The Worst Idea Of All Time - Replay S01E06: Mum

Episode Date: February 11, 2024

Please enjoy this victory lap of Season One episodes as we celebrate 10 years of The Worst Idea of All Time. Join us for our 10 year anniversary show on Feb. 10 (NZT) live and live-streaming via worstideaofalltime.com.Original Episode Description:We go further down the rabbit hole with regard to Hollywood accounting, Guy receives a phone call from his mum and Tim floats another conspiracy theory related to the film. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Let's talk about six, baby. Let's talk about you and me. Hello, it's Guy here again. Just checking in before episode six of season one of our podcast, The Worst Idea of All Time. There's a few things I feel about these young lads. There's a naivety to what they're discussing and what they're working through hearing us um or them it's interesting i don't know if it's us or them i guess it's us but it really feels like them uh hearing them just, I guess, desperately fumble for a sense of ambition

or semblance of logic inside of the film is, it's intriguing, I've got to say. You can really, you really get the sense that the wheels are starting to come off a bit here. It's also the origins of some exciting fan, well, not fan theories, Tim theories, Brayden being a warlock.

I, on the back of that, to my credit, make a fairly ignorant piece of speculation about perhaps Brayden instead being on the autism spectrum, which is regrettable in the cold, hard of the present day but what can you do um there's also and i didn't know that this ever happened but a cameo from my mum she calls up i take the phone call on the mic i'm i'm trying to get her to talk on my i don't think she even knows she features it's a huge shout out to mum from 10 years ago don't actually know if she went on that train trip

she was talking about but mostly I've just got two guys working together but up against it you can hear things like the phones it's actually I talk about trying not to go on my phone in this episode

and from memory it was it was a real uh binding law of the first seasons that there were no phones uh but it's interesting to think now like it's not just when i'm watching a movie i don't want to watch that it's i want to go on my phone it's like the the level of addiction I have to my phone now goes beyond what I'm describing in this episode it's like if I'm watching something great and my phone's on the other side of the room I'll still want to go and pick it up sometimes but look that's more of a present day problem than a a an historic reflection so not a lot else to say except happy trails to you and yours and me and mine. Let's record a podcast, let's record a podcast, because it is so lonely in this room. Hello, welcome to episode 6 of The Worst Idea of All Time with me, Tim Batt.

And myself, Guy Montgomery. And just to start you off this week, guys, I'd like to take a leaf out of REO Speedwagon's book. They, of course, are the band you've just heard and encourage you to live every moment, love every day, something, something, before your precious time slips away. And I couldn't think of a better way to live every moment than listen to us rehash our sixth viewing of Grown Ups 2.

This is the beautiful irony of the podcast, folks. The worst thing you can do is watch the movie yourself, and the best thing you can do is listen to us talk about the movie we've just watched. That's right. Doesn't really make any sense, but we're going to make it work. We took notes again this week. It's been a while since we've done that. Yeah, we got off the note-taking track, and we're back on that track.

It's funny. If you look at my book here, Tim, you'll see it starts off reasonably sort of organized. There's even little crosses to denote the start of a new thought. You've got like a hierarchical structure of ideas where there's trees. And then it just devolves as the movie goes on. You've just written K-Mart. Into absolute chaos. In huge letters.

And then it just comes out as scrawl at the back. Right. I stopped about 45 minutes in. I just couldn't do it anymore. I too have taken some notes. Let's wade in in shall we guy uh well what i wanted to do today was sort of just hammer out for myself just the markers just the points in the movie when i go all right great i know where we are now just so i can gauge where i'm at and uh i thought it would be really easy but it's it's all just depressing dross

pretty much until the dinner table scene like there's a few moments when like there's the football scene when Adam Sandler dinner table scene that's really far into the movie I know so I thought I'd come up with Marcus before then but I just I just I just couldn't I was just like this is just shit we speculated a lot during the film today about what we could take out and you could oh yeah no yeah by which you mean

