The Worst Idea Of All Time - REVIEW: The Watch

Episode Date: March 29, 2020

This was originally a pay-walled episode available only to Patreon supporters. Please consider if you can #PayTheBoiz at patreon.com/join/TWIOAT.Take Ben Stiller, Vince Vaughan, Jonah Hill, Richard Ayoade, $68,000,000 and put on a very low heat. You've now made The Watch, a decidedly mediocre 2012 film about a neighbourhood watch group taking on an alien invasion. It's fine! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Every day I ask, what can I do for Glenview? That's why I founded The Running Club, the Spanish table at the community center, and the neighborhood watch. Let's loosen it up. After that short sort of breaking of the ice portion of the evening, I'm sorry to be the squeaky wheel, but wouldn't it be more fun to actually break ice into little cubes and then pour some scotch over them?

A few years ago, I wanted to become a member of the Glenview Police Department. You're a homicidal maniac. Wasn't feeling the vibe. I have this one scenario in my mind. Sexy Asian housewife, alone at night. Best call the neighborhood watch and then she sucks okay well i'm also interested in that happening to me Guy Montgomery, you globetrotting son of a bitch. How are you?

I'm fantastic, thank you, Tim. Coming at you live from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. I'm staying in room 1612 at the Ramada Suites in the KL City Centre, or KLCC, as they love to say here. And I have just watched the 2012 film, The Watch. How are you? Where are you? What a combination of things at odds with each other. You're in luxury accommodation in a beautiful part of the world watching, hey, I don't want to jump the gun here, a pretty fucking mediocre movie.

the world watching uh hey i don't want to jump the gun here pretty fucking mediocre movie uh yeah i mean i actually that was one of the least painful movies i've watched and the knowledge i'd be talking about it with you i am with you on that just to um before we get into it too much i'm on beautiful wahi beach among friends compadres, countrymen and women. What a lucky guy you are. So good. So I actually have no idea how I'm sounding because all I can hear is your voice. So it could be quite a windy little record. Let's find out.

Yeah. You've done a good job of muffling the wind. It was really getting into my ear canals. But now. But they're going to hear. The beautiful Patreon listeners will be hearing a completely different thing. So we'll hope for the

best which is what they did with this movie which, let me open with this. I'll throw some numbers at you I got from Wikipedia Oh crap, can I remember it? Budget of $65 million Do you know how much money it made? I do I looked at the same thing it was made

for 68 million it made 68.3 million dollars that is a win that is a net profit 300 000 dollars you're pocketing a cool 300k there um and hey nothing to sniff at i mean it's a very long road to take to get it but that's still,000 you didn't start the year with. So my congratulations to the studios, the filmmakers, the producers, everyone involved in it. You know, I could tell pretty much right out of the gate with this film, which starts with, well, first of all, for those of you who don't remember, it's sort of had quite a big marketing campaign, if I recall correctly.

It's Ben Stiller, Vince Vaughn, Jonah Hill and Richard Ayoade, who's a very funny British comedy actor and writer. Essentially, they play caricatures of previous roles they've had and form a neighborhood watch in a small suburban town. That they do. And within the first five minutes of watching it, I thought to myself, this is going to be neither the worst or best hour in 41 minutes of my life. If anything, this will barely be a blip on the radar

of my memory by the time it's finished and i was right it was almost you know in terms of uh all star cast uh gratuitous product placement and like semi-committed performance it's almost like a competently put together grown-ups too only they've got a story to thrust them through the runtime. There was a lot of beats of Grown Ups 2 in this. Nothing more prevalent than the placement of Costco inside the plot and screen of this picture, which emulated exactly the place of Kmart in Grown Ups 2 down to the fact that our four male leads, similar to Grown Ups 2,

have a scene in the camping department where they have a bit of a powwow and a chat exactly mirroring, I was going to say The Last Supper. It's not. There is something kind of artistic about the way they're all put together if you think about it hard enough. But anyway, those scenes are the same guy. They're identical, you see.

Mirror images of each other. Absolutely. I thought, you know, I mean, I'm just trying to think of some of the other gratuitous product placement. Bud Weiser seemed to throw a bit of money at this film. I think Costco pretty much single-handedly bankrolled this, right? There's a lot of time spent in there. They blow one up at the end, which is great.

