The Flop House - Ep. #382 - Aline

Episode Date: November 5, 2022

On this episode, we discuss Aline, the movie about a French Canadian diva who becomes wildly popular, marries her manager, plays Vegas, and sings My Heart Will Go On from the film Titanic, but is NOT Celine Dion. She's Aline. ALINE. Oh, and also she has an adult face on a kid's body. Y'know. Aline.Wikipedia page for AlineMovies recommended in this episode:Paganini HorrorDecision to LeaveAfter LifeEver tried Microdosing? Visit Microdose.com and use FLOP for 30% off + Free Shipping. 

On this episode we discuss... A Lean. The flop house is first ever far in language film. That's right everybody. French Canada is in the house. Regular Canada need that apply. Hey everyone and welcome to the flop house. I am Dan McCloy! I am Stuart Wellington. At Jesui, Elliot, Kailon. That's right, I'm Spiegen French. Oh, ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho September, the madness of Shocktober, we get around to watching a normal style movie.

50 odd year old woman is turned into a 12 year old kid and she sings in Canadian a bunch. I was in French. It's French. That's them. It's the same thing. It's the same thing. I don't know what they sounded like. What are you guys watching?

And I said, oh, watch this movie, Aline. And it's like, it's the story of Celine Dion, but they didn't get her life rights. So, and then she like, cut me off right. I mean, she's like, it's a Jackie Jorp job. And I'm like, yeah, it's a 30-hour style Jackie Jorp jobs. Where it's clearly not even hidden that it's about Celine Dion, but they don't, she's a lean. At one point, at one point, someone says, now Celine and they go, oh, a lean, like that happens in the movie, but it's, it's, I mean, she sings my heart will go on.

She sings real Celine Dion songs in the movie. Yeah, that's clearly based on Celine Dion. Like, it's such a weird, it's such a, it's such a, this is such a weird. Not really a Romana cliff at that point. It's just a, no, no, it's just a Romana Roman. It's just a clef of cliff. Like it's such a weird, misshapen,

mishmash of a movie. And the fact that they're like, at the very opening, it says, this is based on Celine Dion's life, but it's fictional. And then throughout it, they're like, Celine Dion, wink, wink, wink, wink, wink, wink, not Celine Dion, it's very, I'll see you next.

The other wild thing about that you're making me think of, Elliot, is like, once they've gone down the road of fictionalizing Celine Dion's life, why not make it more exciting? Because this is basically the story of a woman who had instant success and then had like a few personal road bumps along the way.

But you know, of the kind that are normal to most lives. Yeah, of the kinds that are not really the father for a dramatic home. But you know, who disagrees with us, the French, because this movie was nominated for four César Awards, including Best Film and the lead actress, Valerie Lamissier, she won the Best actress. You mean the writer's? Writer director, star of the movie? Yeah. That's right.

Triple threat, quadruple threat, writer, director, star, sniper, Valerie Lamissiererie what a messie She doesn't do that in the movie, but just in her and she's someone who so mercy a mercy a me Sir and I've I've seen her she was a she previously won a Cesar or say say how do you pronounce it Dan? I think it says are say is are that she for for the The Visitors in 1993 which I remember seeing in the 90s it's a comedy was generally a time travel comedy was you know they didn't English language remake all right so this is someone who I think that's the only other thing I've seen of hers so it so she comes into this as such a like she is very much the the author behind this movie but to

an American viewer it might as well be she might as well be Neil brain, you know, in terms of, but except the movie's budget is big or. Well, she's, I mean, she's a quite successful director in France, as well as a comedian and actor. And I will say that like once the movie grows her up into full size Celine Dion, she does a great job at like capturing the vibe of Celine Dion. But she always, but she always seems like she's kind of parodying Celine Dion. She does a great job at like capturing the vibe of Celine Dion. But she always seems like she's kind of parodying Celine Dion in a weird way. A little bit. And also when you when you trade in like I would I would prefer an entire movie where a 50-odd-year-old woman plays a 12-year-old, then a movie where somebody does a passable Celine Dion impression. Sure, sure.

Yeah, it loses a little bit of, it loses a little bit of excitement when she grows up and she's playing a child. Are you guys big time Celine fans? Because for the most part, I think all I know about Celine Dion is based on bad, RuPaul's, drag race, snatch game performances where people imitate. Yeah, I mean, or back in the day, I think SNL did a lot of Celine Dion. Oh, okay.

I don't know. Who was the cast member who did that dance? Oh, God, I would have no idea. I, Andrea Martin, maybe, is that that far back? Was she ever on SNL or just SETV? Oh, maybe she was not an SNL. Hold on. Oh, you know what?

I'm thinking of Lorraine Newman. But she also didn't place Lee in the on. No, neither of them did. This part of the conversation is going nowhere. So I'm going to skip backwards to an earlier part where we're talking about what we know about Celine Dion. And I think. Let's get back to what we do on this podcast.

On this podcast, we watch a bad movie and let me talk about it. Sure. But I just do an ask the right question. back to what we do on this podcast, on this podcast we watch a bad movie and let me talk about it. I'm sure, we have, but I, it's too an ask the right question. I would say that beyond my heart will go on and I guess I didn't know all by myself was is that her originally? I didn't like, or is that so?

Okay. Let's take a look. Oh no, it's so let's see. Doing some hold on a sec. Doing a little bit of online detective work. I will say I think no, it's originally Eric Carmen and then And then Celine Dion did a version of it. That was also very popular. I mean she And I guess the song is this is the versus base. This is what it is based on the second movement of Sergei rock Monanov's piano concerto number two and C minor. So really that's a rock mononof song all by myself. That's why it rocks. And he was often by himself. That's what he would say during his radio DJ days, he goes,

you can't spell rock mononof without rock. Now he is the lead zip. Here's rock mononof time to get your rocks off. I wanted to say, I do think that, like, don't turn that radio rock monon off because we're gonna be rock monon on all day with the biggest hits. Anyway, Celine Dion has not been, you know, as big a part of culture lately because she's had, you know, health problems

that have made her withdraw a little bit more, like she doesn't publicly perform, but like, I feel like, you know, having lived through the peak Celine Dion, we should talk a little bit about it and be like, she was like a ubiquitous cultural figure even though none of us can mention like really like no much about her or maybe you do Ellie and I haven't got to do it. No, I mean, I think it, but it also the time when she was, I mean, I think it's totally cool for us to not know that much about

Celine Dion going into this because it's not a form of music we're that excited about. And she was a, and in America, she had a, she had a brief moment where she was everywhere. And then she had her Las Vegas residency on previous, but in Canada and in the French language world, she's been a star for decades and decades and decades. Like she's, she's a, she, they, um, they treat her in this movie kind of like Princess Diana. And I wonder if that's really the place she had in the French Canadian imagination, you know, basically as the kind of their emissary to the world and also the princess fairy tale that they fell in love with. And maybe that's the case. But in, I mean, in New Jersey in the 1990s, I have to say it didn't, it didn't impact the, uh, Bon Jovi. No, yeah, it was back then, back then we just listened to the, to the four B's, Billy Joel,

Bon Jovi, Bruce Springsteen, and also the big band sounds of Tommy Dorsey. Yep, the big Bobber. And also big trucks rolling through the, yeah Yeah. Yeah, because the, because the parkway was right there, the turnpike. Yeah. And big country by the band, big country off the album, big country. Yeah, it looks like, because that was about New Jersey, because that song's about New Jersey. Yeah.

And of course, you ain't seen nothing yet, because it has a part that goes, but the bottom thing? Because that's B. He's all about the letter B. Do you think that's the studio? Man, for a speech, the studio when they were recording that, he saw a ghost baby and he's like, baby, baby. That's exactly what happened.

And they're like, living in that shit fucking whips. That was on B on BubbleBubbleBheinds the music. Yeah. To go backwards, I had to clarify, I wasn't taking us to task for not knowing Celine Dion. I think it's perfectly reusable that three men of our age

would have not, like that would not been the music we were listening to, which is not anything against her. She's like obviously a very talented vocalist, but it was not the same. You really worried that this, that this lean Dion stands are gonna come after us on Twitter? No, I just wanna clarify that like.

They're called Dioniacs. Uh huh. I think we all listen to like white swaths. Or Dionisus. Yeah. White swaths of things that like are not necessarily, like particularly now, like Stuart was texting me as he was like the new curly-ray chips

that I'm not like you can not say. Yeah. I'm like, I'm already listening. But I'm not like being like, I just wanna be clear, I'm out like you can not say. Yeah. I'm like, I'm already listening. But so I'm not like being like, I just want to be clear, I'm not like, oh, that's girl music or something like that. But it was not a thing that I had any familiarity with beyond like Titanic. And it's almost immediately kind of a camp figure, like a bit of, like because like, she was taking,

like she was one of these very popular stars who was taken down by music credits for being like two schmultzer or whatever in a time where that was seen as like a negative. I think that now like there's been a turn in like the culture, criticism where we're not so much just dismissing things because they have emotionality or whatever. But I think that, I mean, this is a larger discussion, but I think that that kind of music critical establishment no longer exists. And it certainly is no longer in the hands of the same rock obsessed aging in the hip

strutards, whatever. Maybe Boomer. Yeah. Maybe Boomer babies. And so like, so I feel, but in my mind in the 90s, it was like, okay, Sleendion, Sleendion's listen to the same people who listen to Barbara Streishand, Andrea Bacchelli, like the suburban moms that I knew in the neighborhood. So it was like, I'm not going to listen to their music.

I'm busy listening to Shadowy Man on a Shadowy Planet, a Canadian surf guitar group. I only knew because of a skit comedy show. And I think they had already broken up before I started listening to them. So that's what I was into, man. But anyway, let's get into the movie because we have made a reference multiple times to the single strangest part of this movie, but have not really dug into it.

And so I'm sure that the listener is waiting to hear a little bit more. And also, I want to say that this is exciting that we're finally inaugurating the first episode of House Do Flop International. Because this is our first foreign movie I think that we've done, right? Like, I don't know if we've done. I think we could just say, Shay Flop, I think that that takes care of. All right.

I mean, that's not as exciting to me, but okay. It is. But I think this is our first movie that's not in English as its main language. That's exciting to me, but okay. It is, it is, it is. It's long, it is long. But I think this is our first movie that's not in English as it's main language. And I'm very excited about it. I think that's probably true. Because I watch a lot of foreign movies.

