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EPISODE 87: GLOBAL HORROR - ITALY IS TERRIFYING!
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EPISODE 87: GLOBAL HORROR - ITALY IS TERRIFYING!
Bella Italia… a country whose beauty and charm belies the terror and horror beneath the surface! Listen in for a dive into Italian neo-fascism, wine during the plague, and the catacombs of St. Sebastian!
HORROR IN THE MOVIES
That’s not tomato sauce. It’s blood. And it’s EVERYWHERE in Bava’s DEMONS and Argento’s DARK GLASSES!
WHATCHA BEEN WATCHIN’, BITCH?!
Listen in to hear what we’ve been watchin’... bitch!
WHAT IS THIS ITALIAN FOOD, ANDREW? (COS’é QUESTO CIBO ITALIANO, ANDREW?)
Pop quiz! Can Andrew remember what Italian food these words signify from our last trip? Let’s find out!
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Support FRIGAY THE 13TH: www.frigay13.com/support
Follow on Twitter, Instagram, & TikTok: @FriGay13
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Transcript
Intro to Dread Podcast Network
00:00:02
Speaker
Don't touch that dial. You're tuned in to the Dread Podcast Network.
Andrew's Italian Prank
00:00:11
Speaker
Now repeat after me, Andrew. Buongiorno. Buongiorno. Okay, very good, very good. Now, Areva Derci. Areva Derci.
00:00:24
Speaker
Okay, no, that's not bad. You need to work on trilling your R's, but you're going to get there. No, a little more difficult. Stronzo. Stronzo. Very good. Oh, that's funny. No, Vafanculo. Wait, wait, Matty. What does this all mean? Just trust me. It's just a local way to say hello. Vafanculo.
00:00:48
Speaker
Vafanculo. Hey, Andrew, Vafanculo. Wait, why are you laughing so hard? That doesn't mean hello, does it? Nope, not at all.
Giorgia Maloney's Political Shift
00:01:03
Speaker
It's episode 87. Italy is terrifying. I am the writing on the wall, the whisper in the
00:01:16
Speaker
I'm Marjorie Greene, and I approve this message to save America, stop socialism, and stop China. Day to time, we honor thee from life to death's horizon! Hooray for real life. Doubters, the doomsday, the gloomsters, they are going to get it wrong. Hooray for real life. Where are you going to go? Where are you going to run? Where are you going to hide? Nowhere.
00:01:59
Speaker
I want you to know that the movement we started is only just beginning. Sometimes.
00:02:08
Speaker
Hello and welcome. Georgia Maloney, who is set to become Italy's first female Prime Minister, has called for unity and promised to govern for all Italians. Projected results in the Italian general election show victory for a coalition led by Miss Maloney's far-right party, Brothers of Italy. The Democratic Party have already conceded. In her first speech after her triumph, she said the voters had indicated their desire for a centre-right government.
Global Horror Series Introduction
00:02:35
Speaker
Ciao a tutti ei benvenuti avenidi il trede chesimo podcaste de la rore ei o sono Matti, ei sono con il mio co conductore, Andrew, Andrew, comestai. I know no Italian, so my name is Andrew. Well, if you didn't know Italian, what I said there was, welcome to Fraggate the Thirteenth Horror Podcast. My name is Matti, and of course, I'm with...
00:02:58
Speaker
Andrew, there he is. And we're really excited because this is the first entry in our global horror series. And we are starting with Italy. It's going to be a really fun series. We've got six countries lined up for you in different regions of the world.
Podcast's Five-Year Reflection
00:03:16
Speaker
and it's gonna be something different, something new, and it's gonna give both us and you a chance to maybe explore some films in the horror genre that maybe you wouldn't normally have a look at. I think it's really going to be the case for us.
00:03:33
Speaker
I think it's gonna be really exciting we've done some foreign horror before but it's kind of in our periphery a lot of times I feel like we just don't really think about it a lot so I think that it's gonna be fun to explore some of these new places and new ways of filming and I know
00:03:54
Speaker
Of course, with at least one of our movies today, something a little interesting. Yeah, that's for sure. So, but before we dive into this new episode, which is episode 87, if you can believe it. 87. 87, Andrew. You know, I love how we always make a big deal of the number. You know what? We should though. I know. This is something big. I know.
00:04:17
Speaker
We've been at this, I was just thinking about this the other day and I won't harp on this for too much, but it's almost been five years. It's been five years. In February, it'll be five years. Got it. So much has changed in five years, sweet Jesus. Honestly, how many jobs have you been at for five years or more?
Episode 86 and Chicago Visit
00:04:37
Speaker
Think about that.
00:04:38
Speaker
like that we've actually been doing this for that long. So not to harp on it too long, but just wanted to kind of say to our loyal listeners and everything, thanks for sticking around for this whole day. I'll tell you, that's the thing right there because not only have we been doing this for five years, but there are people that are listening today that have listened to us literally from episode one in 2018. Crazy. Thank you to all of you.
00:05:02
Speaker
who still continue to listen to our crazy antics. So, Andrew, too, it was fun to be with you in episode 86 when I was in Chicago. That was fun to do it in person again. We don't get that chance ever. I'm looking at your lonely chair across from me. Now that we're at an international podcast, as we have been for nearly two years now thinking about
Netflix's 'The Midnight Club' Cancellation
00:05:27
Speaker
that,
00:05:27
Speaker
So Andrew, first, before we dive into our fabulous episode today, let's dive into our certified terrifying corner. And we do have some real zonkers for this one. Oh, do we have to? We do because part of our job is to depress everybody. Now listen, why don't we start? We're going to start easy and work our way back.
00:05:50
Speaker
Uh, first off, uh, really, really sad. I know both of us are really, really down in the dumps about this and probably also very angry. Netflix has canceled, uh, Mike Flanagan's latest series, the beautiful, the gorgeous, the haunting, um, the midnight club. And it just, it just baffles me. Andrew, I know you feel the same way about this.
00:06:16
Speaker
Yeah, I'm devastated if I'm going to be totally honest especially. I don't know if you read the blog that he released. I haven't had a chance to yet. So Mike Flanagan being the very courteous creator that he is, did release a blog that was pretty much
00:06:33
Speaker
all of the open ended questions answered and kind of like what they were thinking about for season two. And just really quick, you mean open ended questions about the first season? Correct. So I'm going to where each where each character would go. What was going to happen? Oh, wow.
00:06:54
Speaker
It's even more devastating now reading it because what you would be able to see on screen would have been so just beautiful. And they were going to do two other Christopher Pike books, which are kind of the most revered in the Christopher Pike universe. It was going to be Remember Me and Monster, which are like two of the huge books in that repertoire.
00:07:22
Speaker
I'm just, I don't know why we can't have nice things.
Horror Fans Meme Criticism
00:07:25
Speaker
You know, I have been thinking about this and there was this meme that was on Twitter that really, I woke up and I saw it and I was just not in a good mood about it.
00:07:40
Speaker
And I know that they were just trying to be funny. So look, I'm not putting this, the people that put this out there on blast, I promise you I'm not. But it was like, here's two types of horror fans. The first type of horror fan is somebody who's really academic about everything. And the other type of horror fan is somebody who's just like, fuck it, I'm gonna have fun.
00:07:57
Speaker
And I'm like, you know what? I know you're just trying to have fun. I get it. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You're just trying to get engagement to be Putin Frank. But like it's honestly shit like that that makes beautiful things like the Midnight Club get canceled because it makes everybody pigeonhole their fucking selves into these these two different slots of like supposed horror fans where either you're way too elite or all you care about is like tits and like slashing.
00:08:24
Speaker
And in the middle of it, there's this, I mean, I loved the Midnight Club. I went into it blind and never read the book. And I cried during that show like nothing else. I thought it was beautiful and lovely and dealt with mortality and young people's lives in a really beautiful and elegant way. And just because people can't just take anything seriously, people can't take anything seriously.
Buckingham Palace Racial Incident
00:08:51
Speaker
then the ratings fall down. And then of course Netflix give a fuck less about what's beautiful. They care only about the money. So I think it's a travesty. I really do.
00:09:01
Speaker
Yeah, I know that there is some talk about Mike Flanagan moving over to Amazon. I hope he does it. Which might have been part of this, but I don't know if we'll ever get something like the Midnight Club again, because this was a huge passion project for him being a lover of Christopher Pike growing up, you know, just like me.
00:09:23
Speaker
And I don't know if he'll have the confidence to do this again, just knowing how much he poured into it. You know what I mean? I think it's a shame. I really do. We're squawking on about it because number one, we're a horror podcast. But number two, the motherfucker was beautiful. I thought it was absolutely gorgeous.
00:09:43
Speaker
It meant a lot to me and I'm really sad, but that's all. People should take things seriously, wouldn't hurt in this weird world
Racism and National Identity in Europe
00:09:51
Speaker
of ours. Anyways, um, the second one here, um, I'm going to tell it to you and you're going to think, why are you talking about this? But it's all going to come back around. Uh, the Royal family, that is the Royal family of England, the United Kingdom.
00:10:03
Speaker
is in another tussle as Lady Hussey, that is her real name, who is the godmother of Prince William. Ancient, she's old as hell. Lady Hussey made comments to Ngozi Fulani. Ngozi Fulani is a British woman who is in charge of a major nonprofit that works for women's rights, basically.
00:10:26
Speaker
And at a public engagement at Buckingham Castle, or Buckingham Palace, pardon me, Lady Hussey, in this interview that she was doing with Ngozi Fulani, kept asking Ngozi Fulani where she quote unquote really came from.
00:10:43
Speaker
And she just kind of kept, because obviously Ngozi Fulani is black and Ngozi Fulani has the last name Fulani. It's not really all that English, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So she just kept pushing it and pushing it and pushing it until finally Ngozi Fulani was like, actually, I am British. I was born right here. So please stop asking me this freaking question, essentially. And you can read the whole transcript.
00:11:11
Speaker
The palace came out strongly against it. Prince William and Kate came out strongly against it. Racism has no place in the royal family, has no place in England, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But here's the thing. That is so rampant in this part of the world.
00:11:29
Speaker
And like, I mean, it happens. Look, it happened in Ireland, too. You know, I've got black friends in Ireland who are Irish who were born here or if they were not born here, they've lived here since they were like two years old and they have Irish passports, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And there's never a time for a lot of white people like this in these countries or in America, too, for that matter, where like black people or or Asian people or Indian people or, you know, you name it.
00:11:58
Speaker
where they're ever going to be British enough or Irish enough or French enough or Belgian enough or German enough. And it's just so gross and weird and gross. And it will come back around into the stuff that I'll talk about with Italy today. But yeah, what a really gross situation.
00:12:18
Speaker
I don't understand in a, this has always bugged me, always my whole life that if you're not from somewhere, you don't belong anywhere else.
Club Q Mass Shooting Discussion
00:12:31
Speaker
Like it just boggles my mind.
00:12:34
Speaker
We are a multicultural society where we can hop on a plane or get in a car or go on a boat and literally go anywhere. We are not. This is not like some weird like way back in the day where we didn't have travel and we couldn't go anywhere. So like where you're from is where you're from. And that's where you stay. We can literally go anywhere. So how about we just embrace that? Everyone's from somewhere and anyone can go anywhere.
00:13:02
Speaker
So just like, let it go. I don't understand this like pride thing. I agree with you completely agree with you. It's I mean, even just like being a white American here, like I am super privileged in Ireland. Don't get me wrong as an immigrant, but like even I feel it.
00:13:19
Speaker
So if I were, I can only imagine what people of color in this country feel or in England or in any of the other places that I just named. It's really rampant and it's really fucking gross. It's just so nasty. I don't get it. The last thing here is by far the most heartbreaking and it's yet another call to arms for queer people.
00:13:42
Speaker
And this happened pretty much right after we recorded our last episode. So this is kind of old news for a lot of you now, but the latest mass shooting of queer people took place at Club Q. Club Q is a gay club. It's a queer club, I should say. In Colorado Springs, Colorado, there were five people killed. Eighteen were seriously injured. It could have been a lot worse.
00:14:05
Speaker
but for the efforts of a man named Richard Fierro, a veteran and brewery owner, who happened, you know, when all this was going on in Club Q, he heard the shooting, he saw the shooter, he somehow, his brain went right back into combat action and he took this motherfucker down, grabbed the pistol out of his hand and just started to pistol whip this dude across the face.
