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Nothing But Trouble - Chevy Chasers #26
0 Playsin 3 days
Ben and Jess continue plumbing through Chevy Chase's filmography as they watch the notorious 1991 flop Nothing But Trouble. Despite a strong dual performance from comedy legend John Candy, this movie is just an absolute abysmal dud, Fletch would never.
Chevy Chasers is a production by Benjamin Vigeant and Jess Morrissette
Show art by Jess Morrissette
Editing by Benjamin Vigeant
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to 'Chevy Chasers' Podcast
00:00:14
Speaker
It's Chevy Chasers! I'm Benjamin Vigent, and you're not. I'm Jess Morissette, and you're not. This is Chevy Chasers, the comprehensive all Chevy Chase podcast where we're going through the entire Chevy Chase oeuvre. We're watching all of Community. We're watching all of SNL that the first season and his couple guest spots.
00:00:40
Speaker
We're watching all of the Chevy Chase show and of course all of his films. Yes. And I'm very excited for what we're talking about tonight because we are jumping into ah film that I loved as a kid. And we'll talk more about that as we go forward.
Personal Updates and Neighborhood Discoveries
00:00:57
Speaker
We're gonna to be talking about the 1991 smash hit, and Nothing But Trouble.
00:01:02
Speaker
ah directed and written by Dan Aykroyd. Oh man. But you know, Ben, before we jump into that, right I think it's time for a little bit of weekend update.
00:01:28
Speaker
So Ben, what were you doing last weekend? ah Well, those of you who are longtime listeners of Chevy Chasers know that I have been ah planning a big move.
00:01:40
Speaker
This is the first podcast that I'm recording from ah my my brand new home. ah But ah so this weekend was almost entirely packing. um And I had this have this. Has this ever happened to you, Jess, where like you're moving and like there's that transitory period.
00:02:01
Speaker
Where it's like you have like two or three days in the place that you're moving out of where everything's packed up. And so you kind of feel like you're in a hotel room in your soon to be former home.
00:02:14
Speaker
You know what I mean? Yes. And it it it immediately begins like you no longer live there once you're in that state. Like, yeah, you're in a place that is not your own anymore. Yeah, like i'm I'm just sitting there in my bedroom and it is just completely empty. Like there is a desk with nothing on it and ah dresser that only has the next day's clothes in it and a bunch of boxes. And that was all it was. And I was just sitting there and I'm just like, this is so eerie. I lived in that apartment for seven years.
00:02:52
Speaker
uh and uh you know which included 2020 so like i spent 12 years but yeah and now like and and so it's like i got to know every inch of that apartment extremely well uh and that was also that was the first place as a as a grown a grown-up that i lived all by myself i uh sans roommates Um, and, uh, so that was, you know, it, it was sad, but you know what? I've, uh, uh, you know, i I don't want to talk a little bit out of weekend update, uh, about weekdays, but, um,
00:03:35
Speaker
um the like uh you know i'm starting to already get the feeling just a couple days living in my new home that i i kind of think i might like this this new neighborhood i'm in a little bit more now then you sent me a photo of a torta that you acquired in this new neighborhood and already uh uh that was pretty good yeah oh it was berea oh um And, ah you know, on a previous episode, we we spoke with a ah Chevy Chase expert ah Francisco Gonzalez, and ah they have Cubans at this restaurant.
00:04:13
Speaker
And I am so tempted, ah like, ah to, like, we were, ah like, as as you may recall, we discussed Cubans in places other than Miami, and I assume Cuba.
Weekend Experiences and Creative Team Names
00:04:26
Speaker
ah And uh i'm so tempted to to get one take a photo and then like you know goofus and gallant send it over to him be like hey i went to this this place it's a pretty good like uh you know it's it's a a pretty good uh place for ah sandwiches they have a cuban on the menu could you please tell me what's wrong with this picture because i seem to be having a good time but you never can tell it could be like one of these things like where you find out that like the fortune cookie was invented in san francisco or something and we find out that like cubanos are from columbus ohio or something like that it's hard to say they were originally called ah but the buck the buck columbos uh uh anyway jess how about you tell me about
00:05:26
Speaker
Your weekend ah update. ah My weekend. Well, Ben, it's springtime as we record this, of course. Who knows what time year will be by the time it comes out. But that means it is the beginning of softball season and I am full on in softball mode. I am, which is to say I'm watching my daughter's team practice for their upcoming softball season.
00:05:51
Speaker
And that's kind of consuming all of my life right now. They've been doing like 7 to 9 p.m. practices on school nights, which I can't function like that. That's no way for me to live. She's fine. She's got boundless energy.
00:06:05
Speaker
For me, that's too much. But what's really fascinating me right now about this new season is uh first of all her team is named the base bandits which one we think of that as a name i think that's an excellent i think that's an excellent name the base bandits that's fun this was put to a vote for the team and we're what was the runner up yeah the runner up now like i personally i like the runner up um the knockouts i think i like the base bandits a little bit like the base bandits i think let me know did because the knockouts is is good but i think it's a little too obvious base bandits is something you don't hear every day i i i can't think of baseball band it sounds like a super mega baseball team at some level which i like that i love it yeah yeah yeah ah here's here's the weird thing to me so they're the base bandits
00:06:57
Speaker
The other team from our town, the other little league team, who I guess will be there our travels as we move forward through the season, they are the Outlaw Outfielders.
00:07:09
Speaker
That is also like a super mega baseball. It really is. What's their team? Their team specialty is obviously building, right? Building speed or something like that. Yeah. Is it is it true that each like there's ah each team is one category is ah is is your daughter's team like the the well-rounded. i mean, they're clearly they're base stillers. They're all right. Yeah.
00:07:34
Speaker
Their team is all maxed
Baseball and Celebrity Sightings
00:07:35
Speaker
out rain speed. There'll be a hitting team and a back and ah and a pitching team. But yeah, I mean what bothers me about the outlaw outfielders is that just, you know, quantitatively speaking, most of them are infielders.
00:07:48
Speaker
I mean, that's just how baseball works like six out of nine. But what about softball? How does that work? that's true girl baseball or softball as we call yeah i mean basically the same yeah i mean you're you're looking at uh six infielders three outfielders uh so i mean are these might believe these are outfielders who are just occupying an infield position at the moment i don't know what to make of it i i was so thrilled um ah the the day of the move i i i couldn't really sleep i woke up early that morning as you do ah before you know like a ah big a big day and um i ah woke up at five and i couldn't fall back asleep and
00:08:37
Speaker
And i look over at my phone and I see that a Cubs game had just started. oh yeah. Because the Cubs game and they did a they they had a game on Tuesday and Wednesday and Tokyo against the Dodgers.
00:08:57
Speaker
Um, and like, so it was, it turned out to be like this remarkable little treat. Like, it's like I was having difficulty sleeping and I wake up at 5am and then I like turn on the radio and I listened to Cubs baseball with this normal announcers.
00:09:17
Speaker
And then i I thought like, you know what? I think I could I could fuck with morning baseball. Oh, man. Morning baseball. Like because it's like you're making a cup of coffee. You're you're getting your breakfast ready. And then you have the radio on and it's playing baseball.
00:09:35
Speaker
And I was like, this is actually a very cozy morning thing.
Critique of 'Nothing But Trouble'
00:09:41
Speaker
I bet it is. It feels like the perfect morning sport. Like, I don't want to see football yeah first thing in the morning. But no, it's so nice and slow and gentle. It's a perfect morning game.
00:09:52
Speaker
And Ben, you know who is in attendance at those Tokyo games? Who was in attendance? ah Chevy Chase's Caddyshack co-star Bill Murray was in the stands. He was?
00:10:03
Speaker
He was. seen beside Jack White of the White Stripes. That's great. Well, yeah Bill must have been pretty disappointed because the Cubs lost both games. yeah
00:10:16
Speaker
if I mean, Otani is undeniable. I think he's a Fortnite skin now. So, i mean, yeah he's unstoppable. so ah guess we can't delay it much longer can we and we we we really can't we have to we have to get into it today we are going to continue our adventure through the uh chevy chase's filmography when we discuss nothing but trouble a film directed by akroyd and written by dan akroyd i believe right
00:10:51
Speaker
I believe so. Yeah. And I think Peter Aykroyd was, I saw his name in the credits. I believe so. I'm going to just lay my cards on the table here. This isn't really a surprise because I think this is kind of well-known.
00:11:04
Speaker
ah This movie is terrible. um It's the pits. I mean, it really is. i mean, Ben, was this your first time watching it? No, this was the second time. Second time. Watching it.
00:11:15
Speaker
And I actually hated it more this time. I, i Like I was kind of intrigued by it the first time i gave it a little extra credit.
00:11:27
Speaker
I was just like, Oh, this is like, Oh, this is kind of kooky and weird. um and, ah like, Oh, it's got all these, like, it has a lot of ideas. It's just that they're bad.
00:11:40
Speaker
So many ideas. This is more, more ideas per minute than your average Hollywood movie. and um uh but but this time watching it maybe because there wasn't the novelty of no like just constantly being surprised when something new and inexplicable happens um uh uh this time i was just like oh yeah no it's this this fucking scene yeah no it you know i've seen this one several times as a kid
00:12:13
Speaker
I kind of loved this movie for some reason. That's almost more upsetting to me. i think i would I think I would have liked this. Yeah. Like I was 14. I saw this in the theater. Yeah. And then I think I rented it multiple times ah to try to really just get as much nothing but trouble as I could. And it's hard for me to imagine what 14-year-old Jess saw in this. I've really tried to think about this a lot over the past few days. have some ideas.
00:12:40
Speaker
I have ideas too, because I was thinking about this within a certain, um, like it is because a lot of it is fully unique in a lot of ways.
00:12:55
Speaker
oh it like, it's a lot of just like completely bananas ideas from Dan Aykroyd. um But then also it is of a piece of a lot of nineties films that are all about like houses full of gizmos.
00:13:12
Speaker
Like that's ah like a late eighties to early nineties thing. Like, it's like, you think about Pee Wee's big adventure and you think about the Adams family and you think about like, I mean, it's not entirely like this, but like toys, like these movies that have,
00:13:31
Speaker
um this really overwrought uh production design yeah gizmos and contraptions and yeah just yeah and i think that is what appealed to me as kid and that's what i would have liked as a kid too because i loved toys uh and toys is not a good movie either no uh ah but I mean, like booby traps and slides and wild mechanical contraptions and things like that.
