The Big Picture - Sharks, Alligators, Piranhas, and the Top 10 Garbage Fish Movies

Episode Date: August 4, 2023

Sean and Amanda are joined by Ringer contributor Brian Raftery to discuss his upcoming series ‘Do We Get to Win This Time? How Hollywood Made the Vietnam War,’ which will be running on ‘The Big Picture’ feed over the next three weeks (1:00). Then, at long last, Sean and Chris Ryan unveil the latest genre in their ongoing niche genre project: Garbage Fish (15:00). Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Guests: Chris Ryan and Brian Raftery Senior Producer: Bobby Wagner Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, Big Picture listeners. For the next few weeks, Sean and I are handing the feed over to a narrative podcast about Vietnam movies. It's called Do We Get to Win This Time? And it's hosted by longtime Ringer contributor Brian Raftery, who you might remember from our other narrative podcast, Gene and Roger. I think you'll like it. Sean and I will see you in a few weeks. Get groceries delivered across the GTA from Real Canadian Superstore with PC Express. Shop online for super prices and super savings. Try it today and get up to $75 in PC Optimum Points. Visit superstore.ca to get started.

I'm Sean Fennessey. I'm Amanda Dobbins. And this is The Big Picture, a conversation show about garbage fish, among other things. That's right. On this episode, we will be talking about the long-awaited garbage fish movies, which is something that Chris Ryan and I have been promoting, suggesting for many, many weeks. But before we do that, we have a special guest here with us, Amanda. Back on the show, how long has it been?

Two years? When were you last here, Brian? I think you and I did an episode about weird robots at some point during the pandemic. I vaguely remember that. Yeah, yeah. That was fun. Brian Raftery, friend, podcaster, writer, extraordinaire, author. You've been working on a project that's going to be taking over this feed for the bulk of August. And I thought you could help us understand what it is, why you did it, how you found it, and what listeners should expect from the show. Yeah.

So what is it? What are you doing? I have spent the last year watching a lot, a lot of Vietnam movies and doing a lot of thinking about Vietnam. And so what we've thrown together is, hopefully, what I think is really fun is kind of like a look at how the Vietnam movies, which were a, for better or worse,

a very crucial part of my history education when I was younger, how they kind of were made, some of the big films like Platoon, Apocalypse Now, Full Metal Jacket, but also looking at sort of like the big impact of these movies on people such as myself when I was a kid. And I did not know what the Vietnam War was, and I did not know the stakes, and I did not understand American politics, but I watched a lot of movies about Vietnam and kind of trying to trace like what these movies were saying about the war, what they were saying about how Americans felt about the war, but also how these movies were made because a lot of them are

these kind of incredibly ambitious, over-the-top, wild war epics that no one really seems to want to make anymore. Once in a while you get like an get like All Quiet on the Western Front or Dunkirk, but there was a long period of time where just like there was a Vietnam movie coming out every month and I was not allowed to see it because I was too young

and I could not wait until I got an HBO free weekend and my parents, who were wonderful people, but not always paying attention to what I was watching. And so watching, you know, Hamburger Hill when I was 13

and being completely traumatized by it. But it was a really kind of fascinating period in Hollywood history. And they had this incredibly long sort of up and down relationship with Vietnam where at first they wanted nothing to do with it. And then all of a sudden, as the country changed, as the mood changed, we got this huge influx of Vietnam films that were, as I said, for me and all my friends, we watched these as if they were, I don't want to be glib, but like, they were almost like a kind of like a franchise. We would just talk about Vietnam movies in every single way. And we knew nothing about this war.

I was not, I was born after it ended. I mean, this was nothing but a historical kind of like, it was just sort of like, it was almost like a pop culture phenomenon, which again, I'm not trying to discredit, but it really felt like you had to go see the new Vietnam movie this week. You had to see Platoon. You had to see Full Metal Jacket. You had to go see, you had to watch, you know, Tour of Duty on CBS, which is a show about Vietnam that I watched like from the pilot episode. So it was a very strange kind of period in my adolescence where me and a lot of other friends were learning about Vietnam through the movies. And I don't know if we learned anything actually. We learned some things, but we got a lot of stuff wrong. And it was a very incomplete picture.

Yeah. Speaking of learning things, Amanda, you worked on the show. I did. What questions did you have for Brian when you guys were working on the show? A ton. Because as Brian said, I would say that this podcast is about 70% film history. Yeah. 20% sociological history and 10% Gen X history.

Yes. And so I learned a lot about random comic books about, yeah, what is that one again? The NAMM. Yeah. Marvel Comics had a Vietnam comic book, which was like one of the first comic books I had a subscription to. Once again, Marvel Comics, up to normal things. It was really, here's the thing though, I will say it was really good and it won like an award from a veterans association. It was written by a vet and I had a next door neighbor who was just came over to my house when I was like 12 or 13 and was disgusted to see a Vietnam comic book. And I was like, but it's good. It beat platoon by the,

they should not care at all. But that's like, that's how big it was. That's what the, there was this huge audience for it. And it was like people who'd grown up during the Vietnam war were in their forties or thirties and were controlling the media. And then people like me were like, what was Vietnam? What was the 60s, you know? Right. And then, and people of my generation and Bobby's generation, Bobby also worked on this podcast,

are learning about Vietnam sort of from school, not really, mostly from movies and then from Gen X's digestion of it. So it's, you know, it's very fascinating. This podcast both features like, I don't want to say the obvious, but the first films that come to mind when you think of Vietnam, like Apocalypse Now, Deer Hunter, Coming Home, Born on the Fourth of July, Platoon. And also features like a lot of movies that I had maybe heard of or had not heard of in some cases. So the other thing I learned, Sean, to your question is just Brian watched a lot of movies. And I understood in my head that this was a real moment in Hollywood history. But I really

did not understand the breadth of it until Brian, bless him, watched all of them. How did you go about doing that? How did you figure out what was relevant to this topic? I tried to watch, honestly, I made a huge list of about 100 movies. And I think I got through about half of it. I mean, some I'd seen. I mean, I saw, I rewatched Apocalypse Now, I rewatched Full Metal Jacket and Orpal Tune, but I've seen those. I mean, I saw them a lot growing up. The weird thing was the way our house is set up is that we really don't have a private TV and my kids are a little too young to see a lot of this stuff. So for about three months, I was getting up at five in the morning of watching some of these. And there was definitely like a Friday where I'd done this five days in a row.

And I woke up at five and I was watching the second half of Apocalypse Now. And I'm just like, first of all, no one should listen to the doors at five o'clock in the morning. Like it should be absolutely not allowed. And my wife was just like, are you okay? I'm like, I'm just down this week. She's like, you watch three, you watch three documentaries and Apocalypse Now at five o'clock in the morning. Do you think that might have something to do with it? But yeah, I mean, I was very enthusiastic to watch,

especially the sort of 70s genre exploitation Vietnam movies, which are almost always about Vietnam vets coming back, and they are not particularly tasteful. They are not a very nuanced view of PTSD or the challenges that these veterans face. However, in their own way, they are really entertaining. There's a movie called Brotherhood

of Death, which is basically, which I'd heard Tarantino talk about, but I'd never seen it. It was out of print for a long time. But that was the one where it's about these group of black Vietnam vets who come back and they find out that their small town has really been infiltrated by the KKK. And I don't want to ruin the whole movie, but it is a revenge movie. And I will say the last 10 minutes of this movie are like, I was just vibrating on the couch. I was so excited. It's like a great, I'm like, that's what a really good genre movie could do. That's also one of my favorite interviews that you have in the whole podcast. Can you remind me of the actor's name? Oh, Haskell. Yeah. Yeah. And he's great. So he's a Vietnam vet who's in this movie and he was incredibly young and he came

back from Vietnam. He told the whole story about and he's great. So, he's a Vietnam vet who's in this movie. And he was incredibly young and he came back from Vietnam. He told the whole story about how he was very nervous about how he'd be perceived as a vet. And he wound up in this movie where he's, again, like almost immediately, he's playing a traumatized Vietnam vet who's still fighting a war at home. So, I mean, a lot of the genre movies were, again, some of them are really tasteless. But a movie like Death Dream, which is a horror movie about a guy who basically comes back as a zombie. It's great. I mean, it's like a Bob Clark movie. I'd never seen it before.

It had been on my must-see list. And I think the nice thing was I had a lot of B movies that I either never heard of or that were in the middle of my got-to-see-someday list, and I was able to bump them up higher. Where's the Letterboxd list? I'm waiting for the list that you can share. Maybe at the conclusion. I could make a Letterboxd list. Yeah, yeah. I think you should consider it. So how did you, you're just talking about movies now, but how did you structure telling a story about what

these movies were and what they meant to the culture? I think that all came from interviews. And that's the, that's like, that was one of the most amazing things with the show, which is I had like a dream list of like who I'd like to get for it. And I was like, I don't know if we'll get Oliver Stone for this. And we got Oliver and I was like I don't know if we'll get Oliver Stone for this and we got Oliver Stone like I don't know could we get Eleanor Coppola to talk about being on the set of Apocalypse Now and we got that um because she made this which I know everyone in this room has seen but Hearts of Darkness which is her on the set of Apocalypse Now her documentary is like if that was a 12-hour movie I'd be like fine by me I will watch every single every single second of Dennis Hopper wilding out on the set of Apocalypse Now.

