0:03

Hello, everybody, and welcome

0:05

back to We've Got Mail.

0:09

Why'd you ask that? That's not a question.

0:11

Yes, it it is. podcast where you control

0:13

the conversation right here at the critically acclaimed network?

0:16

I phrase it that way because I

0:18

don't think we've ever done two We've

0:20

Got Mails in a row before. That's

0:22

true. What

0:24

the impetus for this is my inability

0:26

to make it to the post office to

0:28

pick up our physical letters. We we

0:31

implore you every time to every day we

0:33

do we've got mail to send us

0:35

a physical letter or postcard or something and

0:37

it goes to our post office and The

0:40

problem with that is the hours of the post

0:42

office happened to be my exact work hours,

0:44

right? So it's hard for me to get there

0:46

and I was finally able to and it's

0:48

not one of those post offices where you can

0:50

check your mailbox after hours They actually close

0:52

at the fuck up. It's a night. By the

0:54

way, my name is William DeBiani. I'm a

0:56

film critic I write for the rap everybody calls

0:59

me bibs. My name is Whitney Seibold. I

1:01

too am a film critic I contribute to slash

1:03

film and I for the purposes of

1:05

this particular podcast you may if you

1:07

wish call me Rockmeister McCool.

1:09

And on We've Got Mail, we

1:11

answer your correspondence. You email us,

1:13

or you send us a physical

1:15

letter, and we answer them. And

1:17

a few days ago, we

1:19

recorded an episode. goes ahead and done one in

1:21

a while. And we apologize, oh, we

1:23

didn't get to the mailbox. Sorry, but

1:25

we have enough emails, and it's great. And

1:28

then we open the

1:30

mailbox, and yeah, it was like the

1:32

ending of Miracle on 34th Street in there.

1:34

It's like, ah! So...

1:36

always make time to

1:39

answer all of the letters. We don't always have time for

1:41

all the emails, but we always make time for people

1:43

who took the time to send us something in the mail.

1:46

If you put in a little extra effort, you're

1:48

definitely going to put you on the show.

1:50

And we didn't want to wait another couple of

1:52

weeks, potentially, to get to all of these.

1:54

So this is our apology. And

1:56

we're going to read all of these

1:59

wonderful pieces of correspondence. And if sometimes

2:01

the mail is a little brief, If

2:03

we have time, if it's a short

2:05

episode, we'll answer a few more emails

2:07

as well, just to make it a

2:09

full podcast length. But real

2:11

fast, if you wanna participate

2:13

in We've Got Mail, our

2:15

email address is letters at

2:17

criticallyacclaimed .net. And after all

2:19

this many years, still don't know the

2:21

PO Box. Whitney, what's the PO

2:23

Box? Say yeah, the physical letters go

2:25

to the critically acclaimed network, PO

2:28

Box 641565, Los Angeles, California, 90064. I

2:30

wrote it down so I don't have to remember. All

2:33

right, Whitney, where do you want to be

2:35

going here? We got a big old pile

2:37

of stuff. the top. We got some boxes

2:39

and larger packages, some postcards in there, something

2:42

with data on it. We'll get to that.

2:44

But this first one, I'm going to. crinkle it

2:46

so you can get the tactile experience. Yeah,

2:48

I will lay it some more than there. This

2:50

is a handwritten letter from Paul. Hi,

2:52

Paul. Oh, Paul. Paul, long time. Always

2:55

wonderful to hear Paul. I always like to hear from Paul. Dear

2:57

Bims Whitney, on my psychotronic

2:59

journey, I'm now watching

3:01

Dragstrip Girl. Psychotronic.

3:06

I guess it's a fancy term for cult

3:08

movies, but. Yeah. uh specifically

3:10

the ones listed in is

3:13

it Mike Weldon who wrote

3:15

the psychotronic guides the psychotronic

3:17

film guide were these were

3:19

a pair of uh published

3:21

books in like the 80s

3:23

early 90s uh that were

3:25

basically the list of movies

3:27

the compendium for cult films

3:29

strange films esoterica movies that

3:31

they didn't have space for

3:34

in the Leonard Malton film

3:36

guide uh and they were

3:38

they were indispensable if you

3:40

wanted to push your consciousness

3:42

or push your definition of

3:44

what cinema could or should

3:46

be. So

3:48

psychotronic is the word we take very seriously

3:50

in this house. So on my psychotronic

3:52

journey, I'm not watching a drag strip girl,

3:54

which I believe to be in my

3:56

headcanon, the backstory of the jocular... the

3:59

jocularity safety first Clyde

4:01

guy who Tercitana kills and

4:03

faster pussy cat kill kill

4:05

nice They they're all in

4:08

a car club race against

4:10

the clock and there's a

4:12

talk of safety points Yeah, they

4:14

raise at the beginning

4:16

of faster pussy cat

4:19

kill kill Inarguably one of the

4:21

best movies of all time. I have put it on

4:23

my list of best movies of all time multiple times.

4:25

Yeah the tourist Atana character,

4:28

races a guy. Just

4:30

random dude in like a hot rod she

4:32

meets in the desert. And he's like a little

4:34

bit smug, but he's not like a super

4:36

asshole. I'm here with my girlfriend, we're just

4:38

gonna like race my car. We're just gonna clock

4:40

it for time, don't have a watch with

4:42

the second hand. And the tourist Atana's like, why

4:45

don't we race for real, motherfucker? And he's

4:47

like, yeah, sure. And it ends with him being

4:49

brutally murdered. Yeah, she breaks his spine at

4:51

the end of this. It pulls him to the

4:53

car and breaks his spine. The

4:56

other thing, anyway, they're all in a car club.

4:58

They race against the clock and there's a lot of

5:00

talk of safety points in drag strip girl. There you

5:02

go. Anyway, the other

5:04

thing is as an Armenian, we haven't

5:06

been getting very good representation in TV

5:08

and film. Used to be

5:10

we had Manix and Cher, her

5:12

real name is Sherilyn. I mean, we still

5:14

have Cher. Yeah. To be fair, she's still around.

5:17

She's not acting much anymore. I think that's

5:19

what they're a little bit out of the public

5:21

eye. That's all. She's still alive as our

5:23

icons. Now on the

5:25

TV show Weeds, and

5:27

the film's Emily the Criminal and most

5:29

recently, Enora, Armenians

5:32

are mostly tracksuit and gold chain wearing thug

5:34

gangsters. All right, I do know I

5:37

wear tracksuits, but no gold chains. Anyway,

5:39

I hope all is well with you and yours. your

5:41

biggest fan, Paul Kenosian. Now

5:44

thanks for writing in

5:46

Paul. We like you always

5:48

pleasure to hear from

5:50

you. Yeah, there aren't it's

5:52

true Armenians when we

5:54

see them in American films

5:56

tend to be Stereotype there's

5:58

a lot of stereotype of that sort

6:00

of the whole region of

6:02

Europe There are multiple

6:05

films about the incredibly

6:07

horrific Armenian genocide But that's

6:09

you know There's a

6:11

pretty wonderful film from early 2000s

6:13

called Errorat. I think it's an

6:15

Adam McGoyan film. And

6:19

it is

6:21

about the

6:23

Armenian genocide. But

6:25

it also kind of echoes through

6:28

history, and it is about Mount Errorat.

6:30

And it has some like Christopher Plummer's in it.

6:32

It's got some notable stars. That's

6:35

that's a good film. Sure. I feel

6:37

like it didn't get a lot of traction

6:39

and like it got like very mild

6:41

awards buzz at the end of the year

6:43

it came out. I think it was

6:45

like 2001. Yeah. But

6:48

I think it

6:50

was sort of dismissed as being a

6:53

little bit too niche. It's like, oh,

6:55

it's about the Armenian genocide. That's not

6:57

interesting to a mainstream American audience. So

6:59

we're not going to, you know, talk.

7:01

It's like, come on, man. Yeah, it's

7:03

bullshit. I can

7:05

only think of one

7:07

comic book character who was Armenian.

7:10

Oh. That is the original Crimson

7:12

Dynamo. The Crimson Dynamo is

7:14

Armenian. Yes, so the original, the

7:16

multiple characters have been the

7:18

Crimson Dynamo. Crimson Dynamo to the

7:20

best of the Soviet character?

7:22

Yeah, but I'm Armenian born. Oh,

7:24

okay. And if you don't

7:26

know the character, the Crimson Dynamo

7:28

is an Iron Man villain. Actually, some

7:30

of what were considered to be

7:32

the biggest Iron Man villains never made

7:34

it into the movies, specifically Titanium

7:36

Man and the Crimson Dynamo, who just

7:38

had different suits of power armor,

7:40

and the Crimson Dynamo was like

7:42

the Soviet Iron Man, like that

7:45

was the whole shtick. And I

7:47

remember, and I'm just gonna... I was thinking

7:49

this the other day, I was listening to

7:51

the Beatles station on Sirius Radio, and they

7:53

also play, like, you know, Wings and Ringo

7:55

Starr's Solo Work and George Harrison's Solo Work,

7:57

all bunch of related stuff. And

8:00

they were playing that Paul McCartney song,

8:02

Magneto and Titanium Man. Okay.

8:07

That, that, that old, that old

8:09

Jess, that, that, that old classic.

8:11

And the thing with this song,

8:14

and if you've never heard this

8:16

song, You must because it's so

8:18

fucking weird. It wasn't common for

8:20

pop culture to name drop other

8:22

pop culture the way we do

8:24

now to the extent we do

8:26

now. So Paul McCartney doing a

8:29

song that doesn't just mention Magneto and

8:31

the Titanium Man and

8:33

the Crimson Dynamo, but their

8:35

characters. And

8:37

they're like robbing banks together

8:39

and shit. And I'm like, I

8:41

don't think. Paul McCartney

8:44

knows a lot

8:46

about these characters, because to

8:48

the best of my knowledge,

8:50

that song is the only

8:52

time they have ever interacted. I

8:55

get it. He does magnets. These

8:57

are metal guys. You're not wrong

9:00

about that. It does track, but

9:02

I literally don't think they've ever

9:04

been together in a comic. And

9:06

if anyone can disprove me

9:08

on this, and points

9:11

to, listen, they were in Iron Man 77

9:13

together for some reason, I don't fucking

9:15

know. If you can

9:17

disprove me on this, I beg

9:19

of you to do so because

9:21

this has been one of my

9:23

pet peeves for decades. Ever

9:25

since I first heard this song as a

9:27

child, I was like, wait a fucking second. Wait

9:31

a fucking second, you can't

9:33

do that. You

9:35

can't do that. That's

9:38

like saying spider -man is out

9:40

there hanging out with with

9:42

with ant -man

9:44

and The living

9:47

tribunal it's like two

9:49

of those guys make sense together one

9:52

kind of forcing

9:54

it Don't really think you're thinking it

9:56

through A few other

9:58

famous, but there's a few famous Armenians.

10:01

Eric Bogozian comes to mind. If you're a

10:03

fan of the Food Network, you might know

10:05

Eric Zakarian. He's a celebrity chef. Dita

10:08

Von Teess is an Armenian heritage.

10:10

Okay. Yes. I

10:14

don't remember. I think her real name

10:16

is Rachel, Rachel Sweet. I forgot

10:18

what her, she just legally changed her

10:20

name to Dita Von Teess. Okay. Moose.

10:25

Adam G. Savani. Hey! One

10:28

of the great cinematic heroes

10:30

of our time. Yeah, from the

10:32

step -up movies. He's also of

10:34

Armenian descent. I'm

10:36

sorry about the Kardashians. They're

10:39

Armenian, but... not,

10:41

like, great icons.

