Ep. 272: the chippendales plots

[00:00:03] Speaker A: I don't think this is the first time that this has come up. But you're familiar with Chippendales, right? Not, not the, not the hand furniture or the furniture, but the [00:00:19] Speaker B: light erotica male dance act. [00:00:23] Speaker A: Right, exactly the part. [00:00:24] Speaker B: In fact, I don't know how light it is. Do they, do they, do they show hog? [00:00:28] Speaker A: They do not show hog. No. [00:00:29] Speaker B: Okay. [00:00:30] Speaker A: There's no hog. At least not anymore. We'll, we'll talk a little bit about it, but yeah, the, the strippers, the boy strippers and the neckties and the. [00:00:41] Speaker B: That's right. I'm familiar with them. I, I, yeah, Magic Mike, that, that setup. Absolutely. [00:00:47] Speaker A: Exactly. Yeah. That's the kind of thing you're talking about. And listen, in a, in a world where you've got a thousand different friends, free porn sites and only fans, and accessible sex worker accounts on blue sky and whatnot, the whole thing seems pretty quaint and cheesy. Right? [00:01:02] Speaker B: I didn't, I wasn't prepared for this angle this evening, Corey. Well, listen, we're going to be rebranding. What is this? [00:01:13] Speaker A: This is Joag After Dark. [00:01:15] Speaker B: Sack of All Grand. [00:01:20] Speaker A: Jack off all graves. [00:01:23] Speaker B: Very good. That sounds like something I would have come up with. Did I come up with that? [00:01:27] Speaker A: What do you mean, did you come up with that? I have accidentally written that a few times. Unless. [00:01:34] Speaker B: Jack off all graves. [00:01:36] Speaker A: Yeah, go on. [00:01:38] Speaker B: Chippendales. [00:01:38] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:01:39] Speaker B: An American thing, I guess. Are they. [00:01:41] Speaker A: Well, let me get there. But like, it's2026. Right. We know women like sex and like to thirst over hot guys. Have you. [00:01:52] Speaker B: I know it all too well. [00:01:54] Speaker A: Just can't beating them off with sticks in the streets, honestly, you know. [00:01:59] Speaker B: Go on. [00:02:01] Speaker A: Have you seen that one interview with Emilia Clarke and Haley Lou Richardson from Ponies where Haley is just talking openly about masturbating her way through heated rivalry. [00:02:13] Speaker B: Oh, dear. No, I wasn't. I'm completely unprepared for this. [00:02:18] Speaker A: I told you there'd be murders, and instead I'm talking about women jacking off. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to. You know, you're a little red over there, but yeah, you know, it's like, it's a little shocking to hear abroad say it, but we also know that's exactly why that show was so popular among straight women. Right. Like, she's not an outlier when it comes to this kind of thing. [00:02:41] Speaker B: Yep. [00:02:42] Speaker A: But back in the 70s and 80s, there weren't a ton of outlets for horny women to just let loose their horniness shamelessly there's always been places for men to lust after women. But it was a new era and a man named Steve Banerjee saw an opportunity to appeal to those new women. Or he stole the idea for that opportunity. But I'll get there in a sec. Banerjee was born in India in 1946. His birth name Soman. And he moved to the US in the late 60s with success in mind. [00:03:19] Speaker B: The, the name is familiar. I'm certain there's a production company, a tv. Oh, production company called Banerjee. [00:03:27] Speaker A: Yeah, I think it's. Or I think it might be Banjay. [00:03:30] Speaker B: No, no, no. Banijay for sure. I, I, the name is familiar to me. Do by all means continue. Let me just. [00:03:36] Speaker A: It wouldn't be connected to this guy for what it's worth. But yes, I do. I think you might be right about that being a thing that exists. But yeah, so he was born in India in 1946. He moved to the US but success of course didn't come easily. [00:03:54] Speaker B: They are, yes. There's a UK production company known as Banijay. They produce MasterChef. That's where I know him from. Celebrity Big Brother. Yes, yes, yes, yes. [00:04:03] Speaker A: That is it. Because I think they do the American one as well. So I see that at the. [00:04:07] Speaker B: Different bunch though. Yeah, different bunch, bunch of lads. [00:04:10] Speaker A: Very different ones and you'll see why. So he tried several different paths when he got here. Working at Mattel for a time, overseeing a backgammon club which is a thing I didn't know existed nor required overseers and operating a gas station. [00:04:28] Speaker B: Talk about a game which is just absolute fucking A mystery to me is back. [00:04:34] Speaker A: No, I don't even, I have zero idea what you do. [00:04:40] Speaker B: I can visualize the board. You may as well ask me to play like. What's that? Go? Is that the Japanese game? I have as much clear to play Go as I do backgammon. [00:04:49] Speaker A: I just know if I see Go, I think like, I guess I could just like play it like Mancala or something like that. But I have no sense like at all. Like even what you would begin to do with a backgammon board and those little buttons that you put on it. My grandparents must have played it because there's like several backgammon, nice backgammon sets in this house. No idea what the you do with them. They never attempted to teach me to, to play it so, so I can, [00:05:19] Speaker B: I can see how a club might need governance, might need overseeing. [00:05:22] Speaker A: Right. But it was an experience at the gas station that caused him to reinvent himself from so men to Steve after a group of teenagers who are already doing the him. The injury of shoplifting also insulted him by making fun of his accent while they did it. He decided then to Americanize himself and steer a new path toward the American dream with the ultimate Pull yourself up by Bootstraps Immigrant story. [00:05:51] Speaker B: Yep. [00:05:53] Speaker A: Now Banerjee's role models were Hugh Hefner and Walt Disney, according to a 2020 episode, which seems exactly the right combination for a guy to then come up with this all male strip show where the men dressed like Playboy bunnies. Yeah, he did not in fact come up with it, though a man named Paul Snyder did. He'd seen an all male strip show aimed at gay audiences and told Banerjee that this would probably kill with women in this time of women's lib and whatnot. [00:06:26] Speaker B: I get. So were. And I guess we'll probably get there, but were audiences for Chippendales mixed then between straight women and gay men? Was it a gay friendly environment? [00:06:41] Speaker A: No. Nope. Just for straight women. Interesting. [00:06:45] Speaker B: How would, how would they differentiate then? How would they police that? [00:06:49] Speaker A: Well, why would a man be there [00:06:53] Speaker B: for gayness? [00:06:54] Speaker A: Right. So that's not what they were going for. [00:06:58] Speaker B: Fair enough. [00:06:58] Speaker A: Basically. And as we'll talk about, they were not shy about discriminating in these clubs. So, yeah, no, they, they weren't made for mixed audiences. And like, okay, they. Straight women and gay men do not look at men the same way. So the targeting would not have worked as we will also get into as like a thing for gay men. Like, it's, you know, gay men are men. And so what they're looking for in a strip show is different than what women are looking for in a strip show. [00:07:32] Speaker B: I can see that, thank you very much. [00:07:34] Speaker A: So we'll get into that in a bit pretty soon, in fact. But yeah, so Paul Snyder sees a gay men strip show and is like, yeah, let's do this with ladies. And so Banerjee bought an LA club called Round Robin and worked on getting it set up as what he kind of painted as this like, feminist strip show where the liberated woman could come and enjoy the female gaze. You know, Paul Snyder's wife Dorothy came up with the idea to dress them in the cuffs and collars just like the Playboy bunny to really sort of emphasize this reversal. And this obviously became their iconic look. Like, honestly, at this point in time, you probably connect that more to Chippendales than you do to a Playboy bunny. You know, it's like, oh, yeah, that's the. That's what they. What they look like. Steve then later on brought on producer Nick Denoia to choreograph the shows in 1981. And because of course, you know, they believed. And to a degree, I'll get into it, they're kind of right, but they believed women didn't get turned on by naked men alone and needed to get to know them. Chippendales under danoia was set up with men having sort of specific characters that would appeal to different types of women in the audience, such as like, you know, a fireman, for example, or like [00:08:54] Speaker B: archetype, the sensitive book reading guy. Okay. Yeah, okay. [00:08:59] Speaker A: It's just total archetypes of like your potential dream guy. Right? Yeah. It's like playing dream. Did you guys have dream phone? [00:09:08] Speaker B: If we did, I. It was. It was either before or after my time, but I know of it. [00:09:12] Speaker A: It would have been right. Yeah. Dead center in your time if you had it there. Because it was, you know, started as like a thing in like the mid-80s and it was aimed at. At girls. And it was like you had all these little like cards and a phone and you called and you tried to figure out like, who your dream date, of course was by like calling the guys in the cards with the later editions of it. Apparently Chris Evans was amongst the guys on the cards, which is kind of a fun little. Little piece of trivia. [00:09:41] Speaker B: Captain America. [00:09:42] Speaker A: Captain America, yes. He's one of the dream fun guys. Anyways, all that fun on the outside was hiding some really not fun stuff behind the scenes. And it started from pretty much the beginning of this. Because while there's not necessarily anything inherently unwholesome about sex work in the lead poisoned crime ridd seedy world of the 1970s and 80s, there was always going to be shady shit happening just under the surface. [00:10:10] Speaker B: Do you mind if I ask a couple of questions about the business side of this? [00:10:14] Speaker A: Probably gonna answer them. [00:10:16] Speaker B: You probably are. I mean, my mind kind of wanders. I find myself wondering, could I. Is it like a franchise? As Chippendales franchise? Fine, fine, fine. You know what? You see where my head's going? Could I just like start up my own. My own group [00:10:38] Speaker A: that I actually don't know if that. But I assume. Yeah, no, I don't think you can [00:10:42] Speaker B: do it that way, but trademark to hell. [00:10:43] Speaker A: But I'll get to sort of. Yeah. How this was set up because it is important to the story, how the business works. So in 1979, as Banerjee was trying to put Chippendales on the map. A rival club called Moody's Disco caught fire six years later. No, literally caught on fire. Six years later, an arson attempt was made on the Red Onion restaurant and bar, another rival to Chippendales. Surely a coincidence, right? But of course not. Banerjee had hired and plotted with a man named Ray Colon to carry out these arsons. And while he wasn't initially busted for causing the fires, as you can imagine, they also didn't really do much for his business. Neither business burned down. And while there were some minor injuries, they just got themselves back up and running and continued to be competing nightclubs. Arson is a bad plan. Arson does not work. If you actually succeed, there will be investigations. You're not going to get away with it. And insurance exists, so the businesses bounce back. There's a reason people usually burn down their own shit. And not, of course, even. [00:11:54] Speaker B: Even if it works, you collateral damage, long term impact to the area around you. Neighbors get caught on fire as well. [00:12:01] Speaker A: I mean, Steve Banerjee would not care. That would not bother him. But just as a crime, yeah, it's a dumb crime to do far cleaner [00:12:10] Speaker B: and more efficient ways of fucking some someone's shit up than to burn it down. [00:12:15] Speaker A: Exactly. Which he kind of figured out as he went along. But this shows you out the gate who Steve Banerjee is. If you were starting to feel bad for him after he was subjected to racist mockery from teenagers, well, he manages to find ways to make you feel like he deserved worse. In Banerjee's eyes, there could be only one. The existence of other clubs in his vicinity was taking from his bottom line as far as he was concerned. And he couldn't have that. He was intensely jealous and intensely petty. Violently petty. In between those two arson attempts, more violence came to the Chippendales crew. As I mentioned, among the early team was Paul Snyder, who came up with the idea in the first place, and his wife Dorothy, who pioneered the costumes, those cuffs and collars. Dorothy was a Canadian teenage Dairy Queen cashier when she met Paul, a local club promoter who wooed her, then married her in 1978 when she was 18. And he soon convinced her to pose nude in photos that he sent in to Playboy. I see Playboy liked the photos. And she ended up becoming Miss August 1979 and then playmate of the Year that same or the year 1980. The next year she was such a success that in a period of months she appeared in several episodes of television and three different comedy films, including the Peter Bogdanovich film they All Laughed, which also starred such heavy hitters as John Ritter and Audrey Hepburn. Like, wow, it's a huge deal. By that point, while also working alongside Banerjee, the couple had become estranged and was set to divorce, all at Dorothy's will. She'd basically done, like, the 1980 version of ghosting him. She finished the movie, all that stuff. He couldn't get in touch with her, and she eventually sent him a letter saying, like, we got to separate our finances. We're going our own ways. We're done, so we're getting divorced. And he reacted poorly, becoming convinced that she was having an affair and then coming to realize it was with Bogdanovich. So he hired a private detective to follow her, which, by the way, like, I don't know if this is still legal, but I feel like it shouldn't be. [00:14:45] Speaker B: You know, hiring someone to tail. [00:14:48] Speaker A: Like, you're like, basically to stalk your partner, you know, like, you. You shouldn't be able to hire someone to stalk a woman for you, or a man, for that matter. Like, it's. That just should be illegal because you don't know why someone wants to. They may tell you a story, but you don't know that story is true. [00:15:08] Speaker B: I don't disagree, actually. I think that