Father Malone's Weekly Roundup - News & Nonsense Vol 3

Thank you. So, sorry I'm a little late. I'm actually, we are watching Severance for the first time. And? Well, two episodes in, it's, I don't know what the fuck's going on, but, you know, I'm enjoying it.

Good. Yeah. I got about four episodes in. Well, I fear that it's going to take forever to, I don't want it to be one of those shows like people go, well, you just got to stick with it for 12 episodes and then it gets, I don't want to waste my time, but. I told you, I had a friend who was like, you've got to watch Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

And I went, I've watched it. It's terrible. He was like, no, get to season three. And I was like, I am not getting to season three. I love that.

People who say that, maybe it's. You just need to watch 48 hours worth of it, and then you'll be ready for the good stuff. To say that sounds like something that someone in the Severance show would say. you have to stick with it for 55 hours and then it really gets good. No, that's what a crazy person says. I mean, but I mean, the show is intriguing.

It's not like you're slogging through it. I'm talking about shows that are like, I can't bear to watch this thing. And they're like, stick it out. Like, come on. You didn't like lost.

I liked lost. I hated. Well, okay. I didn't hate lost, but it became so apparent to me by, I think season two or three that, They were just making it up as they went along. The beauty of something like A Breaking Bad is that clearly Vince Gilligan knows where he wants to go.

There may be things that come up that are maybe not set in stone from the beginning, but for the most part, the arcs of every season... are very well plotted out. Whereas Lost was like, well, there's a smoke monster and Mr. Adebayo, whatever his name is, he comes and he's a cool character, but then he's gone. Mr. Echo.

Mr. Echo, that's it. That's the problem with the mystery box. If you don't actually have any answers to your mystery when you start, then you don't have anything at all. Right.

It's just a series of one acts until people go, wait, what is actually happening now? I just, I feel like, Someone who makes a show or a movie like that doesn't have any respect for my time. Well, I mean, yeah. Well, particularly when you're talking about something like Lost where it was network television. So we're talking 24 episodes a season.

And when you have effectively an entire season where they were wheel spinning because they didn't want to get to the goods just yet, like that's 24 hours. That's a day of my life given over to this show that you're right. There is no respect for our time. It's just them getting paid for padding things out a bit. It's just wanking.

Any other fucking bullshit you've been up to, been watching? I keep trying to watch things. I end up putting on Portlandia reruns because it's got its own streaming channel, and I can just drop it in. You know I'm the same way. Instead of taking the leap, like watching Severance is a big deal for me because otherwise I'd just be rewatching Modern Family for the millionth time because I like a known quantity.

I know you do too. I do too. And the problem for me is that I have like a ton of movies that I haven't seen that I'm curious to watch. But I'm just like, it would just be easier if I put this on and laid down and fell asleep to it. I'm 100% the same way.

And in podcasts, it's the same thing. I just re-listen to the same favorite episodes over and over because it's familiar and it can put me to sleep. My God, what have we become? We've become old men. Jesus Christ, just give me comfort.

Well, yeah, and that goes hand in hand with what we were saying about wasting time. I'm not saying this in the sense of like I've only got X amount of time left in my life, but I've come to understand, and I'm sure you have, that time is valuable. And life is too short to waste on a crap show or a crappy movie. That's why I'd just as soon shut it off if I don't like it. I'm not going to gut it out.

You know what I'm saying? Money calmed down. For real. I've been listening to Hot Sauce Committee a. Lot, by the way.

I didn't listen much to the. To the Five Bros? To the Five Bros. That's probably my least listened to Beasties album because I can hear it in his voice, in MCA's voice, that there's something going... The cancer, the issue he had with his throat.

And it just saddens me because he doesn't sound like him anymore to me. I just think those last couple albums are bouncing around stylistically too much song to hang together as an album, personally. And I don't disagree, but they're so heavily tied to sampling. It's really, not to say that the two that came after Paul's Boutique are bad. They're great albums, but they couldn't go anywhere from there because they couldn't sample the way they did, and it was a moment in time that will never come back.

So it's hard for me sometimes to disengage from that. But we can say that in the time when Samples was the Wild West, they were the kings of the Wild West with Paul's Boutique. My God, they got away with fucking murder. Fucking murder. And they, in my estimation, no one did it better.

And we're talking about like Three Feet High and Rising is an amazing album. There's so many great discs from that time, but they were and will always be the best. I mean... Just no getting around it. They were so ahead of their time.

And it's not really necessarily them. It's the Dust Brothers, really, if we're going to break it down. Well, I mean, they had a couple of tracks. Really, it's MCA. They heard these demos from the Dust Brothers and just went, that dictated their next move.

Oh, I see what you're saying. That even if the Dust Brother tracks weren't in use, they were aping the sound that they got from the Dust Brothers or their vibe, yeah. That became their thing. There's a great, the 33 and a third books are all pretty good. Well, they're mostly pretty good.

Some of them are a little wacky. The Pogues one is fucking terrible. Well, some of them, like one of them I read was, I think it was actually Tribe Called Quest. And it was like the guy like married his discussion with like a ride on the LIE and it became this metaphor. It was not very good.

Oh my God. Take your fucking second year creative writing class elsewhere. It's all creative writing. But the one for Paul's Boutique is fantastic. fan. Between that and the one for DJ Shadow introducing, they're both one-two punch amazing.

But the history of Paul's Boutique is really interesting. If you haven't read it, I encourage you to. It's not a very long book. A pamphlet. It's certainly shorter than the Beastie Boys book.

It's famous Jewish sports legends. I never read the Beastie Boys book. I watched that the movie that Spike Jonze did, and that was enough for me. I watched the movie, and then I listened to the audio version. But I just don't have room in my house for a book that big.

Yeah, I mean, I have it electronically, so it's no big thing. I could just call it up on my e-reader, but it's just too much. And I know that they got a little too up their asses with the format of it, and jumping around and breaking the form of the book. Again, life's too short. Sorry.

Life is too short, man. Life is too short. What they did to Kate Schellenbach, man. Uncool. What's his name?

Mike D was actually just in town. He's got a new project, a new album, solo album. Is that with his kids? Or is that he just sat in with the band that one time? I don't know if it's his...

He has kids? I didn't even know he had kids. You haven't seen that footage of them at like fucking... His kid's band was playing at some benefit or something and then Mike D came out and they did So What You Want? No, I did.

I will have to seek that out because it sounds rather heartwarming. But no, it's like, I don't know. It's just some project he's got. It's not very good. Don't get me wrong.

I tried listening to it. Bury the lead. Like, it's okay. I was actually driving because Sam loves Paul's Boutique and he loves some of the other Beastie Boys stuff. And I was listening.

