Speaker 1: Welcome to Movie Crush, a production of I Heart Radio
Speaker 1: Earls W Chuck Bryant here in the basement for the
Speaker 1: first of what will be a three part series with
Speaker 1: the Guys from the Flophouse, the Great Great Bad Movie
Speaker 1: podcast from the Max Fun Network, and my buddy Jesse Thorne.
Speaker 1: And Uh, I was, I don't know why I haven't
Speaker 1: done this yet because I know the guys and the
Speaker 1: flop House is one of my favorite shows, and I'm
Speaker 1: glad it worked out that I could get all these
Speaker 1: three in a row. So at first we have Dan McCoy. Uh.
Speaker 1: Dan is a great dude. He works as a writer
Speaker 1: for The Daily Show, one of my all time favorite
Speaker 1: shows on television and favorite comedy shows especially on television.
Speaker 1: And Dan is a good dude. We met at Max
Speaker 1: von con Um four or five years ago and hung
Speaker 1: out there all weekend with with Stewart as well. Elliott
Speaker 1: wasn't at that one, so I had not met him
Speaker 1: at that point. But Dan is a very nice guy,
Speaker 1: very funny, a big time film fan, uh and cinephile
Speaker 1: like his knowledge is is dare I say Casey esque
Speaker 1: as far as the movies he's seen in the movies
Speaker 1: he movies. He knows, he's extremely well read, a very
Speaker 1: smart guy, and just always a good conversationalist, and I
Speaker 1: was glad to get him in here to talk about
Speaker 1: his pick Aliens, the nineties six classic from director and
Speaker 1: writer James Cameron. So strapping everybody, here we are with
Speaker 1: Dan McCoy on Aliens. Uh, your hair a lot sure
Speaker 1: than it used to be. No, unless I saw you
Speaker 1: in one of my weird grow out my hair a
Speaker 1: little bit periods that you were clearly in right now,
Speaker 1: my beards a lot shorter. It's a that's it. That's it. Uh, well,
Speaker 1: you know it's it's quarantine hair. There's not a lot
Speaker 1: I can do about it. I've asked Audrey Weather she
Speaker 1: would cut it, and she seems very dubious about that idea.
Speaker 1: Oh man, that's funny. Usually a significant other who cannot
Speaker 1: cut hair leaps at the chance to cut hair. You know.
Speaker 1: I think she's she knows how difficult I am, and
Speaker 1: it's worried that she will disappoint me in some way,
Speaker 1: But I do not care right now. I just want
Speaker 1: it gone. Yeah. I think there's two versions of quarantine hair.
Speaker 1: There's that or the shaved head, which is what I had. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, five rics ago, so this is five weeks in. Well,
Speaker 1: I both have a large lump on my head and
Speaker 1: hair that does not take well to being that short.
Speaker 1: So you got a lump. I gotta go with this. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like a mole. Yeah, yeah, like it's but it
Speaker 1: is one of those that like grows year by year
Speaker 1: and I'm thankful that it's hidden by hair. Yeah, my
Speaker 1: friend had one of those. You just said it removed.
Speaker 1: You can do that, you know. Yeah, I've thought about it.
Speaker 1: What are you drinking? Dan? I made myself a hurricane.
Speaker 1: That was why I was a little late. I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: I lost track of time. And then I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: I was gonna get us cocktails, and uh so what's
Speaker 1: in a hurricane? Uh it's who dark rum, light rum,
Speaker 1: orange orange juice, passion fruit grenadine, some lime, and a
Speaker 1: little simple syrup. Although I was so pressed for time,
Speaker 1: I just sort of, uh tossle sugar in there, and
Speaker 1: I'm just trust Yeah, I am drinking a giant gin
Speaker 1: and tonic because it's it's Gin and Tonics season for me.
Speaker 1: Mm hmm. I've just left martini season and red wine
Speaker 1: season sort of straddles that I kind of always drink
Speaker 1: red wine, but it's also not the best summertime thing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I there was a time where, like I
Speaker 1: liked whiskey so much, I would just drink it year
Speaker 1: round on on ice so it didn't kind of matter.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I find myself these days being drawn to
Speaker 1: something that feels a little lighter in the summer. Although
Speaker 1: this has a bunch of fruit in its so who
Speaker 1: knows how light it is really So Dan, we've hung
Speaker 1: out before on a few occasions at maximun Con. It
Speaker 1: is like three nights of a great time in the
Speaker 1: in the John Hodgeman cabin. Uh, it's it's you know,
Speaker 1: I've had many hangs there over many years. In the
Speaker 1: year that flop House was there was one of the
Speaker 1: best as far as that Hank goes. That was super
Speaker 1: fun and I it was like my first peek inside.
Speaker 1: Like there's such a small level of fame and celebrity
Speaker 1: that comes with podcasting, but it was my first like
Speaker 1: peek inside, like the idea that I was hanging out
Speaker 1: with the cool kids to some degree, and again, it's podcasting,
Speaker 1: so cool is graded on a really big curve. But
Speaker 1: you know I was there and and I think it
Speaker 1: was I don't I don't know whether it was Travis
Speaker 1: who was there, Jordan, or like it was one of
Speaker 1: them who was like, Hey, come on, We're gonna go
Speaker 1: to Hodgeman's cabin. And I mean, I don't know if
Speaker 1: I've said this out loud on my podcast, but um,
Speaker 1: I have desperately craved Hodgment's approval for years because because
Speaker 1: you know, I mean, he he worked at the Daily
Speaker 1: Show when I was, I was there with John. I
Speaker 1: mean I'm still there, but like when obviously when John hosted,
Speaker 1: Hodgeman was one of the correspondents occasionally, and before that
Speaker 1: I had known of him through of this American life
Speaker 1: and known that he was Bruce Campbell's literary agent, among
Speaker 1: other he was a literary agent for like he's done
Speaker 1: all these things and then somehow parlated into being in
Speaker 1: addition to an author, like an actor and a sort
Speaker 1: of a comic performer. And I don't know, I just
Speaker 1: he seemed so interesting and I admired him. And I
Speaker 1: think Hodgeman also encourages um, uh the desire to uh
Speaker 1: please him by withholding it so much his approval. So
Speaker 1: so I was very excited to go and hang out
Speaker 1: and then meet you through that as well. Yeah, that's interesting.
Speaker 1: Uh um. And then you were kind enough to come
Speaker 1: to one of the Stuff you should Know shows at
Speaker 1: the Bell House last year, which was very cool of
Speaker 1: you to do. I know, you guys performed at the
Speaker 1: Bellhouse a lot one of your home venues, kind of
Speaker 1: like us. Yeah, I mean certainly when Elliott still lived
Speaker 1: in New York, Um, less so now, but we try
Speaker 1: and working in there, so nice there. Yeah, they're the best.
Speaker 1: How has that been with Elliott gone? I mean I
Speaker 1: haven't really noticed, um, because you know I've told you
Speaker 1: via text and you've kind of reciprocated that we both
Speaker 1: go to each other's podcast as a bit of comfort food. Um.
Speaker 1: And you know I took a break and now had
Speaker 1: this backlog of flophouses that I've been kind of barreling
Speaker 1: through the last few weeks to ease my anxieties. But
Speaker 1: how's it been. I haven't noticed any difference with you
Speaker 1: guys kind of separated. Now, Well, that's good. I do
Speaker 1: think that the first month or two was kind of rough,
Speaker 1: and I'm not really sure. I think one of the
Speaker 1: things that helped us is, like a boring equipment thing
Speaker 1: where we both started recording into um the same kind
Speaker 1: of digital recorder rather than the computer, and that helped
Speaker 1: a lot somehow. But but also at the same time
Speaker 1: we got an added her like I am not you know,
Speaker 1: I started the podcast, but that doesn't mean I know
Speaker 1: anything about podcasting, and I only ever learned enough to
Speaker 1: kind of do the job that I needed to do.
Speaker 1: Whereas now Jordan Cowling, who actually does uh was the
Speaker 1: producer for Ipotius that Elliott and Hodgeman did together, is
Speaker 1: our editor and our sound person, you know, really a
Speaker 1: second producer on the show. And when did that start? Uh,
Speaker 1: like shortly before the new year, maybe like November December
Speaker 1: last year. It's hard to I I just think of
Speaker 1: it as starting at the time that I was burned
Speaker 1: out of being our own producer years or whatever. Twelve years. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it really gave me a new lease on life when
Speaker 1: it came to podcasting. Man. Uh. Yeah, that it was
Speaker 1: nice to hand those reins over what um. Stewart and
Speaker 1: I talked a little bit about this, but I didn't
Speaker 1: want to, you know, I promise you that you would
Speaker 1: be the teller of the flop story. Uh, and I'd
Speaker 1: love to know how it all came about. I had
Speaker 1: no idea that you guys have been around that long. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Uh well, I think that one of the few one
Speaker 1: of the reasons we're successful is we got in when
Speaker 1: there was very little competition, and don't I know it, brother,
Speaker 1: we could build an audience because, like people ask me
Speaker 1: now about being successful and podcasting, I'm like, I, um,
Speaker 1: the time machine, Like I that's what I say. It's
Speaker 1: it's too big now, you know it's they've got real
Speaker 1: money behind unless. Um. But back in the day, it
Speaker 1: was because I was struggling to do comedy. I didn't
Speaker 1: have a TV writing job at the time. I was
Speaker 1: just doing whatever comedy I could on the side and um.
Speaker 1: And also I was hanging out with Stewart, who went
Speaker 1: to my same college. He um. He and I didn't
Speaker 1: really hang out at college. We had some very close
Speaker 1: mutual friends. But then when I came to New York,
Speaker 1: he was already here and so we I was like, Okay, well,
Speaker 1: this is an instant friend, especially because he liked watching
Speaker 1: dumb movies and so we would watch dumb movies together
Speaker 1: and I thought he was very funny. And I'm like Okay, well,
Speaker 1: here's a couple of different things they're going on at
Speaker 1: the same time. I want to get into comedy. He's
Speaker 1: very funny. We both watched like watching dumb movies. I've
Speaker 1: started to listen to podcast. Uh. Jordan jesse Go was
Speaker 1: like one of the very first I listened to. So
Speaker 1: it's interesting that now we're on the Maximum Fun Network
Speaker 1: under Jesse's leadership. But um, but yeah, I was like, Okay, well,
Speaker 1: this is a new thing that's starting out, and I
Speaker 1: think it is an easy way to get an audience,
Speaker 1: whether I mean whether or not people are gonna listen.
