Speaker 1: Welcome to Night Call, a production of I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: It's four fourteen am in the heavy Side Layer and
Speaker 1: you're listening tonight Call. Welcome back to Night Call, a
Speaker 1: podcast for your strange days and lonely new decades. Today
Speaker 1: we will be talking about, of course, star Wars and cats.
Speaker 1: Um Emily just got back from Berlin and has a
Speaker 1: hot report for us about the extremely night Collie Museum
Speaker 1: of Things. But first, welcome back everybody. Hi, oh Hello,
Speaker 1: I'm Molly Lambert of course, and with me as always
Speaker 1: our Malayoda and Test Lynch. And today we are joined
Speaker 1: by special guest Alex Pavidimus. Hello Alex, formerly on North
Speaker 1: Mollywood with me. This is now a supergroup podcast. Kicking
Speaker 1: it off right, there's a there's a multiverse of podcasts
Speaker 1: and they all kind of intersect. This is CSN and
Speaker 1: why special Crossover edition. Um. Alex is going to join
Speaker 1: us really to talk about cats and Star Wars, two
Speaker 1: things he has very strong feelings about. But first we're
Speaker 1: gonna start off the year with a night email about
Speaker 1: a spooky fridge. This night email comes to us from Meredith.
Speaker 1: Meredith writes, Hey, night Call, first time caller. I live
Speaker 1: in New York City, and shortly after moving into my
Speaker 1: apartment I realized there was weird writing on my fridge.
Speaker 1: In the beginning, I thought it was a moving related
Speaker 1: stress hallucination or something, but then I realized you can
Speaker 1: only see it fully when the light is hitting the
Speaker 1: steel fridge in the right way, so usually very early
Speaker 1: in the morning. I've tried everything to get it off,
Speaker 1: including having professional cleaners come, but nothing works. The writing
Speaker 1: appears to be notes or poems in all caps. The
Speaker 1: largest words are all alone my own existence written in
Speaker 1: huge letters on the middle of the door. There are
Speaker 1: a number of insults and what appears to be a
Speaker 1: reminder that maintenance people came, and just an assortment of
Speaker 1: words that have no real connection and something about sociology.
Speaker 1: I don't know anything about the guy who lived in
Speaker 1: the apartment before me. I do feel like the fridge
Speaker 1: is kind of a sinister entity in my life, although
Speaker 1: maybe I should be a friended like a ghost who
Speaker 1: means well, thank you, Meredith. This is a real New
Speaker 1: York I mean, like, obviously their apartments are everywhere. You
Speaker 1: have to deal with appliances that have been owned by
Speaker 1: many people in every city, But this feels like specifically,
Speaker 1: like a real New Yorky type situation. I'm trying to
Speaker 1: figure out how this could have happened. Do you think
Speaker 1: that it was that there were like notes stuck to
Speaker 1: the fridge for so long that there was photo damage,
Speaker 1: or like a pen, you know, like a permanent marker
Speaker 1: or something that like like it came through a post
Speaker 1: it note? Or do you think this person wrote directly
Speaker 1: on the fridge. I feel like somebody wrote directly on
Speaker 1: the fridge. I feel like writing all alone my own existence,
Speaker 1: um on your fridge is kind of like a weird
Speaker 1: like shut in thing to do, and then the yeah,
Speaker 1: and then the landlord like scrubbed it down, but you
Speaker 1: you know, obviously couldn't completely break it down, so there's
Speaker 1: sort of a ghost image. I mean that that that's
Speaker 1: that part. I don't really it's hard for me to
Speaker 1: imagine what these other things look like like are they
Speaker 1: are they like done by finger like because I was
Speaker 1: sort of imagining like when you write on um when
Speaker 1: you're with your finger on a fog mirror and then
Speaker 1: the fog clears and you can still see when people
Speaker 1: do that in dust when they're like wash me right, yeah, um,
Speaker 1: I don't know. To me, this sounds like they had
Speaker 1: taped or otherwise placed notes on their fridge and that
Speaker 1: they were all kind of overlapping, because they could have
Speaker 1: had all alone my own existence could be like part
Speaker 1: of a note, and then the maintenance person could have
Speaker 1: been like a sticker in the words that aren't related
Speaker 1: could just be like layers and layers of notes. I
Speaker 1: think you're thinking about this like a sane person. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: it's like I have to keep track of all alone
Speaker 1: my existence, right, Yeah, this seems more like a like
Speaker 1: a punk fridge situation. I have. I have a thought.
Speaker 1: Uh okay, it's a steel fridge, like stainless, like a
Speaker 1: stainless steel fridge, so I'm assuming it's like a smooth surface.
Speaker 1: It's not like the textured sort of plastic sort of
Speaker 1: like a white fridge. I'm imagining somebody probably used their
Speaker 1: fridge as a a wipe off board and they used um,
Speaker 1: white chalkboard paint. You mean, no, with like white boff markers. Um.
Speaker 1: This is You're gonna have to get back to us
Speaker 1: on this, merete, because we're kind of piecing this together
Speaker 1: from your description. But like you know that stuff if
Speaker 1: you leave on a wipe off marker on a board
Speaker 1: for long off, sometimes it doesn't even come off. Like
Speaker 1: if you leave something on a wipe off board for
Speaker 1: a year, sometimes it just doesn't come off anymore. That
Speaker 1: is an interesting point that could be. It also could
Speaker 1: be there people have this like chalkboard paint that I'm
Speaker 1: wondering if they thought they could remove or you can do. Um,
Speaker 1: they have sticky chalkboard paint that's almost like wallpaper, and
Speaker 1: then if they were writing directly on it, it could
Speaker 1: have etched itself into the fridge beneath, or it just
Speaker 1: could be haunted by ghosts. Um. I feel like I'm
Speaker 1: willing to explore some rational options before we go for ghosts.
Speaker 1: But I do think it's like, you know, it's like
Speaker 1: all these things you talk about where it doesn't need
Speaker 1: to be a ghost to feel like a presence, a
Speaker 1: dark presence. It's very like Russian doll. Yeah. Also yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess you don't have to think about that as
Speaker 1: much here at the like eight million people that lived
Speaker 1: in an apartment before you. Yeah, I don't know, like
Speaker 1: people don't think about fridges enough, Like I think people
Speaker 1: think a lot about beds and hotels obviously, and the
Speaker 1: sheets on hotels, but fridges and apartments. But like a
Speaker 1: fridge holds a lot of psychic energy. I feel like,
Speaker 1: well the idea also that she can only see it
Speaker 1: when it's like hit it, the light hits it in
Speaker 1: a certain way. I do think maybe you're right that
Speaker 1: it's like because sometimes you're like a white whiteboard pain
Speaker 1: if you like to leave it on too long leaves,
Speaker 1: that weird snail trail. But just to know that at
Speaker 1: some point in your space, somebody was compelled to write
Speaker 1: all alone my existence while they were in your nice kitchen.
Speaker 1: I mean, it doesn't like you know your kitchen that
Speaker 1: you have tried to make the best stuff. Um like
Speaker 1: somebody has had wild and desperate thoughts in there. That's
Speaker 1: a little bit unsettling. What do you listeners think that
Speaker 1: the spooky fridge have or should do about the spooky fridge? Move?
Speaker 1: They have to move or get a new fridge. And
Speaker 1: that's too now, that's to move, burn it down. You
Speaker 1: can't get a fridge out, everybody. You can't get a fridge.
Speaker 1: You see a lot of fridges on the street, though, yes,
Speaker 1: do you? Yeah, there's one on my street right now
Speaker 1: it's not mine. They also used to be like, don't
Speaker 1: play in the abandoned fridges was a big thing. Wait
Speaker 1: what what that was the thing? Alex means what I'm
Speaker 1: talking about. Maybe it's more a California thing. Don't play
Speaker 1: an abandoned, play in the abandoned anywhere. Stuck in a fridge, yeah,
Speaker 1: you'll shut yourself in. There's all horror stories about like
Speaker 1: that's they have those magnets. I think they make them
Speaker 1: now so they can't do that, so they don't shut
Speaker 1: from the inside. You can get out of them. They
Speaker 1: are haunted though they're like that they leave, they're on
Speaker 1: the front lawn kind of just being haunted a lot
Speaker 1: like toilets. I think they have something in them like
Speaker 1: air conditioners do. Also, so when you see them on
Speaker 1: the street, they've all all died by violence, Like they're
Speaker 1: all busted open because someone's trying to get the valuable,
Speaker 1: Like there's a piece of gold or free on something
Speaker 1: in there that freon hoarders and can you go around
Speaker 1: collecting free on for coins. It's the combustible converter, catalytic converter,
Speaker 1: or whatever it's called. You guys are really like changing
Speaker 1: my perception of refrigerators in a terrible way. I'm like,
Speaker 1: you can get trapped in a refrigera like children playing
Speaker 1: in refrigerators. I had no idea, Meredith, Meredith, please send
Speaker 1: us a picture of this if you can. I really
Speaker 1: want to like I want now, I'm I want to
Speaker 1: know if I'm right about the wipe off board thing.