00:13:56
Speaker
Like all 14 year old kids. That was fascinating to me. And this movie definitely serves those up. And this serves up a whole bunch of other stuff all around it that I'm not sure what my 14 year old brain made of.
00:14:07
Speaker
Yeah. When you were 14, you were like, this movie serves. Um, now it ate and left no crumbs, Ben. this movie is sickening um now
00:14:24
Speaker
that's exactly why so i said when i was 14 all right so uh let's let's begin the the movie starts and ah they new york the hell out of us they let us know i mean again this is a real this is this is this is a real like kind of You can't make a movie from the 80s, 90s, and the not too much of the 2000s. In fact, I would say very little of the 2000s without establishing the hell out of New York City by egregiously putting the Twin Towers in every possible shot.
00:15:04
Speaker
Yeah. absolutely important i would not have known where this was set otherwise nothing about these yuppie characters screen new york if i hadn't seen those establishing shots and what's really funny to me about that is like i say like it's like wow they're they're really but you know what when i was a kid i grew up outside of new york when i was a kid that was like that To me, that was the most identifiable icon of New York. Maybe maybe even more so than the Statue of Liberty because it was it was you could see it almost like all over the place if you're driving around the island.
00:15:42
Speaker
And it was like just very identifiable. Yeah. Two very tall buildings that look exactly the same. I'd know that anywhere. Yeah.
00:15:53
Speaker
uh anyway so like you see the the bridges and blah blah blah we get chevy of course he's in his rightful place he's a ah top build then have john candy
00:16:05
Speaker
uh second build and you know um and i'm i'm pretty sure that uh chevy is given ah interviews where he's just said this outright uh not a film that he particularly was fond of and you could uh tell in his whole performance in this film is checked out uh and um i've you know there are a lot of times where i wouldn't like where where i would blame him but this time i i wouldn't um uh and then second uh second credit and god bless this man because he he he puts so much into it i think yes i think he really really puts a lot of effort into it it's
00:16:49
Speaker
john candy um best performance in the film i think hands down doing some real human being acting yeah as dennis the the local constable yeah like he's really you know and they're like I don't like John, like John Candy had a ah gear in him that Chevy absolutely doesn't, which is to say that John Candy was always playing a lot of guys that were jerks, but you loved him.
00:17:22
Speaker
But like where like, he john candy was was kind of more on the lovable side where chevy was on the side of like you love him because he's a jerk right right you know what i mean yeah yeah because even like clark griswold is a bit of a jerk uh yeah i mean and we've talked about this before i mean that's that's like a common through line whether he's supposed to be a likable jerk or an unlikable jerk it's just sort of you know On a scale, I mean, Fletch is sort of a jerk.
00:17:51
Speaker
And yeah Pierce Hawthorne is like the the full on jerkification of yeah Chevy Chase, where now he's just a flat out villain at some level. um and then uh third credit the great uh demi moore which i think this is supremely early in her career is that right i do not recall mean what she had done like she was in saint elmo's fire back in the uh 80s would this have been this is pre-gij and i'm thinking if i recall but uh demi poor is fine in it uh you know she she isn't asked to do a lot she gets to play a girl yeah that's right and she's the girl one
00:18:31
Speaker
uh they like you it it makes an attempt to kind of make her cool but they it doesn't give her anything to do no like it it just kind of gives her like these these like signifiers of intelligence and savviness Um, but like she, it's such a thankless role that she, she has.
00:18:58
Speaker
It's a shame. It almost feels like it should have been built up at the end, not to skip to the the conclusion, but like, rather than him saving her at the end, you know, had she been the one to somehow save him from certain doom, see maybe you retroactively make her kill.
00:19:13
Speaker
yeah lay up given how they present her character right as a like because in the the the beginning of the film she is the the smart competent person and she's surrounded by all these nutcases um like it's a pretty standard comedy formula to do that.
00:19:34
Speaker
have This movie has no interest in standard comedy formulas and standard storytelling formulas, character arcs, any of those sorts of things. They're out the window with this movie. Like she could be like a Liz Lennon in that like she's like funny herself, but she's like the person that's surrounded like by all these, you know, bizarre characters.
00:19:59
Speaker
characters in any case so they didn't do that uh so anyway so uh we we we come to ah right uh chevy is is getting this is chris we find out he's getting out of a cab and uh this is his intro i've got a clip right here 110 blocks in under 15 minutes not bad for one-eyed russian immigrant somebody throwing a party you are served You know, ah that's ah that's his intro. um ah He... um Here's... ah So here's the thing about this movie is that has a lot of things that are written as jokes. They're just not funny.
00:20:40
Speaker
Right. the And that one's barely even delivered in the cadence of a joke because he has a giant cigar in his mouth, which is affecting his delivery of it somewhat. But yeah, i mean, it's certainly...
00:20:54
Speaker
I mean, it establishes within seconds, hey, this guy's a tremendous asshole, um which normally in a movie, the thinking would be he learns his lesson and becomes less of an asshole.
00:21:04
Speaker
But well I'm not even sure that happens. I mean, we'll get to what happens at the end. So anyway, we get ah him and his cab driver not the cab driver, his... um like the doorman that he's buddies with that also like, you know, his, his, is his, his guy that works at the building that that's kind of, this is assistant.
00:21:27
Speaker
um So there for him to like flip a coin to as a yeah tip or something. Yeah. He, they, they back and forth some exposition. we we discover that, He is ah Chris Thorne. And, ah you know, much like today, he's making a killing with a ah popular newsletter.
00:21:47
Speaker
um Just ah for those of you younger listeners, it's kind of like a sub stack. um And i so ah he has a big party ah tonight in his penthouse ah apartment.
00:22:05
Speaker
And this is when we first see ah the these two ah ah deeply obnoxious characters, the quote unquote Brazilian heirs. um Wow. Yeah. The Brazilian heirs.
00:22:16
Speaker
now Now, Jess, was this like a stereotype that existed in the ninety s of Of wealthy brothers and like wealthy siblings. Or know just like obnoxious rich Brazilians. Yeah, obnoxious rich Brazilians that seem like maybe they're also a couple and not just siblings, but it's hard to tell at times. No, I don't think this was. I don't think a lot of people are just like, oh, all these wealthy Brazilians are are coming in and like taking over high society in New York City. I don't think so. i mean, granted, I wasn't part of high society yet it myself.
Plot Developments in Vulcanvania
00:22:51
Speaker
It feels like maybe it was written initially as maybe like that they would be like a Japanese couple, which would be like, you know, like an early 90s, late 80s thing.
00:23:02
Speaker
Yeah, that would be closer. And then they would be and then they ah were like, oh, that's a ah pretty obvious joke. Let's let's make them Brazilian because then we could do silly voices.
00:23:13
Speaker
and Who knows? Maybe it exists entirely because Brazilian air is kind of a fun word to say. there's a lot of that in this movie where it's just like maybe that would be fun um yeah maybe and dan ackroyd just liked the way that sounded and it's just like that's good enough to create two characters who really have almost no bearing on the plot whatsoever no they don't need to be there they don't um like their comic relief here at the beginning uh just by being very obnoxious uh so so uh these two like uh brazilianaires uh we'll get their name later they uh get on an elevator ahead of him he kind of is like oh i'll take the next one he he ignores them and then we see uh
00:24:02
Speaker
demi moore uh diane uh come on she's uh recently moved into this building she has two uh dogs and uh you know uh chris chevy he's so immediately he's like wow this is young de demi moore yeah yeah yeah ah So ah he makes sure to get into the elevator with her and she's kind of emotionally preoccupied. So and starts crying and gives him like, like and hands him everything that she's holding onto. Well, she starts crying.
00:24:39
Speaker
ah i Like, I think like she sees some sort of document or something like from her mail or something. This is, this has another nineties thing, which is it has this inscrutable business plot.
00:24:50
Speaker
It does. Like, I was never quite sure. Like, I almost went back and rewatched the beginning of this because i never quite understood, like, what the inciting incident to get them on this road trip they're about to go on was. Like, she they're going to Atlantic City. She needs to go there because... there' There's... So there's something, like, with her husband or her ex-husband, and he's, like, like bought some property and...
00:25:19
Speaker
And she's going to tell him off. like And it's a legal thing. But she has no way to get to Atlantic City. and Yeah, there's no way to get to Atlantic City from New York City. There's just no way if you don't have a car, you're just stuck.
00:25:32
Speaker
And um
00:25:35
Speaker
it's so weird. Like, I was just puzzling over this. Like, gosh, how hard would it have been to, like, just throw in some sort of justification why these two strangers end up on a road trip together?
00:25:46
Speaker
Yes. They just hand wave that away. It's like throw them in a car with some Brazilian airs. We got to get to the Brazilian air. Actually, they do serve a purpose and we'll, we'll get there. um in the, the plot.
00:25:58
Speaker
Yes. Uh, so anyway uh before she rushes off crying to her apartment uh uh chris invites her to his his big soiree um which you know we don't actually ever get that much information about either again there's like so we go to the party and she's completely changed and now is in like a cocktail cocktail attire oh And again, there's this like, we we get more exposition about this weird business deal.
00:26:33
Speaker
Like he knows about it because he's knowledgeable of Wall Street because of his popular sub stack and blah blah blah, blah, blah, blah. And then ah ah she's like, let's go to, and she's a high powered lawyer of some kind.
00:26:48
Speaker
And so ah she needs to get to Atlantic City. She wants to, again, this is a thing that, I thought would pay off in some sort of way, but it doesn't.
00:26:59
Speaker
There's a lot of this. It feels like this is like a first draft. Yes. And you hear about like Dan Aykroyd's first draft of, of Ghostbusters being 500,000 pages.
