Episode 17: Fletch Lives (1989)

Weird way. Hello everyone, and welcome to the Chasing Chevy Chase Podcast. I am one of your hosts, Christashu, and I'm joined by my two good friends all the way from Cambridge and with Shawn and Wake Up Heavy. He's your friend and mine step and fetch its own Mark Begley. Have ever been on a coon hunt?

That's not the line. I thought you're gonna go h okay and all the way from the projection booth, your friend and mine, mister Michael White. Folks ain't home Cross rom Burn, Hell Main like it used to be. I thought, Begle, you were gonna go with the line jump up and down, turn around and pick a balah. Yeah, that's a little too hard to remember right down.

So and on this episode of the Chasing Chevy Chase Podcast, if you click on the link, you know what we're talking about. We're gonna be talking about nineteen eighty nine sequel to one of my favorite movies, Fletch Live film is directed once again by Michael Ritchie, written by Leon Koppetanos. This film takes it in the pants because of the writer's strike. Let's just get it out of the way right here, right now, with the script the written by credits that was going on during the time. It is based on characters by Gregory MacDonald, which are technically the move Verse movies based on the first book.

This movie is not based on any of the books. This is a whole original story. This film does once again star mister chevy Chase. It actually stars chevy Chase fucking novel cons apparently once again as the titular Fletch. This time, Fletch is tasked with figuring out why the land he inherited in Louisiana is worth killing for.

It is a little bit of a conceit, a little bit of a stretch of the conceit, And yeah, I think we're gonna have an interesting time talking about it. I'm going to kick it to you first, Mark Begley. We have not been having the greatest luck with films recently, to the point of frustration with you. So I am curious. Did the film Fletch Lives break that curse with the recent chevy Chase films or are we still low batting percentage with chevy Chase films.

I don't know if it broke it, but I wasn't anticipating to dislike it or anything. Knowing you know, based on the last two or the prior to films that we watch Funny Money and Caddy Shack two were horrible duds that you know, Caddyshak two, he's hardly in. So I wasn't expecting a big letdown or anything or a continuation of that. But I my thoughts throughout were just kind of boring. I was kind of bored.

I actually dozed off for about five minutes during the movie. So, uh, I think I haven't read any of the books, but I think I would have preferred if they had gone with probably one of the other books, because it's a very over complicated, unnecessarily complicated story and the whole idea of it being in Luis. This this Southern twang thing just did not work for me. And I know that was a big thing in the eighties and the late eighties, the music, the zydeco, all that crap was going on. For whatever, I blame it on Paul Simon's Graceland in part because he there's a couple of zydacoe songs on his album, and a lot of roots rock was happening then, and everybody was, you know, getting into this music that no one had ever really listened to outside of that area before.

But I don't know, I just didn't. I just kind of was bored throughout. Mike White, same question to you, my friend. I'm surprised you didn't just go right after Buckwheetsidico himself. I mean, go to the source, dude, you know, come on.

You know true? But why you know learn'd of that? Who got interested in that? Because of what you know what I'm saying. I hear you.

He was kind of the entree to like world music back in the day. As far as the Paul Simon of it all. Yeah, diamonds on the soles of their shoes, baby, that's what I think when I think, oh yeah, Dimond like musician Chevy Chase. I mean, one of Paul Simon's most I think for people my age, people know him from you can call me al music video which features Chevy Chase very true. Good yeah yeah.

And it's it's bizarre because I didn't realize that it was Chevvy Chase singing that. I always thought it was Paul Simon. But then you watch that video and you're just like, oh no, Paul Simon's just over here playing the drums and the. Flute so committed to Mike White. Yeah, I wasn't that bored with it.

I feel like the choice of villains is a little strange. We'll definitely get into that, but yeah, I thought it was It was all right. I like you, Mark. I kind of wish that they had gone with a McDonald Fletch story. I would like to see more of those.

I did watch Confess Fletch for this particular episode as well, just so I could see how John Hamm plays it versus chevy Chase, and I gotta say, man, chevy Chase is fucking charming. I like John Hamm as well, but in this movie, I mean, this feels like a real return to form for chevy Chase after all of these duds that we've been watching for the last few months. I know a lot of people. I actually got some feedback when we just put out the Spies Like Us episode and people are like, hey, I really like that movie, and I'm like, well, that's great. You know, you probably watched a lot as a kid, and I didn't, so I don't have that nostalgia tent to it.

For me, it just wasn't that enjoyable. This one. I was like, oh, okay, I can see where if people like Fletcher probably liked this movie as well. It feels like a little case of diminishing returns. As opposed to the first Fletch movie.

I felt like the first Fletch movie had a little bit more stakes. Like when Fletch in this movie is accused of being a murderer, it doesn't really feel like that matters, and it feels like they just kind of they're like, okay, yeah, you can walk away, and I guess he's out on bail, but it really just doesn't feel like danger. They say, yeah, yeah. I just didn't feel like there was enough there to this movie sometimes. So I thought it was pretty good and definitely better than a lot of stuff we've been watching lately, but I felt like it could have gone a little bit farther.

I do have to say a great cast, though, I mean, are the Ermi weird casting, Hell Whlebrook fantastic. And then you know, of course Cleveland little who I think actually, and you mentioned this before we started recording, you kind of made a step and Fetcher reference there. I think he could have played that up even more, and I think he could have done you know he does that in blazon saddles, or he's just like ooh, boss, like that kind of stuff. I think he could have played the dumb angle even more and maybe started to lose it whenever he gets around Fletch. And then finally the reveal at the end, what about you, Chris?

Uh? Okay, So a couple things to address something that Mike said that we've kind of alluded to already. We spent an entire month recently watching effectively ass movies like bad Robin Williams movies. That was an intent by Mike. It's not something we do very often to watch again perceivedly bad movies.

I mean again, I you know, the movies we watched for Robin Williams month. I don't think they were all broadly terrible. I think that there were some that were okay. But I understand that being a problem and it weighing on all of us, especially with some of the comedies, because bad comedies are I'm not sure there's anything worse than a bad comedy. Really yeah, yeah, there's really not.

And the last two Chevy Chase movies we've seen have been some of the best examples of really poorly done comedies, especially funny Money. But Caddyshack two, I mean, chevy Chase's involvement in that movie is completely unnecessary and frankly it makes the film worse. I feel his involvement in Caddyshack two primarily because it a makes me think of caddy Shack one, which is a much better film, even if it's not an amazing film. And again, some of I mean, our opinions on Caddyshack one kind of differ. But I love this movie.

I know that this movie is not a film that is I mean, there's a lot of problems with this movie. I think going to Louisiana is a fucking stretch. I think it it It literally said, it literally takes the one of the things that worked in the first movie of the setting of la and goes, nah, this is not interesting. Let's go to Louisiana and look not saying because look, I did my research for this episode a long time ago by by reading all the Fletch books before I did my Fletch episode my show. So I've read all the Fletch books, including the Fletch prequels, including the Fletch Sun books.

He does go other places Fletch goes to Boston and confess Fletch. That is where he is both in the book and in the film with John Hamm. He goes to Rio de Janeiro. In the books at the end of the first film there is a book called Karaoka Fletch where he's in Brazil the entire book. So Fletch does go other places.

Fletch is not totally bound to the city of La I will say the chevy Chase version of Fletch seems pretty bound to the city of la and I think that that is more a symptom of this character of Fletch less the book character of Fletch. The book character of Fletch is very different from the chevy Chase Fletch, and the John ham Fletch I think is closer to book Fletch than chevy Chase's because I think we would all agree Fletch of the movie Fletch and Fletch Lives is really just chevy Chase. I think it's the best version of chevy Chase we get in any of his movies. Like I genuinely don't think chevy Chase has ever been better than as Fletch, other than maybe Clark Griswold, but again, for me, I always find Clark Griswold to be I mean, I know that the intent is it's really hard to see this guy as a family man, so that's part of the point.

But that like, it's not that it never worked for me, but Fletch always felt like the embracing of the chevy Chase of it, all of who he is I think at his core, and I think you see that as the person that he is. I think chevy Chase seems like he's closer to maybe the character of Fletch on screen than he is to Clark Griswold. He seems kind of like an abrasive, self centered guy, which I mean, look, when people are saying you're the next Bob Hope, I'm not sure I blame you for having an inflated ego. I just don't think it ever got there. But that's okay.

Chevy Chase is still being talked about in twenty twenty five, and there are plenty of comedians that can't say that. All of that to say, I will defend Fletch Lives vehemently because I think it's a better sequel than it has any right to be. I do think again, to both of your points, it does drag. I think the conceit is to get Fletch out of LA is fine, but to take him somewhere like the New South in the late eighties, I mean, I get it. We had all those, you know, like Southern trial movies.

I'm trying to remember the one with like Matthew McConaughey and Samuel L. Jackson. You know, ah, yes, they deserve to die and. It helps it burn in hell like Time to Kill is. You know, like we've got all and again the Pelican Brief is at the same time, like the South is kind of being embraced in a big way, and we see it here with Fletch.

I just I do wish there was more of the La of it all. But to be fair, and I think y'all might agree with this, I think this kind of opens up the discussion into some interesting directions we can go. If it had just been another LA movie, wouldn't it have just been Caddysheck too? And then we'd be saying, well, I wish they had done something different and not just left it in LA. And I'm like, well, they did about as fucking different a things humanly possible, because at one point this movie fletches singing with animated dogs and birds.

So I mean again, like if you were talking about taking a drastic right turn from the last film, which to Mark's point, has a fair bit of stakes, or I guess maybe that was your point, Mike, this movie kind of is a little bit more lucy goosey and a little bit I guess sillier in tone in a lot of ways. I think. I mean, the characters that he portrays are a lot more like prolonged scenes, especially the faith Healer scene, Like that's like good twenty minutes, is what it feels like. That's like a two parted scene. You have the scene when he's in the booth, then you have the scene when he's in front of the camera.

