Speaker 1: Welcome to Nightcall, a production of I Heart Radio. It's
Speaker 1: two thirty five am in the abyss and you're listening
Speaker 1: to night Call. Hello, and welcome to Night Call, of
Speaker 1: podcast for your strange days and lonely nights. I am
Speaker 1: Tess Lynch in Los Angeles and with me our Emily
Speaker 1: Oshida and hello guys. Hey, we have started off this year,
Speaker 1: as you guys remember, with a spooky fridge, A tale
Speaker 1: of a spooky fridge. And it turns out that the
Speaker 1: getting trapped in fridges, which was something we were all
Speaker 1: freaked out about at one time or another, uh, is
Speaker 1: a shared phobia and also a subject of a very
Speaker 1: special episode of a television show. We got a night
Speaker 1: call that explains perhaps why so many people are afraid
Speaker 1: of being trapped in a fridge. So this is this
Speaker 1: email comes from our friend Evan and he writes, dear
Speaker 1: night Call. I was very surprised when during your recent
Speaker 1: discussion of kids getting trapped inside abandoned refrigerators, no one
Speaker 1: mentioned the very special episode of Punky Brewster where this
Speaker 1: happens to Punky's friend Cherry. Maybe you guys are too young.
Speaker 1: I remember watching this when it aired in six and
Speaker 1: being completely traumatized, which I suppose was the point I
Speaker 1: never tried to hide in any abandoned refrigerators after that.
Speaker 1: I'm guessing I won't be the only person to write
Speaker 1: in about this. My wife, who's the same age as
Speaker 1: I am, immediately knew what I was talking about when
Speaker 1: I mentioned it. Actually, all I said to her was
Speaker 1: on night call, they talked about getting trapped in an
Speaker 1: abandoned refrigerator, and her response was like in Punky Brewster.
Speaker 1: But for whatever it's worth, I wanted to bring it
Speaker 1: to your collective attention. You can watch it yere if
Speaker 1: you dare, and there's even an oral history of the
Speaker 1: episode online with links. While we're on the subject, can
Speaker 1: any of you recall very special episodes of sitcoms from
Speaker 1: your childhoods that scarred you emotionally? All the best from
Speaker 1: Los Fie Liz Evan. Wow, what a great night call.
Speaker 1: Such a good night call, Thank you, Evan. Punky Brewster
Speaker 1: was before my time. I was too young for Punky Brewster.
Speaker 1: Also before my time, I was three. Yeah, some of
Speaker 1: these shows, you know would be in syndication and you
Speaker 1: would see them anyway, But Punky Brewster I did not
Speaker 1: ever encounter. Yeah, I feel like, you know, I was
Speaker 1: familiar with like Pippi Longstocking, Like there was some weird,
Speaker 1: badly dub version of Pippi long Stocking that I definitely watched.
Speaker 1: I watched That's a good, good weird, which feels like
Speaker 1: kind of small sponky orphans. The thing that I was
Speaker 1: thinking about was Small Wonder. I was trying to h
Speaker 1: I was trying to explain Small Wonder to someone who's
Speaker 1: never seen it before yesterday. It's hard to do. You
Speaker 1: feel like I only know about Small Wonder from I
Speaker 1: Love the eighties. There was a crop of like E.
Speaker 1: T and S fired shows such as Small Wonder and
Speaker 1: out of This World. Also, out of this World I
Speaker 1: watched a lot of they're kind of like magical girl shows. Actually,
Speaker 1: now that I think about it, so I wonder, you're
Speaker 1: a robot out of this world. Your dad is an
Speaker 1: alien who communicates with you through a crystal, So listen.
Speaker 1: I looked at the mental flass link that Evans sent,
Speaker 1: and it is actually it made me look at Punky
Speaker 1: Brewster very deeply orphan. So here's meant the mental flass
Speaker 1: um kind of summary, which is really part of like
Speaker 1: the oral history of this particular episode said the story
Speaker 1: of an eight year old orphan abandoned by her mother
Speaker 1: and found by a cantankerous old apartment manager. Punky Brewster
Speaker 1: was not conventional network television fair paired with silver spoons
Speaker 1: in the fall of four. It was created to help
Speaker 1: satisfy a Federal Communications Commission mandate that early evening programming
Speaker 1: be either news oriented sixty minutes or somewhat educational. As
Speaker 1: a result, Punky's adventures often involved the perils of sleeping
Speaker 1: pill addiction, missing kids on Milk Carton's Child Moles Station,
Speaker 1: or a rampaging serial killer Barty. This was not I
Speaker 1: feel like we missed the golden age of very special episodes.
Speaker 1: I don't know about that. To me, it feels like
Speaker 1: there was a period that everybody is familiar with in
Speaker 1: the eighties where there were just what was so weird,
Speaker 1: the too Many Cooks era of where somebody might have
Speaker 1: a sleeping pill addiction one week on a sitcom that
Speaker 1: otherwise would never be that serious. Okay, you guys look
Speaker 1: like you have answers. I do, I do. I had
Speaker 1: to look it up to just get reminded of it. Um.
Speaker 1: Punky Brewster was before my time. I was right on
Speaker 1: schedule for full House, consumed every single episode of This
Speaker 1: is our micro generation. Yeah, you guys remember Marlas soakal
Speaker 1: Off like the bad girl of this era because she
Speaker 1: was she was ga, my god, what if we have
Speaker 1: the same episode. It's the smoking one. Okay, it's a
Speaker 1: full house. I was going to put it like that
Speaker 1: wasn't traumatizing, and I thought of a more traumatizing one.
Speaker 1: Oh tell us, Emily, tell us about this one, because
Speaker 1: I don't really remember it. This is um so Gia.
Speaker 1: So this is sort of late because it's when Stephanie
Speaker 1: is like a pre teen teen and so Gia is
Speaker 1: like the bad girl at school and there's and she's
Speaker 1: like smoking in the bathroom and Ondesday and I'm sure
Speaker 1: if I went back and watched it now would be like, So,
Speaker 1: there's also a Ghostbuster not Ghosts Ghostwriter episode um where
Speaker 1: there was smoking or some kind of study pills or something.
Speaker 1: I can't remember um, but it kind of had a
Speaker 1: similar vibe where there's like you find out something. It's
Speaker 1: always takes place in the girl's bathroom, like you find
Speaker 1: out something really troubling, like somebody's growing up faster than you.
Speaker 1: I found out a lot of stuff in the girl's
Speaker 1: bathroom circuit fifth and sixth grade, so I completely understand.
Speaker 1: But I do believe that they Full House often for
Speaker 1: their Very Special episodes would do a a coda at
Speaker 1: the end where the cast would be like sitting in
Speaker 1: the living room and addressed to came, uh if you
Speaker 1: you know, I want to I don't know what you
Speaker 1: talked to your kids about smoking or whatever the case
Speaker 1: may be. Like here's a number you can call and
Speaker 1: and it's like very and everybody just like looks like
Speaker 1: they're at a funeral. It's and there's Yeah, that's that's
Speaker 1: the scariest thing. The actual episode itself was not that
Speaker 1: troubling to me, But any time the cast of Full
Speaker 1: House was direct to camera telling you to be scared
Speaker 1: of something, I was just like, Oh, okay, guys, that
Speaker 1: episode is really about like shame and guilt. It's like
Speaker 1: your parents will be disappointed, Bob sag it's going to
Speaker 1: disown you. Yeah. But here's my argument. I think that
Speaker 1: the Full House T G I F. You're a Very
Speaker 1: Special episodes was like the end of the era, the
Speaker 1: Baroque period of Very Special episodes, because you if you
Speaker 1: were watching all of t G, I f you could
Speaker 1: have like two in a night. Yeah, but I think
Speaker 1: this was like on the heels of an eighties time
Speaker 1: when this was like such a trope that it became
Speaker 1: like a widely ridiculed thing, a very special episode, although
Speaker 1: now we know it was mandated by the network. My
Speaker 1: answer is, of course, the drunk driving episode of Saved
Speaker 1: by the Bell what a nightmare because they don't show
Speaker 1: it a lot because it is dark. They go to
Speaker 1: a party and Zach gets drunk and then he drives
Speaker 1: him and I think Jesse home and then crashes. What
Speaker 1: did they end up in the hospital? I think so
Speaker 1: he feels really guilty. It's very dark. I know a
Speaker 1: lot of people would say that the speed episode of
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that's the clear, that's the classic, but that
Speaker 1: one just has become a joke. It's a joke. It
Speaker 1: was kind of a joke to begin. It was so
Speaker 1: ridiculously heightened that you couldn't help but think like, she
Speaker 1: must have really crushed up all those the drunk driving
Speaker 1: episodes fucked up because it also like punctures the sort
Speaker 1: of wholesomeness of the Saved by the Bell universe in
Speaker 1: a way that they're not allowed to do, you know,
Speaker 1: which is why Riverdale is because it's just all that
Speaker 1: a special episodes. But yeah, it just makes you be like, yeah,
Speaker 1: of course these kids would like drink and have sex
Speaker 1: and drive drunk and stuff. So let me just before
Speaker 1: I tell you guys mine, I just wanted to let
Speaker 1: you know first some trip. I watched the episode where
Speaker 1: Cherry gets It's called Cherry Lifesaver if you want to
Speaker 1: watch it yourself. Um, and it is the one of
Speaker 1: the darkest things I've ever seen. And I'm just gonna
Speaker 1: spoil it really quick. So um, Punky and her friends
Speaker 1: whose names I don't remember, and her friend Cherry are
Speaker 1: all playing hide and seek outside and it starts snowing,
Speaker 1: and the person who's counting is reaching, you know, like
Speaker 1: they're about to end their account. And Cherry is the
Speaker 1: only one who doesn't have a hiding place. So the
Speaker 1: kind of the kind of like grumpy guy who adopted
Speaker 1: Punky has just put his old fridge out, and I
Speaker 1: think he even mentioned like, don't hide in here, Cherry does. Anyway,
Speaker 1: they look, can't find her, they go inside, convinced she's
Speaker 1: inside they're looking around inside, and then by the time
Speaker 1: they find her, she has stopped breathing and has no pulse.
