BONUS The Friday Show - Jaws of Life
Guest:And I would just get one movie and watch it and send it back.
Guest:And another movie would come in and I'd watch it and send it back.
Guest:And there was fucking Lawrence of Arabia just staring at me.
Guest:Two discs.
Guest:Hello, Chris.
Guest:BMAC.
Guest:It is a day ending and why?
Guest:Just not the one you usually do this on.
Marc:That is true.
Marc:I was so excited to talk to you about movies.
Marc:I was like, we got to do this early.
Guest:Yes, you pushed us right to the mics.
Guest:There's no holding us up.
Guest:No, why don't you tell anyone?
Guest:No one knows what we're talking about because to them, and this is just Friday, but we are recording this on a Tuesday.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:Which we never do other than times where we've put the show in the can a week in advance or more because of vacations.
Guest:But what's happening for you that is causing us to do this early in the week?
Guest:Well, it's my birthday coming up.
Marc:Happy birthday.
Marc:Thank you so very much.
Guest:A day early.
Guest:Or today's four days early.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:As of Friday.
Marc:But my wife is taking me to Greece.
Marc:So we're going to Greece for the weekend.
Guest:Look at that.
Guest:Erin is a champion.
Marc:She's the best.
Guest:What a birthday present.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:So what are you doing in Greece?
Guest:What's the, what's the thing?
Guest:Are you just going to like Greek isles and hang out in the water or what?
Marc:We're going to Greek islands.
Marc:We're going to be on a little like sailboat and we're going to like jump off the boat and stuff.
Marc:It's going to be great.
Marc:We're going to go to Athens.
Marc:She loves like history.
Marc:So it's like, all right, you got to go to Athens and see the actual, you know, you know, shit, you know, the source.
Marc:So yeah.
Marc:The birthplace of everything.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:And I'm going to go to the movies.
Marc:There's a movie theater, an outdoor movie theater in Athens that overlooks the Acropolis.
Marc:Oh, wow.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:The only thing I know about that is Yanni played there once.
Yeah.
Marc:I'm going to see where Yanni played.
Guest:He's so hairy right there.
Marc:100%.
Marc:I'm actually going to see The Life of Chuck.
Marc:Oh, that's what's playing there?
Marc:Yes, The Life of Chuck and The Materialist.
Marc:Look at that.
Guest:What a coincidence.
Marc:Yeah, because Mark Hamill in The Life of Chuck, apparently.
Marc:I had no idea.
Marc:He is not billed anywhere as being in that movie.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Happy to hear Mark Hamill, the Joker.
Marc:Were you bummed that there wasn't more Luke Skywalker talk?
Guest:Oh, no.
Guest:I mean, I was thrilled at the amount that he did, frankly.
Marc:Yeah, he did quite a bit, honestly.
Guest:In fact, it was one of those classic things where, you know, because Mark, you know,
Guest:announces himself as a total star Wars, you know, dilettante that Mark Hamill feels no pressure.
Guest:He's not like, Oh, I have to deliver the stories and all this.
Guest:So then they would just come up organically and he's like doing Harrison Ford impressions and Lucas impressions.
Guest:I was like, this is perfect.
Guest:Like this is all I need for this.
Guest:I don't need, you can go listen to a million star Wars interviews with the guy.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That's one of Mark's great tricks is like, I can disarm you and I can like make you feel like you're in a safer place than normal.
Marc:You know?
Guest:Oh, is the perfect way he did it with this one where he was just like, I just want to talk to you about Sam Fuller the whole time.
Guest:Totally.
Guest:And Lee Marvin.
Yeah.
Guest:leave arvid i actually thought that it was going to get off to on that foot like i thought that the whole episode was going to just be you know mark hamill talking about old dudes he's worked with you know like i thought it was just gonna be all old stuff but it went everywhere he did everything that was i i have already seen
Guest:And this happens.
Guest:This has happened with the Springsteen interview.
Guest:You know, it's like, it's not the first time where there's someone with a very large fandom behind them and they get ahold of the interview.
Guest:They might not ever have listened to the show before.
Guest:They don't, they may not know who Mark is, but they're like, this is the best interview with Mark Hamill in forever.
Guest:Oh my God, this is great.
Guest:So like, that's always to me, a home run.
Guest:It's like when the people who are super familiar with the guy
Guest:are like, oh, I haven't heard this.
Marc:Winner, you know?
Marc:Yeah, totally.
Marc:And I'm not a big fan of like rethinking like who could have been cast in what movie, but dude, an Amadeus starring Dustin Hoffman and Mark Hamill would have been- That's very weird.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Amazing.
Marc:Especially with Mark Hamill with that laugh, because in Amadeus, that laugh is wild.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I wonder if that laugh, I can't remember.
Guest:I have seen the Broadway show and I can't remember if he is like that in the show or if that was an invention of Tom Hulse who played him in the movie.
Marc:I'd love to know, honestly, because that sounds amazing.
Marc:Also really happy that Luke Skywalker liked Superman.
Marc:That was nice to hear.
Marc:Yes, I thought of you when he was saying that.
Marc:I was actually thinking of you because Mark was saying in his intro that he's rewatching The Sopranos.
Marc:And I always like to think of you, you know, listening on your, you know, headphones and thinking, oh, shit, here I am just fucking editing this monologue where he's just rewatching the entire Sopranos.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Well, I guess, but although my thing is always he needs to do things so that we have stuff to edit.
Guest:That's true.
Guest:I don't think he's going to do much on The Sopranos again this time, but still.
Guest:It's just like there was a Mad Men line about that once where he's like...
Guest:I pay you to do nothing until you think of something.
Guest:He's telling the writers, and it's like, that's the job, right?
Guest:And so it's like, there's part of me that's always known that with Mark, where it's like, there's plenty of times where he's super busy, and I barely get in any kind of contact with him.
Guest:But then there's other times where he's just futzing around, and it's like, yeah, he's got to do that.
Guest:That's what makes the lifeblood of the show happen.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Totally.
Marc:And really enjoyed Mark Hamill explaining that his soap opera producers were warning him not to break kayfabe.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Guest:About his girlfriend?
Guest:Yes.
Marc:I thought that was hilarious.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's so weird how circus level all showbiz was.
Marc:Like, no, no, no.
Marc:We got to pretend like you're the real fake person that you're portraying.
Marc:Like, it's so bizarre.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:My favorite soap opera story like that is when James Franco was on our show.
Guest:He talked about how he did, I think it was General Hospital for like, he was on it for like 20 episodes, but they filmed them in like three days because that's how those things work, you know?
Guest:But so he was some character named Franco, right?
Guest:And like he was not playing James Franco.
Guest:He was just a guy named Franco.
Guest:I forget what he was.
Guest:He was like a photographer or something.
Guest:And then they killed him off.
Guest:But of course, then once he was no longer playing it, they brought him back and it was like another guy playing Franco.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:And...
Guest:He said he would see old ladies in the airport and they'd be like, Franco.
Guest:Oh my God.
Guest:Like they wouldn't know him from anything else.
Guest:And they'd be talking to him about the general hospital or whatever.
Guest:And they're like, I don't like the new Franco.
Guest:That's crazy.
Guest:Which I think James Franco's probably heard other times in his life.
Marc:Oh, man.
Marc:I'm really sad that that was the last Ask Mark Anything.
Marc:It's great to hear him talk.
Marc:I have to ask you, what song would you associate with WTF?
Guest:associate with wtf that like yeah somebody said what song um you know is the i guess you know is the most appropriate for the tone of wtf the whole time um i mean it's interesting it's like the
Guest:if you just asked me that, like from a word association standpoint, like obviously I think of our theme song, but if you're saying like, it's gotta be not the theme song, like what song goes into your head when you think of the show that you do, the podcast that you do, it was the ACDC down payment blues.
Guest:Cause that was initially what we were using to, you know, open the show before we were like, Oh, people are listening to this and we could get in trouble.
Guest:So we changed it.
Guest:But I always kind of have that in my head, like even in weird ways, like sometimes, you know, when I edit the beginning of the show, I just kind of am able to slot Mark's track into my template as to where, you know, the music works.
Guest:goes down and where his cue is.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And, uh, sometimes before I have his track slotted into that spot, I just have his track up like on a blank screen and I press play and then he starts doing his, Hey there, what the fuckers or whatever.
Guest:Like in my head, I'm still hearing, well, it is whatever.
Guest:He's got 20 of them.
Guest:You know, you listen to every single one of them.
Guest:I know.
Guest:I can't, I can't start telling you what they are.
