Free With Ads - Hackers (1995)

Episode Date: March 11, 2026

Remember when computer hackers weren't all incels? Travel with us to a bygone era as we talk about the 1995 movie Hackers, starring Johnny Lee Miller and Angelina Jolie. Tune in next week when our movie will be... Godzilla: All Monsters Attack. ----- On March 17th Emily will be on the podcast Scam Goddess. Make sure to tune in! Pre-order Amazing Spider-Man: Spider-versity co-written by Jordan Morris. Get yourself a signed copy of all 5 issues by clicking this link!  bit.ly/spideyschool

This is free with ads, the podcast that asked the question, why pay Netflix eight bucks a month to watch episodes of Black Mirror when you can go online for free and watch a 90s internet paranoia thriller that's way better because everyone wears rollerblades everywhere they go. I'm Jordan Morris. And I'm Emily Fleming. Today's movie is hackers, the unrealistic fantasy movie where characters are constantly online, but never look at porn once.

With us as always is the super producer. the he freak, Matt Lieb, hitting this with those drops straight from cyberspace. There it is. There it is. Shut up and get in the car. Hack the planet, you guys. Hack the planet, everybody. Whatever the fuck that means.

It means freedom, man. Freedom to make pay phone calls for free. Yeah. Freedom to steal passwords so that you can get into my bank account. Yeah. Dude, pay phones. Yeah. Did you ever use a pay phone when they were around? I don't think I ever did.

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I use pay phones, yeah. And I definitely used them a lot in the era of... 1-800 collect and then saying... I'd say 10, 10, 10-220. Oh, shit. 10-10-220.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was the other collect call service, right? Right. Just thinking about it now, like in the, you know, post-COVID era, like the mouthpiece. I know. We all just shared phones. Yeah. Offed on them.

And water. fountain and stuff. Like wild. Those still exist. Yeah. They do? Water fountains? Yeah.

You haven't been to a park in a while. You got to go to a playground. Well, I've been to parks in Nashville, but they don't work no more. Like you hit the pedal. There's no water coming out. Yeah. That's true too. Most of them broke.

Just Nashville hot sauce. Spicy fountain. Yeah. Now back to the slide. It's a dry rub. Before we talk about hackers, which is, as of this recording, streaming free with ads, we're going to talk about something else we saw for free on the internet this week. Other free stuff.

There it is. A little sub-theme to this segment seems to be stuff about the Ninja Turtles we've seen online. I don't know why it keeps happening, but I feel like you guys have ruined my algorithm. I know. And now I get a bunch of Ninja Turtles content all the time. Well, the funny thing is I see these often when I'm on the free with ads Instagram, like algorithm. And they keep popping up and I'm like, well. Yeah.

Three of us, which I think like, but don't have any particular connection to the Ninja Turtles other than generally liking them. And talking about it constantly. Yeah, yeah. I think I think that's kind of what's going on. But this one was quite delightful. Matt, you put this on the group chat. This is an Instagram from a account called Turtle underscore Psych. And this person is a PhD student and Ninja Turtle expert.

So he answers psychology questions and then relates it back to Ninja Turtles every time. And this thing is insanely popular. The man has found a very narrow lane that he is in. So this is him answering the question, How does each turtle deal with shame? The rest, well, I'd say Mikey and Donnie kind of team up to dissociate from their shame sometimes, to distract themselves, even though underlying, especially you see this with Donnie. He has a deep sense of not knowing why he's here and if he has a purpose. Leonardo's more that type A, he just, you know, he's like, what's the next thing?

Let's do the next thing. He's staying focused. But he, too, is impacted by the shame of not knowing if he's loved. Calabunga. Cal bunga Cal bunga At no point When he's talking about how

At no point when he's talking about how they cope He never says pizza Yeah right Yeah You think the guy who was asking the question Was hoping for pizza Right Or was he actually hoping for that

Is this does he do this For other things Is it just turtles I haven't watched anything else It does I watched a few of the videos and it does seem to be focused very narrowly on the Ninja Turtles. Hell yeah.

I love it. I mean, we need, you know, our, listen, we all, we just, we just need to get more specific with our things. I know. That's the problem. The problem is, is that we, we have a show that's broadly about free movies. Sure. It should be very focused about one movie over and over. Like, let's say blank check, for example.

Sure, the movie blank check. Yes. Yes. Also, send us a blank check. Yeah, that'd be nice. That would be great. I'm just saying, let us guest on the podcast blank check.

That'd be great for us. Get in Griffin Newman's DMs. I would never ask to be on the podcast, but, you know, might as well. Might as well. Come on. Help. Well, now I just need someone to use these street sharks to explain why I can't get hard

unless someone's punching me in the face. Okay. Remember the street sharks? I do remember. They were fun. I do too, especially the toys. Oh, yeah, great toys. Great toys.

Yeah. Well, yeah, hey, speaking of the 90s, let's talk about, boy, in the running for most 90s movie of all time, hackers. Hackers. Two questions. One, had everyone seen this before? And two, what are your earliest internet memories from this era? Emily, do you want to go first to something?

Yeah, of course. I've seen hackers. before. I mean, the soundtrack. I've like put the I sometimes on my TV will put like there's playlists of music videos for stuff so I'll just play the hackers soundtrack

with the music videos. And sometimes it's just you know cuts of hacker stuff. My earliest internet memory, this is pretty crazy. My parents thought I was a genius. It was back when we had

the Macs that were like a big cube, you know, the like desktops. Yeah. And everything the everything was green on a black screen. Like all of the font. Right. Everything was just green on a black screen. But we had the internet and somehow I was able to find a Nickelodeon chat room.

Whoa. Okay. And this was like, I don't know what year this was like 97 or something. I have no idea. But I was a kid and I just learned how to like read and write. Right. But somewhere I found it. Now it's time to shit post about all real monsters.

Yeah. Well, I was trying to find, I found a little chat room in the Nickelodeon, like, website or something for Jim Carrey. Oh, okay. And so I was talking about Jim Carrey in there. And for some reason, there was someone I was talking to. And maybe I said what my name was. And they were like, are you Mike and Lois Fleming's daughter? Okay.