Like these feel like a lot more prolonged jokes and a lot Sillier jokes. And I think that's because again, they just kind of throw the tone of the books to the wind and say we're doing our own thing. And I mean again, I'm curious what y'all's thoughts are on that. But you know, the idea of it not being in la in my mind is both a positive and somewhat of a negative. And again, like if they just done La again, I think it would have just been us complaining about something that was like Caddi Shack too, where it's like, what's the point, You're just doing the same first movie all over it.

I don't know that I have a problem with it being in the other La Louisiana. It's just that why there, And it leads to a lot of uncomfortable humor in the film. I mean, the whole Cleveland little thing is. I just kept waiting. I knew he wasn't gonna be some dumb house slave.

I mean, like he's supposed to be a house slave. They make the emancipation proclamation joke. Yeah. I keep waiting for the break and it really doesn't come until the very end of the film. You know it's coming, but it takes so long to get there.

I'm like, Oh, he's doing this the whole movie. Okay, Okay. I mean when he first shows up, I was like a hey, yeah, yay, what you know? And I and I get the thing with Blazing Saddles. You know, he plays that part, but not right off the bat, you know, in Blazing saddles.

He plays the part to dupe, the dupe the. Town folk and whatnot. So it's not so much the Louisiana part of it. It's where that stuff takes some of the humor, which is dated to say. Jeffrey Lewis as a clan member.

Yeah, and and that's it. He's like in one scene, I was like, my dude, I want to see more Jeffrey Lewis. But I think jeff Lewis more Jeffrey Lewis more of Richard Belzer as the Greek gangster that was. Barney Miller's own Tito Vandis, Oh yeah, what were George more George Weiner as is as as Jellette the lawyer, which I mean, I think they're fuck You could have a back and forth to just the two of them for an entire movie. Just Chack Chase.

That tripped me out that scene where he's in his I'm like, wait a minute, this is exactly what happens in the first movie, am I And that tripped me out for a second there. That's what I'm saying, Like that could have been all Fletched two was was just a retread of the first movie, but at the same time. The scene in this movie is funny. It goes in a different direction. He takes he tasted the sand and he starts watching it.

Yeah, I's like he's shooting the baskets and I'm like, oh wow, this is like note for note that the scene from the first film, which I'm surprised I even remembered. But and even has like a hallucination dream like in the first movie, because in the first movie he hallucinate dreams that he's Koream made play, he's playing on the Lakers, and then in this he's hallucinating that he's in I guess Song of the South. I'm assuming. Yeah. What was interesting because I saw this movie years ago because I think, Chris, You're just such a big Fletch fan that you would make references to it, and eventually I was just like, I have to watch these movies.

So I watched the first two back to back and was like, oh, okay, you know, like I see now and again it was like, okay, yeah, I think if I had grown up with this movie, I would have enjoyed it more kind of thing. And it did make me want to read the Fletch books, so that was very nice. But when I was reading the script, so it'd been many, many years since I saw The Fletch Lives, so I'm reading the script of it in preparation for this episode, and I forgot that Cleveland Little played the Calculus Entropy character. I was thinking of somebody older. I was thinking of like a Frank McCrae, or you know, just somebody that would have maybe even like an Assie Davis was in my head where I was just like, Oh, this guy had been with the ant and was kind of her personal slave for the entire like her entire life.

And we don't know this ant. We don't really get any sort of you know, history of Fletch and her. And so when the whole thing of him getting this inheritance came about, I was like, oh, this is the beginning of running scared. This is you know, when who is it? I think Gregory Hines pretends that he's the Billy Crystal character in order to avoid getting a subpoena, and he hides in the bathroom and then is it ton Kalfa that comes in and gives him the whole news about his aunt.

And then he was just like, oh my god, this is fantastic and like kind of being super happy that the ant is dead, but it's because he just got an inheritance, and so they're like, all right, we're going down to Florida and we're going to have a great time with all this. But you know, it was like, oh, well, this is kind of the same thing. But as I'm reading the script, I'm just like, Okay, I can picture this old guy, and then boom, it's a big surprise at the end that he's actually an FBI agent, kind of like we just talked about dumb and Dumber on the projection booth. And there's the the guy from RoboCop too that's and RoboCop that's an FBI agent. And then the one woman who just like was so annoying at the gas station, she ends up being a FBI agent as well.

So I'm just like, Okay, well, this is kind of a trope, you know, the unexpected FBI agent. But I really think that it would have worked better if he had been an older character. I think it would have been even more of a surprise, and it would have been a little different of a relationship between the Fletched character and the Calculus character, because in this there. It feels like they really should be friends by the end of this movie. And the way that they go back and forth is great, but they're contemporaries, you know, feels like they're very much of the same age.

I don't know how old Cleveland Little was at this point in his career, but he actually looks a little younger than Chevy Chase does. You can start to see the gray coming into Chevy's hair. But you know, and again though, I have to say, Chevy Chase, this rule is just made for him, and the way that he can throw out those little zingers and never crack and just you know, he's of course, it's not him necessarily as a you know, he's not writing this, but he is delivering these lines like I mean, just the nostrodamus thing and then the woman right back with the you know, Oh, I'm a big fan of the fighting Irish. I love that kind of stuff. The way they go back and forth.

I'm like, Okay, this is really nice. Those little zingers that they do, I think is fantastic. And he just gives as good as he gets with that stuff. Do you want to take a guess as to how old Clevon Little was at this point. He's three years from passing away at this.

Point forty seven, fifty fifty, Okay, he is fifty. Clevon Little passed away at age fifty three in nineteen ninety two. This came out at eighty nine. I just turned fifty three, though, jeez. Yah, cleve I mean, I want to say that there was I want to say this is either one of the latest things I've seen him in.

I know, he's also in a episode of Tales from the Crypt that I feel like maybe came like a year or two after this, and he looks he looks sick in the TA he doesn't look sick here in the Tales from the Crypt episode, he's starting to look gaunt because I believe he passes away of colon cancer, which man knows obviously the fucking worst. So yeah, actually the last thing he was in was the Tales from the Crypt episode. So yeah, I love Clevean Little. I mean, after we watched Fletch Liz last night, we watched Blazing Saddles, and I mean, he's just I mean that movie works because of Clevan Little, really, I mean, it really works because of him and Gene Wilder. But Clevon Little's delivery is just it's amazing, and he's amazing, and I like him in this movie.

I see where you're coming from the mic, because I think it probably would have worked better in terms of some of the back and forth of the jokes. And I mean again, like, if you're gonna have a guy who's already graying at the temples, might as well just lean into it a little bit more. Well, it makes it makes sense rationally that it would be an older ran that had, like you're saying, had been with the ant. I mean yeah, but the times is because of Blazing Saddles. This he's in this because of Blazing Saddles.

It's I'm right, like, this is just the character he's playing in this movie is kind of a an aping of his character in Blazing Saddles. I mean, we've kind of already alluded to the idea that he does the oh yes, sir bullshit in Blazing Saddles. This is just that version of the character just played up. But it again, if you watch the movie once and then go watch it again a second time, you can tell how much he's fucking with Fletch throughout the entire movie. Like the I mean, they show it at the beginning where he's like, can you want to help me with your luggage?

And he's just like, don't fuck up the car now as he's having Fletch do the entire thing. I mean again, it seems obvious initially what's going on, but then when you realize, oh, he is in fact an FBI agent. He's just putting Fletch through the paces because Fletch is an asshole and he's being an asshole to Uh. But I do think I'm kind of with you, though, Mike, I mean Ozzie Davis, and this would have been would have been kind of fun. I do think though.

And again, this is for me one of the big successes of the movie, even though again the southernness of it all kind of permeates the movie. It'd be like if Fletcher's in New York and everybody talk like they say, I'm from New York. It's like, Jesus fuck, Not everybody sounds like that. Not everybody's eating catfish with the heads on. How Oolbrook is like one of the best parts of this movie, without a doubt.

And you don't I'm not saying you don't get that. If you don't set it in the South, but he seems like the less obvious villain if it's not set in the South. If it's set in the South, you can kind of get away with the movie not having him be the villain for most of it because he's so charming. I think if this movie is set anywhere else and you have how Holbrook is like, Oh, this guy's the villain, like from like very obviously, but he's I love how Hulbrook in this movie. I love how Hulbrook overall.

But I really like him in this movie because him is a villain is kind of it's kind of fun. He's having a good time with it, hamming it up as it were. Oh, you went. There, I went there. I had to him.

Sorry. I was wondering if it was some sort of like Moses joke or not Moses, no, a joke that his name was ham and then you've got the Faith Tailor and all that, and I really so to go back to what I was saying earlier, and I'll just say it now. It's odd that the Faith Healer is not the criminal. It's odd that our Lee Ermie is not the bad guy, and that it's how Hlebrook, because of course you like how Hlbrook. I like Ourley Ermie as a actor and as a person, but I justlike faith healers a lot and TV preachers, and so I'm just like, Okay, well he's going to do And of course his intentions are not good that he wants all of this land so he can make this crazy Bible Land kind of thing, which kind of show a little bit of But I mean they could have gone so much bigger and more tasteless when it came to what that Bible Land was going to be.

I mean we've seen it in years since then of how Christians will make these crazy Bible Land type of things, like the whole Noah's Ark thing down in Kentucky and the the museum where they're talking about how dinosaurs and people were living in harm me with each other and all this kind of you know, absolute insanity. But they could have gone there. You know, we've seen, I think all of us might have seen like those what were the Hell House the documentaries, and there are a couple of them that all have the same title, but they're all about these you know, different like a haunted house of exhibitions that the Christians would do where it's just like I had an abortion, I'm going to hell, you know, like that is lunacy, and I think it's hilarious lunacy.

