Apple TV’s Outcome: Testing the Limits of Keanu’s Likability | SVU

13:32Matt Singer:They just yeah, they look like they were shot on a green screen. It looks like the room. The room looks better. Those shots of them on the roof of the room look more realistic than this film. Oh, hi, Rick. Hawk. I got it. Yeah, exactly. Now, I don't know if that was like by design.

13:47Jordan Hoffman:I mean, clearly it's a choice. But again, this is one of those things that I was watching and going, why? What is the point of this? Because the movie, and I think you want to probably talk about this, it's like it's attempting to say something about celebrity, about fame, about social media and about our world, I would think. And yet it seems to exist in this bizarre, gauzy, as you put it, Instagram filter that unless it's part of the commentary about our social media. Yeah, but I don't think so.

14:21Matt Singer:It doesn't land. It doesn't land. And you're right. Like it does. There are segments of the film where it just shifts into drama very quickly. And it's just laughable because it's just does not fit. But before we even get to that, I mean, I have to say this. Now, this is a little controversial. Keanu Reeves is beloved. This is great.

14:42Jordan Hoffman:We love it. It's the first new episode. We need some hot takes.

14:45Matt Singer:Let's go. I know that Keanu Reeves is beloved by many. Uh-oh. And that's cool. No, and I feel that Keanu Reeves is quite good at certain things. He's very good in speed. I know that was 30 years ago, but like that sort of thing. They're the first John Wick. I think the later John Wicks get a little annoying. But, you know, he's good as being a steely action star determined to do, you know, to just be to be personifying action. You know, in The Matrix, sure, the first Matrix is great. You know, he played off of his Bill and Ted. I mean, the part in The Matrix was, whoa, I know Kung Fu. I think that's about that's the only time really for me that he nailed comedy was, whoa, I know Kung Fu, that line in The Matrix.

15:37Matt Singer:I feel like Keanu Reeves is talented at so many things. He's certainly a great athlete. He can jump around and shoot guns better than anybody. He's not a gifted comic performer. He has no he's he's like a block of concrete when it comes to this. And he has to be funny in this. He is sort of the straight man in this story. He's like a bewildered, befuddled straight man in the center of a I have a hurricane of like getting canceled in modern Hollywood. He's trying to be a little bit like the Warren Beatty persona of like a little bit like, oh, but handsome and still charismatic. Right. And it just does not work.

16:18Matt Singer:He does not have that kind of charisma. He's charismatic. Don't get me wrong. I've been in the same room with Keanu Reeves. He's a charming fella. But he can't do this. They're trying to put a round peg in a square hole. And I have to wonder if Keanu Reeves was the first choice for this role. And did several other performers say to Mr. Hill, I choose not to do it? Because even Reef Hawk, he's a two-time Oscar winner. Yes. Like he's supposed to be Leonardo DiCaprio. Yeah, he's Brad Pitt. He is. Yeah. Yes. he's not Keanu. Like Keanu is great. I love Keanu and certainly the internet loves him and he's cool.

16:57Matt Singer:I mean, I'd love to hang out with Keanu, but he's not a two-time Oscar winner. He's not, he's not a good actor. He's good in speed and John Wick. He's not a good actor, actor. He's not Leo. He's not Brad Pitt. He's not Clooney or any of these others. Daniel Day-Lewis and Keanu are not, I mean, forgive me. I'm sure I'm angering some people who have Keanu posters on their wall getting ready to say, bring back Alison Wilmore, which I agree. But, you know, it's ridiculous. I mean, come on. The point is, he sucks in this. He's awful. Now, the movie is Jonah Hill's fault. He's the director and co-writer and co-producer, and this is all his project.

17:37Matt Singer:And it's Apple's fault for giving him the money in the first place. But Keanu does not take the ball and run with it. Like, Susan Lucci's in it for five minutes. She's funny. You know, there's some other... She is funny. Who else shows up for five minutes? Martin Scorsese shows up for five minutes. Yeah, he's very funny. Scorsese's bit is good.

17:53Jordan Hoffman:And gives probably the best performance in the movie.

17:55Matt Singer:He does. And the little kid that Scorsese's with. And the old clip of Joey Lawrence was funny. Right. Drew Barrymore shows up and sucks also. She's terrible in her cameo. All right, let's get, hold on. Before we get ahead of ourselves, let me weigh in on this Keanu, on your Keanu.

18:11Jordan Hoffman:I wouldn't say it's a hot take. It's more like a warm take. Warm, yeah. Let me say this. I think I'm more overall, I have a higher opinion of Keanu than you. I also think he can do comedy. You didn't mention the Bill and Ted movies, which I believe are comedies, and he's quite good in all of those movies.

18:31Matt Singer:He's doing one joke. I mean, he's just being the dumb stoner kid.

18:34Jordan Hoffman:I mean, he's funny in it for sure. That's another thing he can do well. But I think where we might find some common ground, essentially, is that I think he is just completely miscast in this role. and not because he's playing a huge movie star. He is a big movie star. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt there. But this is what I sort of objected to and what I really landed on after seeing this Fakakta thing twice is Keanu Reeves, maybe not to everyone, maybe not to Jordan, but to me and to a lot of people, I think he kind of, he radiates this very likable persona, right? I agree with you. He doesn't have the biggest range.

19:11Jordan Hoffman:He is not a chameleonic presence. He does not disappear into roles, but he has this kind of innate likability. You like the guy. You like watching him. He is charismatic. And you kind of root for him. You root for him in Bill and Ted. And you even root for him in John Wick, a franchise where at this point, John Wick has killed more people than Thanos at this point. He's murdered, you know, a small nation's worth of people, but you keep rooting for him. And I think a big reason why is because Keanu just kind of, he like exudes this kind of goodness and this likability.

19:48Matt Singer:Like Jackie Chan, he's tapped into something that is, he can kill all the people he wants and he's still like him. I completely agree.

19:56Jordan Hoffman:Now, that is the opposite of what Reef Hawk is in this movie. Reef Hawk. Reef Hawk. Reef Hawk Tua. He, exactly. He is this guy who we learn is now he's a recovering addict. And now he's sort of he kind of like is trying to make amends. But we learned that for most of his life, he was a basically a monster, an egomaniacal monster. And even now that he is sort of trying to make amends, he is incredibly narcissistic. He's constantly Googling himself, which is could be a funny bit in a movie like this. I actually don't hate that idea. Yeah. But I just don't think I like Keanu Reeves looks like the most un-neurotic movie star in the world.

20:46Jordan Hoffman:And they have cast him kind of. And this is another thing I wanted to talk about is like, to what extent? Like, do I believe Keanu Reeves has ever Googled himself in his life? Probably not.

20:56Matt Singer:Absolutely not. Absolutely not. But Jonah Hill sure has. That was my question.

21:00Jordan Hoffman:Do we think Jonah Hill has ever Googled himself? And I would bet my bank account that he has. And that's what's going on here. Is that the movie, to some extent, is Jonah Hill making a movie about being Jonah Hill.

21:17Matt Singer:This is the elephant in the room here. This is sort of the main aspect of this thing. is that this movie is about Jonah Hill's uncomfortableness. Is that a word? No. But his discomfort, thank you, is about Jonah Hill's discomfort with his own celebrity. Now, I happen to really like Jonah Hill, or I did before I watched Outcome. And he's somebody that has annoyed many people in our line of work. I mean, in addition to writing about films and appearing on podcasts, We also interview actors sometimes. And a lot of people who have interviewed Jonah Hill have had bad experiences doing so. I've interviewed him several times and have only had good experiences.

22:04Matt Singer:Really? Yeah. No, it's weird because everybody has come away going, boy, that guy's a real dick. I have. Now, maybe it's because. I mean, listen, we are both full figured Jewish guys. as maybe he saw in me. And I believe his brother's name, his late brother was named Jordan, I think. Isn't that the case? We'll have to look this up. I think that was some, maybe, and I'm a little older than he is, so who knows. But I don't know, for whatever reason, he and I have always gotten along, like we're pals. No, we're not pals, but I've met him like three times and it's always been like, hey, great interview with Joan Hill, what a blast.

