Alternate Valentine's Movies

George Wentier, you're listening to Movie Meltdown. The following feature has been rated R by the Motion Picture Association of America. It is intended for mature audiences and parental discretion is advised. It's showtime, folks. Enjoy the show.

Our nuclear reactor pumping out one million kilowatts of power. Why do you hate heart-shaped candy? I think because it reminds me that this is Valentine's Day and I'm recently single. What's up and welcome to Movie Meltdown. I'm Brian.

And I'm George. And we're coming to you live via digital recording from The Oddity Studios where we're going to bring you a Romantic episode. Two dudes sitting around talking about romantic movies. Oh, yeah. Is that weird?

I don't know. I thought it was going to be more weird when I got you a big heart-shaped box of chocolates and gave it to you. Well, yeah, I mean, I did bring some heart-shaped candy myself here. I'm glad we were on the same lines because then I was like, okay, the heart-shaped box might be a little creepy. So I'll back off.

But I was like, Everybody likes Reese's, right? Which we are on the same train because you also brought Reese's hearts. There we go. I got these, which are called Reese's... What the hell did they name these things?

They're like love hearts or something. All right. So I haven't looked through them, but I think it's kind of the concept of the sweetheart tart things. They have a weird message on each one. Gotcha.

I'm going to pick one here, and we'll see what we get. So you can have. Let's see here. All right, what do you got? You're my taste.

That's what mine is. That's not creepy. Yeah, it's... Let's see what the other options here are. This one's for cannibals.

I'm all yours, Reese's. Hello. We're not sponsored by Reese's, but if they want to throw us money. Yeah, you know. Another you're my taste.

I wonder how many variations we've got here. I'm just waiting for the obvious eat me. Yeah, I was like, where's the fun ones? Oh, wait, here's a wordy one. All you need is love and Reese's.

Oh, there you go. I do like that they worked their commercial into their love message. Yeah, I was going to say, that was a commercial, yeah. It's just a commercial. A crummy commercial.

They're mostly cannibalism. You're on my taste. Eat me. Drink your Ovaltine. A crummy commercial.

That's what we learned from our love messages. Well, see, you've got ones that have strange messages written on them. I have the heart-shaped Reese's. And then also, since, you know, haha, I know your affinity for Sour Patch Kids, I brought some heart-shaped Sour Patch Kids. The running joke that has become the Sour Patch Kids.

On this show. That's right. It was very unusual. It was the gray Sour Patch Kids you all had to eat or something like that. One episode.

One episode. Um, the zombie ones were... Oh, yeah, that's it. The zombie ones. I think it was more like a blackberry something or other.

Brad's berry something. I don't know. Because everybody loves a type of candy that makes you look like you have a mouth rot. Oddly enough, they were still good. No complaints from the flavor, but.

Delicious dental nightmares. Actually, what we called them out on is on the box... It's like zombie Sour Patch Kids, but the artwork was a Sour Patch character that looked like Frankenstein? Hmm. Wait a minute.

No, yeah. That is not acceptable. Granted, he is sort of a zombie. I realized, not to go into the horror movie episode like we do every other week, but over the years I was like, most of your classic monsters are just kind of zombie. Honestly, I would argue that Frankenstein is more of the golem than a zombie.

Because basically he was pieced together from different bodies, so he's not the same body. And then he was reanimated. Usually a golem is pieced together of different materials and then animated. It's definitely a weird variation, but the more I thought about it, I was like, other than you're like monstrous, like your werewolf is like a nature run amok. It's more of like the monster within you.

The creature is the primordial creature. The primal thing, yeah. But yeah, like Dracula is an undead creature that supposedly is dead, kind of, sort of, we don't know. Frankenstein's raised back from the dead. The mummy is raised back from the dead.

Zombies are raised back. So everybody's just like brought back from the dead. Dracula is basically a thinly veiled religious allegory against substance abuse. You know, you don't need drugs, you need Jesus. A good way to work in sexual overtones into everything.

Oh yeah, there's also the sex thing too, yeah. The penetration the sucking romance people romance that's what it's all about anyway so we were trying to figure out what are we doing what what's the next episode we're gonna put together and we it's always a toss-up we don't know where we're going so throwing stuff out there it was like We did just do Christmas. We got away from that. We did pretty well just throwing a lot of crazy stuff out there. Arbor Day is still a few months away.

Oh, God. What an episode that's going to be. Just talking about the M. Night Shyamalan trees. It's the trees.

Anyway. So, yeah, we're going over options. And I was like, well, obviously, we don't want to do a Valentine's Day episode. As I said, two dorky straight guys sitting together talking about romance. Nobody wants that.

But one of them's married. You might at least have a Valentine. I've given up on the whole concept, so I don't know that I'm right for any regular Valentine's episode. Which is why I was like, once we threw it out there, I was like, well, technically, years ago, this, I won't, you know, name drop this dumb city, but the magazine named after this city, came to me, oddly enough, and was like, we're putting together this issue in February and we're having different people pick like Valentine's movies. I don't even think they were doing unconventional.

I think I chose that route. I think other people picked regular stuff. And I was like, well, I mean, you're talking to me. So obviously I don't have a regular version. So I was like, let's go with unconventional versions.

And they were like, damn it. We already said we'd let him do it. So I'm sure they changed their mind, but it was too late. So I put together my, and the thing is, I didn't overly think about it. I like what I actually based it on.

This goes back even further. Back in the olden days of working at a certain video store. I was going to say the 1800s. That is, well, pretty much. I mean, we were setting up VHS tapes on a shelf.

So, yes, it essentially was. But the company that is now long dead, we used to have most of the stuff was very specifically laid out. And everything was, you know, you had to put this here or some studio bought this end cap here and you had to set this up. Sure. Every once in a while, there'd be like a free space.

A lot of times behind the counter. So every once in a while we had a little sign and an acrylic to hang there that was like employee picks. Right. And then at one point it was Valentine's picks and we let the employees pick it. Sure.

And our staff was a bunch of weirdos. Right. So I had like three or four of them and they were all like not your normal Valentine's picks. And that's immediately what I thought of when I came to put this list together. I was like, oh, well, I'll just take all the ones I had off the wall behind me when I was standing in front of the register.

So most of these on this list were behind me on a shelf at one point when I was like, yeah, that one's mine and that one's mine. I don't know what these weird rom-coms over here are. That's obviously some normal person, which is very unlikely that we employed a normal person. I know the story. I miss it still to this day.

And there were a lot of lovely people there, but not a normal person. And thank God for it. No, we were all a bunch of weirdos, which is why it's one of the few times in my life I felt like I fit in. I really was at home in our group of weirdos, but nothing good can last. That's another takeaway from your romance.

Nothing good can last. So as I put this list together, I thought we'd knock those out first and then just sort of elaborate because I'm sure a few of these are going to cross over. Actually, I brought up a list I was trying to find. I'm sure the internet is full of dorks that did. Oh, I'm too cool for a regular list.

I'm going to do an unconventional list of Valentine's movies. So I brought up a list and already several of them were on there. So it's not the most original thing ever. But, again, I did this years ago, so I'm just piecing together the ones I came up with off the cuff. Let's go.

In no specific order, but I'll go ahead and do it in the reverse order of how I think they were listed on there. Okay. First one and i was going back i was just i think this was the last entry on the list i was just i had the main ones that was like obviously these and i was like what else kind of fits for me of like a good movie that also is about a couple and they genuinely seem like and they're in love and i know Bonnie and Clyde. The ultimate screen couple. They're young, they're in love, they kill people.

That was the tagline, by the way, on the poster. Yep. They're young, they're in love, and they kill people. I mean, is that not the most romantic movie ever? I'd say it's pretty close there, you know?

I mean, they do tragically, you know, pass together. Spoiler alert for a 50-year-old movie. A little, uh... Romeo and Juliet-esque. And a hail of gunfire.

That's how they went out in Rome. I don't know. I don't read Shakespeare or anything else. So I'm assuming that's the way Romeo and Juliet ends. No, it was more of a poison given without instructions.

Damn it. Yeah. Good thing I saw Romeo plus Juliet. So I did. Didn't spoil it for me, really.

As long as Claire Danes is there, I'm all set. So it is interesting with that one that they went. They were definitely doing a very. different take on it, especially if you look at pictures of Bonnie and Clyde in the real world. Yeah. And you hear the story of how they really were.

It's artistic license, definitely in the way of the attractiveness and the romance. I was going to say, Clyde did not look anything like Warren Beatty. Neither did she. I mean, Faye. Dunaway is like, especially that era of Faye Dunaway is like, Gorgeous.

Sure, yeah. At best, they were probably more like brother and sister, and I don't think Clyde was into her at all, as the story goes. Maybe for a couple of different reasons. Anyway, we won't go into the real story. But the movie is amazing, and not only works in a very romantic angle to it, and they're sort of playing that up, but it's also that turning point.

It's what people always sort of point to, definitely me, because I've gotten into this looking at Hollywood over the years and it's like, it is almost that fork in the road of when cinema started to change. Oh yeah. It's Bonnie and Clyde and Easy Rider. And like, you just start going down this road of like movies that are not taking the typical Hollywood road, much like the end of this movie, but then also getting way more independent and not, you know, having to listen to what the studio says because the studio is didn't know what to do anymore like their blockbuster ideas weren't working so they were like okay we'll give it to these upstarts now that are making movies and let them see what they can do and they start doing these very unconventional stories like bonnie and clyde so yeah i think it's it's always an interesting movie to watch from that angle but if you want to watch it as a valentine's movie hey go for it i.

Mean they they are a pair nonetheless but Yeah, it's kind of neat because the way the film was done, you basically make them into Robin Hood-ish sort of characters, folk heroes. So by the time they're gunned down at the end of the movie, it's shocking, it's gory, it's bloody than anything we've seen before in that era of cinema. And you feel bad for the couple. It's like, oh my god, I don't want them to get killed, but they were criminals! Yeah, again, it's all that spin.

