The Cake Eaters - 125. Downtown Owl

Episode Date: December 16, 2025

Heath and Brandon travel to small-town America in the '80s with Downtown Owl! The boys discuss small-town vibes, school mascots, nicknames, and how they butchered this book adaptation.Follow us on Instagram @thecakeeaterspodEmail us at [e-mail]

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It's not worth winning. You can't let me! is killing you oh alison my aim is true is that terrible that we're going to keep it but that first note could not have been more o'allison This world is killing you. They sing that in New Girl to Winston's Allison. They do, yes. But I do, I do love, they played, I don't know, maybe 10 Elvis Costello songs in this movie.

And you picked the one they didn't play. Oh, nice. It's the only one I knew. Any Elvis Costello song works. Yeah, that's good. That was my favorite part of the movie. This movie felt soundtrack, top notch. this movie was one of those movies and like kelly started watching it with me actually like when

like the she watched the first half and then we had to go to an engagement party and she was like i don't know where this is going it seems like it's about to get weird like that's like the whole first 45 minutes of the movie i feel like we're like waiting for it to get really weird you know yeah um it's it's it's a movie i will say that it's a movie it wasn't bad but it just wasn't for me i'll say that so so for everybody listening we were covering downtown owl uh which is a movie that came out 2023 it's based on a book of the same name by uh chuck clausterman who's like a famous i think he wrote for rolling stone he's a famous uh like essayist um so it's based on that book but they they butchered this they butchered that book they butchered that

book and I only know Chuck Klosterman from Bill Simmons podcast and that one really good TikTok guy that imitates Bill Simmons and Chuck Costerman that was so it was so spot on it was like unbelievable. So that's that love a good parody. I I've never seen any of the Bill Simmons or listen to any of his Bill Simmons interviews or segments or whatever he goes on, but I imagine. it comes across in his normal personality the way it comes across in his writing the his whole shtick is like wild ramblings way too much detail and pop culture references that's like his stick

that's his that's what makes his like writing his writing and you that gets you get none of that in this movie because it's you can't really put that in a movie it's his his writing style is not built for like a script and so they made a lot of changes to it and the changes they made were for the worse yeah they did do a good job of like small town bar scene yes they they they they will say they they nailed the vibe they got the vibe right with the yeah yeah and we especially that small a town like this this population town makes wayne look like a freaking metropolis well how how big is how big is wayne again 5,000 or so almost 6,000 i think so like this was 800 so this is the small towns around

wayne that would come to Wayne to get groceries yeah like like well those places exist in the world brandon it's hard for people to imagine but like they nailed 800 person town new good looking girl in the bar like yeah dude every bar if you is gonna buzz around you in two seconds if you pay for analogy off the cut that's anyways keep what what is what also Vanessa hudgens is in this movie oh dude she was hands down my favorite part she is she played that character perfectly to oh my god like every teeny tiny town like this has an unhinged former hot girl Vanessa hudgeon or hudgeon's that um goes and like just new girl comes in and just takes her down the worst path possible what is what does she say seen it's a tale as

oldest time in small town america i love her quote when she's when she first takes her to the bar and she's like she's like i swear to god if you pay for a drink between now and new years i'm gonna punch you in the poon it was oh then the other thing that you get a hint of um in the movie from um a lot of the bar scenes but but um and another like small town thing that they that clausterman nails in the book is everybody has a fucking nickname um like in the in the book literally every every character you meet has a nickname that that he it's called you know he he wore you know blue socks in one time in the fifth grade so everybody calls them blue or something like that some shit like that like my favorite

is and this is another one that they cut out in the movie um so Mitch is the main kid but then his buddy uh zebra Eli um the reason uh because he so cost him in in the book there's he goes on so many ramblings of just unnecessary detail it's like that's the best part of the book very very wild rambling yes but so the reason uh elai they call eli zebra is because he uh i think it was like the first day like first grade and his mom that gave him a pack lunch and drew a zebra on the the paper bag and so everybody just called him zebra for the rest of his life that's i mean that's

how i had i will say i had the for my last name being the worst i had the best small town nickname what was it as beast or beastie oh yeah that's right that's and it it's it was absolutely like and it all happened because like i was with my family and like our neighbors and stuff and And I may or may not have been known to have a gentle temper, you know, like nothing crazy, but just may or may not have been known to get a little fired up every so often about somewhat trivial things, some may say, has not stuck around. You know, I've totally kicked that to the curb. Okay.

Sure. So that's it. So I was like five years old. I don't know if you're telling us that or trying to tell yourself that. I know, I said, but no, like, so, and I was also so big, so, so fast, right? Like, I was, like, a bean pole that was in my, I'm, I'm just so glad no one. That's, that's another good nickname, Beanpole. Dude, I'm actually glad I avoided Beanpole because it was close, like, it was close.

