39:58] Speaker B: And would you want to dump lobster in chlorine and then eat it?
[01:40:03] Speaker A: Correct. I mean, possibly it wasn't chlorinated. I don't know. It's a lot of mysteries there. What do you guys think about the lobster attack scene, though? Was it worth it? Was it worth it, dumping a bunch of lobsters into this pool?
[01:40:17] Speaker C: Everything's always worth everything in this movie.
[01:40:21] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:40:21] Speaker B: I mean, Teddy's an ass. He deserves that.
Yeah.
And doesn't Cassandra get it? Or no Cookie. Cookie gets bit in the ass too. And she deserved it too. They're meanie people. It's like the little kids in their faces getting stuck. Stop being mean.
[01:40:39] Speaker A: But like a bully, deserve it. Did the lobsters?
[01:40:42] Speaker B: Did the lobsters. Well, I wish it was. Yeah. Done humanely for the poor lobsters.
[01:40:48] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, I guess eating them at least like makes it a little more a dual use in this case, but. Yeah, but I just, it doesn't feel economically feasible to me. I just don't know. Maybe I just think of lobsters as being more expensive than they are. But this also gives us another Jaws reference. Like Ryan, I think mentioned earlier with the Jaws music while he's being bitten by the lobster and so forth.
[01:41:10] Speaker D: Yeah, 80 80s movies are very big on how fun revenge is. Nowadays revenge movies are famous for being like, about how revenge destroys your soul and you should never do it. 80s movies were like, isn't it fun to just mess with people?
[01:41:24] Speaker B: Yes.
[01:41:24] Speaker D: When they're mean to you?
[01:41:26] Speaker B: Yes.
[01:41:26] Speaker A: True.
[01:41:27] Speaker B: That is spot on. True. Yes.
[01:41:31] Speaker A: Wow. Now I want a letterbox list of all the revenge movies of the 80s. That would be cool to look at.
Puzzle pieces, David. Puzzle pieces. Yes.
[01:41:39] Speaker C: You got it.
[01:41:41] Speaker A: And now Cassandra's concert. So we do get to see Demi Moore sing here. She sings a song called Don't Look Back, which, I mean, I didn't find it particularly inspired. But I think, David, that you like this Don't Look Back song. If I, I either, I read this somewhere in like one of your comments or something. I don't know, I don't, I don't.
[01:41:58] Speaker C: Remember if I posted anything about it somewhere. But I, I do like it though. I, I thought that it was perfectly fine and like, you know, fit the, you know, fit the vibe of the moment.
I thought it was a, a good one for her character to be singing.
[01:42:12] Speaker A: It's kind of like don't look back and there's like don't look back, oh baby, baby, don't look back kind of. I don't remember any of the other lyrics literally, but I remember that a little bit.
[01:42:26] Speaker B: I get kind of a kick out of the whole band. Like when do they rehearse? When it. Who are these? Who was the rest of the band? I thought it was just like her and her guitar, you know, but no, sir, it's.
[01:42:38] Speaker C: Wasn't the bass player another one of these like 60 year old extras?
[01:42:44] Speaker B: I don't remember.
[01:42:45] Speaker A: You know, I didn't actually look at them. I did notice that like the backup singers were all wearing maid costumes. And Savage Steve Holland said that, like, the costumer kind of didn't get them costumes, so they had to wear the maid costumes. And I'm like, he was having some problems with the costume department.
[01:43:03] Speaker C: Sure sounds like it. Yeah.
[01:43:05] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:43:05] Speaker B: All of a sudden, there's backup singers.
[01:43:08] Speaker E: What?
[01:43:09] Speaker B: Incredible.
[01:43:11] Speaker A: Cassandra apparently had friends the whole time that we just didn't know about.
[01:43:16] Speaker B: Right.
[01:43:17] Speaker A: But people are having fun at this concert. William Hickey, playing Teddy's rich grandpa, is wheeling around in his wheelchair, enjoying. Enjoying the hell out of the show. And we're gonna learn later they didn't have to go in a regatta because Teddy's grandpa's a fan of Cassandra's music and wanted to give her the house anyway. Right?
Yeah.
I mean, don't you guys think so? Do you think it was necessary for them to win a regatta?
[01:43:39] Speaker D: No, but it's a nice denouement.
[01:43:42] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:43:42] Speaker A: Ooh. That might be the only time denouement is gonna be used in reference to this movie in history. I don't know. I like it.
Taking it seriously and. Yeah. But yeah, Cassandra, after making all this money, you know, at her concert, she made $3,000 at this concert somehow, by the way, people. I don't know how that happened. What's our math here? How many people were there? I don't know.
[01:44:07] Speaker B: Let's. It was magical.
Maybe they charged a lot per person.
[01:44:11] Speaker C: It was a magical.
[01:44:12] Speaker B: Maybe the grandfather put in the rest.
[01:44:15] Speaker A: That's true. That's possible.
[01:44:17] Speaker B: At the bank. Oh, my gosh. He takes the money to the bank.
[01:44:21] Speaker D: Maybe the bar gave him a cut of the. The. The. The drinks they ordered.
