Man of the Year

Way. Wait, so I'm not going to say that this is a political movie, just fucking joking. So if we're talking about what this movie is not, it's Honestly, until I started the movie, I thought this was actually a revolutionary war comedy. So I had only seen. I thought it was a time travel movie.

Man, wouldn't it have been great? Oh god, Okay, before we talk about this movie, let's pitch meeting what this should have been. It should have been Robin Williams goes back in time and becomes part of the like the Continental Congress, right, or like the American Revolution or something. Yes, like see for me it was the Founding Father comes back and it's like, what's going on here? Oh?

So like so like a just visiting type thing where he's the one traveling forward exactly. Thus the powdered Wick. Yes, he sounds like much better movies than what we I mean. With why not? Why not?

Both? Why not? The prequel? In the sequel? You know, why not anything but what we got?

Because what we got is one of the most tonally inconsistent films I have ever fucking seen that features some of the biggest wastes of some of the best character actors, actors period that I've seen in a while. And once again, ladies and gentlemen, I am begging you to stop putting Robin Williams in these movies where they waste his fucking time and his talents, because on this episode of the Culture Cast, I am still your host, Christashi, much to the chagrin of at least two people out there for a fact now, and I'm joined by the man who made this all possible. He puts the Mike White in Mike White March your friend and mine, the host of Projection Booth, Mike White. HMO's will pay for your viagra, but they won't pay for your glasses.

So you can have a heart on, but you can't see where you put it. And all the way from I don't know where do I introduce you from now, Culin, because I was gonna say pulp Dash serenade, But is that is that how you want to be introduced? Now? Is it earning Way Media's Culin Gallagher, because you provide the music for so many great podcasts on the network, Like, yeah. Thank you, it is my pleasure.

I'm just I'm culling. I mean, I'm both of your friends. Look at that the remedy of this man. I'm just calling, how about modern silent cinemas? Colin Gallagher, Yeah.

Already, thank you, Hi, Hi, hi friends, thank you for having me on the show. And Colin was already funnier than Robin Williams was in the entire movie. Just now, just now, with that. Literal, it's it is Barry Levinson's fault. And what I could not you know, I started looking up Barry Levin since they hadn't really seen anything in a long time.

I didn't realize that he got his start writing for mel Brooks either, and he. Did in this movie. You definitely wouldn't know. That anxiety and silent movie, and it's like, oh. And I just kept thinking in some of it, then.

What if you had this movie but with mel Brooks and it would be a lot funnier. There was a time where this movie, like let's let you know what, will take a pause because I think Colin Collin's getting ahead of it and talking about the interesting stuff. I haven't even introduced the movie yet. I don't even think some stuff doesn't even introduce deserve to be introduced in a lot of ways, because I think what we're going to talk about is more interesting than what the movie does. In general, we are nearing the end of what Mike has decided to be Mike White March this year, which is middle of the road Robin Williams movies.

Yes, that was the intent. No, it is not disappointed up until this point, and this movie does not disappoint in terms of being the middle of the road. Robin Williams movie we're talking about two thousand and six is romantic comedy, drama, thriller, one of those, maybe none of them, I think together. Barry Levinson written and directed Man of the Year. Tom Dobbs made fun of politics.

Politicians are a lot like diapers. They should be changed frequently and for the same reason. Until he decided, maybe you should have been for president. To get serious vicious, I want to run for president now, black Dot. He's telling the truth.

I did not have sex with that woman I wanted. To and giving America a good less. A Man of the Year. So, like I mentioned. Written and directed by Barry Levinson, it stars Robin Williams in the titular role of the quote Man of the Year.

This is the second time Robin Williams and Barry Levinson have worked together the first time. Third Is it third? Okay? I was trying to say, like it was a second. I know it's at least two, So what's the third one?

Then? So this is the third one? Correct? Good Morning Vietnam Toys and then the one. I have never seen, Good Morning Vietnam.

And I didn't feel like it was fair to watch it for this month because I know Robin Williams is good. I've seen him in other things that he's good in. Does that make sense. I felt like that would be almost unfair to go and watch the thing he's almost known for when that's not the point of this month. The point of this month was not to see the best Robin Williams performance, by some people's approximation.

It was to see the middle of the road stuff. I've seen Robin Williams's great performances. I haven't seen that one, but that doesn't mean I haven't seen the ones that I think other people considered great. This is not gonna make that list. Robin Williams plays John Still who gets elected by accident to president.

That's the entire plot of this movie that does nothing with it. It is a disappointment. I am disappointed. I am bearing the lead here a little bit, but I'm gonna kick it to Colin, because Colin, you didn't pick this. You were just summarily invited and said, yes.

It is a bystander. Yeah, I mean that's the best way to treat it. Really, it's just you know, oops, sorry, you're part of this podcast now, Culin, what did you think a Man of the Year. Oh God, it's truly awful. And there's a point.

Jesus or when the movie started that I actually thought about emailing you, just because I didn't actually really like, I don't really want to watch a political movie right now. Can we pick something else? And then as the movie went on, it just kept getting so bad that I couldn't stop watching it, and it just kept getting worse and worse. And I think for me, what. Was so terrible about it was the script.

It's a ostensibly it so badly wants to be Network with a little bit of mister Smith goes to Washington, and yet it does not have the heart of Capra and Levinson, does not have anything remotely close to the wit and insight of Patty Chayevsky. And it tries, it wants to be political, but it has nothing to say. It tries to be a techno thriller, but frankly, I mean it's if you had taken the techno thriller part and put it in a Mill Brooks spoof, it would make sense because it's that dumb. And then it tries to be a romance and there's no chemistry, and we can we can discuss these at greater length, hopefully not longer than the movie. I don't think I could stand that.

But uh, Colin, you don't want to. Talk about this this movie for two hours, because this movie is two hours. I know. I watched it. I watched it again just now.

I watched it three times. Man, this is this is this is water torture via film form. The Owl movie we did, Chris, I think we talked the Owl movie. We talked about that longer than the movie. I think true, that would be the Owl movie.

Is Guardians Owls of Ghool so. Much better than anyway? Just I just thought the actual writing of this was just incompetent in a way that I had not seen in a very long time. And if Barry Levinson was not Barry Levinson, this would never have gotten made. Yeah, and Levinson had done political films before this.

I mean this, I just kept thinking of Wag the Dog and I'm like, oh yeah, Wag the Dog and Waged the Dog was interesting because it was kind of speaking to things that had just happened, and this one seems to really predict what's going to happen. I mean, this is you know, Wag the Dog was nineteen ninety seven, this one's two thousand and six. We are many years away from somebody's ride down a golden elevator at Trump Tower. We're before Voldemirre's Zelenski were before what's the guy's name from. It's not Fine, it's a Wheela.

I'm trying to remember there was another comedian who got elected president of another country. And it's like, this is fascinating to me that this kind of is a harminger of things that are about to happen in the real world. I'm like, oh, okay, but yeah it was. I mean, we've seen Pat Paulsen run for president. We've seen Vermin Supreme run for president.

Boy yeah, oh Vermin Supreme. I love, oh god, He's amazing. He cares about teeth and tooth health. Dental health is Vermin Supreme's number one concern. Help our teeth hurt.

Yes, exactly, he could help out the wigers himself. Yeah, it's uh. I was surprised at just how bad this one was. And yeah, your complaint about the waste of talent. I mean, we start off with like a I guess it's a rapper, but it's a rapper that doesn't go all the way around.

Maybe it does with Christopher walking in a wheelchair. And then it's so point. Jeff Goldbloom comes in and I was super excited to see Goldbloom, but please don't don't put your hopes on Goldbloom for this movie because he's barely in this thing. I usually love Laura Linny, but wow, did not do her any favors either. This movie doesn't do anybody any favors.

Maybe Lewis Blackett gets away with being unscathed, but that's about it. Question for y'all. Speaking of the Rapper is I kept wondering did this go through reshoots? It? Fuck?

It fucking feels like it, man, because the framing device is like the big giveaway in my opinion, Like for me, it's like, wow, this is this needs some This needs some setup that we don't have on film anymore or ever to begin with. Yeah, but what does it had? It doesn't seem to add anything. It adds walking, sitting in a room talking, being mysterious. I mean it's literally like trafficking and horseshit of a different if you're if you're doing the Parallax view or All the Press men.

Sure, but this ain't that. Somewhere Sondross is turning over in the heavens like this is not This is trying to be an assassination to war thing on top of everything else. Like this is a supremely tonally inconsistent film in a way that like, like you guys have already alluded to, and I said before, you don't see this in big budget Hollywood movies, a movie that's script is this convoluted and tonally inconsistent like it It's there's tonal whiplash, is what this movie gives me at times, because it's like, is this trying to be like a Jason Bourne thing? And then at times it's trying to be like a All the President's Men thing or a I guess, I guess network. I mean, like I wouldn't want to compare it to something that's good, but I already have compared it to others, several much better things than this, But the walking of it all just feels like that.

That for me is like, that's where the reshoots started. Was the moment we have Christopher walking in a framing device for a much more serious movie than this movie is ever actually trying to be. But it's it's a rapper where Christopher Walkin we later find out, has emphysema right where he gets into you know, he's for people who haven't seen it, he's Robin Williams, his manager. Right at the beginning of the campaign, they're walking, he has you know, he collapses. They go to the hospital, Oh, he has emphysema.

Then the movie kind of forgets about it, and you know, he's in a wheelchair the rest of the movie. And then at one point Laura Lenny says to Christopher Walkin, oh, should you not be smoking? And then Christopher Walkin gets to go before my time, doctors and commercials said that smoking was good for you. And that's the end of Christopher Walken and his emphysema. Like and it's bizarre, It's like Robin Williams nobody seems sad that he's dying.

The movie doesn't really show him deteriorating dramatically. Nothing more comes from this. As my girlfriend Lauren pointed out, Robin Williams never has any platform for his candidate. You here is as she pointed this out, So I'll give her the credit. This should be a prime, you know, thing for your candidate to talk about.

Yo. Yeah, health and healthcare would be great, the dangers of you know, big tobacco, those kind of things. Yeah, like give him something like even the guy from a Wild in the Streets had the whole like fifteen or fifteen or fight kind of thing, just like the whole thing of like, we're going to give the vote to younger people because the older people are out of touch. Like he had a platform. Max Frost had a platform.