But I really, you know, I spoke with Vietnam vets. I spoke with several Vietnamese-American actors. I spoke with Gen Xers who were my age who were Vietnamese-Americans about these movies. And eventually, the thread of the story, the structure is kind of, I'm not going to say like, it's when someone says the city is a character in the movie, you're like, oh, come on, I've heard that before. But like the country is kind of the main character in the podcast. Like it's sort of like how Americans felt about this war based on the movies they accepted, the movies they flocked to. And there's a lot of, I mean, I did not expect to have this much John Wayne in my life, but John Wayne is definitely just, he just came up in every

interview or he came up in every story. And like the whole idea of John Wayne being the kind of macho American war figure in movies, making the Green Berets, which is a tough hang of a movie. It's two and a half hours long. I love old World War II movies, but when they are by the book, they are by the book. But, you know, he kind of hovers over all these things because he made these movies that people like Ron Kovic and Oliver Stone watched when they were younger. And a lot of veterans watched these movies and it informed a lot of how they felt about the country and you can sort of you know hopefully it is also very engaging and fun because you are learning all about how all these ridiculously over-the-top movies are made but I did kind of like the idea of looking at how looking at how America looked at these movies and trying to figure out what this

period was like for people I almost don't want to spoil too much more about the show, but there's a part of me that I want to know what you learned ultimately. Like, what did you, what are your, what is your takeaway? What great timing because we just made Brian rewrite the conclusion of episode eight. You don't have to spoil that either. Brian, I told you this on Slack. It's wonderful. It was really good. I think I'm curious because I have a big relationship to these movies as well. I feel as though I probably misunderstand a lot about Vietnam because I have based a lot of my understanding of the war on these very subjective point of view films that have become iconic over the years. Like, what were some broader takeaways, though, that you had? Did you feel like you switched your feeling about anything relative to the war?

Yeah. I mean, the one thing is I really try to come in to this whole experience. Again, I know I'm old, but I'm not that old. Like I wasn't there. And I was like, the whole, you know, one of the things that's interesting about history is that when you're younger and you sort of start following history, you kind of almost sort of take sides where like, I would have been like this. I would have been anti-war. I would have done this. I would have done that. And I really try to go into all these interviews, like absolutely judgment-free. Like I was not alive in the late sixties or early

seventies. I don't know what it was like. And I also learned that I think I thought I knew what it was like based on watching all these movies when I was younger, which is, which is, which is not right. Um, and I think the one thing I learned is that we got some really great stories about Vietnam, but we got them from a very, very limited perspective. We got, I mean, look, these are all movies made in the sixties, 70s, 80s, and early 90s. For the most part, it's 95% white guys and Western white guys making these movies. And, you know, I think we're at this point now where we're all kind of looking back at culture the last 30, 40 years and really trying to examine who made this? What story was it telling?

What stories were these movies not telling? And some people kind of take those those kind of interrogations personally i think it's really interesting to look back because i think i can enjoy a movie like i don't know apocalypse now i love apocalypse now it's i mean it's it's an amazing movie the last third i don't know i still struggle with it it's a little it's a little like what is he going on about but you know it's also you know i spoke to people who were you know vietnamese americans who were like i love that, but do you know any of the Vietnamese characters' names? I mean, they're really kind of faceless and nameless. And when you watch a lot of these movies in a row, you start seeing like, this is a female Vietnamese character who is only here for two minutes in the story.

You don't even know her name. I think it's really important to kind of realize the stories that have been left out when Hollywood tried to tell this story about America in a war that a lot of Americans didn't understand and still don't understand. And I don't know if these movies will necessarily help anyone really understand all the complexities of Vietnam and what happened. But I do think by watching them, you get a really good sense of what you learned about it in school and what you didn't learn, which to me is just like, that's the great thing about history it's like oh i can keep going and learning more you know brian you haven't said the name of the show it's uh it's do we get to win this time how hollywood made the vietnam war which i've had to say in three 15 different ways you did a great job it's a title with a question good and i hope people know what that movie is from what that

line is from but that is from my favorite episode of the whole show because i am obsessed with ronald reagan not for bad reasons but i'm from my favorite episode of the whole show because I am obsessed with Ronald Reagan. Not for bad reasons, but I'm very interested. I went to the Reagan Museum last summer when I had a day off from my family.

That's how hardcore I am. But my favorite episode is about the Rambo movies and Ronald Reagan kind of arriving at the same time in 80s America because I was young for that,

but I had the Mad Magazine with Rambo and Ronald Reagan on the cover. I felt very much happy kind of happy swimming back in that world. Brian, I'm so excited for everyone to hear. I've only heard a few episodes. I haven't even heard the series in its entirety. It's wonderful.

For me, I will be able to hear something great. Thanks so much for doing it. You got it. And please stay tuned to The Big Picture for it because it'll be running for the next three weeks. Cool. Okay, let's go to Garbage Fish. It's Garbage Fish time. Okay, Chris Ryan is here for a very special event.

Meg to the Trench is upon us. We haven't seen that film unfortunately, but Is it not being screened for critics? Have you been blacklisted like you were for Oppenheimer?

No, no. I was not blacklisted for Oppenheimer. I saw that film I was not blacklisted for Oppenheimer. I saw that film at a preview screening and I was invited to a preview screening of Meg. Is getting blacklisted something of a goal for you? Do you want to start getting blacklisted either by like a House of Un-American Activities? I was going to say like in a Red Scare way. But also by like major studios where your truth is too powerful

and they need to keep you out of their screenings. I think I'm doing something wrong if I've gone that far in my zag. I would love a Nikki Fink second act for you. I wouldn't. I mean,

I'm enthralled to these large corporations and their product and I enjoy them. Yeah, but you love saying told you. I do. No, I don't want to be blacklisted.

I haven't seen Meg 2 though I will see it I haven't seen it either I saw the Meg and I liked it I liked it well enough and it is a

Meg 2 is a continuation of just frankly an incredible trend one of our favorite sub-genres ever in CR and Sean history which is something we've been talking about

for a long time Garbage fish. That is feature films. Well, I don't, you know what? I don't want to spoil it. We'll describe the etymology,

the history, the intellectual property. How to know you're watching a garbage fish movie. Exactly. Yeah. Was there some, was there, was there a prompt of some kind you wanted to share though before we did that?

I just thought we could like as a warmup exercise, cause this is your last pod before vacation pretty much, right? Like I've worn shorts. Bobby's here. Like we're just like, we're just loose, right? We just want to loosen up. Yeah, sure. We've been doing the big picture together with Amanda for a while. You and I have known each other for a long time. The only thing that outpaces that is how long we've been doing JMO for. That's right. And for years, it's just been just my opinion. And we talk about today's political news and whatever is just sort of just been just my opinion. And we talk about today's political news and whatever is just sort of bubbling up on social media. I'd like to introduce a spinoff

today. Just my ocean. So I brought a couple of real headlines from the world of aquatic news today. Can I foreground something in this conversation? Yeah. Your natural habitat is the sea. No, I would like to, I'd like to amend that. You would? Yeah, because I've been watching a lot of documentaries lately that have maybe dissuaded me from it. Are you elevating to the air? Is this a post-blimp take? I think, I think I'm interested in space.

I don't think as, I think not as a commercial traveler. Yeah. Or as an explorer. Yeah. But like when podcasts collapse, I think I will go into being an astronaut. Yeah. You'll go into being an astronaut.

Yeah, because they're going to need entertainment up there. Like, especially when we get into like the eight-year Mars trips, they're going to be like, what if we had like half of the watch just potting for us all the time up there? I hate to break it to you, but in space, no one can hear you pod. So it's going to be a tough sell. This is your problem. You think too small. There's like a whole limitless galaxy of an audience for us out there. Well, is this material that you've uncovered? Has that informed this pivot away from the sea for you? I'll just tell you what I did. I watched The Deepest Breath,

which is a documentary on Netflix about freediving. That seemed really disturbing. Freediving? Why is that? Why do they do that? I don't know. And when you watch this movie, you're just like, so this is a poor spectator sport. It's essentially like to watch this, you either have to watch a live stream on YouTube or float in the water waiting for them to emerge. And it seems like one out of 20 kind of basically blackout on the way up. Yeah. And it just doesn't seem like anything. Anyone was like, who can swim the deepest?

Is there like a free diving Olympics of some kind? I don't know. But the woman, Alessia Zakeni or whatever, who was the- I think you nailed it perfectly. She claimed, and I don't doubt her, to have like tons of medals. So I don't know, do you have any medals? Have you awarded yourself any? Yes, I hand welded them and they all just say,

best potter in space. And I'm really proud of them. God damn it. That's why I need to get out there. They're all made of steel. Okay, so she has medals of some kind. Yeah, she's like nine-time champion. And they also like set world records.

It seems pretty consistently. So I watched The Deepest Breath. I also watched After the Bite. Have you seen that? I haven't. I'm intrigued by this. Yeah, so that's about an attack off the coast of Cape Cod

that happened a few years ago and how it changed the relationship of like a small Cape Cod community to the ocean because essentially, long story short,

they're just letting seals rock. They're just letting seals breed and hang out. There's an island where the seals are just like, it's Seal Island. When you say

they're just letting them, the alternative would be to be murdering the seals are just like, it's seal island. When you say they're just letting them, the alternative would be to be murdering the seals in public? Yeah, right. Literally. Is that what you stand for? No, but I think

we can find a balance because what's happened is there's a lot of seals and now great whites are coming. Okay, let's just go back one second. You're against free diving. I stand with you on that.

You are, however, pro seal murder. No, it's not murder. In an effort to avert an encounter with a great white. I think maybe we find an island way farther away from Kip Cod for the seals to be hanging on it. Yeah. You want to get on a helicopter with 100 seals and fly to Alaska. Now that's a pot. And drop it.