You know, if you're watching it from the other side, if it's a movie that was made in the 50s or even early 60s, you might be, oh, we're going to look at the whole story from this G-man's point of view and, like, he's trying to track down these horrible criminals and, like, so, again, it's all in that spin. I think that's the difference. It's like, if you go back further, that is, there were plenty of movies in that era that really were from the, this is, you know, the tough city and I'm the cop trying to clean things up and, like, Instead, we go to the other side in the 70s, which, granted, this is 67, but it's the kickoff of what became all those 70s era movies and that way of looking at things of like, okay, we're going to flip it to the other side now and we're going to do things a little more unconventional and a little more, you know, anti-counterculture, if you will.

Lots of downer endings. Yeah, a lot of that. You didn't, well, I mean, old Hollywood had that, but still, I think it became less and less as they went on in the big, Hollywood dip pole movies were more of like happy romances. But yeah, 70s did not play that game. Well, yeah, it was a running joke of the 70s, especially if you get like the science fiction and horror genre.

So like, yeah, there was lots of downer endings and everything's going to die. And, you know, everything's screwed. You know, yeah, there was a lot of that. And this is maybe the perfect example of that with a nice romance work. Sure.

There's our kickoff for Valentine's Day. Let's see. So next up, again, I started, this one was definitely on the wall behind me. Natural Born Killers. I was thinking about Natural Born Killers when you started talking about Ian Clyde, yeah.

That, I mean, it is that exact same thing, but they took it even more, like, again, it's Oliver Stone, so it's like he was not, he's not subtle in general, but he definitely wasn't subtle at this point in his career. Right. He was going way above and beyond to sort of lampoon the whole idea so like he really made it to the point we have a sitcom scene in the alternate universe shot of them potentially at the end like raising a family of kids driving around in an rv like we've got this weird bastardized version of a love story that you know as much as They are sociopaths. They still genuinely are in love so much that they will kill other people who are looking at their person that they care about.

And they're very protective of each other. It's a gore fest, but it's surprising how much of it is still structured as a love story, more or less. So it's one I haven't watched in a while. I do want to revisit it for so many angles, like just for the weird Oliver Stone direction. Both of those performances are amazing.

All the other smaller characters, which are like, oh yeah, Robert Downey Jr. is in that movie. You forget all the other characters that are in there. Yeah, he's kind of like the Geraldo Rivera kind of character. Yeah, he's doing something pretty... Well, again, it was before he redefined his career, so he was still kind of doing these weird one-off characters.

I think he was doing a really bad Australian accent. Yeah, like purposely... Yeah, again, Oliver Stone dialing everything up, so... It's, yeah, going out of its way to be ridiculous. And that's kind of what they were going for.

90s Oliver Stone is very divisive for me. Because, I mean, Grant, you've got, like, JFK. That's a great film. You know, Natural Born Killers is a very good film. But then, like, you've got, like, U-Turn.

I saw U-Turn in the theater. And I like it more than most people, and there's a certain quote in it that I work in way more often than probably most people would quote U-Turn. So I'm a little, again, it's one I have not watched in forever, but I'm a little more attached to U-Turn than most people, I feel like. Yeah, there was just like some weird choices that were made in that movie, or just like you know, unnecessary shots. Like, let's get a close-up shot of Nick Nolte's nose hair or whatnot.

It's like, why? Speaking of romance, I mean. Yeah, I mean, you know, it's just a weird, and then, of course, Nixon, I think, was later on in the 90s. That was odd, which it should not have been, but was. I at least give him credit for, especially when he gets into his weird political type movies, because he at least does things sort of even-handed.

Even for somebody like Nixon, like, you get the feeling he probably doesn't look favorably on his politics and decisions, but he does try to approach the character like evenly, you know, like to figure out what, what was going on with this guy and why he might have made these weird decisions. And like, so I think you get more of a balanced point of view from oddly from Oliver Stone, whereas you get something like Adam McKay's movies, which are not at all. No. That's it's just so weird that like you can't even balance out your characters. It just seems like flawed writing from that angle where Oliver Stone, even at that at that point in his career, was like just pretty solid on his like writing and like how he approached characters that he didn't even agree with.

He seemed like he took them seriously and wanted to explore them as a character. And yeah, I don't know for somebody as political as he is. I feel like he's not as heavy handed as he could be. Right. Which is weird if you're watching Natural Born Killers, which is hitting you over the head with gore, but, you know, still.

Yeah, and all sorts of weird things. But then again, too, it's got, you know, a decent soundtrack. I'll definitely give it a hand. I love that soundtrack. Yeah, but yeah, that was kind of, for me, the beginning of, like, Hang on, he's doing some weird stuff here.

What is he doing? Yeah, because you come out of, like, Platoon, and you're like, this guy is like a master. Like, he knows what he's doing. This is a great, you know, story that he's telling. It's not your conventional Vietnam story.

So, like, yeah, you see the next couple of years, and by the time you get to Natural Born Killers, you're like, alright. he's just lost it the weird thing was he's super talented and yet i'm questioning his sanity at this point early in. His career his writing was very strange and psychedelic so i think it was just a matter of like he's had a comfort level after a lot of hits and oscars thrown at him And now his name was Household, as directors go, which you don't really have that much anymore. No. So it's like, okay, now I can kind of go back to my roots and I'm going to be weird. And let's be super weird.

That's what it was. Yeah, I think they sort of polished things up as he got to the more Oscar-friendly stuff there and that little peak. And then once he knew he had license to do what he wanted and he made enough money that people weren't going to tell him no, he's like, okay. Now I can make that stuff I wanted to make and nobody would give me money to do. Yeah.

Natural Born Killers. Well, I think this is the same dude who wrote a script for Queen of the Barbarian that was deemed too weird. And so it was rewritten and he didn't get credit for it. And he also was credited for writing the movie The Hand, starring Michael Caine, which is about him getting his hand chopped off and the hand coming back and killing people. Follows him around.

Yeah. No matter if he goes across the country. This is the same dude. So it's like, there's some weird stuff in him. There's always been there.

Yeah. He's definitely a weird guy. Talented and weird. Yes. All right.

Next up. This one I knew you were going to get to. That's why I thought we better knock it off right off the bat. My Bloody Valentine. Now, this is the original 1981 classic.

You can argue that if you want. But I remember... Watching this on cable as a kid, which explains a lot about me. And I loved it. I was just like, did they just put an actual human heart in a heart-shaped candy box?

Because I'm a kid, but I think that's really awesome. And this leads to me being into Natural Born Killers, I suppose. Like, it all comes full circle. But yeah, I was like, that's the defining moment. It's like when you get an actual human heart sent to you on Valentine's Day.

Gives you that warm, fuzzy feeling, doesn't it? It sure does, yeah. Well, of course, you know. This is coal country that we're in here. So, you know, the Kentucky, the West Virginia areas, whatnot.

We should have an affinity for this movie. Because, you know, we got a psycho coal miner. And you don't really get a lot of psycho coal miners in the horror genre. Yeah. I mean, it is a good outfit.

Because it totally conceals you as a killer. So, like, once you get in the coal gear. Plus, if you've got a pickaxe, that is a really good murder weapon. Very much so. And think about it.

Most times when you see... Coal miners in the media, they are victims of being trapped in a mine. So this is the first time that the coal miner is no longer the victim. They're tired of being victims now for these dang rocks and earth and such. We're just going to strike back on these.

Damn teenagers having intercourse. I remember. Well, that's because we threw this out as one. We were trying to figure out what to talk about. And I was like, I know we talked about this in the past.

I went back and looked. I think we did when the remake came out. I think we talked about that. But we spent about half the time talking about the 81 version because that was so awesome. It's better.

I didn't hate the remake. It's fun. It's almost kind of unnecessary. It was one of the few times I remember the 3D element being really impressive. That was right in the push of let's bring people back to the theater with 3D.

And like that one they really like it was definitely made to be in 3D. And you could tell they actually put effort into what effect shots they were going to do. Oh, I respect that. So I remember the 3D element being really cool and effective, and that almost kind of helped bump it up from being just another knockoff, you know, another remake at a time when they were remaking everything. So, yeah, that one put it a little bit above most of the others, but still, I'm partial to the 81.

Yeah. All right, let's see. So this one definitely... was on that same wall behind me. This was maybe the second one. The one coming might have been up there first.

But, yeah, obviously, True Romance. So, once again, another Tarantino-tied one. Both of those were written by Tarantino. Yeah. Natural Born Killers and True Romance.

Neither directed, but True Romance, more than anything, almost feels, in its writing, definitely feels like a Tarantino movie. Yep. Direction-wise, when you watch it, no, you can see Tony Scott. But, yeah, as a written-on-the-page project, it is through and through a Tarantino movie. Very much so.

But, yeah, again, it's one of those that, like, it really focuses on the romance part of it. Like, so much so that, like, it's manufactured... Spoilers. Go watch it. But like, it's not even like a real meet cute.

It's a fake meet cute. And yet it's still like brings about the necessary romance enough that they are willing to do a lot of ridiculous things to stay together and build themselves a life. And I think my quote on it was, it's the movie that proves you don't have to be lucky or even very smart to fall in love. You just have to be cool. Just cool.

Because if you watch it again, you're like, man, they make some dumb decisions. But, again, there's some dumb kids falling in love. So it's bound to happen. Just sometimes people get murdered along the way, you know. Or they just see Elvis as a, you know, figure of their own imagination.

Wait, don't we all see that? I thought that was a normal thing. Uh, no. Well, he was helping me put this list together, so I don't know. Okay, well, I mean, you know, it's...

I can't afford to get Val Kilmer, though, so... I've got, like, young Kurt Russell. Okay, well, that's cool, yeah. Actually, I think I'd prefer that, especially more so than now Val Kilmer. Maybe 90s Val Kilmer, but the stories I hear, he was kind of a jerk then.

Now he's just old and crazy, so I don't know. That documentary on him, I think it's on Amazon. I keep hearing pretty good things. I do want to watch it. It's very good.

It's very sad. Yeah. It's very touching, too, because basically since his throat cancer issues and he's had surgery, so he's still healing from it, but his voice is not quite there yet. Basically, it sounds like the ads for non-smoking and people already have throat cancer. That's kind of what he sounds like.

Yeah, yeah. So his son... narrates the majority of the movie. Interesting. And it's really weird because his son looks like a, like, 80s Val Kilmer. He hasn't, like, fully grown into his manhood yet.

But, like, he's about, like. Top secret version? Yeah, he's, like, pre-top secret version. Like, he's, like, in about two or three years, he's gonna sprout up and it's, like, holy crap. Yeah.