You shouldn't seem like my skinny little legs, but no, I was flying off the handle, and in front of all these people, my mom was like, he, you're such a beast, you know, and then it was heat the beast yeah and then it was heat the beast and so all the neighbors started calling me heat the beast and my family then started calling heat the beast and then it morphed into beast or bc and then my friends her my mom you would yell down in the basement beastie you guys want any pop or any snacks and they the first time it happened everyone turned and went beastie and um i didn't hear my first name from my friends for almost like 10 years i yeah i know like it's it's actually got to the point where like when i moved

and left wayne and people will call me heath it would take a second because i just wasn't used to being referred to by my first name it was such a foreign concept at that point in time it's like oh my god you guys just don't know my real name it's so weird anyways all right sorry i went on a tangent there but i was a good the the themes are basically like there's the that's what it made me think of though i was like you know for and that was the first thing i thought i was like for having such a tough last name like my nickname could have been rough like it could have been one that you are mortified by yeah yeah but it ended up being the best and it was just tongue-in-cheek because i was a psychopath and it was just this really tall skinny psycho yeah well and then the in the bar scene

whenever the one her first night there when all the guys are hitting on her and she gets said on by my bull calf and the one dude comes up and he's like she's like what do you guys what do you like brother killer yeah yeah but so he goes she she's like why do you call him bull calf and he i forget this exact quote but he's essentially like well look at him and then and then he tell he tells her he doesn't have a nickname and then Vanessa hudgeon's yeah she comes up and she's like i'm all i bet he told you he didn't have a nickname it's brother killer no one calls him that oh she was incredible in this in this movie and yeah like she did the the um her like boyfriend or the dude that was just hanging out with them

he was he was great too i loved when it's like halfway through it's right before they go to confront him at the the her love interest at the football game yeah and that was a rough scene to watch and oh yeah yeah that was stuff there was a lot of a lot of her scenes uh as was as somebody who suffers from secondhand embarrassment it was they were tough to get through sometimes yeah yeah she's like when she's talking to uh the the the pregnant teenager and she's like why the fuck would i listen to you you're the only one in town with a worst reputation than me and i'm the town slut it's yeah like i mean as she gradually was coming in more unkempt and hung over for the next so or it's still a little drunk

And what is, what is Vanessa Hudgens say when she's like, she's like, yeah, you haven't slept with anybody. So everybody assumes that they're the only person you haven't slept with. Which is a wild phrase, but I get it. Yeah, it was perfect small town logic, especially if you dress like that and go to the bar that frequently. I got to. Everyone is going to like that small town mindset. like everyone is going to fillet you if you do that like it's it's going to happen man along those lines i have a question for you if you've ever so it's after she goes to the bison farm and he's like oh

i'll see you tonight or you know maybe i'll go he just the maybe i'll go tonight she's like maybe i'll go tonight and she gets super super fucking dressed up right that whole montage yeah and then she goes to the bar and she's sitting there and the this fucking bartender dude what a fucking terrible terrible um behind the bar service you know like what's a terrible bedside manner terrible bedside man like that guy is gonna like small town america is not tipping you right so like if you have terrible bedside manner as a bartender you're going home with some empty pockets in 325 minimum wage well i'm especially in 83 probably 225 i'm assuming mean he was he owned the bar you know you never know i'm a pretty young but he so she's sitting there

all dolled up waiting and he walks over he goes you know i'm sure he's missing out or whatever and then he he ends the conversation with this phrase let me know if you've ever heard anything like this before he says i'm a members only fan of the stripper look what does a members only fan mean that's a wild phrase um well some strip clubs give you free admission if you become like a member right so but maybe it's a little i'm a members that's a weird way to that that was like the the only logical and logical in quotation marks the only logical step i could get to was that's what he's referring to is that he's a member at but i'm a member's only fan of the stripper look yeah wild phrasing i don't know i mean this is a one-and-done watch in my opinion

right like you watch this once and then you never have to watch it again unless he like really like it for some weird reason and they're trying to figure out the terrible or it wasn't a terrible ending but the ending wasn't for me the middle wasn't for me the but it wasn't a terrible movie like it deserves all of its 5 out of 10 IMDB 47% Rotten Tomatoes 5 out of 10 brand video like that's those are the perfect scores for yeah right in the

middle because there are there are I read a couple of reviews of people that loved it really that's always going to have some weird cult followings but um but they they changed like we mentioned they changed a lot in the books and one of the things that they changed and butchered in my opinion was the ending

yeah okay because it didn't It didn't make any goddamn sense. Like, I kind of, like, I was literally sitting and I caught myself staring at the screen, like, yeah, I was trying to figure out what was going. When everything exploded, my brain was like, why the fuck did everything explode? And I just couldn't get past her brain. And I was like, why the fuck did everything explode? How did this kid end up at the top of the tree?

Like, her car just exploded off into the side of the road. I'm assuming that she just lost controlled through. the wide out blizzard because you can't like like his his experience where he was like right at the end of his driveway and had to crawl up to his driveway to try not to freeze to death that was not off you know like that was not an elaborate like fake scenario like that's a real scenario that happens to people you know so anyways sorry so it's just ending to make any said like it just mind fucked me so hard and it i wanted it was like good you know what i mean like i was like this could have been good and it just confused me instead damn it they they yeah the

choices they so in in the book spoiler for if you if you um if you haven't read the book and you want to read the book spoiler in the book all three of so in so first i mean if you're Listen to this podcast and you're worried about spoilers as we're breaking them. Go fuck you, honestly. Yeah, like you're fucking stupid. First things first. The movie is very much Julia-centered, right? The book is split evenly three ways.

Horace, Mitch, and Julia. All three of them are the main character. Oh, interesting. It's way more evenly split out. The way it's like constructed is one chapter is just all about Horace. and the next chapter is all about Mitch and the next chapter is all about Julia. And even though they all live in this same small town, in the book, they don't, they don't ever interact. I take that back.