I had a mix and I forgot. What's the song that he does where he's like, hey there. Nettie's Girl. Gorgeous. Nettie's Girl.

What? I loved it. She was like, There's that. And then there's also one that I don't know what the name of it is, but it's basically girl, you know, it's true. Mike D is in love with you.

That's the chorus. And he's just, They've slowed his voice down like Barry White, and he's like, yeah, baby. That's the whole song. We're just having a great old time listening. I'm surprised you don't know the song.

I don't. I had that fucking videotape, though, Skills to Pay the Bills, that I fucking wore out watching. I watched that so many times. But Nettie's Girl in particular I thought was hilarious. He's in the paddle boat, right?

He's in Silver Lake. And Money Mark comes by in another boat in the background with the keyboard. It's great. This is your weekly roundup. We're talking beasties.

This is the weekly roundup. What do you think? I'm telling you. Beasties. B-E-A-S-T-I-E.

Who is that, Mike D? One lonely beastie. I.B. All by myself. Let me ask you a question before we move off of this.

Just curious. What is your opinion of the very first Beastie Boys album, License to Ill? Well, I think Rhymin' and Stealin' is a fucking great tune. Beginning to end. Agreed.

I think the... Bravado on it is great. I think they're lyrically always super clever. But I think the joke that they were playing backfired. And I felt like an apologist as a Beastie Boys fan going into Paul's Boutique for a while because of the fan base that they had accrued because of that album.

That's fair. I have mixed emotions because that was a very awkward time in my life. And I remember all the kids in school, that was the album. It was that and also Run DMC Raising Hell. Those were the one-two rap albums at the time.

And it's so low-fi in its sound. And it's all just like drum machines and some sampling, some rudimentary sampling. I don't love it because it's not an easy listen because it just doesn't, it's not smooth in that way. But I do love Rhyming and Stealing. I love.

No Sleep for Brooklyn, brother. It's... Great. And it was years later I discovered that it was Kerry King from Slayer, my solo. I never knew that until I got into metal after that.

And I was like, oh, that's kind of cool. I also think one of the best songs wasn't even on the album, which is the song Rock Hard that they couldn't put out because they sampled Back in Black. Have you ever heard that song? I have heard that track. Remember from Crush Groove, She's On It.

That was always the lost classic for me. I love that song, man. Crush Groove. I forgot they were in that. Oh, yes.

Is that the movie where LL Cool J barges into the record guy's office and there's a guy with a blue box and he goes... Box! Oh, my God, yes. If you remember anything from that movie, it's LL Cool J proclaiming box to his box man. And that's him.

For kids who have only grown up with LL Cool J doing these awful. Like NCIS and shit? Yeah. They don't realize that he was the man. Remember Mama Said Knock You Out?

Oh my God, what a good song. What a great song. Going Back to Cali? I don't think so. I don't think so.

That's also a very good soundtrack. That's the Less Than Zero soundtrack. Oh, yeah. Superlative soundtrack. It is.

Slayer did Inigata Da Vida. Bangles did Hazy Shade of Winter, which is a big hit. A way better version of Hazy Shade of Winter than the original. Oh, totally. Totally.

I remember... Actually, that was high school time. And I remember the jocks in gym class singing along to that song. It's like, that was a cool song, man. Hazy Shade of Winter.

They did it. Susanna Hoff, who knew that she was such a wonderful musician and music personality? She was just so beautiful at the time. I guess everyone underestimated her, myself included. You had a thing for her, did you?

She was gorgeous. Are you kidding me? Who didn't? I don't know. I wasn't into her.

Susanna Hoff? Yeah, man. I was a Go-Go's fan. My heart belonged to Jane Weidland. They were a little more rough and tumble.

Yeah, they were. They were from the streets. I think it was Hoffs. It is Susanna Hoffs, yeah. She's fantastic.

She did a couple of CDs with Matthew Sweet. I remember those, actually. Those were pretty good. Remember Matthew Sweet? I was listening to him the other day.

He was dynamite. I loved Matthew Sweet. It was like the return of the guitarist for a moment there in the mid-90s. Like, we're like, oh, yeah, people who play guitar, we should probably pay them a little more respect than just the sort of jangly shit we've been hearing from fucking Portland. But there's something to be said for his pop sensibilities in that that's real.

There are the diehard, like, pop fans, like people who live and die by the knack or who's, like, not Sparks. Was it Graham? Graham Parsons? Yes, not Graham Parsons, Graham Parsons. Graham Parsons, that's what I said.

Okay, but Graham Parsons is the guy from The Birds who died at Joshua Tree. Oh, no, they stole his body, that Graham Parsons? It was another guy named Graham Parsons. Oh, you're saying Graham and Graham, two different ones. Graham and Graham, yeah.

Okay. I think that's his name. But there are people like Power Pop people who live in, and it's nerdery of its own ilk. These people who live and die by cheap trick, but I like cheap trick. I enjoy them, but I'm not diving into their deep cuts.

Those type of bands always just feel like one step above a bar band. Yeah, or I guess you would call it pub rock. Like a sophisticated bar band if they said, we don't want a saxophone player anymore. How do we get on this? Let's get out of here.

Box ourselves into a corner. I don't think we have. It's a good discussion. I love it. It's like a noise junkies takeover.

Yeah, exactly. Well, no, it's current stuff like the Beastie Boys. Oh, very current. The Knack? Are you kidding me?

Oh, what was Matthew Sweet's big number other than girlfriend? What was he? Oh, geez. That's a good question. Oh, Sick of Myself.

Sick of myself when I look at you. Nope, that's not it. No, he had a song called. I'm just going to make you sing all the Matthew Sweet songs. No, I'm not going to sing them all.

Good Friend is the big hit. And I can see him in music videos. Oh, you know what he did, actually? It's funny that you say this. He did.

Whoops. Are you still there? Oh, yeah. Sorry, I inadvertently kicked the screensaver on. He did a super group of sorts.

Oh. Was Liz Phair part of the group? No, she was not. Man, I love Liz Phair. Her second album, Whipsmart... is a stone-cold classic, Father Malone.

I love that album. Agreed, agreed. I mean, I like White Chocolate Space Egg a little bit more than that album, but I agree with you about that one. There's something about the vibe of it and the sound. Well, who else is singing about Hot White Cum?

I'm asking. But I don't know. It came out, it was really post-college for me, that weird uncertain time where I didn't know where my life was going to take me, and that album has the ability to take me back to that. I think Supernova is one of the greatest songs ever. Oh, it's fantastic.

Because the first album is far too lo-fi for me to really get into. But that one, she had the bigger budget, she had the producer, and she was getting out of that girly sound thing. I love it. I think it's really a great album. The band, by the way, I'm thinking of, you probably don't remember them, but I do because it was a great album called The Thorns.

