0:09

Hello! And welcome to

0:11

you are good feelings! Podcast about

0:13

movies today. Finally, we're talking about

0:16

mall rats And we're talking about

0:18

more rats With are great friend

0:20

Nico Stratus. I am one of

0:23

your hosts Alec Steed and I

0:25

will soon be joined by my

0:28

marvelous cohost Sarah Marshall. More.

0:30

Rats is a Nineteen ninety five

0:32

American buddy comedy film written and

0:34

directed by Kevin Smith. It.

0:36

Stars: Jason Leigh, Jeremy London, Shannen

0:39

Doherty Clear For Lonnie, Ben Affleck,

0:41

Jason Muse, Joey, Lauren Adams, Michael

0:43

Rooker and Kevin Smith himself as

0:45

Silent Bob. It is the second

0:48

film and of us Universe which

0:50

we will talk about and is

0:52

very episode. The viewers universe told

0:54

the nineties two thousand these movies

0:56

by Kevin Smith and it's a

0:59

prequel to Ninety Ninety Four is

1:01

Clerks which is a very funny

1:03

thing to think about. Nico.

1:05

Stratus of course, is a culture

1:07

writer based in Toronto, Ontario by

1:10

way of the Yukon where she

1:12

spent close to two decades working

1:14

as a journeyman glazer before coming

1:16

out as a trans woman in

1:18

her late thirties and being forced

1:20

to abandon her previous line of

1:22

work As a trans woman now

1:24

in her forties, Nico provides a

1:27

unique voice and cultural spaces seeking

1:29

to work through a lifelong traumas

1:31

in emotional highs and lows through

1:33

her work. Nikko's one of my.

1:35

Favorite people Negroes a close friend of mine

1:37

I love Nico so have easier and any

1:39

time you see negroes going to be on

1:41

the show or on any show. You.

1:43

Know the you are in for a

1:46

treat. Have. I told you

1:48

yet they you are good of feelings

1:50

bike as my movies as a show

1:52

where we are not critics necessarily although

1:54

he say some critical thing sometimes we

1:56

are people who watch movies and we

1:58

think about how the. The makes

2:00

us think about how we relate

2:03

to people. And. Us Oh,

2:05

which feelings that makes us feel? Oh

2:07

what it's like to be as human

2:09

being in the world and how this

2:11

movie in particular makes us examine that.

2:13

That's what we do here and we

2:15

have fun doing it. We laugh all

2:17

at this is a robust episode or

2:19

and a little bit longer than some

2:21

of our others because we are all

2:23

people. The people who are. On.

2:25

This episode we are all people to are

2:28

raised in one way or another. I'm Kevin

2:30

Smith Movies three and a lot to say.

2:32

We talked about Kevin Smith and Clerks. I

2:34

think for a half hour before even get

2:36

to Mars. So

2:39

that's the sort of thing that you are

2:41

in force. How are you doing what's going

2:43

on in your world? What is going on

2:45

in your life? Tell us what you're thinking,

2:48

Tell us what you're feeling. He can find

2:50

us on social media at you are Good

2:52

or you are good pi day depending on

2:54

which one you're looking at. Some trying to

2:56

post reels in a some with regular basis

2:58

of videos that feature some of our conversations

3:00

from is very show videos that earth's edited

3:03

by a great friend alyssa not free own

3:05

in some week some really good at posting

3:07

them and in other weeks I'm not. But

3:12

they're good When they're us. You can find

3:14

them on our Instagram. You can find them

3:16

on my tic tacs. Ah, find us and

3:18

of the various socials let us know how

3:20

you're doing, let us know how you're feeling,

3:22

let us know. What? Is going

3:25

on in. Don't forget that You

3:27

my friend are good. You.

3:29

Are good A feelings I guess about

3:32

movies is made possible with and by

3:34

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3:40

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3:52

and i hope you enjoy those bonus episodes

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in exchange we appreciate it you help make

3:56

it so that are us crude of soak

3:59

can make a and we appreciate

4:01

that. Thank you so much. If

4:04

you like me or an advocate

4:06

for ceasefire, find local

4:08

actions in your neighborhood. They're happening all

4:10

over. I'm sure you can find something

4:12

around where you are and

4:14

if you have something to give, if

4:16

you can help materially in some

4:19

way, please consider making a contribution

4:21

to the Palestine Children's Relief Fund.

4:23

We will have a link to

4:26

that in the show notes. Alright,

4:28

I think that's it from me

4:31

for now before we dive in

4:33

to this, again, extremely

4:36

robust conversation about

4:38

mauraffes. So grab yourself a

4:40

bag of chocolate covered pretzels

4:43

and get yourself a tiny cup of

4:45

water and join

4:47

in this celebration of this

4:49

1995 masterpiece, won't you? Let's

4:52

talk mauraffes with me. Well, well,

5:04

well, well, well,

5:07

hello Sarah Marshall. Hello, you mauraff.

5:10

Hello from the back of a

5:12

Volkswagen. Really

5:14

committed to that joke from start to finish.

5:16

That's what Kevin Smith is about, is commitment

5:18

to verbal jokes. I was just talking with

5:21

someone and they were like, and it came

5:23

up that I had zines when I was

5:25

a kid and they were like, what were

5:27

your zines like? And I was like, I

5:29

was a kid who loved two things more

5:31

than anything, Kevin Smith

5:34

and George Carlin. So

5:37

imagine what a kid who

5:39

loved those things, but also didn't

5:41

really read books would have written.

5:43

And that's what my favorite comics.

5:46

Free speech absolutism. Well,

5:50

well, well, is this the first Kevin Smith movie

5:52

that we're covering on this year show? It's gotta

5:54

be 160 plus episodes in. That's

5:57

unbelievable. I think it's believable. I

5:59

think. that our shadow selves live within

6:01

Kevin Smith and we have been reluctant

6:03

to journey there until we could do

6:06

so with a companion as brave as

6:08

Nico Stratus, the Storm Chaser herself. I

6:10

did it! Sarah, I didn't text you this because I

6:12

know that you were busy and I was like I

6:14

don't want to bother you while I know you're busy

6:16

and I also know that Alex is busy and it

6:18

is funny that I did choose to bother him but

6:20

I immediately- It's a different kind of thing. You're busy

6:23

in different ways and I texted Alex and said have

6:25

you seen the Twisters trailer? I think about Twister all

6:27

the time and I think about our time together talking

6:29

about that movie and I'm just saying when it hits

6:31

theaters I will fly down we will go to the

6:33

we will attend the premiere together. Yes I think we

6:36

must. Nico, yeah

6:39

tell us about your

6:42

relationship with the

6:44

filmography of Kevin Smith and then

6:46

where does Mallrats fit into that

6:48

for you? I am delighted

6:51

to know that I'm the person the first

6:53

person to bring a Kevin Smith movie to

6:55

the to the pod. It was gonna be

6:57

my mom Nico so you bumped my mom.

6:59

I had a

7:01

dollar for every time I've heard that. You'd

7:03

have $12. I'd be making money in a

7:08

very weird way. I

7:13

know it's like cool to say that like

7:15

I got into Kevin Smith through Clerks or

7:17

whatever and I didn't and I also like

7:19

I do need to preface this as well but at

7:22

one point Alex and I were talking and I said do

7:24

you want me to bring a good movie to the podcast

7:26

because I feel like my like continued

7:28

bit is like what if what if I talk

7:30

about a movie that I think a lot of

7:32

people might think is bad other than Twister which

7:34

is the most perfect movie ever to live. But

7:38

Mallrats was the first time I knew about Kevin Smith. I

7:40

rented it from the video store

7:42

from shout out to the 38 famous video

7:44

in Whitehorse, Yukon where I would

7:46

ride my bike to the video store and just

7:48

print VHS tapes on the wall and I

7:51

had no idea what Mallrats was but I

7:53

liked the cover because it had a magic eye

7:55

on the cover and it had like you know

7:57

Jason Lee and Janet Doherty and it looked like

8:00

It looked very 90s in this way where you would

8:02

like really roll the dice on movies

8:04

occasionally At least I would when I was at the

8:06

video store a lot of movie covers at

8:09

the time I feel like like there was a real

8:11

language to VHS covers to try and convey to you

8:13

what you were getting the two horror VHS

8:16

cases I remember scaring the Big Jesus out

8:18

of me as a kid in a very

8:20

intriguing way where candy man Yes, and cheerleader

8:23

camp starring Bessie Russell. Oh, yeah But

8:25

then a lot of the like regular kind of comedies

8:27

or conversation based movies were just like white

8:29

people standing around And it was really hard

8:31

to know which white people to choose And

8:35

then it would have like quotes like the in do

8:37

you remember? Like mid movies

8:39

would have like critical endorsements that

8:41

were like dot dot dot great

8:43

dot dot dot variety Yeah,

8:47

yeah, yeah, yeah, I dot

8:49

dot dot liked it Yeah,

8:51

yeah, yeah the cover

8:54

for mall rats kind of reminds me of the

8:56

cover to go starring Toronto resident Sarah Paulie

8:58

Totally because it how is that like it

9:01

is like what if white people stood on

9:03

an angle creating depth of field? Yes,

9:06

I had this poster When

9:08

I was because it's drawn like a comic. Yeah. Yeah

9:10

Yeah, because this is like sort of like was outlying

9:12

at the time as being sort of very comic you

9:15

think yeah, and I like it because

9:18

This seems like strategic and what we're talking about

9:21

is there's Brody played by Jason Lee is sort

9:23

of like standing on a pile of comics Shannon

9:26

Geordie is like hugging his leg. There's

9:28

this security guard the force. There's Jans

9:30

also a Star Wars. Oh my yeah

9:32

Yeah, and if you Saw

9:35

this you would have even less

9:37

of an idea of what you were getting into

9:39

then for white people standing around like this Because

9:42

I was like this is funny So

9:45

like we're recording this right in the

9:47

wake of me having submitted the first rough draft of

9:49

my book. Oh, yeah Thank

9:52

you. I'm My brain is

9:54

like total mash also from doing this process But

9:56

it I think I've been thinking about a lot is

9:58

like when I was younger I

10:00

had all of these things that I

10:02

really liked and eventually they got whittled

10:05

away by time and trauma. But

10:07

I was a really big comic book kid until I

10:09

learned that that was the thing I had to hide

10:12

away from people. And selling itself as a comic book

10:14

movie was big for me. There

10:16

was just something about it that was very enticing.

10:19

I also had Jason Lee's signature air walks when

10:21

I was a teenager. I was

10:23

also really in his 8-14 and he was

10:25

a professional skater before this is his first

10:27

real acting credit. That's wild to think about

10:29

because he plays such sit-around guys.

