Every Rom Com 80: Better Off Dead

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hi, I'm Jen. [00:00:02] Speaker B: I'm Chris. [00:00:03] Speaker C: And I'm Jason. [00:00:05] Speaker A: And you're listening to Every Rom com, the podcast where we have fun taking romantic comedy seriously. [00:00:11] Speaker B: This week, we're gonna be going back to 1985 for a cult classic that had everyone asking for their $2. [00:00:21] Speaker C: We'll discuss the absurdist humor of writer director Savage Steve Holland. [00:00:27] Speaker A: And we'll hit the slopes as we discuss a sports rom com where John Cusack goes skiing with better off dead. Hello, listeners, and welcome back to Every Rom Com. You may notice this week I am without Sophia or Sybil or Serena, some of my regular women hosts. Usually I try not to have episodes of every rom com where there's more guys than girls, but I gotta tell you, these two podcast hosts are fantastic people. If you haven't heard them on our show before, both of them have been on every rom com before. And so I'll give you a little rundown of them and then we'll talk to them. First, we've got Jason Kleberg of the Force 5 Movie Podcast. You may have heard him before on our About Time episode or when he did us a favor and came on the he's just not that into you episode of the podcast. [00:01:42] Speaker C: Unforgettable. [00:01:44] Speaker A: Force 5 is a great podcast. I've also been on it a few times. I was on a top five rom com episode, top five summer movies episode, and top five montage movie episodes. Those were all fantastic. And yeah. And then I also really quick, before I get into talking to you both, I want to introduce also Chris Iannicone of the get me another Podcast. And Chris has also been on our show. He was on the LA Story episode, which has got to be one of my favorite episodes we've ever done of the podcast. Just so great, so great. [00:02:16] Speaker B: Oh, it was so much fun. [00:02:18] Speaker A: Yeah, you and Rob were just fantastic on that episode. We had so much fun. [00:02:22] Speaker B: Oh, we should do a podcast together. [00:02:25] Speaker A: And then I have also been over there on Get Me Another. I discussed French Kiss and Forget Paris. I discussed the Good Son, and most recently, I discussed one of my favorite movies, Piranha. Well, one of my favorite movies in that genre, in the horror genre, Piranha. [00:02:42] Speaker B: Oh, Piranha was terrific. [00:02:43] Speaker A: Yeah, terrific. And both of these guys have also been on each other's podcasts. We've got this, like, crazy podcast reunion going on right now. So thank you so much. Thank you so much, Jason and Chris, for coming on today. [00:02:56] Speaker B: Oh, it's a real pleasure. [00:02:57] Speaker C: Yeah, thanks for having us. [00:03:00] Speaker A: So I want to Catch up with you guys first. Jason, I want to catch up with you because it has been a little longer since we've been on each other's show. What's new these days with the Force 5 podcast? [00:03:11] Speaker C: Oh, still trucking along. Let's see. We've got top five grief episodes. And as you're listening to this, I'm currently planning the Halloween special, which we do every year. I don't have guests locked down for it yet. Maybe it's gonna be a Chris Ianicone. We'll see. But I've got some. Some cool categories that we'll be covering for the Halloween episode. So I'm always around. Indeed. [00:03:36] Speaker A: Oh, my gosh. That sounds amazing. I don't know if I've listened to one of your Halloween episodes before. That sounds really cool. Like, are you just ranking just mini categories to do with Halloween or. [00:03:47] Speaker C: Halloween episodes are a little different. So I usually have the listeners come up with five different categories that they want us to give from. So, for example, you might have a ghost movie, or you might have an entity movie, or you might have a haunted house movie. Like, there's just different categories. And so we each pick from those categories. It's a. It's a lot of fun, and it's really just to flesh out your October watch list. [00:04:09] Speaker A: Oh, that's spectacular. That is. That is wonderful. Jason, I also want to mention that I recently listened to your top five mother daughter movies episode, and that was a fantastic episode. And I really want to commend you on one of your picks. I don't want to spoil it, but you picked one of a movie that I have put on my list that I don't think it's taken seriously enough, and that may have a Legacy sequel coming out this weekend as we are recording. So I spoiled it a little. [00:04:34] Speaker B: Oh, I think I can guess. I think I can guess. [00:04:38] Speaker C: Yeah, that was a fun episode. That was the. The director of the shutter movie, the Surrender. She's such a. She's such a great guest. [00:04:45] Speaker A: You always have really great guests on your show, Jason. [00:04:47] Speaker B: You are like, oh, you do. [00:04:49] Speaker A: Yeah. And you were one of the first podcasts that, like, I really got into listening to as I became a podcaster. So, yeah, like, if I were making top five mov movie podcasts, you would be on the list. So, yeah, yours would be. [00:05:02] Speaker C: Both of yours would be on my list too. And Jen, I. I just. You're gonna hear this as it comes out, but I had Billy Ray Bruton on to do about grief, and we mentioned Your show and how you are the most prepared podcaster that we've both ever met. [00:05:18] Speaker B: That's absolutely true. I can absolutely attest to that. Oh, my goodness. Jen is the best. [00:05:25] Speaker A: It is a sickness, let me tell you. [00:05:27] Speaker B: Oh, no, it's a. It's a feature, not a bug. It's great. [00:05:31] Speaker C: Agreed. [00:05:32] Speaker A: Yeah. Billy Ray of. Speaking of Billy Ray, he will be heading off our sports rom com series, which will already be out as you listen to this we're doing. We did Challengers with him, so that's going to be super fun too. Yeah, nice. And then, Chris, I've talked to you pretty recently, so I know what's going on with your show, more or less. But, like, actually, I don't. I don't know what's going to be coming with your show by the time this episode is out, though, I don't know if we're going to get a preview of what's happening next on Get Me Another. I can only hope that you've run out of killer Jaws type movies and I get to find out first. [00:06:03] Speaker B: Well, for those who don't know, I host a podcast called Get Me Another. And what we do is in each series, we examine a blockbuster film and the impact that it had, and then we explore the films that tried in one way or another to replicate their success. We recently wrapped up our Get Me Another Jaws series in which we've been exploring all of the wave of movies that followed featuring animals of all varieties attacking humans. Jen, as you mentioned, you are on the Piranha episode, which was great. And we'll be starting our next series in November, which will be Get Me Another Die Hard. [00:06:42] Speaker A: Ooh. [00:06:43] Speaker C: Oh, I gotta be a guest. [00:06:44] Speaker B: Very excited. [00:06:45] Speaker C: Gotta be a guest on that series. [00:06:47] Speaker B: Well, you know, we're just starting to put it together, so I'll talk to you after the show. For sure. [00:06:54] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:06:54] Speaker A: Get me another Die Hard. That sounds like it's gonna be awesome. I want it. [00:06:58] Speaker B: It's gonna be a lot of fun. [00:06:59] Speaker A: And like, I know this, we're in a rom com podcast. They did do a rom com series on Get Me Another. They get it. They did Get Me another When Harry Met Sally. So if there's any listeners who are interested in hearing some more perspective on romantic comedies, you can go back and listen to some of those. But I hope there are also some horror fans on this podcast because I want to say that I listened to the Friday the 13th, some of the ones that I watched movies of Your Friday the 13th, 1, 2, 3, and 4 episodes on the first four Friday the 13th movies were fantastic. [00:07:29] Speaker B: Oh, thank you. [00:07:30] Speaker A: Yeah, I love them so much. And I'm planning to watch more Giallo so I can watch the g. Listen to the Giallo episodes that I haven't seen the movie for. I was cracking up so hard at the strange vice of Mrs. Ward, I have to say. [00:07:44] Speaker B: Strange? They're not that strange vice of Mrs. Ward, to be honest. Let's. Let's be fair. We don't want to be judgmental about these things. It's not really that strange. Strange. [00:07:53] Speaker A: That's what I was cracking up of. You were like the completely understandable vice of Mrs. Ward. [00:07:59] Speaker B: Exactly, exactly. Yeah. The Giallo series was a whole lot of fun. The great thing about our show is that we're able to switch genres so fluidly. So we do, you know, we do Conan the Barbarian, and then we move from that to When Harry Met Sally, and then we move from that to Indiana Jones to Friday the 13th. And it makes it. It's always changing. And that's, you know, I think that's one of the things I really like about it. [00:08:22] Speaker A: Yeah, very great. Both. Both of your podcasts, like, top five podcasts for me. So, yeah, just check them out, guys. Let's remind the audiences then, where we can find your podcast. I will also put this in the show notes. But, Jason, where can people find Force five? [00:08:37] Speaker C: Well, conveniently, wherever you're listening to this, you can find Force Five. You can also find it@Force Five podcast.com. [00:08:45] Speaker A: And Chris, how about you? Where can people look for. Get me another. [00:08:48] Speaker B: We can also be found wherever you're listening to this podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts. And you can follow us on Twitter, Instagram threads, and blue sky all at. Get me another pod. And yeah, we're out there. [00:09:04] Speaker A: Excellent. Well, I'll put this in the show notes. Listeners, look out for them. Fantastic podcast, seriously. And they are also very well prepared. So before we get started today, a few notes first. As usual, the beginning of the episode will have a spoiler free section, but we are going to start the spoilers pretty early in this particular episode. So listen out for that warning. Remember to follow our podcast on social media. Our Facebook page is every rom com, podcast and blog. Our Instagram is very Romcom. Our Twitter handle is very Romcom Pod. And you can also find us on bluesky vryromcom. And if you want to, you can also now listen to our episodes on our YouTube channelryromcom podcast. Please visit us on YouTube today and hit that subscribe button. They do have a pretty cool feature where you can jump to a specific topic within the video, which I love because we have kind of a long podcast. So if you want to skip straight to the double features at the end, you can do that. And as always, you can find the [email protected] send us feedbackeedbackeryromcom.com and if you like what you hear, please rate, review, and subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. And now let's get into the episode by listening to the trailer for Better Off Dead. [00:10:31] Speaker B: Does it ever feel like everyone's got. [00:10:33] Speaker C: More going than you do? [00:10:36] Speaker A: Oops. [00:10:39] Speaker B: That everyone is smart. So you're Al Meier's kid? [00:10:43] Speaker A: Yes, I am. [00:10:45] Speaker B: You look pretty stupid to me. Thank you. You say the best skier in town just ran off with your girlfriend. Even your younger brother does better than you do. And that nobody even cares. Beth broke up with me. [00:11:00] Speaker A: Oh, that's nice. [00:11:02] Speaker B: Well, you might be right. But remember one thing. [00:11:07] Speaker A: I haven't even been to New York City. [00:11:09] Speaker B: Nobody was ever better off dead. The truth is, I can out ski you any day of the week. Oh, really? [00:11:16] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:11:16] Speaker B: You want a race? I'll take you on any day, sucker. Go that way really fast. If something gets in your way, turn. All you need is gun. All right, now turn. I'm going to race, I'm going to lose, and I'm going to die. [00:11:35] Speaker A: In that order. Go. [00:11:36] Speaker B: And you'll never doubt yourself again. He's skiing on one ski. Better off death. That's a real shame when folks be throwing away a perfectly good white boy like that. An abnormal look at a normal teenager. [00:11:53] Speaker A: I love that they put one of their best lines in the trailer. [00:11:56] Speaker B: Oh, they do. They put a couple of their best lines in the trailer. What's interesting is that trailer puts so much emphasis on the skiing, which is certainly part of it, but kind of not all the time. [00:12:07] Speaker A: Yeah, actually, when I chose this and One Crazy Summer for the sports rom com series and then I rewatched them, and I'm like, man, there was a lot more sports in these movies. In my memory of them. [00:12:20] Speaker C: Yeah, I found it hard not to laugh during that trailer. And it really does highlight the skiing, which is really just in the beginning and the end. [00:12:28] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:12:31] Speaker A: Yeah, it's. I. But, you know, whatever gets the butts in the seats, I guess. Although I guess it didn't get that many butts in the seats in the end. I don't know how you would have accurately portrayed this movie, though. In the early 80s. The early and mid-80s. [00:12:44] Speaker B: That's the thing. So much of this movie is its uniqueness in the style, in the voice of Savage Steve Holland, that I think it just would have been hard to capture that in a trailer. [00:12:59] Speaker A: Yeah. And maybe it would have turned away more people. I don't know. I'm not sure if audiences were quite ready. But we will get into that in a moment. [00:13:08] Speaker B: Sure. [00:13:08] Speaker A: First, I guess we can. Unless anybody has any other trailer thoughts, I guess we can get into the basic facts about the film. [00:13:15] Speaker C: Yeah, let's do it. [00:13:16] Speaker A: All right. [00:13:17] Speaker B: Better Off Dead was released August 23, 1985. It was written and directed by Savage Steve Holland. It stars John Cusack as Lane Meyer, Diane Franklin as Monique, Kim Darby as Lane's mom, David Ogden Stiers as his dad, and Curtis Armstrong as Lane's friend, Charles demar. [00:13:42] Speaker C: All right, now, I'm going to talk about the basic premise here, but, Chris, I got a quick question for you. And this is going to be a bit awkward considering we don't know each other real well, but I was wondering if I could take out Beth. [00:13:58] Speaker B: Everybody's been asking me that recently, and I'm not thrilled about it, but, you know, she is. [00:14:02] Speaker C: She's. [00:14:03] Speaker B: She's definitely the one for me. I just know it. Unless, you know, foreign exchange student happens to move in next door. [00:14:09] Speaker C: Well, let's talk about that. Lane Meyer is a high school student who becomes very depressed when his girlfriend of six months breaks up with him to date Roy Stalin. Great name, by the way. A bully and the captain of the ski team. And Lane contemplates suicide multiple times in hilarious ways in this movie, but eventually decides that he's going to ski the very difficult K12 slope to prove he's a better skier than Roy. Along the way, Lane meets Monique, a French foreign exchange student who helps him with his goals and may just end up being more than a friend. [00:14:45] Speaker A: Yeah, Roy Stalin. [00:14:47] Speaker B: Like, his name is Stalin. [00:14:50] Speaker A: Yes. They didn't go with Chad Hitler, but. [00:14:55] Speaker B: You know, that's a bridge too far. And not enough people. Not enough people are gonna get Brad Mussolini. [00:15:05] Speaker A: Anyway. Yep. I loved it. I loved it. So. Oh, my God. I don't know if you guys have looked at these notes yet, but, like, the stuff I found out about this movie is wild. [00:15:15] Speaker B: Like, it's amazing. [00:15:16] Speaker A: Or if you knew it to begin with. Maybe some of you are smarter than me about this movie and already knew this stuff, but I was floored. So we'll get to it. But. So Savage Steve Holland got A chance to write Better off dead. When Henry Winkler saw one of his Short films, my 11 year old birthday Party, and gave him office space to write the movie At Paramount, my 11 year old birthday Party was based on Holland's real childhood birthday party, where no one came except a drunk clown. So Holland had intended this movie to be sad, but when audiences laughed at it at festivals, he realized he could make comedy out of his sadness. [00:16:00] Speaker C: That is so sad to hear. [00:16:01] Speaker A: I know. You know, he also. In this Q and A I watched, he also said the drunk clown then tried to hit on his mom. So it just goes nice. [00:16:09] Speaker B: Oh, my goodness. [00:16:11] Speaker C: Oh, he could have been stepdad to Savage. [00:16:14] Speaker B: Oh, my God. What a. [00:16:16] Speaker A: What the Savage Steve Holland lore is deep here. [00:16:20] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:16:23] Speaker A: Okay. And it's gonna get even deeper in a minute. At Paramount, Henry Winkler took Holland on film sets and eventually helped him take his script around. Winkler also showed Holland the Sure Thing before it went to theaters, which is how Holland became convinced he should cast John Cusack as Lane. But then Holland had to fight to cast Cusack because at the moment, the studio saw him not as a leading man, but as a nerd, as he played one of the nerds in Sixteen Candles. Like, what is this, like, the last thing you did? That's exactly what you are forever? I don't know. [00:16:59] Speaker B: And the sure Thing come out yet? Because it would come out the same year as Better Off Dead. That was. That was the one, two punch for. For John Cusack as a leading man. [00:17:07] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, I don't know. Like, we'll get to. I don't think Better Off Dead turned heads, but the sure Thing. Yeah, Fantastic. Yeah. And I'll be talking about that much later at some point. [00:17:15] Speaker C: So I also kind of wish that it was still that way where, like, a Hollywood star could just see a short film and be like, hey, come right on the Paramount lot and hang out with me all day and walk around and try to sell my script on the lot. Like, what must that have been like back in the 80s? [00:17:32] Speaker B: I know. God bless Henry Winkler. Someone I've never heard a bad thing about, ever. [00:17:37] Speaker A: Yeah, he seems like a great guy. Yeah. So Holland has given numerous interviews saying, oh, yeah, this. So this is where it gets crazy. Okay. Holland has given numerous interviews saying that many elements in Better Off Dead are exaggerated autobiography. To start off, his high school girlfriend did dump him for the captain of the ski team, and he did try to commit suicide. This is from an interview with Entertainment Weekly. He said, quote, I did think about committing suicide. I did the stupidest thing, which made me kind of write the movie. I stood on a plastic garbage can with an extension cord around my neck going, maybe I shouldn't do this. This might be the worst idea ever. And then the garbage can lid caved in. The pipe that I had my little neck thing on broke, and it started to pour water into this garbage can that I was stuck in. So I was basically drowning in a garbage can. And then my mom came out and yelled at me for breaking a pip. [00:18:36] Speaker C: Imagine that scene, though. [00:18:37] Speaker A: You're. [00:18:38] Speaker C: You're the mom, and you walk into the garage and your kid is like cord around the neck inside of a garbage can filling up with water. Like, oh, my God, what is going on here? [00:18:48] Speaker A: Yep. And he added in this quote, he said, first of all, I was very grateful that the pipe broke and that everything worked out, but I thought of stupid ways that people try to kill themselves. And I was like, wow, life is just really short. It was a big lesson to me. Nothing's that serious. So, yeah, I don't think we need to add this disclaimer, but folks like, nothing is that serious. Life is really short. Please, please do not kill yourself. Okay. I felt like I had to add this on the Heather's episode too, but please just don't do it. Like, I'll even put a suicide hotline in the show notes, because you don't need to do that. [00:19:22] Speaker B: Yeah. If you're. If you're thinking about it, talk to someone. There are people out there who can help you. You're not alone. And, you know, it's. There's nothing worth doing that over. And it's very serious in real life. Even though this movie handles it comically, which is incredible that it pulls that off. [00:19:39] Speaker A: Yeah. And I say this, too. I'll add, too, that I have. I've had clinical depression since I was 18 years old. It was very serious. At certain points in my life, I was suicidal, though I never made an attempt. And my. I have learned how to handle my depression better over the years, so, you know, you can get better. So. So this is a very serious moment in this episode, which will otherwise be full of levity, but I speak from the heart here. All right, so this was autobiographical. The. The spine of this movie was from personal experience, which is amazing. And there are several other autobiographical bits in the movie that are not quite as unbelievable, but pretty amazing that I will tell you about during the podcast as well. So, in addition to his own life, Holland also drew Inspiration from the 1971 film Harold and Maude and that. I don't believe any of us are putting that in our double features, but I think probably that would make another good double feature with this movie. No way. [00:20:36] Speaker B: I know. I know. [00:20:37] Speaker C: Good. So good. [00:20:39] Speaker A: Every time. Every time you're on this podcast, Chris, we're finding out you didn't see the Music Man. I don't know what's going on here. [00:20:45] Speaker B: That's right. Hey, you know, there's a lot of movies out there, and it gives me stuff to look forward to. [00:20:49] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's okay. You have seen so many, like, knockoff Star wars movies that you've put the rest of us to shame. [00:20:56] Speaker B: So I've seen more knockoff Star wars movies than you could possibly imagine. [00:21:03] Speaker C: Why would you want to watch Harold and Mod when you could be watching Yar the Conqueror? [00:21:07] Speaker B: I love you're the Hunter from the Future, just to be clear. And that was a discovery and a delight from our. Our. Our Star wars series. My goodness. I might watch it when we're done. [00:21:20] Speaker A: Just to spite us, Jason. Just to spite us. All right, so John Cusack was initially excited about Better Off Dead. He told an interviewer in 1985 that he laughed out loud about 10 times while he was reading the script. He described the film as, quote, out of its mind and coming from, quote, a different planet. Cusack also described the script as original and not borrowing from anyone. I don't know if I would go so far as to say not borrowing from anyone. I see shades of Airplane, the Zucker Brothers kind of in it a little bit, but. But pretty original. Yeah, sure. Like. Like, it's, like, got that dark, absurd humor. Like, when he's like, I knew I shouldn't have picked this week to stop sniffing glue and stuff like that. [00:22:02] Speaker B: I'll never get over