And I was like, yeah. And they go, go get your parents. and I got my parents and they were talking to a college friend in this chat room. And I don't understand how it happened. But my parents were like, what the hell? Like she's a genius or something. And I really don't know how it happened. I just know it happened.

The way it happened is that you were giving your first and last name on the internet. I was like, hi, I'm Emily Francis Fleming. Can I have a friend who wants to talk about Jim Carrey? Here's my address. here's my social security number and my first childhood pet. But I mean, that was probably, maybe it was a scam, but I doubt it in that era if it was. But I mean, yeah, he knew he or she knew their first names. So chances are it wasn't a scam.

It wasn't. But my parents were blown away, but it was like I be in, you know? That's amazing. And also equally amazing was that you essentially went to a message board for. child predators and somehow had a wholesome experience. Yeah. If you saw me as a kid, I don't think I was the, you know. No one else can see either, but I'm just saying.

Yeah, that's true. But yeah, that was my experience. Yeah. Matt, what about you? I never saw this movie, so this was my first time seeing it. I knew about it, you know, through cultural osmosis. So I kind of knew the beats of the movie vaguely. Um, my first internet, uh, memory was we bought a Dell. Dude, we got Adele. Dude, you got a Dell. And immediately I went to my best friend at school, um, who was a computer guy. And I said, we just got a computer with internet access. Where's the porn at? And he immediately sent me all of the, the back in the day used to share a thing called triple X password.

Okay. Oh, I don't know about this. Yeah, and that way you would just, it would be like, here's the website you go to and here's the login and password. So it's basically, you know, someone else's login and password got shared and stolen. And so, yeah, I mean, immediately, I think I faked sick the second day we had the computer. And I think, I'm sick and I need a lot of tissues. Mom, just leave a lot of tissues. I did with me. Post-Nasal drip.

Mix vapor rub. I'm into experimenting. Yeah, sure. Let's try things out. I see if that hurts. It does. Yeah. Don't do it.

But yeah, it is, I did what the kids today refer to as gooning. Gooning. Yeah. For like a little proto. Proto gooning. Proto gooning. And it was glorious. It was glorious.

How old were you when that? I was probably like 13, 14 years old, something like that. When I was like getting into the hentai stuff and thought that my parents wouldn't notice because because it was a cartoon. that I have been looking this stuff up in case they found it. They did. But you had to download little like JPEGs. Like you had to like and open bunches of windows because it took so long for each one to download.

That's right. It was so you watched one part of the porn. Yeah. Close that window. Go to the next one. Yeah. Back in the day. Yeah.

I have seen hackers. I saw. I've seen it once. When I first moved to L.A., I think it was like a midnight movie at the new Beverly so I kind of got to see it in that like midnight movie atmosphere which I think is great for this movie. And yeah, we got the internet like the year before I left for college like 1999. So I didn't have it like my main, you know, internet introduction was in the dorms.

We had it for like a summer at the house. And I think I used it. And we got the AOL disc in the mail. We got the, you know, they sent two of those a week. and I think I used it to go on the message boards for TalkSoup. Do you remember TalkSoup? The clip show on E. Hosted by what Joel.

McHale, But there was another guy who hosted before Joel McKeel. A lot of great people went through there. Greg Kinnear, the first host. That's right. My guy was John Henson. And then like Aisha Tyler was two or three hosts after that. So, you know, a lot of great people hosted Talk Soup.

Wow. So for some reason, that was the first place I went to discuss talk soup clips. That is such a Jordan Morris thing to do. I know. And the only, you know, I am bad with all tech. I am now was then. And the only porn I was able to see or the only thing, you know, resembling porn was I found some photos of topless women dressed as fairies. Hell yeah, dude.

I love it. That's fine. It was great. Whatever you find, that's what you have. Cute. And it was awesome. I loved it. Still have them.

Still have those photos. Oh, yeah. The women are dead. The women are long dead. So yeah. Is it because you said, I don't believe in them? And then they...

I refused to clap. I refused to clap. Oh, no, you made it clap. Yeah. And then I got the clap because, I don't know. That'd be, that's a funny thing. People are like, clap for tinkerbell and then someone claps their ass. That would be a funny, like...

That would be great. That would be great. Good fine or something. I don't know. Oh yeah, fine. Okay. Hackers, let's talk about it. We start.

Hold on. I have to get prepared and get all my, you know, clips in order. I have a lot of, I have a lot of work to do. So just give me a second while we get ready for hackers. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, I'm ready to podcast. Hell yes.

I'm so pumped. I'm so good. I can't you go on the computer. You guys, I think I have tonsillitis again. So I have to like mall walk my ass to the urgent care. and that is the song. I'm going to be like fast walking. Like, oh, no, I think I have tonsillitis.

I don't want to get my tonsils taken out. Please, God. Yes, that music, I mean, this movie, just the central thing of this movie is how do we make something not exciting, exciting? One of the things they do is just blast that music, you know, I was going to say 24-7. The movie's two hours.

Yeah. Well, and also, boy, the typing acting in this movie. The finger and honestly, fingering story, whole movie. All movie. If you're, because you know that like thing where they go,

I'd be like, they'd be like, I'm in. Like that whole thing where it's like, and that's, yeah. I penetrated the mainframe. Exactly. It's what I say when I'm getting finger blasted. It's time to jack into the matrix.

We got it into a back door. Yeah. Oh yeah. Hey, it works. It works. You hear the A. I am. You've got mail.

It's a finger. You got finger. You've got finger. So we start Seattle, 1998. It's a normal suburban home. And it, oh no,

gets raided by the FBI. If you like this scene, you're in luck. This fucking same thing happens 10 times in this movie. The FBI raiding a normal suburban house. Wow, shocking. It's 19.

188, right? Oh, sure, yes. So the flashback is 1988. But then it happens to every single character in the movie, the same thing. Zero cool is the code name for this little kid. They're looking for zero cool. Well, we don't know who it is at first. Wait, dangerous criminal could be.

What was y'all's first instant messenger handle? What did you guys have? Blues guitar with a Z. Wow. I hate myself so much. Do you play blues guitar? I did. That was my whole thing. I was like, oh, I play Blue's guitar. You were really trying to get laid.

