BONUS The Friday Show - Future Shock
Guest:Hey there.
Guest:Happy New Year, folks.
Guest:This is Brendan.
Guest:And before the show starts, I just want to point out, you know, usually we do stuff with WTF and the week that was up front.
Guest:In this episode, Chris and I, like, we get right off into our own stuff about movies we saw, stuff we did over the holidays.
Guest:If you're into this for the WTF stuff, it's the second half of the show.
Guest:And so I just wanted to let you know that if you want to skip ahead, we will not be offended.
Guest:We know that some people are here
Guest:for as much mark as they can get.
Guest:And so the WTF conversation on this episode is not going to be at the beginning.
Guest:It's going to be in the back half of the show.
Guest:Just thought you'd like to know that.
Guest:And right now we'll get cracking with the first Friday show of 2025.
Marc:Hey, Chris.
Marc:Big Mac.
Marc:Happy New Year, man.
Marc:Happy New Year to you.
Marc:What a new year.
Marc:2025.
Marc:I guess.
Marc:Yeah, that's how I feel.
Marc:It's like this again.
Guest:Yeah, I don't know.
Guest:I don't feel like that's how I, it's not much different than I feel other new years.
Guest:Like I'm never a big new year's guy.
Guest:I don't, I don't buy into it as a holiday.
Guest:I don't do things on new year's Eve.
Guest:I find new year's day, you know, kind of depressing and I don't look forward to the winter months.
Guest:So I'm not like, yeah, let's hit this year.
Guest:Like, actually, I usually consider like the beginning of the year is like my period of like monasticism.
Guest:Like I turn into a monk for the next like three months.
Guest:Like I just don't do things.
Guest:I, you know, basically become very minimally involved in the world.
Marc:I gotcha.
Marc:Wait, why do you find New Year's Day to be depressing, though?
Marc:I know exactly why I find it depressing.
Guest:Because when I grew up, it was the day when the Twilight Zone marathon was on TV.
Guest:Come on.
Guest:Yeah, no, that's absolutely why it was.
Guest:And it was like, it was the end of fun.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Because like you just had a week of total unbridled fun.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And usually that involved lots of people being over visiting, you know, in, you know, enjoying company.
Guest:Then all of a sudden new year's day, everyone was gone.
Guest:You were going back to school the next day or at, you know, at best two,
Guest:or three days later right you know it was coming and you you know had to sit around with you know people laying on the couch not doing anything no one wanted to you know uh entertain your childish nonsense that day and so and because we only had three television channels one of them was the twilight zone marathon and that would go on and it's so fucking bleak
Guest:and black and white and gray and you know like you just it just i i have nothing but disdain for new year's day as a day and uh i we i just ignore it i ignore it basically and treat it just like it's any other day
Marc:I mean, a couple of things here.
Marc:First of all, wouldn't you just, you know, yeah, sure.
Marc:You can watch the Twilight Zone while I play with like my wrestling guys on the floor.
Guest:That's what I would do.
Guest:I would try, I would try everything I possibly could to distract myself from it.
Guest:But as a, as a downer of an ending to what was always the best time of the year, it was unparalleled.
Guest:It was an unparalleled downer to like,
Guest:And every year would happen.
Guest:It's like it was built into the structure of enjoying yourself during the holiday season is that the end was going to be bleak.
Marc:Wait, also, can we just ask, and I don't really want to know the answer, but why was the Twilight Zone the marathon of choice for our, you know, terrestrial channels?
Marc:Like, I don't understand it.
Guest:Yeah, I don't know either.
Guest:I guess because it was cheap, probably.
Guest:And I think it's not that big as a catalog.
Guest:I think you could probably run almost the entire series in a, you know, 24-hour period or whatever.
Guest:Oh, you think so?
Guest:The Honeymooners was the same way.
Guest:The Honeymooners was not on the air for a very long time.
Guest:So if you were Channel 11 and you had like the rights to syndicate the Honeymooners, which were probably cheap before it became free, you know, you you would just run that.
Guest:Why not?
Guest:Honeymooners.
Guest:It's our free programming for the day.
Guest:Nobody's at work.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I always remember being like, man, I wish they would just do a Simpsons marathon or like cheers.
Marc:That was expensive.
Marc:Yeah, I guess so.
Marc:I guess so.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:So the reason why New Year's is bleak because you just think of the twilight zone for today and then for the next three months, I'm guessing until baseball season starts.
Marc:Is that correct?
Guest:Yeah, I mean, I think it was largely like it's basically as long as it's cold.
Guest:We live in the Northeast.
Guest:I don't relocate anywhere.
Guest:So as long as it's cold and you have the potential of bad weather, it's like it's just hunker down hibernate time.
Guest:That's how I always see it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:I see that.
Marc:I am a bit more optimistic about the new year.
Marc:Like I don't, uh, I don't have those, um, I don't, I don't have memories of, uh, of us all watching television, uh, together at home rarely ever, honestly.
Marc:But, uh, but yeah, I can see your point, but, uh, hopefully this year you will not subject Owen to any Twilight Zone marathons.
Guest:No, no.
Guest:In fact, we went the other direction.
Guest:We had a kind of joy-filled day.
Guest:We went out into Manhattan.
Guest:We went to dinner.
Guest:And then we went to see Back to the Future, the musical.
Guest:Oh, Bobby Z. Which I can't recommend to people because it's closing in two days.
Guest:Oh, no kidding.
Guest:Yeah, it closes on Sunday is the last performance.
Guest:I mean, I guess it's on a national tour.
Guest:So maybe it actually is in better shape for people to go see it since this...
Guest:is being hurt by people all over the world and not just, uh, in New York.
Guest:So yeah, if it comes to your area, definitely go to see it because, uh, it was, it was totally fun.
Guest:And what it made me realize was, uh,
Guest:how great back to the future is like it was fun as a musical and they did novel things with it.
Guest:And the car was, you know, totally a great magic trick, special effect, whatever you want to call it, of how they got that car moving around on there.
Guest:Um, but as a, as a thing, it lives or dies by the actual source material.
Guest:Um,
Guest:Right.
Guest:I sat there through the whole thing, just marveling at that script, that Back to the Future script.
Guest:I know it's a beloved movie, especially people of Gen Xers and people who grew up with it, watched it on TV a lot, watched it on VHS a lot.
Guest:And they've passed it on to their kids.
Guest:We saw a lot of kids at the show.
Guest:Mm-hmm.
Guest:I do not know.
Guest:Matt, even though it is a, it's considered a classic from that era, I do not think it's rated highly enough.
Guest:It is one of the great movies of all time, full stop.
Guest:And it's not, that's not like an eighties nostalgia thing.
Guest:That's, I mean, you can, a movie could be made in 1960.
Guest:It could be made in 2010.
Guest:Whenever it was first made in,
Guest:the construction that they landed on the script and the execution of back to the future is as good as it's a wonderful life.
Guest:Uh, the wizard of Oz, it is one of the best movies ever made.
Guest:And I, like I will fight anyone on that.
Guest:It is, it is like the script is air tight.
Guest:It is, it is unimpeachable.
Guest:You cannot sit there with back to the future and ever have,
Guest:figure out like a plot hole or something that doesn't work they have made it a lockbox where the entirety of the the plot works and you know we talk about over and over and over again when we're watching things how stupidly these newer movies are over plotted and it's like one thing after another you get to the end of that back to the future man
Guest:And there is the climax of the dance where he has to get the, his, his dad to fall in love with his mom and kiss on the dance floor.
Guest:And it builds so amazingly.
Guest:It is such a, a wonderful climax of the movie.
Guest:And then there's another, like you go from that to an even bigger, better climax right after it is unbelievable.
Guest:Unbelievable.
Guest:I just get like, everybody has to just watch back to the future again.
Guest:It's the greatest movie.
Marc:I love back to the future.
Marc:I feel the same way as you.
Marc:I have a problem with Broadway just doing movies.
Marc:So I'm, I'm,
Marc:I, that's why I did not see it.
Marc:Although you, you did, did hype it up so much.
Marc:I've actually entered the lottery for it.
Marc:So hopefully I see it between today and tomorrow, I suppose.
Marc:But besides that, I'm probably not going to see it, but,
Marc:I don't love Broadway doing movies.
Marc:There's like Death Becomes Her.
