Planes, Trains and Automobiles | The Imperial '80s Episode 20

Speaker 1: welcome back to the imperial 80s we had a nice little two week i mean really week off but but two weeks off so hopefully i gave people some time to catch up on some of the movies you know watching a movie a week for this i realize is like you know it is quite a bit to because a lot of people like to watch the movies first before they yeah

Speaker 2: they watch but um yeah how are you doing m2mae i'm okay i'm doing good you know this we're we're back on the other end of thanksgiving now we're in the christmas so you know we're doing these themed movies which is which is interesting to kind of visit uh i think also like how we grew up thinking about these kind of holidays you know how it kind of you know but yeah so it's interesting to kind of like think about it and how they've been come embedded into Our psyches and our attitudes towards things is very interesting, but I'm doing good.

Speaker 1: Yeah. No, absolutely. I mean, this, you know... Yeah, we'll get into all of it, but the, like...

Speaker 2: this movie and home alone i think for our generation i mean home alone is not 80s unfortunately so we're not going to do it for until we get to the yeah it's 90. it's still tech to me just to say it the 90 thing is still technically 80s i'm we should maybe think about doing it it's the same way i think about something like raging bull which came out in 80. i still think that's a 70s film it's still in that kind of milieu even like ordinary people though Though I think we should do ordinary people as a whole of the conversation. But yeah. Yeah. You know, it's the same logic.

Speaker 1: But I mean, this movie and I mean, you know, and then Hughes also, I didn't really. I don't think I fully, fully. I mean, I must have known this at some point, but, you know, he's also responsible for the whole vacation series in the 80s, too. and obviously christmas vacation you know is another i think we probably will do that one uh we're still we were still deciding on our our last christmas our our official christmas movie we're gonna do die hard next week um and then we were deciding between christmas vacation maybe we should do a poll christmas vacation christmas story um and then scrooged right right yeah yeah yeah if anybody has any opinions on that we can maybe do a formal poll but if you have opinions on that you know drop them we will yeah let us know no no yeah um yeah so i guess let's just start with yeah i mean first of all folks do the things you know please like like the video share the stream whatever you're on and uh you know subscribe to the channel if you have not already uh subscribe to the patreon we have a i had to find it but we have a promotion um you know this uh and m2ma you can i think you can hide the double view on your screen yeah yeah um and we have a promotion for 50 off the first month right now if you subscribe to the imperial 80s patreon and i think we're up to eight bonus episodes so far we may do one today i'm not sure if we'll have time but um yeah we've got some good ones and uh basically what we do with those is we watch scenes from the movies with our guests and you know usually a little more analysis a few more jokes and just kind of you know enjoying that so often more jokes you know yeah more jokes it's like mini mini mystery science theater yeah or with uh or whatever it was uh with like 30 seconds you know two minute clips or whatever yeah yeah um yeah and and shout out to everybody who has supported this patreon you know very much appreciated um yeah so let's just start with initial you know memories or you know experiences of kind of how we first encountered this film our early recollections of it you know what where's that for you yeah i could start so planes trains and automobiles is is a movie that i actually think i saw quite a lot

Speaker 2: John Candy had a lot of purchase in my house, especially around my mother. My mother definitely, she enjoyed him, and I enjoyed him. Another film that we have to do is The Great Outdoors. My father loved that movie. My father, me too, growing up, I loved that movie too. My father was a big fan of that movie. So these movies kind of circled around. And I think for us, there was always these series of films... focused around holidays that we would watch. But the films that my family watched, and I think this is very interesting, I think with being Black, it was the films that showed white people like super dysfunctional in some kind of way, right? So you kind of look at it as a kind of like white dysfunction, which, you know, I just think is a kind of thing that, you know, you do as kind of your own like creative read of a thing. older i definitely see this a bit differently the film because we would thoroughly enjoy it and not like critique it it would just be like these people are crazy because that's kind of like the thing like you'd watch it and go like is this how it really is in these areas are these people really like this um you know what i'm saying and that's kind of because you know i didn't go with wichita I'm also from New York, which is another, I think big thing to think about with the film. So these kinds of ideas of like heading off into the peripheral parts of the country becomes this like intrigue, right? And it's just funny watching this kind of thing. And I also grew up, I grew up in a home that had a kind of cynicism towards the holidays. I mean, I developed it very young, partly because of my parents' own cynicism towards it for their myriad of, you know, just life issues. So a film like this kind of feeds on that, like that kind of cynicism that you have towards it, at least for like the bulk of it. Because at the end, it tries to be very warm-hearted about the entire affair. So yeah, it was definitely a film that we watched a ton. And then I didn't watch it for a long time. By the time I became a late teen, a lot of these movies were things I just didn't want to see anymore. And then I developed, and we're going to talk a lot about him, an interest in a critique of John Hughes when I was in my late 20s, early 30s. Really around his class politics. because I watched Ferris Bueller, which we'll do, and I noticed some really horrible class and race politics, not by default, but really kind of connected in that film. So it made me kind of jump through all of it, like Breakfast Club, all of it, and just seeing these weird class issues that he has. So I rewatched this, and I was like, oh, man, this is weird. But this is the first time watching it. I really like taking a deep look at Hughes and his – just his very strange class visions, and then reading some stuff about him, really mostly anecdotes from his friends about his politics, it becomes very clear why he kind of went certain ways in his depictions of I don't know, is it class warfare? I'd be curious how you see it. Is it class, it's not class struggle, right? In like the way we know it, like in a kind of a Marxist way, but there is a class warfare thing there here, but a very conservative look at it. That's how I experienced watching a John Hughes movie.

Speaker 1: yeah i mean we'll get into that i mean i think that's going to be probably the bulk of our discussion today and i agree with you i i mean i kind of think in some ways it is strange it is sort of it's it's hard to pin down kind of every aspect of it because on the one hand you have the midwestern thing like almost all of his movies center around chicago um and but always very the families are always from very wealthy uh you know sectors of like the chicago suburbs basically um always live in these i mean i shouldn't say always there's probably some movies i know we'll talk you know maybe breakfast club like some of them that there are characters that are from different class positions but you know if you think about home alone you know you think about this The Griswolds are maybe not as wealthy, but he's still in advertising.

Speaker 2: But it's that petty bourgeois thing because they always have the kind of capitalists. Even in really the beginning of this movie, there's the capitalists that they... are still subordinate to, but there is an acknowledgement that they have a class position that's not where John Candy is, right?

Speaker 1: For sure. So the other interesting thing, and I'll get into it more, is also that Candy seemingly had... much different class politics like you know he he was like i watched the documentary uh i like me which is obviously a line from this movie um and it was interesting because all of the people talked about like how his love for working people and it wasn't like you know you can tell when something's like canned and kind of bs like it was clearly not that it was like family it was like people like dan akroyd who knew him for a long time like Anyway, I'll save some of that for later. But it is interesting because he and Hughes become like best friends basically. And so I also find that a little strange too of like somebody like Candy who seemingly did have a real affection for like ordinary folks and came from a pretty kind of working class Canadian background. I don't know too much about Hughes' upbringing, and maybe you can bring some of that in, but they seem a little bit like a mismatch, but maybe it also just had to do with their professional relationship being so strong, because obviously they made a bunch of movies together, and some of them quite good, or successful, right, in all of that. Very successful. Yeah, so as far as my own early memories, I don't remember when I first saw it. My first memory of discussion around it was actually with my parents. And my parents were big Steve Martin fans. By the way, Steve Martin was... 42 when this movie comes out and has a full head of gray hair which is like he by the way i like had to look this up i was like what is going on it's always the joke about steve barton he's had like white hair from like from like 35 years old on I think it was, like, yeah, he went gray at, like, 30. And legitimately so. Like, he says he never dyed his hair or anything. But, you know, when I was watching it in the 80s, you know, or the early 90s, whenever I first saw it, I always thought he was, like, an old person because his hair was, you know, so gray.

Speaker 2: But that's also, I don't want to interject too much. Another thing about Candy, too, that he always played these characters. I mean, he was 37 when this movie came out. So he played a 36 when he did it. Candy was always playing older than he actually was. Cause he died, you know, sadly at 43. Yeah. Right. I remember when I read that, I was like, damn, he was young. But then I was like, wait a minute. I have all this perception that he's playing guys in like their late 30s, early 40s for like all the 80s.

Speaker 1: Right. I know. And I just I just had that reflection watching because I'm like, wow, I'm older now than Steve Martin was when he was in this. And obviously Candy as well. And I'm older than Candy when he died. Right. So like, yeah, yeah. So, yeah, I mean, my parents didn't like the movie or that's my memory of it. And I think it was because they were Steve Martin fans, mostly from like his comedy, you know, circuit stuff, SNL, all of that. And, you know, Martin, I mean, yeah, Steve Martin's character is a dick in this movie, right? Like, and we will talk about that. And so I think that's probably what frustrated that, you know, it was like, they went to see it thinking it's going to be a really funny Steve Martin movie and he's a dick. I think, Candy actually is really good in this movie. And I think he's a much better actor probably than he got credit for a lot of the time. But yeah the first time i saw it i was probably a little older i think it was probably early 90s when i saw it and i liked the movie you know i watched it several times and i used to watch it with my it was another one i talked about you know often watching movies on hbo or whatever else when we were like playing video games and stuff like that and um this was definitely one of those movies that we would watch largely because we liked John Candy you know and so we would watch a lot of different films that he was in um and so yeah I mean that was my memory I guess as far as the rewatch similar to you I mean John Hughes is just broadly when i was growing up i i would say generally i loved john hughes movies like i was i was a big fan of john hughes movies pretty much i mean i'm sure if i went through his catalog one by one i'd find movies where i'd be like oh i hated that movie but not not very many i liked the general kind of way that he told stories and you know um A lot of it is kind of sappy, emotional sort of stuff, but there's like a real, there's a heavy nostalgia, I think, with these films because they were just very polished. They were big in the 80s. They also very often, although not in this case, but very often are about teenagers, right? So like as I was growing up and I was younger. It's like, okay, these are my images of what teenage life is like. Ferris Bueller's Day Off, I probably watched a thousand times or whatever when I was growing up, right? And yeah, so it's like now when I look back on it with a critical lens, you know, I mean, there are things within it where I could still say, you know, yeah, it's a fun film, you know? And like, we can see, I don't know if people... follow this as much because it's not talked about as much as it should be. But you don't get films like Due Date and Identity Thief without this film. They basically just steal this film. They're not credited as official remakes, but that's what they are. They actually crib entire scenes and characters and stuff like that straight out of this movie. And so... you know, obviously there's something about this kind of story, this sort of like, you know, odd couple, you know, again, I guess reference that series as well, right? You know, of combining two people who are from, you know, different walks of life who don't really get along, but you get the drama of, them messing with each other and reconciling and all of these things. I think it works pretty effectively as a type of movie. I think that can mystify a lot of the messaging that's going on throughout the film, which I actually do think there's quite a bit of you know problematic I won't say pernicious because we have set a record for the number of times that we say pernicious on this podcast um but uh yeah there's just a lot of stuff in it where you're like when you look back on it with a lens of you know class politics and kind of um just United States politics too interestingly because these films are always just life in the core like there's never There's no outside usually within, I mean, I don't, maybe does Hughes do a war movie at any point? I don't know, he might, but it's just very much like internal. And I think what is interesting to some extent is because it's Chicago that becomes kind of the center of a lot of things for his films. You don't quite get the coastal elite thing, but I feel like you do. right so it's it's a weird thing where you have this kind of suburban chicago elite as a kind of center of a lot of what's going on and yeah you do get some antagonisms between these kind of petty bourgeois figures and their bosses right um which you see in the beginning of this film but we're talking about people who are like very wealthy and successful for the most part within these films. Um, I don't mean just successful in a traditional, you know, capitalists, you know, kind of sense or whatever. Um, and there's, there's just really fucked up, honestly, uh, imagery around working class people. Right. And so what I mean in terms of the kind of coastal elite thing is you do have this thing of like people who are from places like Kansas or New Mexico or, you know, what, you know, Missouri's in it, like all of these things that they're they're backwards. Right. That they're they're kind of like maybe like perverted or, um, like, uh, incestuous, right? Like these kinds of things come up over and over again in John Hughes films. And you don't really get representations of working class people, including of working class white people. Cause that's, you know, mostly these films are about white people. There's not a lot of people of color in John Hughes's world. Um, that are actually uh yeah i mean i know for for people like i grew up around like more conservative white folks like they might have enjoyed this movie but they they may not have realized that like they're the butt of a lot of the the jokes of these kind of films um and yeah so i mean we'll get into all of that but that's definitely something that's that's there in these films where you know i mean candy in this film in some ways represents the kind of there's something dignified about him even though he's a little bit of uh you know uh i mean he's a salesman right and he's kind of you know always I don't know the exact term to use. He's not quite a shyster, right? But he does kind of have these, like, you know, I'm going to steal a little bit from you here. I'm going to get you to pay for this and get you to pay, you know, and all this kind of stuff. Yeah. but you know there's there's definitely a dignity to his character to a certain degree in the film but he's not he's also well yeah i don't want to get too far ahead let's let's let's save it for for more but um so do you want to talk about i mean go ahead yeah you have anything you want to say but yeah i'll say one thing it would be interesting to note i'd be curious

Speaker 2: What did people who didn't necessarily consider themselves to be like liberals, and I mean liberals in the kind of more modern sense, thought of these films? Did they see Hughes as a kind of liberal observer of society? Right. I'd be curious. Right. I don't know. I'm more asking. I'd be curious if anyone has ever done any readings or studies around that. they responded to these to these movies did they even watch them at all um because then i also wonder if these movies were just things that were very popular to middle class people city movie goers right would they actually go see like with the red dawn people really like fevered for that go see this i'm just curious and i i i'm more asking because i don't know um which brings a point in because i think one of the things to think about and i think about with this series right with like imperial 80s is that like people underestimate how big these kinds of comedies were in the 80s so like if you look at the budget this is a 15 million dollar movie in in the 87th Right. In 1987. I don't know what that is for inflation. It's probably like in the 30s or something like that. Right. If I'm correct. I don't I don't I don't know those those numbers. Pretty, pretty good how to do that kind of. But that's a lot of money. Think of a comedy that's given that kind of money now. And people like Martin and Candy by this point are really. as big of movie stars and bankable stars as Schwarzenegger and those types of people, right? They're as important to the kind of hegemonic ideology that wants to be constructed within America. I think people constantly look at the Stallones and the Schwarzeneggers, and I don't think there's enough interrogation into the martins the candies and really john hughes and you know and i think he's important to kind of really situate it's funny you talked about he doesn't like have peripheral things on war movies he doesn't but it doesn't happen in this movie he has weird in a couple of movies he has these weird comments about the soviet union He has one in Pretty in Pink, and I believe there's another weird one in Uncle Buck that I can't remember. It's very to the side, but it's like, what? But it's part of this kind of project that I kind of surmise when I think of Hughes that I'll talk about in a second. But yeah, I mean, this is a paramount film, right? This is like a major kind of thing that's like created for the market at the time, right? Like it is a real vital part of the movie watching market. The... It's made... Yeah, it comes out in 87. Hughes, by this point, he's a really... working director he hasn't had a mega mega mega hit which is interesting like home alone is considered like his mega hit right but he's had like really successful films he started his interesting life he he grew up when i read his bio it sounds like a kind of middle class like lower it's like lower middle class kind of beginning in michigan is where he was born and then when he was a teenager he moves to the suburbs of chicago it sounds like his dad moved up a little bit right kind of financially but there's also a kind of recognition in reading his biography into some kind of accounts that he wasn't like super rich right so he kind of like reflects some of the other characters in some of his films because i've always felt there's like a class envy thing with hughes also that he constantly has it's almost like some of his movies you watch are like the life he would have liked to have had that he didn't quite have growing up in Chicago and what he projects upon a lot of weird, just kind of, I think, personal oddities that he's kind of like working out or like expressing right through his movies. And he said he watched a lot of films and things going up. And he was like a he basically was a joke writer for a long time. That was one of his early developmental things. And then he became a screenwriter. Screenwriting was really his first thing. And Jay brings up the National Lampoon movies. Those are screenplays that he wrote. And that's really his first big foray. And they become these big hits. And in those movies, let's just say it, those movies, especially the first one, the really i'm sorry especially even the second one in europe the kind of ideas of peripheral people being backwards these they they make your life more difficult even though i think in national lampoon's movies it's a it gets a bit more opaque because clark is also a bit of an idiot griswold right so he's like the lovable idiot so it's like these like lovable idiots you know kind of like hold together right but there is definitely a a real like disdain for um people in like the pro and i say periphery not how i believe like the peripheral world i'm saying like kind of how they they make it like the center of the world is like chicago or new york right and everything else is like the wilderness it's the jungle and i say that word very very purposefully because it feels like you're in a jungle of modernity right it's like everything is kind of crazy and you kind of have to make it through then the teen movies become his thing which is what a lot of us remember or remember about him you know the uh the pretty and pinks the breakfast club ferris bueller's and he does this film as a kind of way to not be pigeonholed he kind of wants to get out of that he doesn't want to live in that so planes trains and automobiles is his first film where he's doing something that he directs really that's really centered on like adulthood right and adult issues and it's a success it's a very successful film right it was very popular I mean I even look at like the critics the critics loved it it's a film that people were really into and it's like considered one of like his films that like kind of like gives him versatility as a filmmaker right but i think when you make a more critical approach to the looking at his films you kind of see the same kind of issues that you see i mean the one thing that no maybe no i'm sorry it does happen i mean one of the big things that you can also criticize hughes for but it'll be better in other movies is his gender politics which are very bad he has very very bad gender politics people bring pretty in pink um breakfast club but You see some of it here, but he doesn't really focus on women heavily in this film at all, which could also be another kind of gender politic, if you think about it. But in those films, it gets really egregious.

