The Worst Idea Of All Time - Episode Forty - Paul Scheer

Episode Date: November 26, 2015

That's right listeners, Mr Paul Scheer (host of How Did This Get Made) - the reason you probably know about Tim and Guy whatsoever, is finally on the podcast. And it's his third time watching Sex and The City 2! Paul joins the lads from Los Angeles and discusses men's packages, the general apparent loathing among the girls that seems to have spilled into the movie and a lack of desirable male partners for the film's protagonists. Thanks to KARMA COLA for their support of this episode. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ladies and gentlemen, before we get this episode underway, I would like to say a big thank you on behalf of myself and Guy Montgomery. It's Tim Batt speaking here from the West Idea of All Time. I would like to say thank you to Karma Cola. Just the best company. Just the best company. They make cola, but they do it the right way, folks. They go into Sierra Leone. They make fair trade agreements with the cola farmers right these are the folks out in the coal face they are corralling the cola nuts cola nuts notoriously

aggressive they've got cola dogs on them corralling them together and then they've got to milk the cola they do it very tastefully very ethically very gently for the cola so the cola is not upset they're just they're treating everyone with the greatest of respect not only that but after the having all the fair trade agreements they've got this foundation which has raised over 50 grand so far which goes to support eight villages in sierra leone they build bridges they've they've put up a rice processing plant they've sent 50 girls to school which is a fucking big deal in west africa folks get them behind kamakola it's a delicious drink it uses real sugar there's no artificial bullshit in it it's just good stuff and if you're in the states you can't buy it there yet so find a way

to import it smuggle it in or lobby them them online. They're on Twitter, they're on Facebook. Go, thank them for their service to the world community. Tell them your old mates Timbo and Guy Guy sent you, and without further ado, here's the bloody episode. Thanks to Karma. It's the worst idea of all time sake we're not about to do a director's commentary right now instead we've shipped in a friend all the way from america i really don't like you're introducing our guests but don't get too excited hey no no that's how you do it you gotta you you you gotta temper the expectations and then suddenly for blammy you got a special guest coming through the door ladies and gentlemen i'd like to welcome a special guest to the worst idea of All Time family. Probably the reason why you know that we exist at all. It all comes back to this man. Patient X, he's been described as before. The guy who started it all.

It's Paul Scherf. We'll clap. We're clapping on our end. Are you getting those claps, Paul? Thank you. I heard the claps, and I appreciate a low-pressure intro. So I feel like setting the expectations low is good for me. Excellent.

And man, oh man, 40 weeks of this fucking movie? You better believe it, Paul. I saw it twice in the theater. What? Yes. Now, I need to unpack this in a couple different ways. So my wife, who's on the podcast, How Did This Get Made? She is a huge Sex and the City fan.

And I don't know if, is Sex and the City as big there as it is here? I mean, here it's huge. Well, it's all dead now, right? Like, it's still dead in America now. It was big here. Nothing in New Zealand is big in the same way something's big in America, but it was pretty unanimously popular. Okay, so here, I was in New York when Sex and the City was going on.

I think my wife believes she is. I am one of these people. Especially when you lived in New York at the time of the show, it was like, I am them. They are me. And so after many years of me taking my wife to Indiana Jones or Star Wars, whatever, she's like, now you're going to come with me to my jam jam you're gonna see my movie and and i took that and i was like fine i'll go see it so i saw the first movie and i'm gonna say right off the bat

i like the first movie i'm not i'm not look for what this is and i'm not gonna be above it i i watched the first movie i i believe also twice in the the theater. That's fun. Yeah, and I could see my wife enjoying it. It was really fun. It was like bringing, I don't know, it was like I guess the same feeling that you would get if you brought a child to see Star Wars for the first time. Yeah, is June, does she have the box sets? Is she a real diehard Sex and the City person? I've seen her bin. She doesn't have the DVDvds but i've seen her

june doesn't have many possessions she doesn't like to collect things she's a transient all right yeah she likes to say she has a uh a wooden she has a bindle and a stick yeah and uh whatever she can't keep in there gets thrown away um she's always cooking beans on trains um we figured this about you so you know it was but she i've watched her binge it i've watched her like sit in front of the tv and watch episode after episode it it was in our house uh enough that i know and and she's a fan she's a big fan and her excitement for the premiere was pretty amazing, the first one. And we're going to get to the second piece of crap, but the first one. But it was so fun because she was, like, getting large groups of people together.

And in the States, when it came out, it was on par with, like, I believe it came out roughly around the time of Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull, the first one or something like that. So it had that same energy, but it was all these like women and going to the movies and it was fun. And she said to me after the,

she saw the first movie, she was like, I get it now. I get what you go through when you see your movies. I get it and I love it. That's so nice that you guys finally had a point of understanding because Paul F. Tompkins said the same thing

that his wife was like kind of a lifelong fan of the series and really nerded out about when the movies came out well and that was it and so it was like it was really fun and i felt like not proud or excited but it was like oh this is kind of a cool thing because i feel like you know that fanaticism to go see you know a trip you know some sort of like you know whether it's lord of the rings or the matrix or whatever it seems oftentimes more geared to the males like you know and so it was really fun to see her really get involved and then all that set up to say to watch her experience this was amazing because she went through the same thing that i went through when

i saw phantom menace which was yeah it's good i think it's good i think it's good and it takes you a while before you could admit that it's total and complete garbage it's a garbage movie never heard it compared to phantom menace before but there seems like the perfect analogy for this film uh well because yeah go ahead no i was gonna say paul while this is all well and good it doesn't really speak to why oh why you would then after sitting through this experience with the lovely june and her bindle uh insist upon revisiting the movie in the majesty of the cinema yeah well because of the same idea of the phantom menace you can't well at least my my in my interaction with phantom menace was when i saw it i saw it and i and i didn't i didn't know it was bad i was too psyched and i was like i