Marc:There's Back to the Future.
Marc:Like there's so many of these movies.
Guest:It feels lazy, frankly.
Marc:It does feel lazy.
Marc:So I never, like when there's a movie version of a, excuse me, a Broadway version of a movie, I usually pass just because, I mean, especially with Back to the Future, I feel like I have seen it enough in very different ways.
Marc:Like I saw it like outside of Bryant Park, you know, where they do summer movies where, you know, Back to the Future is
Marc:playing i've seen it there saw the rockefeller center what is it uh the radio city music hall with a full orchestra so uh you know that was fun and i just feel like broadway i don't know if i can do a lazy musical version yeah well i mean i i'm right there with you on that stuff i i don't go to generally to go see the the um you know movies turned into broadway musicals and they really just become like
Guest:you know, you forget the songs they've added.
Guest:The added songs are very unmemorable.
Guest:And then really like the songs that are highlights are just things that were from the soundtrack, right?
Guest:Like the Huey Lewis song or whatever.
Guest:And you're just like, okay, so I might as well just watch the better version of this, which is the movie, right?
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:And I was right there with you, but we were looking for some family friendly to go see with the whole group of us.
Guest:And, you know, this one came up and it was OK, it's going to close.
Guest:So let's go check it out.
Guest:But honestly, it doesn't matter that it was a musical version of the movie.
Guest:This movie is so good.
Guest:And also lent itself to being put on the stage.
Guest:I mean, you can't do this in a high school or something because the car tricks are so difficult.
Guest:It's, like, very expensive special effects.
Guest:But, like, it worked perfectly as a stage show.
Guest:Like, with the drama and the pathos of it.
Guest:I mean, the comedy.
Guest:But, like, I just mean the dramatic arc of the story of, like, what's supposed to happen.
Guest:It works as a stage show.
Guest:And...
Guest:I think I'm also not being fair enough to it right now in praising Back to the Future as a, you know, I'm talking about it largely as a script construct, which it's miraculous.
Guest:It is a miraculous script.
Guest:Like you could do exactly what we were just talking about, all the plot mechanics and how they amazingly layer on each other.
Guest:And you're like, like the way the stakes keep unfolding in it is, I'm going to talk about the mechanics of the script again, but it's just, it's so great.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's like the way that the stakes keep leveling up where you're like, oh, he can't just stay there because he'll die from it.
Guest:He'll be erased from existence, right?
Guest:Like all the little things that you keep thinking in your head, like, well, why didn't he do this?
Guest:Or why didn't he do that?
Guest:They have an answer for everything.
Guest:And the answer is always like, oh, this makes it more important.
Guest:But it doesn't work if any one thing is out of place.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:And I will tell you, OK, so the show is going off of Broadway, so I can do a little bit of a spoiler here.
Guest:And everyone has already seen Back to the Future, so I'm not really getting rid of giving away the ending.
Guest:But they do something in this to change.
Guest:They change a few things from the film.
Guest:mostly stuff involving cars like they don't have uh marty get hit by the car of of his grandfather uh it's just that he fall that george mcfly falls out of the tree and marty catches him right and so he clonks his head on the ground no car so like anytime there's a car involved there's no chase car chase where biff flies into the manure right it's all it's all skateboarding
Guest:right right right right and i think that the reason for this was um they did not like obviously it's hard but you can fake a car on on stage anyway i think the problem is that the third star of the show this broadway show is the car sure the delorean so you can't have any other cars that are competing with it in the shot and
Guest:And otherwise they just look lesser or it takes away from the main event car.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So all the cars are gone.
Guest:So what's a big vehicle scene then in the movie that is now has to be gone?
Marc:Well, he goes in the DeLorean and he gets chased by the Libyans.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:So they can't have the they can't have him being chased by the terrorists.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Then I think also it's probably a choice to not have gun violence in the Broadway theater.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So they write out the Libyan element of it.
Guest:Oh, the the guys coming to to take the plutonium away from Doc Brown.
Marc:So how does he what's the reasoning for Marty transporting back to 1955?
Guest:Doc Brown is putting the plutonium in the DeLorean.
Guest:He goes over to get the case of plutonium and he starts glowing green.
Guest:Like, you know, it's a bit like fun stage effect that his hands are green and his chest, like you can see his rib cage, like a, like a skeleton inside his shirt.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He's like Mr. Burns.
Marc:Yes, exactly.
Guest:And he starts going into like, you know, cardiac arrest or whatever.
Guest:And so Marty jumps in the car to race to the hospital to to to get someone.
Guest:Oh, interesting.
Guest:And and it goes to 88 and he goes back in time.
Guest:So, okay.
Guest:So then everything proceeds as normal.
Guest:And he writes him a letter.
Guest:You will die of radiation sickness on the night I go back and, you know, I need you to take precautions, please, or whatever.
Guest:And he does the same thing, rips up the letter and whatnot.
Guest:Ha ha.
Yeah.
Guest:So then the movie, the thing proceeds as the movie does, the clock tower scene, you've seen it, everyone's seen it, right?
Guest:He goes, he goes back to 1985.
Guest:Now, if you remember in the movie, he runs to the mall to try to see if he can intervene before Doc is killed by the terrorists.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And he sees himself.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:In 1985.
Guest:First Marty.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Jumping is going to go back in time.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And he sees Doc get shot and he sees the Libyans crash their their thing, which I never knew why that just killed them all.
Guest:They just died instantly.
Guest:Oh, the one hour photo.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Those are those are deadly.
Guest:Those are the second.
Guest:Those darkroom chemicals just incinerated them with all that plutonium.
Guest:Like, oh, yeah.
Yeah.
Guest:But so, okay, so he runs down and he sees the Doc Brown has put a bulletproof vest on and he, because he read the letter, right?
Guest:Right.
Guest:So in this, he gets back, you know, he arrives back in 1985 and there's Doc Brown.
Guest:He's just alive, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he's like, how are you alive?
Guest:And he's like, well...
Guest:I bought this special radioactive protective suit or something.
Guest:Instead of opening his lab coat and showing the bulletproof vest, he opens the lab coat and shows he's got some kind of thing that's blocking the radiation.
Guest:And you're like, okay, whatever that is.
Guest:But...
Guest:What does that mean for the time loop?
Marc:Right.
Marc:That's what I was thinking.
Marc:So Marty wouldn't need to race to the hospital.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:So there should be two Martys now.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:That are just hanging around.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Well, in fact, actually, the paradox here is that it makes it so that like...
Guest:The second Doc Brown in the past reads the letter, the past version of Marty, the Marty or the Marty that has gone back to 1955, that should disappear.
Guest:He never goes back.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Like the time loop has been stopped.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So it's just like he shows him this time machine and he goes, oh, great.
Guest:And then Marty McFly in 1985 goes on his way to have a very nice day.
Guest:Right.
Right.
Guest:And that alone got me thinking like this original script is so amazing that it's thought.
Guest:Oh, it's you can go in every time travel movie and find these loopholes.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And paradoxes.
Guest:This one is air tight.
Guest:Right.
Guest:They did everything to keep it from having this conversation that we're having because of the way the musical changed it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, you know, I always thought it was weird that Doc Brown was like, yeah, I'm going to wear a bulletproof vest, but luckily these guys are not going to shoot me in the face.
Marc:Just in the body, you know, like never in the leg or anything, like just in the body and I'll be fine.
Guest:Well, I guess, though, there would be a way for him to know that.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Like if he if he.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Right.
Marc:You get two in the body.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Be very specific about it.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:Or just be like, hey, don't steal plutonium in the first place.
Marc:But apparently.
Guest:But then.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But then he would never get the time machine.
Guest:Period.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:But.
Guest:All right, so I did exactly what I said I didn't want to do and just go back to talking about the mechanics of the story.
Guest:And just to show you how great it is.
Guest:But all I kept thinking about was if you walked into a Hollywood pitch meeting and you had the finished script that they had, and obviously the production of Back to the Future went for many years, they had many versions of the script, and they kept having good enough people in studio positions that, like, worked them through it.
Guest:Like...
Guest:Some people would have killed this thing in the crib because it just wasn't there yet in like 1981, 82, when they were first working on it.
Guest:But by the time it got through the process, like they got the script to where they needed it to be.
Guest:And it was like, okay, Spielberg was producing it.