Speaker 1: Yeah, it's kind of like proto-incel shit with John Hughes, I would say.

Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, when we get to Breakfast Club, we'll talk about Molly Ringwald's comments about that. I think was it her son or her daughter? I think it was her daughter. And she had to, like, talk to her daughter about, like, that she's never liked the representation of the character in that film. And I always made me uncomfortable. I didn't understand it. And then when she said that, I was like, yeah, you're right. Exactly. That's some weirdo shit. Very proto incel. But it's funny because there's something that I read. There's an article with one of his friends. And his friend said about Jews as politics that I thought was very informative was that he was a hardcore political centrist. right he like he had a disdain for both the far right and the far left he was not really into that and he said he was like a a cultural conservative a family conservative in this kind of like middle of the roadway so any kind of what he saw extremities he he um he didn't like it and they said as he got more famous and as he got more successful he became more ingrained in that and it's interesting if you think about his movies as they kind of move up that's kind of consistent when you get to like home alone and basically like you have this little kid who gets left by their parents because the other thing he has this kind of to me really weak social critique of kind of american would say working politics within like the kind of bourgeois system where it's like you know you're not home with your family enough you know you'll forget your kid at home things like type of stuff you know like we're all caught up in the kind of things of modernity and we're thus like you know kind of missing the boat right about like you know the family and all this right which like has the kernels of truth to it but like there's no real analysis of it but he doesn't take it to like a further extent at all and he then uses it he then uses the people who he look like lumping people these like kind of like lower as like parts of like that threat right you have like the threat and i don't know if he ever sees like the bosses as a threat as much as like a thing as like a a hardcore annoyance right the capitalist bosses right but he definitely sees the people at the bottom as like real threats to like, sometimes just like your calm, the calm, the potential for calm in your existence, but really also towards like your life. Like they might actually be threatening to your life and to your existence. And they'll definitely steal from you and take your shit, right? So, I mean, I think the only other thing to kind of say, Because we can get more into like huge themes when we talk about the film. Right. I mean, and then for Martin, this is like, you know, he's still he's by this point a really bankable movie star. He's probably one of the most bankable movie stars in the in the comedy realm. Him, I think, probably Billy Crystal at this point. would be another interesting to do one of his films um maybe billy crystal by this point maybe he's a little bit after i can't remember um you know him billy crystal and then also candy candy is now kind of coming into his own right and i don't know if you have more about candy because you watch the doc if you want to talk any more about it i would actually i should kind of want to see that doc but um you know candy him and hughes will be connected up until you know both of their deaths around around the same time if i'm remembering correctly right um later later okay yeah i don't know why i thought that um but um they candy by this point is is definitely be more solidified in this kind of starring role he has filmed that he starred in but he also becomes i think this he's like really strong like the buddy movie like this great outdoors though Uncle Buck in a couple of years he becomes like the kind of solo star of a film but this is like a really like big film for him in that kind of way of like solid helping solidify you put him next to Steve Martin he's able to kind of do this like one two and I do agree with Jay I think whenever I go back to watching John Candy I'm always like he's a solid actor a solid actor right like he the one of the things that like annoy me about steve martin and i think it's similar to jay is steve martin does not know when to just like let some of the sticks go for no reason like he's like his annoying ass running i mean why are you running like that dude it's not funny right you know it's not funny but candy he doesn't overplay jokes which is really interesting and he's not afraid to be a straight man when he's supposed to be the comedy foil it's so interesting he's had a great instinct um for for for acting on screen i mean you watch him and even in a role that i think is by the end of the day kind of demeaning He actually gives it dignity to a degree. He can't fight through the negative portrayal too much because he's still a director's medium. But he does his best to make that kind of happen. It shows the power of him. As a strong actor, you're watching, he's doing it. He's doing the work. But I think also, and we'll talk about it, how the movie goes, Hughes also uses that, I think, in a very manipulative way to fuck with, I think, certain types of people he thinks needs to like... you know realize that they're kind of like scourges of the earth a little bit right except that you kind of are and except that the only people who can who can rescue you from being a shit bag is rich people which is like so bad yeah no i i agree with all of that um yeah i mean a little bit about candy um

Speaker 1: so candy as i mentioned is canadian uh you know his father dies on his fifth birthday when his father is 35 years old of a heart attack right which of course candy dies of a heart attack when he's 43 um and so like Yeah, I mean, suppose it like he has, I don't quite get what his family all did. But obviously, his father dies that young, right? He lives in alone with his mother and his and his brother, I think. And then they move into the basement of the grandparents house, right. And so like, you know, I mean, I didn't get all into like, digging deep on the class, you know, but it seems like a very kind of, you know, modest sort of upbringing and so on. Right. um you know he's in canada one weird thing is that he wanted to volunteer for the vietnam war and you know but canada wasn't fighting so then he tried to go to the united states to volunteer and they wouldn't take him basically um and i think because of like health issues or whatever if i remember correctly like something his knee was bad or something like that um And so that's weird. But, you know, it was kind of like brushed off in the documentary as like, oh, you know, he wanted to do something meaningful with his life or whatever, which I mean, again, like it gives you some kind of inkling of like, know i mean a lot of people that are that age make dumb decisions and you know that type of attitude is inculcated right into folks but um not necessarily you know poses a certain contradiction early on to his like you know all about the working man all about the little guy kind of you know thing but nonetheless like he doesn't end up obviously going into the military and um you know kind of you know, works his way into comedy. It's not his first thing. He's like sort of, he's picked up by an agent who just sort of recognizes that he has something right. Kind of thing. And he gets into this collective eventually, uh, like kind of improv groups and stuff like that and into um this thing called sctv which stands for second second city um and actually there's probably episodes of this online and looking at like who was actually in it it's probably it may be some of it may be really up but it's probably pretty funny like oh no some of it i've so let's cut it i've seen some of it there's a funny one with rick moranis yeah and uh what's the song um

Speaker 2: It's the Christopher Cross song on the run. Was it?

Speaker 3: Me too. And you should. So you should watch it. It's hilarious. It's a it's like him literally trying to get to the studio to sing the song. Right.

Speaker 2: It's hilarious. But I gotta lie. Like a lot of that stuff is funny. I mean, I haven't watched it like full, you know, but a lot of it is really well done.

Speaker 1: An incredible group of people that he's around in this era. So you mentioned Rick Moranis, Catherine O'Hara, of course, who's in Home Alone with him, and they have the whole scene together. She's a part of this. Dan Aykroyd, Eugene Levy. um like just a lot of people like if you watch the movie um again i like me is what i'm referencing which is like a documentary on him you know they're all in it and they're all talking about him bill murray um and so like just a really incredible group of canadian comedians like way more of them than i would have thought i would have been like oh like one or two of these people probably made it it's like no like they're all they all end up being you know, serious comedic actors, you know, for a good chunk of time. And really, like, kind of... Candy never does SNL, but this is sort of his SNL-like thing. And a lot of the people who were... He definitely could have. John Belushi, I guess, was trying to recruit him. And Candy was actually worried, supposedly... you know, by that, if he spent too much time in New York, that basically like he would do too much Coke and like, end up like John Belushi essentially. Um, which I mean, I don't know, you know, but supposedly he did party, you know, very hard as it was too. Um, but anyway, I mean like the things that people said about him were this thing about that. He was just always super generous with like his time with just fans with, you know, again, like go to a bar and like keep it open late and, you know, knowing that nobody leaves until he leaves. Right. And everybody's spending money and he, you know, like, but, but doing it out of a kind of like real generosity with his time and also his money back, you know, to it. So, You know, again, like a lot of this stuff, as we've talked about, can be apocryphal. And especially for somebody who dies so young, I'm not suggesting that, like, you know, he didn't have his demons or, you know, his issues. But, you know, his family's in the documentary and all of that, including his kids. And they all have, like, really, you know, good things to say about, you know, who he was and everything. you know you can tell that a lot of the actors who came up with him you know genuinely really miss him and a lot of that comes off very heartfelt to the acting point um there was also a lot of discussion in the documentary, which I think is probably real too, of like, you know, Tom Hanks, who's in a few movies with him. Splash is one that they talk about the most. You know, Tom Hanks really credits candy with like teaching him how to act, like teaching him how to do like improvisational stuff and back and forth and, and that kind of stuff. A lot of, candy stuff is just kind of him just going unscripted and all of that this movie there are which we'll talk about in a little bit when we get into it more there are a number of kind of continuity glitches or issues in the film where you're like what like why don't i know why this didn't you know why are they referencing something i haven't seen or what what happened here And it's because the final cut before they started editing, if I think I have this number right, it was three hours and 45 minutes. It's correct. I had that written down. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so they end up cutting like two hours and 15 minutes of the film because it's 90 minutes when it's done. But they say the reason for that is because both... Candy and Hughes were always sort of like, Oh, well let's do this. Like let's, you know, and, and then, and then Candy would just, just go. Right. There's a funny thing in the film, in the documentary too, where he talks about being on home alone and they only had one day to, for him to shoot his scenes in that. And he let them shoot for 23 straight hours, which I mean, you say let, I mean, obviously that's terrible to like all of the other people who had to work that day, but, that was kind of like, I guess, typical of like, kind of how John Candy was of just like, you know, just go like, I mean, he's in the movie for like 10 minutes of airtime. Right. And it's 23 hours.

Speaker 2: Let's just go hard, you know?

Speaker 1: But, um, and, and Steve Martin similarly said with this film that even though, yeah, I mean, he was successful already and all of that, he had, he came out of SNL. know and he's in other movies we've talked about three amigos and all but he's like look i was not yet really a serious actor like i was a comedian and i was trying to become an actor and john candy really helped me kind of learn how to do that and so you know i mean i think that's like i felt martin's a little bit self-deprecating and looking back on this but i think he's kind of accurate in terms of like it's not a great performance from steve martin in this film um and he does become i think a little bit better as an actor in you know the the 90s maybe even though he gets kind of you know pigeonholed into sort of a couple types of films but You know, I think that his performance here is a little uneven and Candy's is much better. But yeah.

Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, you see Martin, small digression, you see Martin attempt started movies like LA Story to like, start do these more like existential comedies, you know? he plays his characters and stuff like that kind of after this you know like something he tries to like kind of dip into to kind of a more even like doing some like serious roles in movies um at times so you definitely kind of see that as a thing that he wants to do but um but yeah let's let's let's dig into the movie a bit so The film starts off, right? You get these like big ass titles, right? Like, right. And it kind of comes in. And the first thing you see is like a skyscraper, right? But like this Canton shot, right? Of a skyscraper. And, you know, one of the weird things that I'm having this experience with is because whenever I watch movies from the 80s, I emotionally get taken back to old New York. And there's like an emotional accuracy. But I'm starting to wonder how much of that is influenced by these movies that I watched. Like this, Scrooged, you know, any Eddie Murphy movie that took place in New York. Like, does my lens get kind of influenced by watching these films? And it's just something that I've been trying to track because when I watched it, I was like, oh yeah, that's New York I remember. But I'm like, do I really remember it that way? Or this is the filter of a film going through my brain and through my heart. But the very first thing you see is like this shot of like this capitalist, you know, boss, right? Who I don't know if he actually says a line. And I think that's part of the joke. He's over, he's like looking at like a big ass picture. right it's like an advertisement that he's like looking over right and and you see steve martin's character neil right and his what you would somewhat his business associate you don't really get a full clearly they work together clearly right and also another thing you begin to see is like john hughes is like placing characters he's actually the father from ferris bueller right you see a lot of like characters get placed Right. So he's in there and they're basically waiting for this, you know, the big boss to basically, you know, give them a confirmation of this. Is this a good thing? Is it not a good thing? And then there's like a moment where he like he stops.

Speaker 3: He thinks about it.

Speaker 2: And then he goes back and he looks again. And the reason why it's a pressure-filled moment is because Neil, Steve Martin's character, has to get back home to Chicago. And he sees the flight. It's like 6 o'clock. You're meant to believe, I guess, 6 is around the corner, right?

Speaker 1: Well, his watch says... I think I wrote it down. It says, what does it say? It's like four 25. I'm like, there's no fucking way. Like, like, like I did, this was a part where I got slightly frustrated as somebody who used to live in New York of like, you're going to get to fucking LaGuardia. Like, you know, in, in an, I mean, granted it's pre nine 11. Right. So it's like, if you show up like right before the flight time, you can walk straight on the plane.