Speaker 1: Are you kidding? Not kidding at all? So they take
Speaker 1: her out and the grumpy apartment guy is like, I
Speaker 1: don't know how to do CPR. Kid over here, do
Speaker 1: you know how to do CPR? And he's like, no,
Speaker 1: I was in the principal's office. So then by the
Speaker 1: time Punky and her friend come down, they know how
Speaker 1: to do CPR. They perform CPR and literally bring this
Speaker 1: girl back to life, and it's shot in a very
Speaker 1: distressing way with distressing music and like long pauses. But
Speaker 1: what's interesting is it was this story was chosen from
Speaker 1: a pitch contest and a kid wrote in and was
Speaker 1: like I would like to see because they were like,
Speaker 1: what's a lesson that you want to teach me? Was like,
Speaker 1: I want to see someone save someone else's life with
Speaker 1: CPR so that kids at home can learn CPR. And
Speaker 1: they added the fridge. They added the fridge, so then
Speaker 1: he went to go see it and he was like,
Speaker 1: what the hell, I didn't say anything about a fridge anyway.
Speaker 1: So my very special episode is two episodes, both featuring
Speaker 1: uncles on family ties. One of them is um I
Speaker 1: don't even remember who played him, but there was like
Speaker 1: an uncle but not a blood relation uncle who molested
Speaker 1: Mallory after giving her some kind of like an internship.
Speaker 1: But the worst, the most intense one is Tom Hanks
Speaker 1: as an alcoholic uncle who comes to visit and it's
Speaker 1: like played for laughs where he's like just drinking everything
Speaker 1: in the liquor cabinet and they're like, oh, you drink
Speaker 1: too much, and Tom Hanks looks so young, and then
Speaker 1: at some point he runs out of liquor and starts
Speaker 1: drinking vanilla extract and Maraschino cherry juice. And then he
Speaker 1: tries to get Alex to like go for a beer
Speaker 1: with him, and it's like really like badgering him, and
Speaker 1: then he ends up slapping Alex Keaton and it's really
Speaker 1: intense to see a very young looking Tom Hanks slapping.
Speaker 1: That's interesting too, because I was just thinking um about
Speaker 1: when Tom Hanks won that award the other night of
Speaker 1: the Globes. I was like, as Tom Hanks ever played
Speaker 1: a bad person? Oh yeah he did? Uncle ned was bad? Yeah,
Speaker 1: like in a movie, because Tom Hanks ever been a
Speaker 1: villain because he is bad. Isn't he a bridge of spies?
Speaker 1: Isn't he bad? In Bridge of I was just curious
Speaker 1: because I don't know, and I was like, people who
Speaker 1: tend to only play goody goodies tend to have a
Speaker 1: darkness inside. Yeah, and then he was feuding with Fonzie.
Speaker 1: Well all of the darkness and Tom Hanks has been
Speaker 1: purely channeled through his sun shut. I watched that instagram
Speaker 1: so many times. One more thing on the note of
Speaker 1: spooky fridges. Maybe I just have high fridge awareness now
Speaker 1: because we were talking about them. But I saw abandoned
Speaker 1: fridge on the street the other day that someone had
Speaker 1: tagged slum lord on the side of it. Because a
Speaker 1: fridge on the sidewalk in l A is often a
Speaker 1: sign that somebody is evicting everybody, Yeah, and gonna put
Speaker 1: in a new fridge, So another reason to be scared.
Speaker 1: They're never a good thing. It's chilling. If you have
Speaker 1: thoughts on very special episodes or refrigerators, please give us
Speaker 1: a call at two four oh four six night or
Speaker 1: an email at night Call podcast at gmail dot com.
Speaker 1: After we get back, we will have some thoughts on
Speaker 1: Molly's very famous and shocking Seinfeld cool and we're back. Molly.
Speaker 1: On Twitter the other day, you post a very interesting question.
Speaker 1: I'd like to talk about how this went down. What
Speaker 1: happened was we were watching Seinfeld, me and my boyfriend
Speaker 1: watching Seinfeld, and I said, if you had to have
Speaker 1: sex with one of the main Seinfeld man, Elaine's not
Speaker 1: allowed because everybody would pick Elane. But you know Jerry,
Speaker 1: George or Kramer. Um, I think I was just like,
Speaker 1: I think most people would pick Jerry possibly Orige might win.
Speaker 1: But he said, no way. Everyone wants to fun Cramer.
Speaker 1: And I was like, what are you talking about. No,
Speaker 1: they don't and he was like, I promise you if
Speaker 1: you if you run a poll. He said, run a
Speaker 1: poll on Twitter. Cramer is going to win in a landslide.
Speaker 1: And that is what happens. That happened. What were the
Speaker 1: final results. I think it was like seventy Cramer something,
Speaker 1: but it was it was like a strong It was
Speaker 1: interesting too to follow a pulk because it was like
Speaker 1: people really had I love doing a poll. People had
Speaker 1: really strong feelings about this. It made everybody really examine themselves.
Speaker 1: It made everyone a little sick. Yeah, but um, it
Speaker 1: really stayed this consistent throughout, like from the when they
Speaker 1: had a hundred votes to when it had like maybe
Speaker 1: two thousand votes. At the end, it was like the
Speaker 1: same percentages the whole time, which was that fifty percent
Speaker 1: of people chose Cramer, and then it was like Jerry George.
Speaker 1: I'm so astounded, not as somebody who voted for cramerer.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, We're going to cover all the basis.
Speaker 1: It's gonna be amazing. What what were yours? Well after
Speaker 1: we guess what, um, Molly picked George and you picked Jerry.
Speaker 1: Really god about ourselves, because what I learned is that
Speaker 1: I want to be a person who picks George, but
Speaker 1: I would pick Jerry, which is horrible to say. This
Speaker 1: is a fictional Jerry Seinfeld. Also, you can't different from
Speaker 1: the real person Jerry. And again we need to emphasize
Speaker 1: that Cosmo Cramer is not I think I also thought
Speaker 1: the Michael Richard's nest would get in the way of
Speaker 1: people wanting Cramer, but I don't know. I mean Michael
Speaker 1: Richards or Cosmo Cramer seems actually say it's interchangeable. Seems
Speaker 1: the most like somebody that you might if you were
Speaker 1: a person that was single and just like meeting people
Speaker 1: at random in bars or something in New York City.
Speaker 1: Now that seems the most like somebody that you us
Speaker 1: at our age right now would probably run into and
Speaker 1: maybe like strike up something with romantic or otherwise. I think, okay,
Speaker 1: everybody everybody picked. I think everyone would pick Jason Alexander
Speaker 1: if it were the real people. Oh I would yeah, oh,
Speaker 1: the real people. Between Jerry Seinfeld, Michael Richards, and Jason Alexander,
Speaker 1: everybody was like, Jason Alexander seems like a nice person
Speaker 1: who loves to be in musicals, just loves musicals. But
Speaker 1: because yeah, this was harrowing for a lot of people,
Speaker 1: so here I wrote down some arguments against all of them.