need to see it again because i almost felt like I was too excited to enjoy it little did I know I couldn't enjoy it because it wasn't a good film like you know and I felt the same way with Crystal Skull too but I just you know like like it should be good right and so I think I went back again with June as a like she's like it is good it's really interesting and so I went and saw it with her and then i went to see it again with casey her writing partner who's from happy endings so like that and her husband and so we went as like a double date it was the second one that we saw and i i think midway into the second viewing of it she quickly was able to be like oh it is bad i wasn't wrong because i was very harsh on it

she was confused by it the first time the second time we both left on the same page one of my favorite things about how did this get made your podcast paul is is june's insights because she's like she's wired differently from the rest of us and she just comes in there with a very different perspective so after the second viewing was she even even she was convinced convinced that it was not a great film? Yeah. And, you know, now I'm giving you my impression of her. I'm sure if you had her on this podcast, she would have a lot of saving graces. But in previous years or as the years have gone by, we have talked about this on the, you know, briefly.

And I've seen her admit that this is not a good movie and and being disappointed by it like watching her get disappointed by her friends i was like now you know how i felt when i saw crystal skull like you they betrayed me everyone that i loved betrayed me here you know and and i i think that was a an interesting thing i mean and and knowing that i had to watch this movie with you guys i will first say i was like i kept on putting it off and then i said well i'm gonna create a viewing plan which will allow me to watch 10 minutes of it a day for like 10 days and i was like that will create something in me where it's not insurmountable. And long story short, I didn't do the 10 minutes. And this morning, I woke up early.

I came into work. And I put it on. And I've been furious. I've been furious ever since it started. I just finished it. And I'm still angry. This movie made me... From minute one, it makes me angry.

And you should be pretty, like, I mean, attuned to this sensation as well, because you watch rubbish movies constantly. And you've already seen this one twice! I know, but you know, there's something about this that is... And this is what I really want to talk to you guys about because after 40 times of watching it you must know like there's something different about the makeup of this movie that's it's infuriating it makes me i don't know why it makes me angry i just

i i don't know if it's like maybe it's i don't like the comedy i don't like the I don't like the comedy. I don't like the – I don't like what they're doing. I think what they do a majority of the time is offensive. And that's something that I'm never offended by. I'm like, I think this is – your point of view is just being offensive to this. Like, it's so – I mean, look. You can only – like, a movie that essentially has, like, a Marx Brothers-esque peak out in burkas. Yeah. Like that is not played for like.

Go ahead, yeah. No, sorry, you're saying that it's not played for. It's not played for. It's not played for the right laugh. It's like, no, no, they're actually just doing it. Like I don't think they're commenting on it. Like that whole final chase sequence or whatever that is like what the fuck i think what makes it so aggravating is it's the it's sort of the juxtaposition between such a garish garish sorry high-end style like you know everything within

the world of the film is so glamorous and then how little attention or like care has been put into the actual content of the film it just it slaps you on the face over and over. It's like, by all accounts, it should be a functioning movie. But it's just... It's not. It's not even close. And you know what it is? I find a real joy in...

I call them a four-quadrant movie. It's not my term. But the idea that it's a movie that can appeal to your grandparents, your parents, your kids, the boys, the girls. It fills all the quotas, all ages, all sexes. And Green Lantern is a perfect example of a four-quadrant. We're going to make a movie with Ryan Reynolds. It's going to appeal to everybody.

And when they try to appeal to everybody, they alienate. It becomes a whole mishmash. This is not trying to appeal to everybody at all. And that's what makes it even worse because it's like, oh, they had carte blanche. They could do whatever they wanted to do. And they have done it successfully for years on a TV show. They made the first movie and then this one it's almost like um like you went like you had too much sugar or something it's like

like it's like they all got hit in the head with hammers i don't know like it's like there's the shell of the movie is there but the inside is empty it is hollow a chocolate bunny or something there's nothing on the inside it just it keeps coming back to this thing and that's what makes the length of this film which i think i may have mentioned every episode of our podcast it's too long but that's what makes two hours and 26 minutes right of hollowness like this there's nothing to kind of latch on into and and that's a half hours. And that's what I think makes me angry about it. Like, I don't mind a bad movie. I don't mind a movie that's trying.

Like, even on our podcast, very rarely do we have a movie that elicits a genuine anger in me. The only other movie that elicited that kind of anger was Last Airbender. Because it was, like, another movie that should have been good based on cool source material that was just like what it's nothing it's hollow it's empty it's soulless and I think that's the other thing it's like I don't think that these people like their characters they think that these oh no they're all they hate them yeah I hate them well it's like watching I hate fuck yeah and like this iteration of the characters i'm not super familiar with the show but yeah there is nothing redeeming in any of them they are all just baddies like and and they're like so so superficial it's like it's like yeah oh it's terrible

uh we're really coming in heavy on the on the hate parade early and that's fair i mean we've seen it 40 times you've seen it three between us. I mean, we've seen it 40 times. You've seen it three. Between us, we've probably cumulatively seen it 43 times more than necessary. Let's, to cap off the first quarter hour, let's try and shine a little sun ray into this dark, stormy cloud. A shining light.

You can lead, Tim. What we like to do, Paul, is just pick a part of the film that we actually genuinely enjoyed this week because otherwise it's just us shitting on a movie

52 times a day and no one wants that it's pointless no I have a I have a I have a moment I want to hear your guys

moments as well okay mine briefly is uh I can't even I've written it down as a note I can't even remember it what bit is that

smash right may or may not Oh that's right, it's when they're in the karaoke scene We've really had to dig into the minutiae of the film now Paul To elicit this after week 40 They're in the karaoke scene, they're about to do the big number Miranda is learning from one of the waiters How to order a drink

And he says something akin to smash right which I can only imagine I'm mispronouncing an Arabic way of saying listen to what I'm saying because he keeps repeating how to say and eventually Miranda who's been playing the role of enthusiastic learner the whole trip just is like

I don't give a fuck how you say it just bring me the god damn drink well she does it she says yeah that's fine. Right. She dismisses him. No, but you can see in her mind, there's that switch that's flipped. We're just like, just look.