You know you couldn't do that without their permission. Yeah. They also, like, at one point, Richard Ayoade's line was like, you know, Costco, they really do have everything you need in there. Spoken from the perspective of someone who uh you know like who believes what they're saying wholeheartedly everything under one roof which i'm going to assume is the slogan yeah should we rip through the plot quickly and then we can pick apart what we didn't didn't like why wouldn't you why wouldn't you do that hey can i just say as well for a bit of um theater

of the mind i'm actually walking right past a wedding that's happening on the beach. You're walking past a wedding? So let me paint you a picture. Tim Batt is walking down this beautiful New Zealand small-town beachfront locale with headphones and a big old microphone on. And there's some very well-dressed people attending the union of two families. It's magical, but I feel like I shouldn't be here. It's a beautiful thing.

I feel bad. They might be grateful. One of them might know who you are. They might think, holy shit, Tim Batt is recording in the background of our wedding. What a blessed day. Chances are low. Maybe one of the partners loves you and the other one doesn't like you at all and so it's uh it's read as a sign that the union is

in fact doomed a harbinger of the disc uh like discord discordance yep oh man my words are failing me i'm a black crow on the wedding yes Yes. You don't want to see me there. But here I am. Well, just for a bit of colour, I'm out of the 16th floor of this hotel, and I can see the urban sprawl of Kuala Lumpur unfurled beneath me. To my immediate left, we have what appears to be a blend of local and tourism nightclubs.

I walked through that last night to get to a food market. And there were some very forceful young prostitutes, actually, who were very interested in my custom. But I assured all of them I was okay. They were sort of almost trying to give me... yeah if i was in rome i would have probably you know solicited one of their services uh trying to give me paper cuts with their laminated you know uh massage offers it's all under the guise of a massage tim but i know better do they thrust a menu into your hands like a sort of an ethnic restaurant style or are they business cards that you get to keep uh they're they're sort of menus it's like a a smattering of the offerings available but uh more or less exactly that uh and then yeah if you keep if you keep walking i walked

uh about 14 kilometers in kuala lumpur yesterday and, and I went to, I would say, five malls. It's not laid out for the pedestrian in the city. It is none too friendly towards those who want to explore on foot. Occasional bursts of green space and, you know, beautiful neighborhoods, but more or less you're surrounded by various different motorways and office buildings. How else are you going to cram all those people in, Guy? You can't have a city that's populated without a lot of buildings and roads.

That's true. Well, no, I'm going to the Batu Caves today, which is slightly further out. I'm going to climb up a huge flight of stairs, Tim. And if you did that at home, it it'd be annoying but you're doing it overseas so it's a tourist attraction you'll pay money for i don't think i have to pay money for it but it's certainly something i would not it would not occur to me to do in new zealand i would never think i'm going to drive for an hour and a half so i can climb up a flight of over 300 stairs you're not

wrong it is absolutely absurd when you frame it like that save yourself the cost of the flight ladies and gentlemen if you're listening and you're interested in going to kl just find a local building count the stairs up their uh fire exit and do the requisite number of laps to youth hit 300 and it'll be like a vacation self-contained pretty much the same experience okay to the plot, dear comrade. Yeah, I also just became mindful of the fact that I've walked far ahead of my group and I'm carrying a lot of stuff for a baby that's with us. So I'm just going to return and make sure I'm not. Hey, I'll tell you what, this mule has really, he's overstepped his bounds, guy.

I've got important cargo in my back. Yeah, you are really, um, you really got a lot of stuff going on there at Waihi Beach. Oh yeah. You should see me. It's incredible. While you fulfil your obligations as a responsible party to a caregiver. I just remember, guys, I'm back with the pack. I just remembered I have the backpack on.

I got too far ahead of the baby. It's no good. It's a bad look. Bad mewling. Guy, to the plot. Please. That's when you pick Guy, to the plot. Please. That's when you pick up the baton and do it. You suggested the segment with a real hiss and a roar. You want me to do it? I'll do it.