This was an album that came out in 2002. It had Matthew Sweet, It had Pete Droge and someone named Sean Mullins. I guess you could say that qualifies as a bit of a super group. They had a song. I know them all separately, so yeah, I'm in.

The song that was the big hit for them in that was called I Can't Remember. And it was like Crosby, Stills, and Nash came back as a pop group, real pop group. It's a really underrated, fantastic album. I remember it being in my car quite often at that time. What was the track he did on the fucking, that Saturday morning cartoon album where like every indie act came out of the woodwork to do?

Saturday morning hits. He did like, it wasn't Josie. It was Josie and the Pussycats, wasn't it? No. He did Scooby-Doo, didn't he?

Yes, it was the Scooby-Doo song, yeah. Yeah. Because it was like way slicker than any other track on that fucking album. I'm like, you did it too well. That was really the time when record labels were putting out those kind of CDs.

Like, here's a cover of These are TV themes, but it's all current artists. You've never heard them this way before. Like Liz Phair did actually the Banana Splits theme on that album. She did. She did a good cover of it.

Reverend Horton Heat is on that album doing Hold That Pigeon. That's right. You were quite a big Reverend Horton Heat fan for a long time. I still am. Yeah, even though he's a whack job now?

Nah, his whack jobbery ended years ago. I don't think he's... He's not as whack jobby now. He's sort of. You don't think so?

He was just a whack job, but he didn't go full-blown whack job. Well, it's... Plus, it's the Reverend Horton Heat. Yeah, no, the thing of it is, and not to get into a big thing, I was talking about this with Sam the other day, or not the other day, but a month or two ago, let's say, about separating the artist from the art. And because we were listening to a Michael Jackson song at the time, and he...

Sam loves Michael Jackson, and I do too, but I don't know. It's almost not up to the artist. They can't take away those memories, those good memories of the song. It's almost unfair to take that away, I guess. I don't know.

It's a tough question. Where do you land on that? When an artist puts something out, the idea is that it becomes yours anyway, right? Yeah, that's what I mean. So my attitude is now, with something like Michael Jackson, if a song comes on the radio, I'm not going to turn it off.

But I'm not going to go buy anything of Michael Jackson's. I'm not going to give that entity and whatever's left of it any of my money. I'm not going to vote for it that way. And I don't think I seek it out necessarily as much. But again, if you wanted to listen to Thriller right now, have at it.

You know what I mean? It did mean something to you, the divorce of the person himself. Yeah. But it becomes a thing where no one is completely blameless. in every way. So if you dig deep enough, you'll find out something awful about every person. artist that you love and cherish.

Sure, but there are levels. And Michael Jackson's at the top of the heap there with the levels as far as. Sure, but I'll give you another example. Ryan Adams. Remember Ryan Adams?

Not Brian Adams. Ryan Adams. I know who Ryan Adams is because I confuse him with Brian Adams over and over. He, a fantastically talented guy. His sort of claim to fame was he had done this cover of Wonderwall. that was acoustic, and it was a different spin on the song, and he made it his own in a funny way.

But like I said, fantastically talented. Problem is, he's a complete waste of a man. Abusive, supposedly would try to inveigle women to go out with them, and if they didn't, he might hurt their career. Abusive, all this kind of stuff. Now, Does that mean that he, I don't know, where do you draw the line?

Does that mean that he has no right to try and make music anymore? I'm not coming down on either side. I'm just saying. I'm asking the question. Obviously, he has a right to continue to make music, and if people want to give him their money, then have at it, I suppose.

Whatever happened behind the scenes, nobody specifically knows, but whatever. But I think, if you want to know where the line is for me, it's with singer-songwriters, because they're so fucking earnest. So when you find out that they've been up to no good, they're automatically disqualified from the entertainment industry. Like, give me an example. If James Taylor.

Even better, right in the fucking same neighborhood. Jackson Brown is a cocksucker. Oh, yeah. He is known for beating women. Fuck that guy and his entire fucking catalog.

I agree, but he's also not... I mean, maybe it's just me. He's not somebody that I listen to with any great... I'm not even sure I own any. Right, listen, it's easy for me to say fuck him because I don't like him to begin with.

Sure. Sure. But I think the same would hold true if it were James Taylor. Not that I'm listening to James Taylor. Look, I don't really like singer-songwriters because of their earnestness.

So in a way, I'm just painting them with this brush that they would be held to a higher standard than the rest of the entertainment world. I expect terrible behavior from rock stars, but not from a guy with a banjo. Sure. But what if he found out that a member of the Kramps was... Not, like, did something awful.

Maybe really was drunk driving and he injured somebody really bad in a car accident. Okay, who in the band? You said someone in the cramps. Are we talking about Lux and Ivy? Sure.

Because if it's the rest of the band, I don't care. They're the two main members, so let's say it's Lux. Okay. Well, it'd have to be Lux, because Poison Ivy's name is Christy Wallace, so she gets a family pass forever. Gotcha.

Lux, on the other hand, I would say, oh, Lux. That's it. Would you, but would you, you would continue to listen to the albums because they mean something to you. Oh, of course. Yeah, absolutely.

I guess that's ultimately where I land. He would have to do something really venal for me to go, well, I can't listen to anything that came out of this guy's mouth. I mean, look, hurting somebody while you're drunk and driving is a terrible thing, but it's less than somebody like hurting a child or purposely like punching somebody else. You know what I mean? Like, The lack of control that makes you like punch a woman in the face, Jackson Brown.

What if he found out that there was some woman at one of his shows and he punched her in the head? Because, I don't know, she was trying to get up on stage or something. Did she ask for it? No. Then that's a problem.

But would you say she was climbing on stage? No, maybe she was. In this scenario, if she's trying to climb on stage, yes, punch her in the head. She does not climb on stage. That goes across genders.

That was a bad example. By the way, there's a great... Stop. Trying to come up with reasons why I would hate Lux Interior. No, but I'm just trying to put you in that same headspace.

No, I get it. I understand it. I'm just saying, like, the people that I like tend to have not done really fucking deplorable shit. Sure. I guess we continue to watch Quentin Tarantino movies even though he's not the nicest person.

Well, he just seems like a dickhead and a foot fetishist, but that's fine. Okay. You know what I mean? Like, he's not hurting anybody by making us all privy to his kink. Like, it's a problem.

I don't want to see their dirty feet anymore. All right. He's saving his 10th film. It's just one long take of feet. It's like a Warhol-esque.

They're filmed in slow motion for six hours. He doesn't want anyone to... He keeps stalling because the film's already made. And he doesn't know how to present it to the world. Yeah.

