0:00

Your routine should never feel routine.

0:03

Mix it up this fall with the Peloton app.

0:06

Right, the Peloton app has an amazing

0:08

range of classes. I love this app. I

0:11

love the teachers. No matter where I am, if I'm

0:13

in a hotel and I'm in the gym there, I can

0:15

get a workout in. I could go on a jog with

0:17

the Peloton app. Wherever I am,

0:19

the Peloton app fits my needs. 5

0:22

minutes, 25 minutes, whatever. Get

0:24

started for free. Join now for your

0:26

first 30 days free. Anyone,

0:29

anywhere can get moving with Peloton. Try

0:31

the Peloton app today for

0:32

free for 30 days. New paid

0:34

members only starting at $12.99 a

0:37

month after trial unless canceled.

0:39

Terms apply. No

0:40

matter what you're a fan of, Texas

0:43

has the trip for you. There's

0:45

the trip

0:48

to Texas and the trip.

0:54

Or maybe you're the kind of fan who'd prefer

0:56

a trip

0:58

to Texas or a

1:02

trip.

1:03

Either way, go to TravelTexas.com

1:05

slash get your own for the only trip

1:07

to Texas that matters. Yours.

1:12

Sergeant and Mrs. Smith, you're going to love

1:14

this house. Is that a tub

1:16

in the kitchen? There's no field manual

1:19

for finding the right home, but when you do, USAA

1:22

homeowners insurance can help protect it the right

1:24

way. Restrictions apply. Kids

1:26

are stupid and emotions are dumb.

1:29

We saw after earth, so you know what that

1:31

means.

1:43

Mediocrity of some far art.

1:46

Perhaps we'll find the answer to the question,

1:48

how did this get made?

1:50

Hello people of earth and welcome to How

1:52

Did This Get Made. I am joined as always by

1:54

June Diane Rayfield. How are you June? Good, how are you

1:56

Pop? Very good. And Jason Manzikas. How are

1:58

you Jason? Just great. We

2:01

have a very special guest with us today. The

2:04

lovely, the talented, the enormously funny, Paul

2:07

F. Tompkins. Oh, hello! Something

2:09

very unnerving to hear about seeing a married

2:11

couple be so formal together. How are you? I'm

2:14

fine, Paul. How are you? And Jim,

2:16

you were doing well? I don't know. I

2:18

know. I'm fine. You guys

2:21

woke up together and spent the whole day

2:23

together. Jim,

2:28

did you want to address your allergy attack?

2:37

The first five minutes of the movie

2:40

was a wash because I was having a severe

2:42

allergy attack. Oh, I didn't know what was going on

2:44

in there. A severe allergy attack. We

2:46

should let everyone know, we saw this movie

2:49

together just a minute ago. This

2:52

is the second time we've ever done this. We're still vibrating.

2:54

But one of my eyes was tearing uncontrollably.

2:59

On the drive

3:01

over, you were using a t-shirt

3:01

to wipe your eyes.

3:03

Because

3:07

I had nothing in the car. And it got worse for you.

3:10

It was the craziest thing. And my nose was running. Your

3:12

eye was leaking? Yes. Oh, you got

3:14

a leaky eye. I had a leaky eye for the first

3:16

five minutes of the movie. Okay,

3:19

so then do you need us to explain anything to you?

3:22

Well, here's what I wrote down. Do you

3:24

think you missed anything during your leaky eye period? The

3:26

first

3:26

question I have is about what

3:28

happened? What is

3:30

the Street Fighter?

3:32

Baby Will Smith,

3:34

was he doing

3:36

an accent? Yes. Well,

3:38

that was the thing I was so refused at. Because he was British.

3:41

Certain people in this movie were British. But not always

3:43

British. No. Yes, everyone was doing what I

3:45

think was supposed to be a future accent.

3:47

Yes. Really? Yes,

3:50

absolutely. The person who was doing it the least was

3:52

Will Smith. Yes. And the

3:54

person who was doing it the most was one of the guards

3:57

early on in the movie. I think one of the guards

3:59

that... tells Jaden Smith that he can't be a space

4:01

ranger. Yes. He has a, he's very

4:04

British. Okay, so wait a second. Well, it was sort

4:06

of like South African and then sometimes it was

4:08

like a reggae accent. Yes. I felt

4:10

like I was watching like, that is an old reference, but

4:12

I, Claudius, like a PBS. Like, I

4:14

was like a very, I'm talking like,

4:17

it was very pronounced. Everybody spoke in very

4:19

measured tones. So that does-

4:21

But sometimes, you know,

4:23

sometimes people would say like, that sucks.

4:26

Yeah. Yeah. He says a

4:28

lot like, Will Smith, again, not paying

4:30

attention to the accent part? Like, he's like, that is

4:33

pretty cool. Like, you know, break- Yeah, or like,

4:35

damn it. And then other

4:37

times they were speaking like robots. It was so

4:39

weird. Well, yeah. I couldn't,

4:42

I see, I thought Jaden

4:44

Smith had just some terrible accent

4:47

that he couldn't lose for the movie. Well, that's

4:49

what I thought too. I thought I had not seen the karate kid. Does he

4:51

have an average accent? I thought he had a speech

4:53

impediment. That's what I had. When he first started.

4:55

During my allergy attempt. During the voiceover.

4:58

Yeah. I was spinning out and thinking, I

5:01

was a sex- I

5:13

thought it was great. that bad

5:15

as it went on. I thought it was great. Yeah. Wait,

5:18

I thought it was great? Wait, what? I thought it was

5:20

great. You know, you're not

5:22

bad. I thought the whole third act of the movie,

5:24

he really pulled off. I agree. I feel

5:26

like people are really ripping on Jaden. I don't think that Jaden, I

5:29

think there's a lot of problems with this movie.

5:32

I think Jaden did his best. Hey, look,

5:35

if an actor is being told like, hey, go over, talk to

5:37

that giant bird over there. Have

5:40

a chat with a giant bird. Real

5:42

conversation. And he

5:44

goes, what did he say? Hey,

5:47

thanks man. Hey, thanks man. Thanks man.

5:49

Hey, thanks. Hey, thanks. Hey, thanks. I

5:52

couldn't, I guess, okay. Everybody's

5:54

gonna be nice to Jaden, I guess. Well,

5:57

you know what? I thought he was terrible.

6:00

But in his defense,

6:02

he's acting for the

6:05

vast majority of the movie against no

6:08

one. Well that is acting in a vacuum. There

6:10

are no, it is hard to gauge

6:13

levels, it is hard to, he's just looking

6:15

off camera and delivering like lines

6:18

as if he's in a scene with his father,

6:20

which his father is not there. Well

6:23

basically just to give you the outline of this movie,

6:25

which is in the future, Earth

6:28

has to be evacuated, everyone gets on

6:30

these ships, they go to a different planet where they all adopt

6:33

the British accent, the

6:35

whole world just jumps on that. And

6:37

then... That's what I think by the way the accent was supposed

6:39

to be, as though like the whole Earth had

6:42

just, like people from all over

6:44

had now colonized together. And everyone

6:46

decided to speak English. So that's just sort of, yeah, English,

6:48

the main accent is all fused together to sound like

6:52

that. So there on this planet, Will Smith is

6:54

the head of this Ranger Corps

6:57

kind of thing, he's a very decorated soldier because

6:59

he has no fear. And it's important

7:01

to have no fear because there is a race of aliens

7:04

that can smell fear, but he's very successful

7:06

at beating those aliens because he does not have fear.

7:09

Yeah, the aliens, they otherwise cannot see

7:11

you, they do not know you're there. Like, like

7:13

a Tyrannosaurus Rex. And that's, you do something called ghosting.

7:16

Yes. That's

7:18

in the voice over in the beginning, this phenomenon

7:20

is known as ghosting. And

7:23

I was like, go fuck yourself. So

7:28

basically, you know, Will Smith and his son

7:30

have a bad relationship, but Will Smith takes his son

7:32

out on some sort of space adventure.

7:35

And his wife is like, you know what? You

7:38

know what? There's a boy in there

7:40

who needs a father. And he's like,

7:42

well, I guess I'll just put you on a spaceship

7:44

with me and we'll go into space.

7:47

There's a deadly creature aboard. He

7:49

will load up one of the most deadly

7:51

things that hunts us into the cargo

7:54

bay. And then we'll go on a space adventure.

7:56

One of the main

7:57

like issues in their relationship is that

7:59

Jaden. years

8:02

earlier had witnessed the death of his sister.

8:03

He tried

8:04

to ghost and fight this alien, but

8:07

he smelled her

8:07

fear. She didn't survive. Well, yeah, the sister

8:10

put him in a little planter. A little terrarium.

8:12

A terrarium. Thank you. She survived

8:14

missing in terrarium, but we're supposed

8:17

to understand that the subtext of their relationship

8:19

is that Will Smith is resentful

8:21

that this boy didn't fight on behalf of his sister.

8:23

A child! He got a year to

8:25

kill him at the max. At max?

8:28

Max, he's a six year old. He's

8:30

old enough to fit in a

8:32

planter. And by the way, something

8:34

that is meant to hold a planter. By

8:36

the way, I do love how they reveal it. The entire

8:38

movie, you're looking at it over his shoulder.

8:41

So you see he's in a bubble, but at the end, they

8:43

kind of, the camera pulls back to reveal it. This is

8:45

very small terrarium. So it really

8:47

was scattered plant on the ground. And

8:49

Hayden doesn't play the part of, I mean, this

8:52

is a child, even younger child actor

8:54

who's a six year old. Yes, he,

8:56

and so Will Smith was mad that the six year

8:58

old didn't throw down with the giant eight

9:00

foot tall alien. I don't know. Known

9:03

for like crucifying all the humans. By

9:05

the way, that was a crazy thing as well.

9:07

Yes. The alien loves to not

9:09

just kill humans, but then like kind of stick them

9:11

in the tree. Yeah, it pales them on things.

9:13

And as is later explained, it's

9:16

a pheromone trap. Yep. So that

9:18

you'll see it, you'll be afraid, and you'll just stand there looking

9:20

at it, and the monster comes along and gets you. But

9:23

then also, I noticed. That's how it triggers your fear. I

9:25

noticed that these monsters,

9:27

they don't eat people. They

9:29

just seem to murder people. That's all they want to do.

9:32

Kill. So it's just very specific race

9:34

of aliens that just, their whole

9:36

deal is, we want to kill human beings

9:38

at the end. Don't ask us any

9:40

other questions about it. Who cares?

9:43

This is what I think was happening though. Those aliens

9:45

aren't the aliens, those

9:48

are like the aliens' dogs, basically.

9:51

Those aren't the race of aliens that are like,

9:54

they aren't the, they aren't. Wait, wait, wait, what?

9:56

I think those things were dropped.

9:59

Remember they dropped from the. sky. They

10:01

were the aliens basically I think dropped

10:03

those things onto Earth to just kill everything.

10:05

Oh. That's what I think those

10:08

things were like killing like wild

10:10

a pack of wild dogs basically. They were not

10:12

like the intelligent life forms that

10:15

were that did anybody else? I

10:17

don't know. Wow. That's a good idea

10:20

though. Yeah. It's

10:21

really hard because there's so much information

10:23

coming at us in the first two minutes of the

10:25

movie.

10:25

We went with a leaky eye. I

10:27

got a leaky eye. But they really like

10:29

they really kind of go like here's everything. Okay. Okay. And

10:32

then three days earlier. Yeah. Yes. I don't know

10:38

why.

10:39

I really actually don't know what happened. What happened

10:41

to Earth? We polluted it. Wait,

10:43

was there? Yeah, there were at the very beginning.

10:46

There was a quick montage of pollution. Oh,

10:48

and then we went

10:51

then what happened was see there you go

10:54

because of the smog probably.

10:56

Yeah. Right. So we because of

10:58

our because of our our cars and

11:00

driving around in our big cars we ruined the

11:02

Earth then we found Nova prime. We

11:04

went to Nova prime but what we

11:06

didn't realize was that aliens would

11:09

attack us on Nova prime by dropping

11:11

these attack dogs on us. Wait, wait. So the alien.

11:14

Oh. So the aliens never even attacked Earth.

11:16

No. The only alien on Earth was the one

11:18

they brought in their own ship. Got it.

11:21

So okay. So we destroy the

11:23

planet with pollution then we travel

11:25

in interstellar travel to another planet

11:29

that's habitable. Oh, I love it. By the way, that part

11:31

of the way that is explained is long

11:33

lines leading to like

11:36

space shuttles. Yeah. Right.

11:38

As if like okay everybody get in

11:41

line. We're all getting on our rocket

11:43

ship. It's go into outer space but

11:46

it was like it looks like Disney World. It was

11:48

it was just like okay. Yeah. Well, since I know another

11:50

next one will come. It's like a subway line. Exactly. We're

11:52

probably gonna have to make multiple trips. So

11:55

so we get to this other planet and then finally

11:58

presumably someone has scouted this planet

12:01

out and they've tested it, yes, you would hope there.

12:03

So eventually it's time like, yes, let's bring

12:06

all human beings to this planet. Everyone

12:08

is brought to the planet and then

12:10

these aliens decide we're going to wipe

12:13

everybody out. I think so. But

12:15

then they didn't wipe everybody out because it seemed like

12:17

their planet, I mean, I guess the

12:20

alien attack must have stopped because

12:22

they were in very nice apartment buildings. Yeah,

12:26

I think they were in some sort of war

12:28

situation with these things because

12:31

he's out in the field doing these missions and

12:33

blah blah blah. But on a different planet it

12:35

seemed like. Yeah, that's true.

12:37

I'm not sure. But when he's fighting the imminent

12:39

threat in their apartment complex,

12:42

I agree with that, but there is that scene where he's

12:44

introduced and he's got his sword

12:46

and he just walks right up to the Earth

12:50

and just cuts it in half. And that's like

12:52

the same kind of, that looked like the same geography

12:54

as the planet. I don't know why I care about this. None

12:58

of this has anything to do with the past five minutes

13:01

of the movie. But

13:02

here's the question though, why were they bringing

13:04

this alien, Ursa, outside

13:07

of the planet? Well, they explained that they were going to

13:09

bring it to another planet to use it for

13:11

ghosting exercise. Oh, I see. Yes,

13:14

they were transporting the alien to do testing on it.