Watch this. No, no, no. This is a movie which had lavish marketing. I remember seeing posters. I remember seeing bus backs. I remember billboards. Huge. From memory, in 2012 when this movie came out,

in the preceding months when it was advertised to me, I thought this whole thing was just around it being a neighborhood watch movie. So you could tell what this was. Broad four-tenth pole comedy. Big bankable stars. Ben Stiller's at the helm. Written by the same individuals who put together Superbad, which I was a huge fan of, and it was going to be like a goofy kind of cop buddy film

parody. And it is, for about 45 minutes, and then they introduce aliens. And the aliens are terrifying. They did a legitimately great job, thought of the special effects these things are very alien versus predator like the best bits of both species and so then the movie becomes a quest basically to save their own skin and the world i'm painting with some pretty broad brush strokes but that's what the movie no no i i think you've got it about right.

Ben Stiller's impotent? Oh, he's not impotent. He's shooting blanks. A little subplot. Sterile? Yeah. Yeah, so you've got Ben Stiller playing as sort of the neurotic, control-freaky lead, which was not a huge stretch for him.

Vince Vaughn, the fast-talking, fun-loving neighbor slash best friend. Not a huge stretch for Vince vince vaughn the fast-talking fun-loving neighbor slash best friend uh not a huge stretch for vince vaughn jonah hill playing some sort of foul-mouthed slightly youthful uh and in this actually insanely creepy and weapon obsessed uh failed cop and then richard aowadi playing uh sort of an eccentric british interloper. He's an alien. Everyone was... First in the legal sense, and then literally. Yeah, it's revealed that he's one of the aliens.

To me, it felt like they didn't quite stick the landing on either, but they got close enough that they were like, we can make this now, and they did. Also, in reference to your remembering of the marketing materials, I've discovered that it was originally marketed around the cast and the idea of it being a neighborhood watch. But around the same time, there was that terrible shooting of Trayvon Martin

by George Zimmerman, who was a member of the neighborhood watch. And so they had to change tack and redistribute the marketing built around they changed the name from neighborhood watch to the watch and instead tried to create a focus on the alien uh element of the film instead of the sort of buddy element buddy elements of the of the four four mates all going out there together um i don't understand why honestly i don't think it makes a difference how they market this thing like uh it's it's fine i was not upset i don't think i laughed once but i also don't think i groaned once i was just like yep yep yep like a lot of the humor has

what do you laugh at hopefully i've written this down but i there were there was i think about three spots in the film What'd you laugh at? Hopefully I've written this down, but there was, I think, about three spots in the film where I legitimately laughed. Oh, Will Forte at the very end was definitely one. Okay. Can I say this? Yeah, go.

I take it back. Every time Will Forte was on the screen, I laughed. Specifically, there was one point where they were on the stakeout outside of Costco after their security guard has murdered the first sign that something is amiss in this beautiful suburban neighborhood. And I was thinking to myself, God, you know, there was a brief time when this movie had real promise. This movie needs Will Forte. And then who should roll up in the car next door but Will Forte portraying a police officer.

He is honestly he lights up every scene he's in and everything he's in he is brilliant and i'm a big fan of his i i my opinion of his performance in this film is a little different from yours i feel like he really didn't come into his own till that last bit because i feel like he was being restrained he was being held back too much but that could be because my favorite role that i've seen will forte portray is the uh sword enthusiast and tim and eric um fuck i love that character so good easy swords um oh there's a lot of action happening around me that's fine um so and this he was kind of like just playing a slightly quirky but mainly down-the-line incompetent cop, which was fine.

But it was right at the end where he really got a chance to flap those comedy wings of his when there's a big explosion and he's talking to Ben Stiller's wife and he says, oh, what's happening? I can't see anything. Are those tears of joy? They're not. You're sad.

