Episode 797: Fear, Anxiety and Depression (1989)

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People say, good money to see this movie. When they go out to a theater, they want clod sodas pop popcorn in. No monsters in the projection booth. Everyone pretend podcasting isn't boring. Cut it off.

Meet Ira. Dear Samuel Beckett. I've always been a great admirer of yours. He's a playwright. I rut Ellis with a day job.

I wrote the Pope. We don't the pulse with the platform, Come out over here, move it. His plays are a little depressing. Life life, life, death, death, death. All that dialogue about life and death.

I mean, life, death is just so depressing. But what depressing is is good? Well, I thought it was excellent. I thought it was deep and very sad too. His love life is very anxious.

What are you trying to do? Pick me up or something? Does a body you have Lachis are ambial. No no, no, no, not at all. Like I said, Sharon, You're a very special person.

And he fears he won't ever get his first big break. I love hey, I love love, love love loved it. Todd Salon's stars in his first feature film, Fear Anxiety and Depression, and it's a musical. I love you, I love you more. Every time I dream the.

Work, I dream ever more. Fear, anxiety and depression. It's a laughing matter. Welcome to the Projection Booth. I'm your host.

Mike White joined me once again as mister Mike Sullivan. Tonight. We're all neat kind of guys, I gotta say. Also back in the booth is mister David Rogers. No, no, no, I am junk.

We continue our month looking at comedy films with fear, anxiety and depression. It's the Orphaned Rushman film from controversial writer and director Todd Solins, who also stars as Ira ellis a frustrated playwright who dreams of making it big. He's torn between two women, one who likes him and one who couldn't care if he dropped dead. Guess which one he likes more. We will be spoiling this hard to find film as we go along, sou if you do anything ruined, grab a copy off of YouTube and check it out.

We will still be here. So, Mike, when was the first time you saw Fear of Anxiety and Depression? And what did you think? This is a weird one. The first time I saw it, it was on the Oxygen Network, which I guess is now the Oprah channel or who knows if it even exists in any form.

I caught it. I was like, I guess, home from work in an afternoon and I caught it, and I think at that point I saw Welcome to the Dollhouse. So this was like an odd surprise. And it turns out that I've only seen most Todd Salon movies one time. You just can't revisit them.

They're good movies, but they're difficult to get through. But this one I've returned to five or six times. You know, I actually really like this movie. But yeah, Oxygen the Oxygen Network was the first time I ever saw this movie. That is so strange.

That's what I miss about flipping through cable. That's some of my favorite movies were just two am flipping through to what the hell and David, how about yourself? This is one that I probably watched, I don't know, twenty five years ago at this point for the first time I fell in love with this guy since Welcome to the Dollhouse. Of course, I was about the age of the characters when that movie came out, so it really spoke to me in that regard. But I mean, of course, then happiness comes along, moves a needle further and that's nuts.

But I just love this guy. And of course this is pre Torrent days or pre Netflix stays or stream anything. As you'd noted, it's still hard to find. My movie knowledge was only good as what was on cable or in my local video store, and I had really crappy local ones. So when I went to college, the two movies I hunted down first at video stores was this and King Flamingo was just because I couldn't get them anywhere.

So I went to pretty I don't know if you call it famous video store in La Cinephile and picked it up, ranted it, loved it, and then they said I never returned it, which was a lie, and charged me for it. And still bitter to this day about that. You know, they charged me like twenty bucks when twenty bucks meant a lot. I mean, well, hell still means a lot. Well, I thought you were going to say that, you know, the eighty dollars when they do the crazy original price tag rates, you know.

Now Luckily they were like, oh, well, it's his twenty bucks on eBay, so you know, thank thank god they went by that. But like I said, I fell in love with it the first time I watched it. Maybe love is too strong a word. I mean, this is definitely reeks of a first time filmmaker. It's not quite as assured as he becomes, but still still has a lot of solensisms, if you will.

Yeah, I'm trying to remember which one I saw first, if I saw this one first, or if I saw Welcome to the Dollhouse first, because even though the video store that I worked at after college, so I worked at one Blockbuster while I was in college. After I graduated, I worked at another one, and the one that I worked at in college had like ton of great things, you know, the Kingdom. All these almodvar films really kind of not the most hip place in the world, but still pretty hip for Pittsfield, Michigan, and then going down to Southgate, Michigan. I was shocked that they had fear anxiety and depression. And I don't think I knew who Solence was.

And I was just like, what is this movie? That cover art with him sitting on these bleach and I don't know if it must be Sharon who's doing like a headstand on these bleachers, And I'm just like, what is this movie? This looks like it's calling to me. Because by that time, which would have been probably ninety five, which I know is when Welcome to the Dollhouse comes out, by that time, like the indie boom had really happened. You know, that really happened while I was in college as far as you know your rock Wells, your Anders, your Tarantinos, your rodriguez Is And so I was primed and ready for a film like this where it was a first time director.

And yeah, I'm really curious if I saw this first or Dollhouse first, because I remember not necessarily caring for Welcome to the Dollhouse, just that uncomfortable feeling, especially all the times that Brendan Sexton's like, Hey, I'm going to rape you, weener dog and I'm just like, Wow, yeah, this isn't this isn't great, And then yeah, I do remember going to see Happiness the movie theater, buying a lot of beers beforehand and sneaking those into the theater, being very embarrassed when the beer can rolled all the way down. To the front row. But I remember laughing a lot at Happiness, and I'm not sure I think that's supposed to be the reaction. Like when Philip Sey Moore Hoffman is talking about fucking that girl so hard that she's going to come out of her mouth.

I'm guessing I'm supposed to be laughing at that. Otherwise I don't know. Maybe I'm just off the whole thing with Dylan Baker. That shit was so funny to me. So I'm not sure if I got that movie or not.

But I definitely watch. A lot of Silences over the weekend, and we can talk about that too. I mean, if that was your reaction, i'd say you're in good company. I mean, I read through some of the articles and I think, you know, the cinema of Discomfort I think is probably the best way to put it, because it doesn't cringe comedy, doesn't quite describe it. But it's especially happiness, particularly the scene where he's having his therapy session and explaining about wanting to mow out a whole park, and I just died laughing.

I mean, it's just but of course, I mean it's hard to you know, a first time watch. Somebody is going to see that and see the surface level and that realized, Like do you hear like the flourishing music? Do you realize the satire that's going on here? Now? You just we have to focus on the dead couple around or what have you.

For whatever reason, I've clued into his humor right away, and it is discome again. The cinema of discomfort is the best way to describe it, because you feel guilty watching this. I mean, I remember before I learned the strong lesson of like what movies you can show to which people. I showed my friend Storytelling and he was turned off within the first fifteen minutes of like I died laughing of some a blair going Oh but he had CP and my friend couldn't see pass with the satire of it. So again I learned a hard lesson of what you can show a certain folks.

Yesterday I watched a ton of his films just to kind of catch up, and like, my wife was out of town, so I was just like, this is going to be perfect. She did see Happiness with me. I don't think she necessarily liked it that much. I'd seen Helen Dromes on my own at a film festival years ago two thousand and four. But yesterday I watched Storytelling Life during Wartime, Dark Horse and Wiener Dog, and you can bet your bottom dollar that my wife came in right at the end of the movie when that dog gets run over four times, perfect time for her.