13:17

Did they establish that anyone else besides Will

13:19

Smith was successful at ghosting? No. That

13:22

was the thing that was really interesting. He

13:24

seemed to be, and by ghosting, he also

13:27

has lost all emotions. Yeah. It seems like

13:30

he has no, like, like, so he

13:32

is emotionless, which is a tough thing

13:34

for a movie to have two characters,

13:37

one without emotions and the other without an acting

13:39

partner. Yeah. So he's putting, you're stacking the deck

13:43

against these people in a major

13:45

way. It really is like a robot

13:48

talking to a robot. It

13:50

is very, through a TV

13:53

monitor. Yes. Like, that's the thing is, like, Jaden's

13:55

got a TV monitor on his wrist and

13:57

Will has TV monitors in front of him. The

14:00

whole movie basically, there's spaceship

14:03

crash lands on Earth. It's very much like Lost.

14:05

There's a tail section and there's the front

14:07

section. No Michelle Rodriguez. No

14:10

Michelle Rodriguez. There is no others. But

14:14

Will Smith is hurt. They need to fire

14:16

a beacon to get saved. So he sends Jaden

14:19

Smith 100 kilometers

14:21

across Earth, apparently

14:23

across every climate

14:26

of Earth known. They

14:28

end up on the worst possible place, the

14:30

planet Earth, whereas Will Smith explains

14:36

every living creature on this planet has

14:38

evolved to kill a human being. Why?

14:41

Who knows? Don't know why. Human

14:43

by the way aren't even there anymore. And

14:46

that's not true from what we saw.

14:49

No, those bison seemed pretty cool. The bison

14:51

seemed fine. There was a bird. The

14:53

pigs. Now there is now this

14:55

utopia of animals where every

14:57

type of animal lives in the same place. Bison's

15:00

hyenas. Giant

15:03

birds. Giant dogs. I

15:06

don't mean to poke holes

15:10

in any of the logic of this movie, but

15:12

it was established in the beginning that Will Smith

15:15

was a part of this ranger core

15:17

that helped them move to the new planet.

15:20

So arguably, Will Smith is not that

15:22

old. He's probably in his 50s. He's

15:25

old enough to have a 19 year old daughter and

15:28

a 6 year old son. Why

15:30

did she have to be 19 by the way? It

15:33

was an interesting age. Does it just make her like 16?

15:38

Yeah, 19 or 20. 19 is a

15:40

weird age. So

15:43

anyway, he did all this. So

15:46

you would imagine at the most, Earth has

15:48

been uninhabited for 20 plus

15:51

years. There's

15:54

no sign of anything.

15:57

No sign of... It's

16:00

nothing! It's nothing! People were everywhere!

16:03

It's as if the entirety

16:05

of humanity is

16:08

gone obviously but had never been there.

16:10

Never! As if the world had rebooted.

16:13

And I get like I Am Legend like oh grass

16:15

may have grown up through the Empire State Building

16:17

or something like that but there is nothing, there's

16:19

not even a Remnock, he doesn't

16:22

even walk by a car body. There's nothing there.

16:24

Oh this used to be a house but he does fall into

16:26

a pit of Native American art. Oh

16:29

yes, find some cave paintings. It's

16:31

also in this say two

16:33

decade span brand new

16:36

animals have evolved. There's

16:38

modern pterodactyls, it's

16:41

like these giant buzzard eagle creatures. Then

16:43

there's also these lion tiger monsters

16:46

that they love to eat

16:48

birds. They

16:50

love eating baby birds. And

16:53

for the majority of it he seems to be in like a redwood

16:55

forest and then there's a giant volcano.

16:58

But here's that he gets, that he climbs to

17:00

the top of in about half a day.

17:03

Oh and that even quicker I felt he did that

17:05

in a run. I feel like that was like a 20 minute run. And

17:08

there's an extreme winter neighborhood. He

17:11

just crosses the line and instantly

17:13

succumbs to the thermos. At a certain time

17:15

the world becomes, as I explained it, it becomes inhabitable

17:18

and you have to be in

17:20

a hot spot or you'll free after

17:22

that. But at that time he has

17:25

to and then. I'm kind of sitting with these hot spots too.

17:27

Yeah. Hot spot. The

17:29

one time we see him like really have to confront like he's running

17:31

out of oxygen or something's happening and he needs

17:34

to get into a hot spot. The

17:36

bird picks him up and drags him over.

17:38

His hot spot in this freezing cold weather

17:40

is like there's a couple

17:42

leaves on him. No the bird

17:44

is on top of him. The bird was the hot spot. I didn't

17:46

realize the bird was on top of him. The

17:49

bird would have made a nest around him. The

17:51

bird sacrificed itself for

17:53

him to save him. I didn't understand

17:56

that. I didn't know why the bird died. I

17:58

didn't know why the bird died either. too

18:01

cold to cold to cold to which jayden

18:03

went over and said hey thanks to that bird

18:07

too cold too cold that's a bird of too cold but

18:09

it was still all green there because

18:12

the cold had because in the morning

18:14

it got warm again it gets warm again and

18:16

everything comes back to life so remember all the things would

18:18

close because it was getting cold oh that's

18:21

why they were doing yes okay but I would also

18:23

argue and some stuff why does this need

18:25

to be earth why couldn't have

18:28

just been a planet you wouldn't have had

18:30

to listen to any of these rules because

18:32

there was nothing if this movie was like on

18:34

you know Zeno 5 fine yeah

18:37

I buy it like here's a crazy creature like it

18:39

was no it wasn't like Earth's involved it wasn't

18:41

like you saw anything of anything

18:44

the movie posits the idea that

18:46

without humanity like the

18:48

the planet would flourish you know

18:51

yeah yeah better it would be a lot

18:53

better place except that the the air quality

18:55

is bad yeah you have to breathe in a special

18:58

inhaler in order to be able to breathe

19:00

which is so odd though because

19:02

the plant life is amazing yeah I

19:05

thought

19:06

that

19:09

they just had been away from

19:11

oxygen for so long or whatever

19:13

that I kind of thought that do maybe that's

19:15

it maybe that's it because there was so much I think

19:19

we can all agree that was not explained

19:24

greetings podcast listeners this is

19:26

world-renowned self-proclaimed couple therapist

19:29

dr. Sheila and I'd like to invite

19:31

all of you to experience my couples

19:34

therapy podcast say more

19:36

with dr. Sheila

19:38

and yes for legal reasons

19:41

you do need to say the doctor in the form

19:43

of a question on the pod

19:46

I talked to couples who are having problems

19:49

and you get to listen and how

19:52

wonderful is that to listen

19:54

in on other people's

19:55

problems and then feel

19:57

better about your own

19:59

I ask my patients to come in, to

20:02

open up,

20:03

and to say more. Paper

20:06

Kite Podcast, Say More with Dr. Sheila

20:08

features guests such as Rachel Dratch, Kaper

20:10

Lant, Paul Scheer, Alana Glazer, Maya

20:12

Rudolph, Chris Parnell, Ana Gasteyer,

20:15

and Amy Poehler as Dr. Sheila.

20:17

Listen and follow to Say More with Dr. Sheila

20:20

wherever you get your podcasts.

20:22

If you're a parent and you wanna help your kid get

20:24

better grades next year, then

20:26

iExcel is right for your family.

20:29

I use iExcel all the time. Both my kids,

20:31

I have a fourth grader, I have a first grader,

20:33

they are learning so much. Math, language

20:35

arts, science, social studies, all through

20:38

interactive practice problems from pre-K

20:40

to 12th grade. And as kids practice, they get positive

20:42

feedback, awards, and clear explanations of

20:45

when they got questions wrong. It's

20:47

a game, it's fun, and I will say

20:49

that it also is learning. It figures out

20:51

what your kids need more help with, and it adapts

20:53

to recommend more topics for them to practice. I've

20:56

seen my son

20:56

excel in math because of

20:59

iExcel. No joke, I'm gonna tell ya,

21:01

this thing is great. I love it so,

21:04

so much. It saves time and

21:06

money. One subscription gets you everything, and membership

21:08

starts at only $9.95 a month. With

21:12

the school year ramping up, now is the best time to get

21:14

iExcel. Our listeners can get an exclusive 20% off iExcel

21:17

membership when they sign up

21:19

today at iExcel.com slash made.

21:21

Visit iExcel.com slash

21:23

made to get the most effective learning

21:26

program out there at the best price. Chances

21:29

are you're listening to How Did This Get Made on your phone, probably while

21:31

you're on the go. Well, think about all the things

21:34

that you do on your phone. The minute you leave your

21:36

front door, you are checking in with friends,

21:38

making sure you're at the right place, getting directions

21:40

to where you wanna go, and that all requires

21:43

having an amazing network, which is why

21:46

you should switch to T-Mobile because T-Mobile

21:48

covers more highway miles with 5G

21:50

than Spectrum right now,

21:53

but I'm not 100% happy all

21:55

the time,

21:58

and we discussed this last.

21:59

the time we were together.

22:01

The worry, the big worry is that

22:03

this thing will

22:06

cease or be

22:08

curbed somehow. Which thing, which

22:10

thing? Just

22:11

where I am in my career. We had this

22:14

exchange where I said, if I could trade

22:16

any future improvement

22:19

in my lifestyle and my

22:21

career, and all I had to give

22:23

up was that

22:26

improvement and I could have exactly what

22:28

I have now, which is a nice touring

22:31

act and I'm comfortable

22:34

in terms of paying my bills. I would trade

22:36

any upside for what I have now.

22:39

A thousand percent agree. I

22:41

could not agree with you more. Yes, and

22:44

I think, so my only worry is that

22:46

something would come along where, like

22:51

when the pandemic hit, I thought,

22:53

oh man, this could really be difficult

22:55

to tour in the future if they don't find

22:58

a solution for this. Yes.

23:01

But

23:02

I have to play the percentages with

23:04

that as well and say, well, there'll

23:06

always be something, maybe a book or

23:09

maybe making albums. We'll figure it

23:11

out. That is one thing that I learned from

23:13

writing this book, is that there were all

23:16

these horrible things that happened to me throughout my

23:18

life and I figured it out each

23:20

time and I keep forgetting that. Things

23:23

that seemed daunting or

23:25

impossible from

23:27

tying my shoes to dunking

23:29

a basketball, I've figured

23:32

it out. Yeah. And to remind

23:34

yourself of that, when something

23:36

new comes up, something you're afraid of, is

23:39

a really helpful strategy. So

23:42

that's a point that you make in your book and I'm curious,

23:44

is there anything right now

23:46

in your life that feels daunting? Wow.

23:50

It's a great question. And my wife

23:52

and I have been doing the

23:54

things involved

23:59

in freezing Embrace. And

24:02

so, you know what

24:04

this is like? Can

24:06

I be a good dad? Will I

24:08

live long enough to be a good dad? Because

24:11

I'm older for having a child and

24:14

it's also around the same age my dad had

24:16

me. And he

24:19

was not as involved because my parents

24:21

were divorced. But I just, because

24:24

one of the things you can regret not having

24:26

a great comedy career, not giving it your all

24:28

as a comedian. But it would be hard

24:30

for me with my mindset

24:33

to be able to live with regrets of

24:35

not doing a good job as a father or

24:37

husband. And

24:40

I think this is a really interesting

24:43

question for you which is, I feel I

24:46

said this the sha'a day, I said we've

24:48

been playing marriage at the

24:51

easiest level. And

24:53

you add a kid and it increases

24:55

the level of difficulty, the

24:58

degree of difficulty. And

25:01

we're doing really well on this, we're killing it. We're

25:03

very happy people. But what happens

25:06

when you involve someone that's

25:08

also going to reduce your amount of

25:10

sleep and put you in a sleep

25:13

deprived mood frequently? That's

25:15

a different version of us. What

25:18

was your joke about the

25:21

version of Mike that was, one

25:23

drink Mike? Two drink Mike.

25:24

That's our first comedy album. Yeah,

25:27

so two drink Mike. Loves dancing

25:30

and knows the magic trick. Yes, yes. Yeah,

25:33

zero drink Mike enjoys biographies

25:35

and something. So sleep deprived dad and

25:37

sha'a day are not the same person. And

25:40

you're right, and you're right. And

25:42

what I'll say in defense

25:44

of becoming dad is

25:48

your aperture really opens

25:50

in this way, or mine has

25:52

I should say,

25:53

in this way that you just use,

25:56

I say the cliche in

25:58

my special, the new one.

25:59

and people say you're gonna see the world through

26:02

baby's eyes. Oh, right, right, right, right. And then

26:04

you do. Yeah. And then you

26:06

do. Yeah. And you go, oh man,

26:08

the cliche is

26:11

true. Yeah. Yeah.

26:14

And there should be another word besides cliche because

26:16

there's so much negative baggage in terms

26:18

of cliches. Right. But some of them are

26:20

really true. Yeah,

26:23

yeah. I mean, I feel like the Dalai

26:25

Lama gets away with a lot of cliches. No,

26:29

but oh, I, but I got served,

26:32

speaking of depression and unhappiness, I

26:34

got served a video on TikTok where it was

26:36

a clinician who was describing

26:39

the difference between being unhappy and being depressed.

26:41

And the way he was putting it, and I'm simplifying this, but

26:43

it's like he was describing depression as

26:45

the experience of almost like sand coming through a funnel,

26:48

but it's too much sand. And

26:50

so in other words, there's too many things to

26:53

handle and there's just a stoppage. And

26:55

that's why people can't leave their house, can't get out

26:57

of bed, just because it's just a stoppage. And

27:00

unhappiness, the way he was describing

27:02

it in relation

27:05

to feeling like discontent

27:08

with things as they are in your

27:11

life. And when I heard that, I just thought, yeah,

27:14

both, both,

27:17

right? And then I was like, but then also,

27:20

aren't we all a little both? Yeah.

27:23

We're not all clinically depressed. Right.

