Resident Evil and Top 5 Comedy Boom Movies, plus The Incomer | #1082

17:51Josh Larsen:Yag Shumash, having learned many lessons from US &A, I will now teach America how to have a wedding Kazakh style. You find more. Thank you. It's a tour de force comedic performance. It's got some incredible set pieces. It was supposed to be directed originally by Todd Phillips, who is another very important comedy figure in this period. He dropped out during production and was replaced by Larry Charles. So I think it definitely deserves a place on this list. There are others I like more. That's why it's number five for me. but a very, very funny and I think as time goes on a very, very interesting look back as a time capsule peering back through the ages to 2005 through 2007 when they were making it.

18:44So that's my number five pick.

18:45Josh Larsen:That's Borat. I feel like Adam, maybe we should just jump ahead and talk about Borat now because we had it on our joint list at number four and this is the one Adam was talking about. I believe, you know, he can speak to it, but Adam is, you know, mildly positive. I think it's the movie of that era. And the only reason it wasn't on our original joint list, Matt, is because I didn't know, I hadn't yet read the book and I didn't quite know how it would place. I didn't have the full picture of what you were trying to do, speaking back to your note card thing, right? Where was Borat on your note cards initially?

19:20Josh Larsen:But when I saw that, okay, not only does it get attention in the book, but you actually have it on your list, I thought, well, listeners are going to think it odd if I don't have it on my list. And that's because here's where I've already listed it on the show previously. when we did top five culture clash comedies, when we did top five 21st century comedies. And then honestly, I revere this beyond it being a broad, raucous, raunchy comedy, which it is. I had it at number 17 when we did top 25 films of the century so far. And it's that time capsule quality you're talking about, Matt, is the reason I did that.

20:03Josh Larsen:I feel like, yes, it captures an era, a specific era with the Virgin Megastore, but also I didn't know it then. I don't think many of us knew it then, but it showed us an America that I thought existed in pockets and could kind of derisively laugh at. Now I realize, no, this is an America we actually voted for in 2024. Like we actively chose to be this country that Sacha Baron Cohen was exposing what, like 20 years about earlier. And I think there's something horrible, but also marks it as a really unique sociopolitical project, actually. That, to the point of this episode, is quite hysterical.

20:53Josh Larsen:So, yeah, I was glad to see that it got some attention in the book, even though it's maybe on one of those outer rims. I do agree with you. It's just such a crucial title for this era. So I had to have it on this list. Mayor George Bush drink the blood of every single man, woman and child of Iraq.

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22:22Adam Kempenaar:that it's 20 years ago. I haven't rewatched it. And that's just that lone viewing I'm going off of. Who knows how I would feel about that movie if I watched it now. I know based on my notes, and this is the lingering feeling I have from it. And I don't know, Matt, if you sensed any of this at all. Obviously not. You loved the movie. But maybe you noticed an inkling of this when you revisited it. I felt at the time that when the movie's on target, when the targets of its satire are well-deserved and Sacha Baron Cohen nails them, the movie is one of the funniest movies we'll ever see, quite frankly.

23:04Adam Kempenaar:But too often I felt like he was punching down. And some of the targets of his humor simply don't deserve it, in my mind. And when that's the case, then I didn't find myself laughing as much with him, I suppose, or with other people in the theater in some instances. And so that's what kept me at bay a little bit with Borat. Yeah, I mean, that's – I think there's – not every joke in this film is a jewel. And maybe not all of them have aged perfectly. I think that's a recurring theme of a lot of these films. I was going to say. They're very much of their time and of their place. And I think that's always important to acknowledge and to think about.

23:49But yeah, the fact that it is 20 years old is pretty wild. And the fact that, as Josh was saying, you know, there was a sense when you were – when I remember seeing it in 2006, it was like shocking to hear some of the things that people would say to Borat not realizing who they were talking to. thinking they were speaking to this person from this, you know, backwater country or something, you know, and they were exposing a part of them and their prejudices and their beliefs that they otherwise wouldn't – they wouldn't have said. They were saying the quiet part loud. And when we live in a world where the quiet part has just – it's just – seemingly everyone is saying the quiet part loud.

24:31It is really striking. And in a way, it does feel like the movie was ahead of its time in a strange way or perhaps a cautionary tale or a glimpse into a future. That we didn't heed. Yeah, exactly. There is a surreal quality to watching it now that certainly didn't exist. I mean, the movie felt surreal in 2006, but for a different reason. Watching it today, it is a strange, strange thing to revisit.

25:01Adam Kempenaar:it why don't you pick up then from there with your number four okay my number four film this one is definitely more in the in the uh right in the sweet spot of what would be called a frat pack movie and that is zoolander zoolander which has multiple uh actors from that that that actually named frat pack group ben stiller stars in the film he also co-wrote it he also directed it It has Owen Wilson and it also has Will Ferrell. So it really is. It's got the that that trifecta in there, along with a bunch of other very, very funny people. And this is a this is another one where revisiting it for the book, having not seen it in a while going, is this movie going to feel like, you know, just very hokey and silly and dumb?

25:54And it is pretty dumb, but in a very funny way, I think. And it does hold up very, very well. And there are very, very funny sequences in it. And you do get to appreciate one of the things that is very special about those frat pack movies when they were working, which is they weren't, you know, from the era of comedies just before the one that I'm writing about in the book. You know, the 90s, to me, in my mind, a lot of the 90s comedies are very much defined by a strong lead character. And then, you know, there might be other funny people in the movie, but they're there to kind of prop up whoever that is.

26:34The Adam Sandler figure, the Jim Carrey figure, you know, Mike Myers as Austin Powers, something like that. You know, like very really dominated by one singular comedian and their voice. And one of the things that's great about a lot of these movies is that they really are ensemble films. They really have a lot of room for many funny people. And they have tons of supporting turns that are very memorable, like Will Ferrell as the villain Mugatu in this film. One of his funniest performances in a movie where he's maybe third billed. I don't know the actual billing order, but in terms of screen time, he certainly is maybe third or fourth.

27:14Well, to tell you the truth, I was a little hesitant at first, Mr. Mugatu.

27:18Adam Kempenaar:I mean, you've never hired me before.

27:21Josh Larsen:And I've been around for ages and ages. You've been around for a long, long time. I never wanted anything from you. And now you're retired. I can't have you. And it's funny how it switches like that. But now the forbidden fruit must be tasted. And then there's so many other people in the film, some playing themselves, giving you delightful cameos. Like I didn't even mention another frat back guy who's in the movie is Vince Vaughn, who shows up, says nothing. He has no dialogue. He is one of Zoolander's brothers from, I believe it's the coal mines of southern New Jersey, where Zoolander is from.

27:57And as someone who grew up in New Jersey, I can confirm that is coal mining territory. Everyone knows that. Don't look on a map. Just trust us. It's there. The coal mines of New Jersey, where Zoolander is from. But yeah, it was a time and a place where they could say to Vince Vaughn, hey, you want to come and be my brother for a day on the set? And say, okay. And you would go into the film and you would get the delightful surprise of someone like a Vince Vaughn showing up or a David Bowie showing up to mediate a dance-off between Derek and his rival Hansel, who's Owen Wilson's character, or Billy Zane showing up to be Billy Zane.

28:37Don't do this, Derek.

28:39Josh Larsen:Listen to your friend Billy Zane. He's a cool dude. It has a sense of anything could happen, which is very, I would say, is maybe not essential to a great comedy, but it never hurts. When you have that feeling that anything could happen, anything could be, you know, there's an unpredictable quality. That's a good thing in a comedy. A predictable comedy is in real trouble. If you can't see where it's going or what might happen or who might show up, you're probably in good territory. That ensemble quality you talk about, Matt, is crucial because you can imagine for something like Zoolander, you can imagine the Saturday Night Live character version of this where Derek Zoolander originated on SNL.

29:24Josh Larsen:And we got a lot of these, right, in probably more of the 90s than the 80s maybe. And they just can't sustain the feature length, even at like 80 minutes. But if you approach it differently and you don't anchor the entire thing around that character, but you surround Zoolander with all these other people you mentioned, suddenly there's a different dynamic at play, which I think is crucial to. I don't know if I'd want a Zoolander movie that was 85 % Derek Zoolander. I don't think that would work quite as well. So do you spend a lot of time working on these looks, thinking about them? Oh, sure. I've been working on Magnum for at least the last eight or nine years.

30:02Josh Larsen:Magnum. That's intriguing. Can I see that? Are you kidding? I shouldn't even be talking about it. It's nowhere near ready. To your point, he was created as a character not on SNL but on the VH1 Fashion Awards. He was a sketch character. And he could have fit right in on the Ben Stiller show really when you think about it. Yeah, for sure. But, you know, it wasn't a case of they he showed up on the on the VH1 Fashion Awards and nine months later, the movie came out. You know, it was something like four or five years between when he was created to when the movie came out. And all of that time they were working on the screenplay.

30:42It took a long time for them to kind of hone in on, to your point, a movie that isn't just a wacky character, that has an arc with him and Hansel, this friendship that forms, and a lot of very pointed satire about the fashion world and about modeling. So it isn't just a one man showcase. It isn't just this wacky character doing shtick for 90 minutes. And yes, I agree. That is a big reason why it's not a disaster is that they took the time to really flesh out the world. It's a crazy world, the world of Zoolander. But it has its own internal logic. You know, when you find out like the male – the hand models are actually the smart ones in this world somehow.

31:31and it's David Duchovny playing the hand model. Somehow it all, you know, as a conspiracy theorist, somehow it like makes sense. It's absurd, but they've built up this world and they've fleshed it out in such detail that you kind of buy it. You kind of go along for the ride.

31:48Adam Kempenaar:One of the things that I'm reminded of as we do Zoolander right after Borat is that maybe one of the legacies of these films is that in many cases, it is 20 years later or close. And these movies still have phrases that are part of the lexicon that you still hear people use or imitate. Now, I know not you, Josh, because you don't do that. But most of the rest of us still like to throw out lines or act out moments from these films. And that's something we can think about as we go through these picks. Some are more obvious than others, perhaps. Now, I don't necessarily think the people who do this one are the coolest, but you still hear people drop my wife, right, from Borat whenever.

32:37Adam Kempenaar:I mean, you can't hear someone say my wife without hearing Sasha Baron Cohn saying it, right? That's how implanted that is in our consciousness. And then from Zoolander, it's Blue Steel, right? Like doing that face. We all understand what Blue Steel is. We know what that face is on camera. All of these films on our list or close, most of them have a moment like that. So just something to think about as we go through these picks. I'm not sure. I say that. And ironically, I'm not sure exactly what the moment would be from this choice as we go back to our joint number five. And it is Knocked Up. Judd Apatow, Seth Rogen, Paul Rudd, Jonah Hill, Jason Segel.

33:24Adam Kempenaar:Producer Sam wrote about this in the Film Spotting Family newsletter today. And I remember this because Sam and I saw this movie together and just laughed our butts off at this screening. Sam wrote this.

34:08Adam Kempenaar:Even though it wasn't, there were a line of these other films that you write about, Matt, before Knocked Up, something about it. And your book helps me understand that a little bit more. It helped me, I think. And Sam said a key word there when he talked about it being grounded in reality. I hadn't fully, fully grasped that maybe until I read your chapter on this movie. But I'll go back a little bit and talk about Rogan. I didn't watch Freaks and Geeks. I didn't watch Undeclared. I really didn't remember him. I know he's got some memorable moments, but I didn't remember him as Cal in The 40-Year-Old Virgin a couple years earlier.

34:51Adam Kempenaar:So I come to Knocked Up, and this movie is the coming out party for Seth Rogen, right? This is why. Knocked Up is why he's part of our movie-going lives still 20 years later. I'm reading your book and I find out that Anne Hathaway was first considered and was going to do the Katherine Hagel part and that she dropped out over the fact that they were going to use real footage during the birth sequence. And that then brought back memories of sitting in the theater and that shot, the crowning shot. And of course, that's not real footage of Katherine Hagel. It wouldn't have been real footage of Anne Hathaway.

35:39Adam Kempenaar:But according to your book, that was something that she felt still was sort of off brand for her at the time and didn't want to be associated with that. And so I'm thinking, you know, why was that even important besides the fact that it does? It can't help but make you as an audience member squirm a little bit. And I suppose then laugh a little bit because you're just you're uncomfortable. You can't help. You've never seen that in a movie before. Not this kind of movie, a major studio movie sitting there just with the average movie goer. You've never seen something like that before. And when it happens, you are caught completely off guard.

