Quick Question with Soren and Daniel - Very Dangerous Bangers
Episode Date: November 12, 2021A classic movie breakdown! Throwback episode to the days of yore, where the guys breakdown in detail your favorite classic films, and also Soren eats some chicken! And as always thanks to our sponsors.... Thanks to Jiminy's. To learn more and save 20% on your first purchase, go to jiminys.com/QQ and use code QQ20 at checkout. Thanks to Honey, shop with confidence — get Honey for FREE at JoinHoney.com/qq . Skillshare.com/qq and one-month free trial of Premium Membership.Â
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So hello again and welcome to another episode of Quick Question with Soren and Daniel, the
podcast where two best friends and commentators ask each other questions and give each other
answers.
I am one half of that podcast, author of How to Fight Presidents and staff writer for Last
Week Tonight with John Oliver, Daniel O'Brien, joined as always by my co-host, Mr. Soren
Bui.
Soren, say hello.
Bonjour!
Yeah.
I think I did that with a Spanish accent.
I spoke French with a Spanish accent.
I don't know that I could do a French accent on demand.
I'd have to work on it in my car.
Speaking of cars, Daniel.
Yeah.
I'm the owner of a new vehicle.
Ooh, that's exciting.
A fully battery-powered car.
Uh-huh.
It's called a Volvo XC40 Recharge is the name of it.
And it's so rad.
I'm going to look at it.
It's a compact car.
What color did you get?
XC40s?
No, it's like a...
Oh, it's not a compact.
No.
It's for hauling my children around too.
It's also all-wheel drive, so I can take it too.
Yeah, this is the...
When you just Google image,
it has like a picture of this car in front of mountains.
And I'm like, yeah, yeah, they found their audience.
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It's fun that you asked me how the car is going
so far. I don't totally know because i i don't
i haven't figured out how to get it out of my driveway okay it's got um a reverse camera on it
and it's also got some intuitive driving things where like if you're driving out on the road it's
very smart it can i can go on the highway with this thing supposedly i wouldn't know at this
point um and i put on what is their version of cruise control, which means that the car will stay in its lane.
It will also keep a certain distance of my choosing from the car in front of it.
So it's not going to pass cars, but I could just let go of the wheel, take my foot off the gas pedal, and this car will drive.
And it will do that on its own and it will drive itself.
Yeah, terrifying.
But it's also got, that means it's also got that's it means it's got cameras
all over it because it's keeping track of the road it's also telling me road signs like on
my dashboard like here's the speed limit right now oh this is a school zone um because it's
reading everything around it and that is not information that i need the car to pass on to
me i don't need it to tell me the speed limit I know the speed limit and I've made a decision yeah I think you can choose when when it does that but uh it also has so it's obviously got
cameras all over it and sometimes if I'm in a really tight space between two there's like a
wall on either side of me or cars on the other side of me it'll just show me a little camera
image on the middle screen of where my car is in relationship to all these things around me which
is not something I need to see in that moment.
Right.
And also so far right now, all it's doing is showing you the garage and the driveway.
So here's why I can't get out of my driveway because it's got cameras all around it.
And it's so self-aware.
When I'm backing up, my driveway gets a little steep at the end.
So as it's tilting down, it only sees the crowned road behind me.
And it thinks that there's something behind me.
And so it goes, me, me, me, me, me, me, me.
Like I'm too close to something that I'm backing up into.
Even though I know the car has plenty of clearance.
And then it will automatically brake.
And so I go, I can't leave my house.
I have to figure out how to turn this thing off.
But what that means is I can't go into the house and house i have to figure out how to turn this thing on but what that means
is i can't like take i can't go into the house and just look through the user manual and be like
all right well let's figure out how to turn this off because i know i can the user manual is part
of the car i have to get into the car and sit there with air conditioning blasting because it's
been so hot lately and just like flip through on this middle screen and read the user manual and try and figure out where I need to be in it.
Oh, I hate our future.
Yeah.
So this car is going to be rad.
I just know it as soon as I understand how to drive it.
Yeah.
You did the important part first.
Just get the car.
Yeah.
And learn to drive later.
Yeah.
Or just like let God take the wheel.
Learn how to do that.
And that's something I've been wanting to learn how to do in my life.
And you've already, so for your purposes, you've decided that the computer, the car's computer brain is God.
Yeah, God and machine.
Okay.
Yeah.
Okay, so that's my update.
I'm going to be back in LA in December, and I can't wait.
I hope you have this resolved by then.
Yeah, I'll show you how it...
First of all, I'll teach you kind of what cars do and how they work and everything.
And then I will show you what this car does.
Okay.
I really like it.
Yeah.
You got anything going on in your life?
I'm still moving.
Still doing this moving update.
I had to slow myself down recently for two reasons.
One of them is because I've mentioned before that I am going to spend a few weeks in Los
Angeles and I'm going to spend a month renting a furnished house and then I'm going to be
living somewhere else.
I don't know where that's going to be.
In the meantime, I'm still here for two months.
So I'm trying to strategically pack everything at the same time somehow for these trips.
And I've fallen so in love with packing and being organized and clearing things out and putting things in boxes that I've gotten.
It's gotten a little out of hand just when I was thinking about this December to Los Angeles trip because I had some free time.