To come in. Yeah, that's that's rough. Like I can see you really liking this movie. If for nothing else the animated title sequence. As many times as I've seen this movie, I always forget it has an animated title sequence.

To me, it's like almost as uncut gems as an animed credit sequence, Like it almost just doesn't fit. It's just it always surprises me that it's there. I don't know if if it's his satire on films or you know, because anytime I think of an animated opening, I think of, you know, some schlocky comedy like Christmas Vacation comes to mind, even though I like that movie, but I just think instantly of like shitty comedies, So to think, well, to think of a movie like this getting the treatment, I mean. There's elements of it, like there's you know, hiddens of slapstick, but still it's not enough slapstick that there's you know, like an anime credit sequence is justified because you're right, because you think of something like Tom Kats or like the later Pink Panther movies.

I actually I'm I can be a fan of them. I mean, I actually did a short film and I was lucky enough to have no friends in the animation department to do an animated opening for me. But it was also a riff on shitty sitcom, so you know it fit. Yeah, yeah, well there you go. Yeah yeah.

All of the criticism that I saw of this movie, which was usually very negative, just immediately glommed on to this idea of Solons doing a Woody Allen impersonation. I think that's a little unfair because I think that's. Just Solins period. That was a constant criticism it compared to Annie Hall, and there's only really because I think any similarities between the two films are cosmetic. Salons is just like a short Jewish man with glasses in New York City and he's neurotic.

But that's where it ends. I think there's like one element that has a very Woody Allen feel, and that's when Salons is talking to junk about the punk bands, and that has like the rhythm of a Woody Allen bit. But here's what killed me about these comparisons. I was rewatching take the Money and Run, and there's such a difference between the way, like Woody Allen plays this character in the way Pod Salons plays his characters. What doy Allan is playing his characters like a nerd.

But there's a charm there, like he's trying to charm you. He's like saying, look, I'm doing all this here, but I'm still likable. I mean, I'm still making you laugh and you're still having fun. In Salons, there's just there's just this self loathing is palpable, and he's just playing on almost charmless character. But I kind of prefer Salons's.

I prefer like the blank face stares and just the weird seething faces and the awkwardness because that feels more real to me, I see the Allen comparisons, and I'm like, if this is the most shallow comparisons, I don't I don't agree with it at all. I mean, I guess for most folks, as you say, just New York neurotic glasses, that's enough. The only thing I will say is it does I mean, I think I think he probably learned pretty fast that it was just not the right setting for him. Even though I do like this movie, I think he learned some lessons from it and learned his voice, which is New Jersey suburbia. Yeah, it's not entirely fair to compare him to Woody Allen, but I mean there's enough there that a pack reviewer, can you know, point that and say, hey, you know, he's just copying this guy.

I mean, I think, if anything, if this was a parody of a Woody Allen film, it would be perfect. You know, if he's trying to do that, If he's trying to make a parody of I don't know, Hannah and her Sisters or something, it's wonderful. I don't think he's doing that. I don't think that that's where he's coming from with this. I think he's trying to tell his own story, and he's telling a great, solid story of discomfort.

And this guy who really should never get ahead because he is just pretty awful. The way that he treats Sharon, who obviously loves him, and Sharon kind of reminds me of like an NULLI May character. But when you watch his play just called Despair, it's the worst thing in the world. I mean, the dude's landlord gives a way better performance than this play is. I mean, just the guy constantly.

Life, life, life, death, death, death. And all the people flipping their masks, and the obvious symbolism that he's got the word son written on him, and the mom and the dad. I mean, it's just so trite and so obvious. I kind of love that Ira is trying so hard to make it. I mean, he opened we opened up the film with him writing a fan letter to Samuel Beckett, and he's trying so hard.

And then you got Stanley Tucci, and I think one of his very first roles is this movie who drove doesn't try at all and just lucks into everything, and every single time he shows up, he's just like, oh, yeah, I got this person looking at this and I'm doing this and yeah, this plays a hit, and that plays it. He doesn't give a shit about anything. He just lucks into everything. And IRA's over there just seeding the whole time, and I'm kind of like good. You know, Normally i'd be like, oh, I hate that Stanley Tucci guy, and I'm just like, yeah, Ira, you don't deserve anything either.

Sir is a very sympathetic protagonist, if you will, just going back just to touch one last thing. There is one piece in this that I do feel like is a parody of a Woody Allen movie, whether intense or not. And keep in mind, I've seen this movie probably four or five times, and I've seen Manhattan once. But I feel like the Ira song or Ira I Love You that montage feels like his riff on a Woody Allen love montage. Again, I don't even know if there is a love montage in Manhattan, but I get that feeling.

Maybe just the Brooklyn Bridge, their version of on the overpass as they're walking is a love scene. Or I think they're in a dump at one point or an abandoned building. That's the only piece that I feel like could be a riff or maybe just a riff on love stories in general or love movies, you know, the falling in love period, if you will. My theory is that it was it was basically a pre I'll do anything, and I suspect that the original cut of this there was more musical numbers. That's what I feel like too.

In the musical numbers I think are very strong. Musical numbers are way better than not I'll do anything. But I was thinking of everybody says I love you, that horrible Woody Allen film with the music Holly shit, was that bad? And this I'm just like, yeah, I remember these songs from the very first time I saw it. I mean, especially like the whole thing with the junk song.

I'm money kind of guy. Look at me, babe, and stop, You're gonna love me the rest of your days. I can see it in your eyes. I can see it. In your game.

So that's still in my head. Actually, I'm kind of bummed. I can't get it on Spotify. I might have to rip this video. Yeah, no soundtrack album at all, unfortunately.

I Mean, that's what's so frustrating about this movie is I wish some information would come out about the making of it, like somebody, I mean, and on top of it, there's people here that I wish had longer careers, like Jill wise Off, well, I know she went into composing in that. I mean, there's a great character actor right there. I mean, the way she plays her character, she's she plays her like she's this hitch step monster from Ring, you know, like like every time you see her, she looks like she just emerged from a well, and like during the montage she has like these chickeny twitches like she's like the way she's dead. Yeah, yeah, she's just she's really funny, and it's a shame that the movie wasn't a bigger hit and people could, you know, put her in this, put her in that, And like even like Jane Hamper, who plays junk, like like your character is basically kind of like a dry run for the character.

Lara Flynn Boyle plays and happiness the cast in this, I mean, well, of course Stanley Tucci's in it, but like there's so many other people. I guess they were theater actors at the time, and I really so many of them I wish got wider exposure because these were some really good people in this cast, you know, and I really wish we could have heard their stories and like just stories the making of I know, like Solange just buried this thing and that's a shame because it's good. Well. She also reminds me a little bit of Elise Beastly, who play diagnost to Petstow Moonlighting. She's got that voice, you know.

I don't know why. Again, it had been some time since I had watched this, and in my mind she looked more like Victoria Jackson for some reason, and the means her vocal ranges it's there more. Yeah, but no, I was kind of surprised. Memory failed me on that one. There's also the third woman that's in the mix that I always forget about, the singer who's going out with his best friend.

