The Josh Innes Show - Random Thoughts: Bros

Episode Date: October 3, 2022

I was reading a story about this new movie "Bros" staring Billy Eichner. "Bros", from what I gather, is a movie about gay dudes and their relationships. Cool. I have no qualms with that. In fact, based on the star of the movie and the fact that Judd Apatow is producing, I think I'll like it. That said, the movie is a dud at the box office and the star is blaming homophobes. Let's discuss the art of blaming the Boogie Man for our failures. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Josh Innes Show. Howdy hi everybody, Josh back again. I don't know, like I feel like I'm just gonna, when I have random thoughts and I'm sitting at the radio station, I'm sitting at home and I have random thoughts, I might just come in and maybe do 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 15, I don't know. When I have random thoughts, when I see a story, I'll just go with it sometimes. Is that cool with you guys? Just kind of let her rip. Because there are times when I sit down and try to do an hour podcast,

and I couldn't think of all the things I found interesting. But when I'm scrolling through and I'm seeing stories in that moment, I just want to go post something so you guys can have some content. So I saw a story. I like Billy Eichner. I like Billy Eichner. I think Billy Eichner's funny. Billy Eichner was great in a show called Billy on the Street, where he basically just goes up and harasses people with weird trivia questions on the street,

gives them a dollar. I mean, truly, it was a brilliant concept for a television show. I think it started as a funny-or-die type of thing, like an online thing. And then he just fucking, he crushes. Like, it is so funny and so awesome. And so, like, basically it's frenetic. And it kind of fits his personality, or at least the public personality that we see him when he plays characters in movies and shows.

It's just kind of over-the-top bombastic. You know, he's gay, but it's not like kind of the stereotypical gay that we've seen forever, kind of like dainty gay. It's kind of obnoxious, brash, in-your-face gay. And I really enjoy it. Me and Jilly love watching Billy on the Street, laughing our asses off at Billy on the Street. And in fact, like sometimes when I do trivia on the air, I try to do it in a Billy on the Street kind of way where you ask an absurd question and a lot of times you're going to know the obvious answers,

like a rapid fire. Like when we were in Philly and everybody was obsessed with Mike Trout, we did a bit called Mike Trout or Jesus. And it's just a rapid fire, like, this guy walked on water. Jesus, this guy hit seven home runs. Okay.

And that was the whole point of it. It was a building on the street type of thing. I'm not ashamed to say that when I see something like that, and I think it's a brilliant type of idea, that you can always take something from that, glean something from that and go, okay, that's pretty cool. Maybe I can do something with that. Also, he was great in Parks and Rec. He was in, I think, the last season or two of Parks and Rec.

Maybe just the last... What season was that? I forgot which season exactly he was in, but he played a guy named Craig whenever the two cities, when Eagleton and Pawnee came together and worked in the same office. He was in there, and my God, he was perfect on that show too. He's great. And Billy Eichner has a new movie out called Bros, which I guess is like, from what I gather, it's about gay shit.

I don't know. It's about gay dudes. I don't give a fuck if you're gay, but apparently it's about gay dudes. Fine. Cool. Maybe it's funny. Maybe it's not. It's produced by Judd Apatow.

And this movie Bros has not made a ton of money at the box office. It's done well in L.A., New York, done decent in Chicago. But outside of that, people aren't going to see the movie. Okay, fine. They're just not interested. Maybe Billy Eichner, for being real, Billy Eichner might not be a guy that draws people to the theater, which is very possible. I bet you there's a lot of people who have no idea who Billy Eichner is, who Billy on the Street is. Billy on the Street was an online thing, but it was also on TV.

What channel carried that? It was like an offbeat type of channel. It wasn't like it was on ABC or TNT or some major network. It was kind of buried. So it's one of those things that who the hell knows. But if people actually saw it, but maybe he doesn't open a movie to use an industry parlance. Maybe he doesn't open a movie and maybe that's the case. So the movie opened, made $4.8 million. It's a disappointing opening. It's a Judd Apatow produced film. They're usually guaranteed to be hits. This one's not. And people just didn't go see it, which happens a lot. People don't see movies. Well, here's where I'm annoyed. I don't know if this is an honest answer or if this is a facetious answer or what from Billy Eichner. But when asked about why the movie wasn't as successful as it should have been, essentially the guy said, hey, straight people aren't going to see it and that's the issue with it.

