Chapo Trap House - 866 - Ronnie, Talk to Russia feat. American Prestige (9/9/24)

Episode Date: September 10, 2024

Derek & Danny of the American Prestige podcast join us to review the new film Reagan. Can a film that accurately depicts the 40th president of the United States as a vacuous himbo who eagerly repeats the last thing told to him also portray him as a righteous colossus who single-handedly defeated the scourge of Soviet Russia. Sure! Why not? We consider the dim boomer hagiography presented to us by the director of other timeless classics such as Casper: A Spirited Beginning. American Prestige is moving to Supporting Cast, keep an eye out for how to find them on their new platform: https://www.americanprestigepod.com/p/important-announcement-american-prestige

All I wanna do is live chocolate All I wanna do is live chocolate This is like I would happily watch it again. It's the greatest trailer I've ever seen. It's the best trailer I've ever seen and it's based on the life of quote, the Israeli Walt Disney. This is filmed like a Zales commercial. Like this is supposed to be taking place in the Holocaust and it looks like a fucking Zales commercial. We extracted this, the gold for this wedding band from a Jews' youth. This is how we got it.

band from a Jews youth. This is how we got it. Why are you here? You're a new map maker, Commandant. Then you could be of service. Unfortunately. For you. Is it possible to change my seat? How does this work? I'm waiting for the sunshine.

So like he went to like Auschwitz and they're like, we heard you're really good at making maths. Yeah. How did that conversation start? But then he has a meat cube at the death camp. Oh yeah. You all know what it's like when you meet a corked up, shouty concentration cube. No one looked like this in 1939.

This is like a woman that only exists like on hinge. But who takes care of you? Okay, they didn't have Rachel Patton in the Holocaust. They weren't listening to that. Rebecca Tenenbaum. That was a fucking, that's a jet plane They didn't have that fucking there were like four jet planes in the world and like two of them were operational Sorry

Okay, yeah, so they're just they're gonna fuck each other raw at our shorts. There's tons of that going on Oh my god, no condom for me no thanks I'm the Israeli Walt Disney I don't need a condom at our space I'll just fucking raw dog you three feet from the gas chamber that they can't take from us laughter joy our spirits yeah there was laughter and joy as well it's a it's I call this movie the zone of the zone of laughter or Life is freaking beautiful They went through the entire holocaust they like gained five pounds during the Holocaust Are they sure are they sure they were in the Holocaust?

They're like yeah, it was really bad. We went to this camp where it was men and women, it was multi-racial actually, and none of us got killed and most of the time we were just making scrapbooks and having unprotected sex. Maybe they were in a reenactment troop and they thought they were in the real thing or something. It's like a reenactment troupe and they thought they were in the real thing. It's like a delusion. Like, I can't wait to see this movie.

Yeah. It's a novel take. That was the trailer for Bow, Artist at War, which was singularly the most jaw dropping movie trailer I've ever seen. I sent this to Seamus, a friend of the show Seamus, and he said that like, I've ever seen. I sent this to Seamus, a friend of the show Seamus, and he said that like, this is the most fake movie making fun of a stupid movie in another movie, but it actually exists trailer that has ever been produced. And when I was watching this, I was like, surely this is the most offensive depiction of the Holocaust ever put to film. But then no, I found out it's based on the life of the Israeli Walt Disney.

So then I was like, oh, well, that makes sense. Including getting laid in Auschwitz. Yeah. Hey, babe, you know, let's fuck like there's no tomorrow. To quote A. Up, lovely. No need for condom. So I should probably let's officially start the show and I'll start the show by saying, well, well, it's Monday, September 9th. And there you go again.

And again, there we go again. We're back on the show joined by our good friends, Derek and Danny of the American Prestige Podcast. And well, well, we're talking about the movie Reagan today. Before we get into Reagan, I was fascinated by, because many spies told me that you got to go early to the Reagan movie to see the trailers before it. And many people were encouraging me to go early

to catch a trailer for a new documentary about how Lincoln was gay. And I was really hoping to see that. But what I got instead was a million times more insane. The sort of this trickly romantic comedy about a death camp and a cartoonist who met his met a corked up showdy in the gas chambers and like, you know, learned to live, laugh, love in the middle of the Holocaust. Yeah, they really don't seem like they're having that bad of a

Holocaust. Like, it really seems like, okay, this isn't like a pro or anti Holocaust movie. We really like don't know. Well, okay. So in the before before I saw Reagan, I okay, there was a trailer for a new Matt Walsh documentary called like, Am I racist or something? And I gotta say, he's really washed, he needs, he needs a new bit. He seemed catatonic. He seemed like on ketamine in the trailer. It's like, this is your trailer for

your movie, because you get a little excited. But I was hoping to see the Lincoln is Gay documentary. And this is a trailer for a movie called Lincoln, Lover of Men. That title isn't bad. Lincoln, Lover of Men. I have to get a little conspiracy brain about this because I did watch the complete trailer for Lincoln, Lover of Men. And all the talking heads in the movie are very like, they're clearly like gender and queer studies professors at various American universities. And they're like, you know, sexuality didn't exist on such a neat binary in the 19th century. And yeah, like

he often slept in the same bed with other men, which by the way, I've looked like this is the sum total of the case for Lincoln being gay is that he often slept in the same bed with other men. But like, he was a real lawyer on a circuit. But there was like one bed in the state of Illinois and like him and six other guys had to sleep in it. That's the sum. But but since it's clear from the trailer that like, on first glance, it seems to be like, oh, here, this is a documentary about social progress. And if we can embrace one of America's

greatest presidents as having been a gay man, then certainly we'll accept all sorts of queerness in the present day. I think that this is all a faint and the fact that it was played before the Reagan movie and literally nowhere else. What is the audience? Yeah, it's reactionary. I would hazard a guess that if you looked into the funding and makers of this movie,

this is a covert attempt to just make Lincoln equals gay in the public imagination. You know, the right wing are trying to rewrite the history of World War II to be like, you know, actually, maybe we're on the wrong side. And it's just, decent civilized men who can argue about history can come to this cold rational conclusion that the Holocaust happened by accident. But I think they're trying to do this the Civil War now to just be like they can't outright say it was good to start a war to keep human beings as slaves. But what they can say is like, yeah, the guy who won

the Civil War, okay, he was gay. He was gay. I like how I like the fact that you can look at that title and think, oh, Lincoln, lover of men, like he emancipated the slaves. He was a great man. And then you get to the thing and it's like, no, we're saying he fucked men. That's where we're at. It's, it's, it's a top or a bottom though.