I guess it is jack What is her name? Is that? Gursten? It's Sssames Gersten. Jannis, Yes, Alexander Gerston as Janice who It's like this whole who would be the right person for him?

And Sharon's the obvious choice, But then at the same time, I'm like, ah, she's too good for him. You know. It's good that he doesn't seem to mind playing such a a jerk of a character. She was not right for him, as we'll find out in the end, which I just feel like then kind of says, you know, the right person ends up with who they belong to. Sometimes Stanley Tucci sums it up and mentions about how cleany she is, but that was what was right for him.

I have been with quote unquote clinging people in the past and had to be honest. But you know, but Ira, just he annoys me so much with how he'll paints his toss and turn, pass and turn, like, Okay, I'm done with you. Oh I might have an angling with this person, so I'm kind of I don't think it's gonna work out. And then I'll come back to you because I feel guilty that you kill You know, we'll get there. So I was trying to play both ends against the middle, and just I was looking for the next opportunity.

It's like, as soon. As Jack runs away with Junk that it's like, oh, well, cool, I will make some moves on his grownd and surprisingly she goes for it, which is shocking at all. And then yeah, Junk just doesn't care at all about him. I love the first time we see Junk at that club and she's nailing nails into a corpse and she looks like the bride of Frankenstein. That hair.

I mean, I love her look all the time in this movie. Some of the outfits that she wears, just everything looks so good. She like riffing on Lydia lunch, I can see that. Yeah, and just this whole thing of her and Jack just constantly complaining about the gentrification and all this. I have been with people like that.

I took this mister Toad's wild Ride walking tour of New York with this person that will remain nameless. He's infamous for I was posting pictures of himself with celebrities. And he's just taking me from place to place to place. We're trying to get down to like anthology film archives, but it's taking fucking forever because he has to show me everything and tell me why the world is so much worse now than it was. And I'm just like, you are the same age I am.

You were ten years old when forty second Street was what you think that it was, you know, and just that whole like, Oh, I can't believe this. I can't believe what they've done, what is this place. This used to be a great place. Oh now it's this thing. All these fricking people come in.

Oh the breach and tunnel crowd. I'm just like, get over yourselves, guys, Like nostalgia's gonna kill you. The character Junk just felt like I don't know if she ever mentioned where she came from. She just mentioned suburbia, like I had to wear a dress, but she just felt like a valley girl that transported to New York and is trying to be a hip, cool performance artist. It just feels like a facade.

She feels like she's wearing the costume of any performance artists. Yeah, and I could really get that cinema transgression feel from her, Like I can see her and Nick Zed and just hanging out, you know, over in Alphabet City. Richard Kern, that's the other one I was trying to remember. But yeah, the songs, I love the songs. And yes, I feel like there should have been more, could have been more.

And yeah, I just feel like what was Silence's version of this because he talks about how MGM like took it away from him and I'm like, okay, but what's here feels very solid, like it doesn't feel like other things that we've seen where you're like, oh wow, obviously this has been recut and other people came in here and did stuff. I don't get a lot of that stuff unless it is just shorter than it might have been at one point. The introduction to Sharon is kind of like severely truncated because you see her on the subway and then all of a sudden, I guess her and Iron a relationship when he goes to that club. So there's elements that were just like I don't want to say, pared down to incoherence, but pared down to the plane where it's like, okay, what we're doing this now?

Suddenly you know this is one of those things I years years and years, and it's honestly, my list is embarrassing. It's like I want to see Smokey as the bandit. This is like one of those I want to see the director's cut of Fear Anxiety Depression because I feel like we're missing so much here. I mean, I you know, it feels like just snips and trims. I watched this three times the last week and I still yeah, like you just mentioned, I'm like, where where did their courtship start.

I know that they look like complete opposites on the subway, like they didn't know one another. Was there a conversation that was had. This also reeks of just a first time filmmaker. You know, he's he's still learning his flow. He's still unassure of himself.

I mean, there are some sequences that are absolutely assured, but as a whole. But then again, I don't know how much of that is if there was a director's cut, maybe I could be completely wrong. And this is the most assured thing we've ever seen from him. To go back to the Alan comparison, I think one of the things is just that he likes to run lie on. I don't want to say a shot cut, but more of like a unexpected cut, like when he's begging his folks for money and stuff, and it's just like talking about where he's working, and they go into the textile factory and you follow along, and then the camera moves over and he's there in front of all of the string and I'm just like, okay, you know, like that that's a very woody Allen thing.

It might be just cut to him at the string instead of the camera move but I was like, well, that's a nice camera move. You know this obviously this was not made with a lot of money, because you got a ton of just master shots going on here, a lot of one character just looking at the camera and talking to another character rather than any sort of over the shoulder shots, so you know that he is not shooting a lot of coverage. Thinking what is this thirty five or is this sixteen and blown up? Because the VHS quality is so shit that I can't really tell. Yeah, I couldn't tell you.

I mean I would wager, but I could be completely wrong on that, you know, especially I mean he didn't do a lot of New York scenes, so maybe sixteenth a pewed a lot easier. I wonder how much of this has stolen footage too, But yeah, because I mean especially that scene in the tickets line. Although I don't know if you notice, like in the background. I love especially watching older movies and looking at marquees and like action Jackson was playing, I'd love that as well. Yeah, whenever there's a movie theater in the film, I'm just like, Oh, is that a reference to something or is that just real life on the street.

Oh, Mike, there was something I forgot to mention him. With the Matilda episode, there was a sign on the taxi cab, Yeah, that said let's get it on America. One of those weird like you know, dated details, background details. Yeah. I did like seeing the Burger king here and that they really give you a lot of sense of where you're at.

You can see a lot of street signs and everything. And yeah, it is interesting that this is like his big New York thing rather than life in the suburbs. And I don't know, it just feels very much like that first time filmmaker, like, oh, isn't the city crazy? You know, I can't remember if he went. To school in New York.

I know, like you know his last movie what Shots, Shots, Big Shot or Shots Last Shot that that was like actually made some ways for him, and he signed a bunch of contracts and stuff, and he was supposed to have like a three picture deal and none of it materialized. Well, I don't know if this is urban legend, but I mean, you've heard of the movie that Fox had offered him to do instead of this, or I don't know if it was instead of this, but they had offered him Revenge of the Nerds too. What again, I don't know if this is urban legend, so I don't take it as fact. But I'd heard that for years and it's probably for the best. But then again, I don't know.

Revenge of the Nerds to Nerds and Paradise directed by Todd Salons could be awesome. I just made a Hotel caral Essex remark the other day. Who directed was Jeff Canoe who did the first one? Or I want to say, Joe Roth. I don't know.

Somehow that sticks in my mind. It's probably right. I don't think it was. I think he was doing Troop Beverly Hills at the time. Wow, you're right, Joe Roth.

I think somehow that's stuck in my brain because he actually shot that shitty movie Christmas with the Cranks in my mall. Like literally, they set up video village in my store, so I had to doe that for a day or two. Yeah, it's a nice snapshot of late eighties New York and yeah, this whole scene that is going on, like where you've got. Yeah, the theater is such a big deal. The you know, the shows and everything that you're talking about, all the punk bands that he's mentioned at one point, Yeah, and I totally agree that that feels very Allen at that point.