10:32

I know. I had so many cutouts

10:34

from Transworld Skateboarding and Thrasher of Jason

10:36

Lee on my wall. How

10:39

many cutouts of Jason Lee? Yeah. So

10:42

counting this poster, which doesn't

10:44

count, eventually a Chasing Amy

10:47

poster, maybe like 10 or 12. Did

10:50

you have a Vanilla Sky, Sandy? I did not. Do

10:52

you, Nico? Yeah,

10:54

I still do. It's just slightly off, right? Me

10:58

and my friend, all my friends are laughing and enjoying themselves. They're

11:00

just out of frame. But it's just Jason

11:02

Lee's standings from the various, the filmography of Jason

11:04

Lee. Oh my God. Including

11:06

his starring role in the video for

11:08

Sonic Youth's 100%, where he plays

11:10

a skateboarder that, spoiler alert, dies. This is filmed

11:13

by Spike Jones. A little music trivia for you. The

11:15

bass that Kim Gordon is playing in that music

11:17

video was loaned to her by none other than

11:20

Keanu Reeves. The

11:22

90s really were like... Yeah,

11:25

12 guys. 12

11:27

guys, exactly. It

11:31

is a potpourri of disastrous white

11:33

people, truly. We talk about the

11:35

culture all December of the 1990s. I

11:38

really loved Kim Gordon's memoir. Every

11:40

page was what Nico just

11:42

described. Every single page was

11:44

some collage of

11:47

people that you felt some warmth for. Every

11:49

page is like, and then Kurt Cobain went

11:52

to the Soda Fountain with Andrea from

11:55

90210. And you're like,

11:57

what? Exactly. Like,

11:59

everywhere. If you like have like

12:01

an uneasy feeling in the nineteen nineties

12:03

you just knew that like back was

12:06

there somewhere like alerted I'm waiting to

12:08

see that like that that jump out

12:10

at you and and scare you. I

12:12

remember of work so over I to

12:14

remember which Mtv a word it was

12:17

back was I think doing a performance

12:19

of maybe Where It's At in a

12:21

real like sort of becky way and

12:23

then they stopped the performance to announce

12:26

that to park had just gotten shot

12:28

know and that is my connection. With

12:31

it's it's like every time you see back

12:33

having a good time it might stop real

12:35

abrupt. We have become a bad job. And

12:38

thus them than men. Nineties right there. And

12:40

exactly. That's exactly what every day was like.

12:42

had to wait for a back live performance

12:44

to get the day sentenced. To

12:47

death decisions as. I

12:51

just one You insert myself quickly

12:53

and say the what happened in

12:56

this. Wasn't that

12:58

back stop the performance in

13:00

the middle of whenever award

13:02

ceremony or was it was

13:04

that in people for sir

13:06

need to remember this: when

13:08

a particular piece of breaking

13:10

news happened Mtv news interrupted

13:12

transmission of of affects performance.

13:16

To let us know that something extremely moving

13:18

or treasure cuffed. I just want to make

13:20

that clear to think as you're going to

13:23

overcome the internet for this interrupted performance. It

13:25

wasn't that proves that we got an Mtv.

13:27

News alert in the middle of her

13:29

performance and so we knew that shit

13:32

was real. Or. It. Back.

13:34

To this. Area

13:38

gotten from our Ats. yeah I was

13:40

so I got into more ads, got

13:42

home watched it was very confused as

13:44

a when it was the knew immediately

13:46

that this was like. My.

13:48

Saying like early on the dismal became at a

13:50

Ninety Five I was thirteen. I don't think I

13:52

saw the Ninety Five who was probably shortly after

13:55

is it wasn't big in theaters against on Vhs

13:57

for sure. but it was like the first him

13:59

that he saw. The thing that silly goose speaking

14:01

to me where I could take away be like

14:03

this is my think this belongs to me not

14:05

a lot of people. the kids in the school

14:07

hall weren't like a does everybody see morass last

14:09

night in a legal wasn't as it wasn't a

14:11

plow through that we were sort of trading around

14:13

what were they talking about and them and ninety

14:15

is in your school Kurt Cobain and and the

14:17

Death of Kurt Cobain and than the one kid

14:19

that had a silver charity circus his brother went

14:21

to see so rich her life and concerning he

14:23

came back. He can score one day with a

14:25

silver two frogs dumpster and he was a with

14:27

who has given the world for like this one

14:29

years. Man. I think about that's around this

14:31

day. It will

14:34

get us overture song in this very

14:36

movie. Great soundtrack by the way first

14:38

of all of us seizure in Silver

14:40

Chair of Bush Acts Weezer I feel

14:42

like me go you and I probably

14:44

be similar relationship with a very similar

14:46

timeline in I distinctly remember being the

14:49

only vs in my class that knew

14:51

what this movie was because it's movie

14:53

was in the theater for one week

14:55

before it made only four hundred thousand

14:57

dollars or against six million dollars and

14:59

then universal. Yanked it so happened with

15:01

a lot of movies at the time and

15:03

and the lil in different ways that yeah

15:06

he was like this beautiful time period where

15:08

they people were sort of allowed to take

15:10

these big wild swings were like with more

15:13

as isn't really about anything like so my

15:15

associates this period of the nineties is so

15:17

much story telling about. Nothing at all like

15:19

this is like your science held areas like

15:22

post cobain nineties or such an interesting period

15:24

and culture. Because the nineties haven't figured out

15:26

what the gonna be out which is like

15:28

skyn of kind of a plastiki. Cultural sort

15:31

of thing. Like were a couple years away

15:33

from us by swirls. you know we're sort

15:35

of like so a We the it all

15:37

has serie a sort of faith for all

15:39

the era and after Space for all the

15:41

air as I see a lake in a

15:43

proper culture this is how we would mark.

15:45

Time is like a god no are learning

15:47

at right now. He asked for spice world

15:49

and were just hitting things with sticks to

15:51

turn them on and off. And then afterwards

15:53

we invented the clapper. The

15:57

nineties I feel like and my. Memory

16:00

of them in my experience of them as a

16:02

child. Were you or is quite different from experiencing

16:04

a time as an adult? But you do notice

16:06

things sometimes things adults miss. was that it was

16:08

a time of like. Kind of my

16:10

Opec's. Optimism. Where

16:13

we had this idea of ourselves

16:15

based. I think on the Zeit

16:17

guys of baby boomers specifically as

16:19

like wild children who had grown

16:21

up. And we'd had like

16:23

the rebellious sixties. And

16:25

that. Drifters, seventies and the

16:28

Go Go eighties and now everybody was

16:30

gonna wear some horrible pants and calm

16:32

the fuck down and get a Golden

16:34

Retriever. Yeah, yeah now and we've figured

16:37

it all out that a big open

16:39

plaid shirts. Wow. A lot of look

16:41

a lot a Golden Retrievers Economic. It's

16:43

the untrained family dog era of American

16:46

culture. What was the dialogue? and Muslim

16:48

like? the ways of presentation and style

16:50

of extremes? Like what was all of

16:52

that from this movie doing for you

16:55

as a as a young. Thirteen

16:57

year old will it's it was like it

16:59

was again like so much of it as

17:01

you like was speaking in a language I

17:03

understood like Brody the lead character your your

17:05

through way into it with is untested doctor

17:07

like Jason they had not been actor prior

17:09

to this. you know he's a he's a

17:11

com forgot he would. The movie opens with

17:13

his. Relationship feeling because he's a loser.

17:16

This movie is about the triumph of losers.

17:18

Ultimately Felix plan Nhl ninety three on his

17:20

Sega Genesis and his room is covered in

17:22

comic book shit on the wall you know

17:24

as a kid like cut and paste magazines

17:26

and wallpapered my bedroom with I'm and to

17:28

my parents annoyance when they've been cited her

17:30

them all away in toward the walls apart

17:32

turn on the stuff I glued to the

17:34

walls off you gotta you gotta do Nico

17:36

I was is some. Classic. Good taste

17:38

and a little ambience. Examined

17:41

and was I'm said in a vibe at

17:43

a mood in here. And and it's It's

17:45

glued directly to the wall and you know,

17:47

like he's he likes com of books and

17:49

he doesn't really have. You know, as Ben

17:51

Affleck eventually beats into him, he doesn't have

17:54

an agenda, he decides to hang out, and

17:56

next, he's not driven to be anything or

17:58

anyone, He just sort of existing. as

18:00

the world sort of happens around him.

18:02

And he's funny and he's quippy. And

18:05

he's got this sort of, the leads of

18:07

this movie, I've said this to

18:09

other people before in instance, I'm writing a novel

18:11

right now and my lead character is named Brody,

18:14

which is an homage to Brody from All Rats.

18:16

And I think about Brody and

18:18

Rene as played by Shannon Doherty, as both

18:20

of them conspiring together to make one perfect gender,

18:22

which was the goal for me. Both

18:25

of them were like, am I attracted to you or do

18:27

I wanna be you? And ultimately it was true for both

18:29

of them at the same time.

18:31

Because they just sort of have this aloofness

18:35

and sort of laissez-faire attitude that is also very

18:37

bitter and very jaded for reasons you don't fully

18:39

understand. But you can kind of place them if

18:41

you're sort of in that same place yourself of

18:43

I have been harmed or scarred by the world

18:46

and this is the way I'm reacting to it.

18:48

Which is maybe I'm trying to be too cerebral.

18:50

Well, Mall Rats is a movie that doesn't ask you

18:52

to think too much about it. But this

18:55

is a movie that I've thought about a lot over the years

18:57

is I've revisited it. Every now and then I'm like, wow, how

18:59

did this speak to me? Because after

19:01

this, I remember telling a friend and his older

19:03

brother was like, oh, you gotta see Clerks. And

19:05

he gave me a dubbed VHS copy of

19:07

Clerks. And I watched that and I was like, when

19:10

does the color turn on? It's black and white, what's

19:12

happening? I was saying

19:14

to Sarah earlier that it's like this, when

19:17

we talked about M. Bruges, Carolina Doddy, who

19:20

was on and talked about the term Varia

19:22

Play, which comes up in her podcast. This

19:24

feels like Kevin Smith just wrote a number

19:26

of monologues about what was on his mind.

19:28

Yeah, totally. And just split it up into

19:30

dialogue. It

19:33

kind of feels like the most unfiltered Kevin Smith

19:35

movie because he's not trying to like, he

19:37

would make Chasing Amy after this, which is

19:39

like very heavy handed in a way that

19:41

works and doesn't and there's a really great

19:43

documentary that was made a couple of years

19:45

ago by this trans man who was sort of like

19:47

talking about how the queerness of the movies sort of

19:49

affected him and all this stuff. And

19:51

Mall Rats is kind of, it's nothing, it's

19:53

nothing. But it is this unfiltered like, here's

19:56

everything that matters to me. I'm gonna try to present it

19:58

in a way where there's a thematic. a static story tied

20:00

to it but really this is just about, it's

20:03

very much a day in the life which is a

20:05

sort of storytelling we have kind of lost in the

20:07

intervening years. Like it was a big thing in the

20:09

90s of like here's a single day that is of

20:11

little consequence and we will show you what happened to

20:13

these people afterwards but none of that stuff really matters

20:15

so much as like what can happen

20:17

in a single day? And you

20:20

want to imagine there's also there's one perfect day that

20:22

happens at a mall where like you sign up and

20:24

you get the shit beat out of you by Ben

20:26

Affleck but you also like

20:28

get your comeuppance and you get to

20:30

find yourself in all of this and like you sort

20:33

of want to imagine that in all that pain eventually

20:35

there will be triumphs and that sort of like that

20:37

is a thing that kind of happens in this movie.

20:40

This is the new Jersey version of love

20:42

actually. Jersey actually.

20:46

And it's also an Easter movie.

