Quick Question with Soren and Daniel - Dangerous Bangers: Vampire’s Kiss (1988)

Episode Date: October 31, 2023

It's Dangerous Bangers hours. Soren had Daniel watch the insane Vampire's Kiss, wherein Nicholas Cage believes he is turning into a vampire. They talk about Cage's acting choices, the movie's surprising commonalities with American Psycho, and why seemingly every film of this era had to feature helicopter shots of New York City.Follow the show on socials: https://www.linktr.ee/QQPodcastSoren Bowie: https://twitter.com/Soren_LtdDaniel O'Brien: https://twitter.com/DOB_INC

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to use, and you get your cash back through PayPal or check. The idea is simple. Stores pay Rakuten for semi-mum shoppers, and Rakuten shares the money with you as cash back. Download the free Rakuten app and never miss a deal. Or go to rakuten.ca to start giving the most bang for your buck. That's R-A-K-U-T-E-N. I think you'll have a great time here I think you'll have a great time here Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Quick Question with Soren and Daniel, the show where two best friends and comedy writers ask each other questions and give each other answers. Usually. We're also not doing that again today.

We're going to play another game of Dangerous Bangers. I'm one of your hosts, Soren Bui. I'm a writer for American dad. I am out on the strike lines every single day. And, uh, I don't know, like a third thing. I think I had at one point and now I've lost it.

Uh, uh, well, maybe Daniel has something. Daniel is the other half of this podcast. He's a writer for last week tonight. And he wrote a book called how to fight presidents. It's a New York Times bestseller.

And now what the fuck's he going to say? Because I did all his shit. Yeah, he did all my shit. But there's one crucial thing that you neglected to say in your intro, which is your name, Soren Bui. You started listing your credits, then you got to third thing, and you never closed the loop of saying the name of the guy that you are. That's not specific to this by the way i've now met because i'm doing a lot of meeting of people uh on the strike lines and like they'll introduce themselves and i'm like hey it's really nice to meet you and then they'll be like

what's your name like oh yeah i also have one of those i am so Soren. They call me Soren. You know what I liked about the strikes that we do is you can have a name tag if you want. And I think we should have them all the time. Oh. I think it would be so great because like you ran into a very famous showrunner that you've met several times and who owes me $500, but I will not name him here. And you said hello to him, you said his name, and you shook his hand, and he said, hello, Soren, good to see you again. And it's possible that he remembered you because you see each other every day on the lines, but it's possible he saw your name tag. And like, it doesn't matter if that's how he knows your name.

It still feels good. It's such a nice reminder of the people around you because there's no more. I always feel this panic when I meet somebody again and I'm like, hey, I'm pretty sure Ben. Like, I think that's what it is, but I don't actually know. And if there's just some confirmation right there on their chest, that would really be nice. I will say my name tags, when I use them at the strike, they don't take.

I sweat them off. And then I have this patch of sweat, this square patch of sweat on my shirt. I think if you did run into someone on the lines and you called them Ben, you'd have a pretty good... I met three Bens on the lines. Yeah, we already know a Ben on the lines. So statistically, if you're like, hey, Ben, you'd have a pretty good... I met three Bens on the lines. Yeah, we already know a Ben on the side of the lines.

So that's a good chance. Statistically, if you're like, hey, Ben, and like, oh, no, my name's Mark, you'd be like, well, it was almost Ben. That's close, though, right? I'm more in the ballpark than other people. You remind me of the other Bens that you've surely met by now.

Yeah. It would be really, really nice to just have name tags all the time and you're absolutely right i wouldn't care if somebody looked to me and they're like of course soren how are you i would be like that feels really nice yeah it feels good to have you remember who i am um i i'm just i don't think that there's any way for me to kickstart this i don't think there's a way for me to just start doing it without it being weird i don't think people want to wear name tags probably even though i liked it like my first job ever working in the concession stand of a movie theater you wear name tags and they're like hey dan i would like popcorn and soda please and there's like he called me dan that nice. It feels good to have my name said instead of like chief or buddy or sport.

Yes. Can I tell you a quick story? No. A quick question. Can I tell you a quick story? I used to work at a golf course where I was a bellboy. There were cabins all around the golf course, but the only way that they're accessible was through golf carts. So the people would park their cars. We'd load all their luggage onto their golf cart and then drive them up to the cabin and then teach them how to like make a fire or whatever like anything that they needed the bell boys would come do it including like shooing fucking kind of golf course was shooing bears out of hot tubs by the way like it was uh it's here to golf here's how you start a fire it's gonna be a long day out on this frozen golf course um and i wore a name

tag but it was a magnetic name tag. So it means that like on one side, inside the shirt, I'd put one piece and then on the outside. And I was very excited about that as one of my early jobs where somebody had made a thing for me. Yeah. It felt really good. It was like embossed and everything. And I would also drive the company vehicle around because we'd have to go to the airport and get people or whatever or get lunches for. We were much more than just bellboys.