that's something deserving of scrutiny. That's something I think we'll come back to, because I'm certain there is. I'm certain there is content there. I'm certain there are stories to be told. [00:15:22] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. [00:15:23] Speaker B: You know, I mean, from the weaponizing of private investigations against someone. [00:15:27] Speaker A: 100%, yeah. It just feels like it's like, set up for the worst people to be able to take advantage of that system. So, like I said, I don't know. We'll revisit it, but I don't know if it's still a thing that you can do or not, but not a fan of that whole idea. But Dorothy was indeed staying with Bogdanovich. And on the night of July 31, 1980, Snyder posted up outside the house with a borrowed handgun, ready to fuck up anyone he saw go in or out. Luckily, no one seemed to be around, and after a few hours, he left. He also told people that he was maybe feeling a little bit suicidal at that point. On 8 August, the two saw each other for the first time in months, and Snyder was convinced he could win her back. She had, however, moved on, telling him she was in love with the director. From here, Snyder had made up his mind about what he was gonna do. Having returned the borrowed Gun. He tried to convince the private investigator he'd hired to help him buy one since he was a Canadian citizen and wasn't allowed to purchase a firearm in the United States. And to his credit, the detective was like, nah, pass. Not gonna do that. [00:16:43] Speaker B: I mean, yeah, I'm sure if, if he were to really try, he could have. [00:16:47] Speaker A: Well, we'll get there. The next day, he once again tried to convince the private detective to get him a gun, saying he needed it for home security, and the private detective talked him out of it. But he eventually managed to procure a gun through a classified ad in the newspaper. A few. And then he went about throwing up every red flag you could possibly imagine, telling his friends about the gun and how he'd managed to purchase it by claiming that he was taking up hunting, making morbid conversation about past playmates who had died, and talking about the ins and outs of how Playboy would deal with photos of a dead playmate if she died before publication. Like just, you know, sirens, beacons, flags, all of it. Like, this man is about to do something terrible. But, you know, it's 1980 and everyone's like, oh, he's a little cuckoo, isn't he? Like, nobody did anything about it. [00:17:47] Speaker B: This story absolutely stinks of cocaine. Also, can I just say that. [00:17:52] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm sure there's plenty of that involved with this. [00:17:56] Speaker B: Every fucking scene of this story is coked up to fuck in my head. [00:18:02] Speaker A: Yeah, there is a. There's a miniseries. I haven't watched it, but starring. It has Dan Stevens in it. He plays Paul Snyder and Kumail Nanjani plays Banerjee. [00:18:15] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:18:17] Speaker A: And I, Yeah, it has a coked up vibe from the trailers and things I've seen. Watch it at some point. But yes, I'm sure plenty of that going on here [00:18:27] Speaker B: because that, that, that'll make you do some risky shit. [00:18:29] Speaker A: Weird shit. Yeah, absolutely. [00:18:32] Speaker B: That will make you. That'll turn you into a weirdo in no time at all. [00:18:36] Speaker A: Right. Yeah, I'm, I'm imagining. Given, like Banerjee's reactions to everything. There's plenty of drug use involved. [00:18:43] Speaker B: Sure. [00:18:44] Speaker A: In the like. Because everything is so escalated, you know, like, hey, those heightened. Yeah, those bars are like stealing my clients. I'm gonna burn it down. Down. [00:18:53] Speaker B: Burn them down. That's not a normal thought process. Burn it down. [00:18:58] Speaker A: Right, yeah, that's, that's not a thing that you just do. So, you know. Yeah, there's that. But anyway, so he. Snyder met up with Dorothy at his home, ostensibly to discuss splitting their finances. And Dorothy's business manager had told her that morning that she could hand these responsibilities off to her lawyer to avoid being around Snyder. But she said that the process would go more smoothly if she just went and talked to him. And she said that she thought that they could remain friends. When Snyder's roommates returned home that night, they saw his car outside but didn't see him. The private detective, concerned that he hadn't heard from him, told the roommates to go and check his room. In his bedroom, they found both Paul and Dorothy nude and each dead of a single gunshot wound. With a promising career ahead of her and a relationship with one of the most important directors in American cinema. Dorothy was dead at the age of 20 at the hands of this grooming douchebag who'd plucked her out of the Dairy Queen and put her naked body on the pages of Playboy while she was still a teen. [00:20:02] Speaker B: Oh, yikes. [00:20:03] Speaker A: Yeah, right? So much that she accomplished in, like, a year, though. It's, like, absolutely wild to think about, like, what this woman would have become had this not happened, you know, had this guy, you know, not been a total incel. Asshole. And just as a note, Bogdanovich was so destroyed by this, by the way he was buried next to her when he died in 2022. [00:20:29] Speaker B: Incredible. [00:20:29] Speaker A: 42 years later, that's saying something. So within the first two years of the existence of Chippendales, we already have two arsons and a murder suicide on the board. And for his part, Banerjee reportedly wasn't too shook up about the loss of Paul and Dorothy. His only concern was that was what such an event might do to the club. So he went about trying to essentially erase them from the club's history. Who? I don't know. These people. They had nothing to do with it. It's my club. And just moved along. Which honestly worked out because he did not like sharing credit with anyone, so they'd kind of done him a favor in this way. [00:21:13] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:21:14] Speaker A: And this became clear when it came to his relationship with Nick De Noia, the choreographer that he hired in 1981. By all accounts, it seems like Nick Denoya really had the juice. When Snyder was emcee for the club. It was all a little too seedy. He basically ran it like a strip show for dudes. It was straight up porny, you know? And as I mentioned before, it wasn't really what it was believed that women wanted. And to an extent, that's absolutely true. You're not gonna get your lady friends together to Just watch a whole bunch of men get buck naked without any preamble, you know, like there are vibrators in the comfort of your own home for that kind of overt sexuality. It's not fun to go and see in public. Right. So it's weird and uncomfortable for women. And these guys kind of, you know, Nick dinoe came in and he was like, look, it's like romance novels, right? You don't just open up a romance novel and there's fucking on the first page. You know, you got a hundred pages and set up and then comes the sex. So that's how he felt that the club should be run. And he was absolutely right. Women loved getting their girls together and then watching these fun little stories and characters and things like that that then unfolded into sexy stripteases and lap dances and making out and things like that, you know, like that was fun for them as opposed to like just going and watching men get naked. [00:22:41] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:22:43] Speaker A: And you'd see these guys on shows like Donahue and Sally Jesse Raphael and whatnot. And the audience would just be like shrieking 65 year old grandmothers having the time of their lives. Like as one article discussed, [00:22:57] Speaker B: when, when did. Because they did go mainstream. Yes. The brand, I mean, it made it over here, for fuck's sake. So what was the tipping point? I mean, this is Nick denoia acceptance. [00:23:10] Speaker A: Nick denoya was that. So it went from being like a seedy strip show where men showed it all, you know, they got naked and all that kind of stuff, which did not attract women, but it worked in a gay context. Yeah, because they're men, they just like to see naked people of their orientation. Women don't like that. When Denoya took over and changed this into a show with characters and story and things like that that went along with all the stripping. Then it became something that you could like kind of unashamedly go with your, your girlfriends or take your grandma for fun or things like that. And that blew it up. It was like, now this is fun. Sexy. [00:23:54] Speaker B: Not now it's theater. [00:23:56] Speaker A: Yeah, now it's theater. [00:23:57] Speaker B: Burlesque. [00:23:58] Speaker A: Yes, exactly. 100%. So that was really what took over. And like I said, it ended up like on all these mainstream television shows and stuff like that. You know, famously there's like the SNL sketch of Chris Farley and. Yeah, you know, exactly that. And what's his face. Patrick Swayze doing the Chippendales. [00:24:16] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:24:17] Speaker A: Thing like, you know, this is a. It was a pop culture phenomenon. Women absolutely loved this. And as One article discussed, they said, you know, bachelor parties at strip clubs are often looked at as like a last temptation for a man who's about to tie himself down to sex with one woman for the rest of his life. Like, oh, let's, you know, let's go see one more naked lady. Because you're not supposed to see any more after this. Right. Like, that's the idea behind those. Whereas Chippendales is a total inversion of that. Its audience was largely, you know, married women shamelessly gawking at and touching men who weren't their husbands or boyfriends as a celebration of women being turned the fuck on. [00:24:59] Speaker B: And just culturally, this was absolutely a first. Was it? Right. [00:25:05] Speaker A: Yep. Never before done. This was not a thing. This was literally. [00:25:09] Speaker B: One has to shitbag, though, though he is more and more coming across. One has to afford banijay the respect as an entrepreneur. Finding a market. Finding. [00:25:22] Speaker A: Well, remember, he got the idea from Paul Snyder and then it was perfected by Nick De Noia. [00:25:27] Speaker B: Yes. [00:25:28] Speaker A: So all he really did was buy a club to put it in. [00:25:30] Speaker B: Okay, okay, okay. But in terms of. In terms of exploiting. In terms of finding a space to occupy you. [00:25:38] Speaker A: Right. And, you know. Yeah. If he wasn't such a creep, this would be something that you'd be like. Like, now we'd be looking at him as like, this guy reshaped how we look at women's sexuality and things like that. [00:25:52] Speaker B: You know, talking about him swinging willies around. [00:25:55] Speaker A: Right. We'd be talking about him in a very different light than we talk about him now. But, yeah. So, you know, the other thing is, like, while your female stripper absolutely does not like you or want to have sex with you, the Chippendales guys, on the other hand. What? [00:26:14] Speaker B: Wait, wait, wait. [00:26:15] Speaker A: No, she's definitely. She's into you, Mark. For sure. She's definitely into you. The Chippendales guys were very much down to clown. And in the 2020 DOC, the men talk about living the absolute high life, getting paid obscene amounts of money every night and having lots of sex with or horny audience members. Wow. It was just a phenomenon. [00:26:38] Speaker B: Like, if that's. If. If that's what you want as a guy. [00:26:43] Speaker A: Yeah, right. I mean, more power to you. [00:26:47] Speaker B: Yeah. One finds it difficult to imagine how things could get any better from a certain perspective. [00:26:52] Speaker A: Exactly. And that's like. It's funny when you watch these guys talk about it because they really, like. They look back on it so fondly. Like, this was. Like this was. How could you want anything other than this when you're a man who's like 27 years old or whatever, right? Just, like, work out, get ripped, get on stage, entertain all these women, pick out some hot ones, have sex with them afterwards, make $10,000 a night. [00:27:18] Speaker B: Fuck you now. [00:27:18] Speaker A: Yeah. Living the dream. Sure. [00:27:22] Speaker B: You'd yearn for more, wouldn't you? [00:27:24] Speaker A: Sure, yes. [00:27:24] Speaker B: I mean, you know. You know, is it fulfilling intellectually? [00:27:30] Speaker A: Right, yeah, you know, it's certainly. It's a certain type of fella who, who goes for this kind of thing. But, you know, they. They had a great time doing it, and it became just an absolute force in society. Denoia naturally took credit for the explosion in Chippendale's popularity, as his choreography and ideas about giving the men characters and storylines were the things that brought women in. Those were indeed. His ide began to refer to him instead of Banerjee as Mr. Chippendales. In 1983, he decided that Chippendales should expand to New York City and what came to be known as the napkin deal. Denoya got Banerjee to sign over him to him the rights to take Chippendales out touring in perpetuity, and they would split those proceeds 50, 50. It's not entirely clear why he signed it, except that it seems that he didn't fully understand what this meant. Or maybe he just thought that it wasn't going to work. You know, like, okay, yeah, you take this touring. We'll see how that goes. This is an LA thing. For whatever reason, he signed this over to him. And sure enough, Denoya took Chippendales on the road and opened an nyc, making absolute boatloads of money and pissing Banerjee right the fuck off as he felt like he was being shortchanged. And this is another thing that feels very cocaine y is that, like, he didn't have proof that he wasn't getting his 50%. He was just like, I don't trust him. I think I'm getting. I think I'm getting the short. Yeah, yeah, yeah, short shrift here, you know. He was convinced he could not be talked out of the idea that denoia was cheating him out of his half of this deal. Meanwhile, Banerjee was also facing a discrimination lawsuit as it was found that the club was actively discriminating against potential black patrons. Banerjee believed that women would be turned off by drinking and partying around black guys, so he didn't want them in the club. Having seen this pattern emerging, two white men and a black man set up a sting of sorts the black man went to the door, where he was turned away and told that he needed a membership card to come in. The two white men then went to the door where they were allowed inside. When