BONUS The Friday Show - Thunder Struck, Part 2
Guest:one of my favorite lines you have hands chris is not only one of your favorite lines it was the first thing you said to me after seeing this movie 17 years ago is it yes you're like did you see tropic thunder yes he has hands
Guest:All right, Chris.
Marc:Yeah, Brandon.
Guest:Time to get back into Tropic Thunder, which came out 17 years ago last week.
Guest:And if you didn't hear last week's episode, we talked about the beginning of Tropic Thunder on that one.
Guest:We're going to talk about the rest of the movie here on this show, which is on tape.
Guest:We're not able to record this on the week you're hearing it.
Guest:And so we're just going to get right into it.
Guest:I've got no WTF stuff to talk about, but hopefully you have enjoyed the Ben Stiller episode that aired on Monday.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:We should tell people, it's always taped.
Marc:Like, they're not hearing us live.
Marc:Yes, we've never lied.
Marc:Like, just want to point that out to everyone.
Guest:We're never, we're always on the pulse, right?
Guest:We usually record very close to when people are hearing it.
Marc:That's true.
Guest:That's the only discrepancy, but that doesn't matter because we're talking about a great movie and we'll continue doing it here.
Guest:Where we left off, we were talking about that Access Hollywood sequence where they show basically what everyone in the movie has been up to.
Guest:They get to tell you about, you know, the Jack Black character's drug abuse and they tell you about Ben Stiller and how these Scorcher movies are not selling the way they once sold.
Guest:But this is also where you get the explanation of
Guest:about the um kirk lazarus character the robert downey jr character as to why he is why he looks and sounds black and it is not that he has blackface makeup on no it is that he underwent a pigmentation process controversial pigmentation process they say and they're showing you like vials that have like chinese lettering on them i love that detail that it's like clearly like illegal whatever he's having done to him like you could not do it unless you went overseas
Guest:And they take the bandages off his face and now he looks like the black character you saw earlier in the film with makeup done by Rick Baker.
Guest:So it looks really good.
Guest:That's another awesome thing.
Guest:They like spared no expense to make sure this looked authentic and it didn't just look like someone put blackface on.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And.
Guest:the idea being that this guy gets so into his characters, which he will then explain throughout the movie of all the other movies he makes.
Guest:And he, you know, works in a textile mill for eight months or whatever.
Guest:Now he has made himself black so that he could play this character.
Guest:Um,
Guest:Amazing.
Guest:Which is insane and totally the right joke for Hollywood.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:100%.
Marc:The thing where it's like, oh, you didn't need to go there.
Marc:Oh, wait, you did.
Marc:You went 150% extra.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it's like, I don't know that there was an, obviously there was never an example this extreme, but like, there's just, it's littered with like explanations from people too.
Guest:Like, oh yeah, no, I know.
Guest:Like I personally am not Japanese, but I went and lived in a Japanese POW camp, you know, whatever it was.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Guest:But now you do also know that this director is under fire and might get, you know, canned from this film.
Guest:So you see the director, Steve Coogan's character, Damian Cockburn, walking with a studio executive played by Bill Hader, who is not like super famous Bill Hader at the time, but he was on SNL.
Guest:And...
Guest:He's so good.
Guest:Well, did you happen to come across his story of how he got the part?
Guest:No, no.
Guest:How did he get the part?
Guest:So you can watch this.
Guest:There's a video of him talking about this.
Guest:I think it was for like Vanity Fair or Esquire or something that he auditioned for it.
Guest:And as he went in for the audition, he mentioned a guy he had in mind, this Paramount executive, who would say things like, I just want everyone to know what a great time we're all having.
Guest:Like that was like this guy's like attitude and demeanor and the way he talked.
Guest:And he mentioned this and Ben Stiller was like, Oh yeah, yeah, I know him.
Guest:And so Bill Hader tells a story about that guy being on set once and like coming up to all the people working on the set.
Guest:And like, he held in his hand, like a sandwich from the catering table behind him.
Guest:And he was like,
Guest:do you know why they make the sandwiches so fresh?
Guest:And everyone's just like looking at him and he turns around to like the guy at the catering and he's like, tell them why are the sandwiches so fresh?
Guest:And the guy's like, uh, cause I made them this morning because he made them this morning and
Guest:that was it that was his big like you know he's like pep talk to the troops and ben still like burst out laughing and then they start talking about that guy and then he's like all right it was great great seeing you did not ask him to read the sides he never read the script that was he prepared for it he got the part just from doing that guy so amazing
Guest:Again, it's why this movie works, because it's so close to the bone.
Guest:Like, they're like, oh, you're literally playing a dude we all know.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You know?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:The sniveling, you know, executive's assistant.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Well, I mean, but that's the hilarious thing, is that he is the studio executive.
Guest:Right.
Guest:He's in charge of the studio.
Guest:He's just not...
