Matinee Monday: The Lawnmower Man LIVE! (w/ Neil Casey & Emily Heller)
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Visit rosettastone.com backslash pod 50 to get 50% off your lifetime membership now. That's rosettastone.com backslash pod 50 for 50% off. It's like my mama always told me, don't pick on the simple handyman because one day he'll become the internet and pixelate your ass. We saw the lawnmower man, so you know what that means. Green!

All right.

the room. Branded games and street fire that hope to blow off steam. Just a sucker punch the odd life of Timothy Green. Shock, niggas, verb, demic, how we stay in the lot. They call it in the badass and he's on the line. Crankin' 88 minutes cause they cool as ice. Cause a bad Jim Varney lookin' kind.

Hello people of Earth! And hello people of Largo! We are live here on...

Los Angeles at the Largo Theater, our home. We love this place. We are very excited to talk about a movie that predicted the future. It's a movie that talks about the dangers of VR and what better antidote to what we're going through in this society than this film. I am so excited to talk about it tonight with you, but let me be first joined by my co-host. Please welcome Jason Manzoukas! Thank you!

What's up? You in Los Angeles!

Jason, I am great. I love hearing that theme song, and when you come to see a live show, there's a video that accompanies it. And I feel like I catch something from it every time. But I love it, and I want the guy who recorded that, Maru, to kind of do an updated version. I agree. That's so funny. As I was watching it, I was like, so much new has happened. There are so many new verses he could write. And I think everybody would agree this song needs to be longer. Yeah.

Longer. Updated. Let's get it going. By the way, I'll also say this. The gauntlet has been thrown. Anybody can record a theme song. 100%. We will likely put it on the show. 90% of the times, we're putting the show right where it's at. We have no quality control.

Very little filtering is going on. If you can get it, if I get it, it's going in a file. That will be played. Some of you bands are out there. You're on the road. You're in stupid vans. You're listening to our show. So pull over, write a theme song, send it in. Vampire Academy rhymes with so many things. Yes. Come on, you guys. Give back.

And then we need a talented person to cut together a theme song for it as a video component. Anyway, don't worry about it. Do free work for us. We need more free work. Well, Jason, we are not joined tonight by June Diane Raphael. Sadly, she is not here. But we have two amazing guests. Two amazing guests that are going to blow your mind. Oh, me? Yeah.

I thought you were talking to the audience. I know who it is. I promise my mind's not going to be blown only because I was standing over there with the most. I was looking for you to be like, sorry, sorry. I wasn't back it up. You know what? Let's do it again. Let's do it again. Well,

Take two. Let's take it back. We're going to edit this part out. No, we got to keep it in for reality's sake. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This show is all about keeping the... This show is about the truth. Amen. Transparency. Transparent the show. Season two. Love it.

The cast of Transparent next week on the show, it's going to be a very, it's a lot of talking. But we will finally do The Phantom Menace. We are not doing The Phantom Menace. Full transparency, it's not going to happen because I say, as I've said many times before, it's the best Star Wars movie that's ever been made.

JK, it's a nightmare. I saw it on my 30th birthday, wept openly in front of the woman that I was in love with. I believe that to be the beginning of the end of our relationship. I think she saw true weakness within me.

I was right there with you, saw it opening day, had to see it twice in the same day to admit to myself that it wasn't good. Wow. Thought to myself... The pod racing sequence wasn't bad. No, that was not bad. That was, yeah, it looked pretty cool. And the opening was cool. I mean, it was really cool. When I left the theater, I was like, oh, I was too excited to enjoy it. That's why I didn't like it. That's why I didn't like it.

Then it went back. Oh, that's adorable. Yeah, that's how I... That's adorable that you really, like, lied to yourself. That I was... I cried at the end of the movie, and my girlfriend at the time was like, what's wrong? And I was like, it was terrible. I remember... And it was my birthday. That was rough. But I was an adult. It's not like it was, like, my 11th birthday. For real? I was a grown man. Oh, God.