What about the space? This is like, what do you guys think of hijack? Oh, that's a great take. Your seal work is very strong. You would do really well

in my two-year-old's home. Yeah. So those, these two artifacts of documentary filmmaking have pushed you from a place that you felt

very comfortable for a long time. Well, I'll tell you what has also pushed me away from a place that I felt comfortable. The news long time. Well, I'll tell you what has also pushed me away from a place that I felt comfortable. The news. The news. It's not been great in the ocean recently.

So are you up on the Atlantic current? No. Right. So that's collapsing. What does that mean? I've been trying to figure it out. So there's a CNN report where they're like, the Atlantic current is going to collapse

and it's going to happen sooner than we thought. And that could be terrible for everybody. And then you just keep reading and reading and reading. And they never actually get at, like, is Miami going to be underwater? Are we going to be in bomb cyclones underneath the ocean? What happens? And then there has been some pushback from some other places. I think the United Nations was like, I think we have a few more years.

We have like a medium fear of this, but not like this could happen in 2025, which is what they said. But I don't know if you know this, but the water temperature off the coast of Florida is getting up into like the 90s and 100s. That's bad. And I have a couple of other stories that are freaking me out that I'd love to bring to you. I think it's an interesting move by you in your late 40s to pivot to environmentalism, speculative, alarmist, digital news about the collapsing earth.

And on the one hand, I'm like, obviously, climate change is real and the world is falling apart. On the other hand, like, this is how they get you, bud. Yeah. This is how they get, like, you're like eight years out from fox news no no no no no no no watch out what i'm doing is scouting for development opportunities for you and i to make

more garbage fish movies what beasts could rise out of the collapsing current yes this is our rio rancho is what you're so what if we if we have... Okay, let's just spin it out. Two guys going on a fishing trip off the coast of the Cape. Okay, I'm in. Sean and Chris for just random character names. But the Atlantic current collapses while they're out there. And a mighty beast comes out of the ocean floor. Yeah, a giant seal loves the podcast.

Okay, so I... A giant seal loves the podcast. Okay. So a giant seal who's just like, I love Rogan. So Sean is played by Jake Gyllenhaal. Who's playing CR? Jason Momoa. Momoa. That sounds like an incredible entrant in the garbage fish can.

Yeah. A giant seal is revealed in the erosion of the Atlantic current. Yeah, the current collapses, the temperatures go up, and some warm water beast that has long been dormant comes out. Is this a sidequel to Aquaman? Is that why you've cast Momoa? No, but I think Momoa, you don't have to train him. He's like, I'm all good. I've done all the swimming. I've got all my badges.

Is it the day after tomorrow or 2012 that Jake Gyllenhaal was in? Both? The day after tomorrow. No, the day after tomorrow is when the aliens come, right? No, that's... We're in a lot of New York City. We're in Jurassic Park. What's the Keanu Reeves one where he's the alien?

The day after tomorrow is when the zoo gets let out and New York freezes and floods. Correct. Bob, would you watch Seal of Approval? Would I watch it? I would executive produce it. What are you talking about? The whole time I'm sitting here thinking,

sick invite, guys. Just one thing that I also did notice been doing my research is just how many plots of movies we were about to discuss are actually just taking place. So I've got a piece from CBS this morning. July 28th.

Underwater robots could usher in a high-tech future for deep-sea mining? It's just Blade runner yeah are you pro robot mining um i did hear you and and andrew speaking on the watch about brian cranston's impassioned speech about robot performances and um i i stand with cranston on this and all other robot matters, which is let humans cook. Let Brian Cranston give monologues. I mean, can robots do things that humans can't in these underwater mines?

Yeah, well, I think they can be built to withstand incredible amounts of pressure. There's none of that like, oh, my suit. No, no. You know, like it's just a robot, right? Some Leviathan energy there. So what are we mining for? Who knows? Like mining for who knows

like mining for takes yeah like what's down there no i mean i think like like stuff to put in your your ev battery there elon like i don't know like you're the one who needs to fucking plug your car in every 20 minutes you you so once again circling back i'm running on you're a gas guzzler yeah i'm pure gas problem i'm going i'm fucking paying at the pump chris has been driving a 1998 suburban for several decades and i go sir sir do you have any russian crude to put into this i'm buying low i guess i'm not against these mining robots. Okay. I'm against robots serving me ice cream at Jenny's. You know, that's something I don't want. Yeah.

I'd like to have a human interaction. Yeah. In a service environment. Are there places that you currently have human interactions that you think would be better served by having robot interactions? That's a wonderful question. This podcast? No.

No, I would never give up Bobby. I think we should have robot gladiators serve as a flight attendance. Robot gladiator? Yeah, with a license to kill. Like with like a license to like throw people out of planes if they like step out of line. I have two. That's a really good idea. Wow.

Because like, I think that like the nerves on planes, especially in the summer, are getting a little, a little frayed. Are you feeling nervous about your upcoming flight? Not really. Where do you stand on Chuck Klosterman and Bill Simmons' discussion of the woman who saw an unreal person? Didn't they figure out

she was having an episode and that she went to Oklahoma State? I feel like you've been reading The Intercept a lot. A lot of your links where you're like, this was aggregated by CNN. Where did these things emanate? I thought I would come in prepared

with some cool stuff to share with you and Bobby. So I went on Reddit Oceans and then I went on Google News and typed in Oceans. And this is what I came up with. I tried to bring you the news of the Atlantic Current. Look on every single news source is like the Atlantic Current is happening.

No one would ever accuse you of not doing the work. You always do the work and you show your work. But I keep bringing up the sea, Chris, because you're legendary for. The sea is dope. The sea is dope. I mean, this is one of your great written pieces. It lives on in Grantland history and publishing history. It's kind of like.

And I turned to you that day and I said said I think I'll blog about this Jude Law trailer remember? is that what yeah what was the name of that movie? Black Sea is that what happened? is that the origin of that?

it was like in the heart of the sea and Black Sea were both out coming out and I was like I think I'll blog about these trailers

do you have any regrets about what you opened up? like in terms of like the Atlantic Current mining facility that I've invested in. Do you ever read Hub Fan's Bid Kid Adieu? No.

It's John Updike's 1960 piece about Ted Williams' last game at Fenway Park. It's one of the great pieces of mid-century sports writing. Do you read a lot of mid-century sports writing? Well, I studied it in college. I studied sports writing. Here I am many years of mid-century sports well i studied it in college i studied sports writing here i am many years later working at a sports editorial operation you took a class about mid-century sports writing i took a sports writing a sports journalism class in college i did yeah and i learned a lot about sports magazine journalism i read lots of journalism um from this

era yeah and really admired it and i think i'm like the guy who was sitting next to Updike in the New Yorker office when he was like, I'm going to write about Ted Williams' last game. I'm going to go, I'm going to talk to everybody, and I'm going to communicate about the greatness of Ted. And that's you watching the Black Sea trailer. That bums me out, though, because what I did was like, I was like, I can't leave my desk

because we live in like this like fucking drone economy where I'm tied to my laptop 19 hours a day. We were in, working at Grantland was working in a JG Ballard novel. Yeah. It was straight up high rise. I don't think people realize they're like this hallowed institution with all these wonderful people. It must have been like the Algonquin.

No. It was like a fucking office next to Herbal Life. Yeah, it was eight bleary-eyed 34-year-olds crying every day at 3 p.m. Really a very strange time in our lives. But you did write this wonderful piece. I did. And I do love movies about the sea. And we're going to talk about garbage fish today, but there's all sorts of... We could do garbage boats. We could do garbage yacht races. There's all sorts of sub-genres here. So what is a garbage fish movie? We share an abiding affinity for Jaws. Jaws is one of our... It's a connective point for us. We both have seen it probably hundreds of times at this point. We've done it on the rewatchables, of course.

So Jaws is not the first garbage fish movie, I would say. There were a lot of sort of exploitation and monster movies that came before it, but it kicked something off. It triggered something in our culture. There's actually a documentary on Shudder right now called Shark-sploitation, which is a fun little kind of compendium survey movie of basically what jaws did to movies and how there were lots of imitators and copycats and i think we'll cite some of those movies do you remember when you first saw jaws i'm not sure if we talked about this when we first got into it i i don't i mean i think i probably tried to figure it out with my with my mom or something

like that it was on video you know uh and then it just became the movie that my wife and i watched once a year um what about movies like creature from the black lagoon 20 000 leagues under the sea godzilla i mean these are kind of these are garbage fish you know predecessors yeah i was gonna answer your question with a question. Is there any other fish movie aside from Garbage Fish? Like, is there Prestige Fish? Is there, is like a river runs through it? That's fishing. I think that there are sort of enchanted fish movies.

Like there are some Loch Ness movies that are for children. Yeah. That are about how Lockie is actually, you know, a sweet figure. Will you be introducing your daughter to the wonders of the Scottish Highlands? Yeah. I'm building a lake house right on Loch Ness and we'll be

moving there full time and we'll be enchanting Lockie on a regular basis. You think Alice would like that? I'm not so sure. What about Shape of Water? That's a prestige fish, right? Best picture. It's actually like a garbage fish movie. That's a prestige fish, right? Yeah, but it's... Best picture. It's actually like a garbage fish movie.

It's a pure garbage fish movie, though. I mean, it's literally a riff on... Twaster. On the creature from the Black Lagoon. So, you know, about the sea creature who, you know, pursues a sexy woman, right? That's like, that's what he, what Del Toro was riffing on.