Macho Grande. [00:22:05] Speaker A: What? Wait. [00:22:06] Speaker B: I'll never get over Macho Grande. That's the. He's the. It's. It's the one of the lines in Airplane. [00:22:11] Speaker A: Is it okay? I don't remember that one. How strange. Okay, I'll take your word for it. All right. [00:22:18] Speaker B: I've probably gotten it wrong. I've probably misquoted it ever so slightly, and someone will. Someone will leave a message, right? You'll get a comment. [00:22:25] Speaker A: I haven't seen it in 10 years. Don't worry about it. Like, I probably forgot something. So while Cusack was happy with the movie originally, he was unfortunately not happy with the end product. He first saw it while he was still filming with Savage. Steve Holland, on One Crazy Summer he walked out of the screening that they did. And Holland told Entertainment Weekly in 2011, to this day, he won't even talk about the movie. It's almost like he made a snuff film or something. I did find out that in a 2012 Reddit AMA, Cusack seemed to have lightened up a little bit. He responded to a question about the movie saying, I have nothing against the film. Glad people love it still. So, I don't know, maybe that's the best we're gonna get. [00:23:09] Speaker B: I mean, I guess. But it is crazy that he won't associate with this film. Like, there's a film festival here in Los Angele called Beyond fest, and in 2015, they hosted a 30th anniversary screening and cast reunion. And they got everybody. They got Diane Franklin, they got Curtis Armstrong. They got Aaron Dozier, who played Roy Stalin. They got EG Daily. They even got the Paper Boy, Damien Slade. They got everybody but Cusick. [00:23:35] Speaker C: It's so sad. It's such a good movie, and it's a great movie. Love it. Yeah. [00:23:43] Speaker A: I wonder if too many people have been asking him for $2 over the year. I don't know, like, $2. Oh, my God, you're gonna be. You're gonna get a death stare. No doubt. [00:23:52] Speaker B: Well, you know what? I could take it. [00:23:56] Speaker A: Yeah. So, yeah, Cusack. Ah, it's too bad. In contrast, Savage Steve Holland said that making the film with Cusack was one of the best times of his life, saying, he was like, 17, I was like, 24, and we laughed our asses off every day making that movie. [00:24:13] Speaker B: So, honestly, it sounds like the best way to spend your time as a 17 year old is making a classic. Yeah, that is a classic comedy. And having a good time doing it. It's. It's crazy. His. His opinion on that movie now, it's just crazy. [00:24:28] Speaker A: It's also very strange. Like, what movie did he think he was making? I don't know. [00:24:33] Speaker C: Well, he said by his own quotes that it seemed like nothing he'd ever read before. And it was like From Another Planet. And then it comes out and it's exactly that. Like, what was he expecting? [00:24:43] Speaker A: I don't know, man. I don't know. Anyway, let's see. So a little bit about other casting in the movie. Holland wanted Curtis Armstrong for the Charles role based on his work and Risky Business, which I haven't remembered he was in that, but, you know, that's. Apparently he stole the show. Dan Schneider, who played Ricky, came in for his audition using the nasal spray that he squirts up his nose in an early scene in the movie. And that. Yeah, that got him the part. Then Amanda Wiss, who was in Nightmare on Elm street as Tina. Yeah. Played Beth, and Diane Franklin played Monique. But each of them had originally been brought in to play each other's roles. So we might have had an evil brunette and a nice blonde. I mean, not evil, but, you know, instead he switched the roles around. So. [00:25:31] Speaker B: Interesting. Yeah, she's not evil, but she's not the best. [00:25:34] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I just say that because, like, a lot of times, that's the way people look at these movies. [00:25:38] Speaker B: Yeah, of course. Yeah. [00:25:40] Speaker A: The actor who plays Royce, this is my favorite, though. The actor who plays Roy Stalin, Aaron Dozier, was brought in to replace the original Roy actor because the original actor could not make a pig noise in a scene and was instead saying, oink, oink. What? [00:25:57] Speaker C: I would love to know who that original actor was, because I thought he stole the show as this. As this evil skier. [00:26:04] Speaker B: I did find that story out myself, and I had it in my notes, but it's so good and just. Yeah. That he could. The guy could make pig noises. That's amazing. Apparently, for the. For the recasting, Aaron Dozier was in the room with Charlie Sheen, as well as Chad McQueen, who was Steve McQueen's son and was Dutch in the Karate Kid. They were all. All up for that. For the. For the recasting of the part. But Aaron Dozier got it. [00:26:32] Speaker A: Yeah. Didn't he get it because he insulted Savage Steve Holland or something? Like, he said, who's that guy? Or something. Who's that? I don't know. Kid or something. I don't remember. [00:26:41] Speaker C: He said, who's chubby kid? [00:26:43] Speaker A: Oh, okay. Yeah, okay. [00:26:45] Speaker B: He's a perfect 80s villain. Like, he's. He looks like a combination of William Zadka. William Zabka and Ted McGinley. [00:26:54] Speaker A: Which one's Ted McGinley? Which movies he own. [00:26:57] Speaker B: He was in Revenge of the Nerds one or two. [00:27:00] Speaker A: Okay. Okay. And then Zabka is from Karate Kid. Yeah. [00:27:03] Speaker B: Karate Kid. And Back to School. And. And. [00:27:06] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, and Back to School. Yeah. [00:27:07] Speaker B: And European Vacation, although he's got a smaller part in that. [00:27:12] Speaker A: Yeah. So, I mean, that's. You got to be sad, though, if you lost a role because you couldn't make a pig noise. I feel. [00:27:17] Speaker B: Oh, that's. Oh, that. I. Honestly, it would be. It would be devastating. [00:27:20] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:27:21] Speaker B: I'd be practicing pig noises in my closet for the rest of my life. [00:27:25] Speaker A: That would be something that could get into a Savage Steve Holland movie. [00:27:31] Speaker B: It would. It really would. [00:27:34] Speaker A: So several scenes were cut out of Better Off Dead that are even stranger than the ones that are still in the movie, including one where Lane's mom joins the cult of Gumby and is shown handing out leaflets at an airport in a Gumby suit. [00:27:47] Speaker C: Oh, I want to see those scenes. [00:27:49] Speaker B: That's amazing. That's amazing. [00:27:52] Speaker A: Better Off Dead had a budget of 3.5 million and made 10.3 million. So it was profitable, but it was still considered a failure by the studio. The film did get a second chance on premium cable and in video stores, however. But critically, it also got kind of beaten down a lot. I watched Siskel and Ebert's review and I was like, what are you guys thinking? Like, they hated it. Hated it. [00:28:14] Speaker B: They really hated it. They really hated it. And I think they're out of their minds. I mean, you know, now they're out of the world. But, but, you know, it's, it's, it's. Here's. The thing is about those guys is when they're on the money, they can be great and they can, and in particular, Ebert can write some really, really insightful reviews, but when they get into their heads to dislike something. Yeah, yeah, forget about it. [00:28:37] Speaker A: You know what's funny too? Like, Ebert wrote one of the only good reviews, positive reviews of 2012, which I like. 2012, but nobody likes 2012, 2012. So I guess he lightened up on Cusack movies that are considered bad. So I guess the Washington Post had this in their review quote. Well, I didn't much care whether Lane skied K12, and neither apparently did the director, one Savage Steve Holland, a 25 year old animator. He's blithely uninterested in structure. He's making a live action cartoon, end quote. And I gotta say, I do. There's some validity to that criticism and there is a little bit of praise in that review, but yeah, it didn't go over so well. [00:29:20] Speaker B: Yeah, I see that. I see, I see what they're saying. But you know, at the same time it's. Well, I'll get to it in a minute. But it's, it's. I think this movie is genuinely ahead of its time. [00:29:31] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. [00:29:32] Speaker C: And you could say that about most cult classics is that they were not appreciated at the time because they were ahead of their time. [00:29:39] Speaker A: Yeah, that's what makes something a cult classic. Like these days, people are misusing that term sometimes. Like they'll use it for things that were very popular. And you're like, no, dude, it's not how we. That's not what it is. [00:29:49] Speaker B: I couldn't agree with you more. No, a cult classic is something that, that, you know, it was, it was not appreciated in the moment except by few and then over time it was. I couldn't agree with you more. It does not. Ghostbusters is not a cult classic. That was popular when it came out. [00:30:06] Speaker A: Yep, yep. [00:30:07] Speaker B: Jaws was not a cult classic, but. [00:30:11] Speaker A: Jaws 3 might be. [00:30:12] Speaker B: Yeah, Jaws 3 might be. And the Last Shark certainly is. [00:30:19] Speaker A: So despite the kind of lack of success for Better Off Dead, Holland was still able to make a second feature because he was already filming One Crazy Summer with John Cusack, Curtis Armstrong and much of the crew from Better Off Dead before the film was released. So he got one more in and he did do another feature later, which I don't think I'm double feature recommending it on this episode, but I'm probably going to do it on the other one. So. [00:30:42] Speaker B: It's how I got into college. My wife loves it. [00:30:45] Speaker A: Oh, nice. [00:30:47] Speaker B: Yeah, I haven't seen it in a long. I've seen it, but it's been decades and we need to revisit it. But I haven't seen it more recently, so I couldn't, I couldn't put it as a double. But my wife quotes that movie from time to time. [00:30:59] Speaker A: No way. That's awesome. I had to subscribe to some like, really? I had to get like a free trial to some weird indie flicks streaming service just to watch it. And I'm like, yeah, like that was the only thing it seemed to be on. So I was like, this is, this is obscure. [00:31:13] Speaker C: I saw that a long time ago and I don't remember anything about it other than Diane Franklin's in it. [00:31:19] Speaker B: Yes. [00:31:20] Speaker A: Yeah, just free. [00:31:21] Speaker B: Small part of it. Yeah. And that movie, he didn't he this. These two movies. Better Off Dead and One Crazy Summer. He wrote and directed. [00:31:29] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:31:30] Speaker B: How I Got Into College. He directed and. But didn't write and was actually a last minute. Like the original director started shooting the picture and was fired and Savage Steve Holland was brought in to direct at the very much the last minute. [00:31:43] Speaker A: Okay. [00:31:44] Speaker C: Was he fired because he couldn't make pig noises? [00:31:46] Speaker B: That's probably it. No, no. It was like, what do we do? How can we even have you as. How can you shoot this scene if you can't make pig noises, pal? [00:31:55] Speaker C: What if it was the same guy? [00:31:56] Speaker B: Oh my God. [00:31:57] Speaker C: Okay, I can't act. I'm gonna try my hand at directing. [00:32:04] Speaker B: Oh, God, yeah. [00:32:06] Speaker A: I love it. I love it. I love it. Okay, so, like, Chris, you got some things to say about this film, but maybe we should fold them into general opinion. Would that be okay? [00:32:14] Speaker B: I think that sounds like a great idea. [00:32:16] Speaker A: Okay, so let's talk about our opinion of the movie. So, like, usually we like to talk about when we first saw it, how we've felt about it over the years and how it's held up for us. And. Chris, why don't you. Why don't you start us off? [00:32:27] Speaker B: Well, I, like many people, did not see Better Off Dead in the movie theater, but I saw it on television so many times. Like, I think it was on HBO a lot when we first got HBO in, like, the mid to late 80s. And it's just one of those movies that, for me, it's just always been there. It's always. And it's always been awesome. It's one of those movies you can come in at any point and. And just, you know, you can watch it from the middle. You can pick it up. It's a great kind of movie to kind of catch on television in that regard. And honestly, it is one of the standout teen comedies in an era of great teen comedies. [00:33:09] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it definitely stands out. It's different than the stuff around it. [00:33:13] Speaker B: Yeah, well, it's different because, as we just mentioned, it's. It's ahead of its time and, like, the way it uses surrealism and absurdity to communicate Lane Myers, Mental state. That is something that was not common in the 80s, but would become very common in TV comedies of the 2000s. Shows like Malcolm in the Middle, Scrubs, and Arrested. Them are replete with jokes and visual gags that would feel right at home in Better Off Dead. [00:33:42] Speaker A: I haven't seen most of those shows. That's interesting. So I. So I don't know about that particular content. Yeah, I'm more of a movie than a show person, and I. And I do tend to watch my prestige television, too. Oh, I've watched parody of Mad Men like, three times. [00:33:55] Speaker B: I love Mad Men. Madman is one of my favorite shows of all time. [00:33:58] Speaker A: Nice. [00:33:59] Speaker C: I love those. Those, too. But you, Jen, you have to watch Arrested Development. It is, like. It's the most layered comedic show I've ever seen. And to me, it is the best television show ever made. [00:34:13] Speaker B: Well, that's a hell of a thing to say. [00:34:15] Speaker A: I will consider it on your recommendation, Jason. I will try, but I'm seriously, like, my watch list on letterboxd is if it gets to 365. I'm doing a stunt watch of everything on it, put it that way. So, so, Chris, how is the movie then? Have you watched it many times over the years? Has it held up for you? [00:34:31] Speaker B: It has. Like, I've watched it. I mean I watched it most recently this week in prepping for the show. But, but I have. It's one of those movies that I have seen, seen we own on Blu Ray in the house. It's, you know, it's, it's just, it's one of those movies I can always go back to. It is, it's, it's, it's a movie we quote all the time, both my wife and I. It's just, it's, it's part of the cultural tapestry, at least in our house. [00:34:55] Speaker A: Yep. Yep. Jason, how about you? Do you have like a similar journey with Better Off Dead or. [00:35:01] Speaker C: You know, I never caught this one on tv. This was a video store pickup. It came in on DVD at one point. It was a very uninspired DVD cover. I don't know, Chris, if you remember the DVD cover, just a close up. [00:35:13] Speaker B: Of his face, I think. [00:35:15] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, it looks like a Tom Hanks, like kind of like cover that I saw. Yeah, yeah. [00:35:20] Speaker B: Like the original theatrical poster is much better, is a much cooler. It's got like a collage of the characters and it's really nice art. But the, the video boxes have always been boring. [00:35:30] Speaker C: Well, the, the Steelbook that's out now is pretty good. But yeah, the, the DVD cover was really uninsp. A big Cusack fan, a big 80s movie fan. And when someone came into the video store on dvd, I, I picked it up and, and watched it. Certainly was not what I was expecting. I was expecting a more straightforward, you know, something in this world comedy. And what we got is something completely bonkers. I remember watching it with my friends at the apartment we were renting at the time. And it was the greatest time. And since then I've watched it so many times. It has formed a lot of my absurdist comedy roots, which I'll talk about some in our, in our double features later on. But it also inspired, well, partly inspired me to write a movie like that. And it's funny because, oh, wow, I wrote this movie. I shopped it around a little bit and from every, everybody that got back to me, they're like, we don't know what this is. And all I was thinking is, number one, I, I, that sucks. But number two, I totally understand because I don't know how you would market a movie like this unless you got somebody to read it. And mine was essentially a mixture of this and Hot Rod set in the professional wrestling world. And that's why. But yeah, I love Better Off Dead. I've seen it probably 10 times at this point. I've had it on every format since dvd and we'll continue to watch it throughout the years. [00:36:55] Speaker A: And Jason, you're like, really good at knowing about physical media releases. Like the last. Like, I didn't look into this, but has there ever been an addition with special features that you've seen? [00:37:05] Speaker C: No, it's always trailer only. [00:37:07] Speaker B: I was gonna say the Blu ray is trailer only. I know There's a new 4K edition out there. [00:37:12] Speaker C: Yeah, it's still trailer only. [00:37:14] Speaker B: Oh my God. [00:37:15] Speaker A: Yeah, thank God for YouTube because I found like lots of Q&As on YouTube, but my goodness. Yeah, like, come on now. Anyway, so my, my experience with this film, this was definitely a TV movie like that I saw on TV and probably also rented and like, like I probably watched this like 10 times before I was like 15. I don't know, we were big re watchers. So I've seen this movie so many times. I did have a long gap though, where I hadn't seen it. Like I don't think I had seen this movie in like 10 years or something before I decided to do it on the podcast. And I had like better memories of it than like the reality. I think I built it up too much in my head. Like, don't get me wrong, I still like this movie. I still think it's really worth watching. But like I had built this movie up to be like the best teen movie of the 80s or something. It doesn't live up to that for me. But like, I still really like it. And I will say too that it is way less problematic than a lot of the movies that came out in its same time frame. [00:38:13] Speaker B: Yes, absolutely. [00:38:14] Speaker A: There is like some racism, a little bit of racism about around the Asian characters. Like they're called Kamikaze at one point, which is unfortunate. That seemed to be one of the things people like to do in the 80s. But in terms of the women, they're treated way better than they are treated in the majority of 80s movies. Yeah, like, yeah, like when you think of things like Sixteen Candles and Revenge of the Nerds that came out around the same time. This is like way ahead of that. Yeah, Savage Steve Holland seems to be, you know, a little, a little more of a gentleman. I don't know what to call it. Like, not really a feminist, but, like, just a little less toxic, you know? [00:38:53] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:38:53] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:38:53] Speaker C: I would say a little less toxic is probably the right way to put it. But if you watch the way Roy handles women in this movie. [00:39:00] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. [00:39:00] Speaker C: Certainly not kind to them. [00:39:02] Speaker A: Oh, no. But. But I mean, he's the villain. Yeah. I mean, like. Yeah, I mean, like having. Like there is. And there's stuff like, oh, like a cheerleader gets her uniform pulled down, but I mean, she's still wearing her bra. Like, I mean, hell, in most 80s movies, we would have seen like, breasts. So, like, it's just. It's a little. It's above. It's ahead of some of the other movies from the same period. So. [00:39:24] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, I think so. It's also interesting because the women in this movie have. They're not as central. It's so much of it is Lane's perspective and just inside his head that it's not. It's not quite the way the female characters in this movie, along with everybody who's not Lane, are still all kind of reflections of Lane's perspective. [00:39:48] Speaker A: Sure. [00:39:48] Speaker B: It's surreal in that regard. [00:39:52] Speaker A: So let's see. Let's talk a little bit now about the cast and crew. So first of all, this was writer director Savage, Steve Holland's first movie. But we're going to have a discussion of his work on our one crazy summer episode. I have not yet decided whether that. That will have already been released or whether you'll have to look forward to it. Either way, like, go subscribe to every rom com so you do not miss that discussion. And we have also already covered better off Dead star John Cusack on every rom com episode. 