Speaker 1: So please get back to part is the insults. Sorry,
Speaker 1: I keep I won't let it go. I just keep
Speaker 1: circling back to the bad vibe party house. That sounds
Speaker 1: like a bad vibe party house to me. Maybe it's
Speaker 1: a bad party house, or or what if they what
Speaker 1: if she looks up the person who lived there before
Speaker 1: and it's her. Oh, I just watched Black Swans. I
Speaker 1: watched that on the plane that I passed out on,
Speaker 1: So that explains everything. Yeah, get back to this, Meredith.
Speaker 1: And if you have a night call for us. We
Speaker 1: love getting your night calls in whatever format you prefer.
Speaker 1: Call us or text us at two four oh four
Speaker 1: six night or email us at night call podcast at
Speaker 1: gmail dot com and we'll be back in a moment
Speaker 1: with some tales from the Dark Knights of Berlin. Right
Speaker 1: after this had welcome back, to night call. Emily, you
Speaker 1: just got back from a trip to Berlin where you
Speaker 1: went to one of the most night call places imaginable,
Speaker 1: the Museum of Things. Well, I feel like Berlin in
Speaker 1: general is like one of the most night call places
Speaker 1: right now, like in a very literal sense, and that
Speaker 1: it's like mostly night like all the time. The sun
Speaker 1: came up at like eight or thirty in the morning
Speaker 1: and went down and it was totally dark by four
Speaker 1: every day, so it was a lot of night like.
Speaker 1: We could do what we could do an intro and
Speaker 1: it could be like it's five thirty pm. It was
Speaker 1: the first time I've ever been there in winter actually too,
Speaker 1: so it was a very different experience. But I did
Speaker 1: go to the Museum of Things, which I now kind
Speaker 1: of put in this canon of museums that I don't know.
Speaker 1: I love a good, small, very unique museum, like the
Speaker 1: Museum of Jurassic Technology is kind of, I think, like
Speaker 1: a pinnacle of that kind of a museum where you
Speaker 1: have to kind of figure out what the spaces as
Speaker 1: you're navigating it, like somebody has curated this stuff and
Speaker 1: it makes sense, but you're not going to get it
Speaker 1: at first, And the only way to do it is
Speaker 1: to kind of like actually move through and figure it out. Um.
Speaker 1: It's fun. It's like a mystery dinner or something. Um,
Speaker 1: what are the things in the Museum of Things? So
Speaker 1: the Museum of Things is an archive. It's it's it's
Speaker 1: the archive of the Deutsche RK. Boon's I'm gonna use
Speaker 1: my terrible. I don't know a lick of German. It's amazing,
Speaker 1: I like I I it's one of it's. Any time
Speaker 1: I go to like France or Japan, I kind of
Speaker 1: exhausted because I'm trying to figure out how to speak
Speaker 1: there and I don't know any German at all, so
Speaker 1: I can lay back and let other people do it
Speaker 1: for me. So I don't know any But it's the
Speaker 1: it was this um kind of government uh, I don't know, initiative.
Speaker 1: It predated um about how school and it was just
Speaker 1: this like initiative to create a specifically German idea of
Speaker 1: like design and like what manufactured like consumer goods should
Speaker 1: look like and and graphic design and advertising and stuff
Speaker 1: like that because they wanted to be competitive with the
Speaker 1: other um kind of first of all countries, I guess. Um.
Speaker 1: And it's so it's an archive. It's like it's kind
Speaker 1: of through that lens. But the stuff there is not
Speaker 1: all stuff that was created by the work bone and
Speaker 1: the people who were designers for it. UM. It's kind
Speaker 1: of just like cabinet after cabinet that basically as you
Speaker 1: move through it goes through time, just kind of showing
Speaker 1: you what everyday objects if you lived in Germany and
Speaker 1: both East and West Germany, UH looked like as you
Speaker 1: went through time, are you going backwards in time? Or
Speaker 1: because it started in um I think nineteen o seven, Yeah,
Speaker 1: nineteen o seven, I think, or nineteen o nine, UM,
Speaker 1: so it starts about there and gives a lot of
Speaker 1: examples of like the kind of objects and consumer goods
Speaker 1: that they thought were trash and we're very vocally UM
Speaker 1: critical of. And it's just like it's like a spoon
Speaker 1: or like a picture frame that then like somebody at
Speaker 1: the like set aside and it's like bad, this is
Speaker 1: a picture frame, UM. And then I mean so and
Speaker 1: then they have a lot of stuff that was like
Speaker 1: so one of the things that's like the very signature
Speaker 1: UM look that came out of this organization with sort
Speaker 1: of those the very UM abstract sprayed on designs or
Speaker 1: like they look very Eastern block that kind of the
Speaker 1: plates with the yeah, yeah yeah. If you're a subscribed
Speaker 1: to our newsletter, you can see some pictures from there.
Speaker 1: Also you can just like google the plates with the
Speaker 1: ants where the geometric pattern. Yeah, they looked like yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean kind of like Germany meets like New York
Speaker 1: loft of the primary color kind of rectangles. It's that
Speaker 1: super kind of like Soviet look of just and it's
Speaker 1: like non. The idea is that like you don't want
Speaker 1: anything figural in it. You're like kind of just you're
Speaker 1: trying to do something decorative without being decorative boring. I
Speaker 1: mean a lot of it is quite pretty. I think
Speaker 1: like a lot of it looks, but how much of
Speaker 1: the kits did you like where you like, Oh, I
Speaker 1: like the bad stuff. I mean I like the bad
Speaker 1: stuff too, But then it gets really I mean it's
Speaker 1: it's the old bad stuff is funny because you're just like, oh,
Speaker 1: like they abhorred this chintzy like figure of the Virgin
Speaker 1: Mary or whatever, like stuff like like a lot of
Speaker 1: religious objects are in the bad section. But then um,
Speaker 1: as it goes forward and you get closer to the
Speaker 1: present day and you're like looking at like iPod nanos
Speaker 1: and what were some of the other things, just like
Speaker 1: like dumb toys for kids, like you know that was
Speaker 1: kind of like cardboard with the plastic on top, like
Speaker 1: that kind of design of packaging, um that sort of
Speaker 1: glued on like all these you know a lot of
Speaker 1: it from like the eighties nineties and oh's You're just like, man,
Speaker 1: we like make so much crap, like and it's interesting
Speaker 1: to see it. Like a museum is good for that,
Speaker 1: Like you can really contextualize like something that you don't
Speaker 1: think about in the every day when it's in behind
Speaker 1: a cabinet and with a placard over it and you're
Speaker 1: looking at a iPod nano from two thousand five or whatever,
Speaker 1: You're like, uh, it's like the museum. And um, do
Speaker 1: you ever see the really bad time Machine movie from
Speaker 1: like two thousand two or something Guy Pierce one? Yeah,
Speaker 1: un original like a billion love. Um I saw I
Speaker 1: saw that. I just remember that. Samantha iconic Irish pop
Speaker 1: star Samantha Mumbo isn't um the time Machine the End
Speaker 1: Orlando Jones, but Orlando Jones and it is um He's
Speaker 1: like the holographic. UM. I guess like docent at the
Speaker 1: museum of like a history museum there and they just
Speaker 1: have like stuff from today, and it's sort of like, oh,
Speaker 1: why is this where the time machine is? UM, I
Speaker 1: can't remember it would make sense, was it or does
Speaker 1: he build it at home as in the original? No,
Speaker 1: I think he goes to the future and the museum
Speaker 1: is there in the future and everybody has died, but
Speaker 1: the museum is still there anyway. But like, I don't know,
Speaker 1: I like that kind of like I like it's it's
Speaker 1: it's a it's a really interesting place to think about.
Speaker 1: I have two questions. One of them is that you
Speaker 1: shared a picture that's in our newsletter of you knew
Speaker 1: I was gonna as this. There's a t set, a
Speaker 1: white porcelain looking t set with very realistic ants painted
Speaker 1: onto it that I that gave me a nightmare. It's
Speaker 1: a horrible nightmare. No, I mean, it didn't give me
Speaker 1: a nightmare, but it made me supremely uncomfortable, and I
Speaker 1: knew I had to share it with you as soon
Speaker 1: as when is that from? UM? That was that seems
Speaker 1: I think that was like in the fifties or sixties
Speaker 1: and that was good. I think it was bad. I
Speaker 1: think it wasn't it was good. It's good chaotic for UM.
Speaker 1: And then the other thing there was a there was
Speaker 1: a laptop with like a cutout picture of a boy.