I would have liked to have seen more of that, Like you see Ryal text cop being picked up by a demon and his pitchfork and stuff, and you're like, oh, okay, but like you can'd of lose it by that point You're like, I want to see more of Bible Land. I want it more of this being almost like Beverly Hills Cop three with like the fake Disneyland. I want this being the fake you know, Bible Land or like the Bible Land thing being here, and I want this to be like his whole thing because we see are the Army at one point just being like all your donations are going to Bible Land and we're going to make this thing amazing, and I just wanted to be the tackiest place on earth. Well, it's like it reminds me of The Righteous Gemstones, which they kind of took that idea and really ran with it, because that I mean essentially the Righteous Gemstones.

That show is the Arley Ermi character played by John Goodman, and then what if what if his kids were terrible people, unlike Julianne Phillips, who plays like a rather seemingly well adjusted person. Yeah for having him as a dad. The Heavenly Hilton and Convention Center, by the way, is one of the great throwaway Arley Ermi lines. And it's just he's great. I wouldn't.

There's no universe where I'm like Arley Ermie as a faith healer. What the fuck? Fuck? But but but it does work. It plays so against that.

I don't know it works for me because it plays very against type for him as an actor, because I mean when I think of arleymy me personally, I think of him and again, he's doing kind of a stick of a stick of a stick in The Frighteners, which is just a shtick of like all the other characters he'd seemingly done up until that point, as kind of you know, the sergeant character that he unny, Yeah, yeah, Gunny was. It's just him in real life, Like, yeah, it's nice that he's not that character, but yeah, there is this. This is what I look at every time we record, is the the gunnery sergeant. It's not even a character, it's him, Yeah, pushing back. Wasn't there like a show on History Channel where he was the host?

Yeah, he was. Yeah. I think it was like weapons, all about different weapons of war kind of. Yeah, and it was like asking him questions or like yeah, like he Arley, ERMI is a big deal. But like he's a personality, right, Like he's just he I don't know.

He kind of just seems like himself. So he's playing really against type here, which I think kind of works for me. It's the same thing with hal Holbrook. I guess like he's not playing against type. His character ends up being a typical of what you expect from a guy who trays Mark Twain.

So you know, well he always is the sneaky bastard or that's what that's what I picture him as. Guys. I watched this crazy fucking Hal Holbrook movie recently where oh god, I'll look at whether it's called but basically you see him through the entire movie going I wish my family was dead. Oh god, that movie is such a downer. You saw that one too, Yeah, that's another one of those fun City editions really.

Oh and I I think I watched it on YouTube because they hadn't released their disc yet, and I was like, I kind of want to check this one out first. So it's with him and Nurse Ratchet. I can never remember the actress's name. Yeah, I'm trying to remember her name off the top of my head to Louise, Louise Fletcher, thank you. Yes, she plays his wife and he's got what two kids, They've got two kids or something.

Yeah, he like dreams of the murdering his family. He just like Natural Enemies is the name of it from seventy nine and I interviewed because that was Jeff Canoe, the guy that did the Nerds movies and he directed and co wrote that, and I was just like that movie was dark, and he was like, well he thought it was dark. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Jeff, it was really dark, man. What was dark about it? Oh geez?

It's like he gets all those prostitutes and they, oh god, he hasn't he telling them his fantasy? Yeah? And you seem fantasy. You see him just like come downstairs for breakfast and he just takes out a shotgun and starts killing people and then he like, you know, cut and it's like so it's like him, you know, doing like the fletch fantasies, but it's all about murdering his family. Oh god, yeah, I think I need to watch this movie.

I love hell Holbrook. This is the first thing I ever saw him in, which always makes so Father Malone and I have a very interesting history with this movie, and I'm kind of bummed we didn't ask him to be on this episode because I used to troll the shit out of him about Fletch Lives because I think he hates this movie. So at one point, for his birthday, which also happens to be the same day as my birthday, I sent him a Fletch Lives poster for his birthday and I had him on the phone. I was like, I want you to call me when you start opening the package and the mail, and he was like, you fucking said up a bitch, why did you send me this Fletch Lives poster? I don't think you ever displayed it.

But I also like, when I've gone and read since this movie's come out, this movie does kind of have a reputation as being not a great movie, and I do I would kind of ask y'all, like the perception of this movie being bad stems from what the Southern stereotypes of it all the poor like the plot, Like I can't figure out why everybody had an issue with this movie other than I mean, like the thing the thing I was reading was chevy Chase seems fine, but everything else is the problem. It's like, Okay, I guess I would agree with that, but I mean, I think chevy Chase still carries the movie well enough to get it over the finish line. Yeah, it's it's over complicated, like I said at the beginning. To me, that's the main thing and probably why I kind of got a little bit disinterested in the film, Like, Okay, you know, I don't need an I don't need a fourth twist or something here.

I don't need another new villain to introduced or anything like that. You don't need them to go to the Universal back lot clearly. Yeah, going around on the Universe studios. And that's why Bible that's why Bible Land isn't as interesting as it could be, because it's Universal studios. I've been on the tran tour and seen that flood, the damn flood thing they've I've seen.

Yeah, I've seen that. Yeah, me too. The thing I will say, what did you ask for Babs right. Oh yes, I don't think i'd seen any John Lannis movies when I had been there. I will say this about the film, Chevy Chase is not phoning it in, and so that that for me was like, oh, okay, he's actually acting in the personas.

I enjoyed a great deal, especially the Ed Harley character that he played that was nicking me no end. That was probably my favorite scene actually, for one thing, Dennis Berkeley is one of the bikers who I love seeing and always, like everybody else on the planet, confuses with the other heavyweight biker guy, Mickey Jones, and I'm like, which one is this because I couldn't remember. Dennis Berkeley was the one who was in Suburban Commando who says this is the nineties, We'll see you. I mean, I love it when either one of them show up. I never remember which one it is in the movie that I'm watching, so I always have to look it up.

But interestingly enough, they were both Dennis Berkeley and Mickey Jones in a film called the called Texas Taliban that was released in two thousand. I think it's called something. It has a different title than I'MDB. It's a shame. Also, that's a pretty good title.

Yeah, what a shame. And I think the conceit is that the terrorists that that do nine to eleven, like we're discussing it in a Texas bar the night before or something like that, or months before, something that makes no sense. They must have been friends with George W. Bush. Nobody, Uh yeah, nobody ratted them out.

But another person in that film is Randall tech Cobb. Oh nice sole Tex. Cobs was a rough dude in real life apparently. Yeah, sounds like a real what's the term asshole? Major asshole, kind of like the guy who played the on screen persona he didn't voice him a Vigo from Ghostbusters two.

That guy is supposedly a giant asshole as well in real life. But yeah, if you do any research on Randall Textcap apparently he was a little bit much to be with, but physically imposing fella. So when you want someone to m Cheavy Chase with sexual assault, you get a guy who's like six foot eight, yeah and. Over, because there's nothing funnier than sexual assault. Yes, we love a good jail rape joke, No boy, Yes.

Do you remember dirty work? The other thing? Flattered the most. Yeah. I mean, I guess for me, the the you know you're talking about one twist too far.

I think it's one female character too far, because like we've got the woman who just comes on screen in order to be killed, which is a surprise, and then we've got like the the real estate agent who I think he sends packing pretty quickly. Or is that or is that the same character as are Ermie's daughter? Is she's character name character? Okay? Which is confusing for me because I was like, Okay, how Hulbrook's daughter is in the in No, No, she's not hal Holbrook's daughter.

She's Ermie's daughter. And I'm just like, oh, okay, is there a there's not a hal Holbrook daughter right. No, As you're saying that, though, it sort of makes more sense that she would be to me. There's a woman on the plane. Does that count?

Yes? Oh my god, I hate to fly. Yeah, the mister notre Day. There's the lines of back and forth are yeah, are really the best part of this movie? I think you Begley, I think you pointed out the worst.

Best part of this movie is that chevy Chase is not phoning it in. But the movie is the script is like the phoning in of phoning in. Uh and again I go back to and I mentioned it in the intro. This movie is a product of the writer's strike, which was taking place, I believe, either this year or the year before. And so this movie in a lot of ways feels like cobbled together ideas because it kind of is cobbled together ideas.

And yeah, that they're being two twists, I guess three twists. I guess is it two or three? Or are we landing on two? Yeah? They by the end of it, I'm just like, I don't know if I necessarily care that Cleveland Little is an FBI agent because that, I mean, that's great and all.

But and yeah, like how Hulburk being the villain? Okay, sure, like all right, I believe that he seems like a scub bag, But yeah, that Arley Ermi's not in on it feels like, I don't know, kind of surprising in a way, but I guess it is kind of That's the twist of the movie is that, oh, you expect it to be the faith Healer and it's not. He's just kind of like a fucking dope. He's just you know, like, I guess he's genuine in his intentions. I don't.

I guess that's the movie. That's why I can never figure out what the movie is like. The movie is essentially saying that he's a genuine care character, which is which is strange for especially in eighty nine, I mean post you know, Tammy fay Baker and all that, Like, I don't understand. It's it's weird, but I can't. I guess, yeah that I feel like that's the maybe that's part of the movie's point, is like, well, we're gonna I don't know.

I mean, I guess in a way that's not a bad thing. I guess it is again defying what one would consider to be expectations. This is whether or not it's interesting, I guess, is the question. He leads his life deceiving people. And they even show that moment where he's got the guy feeding him who guys is and like, yeah, always missing a limb, you know, oh, raise your right hand.

It's like oh no, no, no, he's missing his right hand. Or raise your left hand. Okay, Ted Marshall, yep, yeah, And it's. Like, okay, like I just saw this in this movie Red Lights where it was just like, oh, he's pretending that he's he's actually gifted, and it's like, yeah, we all know, you know. So it's when they have that whist.

It's not a twist at all because that's the first time I think we really see him. Well we see him once, and then it's so bizarre that they actually call Fletch up to the stage and so you're like, oh, he's going to be outed right here, and this is the big bad guy and it's going to be this cat and mouse thing between Arlei, Ermi and and Fletch and you're just like, oh, boy, this is you know, like, oh, he's already outed. They've already figured out who he is, and so this is kind of like the warning thing, you know, like you better get off the stage and you better get out of Louisiana, buddy, you know that kind of thing. But no, no, and just the way that Ham comes in, he's there to rescue the random tech Cob characters.