00:27:10
Speaker
hundred thousand pages Yeah, that's right. And I, I was thinking about that this whole movie, like they're just like threads that don't get followed up on that. You wonder if it's like, wow, is that just like 70 pages that they cut from a script at some point or. feels like this is like and this isn't an original observation from me i've heard other people say this it's like well you know well dan you gave us ghostbusters so here you go like you know like and um uh uh well they they made sure that he would never get please we love danny uh but you know i love danny
00:27:47
Speaker
I love doing like a Lauren voice and then like calling everyone by like, you know, a cozy nickname. Oh, absolutely. look Let's have Danny on. and that's I'm giving him Jimmy Stewart. Oh, oh, let's have Danny on.
00:28:02
Speaker
It would be really, it's just like one step from a, like, a like Lauren, Lauren, a little bit like, like excited becomes Jimmy Stewart. I feel like very easily. Like if Lauren weren't so like laconic, you know,
00:28:19
Speaker
Um, so, uh, they have to get to Atlantic city, by noon the next day. Like he, he, he volunteers to go and she's like, I'll drive. And he's like, no, I want to drive. Either. This is a thing that was paying off or it's a joke or it's a thing about like,
00:28:35
Speaker
you know, like, oh, women, like men and women, and he doesn't trust. Like, i don't know. there's It's very confusing to me. Yeah, she wants to borrow his car. It's just like, hey, stranger, i met, you know, a few hours ago in an elevator. Can I just have your car to go to Atlantic City?
00:28:52
Speaker
And that's a little odd. It's, it's reasonable for him to be concerned about it because it is a very nice car as we come to find out. I mean, of course it would be. because Did you know it was a Beamer?
00:29:03
Speaker
Did that kind of did you notice that? That never comes up. They don't mention it 500 times in the film. oh but mean so they have this discussion about this trip and then meanwhile the two brazilians uh uh fausto and rinalta uh uh invite themselves now this is one of the first this is another thing where it's just like you gotta you gotta redraft this because this this does not make sense that they would just be like oh we're going to invite ourselves to atlantic city
00:29:40
Speaker
brazilianers love atlantic 91 like when atlantic city was like a place that you would go not like if you're a millionaire or a billionaire or whatever If you're someone that Bernie Sanders would talk about, you'rere you're not, unless like you're buying real estate there, you're not going to Atlantic City on a holiday, I don't think.
00:30:08
Speaker
You know, maybe... Why not send them to the Hamptons? Well... because you know the the hamptons that's surrounded by lands that are sophisticated and this uh film mostly takes place in new jersey question mark though it's a very pennsylvania coded new jersey it is mean yeah it's it's yeah i mean it's pi pennsylvania by way of west virginia yeah jersey well yeah well yeah um Anyway, so ah the next morning, ah Chris is is looks pretty lousy.
00:30:44
Speaker
ah the Mike, that's the the the guy that works at the building, um gets his car. He drives kind of nuts. like on the what Did you notice this? He kind of drives nuts. and ah ah That was another thing where was like, oh, is this goingnna is that is that anything?
00:31:03
Speaker
And nothing happens. It's just that like he just drives the car in kind of a like erratic way up to it. And I'm just like, OK, well, this will have a payoff of some kind. yeah but just doesn't.
00:31:14
Speaker
No, it was just a reference to how nutty he looked in the movie Funny Farm when he was driving the lawnmower, the riding lawnmower. So I think that it was. Yeah, I'm sure it was just a callback to that.
00:31:26
Speaker
And he's a like, I don't know if the yet like, and also he's Irish, which again, like it just doesn't like, I mean, that's fine, I guess, you know, whatever. Like I tell you what leapt out at me about this thing.
00:31:37
Speaker
What? And Ben, is this possible? Did you notice that his license plate, his custom? Oh, his. Yes, I did notice this. Did you just have an apostrophe in it? I noticed that, but I didn't, I didn't notice that.
00:31:50
Speaker
Is that something that's possible? Like, I don't think that's, I mean, I don't drive a car, so. Yeah. i mean, it certainly wouldn't be here. I'm just wondering if like in 1991, New York, you could get his license plate is his last name. Thorn.
00:32:02
Speaker
Maybe. post Yes. maybe they they did that ah like you know how in a movie it will be five five five oh that way yeah yeah you know it's not a real lessons play yeah or maybe like chevy's characters when they're like a sharpie and just like scribbled in a little apostrophe that yeah i mean that that probably dan akroyd had several pages of script explaining that like where he talks about how he has a friend at the dmv you that he bribed or something like that but they just got cut before they could
00:32:32
Speaker
So Chris tells Mike he can't go on this trip. He's too hungover. um and then ah like, you know, when I'm going back back to bed, you tell... uh diane she could just have the car and then he when he turns around diane gets off the elevator and la la bla boom woozle wazzle what a beautiful gal um wearing all white as she does throughout the movie alabaster skin jet black hair uh who wouldn't drunk drive for a woman like that well he's not drunk let's over this is hungover driving which is legal i believe um now
00:33:13
Speaker
uh so he decides actually and this is another little character detail that like does come up again a couple times but like this is one of those things where i'm like oh are they going to like kind of set up her character in it like in a way but listen wow what a beautiful beamer good morning this is a vintage what 733i 3.3 liter right but Like, they set her up, again, they they they set her up as like,
The Infamous Dinner Scene
00:33:48
Speaker
oh, maybe she's like a little bit of a gearhead.
00:33:51
Speaker
yeah And i think generally the context that that makes sense, like that they they use that in, is just that it's like... Oh, it's sexy that she knows about cars. Like, that's about it. Like, i don't think they do anything with it. I was, I was just like, it should be so easy to do something with it. Where this heads, that could very easily be a plot thread you pick up and use in an interesting way.
00:34:15
Speaker
They chose not to. Yeah. i think it's I think it's just that it's like, oh, it's it's sexy that she knows about cars. Beautiful, and she knows about gas stuff. Yeah. um Anyway, the um ah so they they get into the car, and again, there's a, I want to drive. now I want to drive. and like...
00:34:35
Speaker
Because he only drives in the city, which already is just, like, not so. ah but I mean, he is rich. But then he would have his own driver. Whatever. Anyway, um ah she's like, I drive regularly and you don't.
00:34:50
Speaker
um And, again, that doesn't really materially, like... the the The reason that he gets in trouble for driving later are ah unrelated to that he only drives in Manhattan.
00:35:05
Speaker
um So ah he he yeah ah just as he's about to leave, the ah Brazilian Air C.M. and they force their way into the car. um and there's that okay so now uh they're uh driving ah down the new jersey turnpike we get to see the skyline a couple more times we also get to see that the the beamer has incredible computer technology then it has some sort of like computerized mapping system in it i mean that would have if i saw that in 1991 um i would have been very impressed
00:35:45
Speaker
Yeah, mean, basically it's a GPS at a time when, yeah, like car phones were still like almost miraculous when I'd see one of those in a movie or something. Well, and a car phone does show up in this movie. that Of course, it also has a car phone.
00:35:58
Speaker
Yeah, but I mean, yeah, and a primitive GPS system that is guiding them down the Jersey Turnpike toward Atlantic City until Brazilian airs have a great idea.
00:36:10
Speaker
Yeah. yeah so um they uh uh they have this uh brilliant idea they're like we want to take a ah picnic in the countryside um you two invited yourself you do not get to make calls like uh um but anyway diane for some reason is just like all right fine let's uh i found on the incredible gps uh like this side road we can take that will get us back on the turnpike and towards atlantic city whatever anyway um so they they get off and go down old coke road um and it is ah like it's just post-industrial like countryside and the thing is is that
00:36:58
Speaker
as said like this is an anaglomation of like because ostensibly this this has to be new jersey they're going to atlantic city they're driving down the new jersey turnpike yeah they probably didn't loop around through pennsylvania this trip and they do pass like you know it makes a point of like driving through like the refineries that like and all the the factory like whatever all that shit is when you drive out of New York city, um, like the stereotype of New Jersey being so disgusting yeah comes from, if you're driving out of New York city, like you're just hit by all these disgusting like refineries or whatever.
00:37:37
Speaker
And so it's like, okay, so it's the stereotype of New Jersey, but then, um we start driving through a town that is also obviously, and then they, they make this plane, uh, Centralia, uh, Pennsylvania,
00:37:51
Speaker
which is ah the town in central paintpa yeah in Pennsylvania where um there was a coal mining fire ah underneath it.
00:38:03
Speaker
ah And it was like a massive coal mining town. So ah there has just been an unending fire underneath Centralia, Pennsylvania for decades yeah and like the streets are breaking open and smoke will just pour through it and like you can you can look online if you've never looked up central uh centralia pennsylvania it is like kind of like a horror show um yeah and it's like a mostly abandoned town um and ah so like that's part of it but then like
00:38:41
Speaker
Yeah. Anyway, um and i mean, the town as it appears here is I mean, yeah, it looks as much like, yeah, I mean burnout Pennsylvania, coal camp, burnout, know, West Virginia, Kentucky sort of coal camp.
Escape Attempts and Bizarre Obstacles
00:38:56
Speaker
I mean, this is very much...
00:38:58
Speaker
like a setting that I've seen before IRL quite a bit. As I understand, I think the set was actually a an Old West set that they filmed on here that they kind dressed as something that would look like modern day, burnt out, run down, coal town sort of thing. But yeah, it's the town of Valkenvania.
00:39:23
Speaker
yeah and um and then uh chris makes a big mistake he does a rolling stop and a turn on a stop sign and cop sees him and uh so now we finally get past vulcanvania and into beautiful uh countryside And i then we notice that the the cops are ah like a cop is following him. And then ah the the Brazilians have an idea. and have a question. Oh, no. cop
00:39:57
Speaker
Were you speeding? 65 is the national speed limit. Well, not everywhere. said 50 back there. fifty 50. Why didn't you tell me? You don't have to stop. What?
00:40:10
Speaker
Right. Let's get out the guns of law on his front tires. Are you crazy? Of course I'm going to stop. He's a police car. What are you talking about, dude? This is a provincial cop, man. With this car, you could easily get away from him. Let's see if we could do 90. No.
00:40:24
Speaker
now I gotta say one one thing that really kills me about this movie is just that nothing makes sense and that was just a series of like things that were like Chris assumes that there's a national speed limit a thing that it's not true.