20:48

Yeah Jersey actually, mall

20:50

actually. Malls really are

20:52

all around us because it's the 90s. Sarah,

20:55

do you want to take us on a little trip

20:58

to the mall before we go any further? I would

21:00

love to go. Yeah so mall rats and I will

21:02

also open because it will come up a lot in

21:04

my telling of it. I came

21:06

to Kevin Smith through Clerks which was showing

21:08

on IFC a lot in 2004 because there

21:11

was like a documentary about the making of it

21:14

for the 10 year anniversary and my memory and

21:16

I watched it and that movie made a huge impression

21:19

on me because it was basically like how

21:21

can a regular mope who's

21:23

not particularly good at any subject

21:25

like break out of their

21:28

small town existence and become a

21:30

director. Yeah Kevin just

21:32

to underline that this movie made 400,000

21:35

theatrically against 6 million

21:38

Clerks which was made for

21:40

$27,000 infamously on Kevin Smith's credit card. After

21:45

he sold his comic book collection

21:47

to partially fund it. He

21:50

made 111 times its

21:52

budget when it was eventually sort of like bought

21:54

and distributed by Merrimax and so he was one

21:56

of the people that studios were like we

21:59

give this guy money he's gonna make us cold. Yeah

22:02

and it was this great story that you could aspire

22:04

to as a young kid

22:07

with enough capital to sell and put

22:09

that into a movie budget or you

22:11

know parents and relatives to

22:13

bother like the way Sam Raimi did

22:15

for the Evil Dead which I also

22:18

fantasized about. There just aren't there

22:20

weren't stories that I encountered growing up

22:23

about women who did this because any

22:25

story about a creative woman you encounter

22:27

growing up typically is like her

22:29

husband burned her writing whenever he

22:31

could find it and so she

22:34

scratched out her great novel with

22:36

a chicken feather while sitting on

22:38

the prison you're like great that's

22:40

exciting. Yeah that's right or or

22:42

you're like Adrienne Shelley and you

22:44

do it and then you get

22:47

murdered it was not a great

22:49

just arrow wise these stories were

22:51

not existing for women who

22:53

are making movies. Yeah and by arrow wise we mean

22:55

you know basically all of time.

22:57

The era of motion picture.

22:59

But we're really turning it around I think

23:01

yeah and so yeah the Kevin Smith

23:04

story was very exciting and of course that also happened

23:06

partly because the mid 90s were a

23:08

time when Harvey Weinstein with Miramax

23:10

was like flipping independent movies

23:12

left and right so

23:15

it's inevitably part of that legacy. Yeah.

23:17

And that's just part of it too that you

23:19

know you can't have Kevin Smith King

23:21

made by a kingmaker without

23:23

that person also having the power

23:26

to have an unrestrained reign

23:28

of terror with women or you can actually

23:30

but we didn't think that in the 90s

23:32

so we didn't bother. Well it's the interesting

23:34

other side of that story too where we're

23:36

talking about sort of like who was able

23:39

to make these movies because it's almost become

23:41

a cliche in how often it is but

23:43

often anytime you're like I wonder what ever

23:45

happened to that actress chances are Harvey Weinstein

23:47

was involved in one

23:50

very nefarious way and then continuously in

23:52

making sure that person didn't get other

23:54

opportunities so that was like the other

23:56

side of the gender dynamic there. The

23:58

living embodiment of you'll never this

24:00

town again. Right. Right.

24:03

And then, you know, it feels like the narrative often becomes, she's difficult.

24:05

Right. Yeah. Yeah.

24:08

To sexually assault being the unsaid part of that sentence. I

24:10

mean, you know, to speak of this

24:12

movie, Shannon Doherty was someone that was always like when

24:14

you would read about her in tabloids and stuff like

24:16

by this time, by the time she makes this movie

24:18

90210 as a known property, which is a joke that

24:20

appears in the movie. And like the

24:22

thing you always knew about Shannon Doherty is like,

24:24

she's difficult. She's crazy. She's a bitch.

24:27

She's blah, blah, blah. But

24:29

you never really heard from her necessarily. And in

24:31

the rear view, I think about this a lot

24:34

of like, did she like so many people have

24:37

like this grand disservice done to

24:39

her because maybe she was

24:41

just trying to push back on a system that was

24:43

inherently toxic to her. And that, you

24:45

know, paints her as this difficult mean woman or

24:47

whatever when maybe she was just trying to be

24:50

assertive and like maybe in a cervic way, but

24:52

maybe that's all she had. Maybe that's

24:54

the only tool in her toolbox. And like, yeah, it is an

24:56

interesting thing to think about in the rear view. Totally.

24:59

Right. And we just we don't I feel like

25:02

I don't know enough, but I mean, odds

25:04

are she at some point got unfairly punished

25:06

for fairly reasonable behavior. And that's inevitable in

25:08

a woman's career, I feel like. And

25:12

especially in Hollywood in this era and as a

25:14

young person who's there for, you know,

25:17

sex appeal, because then it

25:19

feels like the power that you bring to a

25:21

negotiation is even less because

25:23

there's this idea that you're replaceable that

25:25

I think people like Shannon

25:28

Doherty, especially in that

25:30

time we're dealing with. Yeah. And

25:32

so, Clerks, I mean, we should talk about that somewhere

25:34

at some point. I feel like it'll happen. But

25:36

Clerks is a movie that we

25:38

shot in twenty seven thousand dollars and boy, did

25:40

it look like that and not in a bad

25:43

way. But it looked like it was filmed on

25:45

a surveillance camera and it was

25:47

very a play. And it was

25:49

just this guy named Dante Hicks working at a

25:51

convenience store. He wasn't even supposed to be

25:53

here today. And his friend Randall,

25:55

who works at the video store next door

25:58

and like this movie is so monologue. And

26:01

the actors are so pulled from like

26:03

Kevin Smith's friends and family and

26:05

neighbors that like some characters are just

26:08

like reading Allowed

26:13

The line reads in that movie are difficult

26:16

at times for sure And

26:20

there's like a George Lucas quality

26:22

to Kevin Smith where it's like you can

26:24

find people who can remember These

26:27

lines but boy is it hard to act

26:29

sometimes because they're it's treatises,

26:31

you know, sometimes they're just saying treatises

26:34

And this and this was so I don't know

26:36

how this struck you Sarah when you were first

26:39

encountering it But it was the first time I

26:41

had ever seen people Who

26:43

looked or sounded like me an interest talking

26:45

about the things around the movie not the

26:47

text of the movie itself Or employing the

26:50

text of the movie. It was like the

26:52

first time I experienced any Any

26:54

cultural criticism I think totally

26:57

I think the thing that works really well with clerks

27:00

and mall rats Both is that they're grounded

27:02

in a reality you can understand because like

27:04

clerks have said at a convenience store mall

27:06

rats is in a mall Like it's in

27:08

it's it's this very real tactile world that

27:11

is like made by a guy who lives

27:13

in a real tactile world Especially when he

27:15

makes clerks, he's not wealthy even by the

27:17

time he makes mall rats It's not like

27:19

he's like flush with cash. He just has

27:22

had one success and is looking to strike

27:24

and their movies about service workers Totally.

27:26

Yeah, like I was talking

27:29

about this with somebody a while ago because they were

27:31

asking me about why I like Empire Records So much

27:33

and I was like part of it is that I

27:35

started working when I was really young I was I

27:37

got my first job when I was 13 I've worked

27:39

every day of my life since and like I existed

27:41

in this world of Service work and of being out

27:43

in the world and like and that's a very real

27:45

world and we've kind of lost that Storytelling

27:48

in a way like we don't tell as

27:50

many stories that exist in these places And I was

27:52

always like man if I could could make a movie

27:54

or whatever I would like make

27:56

like a period piece of the 90s set

27:58

in a grocery store or something like that because that's

28:00

where I worked for four years. And like because

28:03

there's a lot of storytelling opportunities in these real

28:05

places where people really live and work and move

28:07

and like that was a big thing in the

28:09

90s that has sort of like been stripped away as we've you

28:12

know moved into the sort of artifice of the

28:14

early 2000s and beyond. But like it's a thing

28:16

I think that works really well for these first

28:19

two movies is they're grounded in a very real

28:21

place. Well I think

28:23

independent movies rig is kind of at

28:25

the sweet spot of budget or whatever

28:27

where you'd also have movies like Before

28:29

Sunrise and you

28:32

know even Pulp Fiction at the time like

28:34

it was known in large part for being

28:36

so conversation based as we kind of been

28:38

talking about when we talked about in Bruges

28:41

and about the sort of trivial

28:44

conversations between these two hit men you know

28:46

in Seinfeld like you talked about where yeah

28:48

it is interesting how in this era like

28:51

the talk movie becomes very big.

28:53

And Woody Allen had like a big string of

28:55

hits. Jim Jarmusch was killing

28:57

it in that arena. And it was all just

28:59

like things you talk about

29:01

like two and a half beers in. Yeah.

29:04

Or like or like enough of a joint

29:06

where you're not too high. The

29:09

sweet spot we call that. Two and a half

29:11

beers in after a full day of work where

29:13

you didn't have very much lunch. Yeah. Yeah.

29:16

Yeah. Yeah. You got one shoe

29:18

on one shoe off. Yeah. Yeah.

29:20

And rom coms like were conversational

29:22

movies. I remember watching the director's

29:24

commentary for When Harry Met

29:27

Sally Once which is 1989 but close

29:29

enough. And I think like the

29:32

phrase comes up of like you know this movie is just

29:34

like wall to wall conversations.

29:36

And I was like God it's just it is. It's just every

29:39

scene is a conversation and rom coms were a

29:41

great excuse to have characters

29:43

just talk to each other without much with

29:45

like the progressing romance as the

29:47

plot holding it together. And sometimes you would

29:49

like rush to an airport for some reason

29:51

or something. But generally you're

29:54

just talking you know. Yeah. They're

29:56

like community theater podcasts. Yeah.

29:59

That's how we think of whatever. room 90s

30:01

movie. That's perfect. Particularly in Rom- I mean

30:03

I think the significance of that happening in

30:05

Rom-coms is so interesting because usually like

30:08

when you are meeting

30:10

someone new, you're

30:13

essentially like a kind of establishing

30:15

some new distilled version of yourself

30:17

through all of those interactions. Sure.

30:20

And it's like you're offering all of

30:22

the best things you've ever observed. All

30:25

of the sharpest conclusions you've ever come to

30:28

and in that sort of bouncing back and

30:30

forth you're getting to know each other but

30:32

really you're maybe getting to know yourself again

30:34

for the first time. And

30:37

I think that's why that format works really

30:39

really well particularly in like romantic

30:41

movies where people are first starting

30:44

to engage. They're peacocking right? It's

30:46

like look at- I'm going to

30:48

pull myself on display and here's

30:50

all my finery. Flicking your giant

30:52

intellectual tail around. Exactly.

30:56

I love that. So you found Clerks in 2004.