Guest:Uh,
Guest:But I sometimes am hearing that... It's like we did that for like maybe 30 episodes.
Marc:Oh, wow.
Guest:But it's imprinted in my brain.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:All right.
Guest:That's a good one.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:How about you?
Marc:Do you have a song you associate with the show?
Marc:Man...
Marc:I feel like there was a song, it's probably from like National Lampoon, that's It's All Right.
Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah.
Guest:That's from Caddyshack.
Marc:Yeah, Caddyshack.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I don't know why.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:That's the song that knee jerk.
Marc:I don't know why.
Marc:It's just a fun time.
Marc:Because for me, it's just like, this is, we're going on a ride, you know?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So, yeah.
Marc:No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
Yes.
Guest:Well, that's that's good.
Guest:I, you know, I always like the ask Mark anythings.
Guest:Mark was always like anytime I was like, oh, we're doing another one of those.
Guest:He's like, there's more.
Guest:How are there more questions?
Guest:Didn't I answer them all?
Guest:Like he's always shocked that new ones come in.
Marc:I bet.
Marc:I bet.
Marc:Also, I have to give you props because I, of course, have not listened to the Thursday episode, but you did play a clip at the end of Monday's episode with The Best Show with Tom.
Marc:With Tom Sharpling.
Marc:Yeah, Tom Sharpling.
Marc:And Tom explains why he named his show The Best Show.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I was thinking, I was like, oh man, was Brendan thinking of Tom Sharpling when he named this show the Friday show?
Marc:No.
Marc:No?
Marc:Okay.
Marc:Because it's a perfect name for it.
Guest:No, I just was literally like, if you remember, I was trying to find some kind of wrestling connection for it.
Guest:And any one I thought of, I would Google it and it was already a show.
Guest:Like there was already some wrestling podcast or stream or something.
Marc:The Sleeper Hold.
Yeah.
Guest:Every single thing.
Guest:And there are dozens that I thought could have worked.
Guest:And I think the Friday show was just me throwing my hands up and being like, eh, what else is it going to be called?
Guest:I'm not going to come up with something cute.
Guest:But also, I then thought it was appropriate that I wanted it to represent...
Guest:the week in review and like the Howard Stern team has their thing.
Guest:Then it's just called the after show, right?
Guest:It's not like, you know, the, the, the whack pack, whatever, you know, it's like, it's just the Howard Stern after show or after the show, whatever, however it is, they phrase it.
Guest:And I was just kind of like that.
Guest:It should be matter of fact so that people know this is the thing at the end of the week.
Guest:It's on Fridays and that's it.
Guest:Like I didn't, dude, I,
Guest:if you remember i was like we're gonna probably stop doing this after a few weeks because it won't be it won't make sense anymore it'll be we'll be down to you know less than a third of the people subscribing listening to it we might as well put our resources into something else but to keep these new fans around let's do something and can you help me out with it that was the whole pitch yeah
Guest:For doing this.
Guest:So there wasn't a ton of thought put into calling it the Friday show.
Guest:And it wasn't strategic like Tom's.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:And I will say, like, we didn't even start talking about, like, the week in review of, like, WTF stuff.
Marc:It wasn't until, like, I want to say, like, Mark B. Davis or whatever that guy's name was.
Marc:Oh, Matt B. Davis.
Marc:Matt B. Davis, where we, like, kind of went into, like, you know, stuff.
Marc:Because we would just stick with wrestling.
Yeah.
Guest:You think that, but I've been, you know, checking out past episodes just kind of as we put things to bed here.
Guest:And no, we were like, we were, it was, we were easing into the wrestling.
Guest:Like, you know, we initially established this is for wrestling and we had Mark on to,
Guest:talk about you know steve austin and it was you know just that was the way to kind of like bridge the gap and then like the first few episodes it was like oh what you see anything this week that you want to tell people about first like it wasn't necessarily like a wtf recap show but it was like you're gonna end your week with a little bit of talk yeah you know okay all right well it worked out it's been it's been a joy
Guest:Well, and I should tell people, this is so kind of big announcement here for all you folks subscribing.
Guest:I told you that I would have some news for you on the subscription front.
Guest:And we are in the process, which will actually start in earnest next Tuesday, to have all the WTF Plus subscriptions migrate over to the service called Supercast.
Guest:Mm-hmm.
Guest:What this means for you, if you have a subscription, which if you're listening to this, it means you probably do, you will be getting an email next week telling you about the migration, which starts on Tuesday and will go through Thursday.
Guest:And by the end of that, your account will just be moved over to Supercast and you'll have all the details in that email.
Guest:And for you Full Marin listeners who have been paying $5 a month for this subscription, the next time you are billed, it will be $3 a month.
Guest:You will still hold on to all of your archives, which includes everything here on the Full Marin.
Guest:But you're essentially, because we're ending the show, you're not getting any new content, you will...
Guest:Get the lower tier price.
Guest:That's that's the price now for holding the subscription is three dollars a month.
Guest:Hold that for as long as you want.
Guest:It's not you're not going to lose it when we end the show.
Guest:You lose it when you choose to lose it.
Guest:So when you when you no longer want to subscribe, just cancel your subscription.
Guest:But for now, you get access to everything that we've ever done.
Guest:That's all the WTF episodes online.
Guest:all the WTF plus episodes from the last two and a half years.
Guest:And it's all ad free $3 a month for you.
Guest:You will be migrated over.
Guest:One of the things, uh, that's very, uh, beneficial for people that was not possible while we were on a cast plus is that with super cast, you can do this through Spotify, uh,
Guest:I know a lot of people wanted to do it through Spotify, which is not possible with the ACAST Plus subscription.
Guest:You can do that with the Supercast subscriptions.
Guest:And you're also, your billing doesn't change.
Guest:None of that's going to change.
Guest:It's just going to continue on.
Guest:You're billing through the same service you billed through for the WTF Plus subscription.
Guest:So...
Guest:They will handle it.
Guest:They will also be handling customer support.
Guest:You're not going to have to worry about that stuff.
Guest:So that is the answer.
Guest:And we will have more details as we do it.
Guest:But technically, by the time you hear us next week, you will already be moved over.
Guest:And that probably won't make a single difference to you in terms of just pressing the button on your phone.
Guest:It's just the different place where it is hosted.
Marc:Nice.
Marc:And now WTF can be part of your yearly wrap-up of Spotify.
Guest:That's true, especially if you're going to go back from the start.
Guest:It might be the only thing in your yearly wrap-up.
Guest:Thousands of hours of it.
Guest:At two speed, it clocks up.
Guest:Now, Chris, when we left last week, I had mentioned what I wanted to talk about primarily, which was the movie Jaws.
Guest:Hell yeah.
Guest:But I also don't want to let hanging that you went to see Lawrence of Arabia in 70 millimeter.
Marc:And you were just by yourself, right?
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, I asked my wife to come and she was like, how long is it?
Marc:And I was like, about four hours.
Yeah.
Marc:And she's like, in a row?
Marc:The funny thing is, no, they give you a break.
Marc:Yeah, they do give you a break.
Guest:I will say, just right after you saw it, I don't know if you also happened to see this in the news, that it was maybe the next day or two days later, Bill Maher did an interview with Woody Allen, and he was asking about all old movies and stuff.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:And he...
Guest:Mostly because Woody Allen was like, yeah, I never liked that.
Guest:I never saw that.
Guest:I never saw this.
Guest:I didn't care about this.
Guest:And he brought up Lawrence of Arabia.
Guest:What did he say?
Guest:Which Woody Allen was kind of like, I don't even remember what his answer was.
Guest:But Bill Maher says, I saw it twice and I still can't figure out what it's about.
Marc:hmm what i mean it's pretty it's right there in the movie it's not it's not it's not i feel like it's not yeah this is not a puzzle box right right this isn't like a christopher nolan like oh is the top spinning or yeah like like this is a pretty straightforward movie oh maybe he thought because the director is david lean maybe he thought that was david lynch
Marc:Yes, maybe, maybe.
Marc:First time seeing this movie, I knew absolutely nothing about this movie.
Marc:Have you ever seen it?
Marc:Of course, yes.
Marc:You have?
Marc:Okay.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:All I knew about it was that it was epic and it was an important movie.
Marc:And most notably that it was a long movie.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:That's the extent of my knowledge of this movie.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:And there were, I think Simpsons made a joke about it that I just didn't.
Marc:A million.
Marc:Yeah, I'm sure.
Marc:But like, I just didn't see, you know, so it didn't break through.