they inquired as to why the black man wasn't let in, they were told, oh, it's because he didn't have a membership card. And then they were like, neither did we. And from there, it was all over. It was very clear that the doorman had been instructed to only demand memberships of black men who tried to enter, who would then immediately be turned away. And to compound all this, Banerjee, who was the son of printers, made a colossal error in the printing of the 1987 Chippendales calendars, which was a massive source of income. The 2020 episode was saying that it was actually, like, the majority of the income for Chippendales because, like, you get so many people calendars, you can get so many people in the door each night, but you can sell calendars around the world, you know, so they made a ton of money off of this. But on the 1987 calendar, the days of the month were all wonky, with February having 31 days, for example, making them entirely unusable and requiring him to. Yeah, you just. You can't just send those to people. That's. It's junk. And it required him to print them, reprint them all at a cost of over $300,000, which put him under even more financial pressure. And meanwhile, Denoya was out there making money that he thought was his, which was just a bridge too far. On April 7, 1987, a gunman shot Denoya dead in his office through his cheek. And to most of the Chippendales family, it was immediately clear who did it. Many of the dancers who'd considered Denoya a mentor or father figure became enraged, knowing that this was exactly the kind of shit Banerjee would do. But there was no evidence Banerjee got away with it. After all, they worked in the seedy nightclub scene. Could have been anyone. Could have been the mob. Police had no leads to directly link Banerjee. [00:31:54] Speaker B: Did you say 87? [00:31:55] Speaker A: Yeah, 87. [00:31:59] Speaker B: Golden era for getting away with murder. [00:32:02] Speaker A: Yeah, we're kind of. We're getting towards the end of that age, right? [00:32:05] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:32:08] Speaker A: So getting away with one murder and a couple of arsons apparently wasn't enough for Banerjee. A few former Chippendales dancers had moved to England, including Reed Scott, who'd begun performing for a rival dance troupe called Adonis. Okay, Banerjee apparently couldn't even abide transatlantic competition. So he got Cologne on the horn again and was like, I need you to have these guys whacked. This won't stand. So Cologne hired a British guy. [00:32:40] Speaker B: He's going after Adonis now. [00:32:42] Speaker A: He's going after not even, like, the club, but one dancer who was a Chippendale who now dances for Adonis. Like, this is what I mean by saying he's violently petty. [00:32:54] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:32:54] Speaker A: You know? And so they hired this guy, a British hitman with the code name Strawberry. And the plan was for Strawberry to jab these guys with syringes filled with cyanide. He got cold feet, however, and got the authorities involved, who alerted the dancers to the insane fact that their old boss had put a hit out on them. Which, like I said, like, you're just a regular ol stripper. You got a wife and kids, you shop at the Tesco's, and some rich asshole from LA hire someone to cyanide you because you found a new gig. [00:33:33] Speaker B: Listen, I was unconvinced about this story until about 20 minutes ago. I'm super in now. Honestly, I was like, fuck, Corey, I don't know what you're serving us up this week, but I get it now. I get it now. [00:33:52] Speaker A: Yeah, it's fucking crazy, man. Yeah. So they. [00:33:58] Speaker B: I mean, talk about global influence, that you're able in 1987 or thereabouts to set up a transatlantic hitman cyanide hit in the murky world of male erotic dancing. That's incredible, right? Like, that speaks to a man with influence. [00:34:17] Speaker A: Yeah. And that's like. It's a complicated process, you know, you're not like, calling someone up on Skype or whatever at that point. Like, this is. [00:34:26] Speaker B: You've got a source, the cyanide. You've got a. It's incredible. [00:34:29] Speaker A: Indeed. Yes. And in fact, the FBI raided Colon's home and found enough cyanide to kill over 200 people there. They arrested him, obviously, and after eight months in the pokey, he finally agreed to turn on Banerjee and help the authorities get a confession for his crimes. [00:34:49] Speaker B: Sorry, was this Strawberry who we're talking about here? [00:34:52] Speaker A: So Strawberry was like, I'm not doing this. I'm not saying any of these guys. [00:34:57] Speaker B: Strawberry blew the whistle. [00:34:58] Speaker A: He told the authorities Cologne had hired him to cyanide these dudes. The FBI goes to Cologne's home and they're like, there is. There's a shit ton of cyanide here. [00:35:09] Speaker B: The FBI go to this guy's house in Britain in the uk. [00:35:13] Speaker A: No, Cologne lived in the us so he hired Strawberry, who was the Brit. [00:35:17] Speaker B: Right. So. [00:35:18] Speaker A: Yes. [00:35:19] Speaker B: Look, I'm sorry, do we know what became of Strawberry? [00:35:22] Speaker A: No. And he's only known by Strawberry. We don't know his name or anything. It's just this guy Strawberry, because he didn't commit any crimes. [00:35:32] Speaker B: Didn't do. Yeah. [00:35:34] Speaker A: Do anything. You know, all he did was help them catch somebody and that's. It's certainly not a crime to, you know, you don't want to punish someone for doing the correct thing. [00:35:44] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, exactly. [00:35:47] Speaker A: So, yeah, we have no idea who Strawberry is. If he's a career criminal, if he's a dancer, like if he's a listener, if he's a Joag listener. Who knows? This could be Benners, for all we know. [00:36:00] Speaker B: Could be any one of hundreds of thousands of people. [00:36:02] Speaker A: Yes, we do. We have no idea who this guy is. [00:36:06] Speaker B: But 1987, that would, that would put him at around. It could be me. [00:36:10] Speaker A: Could be you. You could have been a little. How 19 year old is that? No, 11 year old. How old is that? You'd be like 9, 10. [00:36:19] Speaker B: No, it couldn't be me. It couldn't be me. [00:36:22] Speaker A: Young assassin. A nine year old assassin. [00:36:24] Speaker B: Yeah, that's right. Yeah, but you see what I'm saying, it's intriguing to me. [00:36:29] Speaker A: Yes. I'm sorry, Benners, it could not be you. You would also be even younger than like a seven year old assassin. [00:36:35] Speaker B: Where are you sourcing all of this information? This is incredible. [00:36:38] Speaker A: Well, that's. That will be in the show notes, of course. [00:36:41] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:36:43] Speaker A: Like about 14 different places. [00:36:45] Speaker B: Whose account do we have of this then? Who's. Whose account is. [00:36:49] Speaker A: This is recent. This is very long ago. [00:36:52] Speaker B: Primary evidence. [00:36:54] Speaker A: Anyone who didn't get killed by this guy still around to talk about it. So I read a whole bunch of things, but a lot of the stuff where I saw people actively talking about it was the 2020 DOC, which I. [00:37:04] Speaker B: It doesn't seem like many people did get killed by Strawberry. It doesn't feel as though he was like a flinty hearted. [00:37:11] Speaker A: But the one guy that I mentioned, Reed, he is in the 2020 thing and he talks about it, you know, like basically a guy coming in while he's like about to get on stage. I think he was emceeing and he's like about to go on and they're like, hey, we need to talk to you. So there's a hit out on you. And he immediately is like Banerjee, like, you know, like he knew he Knew exactly who it was who had put this out, but also was like. Like I said, he had, like, a wife and kids. Like, he lived a normal life. [00:37:44] Speaker B: His job. [00:37:45] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, this. And it's like, what? Why? Like, what. What in the world? You know, like, why can't he just leave me alone to, like, go and do my thing? So, you know, if you are interested in kind of, like, seeing the firsthand people talking about all of this, like, it's there, you know, there's 2020. I think there's a couple other channels that have docs where they talk to people on it. But of course, I just always go to my abc. But there's. Yeah, plenty of stuff where you can hear witnesses and victims and all that kind of stuff, talk about what happened. Incredible tale indeed. So, yeah, the FBI raids his home, finds the cyanide, and he eventually is like, all right, I will help you to get Banerjee, you know, so that I don't end up in jail for the rest. [00:38:32] Speaker B: The cyanide is in the U.S. the [00:38:34] Speaker A: cyanide's in the U.S. yeah. It hasn't even been transferred to Britain. I don't know how he planned to do that. Like, that seems difficult. It's pre 9 11. You can probably just put it in your bag. But I don't think you need that much of it, that's for sure. Yeah, I don't know again, but like I said, with arson being a bad plan, like, most types of murder are a bad plan, and the people who carry these things out are not in their right minds about it. So. [00:39:06] Speaker B: Great points all. But, I mean, enough cyanide to kill 200 people is all well and good. Yeah, but if it's not even in the country where you want those 200 [00:39:16] Speaker A: people, it's not gonna help you much. [00:39:20] Speaker B: This plan is riddled. This entire story is all in it, full of silly, silly people making silly decisions. [00:39:27] Speaker A: Right? I've seen the sheep detectives. You have trees that you can poison someone with. That'd be a lot easier than trying to get cyanide from the United States to London. Terrible idea. And it didn't work. Imagine that. So. But he decides to help them get a confession from Banerjee. But naturally, Banerjee was suspicious. Why would they let Cologne out of jail after they found him with, like, Aum Shinrikio levels of poison in his garage? Like, doesn't make sense. So their first attempt at getting him to confess was a total wash. He insisted in communicating using Post Its, which he would then rip up and put in the sink so that they were, you know, unreadable. And then at the end of the meeting between the two, which was in an IHOP bathroom, he made Cologne strip to show that he wasn't wearing a wire. He was in fact wearing a wire, but they'd sewn it into the flap of his underwear. So Banerjee actually could find it. [00:40:29] Speaker B: Yeah, very good. [00:40:30] Speaker A: Well, aside from the fact that you it recorded nothing, this is not a good location for a wire. Just a lot of movement. Scratching. [00:40:39] Speaker B: Yeah, [00:40:41] Speaker A: yeah, just, you know, ambience, essentially. Eventually, though, Cologne convinced Banerjee that he was actually on the run in Switzerland. And they met in a hotel in Zurich where FBI agents listened from the other side of the wall as Cologne got him to confess to orchestrating Denoia's murder and the attempt on the dancers in Britain. [00:41:05] Speaker B: Has this made it to dramatization yet? Has a movie been made of this yet? [00:41:09] Speaker A: Mark, What I just told you. [00:41:12] Speaker B: Okay, I thought you told me. [00:41:13] Speaker A: Khmel Nanjani. [00:41:14] Speaker B: Fine, fine, fine, fine, fine. [00:41:16] Speaker A: There is the documentary as well, but yes, Dan Stevens. Kumail Nanjani. [00:41:19] Speaker B: Ah, yes, of course. You did nothing. [00:41:22] Speaker A: Yes, you can watch it here on Hulu. I don't know, probably Disney over there. I can't remember what it's called, but it might be just like as simple as like the Chippendales murders or something like that. But yes, so he got, he gets them to. He gets him to admit that he hired him for these things and he's finally arrested and tried in 1993, facing up to 26 years in prison, which seems low to me, given that at least one person was actually dead. And also he had like a bunch of racketeering charges and things like that against him. Yeah, but that was what he was up against and he apparently felt differently than I do about it and decided that was too many years. So on the day of his sentencing, he tied a piece of bed sheet around his neck, placed it on a wall mounted jacket hanger and pulled down on it while he kneeled, causing the flow of air to be cut off, according to the warden of the detention center where he was being held. And so he died. And that is the weirdly murdery story of the most successful female oriented thirst trap on the planet, which still runs to this day, often with celebrity strippers like Ian Ziering, Tyson Beckford, Joey Lawrence and so on. As I said, I have no idea who runs it now, but you know, it's definitely very trademarked and all that copyrighted stuff. His Son who received basically nothing in the way of inheritance from his father, actually now is a stripper himself, running his own show called Strippendales. I don't know how he gets around copyright with that, but you know it. All of it now is quite quaint and harmless as long as you don't peek behind the curtain at the people who started. [00:43:03] Speaker B: Still running. [00:43:05] Speaker A: Yep, still running. Still go to Vegas. Chippendales, like, one of the biggest shows they got going there. [00:43:11] Speaker B: I will say that is a hell of a tale. [00:43:15] Speaker A: I know, right? There's a fucking lot going on here. [00:43:21] Speaker B: Very. Listen, there's a lot of Americana in that tale. There's a lot of America. I. I honestly, I don't know where to begin. I am delighted to know more about that. I'm delighted that I now know so much more about that topic than I did 44 minutes ago. Thank you. [00:43:37] Speaker A: I got you. [00:43:38] Speaker B: Yeah. And ripe for. I. I do hope. I don't know if I'll ever see that movie. I don't know if I'll ever watch it, but there's a lot of comedy there, right? There's a lot of comedic ineptitude there. [00:43:54] Speaker A: 100%. [00:43:55] Speaker B: There's. I get, you know, I get images of people thinking that they're fucking gangsters here. I get people who think they're fucking dangerous Night Crew, you know? Yeah, but they are not. [00:44:06] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. Like, even in this, like, you know, when Cologne was trying to find someone to like, carry out mergers and stuff like that, like, one of the problems he came up against is that, like, he has no mob connections. [00:44:16] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [00:44:17] Speaker A: That's a guy who wants to be the mob, but he has zero