31:00

Yeah. Clerks really

31:02

affected me. That inspired the horror movie I

31:04

made as a teenager, Langosta, which was only

31:06

five minutes long but which took a lot

31:09

of effort. And

31:11

so I hadn't seen Mallrats though until preparing to

31:13

do this episode just because especially

31:15

when I was a teenager I would really attach to

31:17

specific things and then if something was a little

31:20

bit different I'd be like now. Yeah, sure. So

31:22

I think that's the main reason. But Mallrats

31:24

is so interesting is a continuation of Clerks

31:26

because it feels like alright

31:28

so like you're not in a convenience store, you're

31:30

in a mall. But you're kind

31:33

of just in a giant store here in the

31:35

big shops as they say on Sarah and Duck

31:38

and now we can afford to have

31:40

more characters walking around more different stores

31:43

inside of a mall and doing

31:45

different things. But Clerks was also like you had

31:47

kind of random characters coming in and out but

31:50

it's just so interesting to

31:52

see Aesthetic realize using

31:54

a higher budget and more resources and

31:56

some named or nameable

31:58

actors which is... I

32:00

don't know, it's just fascinating. And Dante's here. This

32:03

idea that someone takes commerce

32:06

and sales seriously is an indication

32:08

that they're a bad person is

32:10

really wonderful. We have

32:13

Shannon Hamilton, who's played by Ben Affleck,

32:15

and this is the manager of Fashionable

32:17

Mail. He gives his villain

32:19

speech, and in part of his villain speech,

32:21

he says to Brody, I have no respect

32:24

for people with no sales agenda. And

32:26

Brody, our hero, goes to the fucking

32:29

antique flea market, and it's the place

32:31

that he kind of refers to be

32:33

sometimes. The dirt mall. The dirt mall.

32:35

And I love this movie's relationship with

32:38

how seriously you take the commercial side

32:40

of commerce being an indicator of how

32:43

good or bad you are. Yeah,

32:45

there's a real morality tied to your

32:48

commercial sort of desire, isn't there? It's

32:50

a lot. It does also, like,

32:52

you know, when Sarah was talking about it, it wasn't a

32:54

convenience store and it now in a mall. In my head,

32:56

I'm like, right, this is basically a reboot of Clerks in

32:58

a way. It is like,

33:00

okay, well, let's do that again, but let's change

33:02

some of the characters and let's

33:05

open the world a little bit. Let's give you a real

33:07

camera. Well, in Chasing Amy was supposed

33:09

to be sat in a high school

33:11

between high school students, and so like

33:13

his, in the very last, Kevin

33:16

Smith kind of notoriously, in the credits of all

33:18

of his movies, would have thank yous to all

33:20

of his sort of like idols and heroes and

33:22

people who were part of it. The very last

33:24

person he thanks in this movie is John Hughes

33:27

for giving him something to do on Friday and

33:29

Saturday nights. And like a lot of John Hughes

33:31

movies are just like young

33:33

people being quippy in a place. It's

33:36

like the most aspirational thing because you can imagine that

33:39

you're a guy that doesn't have a job that just

33:41

has to go to the mall, but also you're funny

33:43

and charming and your girlfriend was Shannon Doherty until very

33:45

recently. And like, you know, like you can envision yourself

33:48

in this place, much like you can see Kevin Smith

33:50

and be like, that's a guy I want to be

33:52

because he's this like self-made auteur. You

33:54

can see the world that he's made and be

33:56

like, I can belong here because these are regular

33:58

ass people that ultimately are like downtrodden losers

34:01

but they're like funny and charming and attractive

34:03

and like yeah. And they're

34:05

like young adults hanging out with their friends

34:07

and like not working as hard as they're supposed

34:09

to be which is a fairly universal experience. Yeah. Yeah

34:11

I mean as a person that didn't have a lot

34:14

of friends at the age that I watch mall rats

34:16

for the first time you really want to believe that

34:18

like oh I can be the person that these people

34:20

are in this movie and have friends at the same

34:22

time that's an interesting prospect. Yeah

34:24

it's true. Yeah and I also watch Clerks

34:26

for the first time at a time when

34:28

I didn't have many friends but then like

34:31

when I did get a couple I

34:33

was like it's like Clerks we talk

34:36

about stupid stuff all day long it's

34:38

my dream. This is like

34:40

a big thing of like especially coming from working and

34:42

like because he worked at that quick stop before he

34:44

turned it into a backdrop for a movie and like

34:46

and I think when you work in places like that

34:48

you also learn to have those kinds of conversations right

34:50

where you're like yeah let's talk about the independent contractors

34:52

on Star Wars or let's walk through the mall and

34:54

we're going to talk about how Superman and Lois Lane

34:57

could never have babies and like you do sort of

34:59

develop these conversational rhythms when you exist in those sorts

35:01

of places because it's different than like conversations

35:03

you would have in academia or in school or whatever

35:05

because you are kind of biting you're just waiting for

35:07

the clock to run out and like how do we

35:09

do that in the most interesting way. It's

35:12

the time in your life that in retrospect is

35:14

so precious because you just

35:16

have time to waste. Yes. And

35:18

you never will again. No.

35:21

No. So what is Mallrats

35:23

about? What's it about? I'll tell

35:26

you. All right. So

35:28

there's two guys. I love this so much.

35:31

What if we never get to the plot? That

35:33

would be hilarious. What if we never do? There

35:36

are worse things I could do than go with a boy

35:39

or two. Okay. So we

35:41

have our two main characters, Quint and

35:43

Brody who are named naturally after the

35:45

main guys in Jaws. Where's

35:47

Hooper? Oh my god. I

35:50

just realized that's what's happening. Isn't that great?

35:52

I've seen this movie so many times. It's

35:54

got levels. I cannot believe

35:56

I didn't pick up that that's

35:58

what that is. Okay, keep

36:01

going. Sorry. It's a thing of beauty thing

36:03

of beauty joy forever. So T

36:06

s Quint who's played by The

36:08

guy who plays pink Floyd

36:10

from based and confused This

36:13

is Jeremy London and that is Jason. What

36:15

the other London there are two they look

36:18

identical There are

36:20

twins Jason London 27 minutes

36:23

older than Jeremy little little London fact for

36:25

you. This is the London that was on

36:27

party of five Know

36:29

your London. I have no Also

36:34

in the public awareness campaign

36:36

for London's in the Yukon

36:42

Be aware of your local London's look Jack London very

36:45

big in the Part

36:48

of a London awareness campaign and then

36:50

there's Stacy London from whatnot to wear

36:52

and then there's of course London the

36:54

city Bit of trivia. So London, Ontario

36:56

close to where I live now in

36:58

Toronto. There's let there's layers of London's

37:01

werewolves of All

37:10

right, so Jeremy London a whole

37:13

other one from Jason London I'm just learning

37:15

a whole other London apparently a whole other

37:17

London is At the start

37:19

of this moving getting broken up with

37:21

by his girlfriend Claire for Elani who

37:24

has yet to master the American accent

37:26

big time because Her

37:28

friend was going to be on her father

37:31

Michael Rooker the Live

37:34

game show taping at the mall.

37:36

Are you with me? Which used

37:39

to happen everybody? So those 90s ass

37:41

thing is like the local TV channels filming

37:43

at the mall. There used to be live

37:45

game show taping at malls I Did

37:48

not know about that. I miss

37:51

that I came too late to them all also

37:53

fashion shows, but yeah, this is great The

37:55

mall used to be a center for people

37:59

to gather and have large social events.

38:01

And once we lost that, I think

38:04

the hollowing process followed pretty quickly. So,

38:07

Khilare Forlani's friend was supposed

38:10

to do this, but of

38:12

course, Jeremy London? Yep. Quint

38:15

made a casual reference to how the

38:17

camera adds 10 pounds. And

38:20

so she became self-conscious and swam

38:22

780 laps and then

38:24

had an embolism and drowned, which is also

38:26

a reference that happens to

38:29

a character people talk about in Clerks.

38:31

And there's a lot of Clerks connections.

38:33

Yeah, that's the funeral they go to

38:35

in Clerks. Right. The view of Skewiverse

38:38

builds around us. Julie Dwyer is the name

38:40

of the woman who dies in the pool.

38:43

He was like, now that I have

38:45

a bigger toolbox, we need to attack

38:47

this Julie Dwyer question. I need

38:49

a London to kill her. No, no, no, we can't afford

38:51

the one London. Let's get the other guy to get me

38:53

to afford a London. And

38:55

so, okay, so she breaks up with him,

38:58

not just because of that,

39:00

although it's certainly reasonable grounds, but she's like, so

39:02

I have to stay and be

39:04

in my father, Michael Rookers, live

39:08

mall game show, dating

39:10

game, homage, taping. And

39:14

Quint is like, what the fuck? You have to

39:16

come with me. We're going to Florida. I'm

39:18

going to propose to you on the Universal

39:20

Studio Tour or whatever. When Jaws pops out

39:22

of the water. My namesake. He doesn't tell

39:24

her that, but that's why he wants her

39:26

to go. And so she breaks up with

39:28

him because he's, to be fair,

39:30

fucked up a couple of times very recently. Meanwhile,

39:34

Jason Lee, playing Brody, is

39:36

also getting broken up with

39:38

by his girlfriend, Shannon

39:40

Doherty, because he won't introduce her to

39:42

his mom and

39:45

she has to sneak around and he

39:47

won't bother having sex with her because

39:49

he's very busy playing Sega

39:52

hockey. The number

39:54

of times people say Sega to refer

39:56

to like a video game console generally

39:59

as a concept. out really speaks of

40:01

the time. Oh, peak 90s. This is

40:03

when Notorious B.I.G. was dropping Sega Genesis,

40:05

Super Nintendo references in lyrics and in

40:08

an era of hip-hop that delights me

40:10

to no end when owning a Sega

40:12

Genesis and a Super Nintendo was like,

40:15

I made it. Which just makes me

40:17

think of Cartman going Sega Genesis. Forget

40:20

when that came up a bit. Okay,

40:24

so both of our main guys have gotten

40:26

broken up with what to do. They're going

40:28

to go to the mall together and kill

40:31

time and hang out with their friends Jay

40:33

and Silent Bob who we first met in

40:36

Clerks. Silent Bob is of course played by

40:38

Kevin Smith who

40:40

was wearing the popular trench coat look

40:42

before 60 Minutes. But the

40:44

kibosh on that after Columbine, a white guy

40:46

could not wear a trench coat. Really

40:49

even now it's hard to pull off. I

40:51

will say he's stuck with it. Yeah, good for

40:53

him. Because he was like, I'm Kevin Smith. I

40:56

made trench coats and backwards hats, god damn it.

40:58

I'll be damned if I'm going to give him

41:00

up. That's true. Yeah,

41:04

he was here first and he's not

41:06

leaving. And I

41:08

mean the structure of this, it's not

41:11

the most structured movie, but our characters

41:13

that we meet are Joey

41:15

Lauren Adams who is Quinn's

41:17

ex-girlfriend who fucked Rick Darris.

41:20

And a pool table. Which is an amazing scene

41:23

because he's like, you fucked Rick Darris.

41:25

And she's like, I was in

41:27

a Halloween costume and nobody remembers

41:29

shit like that. Yeah,

41:32

her take away is great. I like that

41:34

Jason Lee's like easy delivery of how many

41:36

times do you ever get to see Smokey

41:38

fuck the bandit. Yeah. And then

41:40

we learned that she was, whichever one

41:42

Burt Reynolds was, I forgot. Was he

41:44

Smokey? Yeah, didn't I look just like

41:47

Burt Reynolds? Yeah, except for the mustache.