Yeah. And that's a good example, I think, of like the way that these movies obviously live on like they're obviously to this day lots and lots of shark exploitation movies but there's it also reverberates like in the in the real culture like del toro also he did pacific rim he's done a lot of movies like that i think movies like how to train your dragon like animated movies have these these features um but that's not really like garbage fishbage Fish, when we talk about the garbage movies, the spy movies,

the thrillers, the plane movies, there's something like bad good about them. There's something lower quality, but... They're directed by men named George and Lewis.

You know? And they know how to deliver a 92 minute satisfying yeah like adventure yeah sometimes they're directed

by men named Rennie yeah but they're I don't know there's something special like what are what are the what are the hallmarks

what are the things you think of when you think of Garbage Fish the Jaws thing is funny because it essentially sets up so many of the the characteristics

that you're going to find in a lot of movies we're talking about. But Jaws is considered one of the best movies ever made. And it's almost, I haven't checked this, but it's almost unique in being such a prestigious movie that spawned so much shit. You know, that spawned so much. Like, it wasn't like anybody was like, what are the lessons from Jaws to make really excellent films? They're like, oh, people are terrified of what's underneath of them in the ocean. So let's just pump that out.

There's lots of things that I think about when we're going to go through this list. And it pretty much starts at when Jaws is released and out. First of all, it's identifying a sea-dwelling creature that people know exists but don't have a tremendous amount of up-close familiarity with it.

You're not going to see a movie called Salmon in this list. You know? Nobody is like... Not yet. Yeah. Although... The Atlantic currents.

They've been farming salmon. What have they been doing to it? You know what that movie is called? Killing Upstream. Come on. These things write themselves. Shit. Fucking Jason Blum, call us.

Killer salmon is a bad idea, but it's also a very good idea in the context of garbage fish. Do you, so one of the ingenious aspects of Jaws is that sharks, and particularly great white sharks, are these kind of cold, bloodless killing machines. That's our perception of them. They're unemotional. They eat, and they swim, and they mate, and then that's it, right? I did not like After the Bite because they started giving the sharks names like Joanie and Mr. Turbo.

And I was like, I don't want to think. I don't necessarily want these things eliminated. I have a follow-up question about that. Is he named Mr. Turbo because he's really fast or because he's really slow? No, it's because he's really fast. Like they were like,

everybody thinks we're trying to personify these things, but really just like, it's just stuff that helps us remember who they are. It's like Scarface, you know, because he's got a scar on his face. Isn't that one of the Jaws? Isn't that Jaws 3? He becomes Scarface too? Yeah, because he's got a scar on his face. Isn't that one of the Jaws? Isn't that Jaws 3? He becomes Scarface too

because he gets burned? Yeah, because it's like they've been reassembled or whatever, right? Right, right. I guess the, whether or not like anything other than a shark

should qualify is an interesting conversation. Yeah. Because there are, of course, a lot of creatures, but like alligator, for example. It absolutely qualifies. But alligators,

we know are bad like we you don't don't get close to an alligator right like it's not surprising that an alligator could ruin your day if you see an alligator get the fuck out of there people see alligators all the time outside of their condos in florida though like it's true i mean like you'll like sometimes like it'll be like somebody's on instagram visiting their grandparents and they're like check it out gator right by my parents' place. Side question. Did you see the Little Mermaid live action remake?

No, it's going to go after we're done. I see. Solo? IMAX. I asked them to stop showing Oppenheimer. That's why you can't get IMAX tickets for Oppenheimer is because Chris switched out all of the film reels. I've reduced the amount of theaters. A movie that was a discovery to discovery to me before that was made

before jaws was frogs have you seen frogs no it's one of ray milan's last movies he plays like a millionaire living on an estate that is surrounded by a sort of like a wildlife preserve but he hates nature and sam elliott is a photographer for an ecology magazine. This is well before Sam Elliott had a mustache. And he is injured while taking photographs in the vicinity and he is then brought to the estate and then the estate is attacked by killer frogs. Interesting. How well are the frogs rendered?

Real frogs are used in the film, but I would not say that their devilish abilities are quite captured the way you'd like them to be. Very strange movie. But it was interesting to me that a movie like that was made before Jaws. Because I think of all of these kinds of movies. As being like no one had ever thought to do this before Jaws. Exactly.

And that isn't entirely true. But you're right that Jaws delivered a modicum of prestige alongside of its exploitation fun. And, you know, no one has ever really been able to match the incredible social surge of Jaws. But these movies are a lot of fun. Like what else? So like Jaws is well known for its vacation setting. I think a lot of times

you'll find a vacation setting in these movies. You usually have somebody from the scientific community, somebody from the old school fisherman community, and somebody from the law enforcement community.

That's the holy trinity of hunting sharks or piranhas or barracudas or whatever you got. Do you think you're more of a quint or a hooper or a chief brody in your life? I think I'd probably like to think of myself as a brody, you know, but I'm probably more of a hooper. What do you think? You think you're more, you want to be a brody, but you are a hooper? Yeah. I mean, just like the way I physically present. I wear glasses

and I have like an uptight Northeastern way about me, you know, or being. That's so interesting because I think of Brody as being anxiety riddled. Like he's afraid of the sea,

right? Yeah. And he's not like such a tough guy. He's a New York cop. Retired. What do you think? He like bitched out?

I don't know. Aren't we supposed to get supposed to die on the job? I don't know. You just get the impression that he's like, he's got some demons. He saw Escape from New York

and he was like, fuck that, I'm out of here. And then he showed up in Jaws. He was in French Connection and he was like, I'm out. Yeah. I mean, I would like, I'm out. Yeah. I would have said I'm more like a Brody

but for that reason not because I'm a tough guy but because I've got some issues. One thing that I think that these movies really have going for them that I wanted to discuss

with you is I've been thinking about moral decisions a lot since Oppenheimer. This is a great... How have your experiments been going, by the way? I don't... don't feel like I

I was not supported when I brought brought news of the coming climate collapse you know yeah and so you've opted for cold fusion

in the aftermath yeah I love garbage fish movies that put honestly kind of dumb bullshit characters

in incredibly vivid moral garbage fish movies that put honestly kind of dumb bullshit characters in incredibly uh vivid moral uh like conflict so that they have to make decisions about self-preservation versus the the better the what's better for the group or maybe like self-sacrifice um you know like oh should we like take two steps this way or two steps that way or two strokes this way or two strokes that way? Is it okay if this evil that we've uncovered gets to the wider population, which is a big factor in a lot of the underwater disaster movies

we're going to talk about. In 100 meters, turn right. Actually, no, turn left. There's some awesome new breakfast wraps at McDonald's. Really? Yeah, there's the sausage, bacon, and egg. A crispy seasoned chicken one. Mmm. A spicy end egg. Worth the detour. They sound amazing. Bet they taste amazing, too. Wish I had a mouth. Take your morning into a delicious new direction with McDonald's new breakfast wraps. Add a small premium roast coffee for a dollar plus tax. At participating McDonald's restaurants.

Ba-da-ba-ba-ba. So do you like it when it's more than one creature? When it's sort of like a flock or sea of creatures that are attacking? Or do you like it when it's a sort of a singular force? Visually, it's pretty sick when like a lot of gators attack somebody. Like that happens in Crawl. But I think it's better when you can have like the singular shark, the singular Cthulhu,

the singular, like whatever. The big bad. Yeah. Okay. Um, I do think it's cool though for a while for the people in the garbage fish movie to not quite understand the threat.

And they're just like, Whoa, what made that hole in the boat? Or what why is this turtle beheaded? You know? I completely agree. That is a storytelling marker that you need as you go

through the movie. About how far into the movie do you want to see the creature? Because Jaws, of course, legendary for a slow reveal of its killing machine. i need to see evidence that shit is going really sideways about 22 minutes in but i love there's nothing like alien watching them all eat nothing like in leviathan watching them bullshit with each other you know what i mean like i like the setup but i need to know about 20 to 30 minutes in that um that we're in for some real

some real fucking showstoppers one of the fun things about this subgenre is it basically never stopped it's been going on since post jaws do you think shark week revived this like do you think there's a gap i because i there's's funny. You would think that these movies would be difficult to make. Water, typically not a very hospitable place for a film crew. Good point.

Special effects, like if you have a bad fish, it's pretty disappointing for the viewer. In fact, I would say that was kind of the case with the first Meg movie, right? It's very CGI.

Yeah, right? You want to love it. It's like Jason Statham versus a big fish and then you're like, oh, it's CGI. Yeah. So yeah, you'd think, you want to love it. It's like Jason Statham versus Big Fish and then you're like, oh, it's CGI. So, yeah, you'd think, oh, these were few and far between,

but they pump them out. I want to make a distinction here too because we're not talking about Sharknado. No. Sharknado is a self-conscious, sort of not purposefully bad, but purposefully cheap rendition of these kinds of

movies and of course roger corman is like a really important figure in genre storytelling in the last 80 years in movies and he made movies like this over the years and he was a participant in companies like asylum made these movies but there was something very tongue-in-cheek very non-scary about the sharknado movies and they became a huge event for sci-fi the sci-fi channel but I think we lean more like almost mainstream mid-budget studio movies that are attempting to replicate

the feeling of Jaws or something like it right and now there are some exceptions in there but for the most part I think we like it when Warner Brothers is like we're making Meg 2 you know and we're going to give you 88 million dollars to make it. So back in the day when they did that,

it was exciting and a bit terrifying. I think of Michael Anderson's Orca as the first real artistic, strange, upsetting post-Jaws movie. Talk about it. It is,

starts Richard Harris and Charlotte It is, stars Richard Harris and Charlotte Rampling and Richard Harris is in the Quint role and Charlotte Rampling is in the Hooper role and they have like a kind of

will they, won't they energy while they track a killer whale. Okay. Orca's also in the news these days. How so? Do you read the news?