Guest:It was like all systems go.
Guest:But like, let's say you walked into a room at that time, never having talked to anybody about it.
Guest:And you presented them this script with just, you know, the plot mechanics of it, or you pitched it to them with that script.
Guest:They would take it.
Guest:They would say, absolutely, this is great.
Guest:This sounds like a hit.
Guest:There is another entirely different pitch to Back to the Future that involves no plot mechanics, no scripting scenarios that allow you to play out the tension and climax of the movie.
Guest:Just an idea and a little idea that you could pitch in an elevator and the person would go like, oh, fuck, that sounds great.
Guest:And that pitch is what if a teenager could go back in time and meet his parents when they were teenagers?
Guest:That's it.
Guest:That's all you need.
Guest:It's this beautifully clean premise, just crystal clear.
Guest:And like,
Guest:It's tantalizing.
Guest:Everything that can come out of that is amazing.
Guest:And this movie delivers in the amazingness of how that plays out.
Guest:I was getting emotional just thinking about the movie, like how good the movie is and how impossible it would be to pull something like it off.
Guest:Just like, you know, you get like five chances in history to make something that's that complete and excellent.
Guest:It's just so great.
Guest:And that idea and to play it out in a way where there's still like sexual danger, but it's still a kid's movie.
Guest:Like, it's an enormous high wire act.
Guest:And it's just like, how did they do this?
Marc:Yeah, yeah, for sure.
Marc:High Wire Act was exactly what I was going to say, for sure.
Guest:The other element that you can't stop thinking about, especially watching this musical, and this kid is very good who's playing... Kid, he's a grown man, but the guy playing Marty McFly is very good.
Guest:But...
Guest:another like miraculous only happening once in this lifetime thing is michael j fox playing yeah that's the thing right it's and we all know the other story was that he wasn't they wanted him he couldn't do it because family ties was you know in in full effect and was a hit show couldn't get him out of it so they cast eric stoltz they shot a good deal with eric stoltz and then shit canned the whole thing the
Guest:You know, reshot everything with Michael J. Fox, who they, you know, paid a gazillion dollars to do it.
Guest:He worked, you know, 20 hours a day, slept for four hours, you know, every day so that he could make this movie.
Guest:But he is absolutely necessary to it because he he was magic.
Guest:Like if you think about the script, which I've spent all this time praising.
Yeah.
Guest:The script writes him as an outsider that, that this is like a guy who he doesn't really fit in.
Guest:He can't, he's kind of worried about his achievements and his, his band is not getting the attention he wants.
Guest:He's worried that he might be a failure at it.
Guest:He's got this loser family to his only friend is this mad scientist.
Guest:Like it's like really weird.
Guest:You don't see any friends.
Guest:He's got a great girlfriend, but like, you don't see them doing anything else with anybody else.
Guest:Like it's like this is a kind of classic.
Guest:If you looked at it on the page, he's an outsider.
Guest:He's like a loner or at the very least, just like a kind of like introvert.
Guest:He might be he might have charm.
Guest:He might whatever.
Guest:But he's he's not like the big man on campus.
Marc:He has he has very little riz, very little riz.
Guest:Well, on the page.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:And I bet you that's why the Eric Stoltz thing, who we know is a good actor.
Guest:I bet you that's why he wasn't working because he's playing it as written and he's just kind of probably making this guy feel too heavy.
Guest:Right.
Guest:to be that he does they don't change the script he still is all those things i'm saying but he's so goddamn charming he is so and it's and it's weird he's like diminutive he's not like a he's not some like strapping hunk and yet he you totally believe like oh chicks dig this guy right he is he's got game he his mom would definitely want to fuck him right
Guest:Like he like it just somehow all works because this guy was this once in a generation talent that you can't explain.
Guest:You can't explain why he's so good or why he's so charming and why he kind of defies the ability to box him in as like cool guy, nerd guy, guy, you know, smart guy.
Guest:It all worked.
Guest:He's whatever you wanted him to be.
Guest:And he satisfied that.
Marc:yeah yeah you can paint whatever you want on top of him and he he will do it yeah yeah well i i went to the uh recently and i saw hold on to me darling uh have you ever seen this or heard this is the one where adam driver is a singer adam driver is a country singer in this one and kenneth lonergan yes playwright yeah
Marc:Yeah, and it was a delightful time in the theater.
Marc:And I will say, so I went there by myself because Erin was working.
Marc:And I was there sitting next to a woman who was also sitting by herself.
Marc:And the entire time that Adam Driver is on talking and doing things, I noticed that the audience is...
Marc:Was laughing and just smiling all the time.
Marc:And it was so striking to me.
Marc:And it got to intermission.
Marc:And I turned to the woman next to me.
Marc:I was like, hey, how do you like the play?
Marc:And she's like, you know, it's okay.
Marc:But man, that Adam Driver, whoo, he is fantastic.
Marc:And I told her, I was like, you know, you and the audience, you're all reacting to him.
Marc:in such a way that it's like a really handsome person is talking to you, and he's not really being funny, but you're laughing hysterically.
Marc:And that's basically the entire play, is him being charming.
Marc:And he was being a bit of a bastard, but because he is Adam Driver, who is this tall, beautiful person, he can kind of just get away with it.
Guest:Well, you know, you say he's a tall, beautiful person, but like, I can't think of anyone else who, you know, kind of fits more clearly a non-traditional definition of like handsomeness.
Guest:Like he's not traditionally handsome.
Guest:He's got very strange features, but yet people kind of universally accept that he's a handsome dude.
Guest:And it is like, it has been a late in life experience.
Guest:realization for me like there's sometimes things you don't even really think about them much in life and then like you have to kind of confront wait is that do i have an opinion on that or not and i absolutely like later in life like develop the opinion that charisma is real totally
Marc:Totally.
Marc:It's all about confidence and charisma.
Marc:Like if you can just be confident and, you know, you can just express yourself however you feel comfortable doing, it goes such a long way, right?
Guest:Yeah, but I think that like, you know, the definition of charisma comes from the idea that it's divinely bestowed.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Like I think it, I think it came from like ancient Greek.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I'm looking, I'm not going off the top of my head here.
Guest:I just Googled charisma and the, the Wikipedia says the etymology is ancient Greek, which denotes a favor freely given the gift of grace.
Guest:So the idea was that charisma was like God bestowed onto you.
Guest:Right.
Guest:It was a, it was a charm.
Guest:It was a, it was a gift.
Guest:And yeah,
Guest:like, I believe that I don't believe in God necessarily, but I believe that like, you can't teach it.
Guest:You can't just develop charisma.
Guest:You have it or you don't.
Guest:And like, yes, acting a certain way brings it out of you, but there's just some people where you're like, that, that's a thing.
Guest:They got it.
Guest:They, they have it.
Guest:I re I remember, uh, uh, someone who I worked with, I think I've mentioned this before that like when I worked at serious, uh, radio, uh,
Guest:uh i was in a studio and i was coming out and this other person was going in because that's how serious um had you know that's how serious operated was like you had a bunch of studios and they shifted like your show moved out and then maybe like the top 40 show moved in for the next hour and i remember walking out of the studio and a
Guest:you know, coterie of people were going in.
Guest:And one of them was this young girl.
Guest:And I was like, I don't know who that is.
Guest:And it seemed like a big crowd.
Guest:So I walked out, I was like, who's that person?
Guest:And they were like, oh, she's a big star.
Guest:That's Taylor Swift.
Guest:So she was like 18 at the time.
Guest:And I was like, that girl's a big star?
Guest:And I don't know, I don't see it.
Guest:It's just like, it looks like a kid just went in there.
Guest:And then I spoke with someone who had worked in TV for like,
Guest:you know 40 years or something and he they had done some like i don't know cbs whatever on it wasn't 60 minutes but maybe it was like the morning show or something they did a thing where they went to taylor swift's house and like you know when she still was like 18 or so and they you know filmed her along with her family like oh this rising country star blah blah blah and he was like i've been the videographer for president's
Guest:you know, world leaders, you know, super duper powerful people.
Guest:I have never been in a room with someone with as much charisma as that teenager.
Guest:Like she blew me away with her charisma.
Guest:And I was like, wow, really?
Guest:And it just becomes one of those things where you're like, there's no, there's nothing to glean from that.
Guest:There's nothing to be like, oh, I wonder what she learned to do that.