00:40:43
Speaker
Right. Um, and even I know that as someone that does not drive, uh, then the the Brazilian, uh, you know, uh, like they're, they're like, you should speed.
00:40:59
Speaker
you can outrun this guy uh this is no problem you're in a beamer like you you you understand that like you know police have like radios yeah call like you can outrun perhaps one police officer but typically hey you know there there will be other ones yeah and he is so easily goaded into this too because it becomes like you know that clip ended with him say i bet this thing could do 90 and he's like he can do 140 or whatever yeah like he good it he he wants to ah he wants to to really take advantage of yeah
00:41:39
Speaker
And so he does, he starts to speed. And then we see and ah a little taste of what's to come, you know, the the police here aren't quite ah like ah your normal cops that you'll find in any provincial town.
00:41:57
Speaker
ah But instead, ah you see that the cop car has like this control panel with extra buttons, like it's a like an episode of ah Batman.
00:42:07
Speaker
Yeah, it's like turbines to speed kind of stuff. Yeah, they're like flipping switches and theyre yeah yeah rockets coming out of the back of the car to fuel it forward. And like he's flipping a switch that's causing like a road closure to slide into place to send them off on an off road detour. yep Yeah, he's got all kinds of gadgets and gizmos, which is the beginning of a theme that will continue right on through the end of this movie.
00:42:31
Speaker
So anyway, so they get pulled over eventually by the cops and out steps the cop. And it's ah it's Dennis John Candy ah who ah tells him that he rolled through a stop. So, ah you know, they're very strict here in Vulcanvania. So you have to go to the justice of the peace right now.
00:42:54
Speaker
And ah so they drive there so far they've lost signal on their GPS. Early usage of that trope. ah Yeah, that's how you know you're in trouble.
00:43:06
Speaker
Yeah. Nothing but trouble. Oh, brother. um We get a ah a remote controlled gate and now ah we we see a bunch of like...
00:43:19
Speaker
folk are like made out of garbage and like it's essentially like a ah we we see this salvage yard a dilapidated mansion surrounded by like metal garbage right yeah and signage saying things like no cussing and uh yeah mean right away it's a bizarre compound yeah i mean the weird metal artwork they're popping in music everywhere right it's like already giving very kind creep show sort of vibes.
00:43:49
Speaker
Yep. And so we go into this mansion uh it's like full of garbage everywhere and um the i like they can't uh make a phone call because they don't have phones there uh the i the uh john candy takes everyone's ids and we get to the start of the court case we and this is now we're now we're in now we see all sorts of stuff spin around and like you know like a painting spin around and become a different painting and all this crap all this kooky crap happens and then a judge whose face we don't
00:44:38
Speaker
we don't see yet like is lowered from the ceiling or something.
Musical Performance and Celebrity Cameo
00:44:42
Speaker
Yeah. It's a sort mechanical elevator-y type contraption. And, uh, yeah, he's, he's, uh, he's a very old man. You can tell him though his face is obscured at first.
00:44:52
Speaker
He's the justice of the peace. He's, uh, Alvin, uh, Valkenheiser. Yeah. And he's going to be played, uh, by, uh, director Dan Aykroyd. Yeah.
00:45:03
Speaker
And, um, ah so he's ah like ah he finds out Chris's job Chris who is financial publishing which again you know who cares what who cares job but um and and the judge is like oh well you're a banker now this guy hates bankers yeah he he hates bankers here's the thing he He constantly elides that like Chevy Chase, like his character, it's like, oh, you're a banker and I don't trust bankers.
00:45:42
Speaker
Like, why didn't they just make Chevy Chase a banker or make it that the judge has like this hatred of financial publishers? Yeah. like it feels like there's too many steps to getting to it's like he just is like because chevy chase is not a banker he works in money but he's like it it's just a very confusing like i did this i hesitate to defend this with being simplified yeah i mean it'd be better if it were simpler i mean absolutely you know i guess in defense if the goal is here to make this all feel like
00:46:18
Speaker
this is just out of control and you know that everything's just going off the rails. yeah It's maybe it compounds even further the like I'm trapped in this crazy house because I rolled through a stop sign and I'm not even really a banker. Maybe it's just one more thing that makes all of this seem so out of left field and I don't know. I don't. Does it enhance anything again? Just sort of.
00:46:43
Speaker
And again, I don't know if the average movie goer in 1991, if they hear financial publishing is going to know how that's different from a banker or a stockbroker or whatever sort of thing we're dealing with. It just seems like a weird. Yeah. Just a wrinkle that doesn't add anything, but just requires a little bit of explanation.
00:47:04
Speaker
yeah um anyway so ah the uh like uh diane uh tries to get everyone to calm down and this is when we first see the judge let's just be quiet and let him do his little thing and we'll be on our way oh i will let you be on your way and well when you go the cat's eyes will spin okay we'll listen
00:47:33
Speaker
Hey, hey, ho, ha ho, ho. Hula, hula, hula. The boola, boola, boola. Look who's got the front seats of the Mexican hat dance now. You know, like, it's just a... There's a lot of, like...
00:47:47
Speaker
I understand you think this is funny comedy in this. i mean, this is the this is every line the judge delivers the whole movie, basically. I mean, it's all that sort of stuff delivered with that level of enthusiasm.
00:48:03
Speaker
And it never quite gets funny. gets weird a little bit. And I mean... Is now the time to talk about the prosthetics and makeup here on, on Dan Aykroyd.
00:48:16
Speaker
He has a nose that looks like a penis. Um, yeah i mean, there's no getting around this. I don't think I realized as a kid because i mean, Hey, was probably watching it on a crummy TV yeah without resolution to really see it well. And I also just don't know. i wasn't looking for penises everywhere. Like I am now.
00:48:33
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah.
00:48:37
Speaker
But, you know, yeah, his the tip of his nose absolutely looks like what I understand a penis to look like. um It looks like ah Baby Billy, ah you know, you watch The Righteous Jump Stand. Yeah.
00:48:52
Speaker
No, mean, it's... I mean, the whole thing is just grotesque old man makeup. and you think to yourself, boy, this is grotesque makeup, but you ain't seen nothing yet. Yeah, this is just just a just an amuse-bouche.
00:49:04
Speaker
That's right. Now... so i we we get that and once uh chevy is just not he's just not having it and he yells at the judge and he swears and the judge uh is like all right uh well we'll see you at your hearing tomorrow and then they're all like no we have to get to atlantic city and uh this is uh probably the most dramatic uh uh gizmo yet he pushes a button and they all fall through the floor yeah again kid me loves that sort of shit yeah and more me more buttons and uh the the judge and the uh cop dennis talk and the cop uh you know in a sign of and this is again this is a very yeah undeveloped uh subplot where like the john candy the cop is just kind of like hey these guys are all right you should let him go
00:50:01
Speaker
Which is very kind considering they just sent him on a pretty dramatic high-speed chase. um You know, I mean, yeah, he's just like, he feels very like, worn down by having to be this constable for what we find out is kind of ah a maniac of a judge.
00:50:18
Speaker
Um, you know, he's, he's very much like, yeah, can we just like his father or something like they're related, right? Yeah. Father, grandfather. I can't remember. Maybe father, I guess. Cause we'll meet the grandsons soon enough.
00:50:30
Speaker
So I'm guessing. yeah and wait are those nephew grandsons john candy's kids i don't think that's no i don't think that's implied at a yeah i don't think whatever anyway we'll talk about the grandsons don't worry yeah yeah anyway so now um uh like uh we we hang out with uh our group a little bit in this weird underground area but let's let's go to we see people a bunch of drunks speeding through town uh the guy driving kind of looked to like alec baldwin right didn't he kind of look like i actually thought it was stephen baldwin for a moment oh yeah he was just he was giving real stephen baldwin um
00:51:10
Speaker
and so they're they're speeding through they get pulled over by the cop um they're being dicks uh to the the the cop um
Climactic Escape and Finale
00:51:20
Speaker
and ah they they do a whole bunch of funny double entendres about like uh you know blow on the the breathalyzer and you know they they you know talk about you know the act of a blowjob and you know other rude and risque things um yeah i was pretty i was pretty like aghast at that scene it was a little too sexual for me yeah and uh then then the guy pulls a gun on the cob and this actually kind of made me this is this is the first chuckle i made a note this was my my first chuckle
00:51:58
Speaker
of the film uh which is that uh then um john candy he looks legitimately scared officer candy and um and then like he slaps the gun out of the guy's hand and he pulls out this like semi semi-automatic rifle yeah yeah it's yeah no it's like out of nowhere yeah it's really good that's that's a good joke because it's like oh you have a gun i'm scared actually i have a bigger gun that's like a just a basic joke well done by an actor who's a very talented comedian Yeah, that's like a classic Crocodile Dundee.
00:52:37
Speaker
Yeah. You know, this is knife kind of moment. ah So, yeah, no, that was, i will agree. Again, John Candy is far and away the best thing about this film. i mean There's something else that's really great, but we'll get there. Oh, that's true. Okay, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. yeah yeah So...
00:52:57
Speaker
ah This group of drunks that pulled a ah gun on Officer Candy are all in court and they're all carrying on and they've got drugs. ah and ah so ah the judge sentenced them to death and then he pushes a button that sends them down a conveyor belt.
00:53:17
Speaker
They go down, a like they they slide down it. They go to the Mr. Bone Stripper. What's that, Jess? Mr. Bone Stripper. Mr. Bone Stripper is like an old wooden roller coaster that the judge dumps people into.
00:53:31
Speaker
It has its own hair metal theme music that I think they hear too. I think that that is like not just something we hear as part of soundtrack. You're saying that it's diegetic. I think it's diegetic. I think they're also hearing the Mr. Bone Stripper theme. Mr. Bone Stripper, strip me a bone. Bone, bone, bone, bone, bone.
00:53:51
Speaker
So they're, that's not the song. It's hair metal. they're They're going down this roller coaster. It's that song in hair metal. In hair metal form. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, just go look if we go to Spotify, search Mr. Bone Stripper, you'll hear it. um it It dumps them out at the end of this scary roller coaster ride onto a conveyor belt that sends them into this gaping mouth with like,
00:54:14
Speaker
what looks like meat tenderizers that are coming up and down. Basically it strips the flesh from their bones and shoots their skeletons out on the other side. This is death by roller coaster. This movie has more bones in it than I think any movie I've ever seen in my life.