41:49

My kids are going to be named

41:51

Smokey and the Bandit. Those are some

41:54

true gender neutral kid's names. Yeah, anybody

41:56

can be a Smokey. Bring back Smokey.

41:58

More guys named Smokey. And more children

42:00

named The Bandit. This

42:05

is my child, The Bandit. Yeah,

42:09

first name's the middle name Bandit. We

42:12

call them TB. So, yeah, so

42:16

they go to the mall. As I've

42:18

mentioned before, because it's just a great

42:20

thing about this movie, Quinn's

42:23

ex-girlfriend's dad is played by Michael

42:25

Rooker. And we also

42:27

have a scary security guard, who J and Silent

42:30

Bob, what are they trying to do with this

42:32

guy that involves Silent Bob having to

42:34

do Batman stuff? The first plan

42:37

is to stop the game show so

42:39

that Brandy doesn't have to go and

42:41

do it, which is TS's

42:43

plan, not checked with her. He's protecting

42:45

his property in the form of his

42:48

romantic address. And if

42:50

Silent Bob sweeps, like, sort of

42:52

catapulted in or swings in like

42:54

Batman, he can pull out

42:57

a pin in the middle of it and the whole thing

42:59

will collapse. Then we

43:01

also have Trisha, who is our 15-year-old

43:03

sexologist. Trish the Dish. Who I did

43:05

see a clip featuring her when I

43:07

was about that age, and I was

43:10

like, yes, that's what I want to

43:12

do. You

43:14

know, we get once again into the issue of

43:16

consent, where it's like, it's not about what minors

43:18

want to do, it's about what adults have to

43:20

stop them from sometimes wanting to do. But

43:23

what a great concept. In absolute

43:25

aside about Trish, Sarah, did you

43:28

agree with her controversial, the most

43:31

controversial statement, where she says, women

43:33

want romance, not Mr. Toad's wild ride. How

43:36

did you feel about that line? Well,

43:39

and then Jason Lee says, be fair,

43:42

everyone wants Mr. Toad's wild ride.

43:46

And I think that's correct. I

43:48

mean, I just think sometimes

43:50

Mr. Toad's wild ride is

43:52

romance, is the thing, right? It

43:55

ends in hell. I mean, what do you want to

43:57

write out? Oh,

43:59

my God. Oh no, I love

44:02

how many of the original Disney

44:04

rides start with

44:06

a warning that you could die

44:08

during it or feature like a

44:10

storyline where you end by dying.

44:15

They knew what kids wanted. Yeah,

44:17

what we want to do is move

44:19

through the stages of grief and end in

44:21

death. Yeah. Yeah, and so

44:23

Trisha, our sexologist, at

44:25

the end of the movie they show her autographing

44:28

copies of her book which we

44:30

spent 72 weeks on the bestseller

44:32

list and then she's with

44:35

the security guard, right? Because there's this guy kissing her

44:37

on the cheek who's wearing like a straw

44:39

boater. Yeah. At the very

44:41

least they're seeing each other with some familiarity.

44:43

I think that there's just a relationship happening

44:46

because that was something we made jokes about

44:48

at the time which just really helps

44:50

a lot with our data search about

44:52

what our culture was like back then.

44:55

She also gives like an unfair representation of

44:57

what your first book advance is going to

45:00

be from if you're a

45:02

minor because she gets a $20,000 advance

45:04

from Pennant Publishing which is by the

45:06

way the publishing company that Elaine Venice

45:09

works for in the television series Seinfeld.

45:11

What's that about? Mallrats is part of

45:13

the Seinfeld interconnected universe. It

45:15

is nice to know that it's part of the Seinfeld universe.

45:18

Also as Miranda Zichler and I were talking about

45:20

recently, more should have been

45:22

done with the fact that Friends technically

45:25

is a spin-off of Mad About You.

45:28

Tell me, I'm not familiar with that. Because

45:31

Ursula Buffet was a character in Mad

45:33

About You before Phoebe was a character

45:35

in Friends. Oh, just like

45:38

as a waitress? Yeah. The best sort of

45:40

thing? Oh wow. He's the waitress at

45:42

Riff's and then as far as I can tell Friends started

45:44

on NBC and they were like but we already have

45:46

Lisa on a show on NBC and they were like

45:48

well, ha ha ha ha. What

45:51

if this character is the twin sister of

45:53

the character on Mad About You that she

45:55

used to do and then they did a

45:57

crossover episode where Ursula dated Joey. I love

45:59

that. Anyway, yes, and then we

46:01

also have Ben Affleck who

46:04

Alex, I feel like you're passionate about this era

46:06

of Ben Affleck's work. Can you tell us what

46:08

he's up to in this movie? He's

46:11

the manager of a store called Fashionable

46:13

Mail, very similar to a

46:15

store like... Which I would think that it's a stationary

46:17

store with that name. I

46:19

think that I have called up multiple times on

46:22

twitter.com now, rebranded as x.com, is that

46:24

it's so crazy that he is the

46:26

owner of Fashionable Mail and he's dressed

46:28

like what would happen if you zapped

46:30

a child with a ray and instantly

46:32

turned him into an adult. He's

46:34

wearing a henley that doesn't fit in a suit

46:37

jacket that looks like he stole it from a

46:39

giant. Well, this is important,

46:41

I feel like, because Fashionable Mail feels a

46:44

lot like structure or a store that was

46:46

popular is called The Chess King, where

46:49

all clothes for Fashionable Men

46:52

in their 20s looked also like

46:54

clothes that you would get for

46:56

an eight-year-old out of Bugle Boys.

46:58

It was a really strange, very

47:01

strange era of clothing. And

47:04

he is apparently... Shannon

47:06

Doherty's character, who broke up with Brody earlier

47:09

this day, is now going on a mall

47:11

date with the manager

47:14

of Fashionable Mail, played by Ben

47:16

Affleck. And his

47:18

whole thing is

47:20

he likes to, as he announces

47:22

in his villain speech, he

47:25

likes to meet women at vulnerable times

47:27

in their life. Mm-hmm. Very

47:30

realistic so far. Yeah. And

47:32

employ some bit of opportunism

47:34

to get them to agree

47:37

in their vulnerability to have sex in

47:40

an uncomfortable place, at

47:42

which point everybody asks, what,

47:44

like the back of a Volkswagen? Could

47:47

be my first thought, to be honest. And

47:49

then he's like, no. And it turns out

47:51

he's just talking about anal sex. Yes, which

47:54

the movie never names, but it's like we

47:56

all know because anal sex haunted the 90s,

47:58

like one of the... those giant monsters

48:01

and Lovecraft. Kevin Smith is

48:03

a Catholic. Really? That

48:05

plays big into some movies that come up later,

48:08

particularly dogma. But no to me,

48:10

no movie speaks

48:12

to his Catholicism like his obsession

48:14

with anal sex being what it

48:17

is in this movie. Well,

48:19

it's weird too, because it brings up the

48:21

question of like the questions

48:23

we didn't ask about consent and culture

48:26

as it was very recently, because it's

48:28

like, well, OK,

48:30

you're a bit of a menace if you're

48:32

like seizing women when they're like easy to

48:34

manipulate. But then it's like theoretically,

48:37

they can still say no to

48:39

anal as people do every day. But the

48:42

implication is that they can't. Yeah. Which gets

48:44

us into the territory of like. Dennis,

48:46

do these women want to be on this boat with us? Yeah,

48:49

his his prime. I mean, we later we later

48:51

learned that he has sex with one of my

48:53

favorite jokes in this movie, which should not be

48:55

a joke, is when he's getting spoiler

48:58

alert, when he's later getting arrested, because we find

49:00

out that he had sex with the 15 year

49:02

old and he says as part of her sex

49:04

illogical research, so we as the audience don't have

49:06

to worry about it, although it still weighs on

49:09

the mind. Right. He's like 15. I actually thought

49:11

I thought she was 36. But

49:13

yeah, his his issue that they

49:15

never addressed is that he's predatory

49:17

and manipulative, not like where he wants

49:20

to put his dick. But that just to

49:22

your point, it shows what what we were

49:24

focused on at this time. Yeah. It's interesting

49:26

looking at that through the now the

49:28

lens that we understand Harvey Weinstein

49:31

through, who is like, you know,

49:33

the unseen papa master, putting pouring

49:35

money into this film where

49:38

Ben Affleck plays a sexual predator who

49:40

dresses like a tall baby. Like

49:47

a tall baby going to a job interview

49:49

like a. Yeah, a tall baby who suddenly

49:51

is the man of the house and is

49:53

very mad about it. And I do understand

49:56

on whatever level that I think it

49:58

wasn't mainstream. talk about

50:00

utilizing lubricant until like 2007.

50:04

It's interesting. Things that are

50:06

permissible in this and the things that aren't

50:09

because there's a moment where Brody walks into

50:11

a women's clothing store and puts a pair

50:13

of lace underwear over him and says, I

50:15

would have been a sexy chick. Now ask

50:18

yourself if that confused the hell out

50:20

of young confused closeted trans person Nico

50:22

Stratus in the early to mid 1990s

50:24

watching this movie when I wanted to

50:26

be both leads and he walks

50:28

in and says, I would have been a sexy

50:30

chick and your whole world unravels around you. But

50:33

it is interesting that like playing with gender

50:35

and talking openly about sexuality is fine,

50:37

but there's a limit. Like you understand

50:39

there's a barrier and that changes in

50:41

between this movie and the follow

50:45

up chasing Amy, which is like explicitly

50:47

about queerness and has a lot of

50:49

problematic aspects to it. But, um,

50:51

but it is interesting. Like what is allowed and what isn't. To

50:54

this point, like Ben Affleck, to the,

50:56

to the earlier question, to this point,

50:58

we didn't get dynamic Ben until a

51:01

one, two punch with chasing Amy, doing

51:03

the best he could and with what

51:05

he had. And then, um, Good Will

51:07

Hunting, which Kevin Smith and Scott Moser,

51:09

who, uh, Scott Moser produced this

51:12

movie, he played Willem in the, in the, in clerks.

51:14

He and Kevin Smith were producers of Good

51:17

Will Hunting. I didn't know

51:19

that. That's amazing. Yeah. They

51:21

helped facilitate that into the world. Some nice, wholesome

51:24

boy energy. I hope.

51:26

Yeah. It seems like there's

51:28

a lot of boy energy in these movies. Yeah. It's

51:30

just nice when boys make something together. That's

51:34

my analysis. When

51:37

will boys get a chance? That's what

51:39

I'm wondering. Well, I feel

51:41

like they're using their chances to like shoot

51:44

abortion doctors or something, you

51:46

know, like the opposite

51:48

of war isn't peace. It's creation

51:50

to quote, probably Mark from rent.

51:54

This is like, if you'd have said,

51:56

what is the conversation around mall rats going to be?

51:59

You would never imagine. and that everything that has

52:01

come up so far today is what would

52:03

be placed on the table. And I'm just

52:05

like, I'm gonna think about this conversation for

52:07

the rest of my life, I think. And I have you

52:09

two to credit for it. We're

52:12

all conspiring together.

52:15

I love it. We're all in this schooner

52:17

together. Aww. We

52:20

also have Ethan Supley in this movie who

52:22

at the start is set up as staring

52:25

at a magic eye picture trying

52:27

to see a sailboat. And he

52:29

can't see it. This will pay off later. And

52:32

so Jason Lee gets

52:35

advice from Stan Lee at

52:37

one point about how he has to chase true love,

52:40

gives the stink hand to Michael Rooker by

52:42

sticking his hand in his ass and then getting

52:45

handsy with Michael Rooker during

52:47

a nice intimate handshake.