Guest:Like, no, that's a person who just can do it.
Guest:They just, they just have.
Guest:have it and that's why she can go sell out hundred thousand seat arenas to to sports stadiums to do this because like she just has it yeah yeah man when you're telling that story about the cbs executive all i'm thinking of is al pacino in the insider going to taylor swift's house me like she she's got it i've been i've been everywhere it's exactly i've seen it all i didn't i didn't mention it was laurel bergman that's what i was talking about
Guest:Oh, man, I got to watch that movie yet again.
Guest:So speaking of movies, you saw a bunch.
Guest:Like on Thursday, the episode, Mark was listing off all the movies he saw.
Guest:And I think you saw all of them.
Marc:Yes, I believe I did.
Marc:uh so i mean i've i've seen so many and i love it i just love movies and i think i have a kink dude i think my kink is the longer the movie the better i like it like oh really the brutalist is such a fun delightful movie that i had nothing i had no idea what this movie was i refuse i don't think you'd be saying the same thing if if megalopolis was another hour that's true
Guest:I don't know that you have some kink for lengthy movies.
Guest:I don't think you're a size whore.
Guest:You are identifying the Roger Ebert dictum of no good movie is too long and no bad movie is too short.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:And The Brutalist, I could say like I was I was there for four hours at The Brutalist, including a 15 minute duration where they stopped the projector and then started to back up, not knowing that there was a countdown.
Marc:So there was a half an hour intermission instead of 15 minutes.
Guest:oh it was so like so they they like they could have just left it going so that you saw the intermission but they decided to stop it yes and add on another intermission that yes that is correct and uh still amazing nicole kidman's got to get over to that theater and shape them up
Marc:I know she's really lacking.
Marc:Uh, but I gotta say the brutalist is a great movie.
Marc:My man from a Memento guy Pierce.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Just going to win an Oscar.
Guest:Cause he looks like, uh, he looks like he's doing like, um, uh, Daniel day Lewis in, in there will be blood in this movie.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:He looks,
Marc:like john houston there's that there's also i was talking to the person that i i talked to people uh a bunch but uh i talked to the person next to me and i was like you know you know what he reminds me of he reminds me of uh brad pitt in once upon a time in hollywood he has that sort of like look and also like inglorious bastards like it's just like this charisma and uh he has it like you were saying like he just has it and uh just great to have him back then the movie is just like it's sort of an american you know
Marc:you know, uh, fantasy.
Marc:And I, I just, I, I loved it.
Marc:I absolutely loved it.
Marc:I just saw a Nora, which is again, the, an American dream type of movie.
Marc:I liked, I loved it for, you know, more, most of the same reasons.
Marc:It's just like this, this wonderful fable of America.
Marc:Uh,
Marc:i saw baby girl which by the way nicole kidman does not um introduce that movie oh really yeah they opted to not have uh nicole kidman before a nicole kidman feature i was kind of weird yeah yeah we were all kind of like oh we're all like kind of a miss like what do they have an alternate intro
Marc:Sonic, the hedgehog is there for baby girl.
Marc:He's there to tell me to silence my phone.
Marc:And if I see someone, it's kind of racial, but he's like, if you see this kind of guy and it's, I guess there's a, there's a, a Sonic that is, that is black.
Marc:And he's like, yeah, don't, don't trust that guy.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So that was shadow.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Shadow.
Marc:Thank you.
Marc:I don't know who that was.
Marc:One movie I saw over the holidays.
Marc:That's all I know.
Marc:So, you know, shadow is me.
Marc:I'm just like, I think Sonic's like racially profiling.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So I don't know if I like that, but he's like, be aware of the black Sonic.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Please be aware of the black Sonic.
Marc:It's racially coded.
Marc:I'm just saying, I'm going to put it out there.
Marc:It is racially coded.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:Uh, but yeah, he introduces baby girl.
Marc:Um, not, not explicitly, but, uh, that was, that was an erotic thriller.
Marc:That was a, a fun little movie.
Marc:Uh, I, I, I'd recommend it was, uh, kind of weird watching it alone.
Marc:I'll be honest with you.
Marc:Uh, but, uh, but yeah, really great, uh, acting in that movie.
Marc:Uh,
Marc:I saw a complete unknown, dude.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I, I did not, I personally do not know much about Bob Dylan beforehand.
Marc:And I got to say, I am now reading the book.
Marc:I've watched documentaries.
Marc:What book are you reading?
Marc:Oh, the book that I'm reading is.
Guest:The book that the movie is based on?
Marc:Dylan Goes Electric.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Right, right.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:And I got to say, the movie is a fucking masterpiece.
Yeah.
Guest:Oh, it's great.
Guest:I loved it.
Guest:And I hate music biopics.
Guest:I don't think a music biopic should be made after Walk Hard was made.
Guest:Like, I feel like it killed the music biopic.
Guest:But this thing is very smart to really not be a music biopic.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, it's not about the scope.
Guest:It's not Dewey Cox needs to see his whole life before he performs.
Guest:Like, it's not that at all.
Guest:It is, if anything, like it is playing with this idea of the title.
Guest:Like, what do you do with this guy who nobody knows?
Guest:And like, how do you explore him?
Guest:And really, it's just about everyone acting in relation to him.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And I think that movie does a magic trick.
Marc:I think a good movie does the magic trick every single time where you forget that you're in the movie theater and you're now transported to where that movie takes place.
Marc:And that's what Complete Unknown did for me.
Marc:I thought I was in New York in the 60s with...
Guest:Oh, the Greenwich Village stuff looked great.
Guest:So good.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Especially when you think about like movies and even movies this guy made, James Mangold, you know, made that last Indiana Jones movie.
Guest:And there's all these New York scenes that are clearly shot in that dumb new Star Wars thing that they have.
Guest:The volume, right?
Guest:The dome.
Guest:Mm-hmm.
Guest:And it looks terrible.
Guest:And you're like, they're not in fucking New York.
Guest:And that's a $200 million movie that looks like that.
Guest:This was a Bob Dylan biography.
Guest:And it really looked like Greenwich Village in like 1961.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:And it had all the hallmarks of a dad movie, by the way.
Marc:You got your Edward Norton there.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Marc:It's a very dad movie.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:and i loved it i was in just in from jump street uh just it was the way he was able to weave this story and and that's the other thing like and what i get the sense of when reading this book is that it's not like a wikipedia entry type of movie it's like correct you're gonna take liberties it's not gonna be like perfect you know like oh this this really happened this
Guest:It doesn't have to be.
Guest:It's like it's as though people were telling you their memories of this time.
Guest:Five different people are going to have five different memories.
Guest:So that's fine.
Guest:Go with that, you know?
Guest:And it's not contradictory.
Guest:The guy at the center of it remains this enigma.
Guest:That's the whole point of him.
Guest:And it's what he wants.
Guest:So it's like...
Guest:All right, without spoiling too much, and it's kind of spoiler-free if you know who Bob Dylan is, but I really felt like the movie was as much about Woody Guthrie as it is about Bob Dylan.
Guest:And it's not even like Woody Guthrie plays that big of a role in the film, but it's like they're the same.
Guest:And like...
Guest:ultimately this dude is like can you just please let me hang out with my alien friend and play music and i don't want to do all this shit that you are projecting onto me like i am like most at home with the thing that you don't get it really it like reminded me of like a movie length version centered around bob dylan of that scene in defending your life when rip torn is like
Guest:eating his food.
Guest:And, and Albert Brooks is like, what's that?
Guest:And he's like, I, you don't want that.
Guest:And he's like, no, I really would like to try it.
Guest:And he tries it and he's like, it tastes like a horse.
Guest:That's what I felt like this movie was about Woody and Bob Dylan.
Guest:Like they are like, we want to sit over here and eat our horse shit.
Guest:And you people are doing this pretend thing.
Guest:Fine.
Guest:Go do it.
Guest:Whatever you're doing.
Guest:It's not what we're doing.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And like, I feel like if you watch the trailer for this movie, you might think it sucks.
Guest:Like I did.
Guest:Like I watched the trailer and I thought it was going to be like walk the line.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Like I was just not into it.
Guest:And I realized while watching it that literally any 30 seconds of this film, like you could just take a stopwatch and click 30 seconds at any point.