And I was like, I bet I could figure out all the clothes I'm going to want to bring to LA and I could pack that now. And I
started doing it. I was like, now, hang on. What if you want to wear these clothes between now and
December? There's a good chance that you're going to want to wear some of these things, which is
true. I don't have just like Decembercember clothes but i was trying to i'm
trying so hard to be uh ready for the future that i'm i'm forgetting about the present in in some
some like philosophical but also for our purposes incredibly practical ways
like i will pack all of my underwear that i'm going to use in la and and and then i won't
have underwear that's a conflict that's complicated yes the other issue that i had is that uh the the
building and i have got a relationship with the building, my apartment
managers, they want to, they still want to be able to show this apartment virtually to
people.
So they just emailed me like, hey, can you take a picture of your living room and your
kitchen and like maybe do a walkthrough video?
And I was like, yeah, give me a few days.
It doesn't really, you can't get a good idea of what you could do with the space right
now. It's a lot, you can't get a good idea of what you could do with the space right now.
It's a lot of boxes and suitcases everywhere.
Let me make it look like an apartment again.
You should do the tour that way.
And this is a, obviously this is the box room.
Yeah.
This is where you could keep your boxes.
I moved here three years ago and I never looked back from putting all my boxes here.
It's been great.
Great.
All my stuff is in this one spot. This hallway is like like prime for luggage if you've got luggage this is the hallway
for it sometimes i just sit in this rocking chair and stare at the boxes that sounds like my
nightmare i hate the feeling of being in transit like i like being packed I like having been done, but just like being mid process is just an,
it's just a nightmare.
Yeah.
No,
I enjoy it.
It's a nightmare you love.
Yeah.
Let's get into our show.
Normally we ask each other questions and give each other answers,
but today we're going to be playing a game that we teased a little while ago
called dangerous bangers.
I will remind people how to play.
It's a game.
I learned from an interview with successions, Kieran Culkin very quickly, the rules of dangerous bangers i will remind people how to play it's a game i learned from an interview
with succession's kieran colkin very quickly the rules of dangerous bangers uh you soren will
introduce me to a movie i haven't seen a movie he loved when he first saw it but he hasn't seen it
in a while so he doesn't know if it holds up i will watch that movie with fresh eyes and no
context to confirm whether or not it was in fact as he remembers a banger and i will do the same for him the movie i chose for soren was a little movie called french
kiss starring america's sweetheart meg ryan and america's sweetheart kevin klein soren why don't
you tell me the plot of this movie first how do you feel about that let me let me let me preface that let me start this way
i i want you to go to google right now and type in french kiss streaming
and then just look at what your options are amazon prime go there
what's it say this video is currently unavailable to watch in your location.
It sure does.
And then let's have, let's, let's, I mean, let's like look down the list.
Is French Kiss on Apple TV?
Yeah.
It's day 362 of my lockdown and French Kiss still isn't available.
Oh, wow.
There's Slog did an article about it in Stranger called French Kiss is unstreamable.
did an article about it in stranger called french kiss is unstreamable this movie dan is so fucking hard to find i i was looking for it and it's it you can't stream
it anywhere it's i'll tell you that now uh spoiler you can't stream this movie but i started a place
where you can you can stream it in Australia.
Well, so here's, let me,
so I'm not one of these sorry saps who did this art.
Like they wrote articles about it.
Like they hit one hurdle and they stopped right away,
but I've got wits.
I've got wits coming out my ears, Dan.
And I thought I can, I'll find a workaround.
I'm a smart guy.
So we have ExpressVPNs through this podcast.
It's an advertiser of ours. I was like, I'll learn how to use my Express VPN and did that.
And for a while, like I was going to go to different countries and figure out where I could watch it.
So I was I was Spanish for a little while because my computer doesn't know the difference.
I could be an international man of mystery.
Yeah.
As far as my computer is concerned.
And I tried being
from uh the from norway i tried mexico canada australia finally i got to i tried watching it
in france but they just called the movie kiss there so i couldn't find it
i finally chose to be from great britain and in Great Britain, the movie is available on Amazon as part of a beta
rollout where Amazon is showing MGM
movies for an extra subscription.
Amazon, I found out from this, has
bought the entire studio MGM.
And MGM didn't
make this movie, but I guess they own it now.
They own the rights for whatever reason.
So if you do this
free trial, you can
get MGM movies on Amazon now, but
only in, uh, great Britain.
So I signed up for the free trial thinking I can do this and it starts really confusing.
Amazon, Amazon doesn't understand what's going on because it expects me to be in the United
States.
It knows who I am.
And when I finally get to the point where I can sign
up for it, it's telling me it won't let me because I have to, they, you pay in pounds there. And
apparently there's, you can't do that from an American account for whatever reason through
Amazon. So the same reason we can't use, uh, amazon.co slash UK or whatever their version
of Amazon is. So now I need an address in the great Britain and a credit card
associated with an address in great Britain in order to watch this movie. So it wasn't happening.
So then I thought, what's a minor setback? I will figure this out. I went through the blogs to see
if there are any other countries where you could watch it because somebody with a VPN would know this.
Everybody's saying you can't watch it.
They're saying the best bet is to go to a library.
And I was like, I have one of those.
I'm a member of good standing in the Culver City library system.
And I know that Culver City is lousy with libraries.
So I went to the ones closest to me, looked for French Kiss.
They didn't have it.
I went to the information desk and I was like, is there,
does French kiss exist at any of the Culver city libraries?