00:14:33
Speaker
He invited the other patrons in the bar that had not been shot to come and help him. A transgender woman who was originally reported as a drag queen. She's not, she's a transgender woman. A transgender woman who was wearing heels came over and started to stomp on the shooter with her high heels, which is amazingly awesome. And without those people, who knows how many more would have been shot and killed.
00:14:59
Speaker
Yeah. This is, um, I mean, obviously it happened right after we recorded. So it was tough that we didn't get to report on it like right away and get our true feelings because I feel like with anything time only, um, it makes you feel like you don't care as much. Do you know what I mean? Like it's, it's hard for me to like go back to how I first felt waking up. I think I was on a Monday, right? Um, no, no, no. It was on a Saturday.
00:15:28
Speaker
Oh, OK. There it is. There's time right there for you. I don't even remember what day it was, but just trying to put yourself back in that moment of like Jesus again, like seriously again. But and I hate to be this person again. I mean, we started this podcast five years ago, like I said, the first thing we heavily reported on was the school shooting in Florida. Yeah, Parkland. Yeah.
00:15:56
Speaker
And now we're still talking about it. And it's just like nothing, no matter who is affected, whether it's children, gay people, oh wait, not white straight guys. Exactly. Whoever, like it just feels like until, and I don't wish this upon anybody, but until that happens to that group, it's not going to matter to anybody.
Queer Community Safety Concerns
00:16:20
Speaker
And I don't really know like what to do about it.
00:16:22
Speaker
Yeah, it sucks. But I'll tell you what, queer people need to really be more careful than usual right now. There was a story this morning that came out in the New York Times in Columbus, Ohio. There was going to be a drag queen story hour. And the Proud Boys showed up at it with a U-Haul full of dudes with AR-15s.
00:16:45
Speaker
who surrounded this drag queen story hour at this community center in Columbus, Ohio, they had to cancel the event because it was no longer safe to hold it. We are being pigeonholed now, and we are being tagged as groomers. Queer people now for conservatives, we are people who groom kids. That's what we are. I mean, we've always been that for them, but now they have
00:17:14
Speaker
bigger than ever to think about it. And that means that they are going to set up more people to come after us. So look, this is a shooting that happened. There's going to be more. I don't know what else to say. And you know, look, that's the end of the corner here. But one more thing that I didn't put on here that I just saw before we started recording was apparently there's a new gay serial killer in New York. I don't know if you've heard about this.
00:17:39
Speaker
But look, I'm just putting that out there. We don't have time to talk about it right now. But go check the New York Times after you listen to us. The little bits of the story that I got are pretty crazy. So you look yet another thing that we have to worry about. Yeah. And if you want to see just like one more thing right before we just like to add on to the Club Q stuff.
00:17:59
Speaker
So there is the show on HBO called We're Here. I'm not sure if you've watched it, but it's pretty much Shangela, Bob the Drag Queen. And I can't think of the third one. I'm not very good at drag queens anymore. But they go to like small towns and like try to like uplift people that maybe feel a little bit more
00:18:18
Speaker
decentralized from the society they live in and just kind of give them like a little bit of hope. And in the first episode of the new season, so I think this is season three, they go to a place in Texas and I'm not familiar with the actual town name, but they do a very similar thing where Shangela is going to go and literally just read to kids at a bookstore. And they got so many death threats that they had to cancel it. And it was
00:18:44
Speaker
I don't understand how you have so much energy to hate. I don't really get it. I literally can't even get to my doctor's appointment. I don't know how you can have so much time to hate. It's all about power. It's all about power because the first person to throw a brick at Stonewall was a drag queen. So there you go. They're scared of us and they're scared of us. Even our drag queens, they are scared of and it's fucking weird.
Italy's Beauty and Culture
00:19:10
Speaker
All right. That's it for the Certified Terrifying Corner. Let's go down with the show. Let's talk about some Italy. So Andrew, both of us were just in Italy recently. Yeah. I love Italy. And I thought maybe before we get into what's wrong with Italy.
00:19:25
Speaker
I thought maybe I'd start there. Look, I think Italy is a fantastically gorgeous country. It's a long ass country. It's not a small place. It's a very long country. It's the boot, right? Kicking the football, which is Sicily. You forget how big the world actually is until you're like out in it.
00:19:45
Speaker
It is the truth. What I love about Italy is naturally the food, the food that comes out of Italy is just out of control amazing. And when you're there, you get to eat food that in the States would cause you probably double, triple. And over there, it's cheap as pie. And it's actually right now. Oh my God, totally. And it's absolutely delicious. It's just so wonderful.
00:20:10
Speaker
Of course, I love the wine. The wine out of Italy is just out of control. Wonderful. I love the people too. The people in Italy are super friendly. They're really great. I think a lot of them get a bad rap in the same way that like Chicagoans get a bad rap, something like that. Anywhere where you're going to have a high population of people, there's going to be some sort of weird backlash against it.
00:20:32
Speaker
You know, of course. And then I also love the history. I mean, you know, Italy is where, you know, modern Western civilization, you know, can trace its roots back to. And they'll never let you forget it. Right. And you know, look, when we look back to Rome, there's just there's so so much of what we still do today comes from what the Romans did.
00:20:55
Speaker
And it's something really incredible. And when you go to Rome, the history that is all around you is just so stupendous. It's incredible. I remember when I first saw the Colosseum, I remember I turned a corner and all of a sudden it's there. And you're just like, I can't believe I'm seeing this right now. And then you get to walk around it and walk inside of it and feel like you're a part of that history too. There's something really special about that. And Italy does those things really right, I think.
00:21:25
Speaker
Rome was very interesting to me because we were there for what, five days, right? That sounds about right. I think four days you guys were there. And I literally could not get my bearings. Just the way that old cities, even in the United States, a city like Boston or something that's that old,
00:21:50
Speaker
there's no, there was no city planner back then that like, you know, like put up a grid and said like, this is where we need to like, make sure that people can get around and whatever. And so like, when we were in Rome, I literally like, we would be in a cab or like taking a walk or whatever. And I'd be like, Oh, that's that thing I saw yesterday. How did we
00:22:08
Speaker
here again. Like I don't, I don't understand how we got here because we went in a completely different way. But Rome is super confusing. And you know, I, I know my way around just a little bit now, just because I've just been there a couple of times. But even, even then I'm like, I don't know, but I don't know the names of these streets at all. There's like, there's no way. Um, it's, it's almost like, it's like, it's, it's like in Dublin. Like when you're here, nobody knows the names of streets anywhere. When you're, when you're in town, everyone's just like, Oh yeah, it's by that, by that shop. Oh, okay. Cool. Gotcha.
00:22:38
Speaker
Yeah, it's such a different mentality than a city like Chicago that has meticulously been planned out. If you've never been to Chicago, Chicago is a grid. You always know based on the number on the address where you're at.
00:22:55
Speaker
So it's just weird. And you know, the other thing that I love about Italy is just the way of life. It's it is a lot slower there. You know, in a lot of ways in the summer, it's it's necessary because it is really, really hot in Italy. And so if you're if you're in Italy, you kind of can't go fast because it's just not going to work out. So only a two showers a day kind of city, if you.
00:23:20
Speaker
without a doubt. And taking that extra time to just slow down a bit and just kind of experience it is something really lovely. I really noticed that when I was in Venice on my last trip, because in Venice, there's just so many tourists everywhere. They're fucking everywhere, including me. And they're all rushing around. Everyone is just going so fast to get to wherever the hell they're trying to go in this little tiny place on these little tiny caes.
00:23:49
Speaker
And you can do that too if you want. But if you don't do that, and instead you just slow down and put your phone in your pocket and stop looking at the map. And if you allow yourself to get lost in a place like Venice, it's really cool. It's honestly really cool. I got lost a couple of times. And when do we ever get lost anymore?
00:24:10
Speaker
You know what I mean? And it was really, it was really beautiful. Then all of a sudden you pop up on this one corner and oh, hey, look, here's another historic church that something happened and, you know, crazy historical. So, yeah, look, I think Italy is just a great place. Now, listen, because we're a horror podcast, we're here to talk about the bomb. Let's get ready for the dark side to.
00:24:32
Speaker
I have two main things here. One is the something that came about because of the pandemic and then one that we experienced kind of together, which was
Italy's Historical Wine Windows
00:24:47
Speaker
really cool. I'm kind of on accident if I'm being totally honest. Totally. It was. But so the first one I want to talk about is the wine windows. So
00:24:56
Speaker
Early in the pandemic, 2020, we all remember that Italy was hit really, really hard with COVID-19. It was kind of all in the news. It was the first place that it really spread to like hardcore. And out of that, in kind of like August, September, people started talking about wine windows and like how cute they were.
00:25:18
Speaker
And I thought that this was like, I literally thought this was like a new thing. Like when NPR was reporting on it, when everyone was reporting on it, I'm like, Oh, so they implemented like social distancing ways of whatever, getting, you know, things to people. No, this actually was out of the 1600s.
00:25:38
Speaker
Um, so this comes out of Florence mostly. I mean, there's a lot of places where these probably exist, but the like official, like, I think they called them, what did they call them? The wine window association. Oh my God.
00:25:52
Speaker
Um, they actually like tracked this like throughout Tuscany and you know, Florence. So that's kind of like where it comes out of. But so these are actual, just like little windows within these businesses or houses or whatever, uh, that it's like a, I would say like a 12 inch by like five or six inch little window. And you're like, well, what comes out of there? Well, now it's wine. What comes out of there?
00:26:20
Speaker
I'm not a glory hole, everybody, but no. So that got me thinking like, OK, so if these existed in these like really old hundred year plus buildings, like where why? And then I got to think I got to looking through this for this episode. And this came from a previous plague. So from 1629 to 1631 is the kind of like
00:26:47
Speaker
Not that it didn't extend beyond there, but that's kind of like what in history they place it as the years that this was like the worst part of it, is there was a huge plague. It was a result of the troop movements associated with the Thirty Years War, and it was allegedly brought to Lombardy in 1629 by soldiers involved in the war on Mantuan succession.
00:27:09
Speaker
The disease first spread to the Venetian troops and in October of 1629 reached Milan and then kind of just goes on and on from there. What we don't truly understand, and I have this chart in front of me that is just insane, but this plague was so bad.
00:27:29
Speaker
that in Verona alone, it killed off 61% of the population. Seriously. That's insane. Like in Florence, 12% in Bologna, 24% in Venice, 33% in Milan, 46% and in Parma, 50%. So just think about that.
00:27:48
Speaker
Half of the population was lost in this plague. It's it's it's honestly, for us, it's unthinkable because the percentage like that, like there's no way that we can fathom that. I mean, imagine imagine if half imagine if 61 percent of America just suddenly died. Like none can imagine that. But imagine how how terrifying that must have been in the 17th century. Like everyone, for one person, everyone that they knew could be dead.
00:28:18
Speaker
Right. So it was just very interesting that then in 2020, kind of when we were all practicing social distancing and wearing masks and everything, these kind of wine windows became, they became popular again, like they started reopening and people like having Aperol spritzes come out of like there.
00:28:36
Speaker
their wine windows and it's just it's just it's so fascinating how you know the hue like how humans adapt and then forget and then readapt and it was mind boggling to me I had no idea that this was even a thing
00:28:54
Speaker
And so I just wanted to bring it up. I thought it was a very interesting Italian thing to do. It's just have like these, hey, you want a red wine? Here, put your order in here and it'll magically appear at this little tiny window. You know, I think it's awesome. And I think that it's something that should just always be around, quite frankly, and not just in Italy, but like everywhere.
Italy's Far-Right Political Concerns
00:29:17
Speaker
Like Dublin, can you do this with all pints as well?
00:29:21
Speaker
I don't want to go into a place, I just don't want to. Can I just get a chicken finger, like, from the window? Hey, but, oh my god, a chicken, one chicken finger. Give me, give me one chicken finger, one dipping sauce, and give me one little glass of wine. I'm gonna be set. That is exactly what I need for a little stroll. I think that's, I think that's what our heaven is, but that's fine. Listen, let's make that happen. Now, Andrew, I have an idea here. Why don't I pop in my little bit now?
00:29:46
Speaker
And then we'll finish with the last thing, which I think is a lot more fun too, quite frankly. So look, I'm going to pop in and talk a little bit about what's not so great about Italy right now, which is nonsense. And look, if we're being honest, the politics in Italy have been kind of crazy for quite a long time. This is nothing new.