27:27

I think this reminds

27:29

me of something, I just read this recently,

27:33

and I must've been reading it recently again,

27:35

because I remember reading this book a long time ago

27:37

while David Foster Wallace was alive. It's called The

27:39

Brief Interviews with Hideous Men. And

27:42

it's a group of short stories, a

27:44

collection of short stories. And there's

27:46

one called The Depressed Person. And

27:49

it's extraordinary. And

27:52

one of the things is, I

27:55

don't know what this is called grammatically, but

27:57

it doesn't say they in terms of. When

30:00

you and I first met, it helped me

30:02

understand a certain thing about it years

30:04

later, which is to say you and I met in Los Angeles,

30:07

out at a show, our sensibilities

30:10

meshed. This is probably 15 years ago. And

30:13

you're like, let's stay in touch. And I was like, great, let's stay in touch. And

30:15

then I tried to get in touch with you and

30:17

you didn't get back to me. And I was just like, oh,

30:20

I guess like, I mean, in my mind, I literally

30:22

felt like, I guess Gary's just like a real operator.

30:24

Like he's on for the next operation. But

30:26

it's an assumption. And years later,

30:29

I find out you had these bouts

30:31

of depression where you couldn't get out of bed, you couldn't leave

30:33

your apartment. So there's so much going on. It

30:35

taught me this wider lesson, which is, you

30:38

cannot know what someone

30:40

is experiencing. So it's so unfair

30:43

to assume what their

30:46

experience is of that, it's

30:48

a huge lesson for me. No, it is

30:51

really a good thing to learn. And I could probably

30:53

apply it to my criticism of

30:56

famous comedians. But I

30:58

think, and one

31:00

aspect that I don't think we covered, and

31:03

maybe you hadn't said that, you

31:05

thought our sensibilities matched.

31:08

I remember thinking, even

31:11

if I call him back, he was

31:13

just trying to be nice. And

31:17

what have I got that

31:19

a young burgeoning comedian in

31:21

this prime will feel

31:25

like I was so insecure about my place

31:27

in comedy. And

31:30

it's possible that you thought I was a really

31:32

good comedian and

31:34

wanted to be friends besides

31:38

that. And here's the other thing,

31:41

would it have been so bad if I was a terrible comedian

31:43

and you still wanted to be friends? Like that's

31:45

the whole thing that I couldn't imagine anybody

31:48

liking me, other than that, I was a really

31:50

good comedian. And if I'm not a really good

31:52

comedian, then they wouldn't want to spend any- What value

31:54

would I have anyway? And it's just so,

31:56

it's sad. And

32:00

yet it seemed so reasonable and

32:04

was going on in my mind with

32:06

just about everyone. So there were people

32:10

in addition to you that I was, I

32:12

wouldn't say I was dodging them. I would

32:14

just not get back to them and then start

32:16

to feel so guilty about not getting back to them. And

32:19

they'll think that I'm a jerk

32:21

when I do get back to them. And there's

32:24

also this thing of being afraid that somebody

32:26

will tell me off. Oh,

32:28

yeah. If I do

32:31

get back to them, like who do you think you are that

32:33

you can just take your time and getting back

32:35

to me? And I called you two weeks ago and

32:38

it's just completely unfounded,

32:41

but it's depressive thinking. Yeah. When

32:46

you were in the depths of your depression, what

32:48

would a good friend, what

32:50

could a good friend have done? Because

32:54

I have a lot of friends who have substance abuse

32:56

issues, depression, and a

32:59

lot of times I'm at a loss for what I

33:01

can do to be helpful. I remember

33:03

one of the nicest thing, and again, this

33:06

is a name dropping, but,

33:11

and I don't know how she knew how sick I was, but

33:14

Amy Schumer called me, said, let's go for a walk. We

33:16

walked through the Central Park on our

33:19

way to an appointment. And it was

33:21

long walks with people that

33:24

would get me out of my head or in

33:27

some cases just watching a movie

33:30

silently with a friend

33:32

going to the movies, just getting me out of the

33:34

house was so helpful. And

33:37

I'd go home and I would frequently

33:39

say late at night, if

33:43

I felt like this, I would have a life. And

33:46

then in the morning it resets. It's called

33:48

diurnal variation where you feel a little bit better

33:50

at the end of the day, especially if you've gotten out of the

33:53

house. So I used to go to a mood disorder

33:55

support group at, it

33:58

was on the campus of Columbia University. and

34:00

there were a lot of trains to switch

34:03

and buses and as arduous

34:06

as it was, it was really helpful

34:08

to get me moving. So just, and then I'd

34:10

be with people who understood what I was

34:12

talking about. And I remained

34:14

friends with a few people from there. And one of them was telling

34:16

me, he said, you would

34:19

just sit there and listen. And

34:21

it was heartbreaking. And I wanted- At

34:23

the support group. Yeah. And I wanted to say, that

34:27

was the best part of my day. I

34:29

was, if I was there, I was really succeeding

34:32

in fighting back. And it

34:35

was immensely helpful. Wow.

34:40

Where? I don't even wanna go down

34:42

that rabbit hole. I was gonna- No,

34:44

I'm open to rabbit holes. Well, it's like, I've

34:48

struggled with this thing in the last few years where I've had

34:50

depressed friends who just drop out and tried

34:53

to be helpful. And at a certain point,

34:56

they're just gone? And

34:59

so then you just go like, well, where's the line?

35:03

Where's the line between, no, actually,

35:05

this person might be a bad friend. Oh,

35:09

that's interesting. And that's

35:11

a rabbit hole. I don't know that there is

35:13

an answer to that. No, that's a great

35:15

point. I mean, recently

35:18

I've taken a look at my friendships

35:21

and done a little Marie Kondo

35:23

decluttering. And finally,

35:26

this person hardly ever initiates.

35:28

I have to set up every meal.

35:31

I'm gonna let them do it. And in some cases they

35:33

do. And in some cases they

35:35

don't. And I just think,

35:37

and my therapist was really good at this. He says,

35:39

you can still have them in your

35:41

life, but you do

35:44

not have to expect

35:46

anything more than what you're getting. And

35:48

know what you're in when you go into it.

35:51

Know that if you meet up with so-and-so,

35:53

they're only gonna talk about their job and

35:56

you're not gonna get a word in edgewise. And if you wanna do

35:58

that, that's fine. But know that- making that

36:00

choice and I thought that was really helpful. That's

36:03

fascinating. I've

36:08

never had this question before on the show, but when

36:10

Tom Papa was on, we had to kind of come to Jesus

36:12

about our friendship and it was actually really helpful

36:14

in like a real life way. Where do, what

36:17

is our relationship? Are we friends

36:20

or are we work friends? Oh,

36:23

I think

36:26

my feeling is always that this

36:28

is a really busy guy and

36:30

I'll bet you

36:33

that

36:35

he

36:38

wouldn't be able to fit me in. Yeah.

36:40

Oh gosh. Yeah. So I don't,

36:42

like, cause there are a lot of things that

36:45

I will think, oh, I bet you Mike would

36:47

think this is funny. And I'm just like, I

36:50

don't be the guy who's sending cause

36:52

we all have friends who send us things.

36:55

And we're just like, I don't have time

36:57

for this because

37:00

if you, if some

37:02

friends, if they send you something and react,

37:05

then your next hour is in

37:07

getting text back and

37:10

forth. And I just, especially while writing

37:12

a book, you don't have time for that.

37:15

Right. Attachments to links. The

37:17

things you don't have a login for. I

37:22

feel like sometimes. I don't have

37:24

a wall street journal subscription.

37:27

I don't think I'm gonna have one. Yeah. I don't

37:29

know that Kafka meant

37:31

this when he wrote everything he wrote, but

37:33

there is something about the wall street journal

37:36

paywall that I think that

37:38

I think he would have related to. I think so

37:40

too. And I think,

37:41

so that's a fascinating, let

37:44

me just say here on the record,

37:45

this line is open. I always

37:47

want to hear from you. Okay, good. Oh,

37:50

that's really nice to hear. I'm always happy to hear from you. I

37:54

don't know. It's interesting because you

37:56

and I have now known each other for so

37:59

long. And I feel like we're in

38:01

a unique position in our friendship where we

38:03

could actually theoretically point out things

38:05

about each other that we

38:07

could try in our act

38:10

that maybe we don't even realize about ourselves

38:12

maybe is funny. Oh, that's really interesting.

38:15

It's funny because

38:17

very few friends

38:19

ask each other what

38:21

level of friendship they are. And

38:24

that's, I won't

38:27

lie, it's not a comfortable position

38:29

to be asked that question. It's

38:33

very vulnerable to ask that question and

38:35

also on the other end, it's

38:39

almost, I have to give

38:41

an account of what

38:44

happens with us when

38:46

we're not in the same room because

38:49

we were on that documentary

38:52

together. Yeah, we did a documentary together. And

38:55

I was so grateful that you were there because

38:57

I didn't know anybody as well as I knew you. And

39:00

it just was a great life

39:03

raft and we had so many great laughs. And

39:05

then you were gone. And it reminds me

39:07

of when I graduated from college, I

39:09

had this close friend all through second semester,

39:12

senior year, his roommate had

39:15

gotten a girlfriend. So he was very lonely,

39:17

I think. And I had just

39:19

broken up with a girlfriend. So I was very lonely and

39:21

we connected and then school

39:23

stopped. And I remember thinking,

39:26

well, unless he reaches out, I'll probably

39:28

never see that guy again. And

39:30

he reached out and we spent the

39:33

next, it's now coming up on 35 years, talking

39:37

on a every other day

39:39

weekly basis. And

39:41

I could see a scenario where that friendship

39:44

never took because I was afraid

39:46

that he would be put off

39:48

by me reaching out right away after. And

39:50

he called me like the first day of summer

39:52

vacation. It was just, I'm,

39:56

it's an insecurity that I should have put

39:59

path. put behind me 35 years

40:02

ago with that piece of evidence, what I

40:04

would have lost out on, one of my

40:06

closest friends. I'm gonna have to call

40:08

you tomorrow. Ha ha ha.

40:16

So this is called the slow round, and we did this

40:18

last time you were on the show. And one

40:20

of the reasons that we were in a rush to do this

40:22

again is that the first episode that you were on, and people

40:24

should go back and listen to it, is one of our

40:26

most popular episodes of all time.

40:29

Oh really? And in

40:31

it, we had the slow round, and you said, oh

40:33

you should get Anne Lamott's book, Bird

40:35

by Bird, which I do have,

40:38

and I recommend all the time.

40:40

I followed her on Instagram, she did not follow

40:42

me back. Oh, is that heartbreaking? Killed

40:44

me. Anne Lamott, come on, come

40:47

on, I talk you up. I

40:49

plug your book all the time. Are you

40:52

just so massive? I know. But

40:55

anyway, there's a thing that we now mention

40:58

from Bird by Bird, as a writing prompt,

41:01

often, and I'll ask you, which is, do you have a

41:03

school lunch that you remember from your childhood?

41:06

Oh wow.

41:08

I do

41:09

remember that one

41:11

day, my mom sent me with

41:14

a full Italian sub

41:16

to school, from a sub

41:18

shop. And because I was

41:21

used to her, always put in. You

41:23

had me at Italian sub. Putting a,

41:27

sometimes just a jelly sandwich, sometimes

41:29

just a jelly and fluff sandwich

41:32

if we were out of peanut butter. Without

41:34

looking into my bag, traded it for

41:37

a marshmallow fluff, which is peanut butter and

41:39

fluff, marshmallow

41:42

fluff, fluffinata from Boston.

41:46

And I got a fluffinata, and I traded

41:49

this kid unopened. My

41:51

bag, which I thought was just, at best,

41:54

a peanut butter and jelly. Definitely not a peanut butter.

41:56

You had a restaurant quality lunch, and this

41:58

guy, and then. I told my mother

42:00

that night, and she was outraged. And

42:04

the great thing with my mother, as I point out in

42:07

the book, is that she can

42:09

never let anything go. The statute

42:11

of limitations with her, she

42:14

still asks me if I ever used

42:17

the Nintendo that

42:19

I begged for when I was

42:22

in high school, by the way. Yeah.

42:24

Wow.

42:25

What's the best and worst nickname you've ever

42:28

received in your life? In

42:30

college, there was a football player, and

42:32

he was really good, man. His name was John Stolberg,

42:35

but not Jewish, as you'll see in this, in

42:37

what he nicknamed me. And I almost

42:40

thought it was sort of like Bethos, because he was not a

42:42

bright guy, but he came up with the perfect

42:44

nickname for a Jewish person on

42:46

a... Anyone else. It keeps you connected

42:49

with 5G from the driveway to the highway and

42:51

the miles in between, because your

42:53

phone should work where you are.

42:55

It's your lifeline to pretty much everything you didn't

42:57

bring with you. And T-Mobile

42:59

wants to be with you on that

43:01

journey. So the next time you head out, whether you're taking a trip, going

43:03

to work, or just running errands, remember, T-Mobile's

43:06

got you covered. Find out more at t-mobile.com slash

43:08

network, and switch to a network that covers more

43:10

highway miles with 5G than

43:12

anyone else. Coverage not available in some areas.

43:15

See 5G details at t-mobile.com.

43:19

Can we just talk about, we're talking about formality

43:22

in husband and wives, with

43:24

June and I. We should talk about Will Smith and his wife.

43:27

Oh my god, remember when she comes in, when

43:30

he comes in, rather, with a necklace, and it

43:32

scares her? Remember

43:34

when she's legitimately

43:36

afraid of him approaching

43:39

her with a necklace? First of all, she's

43:41

doing this dumb future

43:43

thing where it's

43:45

some three-dimensional display

43:48

in front of her, and it looks like she's designing

43:51

something, like a building or something like that? I thought she was

43:53

an architect or something. Yeah, and then he comes... She

43:55

does tubular design, turbine design.

43:57

Oh, sure. That's what she does. He

44:00

walks in in the background and she hurriedly like

44:02

makes this display disappear Like

44:06

I don't know but she reacts with fear

44:08

is almost like she was caught planning a surprise party Yeah,

44:11

she's like as if she's gonna

44:13

be like were you fucking working?

