Quick Question with Soren and Daniel - Movies You're Wrong About

Episode Date: February 27, 2024

Takes abound as the guys discuss movies that other people like more than they should. Plus Daniel gets a new pair of glasses, Soren wears blouses, and Fred Durst is recognized as an inexplicable fashi...on icon.-Thanks to ASPCA. To explore coverage, visit ASPCApetinsurance.com/QUESTION. The ASPCA is not an insurer and is not engaged in the business of insurance.

Transcript
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Starting point is 00:00:00 I've got a quick, quick question for you, alright? I wanna hear your thoughts, 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 favorite? Who did you get? When will I be? What's it up to? Where did all the good weeks not? Oh, forget it. Saw a movie, Daniel O'Brien.
Starting point is 00:00:29 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. So hello and welcome to another episode of Quick Question with Soren and Daniel, the podcast where two best friends and comedy writers ask each other questions and give each other answers. I am one half of that podcast, author of How to Fight Presidents, senior writer for Last Week Tonight, and guy with brand new glasses that no one has commented on, Daniel O'Brien, joined as always by my co-host, Mr. Soren Bui.
Starting point is 00:01:08 Soren, say hello. Hey, everybody. I'm Soren Bui. I write for American Data. What? Are those new glasses? Soren. Those are gorgeous. Yes. Thank you. Oh, those are wonderful. Oh, I love them.
Starting point is 00:01:20 Yes. Thank you to ASPCA Pet Insurance for supporting Quick Question. To explore coverage, visit ASPCAPetInsurance.com slash question. This is a paid advertisement. Insurance is underwritten either by Independence American Insurance Company or United States Fire Insurance Company and produced by PTZ Insurance Agency Limited. The ASPCA is not an insurer and is not engaged in the business of insurance. So you've had a pretty set in stone look since eighth grade. Yeah, I've sort of vacillated between two looks in my life one was a bowl cut
Starting point is 00:02:06 with long baggy pants and the other one was my current look and honestly i'm feeling the revolution come around again i see the people out i see people at movie theaters and stuff and i'm like that was my look man that's should i be doing that again have you ever uh were there ever like accent pieces that either you wore when you were younger or uh that you want to to do now oh great question dan yes there thanks buddy uh i so i had this little like latch thing that would not really a carabiner but sort of like a carabiner that held my keys to one of the bands on my jeans okay wasn't like a pocket chain but it was still very rattly silver thing and i hate having keys in my pocket and i long for the days where that's cool again you can just wear something that looks like my jeans got their ear pierced. Right. It's just like dangles off.
Starting point is 00:03:06 I want that again. What about you? I was talking about this with my sister-in-law the other night because it was my niece's sweet 16. And I asked my sister-in-law what her sweet 16 was like. And in lieu of a party, she got like a massive plate necklace with her name on it which which struck a chord for me and remembered the people in high school in new jersey the girls who did have like marcella like a giant large license plate of your name as a necklace and uh it it pulled up a memory for me of not just those girls but also the the period of my high school time where we all wore like gold crucifix necklaces.
Starting point is 00:03:52 I don't feel like I came from a like. Jesus, you're so Jersey. A loudly religious high school or anything like that. Like we're all sort of grew up in the weirdest state of all. that like we're all sort of grew up in the in the weirdest state of all no yeah we're all we're all catholic in the in the way that like we all we're we're we're catholic in the way that we're all powerless that we're just shuffled around in minivans by our parents none of us was like you know what i love about being catholic it's the ritual none of us had any strong attachments to it uh but we all still were like like the idea of wearing a gold crucifix to
Starting point is 00:04:26 school every day yo anyone want to go to mac and mancos and talk about the crucifixion you see that fucking sermon on sunday that was tight when he says i was walking down the street and i met a woman who asked me a question why does god let bad things happen to good people do you think that was real do you think that happened, that he was walking in the street? Because it worked for the sermon, but it just felt a little too convenient for his purposes. Why does God let bad things happen? Good Lord, why do I love this man? Hold on.
Starting point is 00:04:58 The things you're describing sound like they're from a movie to me. That everyone wore gold crosses and then the women all wore essentially like Roman spear plates to keep themselves from getting stabbed in the neck with their names on them. You should also know that the crucifixes for a lot of us were eventually replaced with puka shell necklaces,
Starting point is 00:05:18 which is what I thought I was going to have you on. I thought, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm back. In my memory, there's a picture of you wearing a puka shell necklace, a picture I might not have ever seen i just have it though i've never had a puka shell necklace but i was a necklace boy i was a necklace boy who had there was always like um beads and silver on it okay um it's really complicated actually to explain but like it wasn't it was it it, it was after Fimo.