It's the second coming of Val Kilmer. I do have a whole new respect, you know, especially, like, for me, like, the Val Kilmer... role that kind of touched me a little bit more or at least not necessarily touched me in a good way but is his batman role because i'm a big comic book fan so it's like you take on batman. You better do a good job it's i mean the deck stacked against you at this point people are just going to complain whoever they hand it to so yeah and that was the beginning of that that's the first time we had well no they bitched about michael keaton too but as soon as they went oh no michael keaton's good they were like oh no we're gonna give it to somebody else and then From that point on, people just get mad about whatever choice they made.

My biggest complaint for a lot of those movies was the suit. Because apparently the suit was such a problem that it inhibited the actors. Michael Keaton complained about it. Val Kilmer complains about it. George Clooney was the only one that didn't complain about it with the exception of the nipples.

Well, that was the problem with the old ones. Not enough nipple. But apparently mobility was also an issue. I'm like, come on. The more I watch it, I'm just like...

From a vigilante standpoint, it seems like you'd want to have better visibility and movement. Batman, I'm just saying. Well, most of the time, you know, if he does anything, like the Christopher Nolan movies kind of handle it a little bit better, where it's like he's basically taking, like, military tactical stuff, you know, putting that on, and then souping it up just a little bit to make it look a little more, you know. Spray painting it all black, really. A little spray paint and putting bad ears on shit, you know.

But, basically, that's kind of a little more so that explains why he was able to move a little bit better and had more, you know, protection, all that kind of good stuff. Yeah. Yeah, but yeah, apparently, like, Val Kilmer was, like, a big Batman fan, and that was, like, a dream role for him, and, like, the second he got in there was a nightmare. Oh, yeah. Well, I think, what little I've heard, at least now, I think he's almost coming to terms with the way that he behaved because i think he's fully admitted to what a nightmare he was to work with back in the day like especially in that middle era there because i did watch the documentary on the island of dr moreau and like everybody's a nightmare so much so the director's like i'm i'm i'm gonna go off in the fields and live and i so yeah or richard stanley i what a mess I mean that it's almost way more entertaining as the real world story and I love the story of the island of Dr.

Moreau but like you can't get more interesting than what was really going on behind the scenes in that movie and I think everybody's kind of copped like mostly Val Kilmer because Brando's gone now but yeah we know he was insane by that point so even Val Kilmer was just like yeah I was also going out of my way to be a cast like And the two of them butting heads and then driving the director crazy. It's so interesting to get all these different angles, especially on Island of Dr. Moreau, because Richard Stanley's got a documentary out that really chronicles that whole period of his life and kind of like why he just fell to the face of the earth after that film and didn't come back to ground until, what, The Color Out of Space with Nicolas Cage, which.

Was, what, two years ago? It was a long run, yeah. Yeah, it was a long run of not being able to do anything. But then, of course, Val Kilmer talks a lot about Alan and Dr. Moreau in the documentary and kind of his take on things.

And it really just seemed like everything was working against everybody because Brando was being difficult. Val was like he was excited about getting to work with Brando and then Brando was like how he was then. What he always did at that point. It was a great disappointment to him. And then there was a lot of studio interference, apparently.

And so that weighed down on him. And then For all the people to get, you know, basically blamed for everything in Blacklisted, you point at the director. It's like, no, this is the guy that's fighting for you. I'm still trying to keep these crazy people together in a scene. It's like, it would have been easier to just blame everything on Brando because, okay, he's old.

We already know he's crazy. Nobody questioned his weird behavior. He's been weird since day one. So it's like, just put everything on him. He's going to die soon anyway.

And he did. Like less than 10 years later, he was gone. That movie not quite a romance but true romance on the other hand that's that's a good one to add to your list indeed whether or not you think it's actually romantic is up to you but it's in the title at least we got that going for us so. And definitely the better i would say one of the better of the uh tarantino non-directed. Films yeah of his screenplays that's maybe the closest that feels like a tarantino movie there's there's other ones where you hear his lines in a regular movie But yeah, that's definitely the one that almost feels like a Tarantino movie.

The direction definitely is different, but it feels like it because the writing is so... It doesn't seem like it strays from his writing. It seems like it's through and through a Tarantino screenplay. Yeah, so Natural Born Killers, they really strayed a lot from it. I think they held on the base story of things, but Oliver went...

Did whatever the hell he wanted. Yeah, he took some... way different directions. And there's those other weird rewrites that you're like in the middle of Crimson Tide going, that line, that's a Tarantino. Yeah. The whole silver surfer.

I was like that right there. I was like, yep, this seems completely out of character in the rest of this movie. I'm pretty sure this is one of those punched up Tarantino lines. God bless him. All right.

So the, the rounding out my, uh, five that I randomly came up with years ago. Um, Again, it's one I go with. It's in the tagline. Love never dies. This would be the 1992 Bram Stoker's Dracula, which gets a lot of flack, but I think is visually amazing.

Performances, people just want to talk smack about Keanu, but Gary Oldman is amazing in that movie. Oh, absolutely. It is so impressive on so many levels that I'm like, even if you find... parts that you think are off or clunky or whatever, the makeup effects, you know? It's like the direction in so many scenes, the cinematography, like, there's just so many great elements to that movie that, yeah, I don't know. I always liked that one, and it is, again, sort of understated because it's trying to be a horror movie.

It's argued that it's not super successful as a horror movie, but it's definitely trying to be A horror movie that's different because it makes Gary Oldman our hero, essentially. You're sort of rooting for him versus... You cast somebody like Anthony Hopkins to come in. You think he's going to be the lead in a different spin. But it's definitely...

You're siding with Gary Oldman. You feel... sympathetic towards him, you know? Yeah, absolutely. And it's mostly that romance that does it. Like, he legitimately...

Like, you see this weird reason why he becomes a vampire, and then so much of it after that is him just pining away for his lost love. So for 400 years, he's trying to track down the only person he ever cared about. It's, like, one of the most romantic concepts to base your movie around. So, again, not a traditional version, but... I find that aspect of it makes it very different from most vampire movies.

Oh, absolutely. I mean, Yeah, initially when the movie came out, there was a little bit of flack, especially for Keanu Reeves and whatnot, because it was at a time when the world was not quite as in love with Keanu Reeves as they are now, strangely enough. I mean, they liked him, but they didn't want him to do anything else, which it's kind of come back around. Now we just want to see him kick people's ass. Yeah, I know.

It's like, we only thought of him as Bill and Ted. Before, we only wanted Bill and Ted from him, and now we only want him to beat people's ass. Yeah, it's like the Matrix kind of turned everything around for him, and then the John Wick movies, which are just brilliant, so... Yeah, but it was definitely not the first role. Of course, it was kind of fell into the Kevin Costner school of accent acting where it's like, we're going to lose our accent halfway through the movie.

It's going to come in and out. Winona Ryder was a good cast because she was very hot, very into the time. That was part of, at the time, what suckered me in. I was so into Winona Ryder at that point that I'm like, Not only is it Winona Ryder in a movie, which I would have seen anyway. Yeah.

But it's also a Dracula movie and I love horror. It's Gary Oldman doing this amazing performance. It's Coppola doing maybe the last real top tier Coppola movie. Yeah. Because after that, I think I've said it before.

I think this is the movie that broke him. Like, I feel like this was so much trying to make this work. Yeah. That. Because he was going to do that Frankenstein movie after this.

And, like, this took so much out of him, he handed it off to Branagh. And then after that, like, it was years later, he started making movies again. But from that point on, no movie is what you would expect from Pilgrim. Yeah, his next movie after this was Jack. Jack.

And he's done other things. And they've gotten almost weirder as time's gone on. Like, he just... never got back to that top tier Hollywood director level ever again. So this is an interesting thing to watch from that perspective too. Yeah.

And Jack's one of those movies that if you have never seen it, the best word I can give you to is uncomfortable. Yeah. I mean, it's one of those, you're like, you'll hear the premise and you're like, they didn't really make a movie out of that, did they? And then you'll be like, wait, they didn't really cast like, one of the biggest actors in Hollywood in this, did they? They didn't really get Francis Ford Coppola directed, did they?

Like, everything makes no sense. And I'm like, you know, if Jennifer Lopez wasn't here, I wouldn't even be watching this. Yeah, it's just... It's an odd, odd movie. On so many levels, it's like, okay, Rob...

The thing I laughed the hardest about the movie Tropic Thunder was they're making fun of Ben Stiller's Simple Jack character. And I immediately thought of the Robin Williams performance. Like, oh my god, it's Simple Jack! You never go full R-word, folks. Robin got put in a lot of weird things in his career, but that one's pretty high up there.

That one's an odd choice, even for Robin Williams, who made some weird choices in his life. But yeah, I would definitely argue... much in favor that probably Dracula broke Coppola. No, yeah. I mean, he made even functional normal movies. Rainmaker was him.

That's a solid Grisham type of movie. It really is. But you watch it and you don't think Coppola. It doesn't scream Coppola. It's just a solid legal drama.

Yeah, but it's a very well done movie, good performances, but nothing. Like outstanding like thing that's what he did for earlier in his career right it's it's the most that's maybe the most functional he was after that and then you get to those ones later in his career and he I've said it before it seems like he went in reverse like he started off making like these top tier Hollywood movies like a polished you know Hollywood director that had been there for decades and And then he ended doing weird arthouse stuff like he was a kid straight out of college that just wanted to slap stuff together and see if anybody would show up and watch it. That's those later movies. Like, I've watched some of them.

I'm just like, dude, I don't know what you're doing. Like, more power to you for being an old guy that still wants to make movies. Good for you. I'm glad you can use your wine money to do it, but they don't make any sense. I think somewhere.

You know, in the last 15 years, he went back and watched Dementia 13 and found something interesting in there and said, you know what? I could do this again. I think it's interesting. I prefer that one to these more reasons. I like Dementia 13.

But Dementia 13 is one of those, like, what is going on in this movie? Yep. We're going to throw a lot of weird things at the wall and see what sticks. But it was pretty creative. For, again, that is the real version of him, like, kid out of college at best.

Yeah. Yeah. That one's still pretty fun. But yeah, these end of his career ones, I don't know what to do with them. Again, more power to you.