Guest:And if you showed someone that 30 seconds, they'd be like, this is stupid.
Guest:it really seems stupid at any 30 seconds when you're divorced from the context of it like what you're saying transporting you to this time yeah if you're not transported to this time it feels like there's a bunch of people sitting around a table and they're like so i hear dylan's gonna go electric you're like get the fuck out of here what is this nobody said that at that time
Guest:Or like Johnny Cash being like, all right, BD, what are you going to play for us tonight?
Guest:What?
Guest:BD, get the fuck out of here.
Marc:It is ludicrous outside of the whole picture, for sure.
Marc:For sure.
Marc:There are many, many instances of that.
Marc:And yeah, yet I absolutely loved it.
Marc:Like one of my favorite movies of the year, I'd say.
Guest:That kid is fucking great too, man, Chalamet.
Guest:Like, he really does something particularly great in this movie, which is... It is so hard to play a protagonist who is, like, deliberately withholding.
Guest:And...
Guest:and still be likable still be the guy you want to watch the whole time like you know who can do that bob dylan and that's like basically it and this guy was able to do it and it's that's a really amazing feat especially for guys young as him who didn't know who bob dylan really was like
Guest:I was, you know, I saw a screening of this where James Mangold introduced it and he said like, oh yeah, Timmy, you know, he really didn't know much about Bob Dylan when we started.
Guest:So he really had to like do a crash course.
Guest:So like, and that's fine.
Guest:He's like in his early twenties, he probably shouldn't really have much knowledge base for Bob Dylan.
Guest:And it was great.
Marc:I mean, he's a good actor, man.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:And I actually, I watched I'm Not There, which I've never seen before until recently.
Marc:And this was better.
Marc:This was so much better.
Marc:I mean, they're fine films, but it just made me realize that
Marc:A thing with Bob Dylan is, like, people have always been trying to parse what he's doing and what he's saying.
Marc:And he's always like, who cares what I'm doing?
Marc:Like, I'm just doing – I'm just living my life.
Marc:Why do you need to interpret it in any other way?
Marc:And, you know, other than me just doing it.
Marc:And that's what I took home from this movie, which is like, this is just a guy who was just –
Marc:hanging out and just wanted to play some music the way he wanted to play it.
Marc:And like everyone else seemed to be up in arms about it.
Marc:And, uh, yeah.
Marc:And I, I think that's why he will always be the only guest of WTF that, that should never, he should possibly never come on.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:If it ever happened, I would want them to just spend the whole time, like talking about like one thing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like what, like what, like, like ukulele picks or something.
Marc:Like that's all it should be.
Yes.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Like, or just like paint or just anything, you know, like, like he, he should, he has earned the right to be an enigma because just let the guy be, you know?
Marc:So I, I loved it.
Guest:I found this movie to be a combination of Amadeus, but not the dark parts of Amadeus, but just the sense of like a genius who everyone acts in relation to and, and, and what that means for their lives.
Guest:Like poor, you know, I,
Guest:ultimately Pete Seeger is the Salieri of this movie, even though he's not filled with vengeance or, or, or hatred the way Salieri is, but you can watch him and go like, ah, yeah, see, that's where you weren't getting chief.
Guest:Like, you know, here's, I see something you were missing there, buddy.
Guest:And, and like, yeah,
Guest:That's a great part of it.
Guest:Then it's also kind of like being there, the Peter Sellers film, which like, you know, it's like almost like Forrest Gump before Forrest Gump, like the guy kind of floating through the world and everyone projects all their hopes and dreams onto him.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But then, you know, there's another thing it reminded me of John Carpenter's Starman.
Guest:With Jeff Bridges, where he plays the alien who's like trying to figure out Earth.
Guest:Like, it's kind of like that.
Guest:It's like, yeah, like this guy did not fit into everyone's, you know, preordained packages of what life in the 1960s were like.
Guest:And it's fun watching him float around and try to like bump up against it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, he definitely does play an alien.
Marc:It's just like, wait, who is this guy?
Marc:Where did he come from?
Marc:And like, you don't really ever really know.
Marc:And, uh, I like that about it, you know?
Marc:Yeah, totally.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Uh, I've also seen, let's see, what else have I seen?
Marc:I saw Carry On.
Marc:That was like Die Hard 2.
Marc:Oh, that's a Netflix thing?
Marc:Yeah, it's a Netflix thing.
Marc:It was fine.
Marc:Um, I saw Juror Number 2 for the second time, this time with my wife, Erin, and, uh,
Marc:Great movie.
Marc:Solid, solid movie.
Guest:Is the verdict the same the second time?
Guest:It is.
Marc:And Erin, though, had the same reaction as most of the crowd that I saw with.
Marc:She was like, what the fuck?
Marc:What?
Marc:It just ends?
Marc:Which I truly enjoyed.
Marc:And then, oh, you know what?
Marc:I know what I've been watching.
Marc:It's not a movie, but I watched Super Pumped on Netflix.
Marc:You must have known about this.
Marc:Remind me.
Marc:It's the story of Uber.
Marc:Oh, right, right, right.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:I did not see it yet.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Kyle Chandler.
Marc:And it's fantastic.
Marc:And it has guest stars of Uma Thurman playing Ariana Huffington, our old friend.
Marc:And the narrator of this show, this seven episode show is Quentin Tarantino.
Marc:Really?
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Oh man, I had no idea.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Me either.
Marc:And I'm just like, wait a second here.
Marc:Is that QT?
Marc:And yeah, Quentin Tarantino narrates the whole thing, doing his Quentin Tarantino voice.
Marc:And it is a ball.
Marc:How weird.
Marc:It is so weird.
Marc:And also to have Uma Thurman there as well.
Marc:I'm just like, this is, there's a lot of things going on right now.
Marc:But yeah, you should add super pumped to your, you know, viewing.
Marc:You know, you can, you can pound it out in like three or four days.
Marc:Oh, very cool.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And also the soundtrack is all Pearl Jam, which for me was a real treat.
Marc:But basically the entire show, all Pearl Jam, the entire way.
Guest:This sounds like they were like, oh, this is the algorithm for Chris, this series.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Netflix served it up to me and I devoured it.
Marc:Last thing I saw, though, New Year's Eve, I'm about to embark on driving to Long Island to see my in-laws.
Marc:I sat down at 10 o'clock in the morning to watch Craven the Hunter.
Marc:part of why did you do that i wanted like 2024 was a weird year and i felt like like i'd like it to go out in the shittiest way possible just just just one more turd to flush down that toilet it's jammed it's jammed
Marc:That's all right.
Marc:You know, just leave it.
Marc:It'll be fine.
Marc:This whole year is shit.
Marc:But these Sony Marvel movies, man.
Marc:So this is... Well, that's it.
Marc:That was the end.
Marc:Was that the end?
Marc:They're not going to be anymore?
Guest:Well, I think they definitely said they've canceled this, like, Spider-Verse without Spider-Man.
Guest:They're not making any more of these movies, like Kraven and Hunter, Madam Web, Morbius.
Guest:All of them are done.
Guest:Morbius.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Oh, well, that's a shame because this movie was almost as absurd as Madam Web.
Marc:I mean, they both have similar, they have like the similar DNA where these movies don't care about logistics.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:This movie in particular is basically just a video game.
Marc:I don't know if you've ever played, I'm sure you've played a video game where you get through a level and then there's a cut scene where someone tells you exposition and then you're off to the other thing.
Marc:That's basically this entire movie.
Guest:Does it fall into my category of Jack Frost type movies where the movie communicates to you specifically that it has given up?
Marc:um i i don't think it does actually they're they're still trying and like but they're it seems like there's more of a movie there there must have been like an hour that they cut out see that's another category of movie is movie that seems like it's trying so hard and never getting there yeah like like basically you're like look at what they're doing it's so effortful
Marc:yes we part of zoo for sure um but yeah the the movie just you know people just fly on into planes or onto planes and they just they're always going to Siberia the large portion of this movie takes place in Siberia uh and that people are just getting flights to which I never understood and uh and like and then like
Marc:We're also taking place in London where there's never a cop in sight in any of these movies.
Marc:Like cops don't exist in the Sony Marvel universe.
Marc:They're just not a thing that happens.
Marc:And also the way this guy gets his powers.
Marc:I'm not a Kraven the Hunter, you know, comic book reader.