00:30:07
Speaker
I mean, really, if you think about it, World War II wasn't that long ago. And literally, it was ruled by a fascist government and then by the Nazis until the end of the war. So look, there's a whole lot going on. But the far right in Europe in general is really starting to get a hold again. So it's not just in Italy, but it's in Hungary. It's in Poland for sure. Look, if Ukraine is not careful, it's going to happen there.
00:30:35
Speaker
There's a whole lot that is going wrong in Europe when it comes to politics. But especially in Italy right now, the new prime minister in Italy, you might have heard about this, is Giorgia Maloney. And Giorgia Maloney is, number one, she is the country's first female, I shouldn't say female, first woman prime minister. So that is a good thing. I will grant you that.
00:30:59
Speaker
But she also happens to be with a party called the Fratelli d'Italia, which is the brotherhood of Italy, basically. And it is a far-right organization. They will tell you up and down, left and right, that it is not fascist.
00:31:17
Speaker
It listen, this is about as fascist as you can get without being, you know, basically Mussolini. Right. The fact that a woman is in is has aligned herself with something called the Brotherhood. It's just ridiculous to me. But go on. So it tells you a whole lot. Right. And so they are they are in control of the country now. And, you know, look, she's really brand new in the role. So they haven't had a whole lot of time to cause a lot of damage.
00:31:44
Speaker
But the party who was in a coalition government with Matteo Salvini, who is a far-right leader there, who runs a party called Lega, or the League, and Silvio Berlusconi, who runs Forza Italia, and Silvio Berlusconi is a goddamn clown who's been around Italy for a long time.
00:32:05
Speaker
All three of these bozos are in charge of this beautiful country and they are gonna cause a whole lot of problems. So let's talk about what their planks are. First off, immigration. I'm gonna guess, you can guess, how their stance on immigration is.
00:32:24
Speaker
It's not great. In fact, they are very much anti-immigration. One of the things that they believe in that this party is the great replacement theory, which we've actually talked about on the show.
00:32:39
Speaker
So this is the theory that George Soros and the Jews basically are in control of this cable around the entire world where they are trying to replace European white people with people of color basically.
00:32:56
Speaker
So that's the great replacement theory. Guess what? It's not true. It's not really happening, but it's what they believe in. So obviously they are against immigration. When it comes to the Ukraine, I'm going to guess that you can maybe guess which people in this battle they are with. What do you think?
00:33:16
Speaker
Probably the Russians. Probably the Russians. You are correct. Ding, ding, ding, ding. They really love Putin. And that is, you know, look, it is what it is. Putin is a real dingbat. But boy, does Georgia Maloney love Putin. In fact, in 2018, when he once again, quote unquote, won a fourth term as president, Maloney said the will of the people in these Russian elections is unequivocal.
00:33:40
Speaker
So look, it's not looking good there either. When it comes to sexual and reproductive rights, so we're talking about the LGBTQ community, and of course, abortion and the right to create a family however you want, I'm going to guess that you can guess how they feel about these things, but I'll just go ahead and tell you anyway. They are very much against the LGBT community. One of the things that they sort of say over and over again,
00:34:10
Speaker
Pardon me, I need some water there. Is yes to the natural family, no to the LGBT lobby. Yes to sexual identity, no to gender ideology. So these are people that, you know, once again believe, and pardon me, I have to cough here, folks, one second. I'm just getting over the flu, so that's just gonna be natural.
00:34:30
Speaker
Um, but of course they don't like gay people. There's no way around it. And they, let's, let's be honest here. They don't like anybody. That's not like them. So I think that you're absolutely correct. And the reason why they don't like gay people is what I talked about earlier, right? Conservatives look at us as people who groom children. It's exactly what these people believe too. It's absolutely disgusting. And of course, when it comes to what are you so afraid of like a girl?
00:34:58
Speaker
Who knows? I mean, look, I took you to the gay bars in Rome. Now, granted, the day that we were there, there was a giant party outside, but beyond that, that was an outlier. Trust me. There's not a whole lot of gay people there in the first place. But what are you afraid of that we're going to patronize your business?
00:35:16
Speaker
Give you money look you don't want you don't want my gay money. Don't take it, but also like think about it You know like who the fuck do you think runs your hotels in Venice like yeah? What do you think does it? It's a bunch of gay people for God's sake? Look, he's gonna cut your hair. Yes, precisely
00:35:33
Speaker
So, on energy and climate, guess what? She and the party do not believe the way that the rest of the European Union does when it comes to the ways that we get energy and the ways that we need to protect the climate. Especially in a place like Italy, that's a big problem because you were in Italy in the summer, Andrew. How hot was it?
00:35:56
Speaker
Like I said, two showers a day hot. I mean, I mean, you if you've never been to Italy in the summer, folks, it is monstrously hot. Now, I kind of like it and, you know, I get into it, but, you know, I can only take it for a while. Imagine if you had to live in that all day long. It is really, really hard.
00:36:14
Speaker
And keep in mind, people, Europe is not known for its air conditioning. No, it's not. And listen, most people don't have money for it if we're being real. So when it comes down to it, like climate change is a very serious issue for Italy. And these new fascists that are in control are only going to make it worse.
Pre-Holocaust Fascism Warnings
00:36:32
Speaker
So look, I'll end my little talk there about Georgia Maloney and Fratelli Titalia and the new sort of fascist coalition going on there, but it's something for all of us to watch. Because listen, these people aren't just doing those things that I talked about there. They're hating Jews left and right.
00:36:52
Speaker
And what just happened this week with you know with dumb Kanye West on the Alex Jones show talking about how he loves Hitler talking about how Hitler was right and talking about how you know this and that whatever Jews this Jews that look the Holocaust.
Social Media's Influence
00:37:08
Speaker
It didn't begin with like a furnace being turned on. That's not how it began. The Holocaust began with words, right? And so we think that all of this is just like, you know, oh, that stupid person saying that again. That person, those people, these people, they influence people who have guns and who have time.
00:37:31
Speaker
And so if we're not careful, we're going to find ourselves in some really bad straits. So pay attention to what's going on in Europe. If you're not from Europe, look after it, talk about it, be loud about it, because these things need to be talked about or we will find ourselves in another Holocaust soon enough.
00:37:51
Speaker
Yeah, it's very important to remember that these stupid internet people called influencers are called that for a reason because they influence people.
Appian Way Adventure
00:38:04
Speaker
Words matter. Words matter. Think about the things that you say. Think about the things that you tweet. Think about the things that you listen to. It's really important.
00:38:13
Speaker
Yeah, it's it's it can be both uplifting and devastating all at the same time. Andrew, do you know what word you could say to Georgia Maloney? I taught it to you earlier. What do you think? Oh, what was that? I can't remember now. Give it a try. Vafanculo. There you go. Which folks means go fuck yourself. Now, Andrew, let's talk about the fun thing.
00:38:39
Speaker
Yeah, so we took an excursion in Italy to the Appian Way, which is an old connector between what was it, Rome, and I can't remember what the other destination was that it's possibly connect, but it was like the main thoroughfare for Rome to kind of like get goods and services into into Rome. And we went there thinking
00:39:04
Speaker
Man, like idiots. We thought, oh, there's definitely going to be electric bikes and we're going to get electric bikes and we're going to go up and down the Appian Way. Yeah. So just to pop it in there, like I literally thought that there was a visitor center, right? Yeah. And I was like, okay, you guys at the visitor center, you can rent electric bikes. It's all right there. So like we get in this taxi to go to go there and it's like, you know, it's like, it's like 70 bucks to get to get to there with all these people.
00:39:33
Speaker
And we get there and the guy's like, okay, here you go. And I'm like, but where's the visitor's center? I swear to God, I felt like Pee Wee in Pee Wee's Big Adventure. Asking where the basement was in the Alamo. And so all of a sudden we're there and I'm like, Oh my God, there's no, what have we done? So we're just walking up and down. It's so fucking hot out. This like dirt road, like not even joking. Thankfully, we found it turned out good.
00:40:00
Speaker
Yeah, we found this great little restaurant, this mom and pop restaurant that gave us the best bruschetta we've ever had. Oh my God, it's so good. It was just an interesting thing. We're thinking like, okay, what do we do now? We're all the way over here. We've taken a half an hour cab ride to get over here.
00:40:19
Speaker
We're on this, like, so we go to a couple of the sites. There's obviously some like old, there's these old buildings and these old churches and everything that you can go take tours of. So we go and do that. And then we're like, okay, well, we don't want to head back yet because it's only like three o'clock. What do we do? And then we find out, oh, we're by a catacomb.
00:40:39
Speaker
We should go see what this whole catacomb thing is all about. And little did we know, but we literally went to the Catacomb of Saint Sebastian. We had no idea it was there. We stumbled upon it.
00:40:54
Speaker
If you don't know Saint Sebastian, this is the patron saint of, let's see here, he's the patron saint of archers and athletes and those who desire a saintly death.
Saint Sebastian's LGBTQ Significance
00:41:08
Speaker
He was also venerated as a protector from the Bonak Plague as a patron of plague victims. So that'll come into something a little bit later that I'll talk about and why we think it's
00:41:21
Speaker
game. But we went on the catacomb tour, which was really, really cool. It was amazing. It was absolutely amazing. I was definitely we were talking about it after we went. I was kind of inspired to maybe write like a little catacomb script, if you will, that follows like four different people that will go in on this tour and kind of have different things happen to them because the guy who was doing our tour was really good.
00:41:49
Speaker
And he inspired me by what the first sentence that he said to us. And I think it was, this is the last tour of the day, so don't get lost. I mean, it's true. And so the guy was really cool. He took us down into these catacombs. And I'm not even joking. We're like literally underground.
00:42:09
Speaker
If you took a wrong turn, you could easily get lost. Like it was insane. And it was it was also so welcome for everyone on the trip because guess what? It was not down there. Not hot at all. It was actually kind of cold down there because it's so far underground.
00:42:26
Speaker
And before I go into St. Sebastian a little bit, what I thought was really cool about this, this catacomb is that it was half a Christian catacomb and half a other catacomb. So Wiccan, like pagan.
00:42:43
Speaker
Anybody could be buried there, which I thought was really cool. I'd never had really thought about that as far as when you think about catacombs, you think about France, you think about Paris, you think about those kind of catacombs. You don't really think about religion-based catacombs, which I didn't even enter into my brain space. That could be a thing.
00:43:03
Speaker
Um, but that, that was interesting to me, but, um, St. Sebastian. So St. Sebastian, basically what happened is that he was a soldier, um, under, uh, can you help me with this? Diocletian. Diocletian. Uh, and he was discovered to be Christian and he had already kind of converted a lot of the soldiers. And this was way back in the day where Christians were being, um, basically that they, they were, uh, hated. Thrown to the lions at the Coliseum.
00:43:34
Speaker
So he was actually said to be, he, Diocletian basically said, we know you're Christian. We're going to shoot you the bunch of arrows now. You're going to die. And they left him for dead and actually a widow nursed him back to health and he presented himself before Diocletian. And then basically that was what he survived death.
00:44:00
Speaker
So that's why he became kind of the saint that he's known as today. There was known that he basically healed a woman from mutism.
00:44:15
Speaker
After she converted to Christianity, that was kind of like one of his big things. But he basically survived death. That was like what kind of gives you the right to be a saint. The weird thing or not, I guess I shouldn't say weird. It's not weird. What brings it to being gay is that a lot of religious images depicting Saint Sebastian have been kind of adopted by the LGBT community. Let's just say it, Andrew, a lot of the pictures of Sebastian are fucking hot.
00:44:44
Speaker
Well, yeah, he's he's always depicted as shirtless. His physique is nice to look at. But also it kind of like with that whole plague thing, him, him being kind of the saint of the plague, it's been kind of converted to kind of the saint of the AIDS crisis and HIV crisis. Yeah. So that's kind of why it becomes a little bit more towards, you know, the gay thing. And I just thought, how in the world
00:45:11
Speaker
We are halfway across the world most of us how did we accidentally stumble upon this and i can only think that it had to been some sort of divine.
00:45:23
Speaker
thing just telling us, you guys need to know about this. You guys need to see it. You need to understand it. And I thought it was really powerful. I don't know about you, but yeah, I look, I love hearing this from you. It's it it was it was it was very powerful. You know, especially like I grew up Catholic and and and I should also say like my family is part Italian and I still got relatives that that live that live in Italy, mostly on the Adriatic coast.
