Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, production of My
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind
Speaker 1: listener mail. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick,
Speaker 1: and it's Monday, the day of the week that we
Speaker 1: read back some messages you've sent into the show account,
Speaker 1: which is, by the way, contact at stuff to Blow
Speaker 1: your Mind dot com. If you ever want to get
Speaker 1: in touch to share something interesting, if you have feedback
Speaker 1: on a recent episode, or if you just want to
Speaker 1: say hi, tell us your thoughts about the show or
Speaker 1: anything else, get in touch contact at stuff to Blow
Speaker 1: your Mind dot com. We have a bunch of messages
Speaker 1: in response to our series about whistling, and I think
Speaker 1: we should kick right off with this message from Joe.
Speaker 1: Rob Do you mind if I read this one? Go
Speaker 1: for it? Okay, this is Joe, just Jo, not like me.
Speaker 1: I've got any on there. So Joe says hello and
Speaker 1: good day. I was whistling while listening to Whistling Part
Speaker 1: one until you mentioned that you'd cover some of the
Speaker 1: superstitions about whistling. It just so happens that a lot
Speaker 1: of Southeast Asians believe that whistling attracts unwanted attention from
Speaker 1: supernatural beings, especially since it's currently the seventh Lunar Month
Speaker 1: a k a. Ghost Month. Although you've done many spooky episodes,
Speaker 1: I don't think I've ever heard the Hungry Ghost month
Speaker 1: mentioned on the podcast. In case you haven't heard about it,
Speaker 1: let me give you a short introduction. The seventh Lunar
Speaker 1: month is when the gates of hell are opened and
Speaker 1: ghosts are allowed to roam the earth for thirty days.
Speaker 1: Spirits wander the mortal realm in search of entertainment and sustenance.
Speaker 1: This month is considered pretty inauspicious, and people in places
Speaker 1: like Malaysia, Singapore, and Taiwan will often avoid being outside
Speaker 1: at night for fear of running a foul of mischievous spirits.
Speaker 1: Throughout the month, it's not uncommon to see offerings of
Speaker 1: food placed by the side of the road for hungry
Speaker 1: ghost ease. It's only polite that pedestrians avoid stepping over
Speaker 1: these offerings or getting too close to them, as this
Speaker 1: might disrupt any feasting spirits. Malaysia and Singapore also have
Speaker 1: a tradition of setting up stages where performers are hired
Speaker 1: to sing and act for their invisible floaties. For this reason,
Speaker 1: the first few rows of chairs in the audience of
Speaker 1: any such stage are to be left empty in case
Speaker 1: these supernatural friend does want to take a seat and
Speaker 1: enjoy their foray back into the mortal world. Some places
Speaker 1: only celebrate the Hungry Ghost Festival, which is the fifteen
Speaker 1: of the seventh month. It's the twelfth of August. It's
Speaker 1: a day when food, jawsticks, paper money, prayers, and rituals
Speaker 1: are offered up to appease the restless roaming spirits. It's
Speaker 1: also common to see lights and candles placed on the
Speaker 1: side of the roads, as it is believed to help
Speaker 1: guide the spirits back into Hell. There are a slew
Speaker 1: of superstitions related to Ghost Month. Loud sounds like whistle
Speaker 1: ling are believed to attract spirits. It has always been
Speaker 1: discouraged in Southeast Asia, but even more so during this
Speaker 1: spooky month. Other superstitions include not looking back over your
Speaker 1: shoulder to see if someone is yelling your name. This
Speaker 1: is because daois slash Buddhists believe that there's a tiny
Speaker 1: invisible flame on each shoulder and on your head, creating
Speaker 1: a triangle of fire. This protects you from spooky encounters.
Speaker 1: But if you turn your head and look back over
Speaker 1: your shoulder, you will extinguish one of the flames and
Speaker 1: this will open you up to hauntings slash ghostly things.
Speaker 1: Despite the spookiness of the whole month, Valentine's Day is
Speaker 1: celebrated on the seventh day of the seventh month. This day,
Speaker 1: known as cheese c, is about the tail of the
Speaker 1: cow herd and the weaver girl. They had a forbidden
Speaker 1: romance and were cast opposite sides of the Heavenly River.
