Chances Are

Weir. Wait, so it has been a minute since the three of us did an episode together. I think we're talking about it before I turned the recorder on. But I think the last time the three of us did an episode together was nine to five ooh, probably around sometime this time last year. It seems like, I don't know, it's been a long time, but y'all are still doing the podcast together.

So that's all that matters as far as I'm concerned, is that every other week people can still find y'all's show over on Eighties TV Ladies. Isn't that right? Sharon and Susan, the host of Eighties TV Ladies, You are correct, And sometimes it's more than once every two weeks. Every now and then we'll add a couple extras in there, but yes, basically every other week, Eighties tv Ladies is there for you. It's Susan.

It's trending closer towards weekly. I no, no, no, kicking and screaming like no, no, no, because I really got us into a hot box buy. But I made us do three in November and three in December and then four in January. Something crazy happened. It was because we there was a lot, a lot of things that happened, and some things turn into two partners and you know, or three.

We haven't done a three parter, No, not yet, but you know yet yet yet. So funny because I think the word is out because people come on and they just start talking to us and we take all afternoon. Are you personable? Funny? People like your show?

Your show's won awards. I mean there's I mean, clearly y'all are entertaining. I mean, I don't think I don't think that this is a hard thing to believe at this point. But you know, thank that's just me being complimentative. But that may be where the compliments stop because on this episode of the Culture Cast, Susan I did it just to get Susan's reaction was pretty priceless.

On this episode of the Culture Cast, I'm still your host, Christasi and I'm joined by the hosts of eighties TV Ladies, Sharon Johnson and Susan Lambert Adam, and we're gonna be talking about not a Julie Andrews movie, unfortunately, but a movie that is somewhat related to something that y'all are talking about on yours. Y'all's y'all's yours' show. And we'll talk about that connection when we get to it. But on this episode of the Culture Cast, we're still in Romantic I wouldn't say comedies, but Romantic movie Month, and we're talking about a nineteen eighty nine film with one of the one of Holly, with one of Hollywood's biggest stars in it, Robert Downey Junior. But but not that, but not that Robert Downey Junior, a very different Robert Downey Junior, because in nineteen eighty nine he wasn't Iron Man.

He was just a guy making a romantic comedy with Sybil Shepherd and Ryan O'Neill and Mary Stuart Masterson. And that movie is called Chances Are? Have we met before? What if you suspected you had once been someone else? Do you know?

Jeffs And take Corin Randolph with a wife? Do you know about past lives? A best friends? Great to see you again, Miranda and a daughter. I don't believe this.

I was Louis Jeffries. I thank you my wife, And what if your chances are you were right? Polly wants is your money? She wants my body? That was Cleopatra, Annibal or someone great or famous.

I know you and Cleopatra remember this. I didn't believe it either. First he told you that I'm Louie now and I'm Cleopatrus. You are not clear, Sibil Shepherd, Robert Downey Jr. Ryan O'Neil.

Chances are rated PG no. So the film is directed by emil Ardolino and its stars, like we've already talked about a little bit, Robert Downey Junior, but the important person is Sybil Shepherd who she's the connection to the thing that y'all talked about on your show Moonlighting, and that's I would assume that's the reason. I'm just gonna guess that's why we're talking about it, and it's all about Robert Downey Junior. I can't believe we're have to go through the plot of this movie. It makes very little sense, but it's okay.

I I low key loved that this movie is at times a romantic comedy, a movie about dying, and then also a body swap movie. It's like three things all at once. Robert Downey Junior plays a man who dies, who gets resurrected but remembers that he dies, which is not supposed to happen, and then he falls in love with his own daughter. Broad strokes well sort of, I think might want to pick Yeah, Yeah, I'm gonna kick it to Sharon first. Sharon thoughts history experiences with chances are well, let me let me correct your discussion just a little.

He meets uh he he Sibil Shepherd's husband. Civil Shepherd's character's husband dies and when he goes to heaven, they decide to send him back to have another life, but they they don't inject him with the serum that makes him forget everything, so he Robert Downey Junior's character grows up, meets Sibyl Shepherds and his previous life's daughter. They are starting to fall in love, and then when he needs Sybil, they starts remembering who he was before and figures out. So he does not fall in love with it. So it's a litle bit more complicated than that, but any of that, he doesn't fall in love with his daughter, yeah, though though he is physically attracted to her.

That's where he realizes, right, right, all the memories come back. But it's not as weird as I made it sound. Yeah, because they skirt it being that weird. They try to skirt it being that weird. I don't.

I don't think there's any way to get around how kind of odd the plot is. But I mean again, like it's the fantastical realismum at all is not meant to You're not meant to focus on certain things. It's like with Back to the Future. The fact that everybody gets hung up on one thing about that movie probably irks everybody who made that movie. This movie obviously faces that head on.

So share, I mean, Susan Sharon, whichever one of you wants to go first in terms of experience feelings with the movie, Uh, kick it off please. I saw it in theaters, as you Rosthully did back then when it came out, and I very much enjoyed it. It was it was fun rewatching it ahead of this podcast, although I remember for pretty much all of it. I I don't know that there was anything that I that I saw in my rewatch that I didn't remember. I thought it was I always thought it was charming.

I thought it was fun, and I enjoyed it. Susan and I also saw this movie when it came out. Simple Shepherd was again at the height of her eighties fame because Moonlighting was just ending right and and and Robert Downey Junior was at the beginning of his massive trajectory. Uh and and so this was one of the roles. I do remember everyone in it being so poppy, like Maryster Masterson, who doesn't have a lot to do nor a lot of screen time, which was something I did had not remembered, just popped off the screen.

She was just so like, You're like, she's great, and she didn't I mean, they didn't do I realized in kind of rewatching it, other than kind of be a little bit entranced by Robert Downey Jr. But I thought the whole cast was really good. And it's Ryan O'Neill, like, You're like, what is happening where this is this huge star studied romantic comedy for the time. And I remember sort of liking it enough just because of those performances. What I remember is really liking the people in it.

I had sort of forgotten what it was about, except I knew it was sort of a body switching or something. The romance gets a little unsavory in retrospect, I did go someone other than me is saying it thankfully because I think, I literally think that I would be so curious to see Back to the Future had been such a huge success, And there's something about this movie that sort of is trying to back to the future itself, even though it doesn't sort of fit. I feel like a lot of that was brought about by the massive success of Back to the Future and the and and and kind of somebody going, oh, but wouldn't it be funny if and and really trying to milk some of those moments or something for first dramatic pension.

And yet there's something about the it's and here's it, here's what it becomes a gender issue. This is very interesting because you know, we're looking at moon Lighting Light right now on the show several episodes, and and one of the things we look at is gender and back to the Future. And I, you know, I don't know if I assume everyone has seen Back to the Future that's listening, but maybe not sure. Hope that he goes back and ends up kind of being skewed by his mother when his mother is a teenager in high school. And then his mother is attracted to him her own son in the future, but she doesn't know that he's just this weird, cute guy, and so it's it's in Back to the Future.

It's also a little bit sort of creepy, but it's also very funny. And I think the difference is you forgive it a lot sooner than you than I did, and chances are and I was like, why is it not bothering me? Why didn't Back to the Future not bother me as much? Now I haven't watched it recently, and I think, again, we are much more aware of how gender and sexuality and sexual attraction plays into consent and all those things. But it's it's a young woman being attracted to a young man in Back to the Future, and that's the whole driver.