Marc:But I always wanted to see this movie, but I knew it wouldn't like, it was like one of those movies that's like at the top of my Netflix queue.
Marc:And I was like,
Marc:what am I going to do?
Marc:Watch this on my 42-inch television when it should be in a theater?
Marc:I felt like I just wouldn't be able to do it justice.
Marc:So I saw that the Paris Theater in New York was showing not only Lawrence of Arabia, but they were showing the pristine, brand new, 70-millimeter roadshow version of Lawrence of Arabia.
Marc:And dude...
Marc:I just went to the website, chose a seat, and fucking saw this movie.
Marc:And man, oh fucking man, did I see this movie.
Marc:Like, I did not think movies could do what this movie did, dude.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:When you saw this movie, did you see it in the theater?
Guest:unfortunately no this was i the the the time i first saw this i i remember it throughout my life like i do i definitely remember it being on i remember you know i'd walk into a room my dad would have it on or something because on you know pix for the whole afternoon or whatever you know i always kind of knew the iconography of it too i knew that shot of peter otua blowing out the match i knew you know the score of it so like that shot in the simpsons yeah
Guest:You know, like where, where it's basically, I think it's where, where Homer and Apu go to meet the guy who runs the quickie mart.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And so like, you see them like riding camels through a desert.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then it shows that they're just arriving at the airport and they're like, sorry, I didn't have my car to bring us.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But they're playing the Lawrence of Arabia music.
Guest:So I like knew exactly what that joke was.
Guest:I, I did not know, but it was one of those things where I'm like, it was like the Godfather.
Guest:Like I was the same way till I got to college.
Guest:I had never watched the Godfather.
Guest:It just was always around.
Guest:I just, you know, knew of it.
Guest:I knew everything.
Guest:I knew that if somebody said they're going to, I'm going to make them an offer.
Guest:He can't refuse.
Guest:Like I knew what that was.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Or like the movie we're going to talk about later.
Guest:You knew what we're going to need a bigger boat means.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Right.
Guest:So I always just kind of had Lawrence of Arabia around me and I didn't actually watch it till I had that period of time with Netflix delivery where you just get the discs.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And the hilarious thing about old Netflix delivery was like, if you got, if I'd say you were on the three disc a month plan or three discs at once, that was the way it worked.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You had the discs.
Guest:As soon as you were done with one, you sent it back and a new one from your queue came to your house.
Guest:So if you were on the three disc plan, you could have three in your house and watch whatever one of those you wanted and send it back.
Guest:The little hang up with that rule was a movie that was so long that it had to go across two discs and
Guest:Count it as two.
Marc:Oh, no kidding.
Marc:Oh, wow.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:So if you got Lawrence of Arabia, you only had two movies at any given time, and you had to fucking watch Lawrence of Arabia to get two more movies back.
Guest:Ooh.
Guest:I remember that fucker sitting there on the little shelf next to the TV for like a month.
Guest:And I would just get one movie and watch it and send it back.
Guest:And another movie would come in and I'd watch it and send it back.
Guest:And there was fucking Lawrence of Arabia just staring at me.
Guest:Two discs.
Guest:And slowing up my viewing time.
Guest:Because now I'm waiting like three, four days between movies as opposed to when I was just banging them out before.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so, yeah, finally, I just like was like, I'm going to surrender a Saturday or whatever.
Guest:I was going to watch this thing and watch the whole thing from the couch, which was great.
Guest:You could take some breaks.
Guest:You know, I didn't have to take it all into once.
Guest:I didn't like...
Guest:feel like I was being neglected.
Guest:Like I didn't feel like I, I didn't, I took the whole movie in, thought it was suitably epic, but like I can fully understand why it would be better to watch it on a giant screen.
Guest:I feel like watching it at the, in the living room on a big enough TV screen was fine though.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, look, my first impressions of it seen on the big screen was what a sausage party.
Marc:Like not one woman is in this entire movie.
Marc:For a very, very long time.
Marc:Did you...
Marc:Was that surprising to you?
Marc:I thought with the music, because I knew the music, I thought that was, especially because this movie starts with an orchestra, right?
Marc:You're just watching nothing.
Marc:I thought this was like the entrance of a beautiful woman, but no.
Marc:So you thought this was going to be like Cleopatra?
Marc:Yes.
Marc:100%.
Marc:I thought it was like a Cleopatra type situation, but no, there's not one woman in this entire movie.
Marc:Maybe they're in a composite shot on the hills, but not one woman.
Marc:So that was surprising to me.
Guest:Considering how they probably would have been treated at the time, that might be for the best.
Marc:Yeah, you're probably right.
Guest:Otherwise, it would probably be one of those things where you're like, ooh, let's not talk about that scene.
Marc:Yeah, 100%.
Marc:But I was also surprised that this movie used the structure, the story structure of Citizen Kane, where- Oh, yeah, the telling of it.
Marc:Yeah, we begin at the death of the main character, and then we get into the story after his funeral.
Marc:Like, I was like, holy fucking shit, like, did Citizen Kane bite off of Lawrence of Arabia?
Marc:Like, this is great.
Marc:No, the opposite is- Apparently, yeah.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:So, by the way, in this movie, for you and Bill Maher, the story is based on a true story of this real person, this British officer, T.E.
Marc:Lawrence, during World War I, where...
Marc:This guy has a knowledge of the region and its people and enables him to rally and lead diverse Arab tribes in their revolt against the Ottoman Turks.
Marc:And England wants to control the Arab nations.
Marc:So that's basically the long and short of this story.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Again, not confusing.
Marc:Not confusing at all.
Marc:I don't know what people's problem.
Guest:Real life is way more confusing, especially that particular time frame.
Guest:This is like the Avatar version of this type of story.
Guest:Very simple, boiled down to its roots.
Marc:Yeah, 100%.
Marc:But this movie...
Marc:On a technical difficulty, it's a 10 out of fucking 10, dude.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:That's the thing.
Guest:It's like just these scads of extras and like these, you know, inordinately long shots of all of them.
Marc:I was in awe while watching this movie.
Marc:Like, it was...
Marc:location.
Marc:They're in the desert.
Marc:They're really riding camels.
Marc:There are really no footprints after them.
Marc:It's really them there.
Marc:There's no CGI.
Marc:It's not a backlot situation.
Marc:And then you're just in this huge battle with thousands of extras and they're on camels and horses and there's explosions.
Marc:Dude,
Marc:This is the peak of cinema.
Marc:Like, I know in 1978, you know, Superman, you know, the movie tagline was, you'll believe a man can fly.
Marc:Who cares?
Marc:And Lawrence of Arabia just showed you the most epic, sweeping, like, movie that you'll ever see in 1962.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's crazy.
Marc:They made it for two years.
Marc:So it's technically 1960 that they made this.
Marc:How is that possible?
Guest:Well, I just think it's the same thing when you go to any kind of historical site that is showing off architecture or artwork that seems so advanced and so elaborate and ornate compared to the times that you are picturing it in.
Guest:That you're like, how the hell did they build this giant...
Guest:marble statue and make it look so lifelike yeah you know time where you know there was there weren't the same kind of tools everything's done by hand all that and you just realize well that's why because they devoted all their resources to it right and so it's the same thing here like this is the peak of hollywood studio filmmaking quite almost literally yeah
Guest:Right.
Guest:Like I'm, I'm sure there's, I'm sure somebody's done scholarship on this is like, when was the real slipping point for the studios that led them to the late sixties where everything has fallen to shit and they were reliant on these genre movies like easy rider or whatever.
Guest:But,
Guest:But like, this is before that, right?
Guest:You know, you don't have Cleopatra until after this.
Guest:You don't have Hello Dolly or Paint Your Wagon or all these other ones that are cited as the things that like bankrupted studios, Dr. Doolittle, all that shit.
Guest:This very well might be the peak.
Guest:You know, it's a similar movie from right around the same time.
Guest:The Sound of Music.
Guest:No.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:I mean, that's the one that I... I mean, I get it.
Guest:David Lean, you know, he directs Dr. Zhivago and Bridge on the River Kwai.
Guest:And these are all these very big, epic films.
Guest:But in terms of something that's like Lawrence of Arabia in the scope and in the fact that, like...
Guest:They're like, we're going to shoot gigantic mountaintops and from a distance and fly a helicopter in to this tiny dot that as we come closer to it, it's your main character spinning around singing, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That's insane.
Guest:And like without drones or without anything like that, it would take, it takes an enormous amount of time and man hours to make that thing work.
Guest:But they were like, no, that's what we fucking do.