Speaker 1: It's a way to get access to people that I
Speaker 1: might not have otherwise. And I thought, this is one
Speaker 1: of the first times in my life I was prescient
Speaker 1: about anything, or only times when I was like, okay,
Speaker 1: like this could be a thing and I should get
Speaker 1: in now while it's early. And uh. And I got
Speaker 1: Stewart and another guy who was Stewart's friend, Simon, who
Speaker 1: then had to go back to Indiana about seven episodes
Speaker 1: and he moved away, which you know, like, you know,
Speaker 1: God bless him. He was. He's a very nice man.
Speaker 1: But it was very good that Elliott came in shortly thereafter,
Speaker 1: because I don't know, like by happenstance. I feel like
Speaker 1: we fell into classic comedy roles where Stewart's like the
Speaker 1: laid back one and Elliott is like the motor mouth
Speaker 1: jokester and I'm the exasperated guy totally. So it's such
Speaker 1: a fun dynamic though. I mean, that's what that's what
Speaker 1: I love about the show. I mean, I rarely see
Speaker 1: the movies that you guys talk about, and doesn't matter
Speaker 1: because the dynamic that the three of you have together,
Speaker 1: you know, like at least one or two times during
Speaker 1: every episode, I go, oh, poor Dan, because you know
Speaker 1: it's stuff. Elliot's a force of nature, and um, you
Speaker 1: can tell that. I was talking to Stewart about this,
Speaker 1: like you finally lost it a few weeks ago. I'm
Speaker 1: sure you've done that more than once. But when you
Speaker 1: finally just yelled and shut the funk up again, I
Speaker 1: say one thing, and the two of them like it
Speaker 1: would it would not be a good show if that
Speaker 1: made it weird, or if they got their feelings hurt.
Speaker 1: But they were totally just like yeah, whatever, man, and
Speaker 1: just kind of kept going. And that's what makes the
Speaker 1: show special. I think no, and we're we are close
Speaker 1: enough that I can lose that patients. I mean it's
Speaker 1: it's it's Uh, it helps that they've known me long
Speaker 1: enough to know that I get mad, but for very
Speaker 1: short periods of time you don't regret anything. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean it is a little I had that you asked
Speaker 1: about Elliott being gone. I guess the one thing that
Speaker 1: is kind of bad, and it's been amplified by the quarantine,
Speaker 1: is we are very close friends at this point. Like
Speaker 1: it's weird for adults to say best friends, but they're
Speaker 1: probably my two best friends. But uh, nowadays we mostly
Speaker 1: talk business like we only like get together when we're
Speaker 1: doing the podcast. Uh, it's very easy to fall off
Speaker 1: without that, like whereas if Elliott was in town, maybe
Speaker 1: would hang out together as friends. And so it is
Speaker 1: I think a little easier for us to get annoyed, sure,
Speaker 1: because we're business partners, but but mostly not totally. Um,
Speaker 1: what was your childhood, Like where did you grow up?
Speaker 1: Did you say Illinois or Indiana? Illinois? I went to
Speaker 1: school in Illana, Indiana for college, but I grew up
Speaker 1: in a small town called Eureka, Illinois, which, um, it's
Speaker 1: got like five thousands some people who live there now,
Speaker 1: but it was even smaller when I grew up, Like
Speaker 1: I think the population was closer to Yeah, And I
Speaker 1: always felt, I don't know, kind of like an odd
Speaker 1: person out. Not that I mean I They're very nice
Speaker 1: people that I grew up with in that way that
Speaker 1: you know, I I I make fun of small town
Speaker 1: living a little bit as I now live in New
Speaker 1: York City, but there I do it from a place
Speaker 1: of being like, those are my people, and I can
Speaker 1: do that like there is a kindness uh sometimes associated
Speaker 1: with that and a closeness. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: I also was, you know, like the son of uh
Speaker 1: college professor and a librarian living in an area that
Speaker 1: was not like heavily academic. It was not based on that.
Speaker 1: And we were very liberal family in the middle of
Speaker 1: a very conservative area. So I did feel kind of
Speaker 1: weird growing up because of all that. Now we're movies.
Speaker 1: You're you're such a film fan and like a true cinephile.
Speaker 1: That's that's one of the reasons I was excited about
Speaker 1: having you on because uh, and you can tell just
Speaker 1: from listening to the flophouse at the end when you
Speaker 1: guys do your recommendations, you know, you go deep. You've
Speaker 1: seen a lot of you you're a big fan of
Speaker 1: older movies, and you have just a lot of I
Speaker 1: think deep knowledge about film. Was that something that started
Speaker 1: when you were younger? Yeah, I you know, I bought
Speaker 1: a like I said, my mom was a librarian. She
Speaker 1: started out of the public library and then later on
Speaker 1: she was the director of the library at the college
Speaker 1: in town. But uh, but I would go to book
Speaker 1: sales a lot and for a quarter. I remember, I
Speaker 1: bought one of those Roger Ebert movie yearbooks. And I think,
Speaker 1: I as I've grown up, I've been a pressed by
Speaker 1: how many people have had this kind of same experience
Speaker 1: with Roder Ebert, where I would just read through those
Speaker 1: reviews like it was a normal book, you know, just
Speaker 1: because he was such a fan and he was a
Speaker 1: good writer about film and and blessedly I think he's
Speaker 1: a critic but not particularly hard on movies, so like
Speaker 1: he wants to like a movie, which led me to
Speaker 1: kind of be willing to check out whatever. And I would,
Speaker 1: you know, like on his recommendation, I would watch movies
Speaker 1: that he liked, and maybe I would also maybe I
Speaker 1: wouldn't like he was famously wrong about Like I don't
Speaker 1: know he liked it, gave like raising Arizona one and
Speaker 1: a half started review, which is nutty, but uh, but yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I think that started it. And then I
Speaker 1: would just read a bunch of books about movies in
Speaker 1: addition to it, being like I was the youngest kid,
Speaker 1: so I think it was let left to do whatever
Speaker 1: I wanted to in certain ways, and I would just
Speaker 1: sit in front of the TV watching movies and uh.
Speaker 1: And also I don't know, like I remember stuff like that,
Speaker 1: Like it shows where my head is at that, Like Audrey,
Speaker 1: my girlfriend is sort of annoyed in me. I think
Speaker 1: sometimes that I can't recall people that I've met several times.
Speaker 1: But at the same time, but like I know that
Speaker 1: the dog in Pumpkinhead is the same as the dog
Speaker 1: in Gremlin's you know, like it's the same dog actor
Speaker 1: named Mushroom, And that's in my head. No, you know, man,
Speaker 1: we're kind of similar in that way. U. Emily, my
Speaker 1: wife has always just laughing at that. Um, A lot
Speaker 1: of it's a movie, but for me too, it's a
Speaker 1: lot of music factoids, Like she'll just she'll make fun
Speaker 1: of me in the same way like you can name
Speaker 1: the basis for poison, but you know, yeah, you can't
Speaker 1: remember the conversation that we had yesterday. It was pretty important.
Speaker 1: But does think we just locked in? You know, it
Speaker 1: wasn't like an argument per se, but we just had
Speaker 1: like a discussion about who was supposed to text whom
Speaker 1: back and like apparently she had talked to me about that,
Speaker 1: and she says that that had happened, and I believe her.
Speaker 1: I think I just have forgotten it, Like there are
Speaker 1: things that just slide out of my head. Now, were
Speaker 1: you doing? Um stand up? Was that kind of your
Speaker 1: first foray into comedy? I I've done a little stand up, um,
Speaker 1: never enough to call myself a stand up I think
Speaker 1: because those people, like they go out and do it
Speaker 1: every night, multiple times a night, if there if they
Speaker 1: want to be big. I was kind of a dabbler.
Speaker 1: Like the best I ever did was some guy who
Speaker 1: used to be the warm up comic at the Daily Show,
Speaker 1: Like once like one had to put to throw together
Speaker 1: a show that said that like people were from the
Speaker 1: Daily Show just so he could get stage time, I'm sure,
Speaker 1: and asked me, like, hey, you want to come do this,
Speaker 1: and I was like sure, Like that was like the
Speaker 1: closest to a real club I ever played, because it
Speaker 1: was people in from out of town rather than like
Speaker 1: a bunch of comedy nerds. And I did. I did okay,
Speaker 1: but like mostly I did like improv and sketch and uh.
Speaker 1: There was a short lived humor magazine called Just That
Speaker 1: another guy from my college, Rich Duncan, put out for
Speaker 1: a while that I wrote for, and um, yeah, through that,
Speaker 1: I met a guy, Frank Lesser, who wrote for Colbert,
Speaker 1: and I came very close to getting hired on Colbert
Speaker 1: once but um but I did not make it. Although
Speaker 1: like it's interesting. I went in and they had timed
Speaker 1: everything so that uh so that um the people were like,
Speaker 1: you're you were sitting with your other candidates, but they
Speaker 1: did not have it staggered out at all. And so
Speaker 1: I walked in and I like, I saw my friend
Speaker 1: Jack back, and then I also saw this woman, Megan Gans,
Speaker 1: who like i'd seen before at like friends things, and
Speaker 1: we like chatted. I don't think that she would remember me,
Speaker 1: but I followed her career ever since then because she's
Speaker 1: like went on to write for Community and it's always
Speaker 1: sunning Philadelphia, and she's one of the people behind this
Speaker 1: uh mythic Quest show on Apple TV. And I've been
Speaker 1: like weirdly proud that I, uh that we both lost
Speaker 1: out on the same job, because because I think she's great.
Speaker 1: But uh, yeah, it was a lot of kicking around,
Speaker 1: trying whatever I could. Now when did how did the
Speaker 1: Daily Show happen? The Daily Show happened because I so
Speaker 1: I had taken a lot of classes at the Upright
Speaker 1: Citizens Brigade Theater, as basically everyone in comedy did at
Speaker 1: that time, and I eventually just got kind of fed
Speaker 1: up with it because I think it's a good place
Speaker 1: for people to go, or was if they've closed down,
Speaker 1: but uh, to like get plugged into the world. But
Speaker 1: then you have to sort of keep paying to take
Speaker 1: classes and and and being around all the time to
Speaker 1: try and like snag onto whatever stage time you can.
Speaker 1: And that's the same you know a lot a lot
Speaker 1: of places. But I wanted to go someplace else where
Speaker 1: I could just do stuff. So my friend Eric had
Speaker 1: the small theater downtown called Juvie Hall that lasted for
Speaker 1: like I don't know four years at most um because
Speaker 1: he was just renting it from a larger theater upstairs,
Speaker 1: and it never made that much money. But but I
Speaker 1: met Elliott. They're doing shows. I did a show with him,
Speaker 1: I did a show with also with Sarah Schaefer, who
Speaker 1: had had a show on MTV for a while. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and um, like the people who came out of that
Speaker 1: small theater have have mostly gone on to do good stuff,
Speaker 1: which just goes to show I think that it doesn't
Speaker 1: necessarily matter where you're performing. It just like a commitment
Speaker 1: and and trying to stick with it. But I met
Speaker 1: Elliott there and I immediately wanted to be friends with him.
