Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Episode 100: Little Italy featuring Gloria Yip and Stefa Nunes
44 Playsin 1 day
It’s our 100th episode and we have very special guests, Stefa Nunes and Gloria Yip are back and they have a fun surprise: they have attended the premiere of the film we’re talking about. It’s Little Italy (2018), the romantic comedy that was mostly known for Emma Roberts and Hayden Christiansan having a sad time on a moped. The collective talents of Allysa Milano, Adam Ferrera, Andrea Martin and Danny Aiello can’t save this poor-tasting pizza covered in stereotypes, trite romance tropes and dick jokes. What it lacks in joy and verve can be made up for by all of it’s product placements? Truly a film so bad that it deserves to be talked about, dissected and examined and we’re doing all of that while having a splendid time. Besides, pizza is better shared with friends, so tune in!
Recommended
Transcript
Celebrating 100 Episodes
00:00:15
Speaker
It's bad to be bad, it's bad to be bad And I guess it's understood That you would, if you could And you know that you should Yes, you know that you should
00:00:41
Speaker
Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to episode 100 of your favorite bad movie podcast.
00:00:50
Speaker
Yes.
00:00:53
Speaker
Yeah, made it. They doubted us, but we've hit the triple digits. That's right. We're your hosts. My name is Chris Anderson. And with me, as always, I have the Sal to my Vince. It's Mr. Greg Bossy. Hello, Chris. It's good to be it's good to be here ah in celebration. It's our first special night. I'm having a
Introducing Guests & 'Little Italy' Connections
00:01:18
Speaker
beer. But that's also because this movie drives me to drink.
00:01:21
Speaker
So it's good to see everybody. This was a tough one. We also, of course, have the Nona to my no-no, my wonderful wife, Mrs. Anna Anderson. How are you doing, my dove?
00:01:39
Speaker
ah Hello, I'm doing okay. This is technically ah my 53rd and a half ah podcast. Okay. That's also a milestone.
00:01:51
Speaker
Definitely is. Hooray for me. And you were always there with me watching the movie, sharing insights with me. The wind beneath my wings. The shows could not have happened without you.
00:02:04
Speaker
And of course, we have with us two very special guests. I will introduce them in a random order. it First, of course...
00:02:15
Speaker
of course They're from Canada. They're practically a character unto themselves. And of course, they're radiantly beautiful. They must be our own personal Toronto. It's Gloria Yip. How are you, Gloria?
00:02:33
Speaker
I'm great. Every day waking up in the land of Little Italy fills me with joy and gratitude. yeah You must feel a great sense of national pride when you think about Little Italy.
00:02:48
Speaker
And of course, we have with us the Internet's ko queen of me, our own personal Corinne. It's Steffa Noons. How are you, Steffa? I'm actually pretty nice, I think.
00:03:03
Speaker
No, that's true. So this is my fourth appearance on the show.
Context & Critique of 'Little Italy'
00:03:08
Speaker
And while my other three appearances, I will defend those movies as best I can. uh joe versus the volcano she devil and don't tell mom the babysitter's dead i can i can throw it down a case for those i have no case for this it was was a lark and a whim and we did it for the bit and here we are all these years later talking about it because it really is like it's so bad it defies explanation you just you have to like study it
00:03:38
Speaker
Yes. And you probably shouldn't, Frank. No, don't. Don't. Don't watch this movie. It is not a rich text, I'm going to say. We're talking, of course, we're talking about Little Ioli.
00:03:51
Speaker
Listeners, if you have not seen Little Ioli, here's a brief summary to hold in your mind.
00:04:05
Speaker
When a beautiful up and coming chef returns to her home in Little Italy, Toronto, it turns out nothing has changed. Her father is still feuding with a rival pizza maker.
00:04:18
Speaker
Her Nona still makes the best red sauce you ever had in your life. And the boy next door is still dreaming. Whatever will occur.
00:04:31
Speaker
Yeah. Who could say? How could you guess?
Behind the Scenes of 'Little Italy'
00:04:34
Speaker
How could you guess? It is very much in the Hallmark lifetime formula of, you know, career woman returns home. Only in this time, she's not going from the city to the small town. She's going to little Italy.
00:04:48
Speaker
It's even if I know they're like this, this has all the beats of like a Hallmark movie with no, none of the passion for the form. This is a yeah passionless film.
00:04:59
Speaker
No charm to it. No care, no effort. Steffa and Gloria, you guys have a background with this movie. Can you, can you tell us your personal story of little Italy as you recall it?
00:05:15
Speaker
So I think it began with our friend MB finding the photos of like a set shoot of them riding that moped and just how, uncannily miserable it looked compared to the setting they were in and there was just a set of photos we're making fun of them on twitter back when it was like kind of fun sort of most of the time and not as bad and it just kind of like took a life of its own we were just memeing the shit out of it and it was really really funny so at the time i had a co-worker who would often get
00:05:52
Speaker
uh movie passes to screenings okay he's coming out and stuff um she told me a lot of promoters get in touch and try to like you know recruit big groups to show up and fill up a theater uh and she had tickets for little italy and i was like you the one on twitter Uh, so I scored a couple of tickets and she was emphatic. She was like, you have to show up. If you don't, they will get on my case. I'll never get tickets again. And I'm like, no problem.
00:06:22
Speaker
No problem. I'm bringing in someone from another country. I remember you posted like my my friend can get these tickets. Should I do it? And I replied, I'm like, if you get these tickets, I will fly from Boston to Toronto and go with you. I swear to God, I will do it. I will buy the ticket. We'll do this. And then we did. ah It's a strong choice.
00:06:47
Speaker
Yeah. And how did you feel when you watched it that opening night? I am so, so happy we had such a wonderful time surrounding that. like Okay. We had a fun visit around Toronto. I ate a really great pork roll sandwich thing. We visited Folk Barn. We had an amazing dinner afterwards.
00:07:11
Speaker
And like it was the premiere of the movie that we went to. It was literally the premiere. Emma Roberts was there. Hayden Christensen was there. The director was there. Andrea Martin was not there. Oh,
00:07:22
Speaker
I distinctly remember, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Steph, I was very excited to see Andrew o martin and Martin, and it was just... My teenage crush on Hayden Christensen only got me so far.
00:07:33
Speaker
But it was cute to see him there. Yeah. Yeah, I can understand that. The biggest thing I remember is, like... Emma Roberts just gave off the vibe of somebody who would just rather be doing literally anything else anywhere else. She was just really unhappy to be there.
00:07:53
Speaker
And I kind of like almost respect how blatantly like I'm i'm here because like I'm getting paid. yeah I'm here to get paid because it's contractually obligated. yeah And now I'm done.
00:08:07
Speaker
I'd have the same attitude, frankly. can all relate to that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Every now and then a project that you're working on just doesn't work out. And sometimes you just need to see it through anyway, just so you can put it behind you.
00:08:22
Speaker
But boy, is that last part a slog? Yeah. Guys, ah Greg, Anna, had you either of you seen Little Italy before? Unfortunately, yes, I had. Really? Yes. So my friend Grant, who's been on the show before, yes I think he watches YouTube videos like a series and maybe he saw one about this, but he just he will reach out to me from time to time. we watch movies all take you know all the time.
00:08:48
Speaker
Every now and again, I reach out to him and I'm like, hey, what about this one? And he usually is like, yes. And he's like, hey, what about this one? And I'm like, sure. And he sent me the trailer for this and I was like, you want to watch this? He was like, yeah. And I was like... All right. i'll Give it a try And we both really did not like it very much.
00:09:07
Speaker
And I won't say what we thought at the time, because I'll get into that as we go along. At least give my thoughts. But i when I watched this
Comparative Analysis with Other Rom-Coms
00:09:16
Speaker
this time, I was a weekend that I was sick. And so in my sickness, I messed up which movie to watch in order. And I was just like, listen, Greg, you got three days home sick before you go back to work and you've only got to do one thing. And it's just watch whatever the movie is for the podcast. That should be fun. Should be a nice distraction from the sickness. What are we watching? Oh, Little Italy.
00:09:39
Speaker
And then at like six o'clock, was like, you just got to do this now. Because just like you said with Emma Roberts, the fastest way out is through. And you just got to get to those end credits.
00:09:51
Speaker
And there's bloopers in the end credits. And I was like, I'll watch them. Yeah. And they they weren't very good. No, they weren't great. No. The rare time when I wish there weren't bloopers. Yeah. Could shut it off faster. I, in rewatching it, realized, like, I remembered nothing about this movie, aside from like, the pizza looked good in that scene with all of the pizzas.
00:10:14
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. And the horror. It did make us order pizza later that night. That was, I think, one of the only positive things I could say about my experience watching it. Anna, had you seen this one before? Yeah.
00:10:28
Speaker
No, I had only seen the moped pictures. Yeah. Yeah, I not seen the pictures. I was very, very excited when that scene did hit in the movie. I hollered and pumped my arms.
00:10:41
Speaker
yeah yeah it It would have been embarrassing. So much of that Starbucks money absolutely went to the licensing for the song in that scene.
Plot and Character Dynamics in 'Little Italy'
00:10:52
Speaker
Yes.
00:10:54
Speaker
Yeah, Starbucks definitely paid these guys. I'm going to say at least a low five figures.
00:11:03
Speaker
Do you guys want to hear the context that I found out about this movie really changed a lot of it for me. Do you guys want hear what I found out about? yes Absolutely. Please. All right, let's hit that episode 100 context.
00:11:24
Speaker
I wish I had some context About the background of the film Script director, actors on track What was going on on screen wanna hear some details Gossip stand to all that shit Can't imagine all the time
00:12:03
Speaker
All Little Italy was released August 24th, 2018 in Canada and September 21st, 2018 in the States. Your director is Donald Petri.
00:12:18
Speaker
And we got two taglines, just the two. One, love is an acquired taste. No. What?
00:12:29
Speaker
No. Not great. Not great. just Disagree. It's not like pizza's an acquired taste. Yeah. It's also weird. It's like only only some people like love. Sure. yeah Technically true.
00:12:43
Speaker
ah Tagline number two. Three generations. Two families. One forbidden love. Also not true. Two forbidden loves.
00:12:57
Speaker
Yeah. yeah yeah And that makes it sound like a drama. yeah Yeah, there's this, like, I watched the trailer because I heard about the first trailer. was like, I got to watch this first trailer. And, like, they're just like, it's a forbidden love. It's like, I feel like that part of it is almost inconsequential in a lot of ways. Yeah.
00:13:15
Speaker
Because they have absolutely no trouble kissing each other constantly. how that forbidden? Yeah, there's no actual barriers. Yeah. The barriers are when they go home and someone's like, oh, you shouldn't have done that.