Keep making them if you can. I mean, John Carpenter was decent enough to never make another Dark Star kind of movie again. I mean, he made Ghosts of Mars, but that's nowhere near. I don't know. Once they get older, sometimes they keep working and putting out solid stuff.

And the other ones just stop doing anything. And then other ones just go crazy. So you never really know. where they're gonna end some just make coffee yeah i'll take that but yeah love never dies i think that's what put it on the wall behind me years ago and people would question and i'm like look it's right there It says it right on the front of the box. It's a very romantic movie. More than most Draculas.

I mean, you get some of the other ones that they get, you know, very suave with their Dracula, but. We're looking at you, Frank Langella. Talking to you, George Hamilton. That was another one at that time when I was a kid. I watched that on cable so many times.

That was kind of my go-to Dracula for quite a while there. Yeah. I watched a lot of the Hammer horror stuff, so basically, you know, the pairing of Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing, that's a Dracula movie to me. Well, and those just became such a blur. Like, I, we've even gone back and watched one or two different things over the years that are Hammer, but, like, they all just become Hammer, and, like, I forget the specifics, so it's like.

You need to go through and watch each one individually and try to pin down, okay, this is the one that has Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing in it. Oh, no way. That doesn't help me at all. That makes it more confusing. Of the Lee and Cushing Dracula movies, the only one that's the most discerning of all of them is Dracula 1972 AD because it takes place in 1972 AD.

That changes it up a little bit. Yeah, I mean, like, there's a rock band in the movie, and the kids are a little more modernly dressed, and, you know, people are driving cars and shit. But other than that, it's still pretty, like, we have a Victorian-esque, you know, Van Helsing who's, you know, chasing after Dracula, who's, like, you know, getting used to the 70s era London. It's no love at first bite, but nothing really can be. Or even the vampire's kiss, for that matter.

Yeah. I'm a vampire. I'm a vampire. All right. So that at least knocks out that list that I came up with.

So what sort of non-traditional or as traditional as you want to go? I also was trying to bring up a list and see what the internet considered regular romantic Valentine's movies to kind of counterbalance what we were coming up with. So what ones do you have? Well, I mean, I went with, I always champion obscure films or like, you know, the ones that are quality films, but maybe not as well known as the big hits. I mean, you know, you got all your Sandra Bullocks and your Julia Roberts, you know, stuff, you know, there, you know, your Pretty Woman's, your Best Friend's Wedding.

I'm on board with some of those. Again, as we're about to go into, all of mine were early. And it was like earlier versions of them in their career. And I like latched on to a couple of those that I was like, these are actually genuinely good movies that also happen to be sort of romantic comedies. And I'm like, as time went on, I quit caring about most romantic comedies.

So that's sort of where mine come from. And it's, you seem to say. Like most of yours came from that same era. Well, yeah, definitely the 90s was my more single days, high school, college era, stuff like that. So pining for relationships, that sort of thing like that.

So my choices definitely are, like I said, good films, but lesser known ones. To start here, one of my probably favorites for a lot of reasons because there's a lot of fun to it, but 1998's Overnight Delivery. All right. Basically, he's starring Paul Rudd and Reese Witherspoon. I remember.

Again, I'm almost remembering the box art more than I don't know that I saw it. A very good film. Of course, you've got a very charming couple. That's a huge part of this type of movie. It kind of feels like a bit of a screwball comedy.

The whole plot is basically Paul Rudd has a girlfriend and he accidentally writes a poison pen letter and sends it via FedEx, hence the overnight delivery. Well, then he realizes the errors of his way, and he is now on a cross-country chase to beat the package before it gets to his girlfriend. And then Reese Witherspoon, who is basically, he's at his college, she's another student there, and kind of as an acquaintance, but they're kind of a bit acrimonious, and so, I think like she's dating a professor or something like that at the college, and so they end up doing the road trip together. And then of course it's kind of a screwball comedy where they end up falling in love together and all that sort of thing.

Seems similar to, and one I hadn't thought of, but is one of the early, again, it was more comedy to me as a kid, but as time goes on, I'm like, it's actually kind of a nice little romance. Um, the sure thing. Yeah. Is sort of that same idea of like, we end up on a road trip together. We kind of don't like each other at all.

And then before you're done, you're going to be in love. So, That's one that I hadn't thought about in a while, but I really kind of liked it. It's one of those that both of those actors I got attached to after that. It is one of those early ones from Cusack that like, it sort of defined who he would play for the next 10 or 15 years of like, this is the kind of guy he's going to be for the run of his most popular movies. And anything with Daphne Zuniga is fun.

She's always entertaining. Yeah. But yeah, Paul was definitely like high charm levels in this one. He's, This is a few years removed from Clueless, but was nowhere near as popular as Clueless, so it just basically kind of got lost in the shuffle. Which was odd, basically, to have the pair of he and Reese Witherspoon, but this was before Reese was Reese.

That's what I was going to say. Is it before Legally Blonde? Oh, yeah. It's a few years before. Well, then that would be why.

I was like, if it was after that, like, she was big enough, anything after that kind of got huge just because it had her attached. Where Paul Rudd just kind of went through that dip in the middle there where it's like he ended up in everything. And everybody kind of forgot about him, you know, that he had done as much stuff as he worked consistently forever there. But it wasn't sort of until like getting, you know, plucked to be in the Marvel world that all of a sudden they were like, oh, no, this is leading man. Remember?

Yeah. All these movies he's in back here that. You forgot about. Do you remember he was on Friends? No, nobody remembers that either.

His Phoebe's husband, yeah. It's like he did so much stuff in the middle there that like people just kind of glossed over. But it took a while before he became the sexiest man alive. Yeah. And I think too that this movie may have suffered from the getting put on the shelf for a couple of years.

Yeah. Because Reese Witherspoon is really young in this movie too. So this may have been on the shelf for a couple of years as well. That's when I was really into her in Freeway. I was going to say, this was right.

I love Freeway. I don't know if I would go to that as a romance for this time of year, maybe. But watch it because it's amazing. But this is definitely like the same age range as Freeway. And what was the stalker movie she was in with Mark Wahlberg?

It was in the 90s. Fear. Yeah, Fear. I was like, it's in there. Hold on.

It was around that same time. She looks around around that same age around those movies. So it was probably like early 90s. Yeah. But yeah, I'd say just a fun movie.

Kevin Smith did some punch-ups on the script. At that point, it might be okay. Yeah, uncredited, but he did some punch-ups on it. And frankly, an excellent cover of the 70s Magnet and Steel by Walter Egan, as done by Matthew Sweet. That seems perfect for that time period, actually.

Yeah, it had some good music in there, too. It's funny, as big of a movie fan as I am, I'm a much bigger music fan, so when a song in a movie hits... the memory cells go way more in-depth and active, and so that'll stick with me a lot longer than a movie I really like that maybe just has some score music in there, but if you put a song in there where I discover a song in a movie, then all of a sudden, like, bam, it's way more attached to it. This is... Good to know, because I've been wanting to put together more soundtrack episodes, so now I know who to sucker to sit on the other side of that deal. Plus, we'll get to one by the time we round this out, I've got one with an interesting soundtrack as well, so we'll come back to the soundtrack thing, but I legitimately have been wanting to do more soundtrack episodes.

It's been a long time since we've done one. Mostly because you have to find somebody else that wants to talk about but isn't so caught up in like, this is all that I like. Everybody like, even people that are hardcore music fans are usually so locked into their little thing that like anything else is like, oh, that song sucks. Like, I'm like, well, but we kind of listen to a lot of different stuff. So you seem to have a pretty wide range that you can work with.

So I think we're going to have to return with some music episodes. That sounds like a plan to me. Another movie that kind of falls again in definitely the 90s era, This is not a traditional romantic comedy. It's more of a teen comedy, but it definitely has a romantic angle. It is Can't Hardly Wait.

Yeah. Now, granted, this one is not necessarily obscure. This pops up on cable all the time. But it was not a big box office success. Most impressive because you can sit there the whole time going, hey, look who it is.

Hey, look who it is. Yeah. And really, most of them weren't big names at the time. It was like. Jennifer Love Hewitt was maybe one of the biggest.

Jennifer Love Hewitt was recognizable coming off of her TV show and... The fact that they got, what's her name, Sabrina in it. Oh, yeah. That was sort of like their big cameo. It was like, hey, look, look who we got in it.

We can get Jenna Elfman. It was like weird pulls and mostly from TV. So it's like those were the bigger names. And then all the leads that nobody knew who they were, 10 years later, were like in everything. So, yeah, it's a fun movie to watch.

Oh. Look everybody at that point in time is in this movie yeah and of course at the time too this was kind of really feeding into my Jennifer Love Hewitt fascination. Oh yeah because actually this can transition into another romantic comedy that takes place a few years prior to Can't Hardly Wait which is the lesser known Trojan War. Again, I know the title. I don't even really know the premise of that.

The premise is, this is strange because the cast has a tiny bit of a Boy Meets World reunion. Because Will Friedle is the lead in the role. And then Jason Marsden, who's also in Boy Meets World, is like his best buddy in the movie. So it's kind of, you've got this funny little Boy Meets World thing. You've cut out the worst part of Boy Meets World.

So this is a good move, actually. But the whole premise of this is basically Will Friedle's character has a girl he's sweet on, which is Marlee Shelton. My favorite role of hers is Galbie Grindhouse, the planet terror. She has all the little needles and stuff like that. But she's awesome in a bunch of movies.

She's been in some interesting roles. But she is just a pretty cheerleader in this movie. He gets a moment where he gets to have, you know, like, You know, gets some alone time with her. He's going to have a date or whatnot. And he realizes he is sans prophylactic.

Hence the name Trojan War. So then the whole movie. This is a whole different thing now. So, like, he basically hangs out with the girl. And, you know, is, like, going to do the thing.

And realizes, oh, my God, I don't have a condom. She doesn't have any condoms. So he goes out to run to get condoms. And then basically that's kind of where the movie really gets crazy. And you get this whole kind of like crazy night events, lots of side adventures, lots of side adventures, um.