Do you ever like check the New York Times? I do, I do look at the New York Times, yes. Just to see if the Mets... Just to see what Matt Gaetz is up to. Do you not know that orcas are attacking in packs and they're attacking superyachts?

Is that on A1 in the New York Times? Bobby. I know about this, yeah. Of course. It's like everybody's trying to ascribe meaning to it. Yeah, they're like, are these Bernie bros? Nature is revolting back. Are these Bernie bros? Is this Occupy for orcas? Yes, this is a thing. This is Occupy. trying to ascribe like meaning to it. Oh, they're like nature is revolting back because they're going after

Is this Occupy for Orcas? Yes, this is a thing. This is Occupy for Orcas. Yeah. Because they're hunting in packs and now they're like, holy shit, can Orcas talk

and like fucking coordinate and run the spread offense, you know? I haven't been following that story. Has this been covered on One Shining Podcast? No. Orcas are all over the news, man.

I need you to dig in. I've been too busy watching the feature film Orca to check in on the Orcas. Orca is too busy going back on his Nolan takes to read about Orcas. It's true. I've been reading it. It's true.

Well, that's actually not true. I'm not, I haven't, I haven't changed any of my opinions of Christopher Nolan. It's not like you didn't come out of Oppenheimer and say, I was wrong. He's a great filmmaker. Yeah, I definitely wasn't wrong about the movie opinions I previously held.

Anyway, Richard Harris? You have kind of a Richard Harris vibe. Richard Harris apparently used to drink in my grandfather's pub. Is that a fact? Yeah, he liked gin. He liked to drink in a lot's pub. Is that a fact? Yeah. He liked gin. He liked to drink in a lot of places, is my understanding. I don't know if it was a very special thing to celebrate.

He plays Captain Nolan. He's an Irish-Canadian. Any relation to Chris Nolan? Yeah, he's his dad, I think. As I understand it, Captain Nolan was his father. This is a very strange movie because they use real whales and there are some extremely violent sequences

and it's quite upsetting in part because you just can't imagine a world in which the whales are treated humanely. And that's a complication of these movies is especially in the 70s

and early 80s. If you're not dealing with a guy in a rubber suit, it's a little, it can be queasy making when trying to capture the natural world. That being said, it's like a bizarre and thrilling movie because it has all of the hallmarks of like,

how did they do this? How did they get away with this? It was an Italian production. You know, you can see that there is like, I think it was a De Laurentiis movie. You can see that they just pushed the boundaries of comfort. But it's exciting and it's it looks how's how have the effects aged well there's just not a lot of effects there's just a lot of real life killer

whale work that is being done they're filming killer whales like chasing each other and attacking other animals and attacking humans and there's not it's not the same thing as sort of bruce emerging from jaws and chewing up quinn you know. We don't see a lot of sequences like that. So Jaws is what year again? 75. And so they just get this into production as soon as Jaws is like... Pretty much right away.

Right. Yeah. And anyway, I think that this is a signal one because on the one hand, it's Paramount, it's a big studio trying to replicate

the financial success of the movie, but it also indicates that sharks are kind of singular, and you can't do this with everything. And so I think where we go from here, yeah, but that's the thing, is now in the next five years, they try with every other thing. Yeah, so let's talk about Piranha.

Well, Piranha's really funny, right? Because it's super... It's a satire. You could probably put Piranha and Alligator together, I bet. I think both Piranha and Alligator, which are lower budget movies, Joe Dante's Piranha. And just to be clear,

Piranha is about piranhas. It is. And Alligator is about gators. That's a fact. Yeah. They're both about communities that are sort of being terrorized by those creatures.

Piranha is almost like, you know, like the Meg is kind of a joke. Like when you're watching the Meg, you're like, this is very firmly tongue in cheek and feels very post deep blue sea and other movies we'll talk about where it's kind of like riffing on the jokes. It's like snakes on a plane,

cocaine bear zone a little bit. Yes. It's like not quite there. And this movie is kind of a precursor to that. It's kind of like a mad magazine spread, but also scary, but also like you in particular, I think have a, you have some piranha

fear uh piranhas are terrifying i don't my my personal fear of piranhas may not match their actual behavior but all i know is like ernst blofeld puts you in a tank with piranhas and you come out as a bag of bones have you ever encountered a piranha? Not to my knowledge. There's a piranha at the LA Zoo in a tank. Does he get his own tank? I believe he shares it

with eels. Well, I mean, there's nothing to really get with eels, you know, like... Has there been an eels movie? Shh. Sorry.

From the producers of salmon. Eels would be good eels maybe eels first I feel like that's an easier sell you think that's scarier yeah

although the upstream name was great so there are a lot of eels attacks in various movies where like the eels like can shock you

or yeah constrict you yeah I think electrifying eels and killing upstream I think we have an incredible extended... We should call Mattel, actually, see if they would maybe develop

some toys around these creatures. Oh, we get Mattel to make a killer salmon, and then we come in, and we're just like... We got Brad Pitt standing in waiters. Here's why the killer salmon had a tough childhood. Yeah, I want to get Lena Dunham to adapt my salmon script. It's like

Green Room, but on a creek. Piranha is really funny because Joe Dante, you know, goes on to make a bunch of movies, probably most memorably Gremlins, that kind of toe the line between terrifying, funny, and satirical. Did Sales write one of these movies? I believe he wrote this movie, did he not? Yeah, John Sales. He may have wrote Piranha 2. I'm not sure. Piranha 2, of course. Is James Cameron involved with one of these movies? I believe he wrote this movie, did he not? Yeah, John Sales.

He may have wrote Piranha 2. I'm not sure. Piranha 2, of course. Is James Cameron involved in one of these movies? James Cameron directed Piranha 2, colon, The Spawning. Yeah. And then tried to have his name taken off of it and pretends like he didn't direct it, but he did. Fuck.

The piranha fly in Piranha 2. They literally leap out of the ocean and they bite people. That's not the case in Piranha. Okay. But Joe Dante, I got to remember the name of this. There's a great tidbit in Shark'sploitation. I don't know if you know about this. But Jaws 3, I believe, was supposed to be directed by Joe Dante.

Should we, at this point, just talk about the Jaws sequels? Yeah, let's do that. Okay. Because they basically come right after what we're talking about. And I'm taking Jaws 2 off the board because let's do that. Okay. Because they basically come right after what we're talking about. And I'm taking Jaws 2 off the board because Jaws 2 is solid.

Is too solid. You know what I mean? It's like good. It's shiner. It's good. It's not great. But it's essentially like the, you know,

Bill's Andy and Red Z want Neo idea. It would basically be like what if a shark came back? You know? But we have, forgive the phrase, circled Jaws 2 as a possible rewatch. It is a good movie. ne-o idea it would basically be like what if a shark came back you know and like but we we we have forgive the phrase circled jaws 2 as a possible rewatch it's like it is a good movie it is like a very rewatchable movie yeah um but you're right three and four are not yeah three stars dennis quaid and lou gossett jr and is set in a sea world where the corporate owners of this water theme park

are trying to or try to basically commercialize sharks, right? Yes. And then the sharks get out of control. And it's not that far from Deep Blue Sea in some ways. I mean, there's not a lot of brain work being done on the sharks. But it's kind of like that enclosed area sharks get loose. It is, for the record, directed by joe alvis who this is the only movie he ever directed he was the production designer on jaws close encounters

of the third kind starman this is a very talented person yeah who made a 3d jaws movie set inside of sea world yeah that is ridiculous yeah only to be trumped really by Jaws 4, which is about Elaine Brody moving from the Northeast to the Bahamas and a great white shark follows her down there. And she is romanced by Michael Caine who plays a man named Hoagie, I believe. And Mario Van Peebles is in this film playing a guy named Jake with a thick Bahamian accent.

And I actually enjoy this one. I mean, it's completely ridiculous. It is quite poor as a film. It is directed by Joseph Sargent, the director of the Taken film 1, 2, 3, and many other films that I enjoy. This film features the poster tagline and many other films that I enjoy. This film features the poster tagline

This Time It's Personal. Yeah, because it's this shark seems to be The shark remembers Lorraine Gray's character. Classic situation. Classic situation. And follows her

and all the people she loves to this place where they are living. She doesn't think to herself I've had some bad experiences on the water. I think I'll move

to Chicago. you know, or Omaha. It's Lorraine Gary, not Lorraine Gray. Did you know how Lorraine Gray got the part of Mrs. Brody? No. She was the wife of Sid Scheinberg, the universal executive figure who was Steven Spielberg's

mentor. That's great. And that led to her being a linchpin of the Jaws franchise. Jaws Revenge stinks, but I and is like incoherent at times, but. Phoebe, my wife really likes it. It's fun. Yeah. It's fun. And do you think they should make a Jaws

5? I don't know that they need to, honestly. We're going to get, we're going to see why. Okay. Well, before we do that, I did want to talk about what could have been Jaws 3. I don't know if you know this story. No. But Joe Dante was hired to direct Jaws 3.

The title of Jaws 3 was Jaws 3, People 0. So it's three sharks? No, I think it's just that he's eaten three people. Okay. And that the people have not won anything. Is that like a check the scoreboard kind of thing like yeah it's got very much you know what that is that's that's rings culture uh and that's what's wrong with sharks today by this age jaws had three chips it's not about it's not about the swimming it's about the eating you know um

here's the thing this is why I think you would like this. Well, first of all, it was going to be produced in part by National Lampoon. Well, I would like it, but it didn't get made, right? It didn't get made. But the premise of the film is about a film crew trying to make a Jaws sequel.