There's one, because Julia is Mitch's teacher, in the book, they have one conversation with each other. And it's like a three second throwaway conversation in the hallway of school. outside of that the three characters don't interact at all horace and julia never meet never talk um it's like three it's three people in the small town but very separately um they know so for the movie they know of each other yeah yeah they know in the book they know of each other but they never really interact outside the one little but so her staking out the coach having the affair with the 17 year old riding with the kids was weird yeah yeah that was weird that was a weird choice for them i was like who would and that that was one of the things i was like that had to

have been a liberty because there's no way someone would write that in a book and be like this makes sense a teacher writing with the kids and staking out another teacher it's committing a felony so and then the other thing uh in the book julia's backstory is is a lot different in the book she's not married she is a freshly graduated teacher like just graduated and so the reason and she took the she takes the first job

that she can get which is why she comes to Al so that's like they they gave some weird backstory about how her dad her dad knew the principal or something like that yeah and and her her fiance

or whatever was working for her dad to get tenure as a professor and they were but they were on a break University of Wisconsin yeah they were going through stuff

they were yeah they were over without admitting it as soon as you're on that whole we're taking a break thing and then moving to other places it's but so in the in the book she's not married she's single

and she is like just a freshly graduated teacher who takes the first job she can get oh well that makes her a lot more likable at least you know like that doesn't make any sense and why they would touch that like that i don't know why that may that that that justifies her behavior so much more you know like if you are a freshly graduated 24 year old and you move to the tiniest town in the history and you're having problems with your significant other and the first person you mean is the most toxic

person in the entire world like this is exactly what happened like well she doesn't have in the book she's not she doesn't have she's single she doesn't have anybody yeah but that's what i'm saying like if you are if you are single and you are 24 and you mean well you mentioned you mentioned a significant but like you know what i mean like anyways it just it justifies this behavior so much more than her like kind of being the like just being like well my my partner's being the worst and we're fighting and like like so i'm just it's like almost like she's acting out instead of her just like acting like a 24 year old in a small town as someone who was 22 in a small town and enjoyed having way too much alcohol in the middle of the week like that's your your class classic beast man classic that really really was exactly what you would think dude dollar 50 windsor i know i think i've said it before but we had wins or you know dollar furs you know dollar 50 Windsor Cokes.

It was $1.50, Windsor Wednesdays will murder you. I tell this, because when I came back with you for chicken days, and we did the Windsor Coke night, I tell people this, because that was the most, that was the closest to alcohol poisoning I've ever been, because it was just nonstop Windsor Cokes. And we were at your buddy's place. And it was like, it wasn't even late, right? It was probably like maybe like 11, 10 or 11 p.m. And I went into his bathroom and threw up all those Windsor Cokes.

And my my puke was black. Amazing. Black. Yeah. That'll happen at least once on a Windsor Wednesday. Dude. That's happened to everybody. That's happened to everybody on a Windsor Wednesday.

I do think that that's why my guts are kind of fucked up. Probably. You know, like I do. Like I look back on a lot of Wednesday. days and like my uncle like so i would have to in the summer i'd have to go to work at six a m to the water wastewater plant and i would walk i would walk in and my uncle jeff would be like jesus fucking christ you dumb fucking son of a bitch you couldn't even wash the the smell off you this morning get outside he's fucking reek you're about to make me fucking throw up jesus fucking

christ i don't know what i did hiring you but that was just how he showed love like that was that was basically like hey man really care about you you might want to slow down a little bit last yeah classic small town help you know yeah um okay to get he's the best dude he's the best anyways what we're talking about so I was going to explain the end of the book to you oh yeah okay yeah but I wanted to the explosion the explosion of everyone like because they're fighting and then all of a sudden everyone explodes and goes flying back it's like why wouldn't you just show the storm coming out of nowhere and like yeah i don't i don't know it was a weird choice to make for the bomb to exist well because it just

it just confused i don't know anyways it doesn't matter i'm sure people on tictock will be like oh this car is so dumb he doesn't understand intellectual nevaz sorry keep going i've had a lot of coffee this morning i don't know i actually ran out of coffee that was an impression of TikTok people to fucking TikTok people I don't think we're getting intellectual movie people listening to our podcast

what dude that's most don't sell a short Brandon but anyway so the so the book so I wanted to give everybody

the I want it was especially you I wanted to preface the differences of the beginning of the book so that's why I went through the whole she's she did you know whatever yeah but so the end of the Yeah, right. They do a terrible job in the movie of explaining or showing the storm coming out of nowhere.

They do the weird little wind effect where it blows everybody off. But essentially, the ending of the book, that is all this starts all the same. Also, in the book, there is so much time dedicated. And I wish they would have done it in the movie because it's kind of like a throwaway line at the beginning. towards the beginning of the movie when they're talking about who would win in a fight between these the two kids there's in the book there is so much time dedicated to that debate like yes like that's like Mitch's whole like that's his obsessive thing in the book he's like he brings it up to everybody he's like who do you think would win he has like a whole you know and so that's why every that's why that small town has like a stick you know i feel like but every literally everybody at that school like that like it it was Mitch's thing that he was like hyper-focused on, but every kid in the school had like an opinion on it. They would all talk about it.