41 on high fidelity. [00:40:22] Speaker B: Oh, it's a great movie. [00:40:23] Speaker A: But if you guys want to. We can take a moment if you just like, want to share your feelings about John Cusack and his work. [00:40:30] Speaker C: Yeah, I guess I'll jump in and say High Fidelity is probably my favorite John Cusack movie. But I love John Cusack. I don't love his post 2000s work. Like, I think High Fidelity is the last movie where I could say I love that movie. But. But I'm a big fan of his 80s and 90s work. [00:40:48] Speaker B: Oh, he had a great run. A great run in those two decades. Even if some of his lesser stuff in the more recent years. [00:40:55] Speaker A: But 2012 slander. [00:40:59] Speaker B: You love 2012. [00:41:01] Speaker A: I do, man. I do. [00:41:03] Speaker B: I love it. I love that you love it so much. That's fantastic. [00:41:06] Speaker C: Is that the one where he drives a limo over a It is. [00:41:10] Speaker A: Oh, it is. That movie is amazing. It is the disaster movie to end every disaster movie. Like. Like. No, just. [00:41:18] Speaker B: Well, it kind of did for a while. [00:41:20] Speaker A: I don't know. I don't want to get. I don't want to, like, I don't want to get off topic here. But, like, seriously, like, Ebert wrote a review of 2012 which I consider totally accurate. If you love a disaster movie, I don't see how you don't love 2012. But anyway, let's get back to Q. Zack here. [00:41:33] Speaker B: Fantastic. [00:41:34] Speaker A: So, yeah, yeah, I. John Cusack was like this very interesting leading man in these rom com roles in the 80s, these and these teen movies in the 80s. He was kind of this, like, sensitive model, you know, sensitive young man actor. And I like that. Like, he has a kind of. Even when he's playing kind of a jerk, he has a little bit of a softness about him and an intellectualism about him that kind of shines through. And I think a lot of girls who are watching those movies really, like, I like it. Liked that. And we're drawn to that. And yeah, he's definitely had a great run as an actor. And he was, he was a. He was a fan. I was a fan of his in the 80s. Even if, like, my crush in the 80s was Harrison Ford. [00:42:16] Speaker B: Well, sure, sure. I mean, it's Harrison Ford. What can you say? Yeah, but I mean, he had, you know, he was, you know, not only was Elaine Meyer, but he's. He's another character. Starts with Elle. That is. Is one of the defining romantic comedy characters of the 80s is Lloyd Dobler. And say anything. I mean, he's, you know, that image of him with the boombox, I mean, that's, you know, when you, when you're putting together a montage of movie images that everybody's gonna know John Cusack with the boombox is gonna be one of them. [00:42:49] Speaker A: Yeah, that's an iconic one for sure. Yeah. [00:42:53] Speaker C: I'd also say that if you haven't seen Con Air, Con Air is amazing. [00:42:58] Speaker B: Con Air is amazing. My wife really loves Con Air. [00:43:02] Speaker C: So do I. So good. [00:43:04] Speaker A: And it would make a really good double feature with 2012. [00:43:09] Speaker B: I love how much you love 2012. It is fantastic. [00:43:13] Speaker A: All right, I'm going to. Oh, go ahead. [00:43:15] Speaker C: You didn't mention it yet, but also, Grosse Pointe Blank is another great John Cusack role. [00:43:20] Speaker B: Absolutely. Grosse Pointe Blank is a great movie. [00:43:24] Speaker A: All right, so now we're going to talk a little bit about Diane Franklin, who plays Monique in this movie. She was born February 11, 1962, in Plainview, New York. She started her career at just 10 years old and worked in commercials, modeling, and theater before her first IMDb credit for six episodes of as the World Turns. [00:43:44] Speaker B: Wow. [00:43:45] Speaker A: Yeah. And her first film role was the Last American Virgin in 1982. I saw that once, a very long time ago and wasn't a big fan, but it definitely has its fans. [00:43:55] Speaker B: Yes, it does. [00:43:56] Speaker C: Oh, yeah, it's got a real downer ending, that one. [00:43:58] Speaker A: Oh, okay. So, speaking of downer movies, in 1982, she also appeared in Amityville 2, the Possession, as the daughter in a troubled family living in the Amityville Horror House. Have either of you seen this movie? Because I've just watched it for this podcast. [00:44:15] Speaker B: I. I have seen the original Amityville Horror. I have not seen Amityville 2, the second of about 10 billion Amityville movies over the course of decades, some of which have no relation to the original, but they just use the name Jason. [00:44:30] Speaker A: Have you seen this movie? [00:44:32] Speaker C: You know, I have. I don't remember anything about it. The one. The ones that I remember the most about are Amityville, Dollhouse, and Amityville 1992. It's about time. Or something like that is the tagline on that one. [00:44:46] Speaker B: It's About Time is an amazing subtitle for a movie that has Amityville Horror in it. Amityville Horror. It's About Time. I love it. [00:44:57] Speaker A: Well, maybe, Jason, you erased it from your memory, but there's an incest subplot in Medieval 2 possession involving Diane Franklin. Yeah, she. [00:45:05] Speaker B: Oh, my God. [00:45:06] Speaker A: Yeah, she went some dark places in her early career anyway, before Better Off Dead. Franklin also did some additional TV appearances, as well as a few TV movies, including Summer Girl, which I'm going to talk about in our double feature recommendations, and Deadly Lessons. I really wanted to see Deadly lessons, but the YouTube copy of it was just too low quality for. For even me to deal with, so. But yeah, like Summer Girl. I can't wait to talk about that. [00:45:34] Speaker C: Interesting. Deadly Lessons is actually not bad. It's a slasher film. I think I saw it under the title Killer High School or something like that. [00:45:40] Speaker A: Nice. [00:45:41] Speaker C: High school. Killer. Killer High School. And it also features Ali Sheedy. [00:45:45] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:45:46] Speaker B: Nice. [00:45:47] Speaker A: Yep. That's why I want to see it. Did you. Did you procure a copy of it or torrenting or something? Or. [00:45:52] Speaker C: Like, how did I see Deadly Lessons? I don't even remember how I saw it. I don't remember anything about it. It might have been like a TV RIP somewhere. Could have been the Internet Archive. I don't even remember. It's been a long time. [00:46:06] Speaker A: Well, someday I'll watch it, hopefully. Yep. So Franklin also appeared in another feature film, Second Time Lucky, in 1984. I don't know if I should tell the pervs out there this, but she plays Eve in the Garden of Eden for a considerable part of the beginning of that movie. So make of that what you will. [00:46:24] Speaker C: Oh, she also bears it all in the Last American Virgin. [00:46:29] Speaker A: Okay, okay. She was not. She was not shy back back in the day. Better off Dead, however, remains her most recognizable major role. During the rest of the 80s, Franklin appeared in several TV series and TV movies, including Charles in Charge of Matlock and Freddy's nightmares. And in 1986, she appeared in the movie Terror Vision. And in 1989, she had a small role, as we mentioned, in Savage, Steve Holland's third movie, How I Got Into College. And then her other, perhaps most well known film role was also in 1989, as one of the princesses in Bill and Ted's excellent Adventure. But then they kept recasting the princesses when they did the sequels. [00:47:09] Speaker B: It's so strange that the princesses are. It's like. It's like Rusty. It's like the kids from. From the vacation movies. They're recast in every movie. It's so strange. [00:47:18] Speaker A: Yeah, it's kind of sad, too. I would have. You know, Franklin could have done a great job, but I mean, it could have been her personal life, too. I don't know. In 1989, Franklin married screenwriter Ray De Laurentiis. Then her career slowed down in the 90s and 2000s as she took time out to have a family and the couple have two children together. But she did work a little bit still. She had TV roles on shows including Murder. She wrote Providence and Family Law. She had a movie role in something called Punch Card Player. And she appeared in a number of shorts, including short films directed by her daughter, Olivia De Laurentiis. Yeah. And she's continued to work in a number of her daughter's shorts and other projects, too. So she's very supportive of her children. In 2018, then, Franklin had three roles in the feature films Wally Got Wasted, the Amityville Murders, and the. Yep. More Amityville. Yep. [00:48:09] Speaker B: She said two Amityville movies. [00:48:11] Speaker A: That's right. [00:48:12] Speaker B: That's crazy. [00:48:12] Speaker A: I have not seen the other one. I don't know if it continues her character in any way. [00:48:16] Speaker B: Oh, my God. [00:48:17] Speaker A: And then the final interview. And then in 2021, it was another active year for Franklin. She appeared in Ted Bundy, American Boogeyman, High Holiday, and Clay Zombies. And I believe High Holiday and Clay Zombies are about exactly what they sound. They're like, about. Sound like they're about. [00:48:37] Speaker B: One is about a holiday where everybody's high. [00:48:39] Speaker A: I think so, yeah. [00:48:40] Speaker B: And the other one is about zombies who are made of clay, I'm pretty sure. [00:48:44] Speaker A: Yep. [00:48:44] Speaker B: Well, I mean, I guess that's, you know, it says what it is on the tin. I suppose that's something. [00:48:48] Speaker A: Truth in advertising all the way in. [00:48:51] Speaker B: This day and age, you know, truth in advertising is. Is welcome. [00:48:55] Speaker A: Her other work in the 2020s has included the movies Waking Nightmare and the Dark Room and some other short films and TV work. And she has several projects in post production. The movies Vampire and Deb and Seth Save the World and a TV series called Avenger Field. And she's really. She's done a lot in the horror field because Vampire is also a horror movie. She's done. She. She's kind of known in that world. [00:49:20] Speaker B: Is that. Is that about a vampire that says Bam, I think bites people? [00:49:24] Speaker C: Bam Margera. [00:49:25] Speaker A: If I. [00:49:28] Speaker B: That. That I would go see that. [00:49:30] Speaker A: If I remember correctly, it has something to do with vampire deer. So I don't really know if that's like a buck vampire or. [00:49:37] Speaker B: Oh, oh, it's Bambi vampire. [00:49:40] Speaker A: That might be it. That's what they were going for maybe. [00:49:42] Speaker B: Oh, my God, no. Now it goes from. I need to see. It goes from I want to see this to I must see this. [00:49:49] Speaker A: I'm glad you caught the Bambi part because I was confused anyway. [00:49:52] Speaker C: Me too. [00:49:53] Speaker B: Oh, my God. I guess, you know, out for revenge for. For his mother and, you know, watch out, man. [00:50:01] Speaker C: Oh, yeah. It's one of those repurposed Disney movies that. [00:50:04] Speaker B: Oh. Like the. The Winnie the Pooh. The. The Winnie the Pooh's Got a Shotgun or whatever. [00:50:13] Speaker A: So. In addition to her acting work, Franklin has written several books. An autobiography called Diane Franklin the Excellent Adventures of the Last American French Exchange babe of the 80s. And then she has two making of books on the. On her films, the Last American Virgin and better Off Dead. And I really wish I had been able to read the Better Off Dead book. But it's like the lowest I could find it for sale was like $30. And it wasn't at the. And I was like, I'm not doing. I'm not shelling out $30 for that. And I can't. So there you go. [00:50:42] Speaker B: Hey, yeah, you got to get it. Yeah. Do what you got to do. That's, you know, that's, you know, they got to get that back in print. That's what's got to happen. [00:50:50] Speaker A: Yeah. For super fans, I'm sure those would be great books to have. So. Yeah, she got a lot of. Apparently she got a lot of materials from Savage Steve Holland to make the Better Off Dead book. So that's cool. [00:51:01] Speaker C: That's cool. That's really good. [00:51:02] Speaker A: That's where your special features are, people. [00:51:05] Speaker C: No kidding. [00:51:06] Speaker A: And Diane Franklin is fairly active at fan events and conventions. She did an interview with Will Harris for his Substack, and she said she started doing conventions because her daughter was so excited when she met Flight of the Concord star Jemaine Clement at a convention. I would be too. And she decided, I like Jermaine. And she decided that doing conventions was a way to give back. She said, quote, it makes me really happy to put a smile on their face and to give them the same thrill that my daughter got when she met Jemaine. So that's sweet. [00:51:38] Speaker C: That's a great attitude to have. [00:51:40] Speaker A: Yeah. And in an interview with the YouTube channel 80s Life, Franklin said of her Better Off Dead character that it was her favorite 80s project she filmed. And she called Monique full formed and a doer, not just a watcher and a really good role model for girls. And even though her part, as we mentioned, is a little smaller lane is more centered here, but I do really. I like the way Monique is portrayed in the movie. She is pretty cool. [00:52:05] Speaker B: I do. Oh, she's definitely cool. She's definitely cool. And. And, you know, she's. She's in possession of herself, let's put it that way. [00:52:15] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:52:15] Speaker C: Yep. She's smart. She has all kinds of hidden talents which emerge during the movie. Yeah, she's great. [00:52:22] Speaker A: Great. [00:52:22] Speaker B: And the way she says kick his ass in a French accent is absolutely adorable. [00:52:29] Speaker A: Many, many things are adorable in a French accent. [00:52:31] Speaker B: Yeah, that is true. [00:52:33] Speaker A: Yep. All right, so as usual, we've taken a while to get here, but let's. We'll start talking about the opening of the movie. And as with his other project, A1 Crazy Summer, this movie opens with animation. What do you guys think about this animation for Better Off Dead? [00:52:51] Speaker B: I like it. It's got a certain style. It was unusual for the time, so it. Right from the get go, it's. It's separating itself from a lot of other other romantic comedies of that era. It's. It's. It's really well animated. And, you know, that's. It's become a Savage. Steve Hallman, Hallmark. I mean, animation is, is shows up a lot, obviously in one crazy summer quite a bit. [00:53:13] Speaker C: Yeah, I'm a big fan of the animation too. I, I love animation intros in those 80s movies. Christmas Vacation is another good one. [00:53:21] Speaker B: That's another one that I forgot about Christmas vacation. You're right. [00:53:25] Speaker C: Yeah. Big fan. [00:53:26] Speaker A: Like, I like that his animation is in there and it's wacky and it's kind of an off kilter touch. The only thing is, like, it doesn't. The story he has in there has very little to do with the movie because we have this cartoon green horned monster who steals a lady and then a knight on a white horse charges and falls to his death. I guess the falling to the death part kind of goes thematically, but like, I don't know. [00:53:49] Speaker B: Well, it's in Lane's mind because, you know, in his mind he sees himself as a white knight, someone who would come to steal, you know, Beth is obviously the, the, the, the princess and someone who might steal who ends up being, you know, Roy Stalin is the, is the, the, the green horned monster. But like that's, it's. Again, it's like so much in this movie. It is reflecting what is in Roy's mind. Even here is unconscious mind. [00:54:16] Speaker A: Oh, what's it, what's in Lane's mind, rather. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yes. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. So and it's drawn by Holland and then it's animated by Bill Cop, apparently. So I don't really know the separate talents that go into that, but you know, there you go. [00:54:30] Speaker C: Yeah. And just real quick to piggyback off what Chris was saying, there's a moment in the movie where you see John Cusack as Lane drawing that, that art style. So it' clearly just coming from his brain. [00:54:43] Speaker A: Okay. And then we cut right into. So this whole movie is exaggerated. Everything in this entire movie is exaggerated. So when we see. So when we see Lane's bedroom, he does not have one picture of his girlfriend Beth. He does not have three pictures of his girlfriend Beth. He does not even have just 20 pictures of his girlfriend Beth. He has over a hundred, possibly even 200 pictures of his girlfriend Beth all over his room. Room. [00:55:06] Speaker B: He has all the pictures of his girlfriend Beth. All the pictures that are. He has them and they are everywhere. [00:55:13] Speaker A: There's copies of the same picture, like next to each other. [00:55:18] Speaker C: Every single, every single article of clothing. [00:55:22] Speaker B: Oh, that's the best. [00:55:23] Speaker C: Giant closet has Beth inside of it. [00:55:27] Speaker B: Yeah. First of all, a closet that my wife would kill for. First off, and second of all, like, this whole. Under. On either side, rows of clothes and all the hangers with Beth's face. It is amazing. [00:55:39] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:55:40] Speaker B: Like, this is a guy. What. What it's telling you right from the off is that this is a guy without much identity of his own. He almost totally defines himself by his relationship with Beth. [00:55:51] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:55:51] Speaker B: And that's the arc of the movie, is Lane coming to. To love himself the way he loved Beth, to. To embrace who he is not as an extension of someone else, but in his own. As his own person, I was gonna say. [00:56:08] Speaker A: I also like how when he wakes up, the first thing he does is grab for another framed picture of Beth that is in his bed. [00:56:16] Speaker B: Yeah, it's in his bed. Amazing. [00:56:19] Speaker C: And the picture motif is flipped on its head when we see Beth because, you know, she's only got one picture of Lane, and what she does. Does with that picture kind of shows you how much she values Lane. The first time we see Beth, she's talking on the phone about how she's gonna dump Lane. [00:56:35] Speaker B: Yeah. Right from the beginning. [00:56:37] Speaker C: And as she's. As she's talking on the phone, she has a picture in the same size of the one that Lane pulled out from under his pillowcase that he sleeps with. And she is switching the picture to Roy's picture. I don't know where she got a picture of Roy, but she is like, I'm done with Lane. I'm going to try and date this guy. She's not even dating him yet. She doesn't know him yet, but she's switching the picture out, and it's just like, that's how little she thinks of Lane. [00:57:03] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Everybody in this cinematic universe, though, Jason, has a picture of exactly the same size that they carry around with them to put in a frame, because Ricky later also has a picture. [00:57:14] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. [00:57:15] Speaker C: It was the 80s. [00:57:16] Speaker B: It's handy for the people who make frames. [00:57:19] Speaker A: So, like, Roy is obviously just giving this picture to whoever he's recruiting as his next potential girlfriend. [00:57:25] Speaker C: Yeah, well, that's what. That's what Facebook was in 1985. It was literally just your face in a book of pictures. [00:57:35] Speaker A: So. Okay, let's see. So we have. We've introduced this situation with. He's obsessed with Beth. And then the paperboy character is introduced very early in this movie. First we see him in the context of the father is sleeping when he's woken up and alerted to a danger. In this case, the danger of the glass in his garage door breaking because the paper boy will fling the paper directly at that glass. And I. Dude, when I really looked at the story structure of this movie, like, that paper boy is like almost not even a B plot, but an A plot that runs alongside this. I don't even know. Like, he said, he's everywhere. [00:58:11] Speaker B: Oh, the. The paper boys is. Is integral to this movie. Like, and, And. And the. The father having the feud with the paper boy continually breaking the windows. It feels positively Griswold esque. Like it's something that Clark Griswold would have in one of the vacation movies. He didn't, but he could easily have that. It's like, oh, yeah, the paper boy always breaks the windows. [00:58:32] Speaker A: Or it reminded me of those dogs in the Christmas story, the Bumpuses. [00:58:36] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, the Bumpuses dogs, sure. [00:58:38] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:58:38] Speaker B: 186 smelly hounds. And, you know, all of them tried to eat Darren McGavin. [00:58:44] Speaker A: Everybody's dad has to have, like some sort of nemesis in 80s movies. It's very important. [00:58:50] Speaker C: It feels Griswold at first, but as the movie goes on, it feels Terminator esque. Or it follows as he just does not relent. [00:58:59] Speaker A: Yeah. The genre conventions that are used to portray this paperboy are amazing throughout the film. We'll get into that a little more as we go on. But, yeah, the way they change the music, the fog machines, everything. Fantastic. [00:59:13] Speaker B: $2. [00:59:15] Speaker A: That's right. [00:59:16] Speaker B: I want my $2. [00:59:19] Speaker A: Nervous. So I want to begin the spoilers kind of early for this episode because I feel like this conversation, once we start getting into some of these characters, it's going to take us all over the place. So for anyone who has not yet seen Better Off Dead, please do yourself a favor, go watch Better Off Dead come back. Listen to the rest of the episode. I mean, we're not going to. It's not too much of a spoiler because this is an 80s movie and you can probably figure out how it's going to all turn out. But, you know, just in case. [00:59:45] Speaker B: But it's the how of how it all turns out. [00:59:47] Speaker A: Exactly. [00:59:48] Speaker B: And. And the great thing is if you. If you. If you press stop and come back to us here whenever you come back, whenever you have a chance, we'll still be here. [00:59:56] Speaker A: That's true. That's true. Barring a podcast. [00:59:58] Speaker C: Not me. I'm leaving right now, Jason. [01:00:03] Speaker B: I'm out. Forget it. [01:00:06] Speaker C: You will not stop this podcast to watch a movie. [01:00:09] Speaker A: We're gonna. We're gonna tell everyone that we actually made you leave because you couldn't make a pig noise. So. [01:00:18] Speaker B: Isn'T that good enough? [01:00:21] Speaker A: All right, the spoiler section begins now. So, yeah, first thing I want to talk about. Let's. Let's just get into, like, Lane's family a little bit. Like every 80s movie. Well, almost every 80s movie, you have to have a little kind of wacky family going on. So first of all, we have the dad we already mentioned. His big problem is keeping his garage windows intact. But he also has some. Another funny subplot where he thinks Lane is on drugs. And I gotta say, my parents did this to me. I was like, such a nerd. And my parents, like, went through this thing where they're like, are you doing. Are you smoking pot? Or like all this, like, did this happen to every kid who lived through the 80s and 90s? I don't know. [01:01:01] Speaker B: It didn't happen to me. [01:01:02] Speaker A: No. Okay. [01:01:03] Speaker C: No, it did happen to me for sure. I remember very specifically once my. My mom asking me if I was sniffing glue because I had for a school project. [01:01:17] Speaker B: You picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue. [01:01:20] Speaker C: I sure picked the wrong week. No, I had a. I had, like, a project at school, and we had this thing of glue. I don't remember what the project for was for, but I had it in my room. And. And one day my mom asked me if I was sniffing glue. It's like, what? I didn't even know that was a thing then. [01:01:39] Speaker B: Wow, that's amazing. That's amazing. [01:01:42] Speaker A: Yeah. I don't know, man. My parents just had. I felt like they feel like they had to be responsible and just check if I was acting at all erratically. But the funny thing is the father doesn't notice his son's trying to kill himself multiple times, right? [01:01:56] Speaker B: Yeah. And the father's got, like, books on how to talk to your kid on drug. Like, he's got all kinds of stuff. He's. He's trying to do his due diligence, but he's so clueless. He can't even see that his son is depressed. [01:02:07] Speaker A: He tells him to mellow off. [01:02:09] Speaker B: Mellow off is one of his favorites. Mellow off. [01:02:14] Speaker A: Let'S see. And then we got mob. Oh, my God. Mom's main trait really seems to be cooking the worst food imaginable. [01:02:22] Speaker B: Oh, my God. Kim Darby, who was in the original True Grit when she was younger and now and plays the mother here, and she just like the most insane stuff that. That, like, it's just. And it progresses. [01:02:37] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:02:37] Speaker B: You know, it starts as just, oh, this. This is a weird looking color. Spaghetti or whatever. [01:02:42] Speaker A: And then later, Green bacon. [01:02:43] Speaker B: Green bacon, Green bacon. That's it. You're right. Green bacon. And then it just. From there, it escalates. [01:02:49] Speaker A: Yeah. There's a scene with, like, slime with raisins in it, it sliding across a table. Apparently, that took them a million takes to do because, like, everyone. Everyone was cracking up. A Kim Darby who didn't break, apparently. Yeah. And this was based, apparently, on Holland's life. He told Entertainment Weekly my mom would get McCall's magazine and she would find these recipes and make these things and have some excuse why they didn't taste good because she forgot something or she didn't have an ingredient. [01:03:19] Speaker