00:54:30
Speaker
Yeah. ah The bones are just everywhere. It's it's just a ah bone heavy film. Now, ah you know, I was watching this with a dog and he thought it was the greatest film he'd ever seen. Now,
00:54:43
Speaker
See, i thought it was a little rough. That's a joke for your dog. This is comedy, baby. This funnier than the movie up to this point, I promise. As unfunny as that was, that's funnier than most of this movie. i want to make it clear that also this movie is aggressively unpleasant like if if you're if if you're listening to this and you're thinking this all sounds kind of interesting it's not um now uh so our heroes are back with them and uh a cop i think this is priscilla no this is there are two cops there's dennis and priscilla and think this is dennis anyway dennis comes down it's time for supper
00:55:28
Speaker
The judge is lowered down again. And ah so this is ah John Candy, Officer Candy, ah Officer Priscilla, um who I don't know what actor who that is. I'm not sure either, honestly.
00:55:43
Speaker
Like, yeah, I didn't recognize her. um I read on IMDb that they offered that to Catherine O'Hara and she didn't accept the role. yeah I mean, good call.
00:55:56
Speaker
yeah Also, ah she would have, like ah her SCTV comrade, ah John Candy, she would have, like...
00:56:08
Speaker
You know, ka Catherine O'Hara, i want to I want to be very clear, Jess. I've been on the Catherine O'Hara train for a long time, well before everyone got oh yeah so ah high on her in Schitt's Creek.
00:56:22
Speaker
i'm glad And i'm I'm glad that we all are... I'm glad that she got to have, like, this, you know, like, ah this big, ah like, very recent, yeah yeah, like, thing where everybody... And also...
00:56:37
Speaker
uh but uh i think she would have found something in this but in the same way where john candy is doing it and like he's finding stuff in it but he can't save the movie and she wouldn't be able to save this either but i would have liked to see her because i would have liked to see the movie would have been slightly better with her regardless like there's no question she would because right now that character kind of just exists and has very little to do her presence would have added to it. But that's all beside the point. This is this is also IMDB. So this could be made up.
00:57:09
Speaker
Okay. That's true. Anyway. so this is, I think this is the scene that ah most people, i when they talk about nothing but trouble, this is the scene. I think most people remember.
00:57:21
Speaker
um Would do you agree with that? Like i would, I think it's one of two and we'll talk about the other one here before too long. right um I think it is. I mean, cause again, it's like,
00:57:32
Speaker
You're at a table, know, the judge is lowered down. It's a table with contraptions. Again, you have like a model train that's serving as a lazy Susan to take condiments around the table and everything.
00:57:43
Speaker
And it's sort of a low key gross out meal, which is always a good gag in a movie, but it's not that gross. Okay. So let's talk about, all right. So.
00:57:55
Speaker
uh yeah so Hawaiian Punch is served and he puts like this like uh Dan Aykroyd the judge he puts like this like gas oil can spout this oil can spout on it to pour it out straight out can and I like that I think that's of an interesting quirk again your goal is to make these people seem quirky and weird the idea that they're like serving cans of Hawaiian Punch at supper that's fun that's fine I don't think I'm that fun but just kind of seemed like a thing to me i'm looking for bright spots yeah i'm looking for anything i'm grasping at straws john candy there it's delightful oh yes he's there twice yeah we'll get there and uh then so
00:58:39
Speaker
uh dennis offers ants on a log to diane and and it's just straightforward celery peanut butter and uh raisins raisins just what we call ants on a log and diane acts as if she's being offered monkeys brains in temple of doom doom they're going that vibe and it's like she's like holding it up like studying it like what is this and it's just like Yeah, kids in daycares are eating this right now around America. It's not that strange. it's it's It's an odd appetizer for a group of adults, but it's not like, you know, it's like the gag would seem to be like if it had actual ants on it would be kind of how it's being treated. It's like, oh, it's not raisins. These are actually bugs. Yeah, it's not that they're just raisins. And she seems freaked out.
00:59:26
Speaker
And then they bring out what appears to be just an authentic sausage. Well, yeah, and he calls them hot dogs, but they're just overcooked sausages, which they look gray.
00:59:38
Speaker
Like, I mean, generally not even overcooked. Like they're overcooked because they're just like, they're kind of floppy. So there's, again, we have a little phallic humor. um But like, you know, I've eaten sausages that look like this. It's like a veal sausage, which is delightful.
00:59:56
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, a little bit horseradish with that. I'm good to go. Everybody, like, all of our characters are like, this is the most vile thing I've ever seen. And it's just like, it literally is just...
01:00:07
Speaker
a sausage um yeah that's a little too floppy um yeah i i mean they're probably they're new york yuppies they're probably exclusively in sushi and like composed plates that have a single green bean and like a small medallion of beef and like a demi gloss on it and that's their entire meal normally so this probably is strange too we do get a little more exposition uh from the judge about why he hates bankers which is like a generation back the town we're too gent like because the judge fought in world war one right so it might have been a generation behind him anyway like his great like his grandfather whatever like sold the town to like some financiers or something that like did all the strip mining and made it this disgusting mess
01:00:52
Speaker
the bankers swindled his for his uh his family and he hates them to this day the impression though is that they got a lot of money for it he says that he didn't get paid but then they imply like then he says later that he has money i was not clear on this anyway not either um and then also uh we this is when we meet eldona who is his uh granddaughter played by john candy and drag uh and it's just a lot of like fat jokes yeah like it's just it's like oh doesn't she like yuck and it's you know it's just not it's not as mean as it could be it is but it's not great either once again uh
01:01:40
Speaker
i you know john it's john candy and there's just you know john candy is an undeniable force as a performer in he's playing it very sincere to his credit like he's not going for know the the goofy slapsticky i'm a guy wearing a dress kind of gags that you'd expect from a movie of this sort but but the one he came with a terrible idea But the movie is making that joke just because the movie is anyway, even while he's trying to do it like with dignity, the movie insists that that dignity is not his to have.
01:02:15
Speaker
Anyway. So then we hear a blast. We, we find out that it's the mine fire. This is when the Brazilian airs are like, all right, we're going to escape. They jump out a window Priscilla just starts shooting a, like a machine gun. ath Yes. Yes. Yes. yes she has like yeah just a machine gun rifle she pulls out and just starts opening fire to try to kill the brazilionaires but they uh they escape the uh the grounds yeah and and swim across a moat of uh toxic flurry water yeah that they say smell smells like sao paulo yeah
01:02:54
Speaker
And then they swim to the other side where John Candy is waiting for them. And they seem to have a moment where they offer him hints of a better life. And he seems to consider this. And then, Kyle, we leave that thread to a moment. i Yeah, we don't see them again for ah what felt like 10 hours, which was fine because I did not care for those characters. um Swing and a mess. Now...
01:03:19
Speaker
While there was that whole ah melee there, Chris and Diane also tried to escape, but they're caught by Aldona. They get taken up to their disgusting room.
01:03:31
Speaker
And then, as you said, we cross cut again with ah the Brazilian airs. um Actually, so so this is a ah clip ah covered by one thing that you said already.
01:03:43
Speaker
We hitchhike to a throne. We hitchhike to a throne.
01:03:50
Speaker
Congratulations, folks. We made it across our gully. I don't know the way you said you made it across our gully. That's very good. which is no one would call that a gully anyway uh but we were were yeah they they they try to bribe him and he starts to consider it as you said all right so chris and diana are in their their room chris has made a fire they talk about her marital situation which is also tied to the complicated financial plot and i'm just not going to talk about it it's just uh anyway he doesn't care about it why should we care about the the movie cares about that chevy chase gets to kiss demi more which starts happening now um yes and uh like that was probably the only thing that chevy was excited about in this film and then i then this happens i'm such a pushover mean
01:04:43
Speaker
such a sucker
01:04:46
Speaker
e
01:04:49
Speaker
She says the title. That's
01:04:57
Speaker
e
01:05:00
Speaker
the title. I heard right there. Nothing says
01:05:08
Speaker
she says the title that's the titleddle i heard it right there nothing says she says the title there. and
01:05:17
Speaker
yeah whatever ah this guy got you in a real fucking mess he was he's made ah the wrong choice every time which is true he has nothing but trouble but i mean i would do everything i could to get away from him because he's he's got you into this like essentially put your life in jeopardy uh and this is chevy chase isn't as sexy anymore um i'm sorry to say like you know He just isn't.
01:05:44
Speaker
um and this is the midpoint of the film. but Uh, now, uh, he cut to, he says he's not sexy anymore. Do you mean as he was at the beginning of the film? but Yeah, that's true. That's true. yeah well Well, yeah, his, his performance up to this point has made him less sexy than he even began the film.
01:05:59
Speaker
Uh, so we, we, we cut back to later, ah Chris starts to cuddle up with her. And then, uh, we, uh, the bed flips around music plays. Uh, they try, then their door opens for some reason and they start,
01:06:14
Speaker
running down like the hallway and up some stairs and like there's comedy of them running into different rooms. There's a room with bats and filled with bat shed. There's room with creepy dolls, blah, blah, blah Like they almost get trapped in the hallway.
01:06:29
Speaker
There's just a lot of, Yeah, there are walls closing in on them. Like, yeah, i mean it's booby traps. It's weird rooms. It's yeah, it's kind of everything that you expect.
01:06:39
Speaker
It's got a Scooby Doo vibe to it. There's a yeah, there's a real ah Scooby Doo. It's only going to intensify. And they end up in an attic and it's full of ah IDs and ah connected with clippings of people who had said disappeared, including Jimmy Hoffa.
01:06:57
Speaker
Oh, man, that's a great 80s, 90s movie kind joke, right? yeah Jimmy Hoffa joke. And then, but then they say it's like, oh, and all of the people who are here are bankers. But Jimmy Hoffa was a union leader. um He was not a banker. And also later it's revealed that the judge likes union workers and generally lets them free.
01:07:19
Speaker
So actually Jimmy Hoffa, even if he was, you know, like whatever his, his corruption may have been or whatever, ah you know, I watched the Irishman. I know the whole story.