I mean there's elements of other New York films, like I was picking up vibes of like After Hours while I. Was watching this. Oh yeah yeah, But obviously After. Hours is so polished compared to something like this, where it's just like feel the seams in it. But I love that.

I kind of love these like early scrappy films from these filmmakers. The club scene particularly makes me think of actually a movie post this far post this, which actually I was on the episode for American Psycho Like. For some reason, those club scenes just strike with me. And did you confirm this is Rick Astley on the soundtrack? No?

No, this is what did I put down was Frankie. I think his name is Frankie Johnson, great. And great fine. And what sharks me about this is that Rick Astley. At one point Rick Astley was so popular there were sound alikes and I thought he was like maybe a stock Achken Waterman like repertory player, but no, this was like they were just completely ripping off the sound and style of Vastly and that that produced those producers, which is crazy to me, Yeah.

Well, I mean I heard it and like, just the tune of it, I was like, is that together forever? But then I was listening to the lyrics like no, and then I was wondering. I was like, is this you know, did he like create fake songs for this to mock the style of the day. But I mean in the credits, this shows like license from Warr Brothers and that, so you know, I guess they were legit songs. I think it was a minor hit in Europe, but I don't think it charted in the US.

But yeah, it's it's a it's a weird song just because it just seems like an alternate reality. Ghastly. As soon as I heard the opening, I was just like, is this never going to give you up? This is right? And then it started to change and I was like, oh, is this like Rick Astley's follow up song?

It's kind of like Bruce Hornsby in the range. It's like, oh, did you like this song? Well, hold on because all the rest of my songs sound exactly like it. And then, like you were saying, David, I really do see a lot of the other soul In's films in this one. There are a lot of other things where I'm just like, you know, moving back home with your parents.

Towards the end of the film, I'm just like, Okay, this is totally like dark Horse, and dark Horse has very much that very unlikable main character as well, where you're just like, wow, I kind of hope this guy dies. And that's the great thing about so many of his movies is that he might switch protagonists anytime, you might just completely walk away from the person that you think is the lead of your film. He doesn't do that with this one. Or he might switch actors or actresses like he does in Palindromes. But there's so many Like you know, Storytelling was the film after Welcome to the Dollhouse, and for some reason in my head, I was like, oh, yeah, James Vanderbeeks in that movie.

James Vanderbeeks in that movie. And I finally sat down and watched it. I was like watching the whole way through and I was like, where the fuck is James Vanderbeek Only two. Then go out and read oh yeah, you idiot. There was big news because he was cut out of the film.

There's a whole third sequence, but this idea of here's one story and that we're gonna change and we're going to tell another story, then we're going to tell another I mean, it's a very Weiener Dog in that way as well, where we just have these kind of vignettes and this one, I know that was another criticism of this movie is, oh, it's just all vignettes, And I'm like, well, what's the problem with that? Because they connect. It's not like you are completely asked to drift from one scene to the next. Do you know how many popular movies are that way? I mean the same year when Harry Matcelli came out, what is that but a series of vignette?

So it's kind of a shitty criticism. What was what was people's problem with it? They just didn't the characters, like the criticism of the characters were unlikable. But that's kind of the point, you know, like it's it's it's a comedy. I mean, I guess maybe they just were so exhausted by the characters they just hated it.

I I don't know, you know, it's it's like I said, I really like this movie, you know, I find it funny. I just never really understood the the complaints. You know, no, not at all. It's weird because we were talking about how the sharing stuff doesn't really hold to together for the beginning. There's also the moment where she's in the hospital and she flatlines, but then she comes back and I was just like, is there another missing scene there?

It feels like she suffered the brunt of the cuts and then the whole thing of him towards the end, I know I'm jumping all around, but so towards the end of the film, after Ira goes through all of his ordeals, you know, is he going to be with Sharon? Is he going to be with Junk? Is he going to be with the other girl? And you know, he's constantly like trying these different things, and you know, he's always working on his plays and knows that he has to suffer for his art and all of this kind of stuff very very pretentious, and I think that Solon's is just completely skewing the pretension that goes along with that. There's a moment where we cut back to a theater and there's an obvious stand in for him and an obvious stand in for Sharon on stage, and I'm just like, fuck, is this Tucciese new is this like his award winning play is making a play about Ira and Sharon?

Or like did he did Tucci take IRA's play and like plagiarize it and now here we're seeing it. But no. The biggest surprise for me is when we go backstage and there's Ira, and I was just like, oh my god, you actually learn enough to make a play about your life. Like that's the most groundbreaking thing that I've seen you do. That you were that self aware that you could make a play out of your life.

That also reminded me a little bit of I think it's storytelling, the one with Giamatti as the documentary filmmaker making that film about John Goodman's family, and that the Dopey Sun Scooby thank you, And just when Scooby walks into the theater and sees him and his family up on screen and the audience is roaring, I was kind of hoping that it would be like Ira in the back of the theater watching people watch his life portrayed one and laughing at him. I think that that's where Solence kind of evolves to later on. But for this one, it's like he gives Ira a little bit of good news, but at the same time he's still just kind of a loser. At the end of this, almost everybody's in likableness, including our protagonist.

I wonder too, if people didn't respond because the satire of the culture was too close to the time or the skering. I mean, this probably would have been a movie that mostly would have only played in LA. And New York. And you're scaring half your audience, So I don't know how well that was received with time. I think it's a great satire of its era.

Well, have you guys. Ever seen the nineteen ninety six movie The Last Big Thing? Oh? Yeah, yeah, Mark Ruffalo is in that. Yeah, okay, yeah.

It reminds me a. Little bit of that, because there's a whole thing in there about art and the passion. I mean, so many young filmmakers make these movies where they're I love the ones that are making fun of the passion, the ones like this and I feel like The Last Big Thing are just like people who are way into this really need to have themselves knocked down a pegger who And that's what I felt from this movie. And so yeah, I agree that showing this in LA and New York is probably skewing the audience that it's making fun of most. I'm almost positive I saw this first, but I did see a screening of Palindromes with swans with a Q and A, and again I cannot remember if I saw.

I'm probably did see this first, but I really realize I'm glad he doesn't do commentaries. No offense to the guy, but his voice isn't the most inviting and for a ninety minute ride, some folks may not take that and be adept to that and don't mean to insult the guy. Actually watched some recent interviews you got out of that, but it's definitely a character choice. Actually, I don't know, now, that's probably just him. Well, the interviews I've seen where he talks about it, or at least I've seen some video clips, and it just seems like he was really hurt by the experience.

I don't know how much of it was the studio interference and how much of it was the criticism of the characters that are closely resembling him, and how much he took that to heart. Don't know, that's just you know, my thoughts on that. It's crazy, you think like the failure of that like wounded him so bad and into teaching, like he would he he taught was it English to the English is the second language, I guess to Russian immigrants? And you know he basically had to be coerced to making welcome to the dollhouse. You know.