They're like, is this Eric Clapton? Is Eric Clapton talking to us? Eric, make it Clapton? Yeah, that'd be a funny vine. It's actually worse than me trying to get laid. I was trying to impress an even better guitar player who I knew at school. Wow. Oh, you should, you know, friend me on AIM. My name, Blues Guitar. It was very similar to his.

He was blues with an S. Jordan, what was yours? I, again, not good with anything technological. So I just, like, shared my mom's AOL. So, like, I was like S. Gail Morris. And yet, I had the first couple of emails I had to send to people, it was something like, hi, I'm using my mom's email. Anyway, so we, like shared one because I didn't. No, you could bake your own anyway.

Emily, did you have an early screen? Yeah, mine was spleaky clean. That's cute. But I think, because is it spleaking when like the part under your tongue kind of like juices out of it? I heard that was gleaking. I've also heard gleaking. It might be a regional. It might be a regional thing.

Maybe. I think I thought it was spleaking. So I was like spleaky clean. But yeah, I don't know. I thought I was so cute. It's cute. I don't like it. So yeah, this dangerous criminal they apprehend, we don't see them until we see their trial.

And oh, shit, it's a little kid named, what was his name, Emily, cool? Zero cool. Zero cool. A hacker who's hacking, and the judge forbids him from using a computer or a phone until his 18th birthday. Smash cut to the kid on his 18th birthday, Johnny Lee Miller, one of the, the most 90s guys of all time. He's on a plane. Angelina Jolie's first husband.

I didn't know that. Did they meet on this movie? Yeah. Wow. Wow. Well, he, you could maybe argue who this is, but I'm going to go ahead and call Johnny Lee Miller the oldest teen. Yep.

Oldest teen. A lot of old-ass teens in this movie. Oh, yeah. I did not know that they were supposed to be teens until randomly his mother says, like, you're never going to get into college with all this stuff. And I was like, well, maybe he just hasn't, maybe it's like he's 20 something and he just hasn't applied yet. And then they walk into a high school. And I'm like, what are we doing, guys?

It's insane. Everyone's so old in this. Like Angelina Jolie is like 10 feet tall with a double D cup. Like crazy. Just a briefcase. She's like, these aren't kids. It's so crazy. So he's flying.

He's flying to his new home in New York City. And he looks down at the city and all of the buildings. Get this, morph from buildings into computer chips. I loved this, actually. He's a computer, yeah. Because this guy loves computers so fucking much. He just sees the chips. He loves the chips, and he sees...

Honestly, it looks rad. It does look cool. It does look cool. Yeah, it's very colorful this movie. Yeah, it does. But I also, like, did you guys, were there internet cafes or something around? I didn't know of any.

Like, there weren't any in Tennessee. but I feel like in California. Yeah, I didn't know of any personally, but I had heard of the concept of internet cafe. I saw one recently. They still have them. When I moved to L.A., you know, I didn't have internet. So I think there's a little pocket

where people just didn't automatically have internet. So there's a lot of like checking email at the library and checking email at the internet cafe. So yeah, my first like year or two in L.A., I, you know, went to the internet cafe or the library, you know, couple times a week to check email. We are so old.

We're so fine. No. But also, like, so cool. And cool. Old and cool. And hot. We're vintage, baby. I wore my Power Man 5,000, like, video game shirt today.

I'm wearing a Simpsons shirt. Yeah, I mean, we're, you know. We're so cool. We're elder millennials. Yeah. Kill us. I'm an ex-enial. I want to go to an internet cafe now.

I wonder, but there was never like, there was never coffee. It wasn't really. cafe it's just a bunch of computers yeah mine was fun you get a boba oh cool so yeah so this this kid he's he's he's the hacker from the beginning and he's at a new school and he still loves to hack his name is dade which is short for a dade yole i have no fucking i've never dated did vid what dade vid yeah who's dade anyway it's just a cool name uh you know yeah it's a cool name uh you know It's a cool name.

It does sound... It is a cool name. It's like he's a cool dude or is he a cool dade. Yeah, it's like dude, but with one letter change. That's right. So yeah, he's at a new school and he... Oh, I guess I should mention they set up a thing where he's trying to hack into a TV station. He replaces a racist, like, Fox News type guy.

Who sounds completely like everything now. Yes. I know. I'm sure that thing was like the racist Fox News guy they have. there was probably like seen as satirical at the time, but that's just like cable TV. That's just what it is now. And it's interesting too because this movie does harken back to a time when like hacking guy culture was more lefty. It was more like social justicey. And as opposed to now when like deep computer guy is mostly in cell and just right.

Forchan. Which yeah, these these if this if you remand, if you remade, this movie would just be about like trying to leak Zendaya's nudes. Yeah. Like they wouldn't try. Like in this, they're, okay, I fucking love that the like the big,

you know, the big goal and this is to prevent oil spills. Yeah, right. Very 90s. It's like such a captain planet ass plot. It's like, I love it.

I know it's such a cute 90s, save the environment thing. But yeah, like these guys now are the most evil people in the world. Yeah, exactly. I'm sure there's a good version of it that, you know,

whatever helps. Which I did tell you guys. So Felicity, my mind. American Girl doll has a new personality because reasons. And so she is like a late 90s, early 2000s new metal hacker chick. And I want her to be a somebody who's like very anti-W like Bush. Like she's very like, she's trying to like, you know.

Bush lied. People died. Exactly. Like so she's anti-war and all that stuff. So that's who she is now. Everybody. The Shins is very early odds. But she is a vampire and she is from the time period she was from and she has deconstructed her racism.

Is this your lore or is this the official war? This is Emily's lore for sure. It's good. It's good story. So yeah, while he's, you know, hacking into the TV station, he gets a message from a mysterious hacker called Acid Burn. Okay. That's going to come back. Oh, and his new name is Crash something.

It's not Crash Bandy Coop, but that's what it is in my mind. That's what I thought as soon as you said that. Yeah, it's a crash something. That comes back. Yeah. Okay, so he goes to his new high school and he gets shown around by, yeah, we mentioned her earlier. Angelina Jolie. Wow.