Speaker 1: Partly I admit that I was starstruck that he was
Speaker 1: a producer at that time at The Daily Show, but
Speaker 1: also he wrote a blog called the Oscars Are Always
Speaker 1: Wrong at the time and it's since been lost because
Speaker 1: like whatever was hosting its like went under or whatever.
Speaker 1: But he was going like a year by year saying, okay,
Speaker 1: well this one this year in this category. He went
Speaker 1: through like most of the categories and like this was
Speaker 1: a better movie. That's like he knows all these classic movies,
Speaker 1: just starting from the the top. And I'm like, okay, well,
Speaker 1: I want to be friends with him. And I kind
Speaker 1: of made it my mission to become friends with him,
Speaker 1: and so we did the podcast together for a while,
Speaker 1: and when there was an opportunity at the show, he
Speaker 1: recommended me and I actually again didn't get it, but
Speaker 1: they kept my name on file because I was very
Speaker 1: close to getting it. And uh, then like a month later,
Speaker 1: someone else left and they brought me in, and so
Speaker 1: it was me and my friend Juban Perenge coming in
Speaker 1: at the same time. He was the guy that they
Speaker 1: hired before me, and he's now like one of the
Speaker 1: top people of the show, so clearly they should have
Speaker 1: hired him before me. But but we both got jobs. Now,
Speaker 1: what was the transition like between John and Trevor was that?
Speaker 1: I mean, how I don't know how much you can
Speaker 1: talk about it, but how seamless or bumpy was that?
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, it was a mix. I mean, like,
Speaker 1: Trevor is extremely nice and he kept on like almost
Speaker 1: everyone who who worked there because like probably because he
Speaker 1: didn't you know, he was coming from South Africa, didn't
Speaker 1: necessarily have his own like quote guys in the US.
Speaker 1: He brought a couple of people that were close to
Speaker 1: him along with him. But um, I think it was
Speaker 1: important to him to come in and be like, you
Speaker 1: all know how to make this show, and my version
Speaker 1: of the show is not going to be the same show.
Speaker 1: But like on you know, most of the skills, if
Speaker 1: your nimble, are going to transfer and you're all good
Speaker 1: at this. So um, it's it's you know, it's always
Speaker 1: just a question I think of voice. Um, you have
Speaker 1: to unlearn how to write like John and learn how
Speaker 1: to write like Trevor. And I think I was for
Speaker 1: as much as Trevor was very positive of my my
Speaker 1: writing from the start, I think I was a little
Speaker 1: rocky with that because I kind of have a hard
Speaker 1: time with change. So in my mind, I'm like, well,
Speaker 1: it's funny. It's funny. But like you, I had forgotten
Speaker 1: the lesson that I knew when I first started the job,
Speaker 1: which is, you know, so much of it is just
Speaker 1: writing to the person you're writing for. I mean, as
Speaker 1: a viewer, it was it felt very smooth. I mean
Speaker 1: it was it was the same show but different. Um
Speaker 1: if you know, if that makes sense, and which is
Speaker 1: I think the only way it could have gone and
Speaker 1: still maintained it its success was not to completely revamp
Speaker 1: the show. It's it's still the Daily Show. Um, and
Speaker 1: I think Trevor is great. I mean, I love John,
Speaker 1: but there was never any question like, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: am I going to give this a try or anything
Speaker 1: like that. Yeah, I you know, Trevor was in an
Speaker 1: impossible position, which is I think is why like, like
Speaker 1: I you know, I don't think he'd be offended by
Speaker 1: me saying that, Like there were certainly big names that
Speaker 1: didn't want the job just because they thought, like that's
Speaker 1: an impossible thing that like to follow this, yea, but
Speaker 1: he had the self possession to think like, Okay, I
Speaker 1: can do it, I can do it in a different way.
Speaker 1: And you know, like, I think we suffered a little
Speaker 1: bit because people expected it's be exactly the same or
Speaker 1: they expected like a total reinvention. I think you're right,
Speaker 1: like neither one really would have worked, but people like
Speaker 1: to rush to judgment. And but now I think that
Speaker 1: like people have had the time to adjust, they can
Speaker 1: see you know that it's a it's it's good and
Speaker 1: it's different. But like, you know, I don't know. The
Speaker 1: show got nominated for Emmys a couple of times. It's
Speaker 1: still a show that people enjoy and honestly, Like at
Speaker 1: the end, John was pulling in an older audience than
Speaker 1: would have stuck with the show, like like trefor has
Speaker 1: definitely brought the age down of the people who who
Speaker 1: view it, which I'm sure everyone who is in charge
Speaker 1: of like the money is very you with yeah, absolutely,
Speaker 1: Um how many do you have Emmy's in your apartment?
Speaker 1: Do you own a? Uh? Yeah, I guess I owned them.
Speaker 1: That's such a funny. That is accurate, But I don't
Speaker 1: think anyone ever says that it's funny. Um, now I
Speaker 1: have I have to I got one. There was a
Speaker 1: there's a period. I don't know if it's still true
Speaker 1: because it's it's been a while, but there's a period where, um,
Speaker 1: the Emmy producers wanted to like they're like writers, who
Speaker 1: cares about writers? And they wanted to shove us off
Speaker 1: to the creative arts, non televised part of the show. Um,
Speaker 1: and the Guild didn't like that. And I think there
Speaker 1: was like back and forth, and it was like this
Speaker 1: one year on, one year off thing. So the first
Speaker 1: time I got one was actually on one of the
Speaker 1: off years, and I had convinced because I was excited
Speaker 1: about it being in my first time I convinced like
Speaker 1: a couple other people to go like this was actually
Speaker 1: right after one of the guys on the show, Rich Blomquist,
Speaker 1: got married to Christian Shawl, and we were we were
Speaker 1: all at the wedding, all the writers, and then like
Speaker 1: the creative Archimmy's was the same weekend, and and I
Speaker 1: think that I sort of started a lancelide of a
Speaker 1: few other people coming after this wedding that was crazy
Speaker 1: and had al pacas in it and parents, um, and
Speaker 1: we went and thank God that there are like four
Speaker 1: of us there because we we won that year. And uh.
Speaker 1: And then the second time the writers won, it was
Speaker 1: actually a sweep for the show because it was John's
Speaker 1: last year. And the funny thing. The funny thing is
Speaker 1: both times L. L Cool J was our presenter. Both
Speaker 1: times I won an Emmy. L Cool was the guy
Speaker 1: man that moment um that the last one was just
Speaker 1: so great when he brought everybody out there that was
Speaker 1: that was one of the cool moments. Because I've always
Speaker 1: been a fan of the Daily Show. I even watched
Speaker 1: back in you know, the Kilburn days. Um, and I've
Speaker 1: known I think more so than any like other piece
Speaker 1: of entertainment. I've known more people like I know you.
Speaker 1: I know, uh, Chad Carter is an old buddy, and
Speaker 1: I used to know Hallie Haggling a little bit, and
Speaker 1: Jimmy Donn a little bit, and Whyatt and if I
Speaker 1: added up, you know, there's probably like seven or eight
Speaker 1: people I guess Hodgman included from the Daily Show staff
Speaker 1: that have kind of been pals with over the years.
Speaker 1: And it's just a great show. I love how it's
Speaker 1: just continue to be awesome. And I think maybe Trevor
Speaker 1: coming over as more of an unknown was the best move.
Speaker 1: You know, it would have been tough to have some
Speaker 1: just sort of well known American face kind of step
Speaker 1: in there. I think, yeah, I think so too. Halle
Speaker 1: is so great. She's still there just because you've invoked her,
Speaker 1: I must say, she's one of my favorites now she's
Speaker 1: she's still working there. She left to be I don't
Speaker 1: I don't know her exact title, whether she was executive producer.
Speaker 1: She was basically show running Wyatt's show HBO for those
Speaker 1: two seasons and now she's out in l A. And
Speaker 1: I believe she got a job right before everything hit,
Speaker 1: So I don't know what's happening with I think she's
Speaker 1: still working, but I don't. Yeah, I wish I knew
Speaker 1: more about her life. She's a wonderful person. She is
Speaker 1: definitely one of those people though if you're not seeing
Speaker 1: her every day it's easy to like for us both
Speaker 1: to like flake on each other. Except for them. Occasionally
Speaker 1: she'll decide that she's sending me tin texts and it well,
Speaker 1: tell her, I said, Hi. I don't know if she'll
Speaker 1: remember me, but she She's done a couple of things
Speaker 1: with stuff you should know over the years, and just
Speaker 1: a very nice, kind of funny person. Do you want
Speaker 1: to talk Aliens? Sure? All right, dude. Well you sent
Speaker 1: a like, not a bunch, but sort of a list
Speaker 1: of films. Most of them were they ranged from His
Speaker 1: Girl Friday two. Uh, it was north By Northwest on there,
Speaker 1: yeah and basically almost but north By Northwest was my
Speaker 1: first loved. Yeah, and then we settled on Aliens somehow,
Speaker 1: which I'm glad because, uh the nine six sci fi
Speaker 1: action I think even more horror than I remember now
Speaker 1: that I saw it again last night from James Cameron.
Speaker 1: And here's my deal. I I've seen Alien probably I
Speaker 1: don't know fifteen times, and it's one of my favorite movies.
Speaker 1: And I saw Aliens and loved it back in the
Speaker 1: day and think I must have seen it a couple
Speaker 1: of times after, maybe like in college on you know,
Speaker 1: on VHS, but really had not seen it in probably
Speaker 1: twenty years. Wow. Yeah, I it is one of the
Speaker 1: movies I watched the most when I was a teenager.
Speaker 1: I it was that and Heather's An Army of Darkness.