Speaker 1: What was going on there that all the electronics they
Speaker 1: had these little like pictures that seemed to be cut
Speaker 1: out of magazines at the time, like children's magazines at
Speaker 1: the time of like kids doing cartwheels and stuff on them.
Speaker 1: It was so weird. It was like very weird laptop
Speaker 1: arranged with a little cut out boy, but it really
Speaker 1: kind of crudely cut out, so he was just kind
Speaker 1: of like that was purely that was purely an act
Speaker 1: of like expression on the part of whoever put that together.
Speaker 1: I just municipal art trying to make it slightly. It
Speaker 1: seemed so wrong for a museum, which made it seem
Speaker 1: so right for this musing UM. But I highly erect
Speaker 1: amend the museum. If you ever find yourself in Berlin,
Speaker 1: it's um. It's you know, it's it's an hour or
Speaker 1: two uh and and super interesting. You learn a lot
Speaker 1: and you think a lot about trash and pre trash. UM.
Speaker 1: I just went to the Librea Tar Pits for the
Speaker 1: first time in a while because they're threatening to redevelop it,
Speaker 1: which they should not do. Part of the remodel. It's
Speaker 1: part of the never ending fiasco that is the Miracle
Speaker 1: Mile overhaul. Uh. They're building a death Star Hollywood museum,
Speaker 1: which we'll talk more about death Stars shortly. Well, there's
Speaker 1: also the Lucas that's the death Star. It's literally in
Speaker 1: the shape of a death star. It's very bad. But
Speaker 1: the Libreria Tar Pits is like a seventies, late seventies,
Speaker 1: early eighties museum. It's super weird. I love it so much.
Speaker 1: Um there are no dinosaurs. It is only giant sloths,
Speaker 1: giant bear type things, California native sper fauna. I was
Speaker 1: so disappointed when I first went to the Libria tar Pets.
Speaker 1: Now it's fine, But when I was a kid, I
Speaker 1: came out here and my parents were like taking you
Speaker 1: to the tar pits and I was like, what is
Speaker 1: that and they were like, it's you know, there used
Speaker 1: to be like tar underground and they were all of
Speaker 1: these animals in the tar and I was like, great,
Speaker 1: like a zoo, but they're like tar and they're like, no,
Speaker 1: there's sculptures of animals in tar and they're just like,
Speaker 1: this is scary. It's so scary. I'm not sure how
Speaker 1: to interact and elephant. Yeah, especially when you're a kid
Speaker 1: and you're like, oh, that kid is watching one of
Speaker 1: its parents die forever. It's like it's the scene from
Speaker 1: Never Ending Story. An impact that certainly does. Certainly the
Speaker 1: Great Museum, and it's just like a little weird loop.
Speaker 1: It's got a great gift shop also, and a weird
Speaker 1: hill you can roll down that kids love to do.
Speaker 1: I've never I've never been to the museum. There's the
Speaker 1: part where they explain why it exists, and that's just
Speaker 1: as weird as anything, where they're just like, somebody owned
Speaker 1: this big plot of land with a huge, bubbling tar
Speaker 1: pit in it, and it's like developed many times, like
Speaker 1: it belongs to a lot of different people, but they
Speaker 1: all are like, this is the historical feature. We must
Speaker 1: leave it intact. Didn't you say at some point, Molly,
Speaker 1: that there were tar pits under the Beverly Center or
Speaker 1: did I make that up? There's a center and stuff
Speaker 1: underneath the whole the whole city. They were finding. They
Speaker 1: found some mammoths when they were doing the subway. Recently
Speaker 1: they found some more more mammoths. Makes you think about
Speaker 1: what could happen to all of us. Yeah, there was
Speaker 1: in the subject of things that are underground in Los Angeles,
Speaker 1: when I was in college, there was once a um
Speaker 1: hesitate to call it a bomb scare, but it was
Speaker 1: this like we had to abandon the campus for afternoon
Speaker 1: because they found like old World War two nuclear like
Speaker 1: or not new. They just like bombs. They I think
Speaker 1: they were worried that they were a new glare, but
Speaker 1: they were just like by accident. They were just like
Speaker 1: that because they were doing construction work down where all
Speaker 1: those condos and stuff are now and this l no,
Speaker 1: this is at Loyola Mary And and yeah, somebody just
Speaker 1: stashed those there. So you never know what you'll find
Speaker 1: if you go digging in Los Angeles. Tess, what's the
Speaker 1: weirdest museum you've ever been to? That's a good question.
Speaker 1: I have a tendency to go to museums and then
Speaker 1: just like erase the whole experience from my mind to
Speaker 1: leave room for new museums. I did go to a
Speaker 1: weird museum in It was a long long time ago.
Speaker 1: I was visiting a friend in Munich and we went
Speaker 1: to Austria and I tried to google it right before
Speaker 1: I came here to do this podcast, because I was like,
Speaker 1: what is it called? What is it called? And I
Speaker 1: cannot find it for the life of me. I was
Speaker 1: a kid and with her family, so I had no
Speaker 1: and I'd never been to Germany, so I had no
Speaker 1: idea where I was or what I was doing. But um,
Speaker 1: it had like a lot of jars of oddities, preserved oddities.
Speaker 1: And then I remember that I did go to the
Speaker 1: Bunny Museum once, um, which I think we've talked about
Speaker 1: on this podcast. Another hidden memory of museums. I don't
Speaker 1: think I even know that you went to the Yeah,
Speaker 1: this really like it's creepy, it's good, chaotic, good, had
Speaker 1: it good. It's a woman's collection of a billion stuffed
Speaker 1: animals and like bunny statues and things. If you would
Speaker 1: like to really go down a hole on YELP, that's
Speaker 1: a good I'm gonna I'm gonna say, Emily would love it.
Speaker 1: They're they're conflicting reports of it's like by Santa Barbara right. No,
Speaker 1: it moved. It was in Pasadena in her house and
Speaker 1: then she moved it into a space. I heard Alex,
Speaker 1: did you maybe go there recently? I have not actually
Speaker 1: been there, but I've contemplated it because a delightful thing
Speaker 1: for a small child. But then I've been like, is
Speaker 1: this going to be delightful? I heard from yelp that
Speaker 1: it's not to be done with a small children. Also,
Speaker 1: I think she's grumpy. Well, she's like she's she's an
Speaker 1: eccentric person. But it's like the perfect like woman from
Speaker 1: a David Lynch movie, like showing you funny. She shows
Speaker 1: you her bunnies. There's like a it just looks like
Speaker 1: a Mike Kelly photo. It's just like a room with
Speaker 1: like a million bunny stuffed animals, like stuffed into every crevice.
Speaker 1: And then she takes you outside to the bunny graveyard
Speaker 1: where the bunnies that have passed are um, and then
Speaker 1: she tries to sell you her book about the apocalypse.
Speaker 1: Does it smell like some of the Mike Kelly stuff
Speaker 1: smells like like like, I'll be the one to say yes,
Speaker 1: but maybe I haven't been there recently. She moved into
Speaker 1: a space now and we should all go Okay, maybe, um,
Speaker 1: that's a weird museum. And obviously in the Museum of
Speaker 1: Drastic Technology is a favorite of all of ours, although
Speaker 1: I'll be the one to also say that museum has
Speaker 1: a funny smell as well. Oh yeah, I mean all
Speaker 1: museums does a little sulfury or something. Yeah, well there's
Speaker 1: the there's the little outdoor area that's a very bird smell,
Speaker 1: aggressively bird smell, and then yeah, inside there's kind it's
Speaker 1: kind of a sulfury. I went there. The most recent
Speaker 1: time I went there was maybe four years ago, um
Speaker 1: and I believe or maybe maybe it was five years
Speaker 1: ago and I was pregnant. Yeah, that's why you had
Speaker 1: birds smell a thing that you think, Yeah, it is
Speaker 1: a thing, I swear. Yeah. I prefer all the weird
Speaker 1: cluttered stuff too, you know, minimalist gallery, white wall stuff,
Speaker 1: two point two point enjoy it all. I enjoy it all.
Speaker 1: My favorite museum and in Berlin has just got like
Speaker 1: two things in it. It's the Programmam museum. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's got a lot of stuff in it, but it's
Speaker 1: like built around two giant things and you just go
Speaker 1: and you see the things and you leave. It's great.
Speaker 1: I went to a weird mushroom museum also, Yeah, what
Speaker 1: was Pennsylvania. Um, we were in Philadelphia, me and my family,
Speaker 1: and we went to a botanical guarden in in the
Speaker 1: bourb somewhere, and on the way we stopped at this
Speaker 1: like just because my parents were into all kinds of
Speaker 1: like you know, weird roadside attraction type stuff. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: it was a weird. It was like just about mushrooms.