And so if I was like, finally, a movie for me, oh wait a minute, no it's not. So we open up, I'll take a step. It did help me combat my natural tendency to get disgusted by these movies halfway through and pay less attention. I had to actually read the film. I'm just, I'm so glad you didn't try to like cut a piece of fruit while you're watching

it and keep your eyes on the screen and cut your own fingers off. I'm glad that didn't. Okay. Thank you. So we start with an opening text warning that says, the film is inspired by the life of Sleen Dionne, but it's a work of fiction in keeping with the filmmakers vision. And then we get a brief moment of a woman, Elaine, Elaine, do as we're going to learn in white sunglasses and white headphones and all white bed and an all white room and there's

children sleeping around her. Then this chilling vision of the future is quickly superseded by a vision of the past. It's more chilling vision. It's Quebec 1932, we're in a kind of rural poor area. And so this sets the tone of a lot of the movie, which is the movie is told in a lot of montages, very quick montages, where you have to, I'll give the filmmaker credit,

there are parts where you really have to pay close attention just to pick up what's being told in the moment. And so we see a mean farmer dad steal all but one coin from his teenage son, then his son plays the accordion. Then suddenly he's a grown man who meets a woman who plays violin, then they're married. He says he doesn't want to have children, but then they have 14 children, all of whom,

or 13 children, almost all of whom's name start was Jean. And we see the, now suddenly we're on the wife's life. Her name's Sylvie and she grows up to be a middle aged, middle aged mom and they're the do family and this is told in it's like six minutes straight of montage or something like that It's yeah, it's really rapid rapid fire Almost makes you wonder why they set that why they start the movie this way since it's so rapid fire And it's like the movies just trying to speed through it so they can get to the birth of the divine alien. One of the few parts of the movie that is made with efficiency and speed.

Yes. Because I mean, like, for a movie that is mostly made of montage, I don't want the audience to think, oh, so this is a quick movie. This movie is like a little more than two hours. And it is so, there's so much of it where you're like, I don't know why they included this in here. Oh, no, we need to watch these characters having a conversation around a lovingly appointed island in a kitchen. There's so many, there's so many scenes of them eating. And anyway, so

soon, Sylvie, the mother, she's pregnant again with her 14th child. She's worried about our health but the local priest says she'll be okay. And they name the new baby, yes? Well, you talk about how this is, this a lot of this actually is told not directly. And like this opening part was told so elliptically that both Audrey and I were like, wait a minute, wait. This, she's having another child or this is the child of one of her children. Like there was a, yes. It was confusing. And then I looked it up and like, okay, Selendia was the 14th of a very large family.

I mean, like, I don't, you know, I don't want to make any to pursue anything, but the actress playing the mother also, like, looks too old to have a child at that point. So I was part of her worry. Is that, yeah, that's the thing. You see, you watch her age and she looks basically the same from this point on through the next 30 years of the movie.

And so I think they do kind of prematurely age a little bit too much. But I have to admit, when it was first showing, I thought that it was showing the farmer stealing the coins from her son. Then I thought it was the farmer taking an accordion and the farmer meeting someone. And I had to look back, I had to rewind and go, Oh, no, wait, that's the, the son between cuts has aged like seven years and is now a man. And it was, so it's all, it's a little confusing at first, but don't worry. It's about to get so incredibly unconfusing as the movie becomes so literal.

So they name Arlene. Now we see the do family band playing on a little stage for a small crowd. And this is when we get our first introduction to Little Alene, who at this point, there's still kind of hiding her face a little bit. She's creeping around beneath the stage, watching her family play music. But it's still clearly a grown-up's face that is on a child's body. Guys, what was your first thought?

We knew going into this movie that she plays this character at every age. I didn't realize how jarring was going to be. Yeah, let's set the stage. Let's set the table a little bit more because, as Stuart mentioned, I believe she was like 56 or 57 this actress when this film was being shot around that age. Yeah, yeah, she's about 56, I think, yeah. And the film puts her on the body of a child here at the beginning. So that's how they small face mapping,

or do they just dress her up and then shrink her? Well, some of it, I think my TV is for perspective. Like there's some very convincing perspective. And transplant, transplant technology is much better in Canada than it is now. So part of it, they did take her head and put it on a 12-year-old spot and then they swapped the heads back at the end of the shoot. Yeah, I mean, it was a little scary for a while that they thought they lost the other head. But classic question.

Oh, my dude. Oh, we left it in the sugar shack. Oh, you know. But also later on, it means, and I'll wait, wait, I just went jump ahead for one thing while you're dying. Okay. The that later on, it makes a big point of the movie is this young woman cannot be in a relationship with an older man and they look like they're the same age because it's a woman in her 50s playing woman in her 20s at that point.

And I look, well now we're really jumping ahead, but I wonder if that is the reason the decision was made to do it this way, because otherwise so much about the central relationship in this movie would be unacceptable to the audience, but let's jump in, I'm gonna say, the actress, I wanna be clear, it's both fine to look old and she looks great.

But if you're trying to pretend that this woman, like pushing 60, looks like a child, even with the digital deaging, there's a limit to what the technology can do to make this look not muddy. The children and adults don't have the same shaped heads. Like there's so much about, there's so much about. I see, I see where I expected to start screaming at a high pitch to break glass. Yeah. Have, uh, be influential in World War One and Two. You know, all that shit.

So the, I think what this is, it's, it's, it didn't work in the love guru when they put Mike Myers head on a, on a child's body. Yeah. And it doesn't really work here. Well, it also doesn't work here because this movie, well, whilst I think this movie has a certain camp edge, like, I mean, this is a comedian in the main role, I think that they're it's not a comedy movie. It's very, you know, no, I think that there's like some tinges of comedy around the sides of it, but it is played very straight in a comedy doing this at least has some like, oh, the weirdness of it is

part of the point. Well, especially because they make such a big point very soon out of, can you believe that voice is coming out of that little girl? She's got this amazing adult voice, but she's just a little girl, but she never looks like a little girl. It's like, the choice to, but she's just a little girl, but she never looks like a little girl. It's like, the choice to do it undercuts everything that they're doing about it. So if it's not a joke, if it was a joke,

they'd be pulling it off fantastically. Just like, but. And the idea of, like, it adds a, like, definitely this like weird magical realism to it that is not helped by the fact that they named this character, who's, this character is now a lean do like God, like this wild. I read that she wanted to have, to push it even further, and have a scene where her face

was on a baby's face. That would have been great. And the producer talked her out of it, and I was saying, the producer's wrong. No, I think that would have worked great. And the producer talked her out of it and I was saying, the producer's wrong. No, I think, yeah, I think that would have worked in her. Yeah. If they had done that, at least it signals something to the audience of like, oh, I don't need to take this completely seriously.

Because there's a part of me that thinks that the choice, of course, she knows that this looks weird, but yeah, she's trying to do some sort of like, there's a single element. But without any signal of that, the tone is so strange. It's not like, well, that it never pays off in any way. It's not like it, it just doesn't,

it has no meaning, so it's just a strange thing. But if her face on a baby, if she didn't say, lagoo-goo, they're leaving money on the table. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's a point later on where they are about to introduce her to sing a song, and he's like, I'm not gonna tell you her age yet, and I'm like, they're going to be very confused. I still don't know. They're like, from the neck down, she appears to be 12, but from the neck up,

she's clearly in her late 50s. So she sings at a wedding, she sings at a wedding, everyone's amazed at her beautiful voice. She's failing in school because she's always tired, I guess, because her family always has her out singing late. Yeah. She's a huge draw for there. What is it? A bed and breakfast that involves singing. It's a restaurant.

Something like that. I was honestly, the movie's storytelling was elliptical enough that I couldn't, and I cared little enough that I couldn't quite tell. But she wants to be a great singer. She's not being forced into it. She idolizes barastorized Hand. And her mom says, you know what? Understandably.

I'm gonna write a song, Barbastorized Hand to another woman who spent a lot of her career running from her age. So, you know, it all makes sense. Her mom says, I'm gonna write a song for you with your brother, Jean-Bulbin, and Jean-Bulbang.

It's one of the many genres. And the male a demo tape of 12-drilled alien to a big manager named Guy Claude Camar. And he's like, we're gonna hear back from him tonight. And then it's like a week later. And he's like, tonight, and it still hasn't happened. So they call him and they go, hey, listen to the tape and call us right back.

And he calls back 10 minutes later. He's got, if it's true, that a girl can sing this way, even a girl with a 50 year old ahead, he's got to hear it in person. He's got to meet this 50 year old girl. They have a big meeting. For some reason, Eline decided to go ice skating minutes before they were supposed to leave and she forgets her shoes.

She wears her mom's shoes to the meeting, which doesn't pay off in any way. According to the trivia on IMDB, this is listed as one of the fictional liberties to the story of Celine Dion. Really? Yeah. Because when I was watching, and I was like, oh, this must have actually happened to Celine Dion, or else this, we'd just be very stupid. Could you imagine inventing this ideal whole cloth dance?

What kind of obviously? Like a deluxe, was this screenwriter on to have imagined such impolible situation? And it's teaching us a very important lesson about the character, which is that she's forgetful about shoes, which of course will play into the movie later, I guess. It's more than it's dumb and pointless, so why would you put it in? This movie is so full of incident. There's so many small incidents this movie where you're like, and I'm not going to go through all of them, but if I skip any and you guys remember them, please stop me somebody stop me and tell me an incident

I mean the whole second half of this movie at least I mean there's at least some narrative threats to the like her rising career But once she's you know at the peak it's just like a list of things I would say the second hour of the movie she there's a certain But it's like well she's achieved it. This is the end of her story. She's just success from this point. And then I looked at the runtime and I was like, oh, there's another hour left to go. Yeah. And at this point, the screenwriter, other than the actual chronology of events, could have just written each scene on a pack of cards, thrown it up the air in a single minute, whatever. Yeah, I mean, it's a fictionalized version.

So why not, why not not do all of it, but she's set up. Yeah, so Aline, Aline, this is that. There's some werewolves in there. Yeah. Yeah, what werewolves in the movie? Yeah, why could you do anything? You could do anything. You can do anything you want.

It's fictional. Have her go back to the dinosaur era. She becomes emperor of Rome. Why not? She killed Janity. Who knows? She goes to them, they go, Eline, we have a show to do on Le Mune and they go up there. Yeah. Yeah. The police come and they arrest Celine Dion for killing Kennedy and she's like,

it's not, it's not, it's, that's, that's Eline. It's like clearly it's the same person. They use your songs. Just like you, you, the assassin forgot to wear her shoes to her first meeting. But I did not do that. So Jacques Hughes of Kennedy, Celine Dion. But her dad gives her his lucky coin, the only one that his dad didn't steal from him. And at the meeting, the manager immediately calls her Celine by accident and they correct her. Her name is Aline.