So again, this is something I wish we would get some information on the making of and because it I just I need to know how bad of the experience was it, you know, like what happened? You know, how bad could it be that it drove you into teaching? You know, it's I mean again, and going back to the studio interference, And now I don't know because I mean that the subway scene, or rather the attack scene, if you will, any studio would immediately cut that out because it serves nothing narratively other than to show how much he doesn't care about this lady, which you have many other scenes to back that up as well, which honestly, just to talk about that scene again the subway station, not on the subway, but in the station where he's they're walking hand in hand, she falls behind, gets attacked, and he's off in his own thoughts.

I believe that's probably his very first attempt at that comedy of discomfort of getting you to laugh. I will admit to laughing at that the first time because I did understand the intent. Watching that today, I'm like, eh, I'm sure even he would probably cut that scene out or tone it down. I would imagine he seemed to have softened with age, or at least if you watch each subsequent movie, it's a little softer than the last. That's not to say there's not some edge to it.

After watching those last few films of his, which is amazing that he hasn't had a film out in ten years now, and watching those and I'm just like, you know, watching one after another after another after another, I'm just like, Okay, he's got a lot of almost imaginary friends, or like the people that will show up out of people's imagination, like the way that Paul Rubins shows up and the I can't remember the actor's name who's got the big scar on his head, And I always love that he picked such interesting looking actors, you know, And to me, Giamatti does such a great job of channeling Solins when he's playing that documentary fell Maker. People just kind of showing up or like those little girls that kind of taunt Ellen Burston at the end of Wiener Dog.

So he's like got that going on, and then all of the stuff about child molesting. Holy shit, Like I didn't even rewatch Happiness. I'm just watching the one where Alison Jenny's going out with Michael Learned and who said, Karen, I can't remember the gentleman's last name, the oak Hieren Hines, Yes, yeah, where he's the child molester coming back out of prison and stuff, And I'm just like, holy shit, o cat, you really talk a lot about child molestation in these movies. That Q and Ai did attend for Pellintromes, And again after seeing that, I'm like, okay, we're back to this well again, I'm like, hey, what's. Up with that, babe.

I mean, you know, I was probably a little more eloquent at the time, but it was essentially at the heart of like, so, what's up with the molestation going on here? Or you know, like why is that a constant theme even in this movie where there's no children at the center or event it. But even Junk you know, admits to being you know, attacked her, you know, when she was younger, even though it's not a cent the center of a story, or there's not a child at the heart of it, it's still somewhere sprinkled in. There Wasn't that the premise of that movie that it seems like it's in and out of production constantly with Elizabeth Olsen Love Child, where it's like the eight year old son is trying to sort of manipulate the relationship with his with his mother and her and her boyfriend.

And there's apparently, like from what I understand, there was like an you know, an Oedipus angle in it. So it seems like that is like a reoccurring motif in his movies. That very soft children will say. Effeminate children is a very a theme in his movies. And I say that because he goes out of his way to really cast very gentle children will say, and you know it particularly im palindromes and and uh, storytelling, well, storytelling.

And then there was I'm trying to murder for this dark horse. There's another one where it's like these children who are wise beyond their years and yes, very soft spoken and very manipulative. Mm hmm. Oh yeah again going back to that kid in storytelling. Oh yeah, yeah, that whole thing of like if somebody touches you, scream type of oh Jesus, Yeah.

And the real shame for me is that. So I'm looking for books about saul Ns while I'm doing my research for this, and there's that. I think it's the Refocus book. And I don't even want to look up the author because I'm just going to insult the book because the book seems obsessed. With box office.

Yeah yeah, And I'm like, you are looking at the wrong filmmaker if you want to be obsessed with box office. I've never seen so many charts in a film book. I don't know if there's pie grass, but you get so many of these, like you know, different line graphs and all this stuff where it's like, oh, and here's the box office for happiness, and then it goes down here and like each one. And he even said there's some. Interview I was watching where he's just like, every single one of my movies makes less than the previous one.

And I'm like, yeah, like, if you are in this business to make money, sir, but I know that money makes the world go round and it's going to help him get his next film. But every single time he does make a film, it's kind of an event, and the casts are always just incredible. I don't know if this is just one of those things where people, I mean, I hope that, you know, they'll just work with him because they want to be part of his you know, uber. If you will. But I mean, yeah, the last one had was it Danny DeVito, Greta Gerwig, the Kolkin that just wanted a word?

Yeah, Rory, I think Greta Gerwig looking so much like Chloe SENNYI it was crazy. I was just like, whoa what am I watching here? Like the big glasses and everything. I thought for sure it was her and I was like, it's not her. Who is that woman?

I had to look her up? Yeah? No, he gets amazing casts, I mean, and pretty I mean, I think pretty much ever since Happiness On, because I don't think there was a name star and Welcome to the Dollhouse. I mean, well, Heather Maderazo became after, but I was just speaking of I actually have the laser disc of Welcome to the Dollhouse that I had her Cyanautic convention, and again even then, strangely on the package of that, they're straight like oh, it's six million dollar box office hit. I'm like, I mean, even in ninety six, that felt like are we I mean, I get insiders know that it's an indie movie, and that's a lot of money for an indie movie, but I don't know, just again, not the kind of movie tout it's box office.

Like, I understand that Salomon's had a bad experience on this, whatever that experience is, and yes, we don't know all the details to it, but just trying to wipe it off of his filmography is such a weird thing to me, just that people, so many people still, even like film literate people will be like, oh, yeah, Welcome to the Dollhouse. Some is this for a film? I'm like, no, no, there was a whole feature before that. Well one of the articles even said that, I think, you know, it's funny. I read through most of the articles that you had in the dropbox, and one of them went out of its way to say, yeah, most most people don't even know that he had a movie before Welcome to the Dollhouse, and they quote that as his first And then I read another one of the articles like, oh, and his debut Welcome to the Dollhouse, like, don't there you go.

Right, I don't know it. I was stuck in my crop. And it is such a shame because it feels like, well a lot of these actors and actresses wouldn't go on to make other things or many other things after this, so tracking them down is very difficult. And then Tucci's now too big to talk about stuff, you know, he's too busy taking the women's hockey team and actually giving them something better than warmed over McDonald's. And then Solins is like the guy you know behind this whole thing, writer, director, and yeah, he just doesn't want to talk about it.

So still like it's it's crazy to me even now, it's like how many years have passed? Like you know, it's you think you'd loosen up with bits, you know. I mean I've watched I actually went looking today and found a couple of recent and by recent, I mean like twelve years ago. Where as somebody did ask him about it and he just kind of just said, you know, it's an uncomfortable experience. Basically, I think that's what he just summed it up, as it just became uncomfortable for him.

It was just and. Again that's kind of what makes me suspect it was he may have taken the reviews too personally. I mean, in a strange way. The movie is a snake eating its own tail, commenting on the movie itself and his real life, because I mean, I don't know. I'm sure the love Triangle thing is probably fiction.

I don't know, but I mean it certainly feels like his character, some of his experience. I mean, it feels like a personal movie, even if it's not. I mean, he cast himself in it. Well, That's the thing I wonder too, is if this was somebody else, would he mind it as much? Is it because it's so personal because it's him in here?