Sorry, I want to say Lou Dobbs all the time. I wanted to say, Lou Dobbs, what's this really? And Tim Tim Dobbs, Tom Dobbs. Yes. John Stewart definitely did not have a platform whatsoever.

He didn't have anything where he's just like, hey, you know, we can talk about this, we can talk about that. But the biggest issue that I want is I want to reform something, you know, I want us to come together on this particular point. We could make the old. John Stewart has that with the veterans exactly exactly. But you know, I don't know what country?

What is it this? This movie takes place in the United States, supposedly, I guess since since since when do they not have vice presidents that run with them? Like I know again, like what what what political system are we operating within? Where they're not? They never even mentioned a vice president at all, like that was a whole Instead Instead, now this is we got KT Tunstalls a full dance scene to one of KT tunstalls songs, which is great, much better use of your time.

And I think also having Robin Williams playing paintball in a in a field also a much better use of your time than actually telling a story at any point. It it's so weird the things that this movie takes moments aside to show us, because there is a good movie in here, like this is an actual like in a lot of ways, And I know we've we've bemoaned this and belabored this point before in our various shows and things. We've worked on remake this fucking movie, Like, literally, this premise still has shitloads of legs to it. No, please don't. If you remake.

Am I wrong? I don't want to watch anything. Like this, Like aref you're talking about this? Oh God, I don't want to watch about somebody running for president, like Jesus Christ, that's it's a torture. This is like a fetish movie.

But the but the premise of the movie still has legs of a John Stewart type running for president. However, does it really in this day and age when we've seen someone much more ghastly in the way that they conduct themselves. I mean, look, here's the thing that I found ironic. You have a scene, I would say, ostensibly one of the kind of climactic scenes of the movie where he is on stage debating and there's a moment whe there's like we can't control this guy, and it's like, yeah, this is the craziest thing we've ever seen with the debates. Remember when that was the case, Remember when this would have been like what a fucking shock.

Now we live in a post reality era where we're talking about size of each other's wieners on stage and golf and all this other horseshit that would make this look banal. This looks pastoral in comparison to the reality of the world, and I think that in my mind that would be more I guess Cullen Well, I appreciate where you're coming from. It don't necessarily disagree. Why would anybody want to watch this kind of shit again? You could actually really roast our system hard doing this the right way, which is yeah again pointing out the fact that the debates are kind of horse shit that nobody ever answers the questions that Robin Williams points it out.

He's like, you're sitting and talking about alternative fuel sources while you're in the pocket of big oil. Like there's none of that in real life. I mean, we get worse variations, but a better version of this movie would have gone further. And it's almost like the movie knows that it doesn't go far enough. And when it's chastising Robin Williams for not going far enough, I almost feel like I am chastising the movie for the exact same thing that it's chastising a character for, which is you have no teeth.

As a movie, it is completely toothless, and it shouldn't be, especially in O six Like I know that we're two years removed from Donald Trump, but not really because even at this point, Donald Trump is in the mix of our politics, accusing Barack Obama of not being born in this country, which happened earlier than six So that's I mean, like, we already have non political people involved in our political system at this point in our country's history. So it's not even that far afield. When was that ride down the escalator? That was twenty sixteen though, right. That would have been twenty fourteen or fifteen.

Yeah, yeah, it would have been fifteen, fourteen, fifteen or sixteen. You're right, June sixteenth, twenty fifteen. Oh wow, holy shit. Yeah, but he was involved in the mix long before. Like that's part of this movie almost doesn't feel reactive enough to what was already going on.

It's that's my that's where I you know, the first time I watched this movie, the film na is just what astonished me about how bad it was. Yeah, the second time, I just kept thinking, like, wow, this movie is so self satisfied. It thinks it's making points, it thinks it has guts, and it has no critical perspective of the Robin Williams character, Like when you see him on stage acting like a megachurch sort of personality, I'm like, this should be scary, and yet the and in two thousand and six Levinson should have known that, and he pretends that this is a good thing. Like there's a part I'm gonna pull up the quote where Tom Dobbs says, why vote for congressmen or senators? Why don't we just pick those guys the same way we pick a jury.

At least will get much more interesting cross section. That's horrifying that he wants to do that, and yet this movie feels like it thinks it's a great idea. Well, and what kills me is that so many of these Tom Dobbs lines are the things that your parents are posting out on Facebook as me. It's like the whole thing of like politicians are like diapers. They need to be changed every four years and for very much the same reason or whatever, or change often and for the same reason.

There's the whole thing. I think it's during the debate where he talks about, oh, politicians should have to wear hatches like the cars for the NASCAR racis and I'm like, I've seen that posted on Facebook one hundred times. I didn't realize it was from this movie, and maybe it wasn't. Maybe that line existed beforehand. But this movie is rife with them.

I mean, if this movie represented memes any better, it would be filled with minions. It is that meme worthy. Oof. Yeah, that's a that is like a that's a knock of a different variety right there. But any here's the inherent problem though, and again, like I go back to the you know, the the culon, this is what you were talking about as well, Like the intent, right, the intent of the movie is what to lampoon our system that politician could get elected.

That's that's not that hard to believe. We're post we are post Jesse Ventura being elected governor of Minnesota. Dickheads like Barry Levinson don't act like that's that big of a deal Jesse vent Tura was Ronald Reagan was elected fucking president. At this point, you clowns like, oh, it's so hard to believe that someone in this profession would be elected. Like, no, it's not.

It's like when when they have because again, you know this movie, they do such a good job of setting it in the real world. We have all the cutaways to you know, the Real World TV, and they go, you know, well, now the Free World is being run by a comedian. Okay, the Free World was run by an actor in the eighties, and he was in all kinds of different movies. Like it's the It's like the movie doesn't acknowledge. That's why I said, like, what world does this take place?

And does this take place in the world where Reagan was ever elected president? Does it take place in a world where they don't have vice presidents? Because all these things are being treated like this is a big deal. I think at the end of the day, Robin Williams is at times the best and worst part of this movie because when he opens his mouth, it's still Robin william It's just someone else's dialogue. For most of the most of the movie you can tell when it's just Robin Williams riffing.

But again, two thousand and six ain't that far removed from Live on Broadway in two thousand and two, which I went and rewatched last week. It's still great. He is still great, and every bit on that and every bit on that is essentially a shittier version in this movie. You get similar bits on Live on Broadway that you get here about like the politicians and all that. It's just this is like a dumber lens to be magnified through.

This is you know, like is a better or be better? It's like, well, one of them is clearly blurrier than the other. It's this. I don't understand why people are having Robin Williams come in and do their dialogue, like this guy is so clearly gifted at what he does. Disney understood that with the Genie.

They understood the process that you have a guy like this who is able to do free association you see it in that debate scene. And instead they're like, nah, we'll just have like we'll have him dance with Laura Lenny and play paintball. What was even the point? I don't I just I don't understand. The movie has some moments that could work that don't work, but then there are moments that really don't work, and it's like full of those moments.

That's the problem. It's full of moments that don't work, with a couple scenes where I'm like, well, you know, this could have been in a better movie, and there's a better movie in here. It's just there's so much bloat and shit in this movie that Laura Lenny and Robin Williams's relationship is not that important. They have no charisma with one another. Yet Robin Williams is very charismaticallest in this role.

And because he has like zero charisma in this role, which is surprising because it's Robin Williams, Laura Lenny and him have no chemistry, like zero whatsoever. She and him are just like by the end of it, I'm like, I don't believe that they would be together. I don't believe that they would have anything to do with one another. I'm not even sure Robin Williams would turn down the opportunity to be president either, Like, I'm not sure the movie gets me to that point. And that's one of the big things.

The movie has to get you. The movie has to get you to the point where this guy gets elected president and then he makes the decision to give that up. And the movie never gets me to that secondary point. And that should have been the entire point of this movie, because that is what this movie's talking about, is what happens when you're given the opportunity to be president, and you know that it is in fact not the not real, it's not a genuine thing. And what do you do with that power?

And that movie doesn't want the movie doesn't want to have that conversation, and I don't understand why, because that's not a conversation. A lot of movies have gone down and this almost seems uniquely positioned to have that conversation. And it just kind of farts it out at the end. It's like, well, he's on the cover of Time magazine. Okay, I mean back in nineteen sixty three, Philip K.

Dick wrote a story called stand By and they had this guy named I can't remember his name, Jojo I think it was, and he was what Dick called the news clown. And I remember reading that story and I think that there are news clowns and maybe even flow my tears the policeman said, where basically clowns are delivering the news. And I'm just as I'm reading this story, I'm just like, well, fuck, this is the Daily Show, This is so many other things that are going out right now. But I was just amazed that he was able to, you know, say like this is where we're going. I think a lot of you know, Dick had a lot of great ideas, a lot of interesting things, And I was just like, okay, so this is just taking that one step further, Like what if the news clown is actually put in charge of things?

And yeah, it's a fantasy that a lot of people have had. It's a fantasy that people still well they kind of talk about it, but yeah, I think, like, I don't know if we would be having the same talk in two thousand and six that we're having in twenty twenty five, But I still think like you were saying, like, Okay, Ronald Reagan, Ronald Reagan had run the Screen Actors Guild, he had been governor, he had done political stuff. But yeah, a lot of people when he was running for president or like you know, going back to the doc Brown of it All, Ronald Reagan the actor, you know, like this doesn't make any sense. You know, I can't believe this, But yeah, now, just like you said, I was bothered by the lack of vice President.

I was bothered by because this reminds me of a lot of other films too, like The American President. I think that's the name of it, right with Michael Douglass Or what's that one, Dave with Kevin Klin, Yeah. That Kevin Klin, Kevin Klein and trio there. But it's like, so, you know those movies are like, well, what if a very nice person was running. We had a charismatic president in the nineties, Mike, don't you get it?

They were all in response to Clinton, Like that's a crazy thing. Like what was what's the one with Travolta, the one where he plays a primary colors? Yeah, well that was very based on Clinton and that was the big scandal. Who is anonymous? Who wrote this book?