if we were to edit the film what you could remove from it what would be left on the cutting room floor and it would be a lot it would be pretty much everything before

the dinner party scene yeah you don't need all that context to understand what happens at the party after the dinner it's not a dinner party

it's just dinner time fuck man it's already gone bad this podcast already gone off the rails it's tanking it's uh it's interesting when you get to your sixth watch of a movie because you just yeah very early on you get all depressed and ah it's all darkness hey i'll tell you what i did do guy well wait do you want to talk about these checkpoints anymore? Nope. Nope. Let's move forward. Abandon that.

Something that people have expressed a little bit of an interest in is the Hollywood accounting. Yes. Which is, I went and Googled it, and I found out that that's the term given to this strange accounting practice that's often applied to films and film franchises. And I've found out a few things. Adam Sandler's name very commonly associated with the practice. He was actually, last year Forbes did an article in December at the end of the year and named Adam Sandler as the number one most overpaid actor in the world. So that's looking at how much he earns versus how

much his films earn. That dude is associated with rorting the bloody system. It's shocking. Can you expand a little on this, Tim? I feel like every episode we're going deeper and deeper down the conspiracy theory path. It's not a conspiracy theory. What Hollywood accounting is

is the pseudo-legal and definitely unethical way that you count whether a film is profitable or not in Hollywood. Because if it is not profitable on the books, like according to the books, then you don't have to pay people like the writers very much,

because usually their percentage is based on net, which means once you take away all the, turn your bloody phone off. Oh, is it? It's my mum calling. I'll pick it up, eh? Pick it up. Hi, mum.

Hello? You sound rather alone. Where are you? I'm just recording a podcast. Oh, right. Okay. Well, I might leave you in peace and you can ring me back then. That sounds like a great option. What did you want to talk about? I wanted to see if you were in town on Sunday week.

I'm going to come up on Sunday week and stay the night in Auckland and then catch the train to Wellington with Miranda. Sounds like a bloody good time. Hold on, I'll just look. We thought we'd take our boys out to dinner. Oh, I might. I think I'm doing the footy at our film festival. I'll call you back.

This is very unprofessional. Okay, bye now. Bye. I love you. I love you. Bye. She loves me. A little candid moment for you there.

Back to Hollywood accounting. Return of the Jedi, for example, despite having earned $4 million dollars at the box office against a budget of 32 million and a half has never gone into profit that's how shady this practice is so it cost 32 million dollars to make it made 475 million yet according to the books it has never made a profit. I don't understand. So they do things like when you're doing the expenses on a movie, everything's just based on percentages, and usually things like marketing are just 10%, and it has no bearing on how much you actually spend on marketing.

That's just money written off as marketing, and so that's not profit, that's an expense. Exactly. There's also shell companies that you can form under the movie, like form a really expensive catering company to just draw funds out of it so you funnel them out to some somewhere else that you can this all sounds incredibly illegal um well it's pretty legal like it's been going on for many many years and it's basically it's very prevalent in hollywood spider-man 2 a hugely uh popular and well-doing movie it was a box office smash and Stan Lee never got paid

because his cut was based on percentages and he ended up taking Sony to court over it and did he win? I don't know, who cares I'm just giving some background to Hollywood accounting bro it's certainly something we should dig into a little deeper

every week you can't give me too much information at one time because i won't understand what's happening i can't wrap my brain around it that's fine hey you know what else i found out oh yeah this is just from the watch it's not about accounting um we're taking a very big sideways step here i reckon adam sandler's very insecure about his penis okay i didn't pick up any of that in the film today I'll tell you why I did So that scene where they're at the quarry And they're made to jump over Suicide 35 with no clothes on Which is the jump

And then his son sees his dick And it's like the worst thing in the world Yeah So that was a clue And also the bit where the deer is tearing through the house And the son is naked in the shower And that's a big deal There's a lot of references to Adam Sandler

And Adam Sandler's family's dick Look, this is definitely you losing it a little bit here, Tim You know I don't even know how to rebut this This is probably one of your worst theories that you've had so far. First of all, he can't be self-conscious because he makes the jokes at the expense of his penis about jumping off Suicide 35.