And he says, quote, everyone who isn't a homophobic weirdo should go see it. Now, again, when you read this, and I didn't see the comment or see what he said or the video of it, but I did see everyone who isn't and isn't is in all caps. So of course he could just be being the Billy Eichner you see in movies. Fine. But if he's being honest at all that, oh, homophobia is the reason people aren't going to see this movie. Well, then I think it's bullshit. And that annoys me because people make too many excuses for why their shit doesn't work out. Now, sometimes great shit just isn't seen by people for a multitude of reasons. A lot of times things just don't work out in a lot of cases.

And maybe there's someone that was holding you back or there was some outside force in it. But ultimately, a lot of times things just won't work out and it'll be a perfect storm. Great things won't be seen by people. There's a lot of movies I love that weren't seen by a lot of people that I think are great movies. One of my favorite movies is Pump Up the Volume with Christian Slater. Nobody went to see Pump Up the Volume with Christian Slater and it disappeared from the theaters. But I love it and it's a cult classic and it's one of my favorite movies. Like that happens, right?

Sometimes people just don't find your shit. Sometimes it's because people have a bias. Sometimes it's because the network gives up on it or the studio gives up on it. All those things. Like we talk a lot on here about excuses and making excuses. And like I'm accused of making excuses a lot and I think sometimes that's valid. I think that's fair. But I also think I'm fair about criticizing myself. I can say, you know, 790 fucked me, but I didn't do myself any favors

at 790 in certain instances. Two things can be true at the same time. And that's very possible. But when I see stories like this and the intimation is, well, homophobes and straight people didn't want to go see this movie, maybe that's true, and maybe they just didn't want to see your fucking movie. You know, we see this a lot in cinema, when people who the media loves, people who the critics love, and that's an important part too, right, because this movie's getting good reviews. Well, critics aren't going to give bad reviews to a Judd Apatow movie about gay dudes. There's a 0% chance that happens.

That's why it's hard to believe what anybody says about anything like that's why I don't read movie reviews because you can see boy this movie got great reviews yeah but now more than ever people are scared shitless to give a bad review to something that could be deemed powerful or involve something sort of if you want to call it taboo or controversial

like a gay relationship or abortion or whatever they're not going to give it a bad review see 20 years ago I think people loved writing shitty reviews. There was a whole book dedicated. You had the Stinkers book. You had the I Hated, Hated, Hated, Hated This Movie by Roger Ebert. You had the Leonard Maltin book. I used to sit at Barnes & Noble, and I was obsessed.

And people ask, hey, Josh, how do you know so much about movies that you weren't even alive to see? Because I would sit at Barnes & Noble in Baton Rouge, and they had these big, fluffy, plush chairs, and they were awesome. And I would sit in these chairs, and I would go to the Starbucks and get a Frappuccino double blended, venti mocha Frappuccino double blended. And I would sit in that chair and I would sit there for hours like the Barnes and Noble was a library. And I would read the Leonard Maltin movie, big book of movie reviews. I would read the Roger Ebert book. I hated, hated, hated this movie. And that's how I learned about how these movies reviewed by critics and what was a bomb, what was a turkey, all that shit. And I used to read it

and I love that shit, right? Critics, I believe, used to love to say scathing shit and critics used to love shitting on movies because honestly, it's easier to be negative about something than it is positive. It's more interesting to be negative about something than it is to be positive about something. When I was at LSU, I had to take two summer school classes to actually get in. One of them was a communication studies class where we sat around for the summer and watched my big fat Greek wedding. And the other one was one where you had to write something, and I chose to write a movie review for an English class. And I wrote a review of Freddy versus Jason. That was my, like I said, you know what? Well, first of all, I tried to write a review about something I thought was

really good. Movie I liked, like a Boogie Nights or something, or pump up the volume. Something that I thought was really, really good. I couldn't. Like you say, I thought this movie was fucking great there. That's all you got. But when you dislike something, it's so much easier to just unload and say vile, horrible shit about it. It's, and you can be funnier and snarkier. Like it's so much easier to write a review about like a Larry, the cable guy, Delta farce than it is to write a review of Amadeus. Why? Because one is an all-time great movie. One is Larry the Cable Guy. So it's a lot easier to write negative. It was the same way on