He's dead, isn't he? He's dead. He's died. You're going to be okay. You're's dead isn't he it's he's dead he's died you're gonna be okay you're a good person and it's just playing out as the costco is exploding around them fuck he's good you like that yeah i like i loved it uh could you please rank the four leads you know in terms of uh how you thought they performed from best to worst so who do you think did the best job with their character i can't help but love vince vaughn and everything i see of his and it's probably because i had a very um early love of old school like i just saw that movie at the right time probably when i was about 13 or 14 and so that has an enduring uh love in my heart even

though it's very silly and um you know not i love i love i love the movie old school it's great uh old school to me sort of exists in the same pantheon as like all the other ones that like anchor man is maybe of a slightly different era but occupies the same sort of reverential place in my mind's eye uh Yeah. Napoleon Dynamite, funnily enough, I mean, nothing really came of the filmmakers in the end. It was like they came up with a hiss and a roar and then slightly faded to obscurity. But I remember thinking that that movie

was eminently quotable and repeatable. Yeah. But old school, road trip. Road trip? I remember road trip, if only for being one of the first movies in which I saw boobies I had it on VHS

Amy Smart was that her name? that's the one I had that on DVD we both had that film interesting were you gifted it or did you go out and seek a copy of Road Trip on VHS I was given it for Christmas and I remember

at the time there was like a spare TV in our house No, I was given it for Christmas, and I remember at the time, there was like a spare TV in our house that had a built-in VCR. You remember these ones? That has dated this memory to about a six-month period. Yeah, I'm with you. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it was incredible. That was a product that when it was released was at the very top of the technological food chain

and within one week was entirely obsolete um but so i was lucky enough to have that in my room during the christmas period and so you can only imagine my delight when uh this is as close as i had to what became i guess laptops with internet capabilities and you know endless pornography but i had i had in my room i had the option to have breasts with me in my room at any given moment and it was staggering i feel like we were an age where we our our accessibility to porn was just right there was um it was there if you wanted it but there was just enough resistance that you really had to work for it these days it's yeah it feels like it's coming at you even when it's unsolicited, you know? It finds you.

It's too much. I'm actually off the stuff. I've been, if I'm ever going to have a tug, I've been going down the old route of the imagination recently. Can you imagine, Tim? Is that just a brain-expanding journey that you're on? Like, is there any particular reason for that?

I don't know. I just don't think it's necessary and it's like working out working out the tool that you need for comedy which is your brain your imagination i like that yeah yeah yeah i don't want to dwell too much on uh your mess do you remember let me just give you a high five for that. Pornography? No. Oh, yes. Yeah. I was what an old colleague of mine, Matt Heath, would refer to as grumble, which is magazine pornography you find in a park,

which seems like urban legend, but it actually did happen to me. It was an old friend of mine called, what was his name? Something Dixon. Andrew? Something. me was an old friend of mine called um what was his name something dixon andrew something you say a friend or an uncle a friend a mate of mine um i love that i remember i was with uh a family friend who was older and he'd found like some insane stash at his uncle's house, like in an outhouse or a shed. And we went out there. I think we're on the move again, sorry.

I'm trying to figure out what's happening. That's why I'm silent for long periods. That's okay. I was too young to necessarily know what was happening. But holy moly, those images stirred something in my loins. But that was all I did, is I looked at these various different insanely erotic images in something that was like a penthouse,

got rock hard, and then, you know, put the magazines down until my dick went down again, then went back and kept hanging out with two families. I don't know if either of my sisters subscribe to this Patreon, but I sincerely hope not. You've taken a turn with this episode. I feel like we need to get back to the movie here. I'm fine to indulge you teenage sexual escapades to a point, but I feel like I just got too much information.

And I know if I did, the listeners certainly did. No, no, no, it's okay. They love it. And I know if I did, the listeners certainly did. No, no, no, it's okay. They love it. But all that to say that you've got a deep-seated love for Vince Vaughn that dates back to your adolescent years. That was the original, yeah, that was the starting point of this bit. Was that a baby I just heard? What's going on over there in the hotel room in KL?

Oh, no, it's a squeak on the chair I'm sitting on. Oh, cool. Okay, sweet. No babies. Well, that's a relief. Absolutely. Sorry, so you were asking me. So Vince Vaughn, I love him. I can't help but love him.

He's a great comedy actor. He does one thing, but I really like the thing. I thought Jonah Hill was good. He's a really good actor. There's no getting around that. He's a weird, freaky little dude. He takes himself very seriously. I'd say too seriously. But he

managed to make the leap from comedies to working with Marty, what's his name? Scorsese. Scorsese. That doesn't come from nothing. So I thought he was good. Richard Aoyate. I don't know how to say his last name. Richard Aoyari?