Speaker 2: but right you know nonetheless i was like there's at that point you just hope you're hoping it's delayed at that point you're hoping it's delayed right that's what i say like he's pissed that it's delayed and i'm like he would be ecstatic that it's delayed because he's gonna make it right yeah so like he's in this thing he can't get out and then of course the boss you know still hasn't made a decision but he lets them like essentially that you realize that they're able to leave he gets out his friend tells him you'll never get the you never get the airplane one of the interesting things about it is you and this is the thing that i think is really prevalent and i think in films from the mid to late 80s up is this general cynicism that is about the kind of like western american capitalist liberal project where it's like They're never going to endorse another kind of system. They're never going to say, oh, well, you know what? This system sucks. We need a new thing. Because then that would basically be admitting that the Soviet Union, which is still in existence at the time, is right that capitalism is like the scourge of the earth and that Marx was right. I'm not even thinking about him. Someone like Hughes would have this conversation, though. He would actually have this conversation. But they have a general cynicism that, like, we're in this kind of like stasis of existence, right? Like there is really no more societal progress. This is what we have. And really the whole film's message is like, let's do the best with what we can, right? By finding some kind of good nature, right? But he really wants to hammer home that like New York is a purgatory, right? you're in this purgatory of existence but modernity is a kind of purgatory where you don't see your family right and because the other thing you realize like wait a minute he's in new york he's at work he seems to be here a lot but he lives in chicago okay right and it becomes a big kind of thing about the movie right like and like you know the capitalists don't respect your time and all that so he he you know once he gets out the building he's like rushed immediately into this really this labyrinth of like modernity right of like you know big city existence and trying to get from one city to the other um is like this huge trek of like you know absolute mayhem right and that's kind of what modern existence is and like you could watch the beginning of the film and go well this is basically gonna say that this this whole thing sucks right but then by the end of it you're basically realizing that well this is the best that we have right this is kind of what existence is which is like a big theme of like i think of that era of liberalism right of where people began to think that like you know we are in the stasis period this is how human existence is fundamentally a flawed one and a up one and these are things that i like and i i think i internalize watching these movies right the social competition is actually natural Because the next thing that happens in a Kevin Bacon alert, he goes outside and he sees a character played by Kevin Bacon who he has to now have this kind of eyeball competition for a cab. right which then sets off the kind of movement right the city is busy he can't get the cab and then there's this suitcase that he trips over that makes kevin bacon eventually win for the cab and you're just kind of in this long role in the suitcase eventually being dells who is uh john kennedy's character so yeah we can i don't know any more on the downtime i had more things on the downside i'll let you jump in

Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, first of all, yeah, it's like a massive trunk, too, that John Candy's character is carrying around, which, you know, is a big prop for the film. I mean, one of the things I'll say, too, is like, you know, John Hughes... he loves to get people like he likes these kind of combination films where there are, you know, you have elements of comedy and you have a little bit of drama going on. And then you have like, he likes action sequences within stuff. Right. So even if it's a comedy, like, like the whole, that whole chase scene, it's like, you got to get motion going. Right. And I think about that too, is thinking about, you know, some of the analysis that like Samantha Youssef does and others of like, the importance in these films of you know motion kind of carrying you through when there's like not a lot of depth to what's going on in terms of you know the film itself and and so yeah i mean even the steve martin stuff you mentioned being like annoyed by his run but i also think for some people especially people who like steve martin that is part of the appeal. It like comes out of like kind of a more physical, you know, slapstick or, you know, earlier comedy tradition. And, you know, it just doesn't, it's kind of aged out. Like, I feel like we don't really have so much like, I feel like that was a bigger thing in the eighties, but even more so if you go back before it. So I think in some ways, like my, when I think about my mother, you know, liking Steve Martin, I think it also comes of like, okay, you grew up watching the Dick Van Dyke show and you grew up before that. Like, You know, watching these other things, you know, whether it's like Three Stooges or the Marx Brothers or like, you know, these kind of almost coming out of silent era, you know, comedy and stuff like that and kind of, you know, holding on to certain elements of this. Yeah. yeah i mean as far as the critique thing i do think it's interesting like christmas vacation which i know you will probably do at some point um you know you get you get this maybe even in a little bit more depth of the conflict between clark and his boss who like you know is this scrooge-like character who won't give a bonus and i think you know i mentioned this to you before the other day when we were talking is like We were talking about Scrooge, which obviously is an adaptation of Charles Dickens' Christmas Carol, like kind of put in the 80s context, which is not a John Hughes film, right? But the thing about Hughes is I do think he has elements of this kind of Dickensian critique, right? Which is sort of, it's like a social democratic, but it's more of a... What do they call it? It's like Christian socialism kind of thing, too. It's not Marxist at all. There's no scientific element to it. It's like that individual successful people out of the goodness of their heart should help out those who are less fortunate sort of thing, right? you know, very tied into, like, maybe, I don't know if he's Catholic, right, but, like, the Catholic tradition has a lot of this, you know, kind of thinking of, like, having Catholic charities, right, these sort of things of helping out people who are, you know, in poverty and those kind of things, but it's that paired with also this And maybe that makes sense. This like real hatred and this like viewing of working class people, I think, as like kind of basically genetically inferior. Like there is a kind of like even within. even though it's white on white crime to a certain extent, like there is this sort of, you know, you all are racially inferior to those of us who can, can get it together, which again, like if you think about Dickens, I don't know if Dickens ever wrote or talked about the Irish, but in the English context, English people have a lot of these views. Like they actually, for a very long time, saw the Irish people as a separate race from themselves, even though same people, right? Like, But, I mean, not the same people, because there's a different nationality and ethnicity and history and all of that. But you know what I mean. Like, in a racial sense nowadays, we would say, well, they're all white people, they're all European, etc. So... there is all of that. And I think there is this way that in Hughes's films, you can see the, the ultimate bosses, right? So in this first scene, I imagine it's either like Madison Avenue or fifth Avenue. I know they go out and catch a cab on park. So, or that's what they say. But yeah, One of the scenes, it looks like they're driving towards the MetLife building to me, which is on Madison, I believe.

Speaker 2: That building looks like a Sixth Avenue building, which is also a big... I could be getting it wrong. It looks like a Sixth Avenue building below the park, which is a huge...

Speaker 1: business so yeah yeah exactly and so you know but the thing about it is that steve martin's character is as you learn quickly he's an advertising executive so he's not he is not like a sales person or like some low level like i work for an advertising company like he owns the advertising company or he is like a chief executive of it. Right. And so he's somebody who is very well paid, which becomes quite obvious when you see his house, which is a freaking mansion, you know? And so there's, there's all of that, like kind of in it. And I mean, yeah, I'll save it for later. Let's go. Let's keep going into the film.

Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, that's a really good point. I'll bring it in. There's a movie. from the 70s that I encourage people to watch. I did on my old version of Within Our Gates, and I'll try to re-issue it. It's called Joe. And it's slightly interesting because it was actually a Canon film, and people were thinking about Canon. We did this recently. um with the podcast about delta force but it's a film about a um it's with peter boyle and it's a and susan sarandon is one of the first films and it's about a very like successful executive whose daughter basically becomes a hippie and she's like a druggie and all this type of stuff i say druggie and kind of how they did how they like depict it which is totally fucked up um and that's susan sarandon and he basically meets this white conservative and they basically go on like a revenge mission right and i i call it a fascinating failure of a film because you get to see the kind of like consciousness of the class collaboration and it was a very controversial film it's made by john g avildsen you would know his name because he's the guy who directed rocky and the karate kid um but joe i think one of the things that i said i think it had a long-term kind of subconscious or like political unconscious effect on movies going forward because this also comes out of that Legacy in a little bit of a way because what you begin to see happen is like that that and that's why I kind of say it's like class warfare or like kind of class white class negotiation maybe it's a better word because it's kind of what you kind of see throughout the film

Speaker 1: It's sort of culture war stuff. Culture war, right? That's not the right... It's not really... I mean, I don't like that term. Same. Right? Because it's BS. It's really a right-wing term. But that's what it is.

Speaker 2: It's a conservative view, though. So it is. It kind of is how Hughes would see the culture war. So even though we don't like the term, it's kind of how they see it. So I agree with you in that kind of way, right? Because then like, so yeah, like perfect. He's on the street. The lawyer part. I mean, the lawyer part is so like indicative. So he goes, he basically gets a cab. And this is kind of where you get the first real recognition of Candy's character, Del. He basically sees a cab and I'm talking about Martin's character, Neil. And he goes to him and he basically says, look, man, like, can I get this cab? I'm super late. I'll offer you some cash. And the lawyer is like, you know, basically negotiates with him, you know, that like, yeah, I'll get, you know, how much money, right? And he says, like, can I appeal to your good nature? And he says, I don't have a good nature. is what the lawyer says. And then he says, well, you're a thief. He says, yeah, I'm an attorney, right? So you're getting that all these people have these duplicitous sides and these very lawyers, which is coded. Who do we associate lawyers with in a very negative way? There's the anti-Semitic view of lawyers that exists out there, right? And he's playing with all of that, right? and it's like this like petty bourgeois competition like there's no collective good when i'm watching the film right because he has to get all the way to is that when he finally gets to the airport right it's like this like madness place right it's like absolutely nuts right because the other thing you see is basically um dell steals his cab right and You're later led to believe that he didn't realize that he wasn't like thinking about it when you're like when he when he talks to him inside the airport. But when you get to the airport, you begin the kind of, I think, other big theme of the film is that, like, this modern world has, like, so many complications, right? And this is where you could, like, go to, like, say, consistency. Well, like, you know, you got shitty bosses who run companies. You got shitty people who run airlines and all those types of stuff. Capitalism is crazy. No, it goes right to the workers. It goes right to... it's like the workers and the people who do these things are the people who are essentially keeping this thing from running ethically well right there's like a certain way that like i think hughes accepts that like mechanisms can't work perfectly that we have to accept it but like the fact that like these workers can't understand the like ethical mistakes that you know this kind of subaltern thing must be acknowledged about them and it starts really early in the movie and it like it honestly goes into uptick throughout it gets even really the more you get into the and i'm going to use the word periphery as like a shorthand because i think that's kind of the logic of this film

Speaker 1: when you get into the periphery of the world that's kind of how it exists they just get more and more duplicitous you know more and more just kind of nasty yeah um i mean i think that what there's like i i feel like john hughes just hates people like that's the way that it feels to me like and i mean i think that one of the things we could say about this film is obviously there's a very, there's, there's two stars. Like, so in certain way, it's kind of, it is this kind of buddy comedy thing. Right. But you are very much, it is clear that you are too, even as there, even though there's obviously, um, Hughes is being critical with Steve Martin's character with Neil right like he wants you to think he's kind of an asshole he wants you to think he's kind of out of touch he wants you to you know he wants you to think that he's uptight like all of these kind of things but it's a conscious choice for him to be the real lead of the film which he clearly is like you start with him he's the one that you're the action for the most part is centered around him and like you know, Del, John Candy's character, he comes in, right? He interacts with, he's frustration too, et cetera, et cetera, right? And that's a very important choice within the film because I actually think the film would be very different and I think better if you were, you know, set up to align off the bat with john candy's character and he was the center of it and he's where you got a little bit more of like your analysis in the heart and then you know he's interacting with this you know ad executive and these other people and stuff like that because the other thing too that comes through in the film is that john candy has a much better relationship and respect for the work the working people within the film in the country. And I imagine he brought that to the film because of that also, again, like it, it, it kind of sticks to who he is as a person. And maybe because he was in candy were as close as they were, like it was intentional kind of between the two of them. But I think that's important because yeah, you, all of these scenes from Martin's kind of perspective and from Hughes's perspective as a director, like, there's really not people in these films that you're like, oh, well, this is a nice guy. You know? Oh, well, this is a good person here. Like, it's just like, everybody is fucking annoyance. And it's like, like you said, this kind of, you know, you use the term jungle. Like it, it is both like, like somehow the airport in New York City, you know, has the same feeling as the bus to like, you know, between whatever it is, Jefferson City and St. Louis or whatever, you know, like, and it's just that like, there's just like sort of these hordes, right? Of like unwashed largely, like that's a big thing. Like a lot of people are dirty, right? um and you know it just and so it has this you you really are invited to take on steve martin's perspective as this kind of like ad executive who really doesn't want to have to do with any of this these people or or this this country you know um so yeah

Speaker 2: Yeah, because you don't ever get a perception that at the end of the film, and we'll get there when he realizes the thing about Del at the end, but you don't ever get Martin's character going, well, maybe I looked at these people a bit shitty. No, it is the normative that these people are shitty. right it's just that maybe he well no actually the only real person he is is supposed to kind of make a change of heart about is dell but it's mostly not because of dell's attitude is because that dell doesn't have something that martin has right or that neil has he he lacks a family because of you know what we will later find out about his wife

Speaker 3: right and yeah so like you know you're in the airport and it's funny you said that it's true it's like when you get to the airport or like when you get to anything that's travel you get to like this weird portal world into the jungle like when you're in when you're in the buildings essentially like you're safe but when you get to like you know the uh the the streets try to get a cab you gotta get to the airport

Speaker 2: you kind of enter this like, you know, portal world that's like just chaos, right? And it's just bad, you know? And like, I get it. Look, I know, look, travel is not fun, but like, I think one of the things that's been good about my own life and like reading about just, you know, why capitalism is shit, It's a function of this society and of capital and how capital operates. It has nothing to do with, you know, the really annoying flight attendant. And that's the thing when it gets to the morality things. Like, one of the scenes they do is when he gets into a plane, finally, right? And I mean, Martin's character, right? he is given the wrong seat assignment right and he's given a seat assignment um that should he wants to be in first class right which i think is a really big indicator to what jay was talking about about his class level he gets put into coach which he for him is just absolutely ridiculous so like on a financial level i can understand it but she even says to him like look If you put your ticket back, you'll get the money back. But he's like, no, I want my seat, you know. And I do think the film, like Jay has pointed out, it's supposed to make him look ungrateful, right? Or like maybe he's a little too much of an asshole. But there is never a questioning about the kind of ethics or how he looks at the ethics of the people who are working, right? It is very, very normative that these people's ethics are bad or they don't look at the greater good, right? Even if, you know, Neil is being an asshole, right? And of course, you know, when he gets on the plane, who's there waiting for him? After he's already met him inside the airport structure is Del, John Candy's character. So you're immediately going to be known that this is going to be like a long-term connection, right? Between the two and that you pretty much are going to watch the two of them have this like, you know, comedy of errors and mishaps, right? but what jason is really important i think is that it's all done even with a two-hander the emotional center of the film of any kind of emotional arrival or consciousness arrival happens from steve martin's character's perspective so pretty much like the petty bourgeois know look at society and the kind of like turn of consciousness we have to get through him and it's a limited one but for some reason hughes thinks this not for some reason for very clear reasons hughes thinks this is the perspective that's actually like more worldly important that i think that these are the people we need to be looking at for our kind of like don't know like guidance like you know in society and that these other people really only exist to either annoy us or to help you know petty bourgeois people arrive in consciousness which is like, honestly, a very old trick in liberal writing, right? I mean, and not even just writing. I mean, there's stories of very rich people who would just spend time around the poor because they felt it would give them more virility, right? Like, it's a thing about like, it's a class politics thing. right and you see it in tons of movies even from the 40s and the 30s and all these types of stuff it's an old hollywood thing that really what the poor are there to do is to help the bourgeois kind of find their ethics but not that the ethics of the system sucks but like my personal ethics needs to be a bit more giving right which is what you know the holiday spirit is all about and that kind of yeah

Speaker 1: yeah i mean it's one of the reasons why it's it is i think a holiday film that has a certain staying power too though is because of this like kind of you know there's the this kind of tired cliche of like oh you know you get together with your relatives and you don't really like each other but you mend fences and you you know get along for the holiday and you know then there's the other version of it of like you know you know, combat your racist, racist relatives on Thanksgiving or whatever, which I always think is like the funniest idea that people have. But yeah, so it kind of has that even though they're not family, right, it has kind of a it offers a sort of prototype of, you know, these two guys who are just sort of different from each other, like figuring out how do they kind of see eye to eye and get along. Obviously it also has the piece, which is a real thing that I think also gives it staying power is, um, You know, that holiday travel sucks, especially, and it is one of those times of year, you know, especially, I mean, maybe Christmas a little bit more than Thanksgiving, but where you are likely to have weather mess up your ability to get somewhere and get stuck in an airport or end up having to take an... I know, and you and I talked about this a little bit too, of people will reference this movie of like, oh, I had the planes, trains, and automobiles experience. As somebody who went to college 3,000 miles away from where I grew up and going in and out of small airports and stuff like that, I had that experience a lot in college of very difficult travel experiences with extra days. you know and all that kind of stuff and having to switch modes of transportation and all of that it's not fun um but i think that your your point about the workers is really the part that stuck out to me as i watched it is it's like always like customer service people are paid right to be put in to be the messenger that gets shot, right? Like the, you know, in the whole, like, don't shoot the messenger thing. Like these people are literally just doing their job and it's a very shitty job to have to do. Right. And. you know the whole movie is you know martin like just losing it on these folks and the first one is the the um flight attendant and i mean it is funny too because to your point like she also there's another guy who comes in who i think is another flight attendant she's like i'll just sit anywhere you want right in first class well martin's like i have a seat i have a ticket for first class but she's like so and actually there's a deleted scene in which like there's a little kid who is like talking to her and like you know give me my pepsi like kind of thing you know and and she's like okay honey you know that she turns around to martin is like mean to him right so like it they cut that out but nonetheless even with the little bit that you get in the film you do get the sense again that like the flight attendant has the power to do what Martin needs her to do. And she's just being kind of a jackass to him. Right. And he's, so that's the other thing is it's like, yeah, you get the, like he is being a jerk. But in all of these situations, there's always also kind of like an unscrupulous service worker who's actually also being – could help him out but doesn't and is trying to do something else or help themselves out or talk to their sister or whatever else it is, right? And so – the point is that you get driven home over and over in this film these met these like not very subtle messages really about you know just service workers just being and and so then when you have those experiences this is what you said to me before we started when you have those experiences where your flight does get cancelled or it's like it's like you're primed by this type of media to be pissed off at those people rather than at the company that canceled the flight or, you know, did it at a, and rather than approaching it of like, okay, I'm going to get what this company owes me. You're like yelling at, you know, Jane behind the counter or whatever, you know? Um, so yeah, then they, they, they then sit down for, he sits down next to candy and, you know, this is where you really get the, uh, you know, and again, like I encourage people, there are like 50 minutes of deleted scenes that are on, that you can get on YouTube. I actually put the link in the show description after this, but I encourage people to watch them because they are not bad. Like a lot of times deleted scenes are kind of like, you know, garbage or like they're actually, it's actually good acting largely by John Candy doing a whole bunch of different improv that actually helps certain things within the film make more sense because a lot of times they cut out stuff that actually is important a little bit to like what's going on. And not that you can't get it without, because obviously a lot of people like this film without the stuff that gets cut, but, does help actually understand some of the things that happen in the movie um but there's there's deleted scenes of more of their you know plane ride stuff but you know takes his socks his shoes off all of that like you know it's definitely in those moments i do relate to steve martin's character because i am the person on the plane who's like please don't talk to me like please let me just read my book