22:43Matt Singer:Anyway, and I was always rooting for him And then like he he he got a little nuts. I mean, a lot of it is, you know, he he was overweight. Then he lost the weight. Then he gained the weight back. And this is, you know, this is something that can make people very who are very self-conscious, who are certainly in the public eye, who every time, you know, he he loses five pounds is this, you know, E and EW and all these trashy outlets are making pictures of that. and then he did do some acting that people weren't expecting like he was in the goofy comedies and then he was in Moneyball and he got the Oscar nomination holy cow Wolf of Wall Street he's phenomenal on that he was robbed out of the Oscar that year and then he did some other things and then he directed his I believe it was his first feature mid 90s which was good not a masterpiece but it was quality so I'm like hey this guy's pretty great and then some you know he didn't get canceled he didn't do anything too bad but there were some leaked emails about like he kind of treated his girlfriend poorly i don't know how

23:50Jordan Hoffman:much we want to get into his tabloid stuff you can read these you can just like we suspect allegedly that jonah hill may have you can google these things yourself if you're yeah yeah like he

24:01Matt Singer:didn't he didn't assault anyone but he was a he's a weirdo i mean but he's an actor you know he's a Hollywood actor who's been famous and rich for for a long time he's gonna go nuts so he did some what I think are obnoxious moves to his girlfriend and then he made a documentary about his shrink and then he uh refused to do press about the documentary about his shrink and that's when I said to myself Jonah Hill is so far up his own ass that he may never come back and now he has made this movie outcome and my instinct was correct that he is he is still up there yeah and i'd like for him to come back because i do think he is tremendously talented he's certainly very funny um and he can't he's not funny in this but he can be funny and uh i'm i'm still rooting for the guy like i think you know maybe his next movie he'll it's amazing that martin scorsese of all people isn't like if there was one guy that could have taken a look at the script and say hey buddy you know revise revise don't do this because there are first of all there's so many movies lampooning hollywood and you know how you know how how fake it is it's like it's like another topic please there's so many other topics in the world especially because you know kind of your your older brother so to speak seth rogan uh is doing it so well in the studio yeah it's like It's so embarrassing.

25:28Matt Singer:You look at the studio, it's like, oh, the studio is pretty damn good.

25:31Jordan Hoffman:Yeah, that's not a favorable comparison for Jonah Hill.

25:33Matt Singer:No, and he will always be compared to Seth Rogen because, of course, Seth Rogen wrote, right? Seth Rogen wrote Superbad. Of course. And then he wrote it for -

25:42Jordan Hoffman:Jordan, I wrote, people listening will not be aware, but you will be aware of this. Yes. I wrote a book about 2000 eras Hollywood comedies that's coming out this fall called Money, Funny Business. Make sure you pre-order your copy now. I can't do that. So I have been immersed in that world the last few years and watching all of Jonah Hill's early performances, including Superbad, including Knocked Up, including 40-year-old Virgin, where he basically launched his career by having one very funny scene that he was basically handed on a day where it was raining, essentially. and the crew couldn't shoot what they were supposed to shoot and he had been hired to play this tiny role in this scene in Catherine Keener's eBay store where he wants to buy these boots and because they had nowhere to go and they thought Jonah Hill was funny, they were like, let Jonah Hill annoy Catherine Keener and let's see what happens.

26:40Jordan Hoffman:And then the scene went well and they threw it into a test screening and it killed in the test screening. So I guess I'll just give you some money and you can give me these shoes and... You know, I know. It seems so strange. Yeah, so I'd just rather buy them from you straight up. Yeah, I know. I wish it could be that easy, but... I wish too, but you're making it extremely difficult for me. I'm just trying to get these shoes back to my house so I can wear them. It basically launched his career. I never knew that. That's great. Boy, if you want to hear more stories like that, pick up Funny Business, available this October and bookstores everywhere.

27:15Matt Singer:I do remember the first time I clocked Jonah Hill was knocked up, which, by the way, that movie, like, that kids can vote now, right? How old is Knocked Up? It's practically 20 years old. Yeah. Oh, for sure. It's 2006, 2007. So almost 20. The Knocked Up kid could potentially be knocking someone else up or be knocked up herself, depending on her gender. So anyway, not my point. Let me say one more thing about Jonah Hill.

27:44Jordan Hoffman:Please say more, please. Because I just we clearly strongly dislike this movie. Yes. But I there, you know, like revisiting all those old movies. He he is a phenomenally funny actor. And as you said, he made a good movie before. And I'm just again, just absolutely baffled what like what he was trying to do.

28:09Matt Singer:You mentioned he's lost his mind. You mentioned about a shrink.

28:12Jordan Hoffman:And who does that? You mentioned the studio and it's like, but is this movie a satire of Hollywood? You mentioned these issues that, you know, again, very Google-able if you want to read about what he was accused of, you know, or just just the sort of stuff that was in the press about him. And so you wind up with this movie again. Reef Hawk, not Jonah, but Reef Hawk has something hanging over him and he's sort of like mortally petrified of being canceled. That's essentially the hook of the movie, the MacGuffin of the movie.

28:46Matt Singer:Wheel I got canceled.

28:47Jordan Hoffman:But at the same time, instead of like kind of, and there are all these sort of things in the movie about, you know, being canceled and the sort of ecosystem of cancel, you know, cancellation online. There's a bumper sticker that says, honk, if you can separate the art from the artist. There is bizarre pictures of canceled celebrities on the walls of Jonah Hill's character's office like Kanye. Kanye is one. And isn't Kevin Spacey also in one? And the Clintons are there. It's, you know, there's all these very strange sort of, you know, canceled, you know, celebrities, people, controversial people.

29:30Jordan Hoffman:and it's, I guess, is sort of trying to like reckon with whether that is fair as if, and look, more power to him, that Jonah Hill is somehow reckoning with what happened to him and perhaps feels he got a, you know, an unfair shake.

29:46Matt Singer:And I mean, he did and he did. First of all, yeah, people whining about cancel culture is annoying. I mean, even though it's not always -

29:53Jordan Hoffman:Here's an 84 minute movie about it, essentially.

29:56Matt Singer:It's not always fair, but it's usually like, oh, shut up, you know? And the thing is this, unless I forgot that he did something truly bad, what he did was he was a real dick to his girlfriend. She was a surfer, and he wanted her to stop surfing because it gave him the jelly beans. He was jealous because her surfing coach was a hot stud, probably. We've all been there, right? And so he's like, I want you to stop surfing. She's like, surfing is my life. And he's like, you must, you know. He was just like an obnoxious dick. He was a bad boyfriend. He wasn't a bad boy. He was just like a jerk and also like embarrassingly insecure.

30:40Matt Singer:And I'm like, first of all, you're rich. You're famous. Everybody likes you except for the press. You know, people who interview you don't like you. But like the average man in the street likes you. It's like, don't be a jerk to your girlfriend. Now, granted, he had bigger issues going on psychologically, which is why he saw this shrink. And then even more, and he's like, I got to make a documentary about my shrink. Like, anybody gives a shit. P.S., I never watched that documentary about a shrink, and I'm sure nobody has. Who would ever, who wants to watch a movie about somebody else's shrink?

31:10Matt Singer:Give me a break. It's like listening to somebody else tell you about their dreams. Good God. So anyway, the point is this. The guy is funny, and I'm still rooting for him. I just think this is it. This is what's going to snap him back and get his act together. Make a real movie with a story, not about your own navel. Right. And I guess but you're the fact that his his spiritual older brother, Seth Rogen, is killing it with a Hollywood thing, which does talk about cancellation. There's a lot of funny cancel. I mean, that's true. A lot of the studios like, oh, are we going to get canceled? They don't know who to cast as the Kool-Aid man.

31:41Matt Singer:Yes. If they cast a black person as the Kool-Aid man, will they get canceled? That's all very funny stuff.

31:46Jordan Hoffman:That episode alone runs laps around this movie. And I think that's a good comparison and a good point because what I was also going to say is, you know, obviously Jonah Hill feels something very strongly about the stuff in this movie.

32:03Matt Singer:Yeah, because it happened to him. But he should be wise enough to know nobody else cares.

32:06Jordan Hoffman:Well, maybe, but I was going to say, I believe a good movie could have sprung from, you know, most good movies come from whatever Mishigas is going on in the mind of the filmmaker that's making it. But in this case, there's again, it comes down to choices and the choices here are so strange. Casting a very likable Keanu Reeves as this monstrous movie star with a huge ego who's unbelievably neurotic. You know, there's this and then just doing making it into a like this movie cannot decide whether it's a serious investigation of cancel culture or this goofy comedy. and all of the comedy is bad in this movie.

32:53Jordan Hoffman:And that includes Jonah Hill's performance as the crisis lawyer.

32:57Matt Singer:And him on the toilet. Oh, so disgusting.

33:00Jordan Hoffman:Right. And it is so broad and absurd. And again, it's like, regardless of what is drawn from Jonah Hill's autobiography and his life here, I'm going to guess in his travels in Hollywood, he has encountered, you know, people who make a living being crisis lawyers and dealt with these sorts of issues. And in this movie, this crisis lawyer character, now maybe Jonah Hill actually did interviews. He'd tell us, oh, this is just like a person I met. But this guy is so obnoxious. And he's a caricature. He's a cartoon. And unfunny and loud. It's like, let's say you were, Jordan, let's say you, and it's not that hard to imagine.

33:41Jordan Hoffman:Let's imagine you were the world's biggest movie star. And let's just say for a minute that you are convinced that there is a tape out there of you that could, you know, destroy your career. Yeah. You saying you hate Star Trek or something like that would destroy your career. Yeah. And you go to see your crisis lawyer and he makes you go into the toilet with him. and then he like goes on this whole thing like where he assembles a team of uh of other helpers but he introduces them almost like it's a like a basketball yeah wwe or a basketball introduction what would you do you would get up you would walk out of the room you would fire this man and you would never speak to him again and so the you know like the i'm all for comedies But the base, there has to be some sort of base level of, like, reality or if not reality, plausibility.

34:41Jordan Hoffman:And we're in a world where nothing makes sense, where Keanu Reeves is playing a jerk, where Jonah Hill is the worst crisis lawyer and he's the guy he's having to do something. What is going on? Yeah.