[01:44:25] Speaker A: I don't know.
Yeah. Anyway, it's a pretty good take for a concert. A small concert in the 1980s, I gotta say. But. Yeah, Cassandra goes to the bank, but it's all in vain because the Asian banker tells her that the mortgage has already been bought out.
And they. Too bad. The mortgage already was sold by the bank.
And then outside, I think.
I don't remember where this happens. Oh, outside the house. The bulldozers are there, but somehow the house doesn't get bulldozed by the end of the movie. They're very slow workers, these bulldozers, but the rich guy is out there taunting them, and then he kicks the little girl's dog, who is apparently named Bosco. And did you guys notice the veterinary scene? Please tell me, David, that at least you saw this.
[01:45:08] Speaker C: So wait, so what. What is the scene exactly?
[01:45:12] Speaker A: The vet hospital. Please tell me you noticed at the vet hospital that the Scene opens with a dog pushing a cat in a wheelchair.
[01:45:19] Speaker B: Yep, I saw that.
[01:45:20] Speaker C: God, how did I not see that?
[01:45:23] Speaker A: It's.
[01:45:23] Speaker D: Yeah, the joke is it's an animal hospital, but not for animals. It's also for and by animals.
[01:45:28] Speaker C: Goodbye, animals as well. God, I love that.
[01:45:31] Speaker B: See, it is true that if you don't have your eyes on this film the whole time, you do miss these moments.
I caught this moment and boy, oh, boy, am I better for it.
[01:45:43] Speaker C: Oh, yeah, guys, I guess I have to watch this movie a third time. So.
[01:45:49] Speaker A: You at least have to see that part because that part is beautiful anytime.
[01:45:53] Speaker C: That's wonderful.
[01:45:54] Speaker A: Not really. Since the golden age of Hollywood, like In the early 30s, have we seen animals, like pushing, dressed up as doctors pushing other animals. There's like, when I was researching. This is an aside, but when I was researching, researching Singing in the Rain, which has songs from the Broadway Melody, there was a movie called the Dog Way Melody, which was a parody of the Broadway melody using all dogs in the cast. Like, they would make these little shorts with just like dogs singing and dancing, appearing to sing and dance and do things back in the day.
Anyway, total aside, that's incredible.
All right.
Yeah. Oh, and the only time the little girl speaks in the movie, I think, is when she says Bosco.
All right, now we are 1 hour and 7 minutes into the movie with only 26 minutes left to go. And now we're going to start talking about the sports in this movie, ladies and gentlemen. Now, I mean, we've had sports, movie, we've had some basketball, to be fair, but only now we're going to talk about the regatta, which has become the plan. And there's this, like, montage of them preparing, like, the crappiest looking boat I've ever seen.
Have any of you ever been worked on boats, anything like that?
[01:47:04] Speaker C: I've barely been on boats, so no.
[01:47:09] Speaker D: So, yeah, I never really been involved in boats, but as I mentioned, I was involved with regatta champions.
I used to do custom comics for people. And one of the first jobs I got was a woman asked me to make a comic for her husband who was a regatta champion, about how great he is at boat sailing. And I had just started this business, so I was like, I want to build my portfolio. I don't have any customers. I was charging nothing. It's $5 a page for completed comics. And she was like, his birthday's in four days. I need a 24 page book.
[01:47:42] Speaker A: Oh.
[01:47:42] Speaker D: And I'm like, oh, I don't know if I can do that. But this. But this woman is very rich, so, like, maybe all her rich friends will want to order from me. So I put everything into this comic. And I kept asking her for any information.
The only thing she would send me was a photo of him that was the smaller than a postage stamp and so pixelated that like, you couldn't. It was like. Like a video game avatar, basically. And I'm like, do you have any other pictures? She's like, no.
Can you tell me anything about him? The only thing she would tell me is what kind of boat he had.
So I spent four days.
No. No. Sleep. Making this comic. I made it about how, like, he was racing against all the famous boats of literature and history and he. He won. And I did all this research and it. It. She gave me so little time that I had to hire someone else to color it. And I had to pay them more than she was paying me to make those comics. I was, for this book, didn't sleep awake five days, send it to her and woke up. Her response was, I don't really like it. It doesn't look like my husband. And you can't even tell that his eyes are blue.
And also he doesn't really have that kind of boat. And I'm like, that's the only thing you told me in the picture. He wouldn't give me a picture. And also it's a comic. How you supposed to tell his eyes are blue? And I was so mad that when I watched this movie, I'm like, yeah, I hate regatta people. People get them.
[01:48:59] Speaker B: Oh, I am so devastated for you.
I'm sorry. My husband also does comics on commission, and he has plethora of information before.
What a terrible client.
[01:49:16] Speaker A: That was awful.
[01:49:18] Speaker D: He's your husband. You don't have any pictures of your husband? She's like, no, just make the comic.
[01:49:22] Speaker B: What a weirdo.
[01:49:24] Speaker A: Oh, God, that's terrible.
Well, yeah, that's not giving regatta people a good reputation here. I don't know, man.