10:43

But they're famous. They're

10:45

super famous. No arguing

10:47

that. And Sid Haig. Oh,

10:51

I didn't know about Sid Haig. That's cool. Yeah, Sid Haig is

10:53

also Armenian. So there's a lot of... great

10:55

Armenian entertainers in the United States. That's

10:57

all the only ones I can pull

10:59

right now. Okay, cool. But

11:01

yeah, so you don't have to rely

11:03

on just Cher. I

11:06

know, Cher is pretty prolific. I mean,

11:08

Cher is probably the biggest celebrity. I'm

11:10

happy to rewatch Mermaids any time. It's

11:13

been a while since I've

11:15

seen that. Some Mermaids in theaters

11:17

like Mermaids. Sorry,

11:21

I can't remember the last time I've

11:23

seen Sharon. She was in one of the

11:25

Mama Mia or something. She was in

11:27

Mama Mia. Here we go again. It was

11:29

a it was a Practically a cameo. We're listening

11:31

a lot, but she wasn't it. Okay Yeah, she doesn't

11:33

do a lot of acting anymore. No, she mostly does

11:35

cameos now. I haven't seen I can't remember the last

11:37

time I saw her was a major role in anything.

11:40

I remember the time

11:42

that She was in Beavis and

11:44

Butthead to America. Yeah, well,

11:46

she was on the Beavis and Butthead experience Yeah,

11:50

but she was in Beavis and Butthead to America,

11:52

wasn't she? Did she play somebody

11:54

in? She played Cher. There was

11:56

that song, there was a musical

11:58

number, a musical sequence, where she sang,

12:01

I Got You Babe with Beavis and

12:03

Butthead. Oh, you're thinking of the Beavis and Butthead

12:05

experience. Okay, so that wasn't in the movie.

12:07

It wasn't the movie. guess one that was in

12:09

the movie. No, there was the Beavis and

12:11

Butthead record that they put out, where they got

12:13

like some hip... bands to do

12:16

some songs about Beavis and Butthead,

12:18

Primus did a song called Poetry

12:20

and Pros, and yeah, they got

12:22

Cher to sing a duet with

12:24

Butthead. And indeed, at the end

12:26

of the song, it seemed pretty

12:28

clear, she was about

12:30

to sleep with Butthead. Yeah. Like,

12:32

that was gonna happen. I mean,

12:34

of the two of them, Butthead

12:37

would have a better chance. I

12:39

think that's probably fair. Yeah. But,

12:41

yeah. I

12:45

watched a lot of Beavis and

12:47

Butthead I was on MTV at

12:49

the time, and there was a moment

12:51

- It was the style at the time. Which

12:53

was how we did it at the time. A

12:56

show about slackers who watched

12:58

MTV was really popular with

13:01

slackers who watched MTV. Both

13:07

Beavis and Butthead had their

13:09

moments of clarity. Buttheads

13:12

came in these kind of magical

13:15

ways. He could actually realize he could

13:17

do something really intelligent in a

13:19

flash. And Beavis'

13:21

moment of clarity was, it's

13:24

never gonna happen for me. It's

13:27

like, no, this

13:29

sucks. Butthead, no, really,

13:31

this sucks. I'm

13:34

never gonna score. No,

13:37

no, no girls ever gonna talk to me.

13:39

I'm like, like it finally hit him at

13:41

that moment. I'm horrible. I'm never gonna score.

13:44

It was such a such a wonderful

13:46

cathartic moment for everybody watching. We should

13:49

move on. We should move on.

13:51

And here's another letter. Okay. Do some

13:53

more crinkling. Got a little off topic.

13:56

That's what they want. Oh,

13:58

this is a long, an

14:00

epic, an epic, a nice long hand

14:02

typed letter. Nice. Okay. What do

14:04

we got here from? Oh,

14:09

that's the last page is

14:12

lyrics. This one comes from Canadian

14:14

Geef. Oh, hi, Canadian Geef.

14:16

Yeah, thanks for writing in. Y 'all

14:18

also a long time listener. Thanks for writing

14:20

in. It is titled A Different Perspective. Dear

14:22

William and Whitney, this is a letter I've been

14:24

meaning to write for some time, and I apologize

14:26

for the length, but I promise it is all

14:29

necessary. We're here for it. And it relates to

14:31

how movies can move us. I

14:33

would like to explain the effect you and your

14:35

podcast have had on me ever since I first

14:37

discovered the B -movies podcast some eight years ago

14:39

and also how it all connects to the Disney

14:41

movie Wish. Okie dokie.

14:44

You have my attention. Interesting. I am a man

14:46

around your age and I live in Canada.

14:48

I was raised as a Jehovah's Witness. They

14:51

are a Christian group with a complex belief

14:53

system centered around a Jehovah, the god of the

14:55

Old Testament. They sprang from the Seventh

14:57

Day Adventist movement in the late 1800s and are

14:59

a global religion with about 10 million members today.

15:02

Have you had Joe's witnesses at your door

15:04

before? I've known quite a

15:06

few Joe's witnesses in my dad

15:08

Along with Mormons and other similar quote high

15:11

-control groups They have a cult -like features

15:13

of being part of a close -knit

15:15

community socially isolated from quote unbelievers They

15:17

follow rules set out for them that

15:19

they believe are from God and for

15:21

their benefit They are taught that quote

15:24

the world is a scary and dangerous

15:26

system ruled by Satan Witnesses are heavily

15:28

encouraged to have friends are

15:30

discouraged from having friends outside the faith.

15:32

In my experience, all of my friends and

15:34

close family were also witnesses. I

15:36

grew up attending meetings three times a week

15:38

and preaching nearly every Sunday morning. I gave

15:41

the religion my all, getting baptized in my

15:43

teens, which means you gave up many of

15:45

your freedoms and agree to follow their rules

15:47

your whole life. I became a, quote, ministerial

15:49

servant or deacon in my early 20s. I

15:51

pioneered for a decade, spending around 70 hours

15:53

each month in some form of preaching, and

15:55

I eventually became an elder in my late

15:57

20s. I spent nine years based basically is

15:59

an unpaid volunteer pastor. And

16:01

fully in witness, I truly believe that

16:04

I had the truth, the one correct religion.

16:06

I believe that a small group of

16:08

men based in New York were chosen by

16:10

God to interpret the Bible for us. I

16:13

believe that living as a witness was the

16:15

best life ever. I thought we were living in

16:17

the, quote, the last days, that God would

16:19

soon step in and destroy the, quote, wicked world.

16:21

Then I would live forever in paradise on

16:23

earth with the rest of the righteous where I

16:25

could fulfill all of my hopes and dreams

16:27

pursuing my passions and playing with pandas and stuff.

16:29

I mean, I like pandas. I

16:32

don't think the pandas are actually

16:34

part of witness doctrine, but if

16:36

they are, if it is, that's

16:38

something I just learned. With

16:41

that mentality, there was no need to pursue

16:43

my dreams now in this life. Instead, I

16:45

was encouraged to devote my life and time

16:47

to witness activities, mainly preaching, building and maintaining

16:49

kingdom halls and attending meetings every week. Being

16:51

a witness is less a belief and more

16:53

of a way of life. Witnesses

16:56

are also very hostile

16:58

toward apostates. Those

17:00

who leave the faith, if you speak

17:02

out publicly and give honest and rational

17:04

reasons for why you no longer believe,

17:06

you will likely be shunned by all

17:08

your friends since they are usually also

17:10

witnesses, and probably a lot of

17:12

your witness family as well. That's because

17:14

those well -meaning friends and family believe that

17:17

you have been misled by Satan and

17:19

are trying to undermine their faith in God.

17:21

They are taught that shunning you is

17:23

the right and scriptural thing to do, and

17:25

maybe it will convince you to come

17:27

back. Sorry

17:30

for the exposition dump, but it was a necessary

17:32

backstory. As you know, I'm a longtime listener of your

17:34

podcast. I first stumbled upon your

17:36

Bee Movies podcast in 2016. Hearing

17:38

those two generally positive and pleasant people talk

17:40

about movies and TV and the things that they

17:42

love was refreshing. I have a

17:44

job that lets me listen to whatever I want

17:46

all day, so I immediately went back to

17:48

your first episodes from 2011 and caught up. Thanks

17:52

for listening to those early episodes, we're not super proud

17:54

of those ones. Not always proud of the early ones,

17:56

but yeah, that's really nice of you and apparently a

17:58

couple people have done that and that's really flattering, thank you.

18:00

Thanks for listening for all that time. I hope

18:02

the letter doesn't go on to say we suck. Like,

18:05

no, those episodes are terrible. They're

18:07

the worst. If it's legit criticism, I'll

18:10

listen. It is fair, yeah. Your podcast wasn't

18:12

exactly something I would tell my friends

18:14

and family there, I was listening to, we're

18:16

the contraband. Oh my goodness. Makes

18:19

us seem so rebellious and punk rock.

18:21

Where's my leather? Jacket. Oh, I don't have

18:23

one. Oh, I should get another jacket.

18:25

Because we're film critics. We're so cool. And

18:27

we're not cool. Oh, man. Hearing

18:30

people fray is... Hearing

18:32

people freely talk about mature subjects and

18:34

using profanity didn't really fit in with

18:36

my public witness lifestyle. That's why I've

18:38

always been very cautious about my real

18:40

name getting out on the internet and

18:42

go by Canadian Keith. When I

18:44

found your podcast, I recently begun doubting that

18:47

my religion was the truth, being an elder

18:49

gives you a quote peak behind the curtain,

18:51

and I didn't like what I saw.

18:53

I'll spare you the details, but last year

18:55

I finally decided leaving the witnesses was necessary

18:57

for me and worth the cost. I

19:00

also privately explained my doubts to my wife over

19:02

the course of several months, and together in

19:04

the spring last year we decided to get out

19:06

along with our young kids. It was a

19:08

relief to me since many witnessed marriages end in

19:10

separation or divorce when only one spouse leaves

19:12

the faith. So what does all

19:15

this have to do with you guys and with

19:17

the Disney movie, Wish? Well, right around the

19:19

time we made the difficult decision to leave to

19:21

witnesses, we also caught up with the movie,

19:23

Wish. I had heard your review months earlier and

19:25

your interpretation that the movie was about the

19:27

hoarding of intellectual properties. It's pretty clear that's what

19:29

that movie is I think that it certainly,

19:31

it certainly sounds like it's getting out. Yeah. It's

19:33

little exclusive, but you know. I think

19:36

Disney didn't even realize that's what their movie

19:38

was about. I don't think so. Anyway, moving

19:40

on. I can see it

19:42

that way, but my wife and I watched it together

19:44

from a very different perspective. Now that I've described

19:46

my life experiences, let me summarize the movie through that

19:48

lens. Wish begins with a

19:50

man creating a seemingly idyllic village on an

19:52

isolated island that attracts a diverse group

19:54

of people. He thinks that controlling the

19:56

people and their wishes is protecting them and

19:58

giving them a safe and happy community. Everyone

20:01

in the community goes through a ceremony

20:03

in their teens where they give a part

20:05

of themselves to the organization their wish. The

20:07

person isn't The person in charge

20:10

is looked up to because they think

20:12

he will make sure everyone's wishes will

20:14

be granted eventually. So they put

20:16

their lives on hold, deferring their hopes and dreams. I'm

20:18

seeing where this is going. Even

20:20

with the 100 -year -old grandfather who has

20:22

never followed his true passion, they're all

20:24

just waiting for their dreams to be

20:26

fulfilled, quote, soon. One day, the

20:28

young protagonist who is raised within that world

20:31

reaches the higher levels of it. She gets

20:33

a peek behind the curtain and discovers the

20:35

truth those wishes will never be fulfilled. untrusted

20:38

and looked up to is just using them. Her

20:40

entire worldview is shattered and she needs to share

20:42

what she knows with the people she cares about.