34:55Matt Singer:But then the other thing, I got to talk about Jonah Hill on the toilet for a second because it's just so, because that's like early on.

35:02Jordan Hoffman:You know what would be great is we've talked about this movie so long already. This movie is only 80 minutes. We might talk about outcome longer than outcome.

35:09Matt Singer:We should.

35:09Jordan Hoffman:It deserves it. Let's do it. It deserves that. Okay. Talk more about him on the toilet, please.

35:14Matt Singer:It's like, it's the first time you see him and his stomach rumbles and it's like cut to, he's still giving his monologue, he's on the toilet. It's a funny visual, but like, where does it go with it? It just goes with like, it smells. And then Ivy woke comes in and she's, she's like, it stinks in here. But Keanu's just like, just standing there. Like it doesn't go anywhere except for it's the fact that he's taking a dump and it's just so awful. But it made me think about something. You know, Artemis is in space. It made me think about this. Artemis is - Bring this home. I want to see how you do it.

35:49Matt Singer:Go ahead. Artemis was just in space, but now it's back. When I watched Outcome, Artemis was in space and you have these four people shitting next to each other. And one of them is a woman and one of them is a Canadian also to make it even worse. But so I was reading about their going to the bathroom. And at least now there's two things. They have a little curtain for when they have to do number two and number one. And they also have like a powered toilet. You know, like the vacuum, like kind of from 2001 or, you know, when they do their business because there's no gravity in space, as you know, it sucks out the material from your orifices, which led me to this.

36:34Matt Singer:This is a new-ish development. They had it on ISS. The Apollo astronauts, who we love, right? Sure. We're talking about, we love them. Absolutely. We love them. The famous Apollo astronauts, Tom Hanks. Yep. Gary Sinise. Bill Paxton and Gary Sinise. Well, Gary Sinise stayed below. Kevin Bacon went. Okay, sorry. Gary Sinise could deuce all day long and not have to worry about it. Do you know Matt Singer and the listeners of film -

37:03Jordan Hoffman:I can guarantee I do not know before you say it.

37:05Matt Singer:Matt Singer and the listeners of Film Spotting SVU, do you know how the Apollo astronauts, our brave American heroes, do you know how they defecated in space back in the 1960s and early 70s? I don't. I only learned this this week because of Artemis and because of outcome. It all comes from outcome. It went like this. First of all, no sheep, no separation. Michael Collins, Buzz Aldrin, and Neil Armstrong were just, when it was time to go, they're like, well, fellas, I got to drop anchor. And they would just take down their pants and do their business. They went in a bag. Now, here's the thing. Like, imagine a big Ziploc bag, okay?

37:45Matt Singer:And they would put it around their - Do I have to? They would spread their cheeks and do their thing floating in space. They could be upside down doing it. God knows what next to the other two guys. Yeah. Maybe they said, please turn your head. I don't know. This is true. I'm not making this up. The special bags that NASA created, because, you know, everything they they created Velcro. NASA created all these things because of space. It had like a power, like a hand, like, you know, in like the Andromeda strain type movies, when they put their hands into, or like THX 1138, when they have to put their hands into a thing and it's got like little fingers, but they're still protected in like a hot room.

38:27Matt Singer:Yes. So the giant Ziploc bag that they're taking a dump into also had a hole with a hand pouch. So you'd be crouched over the thing and you'd put your hand into the bag, but the hand would be protected so you wouldn't touch anything. And you would have to yank, forgive me, listeners, you would have to yank the turd out of the the anus because because there's no gravity it would just otherwise linger like a tail it would be there forever and they would have to days before getting you know the ticker tape parade of buzzwaldry and neil armstrong days earlier they were floating around floating in space with their hand up a thing yanking their fecal matter out i was stunned i was reading this on my laptop shocked outcome was still going by

39:22Jordan Hoffman:the way because i was i i did i forgot you had checked out i had checked out an outcome and i

39:27Matt Singer:was thinking about artemis and i was thinking about all because of jonah hill on the toilet it and i mean i have known about the nastro astronauts since before i was born you know before and you too we all we never knew a time we're young enough that we never knew a time when man had not walked on the moon if i'd known that this is what they had to do you would have become an astronaut no i would have i would have said they should have stayed home it's just not worth it i mean artemis they've got it worked out the other thing i didn't like about outcome

39:56Jordan Hoffman:Wait, I want to say one thing.

39:58Matt Singer:Please do.

40:00Jordan Hoffman:That incredibly long and disgusting story, I think, again, illustrates what we're trying to get at here, which is you could make a, like, what you're describing is a great premise for a stupid Jonah Hill, Seth Rogen movie. Like astronauts in space and what do they do when they have to take a dump and it's uncomfortable. That's funny. Yes. What's not funny is a crisis lawyer eating and going, oh, my stomach rumbles. I need the restroom. And then the scene continues in the restroom where you're, again, if your crisis lawyer made you go into the bathroom with him, you would fire him immediately. I completely agree.

40:43Jordan Hoffman:All right. Let's wrap this up. Is there anything else we need to touch on that hopefully does not involve interstellar defecation?

40:51Matt Singer:No, no. Very quickly. he's on this vision quest where he has to go and visit all the people that's wronged him his mother played by susan lucci his ex-manager played by martin scorsese um other people and a lot of those scenes become very serious and it's like a little monologue i forget who was the actress who um uh she was actually quite i mean her her performance was good but it's like what am i watching here? Why is this so serious? And she's giving a monologue. I just met her 30 seconds ago. Now she's giving a monologue. It's a good monologue. And it's about how she was wronged by Keanu Reeves, but you have no emotional investment in any of this.

41:32Matt Singer:And then the movie moves on and it moves on to the next monologue. And I just found that to be such a collision of genres. It was further evidence that Mr. Hill, his co-writer, and this whole production was just a botched disaster and this movie should never have been made.

41:49Jordan Hoffman:Well, again, we've now talked, I don't know the exact timing, but something like 40 plus minutes maybe about this film and it took this long to even mention Cameron Diaz is in this movie. Yeah, she is in it. She's not very

42:01Matt Singer:good.

42:02Jordan Hoffman:And so is Matt Bomer, another actor who we, I don't think we've even mentioned him yet either.

42:07Matt Singer:No, because he's annoying in it also. I mean, it's not his fault.

42:10Jordan Hoffman:David Spade is also in this movie. Did we mention that again but it is a series of scenes where you know one-on-one or one-on-two scenes where keanu reeves goes to speak to someone and they sit i mean it is the almost the the textbook definition of tell don't show which is the not the way you're supposed to do it and and it just it is again that is yet another strange choice that i cannot under understand about this i guess intended to be this kind of probing consideration of celebrity and cancel culture, but it's also only 80 minutes long and it is filled with jokes about, you know, pooping and it's just a very, very strange object.

42:56Jordan Hoffman:And as you said many, many minutes ago, if it is not the worst thing we review on this podcast for the foreseeable future, we are in real trouble. And there may be another eight-year hiatus coming in the near future the title is also a pun maybe yes i don't want to get in we don't want to spoil why but it is yeah yeah it's a little bit of a pun it took me

43:20Matt Singer:i i the movie it was like maybe even the next day when it hit me i'm like oh that was a pun

43:24Jordan Hoffman:i'm glad that thinking about the uh you know the bathroom rituals of of astronauts did not take you away from appreciating that brilliant uh pun in the title outcome which if if and after this conversation i'm sure someone's gonna go i gotta see this yeah you kind of have to it's so bad

43:47Matt Singer:it's just you know if you have apple plus already you might as well throw it on just for a few minutes if you were to do out of 10 what would you give this a letter a number grade out of 10

43:55Jordan Hoffman:Out of 10, maybe a loofah? I don't know. I don't know. Maybe a three?

44:05Matt Singer:I was going to go two. I was going to go two. There you go.

44:08Jordan Hoffman:So Outcome is currently streaming on Apple TV+. Are you ready? We're already started. How lucky can one man get?

44:23All right.

44:24Jordan Hoffman:Well, that was our that was our review of outcome, among other discussion points. But let's let's say you don't have Apple TV Plus and you have no intention of subscribing. In this case, maybe that's a good thing. Or maybe you want to watch a movie about Hollywood that's not incredibly bad. Or maybe your name is actually Reef Hawk. And you can't bear the thought of watching another person named Reef Hawk suffer because the world is a cruel place to wealthy, handsome movie stars who treat everyone in their lives badly. Well, Jordan and I can help with that. We each have a related recommendation for you as an alternative or maybe a supplement to outcome.

45:14Jordan Hoffman:We've each got one.

45:15Matt Singer:Do you think Reef is short for Reefer or Reefland? I was going to say, what would it be short for? Reefland. Is that a name? Well, is Reef a name? I mean, it's probably a nickname. It's probably a name. Rodolfo. I don't, I mean. Rodolfo Reef in quotes. Rodolfo Hawk? Hawk could be a last name. That I'm going to accept. But Reef is, well, I don't know.