It was a big deal on who would legitimately win in the fight. That's why they all go to, that's why it was such a big deal for the fight to happen, why they're all going there in the middle of the field and watching, because this is something that the, they had been talking about at the school for fucking years. But so that's why they're all there. And then the, so the,

in the book, they know a storm, not a storm they know it's going to snow right um but it's you know it's it's four o'clock it's right after school um there's no like huge warning or anything otherwise why would you be out so they're just expecting a normal snow right yeah um and that's why they're all kind of out and about but it the like storm of the century hits um out of nowhere yeah um and so that's what causes that's that's what the whole wind thing is is because it it it really in the book it's it's not as abrupt and immediate as that but it's still very quick it comes out nowhere it's a wide out conditions real quick and so they do a terrible job of showing this in the movie but essentially what happens to mitch is so they're all around the fight they're in the circle they're all the cars the white out hits and the kids like freak out and scatter and try to get back into their cars and Mitch gets turned around and if you if you've

never experienced a wide out lizard you're blind you can't see in front of you can't see yeah it's terrifying what happens the most terrifying thing to ever especially when you're in your car and you can't see the hood like that was like when you are in a white out and you cannot see the hood of your car from your windshield it is just the most unset like I'll never forget it hit because there was like an open like there were no homes there yet so it's just open field like on the right side of the road and then my parents house on the left and we got I got past the cemetery and it hit and I just somehow out of instinct guessed the left turn to get into my parents street and I got and I couldn't pull my car in the driveway even so I just like parked in front of the driveway

basically until I could like get situated it was and then another one like Heidi and I had just gotten in the door, and it was during Christmas and we looked out, and you, like, couldn't even see the porch. Oh, yeah, yeah. From the front door. Yeah, it's crazy. Anyways, but so, so what happens is that hits all the kids scatter, try to get back into

whatever car they came in, and essentially Mitch, as well as a couple other kids, get turned around, and Mitch just ends up, he thinks he's walking back to the car, but he's walking out into the field. Yeah. And then he just And again, another thing about white out blizzards is it's, it's loud.

You can't, there's no, there's no yelling for somebody. Because the wind's going like 50, 60 miles. And that's an open field, too. So these are like 70 mile an hour win. Whippin. Which is why they blew away. But so he gets turned around. They wouldn't make your car explode.

But so he gets turned around and walks out into the field and said towards the car. And then just he gets lost. out there and dies of exposure and hypothermia and all that sad tragedy and then with Horace Horace so both Horace and Julia

get stuck in their cars right and again they cut out stuff that like undercuts they cut out stuff in the ending that undercuts a lot of the early stuff in the book and in the movie too so in the

so they get stuck in the car and then it starts doing like the the internal dialogue over the narration and there's the whole thing about so there's a whole thing with julia where she's like i'm just going to sit in my car i'm nice and warm it's going to be fine i'll wait it out and then it cuts to horace and horace is doing the whole thing where he's like make sure if you're stuck in your car you get out and you clean out the pipe yeah i thought she was going to die of carbon monoxide poison she does she in the book yeah so that's and they in the book they do the whole thing too where it's like here's there's three things to remember if you get stuck in a storm

and she just says the first too yes and she forgets to so she in the book she dies uh of car she like falls asleep because of the carbon monoxide and then you know freezes uh and or suffocates or whatever um and then in the book horace uh horace stays in his car he's a little too far he doesn't actually in the book he does not attempt to go back to his house what he does is he he he's stays in his car and then periodically he gets out and he shovels shovels off but then he gets too cold he he he does because he's old he's real old and you know so he die he just dies of the freezing to death essentially in his car um but he's like he's there there's if i'm remember collectively there is his he has an internal dialogue in the book where he's like should i get

out and try to run try to crawl for it or whatever and i think he might even attempt to do it and then he's like he gets he waits too long and his body's already too cold well i think he tries to like go a couple feet and he's just like i can't do it and so then he goes back into the car i think that's what happens but but so all three of them die at the end of the book which them not dying or horace make horace and julia not dying at the end of the movie changes the entire plot it changes the yeah it's it's it's a weird and it actually makes much more like it's what you're waiting for the whole movie that's what i was waiting for the movie yeah like what was the point of her like it's like oh okay this is like it just what led up

to this point you know and then it didn't happen and it was like what the what the why didn't this happen it completely like neuters the climax of the movie it's yeah it's weird and then the other thing they so yeah it's like instead of a crescendo it's kind of like a plateau yeah it just fizzles out And then so she wakes up in the morning. She gets out. That was the other thing. They did a terrible job in the aftermath. Because when she gets out and it shows the next morning or whatever, that just looks like a normal snow.

Like she's able to walk on it. She's, you know, they did a terrible job of showing the aftermath. And it completely undercuts. But so the other part. okay so we also have to talk about this uh because the entire like the book builds to builds up to the snowstorm right um and then the ending the ending of the book is very similar to the movie so in the movie right it shows horace at his house the next morning or maybe a couple days later or whatever and he's drinking coffee and he's reading the newspaper and it has a little tiny clip about um the kid that died. So in the book, all three of them die as well as, I think there was a total of 16 or so right around there, 16 people, including Grendel, the football guy, that die in the storm in the book. And the end of the book is a newspaper clipping about the storm. And the only person that the

article mentions that died is Grendel, the football star. It doesn't mention anybody else or anything else and it's like it's the the point of that ending to the book is to show how uh super focused on like the football like on the football team and the sports that the that the town was because 16 people die and they only talk about the football kid yeah um gotcha so that's a very chuck costerman point to make exactly yes um so that's how the book ends um yeah they could have just stuck with the book ending and it would have been fine you know yeah i don't know i don't know why i mean i get why because that's a fucking bummer of an and it really was in the book it's a bummer of a fucking ending but but it's what you're waiting