Speaker 1: It was just psychedelic or edible or inedible or just edible,
Speaker 1: like a mushroom farm being like the history of mushrooms
Speaker 1: and people. Yeah, and just like here's all the different kinds.
Speaker 1: I love museums like that, but focus ye, yeah, about
Speaker 1: like one thing, Alex. Do you have a favorite museum?
Speaker 1: I do? I mean in this in this category. I
Speaker 1: have many favorite museums. But the Grant Museum in London
Speaker 1: where you can it's in like the it's one of
Speaker 1: the university districts. It's in like one of those college buildings,
Speaker 1: and it's like a weird zoological museum with like it's
Speaker 1: really small and packed with all of these specimens like
Speaker 1: preserved in like old school ways, like we're talking like that,
Speaker 1: like a like just a jar of moles. Yeah, Like
Speaker 1: the in Philadelphia. I haven't been there, but there's the
Speaker 1: Motor Museum. Yeah, I don't. I can't do any love
Speaker 1: that stuff. That seems to me also like European museums, like, oh,
Speaker 1: we've just got like a billion ancient things in jars
Speaker 1: that we stole. Oh, there's definitely like Man in the
Speaker 1: Closet that stuff in the basement at the l a
Speaker 1: Natural History Museum, which is also a good weird museum. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I have always a little let down by the LA.
Speaker 1: It's not the New York Natural History even been to
Speaker 1: the New York Natural What are you doing with your life, Emily,
Speaker 1: it's amazing that the whale seems overrated. You don't know,
Speaker 1: you haven't been like everything in New York. It's like
Speaker 1: everybody has made their impression of it. And I lived
Speaker 1: in New York for that many years, and you never
Speaker 1: went to the Natural History Museum. That's like the only
Speaker 1: thing that is fun to do there. I went to
Speaker 1: the Met like four times, and I went to Sorry,
Speaker 1: if we go to New York to do a live show,
Speaker 1: we're going to the Natural History for sure. I haven't
Speaker 1: been there forever. You can't even do it in a day.
Speaker 1: It's true. It's like Disneyland for nerves. I actually really
Speaker 1: love the Ellie Natural History Museum stand for that, and
Speaker 1: I love the Science Center. The Science Center is great
Speaker 1: because it's also free free. I love a science center.
Speaker 1: I always love us a whole weird Exposition Park Plaza
Speaker 1: super Haunted for sure. Definitely maybe some nukes under the
Speaker 1: Natural History Museum there. Check it out. If you have
Speaker 1: nukes in your back. Give us a night call. I
Speaker 1: went to four oh four six night. We're going to
Speaker 1: take a quick break and come back with another night
Speaker 1: call or night email. I suppose hello, welcome back. We
Speaker 1: have a night email from Christina high night call. I
Speaker 1: was so thrilled with Karina's Song of the South episode.
Speaker 1: I'm loving the new season of her show. And I
Speaker 1: have long had a love hate relationship with Splash Mountain
Speaker 1: as a so Cal native, I remember the whole thing
Speaker 1: with the America Sings accident and the recycled animatronic animals,
Speaker 1: and it's never sat right with me. Did you guys
Speaker 1: know the robots and the Star tours Que are also
Speaker 1: recycled geese from America Sings. You can tell by their
Speaker 1: webbed feet. Anyway, my point, there are a few things
Speaker 1: I love more than a homegrown, off brand theme park,
Speaker 1: and there are too many in this country to ever
Speaker 1: have time to visit. When I can't sleep, I love
Speaker 1: discovering ride through videos of all the crazy dark rides
Speaker 1: in random parks I'll never go to, such as Garfield's
Speaker 1: Nightmare in kenny Wood, Pennsylvania. This is how I discovered
Speaker 1: that Splash Mountain was actually patterned after a deeply weird
Speaker 1: log ride in six Flags, Georgia based on the Uncle
Speaker 1: Remus stories called Tales from the Oh There we Go Swamp,
Speaker 1: which still sort of exists today as Monster Mansion. This
Speaker 1: video makes me feel like I am losing my mind.
Speaker 1: I don't know how to explain any of this, so
Speaker 1: I won't try. Also, I highly recommend you plan a
Speaker 1: night called trip to Epcot before Disney ruins it and
Speaker 1: turns it into an ip drenched build a bear for alcoholics.
Speaker 1: I'm obsessed with Epcot because it crystallizes the exact moment
Speaker 1: in the eighties before we stopped being able to visualize
Speaker 1: the future by for now Christina, Christina, what a great
Speaker 1: email email, very very good night email, vivid prose show. Well,
Speaker 1: do you guys have a favorite tiny theme park? Or
Speaker 1: one that you grew up in. Maybe uh. I used
Speaker 1: to go to the Ghosten Fair, but I don't think
Speaker 1: that counts, which is like an agriculture fair, but it
Speaker 1: had some dinky rise. I've always learned to go to
Speaker 1: an agricultural fair. Oh. I milk the cow. I drank
Speaker 1: the cream. It was the whole, the whole thing. Yeause
Speaker 1: the hogs. I went every year. Friend of Night call
Speaker 1: It's the Brandy on Twitter posted about the minute Minnesota
Speaker 1: State Fair. I think it was our friend Ka would
Speaker 1: often talk about the minute. It seemed unbelievable, like very
Speaker 1: much up our Alley two because she was in a
Speaker 1: seed art crop art competition where you make seed art,
Speaker 1: and it was yeah, just like people making seed art
Speaker 1: of current events and things. I love a state fair.
Speaker 1: I love a state fair for that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: I was a frequent um entrent into there was a
Speaker 1: state fair. It wasn't a state fair, but it basically
Speaker 1: with a state fair in Washington that had a huge
Speaker 1: Lego competition, and I was always entering that. I went
Speaker 1: to Lego Land and really liked it. Oh yeah, I
Speaker 1: liked like well, Lego Land. Lego Lands. Now I think
Speaker 1: it's like yeah, it's for babies, but it's good. I mean,
Speaker 1: I've never been miniatures. There used to be a miniature
Speaker 1: museum to bring it back to museums. Um in l A.
Speaker 1: That was really good. Um, well, you went to maybe
Speaker 1: the opposite of I went to any home Grown. I
Speaker 1: went to Galaxy's Edge. And we talked about it last week,
Speaker 1: and then we got a response from another friend of
Speaker 1: the podcast podcast The Ride, the podcast about theme park rides. Um.
Speaker 1: One of those dudes wrote us on Twitter to say
Speaker 1: that the reason that Star Wars Galaxy's Edge is so
Speaker 1: jankie and dystopian feeling. Is they ran out of money,
Speaker 1: isn't jankie and dystopian feeling? Yes? Oh yeah, I forgot.
Speaker 1: You weren't here for this. The Cantina Emily, they only
Speaker 1: have a charcouterie plate and it's only like one. It's
Speaker 1: like a green piece of It's so weird. All of
Speaker 1: the choices they made are so weird. And and Johnny,
Speaker 1: my boyfriend, said it sounded like Inner Zone from Naked Lunch.
Speaker 1: And then last night I watched Total Recall and I
Speaker 1: was like, oh my god, it's just like Total Recall.
Speaker 1: That is what. And I could enjoy it again, because
Speaker 1: but do kids who are going there care about the
Speaker 1: charcouterie plate or they care about like paying two hundred
Speaker 1: dollars for it's not four kids in any way, so weird.
Speaker 1: It's like they made the weirdest choices and they started
Speaker 1: developing it around the time of Solo, so it's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's the weird thing to me that I've about it
Speaker 1: is that it's not really that based on the classic trilogy,
Speaker 1: which feels like a huge it's a huge misstep. And
Speaker 1: then they sell only just like the weirdest dolls and
Speaker 1: the weirdest things. Molly had a picture of one that
Speaker 1: was like a rubber octopus with a hole in its Yeah,
Speaker 1: you would love it. You would love it. And the
Speaker 1: animatronics are just super like the choices made are super weird.
Speaker 1: But apparently they ran out of money for the project.
Speaker 1: They over that seems they went over budget. They wanted
Speaker 1: to open it in time for the Star Wars. See
Speaker 1: the Walt Disney Company ran out of money Star Wars.
Speaker 1: Disney more than you would think. They want us to
Speaker 1: think that that can't happen. But there was a thing
Speaker 1: like two years last year's about um someone who said
Speaker 1: they were juking the stats with the theme park stuff
Speaker 1: to try and make the company look even more profitable,
Speaker 1: and then they felled the whistle fire the whistleblower. It's
Speaker 1: just like succession and parks and cruises is always where
Speaker 1: the skeletons are. That's true. Well, um, this continues to
Speaker 1: be a Star Wars podcast um for how many weeks
Speaker 1: now because we have a good street going. It's off
Speaker 1: and on for the past two months. I would say
Speaker 1: there was the anticipation phase. Yeah, yeah, and we we
Speaker 1: had like our whole baby Yoda um appetizer, not a
Speaker 1: baby Yoda in sight at Star Wars Land. Isn't that
Speaker 1: so weird? That's the only thing that makes me think,
Speaker 1: like are they stupid? Are stupid? That's what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: They don't know what they're doing. They want us to
Speaker 1: think they always know what they're doing, but they don't.