52:49

Give them Giardia. Michael Rooker

52:51

immediately becomes violently ill. Yeah,

52:53

great acting by

52:56

Michael Rooker, you know? Great puking

52:58

in a bag. One of the best. And

53:03

this all culminates in a plot. They

53:05

also, of course, have to go

53:07

to the dirt mall and visit a

53:10

topless fortune teller played by Priscilla Barnes,

53:12

who's one of the highlights. I think Priscilla Barnes

53:14

was on Three's Company. Yeah, Three's

53:17

Company is Priscilla Barnes, yeah. Who

53:20

has a fake third nipple, which is wonderful.

53:22

And she says, I can't believe I didn't

53:24

remember this line, which is both pivotal in

53:26

the movie and is so important to the

53:28

rest of my life. She says, understanding is

53:31

reached only after confrontation, which is an incredibly

53:34

important line to every Kevin Smith

53:36

character ever on screen, right? Which

53:38

is like all a bunch of

53:40

boys who are terrified of confrontation,

53:42

avoiding it at all costs. Really,

53:45

at the end of the day,

53:47

same happening clerks need someone to

53:49

come and yell at them shit or get off the pot. Like

53:52

that's what all of these men do. In this

53:54

case, they got it by way of a fake

53:56

third nipple medium. Which I like is

53:59

the one thing that... that skeeves out Jason Lee,

54:01

where he's like, that's a bridge too far for

54:03

him. Or he is like, he's disgusted by the

54:05

third nipple at one point when Jeremy London says,

54:07

oh, you have a third nipple. And he says,

54:09

what are you talking about? It's as clear as

54:11

day. I want to

54:13

give credit to Jason Lee, who outacts

54:15

almost everybody in this movie, considering that

54:17

he has never acted professionally before being

54:19

in Mallrats. Like he has, but never

54:21

really. Yeah, that's shocking. He's the strongest

54:23

actor in this other than Shana Doherty.

54:25

I don't want to contend. I don't

54:27

want to push back. But you are.

54:31

I don't want to, but I'm immediately

54:33

going to. But I must. To call

54:35

what Jason Lee does in this movie

54:37

acting. I'm just saying, in contrast to

54:39

everything else. And not commitment to a

54:41

bit at 11. The

54:45

Scientologist has presence. No

54:47

longer Scientologist, by the way. Yes, and that

54:49

is great news too. But leaned into, fully

54:52

leaned into what he does, I think,

54:54

as a perpetrator. He's the

54:57

only one that commits. Yes. Right,

54:59

you need to commit to a character who,

55:01

for some reason, would be speaking exclusively in

55:03

monologues. And that actually doesn't leave you with

55:06

a lot of options arguably.

55:10

And then to round out the plot, we

55:13

carry out a plot where Jay and

55:15

Silent Bob get the other contestants on

55:17

the dating game mall show, Two Stone

55:20

to go on the show. So then the

55:22

contestants are Quint

55:25

and Brody and Dante's

55:27

cousin, canonically. Kill him. Kill

55:29

him. Go ahead. Yeah. It's

55:33

just Dante in color. And I wouldn't have

55:35

recognized him if not for Brian O'Halloran's voice,

55:37

which is very distinctive. And

55:39

then, Nico, take us home. What

55:42

happens in the final act? So

55:44

they do a dating game knockoff, which

55:46

is like acknowledged is a knockoff of

55:48

the dating game. Wearing Claire

55:51

Forlaini suppressing her. She's a

55:53

British. She's British in real

55:55

life. Viara is constantly

55:57

suppressing her accent in order to sound American, which

55:59

is. She is struggling. It's like

56:01

trying to hold a life preserver

56:04

underwater. She is struggling to stay

56:06

afloat outside the wreckage of the

56:08

Titanic without accent. So

56:10

she is the

56:12

suitor-et they referred to

56:14

as very closely as. I think so, yeah.

56:16

And then Brody Bruce and TS Quint and

56:19

Gil Hicks are the three contestants. Now,

56:21

it takes her longer than it should

56:23

to recognize that one of the voices

56:25

speaking into a microphone divided by a

56:27

plastic divider is the guy

56:29

she almost got married to that morning.

56:33

Like, it isn't until Jason Lee does this monologue

56:35

about his cousin Walter jerking off on a plane

56:37

when it was in free fall and

56:39

then there's a pause and then Gil Hicks says,

56:41

so did he come or what? And

56:44

Jason Lee pipes in and says, Jesus Christ, man, there's

56:46

just some things you don't talk about in public. I

56:49

want to reiterate for people, I did not watch this

56:51

movie ahead of this episode. I have seen it so

56:53

many times that I know every fucking line of dialogue

56:55

I've been. It's not until he

56:57

tells the story of what his cousin jerking off at

56:59

an airplane in free fall that Claire Forlany on the

57:01

other side of this barrier on the same

57:04

stage is like, oh,

57:06

I know who these two gentlemen are.

57:08

He's like, hey, wait a minute. Claire

57:11

Forlany asks about what his comic book collection because

57:13

Brody being a comic book guy is a recurring

57:15

thing. But he proves himself to be charming and

57:17

fun. And then the studio execs

57:19

from, I guess NBC, approach him afterwards and ask

57:22

if he wants his own talk show. And Michael

57:24

Rooker, who still has beaver fever, which is what

57:26

we always called Jardia in the Yukon. And maybe

57:28

that's not what we're supposed to call it anymore.

57:31

But we call it the beaver fever. That's when

57:33

we called it in Oregon when I was growing up.

57:35

You called it beaver fever? Yeah, we did because

57:38

we get it from beavers anecdotally. Yeah, I

57:41

thought the fever fever is different, but that's

57:43

interesting. Well, you know, there can be multiple

57:45

beavers fever. Yes,

57:47

he gets approached to have his own talk show. He

57:50

makes up with Renee because he sort of

57:52

makes his grand gesture to her on stage

57:54

because they've also we should mention we did

57:56

gloss over the fact that he

57:58

crabs her well. distracts

58:00

Shannon Hamilton and Jason

58:03

Lee and Shannon do already have sex on

58:05

a stalled elevator while people are waiting to

58:07

use it. And then she takes it she's

58:09

wearing his Degrassi jacket because

58:11

Kevin Smith obsessed with Degrassi junior high

58:14

and then he makes a grand

58:16

gesture to her at the end. They get back together

58:18

while they're on stage. They

58:21

show the VHS tape of Ben Affleck having

58:23

sex with a teenager. Which

58:25

they're able to show because magic

58:27

eye guy finally loses his temper.

58:30

Punches something that causes

58:32

the VHS tape to bounce up

58:34

in a way that makes Silent Bob

58:36

think that his forced practicing has finally

58:39

paid off. And you know what's funny

58:41

is that it's such a cliche today for like

58:43

people to go on about Star Wars more

58:45

than is appropriate in polite

58:48

conversation. But at the

58:50

time I really feel like- Oh it was

58:52

not cool. Right. It feels like the

58:54

difference is that like you know

58:56

as many people have talked about more intelligently than

58:58

I can and the past 15 years have changed

59:00

a lot in terms of how mainstream kind

59:03

of typical nerd subculture

59:06

has become. Which

59:08

creates you know some dilemmas

59:10

and one of them is that media where

59:12

you feel like this kind of line of

59:14

thought would be tiresome if you encountered it

59:16

today and if someone wrote it today. At

59:18

the time it was like you

59:20

weren't getting any of this anywhere and it was

59:23

actually really fun and exciting. This is

59:25

the thing that I keep sort of going back

59:27

to with this movie is like Jason Lee is

59:29

by accounts like you know like he is like

59:31

he's funny and charming and attractive and all these

59:33

things but he likes Star Wars and comics and

59:35

video games all of which are like major industries

59:37

now. But at the time you're right like liking

59:39

Star Wars wasn't cool. We hadn't even done prequels

59:41

yet. Like being really into Marvel Comics so much

59:43

so that you would get into a fist fight

59:45

with some other guys outside a comic book store

59:47

and yell just because a guy reads some comics

59:49

you think he can't start some shit. Like

59:52

none of that stuff was cool. This

59:54

wasn't mass media. It wasn't popular. What

59:56

would become a signature of the Marvel

59:58

Universe movies? I mean because you. in

1:00:00

part because obviously Stanley came up with

1:00:02

it. But what became a signature of those movies

1:00:04

were cameos. And like this was like, I think

1:00:06

this is the only movie I can remember at

1:00:08

the time that had like an extended Stan Lee

1:00:10

cameo. Like for who? Do you

1:00:12

know what I mean? Like not for like a mass audience.

1:00:16

For Kevin. Right, right, right. Exactly. Yeah. He

1:00:18

was like, can we get Stan Lee

1:00:21

busy? Is he writing Excelsior and the

1:00:23

letters page of a- Fantastic Fortnite right

1:00:25

now. It'd be free. Could he come

1:00:27

by this abandoned mall in New Jersey

1:00:29

we're filming in? I do. I do

1:00:31

love a thing, a detail that not

1:00:34

that it hasn't come up, but that we didn't quite hit

1:00:36

when we brought her up originally is that the book that

1:00:38

Trisha's writing, because again, like we

1:00:40

talk, there are these movies in 500 days of

1:00:42

summer feels like this where it's like you have

1:00:44

guys who like at the end of the day,

1:00:46

like they're not, you know, there's

1:00:49

some problems with them and their relationships with

1:00:51

women and sort of how they're approaching stuff.

1:00:53

And you don't know how aware the filmmaker

1:00:56

is himself of his own problems or of

1:00:58

like, he's sort of glorifying this stuff or

1:01:00

whatever. And then Clerks, like we did get

1:01:02

to know that like these people are, they're

1:01:04

fun to spend time with, but they're also

1:01:06

kind of losers. But my favorite joke is

1:01:09

the fact that her book is called Borgasm,

1:01:11

a study of the 90s male sexual prowess.

1:01:15

So which to me is like the

1:01:17

biggest sort of like punchline and underscoring

1:01:19

of awareness about what we're dealing with

1:01:21

with men in the 90s. She's really

1:01:23

telling some truths in that book. No

1:01:25

wonder it was such a big bestseller.

1:01:27

She is also the sister of Alicia

1:01:30

Jones, the lesbian from Chasing

1:01:32

Amy. In the

1:01:34

grander view askew universe, she is

1:01:36

the younger sister of Alicia Jones.