00:45:53
Speaker
And all of that sort of, I don't know, it's foundational to my family life, like how I grew up. And for me growing up Catholic, when you grow up Catholic and when you believe it, you believe in the saints and you believe in the power of the saints to intervene for you and do things for you, to make things happen for you. So if you lose something, you pray to Saint Anthony and Saint Anthony helps you find whatever you're looking for.
00:46:22
Speaker
or if you're this or you're that or whatever, you pray to that saint and then they help you find whatever. When I was young, I never knew about Saint Sebastian and I never prayed to him, but there's something really beautiful about like,
00:46:40
Speaker
There's something really beautiful about the queer community finding a saint for them. Salas in one of the saints. It's a common misconception that queer people aren't religious at all. They don't do anything. And that's a complete misnomer. I'm an example of that. I'm a person who dabbles in faith quite a bit.
00:47:05
Speaker
And look, there's a reason why it makes a lot of sense because it's myth, it's story, it's foundation. It's a way to connect back to the past and find your story through it. It's another story to find your own life in the same way that we watch movies or read books or whatever. So I think it's really beautiful. I really do. And I love the
00:47:32
Speaker
yeah i didn't know that you i didn't know that you had felt that way that you felt that it was like divine that we were um you know sort of sort of found it out of nowhere i love hearing that from you i think it's really yeah it's just really interesting that like we had no intention of this that is true like
00:47:48
Speaker
This is not what we went to go do. And like it just happened. And I was in hearing the story about Saint Sebastian and and hearing all like how it tied back to the LGBT community and how he was the patron saint of like kind of like sick people, essentially. And it was like it just I don't know. It was very interesting and just kind of crazy that we were there and just happened to do that. And and it had just happened to be at the right time to where we needed to cool down. So going down and
00:48:18
Speaker
Yeah. And also for the very last tour, like, how about that? Like, come on. That's Italy, everybody. Of course, we will never discover all the things about Italy. I mean, we didn't even talk about Pompeii or like anything like that. There's so much to talk about. But, you know, we've gone on for what, 45 minutes. So I think that you're probably ready to move on to what you've been watching, bitch.
Recent Movies and Shows Discussion
00:48:43
Speaker
Let's get ready for it.
00:48:47
Speaker
Let's all go to the lobby. Let's all go to the lobby. Let's all go to the lobby to get ourselves a treat. It's that time, that time again, for what you've been watching, bitch. What you've been watching, the beach.
00:49:06
Speaker
This is the part of the show where we talk about literally what we've been watching, the good, the bad, the sometimes ugly. And we say whether we recommend you watch it along with us. So Maddie, please tell me what you've been watching, you bitch. I'm happy to because I have one that I should have never watched, but I did. And I loved it. And it's called Shazam from twenty nineteen. Wait, wait, like.
00:49:33
Speaker
not Shaq Shazam. No, no. So that one's called Kazam. I did the same thing. I did the exact same thing. My nephew wanted to watch this right at my brother's house. I was there for Thanksgiving and he was like, you got to watch Shazam. And I looked at my brother. I was like, does he mean the Shaquille O'Neal movie? And he's like, no, something different. I was like, Oh, thank God.
00:49:53
Speaker
So Shazam stars, boy, a bunch of people. Zachary Levy or Levy, or whatever you say it, Mark Strong, Asher Angel, Jack Grazer, Adam Brody, Jaiman Han Su, Faith Herman, a bunch of people, right?
00:50:09
Speaker
So, look, Shazam was about this kid. I forget his name, honestly, but he's this kid that is an orphan and got lost from his mom one day and never found her again, so now he's a teenager and he's all angsty and this and that, whatever. And he happens upon this crazy wizard who makes him into a superhero, and he only becomes the superhero when he says the word Shazam.
00:50:38
Speaker
So when he says Shazam, he becomes the superhero who's also an adult. It's crazy. It's weird. It makes no sense. Listen, I understand. Are you telling me that you watched a superhero? Yeah, I sure did. And it was fantastic. I loved it. It's actually it's incredibly
00:50:56
Speaker
touching. It's a really touching movie. It's inspiring. It was fun. It was so well written. It's funny as hell. It's really, really funny. It's a cute movie. Honestly, if you're getting together with family for the holidays right now and there's kids around,
00:51:15
Speaker
And actually, come to think of it, part of it is at Christmas. You should watch Shazam. I can't believe how much I liked it, but I really, really enjoyed it. Thank you to my nephew, Sunny, for bringing it up because I had a great time. So look, I'll leave it there. Just trust me on this. Go watch it. It's called Shazam. It's from 2019, directed by David Sandberg. Give it a shot.
00:51:39
Speaker
All right, that's interesting choice for you. I'm proud of you. I know. I know. My first one is A Christmas Story Christmas. This is on HBO Max, and it is the I guess you can't really call it the sequel because there was a Christmas story, too, but whatever. It's the continuation of the original A Christmas Story. So
00:52:03
Speaker
If you are of a certain age, like me and Maddie, you grew up with the movie A Christmas Story. I don't know how you could have missed it because it literally plays for 24 hours a day on Christmas. Listen.
00:52:18
Speaker
I there are going to be people that are going to be like, I hate a Christmas story, blah, blah, blah, whatever. You guys can go suck a dick somewhere. I don't really care. I love the original movie. I think it's like one of the best performances by like a lot of those people. And I just fucking love that movie. So when they announced that there was going to be a true sequel to a Christmas story, I was really excited.
00:52:41
Speaker
I'm happy to report that it's actually really good. OK, that's good to hear. They literally brought back apart from the mom, who who unfortunately has retired from acting, they brought back literally every actor and actress from the original to kind of reprise their role. Is it is it in Hammond still?
00:53:05
Speaker
Um, so they call it something else. I forget exactly what they call it, but it's like home and, oh, no way home and that is hilarious. Oh my God. They like change it. They change it just ever so slightly so that it's not the real place, but it's, but it still is. That is hilarious.
00:53:23
Speaker
Um, but essentially the movie is about, you know, the older, he, he, the near main kid, you know, uh, Billingsley, that, that kid, he is older now. He has a family. It takes place in like the, I think late, Ralphie, Ralphie. Yeah.
00:53:39
Speaker
Uh, late seventies, early eighties, because if you remember correctly, the original movie take place in like the fifties, sixties era. Um, so this is like when he's an older and he has a family, they live in Chicago now. He's an advertising guy and they come back to Indiana for Christmas because of some.
00:53:54
Speaker
Um, tragic circumstances with his family. I'm not going to get anything away. Um, but essentially it's just kind of like him at Christmas time, like being an adult and like revisiting, like, I think, um, you know, one of his good friends from the original runs the local bar. Like there's like all this stuff, like his bully is actually one of the police officers now. And so I just thought there is actually one bit involving carolers and the,
00:54:23
Speaker
the mom who makes it a mission to hide from the carolers that was just, I laugh out loud funny. But I was very happy to report that this movie did live up to kind of like, this will be something I'll revisit. Like if I want to watch like a Christmas story and then I want to watch this, I would definitely do it again. So right along with 8-Bit Christmas, I think that this is one of the better Christmas movies that we've gotten in the last couple of years. So happy to report that on HBO Max, A Christmas Story Christmas.
00:54:52
Speaker
Well, that's good to hear as somebody. So this takes place in Northwest Indiana. If you didn't know that, folks, where I am from. So that is always good to hear from an old two one niner right here. My next one is another unlikely one for me. It is actually it's not that unlikely because I talked about Top Gun in a previous what you've been watching, bitch. I'm actually I actually love Top Gun the the the original movie. It's fantastic. It's such a good movie.
00:55:19
Speaker
Take my breath away. Heaters get the hell out of my face because Top Gun fucking rocks. And let me tell you this, Top Gun Maverick, I finally watched this. I don't know why it took me so long to fucking watch this. I didn't get to see it in the theater and I think it's hard to find. It's hard to find. So I watched it on the airplane coming back from America on my last trip, right?
00:55:41
Speaker
And I came back, I was coming out from America. I had the flu. I felt like garbage. My ear was about to explode on this eight hour plane ride. It was miserable. The only thing that kept me in good spirits was watching Top Gun Maverick. And Top Gun Maverick is basically Top Gun
00:55:58
Speaker
Again, and it's great. It's fan-freaking-tastic. Tom Cruise is wonderful in it. He's so good. And look, he's not a young guy anymore. And he's fucking awesome in this movie. He's so, so good. Jon Hamm is in it, and he is a total asshole, but he's good at being an asshole. Miles Teller is in it. He's really good. And then look, a bunch of other people, including Val Kilmer, is back in this one.
00:56:26
Speaker
And Val Kilmer actually puts out a great fucking emotional performance. It is fan. It's wonderful. Top Gun is one of those movies where if you're American, it makes you feel like, yeah, I'm American. Yes, I am. And this one is no exception.
00:56:44
Speaker
I had a blast watching it. It also kept me on the edge of my seats, even on the airplane, even on that tiny little screen that I was watching it on. Even that did it for me. So look, if you have not seen it yet, I highly recommend it. And look, if it's not for you, then don't watch it. You're not going to like it. But if you even have an inkling of like, I should watch that, go do it. It'll make you feel really good. So Top Gun Maverick, go watch it.
00:57:09
Speaker
Interesting. This is not really come across like U.S. screens as far as like small screen quite yet. So we'll see how it I imagine it's going to go to like HBO or something at some point. So I'm sure I'll watch it. I'm sure it will. Yeah.
00:57:24
Speaker
My next one is kind of one that nobody's talking about. And I'm kind of surprised because of the cast. There's a movie on Amazon Prime. It just came out at this record about a week ago. It's called The People We Hate at the Wedding. And it's based on a book. It stars Alison Janney, Ben Platt, Kristen Bell. I mean, there's like a number of people in this movie. And it's all about kind of a family dynamic where
00:57:53
Speaker
Alison Janney plays a mom who had a child when she lived abroad with this guy who they didn't end up working out. So she has a kid in Europe and then she moved to moved back to America, fell in love with another guy, had two more kids. So it's kind of like a family dynamic of like one kid lives over here. Two kids live in America, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Yeah, the Europe child decide they're going to get married. So they invite the extended family to come over to Europe for the wedding.
00:58:21
Speaker
And, you know, things ensue, you know what I mean? Like it's definitely a comedy that is just like when things go wrong, everything will go wrong type of comedy, which usually is not usually I'm not a huge fan of those kind of comedies, but because of this cast, because
00:58:37
Speaker
Listen, I'm going to forever stand up for Kristen Bell. I think she's an American hero, but she's really funny. Ben Platt is really funny. Allison Janney is like, when are we ever going to get an actress like that again in our lifetime? Like, let's be honest here.
00:58:54
Speaker
And they're just all so funny. And I don't know anybody that's talking about this movie. So I just wanted to spread the word that the people we hate at the wedding on Amazon Prime is really, really good. And if you want a lighthearted comedy to just kind of laugh along with, go and watch that. And Ben Platt actually plays gay for the first time. He actually gets to play a gay person. So really cool. Good for him. I'm glad he finally gets to do that. And is he playing a 16 year old still? No.
00:59:24
Speaker
He's actually playing his age now, so. Well, that's good. He gets to play his age, too. How lovely. My next one, Andrew, is one that you talked about last time, which is Smile. I finally got to... Ooh, I'm happy to hear. Yeah, I finally got... I was gonna see it, but I just didn't get around to it until I got back and I was sick and I was like, you know what? I just wanna watch. I'm gonna rent a movie and I'm gonna get that. So I got Smile.
00:59:48
Speaker
smile was great I really loved it you know I'm with you on on how scary it was scary right it was it was for sure you know there there I will say that you know I'm not your this is usually your your bag I'm not usually as big on like the trailer thing giving away the scares
01:00:08
Speaker
This one definitely gave away a couple of scares that were really good. The best scare. And I don't know if I'm going to talk about it because if you haven't seen it, I don't want to give it away. But there's one that is so wild that you're like, why on earth would you put that in a trailer? That's a terrible idea. So they did that. And when I was watching the movie, I was like, well, I've already seen that. So that part wasn't as scary as maybe it could have been.
01:00:32
Speaker
But there is something very deeply disturbing about this particular story. You know, I think that the movie relies on, it follows, if you think about it, it relies on, oh, I had another horror movie in mind. The Grudge. Oh, The Grudge, The Grudge. No, no, no, I'm sorry, The Ring.