Speaker 1: But every year on Cheese c a bridge of magpies
Speaker 1: forms over the river and allows the lovers to reunite
Speaker 1: for a brief moment. Mont Anyway, Ghost Month in two
Speaker 1: lasts until August. Until then, whistling, especially at night, is
Speaker 1: not encouraged. Less to lost ghost follow you home and
Speaker 1: take up residence in your abode. Stay spooky and stay safe,
Speaker 1: live along and prosper. Joe. Uh wow, what a wonderful email.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, Joe, that that was fantastic. Yeah,
Speaker 1: those are some close encounters of the spooky kind for sure. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we've I guess we we've spoken a little bit about
Speaker 1: hungry ghosts in the past, but yeah, we've never talking
Speaker 1: We've never spoken about about this month. So yeah, this
Speaker 1: is a wonderful email. This is exactly the kind of
Speaker 1: of stuff I love to hear from the listeners. Now,
Speaker 1: I guess this episode won't come out until after the
Speaker 1: Hungry Ghost Festival, which Joe says is going to be
Speaker 1: on the twelfth of August, But you still got the
Speaker 1: rest of the month to to to play around on
Speaker 1: the spooky side. True, and hey, on August twelve, the
Speaker 1: Weird House Cinema is just, by happenstance, going to be
Speaker 1: a really cool Taiwanese magical fantasy adventure film. Yeah, all right,
Speaker 1: here's another one. This one comes to us from Phil
Speaker 1: Phil right soon and says Hi, Robert and Joe. From
Speaker 1: the moment I saw the topic of this week's episodes,
Speaker 1: I knew that I would want to write in. Whistling
Speaker 1: is something that has been very near and dear to
Speaker 1: me for a long time. I first learned to make
Speaker 1: a single monotone sound when I was seven. I thought
Speaker 1: I was doing it wrong for a little while, and
Speaker 1: that's why I was monotone because my grandfather always used
Speaker 1: to whistle by pulling his lower jaw in and rounding
Speaker 1: his lips almost like he was about to play a flute.
Speaker 1: I believe he would also suck air in to make
Speaker 1: in the noise rather than expel it, but don't quote
Speaker 1: me on that. I was always fascinated by this method
Speaker 1: and never managed to replicate it myself. Apart from wishing
Speaker 1: to chime in with this bit about my grandfather's irregular technique,
Speaker 1: I also wanted to bring up something with regards to
Speaker 1: my own whistling. I am physically tongue tied. I have
Speaker 1: encountered one other person in my life that is tongue tied,
Speaker 1: and they claimed to not be able to whistle because
Speaker 1: of it. I, on the other hand, love to whistle.
Speaker 1: I do it constantly and can even employ a bit
Speaker 1: of vibrato and possibly something that resembles double tonguing for
Speaker 1: really fast sections. It is a great way for me
Speaker 1: to quote unquote sing songs with female vocals or no
Speaker 1: vocals at all. Whistling is something I think I am
Speaker 1: quite good at. However, based on this one other person,
Speaker 1: I am curious why I can whistle with my tongue
Speaker 1: tied down to the bottom of my mouth but she couldn't.
Speaker 1: I'm also afraid that should I ever get my tongue
Speaker 1: tie cut so that I can actually do things normal
Speaker 1: people can the like lick an ice cream cone or
Speaker 1: blow bubbles with bubble gum, it will have an adverse
Speaker 1: effect on this thing that I love. However, maybe it won't.
Speaker 1: Don't know and too afraid to try. Thank you for
Speaker 1: all of the episodes. You guys were the first podcast
Speaker 1: show that I ever listened to. I obviously haven't stopped
Speaker 1: and have no intention to do so anytime soon. All
Speaker 1: the best, phil ps. Some of my favorite songs to
Speaker 1: whistle Think of Me from Phantom of the Opera sung
Speaker 1: by Sarah Brightman, Ship to Wreck by Florence and the Machine.
Speaker 1: I love that song. That's that goes on a lot
Speaker 1: on my playlists. Oh, I don't know that one, and
Speaker 1: I know think of Me. I know Phantom Breathe by
Speaker 1: Michelle Branch and Been Not Break by Vitamin String Quartet,
Speaker 1: a string quartet cover of a dashboard confessional song. I
Speaker 1: am also trying to teach myself the Whistling Caruso by
Speaker 1: Andrew Bird from the end of the movie The Muppets.