Speaker 1: I had them on VHS tape. Yeah. No, I still
Speaker 1: love all of them, but I would watch them over
Speaker 1: and over, and so I had I hadn't seen it
Speaker 1: for a long time, just because I knew it so well,
Speaker 1: other than the Brooklyn Academy of Music had like a
Speaker 1: series that was actually on puppeteering, and they were like
Speaker 1: it was taking like kind of a broad view of it,
Speaker 1: so they had Aliens in there too, since so much
Speaker 1: of that was puppeteering and and it was it worked
Speaker 1: great on a big screen with an audience. I I
Speaker 1: mean this time, like I watched it and it's also
Speaker 1: familiar to me. I still enjoyed it. I was still
Speaker 1: like paying deep attention to it. Well, Audrey sat next
Speaker 1: to me playing animal Crossing. Uh, she liked it fine,
Speaker 1: But you know, I think that she's not like, uh,
Speaker 1: like greatly younger than me or anything, but she is
Speaker 1: thirty two to my forty one. And I think that
Speaker 1: sometimes with movies like that, they become so influential that
Speaker 1: they've they seem old when you see them for the
Speaker 1: first time, if if you didn't see them at the time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she still thought it looked great and was engaging. But
Speaker 1: I think that, like, there have been too many movies
Speaker 1: that stole from it at this point. But now I
Speaker 1: watched the extended version, which uh is streaming on Hulu.
Speaker 1: I've never seen that one before. Um. I assume you've
Speaker 1: seen that version. That was what I watched last night. Um,
Speaker 1: and I think it is the better cut, with one
Speaker 1: big exception, which is what I think. We don't need
Speaker 1: to see the terror formers on the colony before all
Speaker 1: all hell breaks loose, because like, you know, you know
Speaker 1: that as soon as you hear that their calumnists on,
Speaker 1: they'll be four eighty two or whatever it is, forty six,
Speaker 1: I don't remember. Uh, you know that they're gonna be
Speaker 1: eaten by aliens or you know, bread by aliens. Whatever
Speaker 1: you want to say this even worth does I don't know.
Speaker 1: Uh turned into a little more Xeno morphs. Um, so
Speaker 1: you don't need that scene to I don't know. I
Speaker 1: think it's less effective to for when like Newt finally
Speaker 1: shows up to or before, I don't know. Now you
Speaker 1: know what. I think you're right, um, and that the
Speaker 1: actor is not especially good who plays Papa Terra Farmer? Um,
Speaker 1: So yeah, I think you're right. Um. It didn't offend
Speaker 1: me or anything, but now that you mentioned it, it's
Speaker 1: you don't need to see it. I see why it
Speaker 1: was cut. Uh the other parts, I mean, correct me
Speaker 1: if I'm wrong. But the Sigourney Weaver find finding out
Speaker 1: about her daughter, yes, Uh, that was great and I'm
Speaker 1: surprised they cut that. Yeah, that is the part I
Speaker 1: think that the movie, I mean the movie, the theatrical
Speaker 1: version is amazing still, but I think that the movie
Speaker 1: hurts the most for that cut because the movie is
Speaker 1: so much about motherhood. Like it's it's funny, like this's
Speaker 1: like this action horror movie about motherhood. But um, you know,
Speaker 1: like with Newt being Sigourney Weaver's storyett daughter, but also
Speaker 1: this queen alien just like protecting her eggs. It's it's
Speaker 1: it's just strange I think to have that gone. And
Speaker 1: the other the other big difference is the scene with
Speaker 1: the century guns as although the rounds you see them
Speaker 1: ticking down. I thought that was pretty cool. I I mean,
Speaker 1: I think that's a great suspense scene. It's definitely something
Speaker 1: that you could cut, but I still love having it. No,
Speaker 1: I thought it was good. Um, and I had, you know,
Speaker 1: I hadn't seen it so long. I wasn't exactly sure
Speaker 1: what was new and what wasn't. And you know, went
Speaker 1: and did the research and found those three scenes and
Speaker 1: it sort of jogged my memory that they weren't as familiar.
Speaker 1: But I thought the centry gun scenes were pretty awesome. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: when I saw it as a kid, like that was
Speaker 1: one of the scenes that really terrified me the most.
Speaker 1: And I I want to speak to what you said
Speaker 1: before about horror movie, like I think that they'll accepted
Speaker 1: line like Internet crowd Think has proclaimed that Alien is
Speaker 1: a horror movie and Aliens is an action movie, and
Speaker 1: I don't I don't necessarily by I mean, I see
Speaker 1: what they're saying, it's more action oriented movie. But I
Speaker 1: think that like as you said, it's action, science fiction
Speaker 1: horror all together. I did the The The typical I
Speaker 1: think people say about Alien is, oh, it's a haunted
Speaker 1: house movie in space, And that's true and so much
Speaker 1: as it's about this like closed unit of space that
Speaker 1: people are stuck in with something uh, bedeviling them. But
Speaker 1: it also I think it plays a lot more like
Speaker 1: a slasher because it's these characters getting split up and
Speaker 1: and taken out one by one totally. And Aliens, I
Speaker 1: think is more like kind of a horror movie. And
Speaker 1: the zombie movie category usually more action oriented. You're being
Speaker 1: besieged by a lot of monsters. Yeah, and it's actly
Speaker 1: you know, um, if you listen to Friendly Fire, they
Speaker 1: covered that on their war movie podcast and make the
Speaker 1: argument that it's also a war movie, which you know,
Speaker 1: you've got this battalion of marines and it has a
Speaker 1: lot of the familiar war movie tropes for sure, this
Speaker 1: sort of rag tag dirty doesn't like group of you know,
Speaker 1: foul mouth soldiers. Um, so it has it's interesting, it
Speaker 1: pulls in all these different elements. Um. But last night
Speaker 1: it just kept hitting me more and more all the
Speaker 1: different horror elements that I kind of didn't remember as
Speaker 1: much being there as an alien, and I think there's
Speaker 1: just as many and aliens as alien. Mm hmm, yeah, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're right. It's definitely also a warror movie and that
Speaker 1: you could easily kind of read it, I guess as
Speaker 1: this Vietnam metaphor where this cocky group of of soldiers
Speaker 1: comes in and then is completely overwhelmed by this force
Speaker 1: that is like, you know, it seems to come out
Speaker 1: of nowhere and right, and it's not. You know, they
Speaker 1: have this technologically superior firepower that they just take for
Speaker 1: granted will overwhelm anything, and you know quickly find out
Speaker 1: that they're wrong. Yeah, And it's interesting Audrey's pointing out that,
Speaker 1: like this is a one of the few movies that
Speaker 1: always wants you to side on the uh and kind
Speaker 1: of of running away almost like like like there's no
Speaker 1: point during this movie where you think that the movie
Speaker 1: wants you to think that going back and dealing with
Speaker 1: some aliens is a good idea yea, Like from the start,
Speaker 1: Sigourney Weaver doesn't want to do it, but she kind
Speaker 1: of does it because she thinks she needs to face
Speaker 1: her fear. She so terrified she wants to, like if
Speaker 1: it's out there. She has to know it's been dealt with.
Speaker 1: She like it's almost compulsion with her, but she knows
Speaker 1: it's not a good idea. She tells him it's not
Speaker 1: a good idea, Like as soon as it's bad, she's like,
Speaker 1: we gotta get out of here and nuke it from space.
Speaker 1: And there's not the usual like stuff that a movie
Speaker 1: tries to pull, where it's like no, no, no no, no,
Speaker 1: no no, we we still save these people, like no, no, no,
Speaker 1: those people are gone. We gotta get out of here. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And you know, Bill Paxton also clearly is very famous
Speaker 1: in this movie for just being uh, sort of a
Speaker 1: whiny let's get out of here, man. Uh. I mean,
Speaker 1: I love Bill Paxton. It's so funny. He's the most
Speaker 1: This is one of the most obnoxious characters in the
Speaker 1: history of movies. And Bill Paxton is a real human.
Speaker 1: Was just such a sweet guy. And I remember listening
Speaker 1: to the Mark maren uh interview with him and just
Speaker 1: being like, did you did you hear that? Do you
Speaker 1: listen to the Marin shows ever? I have? I don't
Speaker 1: think I've heard the packs on one man. You should
Speaker 1: check it out because you can't listen to it and
Speaker 1: not be like, boy, I really want to be Bill
Speaker 1: Paxson's next door neighbor and like go over and barbecue
Speaker 1: at his house. He just seemed like such a decent,
Speaker 1: great guy. Yeah. I think that it is that sweetness
Speaker 1: that's you can sense in him that lets you not
Speaker 1: be he's totally annoyed by that character. That and the
Speaker 1: fact that he's right in being a scared doe. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's right every time. But yeah, that's interesting. Now what
Speaker 1: are your thoughts on um James Cameron. Let's let's talk
Speaker 1: about him for a minute. Where where do you stand
Speaker 1: with him? I think he's largely great. I mean, for
Speaker 1: the most part, I love his stuff. I mean, so
Speaker 1: he did this right after The Terminator, which is crazy,
Speaker 1: like he went like from modestly budget to like huge
Speaker 1: success to like this, you know, giant sequel. But I
Speaker 1: mean The Terminator is another thing that gets classified as
Speaker 1: an action movie that I think is as much horror
Speaker 1: as it is action. Yeah, and I think it's terrific.
Speaker 1: And then this is amazing Terminator too. I think actually
Speaker 1: is the thing like unlike I don't feel the same
Speaker 1: big change from Realley Scott's Alien to Aliens in terms
Speaker 1: of not being horror as I do. Actually like Terminator two.
Speaker 1: I think becomes much more of a straight action film,
Speaker 1: but it's an amazing one. I I love the first
Speaker 1: two acts of the Abyss. Yeah, I love the Abyss.
Speaker 1: I think that I probably my least favorite movie of
Speaker 1: his is actually True Lies, because I feel like, weirdly
Speaker 1: for such like I'm macho filmmaker, women come off very
Speaker 1: well in his movies and are given like like they
Speaker 1: are always as capable, if not often much more capable
Speaker 1: than the men. Other than I think True Lies is
Speaker 1: is kind of abominable in the way like it treats
Speaker 1: Jamie Curtis's character. But yeah, that's my least people make
Speaker 1: fun of the Avatar. Avatar was fine, like it's fun,
Speaker 1: Like I don't have a need to revisit it, not
Speaker 1: in three D, but in three D it was amazing.
Speaker 1: And uh, and Titanic is you know, has become I
Speaker 1: think a bit of a joke just because people are
Speaker 1: all ashamed that they got suckered in by such a
Speaker 1: melodramatic movie and they all cried and literally no I
Speaker 1: was crying, but like I totally cried. I loved it
Speaker 1: first time. I saw. In fact that I've seen Titanic
Speaker 1: a bunch of times. I think it works. I think
Speaker 1: that it works. Yeah, And the biggest rap against James
Speaker 1: Cameron is like, so with Aliens, right the there's not
Speaker 1: a lot of memorable lines because the lines are memberable,
Speaker 1: Like usually the lines are memorable because the actors are
Speaker 1: so good saying them and like they put an interesting
Speaker 1: spin on them. And I think the rap against him
Speaker 1: is usually like, oh, he can't his dialogue is usually
Speaker 1: just serviceable. I see that, But I also think like
Speaker 1: he is a genius at constructing a story that is thrilling,
Speaker 1: and his dialogue may not be amazing, but he can
Speaker 1: present a character to you very quickly and you know
Speaker 1: exactly who that character is and exactly like whether you
Speaker 1: like them or not or you know, you know it.