00:13:29
Speaker
Yeah, and then like, well, yeah, maybe. I don't know. then the movie continues. Yep. yeah So first up, I want to say i was unable to find a lot of great resources about the making of Little Italy. So a lot of this is going to Yeah. For some reason, not a lot of academia has studied Little Not a lot of reportage on the making of Little Italy. There's not a book like Lady in the Water.
00:14:01
Speaker
No, unfortunately not. ah This might be the definitive Little Italy work. ah that's So congratulations to episode 100. So, uh,
00:14:19
Speaker
ah so yeah, a lot of this is going to be conjecture, but, uh, near as I can tell little Italy began as a concept created by the producer Vinay Vera money.
00:14:30
Speaker
And I'm sorry if I'm pronouncing that name terribly. Vermani broke out yeah onto the Canadian film scene in 2011 when he wrote and starred in Breakaway, a culture clash comedy about a Sikh wanting to play ice hockey.
00:14:49
Speaker
Okay. That's very Canadian. Yes. And he forms like a Sikh hockey team. I don't know what league they're playing in, but they overcome hurdles.
00:15:02
Speaker
Do they... I mean, do they wear the little ceremonial swords on the ice? Because that would be really, that would be great that I can see it yeah really vividly.
00:15:14
Speaker
and one of them should at least. Yeah, considering the sensitivity with which they handled race in this movie, it wouldn't be surprising if they like just went full on like military regalia and like, yeah, that's fine. That's hockey.
00:15:26
Speaker
But yeah. Yeah. I think, yeah, whatever racial stereotype you want to make about the Sikh people or ethnic stereotype or religious stereotype, I'm sure he would lean into it based on what I've seen of his work.
00:15:40
Speaker
Now, he followed that up with writing, producing, and starring in a movie called Dr. Cabby in 2014, which is a comedy about an Indian doctor who immigrates to Canada only to find that the only job available to him is as a cabby.
00:16:00
Speaker
And so he starts practicing medicine in his cab. He's Dr. Cabby. That's a wild concept. That's a lot happening there.
00:16:11
Speaker
Yeah, it's very high concept. That's TV series. Yeah, I'm okay with this. Yeah. I mean, it it could work. It feels like a fake 30 Rock show. A little bit.
00:16:23
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, I think if he went too dramatic with it, it wouldn't work. It looked like it was going to be very silly.
00:16:32
Speaker
ah So for his third feature, He would once again turn to the theme of ethnic cultural minorities living in Canada, but he switched it from Indian to Italian.
00:16:46
Speaker
He took his original story of a Romeo and Juliet transposed to a pair of rival Toronto pizza joints, And I imagine in the first draft of this in his mind, it was two rival Indian restaurants based on his prior two films.
00:17:01
Speaker
He's like, this isn't coming together. What if I did it with an Italian family? But he knew he couldn't write the Italian Canadian experience authentically. ah So what he does is he hires on a screenwriter and that screenwriter is Steve Galluccio.
00:17:22
Speaker
Once again, i apologize if I'm pronouncing anything terribly. But Steve Galluccio is most famous for writing the screenplay to a movie called Mambo Italiano.
00:17:34
Speaker
It was originally a stage play, later adapted to the screen,
Cultural Representation & Criticism
00:17:37
Speaker
and is inspired by Galluccio's own experiences coming out as gay to his Italian-Canadian family. Okay.
00:17:44
Speaker
That sounds like it can be really cute. I feel like back when I worked at Kim's video on Christopher Street, obviously we sold a lot of like different gay DVDs. It was a gay neighborhood. And Mambo Italiano was one that we always kept in stock and we'd sell a couple copies of a year. It was sort of perennial.
00:18:03
Speaker
sorry Just like the memory of it just hit me of like the the time frame of like, oh yeah, I've seen like the trailers for that before other movies of like indie movies I would watch at the time. Like, yeah, it always struck me as like a cute movie.
00:18:14
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, I could see that being, you know, he could bring some authenticity to it. So with the screenplay coming together, Virmani now needed to find himself a director. For that, he turned to Canadian Nepo baby made good, Donald Petri.
00:18:32
Speaker
ah Donald's father, Daniel, was a director most famous for a Raisin in the Sun, Ford Apache, The Bronx, and Cocoon, The Return. Everybody loves the second cocoon. They're back.
00:18:47
Speaker
They've returned in their cocoons. ah And he was also deputy chair of the American Film Institute, briefly. He also did Mystic Pizza.
00:18:58
Speaker
ah Yeah, but Donald Petri did, but I'm getting to that. Don't you i'm sorry, sorry. I'm still talking about how he's a Nepo baby. We got to talk about his brother, Daniel Jr. oh Daniel Jr. was ah the screenwriter of Beverly Hills Cop, The Big Easy, and Turner and Hooch. One of Donald's first jobs was directing a TV pilot of Turner and Hooch, the TV show.
00:19:25
Speaker
but That is a stacked resume. Damn. Yeah. Daniel Jr. was also elected president of the Writers Guild of America for two non-consecutive terms.
00:19:37
Speaker
Now that said, Donald Petrie was no slouch. ah He did not merely rest on his family laurels, but added to them. He directed quite a few commercially successful comedies in the 90s and aughts. Movies like Grumpy Old Men,
00:19:52
Speaker
Richie Rich, How to Lose a Guy in 10 His biggest hit was probably Miss Congeniality in 2000. That is such a fun movie.
00:20:04
Speaker
It's a classic. It's so fun. And it was coming on the heels of his biggest flop, My Favorite Martian in 1999, starring Christopher Lloyd. Probably quite bad. Yeah.
00:20:19
Speaker
By the time Little Italy rolled around, Donald Petri had not directed a theatrically released feature in about nine years. It's weird, though. So I'm going to bring up the Mystic Pizza thing again, because it's about Portuguese-American family in Connecticut.
00:20:35
Speaker
And it's actually, like, subtle and it's good. Like... it's It's kind of nice to see like the tiny bits of representation we get. It was yeah like it's actually a good piece of representation. So to to see that in his resume and see that he did this, I'm just like, my bro, you' you've done better. You did better in the 80s. How did you do better back then with with like less technically slightly less white people?
00:21:02
Speaker
I'm going to say, one, I don't think this guy's hungry anymore. Two, I'm going to say Mystic Pizza probably had a better screenplay. This screenplay is rough.
00:21:13
Speaker
It's terrible.
00:21:16
Speaker
And just for another Mystic Pizza connection, Mystic Pizza starred Julie Roberts, who is the aunt of Emma Roberts, the star of Little Italy. Who knows how that round It comes circle.
00:21:32
Speaker
So with all these puzzle pieces in place, production went pretty smooth. Filming was completed in June 2017. So it is kind of a bad sign that didn't get released for about it another year.
Final Thoughts on 'Little Italy'
00:21:46
Speaker
And when the poster and trailer hit the internet, Little Italy had a minor viral moment for how dated and bland it looked and how unhappy the stars looked in behind the scenes photos.
00:21:59
Speaker
It also didn't really help that they cast people with the last names of Roberts and Christensen to play Italians. Yeah. yeah They dyed his hair, but they got it they need to add some bronzer on that kid or something to sell him ethnic. Like, that's that's a white, white boy.
00:22:16
Speaker
That ain't even a spicy white. He's Italian-Canadian. They don't get much sun up there. Yeah.
00:22:25
Speaker
literally only took in $1.4 million dollars on its $8 million dollars budget. Other romantic comedies of 2018. Yeah, what do we got?
00:22:36
Speaker
You got Crazy Rich Asians. I hear a lot of people like Crazy Rich Asians. It was really, really good, yeah. I liked it. I remember that was supposed to supposed to reinvigorate the whole genre, and then nobody...
00:22:53
Speaker
Yeah, nobody made more of them. <unk> And then the same thing is happening now with the Naked Gun. Nobody's making more comedies, unfortunately. no
00:23:05
Speaker
He also got To All the Boys I've Loved Before. yeah. Sweet title, never seen it. No, I think we watched that one on Netflix. Did we?
00:23:18
Speaker
What was it about? I think Was John Corbett her dad? Was that the one where John Corbett was her dad? That's all I remember about it. have no idea. You can tell what in ah a YA Netflix adaptation is is directed at me. it's this's the who who is cast as the father.
00:23:45
Speaker
it happens to all of us. No, it's most of us. I'm at that point where I need an IMDB for who that actor reminds me of. Yeah.
00:23:56
Speaker
Last but not least, you got Mamma Mia. Here we go again. m They finally made another Mamma Mia. I guess a third Mamma Mia, probably.
00:24:08
Speaker
Yeah. Well, you guys want to talk about the plot of Lil' Ellie? Yeah. Yeah. Sure do. Good. There's a surprisingly large amount of it.
00:24:37
Speaker
Plot bumper, listen to me. I'm gonna give you the plot summary. Come on, baby. Here's the synopsis.
00:24:49
Speaker
Plot bumper, plot bumper.
00:25:02
Speaker
We open on a flashback. a tween boy and girl are goofing around in Little Italy, Toronto. Voiceovers from adult versions of both of them talk about how they're best friends and how growing up in Little Italy is great and their families work together at the best pizza shop in town.
00:25:25
Speaker
and now we're mostly now meeting the most important character of the film, Little Italy itself. That's right. A place where everybody's Italian and you can ride your bikes, presumably because you're under the protection of the mafia.
00:25:45
Speaker
ah But these kids, they can't be kids forever. Soon, the little girl, Nikki, has grown into a young woman played by Emma Roberts where their hair either dyed dark or naturally dark. It's not her blonde that you're used to seeing her with and it seems weird.
00:26:02
Speaker
ah but now she's living in England and she's attending a culinary school led by Corinne played by Jane Seymour, who is described as Gordon Ramsay, but prettier and scarier.
00:26:18
Speaker
And she has like a bunch of knockoff Gordon Ramsay bits that she does. And none of them are that scary. You, you really wonder like, why are you here? Jane Seymour.
00:26:31
Speaker
This must have been a nice far harder. Yeah. it's It's like, this feels so much like, oh, this guy, i i promised him I'd do him a favor, and now I got to go do this movie in Toronto.
00:26:43
Speaker
Mm-hmm.
00:26:46
Speaker
And it was weird that they'd had her do the idiot sandwich. Like, that was just, like, straight up someone else's gag. But they had her call someone a moron sandwich. Oh, yeah.
00:26:58
Speaker
then they have to put like two pieces bread. You're literally stealing jokes? Yeah. That's a bad sign when a movie's stealing jokes from memes, you know? And it's like 10 minutes in.
00:27:11
Speaker
Yeah. think at 20 minutes in, I literally wrote down, dear God, I'm only 20 minutes in. Yeah. That's understandable. It's heartbreaking when you see that happen. But...