I don't.
[01:49:33] Speaker B: Okay, I don't know any regatta people. But Jennifer and I grew up on a beautiful lake and people did have sailboats. And my whole life, I've always wanted to learn how to sail.
[01:49:46] Speaker A: There is a Minneapolis sailing club. I'm pretty sure it is. And.
[01:49:50] Speaker B: And I've had my eye on it for 10 years. And one of these years, I'm gonna learn to sail.
Well, get on the land of 10,000. Listen, I trust the timing of my life. It's not the right time, but I.
[01:50:06] Speaker A: Ain'T dead yet, so well, you know, Sophia apparent. Apparently it only takes, like, a few days to learn the entire sport of sailing and to revamp a really terrible boat that has holes in it and. And, like, eels are falling out of. So good news for you is it's only going to take a couple days once you decide to do it.
[01:50:25] Speaker B: Awesome.
Thank God.
[01:50:28] Speaker A: According to the montage in One Crazy Summer, that is. I did.
[01:50:31] Speaker B: I did enjoy this other montage moment. I'm like, my God, not one, but two montages where we're gonna pull it all together.
[01:50:40] Speaker A: And.
[01:50:41] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, so I was happy about that, too.
[01:50:46] Speaker A: And then Hoops reluctance to go on a boat is somehow cured by Cassandra kissing him on a dock, at which point they fall into the water.
Like, okay, yeah, sure.
Things are very easily resolved in this film.
Oh, and finally, they steal an engine from Teddy's car to use in their boat.
So, yeah, like, yeah, I tried to learn some things about sailing for this. This show, and I learned a few things. The main thing I learned is I'm pretty sure they would not be able to pull this off. That's. That's about it. That's kind of an understatement.
[01:51:24] Speaker D: They don't just steal the engine. They chainsaw the car and attach the car in the inside of the boat. And I'm pretty sure that car costs more than $3,000.
So they're probably gonna have to, like, have legal proceedings where they have to, like, replace that car, and it's.
They're gonna have to win a few more sailboat races to pay for that guy.
[01:51:44] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. I'm pretty sure they're also disqualified for the sailboat race. I mean, Teddy's boat would also be disqualified from the sailboat race because there's massive cheating going on there. But. Yep, yep.
Yeah. A few things before we get to, like, the. The boat race, a few things I learned about sailing as a sport. So. So in the movie, they show a few different parts to the race. There's rowing, then there's raising the sails, then they're starting the engines at a certain point. Now, for my reading, I could not find any sailboat races that involve a section with engines. And in fact, many of them prohibit engines being on the boats. So I'm not really sure where this idea came from, per se.
If anyone knows different, please let me know.
And unless these guys had been sailing for a long time now, George goes there every summer, like, Joel Murray's character apparently goes to the island every summer. So. And Ack Ack seems to live there. And Store the stork twins. So maybe they know how to sail, like, if we're being generous. But unless they've been sailing for a long time, I doubt they could have won a regatta. Like the sailing rules for world sailing. Like, there's a PDF that's 158 pages long about the rules of sailing. Yeah, okay. And then it's more than just going fast. So sailing is about more than just going fast. Instantsailing.com said the aim of regattas is to cross the finish line first. However, the speed alone is no decisive factor for victory in the different races, but particularly the strategy and tactics of the individual sailors. It is only through the use of tactical maneuvers, the accurate observation of the enemy. It says the enemy on this website, by the way, and the assessment of possible wind directions that the sailors are able to be faster and reach the finish line before the other participants. So it sounds like there's a great deal of like, you know, strategy involved, you know, in sailboat racing. But there's like. In terms of sailboat racing, though, as a sport, it is pretty easy to get into if you have the money, I guess, because people can enter sailing races of different varieties at any age or skill level. There's a professional and amateur regattas and they serve different purposes. Some have big entry fees, some don't. You know, some are professional, some are amateurs. So, like, it's a sport that people can put. Participate in. And this, the race did sort of follow a typical style, which is a lot of them are a loop or triangle route where you kind of go back to the beginning. But yeah, they wouldn't be able to win this race. I mean, it's pretty obvious. Right? But I mean, it's even more unlikely in this movie than in most 80s sports movies like Karate Kid. I can buy it shows the steps, it shows the process. Right. But this is kind of like this. I'm kind of like, I don't know.
[01:54:27] Speaker B: With all these other believable elements in the film. Yeah.
[01:54:34] Speaker A: Yeah, that's true. I mean, it's not a really. But like, the thing is that you want to have. In an absurdist comedy, I think it is important to have something that feels grounded at times. I don't know. Not always. Maybe went on American Summer, wasn't particularly grounded, but.
But Better Off Dead had certain points that felt grounded. And in Better Off Dead, he's. He's trying to win a ski race and he does seem to be a somewhat decent skier, at least at times in the movie.
So I don't know, this one is like, pushing the believability a little more.
All right, anybody want to say things about the boat race or boat racing?
[01:55:09] Speaker D: Yeah. So as someone who is already disliking these people because they reminded me of my regatta customers when they cut off Odie's tongue. As a person who's professionally made Odie comics mix, then they're. They're really the bad guys for me.