The premise of this film is that the shark is an alien while being hunted by a great white. The movie opens with Jaws novelist Peter Benchley being eaten by a shark in his swimming pool. This is awesome. There's also a part written for Steven Spielberg.

The movie also would have featured a recreation of the bonfire beach party in First Shark Attack except that in the script the teens are replaced with Hollywood executives partying.

There's also a sequence where a shark is killed and gutted and a litany of items is pulled out of its stomach including a violin, a coat, and some marijuana.

This sounds almost Zucker Brothers-y. That was the intention. Okay. It was to be a massive spoof of the franchise. And then at the last minute, Universal realized, whoa, we're not going to completely disembowel this very valuable property. So we're going to make a regular Jaws sequel.

I don't think that they should make another Jaws movie. Okay. I would love to see, I hope to see it on stage this summer, The Shark is Broken. Talk about it, because I feel like you manifested this. So this is a play about the making of Jaws

and how anxiety-ridden it was because of the production and stuff like that and the shark not working and everything. And it stars Robert Shaw's son. Son. Yes. And it stars Robert Shaw's son. Yes. And it's gotten rave reviews in England. I first heard about it because it was on one of like

Steven Soderbergh's diary lists. And now it's finally in New York. So I think it's, previews are over in August. I'm hoping. Did you get tickets? You haven't gotten tickets. No, because I'm going to be in New York

like two days after previews end, but five days before it opens. When you go to see it, can you do me a favor and just film the entire thing with your iPhone and send it to me? Can I tell you something? I was at a theater camp the other night.

On Tuesday night, I went to a theater camp. You were in a class at theater camp? Yes. We were working on my Bob Fosse one-man show. In that show, are you playing Bob Fosse? Chris. Bob Fosse one-man show. In that show, are you playing Bob Fosse? I went and saw Theater Camp on Tuesday. First of all,

Pact, which was, you know, just the Barbie Oppenheimer vibe. You liked it, right? I really liked it. It's fun. I had a really good time.

I also am just like, how do we not have like eight 90-minute movies that are funny and enjoyable that I can go to dinner with my wife? It's not that it's easy to make a movie like that

but it's easy to fund a movie like that it's also it was like everybody enjoyed it in the theater they were just like ah good

that was great I'm glad that wasn't real 1998 vibes on that movie yeah a woman filmed the entire thing with her phone

people are fucking demons and I don't even know why like it's it's theater camp like it's gonna be on Hulu in like three weeks like really that active for that People are fucking demons. And I don't even know why. It's theater camp. It's going to be on Hulu in like three weeks. The black market is really that active for that?

That's awful. That's actually awful. Would you... I'm not the kind of guy who's like, I've alerted the manager. Would you narc? Yeah, I was wondering.

I was like, I don't like getting in confrontations in enclosed spaces. I would take a lot for me to like... You're a de-escalator. I try to. In the world of hijack, I am Sam Nelson.

I'm the negotiator. I've heard your approach on the watch and I admire it. Hey, guys. Nobody wants to go to jail tonight. Yeah, that's my thing. So you did not confront this woman. I didn't.

Because of that, Molly Gordon's intellectual property has been pirated. Now, this woman I didn't because of that Molly Gordon's intellectual property has been pirated now the reason I didn't so she was filming it in chunks

so she would she would start filming and put her phone down and start filming and then I was like is she making an Instagram story and is that cool

because it's like promotion I'm promoting it but she was by herself but you think she's in SAG or that's a great question

I didn't ask for a card. WGA? Maybe she was from AMTPTPPT, you know? That would be tough. Yeah. That's not what you want. That would be really working against their cause. Maybe it was Willow Bay, you know?

She was like. I'm very confused. I don't understand filming. I mean, obviously, I do want you to film the Jaws play, but I don't want you to do that because I should go see it myself when I'm in New York. Do you want me to film Little Mermaid in IMAX? I want you to shoot the sequel.

I want you to Rodrigo Prieto the shit out of that movie. I feel like you have a vision. Did you shoot Little Mermaid? No, he shot Barbie. Oh, that's right. Did you know that? I did. I think I heard it on the big picture.

Oh, did you listen? Yeah, of course I did. Yeah, what'd you think? The Joanna episode? Yeah. I thought I heard it on the big picture. Oh, did you listen? Yeah, of course I did. Yeah, what'd you think? The Joanna episode? Yeah. I thought that was great. Yeah? Yeah.

Did you think Barbie would have been better if it was set underwater? If it was about Dua Lipa Barbie? I don't think it would have been better if it was about Ken. Is that weird? No, I'm just kidding. We should have invited you to that episode. Underwater Barbie would have been awesome, though. Yeah, I think there's something there with John Cena and Dua Lipa.

I can see a spinoff. Can we get to the one that I think is maybe my favorite garbage fish movie? Please. George P. Cosmatos' Leviathan from 1989. Bob, you've seen this? Have you ever heard of this movie? No, I haven't seen it. I have heard of it, but I haven't seen it.

All right, this is just straight up alien underwater. From the opening 30 minutes are a bunch of people working on a mining expedition deep in the ocean. It's just them grousing about bonuses and hours worked and their access to vodka and how bad the food is. It stars Peter Weller in basically the Tom Skerritt role, who is like a geologist who has been sent down on this mission. It stars Richard Crenna as a disgraced doctor who I believe the reason he's disgraced is because he made

a vaccine that went wrong. I believe that's true. Kind of a touchy subject. Kind of a Fauci situation. Fauci, ouchy kind of guy. Lisa Eibacher who some may remember from Beverly Hills Cop as Jenny, is just an absolute fucking rock star. Something deeply upsetting

happens to her in this film. Yes, yes, definitely. I had forgotten until I rewatched it last night what happened. Did you watch it when you got home from the live show?

I did. Holy shit. And then Ernie Hudson, Daniel Stern, and Hector Elizondo in it. It's just like a murderous row of character actors. And essentially what happens is they come across

a sunken Russian ship that shouldn't exist. And inside the Russian ship, and you love to see this, is a video diary of, or a diary of people being, like the captain of the Russian ship being like, I'm going to sink this ship for the good of mankind because no one can discover what we found here. And then what they found there gets on the Leviathan, you know, gets on their ship. Yeah, I think it's, when we did Garbage Sci-Fi, we talked a little bit about Event Horizon and maybe even a little bit about Danny Boyle's Sunshine.

Yes. And as much as this movie has in common with Alien in terms of its structure and the character types, it really has more in common with those movies, which are like a little trashier. But this movie has really fun creature effects. Did Stan Winston do this? Or Rick Baker? I think you may be right. Yes, the creature effects were designed by Stan Winston. Yeah, and you can tell.

Who of course went on to work on Jurassic Park and things like that. I hope this isn't a spoiler, but essentially the monster is a virus that restructures the cells of its victims and creates a massive pile of bodies virus monster that attacks people. It's so gross and so fun.

It was really good. I did watch it at 1 o'clock in the morning last night. Did you finish it? I think I have 18 minutes remaining. Do you want me to spoil what happens in the very end? Sure.

The last scene... I had seen it before, but probably not since probably not so you remember that they get up to the top of the water the leviathan comes up follows them yeah and peter weller takes a grenade and says say ah motherfucker and shoots a basket into the leviathan yeah and it explodes that's so similar to how so many of these movies end though. They all do the Jaws ending. You know like Deep Star 6 does a version of that. There's a bunch of the 80s movies in particular there are a flood of them post Alien

that are fusing the underwater anxiety. We snorted them up. We just loved it. Even The Abyss, speaking of James Cameron has a little bit of that energy with them kind of like you know plummeting to the surface at the top sciences versus soldiers

it's a great thing okay so that was that was Leviathan you know we talked a little bit about Jaws 4 let's talk about Deep Blue Sea which I think is probably the one that people are like

when are you going to talk about Deep Blue Sea when are you going to talk about Deep Blue Sea it is can a movie simultaneously be horrible and amazing? Isn't, isn't interesting question.

We don't really do that here. We don't really do. It's so bad. It's good. I don't really believe in that. Yeah. Um, and it is directed by, I mentioned Rennie Harlan, who, you know, of course has some experience with movies really like Die Hard 2, um, Cliffhanger, Long Kiss Good Night.

Like he's he's an accomplished but ridiculous is he Dutch Rennie Harlan? let's just say that he's Finnish okay this movie stars

Safran Burrows Thomas Jane LL Cool J Michael Rappaport Stellan Skarsgård Ada Turturro and Samuel L. Jackson and features memorably

one of the great shark kills in movie history I'm almost I'm like it's a meme but I also if you've never seen it this is like

kind of a mid-tier blockbuster in 1999 researchers on the Undersea Lab Aquatica have genetically altered the brains of captive sharks to develop a cure

for what Chris? Alzheimer's right? Alzheimer's did you ever think about that? the cure for what, Chris? Alzheimer's, right? Alzheimer's. Did you ever think about that? The cure for Alzheimer's could be inside of a shark? I mean, we got to get these robots down there. I got to say, movies are fucking awesome. Some guy was like, what if we could cure Alzheimer's by developing the shark brain?

That's elite. I fucking love that. And then this turns into a crazy sharks gone haywire underwater lab movie. Sharks like going down the hallway with no water. Yes. Shit like that.

Hate when that happens. Has one of the great kills of all time. And also, Bobby, I hope you put this in there. This will spoil it for you, but in the Sam Jackson beer skit from Chappelle, just one of the great lines.

You ain't never seen my movies? Juice? That was a good one. Deep Blue Sea? They ate me. A fucking shark ate me. Drake, bitch. Jurassic Park.