Speaker 1: This is proving to be challenging. Andrew Bird is a
Speaker 1: is a mighty whistling musician. Some another listener got in
Speaker 1: touch about Andrew Bird songs that have whistling, A number
Speaker 1: of them, a lot of them do oh yeah. By
Speaker 1: the way, I just in case anybody out there was
Speaker 1: as confused as me at first, I I was not
Speaker 1: familiar with the idea of uh with the idea of
Speaker 1: tongue tie as an actual physical condition in the mouth.
Speaker 1: It's I'd always heard tongue tied as like a metaphorical expression,
Speaker 1: meaning like not knowing what to say. But tongue tie
Speaker 1: is a real physical condition, also known as ankleo glossia
Speaker 1: and it. According to the Mayo Clinics page on it,
Speaker 1: it's basically a condition that restricts the tongue's range of motion.
Speaker 1: Quote with tongue tie and unusually short, thick, or tight
Speaker 1: band of tissue, the lingual frenulum tethers the bottom of
Speaker 1: the tongue's tip to the floor of the mouth, so
Speaker 1: it may interfere with breastfeeding. Someone who has tongue tie
Speaker 1: might have difficulty sticking out his or her tongue. Tongue
Speaker 1: tie can also affect the way a child eats, speaks,
Speaker 1: or swallows and it also says that sometimes this condition
Speaker 1: might require surgical procedures for correction, but other times it
Speaker 1: doesn't cause enough problems, so it's just left how it is.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, thanks for writing in Phil. Okay, here's
Speaker 1: a message from Randy reporting from Mexico saying that that
Speaker 1: they just finished our part three of our whistling series
Speaker 1: and says, quote, you were mentioning the idea of whistling
Speaker 1: is a form of contempt and that it might have
Speaker 1: been a practice in olden days. I think we were
Speaker 1: talking about those papers saying that like in the English theater,
Speaker 1: for example, you would whistle to show like I don't
Speaker 1: like what is being said. Oh. In fact, that also
Speaker 1: goes back to Roman times, the idea that there would
Speaker 1: be shepherd whistles in the audience if they didn't like
Speaker 1: what a speaker was saying. And I guess we were
Speaker 1: saying that it didn't We hadn't encountered that in American culture.
Speaker 1: You know, if an audience whistles, that usually seems to
Speaker 1: be a sign of approval rather than disapproval. It's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: keep going, but a very thunderous supplies exactly. But Randy says, well,
Speaker 1: let me take you once again to Mexico, where you
Speaker 1: can still hear disapproving whistles among crowds alongside booing. It
Speaker 1: usually mimics the way you would cuss at someone. Picture
Speaker 1: the equivalent of an fu in Spanish, and then that
Speaker 1: is transposed to whistling. And then Randy shares video of
Speaker 1: a cockatoo demon straighting what this sounds like? So it
Speaker 1: is the yeah, So it is the straight up Spanish
Speaker 1: phrase that is the equivalent of the English FU. But
Speaker 1: it's like whistled in the same way that I demonstrated
Speaker 1: in one of our whistling episodes that I could sort
Speaker 1: of whistle the phrase, um, hello, nice to meet you,
Speaker 1: and people would basically be able to know what I
Speaker 1: was saying, or at least a lot of a lot
Speaker 1: of people might be able to figure it out just
Speaker 1: by the intonation of the whistling Uh. You can do
Speaker 1: the same thing with vulgar phrases. So, according to Randy,
Speaker 1: this happens in in unhappy Mexican audiences. Alright, This next
Speaker 1: one comes to us from Jamie Oh an important bit
Speaker 1: of context. The subject line of this one is the
Speaker 1: strange death of whistling Scotland all right, well, Jamie writes,
Speaker 1: Dear Robert and Joe, thank you as always for the
Speaker 1: stimulating podcast. I've been greatly enjoying your series on whistling,
Speaker 1: and while hearing about the decline of whistled languages around
Speaker 1: the world, I thought, when was the last time I
Speaker 1: heard someone whistle a jaunty tune? When I was young,
Speaker 1: whistling was, if not ubiquitous, at least common enough to
Speaker 1: hear on a daily basis, especially amongst jobs whose practitioners
Speaker 1: move around a lot during the day, with periods of
Speaker 1: intermittent in forced slackness. Builders, plasterers, joiners, that kind of thing.