And from the get go, Michael Jay Fox's character No was that and is sort of scrambling away from that, right And that's where the comedy comes in and the joy of it. In this movie, they spend a little too long with him romancing Mary stir Masterson, his own daughter, before he realizes it, and then by that point she's been entranced by him and then is sort of chasing him. But it's not nearly as charming. It's much less charming because meanwhile, her own mother is now like he's attracted to her own mother, and so it gets very very weird, very quizlies. However, I still like the performances in it.

It just it was very challenging that particular part for me, in looking back at it, you know, interesting, I was I actually thinking about it. I had actually put those two movies together in my head and regards to the a romantic entanglement, if you will, I as I'm as I think about it now I am more or whatever the phrase is squigged out by the back to the future that I am in this one. Oh interesting. And here's why you're right. She doesn't know that this is her son.

He is biologically her son. He knows that he is biologically her son, and so of course he's like no way, Jose. But I always felt a little kind of icky about the whole thing and this, And chances are, when Robert Downy Junior meets Mary Stuart Masterson, he is this whole new person with his own memories, with his own life, and it's only after he meets her mother that all these memories that belong to this whole other person come back to him. And he very you know, is very much aware that in his mind that this is his daughter, but there's no biological connection between the two of them, unlike in Back to the Future. So it doesn't bother me nearly as much.

This is all in his brain maybe at some point in my life, you know, you know that, So it it that part of it did not have that kind of effect on me as compared to Back to the Future. That's interesting because you're right, he is. I was like, but but his daughter is related to the other soul, the you know, the the person, the other person who was physically a different person than Robert Downing Jr. So you are you are correct. It is actually fine, right, like, and it is that weird thing of like, you know, if you really look at reincarnation and you go, oh, we're all reincarnated souls all the time, then inevitably someone is going to be dating somebody that they were related to in their previous life, right, and that's you know happen.

Well, that's what the I mean, that's what the that's what the character of the Susan Rutten character, the woman at the bookstore, that's the whole thing, right, She's like, you know, your your grandfather may be your dog now or you suthing to that effect. And like, I mean, I've never gone and done it. I've had people tell me about their experiences with like, uh, like p L what is it, p L Past Live Yeah, PLR, past life progression. Like I've had people that have told me about it, and they they've they've told me that they've gone and like had like these really deep experiences and like this, I mean again, like this movie isn't a weird category of these movies where it's like the machinations of Heaven need to be examined by us to then like and what's funny is like this is the Is this the third fucking movie in the last six months?

I've oh, Heavenly Dog and then something else that I just wanted to Heaven can wait? Have you ever done having to go wait on your show? No? Oh, because that's that's one of the better ones. Again as I remember it, Uh, what the other one was?

We just we just talked about it with one of the freaky one of the Freaky Fridays. It was a Chevvy It was a was it a Chevy Chevy Chase movie? Oh? I know what it was? We were talking about Oh God, I have it here.

A Matter of Life and Death, which another romantic movie that has David Niven in it, and he dies where he's supposed to die, and Heaven misses that he was supposed to die, and so they come to reclaim his soul from Heaven. So Heaven comes and screwed up, and they're coming back to take him back to Heaven, and he's fall in love with Kim Hunter. So he's like, no, I'm gonna essentially stand up for myself and I'm gonna hire an attorney to speak my case in front of the heavenly tribunalize to why I should survive. So it's interesting that, like so many people are so interested with the machinations of what Heaven is doing, and everybody's just looking for some sort of explanation as to what happens if you just get hit ignominiously by a car in the middle of the road, which I think, I mean obviously, I mean that's like the saddest part of this movie is Christopher McDonald just getting like hit by your car of all things.

And what's funny is like I think for me, I enjoyed this movie. It's kind of a mix of a bunch of different things. There's some ghosts in there too, like oddly, especially like the way he died, because correct me if I'm wrong. In the guy in Ghost dies while crossing the street, right, Patrick Swayze, it hits hits by a car, right, But it's he's been murdered, right, And so that was and so that's the thing here, Like I feel like there was a weird narrative. I spoiled Ghost long bast and anyways, the only thing anybody remembers some ghost, I think at this point is saddling up to the spinning wheel.

But my point being like I feel like they narratively missed an opportunity in this movie because they introduce this this thing with a judge early on, and they're like, hey's an attorney and he's gonna find out that this judge is dirty. And it literally goes fucking nowhere, and then it comes back and I shit you not in the last what five minutes of the movie, they're like, oh right, oh right, there's this thing that we could do something with. And it was like, wait a second, why wasn't that the motivation for why he was killed? Why wasn't that the reason he died. Why wasn't there something to actually narratively tie these together, because otherwise it seems extraneous because by the time he's like, I remember taking a picture of you in nineteen you know, eighty and blah blah blah, and you're a crooked judge.

And they notice that he's you know, Ryan O'Neil, and Sybil Shepherd noticed that he's saying that, like they already more or less believe him at that point. I guess Ryan O'Neill doesn't, but Sybil Shepherd does. And for me, like I enjoyed the movie, but I think the movie tries too hard to do too much and that like narrative thing with like the judge and stuff, it just gets in the way of the story, which I think is an interesting story. I don't think it's the most original story in the world. But I mean again, when you have this kind of saying, like a body swap movie, like you have to kind of nail certain beats every time.

There's always gonna be like the scene where people find out and the scene where people don't believe him, and the scene where he has to content, And it's like those beats are here, they're done really well. It's just there's some other stuff that just kind of doesn't need to be there, And that's taking out the whole like weird optic of you're someone your your consciousness is in someone else's body, and you're falling in love with your wife again. But also the consciousness in the body is charming enough to cause your daughter to fall in love with it as well, because I don't think he's intentionally trying to fall get his daughter to fall in love with him, at least that's not the sets that I got.

Yeah, he doesn't remember, he doesn't have those memories at that point when he meets the daughter. Yeah, when they meet, it's a meet cute. And I think one of the challenges of the film is when they meet, you're like, this is great, basically great, right, and then you're like, oh wait, hold on, we're gonna screw this up. I mean, I really do. It does feel like about three different films right when you spark in it, and it's long.

It takes a long time for that first act to happen because they spend a lot of time with Sybil Shepherd uh and uh. Christopher mcdonnd Miristepher McDonald, thank you being in love and uh and they're very odd relationship with Brian O'Neill. Okay, thank you for mentioning that Ryan O'Neil did the house guests who just lives in their house with them after they're married, like you know, a movie if you want, if you want it to be an unconventional relationship, I don't think anybody's gonna say anything like, this's kind of what it seems like, right like a little bit. But I think for me, what I always remembered about one of the many things I always remembered about this movie is how I don't know, I think on some level when I first saw it, because you know, again there had been so many different kinds of movie swaps and stuff like that, I somehow thought that Christopher McDonald's character was going to there were some how going to figure out how to bring him back.

Oh, I didn't know, you know, very odd and I found that a little heartbreaking because the idea that someone you love who has died comes back. Who that's wishful film that who doesn't want that, you know, who who's had loss in their life doesn't want that and they did spend a good amount of time on that relationship. So when he's back, albeit in another body, there was this part of me was like, Oh, my gosh, wouldn't it be great if these two people that you know, that fell in love could somehow resume their life together, although it makes no sense because anyway, So I think that was hanging over my head as I was watching it the first time, and even this time. Wouldn't it be better if they could rekindle their relationship as opposed to her literally watching him die.