You have to find the doc. Well, in the 19th century, these things were very fluid. You're right. Everyone was Verz and Switch back then. All right. So like I said, we should officially start the show. We're talking about the new Ronald Reagan movie starring Dennis Quaid and from the director of probably eight different Casper the Friendly Ghost live-action movies, Soul Surfer and Three Ninjas Escape from Witch Mountain or something like that. But we're joined by of course our good friends Derek

Davidson and Danny Besner from the American Prestige podcast. Who better to take us through this rapturous and intense, you know, rapturous and intense. I mean, look, I think the way I describe this movie is to quote another American president Woodrow Wilson upon seeing the film, DW Griffiths, Birth of a Nation. He said it was like history written in lightning. I would say this movie is like history that's gotten damp and kind of moldy from like a leaky faucet under your

sink and is causing black mold in your apartment. So I have to. Yeah, the greatest fucking hits. I have to say this. I had this incredibly disturbing thought. I got to the theater. I got there early because Will had told me about the trailer for Bao the cartoonist and I had to see that I had to see if I got the same trailer.

So I got there early and it was like Sunday night, there were only like eight people who wound up showing up for this entire screening and I was there early, so I was the only person in this theater. I started to think like, wow, what if I'm the only person who comes to see this movie? Like what could you get away with being the only person in a movie theater?

I'm sure you guys saw this. There was a story a while ago about a guy who got arrested in Detroit for jacking off in the middle of Love Lies Bleeding. Oh, most definitely. Yeah. Was it Challengers or Love Lies Bleeding? It was Love Lies Bleeding. I had this depraved vision of a headline like Brett Stevens gets arrested for jacking

off in Reagan or like Benny Johnson or somebody just like getting hauled out for, for if they couldn't help themselves. The Russian Reagan's on there. Willard Peewee style. Yeah. Uh, and, and that was that, that's a great experience. Oh yeah. Oh, I didn't know that.

No, no, no. I was going to say it was a emotional whiplash because, uh, in the morning I watched Reagan and then I watched The Godfather actually with friend of the pod Josh Olson later the night and it was Interesting it just in terms of filmmaking how shitty Reagan was there are so many scenes that don't advance either plot or character That are just reciting the Reagan Greatest hits, you know, I hope you're all Republican when he was shot and you know, when he says the shut to the protesters. And it was just interesting as a film

because it wasn't as incompetent as the Hunter Biden movie. So it was like a competently made, almost well acted at times, I thought piece of shit. And it was a really interesting moment in the history of Hollywood. I found it to be one of the most baffling movies that I've ever seen. Incompetently made in many ways, obviously, but that is sort of like par for the course for this type of movie. Like what we'll call the broadly Christian genre of movie. I'm very used to

that at this point after like the reliant, God's not dead, et cetera, et cetera. It was more so that like the pacing and tone of it was dreamlike in this way that makes me think that many scenes were procedurally generated. We'll get to it, but there's a scene on the canoe that gave me the feeling of like not taking ketamine, but almost being dosed with it. Then there is the fact of the central characters of the movie. John Voight plays probably the most confusing character I've ever seen. He is ostensibly a KGB agent, but his job with the KGB has been to glaze Reagan for 50 years.

Going back to when he was a lifeguard, he's been following this kid around. This man is 98 years old, and he has spent his entire life watching Reagan get changed as a teenager, as a lifeguard. He watched Reagan on his first wedding night and was like, these, oh my God, this is the first instance of back shots. What does he call him?

I wish I was Jane. The Crusader, right? He calls him the Crusader. That's what he calls him. Yeah, he calls him the Crusader. And it's like, do you do anything at the KGB except for like, Blaze Ronald Reagan? And the whole Politburo watching him on TV,

that's the only time they meet is to get together and watch the TV and watch like Governor Reagan Give us each to the California. Yeah, it's like it was baffling framing device It's like no wonder you guys fucking lost your head guy spent his entire career Like setting up like underskirt cameras for Ronald Reagan I mean like he would have been he would have been liquidated long ago if he gets like the the upper echelons of the KGB together for a meeting and he's like, guys, I have to show you film Newt Rockne All-American. This man will destroy us. He's watching all

the bedtime for Bonzo movies. And they're like, what are you doing? What are you talking about? What's your job again and he's like as soon as the Soviet Union collapses he's like I will finally have access to American VHS library to see all of Ronald Reagan films. Randy! Randy! Where's the rest of me? They're like well like what did you learn?

He's like Ronald Reagan's penis is eight inches, 5.7 in diameter. It is rare for an Irishman to have this much of a dick. But the Crusader is a special man. The choice to have the framing device be like John Voight doing the worst Russian accent ever. Narrating this movie, talking to Vladimir Putin, Jr. or like the Arab parent made no fucking sense. Who gets this? My favorite thing was like this guy gets increasingly frantic over the course

of the movie as he's learning about Ronald Reagan. Like by the by two thirds of the way through the movie, he's like ready to jump out a fucking window in this guy's apartment. But he's like pulling his hair out. Smoking cigarettes telling anybody like this. What are you talking about? He's like so so fucking upset by the notion that Ronald Reagan existed. Like what is that going on?

Yeah. Super weird. I want to speak to this framing device that we're all alluding to, because it speaks to like the essential problem with this movie and the entire genre of movies that it stands in for. And it's okay. Like the movie is like, the old adage is show don't tell. This movie is entirely told to you by a senile James John Voight, as I said, James Woods, but a senile John Voight, caping in a James Woods, but a senile John Voight

caping in a bizarre Russian accent, playing the role of like a longtime KGB analyst who's been tasked with schooling Vladimir Putin Jr. or his heir apparent on where it all went wrong for the Soviet Union. And like his lesson is not like anything to do with geopolitics or Russian Cold War strategy. It has to do entirely with the life and career of Ronald Wilson Reagan. And the lesson learned is that Ronald Reagan was the greatest guy ever who did all the right things, never made a bad choice, and essentially was good and decent and honest in all things and was too good for the Soviet Union. and honest in all things and was too good for the Soviet Union. And what I mean here is that, like, even in a hagiographic movie, there has to be some tension,

conflict, like something and conflict. So this movie is just is a is like a Wikipedia entry being read to you by a senile man in a Russian accent, where like every scene is introduced by John Voight telling this guy being like, and then he went on to do another good thing that was right and correct. Will, it's sort of an extension of something that we have been noticing in conservative media. We noticed it in Mr. Burcham. We've noticed it in a lot of like very contemporary things. Basically everything that they have made since like the general right-wing cultural

backlash that has made them feel ascendant. And that is they have taken the forms of the people they feel they have defeated in that they are imitating the worst liberal art because they are making media that has no friction in it. There's no friction or conflict or character or anything. It's just look how great this guy is and there's no fatality Felix I think I want to disagree with that a hundred percent There's nothing vital about any of the art whether it's birchham or this or the the hunter biden movie or any of those shitty Christian movies Kevin Sorbo, of course shows up on this and are they well, do you know are they funded by the same group? movie directed the sequel to God's not Dead, God's So Here, or

something like that? Yeah, classic. But there's no vitality to any. I think that's really smart because it's a washed philosophy almost. So one of the things that was also really funny is how old all of the characters were. Like Gorbachev in real life was something like 40 when he assumed like 40 when he assumed the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the,

the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the He looks like he's wearing football pads. I mean, he looks like he's wearing shoulder pads. Very weird. Well, stuff like this is so fucking weird. There's an uncanny lack of vitality to the whole project that is really correct.