Speaker 1: He paints very quickly, but very uh indelibly and and
Speaker 1: in a way that connects right away. And so I'll
Speaker 1: be willing to forgive those shortcomings. I guess, yeah, man,
Speaker 1: you said it best. I'm sort of right parking my
Speaker 1: car in your garage there. I've always knocked him as
Speaker 1: a writer, but as you know, uh and listeners, it's
Speaker 1: a good lesson to learn, and there's more to writing
Speaker 1: than just the words that people say. Um, he's very
Speaker 1: kind of on the nose and trophy and some of
Speaker 1: some of the lines of dialogue he writes, I'm just
Speaker 1: still angry about um, notably in Titanic when Billy Zane
Speaker 1: says something about the the Picasso or whatever and nothing
Speaker 1: will ever become of him, and I knew exactly what.
Speaker 1: I hate that stuff so much because I can just
Speaker 1: picture James Cameron patting himself on the back and how
Speaker 1: clever that is. And it's not. But there is so
Speaker 1: much more to writing and to writing a movie than
Speaker 1: the words that people say. And you're right the way
Speaker 1: he establishes character so quickly. Um, he writes a hell
Speaker 1: of an action uh movie and action sequences because you
Speaker 1: know someone has to write that stuff. It's not he's
Speaker 1: also the director. But you've got to put that down
Speaker 1: on paper, on the page. And it's hard for me
Speaker 1: to admit that he is a successful writer for what
Speaker 1: kinds of movies he's making. But he is. Yeah, I mean, like,
Speaker 1: and you see this on all levels, right, because like
Speaker 1: I want, I'm not gonna give something like fifty shades
Speaker 1: of Gray, let's say credit for being well written at all,
Speaker 1: but clearly the person who wrote it, whether or not
Speaker 1: it's for me, has a talent at connecting with people
Speaker 1: of making them want to read the thing. And that
Speaker 1: is a thing that I think critics don't tend to value,
Speaker 1: but is maybe the most valuable part in terms of like,
Speaker 1: if you want an audience to be interested in what
Speaker 1: you're doing, well, again, not my thing, but right, you
Speaker 1: have to like, I don't know, like the older I get,
Speaker 1: the less snobby I feel like I get about a
Speaker 1: lot of things like I don't you know what, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you did a good thing here. Yeah, that's kind of great.
Speaker 1: The It's kind of one of the great things about
Speaker 1: getting older is you don't care about being cool anymore,
Speaker 1: liking the coolest things, and you get way less snobby
Speaker 1: about stuff and more brave about just saying like yeah
Speaker 1: I like that, fuck you yea yeah. Um this movie
Speaker 1: has a lot of the d n A of Terminator
Speaker 1: and uh, I'm sure you know this, but for the listener,
Speaker 1: this movie was made. Um, he kind of got the
Speaker 1: green light to make this movie. They had been in
Speaker 1: the hands of lawyers and there were lawsuits and that's
Speaker 1: why it took so long to get a sequel made,
Speaker 1: and when it finally came together, they hired Cameron on
Speaker 1: the strength of the Terminator doing well. But he had
Speaker 1: already written the treatment and then got a chance to
Speaker 1: write even a sort of a short version of the
Speaker 1: script um before Terminator came out, and the studio was like,
Speaker 1: this guy's okay. But then Terminator was a big hit
Speaker 1: and they were like, all right, he's the dude. But
Speaker 1: you can see a lot of the same DNA in
Speaker 1: the way it looks. Um. Both have these great, strong
Speaker 1: female protagonists that are being gas lighted at the beginning
Speaker 1: of the movie. Um. Yeah, well, I guess that more
Speaker 1: or less happens a little bit more in Terminator too. Um,
Speaker 1: but she's you know, Sarah Connor. I feel like he's
Speaker 1: always being gaslighted in that series. Yeah, I Audrey was
Speaker 1: asking me, and apologies if I'm stepping on the question.
Speaker 1: You were going to ask, like why, I like the
Speaker 1: why I chose this, say, rather than Alien. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm sure you've done Alien, but like, okay, well I
Speaker 1: and I was like, well, I mean, among other things,
Speaker 1: like I think Alien is probably the more quote like
Speaker 1: perfect movie, it's the more unified movie, it's the more
Speaker 1: unique movie. It's more Yeah, But in terms of like
Speaker 1: the fun I have watching it, I have more fun
Speaker 1: watching aliens. And also, like I appreciate intellectually the fact
Speaker 1: that an alien you don't necessarily know who the quote
Speaker 1: hero is. At the beginning, Ripley sort of emerges from
Speaker 1: the crowd as she sort of proves herself like how
Speaker 1: competent she is, and like that combined with just the
Speaker 1: luck of surviving um And that's interesting to me as
Speaker 1: a way of writing a movie. But Weaver is so
Speaker 1: good in this movie, and to have her be like
Speaker 1: front and center and like so emotionally, like you empathize
Speaker 1: with her right away. She's so capable, Like she grows
Speaker 1: through the movie, like she turns into this warrior to
Speaker 1: some degree, but at the same time, you can see
Speaker 1: that she has it in her from the start. And
Speaker 1: one of the great things about it we were talking
Speaker 1: about how in general, again, other than Jamie Lee Curtis,
Speaker 1: I think Cameron does pretty well by female characters. Like
Speaker 1: one of the things I like best about this movie
Speaker 1: is the way that Hicks reacts to Ripley, like you
Speaker 1: don't know who he is at the beginning of the movie,
Speaker 1: he's this like grunt who kind of seems a little
Speaker 1: sardonic and like he's a loner. He doesn't you know,
Speaker 1: maybe buy d all this ship, but he's also good
Speaker 1: at it and and as Ripley like sort of emerges
Speaker 1: as the one making the most sense, like the smartest
Speaker 1: one in the room, you know, he willingly like immediately
Speaker 1: supports her without like trying to take over, Like he's
Speaker 1: happy to like take a back seat to the person
Speaker 1: that he thinks is best equipped to like to handle this.
Speaker 1: And there's like a you know, there's a hint of
Speaker 1: attraction between them, but there's the movie also doesn't shoehorn
Speaker 1: romance in there's no time for the aliens, you know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and he could have done that too. He could have
Speaker 1: shoehorned more of that. There's that one sort of interaction
Speaker 1: and the one line that they have together. Uh what
Speaker 1: does he say, something like what we don't we don't
Speaker 1: thin get engaged or something like that. Yeah, he gets her,
Speaker 1: like the tracking bracelets. It doesn't mean we're married or
Speaker 1: anything or something like that. Like, yeah, and that was
Speaker 1: just enough, man, just a little especially for Cameron who
Speaker 1: tends to kind of hit the viewer over the head
Speaker 1: with whatever he's trying to get across. I thought that
Speaker 1: he showed some restraint there. Um, but that's one of
Speaker 1: my favorite parts of the movie when he backs her
Speaker 1: and uh, like she's she's sort of in in charge
Speaker 1: at that point. Basically yeah, yeah, I mean, Gorman's out
Speaker 1: of the picture, and so she correctly judges that like
Speaker 1: Hicks is smart and will back her, and like points
Speaker 1: out that he's in charge, and they sort of form
Speaker 1: an alliance. And yeah, it's uh, it's nice. I mean, like,
Speaker 1: like I said, everything is drawn very quickly and in
Speaker 1: a way, but in a way that you understand and
Speaker 1: makes sense, like character wise in the middle of all
Speaker 1: this action. Yeah, Ripley's just i mean, top maybe top
Speaker 1: five movie characters movie heroes for me. Uh, she's just
Speaker 1: such a badass and and her and you know, the
Speaker 1: hero's journey for her is just so rich, and her
Speaker 1: character arc is so rich and Scorny Weaver just acts
Speaker 1: the hell out of it. Um, never over the top.
Speaker 1: She's always uh, she just always hits all the right notes.
Speaker 1: I feel like, yeah, yeah, and she's I mean, she's
Speaker 1: such a great actress, but like and she was a
Speaker 1: big star, but I think that also one of those
Speaker 1: stars that also almost in spite of being big, like
Speaker 1: people didn't totally know what to do with because she's
Speaker 1: so strong and she's like she is beautiful, but like
Speaker 1: in a different way like but and and she can
Speaker 1: do drama and she's like super funny and something like Ghostbusters,
Speaker 1: And it's almost like I think she's almost like such
Speaker 1: an imposing presence that people must have been scared of
Speaker 1: her almost like like again, huge star, but but she
Speaker 1: must have been kind of a hard one for Hollywood,
Speaker 1: Hollywood to figure out because she doesn't fit into boxes anything.
Speaker 1: Now I'm totally with you. Um, I don't know if
Speaker 1: you're a big fan of the movie The Ice Storm.
Speaker 1: It's we covered that on this show and it's one
Speaker 1: of my favorite movies. And just seeing her in that too,
Speaker 1: like she's got such range. Um, yeah, she's just awesome.
Speaker 1: I wish I saw more ever these days. Yeah, No,
Speaker 1: she's yeah, And I love that she will show up
Speaker 1: and do like a random voice on something like oh
Speaker 1: does she yeah? I mean I I mean this is
Speaker 1: old at this point, like I know, Futurama, Like she
Speaker 1: would she did something for them, but like, I do
Speaker 1: think that she kind of enjoys dipping in and doing
Speaker 1: like a silly comedy thing, yeah, or a or a
Speaker 1: cameo with a lot of impact. You know, that's cool.