After hours, kind of a crazy adventure after another. And of course, being a Robert Rodriguez fan, I get a kick out of, uh, uh, Danny Trejo and Tito Levera, both being in the film and like a Mexican gang that, It starts off looking sinister, and they end up being very nice and helpful. Of course, because it's Danny Trey. Yeah, because Danny, yeah. And he gives him, like, a donut, and he's just like, let's be friends.

Yeah, but it's all. But. The funny thing is that Jennifer Love Hewitt plays Will Friedle's friend. Who she pines for him, he's all into the cheerleader, and then suddenly he realizes, oh wait a minute, I don't like the cheerleader, I really like my friend, who's Jennifer Love Hewitt. Does that happen in the real world?

It happens in movies and TV shows all the time, of like, I'm best friends with this person who's super hot, and is totally into me, but for some reason I'm going to completely ignore them. I know. I don't know how often I've seen that in the real world. And the movie was released in 97, again. Sat on the shelf for a couple of years.

So at the time this was made, she was still doing Party of Five. Yeah. So, you know, as opposed to Can't Hardly Wait, where she was already in her 20s trying to look like a teenager, she really was a teenager in this movie. Yeah. But yeah, again, had some good music in the soundtrack.

Everclear was still a fairly young band. No one knew them. And they did a really decent cover of Tom Petty's American Girl. Nice. So there's lots of good songs, but that's the one that stuck with me.

The movie ends with the Peter Murphy classic, I Will Fall on Your Knife, which is a great song. And strangely, though it sounds kind of stalkery, it's a very romantic song. What you would take from that title. Romance. Yeah.

But yeah, nonetheless. So that's my twofer of Jennifer Love Hewitt fascination of her romantic comedies. And then an interesting kind of similar plot because of, crazy stuff that happens is the, uh, 91 Ethan Hawke classic mystery dates. I think I saw that one in the theater. Now that I think about it, I'm like, is that Heather Graham?

No, that's Terry Polo. Which one of that? Heather Graham was, um, uh, the, uh, license drive. No, I thought she was in one. With Ethan Hawke though.

Maybe I'm, maybe I'm mixing all these movies together. I don't think so. At the time, Terry Polo looked exactly like Heather Graham at the time. Because they both had the same kind of long, curly blonde hair and very statuesque, lovely blonde women. Give us more on Mystery Date.

But again, it's another kind of like... Ethan Hawke is the younger brother, is interested in this girl, but he doesn't have the. You know, the chutzpah to ask her out. So older brother does it for him and sets up basically a blind date. And on his way to said date is like, you know, random events, you know, whatever else.

And then of course he actually gets to meet up with her. And then some of those random events catch up to them. So basically for a first date, it's one hell of a ride. But again, it's like much like Trojan war. It's kind of like this like madcap, you know, series of events that keeps happening over and over again.

Maybe I didn't see this one. I'm looking at the poster and there's shots of it here and I'm like, this... Because I think I would remember this era. This was a young Ethan Hawking. Oh, yeah.

This is coming off of Dead Poets Society. So maybe this needs to go on the list then. I'm just mixing it in. I think every movie is cuffs or something. Which I know I did see.

Oh my gosh, yeah. And even I was like, what are we watching? I'm not sure anymore. Well, I mean, I was such a big Pump Up the Volume fan. Oh yeah, definitely.

That's what won me over going into any of those movies after that. Yeah, anything with Christian Slayer was like. Pump Up the Volume. That was one that felt like a misstep. I was just like, dude, I'm on board with you, but what are we watching?

It's like he's a cop kind of? I guess. I don't know. I don't know. Oh.

But yeah, Mystery Date has got like And instead of the Latino gang in Trojan War, it's an Asian gang that basically Ethan Hawke gets embroiled with. But of course, these guys are actually like real Asian gangsters and he somehow offends them. And so like they're chasing him out throughout the whole movie. But yeah, it's another kind of fun madcap. There's a lot of adventures going on in these romances.

But it's really weird to see, especially now looking at the Moon Knight trailer seeing Ethan Hawke now versus like in 91 he looks like a baby. Oh, yeah. I was just looking at that photo. I was like, I forgot, going back to Dead Poets, how young he was in that movie. One that definitely falls under the obscure, but a solid film and definitely held on the shelf for a long time, much to its detriment, Dream for an Insomniac.

It came out in 96, but I think it was actually done in 94. It stars Ione Skye. I'm sold already. A pre-Friends Jennifer Aniston, who basically plays the friend to Ione Skye, not the lead in the movie. Take Ione Skye.

And then Mackenzie Austin is the male lead in this movie. That's one of those, like, under-the-radar girls of, like, if you were the right kind of guy, like, Ione Skye was, like, your chick for that era. She's the thinking man. Yeah. Like, she never got super famous.

Maybe because she kind of dropped out right at the point she probably was poised to. She was just like, meh, I'm done. So you didn't see her much for quite a while there. But, yeah, I think for the right kind of dorky guy... She was definitely there.

Yeah. I mean, she had, you know, some very, you know, it was like, you know, she had Say Anything, she had this movie, Gas Food Lodging, so she had some solid films. She was, yeah, she was, again, she was like a lead in a lot of stuff, but most of them, like Say Anything's probably the biggest thing most people would know her from even in that era. But yeah, she got a good amount of leads in like weird little indie films after that. And then after a while, just kind of took herself out of the run.

But the plot for Dream for an Insomniac is Ione Skye's character works in a coffee shop in San Francisco that her uncle runs, and she and her brother are working in the shop, and she's basically always kind of pining away for the right guy, but never quite finds him. She is also an insomniac, hence the name, so she has trouble sleeping, and when she does, she reads, and so she's a very artsy kind of person. There's also this big Frank Sinatra kind of vein running through the whole thing, because apparently Frank Sinatra was a distant friend to the uncle who runs the coffee shop. Frank came in one time and enjoyed the place and would come back when he came to San Francisco. They have a very strong affinity for Frank Sinatra, and so she wants to have a dude that has blue eyes like Frank.

Enter in Mackenzie Austin, who he comes in looking for a job, and he's got blue eyes just like old Frankie does. She's not real discerning, is she? Well, look, I need one thing. I mean, he's a nice-looking dude. He's a good-looking guy, but it's just that love at first sight kind of thing.

Only problem, wah, wah, wah, he's got a girlfriend. This is how it usually works, actually. Yeah. So anyway, so basically it's kind of the movie. It's like she's trying to get to know him and fall in love with him and get him to dump his girlfriend and go for her.

Eventually it does, and then the movie ends with her falling asleep in his arms. So the insomniac has found her man. But there's a really interesting. Sounds pretty solid. I'm on board with this.

It's a nice quirky little film. Like I said, it takes place in San Francisco, and they actually shot it in Frisco. So you get some lovely... It's a love letter to that movie. city. We will come back to San Francisco.

Uh, just pin a pin in that. Uh, but, uh, there's an interesting subplot in the movie that's kind of progressive for the early nineties, which was that, uh, Irony Sky's brother in the movie is gay, but he is posing like he's straight. And so Jennifer Aniston is basically like his, uh, his beard, essentially. Like, she's posing as his girlfriend, you know, just to put up a front for Uncle Leo. Well, finally, by the end of the movie, he reveals to Uncle Leo, hey, I'm gay.

And Uncle Leo's like, I've always known you were gay. I still love you. So, I mean, like, it's this wonderful moment of acceptance and coming out and everything looking great. And usually wasn't handled really well in that era. No.

But, of course, being in San Francisco, it was like, okay, you're going to have a lot more progressive people to that just because of per capita sort of thing. Yeah. Yeah, it's a nice progressive film and everything like that. But yeah, it's a lovely little movie. I've always championed it, and I'm always the only person who's ever heard of the damn movie.

No. I mean, I only sky probably forgot she did it. We'll see what we can do. Let's go ask her. Yes.

The last movie on my list, and probably, I would argue this is probably one of the finest romantic comedies, not only of the 90s, but period, because of its brutal honesty. And I'm talking about Chasing Amy. I was and still am a huge fan of that movie. I think we've discussed how much I've had to part ways with Kevin Smith over the years. But yeah, at that era, I mean, I still have like, it's a, it wasn't even a regular poster.

They did like a Sundance poster that I got. And found, I think, on their website back in the olden days when Kevin still ran his own website. So there's a Chasing Amy poster I have that's signed by him. Oh, cool. That when I saw Joey Lauren Adams, I got her to sign it.

So like, it's a shame because now I've gotten so like, I don't want to hang it up because I don't want to claim Kevin Smith anymore. But I love that movie so much that it like, it kills me that now I, it almost gets lost in everything that all the Kevin Smith baggage that he brings with him now. But at the time I thought that movie was revolutionary and like really kind of changed the way I was looking at movies at the time and definitely relationship movies. So I think it's impressive. Well, it definitely kind of, again, it's, it was ahead of its time because you're dealing with so many, you know, sexual identity issues, you know, like Joey Lord and Adam's, you know, is basically playing, you know, like she's a lesbian in the movie, but then she starts dating Ben Affleck because, well, okay, maybe it'll be, you know, I'll check him out, we'll see how it goes.

So we're getting into, you know, polyamory there. Again, her little speech there, like, it does seem like, oh, it's a weird, you know, plot convenience kind of thing just to make this gimmicky, like, and all of that goes away when, like, and I guess points to him for writing it, but, like, that little speech that she gives is like, oh, huh. Actually, that is really smart and clever and makes sense and makes you a real human being. And like it just it it strips away all the convenience of the bullshit that goes with writing this kind of a plot. Sure.

And like it makes it very genuine. And like some of it is her performance. Some of it is how it's written. But it's like. That made that whole thing work.

If anything else would have happened along the way, I feel like you wouldn't buy what goes on in that movie. But that moment is so genuine that you're like, alright, I'm on board. The rest of this story, I can see it happening now. Absolutely. We've seen, prior to this movie coming out, we've seen other movies, other TV shows where we've got either, you know, the white, you know, straight, you know, male or female comes in to save, you know, the poor gay soul, you know, sort of thing like that.

So we're going to convert them because I have boobs or I have a big wang, you know. You know, something along those lines. And this movie does not do that. It slams the door on that big time because you've got, you know, the stupid-ass Ben Affleck who wants to be the white savior and wants to, you know, make the confused gay girl straight because he loves her so much. And...