00:27:23
Speaker
Gordon Ramsay fans, check out our episode about Hell's Kitchen. ah k Chris and Anna, bad reality competition. So special. Ooh. Yeah.
00:27:35
Speaker
So Corinne pulls Nikki and another student aside. She wants to open up a fast, casual restaurant. She wants one of them to run it and come up with her own menus.
00:27:48
Speaker
It's every culinary student's dream working in an off brand Chipotle owned by a woman who will fire you for no reason.
00:27:59
Speaker
If Nikki wants this gig, she'll need a different visa. So she'll have to fly it back to Canada for two weeks and work that out.
00:28:10
Speaker
Back in the little Italy of Toronto, little Italy, Nikki's male counterpart, Leo has never left. His father, Vince, no longer works with Nicky's father, Sal, however.
00:28:25
Speaker
Sal has opened up a rival shop next door, and the two men now hate each other. Leo wants Vince's pizza to change with the times. But Vince, he's old school.
00:28:37
Speaker
Yeah. Also, can we talk for a moment about Hayden Christensen's quote-unquote accent? Yeah, let's talk about his whole vibe. So it took me like halfway through the thing. I was like, why does he keep like whispering? What's with this like gruff kind of voice? And I was like, I think he's doing an accent, but that accent is impression of Marlon Brando in The Godfather.
00:29:03
Speaker
It's just like this. I'm an Italian. I'm a Canadian. hi And it's just like, okay, I don't get it. But yeah.
00:29:13
Speaker
Okay. I understand he also worked at a pizza place and delivered pizzas for a while to like prepare for the role, which just feels like he was just a pizza guy for a while. and then this happened. You don't need to research that. It's pretty easy to get, I think.
00:29:30
Speaker
Yeah. Like I'm sure actually making pizza to that level is a skill that you hold over years because those pizzas look fucking incredible. yeah But I don't think you need to like dive deep, do some taxi driver ass like, yeah you know, method shit to be a pizza guy. You can just you can just be that.
00:29:49
Speaker
Yeah. And I think also this is a movie that does not call for verisimilitude. No. You know what I mean? This requires a cartoon. This needs someone like this needs a guy wearing a tank top in it. This needs a beefy guy in it. This needs and has Alyssa Milano and Adam Ferreira playing a really, really, really offensively stereotypical Italian couple.
00:30:13
Speaker
Yes. He needs to get to that level. They just they got to chew on the scenery as hard as you can and go.
00:30:23
Speaker
He also it sometimes looked like he was wearing a wrong shade of makeup. He looked a little yellow sometimes. He had looked a little jaundiced. I feel like this is coming from a place of of empathy because I i feel like.
00:30:39
Speaker
being in the Star Wars prequels really traumatized him. And so he has had even more ah ah motivation to cling to his youth than most actors. um But I will say that some of the work that he has had done on his face is not the best looking work that i I have ever seen actor's face.
00:31:10
Speaker
he It's, it's, um, that plus the, the dark hair dye that didn't work with like his existing coloring and stuff like that. Like basically a lot of the movie was like, they were doing, they did him no favors with like the makeup and the lighting and the styling.
00:31:25
Speaker
There was that character, Lisa, just like a random ops. They did have one obstacle, this girl, Lisa. And my, my one look at her was like, they fucking did her so dirty when it came to her hair. It looked like a rat's nest. And I'm like, this is the best you could do for like your bombshell who's coming in here. You couldn't brush the girl's hair.
00:31:45
Speaker
but she just got off a plane. and An Air Canada plane. Let's note this. That's right. Major sponsor of the film. Yes. Salute. Okay, so Air Canada will fuck up your hair to that extent. Okay. Oh, they will they will fuck up everything that you've got. Yeah.
00:32:04
Speaker
Okay, so that part was accurate. Never mind. With fraud.
00:32:10
Speaker
Let's see. Okay, okay. ah So the only concession to modernity that old school Vince has made at his pizza shop is that he has hired one person that is not related to him to work there.
00:32:24
Speaker
And it is an Indian guy named Jogi. And Jogi occasionally pops up to offer some very broad race-based comic relief. Uh, by an odd coincidence at Sal's pizzeria next door, Sal has hired a young Indian Canadian woman named Jesse to work for him. Isn't that weird?
00:32:43
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. It's weird that they have this matching set. Uh, but the two of them will pop up every now and then to say stuff like, I would call you a cow except cows are sacred in India. Uh, they're not pleasant to watch when they're on screen.
00:32:59
Speaker
Also, they're not important. So I'm not really going to talk about them anymore. it It really is just like the broadest caricatures of it. How, how did this get through so many layers of corporate sponsorship and that's still the outcome?
00:33:18
Speaker
Well, you know, I think because they had an Indian producer vouching for it, he that he was like, this is it my idea. That's my boy that I'm putting in the movie. I wrote this character in for him and I think he's hilarious. Yeah.
00:33:32
Speaker
I hope that he had a wonderful time. I hope he had a lot of fun with that because that's the only thing I can cling to in this moment. like Maybe he enjoyed being really, really silly in those moments. Dear God.
00:33:46
Speaker
Yeah. So Nikki's mom, Alyssa Milano, looking smoking hot in this movie. It should be said. She she is to this day, a babe. Absolutely.
00:33:58
Speaker
Absolutely. ah She gets a call from Nikki saying she'll be coming home for the first time in five years. The whole family is excited and hopes to find her a single man in the neighborhood.
00:34:10
Speaker
Also, one point, ah Sal uses the word fakakta, which is a Yiddish term. It seems weird that it's part of his lexicon. It felt inauthentic in the moment.
00:34:24
Speaker
That night, Nikki flies into Toronto. She's not ready to see her family yet, so her friend Gina picks her up at the airport and takes her out for drinks at their old neighborhood bar, Luigi's.
00:34:37
Speaker
In a shocking twist, it turns out the eponymous Luigi is actually ethnically Chinese. I had completely forgot about that character and the entire plot line. I'll never forget Luigi. I can't believe...
00:34:54
Speaker
We just sat there and watched this extremely racist movie for like an hour and 40 minutes and my brain just blanked the whole thing out. i I'm going to be thinking about Luigi on my deathbed. and My last words are to be Luigi, not definitely not the one you're thinking of.
00:35:12
Speaker
yeah Not the first two you're thinking of. I think he's the best character in that he's the character who is the best person. Yeah. Yeah.
00:35:23
Speaker
he's He's allowed a little bit of depth before they shove him back into a stereotype and pair him up with another stereotype.
00:35:32
Speaker
It does turn out that luu Luigi is much more complicated than you might at first think. Don't worry, listeners. We'll get to it. ah Leo works there at Luigi's, probably because his shifts at his family's failing pizza restaurant aren't helping him make ends meet.
00:35:51
Speaker
When Nikki sees Leo working at Luigi's, she's embarrassed at first, but the two quickly fall back into their old rhythms of teasing and one-upsmanship.
00:36:04
Speaker
Leo challenges Nikki to a little soccer out in the park. And soon the whole bar is out there watching them play in the rain. What they're doing is ah Leo, he's going to kick the soccer ball.
00:36:20
Speaker
And Nicky is in the role of the so-called goalie. yeah If Nicky stops the ball, then Leo needs to take a shot. But if Leo scores, Nicky takes a shot.
00:36:31
Speaker
So probably within the course of, I'm going to guess, about 20 minutes, the two of them take about half a dozen shots at least. And then the friends all leave, abandoning them alone, blackout drunk in the park in the rain, where Nicky promptly passes out.
00:36:46
Speaker
Great crew in the wonderful community.
00:36:53
Speaker
She wakes up the next morning. She's nude in a strange bed. Luigi is also in the room nude. But don't worry. Nothing as gross as having sex with a slightly chubby Asian man has happened.
00:37:09
Speaker
It's all just a misunderstanding. This is Leo's apartment, and she didn't sleep with him either. They exchange pleasantries over morning espresso, and then they leave to start their respective days. I kind of forgot at what emotional point they left it at.
00:37:28
Speaker
I have to point out something. He walks in with the the tray with the two espressos and just holds them throughout the entire scene and then just walks back out with the tray on the espresso. Beautiful.
00:37:39
Speaker
and I just noticed him like, did they even touch? I don't think they touched those cups. Those cups never had any action. That's entirely possible. I'd also like to take this moment that, well, i I did write down this movie as a museum of stereotypes.
00:37:54
Speaker
What came through for me more was the horniness. yeah It's got a real, like, 80s teen boy horniness to it This is one of the horniest movies I've ever seen in my life. it's But horny.
00:38:08
Speaker
In a way that doesn't seem to actually understand how sex works. Agreed. Completely. Yes. It's a very chaste horniness. It's a lot of it, but it has no bite whatsoever. Yeah, it's not sexy.
00:38:23
Speaker
No. It's jokey porn setups from like, it's like the pizza guy trying to get it on with the woman he's delivering to. And it's the old lady, which is a thing they do in this movie with the Indian gentleman character and some old lady he delivers. to They actually have him like get...
00:38:37
Speaker
semi down with old ladies a couple times this movie and this is really weird yeah really wanted to elide past all of jogey's stuff sorry i'm sorry i'm sorry i need i need to talk about this for a moment because his thing is just like i'm gonna deliver a pizza like you deliver a pizza and it's just like is this is he saying that he delivers pizza to fuck people and then he and then you think And then you think, okay, so he's going to go to the house and it's going to be old ladies.
00:39:04
Speaker
And then later they're going to cut back and they're going to be playing bridge. And it is old ladies and they drag him in. And I guess the implication is that he has sex with three older women. And it's just like, okay.
00:39:16
Speaker
And they spend all this time trying to push that like the Leo character, the Hayden Christensen character. He's such a Lothario. All the women are throwing themselves at him. He's so slutty. and the whole time it's just like,
00:39:28
Speaker
He's like a vacuum of charm. And the thing is, I had a crush on him as a teen. I have a real soft spot for that doofus. Yeah. And I'm still looking at like him. Really? Yeah. Him. Okay.
00:39:39
Speaker
There's a lot of mention of long dicks and hard cocks. Yeah. And it's like, what is this doing in this movie? It's rated R. Yes. There's also that one scene where Gina says something about being really wet.
00:39:55
Speaker
Yes. like That was kind of graphic. So actually what happens is he says, are you afraid you're going to get wet? And Gina goes, I am. Oh, yeah and it's just like, don't do that. But I did look this up. I was just like, this is, this is so horny that I feel like it has to be rated R. It is.
00:40:12
Speaker
I looked at the rating of it throughout the world. I looked at the rating of it throughout the world. Everywhere else, it's like you got to be like 15 or older. It's PG-13 because it's very naive. It's very chaste, except that it has enough horniness in it to get an R rating in the United States. And I know that because I found the certificate number on IMDb. I went to the database for the ratings. I plugged it in. And the only thing it says is sexual content.