Starting point is 00:05:46 Did you have a Fimo phase as well where you did like a hemp and Fimo? No. What is Fimo? Fimo is a type of clay. Fear that everyone's missing out? Fimo is a type of clay. And I'm the only one having fun? Then clipped and it has like little shapes and designs within it and it makes these
Starting point is 00:06:07 little beads like intricate looking beads and then they're always placed within hemp like you'd get like a hemp bracelet and there'd be three of these beads across it um or there'd be like a femo mushroom necklace like that kind of stuff it was just very fancy looking clay and okay that was like a big deal when I was really young, like just out of elementary school into middle school. And then after that, I remained a necklace boy and would wear, I guess, skater or surfer type of necklaces that were not puka shell. Okay. Were they loose fitting or like tight around the neck? They were not choke chains by any means
Starting point is 00:06:46 okay uh but they were not they also that i don't think they were like your crucifix ones were like i imagine those like a deep v to them yeah these were like it was punk it was that's what it was it was like uh like b like silver beads imagine that okay i can i can i can imagine that okay and they just hung past you like if you were wearing a crew cut shirt it would hang just past that little suture like the sewing where they yeah and you haven't as you've gotten older because i think you'll even say this about yourself but it's it's it's you're a mostly j crew banana republic kind of i don't know all american preppy yeah basically yeah yeah um there's not a lot of room to to if you ever wanted to like zhuzh it up you don't have any piercings i don't notice
Starting point is 00:07:42 that you wear necklaces today but are are you ever thinking about like, man, I wish I had like, like just a shelf on the side of my face that I can occasionally display tchotchkes or something. about bracelets but i am really into bracelets in a way where i can't ever like indulge it but the minute i see bracelets on somebody i'm like that person is cool yeah and especially if they've got like a bunch of them and they're all different textiles like one of them's like wool or like braided you know and then like another one is leather like a leather cuff somebody wears a leather cuff i'm like this person's lived it well this is a whole different life and i am curious did you ever have uh were wrist or elbow sweat bands ever a part of your fashion life growing up no we had those that might have been um born out of uh my high school and college uh alternative piano rock band do we have a clip no we're gonna have a clip there we're gonna have a clip playing right now um but we had
Starting point is 00:08:53 my brother tommy had wrist sweat bands that were uh it it's debatable if it was like actually for the function of keeping sweat away from your fingers while you're playing piano or it looks cool and it's a thing to do or both and then i just started doing that too i was like oh i'm gonna have a little like a sweat band on either my wrist or my elbow that was gonna just be something to like zhuzh up my form as i'm on stage as an 18 year old, because no piercings, no tattoos. I'm otherwise just a tube out there. I'm a Lego person. And I was like, I could put a hat on this, but otherwise, I don't know. There's not much else we can do. It's like it's thick and it only is about two inches long and sits on your wrist. Are you
Starting point is 00:09:41 talking about one of those armbands that Carmelo Anthony used to wear? as long and sits on your wrist are you talking about like one of those armbands that carmelo anthony used to wear which no it's just it's wrist i would do i would do wrist or i would sometimes do a a wider one that would fit around my elbow that couldn't possibly serve any function like at least when it was on the wrist i could say it's keeping the sweat out of my fingers when i'm playing bass but when it's on my left elbow i'm just like ah yes this is here to uh contract my movement a bit i don't know they're cool i'm with you it's pure vanity those are cool they wear them in um uh giving up the gun music video for uh vampire weekend which is at this point 20 years old i want to say yeah uh but it's when i remember watching that music video when i was young and being like, yeah, that's cool.
Starting point is 00:10:26 That's cool that they're like playing bass with those on. Yeah, that's good because my band days are also 20 years old at this point. Good Lord. I would also wear everywhere I went from, I would say from sophomore year of high school through junior year of college. I had a backwards cap, a backwards Burton cap. It's like kind of maroonish red and I wore it everywhere. I wore a backwards red fitted baseball cap constantly, not because of Limp Bizkit and Fred Durst, but I don't know. We're all products that were like, I definitely didn't like Limp Bizkit or Fred Durst, but there was something about the simplicity of red backwards ball cap and a white t-shirt that I was like, yeah, that's pretty.
Starting point is 00:11:11 I could do that every day for the rest of my life. Dan, you said that you gave basically a rundown of my style. I've started experimenting with some new styles. Hey, no more J.Crew, no more Banana Republic. Hello, Expressmen. Hello, TJ Maxx. I will be going to Las Vegas
Starting point is 00:11:33 this weekend. And when we go to Las Vegas for work, we dress up because we go out to these really nice dinners. And the last three years, I've been like, I've been dabbling i've basically just been like doing this soft launch on basically a new style that will be what i hope is my new style i wear blouses dan not like uh not fully a woman's blouse but print usually with some flowers on it
Starting point is 00:12:01 very thin material like a very thin button up almost like a silk but not so shiny very matte but the flowers have just gotten gradually more aggressive like before it was just like a print that could have been anything okay then i started wearing this green one that was like green and it was like clear there's plants on it and then the one that i'm wearing this year is uh it's blue and pink flower the tiny blue and pink flowers all over yeah and this thing is like it very easily could have been picked up in the women's section right but when i go to the store when i go to any store and i look at their button-ups i'm i hate them i hate every dude's button up there is.
Starting point is 00:12:45 I think that they suck. I think that the type of person that I would expect to be, see that in them. I hate that guy. Yeah. Um, it's just gonna do it at the club and I don't want that. And so like, I'm like trying to escape that. And so I found these very David Bowie esque blouses essentially where I'm like, this is my thing now.
Starting point is 00:13:03 This is who I will be. And they look great with a suit by the way yeah i'll bet i have a bunch of uh floral patterned button shirts i don't know if they're i'm curious to see yours to see if if we're in roughly the same ballpark i don't vegas might be a good setting for them because I have like the... I've only really been able to wear these floral pattern button-down shirts in like summertime with vacation vibes because I feel like... If I'm laughed at, I can be like, no, that's part of it. I don't really mean it.
Starting point is 00:13:38 I'm doing this because it's vacation time. I have a couple other very nice long long sleeve button down floral shirts that just sit in my closet because i don't i don't have work trips to vegas yeah and for anyone listening home these are not emmys daniel and i are not talking about cabana shirts we're not talking about true romance christian slater red with giant birds of paradise on it. Like these are classy, classy, flowery shirts. I've accumulated so many.
Starting point is 00:14:11 Cause I, I, I just like floral patterns in general. I've accumulated so many nice floral patterned ties because that's another way that a tube like me could judge up his appearance. And I just never wear them cause I never have any cause to wear ties or shirts with buttons for that matter i i yeah i agree with you i have in fact i surprised myself when i found a tie in my um in my closet where i was like oh this thing rules why did i wear this once to a wedding and that was it and it is a very flowery tie and i i i don't know i. I've started to dress more like a woman.
Starting point is 00:14:47 And I really like the result. I think I look really nice. Well, that's very exciting. I mean, this all started because I was thinking about glasses. And I specifically bring up how no one in my life has noticed the glasses. Because I've given my family every opportunity and they didn't see say anything about them and they're like a somewhat drastic departure from the glasses that i've been wearing for the last lifetime but um when i got them that was like like part of it was i want something a little bit different i want something a little bit different.