Looking cool. Yeah, cool. I mean, it was like, there is no way this woman is not going to become the biggest movie star of all time. Yeah. This movie has a lot of, like, fun, compelling actors and it's really great in the character actor category, but yeah, she is a fucking star. Other world. beautiful. Yeah, it's like staring at the sun.

Yes, it is. It's crazy. It's hard to look like I immediately turn into a child and I want to look away because she's too hot to look at. I know. And like this isn't like, you know, this is not a great script she's dealing with, but just fucking everything she says is awesome. I know.

And like the, just the style in this movie is fabulous. Whoever did the costumes and everything. Bravo. Cool, cool movie. Yeah. And insane. And he basically roller blades everywhere. And so she is kind of a, she's kind of a tough, a tough chick.

And she says, hey, you got to take a look on the roof at our Olympic-sized pool. And he immediately goes to the roof because he's got to see this pool. He can't wait one fucking more second to see this pool. So he goes up to the roof and there's a bunch of other like nerds on the roof. I just wanted to, anyway, this is fucking worked on everyone. They're like, oh, I got to go. I got to see the pool. Anyway.

Well, she is really hot. I would do pretty much anything she said. She's like, I'm not going to go with you, but I want you to go look at the pool. She wouldn't even have to lie to me. She'd be like, can you go to the roof and lock yourself up there? Yeah, I'd be like, okay. And get stuck and miss class. Well, I thought maybe she was implying that she was going to meet him up there.

Oh, maybe. Yeah, I didn't get that. But, um, yeah, I think that that's another Fleming trying to make stuff work in my brain. But yeah, just going, I'll make it work. Yeah. Yeah, this prank totally works. He gets rained on and now the like, you know, and now it's on. the like, you know, enemies to lover.

The heated rivalry is on. They join a hockey team. Yeah, but straight this time. But they're straight. Finally. Hey, but same haircuts. Same haircuts. Zach's same haircuts.

So yeah, so he decides to hack into the school mainframe or matrix or whatever and put himself in all of her classes so he can be, get his revenge and or date her. So while he's hacking, another. hacker kid the school's full of hackers every kid's a hacker another hacker kid notices him and says to like come to this hacker party so that's when the freak yeah the freak yeah everybody's got a little code name I love the freak the freak was I think my favorite character yeah the freak rips the free yeah the like cast in this is great and all the like yeah the like character actors are great and all the kind of like you know

couple scene characters are all really cool yeah uh fucking speaking of who do they meet at this hacker party, but the first, like, guy you see, Matthew Lillard, he's selling mixtapes. His handle is the serial killer, perhaps a little, little scream reference there for folks in the know. He and he is dressed insane and he, he's just, like, if he thought he was a little crazy and scream, like, he's just acting 10 out of 10. He's going wild. He's like, yeah, he's just doing the dude voice.

Oh, speaking of voices, fucking Johnny Lee Miller, uh, the UK's own. Jotty Lee Miller. Weird take on American. This guy's American accent is so wild. He kind of has this theater, like, thing going on. What I kind of saw was it's Jack Nicholson, like a bad, 80's impression of Jack Nicholson. Okay, yeah, yeah. She kept switching it over and over.

It was so pronounced, though, that I, like, got a clip. Here's one of his lines. Oh, yeah, please. Well, it looks like I'm on top. Just, well, it looks like I'm on top. Hello, my baby, hello my hacker, hello computer girl. Well, my little chickadee, you want to hack into the mainframe? It's so strange.

But, you know, it's like it works because you're like, well, he is kind of a nerd. So maybe like, you know, he just doesn't know. Yeah. He doesn't know what he wants to sound like. You know, I was doing a lot of heavy lifting for the bad accent. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. But yeah, maybe he's like a homeschool kid. He's never met another kid before. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, sure. And yeah, and I think this movie, this movie, especially, I mean, I think the Fisher Stevens character who will get to is a good example of this. But I think this movie is kind of aware that like these characters would be kind of giant nerds who are kind of playing a cool kid or like trying a little bit hard to be cool kids. I don't know if it quite like has anything to say about that. But I think it kind of knows.

it. Yeah. Well, I think maybe his voice is a weird version of that. It's its own world, too.

It's like a, you know, it feels like a comic book almost. But other, like Ninja Turtle reference, I feel like that,

the place that they go to have the party, which is like a warehouse type thing with video games and like vert ramps and whatever. It looks like the teen whatever hang

in Ninja Turtles. Oh yeah, where the Foot Clan recruits people. Yes. Yes. Yeah. These,

the movies. of this era always always had this kind of thing of like a cool warehouse where the kids hung out and yeah it looks so much fun and yeah definitely it's just a fun fantasy part of these movies is like oh when I get to high school I'm going to hang out in warehouses and play

golden axe and write a skateboard it's going to be so fun the closest thing we had to this when I was a kid was Laser Quest which was like it had video it had an arcade in the front and like air hockey and stuff and it was very neon a lot like

this and then when you went into Laser Quest, multiple floors, by the way, you had to like run up ramps and things, all black light like paint and dry ice and stuff and it felt, and it was this kind of music. That's cool. They had dry ice. That's a nice. Oh, yeah. It was super fun.

I smacked my face into a wall once. Whoa. And got a nosebleed because of the dry ice. I got confused. Hell yeah. That is cool. I bet safety regulations were different in the 90s. Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah. And you had code names on your guns, too. So if you shot somebody, it would say who shot you. And mine was always Ace Ventura. Yeah. Somebody stop you. I know that's the mask. And then if you kept shooting someone, they'd be like, God damn it, Ace Ventura.

Like they'd get mad. Pet detective himself. So yeah, one of the hacker kids we have. I forget what they land on for this kid's code name. He's just named Joey in this. Does he, what is the kid with the braces? Yeah, the wet bandits or something. Yeah, I forget what he aliens.

Well, so we'll call him the wet bandits. Yeah. So he's doing some random hacking one night, and he runs a foul of a security guy played by Penn Gillette from Penn and Teller. Cool. Well, I think it's probably at his most famous, and this was probably a huge get at the time. Like, oh, we can get Penn. Hell yeah. It's crazy that he's separate from Teller.