That's really interesting. I agree. Yeah. I shout out to Janie Danger, who hit me to the Lincoln is gay trailer, but in her letterbox review of this movie said that John Voight's character's job was to sit in the official KGB cock chair and just watch footage of Ronald Reagan owning them over and over again and be like, yeah, my god, how does he keep doing it? He is he is too perfect. And like the tension hates him. Yeah, the tension and conflict in this movie so good at fucking her tension and conflict in this movie is supposed to

be about how Ronald Reagan won the Cold War and like liberated the planet from the yoke of authoritarian Soviet communism. And like, and the opening credits is just like, like a newsreel of like the world turning red and like the last thing it says directed by Sean McNamara and it's a mushroom cloud. So those are the stakes. But then it's immediately under it's immediately like, done away with because they're like, well, all that's over in America one. Here's how they did it. And it's like, Oh, all right. Okay, I guess we can I can another two hours of this movie now. All

right, I guess we'll check out. And also just in terms of the movie, one the Cold War ended under HW didn't end under end under Reagan and the Soviet Union collapse under HW. But then didn't end under Reagan and the Soviet Union collapsed under H.W. But then also they don't. It's so weird. They spent so much of the movie on the diplomacy between Reagan and Gorbachev, but then they don't talk about the last diplomatic things that they actually did,

which arguably did set the stage. H.W. is near complete absence from this movie. Very, very, very telling. That was the first thing. That was like the first thing I noted about this and HW is not in this at all There's literally not a second one. Yeah one brief scene where he Turns up in a meeting and he looks fucking nothing like him at all. It looks so I then okay Yeah, I I must have this set but like they talk about a wrong contra and it's like there's really there's barely

I guess is one scene that I missed because it looks nothing like him And it's like, there's really, there's barely, I guess, this one scene that I missed because it looks nothing like him. And it's like, again, you know, to take over the script, Dr. Will Menacher role here, my script, Dr. Felix Biederman idea here was HW should have had a prominent role and he should have been played exactly like Cameron in paid full. Like Reagan, Reagan is obviously wood, he should, like, like, Reagan, Reagan is obviously Wood Harris because he's, like, he's boring, but he, you know, he's an honest guy. But HW, well, Reagan is telling, like, Jane and,

and everyone these boring ass, like, stories about, like, ancient Egyptian economics and all this bullshit. He's reading all these Bergerite pamphlets. HW is killing people. He's fucking all his secretaries. He's selling blow after Reagan gets shot. HW comes in and he's like, you're tough, right? Yo, he needs to get shot every day be during the Iran controversy. The Iran controversy. They had like the Democrats have have him they have they have him like in the interrogation room He's like I'm not stitching on anyone from Connecticut when I come home

Yeah, he's like like Reagan wakes up in his hospital bed and he's just like HW is there noisily eating Funyuns Pull your skirt up man people get shot every day. Oh, hey man pull your skirt up, man. People get shot every day. Hey man, pull your skirt down, B. Streisand's missing you, yo. You tough, right? You tough, right? Yeah, no, I mean, I'm one of those people that, of course, okay, I need to talk about my movie theater experience because it was the opposite of sea of heads. It was nary a head in the audience.

There were about four people other than me in the audience. Three of them left with about 20 minutes left in the movie and I was so jealous of them. I was so jealous. And then the last person remaining in the theater was this old woman I had to turn around and look. She started clapping at the end. She clapped for Ronald Reagan. Hell yeah.

Someone at mine clapped too. I guess, think about this movie. My comment on this movie is that it animated American history with all the vivid intensity of the reenactments on forensic files. Like that's really because like scenes are just introduced by John Voight being like here is when Ronald Reagan did this thing And then they just show him doing that thing and there's like it's the definition of telling not showing But here's the thing even in a movie, which is like like I said is bereft of any drama conflict tension character or interest because it essentially is like Here's a record of the guy of a guy doing exactly the correct thing at every given moment

But even in a movie as hagiographic as this, I think it's worth noting that Ronald Reagan, as a character such that he has one at all, comes across as entirely a fanatic and a dope. A guy who believed anything anyone told him about the Soviet Union, and who is essentially a witless buffoon in every other aspect of his life. Yeah, the scene where he meets Nancy is horrifying.

Basically like Reagan for his first marriage to Jane. Jane is a bitch, right? Horrible. She's horrible. Yeah, like Reagan, there'll be a dinner and Reagan will be like, I just read a pamphlet today that, you know, a lot of Jews are born with horns. And she's like, can you stop telling the truth?

You're making it hard to be an actor by saying things that are brave and true. I would leave you if I would leave you if you weren't so good at fucking me and then John Boyd pops up from underneath the table. She's right. The crusader. That's fucking. Yeah. And so like, you know, that marriage is clearly like on the rocks.

But then Nancy, when Reagan is like, he's being the greatest niche of all time, when he's doing the Nikki Barnes of Hollywood and stitching on everyone and he's running like the snitch office. She comes in and she's like, yeah, I have like the same name as someone who's on your communist list, but I'm like not them. And it's like, it's going to like ruin my family's life. Can you like take me off of it? And Reagan's like, well, you can change your name.

What the fuck is wrong with you? Change your name. What the fuck is wrong with change your name? But then he uses that he uses the threat of her being blacklisted as a communist to like, go out to dinner with her. And this is when I thought that the subtitle the movie should be called Reagan, the Irish warrenstein. No, because it's played like such a charming lead cute between him and him and Nancy Davis, the future Miss Nancy Reagan. And you're right though, Nancy Davis, Nancy Reagan played by Penelope Ann Miller, you

may remember from such films as Carlito's Way and The Relic. So like she comes in and essentially he's like, Oh, it'd be a shame if your name got if your name stayed on this blacklist that will ruin your life and career. Well, why don't you just go out to dinner with me instead? Oh, I certainly, it's so weird. And there's never any indication of like why she might be attracted to him other than that he's Ronald Reagan and like, Oh my God, Ronald Reagan is asking me out on a date. This is amazing.

And they have zero charisma. They have zero. It's really fucking grim. Can I say? You are probably in a canoe. We will get to eventually, but I guess I, I should be going with them of like the, the baffling kind of choices that get made in this movie, just aesthetically. Um, I, do you guys of the most baffling kind of choices that get made in this movie, just aesthetically.