Speaker 1: I do like it at the beginning to that little
Speaker 1: bit where you see the you know, there are a
Speaker 1: couple of nods to Alien, and one of them is
Speaker 1: at the beginning when it just has on the video
Speaker 1: screen behind or uh you see y'all at codo and
Speaker 1: then Harry Dean Stanton and that's just you know, I
Speaker 1: think Cameron did the right thing and basically saying, I mean,
Speaker 1: such a great set up for a sequel. It's like,
Speaker 1: well you liked it the Alien like and even called
Speaker 1: the aliens like, how about one where there's a bunch
Speaker 1: of them and it just ramps up the action and
Speaker 1: it was just such a smart plan to sequelize this film. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I think, I mean, nowadays I feel like that
Speaker 1: is you know, the obvious playbook right to be like, okay,
Speaker 1: well it's bigger this time like that is like, but
Speaker 1: I don't think so much at the time it was
Speaker 1: like a cliche and it is such a clever thing like, Okay,
Speaker 1: Ripley is now isolated from her past experience. It's much later,
Speaker 1: and now she's gonna go back. And the thing that horrifighter,
Speaker 1: there's a bunch more of them. I mean, the one
Speaker 1: place where it kind of gets loses a little is
Speaker 1: that these new aliens are a lot easier to kill
Speaker 1: than that one. But she encountered before, and you know,
Speaker 1: you can sort of write that off to the fact
Speaker 1: that these are marines and they have actual guns now.
Speaker 1: But but that's I think that that's the only thing
Speaker 1: you kind of lose in that scenario. But it is.
Speaker 1: But then again, it was like super smart. It was,
Speaker 1: and I didn't even think about it really that much
Speaker 1: until this viewing that there that the Cameron's like, okay, well,
Speaker 1: if she's fighting a bunch of aliens throughout the movie,
Speaker 1: there has to be a climactic thing, like what is
Speaker 1: the climactic thing? And so he introduces the idea and
Speaker 1: he does it. He sets it up well throughout the
Speaker 1: movie that like, oh, in this alien society, there's probably
Speaker 1: a queen. And then she meets the queen and so
Speaker 1: it gives her at the at like the last moment,
Speaker 1: like very late in the movie a big thing to fight,
Speaker 1: but that doesn't keep the Queen alien from being any
Speaker 1: less iconic, you know. Yeah, I mean it's sort of
Speaker 1: like the video game. You know, it's like fighting the
Speaker 1: boss at the end. They're fighting all these aliens who
Speaker 1: in the first movie, like you said, there's just one
Speaker 1: of them, and it's still so goddamn scary. Um And
Speaker 1: this one, I think he knew, like, you can't just
Speaker 1: add more aliens. Uh, We're going to do that, but
Speaker 1: it can't just be that. Um, you still had to
Speaker 1: have a great story in that, Like you said, that
Speaker 1: climax with the Queen at the end. Uh, it's just
Speaker 1: you know, that's the only way this could could finish.
Speaker 1: And I also think that Cameron pioneered a notion that like,
Speaker 1: I mean, at this point, it's gone too far and
Speaker 1: I find it frustrating in action movies where they have
Speaker 1: ending after ending after ending. Yeah. Yeah, like like they
Speaker 1: took the lesson to heart too much. But I think
Speaker 1: Cameron was one of the people who pioneered like, Okay,
Speaker 1: well I'm not going to give you one climax. There's
Speaker 1: actually gonna be a couple of climaxes, Like movie could
Speaker 1: easily end with them like flying away from the planet
Speaker 1: and blowing up. But then the Queen has made it
Speaker 1: onto the ship and you have the great loader fight. Man.
Speaker 1: I mean that last ten minutes is like some of
Speaker 1: the best part of the whole movie. Yeah, and then
Speaker 1: you know he he plants the in a very non
Speaker 1: subtle Cameron way. He has the foreshadowing of the the
Speaker 1: loader machine spot or whatever at the beginning, and the
Speaker 1: fact that she can drive it and she's super adept
Speaker 1: at it um and it's just you know, it's like
Speaker 1: the gun in Act one. You just wait for it
Speaker 1: to come back. I mean, you're right, it is it subtle,
Speaker 1: but I also think it it is done in such
Speaker 1: a if you're not going to be subtled, at least
Speaker 1: do it with some humor, because that scene is so
Speaker 1: much fun. You know, it's her proving herself to these
Speaker 1: macho jerks and showing like she can do stuff. And
Speaker 1: the I I don't know the actor who plays the
Speaker 1: the like the sergeant's name or whatever, but the guy
Speaker 1: who always as a cigar like he's delighted reaction to
Speaker 1: her being able to pilot it is great. Yeah, very
Speaker 1: trophy and kind of perfect. And that's what I love
Speaker 1: about Cameron too, Like he is trophy. But these we
Speaker 1: talk a lot about tropes on this show. At tropes
Speaker 1: are tropes for a reason because they generally work. It's
Speaker 1: not like people keep doing the same thing over and
Speaker 1: over because it doesn't work for movies. Like, he's a
Speaker 1: he's a movie maker. He makes these big movies that
Speaker 1: feel and look like movies and smell like movies. And
Speaker 1: you go in the summertime and you sit down and
Speaker 1: you watch Aliens and you leave just with a big
Speaker 1: grin on your face. You know, there's something to be
Speaker 1: said for that. Yeah, I mean I don't like. The
Speaker 1: thing is there are people making this kind of incredibly
Speaker 1: skilled blockbuster today. You know, they're few and far between,
Speaker 1: but they've always been kind of few and far between,
Speaker 1: the really good ones. Yeah, but I my reaction to
Speaker 1: them will be less often as intense, just because I
Speaker 1: am older. Aliens is such a huge, crowd pleasing movie
Speaker 1: that's also thrilling and scary. And I saw it, you know,
Speaker 1: when I was like twelve or thirteen or whatever, So
Speaker 1: it's kind of perfect in that way. Yeah. Um, the
Speaker 1: motion tracker device is so brilliant as a film filmmaking
Speaker 1: device because it you know, it adds a literal ticking sound.
Speaker 1: You know, the ticking clock is always great for suspense.
Speaker 1: And then ah, just the brilliance of seeing it coming
Speaker 1: them not seeing it, but they hear it coming, and uh,
Speaker 1: you can just get so much out of the visual
Speaker 1: and that sound. Uh, it's all just so great. It's
Speaker 1: such a brilliant idea. No, it's terrific. Although, like I wonder,
Speaker 1: I wonder how like some of the technology plays for
Speaker 1: new viewers, like absolutely new viewers now, because like I
Speaker 1: think the movie still looks amazing. Yeah, it holds up
Speaker 1: pretty well. But like technology like the trackers or the
Speaker 1: like video camera or whatever, it is just like futuristic
Speaker 1: yet retro thing where it's like, Okay, like we can
Speaker 1: make these amazing special effects, but we're gonna imagine that
Speaker 1: like everything looks like a VHS tape in the future,
Speaker 1: or like the tracker is just gonna be like a
Speaker 1: little a couple of blips on a on a on
Speaker 1: a green grid or whatever it is. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: it holds up the um. The one part to me
Speaker 1: that suffered the most was the said fucking car the Yeah,
Speaker 1: the transport vehicle or whatever, that one doesn't hold up
Speaker 1: super well. It doesn't, especially when you've seen things since then,
Speaker 1: like the The Batman Tumbler and like vehicles look like
Speaker 1: they could totally really work on that terrain. No, it
Speaker 1: looks like a first draft for the Tumbler, and you
Speaker 1: don't believe that anything that bulky is going to be
Speaker 1: able to like handle to drive down these hallways to
Speaker 1: wherever they are. The funny thing about this movie is
Speaker 1: like I have no sense of a lot of the
Speaker 1: geography and the whole thing, and yet it still works.
Speaker 1: Like yet yet within the scene, you know the geography
Speaker 1: of everything that's going on. But from scene to scene,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm often not sure, Like, Okay, where the base
Speaker 1: are they supposed to be? Right now? You know, you're right.
Speaker 1: I never really thought about that, but you're kind of right.
Speaker 1: It's um, it is sort of a big dark uh
Speaker 1: not a dark mess, but and you know, maybe that's
Speaker 1: part of it. Uh, maybe that was purposeful to just
Speaker 1: sort of disorient and lose you as a as a viewer.
Speaker 1: I don't know. Yeah, is that a Is that a reach? No?
Speaker 1: I don't think it's a reach, but I do think
Speaker 1: it also is just like a side effect of they
Speaker 1: decided on kind of one look for the way space
Speaker 1: colonies and starships look in this universe, and and then
Speaker 1: every place looks like that. Look like I was looking
Speaker 1: at Sigourney Weavers, like Ripley's um apartment for instance, when
Speaker 1: she comes back, and I'm like Jesus Christ and the future,
Speaker 1: like is there no color like because no one like
Speaker 1: decorate their way. It's it's also grim white ikea. Yeah. Uh,
Speaker 1: And I think just like Alien to the other thing
Speaker 1: that stood out to me was how long he takes
Speaker 1: to get to the alien. Oh yeah, Like there's a
Speaker 1: lot of restraint in this movie for that, you know,
Speaker 1: the lessons of Jaws and the Alien. I think it's
Speaker 1: a full hour in when you finally get to see
Speaker 1: the Zeno Moore for the first time. No, I yeah
Speaker 1: that I was reflecting on to rewatching it. They and
Speaker 1: none of it feels like, I mean, none of it's dull.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't think that if you're a good filmmaker,
Speaker 1: any sort of like laying of groundwork is dull. But
Speaker 1: like it all moves, it all explains that the characters
Speaker 1: are It puts the pieces in place still like having
Speaker 1: a lot of suspense on its own with that before
Speaker 1: the monster shows up. But yeah, it is very good
Speaker 1: at withholding and then all hell breaks loose. Yeah, well
Speaker 1: I think that's sort of the key is they withhold
Speaker 1: and then once that ship starts. Uh, it's really just
Speaker 1: a sort of a NonStop set piece after that, kind
Speaker 1: of one after the other. There are a little a
Speaker 1: couple of brief moments of of kind of gathering yourself
Speaker 1: where you can take a breath. But um, just some great,
Speaker 1: great action uh so much that h a character like
Speaker 1: Newt doesn't even spoil it. Oh you don't like Newt, dude,
Speaker 1: I don't like Newte and I have a five year
Speaker 1: old daughter. So well here's this I mean for me
Speaker 1: with new Like, I do not like child characters in
Speaker 1: movies that are not about children, like if if if
Speaker 1: it's a movie about children, then that's a different story.
Speaker 1: But oftentimes they are precocious actor types, or they have
Speaker 1: been shoehorned into a story that where they shouldn't be
Speaker 1: because like the somewhere along the line someone thought, okay,
Speaker 1: we need someone cute in here, or they are written
Speaker 1: as if they're adults. Like they speak as if there
Speaker 1: are adults, which is the thing that annoys me the most,
Speaker 1: like the precocious kid who like makes jokes that no
Speaker 1: kid would ever make. But I like new Like Newde
Speaker 1: is actually probably my favorite child character in a non
Speaker 1: child movie because I think, you know, she like she's
Speaker 1: good at being shell shocked you. She doesn't actually talk
Speaker 1: that much. She's like been traumatized by this, but she's
Speaker 1: holding on. She like she makes sense in the context
Speaker 1: of the story. She makes sense in the themes of
Speaker 1: the story. Like she she I think she has like
Speaker 1: she has like this weird accent that I don't know
Speaker 1: what it is. I looked her up. She like was
Speaker 1: she's from Florida. It's not like but it gives like
Speaker 1: an off kilter delivery to things that doesn't feel fake
Speaker 1: to me. So you know, I I like her. Up
Speaker 1: with newt Yeah, up with new as far as I'm concerned.