Starting point is 00:15:25 I want something that's going to impact my look a bit. And like the salesman at the glasses store, like to his credit was very clear. It's like women have jewelry. They have makeup. They have all these things they could do. Guys, I mean, this is what you have. This is, and it's your face. It's what you're presenting to the world.
Starting point is 00:15:45 So you should put some time into it and you should like do something with it. If you want your glasses to just sort of like disappear and be as inobtrusive as possible, then we certainly have those. But you know, this is gonna be your face for the next couple of years. So what do you want?
Starting point is 00:16:01 What kind of statement could you make or what kind of thing could you be saying with this? And it's fun. it yeah i think it's it's i'm a little jealous about necklaces and and and other things because it's just like yeah this is uh i can go for a slightly more professorial look or uh you know when i'm i when i don't have the rest of my dress up going i could go for a slightly a look that is like an owl who came back from the gym and that's that's fine too my brother has so has had historically some some bad um takes on fashion he was the one who when he was early his life was thinking he was gonna get a tattoo was like i need to get something that will last for a lifetime and I'll love it forever.
Starting point is 00:16:46 So I'm thinking the Blues Traveler cat. Correct. That guy. He came back from a cross – so there's huts all over Colorado, these ski huts, where in the winter you ski up to them. It's untracked snow. There's lots of great skiing up there, but you've got to skin up there, which means you put skins on the bottom of your telemark skis to go uphill. And then he came back from one of these hut trips with a pierced ear and a piece of turquoise in it. I would love to remind our listeners that at the start of this episode, Soren said, where I'm from is weird because we love Jesus Christ.
Starting point is 00:17:22 We don't have any snow huts that we have to skin our way up to and then ruin our bodies which are temples could you imagine me with a snowboard on my back and snowshoes on and just like a cross dangling like hitting me in the chest as i'm trying to go up there it's cold like the metal's cold against me i i it's just we live different lives and that's gotta be okay yeah um yeah so he came back with a piece of this podcast could be about anything it's about healing the divide between new jersey and colorado and the continental divide yeah really uh it's really it's so drastic it's it's it's insane i mean we'd. Obviously, I'd go there every summer into Ocean City. And every time that I would get there, I got to, to your credit, I would feel way more plugged into society when I was there. I was like, this is the big leagues. I'm going out on the boardwalk. I got to have something that looks good. I'm thinking bucket hat this year. Like I was like, I would think about this upcoming trip to ocean city new jersey a dry town and be like man it doesn't get any higher than this this is like big time who will i be this summer yeah
Starting point is 00:18:31 oh it could be hot pants gonna be too much i'm gonna go cargo shorts it's cargo shorts all the way um so yeah he came back with a piece of turquoise in his ear and we were all like the whole family nobody's mad but everyone's like the fuck why would you do that uh and he i guess everyone on the trip had pierced their ear on this trip he kept it for i think probably two weeks and didn't get infected or anything but he realized pretty quick being back in society. Oh, this is no good. So I, the idea of piercings has never really appealed to me for my own face.
Starting point is 00:19:12 I think everyone can do what they like, but like for me, I was like, I don't, I don't want to show off that way. I don't want, that's not my, my shortcut to interesting.
Starting point is 00:19:22 Yeah. I, I completely agree there again, no judgments for anyone who does it, but it hasn't been for me. Tattoos have long been a thing that I'm sure I've mentioned on this podcast that I've wanted, but I just haven't found the right thing to get in the right place. But that also would not be, I don't think, a face or neck situation. Oh, but that would be your very first tattoo. You just get a scorpion on your neck. Just something really bold yeah you jump jump in head first what does everybody think be honest oh are you a scorpion nah capricorn yeah but i like do you like scorpions not really it's scary though right never seen one in person. Imagine they're pretty spooky. They're a bug? Bug? I want to say bug.
Starting point is 00:20:12 Yeah, I don't. A tattoo is something that has obviously appealed to me too because it is against a shortcut to cool. Like you see somebody with tattoos and you're like, oh, wow. Oh, you sat through that. You sat through some pain to get that um but i just can't i would never pull the trigger on it i couldn't do it i don't think so either and i don't want a lot of them is the thing and everyone says once you get one you want to get more and more of them and i don't i believe them and don't want that to be true for me
Starting point is 00:20:41 i saw a guy at the gym the other day who had the full sleeves like fully black which i don't understand i don't understand why you at some point say don't give me a tattoo just make me a different color that seems strange to me but as i was looking at him i was also thinking i wonder if if today they invented a a tattoo that didn't at all. Like you could just get whatever you wanted printed on you. There's no like these sessions you have to sit through where it's like first you do the outline, then the next session is the color and it takes months or whatever and it's painful and it's a process and an adventure. You could just go in today and you could get like a full arm of like brilliant colors and a big tattoo and it wouldn't
Starting point is 00:21:24 hurt at all. I feel like tattoo people would would revolt i feel like they'd be so angry yeah yeah there's like we we i mean i maybe our society will will be okay with that at some point we're already i feel like we're seeing uh people balk at the idea like you you can make lab-grown, cruelty-free diamonds. And people who don't even really have a dog in the fight are still like, yeah, but I think there should be some cruelty. I think there should be some. She got, not me, I'm saying the straw man that I'm inventing. But like there's got to be a reason that entirely lab-grown meat and lab-grown diamonds haven't just completely taken over the world.
Starting point is 00:22:12 Because like we're close to lab-grown meat. I'm not talking about Impossible Burgers. I'm talking about like what would pass a DNA test of being meat that is grown in a lab but there's still so many people who are like don't make me say it but i do think i need an animal to actually die for this i i didn't know i didn't know i felt that way but but yeah i i really do i think you need to to cut down a forest and do you need me to say it ruin the amazon to make more room for cows and kill the cows and I can eat the cows. It is, yeah. When people find out, we did this with wedding ring shopping for a long time.