Speaker 1: Maybe that time is now occupied by playing with one's
Speaker 1: phone and whistling is yet another casualty of the smartphone revolution.
Speaker 1: Or I may be wrong and there is a whole
Speaker 1: genre of whistling TikTok in an aside by this episode,
Speaker 1: have you ever thought of doing an episode on the
Speaker 1: world's most difficult language? Of course, language difficulty is a
Speaker 1: subjective concept and depends upon the native language of the learner.
Speaker 1: That said, is someone who has learned French, Japanese and
Speaker 1: Arabic and had to go at Russian and Scottish Gaelic.
Speaker 1: I would say that the latter was actually the hardest.
Speaker 1: I wonder what would be the optimum combination of difficult
Speaker 1: features from various languages. The system of tents in aspects
Speaker 1: of English, the Hansi ideograms of Chinese, the extensive tones
Speaker 1: of Vietnamese, the challenging voiced glottal stop of Arabic or Hebrew,
Speaker 1: or the clicks of various Southern African languages might be
Speaker 1: fun to play around. Keep up the good work, Jamie, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a really interesting idea. I mean, I know different
Speaker 1: languages have different things that present problems that I don't
Speaker 1: know if this is true, but I mean I've heard
Speaker 1: it characterized that one of the most difficult things about
Speaker 1: learning English, uh is the lack of regularity in in
Speaker 1: the way like uh, grammar and word forms, work and stuff.
Speaker 1: English is sort of a highly chaotic and irregular language,
Speaker 1: whereas I think with other things it would be Yeah,
Speaker 1: you'd have to learn, like if you're not already familiar
Speaker 1: with tonal languages. I'm sure learning a tonal language from
Speaker 1: only a non tonal background has got to be incredibly hard.
Speaker 1: But yeah, this is a great idea. Certainly we'd love
Speaker 1: to We're all would love to come back and do
Speaker 1: a linguistic episodes, so it might be an area to
Speaker 1: consider for the future. Okay, we got one message that
Speaker 1: was about story machines from Trey and this one, this
Speaker 1: one legitimately made me laugh out loud. So remember how
Speaker 1: in the previous that we were talking about when you
Speaker 1: feed stuff into the story machine that makes it put
Speaker 1: out not really something that's not really a story, like
Speaker 1: the ones that instead turned into ads for books or something,
Speaker 1: And this was one of those. So Trey says, Hi, Rob, Seth,
Speaker 1: and Joe I work at a staffing company and I'm
Speaker 1: also a big fan of stuff to blow your mind.
Speaker 1: I used the story machine dot net generator to make
Speaker 1: a mock ad. The title was part time Jobs, eight
Speaker 1: hour shifts. The prompt was we have good paying part
Speaker 1: time jobs. Below is what the robot wrote, we have
Speaker 1: good paying part time jobs. I get paid thirteen dollars
Speaker 1: an hour. My husband gets paid twelve dollars an hour,
Speaker 1: but our hours are cut back to eight hours a day.
Speaker 1: We are only paid for eight hours. We are only
Speaker 1: paid for the hours we work. We are not paid
Speaker 1: for the hours we are off. We are only paid
Speaker 1: for the hours we are working. We are only paid
Speaker 1: for the hours we are at our job. We're only
Speaker 1: paid for the hours we are working. We're only paid
Speaker 1: for the hours we were at our job. We are
Speaker 1: only paid for the hours we were at our job.
Speaker 1: We're only paid for the hours we are at our job.
Speaker 1: We are only paid for the hours we were at
Speaker 1: our job. We are only paid for the hours we
Speaker 1: are at our job. We are only paid for the
Speaker 1: hours we are at our job. Wow, it kind of
Speaker 1: got stuck there, didn't got broken yet you destroyed its mind,
Speaker 1: Trey says, I think you could read the last half
Speaker 1: where it begins repeating six times the same sentence six
Speaker 1: times as a droning chant. This sounds like a creepy
Speaker 1: short story about part time workers who hate their jobs
Speaker 1: or our zombies. Thanks Trey, that was pretty great. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's so many there's so many fun things to do
Speaker 1: with this um, with this interface. Um, and I not
Speaker 1: thought about a mock at but that's that's brilliant. Oh.