Speaker 2: not not the person who like wants to hear like oh you know have a long conversation with some stranger that i just met but like you know this is the thing with all of this i agree with you like plane travel it could be really really rough and that i had a period in my life where i i did a lot of plane travel i had a couple periods like where like plane travel was like a significant part of my working life right and it was rough Um, but one of the things that I think just like, like certain types of study that doesn't kind of normalize this system has done for me is also to show the absurdity that, you know, the way capitalism and the way that modernity like moves everyone around and imperialism as well, if we're thinking about people who are forced to leave where they're from, you know, and come to places like America to get work. And so basically to go back to see your family, you have to travel really far is that this is all, uh, a product of like how capital has like you know up other places centered certain you know financial things right you know and and put monopolies and they would state that they send themselves in certain areas and so forth and so forth and so on so all this like travel that hughes wants you to kind of see as like normative like this is what society not has become but what it is right is really something that's become because of the social relations that have been created and that's why movies like this to me do get really dangerous right because things that are recognizable and are kind of annoying you begin to associate with a kind of like naturalism so this is where you it kind of also works at like well these people are just weird because like one of the next things is you get to so they're on the plane

Speaker 3: and the plane and this is something that's actually happened to me before the plane lands in a different city right and that's actually happened to me before um yeah i've had that happen right it's really annoying man like i was like what the dude and i had to stay at an airport overnight about it man it sucks man so he's in wichita right which like

Speaker 2: I feel like when Hughes did it, he said, yeah, let's throw them in like Kansas. It's such like a city cosmopolitan thing. Let's throw them in like Kansas, right? So they're in Wichita. And when they get there, you know, there's like a hope that a flight will get out. It doesn't get out. And basically they have to stay, right? And there's a theme where Martin is also calling his wife. And this is one of the deleted things because apparently I think in the original version of the script is that And it does help some of the lack of clarity. The wife doesn't necessarily believe that Martin's character is really stuck. She's wondering if he's having an affair, which then makes kind of her emotional reactions make more sense in the film. Because in this, she just seems like a weird basket case without any kind of, like, real context. It just, like, is weird. Right.

Speaker 3: you're crying because i came home a day late from like my on my way yeah more accurate as like all right here the kids i'm out you know what i'm saying i need to go get a drink bye-bye you got him for the next 24 hours that is more accurate as two parents here no that's what happens when you come home actually that's probably what happened when i came home a day yeah no i feel like my

Speaker 1: I feel like my wife would 100% be mad at me. Like, would be like, fuck you. Why'd you take so long to get here?

Speaker 2: and i get it like some of them might make the comment that it's an older time because you didn't have cell phones so she might have been worried but the film doesn't really scaffold that but also the original thing is that she thinks he's having an affair right and there's a comment that he makes in the film that he's been away too long from the family and things like that so this kind of thing is set up that he's like this traveling person part of his like you know job um necessities necessitates that he's home away a lot which is like side note is a thing that they really get into in movies in the late 80s i think that we've always had it about like the pressures of like high-end jobs um the movie hook remember that with robin williams they're all big on at the cell phone and you know I just kind of hate that shit not the thing that's not really a truism but this like this idea that like high success is like the most pressured it kind of just adds to that and it just really irritates the shit out of me because like I'm sorry like compared to like people who have to work two fucking jobs go ahead no I don't want to cut you off go ahead

Speaker 1: Now, go ahead, because you want to say something. I see it in your face. I mean, it's just empirically false. Like, you know, it is just not true. Like, there's studies about this. Like, people who have high incomes, who live in, you know, like, wealthy suburbs, who have, you know, CEO or executive-level jobs. Like, you know, look, I've spent a decent amount of my time around these people, and, like, yeah... they do have stress of course but like the the studies like there's there's data around this like health outcomes are way way better for those folks right than it is for working people and people who like you said who have to work multiple jobs or who are constantly stressed by not being able to afford things or worried about losing their home or whatever else, right? And so it's just not true. Like that's part of the problem is it's definitely a mythology that is promoted for us to like feel like we need to, you know, give a little love to the Steve Martins of the world because it's, you know, it's stressful being an advertising executive.

Speaker 2: yeah if your executive boss is a little bit of an just know that he can't see his family that much so you shouldn't be that pissed that you know he's exploiting you uh possibly harassing you in various ways so forth and so on it's just the stress of not seeing his family right but it also kind of adds to the excuses or reasons of why Martin would be an asshole right not saying that Hughes is totally absolving him from his assholeness but he's making the roots of it a kind of like because you see these shots of like thinking about the family and all that type of stuff and they're very like wistful and they have a lot of like you know loving like dripping from them and his home When you see the recreations of his home, it's very, very like, even though it's luxurious, it's luxurious in this very wholesome way. So you get this idea that because he's not at home, that the kind of wholesome side of him gets destroyed by what? Modernity. He's out there in the streets. That's what's kind of making him a shitbag. It's not that he has really terrible liberal ideology that's given to him. It is because of some kind of experience in the jungles of the cities and the periphery right and like when he because like the other kind of wild is when he gets into wichita they can't get the plane right so they decided to stay in a hotel and this is where he begins to kind of make more like transactions with dell candy's character and they get to the hotel and through a a kind of understanding that maybe they would get two rooms that doesn't happen they have to come to the same room and share the same bed and this is a funky scene in many ways there's like so much in this scene right um i mean i'll list of a couple things and we can like dig into what we want so like one of the things is like the theme of kind of two men in a room together this uh very very homophobic like if two men are in a room together they're immediately going to like get into this like can't just be like yo oh two people in a bed this sucks right like they're gonna go into this kind of like homophobic like oh my god i don't want it to but then like it also later gets homoerotic as well so like they're also using that and like it just shows like hughes is really really funky inability to like not have any kind of self analysis or he thinks that self analysis is like throwing the kind of weird issues that he has projected upon these two characters is some kind of self analysis and he makes a kind of like reductive joke about it that's one thing and another thing and then is like is is that it's the odd couple thing where you realize that candy is like high level unclean right which like is the other thing and we have to talk about i mean candy was a big guy overweight guy right or you know this large large guy and this idea that you know this large man would be this like i mean like slovenly absolutely like uncouth and nasty and you know it's one of the things and my lady pointed this out she was like yo martin's kind of fit right and like he's kind of like a fit guy that's like fit you know well you know not well suited but like you know mildly mannered man has to like cohabitate with this like heathen this like nasty disgusting individual right and it eventually brings it all to a head where martin has like this huge speech that he just basically like shits on him uh in like you know this really horrible way and um you get that line the the i like me line from from candy which i have to say as horrible and as awful as martin speeches candy plays it really well like and this is where like It actually does a disservice, ultimately, not because of Candy, because Candy's great, but it's where you see movies are really manipulative. He plays it so well, because you see the shots of him, and it's so believable that he's absolutely, devastatingly hurt. Like his eyes, the way it's played by Candy is brilliant, right? He's really, really good. He doesn't overplay hands. It's really strong acting. But then I think Hughes uses it to a very negative aspect throughout the film.

Speaker 1: Yeah, you said a lot there that I want to talk about. I mean, one, just I'll say it and I'll put a pin on it because I want to go back to a couple of things, but is you know like what when you watch the documentary i like me like you do get more of candy opening up about um you know how he was treated and you know his weight being both a cause of constant like weird interests by reporters and stuff like this but then also uh you know There's a period in which he loses a lot of weight. He actually goes to a center, basically. He loses 70 pounds, all this kind of stuff. A camp kind of thing. But they do talk about in the film that the directors did not want him to lose weight. And I, you know, and I don't know where Hughes fits in that because he does nine movies with Hughes. Right. But, you know, and they were really close. And by the end, you know, he had doctors and stuff like that telling him, like, you got to lose weight. And he would basically what they say in the movie is he would actually just fire them as soon or just leave them as soon as they would say that to him. You know, but like so there's a lot there's a lot to unpack about all of that. And but I do think he got. he got cast by people who wanted him to be this like slovenly, you know, they wanted to portray any, you know, perhaps one of the scenes that they didn't talk about this scene in the documentary, but I can't help but think about it is the great outdoors where he has to eat the like steak that's like 72 ounces or whatever it is or something like that. Right. So, yeah, I mean, I think that's a really, You know, we want to talk about fucked up shit within capitalism and Hollywood. Like, I think that there's a lot there to all of that.

Speaker 2: And, you know, I really don't really quick anecdotal. I had a friend actor. He lost weight because he had a health concern in his 20s. And we went back to his agent. His agent says, why did you do this? She said, I was trying to push you as like a John Candy type. And I think Candy was dead by this point. And I remember he was really devastated by it. And he ended up not staying in acting very long. But I remember he was told by his agent, like, what the hell? Like, why are you doing this? Why are you changing your bankableness? Which essentially was not like his acting ability, but the fact that, you know, she saw some kind of marketable thing in him being large, right? And that they can use. It was really fucked up.

Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. yeah and i mean i you know i mean there's like you know melissa mccarthy obviously plays an identity thief and she's like kind of the john candy you know so it's like this there are these people right who kind of like what was the guy kevin smith like the the paul blart mall cop kind of thing like so there are these it is a thing right of hollywood to like get this person and to kind of like make a vehicle around. And then it's not obviously just that they're large, right? But it's like that, it's that they're casting specific roles and that, you know, kind of part of the joke is on them and on their bodies, right? And so the reason I brought that up actually is I actually think that, mean i can't jump into his mind of course but like i think john candy played that scene so well because i think he was hurt by that type of stuff and martin even said in talking about that specific scene he was like i had to he's like i told him afterwards like i'm it's i'm just acting you know like you know um and so i you know i don't know but like that he like you said it's brilliant acting you know by candy in that scene and like you really can't help but just like you know when he does that i like me my wife likes me my customers like me you know kind of thing um it's it's a powerful and you you lean into it too because you can't help but be pissed off at steve martin in that scene too because even though yeah like okay he's sleeping on beer that we don't see how it spills but that's another cutout scene um there's the funny thing of the i i love the beds in the 80s where you could drop the coin in and it would vibrate right like so that's how the beer supposedly spilled um Yeah, so I do think that's a great scene and great acting by Candy there. A couple of things. So just quickly, Ben Stein showed up in the airport when they land in Wichita to explain that the flight is not getting out. And for folks who don't know, You know, big thing in the 80s and the 90s. But Ben Stein, of course, is the teacher from Ferris Bueller's Day Off who says Bueller, Bueller. But he's also just kind of a weird character figure historically. So he was the speech. He was a speechwriter for Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. um very conservative person um he was on he had a game show in the 90s called win ben stein's money which i remember that one jimmy kimmel got his start as like his sidekick on that show right on comedy central not his start but like that was one of the first things people probably would have seen him in um so that was just interesting that you know he's in and of course it's again like hugh's just casting people across things there's the the doobies taxiola right Um, and again, like we're, again, you know, you're, this is like these, these representations of working people, like he's got like naked women all over his cab. There's just like, you know, it's, it's always, you know, and then they get to the hotel there and. You know, and Candy knows all these people, right? His character knows, right? And it's all, it's supposed to be set up because he sells them shower curtain rings, right? Which is his job. And he's supposed to be like a very low level, you know, kind of salesperson. Although I think he tries to say it like he's more bigwig than the company, but you can tell that's not really the case. traveling salesman thing right which again in the 80s is a big deal because the internet doesn't exist yet and so people can't you know buy anything online um and but he he clearly like all the people owe him favors or you know are willing to help him out and that kind of thing and that it is one of the things that i think is like hughes's message is just sort of like hey be nice to people and you know they'll help you out even if but like i think it's it's a weird message too because on the flip side none of these people are ever represented as like regular people that are just like hey buddy like i'll help you out like it's it's not it's like they're all weirdos you know in some way or another um there is a deleted scene about the the pizza that they get delivered along with the beer And there's also a big deleted scene of Candy like brushing his teeth and flossing and doing all this weird shit in the bathroom while Martin is showering, right? And in that scene too, the delivery guy, when he comes into the room, he's like trying to peeping Tom into the shower thinking it's Candy's wife. And of course then it's, so again, like the point, like in the first thing that they say when they get in the room is do you want to, Candy says, do you want to take a shower? And Martin's like, no, you know, because the insinuation, like you said, is like that, you know, Candy is luring Steve Martin's character into like a homo, you know, homosexual, you know, tryst or whatever it is. Right. And so, yeah, I mean, all of that stuff is weird. And even though some of it is cut out of the film, which is funny because the guy who steals their money. is the delivery guy and he steals it because they fucking shorted him on the tip right so it's like it's actually a worker like getting back for john candy giving him a one dollar tip now maybe they cut it out because that scene is a little bit weird it's the one scene where candy is really a dick to like a working person and doesn't give him a good tip and all of this and so maybe they figured out actually this like continuity wide doesn't work that well with what we're trying to

Speaker 2: get across but it also then cuts out the rationale for why some random person goes into their room and steals all their money so wow well yeah then it basically kind of serves hughes's larger purpose of just saying you know you're in the jungle of wichita you know like this is what the jungle of wichita gets you someone who just comes into your room at night for no reason at all and steals all of your money right and but that's wild that that that's deleted because it also wouldn't be consistent to the candy's character having all these like friends and i think that's an interesting thing because the thing with like with like um the dell character played by candy that i it's like because he is a he is a business owner right or a business person right But the fact that he has to dwell amongst these scourges of the earth, they're almost imprinted on him. And that's kind of the suggestion that I get. Because... neil uh is like you know he's in the upper kind of echelon of like business what kind of gets imprinted on him is kind of like capitalist you know right maybe that's like the one thing he gets but because because because they're both in business which i think is like a really important thing but because uh dell's character is all about being with the scourges of the earth he's gonna have a bit of that scourge in him because one of the later plots is one of the plots that kind of happens is is when uh martin discovers that the money is gone right his first thought is that candy stole it Right. His immediate first thought. And they go through this thing where they discover that Candy's money's gone, too. Right. And it kind of like hangs for a while till later in the movie when you discover that there's a thing that gets set up in the transaction of the hotel room where their cards get switched. And then Candy knows the cards are switched and he uses it to rent a car eventually. And it's this thing where you get kind of like the first real duplicitous action that can't really be reasoned with by Candy's character towards Martin. But it like to me just suggests because he dwells with these like, you know, these scourges and these like weird people of the periphery that it rubs off on him or is either it rubs up on him or because the reason why he is comfortable is because he kind of has that as well. Because one of the other things you see is there's a sequence where basically don't have any money. So basically he has to sell all these women because he's a shower curtain rings salesman. Not even the curtains. He sells the shower curtain rings, which is kind of funny, right? It's like a comedic trope. Right. But he basically tries to sell them as earrings to all of these women. Right. He comes up with these lies and he's able. I mean, he's like, you know, he's like one of my one of my uncles back in the day. He used to sell shit on the street. Right. He basically could like he has the ability to like, you know, basically trick anyone right into sales. And it's funny. Martin's character basically says. Good shit. He gives him credit for that. Like, yo, man, you're a good salesman. He gives them some props that he's actually a good salesman. But it also, to me, shows that he has the duplicity of a salesman because he's able to kind of manipulate people into buying something that a they don't need actually isn't the thing that it is right so he's able to kind of switcheroo so it gives this element that you know because he kind of dwells in this like lower part of the world that he has some of that in him yeah um I I agree I mean

Speaker 1: That's the other part of this film that I was thinking about a lot was the salesman piece, right? Because also like, I mean, again, they sort of suggest that, yeah, he's high in the company or he owns it or whatever. I don't know that I'd buy that. I think that there are certain things where, because we know that he's not entirely honest all the time as a character, that he's exaggerating his own importance within this thing. And also, as you know, a lot of times within these companies, you know, you're called like the vice president of sales or whatever. And it literally means you're like the lowest, like you sell phones at Verizon or something.