Is it just because it's based on his experience? Had he cast somebody else in that role of Ira, would he be a spent out of shape about it? Or did the attacks on him channeling Woody Allen become way too much? Because like you said earlier, every review is just like, oh, look at this nebbish Woody Allen clone. It's like there's a lot more to this.

Yeah, I mean, and of course he's so much darker. I mean, I mean, I wouldn't even call him the dark Woody Allen he's caught Salons again. I don't know if this movie also just made him run away from New York. I mean, other than scenes in Welcome to the Dollhouse and Happiness, but he and he clearly turned his camera away from New York centric movies, which, honestly, even though I like this movie, I am glad that this was the wake up whatever. I wish there would have been another movie or two in the six in those six years.

But if this was the experience that made him into the filmmaker that went on to be Welcome to the Dollhouse and Happiness, then he's all the better for it. I guess I'm more in the fact that we didn't get Todd Salan's actor. And I'm not being trying to be funny in this. I genuinely love him in this movie. And he's such an odd He's like almost the anti Eddie Deson, you know, like he's just such an odd, weird like maybe not a starring role, maybe a side role, maybe a cameo.

I'd love to see him more in movies like he's to me, he's like a John Waters type personality. It's like, I want to see more of you. I love seeing you. You know, I kind of like his slower suit when he gets into a lower speech. I think he could have worked with that a little better and become, yeah, a good sidekick comedian or you know, in movies.

If that was a goal he wanted. I mean, he clearly steered away from it. He doesn't even he hasn't even like did a small walk on role in any of his movies, the least not that I'm aware of. He was a doorman and Happiness. And then going back to talking about James L.

Brooks, he was man on bus in As Good as It Gets, probably the best part of that movie. But he had no problem being on screen. It was probably because of poverty, where you know, he is the main character in shots last shot, and then he's also the sensitive young man and feelings. He was okay being on screen, you know, being that main character. But again it might have just been well, I got to cast myself because nobody else is going to do this.

But also he portrays. That skinny, gangly like after he and Sharon have sex the first time, and he's just there, like giving that mortified look and just that skinny, skinny chest, and you get that same thing in Shots Last Shot where he just trying to be this basketball player and just is so awkward and just the way that his coach is like shoving him down to the ground over and over and over again. I feel like the beginning and the end of this movie was a continuation of Shots Last Shot, which you know, again those scenes killed me with his screaming boss at the glass factory or glass installation. Hardon Me. Also thinks that he wanted to reuse Feelings for Ira, that Ira I Love You thing, but he couldn't afford the rights, so I guess he wrote his own song because that that Feelings short feels like it could be a montage and fear, anxiety and depression.

Yeah, the montage of him and Sharon as they're going around the city and like here's them over the bridge, here's them with her doing the graffiti. And of course we get back to that later on where now he's visiting all the places that they were and it's without her. There's a very similar montage in shot slash Shot where it's just like here's him in this location, here's him in this location, and just him trying to get his shit together, and that feels very similar to what he's doing in this one with that second montage. Yeah, no, I mean there's there's clearly some themes in style. I mean the scene that carries on into other movies, the Village Voice review, where everybody's reading in their own voice.

It reminds me of that montage and Welcome to the Dollhouse, where everybody's praising down, you know, like. I love you. Don you know, I've always loved you? Like He has certain you know, themes or stylistic flourishes he carries throughout. I think the ones big thing stylistically he moved away from from this movie going forward is he slowed down.

I mean, not the pacing of editing, but I'm I mean his characters became much slower. He doesn't have at least a fast talking Eurotic in any of his other movies, at least not that comes to my mind. Maybe dark Horse, I can't remember that one too well. Yeah, that guy does not shut up very often, and he's so full of so many opinions. I see him as being a spiritual cousin to Ira.

But yeah, you're right, there are a lot of more slower movements, a lot of more contemplative times, but it does feel like we're living when it comes to these films in a Todd Solan's Extended Universe kind of thing, the TSU where like even when Sama Blair shows up in another movie, I want to say that, they say, oh, you were going to be a writer, or she says something about that. I'm just thinking of her story and storytelling and it just you know, like obviously Wiener Dog, there's direct references to Dawn and I can't remember the character's name that Brandon Sexton plays, but like. Totally different characters. Though I don't. Think that the Brandon Sexton character had two Down syndrome siblings or knew anybody with Down syndrome.

And Welcome to the Dollhouse. Obviously I haven't seen it since nineteen ninety. Five, so it's been a minute. He does, actually he does, Okay, holy shit, thank you. His brother is actually that was the reveal in that that he has a brother with that was had a mental disorder.

Okay, so we really do carry on with all that stuff. That's great. I was very surprised that it wasn't the actual actors coming back with that movie, that they recast it with other people. But then that also fits with this whole Palin Drums thing where he takes an actor and has them change out midway through the movie. Although strangely he in Palindromes he also has the character that plays a brother or the actor that plays Mark.

I believe he's the only to the best of my knowledge, he might be the only actor that's returned as a character, because everybody in life during wartime is different actors than Happiness. Greta Kurbrigg played Don Weener again in Wiener dogg which again he also plays with mortality in his movies because Wiener or excuse me, Don dies in Palin Dromes, and then she's back in Leaner Dog. You know he can kill anybody off bring him back. Well, it's just like the comic book movies, right, Yeah, Tony Stark Away was coming back and stuff. So she is the Tony Stark of the Solons universe, especially once she looks at the camera goes, I am Wiener Dog.

Uh, yes, we need to have a Don Wiener will return in The Avengers. Deems toy don. I'm putting together a team. It's her. Dylan Baker, Paul Giamatti.

Does he get to play the lizard this time? He does. Yeah, they've set up the whole thing and then it gets a play the lizard, but we get to see when his arm gets cut off. Though. I know Welcome to the Dollhouse and Palindromes have been put out recently, but overseas I do have them both.

But I really wish my hope is for Criterion to get the rights to Dollhouse, Palindromes and Wiener Dog and put out a box that called Pack of Wieners. I just really wanted. That would be nice. As I'm watching Life during more time, I'm just like, oh, yeah, these do feel like the same characters from Happiness and the whole thing loved the child molesting. I was like, is this supposed to be the same people?

So, because, like I said, I hadn't seen the one forever, so not since I saw it at the theater in ninety eight, so I should have probably watched Palindromes and Happiness again. But there was just so much solence I could take him one day. I mean, he's one of my favorite directors, but you know, you can't do more than a double feature. And I don't know if I've ever even done that. I had a great time watching all these back to back to back, and it just because of the nature of him using these vignettes, Like with storytelling.

When I put on the next movie, it just felt like we picked up right where we left off. It felt like this was the next chapter of that storytelling story. And I imagine had I started at Dollhouse and worked my way through, it would have felt very connected from one to the other, and not just this whole idea of this t SEU, but much more of just like the way that he tells these stories and the way that he kind of has evolved over the years. I mean, now, you know, watching well now as in ten years ago, watching Wiener Dog, I'm just like, yeah, he's really got this down to an art. You know, he really knows when to do what he does, and you know it.

I find all of these films entertaining. I mean, like I said, I was very uncomfortable with Dellhouse just because of the rape that brand and Sexton character, who I just found him to be one of the worst people in the world. You know. I had a hard time even watching like Session nine and stuff where that actor shows up again now he kind of reminds me of like, who's that guy that plays Oh, I want to say, will Poulter. Him?