Guest:We make these epics now.
Guest:That's what the structure is built for.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And dude, can I just say like when I hear people like Quentin Tarantino lament about what even is cinema these days?
Marc:Like, oh, it's a movie that's in a theater for two weeks and available at home.
Marc:Who cares?
Marc:Like, dude, you grew up in a time where this movie was made and when people had to keep making movies after it.
Marc:Yes, right.
Marc:Like, nothing will come close to matching the scale, the story, and the beauty of this movie, yet you keep making movies.
Marc:Like, the film, you know, makes me realize that anything is possible in film.
Marc:And also, you know, you're going to be able to make grand movies as long as you...
Marc:you know, want to make grand movies, you know?
Marc:Yeah, no, absolutely.
Marc:Dude, there's a scene shortly after we meet Lawrence in Arabia with his guide in the desert, and they stop at a well, okay?
Marc:So, like, at this point, like, we just got to Arabia, okay?
Marc:Like, there was a bit of preamble.
Marc:Now we're there.
Marc:And...
Marc:It's as if the movie was like putting a marker down.
Marc:We're like, okay, this is what's going to happen.
Marc:You're going to change right here in this scene.
Marc:And like this guide is looking out at the vastness of the desert.
Marc:And we then see what he sees.
Marc:It's just an endless desert, right?
Marc:And Lawrence looks at what he's looking at.
Marc:And, you know, he's like, I don't see anything.
Marc:And then, you know, he moves a little closer to the guy.
Marc:And then we look back and in this endless desert is the faintest shape far, far in the distance.
Marc:Dude, like impossibly far in the distance.
Marc:It looks like a little fingernail of a shadow.
Marc:And...
Marc:They hold on this shot for a really long time, okay?
Marc:Until the shape starts to look like a person.
Marc:And it is impossibly far in the distance, okay?
Marc:Apparently, it's like a 450 millimeter lens, apparently.
Marc:But dude, that...
Marc:That was like, I don't know, it transcended cinema.
Marc:It's like, oh, I'm now locked in.
Marc:Like I am engaged in this movie on its level.
Marc:Like it is a transporting moment in cinema.
Marc:Like it is fantastic, dude.
Marc:By the way, hat tip to the cinephiles who after this movie, like this movie got stuck in my craw.
Marc:Like my knee jerk was like, hey, this is great.
Marc:I don't think I'll ever see it again.
Marc:And then I kept on thinking about it and I kept on talking about it.
Marc:I talked about it with my father-in-law.
Marc:It's his favorite movie of all time.
Marc:I talked about it with friends and family.
Marc:Like it's a movie I just kind of, it was rattling around in my brain and like the cinephiles did just this amazing three episode, you know.
Marc:Only three?
Marc:Yes, only three somehow.
Marc:Wow, God, Steve.
Marc:Steve.
Marc:Were you on the speed run on that one?
Marc:It was 2018.
Marc:They probably didn't have legs yet for it.
Marc:But it was great to hear them talk about it and talk about how editing, they changed editing because of this movie and everything.
Marc:It was really cool to hear that.
Marc:So really great job by the cinephiles.
Marc:Also, Al Guinness is in this movie as Obi-Wan or younger Obi-Wan, which honestly, he's in the desert.
Marc:He's Obi-Wan fucking Kenobi.
Guest:Now, have you ever watched Bridge on the River Kwai?
Guest:I have not.
Guest:That's a great one.
Guest:And that's a much more like kind of...
Guest:hit it and quit type of war movie but uh and also made by david lean and uh that alec guinness is the star of that one and it's really fantastic like that is that's another one of those things where like you'll watch it and you'll be like oh yeah when they say that thing of like they don't make them like they used to it's like literally true yeah that like they don't make move they make movies differently now yeah
Guest:Back then it was like, no, no, we're going to go.
Guest:We're going to basically take over an entire village.
Guest:We're going to build a giant bridge.
Guest:We're going to send a train across it and we're going to blow it up.
Guest:Well, right.
Marc:Like they do that in this movie too.
Marc:There's a fucking train scene.
Marc:I'm like, is that a real train?
Marc:Like it has to be a real train.
Marc:It's not a model.
Marc:Like, like I, I, I wanted to stand up and like, are you all seeing this?
Marc:This is really happening.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:All right, but so now you're saying something that has come up time and time again as we talk about movies on this show and we start to sound like old people being like, oh, back in the day.
Guest:But then you realize that things were made for theaters because it was the only option.
Guest:You did not have home video.
Guest:You didn't have-
Guest:Right.
Guest:So like, yes, they wanted people to have that exact reaction that you were having in 2025 to stand up and go, what am I seeing?
Marc:This is crazy.
Marc:Yeah, they nailed it.
Marc:And what a brilliant movie.
Marc:I would totally go back to the Paris and see it again.
Marc:Oh, wow.
Marc:I'm glad I waited because our friend of the pod, Matt Singer, said that he saw a 70 millimeter print of this movie and it was not new and it was not very good.
Marc:So I'm glad I waited.
Marc:And this thing looked fucking mint, dude.
Marc:Really?
Marc:I'm just floored by the presentation of this movie.
Guest:oh man so when you get those new 70 millimeter prints i remember we went and saw boogie nights on a new 70 millimeter and i was like i i've seen this movie 20 times i've never seen it look like this dude didn't you see um pulp fiction in a new 35 millimeter it was a new 35 millimeter yeah and it would look great but but those 70 it's it's so it's almost like hyper real yeah
Marc:Yeah, apparently this one battle after another, the new Paul Thomas.
Guest:Oh, he did that in VistaVision.
Marc:Yes, which I'm going to try to seek out.
Marc:I'm sure it's sold out by now, but I'm going to try.
Marc:That's like old Hitchcock style.
Marc:Yes, totally.
Guest:Well, you said that Lawrence of Arabia was your father-in-law's favorite film.
Guest:Yep.
Guest:Somebody else who says it's his favorite film of all time is a certain gentleman by the name of Steven Spielberg.
Guest:Hey, how about that?
Guest:He said, it was the first time seeing a movie.
Guest:I realized that there are themes that aren't narrative story themes.
Guest:There are themes that are character themes, that are personal themes.
Guest:And I realized there was no going back.
Guest:This is what I was going to do.
Guest:Oh, wow.
Marc:This movie inspired Steven Spielberg to make movies.
Marc:Holy shit.
Guest:And so the, I guess you could call it the third movie he makes, or in theatrical, it is his second movie because his first movie was made for television called Duel.
Guest:The third movie he makes is the adaptation of Peter Benchley's bestseller at the time, only one year old.
Guest:So an instant bestseller, immediate turnaround to make it a movie.
Guest:And it winds, you know, it's a movie that has a plagued production of,
Guest:Over budget, over schedule, cast and crew furious at this neophyte director who seems way too big for his britches, but also in over his head.
Guest:He, in fact, leaves the set before the final shot is taken because he does not want to get booed on the clap out.
Guest:that's amazing yep basically uh persona non grata on his own set wow uh by the end of it and uh the movie comes out in 1975 and becomes the biggest movie ever made at that time highest grossing film in history uh as of 1975 uh beat a couple years later by star wars but still it is the movie that starts summer blockbusters yes
Guest:Prior to this, summer was a dumping ground for for genre pictures.
Guest:Right.
Guest:It was like the junkie time of the year where you send the stuff into the movie, into the theaters that the kids are going to go see.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You know, this is the big bang.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And the funny thing is, it's a genre picture.
Guest:It seems like it should be there in the summer for with all the junk.
Guest:And this guy brings his Lawrence of Arabia aesthetic to the filmmaking process.
Guest:Also, Hitchcock, very clearly.
Guest:And basically every other storyteller he ever encountered and his own preternatural instincts for being a storyteller and tapping into the core of suburban middle class America.
Guest:Now we would call it upper middle class, but at the time, solidly middle class America.
Guest:This guy...
Guest:in whatever recesses of his brain, he has been working on this is just basically born to tell these stories.
Guest:He is the guy, he is the delivery system for reflecting middle-class suburban America back at itself for the next 30 years, basically.
Guest:100%.
Guest:And and so I talk about this from a perspective of someone who has loved this movie for most of my life.
Guest:I know you feel the same way.
Guest:Oh, God.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But much like you experiencing Lawrence of Arabia for the first time, the two of us just underwent a screening of Jaws with someone for the very first time.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:So would you like to tell us about your experience there?
Marc:Oh, sure.
Marc:I took my beautiful wife, Erin, to see Jaws at our, one of our local AMCs.