01:00:49
Speaker
ring thank you the ring of course yeah so like the ring it follows it has it has that kind of you know kind of malange feel to it if you kind of smack those two together and they have a baby you get smile and smile was was fucking scary like definitely if you haven't seen it yet give this one a watch it was worth the rental I you know I rented it for about six bucks or whatever absolutely worth it I really enjoyed it smile that's it
01:01:16
Speaker
I'm glad you liked it because I've been seeing some backlash against it lately and I'm not. What's the backlash that just it's like recycled like that. It's it's honey. Look, everything's recycled. There is literally there is nothing new under the sun or at least there's very little new under the sun. And what is new is being created by Ari Aster. And that's basically it. So I'm sorry, but that last 20 minutes of smile is terrifying.
01:01:40
Speaker
Right, exactly. And I'm just to say that like anybody who thinks that everything is that that oh, it's recycled, then you need to delve into a history of literature because it all comes from the same place, baby.
01:01:53
Speaker
Yeah. All right. My next one is on Netflix. It is tragically the last season of Dead to Me. This is the Christina Applegate, Linda Cardellini. What's that one guy's name? Linda Cardellini. James Marsden, kind of.
01:02:10
Speaker
So what basically happened is we I think we've reported on both seasons of Dead to Me when they were on. And then the pandemic happened. And it went it was in like in production on its third season and then the pandemic hit. So obviously, like it got delayed for like two years. So we were all really nervous that it wasn't going to get kind of the wrap up season that it deserved. It was always said the third season was going to be the last one. So we were like ready for it like.
01:02:38
Speaker
And then finally we got it. And I'm happy to report that the final season of Dead to Me is, I cried like three times. It's just ridiculous. That's good to hear. It's also, as most people know, a Christina Applegate was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. So
01:02:59
Speaker
It is it's good to see her still on screen, still doing her thing. She actually just got a Hollywood star on the Walk of Fame, which is really cool. Oh, that's good. And it's just to see some of these stars like I'm thinking like Salma Blair, you know, Christina Applegate, of course, like these people that you grew up with, like these people that were in all your movies growing up and they're starting to
01:03:25
Speaker
see, I don't know, just difficulties in their health and everything. It's just really sad, but it was so good to see that they got to close out the show the way they wanted to. And it's just the way that they wrapped the show up with the way because the show is fucking insane. What happens in this show? The amount of people that kill people die, like whatever the way that they wrap it up is just like so heartwarming and just.
01:03:49
Speaker
Very beautiful. And so if you were a big fan of any of the seasons of Dead to Me, this is a proper conclusion to the story, and I'm very happy that they got to do it. Well, I'm glad that it's... I wasn't a big watcher of it. I watched a little bit of it at the very beginning, but I'm glad that it's turned out well for the fans out there.
01:04:07
Speaker
My final one is a show called slow horses, which is on Apple TV plus It premiered I believe in April of this year and I just didn't pay attention to it at all No idea what this is
01:04:22
Speaker
So, slow horses, like I said, once again, it's on Apple TV+. It's really, really good. I watched it because this whole week when I got back from America, I was sick. So, I was only at work for one day, but I was really sick and I couldn't do... I could barely stand up. That's how bad this flu was, by the way. So, get your flu shot.
01:04:42
Speaker
Um, but I had a lot of time to watch TV. So I saw this one and I was like, and let's give it a shot. Gary Oldman's in it. We'll see. Um, so it, it's, um, it is a series and it's, it's got some really great talent. Gary Oldman, Kristen, Scott Thomas, Jonathan price. Um, and then a bunch of sort of newer English actors that are all really good. Um, Olivia cook, uh, Saskia Reeves, Rosalind, Eliezer, uh, Freddy Fox, Dustin, uh, Demi burns.
01:05:11
Speaker
Christopher Chung, Sophie Okonedo, really good people. And also a very... I'm obsessed with this guy now. His name is Jack Loudon. He's so cute. He's not even my type. I don't know what's happening to me in my old age now. I need to Google this. Oh my God. But it is basically a spy show. And I really do love spy movies, spy shows, that kind of thing.
01:05:35
Speaker
And slow horses is the term for the agents of MI5 that work at this particular office in London. And the office is called Sloughouse, S-L-O-U-G-H.
01:05:50
Speaker
But as a sort of like a derogatory term, they call the people there slow horses. And the reason why is because you get sent to Slough House if you've done something stupid at MI5, right? So you're an agent at MI5, you've done something like in your training, or you've done something as an agent that like doesn't get you totally kicked out because they still need you. But like clearly, you're not like full on agent material. So it's equivalent of like desk work.
01:06:20
Speaker
Yeah. Well, not really desk work. Like they're still doing like, you know, this and that in the field, but they're looked at as kind of like the rascals, basically like these people aren't art that they're not they're not as good as everybody else. Right. Send them in first before we send in the real agents a little bit kind of. Yeah. And so it's it's all about them. And, you know, I won't give a lot of way because number number one, every spy show that you watch is like a big spider web. So it's hard to tell the story anyway. But I don't want to give away any
01:06:47
Speaker
clues that if you do end up watching this, you won't have your head turned around. It's a great show. I had so much fun with it. The cast is just incredible. It's funny too. There's some really funny parts that are just great.
01:07:03
Speaker
This is one thing that I'll tell you. It's not really a big spoiler. But there's one of the agents who's a slow horse who they get in his car and it just keeps playing Coldplay over and over again. And his partner is like, turn off the radio. He's like, I can't because the power's broken. And she's like, well, turn the song. And he's like, I can't because the CD player's broken. And so it just plays the same Coldplay song over and over and over again. Oh my god.
01:07:32
Speaker
It pops up in different episodes and every time you hear it, it's just honestly, it's so funny. I just loved it. Gary Oldman is fantastic. Jonathan Price is great. Kristen Scott Thomas couldn't be better as always. Um, so I highly recommend it. I had a blast watching it season two just started. So if you want to catch up on season one and get into season two, now's a great time to do it.
01:07:56
Speaker
Cool. Well, my last one is I actually went to the theater and I saw the menu, which is just fresh out as as of this record, fresh out part of the plan I see over here starring Anya Taylor Joy, Nicholas Holt.
01:08:12
Speaker
I don't know if he's goes by Ralph or Ray. I hear it both ways. Ray refines. But this is the it's OK. So basically the story is these people, very rich people have bought into like a culinary experience on an island and they get like shipped out to this island and there's like this very exclusive restaurant and things go from there. I don't want to give too much away because like
01:08:39
Speaker
I don't know how I don't know if this is going to be a very successful movie in the theater, if I'm being honest, because I don't think that they know how to market it because it's it's kind of a horror movie, but also kind of like just like a black comedy kind of thing. I definitely went into it thinking one thing and I won't say what I thought it was, but it definitely like surprised me in what it actually did with the movie.
01:09:06
Speaker
And as someone who worked in fine dining for a number of years, this was so fucking funny. Oh my god. Poke fun at some of these culinary geniuses, if you will. John Leguizamo's in it for some stranger. Oh wow, okay. Wow, neat.
01:09:23
Speaker
I had so much fun with this movie. I went to my local theater, the Davis Theater in Lincoln Square, and I literally just had so much fun. If you can catch it in the theater, I would definitely recommend it, but I don't think it's necessary to be in the theater. So when it does come for rent, I would recommend people check it out. It definitely could be a fun watch at home moment, but it was just a fun movie. I don't know what else to say.
01:09:50
Speaker
Well, good. Sometimes fun is on the menu. Haha. Get it? There we go. Well, listen, folks, um, for our what you've been, I didn't know what I was going to say there for a minute for what you've been watching, bitch. Andrew brought us a Christmas story, Christmas on HBO, max, the people we hated the wedding on Amazon dead to me, the final season, which is on Netflix and the menu, which you can see now in theaters.
01:10:13
Speaker
And Maddie brought us Shazam from 2019, which I'm sure you can find pretty much anywhere. Top Gun Maverick, which I'm sure will be coming to streaming services soon. Smile, which you can find in America on HBO Max and Slow Horses on Apple TV.
Movie 'Demons' Introduction
01:10:32
Speaker
Plus, so excellent. Another edition of some great stuff we're bringing to you. So take a break. Boy, I really don't know what I'm saying tonight. Um, take a break, grab something to drink, and we'll be right back with our first film of the episode demons. The preview you are about to watch is for a movie that is unlike any you have ever seen before. It is for a movie that goes beyond temporary fear.
01:11:00
Speaker
To everlasting terror, it is a movie called Demons. Yes, the demons are coming, and they're coming for you.
01:11:15
Speaker
Warning, if you have the courage to see demons, sit near an exit. Otherwise, you might never get out. In your theater, who will survive the touch of the demons and who will not? The demons. With music by Billy Idol, Motley Crue, The Adventures, Rick Springfield and Saxon.
01:11:41
Speaker
This is no dream. This is happening right now. And it could be happening to you. Demons. They will make cemeteries their cathedrals. And the cities will be your tombs. Will you survive it?
01:12:12
Speaker
You better start praying to Saint Sebastian that these little fuckers don't get you because we're talking about demons. Andrew, bring it in. They will make cemeteries their cathedrals and the cities will be your tomes. A group of people are trapped in a West Berlin movie theater infested with ravenous demons who proceed to kill and possess the humans one by one, thereby
01:12:37
Speaker
multiplying their numbers. Directed by Lamberto Bava. Written by Lamberto Bava, Dario Argento, Dardano Saccietti. The production company is Doc Film Roam and Ascot Entertainment Group. George is played by Urbano Barberini. Cheryl is played by Natasha Hovey. Hannah is played by Fiore Argento. Ken is played by Carl Zinni. Kathy is played by Paolo Cozol.
01:13:06
Speaker
Sorry, everybody. So Paula Colter Rosemary is played by Garetta Garetta. Is that for Garetta Garetta? Garetta Garetta. Uh huh. First man exiting subway is played by Lambert. Oh, Bob, I had no idea that had to put that in there. And Ingrid, the usher at or as I have in my notes, the woman with the hair has played by Nicoleta Elmi. And Andrew, just really quick one that I forgot to put in there. Tony is played by Bobby Rhodes. We cannot forget Tony.
01:13:35
Speaker
Okay. I see the pimp. He is. Okay. This is actually not rated. It comes in at 88 minutes. Obviously the country that is out of is Italia or Italy as we say. It was released on May 30th of the 1986. Locations are kind of like various but mostly around Rome and Berlin.
01:13:56
Speaker
The budget was 1.8 million and the made back money is 1.25. 1.225 million Italian lire. So whatever that equates to. But yeah, Maddie, we're talking about demons, which is kind of an insane movie. Have you seen this before? And what are your initial thoughts? No.
01:14:21
Speaker
No, I had not seen that before. I have to gather myself. Look, demons is very, very weird. And there's no... I have a number of questions.
01:14:36
Speaker
Okay. So just right from the beginning, there's no point to it being in Berlin. I just want to point that out. This literally could have been anywhere. It could have been in Dublin, could have been in Chicago, could have been in Reykjavik. It doesn't matter. It could have been anywhere. For some reason, Lumberto Baba chose Berlin. And even being in Berlin,
01:15:03
Speaker
There's nobody German in it at all. In fact, nobody speaks German throughout the entire film because it is dubbed in the strangest way in American English. This is pretty popular for Italian horror of this time. Essentially what happens is that they don't really have the budget for on screen.
01:15:31
Speaker
basically like microphones, essentially. And so what they do is they have people come in and double the lines afterwards, even though they are speaking in English in the actual movie, because you can see that the dubbing does
Cursed Film Plot in 'Demons'
01:15:44
Speaker
match. Almost matches up, for the most part. And look, those are just some of the questions that we have to ask. The other questions that you might need to ask are,
01:15:57
Speaker
Why is there a dirt bike in a movie theater? That's one question you might want to ask. I actually can answer that. OK, well, I'm not looking for the answer yet. Let me just ask a question. Why is there a helicopter suddenly in a theater? Well, we'll talk about that later. Yeah. You know, why is there a sharpened katana blade in a movie theater? There are a number of things that just sort of occur and
01:16:22
Speaker
It's a lot. I wrote down, this movie is insane, exclamation point in my notes, and it's wild. It's crazy. I will say that there are some really inventive parts of it. Here's the story. There's these two college girls. They're in Berlin. Apparently, they're going to university in Berlin. I'll give you that.