And the one was like,
yeah,
there are four copies throughout the Culver city library system.
And I was like,
great.
Where is it available?
And she said,
they're all checked out.
And she's like,
I can put you on the list.
So that when they come back and i was like am i the top
of the list and she said no people there are other people watch this movie because there are other
people waiting for french kids to come back to their library so after that i was like mad so i
was like i i'm going to figure this out so i was like i'm going to just go buy this movie
and so i went to best buy thinking i will just go get it i'm sending you a picture right now i don't know when was the last time you went to try and buy a dvd at any brick and mortar store
i i do not remember also my phone is in the other room so if you're sending it to me i'm not going
to see it of course not okay uh i sent you a picture of the dvd selection at best buy now best buy doesn't do
dvds anymore best buy has one little it's maybe like a four foot kiosk that has um i want to say
14 movies on it and i'll tell you what some of them are obviously old like some ones that are
like just come out because they think they can capitalize on that and then jaws
friends giving last action hero just this like smattering of the weirdest you can think of avatar the movie uh a live-action cinderella from maybe the 1950s it looks like vertigo there's one
harry potter movie that is not even the first one. Man.
Just, oh, Almost Famous.
Like, they have the weirdest collection of movies.
And so I was like, is there a Best Buy that has French Kiss?
And the one was like, do you want it on Blu-ray or do you want it standard?
And I was like, it doesn't matter.
Check them both.
I need the fucking movie.
And she looked for it.
She said, no, the best we can do is order it.
And so I gave up, Dan.
I gave up.
You didn't watch the movie? And I went to a hot chicken restaurant, a Nashville hot chicken restaurant.
So instead of my review of French Kiss, I've put together a review for you of Frank's hot chicken.
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Here it is.
Let's hear it.
Let's see if it's as good as I remember.
When I was seven, my mother was cooking soup in which paprika and cumin were heavily featured.
And I,
upon smelling the air famously said,
quote,
I think our kitchen needs a bath in the same way.
The Parmesan smells like feet and vinegar smells like armpits.
Those spices come with that spice combination takes on a primal scent that is
unmistakably human.
So when I walked into Frank's hot chicken,
the first thing that struck me was that this
restaurant had gone days without a shower.
Ambience.
It's fine.
There's some neat graffiti inspired art on the wall and a television that doesn't work
on the other, which I didn't care for because I like when televisions are on.
The exposed vents in the ceiling made the place look unfinished, but I understand that
that look is popular in the food world for reasons that completely escape me.
The chicken tenders were huge.
They only gave you two, but I'm not joking when I say that I was served half a chicken.
The fries were tasty and the chicken was fine, though not thoroughly fried on the bottom,
which was still a little wet.
Not only is a drink not included with your combo, but when I asked for a drink the options
were small or medium.
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I hate when restaurants don't acknowledge that medium only exists within the context
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Restaurant creators, you are God here.
You are allowed to say what constitutes a large and a small because there are no rules
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It doesn't make any sense.
Ultimately, I give Frank's hot chicken six and a half clucks out of what you may be asking.
It doesn't matter.
Just know that that score is medium. medium you know off off mic at the start of this you said this wasn't gonna be
what I expected and you're right I have to say you're right so here's what I
will say I'm in the line for receiving French kiss as soon as it comes back to
the Culver City Library which means that we can still do this man I'm in the line for receiving French kiss as soon as it comes back to the Culver City Library, which means that we can still do this.
Man, I am in line for receiving French kiss.
Sounds like my dream board in high school.
I sincerely I enjoyed that so much
I really can't wait for you to see this movie though
because just thinking about it
for this podcast I feel pretty confident
that under normal
circumstances it would hold up from its
1995 debut and still be
considered a banger today but now
that you've had to
really go through the gauntlet I can't imagine
you're going to come out the other side and think that it's worth it.
There's a whole other component to it now.
Just in reading the people who are complaining about it not being on streaming and all the replies to those blogs, the people love this movie.
It's great.
In a way that they themselves can't explain where they're just like, I don't know what it is.
It's like a sweater on a rainy day.
There's just something so comforting and great about this movie.
And they, it's got whatever that je ne sais quoi is.
Oh, hey.
I found out that Gerard Depardieu was supposed to play Kevin Kline's part.
Luke first.
Oh, that would have been terrible.
And he didn't. And that Kevin Kline's accent first. Oh, that would have been terrible. And he didn't,
and that Kevin Kline's accent
is absolutely terrible in it,
but maybe that's the point.
Is he not really French in the movie?
What do you mean?
Is he not really French?
He's not really French in real life.
I know, but is he not supposed to be,
is he not supposed to be doing a good accent?
Is he not really actually supposed to be?
He's supposed to be French.
Okay.
I've heard that his accent is off the charts bad, but it's very charming and so i didn't understand that so i'm
excited i'm excited to watch it at some point i think it's great i think it's it's uh perfect
meg ryan i think it's it's like a lot of the best romantic comedies in my opinion it's not
like they're they're both two realized characters with agendas that are separate from loving or being loved.
And it's a movie with other stuff going on in it
beyond whether or not the protagonists are going to
fall for each other. There's a lot
going on. Everyone is allowed to be funny.
Meg Ryan is charming as shit.
Kevin Kline is unimpeachable.
And am I correct in believing that this is
a heist movie? There are heist elements
to it. Okay. Yeah.