36:20Adam Kempenaar:But why was that so important? You know, he wanted your book says he, Apatow was determined to use like real footage from, from a real delivery. And you're thinking, why is that so important to him? And, and you have a quote in there where he says, the truth of a birth is a baby comes out of there for a man. A lot of the experience is having to see that. And it does make you realize how crucial that was to Judd Apatow as a director and to this entire experiment that was so many of these films, these projects that all of these people are working on. The verisimilitude of Apatow casting his wife, casting Paul Rudd as a version of him, casting his children who are basically playing his children, right?

37:09Adam Kempenaar:Seth Rogen working with his real friends, and they're all just improvising these moments. And that idea of having a man, this man-child, struggling to face responsibility and fatherhood, and Apatow saying, it's important to me to have a moment like that to remind people that when you go to the hospital and for the first time watch your wife deliver, that's when it really hits you. So Abitav's thinking about stuff like that. It's not just for the sake of comedy. It's not just to make someone squirm. It's that grounding in reality, and it is that comfort as well then of everybody feeling like this is just an extension of their real lives.

38:01Adam Kempenaar:I think that's part of the secret sauce, certainly, of these films. And I'll close by simply saying the two lines, these aren't the moments necessarily we still quote to this day. But looking over the transcript, I was reminded of the two moments that made me laugh the most. And I wonder how this varies for other viewers of the film. The first one speaks to Seth Rogen and how good his delivery is. Just that deadpan delivery. When Heigl says, I'm actually doing my first on-air interview today. With who? Matthew Fox. Matthew Fox from Lost? Yeah. You know what's interesting about him? What? Nothing.

38:41What? Will you tell him he's an asshole for me? No. Someone needs to. Like, who gives a shit? Well, I hope a lot of people actually.

38:47Adam Kempenaar:If I was Matthew Fox, poor Matthew Fox, if I was him and I was memorialized forever with that line, I would never come up for air. I would move to another country. I would change my name. He doesn't really deserve that, but it's brutal and hilarious. And then, of course, the scene where I know Sam and I lost it, where we probably couldn't breathe if we were laughing so hard. Munich. Oh, Munich! Munich is awesome. That movie was Eric Bana kicking ass. Every movie with Jews, we're the ones getting killed. Munich flips it on its ear. We're a captain, motherfuckers. Not only killing, but taking names.

39:30If any of us get laid tonight, it's because of Eric Bana. I agree with that.

39:33Adam Kempenaar:That entire extended bit is just incredible.

39:38Josh Larsen:Yeah. There's some gems in here. What does he say when he's trying to describe his financial status? Something about, I eat a lot of spaghetti or something like that. Sounds right. Yeah. I mean, and I think most of those are rooted in his character, right? That's why they work. They're good one-liners, but they're also deeply reflective of who this guy is. And yeah, I'm going to just echo, you know, I think why I'm happy to have this on the list, Adam, um, knocked up is for the Seth Rogan-ness of it all. And the fact that Apatow gave him after having worked with him already on a number of projects like this tailor-made perfect role, this, this lout who has an undercurrent of sweetness to him.

40:20Josh Larsen:He's willing to lead with the immaturity. He doesn't try to downplay that and try to get to get the audience to like him in any way. I love the nervous grin he has whenever responsibility begins to rear its ugly head. It's like his gag reflexes to grin. Like, I'm not meant to do this. I'm not meant to be responsible in any way. He just can't hide it. There's a self-awareness to this character that I think Rogan brings as well. Um, you, you see that when a lot of times he'll start saying something really unwise for the situation about halfway through and you see like a quarter second pause, am I going to go through with it?

41:05Josh Larsen:And yes, yes, he, he's going to go, he's going to go through with it. So yeah, I think this was, you know, definitely this coming out party for Seth Rogen, just given the material that works. I think the movie overall works even beyond him. And when I looked up my initial reaction, I actually did place it among, in my review, the other comedy movies coming out at the time because it seemed to be doing something particularly distinct. I said, I haven't liked any comedy I've seen so far this year as much as I've liked Knocked Up. The work of the Farrelly brothers and even the raunchy American Pie films hinted at this sort of crude yet compassionate comedy.

41:45Josh Larsen:Yet in Apatow's pictures, that sensibility seems to have fully flowered. He makes the nicest movies to have ever been rated R. And I think that brings me back to like you're discussing the birth scene, Adam. It's like probably one of the many reasons it got an R. But there are sweet reasons why that is in there as well, which felt really unique at the time. Yeah, I mean, I think you guys have really highlighted a lot of the reasons that this movie was really successful, like kind of shockingly successful for an R-rated comedy about a one-night stand that includes graphic birthing footage as well.

42:26Like, it doesn't necessarily sound like a guaranteed slam dunk$100 million movie, but it did, you know, it was a huge, huge hit. And I do think it has a lot to do with all of these different elements. And, you know, the frankness of it, I think, helps. But I think the real secret is that it is, it's not just truthful, it's personal. You know, it's not that when Apatow is talking about, well, that's what it's like for a man in the delivery room. He's talking. I mean, he's he's making a movie about his own experiences. And, you know, you could argue it'd be nice if there was more of the female perspective in this movie.

43:07And that was certainly a criticism that was levied about it, including by some of the people who are in the movie. And fair enough. Yes, indeed. But I think the things that resonate in this movie are the ones that feel like they came straight from his life. And the fact that he cast his own children and his wife as this family unit, and he was able to place them within the story as a kind of counterbalance to the A plot, which is about this one night stand yielding a baby. You know, and then you have the B-plot of the woman's family is kind of like an ordinary middle class family that's just kind of – this is what happens.

43:50You know, like it's a glimpse into a potential future essentially. And he's able to draw on all of the things that he's going through at the time. And he has – you know, Leslie Mann is incredibly funny and talented. And their kids were just like incredibly natural on camera. And, you know, to me, the funniest moment in the movie is the kids and that scene where they ask where babies come from. And one of the girls describes it in shocking, graphic, deranged detail that was all just completely off the cuff and improvised. And then they cut back to Leslie Mann and she's, you know, she has like a beat and she says, yes, that's exactly right.

44:34And it's just such a wonderful, real moment. And that's the kind of stuff that even in good comedies then and now, it's like you don't get a ton of that. That's something that you wish there could be more of is that kind of authenticity, that kind of personal lived-in reality of kids say the darndest things. And they sure – any parent can tell you that they certainly do. So it's not on my list, but actually a movie that I don't know that I loved it when it came out. And when, again, revisiting it for the book, I was like – I think actually I felt this way about a lot of Apatow's work. I think a lot of them, even the ones that aren't great, I think there's really good stuff in them.

45:17And you see an artist at work, whether or not he always succeeds in pulling off exactly what he wants. You see that point of view. You see that personal element. You see what he's trying to say. and it's very loud and clear in Knocked Up.

45:33Adam Kempenaar:Where do babies come from? Where do you think they come from? Well, I think a stork, he drops it down and then a hole goes in your body and there's blood everywhere coming out of your head and then you push your belly button and then your butt falls off and then you hold your butt and you have to dig and you find a little baby. That's exactly right. Give us your number three. Okay, well, speaking of Apatow, My number three is from his world. He produced it. He didn't write it, though. And it is also another Seth Rogen film, although he's not the star. He wrote it, and he appears in it in a supporting turn, although I suppose if the world had proceeded on a slightly different course, maybe he would have starred in it because that was the original plan, but it took so long to make the movie that by the time he was finally making it, it was actually after Knocked Up.

46:26And once you have impregnated Katherine Heigl on a first date, you may not be the right person to play a virginal high school teenager desperate to get laid because the movie in question is super bad. And just thinking about this movie as we're sitting here talking and talking about these other films and why these movies were successful and resonated, I'm wondering if even more than I thought about it while I was writing the book, whether the amount of time that was spent on writing these movies and iterating them and improving them and like refining them is part of the same. secret sauce, because in the case of A Superbad, yes, it's kitschy and funny and cute to say that it was written when Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg were 12 years old, which is true.

47:20Like they started writing it as kids, but it didn't get made for like a decade. And it wasn't like they, when they finally got enough juice from doing A 40-Year-Old Virgin and doing Knocked Up to make their own movies, they dusted off the old screenplay and they shot it. They were working on the screenplay off and on for that whole time. And, you know, they showed it to Apatow and Apatow thought it was funny, but thought it needed work. And he gave them pointers, told them what to what to work on. And so what the end result was, was a funny movie. Yes, I'm sure the original version was probably pretty funny anyway.

47:59But what they really built up was the relationship between the characters, between the Seth and Evan characters so that it's not just a movie about two horny teenagers, you know, trying to score at a party. It is a movie about friendship and about how two friends who are at a kind of a crossroads in their lives grapple with that and how they come to grips with the fact that they are moving in separate directions in their lives, potentially.

48:30Adam Kempenaar:Like when you went away for Easter on your vacation, I missed you. I missed you too. I want the world to know. It's the most beautiful thing in the world. Boop, boop, boop. Come here. Come here, ma 'am. ultimately, as much as the story is about them trying to hook up at this party, the emotional heft of the movie is the final scene where, you know, spoiler alert, it's not about them sleeping with girls. It's about them sleeping with each other in a, you know, just like in a brotherly kind of a way and expressing their love for one another as friends and feeling that journey that these characters have gone on.

49:19And certainly, you know, Adam, when you talk about the things that people talk about in these movies and would quote the whole. I mean, I was in a I think I was in I was in a department store recently and I walked past the pile of like T-shirts, you know, like pop culture T-shirts. And there was a McLovin T-shirt. And we're it's this is 20 years later and somebody is buying McLovin T-shirts. I mean, that's astonishing. That is that is true cultural staying power. And it's just this this this kid with a goofy name and a really funny performance from Christopher Mintz Plotz, who was, you know, was was an actual high schooler when they made it.

50:03basically. He was so young, his mother had to be on set supervising him, which is maybe funnier than anything in the movie, is thinking about what McLovin does in that film and imagining Christopher Plotz's mother standing slightly off camera watching these things proceed and nodding along. His ID says you're 25 years old.

50:25Josh Larsen:Why wouldn't you just put 21, man? Seth, listen up, ass face. Every day, hundreds of kids go into the liquor store with their fake IDs and every single one says they're 21 how many 21 year olds you think there are in this town it's called strategy

50:37Adam Kempenaar:all right let's stay calm okay let's not lose our heads it's it's a fine id it'll it's gonna work this is another one that i had not seen in a while and revisiting it um i was laughing and then when that end of the movie hits it really it's a it was a gut punch maybe i'm just an old fuddy-duddy now i felt that way i mean i've re-watched it but i felt that way at the time man when it came out in theaters that's part of the reason i responded so strongly to it right Right. It's a sweet movie. I mean, Josh's description of Knocked Up about, you know, like these R-rated movies that are so raunch, the sweetest R-rated movies, that really fits super bad as well.

51:10It is incredibly R-rated. It has some really filthy jokes. And that was like really important to Rogan, you know, because people were trying to convince him for a long time to make it as a PG-13 movie. And he was adamant that it needs to be R-rated to really capture another important word we've repeated, the authenticity of the lives of these kids. But it is also an incredibly sweet and emotional movie at the end. It kind of gets to me, the end of the movie when they go off in separate directions at the mall. It gets a little dusty, gets a little verklempt watching that scene. I will admit it.

51:47Josh Larsen:Speaks to those two lead performances from Hill and Sarah, right? And this was probably the first time I saw Sarah on screen. And yeah, thankfully, whatever unique quality he brought there, he carried through to other performances. I think, wasn't Juno the next year, perhaps? It was the same.

52:06Adam Kempenaar:They were both 07, aren't they?

52:07Josh Larsen:Were they? Okay. So yeah, what a breakout year for him. And he's crucial to this film.

52:13Adam Kempenaar:I'd have to look and see the order of things. and when I saw Sarah first, but I was going to note that Accepted was the first time I saw Jonah Hill in a movie. And that comedy is mostly fine. But Sam and I reviewed it, and it came out the year before, and Jonah Hill was the standout in that movie. The only reason to watch that film would be to see a younger Jonah Hill in that movie just steal scene after scene after scene. And so when Superbad was coming out and I saw that he was the co-lead, I was genuinely excited on top of the Apatow and Rogan of it all, and it didn't disappoint. And yeah, I'm looking back at my notes and I'm talking about the raunchiness of it, but just the right level of sentimentality and how it feels like a poignant coming-of-age tale, but it's got all the laughs that we expect and need from a comedy like this.