Speaking of music, HP, and because we're both fans of a certain age of the Warriors, they're coming out with a fucking stage play in 2027 on Broadway. Lin-Manuel Miranda. He's done a musical of the Warriors. Now, there is a single that's been out forever because they put out a concept album, which basically means give us some money and we'll put this on stage. What did you think?

Well, when the album came out, I knew... full stop that it was destined for Broadway eventually. I don't care that they didn't mention it or they said, this is just going to be an album. There's no way with the heavy talent involved and the fact that it's Lin-Manuel Miranda and he is bankable, that there's no way they were just going to leave it as an album. But so I confess, I haven't listened to the whole album, but I did listen to, I think it's the opening track, which is laying. Out The world of the Warriors.

The world of the Warriors. And we're no strangers, you and I, to the Warriors. We've probably seen this movie 200 times between the two of us or more. We saw it at a midnight showing in Coolidge Corner in Boston, you and I. 35 millimeter, baby.

It was a singular experience. I was a member of the Gramercy Riffs for one year, and then they kicked me out. Yeah, but you didn't know the words to the alma mater. No, I couldn't chant in unison well enough. Oh, yeah.

And that's a prerequisite for being a riff. Well, they are the toughest gang, with the exception of the Warriors, perhaps. They're the toughest gang in New York at that time. Well, you've got that many members. You don't got to take any shit.

That's right. We're just going to keep doing the entire script for Warriors. Okay. So what did you think of this song? It sounds like a Lin-Manuel Miranda song.

Yeah. So if you like Lin-Manuel Miranda songs, you're going to like this. And my mileage varies on him. I don't know. I don't know.

I liked that Moana film. I liked all the songs in that. I thought they were appropriate to the film itself. Like they felt germane to the story being told while being fun and poppy. I agree.

I never fell under the spell of Hamilton. In fact, it was another case where the more people told me how good it was and how I'd love it, the less inclined I was to enjoy it. So I think that's what happened there. I think he's supremely talented. I'm not taking anything away from him.

But it's my understanding that the Warriors, his retelling of the Warriors, first of all, it's gender swapped. So it's now women gangs in New York, which is fine. But I have to wonder, it's such a fundamental change because that's the thing about, especially like a character like Ajax, who is... He's not a good dude. He's a rapist.

He is a would-be rapist. So I worry a little bit that they're sanding off those hard edges from the Warriors and making this more about the sainted gang that is just trying to get home. There's nothing sainted about the Warriors in the original movie, or the book, for that matter. They're just a bunch of dirty kids... violent kids that want to get home at any cost. Well don't you eroticize the entire stage once they start singing you know what i mean it's like it turns it into this whole other thing maybe romanticize is a better word i like eroticize better though either way you know what i mean like so i don't know i'm curious to see how it is honestly i'm curious to see how they're going to tackle the bathroom fight at the end of the film.

With the roller skate guy? The kid on roller skate, the kid with the spray can, and when they're bashing their heads into the fucking walls so hard that tiles are falling off. Yeah, I want to see what they do with two girl gangs doing that. If they go for it, yeehaw. I'm not saying this because I don't think that, you know, women can't do as good a job.

I think they can be fine. I just think in the story that the Warriors is telling, I'm not sure it can be the same story if you're going to switch the genders of the principles. I just think it's going to fundamentally change it. It kind of becomes the comic book version that Walter Hill claims he was trying to do from the beginning, right? Because if you have this world where it's all female gangs, then we're in a different world entirely now, right?

This is like, what was that, White Man's Burden with John Travolta? Where they did. Absolutely nothing to change the world other than saying, it's now black people and white people are the minority. Oh, okay. Sure.

Look, it'll come out. It'll be hard as hell to get tickets for this show. I'm sure it'll be as popular as anything because not only is it Lin-Manuel Miranda, but it's the Warriors. It's a known quantity and people are going to be excited by that and more power to them. And they can sell t-shirts for $ 120 and say, come out and play on them.

Right. Precisely. They're going to market the hell out of it. And that's fine. I don't begrudge anyone anything.

I just I don't know. Maybe I'm too much of a purist, Father Malone. Maybe that's my problem here. Is that what it is? You're a purist or a snob?

I mean, do you think or is this something that you think has a high probability of success on its own terms? I hope it succeeds and I hope it fails. I'm going to be happy either way. I think I'd like to see it, honestly. But I don't know.

As an experiment, I think it's fun. I just think as long as like, look, They tried to foist that fucking director's cut on us forever. And that's really, it's hard to find the original version of the Warriors now. And I keep my DVD as a cherished object now because I don't want any of those fucking animation panels and whatever. But fine for whoever likes that kind of movie and fine for whoever likes this Broadway show, I guess.

Ultimately, it's not going to be for me. It's not going to. do for me in any way or shape what the Warriors has done over the years. I agree. When that director's cut came out, I foolishly sold back my original Warriors DVD. And then I watched the new one and I was so disgusted I went back and they'd already sold it.

I had to buy it again on eBay and pay probably twice what I originally paid for it. But it was worth it because it stands as the definitive version of the Warriors. I don't care about what Walter Hill says about it. Yeah, man, you're not George Lucas. Don't be doing that shit.

It was so poorly executed. Nowadays, people would accuse it of being AI-generated. It just looked like slop, essentially. Yeah, it was shitty computer graphics. It was like somebody on a tablet, basically, doing an attempt even at a Japanese style of animation.

It doesn't even jibe with the vibe of the movie that they're trying to tell the story about. If you want a movie with good comic book transitions, Father Malone, there's only one movie that will scratch that itch. It's Creepshow. It still stands as the definitive comic book, transitional comic book, real life, back to comic book type movie. It's fantastic.

It's showy without overstaying its welcome, any of the little flourishes of comic books. And just the page turns alone are almost imperceptible. Aside from... the zombie movies, the living dead movie. Do you think that stands as George Romero's finest movie? I think it's his most professional movie.

I think it's his most accessible movie. His finest movie is Martin. Good call. Yeah. I mean, think of that.

No, that's, yeah, that's head and shoulders above all the rest, I think. And you know how I feel about Dawn of the Dead, but Martin is his best film. I agree. There might be a case to be made about Knight Riders. Because of its batshit lunacy, yes.

And the fact that it exists and hangs together as well as it does. And has that performance of Ed Harris. And you're just like, Ed Harris is in every couple of scenes. I'd be like, wow, Ed Harris is in this. And then I forget that he was also in Creepshow.

Oh no, how can you? In the cemetery. As Hank the Rube. But he's Ed Harris now. But he was a working actor at a certain point.

He wasn't the abyss. The abyss to me is the quintessential Ed Harris moment. Movie. I think that's when everyone knew him popularly. Yeah, yeah.

