The Josh Innes Show - Tales From St. Louis Cinema

Episode Date: May 21, 2025

Well, Jilly and I went to the movies yesterday. You know what that means.... It's truly remarkable how St. Louis people act in movie theaters. We always have a story. This story comes from our view of "The Penguin Lessons". The lady sitting next to Jill was really something. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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It's hard to believe, but I've lived in St. Louis now for over two years, which is longer than I lived in Nashville even, which is really just crazy. Like this last four years of my life, since about March of 2021 has gone by really freaking fast. You know, it felt like everything else was so slow. You know, I got to Houston again that were returned to Houston in October of 2016. And then by March, I guess it was March or

April, whenever it was that I got fired, I guess March I got fired at 790. That was in 2019. Then it was over two years before I got a full time job again. And that just seemed like it lasted forever. And that was mostly due in part to the Rona. I say I mean it was a large part was the Rona just this, you know, LSU won the national championship in in early 2020 and then everything just shut the fuck down and everybody knows what that was like. That stretch was awful and it just went so slow. Then I got that job in Nashville and I was there for just about

two years and now I've lived in Saint Louis for just over two years, which is hard to believe because this thing is flown right by it, especially without the job. It is flown by very fast. Whenever you know that your income has a shelf life, whenever you know that there's going to come a time whenever there's no more income coming in because you've got six months of severance and then after that you know you no longer have income, it goes by really fast. Like six months hauls ass. So it's just crazy to think that. It's a wild world. Things are bizarre, but here we are. But I bring this up

because I've been in St. Louis for over two years, and virtually every time I have gone to the movies in St. Louis to see a motion picture at the cinema, I have a story to tell about the people in the cinema. And yesterday was no exception. So I will share with you a story about what happened at the showing of the Penguin Lessons, I think is what this movie was called, The Penguin Lesson. We'll do that after these words.

Why do fintechs like Float choose Visa? As a more trusted, more secure payments network, Visa provides scale, expertise, and innovative payment solutions. Learn more at visa.ca slash fintech. So the movie is called The Penguin Lessons, and it's a movie that right after I saw the trailer, I wanted to see the movie because it seemed like a movie that right after I saw the trailer, I wanted to see the movie because it seemed like a movie that I would more than likely emote in. And

sometimes you just want to go to the cinema and emote. And this is a movie that I assumed nobody else would be in because it has like one showing at like one theater in town. I assumed that nobody would be there. Now you're probably asking, Josh, what the fuck is The Penguin Lessons? Well, The Penguin Lessons is a movie about a guy who's teaching English in Argentina. It's set in the 70s. It's a true story, at least based on a true story. And this guy goes over to Uruguay

during some sort of, you know, military up, some sort of uprising. He leaves Argentina for a while, goes to Uruguay to try to get laid for a while while he's off of school because the kids are out of school because of whatever the military situation is. So he goes over to Uruguay, tries to hook up with some chick, finds out the chick is married, but before he finds out she's married, they're walking on the beach together and they see a bunch of dead penguins covered

in oil because they were part of an oil slick, right? Well, one penguin appears to still be alive. So the lady who he's trying to bang is like, we should help this penguin out and like clean him off or whatever. And so they take him back up to a hotel and they clean off this penguin and the guy thinks he's gonna get laid but then she's like, oh no, I'm married, I can't do it. He's like, well shit. And then like somehow he gets stuck with this fucking penguin and then hijinks and soos. But as is usually the case in these movies with animals, the animal like helps

loosen up this rock hard exterior of this guy and it brings a bunch of people together and blah, blah, blah. And it's cute and it's a nice little story. And I genuinely enjoyed the movie. Like I thought it was a good movie. It was fine. It wasn't like the greatest thing ever. It was your typical human meets animal. Animal helps human learn something about himself and crack the rugged exterior type of deal, right? Like that's

essentially what this movie was. I expected to see this movie with nobody but Jillian myself. I have assumed this place was going to be empty. Now mind you, it was Tuesday. Tuesday is like the cheap Tuesday at Marcus Cinemas where you get a free small popcorn and $6 tickets. And so I mean, you go to the cinema, you buy a large sodie pop, get your free popcorn $6 ticket. It's not a bad day. You spent, you know, 12 bucks at the movie theater, which is a rare occurrence, right? So it's good. That's why we go on

Tuesdays. and we usually go during the day because you don't expect to face a crowd during the day. And usually we see movies that we would assume nobody else would want to see like The Penguin Lessons. Well, we were wrong because The Fucker was sold out. Just like I guess it was a week or two ago that we went to see Cheech and Chong and the place was full of old people. I guess it was a week or two ago that we went to see Cheech and Chong and the place was full of old people. I guess what happens on Tuesdays is old people go to the movies at 2

o'clock in the afternoon on cheap Tuesdays. It was all old people all old people with blankets. You know how I feel about blankets. I don't like bringing blankets to the movie theater, but people had blankets at the movie theater. They were all old people and they all talk really loud. But there was a special person in the cinema yesterday. And I don't mean like a celebrity or anything like not like Ozzie Smith was sitting next to us at the Penguin Lessons or anything like that. But as we're sitting there waiting for the movie to start, another rare occurrence, there were no trailers, no previews. Like that's how obsolete this movie was. There were no previews.