53:09Adam Kempenaar:So very good pick there at number three. And that brings us to our number three, Josh. And we're going to give some love now to Ben Stiller. I was someone who didn't watch. I'm one of the reasons why the show got canceled. I didn't watch it when it was on. I'm sorry. I wasn't cool enough or uncool enough. But I did later have bootleg VHS tapes of it after it was canceled. And I watched it on repeat. so I am very excited that we get some stiller on this list it's not Starsky and Hutch it's not Zoolander like Matt Singer it is Tropic Thunder and the book Matt in it you mentioned that the initial spark for this right it's so brilliant the the quote you have is that it was about actors who went and did the boot camp right this is notorious everybody who goes and makes a war movie They have to go do the boot camp, and they always talk about how they come back changed forever by it.

54:13Adam Kempenaar:And so Stiller's hearing that, and he's thinking about the actors who went and did the boot camp. They made a movie and came back and felt like nobody cared. What if they came back and felt like nobody cared, like the actual Vietnam veterans? And that's brilliant, right? Like what's more egotistical than that, equating themselves like they went through their own version of Nam? So that was sort of the spark of the movie. And I'm going to keep the theme going here of authenticity, because, of course, how does Steve Coogan as the director in the movie, how does he decide to get the best movie by going for that and trying to make it seem real for the performers within the construct of this movie and give them all space to improvise just like Judd Apatow would as a director?

55:04Adam Kempenaar:And this cast, right, with Danny McBride and Owen Wilson shows up in Jack Black and Steve Coogan, of course, memorably Tom Cruise. But Matthew McConaughey, Bill Hader. And yes, of course, we have to mention Robert Downey Jr. You can focus up now, motherfucking Satan. It's me, Tug. It's me, Tug. That's right. Now, Tug who? Tug who? I don't know. Who are you? Me? I know who I am. I'm a dude laying a dude disguised as another dude. What? Who else but honestly, Robert Downey Jr. could have pulled that off? And there was, as I recall, surely some controversy about it. But I think because of Downey Jr.

55:53Adam Kempenaar:and his performance and him simply as a person and his story, he probably ameliorated some of that. The fact that he's got the dramatic and comedic chops to bring to that character, the inherent reverence, even at that time, that people have for him as an actor. so you you believe him as this esteemed but completely pretentious actor but then at that point in his career he's got that combination of of he's he's resurgent he is on the rise but he also still was at that at that point where he kind of had nothing to lose and and i don't i don't know how you you would ever find another actor who who would mix all that together a few more years later and robert downey jr is not playing this role A few more years after that, and this movie, of course, isn't getting made.

56:46Adam Kempenaar:And that character anyway is certainly not getting written. In terms of the lines that are sticking with us, well, I can't say the line that is still sticking with us today. But we all do variations on it, not as offensive as that line was then, but I hear people still say variations on that, on never going full something all the time, right? It doesn't matter what the context is. People find ways to use it. And as I said, it's probably a film that wouldn't be able to be made today, get made today. And so that speaks to this period as this isolated thing in time, Matt, that you write about. I understand people taking offense to it then and perhaps even taking offense to it now, not only that line, but also what Robert Downey Jr.'s character is doing, the entire conception of that character.

57:53In the moment, from my very limited perspective, it certainly felt clear to me like the target is obvious, making fun of actors and actors who try to use these subjects

58:09Adam Kempenaar:for their own glory.

58:11Josh Larsen:I love Tropic Thunder so much. And Adam, to that point about this not possibly being made today, just today I was scrolling through Letterboxd and came across someone who had logged it and made a variation on that point. But observe something I want to run by the both of you and just see what you think of this. So this was Lost in Japan who logged Tropic Thunder and said this, there's a long time argument that a movie like Blazing Saddles could never be made in this modern time. And yet here we are with the completely irreverent, raunchy, socially reprehensible film that became the mother of a million memes.

58:49Josh Larsen:The concept of putting someone in blackface and getting away with it is unbelievable. But you know what? It works. so I just I was just interesting as I'm throwing together notes for our discussion here that I came across that does that Blazing Saddles comparison work for you both do you think it's Tropic Thunder was in a way the Blazing Saddles of its time it's an interesting comparison I mean I feel like you might have an easier time making Blazing Saddles than you would having Tropic Tropic Thunder in some ways. I mean, the use of blackface in Tropic Thunder is really wild. I mean, it is 2008.

59:31I mean, it is less than 20 years ago. And I agree with you, Adam. I'm not sure any other actor maybe ever could have pulled that performance off to the point where they didn't just pull it off like, Like, oh, well, the movie was – okay, well, they still released the movie. Okay, well, the movie did pretty well. He was nominated for an Oscar nomination.

59:57Adam Kempenaar:He got an Oscar nomination for it. He got the glory his character was surely going to get. Right. And wanted. Yes. The whole premise of the character is making fun of actors doing things like this purely for the awards glory of it. And then the Academy gave him an Oscar nomination. Now, maybe that's a failing of the Academy. I don't know. Some might see it that way, but it is kind of astonishing. And I will say I had the opportunity last year when I was still working on the manuscript of the book, the Nighthawk Theater here in Brooklyn showed Tropic Thunder, and they invited me to come and introduce it because, you know, I was talking with the programmer there and had mentioned the book and they're like, oh, we're doing Tropic Thunder.

1:00:44You should come. So I got to see it with an audience in a theater last summer, and a lot of it played really well. And there were some gasps at times. You could feel the shock in the room at times that some of the things that this movie attempts to get away with, whether it's successful or not, it tries. but I will say that after the movie I was sitting there I stayed and watched the movie and afterwards people were leaving and I was still sitting in my seat and someone walked by me in my row and said thank you for introducing it and for putting it into the context in which it was made I found that very helpful as I was watching it so I think maybe that's again important is to think about the period when it was made and what Stiller was trying to do And I think – again, I agree that now you could – you can object to the content and you can object to some of the choices that they made.

1:01:45But the target clearly is on Hollywood and on actors and on studios and on the kind of general lunacy of this world and these people, which is a – it's a prevalent theme in a lot of Ben Stiller's work. I mean, Zoolander is similar, except it's about the fashion world instead of about Hollywood. And, you know, Stiller as a filmmaker is an interesting guy in that, you know, he didn't necessarily, even though we think of him and he was a hugely successful comedy actor, he didn't really want to be that growing up. He was much more interested in being a director, a filmmaker, a serious filmmaker, really.

1:02:25And he was always very good from the Ben Stiller show on at kind of mimicking, you know, mimicry, you know, and capturing the essence of things in a way that was very funny. And here you have not just the movie Tropic Thunder that they're making, those opening trailers for the movie where they show you it's as if you're sitting down for a movie and they're showing a series of fake movie trailers. Satan's Alley. Each one of them is hilarious. They all look different. They're different kinds of movies. There's also like a fake commercial in there as well. And each one is just terrific.

1:03:04Adam Kempenaar:In 2013, when the Earth's rotation came to a halt. It has declared all of North America a disaster.

1:03:12Josh Larsen:My fellow Americans to come together. The world called on the one man who could make a difference. That's maybe a thing that he doesn't get enough credit for is what a skilled director of in that way he is, that he's so good at capturing the tones of other things. And by playing them so – like getting them so close, that's where the humor lies. And I think that's something that this movie does very well.

1:03:37Adam Kempenaar:And since you brought it up, I'll just say real quick. The trailer that we see when they're introducing Kirk Lazarus, Robert Downey Jr.'s character, with Tobey Maguire, part of the brilliance of it is that, here again, it has to tap in to something genuine and real in our movie system, in our reality. And they introduce him as I think it's five time Oscar winner or something. But Tobey Maguire is introduced as Tobey Maguire, not a fictional actor. He's Tobey Maguire and he's the winner of the MTV Best Kiss Award, which, of course, he he he actually was right for Spider-Man, of course, an immortal classic of a movie kiss.

1:04:23How could you not give it to him? I love it.

1:04:25Adam Kempenaar:there's a few things going on on the big screens at Regal Cinemas right now. This weekend, if you're so inclined, Endgame Encore. Get yourself ready for Doomsday. Robert Pattinson in primetime. Always want to see what that actor's up to. But Josh, I'm going to say, if there's one movie you can go see, maybe it should be one of our favorite actors in The Wait. A movie I was able to catch up with. Unfortunately, it's a film I had to watch here at home. Didn't get to see it on the big screen, saw it via screener link, but did enjoy it. Period piece. Ethan Hawke plays someone who gets in prison at a work camp, gets a chance to get let out early if he fulfills a really dangerous job.

1:05:18Adam Kempenaar:And it's Ethan Hawke being Ethan Hawke. he's a little bit rugged a little bit smarter than everyone else pretty cunning and there's a good ensemble there as well Russell Crowe being Russell Crowe they're a pretty good pairing when they're on screen together as well I can encourage people to see The Weight you can see that at Regal Cinemas right now and maybe see it for free as a Regal Unlimited member Regal Unlimited is the all you can watch movie subscription pass that pays for itself in just two visits You can sign up for Regal Unlimited using code FILMSPOT26 to get 15 % off. See any standard 2D movie anytime with no blackout dates or restrictions.

1:06:02Adam Kempenaar:And with Regal Unlimited, you don't just save money on tickets, you also save on snacks. Members get 10 % off all non-alcoholic concessions. Sign up now in the Regal app or at the link in our description and use that code FILMSPOT26 to get your discount. As we are a little bit more than halfway through our top five comedy boom movies, we will remind you that you can check out our lists always at filmspotting.net slash lists. And Josh, we will also take a moment to thank a few members of the Film Spotting family.

1:06:36Josh Larsen:Yeah, we love to do this because membership is the largest source of support for the show. It keeps us doing what we've been doing for over 20 years. So we want to thank family member Ansela in Vancouver, British Columbia, and family plus member Carol Wyrick, right nearby Oak Park, Illinois. Ansela writes, I've been listening since 2017. My favorite show segment, the Betty Davis Marathon. We did that one in 2020. A movie that Ansela credits with becoming a cinephile, Top Hat. Yes. Good one. One of the best Astaire Ginger Rogers films.

1:07:13Adam Kempenaar:and way, way back, a film spotting marathon choice. We got this from Carol. Towards the end of college, I started frequenting the landmark Keystone Arts Cinema in Indianapolis. I saw Phantom Thread there and was so flabbergasted that a movie could make me feel that many things and stick to me for so long. I searched for a podcast to help me process and found you all. I took a few years off and listened to some other film podcasts and still do, but felt called back to hear your takes again. As soon as I started listening again, And I felt back at home, especially with Josser's Chicago accent. Hard to shake.

1:07:48Adam Kempenaar:My favorite film spotting segment, your review of Chloe Zhao's The Writer. One of my favorite films of all time, and it changed what I thought movies could be. I wouldn't have watched it without your recommendation. What a movie. Movie or movies that made me a cinephile because Carol cheated here, and I don't blame you. Moonlight, Get Out, and The Florida Project.

1:08:08Josh Larsen:Great trio. Thank you, Ansla and Carol, for joining the family and for all those years of listening. Now, you can try to follow Ansla on Letterboxd here. I tried this today. Couldn't quite find her. A-C-H-U-I-1-1-1. So I'll try again later and maybe get that to work. Carol is also on Letterboxd, and you can find her at C-W-E-I-R-I-C-H.

1:08:35Adam Kempenaar:Well, you know, Josh, if you can vamp for a second. Well, I'm looking at it, and I don't think Sam mistransferred it. What was the handle again as it's written? A-C-H-U-I-1-1-1. Yeah, that's what I have on the form. So a mistake happened somewhere along the way. We'll find you somehow. Yes, we will certainly try to get that because we do enjoy following our family members when we can find them on Letterboxd. We encourage you to check out filmspottingfamily.com to see all the benefits that you get by being a family member, including early in ad-free listening, Sam's Weekly Newsletter, access to the Film Spotting Archive.

1:09:19Adam Kempenaar:You also get access to the family-only Discord. I sold it short last week. It turns out Thomas Todd, our quiz master, and he's one of the co-owners of the family Discord, I think I said, Josh, that we were, it was last week or the week before that we were over 400 family members. We're up to almost 500 in that, just on the Discord. So it's a very robust, it's a booming group over there. You could be part of it. Filmspottingfamily.com.

1:09:54Josh Larsen:Well, for all of us here at Channel 4 News, I'm Ron Burgundy. You stay classy, San Diego. And thanks for stopping by. but mainly stay classy thanks for stopping by stay classy i'm ron burgundy thanks for stopping by stay close ron burgundy we jump back into our top five comedy boom movies with

1:10:15Adam Kempenaar:funny business author matt singer and we're at your number two choice matt it's it's funny that um i think josh was talking well we were we've all been talking about the the quotability of these films. And I was looking back earlier today at some of the letterboxed logs that I have done of some of these movies. And of my number two movie on the list, I have a review. I'm using air quotes here. A review of this movie that is comprised entirely of random quotes from this film with no context, just a list. It's like a thick paragraph of just funny things that are said that are funny, not because they're like jokes, but just because the whole vibe of this movie is very strange and surreal.