45:45Jordan Hoffman:I mean, they call him, I mean, the movie opens, you know what, we should talk more about outcome. But the movie opens with a clip of, it's actually, I mean, I recognize the clip. It's Joey Lawrence. It's Joey Lawrence from Blossom as a five-year-old on The Tonight Show. And they have Johnny Carson introduce him. And instead of saying Joey Lawrence, he says, please welcome Reef Hawk. You know, they insert a bad dubbing. But he calls him Reef. So if he had a nickname, he had it his whole life is my point.

46:18Matt Singer:Wait, I just had a brilliant idea that was in no way texted to me by our producer, Sam. This is totally my idea. Reef is Jonah Hill's way of apologizing to his former girlfriend, who was the surfer. That's my insight. You cracked it. Not Sam's. Sam cracked it. All right.

46:40Jordan Hoffman:We got to re-re-re - Sam, let's stop down. We're going to re-record the first segment. I now love the movie. It is now a masterpiece. No, let's get to our recommendations. You go first. You want me to go first here? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Go ahead. Okay. Well, we talked quite a bit during our review of Outcome about a lot of things. But one of the things we talked about was Keanu Reeves, an actor I do like. And so for my themed recommendation, I'm going to give you not only another Keanu Reeves movie, But another recent Keanu Reeves movie and one that I think really underlines how bad of a choice he was for outcome.

47:19Jordan Hoffman:And it's the movie Good Fortune, which came out just last year. It was written and directed by and co-stars Aziz Ansari. He plays a gig worker who swaps lives with a wealthy tech bro played by another person we mentioned quite a few times in that segment. segment, even though he's not involved in that movie, poor man, to be affiliated with it without actually being affiliated with it, Seth Rogen. And this whole body swap scenario is due to the actions of a well-intentioned but slightly inept guardian angel who is played by the one and the only Reef Hawk. I'm sorry, Keanu Reeves. And we kind of talked about this in the review, but in outcome, Jonah Hill casts Keanu as like a bad dude.

48:09Jordan Hoffman:He's a narcissist. He only cares about himself. He's only making amends to these people because he's trying to figure out who's holding this blackmail material, you know? And I just don't, again, I don't think that is what Keanu Reeves is good for, especially at this point in his life. Again, like we talked, I talked about it, like, you know, you think about him as, as John Wick. You think about him as these, you know, As Bill and Ted, you just think about him as this guy who you just like. And I feel like if Guardian Angels exist, they probably would have a kind of genial zen vibe like Keanu Reeves has.

48:47Jordan Hoffman:So he is the perfect guy to play that sort of role. And he's wonderful in Good Fortune. He is the best part of the film. The rest of the film, I would say, is only okay. the story is I think conceptually sound but again kind of like outcome it crams a lot into a short movie it's a little longer than outcome but it's only like 95 minutes and you have the stories of Aziz you have Seth Rogen you have Keanu and you also have a like a fourth main character played by Kiki Palmer who's like another gig worker and there's body swaps and all this stuff about you know, the divine and social commentary about how we relate to the world through these apps now like Uber Eats and, you know, apps like that.

49:34Jordan Hoffman:And, you know, there's there's all this kind of commentary about wealth and there's jokes about the Will Smith movie Hitch. It just feels like a season of television that has been kind of crammed into a feature. but if you want to see Keanu being good you know right now or last year recent yeah yeah he is he is so good in that movie he is you know and it's not just that well he's kind of it's a better fit for him you know part of the movie without spoiling too much involves his character becoming mortal and experiencing mortal pleasures for the first time and just the one scene in that movie where Keanu Reeves eats a cheeseburger for the first time is more fun and just more satisfying than the entirety of the movie that we spent 90 minutes talking about at the start of this show.

50:32Matt Singer:Wow. Jeff, could you imagine seeing strawberries

50:37Jordan Hoffman:for thousands of years but never actually knowing the sweet taste enclosed in those magical berries?

50:44Matt Singer:I can't imagine. And in all fairness, that's a chocolate milkshake. You know, it's funny. I never saw it. It's, you know, I don't know why. It was one of those ones that slipped through the cracks. I did want to see it. I like Aziz a lot. It just slipped through the cracks, and I forgot about its existence until right. Thank God for a show like Film Spotting SVU, because this is a recent movie that's now on streaming. Yes. I really should have checked out because it looked funny. And like I said, I like everybody involved, but I don't know why I didn't see it. I'm a huge Aziz fan. I'm team Aziz.

51:23Matt Singer:You and a lot of people.

51:24Jordan Hoffman:This movie was a theatrical comedy. It did not do well. Movie theaters are not a great place for comedy.

51:30Matt Singer:What was going on in that week that I didn't go? What was in my life? I don't know. Was it a summertime thing?

51:34Jordan Hoffman:I'm terrified to think about who you were thinking about pooping that week.

51:39Matt Singer:Oh, stop. Please. I'm a man of character. I don't talk about those things. Okay.

51:42Jordan Hoffman:But in any event, it is a movie where it's a good streaming movie because it's not perfect, but it has some nice elements to it. And I think best of all is Keanu. And compared to Outcome, it's basically It's a Wonderful Life.

51:58Matt Singer:No, it did poorly at the box office. It made less than it cost. It came out in mid-October. That's a busy time. And I just slipped through the cracks. I apologize. And Sandra Oh was in it, too. Yes.

52:10Jordan Hoffman:Another great cast.

52:12Matt Singer:Stephen McKinley Henderson is in this movie as another angel. Oh, my God. That's right. Sherry Cola. She's funny, too. This movie's great. Just keep saying what you see, Jordan.

52:22Jordan Hoffman:Oh, my God. Yeah.

52:23Matt Singer:Penny Johnson, Cassidy Yates from Deep Space Nine is in this movie.

52:27Jordan Hoffman:Oh, well, here we go.

52:29Matt Singer:Can I give you my recommendation?

52:31Jordan Hoffman:Let me just tell people where they can watch it, first of all.

52:34Matt Singer:On the television. I don't know. On one of those streams. They can watch it on Starz. Oh. Starz.

52:39Jordan Hoffman:Or you can rent it on various digital platforms.

52:43Matt Singer:Yeah, that's the one. Everything's on Amazon for$3.99 or Apple for$3.99 or what's the other one? Fandango at Home. There's one more. But like Bazooka or something like that. Some stupid name. Bazooka? No, there's another one of those things that nobody uses. That's like a streaming. That's a$3.99. Everybody uses only Amazon.

53:06Jordan Hoffman:Do we have a graphic designer who can make a bazooka shirt?

53:09Matt Singer:Because I want a bazooka shirt. Hold on. What's the one? Is it Bugu or something? I've never used it. Voodoo. Voodoo. V-U-D-U. That's what it is. Voodoo. Okay. You've heard of voodoo, right? Sure. How you got from voodoo to bazooka was something silly. no one on planet earth has ever used if you want to pay the$3.99 it's Amazon or Apple that's Pepsi and Coke those are the only two options watch Voodoo is now going to want to sponsor the show and I'm going to have to delete all this but let's but you should watch it on stars is what watch it on stars yes all right what is your what is your related recommendation I'm going to make it quick I first of all much like Reef Hawk made amends to those that he wronged I would like to make amends a little bit to Jonah Hill.

54:02Matt Singer:I was pretty harsh on him about his current slate of films. He's in the doghouse now. He's made a couple of stinkers, but he can be good. I liked his film Mid-90s, which he directed and probably wrote or co-wrote. But something that he was in that nobody remembers and is relatively recent is a pretty good movie. It's not a great movie, but it's a good streaming movie. I would not recommend going to the theater to watch it. But it's a film that came out in 2018 called Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far on Foot. Did you see this film?

54:35Jordan Hoffman:You know, I'm trying to remember if I did or not.

54:38Matt Singer:I may not have. Yeah, it was not a big success. It is an Amazon film that did have a theatrical run, which even today Amazon hasn't really. Well, no, they finally cracked the code now. They did. With Project Hail Mary. That's probably their first true bona fide hit. Huge hit.

54:57Jordan Hoffman:And yet, do we see Ryan Gosling pooping it one time into a bag? Not once.

55:02Matt Singer:Anyway. Well, you got to read the book for that. So, the, the, the, the, so anyway, Amazon put out, don't worry, he won't get far on foot. Very quickly, it's written and directed by Gus Van Sant, who's made a lot of wonderful movies, and he's made a few clunkers as well. And it is based on a true story about a fellow by the name of John Callahan. And John Callahan was a satirical cartoonist, and he was a quadriplegic and recovering alcoholic. And it's the John Callahan story. It's a very sad, but the movie's not sad. It's a very darkly comic movie about a guy who finds sobriety and happiness after a very, very long struggle.

55:45Matt Singer:When we first meet him, he is a deeply, deeply alcoholic person, a very troubled person. And he gets into a car accident and he, you know, he can't walk, he can't move. Then he's struggling and he's depressed and he's drinking more. And then over time, he finds meaning in life by becoming a cartoonist and also through sobriety. And it's a pretty standard 12 steps movie. I mean, it's nothing too original. It's about a guy becoming sober. And there are many great films about this. The lead actor is, the lead performance is played by Joaquin Phoenix. And he's very, very good in it. And his sponsor, his AA sponsor is Jonah Hill.

