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#6 Father Karine: 10 Movie Scenes All Men Love
50 Plays4 months ago
Sarah, aka Father_Karine, is a very funny writer. On Substack, she writes about her high maintenance dog, about her young adulthood characterized by all manner of misadventure and disinhibition, and about how she can’t be trusted with excellent fruit. She co-hosts the Brutal Film Girl Experiment Podcast.
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We talked about her post, “A SECOND manic list of 10 film scenes I believe all men love and why they love them, according to me (a woman who's been drinking)."
Show notes…
- Mike Schank’s music—not bad!
- Tulpas are on Reddit. Tulpas are My Little Ponies?
- Animated movies that Sarah likes: Perfect Blue & Akira
- Best non-CGI battle scene ever: Braveheart or Ran?
- The worst best film ever?
- We talk Stephen King who’s been responsible for movies including: Carrie, The Dead Zone, It, Misery, The Shawshank Redemption, The Shining, Stand By Me, Pet Sematary, The Green Mile, Cujo, Children of the Corn. Four of those (emboldened) are all-time greats. Where is his lifetime achievement Oscar?
- Is “Strangers with Candy” ready for a revival?Music by Duncan Barrett, who you can follow and listen to, hereand here.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Sarah, The Humorous Writer
00:00:05
Speaker
This is the Out of the Wild podcast with Ken Ilgunis.
00:00:25
Speaker
Sarah, or as she's known on Substack, Father Karine is a very funny writer. On Substack, she writes about her high maintenance dog, about her young adulthood characterized by all manner of misadventure and disinhibition, and about how she can't be trusted with excellent fruit.
Sarah's Film Tastes and Podcasting
00:00:45
Speaker
She is a film connoisseur of the eclectic and the occult,
00:00:49
Speaker
And she co-hosts the Brutal Film Girl Experiment podcast. Sarah, hello. Hey, Ken. Thanks for having me on. ah um So the first essay I read of yours when I jumped on Substack was, it was titled, a manic list of 10 film scenes I believe all men love and why they love them according to me, a woman who has been drinking.
00:01:16
Speaker
Um, I love that list because not only was it really funny, but it was insightful and you had like random movies in there, like the first super Mario brothers movie and then movies like, um, like movies that the average person wouldn't know, like fits Coroldo. So it's like actually a great way to get some movie recommendations. Anyway, you've published a second list that is equally funny and insightful. And one of your readers writes.
00:01:43
Speaker
I say this without exaggeration. This woman has more insight into the male psyche than all of the men-focused think pieces since 2013 combined." um that's That's high praise there,
Exploring 'American Movie' and Its Characters
00:01:59
Speaker
Sarah. um But anyways, let's start with your 10th best movie, movie scene, and work down to your first. So your first movie is American Movie, which is an American documentary from 1999.
00:02:16
Speaker
And it's about how would you describe it's about um one guy who wants to make a horror film. And you really like the scenes with kind of his his partner in crime, Mike Shank. Can you describe why you like those Mike Shank scenes? Yeah, I think um well the dynamic between the two of them is just, you know, there's something we've all had a friend that's a little bit of a fuck up that's just so lovable that you can't help. But like, you know, they've got this joie de vie about them, you know, that you can't really put into words. And I think Mike really has that star quality. But, ah you know, on paper, he's just kind of a guy that drinks a lot and, you know, doesn't really have a ton of hobbies and just shows up and just wants to drink a beer. And he's just so happy to be part of the part of the film. um And, you know, he's got these one liners that I think are just like absolutely fantastic throughout the film. And he's a good foil, too.
00:03:14
Speaker
Partying my basement I always used to get like pissed off inside cuz I would want to party really heavy and no one else would you know and then all of a sudden mark came over and uh It's either I had a bottle of vodka or you had a bottle of vodka. But anyway, we were drinking vodka and I was I was so happy that I found someone who would drink vodka with me, you know. So I'm like drink suspiciously, you know, like perfect as friends for this movie. You know, like not only do they look different, like Mark's tall and lanky and and Mike is, you know, ah pudgy and a bit shorter.
00:03:54
Speaker
but they have just like complimentary temperaments, like one's, you know, one's super talkative and a bit pushy and a bit annoying. And then Mike, he's just kind of sweet and taciturn and deadpan. So it's just like almost like suspiciously perfect, you know? Yeah, yeah. It's the ultimate buddy comedy, which is so funny because it's a documentary about two guys that were just friends, um you know, trying to make this low budget,
00:04:23
Speaker
horror film in Wisconsin in the 90s. And, um you know, it's it's funny that, you know, nothing in fiction, I think can compare to it. So really just a there's just something about that film that is just such a joy to watch, I think.
00:04:39
Speaker
that That film, um if someone hasn't seen it, it's called the 17th best documentary ever ever made by the International Documentary Association. I mean, I think you anyone can make the case that this is like the best documentary ever made. And yeah something I never really noticed is like editing.
00:04:58
Speaker
But the editing in this movie is so good because it's just like it's always kind of maximizing the comedic value of of every moment. it's It's such a funny documentary. And I feel like, you know, if we're going to send like a time capsule into space to to tell aliens like what people were really like, what Americans were really like.
00:05:21
Speaker
I think this would be like one of the 10 movies you put in that time capsule because it just seems like genuine genuine people, genuine American life. Yeah, for sure. And I think, you know, evidence of a bygone era, you know, back in the day, I don't know how old you are, but when I was younger, making little stupid movies with your friends was one of the you know ways to pass the time. And I think a lot of people can watch this, you know, that are in their late 30s, 40s, 50s and say, I remember doing dumb shit like this with my friends and, you know, freezing in the cold and drinking and doing some creative project that had no artistic merit to it at all. And it was just really about being there and, you know, creating and being with your friends. I'm wondering what women think of Mark um and he's the Paul Lanky kind of, yeah he's kind of like Steve Jobsian in some way and that he can kind of like,
00:06:16
Speaker
be very kind of persuasive and pushy and, you know, get you to, you know, send $5,000 to support his movie or whatever. I remember my wife said that men who are kind of active and ambitious, like there's attractiveness there. And at one point he takes his shirt off and he's like, oh, he's got like a nice build. I'm wondering if he has any allure. yeah Well, he does have like a girlfriend in that movie that's like not bad looking at all for him so i think he was punching above his weight a little bit ah for sure there is yeah i think it depends on the woman because he does have that kind of psychopathic artistic creative spirit that you know when you pair it with talent it's you know
00:06:57
Speaker
incredibly attractive to a lot of women. Unfortunately, like I'm not sure if the talent was there. I haven't seen Coven or Northwestern. You're more of a- It's Coven, by the way. Oh, sorry. It's Coven. I forget. Have you seen either of those?