You know? Rush? Yeah, this feels like of that ILK, Like this is a weird like you kind of alluded to Colin, like why would anybody want to watch this weird niche genre of movies? Like I don't know, Like Robin Williams did a better job playing President Teddy Roosevelt in Night at the Museum than he did in this movie, and that I think, for me and for a lot of people is probably going to be like up there for Robin Williams is like defining roles as playing Teddy Roosevelt. It's weird to me.

But then he also played the president again in another movie, but that was again one of those serious movies. I believe he played Dwight D. Eisenhower in The Butler, which was an attempt to get Forrest Winaker another Academy award, I believe, because that's like twenty thirteen, so post him playing idiot mean, so yeah, Robin Williams plays plays two real presidents too at a later points in his career, which is equally as strange. I just I guess, I guess given how popular John Stewart was at the time, because this is John Stewart right like, and a little bit of Stephen Colbert, because Stephen Colbert is around at the time too. Who actually ran or you had a mock presidential campaign in two thousand and eight, so after this one was out.

Right, he's not as punchy as those guys are in reality at all. And then again, if you're gonna take Robin Williams, a guy who is so good off the mic, like, you're not going to give him the opportunity to riff on the political system. Imagine if this movie it had George Carlin, like someone who is able to riff on the political system like you essentially have in a lot of ways a modern day I mean, I'm not going to give it a one to one comparison, but Lewis Black in a lot of ways is very similar to George Carlin, Bill Hicks. You know, they have an anti authoritarian streak in them. I mean, Lenny Bruce, Amyle Long.

And they don't even give Lewis Black anything to do in this movie. Like, of all the people to have in this kind of movie, I would concede Lewis Black is the perfect actor. Why not have him in the Robin Williams role. I may don't want to. I don't really want to push the envelope.

Like he's unlikable enough, you know, right, It's the problem is Robin Williams is too likable. You've made it Robin Williams unlikable in this movie, which is a cardinal sin of its own right, Like Robin Williams is likable. When he's unlikable, they really have to do a good job making him unlikable, like depth to smoochy. But even in that movie that he's kind of redeemed at the end, Like it's it's hard to make Robin Williams unlikable unintentionally when he's still meant to be likable, because there are movies that make him very unlikable, like Insomnia and Twenty four Hour Photo. He's unlikable in those movies.

But that wow also that he's unlikable, they're intentionally here. It's like we're supposed to like him but find him edgy, and it's like he's none of those things. The movie will never be that because it doesn't want to alienate viewers politically, right, you know, he makes a you know, he's always just like I don't like Democrats and I don't like Republicans. They're the same. And it's like, oh, it's like if you don't want to like you know, risk, you know, pissing off and losing money, Well you why are you making a political movie?

Like it's it's a fool's errand. And I don't know if this is the time we want to talk about it, but at some point we're going to have to talk about this techno thriller. Yes, because delobations, because it takes over the movie. It does. And again, if people are watched listening to this without having seen the movie for some reason, and the US decides to use Delacroix.

I think they call it. Well, I can tell you the reason, because of those hanging chads from the two thousand and one election. Yeah yeah, or was that two thousand and two? Whenever that was nineteen two thousand, okay. Yeah, pre nine to eleven.

But the movie never tells you what this software will do. No, And so this is the beginning of the problem with this as a techno thriller, because the software makes no sense. They don't even try to explain how this voting system is going to work. There's a glitch in the certain culum repeating letters, Cullen, that's all we need to know. We're gonna get to that.

We'll get to that, because that's when you finally get to the glitch. It's fucking stupid as hell. Before you get to that, you get Laura Lenny, who I guess is the architect of this program, who decides to run a test and discovers that there's some sort of glitch and people aren't winning the way they should based on a number of votes, and somehow her doing a test is just an anomaly, and people aren't testing software. So this is a little dumb and after, you know, on election night, Robin Williams winds up winning, and she goes to tell her boss, and her boss and Jeff Goldbloom, you know, try to bully her and explain, Oh, you're gonna you're gonna sink the company, You're gonna put people out of work.

Find your boss is not Jeff Goldbloom, by the way. It was a character she interacts with several more times in the movie. Not Jeff Goldbloom, by the way. Yeah, well, by the way, who is her boss? I've never seen this actor before in my life.

I'm like, of all the people, you have so many actors in this movie, could you not afford one more? Maybe they all turned it down. They didn't want to do Bury, they didn't want to do Barry a Solid apparently, I don't know. Wow. And so we're gonna get to a point that just really pisses me off in terms of narrative.

You know, the Goldbloom in The Boss decide they got to do something about Laura Lenny. So what do they do. They hire a thug who breaks into her house, you know, attacks her from behind and injects her with something. And you think that they're gonna kill her. No, they just inject her with heroin, cocaine and a couple other drugs, and then she wakes up in the morning see apparently has no memory of being attacked.

She sees an injection site on her back and just thinks nothing of it, and then goes to the company office to the company cafeteria to get coffee, where she showed jittery that she spills the coffee and forgets her purse, and because of forgetting her purse and spilling coffee, someone in the lobby decides to call nine to one one, at which point she is given a drug test and they find more pills in her stomach than something I can't remember what the analogy is, and this becomes the blackmail evidence. In case she ever says anything against the company, they can say, well, she's a drug addict. This is the most stupid, goddamn plan, Like, why don't they just kill her. Shoot her in the head. That's where I kept saying about the Pelican brief.

I'm like, just walk up and shoot this woman. Why are you like taking sniper shots or yeah, trying to discredit somebody and give. More drugs od Stanley Tuccio that's the question, Like how because an assassin in the Pelican Brief, that's the movie. That's the thing this movie is missing is the assassin character you need. John Grisham knows how to write a thriller.

Well that's what I mean. Yeah, this is not a thriller, Like how do they know that she's gonna go get coffee? And also, if you're in the staff break room and one of your colleagues spills coffee and is a little jittery, why are you gonna call nine to one one on them? Like this is just this is the dumbest conspiracy and if it's. She is losing her shit.

But at the same time, it feels like this movie is just like look at this woman. I mean, it's so typical that they're just so paranoid and just seeing hysterical aster call there is the word. Yeah, I see people. Lose their shit like that at work before. You don't call nine one one on them.

Like maybe HR comes over and is just like, okay, we're gonna have a meeting. You know, it's security might get them away, but. Like you're not calling the cops. You call the cops. Hey, yeah, my colleagues spilt her coffee and is you know, yelling a little bit, and she's trying to mop it up, and she's not doing a great job mopping.

Okay, we gotta we gotta strap her in. Well, maybe you have different standards of your job, but I would immediately call the cops, maybe the fire department too. Yeah, it's like enemy of the state or something that they're trying to emulate with this thing. And and it kind of goes back to that Wag the Dog of it as well. It's like, okay, but that one felt I mean, I don't hold up Wag the Dog as any sort of great piece of cinema, but it felt a lot more solid than what they ended up doing here.

But at the same time, they they corners like crazy, like we're eleven minutes into this movie and he's already running for president. There's no preamble like yeah, like you're saying with that Christopher walking stuff, it is so there for me just to move this fucking plot along and just like all right, we're on the bus already eleven minutes in. Explusition dump It's like the walk in of it all. I think that Colin, when you were asking about like the reshoots, like they did not have any confidence in their ability to tell the story through you know, showing as opposed to tell it. You know, there was a point in the movie where Christopher Walking goes and a woman stood up and said, you should run for president.

It's like, we didn't need this, Like he doesn't need external motivation to be president given the way he talks about the system. He already knows the system is completely corrupted and fucked. Why would one woman standing up in the audience going I think you should run for president? Like that was that was the catalyzing moment, Like, well, then Walks, it's just it's goofy. It's just so goofy and lazy.

It's lazy beyond belie. It's like a it's like, we need this moment for the trailer, but yeah, we're gonna include it in the movie. It's like for the trailer makes sense, like that's a good like you should run for president and he did, like the perfect trailer moment, but like for the movie. If this is if he if he's as tied into the system as he claims to be, if he's meant to be Jon Stewart, he already knows that the system fucked. He doesn't need anybody to tell him it's fucked, and he doesn't need anybody to encourage him to run for president like that.

That just makes no sense to me. I kind of got the feeling that Barry Levinson was like, oh, Facebook and email this is a thing, because it's like Walkin says some line like after that episode, we had. Four million, you know emails, yard he emailed. He mentioned a couple more times of that week we had eight million emails. It was a combination of grassroots efforts and cult of personality.

And I'm like, okay, this this sounds like when you know your boss is trying to talk about social media at work but they literally have no idea how social media works. And again like this this movie's conceit. It's so weird that it takes place in a world where somebody like Jesse Ventura, who did run on a grassroots platform, who did if you gave him fifty dollars, which was the maximum amount that any one person can donate to a political campaign. By the way, if you gave him fifty dollars, he would give you your money back at the end of his campaign, Like that was one of the promises that he made. And again thoughts on Jesse Ventura and twenty twenty five or not that was a real actor and a wrestler who really ran for office and really won.

It wasn't some horseshit techno bullshit conspiracy that Michael Crichton could have written on the toilet if you'd given him five minutes, Like, Hey, Michael, I've got five minutes. Do you have a penance and toilet paper? Can you write me a movie about how the president gets elected through nefarious means because of technology. He could have come up with a better idea being bothered by somebody while he was doing something else than Barry Levinson could have while directing and writing this day. That's the most disappointing thing in all of this is Barry Levinson is involved deeply, like hands all the way in this film.

And you know, Toys is a movie that I sit and defend regularly. It's a movie we did not watch this month, but in a lot of ways I wish we had, because I think we would have enjoyed sitting and talking about it more as a middle of the road Robin Williams movie than this movie, because at least it kind of feels like it has something to say in terms of the loss of innocence as an adult and where that starts as a child, and if some people ever had it at all, Like that movie's having a much more interesting conversation about ostensibly what it's about at its core than this movie ever even gets to. And this movie, by the way, on top of everything else, is just as long as Toys, because Toys is two hours long, and so is this movie.

Which is probably the worst thing about this film is that it is two hours long. It is a waste of two hours. It needed to be ninety minutes. If that, like if you're not gonna have a time travel story in here, which I think probably would have been the best version of that, what a great movie that would have been. I would have really enjoyed that movie, because that's that's what the poster's selling, and that is not what the movie is provided.