I remember that our good friend Rob Riggle was coming back from... One of our greatest of friends. Was coming back from Iraq at that point, or Afghanistan, and we were like... He was like, I can't wait to come back and see Star Wars. Like, uh...

Maybe we hold off on that. You want to see Jackass instead? All right, so we have two amazing guests tonight. Please welcome our first guest. You can see him in a brand new Fox show called Making History, but you also just saw him as the villain in Ghostbusters. Please welcome Neil Casey. Yeah. Hello, Neil. Hi. Hello. Neil. Neil.

When did you see The Phantom Menace, and what was your opinion of it? I saw The Phantom Menace, I was a senior in high school, and I went to go see it at midnight when it came out, and the same thing, I needed to see it. I saw it three or four more times to make sure. Oh, I definitely saw it four times in the theater, yeah, yeah.

I saw it a number of more times to just make sure that I wasn't missing something good. You know, it was, it was like some sort of decoded message that was there. It was really, I'm insane. I must be insane.

It didn't even occur to me that it could be bad. That was never even the thought. Well, it's like we lived in a different time then. We lived in a different time where people didn't betray us like that. We lived in a pre-Kingdom of a Crystal Skull universe.

I literally went to a movie theater that was playing the Brad Pitt movie Meet Joe Black to watch the trailer. Also a movie we should do. Oh, yes. They played the Star Wars trailer before it, but then to keep you watching the whole movie, they also played it at the end of Meet Joe Black. So I watched Meet Joe Black...

which is like two and a half hours. It's over three. Yeah, it's over three hours, but this trailer is amazing. And then after the Star Wars trailer at the end, they show Brad Pitt getting hit by the car again. Which made it all worthwhile. After, after. Do you remember when you couldn't just watch trailers? Yeah.

Like half of my life is spent just on Apple movies trailers. My favorite. Just watching them all. Boom. I woke up the other morning, watched Rogue One. I was thrilled. Yeah. It was great. It was great. It was great. It was great. It was great. It was great.

Really quickly, though, before we get into our next guest, Neil, so Making History, brand new show on Fox. It's a Lord Miller show, right? Yeah, it's a Lord Miller show. Adam Pally is the star with Leighton Meester and Yasser Lester. It's really funny. It's a time travel show. Yeah, so it's a time travel show, and you are, are you a person in the past or future? Where are you at? I am a guy from the past. I'm a founding father. Oh, very interesting. Hamilton? Past. Hamilton! Are you in the room where it happens? Do you rap? No.

Hamilton, Hamilton, Hamilton. I'm in there. Hamilton, Hamilton, Hamilton. Hey, hey, hey. I hate you, George Washington. I'm General Washington.

You disobeyed me. Now get down. Over here. Over there. It's a duel. Aaron Burr. Aaron Burr. That's right, Lin-Manuel Miranda. Screw you, pal. Not that hard. We just took him down a peg. Our next guest is a super funny comedian, and she has a podcast called Baby Geniuses. Please welcome Emily Heller. Hello.

Your mark is right there. Thank you. Emily, any feelings about Star Wars Phantom Menace? I haven't seen Star Wars. Really? What? I was hoping to not have that be the first thing I said on your podcast. You know what? You joined the rank of my wife, June, who's the co-host. My wife. My wife, who also has not seen it, but she feels like she might have. Well, okay, I...

That is a great June. That's a perfect June concept. Yeah.

I definitely haven't seen it, but I feel like I might have. I've seen the first one that was ever made, and it was boring, so I didn't watch anymore. Wow. Should I leave? You know what? Wrong audience, Emily. It's a room where we can all share an opinion. Half of these people are building Doctor Who cosplay costumes. And the other half thinks those are the nerds.

I wanted to just backtrack a little bit and say Campfire Anatomy rhymes with Vampire Academy. Ooh, I like that. I thought of that, and I've been waiting to come out to say it. And by the way, Campfire Anatomy would go perfectly with Sleepaway Camp because it's campfire, and there's a very big anatomy thing in that movie. Oh, yeah. She's got a penis because she's a he. And also, how about this? Take the remix version of the song and remix that.