It's the same bit as when Big's trying to nail Penelope Cruz's name, and then just everyone gives up real quick. Carry on, carry on. Very well. Well, it's also the point of this movie, and I'm going to get to the thing that I like, but I also want to talk about a theory that I have too. This movie was like, oh, let's get all these cameos in here because they want to be in the movie, and they just kind of shoehorn them in without real any – not even trying.

And I was going to bring up – well, maybe I'll hold this thought. We'll finish this section and I'll bring my thought to you. It's free for a man. It's jazz, baby. Come on, baby. We're riffing over here. Here's my thought. Do you think that by being on this set and interacting with this director and this writer and these actresses that this was the beginning of the end for Miley Cyrus? these actresses that this was the beginning of the end for Miley Cyrus?

Do you think that this was the beginning of eroding her nice image and then started putting her on a downfall of being this insane, aggressive performer? Wow. Well, let me sidestep your question for just a moment while I try and track it in my mind. Because as you know, Paul, we watch Grown Ups 2 for 52-ups too for 52 weeks initially yes i do really listen to many of them really gravitated towards um patrick schwarzenegger's character he was kind of like an extra that had one or two grunts as scripted lines in the film and of course he was romantically entangled with uh miley for a bit in the early days i think just before she sort of had her public fall from grace some would say evolution and

boy were we delighted, shocked and amazed to see Miley just appear on the screen in front of us. Actually probably chart Miley and Patrick's relationship in accordance with the start of this podcast because I know when we started they were together and then the breakup happened while we had to look at Miley's

on a weekly basis. I think it is kind of, you could look at it as like a stepping stone or a landmark moment at which the turning of the screws started to occur. But to accredit it all to Sex and the City 2, I mean, I feel like these are... Nope, fuck you, guy.

Billionaire teen celebrities, there's always going to be a turning point. I'm saying, Paul, this is Mattrick Pichelking's fault. Mattress Peichelking. Yes. Well, because here's my theory, guys. Sex and the City 2 was released in 2010.

The sticking out the tongue is kind of the beginning of the end for Miley Cyrus. Three years later, she met these girls. She started to see how the other side lives. She gets a little bit out of her country you know kind of roots yeah you know she's still miley here she's not the one that's smoking weed all the time this she saw the other side she got i mean she essentially got brought to her own abu dhabi by being on the set her eyes were open to something that she did not know before and then and i think it was slow and and and then three years later she has you know like chrysalis or something she has uh turned into a

butterfly that smokes weed it's so meta she wakes up in cold sweats remembering her experience on set so paul take us back to your shining light what was your okay your actual enjoyable bit of the film i'm gonna say and and you probably have already talked about this, but my Shining Light was the, oh, I'm forgetting her name right now, but the Liza Minnelli single ladies dance. That was my, I believe, my first ever Shining Light. I'll tell you what, Paul, if you stick around week after week, you will learn to resent

every goddamn part of that performance. Well, hey, I wanted to ask your question about this as well. Do you believe, okay, because when they first show her coming on stage to officiate the wedding, she's hobbling as if she can't even move.

And then she's doing a pretty intense dance. Was there facial replacement in that scene it's entirely possible we had a new zealand film critic on one week and he said there's a lot of cgi nonsense going on with their faces digital facelifts yeah so yeah why why wouldn't that extend to um recreating liza minnelli's face on top of a stunt double. Yeah, I, you know, you can almost explain it away by saying, you know, Liza's hamming up that hobbled walk-in for effect. She's making a similar decision to Gene Wilder in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory to shock everyone. I'm a big fan of defending, sort of, like,

I like to imagine that things like this are chosen uh performances by the character so liza knowingly came in hobbling it's not that she's actually old and hobbled it's that right she wanted her character like of herself liza minnelli to sort of portray this so that when she does eventually perform the single lady stance that pullback and reveal is greater wow okay so that's interesting i mean that's giving a lot more thought than i feel like this movie has had but if that's the case i would think that it would be more like willie wonka where you see the hobble and then you break into the dance because it's so separate i feel like i don't know i don't know i mean she is puffing by the end, she is positively on her last legs.

Liza's old school is the thing. Liza, you know, she came up in that same school with Gene. So they've got similar acting techniques. Michael Patrick King, who, you know, who wrote and directed the whole thing, it would be fair to say he chopped it all up. There's probably that transition scene somewhere on the cutting room floor of Liza doing that roly-poly into Single Ladies. Yeah.

But, I mean, you know, obviously, as you say, if you don't see it, how do you know? So I think, you know, your suspicion's accurate. But if you stick around for 39 more weeks, Paul, you'll probably get to the bottom of it, much like we have. But, yeah, I loved that dance. And I think it is, like, it's designed to be watched once because it is spectacular. It grabs you by the, you know, short and that dance. And I think it's designed to be watched once because it is spectacular.