connection. [00:44:21] Speaker B: There's something guy four lions here. There's something Chris Morris here. There's something quite like very Boogie nights in ways. [00:44:28] Speaker A: Like, there's a lot going on in here that, like, you know, just inept dumbasses, cocaine fueled, aspirational, you know, craving success and sex. [00:44:40] Speaker B: And I'm thinking a beautiful stuff ensemble cast. There's some real characters here, you know. Mm. Oh, that was a page turner that. You know, you took me on the whole Joag journey there. You really did. From. Sorry, what? Where she. What she talking about now? What is this to a place where. I don't know if you saw my expression during the last 10 minutes. I was hanging on your every word. [00:45:07] Speaker A: It really genuinely started. [00:45:09] Speaker B: I'm not gonna. [00:45:10] Speaker A: What? I don't. Why are you saying. [00:45:11] Speaker B: I'm not gonna lie. I was just surfing the web and looking at the telly for about 20 minutes. [00:45:16] Speaker A: I know. I can see it. [00:45:17] Speaker B: I was like, I'm not really into it. But then I think it was around about the time when Strawberry got involved, maybe around there. But I was like, God damn, I think she's got some in here. [00:45:27] Speaker A: You gotta trust the process, Marco. [00:45:29] Speaker B: You've got to fucking trust the process. You've got to go on the journey. Ah, that was fantastic. Let me quote directly from my notes, if I may. [00:45:38] Speaker A: Yes, please do. [00:45:39] Speaker B: Fucking look at these nerds. Oh, mise en scene. [00:45:43] Speaker A: I don't think anyone has ever said mise en scene in such a horny way before. [00:45:47] Speaker B: The way I whispered the word sex. [00:45:48] Speaker A: Cannibal received worst comes to worst. Mark, I'm willing to guillotine you for science. [00:45:53] Speaker B: Thank you. That's really, really sweet. It's cold outside, but my pancreas is talking to me. [00:45:58] Speaker A: I'm. [00:45:58] Speaker B: I'm gonna leg it. [00:46:00] Speaker A: You know how I feel about that, Mark? [00:46:02] Speaker B: I think you feel great about it. [00:46:06] Speaker A: Take us in. Goober. [00:46:08] Speaker B: I don't know what water. I was gonna say lubricate. Yeah, but that was entirely the wrong hydrate. I'm gonna hydrate. [00:46:17] Speaker A: We've had enough lubrication for one evening. [00:46:19] Speaker B: We certainly have. It's not often that joag drifts into salty waters, is it? [00:46:25] Speaker A: No, not really. [00:46:27] Speaker B: That's not our purview at all. And I kind of. I want to keep it that way if that's true. [00:46:36] Speaker A: You do not want to hear me talk anymore about masturbation and things of that nature. [00:46:41] Speaker B: Stop it. Stop it. Because, fair. You know, you're something of a sisterly figure to me. Or maybe like an aunt, you know? [00:46:49] Speaker A: Oh, come on. [00:46:54] Speaker B: And I don't know, it doesn't quite. Doesn't quite. Doesn't quite line up. [00:47:00] Speaker A: I apologize to the audience. I'm sure you all. You all feel the same way. [00:47:04] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:47:04] Speaker A: Why is she talking like this? It's my podcast aunt. [00:47:09] Speaker B: But I've got no problem at all if you want to do, like a side cast. If you want to, you know, if [00:47:16] Speaker A: you want to get exploring, saucy stories. [00:47:19] Speaker B: Yeah, crack on. But I mean, let's keep. Let's keep this a little. I guess it's. It's a strange kind of territory where our usual subject matter rubs up against the erotic. [00:47:35] Speaker A: Yeah, well, you know, that's normally a thing I avoid, you know, at least movie wise. [00:47:39] Speaker B: Yes. [00:47:40] Speaker A: I don't want my sex and violence mixed well. [00:47:43] Speaker B: No. And nor do I, really. Not. Not in any meaningful way. Yeah, I don't enjoy that's an entirely different kind of avenue of therapy that I don't even want to go down. Right. I want to keep those separate. Thanks. If that's all right. [00:47:59] Speaker A: And yet here we are. [00:48:01] Speaker B: And yet here we are six years in, six years deep. Maybe it was inevitable that we. That we'd find ourselves here. [00:48:08] Speaker A: Yes, indeed. [00:48:10] Speaker B: Maybe I'll try and top it. Maybe next week. [00:48:12] Speaker A: Oh, no, I don't. I don't like the sound of that. Let's not. [00:48:18] Speaker B: I don't know what you're gonna get next week. [00:48:20] Speaker A: I don't need that next week, since I've taken your murders next week. You just need to, like, scotch something, you know, you need to. [00:48:27] Speaker B: Yeah, I'll talk about a maritime disaster there. [00:48:29] Speaker A: Yes, exactly. That's the idea. [00:48:32] Speaker B: Okay. Wow. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to this week's Jack of All Graves. Hope it finds you. Well, I hope it finds you. I hope it finds you in a place where your. Your demons and your intrusive thoughts and voices are just down to a low kind of one on the volume meter. Just like we all know they're there. We all know they're telling you to do horrible things 24 hours a day, making you feel as though you're weird and a freak and that everyone sees this. But I hope this week in particular, you've managed to dial them down to a barely audible level. To a level that means you can go about your day almost believing the lie you tell yourself that you're just doing okay, you're doing fine. I hope you're able to at least fool yourself that you're normal this week. How about that? Because we know, don't we? We know the truth. Yes. How are you doing, Corrigan? [00:49:39] Speaker A: Sweaty. [00:49:40] Speaker B: Why did we miss last week? Was it me? Was it my fault? [00:49:42] Speaker A: Well, so Sunday was the World cup, and I was like, I'm gonna be watching it, our listeners gonna be watching it. And then Monday we're gonna do something. And then you were under the weather on Monday. [00:49:53] Speaker B: Well, quite literally. Hey, we're on now, the third, I think, resurgence of the British heat. It's coming back at us again. It's almost fooled us. [00:50:08] Speaker A: Let's get it out of the way right now before I get there. [00:50:11] Speaker B: We've had, like, a fool's summer where it's receded so that you can just fool yourself into thinking that's where the fool comes from. You see, you fool yourself into thinking that it's over. Much like, you know, somebody's emptied their clip into Michael Myers. Jason's had A machete to the head and you're. You. You exhale and you think ah. But no, it is a fool's summer because it is back to make a fool out of you. Right. Me and. And it. And it has a ruinous effect on me. You mentioned. What is it? Did you. What did you call it? Seasonal affective disorder. [00:50:45] Speaker A: Disorder. [00:50:45] Speaker B: Yes, I'm sure I've got it. And I was thinking about this earlier, just going about my day. It's been a lovely day today. Me and the family have spent a lovely day just on a woodland walk. And it's been manageable and it's been lovely. And I've been thinking, isn't that many months of the year that I reliably feel like. I mean, let's just count them down. September, I'm fine. October, fine. November, December, fine. January starts to get a bit dark. [00:51:12] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:51:13] Speaker B: January is a little post Christmas, but so January, February, March, March starts to be alright. So there's two of those two months. January and February are pretty rough, right? [00:51:24] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:51:24] Speaker B: And then June, July, June, July. I'm January. Okay. Then by the start of August. So four months out of 12, it could be worse. It could be. That's like. That's like a third. A third, isn't it? [00:51:37] Speaker A: Is it a third or a quarter? [00:51:39] Speaker B: That's a third. [00:51:40] Speaker A: Okay. [00:51:40] Speaker B: 4, 8, 12. [00:51:42] Speaker A: Okay. Yeah. [00:51:43] Speaker B: That's a just word coming in. Yep. I'm reliably. That is in fact a third of every year. The. The weather and the clock and the sun and things like that mess me up. So. And we're coming on the other side. But what I'm saying is me and the family are going to London this week for our annual trip to the fucking theater, which we do. We'll say over every year and catch a couple of shows. It's gonna be 32 when we're in the middle of the. [00:52:10] Speaker A: The city. This. It sounds hot, right? Yeah. [00:52:13] Speaker B: And it's gonna be rough. Be rough. It's gonna be fun, but it's gonna be rough. [00:52:19] Speaker A: I'm a, like, I'm a very sweaty person, you know, like super sweaty. I. I thought we said. [00:52:26] Speaker B: I thought we agreed no more eroticism. This. [00:52:30] Speaker A: I thought we'd said apologies to anyone getting all hot and bothered at that. But I get so like you're Dan Stevens going for an American role. I so, you know, I go to the gym every day, all of that. And we have. So there's air conditioning in the gym obviously. And then there's also fans and like this is always Like a little bit of a tug of war. Like, like one of some of the, like, trainers don't like to turn on the fans. Like, some people don't. They're like, they get really. [00:53:03] Speaker B: Not turn the fan on right. [00:53:05] Speaker A: Like, but some people don't like that. Like, it dries them out. They don't like the feeling of the air on them, that kind of thing. Whatever. I need the fan deeply because I just turn into a puddle. Like, the degree that I sweat is so intense that, like the other day I stood in a spot where there wasn't like a fan aimed at me. And it was like when we did sit ups, when I got up, it was just like the shape of me left on the floor where I'm sweating. And the other day, like, we were doing kickboxing. And you know, the. The guy who coaches on the kickboxing days, he likes to kind of haze you a little bit, go a little hard, make you do something a little harder, you know, which I love. I love for someone to like, push me really hard. [00:53:44] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Okay. [00:53:45] Speaker A: And so it's like doing a thing was like kind of like pushing the. The bag down as I was doing like, like these high knees on the bag. And I was supposed to keep it up at that time. And it was just like my hands were like slipping. And then eventually I was basically just like holding the bag on my boobs instead of in my. There was so much sweat everywhere. It was like splashing and I just, this time of year. [00:54:09] Speaker B: Splashing? [00:54:10] Speaker A: Did you just say just splashing? Because, like, my hair gets it and so it like splashes out of my hair. Like I'm like in a punk band. It's so miserable. And I do apologize in advance if it is hot when I get to London. And you're going to have to experience, all of you who will be there going to. [00:54:28] Speaker B: Strange episode this is. What a fucking unusual, peculiar week we're having here in Jackal Green. [00:54:34] Speaker A: Well, it's. It's the weather. It's what happens. It is. It makes us a little loopy. [00:54:38] Speaker B: Insane. It makes you weird. Makes you. Makes you bonkers. How far off are we? 10 days. [00:54:44] Speaker A: 10. 10. Well, 10 days till I get on the plane and we're, you know, I think we're at eight days till the actual stuff starts. [00:54:56] Speaker B: No, eight days. I don't think it's eight days. If it's 10 days till you're on the plane. 10 days. [00:55:03] Speaker A: I take off at night and it's like an overnight. So then I Get there. So that would be nine days. And then there's a day where we're gonna plan some things and whatnot and then next day we do things. [00:55:14] Speaker B: Holy shit. That is very soon. That's like a week. [00:55:16] Speaker A: I went the wrong way. No, 12 days. I went the wrong way. I meant 12 days. [00:55:21] Speaker B: 12 days. So we should. [00:55:22] Speaker A: Silly. [00:55:23] Speaker B: You know, we should be able to reasonably, predictably reliably work out if it's going to be hot as hot. [00:55:30] Speaker A: That's true. I'm gonna be like terrified looking at the 10 day forecast like you. [00:55:34] Speaker B: Same, same, same. [00:55:36] Speaker A: Please, please, God, bring the, bring the temperature down. Oh, but it doesn't matter because it's [00:55:41] Speaker B: all falling into place beautifully. Everything has come together. Everything that needs booking has been booked, everything that needs reserving has been reserved. Everything that needs planning has been planned. So all we got to do is just turn up and have a gay old time. [00:55:56] Speaker A: Yes. Just an intimate gathering of our podcast besties. And I'm so stoked on this entire adventure. We're gonna have delicious drinks and foods and we're gonna laugh and we're gonna see dead people and it's just gonna be so much fun. [00:56:13] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. Can't wait. We are of course referring to Jack of all Graves International Pan Galactic meetup, which is happening on the 6th of August. Packet and information available should you decide. [00:56:27] Speaker A: 7th and 8th of August. [00:56:29] Speaker B: 7th and 8th. Okay. Yeah. Yes. Gonna be again a gay old time. That was in the lyrics of the Flintstones theme tune. We'll have a gay old time. Meant happy then, didn't it? [00:56:45] Speaker A: It did. It also kind of meant gay. So, you know, there's that. What was I gonna say? I learned some like weird Flintstones fact this week and now I can't remember what it is. I always hated. Like, I didn't like the Flintstones, the Jetsons, the, like that period of. Nope, same animated thing. [00:57:10] Speaker B: The. That Hanna Barbera. Very safe, very nuclear family. Very Reagan era, I want to say. [00:57:20] Speaker A: I think it's. I mean, that stuff came out in like the 60s, didn't it? [00:57:24] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, maybe you're right. [00:57:26] Speaker A: Yeah. So. But you know, cuz. Yeah, that's what you got, the Jetsons. Like a space age kind of situation they got going on there. I don't know. It's a very weird moment that I never really got into and so, yeah, I don't know, I just hated that stuff. [00:57:42] Speaker B: Was it the same studio that did Scooby Doo? That was Hanna Barbera as well, I believe. [00:57:46] Speaker A: Maybe I didn't like Scooby Doo either. [00:57:50] Speaker B: Did you didn't or don't. [00:57:52] Speaker A: Did not. Like, I don't. [00:57:54] Speaker B: What about Scooby Doo on film? [00:57:56] Speaker A: I mean, I didn't see the, like, Scooby Doo movie, like, the first one until, like, four years ago, I