44:16

Is that what you were doing and it's like an abusive relationship

44:18

where he's like, you know work when I'm home

44:21

Where's our dinner pills? He tries to slap

44:23

over the hologram, but he just So

44:26

then he comes up behind her and he puts this It's

44:29

around her neck. It's like a hacky sack on

44:31

a chain circular

44:33

rock in a net like It

44:36

did not look comfortable But but it comes

44:38

into her field of vision and she jumps

44:40

a mile into the air And

44:43

then has to very quickly pretend like this is a great thing

44:45

that's happening. Oh, oh my

44:47

god Well, there's so many things I want

44:49

to talk about in this movie But that relationship

44:51

is and then the woman the wife is like

44:54

we'll take your son out on this on this trip It's

44:56

gonna be good. But before they leave this

44:58

is the thing that I love It's

45:00

so futuristic. They're not like living like

45:03

in the Terminator 2 style world like yeah,

45:05

it's not a dystopia No, yeah, they are clearly

45:08

there is something flourishing in this community

45:11

And then he as Will

45:13

Smith is getting on board the ship to go

45:16

He is greeted by a man in a

45:19

future-type wheelchair, which

45:21

is way more complicated Then

45:24

a real wheelchair it's

45:26

like a seat on a graviton

45:28

thing Yeah, it looks so bulky

45:31

like ah wheelchairs were too simple

45:33

how requires two people to push it And

45:36

then you can't get out of it either So

45:39

you would think like in the future maybe they just put

45:41

up a small jetpack on your waist And you

45:43

can kind of stand up a lot in a world in

45:45

which like they can jump off of cliffs and

45:47

fly Why they're like you would think why

45:50

is all that was wrong with that man was

45:52

that he had lost one leg Yeah, yeah, that was

45:54

it and I'm like and then he was like stand

45:56

me up stand me up to them Is the two

45:58

men so the two of them? labor difficulty

46:01

to get him on his one leg,

46:03

which would not be that hard. It really

46:05

wouldn't be. So that he can salute Will Smith.

46:08

Right. And by the way, it's the future. They

46:10

should probably have... We have prosthetics now. Oh,

46:12

yeah. We have prosthetics now. Like, really good

46:14

ones. Yeah. Here's what else we have, crutches.

46:16

Yeah. There's like so many things. Here's

46:19

the thing.

46:19

Like, I feel like they

46:22

wrote that moment in because they were so... Because

46:25

that moment really only serves as the end moment

46:27

when Will Smith stands up because he's got

46:30

a leg problem. He stands

46:32

up for a son and says, get me up, get me up. And

46:34

he salutes the son as the son comes in. But

46:37

it's so weird that they did that

46:39

because it was almost like you could

46:41

tell they were nervous that the end moment wouldn't

46:43

play unless we had seen someone

46:45

earlier.

46:45

Yeah. And we

46:47

really saw a soldier get

46:50

up out of being very uncomfortable to

46:52

give a salute. Like, that wouldn't have an emotional

46:54

resonance. Right. By the way, his

46:57

father is like the head of this organization

46:59

and his son saved his life. Spoiler alert, that's

47:01

the end. But like, so it wouldn't have

47:03

an emotional resonance if the father salutes his son. Standing

47:06

up, it would still have an after. If you just say that

47:08

it works. It's like, you don't need to say... And also, I think it

47:10

would have worked more at the end if the guy didn't

47:12

have so much trouble getting up from the chair.

47:15

Yeah. It would have had more of an impact

47:17

that Will Smith is struggling to make

47:19

this happen. Oh, so

47:21

stupid. And also... And the guy, it was even

47:24

harder for him to sit back down the wheelchair. Why

47:26

was that more difficult? Like he was

47:29

almost like a board, like stiff as a board. Like he

47:31

kind of went back like he had no bending ability

47:33

whatsoever. He's burrowing his head into that

47:35

other guy's neck. By the way, M.

47:37

Night, here's like... I mean, you can say

47:39

a lot of things about M. Night. Have you said this night this movie

47:42

is directed by M. Night? We have not. What

47:44

a twist. I

47:46

would have waited till the end. I was... Did

47:49

you know what? I thought there was going to be a twist in this movie

47:51

because in the very beginning of the movie when the ship is

47:53

crashing, Will Smith is in front of

47:55

Jaden and he's like calming him down

47:57

and whispering him too. And he's like, okay. gets

48:00

sucked out of the ship and I was like, oh,

48:02

this is all in the boy's head the entire time

48:05

his dad and he made up the whole mission. Oh,

48:07

in order to... Oh, that would have been interesting. And

48:09

that's what I thought. No, it would have been. Yeah.

48:12

Well, not only does he... Okay, so Will Smith gets sucked

48:15

away. This ship is

48:17

crashing because Will

48:19

Smith noticed by holding a key chain

48:22

up to the wall that there's some specific

48:24

kind of radiation or something that's

48:27

gonna cause this... This is

48:29

so convoluted. It's somehow going

48:31

to cause an asteroid

48:33

storm to happen, right? Yes. Okay,

48:36

and the crew is like, I don't know. That's

48:39

pretty impossible. He's like, I

48:41

think it's gonna happen. And then it happens. And by the

48:43

way, Will Smith never did any of this with

48:45

any sort of panels, knowledge. It was just

48:47

simply the key chain against the wall. He gets

48:50

out of his seat, looks quizzical,

48:53

walks over the window, holds

48:55

the thing against the window, and it vibrates

48:57

against the window. And then he goes to

48:59

the cockpit and is like, we're about to

49:01

hit an asteroid storm. Can I tell you what I thought

49:03

was happening in that moment? I didn't know any of this. I

49:06

thought

49:07

that he woke up because his son was next to him

49:09

when he fell asleep. And when he woke

49:11

up and did that thing with the key chain, I thought he was

49:13

listening in on a conversation and could

49:15

hear that his son was

49:17

about to go try to ghost with that alien. We

49:21

also, by the way, didn't even talk about

49:23

those guys in the sun.

49:26

And the sun is kind of exploring the ship and there's

49:28

a big sign that says, don't enter, don't

49:30

go in here. And he walks right in.

49:33

He walks through this, like, wheat curtain.

49:36

There are no doors in the future. There

49:38

are no doors in the future. It's all

49:41

curtains and mesh

49:43

panels. And everything

49:46

is, there are literally no

49:48

doors. Everything in this movie was like, I guarantee

49:50

M. Night was like, you know what? You know what's different

49:53

about my movie? No doors. Everything

49:55

in the movie also looked gross to touch. It was all

49:58

like squishy, like. It

50:00

was all agr- And when anything exploded,

50:03

like the two halves of the spaceship,

50:06

both of them after the post-crash,

50:08

are just billowing white

50:10

fabric. It looked like a toilet

50:13

paper exploded all over the place. I was

50:15

like, this makes no sense. It was as

50:17

if the ship crashed and its sails

50:20

were everywhere. It was a spaceship

50:22

that had sails. By the way, Earth was

50:24

covered with some of those white

50:26

sheets as well. Everything looked like

50:29

a kind of futuristic pool

50:31

umbrella. It

50:34

was like Sun Shield or something.

50:36

It made no sense. Oh, so they're

50:39

crashing. But we

50:41

must talk about the ghosting. They're

50:43

crashing, and so Will Smith's trying to calm

50:45

Jaden Smith down. Then he gets sucked

50:48

away. And then a few

50:50

seconds later, the ship

50:53

splits in half, and these people get sucked out the

50:55

other side of

50:58

Jaden Smith's field of vision. So

51:00

then after they finally crash, he goes

51:02

to look for his dad. He just goes to the other end of

51:04

the thing, and he's there. He's fine. Yeah, how does that- His

51:07

dad got, by the way, when you strapped in,

51:09

how did he not get- When you saw Will Smith

51:11

get sucked away, he got sucked away on lava.

51:14

Which is so hard. It looks like he is going

51:16

through a wormhole. That's how far

51:19

and deep. Wait, it just seemed like he was-

51:21

A wormhole? So you think you

51:24

felt as though perhaps he was traveling through space

51:26

and time? He was going

51:28

really quick, really. But by the way,

51:31

Hugh, I mean, if you would argue the ship

51:33

is a tube, when he- the way

51:35

that he got sucked through that, it went from- he

51:37

went from one end to the other. And the way that they

51:39

positioned it in the movie is like he went a foot

51:42

to the left. Like, really, that is- It was as if they were

51:44

at the- In the safe zone. Yeah. It

51:46

was as if they were at the end of a

51:49

vacuum cleaner, and someone turned it

51:51

on. And you would think Will Smith would have gone all

51:53

the way into the bag. Yeah. But he was around the corner. But

51:55

he was just stuck in the corner. He was just

51:57

stuck in the corner. I don't pretend to know a lot about spaceships.

52:00

But I think if you're around a corner, I don't know

52:02

from space ships either. By

52:05

the way, it helps me to think

52:07

of the spaceship as a vacuum cleaner. By

52:10

the way, what better movie would it have been if

52:13

Will Smith was on one side of the ship and

52:15

he was on the other side and he had to get to his dad.

52:18

Oh, I love this. And same thing. See,

52:20

I actually,

52:20

I did like the basic

52:23

conceit of the movie and the story that they were. I

52:25

mean, I guess we'll get to Scientology

52:27

in a second

52:28

or two. Okay, but just

52:30

the basic

52:30

sort of setup of the movie and him

52:33

and his dad being, you know, his dad falling

52:35

apart on the ship and him traveling and all

52:37

of that stuff and getting back to his father and his own fears.

52:40

Like, I thought that that was actually a really

52:43

compelling story and

52:45

really good.

52:47

There's nothing wrong with the basic

52:49

idea. Yeah, there's

52:50

nothing, nothing wrong with the basic idea.

52:52

It's very similar. We were talking

52:54

about this afterwards. The movie

52:56

is very similar to the movie Oblivion

52:58

in a lot of ways. In

53:01

the future, Earth is

53:03

dead, but there are some people on it

53:05

that need to survive against aliens that are

53:07

hunting them, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Like, it

53:09

is, like, in a lot of ways, beep

53:11

for beep very similar, except for spoilers

53:14

for Oblivion. It's the fucking stupidest

53:16

movie I've ever seen. Do you think that Will Smith

53:19

and Tom Cruise had a dinner together and

53:21

they both kind of got excited about an idea and they both

53:23

went like a little bit game and go? Like,

53:25

write this, because this movie at the end did not

53:27

realize this. Story by Will Smith. Oh,

53:30

yeah. This is a story

53:32

by Will Smith co-written by

53:34

M. Night. Not even, it's not an M. Night original.

53:37

And also was this movie all shot in Philadelphia? I don't know. Well,

53:41

I don't think M. Night Shyamalan is not allowed to do

53:43

what he wants anymore, right? Right, yes. It's

53:45

like, that's been, that's, that's privilege. He's been

53:47

directed jail. Yeah, no more twists.

53:50

He can't send everything in Philly, so it's

53:52

got to be, you just direct this thing,

53:54

make it look good. Yes. Right. Don't

53:57

screw this up. And just take out everything that's

53:59

charismatic. about your actors. He

54:01

has an amazing, I've watched Will Smith, I

54:03

like Will Smith, I think, and

54:06

I think, I don't know, I haven't watched Karate Kid, but

54:08

it seems to me that Jaden is also charismatic.

54:11

He did everything he could to make

54:13

them the least charismatic. Like

54:15

this is the least charismatic. It's so flat. It's

54:18

so flat. And there is so

54:20

little by way of

54:23

action too. Like I feel like the

54:26

alien that you're always afraid is going

54:28

to be after Jaden Smith only shows

54:30

up in the last five minutes. It's not like, and

54:32

there are a couple of things like where the big bird

54:35

gets him. Oh my God, when he, okay, okay,

54:39

guys, hang on. Hang

54:41

on, hang on. He's

54:44

just flying. He jumps off a cliff

54:46

and he's flying in his flying suit. And then

54:48

the giant bird. Which is like a sort of flying

54:50

squirrel kind of thing. Exactly, exactly.

54:53

Like a base jumping suit or something. Like

54:55

she's never done before and he runs

54:58

off, I would say like a 500 foot high cliff, even

55:01

probably even higher. Because he's flying. Well first what happens

55:03

is he's, I don't know if I had to explain so much,

55:05

but like he's running out

55:07

of inhalers so that he can breathe on the

55:10

planet. He's lying to his dad. His

55:12

dad at this moment, make or break

55:14

realizes he only has two inhalers

55:16

left and he does, he

55:18

instantly pushes the button. This is amazing.

55:21

He pushes the button. The dad is in like the,

55:24

in the, in the cockpit of the crashed

55:27

spaceship. With two broken legs, two broken

55:29

legs. One of them broken very badly. He

55:31

does not appear to feel pain. Oh, because

55:34

he's not taking the pain killer. Well, because the

55:36

pain medication clearly says in

55:38

giant letters on the front, like

55:40

what a... Giant LED letters.

55:43

It will impair vision. Drowsiness. It

55:45

causes extreme drowsiness. Extreme drowsiness.

55:48

It's a giant bill box with this like,

55:51

it's like a display. Like the LED

55:53

display on it. Everything has LED displays.

55:55

Anyway, so he realizes Jaden only has

55:57

two things left and he pushes the button and it

55:59

instantly. He maps out how

56:01

far a jeton needs to walk to get to the tail

56:04

of the plane and it's measured

56:07

in vials, measured

56:09

in inhalers. Tick

56:11

tick tick tick tick, a little red line and a thing that

56:13

goes in, three point one five inhaler. And

56:16

then it puts, and again it

56:19

says, oh but if he jumps off

56:21

of the waterfall at a distance,

56:24

then he can make it in two point one inhalers. And

56:26

we'll submit the only successful route.