Guest:les grossman right right like that's the that's the thing like les grossman is the well you know whether he's the owner or the mogul or whatever he runs a whole corporation you know yeah uh and so okay that's now we're on to les grossman who you find in this movie next uh when he is on a video screen at this emergency meeting right and
Marc:Which he's controlling the camera to find the best script.
Marc:I love that.
Marc:I love that little camera.
Guest:Now, also, let me ask you this.
Guest:Did you know Tom Cruise was in the movie before you went to see it?
Marc:I don't think I did.
Marc:No, I did not.
Guest:I knew he was in it.
Guest:I did not know what he was going to look like, but he knew he was in it.
Guest:So it was not going to be a surprise to me that he was in it.
Guest:Dawn, my wife, did not know he was in it.
Guest:But in this scene...
Guest:When you go into this meeting where it's a huge gathering of people and they're trying to get him up on the screen, you hear his voice saying, where are you?
Guest:Where is everybody?
Guest:Where am I?
Guest:And Dawn was like, Tom Cruise?
Guest:Like she picked it up right away from the voice.
Guest:I do not believe for a second the stories that came out after this that people did not know it was him until the credits.
Guest:Right.
Guest:That is horseshit.
Marc:There's no way you didn't know it was Tom Cruise.
Marc:It's just too recognizable.
Marc:It's the voice.
Marc:It's the eyeballs.
Marc:Like, it's just.
Marc:Oh, it's his body movements, even in this fat suit that he's in.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Alright.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So now we see Les Grossman.
Guest:It does not look like Tom Cruise.
Guest:No.
Guest:It looks like a very bald person with a very aggressive posture.
Guest:And he has lots of body hair.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:He has giant hands and rings on those fingers.
Marc:Enormous hands.
Marc:I don't know how they did this makeup.
Marc:It's insane.
Marc:He has these big, thick,
Marc:like hands.
Marc:They looked like they get these strangled people.
Marc:Right.
Guest:Well, so apparently the way he came to this movie was that they wanted him to play.
Guest:Now I know the guy Kornfeld in that, um, oral history says they wanted him to play Stiller's character.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I could not find that anywhere else.
Guest:And I think that that is the kind of thing that someone might... Like, he probably thought that or wanted that to happen.
Guest:But I don't know that that was ever a reality.
Guest:And the things that I have seen corroborated several times over is that the projected casting was that Stiller wanted Keanu Reeves to play the lead...
Guest:he wanted Cruz to play the leads agent because he thought that that would be funny.
Guest:The idea of like Tom Cruise playing the agent of the Tom Cruise type.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So they give Tom Cruise the script and,
Guest:And he reads it and he identifies a problem with the script.
Guest:He says, you don't, you need another bad guy in here because apparently the script they have there is just the kid.
Guest:Right.
Guest:It's just the, it's just the drug Lord who's a 12 year old.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And until then there's no other real friction in the film.
Guest:In fact, they were saying a problem they were having was the film is just in the jungle for too long.
Guest:Hmm.
Guest:And so Cruz says, you should have, as you mentioned last week, this big pig of a studio executive.
Guest:And that's your real villain.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And that then gave them a way to fix the script and go back to.
Guest:The real world.
Guest:Hollywood.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So, okay, they're great.
Guest:That's awesome.
Guest:And then they end the meeting.
Guest:And then because it's Tom Cruise and he's doing a million things, nothing ever really picks up.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Stiller decides he's going to play the agent, but then they don't have Keanu Reeves either.
Guest:So Stiller moves into playing the lead, which only makes sense because he's like a joke version of Tom Cruise.
Marc:100%.
Guest:He's been doing Tom Cruise impressions his whole life.
Marc:He did it for Mission Impossible 2 for the VMAs.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:oh remember you did it on celebrity jeopardy yeah yeah where he's like his your your answer go your wager for it yeah go for it man and so now they're left without an agent who gets cast as the agent ben stiller's friend owen wilson oh no shit
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Unfortunately, sadly, he has a suicide attempt and then is no longer able to make the movie.
Guest:It has a mental health crisis, which obviously by the fact that he's in stick with Mark, he is better now, which we can all be very thankful for.
Guest:But he can't play it.
Guest:they get McConaughey.
Guest:So now that's how you get Matthew McConaughey as his agent, Rick Peck.
Guest:Great character.
Guest:And also great that McConaughey still seems so perfect for it.
Guest:Holy cow.
Guest:Is he perfect for that role?
Guest:So Tom Cruise then gets in touch with them
Guest:Once all these roles are given out and says, hey, I have time.
Guest:I can do something in this movie if you still have that agent or whatever for me.
Guest:And he says, I don't.
Guest:And he goes, what part do you have?
Guest:And Ben Stiller says, well, there's the one you invented, Les Grossman.
Guest:And he's like, I'll play that.
Guest:And then from there, apparently Cruz fully invented this character.
Guest:Like whole cloth.
Guest:Like he came, he was like his baby.