01:16:47
Speaker
And they get given two sort of like passes to go see this movie at what was it called? It was called The Metropole, I believe, right? Yeah. Yeah. So they get two passes to go to The Metropole, which by the way, that place really is in Berlin. I'm going there for Christmas. I'm going to find that building. Got to take a picture. I absolutely will. I promise. But they go there. They're going to go see this movie. They skip their music lesson and they go to see this movie that they don't know what it is.
01:17:13
Speaker
With Miss Buckles. With Miss Buckles, yeah. Miss Buckles is gonna be pissed. They should have gone and seen Miss Buckles. Anyways, they get into the movie theater and they, you know, they take their seats and, you know, there's these two gay guys, but they're not really gay. But I wrote down, like, if these people are straight, then I am too. Especially Carl. What's his face? Carl Zinni. Carl's in his... The younger one? Yeah. He's actually really cute in this movie. I just wanted to point that out as well.
01:17:39
Speaker
he's got the hair he's got the hair it looked it looked great anyways you know they kind of sit together and then you meet all these other this other cast of characters you meet I forget their names now but Hannah and whatever her boyfriend is you've got Tony and the
01:17:54
Speaker
blind guy in his caretaker. Oh, my God. The blind guy in his caretaker are wild. You've got Tony Rosemary and the other girl. I can't remember her name right now. But like there's this, you know, this like this little strange motley crew of characters that does pop up in this theater and they watch in this movie. Also funny that I said motley crew because motley crew is in the soundtrack and Billy Idol to and Billy Idol out of nowhere. I even wrote down Billy Idol has entered the chat. Laugh out loud.
01:18:22
Speaker
I was like, why White Wedding? That's such a weird choice. They just chose what was popular, I imagine. The movie starts and they're watching this movie. The movie is about these kids who are walking around this graveyard place in Rome. Those are the parts that they filmed in Rome.
01:18:44
Speaker
So they're walking around this weird cemetery where apparently Nostradamus was buried and they find this box that's got a book in it written by Nostradamus and there's a mask and it basically says, if you put on this mask, you'll become a demon and then you'll be part of the problem that goes out and creates pestilence in the Earth. That's basically it.
01:19:11
Speaker
While they're watching the movie, it happens in real life because Rosemary put on the mask in the lobby. Exactly. And she cut her face a little bit. And now guess what? She's going to be a demon. And then it just kind of starts happening to everybody and just all goes downhill from there. And there's there's a lot of just crazy things that happen. But like, you know, like the whole movie within a movie thing, I think is actually pretty inventive. You know, I think that they actually committed to it like they and they did.
01:19:41
Speaker
Like they actually like show part of that movie like in any other movie they would kind of just show like a little tiny clip and then it would be done but like in this they actually like do make that part of the movie which I thought was pretty inventive I mean if you think about it like when berets ababa was making two movies at the same time and you know maybe one he didn't really finish obviously but like the but I mean they're the production quality of both
01:20:03
Speaker
which is saying a lot. The production quality of both was actually pretty good, you know? And so he really made two films to make this one film called Demons Happen. So, you know, look, if you start questioning demons, you're just going to end up
01:20:21
Speaker
You're going to walk yourself in a circle and you're never going to get that time back in your life, is what I'm trying to say here. I think in the end, what this movie is for me, and we can talk about the minutiae in between, but what this movie is for me is like, this is like a party movie. Put it on in the background.
01:20:44
Speaker
You know people are over you put on something crazy yeah put on demons and you don't have to worry about watching it for the plot at all.
01:20:54
Speaker
Yeah, no, I totally agree with you. Um, this one for me, like I, so just speaking into like how you're just saying how to watch it is like, I literally saw this like on a screen at a bar one night and I was like, what is this movie? It's really easy. Like, and I ended up looking it up and finding out that it was demons and watching it and really digging it. But, um, it's definitely kind of like a background, like you don't have to pay too much attention to the movie entirely.
01:21:20
Speaker
I just there are certain parts of this movie that just crack my shit up. Like when the pimp guy, what was Tony, Tony, right? When he sees the one girl, she has smashed through the screen because. And I do think that that's like a very inventive part, because in the movie within the movie that they're watching, there's like a stabbing happening. And then also behind the screen, one of the women
01:21:45
Speaker
are like trying to break through the screen. So there's almost like a stabbing, but also kind of like cutting through the screen moment where I thought it was like really inventive, honestly. Um, but there's a one where she crashes through and Tony goes, Oh shit, she's a friend of mine. Oh my God.
01:22:02
Speaker
just cracks my he has some really good lines. And there's also the moment where. Wait, wait, wait. I wrote one down that he said, hold on. Let's see, because because of that, she became because of that scratch, she became a demon, an instrument of damn evil.
01:22:22
Speaker
Um, I also thought it was funny. There's, um, one, one couple that we forgot to bring up was the guy who's horribly abusive to his wife on their anniversary.
Demon Outbreak Chaos
01:22:31
Speaker
Uh, and he gets killed pretty early on, but he very early on in the movie looks back at Tony and his two ladies, uh, Rosemary and the other one, which now I can't remember either. Um, and he goes whores. You can tell them from a mile away. I was like, Jesus.
01:22:45
Speaker
But and also too, like, how did these people end up in Berlin? Like, where are all these people from? Well, I do want to say one thing that was really funny early on is we opened the movie with Cheryl on a train and she's she's going to class, like you said, but like she's terrified literally of every
01:23:02
Speaker
everything every moment because like she's just sitting in their train station that just like her train seat and just like scared of everything. And she gets off the train and she sees the guy with the mask on, which we'll talk about whether he is part of it or not, because it doesn't really make a whole lot of noise. But she runs away from him, but then stands on the escalator, which I thought was really funny.
01:23:29
Speaker
Um, but, uh, yeah. And so we have this guy who's giving out tickets to the Metropole, to the new, you know, movie. I thought it was really funny. I've never been to a movie where I didn't literally know what kind of movie I was going into, but, um, they go into this movie and the one girl was like, a horror movie. I knew it.
01:23:48
Speaker
I know. I think that this is just like a movie about like don't touch what's not yours, if I'm being honest, because that's like what Rosemary does is she kind of like there's like props from the movie in the lobby. That's why there's the dirt bike. That's why there's the Katana. That's why there's the mask. Like they're all kind of like props from the movie.
01:24:08
Speaker
Um, and she puts on that mask and cuts herself and then she gets turned into the first demon. What I will say about this movie, I think the practical effects are really good and really nasty. Um, if I'm, if I'm being honest, they're pretty gross. The nastiest one for me personally was either the fingertips or the teeth being like, got like pushed out. That was anything with fingertips is always tough, tough to watch. Cause you just, you know, how bad that would, that would hurt, you know? Yeah.
01:24:38
Speaker
Um, I did think it was funny. Like, uh, we never really do discover what happens to Hannah. Um, we see that they are in the, what would you call that? The shaft, the like heating, cooling shift or something like that. Yeah.
01:24:53
Speaker
And they're trying to escape her and her boyfriend. And we have a moment where her boyfriend is attacked, but then we never see those two characters again. So weird. Not really sure what happens to them. So good luck. Good luck, guys. Good luck out there. I did think like I said earlier in my notes, Ingrid, I just have her as the woman with hair because she has the most enormous like head of hair. I'm just like, congratulations to you, woman. You are.
01:25:20
Speaker
You have very healthy hair jeans and I'm very, but she never really becomes a character though. Like you think early on she maybe is in on it because she works at the theater and she like is the usher and she kind of goes and like breaks up the making out people. And you think she's going to be more of a character, but then she kind of just gets, um, like killed kind of off, not even off screen, but like almost, you know what I mean? Yeah, totally.
01:25:49
Speaker
I thought it was funny that we bring in. So halfway through the movie, you think that you're on board with these people in the theater and then all of a sudden, out of nowhere, as what was that movie that we did, New Year's Evil, we cut to these, what would you call them? These metal heads or whatever you want to call them. They come out of nowhere. Yeah, that makes total sense. It's just like New Year's Evil.
01:26:16
Speaker
Yeah, where they just come out of nowhere. So apparently in the mid to late 80s, we were obsessed with kind of like these. What would you call them even like? I don't want to call them metalheads because that's not right. But I think that what we were seeing there is like the I like we're seeing like the non punk persons late greasers. No, I think that that's like what people thought of punks at the time.
01:26:42
Speaker
Right. OK. That's that's like, oh, that's what a punk looks like. And it's like, that is not what a punk looks like. And I was really I was really caught off guard because I thought they were actually snorting like Coca Cola because they were too. I even wrote down. I was like, wait, are they snorting coke? Is there coke in the can or is it Coca Cola in the can?
01:27:00
Speaker
Yeah, because they are having this moment where they're passing around a can of actual Coca-Cola and snorting out of it. And you later discover that it's actually cocaine because they spill it. And just like, this is why I'd never hang out with cocaine people anymore is that they have to scrape up every little bit and every little bit counts and we have to get all the cocaine and where's the next cocaine coming from?
01:27:21
Speaker
Um, I don't know about you, but I had a couple of people in my life in my twenties that were just, once they got, once they got a little bit of cocaine, it was like all about that for the rest of the night. And it was just so annoying. There is nothing more annoying than a Coke head. I'm seriously like Coke heads and libertarians. They are like the most annoying people in the world.
01:27:41
Speaker
put that on a t-shirt. Seriously. I did like the, there was one funny part with these people though, where he's like, oh, there's some snow in the valley because there's basically cocaine in between her boobs. That was funny. Um,
01:27:56
Speaker
That there's some interesting thing that happened in the movie. So we think like, OK, they're just in a theater. They can escape pretty quickly, right? But like there's some sort of magic and there's some sort of magic with the theater that closes off all the windows and turns them into walls. And so they can't escape. And the whole movie is just them about them trying to escape and they try to hole up at one point.
01:28:19
Speaker
Um, I did think it was funny that they were like, Oh, they're coming to get us. And they like move like one chair. And then all of a sudden they're overwhelmed by demons. You know, not to like jump all the way to the end, but like, let's jump to the end really quick because, okay, so you've got, you've got this theater that that's been completely walled off, right? And they can't get out. It's that that's the main struggle of the film besides is trying to survive.
01:28:42
Speaker
But let's jump forward all the way. And eventually, oh, God, what are their names? Kathy, Cheryl, Cheryl and George, Cheryl and George are the ones that escape. Right. And they escape to the rooftop because a helicopter crashes through. Yeah. I mean, I mean, why not? Why not? You know, but by the time that they escape, then they realize that it's not only are demons just in the theater and they're becoming demons,
01:29:09
Speaker
but they're everywhere now. So now everything has been overrun by it. And so that is another question that you could ask is, well, then why care about walling in the theater? If everyone else became a demon anyway, who gives a shit?
01:29:26
Speaker
But it's those questions that you should not ask when watching demons. You should just roll right by. I did like the port where Kathy gets turned and she has this very like crazy thing that happens where she's kind of like hunched over with her like hands on the ground and a demon literally comes out of her back, which I thought was a really good effect.
01:29:51
Speaker
But yeah, and then we get to the we get to the roof of the theater and who's up there? The guy with the mask. And we don't know why or who he is or what he has to do with this and why he is not a demon. Right. But he has a pretty horrific death, too, as he gets his eyes out with that rebar.
01:30:10
Speaker
With with rebar that happened to be perfectly spaced matches. And then in our two heroes they they get out and I will say I love the effect of the glowing eyes on the demons like when it's dark I thought that that was really cool.
01:30:28
Speaker
And they get out and they stumble upon a family, for lack of a better term, because they don't ever really say who these people are. But it looks like a dad and two kids, if I'm kind of looking at it correctly. And once again, totally American. And we know they're American, not just from their voice, but because the kid in the front is eating a hot dog and holding an M16.
01:30:48
Speaker
and driving a jeep and driving a jeep. So listen, there's like nothing, nothing could be possibly more American in the middle of Berlin than, um, then this little family right there.
01:30:58
Speaker
And they have guns, and they're kind of like, we're going out west. We're getting as far away as you can. And if you watch Demons 2, there's a little nod to this in that movie. But at the very end, we're halfway through the credits. The credits roll on top of the film. And then Cheryl tragically turns into a demon.
01:31:22
Speaker
She got nicked one way or another. She got nicked and now she has been killed as well. And they just shoot her and leave her in the road to die, which I was like, Jesus. Cheryl's like our main character. I mean, God bless her.
01:31:37
Speaker
Now, Andrew, there is a sequel, I have not seen it, but I did learn in reading about this that Demons 3 is in the works.