Speaker 1: This may also have been springboarding off the one in
Speaker 1: the previous listener mail that was a story about the
Speaker 1: bank that sends its customers to hell. All right, we
Speaker 1: have a little bit of weird house cinema mail here
Speaker 1: to to look at this first first one here It
Speaker 1: comes to us from Dan the subject Plan nine, weird House.
Speaker 1: Dear Robin, Joe. I love this episode. Plan nine from
Speaker 1: Outer Space, along with Halloween three Season of The Witch
Speaker 1: are two movies that I think we're custom made for
Speaker 1: weird house cinema. I loved hearing Joe's personal story about
Speaker 1: he and his wife fell in love after watching Plan
Speaker 1: nine on a bootleg VHS tape in high school. I
Speaker 1: first saw Plan nine from Outer Space in college on
Speaker 1: Turner Classic Movies late at night. This was after I
Speaker 1: had seen Tim Burton's ed Wood, which is one of
Speaker 1: my favorite movies, and I, of course had heard about
Speaker 1: how it was consistently ranked as the worst movie ever made,
Speaker 1: so I was curious to see what it was like.
Speaker 1: Is it really that bad? I remember thinking that while yes,
Speaker 1: the acting is terrible, the dialogue doesn't make any sense,
Speaker 1: and it's and is overwritten and clumsy. Something over there,
Speaker 1: but I'll be over here. Nothing matches. The effects and
Speaker 1: set design are so cheap, the airplane cockpit, but I
Speaker 1: was still charmed and somewhat entertained by it certainly not
Speaker 1: the worst movie I had ever seen, which begs the
Speaker 1: question something I thought you might go into a more discussion.
Speaker 1: If Plan nine from Outer Space is really the worst
Speaker 1: movie ever made? Why do so many people still find
Speaker 1: it fascinating, entertaining, fun to talk about, and his referenced
Speaker 1: in other forms of media. Shouldn't the worst movie ever?
Speaker 1: Maybe something no one ever remembers is boring, is grossly
Speaker 1: cynical and a commercial sense fun fact, Plan nine has
Speaker 1: never been on IMDBs bottom one d. I also wondered
Speaker 1: if maybe the Criswell predicts scene at the beginning and
Speaker 1: whenever he went on the Tonight Show was what Conan
Speaker 1: O'Brien was parading on his original late night show with
Speaker 1: the recurring segment in the year two thousand where he
Speaker 1: and a guest made ridiculous predictions about the future. Finally,
Speaker 1: are you familiar with the song Plan nine Channel seven
Speaker 1: by the British punk proto goth band The Damned, which,
Speaker 1: according to lead singer Dave Vanian, was was written about
Speaker 1: Vampira link here and they include the link and then
Speaker 1: Dan finishes everything up by saying thank you for the
Speaker 1: countless hours of podcasting about the strange and the unusual. Future.
Speaker 1: Podcasts such as these will affect you in the future,
Speaker 1: my friends, because that is where we will be spending
Speaker 1: the rest of our lives. Uh. That song by the
Speaker 1: Damned is great Channel nine with shades of Grade too
Speaker 1: Close but two worlds Away, Plan nine her Domain, too
Speaker 1: close but two worlds away. Yeah. I don't think I
Speaker 1: was familiar with this track, but I just I just
Speaker 1: gave it a quick listen, and uh, yeah, like the
Speaker 1: vibe here. But regarding the whole like worst movie ever made? Thing,
Speaker 1: I have heard people say that about Plan nine. I
Speaker 1: I don't know. Well, I hesitate to say this because
Speaker 1: it is a podcast and somebody might surface a clip
Speaker 1: of me saying the opposite. But I think I think
Speaker 1: I usually shy away from things like the worst movie
Speaker 1: ever made, unless I'm just trying to be funny, because
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously, not only are things like that subjective,
Speaker 1: I mean, of course, but that seems like a weird
Speaker 1: thing to even try to say from your own personal
Speaker 1: point of view, because, uh, the badness of a movie
Speaker 1: encompasses so many different ways of thinking about a movie. Yeah, so, like,
Speaker 1: what would you really be looking for? Does it mean
Speaker 1: like the movie that made you the most unhappy by watching,
Speaker 1: or you know, it's it's hard to figure out what
Speaker 1: that even really means. Yeah, the worst can cover a
Speaker 1: lot of ground. And I can think of various examples
Speaker 1: of films that I'm I might think of as the
Speaker 1: worst in the sense that I do not like them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and and then they're ms that I can't even tell
Speaker 1: you that I don't like them because I don't remember them.