And she sings for him and we don't hear what she sings because that's when the soundtrack plays a pop song. But we see that he's so he's so moved by it that he begins to cry. And he has to he has to manage her. And he impresses the entire due family, all 70 million of them with his memory for sales figures and hockey championship. I do I do really like that he they show him crying while she's singing. And then the next scene he's talking to a coworker and he's like, I had designer.

I almost cried and I'm like, dude, you literally cried. I saw that shit. Don't try to save face, Guy, like we all saw it. It's in the movie. It's so cool, man. Bad boys can have a soft side. It's always can have a bad side. Bad boys too can have a rat fucking another rat.

Ex-manly. Yeah, I mean not only can it, it does and will. That's another one of the scenes where you watch the movie and you're like, why did they do this? It's not like someone was like, oh there's a a rat having sex with a rat having sex with another rat We get it on camera. It's really Michael man is like, I gotta get this shit on camera. Just like us Michael, yeah, Michael Bayes like lightning struck. We had to include it in the film

Based on the fact that the guy next to me in the theater elbowed me while laughing That happened. I think that it was a roaring six S. And we've been friends ever since I did that. Yeah. And I can imagine the puppeteers like that's the commentary track I want for bad boys too is the puppeteer made the rat puppets. So Alina's recording an album at this point, she kind of always looks like a middle-aged woman, but they just talk about how amazing this is, she's a kid. And she also tends to sing songs that comment on where her life is at right now, very blatantly.

So she goes on TV and she sings the song about, I'm just a little girl, I still need my mother, mother, I love you. I'm just a little girl, I still need my mother, that one. Yeah, then it goes, I'm just a girl, and I need my mom. Yeah, then it goes, um, just a girl, and I need my mom. Yeah. And then the host is like,

hey, did you, did you, did you learn to become a singer and she goes, no, I didn't need to. And that cuts to later she's eating an enormous cookie sandwich. I assume they picked, it's like an ice cream sandwich made out of the biggest cookies I've ever seen. I assume to make her look like a little kid, but it is ridiculous.

Like it's like Clifford, like it is ridiculous. This is the screen shot. This is like Clifford. Like it becomes Clifford for a moment. This is the one I posted on Twitter to try and juice up interest in this episode to whatever fans. Yeah, you're not talking about. Dan's hidden the streets. But yeah, because it looks like this is a scene where she's just on her knees with a big cookie in front of her face.

Yeah, that's the extent of the technology. And it makes me wish they had done at the home movie and she was holding like a giant telephone, a giant comb, like a 10-year-old. Yes, anyone and she has a huge racket. But not in her. Giklod says, don't flaunt your natural gifts. People won't like it. Tell people you work really hard. And she's signing albums.

Her dad comes by and surprises her with an album to sign and shows him she has the lucky coin. And then she goes to Paris to sing. She poses the Eiffel Tower and backstage at the Paris show. She secretly sniffs an enormous bottle of Geeklaude's Cologne. And it's so, like, I expected her to drink it. She's so enraptured by it. And the bottle again is enormous. I don't know if that's how big French Cologne bottles are. It's just again, a maker look little.

But it's like cats. It's like Alzenwunderland. Yeah, it's a sniff me and it makes you shrink. It's like in cats, how they can never quite figure out if the cats are the size of small children or they're so tiny that they can wear rings as belts. Like this, they can't decide how big a lean is in this. Before another TV show, show over here's a crew member kind of making saying she's weird looking and geek law to Schroers or she's beautiful and they do in a labrit handshake

that I guess they always do before she performs. Which we have learned in practice and we will post videos of. Yeah, we got to learn how to do this. Yep. That's our max fun bonus bonus goal to learn the alien special handshake. If we get 40,000 new and upgrading members will learn the handshake. And so she sings a love song as she gazes at her manager and even the nasty crew guys like oh Next her manager tells her family So I was expecting to be like smoking gal was and bring

Yeah, they're all drinking big glasses of wine while it worked So the next scene this is the scene that most feels like a sketch from like a comedy version of this where her manager Goes to her and he goes I heard you know who loves her, her album, The Vatican. They play it all the time at The Vatican and her parents are like The Vatican. They play it all the time at The Vatican. Jean, boom, Jean, come in here. Yes, The Vatican. They play it all the time at The Vatican.

Jean goes The Vatican, all the time at The Vatican. The manager, all the time at The Vatican. The Vatican and Eline comes in and they go, they play it at The Vatican. The Vatican. And they must say The Vatican, I don't know, comes in and they go, they play it at the Vatican, the Vatican. And they must say the Vatican, I don't know, 20 times in this, in this scene. And it feels like it's very silly. It's very silly. And it also, it's just, it feels like they brought in Tim and Eric to like guest direct

scene. Well, I, I forget where on the internet I read this. Oh, let him in. Let's it. Yeah. Let him at Eric. I forget where I read this. And so it's of dubious, you know, who knows whether it's true.

But supposedly the way that French Canadians say Vatican is very funny to French people. So maybe this is part of what's going on here. To me, it honestly just sounded like they were saying Vatican over and over again. Yeah. That reminds me of, I've talked about, I may have talked to this about this four on the flop house. When I was in college, my mom took me and my sister, my grandmother, to the Monterey comedy festival.

And I went to, I decided to go by myself to the best of Canada show, which my family was not interested in going to. And it was so much fun to sit through a stand-up show where I got none of the references. And it was like, I got the jokes, because like I understand how jokes work, but it was just funny to hear the audience, and the audience loved it. And it's gonna be like, well, in BAMF, and the audience would go nuts, you know,

and the best part of it was, there was kind of like a, oh, what's his name? Well, who's the guy? Who's the comedian that is very annoying? Roy Galeon. No, no, no, it's a British comedian. Ricky Churhaze. No, no, no, it's a British comedian. Uh, uh, Ricky Churhaze.

No, no, no, no, the other night, there's somebody, the one, uh, uh, Russell Brand, sorry. There was a guy who was like a Russell Brand type comedian who came up and they're like, now you know him. Here he is and they announced him and I'd never heard of any walks up and the guy behind me goes, I hate this guy. And it was just love that he had such a strong opinion

about someone I've never heard before. Yeah, anyway. So, so maybe you're right right that it's that it's just a joke on the way they say Vatican, but it's a long scene for that. Aliens career, it just continues to flourish under Gis coaching. And she to the point where she feels like it's time for her to make a take a take a stand, take a controversial stand. And she ends a one show by giving a strong statement about safe driving. Yeah, yeah. It's a huge, but again, feels like another like walk hard scene where it's like, no, I gotta say something at the end of the show. Be careful and drive slowly on the way home, drive safe.

Now, I, you know, I'm not a huge fan of biopics generally. And I feel like the ones I like, the least are musicalopics. That could just be my own issue, but I feel like walk hard is still like the best one. It's probably, maybe this is like a regional thing too, Elliot, maybe like all the region Canada at the time was to drive unsafely, that was what was cool. And that was actually from reading up to.

I guess, so if anyone listening is from, is from that region of Canada, or is a huge Sleen Dion fan, please write in, tell us which of these things were just not getting that are huge Easter eggs. Tell us about the real thing. Tell us about the real thing. You used to drive in the parking lot outside of Sleen Dion concert. And a, and a, Guy tells Silve, Guy is just such a hero, just such a saint throughout the movie.

He tells Silve, Aliens mom, Aliens take a break. I think he is a ponytail at this point. Yeah, he take a break from performing and live her life and learning, and get her teeth fixed. And she does, and there's a long self improvement montage sequence. She's learning English. She finally gets her hair cut. And when she greets Ghee at the door when he shows up, the wind being blown on her by an off screen wind machine is obvious.

It's over the top on purpose, but like it's so over the top of it as a joke. And we find that at night she's seeking when her mom goes to bed because they share a hotel room. She secretly caresses a photo of her manager. And one morning her mom catches the photo in the bed and Alina is like, I love him and Sylvie confronts Guy, Ruggie, and says, if you touch a lean, I'll kill you. I know a wrinkle old fat man like you shouldn't be with a beautiful young princess. And that this is the beginning of what seems like it could be a big conflict in the movie,

but it dies down relatively. Quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick,

quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick a dwell on this too much, but I do think that we need to talk about a little bit. Like this is, so this is true to Celine Dion's life, right? Like she, yeah. She did marry your manager. He was much older than her. Older manager who like knew her as a, as a, a minor and all the like stuff and, and they stayed together

until his death and to some degree, I'm like, well, we can only believe Celine Dion's version of it. You want to talk about it because it's your ultimate fantasy. Yeah, I'm just like, look, if she says it's okay, like I don't know what to do with that, but I don't think that it's possible at all that it was as simple and innocent as it's presented in this film. Yeah, in this film. It's the manager of a child who then ends up marrying her. And it's presented as a love story

and sort of like the central narrative thrust of this movie in so much as it has any center to it. It is the love story, which is why I wonder, I don't know, did they make her play Alene as a kid because none of that would work at all if you actually saw her as a child. I don't know. I would say that at this point she's supposed to be in her kind of like late teens. So no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no that there is such a history in movies of much younger women and much older men to the point and in France. What? In France. Very much.

In the French language world, it is even more so to a disturbing point that I don't like. But it's, what's weird is that this is a fictionalized portrayal of Selen Dion. They did not really have permission from her. Selen Dion has come, came out against the movie. And yet, she's portrayed as the most beautiful soul in the history of the world Her manager's portrayed as a beautiful saint who brought love and success into her life like everything about this Her family is very charming. Her family is charming and lovable apparently Celine Dion was unhappy with with what hicks They were portrayed as they portrayed as like scheming the best characters in the movie like I will say like the mom of this

movie like she's putting in a great performance in this yes, not so great movie like I love her that she was yeah, yeah, she's great and but the I think but it is a it's a what the something that the movie seems and the movie seems to take it for granted I think that you are not going to be on the mom's side in this argument that it is clear. As we know, because they end up together, this is true love and she's being insensitive and intolerant.