We would do all kinds of like personal assistant shit. And I was at this place, Pepino's, Shadow Pepino's in the Roaring Fork Valley. It's the best pizza place in the world. There's no way that's true. In the world. Fuck you, New York. That's true. In the world.

Fuck you, New York. And these girls had pulled up next to me and they were sort of like giggling in their car. And I was 19 probably. And they're like, what's your name? And I was like, I was just like this moment of inspiration where I was like, I'm just going to take it off. I know I have more of these. I'm going to take it off and just throw it to their car and it's gonna stick to their car and then they have it and i was like this is gonna fucking rule and so i did it it banged off their window and fell on the ground so these all they they don't know what it was all they know is that this man in this car next thing went they said

what's your name and he threw something hard at Right. I think even if that went to plan, it still would have confused them. Because most people don't think you're going to have a magnet of your name to stick to their car. So if I said, what's your name? And someone threw something and it made a sound as it hit my car. You'd be like, what the fuck? Not in a million years would I be like, oh, roll down the window. We're going to get his name because it's probably a magnet with his name on it. It was going to go so cool.

And it was like one good moment. Had I shattered that window, I think it could have gone even better. I'd have thrown it and it just shattered it on them. So this is, true to your word, a lifelong problem of introducing yourself and telling people your name. This has been going on for a very long time. problem of introducing yourself and telling people your name. This has been going on for a very long time. In fact, I will credit that with being why I have a hard time remembering other people's names because I get so flustered in the moment where we're meeting each other, where I've got a lot of other things that I'm trying to like, there's an order of business that I'm trying to

get through. And like these boxes I'm trying to check your name, remembering your name is, is so far down the list. It's's gone immediately i haven't remembered a name since 2013 i am so good at remembering names you are you're really good at it and i have not figured out a way to make this work for me at all oh i disagree i haven't made a dime off this well okay so you don't wet your beak on no i can remember people's names but you're really good at it and you're socially i think it's very helpful yeah that you're very good at it you're uh and it's clear that you like put the work in and i think that people like that yeah so you have a fan base you have people who have followed you for a long time and we would go to different um comic-con type of events yeah and like a year or two years after meeting

somebody just like at a table where they asked you to sign a book they would come back and be like oh yeah i know you and you would say their name and the look on their faces yeah it was just like it made it made their whole day like they could fly in on that for a week because you were like i know you i know you in the world and like what that means to people is i don't think you put a price on that, Dan. I guess not. I just mean for my day-to-day, I can go to a convention and be like,

Terrence, yes, from Colorado. Good to see you again. And I remember your name, Terrence, and where you're from. I do not remember multiplication. Like the order of operations, gone. Yeah, the things you gave up. The things you gave up for these names.

Yeah. Yeah, that's fair. There's only a finite room in there. Yeah. And I do, every time that I do hang out with you where you are meeting somebody who you've met before and know their name, I immediately feel bad because I'm so, I did not put in any work. Don't put any of the work in, and I'm bad at it. And I should. I don't think... It's a fine thing to do.

Because I don't think anyone is upset if you don't remember them, or don't remember their name, specifically. Definitely been some instances. So they're just happy if you do remember it. They are, yes. You're right. There's nothing but upside. Yeah. That's true.

Alright, well well we should get into the show yeah so we play this game called dangerous bangers where uh the it was invented by kieran colkin the rules are very simple one of us brings a movie to the other one it's a movie that if you are bringing the movie it's from your your past you love it so much you have fond memories of it uh but you haven't seen it in a while and you're not sure if it holds up. The other person has never seen this movie. They're going to watch it in the present with fresh eyes and they are going to either confirm your belief that the movie is a banger or they're going to tell you it is not a banger. It's not good. It doesn't hold up. Whatever. Soren has brought the movie Vampire's Kiss 1988 or 89

Nicolas Cage film I had never seen it before I of course saw memes, it's one of the most memed movies. Is it really? Yeah Which part? The A, B, C, D A, B, C, D is very memed I'm a vampire, I'm a vampire, I'm a vampire

is very memed and just like the visual of him, slick back hair with his eyes bulging out of his head okay as as has like made its way around my internet for you've seen decades yeah um before i get into the movie itself what is your relationship to this movie okay this movie was seminal for me and my brother introduced me to it and my my entire sense of humor is basically his um growing up he was four years older than i was and it was just still is too still is four years older yeah we really we stuck with it yeah you caught up at one point and then he he just took off um i i will give credit where it's due that my sense of humor was always just trying to keep