Speaker 1: And perhaps those are the worst because yeah, as as
Speaker 1: Dan alluded to, like the unmemorable films, films they don't
Speaker 1: move you one way or another, like, those are probably
Speaker 1: the worst. Those are ones where you just have lost
Speaker 1: hours of time in your life that you'll never get back,
Speaker 1: whereas something like Plan nine from Outer Space. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's a riot, it's it's fun to watch.
Speaker 1: It's I find movies like this thought provoking in ways
Speaker 1: that that that quote unquote intelligent films sometimes are not.
Speaker 1: You know, uh, there's uh. That's one of the things
Speaker 1: that keeps coming, it keeps pulling me back to them,
Speaker 1: is that almost it's almost like the gaps, the flaws
Speaker 1: and these pictures, they they give you room to to
Speaker 1: to think creatively about them, to try and stitch together
Speaker 1: that which is not well connected and so forth. Yeah,
Speaker 1: totally agree with all of that. I would say that
Speaker 1: I think Plan not people might be tempted to say
Speaker 1: Plan nine is the worst movie ever made in a
Speaker 1: way that I think what they mean is like it's
Speaker 1: the worst, It's like the most remarkably interestingly bad movie
Speaker 1: ever made. They're saying it's like notable for its badness
Speaker 1: in the sense, not like execrable because of its badness. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, ultimately it's it's lovingly bad, like you can
Speaker 1: embrace the quote unquote badness of Plan nine from outer space.
Speaker 1: Uh it's uh yeah, there are there are plenty of
Speaker 1: films that if you actually had to come up with
Speaker 1: a list of like what are the worst? Like what
Speaker 1: are I mean? That would just be an unpleasant experience
Speaker 1: to even try and put together that list of films,
Speaker 1: because there's some real dogs out there. Yeah, I do remember.
Speaker 1: So I have long been a person who, you know,
Speaker 1: my friends knew I loved bad movies, and they would
Speaker 1: sometimes ask me like, well, what's the worst worst, not
Speaker 1: the best, worst, but worst worst you've ever seen? I
Speaker 1: probably wouldn't still stick by this, but for a long
Speaker 1: time I said my answer was a movie called Beaks,
Speaker 1: which is a Spanish horror movie by Renee Cardona Jr.
Speaker 1: That's a rip off of Hitchcock's The Birds, but I
Speaker 1: remember that in a really like unique and profound way
Speaker 1: causing intense physical and psychic pain. Uh. I think because
Speaker 1: of a soundtrack issues like the I record It's been
Speaker 1: forever since I've seen it, but the remember the soundtrack
Speaker 1: was like one excruciating, droning high synthesizer note held down
Speaker 1: for for minutes at a time. Yeah. Yeah, I haven't
Speaker 1: seen the film in question, but I can imagine where
Speaker 1: there's a negative sonic experience that tied up with it
Speaker 1: that you could certainly a case could be made. I
Speaker 1: was watching it with some friends and I remember at
Speaker 1: one point I was like, in such misery I literally
Speaker 1: like rolled out of my chair onto the floor. But
Speaker 1: to consider the IMDb bottom one ranking, like, if you
Speaker 1: go to that page and I'm looking at it right now,
Speaker 1: there's some tremendously fun stuff on here. There's there's stuff
Speaker 1: like Santa Claus versus the Martians. Uh oh what else
Speaker 1: we have? Troll too is on here, hob Goblins, um,
Speaker 1: lots of stuff. A battle Battlefield Earth Is is pretty
Speaker 1: high or low ranking on the list. Yeah, the movies
Speaker 1: that get featured on these things. Again, there there's obviously
Speaker 1: no like unified objective criteria on which to judge these things.