Marc:But apparently he gets his powers from...
Marc:lion's blood drips into his blood and then he gets i'm guessing the spider-man serum gets i'm gonna put my head through this thing right here i'm just gonna slam my head right into it and maybe i'll bleed and die before this is over
Marc:Oh my God.
Marc:It's just the, like just, you took the worst of all of the things and you put it into this movie and that's Craven the Hunter.
Marc:So yeah, I wouldn't, I wouldn't recommend it.
Marc:If it's on Netflix, maybe watch it and then just check out for all the logistics stuff.
Guest:I also don't know if you're saying this, but it sounds like you are and I love it.
Guest:It almost sounds like you keep calling it Craven the Hunter.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:isn't that his name he's just a hunter no but it sounds like you're saying you're saying hunterer like he's more of a hunter and i i want it to be called that now that's my hope for it forever i will never call it anything else it is now just craven the hunterer
Marc:There are two ERs in there, isn't there?
Marc:No.
Marc:No?
Marc:He's a hunter.
Guest:He's hunting.
Marc:I guess.
Guest:He's not a hunter of hunters.
Marc:I think he is, though.
Marc:I'm pretty sure he is.
Marc:He's hunting hunters.
Marc:Wait a minute.
Guest:Hang on.
Guest:We have to know this for sure.
Guest:No, it's just Kraven the hunter.
Guest:Like you were making me second guess that insane thought that it would be called the hunterer.
Marc:But the whole movie is him hunting other hunters.
Guest:We're now in a beekeeper situation again.
Guest:Is he a bee or a beekeeper?
Guest:Is he a hunter or is he a hunterer?
Marc:Oh, man.
Marc:He's definitely not a B, that's for sure.
Marc:He is not a B. All right.
Guest:Well, I am glad that you loaded up on both the good and the bad of American movies toward the end of 2024.
Guest:There was something Mark said in that when he was listing off all those movies where he was like, I'm just really getting by on movies right now.
Guest:And I was like, yeah, man, got to do what we got to do.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Say what you want.
Guest:Like we have, like the American entertainment industry has learned how to, like this magic thing where you go sit in a room and light projects onto a wall and everyone feels transported somewhere.
Guest:Like don't lose that.
Guest:Stay, keep that, keep, keep hold of it and enjoy it as much as you can.
Marc:Yeah, for sure.
Marc:For sure.
Marc:Hey man, sometimes I'm, I'm in a darkly lit room and listening to Mark talk to some of my favorite people.
Guest:There you go.
Guest:Well, yeah, I guess we can, you know, before we wrap up today, let's talk about some of the stuff.
Guest:It's a little, we're a little limited because, you know, we aired stuff in the past two weeks that was already on the full Marin here.
Guest:So, you know, there's limited stuff that we can talk about, but we can go through some of the WTF things from the past two weeks.
Marc:And, you know, I'm going to start with like just Mark's monologue.
Marc:Like he, you know, first of all, I'm bummed to see that he had a really shitty holiday week.
Marc:It sounds not great.
Marc:But but, you know, he started off the episode with Bruce Valanche and like, you know, I'm listening to him with my ear, you know,
Marc:things in and uh it sounds like my inner monologue talking you know like he when he's like you know I have a full list of things to use as bats to beat the shit out of myself I'm just like there I am I can hear my inner thoughts like
Marc:you know, in my ears now.
Marc:So, you know, I just think very similar to Mark.
Marc:But yeah, it sucks to hear about Mark's dad and the fact that, but I did like the idea that Mark was the guy to calm him down though and kind of reconnect him to reality.
Guest:The dad whisperer.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And like, I think, I mean, I don't know.
Marc:I think Mark kind of saw like, Hey, I need to change because I don't want to be that guy.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So, and like, I don't know, I feel like Mark has always made progress and like, I think he can see, you know, like, I don't want to go down that road to that extent.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it's such a tricky situation there because it's like, you got to wonder like what, to what extent of this is just Mark's dad being Mark's dad.
Guest:Like he said, like he's always known him and what part of it is exacerbated by the disease.
Guest:And it's, it's, it's tough.
Guest:I can't imagine it, you know, being in that situation.
Guest:Although I guess we all kind of have to imagine it.
Guest:It's going to be a reality for most people, whether it's for someone you love or you yourself, like we all go there, we all wind up
Guest:in a general area of that at some point in life.
Guest:So, yeah, I always think, like, it's one of the things that makes the show still vital and important to me is that, like, Mark is so free about sharing this kind of stuff.
Guest:And, like, I'm sure there's people who listen to that who deal with the same thing.
Guest:And I hope it was helpful to them to hear someone like Mark, you know, how he's processing it.
Marc:Yeah, absolutely.
Marc:And like, you know, with that disease, I don't know, it just got me thinking because I've had, you know, grandparents that have, you know, had dementia and like, it's almost like this is an unfiltered sort of, you know, them, you know, like, you know, you, we all kind of put on a little show when, when someone's, you know, when we're communicating with someone, it's not like an unfiltered thing, but like,
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:Sometimes the mask will slip.
Marc:Oh, God.
Guest:You know how much I've had to wash my tongue in my life and how careful I am about my thoughts?
Guest:I have a good amount of tact and a good amount of restraint.
Guest:The idea that something's going to happen where I don't have that anymore and everything comes out, oh, God, get out of the way.
Marc:Yeah, it's like the end of Ghostbusters.
Marc:It's going to blow.
Guest:Oh, God.
Guest:And yeah, it's a sign, all right.
Guest:We're going out of business.
Guest:That's exactly what it's going to be like when I start doing that.
Marc:Totally.
Marc:Oh, man.
Marc:But, you know, weird to, you know, I felt bad for Mark's cats.
Marc:While he's away, they're like throwing up and shitting everywhere.
Marc:His ceiling is fucking leaking.
Marc:Rats in the crawl space.
Marc:It really is.
Marc:It's coming from all sides sometimes.
Guest:I did like hearing that in his most recent monologue on the Thursday show, it's like, he's kind of got a handle on all of the things now.
Guest:Like it's really like, I do, you know, still enjoy that about like the way the monologues feed into each other where you can follow this and you're like, okay, he kind of beat that one.
Guest:Like he's feeling good about cleaning all that ratchet.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:He's plugging the holes.
Marc:You know, that's, that's what you got to do with life.
Marc:You know, you guys just got to clean it up and plug the holes.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And Bruce Valanche.
Marc:Can we, I need to start with, I can't believe this guy wrote the Star Wars holiday special.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:That is, first of all, I'm so glad you and I did not interview him because that's all I would want to talk to him about.
Guest:Yeah, he's definitely, that's happened.
Guest:Like, you know, yeah, doing research on him.
Guest:It's like, there's been, he's been on a million podcasts that are like, we just want to talk about the holiday special.
Yeah.
Guest:but he also one of the other things i found out that he wrote was what rj city told us about the the uh the paul lind halloween special yes like like he this guy you know he was like in the in the prime of tv variety shows like that was his that was his like bag dude he sold jokes to johnny carson yeah like that is the coolest
Guest:Yeah, when Mark was done talking to this guy, he got in touch with me and was like, that's a real Hollywood guy.
Guest:That guy was in show business, man.
Marc:Totally.
Marc:With the magic of show business, baby.
Marc:He was there.
Marc:Also, I had completely forgotten about this.
Guest:He was in the movie Ice Pirates.
Guest:I just brought that movie up to you.
Marc:I was going to mention that.
Marc:Ice fucking Pirates.
Guest:Yeah, how weird is it that on this...
Marc:feed that movie came up twice in consecutive weeks totally oh my god i can't believe ice pirates is in my life so much i think it's a sign that i need to find ice pirates yes and watch this fucking movie uh no but yes
Marc:I love that.
Marc:I love that he even he uses like the algorithm to be like, oh, I'm not going to write about the Anne Hathaway, you know, Oscars because no one gives a shit about it.
Marc:No one's no one's clicking on links or anything about it.
Marc:But he'll he'll he'll write about the Snow White skit at the Oscars and, you know, Rob Lowe because people want to know about that.
Guest:That was another weird thing that I had just like immersed myself in that story because we were talking about sex, lies and videotape.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:So it's just like, why do these things, this weird things just like I hadn't thought about the Rob Lowe Snow White thing in 20 years.