[01:55:25] Speaker A: Yeah. Odie is the figurehead that they've put up on their boat, like to represent their boat. And. Yeah. And then Jeremy Piven's character eats the. The stuffed animal tongue.
[01:55:36] Speaker B: Gross.
[01:55:37] Speaker A: It's.
[01:55:37] Speaker B: See, I blinked and missed that part. So.
[01:55:40] Speaker C: Yeah.
[01:55:40] Speaker A: Oh, yeah.
Lord, it's just joke, joke, joke, joke, joke in this movie. Yeah.
We're in this case tragedy. Because we don't want to mess with Odie.
Sure.
[01:55:51] Speaker B: Totally.
[01:55:52] Speaker A: Yeah.
And yeah, their. Their whole presentation of their boat is like the underdogs, right? They have like a homemade sail. They have bowling shirts instead of preppy Lacoste shirt uniforms.
Their boat is like, painted with, like, flames on the side. Yeah, they got a whole thing. But my. But something I noticed when I watched this movie even as a kid. Why is Cassandra not on the boat? Why is Hoops on the crew who doesn't even like boats? But Cassandra's not there.
[01:56:18] Speaker D: Yeah. They act as though if Hoops doesn't isn't the captain, it's all going to fall apart. And I'm like, why? He's the worst. He's the worst choice.
Why would you want. Why would you need him? Why would you want him? Let him stay somewhere else and let her be involved.
[01:56:35] Speaker B: Yeah. It's a mystery.
[01:56:37] Speaker A: Okay. And now we're into the boat race. So they've started off the boat race. They're rowing.
They get to the part where they put the sails up. And now we have some sabotage that happens in the boat race. And I've got a little clip of that.
Check this out.
I don't believe it.
[01:56:55] Speaker E: Aloha. We're back. How are ya, Eddie, get this thing going faster.
[01:57:01] Speaker A: Oh, come on, dad.
[01:57:02] Speaker E: The wind's dying down.
[01:57:03] Speaker A: We're almost to the edge buoy.
[01:57:04] Speaker E: I'm not taking any chances.
God damn it. Why don't you ever listen to me? I can win.
The only way to win, Theodore, is to cheat.
Remember, a little hole in their hull will slow them down just enough.
[01:57:20] Speaker A: Oh, my God.
[01:57:21] Speaker E: He's knocking mine. Get down.
What the hell is that? Teddy, come back here.
Come back here. Here right now, boy.
[01:57:36] Speaker D: Oh, my God.
[01:57:37] Speaker A: Giant Dolphin rabies.
[01:57:39] Speaker E: Come back here, Kenny.
Theodore.
Come on, guys, the wind's coming up. Let's set sail. Let's get out of here.
[01:58:02] Speaker A: So what you just heard was Teddy's dad was messing with their boat.
He takes down part of the boat and then Hoops has to make an impossible basketball shot to put the sail back up. But then the Foam two dolphin bumps into the side of Teddy's boat. The dad falls out, and Teddy's dad gets swallowed up in Foam two.
The Foam two dolphin, it was. It was pretty funny on screen, I thought.
I mean, you're glad that he gets.
[01:58:32] Speaker B: His comeuppance because he's such a meanie pants.
[01:58:36] Speaker C: Exactly.
[01:58:38] Speaker A: I love the shot that's from inside Foam 2's mouth where you just. It's getting closer and closer to the dad.
It's like we're sort of seeing a clip from the movie Foam 2. You know what I mean?
Yeah.
[01:58:52] Speaker D: Dolphin is just so goofy looking. Those. Those weird eyes and. And weird little. Like, it's supposed to be scary, but its mouth is so tiny.
[01:59:03] Speaker A: So. Steve Holland Savage. Steve Holland did it in his interview with Robert V. Galuzzo. Talked about working with the Foam2 dolphin. He said, I heard all the stories about Jaws and how the shark never worked. We had our stupid dolphin. Same problem.
I thought, what am I doing? Whatever they couldn't do with Jaws, I figured I'd be able to do with the dolphin because it had been 10 to 15 years or whatever, but it was a disaster. That stupid dolphin.
[01:59:32] Speaker D: Yeah, you can. You can tell it didn't really do anything in that shot you mentioned where the camera is inside its mouth, where the actor is clearly shoving his hand inside the mouth because there's no other way to have it attack him. He's like throwing himself inside of it. And I imagine he's probably actually in the water.
It's probably cold. He's like, can we get this over with? Yeah, sure. Here. Oh, no, it bit me.
[01:59:55] Speaker A: Yeah, that's about what it looks like. Yep.
Oh, man.
Yeah. And how did Mondo Pictures lose this dolphin? Well, I guess we find out they lost the dolphin because squid had.
Squid stole the dolphin and was piloting it around.
[02:00:10] Speaker D: Revenge.
[02:00:12] Speaker A: This kid gets around, man. Oh, yeah. Revenge for kicking her dog 100%.