Do you guys remember the scene where he goes to Vegas, because his career's falling apart, and he just becomes like this stage guy in Vegas? Half blue ribbon, yeah. There's like this, I mean, and there are a few of these throughout the movie, but there's like this brief montage of, I guess it's supposed to be like real footage, like almost like a quick fire documentary stuff, but interspersed with that, it seemed like there were stuff that they, there was stuff that they

filmed for the movie, but they filmed it so that like to look like it was real footage of like people playing, playing slots or whatever in like Vegas and JFK style. Yeah. Yeah. Bizarre aesthetically. And that was, that was the first point where I was like,. Yeah, JFK style. It was just so bizarre aesthetically. That was the first point where I was like, you know, if I just left and tried to skate on what I know of Ronald Reagan, would anybody notice?

If I just walked out of this, you know, skated on the movie. Derek, I'm one of those people that I had to check the runtime of the movie before going into it. I was like, oh, Christ, this is my Sunday. Just flushed down the fucking toilet. And I'm one of those people that, like in my brain, when I see 135 minutes, I go, oh, it's an hour and 35 minutes. And then I'm just sitting in the theater.

I'm like, wait a second. 135. This is over two hours long. Fuck. Fuck. I was I was happy because I don't like to to check, you know, my phone or anything during the movie I hate that but there were there were so few people in the theater that I was able to like put my phone in the seat Next to me and just like without disturbing anybody like to keep tabs on the time. Okay, 20 minutes left 20 minutes left I can make this I can do this

Did that the only thing that kept the only thing that kept my focus on the movie itself was the fact that the Giants game was actually worse than this movie. It would have done more psychic damage to me than just gritting it out and seeing Dennis Quaid flash his million dollar smile for the 10,000th time. I want to thank the actual KGB, the actual Russians in real life for running piracy sites and enabling me to work with very good hobbyists. It was like a last ditch effort.

I was looking at all the websites that my Dejason looks at to find movies like Money Heist and Bank Crime. I was trying to find torrents, there were only cams up, but like in the last second I did find a Eastern European site that had a very good copy. But I was prepared because I knew how long this movie was. I was like, well, I guess like no one's going to be seeing it so I could take my steam deck to the theater if I'm really bored But like thank God it did not come to that I've been just go through the movie, you know, like,

just, you know, chronologically goes to the movie. But like I it should be stressed, though, that like in addition to being dogshit boring, this movie looks incredibly chintzy and cheap, sloppily made, just just half assed in every regard. I would say this movie has no less than 700 stock footage inserts of aerial shots of D.C., London, or Moscow to just stand in for the fact that like, oh, we're in a new place now, establishing shot that we bought from Getty Images. A lot of the backgrounds are also out of focus, right? Particularly in the first hour of the

movie, there were three or four scenes when the background was just totally out of focus. It was very strange, particularly when Kevin Dillon playing Jack Warner in an Oscar winning turn was yelling at him. The background is so out of focus. It just seemed like a total mistake. So the movie opens with, I mean, like the here's one of the cruelest things about this movie is that it opens by depicting

how close we came to being spared from this movie and Ronald Reagan's presidency. Yeah, they really start on a downer. Yeah. John Hinkley, you know, he's walking out of the hotel in D.C. and then there's John Hinkley and blah, blah, blah. And it's like record scratch. You're probably wondering how I got here. Except instead of that, it's John Boyd being like, I will tell you a story now of the greatest American president who defeated Soviet Union.

But for the most part, like the movie keeps coming back to James Woods in this apartment, just like doddering around telling this story. But like it picks up with like it covers Ronald Reagan's career Woods in this apartment just like doddering around telling this story but like it picks up with like it covers Ronald Reagan's career from the movie really begins following Ronald Reagan when he is an actor in Hollywood in the 40s and like his entree into politics and what got him on the KGB's radar is that he was the vice president of the Screen Actors Guild at a time in Hollywood where a lot of

the trade unions were communist influenced, or there were many communists in the trade unions, and there was a radical labor movement in Hollywood that was seeking to counter the power of both the mob and the big studios in film production. Ronald Reagan was an FBI informant throughout all of this. In John Voight's character is telling they were like, we were so close to taking over Hollywood except for this one man stopped us. And his name was Ronald Reagan. And again, like the framing here, at one point, he's like

showing Vladimir Putin, Jr., a film like on a reel to reel film strip, basically of Reagan's life. And it's during that that they have flashbacks from back from his days as the, you know, as the FBI informant to his childhood, to his time as a lifeguard, as a teenager, implying that John Voight was filming this guy from like the time he was eight years old up, they had a KGB agent assigned to take video or to take, you know, film. This random guy who's going to someday change the world. It's it's batshit.

John Floyd's character would have to be like a hundred and seven because he's, he's presumably been like documenting the Reagan since like his grandparents. Like if he was able to spot like, oh my God, this lifeguard is so sexy and brave, he's probably gonna defeat us. He was probably, he was like, he had to have had an eye on his parents and his parents before that. You didn't just randomly zero in on this lifeguard. He was the KGB Benet-Gesserit.

He was like, our plans are measured in thousands of years. Yeah, he was, it is, I think like, I don't think any character in any movie I've ever seen has glazed another character that they never encounter physically. That has to, it's like, I am struggling to think of a comparison and there is none. Maybe like rear window at best.

Will, I had a question actually, do you know in that scene where he's in Hollywood and he's yelling at Eddie Cantor, who is the gay Jewish communist that they like- Dalton Trumbo. Spent the night teaching guitar online and then watched Trumbo for like the billionth time. Dalton Trumbo. That's who it is. Okay.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's a great scene. He's having dinner with Eddie Cantor and Dalton Trumbo. Yes. Okay. He's like, you idiot communist Jews. Yeah. And they're all political. And there's a scene where the Dalton Trumbo character, the blackness of the screenwriter,

Dalton Trumbo, looks at Reagan and he's like, a day is coming, Ronald. A day is coming when you'll be asked to choose sides. And on that day, I will kill you. I will murder you. And then Ronald Reagan gets up and he's like, well, I will kill you. I will murder you. And then Ronald Reagan gets up and he's like, well, I don't know about that. I'm just not really a fan of politics. I just like making movies so much.

And then just like walks away. But then like Donald Trump was like, oh, Ronald Reagan. That is a recurring theme in this movie. If there are any themes that could be identified, it's that like Reagan, Reagan's only fault and the only fault in his character. This is a real like, you know, my only weakness. I work too hard type thing is that he thought too highly of his enemies. He saw the good in everyone too much. And if he had any fault, it was that it, I mean, it would be subtext, but Nancy literally says this out

loud several times. You're too good a man. And they also, of course, just skip over totally the biggest thing he did for the first half of his life, which was getting residuals for actors. You know, like they skip from like the fifts to 1962. Reagan was actually really instrumental in the 1960s SAG WGA strike. And I found it odd that they spent so much time on labor unions. And then this was like a gigantic deal

and it catapulted him to the governorship partially because people thought that he could be molded. But I guess there's just, it's obvious. There's no way they could do anything slightly pro-labor. There was a slight of hand in the movie where like his political career is sort of like launch of the germ is planted by Jack Warner portrayed by entourages and platoons Kevin Dillon. But he's like he's like, Hey, like, you know, like the war is over.