00:07:15
Speaker
i've I've seen clips of them, they're borderline unwatchable. like they're just they're not i mean they're just They're so bad, they're almost good. um So he reminds me a lot of like Ed Wood and Tommy Wiseau, Neil Breen, these guys that just have all of the passion and the drive and the vision, but maybe you know not so much the the actual talent to back it up. um And certainly there's something attractive about that. but you know And there's something ah something about when someone has complete control over a project, which was the case with timy Tommy Tommy Wiseau, who was depicted in the disaster artist, the James Franco movie. And I think that was the case with with Mark. I think I think we really do see into someone's mind when they can be the writer, director, producer, whatever. And we're going to get to another unwatchable film a little bit later on. But just another word about Mike Shank.
00:08:08
Speaker
um Unfortunately, he died in 2022. He's got some music up on, he did the music for American movie and it's it's really, it's pretty good actually. It's got kind of like a medieval kind of Britain sort of feel to it. like um And yeah, I'll post some YouTube clips of his music up on the on the show notes.
Emotional Impact of 'The Iron Giant'
00:08:34
Speaker
um Okay let's move on to number nine you've got the iron giant um an animated film from nineteen ninety nine and you pick the scene superman.
00:09:03
Speaker
towards the end of the movie. Do you want to talk about that one? Yeah, um this one actually my husband showed to me like, I'm not a big into animated films so much. I just, you know, ah maybe i'm I'm a little bit sort of snooty about them. You know, like I like dark animated films. Iron Giant can pass as a children's movie. So it's like, you know, I'm fine watching like a perfect blue or like an Akira or something like that. That's a little bit like dark uh, darker, but I'm not so big into children's movies. My husband showed this to me and I looked over and he's a very stoic man. And I looked over at one point and I saw him like choking up during the scene and I was like, are you fucking crying? Like, are you serious? And it was just such a, like a moment to me to be like, oh man, like this, this scene really cuts deep, uh, with, and it is like a ah very man movie to me because it's got the robots, the cold war setting.
00:10:02
Speaker
you know the the robots voiced by Vin Diesel. So you know it has all these elements of a movie that I think is geared towards men. um But then it has this really sentimental scene, you know that which is the Superman scene that i think I think a lot of people find deeply affecting. I don't think my husband is particularly unique.
00:10:23
Speaker
ah in that regard and it always stuck with me like to see them like it's like a robot exploding. It's a great movie but like at the same time I'm like it's a robotics it's a cartoon robot exploding like you know it's not fucking Schindler's List. So it always stuck with me to see him like you know it choke up a little bit during that scene.
00:10:44
Speaker
And you write about that in your piece. You write, if your man can watch the scene without shedding a single tear, I'm afraid I have bad news. He does not have a soul and he cannot love you. He is a tulpa, an empty idea of a person willed into corporeal form by a lonely broken mind.
00:11:02
Speaker
birth by a dark schism this malevolent thought form with the shape of a man can only be be destroyed by being intentionally reabsorbed into the source mind that might be too complex for me to understand there and i went to your link to explain topas and help us look a lot more positive in the link than what you're describing here. oh You should go to the topa subreddit because. um It gets pretty dark there, you know. connectionly yeah What ah can you give a better description of ah ah a what is it? How did you come across the idea of Topaz? They got popular on the Internet. oh it's It's basically a belief that's in ah you know ah Tibetan Buddhism. It's in plain English. It's an imaginary friend. And it's the idea that you can construct like ah an actualized person just by using your mind, basically.
00:11:54
Speaker
um I don't believe they actually exist, of course, ah but there's a hilarious subreddit where people like create these Tulpas, and like they'll you'll have people like posting as the Tulpa, being like, I didn't ask to be brought into this world. It's just like, it's so fun. It's been like 18 different levels, but it's really funny. I heard it. I went kind of crazy on the My Little Pony webpage or something like that.
00:12:21
Speaker
the Yeah, there's a lot of people working out there with like a bunch of other mentally ill, like, you know, sub genres of ah people. But yeah.
00:12:33
Speaker
Pretty soon the tulpa, you know, starts calling the shots after the person makes it, you know, it takes over and it's a tale as old as time. Well, let's hope none of our partners are secretly tulpas. um Yeah. Number eight, you have Old Boy, a South Korean film from 2003. This is the famous octopus scene um in which our protagonist eats a live octopus
00:13:11
Speaker
And that was a real, it wasn't a CGI octopus, that was a real one. I think he had to eat four of them. He said a prayer before, um the actor said a prayer before um eating each octopus. What was it about this scene that you liked? It's a very savage scene.
00:13:30
Speaker
um I mean, it's a man eating a live octopus.
Savage Scenes in Cinema: 'Old Boy' to 'Ran'
00:13:34
Speaker
You know, how many women would agree to do that? Probably not many. And he was a vegetarian, which is why he said the prayer, which I guess makes it OK. ah you got um And I just thought it was a really cool scene. You know, I'm a big animal rights person. um And so and I watch a lot of films that have, you know, in a real animal death in them. And sometimes you get a little icked out when the movie is not so good or it doesn't use it properly. i think And here, I think was one time where I think everyone can agree that ah it was done so purposefully. um you know The point of it was he had been locked up for you know over a decade at this point in a small room by his captors. And to see him come out and the first thing he wants to do is eat a live octopus.
00:14:27
Speaker
um I think it was a really cool scene, a meaningful scene because he wants to be alive again. and you know I think Roger Deibert had a review where he he said you know he's not trying to eat the octopus. He's trying to eat the life itself because he hasn't had one for 15 years or whatever it is. um So it's a super cool scene.