the radio. The reason I liked when teams would lose is because the next day would be more compelling. And that's a dirty little secret that people don't tell you is when they're on the radio and you claim to be rooting for a team, ultimately it's kind of fun when they lose. Why is it fun when they lose? People are angrier. The radio's better. I used to talk to an old PD of mine at WJBO, Matt Kennedy was his name, and we would do the postgame show, the unofficial phones first LSU postgame show. We were not the official station. We would do phones first postgame. That was our thing. And he would always say the best thing for us on a Saturday is LSU to have a close loss at home because people be in their cars. They'd be pissed. They'd call. They'd be passionate. It would be great radio. And that's true. And the same with movie reviews. It was so much easier to write a negative review. That's what made Roger Ebert. The movies he would negatively review were far more interesting the reviews were than the positive reviews. It's kind of shifted now. And the way it's gone with

reviewing anything is people are a little bit softer. They're not as negative about stuff. And some of it's because I think people have more of an understanding about people's feelings and emotions in some cases like you go back to the mid-90s when Leno is doing Monica Lewinsky shit and SNL is mocking everyone you don't see that kind of shit anymore and I think part of it is just the trend changes I think you see a different trend

and the trend is people are a little bit nicer unless they disagree with you politically then they think you're a piece of shit and they say horrible things and want your family to die. But if it's just like movie reviews and stuff, most people don't want to write a negative review, especially when it's a movie about gay people. You're not going to get a negative review. So I don't really trust movie reviews. I don't trust critics when it comes to it. I just choose to watch it. Some movies that I've looked at recently that had gigantic ratings and positive reviews are ones that all these critics loved and all they're brilliant. And then I saw them and I

truly thought they were a piece of shit. Now, is part of that because I have a natural inclination to just go the other way? I am what you would call a, oh hell, what's the word? A contrarian. Like I don't do it on purpose. I don't set out to be a contrar, what's the word, a contrarian. Like I don't do it on purpose. I don't set out to be a contrarian. I am just a natural contrarian. That is my overall thing. When someone says something, my first thought is how can it be like, put them in their place with something, even if it's something I enjoy.

Even if they're right about something and I like it, that's my first inclination is to find the other side of it. I'm fucked up. I don't know what to tell you. That's just how I am. But when you look at like movie reviews, right? And I haven't seen this bros movie that we're talking about this Billy Eichner movie that he says people aren't watching because they're homophobic. And again, he could be full of shit and just kind of busting balls. Who knows? Like he's got a wacky personality and he's funny and I fucking think he's great.

But you start to look back at some of these movies that got amazing reviews over the last, I don't know, two, three, four years. Went to see the Lady Superbad movie. Giant piece of shit. It was boring. Oh, but it's not for you. Well, it doesn't matter. There's a lot of movies that aren't for me that I think are fucking hysterical or funny or great, right? We got to get past a point where we're like, hey, this movie's not for you. Movies should be for everyone, right? That's what they should be made for. And the job and the objective should be to get as many people to watch and like your movie. We've got to get past this bullshit of, well, it's not for you.

It's not really your type of movie. Well, there's a lot of shit that I watch that in theory I probably shouldn't like because it's not for me and I find it to be fucking amazing so we got to get past that but Lady Ghostbusters got incredible reviews you watch Lady Ghostbusters it was pretty it was it was a piece of shit it was just a remake of the original and no one cared and it wasn't funny it had no heart it was just there but it got amazing reviews you cannot trust people who are critics because people who are critics, especially in 2022, in this era, in the era of the Internet and social media and Twitter, they are afraid to write something negative about something that will get them really negative blowback on social media. It's easier to just go out and write a positive review about a piece of shit like Lady Ghostbusters than to say Lady Ghostbusters was really a giant piece of shit. And all it is great. Like if they run like write a truthful review of Lady Ghostbusters, here's what you would

say. Well, it's pretty much a carbon copy of the original, except it's not fucking funny. But hey, it's got ladies in it. So girl power there, write your real review. But instead it's boy, this is powerful. And it shows all the all the girls can now see girl Ghostbusters, and they think that they can do it. It's all bullshit, but people are afraid of the negative blowback. And real talk, that's why I don't say a lot of shit on social media.