for it's right kelly it's the only it's the only reason it makes sense yeah it's why kelly didn't finish it. She's like, it's either going to get even more weird and, you know, adultery rapy, or it's going to, everyone's going to die. And it's going to be weird with the wife and him and death and the snowstorm. Oh, that's

another thing I forgot in the, so okay. I'm trying to, I'm trying to like, I have so many, like, book stuff. You're so worked up about the book versus movie. It's really good stuff. The book is. That was a, that was a, the book. The book

is great i highly recommend reading the book that was a reveal someone said the book good this bad yes um i i loved i loved the book and so like with it's not the first good book that was made into a bad movie though you know it won't be the last but i had a i had a very so i i had a very uh i felt connected to this book so i when i was uh still in college i worked at a frozen yogurt place for like two two three years two years um and yeah um you know colorado in the winter it gets cold when you're cold not really looking for some frozen yogurt right so during the winter time when i would work at this frozen yogurt place i would get like i would work from like uh 4 p.m. to 10 p.m. closing right and i would get maybe one person that would come in usually depending on the day

there was a because we were right next to a lifetime fitness one of those big fucking like mega gyms yeah and so there was one lady um who would come in i think like every tuesday and thursday after her workout and get some frozen yogurt but that was like during the winter that was like it like that's all you're getting um especially at night that's you're not getting anything so for like like that first winter i worked there in those like five four five months of of winter yeah i read more books than I have ever read in my entire life. And this was one of the books that I read. And so I, I, I, I, it's definitely not the first, uh, good book that got turned into a

terrible movie, but I was, I was legit, when they announced this movie, I was legitimately excited to see it and it, uh, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they butchered my boy, Heath, but so, sorry to hear that, but so I have a lot of book things going through my head. One of the things I want to talk to you specifically about Heath, because it's kind of right up our alley with team names, right? So the name of the town is owl. Yeah. Owl, North Dakota.

Their mascot is also an owl. They're the owl owls. Did you catch that? I did not, but that is so funny. So in classic Chuck Klosterman fashion, in the book, he has a long, huge rant about how that name came to be and where where the school's at now so essentially what happens uh i'll give you the short small um brief so the high school originally they were the owl owls that's how they started right fantastic yeah so and for everybody that's so this this movie takes place in uh the end

of the 83 into the beginning of 84 the early 80s right yeah but so okay so al they're the owl owls up until about 1963 i think it is 1963 the town's like people are making fun of us were the owl owls let's let's change it to something not super repetitive so they looked around and they were like well

we have all of these uniforms and shit that have like wings on it right so we got it we have to keep it to the bird some sort of bird just to say that way we don't have to buy everything new so then they change their name to the owl eagles nice but that only lasts one year because in true typical small town fashion everybody started

making fun of them more because they were the owl eagles right yep you just got to you just got to lean into it you know so so if you're the owl owls you just have to lean into it and let it be a part of the culture so they're the owl eagles for one year and then they get so fed up with everybody making fun of them in that one year they're like fuck it we're gonna buy new uniforms we're going to do a complete rebrand right yeah so then they they come up with this this idea to name themselves the screaming satans and they they get this logo drawn up that looks like a like a you know it's like a it's a terrible 1960s logo that's supposed to be like a screaming satan they had this all made up i think they're that for like a handful of years and then uh

all of the churches in town start fighting with each other because the the lutherans and the methodists are like we can't be named after uh Satan that's insane and then the Catholic church is like well if those guys hate it we like it so we let's double down and so then all the church is getting to a fight over and essentially all I think I think it was it was it the Methodist church it was either the Methodist or the Lutheran church that was like like banned all of the families that go to their church from letting their kids play sports for the screaming Satan's they're like you can't do it um so then the school's like well fuck okay okay we'll change it now and so then again small town they're like we don't have any

fucking money um and so it was it's like a one of the one of the uh students like one of the cheerleaders notices that the logo that's supposed to be a screaming satan kind of looks like a wolf right so then they changed their name to the screaming loboes um and then after like a year or two of that they just drop screaming so then they're just the alobos and that's what the name is that's what their name is in the book through the owl loboes um and it goes through that whole terrible explanation in the book he writes like it's a good like it might be like a page and a half of him explaining all the name changes nice it's amazing it's a very brandon book yeah yeah like i was saying his his whole shtick like the old like the main reason that people enjoy his writing is his like long

overly detailed ramblings and like pop culture references and that just you can't you can't you can't translate that into like a it doesn't work translating that into a movie it's not a it's not an easy switch but the the that was my favorite part that my favorite chapter of the book when he was explaining the the names i was like this is hilarious my god um i it did bother me that when she was driving through the field of buffalo he had her riding son-in-law style yeah the back of the I don't know it just didn't it's like it's like why is she just standing at why like of all the I mean I guess if that's the way best way to digest the Buffalo field like well you did you did you do real wrong for an uncoordinated city girl Brandon true but did you well give her give her run through the first time and then Aberstand that's fair but you you heard him earlier right when he was like you can't you can't just walk into the field they'll kill you yeah um yeah yeah He mentioned somebody like died, right? Oh, no, it's his truck.

He was like, they, they almost killed Allison. She's like, who's Allison? Or some name. I don't know. I think, yeah. I was saying, I think that's why I said Allison. I don't think, but she's like, she was like, wait, who is that? And he goes, oh, that's my truck.