00:14:47
Speaker
That was my take on it. I read some reviews online and they were just... This is one I read online about why he's eating the octopus. It's a misdirected enactment of revenge on a helpless creature, one that makes him know better than his doom meal. I like that, but when I watched it the first time, my thinking was this guy just wants to live and he just wants to... He wants a squirming thing in his mouth to remind him that this is all real and that he's alive. We don't know each other, and I just sent you kind of a cold call. I was like, oh, would you come on my podcast? And I figured you were going to say no. And if you said no, I was going to suggest I could eat alive something, a live octopus in the middle of this podcast.
00:15:34
Speaker
So you got to work on your haggling skills there a little bit. No, I'll say yes to anything. That's kind of why I have so many shitty stories on my sub-stack, saying yes to stuff. I probably shouldn't say yes to. Okay. um have Have you ever kind of eaten anything for like a ceremonial purpose, something to kind of give you like ah like a life power or something like that?
00:16:00
Speaker
I think I had Balut one time, which is the Indonesian Fertilized Duck Egg. um But other than that, I'm trying to think. and i'm like a straight up pescatarian. So it's been like a long time since I've eaten something like that. um I once ate a chicken finger burrito from Buffalo, New York, about as as long as my arm. For ceremonial purposes. It was kind of a just a dare. And I got a lot of like eating cred from my friends, but I didn't feel more alive or powerful. I think I just felt sleepy after that whole thing. um Well, don't you live in England?
00:16:40
Speaker
I live in Scotland. Yeah, but I'm from Buffalo, New York. Okay. All right. Yeah. Number seven. um This is the movie Ran ah by Akira Kurosawa from 1985. This one's called Siege at Third Castle. And I don't remember all the context. It's been a long time since I've seen this movie.
00:17:00
Speaker
to why there is this big battle scene. But you can find a little four or five minute clip of it. And it's it's like it's like art. I mean, this is the artistry of of cinematography and um costume design and setting the scene. What was it about you that what was about the scene that that you like so much about it? I mean, for some I'm so anti CGI and like this is the film to watch if you hate CGI.
00:17:28
Speaker
just to see how it was done back then. And it is mind blowing. Sometimes it's it's a tough scene to watch because you can't watch it and help but think of the of how much work it took to get the shots with all of the horses and you know the soldiers and you know the like particularly like the horses.
00:17:49
Speaker
like better off not knowing who what Kurosawa did with those horses um because it was just such a a crazy scene to watch. um And it's just such a it's a beautiful battle scene, um a very bloody battle scene. I love the concubine stabbing themselves, like just like the the chaos of it. um And then you have ah the the Lord that's in the burning castle, and he's going insane. um And like the look on his face is just, I don't know, it's very much, you know people always like talk about Barry Lyndon being like, ooh, it's like a painting.
00:18:24
Speaker
But like Kurosawa, this film to me is like a painting um as well. It was ah like a minute attention to detail. Just like a broken arrow in someone's chest is just like bent in the perfect way. The the most striking thing about that scene when I rewatched it was that there was no sound effects. There was no yelling, no screaming. It was just music as a background to this, you know, five minutes of of artistry.
00:18:59
Speaker
This movie cost about 12 million US dollars at the time, which was among the most expensive in Japanese history. Fourteen hundreds uniforms and suits of armor were made for the extras, um handmade by master tailors for over two years. So you can just see just how much um attention he and his film crew brought into it. and The other thought I had was like, there's like real arrows being shot in those scenes. I was like, this has got to be dangerous. And the horses too, like people getting trampled and whatnot, like, I assume there were many injuries that we just are not hearing about because it's Japan and they're like, you know, walk it off over there, you know, versus here, there'd be 35 lawsuits and, you know, thought catalog pieces about, you know, treatment on the set. Yeah. Is is this the greatest non CGI battle scene ever?
00:19:55
Speaker
Let me think about that. I think so. I would put it, trying to think what else? I don't know. Dunkirk had some good ones, but I'm assuming those were CGI, right? um i I don't know. um which Which Dunkirk one are you thinking about, like the airborne ones? or I don't know. I don't think there actually was that much action in Dunkirk. Oh, the actual film? Yeah. Are you thinking of Saving Private Ryan?
00:20:21
Speaker
No, and I actually have not seen Saving Private Ryan. The only other major kind of non CGI battle scene that comes to mind is the battle of Sterling and Braveheart where they all oh they use like the Irish army and it was like thousands of them. and Yeah. I wasn't even thinking Braveheart. Yeah. There's less, there's less kind of, you know, framing and artistry in the Braveheart one, but just in scope. Yeah. I watched Braveheart when I was like a 13 year old boy and just fell in love with it so It's always going to have a soft spot in my my mind. um Anything else on Rand before we move on to the next one? No, but if you have any female listeners and you want to get into Kurosawa, this would be my recommendation for um like a nice like you know intro to Kurosawa because it does have, you know I think, some really cool female characters in it, which not really his specialty.
Cult Classics and Tragic Tales: 'Manos' and John Reynolds
00:21:14
Speaker
so The next one is number six, um Manos, The Hands of Fate. I'm not laughing because I'm just saying the title. From 1966, the scene you point out is Torgos. I'll get the the luggage.
00:21:41
Speaker
but we should We should describe the plot of the movie of Manos. Would you be willing to do that, Sarah? ah Yeah, sure. It's a husband and a wife. First of all, it's back in the 60s. A husband and his wife and their young child are going on vacation and they're driving around what seems to be California.
00:22:00
Speaker
ah They get lost and they stumble upon a lodge out in the desert, and it turns out the lodge is run by a polygamist cult. um ah The leader of the cult is a man that goes by the name Master, and he's got a misshapen man servant who goes by the name of Torgo, and the Master has, I think, seven or eight wives or something like that. um and and you know ah good Take a guess what happens from there.
00:22:31
Speaker
Well, I mean, it's been called um the worst film ever made and um for good reason. um it's But yet it was terrible in that the acting is terrible and people are just like getting these inexplicable injuries just for walking through sand and they can't get up. And it's just just absolutely absurd. But it does check a few of my boxes.