But you're right, it is something that they don't really grapple with much that he's a man who's known her since two is twelve. He is in a position of real authority over her. Like he constantly coaches her on her and he's in charge of her career. And they fall in love and it's just like, and, and he is like, he's the cutest thing. And he's presented as extremely uninterested as someone who is being such a gentleman and not, not, or openly uninterested that like a, it's just they're taking something that it reminds me the stories you used to hear about Elvis where they'd be like, well, he met Priscilla when she was 13, but he was

a gentleman and waited till she was 18 before he, before he had sex with her. And it's like, that's too creepy. It's still, it's still super creepy. But I remember being told that when I was a kid, as if that was the height of gentlemanly behavior that he, that, that even though he clearly wanted to have sex with this, with his athleticity, he wanted it. He is, Elvis, with his athleticity. He was.

He was a low-spirer, that society is presented. Yeah. Okay, I guess. Case closed. But it's, yeah, it's all very, and again, if it, maybe, Okay, I guess. Case closed. But it's, yeah, it's all very, and again, if it maybe, maybe, I don't know, maybe there is something about it that we're not seeing, but it does seem creepy, but that creepiness is somewhat, is somewhat, what's the word? Mitigated.

Mitigated. Ameliorated, yeah, by the fact that she is. So that she looks like a grown-up. They look like they're the same age, yeah. They look like the same age, yeah. Anyway, Guy says to Eline, we can't be together. A young girl and an old man. And again, this is when they most look the same age. And she goes, she goes, tell me you don't love me.

And he can't, he can't say it. And so she confronts her mom and her mom as a heart attack and goes to the hospital. And meanwhile, Ghee Claude has disappeared. No one knows where he can't say it. And so she confronts her mom and her mom has a heart attack and goes to the hospital. And meanwhile, Guy Claude has disappeared. No one knows where he is. Oh no, Eline falls into despair. She's so sad. And just when she's about to perform at the Eurovision song contest, oh no, but backstage, he shows up. This is roughly four minutes of screen time, three minutes of screen time that he's gone or something like that. Like it's not, it's not a, they really make it to be a big thing,

but they don't spend a lot of time on it. Yeah, that's like Christian Gray, plane crash levels of disappears. Yes. Where that's, it's Chubaka being, if you dying in, in Rise of Skywalker. Oh, there's another transport. Oh no, Chubaka, cut to Chubaka's on screen.

Oh, I'm okay folks, don't worry. It's Ray Romano and Chubaka. Yeah. And the whole audience is like, I didn't even finish my tweet about Shubaka dying. And now he's back. I guess I'll delete my, add that to drafts. I can't believe that. I can't believe Shubaka has, oh wait, never mind.

Backspace, backspace, backspace. Yeah, I forgot about that in that, in that 50, 60, 60, really. I can't believe there was a second transport. This is what they have to change it to. It seems impossible. So the, I wonder if there was a cut scene where you see the marketing people at Disney going, you can't kill Chubaka.

We got to hold on a second. We make a lot of money off at Chubaka, bringing back. And then Chubaka goes, oh, okay, I'll come back. That's so, yeah. And that's what Chubak sounds like when he talks. Yeah. Amazing, yeah.

I love it. That's what he sounds like. So what? Oh, my God. That's me. Oh, buddy. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. But Chubak, I mean, the difference between Chubak is on that spectrum between Ray Romano and Mr. B. And his voice is, and so she wins the year with it with the power of love. She wins the Eurovision song contest. She gets a congratulatory or her manager gets a congratulatory call from the Prime Minister of Canada. He does not hand the phone to Celine. He just says thank you and hands in hangs up, which I thought was such a passive aggressive power move to be like, no, no, no, I talked to Prime Ministers. You just sit there.

And that night you guessed it, folks, dreams can come true. They have sex for the first time. He leaves the room, but then he sneaks back in in his pajamas and he says, if it's what you want, I'll be the first. And she says the first and only. And we are thankfully saved from watching the lovemaking itself the next morning. They're flirting across her. But I'm sure we can picture it.

But I think we can make sure that it's like, yeah. They did regular style, they did doggy style, upside down style. What? And as he and you know, I've never been, I've never been a woman. Never done it. I've not done it, but I've never been a woman,

but like the, my understanding of the experience of the first time that women have sex is it's not always a magical transcendent experience. And so the fact that movies almost always and maybe 90% of the time presented that way is I don't know. It's a it's something that I wonder if women have thoughts about. So right in women of listeners right into the flop house, first time, Colin Translented Experience, care of Dan McCoy. Let's find out what you think. And if they, and also French Canadian people, do you do it differently? Let's find out

right in, because it reminds me Stuart, you were joking, they do it all these decades. Is that so down style different up in Canada? Yeah, it does. And then just for fun, tell me what normal American upside down style is. I know. Reminds me. I'm just curious. I know all the styles. I know all the styles.

I know all the styles. I'm pretty well versed. It reminds me of one of my favorite stories about my grandmother. This is not the grandmother that went to the Just for Life Festival. It's a different one. Okay. My father's mother, I remember years ago, she's since passed, but she told me when she during World War II, Dan's got a look on his face like he's about to hear a hot story. Yeah, he's gonna like this one. It's a dangerous

liaison. He's tying a bib around his neck to get told the drool. I guess. Yeah, he's putting towels down on the ground to catch the drill. But wait, now he's waiting his head is turning into a steam whistle. But the she was she was on a small military transplant. Her will my tongue back up during World War II. Her fiance, my grandfather was stationed in Puerto Rico. She was flying to Puerto Rico. And the only other person on board was a Frenchman who was first whatever, who was a pilot, she said it was for some reason, flying also, and that he came onto her and she said,

oh no, I'm sorry, thank you, but no, I have a fiance. And was it 60 years later? She said to me, she goes, if there's anything I regret in life, I should have done it with that Frenchman. And I said, I said, grandma, why? I thought that was an amazing answer. I said, grandma, why?

And she goes, maybe he would have done it differently. And that for decades and decades, she lived with the mystery of how French people have sex. So please, so that I can tell my grandma's ghost in a sands, French people, right in. Tell us how you do it. Care of Dan McCoy, I'll give you his address at the end of the show.

Anyway, anyway, Guy and Aline, their flush was success. They're flirting across a room with their reading newspapers. Aline dips a croissant champagne because she's just like that, you know? I do love the newspaper, like the pictures they use for the newspapers are very funny. Yeah. Cause the pictures are of her victory, her victory at the Dublin singing contest. And they're all, and that, and they're all pictures of her, the actress playing Celine. So it's, it just, it, it, it, some reason that seems weirder than if they were real pictures of Celine Dion or no pictures.

But, uh, so, uh, at least, one point she even takes the time to cut a little eyeball slit out of a newspaper that has a picture of her face. So she perfectly frames it so that she can then uh, steal glances at her, uh her bow through the newspaper she's holding. Yeah, like Grommit watching that penguin that wants to steal the diamond. So Eileen's mom, she still doesn't approve of the relationship. And so Eileen can't talk about it publicly. And Eileen goes on a talk show and she starts crying when she can't say who her love songs are for.

But guess what? Things are about to get a little bit more okay because on her sold out European tour, her manager on the day that was supposed to be just her and her manager's day together, he takes out the whole staff for ice cream and napoles and he hands an ice cream cone to Eline. She takes a bite out of it and, oh, what is this in my mouth?

An engagement ring. There's an engagement ring in the ice cream. That's right. They're gonna get buried. He's putting a ring in the ice cream. That's right. I also. I also. And he's putting a ring on it, he's making it legal. Apparently this is also fictitious. What?

This did not happen again. One of those things where it's like, what kind of fucked up mind could invent this scenario? Right? Right. I do want to talk about Elliot. He was Kormack McCarthy doing some script-octering work on this one that he came up with that twisted idea. He announces to like the whole like, like, tour entourage or whatever it is, like, you know,

Oh, like tomorrow, the, he's like the best ice cream in the world is two and a half hours away by bus. So I've arranged like a bus to take us there tomorrow. And I was like, on my day off, you want my boss wants me to get on a bus so I can go two and a half hours to get ice cream in Rome. To get ice cream. Yeah, I'm sure that we've got great ice cream here,

like close enough. Not getting on a bus for two and a half hours. And I'm so very excited. And I'm kind of lactose intolerant. So that trip would be bad for me the whole way. Yeah. Oh, yeah. But if you know if you didn't go, and then if you went and you didn't eat the ice cream,

you'd be fired. You would be off the tour. Yeah. I'm immediately fired, yeah. And she's got so many backup dancers that, one less, nobody would even notice. So you're just gone. Because I see them that. That's what you were in the show.

I was a backup dancer, yeah. Yeah. So they get married. Now they live in a big mansion, they say they're going to go to the beach and make their baby, which is or make our baby, they say, which isn't gross way to say it. They go on there. And so this is when I wrote my notes on their honeymoon and somehow we're only halfway through the movie. She's already a successful singer. She's achieved love. What else is there? She got guys eating too much. And lean, she has to, she has a, he passes out and she has to push him to the hospital on luggage cart. And she's in such a,

such a stressed out rush that her boob falls out of her dress. We don't see any of this. It is told to us in an anecdote. She's telling on a talk show. So the movie has decided to take what would have been one of the more suspenseful and exciting scenes in the movie to rush to get him to the hospital before he dies and decides to have a character relate that to us as a funny anecdote on a talk show. Yeah, perfect story. Dan, your thoughts on this? Yeah.

I mean, the talk show seemed like it was pretty fun. Like, she was having a good time. But yeah, I think as a movie, we probably could have done with any sort of incident rather than, yeah, I feel like the film maker leaned into, yeah, she like leaned into her Mike Flanagan instinct where she's like, this will be way better as told through monologue instead of showing you shit, nerds. She goes, how would, how would the late spalding gray handle this, this scene?

So the, she, uh, where were we? All right, in a limo back after the talk show, Guy says, if I die, please promise to keep performing. And she, and you know, like Sisyphus, you can never stop pushing that boulder up the hill. And she says, yes, but never talk about dying again. Uh, she's having trouble getting pregnant. She also has this grueling performance and publicity schedule. And she's singing all by myself on stage And she has to stop mid song because of trouble with her vocal cords and the audience sings one of her own songs back to her It's a touching moment. What did you do in a beautiful climax to the film? No, there's still about 50 minutes left Doctor tells her to get your voice back. Do you like coffee? Yes. Do you like ice cream? Yes? Do you talk on the phone every day to my mom?

Don't do any of those things. You've got to save for this. And then eventually it's not working and he goes, you know what, just stop talking for three months. She also starts taking fertility treatments and she just to take hormone shots in her butt, stuff like that. Eventually, and this must be a hard time, right?

It must be the crux of the film. No, it's told through the visual of the napkins she uses to write on because she can't talk. The stack just gets shorter and shorter. Three months have passed. She starts singing again. There's also, there's also a studio where she's prepared. Oh, fine.