He gets to have his romantic moment with her and it fails miserably because he just can't get past her past sexual history. Which also is legit. It is one of those... By the end of the story, you're like, oh yeah, he's kind of being a jerk here. But at the same time, you're like, would you be any different?

And now we're getting people that are a little more open in their relationships and maybe it is something people have to deal with. But definitely at the time, people weren't really... open about that kind of stuff if it was going on so like I think for a lot of people it makes you kind of go I don't know would I be able to get over this you know because she had done not just the fact that she was a lesbian but a lot of other stuff in her sexual history so it's like when you're coming into a relationship and you're like coming from totally different backgrounds it's like it really does the whole little Bob speech is kind of that same thing it's like how do you get over that like how do you just be like okay it's just us right now.

Like we're not going to go into each other's past and drag up all kinds of stuff. And can you do that? Like, that's the hard part. Can you be okay with that? So again, I think there's really smart stuff that goes along in that screenplay.

Absolutely. And of course having Jason Lee's character be the friend, but also like, you know, they don't really come out, but they leave you at least thinking, is he questioning his own sexuality? You know, or is at least kind of like, I don't know. And you kind of really kind of, making him ponder his own thing. And he tries to get involved in it.

Of course that fails too. And then, you know, not only is a relationship broken up, but a friendship and a partnership is also broken up too. Yeah. It is one of those. And that's, that's an interesting aspect to it is like how un-Hollywood it ends.

You know, it's so different than what you would expect in your normal romantic comedy kind of thing that like, I don't know. It's, From that angle, I think it was really kind of different from what we were expecting, too, in any romantic comedy, but especially coming from a silly Kevin Smith movie that, you know... Only continued to get sillier as time has gone on. Yeah, I mean, for... So...

Yeah, it was like, Clerks was, you know, well, Clerks had its silliness, was, you know, had something to say. But still was well done, and. Mallrats was. Mallrats is goofy, but. Mallrats is goofy.

It's enjoyable goofy, and. And then Chasing Amy is like just. That's the pinnacle of his writing, I think. It really is, yeah. It is.

It kind of went all downhill from there, folks. He tried to at Dogma. He tried. Dogma's got great... I've said it before.

I think the worst thing about it is Jay and Simon Pop. They don't belong in that movie. If you take them out, it's a clever story. And it's really got grand themes and important things it's trying to address. And some genuinely funny comedic stuff, but it's just so forced in there with the Jay and Silent Bob nonsense.

And I think there was too much stunt casting, too. Yeah. You know, Affleck and Matt Damon casting as the angels, and Alasdair Morissette as God, and I was like, there was just a lot of stunt casting in there that kind of was distracting. Well, it's that same scenario. You've hit this peak of people aren't going to tell you no, because if you know him as a character... his weird Canadian Alanis Morissette thing.

Like that was just him checking a box of like, man, I sure would be cool to work with Alanis Morissette. And like, there you go. Like he's hit that pinnacle in his career where people were still letting him crunch up their screenplays, as we mentioned earlier, or make whatever dumb movie he wanted or cast whoever he did. He almost did a Superman movie. He tried.

Burton didn't go for it, but you know. Neither did the studio, and we got Wild Wild West. So there you go. It all came full circle. We got our giant spider, damn it.

But yeah, Chasing Amy is still, and I've seen it recently, and it still holds up. It's just, again, from somebody who, I think this was just him as a writer at that time. I think there's some really good, raw moments in clerks too that are like genuine writing and like you definitely get that in chasing amy that's like stuff that you kind of don't see at that era or since sometimes i feel like it's just it's such an honest version of what he's trying to say even if you don't like it even if you don't agree with it like it's genuine to who he was at that point in time and like i think that's what made it so different for me watching it at the time and i don't again like That person is gone now. Yeah.

But I don't even see other people doing stuff similar to that. I don't know. It's an interesting thing to think about now when it's come so far from what he did. Sure, yeah. But, yeah, I mean, a lot of those same themes are still kind of felt today.

You've got people that are, you know, coming into their sexual identities or they're still questioning it or kind of, you know, in combatants with themselves, let alone the outside world. That's what I think that one does pretty good, too, is not just Jason Lee being his friend that doesn't like what they're doing, but her friends genuinely don't like what, and, like, she's ostracized by her friends because she's with Ben Affleck. So, yeah, it does a pretty decent job of, like, seeing what a terrible situation they're in from every angle. Like, none of it's going well. Yeah, I always appreciate that basically when her other lesbian friends kind of drop her, like, they're in mourning.

Yeah. You know, it's like they feel like, you know, like she died. you know because. She's turned her back on us man yeah. Because she's gonna go hang out with a straight you know so and of course that doesn't work out either and then but yeah but it's interesting at the end of the film like everybody is genuinely in a good place so to speak from their career standpoints everybody's kind of doing their own thing but that's the thing they're doing their own thing they're not no one's together they're There's no collaboration. No one's calling each other on the phone.

Nothing. Yeah, it's just one of those, like, this is the hard life lesson thing. And, like, it sucks that it happened, but it needed to happen for everybody. Yeah. And, like, they all got to a better place eventually because of it, but it was painful going through at the moment.

And it's awkward afterwards. Yeah. Definitely. Yeah, they all see each other at a convention, and it's kind of like, hey, I've seen you naked. That's weird.

Anyway. So that is my six films that I'm contributing to the list here. Well, there's a bunch. Again, I'm looking at the regular list here, and most of them are just stuff. It's all just romantic, sappy stuff that we don't want to go into.

No, I mean, most of those are like, you know, They're fine for what they are. I mean, you know, it was like, you know, I can't deride anybody from like in a romantic comedy when I'm over here goofing off over superhero movies. I mean, it's fine if that's your thing. Yeah. It is interesting when you get a weird one, the one that just came up, there's a bunch of generic regular ones on this list, but then, um, just got to about time.

Ah, that is one that like, I was not prepared for it to be as good as it is and as different as it is. Like, It's the least time travel-y movie about time travel ever. Okay. It's way more romance than it is time travel, although time travel exists in it. It takes on this weird how to deal with a relationship when you have this sort of otherworldly power.

And it's the thing that won me over is I didn't really pay much attention one way or the other to Rachel McAdams. And then I saw that and I was like, oh no, oh no, I see why. Domhnall Gleeson is like an interesting lead because he's not normally who you would expect to be in that kind of role. And he's great at it. And then you see her and like, oh no, I totally buy them as a couple.

So if we're going to pick a genuine, a little more conventional version, that's one that, again, is not really conventional because it's a weird time travel movie that's also a romance more than anything. Yeah. I just saw that on the list and had to mention it. And it's weird you bring that one up because I've seen some stuff recently where people kind of bring up, like, I think Rachel McAdams may actually be a time traveler because she's done About Time. Yeah.

Then there's The Time Traveler's Wife that she's also done. And then she's now going to be in her second Doctor Strange film, which, again, there's some time travel involved in the first movie. The second Doctor Strange movie deals with the multiverse that's dimensional. Traveling, so. Is Rachel McAdams not entirely human?

And, like, I've seen her a lot of times since Mean Girls, and she doesn't look that different either. Yeah, she's out of time. She has aged very well. Almost like not aging at all, just changing hair color. So, maybe we're on to you, Rachel McAdams.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, she's a very attractive time traveler and a talented actress, so, you know. Again, that was that was the thing. I only knew her for Mean Girls before. And I saw that and was like, oh, maybe I need to watch more Rachel McAdams.

She's really good in this. So, yeah, I yeah, that was one of the few that came up on the regular list that I was like, all right, now that I can get by. But most of the other stuff you've already heard about. We don't need to tell you. So we'll just round it out with the one that I watched because yesterday I was like, all right, we're going to sit down and talk about that.

Maybe I've got enough time to watch one movie before we sit down today. Let's watch something. And I didn't know what. And I was like, can I pick just a regular movie and watch just to have something? And then I went out into the world looking for dorky DVDs like I do.

And I came across this one. And I will go ahead and call it out that you're going to know it, if not by the film, by the cover art. Because... I'm calling myself out, too. As an old person, you probably saw this in the video store every time.

This is one of those that was classic VHS box art that sat in every video store I ever went into. I'm going to hold it up right now as I found a copy of Thief of Hearts. That cover art is pretty much the same cover art that's been on there since the VHS copy. Oh, yeah. Look at that dude wow so i saw this and was like damn it that's what i'm gonna have to watch so in this past day i have watched thief of hearts steamy it is well see that's the thing because i never watched it before i saw this box art a million times and never picked it because i'm like This looks like something my mom would have picked at the time because this dude on the front's hot and he's wearing his black leather jacket and he's probably a bad boy and this married lady wants to get it on with him.

Guess what? That's the premise. Yeah. But it's also kind of a soft core porn too. Yeah.

I mean, I expected more of that. It's really pretty minimal on that. It's a little more. It's Skinamax. Yeah, it works more as like a Harlequin romance novel where it's all the buildup to it and no real payoff.

Yeah. You get, I mean, I genuinely laughed out loud. When he. Shows up, they have, I'm jumping ahead, but just to make the point of, At some point, she's going to meet him for... They're business acquaintances is what this has become.

This is a scam, by the way. I'll get back into the story. But at this moment, they're business acquaintances. Yeah. He sends her flowers and says, hey, come meet me at the marina or whatever.

She shows up. That's what professionals do, is send flowers. This is what defines this movie and why I enjoyed it so much. It is the most 80s movie ever. So.

She shows up and he's there on the dock in, I didn't see the label, but I'm going to say it looked like a members only jacket. And no shirt. Yeah. So then they get out on the boat after he gives her a check for a large amount of money. And then suddenly she's okay going on the boat with him where she wasn't before.

And I'm like, that just seems like he's paying for you now. Suddenly they're on the boat after he gives her a lot of money. And then he's not wearing a shirt. And he starts just oiling himself up. Yep.

That was, oh, laughing out loud. I don't think that was supposed to be the response. Oh my God. It is so cheesy. Yeah.

But again, very little actual sex scenes. There's maybe one in the middle. That's kind of it. There's a couple. And even that, it's, minimal as far as nudity it's very tastefully done i suppose yeah for moms everywhere did not be too scandalous when they watched this but okay we've jumped ahead let me go to the premise of this story so this is 1984 so we are right at the Right in the groove of, you know, you hit the early 80s and you're still coming out of the 70s.