A remix of a remix, guys? We're open to ideas.

You have a podcast. It's called Baby Geniuses. Tell us the pitch for Baby Geniuses. What happens on Baby Geniuses? Baby Geniuses is a podcast where me and my friend Lisa Hanawalt, who is the production designer of BoJack Horseman. She's a cartoonist. I just watched all of the episodes of BoJack Horseman in like two weeks. It's so funny. It's so good. It's terrific. It's very terrific. She designs all the characters on that show. She and I talk about...

dumb Wikipedia pages. And we do a different Wikipedia page every week and then we have people on and have them talk about something weird that they know too much about. Like Emily Gordon talked about the Harlem Globetrotters, which she's like really into, things like that. Did she talk about their visit to Gilligan's Island? What? Oh, this is one of the best episodes of Gilligan's Island of all time. Yeah, they come, they get stranded, but then they of course get rescued, but Gilligan's people stay. Yeah.

Exactly enough seats for 20 guys. But they play a great game of basketball in it. The generals drown. This is a real episode of real television. I believe it was a movie, like a movie event. It wasn't even a half an hour. Oh, it was like a TV movie? It was sort of like, you know what? We can't cram this into 22 minutes. We got to give it a full 90. I just want to know, was there a fight in the writer's room?

of Gilligan's Island about whether or not they could do that. Was there someone in the writer's room being like, you guys, we can't do this? No, you can't put them on the road to Ryder's Island. You know why there wasn't? Because almost every other week, someone else crashed into the island, visited for a while, and then found a way off. Except for the people who arrived on the SS Minnow. In a way, I think the production designers were like, great, we get to build a coconut basketball court? I'm in. I'm in.

Well, I am so excited that you're both here to talk about this film, which is... I think you can probably make a lot of fun about The Lawnmower Man in the sense that, oh, it's dated and the graphics are dated. What?!

No. I think... I am pitching currently a movie, Lawnmower Man 2, Oculus Drift. Wait, but they made a Lawnmower Man 2. They did make a Lawnmower Man 2. What? Yeah. The joke didn't land and it was ill-informed? Things are not going well for me. I mean, yes, we will talk about the graphics, but this movie is bonkers from start to finish. To sum up the plot, if you're...

If you've not seen the movie... Yes, please, Paul, sum up the plot. This will be helpful for me also. I have a hard time doing these, so I'm writing some of them. They never quite come out simple, but here's what I would say. So everyone kind of takes advantage or makes fun of this simple-minded lawnmower man. And then a local scientist says, well, why don't you be my VR guinea pig? And the experiment goes too far, and then he becomes...

The internet. He also becomes like an X-Man. Yeah, he does. He gets like, as all like Stephen King kind of people that get powers, he gets like telekinesis and telepathy. Well, let me... But it's also like she's all that because he gets sexy too. Oh, yes. His hair goes... He gets more quaffed.

Yeah, and he stops wearing his cartoon costume of a simple-minded person with a yellow shirt and overalls. He's basically... And starts wearing a tasteful button-down. In the beginning, he's basically dressed like Stewie Griffin from Family Guy. Well, I'll even go one further and go, is the lawnmower man...

Inspiration for Simple Jack from Tropic Thunder. I think yes. They both wear the same exact outfit. We're looking at a picture of Simple Jack and Job together. And then also, they could also just be part of the Dumb and Dumber family.

As he looks a little bit like Jeff Daniels. Oh my God, they definitely based Jeff Daniels' hair on him. That's definitely the joke. Job is, to say he's a cartoonish portrayal of a simple-minded person is being very kind. To simple-minded cartoons. Well, he's also dressed like a scarecrow who are notorious for wanting brains.

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right now

But I also like the trope of Pierce Brosnan. Like, he's a scientist, top of the field, VR scientist. But he's, like, super sexy. Like, this is the height of Pierce Brosnan being sexy. So they got to give him glasses. It's like the thing that they do with, like, throwing these glasses, man. Don't make it look like a real nerd. But, like, tons of shirtless scenes for him. He's shirtless and glasses. I don't want to see that combo. Well, there was one shirtless scene. I was counting. No, there's more than one. Is there more than one?