I don't know how to say his last name. Richard Aoyari. That feels like too many syllables for the number of letters there. Richard Aoyari is eminently hilarious. As soon as he's on screen, I start laughing. Some of you will know him from the IT crowd and other things after that. But that's where I first saw him. He's bloody brilliant.

But he's not in it nearly enough. And I feel like they only give him a couple moments to really shine. But he's good. Ben Stiller. Oh, man. I do not care for Ben Stiller. He does. He's like Mike Myers.

He does character stuff great. And I think the reason is he's a weird and maybe bad person in real life, so he has to put on these masks to hide his real sort of personality. And in these movies where he's kind of playing the straight man, you're sort of, I think, seeing a window into the real guy. And I want to close the blinds, you know? That is—I can't believe you think that have been stiller i thought i would have uh i'd go ben stiller um aor day jonah hill vince vaughn would be my ranking

dang so almost an inverted tim as they call it yeah I mean, I love Vince Vaughn as well, but I feel like at this point, I mean, this is only 2012, this is six years ago, but at this point in his career, he could not be coasting any harder. The man has got one speed, you're right about that. I think certainly his style of speaking and the mock enthusiasm and the sort of play-by-play commentary

he provides for social groups has coloured the way I have formed my voice comedically and sometimes hang out with friends but uh i don't need to see it you know stretched across a feature film anymore i'd love i mean wedding crashes is one of the movies before we started doing any of our podcasts that i'd seen the most uh i thought it was so so funny again it was sort of of a certain time uh but since then it's all been diminishing returns for me um i i am not huge still a guy but i was like you know he was playing an important role in this movie he was the he was the he was the lead essentially in an ensemble when he got things moving um aowada yeah i mean i agree you know underutilized entirely

probably the best i don't like i don't like i don't like stiller as a straight man i didn't like him in something about mary i'm pretty sure i've seen meet the fuckers and remember having a bad impression of him in that and then he he um who's the big famous actor that he got in meet the fuckers denero yeah i feel like he dragged denero into his his bad acting black what are Who's the big famous actor that he got in Meet the Fockers? De Niro. Yeah. I feel like he dragged De Niro into his bad acting black hole. What are you talking about? First of all, they did Meet the Parents, which is a classic. I feel like a commercial and critical success.

Then Meet the Fockers, not as good, but still certainly a passable movie. And then they did Little Fockers, which I never got around to watching. What the hell is that? Is that the one sequel too far? Yeah, they had kids or something, you know? But I don't mind him as a straight man. Agree to disagree. That's fine.

That's why we're good friends, guy, because we can disagree on stuff, and that's just all right. That's just Rosie. friends guy because we can disagree on stuff and it's just it's all right it's just rosy uh what did you say of um another point that this shares with grown-ups too for my money uh it's treatment of anyone who's not a dude in this film oh so that was something i was trying to say earlier uh a lot of the humor has not i mean it has not aged well i saw in some cursory research so it wasn't even particularly well received at the time but this is sort of you know right in the

that sort of upper taurian wheelhouse of like boys being boys uh but they sort of let their they let their their jaw and off get a little away on them in this one i think uh this is a movie where you do not want to be anyone who isn't one of the lads certainly uh yeah there is there like his his wife is almost fleshed out to the point of being recognizable as a person i found her can i say this incredibly charming i thought she was she just exuded charisma on screen i thought she was great no one no one did more with less uh and then like a lot of the running jokes like jonah hill's creepiness and also some weird stuff around consent in this movie funnily enough i mean this is 2012 it's telling how quickly the the earth spins around now that yeah would not would not make it over the line in a modern release uh when they first think the

alien that they've discovered is dead they do a lot of sort of comical teenage uh poses style stuff they put shades on them they take a lot of snaps they do they dance with them vince vaughn's got him propped up. They've been drinking heavily, and they're slow dancing, and he grabs his butt, and then the alien comes back to life, throws him in magnificent fashion. Teaching us you must ask even a corpse if you can touch its ass or else there are consequences.