And then she makes fun of him for that. Yeah. She lays it on pretty thick with him. She does. She does. And she does. Her insane drunken ram. like you said that's the that's the hardest second-hand embarrassment i've ever had during a movie i think

that was that was and she does the classic thing that they do in like uh rom-coms and stuff like this where she's like oh this is the weird quiet mysterious man let me fall in love with him and then she gets furious that he's weird silent and mysterious yes like are we not paying attention before we buy something guys no brandon you're supposed to change to her whims death this is why you're single

come on my bad my bad yeah it's the whole point and the whole way you give them flashes of normal and outspoken in between the weird quiet

I mean he does he does do that We had the Elvis Costello thing, yeah. Exactly. And he landed the girl. So get it together, Brandon. You could learn from Vance Druid, former star quarterback that wasn't a star except for one insane play that probably would have one miracle play. I don't know how it like I just feel like someone on the offensive line is accidentally going because if you're blocking for run, you know, someone's going too far.

And they're getting a penalty on that play for too many illegal. man downfield yeah could have been an rPO yeah i mean i guess if you're doing rPO but this is you know come on we got to know our towns you're not doing a lot of r pos you're doing just your power eye you're doing your dives you're doing running the wing your counters simple option come on let's go uh they do uh uh because they they don't they touch on it a little bit in the movie of Mitch also we got to talk about Mitch's nickname Mitch his nickname is the fucking best coach laid law the the what is it the bona fide sexual criminal isn't that what Horace calls him so coach laid law calls Mitch Vana as in Vana white

because he can't get buy another vowel for him for his last game that's great but in the movie they have that scene right before like the halftime seen where coach lead less starts yelling at him and he's like are you guys men are you homo sapien men or are you females are you females with lipstick that was a wild rant like vana here yeah well because he's like do you vana do you want me to put me put you in the games and he's like i don't fucking care dude you tell me you're the coach like aren't you in charge I think that, like, a five out of ten is probably even still a little gracious. Someone put a review in here.

They gave it 10 out of 10 because it doesn't deserve, it deserves a better current than the current rating, but I disagree. Ooh, that's cooking the books there. I like, they're like, I normally, I'd give this a seven, but the, the average rating is a four, so I got to give it a 10 to bump it up a little bit, you know? I like that thinking. I like that thinking. there's good chunk of people that did that there's a lot of 10 star reviews on here more 10 star reviews than any other interesting my favorite part of this whole movie was Vanessa Hudgens that was she probably the best that redeemed it 1 million percent she crushes it I did enjoy uh um ed harris as horace I think he did a great job as horace

the couple things that he uh that they changed from his backstory though just kind of like his wife still being alive was real weird yeah um in the book in the book she dies uh like 10 years in like 1973 like 10 years before the book starts so he's already a widow for a while at the start of the book widower um and in the book there's a like i guess like a year shortly before the book started but after his wife died he got uh i've heard exactly what but he gets scammed by you know the the town con man the town drifter yeah um and so that's why he's such a um in the book he's way more of a of a grumpy old man and that's why it's because he just got he just got fucking fleeced um but i thought ed harris did a great job Vanessa crushes it um

what else oh we haven't mentioned yet the connection he's to the mighty ducks why the fuck we're talking about this movie did you uh I know I told you before we we watched it what I forgot

yeah so you didn't clock it no no clocks were clocked I guarantee you nobody else uh clocked it as well because I had to I had to skim through this movie three times to define the scene that he is in.

Good Lord. But so, so James Craven, famous actor, he plays, if I could take you back on a journey to D3, he's Mighty Ducks D3, right?

You're with me? No problem. Follow me here. They're at Eden Hall, right? Okay. It's the first day of school, right? They are sitting in,

I believe a history class when the teacher pulls out a stuffed elf, right? And he puts it on top of the book. And then he slams that book on top of that stuffed elf. History is a giant. Exactly.

So that teacher, that is James Craven. World renowned actor James Craven. Would you like to guess which character James Craven plays in downtown L? history teacher no he plays Marvin who is a legitimate character in the book in the book you meet and you get to know Marvin a little bit in the movie they do not ever bring up Marvin but if you if you watch the movie and you get to the one hour and 11 minute

mark keith okay so this is after so this is after she has the whole blow up right after the football game and you know how they kind of everybody kind of disperses for like a couple months a couple weeks and she's like she starts running she's doing her thing she's getting back together and then she meets horace at the diner right the the breakfast diner and they're talking right remember that scene yeah they're sitting there talking at the one hour 11 minute mark it shows uh ed harris uh in the booth directly behind him in another booth is james graven he has no lines and he is only in the background of that scene after one hour and eleven minute mark well an absolute stretch brand it i mean he's he i will say he is in this movie longer than uh everman

is in home alone wow that was my favorite stretch that we did are we doing uh north still we'll probably get to that sooner later yeah it's a good one yeah i mean it's almost thanksgiving brandon are you going to watch son-in-law no why why would you not why would i it is the number one thanksgiving movie ever made number two also also by the time this by the time this comes out uh thanksgiving will be the dead and gone Are you going to be watching any of the awesome Netflix Christmas movies that are already starting to get pumped out? I already started watching something. Nice.

Nice. Yeah. There's some good ones on there. Yeah. And you got to catch it before it leaves. Dude, California Christmas. It leaves December 13th. So get that on your list, Brandon.