So yeah, there's a scene where she's back. She can't talk to her mom. So she calls her mom and just does like, Morse code through the phone. Yes. I was playing. And then like two scenes later, a character mentions getting broken up with over text and I'm like, she could have just texted her mom. Yeah, I don't, yeah, this is Morse code thing.

Now, I don't know. I think there's more time for you to see this because this is pre-titanic. So I think texting was still not that big at the time. Yeah, but to try testing off the table, unless they knew Morse code prior, they have become well versed very quickly. Yeah, well, it's the kind of, you know,

they're very smart people who have a lot of it different interests, maybe Morse code, there's something I already know. So guy plays her an instrumental demo of my heart will go on and she hates it. And he goes, well, why don't you just sing a demo? And she goes, okay, that is pretty much the end of the story of the creation of her, at least to me, her most well-known famous song. Like they, they skipped straight from that.

The, the next time we hear about it, she's at the Oscars. So she starts, so here's when she starts crying at a photo shoot and then her makeup guy Fred consoles her and goes, oh, I was crying all the way here. I was dumped on the, on the plane. I think maybe he does say by text. So, and so they went on the same time. And he becomes her new confinote.

We finally have a new character in the movie. It doesn't really matter. And then we watch her do a photo shoot for a while. And this is the part that felt the most like I'm watching an SNL sketch about Celeste Yon. Well, she like, hands it up in Vamps in these in these photo poses for a long time. Yeah, well, that's what I mean, I think that I think that the actress, the director writer, you know, the star of this film captures Celine Dion. That's what I'm saying. Yeah. Sort of factless doesn't, doesn't give a shit dorkiness.

Like she like knows she's kind of like, I don't know, like a goof and like she's like, oh, long day it's around like this, like badly, you know. That's just fun. I don't know. Yeah, yeah. I think if the movie was not, if this wasn't a birth to the moment, the movie came out total chronology story. I think there would be like a fun, kind of funny tongue-in-cheek Celine Dion by, by OK. But that's not what she's doing. She's putting a little bit of, she's playing a

kind of character who can be goofy in a movie that's otherwise fairly serious. And guess what it has to be, because we're at the Oscars now, everybody, which are, they can't, they didn't get the rights, I guess, to show the actual Oscar statue, which is copyrighted by the Academy. And so they have a fake, they have a stand in fake statue when they could have just as easily not shown, not shown to statue. Eileen performs, my heart will go on there. And it feels, here's the thing that feels weird is they went to the trouble of licensing my heart will go on, but not paying to get a real, to show what a real Oscar looks like.

It's, they, I guess they need it. They couldn't do without it. Eileen performs at the backstage. Her manager is like, Hey, now husband is like, Hey, some fans are here. And she goes, Oh, not yet. Not yet. It's her parents that showed up. They came to surprise her. A key. Can you fucking believe it? Can you believe it? Can you loving parents who have been supportive for the entire moment? Sure. Another the greatest triumph.

And she's still has. And she shows that she still has her dad's lucky coin, a high point of her life. Her parents there to be at the big success could be the end of the movie. No, you got to learn about Geese diet. He's eating carrot puree while she eats hamburgers and fries. She gets some news on the phone and she writes BB in his carrot puree for baby. And she goes, I'm three months pregnant. And it's like, well, usually the husband knows before three months, like three months is when you tell other people,

but usually like I at least in the case of when both times my wife is pregnant, I knew when she knew like we actually didn't keep it a secret from me. Or maybe the doctor held off for three. You're like normally, normally when she wakes up, she shotguns straight vodka, but she's stopped doing that. I was just kidding. I've got to figure out why. This isn't make any sense. She's no longer doing belly flops right into that,

right into the Twitch convention foam pit. I don't know why did she stop doing that. No longer injecting ketamine directly into her uterus. Uh-huh. Understand. I gotta do, and then I'm not sure like Holmes or a slyloc fox. No longer injecting ketamine directly into our uterus. Uh-huh. You're staying. I gotta do, and then I'm not sure like Holmes or a slilock fox. I can't figure this one out.

When we watch babies day out, she seems concerned as opposed to laughing at the laughing thing. Well, that stupid baby. I hope it falls. Every time the baby evaded danger, she's not snapping her fingers and going nuts. Thought we had him that time. Curse is before.

Well, again, when she sees Fat Bastard chasing mini me around, she tuts and shakes her head and says, I don't think so. I don't find that funny, she says. She's got it mildly obscene. As if I was pretty easily. She's got it mildly obscene. She would say, eat that bastard, eat him up.

Yep. Yep. Yeah. This has been signed your wife's pregnant. You wife made me pregnant, is. What happened? Cabaret, man. We've, we've, we've, of course, come on in New York in the 60s. Yeah, that was a different time. So, uh different time. So her family news is all over the TV and her mom is offended at the way the TV anchors

gossip and make light of a lean's family and rich lifestyle. But a lean is, she's very conspicuously consuming. She buys a 40 room Vegas mega mansion that she gets lost in. And now you're like, okay, and she's gonna have a son. Montage, there's a baby, her son grows up, her son is now like five, she's torn between work and family. But the movie, it's one of these movies where the life of her family is sped through in montages.

But the moment when she gets into a makeup chair and her food is cold, so she heats it up with a hair dryer, we take our time with that moment. We got it, we've got our extra that. And I don't know, but I'm really to bet there might be another fictional invention. I don't know. It's a famous saline Dion parable.

The parable, the clone meal and the movie also shows her kid has some PS4 games and this was long before the PS4 was released. So it's like, did she invent the PS4? And they don't even want to be in the movie. Yeah. Plus they don't even want to be a big story. Plus they don't even zoom in on what the games are so we can see. Yeah, we don't know what games they're playing. Like what is so that's why I give this movie

thumbs down not. Where were we? Okay, so yes, she's got a kid now during one show. She accidentally learns right before going on stage that her father died But the movie just keeps going on much like her heart The she finishes her Vegas rest Vegas residency takes her family on a performing trip her son gets to see her perform to a stadium in France And there was one point again. This is I'm not sure if it's supposed to be a joke or not She comes out on stage and the audience goes, and the wind that pushes her back almost

knocks her over. And I wasn't sure if it was supposed to be a joke or not. I've never performed in front of a stadium full of people. I don't know if you're constantly fighting the exhalations because they're of such force that they could knock you right over. Again, flop house listeners, do what you can, promote the show. So we can get popular enough to do an arena show and to end myth bust to this or so. Or if you are listening and you have

performed for an arena, let us know your experience. I know that Keith Richards is a list. We get famous, but that's true, but Keith Richards, I know you love the show. Tell us what it's like to perform before an arena. If that's the truth, or performing for a million people in Rio or whatever happened. But yeah, it would be better if we, I would love for us to move up to arena shows, maybe just for one show. I feel like that might be too big a scale for what we actually do.

Yeah, they might like the Beatles. We'd be like, no one can even hear our bits. That's what the Beatles called. They're songs. The Beatles songs are called the Bits. Well, originally they were called the Beatles. And it was to do that bit about the Oktopusus God, and, they'd say. A lot of people don't know that they were called the Bittles and then they were performing in Germany and the German answer says, and now the Beatles,

and everyone thought it was Beatles. It was really was saying Bittles. Yeah. Although that is something I've actually heard that is why acting Beats are called Beats. Like character because the story I heard was that Stanislaus the Stanislaus you wanted to call them bits but with his accent it sounded like beats when he came to the United States. So anyway, that's the story I heard who knows if it's true or not. The inner history. Much like Celine Dion and the lean do that maybe it may be a beautiful reality twisted into a strange and horrifying fiction. So anyway, So we get a bunch of shots of her performing a lot of her basically walking

on the stage in classic Celine Dion outfits, which this is a moment where I'm like, did she make this movie just so she could put on a bunch of cool clothes? Because I mean, that's not the worst thing to do. Yeah, the mission accomplished. Yeah. She's on it. Here's one of one of the stranger moments. She's on a private jet plane. and suddenly she's stealing her family's food She has to shovel in her mouth so much. She's so hungry and she fails because she's pregnant with twins And I you know I'm a twin I've asked my mom if she would just suddenly get so hungry that she would just start stealing food from other people and slamming it into her face Then montage she has the babies they grow up and so onina's dressed out, she misses her mom in the simple life. Meanwhile, Guy's health is failing.

He has to watch her concerts from a hospital bed and then he dies while they're doing their special handshake. And his cancer is also treat, like speaking of, like the family being shunted into the background, his cancer is treated so elliptically by the film that it's never really set out right unless I missed it. Like it's like, Here's the thing is is everything is kind of shunted in the background. I'm very little in the movie is told so straight forwardly that you're like,

ah, this is what the movie is about. It feels like, it really feels like a greatest hits. Like, it feels like they took a TV show called Eline and they chopped it up and made it and compressed into a movie. Like, they used to do with Japanese TV shows where they released the United States as an edited down movie. That's what it feels like. And so, but you're right, you're kind of not sure what he died of.

And they do their special handshake, he doesn't finish it, she's sad at their funeral, there's a sad version of Elvis playing, love me tender, I think, over the funeral, right? And then, but Elaine soldiers on because the movie can't stop, can it? No, of course it can't stop. If you can never any story, her kids are out of town,

so she has Fred, the makeup man, if she can stay at his place after her show, and she talks about how she's never been outside in Las Vegas, and all the 14 years that she's lived there. And while she's sleeping at Fred's house, she dreams that guys ghost shows up. Again, he died two scenes ago, that are three scenes ago. The ghost shows up and it's like, hey, I'm doing fine.

So just do what you want. That's basically the message. She wakes up and before Fred wakes up, she sneaks out of the apartment and just walks around Las Vegas and countering people. Finally, she's like a normal person, some Elvis impersonator. And I'm walking in Vegas. Some Elvis impersonators think that she is an alien impersonator and they give her some fairly unflattering advice.

It's too tourist-ass for her to take a picture, not with her, just of them. And they're standing in front of her billboard and they don't even recognize her. Yeah, finally. And an emity. And she misses her show and it has to be canceled. And then it cuts to kind of a dream musical moment where she's on stage and she sings a song about how she always wanted to sing and her life is difficult

and there's so many things in the world. And apparently this is a real song, I think, called Ordinare and she's just an ordinary woman. And then when she finishes the song, the movie's over. And again, and the main actress, she is not actually singing, it's all lip syncing. So it is the last scene, much like the Academy Award winning scene

in Bohemian Rhapsody where Freddie Mercury just sings. And it's lip synced too. That's just what this ending is. Jesus lip syncing the song. And then the movie's over. And it's just, we've run out of Celine Dion's life to tell so the movie has to end.