But the thing that gets me though, is you're right, this is not a comedy, but so much about the setup unintentionally feels like a comedy, such as when we discover what the actual glitches, which is Laura Lenny watching Wheel of Fortune and sees two letters and then walks over to her laptop and figures out double letters. It's alphabetical. The person who has the you know earlier in the alphabet, Yeah, or is be's b's before g's g's before l. Dobbs has the bes He's gonna win. And I'm like, if this was a mel Brooks spoof, Like, if this was mel Brooks Allah, you know, men and tights, you know, doing a parody of you know, election movies, I could believe that as a plot point, But I cannot actually believe letters is the big reveal.

It is curious big reveal because they've been they hint at it in the first you know, ten minutes in the movie, and then they make you wait so long and it's just like, this is it. This is why they're like injecting you with drugs and doing this big conspiracy. Also this how hard is that going to be to fix? I also don't under so the other thing that I don't understand with this movie, and you just kind of alluded to it, Colin, the movie doesn't understand its own stakes. This guy is now the president of the United States.

It has to step down by his own choice. That is never something that anyone cares about. There's the other there's never a moment where the movie is like, by the way, there's a there's a possibility that this psycho guy stays as president. I mean again, not painted as a psycho, painted as a again guy that the audience the you know, protagonist of the film. We're meant to empathize with the plight of Robin Williams, but we never do.

And so if the movie's not gonna get us to empathize with him, we could at least call his reasoning into question, which the movie doesn't even I want to do either. So the movie just does effectively nothing, and then by the end of the movie pats itself on the back for having Robin Williams taking the high road and being president or not being president, even though all of his friends were like, you know, sixty percent of the country wants you to be president, maybe you should just stay president. That, in my mind, would have been a much more interesting ending to this movie, because what is the movie even achieving by having the outcome be what it is. I'm not even sure the movie knows. Frank I shouldn't.

Even have gotten though to this point, because if she is lower Lennie is so concerned with these election results, why is she going to go to the point of like trying to impersonate an FBI office officer in order to infiltrate his party. Which has she service agents everywhere who know exactly what someone faking what looking like an FBI agent would fucking look like. Why does didn't she just go to one of the other two candidates who lost and say, hey, I have evidence that this was rigged. They would immediately say tell us everything you know, we will give you protection and security. Why do you go into the person who won and try to awkwardly be like, I know, I'm kind of in love with you, but you also didn't win.

This is hard for me to say. Oh why yeah, why is. She in love? Because he's got that whole thing towards the beginning in the movie where you're like, oh, I got to be married, Oh oh, oh, do you want to be my wife kind of thing to that makeup lady and she's like, oh, that's the big problem. I'm like, you have other bigger problems than not being married, Okay, yeah, and yeah, like this I had had been a techno thriller about election fraud, not that that would ever happen in this country.

I mean, you know, nobody's ever gone on record talking about Elon Musk knowing computers better than anybody, all those vote counting computers. We ended up winning Pennsylvania in a landslide. You know, no one has ever gone on record talking about, you know, being able to control computers that way. No one's ever to plead to Russian hackers to hack the other person's campaign. No one's ever done that.

But had they done that, that might have been an interesting way to go about this and actually look more like, again, the guy that plays the head of the voting place, I do not know this actor of all of these great Like again, make fucking Jeff Goldbloom that guy. Have Goldbloom be your antagonist, Have him be that man behind the curtain to go to Wicked and just really be that guy who's like, Okay, yeah, I can manipulate whatever I want. Because again, there's no there's no recompense for this guy, Like he just was like, oh yeah, there's a glitch in the software. I'm gonna have to like discredit this woman and ruin her life and fire her and do all of these things. He's not getting paid extra money because of it.

I guess it's because the voting machines, Like his company stock is going out, like Dominion doesn't make big money because of voting machine and stop going up. As far as I know, I mean, I'm sure that you are not hurting for money, especially after they get to sue Fox News for defamation of character or you know, slander. But it's like, please come on, guys, give me something here, give me a reason. You know, he's almost a bond villain, but he's a bond villain with absolutely no motivation whatsoever. He's just like, oh yeah, I guess they can hear screwed up, but we just can't let anybody know because we don't want to lose money.

Wouldn't it be weird if technocrats were getting involved in our political system but that something. Wouldn't it be weird if people were paying money to have people vote for someone else. Yeah, Like when he's at the inauguration, there's like the heads of like all the big social media and tech companies all there, just like high on ketamine and staring at the ceiling. That would be really weird. What it would be weird if that was happening in real life, And then they were making movies that weren't nearly as interesting as the horrifying world that we live in, and we could just go watch CNN for five minutes and be more entertained than this two hour movie is ever at any point in two hours?

Is that good enough for you, Colin? Yeah? And I was losing my shit. You talked about that a moment when when Tom Dobbs goes completely off the reservation and just. He steps yes the podium, folks, he does the one thing no one should ever do with to step off the podium apparently.

And I'm just like, you know what, cutes, Mike, this is not acceptable. This is not acceptable behavior. Get rid of this guy. I didn't think it was cute. I didn't think it was funny.

I thought it was a breach of decorum, reach of the rules. This should not be allowed. And the reason that he can do that is, like you said, it's completely normalized now. So to see that kind of behavior is exactly like Trump stalking behind Hillary and breathing and starting his nose off in that first debate. Holy shit.

Yeah, it's just it's I'm not saying that. Look, this movie is not funny more because of the political atmosphere that we're in now, And like, I try to keep this podcast not a political but as as political as a political as possible, not because I really fucking care, but because that's not why we're here. But when you talk about something like this, it's inherently political. And I think for me, the saddest thing is like, to your point, what's going on in the real world right now is so much like so much of what this movie was doing. It just feels like it was prescient but unintentionally prescient.

And then we have to watch this and I'm like, yeah, but in what happened in reality is way worse than this movie could have even pretended. Like we have this moment where Chris Walkin's like weather and I'm just thinking to myself, was this what was going on in the last like eight years when this was going on in reality? They were like, he's not pushing it far enough. He needs to push it more. He needs to do, like you said, stalk behind people.

It's like normalizing of that behavior. I'm not saying this Robin Williams movie is to blame but like, I'm not sure that this movie is benefiting from the world and time we live in now. He just feels kind of like nobody really thought this could get this bad. Huh huh. Well that's how was my One of my big problems with this movie is, I mean, I agree it is prescient, but I really wish that at some point Barry Levinson had written the moment in the two hours, maybe cut a little bit out of the paintball or the dancing, and you just have somebody expressism of Robin Williams's character.

But oh, there. Is never any moment. Everyone's always talking about how great he is, how he's always right, And I'm like, can't you just have a little bit of criticism, a little bit of distance. The idea that someone an outsider would come into our system and wouldn't be a problem is fucking insane to me, Like, what are you mean? Movie?

This guy is completely unprepared to do this job, and the movie makes that. The movie gives us scenes where it's like, who do you have to staff over five thousand people? Like this guy's not prepared for this fucking job. Like, well, the scene where his secret service person and is assigned to him. And by the way, no secret service during the debates during the campaign.

It's after his re election. I know, I know. But when his security guy comes in, when his secret service guy comes in, and he's just like, oh, I'm a big fan, and I'm like, no, no, don't make him a big fan. This guy should be like, I don't know, like the character that Bruce willis played in The Last Boy Scout, or like Clint Eastwood in the Line of Fire. How about Trent Krim and Ted Lasso?

Are you fucking serious? Is this a fucking joke? He should actively dislike that Tom Dobbs has come in here and upset the system so much and really just made the presidency a laughing stock, and he should be like, I disagree with your policy, what policies? Like? Really?

Yeah, he should be the guy to call him the car I would. I was kind of hoping. I was just like, oh my god, is this movie about to take a turn? Is this security guard or sorry I keep saying security guard? Is this secret service agent?

Is he going to be the voice of reason? And he's gonna you know, because he comes in he's very stone faced, and I was like, oh my God, what if he hates him? What if he's just like, oh, yeah, you have no policies to stand on. How are you going to tackle this? How are you going to handle that?

It just like really calls him out, but no and said he's like, yeah, big fan, Oh okay, well we just lost that avenue, Mike. That's a I'm glad you pointed out that scene. That's that's that's that's you know. I agree. And what I kept thinking about through this movie did you all see Maverick.

Of the Top Gun Movie? Oh? Oh no gives film? Yeah. I was like, oh, you're talking about Maverick.

No, no, no, not the not not the James Garner right Show, but uh no, so the New Top Gun Movie. Among the many things that just struck me as so bizarre about that movie is the structure, which is almost like a series of jokes where the Tom Cruise character or someone will set up the Tom Cruise character being like, you can't do this, try to reprimand him, and then Tom Cruise will get in a punchline, and then it'll cut to other characters who just look at Maverick and nod and it's like, yeah, Maverick is great. The whole movie. It's just Maverick worship. And I kept thinking about that with this movie, where it's like, this movie is just set up to have characters either like in the audience, you know, in you know his managers or on you know television, the co hosts, the people watching, everyone just keeps marveling at isn't this guy so smart?

Isn't he so witty? And I felt like after a while, I'm like, you're just trying to convince me in the audience that this isn't good. And I'm like, this isn't working it. Here's the I mean, And again, like we live in the age of meta now, like not not the Big Zuck, but like meta as in like Deadpool, because again, this is pretty Deadpool even it's almost like the movies like hey, by the way, Robin Williams is gonna be president. It's like that's the point of the movie.

And and Mike, I don't know if you would agree with me, given that we're you know, we're one episode away from being none with this month, how many of these Robin Williams movies are just like, wouldn't it be weird if Robin Williams was x y Z. It's like, well, Robin Williams as a again a man with a child brain, or Robin Williams as a doctor who's gonna take down the system with the power of laughter because it's Robin Williams and he's a comedian. Or Man of the Year where Robin Williams plays a comedian who takes down the political system of his country because he's a comedian, or Missus Doubtfire Robin Waif's playing a woman, a man who wants to has to play a woman to get his kids back, like Robin Williams as like when you become that high and visible of a star like Tom Hanks we've talked about before this month, or Robin Williams, they kind of just want to see you in things where it's like, what would it be Like, I'm surprised we haven't had the Tom Hanks as President movie, unless I'm mistaken in forgetting we haven't had.