Well, I know more about the movie than I did before, which was the first that this is a heist movie there are heist elements to it okay yeah well I
would I know more about the movie than I did before which was the first time you
talked about it I thought I was gonna be watching the movie green card oh no
little did you know you'd be watching nothing you'd be eating bad chicken in a
restaurant where the TVs don't work well the tea is there anything more telling
of this story the TV didn't work in Frank's Hot Chicken?
Well, that's just delightful.
The banger you selected for me is a film called Monster Squad.
I'm blessed that you got the name right.
That you said the actual name of this movie.
Because until this point, you have very intentionally misrepresented the name of this movie to dem this point you have you you have very intentionally
misrepresented the name of this movie to demoralize me you've called it monster
hose mm-hmm which is maybe the most insulting of all of them there I can't
remember all of them until right now like like me calling it monster squad
right now is new as as recently as last night when I watched this movie, it was in my personal calendar as Monster Cops 8 to 9.30.
All right.
Well, I want to know what you thought of Monster Squad.
Well, first going...
Maybe you should describe it.
Yeah.
First going into it, this movie, there's a lot of expectations on this movie because you'd recommended it.
And a lot of our former co-workers at Cracked had recommended this movie and not just like,
oh, yeah, this is a good movie, but like
Daniel, you specifically will enjoy this movie. I can't believe you haven't seen it yet. Just watch this movie.
Just do it instead of one of the other things, instead of re-watching Game of Thrones again, which you don't like.
And I just haven't, I put it off for a very long time.
It's got Shane Black as a co-writer of it, and I love Shane't I put it off for a very long time it's got Shane Black as a co-writer
of it and I love Shane Black and it's it's monsters and it's and it's fun and funny a lot
of reasons that I I would be drawn to this movie this movie uh the plot we get a brief prologue
where we learn about uh hundreds and hundreds of years ago Van Helsing was on a quest to use a sacred amulet to ban all monsters and the monsters were at
the same time trying to use that amulet to rise and take over the world that
seems to be their vague agenda and we learned that Van Helsing for our
intents and purposes blew it his attempt to trap them in limbo didn't really work
it just temporarily trapped them in limbo didn't really work. It just temporarily
trapped them in there for the next hundred years. Now we're in the vaguely defined present
and we meet a bunch of kids who are bound by being like sort of outcasts and all loving
monsters. Plus one older kid named Rudy, who inexplicably is cool in a way that doesn't fit the tone of this movie.
He shows up in a leather jacket and sunglasses and like greasy hair.
And he lights a match on his shoe.
And for no clear reason, likes and defends these weird losers who are not related to him.
Yeah, makes a bully eat a smashed candy bar around yeah in his first scene and he joins up with the
the kids who are like elementary school kids to his junior high school junior
high kid he joins them and like hangs out in their treehouse they become the
monster squad and they just sit around talking about monsters we learn that
these monsters from the prologue are back and they're gonna try their scheme again
where they take over the world they are led by dracula who recruits the mummy and the wolfman
and a frankenstein or i guess frankenstein's monster and i want to say a creature from the
blue lagoon black black lagoon okay but like a swamp i called him swamp thing in my notes
uh he recruits all of them and
like now we're gonna get the amulet and we're gonna do this thing for real and the kids sort of
after overhearing like two details they heard this the the main boy hears his dad who is a
detective on the phone and he overhears someone mention a wolfman and
later he overhears something about either a mummy or Dracula calls an
emergency meeting of the monster squad and is like I think monsters are back
and I think we're the only ones who can stop them and he's correct there's this
strange theory he has absolutely right the monsters are here so the squad gets
together they come up with a bunch of. They find Van Helsing's old diary, which is written entirely in German. And they take this to a creepy guy who they think is creepy just because he's German and lives alone in a weird house. He's actually very nice. He's a Holocaust survivor. He translates the diary for them and tells them, yeah, Van Helsing was trying to stop the monsters. So now the kids know what we know, and there's more intention behind their vague stopping
of the monsters.
Frankenstein shows up and, for reasons we don't really know, is friends with the kids.
He likes Phoebe, the little girl.
I guess that's canon with what Frankenstein's monster is in the books.
He's not, by nature, a violent person.
So he meets this little girl, befriends her, befriends the rest of the monster squad,
and the rest of the movie is kids versus monster squad.
There's a training montage.
It's great.
And the kids end up slaying a bunch of the monsters and reading the sacred words from
the diary in German to open the portal to send all of the monsters away.
Getting a thumbs up from Van Helsing to close out the movie.
And Sorin, I'm thrilled to report that this is indeed a banger.
This movie fucking rules.
That's so good.
It's great.
Everyone's right.
There's a brief snag that puts it certainly at a movie of its time where I'm pretty sure
they try to recruit one attractive woman to join their squad to recite the words to banish all the monsters
and their way of recruiting her is they've taken a picture of her nude yeah and they threatened to
blackmail her with it because they're like hey we need a virgin to read these words and she's like
leave me alone i don't know you and i'm not friends with you and they're like what if we
like publish this picture and put it in the school and she's like
fine i'll do it i guess that's rough there's also a lot of f-bombs in the movie they use as a
pejorative people calling each other f-a-g-g yes the the the homophobic slur version of f-bombs yeah
yeah uh there's a lot of that to get through there and just some like basic Shane Black weirdness.