00:40:42
Speaker
It has enough sexual content to get an R rating and there's no nudity. There's no sex. It's just pure horniness.
00:40:54
Speaker
and not It's not a good kind of horniness. It's like a really retrograde, boring, cringy horniness. Yes. And they keep doing it. Don't watch this movie. This is what it does to you. You will be looking shit up that you didn't know existed to just be like, how did this happen? How did this happen?
00:41:12
Speaker
It's crazy because like at one point it it almost seems like people like are you two trying to fuck in the confessional? It's like, are they? Because it seems like they might be. i don't know what's happening in this movie.
00:41:25
Speaker
It's crazy. There is. I think there's one scene where they have like the grandparent characters in bed together. But even that is just kind of like this is this is a weird like. They they have sex twice in that film.
00:41:37
Speaker
Yeah. The grandparents have sex. Yeah. This great. A couple of times. Good for Andrea Martin. Anything she does, I'm just good for her. Sell that of Starbucks girl. I hope she's having a fun time.
00:41:50
Speaker
So Nikki rolls up to Sal's pizza shop and everyone is understandably very excited to see her and force feeds her pizza. Over at Vince's, the place is packed for a change.
00:42:04
Speaker
Turns out somebody swapped out all of their oregano for what I'm going to guess is about $500 worth of weed.
00:42:13
Speaker
And nobody noticed while making the pizza that it smelled like marijuana or was really sticky. yeah well And also, not I was going to say it had not been decarboxylized. I'm sure this would not actually work.
00:42:27
Speaker
Also, it apparently makes you act like you're on ecstasy and not that you're stoned. And also, it seems to have brought in the entire neighborhood somehow, despite the fact that no one knew it was going on.
00:42:40
Speaker
but Here's what I think happened. It's not that it brought in more people. It's that everyone who came in stayed because they got locked into a feedback loop of the munchies and ordering more pizza and then the more pizza giving them more munchies. That makes that would make some sense.
00:42:57
Speaker
Yeah. They just have been drugging this same group of 12 people for the last 10 hours. Yeah. And then Hayden Christensen gets fondled by a police officer in front of a group of people.
00:43:08
Speaker
Yes. The cops do show up and there is...
00:43:14
Speaker
Well, I'll talk more about yeah this lady cop later. One might say she's a bit of baddie. I'm just going to refer to my notes section for this, which is just Andrea Martin, give me strength.
00:43:29
Speaker
Yeah, okay.
00:43:34
Speaker
So the grandparents in each family, Nona and Nono, they sneak off to meet up at their church's confessional. It appears they've been having an affair for years without telling anyone.
00:43:46
Speaker
And strictly chaste. They have not been physical. Obviously, Nona would not do that kind of thing out of wedlock. Until later in the film. Yeah, well, at least she gets engaged.
00:43:58
Speaker
Oh, fair deuce. So the next morning, Nikki shows up at Leo's apartment to challenge him to a spontaneous soccer rematch.
00:44:09
Speaker
But Lisa, the aforementioned gorgeous stewardess with the messy hair and a red pants suit, shows up at the same time. We will never see this character again.
00:44:20
Speaker
Yeah. No. Quite the villain. You see... Emma Roberts' character, Nikki, is inherently, canonically less beautiful than Lisa because she's brunette.
00:44:33
Speaker
And short. Well, and short. but And not a flight attendant? What a weird, like, again, like that 80s, like, frat house sexuality, like she's a flight attendant, which is also promotional consideration provided by Air Canada.
00:44:52
Speaker
And also this was like one of the only times we ever see Leo interact with a different woman. So it was the only time when we had an opportunity to show that he was charming. And instead he's like, oh yeah, go on up.
00:45:09
Speaker
Yep. And, you know, we never get to see him be this Lothario that they say he is. And that's why it never like you never buy it. It never plays as a factor. It always seems to come out of nowhere.
00:45:22
Speaker
They just had like two scenes of him like lighting a girl's cigarette or some just fucking something, you know? Like I'm coming into this with a, like ah a latent crush on this man, like trying to make this work. And even, even I'm just like, what are you, what is this? What are him?
00:45:37
Speaker
Him? No, they're, they're asking you to do all the heavy lifting. Uh, now, uh, Louie, uh, Leo does invite Nikki over for dinner the next night. So they got that going dinner at his place.
00:45:53
Speaker
The pizzas in that scene are so gorgeous. Yeah. Yes, and they do make ah very delicious pizza.
00:46:04
Speaker
It's crazy, though, to invite somebody over for to make a pizza when you work at a pizza shop and her dad works at a pizza shop and, like, just... But you ain't never had a Maya pizza.
00:46:18
Speaker
And I think he makes, like, six of them. I make a thin crust of pizza. Fig and goat cheese. I also, they talk a lot about like how long it needs to be in there. And all the whole time i was like, I feel like it needs to be in there longer than that.
00:46:34
Speaker
They're like 90 seconds. It's like, it's like 90 seconds. It's like, you can cook a pizza in 90 seconds. If you get that real thin crust. You get that thin crust. I got this thin crust pizza.
00:46:46
Speaker
I got a cracker crust that you would die for. Mama Mia, here I go again. Papa loves Mambo. Toronto is a real city of food trends. Like, we just go through a few years where everyone's all about, like, Korean corndogs, sushi burritos. Okay. Now we're into, like, Italian sandwiches. right. um And just around, I think that would be kind of almost...
00:47:19
Speaker
the denouement of it, but we were big into Neapolitan pizza. People were having opinions about it. Okay. um So I think that kind of captured a bit of that, like, that moment. is like that Yeah, like, that people knew they were, like, they were talking about, you know, wood-fired ovens and how it was 90 seconds, the the ingredients and everything. So there's that context from a Toronto point of view.
00:47:47
Speaker
Good to have it yeah if If someone involved in this movie opened up a fancy pizza shop after making this movie, I'm going to have some opinions. This is just a long commercial for those pizzas in the middle of it. Because I keep thinking about them. I want those pizzas. Sell me those pizzas, somebody. ah Given the number of corporate sponsors that you see in this movie v pop up, yeah ah at least one of them has already gone out of business at this time. but And i'm I'm sure that if this was successful, they were planning to open up a line of pizzeria organicas.
00:48:22
Speaker
I think they had that in the back of their mind.
00:48:27
Speaker
oh So yeah the the movie oh sorry the movie was poorly fleshed out, but the restaurant concept was really, really well done. They really worked hard in that restaurant concept for within the movie.
00:48:37
Speaker
What if we made a good pizzeria? Uh, so, uh, that night, Sal and Vince, they have some sort of insult contest at Luigi's. The weird moment.
00:48:50
Speaker
It's not funny. And it doesn't really serve a dramatic purpose of the film. The next day, Nona and no, no, they meet up at Starbucks. and She says she won't even kiss him until he puts a ring on it. And they make a bunch of dated Beyonce references, but they're old people. So guess they're allowed to make dated references, yeah but that doesn't mean I want to watch it in a movie.
00:49:11
Speaker
Also, they love Starbucks, by the way. Have you heard that Starbucks drinks are really good? They're so good they make my grandmama cry. And this...
00:49:22
Speaker
ok This is where I have been upset the whole time on behalf of my Italian grandmother. But here, where they're telling you that two elderly Italian people are going to prefer, like, Starbucks over, like, but i don't know, brewing their own espresso. Brewing their own, to be honest. You're telling me this woman doesn't have a mocha pot on her stove?
00:49:53
Speaker
She doesn't have the caramel sauce. She doesn't have that delicious caramel. This is like a big candy. She doesn't have that charmingly so overcasted barista with like the beard with a lot of stuff going on and the hair with a lot of stuff going on. And like, they, they really like went for the most stereotypical possible barista, which makes sense for this movie. Like why would you change what you're doing in the casting department for this?
00:50:23
Speaker
No, you need to have a, uh, just a Canadian white ethnic stereotype. So you yeah cast Bill Turnbull as hipster barista. Oh, it was filmed ah at a Starbucks in Little Italy.
00:50:37
Speaker
The actual Little Italy in Toronto. At least they were on location. Wow. Yeah, that's probably the most authentic part of the whole movie. The Starbucks in Little Italy, Toronto? That's right, which is since closed. yeah How unfortunate. We can't go.
00:50:53
Speaker
They do reference College Street. Is College Street part of the Little Italy down there? It is. ah So in the movie though, their pizzeria is kind of east of that. So it's closer to Chinatown. Okay.
00:51:07
Speaker
And actually where, where that pizzeria is, it used to be an art store and then it was a hardware store for a while. And actually, right across the street on the other corner is actually a long standing pizzeria. That's actually pretty famous in Toronto for like, you know, a nice, a nice home slice.
00:51:24
Speaker
Okay. So they got the right intersection, wrong corner. But also I don't think we mentioned like these two rival pizzerias that these gentlemen opened are next door to each other. And neither of them is doing well.
00:51:37
Speaker
Neither of them is doing well. The wives are still friends. That's nice at least. But it does remind me of this guy that I met ah who I worked with for a little while who had gone to culinary school and we were just talking about, you know, culinary school at one point. And he was like, the easiest restaurant in the world to open is a pizza restaurant.
00:51:56
Speaker
If you can make a profit at a pizza restaurant, you should not run any kind of restaurant because it costs it costs like a quarter to make a pizza and you charge $15 for it. you know what I mean? It's just flour and a little bit of sauce and a little bit of cheese.
00:52:12
Speaker
So, you know, if you can't do it there and everybody loves your product, you know, yeah everybody is familiar with their product. So as long as you're not, say, literally right next door to a a pizza restaurant. But I know in New York there, I've definitely been to pizza restaurants that were right next door to other pizza restaurants.
00:52:30
Speaker
Yeah. not like yeah in a dense enough urban area that can't happen. yeah They can't support themselves. Yeah. Jumping in with another Toronto fact. Actually, I do think there are a couple of pizzerias that are right next to each other. Yeah, like that's totally believable. but But are the owners actively angry with each other? They would have to be sooner or later. feel like the rivalry grew over the years due to proximity.
00:52:57
Speaker
yeah i just love the idea. like I fucking hate my ex-partner. I'm going to open up a pizza restaurant of my own right next door to his. Right next door. Um, to their credit, it is on the edge of the university campus. So they have kind of like an inbuilt.
00:53:14
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Yeah. That's that's how that'll help crowd. Right. That is that is prime location. Okay. Okay. Okay. We still got a ways to go. Okay. Here we go. Nikki goes to a family barbecue where her mother tries to set her up with a very smartly dressed funeral director with a foot fetish. Never see that character again.