B: Oh, my goodness. [01:03:20] Speaker A: I'm sure they weren't that bad, though. I hope, I hope, I hope, I hope. Yeah. At the end we have, like, a. Like, a creature with, like, tentacles and, like. [01:03:30] Speaker B: Tentacles. Yeah. [01:03:33] Speaker C: I'd love to know how the movie would get from this cooking stuff to the Gumby stuff. That's the connective tissue that I'm missing here. Yeah, I heard you say that about the deleted scenes. [01:03:46] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:03:47] Speaker C: Gotta know that maybe that's why it. [01:03:48] Speaker A: Got cut, to be frank. I don't know. Like, who knows what's going on there? But, yeah, she did a great job. I thought. Kim. Kim Darby in this film, she's so. [01:03:57] Speaker B: She's so benign, you know? Like, she's so, like. Oh, you know, like. Like, she means well, but, man, you know, if results count for anything, it's not happening. It's not happening. [01:04:12] Speaker A: Then we have the brother who I particularly like. This brother. I had a sort of genius little brother, too. He's still somewhat of a genius. This little brother is obsessed with entering contests where you cut things out from the back of a box. That was a huge part of childhood in the 80s, like cutting cardboard. But you waited until the cereal was gone. Unlike the brother in this movie. [01:04:34] Speaker B: Well, let's talk about that for a second, because here's the thing. So the son is cutting out the labels from cereal boxes to mail away for all this crazy stuff. And, you know, I mean, this is a kid who is. He's so genius that he could build a functioning laser weapon in his. In his room. Like, it's amazing. It's fantastic. And, you know, so he's sending. It's the. It's this terrific visual gag because someone pulls the cereal box out of the cabinet and the contents spill out all over the floor. But here's the question, guys. Even if he did that, even. He cut them out as soon as they arrived in the house. Where are the bags? [01:05:11] Speaker A: That's True. Did they always have bags in the cereal boxes? Now I'm trying to remember because I think. [01:05:16] Speaker B: Well, I looked it up because I was curious. I took the Jen Howell. I'm gonna do my research things seriously. And I found out that there weren't always bags inside cereal boxes, but they came into common use in the 1950s. So certainly by the 80s, there were. There were plastic bags inside boxes. So that's something they did for the movie to give it a great visual gag. But, you know, it's. It's. It's not real life. [01:05:45] Speaker A: Fantastic. [01:05:46] Speaker C: But I. I will say that that scene is one of my favorites in the whole movie, just because of the dad's reactions. The first one, he's just like, can we finish the serial before we put it back? The. The hole in it? And then the second one, by the third time, he just pulls it out, lets it all spill out. He's kind of like, oh, whatever. It. Love that scene. [01:06:06] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. No, and. And here's the thing about the family. The family and the absurdity of it illustrates one thing about this movie that I truly, truly, truly love. And that is that Better Off Dead is a movie that absolutely commits to the bit. [01:06:25] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:06:26] Speaker B: Whatever the bit might be, it's the mother's cooking. It's the stuff with the brother or the insane links. The paperboy will go. It grabs a hold and it won't let go. It will keep making that joke till it reaches its. Its ultimate conclusion. And committing to the bit is something this movie does incredibly well. [01:06:45] Speaker A: Yeah. I love. The brother mails away for a book called how to Meet Trashy Women. [01:06:51] Speaker B: Yeah, it's great. [01:06:53] Speaker A: And then sure enough, like, later in the movie, Lane comes home from a dance, and he's kind of depressed, and there's his brother having a party in his room with a bunch of trashy women. [01:07:03] Speaker B: Like, four or five trashy women. He is in, like, a Hugh Hefner. The brother is in, like, a Hugh Hefner type smoking jacket. [01:07:09] Speaker A: Yep. [01:07:11] Speaker B: And you get the shot where Lane comes into the room and the leg goes up and frames him in, like, an homage to the graduate 100. [01:07:18] Speaker C: Yeah, that's definitely an homage to the Graduate. [01:07:21] Speaker A: And the kid is supposed to be, like, 8 years old. He looks a little older, but Lane calls him, like, about 8 years old. So, like, that's why it's funny, because it's like, what is this kid doing with these ladies, basically? So. Yep. Yep. [01:07:31] Speaker B: Amazing. [01:07:32] Speaker A: Yep. [01:07:33] Speaker C: And he never says one word in the whole movie. [01:07:35] Speaker A: Right, right. [01:07:37] Speaker C: There's no Lines. He has looks. He turns around, he shoots a gun at one point. He just does his thing. People ask him questions. He just ignores them. He is just in the zone. And it's working out for him. [01:07:50] Speaker B: It is working. It is working out for him. [01:07:52] Speaker A: Yep. [01:07:53] Speaker B: Yep. [01:07:54] Speaker A: All right. And then we've got the. Their neighbors, who I actually think are across the street. We got Ricky, Ricky and his mom. And Ricky's one of those kind of like nerd characters from the 80s who's like, forever wearing two contrasting plaid patterns. You got to have two different plaids, pads and glasses. And just comes in with a nasal spray. Kind of a dork. And then his mom is, like, trying. His mom seems to have brought Monique, the French foreign exchange student, into the. Into their house as a possible girlfriend for Ricky. She's trying to push those two together no matter what. And Monique is feeling real pressed about this, but she doesn't talk for most of the beginning of the movie. For really about two thirds of the movie, we don't hear her. Her speak in English. So. [01:08:36] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:08:37] Speaker A: Yeah. Any thoughts on Ricky and his mom? [01:08:40] Speaker B: Well, the thing about Ricky is that unlike a lot of quote unquote nerds from 80s movies, Ricky is not smart. Like, Ricky's not like the Revenge of the Nerds kids, where they're really bright, but they're socially awkward. Ricky is barely sentient at times. Like, he just. He's kind of sits there. He almost. Like, he's just. He's almost drooling. It seems like. Like every time they show a photo of him, he's got to look like he's just been kicked in the head by a mule. He's. He's. He's just. He's. He's someone who's socially awkward, but doesn't even come with the. [01:09:14] Speaker A: The. [01:09:14] Speaker B: The sort of. The heightened intelligence to. To. To balance it out. You know where you say, oh, this kid will be okay. I think he might be okay in the long run. We'll get to that. But his mother is just a completely oppressive person. [01:09:26] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:09:27] Speaker C: Yeah. He's got a very weird arc in this movie. And you're right. He's. He's a character that's been in 50% of 80s comedies, but I don't think they've ever really had a character like this. Certainly not one that's had a sword fight at the end of the movie and winds up with a woman that almost never happened. [01:09:49] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. And he's got one of my favorite moments in the movie, which we'll get to a Little bit later. [01:09:54] Speaker A: Then we will get to the ski team tryouts then. So the sports aspect of this movie begins pretty early. We have this kind of typical 80s sports movie or sports rom com setup where an ordinary guy is losing a girl to a popular rich or jock guy. And in this case, that is in the person of Roy Stalin. And we already know at this point, Beth is already plotting to leave him before the ski tryouts. But then we come to this ski tryout scene and I've got a little clip of that. I hear he's the only person in Greendale that's ever skied the K12 from the glacier and lake. Big man. What a hump. Okay, listen up. Your running time has to be under 58 seconds to even be considered. Your time will be gauged along with a rating of 1 to 10 on. [01:10:58] Speaker C: Your style, which will be judged solely by me and my vast expertise of skiing technique. So why don't we have you sorry. [01:11:06] Speaker A: Looking lot of hopefuls make your way up the hill. Now you future members of the girls ski team can all keep me company until it's time for you to take the track. Who'd like to hold my clipboard? You'll make a fine little helper. What's your name? Charles Demar. Shut up, Keek. What's your name? Dad. [01:11:30] Speaker B: It's my favorite name. [01:11:34] Speaker C: Buenos dias, Roy Stalin. [01:11:36] Speaker A: How you doing? Hola. Lane Meyer. I can see you and I share one common desire. The desire to be a part of the well oiled machinery that is the Greendale High School ski racing team. [01:11:48] Speaker C: The desire for victory. [01:11:49] Speaker B: Well, I. [01:11:50] Speaker A: Right on. Now get up there and let's see what you got. All right. Fantastic. He. He did a great job in this movie. Oh my God. Roy Stalin is such a great character. [01:12:03] Speaker B: Can we talk about the moment? [01:12:04] Speaker C: He's such a douche. [01:12:05] Speaker B: Oh, he is. He's absolutely a douche. Oh my God. Like, he's so smarmy. Like, oh, who wants to be my helper? [01:12:12] Speaker C: Like, oh God. My. [01:12:13] Speaker B: My God. But the funniest. The funniest thing is when he says, what's your name? And Charles very earnestly replies, Charles Demar. Like. [01:12:22] Speaker A: And then he's. [01:12:22] Speaker B: He looks so hurt when the guy's like, shut up, geek. It's so great. [01:12:26] Speaker A: I heard somewhere that was a Curtis Armstrong improv to. [01:12:30] Speaker B: I believe it. I believe it. [01:12:34] Speaker C: Can I just ask, did any of you have a high school ski team? [01:12:39] Speaker A: No. [01:12:39] Speaker C: Grew up in the Bay Area, so I never even thought about that. [01:12:43] Speaker A: No. We had a ski hill near my High school, too, and we had a place for cross country skiing. We had cross country skiing in gym class our junior year if we wanted, but we never had a high school ski team. [01:12:54] Speaker B: No, no, we didn't either. It's. But, but, you know, I mean, I'd imagine if you live in, you know, certain particular geographic regions, you know, Vermont, New Hampshire, the Rockies. This is set in a fictional Northern California town. So it might be. I can imagine that. I mean, it's, you know, it's, it's. It's not unreasonable to imagine that skiing would be the big thing here. [01:13:18] Speaker C: I mean, it would have to be very, very Northern California. [01:13:21] Speaker B: Very Northern California. Northern and western. Like it's almost Nevada, you know, or Utah or something. [01:13:28] Speaker A: Yeah, Yeah. I don't know. Yeah, I mean, it's better off dead. You never know what's going to happen. Right. And. Oh. So I found. Okay. I tried to look up information on what skiing a K12 meant, and all Google searches led back to better off dead. And for a while I thought maybe Google was just being shitty. But then when I saw Savage Steve Holland give a Q and A, he said he heard that K2 was a difficult hill, so he just added 10. [01:13:55] Speaker B: That's. Is it K2, the second tallest mountain in the world? [01:13:59] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:14:00] Speaker B: Isn't it like it's everest and then K2. It's the K12. [01:14:03] Speaker A: Yep, yep. He just added 10. And you know, usually I, I just go and do all this research on the sport that's in the movie or whatever, but I was. Listen, if Savage Steve Holland was just going to add 10, I'm not doing it this time. I'm putting my foot down. [01:14:18] Speaker B: As well you should. As well you should. [01:14:21] Speaker C: I will also say, if you want more of K2, there's a great 1991 Michael Bean movie called K2. [01:14:27] Speaker A: Ooh, excellent. Excellent. Another possible double feature that is not in the double features. Very good. And yeah. And like, Jason, I think you alluded to this earlier that this movie has like kind of a sports movie beginning and a sports movie ending, but it seems to kind of forget a few of the steps along the way of a general sports movie arc, like how somebody trains or how somebody gets better or. Yeah. It just kind of leaves it there. [01:14:52] Speaker C: Yeah. His. His actual training regiment is going to the mountain a couple times and basically falling down it. [01:14:59] Speaker A: That's right. Yeah, that's right. [01:15:01] Speaker C: I will say. I will say that the skiing, like the, the scenes in this movie are shot really well. [01:15:08] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:15:08] Speaker C: Particularly the last sc. The scene where he Skis with Diane Franklin's character. [01:15:14] Speaker A: Yeah, well, yeah, And I guess neither the. Aaron. I'm forgetting his name right now. Aaron Dozier. [01:15:21] Speaker B: Aaron Dozier. [01:15:22] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:15:22] Speaker A: Yeah. Neither Aaron Dozier nor John Cusack had skied before doing this movie, but they managed to do a little bit of like the. The close up skiing scenes. They trained a little bit and figured it out enough that they could appear a couple times. But of course, it's usually stunt people, though. Of course. [01:15:38] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:15:38] Speaker B: They said they went up to, like, the mountain like a little, like a day early and did some stuff and they were like, yeah, if we had gotten really hurt, we would have, you know, stopped the movie and it would. It would have put a lot of people out of work. Thankfully, that didn't happen. [01:15:50] Speaker A: Oh, and I want to give you a picture of Curtis Armstrong's character, Charles, too. He's like, always wearing a top hat in this movie. [01:15:56] Speaker B: So great. Which is so great. [01:15:58] Speaker A: A strange choice, but it works somehow. He's like, oh, he's that weird friend. He's that character. [01:16:05] Speaker B: He is iconic in this movie. Like Charles demar with the top hat, the whole thing. He's got the best lines in the movie. You know, he will get. We'll get to some of them as. As we go, I'm sure. But like, he is just the iconic, weird best friend. And I'll. I'll say I've always been a big Curtis Armstrong fan. He's great in Revenge of the Nerds. Herbert Viola on Moonlighting is great TV characters of all time. [01:16:34] Speaker A: And one thing. Oh, one more thing. I realized when I was watching this scene that. And I think most people realize that Lane actually could have. Should have made the ski team. Roy just, like, stops his stopwatch later so that he doesn't make the cutoff time. [01:16:48] Speaker B: So Roy totally should have made the ski team. Absolutely. [01:16:51] Speaker A: Roy is living up to his fascistic namesake here. [01:16:54] Speaker B: Yeah, but it's that thing. Because what this movie has to say is that all of it was in Lane all along. Lane could always ski the key K12. He could always do these things, but he didn't believe in himself or he didn't have the motivation, and so therefore he didn't. But that is the whole thing. Like, the car. Like, just as a quick aside, he's bought this car, this 67 Chevy Camaro that's sitting in the yard unrepaired, under a tarp, and he's got the car. He just needs to make it run. And that's. That is both true, literally and figuratively. [01:17:38] Speaker A: Yeah, I can see what you're saying. Yeah. All right, so. But at this point in the movie, that's not Lane. Beth breaks up with Lane, which. This reminds me of one of your double features you're gonna do later, Jason. Beth breaks up with Lane by saying, I really think it's in my best interest if I went out with someone more popular, better looking, drives a nicer car. [01:18:01] Speaker C: Savage, amazing breakup. [01:18:03] Speaker B: Oh, my God. [01:18:05] Speaker A: And we, after this, we find out through Lane that they had been dating for six months, which in high school does feel like an eternity. So I'll give it that. I think to make it more absurd, it should have been like two weeks or something, but. Or like ten days. But. But. [01:18:20] Speaker C: Well, you can't scrap together all those pictures in 10 days. [01:18:23] Speaker B: Right, right, right. He needed time to collect those pictures. You know, that's. This wasn't like now where you have digital photography. He needed to get those things developed. [01:18:31] Speaker A: True, true, true. [01:18:33] Speaker B: Takes time. Took time in the 80s, guys. [01:18:36] Speaker A: And then we get to our first of several suicide attempts. Lane tries to tell his mom what happened. She sort of ignores him, like, that's nice. And she's like, vacuuming. And then he goes to the garage and tries to commit suicide. His mom ends up. Up. When he changes his mind, his mom ends up opening the garage door without seeing him, causing him to actually start to kill himself. But he survives. And. Yeah. Anything you want to say about this? It's pretty self explanatory, but it's amazing. [01:19:04] Speaker B: What this movie pulls off because it walks this incredibly fine line in making Lane's various suicide attempts into sources of humor. I mean, that is, as we mentioned earlier, that is a dark and serious subject. And. And the movie is able to draw humor from it. And that is amazing. And. And the movie, to be clear, is not condoning suicide. [01:19:24] Speaker A: No. [01:19:24] Speaker B: Every time he. He thinks about it, he's getting ready and he's like, no, this is stupid. Like, even Charles says, dying when you're not really, really sick is really, really sick. Really? It's like it's. It's. It. It is clearly something, you know, that the movie is not endorsing. But then he gets ready to do it. He decides not to, and then he's. Something happens that triggers it, and he survives. It is an amazing line that this movie walks. [01:19:51] Speaker A: That's true. That's true. [01:19:53] Speaker C: Agreed. And I will say that I. I do think it's funny. His initial reason for not wanting to kill himself in that moment is I've never even been to New York City that earns the tide. And then the mom who's been just completely oblivious and. And her line when he walks in the door is something that I love, too, where he's like, beth broke up with me. She's gone forever. And the mom's just like, that's nice, dear. Like, her obliviousness to the whole scenario just makes it for me. [01:20:22] Speaker A: Yep, totally. She's got too much on her mind, like, what kind of slime she needs to cook up for dinner. [01:20:28] Speaker B: So, yeah, it's this green colloidal sludge that just, like, moves of its own accord. It's amazing. [01:20:38] Speaker A: Yep. And we get here also, we get a flashback scene to when Beth and Lane met, which. Okay, this is great, because my question, like, at the beginning of the movie was, how did these two end up dating each other in the first place? And it seems to be that Beth was also very insecure and thought that she had something in her nose because Plane was rubbing his nose when they first met. It's like a whole thing just goes on and on. [01:21:03] Speaker B: Yeah, no, I'm really glad that they have these. They don't really. You know, they're just very small. But because you're watching this movie, and if you're watching for the first time, you're asking yourself at this point, why is he even together with this girl? Yeah, like, they give a little bit of that. [01:21:19] Speaker C: And the nose motif runs throughout the movie with Charles demar and with Ricky. [01:21:24] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. [01:21:26] Speaker C: Charles demar just, like, snorting everything. And it's hilarious. One point he snorts snow. He's like, this whole mountain's full of pure white. And he just, like, snorts it. The left side of my brain is frozen. Look at my hand. [01:21:40] Speaker B: This is snow. It's everywhere. Do you have any idea of the street value of this mountain? It's like. And the gag that he is in such a small Podung town that he can't get proper drugs, so he turns to whatever, you know, snow. At one point, like, it's. Oh, God, jello. Jello. [01:22:04] Speaker C: And Ricky has his, like, little nose nasal spray that's. He's always gotten his nose savage. [01:22:11] Speaker A: Steve Holland, nose fetishist. No, no. All right, all right. So we'll have to look at his other films and analyze them and see if this continues. All right. Next time I watch One Crazy Summer, that's what's happening. [01:22:28] Speaker B: That's what I'm gonna focus on. That's what I'm gonna focus on. [01:22:31] Speaker A: So we also, in the breakup motif, we have a car scene. Where all the songs are breakup songs. Breaking up is hard to do. She's gone, 50 ways to leave youe Lover. Yeah. He throws the radio out. And I feel like that's a relatable thing. [01:22:46] Speaker B: Well, totally. Yeah. Absolutely relatable. But it's. It's the thing about this movie and sort of this absurdist quality that we've been. We've been commenting on, and it's one of the things that sets this movie apart. But what the absurdism does, and I think it's what makes this movie so effective, it doesn't try to replicate the experience of being a teenager in high school realistically. It is trying to replicate the feeling of being a teenager in high school. Like, in the very beginning, he gets up and he gets in the shower, and he's got mismatched socks that he wears stairs into the show. [01:23:22] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:23:23] Speaker B: Like, would that actually happen? Probably not. But it captures the feeling of being up and barely awake and trying to get ready to get through another day. Sure. And that is what this movie does so effectively, is it captures the feeling of I just got dumped. And, you know, not literally every song on the radio is going to be a breakup song, but it sure gonna feel like it. [01:23:45] Speaker A: Yep. [01:23:46] Speaker C: And I'm pretty sure that this scene was ripped off in one of the Transformers movies. I'm pretty sure Bumblebee does a very similar thing. Thing. [01:23:53] Speaker B: Oh, wow. [01:23:55] Speaker A: Amazing. [01:23:55] Speaker B: That's something. Was it. Was it Bumblebee? Because that's the one I like. [01:24:00] Speaker C: It might have been Bumblebee or one of the Shia LaBeouf ones, but at some point, I'm pretty sure they do this exact kind of thing. [01:24:06] Speaker B: Yeah, there you go. Michael Bay, you never, you know. You know, never put anything past Michael Bay. I don't know what that means. [01:24:15] Speaker A: I don't know what that means. All right, well, we do never put anything past the paper boy. [01:24:22] Speaker B: That's true. [01:24:23] Speaker A: Now we're going to introduce the paperboy character, who's just really actually important to the fabric of this movie, including the end result of the movie. And there are several scenes with the paperboy. One of the most famous scenes that gets quoted all the time. I mean, he says the same thing, but that has a few different quotes from him. Appears early on in the movie. And I'm gonna play a clip of that scene, and then it's gonna cut briefly into a second scene, but then I'll cut it off. So we can discuss after that that Johnny, four weeks, 20 