00:22:56
Speaker
And that's like it it went under 90 minutes of runtime. It was only one hour and 14 minutes. Granted, that felt like a long one hour. But the ending was, and I won't give what the ending was, but it was unpredictable, a bit shocking, and pretty satisfying. um It was just the rest of it that was just a complete mess. But can we talk about Torgo for a second? he was played by um John Reynolds, I don't know if he was in anything else. I don't think he was, yeah. No, it's actually a good looking man, I think, and um he was on some sort of drugs, I don't know if it was P.A.R. or LSD or whatever, but
00:23:41
Speaker
He's he carries the movie there's just something weird about how he moves in his facial ticks and his hand ticks and he's just a very kind of like servile. Person um and he committed suicide um just before this film was released and I found the. um a blog from the for the the young girl, Debbie, yeah and she writes, um on the set of Manos, John was often, if not always, high. My dad says that everyone on the set knew things weren't going well, that this was not going to be a great film and that they should all just get through it and go home.
00:24:25
Speaker
John may have realized that this was far from the opportunity he was hoping for. And sadly, my dad says that Manos may have in some way contributed to his suicide. um So very tragic, but it kind of lets this film kind of live on a bit. Yeah. I mean, it is he's famous ah as Torgo. ah the The film is famous, I think,
00:24:52
Speaker
A lot of people know this film from Mystery Science Theater, which is where I first watched it. um And I think, hands down, it's the worst film ever made, the the best worst film ever made. And it's because of Torgo and it's because of his performance as Torgo, I think, that makes it so fun to watch and great. um And it's really unfortunate that he didn't get to live to see the legacy of Manos.
00:25:20
Speaker
Robert McKee, the author of Story, a very popular book about screenwriting. He doesn't talk about Torgo, but he does say this about protagonists. He says, the protagonist in particular is a willful being. The exact quantity of this willpower, however, may not be measurable. Quality of willpower is as important as quantity.
00:25:44
Speaker
And I think Torgo carries the movie because he's willful. Like I don't know what anybody else really wants in this movie. Like the family who gets stuck at this cabin, it doesn't seem like they even want to go. Like they just like purposely get stuck at like two o'clock in the afternoon and yeah it's dark or whatever. Yeah, they can leave at any time, but they don't. Yeah, they can't walk through sand or whatever. Um, but Torgo, he wants.
00:26:11
Speaker
He wants women cause because there's this the master um has a monopoly over the six brides there. um Yeah, so he wants something. He's a protagonist, I guess. I wanted to do just a little intermission because I um really like some of your your notes that you write on Substack. Okay. Can I read off a couple of those? Yeah, sure. Oh, Jesus.
00:26:39
Speaker
um Okay, so you said this on January 18th. I've been saying that educated mid-30s women is one of the most marginalized groups in this country for years. We're basically America's Uyghurs. And Uyghur, I should point out, this is me talking, not you. That's a Turkish ethnic group persecuted in China. It's not a Uyghur. That's going to come up later in the show.
00:27:04
Speaker
um Yeah, we're basically America's Uyghurs and someone should give us some money or attention. Do you do you feel kind of unseen as a white 30s woman right now? Yes, I feel really, really marginalized, um ah just never represented. now Actually, that note was replying to someone else's note, which probably I shouldn't do.
00:27:26
Speaker
um I feel like I can hear like my mother being like, I don't have something nice to say. I don't say anything at all. It was applying to someone's note that was like ah when like, I feel like society doesn't recognize ah educated women in their mid 30s, you're either treated like ah like a child or like an old lady. And I found it so absolutely ridiculous, which is why I posted that. Because i was I read that, I was like, damn, women will find anything to fucking bitch about. Like, it's just like, Jesus Christ, we're not really beating the allegations that were like, you know, whiny, like, fucking attention for us. Like,
00:28:05
Speaker
so yeah The answer the serious answer to that is no i don't feel marginalized as an educated i didn't want the serious answer on january thirteenth you write.
The Challenges of Writing on Substack
00:28:14
Speaker
Seventy percent of sub sec notes are just shit like honk if you're horny for writing and then two thousand master batori comments being like oh beep beep.
00:28:24
Speaker
Who up stroking they pen? Where are my fellow writers at? And then screenshot of subscriber report. Thank you to my 64 subscribers. I was going to shoot up a Kohl's today, but I decided to hold off. Y'all are awesome. Such, such a reverence, Sarah. Hey, I just really dislike sub stack. I know I'm on it. So that's, um, you know,
00:28:50
Speaker
I guess jokes on me, but and really hate the I really hate the app. If I can figure out a way how to like transmit my thoughts and writing ah without having without being on a platform, I will do it.
00:29:02
Speaker
There's, there are some annoying, I've only been on it for like six months. And well, one, just getting bombarded in your email inbox as like a way of getting stories is just ridiculous. But yeah, you have a ton of people on there just kind of promoting how many subscribers they have. Like who wants to read? I i want, I have a hundred subscribers. I have 10,000. Like nobody wants to read you kind of, um, championing yourself. And there is kind of like this whole, like, Oh, we're a community of writers. yeah Writers don't it know anything about communities. you know
00:29:37
Speaker
like yeah Professional writers don't think of themselves as part of it like in a community or anything. Yeah. I i definitely ah hate that aspect of it. It's like some cult of writing or want to be writers. um it's just It's all very like people that like to smell their own farts to me, which it's just, I don't know. and That's the worst thing about sub-stack really.
00:30:03
Speaker
If I could just like unsubscribe people from my substack, I would. I think you can do that. Oh, really? Yeah. Oh, wow. You can totally go into your list. I'm going to look at their profiles first and see if they are worthy.
00:30:17
Speaker
Last one, on November 20th, you wrote, um I'll literally do anything to avoid writing an actual book. Everything I create, a sub-stack post, a podcast, this very note, is just ejaculating my creative essence. You have a way with words. My creative essence into an old sock that gets thrown into a dumpster when I should be saving it for that special lady, my my book. My first question from that is, are are you working on a book? Are you thinking about a book?
00:30:46
Speaker
I am. I'm trying. it's Yes, i'm I've just started. um Let's see if I have enough self you know-restraint to do it. But like it's like all of these distractions, you know podcasts, writing about film, doing the stupid subtract notes, it's like if I just stop doing that, I would have enough time to sit down and actually write something, I think, a little more meaningful and a little less you know pop culture, which i you know I'm glad you like my articles and stuff like that. But like there is a difference between a listicle about film and like an actual book that gets published that you can pick up and hold versus something that you post to a platform where someone else is just posting you know thirst for us.