Uh, but man, I enjoyed this movie.
There's so many things that made me laugh.
I think the idea of kids with Shane Black's dialogue in their mouth is, is very funny
because he has like a really specific, and funny way of writing and and putting
that in like the the high stakes world of kids fighting monsters is very fun uh i screamed at
the screen because there's a scene when they're uh frankenstein's monster's corpse is being
uh transported via plane somewhere in the beginning yeah there
are two pilots and one of them was uh richie april from the sopranos so i got very excited
because i just finished the sopranos rewatch so that's in my notes um at one point one of the kids
in the montage because they're all like rudy is is making stakes and stealing a bow and arrow and
doing these things that like practically you would want to do when you're going to fight monsters.
Another kid, Eugene, writes a note, Dear army guys, come quick.
There are monsters.
Eugene.
And he sends that letter.
And at the end of the movie, the army shows up and they're like, which one of you was
Eugene?
Yeah.
Who wrote that note in crayon on construction paper?
Just fun, silly, stupid shit.
I'm also a sucker for a plot where
for the sake of expediency,
someone has an idea about something impossible
and it turns out they're right.
Like when Sean is like,
I think a bunch of monsters are in this town.
I think we're the only ones who could stop them.
And I think that German guy can help us.
And it's like, yes, all of those things are correct.
I'm like, good, great.
I'm glad we didn't waste any time
with anyone questioning this.
There are moments in the movie where it it's just it it it isn't
even tongue-in-cheek but they still get away with it with me no matter what like
when he's someone has called for him someone has called with who's the main
boy in it Sean Sean somebody's called Sean on the phone his mom has taken a
message and so he takes the person's name and he just starts doing an anagram with their name and the
person's name is Dracula if you follow the anagram so Dracula called decided on
an anagram for his own name disguise who he was let me get in touch first of all
Dracula using a phone is so funny yes and then also coming up with this very
clever anagram for his name is
wonderful and sean being like immediately yeah okay i think i know this is an anagram it's
dracula it's fucking dracula yes if i rearrange those letters it's dracula it's like well why
did you do that though yeah it's really great ever human all of us was born to create whether
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The other thing, because you said Dracula using a phone is funny.
This is at one point when the monsters know that the kids are trying to stop the monsters.
Dracula goes to Sean's house with a stick of dynamite lights it and throws it in their
clubhouse and blows it up
and if that's not the funniest fucking thing that's ever
happened I don't know what it is
I'm like famously my favorite
thing about gremlins is that the final battle with the boss
gremlin is he has a gun
like the point of horror is supposed
to be a supernatural force
is there and they do a good job in gremlins
throughout the film making you aware that that they are the threat but then the closing fight is like look out
he's got a pistol and it's just him being a gremlin barely matters yeah it's just a little
thing with a revolver dracula who's 3 000 years old and has supernatural powers is like fuck these
kids and throws dynamite in their treehouse
the type of the the version of dracula that can turn to a bat that is crazy strong that can
possess people with his eyes and he's got he brought dynamite with him yes yeah it's that
that's certainly wonderful did you enjoy the wolfman scenes dan i thought the wolfman scenes
were very interesting i mean like the the mask mask for the Wolfman is atrocious.
They should have done something better for his face because he really takes you out of the movie for just how bad he is to look at.
They did an interesting thing with the Wolfman where whenever he's not the Wolfman and he's a human, he's like, I'm a Wolfman.
Please lock me up.
Please kill me.
Yeah.
I don't have any control over myself.
And it's like a complicated thing to sneak into this.
I guess it's PG-13. But still, I assume ostensibly a kid's movie.
And that guy is, that actor is working hard.
Yeah.
He's in a very serious, as far as he's concerned, this movie's about him.
He's in a very serious movie about a man who cannot control himself.
Yeah.
And wants somebody desperately to help him.
And then society fails him.
Yeah.
Eventually, Rudy shoots him. And he's like, and he says thank you to rudy and yeah shoots him with a silver bullet and
that not only that but like rudy's not like blows on the barrel and has like a fun catchphrase
afterwards he's so shaken up by the fact that he's a child who just killed this man and the man
thanked him and and like rudy doesn't recover throughout the
rest of the movie like he's really rattled by what just happened first time he's holding a gun he
says bang and then like as he shoots it you could see in his face that he's like oh this is a little
bit louder and like there's more recoil than i was expecting from this this isn't as fun as as like
shooting arrows at vampire ladies yeah uh he also has my favorite line in the movie, which still gets me, which is they recruit
that woman who's just, she's the ditzy blonde trope.
Yeah.
She's a little bit older than all the other kids.
It's very funny.
Like they, I mean, go ahead.
They recruit her to be a virgin and then it's revealed that she's not a virgin in a way
that's pretty funny because one of the little kids, after she reads the thing that is supposed to create the portal and it doesn't work, the kid said, are you a virgin?
And she's like, yeah.
I mean, I was with Richie, but that doesn't count.
And the little kid goes, doesn't count?
So when they're just like sitting around, the team is split up at one point and two of the kids are off doing something
else.
I think they're fighting Wolfman and the rest of them are just sort of like
hanging out,
waiting for them and they don't know where they are.
They're not on time.
And the,
the,
the ditzy blonde goes,
maybe the monsters got them.
And Rudy slowly turns to her and just goes,
maybe the monsters got them.