Speaker 1: It was very hard to find arguments for. But I'm
Speaker 1: my question for Emily would you be okay with him
Speaker 1: busting into your apartment uninvited, unannounced, eating all your food?
Speaker 1: And if you stated at his apartment, are you remembering
Speaker 1: that it was haunted by a doll named Mr Marble's
Speaker 1: think about it. I mean, this is not dating, That's
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. Whoever's place you're at, you know, are
Speaker 1: you at a motel like that? Change his or yours.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna say his home with me. But you remember
Speaker 1: that when Jerry and Kramer traded apartments, Jerry became Kramer like,
Speaker 1: and that would happen to you as well. We didn't
Speaker 1: think he would be in my apartment. So she's saying, okay,
Speaker 1: at your apartment, so then he's gonna eat, and then
Speaker 1: he knows where you live and he's gonna drop by.
Speaker 1: I'm just saying, yeah. The thing that really puts Test
Speaker 1: off is apparently the drop in skis the drop in no,
Speaker 1: but that feels very like charming in nineties. He drops
Speaker 1: in all of a sudden. I'm living in a communal table. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think I realized that I would I would pick Jerry,
Speaker 1: which was really disappointing to me but also made me
Speaker 1: be like, oh my, like a little attracted to contempt.
Speaker 1: Jerry is too much like people that I've actually dated
Speaker 1: a lot of other girls I know said enough Jerry. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think I didn't really date ny Jerry, so I
Speaker 1: could I could handle the idea. Yeah, not for a relationship,
Speaker 1: it's just one one. But I just think it would
Speaker 1: be very boring, probably probably for one night. Who cared
Speaker 1: boring is probably fine, would not be boring with George.
Speaker 1: I'm just saying, Um, George may have terrible parents to
Speaker 1: be obsessed with the Civil War and like a just
Speaker 1: terribly neurotic person. But George would like maybe bring a
Speaker 1: sandwich and that's really But that to me says that
Speaker 1: you are George, I think. But he's also based on
Speaker 1: Larry David. I think that George would be actually the
Speaker 1: only person to really think about like taking you out
Speaker 1: for jenneral Fee. George would do anything for someone he
Speaker 1: was enamored up. Yeah, so you'd be treated the best us. Probably.
Speaker 1: We would like to know what you think of the
Speaker 1: great Seinfeld poll. This is good because I did a
Speaker 1: poll last year that was which one of the friends
Speaker 1: as a murderer. Oh, which is a very tough Um.
Speaker 1: I believe it was like Ross and Monica together working
Speaker 1: together as a sibling duo. Not such a stretch. I
Speaker 1: don't believe that anybody, any of them, you could make
Speaker 1: an organ l you think Chandler. Chandler seems obvious, but
Speaker 1: Joey seems like he would maybe like vehicular manslaughter and
Speaker 1: then just be like, no, never happened. What about Phoebe?
Speaker 1: She could Be. I I would say Phoebe and Chandler
Speaker 1: would be my top picks. But you know you couldn't
Speaker 1: imagine it for almost anybody. If you would like us
Speaker 1: also to talk about who we would like to make
Speaker 1: out with or kill honest scom, honestly com honest sitcom.
Speaker 1: If you want us to do a bracket of who's
Speaker 1: the most fuckable on Taxi, we've got answers. Can we
Speaker 1: talk real quick about another below would figure to figure
Speaker 1: of the nineties? Who's in us? Maybe Gwyneth Paltrow is
Speaker 1: going to have a Netflix show called The Group Lab.
Speaker 1: I want to work there. I want to work at
Speaker 1: the Group Lab. That makes me so sad. I want
Speaker 1: to be a woman in stem. I want to work
Speaker 1: at the group Shout out to Wesley Morris for shouting
Speaker 1: us out about Group. Yeah, Wesley wrote a really great
Speaker 1: piece that I've of course, really vibed with because the
Speaker 1: headline of it, I believe is I love Gwyneth Paltrow.
Speaker 1: There I said it. Um. It was in the New
Speaker 1: York Times last fall, so I think it was when
Speaker 1: she was in the Politician, which I did not watch.
Speaker 1: I'm not my my opinions about Gwyneth Paltrow have nothing
Speaker 1: to do with the politician or acting. No, actually, it
Speaker 1: does have to do with her acting. I think she
Speaker 1: is a wonderful actress. I think that the only problem
Speaker 1: that I have with Group really at the end of
Speaker 1: the day, is that she's doing that instead of being
Speaker 1: in movies. Uh. There's a whole thing with the people
Speaker 1: that are like, it's I'm making I could make more
Speaker 1: money as an influence sert than an actress and work
Speaker 1: less hard, So why don't I just be an influencer?
Speaker 1: That to me, it's like, how fucking privileged do you
Speaker 1: have to be to be Like I'll just take like
Speaker 1: however long I want off from work, and when I
Speaker 1: come back, it'll just be there. Well, she was the
Speaker 1: pioneer of this, and I think that a lot of it.
Speaker 1: I've written about this before, uh in Grantland. I think
Speaker 1: a lot of Group as I understood it, like that,
Speaker 1: given the timeline and later interviews that she did, was
Speaker 1: very much about her postpartum depression. I think she had
Speaker 1: a really hard time after she had her kids. And
Speaker 1: I think also she had had a lot of bad
Speaker 1: experiences in the industry as we now know, And I
Speaker 1: think it's all very understandable and to like want to
Speaker 1: just like start a business and do something that doesn't
Speaker 1: have anything to do with that and kind of like go, yeah,
Speaker 1: just do something. Its like lower stakes at that moment,
Speaker 1: like when Goop is just a blog, but it's the
Speaker 1: worst business I ever started by class class war gasoline.
Speaker 1: If it were cheap, if Goop, you'd be sign the
Speaker 1: news free. If the things that she sold were cheating, Oh,
Speaker 1: I won't buy any of the things she sells. I
Speaker 1: just enjoy like and she and she has a lot
Speaker 1: of recipes. I have actually like used a lot of
Speaker 1: her recipes in the past. I copped to using a
Speaker 1: couple of recipes and finding them good. But my my
Speaker 1: issue is I feel offended by the price point I
Speaker 1: make recipes off. Christian from vander Pump Rules is yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: you hate an influencer, not one, but I just feel
Speaker 1: like she sells snake oil. That's what's the real issue
Speaker 1: is the when she makes borderline medical or scientific claims
Speaker 1: it's her doctor, not her it is her doctor, but cheat,
Speaker 1: but the doctor giving the doctor a platform that has
Speaker 1: like legitimacy to it is an issue like the vagina
Speaker 1: and I don't think that we get to like our
Speaker 1: now our moment of like self care now though without Goop,
Speaker 1: like and I think, but you what you love self
Speaker 1: grandparenting it basically the same satire of how stupid self
Speaker 1: care is. I think it's more that self care the
Speaker 1: industry versus self care the practice. If you can self
Speaker 1: care for free or for cheap, then it's a different thing.
Speaker 1: But when people talk about self care in terms of
Speaker 1: like even just the expenditure of time for like a
Speaker 1: multi step face, you know, and and there's like a backlash.
Speaker 1: It's like the idea that you're just like this endless
Speaker 1: vagina that just like turns inward eternally. That sounds great,
Speaker 1: that sounds like it's like you have to love that.
Speaker 1: She she signed off on the art for the Goop Lab,
Speaker 1: though I don't like how like it's like let's like
Speaker 1: just shut out the world and like work on ourselves.
Speaker 1: And that's just like do a million face masks and
Speaker 1: like masterbate and just like take baths like no fuck you.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of ship going on, and like the
Speaker 1: fact that she's in such a bubble is like less
Speaker 1: attractive than ever, even though she's been usurped by like influencers.