56:31Matt Singer:And he's almost unrecognizable in the film. It was the first movie he made when he really changed his look. I mean, I saw this movie at its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival. And I barely knew anything about it. I didn't even know Jonah Hill was in it. And I swear to you, it took a couple of scenes for me to go, oh, my God, that's Jonah Hill. It was like the first time I saw him, he was really thin. He had long blonde hair and he's playing a hippie California rich gay AA sponsor who's very like philosophical and funny. And he basically gets Joaquin Phoenix on on the path to righteousness.

57:13Matt Singer:And he's very, very, very good in this supporting role. I don't know, John Callahan. I'm serious. I am serious. You know, sometimes I just make jokes because I get nervous. But I need something.

57:28Jordan Hoffman:You know,

57:29Matt Singer:every day, like clockwork, at 4 p.m., I get massively depressed.

57:36Jordan Hoffman:Well, I'm depressed from the moment I wake up, so got you there.

57:40Matt Singer:Listen, we're having a group talk. My place on Saturday. Why don't you drop by? The movie does not revolutionize. It doesn't reinvent the wheel. It's a pretty standard sobriety film. It's good. Joaquin Phoenix is always good. And it's a little, I remember, it's a little long. It's 117 minutes. It's a little long. But it's something that I do recommend. And Jonah Hill is terrific as the sponsor. And totally, like, you know how we were saying in Outcome, you know, like, what is that look he's doing? He looks crazy. Yes. He looks equally crazy and not crazy, but he looks like you like you don't expect him to look in this to just like what is that hair?

58:21Matt Singer:Is that a wig? What is he wearing? But it's a case of him using that look to a higher purpose of creating a real character, whereas an outcome. He's just like a maniac zipping around, telling jokes, taking, you know, being on the toilet. So I recommend, listeners, this was a forgotten film from 2018, so it's just old enough now for people to remember it. It's not a masterpiece, but it's something that you might watch and say, hey, this slipped through the cracks and is pretty good.

58:51Jordan Hoffman:I think I'm pretty sure it did slip through the cracks for me. And I mean, I also love Joaquin Phoenix. So I'm kind of surprised that I didn't catch up with it. So this is one that I would like to watch. So tell me, where can I watch it, Jordan?

59:04Matt Singer:Well, it was produced by Amazon, so I would imagine that it's on Amazon. Should I confirm that?

59:12Jordan Hoffman:It would probably be useful to the listeners if they can do that.

59:16Matt Singer:Don't worry. Sam is saying it is. It is on Prime. I'm going to check also. It's on Prime, and it's also on Bazooka. No, it's on if you have the subscription to Prime, which means also you get free delivery of towels to your house. But I think you could also, if you want to pay to see it, it is on Fandango at home. And there you go. Oh, my gosh.

59:47Jordan Hoffman:Sam has already somehow made a bazooka logo.

59:53Matt Singer:Hold on.

59:54Jordan Hoffman:You got to open up the slack. I got to open the chat. This is great content for an audio podcast, but we'll have to put this. We're going to blast this out on our socials, and we will make sure that Bazooka takes over the world.

1:00:06Matt Singer:Oh, there it is. Bazooka. Film VOD rental. Bazooka. I mean, that's what the, you know, every internet company that you've never heard of, they all sound like Bazooka. I mean, I'll give you this.

1:00:20Jordan Hoffman:There are so many stupid names for streaming sites, and they all are spelled idiotically, that Bazooka is not that far from reality.

1:00:31Matt Singer:No, I was on the New York City subway just yesterday and every ad is for an AI company doing God knows what. They're maximizing your synergy and minimizing your growth of the potential of your outcomes. And there are all these AI companies and they all could have just been called bazooka.ai. Every single one of them.

1:00:53Jordan Hoffman:I'll give you this. Bazooka is funnier than the equivalent version of that joke that could have been an outcome. If they had had a fake streaming service. I'm honored.

1:01:05Matt Singer:Hey, Matt Singer, I'm told that there's another chapter in this show where we talk about another thing that we've streamed recently that does not necessarily have a connection to outcome. And it's called streaming. What is it called again? What do we call it? It's the first episode.

1:01:23Jordan Hoffman:We're still kind of. Figuring out what we want to keep from the classic SVU and how we can kind of update this formula for the world of streaming as it is now, which is really so much different than it was eight years ago or even older than that when we started doing it. And at that time, we had segments that were kind of built around, you know, we're going to give you this many recommendations that are new on streaming. And we're going to tell you two things that are on our my lists. You know, you used to have a kind of a running queue on Netflix that was very important to what you watched. Now, it still exists on your Netflix account and on other streaming sites.

1:02:09Jordan Hoffman:But now it's all algorithms and they just shovel things into your eyeballs based on the last thing you watched. You know, you watched 10 minutes of this documentary about bees. Here's a documentary about bears or whatever. You know, like that is literally the hellscape that we live in now. So we're trying to think of like how we can make recommendations to you, the listener, but maybe make it more fun, more relevant, more interesting. So we've given you some recommendations that directly connect to our review. And then I just thought it would be fun because clearly Jordan Hoffman is a man who will say anything about anything, as he's proven already.

1:02:47Jordan Hoffman:I just thought it would be fun to kind of be honest about what we are watching ourselves. Things that we're watching, not necessarily for work, for the podcast, for a writing assignment. What are we what what have we watched lately? And that's why I thought it'd be fun to kind of have some radical streaming honesty on this show.

1:03:08Matt Singer:I agree. I think it's great. Do you want to go first?

1:03:10Jordan Hoffman:Tell us something you've seen lately that you would recommend.

1:03:13Matt Singer:Yeah. And actually, I'm not embarrassed by this. It's actually something pretty cool that I watched last night. I am a huge fan of Canopy, which is embarrassing to you, Matt Singer, because you live in the greatest city on Earth, New York City. And the one problem with New York City is you don't actually have access to Canopy. It's true. It's it's the it's it's that's as they say in the movie outcome, it's your cosmic tax is what they is a line from outcome. But for most Americans and I do not live in New York City, I used to I lived in New York City for most of my life. But I now live in the glorious paradise that is Monmouth County, New Jersey, on very close to the border of Ocean County, New Jersey.

1:03:58Matt Singer:The reason I bring that up is that I, as a resident of the Monmouth Ocean area, I have access to both county library systems, which means I have a bounty of Canopy. Canopy, for those listening who don't know, is a streaming service that is basically free with any public library card. You can't use it ad infinitum. You get X amount of tokens. It depends on your system. For Monmouth County, I get 12 tokens per month. And you can stream anything. And different things are different. Some things are only one token. Most things are two. If you want to rent, I don't know, season six of Friends or something, then that's maybe four tokens.

1:04:40Jordan Hoffman:We should say Canopy, if people don't know it, is with a K. Because, again, all these things have to have weird, silly names like Bazooka. It's not Canopy with a C. It's Canopy with a K.

1:04:52Matt Singer:Yeah, it's ridiculous. I mean, so it's Canopy with a K. Anyway, so Canopy does program a lot of cool stuff there. It's great. It's kind of like it's a little bit PBS. I mean, they're through the library, so they want to be a little educational, but they have junky movies on there, too. But the one thing they do have a lot of and this is going to make me sound like a big snooty pants. And trust me, I'm not. I just talked a lot about Neil Armstrong going to the bathroom. My wife is a visual artist and she went to art school and that is, you know, her passion in life. And by osmosis, by being with her for so long, I too have an interest in art history and art.

1:05:31Matt Singer:And Canopy has a tremendous deep bench of great documentaries about artists. And some of these documentaries are not even what you think of. Some of them are just like visits to the museum. there's a british series called exhibitions on screen you know it's kind of like when that they do the opera on at the theater yes it's almost like that it's kind of a similar thing so let's say for example the national gallery in london has a great show of edward manet they'll just like tour it and you'll just get to sit and watch it it's pretty cool so we we go through these pretty regularly and the one that i watched last night was actually though it's pretty standard documentary And I'm sure you could find it elsewhere than Canopy, but that's how I discovered.

1:06:17Matt Singer:And it is a film from 2016 called Revolution, colon, New Art for a New World. And it is about the early days of avant-garde Soviet visual arts, which, I mean, we've been talking a lot about Jonah Hill and pooping and whatnot. But this this this shows this shows the width and breadth of what the recommendations are a true renaissance man. Exactly. This is a really, really interesting movie about Soviet art and Russian art and Russia in general. The movie was made in Russia in 2016. You could not make it right now because, you know, Russia is currently invading Ukraine and it's not a very good situation in there.

1:07:04Matt Singer:and certainly in Ukraine or in Russia right now. But it's just about this very, I'll summarize and then I'll shut up about it because I know this is a very esoteric topic, but it's about, there was a very brief window in time right after the Russian Revolution in 1917 when the government, Lenin, you know, wanted to sponsor new art and they were really changing the rules of everything. You know, they overthrew the czar. They wanted to instill this cockamamie idea called communism. For a little while, it looked like a good idea. And they empowered all these radical artists to do interesting things and, you know, supportive, like, you know, all those early famous posters you see of Lenin, you know, pointing and just that cool look, that early look.