Yeah, you should have Teller just sitting there doing it. Anyway, that missed opportunity. Yeah. Put Teller in the movie. So he's, so the. just kid Joey or the wet bandit. He's doing some random hacking. Pind Gillette finds out and he calls in The Plague.

That's a bad hacker guy played by Fisher Stevens on the Mount Rushmore of that guy from that thing. Hell yeah. And he's so fucking great in this. He's and he is that thing of like he is clearly a little weener, but he's wearing fur coats. He's got all these diamond rings. He wears these like kind of gaudy suits with these big brooches. and yeah, clearly is just like a nerd who wants to be cool. Yeah.

It's, yeah, he is a very funny, cool character. So he is after this kid, Joey, for hacking into his garbage file where he got something. They don't know what it is. And, you know, they have the FBI raid this kid's house because everybody has their house rated by the FBI. And the kid puts the garbage file on a floppy disk. Yes, it's the 90s. The MacGuffin is a floppy disk. He puts it in his vents.

It's a yellow floppy disk too. So, yeah, that's kind of set up and they take him to jail. Later, all the other hacker characters, they're watching a secret hacker TV channel hosted by Razor and Blade. They're the first to say hack the planet and they're teaching everyone how to, we mentioned it earlier, make free pay phone calls. I love that that's the like anarchist thing that they're up to. It's like, yeah, here's how to get a free pay phone call.

You make you wonder like, imagination-wise, it seems so limited that it makes you wonder if there was multiple different versions of this in the script. And every time the FBI was like, please stop telling people in the script to hack into banks and to steal all the money because people will do that. Right. Yeah. Because it's like free pay phone calls is where they landed is insane. It actually distracted me. It was so stupid. I don't know. I think it was cool.

I guess at the time maybe that was a cool thing, but I don't know. And Razor and Blade are really cool. They're like dressed really cool. I don't know who these guys are, but they're awesome. And they kind of like get what movie they're in in a fun way. Yeah. So yeah. So we, so you know, this is going on.

This is like just more hacker world building as we kind of like meet the rest of the people who are going to be after them. the main FBI guy. Matt, as a wire guy, this is Wendell Pierce. Wendell Pierce, baby. That's right. The Bunk. I was so stoked to see his name on the credits. And I was like, who the fuck is he in hackers?

Yeah. And I was like, oh, he's a cop. Of course. Of course, of course. I mean, and then we beat the president of the evil company, the generic evil corp or whatever, played by Lorraine Brocko. Crazy. It's just like prestige HBO. Like, where's Arlis?

Why is an Aralus in the movie? Everyone else is in the, where's, put Aralus in the movie. I feel like they're like, well, we have Penn. He kind of looks like that guy. Yeah, Penn looks a little bit like Arliss, I guess. And Lorraine's blonde in this. Yeah. And like, whoo, smoke show.

And also not interested in being in this movie. No. There's something about like watching the contrast in terms of like who's giving it. They're all. between Wendell Pierce and Lorraine Brocko. Lorraine Brocko, I felt like did half of her lines like ADR. Like they went back and because she probably did an even worse job during the actual filming.

Whereas like Wendell Pierce is truly good in this movie. It's like he understood the assignment and he was like, well, I'm going for it. I'm going to do, you know, the best I can possibly do. Lorraine, I think, is coming off of Goodfellas and is like, I guess I'll do hackers, but I don't need to. Yeah, there's a little reveal later where they reveal that she and Fisher Stevens are sleeping together, and that's really, like, funny and satisfying. Insane. I was like, come on. Now hang on.

Fisher Stevens dated Michelle Pfeiffer. You know, I think I had heard that. And at this point, I had Fisher Stevens, like, lodged firmly in my brain as, like, a guy who could just get it. You know what I mean? Like guy who just was so magnetic that it doesn't matter how tiny and kind of weird looking he is. I mean, I've been saying this to people for a while. Little fellas are where it's at. But he's entirely my type.

Short kings. He is a short king. But beyond like short, he's also strange looking. And he's like not who you would figure would date Michelle fucking Pfeiffer. Short guys with big noses. I'm telling you. It's where it's at. It's where it's at.

It's where it's at. So shout out to Fisher Stevens. And his wife is a beautiful smoke show too. Yeah. Academy Award winners, Fisher Stevens, by the way. He is? What do you win for? He won for a short film that he directed. And did, am I crazy?

Did he not also direct? No, he didn't direct the documentary Blackfish, right? I'm just thinking that because he's- Why? Because his first name is Fisher. He's like, I have to direct this movie. My people. He won an Academy Award for a short film, I believe, in 2010.

Or it was a, oh no, it was Best Documentary Feature. Wow. Wait, hold on. Did he do Blackfish? No, I will find out. I will find out. Okay, Fisher Stevens Research Incoming. But yeah, so we kind of like, these are the kind of like antagonist characters.

We know them. So, yeah, they go. So, so the cove. The cove. Okay. Oh, that's about the dolphins. So it is sort of about Fisher's thing. And she's Fisher Stevens.

All right. What a career. So yeah. So at this point, like Johnny Lee Miller and Angelina Jolie are like, you know, kind of, you know, lovers to enemies saying there will, they won't they, ing. Matthew Liller points out, oh, we also get the reveal that Angelina Jolie is acid burn, the hacker. from the beginning. A girl? I know.

And we learned that their nicknames together are Crash and Bird. Oh, yeah. So they decide to have a hack-off. So the thing is that like if she wins the hack-off, he's going to be her slave. She's just going to do her menial work. And if he wins, they're going to go out on a date.

So they start doing all this hacking means. stuff to Wendell Pierce. They like, yeah, like, you know, decline. Poor guy. Yeah, they declined his credit card. Oh, that made me so sad. I was sad. Because he's on a date and they cut it.

And he was like, what? I know. It's such a bummer. I know. And in front of this woman, I was like, what the fuck? Leave this guy low. So, yeah, they like declare him dead. There's this thing where they put him on like a Craigslist type stuff and has some

transphobic stuff in it. In 19, you know, late 90s, but it's still kind of crummy. Well, I'll tell you what I, I did like that wasn't great, of course. But the fact that she's like, you're my slave and he goes, I want to go on a date instead of you're going to have to blow me or something. I was like, thank you. It is nice. Yeah.