Speaker 1: Tiki Taki, it's Poppydemus, Welcome back to night Call for
Speaker 1: the Star Wars cats a palloza. You're allowed to talk now.
Speaker 1: There were two most important to do, most important releases
Speaker 1: of the holiday season that we haven't been able to
Speaker 1: talk about yet. We can start with Star Wars, which
Speaker 1: you all saw. Can you believe it? You say, that's
Speaker 1: so cute. Definitely saw Star Wars. Um Alex, what did
Speaker 1: you think about Tross? I saw it first of all,
Speaker 1: what's what does the refrigerator say? All alone by myself,
Speaker 1: dead Center. I did everything I could to make myself
Speaker 1: like it and to make myself have a feeling. While
Speaker 1: I was watching it, I said, like dead Center and
Speaker 1: Dome and arc Light, you know opening day really you
Speaker 1: know excited. Uh, it hurts just to see a bad
Speaker 1: Star Wars still. I mean I hate to be, you know,
Speaker 1: for two year old white guy born in the seventies,
Speaker 1: but like it does mean something to me, and it
Speaker 1: means something to me when it's bad. And I was
Speaker 1: just you know, there were people on either side of
Speaker 1: me like cheering, and I was really I think bumming me. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was full, I was packed. So they are all
Speaker 1: these people, like all these dudes on either side of
Speaker 1: it just like really getting into it and like laughing
Speaker 1: at the jokes. And I was like, come on, man,
Speaker 1: this was on opening day. Yeah, just I'm just sitting
Speaker 1: there just like just just calm book guy. You're the best,
Speaker 1: the best Comic book Guy Piece of the Year. Also
Speaker 1: about um, Marvel and Scorsese and all those things that
Speaker 1: I thought was really good. I was like, this is
Speaker 1: who I wanted to hear from about this, And you
Speaker 1: said all the things Star Wars. Maybe want to pitch
Speaker 1: a follow up like during the Holidays, which I would
Speaker 1: never do ordinarily. Well, there's an interesting thing, Like, it's
Speaker 1: an interesting thing to compare it to, especially them both
Speaker 1: being like Disney properties. Is that I think that Marvel,
Speaker 1: especially among film twitter types, gets a lot of fun,
Speaker 1: and I guess like DC to it at the extent
Speaker 1: now that Joker has been out, but gets a lot
Speaker 1: of flat for like, Oh, you're just trying to like
Speaker 1: imitate other genres of actual movies. I say actual with
Speaker 1: heavy scare quotes that I will get added about, I'm sure,
Speaker 1: but um, but Star Wars is like the opposite, and
Speaker 1: that the only thing it's ever going to quote is itself. Um,
Speaker 1: it's like like either not nobody's maybe maybe down the
Speaker 1: line if they truly do a zillion Star Wars movies,
Speaker 1: like everybody was afraid they were going to do a
Speaker 1: few years ago. I don't think that's going to be
Speaker 1: the case. Anymore. But um, but like, maybe we'll get
Speaker 1: the Martin Squirtasey Star Wars movie. I'm actually kind of
Speaker 1: curious what that would look like. But in general, that's
Speaker 1: not the problem that they have. I thought that was
Speaker 1: what they were trying to do with Solo and nobody
Speaker 1: wanted it. It turns out, Oh, if they were trying
Speaker 1: to do that, then that was like the gritty seventies,
Speaker 1: like Star Wars attempt to be like, hey, remember the
Speaker 1: thing you liked about this? But they're all like that,
Speaker 1: and then they I feel like maybe they start out
Speaker 1: as that, and then they eventually just revert back to
Speaker 1: type like it just reverts back to eating its own
Speaker 1: waste and kind of just ingesting and kind of you know,
Speaker 1: here's the thing that exactly, here's the thing you like
Speaker 1: kind of we moved the pieces around. What is the
Speaker 1: thing that you like about it? About Star Wars in general?
Speaker 1: Or Umm, I think it is a fun world. I
Speaker 1: think it it feels very expansive. It feels endlessly like
Speaker 1: you can make up new stuff within it, and it's
Speaker 1: fun to think about stuff that feels like Star Wars
Speaker 1: and doesn't feel like stars or actors who feel like
Speaker 1: Star Wars like like um, Richard E. Grant showing up
Speaker 1: in in Return to Skywalkers, like a yes, A Star
Speaker 1: Wars was really so every yeah, and and and stay
Speaker 1: with like Ben Mendelssohn in in Rogue one. I'm just
Speaker 1: like yeah, like like I will also just like just
Speaker 1: like I will you know Ben Medelssohn and anything like
Speaker 1: Princess Leia right now because you have your headphones on
Speaker 1: and they look like, well we all look like but yeah,
Speaker 1: I think like I, um, I don't know. I mean,
Speaker 1: it is a lot of it is nostalgia. I watched
Speaker 1: it for the first time when I was like seven.
Speaker 1: It's very impossible for me to be have any kind
Speaker 1: of critical distance at this point. And I do feel
Speaker 1: like I'm probably like in for life with all Star
Speaker 1: Wars things, no matter how bad it gets. It's just
Speaker 1: sort of a burden that I will bear from my life.
Speaker 1: But I do genuinely like parts of the new movie,
Speaker 1: and those parts that I like, it's because like that's
Speaker 1: good Star Wars. Like I think that Ray is like
Speaker 1: a good Star Wars character, like kind of screwed up
Speaker 1: some stuff in this last one, but I think in
Speaker 1: general it's and it's like a fun it's just like
Speaker 1: a fun, kind of simple comic bookie type character. Oh.
Speaker 1: I was like, okay, maybe I do like Star Wars
Speaker 1: because of the first Star Wars movie I've seen. Bob
Speaker 1: is a great Star Wars like pre most Star Wars,
Speaker 1: and it's like, really it really shines in that movie
Speaker 1: because it's like, oh, but this is what I'm here for.
Speaker 1: Phrase like a little critter that looks like flight in
Speaker 1: the Navigator or something like he's made of all thumbs. Yeah,
Speaker 1: everything in Star Wars Land looks like something out of
Speaker 1: Oar and I marriage had his puppet movies. Yeah, fantasies.
Speaker 1: It's fun. That stuff is fun. And the e walks,
Speaker 1: the walks are good. Were there any uh? There's the
Speaker 1: walks and we're turning to very brief, very brief you us,
Speaker 1: but they are there. They go to endoor, but not
Speaker 1: before a smoon of endor. Whether he walks. I wish
Speaker 1: the Star Wars Park was endoor or like any of
Speaker 1: the places that I would want to go in Star
Speaker 1: Wars and the Redwoods. Well true, and you're right, I
Speaker 1: don't have to pay to go there. You're making some
Speaker 1: very good points. We we live in, Um, well, we
Speaker 1: kind of basically live in Star Wars because it was
Speaker 1: all a lot of it was shot around here. Um, Alex,
Speaker 1: what was your biggest complaint or is it impossible to choose?
Speaker 1: I don't know if it's even like a complaint, it's
Speaker 1: it's it's it's more just that it seems like it's
Speaker 1: such a missed opportunity. Like I watched the first like
Speaker 1: what you watch Force Awakens and you're like, okay. So
Speaker 1: they had to sort of this was a very hard
Speaker 1: needle to thread because they had to make a bunch
Speaker 1: of new things for kids to be excited about, and
Speaker 1: they had to give people the thing that they wanted,
Speaker 1: you know who'd been in you know, sort of the
Speaker 1: old people like me who were like, we're the best
Speaker 1: thing about Star Wars is being five like and so
Speaker 1: both of those things had to happen simultaneously. And I
Speaker 1: was like okay, Like j J did that and like,
Speaker 1: now okay, now we can have a last Jedi that's
Speaker 1: going to sort of maybe go in a different direction.
Speaker 1: And this one was like no, no, no, We're bringing
Speaker 1: it all back home and like it's going to be
Speaker 1: all the things that you like, and it just sort
Speaker 1: of felt like, I mean I used this metaphor too
Speaker 1: much in things, but it felt like, you know, you
Speaker 1: like Star Wars, like here you smoke, it's like all
Speaker 1: the Star Wars things and so anything that is because
Speaker 1: there are things in there that are good Star Wars,
Speaker 1: like Boba freakus one. I like the little lamp robot. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was the best. Excuse me, thank you? Yeah, the
Speaker 1: little Oh he was so cute. I love to He
Speaker 1: looked like a little megaphone on wheels. But he didn't
Speaker 1: like to be talking like he had been like when
Speaker 1: you were gone. This week we were talking about the
Speaker 1: little robot, the waiter robot at the airport l a X,
Speaker 1: you know, talking about the one that's like please come in.