1:07:50And it was a little bit of a utopia for the artists for four, not even four years, three years.

1:07:56Matt Singer:By 1921, They were all being, you know, they were all leaving and there were there was a civil war and then there was Stalin and the purges and half of these artists were shot. You know, Soviet Russia was not exactly any place you wanted to go. But this movie gets into it all the politics of it all. I learned a lot about Lenin and Stalin, but it's really just a documentary about these artists and some of whom I've heard of. I've heard of Kazimir Malevich. I've heard of Vasily Kandinsky. I've heard of Mark Chagall. those are the three that I had heard of and then six others that I'd never heard of so it was pretty cool.

1:08:29Matt Singer:My recommendation is Revolution colon new art for a new world directed by a woman by the name of Margie Kinmonth British documentarian Margie Kinmonth who I was reading her Wikipedia page apparently her father is maybe it's her grandfather knew Ian Fleming and based M on him. Wow Wow. To bring it all to movies? Or, yeah. No, Kathleen was the daughter of John Henry Godfrey, a Navy intelligence officer on whom Ian Fleming is said to have based M. And that was her father. So that's cool. Nothing to do with the film. No. But anyway, revolution colon new art for new world. I watched it last night. I learned a lot about Soviet art.

1:09:16Matt Singer:I liked looking at the paintings I'd never seen before. I felt a little smart. And now I get to brag that I can come off like a smart guy here on SVU.

1:09:24Jordan Hoffman:You can. You certainly can. And I love the range here, not just in what you've been talking about, but in where we're going to go from that movie to my random recommendation, which I can assure you is not about art history. I after seeing a lot of people talking about this movie online, I decided to watch something called Pizza Movie. This is a yes. This is a druggy comedy newly added to Hulu. It stars Gatton Matarazzo from Stranger Things and Sean Gambroni from the Goldbergs is directed by these sketch comedians that I honestly was not all that familiar with. Brian McElhinney and Nick Coker. The premise is so unbelievably simple, even a drug-addled college kid could follow it, which I'm sure is the point.

1:10:16Jordan Hoffman:Two college roommates take an experimental drug they discover in their ceiling. And it is only after they ingest this that they realize that, one, the drug is going to hit them in multiple stages. And in between each stage will be some momentary lucidity just to really amp up the suspense. while they're under the effects of the drug, they're going to have all these weird hallucinations, all these strange things are going to happen to them, like they're going to think that they have swapped bodies, or they're going to be attacked with a chainsaw by their worst nightmare. And then the second element is that the only thing that can nullify these effects, which they've already taken the drug, there's nothing they can do about that, unless they eat pizza, which they have already ordered, but it is waiting in the lobby of their dorm.

1:11:11Jordan Hoffman:So they have to go downstairs while high to get it. So if the very notion of a movie where the entire plot is about people trying to go down a couple of flights of stairs while high, if that idea makes you smile, as Jordan is smiling and chuckling right now, you will probably enjoy a pizza movie. Where did these come from? Oh my God. Presenting!

1:11:36Matt Singer:mints it's an incredible high no come on no no no no no no no no don't ask me why they decided to go with the name pizza movie other than you know they thought maybe people will be googling

1:11:53Jordan Hoffman:for it writing like movie where guy takes drugs and orders pizza and they figured pizza movie was like a good seo play for that maybe it is not a great title but it is a fun movie i enjoyed it And it has some very amusing psychedelic sequences. I particularly liked this stretch where they discover that saying something, and I don't think this is spoiling it because they kind of lay out what's going to happen before it happens. they discover that if they say any sort of profanity it will cause their heads to explode and send them almost like a groundhog day style back to like a few minutes earlier when that when this kind of stage of the drug kicked in and so it's almost like a gauntlet of trying to not

1:12:39Matt Singer:say profanity for a few minutes and it's like it's like it becomes a game of game effect of

1:12:43Jordan Hoffman:looping it is like an improv game almost did you see it's not streaming yet so we'll talk about

1:12:49Matt Singer:an X amount of months. Do you see Exit 8 yet?

1:12:51Jordan Hoffman:I have not seen Exit 8 yet, but I would like to.

1:12:54Matt Singer:When Exit 8 comes to streaming, it will not be a streaming movie because it's in theaters right now. Thank you. And by the way, overperformed. It did quite well. It's a neon release of a Japanese movie based on a video game. And it did quite well. And it's what you just talked about with pizza movie, but scary. Yes. And not about pizza.

1:13:17Jordan Hoffman:Yes. So I haven't seen that yet, but this, this movie, I thought very clever kind of play for a streaming movie. I could see it doing very well, you know, with that core audience. I could see it being a streaming favorite on college campuses among, you know, the youngs who partake in illicit substances. We are not the youngs. We are the old, Jordan. We should make that very clear.

1:13:42Matt Singer:So much so that I, when I eat pizza, I have to have Tums after. That's how much.

1:13:46Jordan Hoffman:We're, we're, yeah. Young people, they don't subscribe to bazooka like us. They're creating bazooka. Only olds are in on bazooka. And I don't know. I don't know. Maybe college kids won't watch it. Do college kids watch movies anymore? We're too old to know, honestly.

1:14:01Matt Singer:They're on TikTok. They once in a while watch a movie.

1:14:04Jordan Hoffman:Well, if they chop it up on TikTok and put it on TikTok, people, I think they will enjoy it.

1:14:10Matt Singer:If Zendaya is in it, they watch it. She's not in this one. I don't know.

1:14:14Jordan Hoffman:So if you are so inclined, Pizza Movie, a very kind of very genial, very likable drug comedy. And again, it is on Hulu. Hello, Amanda. You don't know me, but I know you.

1:14:31Matt Singer:I want to play a game.

1:14:33Jordan Hoffman:All right. As everyone's favorite movie character, Jigsaw from the Saw franchise likes to say, I want to play a game. And this week, I'm going to test Jordan's knowledge and the knowledge of producer Sam Van Halger. And Sam, thank you for joining. This is my vision here. I am so thrilled. I am so thrilled. To be here on the premiere episode, the debut. This is really exciting. The resurrected SVU. I love it. As a longtime FilmSpotting listener, too, it's fun to be doing a podcast with Sam and now making him be on microphone. I can remember those early episodes where it was all Sam and Adam. So this is great.

1:15:14Jordan Hoffman:This is like a flashback from pizza movie that I'm living inside. So I am going to test Jordan and Sam's knowledge of the star of our featured review this week by asking questions based on information from Keanu Reeves' page on Letterboxd. This is Letterboxd-ing I Knew Keanu edition. We are going to test your knowledge. Letterboxd, one of my favorite websites and apps. I use it to log everything I'm watching, keep track of what I've seen, what I haven't seen. I probably saw a lot of people logging Pizza Movie on there. That was one of the places that I saw that. Jordan I know Sam I know you guys are both on Letterboxd It's a great site I use it all the time so I'm going to ask You questions I have six questions here That I gleaned from Reading Keanu Reeves Letterboxd Page and we're going to see how Well you do Jordan are you ready you look very pensive

1:16:13Matt Singer:I'm nervous because There's a I do have some Keanu Reeves gaps you know I've never I never I never saw 47 Ronin you know

1:16:23Jordan Hoffman:We're going to find out how well you know. I've got no gaps. There are no gaps here.

1:16:28Matt Singer:Okay. All right.

1:16:29Jordan Hoffman:Here we go. Question number one. And I guess I would say raise your hand, but people won't be able to see that. So maybe just buzz in somehow or say, yes. Yeah. Give me a buzz and we'll see who answers first. Here we go. Question one. Keanu Reeves' bio on Letterboxd begins by listing four of his best known films. I'm going to give you three of them. You tell me what the fourth film is. Ready? Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, Speed, Point Break, and Blank. Jordan. The Matrix. That is correct. Jordan is on the board. You're so quick. The Matrix is the correct answer.

1:17:10Matt Singer:There's so many people in leather pants in The Matrix.

1:17:15Jordan Hoffman:Yes. And they all look amazing. And then after that movie came out, everyone in every movie had leather pants.

1:17:22Matt Singer:And the sunglasses.

1:17:23Jordan Hoffman:The X-Men were wearing leather pants.

1:17:26Matt Singer:I like the phone. I like the old phone. The slide phone. Yeah. You press a button.

1:17:31Jordan Hoffman:It still looks futuristic, even though now we have much better phones.

1:17:35Matt Singer:I don't know why that is. I know Kung Fu. Let me ask you something about The Matrix. In that moment, he's in the real world, right? He's out of the video game. Not video game. The Matrix. It's literally the Matrix.

1:17:49Jordan Hoffman:It is the titular Matrix.

1:17:51Matt Singer:He's out of the Matrix and he's in the ship, the Nebuchadnezzar. Yes. Then how, if he's in the real world, how do they inject him with the knowledge of Kung Fu? Because they're in the real world already.

1:18:02Jordan Hoffman:They stick it in his brain with the little brain spike. It's in his brain. He's got the whole thing.

1:18:04Matt Singer:But you can't do that in the real world. You can do that in the fake world.