There's a little bit of 90s, icky stuff in this, but it's mostly really cute. And he's, and, you know, they're pretty like cute together. Yeah. And yeah, they mostly kind of resist the urge to make him kind of like an aggressive bro, which is, which is nice. Yeah. So yeah, they're doing this hack off. So he's declared the winner and then there's this like there's this like kind of running thing about characters having dreams about each other. So he has this like sex dream about Angelina Jolie.

That was kind of cool. Yeah. They got rated in the dream. Yeah. The FBI is just fucking always kicking down a door in this movie. And then it actually happens. So it like happens to this guy in his dreams and in real life and to every other character. And she has one about him and it's kind of like a reveal that it's her and that's really fun.

Yeah. But so the like FBI is after him. And so they, after Dade, and they like threaten his mom. So he kind of like goes, he kind of like is playing both sides now. He's like trying to like help out his mom. But he's also like in it with the hackers. So they find out what's on this disc. And it is, as we mentioned, a nefarious plan to create oil spills.

And like Fisher Stevens is behind it all plague. So he's like trying to set them up as the ones who are doing the oil spills. But really he's doing the oil spills. So they kind of figure this out and kind of the chases on. Yeah, we're about to the finale of hackers. So why don't we take a little break and then we'll finish it, you know, after the break. We're back. It's free with ads. We're going to talk about the thrilling third act of hackers.

So the chase is on. They go to a totally different hacker club where there is a rap rock band playing. One of the guys is wearing, I think, a fur chef's hat. I'm going to go ahead and say this is the worst hat. Yeah. Yeah, that's true. The worst hat. The band playing here, a real band,

I think they are called Urban Dance Squad. They were the Netherlands answer to Limp Biscuit, and that answer is knee. That's no in Dutch. That was the Netherlands answer to Limp Biscuit because it just seemed like a rage against the machine rip off. Yeah, the guy kind of sounds like. Exactly. For me too.

For a minute, I thought it was him. But I'm like, oh, these guys are Dutch. I mean, I could see Rage Against the Machine getting in there. Yeah. I think with this movie is kind of like anti-corporate politics. Like, it's not totally wild that Rage Against the Machine would be in this movie. No, I mean, especially since two years later, I think, or two or three years later, the Matrix comes out, which of course ends with the Rage Against the Machine song. And that's, that movie is about hackers and hacking as well.

Empowerment 5,000. Empowerment 5,000. Yeah. So, you know, it isn't crazy that they would have rage against machine, but no, they had some rip-off band. Yeah. Urban dance squad, Matt. They're called urban dance squad.

It's incredibly embarrassing because you're talking about like such American forms of like music synergy, you know, rap rock, like that very specific thing. And they just have someone in the Netherlands being like, yeah, we could do that. I like it with the fast rapping And also the distortion guitar Give me my first chef's hat We're going on tour Apologies to all our listeners

In the Netherlands My perfect impression It was great It was great What you sound like I was phoning it in But yours was Mine was perfect

Yeah it was pretty good I love to rap and rock At the same time Same time make great songs together But very energy Comes the urban dance squad So yeah So this is kind of like the big urban dance squad

I know You know an urban source of energy Yes We're our dance squad Yeah So so like everybody kind of knows about everybody at this point They They kind of link up with razor and blade

who alert the hackers of the world about what's going on. And so there's this kind of, there's this race against time. I'm not, I, this is, this is where the movie becomes just vibes and impossible to follow, at least for me. I just, I don't know what any of this stuff is. And they try so hard to make hacking dynamic. And there's, yes, a lot of that music and a lot of just kind of cutting to random clips of things. Which, we have a. Oh, God, why am I forget?

A sting. Sorry, let me start that over. Oh, do it? We have a sting and isn't it movie tech? Don't we have one for movie tech? Big film tech. Yay! Yeah.

So I think they try and like, they try and render the internet visual by creating these like light towers and showing where everyone is hacked into the light tower. I could not follow it and this was rendered suspense list. But it is like very fun to watch. It's like so it's such a time capsule. Yeah. At any point at which you're like, wait, I can't follow this movie. You actually can't even think that thought because this is happening. Yeah.

So any critique you might have while it's happening is drowned out by just some of the worst music. It's true. There is a scene in this where they're in a subway car like in New York and a guy has his laptop open and I'm like, can hackers get Wi-Fi in the subway? Oh, I don't know, maybe. I wonder, that's a cool hack. They hack the subway. They hacked the subway to get Wi-Fi.

I love that. More hacking like that, please. Hey, the subway's on the planet and they're hacking the planet. So there you go. So the hack off, they win it, I guess. I don't know. This is where we get the other famous line from this movie, mess with the best, die like the rest.

It's the big message that flashes on screen when they beat Fisher Stevens. But then they arrest Johnny Lee Miller for some reason, but then at the police station like Matthew Liller hacks into the world TVs, including a big one in Times Square. And that's how you know that this thing is global when they show the TV in Times Square. That's right. That's how you can tell. This is like such a funny moment. I'm watching this as an adult, I guess.

And so it's, I think as a kid, I would have been able to watch this scene and be like, that is so rad. What? Yeah. As an adult, I'm like, as soon as they were arrested, I was like, oh, no, now they're in the system. I mean, shit, they're going to get, you know, they're going to get booked. And now they've got a DA who's going to be up their ass, you know, trying to pin something on them, even if they didn't do nothing. And the deus ex machina is Matthew Lillard, fucking Shaggy coming out going, no, no, this is what actually happened, bro. And they just believe him?

They just immediately start hugging because I'm like, no, guys, you're still in jail. It's not like, yeah. He just committed another crime. Right. And just to say, nah, uh. No, oh, get it. I kind of was hoping that he could see everything from. that screen and be like, oh sweet, Katz is back.

Yeah. Oh, God, I see Cats on Broadway. Now, man, have you guys seen Rhett? Phantom of the opera. Oh, that's what I thought. Oh, hot street nuts. I gotta get some hot street nuts. Look, there's generic Elmo and he's pumping.