1:11:06So it's things like I've been called the songbird of my generation by people who've heard me every day. I lather this up with keels in the shower. Your voice is like a combination of Fergie and Jesus.

1:11:20Adam Kempenaar:That's it. I've been earning and burning, snapping necks and cash and checks. I'm going to file for unemployment and I'm going to apply for a job at Enterprise Rent-A-Car because they've got an excellent corporate structure and they give you the tools to be your own boss. The movie is Step Brothers. If you were a chick, who's the one guy you would sleep with?

1:11:43Josh Larsen:John Samos. What? Did we just become best friends? Yep. It's funny of doing some interviews and also like getting ready to have the book come out. I did the audio book for my book. I recorded the audio book for it. The director of the audio book, as we were talking between takes and stuff, he he had seen a lot of these movies, but he'd never seen Step Brothers. And I've encountered several other people who have not seen Step Brothers. And I'm kind of I guess in a way I'm not surprised because it is sort of a peculiar movie. But this is one of the films of this period I have seen the most. I mean, it is just endlessly, endlessly rewatchable.

1:12:26And from, I would say, the team that I kind of value and love the most of this period, which is Adam McKay and Will Ferrell, we haven't really mentioned them yet, but we're about to mention them a lot, which I think speaks to the quality of their of their films. And I guess what I enjoy about this one is, you know, we've if people look at the list we have had so far and the movies we've talked about, they are a lot of movies about immature guys who, you know, they don't want to grow up. They don't want to face responsibility. They enjoy their immature and responsibility free existence. And they sort of like they need to learn a lesson.

1:13:11They need to start to grow up. You know, I think almost every movie we've covered so far kind of fits into that mold. And this movie is almost like McKay and Farrell looked at all of these movies that all of these comedians had been making and were like, well, what's the most extreme and ludicrous version that we could make? And it becomes this movie where you have these two, I mean, they're middle-aged men who still live with their respective single parents who get married and how they react to this and kind of rebel against it. And they hate each other, but then they kind of grow to have this fraternal bond.

1:13:53And these characters behave. They're not even like a lot of the other guys on this list. There's a lot of sexual humor. And the movies are about trying to score with women. And these guys are like almost they're beyond immature. They're like children. They are like they're like 10 year olds in 40 year old men's bodies. And so it takes on this whole added, strange, surreal, bizarre quality that I find incredibly amusing because the movie never attempts to explain it. And in fact, one of the things I found in my research for the book was like was like there was at some point an attempt in the movie.

1:14:35There was going to be. There were versions of the movie where they were taken to a psychologist to try to diagnose their condition, and no diagnosis could be found. And eventually they just decided, we don't need to explain it. It's, you know, like so many things, it's much funnier the less you explain it, which is, I should probably stop speaking if that's the case. But in a way, the world of Step Brothers, as mundane as it is, is almost as ludicrous as the world of Zoolander or something like that. I mean, it has its own kind of world and rules and strangeness and very, as alluded to by my earlier Letterboxd review, extremely quotable as well.

1:15:17So is it the best Adam McKay and Will Ferrell movie? I go back and forth on that. Obviously, it's number two on my list. So we'll see what else comes up on here. But I do think it is a very deranged and funny movie.

1:15:32Josh Larsen:Well, Catalino wine mixer is probably the lexicon, right? Yes. And yeah, the thing about Step Brothers, as we were describing Apatow's movies as taking place in a reality that we somewhat recognize, and that's what makes them unique. There is a person's personal experience rooted in real life that's driving the humor. That is not the case with anything really mostly that Will Ferrell ever touches, and that's to his strength. I do like Step Brothers quite a bit, but I'm going to move on to our joint number two because I do think it's the superior McKay, Ferrell, and John C. Reilly collaboration.

1:16:15Josh Larsen:It's Talladega Nights, The Ballad of Ricky, Bobby. And Matt, you talk about, the book talks about the element of improvisation in this movement, right? And here's how you write about it. Empowered by techniques drawn from improvisational theater and fueled by a spirit of collaboration instead of competition, they pioneered this wave of foul-mouthed and filthy-minded films. So I do think Talladega Nights is the best example of this. It is obviously spoofing, you know, racing culture and branding and all of that stuff. But honestly, I don't care what the setting is when you just let John C. Reilly and Will Ferrell loose on this.

1:16:58Josh Larsen:The specific scene you write about is when Cal, John C. Reilly's Cal visits Will Ferrell in the hospital and just goes into this confession about years ago, how he posed for Playgirl magazine. and apparently this was new to Farrell. He didn't know what was coming and just had to, you know, get through the scene. There's something I want to get off my chest. And it's about that summer when you went away to community college. I got an offer to do Playgirl magazine. And I did it. I did a full spread for Playgirl magazine. I mean spread, man. I pulled my butt apart and stuff and I was totally nude and it was weird.

1:17:43Josh Larsen:I do love that scene. For me, I could watch on a loop the prayer to sweet baby Jesus and the whole family. Everyone adds something to that scene. But then once you see Farrell and Riley start trying to one-up each other, it just takes off into the stratosphere. Talladega Nights, of all the movies, that we have talked about that your book covers is the one that gets the most replay in our household dear lord baby jesus we also thank you for my wife's father chip we hope that you can use your baby jesus powers to heal him and his horrible leg and it smells terrible no dogs are always

1:18:26Adam Kempenaar:bothering with it dear tiny infant jesus hey um you know sweetie jesus did grow up you don't always have to call him baby it's brilliant it is it it's i was looking back at my notes and i was trying to find a through line from ricky bobby to another character who's going to come up here in a moment and even going back to like the way he played certain characters on snl like george bush the dodge stratus guy like these these very immature but selfish just unrepentant egomaniacs and they just always know that they are the greatest at whatever it is. And being the best is all that matters. And fortunately for them, they are the best.

1:19:15Adam Kempenaar:And nobody does that better than Will Ferrell. And then, of course, you have someone like John C. Reilly as his sidekick. And he's perfect in every scene. I mean, who's a better sidekick than John C. Reilly? And you're right. That Thanksgiving scene is, if you were doing a top five scenes from the comedy boom era, I think that would have to be considered for the list.

1:19:39Josh Larsen:Look, I like the baby version the best. Do you hear me? I win the races and I get the money. Ricky, finish the damn grace. I like to picture Jesus in a tuxedo t-shirt because it says, like, I want to be formal, but I'm here to party too. Because I like to party, so I like my Jesus to party. I mean, look, I could have put this on my list, too. I did not want to have without spoiling my number one. I didn't want to have three Adam McKay and Will Ferrell movies on there. So I wanted some restraint. I showed. Right. Right. The only moment on this entire list that restraint is being shown is here by my exclusion of this movie.

1:20:17But I could have easily put it on here. And I do absolutely love this movie as well. And so, so funny. And what I love about it is that, you know, it was able to kind of like kind of Trojan horse some of this stuff in. Like, you know, like this movie played well with NASCAR fans, even though the entire movie is making fun of NASCAR. It's just a great big spoof of NASCAR culture, corporate food culture, promotional tie-in culture. and it sort of was able to use all that stuff in a way that's so kind of good-natured that they were able to kind of sell this movie to the same crowd that they're kind of poking fun at, which I think is really pretty remarkable.

1:21:07And yeah, I think your description of the Will Ferrell kind of archetype is very on point with, I would just add, it's not just about these like kind of would-be alpha men who are the, you know, the lords of their profession or their whatever it is that they do, they're the best. It's, I think it's very important also that they're, that's where they begin, but they always, at the slightest bit of like competition or, you know, any little thing that comes up, they crumble. They completely fall apart. They cannot be challenged. They are the best in their minds. But at the moment someone comes along who might actually be, you know, competition, they can't handle it.

1:21:51And in this movie, that's Sacha Baron Cohen as the other, you know, as the French driver, which is yet another aspect of the kind of social and cultural satire of the movie, because there was all of, you know, this is we're talking about 2006. This is post 9-11, post Iraq war and the whole kind of freedom fries culture that kind of sprung out of that and creating this this French F1 or I think he calls it F1, which is very funny. that he is the competition and that Ricky Bobby just cannot handle it and just crumples so easily, just folds like a cheap suit, just absolutely, I think, essential to the comedy of these characters.

1:22:40You are fast, Ricky Bobby.

1:22:44Josh Larsen:But they am fast. All right, you let go of me, you Formula One jazz nut job. Like the frightened baby chipmunk, You are scared by anything that is different. I will let you go, Ricky. But first, I want you to say,

1:23:05Josh Larsen:I love crepes. Don't you say it, Ricky. These colors don't rhyme.

1:23:11Adam Kempenaar:Well, we've named some pretty hilarious comedies, and yet we both have films that have yet to be named in our number one slot. So, Matt, do the honors. Well, again, as I alluded to with all the talk of McKay and Farrell, it had to be on the list. I mean it would be unfathomable if we had two lists with like nine movies and this one wasn't on here for this time period. And it is – for me, it is Anchorman. That's my number one. I mean I could kind of flip a coin between that and Step Brothers. But another movie about another Will Ferrell, you know, like a master of his world who is slightly, slightly challenged and just crumbles to pieces and cannot handle it and the fallout of that.

1:24:04and another incredible ensemble. And one of the great ensembles of the period, you know, not just, it's got Paul Rudd, it's got Steve Carell. It has, you know, a lot of guys who within a few years, none of these guys could make a movie together because they're acting, you know, they're asking prices were so high. And I mean, that's part of the reason it took so long to make Anchorman 2 was trying to figure out a way to make that movie for a budget that would make sense because all the people that were in the original film had gone on to become so big that it was difficult financially and scheduling-wise just to kind of put them back into a movie together.

1:24:47And again, we've talked about that sense of collaboration and ensemble, and that is one of the things that I think is really evidenced in Anchorman. You also have, you know, behind the scenes, you also have Judd Apatow, who was kind of the producer overseeing this and was brought in to kind of, I don't know if he was there to corral McKay and Farrell so much as it was, you know, they had not made a movie, one of their movies at this point. And Apatow was a little more experienced and had a lot of producing experience and could kind of just be the guy in the room saying like, maybe there should be a little bit of a story.

1:25:27Maybe there should be a little bit of a character arc. Which I think I think was was probably a good call as well. And yeah, very I mean, of all the quotable movies of this period and we've talked about quotability.

1:25:41Adam Kempenaar:Yeah. Unbelievably, unbelievably quotable, unbelievably Halloweenable. The costume you could eat, you know, like and the character design of Ron Burgundy as a character, like if you saw someone in a red suit and a mustache at Halloween coming up, you would know exactly who that is. there's nobody else it could be. I mean, there is, it's, it's like a striking, he's funny, it's a funny character just by the look of him. And, you know, you mentioned earlier the improvisation. They shot so much good stuff for this movie that they made two movies. On DVD, they put out a second film called Wake Up Ron Burgundy, basically of outtakes and deleted scenes and subplots.

1:26:27And, you know, is it as good as Anchorman? No. Is it funnier than almost every comedy I have seen this year, except one that comes to mind? Yes. And it's like that just this world that these guys were allowed to kind of play and improvise and work together and kind of brainstorm and create this wild stuff. It really does kind of make you weep for this era of comedy when these kind of things could happen. I mean, it's very difficult to imagine a movie like Anchorman coming out today, certainly in theaters. I mean, I'm sure someone would maybe make something like it on streaming, but as a theatrical experience, that's a real long shot.

1:27:14I am completely miserable, San Diego.

1:27:20It's so damn hot.

1:27:25Adam Kempenaar:milk was a bad choice maybe the strongest case matt is the quotability and when we talk about the quotes that are still part of the lexicon i think that there is a clear winner from this film that i'll mention but i think there's at least five competing for the runner-up spot i'm kind of a big deal. Scotchy, scotch, scotch. I'm in a glass case of emotion. Stay classy, San Diego. Boy, that escalated quickly. You can use so many of those in so many situations in everyday life. But the clear winner. I mean, two days ago, I was with someone who used this. I use it all the time. 60 % of the time, it works every time.

1:28:15Adam Kempenaar:Anytime you throw out any kind of percentage, doesn't matter what you're talking about, you can say 60 % of the time, it works every time. Paul Rudd, it's golden. It stings the nostrils in a good way. Yeah.