You're like, well, that's kind of odd. But then it's like it feels like he's rescuing I guess it feels like he's rescuing Fletch by taking the random tech cop character out of the equation for a little bit. But he also gets Fletch out of jail as well. He does straight up, which like that was unnecessary though, because like you said that the threat is gone, Like Fletch could have just stayed in jail for a while and they could have played that of more. It's yeah, yeah, the movie is really I will agree the movie is a little complicated.

I mean, we haven't even mentioned the fact that Phil Hartman is in this movie because he goes toly Bio Kim where he's ir pissed I think is the name of his character. I'm assuming that's what his character is probably you know, pissing blood I think, And they talk about pissing blood at one point, Like that scene reminds me a lot of the Kenneth Is Kenneth Walker scene from the first movie where he's playing mister Poone and he goes into the office and he's talking about you know, the pediastus and stuff like that. There are a lot of echoing scenes in this movie, but there's nothing that once they get to Louisiana, it doesn't feel like they ever really rip off the first movie. But maybe again, like maybe they should have leaned a little bit more into what worked in the first movie, because they know, they understand clearly that chevy Chase's comedy worked in the first movie, and his like line delivery and his ability to really get into the character of Fletch was a success.

But I think it's like, let's put him in this wacky situation. It's like that wasn't really what made the first movie work, because the first movie's wacky situation was more like I would say, it was like, Noira Jason, You've got dirty cops and then dirty like businessmen working together to bring drugs to the to the beaches of like La, to sell cheap drugs to like to drug addicts on the beach. That's not a fucking faith healer with you know, a microphone in his ear, having a guy drop trou and exposes butthole the people like that's this is like a much wackier like the Conceit and Him is just so much wackier and all over the top. And I think for me, it's less the script that fails for this movie and more the tone just seems a little silly.

And I like cause you mentioned Mike the John Ham Fletch movie. That movie is even I would say less funny than the original Fletch. It's like it's more kind of dry rye humor, which I think is more akin to the book. And this is more just like almost Beverly Hill Cops three, Like we're taking this character that started out in a serious movie and we're pushing him to like a really like silly direction. I mean that that fourth Beverly Hills Cop movie was such a good movie because it was a return to form.

It was like, there's some stakes, it's kind of serious, there are some real threats, and this movie is just like silly. They're literally at the Universal Studios tram backlot at one point, and how Olbrook get gets washed away by the Mexican flood set I believe is what it is now. It just I don't know. It's tonally inconsistent and tonally against the first movie. And I don't like that about it now as an adult, because we never get a third Fletched movie with Chevy Chase, and so it's kind of a bummer that this movie is so goofy, and it's it's more worried about being goofy than it is telling kind of a compelling story, is what it feels.

I agree. And then even when it comes to the hell Wholebrook character, the whole thing of like my mother was killed by these chemicals and this whole like you know, the environmental disa aster that they have going on at these particular plantations, I was thinking, Okay, well, he's probably you know, how did the ant die? Like would he assume, oh, your poor aunt died of the same thing that my mother died. Because when Fletch goes in and he sees the picture of the mother and the ashes, and when he breaks the picture, al Hulbert goes fucking crazy and it's just like what what And it just doesn't feel motivated correctly because it's like, you know, when you know, the whole thing with the ashes becomes like the major thing and stuff, And I'm like, okay, yeah, I can see him being very upset about the ashes.

I can't see him being upset about the picture because it's just a picture. You know, you could reframe it. It's not that big of a deal. I guess in the days before digital stuff, it's you know, a lot harder to recreate a photo and everything, where like if a photo gets ruined. There's no second copy unless you have the negatives laying around.

But yeah, I just I and see I wanted him to be like more empathetic and almost like, oh, well, you know, like you should be with me in this and you should be with me against these Bible people because they want to snatch up this land or even like who is who's putting the the bad chemicals in the land work? I believe it is. Okay, So why did his mother die then? Was it the chemicals or was it something else? No, his mother, his mother just died, but she gave away she gave away his land, hermie, And so he's like, fuck this, I'm just going to poison all the land around are around it.

So Arley Ermie can no longer get any more land because he gave his mom in a quote confused mental state, like donated most of her land to the Farmsworth Ministry. So that's why he hated him. So really he should complicated. Yeah, it's very it's way too complicated. Like and here's the thing, go back to the first movie.

So what I feel like what they're trying to do is like what they did in the first movie with the. The two cases, the case of the beach stuff versus the case with the lawyer. And the well in the land. And remember then there's the thing with the land in Utah. And he goes to Utah.

He go, this is mister Eagle or Stravinsky and all that like. And he goes to William, oh god, the guy from Blade Runner, William F. Sanderson's house. He goes because he's the real estate agent. Then he goes and visits Stanwick's parents.

So that's what it feels like they're trying to do. But man, it is done so much better in the first film, like the Andrew Bergman script is so like, so much more well written. And again, Andrew Bergman wrote the script for Blazing Saddles with mel Brooks like, I mean, we have we were quoting Blazing Saddles before we turned on the recorder. Blazing Saddles is a damn near perfect film with a perfect performance by Cleveland Little, And it's hard to not think about how good the first fletch is with a script from the writer of that film, when this film has Clevond Little in it and is just kind of spinning its wheels with Chevy Chase's performance, because, like you said, Mike, the overly complicated nature of this movie gets in the way of a a of the investigative journalism stuff that we got in the first movie that this movie doesn't even really seem to bother with.

For the most part. It kind of shows up a couple times sparingly, but the first movie it's like he's a journalist looking around for things that looking around for clues and investigating for clues, and in this movie it's more like, Hey, here's this funny outfit and let's watch him walk around in it for thirties and it just doesn't work as well. You know. I mean, this was written by Leon Capatanos, who we actually talked a little bit about him when we talked about the Gumball Rally a few years ago, and he really didn't write that many great things like I you know, we mentioned Moscow and the Hudson several times while we're talking about Bad Robber William films. He's kind of the reason why I really dislike Richard woman blinking on the Gentleman from Jaws, Richard Ryfus.

Yes, he's kind of the reason why I don't like Richard Dreyfus. Because of those movies that he was making with Paul Mazerski, Moon Over Parce and Down and Out in Beverly Hills, where it's just like, these are bad, bad films, and those were what he was doing in the eighties was all of that stuff. So yeah, it's it's very strange that, Yeah, they didn't go back to Bergman or get a better writer for this, or just adapt another McDonald book. But yeah, because you're right, and so I'm sorry for all of the confusion around the female characters, the toxic waste, you know, because it's like, you know, why are you putting that toxic waste onto Belle Isle, the property that Fletch now owns. Why don't you go to him and be like, hey, don't sell because you're going to be selling to these pieces of shit, you know, spiritual people.

And they ripped off my mother and they were about to rip off your aunt too. Is what it looks like, literally, like you haven't changed your heart. Yes, it's over complicated, well and too And here's the question, though, to what end? Because the reveals don't really work that well. The reveals aren't that shocking that Let's talk about the reveal in Fletch because there's the big reveal in Fletch.

There's a couple big reveals in Fletch. There's one big reveal that the cops are in on it, and then the other big reveal is that Stanwick is going to kill Fletch and replace Fletch's his own body with Fletch's body in his car and then blow his car up. That's like, that ends up being like the big reveal of the of the. Classic noir twist. Yes, what is the reveal of this movie?

That hal Oldbrook's the bad guy with a bizarre, like you mentioned mark, hyper convoluted backstory that makes no sense, Like that's it, And and that the faith Healer is a con man, which again at this point in nineteen eighty, that's not a surprising thing. That's feels again it feels like a lazy stereotype. But again they like at the last second, they're like, oh, but he's actually not a terrible person. It's like, but what he does for a living makes him a terrible person, and you cannot there's no counteracting that the guy is still taking hundreds of thousands of millions of dollars from people and using it for shitty reasons that cannot be explained away. No amount of land, no amount of any of hal Holbrook pointing a gun at him is going to change the fact that Arlie Ermy is kind of the villain of the movie, even if he's portrayed otherwise, and Chevy Chase is just like, oh, his daughter's hot, so that's fine by the end, and by the end of the movie, they're back a villain.

He he's a villain. He's not the villain of this movie. He is a villain his character. He's just not the bad guy here necessarily. But he's played empathetically.

There's not even like a shred of there's not like the way you would expect him to be played. He's not even gradingly obnoxious in a lot of ways, like you're meant to empathize with him and meant to find him as kind of like charismatic. And it's kind of bizarre to me because again it's like, these real life people aren't even that charismatic. None of them are as charismatic as Arlie Ermie is. I mean, you know, Cheeze Louise.

Yeah, they really could have done for somebody better as the sheriff and the deputy characters as well. Like I know they had just used Joe John Baker in the first one, but Joe Don Baker as the sheriff or a Joe Don Baker type would have been so much. But even get that mffort from the James Bond movies, get the mister Pepper out here and have him play the sheriff, because the sheriff he's okay, but he's not very menacing. And if you just had a heavy for that role, I think it would have been a lot better. Actually would have been more of a threat as opposed to like, oh, here's just this kind of you know, hick air director type of guy where I'm like, no, no, make him somebody physically imposing, somebody that you don't want to mess with, and that anytime you see him you want to avoid.

Same thing with this deputy. I mean, give us the deputy from you know, Sheriff Lobo or from uh, you know, any of the any of the Yahoo's from Dukes of Hazzard or something like, give me somebody good that I can be like, oh, yeah, I want to see this guy humiliated with the whole bug in the ear thing like I want I wanted those roles to be bigger parts than the random Greek dude that beltzer Belser is playing, or yeah, like the head of the KKK, the Jeffrey Lewis just shows up for with like one scene. I mean, damn, Jeffrey Lewis is so freaking good and just to kind of waste them in that role, that's really unfair. Guys. I was just say I saw him on the cast list and I got excited.