I hope he doesn't say anything anti-Semitic. His fur is so sticky. I can tell from here. Oh, but most importantly, I just like looking. at those twin towers, they're never going to fall. I hope knowing 9-11s. I hope 9-11s. I hope no 9-11s.

Someone should really hack into that 9-11. Yeah. I just keep with the music playing, I just keep someone, I keep waiting for someone to shout Mortal Kombat and they never do. Yeah, straight up. Mortal Tower.

Oh, yeah. This would be perfect. for a Godzilla Rar. Oh, yeah. Great. Yeah, it's music that is made out of Godzilla roars. It's true.

Pure. So, yeah, this thing that Matthew Liller does just works and he gets out of jail. They arrest Fisher Stevens like on a plane mid-flight. Can you just arrest him at the airport? I don't know,

it's cooler to arrest him on the podcast. I like that he's got a disguise on. Yeah, he's like fleeing the country and being like rude to the stewardess. I mean, you could see the glue on the mustache. Yeah. I know his disguise is very bad. He's doing an old man voice too.

I would like a pillow, please. So, yeah, so then Johnny Lee Miller and Angelene Jolie, they finally go on their date. And they head to, guess what? A fucking rooftop pool. They jump in the pool with all their clothes on. And he gestures to the skyline where he is, I guess, hacked a bunch of buildings to spell out crash and burn the Romeo and Juliet of our day

it's yes and then yeah that's the end of the movie I love the optimism inherent in that sort of ending where beyond the fact that like oh now everything's fine but they're like you know what it made me think of it made me think of the end of Fight Club

a mere three years later where all of a sudden it went from like the hacker culture or sort of the counterculture went from what if I made this building say our names? Right. Into what if we just destroyed all of corporate America? Very cute. So it was a simpler time, you know?

Mid-90s as opposed to late to mid-90s. Yeah, well, Fight Club is the sequel. That's right. Oh, that's interesting to look at these movies. Like, yeah, one happening after the other. Yeah, it's when things just got real toxic. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Interesting.

Yeah, that's like the turning point to the 4chan, like, hacker things. It'd be a good double feature if you're out there and you have a cool indie movie theater. Yeah. Hey, we're going to say what we thought about the movie, but first, you know we got to do the hunk watch. It's hunk watch. I imagine this will be a lively discussion about the hunks of this film. Anybody have super strong opinions? Yes.

Yeah, go ahead. You start. It's Fisher Steak. I'm sorry, like all the fucking way. Yes. I mean, Matthew Lillard arguably like one of the hunkiest guys ever, but not in this movie. Sorry. They put him in the dwebiest kind of the like the weird ponytails that he's got going on.

He looks so crazy. He's so silly. He looks very silly, but arguably very hunky man and, you know, and everything else. But yeah, it's Fisher-Stevens. He's, you just the charisma, the, I don't know, he just oozes sex appeal to me. and he dates blonde hot women who are taller than him and it's like, yep, see, I'm on to something, y'all. You're not wrong.

You're not wrong. Matt, you have any opinions on the hunks of the film? I mean, it is, it's Angelina Jolie. I mean, I truly was distracted by how beautiful she was in this movie. And this is a movie with a lot of hot people in it. I mean, there's like, the cast is pretty stacked, but she is just on another level. I, I, I'm glad I didn't see this as a as a teen. Well, I mean, Lorraine, what's her name?

Lorraine Braco, Dr. Mel. She's a smoke show in this too. She's like, she's gorgeous as well. But, you know, in terms of acting, I would probably say. Yeah, yeah. Just in this one. I think Lorraine Brock was a terrific actress, but she did not want to be in. I will say.

give her much to do. Right. Exactly. Yeah. Sure. It just made her go like, I don't know about computers. And you're getting on my nerves. Why are you losing? You're annoying and I'm still going to sleep with you. Yeah. Yeah. This movie is full of like, you know, it's a very thin script. And I think I think the good actors in it are, you know, are making something out of it. And, you know, you have a handful of people just kind of kind of sleepwalking through. Yeah. Yeah, I will go ahead and give it to Matthew Lillard. It is just my favorite Matthew Lillard performance. It is not, it's pretty, it's pretty wild and kind of annoying, but he, he, he is so great. And I think he is everybody's favorite now for many reasons, especially because he was part of that weird press tour where Quentin Tarantino

just took shots at actors who people generally like. So, yeah, it's him and Paul Dano, which it's like, fuck you. Like, I mean, also, oh, Matthew Lillard just did a mythical kitchen episode on YouTube. Oh, did he? Mythical Kitchen, you know, we're, we're, all three of us are featured. on Good Mythical Morning sometimes. But yeah, he just did a last meals episode. And I cried. It was so sweet. You have to watch it.

Really good. He's a sweet guy. And yeah, and I always, you know, I frequently bring up people who I have like seen at cons who are nice and grateful and who people go crazy for. And he's the like fucking king of that. Like he just shows up to the stuff, signs autographs, you know, loves the nerds. and he's a wonderful dude. And this is, I think, you know, is it the best Matthew Lillard performance

that is not, but I think this is a seminal Matthew Lillard role. Absolutely. He was my customer at Jack Spade when I used to work there. And he was so sweet to everyone that worked there. He like stayed and like entertained us for a while. That's nice. But you know who else did that?

Mike Myers. Wow. Okay. He was very sweet at my store. I hear he's tough in other arenas. Sure. Maybe not a super fun guy to make a movie with. But yeah, maybe a nice guy.

Generally. Good. This is good. Yeah. All right. We're going to tell you what we thought of hackers overall when we come back. We're back. It's free with ads.

We are going to tell you what we thought about hackers. But first, a little treat. You guys like treats. I love treats. You love it. Who doesn't love a treat. Num, numb, numb, numb. Meat those treats.