want to say. And I was like, it's cute. I didn't hate it as much as the show, but it's not like. I know a lot of people who. It's like, the Scooby Doo movie, like, changed me. That's not me, is. [00:58:15] Speaker B: It does have a lot of very passionate fans. [00:58:18] Speaker A: Yeah. It just. I wasn't into it. I did have. [00:58:20] Speaker B: Yeah. Yogi Bear. All of that. [00:58:22] Speaker A: Yogi Bear. Yeah. All of that action was like, that's like. That's the Duplo to my Lego, you know? Like, that is not. That's not the thing that I want. That's the, like. That's the budget. Like, we have the real thing at home kind of like. You know what I mean? [00:58:41] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:58:42] Speaker A: That's not. Those weren't. I wanted, like, Nickelodeon cartoons and things like that, you know, I wanted Rugrats. You can't give me the Flintstones. [00:58:49] Speaker B: Nothing. Nothing about the fucking Hair Bear Bunch or Yogi's gang is gonna challenge you in any way, is it? Nothing is gonna make you, you know, is gonna reveal anything to you as a kid. [00:59:06] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:59:06] Speaker B: And I think about. [00:59:08] Speaker A: Yeah, go ahead. [00:59:09] Speaker B: Animation that I. That I remember loving was revelatory. It kind of. Whoa, wait a fucking. You can't do that. You can't say that on tv. I've never thought of things that way before. It was risky, you know, Beavis, about Ed Ren and Stimpy, the Simpsons. You're not gonna get anything like that sense of being on the edge of something. [00:59:28] Speaker A: Yeah, well, that's the thing, like, I remember telling you about this, like, in a conversation many moons ago, sort of pet interest of mine that brushed up against yours back in the day. But that, like, you know, oftentimes when we talk about, like, the golden age of something, it's just nostalgia, right? Like, oh, things were better when I [00:59:45] Speaker B: was at kid or whatever. [00:59:47] Speaker A: However, I agree. [00:59:48] Speaker B: A good point. Yeah. [00:59:49] Speaker A: The golden age of Nickelodeon is, like, genuinely a thing for exactly the reason that you talked about. Because, you know, they had a president at Nickelodeon named Geraldine Laborn, and she created this, like, bunch of. This section of cartoons, right. That she decided were going to be creator driven. And that meant, you know, when you're used to, like, like, the Hanna Barbera cartoons, they follow a format, right? Like, They're. They all look the same. Their stories are essentially the same. All of that kind of thing. Right. And things are sort of made with, like, a very. Like, this is what cartoons are. Just give the kids the thing. Like, kids television was, like, not really a thing anyone cared about, right? [01:00:28] Speaker B: Yes, yes. [01:00:28] Speaker A: And so Geraldine Labourne was like, hey, let's get creators to pitch their ideas, whatever they are, and then we give them complete creative control over whatever it is that they make. Right. And we're not gonna committee it. We're gonna say, you do your thing. And so those shows were Rugrats, Doug Ren and Stimpy. What's the fourth one? I can't remember what the fourth one is off the top of my head, but these were, like, the. The first things. It was like a first block that she made, I think. Hey, Arnold was a little later. I think there was one other traveling. [01:01:04] Speaker B: There was a family in a fucking camper van. [01:01:06] Speaker A: That's Wild Thornberries. That's a little later. So that's once the experiment worked. Right. So when we got, like, Rugrats Dug, Randy and the Stimpy and whatever the fourth one is, I can't think of it. Someone's probably yelling it way later. [01:01:18] Speaker B: Okay. [01:01:19] Speaker A: But these. These show out, and it was a hit, right? Like, because they. They challenged what you expected of kids tv, and they let the creators, like, just, like, tell the story that you want to tell. [01:01:32] Speaker B: What. My one. My one exception to that rule, Right. Pre Nickelodeon animation, which I remember distinctly feeling challenged and surprised by as a kid, was Muppet Babies. [01:01:44] Speaker A: Sure. Well. And Muppet Babies was on Nickelodeon. [01:01:47] Speaker B: There we go. [01:01:47] Speaker A: Okay, okay. And that came out after all of those shows did as well. So these, like. Yeah, I believe so. Maybe it was like a reiteration of it that came out after. But it aired on Nickelodeon. It became part of the Nickelodeon block. [01:02:03] Speaker B: I think Muppet Babies guided me towards a movie or two based on the. [01:02:10] Speaker A: Yeah. Because of their little. [01:02:11] Speaker B: That they use. [01:02:12] Speaker A: Right? Yeah. [01:02:14] Speaker B: Like, Attack the Killer Tomatoes and whatnot. Because. [01:02:16] Speaker A: Yes, totally. [01:02:17] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:02:18] Speaker A: And that was. The thing is, it's like, just let the people who create these things do what they want to do. And that began, like, this series for the next, like, decade or so of these cartoons being made with, like, just let the creator do what they want. So then you do get those other ones that you named, like, Wild Thornberry's Cat Dog, spongebob. Like. [01:02:35] Speaker B: Sure. [01:02:35] Speaker A: You know, all these different cartoons. [01:02:37] Speaker B: Johnny Bravo. [01:02:38] Speaker A: That was Cartoon Network, which. Then what sort of happened after Geraldine labor and Leebourne Moved out of Nickelodeon was that the shows became made more like by committee again. Right? Get a bunch of people in a boardroom. What kind of show do we create that appeals to the most kids, sells the most toys, things like that. And then you get like every show on both, like, Nickelodeon and Disney is now, like, about a kid becoming famous. Right? You know, icarly, Hannah Montana, you know, all these different shows like that. They're all the same thing. And there's no more of that, like, really creative kind of like show for children that they're, like, making. At that point, all of those creators moved to Cartoon. Cartoon Network was under the same parent company, which is Viacom. And then you get like Adult Swim and, you know, you get like Ren and Stimpy aired on Cartoon Network after that. Obviously the creator turned out to be a giant piece of shit, but, like, he did hugely. But, like, all those creators who kind of like got pushed out of Nickelodeon and weren't able to make creators creator driven content anymore, moved over to Cartoon Network and began making stuff that then began that huge era of Cartoon Network stuff for us, which also gave us, like, you know, they owned all of the Hanna Barbera stuff. So things like Space Ghost being able to like, use bits of those things came from them owning that body of work. And so you have just like this really interesting period where you look back, like kids, you know, millennials and whatnot, being like, oh, the kids TV was so much better. Yeah, it was because they let the creators make the at that time. And you had much more interesting stuff than things that's just like a whole bunch of white men sitting around a table and going, what will keep their eyes on this the longest? [01:04:25] Speaker B: Yes. I seem to remember those fucking Hanna Barbera cartoons having a laugh track. How disgusting is that? [01:04:33] Speaker A: Did they? [01:04:34] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm certain. [01:04:35] Speaker A: I don't know. There's a lot of things I hated about those horrible [01:04:40] Speaker B: reusing background assets and just reusing. [01:04:43] Speaker A: Well, yeah, exactly. To be fair, I'm not like a huge, like, cartoon person in general, so. But I think the thing is, it's because, like, I didn't like those. I didn't like Looney Tunes. I didn't like stuff like that. But you give me. I will still sit and watch hours of hey, Arthur. Hey, Arnold. If you put it in front of me. [01:05:02] Speaker B: Cool. Nice, man. We nice. Sidebar kind of went off on a little side. [01:05:10] Speaker A: Yes. Another sidebar. Not really. This is an on topic sidebar. We have a new snack series. [01:05:20] Speaker B: Lot of fun. [01:05:21] Speaker A: A lot of fun. We've decided to branch into international films and watch some things that are new to us. Obviously I'm the one who tends to be a little more hesitant about that because I'm not great with subtitles. But it's like, you know what? Marco came up with this idea and I said, I'm on board. [01:05:39] Speaker B: Let's roll with it. Yes. Snack around the World, where Corrigan and I consume and discuss world horror. We started in Spain this week, this month with Thesis, a fantastic, really kind of beautifully paced, beautifully realized, intelligent fucking movies movie about a. Well, listen, just go to the Kofi and, and, and watch the snack. It's a really, really, really cool movie to start with, I think. One that, yeah, I never would have watched otherwise. [01:06:13] Speaker A: Yeah. Right. [01:06:15] Speaker B: And I'm hoping for more of these. And when I talk, when I talk world horror, I. I'm hoping we get the chance to watch like indigenous horror, like folk horrors real connected to. Yes, exactly. Stuff that not in a million years would, would, would fall onto our radar. Would never pop up on the Netflix or Shudder carousel. I really want some international deep cuts during the course of this series. So. [01:06:44] Speaker A: Yeah. So if you know any. [01:06:46] Speaker B: Yeah. Please shout out. For some reason I've got it in my head that I reckon there's a. Probably a banging horror scene in Tibet. I really want mountain horror, you know. [01:06:58] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm into that. I like the idea of that. [01:07:00] Speaker B: So if anyone has any ideas or any wrecks either go to our discord or, you know, that's pretty much the only way to get hold of us these days. [01:07:07] Speaker A: So Blue sky or the Kofi or Blue sky, any of those places. We will, we will take those ideas into consideration. But yes, we had fun with that. So make sure you go and check that out. [01:07:19] Speaker B: Lots of fun. [01:07:20] Speaker A: K o-f I.com jackofallgraves Obviously there's from two weeks ago, Kristen and I also talking about the movie no One Will Save you, the alien invasion movie on there. We're talking about Lake Placid in a couple weeks. So, you know, get yourself ready with that. I actually watched it with my friend Mac last night because he had never seen it. And I was like, well, no, Lake Placid. [01:07:44] Speaker B: Lake Placid. Okay. Great film. [01:07:45] Speaker A: Yes. So we, we put that one on and enjoyed a little Crocodile Horror last night. [01:07:52] Speaker B: For some reason I got Rennie Harlan in my mind. Did he make it? [01:07:55] Speaker A: I don't think so. No, I don't, I don't remember seeing his name on there. But it has a lot of. It has A stack stacked cast, that's for sure. Steve Minor is the director. [01:08:11] Speaker B: Okay. Yes. Okay, fine. [01:08:12] Speaker A: Who's done Multiple Friday the 13th house? The. Obviously the 1985 one, not the Japanese one. My father the hero. Creepy. [01:08:25] Speaker B: Is that right? [01:08:25] Speaker A: Quite a lot of stuff. Have you heard of my father the hero? [01:08:29] Speaker B: No, I haven't. [01:08:30] Speaker A: It's. [01:08:31] Speaker B: Or have I. Is it Bill Cosby? [01:08:33] Speaker A: No, it's Gerard Depardieu. [01:08:35] Speaker B: All right. Okay. [01:08:36] Speaker A: Yeah, it's like a super, super gross movie where, like, Katherine Heigl is his daughter and they, like, go on vacation and he pretends to be her lover. She's, like, trying to impress a boy and, like, so, like, having the older man. It's gross. It's a disgusting plot line that you would never put in a movie in 2015. [01:09:01] Speaker B: Steve Miner is the fucking man, by the way. What if I said Warlock? [01:09:10] Speaker A: Yep. [01:09:11] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, fucking right. Talk about. Let's go to the video shop. What if I said Warlock, mate? [01:09:17] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, that's. Yeah, it goes pretty deep in this here filmography. [01:09:24] Speaker B: Oh, speaking of which, let's by all means pull one out for Chuck Russell. [01:09:28] Speaker A: Right, yes, of course. [01:09:30] Speaker B: Very Night of the Creeps, too. [01:09:32] Speaker A: Not Chuck Russell. This is still Steve Miner, Halloween, age 2. Oh, very sad for Chuck Russell. [01:09:37] Speaker B: Super sad. What a weird career. What a strange and interesting career that guy had. The one time that I met Robert Englund at a con, in fact, I mentioned Chuck Russell to him. [01:09:46] Speaker A: Did you? [01:09:47] Speaker B: And asked if, you know. Cause. But he all but disappeared. [01:09:51] Speaker A: Right. [01:09:52] Speaker B: By the noughties, some TV work, but he'd all but vanished. And in talking to Robert Englund about part three, Chuck Russell's name came up. And as it did this week, as he sadly has died. [01:10:06] Speaker A: Yes, indeed. [01:10:09] Speaker B: Which sucks. Which absolutely sucks. The brightest fucking flames burn quickest. What a strange filmography. [01:10:15] Speaker A: It's not that quick, but, you know, it's like 74 right now. [01:10:19] Speaker B: That still doesn't. Like I said, I think on snackable graves, yeah, that. That doesn't feel like the right time to die. That still feels early to die, particularly in 2026. I want to be living into my 90s. [01:10:32] Speaker A: Do you? [01:10:33] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. I don't want to die at all. [01:10:36] Speaker A: Well, I guess that's fair. [01:10:38] Speaker B: But I don't want to die, like, at all. It's. It's this. The only reason why I run and go to the gym as often as I do is to die, ever. [01:10:47] Speaker A: If I could still be, like, 40 forever, yeah, I wouldn't want to die at all. But I think once I'M like, night. Like, my grandmother at 92 was like, yeah, I think I'm kind of done. [01:10:57] Speaker B: Okay. [01:10:58] Speaker A: You know, like, she had a good life, but she's like this. My knees hurt. You know, this. [01:11:04] Speaker B: I was gonna ask, actually, when you spoke about sweating at the gym earlier on, is it helping your mobility? Do you find that you're less, you know, prone to things bursting out of joint and. [01:11:16] Speaker A: No, no. In fact, I kind of injure myself a fair amount. You know, But I've learned things about my body which I think is valuable. You know, I figured out, like, what parts are loose and what parts are tight. And, like, I figured