Starting point is 00:22:55 We're like, I was like telling people the ring that I got for my wife. And they're like, where did the stone come from? And I'm like, oh, it's an heirloom stone. Like somebody, it's been around for a long time. It's been passed around. And they're like, oh, very exciting. Like the stone stone has a story if you don't say that yeah if you say no it was just they made it in a lab people are like oh it's not a real one then it's not a real diamond you mean that somebody didn't mind that and then get whipped to want to mine it and then it ended
Starting point is 00:23:21 up on a bunch of different people's fingers and they all died from the curse and now your wife has it right there's no like burned records somewhere down the line where we're like no one can know where this diamond came from or else mary antoinette's family's gonna be super pissed no none of that yeah um I, that's, I, I do like bracelets. I like, I like rings a lot. And I think that these are both products of thing because I'm jealous. You know,
Starting point is 00:23:53 my hands, you know, my wrists. Yeah. For any, for any connoisseurs out there, you know, that I've got,
Starting point is 00:23:59 you could probably, a stiff breeze could break my wrist. Yeah. Like I've got these very thin, delicate wrists. And then I've got these fingers that are monster fingers. They're long and skinny. McDonald's French fries all the way. And they, but the, from years of baseball, the, they've all been jammed so many times
Starting point is 00:24:19 that the knuckle, it looks like a pregnant French fry. Like the middle of it is weirdly knobby. And so like if I put a ring on my finger, it's barely – I had to work real hard to squeeze it over that weird trunk of a knuckle. And then it just bobs around below that. Between the palm itself and that knuckle, there's nothing holding it in place because the finger is so skinny. So they just roll around on my hand and I can't like run with a ring on because it's, it's so annoying.
Starting point is 00:24:49 I know that if I ever, cause I'm also intrigued by rings, but I know if I ever get one that there is no money should be spent on it because I will lose and smudge and destroy it. I just know intuitively, no matter how meaningful the, the ring is. i i played a uh a person who was married with children in a cracked series called internet content that we did
Starting point is 00:25:14 yeah uh which maybe you could find on youtube or maybe not that's the beauty of of what i spent my 20s doing is of my own disappear but uh i had a ring for the the the the costume that the character wore and i you couldn't stop me from banging it on things to make the sound of it and just like break up the monotony of the day by like bing bing bing bonk bonk bonk bonk bonk just making that noise taking it off and spinning it and and seeing how much it could spin i think that was something that you did with your real life uh wedding ring as well and i just all the time under i know that stuff that that way yeah it's good i would just come home from from my day with with a ring that was just like beat the shit with gum stuck to it he's like oh yeah
Starting point is 00:26:05 i had gum and i put it in my pocket and then i put the ring in the pocket and then i stuck there yeah well i mean if you spin a wedding ring there's some there's some elemental force that like you don't expect which is it doesn't spin like a quarter a quarter expends for what you would think is like a natural amount of time for whatever reason a hollow piece of metal spins forever like you could just start spinning it and walk away and come back later having forgotten about it and it will still be spinning they spin forever and it's so fun to just spin them um but then also yeah i'm it would throughout my day i get so much gunk underneath my ring just by like living my life digging my hands in dirt I guess like I get
Starting point is 00:26:49 so gross and you know I'm also banging it on shit because that's fun too handrails any stairs any set of stairs it's a good opportunity for me to start making some noise you gotta see what sound different things make I'm not being crazy here no you want to see what sound different things make. I'm not being crazy here. No, you want to know what rings.
Starting point is 00:27:07 Yeah. Rings are not for me. I do have a wedding ring. It is designed much like the glasses you described to be innocuous, to be invisible. You all know me. I have a dog. I love my dog, Jackson. I have had him since he was six months
Starting point is 00:27:25 old, and in one month, he will be 12 years old. Time flies when your home is full of love, as mine is with Jackson. Gosh, he's a great dog, and I would do anything for him. My pet Jackson is great and special, but so is yours. Your pet is one of a kind, and so is their journey. While every playful moment is a memory in the making, sometimes our cats and dogs are a little too good at getting into trouble. Jackson once rolled around in a dead Harper seal. That's why you should check out ASPCA Pet Health Insurance. Or maybe you don't have a pet yet. Maybe you're thinking of getting one soon. That means you need to think about getting the necessities like food, toys, a bed. Something you may not be thinking
Starting point is 00:28:03 about though is pet insurance. That's why you should check out ASPCA Pet Health Insurance. Imagine this. Picture this. You're at the vet's office again. The ASPCA Pet Health Insurance Program offers customizable accident and illness plans, making it easier for pet parents like you to help your pet get the care they may need. The ASPCA Pet Health Insurance Program has been around for over 18 years, and they've helped more than 600,000 pets during that time. They allow you to customize your plan, helping ensure that your pet's plan is as unique as they are. Because vet bills can really add up, especially when you're least expecting it. It's simple. Use their app to submit a claim, and you'll receive reimbursement for eligible vet bills directly into your bank account.
Starting point is 00:28:42 To explore coverage, visit ASPCAPetInsurance.com slash question. That's ASPCAPetInsurance.com slash question. Again, that is ASPCAPetInsurance.com slash question. This is a paid advertisement. Insurance is underwritten by either Independence American Insurance Company or United States Fire Insurance Company and produced by PTZ Insurance Agency Limited. The ASPCA is not an insurer and is not engaged in the business of insurance company or United States fire insurance company and produced by PTZ insurance agency limited. The ASPCA is not an insurer and is not engaged in the business of insurance. Well, Daniel, I have a quick question for you. Do you? I think so. Great.