It grabs you by the short and curlies. It's fun. It's playful. It's like, hey, now we're going to do a big number in the film. It's like, oh, cool. What a cool way to sort of inject some energy right at the start of the film. But then it's also coming on the heels. I would say it's coming on the heels of

arguably a really upsetting sequence, which is like, that gay wedding was upsetting to me because I do feel like, was it, I don't know what, again, that's one of those things where I'm like, is this offensive to gay, it's almost like. Almost definitely. Yeah, right? It has to be yeah i definitely think so and there's a lot of kind of red flags i think the main one is just the sheer amount of times they have to point out how liberal they are as a film by explicitly mentioning the gay wedding just over and over and over and over and over again yeah it's kind of like if you keep trying to justify why you're not racist you're definitely a racist person it's the same kind of mentality well it's almost like it you know i guess it's even if you go like well we're you know we're gay so we can say all this stuff about gay people but

it's like yeah but now i'm feeling uncomfortable and you know it's like yeah it just uh it just there's something about it uh yeah just something about it no and it's no it's we we talked about this recently as well when they try, within the realm of the film, explain it away, when they're like, shouldn't we be a little, you know, they say at the wedding, shouldn't we be a little more PC? And then Anthony rolls in and says,

can you believe this place? It looks like the Snow Queen exploded. And then all of the characters, as if that's their hall pass for being vaguely homophobic, is like, well, how's that for PC? And it's like, fine. It's a really inoffensive innocuous comment but what you were saying queen's not here she's not being offended by that she's not a real sector of the community

we have to worry about that's been trampled on and her rights have been disregarded for centuries she's fine she's not real they're covering their tracks but absolutelyudge, Paul. I think that that was the first moment of genuine anger that elicited that wedding. And also the fact that, by the way, this movie, we haven't talked, I mean, you guys have talked about it at length, I know, but it's an hour before I feel like the movie even gets started. You guys feel like that? Completely right. It's an hour before I feel like the movie even gets started. You guys feel like that? Completely right. It's an hour before they get on the plane. Only just, but it's like an hour and one minute is when they're on the plane. We were, or I was specifically yelling at Carrie to get in the car

and get to the goddamn airport yesterday at every turn possible because they could not dilly-dally more. It is an outrage it's like and it's like you know it's all these like beauty shots all these be like like i mean they take you i don't know everything is like you sound like us like a worked up grizzled veteran because it's like it it they're like who is it like you know why i feel bad for the editor and they're like and and you know that they were like can we just cut down the apartment like okay yeah she opens the closet great but like then we got to show her other apartment like it's and then let's go see the hotel in abu dhabi and that's that's just the macro stuff if you get down

to the micro the example i've used before is like when she's just the macro stuff if you get down to the micro the example I've used before is like when she's pouring the whiskey for big you have to see every step of the process because they've got no faith in the viewer's ability to connect the dots between her walking over to the decanter and just coming back with whiskey like you see her walking over to it touching the bottle opening the top of it pouring it into a glass walking back over giving it to him it's like we're it's like we are uh essentially watching the birth of cinema where you only could show one image because the audience was incapable of connecting dots and then like where are those those characters die if they leave the screen

alive you know we don't have object permanence anymore and the realm of cinema jesus christ there there is you know and to me like watching it again too is like it's uh it's tricky because i am definitely one to rail on entourage and, you know, find faults in entourage. And this is less, like, entourage, I would argue, is this. It's super dumb and the plots are lame and they never have, there's no learning and there's never any arc and et cetera, et cetera. But there, and again, going back to this idea, there is some joy to it. It seems like they're having fun or it seems like the people who are writing it

are having fun here. It just seems like- Labored. I don't know. Yeah, I just don't know. What happened to them? What happened between number one and number two that created this anger?

Well, I mean, we've heard some varying theories and I think you're right. That cynicism really permeates the whole film, and it just smells like the whole thing is money. There's no love in this. It doesn't, yeah, watching them act, it doesn't look like they're having fun on set. And we had heard that as well.

We'd heard that the woman had kind of fallen out with each other because a sort of riff had opened up. I think it was about sjp she's got a lot of money as an ep and then also the amount of screen time but this is all i mean you know heresy we don't know this she always had she always had more screen time she's the lead of the show yeah well i know it's like it's then maybe there's a feeling that they were doing her a favor like we're all gonna trot out this dead horse you know we're gonna tow it around the yard one last time so we can all cash a check.

And maybe it was a bridge too far. And they were like, we are going to do this. But by God, we're going to do it begrudgingly. You've got to drag us in. It's like, you know, the one thing that no one wants to watch is people like the conce the conceit like if you don't want to do it just don't do it but the worst thing to watch is people being forced to entertain it's like watching like a sad elephant at a circus you're just you are you're like he doesn't want to be there or that's the way i feel about those dumb dogs like we go oh yeah this is like who's that

dumb dog who like every time they save all these pictures of them i I don't know. He's like, they travel around the world. It's like, that dog doesn't want to be in that outfit. He doesn't know why he's cute. He's got a weird overbite. And you're just cashing in on the fact that you own this thing, who, if he could articulate anything, would want to kill himself. on that show I wish the movie if the movie ended with all of them

taking out shotguns and blowing off their heads I would at least feel like it ended in a way that was honest to the film just like and it was

and it with all the detail that they took getting the whiskey glass they go into the closet they undo the safe they take out a gun but then it's being

lent to grit like that would actually make more sense from a film language point of view because you're adding gravity out a gun but then it's being lent to grit like that would actually make more sense from a film language point of view because you're adding gravity to a moment that needs it

but she's just trying to get anyway they're bound to stumble into it I'd also just quickly before I say my shining light

oh yeah sorry I'm sorry no no that's fine but like you know how there's so many visual cues to tell the story like there's just

no faith put in the audience yeah and then I know it's a faith put in the audience yeah and then i know it's a trope from the television program but then they go even further when it's like oh i don't know that like we didn't get 10 minutes of visual coverage of this scene change we'd better get carrie to just exact like to add no exposition and just describe exactly what's happening in the voiceover yeah it's it's like listening to someone read like a