out my pelvis is kind of tilted. So I've been working on, like, exercises to try to, like, correct the pelvic tilt and. [01:11:37] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:11:37] Speaker A: You know, so there's, like, things that I've, like, figure like that's what's been helpful in terms of, like, the Ehlers Danlos problems is the. Like. Okay. I kind of. See, I can predict better what things will, like, trigger a problem than before. [01:11:53] Speaker B: Well, okay. Well, that's. That. That seems really good in itself. That seems in itself valuable. [01:11:59] Speaker A: I am concerned that I don't rest my left shoulder enough. I'm gonna end up, like, getting it replaced in a decade or something like that. So that's the thing I need to work on. [01:12:08] Speaker B: But, you know, it sounds like it's gonna be expensive. [01:12:11] Speaker A: Yeah, right. Especially over here. [01:12:13] Speaker B: New shoulder. Fuck it out. [01:12:15] Speaker A: Yeah, new shoulder. My. You know, everybody in my family had, like, new knees and stuff like that. But I think I'm doing the things to prevent needing new knees or at least seems more important. Push back. Yeah, I mean, I think it's just about, like, you know, they didn't build the muscle. They weren't doing squats and things. My mom's never done a squat in her life. You know, like these. These kinds of things. I think I can keep my knees, and that's a little more important than keeping my shoulder. My shoulder doesn't work great anyway. And if I get it replaced, I don't have to stop walking as a result. [01:12:51] Speaker B: Maybe something. Maybe a conversation will come back to which parts of your body could you. Do you feel more. Yeah, Yeah, I see. I think a shoulder is equally as important as a knee. If you. [01:13:02] Speaker A: Well, like, on a practical level, like, if you get your knees replaced, you can't walk. Whereas if you get your shoulder replaced, you just, like, can't use it for a couple months [01:13:17] Speaker B: again. We'll come back to it. Yeah, I'll have to put some thought. [01:13:21] Speaker A: Think this through. What are our most expendable joints [01:13:27] Speaker B: in exactly the same way Consistent gym going does show you where your points of failure are. [01:13:36] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. [01:13:38] Speaker B: The weakest links in your bodily chain. For me, it's my left elbow. [01:13:44] Speaker A: Is that the one you broke? [01:13:49] Speaker B: No, it isn't actually. [01:13:50] Speaker A: Oh, interesting. [01:13:51] Speaker B: It was my right elbow that I broke, but my left elbow. I have me some tendons. Elbow. [01:13:56] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:13:57] Speaker B: That will not go away. I rest it. But then I heard it again and I rested and I heard it again. [01:14:01] Speaker A: Yeah, that's basically how my shoulder is. It's like, you know, it just kind of. It's persistent. I'll rest it and, you know, whatever. But then a week after using it, it goes back to sucking again. Joints are a trap. What are we doing? They are put together badly. [01:14:19] Speaker B: In my 40s, what I think. What I think I'm getting is the kind of the trailers for the things that are really gonna cause me pain in the 60s and 70s if I'm. [01:14:32] Speaker A: This is the fucking. [01:14:34] Speaker B: God willing, if I'm lucky enough to get there, you know. [01:14:36] Speaker A: Right. Yeah. [01:14:38] Speaker B: We'll see. [01:14:39] Speaker A: We'll see. [01:14:40] Speaker B: We'll fucking see. [01:14:41] Speaker A: Shall we talk about some flims? [01:14:43] Speaker B: We've got a few to go through, haven't we? We've been quite active this week. Corrigan. Let me just say on a personal note, as your co host and friend, it's been lovely finding some time to watch some movies together lately. [01:14:55] Speaker A: I know. I feel like we were kind of off our game for a while there. And so it's like, nice to get back into the swing of, you know, that's where we started. We've been watching. I mean, at one point I was like thinking about it and I was like, we have seen literally hundreds of movies together. [01:15:10] Speaker B: So many. [01:15:11] Speaker A: And yeah, it feels wrong to not get to do that for a while. [01:15:15] Speaker B: We've communicated every fucking. Every day for six years. [01:15:19] Speaker A: Right, Exactly. [01:15:21] Speaker B: And we've got lots of movies under our. Under our belts, so it's been great to find some time to carry on doing that. I'm gonna kick us off with a rewatch. And I never rewatch film. I fucking. [01:15:31] Speaker A: It's not true. [01:15:34] Speaker B: It is, it's. Well, no, at face value, that's. [01:15:38] Speaker A: You've been rewatching quite a few films in, like the past few months. [01:15:42] Speaker B: But whether it's PR or what, or whether I'm finding Kane Parsons so fucking likable. Right. [01:15:52] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:15:53] Speaker B: I just had to give backrooms another go. [01:15:57] Speaker A: Yeah. And I think Lauren helped Convince you as well on the Discord. [01:16:00] Speaker B: She did. She did. I had. Because there was just something and something was telling me that I hadn't been fair to that movie. So a combination of it staying in my consciousness, Everybody still talks about it on Reddit all the fucking time. And our good friend Lauren on Discord and the just absolute likability of Kane Parsons as a guy and as a director meant, do you know what, buddy? I'm gonna steal your fucking film and watch it again. Right? [01:16:31] Speaker A: I'm gonna do you that honor. [01:16:33] Speaker B: Do you know, you've impressed me so much, I'm gonna commit piracy and take money out of your fucking family's mouth and watch your film again right on my telly under my terms. And I was correct in that I'd given it too harsh. [01:16:49] Speaker A: I'm very curious about this. Like, so what change? Because you did say you were like, some of the criticisms that you already had, you're like, yeah, no, that still stands. But what was it that, like, worked better for you this time around than the first time? [01:17:02] Speaker B: Fantastic question, right? This is a fucking guy. And I'm even. I'm even gonna do him the service of stopping calling him a kid and patronizing him passive aggressively, right? I'm gonna stop doing that. [01:17:15] Speaker A: I mean, it's also said a little bit lovingly to be like, it is. You know, he's making waves and he's a kid. [01:17:22] Speaker B: I'm glad that came across because it was meant respectfully in a sort of the kids are all right kind of way. But it's very well informed about horror that has come before it, Right? I love a movie that can take characters and absolutely fuck their shit up in a way that makes everything they think they know about the world around them wrong. And that's what Backrooms does. You've got two characters who just in the space of one event, discovering this fucking space. Literally everything that they know about the physical nature of life is totally upended. Nothing can ever be the same for these characters again when. When what happens in this movie happens just like anyone else. If you or I were to experience the events of this film, it would fuck everything up, up for us irrevocably. And a 24 is good at that, right? It has that in common with two of my absolute favorites from the good days of a 24, before it was a fucking shithole, Hereditary and Midsummer. You take characters who were pre and post the events of that film, and they can never be the same again. And that's what backrooms does. It's it's really well informed in it in a sin, a kind of a cinematic sense. The dread, sustained fucking dread of the uncanny is just soaking in this film. All of the time we spend in the yellow space with those characters is horrible. And at first viewing I was like, oh, for fuck's sake. They just walk in or rooms. Is that the fucking Gribby? Is it rooms that was selling it short? It is, is the challenge of the uncanny. It is being. Finding out that you. Everything that you know is wrong and the truth is actually fucking horrible and it's gonna bite you. That's what I didn't really land about backrooms. On the other hand, it has nothing to say about people in any way, shape or form. Right? [01:19:27] Speaker A: That was kind of thing that you were like, that still stands. [01:19:29] Speaker B: And if maybe it'll take me a third viewing because I dare say I'm gonna watch it again because I enjoyed it a lot. And if it's painting in colors that are imperceptible to me on two viewings, when I see those colors, I will fess up and apologize. But the human beings in this film are drawn in crayon, right? [01:19:47] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:19:48] Speaker B: It has nothing to say to me about humanity at all. But it is one fucking tight ass, uncanny fucking horror movie. And yeah, I was cruel and harsh before, and I take it back, I was wrong. [01:20:02] Speaker A: Fair enough. [01:20:03] Speaker B: Yeah, man. [01:20:04] Speaker A: I'm gonna maintain my hate for it, but you know, I still hate Corey Stink. He's a good, good kid. Yeah. No, I loathed everything about that movie on every single level. I thought it was just like, if you made a movie that was like, meant to annoy me, that is what that movie is. That's why you were like, you should just try it again. I was like, I don't think there's like, I don't have that, like, thing to cling to. I'm like, no, I think, I think that might work, actually. I'm like, no. Every single second of that was absolute torture. And I wanted to not be watching it every moment. Not because of any form of fear, dread, but boredom and annoyance. [01:20:43] Speaker B: Would you watch, would you watch a sequel? [01:20:46] Speaker A: No, absolutely not. [01:20:48] Speaker B: So you're. You're done with that universe? [01:20:51] Speaker A: I don't want. [01:20:52] Speaker B: You're done done with that whole thing [01:20:54] Speaker A: to do with, with that thing. It's just not a thing that interests me. Liminal horror does not interest me. I think that's like a thing I know about myself at this point. It's like, I'm not bothered by that uncanniness or whatever. I think if I walked in a place like that, I would leave and I've never think about it again. [01:21:14] Speaker B: Okay. You compartmentalize it. [01:21:15] Speaker A: I would say, yeah, I saw some weird shit. Maybe tell that story in a bar far. And then I would never revisit it. [01:21:22] Speaker B: Yeah, fair enough. You would not get lost in it. [01:21:25] Speaker A: I would not get. There would be no part of me that's like, I should walk farther. Yeah. [01:21:30] Speaker B: Like, turn around. [01:21:32] Speaker A: This is bad vibes. I'm out of here. [01:21:36] Speaker B: Vibes way off here. [01:21:38] Speaker A: Yeah. I can read a room, you know. [01:21:43] Speaker B: What do you got? You want to do one? What do you got? [01:21:45] Speaker A: Well, I went through. Because my Blue sky mutual, Robin was talking about how much she loves the Horror in the High Desert series. I don't think Robin listens to this podcast, but I'll send her your love. [01:22:00] Speaker B: But I don't call saying love. [01:22:03] Speaker A: Okay. Your greetings. But I had only seen the first two, and I really liked the first ones. Basically, sort of this is like a found footage series that begins with this guy who it's set up like almost like a Dateline episode, essentially. And they're talking about this guy who it's like he's got, like a little, like, speech impediment and whatnot. And he just like, makes videos for the Internet about, like, his explorations in the desert. And he's like, you know, just walking around with his dog, taking films. But he stumbles upon something that is horrible. [01:22:44] Speaker B: I am going to watch these movies. They've been queued up for fucking ages. And I've just got to get around to them. So don't. Don't ruin anything. [01:22:51] Speaker A: Yeah, well, I am totally like, give anything away or whatever. And I don't know what you'll. You'll make of this. I think a familiarity with shows like in documentaries like this really helps because there's some people who I've like. You know what I say about found footage is it lives and dies on the real, like, realism of the acting. Right? Of course. And when I watch this, I'm like, this is. Is so spot on. This is like, indistinguishable from an episode of Dateline or something like that. The way that people talk and I see other people say, these are bad actors. Well, if you want them to act like actors, yes, they are bad at that. [01:23:23] Speaker B: But that's why Strange Harvest was such a shame because it nailed that format, that NETFLIX documentary format. [01:23:30] Speaker A: So, well, they felt like real people. There just weren't enough of Them there was too much AI. There's, you know, didn't stick the landing. But with the horror in the high desert ones, it really does stick the landing. This also means that as such, like, it's, like, boring if you expect stuff to happen the whole time, which is not how it works. Now, wait a minute to a head at the end. [01:23:51] Speaker B: You're describing to me a movie which I don't. Doesn't feel like you should like. [01:23:56] Speaker A: Well, except that it's. I love crime documentaries. [01:23:59] Speaker B: I see. [01:24:00] Speaker A: So, like, when you watch that, you have someone talking the whole time. You have people explaining the story, what's going on, giving you background on things like that. It's just like there's not a jump scare anywhere in the movie until the last, you know, 15, 20 minutes. You know, that kind of thing. Like when people expect it to be like, oh, I should be seeing the monster the whole movie, then they're, like, upset that, like, oh, that doesn't happen until the end of it, you know, but it. [01:24:23] Speaker B: But it, I guess. Are you telling me that the format is the star here? It sticks to the format. [01:24:29] Speaker A: It really sticks the landing on the format. And then so, like, the first one, I was really impressed by that. And then the second one I like. The third one had me so scared that I almost had to turn my light on. [01:24:43] Speaker B: Beautiful. [01:24:44] Speaker A: It's like, just absolutely terrified. [01:24:48] Speaker B: Are they one story or so? [01:24:50] Speaker A: It's all, like, connected. They're not all one story. And that's from the fourth one I didn't like as much because it was like a prequel kind of situation that, like, I don't know, just didn't fit the lore. There's gonna be one more that I'm really excited for, though, even though the fourth one, I think that was