1:18:07Jordan Hoffman:Jordan, I don't want to, I don't mean to blow your mind. Has this been bugging you since 99? Blow your mind Keanu Reeves style, Jordan, but that film is not a documentary. Wow. And also, it's not the real world 99, though. It's some future time. I mean, it's like the Matrix is 99. Yes. They live in the world 99, but it's like we fought the machines. We've had the machine battle. That's right. Well into the future. You're absolutely right. Injecting people with kung fu has been around for decades. They have all kinds of technology in that future to stick things in your brain, to pull poops out of your, wherever.

1:18:41Matt Singer:Do they ever say officially when the real stuff is, when Joey Tance is eating a steak and all that? Do they say when that is?

1:18:51Jordan Hoffman:I don't know the lore well enough to just come up with that off the dome, but they've made so many games and Animatrixes. The Animatrix. It must be out there.

1:19:00Matt Singer:Very quick, just show of hands. The Matrix is good and the others are terrible, right? Largely unseen by me.

1:19:07Jordan Hoffman:I mean, the first one is a masterpiece. The other ones are, I would say, varying degrees of interesting to bizarre and hard to get through.

1:19:16Matt Singer:I think the most recent one, believe it or not, is the most watchable of the sequels. It's kind of interesting.

1:19:21Jordan Hoffman:I don't dislike that one.

1:19:23Matt Singer:The second and third one I can't do, even with the rave scene. I know some people love them and Cornel West is in it and whatnot and people write essays. Boring. Jordan, can I ask you a question?

1:19:34Jordan Hoffman:You have been on an actual game show. You were on, what was it called? The Jeopardy? Jeopardy. Jeopardy fan. What was it? The fan edition? What was it called? Jeopardy. Pop Culture Jeopardy. Pop Culture.

1:19:47Matt Singer:Yeah. What is Pop Culture Jeopardy?

1:19:49Jordan Hoffman:When you were on that show, did you just like vamp for 20 minutes with Colin Jost? This is a quiz here. All right. All right.

1:19:57Matt Singer:Quiz me up. Quiz me up, Scotty. I'm sorry. You're right. We're trying to get to two hours here, Matt.

1:20:01Jordan Hoffman:Come on.

1:20:01Matt Singer:We want two hours.

1:20:03Jordan Hoffman:Debut. I'm sorry to answer a question and then Jordan just goes off on the mail. Let me ask you a question. Let me ask you a question. of the Apollo missions. About Bazooka. How long has Bazooka been around? Who owns Bazooka?

1:20:15Matt Singer:When we get to a Colin Jost movie, I'll tell you my Colin Jost story. I can't wait. We're going to have to pick one.

1:20:21Jordan Hoffman:All right. Here we go. Question number two, which because it's been so long, I should remind people these are questions about Keanu Reeves gleaned from his Letterboxd page. Here we go. Number two. Keanu's best reviewed film of the 1980s among Letterboxd users was, Is this period film co-starring Glenn Close, John Malkovich, and Michelle Pfeiffer? It's a dangerous liaison. That is correct. Oh, shit. That is Keanu Reeves' best reviewed film of the 80s. I was thinking maybe he was in Valmont, which was, of course, another adaptation of Liaison d 'Agera. You know what I was going to say?

1:21:03Matt Singer:I would have been wrong. Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure? That was my guess. I was going to, and not only that, I believe it was the 90s. I was going to say Much Ado About Nothing.

1:21:13Jordan Hoffman:Oh, that is the 90s, but I mean, I don't think any of those particular actors are in that movie.

1:21:18Matt Singer:Yeah, well, not as new, but they could have been. Glenn Close could have been in that. I guess theoretically. No, good call. So we're tied at one. It's 1-1. Here we go. Okay, yeah.

1:21:28Jordan Hoffman:Number three, the longest film of Keanu Reeves' career, again, according to Letterboxd, is one of the more notable chapters of his career. What is it, Sam? I'm going to go with John Wick, Chapter 3. That is incorrect. Jordan, do you want to take a guess?

1:21:50Matt Singer:I guess I'll steal and say John Wick, Chapter 2.

1:21:53Jordan Hoffman:That is also incorrect. It was John Wick, Chapter 4. I own John Wick, Chapter 4. All right. We remain tied at one point apiece. One point apiece. Okay. Question number four. Now, when you go on an actor's filmography on Letterboxd, you can arrange the titles alphabetically. When you do that for Keanu Reeves, the first title listed is an obscure documentary about the career of Richard Linklater. The second movie listed is this infamous bomb, a big budget action movie where Keanu plays an outcast samurai. Oh. Oh, it's 47 Ronin.

1:22:38Matt Singer:Because the alphabetical is with numbers. Yes.

1:22:43Jordan Hoffman:Jordan, you didn't buzz in, but I will give it to you.

1:22:45Matt Singer:47 Ronin.

1:22:46Jordan Hoffman:I'll give it to you. It's just very funny because that was the random movie you mentioned. And yet you couldn't pull it from your brain when I actually asked a question about it.

1:22:56Matt Singer:Well, you know, it's funny because I don't have time to get into this. We don't. We definitely don't. I actually was on the set of 47 Ronin.

1:23:05Jordan Hoffman:Oh, really?

1:23:06Matt Singer:Which one of the 47 did you play? You were number, which one, 38? I was there on a press tour in a previous chapter of my life. I don't have the energy to get into the story right now, but actually that's where I met Keanu. He was very, very charming. He actually kind of made a joke about me.

1:23:23Jordan Hoffman:Get this man away from me.

1:23:25Matt Singer:Yeah, but he was very, very charming. And then that movie was like, even from visiting the set, I'm like, this movie's going to suck. And then they delayed it for a year. It's like in and I don't think it. And then the director, I think he he wasn't in director's jail. I think he went to jail jail. Didn't he do something?

1:23:43Jordan Hoffman:Carl Rinch.

1:23:44Matt Singer:Carl Rinch.

1:23:45Jordan Hoffman:Actually, Jordan is correct. There was a whole not about that movie specifically. I don't believe, but I think he did something. Yes, he did something after the fact. Yes, I was reading about that. It was involving, oh yeah, he has a whole area of his Wikipedia page. Oh, he defrauded Netflix. Abandoned Netflix series and legal disputes and then arrest and indictment. That's a subsection you never want on your Wikipedia page. But yes, Carl Rinch, the director of 47 Ronin. You're absolutely right. Good pull there, Jordan. No bonus points for that, but I'm still impressed. All right.

1:24:18Matt Singer:Yeah, yeah.

1:24:19Jordan Hoffman:So we have a score of two to one, Jordan. We have two questions left. All right. Still have a chance. So you're saying there's a chance. Yes. This one might be a trickier one. They're getting harder, at least in my mind.

1:24:32Matt Singer:What's the Rick Linklater doc? I didn't even know there was one.

1:24:38Jordan Hoffman:You're going to make me now look this up on the fly, but we'll find this out. We'll come back with this information before the end of the show.

1:24:45Matt Singer:Okay.

1:24:47Jordan Hoffman:Here we go. Question number five. According to Letterboxd, Keanu Reeves has appeared in 140 films as an actor. He has only appeared or only made, I should say, one as a director. Can you name the one film that Keanu Reeves directed? Sam. Okay, I'm not going to get it exactly right, but it has Tai Chi in the title. Is that correct? That is correct. Can you get close? The man who knew Tai Chi, the man... You have three of the four words correct. The man of Tai Chi. The man of Tai Chi, the man for. The man of is no the, but it's cleaner without it. Man of Tai Chi. I am going to give it to you. You got it.

1:25:32Matt Singer:Very good.

1:25:33Jordan Hoffman:Man of Tai Chi. Famously the movie where he said, you owe me a life about five or six times. Very strangely.

1:25:43Matt Singer:I thought he directed that documentary about digital cinema. About Jonah Hill's therapist?

1:25:49Jordan Hoffman:No, that was Jonah Hill. Maybe he directed something else according to his Letterboxd page when you can filter by their different credits and their different, you know, what they did on the film. And that was the only one listed for director. 21 years colon Richard Linklater. Thank you. That was it. That's the documentary. 21 years colon Richard Linklater.

1:26:11Matt Singer:I'd like to see that.

1:26:12Jordan Hoffman:That was the one. All right. It all comes down to this.

1:26:16Matt Singer:Oh, it's high breaking.

1:26:17Jordan Hoffman:This is very exciting and dramatic, ensuring that there will be future editions of this game.

1:26:22Matt Singer:Of letterbox-ing. What are you calling it?

1:26:23Jordan Hoffman:Letterbox-ing? Letterbox-ing. Yes, letterbox-ing.

1:26:27Matt Singer:That's cute.