00:31:34
Speaker
they're strapped selfies of themselves. you know like i mean I don't know what your your book is about and when we can save that for another conversation, but my my first thought is just like, you know you could reuse a lot of the stuff. It's not like you're using it and you can only use it once. It can always go back into a book, right? Yeah, I'm writing a fiction book. um you know someone Other people have told me they're like, oh, you should like publish like a nonfiction book, but like I think the time and place for nonfiction stuff that's funny. I don't know if book is the right medium for it. I like posting on sub-stack because it feels like such an unserious medium for my unserious writing, which is why I like it because I i really don't take anything that I write very seriously, which is why it's perfect for sub-stack. I don't understand why people post
00:32:27
Speaker
chapters of a book on Substack, like save that, write a real book, and then maybe advertise it on Substack once it's published. I don't know, I'm kind of a a Luddite, so I don't like ah like posting things, posting chapters of a book tidbit by tidbit for people on Substack just feels a little weird to me. It's like book TikTok or something.
00:32:48
Speaker
Yeah. I don't know. Well, I would love to see your real name on a book someday. Oh, thank you. Thank you. I would never publish it on my real name, but... Okay. um Let's get back
Nostalgia and Friendship in 'Stand By Me'
00:33:00
Speaker
to the movies here. We have scene number five. This comes from the movie Stand By Me, a Rob Reiner film from 1986. You're picking The last scenes to stand by me, I don't think it needs much of a description. Four boys go looking for a dead body and kind of 1950s rural America. What was it about this this last scene that did it for you? I it's a fun scene in terms of like thinking about friendships that you had when you were younger. And I think it is a really poignant scene because it's really not about, you know, the friendships you make when you're young.
00:33:38
Speaker
and maybe going through some traumatic experience that you think will bind you together for the rest of you know ah your lives. It's really just about being that young ah and kind of romanticizing friendship back then before life gets too complicated as an adult. I'm never going to get out of this town now, my gory. You can do anything you want, man. Yeah.
00:34:13
Speaker
And I think Stephen King has a way with words with that. um Just ah capturing the sense of nostalgia ah for friendship that when you were young you know and when friends were literally everything and you know ah before you become an actualized person and realize that maybe it's a little more complicated than you know bodies in the woods and comic books and all that stuff.
00:34:42
Speaker
Yeah, um you write that the ending shoot ah shoots a bittersweet nostalgia bullet directly into every man's brain. It sounds like it did into your brain as well. um Yeah, it's ah it's a wonderful movie, a wonderful wonderful scene. It's read by ah ah Richard Dreyfuss. He acts as the adult version of Wil Wheaton, the boy in the movie. And What did it for me in that scene? You know, we think of Stand By Me as kind of like a friend movie, but it's also like a movie about um sons and fathers because you don't see, you know, really much presence of the fathers at all, but all these boys are struggling the way they are because of poor relationships with their fathers. And Richard Dreyfus kind of finishes this book on some, you know, old 1986 computer.
00:35:35
Speaker
And then he goes out and he's like playing with his boys on the front lawn. So it's just, it's just a wonderful way. Cause it's just like we, in this case, generationally fixed the issue. He became a good father for his son. It's just a a terrific ending to that movie. Yeah. And I agree. I think one of the best things about the film is you go back and it is a simpler time before, you know, social media and phones and and all that stuff, but at the the same time you see, you know, while it was a simpler time, you know, the problems that I think these kids were dealing with, like the abuse was physical and like true emotional abuse and neglect. And, you know, the bullying wasn't, you know, someone on the internet calling you gay or whatever. It was like some guy in a leather jacket with a switchblade, like hunting down in the woods. So there is that, you know, you know, a nice reality check that
00:36:31
Speaker
While it might have been a simpler time, it was certainly a very different time in terms of the problems that we we had back then. I want to talk about Stephen King for a moment. He's someone I don't think about very much, and I don't think most people do. i remember i was sitting around ah a campfire once and there was a Stephen King paperback and this girl who was kind of snooty English major, she kicked the Stephen King book into the bonfire as if to say, I'm kind of above you know this kind of serial writing, this like embossed paperback writing.
00:37:11
Speaker
I later learned that her favorite movie was Shawshank Redemption, which was written by Stephen King and I don't think she she knew that. um But Stephen King has been a part of, I was looking at this and on the internet, I couldn't come up with a ah number, but the low end is 55 movies. He's like,
00:37:29
Speaker
ah either been ah adapted from a book or it was just straight to screenplay. Movies like Carrie, The Dead Zone, It, Misery, The Shawshank Redemption, The Shining, Stand By Me, Pet Sematary, The Green Mile, Kujo, Children of the Corn. There's four of those movies um that he's, ah it could arguably be like listed in like the top 100 American movies ever.
00:37:56
Speaker
But I don't think we think of him as as as as though he's given us these amazing gifts. Oh, I was a huge Stephen King fan growing up. I think I started reading him when I was like eight or nine because my mother was a huge fan of his. So I've always been on the Stephen King, you know, fan wagon. The thing is like with him and he's not like, ah you know, ah first of all, he's a writer, not a director, really. um But, you know, I think some of his books obviously are but They can't all be bangers right when you're turning out a book every you know whatever three months, or I don't know what his what his output rate is, but it's a lot.
00:38:36
Speaker
um and yeah i mean like I would be very insulted if someone said that he wasn't like one of the top. you know writers of, you know, the last century. So I like stuff. He's not spoken that way, certainly in like no English department has has ever said that. Yeah. And I think i think because he's he's also like a screenwriter or his movies get a dab. It doesn't have the same cachet as like being a ah director or an actor. So he's just kind of like
00:39:07
Speaker
Like most people don't know that he was responsible for Stand By Me or the Shawshank Redemption. Yeah, but those were his shorts too, which I think, you know, and they're they're not supernatural films. And I think, you know, for the same reason horror films don't win Oscars, um the same reason horror books don't really, you know, get noticed by, you know, literary powerhouses and literary critics and and whatnot. It's a genre that's always been, you know, pulp.
00:39:35
Speaker
um ah And not really respected, I think, outside of like gothic novels from, you know, a Victorian era, like Frankenstein, obviously, and, you know, ones that break through every once in a while, but um people don't like people view horror as a very pedestrian genre in terms of both writing and film.
00:39:58
Speaker
I've never read a ah Stephen King novel, though I do have like 11, 64. It's like a date. I have that on my Audible. You should read one. They're really good. Some of them are really bad though, so pick a good one. Number four is Ex Machina from 2014.