papers. That's $2 plus 2. Gee, Johnny, I don't have a dime. Sorry, didn't ask for a dime. [01:25:04] Speaker B: Two dollars. Well, it's funny. [01:25:08] Speaker A: See, my mom had to leave early to take my. My brother to school and my dad to work, cuz. $2. See, the problem here is that my little brother this morning got his arm caught in the microwave and my grandmother dropped acid and she freaked out and hijacked a school bus full of penguins. So it's kind of a family crisis. [01:25:29] Speaker B: So come back later. [01:25:42] Speaker A: $2. $2. $2. All right, I'm cutting it off there, but the second scene, he has an army of paperboys who come with him. And before, actually, before we discuss this, I want to say that Savage Steve Holland told Entertainment Weekly the paperboy character was also inspired by a real paperboy. He said he would not go. I would come home from school and this kid would sit on the lawn across the street and he would see me there, and it was probably $4 he wanted. And I would say, my mom's not home. I'm a kid. I don't have money. And he'd still be on the Lawn for about 20 more minutes, then come over and say, all right, I'm ready for my $4. And it would go on and on. And Johnny Gasparini is actually the name of the real paperboy, and he's listed that way in the credits too, which is amazing. [01:26:44] Speaker B: That is amazing. [01:26:46] Speaker A: One of these characters is based on a real person. Any resemblance is not coincidental. Anyway. [01:26:57] Speaker B: Honestly, that is terrific. That is terrific. I hope that guy knows that he inspired this, this movie. I hope he knows Johnny, the real Johnny Gasparini out there somewhere. Hopefully not still delivering papers. [01:27:11] Speaker A: Well, for me, this is like the most memorable part of the movie. I mean, this is. [01:27:14] Speaker B: Oh, it's what everybody. [01:27:15] Speaker A: Yeah. If anybody, if you know one thing about Better off dead, it's $2. And like, some people probably know that and they haven't even seen the movie and they're not even sure what the context is. Yeah, this kid is so great, though. I guess he came in for his audition and he decided to play it totally straight, like, not comedic at all. And he had this, like, menacing picture that he brought in with, like, himself in a leather jacket. [01:27:37] Speaker C: He said, quote, was it in a frame? [01:27:39] Speaker A: Oh, I don't know. It might have been. It was the 80s, after all. He said, I approached it as if I were a serial killer with no intention of making it funny. I brought in a headshot of me wearing a leather jacket and looking really menacing. So, my God, Demian Slade is the name of this guy. And I love this character so much. Like, oh, he's great. It's. It's like, cracks me up the whole. Everything he does in this movie, and it just keeps escalating. Just like everything else in the movie. The paper boy keeps escalating. I don't know. [01:28:10] Speaker B: It's committing. It's this movie committing to the bit that is. That is the key is that it just. It takes a thing. And no matter how absurd, it will always take it to the next level. [01:28:19] Speaker A: And the music cues, like, he gets action and horror movie music cues. He gets missed in the background and fog. [01:28:27] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. No, it's. It's amazing. It's so good. [01:28:31] Speaker A: Any. Any favorite paperboy moments for you, Jason, in this film? [01:28:36] Speaker C: Well, I mentioned the Terminator. I'm a huge fan of the Terminator. Well, the first two Terminator movies. And there's. There's. There's, like the Terminator one aspect of him never letting up. And then there's Even a Terminator 2 aspect of when the T1000 is hanging off of the car. Like, you have that in. In this movie. It feels like him up on top of the roof of the car. I love it. [01:29:01] Speaker A: Yeah. And he shows up everywhere. Everywhere. Anywhere you can go. The paper boy is going to show up. Like, maybe we'll talk about it more then. But he shows up on the ski mountain at a. [01:29:12] Speaker C: In the movie with skis on his bike. [01:29:15] Speaker B: That's the thing, is the bike has been rigged to ski. [01:29:19] Speaker C: He also, like, should have died in that scene and didn't, which is even funnier. [01:29:23] Speaker B: I love it. [01:29:24] Speaker A: He just keeps going. He's like any good horror villain of the 80s. Yep. So in terms of Slade's own career, he has appeared in other movies, including Back to the beach. And he wrote and acted in a series called Untreated, which was inspired by his work as a residential manager at a rehab center. And I tried to look up more recent stuff about him. He has a LinkedIn profile, and he has himself listed as a music composer with Odyssean Records, so. So couldn't find out much more information about that in the time I had. But he's still out there. Yep. Not. Not saying $2 anymore, but he also. [01:30:01] Speaker C: Yeah, I don't steal any of his. Any of his records. [01:30:04] Speaker B: Oh, my goodness. [01:30:05] Speaker A: He also says he's barely ever been recognized for the role because the movie wasn't that popular, like, at the time it came out. And then he looked older. But when people find out they're either, like, completely, like, oblivious, or they're just, like, obsessed. Like, oh, my God, you were that kid. And that's how I would be. Be. [01:30:21] Speaker B: Oh, that's how I would be, too. Be. Like, that's the best thing I've ever heard. That's amazing. Yeah. [01:30:26] Speaker A: Yeah. Talk about legendary 80s characters. Yeah. The paper. [01:30:30] Speaker B: Oh, for sure, for sure. [01:30:33] Speaker A: All right, so now we have a math class scene, which it just kind of turns the trope of board students on its head by having all these students be super fascinated by probably math gibberish. I did not even try to figure it out. Delivered by actor Vincent Schiavelli. And. Yeah, and they also have the thing where you didn't do your homework, and then everyone else is super prepared and they've got these huge binders, and it's. It's. [01:30:57] Speaker B: Yeah, it's the antithesis of the classroom scene from Ferris Bueller's Day off where all the kids are unengaged. Here, they're all knowledgeable, they're all engaged, except Lane. [01:31:08] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:31:09] Speaker C: They all get so sad when this. When the bell rings. [01:31:12] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And again, this is a movie. That's. This is a moment that's not realistic. I mean, that was not how high school, you know, But. But it's truthful to how Lane is feeling that everybody else has things together except him. [01:31:27] Speaker A: Totally. Yeah. And then at the end of class, the teacher asks Lane if he minds if he heard that he and Breath had broken up. And does he mind if he asks Beth out? And then later, we see the math teacher with Beth in his car. [01:31:43] Speaker B: So good. [01:31:44] Speaker C: It's such a good bit. [01:31:45] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:31:46] Speaker C: He's also a teacher in Fast Times at Ridgemont High. [01:31:48] Speaker A: Yes, that's right. That's right. [01:31:50] Speaker B: As well as one of the ghosts in Ghost. [01:31:52] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:31:52] Speaker B: And many, many other roles. He was in One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest. He had a great, great career. [01:31:59] Speaker A: So. Yeah, just a little scene, but he makes the most of it here. Yeah. After the scene where Elaine has failed to do the homework, Charles, his friend, advises him to take up the saxophone again and ski the cage. And apparently there was a saxophone scene that was cut out from the movie that involved a seal at some point, too. So I don't even know. [01:32:21] Speaker B: How about that? [01:32:23] Speaker C: Yeah. We do get to see him play the sax later on a little bit. [01:32:27] Speaker A: Yeah. A little bit. Yeah. And then. And in the cafeteria, one of his drawings of Beth taunts him and leads him to ask out another girl in the cafeteria who is dating the entire basketball team. Team. And sure enough, the entire basketball team is there. [01:32:41] Speaker B: Yeah, there's an implication there. My goodness. You know, whole basketball team. [01:32:47] Speaker C: Did you all notice that when they're at the table, they're eating. All the basketball players are eating out of baby food jars. [01:32:55] Speaker B: No, I didn't notice that. That's fantastic. [01:32:57] Speaker C: Every single one of them is just eating. [01:32:59] Speaker B: Fantastic. [01:33:00] Speaker A: Oh, my God. [01:33:01] Speaker C: I have no idea why. And we also get to see Charles Demar walking around with a jar of pickles. Or like a pickled. [01:33:08] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:33:09] Speaker C: Or something. [01:33:09] Speaker A: It looks like one of the things from Piranha that's in the lab. [01:33:12] Speaker B: Yes, it does. [01:33:13] Speaker C: Yeah, it does. [01:33:15] Speaker A: Oh, my God. [01:33:16] Speaker C: There's so much going on in this cafeteria scene now, I can't confirm this. I tried to do some research, too, but Google failed me. When John Cusack is in the lunch line, there's a guy behind him wearing, like, very dark sunglasses, and he looks really menacing. And he just stands there with his arms crossed. I'm pretty sure that that's Savage Steve Holland. [01:33:36] Speaker A: Holland. Oh. [01:33:37] Speaker B: Oh, that's fantastic. [01:33:40] Speaker A: That's interesting. I know there's supposed to be somewhere when he. Somebody when he's in line who was like a relative of the producer, but his line got cut. But he was. And he was covered in soup. I heard that in the Q A, but I don't know if that's the guy you're thinking of or not. [01:33:52] Speaker B: Covered in suit. [01:33:53] Speaker C: I don't know. Looks like he should have had a bigger part. So maybe that's it. But, like, I can't find any pictures of Savage Steve Holland when he was younger. [01:34:02] Speaker A: Okay. [01:34:02] Speaker C: When I looked up Savage Steve Holland, I was like, like, that kind of looks, like, interesting. And it feels like that character is featured way more than he should be without any lines. So just something to look for. I might be wrong. Your listeners will tell me, I'm sure. [01:34:15] Speaker A: And Jason, like, when you mentioned this baby food, I've never noticed that before. And watching this and watching One Crazy Summer, I have found new visual jokes that I had never seen before. And I've watched each of these movies, like, ten times or more. And that these movies just keep giving. There is just. Just. You cannot look away. There's just so much to look at in the frame all the time and jokes that you will miss and you. That you can keep coming back to this movie. It will keep giving to you. [01:34:41] Speaker B: It's. That's so great. That is. That is the hallmark of a great movie. [01:34:45] Speaker C: Now, that one I only noticed on this recent viewing. And I'm Watching it. And I'm like, wait a minute. I. That doesn't seem right. So I went back, and sure as shit, they're eating out of Gerber things. I also found another one where we see nuns later on, walking across the street, and one of them's got a giant boombox in her hand. [01:35:02] Speaker B: I noticed the nun with the boombox. Yeah, that was the time in the 80s everybody was walking around with a boombox. [01:35:10] Speaker A: My things I noticed on this viewing were that the mailman who talks to the little brother about the trashy woman book is just dropping mail on the ground as he walks. [01:35:19] Speaker B: Taylor Negron is the actor. He's great. He's great. [01:35:22] Speaker A: And then the other thing I noticed, they crashed the car into a pond at one point. Point. And there's ducks in the pond. And later they drive to school and the ducks get out of the car. I had never noticed the ducks getting out of the car before. So it's like, oh, my God. Yeah, this movie is crazy. And I noticed something in one crazy summer too. So pretty good. Pretty good. So Lane asks out this girl who's dating the whole basketball team. Predictably, she is not interested. Her clothes get taken off. So you see her in her underwear, which, you know, kind of typical 80s joke. But then after school, he's so depressed again. He's on a bridge, like, about to jump off, and Charles comes by to cheer him up and says, buck up, little camper slaps him on the back, and then he falls into the garbage truck. [01:36:05] Speaker B: Oh, my God. The way he says, buck up, little camper. Like, it's so, so great. Charles is my favorite. I think Charles is so great. [01:36:14] Speaker A: I can tell you like him. You like him. [01:36:17] Speaker B: I'm a big Curtis Armstrong fan. [01:36:19] Speaker A: Well, this garbage can leads to, like, him riding past these, I don't know, utility workers. These black utility workers see him in the garbage truck and say the line we heard in the trailer. Man, that's a real shame when folks be throwing away a perfectly good white boy like that. [01:36:36] Speaker C: Oh, I know one of my favorite lines in the movie. And also stolen later on in Men at Work. [01:36:41] Speaker A: Oh. [01:36:42] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. [01:36:44] Speaker A: Okay. I've not seen that. That. So that good spotting. So, like, we. We do get back a little bit into the ski movie aspect a little bit. Lane is up on the hill with Charles, and Charles is kind of his coach figure here. And he tells. He tell, you could do the line because you like Charles, so you want to do the line. He delivers to Lane. [01:37:05] Speaker B: Go that way really fast. If something Gets in your way, turn. And you know what? Honestly, that is great advice. Like, I love. What I love about Charles is I love that this movie puts the voice of reason into such a absolutely absurd character. [01:37:29] Speaker A: I mean, I do think there's probably a little bit more to skiing, you know. [01:37:33] Speaker B: Well, I mean, maybe there's some technical stuff, but that's the general idea. And honestly. Honestly, that's the general idea of life. Go really fast, and if something gets in your way, turn. [01:37:44] Speaker C: Yep, that's advice I gave to my kid when he started riding his first scooter. [01:37:51] Speaker B: You know, honestly. And I'm sure your kid's doing great. [01:37:54] Speaker C: He has crashed many times, just like Lane. But he's all right. [01:37:58] Speaker B: He gets up and he gets back on the scooter. [01:38:01] Speaker C: That's right. [01:38:02] Speaker A: Question. Have either of you ski? [01:38:04] Speaker B: Yes. [01:38:05] Speaker A: Okay. [01:38:06] Speaker C: Yes. [01:38:06] Speaker A: What do you think of the portrayal of skiing in this movie? Because I've only cross country skied. How hard is skiing? Like, have you ever been, like, a really good skier? Like, any insight that you have at all would be appreciated. [01:38:16] Speaker B: I was pretty good. I haven't done it in, like, 30 years, but. But, you know, it's. You know, I did it. Last time I went skiing was on spring break my freshman year in college. The one year I went somewhere for spring break. We went to Vermont or. Yeah, Vermont. Killington, Vermont. And, you know, I was pretty good at it. You know, it wasn't the first time I'd skied, but it was the last. But I. I feel like. Honestly, I feel like I could get right back on that ski slope. [01:38:42] Speaker A: Could you ski the K12? [01:38:46] Speaker B: Give me. Give me maybe a couple of practice runs. [01:38:49] Speaker A: All right. [01:38:50] Speaker B: And I'll be okay. Because again, I have Charles's advice in my head. [01:38:56] Speaker A: Jason, any. Any thoughts about this movie vis a vis skiing? [01:39:01] Speaker C: You know, it's also been probably two decades since I've been skiing, but I liked it quite a bit. And I was pretty good at it, too. I bet Chris could probably beat me in a race by four seconds, but, yeah, you know, I was. I was pretty good. As for how it's portrayed in this movie, you know, it's probably pretty accurate If I'm thinking 20 years back. [01:39:22] Speaker A: Back. [01:39:22] Speaker C: If I was to get on the slopes now, it'd certainly be on a bike with skis, but, yes. [01:39:27] Speaker B: Oh, for sure. That's a whole other thing. I mean, I might look. I might beat you by four seconds, but it'll look like we tied. [01:39:36] Speaker A: So weirdly. There were a lot of ski comedies, though, in the 80s and early 90s, not enough really for get me another series. But there was a Copper Mountain, which had Jim Carrey in 1983. Hot dog. [01:39:48] Speaker B: Hot Dog, the movie. [01:39:50] Speaker A: Oh, my God. I started watching that. I got about a third of the way in. And there's so. There's so much casual sexism in that movie. I'm just like, oh, my God. But it's like one of those guys partying with naked chicks on a ski slope movie. So far, I've only seen a third of it. Have you guys seen more? [01:40:09] Speaker B: It's been a long time, but that's basically my memory too. And, you know, it kind of falls into the. That Porky's sort of tradition. You know, it's. I think there was something about skiing and movies where, you know, you weren't. You weren't talking about Olympic caliber skiing. You were talking about, like, you know, dumb ski comedies. That's what most of them seem to be. [01:40:29] Speaker A: Well, Hot Dog was some kind of, like, big international skiing championship, and the. The villain in that one is, like, an Austrian dude. So that fits. That fits. Pretty exciting. I did watch ski Patrol from 1990, where if you ever want to see Paul Faig do a Tina Turner impersonation. [01:40:46] Speaker B: I would like to see that. [01:40:48] Speaker A: Yeah, that's. That's. That is then the movie for you. [01:40:51] Speaker B: Yeah, sure. [01:40:52] Speaker A: And there was ski School in 1991 and Aspen Extreme in 1993. [01:40:57] Speaker B: Well, if it was the 90s, it was extreme because we all remember the 90s and everything was extreme. You know, like Mountain Dew, Ecto Cooler. [01:41:06] Speaker A: Extreme and Better Off Dead is like, before the transition from skiing to snowboarding, too. So, yeah, ski racing. The high school ski team is still doing its thing. They're still cool. They haven't been replaced by snowboarders yet. [01:41:21] Speaker C: And they were replaced by snowball snowboarders in the movie Out Cold, which kind of killed the entire snowboarding movie movement in its tracks. [01:41:31] Speaker A: Really? Okay. [01:41:32] Speaker B: Wow. [01:41:33] Speaker A: And there was also a run of ski documentaries of just skiing footage in the 80s, so skiers were, like, capturing, like, cool tricks they did and racing and so forth. So, yeah, like, it was a whole thing. And, like, I could not find much about the culture of skiing in the 80s on Google or on another search engine. I don't know, man. I think I have to go back to the library for research. Like, search. Search engines are starting to fail me here. But a Huffington post article from 2017 did mention some things that have changed in. In the skiing world since the 80s. There's less snowfall and Unpredictability of snowfall due to climate change. There's been a lot of technological advances in ticketing and tracking skiers while they're on the slopes. And of course, like I just said, the rise of snowboarding. And the website Sierra.com mentions that the shape of skis has actually changed since the 80s. 80s skis were apparently not as easy to use for beginners. And in the 90s, skis became shorter and wider. So that's pretty good. Good. [01:42:30] Speaker B: Interesting. [01:42:30] Speaker C: But did they have any. Anything to protect people from others? Throwing up on the chairlifts is important. [01:42:39] Speaker A: Yes. That's an allusion to Lane, who has an anxiety problem in this movie. Yeah, I don't think they did. Yeah. But anyway, that's just a little bit about skiing. I didn't go overboard with research for this episode, but, yep, that's. Neither did Savage Steve Holland. I'm not. I am not sure if that man ever went wen skiing. To be honest, I'm not sure. So, yeah, now we come to Christmas. [01:43:05] Speaker B: Oh, it's so good. I love Christmas. I love the Christmas scene in this movie. It's great. It's just great. It's great. [01:43:11] Speaker C: Do you have Christmas in France? [01:43:14] Speaker B: Christmas? [01:43:17] Speaker A: I hate to say it, but Ricky's mom's, like, whole decor style is, like, really in fashion now. And I kind of love her kitschy 50s pink Christmas tree. [01:43:26] Speaker B: Oh, no. [01:43:27] Speaker A: Oh, no. I love a kitschy Christmas style. We don't have it in my house because my husband feels the same way that you do, but, oh, my gosh, I love it, but I do not. I do not love her holding Monique's face. [01:43:38] Speaker B: Oh, God, if I was Monique, I would. I would forget it. I would have smacked those hands right away. Forget it. [01:43:44] Speaker A: Yeah. We find out a bit later in the movie that Monique speaks great English and. And she's just been pretending she doesn't understand. But like many Americans, the Americans in this movie go around acting like people who don't speak English are just dumb. And if they talk louder or they. [01:44:02] Speaker B: Louder and slower. [01:44:03] Speaker A: Yeah. They mold the person's face. They're going to suddenly understand things. Yeah. Amazing. I'll open it up to whatever you guys want to talk about. The Christmas at the Ricky and his mom or the Christmas they have at Lean's house? [01:44:15] Speaker C: I was just gonna say we gotta talk about the costumes. The mom has this reindeer outfit. [01:44:20] Speaker A: Specifically, Lane's mom. [01:44:22] Speaker B: Lane's mom's mom. [01:44:24] Speaker C: Yes. And then the dad gets this aardvark suit which he puts on to be a friend. [01:44:30] Speaker B: Will Be wearing one of these this year. [01:44:32] Speaker C: Yeah, he's a. He's a trendsetter. And then we get the gifts, which are classic. I mean, they're just TV dinners, which, by the way, come in later, which I thought was pretty, pretty fun. [01:44:45] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:44:45] Speaker A: Oh, my gosh. And apparently savage Steve Holland told Entertainment Weekly his mom once really did give him some frozen dinners for his birthday. [01:44:54] Speaker B: Amazing. Amazing. [01:44:55] Speaker A: I hope she kept them in the freezer until she gave them to him. [01:44:59] Speaker B: I like that someone in the Meyer household got what looks to be an inflatable tweaky robot from Buck Rogers in the 2015. I would, I would be excited for that as a Christmas gift now. [01:45:11] Speaker A: Well, what I love about this Christmas scene, you mentioned these costumes, Jason. Like, they're kind of ahead of their time because, like, nowadays people love wearing weird costumes. Like, I feel like it's much more of a thing, people wearing like one piece little suits or snuggies or like dressing up in little animal costumes is more popular now than it was in the 80s. In the 80s, it just seemed kind of ridiculous. And also, also, they have a TV that's playing a fireplace. In the 80s. That was a joke. Now Netflix has how many different fireplace settings? YouTube has how many different fireplace things you can put on your tv. [01:45:42] Speaker B: So, Jen, that wasn't a joke. That was the Yule Log. That was a real