Speaker 2: It could also be an Avon thing. Right. Like, right. That's what they encourage you to do. Right. Or was it Mary, Mary, Mary K. Right. Yeah. The ones that still exist, but like they actually encourage you to take these titles and make them up. I am the head of the division of sales when really you're just doing that kind of pyramid scheme, which is, which is what I think of it as.

Speaker 1: yeah absolutely and so i mean i think that one thing too again to think about this film within capitalism right and the types of people that we are shown and all of this like and and sales people like customer service people right are folks that most of us don't really like when we have to interact with right because it's like they're they're always kind of trying like you know you got to get the true coat on your car and this is like man i just want the car and to get out of here like you stop trying to like upsell me and give me like make this more expensive a transaction oh i need to go back and talk to my boss like you know there's all this stuff and again like it is not the fault of sales people Right. That they are put in this position within capitalism, that this is what they have to do for a living. Right. And that that those models are like, that's what they're taught. That's it's how they have to. You know, it's like it's what their expectation is about how they do their job. And a lot of them work. crazy hours it's like often jobs where there's not like even a traditional you know like it has to be 40 hours a week or like certain workplace protections and stuff like that again also because of that entrepreneurial bullshit and like you're a business owner and you know all these kind of schemes that they do to folks that work in sales and so i thought about that with respect to to candy too of like there are these like shiesty aspects of his character that again you're supposed to kind of you know look down on or see as these unscrupulous you know aspects of it like as if it's a part of his character right as if this is a moral thing right rather than just like no like his job you know requires him to do this thing and i mean the sales part that scene is funny um he had the scene in which they've run out of money right and so they're in st louis this is a little bit later on we can skip over it when we get to it but you know he's he has to sell a bunch of shower curtain rings under false pretenses because he knows that he needs to make money quick and who's going to want to buy some you know shower curtain rings in the middle of um i think they're trying to get uh is it a bus no i don't remember they're just trying to get up some money to rent a car a train i think that is it the train was at the car by that point i can't remember it's at the car because they've been the train is before this yeah but anyways he says uh and i'm sure this was all like a long improv you know session from candies like they're diane sawyer's autographed earrings um They're Czechoslovakian ivory.

Speaker 3: Daryl Strawberries!

Speaker 1: Yes. Autographed Daryl Strawberry earring. Daryl Cronkite's moon ring. They're full of helium, so they're very light. Originally crafted for the Grand Wizard of China back in the fourth century. Now, these, of course, aren't the originals. They are replicas, very good replicas, too. And then the last thing is he sells them to a bunch of young teenagers. He's like, they make you look older. You could pass for 18 or 19 years old. Right. And yeah, all these people are like, you know, just handing him money to get them. Right. And I mean, that was a very funny scene, but I do think that that's one of the other issues. It's like this weird, like, Steve Martin's also a salesperson. He's in advertising. He's just trying to sell at a much higher level to these big capitalist firms. And so whatever salesiness somebody would have, they should both have it if we were being honest about it. But there's something about Candy, like you said, as being a part of this kind of unscrupulous underclass and, you know, also this representation of a salesperson that you might interact with. You're not going to interact with Steve Martin probably because you're not buying an ad campaign for Dior or something like that. But you would interact with somebody like John Candy who might knock on your door and try to sell something or call you up or whatever, you know, so.

Speaker 2: So my dad, my dad's in marketing. He actually teaches it now. And one of the things that I learned from my dad's like life experience, my dad's been in marketing since the 80s, is that marketing and sales, they see very differently. And marketing is seen, and remember, he said, I'm in marketing. He says that very specifically. Marketing is seen as like a higher position. And sales, as I remember my dad at one point, he went in like some of the, one of the big economic turns in like the aughts. So he had to kind of get like a more of a sales job. And it was seen as like a really like a lower thing. And he didn't like telling people that he did it. You know, I remember he was very, very like, reticent to like let people know that he kind of went there and and it was a direct sales almost he had to get people to like sign up for you know certain services and you know there is this thing with it and like that's what's the way i said like the whole like the whole class kind of things that hughes likes to play for he's constantly like reinforcing these really terrible tropes that we've become so normalized in our society around class Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1: And I just I mean, I did sales like one summer and it was really hard. And it also it does. I mean, it puts you in a position like I had to go door to door. Right. And like, you know, I have a totally different feeling when I see those folks now, like if somebody comes along and they're doing a campaign or whatever and they're knocking on doors and stuff like that, it's like, I mean, I still won't give them money, but, but like, I will tell them like, look, like I'm not going to do it. I try to stop them early on in their spiel, you know? but like i wish you luck like i hope you make your quote like i know like and i mean that that sounds even shitty to say but like honestly it is it's it's just a it's a shitty position to be in to have to try to negotiate with people directly out of their money in a face-to-face environment right and like when you are there you you have a different understanding of like even like the anxiety and the stress, because a lot of those jobs are quota based, right? If you can't do it, you are losing your job like that week. Right. And so they also put people in these positions where it's just very high stakes every day. Like, am I going to get paid this week? Am I going to get, you know, and so, yeah. And I think that, that, that direct transaction thing too, between like the customer is part of where this societal, um, view around salespeople comes in. Right. Because it's like not that far removed, right. From being what you were talking about, like the, the person on the street, right. Who's trying to sell you, you know, bootleg CDs, or is trying to like create like, Hey, I gotta get somewhere. Like, can you help me with $5? Like, whatever it is like and so there's this again like I'm not meaning to actually demean any of those people for what they're doing they're all doing what they they need to do but like it our society does say there's something there's something lower, there's something lesser about the individuals who have to work in a way where they're convincing you directly to give your money to them, right? And there is something about it that is akin, I think, in how our society looks to these people as beggars, and they look at that, again, as a moral failing, right? And so that, that dichotomy actually like you said between like the advertiser who is working with these big capitalist firms who have lots of money and they're not interacting with anybody individually um between that and like the salesman who has to try to sell directly to the customer yeah and it is it should be noted that the salesman also in dramatic

Speaker 2: Um, the, you know, stuff in the U S is very big. I mean, death of a salesman, Willie Loman. We Willie Loman is one of the like mainstay archetypes. in American kind of conceptualization. That's honestly one of the few that like has purchased among left center and right. And they all kind of take it like, you know, in their own ways. Another nineties film, but I think it's an eighties play is Glenn Gary, Glenn Ross. And the idea of like the, the pressures of sales, David Mamet, who was a big conservative, right. He kind of, you know, uses a certain kind of like perception of that. And it doesn't surprise me that Hughes would take what you're talking about here, Jay, like this kind of use of the salesperson in their existence to kind of drive down really what is like a very moralistic point, really, in these films. Like, you know, a very moralistic point that we all must kind of adhere to and understand, you know. So if we keep going, so we're...

Speaker 1: at least for me and let me know if you want to like go back at all i just want to say one quick one is just that after that night scene there's a weird scene where they just show a bunch of hogs rooting and shit and i think that this is like it's like yeah it has no place in the film other than to make you to help you understand where you are right and that you are amongst the hogs of this society who root in their own like that is i do feel like that is the message that

Speaker 2: you know that hughes quite heavy-handedly wants you to understand is that yeah you know there is something very lesser about the people in in this part of the country for some reason or their driver who has to take them to like their next destination like there's this you know his wife and there's this i forgot what the comment was about her it was so nasty

Speaker 1: He said her first child came out sideways and she pushed it out. No problem. Like, so it's like she's so tough because they're going to carry this huge trunk that they have that requires two of them to carry and put it in the back. And he's like, no, my wife will do that. Right. Like, so it's just like, again, you know, like just you could just it's a clear hatred. Right. Right. Right.

Speaker 2: he just hate i mean it's so hateful the way they're framed like the guy comes in the shot he's doing the the yokel like chew right and and look as a as like a black person in 1987 who's seven i'm like look these white people look scary you know what i'm saying like white folks in wichita are scary right and like that's kind of what begins to get imprinted upon your brain like this is like the person These are places that I don't want to go. Right. And it's, it's just a wild thing to think about how these solidify our perceptions, these movies, right. You know, cause the people will call, he called his wife lazy.

Speaker 3: It's just wild as fuck. You're like, what the hell is this?

Speaker 2: Right. And you see all these people and the pig and shit. So I was like, what the hell is this? right so like we're moving forward um because the film is weird like it has it's like built like a lot of comedies on setting them in a place and then having a bunch of like screw-ups within it and then they have an encounter with someone from the place or who was a representative who works in the place and they basically up everything because the other big thing is martin is constantly trying to get away from candy right so he has like multiple times where he's like we should split up right candy makes this um statement a couple of times that we make a good team which is like this thing i think of like where candy's kind of suggesting so i'm like hey you know we're still a part of the same milieu right we're part of the same kind of but i'm a little different but like if we come together we can make it happen which happens at the end of the movie And this is where I would love for people, even though I think it's a fascinating failure, Joe is about that, is about these two walks of life finding a unity, right? Which is something very interesting that we can think about now in our current, you know. Joe is also a canon film too, right? Yep. Yeah, it's a canon film. It was one of the first films that they produced, right? And a little side weird note, it's the reason why Peter Boyle didn't do The French Connection because right-wingers loved it. peter boy was super up with it so he didn't want to play a racist character which he read which is true that the french connection character played by hackman which really make makes his career um is too racist but that's a side note but it's that kind of same legacy of this like class collaboration it's invoked but martin always tries to get away right so like there's like the scene where he basically um he decides he's gonna rent a car right you kind of find out a little bit later and he gets like one of these buses and like yeah man there are certain things about old school modernity that are just crazy you're like so you gotta and i remember this a bus will take you out to the middle of a parking lot you're gonna have to go find your car that you have pre-planned with a number right and i remember like this i do remember like this and so when so when martin gets out the car isn't there and the bus leaves so he's in the middle of this like parking lot in the in the in the airport right which like you want to say something go ahead

Speaker 1: I just have to say, like, if he just waited there for 20 minutes, the bus would fucking come back, though. Like, that's the thing. Because they always come, you know, like, I mean, I get it, but like...

Speaker 3: It sucks! But, like, he had... So they use it as a prompt for him to take this, like, arduous journey, you know, through the snow.

Speaker 1: Yeah, he ends up, like, walking across the fucking runway and shit.

Speaker 3: Which makes no sense. I'm sorry. Like, that also just makes no sense. I made that comment.

Speaker 2: I was like, that would never happen.

Speaker 3: Like, how is...

Speaker 2: Like, the plane is, like, right there. You're like, okay, John. You're just making up shit to make shit seem kind of crazy. So when he gets to the airport, he's just, like, you know, his tie is, like, on his head. His shoes are fucked up. Like, he just totally is, like, disheveled, right? And he's, like, had it. He's, like, you know, this is the final straw. So there's... I forget the actress's name, but she plays the... Her name is... Her name is Edie McClurg. Edie McClurg. She plays the administrative assistant in Ferris Bueller. She's actually really funny in that movie.

Speaker 1: She's good in this too. She's actually been in a lot of stuff. But yeah.

Speaker 2: You see a lot of these character actors. I mean, they're in comedies. I mean, people know those who watch these movies. So someone like Ben Stein and all this type of stuff. They're these consistent, great supporting actors. They're really good at doing these. There's a shorter role for her. But they kind of put her in there. And you can see Hughes being very opportunistic or loyal, whoever you want to see, and placing people in these roles that people will recognize. So Martin goes in there and like he just goes like off on her about, you know. The car not being there, him, you know, why he's messed up and he blames them, you know, goes at her and like, you know, she tells him like, I don't like how you talking to me. Right. She's like, she just lets him know. Right. And he just keeps this. I don't care. You know, he has like a line about that. But then she asks him, well, where's the like the ticket or the receipt? And he goes, well, I threw it away. And she basically she says literally to him, well, you're fucked. Right. And it's a funny scene because like.

Speaker 3: drops a bunch he drops like 14 f-bombs or something oh yeah like so yeah yeah yeah and she plays it well too because she's sitting there looking at him like she wants to like give him two pieces in a biscuit like she's looking at him like dude if you want to step outside i'll you up right like she's giving them that look but um there is this like

Speaker 2: you get this thing that he's an asshole to her and he's mean to her. Right. But there's still this thing to me lately that like the systems are screwed up. Right. That like, yeah, the ticket, you know, wasn't there, but like, maybe they should have figured it out. My thought, because my reaction was like, well then do yay. She's right. You're fucked. Like I'm on her side watching the movie, but I am curious. Like, I feel like if my dad watched it, he would not be on her side. My dad is one of those people who very much has the kind of Martin kind of attitude towards these things. And he would see it as her fault for not letting him blow off some steam, take some high-level disrespect, and going the extra mile to kind of help him out a little bit.