tiffany's catalog or something i'm pretty sure that was the brief from what i understand mkp in his basement when he was banging out the script for this goddamn carcass was saying it reads like a tiffany's catalog and i need you all to honor that now i have a question oh wait sorry i keep on forgetting to listen to your uh no it's fine it's much more fun to talk about things we didn't enjoy but my shining light uh and by god i'm clutching at straws uh you you would have seen the cupcake scene paul you know when yes charlotte is baking some unlike countable number of cupcakes for the after-school party uh and she's like i mean just across the board things aren't going well and she uh is you know her daughter i think it's lily is uh she's doing painting with red paint or it looks like it could be icing but i think it's paint and she's

going mommy look what i did look at me me me me, me, me, or whatever. And then she walks up to Charlotte and she bangs her hands on her butt and leaves two perfect red handprints on the vintage cream Valentino skirt. Did you see that? Of course I saw it. And I love this whole moment. I want to know what part in particular was your shining light. Well, the part that was my shining light was, but several frames later,

when Charlotte goes to shut herself in the pantry on account of being overwhelmed emotionally, the handprints, by some mystery, I am left to assume, have moved. They're no longer as close to one another as they were previously. They're further out on respective cheeks. It is a continuity error of the highest order. That is, because you know they had limited time with those kids.

They probably shot the pantry scene first, or they immediately shipped the first one off to Planet Hollywood to be displayed on some sort of wall. That is amazing. By the way, continuity mistakes, i imagine there are a lot i like i know that i it's a bad movie when i start watching the extras like and i will really start to hone in on a group scene and just watch people in behind so when you're picking up continuity well all hope is lost whenever i do like, hey, you had that in your – you did this. And I was like, if anyone notices that or gives a shit, we've already failed.

We have failed on the highest level because no one until years, years later saw that that one stormtrooper hit his head in Star Wars until we could watch it a million times. Because you're like, oh, I guess now I'm just watching it for whatever. It's like, when it's good, you don't notice continuity. See, Guy and I had a big debate

about this yesterday because I don't even rate that as a continuity error. So the hand position changed a bit. Oh, yeah. Tim's attitude was it's taken you

40 watches to see this. Therefore, it does not warrant judgment as a continuity. It's got to be big to be a continuity error. That's like a very minute person has access to judgment as a like it's got to be big to be that's like a very person has access to that as a

continuity error which I still think that in the sentence the words continuity error there therefore what I found is an embarrassing gaffe that should be uploaded to IMDB immediately doesn't qualify as a shining light because this is supposed to be a brief respite from us hiding on the phone

yeah and the brief respite was well I caught you out you you dastardly villains look i don't know well it was it's tough going paul like at this point i've almost turned into you like a therapist now when the movie comes on is there is genuinely a force field between the action and the audio and i i speak for i think think, both of us, our ability to engage with it. It's just like, you know, you've got your favorite movies and it's kind of like a warm blanket. Like Star Wars, like you're saying, you know everything about it and you can put it on. It can be on in the background and it's just comforting. And you know the beats and you can probably shut your eyes and still visualize what's happening.

You know, such is your level of fondness and familiarity with the movie. Yeah. Actually, I just want to bring this up because I heard it on How Did This Get Made recently. Paul, I thought it was so endearing that you used to tape movies and listen as a kid to just the audio films, like when you're on the school bus and stuff. Oh, yeah.

That is adorable. It was the best. That is adorable. It just made me think. yeah sorry no that's right but yeah i mean the thing is by the way you would be surprised i got like because they were like you recorded your movies and listened to them as like yeah running scared bill billy chris with gregory hines listening to it all the time and they're like um and my friends or not my friends uh people would tweet at me i did the same thing I did the same thing I did the same thing

so I feel like I'm not alone you're vindicated no you're not you're not at all I just like the notion of how much trouble in the era

you would have had to go to to enable that experience oh yeah what was the technical setup what do you you record the film in a VHS right I just put a tape

I just put a tape recorder in front of the TV that was that was a young kid so it was just like gra in front of the TV. That was the young kid. So it was just like grainy audio of the film. Yeah, exactly. When I heard it pop, I would listen back to where it kind of last ended and rewind the movie and then flip the tape and put it in the other side.

And there was a little bit of Atmos, you know, the Cher household. You'd have the goings on. Oh, I would do it and then leave my room so i wouldn't uh i wouldn't kind of tamper with it you know i'd have to like send myself away sit outside with a glass against the door waiting to hear the cassette player pop literally it was like it was sad i mean it was very sad i think that's exactly what i did you know we wouldn't be having this conversation if not for your dedication to film. But yeah, what I was going to say is, so there's that familiarity, that blank, that sort of that comfort blanket in essence.

And then this is, you know, it's like this twisted version of the same thing where it's like all this stuff that we know so well. And it's the relationships toxic. The blanket's got fleas. Actually, funnily enough, this recording studio that we're in also has fleas. I just had to flea bomb it. We flea bombed it. Oh, gosh. Got some couches off New Zealand's Vision at eBay, Paul,

and it didn't end well for me. I thought I was getting a great deal. Yeah, you can get a big couch and two Lazy Boys for $100 New Zealand dollars so long as you're okay with them having fleas. But, yeah, I mean, I can't even remember the thrust of the point. Are you saying that normally with any other film you'd have that security blanket aspect at this point but you don't even have that because it's so impenetrable? Yeah, I was using Paul as a proxy for a psychiatrist

and saying that there's the feeling of this should be a warm embrace and it's just not a good feeling. Well, to me me everything about this you know what i keep um i'm here in la on a microphone and i keep on leaning back in my chair to talk in the microphone i'm getting further away from you guys um i i think that like to mess this up is harder than to do it right because you've already done it successfully in a series and and in a movie so what you know and i think yeah i don't know it's you're right like this should be every like everything you described it should just be a warm blanket it should be nonsense

and it like in a in a good way like these characters just having a fun little adventure but i don't know if it's the fact that they've like kind of aged out the characters in a certain degree it's like they're no longer like the issues that they're getting into are no longer fun and they're about like marriage and the pain of kids and the only one that's kind of fun is samantha but samantha's an island to herself a little bit hey paul we haven't seen the first movie so just real quick i heard that she um gets cancer and then is nursed back to health uh by smith yes that's uh yes yeah that is like a d plot that kind of just quickly happened what it's not it's not a main thrust of the film wow not not in my memory of it it was it's, and it's like, I have cancer. But by the way, that's a topic that I think, honestly,

maybe I'm having a fonder recollection of it. They handled it well, and it was interesting. It was like, how do these girls, it's about their friendship, and how do they get over it? And then there's also a whole bunch of other bullshit. And listen, we want to remind everyone that the series did important shit. It was on at a time when there weren't four leading ladies on a TV show anywhere. Like it stormed a path.