And. Yeah. And then Hoops, of course, there is a sports movie element here, but not really related to sailing. When Hoops makes that impossible shot where he reattaches the sail like this tiny circle that he has to throw something into to reattach the sail why now? Why can he shoot the basketball now? I don't know, love.
[02:00:39] Speaker B: He's overcoming all kinds of fears. He's on a boat.
He's gonna make the basket. Awesome.
[02:00:48] Speaker A: All right. And then we also get Ack Ack's ark gets completed because Teddy's boat also sabotages a boat. I think of Australian guys or something, and one of them falls off the boat, and Ack bravely jumps into the water to rescue the sailor from another boat. And I was looking at the world sailing rules and, in fact, rendering aid to fellow people in the boat races and is considered quite good sportsmanship in a regatta. So Akak's, you know, not only following his father's advice to be brave and rescue people, but he is really within the traditions of the sport of sailing here. So good on Ack Ack.
[02:01:23] Speaker D: I guess I was saying earlier that I didn't think he had an arc, but I'm realizing he did. It's just that all of John Cusack's friends have very similar vibes, and it's hard to remember who did what.
[02:01:33] Speaker A: Yeah, for sure. You mean Bobcat Goldthwaite has the same vibe when he's walking around going, like, all the time?
[02:01:42] Speaker D: The voice is obviously very different, but they both have unique voices and are short, scruffy guys, you know?
[02:01:51] Speaker A: Oh, get this. I found out by watching very carefully, too, that that Claystork guy actually has a bit too, like. Which you really have to be paying a lot of attention to notice. So Clay Stork, the other twin. Right. He is reading Architectural Digest at one point.
At another point, he's made a building out of his mashed potatoes, which could be also a Close Encounters thing. Yeah, yeah. But then you see him at the beach and he's made, like, a perfect pyramid. So he's like an architect guy, like, like, the whole time. I don't know if the character did that himself, but he. He. There's three references where he's, like, being an architect. So he has a thing.
Amazing.
[02:02:30] Speaker D: I'll jump in if anybody has, like, knows Bobcat Goldthwaite from, like, these types of things.
He's actually, since, you know, doesn't do his acting as much and is now a director.
And World's Greatest dad is an amazing film. I think it's. It's my favorite Robin Williams performance. A very dark, dark movie, but it's incredibly funny. It's directed by Bobcat Goldthwaite, so.
So check out the stuff he's doing now when he's not going.
[02:03:00] Speaker C: He's had Such an interesting career, that guy. All kinds of stuff to tv directing and just, like, all over the place.
[02:03:07] Speaker A: Nice.
And let's see. So they're kind of losing the race, but they basically win because they have Teddy's car engine in their boat with the license plate still on it, which isn't very slick if you don't want to be caught.
We know they'd all be in jail at the end of this race in the real world, but. Yeah, yeah, this is. This is not the real world. This is Savage Steve Holland's world.
[02:03:33] Speaker C: Oh, yeah.
[02:03:35] Speaker A: So in Savage Steve Holland's world, they win the race, Hoops kisses Cassandra. George somehow ends up with Cookie.
The old man gives Cassandra her house, not because of the race, but because he liked her music at the concert.
And this one, too, the little sister's dog comes and there's a bunch of puppies and they all have mini cones on their heads.
[02:03:57] Speaker B: That was pretty cute.
[02:04:00] Speaker A: Like puppies. Puppies with mini cones.
But is Bosco a boy dog or a girl dog? I don't know.
[02:04:07] Speaker B: I don't know.
I don't think it matters.
Yeah, he just saw little doggies with little cones.
[02:04:15] Speaker A: David, did you see the mini cones? Please tell me you saw the mini cones.
[02:04:18] Speaker C: Saw the mini cones.
[02:04:19] Speaker A: Okay, good, good. Yeah, good.
[02:04:21] Speaker C: Good stuff.
[02:04:22] Speaker A: Okay. And then Akak's dad is proud that he rescued the guy and welcomes him to come back home.
And then we have the final animated sequence. So we have a final animated sequence wrapping up the story where Hoops is narrating it and talking about how he finally found love.
And the cute and fuzzy bunnies get blown up. In this sequence, two of the cute and fuzzy bunnies were animated to look like Siskel and Ebert because they had ripped apart Better Off Dead. So if you look, you can see that they look like Siskel and Ebert.
[02:04:54] Speaker B: That's awesome. And I missed that because I was distracted that, you know, Cusack does this voiceover and.
[02:05:04] Speaker A: And.
[02:05:04] Speaker B: And he says that the, you know, the romance lasts all summer long.
And I was like, oh, summer, that's it. So I was.
Oh, I was put off by that a little bit.
[02:05:18] Speaker A: That's probably to do with the alternate ending. They had an alternate ending where Hoops was going to leave to go to the Rhode Island School of Design. He says goodbye to Cassandra, and when he arrives at the school, he meets a character who's played by Diane Franklin, who was his love interest in Better Off Dead. Although she's not playing the character from Better Off Dead, just a different character.
And it's implied that they're gonna get together, which I guess was just sort of a nod to fans of Better Off Dead, but they decided to cut it out, so.