So you don't really gel in the thing that is the 80s for a couple of years. But this. 84, you're definitely. In the 80s. 84, you are well into what is generically known as the 80s vibe.

And so everybody has got weird 80s hair. And they're wearing their weird 80s members only jackets. And. This is the thing. As soon as it starts, the music kicks in to get back to our music thing.

And this is why I was like, okay, we need to do more soundtrack episodes because I need to go get this soundtrack. It's got some classic 80s songs, but as soon as it kicks in, I hear the synths kicking up. I'm like, oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. This is going to be so 80s.

And then as the credits are rolling, I'm like, wait, wait. Does that say Harold Baltimore? Yeah. This is the first... real screen presence of Harold Fulton Meyer that same year, Beverly Hills cop comes out. Yeah.

So yeah. And from that point on, yeah. For the eighties, he is synonymous with, you know, if you want a cheesy Cynthia soundtrack, you go to Harold Fulton Meyer. So you've got that awesome soundtrack. This is also a, um, well, I seem to remember too, like the main, like love theme felt kind of like a, sideways, careless whisper.

It kind of had that very schmaltzy, sexy saxophone kind of thing. There's a lot of schmaltzy in this movie. Misguided schmaltzy. But no, the production team is Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer. This is kind of the first real... this, this era is like that coming together.

Cause this was again, right before Beverly Hills cop. And from that point on, it's like, they came out of flash dance. They did this movie. They go to Beverly Hills cop. So like this is sandwiched in between the things that they're going to be known for the most in this era.

And they're big, super successes that they kind of ride out until Simpson's not around anymore. So it's like, yeah it is so of that era visually definitely all of the 80s things going on of. Course you're looking at the cast here too it's kind of funny because you're like Stephen Bauer is your lead and that guy like god bless him he tried and But he was kind of like your third-rate Mickey Rourke. He's so... That's the thing.

I'm looking at him going, this guy... I don't argue the fact that most moms everywhere thought he was super hunky. I'm sure he's very conventionally handsome. But he also comes off, you're watching him, I'm like, I think I work with this guy at one point. He's still kind of a regular Joe kind of thing.

Almost so much so that you're like, are you sure he's the lead? It feels like he almost doesn't need to be the lead because he doesn't really pull in enough charisma to kind of bump him up to where they put him in this movie. The go-to, the John Gatz is the husband. And I'm like, he uh i don't know how she's with him he has glasses i mean he is such a loser it's interesting this little dynamic because she becomes the like that's why it's so harlequin romance because it's like you're obviously like oh i feel so sorry for this dorky guy that she's with and i expected him to make him like a businessman like a banker or some shit but he's He's a writer, but not even like, oh, he's a writer and he's doing some sort of mystery novel or something.

No, no. He's a children's writer. He's writing children's books. And he's still worried about his deadline. I'm like, do they have those?

I mean, I guess they do. It runs like a business. But still, it's weird. When he, this deadline's killing me and he's writing children's books. Well, strange enough, you kind of look back at John Goetz's career here and you got to look this guy up here, folks.

You'll recognize him when you see him. He's been in a bunch of movies. But he has a strange career of playing like asshole cuckolds. Mm-hmm. That's definitely this role.

He is. But he's kind of the cuckold in the fly movies. That's why. I was trying to remember why I knew him. I looked it up earlier.

I was like, oh, yeah. Right after this, he's in the fly. Well, he was in both of them. Oh, yeah. Here's our karaoke.

I just re-watched the second fly for some reason recently. And he's our only real thread that runs through the both movies. And then he's an asshole cuckold in one of my favorite basically forgotten 80s comedies. Don't tell mom the babysitter's dead. Because he's the boss at the place that she works for.

And he tries to get with her. And then he's like, oh, wait, it's a high school girl. The other one I should be liking, I don't. Yeah, poor bastard. So like David Caruso is also in Thief of Hards.

George Wendt. It's like this list of character actors. That was the thing. Once the credits start rolling, I was like, OK, I'm glad I've picked this one for no other reason than looking at some of these. Because that's the thing.

It starts off and like one of the first people we see is David Caruso. And I'm like, is he like 16? Like he looks like a kid. Yeah. And he has in that first scene.

I'm like, is this like a weird flat top guy? And then as you get further in, which I swear, I think maybe they shot that at a different time. Cause then like the next time we see him, it's almost full pompadour. Like it is a huge, and like, you know what his hair looks like. Do you need that much giant red hair?

Like it is a huge 80s haircut. Then I'm like, but he is still David Caruso. Like he is a dick. Like, He is what he grew to play perfectly. Even when he's our lead, he's kind of a dick.

You don't just get a touching role from David Caruso. He found his thing, and he stuck with it. I'm going to be the hero of this movie, but I'm also going to be an asshole. He is that even here. This is one of his first real film roles, and yep, he is still playing that from the get-go.

And this was that era. There's that 10 to 12 years where Even though he was never a lead at any random moment, you'll watch an 80s movie and George Wendt will be there. Yeah. He's never a main character. He's always got a handful of scenes.

And you're just like, hey, look, it's George Wendt. And like, he's like his friend in this one. So we get a couple of scenes of him like. well, do you think she's cheating on you? Yeah, I know. And like, there is, they're actually for two random dudes.

They're a little like more honest than you would expect actually. Cause at one point George went like, look, I've known you for a long time and you can be an asshole. I wouldn't want to live with you. So if she's cheating on you, there's probably a good reason. I was like, wow, that's pretty honest.

Like good for you for actually telling your friend there's a reason your wife doesn't want to be with you. Yeah, well, of course, the whole device, too, is that she has, like, some kind of, like, diaries, and she's, like, all sexy passages and stuff in there, her fantasies and stuff. Here's the thing. This is, I've skipped over the big hook of this movie. So, he's a professional thief.

Yes. As far as I can tell, he doesn't even have a real job. That is his job. Caruso, at the beginning, is working as, like, a valet at this fancy restaurant, and basically, the rich people come in to go eat there, so he knows they're not home. He calls on his walkie talkie, I think, and like he's got a CB or something that's hooked up to pretty boy.

What's his face here? And he's off lurking in the bushes around some house because he knows all these rich people that go to the restaurant. So he lets them know when they're not there. He goes to their house to steal stuff, and then I guess lets them know, oh, well, they just picked up their car, so you better get out of there. So this is their grand scheme of how they rip people off.

It's a decent operation. It's actually, yeah, it's a pretty good plan. I'll have to give them that. But yeah, so we get right off the bat, they're going to their anniversary dinner or whatever, and he goes to their house. And at first, he's just looking for stuff to steal, like you do.

Although for some reason they steal like super high end stuff. Like they steal artwork. So they're trying to fence artwork in other cities because artwork is kind of hard to sell. Especially when you don't want anyone to know where you got it. But apparently he's got a great fence.

But he knows, yeah, he knows the top quality stuff. So he gets really expensive artwork and steals it among other things. So there's a locked box in this cabinet that he assumes is like Jules or whatever and takes it and it's, her journals and then this is where this is where maybe the first time i was laughing because i was just like i don't i feel like most random people that break into your house you're not going to cut to later they're going to be at home cooking a fine dinner drinking a glass of wine and reading journals of this lady they robbed i. Mean she's a good writer she paints a. Picture I suppose she I mean, I was trying to decide if I'd seen other things.

She is an attractive lady. I get it. I get why I get suckered in. But it is just very odd. The turn of these like suddenly he's like this super. just sensitive guy that really is misunderstood.

And he ended up in this life of crime. He's a thief with a heart of gold. Yeah, I was thinking that as we get the running theme from the other angle is the hooker with the heart of gold for guys. But this is like the bad boy with the heart of gold. He doesn't really want to be a criminal.

He just needs a good woman to set him on the path. I just didn't pass math class. So, yeah, I call bullshit on all of this. But it's... It is quite entertaining, again, mostly for the performances in the 80s, the music.

She's also, again, I'm a sucker for some interior design. She works as an interior designer. But this is also like 1984 idea of interior design. So like everything, we see her do like a show that has... I don't know what they're doing.

She supposedly designed a kitchen, but they get there and it's just a big open room. I'm like, there's not... There's a stove over there, maybe? Where's the fridge? But I was like, how do you...

Yeah, you're supposed to do a house and go there and everybody does a room, but this is just a big-ass convention center. She was a better writer than she was a designer. I don't know. But then later, that's the go-to. He pretends he's a businessman and he gets her to...

Come do some work at his apartment. Again, coming from Flashdance. His huge, fabulous apartment loft that I guess if a life of crime would let you, better than a welder, would. Allow you to live there. 5,000 square feet, not a wall in sight.

Yeah, it's huge. It's brick. It's got a loft bedroom up there. It's very impressive. But then you flash forward to later when she does her magic on it.

It's the most... Like in your face, cheesy, contemporary, like everything is primary colors and big bold patterns and just empty minimalist weird artwork shit. And I'm just like... I'm a sucker for that kind of stuff to some degree, but I'm like, this is like a bad version of it. Like, oh.

Like when he breaks over there, he's going to have to find another interior designer. Well, that's the thing. I was like, at some point then he's getting into trouble. He's like, oh, I'm out of here. And I'm like, oh, the poor bastards who own that building.

They're left with this weird contemporary bullshit in their place. They'll never re-rent it. Or maybe you'll find some weird artsy person. I don't know. Did he pay off his bill entirely?

Does he still owe her money? I don't know. I don't know where you got that much money for primary colors. He sold a Van Gogh somewhere, I guess. I guess, because.

Yeah, it's... I do remember, I didn't see this in theaters or back in the day, but it would pop up definitely in the Skinamax list of, you know, your soft core, there's some nudity, and they try to do a real film. Minimal, by the way. I was expecting more, really. I thought that would win me over.

But even though, even on the back here, he's not wearing a shirt. They're banking again. It's all moms. It's like middle-aged women that really think this scenario might happen to them at some point. That's who they're banking on for this one.

Because you don't really get much action in it. And even, that's the part I thought was funny. Anytime they're to get, like he does sort of win her over in the beginning. He comes off as kind of being smooth and suave. But then, like, once they're together, she seems miserable the whole time.