He was like, you said you gave this war like five years of your life. And like, you know, your career is going nowhere. Like it seemed to imply that Ronald Reagan fought in World War Two. No, no, he was just in newsreels portraying a soldier trying to get you to buy war bonds. He did not. I know in his later in his in his second term in the White House, he literally said I liberated the concentration camp because a character he portrayed in the movie did so. But he did not actually was not actually in I could be wrong about this, but I don't think he was actually in. No, he was not. No, I. Great. He's Kevin Dillon.

One point is like did as a matter of Kevin. Kevin Dillon, one point is like this war has taken the best years of your life. Like he was fucking Ted Williams. Like this war has taken the best years of your life. Yeah. Like he would have won the MVP. He would have won best actor if he wasn't fighting and storming the beaches of Normandy. It is it is such a Johnny drama thing to think too. Like, see, he sees Ronald Reagan

playing a soldier in like a U.S. Army propaganda film and he's like, baby bro, you were basically there. I am Daco. You know, speaking of another veteran of World War II, on the way to the theater, I've been listening to Gore Vidal's memoir, Point to Point Navigation, which he reads himself on the audiobook. And it's a real treat. And I have to do Chapo Department of Corrections. Gore Vidal is not buried in Arlington Cemetery, but in fact, in Rock Creek Park, the other big cemetery in D.C. So I'll be docking my pay for that egregious oversight on my behalf.

But going into the theater and in like the first five minutes of the movie, like seeing Dennis Quaid do his Ronnie impression and grin and yuck it up. The first five minutes of the movie, I was like, man, I really wish Garvidal was alive to see this movie. I know he'd get a big chuckle out of it as he was such a fan of Ronald Reagan and his film and political career. Then like 10 minutes into the movie, I was like, Nope, it's better that he's dead. And in fact, I wish he was as well. Yeah, like we see his fraught relationship with his first wife portrayed by Jane portrayed by Mina Suvari, who Felix, as you already said, she was like, stop taking brave political stands and just be an actor, stupid. And then took off. And he was being a

babysitting Bonzo and the kids. And then like, you know, John Voight's character is like, despite his magnificent talent as an actor, his career stalled because his wife is a bitch. Is she a Republican in real life, Minaasuvari. Is everyone involved in this Republican? I assume it would have to be, although I guess the money spends gambling debts. Yeah. I always whenever someone is in a movie like this, I always imagine that they like they accidentally ran over like an Adelson grandchild.

Like that, they were leaving like the Chateau Marmont they were fucked up and they were like oh my god there's a little Yamaha flying in the air and then a year later they wasted a year of their life being in Reagan. I don't think I really appreciate about the movie is like the flashbacks to his His early life like there. There's a cup. There's a couple great Reagan moments here That you know sort of humanize him and just show you the type of character or the type of man He really was and there's a couple really funny ones like when he was on the was it like he was on a

football team and they couldn't travel because it was Southern California and some of their players were black. So he, like, puts up the black players in his parents' house when they're on the, when they're at a road game or something like that. But the movie does lean very heavily on his, I shall say, career as a lifeguard when he was, like, 16. And the movie, like, posits this as some sort of like Rosetta Stone for understanding the man is that he just wanted to save lives and he just, he viewed himself as a guardian of life and he just didn't want America or liberty to drown after drinking too much.

But also that he had foresight. Remember the whole thing with the currents that he had when he was growing up? Oh right, he was going around before the currents that he knew what the Soviets were going to do before they did because of his lifeguard ability. It was fucking so stupid. But that's what John Voight says at some point. And just like to my earlier point that like the movie cannot help but portray this man as a fanatic and a dope, especially on all things related to communism is like one of my favorite scenes is like like an early formative

moment for Reagan is when at his local church the pastor played by Kevin Sorbo of God's Not Dead and Hercules legendary Journey's Fame and of course the Reliant brings like a Soviet dissident to the church and he's like the first thing they took away from us was the freedom to worship you know we have no really take they take away our religion and like you see like a young Reagan his eyes are a glow being like I'll do anything I'll do anything to bring Christianity back to Russia and like you know like that sets up his like lifelong career where he's like his is abiding interest other than being on camera or you know hanging out with a chimp is

defeating monolithic global communism and this is something churches still do other than being on camera or you know hanging out with a chimp is defeating monolithic global communism. And this is something churches still do you know they I don't know if you guys remember during the war on terror they would always bring like Iraqi Christians around, Afghani Christians and it's just like a very classic thing that started I believe around now. They're not doing that for Palestinian Christians. Oh no no. Of course not. They're not speaking to any religious. They did it for Coptics with ISIS and stuff.

They don't do it for Palestinians. Danny, if you remember a very early, and Derek, you probably remember this too, a very early teacot thing, top conservatives on Twitter, the pre-Trump. Halcyon did it. Internet. Yeah. They, their favorite thing to do, um, you know, guys who had never left Missouri was to put the Arabic symbol for Christian in their profile and ISIS. And it actually, this, yeah, no, this was, this was like a

cold war thing that became like a global war in terror thing. And it actually it's so funny. They never really examined it or thought about the reality of what Christians of the Middle East actually believe or think or what their experiences may have been because they literally just internalized it to think that they're just like olive colored, like Billy Graham fans. So like Ted Cruz around this time, around like 2013 or 2014, went to like some type of like, like, like Middle Eastern Christian Association in DC. And he was like, Okay, I know exactly what to say to these guys, we will never stop defending Israel. And everyone was like,

because there are a lot of like, Palestinian Christians and just Christians in general in the Middle East who, you know, for one reason or another, I have a bone to pick with Israel, obviously. And he was like, oh, uh, well, fuck you. You're anti-Semitic. But just, I mean, I think another very telling moment in this movie in terms of how they cannot, really just in spite of itself, there's no way you can portray Reagan positively or negatively in which he doesn't come across as a credulous dope.