56:29

Yes. And also by the way, Jaden

56:31

does not know anything about the Skyjum. No. Has

56:34

not been revealed to him. He does not, oh. Also

56:36

hasn't been revealed to us. Yes. Like this

56:38

is, this is brand new. This is the thing. So

56:41

basically him and his dad get into his fight where the

56:43

dad kind of says, yeah you are responsible for my

56:45

nineteen year old daughter getting killed. Yeah. Because

56:48

he's hitting that terrarium, you little jerk. And he goes,

56:51

I'm going to do it. By the way, can I just

56:52

say one other thing? I actually found that pretty

56:54

offensive because this idea

56:56

that just because he's a man, as a child,

56:58

he should have gotten out

57:00

and protected her. This is the most absurd thing

57:03

I've ever heard. Did everybody think that? I

57:05

thought that that was what Jaden was afraid

57:08

the father thought. But it wasn't really

57:10

what Will Smith thought. I think Will Smith did

57:13

not seem to be talking him out of that. No. He

57:16

was like, he goes, are you upset

57:18

with me because I didn't save my daughter? Like all

57:20

that matters is how you feel about that situation.

57:23

Not right? Like the crazy thing. Is

57:25

that Scientology? I think that's Scientology. Is

57:27

that like, is that Scientology? I think that's what

57:30

that is because I think it's really, it's like this

57:32

isn't about what I think about you

57:34

Jaden. This isn't about what I think happened.

57:37

This is you need to decide for yourself

57:40

what you think is right. You know, so Jaden

57:42

jumps off the cliff. At the same time,

57:46

at the same time, I mean as the mother

57:48

kept on saying to him like your son feels very

57:50

guilty. Yeah. Yeah.

57:52

I mean, why wouldn't he say, you

57:54

know, you had nothing to do with.

57:56

Because you're a six year old child. And

57:58

you're my son and I'm glad you're not. not dead.

58:00

Fighting a 12 foot tall beast versus a 5 year old kid. And not

58:03

going to do a good job.

58:08

Considering that when we ever see these 5 foot tall

58:10

beasts, they're ripping apart humans nonstop.

58:13

The beast ate a bunch of, they didn't even eat, just

58:15

ripped off monkey heads. Yeah, he found

58:18

a bunch of monkeys, just ripped their heads and arms off. Also,

58:22

the first encounter

58:25

Jaden has with

58:27

life on earth is these baboons.

58:29

This is crazy. He

58:33

tries to scare this one baboon off by

58:35

throwing a rock in his face. Don't

58:38

you think that baboon kind of comes,

58:40

it's a monkey, it's not even doing anything too crazy. And

58:43

Jaden who has shown no sign of aggression

58:46

or anything, he's kind of like, the dad's

58:48

like, hey, just chill out, chill

58:50

out over here, hang out. And he's like,

58:53

immediately he's like, no, I'm going to take this rocket and throw

58:55

it in that monkey's face. Only angering

58:58

the monkey, there is no way that

59:00

that would have worked. Anyone would know that. I think

59:02

that was to show he is fearful. That's

59:04

the thing. He shows

59:06

in fear. He shows in fear. Oh, don't shoot

59:08

fear. He's fearful and he's

59:11

accurate. That's like when he then is being chased

59:13

by the monkeys. And out running them. Out

59:15

running them. I had good margin. Well, we've established

59:18

he's a very good runner. Oh,

59:22

that's true. I forgot that was established

59:24

that he beat Will Smith's record in some marathon

59:27

so he can outrun these wild animals

59:30

and a giant pack

59:32

of them. Oh yeah. Thousands

59:35

of baboons. It's like that's

59:37

the name. And all he has to do is

59:40

go into water and they are

59:42

like, oh, no, no, no, no. Somehow Will

59:44

Smith knows run to the river baboons,

59:46

they'll never, they'll never enter a

59:49

river. They're terrified of water. By the

59:51

way. That's why you never see a picture from National

59:53

Geographic of a baboon just sitting

59:55

in a fucking river. Well, because

59:57

they hate water. They hate it.

1:00:00

No matter what you're a fan of, Texas

1:00:02

has the trip for you. There's

1:00:04

the...

1:00:07

Trip to Texas.

1:00:09

And the...

1:00:10

Trip. Or

1:00:14

maybe you're the kind of fan who'd prefer a... Trip

1:00:18

to Texas. Or a... Trip.

1:00:23

Either way, go to TravelTexas.com

1:00:25

slash Get Your Own for the only trip

1:00:27

to Texas that matters.

1:00:29

Yours. Your

1:00:31

membership has been... Number 4, join

1:00:33

Uber 1. A way more efficient

1:00:35

membership. Further and you'll receive

1:00:37

a ride and a key and so much more. Join

1:00:40

Uber 1 and save. $0 delivery fee

1:00:42

and percentage off discount subject to order minimums and participating

1:00:44

floors. The password is another piece of cake.

1:00:47

The last thing you want to hear when you need your auto insurance

1:00:49

most is a robot with countless irrelevant menu

1:00:52

options. Which is why with USAA Auto

1:00:54

Insurance you'll get great service that is easy and

1:00:56

reliable all at the touch of a button. Get

1:00:58

a quote today. Restrictions apply.

1:01:02

Here's the other thing. If

1:01:05

you were to map out his journey, he's

1:01:07

on so many detours all the time. He doesn't

1:01:10

have no map. He has no map. He

1:01:12

doesn't know where he's going. The

1:01:14

only thing he does is when he's in the cave, he

1:01:16

draws a map for himself. Which is

1:01:18

a straight line. Which is a timeline. A straight

1:01:20

line. It's basically a timeline. It's a timeline,

1:01:22

yes. What else happened? I

1:01:25

saw those hogs by that cave. And

1:01:27

he is in the cave with the caveman

1:01:29

drawings. That existed so he got to walk

1:01:31

by it. Oh my gosh. Oh, but wait a second.

1:01:34

So he jumps off the cliff. He's flying. And

1:01:37

a giant bird, like some sort

1:01:39

of enormous bird, picks him up or grabs him and is

1:01:41

chasing him. Very much like Lord of the Rings style, I guess.

1:01:44

Yeah, like an enormous bird. And then he blacks

1:01:46

out, right? The feed goes dead. And

1:01:50

in my mind, I thought to myself,

1:01:53

if he wakes up in a giant bird's nest,

1:01:56

I'm going to lose my mind. He

1:02:00

wakes up in a giant, giant bird nest.

1:02:05

It's as big as our home. It

1:02:07

is a one bedroom bird nest. And

1:02:10

then when there are hatched birds, tiny

1:02:12

birds, well

1:02:17

they're not even too tiny because the bird nest is so

1:02:19

large. They're tiny in comparison. But

1:02:22

the bird kind of starts pecking at Jaden's face. He's like,

1:02:24

hey man, get out of here, bird. And

1:02:26

then lions come and attack them. Lions climb

1:02:29

up a, I would say easily,

1:02:31

a 60 foot tall tree. A

1:02:33

lot of them to get some baby bird snacks.

1:02:36

And they're all climbing. To

1:02:39

be fair, they did just kill the

1:02:41

baby birds. They did not eat them. Oh,

1:02:43

that's true. But again, every living

1:02:46

creature in this movie just kills. Everything

1:02:48

wants to murder, nothing wants to eat. Yeah.

1:02:52

And Jaden has to have a fight in a bird's nest,

1:02:55

which was a great scene. Him and the bird work

1:02:57

in tandem together. So they don't get the inside,

1:02:59

I'll take the outside. What? He

1:03:02

works the lion towards the exit

1:03:04

of the bird nest and the bird sees it and pulls that out

1:03:06

and throws him down. Like I've never seen,

1:03:09

I've never seen... He becomes a two-hander. What?

1:03:12

I would have watched that movie. Jaden

1:03:15

and the bird. Guess what? You got a new

1:03:17

partner. As long as it's got a giant bird,

1:03:19

it is. Holy

1:03:21

shit. Oh, and

1:03:23

also...

1:03:24

Parrotty kid and giant bird. Before

1:03:26

when he's trying to escape from the bird, he flies

1:03:28

into a waterfall, which the bird is like, I can't stop. I'll

1:03:32

be satisfied. Everything's

1:03:34

terrified of water. Terrified

1:03:36

of water. I couldn't figure out for the life of me why

1:03:39

the only weapon available in

1:03:41

the future is a sword. Yeah.

1:03:44

It's basically a two-edged sword. It's

1:03:46

kind of like Darth Maul's lightsaber

1:03:48

in that both sides are blades. But

1:03:51

it has a blade that can separate. It has 29 sword

1:03:53

settings. It's like a Swiss army sword. Yeah. It

1:03:56

has a million... Like a ho... Yeah,

1:03:58

a size. A size. It was

1:04:01

like a the last one it

1:04:03

turns into like a drill bit Yeah, it

1:04:05

kind of can be like a scroll to

1:04:07

I thought I could write something on it at one point I

1:04:09

couldn't hear I was like are they really

1:04:12

not really awesome guns. Well.

1:04:14

Yeah, no gun everything Well, no guns

1:04:16

just swords everybody's battling I thought that

1:04:19

all right fine things and their weapon

1:04:21

of choice is something you need to use close

1:04:23

up Yeah, and by the way only

1:04:26

close contact fighting And it seemed like it

1:04:28

was I my gut is it had to be a hologram

1:04:31

because oh you he's like use my sword He

1:04:33

called something else. He's like you think nice my

1:04:35

cutlass my cutlass, but it's like college

1:04:38

Catholic school football team which

1:04:40

was he referred to me as gefilte

1:04:43

Oh gefilte

1:04:44

What does it have to do with you really

1:04:46

nothing except that it's a very

1:04:49

specific kosher food

1:04:52

Gefilte fish and that's a man who's a

1:04:54

medic if you weren't Jewish. Oh, it was so yeah,

1:04:56

it still can be Yeah,

1:05:00

okay, just had a last name that sounded almost

1:05:02

always down to you but it was anti-semitic,

1:05:04

but it was kind of clever It's not clever

1:05:08

This is it was off the

1:05:11

beaten pass no no no

1:05:13

Gary you've been bullied with anti-semitism

1:05:17

It's time you come to grips with it, and that's the level

1:05:19

of friendship. We're We've

1:05:21

come a long way in 10 minutes. Oh, that's

1:05:23

really good. I appreciate that by

1:05:25

the way. That's a that's a good joke premise The

1:05:29

guy calling you gefilte when you're a kid, and you're

1:05:31

realizing as a grown-up that it's it's anti-semitism

1:05:33

Oh, yeah, and all these years you'd covered for

1:05:35

him. Yeah, he thought I thought it was clever.

1:05:38

Yeah, it's not clever It's

1:05:41

not clever. It's anti-semitic enough. He

1:05:43

needs a bully. Oh, he was a bully though That's

1:05:45

probably worth trying on stage because I feel like with your

1:05:47

delivery and the way in the in

1:05:50

the way that you word Stories

1:05:52

interesting I think that that has a really good

1:05:54

potential to be a joke Which is by

1:05:56

the way what these slow-around questions are intended for

1:05:59

us

1:05:59

to oh You'll yield your long

1:06:01

term. Right, right. Is there a song that

1:06:03

makes you cry? Oh my

1:06:05

gosh. So many, and

1:06:08

most recently, while on

1:06:10

stage describing how I had just listened

1:06:12

to the song, I started crying while

1:06:14

on stage, Bette Midler's

1:06:16

The Rose.

1:06:19

Holy mackerel. What

1:06:21

is it about the song? Just

1:06:24

the idea, because I'm

1:06:26

big into metaphors

1:06:29

and the poetry

1:06:31

of winter versus spring, summer, the

1:06:34

way that's used so frequently. So I have on

1:06:36

my wrist this bracelet, which says

1:06:38

in the depth of winter, I finally found that within

1:06:41

me lay eternal, invincible

1:06:44

summer. And Albert Camus,

1:06:46

and there's something about beneath the

1:06:49

hard frozen snow of winter,

1:06:51

there was this seed of a rose

1:06:53

that bloomed, and it was about love.

1:06:57

And it really hit me because the

1:07:00

one thing that you

1:07:02

don't know when you're in the middle of

1:07:04

a depression is that you may come out

1:07:07

of it. And the belief that

1:07:09

you'll come out of it can be very helpful.

1:07:11

And that

1:07:14

hopefulness of that song really

1:07:16

hit me and really resonated with

1:07:18

me. That's beautiful. Yeah.

1:07:22

Wow. I cry a lot with Eddie

1:07:24

Vedder, that song about

1:07:27

the elderly woman at the, she's

1:07:30

a cashier and a man from

1:07:32

her past comes in and she doesn't

1:07:34

say anything to him. And

1:07:36

I think the name of the song is

1:07:39

so long and tensionally, but

1:07:42

it's like the, I think

1:07:44

it's called elderly woman behind

1:07:46

the register at a,

1:07:49

it's off of verses, I think. But

1:07:52

if you, I didn't, I heard it a million

1:07:54

times, but I never knew the lyrics. And

1:07:56

when I looked at the lyrics and also an interview.

1:08:00

with Eddie veteran, he talked about the motivation

1:08:02

and the origin of the song that

1:08:04

this woman was elderly, obviously.

1:08:07

And this person who had been in her life a really

1:08:09

long time ago was coming

1:08:12

back but didn't remember it and know her

1:08:15

and it it was songs

1:08:18

about loneliness really get me man. Okay.

1:08:20

Yeah.

1:08:21

Yeah.

1:08:22

Yeah. Loneliness, I think is is

1:08:27

the thing that so much of our great

1:08:29

art is about. Yeah. I feel

1:08:31

like it's people. It's like we're all trying

1:08:34

to express what

1:08:36

our version of loneliness is. And

1:08:39

so if you can connect the way that

1:08:41

song is connecting with you,

1:08:44

then you're opening people

1:08:46

up and it's just a gift. Yeah.

1:08:49

I mean, just the fight

1:08:51

against loneliness

1:08:54

by people who feel that

1:08:57

they're more comfortable alone. A lot

1:08:59

of us, we're not more comfortable

1:09:02

alone. Really. We're social

1:09:05

people, but there's all this anxiety

1:09:08

and second guessing and insecurity. And

1:09:11

a lot of times we're too

1:09:13

afraid of the connection because

1:09:16

then you feel and that's uncomfortable

1:09:19

too.