Guest:Even the things they already had in the script, they like threw away because Cruz comes to it and like adds all this shit, like very specific.
Guest:Like I want him to have fat hands.
Guest:I want him to have, I want him to dance.
Guest:He dances a lot.
Guest:Like that's like was a character element of it.
Guest:And all the cursing, like he's like, he needs to curse more.
Guest:Like there's a story in that oral history of like this woman who's like one of his like regular costumers, makeup artists, like she's with him all the time.
Guest:And she's like, yeah, I was around him in the dressing room and he's just saying all these awful things.
Guest:I've never heard him say, she's like, I wondered if there was something wrong with him.
Guest:He's just literally running his lines for this character.
Marc:he's like uh this person's like uh i don't know tom i think you might have tourette's you literally was talking like tourette's like he was just like you fucked fucked your face fuck fuck like also this we're meeting tom cruise at such an interesting point in his career because he he had kind of exploded in a bad way like
Marc:Yeah, this is not long after the couch jump.
Marc:Yes, the couch jump.
Marc:It was such a seminal fucking moment on television.
Marc:Was that on the Tonight Show?
Marc:No, no, Oprah.
Marc:Oprah, right.
Marc:Yeah, it was on Oprah.
Marc:And it was like a moment that we all saw somehow.
Marc:Like we, I don't think the internet was like, I guess the internet was.
Guest:It was, but it was, it was, you know, I, I would, uh, I would, um, hand it over to the excellent podcast.
Guest:You're wrong about, which did a whole episode on the Tom Cruise couch jumping.
Guest:And it's really great.
Guest:And it, it's like, it did come close to ruining his career as close as anything like ever could have.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So he does the next year have mission impossible three.
Guest:It,
Guest:And it does okay.
Guest:It's not like a bomb or... It's not a bomb or anything.
Guest:But I do think that the fact that he then follows it up with this part in this movie, which he did no press for, which he did... It's like this was a little... Like an announcement that like, hey, remember how you thought this guy might be getting weird on you?
Guest:There's all this Scientology stuff about him and he's kind of like not...
Guest:palatable to people.
Guest:And yeah, you'll go see him in the franchise stuff.
Guest:Cause you already like mission impossible, but like, what's his career going forward from this?
Guest:I think this was a big deal in kind of getting him back in people's good grace.
Marc:100%.
Marc:It was a course correction.
Marc:And, and it, it was, it was kind of a go for broke moment.
Marc:Cause like, yeah, you look, you know, you were saying it, you know, last week, like this was a very Jewish, you know, stereotypical character.
Marc:And yeah,
Marc:If Tom Cruise edged that or hedged his bets with that performance, I don't think it works.
Guest:Yeah, he had to sell it full on.
Guest:He had to commit to this part the way Downey committed to Lazarus.
Marc:Absolutely.
Marc:And that's why it works and is kind of the lasting legacy of this movie.
Marc:It's what I hear about of Ben Stiller's thinking about making a Les Grossman sequel movie.
Marc:That's the lasting legacy.
Marc:image of this movie is, is Les Grossman.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I do wonder, you know, it's like he and Downey have share no screen time in this film.
Guest:I wonder if like they were aware of what the other was doing, like, or like did one fully film their stuff after the other?
Guest:Like, what was the scheduling?
Guest:Like, cause I really wonder if it was like, oh, I'm going to fucking top this guy, you know?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Why?
Marc:Cause you thought that Robert Downey Jr.
Marc:Was hiding like Iron Man from him.
Guest:Well, no, I just think it was probably like, you know, these guys are contemporaries.
Guest:They came up right around the same time in the eighties.
Guest:They were in a roughly the same area, but like Cruz went off to be Mr. Blockbuster and Robert Downey was like a, you know, really well-regarded actor.
Guest:And then his life fell apart and he goes to jail and he's, you know, got to go to rehab and everything.
Guest:And I just wonder if it was like a, like, Oh, I'm going to top that motherfucker with my thing here.
Guest:You know, like,
Guest:There's just the, they're the two parts in this movie that are just fully going for broke.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I can totally see Tom Cruise seeing dailies of Downey Jr.
Marc:Like doing what he's doing.
Marc:It's like, Oh, I got it.
Marc:Oh, game on.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Like I game recognizes game, you know?
Marc:Right.
Marc:For sure.
Guest:This also has one of the biggest laughs in the movie, this scene, which is right at the beginning of which one of you fucks is Damien Cockburn.
Guest:And he identifies Damien Cockburn and then says, and which one of you is the key grip?
Guest:And it's just this guy in a Hawaiian shirt, big burly key grip.
Guest:And he goes...
Guest:go hit that director in the face really fucking hard.
Guest:And the guy walks over and goes, sorry, man.
Guest:And it's this, it's done with like three edits, but the camera is stationary.
Guest:So it's this like incredibly violent punch to the face.
Guest:Blood goes everywhere.