I was like, oh, I love Jeffrey Lewis and didn't pay off. Yeah, and like there's no real like they don't figure out what happened, they come back and then actually do some more damage. I'm like, no, no, it's not that good. It's it's a text cob that does all of the heavy lifting in this movie. Sometimes you don't even see them.

I think. And again, this is me just speculating here because I couldn't find it in the research. But I'm assuming again just based on the way that this film feels compared to the first one. It feels like they avoided doing the cop thing intentionally because they'd already done it in the first movie, so they don't even have the I mean, you would expect in a film like this, with this kind of setup, that the cops might be in on oh yeah, And yet we don't ever see the police after the first scene. I mean, we see that cop come back and fletch Fox with him, but like, we never see them as a threat.

They show up again at the party later, but again not as we see them in that first scene where they kind of seem like a threat and they're kind of menacing. It feels like the movie's like, oh wait, but we already did that in the first movie. Look, in this kind of noir mystery story, it's okay to retread some old ground. We don't have to take a one to eighty completely. But it does feel like, again almost a response to the first movie going, well, the cops are in on it.

In this one, it's like, not only are the cops not in on it, the cops aren't even part of the story. Which again, why is there not a scene of Chevy Chase going to the cops and being like, hey, this is what's going on? Like, there's none there is none of that. Even it's weird that it's almost lacking in that story entirely because it feels again kind of like almost in a lot of ways, not to be mister Cinemonson's, but almost a plot hole. You're gonna introduce the cops, they're going to put fletch and jail, and then he's going to start putting pieces together that there's a conspiracy here, and there's not going to be a scene of him going to the cops and trying to convince them of that going on.

Seems like a missed opportunity, given that we've already had this antagonistic why doesn't that ever happen to me? You know? Back and forth it's like, well, you know, because you're not Chevy Chase, like they feels like just missed opportunity after missed opportunity. Really no, I totally agree, and just the you know again, when he goes to them, that doesn't have to be the scene of oh, by the way, we're bad cops here, you know, we're on the take, or anything. It could just be that thing that we were talking about before, the Northern Southern thing or here it's the la versus la type of thing where it's you know, what are you doing, mister city slicker coming in here?

You accusing you this Jimmy Lee Farnsworth or Ham, you know, this well respected lawyer who's been a pillar of our community for forty years. How dare you do this kind of thing? We don't believe you give us something like that, you know? And then the direction. I mean, I love Michael Ritchie.

We've talked about Michael Ritchie on my show a bunch of times, and I just really enjoy the stuff that he does. Does a pretty good job directing both though. There's one scene in this movie where I was watching it now was just like, what the hell's happening here? And it was when the daughter is driving Fletch and I'm trying to remember who he's I think it's to the big faith healing thing, is it. There's one part later on in the movie where she's driving him someplace and he is not in disguise, and he keeps like he's putting on his disguise while she's driving.

I think it's been there, going to the bar, it's been okay, going to be ed Harley, And it's just a bizarre, like you can tell that they just said make goofy faces, and she just keeps making these faces and looking over look at these faces looking over and I'm like, there are way too many reaction shots of her doing this and like what is going on? Like, of course we know the car is not moving, you know, the rain is all just somebody with a sprinkler outside or a hose outside. Like it just brought the artifice of everything really to the four and I was like, this just isn't very well handled. The other stuff, Yeah great, you know, I think some of this stuff is very well directed. I really, especially like anytime that they are in the studio for the faith ailing stuff, I think some of that looks really good, and especially how ridiculous it is where it's like, oh and this guy and his monkey and you're like what the hell, Like just all of these weirdo's coming out and being introduced and you're like, okay, yeah, this is gonna be one hell of a show you're putting on for people and somehow tying it all back to.

G's and somehow it never ends. Every time they go to the studio he's on. So is it twenty is it a twenty four hour a day show? It still feels like, yeah. They go I believe every time they go to the studio he's on and it's packed, and oh yeah, I was.

I was impressed by the size of the I don't want to say stadium, but the venue is is full and it's real people, and I'm like, yeah, I miss those days where it's not cardboard cutouts or AI generated crowds. Or digy doubles, those weird Asian characters at the basketball game and that Disney show where they were like sorrow robots. Yeah, very strange, very strange. And they still have my nightmares. Don't you love that?

At one point, they cut to Richard Libertini watching TV with Fletch on the TV. Yeah, yeah, sure, whatever movie. And by the way, if you notice in that scene, because again I've seen this movie so many times, at this point you have to notice some of you have to find new things to notice. Richard Libertini is casually just eating what looks to be a piece of lettuce, holding a piece of lettuce in his handling, just a piece of lettuce. This was years before a veggie wrap, like a protein burger.

You know, he wasn't eat in and out protein burger. Just eating a piece of lettuce. How West Coast de lete of him. I thought, that's what it was, and I'm like, okay, all right, that's what. They eat in La just pieces of lettuce solad.

Dressing is two spy. It's too much pepper in it. Don't put so much prepper in my sees are dressing. And he's kind of wasted in this. Yeah I told you, yes, Yeah, are you being hidnapped?

Yeah? Yeah? Where is Geena Davis? By this time she was so much bigger than. Ding.

I do use the line if you're in trouble is Louisiana the Pelican state. I do use that line fairly often. But because of this movie I love. I love when Richard Libertini shows up, but he's not in it enough because they're back and forth in the first movie is some the best back and forth. In the first movie, they're like interplay.

You know, I'll buy a new stick a deodorant, you know all that. Everything's kind of truncated in this that whole deal with him like getting or getting in trouble and you know, all the money he's been spending on his account or whatever. And then it's like, okay, well I just got an inheritance, so I'm out of here. And it's the same thing with the cops sort of disappearing from the story and maybe coming back, which may or may not be a good thing. I don't know if that would overcomplicate it more that the cops are directly involved, But yeah, I wanted more of Libertini, and I understand why it's not.

And it kind of goes to what you said earlier, Chris, where he's sort of investigating but not really. He keeps sending him stuff and it's like, well, do you really need to play a journalist in this because that can see it is gone when you leave the newspaper, right, You're just some dude that's inherited a dump. Right. But it feels like him being a journalist is not a thing in this movie. And I'll tell you any heavy and in every single one of the books.

Though, to go back to the book of it All and to the John Hamm of it All, Mike, I think you would agree in confess Fletch, he feels like a journalist. He feels like an investigative journalist. This is the only Fletch thing that he doesn't feel like a journalist because it's so kind of like, well, well, Fletch is going to Louise, it's I could you know what if it had been me, I would have been like this time, Fletch is in la but not where you And it's like you a whoa fish out of water story? Yeah, exactly. There's a moment in this movie where there's a moment in this movie where I'm pretty sure they're referencing a track from the first movie's soundtrack, Are they not where?

He's like, I should get out of town before sundown, which I believe is just a reference to a song from the first movie, which is a weird meta moment in a film that, again is completely uninterested in. You can watch this movie without anything to do with the first movie, and I think there's like two references to the first movie, the Underhills, and I think. Yeah, I think it's so easy to miss miss but a credit card, right, Yeah he does have the credit card. But yeah, the underhouse dancing in the background is something that's like they don't even make any note of it. It's just like there they are, just dancing in the background.

The credit cards scene totally went over my head because I was like, what, he didn't steal their credit card in the first makes put stuff on their on their tab, Yeah, on the tab at the the U. And charge it to the other Hills. Yeah, yeah, he didn't. Didn't hand over the credit card and say he did charge it to the Underhills. The subtlety of the first movie is lost in this film.

It really yes, yeah, but at least Chevy isn't phoning it in, and we will see a return with him and Michael Richie working together again before this podcast is done. So isn't that a shame or a shame? We'll see. We'll see how that goes. Cops and Roberson's huh is it that the final time they worked together?

Michael Ritchie had an interesting career. He sure did. Man, Yeah, I forgot about some of the awful things that he did. I forgot he was behind The Golden Boy or the Golden Child. I have a soft spot for that film.

I have a soft spot for it as well. Somebody the other day asked if at work that said do you have a does anybody here have a knife? And I said, well, you have to ask correctly and said, well. Yeah, is fun. I'm not I think though, you know.

I mean The Bad Newsparers is one of my oh yeah, favorite films. I mean, really, I love Smile of what he did with that one, and yeah, there's a lot of good stuff that he did, but yeah, a lot of garbage shoe. I think. Now I haven't seen Digs Down, but I can only assume that it's bad. And if I recall, you don't like the movie The Survivors either.

I don't. But then I also saw it at the drive in when it was first out, so maybe I should give it another look. I saw it on cable when we finally got cable, and I played a lot, and I just I got You know, we talked about Robin Williams recently and that was one of the ones that I liked him in. M Oh god, it's a Robin Williams movie directed by. Mike Williams and Walter Mathow.

Why Mike, why didn't we watch this last month? Man? What the fuck? We were watching that Mandy Moore movie instead? That's on me.

I feel, man, I would have rather watched a Walter Mathow movie with Robin Williams. I feel like the ceilings much is weird and the floor is much I feel like the ceiling and floor are much higher than something like Licensed to Wed which is its floor was fucking Subterraney. God, I'm not saying it's a good movie. It's it's another one of those. It was definitely a bad movie.

Yeah, and don't forget Couch Trip, that one, oh my god. Yeah, with another Walter Mathow, dan ackroy and Donna Dixon and then you got Charles Groden in there. Oh dear god, dan Man, dan Ackroyd. You know, when we're done with this show, we could do a dan Ackroid. I've hitched that, but man, it would be it would be like this, but we at least we get to watch Evolution, which is pretty much just Ghostbusters for the two thousands, so you know, I mean it is last That would be.

That would be interesting. There would be some real there would be some real highs and some real lows. With best scenario, I think we've seen some of the lows. I mean, we've seen some of them already. We're not watching them again.