Speaker 1: But the movies that get identified as the worst of
Speaker 1: all time tend to be maybe not because they're actually
Speaker 1: the worst, but because they're the worst in the most
Speaker 1: notable ways, meaning they're especially entertainingly bad, or they were like, uh,
Speaker 1: notorious in some way like very high profile, uh like
Speaker 1: big budget flops or something. Yeah, yeah, I mean, and
Speaker 1: to be clear, there are definitely some films on here
Speaker 1: that I absolutely will not say and you're not having nuts.
Speaker 1: You're not gonna get me to sit down for super
Speaker 1: Babies baby Geniuses too. Yeah, but you know, there's there's
Speaker 1: plenty of There's there's some other stuff I on here.
Speaker 1: I could be talked into, Like, you know, I don't
Speaker 1: know that I necessarily need to see in the name
Speaker 1: of the King of Dungeon Siege Tail Theater. Goodness, it's
Speaker 1: got Burt Reynolds in it. Oh, that's right. It had
Speaker 1: an impressive castor But anyway, yes. To come back to
Speaker 1: Plan nine, I would say Plan nine from Outer Space
Speaker 1: definitely not the worst movie ever made. Uh and and
Speaker 1: and really ultimately a very fun film and not a
Speaker 1: boring film at all, and not a dull moment in
Speaker 1: that film. Okay, one last message from Lawrence. This one
Speaker 1: also has to do with Plan nine from Outer Space.
Speaker 1: I asked people with the experience in the film industry.
Speaker 1: I had this this idea that it seems like even
Speaker 1: bad movies these days generally don't have the level of
Speaker 1: technical incompetence that you see in a lot of bad
Speaker 1: movies of you know, the fifties or sixties. Uh, the
Speaker 1: way that, for example, in in Plan nine from Matter Space,
Speaker 1: they're just like mismatched day night shots. It cuts randomly
Speaker 1: back and forth between them, or that uh you know
Speaker 1: bell Bella Legos, he walks out of frame and then
Speaker 1: he supposedly gets hit by a car, but he's just
Speaker 1: standing there and you see his shadow falling into frame,
Speaker 1: not moving. So my idea was, like, movie, there's still
Speaker 1: tons of bad movies these days, but there's like a
Speaker 1: baseline level of professionalism in the film industry that usually
Speaker 1: seems to prevent stuff like that. From happening anymore, and
Speaker 1: that bad movies these days tend to be more failures
Speaker 1: of creative imagination. Um, but I was wondering. Okay, people
Speaker 1: with experience, what do you think about this? Lawrence says,
Speaker 1: your recent episode on Plan nine from Outer Space was
Speaker 1: a treat on the topic of modern bad movies not
Speaker 1: having technical mistakes. I will chime in with and agree
Speaker 1: and disagree. I don't know how mainstream Plan nine would
Speaker 1: have been at the time, but I can think of
Speaker 1: some recent micro budget direct to streaming movies available alongside
Speaker 1: actual studio fare, which contained glaring technical problems. It feels rarer, though,
Speaker 1: and with anyone able to create basic effects from their computer,
Speaker 1: the line between poorly executed and error seems blurry. Case
Speaker 1: in point, any Neil Breen movie, that's that's a great example, Rob.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you're familiar with Neil, but I
Speaker 1: was not familiar with him until looking at this email.
Speaker 1: I pulled up his IMDb page, and that's a that's
Speaker 1: a rabbit hole. Maybe for us one day, maybe not
Speaker 1: for the show. They're they're they're sort of recent, but yeah,
Speaker 1: he has a movie called I Am Here Now, in
Speaker 1: which Neil Breen is sort of a an all around filmmaker,
Speaker 1: kind of an ed Edward D. Wood Jr. Sort of guy,
Speaker 1: and that he writes, directs and produces his own stuff. Uh,
Speaker 1: and it's for example, he really likes, I think, to
Speaker 1: make movies where he plays like a hacker, you know.