Guest:Breaks his nose.
Guest:And Coogan's reaction is the best because he just goes, ow, ow, ow.
Guest:I laugh every time.
Guest:It's as good as the first.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:All right.
Guest:So, you know, to move the plot along a little bit here, now we know that this guy's career is being threatened with being fired.
Guest:You know, he's just being sunk.
Guest:This is his first movie.
Guest:Angry studio executive Les Grossman is on his ass.
Guest:He meets up with the character that...
Guest:Nick Nolte is playing, who is supposed to be the real life Four Leaf, right?
Guest:The guy who the story is based on.
Guest:And he tells them, you're babying these guys.
Guest:It's like a real Quint from Jaws moment, right?
Guest:Like he shows up to tell them like, the real thing you got to do here is get these guys out in the shit.
Guest:And so he and Damien Cockburn hatched this plan to put these guys in the jungle with hidden cameras and explosives and film this gorilla style.
Guest:And they're getting each other all jazzed up about this.
Guest:And this is one of my favorite moments in the movie because it really holds the mirror up.
Guest:as they're getting all hyped up about this, the mood, the music that's kicking in is the name of the game by crystal method, which is a great song.
Guest:This is a banger of a song.
Guest:And this is when Nick Nolte screams, take them off the fucking grid.
Guest:And then it goes to them all riding in this chopper out to the middle of the jungle.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I'm sure I thought this before, but,
Guest:But as this music swells and you see this shot and then you get another chopper shot above this chopper, like this is before there were drones.
Guest:Like to do a shot that high in the sky, you needed a helicopter.
Guest:So it's like a helicopter above a helicopter.
Guest:And I'm just sitting there watching this going like...
Guest:this is good filmmaking.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Like they're making this, it's like one of the reasons the movie is so successful is that they legit made the movie their parody.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:Like with all the, this movie cost over $90 million.
Guest:Like that's a lot for a comedy.
Guest:But you know what?
Guest:It looks great.
Guest:Everything looks great.
Guest:Even when they're just like at a river.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:I'm like, man, they got a great river.
Guest:Like I know they're not in the, they're not in Vietnam.
Guest:They're in Kauai, right?
Marc:Yes, they are.
Guest:They filmed all this in Hawaii.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But it still looks great.
Guest:They did all the right location scouting and everything.
Guest:Stiller does not get enough credit, which I think he gets now because he makes Severance and everybody thinks he's a good director for real.
Guest:He did not get enough credit with this movie for being a good director.
Guest:He made a good movie on top.
Guest:You could have made a Vietnam movie if you wanted, if you had a different script.
Guest:yeah for sure like he he yeah it's like uh wow you you drew such a beautiful painting inside this other painting you didn't have to do that yes right right uh so they take him out in into the jungle they're gonna film the movie the way they said and uh after giving a good rah-rah speech steve coogan turns i at the time knew that this guy was dead meat by the way i did you
Guest:Oh, a million percent because I was like, I've watched this trailer.
Guest:He is not in any scenes in the trailer outside of when you've what you've already seen of him freaking out that the that the napalm went off.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I'm like, well, and it only made sense for the story that this guy's guy.
Guest:He's got to eat it so that they are lost in this jungle somewhere.
Guest:And he does blow up.
Marc:And just his piece, like he explodes.
Marc:He stands on a landmine and just explodes everywhere.
Marc:And look, for me, because we've now watched this character get punched in the face and like moping around, we were following this character.
Marc:So for me, I thought this was kind of going to be the lead character.
Marc:So this was like a psycho-esque turn, right?
Marc:You know, like, oh, no, this guy just explodes.
Marc:And it is the most shocking thing in the movie.
Marc:Like, I was shocked when that happened.
Guest:Well, then what, you know, results from this is Ben Stiller, Tug Speedman, thinking that this is part of...
Guest:the the movie like he's he's thinking oh he just told us he's gonna you know blow things up and it's gonna he's gonna play god and whatever which is great he's like he just told us he's gonna play god and robert downey jr says he ain't god he's being judged by him and i love the fact that downey's character is the only one who gets that this guy is really dead and
Guest:And he he's unshakable about it.
Guest:Like everyone else has moved on.
Guest:They're like, oh, let's go.
Guest:And then they start shooting guns because they're being shot at by these drug, you know, drug cartel that's in the forest that hears them.
Guest:And it's like, oh, we got to shoot at these guys.
Guest:And he is still like hanging back.
Guest:And he's like, motherfucker, this guy is dead.
Guest:and I love the fact that he knows it and he won't break a character.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:And this is the moment where he says that when they ask him, why, if you don't believe, if you believe that this guy's dead, why are you not breaking character?
Guest:He says, well,
Guest:I don't break character to the DVD commentary, which you just watched.
Marc:And it is true.
Marc:He was in character in the DVD commentary.
Marc:It was amazing.
Marc:Also, his performance, better than Ice Cube's performance in War of the Worlds.