1:28:29Josh Larsen:Brian, I'm going to be honest with you. That smells like pure gasoline.

1:28:32Adam Kempenaar:They've done studies, you know. 60 % of the time, it works every time. That doesn't make sense. I mean, that's up there with the dinner scene from Talladega Nights where every single line in that scene is funny. You know, when he takes out Sex Panther, it's quite pungent, singes the nostrils, you know, all that kind of stuff.

1:28:55Josh Larsen:Yeah, that's it with a lot of with a lot of these movies is there are sequences where you don't have a clunker, right? You don't have one where it loses pace or it loses steam. It just continues to build. I am loving all of this praise for Will Ferrell. It makes me feel better about, I don't know if you remember, Adam, but just last year, I think it was last summer, we did performers of the century so far. We did a draft of this. And I thought, I can't do this in a respectable exercise like this. And then I pushed through. And Will Ferrell, I think I took fourth or fifth. And I had my reasons there, but actually, Matt, reading the book, you tapped into another one that I don't think I talked about on that show, but you describe him as Will Ferrell's unafraid to perform to total silence.

1:29:45Josh Larsen:And I think I was like, the light bulb went off, right? It's like, that is it. He is the rare performer who, another way of saying this is like, you get the sense he would be doing what he's doing if he was in a room by himself. And there's something, there's such a conviction to that that I can't help but admire. You have a quote from Farrell, too, that touches on this where he says, if something wasn't working, the tendency would be to speed up and get through it, but I would slow way down. And I would have this thing. I don't know why. I love the audience. I want them to laugh. And yet something would kick in like, okay, you don't like it.

1:30:22Josh Larsen:I'm going to make sure you really hate it. So I would just take my time. I don't know. It was a perverse joy and the agony of it being so painful. And a lot of the comedy I appreciate is when I can see that happen. I think that's why I like bits that are just extended beyond their breaking point in movies. It's just pushing it as far as it can go. That was definitely a feral strength. And I don't know if that applies to Anchorman, actually. I think here almost everything is like a quick hit. But it's definitely a quality he had. We are laughing. And we are very good friends. Good buddy, sharing a special moment.

1:31:00Adam Kempenaar:Don't say anything wrong. Just let it happen. Laughing and enjoying our friendship. And someday we'll look back on this with much fondness. Yeah. He might be the funniest man alive and has possibly had that mantle for quite a while. And yet, on our joint list, a Will Ferrell movie, an Adam McKay movie, is not in our number one spot. We are going back to Judd Apatow and the 40-year-old virgin. Judd Apatow's directing debut, this is Steve Carell's debut as a leading man. And I didn't know this at all until I read your book that Carell pitched this because it was a Second City bit that he was a part of.

1:31:48Adam Kempenaar:But it made total sense that the hook for Apatow or the thing that they really understood that who this character was, was the scene that I still laugh just thinking about. so for me it's the core of the film and of course it turns out it's the core of the film it's the poker scene the poker scene where they're they're going around and they're sharing their sexual exploits and of course that's the scene where correll's character gets gets outed he gets outed as someone who who has never had sex before and it's just the fact that he can't disguise it he can't talk the talk you know when you like you grab a woman's breast and it's

1:32:33Josh Larsen:and you feel it and it feels like a bag of sand when you're touching it.

1:32:41Adam Kempenaar:Bag of sand?

1:32:45Josh Larsen:You know what I mean. Why don't we just play? Why don't we just deal the cards?

1:32:48Adam Kempenaar:All I have to do is say the phrase feels like a bag of sand and all of you know exactly what I'm talking about. And the way everybody else around the table is trying to get into it, They're trying to go along with him, and then they know that it's gotten to a point where he's faking it, and they call him out on it. It's such a funny scene. And here I'm going to touch on a few more things, Josh, that we've gotten at throughout this top five. The personal aspect of it. In your book, you quote Judd Apatow is saying that he doesn't think that he's ever written anything more personal than that. In 2014, he said that, you know, this is nine years after the movie came out.

1:33:32Adam Kempenaar:He said that, you know, by the time he was 40, he wasn't a virgin. But I love his his phrasing that he'd got a decade or so. He's got decade spans, maybe, you know, so he related to this character in in a lot of ways beyond just the the sex aspect of it. And he also describes, you quote, something else in there about the improv that I think is interesting because we hear so much about Apatow's approach to it, and we know other directors who do it or who allow it. And we think of it purely in terms of spontaneity and what that may allow for with a film and maybe what it taps into with a character.

1:34:16Adam Kempenaar:But the way Apatow explained it in your book, the way you recite it there is something I just never really thought of it from that perspective before. He frames it more in terms of the other actor, the listener. He says what happens is then the other actor is a little more in the moment because they don't know what's coming at them. It might be the script, but it might not be the script. So everyone pays attention differently and the acting level comes way up. That makes so much sense, of course. It's not just about an actor like Robin Williams, who we think of as a great improviser. It's not just about what he's doing.

1:34:54It's about having the freedom in a scene for any performer to improvise and what the person opposite Robin Williams has to do in order to be alert.

1:35:07Adam Kempenaar:And then what they can do in response to Robin Williams or any of these actors in a movie like The 40-Year-Old Virgin. So I did learn quite a bit. And for me, thinking back, it's just in terms, I'd have to count, and I'm never going to do that exercise. But for me, in terms of just quantity of laughs, of all these films, it's between the 40-year-old virgin and Knocked Up. So that's why Apatow, for me, is still the king of this period.

1:35:37Josh Larsen:Yeah, I think this is the fountainhead. I think of it, the four-year-old virgin for this era of comedy. And it does hold up. This is the one. I didn't really need to revisit these movies for this show because I've watched so many of them countless times. But Debbie and I were looking for something Saturday night. And I just said, hey, pick one. We're doing this show on Monday night. What do you want to watch? And she chose this. And it had been a little while with this one, actually. I'd forgotten. I forgot totally that Elizabeth Banks was in it, for example. And for a guy's movie, what great moments for not only Banks, but Jane Lynch, Leslie Mann, and of course, Catherine Keener is the love interest, right?

1:36:19Josh Larsen:Just bringing this extra little different vibe to the movie that's so crucial. You know, it's so funny. I work right across the street and I've never been in this place. Oh, really? Yeah. Where at? Oh, we sell your stuff on eBay store. Oh, that's the name?

1:36:34Adam Kempenaar:Yeah. Yeah, I was looking for something, you know, obvious. So I chose that. I don't understand. So what you do what?

1:36:42Josh Larsen:I do think it's the fountainhead in terms of, again, where I was talking about this crude yet compassionate comedy is finding a way to balance all of that. And the relatability we've talked about is a part of it. It goes back to that poker game scene you were describing, Adam, is, you know, we haven't all been maybe in that exact conversation. But most of us have been in a conversation where we're the one person who has the least familiarity with what everyone else is vibing with. You're a little embarrassed.

1:37:12Adam Kempenaar:You're acting more than you'd like to be.

1:37:16Josh Larsen:Yep. You're trying to wear a poker face. There's that moment where maybe if everyone else doesn't acknowledge it, you and everyone knows you didn't sell it. And that moment squeezes that experience for all it's worth. So yeah, this is one also revisiting, to your point, Matt, about consider these as time capsules. It's a little shocking what was allowed or considered good material back in this era, which wasn't all that long ago. But overall, man, it does hold up. And it's also, it's interesting. We've talked about the man-child thing, right? It's an interesting twist on that, even though this came first, before a lot of those portraits of this man-child who reluctantly grows up at the end.

1:38:11What you have here really is a nice guy who resists, he resists man-childishness that's

1:38:19Josh Larsen:trying to be forced on him by his coworkers for much of the movie, right? And it's almost like a meeting of the minds. It's like this guy is dragged out of this childishness he has, but it's not a boorish childishness like so many further characters. And then his co-workers are drawn out of their boorishness and they all sort of meet in the middle in a strange way. So it is this not maybe an inversion of all those movies that would come, but definitely a little bit of a twist on it that I think is maybe the Carell quality. Maybe that's what Carell is bringing to this. Yeah, he definitely has a sweetness.

1:38:55And I know he definitely had a vision of it's easy to imagine the when you hear the title, the 40 year old virgin, a movie that's maybe closer in tone to something like a Zoolander where the character is very broad and very silly and is like the object of derision in the film. And that's not what the 40-year-old virgin is. The actual movie is very – it's empathetic. It sort of sees this character and really kind of relates to his story in a weird way. As that quote from Apatow attests that in some ways this was a character that he related to even if the specifics of some of it didn't quite line up with his own autobiography.

1:39:44And I think that's – I think there is an interesting blend here and in a lot of Apatow's work between that kind of real sweetness and sentimentality with that raunchier edge. You know, whereas some of these these frat pack movies and these movies of this period, they can be a little they can be really rough without that leavening of sweetness. You know, here there are some really raunchy moments, but there is also, you know, the end of this movie kind of like Superbad in a way is very emotional. It's not a – yes, it's about will he not be the 40-year-old virgin anymore, but it's also about will he get past his hangups and be able to kind of embrace a relationship with this woman?

1:40:35Will he be able to kind of endure the bullying of his coworkers and kind of stick it out through the harder times in a relationship? Because it's not all just going to be easy. That's definitely a recurring theme in a lot of Apatow's work. So that's, I think, when I revisited this one during the book. I think that's what, you know, I remembered the waxing scene, of course, is very funny. And there are other, you know, big comedy moments in the film, like the poker scene. And, you know, there's a lot of them. There's a lot of them with Seth Rogen has a couple of real standout sequences where he's basically, it's almost like the real Seth Rogen trying to shock and disturb the real Steve Carell with like the most graphic horrifying sexual deviancy he can think of we thought it'd be fun you know to go to this show everyone's you gotta check out one of these shows and you know it's a woman on a horse and just watching Steve Carell's discomfort wow that's something so did you what did you get up to but on the flip side you have things like the ending which is like genuine You know, they managed to, like, land the plane in a way where, yes, it's funny, the ending, and there are some good jokes about, you know, the conclusion of his journey to end his virginity.

1:41:56But it also ends in this moment of kind of, like, ecstatic elation of this musical number, this kind of big – this flourish, this artistic gesture that is – it's also funny in and of itself, I suppose, because it's so unexpected again. Right. But it but it's something more than just a crude sex joke. It's it's something a little more a more more special and more unique than that. And I know when I revisited the movie, I was I was very pleasantly surprised by that side of the film, which I did not really remember at all.

1:42:31Adam Kempenaar:So listeners, we would love to hear your picks, maybe your favorite quotes, any other comments you have about the top five lists. We, of course, encourage you to get Matt's book. We'll talk a little bit more about that in a moment because we're going to make him stick around. You can email us feedback at filmspotting.net. Once again, you can see our picks at filmspotting.net slash lists. And Matt, we would like to have you stick around because we have some poll results that producer Sam anyway, your producer as well over at filmspotting.net. He says that you care about 70s musicals. I don't know if that's true or not, but that's what he says.

1:43:07Adam Kempenaar:But I know you care about the new poll question because it's tied to your book. It's showtime, folks. poll results from last time. A couple of weeks ago, we asked you to choose one and only one 70s musical. This was a direct tie-in to our tribute to Tim Curry, where we talked about the Rocky Horror Picture Show. Your options were All That Jazz, Cabaret, Fiddler on the Roof, Grease, Jesus Christ Superstar, the Rocky Horror Picture Show, or you could write in other, Josh. We must have done okay with the options because other is in last. That always warms my heart. Can't be that flawed.

1:43:51Josh Larsen:Can't be that flawed. Last place, 5%. Then at the bottom here, Fiddler on the Roof, 8%. Jesus Christ Superstar, 9%. Packed in the middle. Grease, 15 % of the vote. Rocky Horror, 16%. And Cabaret, 18%, which means a decisive win for all that jazz with 26 % of the vote.

1:44:11Adam Kempenaar:We got this from Angela Kappas.

1:44:41Adam Kempenaar:superstar, it is hard to argue with Angela's logic.

1:44:45Josh Larsen:Here's Lizzie Drexler. There's only one 70s musical whose rebellious and transgressive energy inspired my friend and I to crash the karaoke DJ setup at her bat mitzvah with our rendition of Toucha Toucha Touch Me. Oh no, I can still vividly remember her mom's nervous laughter as she bounded across the lawn, dodging the crowd of extended family members to unplug the machine before we even got to the good parts. My vote is for Rocky Horror.