Like, every time they cut to her, even during the sex scene, like, she looks miserable. And I'm like, ah, finally, an aspect of this I understand. She's very high. Making a woman miserable. I get this.

Yeah, this makes sense. She's very high maintenance because, you know, poor husband John Getz can't satisfy her or do anything for her. Then she gets the steamy affair, and he can't do anything for her either. It's like, good God, woman. Oh, yeah.

She needs a therapist. They're all too much damn trouble. Because early on we get a shot of him and Caruso keeps hooking him up with girls and he doesn't want anything to do with them. Right. Because he's so sensitive and he wants a real woman, not this hooker.

I want some ditzy dame. I need me a real lady. In the beginning he gets some girl that's just turned 18 and is there being a prostitute. And once again, a loving sex scene where she's on top of him and he's like, Get off me. I was like, ah, this is touching.

I love this romance. Get off me. No, it's not going to happen. And then he gives her a ton of money for not having sex with him. I guess that's the optimum situation when you're a hooker.

I don't know. If you enjoy bitter love scenes that just completely disinterested people in each other, check out Thief of Hearts. I'm telling you, it is so not. For something that sells it like that, it kind of doesn't deliver on any of these things. Other than, I mean, the dude takes his shirt off a lot.

If that's what you're looking for, you're fine. He takes his shirt off more than she does. Oh, yeah. That's the thing. We don't get much from her at all.

There's a little bit. Just another look. Oh, nope. It's gone now. So, yeah.

You don't get much from her. You get a lot of him with his shirt off. But even then, he goes very quickly from being troubled bad boy that needs to be redeemed to... this guy's just a screw up. Like you really don't want to be with this guy. So it, it is interesting to watch because it is that like wish fulfillment of like, don't wish too hard for this.

Cause then you get it and you realize, Oh, this is terrible. Like I so don't want to be with this guy. And he's got this troubled past that makes him a bad boy is going to come back to bite you in the ass. So like, yeah, it's not, you better just stick with your boring ass husband and not worry about it. And, Maybe all this will make the relationship stronger.

We'll have to see. Go watch Thief of Heart. Ladies, just buy a sex toy and get the internet. No, seriously. We've got internet now.

We don't need to watch this. Yeah. There's no need for affairs. We have Pornhub. The only reason to watch this is for my purposes, which is cheesy 80s-ness, an awesome cheesy soundtrack.

And George went? I don't know. That's pretty much it. Nothing says love like Harold Faltermeyer. Damn skinny.

Yeah, it was an interesting ride. I'm glad I went on, but not for the reasons I think they intended. Man, that's a flick I haven't seen in a while. And yeah, I'm kind of glad about that. Yeah, it's again, I think we should return to it with our soundtrack.

That's where the fun is. The movie itself doesn't quite, like, it really is. They even mention in the facts it's, like, coming off of, production-wise, coming out of, like, Thief. So, like, Thief is doing a very 80s, like, crime version of this concept with that same style of shooting and music and, like, but you want to watch Thief. Yeah.

This is the other version of, like, oh, no, this is, that same team got together to make a Harlequin romance and it's, It's just not delivering for anybody, really. Well, the big difference is that Thief had James Caan and Michael Mann at the helm at his high point. So, yeah, Thief is going to be a much better film. They also tie it to the other one that I know my mom would have watched at the time. So I'm pretty sure every mom that rented this was like, oh, man, I wish I would have got American Gigolo.

Yeah. Because that, I think, kind of delivers for most of them that want to see Richard Gere with his shirt off. Probably not now, but back in the 80s, sure, I guess. Yeah. So, that was my entry for.

Wow. One more for our Valentine's wrap-up here. So, definitely go check out Thief of Heart. For all the wrong reasons. Yeah, yeah.

It's a lesson in what not to do and a lot of reasons. Yup. It was an interesting watch. Oh, man. No shabbats.

All right. Well, I think we've given everyone a lot to work with. I think we have here. Some ones they might not have heard of, might not have thought of for Valentine's Day, and maybe one to watch for a whole different reason. So.

We'll have to see. We definitely need to come back to the soundtracks. Whether or not we need to return for more romance next Valentine's, I don't know. But we got in some good ones this year. We did.

We did, yeah. Yeah. I think we've given people something to work with. Something different to check out. As opposed to the, you know, Julia Roberts, Goldie Hawn's daughter, can't remember her name.

You know, Sandra Bullock stuff, you know. I'm a sucker for While You Were Sleeping. That's all I got to say. the early ones with all of them i was on board with but as time went on they just kept trying to do those things again and it didn't work and although i did just see the trailer for that new sandra bullock movie and i'm kind of on board with it as cheesy as it's sort of like what if we took the idea of romancing the stone and went way further with it okay she's like a romance novelist that's writing kind of that same joan wilder stories adventure stories with the dudes with their shirt off on the cover so the idea is they're the cover art or the fabio of these novels is um the hell's his name shit now i gotta look at uh john cena oh god um Fucking 21 Jump Street.

What's that dude's name? Oh, Channing Tatum. There you go. Our Harlequin romance novel Fabio wannabe is Channing Tatum with his long hair, which has been a bad wig. So the scenario is like he thinks he is that character, not delusionally, but he's sort of built himself up as though he really thinks he's this guy on the cover of these romance novels.

And even she's writing like, Dude, what is wrong with you? These are sappy romance novels. You're not that guy. So some weird guy comes along and kidnaps her because she's working on a book that has a map to a treasure and there really is a treasure. So he thinks she's going to lead him there.

So he kidnaps her and takes her to this other country and Channing Tatum thinks that he's going to come rescue her to prove that he really is the guy. And then somewhere along the way, Brad Pitt gets involved. Who actually is like the cool tough guy with the long hair. I don't know. It seems cheesy enough I'm on board.

Interesting. If you want to put that on your looking into the future to see a weird kind of a more comedy than romance probably but. It looks like Miss Congeniality goes to another country and gets caught up in some sort of wacky scenario. It's sort of interesting, too, of pairing up romantically Sandra Bullock and Channing Tatum. Yeah.

It's a little bit of a May-December. I mean, not like Sandra Bullock's in her 70s or anything like that, but it's like she's in her, what, late 40s, I'm thinking? I would say so by now. Yeah, and then Channing is probably, what, in his 30s at this point? So, yeah.

Just a little bit. Well, probably at least a 10-year difference. That's interesting. I'm okay with that. Yeah, I go to Broadway.

Most things with Sandra Bullock, though. I just watched her weird prison movie on Netflix. Or getting out of prison movie. Okay. She's really good.

Like, again, she's proven herself time and again as an actress. But it's fun to see her sort of return to the comedy stuff, too. Okay, I see the last thing I saw her in was Bird Box. I watched that, too. It's...

She's not the problem with that. It's got problems, but it's not her. Yeah, the book's a hell of a lot better. Let's put it that way. My wife could tell you that.

She's actually currently reading the sequel to Bird Box, which is called, was it Marjorie or Mallory or whatever her name is in the book. But yeah, so the books are better. I don't stand by that at all. Well, it's kind of hard to. Do a movie about a creature that the audience can't see.

They did the best they could within there. I think it's so many other things going on in that movie that throw it off, really. We'll save that for another episode. We will. Let's just round out our sappy romance and you can look forward to seeing a weird Sandra Bullock movie.

Alright. Otherwise I'd say that about does it. Indeed it does. We hope you've loved this episode. Good luck to you.

If not go get some Reese's Cups and See what weird message it gives you, and it all comes full circle. Eat me. Eat me. Otherwise, that about does it. We will return next time, same geek feed.

Thanks for listening. Buh-bye. I love the light in your eyes and the dark in your heart. You love our permanent chase and the bite of our bark. We know we're classic together like Egyptian gold.

We. love us. It don't matter become bad if I'll be sweet cherry pie it don't matter just as long as I get all you tonight. I can take you out oh oh we can get some time stay home throw the loose teddy bears and the chocolate eclairs away Got nothing but love for. You, for more love every day. Valentine.

Valentine. So deep, your DNA's being messed with, my touch can't be us. So real fueling the fire until we combust can't touch us it don't matter. We come out of. All be sweet cherry pie it don't matter just as long as i get all you tonight i can take you out We can kill some time to stay at home.

Throw the blue. Steady bears and the chocolate eclairs away. Got nothing but love for you, for more love every day. Valentine. Valentine.

I feel the pain. Don't wait. Have your cake and eat it too. Full plate, don't wait. Have your cake and eat it.

I can take you out, oh, oh. We can kill some time, stay home Throw the blue city bears and the chocolate eclairs away Got nothing but love for you, for more love every day Valentine Valentine Valentine Valentine Valentine. And also for somebody who was, like, writing a sexy journal and, like, I've got, you know, like, I want to do all these things. When she, like, finds a dude who, like, does some, like, some, you know, sexy things or, like, tries some different positions. Like, she is so, like, thrown off and appalled by it or, like, just unprepared.

I'm like, that sex scene is so uncomfortable because she just looks miserable. I know. And I'm like, I mean, again. get it it's the i'm cheating on my husband and i'm not okay with that but i'm still doing it because i think i want to do it because i wrote all these stupid stories and like i again i made this bet with myself and now i don't want to cash in on it. But usually the regret sort of happens like after the sex not knowing yeah it's yeah. It's an awkward scene.

I understand the writers are trying to be economical, but good God, man, give her at least five minutes of joy. Yeah. I mean, at least make it seem like there's usually, yeah, like you're swept up with the romance and then you don't. think about it until after the fact. They're like, oh God, what have I done? I've screwed up my whole marriage.

We don't even get that. Like they're in the middle of it and she's just like, I don't like this. Or either that, like maybe like a couple of sessions and she's having a good time. Yeah. And then like number three is like, okay, now I'm starting to regret this.

But no. That's what I'm saying. That's why it's not super like with the sex scenes because I think they only do it once. Like maybe off screen they supposedly have done it more, but we kind of only see that one time. And it's awkward!

This episode is a production of Movie Meltdown, produced and edited by The Oddity Studios, with the opening music performed by The Empires. For more on how to sponsor or support the show, email producer at moviemeltdown.com. Talk hard! This program is a proud member of the Battleship Pretension Fleet.