01:07:30
Speaker
um uh but uh like he's not a person that the anyway well in all fairness neither is chris thorne so you know i mean like maybe he came in he told the judge i'm a union leader and the judge is like a banker eh and just yeah threw him in the bone splitter or stripper a splitter that'd be ridiculous so this is when ah we get uh uh like they see a whole bunch of skeletons and and i we uh we see the the two of them chris and diane uh start to cuddle up uh now they're both smoking cigars chris has like a bottomless pocket of uh of of cigars large cigar has yeah and they're all but yeah they're huge cigars and he has an endless amount of them and the thing is is that
01:08:28
Speaker
I don't know like there's just some places where like the elasticity of the plot like exists and then places where it doesn't and it's like okay well you know the people that live in Velconvania are all weird but like Chevy Chase is a straight man so he shouldn't you know have these magic cigars whatever whatever whatever anyway uh so i as they're cuddling up uh they they're uh like they fall through a floor or something and then they go down a big slide that splits them up for essentially the rest of the movie um yeah
01:09:10
Speaker
and uh like diane ends up uh in like a big pile of trash and chris ends up in a big pile of bones the dog i was watching this with you know started like panting howling yeah yeah and uh so chris is in a ah spot now though where he's like can see the the judge And I'm confused here because it's like. He's watching the judge like through a peephole. Yeah, but ostensibly Chris and Diane were sent down the slide intentionally, but it seems like Chris is sneaking around.
01:09:53
Speaker
What, you know, like the judge should know that Chris is peeping on him because that is one of the routes that the slide that he was sent on could end up.
01:10:07
Speaker
Yeah. yeah mean, this is a possibility that one or both of them could currently be behind the wall of his chambers bedroom sort of thing. Yeah. And Chevy's peeking. I mean, then what turns out this gross old man is grosser than we thought. His penis nose is in fact, a prosthetic that he pills off appears not to have a nose. Is that how you read that? Yeah. He has like a, like a two-faced burnt off face.
01:10:32
Speaker
Yeah. but That's right. And it was, yeah he takes off a wig in a wig yeah and so like some teeth he takes out and everything yeah he's got so it turns out this incredibly gross old man i guess is slightly grosser than we believed him to be so that's something yeah anyway um oh and uh uh then he lays down and goes to bed and then he farts it plays a fart sound effect um oh man the sound effects in this movie in general they're they're yeah oh ah So now we see Diane. She finds the BMW. The the top frame has been removed, but she tries to drive it. Can't.
01:11:12
Speaker
ah Then she tries to use the car phone and call 911, but that doesn't work. Then she spies two characters. And it's ah two guys in...
01:11:26
Speaker
haunting flabby fat suits uh with two pairs like with like two pairs of breasts like they have like four breasts um and uh they're wearing diapers and they're like just screaming at each other um anyway she gives up her location is caught um and altoona is going to throw her into a fire pit into the mine but uh the the the kids want to play with her yeah these are these are alvin's grandsons they're bobo and little devil devil little devil yeah and as they explain they have to live outside because they're so fat and they're so fat they couldn't finish high school
01:12:20
Speaker
Is it that they say they're so fat? Because it's like, I think, like, the implication is that they have, like, some sort of developmental disability. I think they say, like, explicitly because I don't, I know IMDB says that Dan Aykroyd based this on two children that he met who weren't allowed to live inside because of their weight, which feels, again, like IMDB. That doesn't.
01:12:44
Speaker
Hallucinating something. That doesn't. That can't be right. That doesn't seem like a thing. No, this is terrible. They're grotesque. and Dan Aykroyd based these two characters off of ah like ah these children that they really needed ah health and human services to rescue them.
01:13:02
Speaker
Yeah. Or I guess he grew up in Canada, whatever the equivalent is. Yeah, no, I mean, it's awful though. I mean, it's just like weird freak show gross out.
01:13:14
Speaker
Like, I'm not sure old these kids are supposed to be. like are they young adults are they children ah and yeah they are it's just a bad part of the movie anyway but now something great happens in a little bit we're getting were where're we're we're we're we're coming close so now we're back in the house the judge is dead asleep but he gets a call from Priscilla. There's some new speeders in town.
01:13:44
Speaker
And so he he says he'll, he'll be right down. And then we see that she's captured the hip hop group, digital underground, they area rappers, digital underground are here and there. And, uh, for an extended cameo.
01:14:01
Speaker
So here's a, here's a clip. This, this is a maybe the second line that made me chuckle. Man, would you look at this place? It's like extremely draculated.
01:14:13
Speaker
White man's heaven. The phrase extremely draculated is pretty funny. It's really good. It almost makes me wonder if that was improvised. It doesn't feel like the comedy that exists anywhere else in the film, which extremely draculated is a very good line. Extremely draculated. Like I, you know, that's a, that's a beautiful little turn of phrase. I love draculated and saying something is extremely draculated is amazing.
01:14:43
Speaker
just wonderful if take anything from this movie it's going to be a desire to use the phrase extremely this is extremely draculated sometime before the end of 2025 uh probably around halloween if i take guess probably late october be a good time find a way to to work it in before late october
01:15:06
Speaker
So yeah, digital undergrounds here. Let me tell you, Ben, this is the other reason I love this movie. I was a massive digital underground fan. Like I had their cassette ah for their, ah for their debut album. I had a singles.
01:15:26
Speaker
I had the EP release that included the songs they perform in this film. Actually, it was that EP release titled. This is an EP release. that in the liner notes of this album that includes the two songs that they perform here and a couple of others, um in the liner notes, it notes that these songs were made for the film, Valkenvania, before the title was changed to Nothing But Trouble.
01:15:51
Speaker
And that fascinated me as a kid. Like back then in a pre-internet era... getting a hold of a little piece of movie trivia, like the idea that this movie Nothing But Trouble used to be called Valkenvania. Wow. Like for 14 year old Jess. I know exactly what you mean when you you got this thing and you knew like when you saw it, you're like, oh, oh, this movie has another name.
01:16:14
Speaker
like yeah was Like, you get this little taste of something of forbidden knowledge. ah Right. Yeah. You have had to have been subscribing to Entertainment Weekly to find something like that out otherwise. So, yeah, I mean, this was a nugget of information. But yeah, Digital Underground's here. It feels very much like a Scooby-Doo guest spot. I mean, it's kind of like, let's solve a mystery in a haunted chocolate factory with Mama Cass Elliot.
01:16:38
Speaker
All of a sudden, Digital Underground's here. And they're being brought before the judge. So ah Chris watches the judge ride the thing down and then he slips into the judge's room.
01:16:50
Speaker
ah We see, we find out why the judge's face is all screwed up. It's because he was blasted in a, like in the foundry. Then the judge comes back and then they have this fight, which involves Chris stepping in the judge's sloshing bedpan. Oh man, there it is. Yeah. yeah Nothing like some bedpan humor, huh?
01:17:11
Speaker
uh then um chris runs out and directly into altoona i wrote altoona i forgot her name aldona uh into altoona and because here's the thing she seems like she's everywhere which is another bit of magical realism that they could either make a joke out of or not and they don't so it just kind of seems like she's like has plot convenience whereas it's like you could just make a joke that like she somehow is there like you know what I mean like like
01:17:45
Speaker
like you know, like, cause she's out in the junkyard a moment ago. Yeah. Like she was just with the two like grandchildren. And then all of a sudden she teleports to be in the hallway directly outside of the judge's room.
01:18:01
Speaker
Like you could, there's the potential for comedy here that it just so happens that she's everywhere she needs to be. and and they don't do it.
01:18:14
Speaker
Yeah, no, it's just sort of left there. It could be interesting. It isn't. Like, yeah. I'm just going to assume there series of passageways, secret passageways moving her around this. sees how with at least Yeah, whatever. Anyway,
01:18:28
Speaker
now ah that he's run into her ah we i Like ah the the judge is like, now that you touched her, you're going to get married. That's the house policy.
01:18:41
Speaker
And then marry her or die is the ultimatum, right? ah Yeah. And then we, ah but now the judge goes back to his trial with the digital underground. This is when they present their union card and it's revealed that they're musicians.
01:18:56
Speaker
The judge wants to see their instruments. and uh we'll we'll get back we're switching back uh to chris chained up and all al tuna is changing into her bridal uh dress while big girls don't cry plays and this is another uh time where i wrote down in my notes quote man john candy is trying so hard he's really putting a lot of mustard in this is why i would like to see katherine o'hara here because i just know that she's incapable of like
01:19:27
Speaker
she she could always find something. She would not phone it in. Just like John Candy is not phoning it in. Yeah. Anyway. So now Chris is being walked out in shackles by Priscilla with a gun. Diane. Now we, we see Diane playing cards with the boys.
01:19:46
Speaker
um There's that. Okay. And now this is the best part of the movie when we just see ah Digital Underground play a song. What what what song do they play, Jess?
01:19:57
Speaker
They play a song called Same Song. yeah and it's a great song it's a really good song it's a very good song it's wonderful i mean something that find kind of funny about this this is again 14 year old me loved digital underground i was just actually listening to digital underground a couple of days ago in anticipation of watching this movie um you know not only do we have john candy and dan akroyd playing dual roles we probably should mentioned one of those grandsons is also dan akroyd in a whole bunch of prosthetics but i don't want to talk about them anymore than we have to no but you know um
01:20:30
Speaker
Sort of the the lead of Digital Underground as a rap troupe is rapper Shot G. And what I didn't realize as a 14 year old boy is that shock G is also Humpty Hump, the jester of the group.
01:20:45
Speaker
um So he is playing a dual role here as he did throughout digital underground's career using a body double so he can perform as both shock G and Humpty Hump.
01:20:56
Speaker
ah So, you know, he's very much fitting into the vibes here. He also has a prosthetic nose, much like Dan Aykroyd, so he can embody ah Humpty Hump. Yeah. And it's a good performance. I mean, Dan Aykroyd's character rips off an organ solo that actually appears in the recorded single for this.
01:21:17
Speaker
And we have a huge film debut in the middle of this scene. Oh, yeah. Who? We have ah Tupac Shakur, who used to clown around when he hang around with the underground.