up with him like he was so funny and uh and quick that i was i was just like trying to tread water and like whatever he liked i liked and so this movie came to me when he was probably in high school and i was maybe in middle school um and did not and this was like a movie that he loved and i didn't get it and then as i got older i watched it again i think i was in college and i was like oh this is great this is wonderful and so that was when in like 2001 i was the last time i watched this movie and really loved it then and it's an important time to watch the movie because it opens with shots of the twin towers so the first thing i put in my notes is that the the the you're confronted with a giant screen that says Nicholas cage in and the

skyline of New York with the twin towers. And I'm like, check like that. We, so in watching both of these movies, delirious and vampires kiss, I'm struck by the fact that both of them open with these giant sprawling shots of the New York city where you're like up in a helicopter,

checking everything out and then also it's both about it's about the writing industry both of them without even my memory of that even being the case both these movies are deeply about the writing industry right and this is 88 which might as well be 90s a decade of film i'm obsessed with with which i am obsessed uh and another hallmark of 90s movies to me is these very long opening sequences that don't really do anything it's just like we're going to show the credits we're going to take our time showing all the credits and we're just going to show you new york city skyline they do they there's long i think there's a reason for this one location shots in groundhog day i think

too oh that's right there's just like when they were. Location shots in Groundhog Day, I think, too. Oh, that's right. There's just like when they were just printing money for movies in the 90s. They're like, yeah, we have our script. And yeah, let's get a helicopter. Let's get a couple of helicopters to just sort of like go around Cincinnati. We might use it. We might not. Who cares?

We're going to just need something to play during this opening score. So I rewatched Vampire's Kiss last night because I wanted to be able to be prepared for this because i had forgotten so much about it i was like i had like moments of it it was like memes in my brain where i was like i remembered specific moments but like nothing was tying them together and other than like i remember the nicholas cage performance and i'm really liking it yeah um but i watched it again last night and there's all that Skyline stuff that they do at the beginning of this movie, I think is intentional. I would love to see a copy of the script,

because the architecture that they're specifically choosing and how they highlight it, like a lot of times it's backlit, so it's like silhouette. It looks like all these high sky rises look like churches. Everything has like some Christian iconography to it that they're taking, that they're picking out of New York.

Correct. And I think that that's important. Everything looks like a cathedral in some way. Yes. For this movie, it's a very, I think you're right, very intentional.

I can't wait to talk more about the behind the scenes of this movie. But first, let's get into what this movie is about. Nicolas Cage is Peter Lowe, who is the head of a literary agency. He might be an agent himself, I believe. Yeah, I think so. And it's a very successful agency.

He is also a bit of a playboy raconteur kind of guy. You see him. He wears suits to work, to do his job, where he's mean to one of the secretaries, Alva. And then at night, he goes out to clubs every night and tries to pick up women. Picks up a woman. It seems like he's pretty successful

at picking up women. He meets a truly amazing woman his first night, who is just like such a delightful person. He woos her, brings her back to his his home and a bat flies into his apartment and freaks him out so they leave and they go to her place they spend the night together uh he is also on the side of everything seeing uh a therapist once a week to deal with his vague issues that seem, from the opening,

they stem from him being a womanizer and not really finding a connection with someone. He's trying to better himself. Yeah, yeah, sure. Since he saw this bat, he tells his therapist, I was kind of, there's something about the bat

that aroused me, that got me super hard. And the therapist is like, oh, that's's interesting and the next night he goes out again and takes a woman home it's very similar to the first time he takes a woman home but this woman reveals herself to have vampire fangs and she bites his neck and he's like stop it stop it stop it until eventually he's like actually yes do this i like this yeah and he starts behaving erratically in his life and in his job and sees this woman who uh drinks his blood multiple times he torments this secretary alva that he works with he wants her to find a contract and it's like a needle in a haystack

kind of situation where she has to just go through thousands and thousands of files. And he wants her to find it no matter what. And he is like emotionally abusive to her and physically abusive to her. She hides from him at home, takes a sick day. And he like tracks her down to her house and then brings her back to the office because he is so like crazy about finding this one file and also throughout this entire time he believes he is turning into a vampire he eats cockroaches he does vampire stuff he turns his couch over and sleeps underneath it like a coffin he wears sunglasses because the sun is too great he is really losing it at work uh as he is slowly

becoming a vampire he uh does like a final bit of torment for alva when she does find the file that he's been looking for he uh chases her through the office. It's, it's very late at night and rips her clothes open and starts to try to, to bite her. And she like passes out from the shock. Uh, she also has a gun. It's important to know that she has threatened him with like, if you hurt me, I'm going to shoot you. There's only blanks in the gun. Once he, uh, knocks her out and tries to assault her, he takes the gun and tries to shoot himself, not realizing that it's blanks. And then he's like,

this is confirmation to him that he is a vampire because bullets can't kill him. So now I'm just like a horrible vampire. I go and I stalk the knight. He goes to a club. He fully murders a woman. Yes. Like bites her neck and drinks her blood and she dies.