00:53:33
Speaker
yeah ah Played by Tucker from Are You Afraid of the Dark, another Canadian institution. Okay, I didn't recognize it. Are You Afraid of the Dark was too scary for me.
00:53:45
Speaker
Nikki cuts out early to go have dinner at Leo's. He shows her his signature thin crust with smoked prosciutto and smoked gouda that he's been perfecting. And she suggests adding some fresh fig to counterbalance it with some sweetness. These two, they complete each other. Mmm.
00:54:05
Speaker
Meanwhile, Nona proposes to Nona in front of a statue of the Virgin, but she turns him down. Mmm. Back over at Leo's, they head up to his roof, where he keeps an organic herb and vegetable garden. And he's also decorated it with a bunch of house lamps. Yeah, a lot of lamps.
00:54:25
Speaker
A lot of lamps. I'm so glad we all noticed that. It's an insane amount of lamps for a roof in an area that I assume gets precipitation.
00:54:36
Speaker
Yeah. I imagine the set decorator went to Goodwill and spray painted a bunch of lamps. We are a fairly temperate climate. Yeah. Like those those lamps are cracking the first snowfall. And yeah it's, there are so many decisions, so many decisions in this movie where I'm just like, who, who and why and how, how did this, why yeah Like, I think the set decorator had a very limited budget. He rented a bunch of plants from Home Depot. He's like, keep the receipts for the plants from Home Depot. Buy a bunch of lamps of Goodwill and get me some, you know, glossy white spray paint. And I'm just going to do them all. And it'll look like a it'll be cool.
00:55:15
Speaker
ah So anyway, he says he wants to open up his own organic pizza restaurant, but he won't wait until or he wants to wait until his father retires so that they aren't competing.
00:55:29
Speaker
Considering the fact that his grandfather still hasn't retired and is still working at the pizza shop, he might have a bit of a time to go. ah The two of them then dance the Tarantella, and then Nikki leaves for some reason. I don't remember. The movie continues.
00:55:44
Speaker
The next day, Nona tracks down Nona at the Starbucks, where she's just ordered her ninth venti caramel macchiato. She should be dead at that point. yeah Now, I looked it up. At this point, she has ingested 300 grams of sugar, 1,200 milligrams of caffeine, and a gallon of warm milk.
00:56:05
Speaker
yeah Andrea Martin is a small person, too. yeah Yeah. She he is going to be wrecked.
00:56:14
Speaker
When Nono asks why she turned him down, she explains that she still feels loyal to her dead husband. Nono points out that he would want her to be happy and also that he loves her.
00:56:27
Speaker
And Nona comes around. Fantastic. All Starbucks applauds. That night, Nikki is working on her new fast, casual menu. Her first thought, beets.
00:56:39
Speaker
Hmm. I love that she goes to culinary school in England of all fucking places. I assumed it was France. No, no, no, no. I really like that. she was Her second course was just called Beats. yeah That's what you get it from an English culinary yeah education. They love beetroot over there.
00:56:59
Speaker
Do you think they originally said it in France and then tried to get Jane Seymour to do a French accent? And when that clearly did not work out, they were like, hey down england I think they were always leaning into the Gordon Ramsay, the Lady Gordon Ramsay vibe. I think that was their whole idea.
00:57:18
Speaker
That's my theory. Anyway, Leo brings her a pizza to help her think about like what people should eat after beets and says, be ready for tomorrow. It is a heart-shaped pizza. that's great. and I remember me and Ayla got a heart-shaped pizza for Valentine's Day one year. And it's cut into weird little triangles.
00:57:39
Speaker
Hate that. It's very weird. It's hard to cut in parts. It's a total rip off of the local pizza chain here that sells a heart-shaped pizza for Valentine's Day.
00:57:51
Speaker
okay. It's a pretty, well, like famous and then also infamous because it's very cheap and people talk about how terrible it is. It's called Pizza Pizza. Okay.
00:58:02
Speaker
Yeah. So not an association you want with Toronto audiences, because that's probably what they would think of. And I feel like Toronto audiences are going to be the only people that would want to see this.
00:58:14
Speaker
if Specifically, Little Italy of Toronto audiences. If there's anyone who wants to see this. Yeah, that they're my best bet. It's like, hey, I've been there. That's where my uncle lives. Like, that's that kind of movie. All right. So in the morning, the two of them ride around a street fair on his Vespa.
00:58:33
Speaker
They buy novelty Italian pride T-shirts, which is redundant because this whole movie is pretty much a novelty Italian T-shirt. And I think one mentions about getting some Italian inside of you or something like this. Like even the shirts are still horny.
00:58:46
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. Yeah. One is like ah save a stallion, ride an Italian. That's the one. So then he drives them through a sprinkler. Because it's a hot day in Toronto, whatever time of year this is, whenever they have the San Angelo Festival or whatever this is supposed to be.
00:59:04
Speaker
ah So they go back to his place and they throw their clothes in the dryer. And suddenly they now realize that they are both pretty much nude and sober. So they make love. But they are the only ones doing the horizontal Mambo at Italiano. Hmm.
00:59:21
Speaker
a Nona and Nono bang as well, and they decide that it's time to tell their families what's up. The next day, they both invite their families out to dinner and meet up at an Indian restaurant called the Korma Sutra, lending credence to Greg's horny theory.
00:59:37
Speaker
Yeah. My horny thing. The whole thing is so horny. it is sooration It's not even a theory. It's just like the observation. I have never heard so many. dick There are multiple people talking about how long their penises in this film multiple times.
00:59:54
Speaker
Yeah. is And yet another point in this movie where my note just says, Christ, this movie is racist. Yeah. too Yeah. Sorry. sorry Gina has a line to Nikki earlier where she says, no wonder you're so skinny.
01:00:12
Speaker
Basically, you must jack off so much. Yeah, that was like a really... Because she's sexually frustrated. That one really surprised me. I mean, I kind of love that about Gina as a character. Gina's a straight talker. In a better movie, but wow.
01:00:28
Speaker
yeah Yeah, in a better movie, that would be a nice moment of like recognizing that women like to masturbate, and it's a thing that they do. In this movie, it's just like, that's out of nowhere and okay. Yeah.
01:00:40
Speaker
It's also, again, a very chaste film. so it's really weird to have this naive chaste film be like, I bet you masturbate a lot. It's like, this is this is inappropriate, I think, maybe.
01:00:50
Speaker
Maybe. All right, we got to get back to the Korma Sutra.
01:00:56
Speaker
So Nona and Nono, they tell their families that they're in love. But that's not enough to quell the rivalry between Sal and Vince.
01:01:08
Speaker
They agree that the situation has become untenable, and the only solution is to have their kids compete in a local pizza contest. The same pizza contest that they jointly won however many years ago before they decided to stop being friends.
01:01:21
Speaker
So much is going on here. But anyway, the loser of this round is going to leave Little Italy. Nikki and Leo are not particularly interested. But also, neither them wants to back down.
01:01:34
Speaker
So they both get goaded into antagonizing each other. And when Leo says something crass about last night, Nikki slaps him and leaves
01:01:46
Speaker
that night as they clean up the bar, Luigi busts Leo's balls about all this. And Leo was a little like Leo says to him, bro, you're not even Italian.
01:02:01
Speaker
You're Chinese. And, And we finally get to learn what Luigi's deal is. Luigi's deal, he says, is that when he came out to his dad as gay at the age of 15, he got kicked out of the house.
01:02:14
Speaker
And he wandered around until he found Luigi's bar. And when he came into that Italian-Canadian community, he finally felt accepted for who he is.
01:02:24
Speaker
Yeah. And he could finally... and I got to say... I grew up in a fairly, ah ah we had a fairly robust Italian-American community in my hometown.
01:02:37
Speaker
I'm to say these guys would not be particularly accepting to a gay Chinese dude. That was not the vibe I got off of the Italian bros I knew. Sure. Personally. I would not describe them as the most accepting community I've ever met in my life.
01:02:52
Speaker
This rang false to me. there There is a subset, though, that like having like that mascot of like, we're progressive, we're cool, look at our gay Chinese friend. It's true. They probably would keep calling him their gay Chinese friend. Yeah, but like literally as bad as this moment is, it's the least worst racial and like social politics they've got.
01:03:16
Speaker
It is a story about a man finding acceptance for who he is and in a different community, which is like, okay, this is the best we're going to do in this movie. And like, honestly, like if he wants to impersonate an Italian, go for it. Have fun.
01:03:30
Speaker
Pretend to be Italian. You're not hurting nobody. Yeah. You can always do the accent. It's never racist. It's fine. They're fine. I don't know about racist, but in this movie, it it feels offensive. Yeah. It feels wrong.
01:03:48
Speaker
I mean, the whole movie, it feels so offensive and wrong and in so many different moments. Oh, my God. And I really want to make it clear how out of nowhere it was when he just says, my dad kicked me out of madam in the high house when I was 15 when I told him I was gay. and Oh, and of course they cap off. He's blindsided by that.
01:04:09
Speaker
Yeah. They have this this beautiful, like deep moment with like actual character, emotional weight to it. And they wrap it up with ah the the our friend Luigi grabbing Leo's ass.
01:04:21
Speaker
Yeah. And then saying this is how Chinese people hug. Yeah. It's got to be horny. Horny. And we find out later that was one of many improvised lines. And that's the one they stuck with.
01:04:33
Speaker
How about that?
01:04:37
Speaker
Also, ah but I think you can see the screenwriter's hand there. And the reason why this was one of the more actually emotionally successful scenes was that it does relate more directly to what he's more comfortable writing yeah about. Yeah.
01:04:54
Speaker
So it anyway, very weird scene in this movie. Yeah. Anyway, the next day, Nikki accepts the challenge. ah Nona gets her to change her mind somehow.
01:05:07
Speaker
It doesn't matter. We got to go. Soon it's the big pizza contest. We see a bunch of pizzas. Nikki and Lino are the finalists. Somebody makes a pizza with cantaloupe on it. Nikki made something with like steaks of grilled eggplant. It looks way too moist. i don't know what the fuck she's doing, but she makes it to the final.
01:05:25
Speaker
ah So Nikki and Leo, they're in the finals. They have to make margarita pizzas. Nikki swaps out Leo's boring old sauce for Nona's secret recipe sauce. And the combination of Leo's dough and Nona's sauce, it lets Leo take home the W.
01:05:45
Speaker
Nikki hops in the cab for the airport. And as soon as Leo figures out the sauce swap and that she let him win, just like she always said she did. it's It's not my sauce.
01:05:57
Speaker
It's not my sauce. I know my sauce. It's not my sauce. This is none of my sauce. ah So both families, they hop into cars and they ride out to the airport to stop her.