That's right. And then there was even a moment with Vince Vaughn's character in this movie, this sort of emotional hook of him as he is a essentially operating as a solo parent to a teenage daughter who he loves very much but hasn't really formed the best mode of communication with and uh he really cares for her and at one point she gets going to a party and uh he's pretty worried the friend is a pretty wild person uh so he shows up to sort of make sure everything's okay and at the time she's uh been you know uh cordoned off into a bedroom with her boyfriend who's being quite uh lecherous and disgustingly sort of forceful or um insistent would be a better word and it was sort of like they were really edging up towards making a point or saying something

uh but then they remember that they were making a movie in which women are props and aliens are the driving force. And they sort of cast all of the emotional heft they've built up aside so that they could make a few dick jokes and have a fight scene. A dick joke is a central part of the plot as well. In fact, we've spoiled enough for this movie. What it is, is the aliens have one weakness and one weakness only and that is their dicks so you got to rip their dicks off to kill them

their giant alien dicks hilarious that is a classic it's amazing the movie didn't make more than three hundred thousand dollars when you when you think about it. Yeah. Relative to... It feels like a bulletproof joke. You see, guy, Achilles' heel is their cock. That's undeniable comedy. Do you know, I actually... So when they get to the point...

Yeah, that is undeniable comedy, very Greek. When they get to the end of the movie where it's like they need to, you know, like if they don't sort out these aliens, the aliens are going to take over all of Earth, which all of that stuff is sort of flimsy and rushed, but they're like, we really need to get the end of this, otherwise people are going to stop paying attention. A very satisfying piece of plotting, I thought, was,

well, I was sort of so indifferent towards all of the action at the end i was like i knew that the the neighborhood watch would eventually triumph over the aliens uh but when they they got that big orb that they'd found earlier in the film so there's this sort of powerful orb which is like a centrifugal force to the aliens which can i'd say it's probably how they travel. It's like a beam that can explode anything within its path. But when they figured out that they could take that and use it to explode the entire Costco and in doing so incinerate all of the aliens

attempting to invade the Earth, I was like, that within the world of the movie is actually a neat little bit of logic. It makes a lot of sense. I'm proud of the guys. I'm happy with the writers um yeah but that was that was like almost just sort of begrudging appraisal that they'd cobbled together uh you know uh a semi-decent bit of plotting i mean i agree with you man it was neat it was it was neat it was a nice, tidy little sort of bookend for the plot.

I feel like Seth, what's his name? I forget the name. Rogan. And Evan Goldberg. Yeah, you got it. Oh, is it Seth Rogan? Oh, it is too, isn't it? Yeah.

Yeah, true. You know, they've got the formula down for these films. They know how to write them. Yeah. That's evident i mean and that's why this film was really like to be honest you patreon guys fucked up a bit i think this was a movie that was um like fine you know it genuinely was fine i was watching it i was like this is fine not only does it barely warrant watching but it sort of barely warrants conversation you know everyone no one comes out of it uh looking here here right but no one comes out of it looking

terrible either it's just like yeah i can see how this movie got green lit i can see exactly why it was received with like do you not think that making three hundred thousand dollars on top of a 68 million dollar budget is like the perfect representation of what this movie is. Yeah, just slightly above Breaking Even. So close to it, but just slightly above. I just want to say, because I've said some negative things about Ben Stiller,

that he is super good looking in this film in particular. They actually comment on it a bit. They keep saying he's got a great physique and great skin. And look, I just want to put my name down as agreeing with that assessment because he looks ravishing in this film. He is great, Nick.

The reason I think that what you said caught me off guard is I feel like, I don't know why, but I feel like Ben Stiller sort of, in retiring from the spotlight, has become sort of a secret philanthropist. I might be wrong. Oh, really? I believe it. I definitely believe that. I don't know.

He seems normal and still waters run deep and then have a big dark swirling pool at the bottom, as the saying goes. Who knows? Do you think he'd be, be like funny in conversation at dinner no i don't at all no absolutely not i think he's a guy who has it in him to be so funny and knows how to turn it on when he's like on stage and on screen but i think he just he's quite a serious guy if you're just dealing with him um did you watch tropic thunder yep i saw it recently weirdly

because i hadn't watched in ages i was like i've got such a confusing memory of what that movie is in my head like i can't tease out what that movie actually was so i watched it again about um a week or two ago what did you think it's not as it's it's it's still a really weird film i can understand why my memory was so confused i i did like it it's longer than it should be i think um it's just it just feels really ambitious and i kind of feel like they pulled it off but i don't know i'm still in spite of the fact that i just saw it recently, I'm still undecided about it, which is an odd position to take. I think I saw it maybe two or three years ago and was like...