Marc:I was playing it in IMAX.
Marc:And first of all, it was fun to be in a theater with people who were kind of, you know, we all knew what to expect.
Marc:You know, we're all, you know, we're all giddy about it.
Marc:Erin, not so much.
Marc:Cause she's like, great.
Marc:I'm seeing an old movie, but, uh,
Marc:Like she is down and, uh, and the movie starts and dude, the beats hit, like it's, it must be what it was like to, to be a parent watching a child experience something, uh, you know, that, that they've experienced in their lives.
Marc:Man, when that head comes popping out of the ship, Aaron makes such a like a shriek and a jump back.
Marc:Like, like, of course, I'm waiting for it.
Marc:So it was just so amazing to see like her react how I was hoping that she would react.
Marc:Like it was it was just joyful to see someone experience it for the first time.
Guest:And so what was her takeaway at the end?
Guest:Did she, you know, how did she feel about it?
Marc:She loved it.
Marc:She thought it was great.
Marc:She thought the shark looked great.
Marc:You know, I told her that like, oh, you know, some people complained about the shark looking fake.
Marc:But like, and like, she was like, I thought it looked great.
Marc:And like, she wants to go to Martha's Vineyard.
Marc:We've never been.
Marc:Oh, wow.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, we want to do a trip one of these years.
Marc:And yeah, she thoroughly enjoyed herself.
Marc:She did not expect the movie to be kind of like what it turned out to be.
Marc:She thought it would be more of an adventure to find this shark and everything.
Guest:I guess probably, you know, if you're someone who's never seen it, but you're alive and in the world and you've seen other things, you come at this knowing, okay, it's Steven Spielberg.
Guest:It's this hunt for a killer shark.
Guest:You're probably just thinking it's got to be similar to Jurassic Park.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yes.
Yes.
Guest:So, and, you know, I do remember that when Jurassic Park came out, of course it becomes this beloved movie and it has a franchise that still makes movies today.
Guest:But I remember a criticism of it, particularly like critics, like Roger Ebert said this, that he was like, what happened to the guy who made Jaws who kept the suspense for the first hour and, you know...
Guest:withheld the thrills right like this was just so this was so needy to jump into the action you know and I wonder if people go into Jaws thinking that and they're surprised how it's how much of a character study it is yeah
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I wonder because man, there's the characters in this movie.
Marc:The mayor is probably my favorite character.
Marc:Like looking back, I think the mayor is just so interesting of a character and like, like totally modern, you know?
Guest:I mean, definitely modern for us now, just in the sense of like a, you know, a kind of spineless bureaucrat.
Guest:But I always just got to think about like the, the mindset of the time.
Guest:of 1975 you barely a few years removed from nixon's fall from grace and the level of trust that america had in institutions was just at an all-time low and so like this it must have felt so inevitable that like the second you saw that mayor if you're like a person watching this in 1975 you're like oh well there's the asshole it's gonna ruin everything and
Marc:Yeah, yeah, totally.
Guest:Well, you know, I had this similar experience to you, someone who had never seen it before.
Guest:And I think what is interesting is so much of the overlap of what you just said about Aaron's reaction.
Guest:Aaron's reaction to the jump scares, to the moments that are, you know, surprising.
Guest:Aaron's reaction to the shark itself.
Guest:I received that same feedback from the person I watched it with.
Guest:And I will let you hear that now, because the person I watched it with for the first time was my son, Owen, who is 14 years old.
Guest:And this was the first time he was allowed to see it.
Guest:He had not been allowed to see it yet.
Guest:And so this will this will actually be the last time we'll have on here on the Friday show.
Guest:And unfortunately, I will give you a little heads up about this.
Guest:I totally screwed up.
Guest:And when I plugged my microphone in, something was plugged in wrong.
Guest:And there was an awful, awful, awful buzz underneath the whole thing.
Guest:So I got that out of there.
Guest:Believe me, it was unlistenable.
Guest:Oh, no.
Guest:But I did enough work on the track.
Guest:I wasn't going to make my kid record this thing all over again.
Guest:It would be unnatural or whatever.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So what you're going to hear on my track is like a little tinniness.
Guest:It's just what has to be.
Guest:Because just think of it as though like my microphone is broken and you hear a little bit of echo.
Guest:It probably will bother three people who are like really into sound and nobody else will know.
Guest:But I just feel like I should let you know that before we play this, which is the final installment of my talks about movies with Owen.
Guest:Well, hello, Owen.
Guest:Hello.
Guest:I thought we were just doing this.
Guest:Yeah, we didn't do it too long ago, but, you know, this is probably going to be the last time we do it, so I figured I'd give you one last shot, especially because this was a big movie for you.
Guest:Yeah, it was one of those movies that I just probably wouldn't watch a few years ago, but if it's, like, not that mature, like, I would probably watch it, like, at least five years ago.
Guest:You think five years ago you could have handled this?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:When you were nine years?
Guest:Probably.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:When did you watch Jurassic Park?
Guest:I feel like you were like 11.
Guest:Yeah, so maybe around then.
Guest:Yeah, probably about around there.
Guest:But the movie we're talking about, which everyone here knows, is Jaws.
Guest:And yes, you... I don't think ever really wanted to watch it.
Guest:It never came up as a thing.
Guest:But in recent years...
Guest:You had been asking about it and I kind of said, I think I said, you know, we use Jurassic Park as a template, right?
Guest:I said, well, it's about on the level of that in terms of like, is it, you know, scary or is it suspenseful?
Guest:But the one difference being that it takes place in the real world, right?
Guest:Not like a fantasy, an island that has dinosaurs on it.
Guest:That doesn't exist.
Guest:But an island that we go to
Guest:That has sharks around.
Guest:It does exist.
Guest:So what was your thought about it from your confidence perspective?
Guest:How did you feel?
Guest:I was like, I'm ready to watch this.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:What made it change?
Guest:What convinced you that you could handle it?
Guest:Because I'm older.
Guest:And so we decided we were going to watch it.
Guest:We watched it last night.
Guest:And why don't you take me through, what did you know about Jaws before seeing it?
Guest:Before the movie started, what did you think you were going to be seeing?
Guest:A movie just about a shark that's just killing people.
Guest:Well, that's a bad explanation.
Guest:Just an island that has sharks in it.
Guest:And one shark is going on a rampage, like trying to hunt people down.
Guest:It sounds even worse.
Guest:So with this movie, like you knew it was going to be about a killer shark.
Guest:Did you kind of know anything about the characters in it?
Guest:Did you have a sense of like what the people were going to be like?
Guest:Well, here's the reason why I know a lot about Jaws now is there was an episode of SpongeBob SquarePants sometime around 2002, 2003 called Clams.
Guest:and it's basically Mr. Krabs gets his $100, or no, his $1 million, I think, and it's some milestone.
Guest:He treats SpongeBob and Squidward to a vacation fishing, and they're fishing on a boat, and there's this killer clam that steals his dollar, and...
Guest:It's pretty much based off of that movie.
Guest:Oh, so, like, the way that the rest of that episode goes, it's kind of like the ending, you know, the last half of Jaws?
Guest:Yeah, but just with, like, comedic coating over it.
Guest:Okay, so you knew all that, and I'm sure you knew, like, some of the famous lines, right?
Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, there's one very famous line.
Guest:Which one?
Guest:I think we're going to need a bigger boat.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:I also recognize a lot of Alfred Hitchcock effects that they used.
Guest:Oh, you mean like the camera effects?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Steven Spielberg, did he like that stuff?
Guest:Oh, of course.
Guest:You could call him a student of that.
Guest:He was basically a prodigy of studying film.
Guest:He loved Hitchcock, and I think nowadays he would consider himself in the same category as Hitchcock.
Guest:Well, I do think that probably a big thing that put it over the top for you in terms of wanting to see it was the music, right?
Guest:I mean, you have a John Williams CD.
Guest:You are very interested in movie scores, TV scores, just general music used for soundtracks and things.
Guest:So I feel like it's just been enough time of you hearing that music that you were probably like, when am I going to watch this, right?
Guest:Yeah, and it's definitely been proven that
Guest:that John Williams was a fan of classical music.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Now, does this Jaws theme have anything that's reminiscent in classical composers?
Guest:What?
Guest:The New World.
Guest:The New World Symphony?
Guest:By Dvorak.
Guest:Oh, okay.
Guest:So that specific, like the low strings and everything?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's not the melody of the New World.
Guest:No, but you can hear parts of that in it.
Guest:I get you.