Like in a way that's like,
why the fuck would you say
that these are my friends that's right just repeating back to her what she said so she can
hear it when when he the first time he lays eyes on this woman he's in the treehouse and is spying
across the yards into like a neighbor's house that's when he sees this older girl he's in the tree house and is spying across the yards into like a neighbor's house.
That's when he sees this older girl. He sees her changing and he's attracted to her. And because
I've seen movies before, I think, oh, they're going to wedge in this romantic subplot because
like he's horny for this girl. They're going to recruit her. And then those two, the only two
older kids in this movie are going to end up together. But as soon as as he recruits her they just hate each other and they don't do anything
with it no she's like maybe the monsters got him he goes maybe the monsters got
him I'm like do you remember what your goal is yeah he just the minute they
start talking he hates her now I'm gonna ask you about some details that you
didn't mention and I want to see if you noticed them. Sean's mom and dad, what is their relationship like?
It's very strained.
He is a detective, and they were going to have a night out together.
And then he has to cancel their night out together because he has to go do detective stuff and go to the museum and see if anyone stole the mummy or if the mummy left.
And she's very upset that he canceled their plans.
Yes. And then when Dracula comes to the house
and blows up the,
he blows up our dad's partner.
The dad's got a partner
that he's been with
at the force for a long time.
And Dracula blows him up
in his car.
With another,
with the second
of three sticks of dynamite
that Dracula uses
in this movie.
So Sean's dad freaks out and starts shooting at
dracula the bolts go right through him and into the into the wall of his own house um because
dracula's standing in front of his house and dracula fucks off for whatever reason i can't
remember why but like becomes a bat and disappears um do you remember this he says i'll have your son
turns into a bat and disappears so when he goes inside his wife comes out of the
house that he's just shot into and she's looking very stunned because all this has just happened
and he comes into the house with her do you remember seeing at the front door a ton of
luggage no yeah was she leaving him yes there's like it's never mentioned in the story but like
yeah there are a few different
scenes you get where their relationship gets more and more tenuous and more and more strained and
then there's a moment where it's clear that that night she was leaving him that's why they call it
monster house so i had uh the i watched this movie again maybe 10 or 12 years ago i'd seen it when i
was a kid and loved it my brother and I would rent it a lot
and then I watched it again about 10 years ago and noticed
these details and thought
there is
I mean you could pose the theory that
because everything
sort of works out whenever Sean has an idea about
what could happen it actually is happening
that this is all Sean
manifesting some monster in his life so that he's something
tangible to worry about other than his parents this like impending divorce and split of his
parents um because he's not addressing it at all it's happening in front of him regularly where
he's kind of just like tuning it out but that there's this very silly plot of these monsters
which is something he famously loves from the beginning of the story he and his buddy are the monster squad like they're they've got
cards and everything yeah uh and they love the the comic books um that he's manifesting this whole
uh plot of these crazy monsters seeking an amulet so that he has something tangible and bad that he
can focus on and that that's what's that's what's important while
in the background there's like a very real dark unhealthy relationship that's falling apart
between his parents because when his dad comes home from detective work he doesn't
hang out with the mom he sits on the roof with a kid and like shares fast food silently yeah yeah so i you could probably watch the movie
with that in mind and you could get to a point where you believe i maybe none of this is actually
happening that the the big bull the biggest coolest kid at school they don't recruit the
coolest kid at school to be on their monster team that all that they're experiencing is stuff that
he was sort of fantasizing about
and that's where we're just watching the fantasy yeah i i'm fine if that's not true though and it's
and it is just just kids versus monsters i think that's also fun yeah that's i think the wolfman's
got nards line do you that's the one a would always say to you he would chant to you that's
the one that people have said to me yeah and like i don't think that's a that line doesn't do
anything for me if i'm being totally honest well of course not you're a uh 30 or 40 no you're 37
36 37 year old man yeah uh that but when you're a kid i movie this movie came out maybe in the wake of goonies and i think
that i saw this before i saw goonies and uh that that line like wolfman's got nards like they don't
they're they kick him in the nards and like i don't even know if wolfman has nards this is the
general uh uh thought process and then he kicks him in the nuts and wolfman does have nars he
goes wolfman's got nards and as a kid boy did that line kill in my house yeah that's a very there are a bunch of things
that shane black very consistently does where like i'm gonna set up something and then i promise you
i'm gonna pay it off so like there's an early scene in the movie where they're just talking
about the wolfman and they're like, Wolfman doesn't have nards.
No,
he does.
He wears pants to cover up his,
his,
his Wolfman dork,
which they say,
cause I can't say dick,
I guess.
And by the end of the movie,
you can check that off your list as like a setup with a payoff because
Wolfman gets kicked in the nards and he does have nards.
And there's another reference that's that someone says,
what are the two ways to kill a Wolfman?
And Rudy's like, there's only one.
It's Silver Bullet.
I'm like, no, it's two.
What's the second one?
And they can't figure it out.
Then Wolfman gets blown up with dynamite,
reassembles himself,
and only dies by the Silver Bullet.
So Rudy can say, see, I told you.
It's just the Silver Bullet.
It's another, like, very...
Yeah.
It sounds like very basic screenwriting,
but it's so, like yeah it sounds like very basic screenwriting but it's so like it's
it scratches your brain pleasantly in a rewarding way of like everything that you set up in act one
gets paid off by act three you just like it it's it's it's a uh an easy brain hack to do
and one that's great storytelling it's just like reward your audience don't just like leave these
these strings hanging off whatever you've just knitted together.