Speaker 1: It's just like that. It's like a little service robot
Speaker 1: and it makes you sad. It looks a little bit
Speaker 1: like C three b O, but it's smaller and why
Speaker 1: eight And she's outside a restaurant. She's like, welcome to
Speaker 1: the restaurant. How can really? Yeah, and you can talk
Speaker 1: to her, but people are mean to her, and so
Speaker 1: you're gonna look in bad behavior. Yeah, you'll you see
Speaker 1: people like you know, just sort of like egging her on,
Speaker 1: and she just kind of like keeps trying her. It
Speaker 1: makes me like, like talking about it, we talked about
Speaker 1: it last week and don't ever talk about it again. Well,
Speaker 1: I think, Okay, I'm gonna I'm gonna get because I
Speaker 1: have no outlet for these sorts of things. And it
Speaker 1: was like very loth to go on Twitter and talk
Speaker 1: about Star Wars, especially when I was on vacation. That
Speaker 1: just sounded like something I didn't want to go, like
Speaker 1: a path I did not want to go down. But
Speaker 1: I think that a problem that became very apparent in
Speaker 1: this movie was that, like we only know how to
Speaker 1: do heroes journeys now in these movies, like that's it.
Speaker 1: There's no other kind of character art that anybody can have.
Speaker 1: And this was the problem with Solo. And so I think, like,
Speaker 1: if this new trilogy whatever you want to call it,
Speaker 1: is about Ray, then cool, like pretty good story. I
Speaker 1: don't even care that she's like Palpatine's granddaughter or whatever
Speaker 1: means stupid, but like, I don't know, I think like
Speaker 1: it it holds up. I think the whole like kind
Speaker 1: of arc that she goes through holds up is like
Speaker 1: a pretty strong story it's just like they did not
Speaker 1: know what to do with anybody else in those movies,
Speaker 1: Like and the fun thing about Original Trilogy Star Wars
Speaker 1: is that you've got this main kid who has to
Speaker 1: go through transformation and going on, and you have his
Speaker 1: heroes journey or whatever. But it's like you also have
Speaker 1: two other interesting people who were there. Um, that's the
Speaker 1: only reason it's good, right, Fisher and Harrison for the Yeah,
Speaker 1: and they and they and there's something to follow there
Speaker 1: and they kind of play off of each other and
Speaker 1: the and the dynamic is different from movie to movie,
Speaker 1: and but they're like it feels of a piece and
Speaker 1: this is just like it's about Ray discovering she has
Speaker 1: the Force, and then two other guys who like each other.
Speaker 1: I don't know, it's just I also loved Oscar Isaac
Speaker 1: just being like they should have made us gay, Like
Speaker 1: he has been doing the best press tour about it,
Speaker 1: just being like, yeah, yeah, I just wish they'd just
Speaker 1: done it. Yeah. It's weird though, because I feel like
Speaker 1: on both sides there's this level of investment. There's the
Speaker 1: people who hate that it's about that you know that
Speaker 1: it's about a woman, and that you know that's sort
Speaker 1: of that there's like black characters now, and that the
Speaker 1: people who thinks two woke. There's that side of it,
Speaker 1: and then there's the people who are super invested in
Speaker 1: like I want Finn and Poe to be in love
Speaker 1: with each other and I want that to happen, and
Speaker 1: like we need more better representation in these movies. And
Speaker 1: it's like I feel like both of those people are
Speaker 1: responding to this incredible lack of there there there's nothing
Speaker 1: on either side except that potential for something representational to
Speaker 1: happen because there's no character stuff whatsoever about anything. It's
Speaker 1: like Finn is like the word. It's like that seems
Speaker 1: like such a cool idea that begetting the first time
Speaker 1: you see it's like this, I'm like cool, I like
Speaker 1: this Star Wars, Like this is a good idea for
Speaker 1: a new Star Wars. I don't know. And it's like
Speaker 1: and you have Lewen Davis and you have all that.
Speaker 1: It's like there's so much there's people who could have
Speaker 1: done things, but they're just like action figure. Nothing happens exactly,
Speaker 1: like so like I think it's yeah, and then two
Speaker 1: women kiss and it's like we did it. It's like
Speaker 1: and it's like totally blinking you missed. It has no
Speaker 1: substance whatsoever. The guy hugging the slug was like held
Speaker 1: that shot for longer, like I love the guy hugging
Speaker 1: the slug. That was one one part where I had
Speaker 1: to turn a Dave and be like, yeah, I don't know,
Speaker 1: and I and I also this is my other hot
Speaker 1: take about this movie and about these new Star Wars
Speaker 1: is in general. I don't know that I shipped them,
Speaker 1: but I like Ray and um Kylo or Ben or
Speaker 1: what horse you do Kylo Wren shipper. Yeah, totally. I
Speaker 1: think it's like a very interesting relationship for a like
Speaker 1: big blockbuster movie. It's a very it's it's very much
Speaker 1: at five version of the like the person that you
Speaker 1: met on a chat or or like a message board
Speaker 1: when you were in junior high that you like have
Speaker 1: some kind of like weird friendship with and you're not
Speaker 1: sure if it's going to turn into something else. Like
Speaker 1: that's like that's in their Darth Vader and then they
Speaker 1: turned into Darth well though, and then and then you
Speaker 1: like find them later on and they're like all right
Speaker 1: or whatever like that, but it's like it's a very
Speaker 1: union I feel like people trying to project like actual
Speaker 1: politics and this it does it's like a fool's errand
Speaker 1: and yet I see like people trying to do it anyway.
Speaker 1: I'm just using that as an example of like what
Speaker 1: if what if you were friends? Like what if through
Speaker 1: the power of the force and or the internet, like
Speaker 1: you could be in contact with something you never would
Speaker 1: have met otherwise, and then like you find out you
Speaker 1: have some things in common. But then it's like, oh God,
Speaker 1: but like you know, but it was it was better
Speaker 1: before they created this thing where they were connected cosmically
Speaker 1: on some genetic or sort of like hereary level, Like
Speaker 1: it was when they just sort of had a thing,
Speaker 1: and then it was like she was but she was
Speaker 1: just a person like that would have been interesting. But
Speaker 1: then when it was like, oh, they were meant to
Speaker 1: be together all because J J Abrams can't not square
Speaker 1: the circus. Okay, I'm going to get very very geeky
Speaker 1: for a second here. Okay, I don't what do they
Speaker 1: call that a diet? Diet the diet of the four? Okay,
Speaker 1: that's bullshit. That's never nobody who knows what that is,
Speaker 1: um except if you're related to somebody I guess, but
Speaker 1: like also healing, like force healing is bullshit. Now they're
Speaker 1: just now they're just Wolverine. And also you know what
Speaker 1: also like in addition to the force heeling is bullshit.
Speaker 1: But also the thing where suddenly, oh now we can
Speaker 1: pass stuff along, that was crazy. We can teleport physical
Speaker 1: objects like like you're telling me, like Obi wan Kenobi
Speaker 1: never figured out how to do that, and no, Yoda
Speaker 1: couldn't do it. There's never been a Jedi before who
Speaker 1: could do it. But it's like then the emperors like, oh,
Speaker 1: sure that you can you Yeah, it's hard, you can
Speaker 1: do it. You guys are talking in wingdings right now. Za, Well,
Speaker 1: I know something that Molly, that you're well versed. I
Speaker 1: was going to say, speaking of a universe that is
Speaker 1: very grounded and has perfect cinemat um and a passionate
Speaker 1: fan passionate fan base um from the eighties Tom Hooper's Cats,
Speaker 1: Tom Hooper's Cats, I wish they would have put Tom
Speaker 1: Cats Cats is the best movie I've ever seen. It's
Speaker 1: so good, Alex, you can you can testify. I will testify.
Speaker 1: I I had an amazing experience. You have the opposite
Speaker 1: experience of the star Wars experience. I had the opposite
Speaker 1: experience of the Star Wars experience. I walked out elated
Speaker 1: and alive with like the power of cinema and music
Speaker 1: and Cats and song. An my the only person who
Speaker 1: didn't see it. You know, I didn't see it. I'm
Speaker 1: I am really struggling here, you guys, everyone I know.
Speaker 1: I was telling Molly and Alex that I know people
Speaker 1: who have seen Cats like you guys, and all of
Speaker 1: them loved the film Cats. Yeah, but it has a
Speaker 1: what like on rotten to me? I personally think critics
Speaker 1: were just showboating on it, and not all of them.