1:45:15Adam Kempenaar:And Matt, feel free to jump here at any time if you have any comments, if you want to share your pick. We got this from Greg David. For a decade in which the musical was considered practically dead, this is an incredibly strong list. But in the end, here's another vote for Jesus Christ Superstar. When you take into account the degree of difficulty that there isn't a single scene of traditionally spoken dialogue, the fact that it very much speaks to the rise of youth culture in the late 60s to early 70s, and that it's just one of the strongest soundtracks ever recorded, I can't go any other way.

1:45:44Boy, I guess I should see Jesus Christ Superstar. I don't think I've ever seen that film.

1:45:49Adam Kempenaar:The Norman Jewison film, really? I don't think so. No, I don't think so. I mean, the movie that I was thinking about, I mean, of those picks, I would have picked All That Jazz, but the movie that I was thinking about that didn't, I don't think it was in the poll. What about Phantom of the Paradise? Maybe that could have snuck in there somewhere. Oh, wow. Maybe. That's the other one that I really like. I've always been a big Phantom of the Paradise fan.

1:46:14Josh Larsen:A recent bonus episode topic, maybe within the last year, I think we did for family members. All right. We also heard from Aaron Teachman, truly a strange era for movie musicals because the stage musicals that got movies in this era are still well represented in theaters across the country today. 1776, A Little Night Music, Man of La Mancha, The Who's Tommy, Godspell, and The Wiz. Quality musicals where the movie versions aren't remotely the best production you have seen or ever will see. For me, this is between Cabaret and Fiddler. And what wins me over here is that Topol might have been the best Tevye on stage or screen.

1:46:54Josh Larsen:And as good as Cabaret is, Joel Gray has real competition from Alan Cumming as the emcee, and lots of Sally's have understood the assignment better than Liza, Natasha Richardson, and Amy Lennox to name two. So I have to go with Fiddler here.

1:47:11Adam Kempenaar:Okay. A few more here. Patrick T says, all great choices, but I'm going with the one by the two-time Oscar-winning director Milos Forman with the groundbreaking choreography from the acclaimed Twyla Tharp, also including one of my favorite actors of that era, Treat Williams. That movie is hair going off the grid.

1:47:31Josh Larsen:Yeah, another vote for other here from Jill Adamson. I got to go rock here with Ken Russell's Litzemania with some of the most bonkers set straight out of Spinal Tap and some actual incredible songs by The Who. This movie melted my brain. There's nothing like it.

1:47:48Adam Kempenaar:Finally, Andrew Corsini says, I think Sam is forgetting a little movie called Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Hence, this flawed pole is obsolete. I did mention this. You get nothing, sir. Good day, sir. You stole fizzy lifting drinks. Take that, Sam.

1:48:04Josh Larsen:Now, is it a flawed poll if we have two producer's notes? And I don't think this has ever happened.

1:48:11Adam Kempenaar:I mean, there's been an occasional aside. I don't think Sam has ever produced actual notes.

1:48:16Josh Larsen:I know. It has like a heading here. Producer's notes, number one. Producer Sam did intentionally omit Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory and the one I would have voted for, the Muppet movie. Admittedly unfair and certainly deeply flawed, but he did want to restrict the poll to musicals. like Rocky Horror, that were made for, for lack of a better word, an adult audience. He feels vindicated by the results, which had Other in last place. Okay, fair point.

1:48:46Adam Kempenaar:He also agrees with me that All That Jazz is not a traditional musical. He considered leaving it out, but figured that it would only cause more problems than leaving it in. Viva La Fosse. Okay, so we're aligned, even though I'm not sure I even consider it a traditional or a non-traditional musical. I don't even consider it a musical. So it just doesn't belong in the poll, and I'm not sure why it won the poll. So it does remain a deeply flawed film spotting poll, even though I agree with listeners that it's the best movie there. But Matt Singer, if you've never seen Jesus Christ Superstar, Carl Anderson is the name I somehow couldn't pull last time playing Judas.

1:49:23Adam Kempenaar:The Ted Neely-Carl Anderson pairing of Jesus and Judas in the film far outpaces any Broadway production that's ever been done. It's astounding. All right. I'm looking right now on Letterboxd to see where it might be streaming to see if I can watch this movie. We do thank everyone who voted in that poll and left a comment. The new deeply flawed film spotting poll, well, we'll see because Matt helped us with the options. Maybe it's perfect. It is inspired by our top five comedy boom movies. Sam and I couldn't agree on the choices, so we did go to our expert, Matt Singer. We decided that rather than opening it up to all of these films that could be eligible for the comedy boom, we're going back to the roots.

1:50:13Adam Kempenaar:where you started, Matt Singer, the frat pack. You can only choose one frat pack movie. Joshua, you do the honors of reading the choices that Matt Singer gave us.

1:50:28Josh Larsen:The 40-year-old virgin, which I assume is where Adam and I are going considering it was at the top of our joint list. Anchorman, Old School, Starsky and Hutch, Step Brothers, Superbad, Wedding Crashers, Zoolander and we'll give you the option of other.

1:50:47Adam Kempenaar:So Matt, a couple choices there in Starsky and Hutch, actually more than that, a few old school and wedding crashers that didn't come up on our list, but I understand why they're there. Certainly old school and wedding crashers. Will Ferrell does appear, of course, in both of those films. One of them more prominently than the other, Starsky and Hutch, a Ben Stiller-Owen Wilson joint. Will Ferrell has a cameo in that one as well okay there you go I don't know that I've ever actually seen all of Starsky and Hutch so I probably missed that which one do you think is going to win it which one will win is that's an interesting question that I had not pondered I think probably I would expect one of our two number one picks I would think I would think either Anchorman or 40 year old virgin but I could see I could see Step Brothers doing well.

1:51:43I could see, I mean, almost any of the movies that are in there doing pretty well. But I guess if I had to make a bet, I would think just based on how the movies have aged and seem to be kind of beloved now, I would probably say it's going to be one of those two.

1:52:02Adam Kempenaar:OK, one more quick question. Of all of these, which one was the most fun to write about? which was the most fun to write about? That's a good question too. I mean, I guess I think the – maybe it was 40-year-old Virgin just because when I was writing the book mostly last year, that was the 20th anniversary. So as I was working on the research, there was new – Apatow was like doing the publicity circuit promoting the movie. And so he did a lot of interviews about the 40-year-old virgin. And so it would be fun to kind of do my research about what he was saying about it 20 years ago and then see how he was talking about it 20 years later and comparing his kind of feelings about it then versus now and how that had evolved.

1:53:00That was kind of interesting because it was like I would be almost done with the book and there would be a bunch of new interviews I would want to read and then maybe even incorporate some quotes from. So I guess that one – I mean the reality is most of these movies are really fun. And it's – when you can say, oh, yeah, what did you do last night? Oh, I was researching my book. I watched Zoolander or I watched Step Brothers. Yeah, working in those Jersey coal mines, Matt. That's right. That's a good day at the office, so to speak, even if it's in the bathroom. Like, I mean, that's part of the reason to do a book like this is that you're not wallowing in misery with this subject matter.

1:53:47You're getting to – the research is, for the most part, very enjoyable. So there's a tip for the aspiring book writers out there. Find something you enjoy watching 10 times or researching articles about for weeks on end. That definitely helps.

1:54:07Adam Kempenaar:Well, Matt, you are prolific. We congratulate you on another book. We thank you for coming on the show and participating in this fun top five. In addition to hearing you every Tuesday on Film Spotting SVU with your co-host Jordan Hoffman, we will link to your book, which has all the information on where you can purchase it in our show notes for this episode. But where else, what else would you like to plug? so the book comes out on october 6th you can pre-order it now early or you can get it then uh i'll be doing some book events uh around it october 6th i'll be in uh brooklyn at the barnes and noble and on atlantic avenue october 11th i'll be at vroman's bookstore in pasadena california then i'm coming out to uh iowa city for the book fest and refocus film fest at the towards the end of October.

1:55:07And then right after that, I'm going to Chicago for a screening of Step Brothers at the Davis Theater on October 26th and a book signing. So if you want like a signed copy, those are the places to get one potentially. My website is matt-singer.net. So if you want to find like a pre-order link or more info on those events, you can find those. What else? Screencrush.com. That's where I work most days, every day, really. I'm still working at Screen Crush. And yeah, Film Spotting SVU is every Tuesday. So I imagine if the people are listening to this, they know where to find that, though.

1:55:48Adam Kempenaar:Probably. Probably. And I'll just throw in an additional plug for refocus here in Iowa City at the great film scene. Not only will you be there helping to promote your book and doing a reading for Book Fest, but you will be appearing at a live taping. That's right. spotting that's right myself and josh larson i believe producer sam van holgren will probably be making an appearance at least at the festival as well so if you're anywhere in the area want to come to a great little film festival see the three of us you should come out it'll be a good time we'll link to that as well in our show notes once again thank you matt singer my pleasure thanks guys looking forward to seeing you in iowa city in a couple weeks

1:56:35Everything that has happened in this town transpired in a matter of hours.

1:56:43Adam Kempenaar:You've got no idea what you've got there in your hands. Josh Six, Mila Jovovich, starring Resident Evil movies, were made between 2002's Resident Evil and 2016's Resident Evil, the final chapter. four were directed by schlock auteur paul ws anderson a jovovich less entry in the series came out in 2021 that's resident evil welcome to raccoon city now you did mention something about this to me that's seven films how many of them have you seen adam i saw three of them and

1:57:19Josh Larsen:then i was killed off i they just i i couldn't proceed to the next level is what happened okay

1:57:25Adam Kempenaar:I earlier today went to Rotten Tomatoes. I was dying with curiosity. I looked up these seven films. I decided to take the average of the Rotten Tomatoes scores for those seven films. Do you have a guess?

1:57:41Josh Larsen:Ooh.

1:57:45Josh Larsen:42%.

1:57:47Adam Kempenaar:The answer is 28.

1:57:49Josh Larsen:Oh, yikes. Wow. I think I liked the third one. but um boy when you said earlier today for a brief moment i thought you were going to tell

1:58:01Adam Kempenaar:me you binged the resident evil franchise did not have time for that no the latest resident evil also based on the horror video game franchise was directed by zach crager who made last year's weapons you were a big fan of weapons it did resident evil did huge business in its opening weekend it is also working for critics i mentioned rotten tomatoes i wanted to see what the disparity was all those other films, seven movies, average score was a 28. Well, this one 96. The last time I looked Josh, I don't know how it played for you, Josh, compared to that third installment. Why don't you enlighten us?

1:58:41Adam Kempenaar:What did you make of the new resident evil?

1:58:43Josh Larsen:Good question. I'd have to go back and actually read that review. Uh, I did like this. I would also be, um, you know, the fresh side, I suppose. Uh, I am fresher on the first, what is this? It's only 90 minutes, right?

1:58:58Adam Kempenaar:Maybe the first 35 minutes.

1:59:01Josh Larsen:I think there's a, there's a key point and, and it's, I feel bad because I saw a development in the plot and I thought immediately I was like, oh no, I'm afraid we're going to lose the magic. And for me, we did lose the magic because for the first section where we're following this one guy, this, this medical career, bumbling guy who gets kind of lost in this increasingly crazy scenario and trying to figure his way through it, I was kind of in heaven, in horror comedy movie heaven. And it was a tight little horror comedy too, right? It was just this character, Brian, played by Austin Abrams, mildly annoying situations that escalate to comically mystified.

1:59:58Josh Larsen:And then they get, let's say, bazonkerly terrifying. And maybe somewhere between the last two is where I was in my sweet spot. This does escalate into something where it's still funny and it puts humor at the forefront, but it gets, this is based on a video game, as we've said, it gets awfully shooty. It gets awfully gunny. It gets, you know, gross-out-y with okay special effects. And to me, I missed what we had at the beginning. My takeaway from this, Adam, mainly, I went into it excited about Zach Greger, because yes, I do love weapons. I came out of it thinking, I want to see almost everything Austin Abrams is in.

2:00:43Adam Kempenaar:Yeah. He's very good.

2:00:45Josh Larsen:And I didn't recognize him while watching the movie. I should have, because in weapons, he is the bubbling burglar who has some great comic bits amidst the bazonkers stuff going on in that movie. I didn't recognize him from that. It wasn't until after, you know where else I loved him. You remember, I think we reviewed this, Wolfe's, the George Clooney, Brad Pitt. We both saw that, right? He's the third wheel to them, the hard partying third wheel who was just delightful. And I think in all of those three performances, he brings this, he doesn't need to be likable, right? These characters, but he has a childlike naivete that garners our sympathy somehow.