Speaker 1: I was very mad when Alien three killed off her
Speaker 1: and Hicks, And uh that's why in my mind those
Speaker 1: films are not canonical. Nothing is Aliens. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: it was okay, she bugged me a little bit. I
Speaker 1: totally get her function and it did work. You know
Speaker 1: as a function um with the sort of motherhood through
Speaker 1: line that you were talking about. And um, I guess
Speaker 1: you know we needed more than jones E in in
Speaker 1: this one, although we do get Jonesy at the beginning,
Speaker 1: which is great. Yea that And I wondered last night.
Speaker 1: I was like, man, I've had a bunch of fucking cats.
Speaker 1: Why have I never had a cat named jones E?
Speaker 1: What a dumb dumb Yeah, what's your cat's name? Archie?
Speaker 1: Archie that's right, which is actually named after carry Grant
Speaker 1: Archibald Leech. Feel name, very nice, very snotty wave of
Speaker 1: naming a cat. Let's talk about Paul Riser for a second.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, he's great in this movie. Yeah, Like he
Speaker 1: is obviously like weasilely from the start, but in in
Speaker 1: that like he's like treating Ripley with such condescension. He
Speaker 1: keeps like calling your kiddo and whatnot. But like but
Speaker 1: it's still Paul Riser. Are still this like comedy guy,
Speaker 1: you know, and he's showing her enough empathy that the
Speaker 1: first time you see this movie you're like, Okay, well
Speaker 1: he's like a company guy, but like maybe he's actually underside.
Speaker 1: Maybe he's the one person on the company who's not
Speaker 1: like a Sleez. But yeah, but then he like he's
Speaker 1: really revealed as such, I think, a blank eyed monster,
Speaker 1: Like even when he is confronted, he is still sort
Speaker 1: of insisting upon his like empathy and the smartness of
Speaker 1: his play, you know. And it's one of these things
Speaker 1: you always have to accept these movies that like these
Speaker 1: Weakley people are like, no, we can use it as
Speaker 1: a bioweapon. It's fine when you know obviously this thing
Speaker 1: cannot be controlled. But I've seen enough bad stuff happen
Speaker 1: in the world that I'm like, yeah, okay, there are
Speaker 1: people out there just that dumb who are that devoted
Speaker 1: to wanting weapons. It's it's fine, I'll take hell scept that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I kind of believed. Um, I'm not sure how much
Speaker 1: I remembered about what happened to his character. So even
Speaker 1: last night, after twenty years, I found myself saying, like,
Speaker 1: what you're saying, he's a company man, but like he
Speaker 1: does seem to like Ripley, and I think he may
Speaker 1: actually be an ally. Um. I think he walks that
Speaker 1: line very well as as an actor in this and
Speaker 1: it just goes so fully bad there at the end,
Speaker 1: like literally leaves her to die by turning that monitor off.
Speaker 1: Such a like in terms of it being a horror movie,
Speaker 1: like that impregnation scene where he leaves the two face
Speaker 1: augers in for Ripley and Newt like the attempted uh
Speaker 1: incubation thing, I think the scariest part of the movie,
Speaker 1: like with this. I mean it might be partly because
Speaker 1: I think spiders are very creepy, Like the naturalness of
Speaker 1: their construction freaks me out, and so these face huggers
Speaker 1: skittering around trying to like put eggs inside these people
Speaker 1: is terrifying. Yeah, that's it's the worst. Um. That also
Speaker 1: reminds me of that great shot kind of early on
Speaker 1: after you see that face hugger of Sigourney Weaver's hand,
Speaker 1: that close up of her hand and it totally like
Speaker 1: looks like a face hugger has kind of long bony fingers.
Speaker 1: That's great. This movie is good. It's a good movie.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go out on all them say it's a
Speaker 1: good movie. Uh, Lansin Risen, we should talk about him
Speaker 1: for a sect. He's he takes over for I guess
Speaker 1: Ian Holmes android and uh this the whole Alien series
Speaker 1: has always done a really great job with the are
Speaker 1: they called androids? What are they called? In this I
Speaker 1: think he says that he prefers the term synthetic humans exactly.
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, watching it last night, I was struck by
Speaker 1: Bishop makes such a huge impression in the movie, but
Speaker 1: he's not in it all that much. Like he does
Speaker 1: the knife thing at the beginning, and then he's sort
Speaker 1: of like around doing like medical stuff and being mistrusted
Speaker 1: by Ripley since she's had obviously a terrible experience with
Speaker 1: a synthetic person in the last one, and then he
Speaker 1: volunteers to be the one to go and get the
Speaker 1: ship and so like he's taken out the action for
Speaker 1: a huge person and only comes in again at the end,
Speaker 1: and you know he helps new but like he doesn't
Speaker 1: have a big part in the final battle or anything.
Speaker 1: But I think that Hendrickson is so iconic, Like there's
Speaker 1: something about him. He's such a an interesting presence just
Speaker 1: as a human being, and but he's also like so
Speaker 1: good a seeming a little synthetic, but also I feel like,
Speaker 1: you know, I trusted him right away when I first
Speaker 1: saw Alien and knew that like, you know, Ripley was
Speaker 1: wrong to mistrust him because he there's he projects like
Speaker 1: the stalwart attitude in the movie too. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: he's I think I didn't trust him because of the
Speaker 1: first movie. Fully, like I was just sort of where
Speaker 1: Ripley was. Um. But he turns out to be kind
Speaker 1: of one of the heroes of the movie and a
Speaker 1: really pure, um, stand up guy. Uh. And that and
Speaker 1: it really is sort of there's some emotion to it
Speaker 1: when I was watching it last night, when he and
Speaker 1: and it's also a badass when he gets picked up
Speaker 1: and ripped apart so quickly, ripped ripped into two pieces
Speaker 1: by the Queen Mother. But when he's laying there, you know,
Speaker 1: half half laying there, Uh, and he saves new like
Speaker 1: that packs an emotional punch that I don't remember when
Speaker 1: I was, you know, sixteen, probably because I was sixteen. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And as we know, uh, everything after this movie didn't happen,
Speaker 1: and so they took Bishop home and repaired him and
Speaker 1: he's fine. That's right. I have a hard time remembering
Speaker 1: Alien three at all. I Mean, the thing is, it's
Speaker 1: not a bad movie. I mean, it's a David Fincher movie.
Speaker 1: It was famously like passed with a lot they like,
Speaker 1: I did a bunch of stuff to it, and it
Speaker 1: was a chaotic production. I think things were being rewritten
Speaker 1: all the time while it was going. But you know,
Speaker 1: it's hard for someone that talented to make something that's
Speaker 1: a piece of junk. There's there's a lot of like
Speaker 1: very striking imagery and it it just it starts from
Speaker 1: that problem of killing off these characters that were very
Speaker 1: meaningful to people, and then it just gets bleaker from there.
Speaker 1: And you know, if it was if it was his
Speaker 1: own movie, unconnected with Aliens, I would like it a
Speaker 1: lot more. Yeah, yeah, I mean that that last that
Speaker 1: last sequence is so good and like he said, the
Speaker 1: sort of false ending and the one more big you know,
Speaker 1: it's all and that's sort of a horror movie thing too,
Speaker 1: like the Killer's dead, there's one more battle to fight,
Speaker 1: but he doesn't overdo it. It works really well here. Um.
Speaker 1: I know that Jane Cisco famously had a problem with
Speaker 1: this movie, and there than the use of Newt as
Speaker 1: a he thought it was sort of sadistic almost to
Speaker 1: use her as a prop at the end of this movie.
Speaker 1: And I didn't see that at all. I mean to
Speaker 1: me it it worked in the action of the moment,
Speaker 1: which was that that vacuum chamber was open to space
Speaker 1: and things were getting sucked out. Like it all made sense.
Speaker 1: It didn't feel gratuitous to me. I mean, I you know,
Speaker 1: I like I like Ebert a lot more than Cisco,
Speaker 1: for I mean, like Ebert was like a movie aficionado,
Speaker 1: and I think Cisco was more of a guy who
Speaker 1: kind of like was a newspaper guy who got shunted
Speaker 1: into writing about movies and liked them well and was
Speaker 1: a smart guy. But but both of them, I think,
Speaker 1: at least earlier in their careers, kind of felt vict
Speaker 1: him a little bit to kind of moral panic stuff
Speaker 1: at times, which is weird considering, for instance, that like Rachi,
Speaker 1: Ebert wrote Beyond the Valley of the Dolls and such like,
Speaker 1: and he you know, it's he gave like Last House
Speaker 1: on the Left of four star review and that is
Speaker 1: a brutally upsetting movie. Like I don't know, I mean,
Speaker 1: I like Wes Craven's later stuff, but I don't know
Speaker 1: how much I actually like Lest House on the Left.
Speaker 1: But so they were all over the place sometimes with
Speaker 1: that stuff. Well, but Ebert also wasn't afraid to go back,
Speaker 1: like he said earlier and say he got something wrong. Yeah,
Speaker 1: which for a critic, that's sort of a bold move,
Speaker 1: you know. I think, Um, I think a lot of critics,
Speaker 1: we'll we'll die on that hill, even if they know
Speaker 1: they're wrong, just because they think that might whatever put
Speaker 1: a chink in their their armor or something. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: did you ever see his that documentary about him life itself? Yes,
Speaker 1: I saw it, and I also I have the the book, Um,
Speaker 1: both excellent. Yeah. Yeah, because you're an avid reader. Another
Speaker 1: thing that you can't listen to the Flap House and
Speaker 1: not pick up on the fact that you and Elliott
Speaker 1: uh ands too. But you guys are all like film
Speaker 1: junkies and well read, and you know it's it's as
Speaker 1: silly as the show is, it's a smart show. At
Speaker 1: the same time, I appreciate it. It's good that we
Speaker 1: somehow found someplace to put all this stuff. Like like,
Speaker 1: for most people, uh, spending so much time on entertainment
Speaker 1: would be a little bit of a waste, no matter
Speaker 1: how pleasurable it might be. But we've figured out a
Speaker 1: way to roll it into something productive. Totally. Well, you
Speaker 1: got anything else on aliens. I feel like we did
Speaker 1: a pretty good job. I think we actually touched on
Speaker 1: all the sort of the thoughts I had. Well, we're
Speaker 1: watching it, all right, Well we'll finish up with five questions. Then.