I want to talk about something that I found online. Apparently there's a... No. What the fuck? No, shit. Related. Related. Related.

I mean, we're the cops. Is that you with us, De Maul? I can hold that shit down. You wouldn't believe the way she takes care of her children. Anyway. No, no, it's a... Apparently a very, you know, famous like clip of Celine Dion is out there. Her first performance in Vegas, like after she came back, after her husband died and she's like,

she's singing all by myself and like a song that must have whole new meaning to her, all by myself and like a song that must have whole new meaning to her all by myself and and is you know struggling with emotions to get through it, big gets through it and you know, I haven't I didn't like I was just reading about the cloak I haven't seen it but it sounds like it would be very effective. You want to go that far? Well I'm curious I'll probably look but but it's just weird it's weird to me This is a song that is in the movie earlier, but instead they don't end with that song, which would put a bow on, again, arguably the only real through line for the whole movie

is this quote, love story of them. And all by myself would be such an emotional ending, but instead they sing, she sings a song that's just about how she loves to sing and like she doesn't care what her critics think, she doesn't for the public, which is not really a theme of the film otherwise. Like, there's some acknowledgement that she's not, like, believed to be like, like, cricks don't like her,

but like, very little, you know, it's a strange thing. Like, this is the, if you're going to end with a whole song, you know, like, which went on long enough for me to be like, come on, movie, stop it. Like, make it something relevant. Like, have it sum up the film in some way. And it's such a strange choice. I mean, it's certain, it sums up, yeah, it sums up the themes of her life, but not necessarily the ones that the movie highlights. Well, because the movie is not, it's not telling a coherent,

focused story, you know, instead of saying, here's the, here's the thrust of her life, or here's we're going to emphasize in her life, it's just kind of like, read me Celine Dion's diaries, and then we'll just kind of put it on screen and we'll, every now then, we'll add in a little bit of fictional stuff. Now, here's my question. Looking up online, there was, I guess an official Sleen Dion biopic in 2008 called Seline. And maybe that one, and it's only an hour and a half long, maybe that one stole the idea of structure and storytelling. And so this one was like, we're going to do things differently. We're just going to have, because there are, I have to say, like, there are times when the movie goes into montage

and just kind of skips through things, there are times when I liked the idea of like, I've got to catch up, I don't know, Celine Dion's life story, I got to infer it. But otherwise, the movie is such a shapeless bag, you know. It feels a little bit like trying to go to sleep on an air mattress. I mean, like this is it, I mean,

this movie suffers from one of the, like one of the problems that I think a lot of biopics run into, which is like not having any kind of point of view whatsoever. And simply just trying to tell the entirety of somebody's life, as opposed to like generally, it's best to focus on a very specific event or a snippet or, you know, especially if you're going to fictionalize it, why not make it more interesting? So much of this is just like watching a rich person hang out in their fucking giant mansion that they don't understand. Yeah.

Yeah. So final judgments, whether it's a good bad movie, a bad, bad movie, or a movie kind of like cat is dreaming in front of me, it's very cute. Arti is twitching like crazy. Um, I don't know. This is one that really defies a lot for me because like I kind of as you related to it so much. I mean, the stuff, like the thing is like, there's stuff in here. As a public figure, Dan, as a public figure whose search for love was very much done in the, in the, in the press's eye, yeah. in the presses. I yeah, I know I look strange.

Joe Pesci there is stuff in here that legit worked for me like not that I thought it was particularly interesting but I'm like all these like actors are like putting in good performers and it's kind of fun to see like this like Cliff's notes on someone that I don't know anything about. But all of that is so overshadowed by the weirdness of like one specific choice and a choice that like is gone halfway through the movie but still like cast along shadow over the rest of it. I don't know. I guess I'm going to say good bad, but maybe just watch the first hour and you've gotten enough of it. And then stop. What do you guys have to say? I feel like if you're going to do the silly stuff, I feel like the movie, like I missed it

at when it was gone when it was just like a boring, very dry, it's a movie where there's like, like you said, like each time there's any kind of conflict or any kind of setback, it's resolved in like two or three minutes. Yeah. So there's nothing like, I'm never like worried at any point in the movie, I'm not like, oh wow, I wonder what's gonna happen. It's, yeah, it's, yeah, it manages to, despite having some kind of interesting scenes and some

interesting performances, it just ends up being very planned. Yeah, it's very, it's, it's, it's bad. So it's bad. Bad, bad, that's a bad idea. I would, I would also call it bad. I feel like there's a good, there's a good version of this movie. And that is essentially coal miner's daughter, which is also about a woman who comes from a poor rural background and through music becomes a huge star.

And very much about that. And the secret there was, but the secret there was they put a woman's head on a baby's body. That's the secret there he is that when Loretta Lynn is a baby, Sissy Space X is on her body. But that's, but it's a much more, even that, which is still a kind of like relatively full-life story,

is still told with a like a focus and a thrust, and it helps that I love Loretta Lynn's music so much more than Celine Dion's. I'm still getting over her recent passing, but there's a way to do this movie, but you gotta choose your moments, and they just don't do it. So yeah, I bad because there's this weird energy

that's running through the first like third of the movie. And that energy is a grown up playing a kid and her family, because her family is the most fun part of the movie. Like there's how there's tons of siblings and they're all a little goofy and her mom is such a big character. And all of that kind of falls away

and eventually just becomes almost like an acted out documentary about Celine Dion, which is not to my taste. So I would say a day in the life. Exactly. So I guess maybe just read one of the many, many great biographies of Celine Dion. I think there was one that won the Nobel Prize. Go read that one. Yeah.

Okay. Yeah. Okay. Sorry, I leaned back at an opportune time. Dan had to text. He had to text a French hairdresser that he was breaking up with him. I was taking notes on things to brutal, to 15 years, in the end of the world. 15 years.

And to break up by text after 15 years, when he's on his way to a job, one of the biggest jobs of his career, you know what? Who does that? Who who doesn't, who who breaks up with a person or group of people without any warning whatsoever after years together? Who does something like that? Somebody not worth your time.

Exactly. Stuart, you've probably heard about microdosing. Yep. Well, if not, well, you answered. We have. But if you were a person who hadn't heard about it, then you should know that all sorts of people are microdosing daily to feel healthier and perform better. I showed today a sponsor by microdose gummies. Microdose gummies deliver perfect entry-level doses, not or entry-loses. That's the faster way of saying that of THC that help you feel just the right amount of good. If you want to watch a movie maybe where someone's face is mapped onto a small child, I'm

not going to tell you that a microdose gummy isn't going to make that a better experience. True. True. So, you know what? Microdose is available nationwide. So learn more about microdosing THC. Go to microdose.com and use code flop. That's F-L-O-P to get free shipping. And 30% off your first order, links can be found in the show description.

But again, that is microdose.com code flop. Any other in-house plugs? As always, I will plug my two businesses. That's right. Hinterlands Bar and Minis Bar, both located in Brooklyn, New York, come by, have a drink, support local business,

support your favorite podcaster. And I will also plug my other podcast, the Who Was Podcast, it's a quiz show for kids on iHeartRadio, but also available wherever podcasts are available. Two kids come on and answer questions about two historical figures and we have a lot of fun with very silly stuff. The recent episodes have gotten very silly. So if you have a children or you like children and want to attract them to your house by

blasting this two loudspeakers out your windows or if you have the mind of a child, just listen to the who was podcast. And also, yes, who's back in town? That's right. The maniac of New York. In maniac of New York, don't call it a comeback. Number one coming out December 7th. That's right. Halloween is all is by the time you listen to this Halloween will be over, but we can be

spooky all year round, even in the Christmas time era. So maniac of New York, don't call to come back. Number one comes out December 7th, and then there's three more issues after that coming out each month. And Dan, I have some interesting, I have an interesting Celine Dion trivia right here. Oh, my heart will go on is the second best selling physical single by a woman ever. The number one best selling single, physical single by one. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait. I bet you can guess it.

Oh fuck. Uh, it's what? Oh god damn it Whitney Houston. Yes. Uh, bodyguard soundtrack song. Yeah. What's the name of the song though? Oh fuck.

Oh god damn it. It's. Oh god. It's a really part of it. I always love you. Okay. Yes, I will always love you. But what seems strange. I'm looking at the list right now.

You guys, I did it. I think I heard myself. You did it. I'm looking at it. You stretched, you feel like you're a little puzzled. I'm a bull muscle, yeah. I'm looking at the list. Sleen Dianne was also the biggest earner overall

from 2000 to 2010 in all of entertainment. Or something like that. Oh, yeah. She makes a huge amount of money. It was insane. But this is what struck me as strange. I'm looking at the Wikipedia list of best or something like that. Oh, yeah. She makes, I mean, she makes a huge amount of money. It was insane. But this is what struck me as strange. I'm looking at the Wikipedia list of best-selling physical singles, pre-digital, best-selling where someone had to buy a physical record. And strangely enough, both of those songs, I will always love you and my heart will go on.

They both are below Mungo Jerry's in the summertime, although it says disputed. And that is a dumb song. That song is a terrible song. Yeah, it's my wife gets so mad at that song every time it comes on. She complains about it to anyone within listening to some show like grab people by the arm and drag them over so she can explain how she's closer to Shirley. Yeah, did you hear this? So I don't know who is out there

buying all these physical copies of in the summertime, a truly loathsome song, but you know what? Stop. Stop doing it. I'm Lisa Hannah Waltz and I'm Emily Heller. Wow, Emily, we've been doing this podcast for 10 years. I know, but hey, don't worry. You can jump in at literally any episode and hear us talk about some of our favorite stuff.

Caterpillars Becoming Butterflies Martha Stewart flying around in a private jet full of trees. Yes, you heard me right. Trees. Neighbors Becoming Enemies Just kidding. Whatever messed up stuff we can find on Wikipedia. Our impeccable taste in everything from dogs to TV shows to bodily functions

and horses lots and lots of horses come for our horned up rants about the world stay for the catchy theme songs you might not learn anything but we're a good hang baby geniuses every other week on maximumfund.org hi i'm jesse for an america'sheart, and I'm Jordan Morris Boyd Detective, our comedy podcast, Jordan Jesse Goe, just celebrated its 15th anniversary. It was a couple months ago, but we forgot. Yeah, completely. Our silly show is 15 years old. That makes it old enough to get its learners' permanent, and almost old enough to get

the talk. Wow, I hope you got the talk before then. A lot of things have changed in 15 years. Our show's not one of them. We're never changing and you can't make us. Jordan Jesse Goat, the same forever at maximumfun.org or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, let's talk letters. Yeah, why not? You write to us sometimes. And then we respond.