And then he wanders back home like he's clearly falling apart because he's insane there's blood all over his mouth he hasn't been eating the food that he's supposed to eat he like keeps gagging because he's full of a stranger's blood he hallucinates uh a conversation with his therapist where the therapist sets him up with another one of her clients that is supposed to be the perfect woman for him and he is happy to have found love in his imagination meanwhile alva has told her brother hey my boss the one who's been harassing me i think he raped me yeah when i when i like i woke up and my shirt was open. And so I'm pretty sure he raped me. So her brother tracks Nicolas Cage down to

we don't know exactly. He has a tire iron. Maybe he's just going to beat him up. And then when he finds Nicolas Cage in his house, Nicolas Cage has this giant steak, like a huge piece of wood that is going to be his steak that he's been asking people to like, kill me, kill me, kill me.

I'm a vampire, kill me. And no one's doing it. And so as soon as the brother shows up with his tire iron and Nicolas Cage is like, puts the stake on his own heart, the brother's just like, all right. And he shoves it down and he kills him and he dies. And that's the end of the movie. Yes. Good. Good explanation of this movie. This this movie this is um it there's a lot of upfront where nicholas cage is he's essentially patrick bateman yes um this is like an american psycho story that predates american psycho i think which was the biggest surprise to me like it's i've i've spent so much time on the internet and like mainlining pop culture and like all the work that we did for Cracked. You're just exposed to so many movies and shows that you haven't seen.

And you need to have a passing familiarity with most of them to edit these articles in a convincing way. Whenever we're writing or editing articles that other people have written. So it's really rare for me to be completely surprised by what a movie is. for me to be completely surprised by what a movie is. And this is one of those cases because I, for my whole life, was like, that's a movie where Nicolas Cage is a vampire. And that was a shock to me that he is not a vampire in this movie. He is delusional. It's American Psycho.

He imagines that he is a vampire and everything that would realistically follow that like like him eating bugs is i guess this is what a vampire would do and he can't see his reflection even though we can yeah because he's just going crazy and like when he doesn't have fangs that come in he buys plastic fangs to wear to be to be a vampire and is he at one point he so it's never really clear this woman that actually bites him if she's real or not yeah this is a woman that maybe he at one point he so it's never really clear this woman that actually bites him if she's real or not yeah this is a woman that maybe he just met one night and then all like the the actual blood sucking everything is just something that he made up himself we don't actually know he wears a band-aid on his neck he definitely has a wound on his neck but he also cut

himself shaving so we're never really clear on whether the original event took place he's definitely not turning into a vampire but like he also has like only a passing understanding of what vampires are so like he's like as things occur to him that's when he's like affected by them so like he's walking home with all these groceries and he walks past a church and there's like a neon cross and he's like oh yeah vampires crosses like falls down or like he early on like if he's leaving his apartment and he looks at himself in the mirror and goes and touches it and goes yeah and then just leaves and he's fine which is it's very funny because he's trying it out that's not the vampire trope is you can't see your reflection it's not that your reflection burns you but he's got like a

dim understanding it's like something mirrors, right? I'm on so much fucking Coke. And then he watches Nosferatu, which is like of all the vampire movies to watch, like that's the one he chooses. And then Nicholas Cage just does this brilliant job of like slowly inhabiting Nosferatu. Like he gets very much more hunched.

Hand stuff. Yeah. Creepy, weird hand stuff. He gets really weird. And like, and it's, this is like, I will, this is whenever people are like, Nicholas Cage is a bad actor. I and like and it's this is like i i will this whenever people

are like nicholas cage is a bad actor i'm like he's not he's not go watch raising arizona go this is like one of the movies that i put in the bucket of like he's great he's leaving las vegas like this movie these are the movies you should see and uh i wanted to make sure that i could still recommend this movie as like a movie where he's really great his performance is fucking awesome he is before he gets the vampire affectation he is still making such strange choices he is not a normal human being for one second of this movie yeah as soon as it starts i'm trying to figure out what the fuck voice he's doing. He's doing a weird accent. And I like doing impressions of people. I can't do what he's doing. It doesn't make any logical sense in my brain.

I would pause it and rewind it to try to repeat a sentence of his, but nothing hangs together as one region specific voice it is there's some southern california in there yeah and there's some mid-atlantic there's some like almost british adjacent stuff that he's doing like i went home with a girl and i saw a bat i'm like what where where could you be from i think it's the same thing where like he only has a passing understanding of everything. And like he doesn't care to learn more. And so like when he's becoming a vampire, he's just guessing at it. And then also when he's just who he is, I think that he has like maybe at one point in his life heard Mid-Atatlantic and that that was like rich people and was like

i'll give it a shot without hearing it at all i will just try it and and that became his his accent it's such a weird choice but the movie is full of weird choices yeah did you watch it this is an important question did you watch it with subtitles no okay most movies now i watch with subtitles because my children are sleeping upstairs and I have to keep the volume down. And it's just the nature of movies that all the action is loud and the dialogue is soft. I'm watching with subtitles and there's a lot of like, you're just ambient talking and stuff because there's clubs and stuff like that. Yeah. And there are some very weird choices being made throughout the entire movie.