20:44

She tries to tell her family the truth, but

20:46

they can't accept it at first. Her friends

20:49

and family initially react with suspicion and hostility. Once

20:51

the villain realizes what she's doing,

20:53

he brands her a traitor and turns

20:55

the entire community against her. Watching

20:57

Wish was among the most meaningful movie

20:59

experiences for my wife and me because

21:01

it spoke directly to our life experiences

21:03

at that time. It was emotionally impactful.

21:06

and just what we needed. If you

21:08

listen to the lyrics of this wish,

21:10

every word specifically describes the experience of

21:12

realizing that what you believed was a

21:14

lie, taking charge of your life and

21:17

breaking free from a high control group.

21:19

If you hadn't had that personal experience, then the

21:21

message is easy to miss. And what

21:23

does all this have to do with

21:25

you guys? During the movie, as the protagonist

21:28

is going through a crisis of faith,

21:30

she runs across an anthropomorphic star. This star

21:32

comes from outside the community and serves

21:34

as a lifeline for her. It helps her

21:36

through that difficult time just by making

21:38

her feel connected to the wider world.

21:40

She described it as feeling, quote, joy,

21:42

hope, possibility, and wonder. Now, I'm

21:44

not saying you guys were my soul star. There

21:47

are several people in my life who

21:49

have helped me immensely through this process, but

21:51

regularly listening to too worldly or not.

21:53

witness people just chatting casually about media and

21:55

their normal life experiences growing up about

21:57

watching Saturday morning cartoons instead of preaching door

22:00

-to -door about following their passions and living their

22:02

lives and about the many ways movies and

22:04

TV speak to the human experience that really

22:06

helped to make make the transition easier for

22:08

me. It made me feel more connected to

22:10

a normal world outside the religion so I

22:12

want to thank you for that. Oh that's

22:14

so sweet. Oh my god. Kind

22:16

of be a connection to just the world

22:19

of art. Thank you. It

22:21

has not been several months since my wife and

22:23

I attended our last meeting with our kids. Nearly

22:25

all of our lifelong friends, and even some of

22:27

our close family, are not speaking to us. We're

22:29

starting from scratch, making new friends. Our

22:31

kids are making friends at school, celebrating holidays

22:33

and birthdays, and just having a more, quote,

22:36

normal childhood. And when they're

22:38

old enough to better understand

22:40

their parents' experience, I think that

22:42

movie and song will end up being special for

22:44

them as well. I want to share

22:46

all of that with you to tell you how much

22:48

of an impact you see me... or seemingly

22:50

ordinary conversations can have on people. What

22:53

you do is meaningful and appreciated. And

22:55

I wanted to

22:57

share a different perspective of an ordinary

23:00

movie and why the movie Wish can be extraordinary

23:02

to the right person at the right time. Along

23:04

this very lengthy letter with a couple of

23:06

questions, are there any seemingly ordinary movies that were

23:08

very special to you or your loved ones

23:10

that stand out to you because it spoke to

23:12

your specific experiences at the time? And are

23:15

there any other movies that now come to your

23:17

mind in the theme of leaving a high

23:19

control group? Thanks for... Thanks as always for

23:21

what you do, Canadian Keith. And he

23:23

even included all of the lyrics to

23:25

This Wish, if we wanted to look

23:27

it over. If I remembered the song

23:29

better, I'd try to sing it, but

23:31

yeah. Well, I

23:33

mean, I'm moved. I'm very

23:35

moved. I'm in no position

23:37

to judge any religion. I don't

23:39

know enough about most of them. But

23:43

that you

23:45

believe that we

23:48

helped. in

23:50

some way is

23:52

honestly I have

23:54

trouble processing that because you and me

23:56

we've been making podcasts for 15

23:59

years yeah and you know we make

24:01

an average of like three

24:03

a week probably but sometimes

24:05

more and a lot of the time

24:07

this is just us shooting the shit This

24:09

is I mean we talked about things that

24:11

we care about we care about hard we

24:13

care about the stuff that our Discusses we

24:15

care about the world around us. We care

24:17

about our friends or family our pets All

24:19

of these things we care about all these

24:21

things a lot, but a lot of this

24:23

is just this is how we would probably

24:25

be talking anyway No, it is I mean

24:27

literally if you ever like sat in a

24:29

car with us like writing to Like a

24:32

screening we have the same The same kinds

24:34

of conversation. Yeah, exactly. So like And

24:36

we put it out there into the

24:39

world like anyone out there who creates

24:41

You know, we maybe create podcasts. Maybe

24:43

you write stories and you write poetry.

24:45

Maybe you Illustrate maybe you paint maybe

24:47

you sculpt what you make music whatever

24:49

it is that you do you do

24:51

twitch streams where you're playing video

24:54

games We're all

24:56

putting ourselves out into

24:58

the universe when we publish

25:00

anything in any medium

25:02

and a lot of the

25:04

time We have no idea what

25:06

happens to it afterwards. For

25:09

all we know nothing. Some

25:11

people listen to it, most don't. And

25:14

then that's that. And every

25:16

once in a while, we get a

25:18

correspondent, someone's saying, I like your

25:20

show. That's enough. That's a lot.

25:23

And then every once in a while, we get

25:25

a letter like this. Not often, by the

25:27

way. This is very rare. But we get an

25:29

email saying that we made an actual. impact

25:31

on someone's life, hopefully positive.

25:35

And I honestly

25:37

have trouble

25:39

processing that. Oftentimes

25:41

it's like... Something

25:44

I didn't even know I was I didn't

25:46

know was doing didn't feel like an important

25:48

episode at the time And then it's like

25:50

oh, yeah, I know this this helped me

25:52

have a connect with my father I've been

25:54

told and I'm like, oh, okay. I geez

25:56

okay. Well, that's amazing And I'm really really

25:58

glad we can help and I just I'm

26:00

flabbergasted. I think

26:03

When speaking to wish

26:05

specifically yeah, we reviewed it

26:07

and we saw it as

26:09

a sort of like

26:11

a media study about corporate ownership. And

26:14

I think that's because

26:16

the movie was being sold

26:18

as a gigantic tribute to

26:20

Disney itself. It was the

26:22

100 year anniversary of Disney and

26:24

the movie was full of

26:26

references to a whole lot of

26:29

stuff throughout Disney's. And if

26:31

we know anything about Disney, they

26:33

love to smell their own

26:35

farts. They just they love to

26:37

scratch their own back and pat themselves on

26:39

the back. I was I was shocked because

26:41

they tend to like put their failures in

26:43

a closet. You're not going to hear a

26:45

lot about Tomorrowland or Marseille moms these days.

26:47

They're not going to hype that they have

26:49

those on Disney Plus.

26:52

But they ran the. the

26:54

credit roll at the end of Wish, and

26:56

it's like, okay, are they really gonna show

26:58

a still from Bolt, for instance? Like,

27:01

or Home on the Range? Like, these

27:03

movies that people don't really fondly remember. Oh

27:07

gosh. That was Disney wasn't it? That

27:09

was Disney. That was their knockoff

27:11

of Madagascar. Or even sometimes the stuff

27:13

that did make money but didn't

27:15

like translate to anything like any answer

27:17

like who bought dinosaur merch? Not

27:19

not the dinosaurs. I'm talking about the

27:22

movie. movie dinosaur. Remember that one?

27:24

Yeah. Yeah. Who they don't really

27:26

do merch for that one do they?

27:28

Yeah, that's not really a thing. So made

27:30

money. But I think because we were so focused

27:32

on that aspect of it, we were kind

27:34

of getting to the meta commentary that was going

27:36

on throughout, we did sort

27:39

of overlook the... What kind of

27:41

typical story of finding that the adults

27:43

in your life have been lying to

27:45

you. And I feel like this is

27:47

a pretty common story you'll find across

27:49

a lot of media. It's an important coming

27:51

of age element. Yeah, exactly. It

27:53

tends to be just a coming of

27:55

age story when you learn that your teachers

27:57

aren't telling you the truth or your

28:00

parents aren't sort of

28:02

the peerless guideposts that

28:04

they were for you as a younger child. And

28:07

so. We didn't really address that at

28:09

all. I think we kind of... I think we

28:11

took it for granted. We did. We kind of took

28:13

it for granted. Because it was well -worn territory, we

28:15

took it for granted. And I think, you know,

28:17

fair enough. But

28:19

we absolutely did

28:21

not see this

28:24

elaborate, And honestly, I think

28:26

it tracks. this elaborate

28:28

allegory for being

28:30

part of and then

28:32

attempting to leave

28:35

a cult -like... And

28:38

honestly, honestly, you've opened my eyes. And I'm not going

28:40

to say I think Wish is still a good movie. I

28:42

don't. I think there's a lot of problems with it. But

28:45

that's an interesting read.

28:47

And I think fair, fair enough, honestly,

28:49

you know, I can totally see why

28:51

that connected. And it's critical. It's

28:53

important for us to remember that, you know, those

28:56

stories actually are saying something. I

28:59

tend to sort of dismiss films that

29:01

it's like, OK, Kids

29:03

rule adults drool be yourself or

29:05

yeah, there's these yeah film after

29:07

film after follow your dreams and

29:09

being yourself But you know some

29:11

kid is gonna need to hear

29:13

that if someone to be yourself

29:15

or to follow your dreams. I've

29:17

uh, I Have a friend who when they talk

29:19

about relationships. This is gonna come back to

29:22

movies in a second They say I don't believe

29:24

in mr. Right, but I believe in mr.

29:26

Right now Right now, I have

29:28

the right person. Will that be the

29:30

right person forever? Who the hell knows? But

29:32

right now, I found the right person.

29:34

And I have a similar feeling about movies

29:36

where the majority of movies are produced and

29:38

some people watch them and enjoy them,

29:40

some people don't, and then they just sort

29:42

of fade over time. Most movies fade

29:44

over time. We can't spend all of our

29:46

time talking about all movies. Eventually,

29:49

we talk about some more than others. And

29:52

a lot of those movies cover similar ground. But

29:55

while we talk about the ones that

29:57

make the biggest impact to the

29:59

most people sometimes, or the ones we feel

30:01

that are most artistically interesting, all

30:03

that really matters, really, is, is this

30:05

the movie you needed to see today?

30:07

And that can be any film. It

30:10

can literally be any film. Yeah. And

30:12

that's beautiful. I think it's amazing about

30:14

ours in general. Like whatever you

30:16

can be going through a really hard

30:18

time. You can have like a really depressive

30:20

day where nothing seems to be going

30:22

right. It feels like your whole life is

30:24

unraveling. And then you come upon that

30:26

just that one thing, that song, that film,

30:29

that TV show, and it becomes really

30:31

important to you personally. And

30:33

I know you and I as critics have

30:35

had this experience of trashing that

30:37

thing. It's

30:39

like, no, this came to me like this,

30:41

this song saved my life. And it's like,

30:43

well, that, yeah. And we already said, oh,

30:45

that's garbage. And we get in trouble for

30:47

that because it can be really important to

30:49

someone. And I have that too. In

30:53

the year, year in 2001, I

30:55

had like the worst breakup of my life.

30:58

Yeah. It, you know, I just, one of those

31:00

things where I like had to be, I

31:02

had to be taken out of town to get

31:04

away from a horrible acts. And.