What's the point? People are going to attack, and people are going to be assholes, and then you get in trouble. So what's the point of saying certain shit? I usually just hold it in because I don't feel like dealing with the bullshit. But a lot of people don't feel like dealing with bullshit. So they just write something that's positive or kind of lukewarm and say here instead of writing, hey, this movie is just the original Ghostbusters but with fucking women. Or this super bad for girls is not super bad for girls at all because super bad was fucking funny. This is not.

But that's the way these things work and people are afraid of their own shadows on it. And so they just write positive reviews. And I think that's kind of what you get here. Now, maybe this Billy Eichner movie is brilliant. I'm not dismissing it. I'm not going to look and say, oh, it's Billy Eichner. He's in a gay movie. It's called Bros. And say, oh, I'm not going to

like it offhand. I bet I will like it. It's Apatow who's made some great fucking movies. Is he a bit annoying? Yes. Has he gotten over the top with just being kind of woke? Yes. But Apatow makes fucking great movies. Historically, he's made great ones. Are they too fucking long? Yes. Could they be cut in half even? Yes. But Apatow makes some really good fucking movies. So it's Apatow who I like. On know on the whole I like Apatow I really like Billy Eichner and find him to be fucking hysterical I don't care about gay shit like do I want to watch two dudes blowing each other not really not my thing however I don't give a fuck that you do it

I'm not icky'd out by gay relationships and I don't give a fuck who fucks who none of that impacts my life at all so every piece of this movie to me says, hey, this is going to be really fucking good and I will probably like it. But then you get the star of the movie saying, well, homophobes are the reason it's not doing well. Sometimes we have to look at ourselves and just say, you know what? Sometimes shit doesn't work out. Sometimes things aren't as good as I think they are. I've had to do this when I self-reflect. And again, I talked about this earlier, but I know a lot of people listen to me and go, Josh, you don't have any accountability, which is bullshit.

I have a lot of accountability. It is possible for two things to be true at once, as we discussed. It's very possible. There could be some issue that I had, and it could be someone else's fault that something was fucked up too. Two people can have blame and be culpable in something but we're so anxious to just throw an arrow and say this person is the reason or this action is the reason why this didn't work out like great and it's also easy to make a target out of you know homophobes who like by the way i don't really see a lot of these homophobes out there are there some people that want to watch two dudes or two chicks fucking?

Yeah. But these mythical homophobes out there aren't nearly as many as people claim. It's the same with racists and everybody else, but people need a fucking boogeyman. It is possible that maybe your movie just sucked, right? It is possible. I don't think it will based on the fact that it's Apatow, based on the fact that it's Billy Eichner. I don't believe that movie will suck.

To me, it sounds like it's got all the makings of being pretty fucking good. However, it is possible that it just does suck, and maybe people didn't want to see it, or the storyline wasn't interesting to people. It's also very possible, because the comeback would be, but it's got amazing reviews. As I said earlier, a lot of fucking dudes just write reviews because they're afraid of

being told they're homophobic just like this so let's say you write a negative review for that movie think about how easy it is for someone to just come back and say yeah but you're fucking homophobic it's not for you and then boom you're finished what's the fucking point just write something nice about it and move on it's the same with a movie with a largely black cast or largely hispanic cast like i'll tell you a movie that i thought sucked uh and now i don't even remember the damn name of it my big fat chinese wedding or some shit what the hell was the damn chinese movie or what was it called um my crazy crazy rich asians was the name of the movie it was literally a vanilla bland romantic comedy and the only difference is it was loaded with Asians, who by the way,

are a lovely people and hysterical. However, it was literally just a fucking romantic comedy. There was nothing special about it. It didn't change the world. There was nothing different between that and My Big Fat Greek Wedding or Pretty Woman or Sweet Home Alabama. It's all the same homogenized rom-com bullshit, right? But you can't say that about it because it's Crazy Rich Asians and it's an entire Asian cast. So you can't say that. So you just sit back and go, yeah, what the fuck ever. But Josh, Crazy Rich Asians got amazing reviews. Of course, Crazy Rich Asians got amazing reviews. No one wants to be the one that says this is just a generic romantic comedy piece of shit, but with Asians in it. Nobody wants to say that. Anyway, again, just something random that's on my fucking mind. I see a story. I go, if you guys like that, I'm doing it this way.

That's cool. Like I got time during the day. So if I go in and lay something down for 10 fucking minutes, 15 minutes, five minutes, whatever, I'm just trying to pump some shit out to you guys because I owe it to you and I love you. So anyway, I love you guys. Until next time.