A little bit? Like I was surprised if Poulter didn't show up in Wiener Dog and kind of reprise that that earlier role. That guy, you know, I'm thinking about it now. I think he was pretty typecast for a while, because I would have to look it up. But I think he was also in Boys Don't Cry If I remember right.

I think you're right. Yeah, and he played a piece of shit in that too. Yeah. I think he actually did rape somebody in that movie, so of just threatening. He's a good actor, it's just it's not the thing you want to be type cast for.

What did you think of the transition of Sharon. I'm too attached to her character. I mean, just in general, I do find her character kind of annoying, but interestingly very right for Tucci or that that character. I preferred the lime green cloak snoopy bag Sharon over the glammed up Sharon. I didn't even really recognize her as gland up Sharon.

I didn't even recognize her that much when she was mind sharing she looks so different. Yeah, just the voice is the only thing that connects it. I love that voice. It's just so annoying and it just fits with his voice so perfectly. Ire was not the most sympathetic character because he puts himself in these situations, or at least he doesn't handle them well.

And you know, I had in my memory that like he's strung Sharon along, which he doesn't end up doing in a sense, but I forgot like, oh, he does actually try to break up with her properly and break it off, you know, the right sort. Of the right way. But then I realized the predicament he's in, Like she's a very kind of handle that one very gently. She's very as we find out. Yeah, she's swallow a whole bottle of pills.

And we know that because we see them pull a whole bottle of pills out of her and read the label. I mean, and it's closed too. There fills moments of fantasy in this movie, like that is that real? Because it's so wacky that like, I don't know, is this real? Is this not?

Because he plays with that a bit, and I mean he's done that in other movies as well. Again, daw House the montage was not real. But I just got to wonder, like how many things are just fantasy? Like did she really get attacked in the subway station or was that just you know? Well, I had a similar feeling about when he has the play towards the end, because it seems like there's a you hear, like a packed crowd like applauding, and that to me almost seem like fantasy that almost seemed disconnected from everything that follows.

You know, It's it seemed like if people seem to like it, it was like a Village Voice review in front of it, So it seems like sometime had passed. But that was my takeaway from it. But I don't know, I. Mean, it's very possible because I mean in that follow up scene with Sharon as the mime, he even says like, well, I had to put out of my own pocket. It was a failure and I'm moving back in with my parents, So you know again, was that where is there real cheer or was that just you know fantasy?

All right? So even if you can make it as a playwright in New York and get your play up there and get something that people actually like, that isn't so pretentious with the son character love love, love death, that death things. But again, isn't that strangely prophetic of what this movie did for him? I know it wasn't his own money he poured into it, but it clearly again didn't bring him success. Strangely prophetic in that well.

And then yeah, every single movie just kept making less less money. I can show you some charts and talked about character actor. There is one other actor. It bugged the hell out of me watching his mother. I'm like, where have I seen her ever?

And I had to look up her coming to a mayor can't. License to drive. That's just none of those that like stuck in my mind the whole movie. I don't know why they just stuck. Those are two strangely seminal movies.

I just want to say that Sharon had the best lines. One of my favorite lines is Donnie asked me to marry me and I'm not even pregnant. Thank you. I wrote that down to me and she says this so earnestly. But yes, there are some bangers and there's some great lines if you are really keeping the mirror out.

I loved the moment when I guess this is is that his boss at the glass factory when he throws him out of the window and we see the body fall, and then we cut down to him on the ground and he happens to find a letter from Samuel Beckett back to him just like keep writing. I'm like, okay, the great way to end a nice book. End for all that, and then of course it cuts to I mean, I don't know if I mention it, but one of my favorite things that he goes on to do particularly well in Happiness is the contrast of visual versus content or if I'm saying that right. One thing I found interesting in hearing some interviews with him today was he people ask him like, were the films you grew up with? While he's like, well, I didn't really grow up watching films, not until I got to college, so it was like television and Disney movies for the most part.

And I think that really plays as particularly this TV stuff is in Happiness, because one of the things that I love about his style is the contrast of content versus the surface. I mean kind of like, I mean, in a strange way, he's almost the lighter David Lynch, I mean, and think of a blue velvet and Happiness in the sense that the exterior so pretty. It's like this beautiful home, this you know, two cars in the garage, you know, the wife and two kids. But then he got what the father's doing or you know that awkward you know, you kind of have a lovely you know, cut to the front of the house in you know, like a sitcom and that conversation between you know, Bill and his son. I think he does that contrast so well of the this looks perfect, but look deeper and there's some shit going on.

And I think Salons is actually more nerving because I've seen David Lynch movies more than once. Hey, you know, I saw Happiness when it came to video, and I guess what was it ninety nine, ninety eight. I can't remember. I could never watch it again. And there's like I've seen clips of it, you know, especially a bit with John Lovetts, and it's a funny movie.

It's just emotionally, it's just too much. It's just too much. And this is a person who saw Sailo like three or four times. I can't sit through Happiness again. I think dark Horse is the only one I've only seen once I've seen his movies multiple times, Welcome to the Dollhouse and Happiness being my favorites.

But yeah, I can't. I can't argue that point of that. It's not an easy one to go back to. Keep in mind, when I say watch it, it was when I was younger. I think there was a good space of fifteen twenty years before last viewing.

So he talked about the television aspect, and I think, and it's kind of bad that I watched so many all at once yesterday, but I think it might be storytelling where whenever you go back to the house where the family lives, there's like a little musical sting like here we are kind of thing like coming back to the Brady House type of things. So I can really see what you're talking about with that. Again, Happiness particularly, and again I can't think of a musical sting. But I just always particularly the house of the the petteris it just it looks so picture perfect and then you know, not really. I always describe that to people as like it's especially that particular section or that family in that movie.

It's like leave it to Beaver by way of lynch or by of whatever, depraved director you can think of. But I do need to go back and watch that. You know, though I did find that one a little funny but also very uncomfortable at times. I don't remember how he sets it up. I mean, obviously, you know, I didn't remember certain things about Dollhouse either, But does he do, like, here's all of Philip Seymour Hoffmann's story, and then here's all of Dylan Baker or is it all cut together?

Because in my mind, it's the scene than the scene. You know, it's like it's all one big piece rather than sections. It's all on It's very it's more like Altman. Honestly, it's more like Nashville or shortcuts, because. It feels like in his later films he'd be like, no, no, I'm doing all of this story, and I'm doing all of this story.

And I kind of appreciate that he is pretty gussy when it comes to that stuff, and you being a fan of his as the autobiography section of storytelling, the one with Vader By has that ever seen the light of day? No? I can't say it has. I mean, not that I'm aware of. I really wish it was I had.

I mean, it's you know when you put in his short films, I was excited to see those, and then I apparently haven't looked for him for a while, because now I see like, oh, they've been on YouTube for four years. I guess I haven't looked that hard lately. I want to say there was like some other movie where he had some deleted sequences that are deleted scenes that he doesn't want hour. Maybe it is just Storytelling, But now, to the best of my knowledge, nothing's come out about that, because the only thing I know about it is I believe it was supposed to be about a football player coming out as gay, as my understanding. That's why when I was watching Storytelling and the one son that's not Scoopy ends up getting injured in the football game, I was just like, don't tell me that that's James Vanderbeek.