I mean, Tom Hanks played Walt Disney, so you know, he's like playing essentially the one of the other American cultural icons. I guess that is like widely recognizable, but for me, like Tom Hanks, Robin Williams, Jimmy to can speak about Jimmy Stewart like some of these actors, like we just want to see him do a thing that everybody would know relatably broadly, like President. Everybody in this country knows what that means, or at least used to at one fucking point. And like Robin Williams's President was how this movie was pitched. I guarantee you, like it's as simple as that.

Just like again, like all these other movies, I guarantee we're just like, what if Robin Williams is just doing this thing? Because there's the thing is Robin Williams, Like that's it you're trafficking and the notoriety of Robin Williams and he is imminently notariat, no, no, imminently well known across the world, I would say, not just Americ. Robin Williams is a robot that wants to be human. Right exactly see what I mean, like like put him like and then they have him as a fucking robot in an animated movie, like they give him his own CGI thing like Mike Myers, another eminently well known comedian. And oh, by the way, the thing that really bugs me about this movie, I did you guys know that Barry Levinson must be friends with Lauren Michaels.

Oh, because if I didn't know, I knew, my man, this fucking movie because holy speak in upstate, guys like, didn't you know? Did you know? Like you wrote to poor Tina Fey and Amy Polar into this shit, because man, if you want to talk about showing how poorly written this movie is, put the two of them on screen in roles that they're known for at the time and watches Barry Levinson has no idea how to write and clearly made them well say whatever he had on the page. Because they admit that they don't know what to say. There's a point where they're like, oh, well, we usually just make fun of stuff.

We don't know what to do, And I'm. Like, what the fuck? Like you don't have any lines for this. It's embarrassing to waste Amy Pohlar and Tina Fey like and this is peak Amy Poehler and Tina fe in terms of their SNL Weekend Update versions of themselves like this is it's when when we got to that point in the movie, I was like, Wow, what is the Lord Michaels must have owed Barry Levinson a favor because this is a lot of SNL to be in this movie on top of everything else. Like I'm not saying movies don't include SNL, but SNL is not included in movies like this very often, if ever, like.

Nor should they be. I mean, god, it would be really dumb to have a person that's running for president be the host of SNL right during the election season. I'm old pro applause, Yes tell, And I know you were trying to get a word in edgewise side. I might when you When I saw you gesturing, I thought you were going to mention that Howard Stern was originally considered for the role that Robin Williams plays. And I think that Stern, I mean, he would have fit the mold a little bit more.

I don't know if it would have been too on the money, because remember Stern was trying to run for what was it, governor of New Jersey, but he refused to say what his income was. I believe that was the sticking point. And then it's so funny that you know, we still haven't seen the tax returns, you know, like some people demand to see the birth certificate. I would still like to see the fucking tax returns, you know. So yeah, I think that Stern would have been because also you got to remember two thousand and six, Arnold Schwarzenegger had been governor of California for three years at this point, would continue to be governor of California for another five I think I think it was two thousand and three to twenty eleven or something.

So it's like, you know, like we are already in this weird state. Like you said, Chris, We've had Ventura as governor of what was in Minnesota. We had Al Franken as a governor as well. True, and then we've got you know, and he's like prime News clown. But at least Al Franken had a fucking platform, you know, he had stuff to stand for.

Arnold Schwarzenegger had stuff to stand for. But yeah, like they just are like, oh well, we don't want to, like you said, alienate the audience and just you know, we can't have this guy do anything other than crack wise. And here's my question because again, this movie, this movie opens the box, and so I will now that the box has been opened, I will examine it because the movie could have left it closed, and we would have not had an opportunity to mention it. This movie also, I think commits a cardinal sin, which is they acknowledge the fact that John Stuart and Bill Maher fucking exist. Yeah, just do you know what, fuck you movie?

Just have John Stewart in your movie, Like I want to cass Robin Williams, right, because it's not like there's somebody who's a comedian who's literally doing it for real. That would Again, I'm not saying i'd vote for John Stewart for president, but you know what I would, because John Stewart seems like he has a good head on his shoulders, at least of the things I've heard him talk about every night when I was growing up. For fuck in twenty years or whatever the fuck it is to the point where old is new again and he's hosting it right now every week on Monday. He still hosts the goddamn show once a week and he does a podcast. But you had a real person that this is emulated off of, who could have because you know, he's an actor and has been in things.

I mean, again, your opinion on John Stewart as an act. He was in a half baked he was. I mean, I'm just the only reason is that right now, The only reason I'm making that gesture is just because he's his His star power is not nearly Robin Williams, which is kind of a shame because I like when Jon Stewart shows up. I mean I've liked him since those early days of fucking MTV. And also he was in that to Smoochy, so right, but yeah, half baked?

I mean, was he the because he used to see. That big bushes, this guy in the bushes. He used to do this. He was when he was doing stand up where he's like talking about the guy. You know, it'd be like, oh, yeah, this is really cool and you can put your weed in there.

And I know he played that in one movie. Was that Halfno? Okay, he's like you said, here, you're diver seeing the back of a twenty dollar BILLI or seeing the back of a twenty dollars bill on weed. That's Steve Yes, Yeah, he's the on weed guy in the movie. Yeah.

But again, like I don't consider like John Stewart. I think for a lot of people my age, he is one thing like he is not like saying with Conan O'Brien, right, like Conan O'Brien is a talk show host, Like he was a writer on the Simpson Sorry cut his teeth, Like he wrote some of the best episodes of the Simpsons. He wrote the monoail song. Like you know, he has his hands in a lot of stuff, but for most people my age, he's known as the talk show host. Just like for a lot of people, Stephen Colbert is just a talk show host and they don't remember him as a part of the Daily Show where he cut his teeth.

Just like Steve Carell. You have all these people that could have played this role. Fucking Steve Correll at this point would have been a better choice. Can you imagine. I mean, this is two thousand and six, This is the Office Steve Carell.

This is again like we were having this conversation with like what's Steve Carell's most well known role, Like what's it gonna be on his in memoriam? I think some people would say the Office, but I think at this point it's grew from Despicable Me. And this is like in that time where you could get Steve Carell before he became unattainable like he is now, Like I don't think it'd be a I don't I don't know if it would be better, but I think it would have been at least a little bit more. Yet, script sucks, but I think more. My point is at least you would have acknowledged the reality of what's going on, as opposed to just throw away lining and being like, well, John Stewart's like, don't acknowledge John Stewart.

Please, I got an idea what it ends to firefucking Barry Levinson. Get John Stewart to write it, or anybody. Right there. Uh huh, yeah, yeah, people who knows. If you don't want one of them to direct it, get back Mike Nichols.

Yeah, Danny DeVito. Danny Devido directed like half of this cast and Death to Smoochie, and that's a black comedy quote unquote. This movie just doesn't know what it wants to be. And I think I don't know. We talked about this on the last episode.

Mike. This is you know, we're less than a decade from Robin Williams taking his own life. This is a late term Robin Williams movie, and it is unfortunate that towards the end of his career, this is the kind of stuff that he was in because he had turned in so many good movies at this point, and there were so many people yet, like we're at the cusp of so many people coming up. Can you imagine like him working with like a Robert Eggers type or like a fucking ari astor or any of these, like, good god, so many directors that can you imagine what Robin Williams would get to do with them? No, we can only imagine because he was squandered with Barry Levinson two times by most people's approximation.

Because I am a defender of toys, but this is an indefensible movie. And the script I think fails this movie before anybody even showed up to do a table read. This script of this movie is fucking atrocious. I can't believe how much time they waste on things that add nothing to the movie. Literally nothing like paintball and dancing like that's like ten minutes of this movie.

They play an entire Ktie Tunstall song, the entire song I don't need to hear the Black Horse and the Cherry Tree. I didn't need to hear it in two thousand and six because it was overplayed then like a fucking train song and hearing it in it's an entirety. It's like three minutes movie. Come on, I'm. Self indulgent too.

That Barry Levinson puts the commercial that he shot with the Analyze This and Analyzed That crew with De Niro and Crystal in the middle of his fucking movie and he just stops everything dead to show us this commercial. I'm just like, what the fuck like. It's not different than Barry Sonenfeld an RV with his face on the side of the fucking RV. All movie. It's Backtally reminded me of thank explaining I was gonna ask what that was about.

It. Yeah, mass getting beyond belief. He's getting high in his own supply. You know. It's just like, what the hell man, Like I've seen you do.

Here's a scene in this movie where they're on a TV and and we have my playing get your hose out of your ass, dude, Like, what the fuck man? Yeah? And yeah, like one Rob Williams knows that she's not an FBI agent and it's like, oh, yeah, no, I knew that you weren't. And then yeah, how does she get invited to the I guess he shows up in the limo. It's kind of a switch through.

We think it's Jeff Goldbloom's people coming for her, but then it's actually him picking her up to take her on this date. And again, I'm thinking of the American President. That was the name of the one with Douglas and Atte Benning, right, just thinking of that and just like, oh, that was kind of a delightful movie and it was such a big deal, like oh, sure, but the president's taking you out and instead it's just like, I am this is completely unmotivated. Why is he falling in love with her? Why is she falling in love with him?

Is it just because he's a man and she's a woman And he mentioned that he needed to get married and that he had a bad divorce and all this, and like there's no motivation for this stuff. And her whole thing with him is subterfuge, Like she just keeps the and like I'm gonna tell this guy. I need to tell this guy. And it's like yeah, again, don't go to him, go to somebody else, and like, why are you falling in love with this person? And if you truly are in love with this person, maybe you take that secret to the grave, because really it's not going to gain you anything.

And it's definitely not going to gain this new love of your life anything. And I have to say I blanked on it. But they end up together at the end of this fucking movie, right they do. Jesus Christ. Oh, by the way, we mentioned him.

Zelenski also technically a TV comedian, yes that's true, technically a comedian, technically an entertainer of some degree in Ukraine and got elected president. It's not impossible. I don't understand why someone's back, Like I don't understand why people have I mean, I'm not saying like you have to be a lawyer or a doctor or you know, again some sort of like feet. I mean, you know, there was a time when people were elected president that had to there were tradesmen, for fuck's sake, Like that's you know, that's a that's not an unconscionable idea. And to be like, well, act there's no such thing as like, there's no such thing as a smart actor, as I guess, like I don't know, so many actors are told not to speak up.