He had the right stuff all along. Anyway. That's true. He was in the right... How could I even forget the right stuff?

Virgil. Yeah. I was thinking about Dennis Quaid in the right stuff the other day. Oh, I was just talking about Dennis Quaid with Innerspace. Dennis Quaid and the fucking grin of his.

Tuck Pendleton, right? Did you ever see... Speaking of Dennis Quaid, and I failed to bring this up in the other podcast. Have you ever seen... Wilder Napalm.

It sounds familiar. I'm not sure. Is it something that I would know if I saw it? I don't know. It came out in the mid-90s.

I had no idea what it was. I happened into a theater to watch it. Dennis Quaid, Deborah Winger, and Arliss Howard. And it's this love triangle between these two brothers, one of whom is under house arrest. No, Deborah Winger's character is under house arrest, and her husband is Arliss Howard.

But his brother is Dennis Quaid, who travels with a circus doing fire tricks. And he's able to do fire tricks because he and his brother are both pyrokinetic. They can both light shit on fire with their minds. And it's this weird exploration of this accidental murder that they made when they were kids. And it's super duper odd, man.

Wow. I'm looking at the IMDb now. First of all, it was directed by Glenn Gordon Caron, who I think was the guy who did Moonlighting. He sure did, yeah. Did you see who wrote it?

No. Is it like Vince Gilligan or something like that? It is. It's Vince Gilligan who wrote this movie. Wow, yeah.

That's insane. And I'm looking at the cast list. Jim Varney is in it. Marvin J. McIntyre, who I love, and Fandango.

He's the flight instructor, the parachute instructor. Oh, yeah. You remember? He was also the mortician or whatever in Back to the Future 3. Where he's like measuring Marty and he's like, oh, is this for a suit?

No, it's for your coffin. That's Marvin J. McIntyre. Yeah, this sounds, I do remember this being probably on cable, but I honestly, I'm sure I've never seen it because it looks, this, the aesthetic reminds me of like toys, like that kind of heightened kookiness. Yeah, I mean, it is a heightened reality.

It's not as extreme as toys. It's, but it does take place in its own universe. Huh. How did you come across this? Well, like I said, I used to watch every movie that came out in Los Angeles when I was living there.

So this was playing at the Century City AMC. And I was like, well, Wilder Napalm. I was like, what a great fucking title. And I saw Dennis Quaid was in it. And it didn't actually describe what the movie was at all.

It was just the name and the cast. And I was like, well, let's go see that. Wacky. Yeah, I have no memory. Now, I have not seen it since.

And I bet it's not as good as I remembered. But I remember being pretty knocked out by it. I mean, how bad could it be if Vince Gilligan wrote it? Yeah, and Dennis Quaid and Arliss Howard have a battle of fire from their minds. I still think it's wacky that Dennis Quaid is Randy Quaid's brother.

It's so weird to me because it's when you have, like, Batman and Spider-Man can't really exist in the same comic or rarely do. That's the way it feels. Like, they don't cross over much, the two of them. The Long Riders, Walter Hill, all roads lead to Walter Hill. But speaking of Christopher Guest, who's in that, do you remember, I was reminded of this the other day, that when Ed Asner came and hosted SNL, Oh.

And they were going to save Mary Tyler Moore? She was stuck in her sitcom reruns? Christopher Guest was playing Murray Slaughter, and he had a bald cap. Yeah. And I think Julian Dreyfuss was playing Rhoda.

Yeah. Yeah. Everyone's New York accent got trotted out. Because we were talking recently on another podcast about that, the wackadoo Tim Kazerinsky thing. You had mentioned that sort of pre-filmed bit about kids who were prostituting themselves for video games.

Video games, yeah. I couldn't remember it. Alan, Portrait of a Video Junkie was its name. I did not look. I wonder if that's on YouTube.

It is. I put a link to it, I believe. Oh, okay. I did not check it out, but I will have to check it out. But yeah, I remember seeing that Ed Asner sketch in real time when it was on.

And he's such a weird notion of a guest host on SNL. Yeah. Like, I don't know how versatile he is. You know, well, actually, he was a member of the Compass Players, the original improv group. So he was incredibly well-suited to host Saturday Night Live.

It's just that we got to know him as sort of gruff, grumpy guy. He seemed like a guy who fell into acting late in life after being, like, a comp troller or something. Yeah, that's exactly... Like, Danny Aiello was the same kind of thing, where he... He seems like an older actor.

He always seemed older. Like a Chaz Palminteri. Right. Like a Dennis Farina. Like lots of Italian-American actors.

Dennis Farina. Like Steve Buscemi. He was a firefighter, and then he was doing spoken word pieces in tunnels. Do you remember that movie that he did? He directed it, actually.

What was it called? Tree's Lounge. Tree's Lounge. That may be one of the most singularly depressing movies I've ever seen in my life. Oh, come on.

It was fun for the whole family. It was so... By the end, he... Because there was one old barfly that's in the whole movie, and then he dies at the end. Yeah.

And you realize that... Or he realizes the dawning realization that he's now becoming that old barfly that has no future. He's alienated his brother-in-law because I think he tried to put the moves on his daughter, and he gets beaten up, and he's so despicable in it, and nothing good. I don't know. It just was a very dark movie.

Did you ever see Mac, the movie that John Turturro directed? No, but I think I saw, I think I remember Siskel and Ebert reviewing it or something. He made a movie basically about his father and his uncles who were construction, like they had their own construction companies. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Built-in houses and shit with Michael Badalucco in it.

So fucking good. A challenging character, too. Like, he's playing his dad like his dad is an uncompromising prick. But nowhere near the depression of Tree's Lounge. We've grown up with John Turturro.

Oh, yeah. So I was telling you, I'm watching Severance, and he is fantastic in Severance so far. John Turturro. Well, he's a great fucking actor, is the thing. He's incredible.

But I've loved, probably the first thing I saw him in was Do the Right Thing. And he still is incredible in that. Here's a movie that you might want to cover on the Roundup. I just read the review of it on the AV Club, but I've never heard of it. It's James McAvoy's directorial debut.

Have you heard of this movie called California Schemen? No, I don't think I have. It's based on a true story. It's these two friends from Scotland and they want to become rappers. They want to be rappers.

Oh, I'm in already. Go ahead. But they're complete. And this was, I want to say this was like the early 2000s. And they can't get anywhere because nobody wants to see Scottish rappers.

They think that they're a joke. So they moved to LA. They learn how to do American accents from friends reruns. And they restyle themselves as a California rap group. Oh, my God.

It's like a blue jean committee. But they become successful. They go on tour with real rap acts like D12 out of Eminem's group. And they become super popular. But they're hiding this secret that they're actually Scottish.