Speaker 1: I didn't tell you that we do this, but because
Speaker 1: I like to get a your instinctual answers. But Dan
Speaker 1: and McCoy of The Daily Show, what was the first
Speaker 1: movie you remember seeing in the theater? I think the
Speaker 1: first movie I remember saying is Never Cry Wolf. Oh
Speaker 1: I remember that. Yeah, well you're one of the few.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think it was well received at the time,
Speaker 1: but it's not super well known. But yeah, it's I
Speaker 1: think it's about a guy who went up and lived
Speaker 1: with the wolves and naturalists. Totally remember that movie. Yeah
Speaker 1: was Disney, right, Yeah, I don't remember a lot of
Speaker 1: it because I was so young. I remember that Brian
Speaker 1: and he was in it. I remember that there they
Speaker 1: like deposit him in Alaska from an airplane, and I
Speaker 1: remember that he falls through the ice at one point,
Speaker 1: and I think he eats a mouse at one point.
Speaker 1: That's about it. That's kind of what I remember too.
Speaker 1: I remember the mouse thing for sure. It's so funny.
Speaker 1: What was the first R rated movie you saw. Oh jeez,
Speaker 1: was it? Would that have been a big deal. I mean,
Speaker 1: it might have been this. I don't like, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I I have this memory, like this is not an
Speaker 1: R rated movie. This is PG thirteen aliens think no, no, no,
Speaker 1: the one I mentioned. Sorry, I have a bad habit
Speaker 1: sometimes of starting it's like reversing the order in a
Speaker 1: sentence of things. But no, I remember my brothers and
Speaker 1: they deny this happening, but I remember them like closing
Speaker 1: the curtains and making me watch movies like this and Poltergeist,
Speaker 1: which I think was PG thirteen unless it was before
Speaker 1: or that was a thing. It could have been the
Speaker 1: PG days. But um so they would force these things
Speaker 1: on me, like but this is the probably not the
Speaker 1: right one, but it's the one I remember. Although like,
Speaker 1: I don't know. My parents were very for all that.
Speaker 1: Like my dad was a minister before I was born,
Speaker 1: and my mom was raised by a Methodist minister. They
Speaker 1: weren't really that concerned by the time I was around
Speaker 1: as the youngest, like what was on television? So you know,
Speaker 1: I would walk in and they'd be watching stripes or whatever.
Speaker 1: You know, it would be fine, so no, that's cool.
Speaker 1: I was the youngest too, so uh they still had
Speaker 1: the They still didn't. They weren't super permissive growing up
Speaker 1: Baptist about what I could watch. But by the time
Speaker 1: I sort of cracked that that window opened with Escape
Speaker 1: from New York. After that it was kind of kind
Speaker 1: of all bets are off there, like, yeah, whatever, you've
Speaker 1: seen one. Now you can just see whatever. Uh now
Speaker 1: this Um. I kind of had an issue with Stewart
Speaker 1: on this question too, since you guys do the flophouse.
Speaker 1: But the question is this, do you walk out of
Speaker 1: a bad movie for someone who does a bad movie podcast?
Speaker 1: You know, once I'm at the theater, I basically don't.
Speaker 1: I the one time I can remember walking out a movie,
Speaker 1: it was not because it was bad. It was just
Speaker 1: I was not in the mood. Like I I was
Speaker 1: going to the movie, the Korean horror movie The Eye,
Speaker 1: because I had heard it had good reviews, and it
Speaker 1: was my birthday, and like, honestly, I'm such a movie
Speaker 1: nerd that like that's all I want to do on
Speaker 1: my birthday to celebrate, as go see a movie. And
Speaker 1: I just was in it for half an hour. I'm like,
Speaker 1: you know, what This isn't what I want right now,
Speaker 1: and nothing is forcing me to stay, So let's go. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you know, my apologies to the eye. I'm sure
Speaker 1: you're a good movie, but I wanted right then. I'm
Speaker 1: sure you're a good movie. I uh number four a
Speaker 1: tailored to the guests. So as a comedy writer, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna ask you what movie, Um, you know, let's say
Speaker 1: it's a world where a movie can be co written
Speaker 1: or there's a writer's room for all these films. What
Speaker 1: what movie do you wish you would have been a
Speaker 1: writer for or in that room and coming up with
Speaker 1: the jokes. And I guess it doesn't have to be
Speaker 1: a comedy, but you'll probably say Hitchcock or something. Well, no,
Speaker 1: I mean my I'm torn between two things, and that's
Speaker 1: either a Marx Brothers movie, because I feel like that
Speaker 1: was the earliest, strongest influence on me in terms of
Speaker 1: just finding something hysterically funny when I first uh saw
Speaker 1: Animal Crackers when I was like ten, um, Like, you know,
Speaker 1: one of the first things my family rented on VHS.
Speaker 1: And you know, one of your kids and you have
Speaker 1: an like if you're instilled early, you're not prejudice against
Speaker 1: an old movie, like if if you have to learn
Speaker 1: to not care about that stuff, but um, but I
Speaker 1: watched it was so so funny, and so that would
Speaker 1: be good, although that is also so dependent on the characters,
Speaker 1: which can be like good, Like if you have a
Speaker 1: really strong understanding of character, it is very easy then
Speaker 1: to write jokes in that voice, like if somebody has
Speaker 1: a strong character. I have become over the last few
Speaker 1: years one of the real go to people whenever there's
Speaker 1: a back in Black on the show, one of the
Speaker 1: Lewis Black segments, and his voice is so strong, and
Speaker 1: for whatever reason, being an old, cranky person is something
Speaker 1: I feel into a tune to um, like thanks, I
Speaker 1: you know it it. It is a lot easier for
Speaker 1: me sometimes to write those jokes because I'm like, okay,
Speaker 1: well Louis would think this, and what's the funniest luisy
Speaker 1: way to say it? So, you know, like there's that
Speaker 1: joy of writing for a character. But my other impulse
Speaker 1: is to write for something like Mighty Python of the
Speaker 1: Holy Grail, where you just can throw out the silliest
Speaker 1: stuff that doesn't necessarily have to be connected to one
Speaker 1: character or one plot, just go all over the place
Speaker 1: and this is what you think is funny. Yeah, we're
Speaker 1: putting it in totally. That's good. Um. I always thought
Speaker 1: Blazing Saddles would have been a fun writer showm with
Speaker 1: mel Brooks and Rich and that would a lot of
Speaker 1: fun man, all right. And finally number five, movie going
Speaker 1: one on one, what is your movie going ritual? Where
Speaker 1: do you sit, where do you go? What do you eat? Uh? Well, obviously,
Speaker 1: you know everyone has been talking about this on your show.
Speaker 1: I'm sure it's closed down theaters, but when life was normal,
Speaker 1: I would go to the Alamo draft House in Brooklyn.
Speaker 1: Um had the same answer, Yeah, it is. You know,
Speaker 1: it was so easy to get to from my place.
Speaker 1: You know, it's like twenty minutes by train, like straight shot,
Speaker 1: so it immediately and it's such a much better theater
Speaker 1: experience than almost in together theater I've ever been. And
Speaker 1: that it has gotten to the point that when you know,
Speaker 1: in normal life, when you can go to the theater,
Speaker 1: it was the only one. At a certain point I
Speaker 1: would go to like you wouldn't be there, and I'd
Speaker 1: be like, oh, I guess I'm waiting to see that one.
Speaker 1: But I'm pretty boring in that I you know, like
Speaker 1: a good center seat. I tend to go for row
Speaker 1: four at the Alamo because there's usually a bigger walk
Speaker 1: away in front of you for the servers and such.
Speaker 1: And uh, you know, I'll get there early because I'm
Speaker 1: a nerd and I like to be on time. And
Speaker 1: also they have pre shows, so even though it's reserved,
Speaker 1: I get there early. And uh and I'll probably get
Speaker 1: a drink too, since that's a wonderful thing you can
Speaker 1: do there as well. Yeah, I love it all right, dude.
Speaker 1: Well that's it. Thanks, thank you so much. I feel
Speaker 1: like it's been a long time coming. Yeah. I feel
Speaker 1: like we talked about this a couple of years ago,
Speaker 1: perhaps even I I think so too. But it's good
Speaker 1: that I think that you were able to arrange it
Speaker 1: to stack everyone up and and you know, quarantine, bad
Speaker 1: for everything else, good for podcasting. Yeah, people. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean I think the reason now that I think back
Speaker 1: is that it didn't happen for so long is because
Speaker 1: I like doing these in person and they're just a
Speaker 1: lot better, and so I was waiting for it to
Speaker 1: work out with me in New York. Um, but then
Speaker 1: once all of this ship hit the fan, uh, and
Speaker 1: I started doing these sort of skypes and zooms, thought me,
Speaker 1: you know, this is fine because it's fun for us too.
Speaker 1: We could have a hang for an hour and a
Speaker 1: half and uh, which we all need. Yeah, So anyway,
Speaker 1: this is great and thanks dude, this is awesome. Thank
Speaker 1: you all right everyone. That was a lot of fun
Speaker 1: for me. I had so much fun going back and
Speaker 1: seeing this movie again after so many years. I don't
Speaker 1: know why it kind of fell out of my rotation,
Speaker 1: but it's back in there. Um. It was great talking
Speaker 1: to Dan. Dan as awesome as I'm sure you agree. Now,
Speaker 1: go listen to the Flophouse. It's a great, great show,
Speaker 1: so much fun. Like I said in the show, you
Speaker 1: don't have to even see these bad movies to have
Speaker 1: a good time listening to these dudes. It's just very
Speaker 1: fun and funny and they do each bring something unique
Speaker 1: to their little trio. And uh, they've been around for
Speaker 1: a long time for a very good reason. I'm a
Speaker 1: big time flopper and it's been my comfort food. And
Speaker 1: it was great to talk to Dan for the last
Speaker 1: hour and a half about Aliens. A lot of fun.
Speaker 1: So support Max, Fun, support the Flophouse, Support Dan McCoy
Speaker 1: and The Daily Show, And thanks for listening to you guys,
Speaker 1: and we'll see you next week. Bloomy Crush has produced, edited,
Speaker 1: and engineered by Ramsey Unt. You're in our home studio
Speaker 1: at Pont City Market, Atlanta, Georgia for I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the I
Speaker 1: heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to
Speaker 1: your favorite shows.