1:09:31

Working it out is brought to you in part by Helix Mattresses.

1:09:34

Helix is our

1:09:36

original sponsor. I want to say they were our

1:09:38

first or second sponsor ever

1:09:41

in the Working It Out history three years ago.

1:09:44

It's an awesome company. They make

1:09:47

phenomenal mattresses. The new

1:09:49

one that I wanted to tell you about is

1:09:52

called the Helix Elite. They've harnessed

1:09:54

years of extensive mattress expertise to

1:09:56

bring their customers an elevated sleep experience.

1:10:00

The Elite Collection includes six different

1:10:02

mattress models, each tailored for specific sleep

1:10:04

positions and firmness preferences.

1:10:07

Every Helix Elite mattress comes with

1:10:09

a 15-year manufacturer's warranty and

1:10:12

the same 100-night trial as

1:10:15

the rest of Helix mattresses. Working

1:10:17

it out listeners, get 20% off

1:10:20

all mattress orders and two free pillows.

1:10:22

For our working it out listeners, go to helixsleep.com

1:10:25

slash per bigs, promo code Helix

1:10:27

Partner. This is their best offer yet,

1:10:29

and it will not last long. With Helix,

1:10:31

better sleep starts now. Do

1:10:43

you have any new material that's sort of half premise,

1:10:45

half anything that you're working on that you wanna

1:10:47

throw into the mix? Can I grab the notebook?

1:10:49

Oh yeah, you can grab a notebook, yeah.

1:10:51

All right, so. Can you hold that up so people

1:10:53

can see it a little bit or are you self-conscious? Where's my

1:10:55

screen? I need the camera right here, right here.

1:10:57

I mean, that's nice. Oh, thank you. I like

1:10:59

that I can just see the word ignored in all caps.

1:11:02

Yeah, because I think there's a better

1:11:04

word for this. So I

1:11:06

talk about finding out when I was

1:11:08

in third grade, I think,

1:11:11

that Jesus was Jewish. Yes. And

1:11:14

so I wanted to write this

1:11:16

sentence where I said what

1:11:19

great news that Jesus,

1:11:22

the focal point of

1:11:25

Christmas, this holiday, but

1:11:27

I should say Christmas, the focal point of Christmas

1:11:30

was, and the word, I don't

1:11:32

think it's the right word, was as ignored by

1:11:34

Santa as I was. Yeah, I

1:11:37

love that.

1:11:38

So

1:11:40

you're saying, so the fundamental punchline of

1:11:42

the joke is that really, to

1:11:44

use the phrasing from broadcast

1:11:47

news, the movie we were referencing earlier, they're

1:11:49

really burying the lead. Yeah,

1:11:52

oh my gosh, yeah. Yeah, because-

1:11:55

Of that Jesus was Jewish.

1:11:59

And- And at that

1:12:01

devout, yeah, very serious

1:12:03

Jewish person. A zealot according to the

1:12:05

book zealot by Reza Aslan. But I said,

1:12:08

Hebrew school never mentioned Jesus. They

1:12:10

bring up Jonas Salk, Hank Greenberg,

1:12:12

Sandy Kofax, Kirk Douglas,

1:12:16

Houdini, but ignored the greatest

1:12:18

magician of them all. Ah,

1:12:21

that's a winner. All right. Then

1:12:24

I will put a star next to that one. Ignored the greatest

1:12:26

magician of them all is so good. Because

1:12:30

it acknowledges Christianity

1:12:31

as

1:12:34

a significant thing, but then it also

1:12:36

undercuts it at the end. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

1:12:38

I wonder, this would be like an Ira Glass

1:12:41

note, but it's like, how is that joke

1:12:43

about you? And like,

1:12:45

are you ignored? Do you feel

1:12:47

ignored? How do you feel about what's happening

1:12:50

in the joke? That's really good. That's

1:12:52

a good Ira Glass note. Yeah. That's

1:12:55

what he always says. Just like plot and

1:12:57

then how you feel about it but

1:13:00

man, is that funny? I think that's funny as hell.

1:13:02

Yeah. I mean, part of it is that

1:13:05

I have this thing where

1:13:08

Jews are so proud of anybody that

1:13:10

does something, but then they're very particular

1:13:13

about

1:13:14

their pride

1:13:15

in

1:13:18

certain areas.

1:13:21

They don't take

1:13:23

pride in Jesus and

1:13:25

they don't take great pride in, at

1:13:28

least within the world of Kerber enthusiasm,

1:13:31

which I really identify with for some

1:13:33

reason, they don't really embrace Larry.

1:13:36

They're as successful as he was.

1:13:38

Yeah. They don't care

1:13:41

for Larry. You think Jewish

1:13:43

people don't like Larry David?

1:13:44

Within the world, the universe of Kerber. Oh,

1:13:46

Larry David. Okay, okay. The people,

1:13:50

the Jews in general love Larry David.

1:13:52

Love Larry David. But the people

1:13:54

in the world. Can't stand him. And

1:13:56

here's the thing. I kind of identify that

1:13:59

with that. that I feel like a lot

1:14:01

of my people who come

1:14:03

to my shows are much kinder

1:14:05

to me than my family is about

1:14:08

my shows. Like my family is just

1:14:10

so famous. I don't know if you get this from family and

1:14:12

even close friends. They just damn with faint praise.

1:14:15

Oh, yeah. All day. Yeah,

1:14:17

and it's- Congratulations. Yep.

1:14:20

Here's, let's go over faint praise. Here's

1:14:22

what you don't say to people who

1:14:25

just performed their goddamn heart

1:14:27

out on the stage. You don't say, congratulations,

1:14:30

how did you feel about it? Oh my gosh,

1:14:32

the Barry Katz School. Oh, how

1:14:34

do you think it went? How do you think it went? Oh,

1:14:37

any other ones can you think of? You looked great.

1:14:40

You looked great. Yeah. The

1:14:42

set is gorgeous. Oh my God.

1:14:45

You get nervous.

1:14:47

You get nervous people or the show. How do you remember

1:14:49

it all? How do you remember all the words? Yeah. Don't

1:14:52

say these things. No. Don't say these

1:14:54

things to a performer after

1:14:56

they've just performed their soul to

1:14:58

you. Just don't. Yeah. You

1:15:01

know what? Lie. I don't care about your

1:15:03

integrity.

1:15:04

You just saw- Totally. Some

1:15:06

of them perform. Totally. Don't, you

1:15:09

know, your word is impeccable. Sure,

1:15:11

maybe tomorrow it is, but not when

1:15:13

you just saw the person perform.

1:15:15

You go, I loved it. We loved it.

1:15:18

Here's my favorite part. You pick one sentence.

1:15:21

Towards the end of my set, I usually

1:15:24

say, listen, I don't know what your threshold

1:15:26

is for a standing ovation. But

1:15:28

I know there

1:15:31

are some people who have standing ovation integrity

1:15:33

and you have to cry at some point,

1:15:36

but I gave you a much

1:15:38

longer show than you paid for. That's so funny.

1:15:41

And you have to stand up to leave

1:15:44

anyhow. But I wanted to run

1:15:46

one last thing because it

1:15:49

was on the idea of a husband and

1:15:51

wife. And I talk

1:15:53

about the expression, it was a different

1:15:56

time. Yes, yes. And

1:15:58

I say, during all these so- called

1:16:00

different times there were people

1:16:03

doing the right thing that's right

1:16:05

and during the World War

1:16:07

two there were German and Polish people

1:16:09

hiding Jews and

1:16:12

but I then I wanted to add this thing

1:16:14

where I say but there are also men not

1:16:17

hiding Jews and blaming it on their

1:16:20

wives I'd love to hide

1:16:22

you my wife oh my god she

1:16:24

brought up the dairy restrictions and

1:16:27

I and I is it in poor

1:16:30

taste it I

1:16:32

don't think it's in poor taste

1:16:35

I would find it in poor taste if it

1:16:37

was a non-Jewish person but

1:16:39

also I feel like as a Jewish person

1:16:41

where's the how

1:16:44

I think I don't want to mess it though that it

1:16:46

was a different time thing is

1:16:49

that in

1:16:50

the special that you're developing right now like you're yeah

1:16:52

nobody special yeah it's about my

1:16:55

father was a progressive member

1:16:57

of the quote-unquote greatest generation yeah

1:16:59

whereas most of them were were not

1:17:02

and people will say well he he was a very racist

1:17:04

man but he served in World War two and it was a different

1:17:06

time and yeah say this

1:17:08

time it was it before the it must have

1:17:10

been before the the famous schism between

1:17:13

right and wrong when they split

1:17:16

over and that was a very my my father wasn't

1:17:18

a he

1:17:22

wasn't a perfect parent but yeah a good

1:17:25

person who was was a progressive

1:17:27

in terms of he never said anything homophobic

1:17:29

or racist or sexist misogynistic yeah

1:17:32

he was very progressive in his in

1:17:34

his politics and his social views

1:17:36

and I and I just that that's it's rare

1:17:38

for for white men of that of

1:17:41

that era not rare but

1:17:44

but uncommon no I think that that I think that'll

1:17:46

joke will work it helps me to see the context

1:17:49

of it the ramp into it right because

1:17:51

I think that the energy of that premise

1:17:54

will roll into the book you know I

1:17:57

think the blaming their wives becomes

1:17:59

like And like, if

1:18:01

this, what else? And then

1:18:04

I think it might be beneficial to

1:18:07

do an if this, what else for like four

1:18:09

other things. Like

1:18:12

who else was blamed? Who

1:18:15

else did a thing that was on

1:18:17

the line? But

1:18:22

ultimately, wait, if they blame their, yeah. But

1:18:25

ultimately, like wasn't helpful. Like other

1:18:27

examples of people who weren't helpful. Yeah,

1:18:30

yeah. No, I think that's great though. Thank

1:18:32

you. So

1:18:41

the final thing we do on the show is working it out for

1:18:43

a cause. Is there an organization

1:18:45

you contribute to that we will contribute to? I

1:18:48

contribute monthly to the

1:18:50

Helen Keller Foundation, but

1:18:54

it's a part of this thing that I discovered from Peter

1:18:56

Singer's book, Doing the Most Good.

1:18:58

Have you ever read that? It's sort of a hundred

1:19:01

pages on effective altruism. Okay.

1:19:04

And Sammy Kopelman put me on to it. Oh, that's great. Yeah,

1:19:07

and so there's a website

1:19:09

called givewell.org and

1:19:12

it's the most intense

1:19:14

and analytically driven

1:19:16

idea of what is doing

1:19:18

the most good, it seems, in terms of your

1:19:21

money saving the most lives, is how they've

1:19:24

figured it out. They said that

1:19:26

with $5,000 contribution, you're

1:19:28

saving one life by contributing

1:19:30

to either this group that puts up

1:19:33

nets, malaria nets in Africa. And

1:19:37

in the case of the Helen Keller Foundation, I think

1:19:40

they give vitamin A to kids so

1:19:43

that they don't go blind or die.

1:19:45

Wow. So I contribute

1:19:48

every month to the Helen Keller Foundation. We could

1:19:50

also do givewell.org at the general fund

1:19:53

where they put it to the best use. Yeah,

1:19:55

why don't we do givewell.org because

1:19:57

people can learn. about

1:20:00

the Helen Keller Foundation and all the other

1:20:02

ones. No, I think it's beautiful. And

1:20:05

I think you're beautiful.

1:20:08

And I'm glad that we had this talk because I think it's gonna

1:20:10

augment a stronger friendship.

1:20:13

I'm gonna text you tomorrow and do a follow-up.

1:20:17

I think we can take our friendship

1:20:19

to the next level. And also even

1:20:22

our joke collaborations, because I have a lot more jokes here than

1:20:24

we didn't even get to and so do you. And I

1:20:26

think we could be regularly bouncing

1:20:28

jokes off one another. I would love that. I would

1:20:31

love that. Look at it all, that

1:20:32

it's not done. Who

1:20:36

you are, because there's no

1:20:38

one. That's gonna do it for another episode of Working

1:20:40

It Out.

1:20:41

I love that Gary Gullman. You can get his

1:20:43

book Misfit at your local

1:20:45

bookstore. I could not recommend

1:20:48

it more highly. You can follow Gary

1:20:50

on Instagram, at Gary Gullman.

1:20:52

You can watch a full video of this on my YouTube

1:20:55

channel. Check it out, subscribe

1:20:57

to it. Go to burbigs.com to sign

1:21:00

up for my mailing list to be the first to know about

1:21:02

those upcoming shows. We're

1:21:04

adding, literally in days

1:21:06

from now. Our producers of Working It

1:21:08

Out are myself, along with Peter Salomon and Joseph

1:21:11

Burbiglia. Associate producer Mabel

1:21:13

Lewis, consulting producer Seth Barish. Assistant

1:21:16

producer Gary Simons. Sound next by

1:21:18

Ben Cruz, supervising engineer Kate

1:21:20

Balinski. Special thanks to Marisa Hurwitz,

1:21:23

Josh Upfall, David Raphael and Nina Quick,

1:21:25

my consigliere's Mike Berkowitz. Special

1:21:27

thanks to Jack Antonoff and Bleachers for

1:21:29

their music. They have a new single out,

1:21:31

so good. Special thanks to my wife,

1:21:33

the poet, J. Hope Stein. You

1:21:35

can follow her on Instagram, at J. Hope

1:21:37

Stein. Special thanks as always to my daughter,

1:21:40

Una, who built the original radio fort made

1:21:42

of pillows. And thanks most of all to you who are listening.

1:21:45

If you enjoy the show, rate it on Apple

1:21:47

Podcast. It really helps.

1:21:49

Tell your friends, tell your enemies,

1:21:52

tell your bullies.

1:21:54

Talked to Gary and I, talked about bullies a lot today.

1:21:57

You know what you should do.

1:21:58

Look up your old high school bullies. Give

1:22:00

them a call.

1:22:01

Make peace.

1:22:03

Hey, I know we haven't talked in 20 years and last

1:22:05

time we spoke, your fist was in my face,

1:22:08

but I wanted to let you know about this podcast.