The deep, dark secret. And it's not a deep, dark movie. I think it's a funny movie. But there is that element of, like, they want to hide this secret, and one of them gets a little too high on his own fame, and the other one wants to give up the secret. But it looks charming.

It looks really good. I watched the trailer today. It's like the Milli Vanilli story, but without any of the ickiness. Well, I mean, they're performing. They're doing— it' s not as if someone— Without the chicanery.

I mean, they just have a secret as they're performers. They just— they' re misrepresenting themselves as Americans. But it sounds like it's right up your alley because of the fact that they're Scottish rappers. I thought it was clever. I'm down to watch.

What's it called again? California Schemen. California Schemen. It's based on this book that came out fairly recently. But apparently James McAvoy is very.

There's something, I guess, there's like a not-so-hidden bias by certain English actors that Scottish actors are less than. that it's not as embraced in the acting community. And he's trying to change that. And I think that's because he's Scottish through and through. I think it's kind of cool that he's making these movies. Yeah, fuck England.

I wouldn't say that. But, you know, I think it's cool that he's staying true to his roots and he's telling these stories that may not get told otherwise. Roots. I remember Dabney Coleman in Modern Problems. He's talking about things he likes into his tape recorder on the beach.

Roots. The book, not that television bullshit. Not that television bullshit. Yeah, I remember Dabney Coleman. He made a lot of crap, didn't he?

He did, but he was always good at it. He was always fantastic. Remember Buffalo Bill? That was ahead of its time. Absolutely.

Talking about an unsympathetic hero. Yeah, exactly. He was the prototype of that. He was a jerk. Remember Joanna Cassidy was in that?

Yeah. Ugh. Great cast. Suddenly I've become like this for you. She's so delectable.

Anyway. Oh, boy. Okay, listen. We're doing the news here. This is a news and nonsense episode.

I've officially named our rambling talks, HB. It's the news and nonsense segment. I love it because it's so apt. I believe this is news and nonsense volume three if you're keeping score. That was a lot of rambling about music, but we're really here to talk about something that I've watched exactly one episode of, and HB has seen the entire series.

Nevertheless, we're going to discuss it as if we're both experts. We're talking about Wonka, Here Comes the Cash. I think that was the name of it. It's like the Golden Ticket or something. The doll family needs a new car.

I think it's called Golden Ticket. Oh, is that what it's called? Yeah, the Golden Ticket for the relatives of Gene Wilder. Okay, let's get into it. What is the show, HB?

Can you describe it in broad terms? First of all, it's on Netflix, so you can go watch it there. I don't have any links to any free versions of it yet, but I guess if you wrote to me, I could probably hook you up. But anyway... Right.

So it's essentially what it is. It's Willy Wonka from... Like, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory meets Survivor. It's a reality show, a reality competition bolted on the setting and characters and events... From Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, the 1971 film starring Gene Wilder.

And Peter Ostrom, don't forget him. He makes a little cameo, I think. I saw him. He was in the episode, yes. He tries to find the ticket, golden ticket, and he doesn't.

Yes, this is, as you said, like a Survivor-like thing with plenty of cuts to our contestants and their wacky hijinks. Okay, so the idea of doing this as a reality competition, getting the golden ticket and trying to win at Wonka's factory, other than being an abhorrent cash grab, is not the worst idea for a game show. If it was only children and they all learned hard lessons from the experience. Something tells me that's not what they're doing here. What are they doing, HP?

It's no different if anyone has seen Survivor or Big Brother or Or any of these shows where you'll hear such phrases or such words as alliance, strategy. I didn't come here to make friends. Yeah, I'm here to play my game. Have I told you about my game show idea? It's called Make Friends.

And if anyone utters the phrase, I'm not here to make friends, they lose automatically. And that's the infuriating... I shouldn't say the. It's one of the many infuriating things. Because like you, Father Malone, I...

Look, Willy Wonka, the movie, came out before our time. But we both grew up with it on television. Yeah, but two years before our time, brother. Sure. We were in the ballpark with that movie.

We were in the ballpark, but we grew up with it on TV, on Channel 56, not even cable. This was pre-cable. We would see it on network television. And as soon as I got a top-loading VCR, I had it on videotape from Channel 56, and I watched it over and over again. This was a time where...

There were only three networks. So we watched a lot of things over and over again, and this was one of them. It's also why our generation is the last to have a common cultural language, I believe. This is true. The internet kind of spelled death of the monoculture because now it's so splintered.

We exist worldwide on the internet, but we've never been more splintered as far as a culture. There's not really a shared culture anymore like we had when we were kids. But We grew up, this was a beloved movie. Now, it wasn't until I got older that I realized that this movie has an edge to it that I didn't really understand. When you're a kid, you just want to see them in the chocolate factory with the gobstoppers and everything else, fizzy lifting drinks.

So I agree that the idea that this could be a reality show is not a bad one. And in fact, when I mentioned to you, hey, there's this show, so on and so forth, you had the best reaction. idea what they should have done and i'm not sure how you would do this is this should have been a show about who's the best person out of this group i don't know how you organize challenges around this notion but that is the message of the movie which is charlie bucket is the best of the this flock of kids which is why he gets the chocolate factory at the end oh spoiler alert god damn it hp But unfortunately, that's not what we get. Really not what we get. What we get is a lot of competitions where they're doing relay races and then the loser has to go home or is under pressure of going home.

Is there a lot of backbiting and stuff and people being horrible to each other? I wouldn't say horrible. It never really devolves to that level. I think the producers were a little smarter than that because... It's you still want people to buy into this fanciful, fun world that they've that they're creating.

So it never gets to that point. It only ever falls to the level of an annoyance. And you just you start to hate people over time because there's one guy who's like he in every confessional interview, he's like rubbing his hands together. I'm still in the game, baby. Stuff like that. people who are flaunting their ability to chameleon themselves in the interest of greed.

You know that Willy Wonka would be thinking up some clever quote from literature after watching this man rubbing his hands together in the greediest manner possible. Oh, and the worst part. Oh, yes. The worst part of it all. Oh, everyone, listen to this, because this is what ultimately made me stop watching the show.

The producers got permission from the estate of Gene Wilder to create an AI version of Gene Wilder's voice. His disembodied voice is talking to these contestants endlessly. It's not just a quick high and goodbye. This voice is a character. This is supposed to be Wonka, and they address him as such.

And it is so... Well, you saw the episode. It's hard for me to describe how off-putting this is. Well, first of all, it sounds as if they've hired a poor sound-alike. Yeah.