Guest:And then all of a sudden it's like in like within a few weeks, it's coming up multiple times.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It was wild.
Marc:And then Mark was talking about bad times of the El Royale.
Marc:Let me just tell you, I got that for Christmas and I cannot wait to rewatch it.
Marc:Oh, really?
Guest:Like you got a Blu-ray of it or something?
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I got a Blu-ray of it.
Marc:So that's good because I have trouble finding it streaming.
Marc:oh no kidding yeah you know i've found that there are movies that are just impossible to find yeah it's ridiculous i recently actually bought from ebay uh dewey cox uh because i i wanted to uh to re-watch that and it's not anywhere oh man um and then 200 cigarettes the new year's oh yeah yeah movie it's nowhere to be found on streaming and uh yeah so i i haven't bought that but physical media people
Guest:hang on to it yeah get your get your sleeves out put those dvds and sleeves those blu-rays just storage is easy you don't have to worry about it just put those in a closet shelf that you don't need all the little boxes throw them away keep your keep your dvds and blu-rays exactly there will just be in an attic somewhere you'll be fine
Marc:I loved the WTF origin stuff though.
Marc:I especially liked Mark pondering, did I do all this?
Marc:Like, did I do this?
Marc:Like the whole media landscape.
Marc:And it got me thinking, I would like a, it's a wonderful life for Mark.
Marc:Where Mark just never got into podcasting to see what podcasts would be, you know, like it's an interesting thought experiment to see where we would be with podcasts.
Marc:I'm pretty sure we'd be, you know, along the same line.
Guest:You'd be roughly where we are, but I do think there's something to the fact that, you know, Mark doing it made a certain grouping of people go, oh, I can do this.
Guest:And like, you know, I don't know about ones with any kind of lasting legacy.
Guest:Like I think Rogan, you know, would have started without Mark or not.
Guest:He started just shortly after Mark and it wasn't because of Mark.
Guest:It was like Mark and Joe started for the same reasons.
Guest:Basically, they were like, oh, this is what comics do now.
Guest:We need to kind of have a calling card.
Marc:But imagine there was just a Joe Rogan.
Marc:Right.
Marc:That's the thing.
Marc:There was no counterbalance.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:Right, right.
Marc:Like, I don't know where, like, it sounds like we'd be in Back to the Future 2 in the bad timeline.
Marc:Yeah, or does Obama go on with Chris Hardwick?
Marc:Right.
Marc:You know, like, that sort of thing.
Marc:And it's like, yeah, I don't know.
Marc:Like, we can game it out.
Marc:And I don't know if we'd be in a better place.
Marc:I feel like we're in a better place because Mark and you are doing this podcast.
Guest:Oh, that's very, very nice to hear.
Guest:Somebody wrote in about that Origins episode, and I think it might be because of the way I edited those together.
Guest:I might have cut something out that I believe is on the actual series because the person said, tell us about this secret assignment you and Mark did for The Guardian back in the day.
Guest:I've been a listener for years and only once in passing has it been mentioned.
Guest:Sounded like an amazing assignment and The Guardian does the Lord's work.
Guest:And...
Guest:You know, I mentioned it on the origin episode that we aired in this full Marin feed.
Guest:And like I said, I probably edited it out of the special that we did.
Guest:But that was a thing that when we started doing Break Room Live, we were like a month into doing it.
Guest:And the same crew that directed the Air America documentary that was made for HBO called Left of the Dial, they did that in 2004 and 2005 when we started Air America.
Guest:They were hired by The Guardian to do videos from America during the last months of the 2008 presidential election.
Guest:Like,
Guest:go on the road with the guardian and, you know, show America as this election is unfolding.
Guest:And they asked Mark to be the guy, the guide, like the guy on video to do it.
Guest:And because we had just started up break room live there,
Guest:you know, the thought was, don't pass this up.
Guest:This would actually be good for Break Room Live, you know, and any kind of notoriety that could come from it.
Guest:But at the same time, we had to still produce Break Room Live while it was happening.
Guest:So I went with Mark and we did a road trip from California to Washington, D.C.
Guest:over the course of three weeks and
Guest:And yeah, it's one of the great assignments of my life.
Guest:Like we, we did, we did the things like the, the guardian suggested, but they also were very liberal about it.
Guest:Like, they're like, what do you guys think?
Guest:Where do you want to go?
Guest:What do you want to see?
Guest:What do you want to do?
Guest:And we would just stop wherever we wanted.
Guest:That was, you know, on the path of where we were going.
Guest:Like,
Guest:They'd be like, yeah, we've got you set up with credentials to go to this McCain Palin rally and we'd go to that.
Guest:But then we were like, let's go to that meteor crater, you know, and like do a video there.
Guest:So it was just it was a real freedom.
Guest:It was great working with Mark on that level and probably, you know, helped inform how I work with him for this podcast.
Guest:Absolutely.
Guest:Um, I don't know how much of that is still online.
Guest:I know the clips we did for break room are still online.
Guest:Uh, that actually might've been when it was called Marin V. Cedar.
Guest:Um, I can put some of the links in the episode description of just, you know, things we did with the guardian on the road.
Guest:And some of it was really fun.
Marc:Uh, your ask Mark anything, I think it was like 19 or 20.
Guest:Oh, the one for the bonus feed, not the special.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, that one was great.
Marc:Mark sounds like my worst nightmare as a neighbor.
Marc:Just an electric guitar in the den.
Marc:Like, get me the hell away from that.
Guest:You know what, though?
Guest:Having been at his house and having heard him play guitar, he can't really hear it.
Guest:Oh, no?
Marc:Outside of the house.
Marc:Yeah, no, I don't think it's that bad.
Marc:See, I'm thinking it's Marty McFly plugging into the amp at Doc's house.
Yeah.
Guest:Well, also, like, you have, like, the window you're sitting by right now, you probably look at that and, like, you see a house right there, right?
Guest:Sure do.
Guest:Like, Mark has yard.
Guest:Like, there's space between the houses.
Guest:L.A.
Marc:is sprawling.
Marc:You get space.
Marc:Hmm.
Marc:Also, I'm bummed to hear that Mark still doesn't think he has a good selfie in any of the selfies that he takes.
Marc:Have you ever offered him like a selfie stick?
Guest:Oh, that'd be way worse.
Guest:No, you don't.
Marc:Also, like, has he ever tried flipping it around and done a 24 millimeter?
Guest:You're asking the wrong person here.
Guest:You know, I've never engaged with him on this.
Guest:I know where to pick my battles.
Guest:I remember there was one time he took a selfie with Richard Jenkins, you know, the actor from like from from Step Brothers.
Guest:And the both of them were not looking at the spot.
Guest:And I remember Judd Apatow like saw the picture and like retweeted it.
Guest:Like he didn't say this to us privately.
Guest:He said it publicly to the world.
Guest:He's like, these are two excellent performers and neither of them are achieving the task that was assigned to them here.
Guest:This is, this required a second take.
Yeah.
Guest:it's digital just keep rolling take another photo god damn it that's great uh yeah there was something that came up in that uh ask mark anything questions about um you know rogan and somebody saying like do the do the rogan people ever like you know uh
Guest:push back on you for uh you know being against like carrying water for fascists or whatever basically mark having called out people not exactly by name but people for for that type of uh uh podcasting you know has it blown back on the show and i agree with what mark said it's like not not that we've heard of and not that we would care like yeah maybe some of these guys who we weren't going to invite on in the first place will never do the show but i don't know andrew schultz is
Guest:what he cares about.
Guest:Not my concern, but I did see this from, uh, from Chuck in, in Madtown.
Guest:He's written to us before, but he wanted to know after listening to the Ali McCoskey interview, uh, a couple months ago, he said that like, uh,
Guest:He said, I was kind of surprised when I found out of her Rogan Kill Tony experience, and I had to confess that had I known that, I probably would have been biased against her if I didn't know she was a good comic already.
Guest:Similarly, I went into the recent Stavros episode and Bobby Lee episodes thinking, fuck that guy, but actually coming out thinking, I might kind of like this guy.
Guest:Does the Rogan factor ever affect booking comics for the show, or does it all just come down to Mark thinking the guests are funny?
Guest:And like...
Guest:Of course, we're going to book people who might be on Joe Rogan's podcast or might be on Tony Hinchcliffe's podcast.