thing. [01:45:47] Speaker A: Wait, was. Seriously? People were doing that? [01:45:50] Speaker B: It was. I grew up, I grew up in New Jersey, so we got North Jersey. We got all of our tv. We're all New York station. And the Yule Log was a big deal. [01:46:00] Speaker A: Really. [01:46:01] Speaker B: WPIX, Channel 11. And it was on every year for people who lived in apartments and who didn't have fireplaces. [01:46:10] Speaker A: Well, I apologize. I apologize. [01:46:12] Speaker B: No, no, I'm not trying to. I'm just. But like, that was a real thing. And it was like the Yule log that, that, that Channel 11 showed for years was shot at the mayor's house. Gracie Mansion in New York City. [01:46:24] Speaker A: No way. And was it? [01:46:25] Speaker B: Yeah, it's been reshot in HD. Now you can get it on YouTube. It was a real thing in. Now I don't know if it was a real thing in places where you could have a fireplace, but that was a real thing in particular in New York City. [01:46:38] Speaker A: Well, that is. I've learned something new. Thank you. You have. [01:46:42] Speaker C: You've come for us either. But I do wonder if the producers of Friends saw this because the holiday armadillo pillow that Ross becomes at one point totally reminded me of the Aardvark in this movie. [01:46:56] Speaker B: Totally. [01:46:57] Speaker A: And then the next door neighbor. Did we say the next door neighbor has a matching aardvark costume too? [01:47:02] Speaker B: That's the kicker on the scene is that when they go outside to look at the garage door windows and the neighbor is wearing the aardvark costume. She was right. Everyone was going to be wearing those that year. [01:47:12] Speaker C: She was right. [01:47:13] Speaker A: Oh, man. Yeah. And the dad has bought a new garage door with nice windows. And what happens? Lane? [01:47:21] Speaker B: Well, Lane is. Is had called Beth on Christmas. Did not, you know, found out that. That Roy had given her an extravagant gift. And he decides to try to commit suicide by running the car in the garage and then smartens up, you know, and then hits reverse and busts through the garage door. It's fantastic. [01:47:40] Speaker A: Yep. Poor dad. Poor dad. [01:47:45] Speaker B: Poor long suffering David Oddgood Styers, who was on MASH for years. He was. He was one of the characters on MASH for a long time and is a terrific character actor from that time. [01:47:57] Speaker A: So we come to a combination of. Lane goes on sort of a bad setup date. Well, he doesn't go on the bad setup date. And then he. And then he goes to a school dance, like my school. I don't think anyone's school had a New Year's Eve dance, but we have to have a dance dance in this movie. So there's a new New Year's Eve dance at the school. [01:48:14] Speaker B: We'll take the first thing first. The date is great because he shows up at the girl's house. The girl has no interest in him, and she's like, here's what you would have spent on the date. Let's just. If you just give me the money, we'll call it a night. It's so great. [01:48:26] Speaker C: I love that scene. [01:48:27] Speaker B: Oh, it's so good. [01:48:29] Speaker C: She's not what you would call a looker. And it's like she just has no interest in John Cusack's camera at all. [01:48:38] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [01:48:39] Speaker C: They just kind of like barter their way out of the date because he doesn't really want to go on it either. And I thought that was great. [01:48:44] Speaker B: It's good. It's good. And then the dance. Now. Now the dance is great. It does the something as many 80s movies do. It propagates the myth of live high school entertainment. [01:48:59] Speaker A: Occasionally they had it. Occasionally some schools. [01:49:01] Speaker B: But it's so rare. Rare. But 80s movies would make you think that every high school had a dance with live music. [01:49:08] Speaker A: Okay. And this did not stop in the 80s either. 90s Rom coms. Same thing. [01:49:12] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:49:12] Speaker A: Teen rom coms, man, were, like, supporting a whole industry of, like, little bands and singers, which is. [01:49:18] Speaker B: Is crazy because maybe if you go back to, like, the 50s and 60s, but, like, once. Once you had, like, you know, recorded music that was fairly portable. It was all DJs. It was. [01:49:28] Speaker A: Was DJ. Sure, sure, sure. [01:49:29] Speaker B: The music here is fantastic. I know. We're gonna get to that in just a second. [01:49:33] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, I'll just. I'll mention really quick because, like, I. This. This viewing, I noticed that Elizabeth Daly. Elizabeth Daly is like, my favorite character from Valley Girl. Plays my favorite character in Valley Girl. [01:49:44] Speaker B: The, like, another movie I haven't seen. [01:49:46] Speaker A: Oh, my God. Okay, sorry, sorry. I'm gonna calm down. I'm calming down. But. But, yeah, she's my favorite character. She plays my favorite character in Valley Girl. Girl. She's so sweet. She's so cute. And she sings two songs on the soundtrack. One Way Love, Better Off Dead. So we have a title of the movie song in the movie. [01:50:03] Speaker B: Fantastic. It is just one of the great 80s movie songs. [01:50:08] Speaker A: And she also sings A Little Luck. And I didn't realize that she had this whole music thing going at the same time as acting. She had songs in the movie Scarface and the Breakfast Club as well. I did not know that. [01:50:19] Speaker B: I think she was great. She's also in Pee Wee Herman's Big Adventure, which came out the same year, you know, and I've never seen Valley Girl. [01:50:28] Speaker A: I'm gonna have to definitely. If you like her. Her presence in movies, you gotta see it. She's an important supporting character. [01:50:35] Speaker B: I gotta say, I think Elizabeth Daly might be the 80s crush I didn't know I had. [01:50:40] Speaker A: Okay. [01:50:42] Speaker B: She is fantastic. [01:50:43] Speaker C: Let me say. She's also the voice of Tommy Pickles in Rugrats. [01:50:48] Speaker B: I knew that she had a big career in voice work. Like, she's done a lot of voice work in the years since. [01:50:55] Speaker A: Yeah, well, she's very cute here in her silver dress, singing with her band and, like, at the school dance and. Yeah, like, I mean, it's a myth, but it's a great myth. I mean, it's so much more dynamic to watch. To watch, like a really neat band in one of these movies. [01:51:08] Speaker B: Oh, don't get me wrong. When the legend outstrips reality, Print the legend. [01:51:13] Speaker A: Legend. [01:51:14] Speaker B: There's no question. [01:51:15] Speaker A: Okay, so we. At this dance, we have Stalin. Of course he's there. He comes by with Beth. Now, the interesting thing about Beth is she basically does not speak for. No, for most of the movie, she's Just with Roy. And Roy just comes around and taunts Lane occasionally. This time he taunts Lane and Charles, and Charles laughs at his joke about them. And then Charles just keeps laughing and laughing and laughing. And Stalin is so disconcerted. And this was another Curtis Armstrong improv. [01:51:43] Speaker B: Apparently, it is the best reaction to. To a bully making fun of you. It is the perfect response. I wish I knew it when I was a kid, but I. It is the perfect response. And again, he keeps going. This movie. The thing about this movie is it always commits to the bit and the laughter. It just keeps laughing intensely in Roy's face. And it's perfect. [01:52:10] Speaker A: Yep. He goes. Finds him on the dance floor with Beth and bothers him and laughs at him again. [01:52:16] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. I want to also point out that one of. One of Roy's goons, like, the group of guys, is wearing a Freddy Krueger sweater. [01:52:23] Speaker A: Yes. Yes. And Holland was asked about that in a Q and A. He says he thinks it might have been the costume department because it wasn't his idea. [01:52:31] Speaker B: So I don't even know if. If. If Nightmare on Elm street would come out. [01:52:35] Speaker A: It had. It had. It had. [01:52:36] Speaker C: When this movie would have been a year. [01:52:38] Speaker A: Yeah, it had come out and Amanda Whis was in it. And in the. [01:52:41] Speaker B: Oh, right. Okay. [01:52:42] Speaker A: So, yeah, it was probably like he. Holland thinks it might have been the costume department's joke, like, to have that happen. [01:52:48] Speaker B: Yeah, right. [01:52:49] Speaker A: Because of course, she's in the frame when you see that goon. So it's like Freddy's Men. [01:52:53] Speaker B: Oh, that makes sense. [01:52:55] Speaker C: Oh, yeah. [01:52:58] Speaker A: That is pretty amazing. Yeah. [01:53:00] Speaker B: And the dance. The other thing I love in the dance is the dance has my favorite moment with Ricky in. [01:53:06] Speaker A: Yes, yes. [01:53:07] Speaker B: Because he comes in. [01:53:08] Speaker A: He. [01:53:09] Speaker B: He comes to the dance. He's got. [01:53:10] Speaker A: He's. [01:53:11] Speaker B: He's basically dragging Monique along with him. And it. He starts to get down on the dance floor. And it's one of the few moments where I really like him. I know such a ridiculous dance, and he is so into it. [01:53:28] Speaker A: I love the. [01:53:29] Speaker C: It's ridiculous, but it's also really smooth, like. [01:53:32] Speaker B: Yeah, it is. [01:53:33] Speaker C: It's not like he's a bad dancer. He's a erratic dancer, but it's all pretty Good. [01:53:39] Speaker B: Yes, yes, 100%. And then it culminates with him just throwing himself down on the floor and staying there. [01:53:48] Speaker A: Yeah, like he's gonna do that. What is it called? The Caterpillar or something where you. [01:53:51] Speaker B: Yeah, like the worm. [01:53:52] Speaker A: Or the worm. That's it. But he doesn't do it. [01:53:54] Speaker C: Surround Him. [01:53:55] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:53:56] Speaker B: It's so good. It's so good. Like, honestly. But I love this scene with him because it's the first time he starts to show a spark of life. [01:54:04] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, without scene. Without this scene. I wouldn't like the thing at the end that they throw Ricky, but with this scene, I'm like, all right, I see it, I see it. [01:54:11] Speaker B: But, like, honestly, it's going to be about a guy figuring out who he really is. And I think that could apply to Ricky, too. [01:54:18] Speaker A: Sure. [01:54:18] Speaker B: Like, Ricky's a creepy dude, but how much of that is because of the influence of his overbearing mother? But here's the first time we see him alone, and he is busting loose on the dance floor. [01:54:29] Speaker A: Yep. [01:54:30] Speaker B: So maybe he'll be okay if he can get away from his mother. [01:54:33] Speaker A: And he lets go of Monique long enough for Monique to. 48 minutes into this movie, that is mainly a romance between monique and laid. 48 minutes in, they speak to each other. Other. [01:54:44] Speaker B: It is amazing. [01:54:46] Speaker A: Or rather, Lane speaks to her because she's not speaking English yet. [01:54:50] Speaker B: Right, Right. But that it's the midpoint of this movie that Lane and mo' Nique interact for the first time. That's amazing. [01:54:57] Speaker A: Yep. Yep. This is the thing. This is the thing with him, too, because one crazy summer, the same thing. Like, it kind of meanders. Like, he meets the love interest earlier in that. But most of the plot meanders until suddenly you're like, in a regatta, and you're like, wait, where did that from? [01:55:10] Speaker B: Come regard it. But. But what? I want to also. 1. So when he meets her, they're outside the gym, outside of the dance. And. And we have one of my favorite visual gags in this movie. In a movie replete with great visual gags. When Ricky realizes that Monique is outside, he runs after and he. He grabs a balloon, presumably to give to her. But as he's approaching Monique and Lane, he accidentally lets go of the balloon. And. And it's a brilliant bit by Dan Snyder. He turns back around, he does this little hop as if he's trying to catch it, but he can't. And then he turns back around to Monique. It is a fantastic piece of. [01:55:55] Speaker A: Yep, yep. It's great. Yep. And he says, mother is waiting for us. [01:56:00] Speaker B: Mother is waiting for us. [01:56:01] Speaker A: Is he seriously? Like, he's. He's doing horror characters there. It's great. This movie is always just like a. A little sliver away from a horror movie. [01:56:08] Speaker B: 100%. Absolutely. [01:56:11] Speaker A: And that carries on with. After Elaine says goodbye to Monique, we Have that scene we heard earlier with the army of paper boys approaching in the fog. Almost like a werewolf movie or something. Yeah, the way they chase after him. [01:56:24] Speaker C: Classic. [01:56:26] Speaker A: All right, we'll move on to Pig Burgers. [01:56:28] Speaker B: Pig burgers. [01:56:30] Speaker A: And. And for me, the most interesting, inexplicable scene in the entire series, which is a brief sort of musical interlude where Lane gets a job at Pig Burgers to make hamburgers. And it turns into a music video with claymation where Lane is trying to bring hamburgers to life. And it's all set to Everybody Wants Some by Van Halen. And it's got. It's got like the Frankenstein, like, hair and like, atmosphere and then a claymation hamburger and a lady hamburger. Yeah. [01:57:02] Speaker B: Is there anything more 80s than a claymation sequence set to a Van Halen song? [01:57:09] Speaker A: No, no. [01:57:10] Speaker B: Yeah, there actually is. And I will tell you what that is. There is something more 80s because the lady burger is wearing jelly shoes. [01:57:20] Speaker C: This is the, the point in the movie where if you started this movie and then took mushrooms, this is the point where you're wondering what's reality and what's not reality. [01:57:31] Speaker A: Yeah. Nice. [01:57:34] Speaker B: Oh, God. Yeah, it's. It's, it's fantastic. I mean, I, I think this thing of. Of working in a fast food joint is as sort of this, this terrible. Like, that's a common 80s movie thing. [01:57:46] Speaker A: And it's a rite of passage. When you were teenagers in the 80s, most people had this kind of shitty paradigm job. Yeah, yeah. [01:57:52] Speaker B: And. And, and Fast Times Ridgemont High has got it. Like, it's a. You know, there's. There's. There's a lot of that. And, and, and again, you know, then of course, you know, the, there's the, the. The gross boss who. [01:58:02] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:58:03] Speaker B: Like, is just, you know, it's a. This is a poke. This is a pat. Oh, my God. It's just. Then it's pig burgers. Oh, my God. It's amazing. [01:58:13] Speaker A: And I just want to put in the. The animation here. The claymation was done by Jimmy Picker and the most Ocean Picker Studios, Inc. And I mean, this doesn't totally work for me, but I also would be sad if they took it out, I guess. Like. And apparently when they did test screenings, this was the most popular scene in the movie. [01:58:32] Speaker B: It's so fantastic. And, you know, it's so well animated. [01:58:36] Speaker C: Yeah. And it's just so weird. [01:58:38] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:58:39] Speaker C: Some reason, you know, in this movie that's incredibly weird. This might be the weirdest thing in it. I always love this scene. Although you could Cut it out. And it would still be the same movie I still love. [01:58:50] Speaker B: Honestly, his whole job at the fast food place doesn't really figure the plot, except it gives him a place to take Monique towards the end. But you could have done that anywhere, you know, it's, it's, yeah, it's, it's. [01:59:04] Speaker C: Very much a hangout movie. It's like the more modern equivalent would be Napoleon Dynamite, where it really is just kind of a collection of scenes hanging out with these guys. Guys. But sure, yeah, I love this scene. [01:59:16] Speaker B: Yeah, I do, too. I do, too. [01:59:17] Speaker A: One thing I love. One thing I was loved to find out. And I really should have noticed it because I watched a bunch of Busby Berkeley movies. Last year we did our musical series. One of Holland's inspirations for the scene was Busby Berkeley musicals. And you could totally see that when you see the little fries sitting around the swimming pool of fry oil and the other fry jumps in and I'm like, oh, my God, I can't believe Buzzfeed Berkeley. [01:59:42] Speaker C: Oh, that's inspired. [01:59:43] Speaker A: The. Everybody wants some claymation seed for better off dead. Like, the way movies interact with each other is so endlessly fascinating to me. [01:59:52] Speaker B: It's the best. It's, it's, it's. And it. You're right. It's endlessly fascinating. [01:59:57] Speaker A: So obviously, Lane gets. Lane is hallucinating this little music video, apparently, and the boss finds him and all the burgers are burnt. And he gets thrown out of the restaurant. But not before Beth is at the restaurant with Roy. They're sitting at pig burgers. And. And then what does Roy do that's integral to this movie? [02:00:15] Speaker B: Oink. Oink. [02:00:16] Speaker A: Or rather, I can make a pig noise. [02:00:20] Speaker B: I, I, I. Apparently it was me. I was the, I was the original guy who was. I was fired because I could only say oink like, I'm just kidding. I wasn't. I was. I was like nine years old when this movie came out. But, but, but here's the thing. This scene is obviously heightened. It's obviously surreal. But. But it illustrates something that is often true, that our enemies will be there to witness the most embarrassing moments. [02:00:48] Speaker A: Yes, yes, yes, yes. Definitely. Another thing. Yeah. It captures the experience of being a teenager. I think you are very good to say that. Yeah, yeah. Now we move on to dinner. Mon Dieu. Which, ironically, this is the best dinner Lane's mother has ever served, as she has invited the French exchange student and Ricky and his mom over, and they are going to have French fries, French dressing, French bread. And then for Perrier, she says. And Peru. [02:01:21] Speaker B: Peru. [02:01:22] Speaker C: My favorite drink. I still call it that, by the way. [02:01:27] Speaker A: But if I were living in this house, I'd be like, oh, thank God. We're just gonna have some simple carbohydrates that haven't been totally screwed up. [02:01:34] Speaker B: It's not gonna. It's not gonna crawl away from me. [02:01:38] Speaker A: Yep. And Monique is being sort of tortured by Ricky's mom. And Ricky, like, when the mom has said, monique doesn't speak English, but we found that she speaks the international language. [02:01:50] Speaker B: Love. The international language is love. [02:01:52] Speaker A: Love. Ricky's got his arm kind of creepily around Monique, as he does often during the film. And. Oh, yeah, and then we've got the su. Another suicide attempt. I think this is the last one, though. Lane has taken some, I think, primer from the garage. [02:02:10] Speaker C: Yes. [02:02:10] Speaker A: And what is he get. He's going to light himself on fire. I think. [02:02:12] Speaker B: Yeah, he's going to light himself on. [02:02:14] Speaker A: Fire, but instead he sticks it on the table next to him because he's been brought into this dinner unexpectedly. Ricky's mom drinks it. [02:02:25] Speaker B: So great. [02:02:26] Speaker A: Y. She thinks it tastes great. She goes to light a cigarette and Lane's like, no. And then we cut to, gee, Ricky, I'm sorry your mom blew up. [02:02:36] Speaker C: Yeah, that's another quote that I use all the time. [02:02:39] Speaker B: Absolutely. Absolutely. [02:02:41] Speaker A: So. So. So what? Like, I quote this movie, too. But, like, what content context you quote that lighted? I'm just curious. [02:02:47] Speaker C: Whenever I see anybody in a movie get blown up, I either say to my wife or think to myself, I'm really sorry your mom blew up, Ricky. [02:02:56] Speaker A: Yeah, it's great. I mean, this movie treats death lightly, but it works. It treads this line, and it works. [02:03:01] Speaker C: And yeah, I will say that the mom is not dead. [02:03:06] Speaker B: Yeah, she's a big one. Blown up. Literally. You know, it's. But. But she. She has a bandage on most of her face for the rest of the movie. [02:03:14] Speaker A: I mean, she might have blown up in real life. I don't know. I don't know what would have happened. [02:03:19] Speaker B: Well, she's. She is in One Crazy Summer. She's the crossing guard in One Crazy Summer. So the act, the actress they didn't destroy. [02:03:25] Speaker A: Yep, that's true. Okay. Oh, okay. Now, speaking of actors who, like, I had. No, I did not realize were in this movie, did you guys realize that the guy who plays Chosen in Cobra Kai and who is In Karate Kid 2, obviously. First, first, Yuji Okamoto is the car racing Howard Cosell guy in Better Off Dead. Did you guys Know this. [02:03:44] Speaker B: I did realize that because I'm a huge Karate Kid fan. [02:03:48] Speaker A: Like, I'm a big. I'm a big Cobra Kai fan. I've seen Cobra Kai. Like, I haven't seen the original movies that recently, but Cobra Kai I love. [02:03:56] Speaker B: But I love Cobra Kai too. I love Cobra Kai. Yeah. [02:03:59] Speaker A: Chosen is my favorite character in Cobra Kai. [02:04:02] Speaker B: And I was like, he's so great. Oh, my God. [02:04:04] Speaker A: Like, oh, my God. He's in Better Off Dead. He's the Howard Cosell guy. I guess his voice hat was dubbed over. Like, he did perform it, and he did a Howard Cosell impersonation, but it got dubbed over by Rich Little for the final movie. Impressionist Rich Little for the final movie. But he. [02:04:20] Speaker B: Who shows up in One Crazy Summer. [02:04:22] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. But he still does a great job in the movie. I'm glad. [02:04:24] Speaker B: He was great. [02:04:26] Speaker A: Yeah. [02:04:26] Speaker B: I love this whole bit. I love this whole bit. Two brothers. One doesn't speak English. The other learns speak to speak English from watching the Wide World of Sports. It's fantastic. [02:04:36] Speaker A: And for any younger listeners who's like, what the heck is the Wide World of Sports? It was like this popular sports anthology show that, like, maybe your dad was watching on the weekend. And, like, Howard Cosell had this very distinctive voice. [02:04:49] Speaker B: Like, this is Howard Cosell. And you know, this. This kid's out there in. In podcast ass land. Let me. Let me tell you. There was a time where you didn't have a cable channel for every interest under the sun. You didn't have streaming. You just had the networks. So ABC on the weekends would show the Wide World of Sports with all kinds of different sports hosted by this guy, Howard Cosell, who just had a very particular way of talking. And it was fantastic and iconic. And, you know, while that joke has dated a bit, it's still great. [02:05:23] Speaker A: And it's still, like, a weird voice to hear coming out of this kid. I mean, and obviously it's not even his voice in this case, but, like, it's just a weird voice now. Like, there is, like, some stereotyping with the Asian characters. I mean, they're eating, like, Chinese food with chopsticks at one point. Yeah. And, like, he refers to them as kamikaze pilots at one point. It is not, like, as egregious as Long Duck Dong. Although I. [02:05:46] Speaker B: No way. [02:05:47] Speaker A: Although I have very complicated feelings about that, too, because I still. I love that movie. We