Which one is my favorite? Which one's California Christmas? California Christmas is the one where the big city. guy gets sent out by the spoiled brat rich rich boy gets sent out to this small town uh farm in California and tries to get them to sell it and he finds out that they her dad was going to make them do a vineyard and they end up um becoming a wine farm instead and they save the farm with the wine oh does her dad die her dad is already dead yep classic it's a good it's a good one of my favorites brandon oh it looks there's a there's a sequel did you see

the see yeah oh dude uh city lights it's where small town girl gets bullied by big city girl that's vying to take over as CEO of the parents of the company of her of her boo boo and so then she gets bullied you know and it's just you know it's a whole journey brandon the other one that you have to watch is the night, the Christmas night with Vanessa Hudgens. I think I've seen that one. Dude, well, just type in Vanessa Hutchins into Netflix, and it's just gold that comes firing right on back. The Princess Switch.

Yes, the night before Christmas, I have seen this. Yes. That one's a good one, too. There's sequels to this too, right? Though, I haven't seen the sequels. I don't think there's sequels to that one, but there are sequels to the Princess Switch. I think I've seen that one, too, Princess Switch. Yeah, there's like three or four of them now.

They're all about fucking princesses now. I don't, I don't. You might be thinking of the other one where they now have like the Christmas, Christmas princess, royal baby and all that stuff. Yeah, I've definitely seen those ones. Oh shit, the princess switch three? Yep. And then, and the, dude, yeah.

Oh, dude, there's three Vanessa Hudgens in the third one, man. Just it'll blow your mind. You got to check it out. Is this the fourth one? The princess switch switch. switched again there's a fourth one i thought there was only three this might be the second one but there's three of them on the yeah yeah yeah there's the third one pop up in the second there's princess switch then

there's princess switched again and then there's princess switch triplets or something okay so okay so in because is that wait is that her yeah so switched again is the second one that's when they introduced the third the third the third the third hudges Yeah, I got to watch these. Yep, they're good. Yeah, it is. Remember when you hated Christmas movies? I didn't hate Christmas movies.

I don't like Hallmark ones. Because they are, these are Hallmark movies. I know. They're in Netflix, but it's the Netflix version with better acting, I like to think. I don't know about that. Well, okay, you're probably right, but still. Yeah. yeah it's it's christmas christmas movie season um i'm we still need uh we need another uh if we're

making sequels to all these movies we need a uh um what is it love always santa sequel that's what we need we milk that cow brandon we at least need some more uh marguerite more christmas movies she needs to get back in the get back in the christmas game you got to talk to her about that she could get into netflix now i've sent her emails every week i don't get any responses she probably thinks you're probably going to get a cease and desist soon well that's not how that works it could be you can't you can't you can't it works it works it works you can't cease and desist somebody from sending an email you can get a you could get a restraining order that would cover in in bird in bird law it's a cease and desist so just shut your face

I'm going to I'm going to start I'm going to start using cease and desist just for everything you know start commenting on people's photos this feels like a cease and desist waiting to happen yeah I didn't care for this I'm going to ask you to cease and desist unbelievable that that could be the move though he could be hitters could be haters could be haters too no I've started saying that as a joke and now it's it's fully in my vocabulary hitters could be hitters dude hitters be haters no that's that's completely contradictory I don't think I don't think you understand what hitters means he's I don't think you're probably don't I'm not very not about that life not anymore you know now I'm not I'm not hip or cool anymore I'm just a just an old man you know Oh, my back from holding this dang old kid. Your kid's not even boring yet. That's how it will be, though, Brandon.

It's called foreshadowing. You're throwing your back out before the kid even gets here just to prepare. I've heard that bending over to change diapers does a number on your old, old person back. Oh, dude, yeah, for sure. That's why you got to get the tall stands, you know? You know what else I'm getting? I saw this on TikTok. It was genius.

I'm getting some neat. pads like for carp like the guys that lay carpet get some knee pads like those guys for when you have to play you know my dad has some just going to get it's smart you know and that way because they say it does just a real number on your knees and so grab some knee pads like if you're laying carpet and then you're just down there you know whatever your whatever kids play I don't know what kids play these days but you know that's amazing. I'm going to need a photo of you with your fucking your knee pads 12 inch knee pads we're still a few years away from that but you know never know never know could be hitters be hitters all right what do you I don't have anything else to say about this movie it was fine the the book is really good I recommend the book the movie not great you can skip the movie if the movie would have ended like the book ended it would have been fine

It was, I, so I, obviously, all, all three of them dying is a bummer ending, but I cannot tell you how, how, how even more bummed I was when they didn't die. It was weird. It was, it's, it completely offsets the entire premise of the movie. Yeah, yeah, I, that was, that's where it knocked down for me. Yeah. But yeah, and then they, they cut out all of the, I, they they cut out not all of it obviously but they cut out a good portion of like the the funny little charm of like the backstories yeah and like like there's a like um especially they they cut out so much of um zebra's character he has a he has um a ton of like crazy weird obviously because they're weird kids but him and uh vana mitch

um have so have so much more you get so you get to see a way more of their interactions together as friends of the book and they have some you know wild kid conversations um oh nice that then you know obviously you know as evidence by them having a whole debate on which which fucking bully is going to win the fight but they're uh so they cut out all that um there's a whole subplot of Mitch's sister wanting to play football that they cut out there's that one scene where they're playing catch where he like has a Mitch has like a throwaway line where you're like oh you should play football um that's much more of a subplot in in the book they just cut out they cut out all of the and again it does I guess the reason they cut out is because it's not easily transferable

to movie scripts yeah but like like I mentioned before claustomer's whole stick is like long long-winded ramblings, pop culture references. There's, they, they do the, like, the internal monologues in the movie, but they do them so weirdly and clunky. It's much, it's, and obviously, again, that's like going from a book to a movie. It puts some limitations on you. Yeah, you're going to lose a little bit. But they do that so clunky, it's way better in the book.