31:08

And in the sort of the months that

31:10

followed, it's like I was in a pretty

31:12

emotionally fraught state. I had gotten out of

31:14

this really horrible relationship. I lost a job.

31:16

I wasn't in good space mentally. And

31:18

so I started volunteering at the Braille

31:20

Institute and driving to and from, I

31:22

would just sort of be thumbing through

31:24

the radio. This was before satellite radio

31:26

and I didn't have a media player

31:28

in the car. So I just started

31:30

listening to the radio. I found Radio

31:32

Disney. Radio

31:35

Disney is... of

31:37

the highest order, especially in the early

31:39

2000s. It was all like the most

31:41

bubblegum pop you could hope to. Or

31:43

they would take real pop songs and

31:45

make them kid -friendly. Well, what

31:47

they would do is, have you heard

31:49

of the A -teens? Yes. The

31:51

A stands for ABBA. Yeah, they do it. They

31:53

were a bunch of kids who did ABBA covers.

31:55

Yeah, like shit. If

31:58

you can imagine, first of all, ABBA is

32:00

already a bucket of sugar. Like they

32:02

are already like I love that

32:04

about ABBA. Yeah, that's, and unpretentiously so.

32:06

There's like, here's a wonderful bucket

32:09

of pop sugar drink. Now imagine that

32:11

with more sugar in it. Like

32:13

they somehow made a soup out of

32:15

maple syrup and sugar. That's the

32:17

Ateens. They sweetened it up, even though

32:19

it was already sweet. I

32:21

was listening to

32:23

Element. It's spelled

32:25

L M N T. Yes, I'm

32:27

familiar with elements as well. Or

32:30

the Irish pop group, BWICHT. Oh,

32:32

I forgot about BWICHT. Yeah, B,

32:34

I think it was a little

32:36

star, BWICHT. Yeah, they borrowed Incinct's

32:38

asterisk right over here. Yeah, so

32:41

I listened to BWICHT. And that

32:43

kind of stuff, it's all this

32:45

innocent little kid music about 13

32:47

year olds having their first crush.

32:49

And for some reason, that's what

32:51

I needed. I needed that. Garbage

32:53

for a little bit. I can

32:55

acknowledge That it's pop nonsense. Yeah, that

32:57

it's you know made for 12 year olds

32:59

Yeah, 12 year olds are gonna really like

33:02

it adults typically not but I was in

33:04

my early 20s And that's what I needed

33:06

at the moment. Yeah, so it came at

33:08

the right time, you know, I I've talked

33:10

about a few of these as well There

33:14

there's two in particular that I

33:17

think my life would be very

33:19

different if I hadn't run across

33:21

these things that most people don't

33:23

think much of The the the

33:25

sillier one is

33:28

the year was

33:30

2014 and I

33:33

Couldn't imagine

33:35

being a film critic any longer.

33:37

I was like It's

33:40

so hard and you can't make

33:42

money and there's no job

33:44

security and nobody cares I

33:46

put all this effort in

33:48

and nobody cares. I was writing

33:50

a hundred articles a month

33:53

Yeah, yeah, we were just

33:55

churning I was just absolutely a

33:57

monster and yeah, I I

33:59

just was completely demoralized

34:01

and Was literally

34:03

thinking at the end of this day. I'm

34:05

gonna quit but I had

34:07

a screening to go to and I went

34:09

to the screening. And the

34:11

screening was the Disney

34:14

film Million Dollar Arm.

34:16

With John Ham. With John Ham. John, it's based

34:18

on which playing the Fred McMurray role. Basically,

34:21

it's based on a true story very loosely in

34:23

the way that Cool Runnings is based on

34:25

a true story, but all those characters are fake.

34:30

John Ham plays like a baseball

34:32

scout. memory serves it might be

34:34

might be a little fuzzy on

34:36

it. Place a baseball scout and

34:38

in order to try to drive

34:40

more attention to his baseball

34:43

club major

34:45

league group

34:47

he was going to go

34:49

to India and try to

34:51

enlist cricket players

34:53

in order to bring them over

34:55

here to try out and it

34:58

might just be a gimmick but

35:00

we need a gimmick and

35:02

he's Like two

35:04

thirds of the movie, he gives no shits about

35:06

anything. And he's exactly where I am in my

35:08

life. Like, I've been doing this for forever, the

35:10

magic is gone. I'm just

35:12

doing a job now. And at the

35:15

end of the movie, Huzzah,

35:18

he remembers why he did it in the first

35:20

place. And

35:23

at the end of that movie, I remembered

35:25

why I do this in the first place.

35:27

It's because sometimes you see a movie like

35:29

million dollar fucking arm and it changes your

35:31

life. I literally was gonna

35:33

quit, and I didn't because of

35:35

Million Dollar Arm, random ass movie.

35:37

The more severe version of that,

35:40

and so my episode of Doctor

35:42

Who that I honestly don't think

35:44

anyone has ever called the best or

35:46

anything, it was the second

35:48

of the Christopher Eccleston era. It's

35:50

called The End of the World, I think, and. It

35:53

was the one with the woman who was just

35:55

a flap of skin. Yeah, yeah, it was the first

35:57

episode of the new series where they went. into

35:59

the future. And they went to the

36:01

day that the earth is going to blow up.

36:03

It can't be put off for forever. Eventually, that's

36:06

going to happen. But humanity was OK. It just

36:08

moved off of Earth. But that's the thing. His

36:10

companion at the time, Rose, was like, oh my

36:12

god, this is so horrible. We have to save

36:14

everybody. And he's like, they're saved.

36:17

They're fine. They're not living there anymore.

36:19

And he had this speech. And

36:22

I was as low as I've ever

36:24

been as mentally. Like

36:27

I had dark thoughts

36:29

and I heard the doctor

36:31

give this speech You spend all

36:33

your time thinking about dying like

36:36

you're gonna get killed by eggs

36:38

or beef or global warming or

36:40

asteroids But you never take time

36:42

to imagine the impossible Like maybe

36:44

you survive And I couldn't

36:46

imagine a future for myself

36:48

and all of a sudden I'm

36:50

like well shit Maybe

36:53

I should, maybe this is a crisis

36:55

of creativity and I can do

36:57

better and I can imagine a better

36:59

future for myself and I can

37:01

realize that because shit, it's possible things

37:03

get better and you know what,

37:05

they did. Not always,

37:07

but they did. And

37:10

that one not

37:13

terribly well remembered episode

37:15

of Doctor Who saved my

37:17

life. That's great. And so you

37:19

never know where it's gonna come. Never know where it's

37:21

gonna come. You never know where the art's gonna hit

37:23

you, you know? No. That's why you keep

37:25

exposing yourself to it. You gotta find it, you know? As

37:28

for what Keith was asking about. Yes. I

37:33

think I actually have spoken

37:35

to other people who were

37:37

in some pretty repressive sort

37:39

of religious upbringings that didn't

37:41

allow them like exposure to

37:43

pop media. I don't

37:45

know about witnesses specifically.

37:48

I'm just sort of

37:50

I belong to a

37:52

pretty boring mainline Protestant

37:54

church that's actually rather

37:56

permissive, but I am

37:58

familiar with sort of

38:02

a version of Christianity that I

38:04

learned from like the Jack T.

38:06

Chick tracks, which is like pretty

38:09

out there. Like not a lot

38:11

of people adhere to that, that version

38:13

of Christianity. I think only only Jack T.

38:15

Chick did really. And

38:19

I think a

38:21

lot of the media

38:23

that you're finally going to

38:25

be exposed to once you.

38:29

Are out or you're in

38:31

a position where you can consume

38:33

that media is going to have

38:35

a lot of messages about Independence especially

38:37

if you're watching American media.

38:39

There is a lot of

38:42

American TV and film That

38:45

is about sort of forging your

38:47

own path and following your own

38:49

way heck it goes back to

38:51

the very found some of our

38:53

media is like foundational if you've

38:55

read Horatio Alger stories stories like

38:57

ragged dick and struggling upward There's a

39:00

very dark side to the

39:02

Horatio Alger tales because they

39:04

are eventually about sort of

39:06

a Puritan work ethic that

39:08

lambasts the poor But

39:10

at the same time, they are ultimately

39:12

aspirational stories about being born in a

39:14

low place and rising up and sort

39:16

of breaking out and making your own

39:18

way. That's all a

39:20

whole self -reliance thing. There's

39:23

a lot of just sort of very basic

39:25

American philosophies that come from that. So I think

39:27

that as you go forward, you're going to

39:29

find a lot of inspiration from the media

39:31

you consume. Yeah. They

39:34

are going to the bulk of American

39:36

media you find is going to be about

39:38

hope and is going to be about

39:40

finding finding your path and finding the things

39:42

that make your dreams come true. Even

39:44

the most frivolous things. Yeah. Unless

39:46

you're a weirdo like me who likes

39:48

to watch bleak shit. most

39:51

of what you're gonna find is going to sort

39:53

of stand up to that. And

39:56

as for the other thing, movies

39:58

about cult. Or

40:01

that is or or or like leaving

40:03

some sort of high -pressure environment. There's

40:05

a lot of movies that are very

40:07

specifically about cults Yeah, and they typically

40:09

you know are about just people find

40:11

out this thing is a cult and

40:13

it's bad and they can it gets

40:15

scary and then they go mid Samar

40:17

Yeah, it is a good example the

40:19

wicker man is an example of that

40:21

Indiana Jones and the temple of doom

40:23

is about the foggy cult and a

40:25

less genre way Martha Marcy May Marlene

40:27

is a great that's yeah the initiation There's

40:30

a no the invitation the

40:32

invitation. Yeah Karen Kusama's from

40:34

the invitation is just absolutely Yes, he

40:36

Karen Kusama's the invitation but it's

40:38

not fantastic But not about being part

40:40

of it like your whole life

40:42

and then leaving that is a very

40:45

particular yeah, I There's a couple

40:47

of films that are about sort of

40:49

yeah, kind of extracting yourself from

40:51

that world. Um, what's the What's

40:55

the comedy series about a woman who

40:57

used to be in a cult? Oh,

41:00

Kimmy Schmidt? Yeah, I'm breakable Kimmy Schmidt.

41:02

That's about leaving leaving a cult and

41:04

sort of her life after the cult. There's

41:07

a really great

41:09

Jenna Campion film or

41:11

Jane Campion film who Jenna

41:13

Campion is a friend of

41:16

mine. Jane

41:18

Campion film, Holy Smoke, which

41:20

is about a deprogrammer, sort of

41:22

rescues a young woman from a cult

41:24

and he's supposed to deprogram her. The

41:28

thing is, when you see movies

41:30

specifically about cults in media, they

41:32

tend to sort of... be

41:34

very pointed and almost kind of dangerous. Yeah,

41:36

look at that cult. Stay away. That

41:39

kind of thing. It's like documentaries about Jim

41:41

Jones, that kind of thing. That's pretty

41:43

extreme example. And that's

41:45

a perspective, but to

41:47

have the perspective of

41:49

growing up. And

41:51

again, I'm not saying anything about

41:53

Jehovah's Witnesses. I don't know enough

41:55

about them personally. But to

41:57

grow up in an environment in

41:59

which you are isolated and you're

42:01

not really given permission to

42:03

expand your horizons and meet people

42:06

who have different ideas that

42:08

might challenge the viewpoints that you're

42:10

raised with, to varying

42:12

degrees. It's a lot of

42:14

people. It's a

42:16

lot of people. It could

42:18

just be your political

42:20

upbringing or what have you.