And that's kind of what makes this all the more bitter. Yeah, and that's exactly it. It's like they were successful at this for many a year. And I feel like they couldn't grow into this other thing. Or the exotic locales knocked them out. I don't know. Because here's the question that I really want to ask you, too, because I think you've watched it enough. And this is something that really came to me on this. I think we've watched it enough, too, Paul.

The idea of are these men in their lives at all appealing? Now, I'm going to give you, while you think about that, I'm going to probably put something else forward. The one argument you could make, if this was a male film, all right, so let's take Entourage as the yin to this yang, right? So if in Entourage, your argument you can make is the male characters are underwritten, or sorry, the female characters are underwritten or sorry the female characters are underwritten and they just serve as like sexual objects or whatever uh but i think from a point of view as being a guy and you watch it like oh that girl's cute i like that when i watch this movie and i

see these men and i'm think of myself as a woman or even as a gay man i'm like i don't want to be with any of these dudes and the one aiden is being viewed as this guy who's like oh aid in the adventure like this guy looks like a boring boring boring guy like i got but i don't even know like like he like he's and and mr big is like a fucking asshole everyone's an asshole like i like i'm like what these women i want more for them than these men i don't like these men you're either there is no respite and that everyone in the movie who gets enough screen time is revealed to be an asshole steve i love i love steve steve is a good i love steve i love i just love I love him. We've got some theories about Steve. We won't go under them. Steve, I mean, the dual-sided, you know,

the two-sided coin for us doing this particular nature of this project is that the underwritten nature of the male characters in this film allow us to project many ideas onto them vis-a-vis Steve being the father of Brady the Rat King and running for mayor of the city of New York, launching his own self-styled dictionary books, etc. But anyway, you're right.

No one's very desirable on the male front. Actually, the only character who I have any warmth for whatsoever is Charlotte's little girl, Lily. She's the only one who shows genuine compassion. Even the nanny I'm not crazy about, and she should be likeable. I was going to just say, what about the nanny? I mean, it's hard to like the nanny just because of how poorly... The nanny essentially, I feel like, was a gift that michael patrick king put into the

movie for the that was as andy daly would say there was something for daddy yeah for like that for the for the paul for the paul shares at the cinema who are you know trudging to the trudging to the city for the second time it's like well at least i'll get to see some ample bosoms in the film like right at least i get to see some boobs it's like after seeing least i'll get to see some ample bosoms in the film like right at least i get to see some boobs it's like after seeing the australian rugby team yeah let's get down to their skivvies yeah and uh and go swimming they try and tease it out like the nanny is a storyline or a subplot but i mean you can tell at the end it's like oh and shart didn't have to worry about you know her committed husband cheating with the professional nanny that they had because guess what the nanny was a lesbian the whole time it's not it's not that i can trust

my husband it's that she was gay yeah and just wrap it up literally in a voiceover ending it's criminal criminal have we have you talked and again i apologize to bring up things that you guys probably have already explored not It's hard not to. Don't. Don't you dare apologize. What about the dick shots? The close-ups on the Speedo shorts where we're just looking at dick. Yeah, well, I mean, we haven't talked about that at length because I think that that is serving the purpose.

It's like, this is a film that you know it's it's there for june and her friends to go and you know what if we go to entourage i would argue that like i think that there's a misnomer that like women want to see dudes packages i don't know i i don't know it's not i don't know it's not really for us to say but i haven't ever noticed the dick shots and i have i've seen them but I've never thought twice about them I've been like, that's a pretty good piece I find the one of We should ask our girlfriends about this

if they like the dick shots I find the ones of Dickbot or Ricard Spurt as the mortals call him You know when he's got that he's got his semi he's got a boner at right angles to his body when he's out for a meal got his semi he's sort of got a boner at right angles to his body when he's out for a meal

with Samantha yeah yeah I find that a bit much I just I just find this their sexual forwardness in that scene when they're fellating

they're taking turns to fellate a shisha pipe it's beyond the pale that is disgusting that's stomach churning that scene don't like it at all and what did you make of that

did you find it sexy were you like watching them being like look at these sexy people who are about to have a sexy time? Or were you like, you guys need to tone it the fuck down? Yeah, tone it down. Leave some, like, I guess everything that I know of a woman, well, that's a really bold statement.

I guess, like, my thought of it is I think that women like not that. Like, lead it up to a point and then let it go away like where i think the dudes would want to be like yeah let me see let me see it all in there you know like i i i don't know i i yeah i'm like tone it your senses that woman want a little mystery a little bit yeah like or or just like you don't have to fill in the blanks you can just kind of like like like i don't know set the table but don't have to you don't have to feed me the dinner i've always had um a approach to this which is probably why i'm not like a die hard pornography fan of like it's like a horror movie right it's less scary if you see the monster

it's like you can always hint at something being sexier than actually showing the thing because everyone will project their maximum sexy idea onto whatever canvas is still there right you're but you're old school i mean you have sex underneath a sheet don't you just cut out holes for the genital i mean you are i took a lot of cues from certain jewish sex yeah you're a real throwback oh yeah hey paul i don't know how much time we've got left with you because um you're a busy man you got a lot of projects on the go but if you've got um a couple minutes left, I would love to do something with you that we do with all of our guests and that is the pitch.