She literally watches him die like then that's the last interaction that they have up until he comes back. So it's very Yeah, it's very weird because the movie seems to forget what story it's telling in the last five minutes of the movie. It's like, oh, there's the thing with the camera and the lawyer and the judge. It Oh, it's like no, no, no, no, the steffth Christopher MacDonald's why we're here. Don't just get rid of his care like he literally is just like let out the door.

We don't even know what happens to his consciousness. Effectively, it's like he's just gone. I guess that again, the canics of that that inoculation are never explained, but it would lead me to believe that that's going to cause him to forget the life that he had before being reincarnate, right, which he forgets everything, So it's like even worse. That's okay, so they remember and he doesn't. Awesome, Like, how were they going to ever explain that to anybody?

What happened? Like, well, my dead husband came back in the body of this person here who's now married to my daughter, Like, well, do you explain that to anybody? I Ah, No, probably not. I'm just like, that's a very weird, Chris fucking shared psychosis. For like a month, we all believe that our husband is back.

That's the thing, Like, you know they family Christmas tones that you get about here's what happened this year. Yeah, I mean like it literally like it would be like, what in the fuck is happening in this family right now? And my husband came back in the body of a younger man and we went away, And it really made me sad when someone referred to him as my son, so much so that I nixed the entire relationship off of that. If anything was disturbing in this movie. It was simple.

Shepherd's lack of resolve for her relationship with Robert Downey Junior. One person saying your son was enough for her to be like uhh ikey, like wow, really like this is this is Christopher McDonald, this is what you've always wanted. And someone going your son and she's like, well, never mind, I have no interest in this. It's like really because like I don't think it's not illegal what they're doing. It's just you know, it's like a you know, May December romance like and they're not simple.

Shepherd doesn't even look whatever age she is. He's like she looks like yeah, I mean they all do. I mean that's the thing. You look enough to have Mary Sturtmaster's son, and they're like your son. It's like a fucking come on movie.

Really, like that's what we're doing here. That's the thing. I mean, like you mentioned Susan, the idea that like someone that you love comes back to you and then at the end they're just like meah, whatever, that was fucking weird. But that's what they're gonna just say at the dinner table, like that was a weird thing that happened. Yeah, right, let's never talk of this again.

They're not really doing service to They have one too many plot lines going yeah, right, and they don't they I think this is a writing problem, maybe you know, even a directing problem. And that's a great director, by the way. You know, he did some great movies emil Ardolino Dirty Dancing before this. I was like, maybe this was his first one, and then I was like, no, no, he did Dirty Dancing before them, which is so well crafted, so kind of masterly directed that you're like, you sort of forget how serious it is and all these things that happen, and that thing I think holds up pretty well. I've ever seen it.

It was gonna come out eventually, if only this visual medium. You could see my two co hosts right now just just resigned to the fact that they're talking to somebod who's never seen Dirty Dancing, that's seen the dis before they saw Dirty Dancing. Oh I'm so sorry. I do know the phrase nobody puts baby in the corner. That's from that movie, right, That's not from Full Loose, the other movie I haven't seen that's about dancing.

It is correct, you are correct, it's but anyway, getting back to Genes. I feel like in that scene you were talking about where somebody makes a comment about Robert Johnny Junior being you know, Syls, Sybil Shepherd's son, that me was the beginning of her basically going, you know what, I'm not that same person I was twenty five years ago, right when he died. And yes, of course I still love him, but I I apparently have moved on and I really didn't know it, and I'm okay with letting him go. With this point, that was the beginning of that for me. Maybe I'm feeling perhaps I'm filling in the blanks, but I know that that was part of the journey emostly that I went on as I was watching the movie, and I think that it is one of the journeys they was there.

I think, I literally think this was a different movie on the page at when it started, I agree, and then it became it's like, oh well, well, if they're going back. It got developed into something that was trying to be too many things. It was trying to be you know, Heaven Can Wait and back to the Future and all of Me and you know all these you know, it was trying to be a movie about dealing with grief and loss and a funny romantic comedy, romantic comedy about bodies, about your soul coming back and a different body. Yeah, all of me. That's the movie that the yeah boy, yeah yeah.

And so I think I think that's the challenge of the movie. Is it sort of never for me, It never quite settles, just when you're like, Okay, this is about it, because they the Sybil Shepherd stuff of I'm stuck in this grief. I loved this guy and he was killed suddenly, and I will never get over that he was killed suddenly while I was pregnant with our baby. That's a brutal Yeah, this is not romantic comedy stuff. And I watched him die in front of me.

Okay, I's like to point that out. I get be murdered or my murder just struck out in the middle of the street by a car. Yeah, that's some deep trauma for Saturday to get out and that and then and then in many ways the way it's structured, that's the story they're telling. Then at the end, she gets the chance to be back with him and realizes that she actually has to let him go, that him coming back isn't the same because he's coming back the same as he left and she is twenty five years down the line, and so that is a whole story. You could spend a whole movie just on that arc, but you also have to do Robert Downey Junior's arc, and you also have to do like all these like and then you're also trying to make it really really funny.

And isn't it funny that everybody's attracted to the wrong person. I didn't find this movie super funny, Like I mean, I mean he was charming, like yes, like funny like again, like I feel like there is a funny premise in here. I'm not sure the movie is committed to telling that funny premise. I think the movie is like the movie should have committed itself to being that. And I again, like as much as I like Mary Stewart Masterson, I almost kind of wonder what the movie would have been like if there had been no character for Robert Downey Junior's character to fall in love with, because I mean, by the end of the movie, he's like, I you know, I love love her, and it's like, oh okay, it's like the beginning of the movie it's all come full circle, but like duh, dude, like and that's the thing.

It's like, by that time, it's like it's not really earned. We know this, and their relationship is we don't know what their relationship is because we've never we've seen them like barely together for like five minutes of the movie, and that was when they were in the library together, and then pretty much everything else has been Christopher McDonald and Robert Downey Junior's body, so we really don't get a sense of that. And it's like, I kind of wonder without her as a character, if they would have just committed more to the Sybil Shepherd's storyline, because they wouldn't have things to kind of push off onto another character to have those conversations with, as opposed to just having it with her.

Like, I don't know why this had to be so mad cap. There's part of this that could have just been like because at one point the characters are just like, this is what's going on, and then no one wants to believe them, and it's like, in a lot of ways, this movie could have bucked the trend of these movies by just going like, this is what's going on? And let's figure out what to do about it. Not like up until the last two minutes of the movie, nobody believes that this is going on. Like I would have appreciated the movie more if it had embraced the higher concept portions of its premise that are like you guys have mentioned like so much in like rooted in the idea of like what would you do if you got an opportunity to be with this person that has come back again and what would that mean for your life?

And like also the idea And I find this a little hard to believe that Simple Shepherd in twenty six years didn't catch on that Ryan O'Neill liked her at all. Is like mind blowing to me that that's also like I never knew you love me. It's like this guy has stuck around and helped raise your child and all these things, Like at what point were you just like he's not just here because he is a fan of children, like he's a fan of me, and like it I found that I don't know like her, Simple Shepherd's character wasn't as well thought out as I think they thought she was, and they never gave her enough time to really do much with her character. It's it's very unfortunate. But again, like this movie's trying to be more fun than an actual look at these kinds of things.