Dance Scenes and AI Humor in 'Ex Machina'
00:40:18
Speaker
You chose the scene Dance Dance Kyoko. Do you want to describe that scene?
00:40:25
Speaker
ah Yeah, it's the scene in which, I forget, it's like probably three quarters through the movie, um where it's you know the the programmer with his boss, who's this weird tech multi-millionaire genius,
00:40:44
Speaker
um a yeah the programmer is freaking out about mistreatment of one of the the robots, and the boss just kind of shrugs them off. and starts ah dancing with one of the other ah robots. And it's a very bizarre ah but fun scene. I told you, you're wasting your time talking to her. However, you would not be wasting your time if you were dancing with her.
00:41:15
Speaker
It's just, you know, the one programmer is being so serious. um And the the other is ah his boss is just like, dude, none of this is serious at all. None of it matters. And they start doing this weird disco dance that she's programmed to do. um And yeah, it's and it's very bizarre. But the ah cory hand the choreography is fantastic. It's very 70s disco ball kind of funky monkey stuff.
00:41:49
Speaker
um Yeah, it's a fun scene, but also very dark, too, that you could just you know take your sex robot and make her do a little dance for you. Yeah, and they're they're dancing and they're doing it in sync, but there's no kind of bond between robot woman and um and man. you know There's no intimacy there. and and the The first thought I had when I watched it scene was, of oh i I wish I could dance like that. It looks fun. It's fun. Yeah. Yeah. um So this is like your quote of the of the piece that has been quoted a number of times.
00:42:25
Speaker
Men, however, have but one takeaway from this scene. Immediately before the sex robots become sentient and kill us all, there will be a brief period of time when it's going to be totally fucking awesome for men everywhere. Somewhere, 100 years from from now, the last human male is running from a big, tidied, Sydney Sweeney killbot.
00:42:47
Speaker
Immediately after she rips out his beating heart, a final threadbare thought will roll through his dimming synapses. Worth it. Well done. Terrific. Yeah. I mean, I think that's going to be true. I think it's going to, with AI and whatnot, I think it's going to be really fun for when men get to level up from just, you know. So you you'll think that um ah people will have relationships with robots, sex bots, whatever, but it's only going to be for a brief period of time. That's the point you're making? Yeah. Right before things go south, I think. Right before the great coup or the uprising. Yeah. um Yeah. But I mean, it's only a matter of time. We're almost there right now. I think just
00:43:34
Speaker
They're cost prohibitive right now. We already have, we've got the software um and we have the ah ah real dolls. Someone could just like put those two together, you know, bam, but it's going to be, yeah. If you had to make like a male robot, like based on someone, an actor or anybody. Women would never do this. so i did like That's just like, yeah. I mean, if I had like $10,000, I'm not spending it on a a sex robot.
00:44:03
Speaker
Okay. yeah um I put a a short, list just a ah quick list together of best dance scenes in non-dance movies. And this maybe should have made the the top five. It's a pretty mainstream list here. I'm interested if anything else comes to your mind. I have um the Jack Rabbit Slims dance from Pulp Fiction.
00:44:27
Speaker
I have um Dirk Digler's Disco Moves and Boogie Nights, the tidy whitey Tom Cruise scene in Risky Business.
00:44:38
Speaker
um The two sisters dance in dog tooth. like That was oh yeah weird and unforgettable. like That's as if two people who've never seen dance had to create a dance out of and nothing. And then I just added um Mads Mikkelsen, his jazz belay thing in the movie Another Round. Does anything else come to mind for you? Kind of in like a non-dance movie. Yeah, I mean, Jorgos,
00:45:06
Speaker
ah I always butcher his last name, Lanthamos. Basically all of his movies basically have a dance sequence in them. In the favorite, the one ah with Emma Stone. um And then in his most recent one, Ju, the other Emma Stone movie.
00:45:23
Speaker
Number three, I have Paths of Glory, a Stanley Kubrick film from 1957. This is the end song scene. This is a movie I haven't seen in 20 years, so I can barely remember remember it, but it's a World War I movie starring Kirk Douglas. It's kind of an anti-war film about troops who refuse orders, and this scene is where you have all these French troops kind of sitting in kind of like a ah beer hall, and they're basically a mob and nasty and belligerent, and they're all kind of screaming and yelling at this poor German woman who's dragged up on stage. Limitations, as a matter of fact, she has absolutely no talent at all, except that is, well, maybe a little natural talent. yeah
00:46:18
Speaker
to sing a song for the men and at first they keep hooting and hollering you know it's very you know very sexist and then they kind of all become little boys and start to tear up
00:46:40
Speaker
and asman i bo sha ba the sign how sleepian itaan lock And sing along.
00:46:51
Speaker
i without Without knowing what the movie is about, just watching that three minute clip, I teared up a little bit because yeah just, yeah, just in that three minute clip, there's just so much to take from it. Yeah, it's pretty, pretty heavy scene.
00:47:08
Speaker
um I think it's something men relate to, too, because, you know, encoded in your DNA, I think is ah regardless of whether he fought in war or not, your ancestors have. And I think the horrors of war, something every man remembers, regardless of whether he's not fought in the war or not. And I feel like that scene really makes you feel um like you were, you know, just straight ah out of the trenches. um So I think it's a cool scene for that.
00:47:38
Speaker
kind of reason and why it's able to generate such an emotional response in men. Yeah. And um that that German woman became Stanley Kubrick's wife. she sang the song The song was called The Faithful Hussar. And yeah, it was just a moment when this simple song humanize these men. they They always had the humanity within them, but just something was there that needed to evoke it. And it's really nice to hear kind of your explanation there. And I think what I love about your your writing in your lists is it's it's very irreverent, but it's not malevolent at all. Is that something you you think about when you write these? Yeah, yeah. I'm, you know,
00:48:30
Speaker
First of all, I hate this, you know, particularly on Substack, there's a lot of gender war kind of stuff between men and women right now where or black pill, red pill, whatever. um And I do like lighthearted kind of gender poking fun both ways, as you can see, like I make fun of women sometimes too. And, um you know, my goal isn't to ridicule men or or anything like that with this stuff, but um to playfully kind of call out differences, I think, between the two camps and things that may resonate with wi ah with men that you know women might have a little bit of an eye roll for or whatnot. um And you know I think that's why people have been so receptive to the articles, women too, because we've all we've all
00:49:20
Speaker
been with men that were just like, fucking Pastor Glory Man, Kubrick's finest, like, you know. And it's ah so I think it hits home to to to both um to both camps. And it's it's never meant to be malevolent or anything. If anything, it's you know yeah ah celebrating a specific type of of man that likes these films. It's a little bit of a film bro.