It was just like movie starts at 2 0 5. You don't have to see like whatever stupid movie is out. No, this is it. Every seat is full except the seat next to Jilly. As the movie is starting, this kind of heavyset older lady comes in and plops down next to Jillie. Now she's carrying like a duffel bag. Like I don't know if it was a purse or if it was like a tote or what but the fucker was like a duffel bag. It was huge and as she's sitting there as the movie's starting she just starts gradually pulling shit out of this bag.

Like shit that crinkles that you know didn't come from the movie theater, right? And I'm not one to judge people on sneaking shit into the movie. Like usually when I go to the movies, I like to have popcorn and M&Ms, right? If you run the movie theater, you're already getting the giant markup when I buy the medium or large popcorn. So you're getting your fucking money. I don't feel bad if I sneak in a Ziploc baggie with some M&Ms in it. I'm not going to spend $6.57 on a bag of

fucking M&Ms. Sorry. If you want to kick me out of the movie, kick me out. You want to call the cops, call the cops. You want to get into fisticuffs, go ahead. I'm already buying your Soty and your popcorn, your two biggest markup things. Last thing I'm going to do is spend seven more dollars on candy So I will bring in a ziplock bag of M&Ms I buy a big bag of M&Ms I put some of them in the ziplock bag and bring them with me to the movies deal with it, right?

Well, this woman was pulling shit out of there Like it just crinkling like I don't know what it was But it sounded like aluminum foil like she had made ribs or something It was just fucking eating them out of there. But anyway, so she's making this noise throughout the movie, like digging through this bag. She never puts the bag on the floor. The bag stays on her waist or on her lap the entire time.

She also has a phone, and this phone does not ring, but this phone makes like a strobing, beeping sound throughout the movie. Kind of like a doodledoo. And then like you'll hear that. And during the movie it's almost like too faint to hear. And then you'll get doodledoo like throughout the movie. It had to have happened a hundred times throughout this fucking movie. And I'm like, okay, whatever. Like to the point that we don't even get angry about shit anymore, Jilly and I will just

look at each other and try to avoid laughing at what's going on. This woman also was one of those people who laughed hysterically at things that people weren't laughing at, things that weren't hysterical, right? Like no one else in the theater is laughing. This is not something about Mary. This is not fall out of your seat laughter. This isn't Mary's got the jizz in her hair and it's sticking straight up and motherfuckers are falling out of their seats and dancing in the aisles. This is subtle, almost like kind of British

subtle humor, like the kind of humor like where, oh, there's a penguin. Oh, ha ha, that's cute. Not to this woman sitting next to Jilly. Every fucking time something would happen that she thought was funny, she would laugh hysterically, very loud, and she would comment on what she was seeing that made her laugh. So like let's say there's a scene where like at one point the main character is trying to like abandon this penguin so he throws him in the fucking ocean and starts walking away there's a long shot of him walking and then like a few seconds later you see the penguin trailing right behind him and the lady would go whole fucking movie shit that fucking movie. Shit that is not funny. Shit that is not like, oh my god, I just watched super

bad type of shit. And like, you know what? No, not like, oh my god, just period it on my leg. Not like that. Not like that kind of shit. Like literally just shit where like, oh, the penguin showed up again. Crinkle, crinkle of some. So every time she does this, Jillian and I look at each other and can't fucking stop laughing. All right, we're just laughing our balls off. It's just it's to the point where I can't even focus on movies when I attend them in St. Louis because these people like there's always fucking something like it's like I have no idea what's happening in the movie

because this woman won't shut the fuck up with her. Like I'm so I'm so locked in to what these people in the audience are doing. Then eventually someone else's phone rang like twice. Again, turn your fucking phone off at the movie. She was one of those kinds of people that would also kind of be able to predict what was about to happen, right?

So like there's a scene in the movie and I don't know if any of you are going to see this movie and I'll spoiler alert what the fuck ever but like there's a scene where like because they're not supposed to have a penguin at the school but then eventually like the headmaster sort of warms up to the penguin or you think he's kind of warmed up to the penguin. So you see a shot where the headmaster of the school is sitting out on like a terrace and it's just a shot of him and he's talking to someone and you don't know who it is

and this woman goes, he's talking to the penguin. I bet he's talking to the penguin. He's talking to the fucking penguin. Of course he's talking to the fucking penguin. It's called the penguin fucking lessons. But the greatest moment of all of them, now mind you, this is a human meets animal, animal changes life of human movie. And as you know is generally the case in those movies, things end great until the very end of the movie when animal croaks, right? That's just kind of how it goes. Spoiler alert, bad things happen in these movies. Like Marley and Me. I refuse to watch Marley and Me because I don't want to cry. I know the fucking dog dies. And everybody expects a dog or the animal to die in these