talk about that on the Sixteen Candles episode, kind of navigating the good and the bad there. [02:05:56] Speaker C: Sure. [02:05:56] Speaker A: Because there just weren't A lot of parts for Asian actors to begin with. So in some ways it was good. They were being cast in other ways. There are some unfortunate stereotypes that went along with that in the 80s movies. So. Yeah. [02:06:08] Speaker B: But I feel like this is much milder. [02:06:10] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, it's milder and it's unexpected. It's not like any kind of, like, stereotype you associate with. With Asian people in any way. [02:06:16] Speaker B: Right, right. It's not like Howard Cosell imitators were prominent in Asian countries. Like, that's not a thing. It's just that this movie's so off the wall and so surreal that this would be their thing, as opposed to having them speak in some kind of broken English or something like that. [02:06:34] Speaker A: And also, he. He. He rewrote it a little bit for the actor Yuji Okamoto, because he wanted to work with that actor specifically. So this is an instance of a part that wasn't cast as an Asian character that he tailored to that actor. So he got some work that way. Yeah. [02:06:50] Speaker C: I will also say this is another quote that I say often. It is. I'm just gonna say it. Truly a sight to behold. A man beaten. The once great champ. Now a study in moppishness. [02:07:06] Speaker A: That is so good. [02:07:08] Speaker B: It's so good. [02:07:09] Speaker A: That is a great impersonation. [02:07:11] Speaker B: Yeah. A study mopishness. [02:07:14] Speaker C: A study in moppishness. And I do. I just really love when he says, truly a sight to behold. [02:07:21] Speaker B: But that's. That's perfect. Howard Cosell. You know, it was like. It was. You know, the. He had the line that was in, like, the opening of Wide World of Sports. It was like the heights of victory or the agony of defeat. [02:07:35] Speaker A: And, of course, what's going on here is Lane will pull up to these guys, these two Asian guys in the car sometimes, and they have this, like, megaphone on top of the car, and they're announcing all this stuff to Lane, and they're trying to egg him on into street racing with them. And we see a couple of failed attempts at this race. And then the thing that finally gets Lane to, like, I guess, get confidence is he beats them when the Camaro is fixed. So it's this whole little mini arc with the. The street racer. [02:08:03] Speaker B: The Camaro is a metaphor for Lane. He had. He always had it. He had to find it in himself. [02:08:10] Speaker C: He found it himself. Or he was just fixed by the French girl. [02:08:13] Speaker B: Yeah, you know what? That's okay, too. [02:08:16] Speaker A: We have another cafeteria scene now where Roy is an. And tries to pick up Monique, who is hanging out with Lane now. And Monique sprays a soda on him, which I love. And this is. And this is another case of a late entry plot point in this movie. This is when Lane challenges Roy to race the K12. Like, this is like almost the end of the movie. And here we have this, like, gauntlet thrown down. [02:08:40] Speaker B: It's like. It's like the regatta in one Crazy Summer comes in very late. [02:08:44] Speaker A: Exactly. [02:08:45] Speaker C: Lane, of course, calls him the worst insult that you could be called in the 80s. A chicken. [02:08:52] Speaker A: Yeah. [02:08:52] Speaker C: What are you? Chicken. [02:08:54] Speaker A: And then now, finally, we're gonna have a scene where Lane gets to speak English with Monique. So Lane comes and finds Monique throwing lemons at a street sign. And they have. They have a little conversation here. [02:09:16] Speaker C: Hi, Monique. [02:09:22] Speaker B: Something wrong, Monique? [02:09:28] Speaker A: Nice talking to you, Helia. Something is wrong. This, how you say Dog head is an unleashed sex fiend. Ricky, he will not leave me alone. He thinks because I stay here. I am his love goddess. Is prostrate. No. Prostitute. Holy. [02:09:52] Speaker B: You big faker. [02:09:53] Speaker A: You speak English? But of course I speak English. I speak very good English. I will not, however, speak Mrs. Smith's Caskeldi International language of love with this reptilian son. Mon dieu. [02:10:09] Speaker B: Well, hug my. [02:10:12] Speaker A: I don't believe that you've understood everything we've said this whole time. Look, Len, if you were living with a family like that, the less you spoke, the happier he would be. I promise you. God, I never thought of that. I thought if Casanova and I and there had nothing to say to each other, he'd get bored, go away. Instead, he used it as a chance to put his testicles all over me. [02:10:35] Speaker B: I. His what? [02:10:38] Speaker A: How you say? Octopus testicles. [02:10:41] Speaker B: Tentacles. [02:10:43] Speaker A: Nt. Tentacles. Tentacles. [02:10:46] Speaker B: There's a big difference. [02:10:48] Speaker A: All I want is to come to the States and see do steady arm. Now all I see is that. That face in my door every time I move. [02:11:02] Speaker B: Dodgers, huh? I notice you have a pretty good pitching arm. [02:11:06] Speaker A: Well, what else is there that is of interest in this set but the Brooklyn Dodgers? I don't know. [02:11:13] Speaker B: You might find a nice friend. [02:11:17] Speaker A: You. [02:11:18] Speaker B: You do have friends in France, you know. [02:11:22] Speaker A: Friend. Friend. Then you will not tell that you're a Dodgers fan? No, that I speak English. [02:11:36] Speaker B: Cross my heart and hope to die. [02:11:38] Speaker A: Do you? Not at the moment. [02:11:42] Speaker B: Monique, what are you doing out here? [02:11:44] Speaker A: Do you know what time it is? Get in here before you catch your death. [02:11:49] Speaker B: Jesus. [02:11:53] Speaker A: You are my friend. Good night. I like how he's doing the Christmas, but with Fred, No. I love that Monique finally gets to speak like Diane Franklin. I think is a pretty good actress, actually, of Better Off Dead and One Crazy Summer. I think she does a better acting job than Demi Moore. Sorry, Demi Moore. But, like, Diane Franklin's career really never went. Went like, stratospherically the way Demi Moore's did. But I love her in this movie, and I'm sorry that we don't get to hear her speak more, but I love this little scene between her and John Cusack. And like, amidst all the absurdity, like, to make an absurdist rom com work, you need one or two moments that are anchored in something real. And this is one of those moments where there's like, a real exchange, like a real rapport between these two actors and characters. [02:12:45] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And. And you know, the funniest thing is that. That Monique is so ideally suited for Lane, not just in her personality, but, like, her interest. He could ski, she could fix cars, she likes baseball. Like, it is almost. And let me be clear on this. I am not saying that this is a valid interpretation of the movie, because I think the movie textually is not saying this, but it's almost like she could be a construct of his unconscious. [02:13:12] Speaker A: Yeah, like. [02:13:13] Speaker B: Like that's clear. Clearly in the movie, Monique is a real character, but it wouldn't be that massively different if. If she. If you had a slightly different movie in an alternate universe. There's a different version of this movie where she is just a figment of his imagination to get him to be the person that he eventually can be. [02:13:34] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, she's really a dream girl too. Like, she's. Yeah, she's an ideal, kind of, like, woman. Any thoughts of yours on the scene, Jason? [02:13:43] Speaker C: Is this. Is this Fight Club before Fight Club, did she just never could be the one thing that I. That I always have a question about, and it's got to be just because it's an absurd movie, is she mentions the Brooklyn Dodgers. [02:13:57] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. [02:13:58] Speaker C: Instead of the Los Angeles Dodgers. [02:14:00] Speaker B: Yes. And had been for a number of years, decades. [02:14:04] Speaker A: And they go to the actual Los Angeles Dodgers stadium at the end of the movie, too. So, like, he knows what's going on. Yeah, yeah. [02:14:12] Speaker B: And I will say that field and find it's gone. [02:14:14] Speaker A: Yeah. [02:14:16] Speaker C: I think it's weird that she was only in a couple of movies in the 80s and she has this really high profile. In my mind, I always really loved her as an actress, and you just didn't really get to see much of her. But in my mind, she was all over the place when I was looking up her IMDb. It really was a short run from this movie, essentially until Bill and Ted's excellent adventure. [02:14:39] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. [02:14:40] Speaker B: And I mean, I mean there's, there's Amityville too, but, you know, and like. [02:14:43] Speaker A: And like, as I said, like, in the part about her, it does say that she stopped working to like, have a family. But I kind of wonder, like, maybe she would have kept working if she'd gotten some better roles at a certain point in her career. Yeah, yeah. But she does great. And of course, this is an exchange student character and those have been popular in teen rom coms. This might have been. Well, Sixteen Candles had Long Duke Dong, but that wasn't really a romantic interest for Sam. [02:15:07] Speaker B: Right. [02:15:08] Speaker A: But these characters are very popular in teen movies. And I just wanted to say, like, I don't, I don't have a ton of time to talk about this, but I both was an exchange student in, in Japan for a summer once and, and I. And I almost had a romance with a French exchange student. So I'm just going to tell my. I'm going to tell my little story because I'm never going to get a chance to tell it again. [02:15:28] Speaker B: Oh, I'm curious. [02:15:30] Speaker A: Like, when I was about 15, I think it was my best friend. I'm not going to name her name because I, I don't want her to be like, mad at me. But my best friend had a French exchange student. He was a boy. And he was a really good looking boy, very French looking. His name was Sylvan. And my friend and I had this bad habit of we always had crushes on the same boys. And she really had a crush on Sylvan. It was not like Little Ricky level, but like, she really did have sort of a sense of, of possessiveness about him. Like, this is my exchange student. And she was pissed because her exchange student really liked me. He was in French class with us. And I had some of the best French in the school. And Sylvain started kind of like hanging out with me. And one day, and I was not popular in school at all. I was this huge nerd. No guys ever paid attention to me, made fun of everything. One day Sylvain gave me his pink sweater that smelled like cologne and told me I could wear it for the day. And I wore his sweater. And I felt like, like amazing. I was like, oh, my God, somebody cute. Well, somebody at all, somebody finally likes me. And I was riding this, like, wave of cologne, like in happiness, like, like all cologne and happiness, like all day. And then my friend, my best friend was so Angry at me. She didn't want to speak to me. She was so mad. She was like, what are you doing with Sylvain? Blah, blah, blah. And I, stupid me, because, like, me, like, in a few years from them would have been like, forget this. Like, you don't own him. Like, I can date him if I want to, but at the time, I'm like, well, Sylvain, I'm sorry, but, like. But she really doesn't want me to, you know, get together with you. So I can't really date you, but we can be friends. So what happens with Sylvain? Sylvain moves on from me to the next tallest blonde girl. Girl in our grade. And she starts trying to get together with her, but she doesn't want to date him because he's trying to get too forward to too quickly with her. And then Sylvain moves on to the next tallest blonde girl in her grade. [02:17:30] Speaker B: He's just working his way down the. The height chart. [02:17:33] Speaker A: Oh, and blonde. You had to be blonde. [02:17:35] Speaker B: Well, sure. [02:17:36] Speaker A: But then he goes with my friend and this other girl to the movies, and apparently those two started doing things with each other in the movies. Babies. And my friend was super mad, but she still would not forgive me. So I ended up being on this school trip sitting by myself, and I didn't get a French student out of it. I got nothing. Thanks a lot. We eventually repaired our friendship. But, my God, this was like a huge incident in my early romantic life. [02:18:00] Speaker B: Oh, I believe it. I believe it. [02:18:02] Speaker A: And I just had to go somewhere. [02:18:04] Speaker C: What you should have done is challenged her to the K12. That's it. [02:18:08] Speaker B: You should have challenged her to the K12 first. For. [02:18:10] Speaker C: For. [02:18:10] Speaker B: For Sven. Or I got the name wrong. Sylvan. [02:18:15] Speaker A: Or a fight with ski poles. Clearly we needed to have a fight with ski poles. Like it was. It was a whole thing, though she felt very possessive of this French student. So this is actually a thing that I guess happens with some people. They're like, it's my French student. [02:18:27] Speaker B: Amazing. [02:18:29] Speaker A: Any exchange student romances or near romances? [02:18:33] Speaker C: Not unless you count Nadia from American Piece. [02:18:36] Speaker B: Well, there you go. [02:18:39] Speaker A: Sometimes I really wish I'd had a romance with that guy for the story. But maybe it makes a better story this way. I don't know. That One Day with the pink Sweater. [02:18:46] Speaker B: That One Day with the Pink Sweater is a great story. It's a great story. [02:18:52] Speaker A: Jason, did you want to say anything else about foreign exchange students in film since you brought up Nadja? [02:18:56] Speaker C: Or, you know, it was a pretty big trope. In the 80s and 90s. They had been since some television shows too, here and there. I mean, Fez from that 70s. [02:19:07] Speaker A: Yeah. [02:19:07] Speaker C: Very famous example of that. But you know, it's not. It's not a trope that I particularly like, enjoy or dislike. It's just kind of there in a lot of those movies. It doesn't really bring a lot to the table in most cases. [02:19:21] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, they throw one in and can't hardly wait too. Because you have to have. [02:19:24] Speaker B: Oh yeah. [02:19:24] Speaker A: An exchange student and everything. It's very important. Very important. [02:19:27] Speaker C: Yeah. [02:19:28] Speaker A: So we have. Now we've referred to this a few times. Monique helps Lane fix the dead Camaro. Well, actually, she doesn't really help him fix it. [02:19:35] Speaker B: She does it for him. [02:19:36] Speaker A: She fucking fixes it. [02:19:37] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. [02:19:39] Speaker A: There is a scene with them under the Camaro at one point. I'm not sure what they're doing at this point, but they're working on it together. Yeah. And she gets to have the adorable oil on her face, which makes her look like a sort of urchin from Oliver or something. [02:19:53] Speaker B: Yes. The best looking urchin in London town. [02:19:57] Speaker A: Yep. [02:19:57] Speaker B: Yep. [02:19:59] Speaker A: And then Lane takes Monique on a date that only somebody who is really into you would probably appreciate. [02:20:04] Speaker B: She's dinner at Pig Burger. [02:20:06] Speaker A: Yeah, but it's not even a pig burger. [02:20:08] Speaker B: He's a closed pig burger. [02:20:10] Speaker A: He serves her one of the meals that his mom had wrapped up for Christmas. [02:20:15] Speaker B: Amazing. It's. What I love is that he was apparently fired but still is able to keep the keys to Pig Burger Burger. Yeah, but. But this here, the movie does something great here, which is that another one of the songs for this movie is a song rested by you, by Rupert Hein, who did. Who did the music for the film. And throughout the movie, the instrumental version of that song, like the beginning chords of it are teased whenever Monique appears. Or most of the times Monique appears. Like when she's watching him from the window at the beginning, you know. And then here when they're in the. The, you know, in. In Pig Burger with the. The big dinner, like we get the full song and it's great. I love the way it's. It's. It's sprinkled through the movie and then it kind of, you know, reaches full flower here. [02:21:03] Speaker A: That's nice. [02:21:03] Speaker C: And we get John Cusack. We get John Cusack playing the sax to it. [02:21:08] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, you know, it making this. [02:21:12] Speaker A: Another very 80s scene. Because you need. Need that sax and they. [02:21:15] Speaker B: Nothing like some sexy sax. There's this, you know, and then they. [02:21:19] Speaker A: Cut back to the animated hamburger. Who's with his hamburger lady? [02:21:23] Speaker B: Hamburger lady with jelly shoes. [02:21:25] Speaker A: I love. [02:21:26] Speaker C: Really makes me wish that they had animated hamburgers in the Devil's Honey. If you remember that sex scene. Yes. [02:21:34] Speaker B: Honestly, what movie couldn't use them? [02:21:37] Speaker A: That one went over my head, I have to admit. That one went over my head good. [02:21:41] Speaker C: That's a hard movie to recommend to you, the Devil. But it is worth. If. If you want to laugh, that's worth a laugh. That's for sure. [02:21:51] Speaker A: All right. And let's see. And then now we have. We've gone back to being a ski movie again. [02:21:56] Speaker B: Yep. [02:21:57] Speaker A: Monique takes him up to the top of the mountain, gives him the same advice word for word that Charles gave. [02:22:01] Speaker B: Him again in another version of this movie. She is. She is just in his head because he's already heard that from Charles. [02:22:09] Speaker A: Girls. Yep, that's true. That's true. And then he falls down at first, but. And we don't even see how he learns to stop falling down. And in the very next scene, him. Him and Monique are just, like, skiing like crazy down that mountain. They're skiing under each other's legs. It's a whole thing. It's amazing. [02:22:26] Speaker B: And she looks fantastic in the pink ski outfit with the white headband. [02:22:30] Speaker C: Terrific. [02:22:31] Speaker A: Or at least her stunt double does. Yeah, well, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, it's. It is a sports movie, and it isn't. Right. Like, it needed. If it was going to be a real sports movie, it needed a few scenes where his struggles with life led to him getting better at skiing or having some key insight in how to defeat a particular obstacle, you know? [02:22:55] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. But it's not really a sports movie. It's. It's. It's something. Something a little different. Although they use sports as a component of his. His self discovery. [02:23:07] Speaker A: All right. [02:23:07] Speaker C: Sports movie. In the same way that, like, Everybody Wants Some is. Which is another callback to this movie. [02:23:12] Speaker A: I love Everybody Wants Some. Yeah, that's a. That's a great movie. Like, yeah. So, yeah, I was gonna talk a little bit about, like, the tropes of a sports movie and, like, it only really fulfills a few of them. So we have. Well, I mean, I'm not. It's not going to worry about spoiling it here, but we have an underdog win overcoming, you know, the. The guy who's kind of the top guy. [02:23:33] Speaker B: Right. [02:23:34] Speaker A: Making a comeback. That's a. That's a sports movie trope. Something more is at stake than just sports. [02:23:41] Speaker B: Right. Dramatic finish. [02:23:45] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. But that's about it. That's about all I can think of, really. We don't have, really an inspirational coach. We just have those lines that are kind of like, upending that. [02:23:55] Speaker B: That at one point. At one point, Charles seems to be channeling Mickey from the Rocky movies just in his. [02:24:05] Speaker C: Probably a better coach than Mickey was. I always thought Mickey was a terrible boxing coach. [02:24:11] Speaker B: That may be true. But, you know, God damn it, he loved rock. [02:24:16] Speaker A: Just in his demeanor. Do you feel like he's channeling? [02:24:18] Speaker B: Yeah, no. I feel like he's kind of doing a Burgess Meredith. [02:24:20] Speaker A: Okay. [02:24:21] Speaker B: He's like, oh, you know, at one point, he's doing that early. [02:24:25] Speaker A: Gotcha. I got. I could see it. I could see Curtis Armstrong making that choice, for sure. Yeah. But, like, Savage Steve Holland actually wanted to undo, like, all the tropes here. Savage Steve Holland wanted Lane to just tie Roy. But test audiences, predictably, were not pleased with this. So he had to change it to make it look like Lane won the race. But if you look at the scene, it really doesn't look very much like Lane. They won the race. [02:24:47] Speaker B: It looks like they finish in a dead heat. It absolutely does. [02:24:51] Speaker C: Plus, if you're going by skiing race rules, Lane left five seconds earlier. [02:24:58] Speaker A: Yes. [02:24:59] Speaker C: So the Lane lost that race. [02:25:02] Speaker A: Yes. [02:25:02] Speaker B: Well, he was being chased by the paper boy on his E bike. [02:25:06] Speaker A: Exactly. [02:25:07] Speaker B: The best moment is when he sees the paper boy. And it's the look on John Cusack's face when he sees the paper boy. [02:25:15] Speaker A: Just. [02:25:15] Speaker B: Oh, my God. Like, it's just so perfect. [02:25:18] Speaker A: I love the way they frame the shot, too. Like, he's way in the background of the shot. [02:25:23] Speaker B: Yeah, totally, totally. [02:25:25] Speaker A: It's just like this lurking menace. It is. It is amazing. Yeah. And, like, the paper boy chasing him and chasing Roy. And Roy's like, what the heck? [02:25:32] Speaker B: Roy's fighting him off with the pole. [02:25:34] Speaker A: Yeah. And Roy's the one who knocks the paper boy off the cliff. And apparently that scene where he falls off the cliff was supposed to go on much longer, like, an absurd amount of time. The test audiences wouldn't. Wouldn't have it. [02:25:47] Speaker B: Like, apparently stupid 80s test audience. [02:25:49] Speaker A: He was supposed to hit some cliffs and rocks on the way down and everything. [02:25:52] Speaker B: Oh, my God. It, like, would have been like the. The end of Don't Torture a Duckling. [02:25:57] Speaker A: Oh, my God, the things we missed, man. The things we missed. [02:26:00] Speaker B: I know, I know. [02:26:02] Speaker A: So this paperboy flies off the cliff, and then he lands. And lest you think that he's dead, what does he say? [02:26:10] Speaker B: $2. [02:26:12] Speaker C: $2. [02:26:14] Speaker A: Although those could have very well been his dying words. [02:26:17] Speaker B: So it could have been. It could have been. [02:26:19] Speaker A: It's not really. [02:26:20] Speaker B: No, because we see him one more time. [02:26:21] Speaker A: Oh, that's right. You're totally right. Yep. Never mind. Never mind. He's not dead. He's. He can never be killed. Never be. [02:26:27] Speaker B: He's eternal. [02:26:28] Speaker A: You can put him through a car wash, you can throw him off a cliff. He'll be back. [02:26:32] Speaker B: He's the eternal paper boy. He will