00:49:45
Speaker
ah And, you know, there's nothing I like more. The pretentious people make me laugh. I really enjoy them. What would the world be without pretentious people? So, um you know, it's it's all and in good fun.
00:49:59
Speaker
Well, thank you for capturing our complexity and and range as a as with gender, um as a sex. So let's move on to number two.
Purpose and Revenge in 'The Godfather' and 'True Romance'
00:50:09
Speaker
This is um The Godfather from 1972. This is the scene called, Oh, No, My Hot, Simple Wife Exploded. How are you? Good, bye-bye. Nicole, I'm so happy to have you here.
00:50:37
Speaker
um And this is a scene where um it's Michael Corleone, right? Michael Corleone is in Italy and someone wants to kill him. So they've um planted a bomb under his car and his brand new wife, a beautiful young Italian, or her real name is Simonetta Stefanelli. She was 16 at the time. Yeah, I know. I know. i like kind of spoke about her in a very adult manner, which, you know, I know she's like 16, but whatever. Yeah. And because she was 16, no man can ever say she was, you know, good looking or beautiful or anything. Yeah, you guys are good on this. I can say it, but you could go right on the list. Okay, so yeah, why did you include this one?
00:51:23
Speaker
I mean, I love, I love this scene. I love this film. um And it's just like like, she's so happy to be in the car. She's like, oh, beep, beep. and She just blows up. And it's just so funny to me. And I watched that. And I'm like, man, I'm like, there comes a time in every man's life where his wife explodes, his simple wife explodes ah to make room for a more complicated ah wife and life later on. It's like losing your baby teeth, right? It's like a rite of passage. um So she was really a metaphor to me, like, you know, like ah just something put in the film to really kind of kill off the last vestige of, you know, his conscience and really turn him into the the fucking Godfather.
00:52:10
Speaker
Yeah, and you ask, um who could I become if my hot, simple wife exploded? And I think that's a good question. And I think what you're really getting at here is that men, and maybe everyone, but men certainly, we desire like a life script, a very clear life script. And Michael Corleone didn't have one at the time as he was marrying this this this young woman.
00:52:35
Speaker
But suddenly, when she explodes, he has this revenge life script. His hot wife dies, but now he's a mobster. He's part of a family. He's got something to do. He has an identity. So I think men might prefer an extraordinary revenge fantasy. That life script versus the hot Italian wife fantasy, which is just pasta and wine. Oh, yeah. They want a purpose. Yeah, for sure. Am I close to what you're saying there? Absolutely. I think it's one of the reasons the revenge genre is so popular with men. It's like, you know, whether it's Apollonia exploding or John Wick's dog dying, it's like something that really sets your life, you know, clears the fog in your life. This is what I'm doing. I have a purpose, a mission type of thing. And absolutely. I don't know if women really have that same
00:53:31
Speaker
kind of like, oh, I wish something horrible would happen to me that makes me just, you know, this, ah you know, I don't know what the word I'm looking for is not a vigilante, but um you know To go on a quest of some sort. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, I don't know if that's a man or woman thing, but it's certainly something I think I know i think i feel, and I know and a lot a lot of guys who who feel it. um You call her a MacGuffin, and a MacGuffin is something that drives the plot but is kind of insignificant in itself. I came up with a list of other movie MacGuffins off the top of my head.
00:54:12
Speaker
I enjoyed the Lord of the Rings um books and the movies a little bit, but that ring is definitely a MacGuffin. It's just a really convenient plot device. I'm sorry, what ring?
00:54:24
Speaker
The One Ring from Lord of the Rings. Is there a ring in that? No, I'm just joking. um Yeah, it's just like, oh, that was just really convenient to drive this whole plot and really random. ah The Briefcase in Pulp Fiction, ah Private Ryan in Saving Private Ryan, the Daughter in Taken, and the Bride's Daughter in Kill Bill. So any other famous MacGuffins come to mind?
00:54:50
Speaker
Gee, I don't know. you've You've captured so many of them. It would suck to be like, you know, you're auditioning for a role and you're like, am I important? And your agent's like, absolutely not.
00:55:04
Speaker
Like, nothing you dare do matters. Did you watch um ah White Lotus? I did, yeah, yeah. Yeah so this scene um is part of white lotus season two they go to the very spot where this car exploded. and yeah Yeah and and and the the three generations of italian american men they gather there and they have a discussion about the scene and the young man albie who's kind of. the godfather because they feel emasculated by modern society It's a fantasy about a time when they could go out and solve all their problems with violence and sleep with every woman and then come home to their wife who doesn't ask them any questions and makes them positive. It's a normal male fantasy. No. Movies like that socialize men into having that fantasy. Movies like that exist because men already do have that fantasy. We're hardwired.
00:56:02
Speaker
comes with a testosterone. no gender This is one of those trades of dialogue where I think like you're kind of all right. All three men have a point to make there. Yeah. i mean Also, ah you can just move to New Jersey and you know be Italian there. I don't know if much has changed from that dynamic of you know your wife doesn't ask questions and you know you make the money and you can just kind of be an asshole all day. I think part of that is just cultural.
00:56:29
Speaker
um Let's move on to your number one, you couldn't decide between two scenes within True true Romance, a 1993 film directed by Tony Scott, written by Quentin Tarantino. I think this was a a movie in between rever Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction.
00:56:47
Speaker
um And you have, you've identified two scenes here. One is a Wigger, Gary Oldman scene. I don't know if that's an inappropriate word to say, um but that's where Gary Oldman plays Drexel, kind of a dreadlocked white man pretending to be kind of a black man from the ghetto. Who the fuck are you? I'm her husband.