[02:05:44] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm glad. But I was like, yeah, well, had I watched this as a kid, I would have been like, yeah, all summer long and thought that was like an eternity. But now I'm like, oh, geez.
[02:05:57] Speaker A: That's it?
[02:05:58] Speaker B: All that for just a few more weeks. Fine.
[02:06:01] Speaker A: Well, I mean, it's kind of realistic. When you go off to college, a lot of times you leave behind yourself summer romance.
Yeah.
[02:06:08] Speaker B: Yeah.
[02:06:09] Speaker A: And then the kicker for the movie, Uncle Frank finally wins his million dollars. But he becomes so excited that he fails to tell his name or address and pulls the phone cord out of the wall. And someone else wins instead.
And Akak's been storing a bazooka in that room. And he blows up the radio station.
Yep. That was the end.
[02:06:32] Speaker B: I was like, wow.
[02:06:38] Speaker A: What kind of wow?
[02:06:41] Speaker B: Like, I wasn't sure if I like that ending, I guess.
I mean, well, because thinking about it in terms of, like, a sports romcom.
[02:06:52] Speaker A: Okay. Yeah.
[02:06:53] Speaker B: So the. The romcom element had already been. The. The romantic part had been wrapped up. Up, and. And I think I would have. Yeah, okay. I did like the ending, though, with Uncle Frank. That was hilarious.
[02:07:05] Speaker A: But then. And then.
[02:07:07] Speaker B: And then we had. It just ended with that. But then it cut again to a whole another kind of third ending with that bombing and.
[02:07:14] Speaker A: Yeah.
[02:07:15] Speaker B: Twins running toward the. Toward it. Yeah.
[02:07:18] Speaker A: Yeah, they're gonna roast marshmallows on it. Anybody else, what are your thoughts on the end of the film?
[02:07:24] Speaker C: It was just a.
It all kind of was just another grouping of just random fun stuff. Like, I. I mainly like the.
The callback to Uncle Frank. Like, that was my favorite of those. But, like, of the. The main story, it was just a bunch of, like, random silliness.
[02:07:42] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, that's what it is. I think it. That's maybe. Sophia, part of the reason your expectations for this movie may have harmed the viewing experience is thinking of it as a sports rom. Rom com instead of one. One crazy summer with its wacky wackiness.
Totally. Yeah.
[02:07:58] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[02:08:01] Speaker A: I mean, but I insist that it can still fit into the rom com genre because we have kissing, we have love, we have comedy. It's just on the comedy end. It's far onto the comedy end.
[02:08:12] Speaker B: Indeed.
[02:08:15] Speaker A: So, yeah, let's talk some. Any other thoughts about the ending before we do sports movie tropes?
[02:08:20] Speaker D: I think just because it's. You Know, it's. This is a parody film. So if you describe what happens at the end, it's. It's very generic in the way any of these movies would end, but the way each of these plot lines is shown on screen is just bizarre and strange and funny.
[02:08:37] Speaker A: That's true. That's true. And over the. Everything's over the top. Everything's exaggerated.
[02:08:42] Speaker C: Yeah, totally.
[02:08:43] Speaker A: Yeah.
So I have, like, kind of a working list of sports movie tropes I have, and some of the ones I identify in this movie, we have the underdog wins, which is a very common one.
Team bonding. I think we have a fair amount of team bonding here.
Something more being at stake than just winning a game. So we have the house.
[02:09:04] Speaker C: That's a big one. Yeah.
[02:09:06] Speaker A: Yeah. But the funny thing is, my husband pointed out, you never. There's supposed to be a bunch of old people living in Cassandra's house. We never see them.
[02:09:15] Speaker C: Theoretical. Higher stakes.
[02:09:18] Speaker A: They should have, like, gotten those punks from the. The first scene to, like, dress up as old people. Aren't they there?
[02:09:24] Speaker B: Once there's a moment with the bulldozers, there's like. Like, a nurse, I think.
[02:09:30] Speaker A: Okay, like.
[02:09:31] Speaker B: And it's a nursing home.
[02:09:33] Speaker A: Yep. All right. I missed that. I missed it.
[02:09:35] Speaker B: Well, it was a split second, so it's okay that you missed it.
[02:09:39] Speaker E: It.
[02:09:40] Speaker A: There's a last second victory, like, in terms of, like, overcoming the odds and throwing that basketball into the W. Like, you know, using the basketball skills to, like, get the sail back on.
And there's a secret play. So this is a sports rom com trope or a sports movie trope where there's, like, a secret play. Like a secret thing they have going for them, which is the car. I would call that the secret play trope, but yeah, some of the things are missing. There's no inspirational speeches.
Not. Not like a tough coach or anything like that. No training montage. We don't understand how they learn to. To sail a boat. So I do.
[02:10:16] Speaker B: Like a training montage.
[02:10:18] Speaker A: Yeah, that's. We get the fixing up the boat montage instead. So.
[02:10:23] Speaker B: Yeah.
[02:10:24] Speaker A: Yeah. Any other tropes anybody noticed or would have liked to have seen?