And one of my favorite scenes in the movie is when Nancy recounts the story of when the actor, the singer and teen heartthrob, Pat Boone, visited them at their house in Hollywood along with some fucking snake handling preacher who laid hands on Reagan and prophesied that one day he would reside at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. And the movie's like, and Reagan believed him and he was right to do so. That scene I thought was actually really instructive, especially having watched The Godfather later because every scene in The Godfather moves the plot forward. And that scene, I remember thinking about it, this does nothing, not in terms of character,

Reagan already believes in himself, not in terms of plot. It was just like hitting the marks of the Reagan greatest hits in the conservative imagination thing. It was just such shitty filmmaking It wasn't incompetent, but it was really bad filmmaking Yeah, if you that scene may have been like interesting if you had no idea who Ronald Reagan was right And then you watch the movie and you're like, oh he became president Was a president it's not that good. And yeah, the guy who tells him this, the snake handler, looks like a Halloween costume of Reverend Baby Billy.

Yes, he looks like Baby Billy. Bible bonkers buzzing in in the night by the Lord. So his career in Hollywood stalls out, but then he meets the love of his life, Nancy, and they get married. And then then also the thing this movie really, he really loves horses to the big part of this movie is his love of horses. And then like, okay, here's a thread I got to pick up on with probably. I don't know 15 minutes left in the movie. They introduce a character who's a Secret

Service agent who rides a horse. Yeah. I hate it. So weird. It's like they're like, uh, Joe Barbarella or something from Boston PD. He has a thick Boston accent. Yeah. He's like a Boston horse car who joined the Secret Service and is the only guy in the

Secret Service who knows how to ride a horse. So they're like, Hey, do you want to be the president's body man? He loves to ride horses. And then that character goes away and isn't reintroduced until the last scene where he takes Reagan on his last horse ride before Alzheimer's robs him of ability to, you know, to putter around on horseback. But yeah, it's just, I mean, that's his character again. That whole thing, like the handling of the Alzheimer's, which you don't get

until the, like, as you said, the last scene in the movie. He's sharp as a tack the whole time. Meanwhile, we know he was dead from the neck up from 1985 on, but it's not until the final scene where he looks in this aquarium with a little White House in it and he's like, I know this is supposed to mean something to me, but I can't remember what it is. What the fuck? And that's the first and last mention of the Alzheimer's Lincoln like he's out from there The movie ends with him like you know like the Secret Service cuz like Nancy's like I can't tell him I can't tell him that he can't ride a horse anymore. He loves horses so much He loves his horse back riding. I think I don't have the heart to tell him so they put the pawn it off on this Secret Service agent who's this like Boston shithead who's like, Mr. President,

I can't take your horse riding no more. And then he's like, he tears up and he goes, how about one more ride? And then he's like, okay, sure, Mr. President. And the last scene in the movie is him and this guy like brokeback mountain style, trotting off into the California mountains and I just kept looking at guys just gonna take out a gun and shoot him. Reagan lover of men. Tell me about how you tore down the Berlin Wall Lenny. Tell me again about the Berlin Wall. Well, well. Which would have been a more humane ending honestly. The Alzheimer's thing it reminds me of how they cover the Iran-Contra stuff, where it's like, okay, we have these, like, uncomfortable aspects about this guy that we're lionizing.

And, like, a more interesting movie, that would have kind of been, like, the meat of the movie. It may not have been, like, they may not have spent the most time on it, but those would have been, like, some of the most memorable scenes and like character moments. But instead, they just they're just these these passing, like flashing scenes that almost feel dreamlike because the director almost is like forced at gunpoint to include them. And it's like at that point, like, don't even put them in. Just Reagan was doing calculus until the day he. Yeah, exactly. You know, the way they deal with most of his presidency, because in terms of depicting the actual goings on of his two terms in the White House, most of it is dedicated to him negotiating with

Gorbachev. The climax of the movie is him saying, tear down this wall. That's it. They covered the rest of his eight years in the White House with a montage where like Nancy says something like, well, not everybody like old Ronnie. And then it's just a montage of like gay people. Yeah, exactly. It's gay people. It's half gay people and half like mean English prog rockers. That was like

the anti-Reagan coalition. It was gay people who are like, hey, we're like, you're not doing anything about this epidemic that's killed like 80,000 of us. And then like the band Yes, or Roger Waters, like making confusing music videos, where there's a big Reagan head. He's called he's referred to as Ronnie Reagan. Yeah, that the incredibleReagan coalition that was half English musicians who could not vote in America, that was the biggest antagonist of the movie, more so than the Soviet Union.

They're just like, they're not even a threat. He is always like 10 steps ahead of them. They are like the Keystone cops. And I feel like just to jump on what you said, the two most interesting parts of the movie, I thought, were the Iran Contra where it suggests that Reagan did know what was going on with Ali North, which I thought was a little, was kind of interesting. Even though the historical consensus is probably that he was, did have early onset Alzheimer's and that he might not have remembered what was going on. But then do you guys remember that speech writer? The right wing hippie. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Introduced. Yeah. Yeah. Nancy says this is like during this during the scene when he's governor of California and sends the National Guard into crack heads at Berkeley over their anti-war protest. But she was like, some of the young people just said they loved Ronnie and like, you know, they had the crazy dedication to him. And then it's like he's never name check, but he's referred to as Dana. And I was like, is this Dana Rohrbacher? And sure enough, it was.

Dana Rohrbacher met Reagan because he camped out on his lawn and was like, bro, Mrs. Reagan, I got to meet your husband. He's so rad. And then like, and then he gets a job in the White House writing speeches and then like inserts the tear down this wall line into his speech in Berlin and thus wins the Cold War for America. I was like, did Dana Rohrback write this movie? This is a movie that is more than it is about the Cold War or communism or anything else. This is a movie about dick riding.

Yep. Every, like most of the characters are insane dick riders. And literally the last scene of the movie is actual writing, you know, bringing the motif home. It's I mean, the one the one mention that you get of any context to Iran contrary, I mean, it's mostly covered as like the scandal and the political effect. But the one mention that you get are the fact that we were sending weapons to fucking death squads

in Central America is Ronnie going, I like these guys, they remind me of George Washington and the Continental Army. Okay, I mean, how is that? No, no, and then Derek, then it cuts to the Bill Casey character who just nods and smiles. It doesn't say anything. He's like, mm-hmm.