Each string is connected to something.
The only thing that I think they didn't pay off is,
is in one of the early scenes,
Sean and his buddy.
And by the way,
I know that I know Sean and I know Horace,
who is the heavier kid who is called fat kid a bunch of times.
And then beyond that,
I don't exactly know how many other little boys
are part of this group
it seems inconsistent
it does sort of bounce around
but Eugene isn't really part of the squad
until they meet him and then he's miraculously there
right
but it's Sean and some other boy in an early scene
and the teacher
they're in trouble with the teacher because they spend all their time
drawing monsters
instead of paying attention and the teacher's like i'm telling you monsters are cool
i agree with you but science is also cool because science is real and like it's a very level-headed
teacher that is is speaking to them with some amount of respect but by the end of the movie
that is not rewarded science is not cool no monsters are
cooler monsters are way cooler and magic is way cooler like matt they don't solve these problems
with science by the end yeah dracula uses more science than they do when he's using dynamite
there are a couple of lines that stuck out to me that were very funny to me um one of them is this
three-line exchange where someone says is she definitely a virgin and the the bimbo girl
says why don't you put it on the six o'clock news you little shit and then one of the other boys
quietly goes yes she is very shane black very focused on the business of hand at hand and
another stupid line that it's the kids are racing to where the portal needs to open.
And the kid, I think Sean looks at his watch and he says, 20 minutes till midnight.
If we pull this off, I'm going to shit.
Great.
Totally natural.
Like you're just so hyped.
You don't know what's going to happen to you.
Yeah.
Yeah. to you yeah yeah there was i also remember as a kid watching it and being very the people that
scared me the most in the movie were the um minions of dracula dracula has these women that
he turned into vampires yeah in the movie and they're uh horrifying everybody else is very
campy and 1940s monster but these women are they have fangs they've got weird eyes and they move
so slowly up and up the street towards this team and i was very haunted by that as a kid
and watching rudy be so cool and calm about it and just like taking out the stakes and the bow
and arrow was like he was rescuing me it was so nice to have somebody who
felt like they were in control in that situation and i realized how thoroughly they needed him
it's basically the same plot as the end of freaks and geeks where you've i think you i think there's
no way you mean the end of freaks and geeks i think you mean stranger things if you want to tell me okay so the nerd kids suddenly end up with this
cool kind of loner older kid just joining them for whatever reason they don't know why but he's
decided yeah i'll play dnd with you guys and is willing to do it and that's which older kid
which older cool kid in freaks and geeks is doing this? James Franco. Yeah. Really? Yeah.
You don't think he's cool?
I think he's cool.
I guess I don't remember the end of this show.
Oh, I think one of the last episodes is him sitting down with the young kids with
Cardellini's little brother and the other kids as they play D&D.
Because it's a much better fit for Stranger Things. You have to agree that
when Steve shows up with a bat
and leather jacket with the
D&D kids and fights the monsters
with them. That's true. He does become really good friends
with them when he works in the mall. Okay.
Yeah, you're right. Listen to how mad I
got about this though. That's not healthy.
I just think... We're friends.
I think that maybe
it's possible that Judd apatow borrowed from
shane black in this because it's so nice to have this cool older kid with these dorks and like the
dynamic that that creates uh is so valuable in a story where there's high stakes yeah and uh i
think maybe he saw that and was like this i'm surely this is like a movie that he's seen and
he was like oh no one's doing that no one yeah that's like a thing
that just doesn't really happen right and there and i do think there are like that's a reasonable
tie-in to real life too there's every possibility that like the kid who is deemed the cool kid in
school also doesn't know what he's doing but it's like man those group of friends playing dnd they
seem happy yeah that seems like like a fun thing to do.
That's way more fun than pretending I'm cool all the time.
Yeah, the older kid gets something out of the relationship.
Yeah.
It's like, oh, okay, that's valuable.
There's also, when you're talking about being scared in this film,
it wasn't scary, but Dracula gets such a badass rampage moment when he is walking towards whomever he's trying to stop at
the end it's very well done very well shot that like car after car of police officers show up
and try to stop him and he is just wasting every one of them one by one he's got he's like he's
not breaking his gate he's not breaking his gaze and cop after cop is showing up and he just like
broke your arm
shoved you knocked you down blasted you away it's like this is just a a cool like this is a
this is a rough customer dracula is not like the the the dead wolf man or like the the swamp thing
who died by shotgun blast this is like this is a real tough dude yeah you get to see how powerful
he actually is like they'll give you a whole scene of him just being like,
oh no, you don't stand a chance against me.
You're a child.
Look at what I'm doing to these armed men.
Yeah, I'm so glad that you liked it.
That's really comforting.
It's really good.
I don't know if I want a remake of it
or if I want a TV show set in that world or if I want like a, a TV show set in that world,
or if I want to like,
to completely steal that screenplay and then by draft four,
change it just enough that no one knows that I did that and then try to sell
it.
I got a hiatus coming up.
So that seems probably what I'm going to do.