Speaker 1: It's kind of like in nineties, as you were saying,
Speaker 1: here's the thing, I don't need Gwyneth Paltro to be
Speaker 1: a voice about any kind of social issues or politics
Speaker 1: right now. And I think she understands her role. Like
Speaker 1: what I know that she's like endorsed Pete or whatever,
Speaker 1: but like in in the in the broadest sense, though
Speaker 1: she has like she has a quote that everybody hates
Speaker 1: her for, but she's like, I can't pretend not to
Speaker 1: be a rich person. And I actually think I actually
Speaker 1: think that that is more honest and like good to
Speaker 1: just put out there in no uncertain terms than like
Speaker 1: to try to be something that you represent something or
Speaker 1: give voice to something that you really cannot give. I
Speaker 1: actually completely agree with. But also I mean sure, but
Speaker 1: I also think it's bullshit to have an aspirational brand
Speaker 1: because like people can't aspire to be born rich. Every
Speaker 1: single brand is about aspiring to be rich. That sucks,
Speaker 1: I know it. But she's not unique for that. I
Speaker 1: will not unique. But like her pioneering, it doesn't make
Speaker 1: it like good. It just means she did it before
Speaker 1: everybody was doing it. I mean, I still don't think
Speaker 1: like I think you can buy into the actual website
Speaker 1: and like order ship from her store or whatever. But
Speaker 1: that's like I I still just get her newsletter and
Speaker 1: I actually now I have my in box marks that
Speaker 1: has read already, so I don't even read it most
Speaker 1: of the time. But I will go to her website
Speaker 1: for recipes, which I don't think is like that's not
Speaker 1: a buy in at all. I just feel that's just
Speaker 1: like a source for like, oh, I would like to
Speaker 1: have this soup that's like, you know, makes you feel
Speaker 1: like warm and and and good and has ginger in
Speaker 1: it in the winter, like I don't know, like she's
Speaker 1: she's she's good for stuff, like I know, And I
Speaker 1: actually hear what you're saying now that you read it
Speaker 1: more like a blog and less like a catalog. And
Speaker 1: I think when you feel like you're being targeted as
Speaker 1: a customer as opposed to an audience, then you your
Speaker 1: interpretation of it is very different. If you feel personally
Speaker 1: like targeted by stuff like you must buy a jade egg,
Speaker 1: and if you are if you feel insulted by this,
Speaker 1: like you have taken it, you know too hard enough
Speaker 1: that you're like the fact that I don't have a
Speaker 1: jade egg makes me mad. Then, like I feel like
Speaker 1: I feel like it's a wrong approach, Like it's just
Speaker 1: like she's telling you to buy a jade egg whatever.
Speaker 1: You don't know. It's more like when you talk about
Speaker 1: her postpartum depression and stuff like that. I think when
Speaker 1: with the jade egg and some of the health and
Speaker 1: wellness stuff they're vagina steeming. It's it's more the idea
Speaker 1: that you are like inherently have toxins and kind of
Speaker 1: things that you must purge. And when you think about
Speaker 1: people who are potentially like neurotic about those things, who
Speaker 1: are being sold things that could actually harm them, that
Speaker 1: to me is like a different branch of the blog, right,
Speaker 1: And she definitely doesn't. I feel like she's less hardcore
Speaker 1: about that stuff than a lot of people have. Jane
Speaker 1: Murrayon from the Dream which she's doing a wellness season
Speaker 1: to be the arbiter of weather Coup is a charlatan
Speaker 1: and then though a business woman a business woman, I
Speaker 1: just I so think one of the most like sympathetic
Speaker 1: things she has said as part of group is just
Speaker 1: like I still have my own American spirit. Every week yeah,
Speaker 1: I definitely. And that's your skin is not aspirational at all.
Speaker 1: It's one figurette a week is doing nothing bad to her.
Speaker 1: It's not like like you look at Gwyneth Paltrow. I
Speaker 1: don't think anybody looks at her at this point. And
Speaker 1: it's like, oh, I wish I was her. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I ran into her at a restaurant. I ran into
Speaker 1: her like as if we exchanged her. But I saw
Speaker 1: her at a restaurant like two years ago, and she
Speaker 1: is very beautiful, I think, and be rich. She is like,
Speaker 1: go be rich by yourself. I I know several Asian
Speaker 1: friends of mine and we have all copped to having
Speaker 1: the white lady that we have wished at sometimes that
Speaker 1: we were and and Gwyneth was mine and it has
Speaker 1: always been mine. What is it? Is it just that
Speaker 1: she I like her? Well? I liked her as an
Speaker 1: actress when I was in high school, like I love
Speaker 1: her in Talented Mr. And Wesley really highlights the scene
Speaker 1: and Talented Mr Ripley as great and that playing a
Speaker 1: rich bitch, yeah, I mean she, but she it's more complicated.
Speaker 1: It's a fantastic. Maybe it's also like she reminds me
Speaker 1: of like Beverly Hills princesses that like we grew up with.
Speaker 1: So it's like, I don't I don't know. I never
Speaker 1: thought i'd be defending Gwyneth Paltrow against anyone. I'm grateful
Speaker 1: for this spirited debate. I'm like, I don't know why.
Speaker 1: It's fun. I'll always stand up for for my my
Speaker 1: lady GP. The funniest comment I saw an O and
Speaker 1: T D with somebody being like, I'll watch this show
Speaker 1: if it's like, hey, I'm going with Paltrow, welcome to Jackass.
Speaker 1: Well I'm in. If she just does a backflip into
Speaker 1: a Yoni egg, I would be way into that. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think it will be weird. She's weird. Doesn't even
Speaker 1: take mushrooms on the show, apparently because she doesn't want
Speaker 1: people to see her lose control. That's such a cop out.
Speaker 1: She has kids, so what, everybody has kids and I
Speaker 1: don't have to see it for ourselves. I will definitely
Speaker 1: will check back in when it hits Netflix. Every episode, Um,
Speaker 1: we're taking mushrooms on the air, Taking mushrooms and live
Speaker 1: live the group lab sounds great. Something that we can
Speaker 1: all agree on, I think is um that the Postmates
Speaker 1: delivery robots. Oh yeah, evil. I saw one right before
Speaker 1: I got my cavity fields, which okay, So they look
Speaker 1: like little yellow shop solid shopping carts with eyes and
Speaker 1: they roll around. Yeah, I saw some. I saw a
Speaker 1: woman jogging behind one, and I thought it was like,
Speaker 1: maybe she was Yeah, a stroller, robot stroller is what
Speaker 1: I thought it was. Uh, and they just a day
Speaker 1: expecting that nobody's going to kick them over, because that
Speaker 1: seems like the obvious it does. They go pretty fast,
Speaker 1: so they carry carry up to fifty pounds. They can
Speaker 1: travel thirty miles between charges, and uh, there I think
Speaker 1: called Serve. According I looked at the Postmates website and
Speaker 1: there is floating tech that says over the picture of
Speaker 1: the robot that says delighted to meet you. Serves personality
Speaker 1: is all about understanding people. Nothing about Serves intelligence is artificial. Yeah, right, Serve.
Speaker 1: I hate it. Oh my god, yeah, I just god,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I hate this. I hate all I
Speaker 1: hate all the literal I hate all the trash that
Speaker 1: all these companies are crazy. And then they also like
Speaker 1: blocked the sidewalks for disabled people and people who live
Speaker 1: on the sidewalk. So what does serve is serve running
Speaker 1: around in New York? Like, is serve running around a
Speaker 1: place where people use the sidewalks? I mean they were
Speaker 1: first permitted in San Francisco because The Verge reported on
Speaker 1: it in August that they've gotten a permit for San Francisco. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and Garcatti will let any old trash happen in Los Angeles.
Speaker 1: If it's got wheels, then he will give it. Right,
Speaker 1: is like a wheeler from Return to Oz. It's like
Speaker 1: a wheeler. It also just looks like it reminded me
Speaker 1: so much of Wally because you can see how quickly
Speaker 1: it's going to degrade, you know, just beat up and
Speaker 1: sad white. Right, they're gonna look like minions. They're gonna
Speaker 1: look really dirty very quickly. I don't It's weird how
Speaker 1: I come to the defense of these robots, Like I'm
Speaker 1: not mad at them, I'm mad at the people who
Speaker 1: created them, Unlike scooters, where I actually like the scooter.
Speaker 1: Well you do, don't answer because you're like unionize. They
Speaker 1: have eyes, and so I'm like, who's your boss who
Speaker 1: like unleashed you onto the streets. You're not safe here
Speaker 1: and we know it's because they're like trying to get
Speaker 1: around having to hire human beings because they demand things
Speaker 1: like fair wages. Wait, were you guys tell was it
Speaker 1: on this podcast that you were telling me about the
Speaker 1: robot at the airport? Yeah? Did you watch a video
Speaker 1: of her? It's heartbreaking. She's like, hello, hey, can I
Speaker 1: tell you? And people are just mean every single podcast,
Speaker 1: I feel like I find a way to bring in
Speaker 1: like the sad plight of robots, but I'm thinking about
Speaker 1: it so much. One story about nature taking revenge on
Speaker 1: all this nightmare are Bridge that we all found inspiring.