Just insert that episode, Just insert that episode with a different title. Yeah, what trouble is that's that would be. Those are some shared points of reference like Caddy Shack too as well. My god, yeah, spies like us Caddy Shack two and and nothing but trouble would all be on the dan Acroid. Start thinking of a title.

The Arcoid cast God the Akroid A Kroyd Dan. How do you getoid out of that last name? Is what I was. I know, some weird Canadian spelling. Isn't it weird that we don't get like a Dan Akrod in this movie?

Though, like a kind of cameo. It is kind of surprising that because they. Had worked him specifically. Or Akward kind of in a I mean dan Ackroyd, known for doing weird voices caddyshack to known for over committing to character dragnet. Yeah, you gotta do it, Mike, Come on.

I could have played the guy that thinks about the coon hunt. Oh yeah, who enjoyed juice? Everybody? Good word? Yeah, it's I did like that.

I did like in that line though, his him looking at Cleveland little like one. Oh yeah, I just say that was even though I've been kind of casually raisist this whole time with you. Oh well yeah, since I've met you. That's kind of what I enjoy So why. Is Fletcher racist all of a sudden?

Anyone else? Like he wasn't calling Sam the guy on the beach who was black in the last movie, Like he wasn't calling him like any sort of like racial slur or even like an attempt at a Racials are like, is it because they're in the South, But Fletch isn't from the South, He's from l n Oh. Is it He's supposed to be like, Hey, these white people are a bunch of assholes. And I'm like, I don't know, Yeah, I guess, I guess to your point, And I do wonder this, Why is Fletch being mean to him? It actually makes no sense?

Is it? Is it? Is it because the movie is expecting us to realize that Cleveland Little is not a slave, like a house slave from the jump, I don't get it, but the movie. Plays it is straight, Yes, totally off. Yeah, it doesn't.

It's bizarre. It'd be like if Fletch went to Atlanta and was like, hey, what's up all you n words? Like what the fuck? Fletch Like it doesn't make any since because he's being racist to him immediately, which is again, his character seems pretty dialed in in the first movie, like he seems pretty hip, and all of a sudden, it's like he's kind of like, yeah, that is odd. I guess.

I mean, it's funny, but I don't understand why he's doing it. Fletch is very anti DEI. You know, it's just like if you are woke, youo go broke. And yeah, Fletch doesn't. Fletch supports tariffs, is what I've heard.

That's true. Thank Yeah, yeah, okay, understood I I I guess, Yeah, there are parts of this movie that just don't make sense. And sitting here and watching it for a podcast because I'm this is the first time I've ever done this, this movie on a podcast on its own. I had only ever done Fletch and then referenced this movie again, especially with Father Malone, because he and I kind of have a little bit of a shared history. I never really sat and like sat with the movie like this and watched it the way we have to watch it for something like this.

And it is a movie that again, like I enjoy it, and I I can completely one hundred percent sit here and go nostalgia one hundred percent. It's a nostalgia thing. I defend this movie with nostalgia. But at the same time, and I think we've already three alluded to this or said it outright. There's no other time that chevy Chase plays Fletch.

And I think in a lot of ways, chevy Chase's best character that he ever played in anything is Fletch, other than essentially playing himself on SNL, which is I think like the second best thing he ever did. And then I think the third best thing is either, depending on your cup of tea, foul Play or Clark Griswold. And but I think Fletch is chevy Chase's best character because I think it is again as close to just being what I think chevy Chase probably is in real life as any of the characters he ever plays is. And this movie just kind of feels like Fletch hasn't gotten really hip with the times. Fletch is kind of stuck in a time and a place where the character never evolved into nineteen eighty nine, And if he did evolve into nineteen eighty nine, I don't know what they put on screen because that's not the reality of the character that we're seeing in the movie.

And look, there's no Fletch three. There's Confess Fletch, which is a completely different interpretation a completely different director. I think a director who feels uniquely suited to making Fletch movies, Greg Matola. I think the tone of his movies and the things that he's worked on really works with a comedicly mystery tone. I mean again, like Greg Mottola's tone.

You can put this kind of sense of humor on top of another genre and it kind of works, just because I think he has an interesting way of doing things and writing, because he wrote the script for Confess Fletch. But there's not a Fletch three with Chevy Chase, so we don't get any more. It's kind of like what I say about The X Files. Even a bad episode of The X Files is still pretty good because it's David d'covney and Jillian Anderson. This movie still is kind of okay because it's Chevy Chase playing the best character he ever plays for a second time.

It's just it doesn't have it's like a note being played just a little out of tune. It's a little discordant that first movie, which I'm gonna just say this now, I don't think we're gonna watch a better movie on this podcast than Fletch in my opinion, and I know that that might seem a little biased because it's one of my favorite comedies, if not my favorite comedy, But I think I might make the case to both of y'all that that is in fact the case for Chevy Chase, that it is his funniest movie that first movie, especially when you compare it against this, because this doesn't succeed nearly as well as that first movie, and I think this movie, this movie's failures show how well that first movie navigates something that maybe felt pedestrian at the time.

But watching this, it's like, Wow, somebody was really definitely writing a mystery script with comedy beats on top, because this movie misses effectively the plot of the movie outright. We've been complaining about the plot of the movie, but not the comedic bits, because the comedy in this movie still pretty much works because it's Chevy Chase. The plot is off. The plot and the first movie actually are bits of the movie that are rather memorable. Here, it's just a complete waste, and that's because the script writing talents are just not there.

Bus soun go on record and say the next movie we watch is actually for me personally, I enjoy more than either Fletch film. Oh, I can tell you that interesting. Just putting that out there, you know, for next time, I may eat my words. I haven't watched it in a while, but I like the Christmas Vacation film. I mean, I know a lot of people love it, and I'm excited to see it because I've never seen it before.

That is the fucking wildest part for me. I'm excited for you to see it because you've never seen it before. I don't know how you've ever seen it. It's like referenced. It's like part of the zeitgeist at this point, to the point of like it's like, how did I avoid Home Alone for so long?

Oh? I avoided it Home Alone until two years ago, I think so. And I still haven't seen Home Alone too all the way through, even though from what I understand, the Star is one of the best people who has ever lived in the entire universe. So smart, economic man. Yes, if you're listening to the future and the wasteland is being roamed by mutin animals, do we have a future?

Is there going to be a future for anyone to listen to this? And I don't know, Mark sounds like Sarah Kahn or all of a sudden put that voice over over the fucking nuken terminator too, and I'd watched that. Is there a future. My four oh one k got nuked? I can tell you that.

Think about, you know, the whole idea of the comedy versus the mystery kind of stuff. Like the stuff with him having that fantasy about the Lakers is kind of like it's almost distracting. You know, it works for him, works for his character, and works to show us how much he loves the Lakers, but at the same time, it's like, Okay, this adds nothing to the film, whereas with this one, you know, like it's like, all right, the fantasy about the plantation is really actually pretty good, and I don't know, it doesn't feel like there's that many distracting bits to it. Though this tries to red herring us several times. There are a few times where you're like, oh, is it the real estate agent?

Oh is it cleve On Little because there's even the moment where like, after Fletch gets attacked in the forest, he doesn't see who it is, but yeah, he sees the Laker watch, So I'm just like, well, okay, it's Randall Tech's cup you know when he took your Laker watch. But then he comes back to Clevelan Little's like shack and feels the TV to feel if it's warm, like had he been out kind of thing. And there's like some suspicious glances, especially around the shotgun and stuff, the shoe prints on the ground, France. Mud on his boots right. Right, yeah, the same mud.

Yeah, so it's yeah, then I didn't go anywhere ill. Yeah, no, is that what they were leading me to? Yeah, they were trying to say Clevon Little was possibly in on it. Yeah, it's spinning its wee. The movie to your point, Mark, movie is overly complicated and fucking spins its wheels, and I'm on it.

Like as much as I like this movie, it is a frustration point now because that first movie is is so good and you just wonder what this, what could this what could this movie even have been if it had just been written by Andrew Bergman, Just if they want to stick the same kind of ridiculous conceit of their you know, going to Louisiana and the Bayou and Faith Healers and all this wild again kind of like elevated stereotype nonsense. If We're gonna go there. Like, I wonder what that would have been written by Andrew Bergman. Would that have worked? Probably a little bit better.

Maybe. I feel like this movie hamstrings itself with the plot immediately. I don't know, I get the fish out of water. But put Fletch in another city and that's enough, like Boston or New York. Like, I don't need that much of a culture shock with his character.

This feels too much. It would have been better if it had just been the West Coast guy on the East Coast, which Confess Fletch kind of does a little bit, it doesn't. I mean again, he's not as played up La in Confess Confess Fletch as he is in these two movies, especially the first Fletch, where it's like we get it. It's La, we get it, Los Angeles Lakers, we get like fucking they're gonna like beat me over the head with it. Why don't you like this movie?

Kind of it has it, but not as much. But yeah, I don't know. Putting him in at the other La Louisiana just the movie. I don't know. The movie is like, well, the conceit alone will carry us through.

It's like no, no, not quite, which is a shame because I guess it could have there's a possibility that it could have. I just well, yeah, we just saw him as a fish out of water in Funny Farm a couple of films ago, and like, where's the lamb balls in this one? You know, they do eat strange things in Louisiana, and he could have been very turned off by that, like just even play that stuff up. They don't. It doesn't feel like they really know what to do with the fish out of water nests of it.

Oh well, it's like we'll go on a coon hunt. He'll go eat that fish at one point, but you know, and then they have the bosure lay thing where it's like, well kind of you know, we'll bring it in wine bowser leg made with grapes. But yeah, it's I don't know, it just we we kind of beaten it to death. But the stereotypes of this movie are just a bit much. But I think, you know, we've seen worse sequels already.