Audience, there is a brand new free with ads bonus. episode for you up in the bonus feed. It is on, speaking of the 90s, Beverly Hills, 90210. We reviewed the pilot. And not only do we have the bonus episode ready for you to listen to right now, but if for some reason you're not already a member and listening to that bonus feed, we got a little clip for you. Matt? We get a scene, a classic teen waking up scene that started many of our TV shows and movies as kids. We hear someone repeating, wake up, wake up, and it pans up to

Godzilla. Wow, is Godzilla going to be in this? No, just for this one scene. It's such a fucking bummer. You don't start with Godzilla and have no, it's like a Godzilla toy. Oh, shit, did you ever? There he is. There he is. Let's go. At some point, can he maybe go into the 902 one theme song

when the claps? Oh, that would be crazy. I don't know. That would be strange. I don't think that can ever happen. I don't think that can happen. Anyways. Perfect. We are so cool.

We're really good at podcasts. Very good at podcasting. I know. So this is something interesting. Something I, a theory I have about the version of this we watched, I would guess when this aired on TV, this was full of needle drops and like hot music at the time. Yep. I'm sure. It sounds like it's all been replaced because they're.

The music in this is so weird and generic. Yeah, I noticed that too. And if you watch it with subtitles, which I did, whenever music comes on, the subtitle says, heavy metal music playing. What they have put in there is like the backing track when McGruff the crime dog has to rap about not talking to strangers. It's like,

and then the caption says heavy metal. Anyway, it's just this generic library music. I think it's all been replaced. We had a blast talking about Beverly Hills 90210.10. And if you want to hear that whole episode and all our bonus episodes, maximum fun.org slash join. Okay, let's go around the horn. What did we think of hackers?

Emily, you want to go first? Yeah, I think that y'all are going to disagree with me. But I'm giving this shit a tippy tin, bitch. Wow. A 10 for hackers. I love it. so much. It's just one of those movies that I could watch over and over and over again and just never get tired of it. Yes, there are too many raid scenes. That's my main. That is a lot of

rating. That is my main, yeah, my main critique. But I love fake, like, tech and I love like this world building kind of, you know, this doesn't exist in real life. This is like a fun kind of colorful version of what it was like in the 90s to be a hacker. And I just want to live in it. I want to wear all the clothes. I want to go all the places they go. I want to hang out in New York at this time period. I love it.

I love it. I love it. Matt, what do you think? You know what? I'm not going to give it a 10. I did very much enjoy it. It was my first time seeing it. And I found it to be above average enjoyable.

So I'm going to give it a set. I think it's a really fun movie that it not holding up in terms of like technology or literally anything makes it an even more fun look into what into the kind of techno optimism that I think a lot of us had in the mid-90s. Like man, the internet is going to be able to do some crazy things. I don't know what those are yet. But they're definitely good. But they're going to be great. No matter what it is, yeah, there'll be some bad people. But the good thing is we'll always have good people,

like these hackers trying to get us free pay phones. Crash bandicoot and acid burn and plague. Well, plague is bad. Yes. Yeah. So, okay, so I think, I think, I think this is such a good, like, bad movie night movie. I think I saw it as like a midnight movie and it was great. that wild crowd. I think if you're doing like, you know, and I, I say bad. You kind of know what I'm

talking about. Crazy movie night. And I think if you are just like with friends and you want to like goof on something, this is, if this is great. Yeah, it's the, yeah, the fashion, the music. I'm going to get a bit of six. I feel like watching it alone is a little tough just because it's kind of a shaky movie. I think we all agree. But yeah, I think if you're just like looking for something fun that is just a wild 90s time capsule, this is a really fun choice for like bad movie night. Yeah, watch it while you're, um, like, cooking or while you're cleaning your room and you will do things very fast. Oh yeah. I folded all of my laundry last night and it was a lot. Like I've, I like, I'm one person. It's crazy how long I wait to do my laundry. Maybe I'll throw it

on in the background the next time I just like have a bunch of emails to answer and see how fast I get through them and pretend like I'm hacking the planet. You're a genius. That's a great idea. idea. Great, great idea. Well, yeah, that is hackers. Let's do a little plug-in. Emily, you got anything? I am, I just did this podcast scam goddess.

Oh, that's a great show. That is a really fun show. One of my faves. Really? Yeah, I'm so excited. It should already, I think it comes out on the 17th. So on St. Patrick's Day, which makes sense for me. So have a cold one and listen to it.

There you go. It was so cool to be on that show. Lacey is an amazing host, and I had a great time. Yeah, she's really funny, and I'm sure you all are very funny together. I hope so. Okay, I am going to tell people about a new comics series that you can pre-order right now. Amazing Spider-Man, Spider-Versity. Yes, the characters from the series.

from the Spider-Man universe all do an adventure at college. So it's Spider-Man plus pitch-perfect plus a bunch of other cool stuff written by me and co-written by I should say co-written by me. I'm writing it with

the great Joe Kelly. Yep, that one is being drawn by Perre Perez and it is a gorgeous, cool, fun, funny book. I'm so proud of it. I'm so excited to be writing spidey characters. They're my faves. And if you want assigned copies of Spiderversity, you go to bit.ly slash spidey school, bit.ly slash spidey school. And you can get all five issues signed by me, mail to you for cover price. Baby, this is a bargain. And I guess I learned recently that the folks I'm doing this with collector's paradise, I didn't think so, but they can sell out. Yeah, they sold out of another one and some people are mad. So if you want Spiderversity signed, do it now, bit.ly slash spidey school.

Congratulations, by the way. Thank you. It's very cool. It's turning out like rad. I'm so stoked for folks to read this. It comes out April 24th, I believe, but you're going to want to get that pre-order in now, especially if you want. By the way. Yes.

April 24th. So I'm turning 40 in April. Woo-woo. Huge deal. And there is a new metal party on the 24th at Bordner's. Okay. Just so you know. All right.

All right. I think. we know what we're doing for Emily's birthday. Yeah. Slight correction. Spider-Versity comes out the 22nd and Emily's birthday is on the 24th. Well, my birthday is on the 14th, but this year, it's the whole fucking month. Too many numbers.

Too many numbers. Listen. It's the whole month. Birthday month. Because this is a big birthday. This is a big one. Oh, yeah. You got to go big.

All right. Tune in next week when our movie will be Godzilla, all monsters attack. Maximum Fun. A worker-owned network of artists-owned shows. Supported. Directly. By you.