1:22:11

You might enjoy it. Maybe

1:22:14

if they'd had the Working It Out podcast back then,

1:22:16

I wouldn't have bullied you.

1:22:19

Maybe they would have had a better understanding

1:22:21

of themselves and others. Thanks

1:22:23

a lot, everybody. We're working it out. We'll see you next time.

1:22:28

But there couldn't have been those blades inside there,

1:22:30

so I feel like they must have been hologram

1:22:33

projections of weapons before... Are

1:22:35

we trying to figure out the science of this? It

1:22:37

might be sloppy filmmaking.

1:22:40

Ah, no. No. Yeah,

1:22:42

that didn't even occur to me. Yeah, that's

1:22:44

just... it's just stupid. Yeah, oh. It's just

1:22:46

stupid. It's extremely dumb. It's more like

1:22:48

saying, we're not allowed to make it made out of light

1:22:51

because somebody else already did that. Guys,

1:22:54

can

1:22:54

we talk about the moment where Will Smith

1:22:56

is dealing with both... he loses contact with Jaden

1:22:59

at one point, and he's also really

1:23:01

in a lot of pain that's almost making him

1:23:03

pass out, blinding with just like

1:23:05

white paint. Yes, we're monitoring his

1:23:07

medical progress the whole time. He

1:23:10

has no right to do bypass on himself. Will is doing

1:23:12

surgery on himself and... Not successful.

1:23:15

It was so complicated what he must have had

1:23:17

to have done because he had to attach a tube into

1:23:20

an artery and then attach the other half

1:23:22

of the tube to the other artery to connect his... That's...

1:23:25

and he did that all by sitting and not

1:23:27

really... He had a bloody scalpel.

1:23:29

He had a bloody scalpel. Okay,

1:23:31

but during these... during the...

1:23:33

when we cut back to him, he's having

1:23:35

these flashbacks of his

1:23:38

daughter, his 19-year-old

1:23:39

daughter, and as

1:23:42

he's like coming in and out of them, he keeps

1:23:44

on saying, no, no, no. Oh,

1:23:46

yeah. Are we supposed to understand... well,

1:23:48

I guess we should talk about the moment where he... during

1:23:52

a flashback, he's up in battle

1:23:54

and she's at home celebrating

1:23:55

a birthday. She wants

1:23:57

him to blow out the candles on the... They're

1:24:00

like eye-chatted. They're face-driving.

1:24:04

So she says dad blow out the candles

1:24:07

through FaceTime. And

1:24:09

he says, no, I can't do it.

1:24:11

He says, no, you know that won't work. You

1:24:13

know that won't work. She's 19 years old. Yeah,

1:24:16

exactly. This

1:24:18

is a woman. This is

1:24:20

something like I do with

1:24:22

my nieces who are sick, like who don't

1:24:25

quite wrap their minds around the fact that like we

1:24:27

can't actually connect over eyes. You know?

1:24:29

Okay, but then the mother comes into

1:24:31

frame and says, come on, blow out the candles.

1:24:34

They're all laughing. Blow out the candles. I blow

1:24:36

out the candles. And then he does.

1:24:38

Right. And the candles do get blown out. Because,

1:24:40

wait, wait, wait, wait, hang on, hang on, hang on. Wait, June,

1:24:42

what do you think happened? Oh,

1:24:45

wait a second. I wanted to see what you think. Oh, no. June,

1:24:48

what do you think? Did you really

1:24:50

not catch it? Wait, wait, wait.

1:24:53

Tell us your best guess of

1:24:55

what happened. I thought you

1:24:57

said what happened. No

1:25:00

wrong answers. There's no wrong answers. All right, I'm going to

1:25:03

be totally honest. I'm going to be fearless. I'm

1:25:05

going to be taking me and just be totally honest with

1:25:07

what happened. What do you feel is?

1:25:09

I thought that Will Smith had totally like control,

1:25:12

had gotten to a place where he had

1:25:14

such mind control and power. Can

1:25:17

you continue? Somehow. Yeah.

1:25:25

This is crazy.

1:25:34

What happened was after the candles are blown

1:25:36

out, a second later, his son

1:25:40

came into frame. He

1:25:42

blew out. John

1:25:45

was behind the camera. Someone's

1:25:47

behind the camera. That was the joke. And

1:25:50

then he came around. Oh,

1:25:54

my God. OK. Oh, my God. I

1:25:57

didn't see that. Oh, my God. I

1:25:59

did not see that.

1:25:59

the sun came in

1:26:00

from behind. No. I swear all

1:26:02

I saw was that the sun appeared. Yeah.

1:26:04

Cause he'd been off camera blowing out the candle.

1:26:07

Okay. Can we just now, this now is unclear. It's

1:26:12

why you just said to one out of four moviegoers.

1:26:15

It was unclear. I mean, there is a lot

1:26:17

that is confusing in this movie.

1:26:21

That was not confusing. I honestly

1:26:23

thought that the whole movie was about like mind

1:26:26

over matter. You can do it. You can think

1:26:28

it. And I was like, well, it kind of is. Yeah.

1:26:30

Well, I guess the female having,

1:26:33

um, green. I don't know. Uh, Paul

1:26:35

and Jason got to experience something that

1:26:38

is very rare. Uh, which is June

1:26:40

at a movie. Uh, and

1:26:42

you got to see a couple of the outbursts that have

1:26:45

a bunch of big scares. There was one very

1:26:47

big fear where she hit me

1:26:49

and threw her pencil across the

1:26:51

movie theater. And

1:26:55

we're in a movie theater that has maybe six other

1:26:57

people in it. And there is a, there is

1:26:59

a jump scare, um, in the movie

1:27:02

that is effective. I thought there was a good jump scare.

1:27:04

I mean, it was, it was, it was a, it was a good jump scare.

1:27:06

But June's reaction was complete, hard,

1:27:10

complete as if she had been suddenly put into like

1:27:12

a paranormal activity style.

1:27:16

As if this person had appeared in the seat next

1:27:18

to her. Even

1:27:20

now I'm pulling her down to an underworld

1:27:23

because of June's leaky eye. She

1:27:25

was also seated one empty

1:27:27

seat away from us. I

1:27:30

was too close to everybody. I was blowing my nose. What

1:27:33

was the other big scare that you had? You had another, oh,

1:27:36

fuck. Like moment may have

1:27:38

been when he was doing it when the alien appeared.

1:27:40

There are a couple of scares in this movie.

1:27:42

There are a couple of scares. The aliens, by the way, are terrifically

1:27:45

strong. Like

1:27:48

they can cut through rock. Oh yeah. Like just anything that's in

1:27:50

their way to just tear

1:27:53

through it. And they seem to be able to climb,

1:27:55

they do it all. They're kind of indestructible,

1:27:58

but now in the beginning of that movie. Will Smith

1:28:00

when he's a ghost or ghosting,

1:28:03

he just kind of takes a sword stabs

1:28:05

one falls down Yeah, meanwhile

1:28:07

James Smith is fighting his one that looks smaller

1:28:10

than that one And he has to say like it's non-stop

1:28:12

stabbing like in the head and he stabs it

1:28:14

everywhere He's like that that

1:28:17

did not slow down Wait, one more question

1:28:19

about the candle thing then why is

1:28:21

Then why was Will Smith the whole time like

1:28:24

I don't want to do this I don't want to because he was embarrassed

1:28:26

and

1:28:26

for an emergency Because he knew yeah, he didn't

1:28:28

know his son was there He didn't want to

1:28:30

go through the charade of pretending to do this in front

1:28:33

of his cool army buddy. Yeah, they were like,

1:28:35

okay

1:28:37

They were showing they were showing that he has

1:28:39

no sense of fun. Yeah, the shitty dad. Yeah,

1:28:41

I got a meanwhile But

1:28:43

meanwhile, um the middle of battle when they

1:28:45

have another flashback He's like having an eye

1:28:47

chat with his daughter and like he's like on garlic.

1:28:50

It looks like an oh wait Wait, wait over a ring.

1:28:52

Okay, wait, but so even something crazier.

1:28:54

Oh So she

1:28:56

holds up their eye chatting yeah

1:28:59

or FaceTiming or whatever he's yeah, I know

1:29:01

like a bluff Yeah, like patrolling

1:29:03

or whatever and she says look a

1:29:06

guy at school found this and she holds up

1:29:08

a book the Moby Dick Favorite

1:29:11

book. Yes, and she's a real book. It's a real book

1:29:13

and he's like, oh, that's amazing And

1:29:16

she says what did she say? He said I could

1:29:18

hold it or touch it I

1:29:22

know I wrote it on to it I could hold on

1:29:25

to it And then there's a beat and then

1:29:27

Will Smith says hold on to what

1:29:29

yeah, and then I realized

1:29:32

oh my god They're making they're actually making

1:29:35

a joke as if she would say

1:29:37

to her dad He lent me this

1:29:39

book and all I had to do is touch his dick

1:29:42

Hold on to it. We're that I

1:29:43

know it's like there that's embalming

1:29:46

Will Smith is a very charming actor

1:29:48

who can land comedic moment Oh not

1:29:51

here. It's so weird about this movie's like yeah the

1:29:53

moments of forced levity of even that sucked

1:29:55

and that

1:29:56

beat I've gone to earth. I feel like rain.

1:29:58

Yeah There

1:30:00

was another moment the birthday. We all know she's

1:30:02

sexually active the blow moment. Well.

1:30:04

Yeah, she was 19 She's getting it like all the time.

1:30:07

She's definitely she's a range Little

1:30:09

creepy though. It's like she's playing this little

1:30:11

girl. She's 19 years

1:30:14

old like she was required to be sort of all over

1:30:16

the place developmentally But

1:30:20

she was a rain no, I think she was I think they just

1:30:22

had her acting that way I think they just had her

1:30:25

acting I feel like

1:30:27

yeah I feel like they you think all the flashbacks

1:30:29

were from the same time period I think they're

1:30:31

from the same weekend A

1:30:35

little boy was killed yeah, yeah, yeah,

1:30:37

yeah, yeah, it's pretty much true actually yeah, she

1:30:39

was killed on a birthday weekend Finishing

1:30:42

Moby Dick and giving a hand job

1:30:45

and wasn't it also weird though like and maybe I'm reading

1:30:47

it It is but I think we all laugh when she

1:30:49

did say blow it out blow it or something

1:30:51

there was a weird Yeah, like I think

1:30:53

I don't know if they were going for a joke, but it felt awkward

1:30:56

also I have to say the The

1:30:59

whole conceit of look at this. It's

1:31:01

an actual book. It's from a museum.

1:31:03

Yeah, I it's the Lazyest

1:31:06

future thing you could ever do I'm so

1:31:08

sick of seeing and I could just say yeah,

1:31:10

yeah, he loves Moby Dick I

1:31:13

want to talk about the one line. That's a great line James

1:31:16

Smith first out in the field He's like

1:31:18

dad my suit changed colors. Oh

1:31:20

yeah, I like it, but I'm nervous

1:31:23

like I thought I misheard that it was so

1:31:25

Strange and why did he

1:31:27

say that I like it. He's like

1:31:30

I like it. I'm not complaining Line

1:31:35

is even crazier. He says my

1:31:38

my suit just changed the color black.

1:31:40

I like it, but I think it's

1:31:41

bad I

1:31:45

like it, but I think it's bad But

1:31:50

we talk about the name we're saying Jaden

1:31:52

and will it's Pfeiffer rage

1:31:55

kata rage fire rage

1:31:58

sensei rage R-A-G-E,

1:32:02

which, oh, rage, R-A-I-G-E.

1:32:06

Okay, whoa. Here's a question about that. Rage,

1:32:08

look at that, yeah, rage. He's got rage, but

1:32:10

he holds it in. If Jaden is,

1:32:12

his whole journey is about not showing fear and

1:32:14

sort of coming to terms with like

1:32:16

feeling danger and hiding

1:32:19

his fear, what is Will Smith's

1:32:22

journey

1:32:23

in the movie? Will Smith

1:32:25

does not change, right? His

1:32:27

journey in the movie is to

1:32:30

get his son to be like him. That's what

1:32:32

it seems to me. And that's, I think,

1:32:34

another argument for like the psychology thing.

1:32:36

Oh, see, oh, that's interesting. Because I thought we were being set up for him

1:32:38

to actually feel, because it seems

1:32:41

like what you said, when

1:32:43

he was able to not feel fear, he would also stop

1:32:45

feeling anything. So it would

1:32:47

follow that he would then feel love or

1:32:51

be able to express it to his son, which he never really

1:32:54

does.

1:32:54

Well, they hug. They hug. They hug. They

1:32:56

hug a bit. And that's the thing is

1:32:58

Will Smith really doesn't change much, because at

1:33:00

the end he salutes his son. His

1:33:02

son does not salute back. He hugs

1:33:04

his dad. And he says, dad, I want

1:33:07

to work with mom. And Will

1:33:09

Smith says, I do too. And

1:33:11

then they go off and they start working the turbine

1:33:14

field. It's like,

1:33:16

you're right. It really is like, there

1:33:18

is no learning. There is no like,

1:33:21

nobody has an arc. You know, like Jaden

1:33:23

just is, I feel like he becomes able

1:33:25

to ghost, but it's still like a

1:33:27

weepy, like emotion-ridden

1:33:29

boy. Dad's been

1:33:32

yelling at him the whole movie. Like, you

1:33:34

should have saluted back. He should

1:33:35

have saluted back and they shouldn't have undercut that

1:33:37

moment. Because I actually, now last

1:33:39

five minutes, I was really into what was happening.

1:33:42

And I would be lying on the ground and

1:33:44

the alien stepped over him. Like, I actually

1:33:47

felt like they're driving us toward all this.

1:33:49

And I got there and then it was so

1:33:51

undercut.

1:33:52

Well, it ends kind of like an

1:33:54

old 80s movie, like an 80s buddy cop

1:33:56

comedy. Because he's like, I want to work for your mom too.