01:06:10
Speaker
They catch her at security check. Leo confesses his love and wins her heart back. Like he's really lucky that she fucked up going through security like 16 goddamn times and kept getting pushed back through the machine. Otherwise he never would have caught up with her. But if I was in that airport TSA screening line behind her, I would be pun like, there would be violence.
01:06:31
Speaker
I would be screaming, take off your necklace. It's your necklace. Take off your necklace. Yes, all of the necklaces you dump. Oh my God, I would lose my fucking mind because she like walks through feet, like can't get her laptop out of the thing. It's just like a farce. If it was, it would like to be funny. I would love if it was funny, but it was not funny. It was just really, really frustrating watching a grown woman fail at putting her stuff through a security checkpoint.
01:06:59
Speaker
I'll say this and the scene will become much more powerful. This was no mere necklace. This was a saint's medal, perhaps a saint of St. Anthony, but was lost, worrying about her losing her love, holding her back.
01:07:13
Speaker
This was kismet. This was not just some random piece of jewelry. This was the finger of Catholic God touching her life. Now, St. and Anthony would have hated those people.
01:07:24
Speaker
Also, they sinned with premarital sex, too. Yeah, he would have been just like, get lost. We're good. You're done. went to confession for the premarital sex. And I love how they have like, they have a sassy black lady TSA agent. I don't know if it's TSA, but they are obviously emulating American security procedures, which was really weird to me because that's a Canadian airport.
01:07:46
Speaker
what What are the procedures in a Canadian airport? have no idea. It's a little more chill. Do you take off your shoes? Yeah. sometimes like okay like you know it's basically divided but by like you know if you're going to american flights and international flights yeah yeah that makes sense she's going from canada to the uk and doing all of the american stuff that you have to do through the tsa and of course like the agents are a sassy black woman and a flamboyantly gay gentleman great great match for luigi
01:08:23
Speaker
yeah Who is in fact the match for Luigi. Cause everybody's got to get paired up. ah But at one point the the woman yells at the Emma Roberts character. She's like, leave the guy, just go to London. And in any other movie, I would agree with her. But my reaction was like, no, she doesn't deserve London. She doesn't deserve good things. Nobody in this movie deserves good things except for maybe Andrea Martin.
01:08:46
Speaker
No, she does get her no, no. So she's got that going. Yeah. So the dads confess they've been feuding this whole time over not being able to decide which sainted parent they should have named their award-winning pizza after all those years ago.
01:09:02
Speaker
Horrendous. The grandparents are both like, this is stupid. It's really stupid. It's it's the worst MacGuffin. It is the worst reveal. It is so fucking dumb.
01:09:15
Speaker
Luigi does meet the cute gay Canadian TSA agent. Nona and Nono announce their engagement to everybody. And Sal and Vince, they finally hug it out.
01:09:27
Speaker
We then cut to Nona and Nono's wedding reception at Pizzeria Organica. every Everyone is happy. Corinne is there and she wants to franchise their pizza restaurant.
01:09:41
Speaker
The end. Because when I think of Gordon Ramsay level culinary skill, I think of franchise pizza places. That's what Gordon Ramsay is doing. And of course, at the end, we get a cute dance montage where every single ethnic pair pairs up. So we get our Indian couple from the true rival restaurants. They finally get tricked into dancing together. And apparently that's all it takes for them to be a couple. And we see the TSA guy show up to be Luigi's boyfriend. He catches the bouquet. It's all very cute.
01:10:11
Speaker
Jane Seymour shakes her face. I mean, Jane Seymour, I don't know why I use that tone. I appreciate her being there. She looks great. She's doing everything she can. She's a joy and a delight in everything she's in.
01:10:22
Speaker
But what are you doing in here, Jane? you you You had to have something that better to do.
01:10:28
Speaker
Final thoughts. Five star ratings. Where did people land? Nobody should watch this movie. That is a good point. Steffa, don't you kick us off? you Sorry, I just, I feel so passionately that nobody should watch this movie. This is a zero star made by committee.
01:10:47
Speaker
All of the plot points exist to like any detail exists to force a plot point to happen. it's It's such a reverse engineered, like it's, it's just bad. And it's bad in a way that ruins your brain.
01:11:03
Speaker
Zero stars. Yeah. What about for weirdness? It's not even weird enough to be interesting or fun. That's absolutely true. Out of five, you're going to give that. I'm going to give it another like another zero. It's so lowest. Zeroes across the board. Yeah, it's lowest common denominator. It's broad as possible. It's so broad it horseshoes into offensive again. It's it's really a marvel. This was made in this century.
01:11:30
Speaker
That's that's fair to say. Greg. Five stars. Yeah, so i felt that this movie was a Hallmark movie. I thought that i this movie was made for the person who watches Hallmark movies and thinks, I like that, but I didn't know if any of the men were hard, and that upsets me.
01:11:54
Speaker
Which is to say that this is a movie that isn't made for anybody because it's a fundamental misunderstanding of what that audience wants. Like it's such a chaste, naive, cliche, broad, romantic comedy that I, write at one point I wrote the script writes itself.
01:12:14
Speaker
um And yet it is full of dick and vagina jokes everywhere. And everybody wants to fuck and everybody's talking about fucking. And it's just like these are two wildly different audiences. And I don't know why you would think that this is going to fly for watchability. I'm going to give it one just because looking at a car crash can be interesting.
01:12:40
Speaker
um And for weirdness, I'm going to give it a half of a star. I would say that it is strange, but it is not weird. So it's going to get a half of a star.
01:12:52
Speaker
That's very reasonable. what about you, Anna?
01:12:55
Speaker
ah Yes. For watchability, I'm going to give it a one and a half. Which is mostly, I mean, this one, it's bad. It's a ah real stinkeroonie.
01:13:09
Speaker
um But I will say that Andrea Merton's character reminded me of my Italian grandmother. Not because my Italian grandmother was anything like this character, but...
01:13:22
Speaker
Because my nana did a good Italian grandmother bit. i mean She could do the same bit that Andrea Martin's doing in the movie.
01:13:34
Speaker
you know Okay. um and So that was kind of nice. so Weirdness, I don't think it's weird. I would give it, yeah, a half star for weirdness.
01:13:45
Speaker
Okay. Okay. Well, i also gave it one and a half stars for watchability. I think it goes down fairly smooth, but it also does just suck. Yeah. It feels genuinely racially insensitive, and it's hard to watch this movie and not feel like there's something better you could be doing.
01:14:03
Speaker
Hmm. Yeah. You know, you just want it to be over. You just want to go do something else. ah For weirdness, though, I gave it to three. I thought it was weirder than you guys because, ah you know, something about this movie does feel kind of like watching a school play. No one is doing great.
01:14:22
Speaker
No one seems to particularly care, but at least everyone seems to be having at least a modicum amount of fun, at least in terms of the secondary characters. And all the secondary characters are very strange and broad and cartoonish in a way that's really weird to me.
01:14:40
Speaker
I mean, not very strange, but they are broad and cartoonish. Gloria, what about you? Watchability and weirdness. what do you think? I would say that for watchability, I would actually also give it one and a half stars. Okay.
01:14:57
Speaker
I think there's a Toronto edge for me because I can kind of look around and be like, where's that? Yeah. Definitely saw the CN tower in there. Yeah. There's something for your brain to do. Give me something to do. And the other thing is, i feel the cardinal sin of a food movie is to make you not want to eat food. And it just does make me hungry for pizza. We did order pizza. Pizza really good.
01:15:21
Speaker
Yeah. um So, you know, it gets that done. Yeah. So I respect that. ah In terms of weird, I don't think it's weird at all. It has no personality.
01:15:33
Speaker
Yeah. Considering how extreme and broad the humor is. You're going to tell me Jogi doesn't have personality? You're going to tell me... that And the fact that it has like six corporate sponsors. Yeah. Yeah.
01:15:51
Speaker
That was awful. I feel like, I don't know if this is part of the lore. I feel like they were trying to sell it as like, come to Toronto or go to Italy. Like there was something going on there. At one point, the characters, ah Emma Roberts and Hayden Christensen, when they're at the Little Italy Festival, enter a draw.
01:16:12
Speaker
held by Air Canada for trip Italy. I saw that. Oh. Yeah. Oh. What? What?
01:16:23
Speaker
Visit the San Gennaro Festival. did Did Air Canada recently start their direct flights to Italy around the same time, maybe? Some, you know, guess now this is part of, like, the corporate archive. Yeah.
01:16:43
Speaker
um And then one of the other sponsors that i noticed that you would know if you were in Toronto was Pusateri's, which is kind of like a fancy grocery store. Okay. Okay.
01:16:54
Speaker
Yeah, at one point when they're trying to prank their old neighbor and then then he gave him like a nice gift basket. Oh, Which later went bankrupt and closed down all their stores and all the employees were blabbing about how terrible it was to work there. So there's that. Okay. okay well Rest in piss, Pusatarius.
01:17:16
Speaker
ah Well, With that, let's get to the act three of our 100th episode.
01:17:28
Speaker
yeah. And we've got a new segment. We got some people who wrote into the mailbag.
01:17:46
Speaker
I've got a backpack.
01:17:50
Speaker
bag full of mail.
01:17:56
Speaker
You sent us some emails, you sent us some DMs, I'll read them in this segment. Well, okay, we still get stoned.
01:18:12
Speaker
Listen to our podcast on your phones. If it's in the mailbag, it can't be that bad.
01:18:25
Speaker
you wrote the mailbag, why the hell are you so glad?
01:18:45
Speaker
That's right. Wonderful. It's the mailbag. Oh, thank you, my dove. So our first letter in the mailbag comes to us from ah Mac, former guest Mac. Check out his episode on Zandalee.
01:19:01
Speaker
But Mac writes, an 80s genre trend I love is punksploitation. and Ran the gamut from romantic comedies to post-apocalyptic adventures.
01:19:11
Speaker
Who are your favorite B-movie punks?
01:19:16
Speaker
You guys got any favorite punks off the top of your head? So this was, well this was one that I mean, okay. Why don't you go Anna? Why don't you?
01:19:31
Speaker
Sorry. ah I was going to say, I will go off the top of my head because there was only one thing I thought of. Um, um, And so I've stuck with it, and that is ah the Nightbreeds from Nightbreed.
01:19:47
Speaker
Ooh. Ooh, yeah. Yeah, those guys are All have such a kind of weird, punky, gothy makeup, and it's ah good stuff.
01:19:59
Speaker
Great movie. Absolutely. What about you, Greg? You got any favorite
Exploring Punk Themes in Movies
01:20:03
Speaker
punks? Yeah, so for me, this one perplexed me a little bit because i'm not I don't know punks a lot, but my angle on it and I'm glad that they said post-apocalyptic because that's where I went. I was thinking all of the kind of like Mad Max knockoffs that I've seen that happened in the 80s and 90s in particular.