It's not bothering itself with why would these people actually react. It's like, it's funny to see Robert Downey Junior and Sybil Shepherd together, isn't that weird? Not really kind of work together. Franklyly, well, Robert Dye Junior is very charming in this movie. It is it is.

I would say the movie that he was doing a lot of this kind of film at the right point, right, but this was one of the ones that even though I don't think I don't remember the movie doing like outstanding, I think it probably did. Okay it It is one of the ones that sort of they were like this this kid's go in places you were you were like, this isn't this is you know, this guy has a lot of magnetism on screen. It is interesting when you speak about Ryan O'Neill that they start the movie with basically you know they're getting married, and Ryan O'Neill, the best man, goes, you know, I love her, like I know it's fine, like what like and like it and it really does. You're like, again, there's levels of weirdness in relationships that go unexplored completely.

But I think I'm gonna say there's also a little element of eighties movie making, yes in this, which is everything goes unexplored, right. You couldn't do things like that in a movie now without you know, twelve people on the development team going hold up, and the actor's going hold up right, right, right, right, and and and again. It really does feel like it is literally just the setup for a payoff or a joke at the end, but otherwise it's just doesn't It doesn't give you Ryan O'Neal any credit whatsoever. It's like they're getting married. I love her, So I'm sticking around like you kind of are like, Oh, he's gonna turned out to a murdered Christopher of dogs.

Yeah, that's what I thought. That's where I thought that was going. Like again, like in a different movie, that is what happens like in a movie, in a movie that just goes okay, if we cut out all the extraneous noise for two seconds, what is the story at the center of this? And it's not the lawyer bullshit, it's nothing else. It's these two possibly three people, and they're just not interested in really like it's like they forget that they're telling that story and they have to be reminded to come back to it.

And it's like why, Like, these three actors together are pretty interesting Robert Downey Junior, Ryan O'Neil, and Sybil Shepherd have some interesting chemistry together when they're on screen. Why not let that do what it does? And instead they're like, no, we got to get back to like something else, and it's like what, why why? I don't know. It's it's strange to me because it really just feels like, like you mentioned Susan, like three ideas on the page at once.

It's like, I think the eighties of it all Susan is hits the nail on the head because this is the kind of movie that studios were making in the eighties. Yep, this is not the kind of movie that necessarily independent folks were making. But this is a this is a studio movie, and they were trying to They had a story or a semblance of a story that fit into the box that existed at the time about these kind of movies, and so that's what they made. Uh. There is a very interesting story here when you take away some of that eighties ish you know, fun, uh, you know, heightenedness of it.

But you know that wasn't what they were doing back then, So they they they they stepped away from as much of that as they could while still trying to and put as much fun into it as they could. You know, a little slapstick here, a little joke there. Isn't it funny that you know, he looks like, you know, he could be the daughter of the woman that he fell in love with. In his mind, this is you know, this is his this is the love of his life. And the Ryan O'Neill of you know, he's been pining for her all these years and she had no clue.

Yeah, all of those things were very much eighties movies kind of things that didn't require a lot of thought or a lot of depth. So and hey, they even have Mark McClure, who plays Marty McFly's brother in this movie at one point talking to Robert Downey Junior, and I was like, that can't just be a I mean, I know it's just a coincidence because it's just an actor. Bro. I was like, this movie, this plot, this topic, like there's not it's not it well, and this tone, the tone of the movie, I think at some point some of them back to the Teacher, was in somebody's head and it's not the right tone for this movie. Well, you know, I mean it is what it is, like, you know, it's not like we're gonna remake chances are, but it does feel like it was sort of trying too many things right and so because but the and I think the real I think the reason that again that this does this movie some people love it, love it, and some people are like, this is ridigulous, right, It's it's one of those movies that that there's a very for people looking back on it now, it's like, oh my god, it discovers movies so great.

People still kind of fall for it. And I think it's the sincerity of Sybil Shepherd, right, like, like you actually there is something in that that pining for the love, the lost love, and there is something in in then and then having the opportunity to have that for a moment that that actually feels like the movie they should have led let let you know, kind of leaned into and and and you know, and then given up a couple other things that felt more back to the future. But at the same time you're like, Okay, well then maybe that wouldn't have worked. I don't know, But because it was sort of trying to be sort of interesting things, I did a idea. I was like, what did people think of this movie at the time?

So I went and looked up the New York Times review from when the movie came out, and in the middle of it, it says this, when chances are isn't being overcomplicated, it's being improbable, even by reincarnation movie standards. Alex, for instance, tries to convince Karen that he is Louie by telling her the whereabouts a various household objects. Is this written by Pauline Hale? She's really mad that they're wasting her time watching this. It's far easier to believe that Louie has been to heaven and back than to imagine that Krene hasn't rearranged the drawers and closets in twenty three years.

Oh man, Wow, movie falls apart the moment you think about what's in the junk drawers. Huh, that's funny either. Can either of you think about a movie that, especially a drama that took this sort of premise seriously, where there was a reincarnation a person who came back to life and tried to fit themselves back into the life of the person that they love love them. I mean, I haven't been able to come up with one, but I so, I don't know, I think, And it's not the same kind of premise the body switching. But there's a movie called Truly Madly, Deeply in remember that movie from the nineties.

That's a British movie that's Alan Rickman and Juliette Stephenson and and it's basically Alan Rickman has died and and his ghost basically comes back and moves into her flask. And so when she then she falls in love with somebody else, but but but also can't let go of the old love and she sort of has to. She has she faces a choice. So it's it and it's it's funny and it's charming, but it's also deeply emotional. A movie I saw last year, om Shanti Ohm has Shahru Khan playing an actor in the seventies who gets I think he either dies or gets murdered trying to save another actress who's kind of this love triangle with the main actor, and then he gets reincarnated.

Now, the thing that makes this movie different from this movie is he's reincarnated, but he looks like himself, So it's just it's him again, but him reincarnated as himself in the as a version of himself in the future, but he still looks like himself. And the actress who played the actor in the seventies plays a I don't think she's meant to be reincarnated, but it's like another version of her in the future, and so he has to kind of make good on outing the person that killed the two of them, and it kind of takes place in the Indian cinema world. So there's kind of some nice fun nods to Indian cinema. But that's the movie that I kept thinking of when I was watching this, because I was thinking like, like similar to what you were asking Sharon, like, what's a movie that does this seriously?

And Almshanti Ohm. I think is just as earnest as this movie as I think it's a little bit more serious because at one point, like two of the main characters are literally like immolated, essentially like lit on fire. They die in a horrible on set fire and they're essentially locked in and they can't leave. Like it's it's way more serious than like the stakes are more serious. But I think in the same way, like it's still a fun movie in the way that like Indian cinema allows for there to be fun in their movies.

But it again, like I would say, in terms of like the steaks, the steaks in Omshanti omer higher or as high because again, like the villain in that movie literally lights people on fire to kill them. So you don't this is you know, that's not something you hear too often that a movie about im thelation of the main characters is fun. So I give it is, though I give them all the credit in the world for pulling that off. You can't do that every day. Yeah, but no, it would be it would I am not a writer, but I so we're helpfully one of your listeners will maybe try to take this on and come up with a story where they can take some of this more serious elements of this and treated a little bit more seriously.