Speaker 1: Critics love to write a bad review. They love to
Speaker 1: trash something that's like I will say it was a
Speaker 1: pile on. It was a lot of critics last film
Speaker 1: to review before the holidays. Having been in this position,
Speaker 1: the last film before you leave for the holidays often
Speaker 1: is just like, I'm gonna go nuts on this thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah I'm and it's unfair, but it kind of is
Speaker 1: just how it isn't and everybody feels insane by that
Speaker 1: time a year. They can surprised me. I think that
Speaker 1: there are two camps. There's people who love the musical
Speaker 1: Cats so much that they wanted like an entirely faithful
Speaker 1: adaptation with no changes whatsoever, the same costumes and makeup
Speaker 1: and everything. Those people don't like it. And then there
Speaker 1: are people who are like, why does this exist? The
Speaker 1: c G I is so bad, like finish good idea
Speaker 1: for a movie, and that's like those are both just
Speaker 1: beside the point. You just have to give yourself over
Speaker 1: to Cats. Yeah, it's really The movie that it reminded
Speaker 1: to me the most of was Holy Motors. I'm not
Speaker 1: kidding to see it. Yeah, Okay, somebody did something where
Speaker 1: they set the gelical Cat song to the beginning of climax,
Speaker 1: and I was like, this is how I'm going to
Speaker 1: get Emily to see Cats. Um, I mean, just to
Speaker 1: tell you it was a French extreme movie, totally French extremists.
Speaker 1: That's the only way to sort of contextualize it cinematically,
Speaker 1: I think, because it's also I mean, it is a
Speaker 1: very faithful version. Would have a good treat about it.
Speaker 1: We were like, this movie would be insane if it
Speaker 1: weren't like a perfectly faithful adaptation of an insane thing. No,
Speaker 1: because it's like I I remember once showing my my
Speaker 1: wife and her sister there was I was like on
Speaker 1: A and E like they broadcast the sort of the
Speaker 1: televised version of it, like they filmed it once, the
Speaker 1: London production or something, the Anderleig Webber one, and they
Speaker 1: had never seen it. And I was like, Okay, you're
Speaker 1: sitting down, We're gonna do this right now. And I
Speaker 1: just like the experience of the movie, like what, like
Speaker 1: what is even? I like they just did not and
Speaker 1: like it's the weirdest thing. And so I felt like
Speaker 1: this was actually I was expecting at some point that
Speaker 1: the cats would be like mumble rapping or something like
Speaker 1: there'd be some sort of like nod to it being
Speaker 1: and like other than like casting, it never really came,
Speaker 1: and that made it so much crazier than if they
Speaker 1: I thought it was just gonna be like trolls, like
Speaker 1: they sing like a Justin Timberlake song at some point,
Speaker 1: and like you know, it's like the it's like eighteen
Speaker 1: nineties London, Yeah, which is incredibly weird to see happened
Speaker 1: at this at this level of budget, with this level
Speaker 1: of excitement. It rules. It's just a tribute to British
Speaker 1: music hall. So it's like the plot is that the
Speaker 1: jellical cats are having the jelical ball where they pick
Speaker 1: the cat that gets to ascend to the heavy side
Speaker 1: layer Old Deuteronomy, the great old cat, the cat that
Speaker 1: ascends to the heavy side layer, and they just are
Speaker 1: all having a competition of like which cat deserves to go?
Speaker 1: And they all sing songs about themselves. Is it like
Speaker 1: survivor um? No, because you don't die if you don't go.
Speaker 1: Sometimes you get thrown on a barge by Macavity, the
Speaker 1: mystery cat, who is played by Idris Elba, who's amazing,
Speaker 1: has amazing the only thing I care about. To be honest,
Speaker 1: the show is like one show stopper after another. They
Speaker 1: also made the great choice to not change the orchestration
Speaker 1: at all, which is like they didn't try to class
Speaker 1: it up and like lame is it up? Which was
Speaker 1: brilliant because if they had it would suck. They just
Speaker 1: kept cord since that they used in the original, so
Speaker 1: it has this just weird kind of vapor wave feeling
Speaker 1: to it the whole time. It is like, yeah, it's
Speaker 1: I learned. What I learned about Cats is that it
Speaker 1: kind of was the Star Wars of musicals. It was
Speaker 1: not expected to be a hit at all. It got
Speaker 1: terrible reviews both in London and on Broadway, but it
Speaker 1: was like a huge, massive hit nonetheless, and it like
Speaker 1: destroyed the like created super musicals created Phantom and Miss
Speaker 1: Sigan and Lamas and all the like big stunt musicals
Speaker 1: that took over. Speaking of lame Is, didn't anybody see
Speaker 1: Tom Hooper is lame Is? Yes, it was fine that
Speaker 1: movie gets trashed on, like like people are really like
Speaker 1: a lot of film critics really have it out for
Speaker 1: Tom Hooper, and I understand because of like king speeches
Speaker 1: bullshit and stupid and boring. But like I actually think
Speaker 1: I like what he did with lame Is enough, But
Speaker 1: I don't have a relationship with cats, so I don't
Speaker 1: really like it's good because he like he gave lame
Speaker 1: Is the appropriate treatment for lame is, he gave cats
Speaker 1: the appropriate treatment for cats. I was seriously worried he
Speaker 1: was going to give cats the lame is and try
Speaker 1: and make it serious and about something, and it's like, no,
Speaker 1: it's falking about cats. You weren't at all put off
Speaker 1: by the c g igal technology at all, And I
Speaker 1: was like worried for the first there was like a
Speaker 1: minute in the beginning, because I convinced like Johnny and
Speaker 1: like our two friends who don't care about casts at all,
Speaker 1: to go, And I was like, what if it's horrible.
Speaker 1: Oh no, But there was like a moment where I
Speaker 1: was concerned, and then I was like, no, this is great.
Speaker 1: They look like people with cat bodies, like it's not
Speaker 1: trying to be they looked like seals. Well, the one
Speaker 1: thing they're plump. The thing that kind of makes me
Speaker 1: a little bit hesitant a better feels like a bummer
Speaker 1: to me about it is that, like so much of
Speaker 1: it is c G. I that the actual fun of
Speaker 1: seeing a musical where people are dancing and doing fun
Speaker 1: movemancing and doing fun movements, there's kinds of yeah, it's
Speaker 1: really it's but do you when you look at it,
Speaker 1: you're like, wow, I can't believe humans are doing that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they hired lit twins are like in the background of
Speaker 1: every scene just dancing. There is like some very good
Speaker 1: dancing and singing. Um. And the thing that I kept
Speaker 1: thinking that was it was like, but a good version
Speaker 1: of it was because I also saw The Lion King,
Speaker 1: the Disney remake of The Lion King, and that gave
Speaker 1: me the Uncanny Valleys really badly. The whole time. This
Speaker 1: did not because it's like, but that's that that they're
Speaker 1: not trying to be humans. But this is like, you're
Speaker 1: not supposed to believe their cats. They're like humans in
Speaker 1: cat costumes, but the cat costumes are virtual. It's Judy
Speaker 1: Judy Dench star Wars the digital cost Judy Dench plays
Speaker 1: like an old cat named Old Deuteronomy. She's which is
Speaker 1: like reverse gender from how it Yeah, she plays the
Speaker 1: cat who chooses the cat who gets to go, and
Speaker 1: she's just like, I don't know. It's like they're cute,
Speaker 1: you want to hug them. I don't know that I
Speaker 1: wanted to hug them. I wanted to hug They did
Speaker 1: a weird choice. They made a weird choice with the proportions.
Speaker 1: I mean that is the one on Candy Valley thing
Speaker 1: is that everything is whatever scale it needs to be
Speaker 1: given time. Are they tiny cats? It's a very This
Speaker 1: was a weird decision. They seem to have looked. You've looked,
Speaker 1: you've seen a cat. Everybody's seen a cat, right, like,
Speaker 1: so you could have done like, oh, it's a cat
Speaker 1: is like a long thing that has four legs. They're like,
Speaker 1: here's the We're gonna do a cat like from shoulder height.
Speaker 1: This is how that's the impression on the ground. Look
Speaker 1: like those monkeys that come to steal your food national
Speaker 1: parks in other countries. You know, like they have a
Speaker 1: weird sort of simian vibe because it's a human that's this,
Speaker 1: that's a foot tall. It doesn't take place and any
Speaker 1: kind of reality that we know. There are no humans
Speaker 1: and cats. There's no humans and cats. There's nothing to
Speaker 1: scale it. They're in like a a weird abandoned post
Speaker 1: apocalyptic London. Yeah, we're only cats survivor, much like ts
Speaker 1: Eliot's other work, The Wasteland. Emily asked a very quiet
Speaker 1: question that we need to answer, which is how was
Speaker 1: Taylor Swift? Oh she was great, Actually she got her part. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this musical builds and builds, and like I was in
Speaker 1: a theater with not a lot of people, but we
Speaker 1: were all like best friends by the end. You know.