Starting point is 00:29:35 um what what what what if obama what's a movie that you think is people only say that they like like a movie that is not actually as good as everyone seems to believe it is like a movie that everyone saw and everyone's like yes and you saw and you were like, hold the fucking phone. Why are we all pumped about this? And if you want, I can go first. Yeah, please. Okay. Donnie Darko was one of those for me. Where when Donnie Darko came out, everyone was losing their shit over this movie.
Starting point is 00:30:03 And I felt like an idiot because I was like, but I don't understand it. i don't understand what's going on at any given point in this movie um there's a there's some cool elements to it there's some cool visual stuff the rabbit is cool the idea of time travel but how it all fits together is a jumbled mess of nonsense yeah doesn't make any sense it's a bad i think it's a bad movie and no one and when i would try to bring this up gently i was rebuffed every single time do you have an opinion on donnie darko i saw it so long ago and i think like i was i was young enough that uh something appearing to be deep was enough for me to agree that it was deep. I don't think I was, but I wasn't so young that I was going to defend or explain it to anyone.
Starting point is 00:30:55 I was at the exact comfortable age where I watched a movie that seemed like it was saying a lot, and I didn't understand it. And that was enough for me to be like, must be pretty smart. Like I wasn't investigating anything back then. Uh, the thing that, that made it cool to me when I was young beyond that were two things. One is, is that it definitely felt unlike movies that I had been watching. It definitely was a different kind of thing, unlike movies that I had been watching, it definitely was a different kind of thing, whether or not it was that,
Starting point is 00:31:30 that made it good for a young person who is, is starting to develop slightly more sophisticated taste or just like develop their own taste. And to see anything that doesn't follow very traditional Hollywood conventions of, of storytelling and how movies go, just like something that is a little bit more challenging. That enough is good for me. That doesn't mean that Donnie Darko is good.
Starting point is 00:31:52 If it wasn't that movie, it would have been another one that would have done that for me, and I think of a lot of other people. Yeah, I think, like, tonally, it does have, like, a great tone to it. I can't argue that. But, like, story-wise, there's not. It was also at a point in history when the internet wasn't really good at having quick takes or like trying to explain. Like they're like, here's what the tongue means in True Detective.
Starting point is 00:32:17 Like you didn't have any of that. You occasionally had these message boards where somebody would be like, here's what I think is going on in Mulholland Drive or something like that. And so, I was like searching when I was feeling like a crazy person, I would go online and I would find like these places where people, it was just this ugly board where people would talk about these types of things. And somebody would be like, well, what, what are people fail to realize about Danny Darko is that he's a superhero. And I'm like, oh no, no, he's not a superhero.
Starting point is 00:32:44 And I'm like, oh, no, no, he's not a superhero. I'm glad that I wasn't so invested in it that I felt the need to understand it more than a surface level, because I think I definitely remember like another one of my big takeaways at the time was this is movie came out in 2001. I probably saw in 2002 or 2003. So this is 16 or 17 year old Daniel is developing massive crush on Jenna Malone in that movie. That was my other takeaway for... And that was all it took. A quirky brunette girl in a movie for me to be like, that was a good film. We should see more films. They don't make movies like, we're going to see another movie like this that has this person in it
Starting point is 00:33:26 doing the same exact thing yeah and for all look she kisses someone weird in it that's a good movie i like that for all the shitting of on of donnie darko that i'm currently doing i went as donnie darko for halloween that very year i've just well that's always been like my attitude is like i just if i sense that i'm not part of the crowd and like my opinions aren't right i'm like well then i'm wrong as a human and whatever the group is doing that's what i will do and so i've got like a skeleton costume and then a sweatshirt that i wore over it okay i was trying to think what he looks like how that is like yes it's sellable as a costume it was an era when i was god i was so insufferable i would only go as characters who in their movie halloween happens and they go as something so i did do
Starting point is 00:34:14 this is a repurposed one i had gone the year before as a cobra kai skeleton right and then then i did a dunny darko and i this trend of whatever somebody wore in Hocus Pocus or whatever, that's what I was going to be. I think that's a really good bit. As someone who has always struggled with Halloween my entire life, I think that's such a funny, easy to do recurring thing that it's like, no, I'm not quite a skeleton. I'm Johnny from Karate Kid as a skeleton or Ralph Macchio from Karate Kid as a skeleton, as a shower, whatever. Anyone dressed up as. Like that's, you know, you're going to annoy
Starting point is 00:34:52 some people who are like, you should have just been a skeleton. I mean, I don't you don't need to somehow be more clever than anyone here who is dressed as a skeleton. But it works for me because I'm also kind of a piece of shit. Yeah, no one, everyone would be like, yeah, you as a skeleton. But it works for me because I'm also kind of a piece of shit. Yeah, no one,
Starting point is 00:35:07 everyone would be like, yeah, you're a skeleton. And I'm like, actually, no, actually, I'm a character from a movie. Let me put it on real quick. Hold on, let me get the DVD because this is when we used to do that. It's a common misconception. I am worse than being a skeleton.
Starting point is 00:35:29 I think, I know there's there's got to be a movie for me that fits this criteria that is older and more universally beloved but the the only thing that's coming to my mind at the moment is uh dune the denny via nueve timothy chalamet's andaya dune part one movie that uh i i really wanted to like it it's got a million actors that i like and i uh am on record as being a fan of movies that cost a lot of money and and are like bold and ambitious in scope and scale and uh you know tick tick tick that's all that's all you're you're hitting all the boxes for this but i'm i'm i watched that movie that everyone like near universal praise for that movie and trailers looked great and i was like this is so slow and so broody and i feel like an idiot when i have this complaint about movies but no one is having any fun in it yeah except sometimes jason momoa
Starting point is 00:36:34 who if you can count on him for one fucking thing that guy is gonna have fun everywhere he goes i love my delightful party mountain and i want him in more things doing that exact thing but he's not even in most of the movie a lot of the movie is just like very sad kind of monotone uh no not yeah monotone monotone in terms of voice and then like and like mono palette as well it's just a like a gray blue world where everyone is is feeling the the severity and the importance of what they're doing and i understand that it's setting up for this movie that based on trailers looks fucking awesome and i'm gonna see it but i have a feeling as i'm seeing like early reviews are coming in for dune 2 as of this recording and people are talking see it but i have a feeling as i'm seeing like early reviews are coming in for
Starting point is 00:37:25 dune 2 as of this recording and people are talking about it as like a visual masterpiece and i just i'm gonna go in there with an open mind and an open heart but like man i'm not gonna like this thing they look even more serious this time around i'm with you on like movies or tv shows where everybody is aware of how, how like the severity of the situation. Yeah. There's not like one person there who was like, can we all just,
Starting point is 00:37:50 just chill out for a second. Yeah. I didn't realize like how much I need until I saw Ashoka, Ahsoka, Ahsoka Tano. Yeah. Yeah. Ahsoka.