[02:10:30] Speaker C: I think, like. Like you said, they covered quite a lot of those of, like, that genre tropes. Like, they kind of squeezed a lot of them in there.
[02:10:39] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Enough, Enough.
David. I did. Before you got to double features, I wanted to know if you'd observed any puzzle pieces that may have contributed to future movies or beyond what you have in your double features. Is there anything this reminded you of or brought to mind?
[02:10:53] Speaker C: Yeah, because I did the. The two things that I'm gonna bring up. I think this could have had an influence on both of those movies. So we'll talk about those in a little bit.
I'd also maybe throw in a little Cool World or American Splendor. As far as other, you know, movies that blend comic book and. And, you know, kind of over the top stories and things like that. Again, like, none of these, you know, sorry, I know this is a sports rom com, but I didn't really see much influence on other sports movies or rom coms. But certainly in the realm of movies about kind of out outsider artist cartoonists, you know.
[02:11:32] Speaker A: Sure, sure. And I think, like this movie is borrowing from, like, if we're doing what are this movie's puzzle pieces? Like Jaws is obviously like the big.
I don't know if you observe anything else that you would put into there.
[02:11:45] Speaker C: But yeah, that inspired this. But yeah, I mean, definitely, like movies about slackers and nerds and stuff like that. You could kind of fit in there as well.
[02:11:54] Speaker A: Sure, sure, sure.
All right, I guess we will then. Let's then move on to double feature recommendations.
So we get two each this week. And Ryan, let's start out loud. Tell us about your double features.
[02:12:08] Speaker D: Well, I kind of ranted on the Foul King earlier, which I think is a great sports comedy. So since I already did that, I'll switch that over. Say a little bit more about World's Greatest dad if you want some more Bobcat Goldthwait in your life.
It is a Robin Williams movie where Robin Williams is a frustrated author who no one will read his work. No one likes his work. And he has a terrible life and a terrible, terrible son. And one day his son dies accidentally by auto rotic asphyxiation.
And not wanting anyone to know that Robin Williams's character writes a fake suicide note for his son.
And this note kind of goes viral and inspires the entire world. And suddenly that's the first thing he's written that anyone cares about. So he keeps writing as his son. And it is dark and disturbing and incredibly, incredibly funny. Maybe my favorite Robin Williams performance, if you're ready for it. It's a dark film.
And my other one is 2022's funny pages. Just because like this film, it's about a frustrated artist who doesn't know what he wants out of life and doesn't know how to find love and doesn't know how to make connection.
And he makes connection by he learns that one of this cartoonist hero of his lives nearby and decides to do whatever it takes to become his best friend and make him his mentor. And it turns out this guy is the biggest, most depressing loser you'll ever meet in your life. And he then becomes tied to this guy in ways that make his life even worse.
[02:13:41] Speaker A: I have seen that one. I really like that. It was an enjoyable. I mean, enjoyable. It's dark, but it's. It was fun to watch. It was very interesting movie. So, yeah, definitely recommend that, too. Have you guys seen that one also?
No.
[02:13:54] Speaker C: No, I've always wanted to see that. I heard it was good.
[02:13:57] Speaker A: Yeah, I liked it. Yeah.
All right, David, what do you got for us?
[02:14:02] Speaker C: So I've got. Speaking of outsider artists, I'll start off with just a couple Years later in 1988, tape heads, which was directed by Bill Fishman, and it stars John Cusack and Tim Robbins and is just. They're about these. It's about these music video makers who they just get into all kinds of crazy stuff, and it's just super weird and out there, and it's just a celebration of just oddballs who make art, you know? And, like, that's like some of my favorite kind of characters to. To watch a movie about.
And speaking of outsider weirdo art, the next one is going to be the Tom Green vehicle, Freddy got fingered from 2001, which is much more out there, I think, than One Crazy Summer. But at the same time, like, it does have that same kind of heart of, like, these characters that are just so weird and so out there and wants to be a cartoonist, but ends up on this weird, ridiculous adventure along the way.
And, you know, Freddy Got Fingered, like, this movie is absurdist. One Crazy Summer, Freddy Got Finger is like the ultimate when it comes to absurdist. So, I mean, yeah, you're not gonna be able to, like, hang with it if you're not into that, because there's not, like, the 80s movie trope or even, like, any kind of movie structure in a traditional sense. But it is so wild and so much fun, and I. I absolutely love, love that movie.
[02:15:36] Speaker A: Yeah, I saw they put that on Criterion streaming recently. I didn't actually get around to watching it, but they had it on there, so I was like, interesting.
[02:15:43] Speaker C: It is the definition of not for everybody. But I feel like if you like weird 80s movies, tape heads could be for anyone who's into that.
[02:15:52] Speaker A: Cool.
[02:15:52] Speaker D: Cool.
[02:15:54] Speaker A: All right. So for my two double features, I picked the two other savage Steve Holland feature film. I didn't get Too creative here. And I didn't want to overlap with the double feature recommendations we picked on Better Off Dead. So the first one is Better off dead from 1985, I think. Sophia, you. There's a chance that you and other people who don't react well to One Crazy Summer might like Better Off Dead better.