I mean, I think that that might be a good story to tell. It's interesting, like Heaven Come Wait has some serious moments, but it's mostly a comedy, and both versions there's a nineteen forty something movie and then a seventy something though, yeah, eight seventy eight. But then there's also a nineteen ninety four field that I've never seen called Being Human that directed written directed by Bill Forsype with Robin Williams. That's about him reincarnating into five separate lives. And then are you ready for this?

I think the most serious movie I've seen about reincarnation is A Dog's Purpose. Oh, I think is that the dog reincarnation movie? It is, and it is we went to say, I took it. I took dash of It was twenty seventeen, and I took my son, and I thought it was going to be a dog movie. Right, I'm like, Oh, that's gonna be a dog mamby, and it might be a little sad, but it'll be fine.

It's a reincard. It's multiple reincarnations, so the dog dies, it gets reborn multiple times. You do it to yourself, Susan. However, what I will say is they kind of pull it off because it's both horrible, horribly sad, But then there's a puppy right out. I would I would suggest Susan, since you you're mentioning a dog's purpose, a little bit of a side tangent.

There is a joke that you would probably find immensely funny sandwiched in the film Strays that makes direct reference to a dog's purpose, with with Josh gadd While of all people, reprising his role as a Yeah, it's it's really funny. And now that I know you've seen a dog's purpose, yes, I turned Yeah you should search. I actually found Strays to be a funnier movie than I think anybody I knew was talking about last year. But I'd agree. This is the thing that I was surprised by is chances are is not funny, like at all.

Like it's really not like a funny movie, and it's like being I watched the trailer for it, like the TV spots, and it was being built as a wacky comedy, and it's like it's not really like I don't know when I laughed, if I laughed, like maybe Robert Downey Junr just kind of hamming it up. But it's not like a funny movie, not the way that some of these other body swap movies are, Like yeah, I'm gonna say it that it it actually has funny moments, and the performances have comedic moments. I think the performances are a reason to watch this film because you're like they're individually each great, Like you're like, how did they pull this off? Like how is she pulling it off? I think syl Shepherd is fantastic in the movie, and you're like, she should be doing better movie.

Well, I mean that is kind of I mean, that is kind of problem with this movie. It's like it almost feels like in a lot of ways, it's I mean, maybe not Robert Downey Junior and Mary Stuart Masterson at the time, but like this might have been beneath Sybil Shepherd and Ryan O'Neil, like given, I mean definitely given Sybil Shepherds, like her visibility at the time, Like yeah, like you could see why she like I'm say, at the same point, I see why she would have picked it to do because it would be there. It was very different character from Madie Hayes she was, you know, I think it was, oh, I have to I have to take something that is comedic, because I think it would have been harder to do a straight, straight drama becoming off of moon Lighting or this was in between the last the last two seasons.

You know, it's just interesting where you're like, what's what's the career path I'm doing? And God knows, Robert Downey Junior has done a lot of of having a career path and then having it go off the rails very far and then bringing it back on in big ways. And and so it's interesting that all the people in it, I mean, Christopher McDonald is great in it, and yet we know him. It was very hard for me to look back at this and take him as a romantic read seriously, knowing the rest of his body work. Now, I think I think it was like, oh, it was perfectly fine when I saw it at the time.

But and so he's done so much comedy where he's played the snarky bad guy, the sort of you know, over the top guy that to really buy I kept waiting for that Christopher donalda McDonald to show up, and he doesn't. And it's very sincere and so but at the same time, I think it made it hard looking back at it to sort of take his love for hers as seriously as it is portrayed in the movie, just because I know that actor's other work, and he's so tied for me to the other work that he's done. That is that is very different kind of characters. Yeah, a sniveling shit is what I would call most of the things Christopher MacDonald. I mean, for me, it's like a happy Gilmore.

I mean for me growing up, it was Happy Gilmore and Flubber and he plays the villain in both of those. Yes, Shooter McGavin, I mean ruined him for romantic comedy him. I mean, that's his role, like you know, I mean that was when I got to speak to him many moons ago. That was one of the things he just would never stop talking about. We weren't even talking about Happy Gilmore and that's what he wanted to talk about.

It's like, okay, like that's the thing you're known for. But yeah, he's he has a weird energy that I don't expect from him as an actor, because that's not the energy that he ever gives for the most part, other than like what Grease to where he's like kind of supposed to be charming there. But for the most part, I don't think of Christopher McDonald as a charming actor at least that's not the that's not the dial that he's being asked to turn on very often as it were. Yeah, so I think, I think, but it was early enough in his career that he he was doing that kind of stuff, and so, you you it was just of interesting because I don't remember having those same thoughts when I watched it back in the eighties, right, But then as soon as he came on the screen, I was like, wait, is he is?

He kidnapsed? All right? Turns out he's in love with the mob. You know, he is the bad guy, you know, Like I was like, you're just immediately trying to sort of figure out what the mob ace lawyer thing has to do with that movie because he dies, you know, so quickly, although they spend so much time, Like it's so weird, there's a lot of time before he dies. You would not spend that much time now because we're just much more ready to little Vawn.

I think we get it, Like you only need like two scenes if they love each other before you can you know, yeah, you know, before you can take someone out an abbad be meaningful. It's so interesting because I actually was thinking that maybe some of these movies aren't kind of being made, not exactly this one, but it would not surprise me to suddenly discover a movie like this as a Netflix movie. Yeah, I would imagine that it would be something that Netflix would be more inclined to make as opposed to any of the other studios. It still remained this is definitely not the kind of thing that they're still doing. But getting back to Sivil Shepherd, you know, she in this movie plays a woman who has a daughter in her early twenties, and there weren't a lot of roles for women back in the late eighties early nineties where you're the lead in a movie if that's your demographic age range that people expect you to play.

So you know, obviously she went back to Moonlighting and there was another TV show that she did after that, and you know, perhaps that you could think of that as part of the early migration of women of a hate to use a phrases of a certain age, but kind of fits migrating to TV as opposed to finding roles in uh, you know, a plethora of roles available to them in movies that speak to their age and experience. So, you know, but unlike you know, but Robert Downey Junior, of course, was at the beginning of his career, and there as he goes forward, there are lots of opportunities for him to play all kinds of different characters as he goes forward. I don't know what I mean. I looked up Mary Elizabeth and her career and I don't know if it was her choice to, but it kind of seemed like she stepped back to a large extent.

And I don't know that she had many, you know, chances to be the lead in something she's you know, but you know, her protest didn't for me, did not seem like it was fulfilled in terms of various roles that she may have played after this, either because I agree with Cities it was Susan. She was great. She was great, and she I mean like she pop. She did uh fried Green Tomatoes after this, and then she did Benny in June and that was a huge, huge, huge success. But you forget that she was in it because you only remember the Johnny upp was in it exactly she's and you think of fried Green Tomato, Frey Green Tomatoes.

You don't think of her. You think of other people, you know, So I there was there was even a movie. Oh it may have been actually about the time of this movie called some kind of Wonderful m hm. I love that movie. Was her and Eric yes speaking of Back to the Future.

Yes, yes, exactly that they were the leads in that. She did a number of things like that, and then I don't think we heard Sadly, we didn't hear enough of her after that or see enough of her after that, because in five Nights of Freddy's Last Year, Oll, that's I have not seen that. That's because that sounds like something that sounds like a horror movie, which I am not available very successful. It's not, I will say it's not. It's not scary at all.