Speaker 1: The story about the mega tumbleweed in Washington that shut
Speaker 1: down a highway because it was so big. Um. My
Speaker 1: friend Aurora Tang wrote me a message about this to
Speaker 1: say that these are called nuclear tumbleweeds because they were
Speaker 1: came from a nuclear plan at some point, but that
Speaker 1: they are not glow in the dark or anything. I
Speaker 1: don't know if them being nuclear is what makes them
Speaker 1: get so big, but it's very much like imagine the blob,
Speaker 1: but as tumbleweeds. Yeah, it doesn't, it's not. It doesn't
Speaker 1: even register as a tumbleweed in the photos of it. It
Speaker 1: It just looks like it does look like the blob.
Speaker 1: It looks like a big cloud that is like descended over.
Speaker 1: So they trapped cars and shut down a highway. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and tumbleweeds themselves are like an invasive species that were
Speaker 1: brought over I think by Russians in like the eighteen
Speaker 1: seventies or something to the American West and became this
Speaker 1: like iconic symbol of the American West. But they are invasive.
Speaker 1: Really Yeah, I didn't know that. It's super interesting and
Speaker 1: so it's an invasive plant. And I just love the
Speaker 1: idea that plants or animals might take their revenge on us.
Speaker 1: That's very annihilation. Yeah. Um, we'll get to more annihilation
Speaker 1: type things soon with the abyss, but first we got
Speaker 1: to talk about the Crimes and Elon musk Baby. We
Speaker 1: are I feel like contractually obliged to talk about the
Speaker 1: spawn of Grimes and Elon musk Um. I mean, only
Speaker 1: Grimes would announce her pregnancy with a bad photoshop job,
Speaker 1: Like I just it was like a DV and art
Speaker 1: pregnancy announced. It was like my twisted baby and she
Speaker 1: had one with nips and one without, so the like
Speaker 1: for ultimate postability, Like I said that it made pregnancy
Speaker 1: made her feel feral and warlike, yeah, which is just girls,
Speaker 1: because I was like, girl, there's a war, yeah, maybe
Speaker 1: about to happen. Yeah, maybe it's not cool to be warlike.
Speaker 1: So who are you worrying against? Like, who are you
Speaker 1: protecting your child against? When you're inside the compound? The
Speaker 1: cider truck, by the way, I realized from watching Total
Speaker 1: Recall again just is a Johnny cab from Total Recall,
Speaker 1: which are the like robot driven cars. It's just what
Speaker 1: they took the shape of that and made it. But
Speaker 1: it's supposed to be dystopian in Total Recall, You're supposed
Speaker 1: to be like, oh, a self driving like brutalist nightmare car.
Speaker 1: What do you think they're going to name their baby?
Speaker 1: That's the hardest question ever. Stupid um something from a
Speaker 1: video game that I haven't played. Somebody said Mars Mars.
Speaker 1: Somebody else said it'll be in wingdings photos like the
Speaker 1: Moon of Mars. Something fucking stupid. I just I don't know.
Speaker 1: It feels like I don't know. It feels like a
Speaker 1: I hate the Elon Musk, like online persuinga or whenever
Speaker 1: he's like addressing anything having to do with crimes, because
Speaker 1: it's like very hello, fellow kids. Like yeah, by the way,
Speaker 1: he's not old as fun. Nobody's got like hell of
Speaker 1: kids already. He's forty eight, she's thirty one. It's just
Speaker 1: that he's like embarrassing, he's just very levels. Yeah. We
Speaker 1: just we're an anti Musk pod. What can I say? Yeah,
Speaker 1: we are anti. I can't believe there's still to gain.
Speaker 1: I there has been. They've been quiet over there for
Speaker 1: this picture of them at Kim and Kanye's Christmas party,
Speaker 1: and it was just like the most Hunger Games thing
Speaker 1: I've ever seen, and I was just like, fuck this.
Speaker 1: The weirdest thing is that didn't Azalea Banks like congratulate them,
Speaker 1: say she's going to show up like Maleficent claimed the
Speaker 1: first time. This is for the recording session. It never
Speaker 1: happened to put a curse on the baby. It's what
Speaker 1: it deserves. Hey, it's not the baby's fault. I know
Speaker 1: the baby is gonna be so fucked up. Sorry, I
Speaker 1: feel bad for the baby. I wish no harm on
Speaker 1: the baby or them, but but I wish they weren't
Speaker 1: famous so that we didn't have to like address any
Speaker 1: of this. But we just like it does feel like
Speaker 1: the when like some quirky art school girl you know,
Speaker 1: turns out to just be like a boring normy and
Speaker 1: you're like, oh, I could have sensed that all along.
Speaker 1: Anyone who's that obsessed with being quirky and unique, it's
Speaker 1: probably like deeply boring, Like no, wait, I can make
Speaker 1: motherhood like alt, I'll make it, but it's also edge
Speaker 1: lordy to be like I'll make it all by like
Speaker 1: getting with a billionaire psychopath. All I could think about
Speaker 1: when I saw the picture was that I think Kate
Speaker 1: Raft from jack Am needs to do some art about this,
Speaker 1: because it is very like pregnancy is twisted, like you said, uh,
Speaker 1: and I think it can it can inspire good people
Speaker 1: to do good things. I enjoy pregnancy body horror. I
Speaker 1: think we're just like, how dare you co opt pregnancy
Speaker 1: body horror when this is horrifying. Legitimately, we're going to
Speaker 1: take a quick break and when we come back, we're
Speaker 1: going to kick off a new movie series. You're a
Speaker 1: Night Call. We are back. We are starting a new
Speaker 1: film series. After the rousing success of our puppetry series
Speaker 1: that we did over the holidays. At the end of
Speaker 1: the last week, we started this series last week with Cats. Yeah,
Speaker 1: in a way that was just a little but that
Speaker 1: was a taste taste. It was a taste of the uncanny,
Speaker 1: a little fancy feast on the spoon. So we're following
Speaker 1: up Nightmarish eighties puppet Movies December with Unnerving c g
Speaker 1: I January from the like mostly what I would call
Speaker 1: early c g I eighties and nineties bad c g I.
Speaker 1: It's just early. It was great for the time, so
Speaker 1: it's unnerving. I would argue that that the c g
Speaker 1: I in our movie today holds up. It was pretty well.
Speaker 1: But I also feel like Unnerving covers it's still yeah,
Speaker 1: and also covers Cats, Yes, and the lawnmower Man, which
Speaker 1: we're going to do next week. Yeah, so you can
Speaker 1: study ahead. Um. We are talking about James Cameron's The
Speaker 1: Abyss this week, which I had never seen, and I
Speaker 1: realized I hadn't seen because it's been kind of difficult
Speaker 1: to watch. Historically, I think that James Cameron is very
Speaker 1: protective over versions of his family. He's kind of lucacy
Speaker 1: in the way where he's like, you can't see this
Speaker 1: until I have the perfect version of it ready to So,
Speaker 1: so now there's a it's on HBO Go. There's an
Speaker 1: extended version that's not the version that's on HBO Go.
Speaker 1: But I was actually able to like you're actually able
Speaker 1: to stream it now, um, which is has not been
Speaker 1: the case for a while. So I was like, Okay,
Speaker 1: that's why I haven't seen it, because I was watching
Speaker 1: this and getting through it, and I was like, this
Speaker 1: movie kind of rules. And I'm sort of mad at
Speaker 1: myself for not having seen it earlier after having known
Speaker 1: about it for such a long time and known about
Speaker 1: it as this like early I l M thing like
Speaker 1: that was like kind of put made. I l M
Speaker 1: industrial lite and magic this um cool get I can't
Speaker 1: speak boundary breaking part of like Blockbuster. It was the
Speaker 1: first big test for the use of c g I
Speaker 1: in a Blockbuster before Jurassic Park. And it's interesting too
Speaker 1: because it's a movie with a lot of sets as well,
Speaker 1: and somebody was saying, like, oh, it's interesting this movie
Speaker 1: like kind of killed set building. Yeause, the c g
Speaker 1: I did succeed. The c g I seems like it
Speaker 1: was probably the easiest part of the film was shot underwater. Yes,
Speaker 1: so the behind the scenes of the ABYSS we'll talk
Speaker 1: about the Abyss and movie, but also the behind the scenes.
Speaker 1: No one can talk about this movie without talking about
Speaker 1: what a nightmare it was to make. Apparently the crew
Speaker 1: would call it the Abuse or the Son of Abyss.