When they speak up, and they're very like not well spoken, but they're very well educated on the topics that they care about. Now, it may not be something that you inherently care about. And I understand that a lot of actors use their sway for things that some people may not care about, some people may not even agree with what is it? Eddie Vedder was one of the big proponents of the West Memphis three being let go, like why would he care? Because he does, and like, you know, like it doesn't invalidate his opinions or abilities because he's a performance artist, like I don't.

And it's weird to me because this movie's like it's crazy, Like no, no, it's not. It's actually not crazy, Like. No celebrities can use their celebrity to help causes. I mean, I don't like Kim Kardashian. I do like the idea of freeing prisoners that shouldn't be in jail.

I'm surprised that she wasn't behind getting Andrew Tate over here, because I feel that she's got bad taste, especially in men. But you know, we talked with Max Gale and he's just like, oh, I'm using the money I'm getting from Battle to the Network Stars to give to these Native American causes. I am the cause celebrity. I am going to bring this stuff to the TV show that I'm working on that is one of the most popular sitcoms ever. Just to make sure that people are aware of these issues that are going on with Native Americans.

Great, yeah, and yeah, people, now it's just like what you shut up, You're an actor, shut up. You know. It's like, oh, okay, our president is a TV personality. At least that's what Wikipedia claims. He is at the bottom of the page for Man of the Year because of course that has to be there now because yeah, because he because Donald Trump.

Again. For a lot of people your age, Mike, he's you know, he was the. Guy that made cameos in a bunch of movies, right, you know, and also was a total scumbag of New York real estate. But there are people that didn't know the real estate part, right, There aren't And there are people that know nothing about him, that knew nothing about him other than the Apprentice longest time. Yeah, and like you get them, Donald, you get yeah, tell a Morosa that she's wrong, yeah, and make fun of her forgetting that plaster on her head.

Or meat loaf that he like, look it's screaming. Mate, like fucking meat Loaf and Gary fucking Abuse. Like Donald Trump's a TV personality. It'd be like if the host of fucking Survivor was the President of the United States in a lot of ways, like vote for Jeff Probes or or Richard Dawson. I mean again, like TV personality.

But this movie just again, this movie thinks that the premise is crazy. It's like, isn't it crazy? It's like, Nope. If you if the movie had just gone all right, Robin Williams is president, what does that mean now? I think you would have had a more interesting movie just on the face of it, as opposed to he's the guy who gets elected president and there's the whole chicanery behind that.

There should have been something about him already being president or I was thinking while we were sitting here, like a dark night of the soul thing where he's you know, I don't know, like he's about to become president and he's an asshole and he has a visit from you know, the three Presidents of Christmas Past, future and president or whatever, you know, like cause him to be a better guy in the next day, you know, typing a Scrooge Christmas Carroll type thing where Robin Williams's president or he's one of the ghosts. I don't know, makes more sense than what we got in so many ways. It sounds like that an American Carol movie with Chris Farley's brother as Michael Moron who gets visited by Bill Riley.

Who is it Kelsey Grammar as Patton And I can't remember which president Leslie, No, I don't wait, yeah, I think he was the president in that one. Oh fuck yeah, He's played presidents quite a few times, especially what scary movie? Right? Wasn't he the guy who read him about the goat scary movie? Three?

Yeah? Were you talking about the President Ford? And then it's a picture of Harrison Ford on the wall. Yeah, oh yeah, but yeah, no, I totally agree with you. I am so surprised that this movie didn't end with Rob Williams waking up and going, whow what a terrible dream.

That's how awful of this. New Heart ending? Give him the New Heart ending? Oh fuck yeah? Have him wake up and it's Pam Dauber in bed next to him, and he's just like, oh hey, oh chasbat you know, oh yes, beautiful thing.

Oh, yes, beautiful thing. I love Robin. Man. Wouldn't it be great if they could just film Robin Williams doing stand up for two hours, if we could have watched that instead. Oh, wouldn't that be a shame?

Hey, Colin, Since we've been sitting over here having a bit of a political aside, I'm very curious. And this is the question I've asked I think everybody this month, and I will pose it to you. Thoughts on musings on Robin Williams's career, body of work, and what do you think of when you think of Robin Williams. Because everybody's had a different answer. I don't think anybody's had a wrong answer, but it's I think it's, you know, again, the notoriety and visibility of Robin Williams.

I don't think could be ignored even by a cool hipster guy, as cool as you color it. Oh, throwing out these compliments here, compliment that's a that's a diss know, well, hipster hipster is pretty bad? Yeah, is it? I meant I meant it in the way that people don't drag one another. For Oh and by the way, Leslie Nielsen played Osama ben Nielsen slash Grandpa in that movie, so he was not president one.

That would be a trivia question. And what movie did Leslie Nielsen play Osama ben Nielsen? Whoever gets that question right, you have to tell them to go on to the parking lots their mouth over the exhaust of a car, because they don't deserve to live. You know, I don't. It had been so long since I had seen a Robin Williams movie, and a lot of the stuff from the later part of his career I had never seen.

You know, I grew up watching you know, reruns of Mork and Mindy, but I haven't seen that probably in like thirty years. I'd be very curious. I remember liking Good Morning Vietnam Again. It's probably been like thirty years since I've seen that movie. I saw Toys when it came out, and I have no recollection of it.

I watched Toys, Mike. Yeah, I don't really feel. Like I have. The algorithm said this was way worse, and I think the algorithm is right. Yeah, yeah, I mean he's he's a very funny guy.

I don't have a you know, I grew up, you know, I loved Missus doubtfire at the time. I haven't seen that in ages. But this is not this is not what I remembered of Robin Williams. It didn't have, you know, this sort of pep and the energy that I remember from these multitude of different performances in different types of movies, Like there was always this sort of Robin Williams persona. That that's why I would you watch him, And you know, there are moments where you can see that he's trying to do a little riffing on his own.

I feel like the dirty jokes were him, but they weren't even that funny. You know. He does, you know, some of his accents, like in the SNL moment, like the weekend Updates scene, but even those little bits were you know, weren't really enough to bring the movie up. And it's it's not his fault. He just says nothing to work with.

He has no character. There's partly the only backstory we get is when he's talking about when he would jerk off in high school, right, and it's like cool, like this is why we're supposed to like this guy because he would masturbate and all right. Yeah, and you're miriaged to smoking a joining, you know, because we're still talking about the whole did not inhale thing. And he admits that he farts, oh yeah, and he makes that joke that's not funny about like, oh, if I had my wish, my cabinet would be lesbians. We wouldn't get they wouldn't get much done, but it'd be fun to think about what they would do behind closed doors.

And I'm like, why do we why? Why is this sort of sex is joke like supposed to make him endearing to us, Because in the world of the movie that is supposed to make him endearing to us. It's just the writing is just in such bad taste every step of the way, like it's patting itself on the back. It thinks it's clever and smart and it's not. And I, you know, said like, I think Robin Williams does the best job that anyone could do.

I don't think another actor would make this movie any better. Ryan Ellis was in five movies in two thousand and six, five Night Listener r V. Everyone's Hero is technically six, but it's an uncredited voice role, so I'm not counting that. One Man of the Year, Happy Feet Night at the Museum. I saw Happy Feat for the first time a couple of weeks ago.

It's what's lovely, It is delightful. We had to watch that because you know, we have a penguin here on the couch watching every. Pre eminent penguin programming. Yeah, the penguin was ten o'clock. The penguin on your television will now explode.

Happy Feat's great, but it makes good use of Robin Williams's voice. Yeah, he's wonderful. That's the problem though with Robin Williams. It's like he almost is so good that again we had this discussion already, but Genie is really in like a lot of ways, like pure disolate Robin Williams. But again, it's just one step removed from his you know, two thousand and two or again whatever version of his live comedy act you want to watch again.

For me, it's two thousand and two. For a lot of people, it's eighty six with evening at the met but you could go back as far as you'm seventy eight or eighty three, and then you know two thousand and nine. I'm not the biggest fan of Weapons of Self Destruction, but you know, I don't know. Two thousand and two is like peak Robin Williams and this comes after that. And there were bits from his like you mentioned Cullen, bits from his live act that kind of wiggled their way into this, but just barely, like just the smallest amount.

It's like Barry Levinson, like you don't trust Robin Williams to be funny. Really, if we go back and we the Delacroix system, I bet we've said Barry Levinson's name more than Robin Williams's name in this episode. I well, it's because he's again he puts his name on this written and directed by like proudly dude, like right there upfront. Yeah, this does not despite this being a Robin Williams starring vehicle, this doesn't really feel like a Robin Williams movie. No, no, it doesn't, And it doesn't feel like an anybody movie except for mister Levinson.

Just feels like this is him. I mean, I like people that have political agenda sometimes, and you can see that in a lot of these movies. Like I mentioned, you know, like I think that I haven't seen what just happened, but I have a feeling it's going to feel very much like Man of the Year. Yes, I think that in my opinion, again not having seen that one, but to me, I would lump wag the dog Man of the Year and What Just Happened as almost a trilogy. What Just Happened is better than this though.

Okay, well that's good because see that's low praise. He can do some really bad bad movies. Like for every great movie ten Men, Young Sherlock Holmes Diner, he makes horrible stuff disclosure sphere, Jimmy Hollywood. I mean he can make really bad movies. He is so hit or miss.

Have you seen the new one with the double de Niro? No double de Niro? Wow? What is that? When the Alto Knights, Yeah, oh boy, I thought that was about a saxophone player.

But it's written by Nick Polegie. Okay, so you know, I mean, at least you know the the the cred is there. I mean, you know, Nick Poleedgie, Martin Scorsese Goodfellas. According to the Times, though the Times Reviews said it is intentionally very good Fellasy, even like some compositions are just taken straight from that. And I think they said, if if that is what you want, then you will enjoy the movie.

I think for me, and this again, this just goes to the Toys of it all. If we had been watching Toys, I think we would have had a better time. But I think, to the point of Mike with what chat GBT did, Toys is a better movie because Toys does have something to say. So it's not going to show up here anymore than a lot of the other things are. But I would say if we had watched Toys, one of the things we would have walked away from that movie saying that we said kind of with this movie is the self indulgent nature of Toys is apparent in the set design in that movie, because the set design and the dressings and the costuming is so indulgent and over the top, and like every moment in that movie is like whacked out of its mind.