Big swings. We're like, at one point he's meeting a woman in a bar. And as we're painting over to them, this guy walks up to another woman. He's like, hey, my name is Meredith. What's yours? And you're like, fucking what? There's a scene where he goes to, he goes in and out of his apartment. And there are two mimes doing a little...

Practicing. Practicing a little scene together in full mime clothes, and we see the exact scene twice where he pretends to slap her, and then she pretends to spit on him. We see that exact sequence play out twice as Nicolas Cage is going in and out of his apartment, and there's not a crowd watching them.

They're just performing in front of his stoop and there's no payoff to it whatsoever. I don't think it's thematically related at all. It's just weird. It's just another weird detail in this very weird movie. At one point when he's chasing Alva, who is the secretary that he is harassing, he chases her into a women's room.

And she's genuinely terrified and up against a wall. And he's like looking very insane. And there's another woman who's just finishing up in the bathroom, another secretary, I think. And she just goes, what the fuck is going on here? And then walks out. I wrote that in my notes because that made me laugh so hard. He chases her into the restroom. And she's like, if you hurt me,'ll shoot you i have a gun and this old like a 65 year old

woman's like what the fuck is going on in here and then walks away walks out of frame comes like close to camera doesn't spike it or anything just walks right through and it's like i'm done here um yeah so the movie is full of like these weird big choices and i think that and as i was watching it again i was like oh shit i think a lot of my sense of humor came from this movie where it's like you just take these weird big swings and and then you just move on from them he does such a weird his physicality when he's talking to the therapist because he he becomes so fixated on this contract that he wants Alva to find. And he's talking to the therapist like,

this is the ABC sequence. Yes, it's the funniest moment of the movie. There's two ridiculous parts of it where he's like, why can't you find it? Where is it? And she's like, you know, it's people, maybe they just put it in the wrong file. And he's like, it's alphabetized.

It's so simple. It's alphabetized. A, B so simple. It's alphabetized. A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H. And he does, and she keeps like trying to jump in. Like, I got it. Like, I understand. He screams the entire alphabet.

It's very fun watching it and just thinking like, he's not going to do the whole thing, is he? Oh, he's going to keep going. This is great. The alphabet's long. He does every single bit of it.

And then the therapist goes, I see? Oh, he's gonna keep going. This is great. The alphabet's long. He does every single bit of it. And then the therapist goes, I see. You really know your alphabet. Which was a funny line. And then his physicality after that is like, I have never misfiled a file one time. Not once. Not one

time. Like, very distinct choices. Bonk, bonk bonk hands on hips hands behind hips that is like like really clearly Nicolas Cage knew I'm gonna do these poses in this order on these like very inhuman

robotic beats and like why why did he do that you're smiling why did he make any of the decisions that he made in this movie? And I know, because I became very obsessed with this movie, immediately watching it, that I wanted to know everything about it.

And he was so drawn to the script, he wanted it immediately, then he dropped it when they switched directors, and then as soon as he found out that he could get back into it, he jumped to the chance and did it for much less than he ever gets paid for anything because he was so drawn to this and he must've been drawn to what he knew he wanted to do with this part because it's like no director told him to do that voice or to do that

physicality and it can't be on the page it's just nicholas cage who was like i'm gonna i'm gonna really do something weird with this i'm gonna do a voice i'm gonna do a physicality and i'm gonna as like an acting experiment see if i can actually get my eyes out of my fucking skull yeah he it's so strange like yeah all the choices that he makes are very strange and like it's like you've never seen a human move before yeah um him that scene where he's talking to his therapist is the funniest thing in the movie because he's like he's mad about this file he's trying to describe to her what the problem is at work he's like i sort of lost it at work today yeah he's like

when you file something if everything if you have a copy of every contract and you put it where it goes then it should be there right and she's like yeah and he's like yes yes good and she's like unless somebody misfiled it he goes what who who misfiled it who misfiled and he's furious at her and she's like i'd have no way of knowing that and he's like who did it who misfiled it and then yeah when he's the end he's like i've never misspelled anything in my life not once never never and gets very petulant like a kid it's like these big very funny choices a crucial thing about this file that he wants, so like the background of this file that dominates the whole movie

is one of their star clients has asked for a copy of his contract. His foreign? His foreign royalties contract for a book that he wrote because he wanted it framed because it was the first foreign check that he got for his work. And so Nicholas Cage sends Alva on this wild goose chase to find this contract. We learned very early in the movie, like the client calls

Nicholas Cage and was like, Hey, I know I asked you for that contract, but, uh, no rush on that. It's not really important. I'm in the middle of moving. So if you get around to it, you get around to it. If not, whatever. I'll call you when I move. Hope everything's well. Very easygoing client. This is not an important thing. And he just ignores that and continues to harass Alva

to make her get this contract that is not ultimately important. It's another strange decision. He just tortures her. Yeah, he just wants to torture her. He is being, a thing that we kind of gloss over is that Jennifer Beals is this woman who is the vampire.