I'm not really sure why. It just feels a little more serious at certain times. And it's definitely like Ryan, like you said, it feels more like kind of a passion project, more kind of like what was really in his soul. But, yeah, definitely check out Better Off Dead, especially if you like One Crazy Summer. If somehow you. I don't know how you would have seen One Crazy Summer and not seen Better Off Dead, but it is possible. So check it out. And also just watch it again to see all the weird jokes that you missed the first 10 times. I swear you will find something new if you pay a close attention to the film.
And second double feature recommendation is How I Got into College from 1989. Now, Savage, Steve Holland did not write this. He just directed it. But you can see some of his touches. He definitely brings back cast members from his other films. Curtis Armstrong, Diane Franklin, both make appearances in the movie.
And it's basically a story about this guy. He wants to go to the same college that this girl he has a crush on in high school is planning to go to. The problem is he's not really smart enough to get into it. And it's kind of his struggles of trying to get into this school.
But then also the girl herself starts losing faith in getting into this school. And for some reason, there's a whole plot line where the admissions office people have their own plot line going on. It's a very strange movie, but it's kind of fun. And Laura Flynn Boyle is in it and she's really good in this movie. Like, I would like, double feature this with, like, threesome, because it's another Laura Flynn Boyle movie. Or I would double feature it with Accepted as well, which is that movie about the kid who doesn't get into college and makes his own college. It's just a kind of fun. Like, it's got almost an early 90s sensibility because it's made in 89. And so it's kind of a fun, like, teen movie from that era. And yeah, it's worth watching. And I think Holland puts some of his touches onto it. I had to subscribe to this really weird streaming service called Indie Flicks just to watch it, though. It's really hard to find Sophia. What have you got for us?
[02:18:13] Speaker B: I chose empire records from 1995 because of that element of the group of kids or teenagers who figure out a way to raise the money to save the record store and that whole montage. And those are the parts that I liked about One Crazy Summer. So in that vein, that's where Empire Records came from. And Wynn from 1992, directed by Carol Ballard, who did Black Beauty and Flyaway Home.
It is actually about the America's cup and sailing and it stars Matthew Modine and Jennifer Grey and there's the love interest and they're trying to win the America's cup and so beautiful cinematography of Water and Sailing. So if you want. If you really are interested in that, where this One Crazy Summer kind of, you know, poked at it a little bit. If you want for real, watch Wind.
[02:19:19] Speaker A: Yeah, I was actually hoping that somebody would watch Wind because I knew I was aware of that movie and I wanted to watch it, but I just ran out of time to watch it. So I'm really glad you brought that in because I haven't seen it it and I wasn't able to access it.
[02:19:33] Speaker D: But yeah, America's cup is the actual yacht race that I had to make a comic about. So I. I will never watch that movie.
[02:19:40] Speaker A: Every time I talk to you, Ryan, or every time you're on the show, I'm always learning new things about your lore, so I love it.
[02:19:46] Speaker B: Oh, man.
[02:19:47] Speaker A: Ryan, you had some great stories on this episode, so thank you for that and thank you so much for coming to be.
Thank you so much for coming to be on the show again. It's been a real long time, but I'm glad to have you back here and wishing you all the success with all your projects that you've got going on. I know you had to cancel a trip here this summer, which really sucks because of our terrible political situation.
I can. Yep.
[02:20:08] Speaker D: Figured it was a bad time to bring my banned book writing, foreign born wife into the United States.
[02:20:14] Speaker A: Yeah. I do not blame you at all. I'm really, really sorry.
And I hope that we can figure out how to make this country work again in some way so that you can feel safe to come back. Back. Yeah. Yeah.
[02:20:27] Speaker D: What if we challenge the bad guys to a regatta?
If we win, they go to jail.
[02:20:34] Speaker A: Yay. Sounds good.
[02:20:36] Speaker C: Oh, yeah, I love it.
[02:20:38] Speaker A: Yeah, we're gonna need an assist from that rabid dolphin. The giant dolphin with rabies. Yeah. Okay.
And David, thank you. It's always a pleasure to have you on the show. David. Thank you so much for coming on again.
And yeah, you've made yourself quite a resume of wacky comedies at the this podcast. So, yeah.
[02:20:57] Speaker C: Yeah, I appreciate being the resident wacky comedy guy. So we'll find another one at some point.
[02:21:04] Speaker A: Nice. For sure. And David and Ryan, remind people where we can find your stuff again.
[02:21:09] Speaker C: You can find Piecing It Together at Piecing Pod on all the socials and by David Rosen for my music. And check out our record store while you're at it, wax tracks LV on Instagram.
[02:21:22] Speaker D: And just go to Ryan estrada.com and there's so much stuff on there. I I've done so many things. Go find them.
[02:21:30] Speaker A: Definitely go find them, everybody. All right. Thank you for listening, audience, and goodbye.
[02:21:36] Speaker D: Bye.
[02:21:37] Speaker C: Bye, guys.
[02:21:38] Speaker B: Bye.