1:01:39

And Chasing Amy, God forbid we

1:01:41

get too deep into that one. But I was

1:01:43

thinking recently about how Jason Lee's character and that

1:01:46

his solution for all the

1:01:48

strife is we should all have sex with each

1:01:50

other. And that was made to seem

1:01:53

like a really bad idea at the time. But I

1:01:55

think that that's pretty good problem solving that more

1:01:57

and more people are using lately. And I

1:01:59

brought this up. So many times I even hate to bring

1:02:01

it up, but like again, again, the tremors

1:02:05

model in which the men are actually in love with

1:02:07

each other, not the women who are supposedly their love

1:02:09

interest. He has a tremors poster

1:02:11

in his room. Oh

1:02:14

yeah. This movie at the end of

1:02:16

the day, they end up with the women they

1:02:18

are purportedly interested in. But

1:02:20

like it is a love story between them. It

1:02:22

is a love story between sort of

1:02:24

like a bunch of nerds in one way or

1:02:26

another in chasing Amy like is really at the

1:02:28

end of the day, a love story between those

1:02:30

two men and then a woman that one of

1:02:32

them becomes obsessed with. And Ben Affleck's

1:02:35

one little tear. A

1:02:37

single Ben tear rolls into a Dunkin

1:02:39

Donuts cup. It's all

1:02:41

love stories between dudes and the women who

1:02:44

happen to be there. Yeah. So

1:02:46

is this a movie that the

1:02:48

studio just was like, oh, nevermind

1:02:50

with? No, this was a movie

1:02:52

where, yeah, I think that

1:02:54

the way that he told it was, you know, he

1:02:56

got a call from the studio on the weekend. He

1:02:58

was like, how'd we do? And they're like four hundred

1:03:01

thousand. He was like, which region? And they're like all

1:03:03

of it. And they just

1:03:05

rather than keep the screen real estate open,

1:03:07

they closed it down and put a new movie

1:03:09

in its place. So depressing. They did that

1:03:12

with its Pat. Shocking.

1:03:15

That one it makes more sense with. It's

1:03:17

the proto. It's Pat. Yeah.

1:03:20

And it has since made its money back.

1:03:22

But you know, it hasn't made its money

1:03:24

back. It's Pat. He

1:03:27

was talking about, you had no frame of reference

1:03:29

for like what happens in these cases. Like he

1:03:31

didn't know if he owed the studio five million

1:03:33

dollars. You know, everyone stopped calling to

1:03:35

make movies. They essentially had to make

1:03:37

Chasing Amy as an indie again, which was

1:03:40

great because it was a return to form.

1:03:42

But like this for him was such a

1:03:44

especially after a clerk, such a

1:03:46

spectacular, terrifying failure that it became

1:03:49

a, you know, it turned

1:03:51

to all Jay and Simon Bob all the time after

1:03:53

that for a long time. You know, if

1:03:55

you don't crash a little with your sophomore effort, you're

1:03:57

going to become completely insufferable. And

1:04:00

kind of the underlying theme of it is like

1:04:03

what to do in the face of absolute failure,

1:04:06

whatever that failure may be. Our

1:04:08

hero, quote unquote hero at the

1:04:11

start of the movie opens with failure

1:04:13

and doesn't really find a way through

1:04:15

it until pretty much the end of

1:04:17

the movie. And it's like it's sort

1:04:19

of asking you to find success in

1:04:21

the sort of beautiful mundanity of the

1:04:23

world around you and like and

1:04:25

measure success in a very small manageable

1:04:27

way, you know, and it isn't such

1:04:30

an interesting big bold swing after like,

1:04:32

okay, I'm this auteur now I made this

1:04:34

independent movie that did really well and people love me.

1:04:36

What am I going to do? I'm going to make

1:04:38

a movie about fucking nothing at all set in a

1:04:40

goddamn mall that only the only time it changes scenes

1:04:43

is to go to a different or small. Yeah,

1:04:47

it's like who's afraid of Virginia Woolf where

1:04:49

they're in one location and then they go

1:04:51

to a bar briefly and then they go

1:04:53

back to the same location. It's

1:04:55

kind of bold in a way. Like I do think I

1:04:57

know I'm like I am like the person that I know

1:04:59

I try to like blow up the spot on a lot

1:05:01

of media that a lot of people are going to like

1:05:03

discount or call trashy or whatever like I think about this

1:05:06

when I wrote about jackass was like we can so easily

1:05:08

write these things off but it is actually really bold to

1:05:10

say like I want to tell a very nothing

1:05:13

story and a nothing backdrop and I want

1:05:15

the people to really feel like they belong

1:05:17

there and they're looking at something and they

1:05:19

never really quite get it but there's there's

1:05:21

a resolution well enough where you feel like

1:05:23

this is what success looks like for now.

1:05:26

Well I think that movies that were

1:05:28

as Alex you pointed out very a

1:05:31

play to use our

1:05:33

Caroline dictionary didn't usually do

1:05:35

that well theatrically but then often would

1:05:37

like get a following in home video.

1:05:39

Yes, absolutely. It was so much easier

1:05:41

to be a cult classic back then

1:05:43

because like people would trade things around

1:05:45

because like now with streaming. Keep circulating

1:05:47

the tapes. Totally or like people

1:05:50

would tell you about a thing and they would be like

1:05:52

yeah I've got a like this is how mystery science theater

1:05:54

got given to me as a kid was like somebody tells

1:05:56

you about a thing somebody's got a VHS tape like the

1:05:58

way that sort of rumors and innuendos. build a

1:06:00

cult classic and now so much of it has to

1:06:02

be like okay well like you can watch this thing

1:06:05

it's on Amazon. Like it just has like such a

1:06:07

different approach to like building something

1:06:09

out of a mystery. Yeah and then a million

1:06:11

things come up behind it you know and

1:06:14

there are as we talk about so frequently on

1:06:16

the show so many advantages to there being more

1:06:18

options to the kinds of media that people

1:06:20

especially kids and adolescents can seek out because

1:06:22

you can see more of the world and

1:06:25

see it more clearly and understand your place

1:06:27

in it better. There was

1:06:29

also something special about us all sharing

1:06:31

the same 75 movies every year and

1:06:36

that was it. What else do

1:06:38

we want to speak to? I

1:06:40

mean I do think this movie

1:06:42

is like kind of sad and brilliant in

1:06:44

its own way and I also realized that

1:06:46

it's like not it's

1:06:49

like it's not great it's not perfect the

1:06:51

writing doesn't always work the pacing doesn't always

1:06:53

work. Well no it's not newsies there's only

1:06:55

one perfect movie and it's newsies so you

1:06:58

know. Who could be newsies? Who could take

1:07:00

the crowd? Only newsies you know that's the

1:07:02

thing. But I do think I

1:07:04

just like I love the worlds

1:07:07

that we had in these sorts of stories where

1:07:09

it just like I know I keep saying these

1:07:11

like that it's real and it's tactile but I

1:07:14

just feel like we've kind of moved really far

1:07:16

afield from that because everything needs to be big

1:07:18

and bold and we're constantly challenging ourselves to imagine

1:07:20

a world we could never see ourselves in and

1:07:22

like I really miss this era when you were

1:07:25

allowed to imagine a world that is conceivably real

1:07:27

that you could be a part of that you

1:07:29

could be a loser or failure in

1:07:31

like I like that there is no hero

1:07:33

here everybody is flawed and failing in their

1:07:36

own specific way and no one

1:07:38

like course corrects and becomes perfect they

1:07:40

just learn how to be a different

1:07:42

kind of loser with somebody else

1:07:44

and I think that is like kind of

1:07:46

a weird beautiful message of like don't learn

1:07:48

to be perfect learn to be flawed and

1:07:51

to keep going. This is the thing I

1:07:53

think about a lot with like transition and

1:07:55

with sobriety and with like other parts of

1:07:57

my personality that I talk about a lot

1:07:59

is like These things are not easy

1:08:01

answers and they're never meant to be perfect.

1:08:03

What they are is telling you to understand

1:08:05

and know yourself and knowing yourself is really

1:08:08

hard. I think that I really loved about

1:08:10

Jason Lee's Brody character was that Brody knows

1:08:12

who he is. Even though

1:08:14

he is flawed and even though he's hiding

1:08:16

parts of himself, he's unafraid to be the

1:08:19

parts of himself that he loves very loudly.

1:08:21

And I think especially in the 90s, if you were into

1:08:23

that sort of stuff, I got jumped on my way home

1:08:25

from a comic book store when I was a kid because

1:08:28

I had comic books and because I specifically had Spider Woman

1:08:30

and I was at the time not in

1:08:33

like... That's not

1:08:35

funny, but the... I know it is kind

1:08:37

of funny though, right? She is now Spider

1:08:39

Woman. I now legally recognize... Now

1:08:42

you would not get jumped for that comic. I

1:08:44

mean, it is such a different landscape and to see

1:08:46

someone be like... And I thought Jason Lee was

1:08:48

cool. I had Jason Lee's signature air walks. I thought

1:08:50

Jason Lee was cool as shit. I still do. He's

1:08:53

a beautiful photographer now, by the way. And

1:08:56

to see someone be so boldly living

1:08:59

as this is the sort of person that I am

1:09:01

and I am not changing

1:09:04

the person that I am, even to my own

1:09:06

detriment. And I will eventually try

1:09:08

to course correctly toxic parts of my behavior in

1:09:10

order to let love back into my life, but

1:09:13

this is the person that I am and I like

1:09:15

being this person. And it's like the Uncle

1:09:17

Buck speech. You're not the Uncle Buck, sorry. It's the plane

1:09:19

trains and automobile speech where he's like, I like me. My

1:09:21

wife likes me, even though it's white. There's dead square there.

1:09:24

I really like this. Beautiful

1:09:26

losers that are never made perfect. They don't ever have

1:09:28

to take their glasses off and shake their hair

1:09:30

and reveal, surprise, I've been incredibly beautiful all

1:09:33

this time. They're allowed to still

1:09:35

be damaged and broken and flawed in losers. That

1:09:37

part of them doesn't matter. That part doesn't have

1:09:39

to be fixed. What has to

1:09:41

be fixed is their understanding of themselves

1:09:43

and their ability to be vulnerable in

1:09:46

front of somebody else and so far that they can

1:09:48

have a relationship. I think that's like... It

1:09:50

doesn't necessarily always work in the storytelling, but it is

1:09:53

kind of an underlying subtext that I

1:09:55

just always really loved. All of that is beautiful

1:09:57

and the only thing I would change is

1:09:59

brand new. Randy, don't marry this man. There's

1:10:02

no reason for you two to get married. There should

1:10:04

be like diet marriage for if you just want to

1:10:07

like make a big gesture, you know? Just

1:10:09

make it to the next day. The

1:10:11

Jeremy Linden, Claire Forlany love story makes

1:10:13

no sense because you never buy, like

1:10:15

you see Brody be in love with

1:10:17

Renee. You see him like pine for

1:10:20

her, chase after her, steal her away

1:10:22

from you. You see that he's upset

1:10:24

that she's with somebody else. You

1:10:26

get all these things. The only thing you see with

1:10:28

Jeremy Linden is that he has lost control of

1:10:30

this woman he feels ownership over and

1:10:33

is desperate to get that control back.

1:10:35

And so far that he will hire

1:10:37

a guy who doesn't speak to destroy

1:10:39

a stage around a guy dressed as

1:10:41

one fourth of a barbershop quartet who

1:10:44

is rumored to have two kills and

1:10:46

put her in harm's way. Yeah.

1:10:48

What else? Who's her character? Who is

1:10:50

this person? There's no, we don't know

1:10:52

her. Like we know Joey,

1:10:55

Lauren Adams. That's a character who we

1:10:57

have a very good sense of. Yeah.

1:11:00

You know, and she doesn't serve much of a purpose

1:11:02

in the story at all really, but she's a real

1:11:04

person. But who's Claire Forlany? We don't know. She's

1:11:07

Henry portrait of a serial killer's daughter.