Rachel. Her name is Rachel. Her name is Rachel. And she is, she appears to him every once in a while. She feeds on him every night, we seem to believe. Yeah.

And so he's feeling a little, he's in love with her, but he's also feeling very trapped. It's a Renfield situation where he, he's a slave to this woman and doesn't. And so like he, he's kind of like has some ideations of suicide stuff. Like he wants her, he wants all of it to shoot him. Yeah. Like he wants to die. And he's also feels trapped by this woman who is, he's in love with, but he's also being's a very very dark comedy even more than i think american psycho like american psycho at least he's not doing the stuff in this he murders a woman

yeah um and so and it's also we're laughing at somebody who's having a mental breakdown colleen watched some of this with me last night and she was like i don't think this is funny and i was like why and she's like because he's just having a mental health crisis and it's, he's devolving further and further into it. And we're laughing at it. And I was like, oh yeah, that's valid.

I'm also not sure it's funny. And, and like, I, part of me is happy knowing what I knew going into it because I got to be surprised because I thought this was a funny thing about him being an actual vampire. I thought this was like once bitten or something like that, vampire. I thought this was like Once Bitten or something like that,

where I'm going to see Nicolas Cage do funny vampire stuff. I didn't know it was American Psycho. And I think I'd like to watch it again knowing that, because it is really dark and really sad. And he goes crazy because of how lonely he is. He is like a lonely guy who, who can't find connection and can't find love. It's the first thing he is saying to the therapist that opens the movie is just him on the couch being like, and then I brought this girl home and I wanted her. And then in the morning I let her sleep for a while while I got dressed and I put

my suit on. I didn't want to get back in bed with her. I didn't want her to stick around. And then she took the hint and she left. Like she saw that I was dressed for work and it was time for her to go. And the therapist was like, but you wanted her last night. Like,

yep, I did really badly. And like, you see that he's in this strange cycle where he's going out every night and trying to pick up women and trying to find some kind of connection and none of it's working and he goes so crazy from his loneliness that like at the absolute peak of his delusion in like his his his fantasy of things working out it's him and his therapist looking like a million bucks in his imagination and being like you're not a good therapist and you know what i've wanted this whole

time that you haven't been able to figure out it's love i want real love not fairy tale stuff i want real love and then he meets this fake woman that shares all of his interests and that's like that's the book end of this movie is i can't find connection and then this delusion of finding connection. And in between, he goes absolutely insane with loneliness and isolation in this weird, oppressive 1980s version of New York City. Right.

It's sad. It's a very sad movie, yeah. And he destroys some people's lives along the way. One person who he literally kills, Alva, her brother. Her brother now has killed somebody

and has to live with that, the emotional fallout of that. And then also Alva is emotionally scarred because it's not clear if she was ever actually raped or not, but she's suffered mental and physical abuse from this guy. He hits her at one point and she has a black and blue face. I think that... When I was trying to describe it to colleen is like why it's okay trying to justify this movie that i liked i was like he's a really bad guy like we they do a lot

of work up front showing what a bad terrible person this is so when he's thinks he's becoming a vampire and it's destroying his life that's funny like i'm trying to like be like that's what's good about it like we're watching this person fall and it's not necessarily crazy but it is it's crazy he's just like he's a person who's having a breakdown and becoming mentally unstable and slowly turning into somebody who's very dangerous and uh he's doing such a funny job of it is the problem yeah nicholas cage he's making these choices like he's like he constantly is calling all of it into his office and then like at one point you just hear him being like we start on

a scene where he's staring at a blank desk he's going uh uh and then he runs out and jumps on a desk with both feet wearing sunglasses this entire time and goes there you are and like these big wild things that he's doing where i'm like everything about this i'm loving the movie is incredibly worth watching for nicholas cage's absurd performance because i performance. Because I'm with you. I think he is a very good actor. I think he's really strange and makes inexplicable choices, but I think he's really good and incredibly watchable. And for all of the big swing weird stuff that he does,

you can then watch Adaptation where he's playing two characters and he's like you can just be the best actor in the world if you want yeah you you you don't always do it you do like weird bad lieutenant movies and you do vampire's kiss uh because you're just like you just i think he's one of those actors that like just likes doing it he likes being on set he likes making movies uh the money is good and he just wants to work all the time every day. I think there was like an interview with him when that, uh, that massive talent movie came out with him and Pedro Pascal where he was talking about like any other job. You don't ask like a nurse or a truck driver why they're going to work. It's just their job. It's what they do.