Demons 3 Announcement
01:31:47
Speaker
I guess the original Demons 3 was rewritten and it was called something else, but there is a new one coming out, and who is the director? Jaretta Jaretta, who plays Rosemary.
01:32:00
Speaker
Um, so look, I don't know how far along it is or whatever, but I think it's starting to film in 2023. Um, and so demons three, you know, look, who knows who will be back for it. But, um, listen, there's more demons, more demon or than ever is, is going to happen. Um, so if you get ready for that, if you've ever not seen the sequel, I mean, we might have to do it if we ever do like apartment horror because it all takes place in an apartment building, but fair enough.
01:32:26
Speaker
It's pretty fun. Just like this movie is. I mean, let's be honest, there's nothing too much beyond the surface of this movie. But so, Maddie, today we are gathered here to grade demons on a seven stripe scale because we grade on the seven stripes of the galed rainbow. Maddie, what is your what is your main takeaway from the film and what is your score?
01:32:50
Speaker
I said this is good for nothing more than having it on in the background. And I mean that as a compliment. And my score is four. OK, I gave it a four point five. I said this is just pure fun. Is the dubbing weird? Yes. Does the plot make a whole lot of sense in the larger sense? No. But the gore and action make up for it. And let's be honest here at eighty eight minutes and the action never stops. Come on. Well, more can you relate for fair enough?
01:33:17
Speaker
All right, well, that will take us out of demons.
Dario Argento's 'Dark Glasses'
01:33:21
Speaker
And now we're going to go to a little bit more of a modern Italian story with dark glasses. Rassalita en camara de los Troplientes. ¿Qui maniré? ¿Chamos a detraviti, me? Tout de prostitut.
01:33:51
Speaker
I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
01:34:20
Speaker
The rehabilitation is in the way of autonomy. What do you want to do? I want you to take care of yourself. I want you to take care of yourself. I want you to take care of yourself. I want you to take care of yourself. I want you to take care of yourself.
01:34:57
Speaker
Is that sun too bright? Is that eclipse looking a little weird? You better put on your dark glasses. Maddie tells all about dark glasses. To wake up from this nightmare, you won't be able to open your eyes. In Rome, a serial killer has strangled three prostitutes with cello rope. The cellist's last rope is destined for Diana, a luxury escort who frequents the hotels of Via Veneto.
01:35:24
Speaker
One night, the maniac chases driving a van and rams her, sending her crashing into another car. She awakens in the hospital, shrouded in darkness. The diagnosis is final. She lost her sight in the crash. Rita, a young woman from the Blind Society, helps Diana with her first steps in the darkness and in her new life. In the meantime, the police investigate unsuccessfully, but it won't stop there. The cellist must finish his work.
01:35:52
Speaker
Diana, helped by Chinese orphan Chin, can only try to escape. The cat and mouse game has just begun. Dark Glasses was directed by Dario Argento, written by Dario Argento and Franco Farini, produced by Urania Pictures and distributed by Shutter. Thank you, Shutter.
01:36:12
Speaker
Diana, played by Elena Pastorelli, Rita, played by Azia Argento, Ispetore Baldacci, played by Gennaro Icarino, Ispetore Alliardi, played by Mario Pirello, Pirello, pardon me, Ispetrici Bayani, played by Maria Rosario Russo, Mateo, played by Andrea Garpelli, and the adorable Chen, played by Andrea Zhang.
01:36:34
Speaker
It is not rated. It is 86 minutes long out of Italy, of course, released October 13th, 2022, this very year, filmed in multiple locations all around Rome. And while we don't have the budget, we do know somehow that it made $227,000.
01:36:52
Speaker
Um, so this, for this particular episode, this was my second time watching it. Andrew, this was your first. What'd you think? Um, I'm going to be very honest. I was not a huge fan of this movie.
01:37:10
Speaker
Tell us why I felt like everything. So I'm reading in some of the trivia that this was basically like an abandoned screenplay that like Dario Argento went back to. Sure. Which kind of makes sense now that I've like watched the movie, just given that like all of the plot points just for me personally don't really like add up to much.
01:37:37
Speaker
It felt like there was a lot of ideas, but nothing really came to fruition. For instance, at the very beginning of the movie, we have the eclipse. I'm thinking to myself, the eclipse is going to come back in some sort of way. This is going to be a big part of the movie. It's not. It's just basically to say that she irritated her eyes and that's why she's wearing sunglasses during sex.
01:38:01
Speaker
It I don't know. Like the fact that she was a sex worker doesn't really like really make a big difference in the end, except for like that's who the cellist is, which until you read that until I'm being honest, until you read the plot synopsis here, I did not know that he was called the. Yeah, sure. But I just felt like a lot of it didn't add up to like there's a whole part and we'll talk about it a little bit later. There's a whole part where they end up in like a snake pit. And I'm like, why? Yeah, sure.
01:38:29
Speaker
Just for me, like it felt like just like a lot of different plots kind of like out of nowhere. And I don't really like know how to like wrangle them all like into a 86 minute movie. That being said, I do think some of the performances were pretty good. I obviously think that the way it looks is really pretty. Yeah. But like overall, for me, it just felt like kind of like a movie that was not fully understood.
01:38:56
Speaker
if I'm giving my true and honest opinion. What about you? I don't disagree necessarily with a lot of what you said, but I do think that it's just a really real movie if I'm being honest. I think that's what kind of draws me in. I quite like it. And I think that for Argento, it's one that isn't like
01:39:21
Speaker
an insane wild like like jello craziness bit like it's just it's sort of just like it's just this weird story of this sex worker who gets caught up in this weird thing and what happens
01:39:36
Speaker
And there's something sort of for me, there was something sort of lovely about that. There really was. I think that the loveliest part of this movie and this movie about, you know, murder and death and whatever else is the relationship between her and Chen. And, you know, Chen is what the description wasn't wasn't all that great to describe this. The reason why Chen is with her in the first place is because when she when she gets in the car accident, where she loses her sight, where she goes blind entirely,
01:40:06
Speaker
She rams into, not of her own fault, of course, she rams into a Chinese family that is in front of her. Now, this is a Chinese Italian family. I want to point that out. And this is actually really important because I watched a review from another couple of gay guys that do horror reviews on YouTube. And one of the things that they said they found unbelievable, and I'm not even joking you, and this is a white guy and a black guy that are saying this. I just want to point that out. They found unbelievable that the Chinese kid spoke Italian.
01:40:37
Speaker
Why? Girl, your guess is as good as mine. These are two American, you know, horror guys, gay guys. I think that they're a couple. And I'm like, oh, wait a minute. Wait a minute. Because because Chinese people can't speak Italian. Is that the reason why? Are they not Italian enough for you? And like that is that's it was just so stupid hearing that.
01:40:57
Speaker
But I think the fact that there is this wonderful little Chinese Italian kid that gets to be sort of like the buddy in the movie to this blind prostitute, it's such an uncommon pairing. It makes no sense at all. But look, we just talked about demons that doesn't make a sense in the damn world.
01:41:23
Speaker
But there's still something lovely about that movie even. And there's something lovely about the relationship between these two. So because the parents of Chin die, Diana goes to the orphanage where Chin is being kept. And basically is like, look, if he needs anything, let me know. Here's my number, blah, blah, blah, blah.
01:41:43
Speaker
Sorry, I'm laughing a little bit because there was a part in this, in this moment where she kind of like gaslights the little kid a little bit because she's basically like, listen, I know I killed your family, but listen, it's not my fault. And look, I'm blind. I'm blind now. So I definitely like paid for my sins.
01:42:00
Speaker
Someone had to say it. I mean, it wasn't her fault. It's the killer's fault. I thought it was funny the way that she does it. But she but she but she takes him in and you know, thank goodness because he illegally takes him in. Well, he's a child. Yeah, but he's already getting bullied at this place where look, the kids at that at that at that school at that orphanage where he is, they might as well be those two awful American podcasters who are wondering why this Chinese person could possibly be in Italy because why would that ever happen in anything?
01:42:29
Speaker
And so she takes him under her wing and then they go from there. Right. I thought it was funny when they go to break into his because a certain part of the movie, the cops show up to her house and they're like, well, do you know where this kid is? She obviously does, but she doesn't want to give him up because she doesn't want him to go into like foster care or whatever. And so they go to break into his old house and I'm like, OK, so they're like going to like, I don't know, get in there somehow. No, they fully on break an entire window in a building.
01:42:59
Speaker
And literally nobody comes to see what's going on until they're, until they're like fleeing that apartment. And then all of a sudden there's like a woman in the hallway and she, I think she literally just goes like leave or something. She does. It's amazing. Um, but you know, I mean, look, there, there, there's plenty about, about the script and about the, the plot that is, that is unrealized. And you know, there are definitely tons of, they're not tons, but there, there are, there are holes for sure that could have been filled in.
01:43:24
Speaker
And I'm sorry, but like the last 20 minutes of the movie are almost Unwatchable because of how dark it is like I literally don't know what's happening like I Didn't have that problem. I was really dark
01:43:39
Speaker
The whole part where they're running away, like out in the woods, like pretty much after Rita is killed. Yeah, sure. That was really hard for me to follow. Like I just couldn't see what was happening. I did. I didn't experience that, but maybe other people have, too. Speaking of Rita, Ozzie Argento, I think is actually really good in this. I don't always I'm not always a huge fan of Ozzie, but I think she was very.
01:44:02
Speaker
Good to see her not being naked for once. Yeah, I mean, hello. But I thought she did a great job. I thought that it was also a really tender character for her to play too. And I think that's what I'm getting at, right? There are moments of tenderness in this that I think make up for sort of the unrealized-ness of the script and this and that.
01:44:24
Speaker
And like I said also, I think that this is really one of the more real stories that Dario Argenta was ever done. You know, look, is it based off of something real? No. But does it involve demons and monsters and, you know, this thing and that thing? No, it doesn't. It just sort of involves this woman who gets involved in this thing and this kid who gets involved in this thing. And here's this weird thing. And look, there's a dog that eats the killer at the end, which I also kind of liked.
01:44:50
Speaker
So I was nervous when they introduced a dog in a Dario Argento movie. So I think that this is one that, you know, it's it's it's not like demons. I get it. But I think this is one that, look, if you ask a bunch of questions of it, it's you're going to end up at a dead end.
01:45:07
Speaker
But if you don't and just kind of watch it for the tenderness of it and and there are some there are some really good parts There's some great lines in this movie. I didn't I didn't write them down But as I was watching like I was watching the the translation go across And I was like, that's actually really funny And it's also fun because I'm learning Italian at the same time. So it gave me a chance to practice here and there But yeah, I mean look in general life. I really liked it. I thought it was good
01:45:33
Speaker
Yeah, I think this one for me, because I've seen a lot of Argento type and then Argento movies, obviously, I was looking for like a little bit more mystery in this one, whereas like there's literally only one person in the movie the killer could be like they don't introduce any other like red herrings. Like there's no real mystery here. Like
01:45:56
Speaker
And the interaction between her and Mateo, when he comes up, essentially you think that he's like one of her clients. They're going to have sex and be done. And then she kind of tells him he stinks and to go take a shower. And then he just like, it's a very weird cut in the movie of just like him coming down and she's like, what took you so long? And then he's like, slut. And he just leaves. And I'm like, what? That part is weird. Yeah, it just.
01:46:24
Speaker
It's very nonsensical for me that I could not understand it. I was like, is there something in translation I'm missing? But it wasn't. It's just a weird cut. Yeah, I thought it was very weird that the. Listen, I'm just going to throw it out there that the Chinese boy's name is Chin. And I'm like, we couldn't come up with something a little more like not on the nose. Dario, like I don't know. Yeah, very weird for me.
01:46:49
Speaker
because they refer to him a lot as the Chinese boy, the Chinese boy, the Chinese family, the Chinese boy. It's just a little bit of a sticking point for me that I don't think that maybe that was a spec name that he never went back and thought about more. It's possible.
01:47:05
Speaker
I thought the dog was really good. I thought it was a very good girl, Nerea. I thought that that was going to end a lot differently, but the dog actually ends up being the hero in the end, which I thought was very refreshing because in any other Argento movie, I feel like he would have basically gutted that dog. Gutted the dog. Nerea. Nerea.
01:47:29
Speaker
Um, all the gore I thought was really good, especially that very first kill of the prostitute when she gets kind of like strangled. I thought there was, there was a very funny moment though, where, um, so in this movie bystanders are, they are not far between because every single time somebody gets killed, there's like a gathering of people around them.