42:25

Yeah, I have to think about that a

42:27

little bit more, especially in terms of allegory. I

42:32

like Oracle. I like Oracle. That took me a minute. Yeah,

42:35

I have to think about that. That's actually

42:37

an interesting point. Yeah, OK. But thank you

42:39

for that. Thank you for that amazing letter. Yeah,

42:41

thank you so much. And I'm very touched

42:43

and trying to do it just as. For

42:45

the ones who get it done, the most

42:47

important part is the one you need now.

42:49

And the best partner is the one who can

42:51

deliver. That's why millions of maintenance

42:53

and repair pros trust Granger, because we

42:56

have professional grade supplies for every industry,

42:58

even hard to find products. and we

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43:02

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43:04

importantly, we have an unwavering

43:06

commitment to help keep you up

43:08

and running. Call ClickRanger .com or just

43:10

stop by. Granger for

43:12

the ones who get it done. I

43:16

will move on to a postcard. second,

43:19

while you do that, I have to give Lucas some treats. I'm

43:22

going to do a postcard next

43:24

and I want to describe it. It

43:27

says, meet me at the Formosa

43:29

on the front, but in a very

43:31

broad 1950s font where there's photographs

43:33

in every letter and little stars, little

43:35

illustration of a woman in a

43:37

sexy dress, drinking a cocktail down in

43:39

the corner. And it says,

43:41

Hollywood, California. Looks almost like the Welcome

43:43

to Gravity Falls. Yeah, there you go.

43:47

And on the back, it's, oh, it

43:49

has a Harvey Milk stamp, too.

43:51

I like that. This one comes from

43:53

Fab. Hello, Fab. It

43:56

says, hello, Bibs and Whitney. I loved

43:58

hearing your picks for the best movies of

44:00

the 21st century so far. I will use that

44:02

episode as a guide to watch films I've

44:04

never seen before. Whitney Mulholland Drive should have cracked

44:06

the top 10. Fair

44:08

point. At the second we were

44:10

done with that episode, we had recruits. Oh, yeah, we

44:12

had like 50 we should have mentioned. No. We

44:15

ruined everything. Hot take. Babylon could have

44:17

been a runner up. I love

44:19

Babylon. You love Babylon. I don't. I liked

44:21

it when I saw it. All the critics

44:23

hated it. I didn't understand why. Every reason

44:25

that you like it is a reason why

44:27

I dislike it. It's one of those movies

44:29

where it's like, it's like, it's so, it's

44:31

so overblown and indulgent. And you're like, yes,

44:33

I know. And I'm like, I just, it

44:35

didn't. There's good. I like Tobin McGuire is

44:37

a cocaine grimoire. I love that. I like that

44:39

part. Yeah. Definitely. It's so huge. There are parts that

44:41

I really like. And a bibs

44:44

surprised you put Barb and Star

44:46

go to Vista Del Mar on your

44:48

runners up in a good way.

44:50

Got any other recommendations for positive middle

44:52

-aged representation in movies like Barb and

44:54

Star best fab? That's

44:56

fun. Yeah, the problem is

44:58

a lot of movies about middle -aged

45:00

people. There's this assumption in Hollywood.

45:02

And again, I'm talking about American films

45:05

mostly. There's this assumption

45:07

in Hollywood that the bulk of audiences

45:09

going to see the movies are

45:11

young. That's the the audience

45:13

that a lot of producers are courting

45:15

young people with disposable income. Yeah. So

45:17

as such, middle -aged people

45:19

are often depicted as Oh,

45:22

boring. Old and boring and used up

45:24

and uncool. Well, think about how many

45:26

movies you've seen about young people, picking

45:29

people in love, for example, where it

45:31

ends with a sort of happily ever

45:33

after vibe. They're in the

45:35

happily ever after part. The story

45:37

is over for them is the vibe.

45:40

So yeah, you see stories about a

45:42

middle -aged people and they're going through

45:44

a midlife crisis or their lives have

45:46

fallen apart. Yeah, gotta get back got

45:48

to feel young again. Yeah, that's old

45:50

dog. I never saw old dogs, but

45:52

that's kind of the tagline of that

45:54

movie. just got caught up with that

45:56

action movie, Nobody. Mm -hmm with what's

45:58

his name from better called Bob O 'Connor

46:00

and that's one where it's yet another John

46:02

Wick thing where it turns out he was

46:04

a secret badass, but he was living this

46:06

very mundane Suburban life and he liked his

46:08

suburban life because he used to be a

46:11

badass But he goes back to it and

46:13

a part of me was all disappointed that

46:15

at the end of the movie Being a

46:17

badass is like I had to keep that

46:19

part of me alive and I'm like Okay,

46:21

that that certainly is a take and

46:23

that's certainly something that maybe we do

46:25

sometimes lose these younger more passionate parts

46:27

of ourselves But also it is okay

46:29

to put things aside and realize that's

46:31

not what you want And so I

46:33

don't know this movie had an interesting

46:35

mixed message about it Yeah, it's rare

46:37

that you'll find a couple, like

46:40

a married couple in a movie, a

46:42

middle -aged married couple, where everything's just

46:44

kind of going okay for them. Unless

46:47

they're some sort of like

46:49

peerless professional, like think of the

46:51

married couple in Call Me

46:53

By Your Name. It's like

46:55

they're just studying art and enjoying fresh fish

46:57

from the sea. Yeah. Like the fish

46:59

isn't even dead yet and they're eating it.

47:01

You know, it's a great movie about

47:03

being middle -aged, even though the... Context is

47:05

kind of weird. Only

47:07

lovers left alive. When

47:12

your immortal middle age becomes sort

47:14

of a different kind of capacity but

47:16

here are people who have been

47:18

together for so long and they're so

47:20

comfortable with each other they can

47:22

spend a hundred years not talking knowing

47:25

that their relationship is fine. They're

47:27

just so fucking comfy together and then

47:29

he's just extremely depressed so she

47:31

goes to visit him and they just

47:33

they eat bloodsickles and they talk

47:35

about mushrooms and that's the movie for

47:37

the most part. it's like

47:39

a little bit of plot like in

47:41

the third act because we got to

47:44

do something but like mostly it's just

47:46

here is a happily married couple that

47:48

doesn't feel the need to like spice

47:50

it up or anything like oh we

47:52

got we got to go like to

47:54

this on this exotic vacation where we're

47:56

gonna be mistaken for spies like nope

47:58

we're gonna hang out in this house

48:00

and that's enough for us and it's

48:02

enough for the movie I like that

48:04

movie I

48:06

didn't I regret this because this

48:08

is a Mike Lee film that I

48:11

haven't seen. OK. But I know the

48:13

premise of his film another year is

48:15

about a happily married couple whose best

48:17

friends with a woman whose whose husband

48:19

left her. And the older couple they

48:21

were played by has played by Jim,

48:23

Jim Broadbent. And I forgot who played

48:26

the wife. I have. I don't think

48:28

so. No, I'll check. I know.

48:30

I know their friend is played by

48:32

Leslie Manville. Yeah. Because I love Leslie

48:34

Manville. But. I know

48:36

that a big part of that

48:38

movie was Ruth Sheen. Ruth Sheen,

48:40

sure. Yeah, I couldn't say. But

48:43

I do know that the premise

48:45

is that it's about an older

48:47

couple who are happily married and

48:49

what an aberration that is in

48:51

their friend group because everybody else's

48:53

relationships have fallen apart. Right. Yeah,

48:57

it's kind of hard. It's so hard

48:59

to think of one, especially in the modern

49:01

canon, that isn't about getting your groove

49:03

back and feeling young again. There is because

49:05

as we've, as sort of films have

49:07

progressed and we always, we get to see

49:09

it all the time in movies actually,

49:11

but we have to go to action movies.

49:13

these sort of power fantasies for middle

49:15

-aged men. Think of James Bond. Think

49:18

of any action hero. Think of

49:20

any character played by Jason Sadim. These

49:22

actors are like in their fifties.

49:24

These are middle -aged guys, but they're

49:26

still seen as sexual dynamo. Yeah, sexual

49:28

dynamo is continuously capable. You get

49:30

to do all of this stuff. You

49:34

know, they're the movies you get to

49:36

go to see that have young cast the

49:38

first fast and the furious those are

49:40

all young characters Yeah, you watch any other

49:42

action movie. They're all these older middle -aged

49:44

guys who get to be awesome still

49:46

so that's a way of selling to men

49:48

specifically What was the specific prompt again

49:51

for the movies? I want to make sure

49:53

not we're not it was just a

49:55

positive Positive middle -aged representation positive. Okay, this

49:57

in general. Okay, cool. Cool. I just to

49:59

make sure that we weren't off topic the

50:04

women. Oh, the

50:06

women. Yeah. Yeah. There's some negativity in there

50:08

too. And I think it ultimately ends with a

50:10

little too much of a men will solve

50:12

everything. But great, great movie from 1939 with an

50:14

all -star cast, some of the biggest actresses in

50:16

Hollywood and no men at all. And they

50:18

were sold on the other. This is what women

50:20

are talking about when men aren't around. And

50:22

of course you're talking about men most of the

50:24

time. Yeah. But. great

50:27

performances from people from a

50:29

wide variety of ages, but the

50:31

main characters are generally middle -aged

50:33

-ish. And stars my girlfriend, Norma

50:35

Shearer. And my girlfriend, Rosalind

50:37

Russell. Okay. I

50:39

love Norma Shearer. I love

50:41

Rosalind Russell. I

50:45

want to go back in time and just like

50:47

hang out with Norma Shearer and like lean

50:49

on my head and say, tell me more about

50:51

your life, Norma. I feel like there's one I'm

50:53

just totally spacing on with just like this really

50:56

Awesome middle -aged couple and I'm totally think

50:58

okay. Oh, you know what the thin man?

51:02

He's middle -aged. She's not but yeah fair

51:04

enough He's a little younger than

51:06

him, but like they were they were

51:08

happy but like an adult I guess they're

51:10

not middle -aged, but they're an adult married

51:12

couple and they all the sequels they

51:14

got older and they had the same vibe.

51:16

William Powell definitely qualifies as maybe the

51:18

lower end of middle -aged in that one

51:21

her not so much but towards the later

51:23

movies. Yeah, absolutely. That's a good example.

51:25

So later later thin man like they a

51:27

married couple they still are into each

51:29

other Yeah, and you know they're and they're

51:31

still solving mysteries together. Oh, and of

51:33

course And who could forget

51:35

Gomez and Morticia Adams? Oh, yeah,

51:37

that's a great married couple middle -aged

51:40

love to murder people together. Yeah, you

51:42

know, they and they're into each

51:44

other. Yeah, you know, you know, it's

51:46

a great movie that nobody talks

51:48

about enough. Is this Australian film The

51:50

Castle? Oh, yeah, The

51:52

Castle. The Castle is just one of

51:54

the most charming fucking movies ever

51:56

made. And it's just about Australian

51:59

indie comedy. Well, they made

52:01

this movie and over like. two and

52:03

a half weeks in order to make

52:05

enough money to make this other, it

52:08

might have been an Aussie and a Kiwi

52:10

co -production, but another movie called The Dish,

52:12

which is also very, very charming. But

52:14

the castle was this huge runaway hit just because

52:16

it was just delightful. And it's

52:18

about a dad and his family and

52:20

his wife, and they're very, very cute

52:22

together. And he finds out that the

52:24

government wants to take his home and

52:26

sort of that imminent domain. thing where

52:28

like we'll give you what the house

52:30

is worth but you do have to

52:32

go and he his home is his

52:34

castle he loves his home he's it's

52:37

very modest and no one sees anything

52:39

in it but him but to him

52:41

it's everything and so he decides to

52:43

fight the government based on

52:45

really nothing he doesn't have any his

52:47

lawyer is is terrible he just he

52:49

has no experience actually doing law stuff

52:51

and he goes in front of like

52:53

the australian supreme court saying things like

52:55

well do you have any precedent for

52:57

this and he says no it's sort

53:00

of the vibe of it it's the

53:02

vibe of the law and i say

53:04

that all the time you know it's

53:06

the vibe of it um That's

53:08

a really cute movie about middle -aged stuff. It's about

53:10

the kids, too, but it's mostly about the dad. That's

53:12

a good one. I like that. I

53:15

mean, shoot, this is such a good

53:17

topic, honestly. This would be a good iron

53:19

list, actually. Best films about

53:21

middle -aged, positive films about middle

53:23

-aged people. Yeah, I think that'd

53:25

actually be really nice, because

53:27

they're out there, but they're not

53:29

normal. You'll notice we're focusing

53:31

on this because we're middle -aged.