There would be an easier way of doing it without the middle down of the podcast. But it's less about the communication and more about creating content. Yeah, it's all about content. Anyway, so that explains the presence of reading letters on a show. Cool. And this one. But if you wanted to hear it, if you wanted to hear it explained in song form, near or wherever you are, your letters will reach us if you send them. If you don't, you just write them and keep them, we won't get any of your letters. They won't come on. Yeah. No. I didn't think you could hold the note, but he didn't. Frank, last day with hell. I mean, I tried. The note was squirming and trying to get out of my grip the entire time. So I barely held it. Frank Henning-Lotter, I'm assuming.

I was listening to some old episodes and 10 Cloverfield Lane was a recommendation. It got me thinking about the Cloverfield movies and how they are the perfect type of scary movie I like. Some jump, but mostly suspense, cool monster, and not just about a murderer. But the first Cloverfield movie is great. So I'm okay, then I guess don't read maniac of New York. Don't call it a comeback.

Thanks for nothing. I mean, the monster in Cloverfield is basically just a murderer. Who's the real monster steward? After all the damage we've done to the earth, hmm, makes you think. No, you're right. You're actually the first cloverfield you think, right? With the movie end of the year, it turns out the true monster was the cloverfield.

Yeah, well, that's what we thought. The first cloverfield movie. Do you rail the whole franchise for me with two shots? My wife worked at 20 exchange place. The building we're inside, man, was filmed about 2,000 feet from ground zero, and her dad worked on Wall Street. They were both at work at 9-11, had to evacuate across the Brooklyn Bridge, having no idea where the other one was. In Cloverfield, with the monster

attacks, the city, there are a couple of specific shots where the destruction footage was basically lifted directly from news footage of 9-11. She almost walked out, but stuck it out. However, those shots soured the experience for both of us. Have any of you had a movie that you know you otherwise should have liked, but where a single shot scene or event had a little too close to home and ruined the whole thing, Frank, last name withheld. You guys have a... Yeah, it's actually funny because Cloverfield was, I remember seeing in the theater shortly after the blackout in New York, and I remember the behavior of New Yorkers during that blackout

was so like chill and supportive mostly, like I feel like everybody was like, okay, lights are out, there's no power, and like people were at, you know, we're partying outside, but it was relatively chill, at least in lower Manhattan. And, but in Cloverfield, it's like as soon as stuff happens, people immediately start looting everything. And I'm like, that doesn't seem accurate to the New York that I now live in. Yeah. I was about to answer the question that I found myself pausing thinking, did Stuart answer the question? I said, I'm out.

But I'll stop calling him out and give my answer, which is that Stuart's face right now. He's just, he is not, he is not happy. Staring, I'm really off into the middle distance. No, I mean, I think that part of the thing is, trying to find a hitman on the dark web to kill Dan McColle. What killed me? Why don't you just hire someone to punch me or something?

It seems like a lot of work to go onto the Dark Web just to punch you. I'm meeting you to do that, I'm still. Yeah. No, I mean, the thing is, I don't know that I've had it. There's somebody that's somebody's got to someone's, the contact to Hitman on the Dark Web, how much does it cost?

I hate my boss, how much does it cost to kill him? $100,000. Ooh, that's steep. What about just a punch him in the face? I don't know, like $400? Yeah, let's just do that. Let's just do that. I'm going to anger Stewart even more,

but I'm not precisely answering it after making such fun of him. Wow. Because I've been fortunate enough not to have like, I think a big enough trauma that like I have that reaction to a moment in movies, it's more of a the classic like that's not what it's like. Thing that bothers me like I saw late night, the Mindy Kaling movie about working on a late night comedy show.

And I was like, I think if I was a normal person, I would find this like totally pleasant. But as someone who has done this for a decade, it baffles me how incredibly wrong everything is, especially from someone who works in television. So that's a slightly different thing, but it's what my where my mind went. Here I lie bleeding and broken from Dan's vicious bars. And yet does Dan answer the question accurately? No, no one cares. It appears that some animals are more equal than others. There's two sets of laws for answering questions.

I will answer the question not exactly, but I think closer than either of you did. We're ramping up. That's the same. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, pattern. Sure. That's the secret behind jokes. It's all wheels within wheels. So I don't know that I've had a movie. There are probably movies that kind of hit, I feel like there's movies that have kind of like nerd characters, angry nerd characters, who are a little too close to the bad side of my personality. And so I didn't like, I could, was repelled from those movies.

But what I want to say is, this is not the exact thing, but because these are not movies that I never liked, or that were ruined for me. But this is a very sad story, that years ago, a coworker of mine died. And the method of their death was kind of in a way reflected by scenes in two movies that I saw in the theater shortly thereafter.

And I found myself really having tried. And one was a movie I had seen many times before that I was seeing a revival house on one of my, it was a very early date with women as my wife. And other was a movie I hadn't seen before but it was a remake of. So I kind of knew this kind of thing was in it. But I didn't expect to, it was for some reason I didn't expect a real event to be mirrored that way in a fictional event in a way that really hurt me in the moment and I had a lot of trouble staying and sitting through those movies. Not love movies so I ended up just pushing my way through it,

but it made it very difficult. And so I feel like that was, I would tell the story more detail, but I kind of feel like I don't want to bring the rest of the episode down. But I get what you're saying that there's something in it that in the case of Cloverfield, they're very much playing off of those memories. In the same way that the Spielberg War of the Worlds,

they're very much playing off of September 11th. And when I saw that, it made the movie more frightening to me. I was like, this is much more frightening than I thought this movie was gonna be. Because I remember that day, and I remember the ways it mirrored this. But just that like, you can be watching something.

And you're like, I don't believe that Tom Cruise is a Union stevedor, but like, yes, I'll go along with it. And also the fact that at the very end, they're like, we're reunited. It's a happy ending. And it was like, oh, like a lot of people died in this movie. But the not to mention all the aliens. And yeah, not to mention those poor aliens. So that idea that you can be watching something and it can make a connection in your mind

either inadvertently or inadvertently that affects you emotionally and kind of makes the throws a cast a different light on the experience. I get what you're saying. Both of those movies that I watched in that situation, they were, which were Vertigo and the Peter Jackson King Kong. Both of those I'd later watched again and I think because it was farther from the original event. They did not have as much of that effect on me.

But in a way, the memory of those movies are both not stained, but there's always that, it's a little bit like the crystal and dark crystal get one of the shards darkens at different points. And it's almost like that. It added a different emotional level to those movies that I did not expect going in. But thankfully, didn't ruin either of them

because Vertigo, I think, is a brilliant movie that I love. And the Peter Action King Kong is a fun movie that's just way too long. This next letter is from Patrick Lesname withheld host of the original cast podcast. Not familiar. Yeah.

This is just kidding. Hey, peaches, I'm teaching screenwriting to grad student playwrights this spring at University withheld the course focuses on story structure So I'm giving these students movies to watch on their own and then break down their beats We got a good mix of classics like the apartment and Casa Blanca mix with more modern films of Nari and everything Everywhere all at once. The problem is I'd like to throw some genre films

in the mix, especially horror, but I'm sorely lacking in this department. I've got action films covered, die hard, and shafts big score, but no horror other than the signs of the lambs. Can you guys recommend some horror and or sci-fi films that are great examples of story structure for my students, Love the show.

Patrick, last thing with held. I'm going to jump right in there. I think obviously the original castle freak that followed that up with head of the family or students will freak top that off with the invisible maniac, which I think vinegar syndrome is just putting out a blue ray of though we are not this is an up like that's not a sponsor thing and uh... then if you can track it down why not watch the granny there's four movies boom class dismissed

uh... i just missing class before the watch uh... there just a couple of us the movie class uh... okay fair fair point fair point uh... watch the movies on their iPhone. To the middle class. Like, what the fuck? So here's other answers. Alien, I think it's probably a pretty good one.

That's my number one. Yeah, that I was going to say. I think that, I mean, there's the thing is like, it depends on what you're looking for, because there's stuff where it's like, oh, I want to teach you sort of a classic screenwriting structure, or I want to teach you something that subverts it or plays with it in some way because like even something like alien, which is I think very carefully structured. Like, you know, if you were seeing that for the first time, you wouldn't know who the hero is at the beginning of the movie. You know, people watching it for the first time probably by default were like, okay, Tom

scared his art hero in this film. And then Sigourney Weaver is the survivor. So it doesn't do kind of some of the stuff that people would tell you to do today, maybe in terms of like really establishing a clear focus, but it's all the better for it. Alex looking at me quizzically, but I think that... I think that that's... I don't know that that's necessary.

I think it's just a different idea of what good structure is, I think. I think that alien is, to me, is a great for plot-wise because of the way it builds on scenarios and it does. And literally, Dan O'Bannon, there's a book on his screenplay structure where the idea is to keep kind of like shocking or surprising the audience in builds so that they can't get too comfortable, but also there's always something new coming up to kind of keep pulling them through it. And I think the way that Alien,

I think Alien is basically, as far as that kind of movie can go, it's basically perfect. Like, there's hardly anything of anything that you could change in it. Other than, I guess allowing Sigourney Weaver to keep her pants on at the end. But I want to clarify that I'm not saying it's bad structure.

I'm just saying that in a teaching situation, often you're looking for something that kind of is like the like I don't know like this is the earth structure you know and like things that deviate from it in one way or other just like you got to call that out you know but like I think that alien is all the richer for not making a clear sort of telegraphed like this is our survivor at the beginning. I think it's the difference between what I guess it depends, yeah, what do you mean by structure? I mean, if it's the, if it's the like Robert McKee type structure, then it should have started with Ripley leaving her house, high-fiving a black person to show that she's cool and we can like her.