Speaker 1: Another one. Um, nobody wants to talk about it. Who
Speaker 1: was involved, which is also maybe either hasn't been like
Speaker 1: a retrospective or a big you know, release of it.
Speaker 1: And Harris, I think was genuinely traumatized by making this movie,
Speaker 1: which is understandable. Harris, who plays the one of the leads,
Speaker 1: so the leads in this movie is very James cameroney.
Speaker 1: The leads are like a bickering divorced couple. They're still
Speaker 1: married estranged, but he has his wedding ring that he
Speaker 1: tosses in the party. Friday on a submarine. Yeah, um,
Speaker 1: but it's a submarine movie. But I was also like
Speaker 1: grateful for a submarine movie that had like a woman
Speaker 1: or two in it. They tend to not. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: James Cameron is always good at like a rag tag
Speaker 1: team that like everybody kind of He likes to have
Speaker 1: strong ladies. And he didn't he criticize some movie because
Speaker 1: he was like, it's not as cool as like Sarah Connor.
Speaker 1: He's very into himself being like a pioneer feminism. Like
Speaker 1: I mean, he had some quote I'm sorry, Emily, but
Speaker 1: he had some quote about like I love like really independent,
Speaker 1: like difficult women. That's why I like keep marrying them.
Speaker 1: But then I couldn't find one who needed me because
Speaker 1: they're so independent and bitchy. And then I found my wife,
Speaker 1: who's like an independent woman who needs me. I was
Speaker 1: just like enough. James Cameron and this is white the
Speaker 1: number five. It is wife number five. He was married
Speaker 1: to Gail Anne Heard the producer who rules looked her
Speaker 1: up and also maybe like, oh, he's got a type
Speaker 1: because she kind of looks like Katherine Bigelow. She just
Speaker 1: looks like a cool, cool, tough broad. He works in Hollywood. Um,
Speaker 1: she produced Aliens as well. Seems like she is a
Speaker 1: big genre pioneer. You should be talked about as much
Speaker 1: as James Cameron. I mean, she did a lot of
Speaker 1: effects that she had Terminator, she did Aliens with him.
Speaker 1: She and then she did the Abyss and then they
Speaker 1: were divorced by the end of the Yeah, those things
Speaker 1: that they were married when they started filming. They separated
Speaker 1: during filming and they were divorced by the end, and
Speaker 1: I think he was already with Katherine Bigelow at that point.
Speaker 1: He hops from lily Pad to lily Pad. And I
Speaker 1: think she she did executive produce um Terminator two, but
Speaker 1: I think that she was not hands on in it.
Speaker 1: It was just because she had produced the first. Imagine,
Speaker 1: once you produced Terminator, you could probably chill out for
Speaker 1: one minute. Yeah, but this movie rules. It's really it's great.
Speaker 1: I mean how long it is, and the extended version
Speaker 1: is longer by like a half an hour or something stop,
Speaker 1: so it's a full three hours. It's almost three hours
Speaker 1: long the extended version. I took a break in the middle.
Speaker 1: I will admit, Um, there are a lot of set pieces. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: of course it out. But then I did watch the
Speaker 1: end of it as I was going to bed, and
Speaker 1: this movie is ridiculous, hands really strong. Um yeah, I
Speaker 1: was like, oh, I only want to watch movies where
Speaker 1: the third act is just completely tripping balls. Yeah, because
Speaker 1: it was like a ten to one sketch or something.
Speaker 1: You were like, excuse me, he's really trying for a
Speaker 1: two finale and you can feel it. I knew it
Speaker 1: was coming, but it was sort of impressive also after
Speaker 1: so let's tell what the abyss is about in case
Speaker 1: you don't try. It's about nuclear war. Also, it's like
Speaker 1: Russian sub and an American sub fighting to get to
Speaker 1: the bottom of the ocean for some reason unclear, at
Speaker 1: least in the non extended version unclear stop a nuclear war,
Speaker 1: but that is not clear in the theatrical version. Um.
Speaker 1: And then it turns out there's like benevolent alien TI
Speaker 1: non terrestrial intelligence. The n t I s have like
Speaker 1: kind of intercepted this American sub and and sucked it
Speaker 1: up and driven it off course and it crashes and
Speaker 1: it has nuclear has like nukes on board, and so
Speaker 1: they have to go down, like this crew has to
Speaker 1: go down and search for survivors, which is actually like
Speaker 1: the scariest part of the whole. And it's good also
Speaker 1: because it's like a space trucking movie but underwater. I
Speaker 1: mean it is a space movie on or water. It's
Speaker 1: aliens on which is such a good idea and especially
Speaker 1: at that time, Um yeah, and going in the opposite
Speaker 1: direction of aliens and being like the aliens are good.
Speaker 1: They're good. But and and I think it's spelled out
Speaker 1: more in the extended version that they're kind of like
Speaker 1: they're kind of Godzilla esque and that they are kind
Speaker 1: of these godlike punishers for the ills of man. They're
Speaker 1: really cool looking. Also, they just look like a jelly fit,
Speaker 1: like a bioluminescent jellyfish. Well, so like the the aliens,
Speaker 1: they call them nett ees. It's like non terrestrial intelligences. Um,
Speaker 1: they are. As far as I can tell, It's really
Speaker 1: hard to find information about that effect because the water
Speaker 1: column thing is like the most famous thing, and that's
Speaker 1: the c g I thing, um, and that was the
Speaker 1: thing that I LEM did, and the and the Aliens.
Speaker 1: I don't think that I l M did. But they're
Speaker 1: like a really kind of cool They kind of tron
Speaker 1: like gets sort of that projection ara of like graphics,
Speaker 1: but like a practical puppet is involved as well. It
Speaker 1: makes sense. Yeah, it's really great looking. Is that this
Speaker 1: movie also invented like farming out different effects to different
Speaker 1: effects houses so that you could get them all done
Speaker 1: at the same time. But I did think that the
Speaker 1: jellyfish looking thing was it did have a puppety feeling. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was the hand it was like inside of a
Speaker 1: jelly That was just really good. C G I, and
Speaker 1: I was actually so impressed with how it the c
Speaker 1: G I. Well, it looks fantastic. I mean, that's the
Speaker 1: thing that's interesting about this movie, even just like within
Speaker 1: like film history, is that you have both you have
Speaker 1: you have c G I and you have this really
Speaker 1: interesting puppet design and Jurassic Park is like that, and
Speaker 1: that's why they both work so well, because it's like
Speaker 1: a groundedness to it where you don't just feel like
Speaker 1: they're pete dragon like animated in like you do with
Speaker 1: full on c G I. But I once was like,
Speaker 1: why don't they just always do that? And it was like,
Speaker 1: because it's really expensive at this point, it's like people
Speaker 1: choose c G I. But I do think that something
Speaker 1: is lost when you don't have like the puppetry underneath
Speaker 1: is what makes it. Yeah, well, it's the kind of
Speaker 1: thing where when you notice c g I, but then
Speaker 1: you notice an effect and you identify it as not
Speaker 1: being c G I, it becomes less bothersome because it's
Speaker 1: unpredictable it. I don't it doesn't bother me to notice
Speaker 1: something c G I, or even to notice bad c
Speaker 1: G I, as long as it's not the only thing
Speaker 1: that's going on, because then you become obsessive about it
Speaker 1: and start to you know, disengage. But I think like,
Speaker 1: especially when you're animating something, I think it's easier if
Speaker 1: you're doing something like an alien or some kind of
Speaker 1: like uh, non human thing where that when it enters
Speaker 1: the film, the tone and the feeling of the film changes.
Speaker 1: So it's like, okay, if it doesn't look like everything else,
Speaker 1: because it shouldn't. It should look genuinely alien. And I
Speaker 1: think they pull that off really well. Yeah. The Alien
Speaker 1: City is really cool. It's like, how I not before
Speaker 1: It's like pink aliens and Ed Harris like touching their
Speaker 1: fingers and stuff, and it's great. And then the aliens
Speaker 1: are going to kill society, but they decide not to
Speaker 1: because of the love between Harris loves his wife Dr
Speaker 1: Lindsay Brigman. She's so good. I really yeah. It was.
Speaker 1: It's Mary and Mastro Antonio, Mary Anne Mary Elizabeth Mary
Speaker 1: Elizabeth Master Antonio who was she's the sister's sister in Scarface.