Like it's it's very much like made for the audience of like younger children. She's really she's really funny in it. Like she's really funny as she plays like the the to say she plays like a villainous aunt is like villainous aunt probably for those of that, not like a person dressed up like an aunt, but one of the main characters, like I think she would be the sister of the main character's mom, and she just like choose the scenery in every scene she's in. She's really good in it as a villain. But to your point, Sharon, it's like I wish I had seen her in more things because she's really good here, just again not given.

I mean, I would say almost nobody but Sybil Shepherd and Robert Downey Junior are really given enough to do, which is fine given that they're given that whose movie this is. But it's what's funny for me is I haven't seen a lot of younger Robert Downey Junior's stuff. I've seen who hasn't seen Iron Man and everything else at this point or at least know about it. But I have not seen a lot of young Robert Downey Junior stuff, And it always cracks me up seeing him because I just keep thinking to myself, this guy at some point will be the world's biggest fucking movie star if he's not. Kind of still and like it cracks me up because like there's no way he knew then there would have been no way a year before getting cast as Iron Man he would have known.

And it's just of all the people for it to happen to, I'm glad it happened to Robert Downey Junior. That's what I'm saying. But he's you can tell he's really good here. It's not like because again you can make the case that he's a NEPO baby. But I think that Robert Downey Junior is an immensely successful and talented actor.

And this movie is worth checking out in a lot of ways because he is in it along with Sybil Shepherd. The two of them make this worth checking out. But it's always weird to me to see a very babyface Robert Downey Junior in anything, because he has very cleared energy. He was doing a lot of lumbai using the work in the eighties, right. He was in Uh less than Zero and Uh I'm True Believer and Johnny BeGood and and a weird science like like the The arrange of what he was doing was really interesting.

I do love I don't know if you've ever seen the movie he did not long after this, called Soap Dish. Oh my god, I love that movie. One. He's Graydon as is Sally Field and Kevin clydeby Goldberg gold I mean, that's adorable. I would watch this movie.

It's an adorable roum com and it's written by the same writer who wrote Steele Magnolia's It's one of the funniest movies I've ever seen. I remember seeing in the theater and thinking this is gonna be a big hit. It wasn't nearly as big a hit as it should have been, as funny as it was, and with the cast that it had so good. There's another movie he did shortly after Chap was released, after Chaplain, called Heart and Souls. Another ghost kind of movie.

Yeah, yea movie, but but not with not necessary. But there were four people he was trying to get to Heaven basically, or trying to get them their wish fulfilled before they went to Heaven. Love that movie. Love that movie too, and he was fantastic and it is all. And then of course go back to romantic comedies.

There's Only You, which he did a few years after, which I also really like with Marissitome Marissa May That's I think that's the movie those movies, that's my favorite, although the head of the Heart and Soul is pretty yeah, but it's sort of that's like that that era Robert Downing Jr. Like, Yeah, that's what he was known for. That was what he was becoming successful with. You know, just I don't know, this is really really interesting to look at his career, which has been very, very long, and to recognize that he was able to kind of, you know, come back from a pretty big blowout of his career right now, one of the most notorious like blowouts, right like someone who was being up until the moment he was in Iron Man, they were making jokes about his career and then it's like, you can't joke about this guy anymore because he's more money than God at this point, Like that's the thing.

I mean, Robert Downey Junior is genuinely one of those people now that never has to work another fucking moment in his life and will be fine, and his kids will be by his kids, kids kids will be fine, because I mean, that's the thing. They'll they'll they'll try to find any opportunity to try to bring him back as Iron Man, and I genuinely believe Robert Downey Junior is the one stopping that from happening because he would like to be done and he would also like to work on other things because now he's you know, nominated for being an Oppenheimer. So yeah, and hete he you know, get I think it's now at the point where he doesn't need to take any role except what he wants to take right, and should be able to be cast at whatever he wants.

That's like the goal as an actor, I would assume is to get to that like rarefied air, where everybody in the world knows you and that's your your stock and value is just you're not gonna cast me iron Man and something that's going to waste my time? Are you? Like? No, no, no, how do you know? And that's the thing.

Like this, this Robert Downey Junior. I'm glad that this is the version because there is a version of Robert Downey Junior that never turned his act around right, and that would have been unfortunate, I think for the industry, because he has a lot of charm and you can see it here just as you can see it in so many other things that he's been in since. Yeah, I mean, his energy is so weird, but I love it, and he I would always cracks me up because he just it looks whenever I see him in things when he's young, he looks like Robert Downey Jr. But he doesn't, if that makes sense, right, just kind of looks like, well, that's Robert Downey Junior, and I know that's him, but it just doesn't quite look like him.

He's just young Robert Downey Junior. He just has a very manic energy. And I'm not saying he doesn't now, but he seems to have been able to he seems to be able to focus it now. Before it was just kind of all over the place, and he's kind of all over the place in this movie. But yeah, he holds the movie together, I think a lot better than most other people who might have been cast at the time would have.

I think something about his charisma really does a better job in grounding the movie and something worth checking out because yeah, because I feel like, for me, there are better movies like this. I just think that there aren't other movies that have Sybil Shepherd and Robert Downey Junior doing this together in it, so that for me would be the reason to watch this movie kind of solely almost to them. Yeah, I have to agree. And without the two of them, I don't know that we'd be talking about this movie today. No, Yeah, I mean, I mean I talked about a lot of body swap movies a couple of years ago.

Richard was subjected to is it like Father like Son, which is yes, was it Dudley Moore and Kirk Cameron, And then we watched eighteen Again and vice versa and dream a little dream Like. I think that this movie is probably better than those movies, but I think it's in that same conversation of like body swap movies in the eighties when that was like a thing that everybody was doing and they were trying to figure out what was like the kookiest combination, And now the kookie combination is Robert Downey ju and you're in Sybil Shepherd like that's the kookie combo. You know, Charlie Schladder and George Burns is one, Like that's the thing. Like this doesn't feel when when you suggested this movie, Susan, it didn't feel like the kookie premise was going to be the point of the movie, like in eighteen Again, where it's like it's George Burns and a young guy's body crazy like that.

Maybe they should have leaned on it more here and it would have been one of those kinds of movies. That's kind of what I wonder, because it does kind of not pick what genre it wants to be intentionally and that for me is a problem. I think simply as you were saying, Sharon, I'm going to bring us back to roles for women of a certain age. So this was nineteen eighty nine, so that would have made Sybil Shepherd thirty nine. She was thirty nine playing a woman with a twenty three year old daughter.

Yeah, okay, Now when and when Robert Downey Jr. Did Iron Man, he was forty three, of course, Yeah, you know, I you know, so I just just want a it's a pretty pretty son context to that. And then the other thing is, so what's in this movie is so interesting because also there's all these interesting things like Ryan O'Neill is playing a reporter who's apparently a very good reporter because he's working for the Washington Post. And Robert Downey Junior wants to be a journalist, a thing you used to be able to be, used to be a profession you could go into. Yes, his dream was to work for the Washington Post.

That was his dream, to work for the Washington Post. And they don't let him. They don't even let him in the door. So he sneaks in the door, and I think it's actually Ben Bradley he tries to meet with and I think it's actually and that's the editor of the Washington Post at the time, and I think it's played by Ben Bradley. That I don't think so because I think the anger and yeah, the actor seemed familiar to me, like I'd seen him in other things, but as always prepared to be.