2:01:32Josh Larsen:I mean, And he obviously has the comic timing and he delivers everything. There's an early sequence here that's like one part Buster Keaton and two parts Alien. And he manages to make that work with the physical comedy. But I think it's just this persona he's able to capture in these three performances. The only way I can describe it is by another gesture he does in this movie. There's a point where he's in an empty house that's been abandoned. And he's one of these guys who's too lazy to grab a bowl and a spoon. So he just stands there and chugs the milk out of the jug in one hand, pours the cereal, the box of cereal in the other.

2:02:11Josh Larsen:And you know what? The way Austin Abrams does it, you don't care. You're like, that's all right. That's fine. Anyone else drive me nuts? Yeah. I just thought he was great in this. I thought he was the highlight.

2:02:23Adam Kempenaar:You're right. Now that you bring up all those other roles, he just brings, I don't know how else to phrase it, such an idiosyncratic energy to every role he plays. And he's, he's fun here. There, there is a sort of bizarre, every man quality to him. And whenever I found myself straying too far from this film or the film sort of pushing me away, he's what brought me back to it. And I'm, I'm with you that I really enjoyed the first half of this film a lot more than I enjoyed the second half something else you said if if you are someone who has ever been critical of a film or being gun fetishistic and favoring too many blood spattering headshots then yeah i would say this movie is either not for you or you're going to have to find good excuses to rationalize enjoying them here because i think that that element is undeniably in this film yeah

2:03:28Josh Larsen:i think it plays with it a little bit early on where he's clearly unfamiliar with guns he says that right and kind of like demystifies them for a while in a way i was intrigued by but as it proceeds it yeah it becomes uh a little more gun happy

2:03:49Adam Kempenaar:And I understand that it's a video game and it's a first person shooter game. I do get all that. Everybody. The question I'm still wrestling with is, are its defining traits features or bugs? it's it's mixture of horror and comedy counteracts the stakes but provides some genuine genuinely unhinged hilarity it's insularity it's sleek game-like narrative expands as you traverse it with this character right also offers no real sense of a world beyond these characters and circumstances you know if you think about it like where is his girlfriend's name michelle i believe where's michelle is she in any danger is all of this danger only affecting raccoon city what's happening in the rest of the world does he care about what's happening in the rest of the world at all you know is this one of those cases where video game fans are going to write in and tell me how you know it's all covered in the game and the lore and don't worry about it probably But I can't help but think about those things.

2:05:00Adam Kempenaar:And again, the movie, to its credit or detriment, isn't concerned with those things at all. Partly because, this is all I'll say about it, partly because my initial reaction was that it seemed to be setting up a sequel. I'm not convinced anymore that that's what it's doing, but that was my initial response. its ending is fundamentally unsatisfying. Yeah. But also arguably it's only inevitable ending. I think if we really unpack that, we might both end up in that same place. So again, features are bugs. There's a lot of contradictions here, right? And here's another one that I'll toss back to you.

2:05:45Adam Kempenaar:crager is content to make a scary and it is scary at times suspenseful funny video game movie and doesn't feel compelled to infuse it with trauma or commentary on the times we live in but still efforts for some poignancy with a man child forced to come to terms with possibly becoming a father. I do think the impulses are contradictory. However, I will also admit that it felt overly familiar having already watched this play out earlier this year in another video game movie, Exudate. So on that note, before I toss it back to you, can I make a proposal? You have this Resident Evil and Exidate a touchstone for Krager after watching this film clearly has to be Eraserhead which is about another anxious father to be I think the evil dead has to be another clear influence and you can potentially read that as a fear of domesticity anxiety about being tied down there's the final girl can I introduce the fail boy the fail boy in horror think about the decision this guy makes just to avoid confronting this conversation having this conversation about keeping the baby yeah head on and then the links he's willing to go to the risks he's willing to take including death to to protect what what as he articulates it at one point to protect what he believes could be a future life inside that medical bag he's supposed to deliver an irony that the character might even at one point register i'm not totally sure but that's how afraid of responsibility and fatherhood this guy is he's

2:07:44Josh Larsen:he's the fail boy yeah that was that's one of the darker bits of humor um i jotted it down what he actually says and he's referring to the medical like he thinks it could be an organ right in this package and he tells his girlfriend who has just told him she's pregnant. The reason he's not coming home is because this is life I'm carrying right now. So, I mean, we could get into, and I don't know if this has been touched on anywhere, but, you know, how much is this meant to be taken seriously as a wrestling with questions of pregnancy and abortion. And I mean, here's a Kregger pattern a little bit too.

2:08:28Josh Larsen:So Barbarian, he made before Weapons and had similar tone in a lot of ways and kind of touches on White Flight. If you've seen that movie, it's an element. I don't think it's really followed through too coherently in that movie. Weapons, we talked about how much is it saying about gun violence? How much isn't it? And now maybe this is Kreger like nodding towards a very difficult conversation and topic in terms of abortion. But think about, you know, what he says to his girlfriend before that comment. His initial reaction is, it's your body and your choice. And he's not saying that as like— He thinks he's being noble, but he's just dodging the question, right?

2:09:16Josh Larsen:we have a sequence here where he has to walk through a maternity ward and it's full of mutated

2:09:22Adam Kempenaar:babies anyway but that's played mostly for laughs i think right honestly i'm just pointing out like

2:09:30Josh Larsen:grotesque horror i have not spent enough time thinking about this but there could be a paper written on resident evil and pregnancy slash abortion and i think that's one of the games that's a dicey game that Craig is playing here. Yeah. To your question, I think your influences are spot on that you name. Definitely, including Evil Dead. Maybe it's a notch less wacky than Evil Dead. And so I didn't quite have a problem with it taking me, the humor taking me out of the tension. I think that was balanced pretty well here. And I think it's something that Kregger shows he has a knack for in all three of those movies.

2:10:18Josh Larsen:Now, he has made, I think, two previous features, which I have not seen. From looking at them, seem to be maybe broader comedies and less horror inflected. I could be wrong about that. I'll say this about Resident Evil. It does have me rethinking, was weapons kind of a one-off of just everything coming together for him in terms of story and execution, because Barbarian I liked but thought it had its limitations. I would say the same about Resident Evil. I like it. I think it has some of the same reservations you've pointed out and that I noted earlier.

2:10:59Adam Kempenaar:Yeah. Or, to be more generous, is Barbarian just an earlier work and Resident Evil is more of a genre picture? It's him taking existing IP and for him doing something interesting with it, whereas weapons was an original work. And maybe we are going to get – hopefully we're going to get more of that from Crager. But I guess I want to dig into something about it just a little bit more, and I want to know what you thought of it. Because this line between horror and comedy, and this is why I asked it or I posed it in these terms, because for the most part, I thought Abrams was the perfect vehicle for so much of the humor.

2:11:43And I loved how it deflated the tension often. And he acted the way so many of us, I think, would have to act in some of these moments.

2:11:54Adam Kempenaar:Yes. You know, I don't know what else we would do.

2:11:58Josh Larsen:Falling over the electric fence.

2:12:00Adam Kempenaar:Exactly. Right. And so it worked. A lot of it really worked. But there are moments where he is going for some emotional resonance. And so I'm struggling with the times when there's a conflict there. there's a scene in this movie and it's not a spoiler at all there's a scene in this movie that is clearly meant to also be a manifestation slash reflection of his inner conflict about becoming a father in the parking garage where he has he has to kill a kid like a young oh he has to kill a young girl yes and crager at least for me forces him to reckon with the aftermath of it he he he makes the character pause for a second and also gives him a line acknowledging the horror of what he just did Now, I don't I don't think it gets the I don't think the moment gets the weight that it demands, even in this movie.

2:13:21Adam Kempenaar:And I use the word demands. I don't mean even deserves. I mean that it demands because it doesn't need this moment. This scene doesn't need to be in this movie. It has nothing to do with the plot. This character has nothing to do with the plot of the film. There's nothing about it that's crucial to the to the movie. It is just an example. It's clearly there because it's meant to be an example, as I said, of this character having to come face to face with his pending fatherhood. Yeah, it's just another one of those barriers, just like the maternity ward later. And so I, I think that maybe moments, moments like that can maybe be treated a little more superficially when it's something completely outrageous, like that scene later that we're referring to.

2:14:12Adam Kempenaar:But this isn't outrageous. This is harrowing. This is a really harrowing moment. And I just don't know that the beats that it gets after it allow us or the character to really assess, even within this film, to really assess what he's just done.

2:14:33Josh Larsen:Yeah, I think that's all fair. I can understand that response. In the moment, I was tracing it again along the same lines as you, this through line of, in his face is the prospect of fatherhood. And notice he shows a different side when he first sees this girl. And his voice changes, he becomes very compassionate. He's compassionate. And I thought that was interesting. And I was shocked where it went, but I also thought I was still trying to trace this line of, okay, what is this saying about choosing to become a parent, what you're committing to, and what it means to say no? and i thought that that was like kind of provocative and and and daring and i wanted to follow it further and i i gotta say adam like i don't have a more interesting response to that because i kind of checked out on these more compelling questions when two other characters showed up and took him in and this is the point i was talking about i'm gonna dance around spoilers Suddenly the world of the movie expanded And as soon as I saw how it was expanding Like I said, I was like, oh no And I gave it a chance I waited, like I didn't bail But pretty much everything that came after that Aside from some good jokes and Abrams I just got increasingly distanced And I, you know, that moment with the girl in the RV Seemed so disconnected from what The gloppiness we fell into after that

2:16:16Adam Kempenaar:Honestly We did have a similar experience. I will praise Crager. And if I am leaning positive on the film, it is largely because of this. In addition to Abrams, it is the technique. It is how he uses the camera. The fact that it's a video game movie, which doesn't mean a whole lot to me, especially because I'm not familiar with the game, but he does not overuse the first person point of view. Yeah. But when it is deployed, it's very effective. And I think what's most effective is that he's often combining it with this third person perspective from behind Brian. And so either way, the way we're following him, we're either following him and seeing what he's seeing, but sometimes we're a little blocked, and that's frustrating as a viewer in a good way, or we're seeing exactly what he's seeing.

2:17:14Adam Kempenaar:But what's really great is when we are behind him and it's that third person point of view, we're always tethered to him. But what Crager is constantly doing when we're behind him is the way that camera floats, the way that camera just floats a little bit off of him to let in more of the frame. The effect is almost like he's always rounding a corner, even when he's not. He's just walking through a space. And so we, we're scanning the space to see who or what might be coming around, what might be jumping out. And it, it keeps us incredibly alert as guests. Yeah.

2:17:59Josh Larsen:I think that's, uh, that's a strength of the movie as well. From what I understand, have not played any of the variations of the game, but there have been different iterations where some are first person shooters. Some are, you know, more third person over the shoulder. And so throughout its history, that has changed. And it appears that Kregor has honored that by using each technique here. And to your point, the choices of when to use different techniques are key. And it does feel like as someone who does not have a lot of experience with these sorts of games, it feels different than watching your standard movie.

2:18:36Josh Larsen:But it also does not feel like these really bad video game adaptations I've seen where it's like I'm just watching someone play. Right. He's managed to kind of find a middle ground aesthetically. That is a distinction of this movie. And that's to its credit.

2:18:53Adam Kempenaar:I agree. I want to build off of that and what I was saying about the structure and the insularity because I don't know enough about these films and haven't seen enough of them to know if this is unique, if it's just rare, or maybe it is well -covered territory, and maybe he's just doing it at a higher level than some others have done it. because I haven't played many video games, certainly many modern video games, and I haven't seen many movie versions of video games, but he does seem to have rendered the experience of playing a game, even for those who haven't gamed in ages. He seems to have done it exceptionally, and here's what I mean.

2:19:34The character, this main character that we're tethered to,

2:19:38Adam Kempenaar:he has a destination. We may not fully understand. Well, we have one destination early on, It changes later, but he's got a mission with the destination. He opens a lot of doors. What do you do when you play games like any game, right? Even Super Mario Brothers or whatever going way back. You open a lot of doors. You have a lot of different portals. You run into a lot of barriers that you can't get past and you have to turn around or go in a different direction. Occasionally, things jump out and try to kill you. Sometimes you advance to a different stage and have to make sense of your surroundings all over again.

2:20:17Adam Kempenaar:Sometimes, and this happens here very clearly in stages, sometimes you get new weapons, you power up, and you have to figure out how to use those new weapons. Prager replicates what it's like to be a player character without ever feeling like he's trapped you inside a video game.

2:20:36Josh Larsen:Right. No, I didn't get that feeling at all. Yeah.