I think when it came out, I was excited by it because I liked... For whenever it came out, I feel like it was probably about 10 years ago. I liked the cast and I liked the premise. Yeah. Robert Downey jr is pretty amazing the commitment to that role is outstanding that's right i mean but that was that was probably a scandal then i imagine it would be a huge scandal now you couldn't put the movie out in 2018

with anything like what happened in that film but No way. But I remember thinking, for those of you who haven't seen it, Robert Downey Jr. plays a character actor who takes himself very seriously. And accordingly, he is in blackface for essentially the entirety of the movie. It's sort of like, it's like one of those roles where it's like, everyone's meant to be in on the joke,

so it's only making fun of actors who would be so committed that they would black out for an entire movie but at the same time you are dealing with an actor who has you know it's like the joke is on itself but still this character does a similar thing uh though not racially um you know parodying anything or taking on the characteristics of, but he does it with intellectually handicapped people in a faux film, you know, within the universe of it called Simple Jack.

And they end up saying, you never go full retard quite a lot in the film, which again, luckily, I think, probably on balance, is something you could not put out in 2018. That's right. it is amazing how quickly things have changed absolutely but i remember thinking like for all of it because i think ben's i thought even by that point i felt like maybe still had lost it but i think he he co-wrote and he did direct that movie and i remember thinking it was funny and my knowledge

of remembering certain parts of that film tells me that, like, that's one of the things in the back of my mind where I'm like, maybe it would be fun to go out for dinner with Ben Stiller. Maybe he would be a funny guy. I thought he was really good in Tropic Thunder. I'll say that. Really good. Super funny. I had some notes as well, Guy.

I'm just going to see if any of them bear talking about. There's a guy called Paul who's in the film who lives next door, ambiguously gay at the start and then it's revealed he runs some sort of a sex cult party thing yeah at his house he is um in this film called the watch and i was like he he is he's in something and i looked it up online it's the watchman so he went from the watch to the watchman where he's um uh dr manhattan which is we love that coolest oh man one of the coolest characters that scene do you know this is slightly embarrassing to admit but i i on occasion will watch that scene on youtube just because i think

it's so cool and i know a lot of people hate the watchman i i get it it was it was you know it was a lot it was a lot but that scene where he transitions into... Just watch that scene, man. It gives me goosebumps. It's so... Ah, fuck. It's well done, man. It's good.

When he transforms into Dr. Manhattan. The story is chilling. He gets... Can I say? I won't say it. I'll leave it for whoever wants to see it to make their decision. The only thing at this point, seeing it's been a graphic novel

and a semi-unsuccessful movie that came out a while ago, don't you think that everyone who wants to have seen it can see it? Cool, here's what happens. He is a nuclear physicist and I think it's in the 60s, they're doing a bunch of experiments. It takes you through his storyline of meeting a girl, and this all happens so self-contained and beautifully over the course

of about 10 minutes. Meets a fellow scientist who's drop-dead gorgeous. They fall in love, get together. It shows them going to the fair, and it's all very late 50s and very cute. What's the word? Sort of beguiling, and he's very chivalrous,

and it's nice. Good character development done real quick in a montage. Then it shows him being in the chamber where they do the experiments, and the vault door shuts because he forgot his watch he left it on the shelf so he goes back in to grab it the vault door shuts of this room and it's on a time lock so he is trapped in there and then you see the horrified um faces of of his lady love and this other co-worker that they're working with as they realize, as he does, that he is trapped in there now

with incredible amounts of high energy pulsing around the room and you see him literally be disintegrated into nothing and then he sort of reconfigures himself back as a ghost in the hallway but he is like this tormented soul that doesn't quite know how to reassemble his body yet and then eventually

wills himself back into being. He's super powerful. Super powerful is an understatement. He basically can control matter at will. He is a super god. And then he becomes bored of humanity. Anyway, watch the scene. It is good.