Yeah.
Guest:Well, that's very cool.
Guest:And somebody discovered recently that like the main theme of Star Wars, at least like the first five notes of Star Wars is like based off of some like old 20th century silent film.
Guest:It's like an old Western, like a spaghetti Western.
Guest:No kidding.
Guest:It's just like the Star Wars theme?
Guest:I'll show you the video.
Guest:It was by some lesser known composer and somebody found this out recently.
Guest:Another composer I think John Williams was inspired off of, two composers...
Guest:Tchaikovsky and Igor Stravinsky.
Guest:Anything specific?
Guest:In the movie Home Alone, when everybody's rushing to get out the house, the music in the background sounds very similar to the Russian dance.
Guest:In the Nutcracker.
Guest:In the Nutcracker.
Guest:Sure does.
Guest:I think to the point where people confuse it.
Guest:People think the Nutcracker is used in Home Alone.
Guest:Somebody at my school said, oh yeah, that song's used in Home Alone when people are rushing.
Guest:And I'm like, nope, that's not the Nutcracker.
Guest:Yeah, that's right.
Guest:And then what about the Stravinsky?
Guest:Is there some Rite of Spring type of thing?
Guest:The Introduction to the Sacrifice.
Guest:So you know in New Hope when C-3PO is walking through the desert, you're... Oh yeah, yeah.
Guest:That's basically the rite of spring.
Guest:Seems like the rite of spring.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Well, so I think it's fairly well established here that you had enough preparation to watch Jaws and you had a knowledge of it.
Guest:You know Steven Spielberg.
Guest:You know John Williams.
Guest:You know the general story.
Guest:You've literally been on vacation in the place where the movie is shot.
Guest:So then now let's get your reaction to the movie.
Guest:What did you think?
Yeah.
Guest:uh it was it was good i thought there were some scenes that was pretty boring yeah like what just like them on the boat for like days and it's just like the scene where they're in like the the lodge or the the captain's quarters and they're just like sitting there for ages like waiting for the shark to come back yeah although that is very important scene because it does give you quince motivation for why he wants to kill sharks right
Guest:and you told me that was a real real event with world war ii the uss indianapolis yeah and that everybody died and they got in by sharks well not everybody but a lot of a lot of people in the water yeah didn't make it on on the rescue ship so that's that's why he must have been one of them well that's yeah the character uh is uh the fictional character is inserted into that real story yeah
Guest:The first half of the movie is okay.
Guest:There aren't any boring scenes.
Guest:There's some suspenseful stuff.
Guest:It just takes a while to find out what exactly is happening.
Guest:Then the other half, when the three guys are on the boat, there's some boring stuff.
Guest:Well, and I think there's a definite tone shift when it turns into the movie with just the three characters on the boat, right?
Guest:And I think Steven Spielberg would say he deliberately makes some things kind of boring and slow because you want the slowness to then, when the big surprises happen, it's unexpected, right?
Guest:Yeah, and I think that not only does the shark make it less boring, but I think it's almost frightening that the shark looks so real...
Guest:Yeah, I always think the same thing.
Guest:The shark gets all this flack as being like it didn't work.
Guest:And, you know, over the years, people have said the shark looks fake.
Guest:I don't think that shark looks fake at all.
Guest:I think it looks pretty darn real.
Guest:I think maybe in people's minds and who knows, maybe they're confusing with some of the lousy sequels or other movies with sharks.
Guest:But I don't think the shark in this looks fake at all.
Guest:And I think the fact I think it's pretty well established at this point.
Guest:The fact that it didn't work a lot of the time.
Guest:It was to the advantage of the movie.
Guest:The fact that they had to conceal the shark as much as they did, you know, not show it to you very clearly, you know, it only kind of comes out in bursts.
Guest:That probably really helps in how you view the shark.
Guest:You know, it's much more mysterious.
Guest:I found on the credits there were some scenes with a live shark.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:So they hired a couple who did deep sea photography with, you know, sharks and other fish in Australia to film some things for the movie.
Guest:And they just had this kind of actually lucky incident that they were supposed to be the ones filming footage of a shark swimming around a cage.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So that they could use real shark footage around the cage that Hooper is in at the end.
Guest:And in fact, they even have, you know, if you see, if you watch like making of documentaries about the movie, there is in some cases a little person who's in the cage, right?
Guest:So that they have a small cage with a little person in it who's about the size, like to scale of Hooper, but maybe like.
Guest:a foot shorter, a foot and a half shorter, so that that way a regular-sized shark could swim around the cage.
Guest:But to the human eye, it would look like a giant 25-foot shark, the way Jaws is supposed to be, right?
Guest:Because you're using a smaller person in the cage.
Guest:So they had all that happen.
Guest:They were shooting all this stuff.
Guest:And then at some point, without a person in the cage – no one was in the cage, thankfully –
Guest:This shark that they were filming got lodged in the cables on top of the cage and started thrashing around.
Guest:And they were able to use that footage in the movie when the shark is pulling that cage down.
Guest:It actually was a good, good, happy accident.
Guest:It's like the cage scene just made me think of like those challenge videos on YouTube where people go in cages surrounded by sharks.
Guest:There was a recent Mr. Beast video that was like that.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:They do that on Shark Week, too, like on Discovery Channel.
Guest:They always have, you know, shark stunts and things like that.
Guest:Was there was there anything while you're watching this movie that was really unexpected for you, like something that happened that you totally didn't expect was going to happen?
Guest:I told I told I told mom yesterday this is there were a couple of minor jump scares, like at least one I wasn't expecting.
Guest:But then like when the shark first appears, like you first see the full shark, it's just like, OK, that's kind of a jump scare.
Guest:But then there was this big jump scare when he's under the water checking the boat and there's a dead guy's head in it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it just appears through the door.
Guest:And did they like when now jump scare wise, though, did they like totally freak you out or just a little jump and then that and then you were good?
Guest:Uh, isn't that like what all jump scares are to?
Guest:Well, no, some jump scares really scare people and they don't, you know, want to watch the rest of a movie or something.
Guest:Like these were, these were like, you feel like you, these were like, okay as jump scares.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:All right.
Guest:I think the scariest, this is probably going to be something that'll make Chris laugh, but the scariest movie that I ever watched was, uh, Bill Murray and Scrooged.
Guest:that was i thought you were gonna say who framed roger rabbit oh oh that one too oh man if you don't know what happens at the end of who framed roger rabbit let me just say uh it's like the scariest scene ever in a non-scary movie i was in like watch mojo's top 10 scary scenes in non-scary movies right right the end where uh judge doom turns into his cartoon self yeah it's why would they make him so scary
Guest:You know, it's different strokes for different folks, pal.
Guest:I did not find that scary when I was a kid, but I get it.
Guest:I get why it would be scary to somebody.
Guest:You didn't find that scary?
Guest:Nah.
Guest:Did you find the jump scare and jaw scary?
Guest:I think I liked... I'm sure I jumped at them, but I liked them.
Guest:You know, it's like being in a haunted house.
Guest:You like to see something jump out and say boo.
Guest:But I am surprised, though, that you, you know, kind of...
Guest:This movie didn't seem like it really had anything in it that really bothered you.
Guest:I mean, I guess I haven't asked you about the actual shark attacks.
Guest:Did those seem intense?
Guest:Oh, well, I know there definitely is fake blood.
Guest:When I woke up this morning, I was thinking about how when Captain Quinn is getting eaten alive and he's bleeding from his mouth.
Guest:I keep thinking, oh, wait, no, that's just fake blood.
Guest:It tastes like sugar.
Guest:Yeah, probably.
Guest:Although it's pretty – that is the kind of most graphic part of the movie, right?
Guest:Yeah, I didn't know it was going to happen.
Guest:I thought – I had no idea he was going to get killed and I was like, oh, wait.
Guest:It was – I knew it was – I just saw it.
Guest:It's a slow death.
Yeah.
Guest:Did you think that they were all going to make it out alive while you were watching it?
Guest:I thought at least once one of them was probably going to die.
Guest:Did you think it was going to be Hooper when he was in the cage?
Guest:Yeah, and you told me he actually does die in the book.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:So the only one who's alive at the end is... Is Brody.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Did you have any ideas of how they were going to ultimately kill the shark?
Yeah.
Guest:I thought it had something to do with those barrels.
Guest:Oh, that they kept attaching the barrels to them.
Guest:You know, the interesting thing about the barrels was the barrels basically saved their ass in letting them shoot scenes with the shark when the shark wasn't working.