They call him Ben Bradley, they do. That's who he meets with at the end of the movie. That's who he's talking with at the wedding. So I can start on Monday, kid, And it's like, oh, right, that was a plot line that needed to get that. They need to get wrapped up here real quick.

In the last two minutes of this movie, Why is Joe Grafosse at the wedding at the end? Well was that weird. I was just like, why is he here? Like it's like he should be like ashamed of himself, given that this entire situation happened because of him, Like why are you? Felt very elves and at the end of Santa Claus going and looking at their dirty work as they watched Santa Claus fly away.

Well, but if you think about it, everything worked out. Everybody's happy. So he gets to see don't Harm No Foul Joe, We'll harm No Foul Joe, whose character is named Omar. I just love the giant inoculation thing that he's carrying, this like giant thing that he's carrying around. I loved I love that the the dios X mocking of there's just something that you inject in people and they just I just forget sure, right, So it's it's it is.

The actor is Henderson Foresight who plays and Bradley. But it's so interesting that they named the character real like it was like, oh, is this gonna be a journalist thing? Like you're just never knowing that what that movie's doing. I don't think it knew what it was doing, Like I think it really like I was really like to come back to the end of the movie, Like I was so shocked at how quickly, like cause I know that in so many of these like body swap or like time travel movies are like making good, you know, redemptive stories like oh, the character got hit by a baseball and that caused them to travel back in time or fell down the stairs or something. And then at the end of this movie, he falls down the stairs and that is what causes him to Unt's the thing in this movie.

It's like they were missing that scene where his mind is back in heaven as Christopher McDonald talking to the people in heaven and they're like, this wasn't supposed to happen. We're so sorry this happened, and like we don't get that that scene that like one scene that the movie needs to really wrap up the storyline, because Sharon, you've mentioned it, We've talked about Christopher McDonald a fair amount, like they do his character dirty and in a way that like that was the focus of the movie and I kind of don't get at why they lost sight of it. And at the end of the movie they don't have thus seen that all these movies tend to have where the character goes to heaven and he has the conversation about what happened and why did it happen, and then they go well good.

So that's the thing, Like how do they handle that, Like when he's in every they're just like, ed, fuck you now goodbye, Like, well, I don't know, they wrote themselves into a corner. I guess, well, if you remember when Christopher McDonald's character goes to and dies and realizes they're sending him off to heaven. He's like, oh my god, I gotta go back, and so he goes to the other calendar and they're like, Okay, we're gonna send you back, but they didn't give him the injection that would make him forget his past life. So Doker Fosse had one job exactly and missed it. So when those memories resurface, that's when the hilarity ensues and the movie happens.

When the character falls down the stairs and is in the hospital unconscious, that's when Joe comes in and gives them the rejection that he should have gotten way back when. And so the memories and of Christopher McDonald go away, and as does his character. So that's what happened, and that's it. And it's like, how is that? How is that a?

How is that a A? I don't know, Like, how is that a good conclusion to your movie? How was that a satisfying conclusion? Because it feels like that's not they're not doing service to the story that they were trying to tell. Well, that was one of the things, as I said before, that when I when I watched the movie the first time, I fully expected that somehow that this would all work out, that not only would Christopher McDonald quote unquote live, but also the character that Robert Downey Junior played before the memories came back, that they both somehow would be in the movie at the end.

But what they did, they didn't do that. They basically had Christopher McDonald's character and those memories move on as they should have when he died, and the memories of this new character or that lived in Robert Downing Junior come back or whatever that's worth. They needed the dive from all of me to put Christopher McDonald's soul in the bowl. Yeah, it's just it's it's weird that there was no conclusion to the Christopher McDonald's story other than just like he's gone now and they just they just handwave, YadA YadA him out of the plot. And it's like, I mean, I felt like that was part of the story, but it's not.

But it is, but it isn't like yeah, and you know again and Ryan O'Neil just sitting there bidden his tie. I know, Oh man, what is that all about? Huh? Didn't mention though, of other women he had dated, or that the thing he has dated. He talks about like being married twice but it didn't last or something.

When they're in the car, he does he sort of alludes to the fact that he's had two failed marriages, right, so it's not like he was he was truly around and so you're like, oh, and so I'm constantly thinking there's going to be a different resolution to their relationship, and it's not inconceivable. But at some version of an early script, he was the bad guy who set up the mop thing, who tried to get who got him killed. And then they're like, no, no, no, we're gonna get running on mail. So we need to be a good guy. Just change it.

Is there a version of this movie that you could make where it by the end of the movie. Is there a version of this movie that you could make where Sybil Shepherd and Robert Downey Junior end up together? And that's a believable ending to the movie? Sure, okay, okay, just like the daughter, not what the daughter he comes in with. I think you have to there is there is a version where it's like, this is my soulmate, and then we got to meet again, and this is my second soulmate, and you know, because he seems down with it, like he's so down with it, like he Robert Downey Junior as the Louie character, is immensely interested in getting back with Sybil Shepherd and she has to like bend him off with like what a fire poker?

And I think that's the challenge is once he has those memories back, he acts with the character in that moment. He acts like he heeds only Louie and you're like, but he has lived twenty you know, two twenty three years right as the other as Alan, and so it's not like Alex completely disappears. There's there's no like what am I doing? I'm a track, Like, he doesn't second guess himself in the way that it should be both of them in that body. He shouldn't be all of me at that point.

Well, and that's the thing I think. I wonder if the conventions of the way the story is told and the mechanics through which they're doing the body swapping or kind of all that, I wonder if that just that definitely contributes to the movies kind of muddiness, because again, if it were clearer how this worked, maybe that would make the way that it resolves make a little bit more sense. But yeah, it's just like, oh and then it just happens, and then this just happens. It's like okay, sure, sure, sure, I have I have an approach that I that I that works for me when I when I when I go and see movies sometimes in that whatever is happening on screen, I just need an explanation for it. It doesn't have to be a good one.

Fair. But as long as the movie has basically said to me, this is why this is happening, then I'm I will go on this journey with the story. But it's when they don't give me those those pieces that they start to lose me. Because if I'm if I'm sitting there thinking about, well what about you know that, I'm like, okay, then I lose I lose my way and I lose my interests. But if they, however, again clear with the rules for you exactly or whatever, you know, this is happening because I don't have to like the because I don't have to agree with the because but they've given me a because so I'm fine, I'm heading down the lane on the journey that this movie is taking me on, and I guess at the end of the day, for me, answered enough questions as we were going for me that it didn't pull me out of the movie, and I went on the ride with it and enjoyed it.

Yeah, because Sharon is the best audience. I really, it's not a bad thing to say. I wish I could enjoy movies like that. Geez, you want every audience to be filled with Sharon's Yeah, really, no, don't worry about it. They won't worry about it because we told them that the reason that he can't show up again is he's out of town.

It's fun then I'm going. But it works for me, all right, I mean, I mean that's fair, that's very fair. And trust me, I don't like everything, obviously. I have a friend who's always complaining that I never like anything. Hahaha.

You have those friends too, Huh. She's always astonished when I actually likes something. But yeah, I uh, there's there's a lot of things. So I'm just like, no, I'm sorry, I didn't. You didn't you didn't.

You didn't do a good enough job taking me on this journey with you, and I'm out. It could happen five minutes in. It could happen at the end, it could happen in the middle, but you know, uh yeah, because I want to like it. I'm there because I want to like the movie and I want to enjoy it. I come in wanting to it, for it to be good, for it to be something that I enjoy.