Speaker 1: yeah i mean i think the thing is is that most of us are more often in steve martin's position in these scenes than we are going to be in hearse right like unless you have that specific job or one that's a lot like it um you you are more likely to have a frustrating encounter with a rental car know company right and again like that's the this is the problem is it's like it's the companies you know that cause these issues and then you're stuck dealing with customer service people who have a limited range of like options and time and you know all this kind of stuff like they're just trying to get through their day too but yeah i mean They also show her like they set her up, even though I am with you, because every time that Martin goes on one of these tirades, like the same, it's the same thing that he does to John Candy in that scene in the, you know, in the motel room, he does it to her. Right. I think there's, there's a couple, like maybe there's one more, like there's like three or four scenes where Martin just clearly goes over the top where you're like, I'm with you. The thing you're dealing with, is annoying but you're being a asshole man like um and it's just yeah i mean he drops he's just like my this in fact like he just keeps going and going and going um and so yeah i mean i do think that a lot of people are with her for the punch line of well then you're like because he doesn't have his his contract his rental agreement but there is like this because she's she's when he comes up she's on the phone and she's talking to her sister about Thanksgiving and like what they're gonna bring and they're joking and there's like a line of people that are waiting and so you're also again supposed to like look down like hey you have a job to do lady like you're you know it rather than saying like hey Like, she's a working person. Like, they're planning Thanksgiving. She's probably going to get a couple hours off from her job, if that, to be able to have Thanksgiving. Like, let her have a moment, right? The film doesn't frame it that way. It's like there's something annoying about this person being on the phone at work, right? And that kind of thing, you know? So, yeah, I mean, I agree with you. There's a couple of things we could go back to just quickly. I mean... so the the scene the they they're at the motel from there they get a ride to stu to stubbsville which is not a real town um because in some reason in the film wichita doesn't have a train station i don't know if that's real or not but it seems much more likely that it would than than whatever stubbsville is but so that's they get the pickup ride from the hick with his hick wife right um and i say hick I don't actually, but that's how they're presented. Right. And then, you know, there's the moment where they get on the train there and the train would be a straight shot. And there's like happy music, like we're going home and the train breaks down. So then they have to walk a mile in. And in that moment, which is like the first time that he's kind of left Dell, he ends up going back and helping him with his trunk, which I also felt like this weird, there's kind of this weird thing around it of like, like you can't kind of get around the sort of paternalism or the, you know, that, that when Martin is helping out Dell in these various situations, he always has more money. He has credit card. He pays for basically everything, right? He helps them carry this big ass trunk that you're like, why are you traveling with this huge trunk? Which actually makes sense when you get to the end. But, um, You know, so you're in all of these situations where you kind of are supposed to feel like, oh, well, Martin's, you know, at least Martin's an asshole, but hey, he cares at the end of the day and he's helping out this one lower class kind of person than him. They go to Kansas City, Missouri, right? Because they take a bus from where the train is to Kansas City, Missouri. This is then... how do they get from here? Oh, go ahead.

Speaker 3: But the, yes. So the one thing about the bus thing is very interesting.

Speaker 2: Yeah. So, so they're, they're in this bus and it is something they always love to do in these movies. So they're in the bus. It was like, it's like people kissing and like, they're looking at it and you know, Dell, like it was, young people kissing and then the people like make a comment they have a cigarette after like almost suggesting that they have sex on on on the um almost probably suggesting they're having sex on the the bus but the part that was most intriguing to me was they do a cut to like you know a jump cut to their singing

Speaker 3: right and you see dell kind of like pushing them through songs right and right so he's like you know so that you know martin is like you know what i'm gonna like you know get with the lump in and like you know offer a song so he offers this song that no one knows right and then there's like this shot where they all look back at him like what the you singing right and then what is dell bringing he brings in the flintstone song

Speaker 2: So, like, there's a way that that could just be, like, kind of, like, funny, but it's such a classist fucking shitty thing, right? Because what it's all about is setting up that, like, Martin has, like, this higher level of culture than these kind of, like, lumpenized people that they can only, like, know the Flintstones, right? That they wouldn't know this song, right? And, like... There's a way that the joke will, in the movie, kind of be framed that it's on Neil, on Martin's character. But really, there's an other side to the joke that it's on these people who ride the bus, that they wouldn't know any better higher-level culture shit. And it's something you see in movies all the fucking time where you get these like statements of class, right? It's like these people are just kind of slovenly. They don't know shit. They have sex on buses and all they can do is sing Flintstone songs, but they don't know the, whatever that fucking song he was singing. I don't know what the fucking song was.

Speaker 1: I didn't know it either, but I looked it up. So yeah, there's a couple of, yeah, a couple of things you made me think of in it. One is when they get to, to the point of having to take the bus right so they get to jefferson city missouri and they have to take a bus to get to st louis and john candy asks steve martin if he's ever traveled by bus before and he shakes his head no which like first of all is a crazy class tell right like you've never ridden a bus before like I mean, it's funny because he does ride the bus to LaGuardia, but clearly they mean like ride a bus, you know, in like a, you know, state to state or a greyhound.

Speaker 2: Right. Or what was it? Trailways. Right.

Speaker 1: You know, man, I've ridden so many buses. But yes, you know, I mean, most people like especially if you're a college student or whatever, like, you know, like, I don't know. How do you get around if you know anyway? So, you know, Candy tells him your mood's probably not going to improve much when he says that he hasn't taken the bus. And then, yeah, it gets into the stuff you're talking about. But I agreed. So the song is from, it's Three Coins in the Fountain. So it's a Frank Sinatra song. And it's from some, like, the song, I think, won an Oscar or something. in like the 1950s right so it's a very like show to me like kind of um barbershop quartet style like sort of song and yeah i mean it's like why would anybody know that which i mean i guess on some level like you said there is the two sides of like yeah martin's out of touch and he has no idea what would resonate with regular people but then the flip side like you said of like the only like the flintstones like as soon as he says like he says like meet the flintstones and like immediately the whole bus is singing along just like really into it you know and it is mean look right again a lot of stuff like riding the bus is not fun like i i don't like traveling that way i don't like traveling by plane either but it's just like you know they they make it seem again like again everybody's dirty everybody like it's just so heavy-handed that everybody's poor and like again these moral things right like why is this young couple having sex next to them basically on the bus, you know, and then smoking the bus. And yeah. So anyway, they go to, from there they go to St. Louis, St. Louis.

Speaker 2: Right. That's the, the shower curtain sales. Funny one, which we talked about the Walter Cronkite and Daryl Strawberry and all that.

Speaker 1: And they, they, then you get the scene in the diner. I don't know if you have notes on that. I have some.

Speaker 2: Yeah, go ahead.

Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, so it's the scene in the diner where they're kind of, you know, talking about, this is the moment where Martin talks about, like, he's away from his family too much. I think they discuss that he missed his daughter's pageant the night before, right?

Speaker 2: There's actually a cutaway to that sequence where you see it. He basically calls, right? And they ask, like, where, you know, where were they home? And he says, no one's home. I think they're at my daughter's pageant.

Speaker 1: Yeah, which I also was like, why is there a pageant for Thanksgiving? But, you know, that's whatever. I mean, I guess it's possible. then you know candy in response to the like you know i've been away too much as says i haven't been home in years right and then that this of course becomes like the the aha that pops into martin's brain at the end of the movie or whatever but he does kind of catch it in time of like what do you mean you know and he's oh it's a figure of speech you know but way too much like you you know kind of thing um And then they split up. And at this point, you know, it's very clear all of the, like Dell played by candy is always hurt by these like split up scenes too, because it's always clear that, you know, he, he doesn't have a lot of like true friends and he's trying to be nice. And that's true throughout it. Like, even though he's kind of, you know, does these things and sometimes, you know, steals a little money or a credit card or whatever, like, That he is actually, you know, I think it's clear or I feel like it's clear when you're watching it that his intentions around being around Martin are not just to take advantage of him, right? That it's actually that he enjoys his company and that he likes him and all of this. And he's just not a very likable figure himself is sort of the way that you, yeah, go ahead.

Speaker 2: But this is where like the nasty thing is because if there's something unscrupulous about him, it's like kind of in his biology, right? And that's where it's, that's where, like, the weird, like, classic liberalism, you know, I mean, this is things you see in, like, Shakespeare. If you read, like, Shakespeare, if you look at, like, you know, the characters, like, the gravediggers or, you know, the various, like, lower class characters, I mean... Even the fact that in Shakespeare plays, often royalty would only speak in soliloquies and people who are not royalty could only speak in prose is a kind of indicator. It's not always that, but I know Shakespeare scholars, I know Shakespeare very well. I know it also with like lyricism at times. And when someone is speaking from certain types of perspective, I know that. But there's also a class invocation often in that. And it's so funny because that's what happens yeah 100 right it's totally a eugenics thought it's part of his like biology right and he can't shake it which i think at the end of the film even though i don't think there's a line where martin's character would say it but that's kind of to me what's implicit that like Yes, Del has these things about him that are just off and tough to deal with. That's just part of who he is. And it doesn't... overtake the fact that he's a lonely guy because of his situation with his wife, and he's also helped me get this far, even though all these things happen. It just kind of really gets into that paternalism that you talk about, where it's like, hey, yeah, I know these people are weird, but that's just kind of how they are naturally. We as people who are more of good stock, like someone just pointed out there in the chat, we have to be more charitable and that's just an imperial ass attitude if that is like the root attitude of imperialism i mean that's that's why people went into areas and tried to civilize people right yeah that is the doctrine right let's go into these arts and you know see if we can raise their stock up a little bit they'll never be quite us but they can you know be part of our project in some kind of measured or um Measured way is a good way, a good word.

Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, in certain ways, this fits perfectly, right? Because it's a Thanksgiving movie that says nothing about settler colonialism, but is quite colonial in nature in terms of its attitudes.

Speaker 3: This is the most Thanksgiving movie there is, exactly 100%. That's so fucking true.

Speaker 2: Yeah, like, it's, you know, because, like, the next kind of thing, and if there's anything else you want to get back to, let me know. But, like, because then they have to get back to the car. And this is another part that's really funky-ass to me. So when Martin is kicked out, he basically can't get the rental dealt with. He tries to get a cab all the way to Chicago when he meets this guy at the cab stand. And he's like, you know, can I get a card? He's like, yeah, you know, he's aware to Chicago. He's like, you're at an airport, bro. Like, what's going on?

Speaker 1: And he's like, yeah, he's like, yeah, you're in St. Louis, too. You're pretty fucking far from Chicago.

Speaker 2: You know, and then Martin, he goes off on him, too. Right. I forgot what he says exactly to him, but he goes off on the guy. to the point where the guy, like, you know, gives him two pieces and a biscuit and just knocks his ass.

Speaker 3: There's another sub-theme where Martin almost gets hit by a car, like, what, like, four or five times in the movie? Like, he's this close to losing his life to a moving vehicle?

Speaker 1: At least three, maybe more, right? Yeah, Martin says to him, he said, because he says something about, like, you're at an airport, bud, like, you could go get a plane, is, like, what he says to get to Chicago. And he says... martin says if i wanted a joke i'd follow you into the john to watch you take a leak that's what he says to the guy like again like you know the guy is actually just like you could say oh i can't there's no flights like it's like a innocuous thing like you know he just and that's the thing about so yeah i mean i was really happy to see martin get knocked out at that point in the movie

Speaker 2: But also the way Hughes frames it, though, for certain people, it just looks like savagery, right? That the guy comes back at him. It's savagery. And then essentially, like, the message is, like, if you're petty bourgeois, you can't really get into these savage relationships with these people because they'll knock you out. Now, to a certain degree, I'm happy about that. I just wouldn't call them savage. I just called her prepared, you know, to like kick somebody's ass, you know, because like my mother said, ain't nobody above an ass whipping. So, you know, you got debt for being a jackass. That's my perspective. But the way the kind of Hughes world works, he'll just look like a savage for like, you know, going to violence because what happens? He basically gets knocked on the ground. Then Candy's car like literally comes like right to his face, right? And then Candy goes to the guy and basically like just totally destroys him verbally for just not being humane. Right. How dare you treat him this way and how dare you do this and so forth and so on. So Candy is then used in a way to kind of show that like the possible humanity of these people who kind of are a little bit duplicitous, that like he's a step above them. right yeah like you know because it's not like Neil hasn't been a shit to Del this whole time but has he resorted to like you know violence no he hasn't you know it's like you don't need to go that far I know he's a jackass but come on man you know so there's a funny ask there is a funny part of this because one of the things I noticed at the end is that in the last couple of scenes John Candy has a black eye

Speaker 1: And in the movie, you don't know why. Because there's no scene in which John Candy gets a black eye. But, I'll explain it more when we get to the actual scene where it occurs. They cut it out, and it is Martin who's supposed to have punched him, right? And so, yeah, I mean, they do cut it out, and there's not a lot of clarity around why. There's some theories, but I think your theory there might be most correct is that it's maybe at some point Hughes figured like, well, if we actually show that, then we lose the, like, you know, not stooping to that kind of level of, you know, barbarism or whatever, where you would punch somebody out. So.

Speaker 2: And thank you, Steven. Right. He picks him up by the balls when he does it. He was like, right. The cab, the cab guy. Yeah. The guy picks them up by the balls. Right. Like, I mean, like, all these, like, you know, castration, you know, penis and all this type of stuff. I mean, it's so base. But that's where, like, that's just kind of how Hughes thinks about these kind of parts of the world. Like, you kind of, like, end up going into, like, the drudgery of your own, you know, inhumanity to be there. So the next big scene is, like, where they're finally in the automobile. And, like, the car is, like, you know, the car almost looks like the paint job from National Lampoons. I feel like it's, like, almost the same car, right, that they get. Like, there's, like, these, like, hubcaps. I don't think the hubcaps were in National Lampoons. I should have looked at it. But it feels like the same paint job that they had, right? I don't know if he's trying to harken back to it. But that's kind of what I thought about. they're in the car the car has like this weird ass seat right that doesn't seem to work correct right and you know they're talking about that and um they also get into kind of one of their first not first but they kind of get into a back and forth um dell and neil around the kind of like they're like they're like personalities or like you know dell says well you know there's things about you i don't like too what like that like you scratch your balls too much that's one of the things

Speaker 3: he says he says

Speaker 2: know what martin says you know what i would like he's like another pair of balls and another hand to scratch him with i mean but that's what i mean like that's really good comedy because he just knows how to like you know it kind of sucks that like he never did anything with like classic eddie you know like him and him and eddie in like the 80s like 80s oh man dude that'll went on forever right it would have just been going because they had that ability to just like react in a witty way not trying to put too much attention on themselves but by doing that the attention is on them he's like this that's a kind of funny ass joke right you're just really moving the scene forward like he just understood it it's just so good they're in the car and you know they're doing like like cuts that they're like switching driving so eventually candy becomes like like the driver and this is when you see one of the big like slapstick sequences which i do think is done really well right and like the editing it's because he he's trying to he's basically first he's smoking a cigarette in the car right and and like he throws it to like the the back seat and you see the shot that go to the back seat and there becomes like this big like physical comedy thing of him trying to get his coat off while he's driving rather than like stepping off to the side trying to get his coat off while he's driving because he's because it's hot because the car's on because the car's on fire

Speaker 3: And he doesn't know it. But also, this is what I mean about the difference between his physical comedy and Martin's. Because Martin can't help but over-affect it. But Candy just kind of reacts and he just does it. And it's fucking funny.

Speaker 2: So he's basically, the whole thing basically goes, he's trying to get the coat off, but he can't.

Speaker 1: and it basically is like you know letting go of the steering wheel and it eventually brings him to the other side of the road going in the opposite direction but he doesn't notice it right no because it it he he he what it is is he exits and then and then he almost it comes to a stop after the car is like spinning out and martin's like what happened and he's like oh we almost hit a deer or whatever yeah and then and then but when he goes back on He goes on the wrong... like the on-ramp basically back on in the wrong direction. So yeah.

Speaker 2: And then the people like, they're like telling them like, yo man, you're on the wrong side, right?

Speaker 3: You're on the wrong side, right? And he's like, what?

Speaker 2: He says, you're on the wrong side where eventually, and they already preview it for you. There's like these two big trucks coming and there's like the really, I think it's a famous sequence now of them like going basically between the two trucks and they both have like the flashes of their life.

Speaker 3: One of the things that I find most interesting is during it, he looks at Del and what does he see? The devil. Like, Del is literally dressed up like the devil in it. And that to me is like my most lasting memory of the movie. I've always had that shot in my head. where they're like, their life is flashing before their eyes. And what does Steve Martin see when he looks at Del? Not like a person who might be dying with him, but the devil taking him to hell. And it's like, oh man, dude. Like, bro, it's fucked up.

Speaker 1: It is. And it's like, the whole scene is great. I mean, it is one of the better, you know, better parts of the movie and just well executed and you're watching it and yeah you know even when you know what's gonna happen because you've seen it a million times like it's still a good scene um the funny just a passing thing but i do think also because you reference the devil and i don't think i'm going too far here i mean there is a kind of like dante's inferno like sort of quality to this film right you know or you know the odyssey as well right like these very classic depictions of like going through hell with somebody right and i think that's but it's just that hell is middle america in the john hughes world like

Speaker 3: Exactly.