Literally, I would say this movie is better than European Vacation. Oh my god, Yes, yeah. No, I was a sequel already, Like we've already seen a sequel and that wasn't that compared to this, Like, this is a much better. Film even Oh yeah, I honestly don't think this is a bad film. I think they made a couple of missteps along the way that could have been a little bit better.

But no, God, compared to you know, a month of bad Rob Williams films, but compared to the last few things that we've seen for this, yeah, no, this is like a real movie, whereas some of the things that we watched didn't even feel like they were real movies. Well, funny Money was not a real. I've got a really off topic question for you guys, because it kind of has been bugging me since this scene in Fletch Libs. Is the bar that he goes to, the biker bar that he goes to. The interior, but the exterior isn't the same as the one in Peewee's Big Adventure.

Sure looks like it. I mean when he took off our last motorcycle, I was expecting him to run right into the billboard. I mean, if it's not the same one, it's like they're filming it from the same angles or something. Yeah, they're definitely filming it from the same angle because the moment they pulled up, I'm like, oh my god, they're at the Peewee Bar. And I started to sort of search online and all I can find is shots of the inside when he's doing the dance.

But I mean, the bikers. It's maybe it's just too reminiscent of that scene. Wow. The character that Chevy Chase is playing is very uh what's the word an obvious gay. Stereotype, right, yeah, And there's that and.

Like offended or anything. But it's just like he's doing a lisp. He has like a like asies. Oh yeah, I wasn't hearing a list. I was hearing a Minnesota accent, so I was just hearing this.

Oh you bet, you kind of. I mean it's a little bit of boil. He's kind of like this. Harley Harley Davidson motor Harley david You know, maybe it's not a lisp as much as he's like doing the thing where you like kind of keep your tongue forward in your mouth here, Yeah, like this and Harley Harley Davidson Motorcycles. Yeah, yeah, but no, you could see the tongue in the scene like fucking moving like like forward all the time.

Like a snake. Mm hmmm, yeah, I was definitely thinking of that scene from Pewe as well. You know the bikes there, yeah, exactly, and they're you know, it's like Nazi Nazi bikers. I mean, they're all dressed the same way. It's just I don't know.

It's struck let me have them, I sorry, would let him go. I do think the most inspired I will say, of the of the again to kind of put a to put a pin in it, like of the scenes in the movie where he is in disguise, which I think again, like if you I want to talk about just Fletch and the Fletch movie versions Fletch character in the book a little bit different, but the Fletch movie really is being sold on like Chevy Chase is doing wacky bullshit as characters if you look at that and this movie alone. Just from that standpoint, I think for me, that character, that whole scene I think is the best part of the movie for me in terms of like it being a fully realized character, him really settling into it, it having some interesting directions that it goes.

And then I think also like the motorcycle scene where he's like yo mustache looks funny, like all of that, Like, I think it all works, even when they get out of the bar and they're kind of doing something else, and I think the scene where he's playing the faith Healer comes close, but it feels like such a retread from earlier in the movie where he's already on stage and it's like, wait, like I don't think we need to either do one or the other, but not both. And then that scene where he's a faith healer goes on. I mean, there are some funny lines in that scene, like god damn it, Tibou, put your pants back on because he's like a guy has a guy exposing his asshole people literally because he's because the guy has hemorrhoids, because that's the joke obviously, Haha, guy's exposing himself in front of people.

Sure, but like that goes on for so long and it's so prolonged that it's like, well, they already did this earlier on in the movie, and that scene was pretty prolonged as well, so it feels like they're spending a lot of time doing this for essentially two jokes. When in that Ed Harley scene they get a lot of mileage out of the way he's interacting with the characters, and a lot of the lines and the line delivery and his outfit just it feels so much more fully realized than anything else in the movie, which is a shame because I would say in the first movie, all of those disguises work. In this movie, I would say almost none of them are as memorable as even some of the ones in the first movie that don't work that well.

Well, when he's the I think I was trying to remember he plays the same kind of character in the first film around the airplane. Yeah, Willy Jean, thing bug, Budster, flat top guy. Yeah. Another and then another good character from Blazon saddles in there. Yeah, oh yeah, the oh.

Yeah, but the guy with the huge teeth. Yeah yeah, Bert Gilliam Right, oh yes, right, right right, yes, yes, you know swing low sweet chariot. Yeah, tell him, I said, ow. Take whire main Off was telling him. I said, that got you.

Yeah, that guy. He plays the same character in this, but he's not he's doing in that. In Fletch, he doesn't do the southern accent. It's kind of not yeah. In this movie, he's doing.

Like the southern Oh that's the same disguise, right, and they're kind of threw me off, like the lawyer scene in his his apartment going on, right, Well, I'm seeing this before. That's why I enjoyed the Ed Harley and the Faith Healer. But I think, to your point, Chris, that's unnecessary because he has already been there and even though he's trying to suss out if this guy is the culprit, I guess is the point of that scene. But yeah, I still go back to our my I think my final thought on it is I thank god he wasn't phoned in in this tie. That's when that's when we have problems with our.

Episode, well, with Chevy Chase at least, because yeah, didn't he I. Mean phoning it in literally an O, heavenly dog. I think he fucking actually phoned in his voiceover. Wasn't even watching. Poorly quality done, that's for sure.

Yeah, And he was not even watching the movie when he was phoning it in. It's like, Okay, you guys are recording this right, Okay, you squeeze it in somewhere where it works, Okay, Yeah, send me that check. And last month with his reprisal of Ty Webb. Just yeah, yeah, Yeah, there's been too many phone in Orange County. I'm in here for all of a minute and a half.

Yeah, that was fun. This is the first time in a while where it's like Chevy's really he's here. He's in almost every single scene and every single shot. Yeah. Yeah, and yes there are pratt falls and slapstick, but it's natural as Yeah.

It feels very very natural. Like him with his sword when he bends over and knocks all the tomatoes off of the thing. I'm like, okay, yeah, that's kind of funny, like I understand. Yeah, and even you know, stepping into the porch when it falls out from under him and falling off the porch. We're done in a naturalistic way.

I bought it, you know, I didn't buy it. My favorite bit of physical comedy is and we kind of mentioned it a little bit. I think you guys were more frustrated at the scene than I am, ever, because I think it's one of the funniest scenes in the movie. There's a scene of Jeffrey Lewis with the megaphone screaming at Chevy Chase and Cleveland Little and hit the background. You could see Chevy Chase in the sheet like that, why, which is a it's a really funny, like small moment.

But I actually the ways lifted. Up his legs really big and uh yeah, very well. Yeah, you should go back and watch it. It's very funny. Him and the him in the clan costume and that whole thing with the clan.

You know what, Clavern claims you Clavern Cucamonga and they're calling him Klukyes and he's whacking him upside the head. You got him what? It's a California. I loved it that they couldn't light there, They couldn't light anything on fire. That.

Yeah, that's a guy in. A contract job rent. Out down here when Cleveland Little's there and he just goes, where'd all the white women at? Yeah? I was waiting for guine why Hey, buys, those hands are a little dirty after that crossburning last night.

It's see it's coming off. Yeah, it's it's reminiscent of that. I I do like that's him, And yet I wish Jeffrey Lewis was in the movie more. But I do like that we get, you know, Fletched going up against the moron racist in the movie, which is fun I do like that we get you know, we have you know, I'm surprised there aren't more and more on racist in the movie, frankly, given we have Cleveland little in the movie, a black man in the quote New South unquote. But you know, I mean again, we do get the you know, coon hunt side eye, so at least, you know, the movie is the movie acknowledges that.

But yeah, it's just kind of weird that he is sort of racy racist at the beginning when he pulls up you know, yeah. You know, jump up and down, turn around, pick a bally Cotton, Like, yeah, that's what the fuck? What? Yeah, it's all white people in this fantasy sequence. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

I was like, okay, but they're still kind of doing the voice like the lawyer and stuffy. Yeah yeah, yeah, I do ventation. Yeah, they're all white. We're playing it safe here. Thank god.

I also that I also didn't realize again, Mark, you're mentioning the bugs scene. This is the first time I've apparently ever watched Fletch Lives with the subtitles on, because I did not realize he says reticularious mary A Cuomos, Yes, yes, which I had never put one in one together. That's what he was saying up until watching it as a thirty five year old adult. So there's that boy. Whoa the Cuomos, Oh the Quomos.

Yeah, Maryo Cuomos man making references to him his boys. Maybe Nat and his boys are doing great stuff these days. Oh boy, whatever hear. I'm just Italian folks. I don't know any better.

He too, Bell And yet I can keep my fucking hands to myself. But whatever, anything else we want to talk about with Fletched lives all right? Good? Oh you know what, one weird thing this is pulling a Colombo on it totally totally irrelevant. But the very beginning of the movie, the Richard bells Aer scene, who I was hoping to see more of, and that has nothing to do with the main plot, but he likes there is directly into the camera when it's panning in to him.

I was like, that was weird. Why did they not do in a second take for that, because it wasn't supposed to happen. He like notices something in the going on and looks at the camera waiting for Michael Richard you'll cut or something, and it just kind of threw me off. I hate the assumption of Greek stereotypes that they like to break plates on the ground. Seventy five thousand dollars breakage, a lot of breakage.

At least it's not Japanese people with the fucking camera, which we've also had in Chevy Chase movies that we've talked about. That's that's true. That's true. So starting with you, Mark and then Mike final thoughts on flesh lips. Hey, we're back.

We're back to ship Chevy Chevy. We're back to Chevy doing something, putting in some effort, thank god. And when we've got a good we've got a good lineup coming up. I like Christmas Vacation. We've got nothing but trouble, which I'm really intensely curious about.

And then I think our special episode after that is the recent vacation movie. I like those guys movies. You're going to also discuss that, so I'm looking forward to that. I've been wanting to see it forever. So your intense curiosity is not going to be well founded.

After that, it might be just a shit sandwich. But at least we have three movies that I'm optimistic about this. I hope to finally be able to make sense of all the references to Eddie and the ship house and all that kind of stuff that my family, my in laws, they just oh my. God, they was Mike's misquoting the movie. This shit happened.