2:20:40Adam Kempenaar:So can I be serious about the movie again for one moment since I'm already probably a killjoy when it comes to this film a little bit? One of the big sequences in this movie, and I have seen Crager talk about this sequence in a couple of different places. It's a sequence he's very proud of. It's a sequence where there's a whole lot of, I'll just say a whole lot of bodies jumping off roofs. Oh, yeah. And part of the reason he's proud of it, and he should be because of the work that went into it, is because it's mostly practical. It's only a small bit virtual or CGI, though it is, but it was largely done with practical effects.

2:21:26Adam Kempenaar:I have two issues, I suppose. One is that as I watched it, you nevertheless, at least my experience with it, Josh, is for everything that may be having practically to make it feel, to give us the weight of that moment in terms of how it might feel for the character who's being bombarded by these bodies. you nevertheless can tell that the the blood spatter is all cgi or seems very cgi generated it seemed to me not real in a way that took me out of took me out of the moment so that's that's one thing but the other part of it is just as a as a sort of zombie movie and i know that there have been so many different approaches to zombie movies over the years there's no one right way to do it and i'm definitely not saying every zombie movie should treat this like these kinds of moments like night of the living dead going way way back but think about how when someone gets bitten and someone's transforming in a movie like night of the living dead a family member and and how that's the weight of that, how that's approached here.

2:22:51Adam Kempenaar:There's a gleefulness. There's a gleefulness in these bodies jumping in the way we're supposed to take in this scene. I feel like there's, there's a coolness factor when the fact is though, Josh, if we sit back for a second, if we sit back for a second and take ourselves, if we remove ourselves from it being a video game movie, which I can do watching a movie like this. I'm thinking about the fact that all of these people jumping are just normal people. They're all just normal people who have been transformed by an unfortunate incident, right? And so the movie's gleefulness at the jumping and the splatter, it leaves me a little uncomfortable watching it.

2:23:36Josh Larsen:So a couple things about that. First of all, I am surprised. I will say this about the special effects, which I don't think they are bad, but they do get increasingly outlandish. I'm surprised to hear that a lot of practical work was done during that sequence. Watching it, it does appear to your point to be mostly digital in some way. I thought that sequence largely worked. Again, going back to my main takeaway because of the reactions Austin Abrams has to it, which are the same reactions I have to it. I know nothing about this lore. Why are people launching themselves off the roofs? Now, I have a vague idea.

2:24:19Josh Larsen:Apparently, there's—and this is not a spoiler. It starts to happen early on. There is some monster here that just wants to be a body ball. And so it's somehow consuming any bodies it can find. And my assumption was that was what these, these possessed bodies were trying to do. Good thinking. To attach themselves to him, right? I hadn't gone that far. I think it speaks to a weakness of this story. If you don't know the lore, maybe this is not in the video game at all. I don't know. But there isn't, to your point about Night of the Living Dead, we know exactly what happens if you get bit, right?

2:24:56Josh Larsen:And I think this movie would have benefited from a bit of clarity of what the actual process is here. Kind of towards the end, like anything crazy could happen. I mean, people are spewing, you know, acidic vomit at you. And it just gets like, you know, there's no, nothing matters if anything can happen. Right? So it has a bit of that problem.

2:25:21Adam Kempenaar:That's the stakes that are deflated. Yes, that's how I felt.

2:25:23Josh Larsen:To your point. Yeah. You know, this being a horrific thing played for jokes, I think this is why Shaun of the Dead is maybe the pinnacle of horror comedy, is because, also a zombie movie, it manages to be quite funny in a lot of sequences. but it has that scene where it's Sean's stepdad in the car and he turns. And the movie just gives us a long sequence where this is a character who Sean, the Simon Pegg, the main character has had a difficult relationship with. And all of a sudden this crazy gonzo zombie comedy recognizes the true horror of the zombie genre. is that someone close to you could be just sapped of their identity when this happens, even if it's someone you have a difficult relationship with.

2:26:19Josh Larsen:And in that car, we watch the father-in-law played by Bill Nye lose his humanity. And it's this intense moment of poignancy in a hilarious zombie comedy. And there's nothing like that in Resident Evil. Maybe that's too much to ask of this movie, but your issue with that sequence made me think of that. They reach for it. I thought you were going to talk about the parking garage sequence, which we probably shouldn't spoil, but it's a voice. It's another phone call Ben has with his girlfriend, let's just say. Again, I had pretty much checked out at that point, so I saw what they were trying to do.

2:26:55Josh Larsen:It didn't do much for me. I think maybe they're trying to be the Bill Nye moment there a little bit. And I don't think Resident Evil has built the structure around it to allow for that moment to work.

2:27:07Adam Kempenaar:I agree. I agree. And one of the way that Night of the Living Dead gets around this type of concern that I'm raising, if I'm remembering correctly, yes, some people get turned into zombies, of course, but the dead rise in that film. These people are already dead who have been reanimated and turned into zombies yeah there's that you know there's the daughter in the basement that's what i'm thinking about that's that's the scene i'm talking about when the family the gravity of that josh but what i'm saying is on the whole the zombies walking around the countryside aren't just random people they're they're the dead they're already dead i'm not yeah i'm thinking of them as as monsters i'm not thinking of them as joe from next door Right.

2:27:52Josh Larsen:Well, yeah. Yeah. I just think like Resident Evil at that, by the time of that sequence, we don't know what the rules are. So it's hard to, it's hard to feel really much more than the way Ben feels in the moment that this is happening to him. I think it works on that level. Maybe not on any others.

2:28:12Adam Kempenaar:You also caught up with The Incomer, a film that opens in limited release this weekend. It's the feature debut from a Scottish director, Lewis Paxton, set in your beloved Orkney Islands. It stars Donald Gleason as a government official who comes to one of the islands to relocate the island's sole human residence. That's a brother and sister played by Gail Rankin and Grant O 'Rourke. So be honest. Did you go see this just because it's all Scottish and you know this place now? Or what's the deal?

2:28:42Josh Larsen:Yeah, that's pretty much it. Exactly. I mean, now that I'm back home and longing for those islands, I'll take any glimpse I can get. I wish they were my beloved. I never made it up. I mean, that's way up there. That's like crazy town. And they actually filmed this, I think on the far northeast coast of Scotland to stand in for it. But, you know, I think having an affinity for that sort of landscape and a familiarity for Scotland's fierce independence streak, which I didn't really have a sense of until I spent about nine months there, it definitely makes this movie more enjoyable because it's rooted in those things.

2:29:22Josh Larsen:It's rooted in the landscape and this idea of the sister and brother who would live for decades and refuse to leave. This is their place. There was once a brother and a sister. They were very normal.

2:29:41Adam Kempenaar:When they were wee, they were told, allow no income.

2:29:48Josh Larsen:Survive. In terms of tone, to give people an idea, it's funny, but quite dark. O 'Rourke, it also reminded me, it's something like Napoleon Dynamite, something like if you saw Taika Waititi's early film, Eagle vs. Shark. So it's goofy, it's wacky, but there's a bit of a darkness to it. Again, we're talking about good comic performances. The standout for me was Grant O 'Rourke as this brother of this sibling pair. He's been infantilized a little bit, living with his older sister for all these years. And so he has a bit of a bit of naivete, but also a violent streak, which is where some of the dark humor comes in.

2:30:30Josh Larsen:I would also say in terms of recommending this, I think Paxton, the writer director here, he has an interesting balancing act where he has a clear affection for Scottish lore, but it's both lovingly and disturbingly visualized. So we have this seal man who appears out of the water to the sister, played by John Hanna. I didn't even recognize him with all the makeup. And he kind of tries to goad her into suicide, which is speaking to the depression of being isolated. And so there's that element of it. But then you have these lovely animated sequences. The sister also tells the brother tales at night before the fireplace every night.

2:31:12Josh Larsen:And these are, you know, envisioned in these animated sequences, the artist, Selina Wagner drew them. So it's this balancing act that I think the movie mostly manages to pull off. If you are interested in any of those earlier films I mentioned, or just, you know, Scottish film in general. Yeah. I think that The Incomer is worth checking out.

2:31:35Adam Kempenaar:The Incomer, as I said, can be checked out at select theaters around the country. Resident Evil, if you haven't already seen it, you can see that everywhere. Big hit at the box office, doing well with critics as well. We would love your feedback, especially on Resident Evil. You know how to reach us. Feedback at filmspotting.net. Josh, that's our show.

2:31:59Josh Larsen:If you would like to connect with us on social media, you can find Adam and the show on Instagram, Facebook, Letterboxd, YouTube, and Blue Sky. He's at FilmSpotting. I'm at Larson on Film. We are independently produced and listener-supported. You can support the show by joining the FilmSpotting family at FilmSpottingFamily.com. You can listen early and ad-free. Plus, you'll get monthly bonus episodes, a weekly newsletter, and access to the show archive. For show t-shirts and other merch, go to FilmSpotting.net slash shop.

2:32:30Adam Kempenaar:Out streaming this weekend, you can see Unabomber about the former Harvard prodigy turned infamous domestic terrorist. That's on Netflix. In limited release, in addition to The Incomer, you can see John Wilson's The History of Concrete. Our friend Brian Tallarico says, as with the show, that's how to with John Wilson on HBO, it starts out about one thing and kind of becomes about everything. The Stunt Driver is also out. It's directed by Michael Douse, who made the movie Goon. It's about a stuntman, Ken Carter, the mad Canadian, who in the 70s attempted to jump the St. Lawrence River in a rocket car.

2:33:05Adam Kempenaar:I just saw a trailer for this right before recording on Instagram. it's very stylized and you would you would not expect to see jay baruchel speaking of comedy boom movies josh and ensemble members you would not expect to see jay baruchel playing the mad canadian but he is and ed helms at least in the trailer is barely recognizable in his role so i'm intrigued about the stunt driver you can also see appropriate for this show the judd apatow produced. You had to be there. How the Toronto Godspell ignited the comedy revolution. It's about the 1972 production of the musical Godspell, which starred pre-fame, listen to this cast, Martin Short, Eugene Levy, Gilda Radner, Victor Garber, and others.

2:33:55Adam Kempenaar:You know what they're not going to do a documentary about ever? The 1992 Newton High School theater production of Godspell that I played the bass in.

2:34:06Josh Larsen:Oh, oh, I thought you were, I was really hoping you were going to say you had the lead role or something like that.

2:34:12Adam Kempenaar:Oh gosh, no, but I did fall in love with the music. It was very difficult music to play, I have to say. I did kind of love Godspell though. Okay. How can you not love Godspell? In wide release, Avengers Endgame is re-released in anticipation of the December release of Doomsday, the animated Forgotten Island from DreamWorks. Josh, you're such a dog person. I know you can't wait to see Brad Pitt as a special forces officer who gets stranded in the Alaskan wilderness with his combat dog in Heart of the Beast.

2:34:44Josh Larsen:I don't know. Dog. I don't care for dog emotional manipulation.

2:34:49Adam Kempenaar:Dog's in peril.

2:34:50Josh Larsen:Actually, it was one of the things I didn't like about the Odyssey. So maybe this wouldn't work for me.

2:34:55Adam Kempenaar:Okay.

2:34:55Josh Larsen:I'm a little wary of it.

2:34:57Adam Kempenaar:Stricted by David Ayer, made End of Watch. Robert Pattinson is in To Catch a Predator, playing host Chris Hansen in primetime. After watching the documentary, David Ositz documentary, I really don't know how I feel about even a movie being made about this, as much as I love Robert Pattinson.

2:35:16Josh Larsen:Am I ready for more of this story? I don't know that I am. I'm kind of with you, but Pattinson. Right. Maybe if it was anyone else but Pattinson, I would say I'm going to pass.

2:35:28Adam Kempenaar:But I think I got to see him next week in the film spotting feed Monday, another edition of the movie racket with Michael Phillips. If you haven't heard already, great show this past week here with Alonzo Duralde. Tuesday, film spotting SVU with Matt Singer. We'll talk about Unabomber on Netflix Thursdays. The next picture show part two will be The Weight, the new Ethan Hawke movie with Russell Crowe that is paired with William Friedkin's Sorcerer. And Friday's Film Spotting, Josh, we're back at it. Peachy Keen, Jelly Bean, we're back at it with David Lynch. It's volume two, Mulholland Drive at 25, part of our Pantheon project.

2:36:09Josh Larsen:Film Spotting is produced by Golden Joe Dissot and Sam Van Hollegren. Without Sam and Golden Joe, this show wouldn't go. Our production assistant is Sophie Kempinar. Ariana Martinez is our marketing and social media assistant. Special thanks to everyone at WBEZ Chicago. More information is available at WBEZ.org. For Film Spotting, I'm Josh Larson.

2:36:32Adam Kempenaar:And I'm Adam Kempinar. Thanks for listening. This conversation can serve no purpose anymore. Goodbye.