01:47:50
Speaker
But when she gets when she stumbles out of the bushes and she's kind of bleeding all over the place, a couple sees them, sees her from from their car and kind of gets out of the car and the woman starts screaming at the man. And, you know, this might be a translation thing. I'm not sure. But he just says, like, calm down. And I'm like, a woman is literally bleeding to death in front of your wife slash girlfriend. Why would you tell her to calm down? It's kind of amazing.
01:48:16
Speaker
Um, and then, um, it happens again when, uh, the car accident, which I think the car accident actually looks really good. Like that's a really good effect. They agreed that really well. Um, but, uh, where the, the couple is kind of like, they basically are run over by her car. Uh, and a big group of people come out and they're like gathering around and I'm like, where are all these people two minutes ago? They're all just all of a sudden here. Right.
01:48:42
Speaker
Listen, overall, it's not a bad way to spend 86 minutes. When I start to think about what these kind of movies are and what the kind of the Argento effect and what he's done in the past, I don't know if it was what I was kind of expecting and I think maybe that's why I was a little disappointed.
01:49:07
Speaker
Overall, it's still a pretty movie to look at. I just wish that it was a little bit more realized with some of its themes.
Cultural Aspects in 'Dark Glasses'
01:49:18
Speaker
Even the blindness, we understand that as part of the plot because then it helps
01:49:26
Speaker
Bring chin into the picture and like helps like that whole storyline but like it's never fully realized like what that really means to her as like a sex worker who's now blind because Even when she goes to like how like go back to that quote-unquote go back to work The one guy is even like well, I'm kind of glad you're blind because now you can't see how gross I am Okay
01:49:50
Speaker
I mean, look, fair point. Yeah, on that stuff, I don't disagree with you. There was a nice little write up in the New York Times about it. And one thing that's interesting, and I'm honestly just seeing this now, is Qin's name is Andrea Zhang, which is obviously his Italian name. His Chinese name is Qin Yu Zhang.
01:50:15
Speaker
And so I do wonder if maybe, I wonder two things. If Chin is just short for Chin Yew, which I imagine it is. And I wonder if maybe that character wasn't even named and they were like, ah, his name's Chin. We'll just call him Chin too here. That's something to think about. And the last paragraph of that review I'll read, because it kind of goes along with what I'm thinking here.
01:50:36
Speaker
The author says, yet while it's easy to dismiss dark glasses as the work of a master gone soft, Pastorelli's prickly, sharp-tongued Diana is perhaps the most charismatic leading lady of Argento's career.
01:50:52
Speaker
She dominates her surroundings, a rarity in his films, and delivers a performance that creeps close to camp, particularly while being strangled by a snake. The best moments of the film involve Diana's unsentimental alliance with Chin, the orphan who offers her more protection than she's able to afford him.
01:51:13
Speaker
Their quirkily endearing relationship allows the horror legend to dabble in a genre that's wholly new to him. The odd couple comedy. Isn't that interesting?
01:51:24
Speaker
Huh. Um, one thing I did have my notes here as I thought it was interesting that there were no subtitles for Chinese at the end. I noticed that too. Yeah. I was like, there's subtitles for all the Italian, but then, um, so I think it's his aunt or his cousin comes from China, from Hong Kong to basically adopt him. And, um, they have like an exchange in Chinese, but we don't know what they said because there's no subtitles for
01:51:51
Speaker
He was probably saying, get me the fuck out of here. This place is insane. Yeah. Well, I just literally was in a snake pit for no reason. Well, I'm there. Oh, I'm sorry. Go ahead. No, no, no. I just in the end. Let's talk about the very, very end picture. The very end is so weird. She sends them off to Hong Kong to be of this family. And then she just hugs Nerea and says, you're the only friend I have left. And that's the end.
01:52:17
Speaker
That's the end of the movie. I kind of love it. It's so wacky. I kind of. And I just want to point out one more thing before we go. Go ahead. Is that the music in this movie, while very good, is insane for what's going on. It's it's it's with without a doubt. It makes it doesn't it doesn't even fit for God's sake. No, not at all. One thing I did want to say before we kind of close that our Talia episode, because both, you know, so Demons was presented by Dario Argento.
01:52:47
Speaker
Lamberto Baba actually directed it, but it was directed by Dario Argento. One thing we've brought up in our past that we haven't really got a chance to talk about is that, let's grade this, and I want to talk a little bit about the Dario Argento Museum.
01:53:02
Speaker
Oh, yeah. So so I on on dark glasses out of a grade of seven, I'm going to give this a three. I thought it was a little unrealized. I put my main takeaway. I felt like this was half a movie. None of the plot points really added up too much. And the mystery was a little bit lacking. It's just not my favorite Argento, if I'm being honest.
01:53:23
Speaker
And for me, I gave it a four and a half. And I said, this is one of Argento's most accessible films, in my opinion. I said, folks like me who love Rome, also, this is this is something cool that I liked about, of course, you're going to really if you've been to Rome and you love Rome, you're going to love seeing Rome in this because it looks really, really nice. It'll be stuff that you really recognize.
01:53:41
Speaker
And on top of it, you get, you know, Argento's usual bloody gory messes. And Andrew is correct. When we were last in Rome, we got to go to Profondo Rosso, which is Dario Argento's gift store and horror museum in the basement or in the dungeon. However you want to think about it. Remember people when you go in here, the museum is in the basement because we almost didn't.
01:54:06
Speaker
And so, like, you know, Profondo Rosso, I forget what part of town that's in, but it's kind of by the Vatican. It's off the beaten path. You don't like walk by it all of a sudden. And it is just like a little gift shop, but you go in and it's pretty clear that there is just stuff that they have been collecting in there for a very long time.
01:54:29
Speaker
Lots of books, lots of masks, weird stuff. It's just kind of a smorgasbord of like- It's a smorgasbord of anything you could think of to do with horror. There's action figures, there's books, there's movies, there's posters. But it's pretty small. It's tiny, it's really, really small. But the gift shop part,
01:54:51
Speaker
is on top of this spiral staircase that takes you down underground to where Dario Argento set up this museum. Really cool. It was really cool. There's different vignettes for his different films. Demons is one of them. Demons is one of them. And you walk by each one and they're sort of like all behind like a little cage kind of thing.
01:55:15
Speaker
And there's just like this little like plateau that's set up for each one and a little audio plays for each one of them and that's it. It's wild. We did really in an unfinished basement completely and like we took some you can't take video down there, which I understand did take some photos down there. But it is wild. If you're ever in Rome, you have got to go to Profondo Rosso and you've got to go check this out.
01:55:40
Speaker
Yeah, it was it was definitely a cool experience. Not what I was expecting. The actual like a basement museum is like double the size of the actual like gift shop. So yeah, just very interesting. But all right. Well, that will do it for our Italian double feature. Maddie, what are we doing next? We're going to take a little break here and we'll come back to close it out with a little game. And the game is called. What does this Italian word mean, Andrew?
01:56:09
Speaker
And you put it in there, and look at that. What do you want? You don't want it to make it too calamity, too sticky. The sauce has to coat the pasta beautifully, and they have to start to appreciate the flavour of the cheeses. Mm-mm. That's lovely. A fork. Do you know, if it had, like, a ham in it... Oh, no. ..it's closer to a British carbonara.
01:56:37
Speaker
Oh, no. It is. No, that's true. Oh, well, fine. So I'm glad you're standing there. Too great? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But you know what I mean? If my grandmother had wheels, she would have been a bike. You know, what, you know, it's... You know, what the hell is... You know, it doesn't make any sense what you said. It's a different recipe. It's got nothing to do with macaroni cheese. You know? Well...
01:56:59
Speaker
And folks, that is episode 87. But like in every episode, before we end, we've got a little dumb game for you. And this one is not what is an Italian word, Andrew. It is what is this Italian food, Andrew? Oh, okay. Just like the title of the game that I made up today.
01:57:18
Speaker
Um, it, you know, maybe, maybe implies to you, I'm going to read you the name of an Italian food and Italian dish. And actually all of these, Andrew are dishes that are out of Rome. So these are all Roman specialties. So think back to your last trip. These are all things that you would have seen actually, maybe even them at the table. So I'm going to read off the name of it. I'll give you some choices for what it could be. And you need to choose the correct answer. Got it. Got it. Yep.
01:57:48
Speaker
So the first one, Andrew, is this one. I'm going to toss you a softball. So this one, I think you'll remember. It is pasta a la carbonara. Now is this pasta a la carbonara? Is it pasta with tomatoes? Is it pasta with bacon, egg, and cheese? Is it pasta with clams or pasta with squid?
01:58:12
Speaker
Well, technically, it's guanciale, but bacon and cheese is the carbonara. There you go. So you've got one. Ding, ding, ding, ding. Congratulations. Now, the next one is cartofy a la Romana. Now, cartofy a la Romana, is it a bread? Is it fish? Is it artichokes? Or is it cookies?
01:58:39
Speaker
Say the name again, Carcioffi alla Romana.
01:58:42
Speaker
Is it a fish? It is artichokes, actually. And this is a dish that is actually especially brought to the Roman cuisine by the Jewish community. They made this famous. And cartrophy are delicious. They're absolutely delicious in Rome. Cartrophy just sounds like a fish. I know, right? I know. Now, how about this? Tripa a la Romana. Is this tomatoes? Is it peppers?
01:59:09
Speaker
Is it mushrooms or is it stomach? Stomach, because trip. You got it. It is stomach. You are two for three so far. Tripa. I only know. I only know that because of Mexican food. Exactly. Right. Tripa ala Romana, of course, is a cow's stomach. It's also really delicious as well. The texture is kind of weird, though.
01:59:28
Speaker
Now this one, Andrew, I hope you're going to get, cause this is one that I think you had. It is pasta, a la cacio a Pepe, right? So is this pasta with hot peppers, basil, oregano, or pepper and cream?
01:59:47
Speaker
I know this one for sure because it's one of my favorite dishes. It is pepper and cream. You got it. Congratulations. God, I want a dish of that right now. I could eat that sounds so good right now. I could eat it anytime, any day, give it to me. And then finally little chicken thigh on top. Oh, bring it on. Now, the final one here, one more pasta dish. It is this pasta amatriciana. Now, does that mean that this is pasta with mushrooms?
02:00:15
Speaker
pasta with sausage, pasta with tomato sauce, or pasta with fish. Say the second part of the thing again. It is pasta a la amatriciana. Oh, gosh. Is it mushroom? It's tomatoes. Oh, okay. Well done. You were close. You were close. Listen, Andrew, you did pretty well there. You remembered some of the famous dishes from Rome. Congratulations. I wish we were eating them right now. Thank you.
02:00:44
Speaker
Now folks, also that brings us to the end of episode 87. A couple of things before we let you go. A reminder, of course, that we are a member of the Dread Podcast Network. So go check out Dread Podcast Network and find out all the other great podcasts that are on this delightful network. Check us out wherever you find podcasts.
02:01:05
Speaker
If you want to financially support the podcast, you can do so by becoming a patron or buying merch on frag eight thirteen dot com slash support. I wanted to give a special call out to two very special. I guess three very special listeners. So thank you again to Isaac Thorne. He sent me his book, Hellspring, which I'm just starting to get into. Oh, very nice. But pretty cool. He sent me like an actual book, which is really, really cool. Lovely.
02:01:35
Speaker
And so Farah Garan and Andrew Robertson for sending me their book, Dearly Departed. I'm really excited to read both these books and very thankful that they would even think to send them to us, which I'll obviously give them to you after I'm done with them. But just I can't even express the generosity that you would take to just like send me a book, which is just it sounds very awesome. It's like very cool. It's lovely.
02:02:03
Speaker
Also, folks too, don't forget, please do leave a review if you haven't done so yet. The year is coming to an end very shortly here. Let this be something that you give to us as a bit of a holiday gift if you haven't done that yet. Go leave us a review wherever you listen to us, but especially on Apple Podcasts if you do it there. And look, if you've already done a review, here's something else you could do. Tell some other people.
02:02:27
Speaker
Go on to social, go on to Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram, or TikTok, any of them. Tell them about how you love a podcast called Frygate the 13th Horror Podcast. Let your friends know why you love it so much and get them to listen in to. And you know what else people can do? They can get slayed.
02:03:53
Speaker
Thank you for listening to the Dread Podcast Network.