Well,
did I on a run the other day i
had an idea for a horror that i think we could we could like break we could just break it super easy
right now it's called haunted hell and it's about like some flatliner kids some kids that are going
to die and and go to go see what hell is like but it's spooky there hell's spookier than they thought and like
it's clear that hell is haunted spookier than they thought or like spookier than the people
like are that people in hell also a little bit like yeah i think it's going on it's like the
lights keep going on and off lately yeah it's spooky for everyone in hell too but like they've been living with it for a while and so they're like
you you have to run like it's don't it's bad here
uh yeah i think we should break that off mike okay great because i think we give enough
free ideas away on this podcast yeah well that's
our million dollar idea please don't take it one small other weird thing i mentioned uh just in
passing that the the weird german guy that they met who becomes part of the monster squad because
by the end of the movie the monster squad is the between five and seven children the bimbo
the detective dad the mom and this, the German man that they found.
The, I mentioned just briefly in passing that he was a Holocaust survivor, uh, because the
movie handles that just briefly in passing.
Like the kids at first think he's creepy.
Then they meet him and he's the sweetest guy in the world.
He's very helpful and, uh, likes talking to them about monsters and stuff.
And they're leaving the house and he's like helpful and uh likes talking to them about monsters and stuff and they're
leaving the house and he's like by the way so the reason you can tell i'm not a monster a dracula
is because i have a reflection most vampires don't and he shows his reflection and the kid goes
huh that's true you really know a lot about monsters and he's like yes i do and as he
closes the door to his house you you see like the Holocaust number branding
on his arm tattoo.
Like that's what he thinks of when he's like,
yes, I do know a lot about monsters.
And then it's never brought up again.
Not that I know how they would bring it up,
but it's such a strange Shane Black detail
to be like, yeah, this guy knows about monsters
because he's a Holocaust survivor.
Anyway, just thought you should know that.
Isn't it nice that he's still fighting monsters in the present?
This man has seen true darkness.
Yeah.
That's interesting.
A thing you could so easily pull out of the movie.
And it's in a movie for kids.
It's a very strange and deep detail to include.
And there's not a zoom in on his arm or anything like that.
It's just, if you're looking for it, you see it.
And then it never comes up again.
Just a quick little thing.
And I'm sure at some point,
a producer could have been like,
hey, do we need that?
And then Shane Black could have been like,
not really.
We don't need any of this.
Yeah, there's, it is fun at the very end of the movie.
It takes place in a town square where
they're like they open up this portal through an incantation and don't uh uh all the police
cars and everything have piled up there because dracula's there but before that happens it's just
some they're in the middle of town and there's like a movie theater that's open and you can see
people kind of like there's extras walking between restaurants and movies and stuff like that
and then things just start to get
worse and worse in the middle of this town and it's even though it's a huge stage and everything
it feels very bucolic and nice and then as everyone around starts to realize what's going on
it just turns into this pandemonium which is what a great set piece to put in the middle of a town
where everybody's just having a normal friday night other than these kids yeah they don't realize it's almost the end of the world and then to watch it sort of dawn on
people around there as they get the fuck out of there like yeah it's really great
great movie yeah thanks dan thanks for watching it thanks uh maybe someday i'll watch one of yours
you could have you could have
you could have let me know earlier in the week that you
I mean I'm happy with how things turned out
I could have come up with another movie
so I thought about that too
you gave me basically a list of movies we could have done
and then we landed on French Kiss
and I was like I could have just jumped one of the others
this happened yesterday
I wanted to be fresh in my mind when I watched it
and tried to watch it the night
before on amazon and was like i can't do it i'll i'll figure this out tomorrow and then spend a
whole day on french kiss so funny i love it so much i can't wait for you to watch that movie
i'm excited all right i'm gonna wrap things up uh I wanted to plug our socials, but before that,
Sorin,
oh fuck, we didn't
do it.
This was supposed to be a callback
to one episode
ago.
You were going to end the episode by mentioning the podcast
that you host on the side.
Oh, yeah. And I was gonna call back
to it in that episode but
i didn't so i'm doing it now while i track down the socials what's your podcast yeah so you can
check out my podcast it's called a rabbit scream um uh it's a it's basically like there's specific
animals that only make a noise when when they're dying and this is like a podcast about that um rabbit's really the only one that's
coming to mind right now so really it's just very rabbit rabbit centric and specifically about when
rabbits are dying uh i will play the noise obviously that i'm sure people are curious
about that that comes up pretty regularly in the podcast. It comes up regularly on the podcast? Yeah. Rabbit Scream.
Yeah.
And then I do a little Googling of Rabbit Scream and I just talk about whatever pops up.
Every episode that happens.
Uh-huh.
Okay.
Ask Soren about it at Soren underscore LTD.
Or if you have a way to get him French kiss faster than the methods that he has laid out,
maybe tell him about it on Twitter.
Tell me nothing at DLB underscore INC.
You can email the show at QQ with Soren
and Daniel
at gmail.com.
Find the show on Twitter at QQ underscore Soren and Dan.
You can find, hire,
ask questions to and about
our editor, producer, engineer, Gabe
at GabeHarder.com.
We also have a Patreon that you can find if you search for it.
And I believe that should be it.
I think that's everything.
Yeah.
We have Patreon.
Did you say that?
Yeah.
Oh, cool.
Great job, Dan.
Yeah, anytime, buddy.
All right.
Bye.
Bye.
Bye.
Bye.
Bye.
Bye.
Bye.
Bye.
Bye.
Bye.
Bye.
Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye All right. Bye. Bye.