53:34

We are, actually. I got a

53:36

lot of grain in my

53:38

brain days. And we don't talk

53:40

about... That enough like the

53:42

idea that people who watch movies

53:44

or really enjoy any art

53:46

that is typically Catered to younger

53:48

people who have more free

53:50

time and arguably more disposable income

53:52

is the theory Those people

53:54

we we were them grow up

53:57

I hope. And then

53:59

our experiences are not actually matched

54:01

by that art. And that doesn't

54:03

mean we don't enjoy it. But

54:05

it does mean that art that

54:07

is actually about our experiences, our

54:09

time of life, is gonna mean

54:11

more to us because we will

54:13

connect to it and go, yep,

54:16

been there. I know

54:18

what that's like. And so

54:20

much of our industry is focused

54:22

on just keeping that youthful. Bit

54:24

alive like we got to keep

54:26

talking about these movies are 20

54:28

year olds and I'm like the

54:30

20 year olds that we were

54:32

writing for 15 years ago are

54:34

Middle -aged or approaching middle -age and

54:36

we should talk about the movies

54:38

for them because they're gonna lose

54:40

interest in all of the Minecraft

54:42

shit and that and we should

54:45

talk about those too for the

54:47

younger generation but movies for older

54:49

people matter and we shove them

54:51

aside so much and especially nice happy

54:54

representation of ages, which

54:56

in movies about young people

54:58

tend to be demonized

55:00

sometimes. Ooh, the scary old

55:02

hag and Snow White. You

55:05

know, that kind of bullshit. Or written

55:07

off as minor supporting characters, like, oh,

55:09

you got married and your story is

55:11

over. No. Like

55:13

Dana Gould has a great bit

55:15

about he loves Halloween. You go

55:17

to the Halloween stores, there's three

55:19

big monsters, Dracula, okay,

55:21

Vampire. Classic. werewolf

55:24

and older woman. I

55:27

mean, yeah. Yeah.

55:31

I mean, that's that's fucked up.

55:33

Yeah, it is. Anyway, great

55:35

question, though. Thank you so much for writing in. Let's

55:38

move on to this next one. This is another big.

55:40

This comes in a big thick envelope. It's got a

55:42

lot of things in it. Oh,

55:44

gosh, a lot of things in it. Oh,

55:46

shoot. All your

55:48

faves are problematic sticker. a

55:52

good sticker. Have empathy sticker. That's a

55:54

one. No

55:56

good cops in a racist

55:58

system with a little smiling.

56:00

I'm going to use that

56:02

one. Okay. Oh man,

56:04

these are great stickers. Oh, and there's

56:06

like little... Oh, there's like programs here. Oh

56:08

my goodness. Seriously, these stickers

56:10

are awesome. There's like little issues of this

56:12

little zine called It's Hard Isn't Dick

56:14

Being a Person, the movies of 2024 by

56:16

Lee of Lee Does Stuff. Oh, it's

56:19

like, yeah, it's just like a full -on

56:21

zine. It's got like puzzles. Yeah,

56:25

just three copies here. Okay, here's one. Okay, thank

56:27

you. Oh my god, that's more important.

56:29

There's a bunch of puzzles here. Oh my

56:31

god. And there's also a little note, and I'm

56:33

going to rip it open. Oh, so wonderful. can

56:36

hear it. Who

56:38

is this from? Who is this from? Let's

56:42

see. This comes

56:44

from... and Portland. Hello,

56:46

Lee. Thanks for sending us

56:48

this cool zener. There's like

56:50

a little drawing it connect the dots

56:52

in here? My old ass, National

56:54

Anthem, Lisa Frankenstein, I used to be

56:56

funny, The People's Joker, Woman of

56:58

the Hour. Those are all good movies. least

57:01

the ones that I saw. Hi, I love

57:03

your podcast and relatively new listeners. I've

57:05

become more obsessed with movies in the

57:07

last couple of years. Always loved the

57:09

movies, became a huge part of my

57:11

life. More recently, something about needing more

57:14

escapism, perhaps. I'm going to solve the

57:16

shit out of this crossword. I

57:18

am obsessed with crosswords. I don't talk about it

57:21

much on the podcast, but this is so at my

57:23

alley. Sorry, go on, go on. Something

57:25

about needing more escapism, perhaps. So I've

57:27

really enjoyed your conversations about both new and

57:29

old films, even. I disagree only rarely.

57:31

It's always a thoughtful conversation and I've added

57:33

tons to my watch list. Thank you.

57:35

In fact, this week I rented Summer Wars

57:37

from my awesome local video rental spot,

57:39

Movie Madness. Oh, have you been to Movie

57:42

Madness? No.

57:45

It's in Portland, Oregon. Yeah.

57:47

Oh, wait. It's like their video. It's it's

57:49

like, okay. I was in

57:51

Portland. I definitely what's that huge bookstore they have

57:53

in Portland? Oh,

57:55

like the size of a city

57:57

block. Yeah, I've been in there too.

58:00

Powell's. Powell's. I went to Powell's. I was

58:02

in Portland for one full day. I went

58:04

to Powell's for most of it. I

58:06

also bought weed, but mostly it was Powell's.

58:08

I'll tell my movie Madness Story in a

58:10

little bit. After hearing Bibb's talk about

58:13

Summer Wars, I liked it. Yeah, you're a big

58:15

fan of Summer Wars. That's one of my favorite

58:17

movies. Anyway, my obsession led

58:19

me to make this zine I've included for

58:21

you, although I thought you might enjoy it.

58:23

There's a giant crossword in some other puzzles.

58:26

Also, thank you for encouraging me to handwrite you

58:28

a letter with my terrible out -of -practice hand.

58:30

It's fun. Lastly, I

58:32

want to say I always love hearing about your

58:34

cats. Thanks for your podcast from

58:36

Leigh in Portland, and that was written

58:38

in this nice card. Oh my goodness. It's

58:40

like woodblock prints of hostage stamps. awesome.

58:43

Wow, I gotta tell ya, I don't know

58:45

where, I hope you can find this zine

58:47

somewhere in Portland. I hope you put - Yeah,

58:49

like leave this at the - Leave this

58:51

at the door, like movie madness or something.

58:53

Seriously, this is good work. Yeah.

58:55

And I firmly believe that we should

58:58

bring zines back. No, I think physical

59:00

copies of stuff just spread like in

59:02

person because these are things that are

59:04

going to stick around all the stuff

59:06

you find online doesn't stay. It doesn't

59:08

stay. They say nothing dies online. It

59:10

does. it gets deleted. It gets removed.

59:13

It gets forgotten. Only the stuff you

59:15

don't want like your leech nudes will

59:17

stay online. Yeah. But no, no, this

59:19

is a this is one. But also,

59:21

I honestly believe that, you know, given

59:23

the enormous Corporatization

59:25

of everything online and

59:28

how Google can now like

59:30

strangle. I guess they always go,

59:32

but you know I mean? They can strangle the smaller publications

59:34

so that no one can see them. And

59:37

also just the general tendency we've

59:39

had over the last 20, 30 years

59:41

to remove public spaces from people's

59:44

daily lives. You have fewer reasons to

59:46

go out than you did. And

59:48

if you do go out, there are

59:50

fewer places to go. I

59:53

think we should... going back to

59:55

that. Not that we can do it

59:57

all the way, but also we

59:59

are as we have stated middle -aged

1:00:01

our experience with them that kind of

1:00:03

media is a little different No,

1:00:05

but I honestly think we need we

1:00:07

need to be able to go

1:00:09

out and experience things together more than

1:00:11

we do. Yeah, I know for

1:00:13

sure a way and see and pick

1:00:15

up and share Here is and

1:00:17

here's not a link. Here's a magazine

1:00:20

that I made and it's Awesome.

1:00:22

I remember loving this. It's so good.

1:00:24

I remember a line of dialogue

1:00:26

from a movie. It's not a very

1:00:28

good movie. It's called Chloe. It's

1:00:30

an infidelity thriller with William Neeson, Julianne

1:00:32

Moore and Amanda Saferd. And

1:00:34

there's a bit where the Amanda

1:00:36

Saferd character, Chloe, like

1:00:39

meets a young man her

1:00:41

age and talks about

1:00:43

music she likes and she actually meets him at

1:00:45

like a basketball. She talks to

1:00:47

him about a band she really likes and then later

1:00:49

meets him at a basketball court and hands him

1:00:51

a CD. It's like, hey, here's a CD of this

1:00:53

band I really like. It's like, oh yeah, I

1:00:55

just, I downloaded it all last night. I listened to

1:00:57

it and she looks him right in the eye

1:00:59

and says, didn't you download the,

1:01:01

did you download the artwork? Did you

1:01:04

download the liner notes? Did you download

1:01:06

this moment of me giving it to

1:01:08

you? It's like, ah. Oh,

1:01:11

thank you. We're

1:01:13

just putting it so succinctly. That

1:01:16

was Adam McGoyan again, wasn't it?

1:01:18

What? Another Adam McGoyan phone. Keeps

1:01:20

coming back. Hold on. I really

1:01:22

want to make sure I got

1:01:24

the link right here. Oh,

1:01:28

what are you looking up here? I

1:01:30

want to make sure I want to get

1:01:32

this person has a Patreon page where you

1:01:34

can check out their zine and I don't

1:01:36

really know if you don't mind I would

1:01:38

like to recommend it to our listeners if

1:01:40

you go to leeduzzstuff

1:01:44

.com and you can go

1:01:46

to their Patreon page

1:01:48

which is also leeduzzstuff and

1:01:50

also apparently they have

1:01:52

a YouTube channel as well

1:01:54

which is I believe

1:01:56

Lee underscore does stuff. Check

1:01:59

it out. I'm genuinely impressed by this.