Because it's a surrealist film. This movie is overly indulgent in terms of Barry Levinson's point of view taking over the entire film, and it's so self indulgent in a way that like Toys can get away with it because it cost a ton of money. The movie was a fly, but you can go watch it, and there are parts of that movie that are visually arresting in a way that movies aren't because it's being made practically. This movie's just indulgent because Barry Levinson thinks he's being clever when he is just regurgitating what other people are saying at the time in a much more nuanced way, in a way that he can do it, which is not as nuanced as Again, it's you know, taking this is like taking scraps and turning him into hot dogs.

There are people that take high end cuts of meat and turn him into high end hot dogs. They sell him for twenty dollars a pound. This is scrap being turned into slop and being sold as high end product, and it is you passed it off with Robin Williams. And that's a shame because Robin Williams was getting people in the door even in two thousand and six, which is why he was in five movies in two thousand and six, because he still had a lot of draw and credibility, and people want an an aging comedian who still has draw in the mid two thousands. Robin Williams is at the top of that list, if not the top of the list.

So I did check. So this according to Wikipedia, costs twenty million in a grossed forty I'm surprised at grossed that much, so I checked to see what else was playing in US theaters in the weekend of October thirteenth, two thousand and six, when it opened. Number one at the box office that weekend was The Grudge two, Oh Dear God, which I had not seen. I have not seen to Grudge one. So you have to see the first one, because if you walked into the second one, you just have so many questions.

I mean, there's a chance I might watch that? Is this? Who's Got a Grudge Against? Who? So Departed?

Was number two at the box office, but that had been that had been out I think for a week at that point. This was number three. Something called Open Season was number four. Well, it's an animated movie. That's the one with like Owen Wilson as like a bear or a deer, and then there's also a there's a deer in a there's a deer in a bear in that movie together, and I think that's a Dreams.

Film, right, Uh. I think they're saying Sony Pictures reka, Okay, yeah they might. I'm just going by what's on the box office Mojio page and they're only listing the main distributor. So number five was a Texas chance. I'm Masker the Beginning, then The Marine, The Guardian, Employee of the Month, One Night with the King, and then Jackass number two.

Honestly, of all of these movies. Employee of the Month is a better movie than this movie is, by like leaps. I've never heard of that. Most of these too. That I would like to see.

Jackass two is the grossest of the Jackass movies because that's the one where they're like eating all the weird stuff like the poop and the semen. But it's a it's a good one. It's under It's definitely underrated in the Jackass kind of movie. So here's a Jackass question. Because I was new to Jackass.

Lauren's a big fan and introduced me to it, and I really liked the new one when she showed me some of the older stuff. I liked the body humor a lot. What I don't like are when they're like pranking people that in like kind of like fucking with them, like oh, like if there's like an employee who's just clearly trying to get through their menial like minimum wage job, and they're just like ruining their day. Those I have a little hard time with kind just like, man, I really hope you're getting this person like a few thousand dollars as soon as the camera stops rolling, because you were just traumatizing them. I don't think they were.

However, I will say Jackass kind of left that by the wayside once the movie started coming out, Like the third movie, they stopped Like second third movie is kind of when they stop doing it. But some of my favorite bits from those early seasons of the show are where they're directly fucking with people, like jumping out of jump jumping out at people in a batsuit or hanging upside down from like a flat like a like a light post as like a bat and like popping out is pretty good. But I get it's for some people. That's not everybody's cup of tea, you know, Eric Andre man on the street type shit. I get it.

I mean, in past jobs, people would just they knew they were pushing me to my limit, knowing that I couldn't, you know, react back to them. And so when I see people doing that on camera for entertainment, I'm just like I have no I have no sympathy for the comedians. Well, and you also live in like a place where people like where there are fucking people on the subway screaming and yelling all the time anyway, So it's like, I don't blame you for not wanting to like watch people just being nutsos on the trains, because I was like, yeah, I deal with this on a daily basis, Like this is just part of life out here, like you know, So anything else we want to talk about with Man of the Year other than the fact that this movie came out when everything was better than it, even the worst things at the box office, everything you mentioned, Colin was better than this movie by like at least ten percent, because this movie is just the would have been the worst thing at the at the box office that weekend.

Even the Marine is better than this movie, and that's a John Cena film. So I was very afraid that I was insulting. The gentleman that plays Hemmings is the guy that runs the voting machine place, and I went and I looked him up. The gentleman's name is Rick Roberts, and he's been in one hundred and eight things. Wow, there's nothing in here where you're like, oh, yeah, I remember this guy in that, because it's all like TV movies, small parts and like TV shows.

There's a few movie performances in here. I mean, he's probably great in all of those, but it's just like the caliber, you know, the caliber of acting like that was such a major role in this movie, or should have been. And again you got Jeff Goldbloom as his number two. You know what the fuck is. That they give his character nothing to work with his as the boss.

We see him delete an email and he might have a couple other lines, but he barely says. The party the holiday party, I guess it is. And then at one point Robin Williams calls him on the phone and he's like, oh yeah, what did she say? Oh she talked about the company? How can I find her?

And I'm like, this is the most expository level dialogue. So how is it that, like the primary threat to democracy as well as Laura Linny's character is the most non threatening character. Yeah, non character is a better way of putting it, because it's just not that he's a non threatening character. He barely exists. I was to be crazy if there were real technocrats that were getting involved in the elections.

See, this is why I wanted I was. I texted Richard to see if he was going to be on the episode because I would have loved that. Hey, I don't know. If he don't, he would have been fucking furious watching this that I want to They would have been so angry, but we would have been fending off a political podcast from the jump. I mean, you were like, is this going to be a political If it had been Richard, I don't think there would have been any way to avoid it.

He is so disapportant the screenwriting because I can't remember there were, you know, in so many different movies that we would you know, talk about together. He would be like, you know, I took out my timer and I checked, and it's just like, yes, at like exactly one third of the movie, we hit this plot point that I knew we would. And I'm like the way that he would sort of mathematically talk about the construction of these scripts. And I would love to hear him talk about this script in those terms because I don't think it's gonna hit those beats. But that's just my guessing because I'm like everything seems so weirdly rushed, and then really solo for a while, and then we gotta get get to a buzz plot points really quick, we gotta get moved script.

Now we're gonna slow down for a while, And I'm like, it almost makes me that's It's that sort of thing that makes me think, was this just like cut up? Is there like another hour or two of footage? Did they have to go through like major reshoots and patch this together? Because it doesn't hit the beats that you would think that a twenty million dollar Levinson Robin Williams movie is supposed to hit and he's not. Levinson is not that I'm not super familiar with his body of work.

I've seen a handful, but he doesn't strike me as like someone like he's not like an altman who's gonna be working within you know, studios and then just like turning everything inside out. And I don't mean that as an insult to Levinson, but like that's why I'm like, this movie just doesn't seem like he was trying to, you know, change the formula. It feels like it's supposed to be formulae, but it's just failing. Oh yeah, yeah, I agree, and I also think that there's a movie in here. There's there's What's crazy is there's two movies in here.

You could take all the techno thrillery stuff out, and I don't know if the Robin Williams part of the movie would be able to stand on its own, because it's so like intrinsically linked with the techno thriller stuff. But you could take all the Robin Williams stuff out of the techno real side of the movie and have another movie, like a movie without the comedic John Stewart character. It's just, oh, the election was stolen by you know, stolen unintentionally by someone. Doesn't matter who the candidate is, because at the end of the day, this story isn't it ends up being about, Oh, the comedian is the one that won. But guess if the comedian doesn't run for president, it's just gonna have been one of those two guys anyways.

And I don't think anybody would have ever said anything about anything, And so it's like, you know, okay, so what's the point. Then it's like you're you're injecting too much of one thing into a movie that kind of doesn't need it. And then the other movie should never have had any of this techno thriller shit to begin with, because it doesn't jibe with a comedic film that's like not inherently comedic. The way that they're painting a woman being drugged in her apartment with heroin and cocaine, like there's nothing funny about that, And the movie's tone goes so dark so quick that I'm like, movie, just make another movie. Just Barry Levinston, if you want to do this movie, do that movie, but don't do this movie and the other movie at the same time.

See if this had been like you know, I mentioned mister Smith goes to Washington. I feel like if Frank Capra had made this type of movie, Not that Frank Capra was alive in two thousand and six, but if we do some real world time traveling and bring him up, you know, the techno thriller would be gone, you know, it would there would have to be some sort of you know, she could lower Lenny could still work for it. Well, the revealed two thirds of the way through the movie would be oh, you didn't win, and she had been trying to tell him the whole time. But there would have to be more about her character, and she's someone who always tells the truth. And like, well, to your point, Colin, the what you're describing kind of sounds like mister Deeds goes to town, you know, or even like the Coen Brothers equivalent with the Hudsucker proxy.

This whole idea of like the person who is alongside with him who knows something, and in the case of both of those movies that the reporter who is trying to get the dirt on this d guy, because who the hell is this guy who's coming in and upsetting everything and greeting people like they should be treated rather than the way that society says they should be treated, like having conversations with butlers and elevator operators and like all of these these folks where he's just like, I don't he doesn't necessarily come out and say like, oh, I don't see people as like different importance. You go, I treat the janitor the same way I treat the CEO. Kind of thing. That's just their way, that's just their nature, Like, oh yeah, I want to have a conversation with this purpose.

I want to find out more about this kind of thing. Real grassroots type of people. And then meanwhile, you've got, you know, the reporter who's embedded, who's just like feeding all of these awful stories back to the newspaper that they're working for. I mean, really, you could easily have turned this into to your point, into that Capra esque type story where it's this is the woman who works for the voting company who accidentally or on purpose put him in to this thing. She has that knowledge, she doesn't know if she's ever going to tell him.

That becomes the crisis at the end of the second act, and then there's the whole crisis of faith coming into the third act, and then you know they eventually have to resolve that Amy, I really do love you. Let's you know, spend this night of New Year's Eve together kind of thing, you know, like it is, so it would be so much better had it adopted that Tapra esque mold. And they have the lead. They have the lead, They have a lead who again meta textually, you have Robin Williams in this movie, because Robin Williams can do no wrong as an actor like he you know, when were we talked about this last week. Tom Hanks is America's dad.