1:33:59

And then Will Smith goes. And as Paul

1:34:01

said they they shine a lot of flashlights on him

1:34:03

for all the all the medical officers

1:34:06

It's like shining flashlights. There's so much future

1:34:09

medical technology It's just like all

1:34:11

light like a cordless mouse and they

1:34:13

just like run all the stuff over him So

1:34:16

like as he goes back down like after he says that line

1:34:18

like Will Smith starts laughing like I Want

1:34:21

to work with mom do like it's like I got a pan out

1:34:23

like oh boy like the boys jailbreak

1:34:33

And Lizzie

1:34:35

would have scored this entire movie I'd

1:34:37

be I would be remiss to just mention that

1:34:40

the video camera technology in this movie is

1:34:42

insane Oh, Will Smith is watching his

1:34:45

son the video camera is supposedly on

1:34:47

his back But there are multiple times

1:34:49

in the movie where he's seeing him a lot of angles

1:34:51

a lot of angles I'm apart and also

1:34:53

but part of it is I think those

1:34:55

drones he relieved Yeah are cameras

1:34:57

that are all over the place So they

1:35:00

are providing and what about information

1:35:02

and at the end of the movie once he does kill the big Ursa

1:35:04

or whatever Oh, yeah, I can view the medical

1:35:06

bay. There's like an I won cadet just watching

1:35:09

Video footage of the movie watching him

1:35:12

destroy there. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

1:35:14

No, like the guy the medical get that guy's

1:35:16

expression No, because he's his

1:35:18

expression is oh my god. It's him cuz

1:35:21

he It's

1:35:23

like a YouTube video Oh

1:35:27

shit, that's his guys. That's the guy

1:35:29

that just killed the earth. I'm watching right now

1:35:32

By the way, this is like a crew It's

1:35:34

like a very small crew like a crew of eight people that

1:35:36

are on a rescue mission to rescue Wilson mother and son

1:35:39

But he would probably know all the details like oh, yeah, because

1:35:41

it seemed like it was all they hadn't even left Question

1:35:45

why when the rescue team shows up are

1:35:47

they in like hazmat suits? Cuz

1:35:50

like they oxygen maybe they don't meet just

1:35:52

take to take one of those inhalers. Well, you know

1:35:55

what? And you'll be better following

1:35:57

the rules. That is right one planet.

1:35:59

I got there. Oh my god,

1:36:01

remember that? When they

1:36:04

wormhole their way out of the asteroid

1:36:06

field in the beginning. Which I thought was a cool thing. And

1:36:08

they're right in front of an inhabitable part, they're

1:36:10

right in front of a planet and

1:36:13

Will Smith just gets up and notices a blinking red light,

1:36:16

gets up, pushes the red button and it goes

1:36:18

planet uninhabitable severe

1:36:20

threat to humanity. Do not land

1:36:23

under any circumstance. The computers

1:36:25

definitely in this movie were so

1:36:27

smart and ava- they're like, oh here's like

1:36:29

five steps ahead of what you're thinking. There's another

1:36:31

one where when Will Smith is plotting out the

1:36:34

course that his son must take with the two inhalers,

1:36:36

like what are the options here? And

1:36:38

it's like the sky jump, this flashes

1:36:40

on the screen, only survivable

1:36:42

options. Oh man, boy, any

1:36:45

final thoughts? A

1:36:51

moment that we all enjoyed was when Will

1:36:53

Smith is like, he's ready to pass out from

1:36:56

broken legs. Well,

1:36:59

one's very badly broken. So he's dictating a message to

1:37:01

his wife. He's

1:37:06

saying the message to his wife. He says,

1:37:09

you know, compose a message to my wife. To

1:37:12

my wife,

1:37:14

I've lost contact with our son.

1:37:17

End message. That's the whole message.

1:37:19

That's the whole message. That is it. By

1:37:21

the way, he seems to have liked his wife. He seemed

1:37:23

to have like, he gave her a jewelry. Like, he didn't seem

1:37:25

like, didn't do it. Their relationship was a

1:37:27

ten. No personal message to her. No,

1:37:30

I love you. No, nothing. Like, they should have brought

1:37:32

the wife in at the end too or something.

1:37:35

Why not? Why not? The ghost of the daughter smiling

1:37:37

in the background. She does. She's on the raft with Jaden.

1:37:40

She does come

1:37:48

back in a kind of like vision-y

1:37:50

dream sequence kind of scenario. That was the big

1:37:52

scare moment with... Yeah, yeah, yeah.

1:37:54

She's telling him to wake up. up

1:38:00

and then all of a sudden she changes into like

1:38:02

a mutilated version of herself. But

1:38:04

I gotta say, she was not that mutilated. No,

1:38:06

she was just a little bloody. No, so now she's like a little bloody. She looks like

1:38:09

somebody who did like a bad Halloween costume. Like, oh, I'm a

1:38:11

ghoul. And I was

1:38:13

like, ghoul. Any

1:38:17

other moments before we call her? I know.

1:38:19

The whole thing is it's like, and I

1:38:21

enjoyed it. You know, I did.

1:38:23

But I- Wait, wait, wait. I did enjoy the movie.

1:38:25

You did? I did enjoy the movie. What

1:38:27

did you enjoy about it? I think Paul left it too. No,

1:38:30

I did not. You did? This

1:38:32

movie was an hour and 40 minutes and it felt like

1:38:34

forever. It felt like a two and a half hour movie. By the

1:38:37

way, it felt like there was a saving grace. That

1:38:39

last fight with the alien just felt like everything is

1:38:41

a delay. Because of course he's going

1:38:43

to fight that alien. He has? Yeah. And

1:38:46

also, it's weird that, you know, I don't

1:38:49

want to get too heavy about it, but it's very unpleasant

1:38:52

to watch this little boy be afraid.

1:38:54

I mean, what is he, 13 in the movie? Yeah, because

1:38:57

he had like a little tiny beginnings of a mustache or

1:38:59

something. But to watch it- In my case, he

1:39:01

could have been not. He was. But

1:39:03

I think he was on the verge of basically being

1:39:06

kicked out of his parents' house and being sent to live with his aunt and

1:39:08

uncle in Bel Air. Yeah. So he was

1:39:10

right at that age. He's

1:39:12

terrified through the whole movie. He just wants his dad to be

1:39:15

his dad. And the dad is just saying,

1:39:17

stop being afraid, you sniveling coward

1:39:19

in so many words. Basically saying, don't be

1:39:22

a pussy, man up. And then Will

1:39:24

Smith has this speech that explains,

1:39:26

and it's terribly written about his

1:39:28

first encounter with one of these aliens and

1:39:31

what happened and how he just decided to not be

1:39:33

afraid. And that was it. Now you

1:39:35

do that. It's horrible. And by the

1:39:37

way- It's a terrible message. When he decides not to be afraid,

1:39:39

he has a callback, flashback

1:39:41

to that monologue that we just heard. Yeah.

1:39:44

Just a couple of scenes earlier and he's like, okay, yeah, I guess- I don't understand

1:39:46

how he was not afraid. Oh, by the

1:39:49

way, we were talking about those computers. And

1:39:51

here's another one. He sent these drones

1:39:53

out around the planet and the drones were looking for the Ursa

1:39:55

creature and they find

1:39:57

that dead pile of monkeys and the computers.

1:40:00

Like, mmm, possible magic, that was the Earth

1:40:02

that killed this. Like it was Earth's

1:40:04

signature. Yeah, it bears up, like... They couldn't quite...

1:40:07

The drones couldn't quite determine

1:40:09

whether or not this was the work of these aliens.

1:40:12

Yeah. I guess because nothing was impaled. Well, because

1:40:15

something else on the planet Earth is

1:40:17

killing and stacking monkeys. It

1:40:20

was like, a pile of dead monkeys. Yeah,

1:40:24

yeah, yeah. The computer got shy, it's like, I don't want

1:40:26

to say for sure. I don't want

1:40:28

to say it is and then it's not and you're going to be mad

1:40:30

at me. Because later one of the other

1:40:32

probes finds humans,

1:40:35

you know, remains of the crew impaled on a thing, and it's

1:40:37

like, possibility

1:40:40

of Ursa traces 100%. Oh

1:40:43

yeah. This time there's no mistaking it. Oh

1:40:46

man, the fucking... And then at the

1:40:48

end he literally has to climb like

1:40:50

a volcano, like

1:40:53

Lord of the Rings, in order to shine

1:40:55

the beacon and flash a light so they can be rescued.

1:40:58

It's fucking... This movie is... It's

1:41:01

not as boring as Avatar... Not

1:41:03

Avatar, The Last Airbender. It's not as

1:41:05

boring as The Last Airbender, but

1:41:08

it is boring for long stretches of time. Well, it's

1:41:11

such a linear movie. It's like, the

1:41:13

Crashland, you know he's got to get to the other side, you

1:41:15

know he's got to fight this thing, and you know he's... It's

1:41:18

all right there. And there's

1:41:20

no... but there's no like fun, like Will Smith

1:41:22

is

1:41:23

fun, not fun on some

1:41:25

level. Well, can I ask you this because I haven't

1:41:27

read any of the stuff, but... So

1:41:29

is the don't have fear, blah, blah, blah,

1:41:31

is that Scientology stuff? I mean, I

1:41:33

think there's certain Scientology,

1:41:35

like I think... They've

1:41:38

come out saying things as crazy as

1:41:40

we can heal our own bodies just

1:41:42

by thinking the thoughts, and all that

1:41:44

type of stuff. I think it is very much the

1:41:46

mind over

1:41:47

matter, and... Got it, got it.

1:41:50

And also, like

1:41:52

the moment where he says, how

1:41:54

do you feel about this, all about like personal

1:41:56

responsibility,

1:41:58

and not looking at anyone else.

1:41:59

But interesting but that's but that's

1:42:02

why it really did feel like a Scientology

1:42:04

instructional video because there's no

1:42:07

journey for Wilson's character. It's simply just

1:42:09

like yeah, just be like

1:42:10

him. He's right Yeah, right And yeah, he

1:42:12

likes and even to the point where his his son

1:42:14

who was six years old at the time of this attack

1:42:17

Yeah, it's like it's up to you to decide whether

1:42:19

or not you got another term, you know,

1:42:21

it's like no It's not at all not at all. Right?

1:42:23

Yeah, this is not by the way. Somebody should

1:42:25

have said this is not on you You

1:42:31

everybody's like you're gonna have to decide if this

1:42:33

is on you or not, bro, which is basically

1:42:36

saying this is 100% Yeah,

1:42:38

unless you say it's not yeah, and

1:42:41

I'm not saying it is hey, you're the only one

1:42:43

saying this I'm just deciding what I feel for

1:42:45

me But

1:42:47

the moral of the movie is don't feel

1:42:50

what you feel right I mean

1:42:54

I did like that element

1:42:56

of it. Maybe I'm a Scientologist now

1:42:58

Oh my god

1:43:03

It's not it's not

1:43:05

that fear is not real or something you're not in

1:43:07

danger It's just if

1:43:09

you stay in the present moment and don't tell yourself

1:43:12

the story of the future And

1:43:14

what might happen because that's really actually

1:43:16

doesn't exist

1:43:17

I do think that it that was a I

1:43:19

do think that was I actually both do believe

1:43:21

that like the moment where he's like Don't

1:43:25

think about what is just what could happen

1:43:27

now That's what is what

1:43:29

is what is your present? What are you feeling in your

1:43:31

body? I like that. It's ignoring the fact Fear

1:43:37

is a biological necessity. Yeah

1:43:39

living crease survival Yes, because you

1:43:41

can't you can't you can be afraid

1:43:44

and still Accomplish the

1:43:46

same things right that this

1:43:48

character was able to accomplish But what this movie is

1:43:50

saying is this creature only

1:43:53

senses fear Yes, so you have to

1:43:56

absolutely not feel it at all, which is

1:43:58

that it's crazy And

1:44:00

basically the reward in the movie

1:44:03

is, I feel like the movie

1:44:05

is, it should have, The reward is love. It

1:44:07

should have, That's how you earn it. So basically,

1:44:10

it should have humanized Will

1:44:12

Smith and instead roboticized

1:44:15

Jaden. Yeah, and we're supposed to be happy about

1:44:17

it. And that, hooray. The hooray

1:44:19

moment is like, you owe it to me. You fucking

1:44:22

destroyed this generation. You fucking

1:44:24

piece of shit. You've accepted your responsibility for your

1:44:26

sister's death finally. Yeah.

1:44:27

Okay, maybe what

1:44:29

they were going for though, is that Will Smith,

1:44:32

what he came to at the end is that maybe he did fail

1:44:34

as a father. And being

1:44:36

a father would have just been to sort of be

1:44:38

around

1:44:39

more and love them. You know what? But

1:44:41

nobody here. I didn't get that. But this is why

1:44:43

it doesn't work. Because in the

1:44:45

beginning of the movie, Will Smith comes home in

1:44:48

his dress whites after some sort of mission. And

1:44:51

reveals that he is retiring. He's like, I'm out.

1:44:54

After this movie, like after this thing, I'm out. I'm

1:44:56

retiring. After this movie. One

1:44:59

hour and 40 minutes, I am done. So at

1:45:01

the end when he goes, I want to work for your mom

1:45:03

too, he's already said that at the top of the

1:45:05

movie. That this is his final mission. So it's like,

1:45:08

there's no growth even there. That's right, he's already made

1:45:10

up his mind. Yeah, so it's like,

1:45:12

it's sort of like saying, like you're already gonna

1:45:14

retire. Like, just

1:45:16

be clear, I'm not doing this for you. Yeah, there

1:45:19

is no choice in this that is because of what

1:45:21

has just happened. Except my

1:45:23

willingness to accept this hug. Oh

1:45:25

man. This

1:45:27

is not gonna work out good for the Rage

1:45:30

family. This is, the movie is just bad.

1:45:33

But I mean, there could easily be sequels

1:45:37

to this. Well, it was built to that

1:45:39

end. From what I understand, it was

1:45:41

built to be a book, a

1:45:44

game, it was built in that very. A

1:45:47

cult. Is

1:45:50

there any, I mean, does Battlefield

1:45:52

Earth resemble this at all? It feels

1:45:54

similar to Battlefield Earth in the sense that there are ideas