00:57:21
Speaker
who that makes us practically related
00:57:26
Speaker
have a seat boy got sofa egg roll we get everything here from a deadlight joe to damn i know And then you have racist Dennis Hopper scene. um Yeah, do you want to talk about ah why you chose these two scenes in True Romance? I mean, I could probably choose any scene in True Romance and have it be on the list. I just think of all the films on this list, this is probably the most beloved by men. like It really is just pure fantasy for men. I don't know, these two scenes, like first of all, just the it's ah such a pleasure to see Gary Altman play this role. From the moment he appears on screen, you're just like, are you are you kidding me? like He's just so good at it and the character is so ridiculous. and It's something that I think only Tarantino can really pull off um at ah with both of these scenes because they're a little
00:58:20
Speaker
boundary pushing and could it get made today? Probably not. And um and ah yeah, I think the Gary Oldman scene is just so funny with his quips and his one liners. And to see Gary Oldman like just look so comically different than what he looks like in real life and to see his range is just a delight, you know, cinematic. I forgot that he was in this. I mean, this guy played Winston Churchill. Yeah, exactly. And now, you know, he's playing this guy. This cast, let me read off some names here, because this is like maybe the most loaded cast from the 90s.
00:58:55
Speaker
christian slater patricia kett gary oldman dennis hopper christopher walken brad pitt val kilmer james gandolfini michael rapoport samuel aljax and tom size more so even though some of these people aren't acting so much now are you even dead.
00:59:11
Speaker
um They're still like really culturally relevant, I think. I think like people recognize all of these names and in this movie you get like Brad Pitt and James Gandolfini in the same scene. That's unreal. I know. Yeah, a lot of heavy hitters here. And yeah, I mean, it's just, and then you get the Dennis Hopper scene, which is like, I mean that monologue.
00:59:45
Speaker
You're a Sicilian, huh? Sicilian.
00:59:53
Speaker
No. I read a lot, especially about things, about history. I find that shit fascinating. Here's a fact. I don't know whether you know or not. Again, you could never be put in a film today, I think. By someone that's you know, like yeah and we should describe that monologue for a second So he's being like he's right on the edge of being tortured by a Sicilian kind of mob bossy figure played by Christopher Walken and
01:00:26
Speaker
And Dennis Hopper basically chooses, I'm going to to die, so I don't have to reveal details about my son's whereabouts. And he does so by just getting under the skin of this Christopher Walken character by saying Sicilians have African blood in them. So not only is he disparaging you know Africans in this insult, but ah Italians as well. Yeah, and I think that's what It's such a cool scene because I think Dennis Hopper knows immediately, like it's so cool to see someone that knows, that's smart enough to know that they're going to die no matter what. So they might as well what well, you know, die having a laugh and being cool and giving the big, you know, big middle finger to Christopher Walken, which is why I just love the scene so much. There's no begging. There's no anxiety. There's no fear. um And the moment I think he knows that, you know,
01:01:24
Speaker
where it's heading, he asked for a cigarette and he just rips into Christopher Walken. He's really enjoying that cigarette. Yeah. And he's just like, you know, fuck you, dude. Like, and just like, it must be one of the coolest death scenes ever because it's just, he's so flippant about it. And, you know, that it's just so not serious. And if I'm going to die, I'm going to at least, you know, make you feel like shit and make fun of you. Um, which is why I think it's super cool.
01:01:53
Speaker
And and so you know so some people could have a read on this scene. It's like, oh, he got to kind of say whatever he wanted to say in the end. Like you could say racist things and you know he's going to die. But i think I think maybe men like this scene, not for the racism, but it's like an ultimate like fuck it moment, like fuck it. like um Because I think there's like the strain of disposability in man. Like we're kind of just ready to throw our lives away. We're ready to eat crap and not take care of ourselves, forget our longevity, forget our health. And this is just like the ultimate fuck it moment. It was like, I'm just going to fucking throw my life away. At least it's a good reason. It's a very bad ass thing to do. And also, you know, it kind of pokes fun at the Italian mob a little bit in a way that we don't normally see in film.
01:02:42
Speaker
um And we know you know Tarantino loves mob films and whatnot. And like, oh, like the mobsters are so cool. and like you know And I think it is a play on that. like just He knows exactly what to say to get under their skin um because ah ah it like it's just such a dig on how serious the Italians take themselves you know sometimes with this stuff. And like Dennis Hopper just knows exactly how to twist the knife, which is why again, it's just a badass scene that I think, you know, it's an unforgettable scene. But that, you know, this, I mean, you can make it a case for like this being one of the most racist movies, not only do you have, you know, the
01:03:26
Speaker
cultural appropriation of Gary Oldman and then the whole Dennis Hopper scene. But like just like a little random things that were completely unnecessary. Like a Christian Slater asks Patricia Arquette, what are some of your turn offs? And she says Persians, like just completely unnecessary. Yeah, I mean, ah it's a movie of the times like you i'd like, you know, if you listen to stand-up comics from back then or like watch some other TV shows that were but like on Comedy Central and stuff like that. It's not, I mean, Tarantino dialed it up a little bit, but this was just the culture back then, you know, this anti-woke before people got woke. I think, you know, it was pretty common.
01:04:10
Speaker
um ah ah Maybe not in like mainstream film, but ah certainly like on TV. I don't know if you've ever seen Stranger's Candy. It's like Amy Sedaris. Long time ago, yeah. yeah like I was rewatching that the other day. It's a hilarious show. It has Stephen Colbert and Amy Sedaris in it. This played like Comedy Central Cable.
01:04:33
Speaker
like 3 p.m. and I'm like floored with the stuff that was in it. And I think that was- Yeah? So is that a rewatchable? Strangers with Candy? Still funny, but it definitely, like, I had friends over, we were watching it, and they had like their hand over their mouth just with the stuff that was like playing. It's definitely like, you know, I can't believe they said some of this stuff on television, so.
01:04:58
Speaker
And that's what what I really love about your writing. it It seems like you know you've been unaffected by you know the the cultural dialogue for the past 10 years and you just say whatever you want and that's why your writing is so refreshing and doesn't feel censored or you know held back at all.
01:05:16
Speaker
um so So yeah, thank you for that. Thank you for this, Les. Thank you for coming on. Yeah, no problem. You're on the father underscore Korean sub-stack. I'll um link to your podcast and your other essays. Cool. Thank you so much, Sarah. Yeah, no, thanks. It's been fun. Nice meeting you. Have a good one. Nice meeting you. Far away.