So just you know, help me, help me, help me get to where it is that you're trying to take me, and I'm I'm there for you. Help me, help you, help you love this movie. Help me or not or at least not feel like I want to throw things at the screen because you know, if I'm doing this throughout the movie, that's bad because I'm like, really that really we're going there? Makes no sense? Can you imagine seeing the live performance of after All at the Academy Awards that year?

They probably didn't do those performances, but this movie was technically a nominated for an Oscar for the original song after All? So oh yeah, which is an odd thing. That's so funny because for some reason I always thought that it was that it was that it was not an original song for the movie, and maybe I just forgot I don't know, because I love the song. It was used as the love theme for Chances Are So it was nominated because it was used in the movie. I don't.

It doesn't get I can't. I can't figure out if it was made specifically for the movie. But you know it's Share, so you know share. Sharon Peter SITERA, come on the ballad, the ballad King of the Eighties exactly. It's a pretty good It was a pretty good damn song.

I will say. Unfortunately, in the sex scene between Robert Downey Junior and Sybil Shepherd, the Johnny Mathis song that they use, I unfortunately always associate that with the X Files episode a whole that was only run one time. Uh, Sharon, do you know the episode I'm talking about. I don't, But the fact that it pulled you out of it completely, it did, you know? And you're like, oh my god, you're now in a different show.

Yeah, hear me. Yeah, that that episode involves like like red neck hill Yeah, redneck hillbillies that are like having sex with their own mother and then like having like weird mutant babies and they keep like killing them and they play that song when they like show up to murder people, and like the moment it started playing, I was like, no, I can't take this seriously, for like, it's the only other time I've heard it in anything, and in that it's being presented in like a very like menacing way because you can like hear them play that song when they like show up and then in this it's meant to be so like loving and I'm like, oh, man, like damn that, Oh I do love Johnny Mathis. But that was just like that took it took me out of it in the moment.

I was like, that doesn't happen very often. That would definitely pull you out of the movie, out of the movie absolutely. Well. This was the time also, and and we don't get it that much. Again, I was so, I mean, I know they exist, but they're not they don't exist in the same way it was the A's was the time of the movie soundtrack?

Yeah, right, like yeah, so that was huge. What what was going to be on the movie soundtrack album? And what movie? What songs were going to be using a movie? And uh and and again for me like and not not.

You know, the only one I could tell you about now is is the Barbie soundtrack that did light me up as much as the movie is a soundtrack for Barbie's pretty good other than that one Lizzo song, but that's Lizo's fault, not anybody else's. I like the Lizo song. Yeah, I just don't like Lizzo is the fall I think like, I think like the world kind of turned on Lizzo in one like gigantic moment, and I, yeah, it's unfortunate. But I mean that Barbie's track is good. It is really good.

I mean, yeah, it is really good. I would say that. Yeah, like, now we're not inundated with like go buy the soundtrack for this movie immediately. That's not a thing, but man, at eighty nine it definitely was, so yeah, absolutely, Yeah. Final thoughts on Chances are starting with you, Susan.

Great cast we're seeing, for the cast and their performances, And if you want to know what a perfectly eighties movie was, Sharon, I echo everything Susan said, and I will add that I think it's a lovely example of a light rom com and it just, you know, try not to think about it too much as you're watching it. And hopefully you have not seen that episode I think a fourth file. Yeah, don't start. I like wondered if I should bring it up, but like it was just so I'm not going to not think about it. I think I think I'm okay because I'm never gonna see it.

I can't watch The X File. It's too scary for me, that's right. And I have Johnny Mathis embedded in my brain so and his songs and everything, so there's there's no way for it to be pointed. Yes, because of that, that's fair. See, that's the thing that was the first time I'd ever heard Johnny Maths was in that, and then I ended up hearing it a couple of years later because they use it and they use Johnny Mathis.

I think at Dexter a couple times where it's either Johnny Mathis or Andy Williams. But uh yeah, I don't want to ruin Johnny Mathis for anybody else. But if you're a fan of The X Files, you know what I'm talking about. I enjoyed this movie. I mean, it's kind of a throwback to other things that I've talked about before.

And it's not that rom coms aren't my jam, but it's not something I necessarily go out of my way to watch. So anytime that it's like let's watch this one that I like or something you know about it makes me want to rewatch it. I'm never gonna say no. So getting tow early Robert Downey Junior movies pretty fun too. Yeah, it's a weird movie, fun movie worth checking out.

I don't know if there's anywhere you can stream it right now, maybe two be I know that we have been trying to do a better job about addressing where you can see things as of as of recently screaming where did I find it? Is it a two B thing? Make sure I don't want to misspeaking. I did watch it on oh where, I don't know that I watched it for free. I believe it's on Prime Video, So yeah, it's for it's for the lo low cost of three p fifty nine or three ninety nine, depending on where you get it.

So, I mean, there are plenty of these kinds of movies from the eighties. We've mentioned a bunch of similar ones, but I mean, again, Young Robert Downey Junior Sybil Shepherd not a bad mix. So yeah, definitely, thank you for introducing me to this movie, and thank you for the conversation about it, because I enjoy I probably enjoyed the conversation more than I did the movie. That's okay. So when y'all aren't joining me here talking about well, whatever we want to talk about, where can people find the stuff that y'all work on?

Well, obviously Eighties our Eighties TV Ladies podcast, where we look back at female driven to television shows from the eighties and celebrate the people who may them. It's on all the podcast platforms. You can also check out our website Eightiesdladies dot com for more information. And we're on the We're on all socials, including very soon. TikTok.

We're almost there, we're going to we're technically there, but we're actually going to start. Sharon and I have committed to twenty twenty four being the year we do at least some tiktoks and do some TikTok. You guys gotta do some TikTok dances? Is now what it is? TikTok business?

Yeah? But also yeah, so please reach out to us. We are currently doing several episodes on Moonlighting, the nineteen eighty show starring Sybil Shepherd from Chances Are and was the show that introduced Bruce Willis to the world, so it's been quite fun. We talked with the creator of the show, Glenn Gordon Karen, and we talked to the post production supervisor of the show that'll be coming out next week, and who knows who else. We'll get it on our next series of episodes, but we're looking at the show right now.

So if you're interested to learn more about Sybil Shepherd and the show Moonlighting, come on over and listen. Yeah, I would say the exact same thing. Go on over and check out Eighties tv Ladies because y'all are I mean, like you said, y'all are covering literally Moonlighting right now. And if you once you're done listening to Eighties TV Ladies, you can check out a bunch of other podcasts over at Weirdingwaymedia dot com, where this show and so many other shows can be found. But yeah, that's where you can go for all of that.

As for this show, Patreon dot com slash culture cast is where you can go to donate financially to the show ten dollars and you get to listen to uh Richard who is Susan's husband, and I and Mike White talk about Bond movies once a month. But that's for ten dollars and up, so go on over to patreon dot com if you want to get in on that. Sharon and Susan, thank you both so much for joining me. This was fun. Thank you Chris and does uh and just so much sank you so so much done?

Sorry of course, No, you're good, you're good, and you're good. Was it Richard walked in behind you? It was my son, okay, so the only other person in the house that could be bothering you dogs. Yeah and uh and as always, we'll catch you on the next episode. Laugh.