Starting point is 00:38:02 I, when I watched Ahsoka, I was like, I hate this this everybody is so serious that's uh it's very true and very difficult with that show because i wanted to like it because obviously we are friends with rosario dawson famously we're very good friends with her and uh i that's another show where it's like hey they're they're like using practical locations and stuff and i like that they're
Starting point is 00:38:30 getting great actors i uh as someone in this industry i get excited when shows appear to have budgets and they get to tell stories and and uh make exciting original ish things and i watched that and just like man somebody we lived through a pandemic and we were still making jokes i know you're jedi and you're important but like you can you can have fun a little bit yeah yeah it's it's it was like i them flying from place to place and they're all just in a ship together being serious. I was like, oh my God. Yeah. Either fight somebody or get the fuck out of here. Yeah. I have a hard time with that as well. I don't, I have not seen Dune. Well, the current version of Dune. I saw the original. That was another one where I saw it very young and thought what what is this yeah what what is anybody getting out of this i felt that way with uh labyrinth which just came at the wrong time like i don't know if that's a universally beloved movie or if that's a cult classic but if you have heard nothing but uh great things from people who
Starting point is 00:39:41 remember that movie from childhood and then you watch it alone in your apartment at 26 years old it's like this is fucking goofy and slow and no one's having fun and jason momoa wasn't even invented yet so i can't even count on him to pop up somewhere yeah i i think i'm trying to think of why it was seminal for me and i guess it was just the right age in my childhood when like Dark Crystal and stuff came out where you're just like, what are these things? And you're so excited about just seeing these creatures all over the place. The rest of it doesn't really matter. And that everything's sort of like a little bit dangerous, but maybe your friend. Like that was a really, that was a key point for me when I was young of like, I really liked characters that I didn't know if I could trust them or not. Yeah. I don't know what that says about my childhood. Introducing the Miller Optics 2KW Handheld Laser Welder. It's so simple to use,
Starting point is 00:40:41 even a rookie can weld like an expert, allowing you to boost your shop's productivity up to 5 to 10 times more than with traditional arc welding processes. Expand your workforce so you can start doing more and making more. Get the Optics Laser Advantage now and start changing the welding game. advantage now and start changing the welding game uh can i can i pause our question about movies with another quick question because you mentioned uh specifically the tongue on the floor in true detective yeah which i'm assuming is a reference to true detective night country which just as if this recording wrapped up its six episode season on sunday why do i talk like this sometimes why am i like this directed by i don't i don't understand why i like this
Starting point is 00:41:37 nominated for a couple of different wga awards who is who is listening to this podcast of course originally written by nick pizzolatto but not he didn't have anything to do with this if i just if i just was like yeah you're talking about uh true detective season four there's no one in our audience who is like but when in time does this recording take place uh what's your question about True Detective? Sucked, right? Did you see it? Yeah. I don't.
Starting point is 00:42:09 I mean, the fact that I'm still thinking about it makes me think that there are some redeeming elements to it. Oh, man. What I didn't like was that this was not a detective story. It was a ghost story. Yeah. It was like the ghosts. Every big lead they got is because ghosts were like, look over here. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:42:26 Come here. Look at this over here. And that I was not, I hated. I hated that the setup felt really good. And I was like very nervous because I was nervous on how they're going to pay it off with the very first scene. If you remember is a guy hunting caribou and all the caribou run off of a cliff. Like, I was like, yes, what is this? And then a polar bear appears with only one eye.
Starting point is 00:42:51 And I'm like, fuck, yeah. That polar bear appears so many times throughout the show. The caribou do not return. Nope. Largely forgotten about and with good reason because they never had a purpose to begin with. The polar bear is a metaphor, too. Like, the polar bear has no ambiance yeah the polar bear has no bearing on the rest of the show other than like a stuffed polar bear yeah i think there's there's uh just so everyone knows spoilers for show but in our defense it did air a couple days ago as of this recording
Starting point is 00:43:23 2024 defense it did air a couple days ago as of this recording 2024 first year of our lord jesus christ uh i did like the who the the killers turned out to be i thought that was a fun reveal and i actually thought if you stripped out the ghosts from the story and didn't try to to play with the idea that maybe there's magic or maybe it's hallucinations or maybe blah blah blah and just did like a a boilerplate here is a very tough case to solve and it it seems like it's impossible to solve it. It seems like no one could have done this. And then by the episode, by the end of the season, you get a satisfying reveal of who did it. I think on that score, the show was successful. Set up the impossible murder, reveal how it's possible great you did that for me there's so much
Starting point is 00:44:28 nonsense tonal bullshit on all sides of it that didn't yeah contribute to it i think in a meaningful way and also to your point even though the mystery gets solved it doesn't get solved via detective work no it's not a detective story. No. The best detective work she does is figure out how to turn the TV off in the slal station. Yeah. And the little junior detective, little Petey Pryor, he does detective work. I ran some leads down to dig into this, uh, like longstanding systemic corruption that has involved, uh, this laboratory and the local mine and the police department itself.