Marc:Like he told everyone, oh, no, no, wait, wait, shut up.
Marc:I want to, I want to see Satan's alley.
Marc:And, and his, I was like, oh, what's going on over there?
Marc:Oh, look at that.
Marc:Like better.
Marc:He's doing the same thing.
Marc:Doing better than Ice Cube.
Marc:He does, he does break the character finally when it's, when it happens in the movie later on, by the way.
Marc:Oh, okay.
Guest:So like when Kirk Lazarus comes out.
Guest:Do you know what he does?
Guest:Oh, he does Kirk Lazarus?
Marc:Yes.
Marc:He does an Australian accent.
Marc:He is a fucking genius.
Yeah.
Guest:Well, okay.
Guest:So I do, I was going to talk about this at some point, but like, it's worth mentioning that he gets an Academy Award nomination for this.
Marc:Amazing.
Guest:And I think like, it's absolutely, you watch it today and it's totally worthwhile.
Guest:I mean, he lost to Heath Ledger who played the Joker, posthumously wins the award, kind of impossible to think of anyone else getting it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:iconic role very sad story that he died like okay it makes sense that he got the oscar but downey absolutely gave an oscar worthy performance doing this and the thing that makes it so good is that when he is kirk lazarus later like when he takes the the wig off right and the and the the facial hair
Guest:And he's still got this, like, basically now it just looks like bronzer because he's this blonde guy with dark skin.
Guest:He is so good as Kirk Lazarus that you realize you have been watching that guy play a black guy.
Guest:Not Downey Jr.
Guest:playing a black guy.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:You've been watching that guy.
Guest:He's so good at creating this character of Kirk Lazarus in this brief period of time that you see him that you're like, oh, now so much more makes sense about the weird jive that guy was talking.
Guest:It was coming through this guy.
Guest:So he is essentially giving two performances at the same time.
Guest:Yes.
Marc:It is a work of art.
Marc:It is honestly a Russian doll with just beautiful, beautiful performance.
Guest:It is the line that he says.
Guest:I'm a dude playing a dude disguised as another dude.
Guest:That's it.
Guest:That's what he did.
Guest:I also think in terms of works of art, this is also the moment where Danny McBride has what might be considered the most important line to you in the movie, because you have left this on my voicemail.
Guest:You have wrote texts to me with this line that then Siri has announced to my family.
Yeah.
Guest:and this is when Danny McBride goes to blow up the C4 that he's planted in the jungle.
Guest:And his, his, I guess it's like creed decor.
Guest:He's like, he's like, it's called the arms.
Marc:Yes.
Guest:Is to say big ass titties.
Yeah.
Marc:Chef's kiss.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:What else are you going to say when you're going to blow some shit up?
Guest:I definitely do think of you, Chris, every time that I see that scene.
Marc:When big ass titties happen?
Marc:Thank you.
Marc:You know what I love about this scene is Jack Black, who thinks he's...
Marc:you know, playing in the movie, he's doing like a voice during this scene.
Marc:Like, like, like it reminds me of Marin doing the snake voice and the bad guys.
Guest:This weird voice that he now has to keep up no matter what.
Marc:Just this weird, like just raspy voice.
Marc:Like, all right, I guess that's what I do now.
Marc:Like, that's it.
Guest:amazing uh you know then but so then we're we're into like if you want to say there's a section of this movie that that sags a little bit it's this part where they have to yeah you know get the get the plot going that they're that they're in the jungle they still don't fully realize they're not part of a movie and then there are two camps that split off right you have the the
Guest:still he goes by himself because he still thinks it's a movie he's going to go make it and then the other guys they're deciding they're going to go back to to the base camp this is also where you get that full r word section which we talked about last week uh that i really do think like you watch it and i'm like yeah this this scene helped contribute to the idea that it's not appropriate to say that right
Guest:Like exactly.
Guest:It's not that the movie is being inappropriate.
Guest:It's that the movie is showing that these actors, much like Ben Stiller pointed out about guys going off to two weeks of boot camp and thinking that made them soldiers.
Guest:Some guy acting like he's mentally challenged somehow thought that that made him mentally challenged for that period of time.
Guest:Like that's that's good satire.
Marc:Yes, exactly.
Exactly.
Guest:Also, although I do love Downey's response to him when he's really getting worked up about that, when he's like, yeah, I thought, you know, I really thought it.
Guest:And Downey says, you're maronical.
Guest:Maronical.
Guest:You're farting in bathtubs, laughing your ass off.
Guest:My other favorite downy line is where he's talking to Jay Baruchel about taking this map and they got to get out of here.
Guest:You could be in alliance with me.
Guest:And he wants to make it look like they're just peeing at the river.
Guest:He doesn't want to be obvious that they're plotting, although it looks totally obvious.
Guest:And so as he turns around to walk away, he says to Tug Speedman, that smelled like bologna for some reason.