Speaker 1: She was also I realized, um, I was listening to
Speaker 1: the blank Check episode on this film, which I hadn't
Speaker 1: listened to before because I had not seen the movie. Um,
Speaker 1: she was also made Mary and Rob. She is a
Speaker 1: very she's an amazing actor, and she has a very
Speaker 1: like very cool face. Yeah, I mean I do love
Speaker 1: those James Cameron like tough broad in a wife everyone
Speaker 1: he loves a good face. Let me not say wife, Peter.
Speaker 1: I do love I do love those James Cameron tough
Speaker 1: tough chicken the tank top. Yeah, well, like at the
Speaker 1: end of the film, that's as fast forward to the end,
Speaker 1: but just like when you know it's the end and
Speaker 1: they they've come out of the um the what's the
Speaker 1: rig and they kind of like get pooped out of
Speaker 1: the rig onto the surface of the the alien craft
Speaker 1: whatever it is, and she's just in like sweats and
Speaker 1: like like a kind of ill fitting sweater and like
Speaker 1: that's that's what she's wearing in the Victorious end, seeing
Speaker 1: it's kind of like she looks like she's just been
Speaker 1: blogging all day. Nobody has time for Bras and the
Speaker 1: James can ray they gotta work on this ship. Respect that. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's also really funny when you come out of the
Speaker 1: super long c G I sequence, which is really psychedelic,
Speaker 1: really amazing, genuinely sort of overwhelming and made me be like, oh,
Speaker 1: I wish I was watching this lit a large screen. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that would be great. Yeah. And then the first person
Speaker 1: you see is Chris Elliott. Yes, Chris Elliott is So
Speaker 1: it's such a surprising so hard because I saw him
Speaker 1: on the cast and I was like, oh, it must
Speaker 1: be another Chrysalia that I was like, Nope, nope's cry
Speaker 1: it's cabin boy. Yeah. He's like the comforting bookend at
Speaker 1: the beginning end of the like he's like, oh, we're
Speaker 1: back on earthwork. There's a couple of things about this
Speaker 1: movie that come up also. One is that the set
Speaker 1: was just kind of left there in the half built
Speaker 1: nuclear reactor where they filmed it until two thousand seven. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so you can find people who did are been exploring
Speaker 1: to go to. There's like an ionine post about it. Um.
Speaker 1: But it's a little disappointing because it's just like a tank.
Speaker 1: It's not like the interior or the subs or anything.
Speaker 1: But it is really creepy and very annihilation e because
Speaker 1: it is an overgrown, unfinished nuclear reactor place. This would
Speaker 1: be the Cherokee Nuclear Power Plant in Gaffney, South Carolina.
Speaker 1: I think they also did um. I was really fascinated
Speaker 1: by the idea of them filming in this giant underground
Speaker 1: lake in a mine in Missouri. I mean all of
Speaker 1: the like in the context of how horrible filming was
Speaker 1: because you're filming underwater, which would make you insane. But
Speaker 1: it's not only that, but it's the chlorine, it's the
Speaker 1: darkness there. The diver's hair was like bleached, was burned.
Speaker 1: James Cameron clearly seems to have some sort of a
Speaker 1: playing god. This is the issue is that he his
Speaker 1: the way that he kind of justifies what he puts
Speaker 1: actors through is I wouldn't ask you to do anything
Speaker 1: I wouldn't do like, but James camera James Cameron. So
Speaker 1: James Cameron is a super crazy deep sea explorer, so
Speaker 1: it's like, of course you would do it, James Cameron.
Speaker 1: He almost died too, and the story was that he
Speaker 1: was running out of air and then he like punched
Speaker 1: this diver in the face and like swam to the surface.
Speaker 1: Great call Um Ed Harris almost died and talks about
Speaker 1: how he pulled over on the side of the road
Speaker 1: to cry. They're like they would have breaks in the
Speaker 1: green room with the whole cast to just weep and
Speaker 1: like throw furniture out the window. Yeah, Mary Elizabeth really
Speaker 1: hated him because she made them film the scene where
Speaker 1: she gets resuscitated, and they ran out of film and
Speaker 1: then didn't stop filming that was the thing, and she's
Speaker 1: like she yelled, we are not animals, and James Cameron
Speaker 1: and stormed off, And then the rest of the scene,
Speaker 1: all of at Harris's sides and that where he's crying
Speaker 1: was done without her and on sets a little snuff filming,
Speaker 1: because yeah, what this made me realize. It's like James
Speaker 1: Cameron is obsessed with like someone almost almost filming somebody drowned. Well,
Speaker 1: he's yeah, he's obsessed with water in a very elemental
Speaker 1: way that I do think, despite all the masochism and
Speaker 1: or guess sadism in this case, is like, I mean
Speaker 1: it's both for him, but but I think it's like
Speaker 1: actually kind of compelling, Like it's the kind of thing
Speaker 1: that makes me feel like, oh, James Cameron is like
Speaker 1: an artist as opposed to just like a guy who
Speaker 1: makes big blockbuster films, because there's nothing that's objectively like
Speaker 1: lucrative about doing these like very complicated and dangerous underwater
Speaker 1: films and like always having to build a tank and
Speaker 1: do all this stuff. Loves water. He's a hitchcock, but
Speaker 1: for people dying in water. Yeah, So it was also
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, if you made this now, you
Speaker 1: would just c G I it and you wouldn't have
Speaker 1: to film it underwater. Actually, and then I found out
Speaker 1: they filmed the second to Avatar sequels that are coming
Speaker 1: out underwater. Pioneered a new type of motion capture that
Speaker 1: you can do underwater. I read that on Wikipedia. I
Speaker 1: read that he was as a child really fascinated with shipwrecks,
Speaker 1: and also that he he's just an adrenaline junkie and
Speaker 1: he feels that everyone should push themselves to this limit.
Speaker 1: And he's become a really you know, enthusiastic conservationist. He
Speaker 1: runds a vegan school with his wife. He's like a
Speaker 1: narciss cistic conservationist. He's like a colonialist conservationist, and he
Speaker 1: sees the sea as like a colony. I actually saw, well,
Speaker 1: I have have an encounter to that. Okay, Okay, Well,
Speaker 1: I think that he genuinely thinks that they're like ghosts
Speaker 1: in the ocean. Yeah, it's I think he thinks he
Speaker 1: can discover being here. I have proof of this. I
Speaker 1: saw the Imax movie. I think it's called Aliens of
Speaker 1: the Aliens. Did you see this? Okay, at the Imax
Speaker 1: at the Science Center. It was like a three D
Speaker 1: Imax thing he made where it was like very James Camerone.
Speaker 1: It was like pseudo fictional but real scientist but he
Speaker 1: picked like the most adorable, diverse group of scientists that
Speaker 1: you've ever seen. Cast it like a James Cameron movie. Um.
Speaker 1: And yeah, he goes to the bottom of the ocean
Speaker 1: with them because he wants to go to the ocean
Speaker 1: inside Jupiter in Jupiter's moon and you, yeah, he wants
Speaker 1: to go to Europa and he like talks about it
Speaker 1: very angrily, where he's like he talks about everything angry
Speaker 1: talks about. But he's like he's like I can keep think. Okay,
Speaker 1: So the abyss is what he thinks is happening on
Speaker 1: Europa for real. And there is this whole thing about
Speaker 1: how there's like a little drill robot they want to send.
Speaker 1: He's like, here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna like
Speaker 1: send this spaceship to Europa's moon to Jupiter's moon, Europa
Speaker 1: have it drill into the center and then sent launch
Speaker 1: another robot that will swim down with a camera and
Speaker 1: like show us where the aliens that clearly live in
Speaker 1: the water are. But we can't do it until we
Speaker 1: fucking explore the stupid ocean to its full capacity. I guess, oh,
Speaker 1: I don't. I feel like he loves the ocean. I
Speaker 1: won't think that the ocean is stupid. But he's like
Speaker 1: mad that they won't just let him go drill on
Speaker 1: the moon on Jupiter's moon because he's like so convinced. Well,
Speaker 1: because he's already broken some kind of record because he
Speaker 1: diving hours or something. It was, well, he was the
Speaker 1: only person to make a solo dive to the Challenger Deep,
Speaker 1: which is the deepest part of the Mariana Trench, and
Speaker 1: then he found new species of like a c cucumber
Speaker 1: and an amiba. I don't know how that was. Like
Speaker 1: an explorer, he wants to be an explorer, and like
Speaker 1: he's angry that there they've run out of places for
Speaker 1: him to explore. I haven't though there's still so much
Speaker 1: of the ocean that's not explored. It seems like he's
Speaker 1: having a good time. I can. I mean I can
Speaker 1: relate to like wanting to live underwater. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: I think I think there's something cool with how genuinely
Speaker 1: compelled like to and to imagine like a benevolent creature
Speaker 1: being in the abyss, or at least like a neutral
Speaker 1: like kind of This movie really does also kind of
Speaker 1: like cemental his weird hitchcocky and things where you're like,
Speaker 1: he doesn't just want to explore, he wants like a
Speaker 1: cool woman by his side, like reinforcing that he's the
Speaker 1: greatest man who ever lived. He wants to solve his
Speaker 1: marriage while going into the Mariannest, which is funny to
Speaker 1: make a movie about that while you're marriage is falling
Speaker 1: apart because you're making this movie that's so insane and obsessive.