Right on. But it's no paul and the watch yeah i mean i actually watched this movie i so i was i woke up and it was the first thing i had to do uh and because of the way the scheduling works because i'm on tour with some other comedians we want to do some activities today i actually had to take it down to the breakfast buffet and uh no sooner had i sat down at the breakfast buffet, we're at a hotel, it's a family hotel, you know, there are some business people,

there are also some young families. As I sat down and arrived back at the table with a meal, you know, with which to enjoy a certain portion of this film, it was right on time for the orgy scene as a young family entered the restaurant from behind me. Perfect. And a bevy of breasts were on display so i would look like timing a genuine creeper uh sitting next to my laptop covered in breasts

with a mountain of fried rice uh no one around me just watching a movie in a crowded breakfast buffet that by those people's imagination standards pretty much qualified as soft call pornography so to the young family holidaying uh here at the ramada suites in kuala lumpur on this the 2nd of november 2018 i apologize i'm sure they're listening that scene got a rise out of me for the appearance of the lonely island Boys because one of them directed this film. Andy Samberg and his friends jacking each other off in a Dutch rudder style circle while discussing who's going to win the Oscar for Best Picture. That was good.

I thought that was a nice moment. Yeah, that was pretty funny. Which one of them directed this? I can't remember his name. Are you serious? Oh, Akiva Schaefer. Yeah, yeah, yeah, he did oh wow uh other notes uh just to fill you in as well on the surrounds it's now raining um all of my party went into a cafe about 15 minutes ago and i've just been standing out here in the rain talking to you which is a pleasure

uh i also wrote down jamarcus is a good name that's richard iota i how do you say iowad iowadi uh i will always associate the name with uh jim marcus with one of the great nfl draft busts in the history of the sport um jim marcus russell chosen by the oakland raiders uh and i think it was the 2007 NFL draft. This was probably at the height of my NFL fandom. No one has given a worse return, essentially. His contract that settled the Oakland Raiders to a dud pretty much buried the franchise for another 10 years.

A mire which they have struggled to emerge from even now. So when I heard jim marcus i didn't think that's a good name i thought hey that's jim marcus russell that's a bad man i mean yeah but to his credit it does make a difference once you sign that contract you could be a terrible athlete uh that money's yours so i don't know what he's doing with his his life but you know it's nice to skin off his back. I'm pretty keen to get some food in my belly, haven't eaten in a while,

and maybe get out of this rain as well, Guy. I hate to sort of cut proceedings short, but do we want to start closing up our thoughts on this film? Look, man, this film, this film, and, you know, this podcast, I would say, neither necessary. Missable.

Yeah, totally missable. Absolutely. And that's on us, actually, because it should be within us, especially by this point. With the chemistry we have developed over the last five fucking years, you would think we could pull out

a funnier piece of audio content than what we just did so don't be don't be too hard on us or yourself to think about it this way you've been you know traipsing up and down a beach on wahi uh i am in my hotel i'm in malaysia still sort of somewhat confused by jet lag uh we've both just watched something which is not inspiring, you know, in any good or bad way. I'd say this is exactly what the doctor ordered. Okay. Very, very, that's lovely.

It's a good positive spin on things. And my only concern is I just want to do the best for the people who are financially supporting us. So to all our Patreon pals, thank you so much for joining us for this episode. Kind of fuck you for the voting on this one. I will say this as a programming note. This was a tie in the poll with back-to-back watches of Jiggly and not Made in Manhattan. What was the other one? Jiggly and Jersey Girl. So that will be next up, and I am far and away looking forward to that more than this one

because we can sink our teeth into that big time. It was just we were a little pressed for time and trying to negotiate the zones and shit. That will be upcoming. I'm looking forward to it. This was still a pleasure as always to talk to you, though, Guy. It's always just nice to have a chat. Undoubtedly. Send

my best to all of the people in your touring party that I know. Of course. And I'll do the same. Everyone have a safe and enjoyable day out there. And we'll see you next time where I imagine I'll be broadcasting from India.

Wonderful. I hope they find Ben Stiller as fuckable as I do. Good night.