You know? Like, he wrote the movie. He wrote the line for his son saying, I just saw my dad's dick. Yeah. Secondly, they're joking about masturbating around the bloody table with the same son. That's a weird bit of a movie, yeah.

That's nothing to do with an ugly or gross. That's just like it's uncomfortable to talk about whacking off over the hot girl in school with your dad in front of your mum. Come on. Yeah, right. Fair play. There's no meat on this theory. What else have you got? What else have you been cooking up over there? There's no meat on this theory.

What else have you got? What else have you been cooking up over there? My other theory is that Brayden... Brayden. It's going to sound silly now. My theory is that Higgins' son is a warlock. David Spade, who's Higgins. So Brayden is the sort of thug guy who comes into the movie from Florida. Yeah.

He's overgrown. He's violent. He's monosyllabic. Yeah. Why is he a warlock? Because there's a couple bits that just kind of allude to the fact that he's got a slightly mystical, you know, like a supernatural side to himself.

I'll fill you in on the blanks. Number one, he is David Spade's son, and yet he's absolutely massive. That was the first thing that pipped my interest to the warlock theory. But that can be explained away with the plot, because you look at David Spade's love interest in the movie in this. She's much bigger than he is. She's a bodybuilder of sorts. Oh, yeah.

Maybe Higgins has got an attraction to bodybuilders, and so the mother of this child is also big. All right, fair enough. But explain this to me then guy montgomery when they're in the quarry and he comes up and sees that uh david spade is not at the soup kitchen which he assured him that he was at and why why he couldn't take him to school etc whatever the fuck it was uh he emerges from the water and on his hand in pen is written wait what is written soup kitchen i believe the words are soup kitchen fuck i thought i wrote that down but anyway he's written it on his arm that uh basically the soup

kitchen was a lie how at what point did he have the time or opportunity to do that while he was on the water we saw him take his clothes off before he jumped in No look I mean And then at the end of that He emerges He goes back down into the water Just disappearing out of shot Which really alludes to the fact that he lives underwater There's another bit as well When he destroys the frat house

To the extent where there's spray paint everywhere All over these really tall walls There's teepee thrown around He had no opportunity to be able to do that there wasn't enough time i think do you know you you you're probably losing it now tim because all of this stuff can just be explained away as lousy script writing and lazy editing this is there's no way they made some like secretly supernatural character and planned them in the middle of the movie. It's just a shit movie. It's just shit script writing. But what if it's not?

Well, I was actually interested in Brayden in this screening for a different reason. I was trying to figure out whether or not he might be autistic because he never really says any fully formed sentences. The first thing he says, he walks up, he's got the piece of paper, he says to David Spade You're him Which makes sense But it's very monosyllabic And then David Spade says

Alright we've got to get you to school And his response is No school Summertime And then it goes on I've got other stuff He goes to the school That's the next time

You know The next time we see him He's in the classroom And he gets told to go and find a seat And he just walks up to a redheaded kid who offers him his wallet. Like, he's going to take my wallet. And then he says, no, I sit here. Like, it's all very primitive.

That doesn't mean he's autistic. That just means he's. What if we do something we're not supposed to? And then he goes, you lied about that when he's in the police car you lied about the soup you lied about this i think i don't know i think between our two theories we can figure out that we're definitely watching this movie too much because neither of us are coming up with anything good here it's just a shit movie character look at how much we're reading into it i want to talk about what's that you got an email or something i don't know what that was

um i want to talk about uh john lovitz who's someone who's come up in the podcast a lot because there was uh a line that i love that we haven't mentioned in the podcast that he says where he is taking he has gotten there early before the um yoga ish the aerobics squat squat robux instructor uh appears so he's the janitor john lovitz is he comes up and he starts Squat aerobics instructor appears. So he's the janitor, John Lovitz is. He comes up and he starts taking the class for his own sexual gratification and demanding that these women do things like bend over to expose their buttocks to him and jiggle their breasts around for his amusement.