Speaker 1: And the only person who ever worked with him again
Speaker 1: from this movie is Michael Baine, who's the He's the
Speaker 1: one who goes. He gets like the nerve, the mustache guy.
Speaker 1: He loses his mind from being crazy. He's great. I
Speaker 1: thought he was a real babe. Also, yeah, he was
Speaker 1: very kind of Yeah, Freddie Mercury ish, I feel like
Speaker 1: I got kind of a Walton Goggins energy just kind
Speaker 1: of yeah, kind of a cookie. But he worked with
Speaker 1: Cameron again, but even the composer didn't worker. But but
Speaker 1: like honestly, the novelist Orson Scott Card who wrote the
Speaker 1: Like book version, said he would never work with Cameron
Speaker 1: again and didn't Cameron to adapt any of his books.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I think you can do without Orson Scott,
Speaker 1: that's true. He's expendable and Allen Sylvest. What do you
Speaker 1: guys think about Avatar? The Avatar sequels? I have not
Speaker 1: watched Avatar. Why. I tried to watch it because it's
Speaker 1: on Disney Plus and me, as this is now a
Speaker 1: Disney Plus spawn, give us money Disney Plus, please, And
Speaker 1: I tried to and I could not make it past
Speaker 1: the first like twelve minutes. It was so offensive to
Speaker 1: mine eyes. And also don't care for it really, but
Speaker 1: I am you know. This made me be like he
Speaker 1: might have some crazy ship left in the pocket. The sequels.
Speaker 1: I enjoyed Avatar fine when it when I saw it
Speaker 1: in the theater, he seen in three D, and I
Speaker 1: thought it might be appropriate to show my kids Avatar,
Speaker 1: and that that would be a mistake. They were terrified.
Speaker 1: I did the same where I'm like, I think this
Speaker 1: is good. It's about respecting Mother Earth. Watched this while
Speaker 1: I go into the kitchen and like make food and
Speaker 1: then talk on the phone with my mom or something
Speaker 1: for a long time, so I'm literally paying no attention,
Speaker 1: and by the time I came back, they were huddled
Speaker 1: blanket and there was I mean it was like there
Speaker 1: was offensive language, like some homophobic slurs, I believe, lots
Speaker 1: of like violent weaponry and stuff, and they were just like,
Speaker 1: this is like the worst thing we've ever seen. This
Speaker 1: is terrible. Just to cape for Cats again, I want
Speaker 1: to say the reason Cats is not like that is
Speaker 1: because the human faces are allowed to show through the
Speaker 1: whole time, and that grounds it in like but they
Speaker 1: kind of showed through an avatar. That's the that's like
Speaker 1: it falls into the uncanny valley so deeply, Like there's
Speaker 1: never a moment in Cats when you're not aware that
Speaker 1: it's Judy Dench with like Cats shurt it on and
Speaker 1: that's what makes it work is you're like, Judy Dench
Speaker 1: is here, it's not a night, it's not the Polar Express. Well,
Speaker 1: before we we end today, I just like on because
Speaker 1: this is a series about early c G. I and
Speaker 1: we haven't talked much about the water column or of
Speaker 1: water dick you, which is like kind of the the
Speaker 1: show is stopping scene in this and the middle of
Speaker 1: it where the aliens have learned to control water so
Speaker 1: they like kind of it's called a pseudo pod. I
Speaker 1: believe um just like an arm, a water arm that
Speaker 1: finds its way through the submarine. Uh. I don't think
Speaker 1: it holds up that the face thing is the only
Speaker 1: bad thing in it, and that's like, but that's like
Speaker 1: the most they could do at that time. I think
Speaker 1: that effect also just became so played out, you know
Speaker 1: that now when you see it you're like, oh, Alex
Speaker 1: mac right, But Alex mac right, Like it's when you
Speaker 1: think about, like, what was that like to see for
Speaker 1: the first time. Did it seem futuristic or did it
Speaker 1: feel kind of like jankie? Yeah, I think like the
Speaker 1: camera effect when it's it's the point of view of
Speaker 1: the pseudopod is actually reaches out and touches it and
Speaker 1: then there's a little drawful walk like I don't know.
Speaker 1: I thought that. I thought it was kind of cool
Speaker 1: and that was Yeah, that was like the main c G.
Speaker 1: I think that, like, you know, everybody it won the
Speaker 1: Oscar for that. Yeah, I guess it was kind of
Speaker 1: a flop for a James camera. It was not. It
Speaker 1: did not do well, but it was critically I think,
Speaker 1: pretty well received. It just didn't make that much money.
Speaker 1: And I guess Spielberg studied it because it was like
Speaker 1: the for Jurassic Park to be like, here's here's how
Speaker 1: we can do this for the future, and then they
Speaker 1: never made anything better than Jurassic Park. I was just
Speaker 1: gonna say, I think Jurassic Park is far better than
Speaker 1: the Abyss in my humble opinion though, because it's so
Speaker 1: good Emily, there's two good c g I months. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a solid twenty minutes of inside a submarine, just
Speaker 1: kind of walking around in water that needed to go.
Speaker 1: It didn't feel about a submarine movie too, like I've
Speaker 1: watched plenty of submar just like it's an inherently claustrophobic
Speaker 1: environment compared to Jurassic Park. But it also there was
Speaker 1: so much just trying to establish relationships when the relationships
Speaker 1: were very thin. You know, you didn't actually between Bud
Speaker 1: and um Dr Brigman. Obviously, there was a lot going
Speaker 1: on Michael, Michael Baine, Michael Bean, question Mark not be
Speaker 1: I think it's Michael Bean't go with Michael, but I
Speaker 1: mean he obviously has his own psychosis going on. He
Speaker 1: has a few cohorts, but the Coharts are the funniest. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he has his like lackeys where I'm just like, why
Speaker 1: are you doing what this man is saying when he's
Speaker 1: obviously lost his mind. It's never explained, um, but there
Speaker 1: was so much of that in the middle between book
Speaker 1: ended by the like really wild ending and the beginning
Speaker 1: that I just got pissed because I was like James Cameron,
Speaker 1: this was so hard for these actors. You you did
Speaker 1: not need all of it. But one sequence you can
Speaker 1: tell that everybody almost died. Yeah, it looks dangerous. It
Speaker 1: looks dangerous, and you can just they all seem so
Speaker 1: exhaust there's fear on their face, which works for the movie,
Speaker 1: but that's what makes it like a snuff film that
Speaker 1: you're like, Yeah, if you want your actors to seem terrified,
Speaker 1: why don't you almost kill them them? For real? Have
Speaker 1: you guys seen The stunt Man? No, it's really good.
Speaker 1: It's a movie about an actor who thinks the director
Speaker 1: is just trying to kill him? Is he right? Well?
Speaker 1: When we should do that sometime we'll be We'll be
Speaker 1: back next week talking about Laen more Man and I'm
Speaker 1: so excited. I've never seen it almost scared. And if
Speaker 1: you have any suggestions for other early cg UH films
Speaker 1: that we should talk about, give us a night call.
Speaker 1: So is that a call back to the day by
Speaker 1: the bat? It was Jesse Spana. Thank you for thanks
Speaker 1: for noticing. Please clap please clap um. Yeah. If you've
Speaker 1: got questions about spooky fridges or other haunted appliances, weird
Speaker 1: c g i um, people almost dying in outer space
Speaker 1: or the bottom of the ocean, or plants coming to
Speaker 1: life and taking back what is rightfully there's give us
Speaker 1: a call a night Call at two four o four
Speaker 1: six night or send us a night email at Night
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Speaker 1: on social media also a Nightcall pod on Twitter and
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Speaker 1: support us on Patreon if you're not already, we are
Speaker 1: at patreon dot com slash Nightcall and you can subscribe
Speaker 1: at a variety of tears to have an extended special
Speaker 1: edition Night Call Experience directors. We'll be back next week.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to everybody right. Nightcall is a production
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