Starting point is 00:45:14 And they're like, yeah, that's great kid. Um, a ghost threw an orange down this hole. So we're going to follow the orange until we find the killer. Yeah. down this hole so we're gonna follow the orange until we find the killer yeah a ghost told us where the bodies would be out on the ice yeah their their element and then like the also the symbol that gets used throughout it was deeply underwhelming um like here's what i think
Starting point is 00:45:42 was successful the first season of true detective did have some elements of the potential supernatural, but it was always very grounded. It was like, there's this cult maybe. And the coal is doing some pretty fucked up shit. They're killing people and putting antlers on them and stuff like that. And we got to figure out in the, like this weird back country South, what, where this cult is. And maybe some of the stuff that they're trying to summon is working
Starting point is 00:46:05 like there's that sort of like right element and you needed you needed one of the detectives you needed matthew mcconaughey's character russ cole to have some kind of uh interest in the supernatural or the mysticism not so he could like literally tap into magic or anything like that, but because this was a case that required someone who could think in terms of impossible explanations because that was the only thing that could like help lead them to the actual truth of what was going on in that story. gripe of all is that in a detective story you don't need the detectives to end off to like fix their own emotional trauma by the end you don't need the detectives to end up better off you need detectives who by the end have fucked themselves up so badly because they care about the case so much that's what i want i want a detective who like this took a piece of them yeah and that's great like that's like the hardball detective to a t that's every raymond chandler story like by the end like he hates humanity a little bit more by the end because
Starting point is 00:47:16 of what he solved right especially because when we meet the two detectives in this show they're so like beaten down from past cases another bad bad case isn't going to solve that. It's just going to, it's like, oh boy, when am I going to get a good one? Yeah. But by the end, they're like, they're feeling much better about life. And like, Jodie Foster is like very whimsical about like, we can't solve everything. Some stuff we just can never know. Like we'll wink at the camera and it. Like, well, we get the camera. And it's like, no.
Starting point is 00:47:45 Give me the tongue. What were you looking at under the table when you saw that, like, shiny, filmy shit on the ground and then you got interrupted? Where did that, what happened? Oh, that's another thing. Why, who, who, I can't. My tongue. Who tongue? Soren's.
Starting point is 00:48:03 Where tongue? But the whole next day, I'm just like, what was the tongue? Why are we dealing with a tongue? I think unless your show is actually going to like make very explicit ghosts are real in this universe and they can interact with tangible things, unless that's like woven into the DNA and then you also have some ghostbusters in that world yeah if you don't do that then you need you need to explain the things that you set up in your pilot as impossible because i love detective stories and i love heist stories i know i've said
Starting point is 00:48:39 make an impossible thing possible but that's at their core that's what these things are you're going to set up a episode one. Here's your crime scene. It's a bunch of there. There's a tongue on the floor of this research facility and there's no footage of what happened. And there's a bunch of dead naked scientists in the Alaskan wilderness. And there's a weird symbol.
Starting point is 00:49:07 Great. You can do whatever meandering bullshit you want throughout the season. Pay off all those things by the end of it. That's what you have to do if step one is, I'm going to pitch you a mystery that seems like it couldn't have happened. Step seven is, here's how it happened.
Starting point is 00:49:28 And their step seven was, here's how the guys got their clothes off. Here's how they ended up on the ice. And the tongue? Ghosts. Ghosts. Yep. Just that one bit. The ghost didn't do anything else except tell us where the bodies were.
Starting point is 00:49:46 And yeah, okay. But then why would the ghost want to put the tongue there because i yeah isn't that uh gross and ghosts are icky right aren't they so spooky well and i mean not to i guess we're spoiling an awful lot but she the guys die on the ice it's sort of satisfying but part of it's not they left the clothes out so the guys could come back and get them, but they sent the men out onto the ice. And if she wanted to claim them, she could. The ghost wanted to claim them, and the ghost claimed them. So really, the ghost did the murder too. Right.
Starting point is 00:50:15 And so I'm like, I don't like this. It was not my favorite, I got to say. Although I did watch it in a cabin up in the woods while there was a blizzard happening. And I was in this little A-frame cabin and the roof sounded like it was going to blow off of it. And I was like, yes, this is exactly where I should be watching people stroll around in an ice cave. now that might be more familiar to you. It's a wonderful consequence of being in a committed and wonderful, amazing relationship. So we don't always like the same shows, but we spend every night watching something together. So if there's things that I like that she doesn't, I have to carve out little time to myself to watch those things. And True Detective is such a show. And now that I invested six fucking hours into this show that was bad, the consequences are so much greater for me than if I was living alone and just consuming a whole bunch of content all the time like I used to. Now it's like, all right, what's going to be the thing that occupies an hour a week that is just for me? What's going to take that coveted spot? And I blew it on this stupid ghost show.
Starting point is 00:51:43 I did too. i did too it means a lot to me because yeah because i've got children and everything like i have a very limited amount of time that is just mine and like it there it's the the providence of a night where my children go down to bed early enough and my wife is not interested in watching tv where i get to watch something on my own is so like rare that it's like ah now's my time and i was like true detective yes yeah i want this again there's no way that'll let me down um it was yeah it was a bummer um I think everybody in it is great, though. I don't know if I think Jodie Foster is a good actor. Oh, really?
Starting point is 00:52:29 I don't know if I'm going to get anyone. I think she's rightfully beloved. I think she, like every interview I read with her, and when I hear about her advocating for younger actors throughout her career i think this is this is like a really cool woman just like a really inspiring person who uh became famous at a very young age and came out the other side relatively unscathed and is like a mentor to younger actresses uh whether it's kristen stewart or natalie portman two actors who sang her praises uh from working with her when they were both younger uh
Starting point is 00:53:09 first episode of the season i was like let's let's go back in my mind and think of when she was really great in a movie oh was it silence of the Lambs and Nothing? I got to look if there was anything else in between there. Because I'm like, sure. Oh, no. Taxi Driver was long before that. Nell was like a big movie that she did. That was like an Oscar-y movie.