LAUGHTER
Guest:I'm like, that has to be an ad lib.
Guest:Like no one wrote that in a script.
Marc:Oh man, dude, he's so good.
Marc:He's like, he's talking about Ben Stiller's physique.
Marc:He's like, look at you.
Marc:You're more shredded than a Julian salad.
Guest:great well the other thing is that when then when ben stiller is peeing next to jay baruchel and he's like trying to talk him into an ally ship right again alliance his thing to dangle to him is that he'll get him a nickelodeon kids choice award and he goes like really he goes oh yeah they'll slime you the whole deal
Guest:uh all right well so let's let's zip ahead since we we now know that the two two paths split what winds up happening is uh tug speedman gets captured well wait he kills he kills a panda he does kill panda which also is another great joke with mcconaughey's character where he says he's on the phone with him i killed the one thing i love most in the world oh no you killed a hooker
Guest:But the real great line is Makani going immediately into like agent cleanup mode and he goes, okay, get your hands on some bleach, some hydrogen peroxide and a shitload of lime.
Marc:A shitload of lime just is the kicker.
Marc:Holy shit.
Guest:That is a line I can see on a page and it's a great one.
Guest:It's like whoever wrote that, they're like, oh, I got a good, these are three good ones right here.
Guest:uh but so yes he's captured by the drug lords he is taken to their camp and so are danny mcbride and uh and the real four leaf who we learn has never in vietnam and has hands yes still one of my favorite lines you have hands
Guest:Chris is not only one of your favorite lines, it was the first thing you said to me after seeing this movie 17 years ago.
Guest:Is it?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:You're like, did you see Tropic Thunder?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:He has hands.
Marc:Yes, you're right.
Marc:I can see the text message bubble.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So, yes, they're all captured.
Guest:They're in the enemy camp.
Guest:And through beating Tug Speedman and him stuttering his way to telling them to stop, they realize that he is Simple Jack, which is the only movie they own and that he was in.
Guest:And now they want him to perform it for all of them.
Guest:They're also going to use it to their advantage as a ransom.
Marc:Which brings us to probably the best scene in the movie.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:So this is where they call... Flaming Dragon calls.
Guest:The Flaming Dragon drug gang calls Matthew McConaughey's character to tell him that they have Tug Speedman.
Guest:His phone is intercepted by Les Grossman, who launches into, quite possibly, the greatest profane tirade in movie history.
Guest:Ooh.
Guest:yeah like it's up there with to me personally it's right up there with the michael keaton i'm from new york city so go fuck yourself oh i mean i was thinking like goodfellas uh joe pesci like you're i'm a clown i'm here to amuse you like yeah there's less profanity in that one than you think i think this one the music is in the curses
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:This is the tour de force.
Marc:Like this should be the first thing on his like Oscar.
Marc:Like here's your Oscar for all your time on doing movies.
Guest:Well, the thing that gets all the attention is him screaming, step back and literally fuck your own face at the top of his lungs.
Guest:But what I am always drawn to is that then when he goes into his just like nonstop barrage is his hand.
Guest:like that what he's doing with his finger like the pointing of it and like he's getting like his whole body into it but the hand and the finger i'm like tom cruise is a good actor he's so good at knowing what to do with that finger yeah
Guest:I will end you.
Guest:Oh my God.
Guest:So that was, that's all awesome.
Guest:And everybody loves the scene, but it's made better by the fact that then when the phone hangs up, he's leaving the room.
Guest:It's like a shot of him, like at the back of the room.
Guest:And he says to some flunky, can you find out who that was please?
Guest:And it's like,
Guest:the most tom cruise voice that we've heard so far right like like like he's been like putting on this like braggadocio the whole time it's like infecting the performance that he's so you know aggressive but that moment it sounds just like tom cruise right like he's just like can we can we find out who that was
Marc:and bill hater in these scenes uh he like his reacting and acting against tom cruise is so pitch perfect yes like he's like a like a little labradoodle or something he's like yeah especially his eyes you watch his eyes in all those scenes with rex he's darting back and forth just to see if rex is still still with him it is it is fucking great
Guest:Well, it's like you said about when you were bringing up Danny McBride, that like you said, he steals all his scenes.
Guest:And it's like, this is another example of like how everybody steals scenes.
Guest:Like they're just, they're all able to work at this top tier level, you know?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So now the plot kicks in where the other actors realize they've got to step it up.
Guest:They got to rescue Tug Speedman from this drug camp and nobody else is going to do it.
Guest:And they, you know, hatch this plan to go get him.
Marc:This is definitely the flabbiest part of the movie.
Marc:But then once the plan is happening, and can I just say, the Jack Black is tied up on a tree.
Marc:And him, who is, I guess he's like in withdrawals with heroin?
Guest:Yeah, he's full heroin withdrawal.
Guest:And he knows that he has to just tough it out.
Guest:But then while he's toughing it out, he is having a very hard time.