She should have saved that. She's the cat at the beginning of the movie. Exactly. She's the cat at the beginning. So we know she's good. And then we can like her. She should have saved that cat the beginning of the movie. Exactly. She's the cat at the beginning. So he knows she's good. And then we can follow her through the rest of it. But then you're also not going to like to end the other movie I was going to mention, which is the thing, which I think is also just a really, is a really well structured movie. Because if you look at it, if you don't assume that structure has to be, let me introduce my protagonist, let me introduce why they're likable, let me then follow them clearly and follow only their character arc. If instead you're looking at structure as how you lay in information dramatically and

then pay it off dramatically for a satisfying story experience, I think both of those movies do that incredibly well. And they do it in a way that I think an alien Ripley is not necessarily like the, she's again by the end, she's the hero, but not necessarily the main character, but at the same time, even though it's not made super clear, if you watch it again afterwards, it's very clear where she stands in relation

with the other people there, and why she stands out from them, so even though the movie's not calling attention to it, the character arc is still in there. But it's also not one of those ones where it's like, she had to learn that at the beginning, we see that she doesn't spend enough time with her family. And by the end, she spends time with her family.

You know, that kind of thing. Hey, man, I wanna make it clear. I'm not saying these things. No, no, I don't think you're saying that. I'm saying that there is a generic sort of like version of Hollywood story structure that exists out there. And so if that's one thing that you're looking for, you have to recognize when there are differences. Although you make it interesting, like you're interested to bring up the thing, like I do think that that is a type

of story that we see less of these days that I would like to see more of, you know, that growth thing in Alien where the hero emerges from a group of a time rather than it just being like the movie holding your hand and being like, this is the person that we're following. Also, I wish more movies had like a gross fucking thing hanging out and killing people. That goes, that goes without saying. We always they had gross things. But the, that, there's a, I don't know, I was gonna say about structure. And oh, I think both of those movies help with avoiding,

they plan to a little bit, and not entirely, I used to get mad, there were all those videos that were on YouTube that were like, every movie is the same movie. We broke down the structure to show it, every story is the same story. Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Batman, they're all the same movie. Every movie is the same.

There's a lot of different ways to tell a movie that not Indiana Jones or Star Wars or Batman. There's lots of other ways to do it. I guess my dinner with Andre Clare's Bees. They're all the same. Jules and Jim last year at Marion Bad. Three godfathers. Jules and Jules and Jim last year at Marion bad three godfather's total godfathers. They're all the same movie wax the discovery of television among the bees. It's all the same. So it like I know the North uncle Boone. You can recall his past lives.

I I was a simple man. All these things. I think I think so it's a I think you owe it to your students to show them Hollywood movies that aren't all these things. I think so it's a, I think you owe it to your students to show them Hollywood movies that aren't exactly those things. So it's like, and then start interviewing. Cause there is a structure to, I mean, and that's the issue.

Don't show them, don't show them Eline cause Eline has no structure. That's the problem. Is that it's instead of being a structured movie, it's just kind of like, and it's like a child telling a story. And then, and then, and then, and then, and then and you're like, all right, where's this,

where's this going? I don't understand. Yeah. No, I think you just, I think that you should just have them watch as many movies that do interesting things with a screenplay as you can. Because like, I don't know, like you get into things like,

there's stuff that's like very like classically structured in a way that is sort of, you understand. This is a story, this is a Hollywood story, and then there's stuff that, in terms of horror, for instance, seeing Barbarian this year, I love the way that screenplay works, but it works very clearly in part because it is breaking structure. It is leading you to believe it is under one structure and it's a different one. And then you have to, but like that is something that you get to after understanding maybe like the basics of movies because it doesn't affect you the same way if this is the first movie you

have ever seen in your life, you know. I don't know if it's like- That'd be funny if Barbarian was the first person anyway, the first movie anyone ever saw in their life. So this is how movies were. Oh, yeah. I like this, I guess. first movie anyone ever saw in their life. So this is how movies were. Oh, movies are like this, I guess. It's how many movies are. That would be so funny. It's like a very simple version of dog tooth.

Like, yeah. Yeah. All the movies are like this. They're all like this. They all have just in long enough? Yes, all of them. I remember reading a tweet where somebody got out of a screening of Teton and a guy was telling his day.

He was like, yeah, all French movies are like this. They're crazy. Oh, man. Okay. Well, in all French movies, someone's belly is ripped open by a metal sphere. Yeah, it's adorable. That's what birthers like, Elliot. It's like a French baby's are all kids. A French baby's are all chrome.

Yeah, all French babies are chrome. That's why it seems weird to us. So that's why he's not freaked out when he delivers the baby. Exactly. Spoilers for Teton, I guess. It's time to recommend some movies. You can watch instead of Aline.

We just got out of October, the horror season I went to dismember the Alamo, the marathon at the Alamo Draftouse, and I wanna recommend my favorite of the films I watched their Paganini Horror, which... Paganini Horror? Paganini Horror, have you not seen this one? No, this would be right up your alley. Um, so this is one of these movies that, you know, exists in the liminal space between,

like a horror movie that I'm enjoying on its merits, because it's like bright and fun and, and does wild stuff and is also like bad because of production elements. It's a movie that oh yeah, this looks good. I believe I believe what I can tell is a film that was you know Spoken on set in English by Italian actors and then like they'd had American actors maybe dub over that so it was without an accent or something to that effect. It's possible. I mean, Italian movies, even at that time were still mostly,

they rarely recorded sound on set anyway. Yeah. Well, most of Italian film history, they would post record that. So even movies in Italian would be dubbed basically. Well, I'm just saying, like the lip motion appears to match the words, but not quite. So, it's one of those, and the screenplay is very literal-minded.

Perhaps a screenplay, one imagines maybe that was written to be performed in English by not English speaker. So everything that happens in the movie is being explained very literally at all moments in a way that makes it feel like Dan Brown wrote a goose bomb. The goose bomb looks like it's like okay. And it's like this wild plot about this old scrap of a Paganini music for piano, I guess, that they then adapt into a song.

But then that song has like nefarious, because like they like bite from a character that's obviously coded to be the devil. Like that one doesn't show up with a six, six, six briefcase or briefcase where the, that's the combination to the lock. That sounds great. Anyway, you get a sense of the vibes I'm talking about here. Mm-hmm. It's just, it's just fair. Like, especially with an audience, if you, if you see this,

this is a good one to get some of your goof minded friends around and watch this, it was a lot of fun. Yeah, it looks great. I'm going to recommend a movie that is playing in select cities right now, or maybe not depending on when listen to this episode. I'm going to recommend the new movie from our boy, Park Chan Wook. The movie is called Decision to Leave. It is, I think, a little bit sweeter than some of his other movies. Well, this is a film adaptation of the show I think you should leave, right? Uh-huh. Exactly. Wait. Yes, story about a, uh, detective who is investigating a murder and he, uh, his life becomes more complicated, uh, when he, uh, meets the, uh, widow of the

dead man and it is great and it's funny and it's, it's kind of less of a thriller than a lot of his other stuff, but it's very hot and it's great and I liked it a lot. Yeah, it was great. Thumbs up. Decision to leave. Check that shit out. And I'm going to recommend a Japanese movie from 1998. This is a movie called After Life written and directed by Hyrokazu Koreeda.

And this is a movie where it posits that when you die, you go to a facility where you are interviewed about your memories. And then you get to choose one memory and the people who work there make a movie of it. You watch the movie. And then that's your existence for the rest of eternity. It's just reliving that memory. And so we follow a few different people who are either running through their memory, trying to choose the right one, or having trouble choosing a memory.

And we talk to the people, and we meet the people who actually have to sit down and figure out how to make these as movies. And I found it to be a very beautiful movie and a very moving movie and funny at times, but also very sweet at times. And there's nothing for a movie that's about the afterlife, it's also super matter of fact and straightforward. And part of the fun part is when they're like, okay, this guy's memory is about flying a plane.

So I guess we got to figure out how to, how to, you know, West Anderson and Rushmore kind of like be kind of a rewind figure out how to make it feel like we're shooting a movie where a plane is flying. And so it's a, it's a, it's just a really good movie. And I found it to be just a very, just a very positive experience. So that's after life. And I watched it on the criterion channel.

I think it's still available there. Man, that's three very similar recommendations. Damn, I'm looking at, look, wait, I want to say looking up, I was looking at the Wikipedia entry for a Paganini horror and it says in it that it was prefaced on the idea that the close Kinski, the close Kinski bio peck Paganini was going to be a huge hit. So they had to have our rip off version of that. That's hilarious. Oh, well, and I think I'm pretty sure that Peggy Neor is more widely, widely remembered at this point. Yeah. Okay, well, you know, Elaine, Elaine, Elaine, Elaine, Elaine, Elaine, Elaine, Elaine, Elaine, Alain Alain Alain Alain Alain Alain Where we leave you Alain, it's been nice nothing here

We for new listeners Dan always personally addresses the film Yeah, and and big Very warmly this actually very sweet a very sweet ritual. I think we should do this. Yeah, you were only in our life a short time But you brought the three of us So get it. Yeah, thank you. And thanks to you, our listeners. Thanks to Maximum Fun, go to MaximumFun.org, see all the other shows on our podcast network. They aren't just, you know, faceless overlords, they're nice people, check them out. And thank you to Alex Smith, who edits and mixes the show and does his own stuff under the name Howell

Dottie, which is also his handle on Twitter. We were just on his fast track. We put out a song about a sexy xenomorph that I have sent to friends who surprised. I can hear the surprise tone in the text, back said, this is a real song. Yeah, that's the thing. It's like it's a goofy, dumb song about a sexy xenomorph, but it's also really well done thanks to Alex Smith and he made it. He made it. He made it pretty funky. Yeah, he did.

Guys, I actually have some exciting news I wanted to break. I sent a tape of that song to this manager. And he loves it and he wants to marry all of us. Oh, that's amazing. Even though we're all 12 years old. Yes, but don't worry, we're grown man whose face runs 12 year old bodies. So it's okay.

So it's not weird then. Yeah. All right, well, thank you for listening. For the floppy. So I've been Dan McCoy. I've been Stuart Wellington. Jess Wheele, E. Kaelin French again or a war. No hall All our bases are covered all three bases all three bases are belong to home is not

Not counted as a base. No, no home is a is just an idea the concept home is a state of mind is where the heart is It is where I want to be, but I guess I'm already there. That's where I left it. San Francisco. Mm-hmm. Okay, well Stuart lives in San Francisco now guys. Mola Ram took out my heart and put it in San Francisco. Put it in the next place.

Just go to San Francisco. Do you think that's what happened to Tony Bimmy? Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah, the original version was a do-it with Mola Ram. I left your heart in San Francisco and then they, you know, there was tensions between the two of them and Tony Bimmy ended up just recording it on his own. Yeah, eventually broke up.

But then Mola Ram told that story to Paul Schrader and he gave the inspiration for the movie Heart Beeps. M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M-M beeps.