Samuel Jackson. Truly special stuff. I feel like Deep Blue Sea, Lake Placid, and Anaconda are like of a piece. Do you think Anaconda is a garbage fish or a garbage jungle beast? Tell you a quick story. I'm in bed last Wednesday night.

Got my laptop on my lap as one does. Just firing up YouTube, looking at clips. My wife is sitting beside me. She sees that I've been revisiting the movie clips, cut out scenes from Anaconda. And she was like, I love Anaconda. I was like, do you? And I was like, do you think that this is a garbage fish movie?

And she was like, is that snake in the water? I was like, yeah. She's like, then hell yeah, it is. I think I agree. I think I agree with her. I think she's right. Okay. So let's add it to the list.

Because a lot of the scary sequences are when they're on the boat or on the pier and the snake is slithering in the water. And there's such a thing as water snakes are fish adjacent, you know?

Close enough. What are we talking about here? And they're very similar to, you know, the giant gator in Lake Placid. Yeah. You know, like they have a similar energy.

Lake Placid, another one of those movies where it's like, how are all these good actors in this movie? Brendan Gleeson is in this movie. Yeah, Bill Pullman. Even if it's like, how are all these good actors in this movie? Brendan Gleeson is in this movie. Yeah, Bill Pullman. Even if it's not

actually technically following all the categories that you guys have here, it's definitely marketed as a garbage fish movie. The poster, the trailer, the clips that circulate,

it's like garbage fish energy. No, I definitely agree. Lake Placid, is it, I think it's Steve Miner who worked on the Friday the 13th movie. Lake Placid is almost too good. Like, Lake Placid, is it, I think it's Steve Miner who worked on the Friday the 13th movies. Lake Placid is almost too good.

Like Lake Placid is almost like a fun small town. Yeah. One of the last big Bridget Fonda movies. She's so fucking fun in this movie. Yeah. Yeah. What happened? I miss her.

Oliver Platt, your boy from The Bear. Yeah. Do you feel like you will grow into that role at The Ringer? The Oliver Platt role in The Bear? The Oliver Platt role? No. Where someone's like, I need 750K to develop my pod. And Sierra's like, I got you.

No, I can't. I got you. But the juice is running. All my liquidity is tied up in me and Sean's salmon movie. Chris is like, I will- We can't get these fucking salmon to show up on time. I will foreclose on your apartment if I have to. I don't want to.

I want this bulking pod to work out for you, Bob and Craig. But I will take all of your belongings. Bobby, I think if Sean and I do get to make our salmon movie, you should also make the Werner Herzog documentary about two men go to the river to make a film about salmon. The movie is called Killing Upstream and the documentary is called Burden of Salmon. It's going to be amazing. I can't wait. All done with handheld.

I'm shooting, for some reason, I'm shooting on 16mm even though it's 2023. The standalone interviews of you during the making of Killing Upstream, yo.

Like Heart of Darkness. Wearing a safari hat but no clothing. And Brendan Gleeson is like he just keeps giving me new pages every day I can't keep up

with this man Deep Lucy is a lot of fun Lake Placid is a lot of fun something happens after Deep Lucy though you know like we've had this 80s and 90s run

there's a lot of really fun movies the studios are very interested in these movies and then it kind of starts to die down we We do get Ghost Ship, which is kind of, sort of, a garbage fish movie, but really more of a supernatural movie.

And then a movie comes along in 2003 that I feel like changes the game a little bit. Do you remember this one? I feel like this is one of the first movies that you and I might have talked about when we became friends. Awesome. Open Water. So, Open Water is a wholly independent production it's only got i think

three actors in the movie um the setup is two divers are left out at sea without a boat and there's nothing but water for miles and miles unless they look at what's underneath them and what's underneath them are not just sharks but real sharks. This movie shot with real sharks swimming around the two actors. Bobby's face right now. You haven't seen this Bob? This is like my number one fear in life. This movie is, there's a moment like 45 minutes in the movie where I was like

whole fuck. It kind of has a Blair Witch energy where you're like how did, is this, is something bad going to happen here? Nothing bad ultimately did happen as far as I know. And this movie has weird- Well, it's based on a real story where something bad did happen. But it has become like a weird IP thing where there's like four sequels to this movie.

Can I tell you something? Yeah. Open Water 2, Adrift, is great. I've never seen it. So Adrift was actually written, I think, before Open Water. It was just like a script. But they were like, let's just attach it to the Open Water, like as an Open Water sequel like so they just kind of like tied it in kind of the polypocket and that's about like I think it's about a guy's trip where they're like diving

off of a boat and then they realize that they didn't put the ladder down so they can't get back on the boat but they can they're trying to solve the issue of like, how do we climb up the 12 feet or 13 feet out of the ocean to get back onto the side of our boat? And they're all yuppies

or whatever. And then, you can imagine being part of the open water franchise what happens. But it's like, the added intensity

of safety is right here. It's awesome. Let me ask you this. You're confronted by a shark. You're swimming in the ocean. Yeah. So you and Phoebe,

you guys have been marooned in your boat. You punch the shark in the face? In the gill. In the gill? You're supposed to punch it in the gills. That's what they say?

Yeah, or go fucking right into its eye. Yeah. Like poke it? Yeah. Dusty Rhodes style? You're going to eye gouge a shark. Those are the two options. Yeah yeah what would you do just freeze

i'd probably just start uh explaining the godfather would you grab onto its tail and ride like fucking king neptune that's really great let me ask you this avatar too way of water yeah oh a piacon situation would i speak to it yeah oh interesting understand why it's hurting you know it lost if that shark is a cinephile I feel like I could do well do you think that movie is about sea monsters are garbage fish yes so like is the host a garbage fish movie oh see I didn't go in that direction because I think a lot of the host's action takes place outside of right it doesn't it does come out of the ocean yeah but it is sort of born in the ocean and lives in the ocean as far as i understand i think it has a foot in both both ponds you know because

it's related to godzilla you know like obviously both of those movies are kind of allegories for the way that we poison the world and the things that we do i think the water water needs to be as big of a part of the movie as the fish so and I have some movies here that you may say, sir, I don't know about that, but as we continue on, I think that yes, just because Godzilla comes out of the water does not make it a garbage fish movie.

What happens after open water? I feel like Sharknado sort of starts at this time, and so there's a sense that these movies are kind of down market Sharknado drops in 2013 I start getting interested in different species

around this time personally I mean Greg McLean who and we see an absolute revolution coming out of Australia

with Garbage Fish he's the Wolf Creek director Wolf Creek director and he made a movie called Rogue I haven't seen this Radha Mitchell and Michael Vartan

honestly pretty stupid plot because it's like they're on a gator watching boat. Yep. And you can imagine what happens. Were you up on Vartan in Alias? I mean, I knew he was. Did you watch Alias?

Was Vartan in Tigerland, that first Colin Farrell movie? That sounds right. He looks like the kind of guy who would have been in Tigerland. I can't remember. There's somebody who was like, oh, this is the TV star who's supposed to be like a big deal. And then Colin Farrell just is like, I'm fucking Colin Farrell in Tigerland. I can't remember there's somebody who was like oh this is the tv star who's supposed to be like a big deal and then colin farrell just is like i'm fucking colin farrell in tiger land i can't remember who it was okay anyway rogue good gator movie then the reef in 2010 is similar to open water just straight up fucking terrifying it's a boat

um they're trying to bring a boat on a long-term trip to bring it to its owner in Indonesia. Some like two couples, they get stranded on a reef. They see an Island 12 miles in the distance. And they're like, Oh, we got to swim to this Island. And then they leave an injured party on the boat or the guy was like, I'm not going to do this swim. And then there are sharks in between the boat and the Island. Um, and it's very, very scary. So this is just more great stuff.

I haven't seen Rogue or The Reef, Chris. I gotta check these out. Yeah, you should see it. Do you think I should show them to Alice? I would wait maybe another six months. Okay. Yeah. All right.

Roughly two and a half is the right time to watch The Reef. Okay. And then I want to start talking about two guys who I think in some ways define the garbage genre as they're the masters. Two absolute icons of this show. Yeah.

You're referring, of course, to Yom Kolet Sarah, the director of 2016's The Shallows. Yep. And Alexandra Aja, the French horror filmmaker who directed both Crawl and Piranha. Mm-hmm. the French horror filmmaker who directed both Crawl and Piranha. And those two guys are beasts. Get genre more than anybody. And it's kind of disappointing what's happened to them, where I just feel like they haven't been put in a position to cook recently. I was looking.

When you look at Wikipedia, often it'll give you the budget information. And something just happens around this time, maybe a little bit earlier. But like, if you go through like a lot of the movies that we've been talking about, it's like pretty reasonable where it's like a $35 million budget and it made $87 million or like a $27 million budget. And it surprised everyone. It made $120 million. Like the shallows is like, to me should just, they should just make 20 shallows a year in that, in that math zone where it's like you get Blake Lively stranded on a rock

surrounded by sharks, but you do a really good job with it. And it makes $120 million. It's that simple. Yeah. Is that not enough money? Yeah. For you,

you called JPEG and he said, no, he said, I'm said no. He said, I'm not interested. And then he got fired. We have to make Secret Invasion, sir. That is literally

what happened. Yeah. We threw over the shallows. Yeah. The shallows in the theater camps of the world.

How many minutes of Secret Invasion did you see? The first episode. Yeah, same. That's all I watched. Bobby, are you out on Marvel?

I've been out for years at this point. What's the last Marvel thing you watched? Endgame. No. Really? You didn't watch anything?

You didn't see anything since then? You didn't see Shang-Chi? You didn't watch WandaVision? Loki? Nope.