Oh sorry, sorry, it's fucking hilario. It's more, I think it's funnier that you misquoted it. I thought that was part of the bit. Wow, no, not part of the bit, that part of me being stupid. So yeah, oh no, it's funny, is it.

I was like, this is part of the bit. I think this is hilarious. So yeah, I'm excited to check those out. And yeah, I hope we didn't come down too hard on fletch libs. I think it can stand it.

You know, it's some people consider this a classic, and yeah, I've found a lot of good things around this film. There are a couple of things that it could have done better, but yeah, just nice to see your really solid you have a chase performance again. It feels like a long time since we've seen one of those. Yeah no, that was Mike. You and I had recorded earlier in the week, and that was kind of the one thing I had said to you, was like, man, doesn't it feel nice that we're actually watching like a real movie for the first time in a while, Like an actual fucking film that has a even if the plot's a mess, like it is still a attempt at a plot.

And yeah, it's I don't know how people sit and watch bad movies all the time other than going and being like we're gonna make fucking dumb jokes all time and farting poopoo jokes. Like I mean, if that's all you're doing, fine, but I will tell you sitting and watching like mediocre to bad movie after mediocre to bad movie is not great? Is yeah? And it's and like again like, oh fucking I hear I hear someone in the distance going first world problems, you three white assphas. But at the same time, if we only have a certain amount of time every day to spend on watching things, and then if we have to sit and watch them critically, and you expect to listen to us talk about them with any amount of knowledge, then we're gonna have to watch these movies once, if not twice.

And man, watching Patch Adams three times was a bit much. Watching License to Wed three times was a bit much, and like that's the thing, like when when we watch this after watching those Robin Williams movies for a month, this feels like kind of a refreshing, like palette cleanser, like ah, the tingle of lemon on my palette all of a sudden, because it's like it's a plot. It's a movie that's not completely at odds with itself. I mean, again, it has its problems, but at the end of the day, chevy Chase's performance carries it through. But just particularly in respect to this podcast, this feels like the first time in months, literally, because it has been three months that we have watched a good chevy Chase film, or at least a middling Chevy Chase.

And yeah, if you go and listen to How Did This Get Made or some of these other shows where all they do is shit all over movies, they're not I don't know how they can do it other than than shitting all over it, because otherwise it's like this movie is not great, and it's like, well, what do we talk about critically with a not great movie? There's you gotta do a lot to talk about a movie that's bad without just sitting and taking the piss out of it constantly because it's again these sometimes the like Funny Money or oh God, the movie before Funny Money, Spies Money Money Like, or even Spies Like Us Like. There were things to like in it, but overall like not not overtly great movies, but we have to find something worth talking about.

And you know, same with those Robin Williams movies, and same with Fletch Lives. Like Fletch Lives at times is not a great movie, especially in comparison to a movie that I consider to be one of my favorite movies. But to Mike's point, it's a better movie than a lot of the things we've watched recently. And at the end of the day, I'd sit down and rewatch it. Before I would sit down and rewatch pretty much anything we watched for Mike White March over at the Culture Cast, and I would rewatch it over most everything we've watched for this podcast, especially something like Spies Like Us or Deal of the Century, a movie that I swear to God, I couldn't tell you a single fucking thing about at this point other than it had Gregory Hines and Sigourney Weaver and Chevy chasin so.

But to both of your points, I think the next episode is going to be one that I'm excited to do because Mike, you've never seen it, and Mark, it's a movie that I honestly never thought I would do an episode on because I'm so I think the interesting part is that Mike has never seen it, and that for me is kind of what I'm most excited about and getting to talk about it with you, Mark, But like, it's a movie that I've never contemplated talking about because it's a movie I watched once a year and it's like, it's like, would I ever watch talk about the Santa Claus another movie that I've seen a million times at this point, Like. And it's and it's an oddity too because is it is it a griz Does it need to be a Grizzwold movie?

It could have just been any fan, you know, right exactly. Again, they're not going on vacation. We've got the whole weird thing with the kids again, and you know, different kids every movie, blah blah blah. But yeah, it's just got to I think it just has a lot more going for it than even the original, which I am a big fan of them. But I again, like I never I also never thought I would talk on a podcast about Fletch Lives, because for the most part, I don't program my own months.

Uh and if I do well, I'm not saying I don't program my own months, but I don't program months for movies that I like because I don't want to talk. I mean, Mike, you and I have talked about doing a Good Fellow's episode Forever, which is the movie that when someone asks me, that's normally my answer because it's a movie that most people can at least have some frame of reference for. But we've never done that either, and I wonder what that episode's going to be like. And I never thought I would do a Fletch Lives episode, or do Fletch twice at this point, because I've done Fletch episode two times, but I never thought I would do an episode on Fletch Lives. So I'm glad that you guys enjoyed it.

I was a little trepidacious, but I'm glad that the reason I ultimately enjoyed the movie, which is Chevy Chase's performance, is the reason that y'all weren't super put off by it the way some of the last couple things we've watched for this show have put all of us off. And again, if you're watching these movies with us, I don't think there's any way you like twenty Money any more than we did. So but you were probably glad to at least enjoy listening to us talk about it. But I'm not sure you enjoyed it. And if you did, wow.

Why aren't we doing the couch trip? Chevy's in the couch Trip too? It's a cameo, even though I know, I know that was pretty much. That was pretty much his role in Orange County was cameo. Yeah, yeah, but Orange County there's a different reason we watched Orange County.

I know, yeah, yeah, yep, and I Mike wrote it. Yeah, and Mike, Mike's the reason. Thanks a lot. All my fault, I know. Yeah.

And I'm also the guy that told the guy who was writing my music for White Lotus to just fuck right off. So true, I heard it. I don't even watch that show, but I know that Mike White's a bastard around that. So speaking of Mike White, Mike White, where can people find you when they want to hear you? Talk about things that you work on.

Well, yeah, I don't really talk about a whole lot of Mike White movies over at the Protection Booth. But I definitely maybe I should maybe get get Mike over on the show. That'd be interesting, Mike White. I wouldn't be I would fuck I would listen to how has that not happened already? Much?

I mean interesting. I thought you tried to make it happen and it just hadn't. Yeah, I mean personally, I would love to do a print interview and so just it would be so confusing. Who is this Mike. I think it would be honestly kind of funny if you on your show did Mike White march and did it on Mike White, Mike White, the other Mike White boy.

I think, I mean, wow, that's horrifuingly, that's a that's that's a boy. That's a meta joke for like only the people that listen to your show and my show. But I think he's I mean you could, I mean, there's enough Mike White stuff at this point. I mean, and you could just use the episode we did for Orange County. There you got me, There you go one in the bag.

You got a weird interview. Yeah, yeah, exactly. But yeah, you can find everything that I do over at Weirdingwaymedia dot com, except for the one thing that Chris and I do with our dear friend Richard HadAM, which is called Mike and on Bond. You can get that at our patreons, which is patreon dot com slash Projection Booth and patreon dot com slash Culture, Castle's Culture with k Be sure to check those out. And yeah, it's a lot of good fun over at Wordingway Media, including some stuff by mister Mark Benkley.

Hey that's me, and you can catch my shows We Wake Up Heavy and Cambridge and with Sean over on Wordingwaymedia dot com. I have a note, my wife has been watching The White Lotus. I kind of pretty much missed the whole first season, but I caught a little bit of it. But's season two and three I'm pretty much sticking with, and I kind of like it. All right, you're welcome.

Season three has the Big Guy, and I have no idea what the music controversy is about because I'm not bothered by the music in the new in the new season at all, So I'm like, what the fuck are people talking about. Doesn't Season three have Walton Goggins in it? Yeah? It does have big dogs and Arnie Arney's son. Arney is in Bell Warzenegger's son.

Yeah. Yeah, he's actually a decent actor. Hey, you know what they say, just because you're a NEPO baby doesn't mean you don't have talent. It's very true. I mean, you know, family business isn't family business a thang in America?

Shouldn't we be saluting that a sons? I don't have a son, but. I don't know if we should be supporting it failing. I think at this time injuncture in our history, maybe we don't support family business as well, or maybe we support certain family business. Is it not?

Others? Speaking of Michael Ritchie, go listen to the Projecting Booth episode on Smile. It is a fascinating episode on a fascinating film that I have not seen. But it has also been put out by Fun City Editions. Speaking of them, let's bring everything full circle on this.

Yeah, really kind of wish they had talked to me about that one. That would have been fun. I've got a lot of good interviews on that episode. But whatever, you know, I'm not mov. Yeah, yeah, I think they have.

I think they had people they go with. Oh yeah, extra stuff, that's for sure. Speaking of extras, I'm extra as fuck. And you can find all the things that I work on at weirdingwaymedia dot com as well, or I shoot my mouth off on the Culture Cast, which I talked about Fletch on there like God a couple of years ago with Father Malone when we did I think we did an episode in Fletch and then we did an episode on Confess Fletch. I believe, so if it wasn't the same episode, there were two episodes, but I think they may have been even the same episode.

Yeah, it was like a Fletch full Fletch episode, I think. And there's a pledg Fleah, Well. There's a whole there's a whole show just about Fletch. And I forget what the guy's name is, but he left a comment on the Fletch episode was a good job from something Jim He's like he has his it's like a Fletch podcast where it's just about Fletch. Like that might awesome.

That rules. But yeah, that's where you can find all the stuff that I work on. Mike mentioned at ranking on bond is on our patreons support any of the content creators for weirding Way Media, be it Eighties TV ladies, be it Cambridge and with Sean, be it uh wake Up Heavy, be it you know, Twisted and Uncorked, be at Midnight viewing, anything and everything. There's a lot to support, and there's a lot of people making a lot of great content. Uh yeah, but the next time you hear us, we're gonna be talking about Christmas vacation and until I don't know, just I'm v Yeah, I was a gonna say I'm Christatus chevat