Marc:And this scene's performance, Jack Black's performance in this scene is so good from a real Dr. Jekyll, Mr. Hyde sort of situation.
Guest:Well, I remember Roger Ebert deliberately calling the scene out as like, this is great.
Guest:And I was like, man, Roger Ebert really loved the part where Jack Black talked about sucking your dick and stroking the shaft and swallowing the gravy.
Yeah.
Marc:but it is really a tour de force.
Marc:Like he, him like, ah, Hey guys, remember that?
Marc:Remember what I said?
Marc:I kill you all.
Marc:I was just joking.
Guest:Anyway, there's a, like he, he says something terrible about, uh, about Brooklyn's mom.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:And then he's like, Hey, uh, remember that thing I said about your mom all that time ago?
Marc:Like it's,
Marc:so just so good like jack black like this was and i feel like jack black what has been like you know slowly on the rise and i know kung fu panda comes out basically the same time same time yeah yeah so like this is it like his yeah he's like now superstar but like he was in you know tenacious d of course and he was in school rock rock
Marc:So like, I feel like they caught him right.
Marc:Like they caught everyone.
Marc:This is the crest.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Like they caught so many actors at this perfect, perfect moment in their careers.
Guest:Well, so the, the, the climax of this movie is kind of like, it has to be,
Guest:an action movie, right?
Guest:They've spent all this money on it.
Guest:They're going to have all these explosions there.
Guest:Like I said, they're making the movie that they're parodying, which makes it work.
Guest:But it is surprising even watching it again, how many jokes they're still able to cram into this action sequence.
Guest:Like, you know, there's, there's the, there's the whole thing of like Robert Downey Jr.
Guest:Pretending he's a farmer, a Chinese farmer, motherfucker.
Marc:Like the best.
Marc:Great.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then Jack Black running in to get all the drugs.
Marc:Yes.
Guest:Don't judge me.
Guest:Knocking out the henchmen with drugs.
Guest:And he's like, we got to go.
Guest:They'll be awake in 18 hours.
Guest:But then it's Ben Stiller kind of fully in psychosis.
Guest:from having done this simple Jack routine and now they're not able to shake him out of it.
Guest:And the thing that I love is Downey walking in and being like, all right, tug, let's go.
Guest:And he talks some crazy talk and Downey just goes, oh,
Marc:oh no because he knows like it's like this the recognition from like a crazy actor to crazy actor like he's seen that he has crossed the rubicon you know yeah well you know in that scene i what i love is in the background is this little little kid actor and he's just doing these like weird hand motions like tai chi i love that little touch it's so good
Guest:Uh, so they get him out of there.
Guest:That's also the great part is that they're like, tug buddy, we need you.
Guest:You're the guy you got to come with us.
Marc:And he's like, I'm a rooster illusion.
Guest:All right, fuck it.
Guest:We'll fix him later.
Marc:I love that.
Marc:That was for me.
Marc:One of my favorite lines, Jay Baruchel.
Marc:Great job on that line delivery.
Guest:So they get out of there.
Guest:I would be remiss if I didn't point out that probably one of the biggest laughs of the movie is still yet to come.
Guest:And it is that they run to a helicopter.
Guest:Ben Stiller convinces them that they should go and he will go back because now he has a life there and that they will embrace him because he's Simple Jack.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And they get in the helicopter and all you see is all you hear is gunfire.
Guest:And then Ben Stiller running back with this little child, stabbing him repeatedly about the neck and him screaming, I was wrong.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And that's already hilariously funny.
Guest:But then he takes this little kid and whips him over a bridge into a chasm.
Marc:It is like the spit take.
Marc:If you were sipping a Pepsi, you were spitting that out in the row in front of you.
Guest:To the point where I think one of the one disappointing things to me about the movie is that once they get out of there and everything is done, there is a shot of the kid walking.
Guest:crawling in the ravine that he's been thrown into and crossing his arms angrily that I feel was a studio note.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Yes.
Guest:Like you can't show that the kid got killed.
Guest:Like you can't imply that that kid got killed.
Guest:You have to show every, it's like when we were kids and you'd watch the a team and they'd flip a car and, but they'd make sure everyone who was in the car crawled out the windows.
Guest:Like it felt like a note like that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You can't have anybody dying in this scene.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, you know, Downey actually in the, in the, uh, commentary track said like, Oh, I, I don't like that.
Marc:Like, uh, you know, I, I, I wouldn't, I wouldn't have that fucker if he'll fold his arms.
Marc:And like Ben Silver was like, Oh, what?
Marc:So what you would just have him?
Marc:Like, we think that he's dead.
Marc:Like, yeah, I agree.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Uh,
Guest:I also want to point out, much like the War of the Worlds movie, there is a character here, and it's Downey, when he runs to go get Tug, and now he's Kirk Lazarus, he's abandoned the Osiris persona, so he's full Australian, and he runs to go save Tug, and he says, cover me!