movies. That's why when Bill Murray put out this movie, a couple of, I forgot what it was called, some dog movie, and it was like, don't worry, the dog doesn't die at the end is kind of the tagline of the movie right so like that's kind of how these movies go you anticipate the animal dying right so as I'm kind of like bracing myself for this like I'm probably going to cry because you sit there and you start thinking about your dead animals you start you start emoting and you're like this is going to be an emotional scene I now know what it's like to have an animal die in my home. I sobbed for days and days. So I know that this penguin that changed this man's life and changed this school, the penguin that brought everybody together,

I just fucking know that this penguin's going to die and it's going to crush my fucking soul. I just know it. It's just a matter of how they present the death. Like you go into this movie knowing the penguin's gonna die It's just a matter of how they decide to show you the penguin dying That's going to determine whether or not you cry and shed tears and are sitting there sobbing in the theater or what? So I'm prepared for it So, you know, there's a scene like I like I cannot tell you my story without Spoiling this fucking movie that none of you are gonna see anyway. Like, news flash, the fucking penguin dies. You know it by watching the trailer, you know by looking at the poster, the fucking penguin is gonna die, okay?

Everyone knows it. So anyway, he walks into his apartment or wherever he's looking for the penguin, he goes out to the terrace and the terrace is just laying there and he's dead. This woman yells, oh my god he's dead! And at that point I'm on the verge of losing it because this penguin is laying there dead. The man is crying over the dead penguin and this woman next to Jillie just keeps making these noises. These This woman next to Jillie just keeps making these noises, these, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. And like I am at the point where I can't, I like, it's like when you're in the library in school and you know if you look at your buddy, you're going to fucking laugh and you're

going to get in trouble. So you have to bury your fucking head in your backpack to make sure you don't laugh. She's just making these audible gasps and noises. Nobody else is doing this. There might be a couple people who have a tear here, a tear there, because it's fucking sad. News flash, spoiler alert, the fucking penguin's dead, okay? And like the tears are fucking flowing out of like these people. And this woman next to just like, oh, oh, oh, oh. And I'm laughing my balls off to the point that I can't even emote. I came to this fucking movie to emote.

You whore. I came to this movie to cry. And you son of a bitch, you stole that from me because I'm sitting there laughing my dick off. I can't even watch the scene because my head is turned and my face is buried in my off. I can't even watch the scene because my head is turned and my face is buried in my hand so I don't fucking laugh. Then movie ends whatever. Me and Jillian, we've been looking at each other the

whole time. I'm talking to Jillian on the way out of the movie and she goes, first of all, this woman smelled horribly. I'm like, I couldn't smell her. She's like, she smelled so bad. That's why I was leaning next to you. She smelled so bad that Jilly came home and took a shower. But here's the best part of all of this and this is something that I didn't hear. All I heard was the lady going, oh, oh, and occasionally she'd yell at the screen, oh my god, that's the

penguins there, like that type of shit. Also at one point in the movie she got up, wobbled her fat ass out of the theater for ten seconds. I'm guessing she got up to check her phone and then came back. But the best part is this, Jilly goes, you know that she was like saying shit to herself during the scene when the penguin died, right? I'm like, I heard her making noises and shit.

She goes, no. during the scene when the penguin died right I'm like I heard her making noises and shit the oh no she goes no she kept telling she kept saying I had to put Missy down I had to put Missy down I'm like the fuck is this woman doing so like during this scene where again spoiler alert penguins fucking dead you know the penguins gonna be dead it's an animal movie the animal brings the people together, the animal always dies. That's how it goes. The woman was sitting there with her giant fucking sack on her lap, the whole movie eating shit out of aluminum foil. And when the penguin fucking croaks, she's like, she starts like telling her, she had to put Missy down. I had to put Missy down. I had to do it. Like, I had to put Missy down. Like, what the fuck?

And let me tell you kids, if you ever decide to make a trip to St. Louis, some would tell you, like, go to the Gateway Arch, go see a Cardinals game, go to the Hill, the great old Italian neighborhood with tons of great Italian food, it's one of the last remaining little Italy's in the country. They would tell you to do all that. I would tell you to go see a movie in the afternoon on a Tuesday and you will hear the, you will come out with 10 different fucking stories. These people are wild and you won't remember what happened in the movie because you can't pay attention to the movie because you're just waiting for the next thing that these dipshits are going to do. The next thing they're going to yell to each other. Like during the Cheech and Chong movie, like the guys

viewed the movie getting louder as like a challenge for them to get louder in their inane conversation. Like, oh, there's this loud noise. Yeah. And then I was like, I think it needs to be lanced. Yeah. Whew. Anyway, more to come.