And the line that he says when the real instructor comes along and basically calls him out john john lovett says say it's true even if it isn't yeah like keep this lie going he doesn't say something like uh help me out here or i've got a thing going he said he's just there's something about say it's true even if it isn't i think that's when the movie can be fun, is when it sort of plays on its own absurdity. Its own stupidness. Its own stupidness, exactly. And that is an inherently stupid

and accordingly very funny line. Yeah. So I love that line. I'm sure we've talked about that before. No, I don't think we've talked about that line specifically because we've gotten distracted with other John Lovett's fantastic moments. Yeah.

Hey, can I talk about something real quick? We got a tweet. No, we got a Facebook. We've got a Facebook group now. Join up to that. Worst idea of all time. And someone said we should hone in on some things, which we definitely haven't done this week,

as you can tell from our scattered shotgun approach. I love that idea, and that was where I got my motivation to try and find these marker points at the start of the movie. But honestly, your brain starts melting out of your ears while the while it's playing and it just becomes really hard to sort of control yourself essentially i spent my challenge for this movie was i i put my phone on flight mode and threw it on the couch across the room and i was fine for the first sort of 40 minutes and then you could see me battling with myself to not pick up the phone just to focus on the movie and it just becomes impossible to

i don't know i guess we could try harder i wrote a poem yeah yep lay it on me cool do it like you're doing it in speech and drama so say the title by tim bat and then oh it doesn't have a title make up a title now um beautiful by tim bat gorgeous blonde flowing shiny like a ferrari it's david spade's hair because the person who requested we hone in on stuff suggested that we might want to talk about um the haircuts in the film so that's just my little tip of the hat to you thanks to Kat

who recommended that we hone in on the hair that was very cute just while we are here I've got two things I've got one thing I'd like to talk about how long have we got?

another ten mate ten minutes alright first of all is Steve Buscemi yes nowve buscemi has got some of the most telegraphed gags in this whole flick every appearance that he makes is a fucking nightmare and uh and it's sort of it's it's got me wondering because steve buscemi is i think we've touched on earlier he shows up in nearly every adam Sandler movie. Billy Madison, he was like the weird guy

who he bullied in high school and he puts lipstick on. Like, that was a funny cameo. He was in Mr. Deeds. I think he was in Big Daddy, his crazy eyes. Oh, no, his crazy eyes in Mr. Deeds. I've seen a lot of Adam Sandler movies. Anyway, and they're getting worse. And I'm wondering why, first of all,

I'm saying that Adam Sandler movies are getting worse. So is the Steve Buscemi cameos. Yeah, like each by magnitude individually. Like the movies are getting worse, but his appearances are getting even worse still. Relatively speaking to the movies. What I'm wondering is why. What dirt does Adam Sandler have on Steve Buscemi that warrants his continued appearances in these just awful films?

Because Steve Buscemi, he's established himself. He's put his hand up as a pretty decent character actor now. Maybe something even more, a leading man. You look at Boardwalk Empire. And you look at his other films, he's not touching any of this sort of low-hanging fruit comedy. Con Air comes to mind. He was fabulous in Con Air.

I wanted to do Con Air every week instead of this. Yeah, that was our first idea for a film, but we decided it was too good. Too good a film. There's not enough suffering in watching Con Air every week. I mean, is there any, because you're a man who likes to hook into a conspiracy theory. Is there anything in this?

Do you think Adam Sandler has some dirt on Buscemi? Yeah, absolutely. And I'm just trying to figure out what it is. Like, you know that Buscemi is a volunteer firefighter, eh? No, that's awesome. He's part of the New York, I think, still, like, fire department at 9-11. Despite the fact that by this stage he was a very established actor, he went in there.