Guest:And he runs, and unlike the characters in War of the Worlds, they point out, how do we cover him?
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:It should have been in the movie, guys.
Guest:Oh, man.
Guest:Well, so the movie wraps up with them winning Oscars and, you know, Tom Cruise taking credit for this in his office.
Guest:And...
Guest:It ends with, I have mentioned this before on this show, that one of my favorite things in movies is curtain call credits.
Guest:That's what I call them.
Guest:I don't know that that's the term of art for them.
Guest:But it's when you do the end credits and you get little video or clips or, you know, sometimes it's like an artist's rendering of a character or whatever.
Yeah.
Guest:But the name of the person come up and they each get their little individualized moment in the sun.
Guest:Just like if you went to see a play and everyone gets to come out and bow.
Guest:This movie has the best possible version of that because it's set to Ludacris's get back motherfucker.
Guest:And Tom Cruise's Les Grossman is dancing to the whole song.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I just, I sometimes will just fire this up on YouTube when I'm feeling lousy.
Guest:And this makes me feel better.
Guest:This end credit sequence of Tropic Thunder.
Marc:It ends on such a high note.
Marc:It's like Evel Knievel jumping over, you know, a bunch of cars.
Guest:And he never lands.
Marc:Yes, he never lands, man.
Marc:It is just the most beautiful way to end this movie.
Just flying away.
Yeah.
Guest:But I will say this, an underrated thing though, because those curtain calls are such a high, an underrated thing is that then the actual credit roll comes back with that Crystal Method song, the name of the game.
Guest:But this time they have inserted quotes from the movie into it.
Guest:I believe on the soundtrack, this is called the Big Ass Titties Remix.
Marc:Oh man, I can't find this anywhere, by the way.
Marc:I can only find it on YouTube.
Guest:Well, here's what I will say though.
Guest:the crazy thing about this is that the quotes, this is, this is like the type of thing you would hear someone make as a tribute to the movie.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because it's all the best quotes from the movie, right?
Guest:They knew they had the goods.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Like they knew that these lines are so fucking funny that you will laugh when you hear them again in the middle of this electronica song.
Yeah.
Guest:Like that's miraculous to me that they had like, not like you hear, you talk all the time about things stick in the landing.
Guest:This is not just stick in the landing.
Guest:This is like, you stick the landing and you're like, give me my metal right fucking now.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:This is calling your shot.
Marc:Like, no, no, no.
Marc:This is, this is going to play.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I don't need to see the judges scores.
Guest:I know it's the goal.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Here's, here's an envelope.
Marc:I have, I have a stamp.
Marc:I put it in the mail.
Marc:Why don't you open it now that this movie's out?
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:Yeah.
Yeah.
Guest:uh well listen it's always enjoyable to watch this film but i was it was enjoyable knowing i would watch it and then talk about it with someone but it was even more enjoyable to watch it know i was going to talk about with you and then have it end and be like oh my god it's still great yes i know i know man it still hits all the same notes 17 years later it's crazy
Guest:As we come to a close here on the Friday show, I will note that we have talked about some of my very favorite movies that I've ever seen.
Guest:And you have done the same here.
Guest:This is the first time where after I watched it, I was like, I could see myself watching that again this weekend.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I was thinking, I don't think Erin's ever watched this.
Marc:Am I fired up for her?
Marc:Yep.
Marc:Please do.
Marc:And then we'll talk about what she thought.
Marc:Swinging past your knees, Bill Hader.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:also how about i send you a hobo's dick cheese oh that that's the one he really leans into grabs his nuts and everything that was one where i was like it was taught did tom cruise just have that in the chamber right like yeah where did that come from oh my god what what an enjoyable and i hope everyone enjoyed uh talking about this and
Guest:Yeah, listen, maybe you underrate this movie.
Guest:Maybe you don't even rate it that highly.
Guest:Hopefully, this at least shows you why someone who does think this movie is good, why we are so appreciative of it.
Guest:That's all I really hope to do here.
Guest:Just give a little illumination.
Guest:as to why this kind of defines who we are and our senses of humor.
Guest:But that will do it for today's show, and we will be back next week with one that's much more timely, that's kind of set to the present tense, if you will.
Guest:Got some great guests coming up.
Guest:I'm not at liberty to say in case something happens and it goes poorly, but today, as I'm speaking to you, Mark is recording an episode with one of our
Guest:I mean, by dream guests, it's been one of the guests who has been on the list for a decade plus ever since we thought we had the ability to get a person like this at this person's stature.
Guest:And we did get this person and this person.
Guest:Hopefully this episode happened as as as we're recording this and you will be hearing it soon.
Guest:If it happened the way that we're planning to have it happen, the episode will air on September 4th.
Guest:So you can circle that on your calendar and that will be the guest that I was talking about.
Guest:Very cool.
Guest:But until we are back, I am Brendan and that is Chris.
Guest:Peace.