Speaker 1: So he does a movie called Double Down where he's like,
Speaker 1: I can hack into any computer in the world anytime
Speaker 1: with only a cell phone. But he just like sits
Speaker 1: around in the desert eating tunic cans mostly, and it's
Speaker 1: they're they're very bad. Yeah, the modern bad filmmaker is
Speaker 1: is kind of hard to define. I mean, you have
Speaker 1: you have some some standouts. You have stuff like like
Speaker 1: Bird Dimic, you have The Room. Those are great examples
Speaker 1: of more recent bad films. But yeah, the times it's
Speaker 1: a lot more difficult. Like, um, I saw the first
Speaker 1: film that Glenn Danzig directed, Veratica, came out in twenty nineteen,
Speaker 1: and I wanted it to be worse than it was
Speaker 1: in a way that was entertaining, and um it was.
Speaker 1: It was just very lukewarm for me, Like it wasn't
Speaker 1: what wasn't enough in in any direction. So I don't know,
Speaker 1: maybe he will get better or worse because you are
Speaker 1: neither hot nor cold, I will spew you out of
Speaker 1: my mouth. Yeah, Like I've got to end up having
Speaker 1: some sort of reaction other than boredom with these things. Uh. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it comes comes back to something we often talk about, like, well,
Speaker 1: like why why do we select the films we select
Speaker 1: for weird al cinema? There's they very greatly in in
Speaker 1: genre and scope and budget and time period. But there's
Speaker 1: there's something there's at least that one thing about the
Speaker 1: film that's interesting. So you've got to have like that
Speaker 1: one performance or that one plot element, right, There's got
Speaker 1: to be something there that is that is sparking curiosity
Speaker 1: and desire. But anyway, Lawrence, I do agree with you that, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it becomes more difficult to sort out this thing I
Speaker 1: was talking about when you take into account just truly
Speaker 1: amateur movies like Neil Breen movies you know that are
Speaker 1: not really being made by professionals. Oh and then finally,
Speaker 1: Lawrence says. Lawrence says he was doing some he was
Speaker 1: messing around some with the story machines thing, and he
Speaker 1: wanted to share a couple one This one I thought
Speaker 1: was actually extremely haunting. So the title he gave it
Speaker 1: here is flat Land, which is also the name of
Speaker 1: a novel. Did you ever read flat Land? Rob? Oh?
Speaker 1: You know, I don't think I ever did. I'm familiar
Speaker 1: with it by reputation, but that's about it. It's a
Speaker 1: It's a geometrical satirical novel that was by a guy
Speaker 1: named Edwin Abbott that I read when I was in
Speaker 1: high school and I thought it was very interesting. Uh
Speaker 1: So I haven't revisited it since then, but high school
Speaker 1: me was impressed. So this story goes title flat Land.
Speaker 1: A door is graffitied on a wall. It's just a drawing,
Speaker 1: but when you press on the drawing, it opens. The
Speaker 1: door is a jar and you can see the inside.
Speaker 1: It's a dark and dusty room. There's a single bed
Speaker 1: in the corner. There's a chair and a desk. There's
Speaker 1: a broken window, and there's a man in the bed.
Speaker 1: He's sick, he's dying. The man in the bed A
Speaker 1: is you bum bum bom? Yeah, we're straight up two
Speaker 1: thousand and one. I love it. Oh, I thought you
Speaker 1: no offense. I thought for a second you were doing
Speaker 1: the theme from Independence Day. How does that relate? I
Speaker 1: don't know, but it's good. I should have gone bum
Speaker 1: bum bum bom. Oh dude, Well that's a pretty good one, Lawrence.
Speaker 1: That's pretty good. Yes, all right, Well, I think we're
Speaker 1: going to close up the mail bag for today. But
Speaker 1: this has been fun and we'll be back next week
Speaker 1: to discuss some more listener mails, so keep it coming. Well,
Speaker 1: we'll continue to have some stuff coming about whistling. Uh
Speaker 1: we're not cinema episodes, some upcoming episodes of note uh
Speaker 1: so yeah, right in, right in about old episodes anything,
Speaker 1: it's Eric game. In the meantime, Yes, Listener mail publishes
Speaker 1: on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays. We have our core episodes
Speaker 1: of Stuff to Blow Your Mind. On Wednesdays we do
Speaker 1: Artifact or Monster Factor. On Friday. Well, that's when we
Speaker 1: set aside most serious concerns and just talk about a
Speaker 1: weird film. Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio
Speaker 1: producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to get
Speaker 1: in touch with us with feedback on this episode or
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