1:11:10

Right. I guess is that

1:11:12

one Rooker is known for at this point? Is

1:11:14

Henry portrait of a serial killer? I know him

1:11:16

for. Yeah. I'm pretty sure that's like

1:11:19

his biggest title at that point. I

1:11:22

know I said earlier that Jason Lee's acting circles aren't

1:11:24

everybody in this movie, but also Rooker is just like

1:11:27

Michael Rooker is a guy that will always commit to the

1:11:29

role that he has been given. And I just like whenever

1:11:31

he's in a thing, I'm just like, Oh, Rooker is here.

1:11:33

Okay. We're having it's like when Michael Shannon

1:11:35

shows up in a movie, you're like, Oh, Michael Shannon's here. All right.

1:11:38

I'll watch this. Yeah. Michael

1:11:40

Rooker, Ray Wise, Michael Shannon. These are

1:11:42

like weirdos who bring in. These

1:11:45

are the bad ads. The bad ads.

1:11:47

If you will, Linda Cardellini. And

1:11:50

yeah. Rooker is like such a great

1:11:53

character, like standing for like every

1:11:55

girlfriend's dad who hates you. Yeah.

1:11:58

Yeah. Yeah. version of The Dad from 10

1:12:01

Things I Hate About You. That's

1:12:07

great. Give me that movie somehow.

1:12:09

I don't know what that would be. I

1:12:12

want to see it. Well, I'm

1:12:14

wondering, Niko Stratus.

1:12:16

Yeah, yes, present. We know that

1:12:19

Michael Rooker is a father. We

1:12:21

know that he's a father in this movie. Yes. Who

1:12:24

in your view is the daddy? Joey Lauren

1:12:26

Adams' character. Wow. I'm going

1:12:28

to tell you why. It's so funny to be

1:12:30

asked this question, which I actually forgot was part of the show. I

1:12:32

forget every time. Because I just finished writing my draft of

1:12:34

my book, which is called The Dad Rock that made me

1:12:37

a woman. I wrote a lot about dads. And

1:12:39

she is sort of like this catastrophic failure that

1:12:41

is also unabashedly herself and is unafraid to be

1:12:43

like, hey, here's the places I've been. Here's the

1:12:46

mistakes I've made. I'm not telling you right or

1:12:48

wrong. I'm just showing you what I've done. Learn

1:12:51

by my mistakes or don't really care. It's up to you.

1:12:53

I'm just here for you. I love you. Some

1:12:55

guys try to bust into me while I'm changing. So I'm just going to do it out

1:12:57

of the open. And also I

1:12:59

fuck Rick Darriss on a pool table. She's a woman

1:13:01

who doesn't dwell on the path. You know, where else

1:13:04

do you get role models for that? She celebrates it.

1:13:06

She fucked Rick Darriss on a pool table. Yeah.

1:13:09

So that's so you have your you

1:13:11

have Joey Lauren Adams character. Yeah, I

1:13:13

love what is Shannon Geordie's character's name

1:13:15

in this movie? Renee. Renee.

1:13:17

I'm going to pick Renee. That is also

1:13:19

a really good answer. Backup answer is the

1:13:21

song Suzanne by Weezer, which I love so

1:13:24

much in this in this movie. But yeah,

1:13:26

I'm going to pick Renee for knowing what

1:13:28

she wants and what she doesn't want, delivering

1:13:31

it in letter form

1:13:33

that is so

1:13:36

verbose that when she throws it at

1:13:38

him, you hear like an actual thud.

1:13:40

So there's you can you I imagine

1:13:42

this is a multi page letter for

1:13:46

knowing that part of what she wants is

1:13:48

coital satisfaction, which he is not delivering

1:13:51

on. And so she expresses that in

1:13:53

addition to all of the other stuff

1:13:55

and trying to pursue it elsewhere in

1:13:58

the face of it not working out here. until he is

1:14:00

able to show up, you know, in

1:14:03

a form more thorough than what he was capable of when

1:14:05

they woke up that morning. So I

1:14:07

love that about her. And I've always like,

1:14:09

I'm not necessarily, this isn't a criticism in

1:14:11

any way, but like Shannon Dougherty never did

1:14:13

anything for me when Nino was on. But

1:14:16

her in this movie, I always

1:14:18

found, and I feel like there's

1:14:21

like a power that she wasn't

1:14:23

able to inhabit in 90210. She's

1:14:27

a bitch in this movie in a

1:14:29

very Caitlin Spooner kind of a way.

1:14:31

Yeah, and I am taken. I

1:14:34

have been taken by it since I was 13 years old. Yeah.

1:14:37

And I still am. She's captivated in alluring.

1:14:39

Yes. And she ends up as a

1:14:42

drummer on the Tonight Show. I love that outcome.

1:14:44

It's so great. Sarah Marshall

1:14:46

is your daddy. Oh my gosh. My

1:14:49

daddy is Trisha, the teenage

1:14:52

sexologist. The Disha? Because

1:14:54

I love Trisha the Disha. Because

1:14:56

I loved as a teenager and love the idea

1:14:58

of being a woman using sex

1:15:00

as a way to explore the world rather than being

1:15:03

a pawn of the devil. And

1:15:05

it's always exciting to see representations of that,

1:15:07

however flawed the culture around them is. But

1:15:10

my daddy is also Nico, who in

1:15:13

one fell swoop drew a straight line between

1:15:15

Jason Lee and Leonard Cohen. And

1:15:17

we must appreciate that.

1:15:21

Have a moment of smell. I

1:15:24

honestly might cry at that. And

1:15:28

also like calling a movie Mall

1:15:30

Rats is just a synonym for calling

1:15:32

it beautiful losers. Which I love. And we

1:15:34

are all, we are Mall Rats. We sure

1:15:37

are. And the show is of the Mall

1:15:39

Rats by the Mall Rats for the Mall

1:15:41

Rats. We are all of us Mall Rats.

1:15:43

I sought out and got a job at

1:15:46

the mall because of this movie. Really? Yeah.

1:15:49

Where did she work again? Did she

1:15:51

work at the buffet? Well here's

1:15:53

what happened. I hung out at

1:15:56

the mall so often as an actual Mall

1:15:58

Rat that one day someone

1:16:00

who worked at one of the cool kiosks

1:16:03

was like, hey, here's $20, would you mind

1:16:06

going to the store and getting me a

1:16:08

sandwich? And then I

1:16:10

went around and asked other people

1:16:12

to do it. And I started

1:16:14

to actually make decent cash doing

1:16:16

essentially freelance delivery for people. Just

1:16:19

like Christina Aguilera and burlesque. Yes,

1:16:21

yeah. I showed some hustle, and

1:16:23

then I got hired at the cart where the guy

1:16:25

asked me for that. And then I went on to

1:16:28

work at, sometimes literally just for one or two days

1:16:30

stints, because you could do that at some of these stores. I

1:16:32

went on to work at at least over

1:16:34

the next five years, 13 establishments at

1:16:36

the mall. That's amazing. You should write a

1:16:38

memoir about that. Yeah, I think I should.

1:16:40

That's also where I started making zines and

1:16:42

giving zines out. So it was like a

1:16:44

real ecosystem. Is that where you also started

1:16:46

raging against machines? It is also.

1:16:50

And it was where I was not sick, but

1:16:53

also not well. Quote our friend Sean

1:16:55

Nelson. Did you want to pierce your tongue?

1:16:57

Again, it doesn't hurt. It feels fine. Nico,

1:17:00

how would people find things from you? Oh, god,

1:17:02

I don't know. If they wanted to hear more

1:17:04

of your voice and insight. I can't imagine after

1:17:06

all this you will, but if you do want

1:17:08

to. I am at

1:17:10

Nico's status on social media outlets. My

1:17:13

newsletter is anxiety shark.ca. I'm

1:17:16

currently bringing my podcast back, which is called

1:17:18

Blue Eyes Crying by the Chips, which is

1:17:20

a podcast about the songs we love and

1:17:22

the places we've tried to live in public.

1:17:24

Fabulous. I want to make a jingle for

1:17:26

your name so people can remember it because

1:17:28

it's a spelling. It's not necessarily intuitive. N-I-K-O-S-T-R-A-T-I-S.

1:17:39

Huh? I love this. I love

1:17:41

this. It's like a carpet cleaner jingle. Now

1:17:43

people are going to be forced to go to

1:17:46

your website. Finally. A long last. Thank you so

1:17:48

much. I'm going to wire you an appropriate amount

1:17:50

of whatever your ask is for jingle write in.

1:17:54

Nice. I just need a

1:17:56

fraction of a cent CAD whenever

1:17:58

you get a hit. because of that

1:18:00

so we'll work it out later. I cannot

1:18:02

for the life of me think of a more

1:18:04

Canadian thing to say that I'm going to wire

1:18:07

you in appropriate amount of money. Yeah, there's more

1:18:09

Canadian versions. Whenever I saw

1:18:11

Dave Foley in Fargo season five, I'm like, you're not

1:18:13

fucking convincing anybody you're not from Canada, my guy. It's

1:18:16

like when they had him on news radio,

1:18:18

they had him play a character

1:18:20

from Madison, Wisconsin. And then when

1:18:22

they decided that wasn't working, they decided he was a

1:18:24

closeted Canadian. I just watch a news radio because

1:18:27

it just got out of Amazon Prime and I

1:18:29

love that little bag because Dave Foley constantly running

1:18:31

from his Canadian heritage. Because he's legally

1:18:33

not allowed back in the country because of all the

1:18:35

child support that he has. Oh no. Oh

1:18:38

boy. All right, Dave Foley episode

1:18:40

coming soon. All right, everybody.

1:18:48

That is it for this week's episode of You

1:18:50

Are Good, a feelings podcast about movies. Thank

1:18:53

you to Nico Stratus for joining us. We

1:18:55

love Nico. We appreciate you Nico.

1:18:57

Thank you for being here. Of

1:18:59

course to Miranda Zickler for producing this

1:19:01

episode, for editing this episode, for making

1:19:04

it sound great. We appreciate you Miranda.

1:19:06

Thank you to Fresh Lesh for providing

1:19:08

the beats that make our episode sound

1:19:10

so sweet. We appreciate you Lesh.

1:19:13

Thank you for listening to the episode, of course. Thank

1:19:15

you for telling your friends about the episode. Thank

1:19:18

you for rating us with five

1:19:20

stars on Apple podcast subscriptions or

1:19:22

wherever you can. I think

1:19:24

that that's the one where we get the most impact, but wherever

1:19:26

you're able to rate and let people know that this is a

1:19:28

show that you like. We appreciate

1:19:30

that. Thank you for supporting

1:19:32

us on Apple podcast subscriptions

1:19:34

and Patreon. You get those

1:19:36

bonus episodes and we are able to keep making the

1:19:38

show. So I think it's a nice trait. Thanks

1:19:41

for finding us on social media. You

1:19:44

Are Good or You Are Good pod,

1:19:46

depending on which one. You're trying to find

1:19:48

us on. And I think that's

1:19:51

it right now for this week's

1:19:53

episode. Until

1:19:55

next time, don't forget that you,

1:19:57

my friend, are good. Thank

1:20:01

you.