Robin Williams is like America's crazy uncle. Like that was the energy he gave off. That's the energy he would give off in his comedy specials for certain ages of people. I mean again, like the level of comedy was always pushing the envelope and obviously then he would resort to the level of mature humor that I mean, I think a lot of people appreciated from Robin Williams when he was able to actually fully go for it as opposed to, you know, the version of him that is kind of kittyified for Aladdin or Robots or again, a lot of these I mean, even this movie's kind of kittiified Robin Williams. Like, I mean, he had his funniest movies.

Yeah, he had his funniest was not this like sanitized bullshit. It's like watching George Carlin in Bill and Ted. It's like, oh my god. I mean, I love George Carlin in those movies, but this is not why I love George Carlin in everything else that I love George Carlin and because of the energy that he brought in and Robin Williams was cast in things because of the energy that he brought This movie just again, wouldn't be wild if Robin Williams's president? Yeah, start there, don't start with how do wouldn't it be wild if he became president?

Like not that conceit doesn't that Conceit would have been interesting if they had done this in the eighties. Imagine if they had done this in like nineteen eighty eight. You won't believe who's president. And it's like the chair turns around in the trailer and it's Williams and he's just sitting there like America's funny man is in those taking over the White House, like I would you know? Like that?

And you could see it. You could fucking see it because it's late eighties, early nineties Robin Williams, who really can do no wrong because we haven't seen him do any dramatic stuff at all where he starts to alienate people and so he's trafficking and purely goodwill and you have a much better movie that's possibly just as self indulgent as this movie is, but the basic conceit you get away with it a little bit more because we're living in a just post Ronald Reagan or still Ronald Reagan era, but pre Jesse Ventura and all these other people getting involved in American politics, further diluting how wild it is that someone who's not a quote traditional politician is now a politician, to the point where we now have a literal game show host is our fucking president, and not a good one for that matter, either, because I would let Richard Dawson kiss me on the mouth.

Cannot say the same for Donald Trump. I know where that mouth has been, and everyone's assholes is not a thing I would like to taste anytime soon. So it's just the conceits not crazy in two thousand and six. In nineteen eighty six, it would have like and maybe not crazy, but it would have been a little bit more wacky with Robin Williams. And now it's just like it's kind of sad and like we've already alluded to very prescient in a very unfortunate way, because I'm not sure again not saying that there's a timeline where Donald Trump isn't president, but I kind of wish we didn't have Man of the Year bottom referencing that this actually happened in real life, by the way, like, oh no, man for real and it wasn't actually Robin Williams elected president.

That's a shame. So anything else are we done? But in this one you doing final thoughts or anything? Yeah? No, I mean yeah, final thoughts starting with Culin or Mike and then Colin.

Uh yeah, very bad. If you want to see better political movies, we've mentioned a lot of them. I seem to fondly remember Dave for some reason, but the opposite of Dave, I would say, go out and see Face in the Crowd if you haven't seen I don't think that that's Lonesome Roads running for president, but basically he might as well be. That's a way better movie. And that's where you can see the dark side of fame and some of the stuff that we really wanted to see in this one.

We don't get any of that. And again you have another comedian playing a politician with mister Andy Griffith, and he's so good in that movie. Way better film. Check out Facing the Crowd, how about you, Colin. I'm not really feeling politically president movies right now, but Facing the Crowd is a great movie.

Yeah, if you're just fast forwarding through the entire episode without having listened to anything. We said that too long, didn't read is I didn't like this movie. I am very happy that I got to talk with both of you and air my previnces. I'm very happy that we were on the same page. Yeah, I just feel sad.

I think I into this podcast thinking I would feel good after having said all these terrible things about this movie. But I just feel sad. Now. Fuck, I feel sad. Colin, you're mixing.

You came him an EXI centric crisis. I know. I feel awful. Yeah, I mean, I Go watch a better movie, Robin Williams. There's plenty of better movies.

Go watch. Go watch some Capra. Watch Garp. I've ever seen Garp. I remember really liking that.

Go watch Bob Roberts, a movie that we haven't even mentioned, but written and directed by the same person. Not I mean, I mean not. Barry Levins and Tim Robbins wrote and directed and starred in Bob Roberts just as depressing as Man of the Year. But it's depressing for a different reason because it feels like it exists within the world of what this movie wanted to do, which is poke fun at the way politics have become with special interests and people again, Oh, oh, could you talk about clean energy when you're in the pocket of big oil, like Bob Roberts. That is like that movie goes hard core on that.

That movie's very uncomfortable. That movie is actually cullen. If you've seen Bob Roberts, no, you know what I'm talking. Okay, don't watch it now, because if you watch it now, it will really depress the shit out of you. Because it is what it is, everything that this movie wants to be, and in a lot of ways, it's everything that this movie could never have been because it's being written and directed by someone who has something to say.

And even if we don't agree with the way Tim Robbins says things or who Tim Robbins is, I'm not saying I do or don't. I think it's a much better made, well put together movie that's essentially saying the same thing. People in politics can kind of be pieces of shit, and the right people get involved in politics, but plenty of the wrong people get involved in politics. And you know, this movie is about what happens if quote, the right guy gets involved in politics by accident. Bob Roberts is what if the wrong person gets involved in politics for the wrong reason, But essentially a similar guy, a personality type who rides in on his personality.

Bob Roberts. He's a folk singer in this movie. He's a satirical TV host. That's what this movie wants to be, and that's not what this movie is. And like Mike said, we've mentioned so many other better political movies.

I think Bob Roberts is is in that camp of better things you could watch that have a similar conversation with the audience that I think they think has it in a much more interesting way. So on that note, let's take a break and we'll play a preview for the final episode of this month. He's not recommended by the Surgeon General. For your humor to heal, pain and suffer. He's not certified by the AMA.

If you want to be a clown, go join the circus. And four out of five doctors surveyed Donner party of fifth eight, I don't know what to make of him. The hospital will cover all of your bills any other questions. That's nominated for two Golgue Blobe Awards, including Best Picture and Best Actor. Robin Williams, You're TV Folk and air Atch Adams strated PG.

Thirteen starts Friday Theesars Everywhere. So because Mike and I hate ourselves, where you're going to be talking about Patch Adams, a movie that hopefully Mark Begley made it through it because he was saying he was gonna have to watch it in chunks. I've seen it. Three I mean, like, is it just because he's having a hard time or is it because there's you know. It's notoriously saccerin.

Oh okay, it's like it's I would say, like it's Oscar Bait in the most obvious and apparent of terms, and right and again we'll have the conversation next on the next episode about Robin Williams and Oscar Bait. But there are several of those movies that Robin Williams did. This is like the pure disolate concentrate version because it's like what if a comedian made children laugh who had cancer and that was the whole point of the movie. It's like, ooh, so yeah, when the guy that the movie's based on hates your movie not not a good one. So we'll hopefully be joined by our friend Mark Begley until then, Culin where can people find you?

And the things that you work on? So I actually, well, I don't update Pulp Desh Serenade. I do update Colen Gallagher dot com with different projects that I'm working on, and lately it's still a lot of music. I just had an album come out last week, Passages twenty two through thirty two, which are solo piano pieces with a little bit of you know, delay and some other like electronic effects, so kind of quiet, weird piano stuff. Pianos mostly in tune.

It's the one after that, it's it's more out of tune. We tried, but it's a it's an old piano, and even the people we paid to tune it just told us like there's little that we can actually do. It's it's it's been around the block. It's cool though, that's cool. It's a cool thing.

I like it. I love pianos. I love them when they're out of tune. As ted Leo said, fuck tune, play punk. He didn't say someone said that to him, so now he says a lot.

But yeah, things can be out of tune. I'm done. I'm done with things being out of tune. Speaking of things being out of tune, where can people find you? Mike Well, I haven't released any albums recently or ever, so man, that's off to you, Colin, just mister multi talented.

One thing you didn't mention. And I will definitely go on record as saying as fantastic as Colin put out a couple of books, this was it this year, No, not this year, last year about David Goodis. There are some collections of some short stories at the work that you've done is just fantastic. So I'm just singing Colin's praises always doing great work. My work not that great, but all of the other.

Got it here said that one off in front of us while we're seeing here alive with the polls last time we checked, Mike, whye get the book out of you? Anyway, All my shits over at weirdingwaymedia dot com except for the one thing that Chris and I do with Richard had him, which is and he definitely talks about story beats in that it is ranking on Bond where we talk about James Bond films. We are by the time this comes out, I think we'll have a new episode and we're still in the throes of the Roger Moore era, So that's a little depressing for me anyway, but I know that my co hosts tend to enjoy those films a little bit more than I do. Those are available over at Projection Booth Podcast. Sorry, those are available at patreon dot com slash projection Booth or patreon dot com slash Culturecast.

Come on over joined the ten dollars level and you get access to all that as well as early access to episodes that are way fewer commercials and if there are commercials at all, So come on over and get those, folks. You definitely don't want to have to hear all kinds of things about Casper mattresses and all those things interrupting your program. So yeah, Weirdingwaymedia dot com for everything else. Chris, how about yourself? I'm going to sing the praises of Culin because I didn't know if you were going to mand to it or not.

We do a Colombo show together, you and I might called the Shabby Detective Ill Shabbist Detective, and Culin does the music for that show, which is again, you know, this music doesn't create itself. This didn't exist before we were like, let's do another Columbo podcast. We're gonna rip off everybody else. It's an original line, but we needed original music for it. So we go to our friend Cullen and Culin makes music for us because Colin's a fantastic musician.

So yes, you've sung the praise of Culin. Now I get to sing the praise of Yah. You all are two kinds. Thank you. I'd f I'm doing that little bit of music.

Some bassa nova to bring us out of every episode. It is brilliant, right and good. That's right. But yeah, so we do the Shabby Detective, which, like Mike said, can be found at weirdingwaymedia dot com or this show and everything else can be found, and yeah, go ahead and check out weirding Way Media's line of shows like eighties TV Ladies or Projection Booth or Midnight Viewing or god there's so there's just a lot like twenty things and then other things coming soon. So yeah, come back next next episode here is talk about Patch Adams.

Colin, thank you so much for joining us. This was fun. Sorry the movie wasn't better, but you know we didn't make the movie. Blame Barry Levinson. Oh I will