There's more shirtless scenes with Job. Job is shirtless. Job is shirtless, but Pierce Brosnan I feel like only once. No, there's a couple others. Really? Get in business. All right. Pierce Brosnan in this movie is named Larry. Larry.

Never felt right. Yeah. Never felt right. Larry the VR scientist. Larry. Larry. Larry, what are you saying? Larry. I was like, who are they talking to? And his wife. No way that the handsomest man, the man who would be Bond, Remington Steele, is named Larry. And it's clearly written for another actor, all the stuff with his wife, because for minute one, she's like, fuck you. Yeah.

out of here. Give me an excuse. She never comes back. Yeah. His wife leaves him and he's like, okay. She, um... By the way, I felt like he would... Because he wouldn't take her to the city! The city! What? Well, it was like...

I feel like they maybe shot more scenes with her and then cut them out because they ADR her saying, I give up. At the end of that scene. You are right. The wife is around. In the director's version, the wife is around. I was going to say, that's the extra 30 minutes. He has lunch with her in Washington before he speeds back. He's like, finally, here we are in the city. But,

my question about her, like, they showed his life with her as if he was, like, a petulant child, like, living with his parents. Yeah! Is he living with his parents? He's like, I don't want to be around people right now. I'm going to the basement to smoke and play video games. And she's like... Girlfriend. She's like, I'm going to put on a tank top and very blousy pleated pants. Tight on top, very large on the bottom. I, uh...

I would say, all right, well, I just want to tell you the tagline of the movie. This is the tagline of the movie. God made him simple. Science made him a god. By the way, I'm on board for that. God made him simple. Oh, my God. Now, how many people here believe this is a Stephen King movie?

What? Boo. It should be a boo. Yeah. Oh, yeah. What does boo mean? No one believes it's a Stephen King movie. What do you mean? No, it says Stephen King's the Lawnmower Man. Well, well, well. There's a possessive S on it. What? Stephen King sued. What? To get his name removed from this movie. It is not a Stephen King movie. Really? He wanted it to be Alan Smithy's The Lawnmower Man? Well...

I can kind of give you the idea of what basically happened. So Stephen King wrote a seven-page story called The Lawnmower Man. Whereas, if I understand it correctly, and someone maybe can describe it better, a guy's lawnmower is broken. He calls a lawnmower company to come over. They come over. The lawnmower man controls the lawnmower sentiently and kills a weasel in his backyard.

The guy sees the weasel get killed. He's like, oh, and he passes out. Is the weasel Pauly Shore? Totally, buddy. The weasel. But it's a short story, so it's just in parentheses. It's Pauly Shore. He sees the weasel get killed. He passes out. The lawnmower man does? Or the homeowner? The guy who hires the lawnmower man. And then he wakes up, and the guy's like, hey,

my boss teaches me how to control things with my mind. You want to get on board with this? The guy's like, no. And the lawnmower man kills him. That's the story. Oh. In other words, it's the movie we just watched.

Okay, so to help us unpack the Stephen King short story this movie is based on, let's go to Tim, our MVP from the audience, who sang the second opinion theme in the gamer episode. Tim, take it away. So I've got more information about the Larry King, Larry King, the Stephen King short story. Yes. So he hires the lawnmower man, and then the guy loves lawnmowers or something, and hears the lawnmower and goes, now that's a lawnmower.

So he runs out to see what's going on. The lawnmower is mowing the lawn by itself. The overweight lawnmower man has taken off every stitch of clothing, and he's crawling behind the lawnmower, eating all the grass clippings.

Cool, cool, cool. That tracks. The lawnmower veers off and kills a mole, so the guy skitters over there and eats the mole. The mole? Yeah. Earlier, we were told it was a weasel. Sorry. I was trying to compact it because I did know some of these facts, but...

As I hear them, as I read them, it didn't make sense. And as I hear it, I'm like, what the fuck was a seven page story? So after he passes out and gets woken up, he notices the naked man's feet that appear to be cloven. And he's revealed to be a satyr that worships Pan. And then he ritualistically sacrifices him. And then there's six more pages. Okay.