I'm an actor. I do movies. I keep doing movies. I'm always doing something. They don't all need to be Oscar bait. They don't all need to be blockbusters either. I'm just like, I don't know. I'm an actor. It's my job. I wake up and I do my acting job, which is a cool way to look at, it was bad to say during the strike, a frivolous, unimportant industry.

So it's worth it to watch him and the choices he makes. I don't know that it's a banger. Yeah, that's fair. Because I kept coming back to thinking, what is this movie trying to be? Is it trying to be a comedy? Is it trying to be American Psycho? I couldn't really figure out what it was trying to be.

And it's hard. If I don't know what it's trying to be, I can't evaluate how successful it is at being that. That's totally fair. I want to watch it again right now and like as soon as i was done watching it i was reading about it and like the screenwriter uh his either girlfriend or wife at the time was a producer and he wrote this movie when they were supposed to be on vacation together and there was like a lot of friction in their vacation and she was just like i'm going back home you write you just write a movie just do it just like take this time and write and he wrote this vampire's kiss movie very

quickly and she's like this is our fucking relationship this is us this is a writer who is like in love with a woman who is destroying him. And it's this toxic relationship. This is, this is us right now. You wrote us. Yeah. I didn't know that. Yeah.

Oh, the only behind the scenes stuff I knew was that he, that he chose to eat a real cockroach. He did. Yeah. And that sucks. And the other thing was that, uh,

before it was Nicolas Cage, it was almost Dennis Quaid. Wouldn't that have been bad? Oh, yeah. I wouldn't have cared for that. Yeah. He dropped out to do your movie, Interspace. That's your movie, right?

That is my inner movie. I do love Interspace, too. Have you seen Interspace? Maybe we'll do the Dangerous Baggins. Not in a long time. Ooh. Okay. Yeah.

You're absolutely right. It is really tough to tell what this movie is trying to be. be. And I'm like, maybe it's a date thing. Maybe like, I just don't understand because it's a different time. And maybe like this was clear in a Coke fueled New York. Like everyone's like, I don't, I might even put it in the same camp as something like Leaving Las Vegas. Like Leaving Las Vegas has some very funny moments, but ultimately is not a funny movie. And it's like really sad. And this is the same thing. We're like, there's somebody doing a very funny performance in a deeply sad movie. And it's like, I don't know what to do with that. I don't know how to handle it because all of the everything nicholas cage does is funny it's funny and watchable everything that happens with alva is scary and sad and really tough and like this isn't oh times were different when this movie was made and so they don't realize how bad it is the movie knows like this is this is a secretary so it's a lower status position to his high status position so he has so much power over her she is also uh she's like immigrated to america so there's some status stuff going on there and the movie doesn't like gloss over it they they play it this is scary she is in a tough position she needs this job where she's tortured every day she has no help and no friends and is scared all the time. Even when

she's not around Nicolas Cage. She is scared because she's a woman of color in New York in the past. So like the subway is scary to her. She has a gun, not for him because she lives in New York and it's the 80s. Yeah. And the movie knows all these things and it's just like this is

a version of this movie centered around her is tragedy full stop if you don't get that her boss thinks he's turning into a vampire and she's just like trying to keep her head down and go to work and then is tortured by this guy who assaults her and then her brother has to murder him yeah that is a very sad very tough story yes yeah and you're not getting away from that because that's i think a through line throughout the entire thing i mean the fun stuff is him trying to turn into a vampire trying to like wanting to but man there's and like his relationship with the woman who turns him into a vampire with rachel is also really sad it's like he really likes her at first and then she only comes to

him at night she ruins all his other relationships and she just feeds on him over and over and at the end like wants nothing to do with him yeah and is like once she's turned him fully into a vampire he's like i'm like you now i'm like you she's like you'll never be like me yeah and it's just this dude this lonely guy who will never have a connection his entire life and there is i do, I mentioned her briefly, but the first woman we see him going home with is this woman, Jackie, that he meets at a club and brings her home. And the bat comes in.