01:20:19
Speaker
uh bronx the bronx warrior or the bronx exterminator 3000 whatever it's called 1990 bronx warrior yeah 1990 bronx warrior the lead i don't know if that guy's necessarily a punk but i feel like he's kind of punk influenced kind of warriors influenced a little bit and i feel like there's some kind of back and forth in there was immediately what i went to was just like because i love that movie that's a great movie Oh yeah.
01:20:41
Speaker
And so I just thought of him with his like headband and his quiet attitude or just like, cause I feel like he's got a punk attitude in the sense that he's like, I'm not like, I will get violent, but like, I just want to get out of here. I'm just done with this whole scene.
01:20:56
Speaker
And I really love that. Fantastic. ah Two favorite movie punks that I can think of are going to be Goose from Deadbeat at Dawn. i love Deadbeat at Dawn. yep And, yeah you know, he quit the gangs. They killed his girl.
01:21:14
Speaker
Come on. And I got to go with ah Enid from Ghost World. Oh, yeah. Not necessarily a B movie, but a classic cinema punk.
01:21:25
Speaker
especially in that sort of post nineties, like what does punk even mean anymore? Punk. Yeah. Steph, Gloria, you guys got any favorite B movie punks?
01:21:37
Speaker
This, this conversation has made me feel the most mainstream I've ever felt in my entire life. I feel so unbelievably like I should get a horse and just be a horse girl. I'll respect the horse girls. Love you guys. But yeah, I've, I've no idea. i have no frame of reference for this. Cause I spent my frame of reference is like,
01:21:55
Speaker
80s movies that ran on Comedy Central constantly. So it's it's much more like comedy skewed B-movie kind of stuff. But the punks, that was a little bit outside of my watching things.
01:22:07
Speaker
maybe if we I almost went for Bobcat Goldthwait from Police Academy 2 as one of my favorite. Oh, that would be a strong choice. Yeah. Glow, you got any go-to punks?
01:22:18
Speaker
Nope. I'm like Steffa. Yep. ok Tough affair. All right. There's this Disney movie called Wish Upon a Star with Katherine Heigl and another girl. And the other girl is kind of a punk. And I really liked her. She actually, um she's the girl who played Melissa in Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead. Oh, there you go. In general. Okay. I found one.
01:22:42
Speaker
That girl who played Melissa in Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead plays a lot of really fun punks in like those girl B movies. Mm-hmm. Letter number two.
Celebrating 100 Episodes: Listener Messages & Games
01:22:52
Speaker
This one comes from friend of the show and former guest Courtney Collins, a.k.a. Weez.
01:23:00
Speaker
Sorry for waiting until the last minute, but I wanted to say congratulations on 100 episodes. Thank you so much for having me as a guest, not once, but twice. May your next 100 episodes be just as grand as your first.
01:23:13
Speaker
ah Thank you. Thank you so much. And then ah this one comes from but but ba Matt Finnegan, great friend of the show. Love to hear from Matt Finnegan.
01:23:29
Speaker
Finnegan writes, there are those who believe that life here began out there, far across the universe, with tribes of humans who may have been the forefathers of the Egyptians or the Toltecs or the Mayans.
01:23:44
Speaker
They may have been the architects of the Great Pyramids, the lost civilizations of Lemuria or Atlantis. Some believe that there may yet be brothers of man who even now fight to survive far, far away amongst the stars.
01:24:01
Speaker
In other words, happy 100th episode, seven kissy winky emojis. Nice. Thank you. Seven kissy winky emojis back to you, Finny. And hopefully you'll be back on the show soon.
01:24:16
Speaker
Last one. Congrats on the 100 episodes, y'all. My question is from down in San Antonio, Texas. If bad movies were a food, what food would they be for you?
01:24:29
Speaker
For me, bad movies are glazed donuts, maybe. I love them, but I can only stomach them so much. But the love is undeniable. Cheers, Seneze. Thank you, Seneze.
01:24:41
Speaker
ah So, what kind of food would you compare bad movies to? What do you think? I would go with... A banana.
01:24:52
Speaker
Okay. And that is because... Bananas, there's a ah very narrow window. If a but narrow banana ripe yes if a banana is too ripe, it is just gross, and I like well literally cannot eat it. Sometimes a bad movie is too bad, but there yeah there's this window where it hits just right, and then it can be one of the most delicious things in the world.
01:25:22
Speaker
Ain't that the truth. What about you, Greg? So I thought of, and this is something that I do with Matt Finnegan and a few other people. We always are comparing weird snacks that we find somewhere. So someone in our chat would be like, take a look. at And there's some people from Germany in there. So we get like all kinds of stuff.
01:25:40
Speaker
And for me, bad movies are like weird snacks. An example being, Matt Wilson, who is also on the show, came to my place. We were going to play some games and we each brought weird candy because I know he likes weird candy. I like weird candy.
01:25:53
Speaker
And yeah I bought some Shaquille O'Neal gummies. yeah The Shackalicious eggs are large. And so he saw those and was like, I almost bought those, but instead I got this. And we tried the Shackalicious gummies and we all agreed that the flavors we thought were going to be weird, but they were fine. And they tasted really good, but they were indeed far too large.
01:26:15
Speaker
yeah And so all these snacks are like this. It's like, it's an interesting concept. I wanted to try it, but there's something fundamentally wrong about it. yet I did finish the bag. Yeah. The bag is gone. I might get another one, but I wouldn't tell somebody to purchase them, though I will purchase them again.
01:26:34
Speaker
That's very reasonable. you know i For me, it depends on the type of bad movie. I always don't like to lump them all in together. One thing that I've enjoyed so much about doing the show is seeing how many different ways people can think of bad movies. I think of Primitive War as like a surprisingly good roadside burger. You know what I mean? obviously I think of Ghoulies as a lukewarm malt liquor. you know They all
01:27:05
Speaker
They're each their own sort of own thing, but some more nutritive than others. Sure. They are all ah can satisfy my palate in any number of ways.
01:27:17
Speaker
Stefa, Gloria, do you guys have a bad movie you would associate with food? i I would associate bad movies with those foamy circus peanut candies.
01:27:29
Speaker
Oh, okay. The weird banana taste, like that strange texture. They're not like good, but they're like compelling. And I'll find myself like, I'll buy them and I'll eat them, but I'll be a little embarrassed and just a little, a little like, I know I can't super duper defend this position. i can't really be like, Hey, these are actually good. Cause they're not.
01:27:51
Speaker
They aren't, but there's a lot to like, there's the texture, there's the shape, there's the size, there's that weird flavor that I hear is banana, but I don't think it's banana. I don't know what it is. think it's one of those extinct, extinct cultivars of banana that we've never tasted. Yeah. Something like that. There's, there's like, it's,
01:28:10
Speaker
There's enough going on that I'm going to enjoy myself, but I also know if I eat more than like two or three, I'm going to feel nasty as hell and I got to like cut it off there. So I feel like like that's my, yeah, that's my guy.
01:28:24
Speaker
What about you, Lo? For me, I would think of bad movies as cold fries. Ooh. Okay. Especially ones out of the fridge. Because I understand to be quite divisive. A lot of people are like, why would you do that to yourself when you can just more fries?
01:28:45
Speaker
um But I kind of enjoy that. They get kind of greasy and salty and... When I eat them, I'm like, I know these aren't good fries. They're not great fries.
01:28:57
Speaker
And it's not like cold pizza. That's a different thing. no It's a real, like, I don't care if you don't like it. yeah yeah You don't have to eat it. Like, I'm the one enjoying myself. Exactly. More for me.
01:29:08
Speaker
And then occasionally I will get a batch where I'm like, actually, this is really horrible, but I'm eating them anyway because they provide nutritional value. And I have like, you know, principles to uphold. We're not going to let them move away. Yeah. And sometimes I feel like that about a movie where I'm like, this was a terrible movie with no artistic value, but it provided jobs.
01:29:34
Speaker
There you go. Well, You guys want to play a game? Yes. Let's go for it. All right. Let's press on. It's time to play guess the title.
01:29:54
Speaker
Let me tell you about this brand new game where you guess the movie's name. You just tell me what the title is and prove you know about showbiz.
01:30:09
Speaker
Guess the title. Whippa, whippa, whippa, whippa. Guess the title. Gooby, gooby, gooby, gooby. Guess the title. Guess the title.
01:30:19
Speaker
Come on, honey. Guess the title. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:30:30
Speaker
That's right. We're playing a little guess the title and we're doing it with the films of Miss Jane Seymour. Oh, fun. Okay. I'm going to read you a description of a Jane Seymour film. I'm going to read you three titles and I want you to tell me which one is the real title of that film.
01:30:47
Speaker
If your opponent gets it wrong, only one of you will get the chance to steal. If the first person who attempts to steal does not get it, then I'm afraid no one gets the points. I like this. I like this.
01:31:00
Speaker
Everybody feeling ready? Yes. Yeah. Oh, and this is a buzz in game. Please buzz in by saying your own name. Question number one. After the loss of their father, two estranged sisters reunite with their mother at the family lake house and learn that the secret to overcoming their tragedies lies in their ability to look deeper at themselves.
01:31:26
Speaker
Is this called living in time? Lake effects or a cabin for women? Greg.
01:31:37
Speaker
Greg? Lake effects. Greg coming out swinging. Wow. It was indeed lake effects. We have a lot of lake effects snow here in Michigan, so I just went with my heart.
01:31:50
Speaker
Okay. I'm not familiar with that term. You don't want to be familiar with what it is. Let me tell you. Okay. Question number two. Sage works to save her school's art program and keep her best friend in this TV movie inspired by an American girl doll.
01:32:09
Speaker
Hmm. Is this Sage paints the sky, Sage and the colors of friendship or Sage rides again. Anna, Anna.
01:32:22
Speaker
Sage rides again.
01:32:26
Speaker
no I'm sorry. It wasn't Sage rides again. Greg. Greg? Sage paints the sky. Oh my God. Greg, you're running away with it.
01:32:39
Speaker
let's not Let's not say anything we can't commit to. I don't want to give you the yips. Question number three. Greg is our only competitor to ever have a perfect game.
01:32:50
Speaker
you Question number three. a young choreographer casts a contemporary dancer and an innovative pianist in New York's most anticipated Broadway show.
01:33:03
Speaker
Is this dance street, the Broadway three or high strung free dance?
01:33:14
Speaker
Greg, Greg, the Broadway three. ah it didn't make any sense. three We wanted to say it. It didn't make any sense. Understandable. Stefa?
01:33:27
Speaker
Stefa? It was the first one. What was it? Like Dance Street or something? The first one was Dance Street.
01:33:36
Speaker
Oh. I'm sorry. The answer was High Strung Free Dance. Terrible name. TV movies can go in so many directions with those names. Yeah. Question number four.