All right. He looks nothing like Bill Casey. None of those fucking people looked like... But what they could have done with the Robbacher character is that there was this thing of young people associating with Reagan, like Lee Atwater, right? The Alex P. Keaton. There was this strange phenomenon, which I think really affected the politics of our young lives in the 90s and 2000s of Reagan being associated with something cool. And that was like,

that's kind of interesting. Why did this guy become associated with this forward-thinking youth culture? And again, just as a shitty movie, it didn't do anything with it. But that, that to me was the most interesting part. You got a glimpse of Reagan, like what was actually attractive about this guy. Cause that's actually a question. Why did he have the biggest blowout in American history in 84? And there's nothing in this movie that's a hagiography would help you understand why Reagan was, did become this very important. Danny, he had the blowout because he said,

I will not let my opponent's youth and inexperience be a factor in the election. So stupid. Reagan's interesting. He's actually interesting. That is exactly what I was going to bring up is that, again, another could have been interesting moment, the blowout election, a historical moment in American politics. But because they have to follow the conventions of like the shitty movies that they're ripping off, they're like, oh, I like, um, this has to be like

the water boy or something where there's a moment where the character, where our main character, you know, it looks like he may falter. And because they're so incompetent, they make this before they make the scene. It's before the biggest blowout in electoral history, and then never really talk about the blowout at all. They're just following the most formulaic sub-heroes journey bullshit. They just show the map, I think they just show

the electoral map, that's the only reference you get to a blowout, but it's. With the weird ghostly Walter Mondale, that was also fucking weird choice that they would insert these people from their literal TV shows. That was so weird. I've never seen that before. It's like uncanny. I mean, it's, it's in some way, it's just a series of vignettes and each vignette ends with Reagan saying the magic words that, that it's not even, it's not even necessarily doing anything, just saying something like, uh, you know, the final one is this buildup to his speech in Berlin and he says, tear down this wall and

oh my God, that's oh, and the fucking Soviet Politburo sitting there like, oh my God, he said, tear down the wall, what the fuck are we going to do now? And he said the magic word that opened the oldest vault in country. It was checkmate. It was checkmate in the Cold War. Opened the oldest vault. Sir, sir, sir, all the all the biblical figures were all black. He said he said tear down this wall.

Few people don't know this. And again, I can't believe the movie didn't do more with it. Yeah, but tear down this wall, in fact, was a secret password that opened the oldest vault in Russia, thus leading to the collapse of communism. That is why the young Vladimir Putin was in this movie, was because he was like, but Rod Reagan didn't know that there are even older vaults in ancient boxes. I feel like you have to...

Is that based on anyone, Derek? I feel like you have anyone Derek even be really seen where we're like young Vladimir Putin protege is just like Like but how did we lose the motherland and James James John Voight gets a very very upset And he's like he's like the motherland is not communism the motherland is full story Turkenev you know and like all these great Russian thinkers, how funny would it be if like, he has portraits of them on his wall? How funny would it be if it cuts to that and they're all black? Yeah, the end of the movie, it's just like, it's like a 10

minute long squirreled safety like cracking shot of the boot character going into a vault and he opens it and it's like not only are does he find like Tolstoy and everyone is black but Ronald Reagan also black and that's the closing shot. You too. Every time I come here, the new chronology. This is a closing shot of the movie. And then there's like a memento like scene and he starts remembering his conversation with John Voight and he's like, wait, we're both black. Everyone in

the movie is black. I did. I don't know if you guys stuck around I did appreciate the post credit scene which was you know They showed they showed Reagan you stay for the sequence Well that what they showed the funeral over the nine minute credits and a post credit scene And you realize that it's actually Barack a young Barack Obama and his gay lover watching the funeral on TV now I'm kidding the funeral on TV. Now I'm kidding. No, no. Oh, that reminds me.

I know there's like, is there some guy in the back of a limo and you see his head bobbing and he's like, whoa, you really want to be president. Let me be clear. Oh, I came too early. Another bummer.

That reminds me, that reminds me a whole other angle that me and Will were talking about after we both watched this. Do you guys remember the Tip O'Neil scene? Okay, Chris, do you have my favorite audio clip ever queued up? The scene where he meets Tip O'Neil is,

it made me and Will think of a whole other layer to this movie because when he meets Tip O'Neill, it's like, he's like, hey, you won the election, but come Monday, it's game time. You better be ready. And Ronald Reagan's like, well, I'll be ready. And they say some Irish bullshit to each other. And then after all that, after like the initial flirting, Reagan's like, well, you know, the workday ends at six. And Tim O'Neill goes, what do you mean? And then Reagan goes, well, after it means that once the workday is done, we're just a bunch of Irish guys having a beer. But I expected Reagan to say what Birdman says in my favorite clip ever.

I fuck with Jesus too! That is that was what was going on in that clip. And it really their relationship is so homothonic. I'm sorry. There was a... You'll remember Tip Trill O'Neill is the first person he sees when he wakes up in the hospital that they're getting shot by John Hinckley. Yeah, he's waiting for him longer than Nancy is. He's praying with a fucking rosary holding his hand. Right, Nancy just brings by the bottle, the jar of jelly beans and then leaves, but Tip is there holding Vigil this entire time. Tip, Tip, Tip, sometimes I thought I said no bitches in the room.

Sometimes Tip I want to know where the thugs. Sometimes I want to talk to the thugs. Gorbachev is lucky it wasn't in California. A boss call would have been made. Can I mention like a couple of random things that we haven't touched on, which is which are in no particular order, but the blink and you'll miss it appearance of Scott staff as Frank Sinatra, you don't even know that he's Frank Sinatra. No, there's no indication given that he's incredible. He doesn't

look anything like Frank Sinatra and is on screen for all of four seconds. The Robert Davie has landed. It's so good. Great performance. That was great. I got to say, like, credit where it's due. This movie was putrid, but there was one scene in this movie that got a genuine chuckle out of me. And that's the scene where like they're talking about how Reagan had a hard time negotiating with the Soviet Union because after Brezhnev, like every one of their leaders dropped dead in like a couple because they were all a billion years old,

smoked 80 cigarettes a day and were on like every pill known to man. But there's a funny montage of like after Brezhnev, it's like Andropov, the other one, the other one. And like, it's just that it's one state funeral after another. And he was like, I can't even get them on the phone. They keep dying. Yeah, that was 20 years younger than Biden, by the way, when they all died. That's incredible. Exactly right. Robert Dobby, his Brezhnev shocked me because incredible. Robert Dobby is Brezhnev shocked me

because he looked like if the real Brezhnev had Chad's hair. He did, he had that narrow face, it's so funny. Yeah, it really, like Brezhnev had like, you know, one of those balloon things you get when you start drinking at seven years old, like all of those guys did. But the last thing was the performances, and they show up around the time when he starts

meeting with Gorbachev. The performances of Margaret Thatcher and the... The Margaret Thatcher character was so weird. The Japanese Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone. She wanted to slap him off more than Nancy did. Well, I love these because the guy who plays the Japanese Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone, I think it's after their first summit, gives the most principal skinner with the laser to his head line reading on the phone where he's like,

Mr. President, we all stand with you. The free world is in your corner and you are speaking for all of us. But then you go to to Thatcher and she's like, go get him, Ronnie. Like, what the fuck? What do you really imagine that these people spoke like this? Like, what the fuck? It's incredible. Jump on your pony, Reagan. Cowboy, go cowboy, go.

Yeah, that's what's kind of hot. I'm higher than you, Ronnie. You can kind of hot. I knew I'd be Ronnie. You can do me from behind and pretend I'm your friend. I know you fuck with I know you fuck with Democrats, too. Is that you said? You can call me rock. I mean, obviously, like a Dennis Quaid is passable as Ronald Reagan. I mean, it's like nobody in this movie is really trying.