Because it doesn't quite sound like him. And when it does, all it does is remind me that this is a computer and the estate of Gene Wilder should be ashamed of themselves. It's ghoulish beyond compare. Ghoulish is, that notion is thrown around a lot when we talk about AI and resurrecting dead actors in movies, but it really is ghoulish here. But I think perhaps the biggest sin is even despite all of that, it does not sound very much like Gene Wilder or the character of Willy Wonka.

It just sounds like a... Like, they would have been better served just hiring an actor to play Willy Wonka, because. It would have. It would have removed all ickiness, well, most of the ickiness, from the notion of it. No, because then you just say, Willy Wonka is a character, and like most popular characters, it deserves other interpretations, and here's ours.

Or hire a sound-alike just to do the voice. Now, I... Something I heard when Gene Wilder passed from, I'll remind people he died of Alzheimer's at age 83. One of the things was that he kept, he was very private about his disease. He kept it private because he couldn't bear to break a child's heart that would see him or talk to him or see him in any way diminished or debilitated by this disease.

I think there's something so sweet about even in his 80s, realizing that children still looked up to him as Wonka. And he didn't want to break that spell, and he didn't want to, for lack of a better phrase, he didn't want to bum these kids out by showing them what he was going through. So the fact that he's now been essentially dug up and marionetted for the sake of this cash grab of a show is really disheartening. There are no children contestants. I mean, there are fathers and sons and mothers and daughters or whatever, but it's like they're all adults.

And what is the prize? The prize. So the prize, they make a lot of hay about this prize, which is they keep saying that it's a lifetime supply of money. What it is, in fact, is $ 3 million. Now, each contestant, it's a pair coming in.

Like you said, there's a mother and a daughter. There's two brothers. There's a best friend and whatever. So when you think about it, Each of them is only getting half of that. So if you and I are partners, Father Malone, we're only each going to get a million and a half, which is a lot of money, but then taxes.

Right, so half again. So half again. So we're talking, if we're lucky, and again, I'm not denigrating the notion of getting all this money. I'd love, look, I'd love to get 50 bucks for my trouble. I'm not partial, but at the end of the day, they're probably lucky if they're pulling down, let's say $ 650, 000. from all of this, from the agent fees, from the taxes, from whatever.

That's fine, but that's nothing that you can retire on, especially if you're young like most of these contestants are. And is that amount of money worth fucking Gene Wilder's corpse? I say no, but clearly it was a big enough deal for these quote-unquote contestants, these people taking the quote-unquote tour, that's what reality shows attract, people who want to make a name for themselves they want to be famous at any cost and i will say there's not a lot of humiliating things they have to do in this that that's at least somewhat refreshing but. Just agreeing to be on the show was humiliating. Is humiliating enough and but there's a lot of frippery with editing and stuff because the first one of the first tasks is They're in that room that gets smaller the further they walk into it, and they get to the end, and they get a gumball from this machine.

And if one person gets a gold gumball and the other one gets a purple one, this sort of compressed air thing goes off, and the person with the gold gumball disappears. I don't know if... I assume there's some sort of edit that happens, because they make it look like, oh my goodness, where did Charlie go? And they kind of look around. I'm like, they probably hit cut.

The person walked off. So they're gone. They don't know where they are, apparently. And then they end up in the chocolate room and there's a giant gumball machine. And they're told that their partners that vanished are inside of gumballs, inside of this gumball machine.

And they need to be rescued by putting coins into this machine. And they keep cutting to these people and they make the background look like they're in a gumball. And some of them look genuinely distressed, Father Malone. So I'm not sure where the line is drawn here. Well.

The line for me is watching any of these people try to act. Oh, Charlie, where are you? Hold on. We're going to get you out of there. Help me.

I'm trapped in the gumball machine. It's like porn acting, man. It's like what we used to remember as porn acting. It is. Back when there were storylines.

And plots, yeah. The Boogie Nights era. There was some semblance of story going on. Sure. Before it just became all fucking all the time.

Yeah. At the end of the day, what you get are people acting very duplicitously towards other people and people having to go home. And they're acting like these people who get voted out are dead. It's like they keep talking about how sad they are they're not there anymore. I'm like, they're not dead.

They're in a hotel somewhere probably watching this episode. Does anyone get sucked up a tube? No, they don't get sucked up a tube. Help! It's funny that you say that, because after we watched this whole season, and I will admit, it was my daughter's idea to start watching this show, because I wasn't that familiar with the concept.

And she hasn't watched too many reality shows. So look, when your kid asks you to watch something with them, you do it. So we watched it. And then at the end, she said, can we watch the original Willy Wonka? I haven't seen it in a long time.

I said, yeah, sure, let's watch it. Round the horn and home again. That's the sailor's way. That's the sailor's way. So we watched it, and it was a true delight.

And one of the things in this Netflix show's favor is they do a really good job, for the most part, with the set design. Like I said, they're going to these familiar sets from the show. They're in the chocolate room. They go there a few times. They get on the Wonkatania once.

The elevator does all kinds of funky stuff when they're on it. So that stuff was kind of cool. And it made me wish, like, I don't understand why nobody has made a Willy Wonka theme park or a ride in a theme park. Well, sir, you forget about that wonderful experience they had in England recently. Well, that was like an influencer thing, right?

I mean, that wasn't a real. I'm talking like you make. A roller coaster. You mean like a full theme park? Yeah.

I understand one is coming. Oh, really? Yeah. Is this as a result of selling the Roald Dahl's rights? I'm assuming so, and from what I hear, the first one will be in England.

You know what? I don't know that I'd go to England. It better be fucking good for me to go to England to hemp it there. Tell me you wouldn't like to go to a Willy Wonka chocolate factory and wander around. If I could drink from that. teacup and then eat it like he does.

I'll tell you what, one of the grossest challenges he just reminded me of. Now, HP, I just happened to tune into the episode I believe you're talking about, which might be the lickable wallpaper, yeah? That's exactly the one. So they have to, I don't recall the specifics, but they have to lick, oh, you know what it is? They get into the room with the lickable wallpaper and behind some of the fruit on the wall are numbers and they have to lick to find the numbers to put it into a keypad and It's like an escape room effectively, but they have to lick as many things off the walls they can.

And you would think that's no big deal, but I don't know what they use for the licking, but it's thick and it's ropey and it almost looks like wallpaper paste. Like they get it all over their mouths. It's smeared all over their faces. It's the most disgusting thing. And you can tell they're so sick.

It's multicolored, too. It's gross. And you can hear it. Some of them are gagging and almost throwing up because they've got to sit there and lick. It's just not cool.

This was a lesson about gluttony. That's right. If you didn't lick the wallpaper, you move on. The rest of you, down to the incinerator. That was probably the single most disgusting challenge they had.

That's as close as they get to, like, Survivor, I think. I want the bean feast. Can I just say. I'm going to scream. We're watching that scene.