1:26:27Jordan Hoffman:All right, here we go. Question six for all the marbles. When you search Keanu Reeves' filmography by genre, by genre, only one film comes up under the genre, Western. this 1993 title directed by Gus Van Zandt what is it oh

1:26:49Matt Singer:93 93

1:26:53Jordan Hoffman:will we have a tie

1:26:56Matt Singer:wait nothing better on a podcast than

1:27:00Jordan Hoffman:silence

1:27:01Matt Singer:Gus Van Zandt did make a lot don't worry he can't get away on foot he made a lot of movies and 93 was like the zone that wasn't that long after

1:27:09Jordan Hoffman:Would you like me to start listing other actors in this motion picture? Yes, please. Because this is after To Die For. I went to - It was before To Die For. Before To Die For. I went -

1:27:19Matt Singer:After Private Idaho, before To Die For. Private Idaho. Oh, I know. It's Even Cowgirls Got the Blues.

1:27:23Jordan Hoffman:Oh, dang it. Jordan is correct. And he has won the inaugural edition of Letterboxd. Wow. I wouldn't call that a Western, though. I don't know that I would either. However, that is how it is listed on Letterboxd. Wow. An adaptation by the great Tom Robbins novel, right? Yeah, it's based on, it's a great book and a pretty lousy movie. The picture when you, you know, if you are a patron of Letterboxd and when you click on the movie, you get like a picture at the top of the page. It shows Uma Thurman and Lorraine Bracco with a horse. So I guess by that definition, it's a Western.

1:27:57Matt Singer:It's not a Western. That's a boo-boo. But Pat Morita is in it too. He is indeed. He is indeed. I remember being, I was, you know, young man when this came out, but I did see it in the theater. And I remember, you know, just being, you know, film guy enough to like, oh, my own private Idaho, drugstore cowboy, Gus Van Sant's the greatest, Tom Robbins. I had not read even Cowgirls, but I had read other Tom Robbins books. And I'm like, this is going to be the meeting of the minds. It's going to be great. I'm like a half hour in going, this sucks. Oh, and I had the soundtrack too. It was Katie Lang.

1:28:33Matt Singer:Yes. Katie Lang did the music, and it was really good. The album was terrific. The album got more play in my life than this movie. I haven't revisited it, but it won me. It defeated Sam, and for that, I will forever love this film. Yeah, we might have to keep track of the score of these sorts of games.

1:28:52Jordan Hoffman:I love that you built in a cushion, Matt, where we had six questions, but it came down to a tiebreaker because you knew we'd just whiff on one entirely. Well done. that was excellent good job that was very exciting i can't wait to do that again with future uh future episodes with other stuff stars who have appeared in jonah only in jonah hill movies i

1:29:15Matt Singer:think that'll be the real hook of it well that was fun that game i was nervous but now i'm the champion so clearly i loved it um i do want to uh tease for next week you know we we anticipate coming back again next week. There's a lot of cool stuff coming out.

1:29:34Jordan Hoffman:If we're not canceled like Reef Hawk in the next seven days.

1:29:37Matt Singer:There's some cool stuff coming out to streaming next week. I'll just do a very quick rundown. On Netflix, there's a film called Noah Kahan Out of Body, which the singer-songwriter Noah Kahan faces the pressure of making his next album and returns to his Vermont roots and family to get back in tune with himself. Is that a documentary? Who is Noah Kahan?

1:29:58Jordan Hoffman:I think it's Noah Khan.

1:30:00Matt Singer:I've never heard of this person. I couldn't tell that from the way you mispronounced his name.

1:30:05Jordan Hoffman:It seemed like you were very familiar with him.

1:30:07Matt Singer:The only Khan I know is Khan Noonien Singh. That's the Khan for me. I don't think he's covered in this motion picture. We're also, next week on Netflix, is kind of a fun one. It's called Roommates, and it stars Adam Sandler's daughter. And she's been in a bunch of movies. So she's now doing Nepo Baby, but we love her. It's called Roommates When a College Freshman, played by Sadie Sandler, asks a cool, confident girl, Chloe East from The Heretic and Fablemans, to be her roommate. Blossoming friendship quickly spirals into a war of passive aggression. I would like to watch Roommates, and I think that may be a little bit of a success.

1:30:49Matt Singer:So we may catch up with it after because the one we're definitely going to do next week, we got to. We have to. when it's a moral imperative when i first learned that svu was coming back and i begged allison to pretend that she was too busy to become the guest again and the co-host and let me do it um i was like i need the excuse to watch more mark walberg films sure and the excuse is here week two coming to Prime, which is the only streaming service that gets you free delivery on paper towels. Peter Farrelly, Oscar winner. He didn't win the Oscar, but director of the Oscar winning film. Maybe he was a producer on it, so he did win.

1:31:38Matt Singer:Peter Farrelly, who directed Green Book. His new film is called Balls Up. Two American marketing executives, Mark Wahlberg and Paul Walter Hauser are fired for blowing a client sponsorship opportunity and decide to use their free tickets to a major soccer match. Their drunken debauchery leads them to be hunted by every person across the country. I don't I don't even know what that means.

1:32:08Jordan Hoffman:But all I know is that I can only imagine if outcome led to a lengthy discussion of the bathroom. I can only imagine what's going to happen when we review a movie called Balls Up.

1:32:26Matt Singer:We need some feminine energy on the show, but it's not coming next week. The following week, we're going to do Roommates with Sadie Singer. Do you have an aunt named Sadie? I should.

1:32:35Jordan Hoffman:You're right that I should. It would make sense, but I don't. Sadie Sandler.

1:32:39Matt Singer:Sadie Sandler. We're going to do that soon. But next week, I'm all in. I'm all up for Balls Up. So I think that's what we're going to be watching. So thank you to the listeners in advance. Anything else you want to add, Matt Singer? Yes.

1:32:53Jordan Hoffman:And I want to, first of all, thank you, Sam. And thank you, Jordan. It's great to be back. This was a lot of fun. Maybe too much fun. Probably too much, I'm going to say. Listeners might find it to be too much fun. But this was wonderful to be back. And I've had a great time. But we are still kind of figuring out the full ins and outs of the format here. And we want to hear from you, the listeners. We would love to hear your feedback about the show, what you liked, what else you would want to hear. Yeah, they're going to all say bring back Allison. Well, other than that, you know, what other what other things can we can we discuss?

1:33:39Jordan Hoffman:I had an idea. I'm going to throw it out there. We'll see if anyone takes us up on it.

1:33:43Matt Singer:Good. Yeah. New game ideas. Although I like Letterboxd. We would love new game ideas.

1:33:48Jordan Hoffman:Absolutely. You can send us game ideas, movies you want us to talk about, streaming services you want us to talk about. If they're not the most obvious ones, if there's ones that are out there that you particularly like. I also thought people could send us maybe the places they subscribe to and a genre of movie and we could give them back personalized recommendations. We can add that to our recommendation segment. So if you have anything you want to send and you or you would like maybe to see if you could get a personalized recommendation from us. The email address is Matt at FilmSpottingSVU.com.

1:34:23Jordan Hoffman:That's Matt at FilmSpottingSVU.com. Ironically, those go straight to Jordan. He's the only one who's going to read that. No, we'll get them. And we would love to hear your feedback, what you want to hear, what you like to hear. Tell us because we're back. We're back, baby! And we're here for you, and we want to make it the best podcast possible. Coming up in the FilmSpotting feed this week on Friday on the FilmSpotting Mothership, Adam and Josh will honor the late, great Robert Duvall with their top five Duvall scenes. Oh. Ooh. Plus, maybe we'll do a letterboxding of Robert Duvall down the line.

1:35:00Matt Singer:What would be your favorite, Matt? Favorite Robert Duvall scene?

1:35:04Jordan Hoffman:What was his best scene in the Will Ferrell movie, Kicking and Screaming? I don't know. I mean, it could be something from The Godfather, Tender Mercies. It's a hard one. That's why people have to listen to find out. There's so many good ones to choose from.

1:35:17Matt Singer:I'm going to listen. That sounds like a good show.

1:35:19Jordan Hoffman:Plus the final four round of 1940s madness. Vote now at filmspottingmadness.com. Again, next week we'll be back with Peter Farrelly's Balls Up with Mark Wahlberg and Paul Walter Hauser. And in the meantime, you can find me on Instagram and Letterboxd at Super Pulse. I'm also on Blue Sky at Matt Singer. Jordan, where can people find you?

1:35:43Matt Singer:Oh, God. I'm trying to get off social media. it's terrible. Don't look for Jordan, just come back. I do a little Blue Sky. You can put my name in there. I'm on X, but I don't read it. Instagram is just pictures of me going to Chinese restaurants and stuff. You're not going to get anything good out of that. No, I disagree. It's compelling. I do a little Blue Sky. You can find me on Blue Sky. But I'm trying to get off that too, honestly. Blue Sky is just as bad as X. Well, on that wonderful, upbeat note, Film Spotting SVU is produced by... No, you should follow... No, time out. Follow the Film Spotting socials.

1:36:18Matt Singer:That's where the action is. That's true.

1:36:20Jordan Hoffman:And I will say I have reactivated the long dormant Film Spotting SVU Facebook page. I've already updated it a few times. Facebook.com slash Film Spotting SVU. You can find stuff about the show, from the show. It's over there. Film Spotting SVU is produced by Sam Van Halgren. I'm Matt Singer.

1:36:41Matt Singer:Oh, I'm supposed to say my name. My name's Jordan Hopson.

1:36:44Jordan Hoffman:Thanks for listening.