And there's something about Dennis Quaid's plastic surgery and the makeup that they use to make him look slightly more Reagan-esque that made him look frightening the entire movie. Well, especially when they de-aged him, he's got like the ears and nose of an old guy and he moves like an old man. So there's this whole uncanny quality to the first hour and a half of the movie. It just looks so strange. You know, like as you might expect from a movie like this, virtually all of the performances are let in, phoned in, or just simply not trying.

I will make carve out one exception, two exceptions. I thought the two people in the movie that actually seemed like they were acting or like, even maybe like happy to be there was Dan Luria, who plays Tip O'Neill with like red faced Irish brio. You could like you could, he really like you could smell the liquor on him in that performance. And I thought that was credible and authentic. And then, weirdly, Zander Berkley as George Shultz turned in kind of a pretty good performance, actually. Yeah. But other than that, it's just really, it's quite dire. Very, very, this movie was, whoo. They really, I mean, when they're not doing like time traveling, people sent back to kill

Jesus that they struggle with the conservative film space struggles, I think to put together I wish I wish the Assassin's 33 AD people made this movie. It would have been way more interesting. They would have seriously like they would have asked way more interesting questions. But yeah, this is it's sort of the nadir of Christian filmmaking, as we call it. We've seen enough of these to know when something's uninspired and like is literally just being made for like, who's that guy, Harlan Crow?

So Harlan Crow can have a tax write-off. And this is one of those. And I was just trying to think like, who is this movie supposed to appeal to? And the answer is that this is just the most. This is just pure boomer slop. This is a trickling nostalgia that with the same production values and general quality of like actually actually sub history channel documentary quality to it. Like if you didn't like a new generation if you didn't

know who Ronald Reagan is, like what would be the appeal of this movie at all other than like, hey, I know you think you're sports stars and Taylor Swift is pretty cool. But what if I told you about someone who was even cooler? His name was Ronald Reagan and he was president of America. Well, well, that's the thing is that like most of the audience for this movie? I would say 70 percent of the intended audience for this movie died in the first year of film.

I'm not even kidding. Like that really is it. So I before we go, I do have one question. Why do you think they chose that framing device? It's really so weird. It'd just be much easier to tell the cradle to grave. I'll tell you exactly. I'll tell you exactly why. No, I think I think it's because it is a is an obvious crutch that the screen

writers had because they because like, look, making a making biopics is very hard, especially about very well known people like that. And you can go the route that covers most of their entire life and political career, a la very successfully, I might add, and Oliver Stone's Nixon, which I think is a great film that is very interesting and thrilling and just like you learn a lot about the subject and it reveals something about both the filmmaker as an artist, but also like his subject matter. Or you can go also very successfully to portray a pivotal moment of just like two weeks in

the life of his political career, a la Steven Spielberg's Lincoln. They chose to go the full life story route. But the problem is that there's so much you have to include that it's very hard to just like move from one scene to another in any kind of organic way or just like I said to show rather than tell. The the the the John Voight KGB framing device Was just a way that they could write this movie like a Wikipedia entry about their favorite president And it's like it's the style of writing of a kid trying to relate a TV show that you've never seen to you where they just go and then and then and then and the John Voight character essentially is a

stand-in for the screenwriters to go and then as the Narrator of the movie who just tells you who just gives you the information necessary So they can get on to another scene of another wonderful as opposed to but or therefore which has causal connection between scenes Yeah, it's just a list of yeah, yeah, yeah, that's smart. I agree. Oh, are there any other performance? I mean like there any other performances or moments standout moments from this movie that I'm neglecting? Cuz I mean like the movie felt about nine hours long I know I'm abridging quite a lot of it for a good reason, but god

Just terrible. No, it's fucking horrible. It was really bad and I have appreciated Dennis Quaid going on the right-wing media circuit I mean apparently he's right-wing now. He was on Tucker and he's talking about the Wokes and stuff. It's like, he says actual beliefs or is he just he just trying to get cast in a movie? I don't know. Dennis Quaid is a pretty good actor. Dennis Quaid is a good actor. I like Dennis Quaid. There was surprisingly little culture war stuff actually. That now that I think about it. There's almost no culture myself except the gays hate Reagan scene, basically. I mean, they leaned heavily on his religiosity. And I think for like a Christian audience, these were the kind of dog whistles to be like, aha, you know, like when George W. Bush would make reference to the Battle of Armageddon or what is it? Gog and Magog or whatever. It was just like to any normal person just slides over their brain. But if you've had one drenched in evangelical mythology for 30 years, you're like, Oh yeah,

he's one of us. I mean, I wish I wish I had some closing thoughts on this movie. But it I mean, I was that last that last horse ride, I was praying for the horse to come out and kick me in the head and end it. I mean, I think the end was in sight like the end of the you know, the light at the end of the tunnel, but I was like, I can't take this anymore. Just kill me. Not not even really not even hilariously bad. Just just boring. Just really dreadful. That had opportunities to be more insane. But it was just yeah, it was just like it was like having an older relative talk to you. That's what this movie felt like. And it was just yeah it was just like it was like having an older relative talk

to you that's what this movie felt like and it was it recreated that experience beautifully and I guess in summation I think in a lot of ways it actually is the perfect biopic for Ronald Reagan because he remains essentially unknowable unlikeable and the movie's quite bad so I think it's I think it is actually a perfect reflection of his life and Career as an actor and politician. Yeah, that seems like a good good place to end it really. Yeah Derek and Danny I want to thank you so much for joining us. The show is American prestige always good to have you on the show and you have a American prestige related announcement you'd like to share with our

audience. All right. So we've been on Substack for a while. We're switching platforms to supporting Kest. So if anyone's an American Prestige subscriber, please keep your eyes out for an email about how to very easily switch your subscription in one click. And thank you guys again for having us on. We really appreciate it.

And thanks to everyone for listening to American Prestige as we move. So thanks, Will. Thanks for giving us a chance. Well, thanks again for everyone for listening to Chapo. And I hope you'll tune in again when Bao, an artist at war comes out. Because that is a movie I will be seeing day one opening night in theaters. I mean, you got to do one for Lincoln, Lover of Men, too, right? I mean, there's got to be.

No, I... No, that's for his private collection. The Reagan movie theater experience has thankfully programmed this show for the next couple months. So we got some fire. We got some real nice things being sheffed up right now in Chapo Laboratories. I am so excited for the Walt Disney of Israel. You have no idea. All right, gang.

Till next time, we'll see you at the movies and in American history where we all have to live until we die. But hopefully America will end before then. But all right, till next time everybody, bye bye. Bye. Bye. Thanks for watching!