He was part of the, maybe not the first responders, but he was part of the crew who went in and sorted that out. So I feel like he might, because that would suggest he's got some sort of pillar of the community type not the first responders, but he was part of the crew who went and sorted that out. I see. So I feel like he might, because he's sort of, that would suggest he's got some sort of pillar of the community type vibe. Yeah. And often it's these people who sort of look like they're on a pedestal. Long way to fall. To society and communities.

They've got some real dirty stuff. They've swept under the carpet. We could take another tack with this, because I think Steve Buscemi has proved himself to be a pretty fantastic human, and a great guy. Maybe adam sandler knows about a medical condition and he knows about it through doing the films with him because he needed to cover the insurance for him while he was working uh that would prevent him from getting back in the fire department and the fire department don't know about it what about that it's it's convoluted i mean it's it's not bad there's

definitely something going on here, though, because, and once again, can't stress enough, don't see the movie, but Steve Buscemi, every time he appears on screen, you just want to scream at him, get out of there, man, get out of there. It's too late for the big dogs, but it's not too late for you.

Speaking of this, I've spent a lot of time today watching the extras, so not watching what's happening at the front of the shot, but in the lot of time today watching the extras so not watching what's happening at the front of the shot but in the sort of depth field out the back awful awful acting much worse than the actual acting is the extras acting it's just it's just a whole lot of people sucking the fight scene you've got to try a because you know like one of these takes is going to make it to the film, so you've got to try extras. That fight scene is a good example of this.

There was a bit that I put... Actually, today was the first day where we've started rewinding and going back because every other day we've been like, we can't make this last a second longer than... But now we're kind of relishing in the cracks in the pavement. There were a few sort of Chris Rock acting moments which we sort of earmarked as being

low points for the film another thing I want to talk about but it's gone what were we talking about the extras the terrible fight scene that bit where the

there's two extras in particular in one part of the film where they're not landing punches on each other and it's painfully apparent were you going to talk about the terribly

choreographed fight scene between uh what's his name kyle the instructor and uh no man it's all it's whatever it was it's gone it's gone i mean should we get into our shining light oh yeah sure do you want to go first yep so the shining light is the part of the movie um that we enjoyed because a lot of this podcast today and forevermore will be how much we hate this film. So we've got to pick bits that we like. The shining light in the sort of horrible, cavernous abyss in which we reside for two to three hours every Monday.

My shining light today, Tim, was a moment brought to us by Chris Rock. So his daughter's about to go on a date with Bumpty, who's the son of Tim Meadows. He's sort of this gawky kind of rapping kid at the school and uh they're at the dinner table and chris rock goes he's just told his daughter she's got permission to go on a date with this guy bumpty and he's goes to the door he has the doorbell ring he goes to the door he's holding a big picture picture of peps, and Bumpty says, what's up, player? I'm here for your daughter.

And Chris Rock just takes like two liters of Pepsi and just throws it in his face. And it made me laugh today, and that was my shining light moment. It's his delivery of that line, that kid. It's such a full-on thing to say to the father of someone you're trying to date What's up player I'm here for your daughter

My shining light today is Adam Sandler's son It's alluded to Quite a few times in the movie For some reason I keep coming back to it Because it's such comedy gold That he masturbates in the shower When is that not funny Talking about that he masturbates in the shower uh that's when is that not funny you know talking about your son masturbating in the shower so the way that he

tries to hide this and i think it's greg right who's masturbating i don't know i don't know the name it's not keith oh yeah no keith's the younger one yeah it's greg so uh greg at the very start of the film and the infamous deer sequence which we've talked about ad nauseum in the past, gets pissed on by a deer who catches him in the shower there is a back and forth exchange later on that day

in the driveway, before they're going to school in which Adam Sandler says oh no, his other one of the kids, the other brother says he says he's taking a long time in the shower, alluding to the fact that he's masturbating. He's saying, in his defense, he goes,

all I'm doing is conditioning my hair. That's what I'm doing in the shower. Yeah, and then Adam Sandler says, that's not what the deer told me. Yes, and then my shining light moment is, Adam Sandler's son says, that deer is a liar. And this is where we're at now, everybody. I mean, it's not a bad line. Tim?