Guest:It's pot.
Guest:Those are podcasts that by and large are for comics.
Guest:And I think what you'll notice is that when Mark has people like that on, he doesn't shy away from talking about it with them.
Guest:And they usually have fine answers.
Guest:They're like, yeah, you know, Joe had been supportive of me and my career and blah, blah, blah.
Guest:So I don't think there's any rule of like, we're not like banning people from the show because they do Joe Rogan show.
Guest:That's crazy.
Guest:Right.
Guest:It's just like there is, I think what Mark hopes is that there's a little more consideration in the future toward what it actually means to, you know, have a show where you have Donald Trump on the show or Elon Musk on the show and treat them the way you would other comics.
Guest:Like if you're a comic and you're hanging around that, do you think that's cool?
Guest:Or do you think like, hey, maybe let's not do that.
Guest:Let's not enable this type of power structure.
Guest:Right.
Marc:Don't fan those flames.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Also, I was thinking about it.
Marc:Your show being that people show up and they meet Mark at this house and go to a garage is so unique.
Marc:And I'm sure there are podcasts where people do this, I'm guessing.
Marc:But, you know, nowadays I would assume that, oh, look, I'm going to this office where they have an interview room or, you know, wherever Conan does his podcast or, you know, Joe Rogan has like a facility.
Marc:Like,
Marc:It's just Mark and a microphone.
Marc:And I find that so fascinating that I don't know if it's ever been imitated before, but it is definitely unique, at least for me.
Marc:Like, how do you feel about it?
Marc:Like, have you ever thought to like, hey, let's go, let's rent you a studio out and wherever and you can get all these guests?
Guest:no no it's exactly what you said it's part of the aesthetic of the show and it's absolutely 100 deliberate like the show would be worse if he was just doing a show in a studio it's better for the thing he identified that like sometimes most of the time the connection he makes with the person is from the time he meets them to the time they get into the garage and so you're not going to get that at just like
Guest:Oh, let's welcome this person into the studio now.
Guest:Like it requires being part of Mark's life for that brief period of time.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And it goes back to something you said previously where it's like, you know, Mark opens up, you know, intimately.
Marc:So it kind of lets the interviewer sort of also just, you know, divulge something they wouldn't normally in a similar situation.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And it's kind of like that with Mark in the garage.
Marc:It's like, oh, wow, I'm in this guy's life right now.
Marc:I'm not in a cold studio.
Marc:I'm in his life.
Marc:You know, we're walking by his flower bed and his cats are over there, you know, like, yeah, I just think like that little magic right there is what makes your show so unique.
Guest:Well, it's funny.
Guest:I did a, you know, maybe hour, hour and a half interview with the documentary crew that's doing, you know, it's been following Mark around.
Guest:And, you know, then they, you know, when they're doing that, you just give them as much as you can and tell them, use whatever you can, right?
Guest:If it's helpful.
Guest:And I watched a rough cut of, you know, their assembly, what they put together so far.
Guest:They're not done with the doc, but I watched, they sent it to me to see what they had done so far.
Guest:And the one clip of what I had taught, when I, you know, talked to them,
Guest:was me saying exactly that like this show works because the the guest is able to come to this guy's level it's like his life his foibles everything that's going on is filtered through him and when the guest can relate on that level that's when the magic of the show happens and like i just think it's like winds up being the kind of ultimate definition of what made this work yeah
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Obviously they thought so too.
Marc:Cause I spoke to them about a lot of stuff and that's the thing they use.
Marc:That's great.
Marc:And, uh, can I just say Mark going to the criterion closet has always been one of my favorite things that has ever happened, but like, have you ever thought about going to the criterion closet and like, what would you pull out of the criterion closet?
Marc:Uh,
Guest:You know, I have never thought of it because it never will happen.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:But it's like it's one of those things like if if you're saying like a what if could you if you could have this situation, what would you take?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And my thing is like it would be different than what most people do because I'm not in there to be like, oh, let me show off my knowledge of movies and let me show you.
Guest:Let me let me have a take on this thing or that thing.
Guest:I would go in there to deliberately pick the things that have the best stuff on the disc.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Special features.
Marc:I'd be scrolling through the special features.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Like that's the benefit of Criterion stuff.
Guest:Or even if it's just like great art, right?
Guest:Like those Criterion boxes.
Guest:Like I might be like, this one is the best.
Guest:Like this is way better than any poster they ever did for the movie.
Marc:So I'm taking this.
Marc:Dasing and Fused, for sure.
Marc:Yeah, right.
Marc:And like, oh, Citizen Kane has, I think it has Roger Ebert does a director's commentary on it.
Guest:Yeah, totally.
Guest:You want, you want things like that.
Guest:Like I, that was, I remember that for time bandits, like the time bandits criterion edition, we had like three commentaries on it.
Guest:I'm like, Oh, I like, I already own this movie two other times, but I absolutely want this.
Marc:Totally.
Marc:Totally.
Marc:Excellent.
Guest:I also wanted to mention we've been getting your comments and I will put the standard link in there.
Guest:I'm going to ask for something very soon.
Guest:I have a prompt about next week's episode.
Guest:So hold on one second.
Guest:But I did want to address an email that I got from Ryan.
Guest:And I'm not sure which Ryan.
Guest:I think we have a few Ryans who listen regularly to the Friday show and write to us because the voice seems a little different.
Guest:But someone just identifying themselves as Ryan, it might be the same Ryan who recommended that we do the Tarantino series.
Guest:It might be a different Ryan.
Guest:But this Ryan, I just wanted to let you know, this is a message just for that person.
Guest:who wrote to us and had very, very lovely comments about what our show means.
Guest:We hear everything you're saying.
Guest:And thank you so much for sticking with us and sticking with everyone.
Guest:It's a real pleasure to have you here on listening to the show.
Guest:And I feel that way about everybody who hangs with us here on the Friday show.
Guest:And so if you want to write to us too, just click on the link in the episode description and send us your thoughts.
Guest:But I will ask specifically for something special.
Guest:from anyone who wants to participate so that link is there in the episode description and if you have something in mind for what i'm going to say i want you to send it to us in a couple of weeks chris and i are going to have our old friend dan pashman on this show because he is about to celebrate the 15th anniversary of his podcast the sporkful and
Guest:And that's a conversation, that's a show, if you've heard Dan on with Mark before, if you listen to Sporkful, he talks about all sorts of things having to do with food, but not exactly from like an elevated foodie perspective.
Guest:As his catchphrase is, it's not for foodies, it's for eaters.
Guest:And a lot of it goes into the category of like, you know, is a hot dog a sandwich or weird stuff like that.
Guest:But I do think one of the things that it makes me think of all the time is like,
Guest:Not so much about Dan's rules having to do with food, but sometimes it's like, oh yeah, that food is great, right?
Guest:Like it doesn't get enough credit for being a great food.
Guest:And I would like, Chris, you and I, and then any listener who would like to participate in this, I want to know,
Guest:The absolute best food to eat in any given place.
Guest:Like I want you to put your Anthony Bourdain hat on and think about like, you know, if you are in this city or this state or this country, you absolutely have to eat this food.
Guest:thing it could be at the best restaurant in that place it could be at a little taco truck i want to know before we have dan pashman on this show in two weeks i want to know the best foods in the world that you just cannot pass up chris you are a world traveler you had talked about when you went to china you found out where the best peking duck was like that's the kind of thing i want to know where is the best sandwich that you have to eat and
Guest:Where is the best, you know, regional delicacy, a garbage plate or anything like that?
Guest:Let me know.
Guest:I'm not going to bite off Dan's bit.
Guest:I just want to know this stuff and I want to come armed with good food conversation.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I'm going to Mexico City in a month.
Marc:I want to know where to get the best taco.
Marc:There you go.
Marc:That sort of thing.
Guest:All right.
Guest:So if you'd like to participate, please click on the link in the episode description.
Guest:And we will do that food talk next week.
Guest:And again, thank you, everybody who continues to stick with us here on Fridays, also on Tuesdays, anywhere on the Full Marin.
Guest:We really appreciate your dollar and your subscription.
Guest:And we try to bring you as much as we can and keep this thing entertaining as we continue on in the unknown of 2025.
Guest:And until next time, I'm Brendan and that is Chris.
Guest:Peace.