You've just seen the film and for the third time we've just found out. Now Guy and I are actually movie execs. We're powerful Hollywood execs and look, we've got cash coming out our arseholes and we don't quite know what to do with it. We're looking for a project pretty you know,

pretty much to green light today. Yeah, so we've been briefed that you have come in here with an idea for Sex and the City 2. You're going to convince us why we should fund this puppy, Mr. Shear. You're on the clock, baby. Your time starts now. Oh, wait, I just want to ask one quick question

before I start. This is very unprofessional of you, Mr. Shear. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. All right, so I am just, Sex ask one quick question before I start. This is very unprofessional of you, Mr. Shea. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. All right, so I am just, Sex and City 1 has come out. This has not come out at this point. Correct.

All right, that's all I needed to know. You got it. I mean, you should know that as the person pitching this movie to us, but we'll overlook this small oversight on your end. You know what? We're kind of a good cop, bad cop operation. Can I get your water, by the way, Mr. Shea?

Oh, yeah, please, yes. Oh, do you have a sparkling would be yeah sure thing i'll go get it all right guys here's the thing sex in the city one was a huge hit obviously we took everything that we love from the show and we turned it into a movie that felt bigger and more exciting and with the growth of these characters we we want to continue the franchise. And this is how I see it. Why not take them out of New York, right? But let's not put them in Los Angeles. Let's not put them in Miami.

Let's put them in outer space. Hear me out. Virgin Atlantic or Virgin Galactic is launching, right? Right. Yeah, we all know that. That's not on the horizon, right? It is going up. They're on it the first flight because Samantha has gotten some sort of publicity thing.

She's in PR. She brings her friends. Why don't we all have a Cosmo in space? They're all going to have a Cosmo in space. Now, here's what happens. Unfortunately, they didn't know this about the space shuttle. There is some sort of bacteria on the space shuttle that when it leaves the Earth's atmosphere, it mutates. It becomes something bigger, something scarier.

And it creates an alien life force. And what we're talking about is a Sex and the City meets alien, not aliens, movie. Sam or Samantha, Carrie, the other one, Miranda. They're all together trying to defeat this monster on a ship. Everyone is slowly getting killed. Of course, Steve gets killed. He's the first one done. Not Steve. We love Steve. this monster on a ship who is slowly everyone is slowly getting killed of course uh steve gets killed right he's the first one steve we love we love steve i know but that's why it gives the movie a drive you gotta kill the only character that you really care about because that's gonna give you a reason to really hate this alien i'm sorry guys steve is great, but he's going to be the emotional anchor of the film.

And then the movie ends with Carrie fully decked out, gun in hand, shotgun, smeared face. Right. She finally kills the alien. And she says, you know, something like, don't touch my Prada, you bitch. Oh, yeah. And then the smoking the gun, we see her bring it to her own mouth. We think she's going to shoot herself. She doesn't. It's lipstick.

She's put a lipstick holder in where the laser pointer is, and she puts lipstick on her mouth. She goes, girls, let's go back home to New York. I've got to say, right out of the gates, I really like the pitch. I think it's it's strong for mine and this is just but a minor reservation

that I have it feels like a different movie right right right of course and I think yeah yeah yeah I mean

we all love aliens we love bacteria we love guns we love Ridley Scott right right right right right but i mean you know but i like i like taking them out of their comfort zone and putting them on a

a rocket or a ship or something oh yes yeah could we maybe transplant them somewhere less sci-fi is that is that in your wheelhouse oh yeah uh what if we just put them in abu dhabi and have them go shopping and learn about Middle East? Done. Did you hear that? That was the sound of a briefcase full of money opening, Mr. Cher. My people will get in touch with your people. I like how open you were to that rewrite.

You agreed instantly. Oh, 100%. Because here's something that I've been thinking about. And this is something I really want to bring to people's mind. As a writer, it's about uncovering things. And did you know, and I don't even want to get into politics here, but in the Middle East, women are treated very differently. No, I hadn't heard that. How do you get different?

Yeah. Well, in a lot of ways. In a lot of ways that is pretty like, it make you angry. It'll make you angry. And I feel like these these girls if we unleash that spirit over there maybe we can start like some sort of revolution like you know like i i just think it's like i want to get the word out that the middle east treats women a little bit differently because i feel like that's if the show is nothing it's a it's a societal mirror that we hold up and

we look at ourselves in it and we go do we like like what we see? I mean, they're the Michael Jackson of their time. They're looking at the man in the mirror and do they like what they see? That's all we know. I like this. Do you know what I like the most? I don't necessarily know that it's our place as a sequel movie to say,

but we're going to say it anyway. And I think that's really important. Yeah, I like that you've gotten a franchise and made it about something that it was never about. That's what really is appealing to me. Cultural international relations. Well, to me, it's like that's what we need to do. We just need to, like, you know,

why give the audience what they want when you can give them something that they don't? You know, it's like if you order ice cream at the table and we just bring you butter in the shape of ice cream, not until it touches your mouth will you know, and it will be so much more disturbing because of that. I really thought, Mr. Shear, that you were going to go more towards the old,

well-known Henry Ford quote, which is if you ask the people what they wanted, they would have all said horses, but that's why you're a writer you paint a metaphor in a beautiful and unexpected way if you can somehow get that butter ice cream gag into the film I personally will

send you 10 million dollars in unmarked bills I am going to get on it right away this has been excellent this has been wonderful Paul I don't think it's a very big am going to get on it right away well this has been excellent this has been wonderful um paul i don't think it's a very big uh and just the proportion of the venn diagram of people who listen to our show they don't listen to how did this get made but what else have you got going on

fx is the league is just kind of wrapping up now the league is wrapping up we have a couple more episodes there and then um I guess, what else? I don't know. You're on the bus. You're on a bus, Paul. Oh, yeah, yeah, yes. Oh, that's actually good. Yeah, I'm on it.