kind of. But yeah, it's like all kind of connected stories to, like, this one guy finding this, like, weird house in the woods or whatever with some sort of strange people living inside of it and that, like, the lore kind of unfolds as it goes on as to, like, what's going on there. And yeah, I really like these movies even when, like, they don't totally stick the landing on them. I think they really work well with the. The format and have some genuinely scary stuff in them. And they're. They're not very long either. They're like, each, like an hour and 10 minutes. [01:25:38] Speaker B: An hour and 10 minutes? [01:25:39] Speaker A: Yeah, they're pretty short. So I think, like, the first one might be longer than that, but after that they're quite short. They Get. They get the point across pretty well, like a Dateline episode. So I watched all four of those. Had a good, good time with that. I also watched a Hitchcock movie I'd never seen before. [01:25:59] Speaker B: Beautiful. Which one? [01:26:00] Speaker A: Shadow. Shadow of a Doubt. [01:26:03] Speaker B: Shadow of a Doubt, I think I fucking have. Is that. [01:26:07] Speaker A: Go ahead. [01:26:08] Speaker B: Wait, let me just tell you the movie I think this is. It's a guy who creates fake evidence which points to him having committed a murder. [01:26:20] Speaker A: Well, yeah. Right, Yeah. I mean. Go on. [01:26:23] Speaker B: And does the evidence get. He stages a murder and fakes evidence to almost kind of prove that the legal system can be duped? [01:26:36] Speaker A: No, I think you're thinking of. [01:26:38] Speaker B: What am I thinking of? I'm thinking of beyond reasonable doubt, perhaps. [01:26:41] Speaker A: Oh, maybe that's it. Yeah, yeah. Because in this case, this is Joseph Cotton, and he is trying to hide evidence that he has committed a murder. So he goes home and he, like, goes to stay with, like, family, especially this, like, niece that really loves him. And over the course of this movie, it comes to pass that she starts to realize, like, it seems like maybe he may have been involved in a murder and he's trying to hide it. And then she goes and she's trying to, like, unravel clues, but then he catches wind of the fact that she is suspicious of him and obviously wants to stop her. And it's. Yeah, it's very like. I mean, it's just that classic Hitchcocky kind of thing. You know, the same kinds of little, like, machinations that you see in something like Rope and Strangers on a Train and whatnot. These characters trying to outsmart each other and, you know, go around each other's backs to try to figure out what the truth of an issue is and stuff like that. Yeah, it was really quite enjoyable. I mean, it. It's. It's. If you like, a standard, like, Hitchcock thriller like that. Is it early Shadow of a Doubt? Yeah, it's pretty early. I mean, I want to say. Oh, I'm not sure what year it is, but, you know, it's. Joseph Cotton isn't old, so he's pretty young in it. So I would say, yeah, it's a kind of an early ish1. And then it's an American Hitchcock, I think. It's not a British Hitchcock. So, yeah, I enjoyed Shadow of a Doubt. It was fun. [01:28:09] Speaker B: What made you. What made you pick it? What made you choose that blue? [01:28:14] Speaker A: Do you want to guess? Why? Because it's gonna be very obvious. [01:28:19] Speaker B: Was it on tcm? I don't know. [01:28:20] Speaker A: It was on tcm. Yeah, it's like, you know. You know exactly why I watched this movie. So that was fun. I have a couple others, but. What else did you get in? [01:28:38] Speaker B: I'll super briefly talk about the intergalactic adventures of sex pest Pedro Pascal and his little green fucking cunt puppet friend. Isn't he a sex pest? [01:28:49] Speaker A: No, I thought he was. Pascal is not a sex pest. There's like a whole bunch of right wingers who are trying to paint him as a sex pest because he, like, holds women's hands and stuff like that. But he's not. [01:29:00] Speaker B: You can't just walk around holding women's hands. [01:29:02] Speaker A: Yeah, there was like, basically that, like, you know, there was all this heartwarming content about like, you know, Pedro Pascal and like, him being around people and like, holding hands and stuff like that because he has social anxiety and whatnot. And then all these incels were like, he's sexually harassing women by doing this. And like, you wouldn't. It wouldn't be okay if it was like a regular guy. You only allow it because it's Pedro Pascal. It's like, also, Pedro Pascal's gay. [01:29:26] Speaker B: So is he. [01:29:28] Speaker A: Yeah, he's like, been like dating a guy. [01:29:31] Speaker B: No. [01:29:31] Speaker A: Yeah, I think he's an athlete. Like a soccer player. [01:29:34] Speaker B: Well, fuck my Mandalorian helmet. I had no idea. Incredible. What an episode. One for the fucking history books here. [01:29:45] Speaker A: Really? Yeah, there's a lot going on. Tell your. [01:29:47] Speaker B: Well, anyway. What a piece of shit film, though. [01:29:49] Speaker A: Yeah, terrible. I watched like, like 3/4 of it and gave up. [01:29:53] Speaker B: I found myself warming to it because about two thirds of the way through I made a kind of a. I realized that I was gonna get nothing from it. [01:30:01] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:30:02] Speaker B: At all. [01:30:03] Speaker A: All. [01:30:04] Speaker B: All I'm doing here is wasting my time and my breath. And on that basis, I managed to wring some joy out of it because, you know, it's the colors and the griblies and it's all, you know, space place. But moreover, I am. Maybe I'm being overly, overly optimistic here. I don't know, maybe it's something to do with having seen that Avengers trailer and having it elicit no response from me at all. [01:30:34] Speaker A: Right, Right. [01:30:35] Speaker B: I watched that fucking Avengers trailer and like, my pulse didn't quicken, my breathing didn't change, the temperature of my skin remained the same, my pupil dilation remained uniform. Not a single hair stood up on my arm or the back of my neck. Nothing changed for me at all in any way. [01:30:58] Speaker A: I think I raised an eyebrow at whatever happened to Chris Evans face. [01:31:02] Speaker B: All right. Is It. Is it over? Is that style of big scale spectacle filmmaking, is it over? [01:31:13] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, I was talking to. [01:31:14] Speaker B: Or am I aged out of it? [01:31:17] Speaker A: Yeah, I was talking to Mac about this because he's my biggest like, nerd friend, you know, he knows his shit when he comes to this stuff. And he also was unmoved by this. And it's just saying, like, you know, this feels unearned. This movie is the thing, right? [01:31:35] Speaker B: Totally. [01:31:36] Speaker A: We got sort of bait and switched when rather than recast Kang, they just changed the entire trajectory of this part of the mcu and they. It feels like everything was thrown together. And so you have all of these, like, different. Like Mac was saying, he's like, there's all these franchises that like, I. I should love and be excited to see the X Men in here and all this kind of stuff. But, like, why are they here? You know, like, they didn't earn this. Where like when we got to like the last two mcu. Original MCU movies. [01:32:09] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:32:10] Speaker A: It was like we were invested in [01:32:13] Speaker B: completely, completely these things. [01:32:15] Speaker A: And like, so when they came together, it meant something to us. [01:32:18] Speaker B: It's why. It's why DC can't seem to make it work. [01:32:21] Speaker A: Right? Yeah, exactly. [01:32:22] Speaker B: It's why no matter how many fucking directors they try with how many, you know, air quote showrunners or reboots or fucking creative vision, like, if James Gunn [01:32:32] Speaker A: can't pull it out, it's something beyond who is making. [01:32:36] Speaker B: But more than. More than the characters and more than the actual, you know, culminating arcs of storylines, what I'm talking about is that aesthetic. I'm talking about that green screen, green screen. No one is in the same place. No one is barely looking at one another. You know, characters who don't know who they, who they. Who they're even speaking to when they're reading the diagram. [01:33:00] Speaker A: Well, it could be someone else when they put it on the. [01:33:02] Speaker B: Exactly. And one feels that that is intentional, that the dialogue is so boilerplate that if there's a course correction, they can just swap out one character for another and it will make no, you know, narrative difference at all. Is that too cynical? [01:33:19] Speaker A: I mean, I don't know. I mean, I think maybe there's something to that. [01:33:21] Speaker B: Like, so Alan Cumming has said of his recording his lines as Nightcrawler. Right. I didn't know who I was fucking talking to. [01:33:30] Speaker A: Right, Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. No, I went, I saw. I watched Masters of the Universe the other day, actually had a great time. Thought it was like super, super fun. Yeah, I was shocked I had no plans on seeing it initially. [01:33:43] Speaker B: Now, that was Filmation. I believe that the studio that produced Masters the Universe Filmation. Seals from the Cats. [01:33:49] Speaker A: Yeah, I hated that stuff when I was a kid. That's another type of animation that I was not interested in. So I was like, why would I go see this movie? Actually really liked it. It was a lot of fun. But to your point, like, you know, a decade ago, this might have just on its face, drawn numbers for what it is. Like being kind of adjacent to the MCU kind of things. And like, this being the way that we make pictures, the soundstage, the green screen and all that kind of stuff. And it just like flopped, right? Like, it was not. Yeah, it flopped. Apparently Mac was saying they greenlit a sequel, which surprised me, and I'm glad to hear that. But the. The movie tanked. And it does feel like there has to be something about the fact that, like, at least on its face, if you're going to make that kind of movie, like, there has to be a real good reason for people to go and watch it, because it's just. It's not drawing us based on, like. It's big, but yeah, big movie in [01:34:52] Speaker B: 2026. Who the fuck is a he man movie for, really? [01:34:56] Speaker A: Right, Exactly. Well, and this is. So I was Googling this while we were watching the movie. This is crazy to me. He man only aired the cartoon for two years. Yeah, two years from 1983 to 1985. 65 episode seasons. So, like, it's a lot of episodes, but just two years. [01:35:16] Speaker B: I completely. [01:35:17] Speaker A: And then it aired in reruns until 1988. Right. And then I think they did. They got another run on TNT or something like that from 1988 to 1990. So we're looking at a show that was only available for you to watch on your television before there was streaming or anything like that, for a period of seven years in total. That is like. And that's including mostly reruns and syndication. That is so small of a group of people that you are targeting with this. Right? Because there's the people who watched initially who are gonna be like, yes, I'm on board, but that's two years. And then people don't really watch things as much in reruns and things like that. So it's such a staggeringly small group of people that it's wild to create something like this for the microest of micro generations now. It's had spinoffs like she Ra was more popular than he man was. You know, it's got comics. It's got all kinds of other things. Toys obviously. But like as a thing. Masters of the. The original movie. Everyone hated it. So. It's such a bizarre property. [01:36:33] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:36:33] Speaker A: To resurrect in 2026 for like a group of like. One wonders if one cohort of Gen [01:36:39] Speaker B: Xers sunk cost fallacy. Kind of because it's. It took so long to get fucking made. Was it just ground out of, you know, bloody minded determination. Look, can we just fucking make this film? Very interesting to me to hear that it's got a sequel. [01:36:57] Speaker A: Yeah. I was shocked by this. Mac was telling me about this and he works in toys so he's really like tuned in. [01:37:03] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:37:04] Speaker A: On these things. And he was saying like ultimately for. I think it's Hasbro that owns. Maybe it's Mattel. [01:37:12] Speaker B: I can't remember Mattel. [01:37:13] Speaker A: I think it's Mattel. It's Mattel that owns he man. It's like it's. It's a win for them essentially because all that it really does, you know. Yeah. It's expensive to make a movie, but it gives name recognition to a generation of kids who had never heard this name before. And in terms of selling toys, that's really all you need. [01:37:34] Speaker B: But it's good. Yeah. [01:37:36] Speaker A: Yeah, it's really fun. I regret to inform you, Jared Leto is actually really good in it. Yeah. Unfortunately, I hate to say it, but he was born for. To play Skeletor and yeah, everybody's very fun in this movie and you know, it's just silly and yeah, we had a good time with it when we watched it the other night. [01:38:00] Speaker B: Again, it's queued up. I've ran it by Owen. Do you want to watch he man? No, he actually. Literally. In that kind of cadence. No. [01:38:09] Speaker A: Right. And that's why you make the movie. Because that's. [01:38:11] Speaker B: Why would I ever want to do that kind of face. [01:38:13] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. It's. It's a real conundrum. [01:38:18] Speaker B: And we got Spider man next week and I'm really hoping that that elicits that I get something out of me because I love Spider Man. [01:38:26] Speaker A: Sure. [01:38:27] Speaker B: You know, and I caught. I caught the last third of no Way Home on TV earlier this week. And it really hasn't aged in the. In the tiny. In the short space of time it's existed. It really. [01:38:38] Speaker A: Is that the last. The most recent one? [01:38:40] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It time. The. The. The brief sliver of time that it's been in existence for has already told a cruel tale on it. It's Man. [01:38:55] Speaker A: Yeah, it's. It's. [01:38:57] Speaker B: It's tiring. It is tough. It is tough. But we'll go see Spider man the next week, and hopefully it'll. It'll make me feel something. [01:39:04] Speaker A: I watched Tom Holland's other little movie this week. I went and saw the Odyssey. [01:39:08] Speaker B: Yes. [01:39:09] Speaker A: Which was a fun. A fun ride. A thing about, like, I had not realized that this was, like, a pattern, but I noticed this in this