1:02:01

I would not I would not shit you

1:02:03

about this like I this is really

1:02:05

good and I'm actually jealous because I've always

1:02:07

wanted to put together a zine like

1:02:09

this. Yeah, I don't think I have the

1:02:11

time or the patience. I'm patient. I've

1:02:13

always wanted to make my own crossword puzzle

1:02:15

and I've never really been able to

1:02:18

make my standards are too high. But yeah,

1:02:20

no, this is good. This is really

1:02:22

good. Movie

1:02:24

madness is awesome. Hmm. It's a little

1:02:26

independent video story in Portland that's been operating

1:02:28

at least since I went there, which

1:02:30

was like in the mid 90s. Just joined

1:02:32

their patreon. But yeah, it was one

1:02:34

of the only video stores I had been

1:02:36

to at the time. And I imagine

1:02:39

they still do it this way to have

1:02:41

things seconded off by director. And

1:02:43

I remember like discovering. I

1:02:46

didn't know Tim Burton did an episode of fairy

1:02:48

tale theater, like that kind of stuff. You can find

1:02:50

it sort of put off in their section. And

1:02:53

then the way it was laid out at the

1:02:55

time when I went there was you would go down

1:02:57

this long hallway and there was videos on every

1:02:59

wall, by the way, just sort of

1:03:01

sectioned off so many different genres. And you

1:03:03

go back to, going back to the

1:03:05

word, their psychotronic section. It's where

1:03:07

all of their weirdest stuff was held. This

1:03:11

is where I went there with a couple

1:03:13

of friends. I went there with my sister

1:03:15

and we rented a film called over sexed

1:03:17

rug suckers from Mars. Oh, those are my

1:03:19

favorite rug suckers from Mars. Yeah, the over

1:03:22

sexed kind. Yeah. Terrible

1:03:24

low budget B film. It's

1:03:26

like they're aspiring to be trauma

1:03:28

and failing. Like that's kind of how

1:03:30

the low rent nature we were

1:03:32

looking at. I was running

1:03:34

into movies that I like I'm right

1:03:36

about and sort of very hushed tones

1:03:38

like you know Attack of the Killer

1:03:40

refrigerator and My sister ended up renting

1:03:42

a film that was just like

1:03:44

a blank box with a post -it notes

1:03:47

And all it's it was called Femme

1:03:49

de Saade and all it said

1:03:51

is this is an X -rated film. It's

1:03:53

a porno movie. It's been banned in

1:03:55

many countries And I think they

1:03:57

should have also written good luck at

1:03:59

the bottom like So

1:04:02

of course we're going to rent

1:04:04

this horrible porno movie that's been

1:04:06

banned in several countries. So

1:04:09

a little weird watching an X -rated film in

1:04:11

mixed company like that. Also my sister is

1:04:13

in the room. That was a little weird. But

1:04:15

it wasn't sexy in the

1:04:18

least. Right. Fair

1:04:20

enough. And there was all this racist

1:04:22

stuff in it. Because it was made in

1:04:24

the 70s. That was funny at the

1:04:26

time. To racists? Yeah.

1:04:30

Anyway, um, yeah, if you're in Portland or

1:04:32

you're close to Portland make the trip.

1:04:34

It's definitely worth it Yeah, thank you again,

1:04:36

and I'm totally gonna put one at

1:04:38

least some of these stickers on my laptop.

1:04:40

Yeah, all your favors are problematic is

1:04:42

definitely get in the place and Yeah, yeah,

1:04:44

the good cops and yeah, there are

1:04:46

no good cops erase the system also Yeah,

1:04:48

these are gonna end up on my

1:04:50

laptop. My laptop is a good is a

1:04:52

cacophony of stickers. Oh

1:04:54

yeah, I think everybody has a

1:04:56

good... I stand with Planned

1:04:58

Parenthood. There's a Transformers one

1:05:00

about protecting trans kids. You

1:05:03

have a Vinegar Syndrome sticker on there. do.

1:05:05

I'm very fond of

1:05:07

my Woody Guthrie sticker. This

1:05:09

machine kills fascists. Nice. So

1:05:12

yeah, I got a lot of...

1:05:14

got a lot of very political stickers,

1:05:17

I suppose. But anyway, there's also

1:05:19

a Crotea robot. Saying nothing

1:05:21

political of any kind just being

1:05:23

there I have a couple that

1:05:25

are just fail like I have

1:05:27

a Boris Karloff is Frankenstein and

1:05:29

Marcel the shell Yeah, the big

1:05:31

blue alien from Fantastic Planet because

1:05:33

I love that movie. I love

1:05:36

that alien. Yeah Anyway, we got

1:05:38

all of this. We've got a

1:05:40

couple more No sort of postcards

1:05:42

to get through this one is

1:05:44

a postcard From CW. Okay. Hello.

1:05:46

It says fun fact according to

1:05:48

Star Trek The second

1:05:50

civil war starts in the year

1:05:52

2026. Okay, which leads to the

1:05:55

eugenics wars and World War three.

1:05:57

Mmm Kind of on track there

1:05:59

Star Trek has a mixed has

1:06:01

a sort of a mixed success

1:06:03

rate with predicting the near future

1:06:05

I think some of the earlier

1:06:07

predictions were that the eugenics wars

1:06:09

were gonna start in 1996 the

1:06:12

original Star Trek said 1996 the

1:06:14

90s felt really far away in

1:06:16

the 60s. Yeah I

1:06:18

mean, there's a reason why. In 2001, they

1:06:20

thought we would already have a space station on

1:06:22

the moon that people were just sort of

1:06:24

hanging out in. But

1:06:27

I believe it was, and this

1:06:29

episode was actually banned, I think,

1:06:31

in the UK. But there's an

1:06:33

episode that said the Irish unification

1:06:35

was supposed to happen, I think,

1:06:37

in 2024 or 2025. Yeah. And

1:06:40

so, hmm, let's

1:06:42

see how that goes. But

1:06:45

this is something we talked

1:06:47

about a lot we have a

1:06:49

Star Trek podcast on our

1:06:51

patreon page. It's called all our

1:06:53

yesterday's review every single Star

1:06:55

Trek episode in order and Star

1:06:57

Trek is one of the

1:07:00

few popular Pop culture utopias, you

1:07:02

know, there's there's negativity and

1:07:04

conflict but generally speaking Humanity has

1:07:06

got their shit figured out

1:07:08

Hmm, you know like we've mostly

1:07:10

solved all the big problems

1:07:12

and things are going pretty good

1:07:14

for us in general and

1:07:16

That's great. It's aspirational look at

1:07:19

us like there's no more.

1:07:21

There's no more racism. There's Okay,

1:07:23

we're still working through some

1:07:25

of the sexism for a while,

1:07:27

but that gets better and

1:07:29

so does a lot of things.

1:07:33

Capitalism, gone. Scarcity,

1:07:35

gone. There's so

1:07:37

many things to look forward to. But

1:07:40

how did we get there?

1:07:43

Star Trek posits that humanity wasn't

1:07:46

open to doing things like

1:07:48

getting rid of capitalism. until

1:07:50

we hit rock bottom a

1:07:52

species. We had to survive

1:07:54

through like the worst possible

1:07:56

wars and nearly become extinct.

1:07:59

Before and then we had to

1:08:01

meet aliens while we're at rock

1:08:03

bottom for all of this to

1:08:05

happen And thank God we met

1:08:08

the Vulcans because can you imagine

1:08:10

if like? the Cardassians first. We

1:08:12

met the Cardassians first. Our future

1:08:14

is very very different know the

1:08:16

Vulcans are very cool like These

1:08:18

guys are weird, but we could

1:08:20

probably help them out like you

1:08:22

know we we we had a

1:08:24

good We had a good mentor -mentee

1:08:26

relationship as a species with the

1:08:28

Vulcan. Yeah, so Yeah, we're supposed

1:08:31

to hit rock bottom, and

1:08:33

then things will get better. I

1:08:35

don't doubt that we're gonna hit rock

1:08:37

bottom at this point. I

1:08:39

hope we get better. I

1:08:42

really hope that we

1:08:44

see the things that we're

1:08:46

doing now that are

1:08:48

just absolutely disgusting. And

1:08:51

not just us all over the world. There's

1:08:54

bad bad shit going on right now, and it

1:08:56

just seems to keep spiraling. The worst people

1:08:58

are in charge. The worst people are in charge,

1:09:00

and they're doing really really terrible things. And

1:09:02

to be fair, really really terrible things have always

1:09:04

been happening, but it's getting

1:09:06

worse. And I hope

1:09:08

we reach a point soon where

1:09:10

people realize that putting those

1:09:12

people in power, you thought

1:09:14

it would fix things, it's

1:09:17

not, it's making it worse.

1:09:21

Hopefully that will be

1:09:23

incontrovertible. And then we

1:09:25

can hopefully try to move on.

1:09:27

Is that a fantasy? Probably. But

1:09:30

we have to try. We

1:09:32

really do. There's

1:09:35

two attitudes. It gets worse before it

1:09:37

gets worse, or it gets worse before

1:09:39

it gets better. I

1:09:41

think both are true. And both can be

1:09:43

true. Yeah, we'll get worse, worse, worse before

1:09:45

it gets worse. But the other part of

1:09:47

this postcard is some data for you. Data,

1:09:49

isn't that clear? And there's a picture

1:09:51

of data, although I think it might be lore.

1:09:54

Oh, no, this is data from Descent, where

1:09:56

he's been sort of, we haven't gotten to

1:09:58

that episode on all our yesterdays yet. Yeah,

1:10:00

I think it is. But

1:10:02

the question is when you will you

1:10:04

reach section 31, which was the film

1:10:06

that came out. Oh, the newest piece

1:10:09

of Star Trek media. Oh, a very

1:10:11

long time. And it

1:10:13

counts all of the episodes we did of

1:10:15

all our yesterdays year by year, starting

1:10:17

in 2019, which is when we started the

1:10:19

podcast. So we did 19

1:10:21

episodes of all our yesterdays in

1:10:23

2019, and there were 20 new

1:10:25

episodes of New Trek. So

1:10:27

we're already one behind. We

1:10:29

did 53 episodes in 2020, so

1:10:31

about one a week. And

1:10:34

only 33 episodes, so we caught up. So

1:10:36

we're 20 ahead, 19 ahead. 2021,

1:10:38

we did 57 episodes, there were only

1:10:40

22 new tracks. Okay, still making

1:10:42

progress. Yeah, 2022, there were 45 episodes,

1:10:44

but there were 51 new tracks.

1:10:47

Shit. So we fell behind again. Okay.

1:10:49

2023, we did 42 episodes and there were

1:10:51

only 30 new tracks. Okay, doing good. 2024

1:10:55

we did 32 episodes of all our yesterdays

1:10:57

and there were 40 new tracks. the way,

1:10:59

that's not nearly enough all our yesterdays. We

1:11:01

got to pick up that pace. Yeah, and

1:11:03

we've and as as of this postcard that

1:11:05

we had only done four in 2025. So,

1:11:07

okay, this we have done more than that,

1:11:09

the way. So this postcard's been

1:11:11

been in that box for a

1:11:14

bit, I guess. Sorry about that.

1:11:16

So if we do one a

1:11:18

week, we'll catch up with section

1:11:20

31 on May 23rd, 2038. OK.

1:11:23

If we do two a week, we'll

1:11:26

catch up by October 1st, 2031. Let's

1:11:28

do that. Just

1:11:30

because there's a lot of search. That's

1:11:32

six years. We can do six years. I

1:11:34

can live that long. Oh, yeah. I

1:11:36

think I can knock it on wood here,

1:11:39

but I think I can make that.

1:11:41

Yeah. I know. I'm going to try. One

1:11:43

of one of my new axioms might

1:11:45

just live. Yeah. Sayings to

1:11:47

live by is just live through this. Yeah. Don't

1:11:50

don't let the bastards grind you down. Lift

1:11:52

through. Yeah, I want to live long enough

1:11:54

to see them on trial for crimes against

1:11:56

humanity. Oh, I have some graves. I want

1:11:58

to pee on, you know, I'm I'm going

1:12:00

to live to do that. Got

1:12:02

to have something. Got to

1:12:05

have something. Got have something. Yeah. Our last

1:12:07

piece of mail here, physical mail that

1:12:09

we got a box. a box. It's really

1:12:11

exciting. Cats are going to love that. I've

1:12:14

opened the box already. Like it's small,

1:12:16

but I think Luke can there. There's

1:12:18

a letter in here from Luke, and

1:12:20

there's also something in this box. What

1:12:23

you got? It is the Max.