Guest:right because you could just have the barrels floating in the water and to the audience that represents the shark right so when you see the barrels swimming around on the surface your brain is like oh here comes the shark so even when the shark wasn't working you could they could spend their days at sea which was difficult actually getting footage because they just use the barrel that's that's really smart filming
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, here's another thing.
Guest:Did you notice?
Guest:So what happens when you're seeing from the shark's point of view underwater?
Guest:What's happening?
Guest:You hear the music.
Guest:John Williams music, right?
Guest:Did you notice there's one time when it's not happening?
Guest:Might have.
Guest:Like what scene?
Guest:When it's not really the shark, when it's those kids pretending to be the shark.
Guest:Whoa.
Guest:So when you see underwater, you're seeing, you know, legs and the underneath people on their rafts and that, but no John Williams music.
Guest:And so that's the subtle way to communicate to you that the shark is actually not coming here.
Guest:That's... I don't think anybody noticed that.
Guest:Well, it's noticed, you know, once you... If you were to go watch it now, you would notice it right away.
Guest:You'd notice there's no music in that scene.
Guest:But you're not supposed to really notice it at the time.
Guest:What it really is is a subconscious thing, right?
Guest:It's to kind of make something seem off in that part.
Guest:So you might think it's the shark, but you're like, this doesn't seem the same as the other times, right?
Guest:Now, what do you feel about...
Guest:the beach in in your future of your life are you are you gonna be okay going to the beaches yeah i was like the first time i asked you like like i think it was five years ago it could have been seven years ago i asked you i want to watch jaws and you're like oh no if you watch if you watch jaws you're never gonna want to go back to the beach you said that
Guest:Well, I think I specifically said you're never going to want to go to the beach where we have been going.
Guest:Because we would go to that literal beach where they shoot those scenes.
Guest:I don't think there's been sharks there.
Guest:No, there's never been a great white shark attack in those beaches.
Guest:None.
Guest:But it's still, you know, you were a small child.
Guest:I didn't want to risk it.
Guest:Now, I know you asked me about the sequels and I told you that they weren't good.
Guest:You said there are three?
Guest:There are three, yeah.
Guest:Were they made later?
Yeah.
Guest:Well, they have to be made later.
Guest:They're sequels.
Guest:No, I mean... No, not very later.
Guest:No, no, no.
Guest:They definitely made the first two pretty soon afterwards to try to capitalize on this.
Guest:Well, I think Jaws 2 is in 1979 or 80.
Guest:Jaws 3 was in 1983.
Guest:And that was actually called Jaws 3D.
Guest:It was done in 3D.
Guest:And it's basically Jaws attacks a SeaWorld.
Guest:Like, it's literally SeaWorld in Orlando.
Guest:Oh.
Guest:And...
Guest:and then there's a fourth one yeah that one's just so so so terrible what's it called jaws the revenge where the shark is literally has a brain and is coming after mrs brody oh it's terrible uh and so i'm i'm assuming you didn't have any interest in watching no if i were to watch a sequel i'd probably watch the naked gun too
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Well, that would be a funny sequel because it's just the same as The Naked Gun.
Guest:It's just jokes.
Guest:I think... I think you should also watch the new one.
Guest:Yeah, so we should watch that one next.
Guest:Well, we also talked about watching Superman 2 also, right?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Well, so since we started doing this, we started doing it last year, and you were kind of doing it as someone, you know, you were 13 at the time, and you were kind of...
Guest:Giving advice to people about movies that are kind of on the cusp for kids versus teenagers and what's appropriate, what's not appropriate.
Guest:Do you feel like you're at a point where you have a good sense of the type of movies that are good for people your age and the type of things that you're going to start to want to watch differently from now on?
Guest:Yes, comedies and probably like moderate violence, horror or action or just horror that doesn't really have too many jump scares either.
Guest:Well, I think you've done a good service here for some parents, but I think you've also kind of gone through some evolution yourself in the way you watch films and what you enjoy.
Guest:and kind of in real life i'm pretty sure the first the first episode of this i had a higher voice i think you're probably right yeah yeah you are you you are changing not just as a film goer you're changing as a person but uh but i'm very happy with the person you're changing into and i think you show a lot of curiosity in things and i hope maybe that even inspires some people as they're listening to this uh that if they were you know
Guest:not apt to check out something new, that maybe you gave them a little guidance.
Guest:Go for it, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:All right.
Guest:Anything else you want to say before we wrap this up?
Guest:It was nice to do this little mini-series.
Guest:Yeah?
Guest:And anything you're thinking about now that this is coming to an end?
Guest:I just I'm kind of sad that this career is ending.
Guest:Your career is ending.
Guest:Do you think do you think what do you think I'm sad about it?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:I don't think I'm sad about it.
Guest:I think I'm I don't think my career is ending.
Guest:And I think that.
Guest:No.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:This is your job.
Guest:Yes, you can end a job without ending your career.
Guest:You know, career ending means you can't do anything anymore.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Who knows what comes down the road right now?
Guest:You can consider this like a break.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So I wouldn't say I'm sad.
Guest:I would say I have some nice feelings.
Guest:I have some bittersweet feelings.
Guest:And I have, you know, a lot of this to cherish for a very long time.
Guest:Not the least of which doing this with you.
Guest:This has been a lot of fun.
Guest:All right.
Guest:Bye.
Bye.
Guest:So, yeah, there you go.
Marc:14-year-old into it, but kind of boring.
Marc:I love that he gets the SpongeBob reference now.
Marc:Like, just like me with the Simpsons Lawrence of Arabia snuff.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:Like, he gets the reference now.
Marc:And, oh, just great.
Marc:I love that there aren't any boring scenes in the beginning of the movie.
Marc:Like, just hilarious.
Guest:I like that boring is like a unit, right?
Guest:It's like...
Guest:It's like if you were to grade the movie, it's like, oh, this movie gets three borings out of 10.
Guest:Totally.
Marc:Oh, by the way, Owen, you're totally right.
Marc:Scrooged is scary.
Marc:There's no reason for that movie to be that scary.
Guest:I guess.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, I think, you know, we were talking about it afterwards, he and I, and he was like, I just think it has this really dark tone.
Guest:Totally.
Guest:And I was like, yeah, that's it.
Guest:It's the tone.
Guest:It's like, it makes you feel kind of sleazy.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Totally.
Marc:Although like the, the bad, you know, the ghost of Christmas future, like the, well, yeah, he's scary, but the guy who's all ash, like that guy's real scary.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So, yeah.
Marc:Also, I love the fake blood stuff.
Marc:Like anytime someone says anything about fake blood, just reminds me of Tropic Thunder.
Guest:He almost said the same thing.
Guest:He's like, it's just going to be sugar.
Guest:It looks red.
Marc:Blood tasting flavored sugar.
Guest:Blood tasting corn syrup.
Marc:But I love that he's fine with going in the water, though, dude.
Guest:Yeah, it definitely did not.
Guest:I think the thing that did affect him, and I think I did the right thing by holding it off for a while, was the gore.
Guest:In the days since, he has brought it up a few times that the movie was very gory.
Guest:And the funny thing is, it's not...
Guest:by the standards of what, what a gory movie is, but all you need are like three times where you see blood explode from somebody and that's gory.
Guest:And this movie has three times where a person gets bitten into and there's a geyser of blood, right?
Guest:You got the little kid, which I thought would be more fucked up for him than it was.
Guest:I didn't seem to,
Guest:no he didn't seem to mind that uh the guy who gets his leg bit off that's not great but i think more like he was just relieved that the other kid didn't get killed there because the shark swims right by brody's kid but uh yeah i think quint uh you know getting so much blood holy yeah and i think i think that fucked him up a little bit it's also because it's like he didn't think he was gonna die he thinks he's gonna get out of it and then it's like you know chomp
Guest:yeah yeah see dude people are incomprehensible like he's he's totally fine with it you know that's the interesting thing though because like you know i think some people might listen to this like and think i i oh did you have did you expect him to to love it did you want him to like love it as much as you do and it's it's funny i it's not my first time at something like this and i'll explain my fit thought process it's like
Guest:Obviously, this movie has an outsized role in my life.
Guest:I would put it up there with all my favorite movies ever made.
Guest:But then also, since the year 2000, I've been going to Martha's Vineyard.
Guest:Back then, going with a friend who lived there, and we would work there for the summer.
Marc:Amazing.
Guest:And so I, you know, I, and then, you know, once I just had the ability to go on vacations myself, I would want to go back.
Guest:Right.
Guest:That's where I knew, I knew people there.