He seemed like a happy guy too. I'm living a peaceful life. You know? He's in shape. No, he's a Mets fan. He's miserable. That's true. I'm burying that part

deep, deep in my core. the numbers start to get all out of whack. And I wonder whether our guys, Alexandra and Jom, just really got kind of marginalized

as it became impossible seemingly to make a movie for less than $70 million. You mean their creativity got marginalized or or maybe what they do i think it's coming back i think i mean young colette sarah's been working it's just he got sucked up into the machine that's what i'm saying his last two movies are black adam and jungle cruise i interviewed him on this show in 2018 for the commuter run all night yeah this is the one of the great runs in movie history orphan unknown non-stop run all night the shallows the commuter that's six major to low budget genre movies while movies are dying that he knocked out of the park

yeah and then he made fucking jungle Cruise and Black Adam sounds so bad The Shallows I mentioned this it's about a surfer played by Blake Lively who gets stranded on a rock pretty far from the shore

where a shark is obviously like just straight up murdering people it features something that's a hallmark

especially of later period Garbage Fish which is a preternaturally talented surfer, diver, biologist, whatever, who is fighting back some like haunting of trauma that they have. Their parent passed away.

They were bitten. They lost a husband to drowning, whatever it is. And now they're trying to conquer their demons one more time. I got to say there, this is just another obvious thing. And I don't mean to be crass,

but this just like allows you to have a poster with Blake Lively in a bikini. You know, it's like, it's not that complicated, you know, and it can be, you know, it can be Michael Vartan in a bathing suit too. Like it cuts both ways.

In a banana hammock. Yeah, put him out. For sure. How many of those do you own? Four? Well, I wear them a lot when I'm deep sea diving because I need to be like mobile.

Yeah, for your speed. Yeah. Are you a skin diver? Do you think of yourself? No. You're not. Okay. Have you ever spear fished? No, I've never. I don't think I've gone fishing more than five times. Just regular fishing. Yeah. It's not something, a hobby that really interests me. I think I have an idea. I think we should go to Montana and we should fly fish, just me and you, for like six weeks. But here's the twist.

No phones? But we will have a Zoom recorder and we will make pods the entire time and every conversation will be part of a podcast series called The Fly Fisherman. Are you in? Where does that fit in in the Killing Upstream universe? It's sort of like...

Is that like the Terrence Malick shot all this extra thin red line footage? It'll be like Carl Gottlieb's Jaws diary. Okay. You know? So it'll be like, here is where the ideas took shape. How many days with me do you think you could last on a fly fishing trip with no phone? Everyone in America knows that it is you that would become frustrated with me

and not the other way around. Not at all. That is... I just want you guys to know that there's a... Without me or somebody else accomplished at the Ringer Podcast Network to record it, there's no way you'd be coming out of that with any audio. It'd be like... Whoops, forgot to press record.

We would put the Zoom recorder in the water on day one and then it turns into the lighthouse what else happens i mean you've cited on this show before actually 2020 is oh can we talk a little bit about crawl oh of course yeah sorry yeah um just because i love the fact and The Crawl is a obviously this Alexander Aja movie it is set in Florida shot in Belgrade

okay gotta love that okay it stars I forgot pronounce her last name I always screw it up it's

Scolidario right Scolidario for some reason I've been like Chiascadario for like it's my billism you know like

where I just decided that's her last name I think it's Scudario for like it's my billism you know like where I just decided that's her last name. I think it's Scodelario D first. You're right. It is Scodelario. It's hard.

We fucked up. You see it and you're just like I've just I've decided it's Scodelario. We all have yeah a kind of dyslexia around us. This anti-Italian discrimination. I won't say.

Is she Italian? I think she's Brazilian. She's definitely an Italian last name. She's British Brazilian. She was on Skins. She was on Skins. Is this like Quentin's... This was his favorite movie

I think of 2019. Oh, I thought it was like maybe on his decade list. It might have been. We both spoke with him about Crawl. Yeah. Well, I mean, Crawl

in theaters, again, another movie I saw at like 2 p.m. on a Wednesday, kicked ass. It was so fun in theaters. So there is a swarm of gators attack

in this. The plot is a swarm of gators attack in this. The plot is basically a hurricane hits Florida. Kaya plays a University of Florida swimmer who goes back to make sure her dad's okay as this hurricane hits. And gets stuck in this small town

in Florida that's completely flooded and mad gators are on the loose. And this movie's important because in the Wikipedia it talks about how at one point the gators execute something called a death roll which is when it gets its prey in its jaws

and then fucking flips a bunch of times like in a roll this movie is notable for one other fact which is it's the last time anyone's seen Barry Pepper alive. Where is Barry Pepper? Barry Pepper is going to get

a Taylor Sheridan show and it's going to be fucking on. Is he okay? Has anyone checked in on him? I love Barry Pepper. He's a quality actor. He helps his daughter

in this film. Yeah. Loses an arm in this film. Spoiler. Jesus. Wait, wait, wait. February 16th, 2023. Variety article.

David Oyelowo, Taylor Sheridan's Bass Reeves series at Paramount Plus. Bass Reeves. Bass Reeves. Casberry Pepper. You did it.

I didn't know that. You manifested it again. Yeah. Great job. Okay. One more. Yeah. I just wanted to put one

from recent times. This one kind of got lost in the pandemic. It did. Naturally. Underwater, directed by William Eubanks, who you and I really liked his Paranormal Activity that came out last year. Was it next of kin?

Yeah. Yeah. And Kristen Stewart plays a buzz cut having mechanic on an underwater mining rig in 2050. I don't know why that's relevant. I mean, I guess they need some tech update, but it doesn't really matter.

And they're working the Mariana trench and, uh, they basically uncover, uncover a Cthulhu down there. And there's a lot of really awesome sequences in this film. A lot. It's like, there's also like some very self-important voiceover

from Kristen Stewart's character, but I thought this movie was awesome. Vincent Cassell is in it. It's very good. I have some exciting news for you that I'm going to share. William Eubank, the director, has a film coming out very soon called Land of Bad. I'm not sure if we can do better with a title.

Here's the premise of Land of Bad. Reaper, a USAF drone pilot, provides air support to a Delta Force team on the ground in the Philippines. After a mishap, Kenny, a young JTAC officer, finds himself part of an extraction team relying only on Reaper's remote air support. Reaper is portrayed by Russell Crowe and Kenny is portrayed by Liam Hemsworth. Wow. So they're just trying to make extraction. Pretty much.

Supporting them are Milo Ventimiglia and Luke Hemsworth, Liam's brother. This movie is funded by a company called Signature Entertainment. Yeah, they'll be putting some money into it. Killing upstream. Funded by a company called the United States Department of Defense.

I would just say Underwater has extraordinary special effects. It's very good. For what it is. I wish I would have had the chance to see it in theaters. Unfortunately, I saw it on TV at home during the pandemic.

Garbage Fish is really special. I think this is a good list. I think this is a good list. What's your absolute favorite out of all of these movies? What's your number one recommendation? Leviathan.

That's a really good one. Although I will say on the what's aged the worst scale, Leviathan has some jams that you're just going to be like, boy, this is really 1989.

It's a bit uncouth in certain areas. I think Daniel Stern puts his face up into a woman's breasts and says, oh mama. I think he's like literally like,

what a pair. Yeah, he does say what a pair. Yeah. Yeah, not ideal. So now that we've prepared you for it, you know, you're going into it. There's also some disgusting kills in this movie.

It's a little different than your standard, but it's very creative. And then George P. Cosmatos, I think was hired to direct Tombstone on the strength of this movie and then fired.

And Kurt Russell took over. Garbage Fish is amazing. I hope we get more and more. I'm worried about your news literacy is, I think, the takeaway from this podcast. I just haven't been going to the Ocean page. I didn't know that was a page in the newspaper. The Orcas are an A1 story. A1? I don't know.

Not the way the New York Times is curating it these days, but I agree that it's alarming that you don't know what that is. Occupy Orca is curating it these days. But I agree that it's alarming that you don't know what that is. Occupy Orca is not in my interest set. It's really not. Well, that's the movie that I'm making, so if I'm going to support you, aren't you going to support me?

Because you're too worried about mid-tier film budgets. I'm actually making a... Why can't Joan Colasero get a decent fucking script? I'm making a movie about woke alligators woke gators yeah

I think it's gonna be really good it's about gators who are implanted with a mind virus

and they're going after DeSantis that's why there's that picture of DeSantis wearing

wellingtons you know like we probably should wrap there before we go too far

Sarah thank you yeah where can we hear you Chris Ryan on the watch podcast with Andy Greenwald okay that's it and sometimes on the rewatchables we probably should wrap there before we go too far Sierra thank you where can we hear you Chris Ryan on the watch podcast

of the Andy Greenwald and sometimes on the rewatchables Philly special often on the big picture and Philly special I'm somewhat off Ben Zolak

and Shilka Patti are just fucking grinding eagles today love those guys they're the best well thank you thanks to Brian Raftery

as well for hopping on this pod and thanks to our producer Bobby Wagner for his work on this episode and all of the episodes in the last several years programming reminder

are you going somewhere? yes I am I'm going on vacation as is Amanda Dobbins and so we're taking the next three weeks off from this show we will not be making episodes

but do not unsubscribe do not stop checking your feed. We do have a series that we talked about with Brian called Do We Get to Win This Time? It's our series about Vietnam and the films about Vietnam. It's airing all this month. I highly recommend you check it out. And we will see you at the end of August when I'll be back, Amanda will be back, CR will be back.

Sure. We'll have a special draft when we get back. What are we drafting? We'll have to wait and find out.