It's just, I think that this, just convinced me that like his writing style is just not it's not made for movies you can't it's tough to do happens to the best of us all right what's your cakey rating because i'm kind of done talking about this movie what's your what's your cakey reading i gave it a 2.01 oh okay that's what higher than i thought you were going to go well i did i was i was expecting i was expecting like a negative eight no i mean i didn't i weirdly didn't I weirdly didn't hate it by any means. Like I think that like the 50 per like the five out of 10 and so that would be two

and a half cakes, but I think that's a little high for it, but not terrible. I thought about going like 1.87, but then I went up a little bit just because they did such a good job with the small town America. They did crush the vibe. That's for sure. And yeah, they're great performances. All the way around, you know, like every. just the ending really

I felt like it was it felt like it was a staircase to nowhere kind of ending that's a great fucking way to put it but I agree with you a lot they nailed the vibe a lot of the acting was was superbly done like Vanessa Hudgens

crushes it Ed Harris is great Julia well no Julia's the character's name what's a Lily Raby Lily Raby yeah right I don't know no it's r a be wait hold on julia rabia is the character name lily rabe is the right okay lily rib is the actress who plays julia rabia she uh she was also co-director on this did you know that um oh really with uh the with the with the principal the guy who plays the principal

hamish link later i mean she crashed the the character like she i was going to say she especially like like i said it was the second hand embarrass me believable yes it was she crushed that like like manic energy nailed it yeah and and she is she like had the look like they they gave her the perfect look for the 80s like the the the wardrobes were uh they were they were all very 80s without going yeah they were it should have been just that dark of an ending like that's okay it's okay for it to have a dark ending like that you know like if that's why that's why it felt like the staircase to nowhere yes because they they changed that ending and they changed a lot of stuff from the book but the important

stuff that they left in the movie is still building towards the end of them all dying And so when you change that, yeah, we've undone everything we just spent 90 minutes trying to do. Exactly. The explosion, instead of just showing a storm coming. You got to get over the explosion thing. You got to get over it. The explosion plus them, just like the ending fall. I know.

It happens every movie, though, right? Where I get stuck on a weird thing and then it just. Like the AI says, you're the biggest hater. the world. They're just persnickety, all right? All right, Brandon, well, it is, is that it? Is that it for downtown owl? You don't, you don't want to hear my cakey rating?

Oh, God damn, that's right. I just said that. Why am I in here? Why am I in here? Why ask myself that every day, dude? Oh, your cakey rating. Let's, let's, this should be a hoot. Yeah, I'm good.

Oh. did the fucking the the high school uh mascot names that that was my favorite part of the book i wish they could have somehow translated that into the movie because that would have been awesome that would have been the most widely panned part of the movie probably i would have have fucking loved it though would have been headers would have been headers he's um i like i said i having them not having them die at the end is a bit of a bummer ending but it's okay we can live in the bummer i was so like i said i was so much more bummed when they didn't die like when horace had made back to his house i was like son of a bitch god damn it um

and like the way they cheated up it was like it was like oh my gosh she's obviously gonna die of carbon monoxide and then she just like beat the odds and like had like that like he said that and then it just didn't happen did she just survive the odds of carbon monoxide poisoning well then she wakes up and she gets out of her car i thought she was i thought what it was like a dream sequence at first when she got out of the car yeah um and then she just randomly walks over and finds fucking vance in his car he survived she that yeah that was i was so much more upset i was so much more upset that they lived if instead of them dying yeah anyways what was your rating i'm gonna go i'm trying to build suspense here he spit it out brand everybody is dying for this number

we got to keep them on the line they don't they don't give two rats patutes i'm gonna so i'm gonna give it the exact same rating that i gave uh a kid in king arthur's court do you remember no do you pay to do you pay attention to this podcast at all you no not why are you here why are you here to provide the fun the flare the flavor by being the world's biggest Hayter. Yeah. A 1.25 piece. 1.25 is what I'm going to give it.

I felt so betrayed by that by them changing that ending that it ruined the whole thing. Yeah. It's not it makes sense. It's not it's not I would if I would have read the book and then

they changed the ending this this my entire portion would have just been hate the whole time. You know that's exactly what it was. now I was pretty nice I don't think we've ever had an episode where you weren't hating oh yeah right dude I enjoyed kid in King Arthur's court you still it's you in you enjoyed it by hating it though

you know no it's fine you're the world's biggest hater he's the robots said it it's automatically true it was just that one Ninja Turtle episode and that I stand behind all that opinion. That movie sucked. Yeah, you, it's a classic Donatello move right there. Classic Donateau. What, oh, does stand behind the data?

Yeah. Sorry, sorry that the facts hurt your feelings, Brandon. I thought you weren't. I thought you weren't about machines. Whatever, Brandon. Sorry that you, the facts scare you. You're like a politician. Classic Donatello, man.

That's it done. I think of it.