Speaker 2: Right. And it's like it's modernity in middle America. This is like the hellscape. Right. But it's like that. It's that it's so funny because and I've said this a few times. It's like, well, if I truly felt that about modern society, my thought would be, well, then let's change society. But he's such a reactionary. It becomes a natural kind of thing. We can't get past this. Why? Because these people are biologically fucked. They're biologically nasty. And these areas are... impenetrable to progress you can't actually pro make them go further you can make even if you gave them more technology they still will be up which is what happens yeah they have an airport but they're still terrible and they can't even make make make make their trains run okay right like they suck right and it's such a reactionary thought but look man i hear When I have that vantage point every now and then of being around people from the cities who got a little bit of money or have a little bit or think that they're of a higher class in their brain, who quote these types of shit? Like this kind of essentialist attitude. It exists out there amongst some of the most regular ass people that you would think, right? Oh, I ain't going over there. Why? Dumb people?

Speaker 1: you know but also i mean like it's movies like this that also create those kind of perceptions which is also a part of why i mean what's up about all of this too is then it drives a lot of people that are in those places to reactionary politics right because they're like hey if this is what the hollywood elites think of us then fuck you. Like I'll go listen to, you know, Tucker or whatever, even though Tucker's a fucking, you know, Vanderbilt or whatever, you know, or a Swanson air, right? Like, you know, like, but that, this kind of, and I mean, that's one of the things I think that's frustrating about the film too. It's not that these people are backwards because they've been, you know, inculcated with a bunch of reactionary ideology or anything like that. Right. It's just that, like like you said it's like a it's it's a it's like a race commentary even though um and race you know it's it's like somebody says like eugenics kind of yeah you know discussion is this idea of like lower stock and there was like going back again to you know english society which a lot of this stuff does come out of you know it is the very somebody mentioned that hughes was you know very waspy and like that that makes sense with this you know the white anglo-saxon protestant kind of ideology that um you know this idea that classes are actually races essentially yeah right that that like and that and by that what they mean is that there are these levels of stock and of intelligence and of like innate capability right and so the the upper classes reproduce themselves and their children become wealthy too because they're from a better like stock of, you know, civilization and humanity than these lower rungs. Right. And it is evolved into other stuff, but it used to be very much like a biologically essentialist, you know, discourse. So, yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2: So, yeah, so, you know, the car eventually, you know, it basically gets, like, burned up. And there's, like, this sequence where this is the sequence also where you find out that Del used knowingly Neil's car card to rent the car, which is, like, and he said, I was going to pay you back and all that. But it confirms, like, Neil's suspicion, right? that Del could do something like high level duplicitous. And there's like a way that like, I think within the framing of the movie, they kind of soften it a little bit, but it does still give an indicator that like, not that he can't be trusted, but that he has latent parts of him that will do these things that are like a bit unscrupulous, right? And that like, it's that thing that exists You know, like, yeah, you know, that person is pretty cool, but, you know, don't bring them to the house, like, too long. You know what I'm saying? Like, you know, on Thanksgiving you can bring them over, but, you know, there's only so much shit that we can do with a person like that, you know? And there's that kind of thing, you know, like, suggested, right? And... the film then goes into this part where I think is really interesting. And it, to me, it solves another issue when it comes to Dell and like why I think what Hughes wants to do with Dell. So they go to the hotel, the next hotel or motel. Right. And basically they go through this kind of negotiation where there is one room left and it, and it has, it has two beds if I'm, if I'm correctly. Right. But like, Neil has had it up to him.

Speaker 3: So basically, he's like, your ass is going to sleep in the car that has no hood, no doors, nothing. It's burnt. Your ass is going to be out in the cold. Right?

Speaker 2: And... Neil goes and takes the room and you get Candy having these kind of like reflective moments. And he basically goes through this kind of like process where he talks to himself and he talks to his wife. He talks to his wife who we will later realize is passed on, right? yeah, I've screwed up again. He invokes that he's a difficult person to deal with, almost invoking that his wife has said this about him. And he suggests that he really likes being around him. He really likes Neil. And basically saying, why can't I stop screwing up? And I think this is where Hughes tries to show essentially why Dell is fundamentally different than the rest of the unscrupulous people, because he has the ability to kind of self-analysis. Right. And it's a it's a really tired melodramatic trope because in like classic melodrama, the reason why it's so conservative and constricting and it doesn't promote any kind of radical politics is because the reflective moment will always be that you are the problem and you need to make a corrective. Right? That's classic melodrama. If you look at all the thirties and forties and fifties movies, and this is why when you get into radical kind of films or radical films with a radical theater and plays and radical drama that would look at the system, something like Brecht, they would reject this kind of melodramatic form because they would say fundamentally it's promotes a kind of an individualistic, idealistic way of looking at society that I'm the one who has to change, society can't change and it shouldn't change also. right and hughes kind of like lives in this but he also uses it to show that dell is essentially above these people because you know the yokel who you know who takes them wherever the yokel who steals the money they don't have this possibility and then i made me think like why does dell have this possibility because he is somewhat close to neil because they're both in business is the only thing that i can kind of surmise right they have a connection right that is consistently invoked because like yeah dell is around these kinds of unscrupulous characters and he's kind of one of them but also You know, he is in the world of business. He is in the world of sales or he is slightly elevated stock, right? He's just not like fully realized his elevated stock or he had. I mean, it's it's you don't want to find you don't want to look for like an amazing consistency in this kind of reactionary thinking because it's very chaotic. But like this is kind of where this kind of brain goes, in my opinion.

Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, it's also akin, in my view, to, like, the idea of slumming, right? Like, you know, the idea of, you know... And I think this... I mean, it'll be interesting as we do more Hughes films from the 80s, because I think this comes up in other... Like, it probably comes up in, like, 16 Candles, Pretty in Pink, that kind of stuff a little bit, too. But, yeah, I mean, this idea of... you know, that upper class people sometimes, you know, spend time with or maybe date whatever, like people from lower classes and that this is kind of, you know, it's kind of an adventurous sort of thing. And it's, you know, I mean, the term obviously is a derogatory term, right? It's usually used by one upper class person to another of you shouldn't be doing that, right? You shouldn't be lowering your own, you know, class status by spending time with these lower peoples, right? But like, I think that's part of what we kind of see because it is this very much like, dell does seemingly have relationships with all of these you know hicks yokels people that martin can't stand and that really as you can tell through the film hughes doesn't like either or doesn't see as worthy but he recognizes that dell's character can have these sort of mutual relationships with them like can have these relationships that are on good terms right because he's a nicer guy i guess is part of i mean that's this is really kind of that simple i think on some of the analysis going on within the film of like yeah dell's a little bit unscrupulous but he's a nice guy and you know martin is a jackass but he's you know but he's better you know he's an upper upper class person right so we should take him seriously like yeah i don't know but

Speaker 2: But that is part of the whole like weird psychology with slumming. And I talked about that like earlier. It's like it's this metaphysical shit that comes with it. It's like this idea that like when I slum with these people who are good natured, some of their good nature will imprint upon me. Right. I mean, it's the Titanic thing. Right. It's like it's the you also see it in gender shit. Right. When when when the when the man tells the woman that like you made me better, but I'm not going to be with you. what i'm saying like i've now gone to a higher level i mean it's it's this idea that certain people are in your life to improve you that's a really funky selfish individualistic parasitic you can use any kind of word that's really in that kind of uh you know synonymous range to kind of talk about that but it's like it's something that like is really prevalent right have good people around you or people that elevate you type shit right or people are only in your life for a period right what the fuck is that shit

Speaker 1: Oh, man. You just made me remember. No, no. You just made me remember a conversation with this board member at one time about his kid being in a school because he believed in leavening. Like that my upper class kid being amongst these lower class kids will be better for that, will help them. You know, like, yeah.

Speaker 2: All right. So kind of getting towards, so he eventually lets him in. Cause then Martin sees him through the window. He's like, you're going to freeze. Um, and, and, and, oh, does Martin have flashbacks at that moment? I think he also has flashbacks to his family in that sequence. Doesn't he in the, in the window? I feel like he almost does.

Speaker 1: I could be wrong. Yes. Yes. Yes.

Speaker 2: Yes.

Speaker 1: Yeah. So there's like the, he can't get to his wife. So he wants to call his wife, but the phone requires you to, like drop in quarters or whatever it has like a lock thing on it so he can't actually dial it so he's like flashing to her and you get a scene where it shows her back at the home like alone and they can't connect right like which honestly i mean this was a real thing this era with four cell phones oh yeah i remember that sometimes you just go days and you can't reach your parent or your yeah it's weird um but uh yeah so he looks out the window and he sees candy out there but yeah there and there are some i think there are some flashbacks within it right and some different stuff going on there and you know and the music throughout it all there's always the different john hughes you know brings in different music to like really tighten the mood of these scenes

Speaker 2: yeah so he eventually lets uh uh dale dell into his his room and like and then you see like him kind of like he cut to the like accepts the slovenliness they have this like weird moment about like traveling through countries drinking alcohol where john candy does his best uh jamaican accent which really sucks you know

Speaker 3: no like what the is that i don't we didn't really need that one we didn't need that one we didn't need that of all the you cut you couldn't cut him doing bad jamaican come on the movie could have been one one hour 30. we didn't need that extra three to make it 133. the was that um

Speaker 2: but you kind of see like the kind of like acceptance and somewhat of the camaraderie build right um there's another thing in that sequence too isn't there another thing like a kind of like another suggestion towards the family or the wife i think in that sequence or my misremember i could be misremembering yeah no there is um there's something like so

Speaker 1: i can't remember exactly but dell's character does like a kind of self-deprecating you know thing and uh martin's like um you know he's basically like at least you have your wife right he's like here i have the quote actually says at least at the absolute minimum you've got a woman you love to grow old with You love her, don't you? And then Candy responds, Love is not a big enough word. It's not a big enough word for how I feel about my wife. But yeah, I mean, that was a moment there. Yeah.

Speaker 2: Right. There's also a line earlier in the film where he says, where Dell says, like your work, love your wife. Right. And it's like a thing to kind of invoke a kind of understanding of family. It's like the Nexus that we should all be connected to. But also to think, you know, when you discover, you know, Candy's loss in his life, you kind of understand where his perspective kind of sits because he has this constant, you know, nostalgia for, you know, what he had in the past and like loss of what was possible, which he also sees. through Neil's existence. So they eventually leave the hotel, right? They get back in the car, which is, like, totally destroyed, like, driving, like, a scrim. It almost looks like something out of a Mad Max film. And that's when Michael McKeon makes this crazy guess. Michael McKeon gets, like, an and in this movie, right? And he's, like, in the movie for, like, I don't even know how long, and his character's not even... i mean it's important in terms of like a plot point but he doesn't really have a a strong like thing maybe he had more in i think he has more in the deleted scenes i read um but who is it michael mckean uh the trooper oh yeah i don't yeah i can't remember if i watched about 80 of the deleted scenes and didn't i feel like he does there are red

Speaker 1: yeah there are deleted scenes that we don't have but there's like there's a like 55 minute reel i did put it in the show description of deleted scenes um that's you know and like i said earlier there's like two hours and 30 minutes that are cut from this or two hours and 15 minutes that are cut from this film so even that's not sure yeah and michael mckeon by that point was like you know definitely he wasn't huge but like if he got an and that means that they probably wanted to have a bigger thing with his character and they haven't just cut

Speaker 2: cut it so basically he's there to basically to get them out of the car right they basically can't drive the car it's like it doesn't work and right it's like not negotiable so they end up having to take like a big rig essentially into Chicago right and they take this rig into chicago which eventually leads them to the the you know the l um elevated train in chicago right which is like they're they're also in the refrigerator it's a refrigerator and they get to chicago in the l they kind of have their like you know final kind of realization well not really they anil has his realization that yeah he's had this kind of like arduous journey with him but he's helped him get home right and that you know dell essentially isn't all that bad as much as you know he has kind of what we've been talking about he has these things about him that could be irritating but you know the the important thing is that he's home right um and they they share lines i don't know if there's any like important lines you want to mention in there but they share a bunch of lines but the thing that really just kind of hammers the film home is then he goes he basically leaves they separate And you see a shot of Martin gets on the train. Right.

Speaker 1: He does say he does say like the back and forth is like, happy holidays. Happy Thanksgiving. Maybe I'll get a chance to say something about his family is like, maybe I'll get a chance to meet them one day. So John Candy's character does say that. Which is like obviously him fishing a little bit of like, hey, you want to invite me along? But he doesn't he doesn't do a very, you know, he's he's subtle with it. Right. And then Steve Martin's character says, say hello to Marie for me. Right. Which is his wife. But yeah. And then they then they part ways. But yeah.

Speaker 2: Right. And then you see in the parting, you see because it's not like he waits for the next train. He you see him leave the train station. Right. Right. and you see martin on the train first thinking about his family he's finally gonna get home but then he begins to think about his trip and he's like starting to laugh about it like oh you know and they there's a suggestion that he's gonna be laughing about it now and like and and and dell's like really you're gonna laugh about this like yeah i'm gonna laugh but then he starts to put together that uh dell's uh wife is dead by the various kind of like things that his wife is not there So this basically leads Neil to basically saying, you know, he basically goes back because, like, the next, you see him, like, get up. And there's, like, a cut shot of, like, in the train station. And he finds Del there, right, alone, sitting there with, like, the suitcase, just looking super sad and lonely, so forth and so on. And, you know, you know what's going to happen next. Essentially, he's going to basically take him home with him. And this is like the thing with these kinds of movies, right? These movies are really about the kind of actualizing of these petty bourgeois heroes. How do you become... you know, the greater person, right? By some kind of, like, arduous Dante's Inferno, Odysseus kind of experience that is a lot for you, right? You learn some things about humanity through this other person who does have some serious problems, but, like, their kind of givingness is something that you should like reflect on as like a good thing that you should adopt right so we're basically watching like neil's like elevation as a human being but it's like this where like the conduit towards his elevation is some other person right and it's some other person of like a lower status than him so it's it goes back to this kind of thing we've been talking about where like what people of quote unquote lower status this whole purpose really in life is to elevate other people who are of higher status it is that play and you watch it. Right. Because yeah. And then for the people who are lower status, really your life gets better meant eventually by kind of sticking it out with these fucking shit, shitty people who are of upper class nature. Right. You get, you get, you know, a home, a warm home on Thanksgiving, you know, because he stuck it out right with this person who was a bit of a jackass and a shithead. And like, it's such a reductive way of looking at relationships um in our kind of modern society because there's such a way that people will look at it and just go like oh man that's a that's a good person that's a good person oh i'm glad i'm glad neil saw the good side of life right but i'm like dude this is so contrived to make y'all think that like these little gestures are like And I'm not saying it's not a good thing to do that if you see someone, but the way the film's contrivance is kind of manufactured, it's done in a way for not any other kind of critique of why these things happen. And it's fundamentally there to just only look at the kind of status of the person who is of a higher status and how we can kind of reconcile with our negative view of that world. Right. And like, you know,

Speaker 1: take it you know take what we can from it and do something nice yeah I mean to me one of the things that I felt watching it all you know and I think you kind of touched on this as well but the like Candy had to say Del's character you know Del he had to say I don't have a home Marie's been dead for eight years. And so then the invitation to come to this mansion and hang out with Steve, with Neil's family, like it comes after this moment where Dell is finally sort of fully honest with his own, like moral subjects position, his lot in life. Right. That like, he's actually been, kind of grifting and going along and he, you know, he sells that scene where he sold all those shower curtain rings under false pretenses, you know, like, yeah, there's a little hustler going on here, this guy. And so, like, I think... as much as there there's absolutely the piece about neil and about this kind of again like this kind of dickensian idea you know thinking about scrooge right of like okay like it is good for you to you know you shouldn't be such a jackass you should actually take care make sure that your workers don't you know starve to death and that their children don't die of illnesses like um so there's that element of it for Neil of like okay you should show some care and some grace to this lower man but like it is predicated upon Candy's character Del opening up and being honest and so it's like it's almost like a confessional thing right of like yeah these are I'm actually homeless Right. And which is, of course, why now you understand why he has this huge trunk that he's lugged around everywhere. Right. Is because he's living out of this thing. Right. And so, yeah, I mean, it's really it's really fucked up. Like it just is, you know, and it's this, you know, and then the reality is most of these people, people who live in these big mansions are not inviting some homeless man in to have thanksgiving dinner with them like no fucking way right it's like okay but maybe they'll give a little bit of money to you know their church's soup kitchen or you know whatever else it is right and so it's a very limited it's it's very much functions within you know the capitalist system and so you can have all these different like things about it but it's like that ultimately yeah it's just this very bourgeois individual