Starting point is 00:53:38 I haven't revisited it in a while. I don't know if it's actually good. She makes up a language in Nell. Uh-huh. Like all the best actors. That's the hallmark of a good actor. That's what John D. Jardine did, right? Can you cry on cue and can you make up your own language?
Starting point is 00:53:57 For a movie. Nell. Yeah, Nell. Nell's the only thing I can actually put my finger on. I don't. God. But I'm also notoriously bad at this. Let me just look it up real quick did you i mean i uh i mean i like her in contact i like contact and i think she's
Starting point is 00:54:13 really good in that i love the movie maverick i don't know uh i i i might just like her and think she's very charming. But I don't know. You know, it's one of the hardest questions that I'm faced with all the time. Is this person a good actor? What did you think of her partner in True Detective? I thought she was good. I thought she was really, really good and popped on screen a lot. And I thought it was maybe a little bit underwritten for her to just be angry all the time, but she had new shades to being angry that worked for me. Pete Pryor, I thought, whoever that actor is,
Starting point is 00:54:59 I thought he did a good job. I, as a rule, love john hawks in absolutely everything yeah he's never anybody other than fucking that his valentine character for me i mean yeah yeah is that his name valentine i think it's teardrop teard hold on. What? In Deadwood. Oh, Saul. Yes. Yeah. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:55:31 Saul Star. Saul Star, yeah. Oh, did you see Winter's Bone? Yeah, it's been a long time. I should revisit Winter's Bone as well. He's great in that. He's great in everything. Yes.
Starting point is 00:55:42 I thought... I agree with you. I think that she was... They're just giving these characters some weird things that they also have to contend with where i'm like we don't need all that like jodie foster sleeping with everybody in town i'm like this is not paying off it's just i i get nothing from this and this woman uh her relationship with her mom maybe this is thin ice here Dan because I don't know if this is
Starting point is 00:56:10 just like a because I'm a white dude that this means so little to me but like all the stuff where we're like getting that mystery of her mom solved I was like don't care don't care don't care get back to the dead scientist please I also I felt really bad about the wife of Deputy Pryor,
Starting point is 00:56:34 who only exists on this show, the wife and mother of his child, only exists on this show to nag and be be a pain and that's not me this isn't this isn't like i'm doing the right i'm saying the right things here this isn't me just like the way that people used to react to skylar white on breaking bad and they just hated her existence because they hated the idea of a woman on a show who is not a fan of murder and drugs. This is like the writing of the character in True Detective season four is only on screen to ever yell at her husband, the husband who I think we're mostly supposed to like because he is given actual characterization and he does good detective work
Starting point is 00:57:20 and he's nice to Jodie Foster's daughter and he is is kind of sweet sometimes to his screw-up of a father and then he gets home and it's nagging wife and shrieking baby yeah and she is only mad at him for doing police work which is the thing we want him to do in the show about detectives so we also have to hate her by design we're not allowed to like her that's i didn't ever think about it that way but like yeah that the the woman on a show who is there to keep the main character from doing the thing we all want them to do it's such an unfortunate position to be in like poor fucking skylar poor this woman who yeah she's every time he comes home he like tries to sneak into bed and like their relationship is just getting torn further and further apart.
Starting point is 00:58:09 You're like, fucking end it. If she didn't, she doesn't want you to be a cop. Like you're solving the most important case that this town has ever seen. Yeah. She has to understand that, right? Nope. That's not her function her function is to make the the viewers at home who only have one hour of of papa time a week to watch their stories be like i gotta i guess i'll i'll look
Starting point is 00:58:37 at my crossword while she's on screen because this isn't going to advance the plot it's just going to be another scene that accomplishes wife mad at sweet husband. There's a weird moment. I think it's the very first episode where we first meet her. I don't know if you remember the circumstances. He comes home. He plays with his son some. And then his wife comes into the room.
Starting point is 00:58:56 He and his wife walk from the bedroom he's playing with his son in. His son is like a one or two or something like that. No, he's older. He's like two or three, something like that no he's older he's like two or three i think because he's talking uh they walk into the other room and then his wife tries to give him a hand jump the child is right there and so i do not remember this it's so clearly written by somebody who does not have kids they're just like yeah and then that little, it's like you're having your dog in the room. What's the big deal? Well, that about wraps up our show, huh?
Starting point is 00:59:30 Yeah, that wraps it up. You can follow Daniel or me on Blue Sky. I don't think Daniel's gone back to X yet. Just search our names there, I guess. You can also find Quick Questions still on X at QQ underscore Soren and Dan dan i don't think that quick question is currently on blue sky uh email us at qq with soren and daniel at gmail.com to be like no the story was good the tongue means something and we will never read that you can find us on instagram at qq underscore with underscore soren underscore and underscore daniel we have a sound engineer producer editor videographer,
Starting point is 01:00:06 the guy who basically keeps the show running and is the glue, Gabe Harder. You will never find him. The theme song is by Merex. You can find their music anywhere you listen to your music. Unless it's a CD and you don't own the CD, I think that would be pretty tough. But streaming-wise, go to Spotify or whatever.
Starting point is 01:00:21 Or you can go to merex.bandcamp.com to find their new album. And lastly, you can find video of these podcasts, not this one, but others just like it on YouTube at youtube.com slash at QQ podcast. That's it. That's it. Here's how good Gabe is at his job is I'm pretty sure he said he wouldn't be
Starting point is 01:00:41 able to make this recording and would send someone else. And then when the recording started and he was here, I didn't question it at all. I was like, yeah, he figured out whatever, whatever, whatever he had to do to bend reality to make it, make all this work out. Solved another problem. He did it. Quietly solved another problem. All right.
Starting point is 01:00:59 Bye. All right. Bye. All right, bye. Bye. Bye. When will I be remembered? What's it up to? Where did all the movies 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

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