1:12:25

What? It's the McFarland toys. What

1:12:28

the hell? Oh my gosh, I've

1:12:30

been looking for one of these for ages. Oh,

1:12:32

there's even a little is, a little that. It

1:12:34

is little is. Oh my god. Wow, this is

1:12:36

nice. Oh, those McFarland toys

1:12:38

were fantastic. Well, yeah, but this isn't well

1:12:40

taken care of, even though it's out

1:12:42

of the box. It just looks good. No,

1:12:44

this is one of the ones I

1:12:47

wanted that I could never find. Yeah. I

1:12:49

guess it was one of the more

1:12:51

popular ones. I think we joked at some

1:12:53

point that you could go into any

1:12:55

Chashki shop or toys. store or comic book

1:12:57

store to this day and find unsold

1:12:59

McFarland toys for like four ninety nine right

1:13:01

from like the nineties like these toys

1:13:03

that were just every over order them. Some

1:13:05

of them were really popular and a

1:13:08

lot of them it's like nobody and they

1:13:10

were really elaborate toys. They're really nice

1:13:12

ones. No, at the time like action figures

1:13:14

were not great and McFarland was like

1:13:16

what if they were good and. Yeah, that's

1:13:18

a great idea. And to be fair,

1:13:20

he really did force all the other toy

1:13:22

makers to up their game. So, yeah,

1:13:25

no, wow, this is gorgeous. But

1:13:27

the letter comes from Luke and it

1:13:29

says, Dear Bibs and Rockmeister, McCoolio. I

1:13:32

am coolio. To start, Whitney, I recall you say

1:13:34

you've been looking to get a McFarlane Max figure

1:13:36

for a while where here you go. Oh, my

1:13:38

God. This is too generous.

1:13:40

Dude, I mean, come on. And

1:13:42

if you've already found yourself one, I haven't. Free

1:13:44

for to just give it to bibs or your

1:13:46

son, I guess. I don't know. I'm not your boss.

1:13:48

I would have taken it, but this is this

1:13:50

is all with Oh, my God. I just wrote an

1:13:52

article about the man on slash film. Oh, man. Oh,

1:13:55

my God. It's even got the headdress. You also

1:13:57

just wrote an article about the idiot box that

1:14:00

Alex Winter retweeted or re skeeted. Yeah, that's right.

1:14:02

That was cool. the idiot, which

1:14:04

we covered on Council Too Soon, so I could

1:14:06

speak with authority. With that out

1:14:08

of the way, I've been so happy

1:14:10

with the return of Council Too Soon, along

1:14:12

with it came the announcement of a

1:14:14

Roger Corman movies retrospective. I'm assuming that you

1:14:16

got to, you got that got set

1:14:18

aside due to you two just being too

1:14:21

busy. Well, also the fires and everything.

1:14:23

The fire. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We still want

1:14:25

to do that at some point, but

1:14:27

it's It's on hold for a bit, at

1:14:29

least, yeah. Related to that,

1:14:31

I'm kind of surprised that Bibbs hasn't pushed for

1:14:33

you to do a Farscape podcast. I have. Often he

1:14:35

brings it up on the show, which to my

1:14:37

delight is often. I have. Of course, for all I

1:14:39

know, it may have been discussed in the off

1:14:41

chance that it ever is in the works. I

1:14:44

just a random note in case Bibbs isn't

1:14:46

aware, Whitney, you should be warned that for

1:14:48

first half of season one, they were producing

1:14:50

two episodes at a time. So while a

1:14:52

lot of the shows take a while to find

1:14:54

their footing, in this case, there's that additional

1:14:56

couple. complication, making for some

1:14:58

rough episodes at the start. I

1:15:01

understand it's rare that a show

1:15:03

gets off on its own. on its

1:15:05

best footing. Yeah. And if it

1:15:07

does, it's going to fail pretty quick

1:15:09

after. Yeah. No, Farscape, you know,

1:15:11

heroes syndrome, if you like. Farscape, great

1:15:13

sci -fi show from the late 90s,

1:15:15

early 2000s about an American astronaut

1:15:17

who gets like rocketed to the other

1:15:19

side of the galaxy because of

1:15:21

a wormhole. And now he's

1:15:23

and instead of like finding his

1:15:25

way like onto the enterprise, he finds

1:15:27

his way onto a stolen ship

1:15:29

that was used in a prison escape.

1:15:31

And so now everyone thinks he's

1:15:33

one of these fugitives and he's being

1:15:35

hunted by the tyrannical empire with a

1:15:37

weird cavalcade of people and a

1:15:39

living ship. Oh, nice. And

1:15:42

the Henson workshop worked on it, so

1:15:44

there's a whole bunch of really cool puppets

1:15:46

and things, like main characters or puppets. It's

1:15:48

so up Whitney's alley. And I

1:15:50

have suggested we do it as

1:15:53

a Patreon thing. I will suggest

1:15:55

it again now because I would

1:15:57

love an excuse to rewatch Farscape.

1:15:59

I'm game. It's just, you know,

1:16:01

where do we slot it in?

1:16:04

Anyway, I'll make the

1:16:06

time. Lastly, as I slowly get

1:16:08

caught up on all our yesterdays, I realized I

1:16:10

listened to the yesterday's Enterprise episode and it

1:16:12

bids mentioned that there was a story idea to

1:16:14

have Sarek go back in time and quote

1:16:16

to quote become Iraq, you

1:16:19

know, the it's like the Vulcan

1:16:21

Messiah. Yeah, yeah, the Vulcan. Interestingly,

1:16:24

this was sort of recently used in

1:16:26

the very good Star Trek Year Five

1:16:28

comics series. Only there it was done

1:16:30

with Spock going back in time. I

1:16:32

cannot recommend that series highly enough. It's

1:16:34

smart and fun. And the social commentary

1:16:36

is pretty savage. They legit make mud

1:16:39

and unambiguous metaphor for Trump. I mean,

1:16:41

that one fits. Yeah. No,

1:16:43

you can bring it back in strange. No, Harry,

1:16:45

Mud is charismatic. No,

1:16:48

he's not I'm sorry. I

1:16:50

will no no if it meant

1:16:52

that Trump would leave office

1:16:54

I would watch nothing but mud

1:16:56

episodes the rest of my

1:16:58

life nothing but mud is a

1:17:00

podcast It's like you in

1:17:03

character is hairy mud and I'll

1:17:05

come in as like different

1:17:07

Star Trek characters that you're interviewing

1:17:09

please God,

1:17:12

I hate hearing about so much. OK, sorry. And good

1:17:14

news for you, if you're interested, of course. And

1:17:17

is that you don't have to

1:17:19

run out and spend money to read

1:17:21

them? The entire series is available

1:17:23

on Hoopla across four trade paperback volumes.

1:17:26

Support your local libraries, kids. Keep on keeping on.

1:17:29

Thanks for so much. It's gorgeous. This

1:17:32

Max toy is way too generous though. This

1:17:34

thing's rare and hard to find. Oh my god.

1:17:36

Yeah. It's got the giant feet and the

1:17:38

purple outfit. You know, no one has to send

1:17:40

us cool stuff, but y 'all send us some

1:17:42

cool stuff. This zine is gorgeous. I love

1:17:44

these stickers. That's a wonderful

1:17:46

Max action figure plus with an is

1:17:48

fantastic. Oh, and the headdress

1:17:50

comes off. Oh, okay. I hope it's

1:17:52

supposed to. Yeah, no, there's like little

1:17:54

holes to slot into. That's really great.

1:17:56

All right, cool. Oh, so that's like

1:17:58

the one from the Outback. Oh, yeah,

1:18:00

the headrest. It comes off from the

1:18:02

Outback and it'd be normal. Yeah, I

1:18:04

love that they got his completely wrong

1:18:06

proportions, right? Yeah, like he's got

1:18:08

a tiny head. Yeah,

1:18:11

I love it. So great. Well, and

1:18:13

there's a reason he has gigantic feet.

1:18:16

There's a canonical reason why he's shaped

1:18:18

like that. There absolutely is. And it's

1:18:20

awesome. It's cool style, but also they

1:18:22

found a reason why you should be. a

1:18:25

very well thought out comic. Anyway, thank you everybody

1:18:27

for listening. That I was worried that we

1:18:29

wouldn't have an hours worth of material and we

1:18:31

went over well. So thank you so much. I'm really

1:18:33

glad we did this. And thank

1:18:35

you to everyone who took the time to

1:18:38

write in, especially, you know, taking the

1:18:40

time to actually send us a piece of physical mail. My

1:18:43

God, what a wonderful crop. of

1:18:46

correspondence, just moving, powerful,

1:18:51

sometimes silly, just fantastic

1:18:53

stuff. So thank you, everybody. The

1:18:56

effort you all went into. Thank you so

1:18:58

much all these letters. Thanks. And

1:19:01

yeah, if you send us a letter,

1:19:03

we'll read it. Just send us a

1:19:05

postcard. We'll read it. We're still. We're

1:19:08

not so overwhelmed with physical mail that

1:19:10

we have to start parsing it out.

1:19:12

Well, we are so overwhelmed with our

1:19:14

schedules that we can't get to our

1:19:16

mailbox sometimes. That's the issue. We've got

1:19:18

to work on that. But seriously, thank

1:19:20

you once again. If you want to

1:19:22

correspond with us, again,

1:19:24

most of our correspondences through email,

1:19:26

our email address is letters at

1:19:28

criticallyclaimed .net. Whitney, tell everyone how to

1:19:30

reach us through our PO Box.

1:19:32

Yeah, send us that letter to

1:19:34

the critically -acclaimed network PO Box

1:19:36

6415. 65, Los Angeles, California,

1:19:39

9W64. Yes, we're on social media

1:19:41

at Critica Claim. I'm at William

1:19:43

Bibiani. I'm at Whitney Seibold. Pretty

1:19:45

much just Blue Sky, but we

1:19:47

are there. And we're

1:19:49

on Patreon as well, patreon .com

1:19:51

slash no, yes, patreon .com slash

1:19:53

critically acclaimed network. Don't forget to

1:19:55

check out Lee Does Stuff

1:19:58

on their Patreon and YouTube and

1:20:00

website as well, because they

1:20:02

do wonderful stuff. I love this

1:20:04

scene. And,

1:20:06

and yeah, thank you everybody for listening. We'll be back

1:20:08

with more show. We have some more

1:20:10

movies to watch for this week. So

1:20:12

we'll we will review centers soon because

1:20:14

I wait to talk about it. And

1:20:17

we got a cool stuff coming as well.

1:20:20

I'm hoping that there is a light at the

1:20:22

end of the tunnel for some of my recent

1:20:24

woes and I'll be able to refocus my efforts

1:20:26

more and we can record more and we can

1:20:28

get back on some of our projects. I want

1:20:30

us all to win. That's not

1:20:32

just you and I, William, but everyone

1:20:34

listening as well. Especially our listeners. Especially

1:20:37

you guys. So you. You all

1:20:39

deserve a win. You all deserve

1:20:41

endless wins. Sending you the best vibes. That's the

1:20:43

vibe of it. Thank you

1:20:45

everybody once again. Sincerely yours, Bibbs and

1:20:47

Whitney. For

1:20:53

the ones who get it done, the most

1:20:55

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1:20:58

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