Speaker 2: you know like if if they'll admit their failures yeah you know we can we can overcome our own assholishness and you know share thanksgiving dinner together and one of my things with movies that i always say when i don't buy it is can i imagine the day after so what happens the day after thanksgiving is neil letting him stay there until he gets on his feet no you know what i'm saying is neil gonna try to get him a job pretty much their thought is that Dell would eventually say, I stayed here long enough. Thank you for your hospitality and yada, yada, yada. And he would leave and, you know, thank you very much. And for your hospitality as you know, you great people. And, and, That's why I just don't buy this shit. When I watched it this time again, the last time I watched it, I had the same feeling. I'm just like, y'all really love these bows of how you're going to be giving or sweet in these, especially these holiday movies. And they're just so not consistent with any kind of reality. And it really becomes the way that the kind of logic in our society goes around truly what it means to help or to assist right they become these like fake acts of like kindness right and and it's never and it will never be structural right it'll always be relegated to a kind of individual act in the moment right and you'll never do any kind of analysis that goes a little bit further right and this is like what really the function of a lot of these holiday movies of john hughes movies He loves these reconciliations between the different strata of white class or white civilization or whatever here in the US, right? but they're all functionally unrealistic. It's funny, when we did The Breakfast Club, I had a friend who told me, she was like, yeah, because she grew up in a place like that and she hated that movie because she said, that's bullshit. She said, these kind of like reconciliations that you think can happen at the end of this fucking movie, They never happened in my life growing up there. She fucking hated it growing up. And she was always incensed about it. And it's the same thing about this kind of movie. It's like this idea that you're going to make this partnership. But I have to say, this is the kind of, if you want to get into kind of like right now, this is the kind of bullshit that like Trump and a lot of these people sell. That we're going to we're going to make this kind of reconciliation. I see you. Right. We see y'all. But it's all manipulative. Right. And, you know, I'm not saying Hughes is necessarily who knows what he would have voted for, who knows what he would he would he would have came to. my guess if he said on this trajectory he'd be like such a hardcore centrist about everything right he would hate that kind of like right wing like overbearingness but he wouldn't like he definitely wouldn't like anything left also he would just be a a cynic contrarian about everything right you know just be nice to each other see others for who they need to be and so forth and so on but also like you know reflect on the bad things that you do but unless you're rich you shouldn't do that because you know It's just bullshit. It's chaotic. Try to find a consistency in the thinking. It makes your brain hurt.

Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I think the, you know, the class collaborationist point is a good one, you know, and this idea of like, you know, you put figures in from sort of different social classes and they reconcile and it becomes a sort of metaphor for, yeah, white, you know, a classless white politics right or a whiteness politics of some sort it does have all these issues right because again like there's all these white people that hughes clearly hates in this movie you know um but like as an individual story between these two things i mean this is again this is like kind of like like you said melodrama right or these um just these styles of bourgeois you know filmmaking and storytelling right I don't think I have much else to add. There's just another note on Candy. He did have, at least in the I Like Me documentary, so a grain of salt because it's just one source and it's one that's designed to make you feel like, oh, we lost this amazing person and all of this. But the family piece was something that he and Hughes seemed to share, like, within the, in their relationship, right? They liked, they would vacation together. They would go to each other's farms. They would do, you know, and so there was a kind of, like, I think for both of them, this idea, which is, again, like, a super bourgeois, really, like, thing. Just, like, the nuclear family thing. being this space where, yeah, everybody kind of needs to, you know, come together and spend time together and not be out there, you know, in the wilderness doing all these other, you know, things, but, you know, and that, that does like, you know, you think about, you, we talked about national lampoons, right? Like there's all this weird stuff within like all the, the vacation films, whether it's family vacation, vacation, Christmas vacation, et cetera. Um, But they all are these also kind of films about, despite all of our differences and our contradictions and the fact that Clark is really a womanizer and all this stuff, they want to come back together at the end of the day. And I do think the edited, the deletions, I guess this is the last thing I'll say, is the deletions are interesting in terms of what else Hughes was thinking about know for this film like yeah one there's a a theme where his wife believes that he's having an affair right and that this is also explains why she's like so emotional and you know so distraught also when he's like away for an extra day and this kind of stuff um there's as we mentioned like the the theft of the money that you know not explaining who that character was and why he would do it there's so the punch scene so yeah in the in the end john candy has a black eye and again you don't know why so that was supposed to be when martin finds out that he stole his credit card and when he finally like admits to that he finally hauls off and socks him right um and i think again to the point you made like they probably do that take that out just to try to make Martin seem, even though he's an asshole, he's, he's of higher stock and he's virtuous in a certain way where he's not going to resort to physical violence. That is for the, you know, the lump in and the proles. Right. Um, and, uh, so yeah they they they do take that out and it all of these things produce weird continuity issues in the film because you're like why the does he have a black eye or you know who is that guy who just stole the money or you know why is there beer on the bed and i don't know about this or even the scene when he comes out of the shower right in the beginning and the whole bathroom is a mess But there's no explanation of why the bathroom is a mess in the film, whereas there's actually a whole like 30 minutes of John Candy cutting up in the bathroom doing all this weird shit. Well, you know, Steve Martin's taking a shower, right? Like that would be honestly is like pretty fucking funny. Like it would be good to be in the movie and they just take these things out. And I think. I mean, that's, I guess, kind of a studio politic thing around all that shit. But it does create, you know, issues within the film that I think actually make it not as good a movie as it could have been.

Speaker 2: Yeah, I wonder how much of that is like how many screens they get to have in a day. They probably told Hughes, maybe you have like a 140 limit. Try to get it to 130 or maybe even 130 limit. He was able to squeeze three more minutes. with some credits in it, which is often a consideration based on the genre of movie though. It's kind of changed a little bit now that these Marvel movies get to be three fucking hours long, which is another, but you know, but that been in, in the eighties, it was definitely a consideration, uh, dependent on genre and when the movie was coming out, like, how many screens in a day they could have and how many showings, you know? And then one other thing is, yeah, I mean, we should also mention it that, like, this movie also uses, like, the kind of, like, woman in refrigerator trope, right? You know, his wife, essentially, like, I mean, I can't say if I, when I originally saw it, I was surprised or not that she was dead. I honestly can't remember. But if you realize that, like, you know, his wife... I mean, she doesn't even get, like, a flashback. She's a picture and an invocation, right? So you get this thing of, you know, his wife is basically there to just kind of move the plot forward into... be the kind of conduit also her death also elevates his humanity eventually because eventually he can reflect on this death and see the kind of errors of his own innate ways when he's speaking to the spirit of his wife and it's just goes well that's probably where you see you know and we'll talk about it more when we get to some of the other films that actually have actual characters who are women that have more than like 10 minutes on a screen um his really bad gender politics john hughes and he it's really kind of what you alluded to even with like clark like clark giswald's womanizing and kind of how is that's reasoned and I think all three of the movies that I remember that I've seen, I think, I think, I think it was like a thing in all three of them.

Speaker 1: Um, you know, it's, you know, and there's a little, there's a little bit of it here. Like there's, I mean, John Candy's reading a trashy romance novel at the beginning. There's a scene that's cut out, uh, where john candy has created a calendar for the shower curtain rings with naked women that have like pasties on and stuff like that then there's like the the cab driver right who has like the the kind of smut like stuff all over and yeah so it's it's there although some of it's deleted out and it's definitely more muted in this film and i think it's probably Like it's as Hughes is moving more into, I think, like kind of a bigger family sort of demographic that the studios are. I mean, it's marketing, right? It's like the studio. All right. Like, let's cut a little bit of that.

Speaker 2: national lampoon you know like sophomoric you know sexuality stuff out or or pare it down right and yeah because when it gets to uncle buck it gets really paternal like it gets really into the kind of like men must defend against the unscrupulous young boys we all remember the the the very infamous uh What is it? Oh my God, I'm losing my brain. The gun, the screwdriver, right? The electric screwdriver scene, you know, like with that. And we'll get into that with Uncle Buck, but yeah, he definitely got the drill, right? He goes really into that at Uncle Buck, which is like... Not to diverge, in the 90s, those movies take off. Those kinds of, like, the scourge young men and, you know, men must protect their nieces or daughters from, you know, that, to the point of, like, even hyperviolence.

Speaker 1: Yeah. Anything else? I mean, there's some stuff in the chat I could go through. Yeah, go through the chat. I'm done. Yeah. Yeah, no. Anyways, it was fun, and I think it was... Yeah, I mean, it's a fun rewatch, but also you can see all of the issues, obviously, as we've laid out over the last three hours.

Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, it was a fun rewatch. It's definitely, to me, a more watchable Hughes film, though I don't have many issues with it. But a lot of it, I think, is because of Candy. I mean, I have the same thing. Uncle Buck is weird as fuck, but I can watch it because I like John Candy. But whenever I watch that movie, I go, this is a fucking weird-ass movie, man.

Speaker 3: Yeah.

Speaker 1: yeah um so the main meme of the movie at the time in my circumference was those aren't the those aren't pillows bit right which we we didn't actually we sort of alluded to but yes yeah they wake up in the morning and john candy's kissing steve martin on the ear and right he's like you know he's like why are you kissing me and he's like why are you holding my hand he's like where's your other hand he said it's in between two pillows and it's a totally homoerotic thing that they're playing with the kind of like no it's just it's like the sophomoric type of stuff it's like and it's so i think it's homophobic in my opinion but you know totally yeah i mean i think that i hadn't thought about this so much but you know there's kind of like a uh john hughes to like judd apatow sort of oh yeah like like pipeline there you know yeah all right um there's probably something about fat phobia in terms of John candy, always playing characters who were older than he was. Yes. And I, I mean, I just think there's a lot, like I said earlier about, you know, there's a, there's a lot to unpack about all of that.

Speaker 2: I have a homie. I won't say his name because he's an actor who works. He's, he's bigger guy. And they always casted him older because of that, because of that. And, and, and we, him and I talked about it once. no he talked about he's been in movies people would know who he is but like he he's been he talked about it yeah i always get casted older and he said because i'm i'm you know i'm heavier set and he would say i'm like it's you know they would want me to grow beers i can never like you know do anything it's he always said his anxiety and uptight nature is basically just white man's burden of another breed yeah um

Speaker 1: like this comment it's very seinfeldish hating cashiers and rental car clerks who don't know what a reservation means yeah like that it is that kind of just like you you know yeah just assuming that all service workers are like stupider than you and that's why you know things aren't going your way or whatever um feels like hughes coming up in the time of reagan is no accident absolutely i mean there's a very yeah

Speaker 2: And this is kind of something that I think is understated. I totally agree with this comment. And you said the same thing about Cosby. Because it's interesting that like, I think people think about John Hughes, Bill Cosby, often as being like separated from Reagan, because they're kind of, it's often liberalism and liberals, I mean, that invoke them, right? But the fact that they were so popular in that logic of a time I think can't be overstated. I think it's really important to think about within the project of the U.S. post a lot of things that were happening in the 70s and the reformations they had to make that Reagan, Hughes, there is a marriage there that we cannot overstate.

Speaker 1: yeah no totally and i i mean i think ferris bueller's day off is like a really good uh yeah when we get to that x you know way to explore that as well um yeah underrated divide and conquer dialectic in capitalism especially service-based economies i mean that's the thing is like you know a lot of what we have in the united states are like marketing jobs sales jobs or, you know, service worker jobs. And like Ruthie Wilson Gilmore actually has this term of, she, I can't remember exactly what she says, but basically jobs where your, your role, somebody in the chat will remember this, but like, it's basically, you're, you're basically the security related jobs, like essentially. So like, you're actually just there to make sure that people don't steal shit. That's actually your job. You might be a cashier or something like that.

Speaker 2: Claim specialists are definitely one of them, right? In insurance and things like that.

Speaker 1: Yeah, but even she was talking about, like, retail workers, right? Like, a lot of what your job is, essentially, is just to make sure that people don't walk away with shit. Got you. Like, that's, you know, like, that you're really there to police, like, that's, and being paid, like, very low wage to do it. All right. Yeah. Yeah. First of all, sorry that this happened to you, Paul. That's like bullshit. But yeah, I mean, the point about and I think Paul had another comment before this about like the hierarchy then that exists where you get that ethos of like the customer is always right, which of course is not true because these companies don't actually want to like just give the customers people stuff. So your job actually is always to sort of fight the customer on behalf of the business. but you have to do it in a you have to always do it in a respectful way and even if somebody thinks that you did something disrespectful to them then your job's on the line you know very um that's the line of j.s mill other civilizations are in their infancy and thus require the colonial patronage of more mature and adult civilizations in western europe um yeah absolutely um which is funny considering western europe is civilizationally speaking the infant yeah that's true um i had forgotten this so john candy's in cool runnings i have to like i have not seen that movie and so so i don't i don't know if i want to to i don't think i can do that to myself even go back and watch that terrible movie Shout out to Dougie Doug. 90s reference, if you know it. Oh, yeah. If Candy had a better watch, she could have had a room, too, right? That's the problem, is that John Candy has a Casio when they go to trade in their watches for the rooms, and Steve Martin has a really nice... I don't even know what kind of watch it was, but very, like, kind of, you know, European-stylish... And then, very endemic to Wasp's culture, the appearance of these polite, kind moments become proof of goodness to mystify the realities of privilege and the distance they have from the masses, right? Yeah, I mean, it's a mask of exploitation, ultimately. Like, you know, Steve Martin's character, even though he's in... you know, in advertising or whatever, like, he gets paid more because he's basically collecting a larger share of rent from these big capitalist corporations, right? And so in a certain way, he is... very much to think about you know what we're reading right now with kadri like he's basically parasitic upon you know the capitalists society um you know you could argue that a little bit with candy but because he's more like in what we would think of as um almost like a gig economy sort of level i think of you know work or whatever it's clear he's not making money like that right which is true for a lot of people within sales jobs is they just don't make that much money you know you're living on commissions or whatever else and it's just not that much and yeah if you're selling shower curtain rings i can't imagine so um all right i think that's that's it um yeah this has been good it's been very good yeah yeah yeah um yeah die hard is next die hard next week yep and then we'll have one more before the on december 15th we'll have one more before the holidays we're still kind of making Again, yeah, I'll put a poll up on the Patreon and see what people's thoughts are between Christmas Story, Christmas Vacation, and... What was the third one we were talking about? Scrooge. Scrooge, that's right. I keep forgetting that.

Speaker 2: Which are all three very interesting...

Speaker 1: And very different. Yeah.

Speaker 2: Very different. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1: I mean, Scrooge is probably the best film of the three, but the other two have way more, you know, staying power among, you know. Yeah. Yeah, it's true.

Speaker 2: Scrooge was big at my house. We were Scroogers. We loved that movie growing up.

Speaker 1: Yeah.

Speaker 2: Yeah. All right. Yeah.

Speaker 1: We are firmly in that camp, by the way. I don't adhere to these stupid ideas that it has to have certain elements of Christmas to be a Christmas. No, it happened. It's a fucking Christmas movie.

Speaker 2: So is Lethal Weapon. It's a Christmas movie. Deal with it.

Speaker 1: Absolutely. Alright. See y'all next week. Peace.