01:21:29
Speaker
Tupac is here. Yeah. He is singing back up for. Tupac is in it. he's a twopac in it tupac's looking great tupac's just there this is pre-poetic justice so yeah i mean this is i mean the tupac is there he is in nothing but trouble he's just singing along to the song and performing for dan ackroyd's gross old judge and there's tupac there is hip-hop legend tupac
01:22:01
Speaker
So now the judge enjoyed it. He's like, I'll let you go. ah Congratulations, Digital Underground. But I do need you to help me with one more thing. oh Yeah.
01:22:12
Speaker
And ah so now we get a ah walk and talk with the judge and Chris. And here we go. In many cases here, I do often choose to invade the maximum levy. Frequently undesirables are put to death.
01:22:25
Speaker
Sure, I can understand that, Judge. but Come on. Death for running a stop sign? And for being a banker! That's the double death!
01:22:34
Speaker
Anyway, ah so he's going to let her go or let him go if he marries his granddaughter. like And then you get to live here and become his heir. uh great all this could be yours yeah and um he gets his cuffs off and now l we see aldona walk down in a bridal gown and digital underground is playing like the the bridal march yeah that song is called tie the knot it actually has several verses on the ep release i'm have to listen to that this is a fully formed song yeah
01:23:12
Speaker
uh really they start getting really loose with the vocals and shock g says come on take this seriously it's for the movie uh in the rap song itself he encourages the rest of the band to tighten up the vocals that's fun oh
01:23:28
Speaker
But I mean, this is great. They, they do, they, they perform again, the sound effects in this movie are are something else. When, when he kisses Eldona at the end of the ceremony, there's like a wacky cork popping sound effect when they part lips. yes Yeah. Just way over the top. It, it doesn't feel like part of this movie at some level, but yeah.
01:23:53
Speaker
Yeah. and So ah they they kiss and, you know, I also laughed because it's like, you know, that's actually two men kissing, which I find very comical.
01:24:04
Speaker
Now... i give you a match then then then chris uh tries to escape the judge is like you don't want to marry my beautiful granddaughter anymore i sentence you to death and he pushes the conveyor belt button oh god this is great though he tries to get like digital underground to help him and they're just like oh no i was really nervous on my wedding day too yeah it's like they like exit they're just like we're we're done we're done yeah were done we've been paid already we're sure we're done with the film we're going on a weird corporate situation do you think got this extended digital i mean this had to be actually feels energy i don't know this kind of feels a little like dan akroyd is cool energy maybe so that's what i was like kind of like when he starts playing the the organ like when he starts hitting the the keys of it i was just like
01:25:00
Speaker
it gave me a little bit of like a blues brothers type feeling you know what i mean like it's just like oh see look i can hang too you know know about rappers yeah i'm dan ackroyd and i'm here to say listen to rap music every day hold on let me clap so i can get time that's right
01:25:25
Speaker
Yeah, no, it doesn't. Maybe that's it. Cause I can't imagine. i was That was my feeling, but maybe it was like that the record was because what is this Warner brothers, whoever, like it was whatever. That's my guess too. That was immediately what I thought.
01:25:37
Speaker
And there's another good reason thing is Warner brothers toward the end, but we'll get there. Um, anyway. Um, so now he goes down into the, the, uh, roller coaster conveyor belt.
01:25:53
Speaker
uh and uh fortunately chris exhibits the fortitude that others haven't and just kind of runs in the opposite direction on the uh conveyor belt just long enough that it falls apart yeah most people are just content to be bone stripped yeah he's the first one to ever try to yeah and i'm gonna be honest here think i i wouldn't mind being bone stripped uh if you gotta to go there are worse ways yeah you know being bone stripped this thing's an e-ticket ride at valconvain yeah yeah yeah for sure anyway uh so he's just launched into another pile of bones and the dog i was sitting with like you know he just salivated all over the couch i was just like dang i'm gonna have to clean up all this dog drool knickknack patty whack give that dog a bone that's right uh that that also would have been a good title for this movie now
01:26:54
Speaker
ah we see Priscilla and the judge and ah Priscilla's like, I'll go get him. And then we see, ah we we check in with officer John Candy, who's been conspicuously absent.
01:27:08
Speaker
And we see him packing his things and we see a Hawaiian shirt in there. So it looks like he took up the Brazilian airs on their offer. All right. Goodbye. um And now we're in the junkyard um and we see that the the judge has some sort of smashing like triple guillotine or like like nine gu nine bladed guillotine thing yeah like triple ganching the greater team like that's why it's labeled oh is that what it's labeled really yeah the greater team that's funny um i don't know what grade there is but we haven't we see it like destroyed like nine watermelons or some shit like that that's like an entire gallagher tour yeah yeah
01:27:54
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, that's exactly what this is like. um And boy really it's it's like it's like going on tour with Gallagher. This is like seeing Gallagher two times nine minus nine.
01:28:09
Speaker
ah Now, anyway, ah so but the math worked out. The math did work out.
01:28:20
Speaker
The math. worked out uh now i ah
01:28:30
Speaker
so uh the the grandkids are there ah and they they uh they hand over diane to the judge and uh the judge is like i'll kill diane unless you give yourself up uh but she grabs the radio and says that he should run for his life Now we see that Diane is being tied down by the grandsons ah because they love her.
01:28:57
Speaker
And we see Chris sneaking around. At first, he thinks to escape, but then... What? In ah another moment where like it's it's like kind of the... you know like that His heart kind of becomes bigger. like He decides he's going to turn around and save Diane.
01:29:13
Speaker
Yeah. But it... Again...
01:29:17
Speaker
a second draft, another draft would have kind of made this a stronger moment would have also kind of, because also she's fallen in love with him. already like she wants to sleep with her yeah her resistance to him like here's another thing like her resistance to chris like crumbles very quickly instantly yeah and so it's like there's not an arc it's just kind of like a line that goes like a 90 degree angle where it just kind of is like she
01:29:50
Speaker
like well she's kind of charmed by him and then like she's in love with him yeah and he doesn't say really exhibit any kind of similar he doesn't have an arc but except for this moment where it looks like he's going to escape and then he's like no i should save her um which is still just like the bare minimum of being a decent human being yeah it's not like he's like changed his ways he's even while he's rescuing her he's still kind of an asshole um so i he has no real plan he's just kind of turning around and um and we see her change her mind she told him to run and now she's like you better save me so it's like it's just very muddy know like it's very muddy yeah like it could it could because she's like you should run and now she's like
01:30:44
Speaker
you like i'm gonna be mad unless you save me but you're you knew you were being selfish selfless there and he was being like decided to be selfless in turn and then she's like you self is asshole you better save you know like it just whatever anyway it's just it like you know these are just things dan give me a call we're going to do ah nothing but trouble not two but v two where we just take a pass we take the the ghostbusters pass and i mean really the directing here fails it a bit too like there's no sense of like where people are like geographically relative to one another i mean it's all just kind of it like the action here just isn't filmed in a way that's
01:31:32
Speaker
and completely legible. I feel like to the viewer, it's supposed to be like the big high stakes climax of the movie. And it kind of plays dead on screen, which is unfortunate.
01:31:42
Speaker
So yeah. And so he's running back and he doesn't even seem to have an idea of what he's going to do. And then he essentially solves it as if it's a half-life two puzzle. Yes, ah which is that he like sets like uses an oily rag to set a bunch of flammable like gas barrels on fire, which is how like, you know, like the first third of Half-Life 2 is mostly like shoot the the gun ah flaming barrels and then like ah you'll see physics happen.
01:32:11
Speaker
yes and that's what happens here and it seems like he may be putting her at great danger while doing this yeah no this this would like this would certainly take out at least three or four combine soldiers easy uh so now chris goes and he uh unties diane pulls her out the nick of time there's more explosions and now they make it to ah the gully as um officer john candy put it um shot from the exact same dangle so you know you're in the same place yeah and chris does that camera it smells like sao paulo which is you know that's kind of funny i guess i mean a callback is funny because it's a callback uh and then they decide not to swim across it but instead to run to the train
01:33:01
Speaker
throw mama on the train yeah and so they get on the train they like priscilla tries to like she shoots at them but they make it they they have a framed old hollywood hero kisses the girl kiss yes yes yes this is leading man chevy chase at his finest and uh so now we're in like uh uh i couldn't identify the skyline here but it's like a capital looking city uh i don't i don't think this is atlantic city but we have this scene diane and chris they're in front of a whiteboard and they have a whole like uh like uh this this whole
01:33:46
Speaker
like drawn diagram of the house and blah, blah, blah, race marker, the entire yeah compound. And they're telling this wild story that of course doesn't make any sense when they're talking about bone strippers and yeah, you know, judges with fake prosthetic teeth and noses. This is like to the state's attorney ah and like the state police, like the heads of the state police. One of them is being played by the great Brian Doyle Murray, who gets very happy to see him.
01:34:13
Speaker
a featuring credit i believe at the start and i'd already forgotten that he was in this until he shows up here and he has like three lines speaking of katherine o'hara roles it's it's like him in waiting for guffman where he's in it and like just has like three lines Yeah, it's like Brian Doyle Murray is a guy that just seems like he's cast in the things for you to go.
01:34:37
Speaker
It's Brian Doyle Murray. And that's it. Yeah, he's not even a character actor because like, in a role like this, he's not even doing anything. No, he's just like literally delivering a couple of lines because someone had to speak them.
01:34:49
Speaker
It was just like, a hey, um are you free, Brian? oh yeah. It feels like you won a contest. Yeah. like He's good. He's so he's good. He's good. Like what? He's good at sitting in a chair. Like, yeah, he looks and sounds like Brian Doyle Murray, which I like.
01:35:06
Speaker
You know, there's nothing wrong with that. I guess it'd be better than just like some Joe Schmo. I love Brian Doyle Murray. I do too. That's the thing. I'm not going to about Brian. do you about Joel Murray?