That's the scene with the good and the bad. She's great, that girl. Veruca Salt is maybe the best performer out of all of them. Clearly. She's fantastic.

But that line always confused me. The bean feast? I want a bean feast. What does that have to do with throwing a tantrum to get what you want? You know what a bean feast is, right?

No. It's like a picnic that companies would throw for their workers. Ah, is this an English thing? Mm-hmm. Oh, okay.

Then there's a bit of a cultural dissonance there for me, I guess. Yeah. I still don't know why she's asking for one, but I at least know what it is. Ah. No, but the movie still has retained all of its ability to enthrall me and to be a delightful experience.

More so, the one with Timothee Chalamet came close. I thought they did a great job with that one. But the less said about the Tim Burton one, the better in my opinion. Oh, my God. That was a ghoulish nightmare that is his fucking Willy Wonka.

Like, what is this horrible scare show actor? Like, just this grinning death head of like, fucking... What's her name? Carol Channing? And what else was he going?

You know what I mean? Did you not get Carol Channing from that performance? Now that you mention it, yes. I wish he had gone full so he could have had some like raspberries or something. Instead, it was just like, hey, who?

Ah, well, children. What I thought he was going to do because at that point, he was riding pretty high. He had done Pirates of the Caribbean and Obviously, Keith Richards was the analog for the character of Jack Sparrow. So when I saw the movie, the poster for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, I thought he kind of, to me, he looked like he was going for, the pose was a Freddie Mercury type of pose. And I remember thinking at the time, that's great.

Well, that's true. That's true. The one where his head is bowed and he was holding the cane. Yeah. Yeah.

I was like, because in this movie, movie, yeah, make Wonka a rock star because that's what he is to everybody. He is a rock star that he's mysterious, he's flashy, he's colorful, but instead they made him this, like you said, it's kind of, this annoying voice. They made him Michael Jackson. They kind of did, but it was just so many missteps. But anyway.

Good morning, Starshine. That's what they have in place of Candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker. Like, that's what they came up with? And now, HP, speaking of that, now the one thing I think they did get right in that movie were having Deep Roy be all of the Oompa Loompas. Deep Roy was the best part.

Yeah. However, let's talk about the Oompa Loompas here. Now, back in, say, 1979, 80, 81, I remember every once in a while there'd be a talk show where they would have the reunion of whoever's left from The Wizard of Oz. And there was always one or two little persons there, right? Yeah.

And it became sadder every year. Every reunion became a little more morose and a little more pathetic. Because they're very old by then. They're like raisins at that point. Not to be outdone, this series has cast one of the original Oompa Loompas, who looks exactly the same, but you know that that's all the orange makeup.

Like, smoothing out all the wrinkles. Rusty, that was his name. I thought that was funny. Good lord. His son is also in it, right?

Oh, he has a son who is also an Oompa Loompa. Yeah, he's an Oompa Loompa in it. But then they've decided that Oompa Loompas come in all shapes and sizes, I guess, so they don't have to hire a bunch of little people. Good for them. I mean, there's like a guy who looks like a circus strongman is one of the Oompa Loompas.

I saw him and he looked cool because he had like a green mustache, right? Yeah. Yeah, and he just looked like a burly, big, strong guy. Shout out to the green-haired Oompa Loompas, by the way. Yeah, there was fun.

I'm not going to suggest that I didn't enjoy myself for the most part watching this show. I mean, if you can get past the tropes of the reality competition. Yeah, but how can you? I just grinned and bared. And by the end, I genuinely was interested.

I'm like, well, because with reality shows, there's always someone you don't want to win. Right, well, that's true, yeah. So once those couple of people that I had been... instructed to hate because that's what they do in reality shows it was fine the other thing that i thought was a little distasteful for a variety of reasons is for some reason they would go to like a competition and sometimes they had howie mandel as a a game like a host of this particular game and sometimes they'd have wayne brady but what i know what i noticed that like they wouldn't notice is they were using this technology that i know howie mandel is an investor for It's called hologram. That video called technology where it's basically the hologram version of you in a box.

Correct. So I saw a clip of it on this show and went, you fucking mercenary prick. Very much so. And that's the only reason why I think he was involved because it's his company and he wants to promote it. So that was a little weird.

But again, the set design was pretty cool. I guess it was a big hit for them. So they hit the right buttons. I just. Can a James and the Giant Peach competition be far behind?

Charlotte's Web? I don't know. James and the Giant Peach is probably the correct one because that's obviously another Roald Dahl book. Let's rape all the children's classics and turn them into money grabs. Maybe if they ever decide to do a Watership Down reality show, I'll be there for that.

Why, you want to just be depressed? Yeah, exactly. Fucking nightmare. Bright eyes indeed. Yeah.

Yeah. So your mileage may vary. You can kind of get past the crappy reality show bits. There might be... If you're a fan of the movie, maybe you'll enjoy parts of it.

If you're morally sick in the head, then you'll enjoy this thing. If you have a deep well of sadness within you, this might... You might cotton right to this. Sure. Sure.

And if you're a big fan of reality shows, then this is right up your alley. So.... Say a prayer. So what else? What else have you been watching this week, Father Malone?

Nothing. I don't watch nothing no more. Well. What did I watch? You know what?

No, I just watch... Unfortunately, I'm just watching things that I have to review. That's always with me now. Like, I had to watch Interspace, and I had to watch War Games. Which you can hear now over on the regular feed in War Games, and the Interspace episode is on the Patreon channel, everybody.

Just in case you wanted to head over to the Patreon channel and Become a patron. Did you talk about the scene in War Games where the mother serves them corn? Yes. The father takes a bite. This corn is raw.

Yeah, of course. What a weird scene. That's a good scene. I liked that scene in that movie. It is.

It was a nice little slice of life because she has a reason behind it. There's more nutrients in it, which there was a lot of that going on in our culture. Have you ever eaten, let me ask you, have you ever taken a bite off of a raw corn cob, Father Malone? Yes. Yes.

It's unpleasant. Well, that's the interesting thing. So my father-in-law is an incredible gardener. And he would have these giant plots. And one year he was growing corn.

And I went out there with the kids to help him harvest whatever. And he pulled one off the vine. He said, here, take a bite. And I balked. Are you kidding me?

This is going to be probably because of that scene in War Games. I tell you, I took a bite of it and it was wonderful. I don't know what they were talking about. It was sweet corn. It was so good.

I had no idea corn could taste like that uncooked. Well, let's all go get some raw sweet corn. It was pretty good. But I saw that movie in the theater, War Games. As did I.

As did co-host Laura Grillo. We're all really old, I guess is what that is. We are really old, yeah. Let's just date ourselves over and over again.