Hey, you know what else was a shining moment, like, fucking thing for me? I think Shaquille O'Neal is pretty good in this movie. Wow. That's a whole can of worms for next week. No, Shaquille O'Neal is good in this movie, man. He's funny. And he's got those big hands.

Cracks me up. That's the only thing that you said during the movie. You said, Shaquille O'Neal's big hands crack me up. At no point did you say, I like Shaquille O'Neal on that bit. The only time you commented on him is you like his hands. don't need to like him he just needs to have something funny and it turns out his hands are goddamn massive that's funny it's not funny i've written down i don't know what this note means most depressing kevin james man bit oh no we were saying that

kevin james's character we see we didn't talk about this today but we're saying kevin james's character is probably the most deplorable in the whole movie. So most depressing is probably Kevin James' interaction with his family. He's a terrible parent. Like, there's a scene where his son's eating from a tub of butter and the son looks up and says, this is the best vanilla pudding I've ever eaten. And Kevin James, without even looking up,

just downcast, staring at his plate, goes, that's not pudding, son, that's butter. But he doesn't do anything to stop him. It gets like five. Just lets him keep eating butter, obviously worrying his son to piss away his life and die. I want to mention this as well. The least skillful part of storytelling in this movie

is that they briefly introduce a threat and immediately kill it, whereby adam sandler's son turns out is an incredible kicker in football like he's making these goals from miles away these drop kicks are perfect he's right between the pins and um so it gets revealed there's a sweeping crescendo of orchestral music that comes up the people who are in the proper football team at the high school start gathering around and paying attention. And then Adam Sandler promptly falls onto him and breaks his leg. All of this happens within about 40 seconds.

So they immediately set this thing up that Keithy's going to be this all-star football player and then destroy the dream. And it doesn't lead to any end. It's just, yeah. It's like so many bits of the film where it's like, well, then why? It's set up for a big gag and then there's no payoff in the gag and the gag doesn't further the plot.

It doesn't contribute to the story. It's just filler. It's mega fucked, man. They keep doing it. It's like the deer bit at the start. It's not even referenced later in the movie. It's like the raft in Kmart and then riding into the... It's like everything in this movie.

Nothing contributes to anything else. We're not being positive right now, Tim. I don't need to be positive. This movie is fucking terrible, and I'm going to have to watch it another presumably 46 times. Here's a thought, though. Four weeks from now, we'll be almost a fifth of the way through.

Yeah, and I'm rewarding us because I have said that when we get to number 10, we're allowed to start forming the worst idea in the world of all time slash grown-ups to drinking game. Because I think by that stage, we'll know the movie so well that we'll be able to set rules off the top of our head on where we should be drinking through the film okay are you excited about that i'm fucking pumped no i'm yeah i'm pretty excited about it i'm pretty i'm pretty excited i'm just real stoked this is over for the week thanks for listening very negative i'm excited about drinking in four episodes time i hope you join me please click on the facebook group and give that a little joiny lucky thing all feedback and suggestions

welcome if you have watched the movie please write a review send it in to us we will read it out we will discuss your opinions uh it's getting it's getting dire in here it's getting real dire in here and a tease for next week we track down a very minor actor in this film whose face you don't see. And we've tweeted her on Twitter. We're hoping to get a hit back. She's in a fantastic bit of the movie where she gets slammed in the back of the head

with an ice cream scoop. We'll bring you the updates as soon as they happen. I'm Guy Montgomery. And I'm Tim Beck. Live every moment. Live every moment.