My friend Rob Hubel and I, we did Human Giant together with Aziz Ansari. We do this show in LA called Crash Test. We've been doing it for about 10 years. And it's a crazy kind of fun, interactive show. And we got on a glass bus and drove around la and did an improvised comedy special and it's available in everywhere around the world because it's on vimeo awesome so vimeo allows you to get it wherever you are and if you have itunes it's on itunes but i don't know internationally where it is but internationally it's available on vimeo

which is great that's so cool yeah and it's got aziz ansari and rob corddry and aubrey plaza and earl sweatshirt from odd future and tom lennon and ben grant reprise their reno 911 characters so it's a real it's a it's a real fun like to me i don't do stand-up but i do a lot of these shows at ucb which is the upright citizens brigade and we like we call them like a fuck around show. And it was a real fun way to kind of do that in a professional way. So, you know, I think you might like it. Absolutely.

I have seen it. I can highly recommend everybody gets involved. And if people want to find you online, Paul, how may they go about that? Just at Paul Scheer. I'm pretty much at Paul Scheer all the time. That's so easy. But wait, spell Scheer for people because there's a myriad ways you can fuck that up.

S-C-H-E-E-R. There we go. You just got three followers, buddy. Three brand new shiny followers. That's right. You treat them right, Paul, all right? I will, I will, I will. Well, I wish I could say thank you,

but I can't. This movie is garbage. But I feel like, you know, hopefully we got to talk about some things that were a little bit different and before i leave can i just bring up the one thing that i thought was interesting that i want to see one more thought i just want to um uh when uh miranda's kid is winning a prize at one point um the the thing that the teacher says is and winner for first place for the mouse maze um i what was he doing because he's just holding up a small box that looks like um not a maze and not anything where you could put a maze in it like and that again it speaks to the laziness you have truly wandered into the wasps

so that is a question that we asked ourselves um a few weeks ago now a couple months ago and there is now a rich vein running through our podcast of brady is the kid's name of exactly what he's up to so more or less and we'll try and give you the cliff notes here uh because you know we appreciate times of the essence brady because we thought it's insane that first as someone who had an experiment with a hypothesis what is static electricity got second place while brady who just put a fucking mouse in a cardboard box wins uh yeah what exactly I'll tell you what's happened here is Brady has learned how to develop the brains of vermin, specifically rats, and moreover harness the intellectual power of said species. And kind of use them as a society as well. Yeah. Okay.

And pretty much the teacher is trying to appease brady and sort of halt his uh his research into this area halt his research in the area and also what will winds up being a pretty serious reign of terror by back patting him and saying hey look you've figured out how powerful the rats are but for god's sake use this information wisely so shortly after the events of sex in the city 2 brady actually descends into the sewers and starts training the first rats which then train all of the other rats and he's uh very quickly commanding an army of rats under he's also developed a hybrid breed called an amphibia rat which are rats that can breathe underwater the kid is i mean there's no stopping him there is but

one hope we almost got it out of this episode with paul sheer thinking we were sane we were so close no i by the way i'm all in i'm in for this spin i'm in for this netflix uh spin-off series of a side character in a major way sex in the city 3 as far as we know is going to be the battle of brady the rat king against uh dick bot Which is a whole other story. Ricard Spurt, who is just quickly, once more, a Japanese-programmed cyborg who is solar-powered and roams the Arabian desert learning how to interface with humans so that he can eventually take over America. And they're going to battle it out for...

Supremacy. I mean, and it's just... Look, it sounds crazy when you kind of lay it out. By the way, I'm so in, and I feel like this is where the franchise needs to go. Of course you are, Mr. Shearer. You are he who pitched the girls going to outer space. And if there's anything, if you guys ever find out why Bette Midler was on set, but cut out of the movie, I would love to know. I didn't even know that.

So that is something to look forward to digging into yes the people have said that she was on set and she supposedly was filming but she never is in the movie we need to know what the deleted scene is we will take that on board paul i want to say thank you again because um seriously no one was well our friends were the only people who were listening to the show before you gave it a shout out on your podcast and now oh my gosh we've had it's so funny i love two trips to the states off the back of it so we just we couldn't be happy we owe you one we owe you two oh that's so good well you guys were the best uh thanks so much thanks paul take care all right bye bye oh the great paul sheer wasn't he fantastic i love that guy thanks again to karma cola for bringing us this episode and i forgot to mention at the time but this is critically important the new podcast that guy and i are doing with uh my brother my brother

and me the brothers mcelroy travis griffin justin we've all gotten together and we've decided that once a year on american thanksgiving we will be watching paul blart mall cop 2 from now until the end of linear time we will give you our thoughts on that. Kevin James, well, I don't want to spoil it by putting adjectives in here. So for now, let's call it a movie. We're going to be watching Paul Blart Mall Cop 2. The episode is coming out shortly, like in a matter of hours. So it's in time for Thanksgiving.

It's probably out right now. If you listen to this, it's probably already out. Seek it out. Subscribe, I guess guess there's going to be one episode a year see how that goes it's called till death do us blart the hashtag is death blart find us on twitter there as well and uh i look forward to this exciting adventure from now until my death it's gonna it's an interesting experiment we're doing with podcasting here this is this is pretty loose this is once year, so it's not that big a commitment.

Join us, folks. Till death do us part. Out this American Thanksgiving 2015. It's the worst idea of all time. It's the worst idea of all time. It's the worst idea of all time. Season 2.