movie. And then someone pointed it out on letterbox that this is a Christopher Nolan thing. But I came out of it and I said to you, like, it was really fun. It felt like a really long movie trailer. The way that it's edited, it's like. He was like, yeah, it does. It's like it. Just because it moves at, like, a fast clip, nothing, like, breathes. It's clipping. Every time there is a transition, there's someone's voice over it telling you things. So the whole thing very much feels like a long movie trailer, which is a weird. For three hours the entire time. [01:39:52] Speaker B: Wow. [01:39:53] Speaker A: Yeah. There's always a little, like, bit of, like, music going in the background. There's always voiceover. It just doesn't, like, pause at all in this movie. And then someone else in the thing on letterbox, they had watched Oppenheimer early, and they were like this, like, every Nolan movie feels like a movie trailer. And I was like, does he do this all the time? And I've just never noticed till this one. [01:40:14] Speaker B: It's interesting. [01:40:15] Speaker A: I didn't watch all of Oppenheimer, so I couldn't say with that one. You know, it's like, I. I don't watch white men. They're sad about genocide movies. But like. Like, this whole thing very much had that feel to it at the same time. That's not necessarily like, a complaint. I mean, it's a. You know, it's an ism, whatever. Like, it's not my favorite thing, but it's fine. Overall, though, I thought it was really fun. You know, obviously a cast that every single person that shows up, you're like, hell, yeah, I'm glad to see them. Elliot Page is, like, really a standout in that. [01:40:51] Speaker B: A few times you've used fun to describe this movie. And as much as I fucking love Christopher Nolan, and I do, I think the guy. [01:41:01] Speaker A: Fun is not usually how you think about it. [01:41:03] Speaker B: You don't often hear people say that they're having fun while watching Tenet, for example. [01:41:08] Speaker A: Yeah, it's in spite of him, honestly, because the story itself is, you know, like, it is there's a reason that we've been telling this story for thousands of years, that it kind of inherently in. It has things that are funny and things that are, like, it's an adventure, right? So you're getting to see lots of, like, battles with things, really scary ones. Like, Cyclops is really off putting in how human it looks like. You know, there's all these kinds of things in this that are terrifying. I didn't realize. So my husband went to Christian school, and so he never learned the Odyssey. Whereas, like, I was like. At the end of it, I was like, oh, the suitor Slaughter was like. Like, almost as good as the version that my friend Gerber and I made in seventh grade, where we, like, set up action figures in the park and used, like, black bears for blood and whatnot. You know, like, pretty close. Nolan, you're almost as good as the things we did. And he was like, I have never heard of any of this. So this is, like, a whole journey for him. They weren't teaching about other gods at his Christian school, and so that was kind of a fun thing. I also was like, honestly, most of this I don't remember from seventh grade. I remember it from playing Hades 2, because it's. All of this is in it. But, yeah, it's just, I think, like, if you enjoy the Odyssey, you're gonna have a good time with a whole bunch of really good actors doing the Odyssey. [01:42:28] Speaker B: See, I. It won't shock you to hear that I'm desperate to see it, and Peter is desperate to see it as well. [01:42:33] Speaker A: Well, it is a little shocking because, like, it's been a. It was a journey. Right. Because you were like, I am not seeing this fucking movie. I have no interest in this. And then it, like, crept up on you for sure. No, it's. Now I need to see this. [01:42:44] Speaker B: But, I mean, Pete's desperate to see it also. And we've got. We've got some time to get to the fucking theater to see a movie next week. But Owen wants to come, and he's gonna want to watch Spidey, and I'm really fucking worried. I mean, it's gonna be around all summer long because it's doing numbers well. [01:42:59] Speaker A: Right? Yeah. You don't have to rush on it, I suppose. Yeah. [01:43:02] Speaker B: So I'm. I'm hoping that we get the chance. [01:43:06] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:43:06] Speaker B: And I don't. [01:43:07] Speaker A: I was very annoyed with myself because I, like, you know, got up early to go to the gym because the showing was at 10am So I went to, like, the 8:30 class and everything. And got to the movie theater and, like, scanned my ticket and was like, we have no, like, record of that ticket. And I was like, what the fuck? And then I realized I forgot that I bought IMAX tickets. And that theater is 25 minutes away from the theater that I went to. And so I was like, oh, no. And had to trade them and watch it regular at the theater that I. [01:43:45] Speaker B: They allowed you to do that? That was something. They let you. [01:43:47] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. I was like. I was like, well, there's no way we can get to Clifton by the time. Like, even after trailers and stuff like that, we're way too late. And so I was like, the movie's already started. Is there a way to, like, cancel this? Like, do you want to see it here? And I was like, yeah. And he just traded them out. Like, okay, cool. But, yeah, so I didn't get to see it in imax, but, you know, maybe I will at some point go and see it in imax, because, again, yeah, it's gonna be there forever. [01:44:11] Speaker B: I'm delighted you enjoyed it, because I was expecting you to, not because, you know, a lot of other people enjoyed it, so that automatically suggests that you wouldn't. [01:44:20] Speaker A: I honestly think I like more popular things than you do in general. Like, I am much more, like, easy to please. Like, you know, just. Oh, is there, like, people, like, like, fighting and making jokes? I like it like. Like a very, like, straightforward. It's. It's more of the things that are, like, more like, on the artsy side that I'm a little more of a. Like. Yeah, I'm not on. I'm not on the level of the people who enjoy this. That's more of the. The case. So I'm like. I'm not antagonistic to stuff people like. It's just a type of thing people like that. I tend to be on the opposite outside of. [01:45:00] Speaker B: I think you are. Let's just wrap it up with the Furious. [01:45:07] Speaker A: The Furious, Yeah. [01:45:10] Speaker B: D. Look, this is a genre that I really enjoy. Right. I love combat action movies. Really love them. I just. [01:45:21] Speaker A: Even. [01:45:22] Speaker B: Even I like it when a combat action movie leans into the idiocy and the madness. Like something like Shaolin Soccer or Kung Fu Hustle. [01:45:31] Speaker A: Sure. [01:45:32] Speaker B: I like it even more when a combat action movie leans into the brutality like the Raid. Have you. What was that movie called? The Night Comes for us, I believe. Let me just double check this. [01:45:50] Speaker A: Not familiar. If it sounds anything like that. I do not think that I have seen it. [01:45:53] Speaker B: Yeah, it is a fucking hell Water movie from a couple of years back. A. I want to say Filipino. [01:46:01] Speaker A: Okay. [01:46:02] Speaker B: No, it's Indonesian combat. [01:46:04] Speaker A: Filipino or Indonesian movies? Both. Don't fuck around. [01:46:08] Speaker B: Well, this does not. Just a lot of combat in it, like a proper gritty, hard boiled, but gore and brutality. I love, I love combat action movies to feel like they hurt and that someone is getting fucked up. Right, Right. Yeah. All of those things I was expecting to get from the Furious. It's got great word of mouth. A lot of really, a lot of people are saying the Furious is great, which was a huge disappointment to find that it was all quite weightless. And, you know, the, the, the. The scale of violence being doled out felt bloodless and consequence free. [01:46:49] Speaker A: Yeah. There's so many people getting hit with hammers and then like getting up hammers [01:46:53] Speaker B: and bits of fucking masonry. [01:46:54] Speaker A: Right. [01:46:55] Speaker B: You know, chunks of wall and knives and guns. Yet, you know, none of the injuries feel as though they have consequence. And I need to see fucking. If you're gonna play that game, I want to see fucking people getting wrecked, spitting out fucking teeth, popping shoulders back into place. You know what I mean? Picking up their own fucking asshole. I. And I didn't get any of that from the Furious. It felt like just wire work and choreography and I didn't want that. [01:47:22] Speaker A: Right, Yeah. I think I said to you part with. It was like, it definitely has the, like, more of a pro wrestling feel than it does like anyone's getting, like, seriously injured here. [01:47:31] Speaker B: Yes, more. Yeah. [01:47:34] Speaker A: It gets very, like, repetitive too, is the thing. Like, it just felt like it kind of ran out of like momentum really fast by just kind of repeating, repeating like big fight after big fight after big fight without like a lot of development of the story or anything like that. The story is very straightforward. And then it just kind of is a guy going from place to place and getting into big fights. Yeah. So it was like. Yeah, very. Well, I think what I said about it was it's sparse. You know, it's a sparse story. And yeah, it begins. You don't want that like with a fight movie to. When they feel so weightless and they don't feel like anything's really got a lot of consequence. That it's just like this has gone on too long. Yes. That's. That's not what you want in a fight movie. [01:48:19] Speaker B: And it carries with it a suspicion. Carries with it a little. The little stink for me. A little whiff of AI Implementation. [01:48:30] Speaker A: Yeah, right. Did like. There's no. I looked it up and there's like, no Proof necessarily. But a lot of people also suspect use of AI. [01:48:40] Speaker B: Some of the particle effects, the blood spatter, some of the. You. You took issue with the dub that we watched. [01:48:48] Speaker A: Yeah. That the dub is like very spot on with the mouths while also being like a little stilted in the actual speech. Like. Yeah. [01:48:58] Speaker B: Feels a little Jenny. No. [01:49:02] Speaker A: Yeah. And to their. You know, they have just chosen not to deny or confirm on that, you know, and just like try to make it a non issue. I think like we're just not going to talk about. [01:49:13] Speaker B: You must condemn. You must speak out and condemn. [01:49:16] Speaker A: Right. And so yeah, it does have a little. To me it's. It has some things that make me think it may have had a little bit of the tinkering. [01:49:27] Speaker B: Did you see that? Genius. Absolute fucking masterstroke. Genius bit of marketing of the new season of Always Sunny this past. [01:49:34] Speaker A: No. [01:49:36] Speaker B: Ah, Corey. Fucking hell. So they release a poster for this. I think we're on season nine or something. [01:49:43] Speaker A: They released only season nine. [01:49:44] Speaker B: Oh. If not way, way, way more. [01:49:46] Speaker A: Yeah. So like it's been on for like 20 years now. I just don't know how often seasons [01:49:51] Speaker B: come out caricatures of the gang as bar taps. Right. Their faces. [01:49:57] Speaker A: Oh, I did see that. Yeah. Yeah. [01:49:59] Speaker B: And you look at it and your first instinct is very much like, oh, AI. They knock this up in GPT. This is terrible. How dare they? A show as astute and as switched on as this. And of course everywhere they post it, the comments are rabid. Slop, slop. Na na na. And they just then post the blender process from end to end. Putting the poster together painstakingly by hand. [01:50:25] Speaker A: That's wild. [01:50:27] Speaker B: Absolutely brilliant. [01:50:29] Speaker A: That's. What was it. There was another show or movie that recently did the thing where it's like they. Oh, it was Devil Wears Prada too. That they have AI like covers in the movie. [01:50:42] Speaker B: Right. [01:50:42] Speaker A: But they had a real artist make. [01:50:44] Speaker B: Beautiful. [01:50:45] Speaker A: So they aren't actually AI. They are an artist rendering of AI, you know. Fantastic. I respect that. That's how they chose to. To do that. [01:50:55] Speaker B: Yeah. Love that, love that, love that. [01:50:58] Speaker A: Yeah. So Thesis was a little bit of a bust, you know, maybe given partly the. The hype around it. But I don't think it really did much for either one of us. [01:51:07] Speaker B: What? Thesis? [01:51:08] Speaker A: Not Thesis, sorry. The Furious. [01:51:09] Speaker B: Furious. Oh yeah. It did nothing for me at all. [01:51:13] Speaker A: Thesis we liked. [01:51:13] Speaker B: Sorry, don't let Thesis was great. Go to the co founders talk about it. But the Furious. Yeah. So many films have done the exact same movie. Far, far, far better. And I. I will wrap up my watches with Elm Street 3. Had to do it, gang. Had to do it this week and had a great time. I can think of nothing else to say. Everything that I'm ever gonna say about Elm Street 3, I've said before. Best fantasy horror of the 1980s. It doesn't put a single foot wrong. It's the best incarnation of Freddy. It's that wonderful, just beautiful, beautiful, tiny, thin, sweet spot between the MTV Freddy and the OG fucking child molester that we all fell in love with. And everyone is wonderful in it. The blend of talent working on that film is incredible, man. Fucking Frank Darabont. The score by Angelo Badalamenti. Angelo fucking Badalamenti did the score for that. Fucking. Isn't that wild? Just weirdo. Fucking sicko shit happening. It's, it's. It's in a league of its own. And it's a shame that I had to watch it under the. The pall of the sad death of Chuck Russell. [01:52:25] Speaker A: Indeed. But, you know, a celebration. Pour one out. Yep. A life well lived. [01:52:31] Speaker B: Exactly what it did. And nerd note, it looks fantastic as well. It was the first time I'd seen it from the 4K release box set that I got last year. And it looks beautiful. Looks absolutely stunning. [01:52:46] Speaker A: Excellent. [01:52:46] Speaker B: Yeah, man. [01:52:49] Speaker A: Well, friends, that's all we have for you this fine day. It's been a ride this week. [01:52:54] Speaker B: Sure has. I would say millions of podcasts, none of them at all as diverse, as risky, you know, as rewarding as Jack of all graves. And I say that as a co host that I. I feel rewarded every single fucking time we do it. So if I do, maybe you will too. [01:53:11] Speaker A: Indeed. And we'll see you again next week. [01:53:13] Speaker B: Yeah, stay spooky.