He, I think, has a great night with her and then has like a follow-up date with her at a museum. And he is, he thinks turning into a vampire at this point. So he ditches her in the middle of their museum date. And she leaves a

message on his machine like you can't do that to a person that was fucking awful you're a piece of shit leave me alone don't call me again and in the throes of madness he reaches out to her again like i was really sick i was going through a tough time give me another shot meet me at the club tonight i do really like you she's like all right i'll give you another shot she goes to the club and he never shows up because he imagines his vampire woman wants him back so he ditches this girl twice now and she just like leaves him a note says like stay out of my life leave me alone forever uh and we never see her again she is so sad she is like really broken up to lose this guy and she is yeah just delightful i mean they they meet and they're like they're like drunk and probably on coke because it's the 80s new york uh but she is such a good sport when the bat comes in she's like

laughing and play like the that i couldn't get enough of this woman in the, in the, the first 20 minutes of this movie. And I was like, I hope she sticks around because she, what a, what a treat she is. Just occurring to me now. Like, I think that he starts to have like a genuine connection with her.

Yeah. And like, that's terrifying. And so like he's invents this entire vampire thing. Yeah. To not have to deal with her and like to get her out of his life. Um, and like,

what a big swing that is but yeah it's i realized also that it in my in the same way that delirious like spoke to your sketch writing sensibilities and like maybe even influenced them i think this did for me as well maybe not in a super healthy way where like i would it's such a slow burn the movie is so slow in the same way that delirious is slow where like you're like you got a lot of these exterior shots where you're just hanging around for no reason and then your character wanders through yeah but um it just the him becoming a vampire is so slow like the process takes a long time it takes a long time for you to even realize

he's not actually becoming a vampire. Yeah. Like the movie doesn't tip its hand. It's not helping you. It's not holding your hand at all. There's enough ambiguity that for a while I did think like, okay, he's going to, like any minute now he'll be a full-blown vampire. Because I have not been given a reason to believe that vampires aren't real in this universe. Yes.

And so it's this slow burn. And I think I really like slow burns. It's like when I would write sketches, I was always getting in trouble at crack because it was just like, why is this taking so long? Why is the joke taking so long? I'm like, because it's worth it if you stick with it for a while. I did a sketch, a rough about um a guy opening just like a retail shop and like he's very excited about and he's doing the commercial for it it's a low budget local commercial um but he's also like one of the details that he's like really hung up on

is like we don't have any mannequins in the store and like throughout the the commercial it's just more and more clear like he's terrified of mannequins like mannequins coming to life and like not really clear like what they're gonna do to him but like just terrified of mannequins being real yeah and it takes forever and the sketch was a colossal failure but when i wrote it i was like this is it this is really good this is my vampire's kiss um but yeah yeah so look for that i don't even know how you'd find it now mannequins type of mannequins but spelt like i would it's kind of weird uh yeah those are my final thoughts um great movie that i will watch again and i encourage people to watch i don't know that it's a banger though yeah if that's if that's a line that's okay for me to walk i watched it again last night and after talking to

colleen about it i was like it's not a banger yeah in fact i think it's probably pretty bad like i i i she just got in me in my head where i was like i was trying to defend this thing and then realizing i didn't even have a leg to stand on which is you're just watching a guy go crazy yeah it's pretty pretty sad and i was thinking this is a great funny movie. Well, that about does it for this episode of quick question, colon dangerous bangers.

Uh, you can find the show on YouTube. If you've just been listening to this, you have no idea that we've been talking together in a room this whole time, a room I should stop down to say, um, it's a great room and I'm thrilled that gabe found it it's it's really cool i like this this location a lot to go to the bathroom when we're filming this show you have to go outside of this room to like outdoors outdoors and then go up some stairs you're

gonna go past a sauna yeah and you're gonna walk into what feels like definitely someone's home. It's like an apartment building. And you go in to this door that is like suspiciously ajar. And it smells like weed. And there's like stuff around. It's not an empty apartment. There's like pants draped over the couch. And our wonderful producer editor director

engineer gabe is just like yeah you just have to go in and like and like walk in that door and then go into the bathroom and use it and i promise there's no one in there but it like super feels like there's people in there like any minute it is indistinguishable from breaking into someone's home and peeing in their toilet. It feels the same. And my body is like, we're not supposed to be doing this. I don't care what Gabe said. It feels like we're breaking in. Yeah, it definitely feels like someone is living there at that moment. Like someone is there. And that if you're peeing, you could any minute now hear some, like, in my head, I thought while I was peeing yesterday, I'm going to hear a tea kettle going off.

And that's very scary to me because that means that the person doesn't know I'm here and I'm going to be a surprise for their morning tea. But so far, so far, no one's been in there while we've been going to the bathroom and getting changed for the show and uh it's been good it's been good yeah otherwise i like it here not doing outros that's it for the show thank you Wanna hear your thoughts or wanna know what's on your mind I've got a quick, quick question for you alright The answer's not important, I'm just glad that we could talk tonight So what's your favourite? Who did you get? When do I be remembered?

What's it out there? Where did all the guys go? Oh forget it Saw a movie, Daniel O'Brien Two best friends and comedy writers If there's an answer they're gonna find it I think you'll have a great time here I think you'll have a great time here