01:33:50
Speaker
After a car accident that claimed his father and sister's lives and also left his mother in a coma, a boy is set to live with his reclusive aunt on Sable Island, a world-renowned wild horse reserve.
01:34:03
Speaker
That sounds right. Yeah. That's a James Eymour movie right there. Definitely. That's what one is. Is this Jade Seymour movie called the Boy and the Horses?
01:34:16
Speaker
Isle of Horses? Or Touching Wild Horses? and I want them to be all three. All three are so... Anna? The Isle of Horses.
01:34:32
Speaker
i'm sorry, it was an Isle of Horses.
01:34:35
Speaker
ah Greg? Greg? Was it Touching Wild Horses? You're back in the saddle, Greg. It was touching wild horses. It shouldn't be.
01:34:46
Speaker
no i shouldn't.
01:34:52
Speaker
Question number five. A female serial killer marries men and then murders them after their first night together. Good for her. Her next target is widower Don McAndrews, but she might have bitten off more than she can chew.
01:35:09
Speaker
Is that praying mantis, o the ultimate widow, or we're both killers? Uh, Stefa. Stefa? I'm going to go with the ultimate widow.
01:35:25
Speaker
no I'm sorry. It wasn't the ultimate widow. Pray mantis or we're both killers? Greg. We're both killers.
01:35:36
Speaker
Oh, I'm sorry. She was the praying mantis. Had to try. It's a great name for a movie. Yeah. Thank you. ah Don McAndrews, I believe, was played by Barry Bostwick.
01:35:48
Speaker
I got to see this. Yeah. Those two together on screen. Electric. Question number six. two CIA agents, a Kung Fu master and a suave womanizer, track the stolen formula for a super sterility drug from Spain to Hong Kong, battling neo-Nazi terrorists in a Vietnamese spy ring for its possession.
01:36:15
Speaker
Is this challenge the tiger overcoming the odds or end of the line?
01:36:25
Speaker
None of those are great names. Anna? I'm going to get the most boring one, End of the Line.
01:36:34
Speaker
Oh, come on. A sterility drug in the movies called End of the Line? That's good stuff. Oh.
01:36:41
Speaker
ah What were they again? The other ones were Challenge the Tiger and Overcoming the Odds. Greg. Greg? Overcoming the Odds.
01:36:54
Speaker
Oh, wow. Sorry. That was challenge the tiger. challenge I'm going to write that down. Challenge the tiger. There's a lot going on in that one. It sounds insane.
01:37:05
Speaker
It's plot heavy. Question number seven. A murdered detective must avenge his murder after he is reincarnated as a dog.
01:37:16
Speaker
Ooh. What I do now that I'm quickly? Yeah. Yeah.
01:37:24
Speaker
Is that fetch? Oh, heavenly dog or Harry Schnauzer P.I.
01:37:34
Speaker
Greg. Greg. Oh, heavenly dog.
01:37:40
Speaker
That's correct. I think I've seen it or one of the versions of it anyway. Chevy chases it. Yeah. Question number eight. a handsome jewel thief is arrested.
01:37:52
Speaker
And in order to avoid prison, he must break into the heavily guarded German embassy and steal millions in gems. Hmm.
01:38:02
Speaker
Is that the German affair? Night theft? Or Lasseter? Stefa. ah Stefa? I'm going to with Lasseter. That's correct.
01:38:19
Speaker
putting one on the board for the guests.
01:38:24
Speaker
Question number nine. Last one.
01:38:30
Speaker
Gloria, I can tell you're locked in.
01:38:34
Speaker
he Like a hawk. Two orphan girls dream of finding a home for Christmas. With a little help from their guardian angels, they discover that miracles can happen when you believe.
01:38:48
Speaker
Is that Buttons, A Christmas Wish? Buttons, You Gotta Believe? Or Buttons, A New Musical Film? Anna.
01:39:04
Speaker
Anna? Buttons, A New Musical Film. That's correct. That's bizarre, and I like it I believe the guardian angels were Angela Lansbury and Dick Van Dyke.
01:39:19
Speaker
Good. Oh, I get a new musical film is, is really like calling it shot with regards to its lifespan. Yeah. Yeah. Very instantly dates it.
01:39:32
Speaker
Oh, it's well, first of all, it's congratulations to Greg winning on our 100th episode. That's right. Yeah.
01:39:43
Speaker
dead zo do do do do do I love it every time. Me too. I'm glad to hear it. It's the Batty Awards.
01:40:02
Speaker
Now you're messing with the Batty Awards. Now you're Batty Awards. you're messing with the Batty Awards. Now you're messing with the Batty Awards. Now you're a mess with the Batty Awards.
01:40:18
Speaker
Congratulations to all the nominees.
01:40:26
Speaker
That's right. Congratulations to all our nominees. It's the Batty Awards. The 100th Batty Awards. I won't do the air horn. Greg, do you have a Batty Award? So you asked me that every time. And this time I was like, what if I just didn't, but I do, I do indeed have a baddie award. And had I had more forethought, I would have made it the same baddie award as last week, because there is a striking similarity between last week's movie and this week's movie. And I'm hoping that it will be a next week's movie. And that is that they both mentioned vaginal juices. So vaginal juices, you get the baddie award.
01:41:10
Speaker
The fact that a sexual horror film and basically a Hallmark movie share something in common proves that there's something wrong with this movie.
01:41:21
Speaker
you
01:41:24
Speaker
I couldn't agree more.
Closing Remarks & Thanks
01:41:25
Speaker
A fantastic Batty Award. Salute to you, vaginal juices. Anna, do you have a Batty Award? I do. And i know we're running long, so I'm going to go as quickly as possible.
01:41:38
Speaker
The dress that Nicole is wearing in the scene where he makes her the fig pizza and the dance on the roof is I, I, I too fully tuned out of the movie for several minutes because I was trying to figure out what was going on with this dress. It's a wrap dress.
01:41:59
Speaker
And on one side, it has a strap and like an off the shoulder ruffle, but the off the shoulder ruffle wraps around. And then there is a smaller ruffle up on the other shoulder and also and He's asymmetrical. and kind It really, it's a real Ross dress for less special.
01:42:20
Speaker
And it ah she does not pull it off. I don't know if anybody could. Okay. But, but I did stare at it for quite a while until I realized that staring at it meant I was staring at Emma Roberts' press. And then I felt bad and I stopped. It's like this non-Euclidean dress has confused me.
01:42:42
Speaker
Yeah. Wow. I'm going to give my Batty Award to Jerry Hall, who played... Now, not the Jerry Hall that was married to... our fathered children with Rolling Stone, Mick Jagger.
01:42:57
Speaker
This is a different woman named Jerry Hall who played Sergeant Strickland, the redheaded cop that... shoves ah Hayden Christensen up against a window and proceeds to sexually assault him in front of a crowd of people in a way that was very off-putting and very, once again, very horny. Yeah. ah And can't give me a reason to the crowd.
01:43:26
Speaker
Yeah. And like, I'm going to rub up under your t-shirt really quick. And yeah, and just like whispering in his ear and played for comedy in a scene that was actually kind of horrific. But also the fact that it was horrific made it sexier. It was weird. yeah It was a weird scene.
01:43:42
Speaker
So i'm I'm giving Jerry a Batty Award. If this movie were a person, it would be asked to leave. Yeah.
01:43:53
Speaker
What about you, Gloria? Do you have a Batty Award? I would like to shout out in the credits where, first of all, the blooper. One of the bloopers is that scene, which is wild to me that you would even bring it back. Yeah. um But i noticed that one of the special thanks was to city counselor Norm Kelly, who was a terrible counselor. Yes. ah And outside of the city, you would probably know him as best as a supporter of Rob Ford.
01:44:26
Speaker
Ah. Wow. Deputy Mayor was always on his side. Team Rob. So, you know, rest in peace, man. All right.
01:44:38
Speaker
And he also helped bring Little Italy into being. So that's that's two strikes. This guy's at least in the third circle of hell. uh stefa do you have a batty award i i it's it's so hard to choose among so many illustrious because what i keep thinking of is the scene where they switch out the oregano for marijuana and just how it's so obviously written by a person who's only heard of drugs described to them via person who's only heard of the drugs described to them yeah it's it's confusing it's racist it's
01:45:14
Speaker
It's the lead into the the the weird cop sexual assault scene that's played for laughs. it's just It's just, of all of the confusing scenes and lines and moments in this movie, that is the most confusing to me.
01:45:31
Speaker
um But legit, I do want to shout out like whoever made those pizzas for this film did an incredible job making those pizzas. Those pizzas were gorgeous. If you like the only redeeming factor of this movie is that the pizzas look amazing.
01:45:42
Speaker
And then I ate a really good pizza when I was watching this movie for this, you know, recording. Well, there you go, listeners. Go get yourself a pizza. Don't watch Little Italy.
01:45:53
Speaker
Get a pizza. Watch a different movie. Glo, Stefan, thank you so much for coming. We're running long, but before I let you go, do you have anything you want to plug? Nope. I'm just here for ah for the fun of it.
01:46:08
Speaker
i You know, I live in Toronto, but I can't say that it's a great place to visit. So. All right. Don't let a little Italy stop you, but there are many other reasons not to. so Although they do have a bulk barn. They They do.
01:46:24
Speaker
they do Bulk Barn is a store where you can buy literally everything in bulk. Anything in bulk. It's all in bulk. It's all there. it's candy. It's baking supplies. It's it's cooking. It's just everything in bulk. It's beautiful.
01:46:37
Speaker
Cool. Bulk Barn. All right. Shout out Bulk Barn. Shout out to us. Congratulations, Greg and Anna, on making it 100. Yeah, congrats, congrats, you guys. It was super fun. I'm so excited about this.
01:46:51
Speaker
Thank you, everybody, for writing in. Yes. Thank you again. And listeners, if you want to write into the mailbag, write into favorite bad movie pod at gmail.com. We'd love to get the segment up again.
01:47:03
Speaker
And, uh, we'd love it. If y'all came back next week, when we'll have Charles star from lab, we're going to be talking about the James Woods movie digs town. I know nothing about digs town. So I'm very excited. And, ah Hey, you got your phone in your hand. We made it to a hundred episodes. If you want to say congratulations, uh,
01:47:22
Speaker
Why don't you give us that five stars, brother? Five stars is free. That's what I always say. ah But until next week, until the next 100 episodes, we'll say to you, ah be good and goodbye.
01:47:37
Speaker
Goodbye. Bye. Good night.
01:47:51
Speaker
I say I'm not in name, say yet. I'm climbing high, so high up in the sky. It feels so right. It feels so right.
01:48:01
Speaker
Where the heavens
01:48:20
Speaker
Kiss my heart and touch my soul and take me home. And take me home.