01:35:17
Speaker
One of the other, uh, one of the other other ones. ah There's a ton of Murray's. Yeah. I mean, and I guess they're all like in a celebrity golf tournament right now somewhere. Um, like Joel Murray, you've seen him in something. I'm sure he's,
01:35:33
Speaker
like kind of uh like he's a ah character actor oh okay i have seen this guy yeah yeah absolutely you've seen him like to me and i don't think you watch this if you uh he had a recurring role in madmen um that was i did not watch that what did i see him in oh my goodness um i mean he he's if you look like i you you'll but like i'm looking at his wikipedia page now and it's like one of those like huge oh yeah like long lists where it's just like guy that showed up in an episode yeah he's been in one episode of everything he was a he's in 119 episodes of dharma and greg though he was a series regular on dharma and greg oh my gosh
01:36:24
Speaker
maybe that's where i've seen him but uh yeah i mean he was like he's he's a he's a real that guy um more of a character actor i would say than brian doyle murray anyway uh so now we see like a ton of cops in this huge like this ostentatious like show force yeah it almost looks like a military rollout uh it's like cops and national guard va yeah And they they like so they're they're all like guns trained on them.
01:37:01
Speaker
And then ah Diane's like, you know what? ah i Let's go to the door to get them out so they open up and so we can get in there. So Diane and Chris walk up to the door.
01:37:13
Speaker
The judge comes out and he acts like a frail old man. Who are you? just old man. What you doing here at my house? And then he's like, oh, ah by the way, I think there's some, ah like a beehive behind you or whatever. and they turn around.
01:37:29
Speaker
And uh oh, they're all on his side. They all like him. They all like his country fried justice. That's right. They it's the twist. All these cops are big fans of, of the justice of peace here.
01:37:44
Speaker
and and yeah, Diane and, and Chris have fallen into the judges clutches once again. And then this is when like just a the, the, the,
01:37:58
Speaker
ah town starts to collapse into the mine this is the big one and we see coincidentally just die uh when she's in an outhouse uh and it just falls into the ground so she dies pissing and shitting um oh man diane and chris get into the ruined beamer and escape um then we go to brazil and we see the brazilianaires with john candy and now he's paired with renata so good for their head of security and i guess is now her lover so now
01:38:35
Speaker
we're back in new york the beamer is back it's being parked it's getting a spit shine and uh chevy is on his couch he's having a terrible nightmare talking to his sleep with some real chevy chase comedy here diane wakes him up you're safe you're safe now and he turns on the tv and the news is about that that huge fire And ah it's led to crude oil, which again, I thought it was going to be like, and look, it means that like he's like now they're absurdly wealthy, but that doesn't.
01:39:14
Speaker
Nothing. I don't know. i don't know it's just in anyway um and but now we see that the judge survived and uh he says well i've got nothing left so i'm gonna move in with my grandson-in-law see you soon banker and that's when chris yells no and then he looney tunes runs through the wall like we don't see him do this but we just see an outline of chevy chase in the wall like a looney tunes joke i mean it's literally just like the looney tunes there is the the outline of his body through the drywall with like a looney tunes sound effect as he springs through it essentially and he's run away because he is so uh
01:39:58
Speaker
just so i guess shocked by the fact that the judge is still out there and still coming for him it for a wacky movie this is tonally way off ah and also ben let me ask you this let me just ask you a question do you think that this ending was just supposed to be like a little twist ending Or do you think there's any chance that they thought they were setting up a sequel of some sort?
01:40:27
Speaker
They weren't setting up a sequel, were they? Tell me they
Concluding Thoughts on 'Nothing But Trouble'
01:40:29
Speaker
weren't setting up a sequel. Jess, I don't think it.
01:40:37
Speaker
I don't. They had to know this was not going to work out as they were wrapping this movie, right?
01:40:45
Speaker
I don't know. don't. i don't think uh that it was sequel teasing i don't know think this is just like wacky ending like it's never i think it's like a twilight zone ending i think it's yeah he's not going so right this is the end um how many chevys out of five uh you give nothing but trouble Oh, man, Ben, I don't know. Like, I was really trying to think about this, you know, like what does the movie do anything? Well, like, yeah, I think John Candy's pretty good in it. But after that, it is tough finding things that work here. I don't know who this is for.
01:41:31
Speaker
Like, is it for Chevy Chase fans? It's for Dan. I think that's the answer. It's for Dan. aroan is for Dan Aykroyd. People who love bones like your dog and Dan Aykroyd.
01:41:43
Speaker
and I mean, I guess that's the question. Maybe, you it's like a one Chevy out of five. obviously I mean, like it's the lowest possible rating you can give. But like, you obviously couldn't recommend this movie to a normal human being.
01:41:57
Speaker
Could you recommend this movie to a Chevy Chase fan? No. No, not even if you're like the kind of obsessive who would launch it's a Chevy Chase podcast and get 23 episodes into it.
01:42:10
Speaker
You're saying even then you couldn't recommend this. Unplugged. plus it is like bottom of the barrel it is it's a movie i mean this i've watched it twice you've watched it multiple times like yeah it's a movie that i mean if you're going to watch you know like it's a movie you could watch it but like i wouldn't it is this is the last time i'm ever going to watch this yeah it is unpleasant in kind of every way like it's an unpleasant group of characters it's
01:42:42
Speaker
an unpleasant story it's unpleasant comedy it's unpleasant sets and set like yeah i mean everything about it is just it's not a comfortable movie to watch like and comedies from the 80s and 90s i can watch a bad one usually pretty happily because if nothing else they tend to be breezy This thing feels weirdly heavy for a movie that has so little substance to it. Right. I mean, it just, it's, it's almost oppressive to watch it.
01:43:11
Speaker
So I give this one Chevy. Um, this movie,
01:43:18
Speaker
like it has a lot of ideas, um, And it doesn't like, you know, I'm i'm constantly going into like comedy notes mode when I like, you know, in this, because it's just like, there are are ways you can make this fit into a rubric that is like, and I don't know if this would save this movie, but it would make it more like,
01:43:51
Speaker
a movie coherent um yeah it needs to be more formulaic it it needs some level of something because it's just like it introduces a lot of ideas and never does anything with them and it has like this overwrought like i think what it is is that it just presents you with a lot of stuff that's kind of weird or gross and is just like these are jokes and it's just like, those are not jokes.
01:44:25
Speaker
No, like those are not inherently funny. And there's no craft to them per se. Yeah. I mean, no, it's yeah, no, it's true. And again, i think a lot of this movie, I think we see this and we've seen it before in other episodes.
01:44:45
Speaker
it's that sort of thing that comes with a lot of Chevy chase films where it is depending and entirely on you said this earlier. Yeah. Chevy chase for the the podcast. You, you said that. Yeah. Where it's just, I feel like, yeah, it it's just banking on the idea. You love Chevy chase so much.
01:45:05
Speaker
You will watch this movie and enjoy it because of that. And at some level, almost every Chevy chase movie, I feel works like that. Like, you know, Fletch is a movie I kind of love, you know, Fletch barely holds together as a film itself, but the performance is charming enough and there's enough, you know, just kind of breezy comedy going on with mixed in with sort of the, you know, investigative journalism angle that's like,
01:45:32
Speaker
Yeah, you know, Chevy's performance carries me through Fletch. You know, even in i like a yeah Vegas vacation is a terrible entry in the vacation series.
01:45:43
Speaker
But even there, Chevy Chase is able to muster enough of performance like, okay I can kinda kind of kind get down with some of this. But here it's counting on you loving Chevy and then.
01:45:54
Speaker
the script doesn't give Chevy much to make you love him. And certainly he doesn't bring anything to the table that elevates that script. He is sleepwalking through this movie. Yeah.
01:46:05
Speaker
Yeah. It stinks. It's a lousy movie. Uh, it, it, it just kind of embodies just all these really annoying 90, really nineties film cliche is all the like gizmos and, and, and stuff. And, ah like,
01:46:23
Speaker
ah very like you know like how in hook it's like we spend a lot of time with robin williams's job and it's just like i don't care ah yeah yeah yeah it's just like hey do you care about robin williams's job and i'm like no Yeah, don't. And I mean, again, a lot of this feels like Dan Aykroyd kind of fixating on some of these things, too. There are things Dan Aykroyd clearly cares about. You know, Dan Aykroyd loved the bone stripper.
01:46:50
Speaker
You know, Dan Aykroyd loved that the judge had this whole like wall with police badges on it because real SNL nerds know that Dan Aykroyd collects police badges ah from around the United States and Canada. And it's no surprise that he throws some of them into the judges like wacky decorations here and there i mean this it really does feel like a film made for dan ackroyd's interests and in that way it's kind of interesting because it is interesting to see like because dan ackroyd is a very you know as
01:47:24
Speaker
he's an oddball he's an odd yeah man he believes in UFOs he believes you know like he he he and crystal skulls yeah yeah and so this movie um and that you know famous early Ghostbusters script like you know kind of are like reflective of You know, odd outlook on the world.
01:47:49
Speaker
um It's just that, like like Ghostbusters, this needed and to be, you know, taken from him.
01:47:58
Speaker
It turned into a movie. Yeah. Yeah. um No, i mean, that's it. And I mean, he would never direct another film after this. I mean, this thing, I think, was what, like a $40 million dollars budget because they built an elaborate, like, practical set for this thing.
01:48:12
Speaker
Now, this is CGI, folks. When you're watching this and you think to yourself, that bone stripper has to be CGI. No, they assembled a wooden roller coaster on set. Yeah. I think it made like 8.5 million back on a $40 million budget, which honestly feels like a triumph, uh, considering what they put on screen. So, you know, uh, I don't know how mad they can be about that.
01:48:35
Speaker
So folks, this has been Chevy chasers. Thank you so much. for joining us uh if you enjoy chevy chasers be sure to leave us a rating uh you know that helps people find us and and spread uh the the news of all things chevy if you'd like to reach out to us uh shoot us an email at quest quest podcast at gmail.com And ah finally, you can join us next week when we discuss another movie in ah Chevy Chase's Eve. ah We're sticking to films, not ah not TV. So ah those of you who are community fans are going to be disappointed once again.
01:49:19
Speaker
But we'll get there, we promise. um and uh this is a movie uh with sigourney weaver gregory hines and chevy chase directed by william friedkin the director of the exorcist uh a deal of the century ah movie that i'm pretty sure neither william friedkin nor uh chevy chase like to talk to ah talk about at all uh we'll see you then