I'm like, that's not him, Like what why am I not seeing him in this movie? I was so confused. Obviously, I was so so confused. And yeah, another one where it's just like fucking John Goodman, truly agrity even seeing I mentioned Paul Giamatti, but seeing like mary Lynn brec Reshkob or however you say her name who I loved in Barry Me and current County Selma Blair, and then freaking Xander Berkeley, who I just love whenever he shows up in anything. And then the O'Brien cameo, yeah, I'm like, a holy cow, this is great.

That dinner scene with the John Goodman's family where there basically comes to a conclusion that if it wasn't for Hitler, they wouldn't exist, and it's again, it's just one of those scenes where it's like that's horrible, but like, can you break down the mathematics and then you're like, well, and again it's just that like he laugh at that, and then you feel guilty, like, oh shit, I just kind of laughed at a Holocaust joke. But it was built well told one, It's very well told. Yeah, yeah, I do appreciate just how much jewish nessity brings to these films, like the kid who's preparing for his bar mitzvah and everything, some of that stuff. I was just thinking of the Coen Brothers and especially a serious Man, and I was like, you know what, I think I'd rather watch a Solons film than a serious Man.

Again, I gotta agree, that's the only Coen Brothers movie. I think maybe it was just working on a level that I couldn't understand just because I didn't grow up in that culture. It felt very you need to know, you need to be a part of that culture to really understand the how many of that one? I'm not Jewish, but I can pass. But I couldn't understand that one at all.

I couldn't. I mean, I've been confused for no about me. I worked in a predominantly Jewish area, and they I got confused a lot. I'm like, no, I'm gentile, but I appreciate this, appreciate it. I think.

The only the only other thing I want to comment on, I guess we didn't really talk about it is just. Junk in general, and her outfit at. The print shop, not to her test too much, but I swear to god, she it struck a weird memory. I'm like, was there an adult movie in the nineties that she looked just like that? Like, because it's very yellow, you kind of scape how yellow that is?

Well, it's very rinse dream thank yes, yeah, thank you. Yeah. She wears a lot of primary colors, like she's very blue when we see her. At one point, I love that red outfit that she wears. It just says hate down it.

And it's funny because I obviously I remember that character and I remembered her song. But for some reason, I kept thinking trash, and then I was like, no, no, that's Return of the Living Dead. That's not this movie. So then I realized, oh, no, that one's trash. The other one's junk, and I think I like junk a little better.

All right, guys, let's go ahead and take a break and play a preview for next week's show right after these brief messages. Looking for something superior to streaming, a play so more than five times the selection available on all of the other streaming services combined. Check out Scarecrow Videos rent by mail service, select from an unparalleled collection of over one hundred and fifty thousand films, and get Blu rays, four k's, and DVDs delivered directly to your door. Get in at it now at scarecrow dot com and rediscover the wonders of physical media. Freddy got fingered problem.

Do you like geez. Jez elviss? Do you like sausages? Danny? Would you like some sausage?

Danny? Would you like some sausage. Don't we want you to go to the movie. We don't want you to go away from the movie. When we need a movie as right.

We'll be back next week with a look at Freddy Got Fingered as we conclude our comedy month. Until then, I want to thank my co host Mike and David. So, Mike, what have you been up to, Sir? I'm in shock. Sit him a number sixty six.

I'll be in shock. Sit him a number sixty seven, which should be out sometime in this summer or sometime in the fall. Should be sometime soon. And again I'm on letterboxed under the name mag Dumpu. I'm not on it too much, but every so often I do reviews a movies like National Lampoon's movie Madness and Stocked by My Doctor and things along those lines.

So if you want to check that out, be my guest, please check it out on letterbox. I am following you right now and looking at your favorite films. Screwballs, Class Reunion, Kaddy Shack Too, and why does hair r run amock? Very good selection that sounds amazing. Screwballs because that was the.

Like the Joysticks, Nay remember it was. It's a Porky's ripoff. You well did, t Anda, Hi, I can vividly think of the cover, but I yeah, oh yeah, yeah, it was just hands grabbing. Asses are reaching out for asses if I. Like pulling a bra like a hand pulling a bra?

Yeah yeah. And David, how about yourself? Can you hear me on a recent another recent episode Arizona Dream? But if you want to find me an letterboxed DVD underscore r dg rs just like my name without the vowels. I just pretty much log.

Maybe I should get to reviewing. I should be inspired to do that. I just log I don't review either. If people want to read reviews, I can pay extra. That's how cutthroat I am about my work.

Just real quick, not to go too off topic, But of that vein you mentioned Screwballs and I was so disappointed. I recently went to a screening in San Francisco of Joysticks, excited to go see this just flatlined. Nobody like, I don't know if it was just I just I it killed me, like me and my wife left halfway through. I'm like, I have to have more fun once at home with than this one is so like me and her were laughing at and like nobody else, like. Noboy reacted geez, wow, that's crazy.

I don't know. I was just surprised, Like, wow, I thought people that would have shown up for this knew what they were getting into. Yeah, I mean when King Vidiot shows up the whole house to the just come down around your ears, right, I was so disappointed. I mean that opening theme song, you know, totally awesome video games. What the hell?

Man? Wow, just flatlined. I was so disappointed. Well, maybe it was because I'm ever hearing a story about like when Monty Python was at the Hollywood Bowl and they were like, why is anyone laughing in a stage handpoint, and it said they're all reciting the lines. Maybe that's what was happening.

Everyone was like silently reciting the lines from Joysticks. I'm going to reframe that in my mind, that's what it was. Dorrifice maneuver. Well, David, I wish everybody could see your Toddsouln's Twisted Sister shirt. Oh yeah, that is listening to.

This, But I'm glad that not a video pots. Yeah, I'm glad that Mike and I get the full bird's eye view. That's pretty awesome, very nice. Well, thank you, Thanks again guys for being on the show. Thanks to everybody for listening.

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Thanks especially to our Patreon community. If you want to join the community, visit patreon dot com slash Projection Booth. Every donation we get helps the Projection Booth take over the world. I'm dun guy. Look at me, babe, and Sun, You're gonna love me the rest of your days.

I can see it in your eyes. I can see it in your game. So hey, you don't have to be Shine. You can call me. I just look in my heart and you'll see any kind of guy.

And all. In so many ways. Here's what I'd say and look at my dad, and. You'll see any kind of guy. Now, now I'm saying farewell to this girl who do feel beware.

Her name is Shamon, and she is so nice, but she ain't got any shoulder and she ain't got any spine. So Hayes, you don't have to be shy. You can call me up. Just looking in my heart and you won't see any kind of guy. And in so many ways, here's what I'm say.

And looking at my heart. And you won't see any kind of guy. You don't have to be shun You can't call me. I'm just look in my heart and you'll see any kind of. Guy that, any kind of guy, baby, any kind of guy, anny kind of guy, any kind of guy, funny kind of guy.

Really need, really really need all over