Guest:I knew places there.
Guest:So, you know, going back to like, even when I was like living on a shoestring budget for my life, I would take a bus up to Martha's Vineyard in the summer for vacation.
Guest:That was what we would do.
Guest:So for about 25 years, been going to Martha's Vineyard and I,
Guest:we just knew all the jaws locations i knew the jaws people the kid who gets killed alex kintner yeah he i don't know if he still does maybe he's retired now but for a long time he was the owner and and manager of the wharf restaurant in edgartown we'd see him all the time there's alex kintner
Guest:and uh uh the one of the brody uh kids was uh the town sheriff for real no no kidding uh uh-huh and uh and you just saw all the places you'd go to places you'd be like oh yeah this is this spot from job is is the art supply store really an art supply store it sure is it's called the edgertown paper store oh wow do you do you ever go in there and and scream knock everything down yeah knock everything down but then have no no no
Marc:I probably do the printing.
Marc:I'm just laughing at that line in the theater and Eric's just like, what are you doing?
Guest:Oh, man, there's so many of those.
Guest:When he said that in the movie, Owen turns around to me and he's like, you always say that.
Guest:I'm like, yes, I do.
Marc:That's great.
Marc:This is like an origin story for you.
Guest:That's great.
Guest:But yeah, no.
Guest:And it's funny.
Guest:It's one of those things where when I was a kid, I loved it.
Guest:It was on all the time.
Guest:You'd watch it whenever.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I think though, I liked it the way it has, I have the same relationship with it that I do to the Beatles.
Guest:That like when I was a kid, the Beatles were always on and you knew the Beatles were great.
Guest:And you'd hear a Beatles song.
Guest:You're like, yay, Beatles.
Guest:Just like if you were like, what's on TV?
Guest:Jaws.
Guest:Yay.
Guest:Or Star Wars was the same way.
Guest:You know, it's just like these things that you just are like, they're great and I'll watch them.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But then you think about it more than that.
Guest:And Jaws, even more than Star Wars,
Guest:is and i think it's probably because of like close encounters right that i like started to really go like what is the deal with this guy spielberg like he's saying a lot of stuff in these things even though they're just like amazing stories right but he's like he's this this is our guy this is our like the for for people our age who like were our spielberg kids yeah you know he not only made a ton of movies that we saw but he produced all throughout our childhoods right yeah
Guest:tv and movies so it's like who was this guy what was he saying what was he doing and you just start to go over this i and like to the point where now like i know this movie at a fractal level i can tell you everything about it i can tell you what scenes were shot why what when did they not have the shark when was when were they making up for the fact that they couldn't show it and all all these details and really like enjoying it on a filmic level right like how was this made right yeah
Guest:So I have to always realize like people need to come to their own thing that way, right?
Guest:Like if I had to guess when I was growing up, my dad's favorite movie was probably Some Like It Hot.
Guest:I watched that with him and I liked it fine, but I wouldn't ever like clamor to watch it again.
Guest:Or I wouldn't like, I wouldn't even understand the hubbub about it, right?
Guest:But like it was meaningful to him.
Guest:And I guess I knew that, but it wasn't going to be like my meaningful thing.
Guest:And I think it probably meant more to him that I came to things on my own and then shared them with him.
Guest:Like anything.
Guest:I remember bringing it home from the video store because I could rent it myself.
Guest:I didn't need a parent to rent it with me.
Guest:So I married an ax murderer.
Guest:Hell yeah.
Guest:Mike Myers movie, which I had seen in the theater, but I brought it home and I was like, dad, we should watch this.
Guest:This was funny.
Guest:And he was like, all right, whatever.
Guest:He tell you, you, you, you're the boss.
Guest:And we watched it.
Guest:He was like, that was awesome.
Guest:That was funny.
Guest:He's like, that guy is like, I, he already liked Wayne's world.
Guest:So he was like, this guy is really funny.
Guest:Oh, awesome.
Guest:And he move.
Marc:He's going to cry himself to bed in his giant pillow.
Marc:Very underrated movie.
Guest:So good.
Guest:I remember, though, doing the same thing with... I brought my mom to see Fargo.
Guest:Oh, cool.
Guest:And, like, I remember we were driving to school the next day.
Guest:I was driving because my mom worked in the school sometimes as, like, a substitute.
Guest:And so I remember it was a day where I was driving her to the school with me.
Guest:And I just remember she's just sitting there and she's like...
Guest:that was a really good movie last night.
Guest:Like she was still thinking about it.
Guest:And like, I'm like, I bet to them that was meaningful.
Guest:Like their kid sharing something like that.
Guest:So like, if this to me is like, I share this with my son, just like any of these things.
Guest:I don't care if he hated it.
Guest:It's like, does it get him to then go some route with it, right?
Guest:To be like, well, I didn't like that movie, but I want to find something else that I do like and lock onto that.
Guest:And then when he comes to me with that, that's when we have the thing, right?
Guest:That's when it's like, okay, now we're locked in on this level.
Guest:But like, yeah, you don't have to...
Guest:You don't have to hold on to these things.
Guest:They exist for you because of your journey with them.
Guest:And I think it took me a long time in life.
Guest:It was definitely something I hit on before I had a kid, but it took a long time in life to not feel like you had to fight to the death over these kind of things.
Marc:Oh, like you'd be disappointed if they didn't like see it the same way.
Guest:Yeah, or stake your claim.
Guest:Like, no, this is the best.
Marc:No, I see.
Guest:You know, like, and feel like you were on the losing end of a test if somebody didn't think that way.
Marc:Right, right.
Marc:It's like, why?
Marc:You didn't love the Princess Bride as much as I love Princess Bride?
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:Totally, totally.
Guest:So like, it's a useful thing.
Guest:And I feel like,
Guest:We've been doing that a lot here on this show to bring to people what we like.
Guest:And like, I'm totally cool with you not liking any of it.
Guest:Frankly, I guarantee that the tiniest percentage of people listening to this like wrestling still, like compared to who started listening to it when we first were doing it.
Guest:But...
Guest:I know that all the people who were listening when we started doing this about wrestling hung around.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And like, Hey, I don't expect you go watch wrestling, but maybe it opened you up to something else.
Guest:Maybe it made you think about Andy Kaufman or whatever.
Guest:You know, it's like, that's the, that's the deal about talking about these things.
Guest:And I don't think it's frivolous.
Guest:I don't think it's a waste of time.
Guest:And I think like, you know, in any era, um,
Guest:there were people doing these things.
Guest:They might've been sitting around, have a salon about poetry.
Guest:They sit around and talk about this guy's artwork or that sculpture or whatever.
Guest:It's still important.
Guest:It's important to do that.
Guest:If there's any one takeaway from WTF and Mark has said similar things, it's like, take away the fact that we're all on this rock together.
Guest:We all share the same things.
Guest:Let's help open each other up to things that are awesome, beautiful,
Guest:empathetic, joy-filled, however you want to phrase it, you can do that just by talking.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Beautifully said.
Guest:Well, we will talk one more time, Chris.
Guest:How about that?
Guest:Because next week will be the final Friday show.
Marc:Oh, that makes this the penultimate episode of the show.
Marc:Oh, man.
Marc:Have you always wanted to say that?
Marc:Yeah, always, actually.
Yeah.
Guest:You're like, it's always after I do the second to last thing.
Guest:I forget.
Guest:I should have called it the penultimate.
Guest:But next week, I want to just hear from you listening.
Guest:And if you've noticed, some Sly listeners may have noticed that for the last several weeks, I have not included the link in the episode description.
Guest:So you could send us questions or comments or whatever.
Guest:And it's because I was so overloaded with them.
Guest:And I knew that we were coming to the end and I just, I needed to like kind of ease up on the throttle there and not have so much coming in.
Guest:And it just is a simple matter of when you just don't put the thing there, people tend to comment less.
Guest:So I will put the link back in the episode description and,
Guest:And you can send in whatever you want.
Guest:And I will try to get to as many things as possible in next week's episode, which will be the last episode of the Friday show.
Guest:It's not the last bonus material that will be on the full Marin, but Chris and I are going to wrap up.
Guest:Once you've moved over to super cast, uh, this will be the final episode.
Guest:So, uh,
Guest:We've loved doing this, and we are excited to do one more show, and we would love to hear from you, hear anything you want to give us in terms of your comments, suggestions, feedback, questions, anything at all.
Guest:So that will be next week, the last episode of The Friday Show.
Guest:But until then, I am Brendan, and that is Chris.
Guest:Peace!