always be after his $2. [02:26:37] Speaker A: So anything else you guys want to say about the ski race? [02:26:41] Speaker B: I just. [02:26:41] Speaker C: No. [02:26:42] Speaker B: I honestly wish he tied. I love that. I. You know, and. And, you know, because it wasn't about him winning. It wasn't about getting Beth back at that point. He doesn't need Beth. [02:26:51] Speaker A: Although Beth comes right back to him. It's ridiculous. [02:26:55] Speaker B: Yeah, but he doesn't need her at that point. He's grown past bed. It's just about him becoming who he is, who he always was, who always could be. And then we get the guy, the racing guy, showing up for one last language lesson. [02:27:12] Speaker C: Lessons. [02:27:14] Speaker B: Inspired words from a man who knows how to ski. [02:27:21] Speaker A: Yeah. It all ties together very nicely. Yeah. Despite some lack of structure in the middle of this movie, loose ends are tied up for sure. Yeah. And the last loose end we have is that Beth has gone back to Lane. Monique sees this happening. She's very sad. But then Lane breaks away and he goes and he fights Ricky with a ski pole to get Monique back. And then. And Ricky is defeated. He falls on his mother. But just when he's at his lowest point, a random sort of dorky looking girl comes and grabs his hand. We've never seen her in the movie that I know of up till this point, but maybe she saw him at the school dance. She's like, I like his style. She picks him up and maybe there's hope for. [02:28:02] Speaker B: Maybe there's hope for Ricky. I mean, if there's hope for Ricky, there's hope for all of us. [02:28:07] Speaker A: Well, I like that Ricky's willing to appreciate this random, random girl who approaches. [02:28:12] Speaker B: It's like. It's like Jaws and the blonde girl in Moonraker. It's a deep cut. [02:28:19] Speaker A: That is a deep cut. Yes, yes, yes. [02:28:23] Speaker B: Oh, and then they go to Dodger Stadium. [02:28:27] Speaker A: Chris is not going to explain that reference, everybody. [02:28:29] Speaker B: Nope. [02:28:29] Speaker A: You have to be equally as clever as Chris. So. Yeah, sorry, sorry. [02:28:33] Speaker B: It's from a James Bond movie. I'll just say that. [02:28:36] Speaker A: Yeah. And then we. Yes, we do go to Dodger Stadium. Lane and Monique are sitting on a Camaro in Dodger Stadium making out, which is very like Sixteen Candles esque in a way, because we have the fancy car at the end of the 16 candles to the kind of fantasy aspect of that. And who is approaching but the Eternal paper Boy. [02:28:54] Speaker B: Eternal paper boy. But they don't let you park on the field at Dodger Stadium. I mean, you know, you can maybe. [02:29:00] Speaker C: They don't let you park on the field. [02:29:02] Speaker B: They don't let me park. I know they won't let me do it, but they'll let. They'll let Lane Meyer do it. He beat. He won the K12. [02:29:10] Speaker A: That's true. [02:29:11] Speaker C: Diane Franklin actually sang the National Anthem once at Dodger Stadium. [02:29:15] Speaker A: That's right. [02:29:16] Speaker B: Awesome. [02:29:16] Speaker A: Awesome. [02:29:16] Speaker B: That's awesome. [02:29:17] Speaker A: In 2004. Yep. Yeah, that's. That's pretty great. That's pretty great. But I guess they didn't identify her. She said that they didn't identify her by what movie she's been in. They just introduced her as Diane Franklin and hope that people understood. It's like, all right, all right. Oh, and then the movie isn't over yet because we have one more loose end to tie up, right? The dad and the mom once again looking at their complete garage fixed again. When all of a sudden, the little brother spaceship blasts out of the roof, the garage, and into space that he. [02:29:50] Speaker B: Had sent away for with the box. The box. Labels from the cereal box. [02:29:54] Speaker A: Yep, Yep. [02:29:55] Speaker B: It's fantastic. Again, committing to the bit. [02:30:00] Speaker A: Before we end this episode, we're going to do double features. But we didn't talk about it at the top of the episode. I want to know, do you guys have any favorite sports movies or sports rom coms that you're not going to mention in your double feature recommendations? [02:30:13] Speaker B: Oh, sure. I mean, there's so many great, great sports. Off the top of my head. Just, you know, I mentioned Rocky. I love Rocky. Chariots of Fire, Hoosiers, the Karate Kid is a favorite. And then rom coms. I mean, the one that comes to mind, the sports rom com that I absolutely love, is the cutting edge. [02:30:34] Speaker A: Nice, nice. We are going to cover that eventually in this series. We're going to get there. [02:30:38] Speaker B: Oh, it's a favorite. It's a favorite. [02:30:41] Speaker C: Yeah. I'll say. The Sandlot. [02:30:44] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. [02:30:44] Speaker C: I don't know if you would call it a rom com, per se, but Bull Durham. [02:30:49] Speaker B: Oh, it is. [02:30:49] Speaker A: Oh, we, we. It's a rhyme. We're covering it like it will have already been released by the time this one's released. [02:30:54] Speaker B: Oh, There you go. You know, that's great. You know, another one from. I think from the same is Tin cup too. That's another great one. [02:31:02] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. And then I will throw in one that just like this one has a little to do with sports, but is not really about sports. Although it is about sports. Just like this movie, the Last Boy Scout also stars. [02:31:17] Speaker B: Absolutely. [02:31:19] Speaker A: I feel like I saw that once around the time it came out, but I haven't seen it since. Maybe I should watch it again. [02:31:24] Speaker B: Yeah, I saw in the movie theaters. I've been meaning to revisit it along with, you know, the, the, the work of, Of. Oh, what's the writer? [02:31:32] Speaker A: I. [02:31:32] Speaker B: He. [02:31:33] Speaker C: Shane Black. [02:31:33] Speaker B: Shane Black. I just had a, A brain. Yeah. That I've been meaning to just do all of Shane Black's stuff except for the Predator, which is terrible. Just. [02:31:40] Speaker C: Yeah, I was gonna say skip the. Skip the last Predator movie. [02:31:43] Speaker B: And I am a huge fan of that series, but that is the. That is the. The weakest point in. In that series. [02:31:49] Speaker C: Yeah. [02:31:50] Speaker A: And I want to see first. I've already talked about some of my favorite sports movies in other episodes, but I wish if I could get legacy movies of any kind made, if I could like wave a wand. I want Savage Steve Holland to somehow be able to make a springtime sports rom com and a fall time sports rom com. And I want John Cusack to magically decide that he's going to work with Savage Steve Holland again and appear in these movies and not even be like an older figure, like a coach. That would make sense. But somehow be like trying to play football in his 50s or something. [02:32:23] Speaker B: Like, I love it. I. I love, I love this idea. I'm excited to be a part of it. [02:32:28] Speaker A: Or maybe they could do like a lesser sport like ping pong. My husband suggested maybe pickleball. I don't know. [02:32:33] Speaker B: Pickleball's huge now. [02:32:35] Speaker C: The. [02:32:35] Speaker B: All the middle aged people love pickleball. I think that's a great idea. Pickleball Rom com with Savage Steve Holland and. And start, you know, Written and directed by Savage Steve Holland and starring John Cuser. Zach, sign me up. [02:32:49] Speaker C: I'm in. [02:32:50] Speaker A: Anyway, I want him to complete the year. God damn it. We got this. Which is not necessarily. Which is set. Which is a winter rom com. We've got one crazy summer for the summer. I need my other two seasons. Come on. I love it. [02:33:01] Speaker B: I love it. [02:33:02] Speaker A: All right, now we're going to do our double feature recommendations. And Jason, how about you start us off and you're the one you have listed first is one that I saved. I did not see take it from you guys. I left it on the table because I would have put it too. [02:33:16] Speaker C: Sure. I got specific reasons for my double features here. My first one would be the absurdist aspect of this movie. It's mirrored in Wet Hot American Summer from 2003. Honestly, you go with anything David Wayne, but Wet Hot American Summer, and they came together, are my favorites. And they're instantly quotable. They're endlessly quotable. They are amazing, hilarious movies with great cast, by the way, like insanely stacked casts. So Wet Hot American Summer would be my first recommendation. [02:33:51] Speaker A: I'll just say that is the one that I was. I would have put on my list too. Like, I said that when the. When Beth breaks up with him. It reminds me of a line in Wet Hot American Summer that's delivered to Coop near the end of the movie. And yeah, love that movie. We covered it on the podcast as well during our summer rom com series. Great, great stuff. [02:34:10] Speaker C: Yep. The other one, well, a second one that I would throw out there is summer school from 1987. I thought about doing school from 91, but I said, you know what? I want to stick to the 80s and I want a teen type of comedy that is a little bit underrated. And I think Summer School is underrated. It's really. Instead of being focused on a student, it's focused on a teenage teacher who acts like a student and he's like this party animal and he is really bummed when he has to teach summer school. And that's what that one's about. So it sounds like, Chris, you're a fan of that one. [02:34:44] Speaker B: It's a terrific movie. And, and for the record, we, my wife and I have spent most of the week essentially screening movies to. For double features with. With Better Off Dead, we took this very, very seriously. [02:34:59] Speaker A: Very nice. [02:35:00] Speaker B: And one of the movies we screened and my wife's choice, although I ultimately went in a different direction, was Summer School. [02:35:07] Speaker A: Excellent. [02:35:08] Speaker C: Nice. [02:35:08] Speaker A: I really appreciate the commitment. I really. That's wonderful. Thank you. Thank you to. To you and to your wife. [02:35:14] Speaker B: Oh, we. We enjoyed it. [02:35:16] Speaker C: She's got good taste. [02:35:17] Speaker B: She does. [02:35:18] Speaker C: And not only in podcasters, but also in movies. [02:35:21] Speaker B: That may be the weak link, but she's got great taste in movies, I've got to say. [02:35:26] Speaker C: The last one that I wanted to recommend is one that came out a year. A year earlier than Better Off Dead two years earlier, something like that. But it's a movie called party animal from 1984 and it really feels like an alternate universe where Lane's brother goes to college. It's about this interesting out of town like Midwesterner that ends up in a school that's just filled. Filled with beautiful women. And he doesn't know what to do or how to get them. But he discovers the world's strongest aphrodisiac and you can only guess what happens from there. It is as absurd as it sounds. Possibly more so. But I. I would recommend going blind into that one because there are some gags that are really over the top. I will say this not a great movie. Like it's. It's one of those movies where you're gonna watch it with some friends and have some laughs but not up for any awards. [02:36:22] Speaker A: Well, I haven't seen your latter two picks, Jason. So they. Onto the Litterbox watch list they go. It creeps ever closer towards365. [02:36:31] Speaker B: Is that the max? Is that the max you can have? [02:36:33] Speaker A: No. That is the number at which I'm going to stunt watch every movie on my Litterbox watch list and do that one at a time for a year. I hope. I hope it never happens because there's some weird on. Chris, why don't. Why don't we actually do your double features? Right. [02:36:48] Speaker B: Sure. [02:36:49] Speaker A: That you've been working diligently on. Which I have. I really appreciate that. I really do. [02:36:54] Speaker B: So the first one. And it is admittedly sometimes we start with the most obvious choice. And there's. There's. Sometimes that's okay. It would be the other movie written and directed by Savage Steve Holland Starring John Cusack, 1986 is. Is one Crazy Summer. They. They have a lot of DNA in common. They have basically almost the whole cast in common. There's a couple more people in. [02:37:18] Speaker C: In. [02:37:19] Speaker B: In One Crazy Summer. But they feel. They are. You can feel the voice of the filmmaker in both of them. [02:37:26] Speaker A: Yes. Yes. [02:37:27] Speaker B: Very strongly. And. And it's a good movie. I don't think it's as good as. As better off Dead. [02:37:32] Speaker A: But. [02:37:33] Speaker B: But it's. It's got its charms secret. [02:37:35] Speaker A: I'm actually. I slightly prefer One Crazy Summer. I don't really know why. It might be because of my preference for movies set in the summertime. It might be just the joy of Bobcat Goldthwaite's complete randomness. I don't know. But it's a thing. [02:37:48] Speaker B: Honestly. I. I see part of me is one of the reasons I don't like it as much is just a little too much Goldthwaite. She's a little too Much goldtheight. Gold straight in like in measured amounts. But the father who's the villain is brilliant. [02:38:04] Speaker A: And Uncle Frank, Uncle Frank living in his room. And we are covering that on every rom com as well. [02:38:10] Speaker B: Oh I look forward to we're doing the set. Nice. Nice. My second choice is another 80s movie that uses heightened reality to capture a main character's point of view. And from from 1987 it is 3 o' clock high. And this is. It's a terrific movie. It's about a timid high schooler who draws the ire of a school bully and spends the better part of a day trying to avert this after school showdown. And like better off dead. It is a movie about a character who has to find the strength and confidence they have hidden inside them. I, I watched it this week. I highly recommend it. [02:38:51] Speaker A: Nice. I have not heard of that. [02:38:53] Speaker C: I'll second that recommendation. This made my top five list of top five five ticking clock movies. [02:38:59] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. [02:39:00] Speaker C: High Noon for high school. It is awesome. [02:39:03] Speaker B: Absolutely, absolutely. And then my third choice, another John Cusack romantic comedy but this one from the 90s but sharing a bit of an absurd sensibility. Not quite the same, but not too far different. Gross. Point blank from 1997. [02:39:19] Speaker A: Nice. [02:39:21] Speaker B: And, and you know he's great in that movie. It is not hard to imagine that Martin Blank as a teenager was, was a lot like Lane Meyer but didn't have the French foreign exchange student to kind of awaken who he really was. And things went very wrong. [02:39:38] Speaker A: Nice. [02:39:39] Speaker C: Well, if you love something, set it free. If it comes back to you, it's broken. [02:39:44] Speaker B: You can't go home again. But I think you can shop there. [02:39:49] Speaker A: Well, I appreciate your guys choice. You've brought some things to mind, some to the list that I have not seen before. So that's fantastic. And I'm just gonna go over mine now. At first I have Summer Girl from 1983 which is Diane Franklin's TV movie. One of her TV movies. Now TV movies are often very bad. I really liked this one. I thought it was. Did you, did you manage to see this by the way? [02:40:12] Speaker B: I have not seen it but I just want to speak up in defensive TV movies. I think there are some great ones out there. [02:40:17] Speaker A: Well this. [02:40:19] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm a fan of TV movies. [02:40:21] Speaker A: I wouldn't call this one great, but I would call it good. Okay. It's very good. And Chris, like I thought of you when I watched this because it is not only a proto Fatal Attraction movie, it would have fit. [02:40:31] Speaker B: Oh, interesting. [02:40:32] Speaker A: It would have fit right into your series. Had it come out after Fatal Attraction, but. But it was just totally out there. There are moments in this movie I. Oh my God. You could have podcasted the out of this movie. It is. [02:40:43] Speaker B: Oh, I'm gonna check out it out. That goes right on my list for sure. [02:40:46] Speaker A: It is delicious. It. I could only find it on YouTube and I found it in like two different copies that were both kind of crappy, but one of them had all the 80s commercials in it, which I love. I love watching. [02:40:56] Speaker B: Nice. [02:40:56] Speaker A: And I'll put a link to that in the show notes. Hopefully it'll still. [02:40:58] Speaker B: Oh, great. [02:40:59] Speaker A: But Diane Franklin is so good in this TV movie. She's really doing a great acting job here. She plays this summer babysitter that tries to steal the husband from of the family and oh, he is played by Barry Bostwick. [02:41:14] Speaker B: And then oh my favorite George Washington. [02:41:17] Speaker A: And then the mom is played by Kim Darby. So who is also in Better Off Dead. So they work. [02:41:23] Speaker B: Oh my God. [02:41:24] Speaker A: So they work. [02:41:24] Speaker B: That's amazing. [02:41:25] Speaker A: They worked with each other prior to Better Off Dead. So I just. This is a perfect pick. If you like a TV movie, this is a great one. You can even watch it with the commercials to get the full 80s experience for your yourself. Yep. [02:41:36] Speaker B: Love it. [02:41:37] Speaker C: Sounds like the Hand that Rocks the Cradle before. The Hand that Rocks the Cradle. [02:41:40] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean it is really. It's got the whole DNA of all those types of movies like right there in 83. And it was based on a novel I guess too. So like, like these, these stories were being told. This is one of the early examples. If Adrian Lyon had directed this 10 years later, it probably would have been a massive hit. Probably a little. Probably a little more sexiness in it. But yeah, it would have been great. Sure. [02:42:01] Speaker B: Oh my goodness. [02:42:02] Speaker A: My second pick is, I just rewatched it today, the sure thing from 1985, of course, starring John Cusack. It's the movie that brought him to Savage Steve Holland's attention and it's directed by Rob Reiner and in some ways it reminds me of sort of an early take on When Harry Met Sally because it's a Friends to Lovers. Well, first they start as enemies. It's an Enemies to Friends to Lovers story. [02:42:25] Speaker C: Right. [02:42:25] Speaker A: John Cusack is in search of like he's going to try to travel to Kevin, California to sleep with this really pretty girl played by Nicolette Sheraton, who his friend says Anthony Edwards says is a sure thing. [02:42:37] Speaker B: Sure thing. [02:42:38] Speaker A: Definitely going to have sex with her if he gets There. But it turns into this road trip romcom where John Cusack and Daphne Zuniga are together in this car. And of course, gradually the charms of Daphne Zuniga's like, sort of uptight, a responsible character start to, like, attract John Cusack. So kind of of loose cannon character. And. And Tim Robbins shows up showing, singing show tunes. This movie, it's great. I love this movie. I like. When I watched it this most recent time, I gave it a little bump up even in my rating on letterboxd. Yeah. [02:43:10] Speaker B: Part of. Part of Rob Reiner's incredible run from the early 80s through the early 90s. I think it's like seven or eight films in a row that are just masterpiece after masterpiece. [02:43:22] Speaker A: Yeah. [02:43:23] Speaker B: Starting with Spinal Tap, going all the way through. It's. Think it's A Few Good Men and then. Then, you know, things kind of go. Go sideways, but. But. But there's a run. [02:43:31] Speaker C: They go north. [02:43:33] Speaker B: Yeah, no, north is the beginning of the Things. It's. Yeah, it's. But like there's a run there where he was just could do no wrong. [02:43:40] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, that. I love that. The sure Thing is great if you. I like it more than say Anything. I know say Anything has a lot of its acolytes and of course, that famous image, but I prefer the sure Thing, actually. I think it's because I really like Daphne Zuniga's character and her acting. And then finally, how can we talk about 80s movies that make comedy out of suicide without mentioning heathers from 1989? It is one of my favorite movies. I watched that movie so many times when I was in middle school and high school, of course, starring Winona Ryder. And she. She is friends with a group of mean girls called the Heathers. And Christian Slater comes on the scene as JD and an accidental suicide, at least on Winona Ryder's part, leads to a spate of suicides at the school with JD Playing kind of a nefarious role, but also being her love interest. And it's much darker. Okay. It's much darker than Better Off Dead. The tone is much darker. It is also more cleverly written and structured, though. And I fucking love Heather's. It's one of my favorite teen movies movies, especially one of my favorite movies, which highlights the lives of teen girls. And you get very much in Winona Ryder's head in this movie with her diary. And I'm sure you guys probably seen Heather's too. [02:44:57] Speaker B: Oh, sure. [02:44:58] Speaker C: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. [02:44:59] Speaker B: Oh, no, it's. It's a classic. And It's. It's a great pairing with this. [02:45:03] Speaker A: And we. We also covered that on our longest episode of every rom com so far in our history. [02:45:09] Speaker B: Well, we'll see if we can break that tonight. Oh, we. [02:45:11] Speaker A: We will not. Because. Because we recorded on Heather's for four hours and 30 minutes. [02:45:18] Speaker B: Oh, my God. [02:45:19] Speaker A: I got the episode edited down to 2 hours and 4:50, I think it was, so. [02:45:25] Speaker C: Wow. [02:45:26] Speaker B: Wow, that's amazing. [02:45:27] Speaker A: I'll cut more than 12 minutes out of this episode. Trust. So, anyway, thank you. Thank you. It's been really great having you guys come, like, together on this show. Like, I've heard you guys podcasting on each other's show. Now we're all here together. Fantastic time. Thank you so much for. For being here. Can you remind us where we can find your shows, Jason? [02:45:49] Speaker C: Yes. Force five is the podcast name. You can find it wherever you're listening to this and then again at Force Five PodcastMail. That's my email. You can email me there. Force Five PodcastMail.com but you can also listen to the show at Force Five Podcast. Podcast.com. [02:46:08] Speaker A: Nice. [02:46:09] Speaker B: And we are. We are. Get me another. And you can find us Twitter, Instagram, threads, any social media. Get me another pod. You can find the show. Wherever you're listening to podcasts right now, I'm sure we're there as well. Just get me another and you will find us. And I gotta say, Jen, it has been an absolute pleasure. I was so excited to come on and talk about this movie. Jason, it has been a while, and I was. I was excited to talk to you about this movie and to have a chance to. To. To. To. To be on a show together. It's been an absolute delight. [02:46:42] Speaker A: Nice. [02:46:43] Speaker C: I agree. Some might say it's truly a sight to behold. [02:46:47] Speaker B: It is truly a sight to behold. [02:46:51] Speaker A: Thanks for listening, everybody. Goodbye. [02:46:53] Speaker C: Goodbye. [02:46:55] Speaker B: Goodbye. Every.