Speaker 1: It was a great bonding film experience. Everybody was singing
Speaker 1: along at certain points. I think if if you give
Speaker 1: yourself over to it, it's really it's really something and
Speaker 1: I just like it, Like washed my brain. All I
Speaker 1: could think about was Cats afterwards, and that was great.
Speaker 1: I'm really bummed that I'm not going to get a
Speaker 1: screener for it. That was the one thing I was
Speaker 1: waiting on a screen. If this movie is going to
Speaker 1: do crazy numbers on streaming, that's my blue You have
Speaker 1: to go and see It's so it's just amazing what
Speaker 1: it brings out of people because also like we were
Speaker 1: in this row. Well, first of all, there was the
Speaker 1: lady in our row who jumped up and it was
Speaker 1: in cat makeup the whole time, and I was like,
Speaker 1: she's just a super fan. I was like, that's really cool,
Speaker 1: and we were just all enjoying the movie together. But
Speaker 1: then like when the open the end credits hit, like
Speaker 1: just right out of her chair up onto that sort
Speaker 1: of little stage front there and arc light and just
Speaker 1: doing the full like cat dance and everybody's cheering. She
Speaker 1: was really a super fan. But then the person I
Speaker 1: felt bad for there was a lady like one row
Speaker 1: back from us UM and everybody was just mystery science
Speaker 1: theatering the hell out of it, like to their partner.
Speaker 1: But then one guy was doing it sort of out loud.
Speaker 1: It was not me. I swear, and he was getting
Speaker 1: a little he was not funny, and he was getting
Speaker 1: a little bit sort of like volume increasing, like trying
Speaker 1: to get a reaction everything. And so Memory is coming up,
Speaker 1: which is the big number, the big sad song, and
Speaker 1: it's like, I mean the ascent to the heavy side
Speaker 1: layers like Awards season, like you have to perform your suffering,
Speaker 1: and so Jennifer Hudson does this amazing version of Memory
Speaker 1: that's like actually really it's like legit, like she just
Speaker 1: you know, cuts your heart out after this, you're laughing
Speaker 1: at this whole movie. And then like she's incredible, and
Speaker 1: but you know, you have somebody has to land that.
Speaker 1: So this song is coming up, and like the guys
Speaker 1: like doing his commentary and like this lady clearly is
Speaker 1: this cat superman who knows when Memory is coming. And
Speaker 1: she's like, could you please like just give me this
Speaker 1: one moment that I'm going to have with this and
Speaker 1: then like everybody was quiet from Memory. Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1: Well I learned something about the plot of Cats that
Speaker 1: makes it make a little more sense, um, which is
Speaker 1: that apparently it's well known among everybody in England that
Speaker 1: tuxedo cats can become invisible on the vernal equinox. Learn
Speaker 1: this looking up stuff about my own black and white cat.
Speaker 1: But I was like, oh yeah, people who are like
Speaker 1: cat makes no sense. It's like it makes its own
Speaker 1: kind of sense. It makes it has its own like
Speaker 1: a Star Wars. It has an internal logic that is flawless,
Speaker 1: but like impenetrable if you don't your I always understood
Speaker 1: I've never seen the show. I've never have no, I've
Speaker 1: never really I mean I know some of the songs
Speaker 1: from it, just by osmosis, but I just didn't. I
Speaker 1: assumed it didn't have a plot. Like I assumed it
Speaker 1: was basically like a review. It is a review. I
Speaker 1: mean after we saw it, like my boyfriend was like,
Speaker 1: what is this moving about? They just introduced themselves. Well yeah,
Speaker 1: and I was like, it's about class, Like some of
Speaker 1: the cats are rich and live off the rich people
Speaker 1: scraps and someone and that's the James Cordon cat. And
Speaker 1: some of the cats are poor and destitute, like Grizabella.
Speaker 1: It's about London. It's implied that Grizabella is a sex
Speaker 1: worker of some kind, is it? I never picked that
Speaker 1: up as a child, But that's the one who sings Memory,
Speaker 1: and they're like, she was a great star on the
Speaker 1: Cat stage and now she's But it's weird because she
Speaker 1: seems young for that role. She is young for the role.
Speaker 1: I thought Judy Dench would be here. And also Judi
Speaker 1: Dench I found out was supposed to be in the
Speaker 1: original production of Cats and like sprained her ankle during
Speaker 1: rehearsals and couldn't do it. So she's been waiting to
Speaker 1: do Cats this whole time. Juden sings Memory somewhere she
Speaker 1: she was supposed to originate one of the rules sent
Speaker 1: in the class. Just like all the cats, all the
Speaker 1: names of the cats are really funny and fun to say. Yes,
Speaker 1: skimble Shanks and I would I left my body while
Speaker 1: that was happening because I couldn't believe it because it
Speaker 1: was also you know, first of all, it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: he's a railway cat. You know, a railway cat like
Speaker 1: everybody in kids, everybody knows a railway it's working class cats. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but he's like a he's like a station master. He's
Speaker 1: got a hat. He was skimble Shank. He's the railway
Speaker 1: cat who plays skimble Shank. I don't know. With the
Speaker 1: mustarch looks like the guy from Eagles of Death Metal,
Speaker 1: Like as a cat, I can't read this tap dancing on. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's so good. Is this the kind of thing
Speaker 1: where if you were in a union you would get
Speaker 1: a screener or no, you seem to imply no, no,
Speaker 1: the coman you can't actually something That's really bothering me too,
Speaker 1: because I hate that everybody associated with it is like
Speaker 1: running away from it, you know, like because it's a bomb,
Speaker 1: because it's like it's going to have cult appeal for
Speaker 1: a million years. It is, It's going to be an
Speaker 1: instant Rocky Horror. I felt like I was watching Rocky
Speaker 1: Horror in the theater on opening weekends and like if
Speaker 1: any of those people, like if if Taylor Swifter or
Speaker 1: whoever was like, you know what. I thought it was
Speaker 1: a fun thing to do, and I'm glad I did it,
Speaker 1: Like I hope people enjoy it forever, like that would
Speaker 1: be cool. The fact that everyone's like not doing a
Speaker 1: press tour, like James Cordon claimed he hadn't seen it
Speaker 1: even it's just like maybe it wasn't a lot of
Speaker 1: fun to make. Oh it looks like a lot of fun.
Speaker 1: It may look like maybe it was a bad really
Speaker 1: difficulty had a great time in cat school. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think they probably didn't know it was probably entirely
Speaker 1: green screen. They had no idea what movie they were
Speaker 1: making while it was happening, so you know, and that's
Speaker 1: how you make a great film. But no, we should not.
Speaker 1: We cannot let this just sort of go directly to
Speaker 1: riff tracks, like we can't just let them have it.
Speaker 1: Like we should all sort of embrace this while we
Speaker 1: can see it in the theater. It's all. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: it's not an original movie, but it is like the
Speaker 1: weirdest big budget movie I've ever seen, and that to
Speaker 1: me is an accomplishment. You know. Well, I feel like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I I feel like it's not going to go away.
Speaker 1: I feel like it's it's going to be like a
Speaker 1: ten years from now, forever now and forever now and forever.
Speaker 1: Maybe Emily and I just aren't cat people and you
Speaker 1: guys are cat people. Maybe we're dog people. Oh, I'm
Speaker 1: going to see it. I'm not like I'm not. I'm
Speaker 1: just like I I and I agree with you that
Speaker 1: it's not going to go away. But yeah, I just
Speaker 1: haven't seen it. I'm not going to see this movie.
Speaker 1: It gives everyone. Someone has to say that it gives
Speaker 1: everyone the toxoplasmosis that you get from cats. But don't
Speaker 1: forget that huffing cat pe as the study proved a
Speaker 1: couple of years ago makes you more ambitious. It's true.
Speaker 1: Thanks everyone, and thank you Alex for coming by to
Speaker 1: talk about the two most important movies of nine and
Speaker 1: possibly um Where can people find you on the internet? God, Twitter,
Speaker 1: hiding out on Twitter, and you know various luck rack
Speaker 1: Maybe I think muck muck rack is where you can
Speaker 1: see all that I've discovered, this that my mom found it.
Speaker 1: That's where all the stuff that I wrote goes. He's
Speaker 1: aggregating you, all of you probably being aggregated to it
Speaker 1: aggregates and then you can email them and take control
Speaker 1: of your profile if you wish. Sounds exhausting, well find
Speaker 1: Alex Papadimus on muck rack, Dot, hiding out on letterbox rating. UM.
Speaker 1: We will be back next week. Give us a night
Speaker 1: call in the meantime. Our numbers one to four oh
Speaker 1: four sixth night. You can also follow us on Twitter
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Speaker 1: com slash Nightcall where you can get bonus episodes and
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