So basically what happened was the studio had the rights to The Lawnmower Man, but this movie was written already. Oh, wow. And the script was already done, and it was called Cyber God. It had nothing to do with the Stephen King story. Job must have worked at the fucking gas station. Yeah. In the original script, I bet you, I bet you in the original script, Job worked at the goddamn gas station. Makes way more sense. He did.

to redo the whole thing to have him mow lawns. Because I think that's the only connection to it. So they said that the early versions of the film claimed to be Stephen King's, but they just put a couple elements in to make it The Lawnmower Man, which is a title that they owned. And so Stephen King sued the movie to remove it. And New Line's like, nah, we're not going to do it. And then the court's like, no, you have to. And they're like, no, we're not.

And then they left his name on it. And the court's like, no, no, seriously, you have to. And they're like, no. And then they finally did... I love this performance of New Line. They finally did it. It's like real coquettish. Because... New Line is such a flirt.

New lines, picking up her princess phone, ankles up on the bed. Who's this? The only reason that they got them to take it off is because they said, we'll charge you $10,000 a day for every time that you don't take it off. And then they go, all right, we'll take it off. And then when they released it on home video, they're like, Stephen King's a long one? He's like, hey!

No! So this is not technically... That's great. It's not... Even as things that are interpreted for the screen, this is so far away from a Stephen King. This is about a murderess. And I think the lawnmower man reveals himself to be part animal, part man. And that thing, like he's a Greek god. Yeah. I mean, the book is crazy. Yeah.

But yeah, so whatever. And then they made a sequel called Beyond Cyberspace and then they just changed it to Job's War. But I don't think Job was in it.

So that's some stuff for you to know as we talk about this. I wish that had clarified anything. Because it doesn't. No. One of the major disappointments for me was that none of the monkeys lasted longer in the movie. I was. And I also, the minute we started the movie and there was like lab monkeys, I was like, ooh, June's going to have thoughts on this.

So I hope at some future date we get to hear June's thoughts on the chimps that were in this movie, whether they were paid, how much. Well, and how to wear that costume, the RoboCop costume. I would like to show you the original, the director's cut of the movie is a little bit worse. The monkey isn't killed in the beginning. The monkey escapes and teams up with Job. Yeah.

Fuck yeah. I'm so into this now. And so this is when the monkey and Job first meet. So just take a look. I got some strawberries. Somebody in that tree? The monkey is scanning him. Ah!

- VR Monkey has a gun. - What are you doing here? - Monkey has a gun and a room. - Very tense. - I'm threat. - Monkey determines he's not a threat. Puts on the gun, his VR glasses open. - What the fuck is happening? - It's the priest and the chopper.

What's this? The good light in my shed, Shibu-man. Nobody could find you there. Yeah. So basically, Job adopts the monkey. Whoa. The monkey is wearing way more stuff in this. The monkey is in full RoboCop costume. And then I guess what happens is the scientists break into Job's little apartment and murder the monkey in front of Job's... Oh, my God.

That's amazing. That happens. I would have such a hard time isolating that as the problem with the movie that you need to cut out. Like, which executive was like, cut that part and then the rest of it is fine. Just make the monkey get killed in his dream. By the way, when they reveal that the monkey is escaping and shooting the security guard...

Then they cut to like Pierce Brosnan waking up from a nightmare. Yes. And you're like, oh, was that a dream? And it wasn't. It wasn't. Then they call him to tell him that that happened. So is he psychic? Is he psychic? Or is he having another nightmare and it just happens? Another nightmare we don't get to know about. I'm naked and I don't know the lines of the school play. What? The monkeys did a whatabummer.

We also get the monkey. In these shots in the beginning, we get monkey point of view. The movie begins inside the cage, like the monkey looking back and forth between Pierce Brosnan and his other guy. Because they didn't want to have to shoot a monkey. Yeah. Oh, for sure. There's a bunch of parts where it's just like the top of the monkey helmet. Or fake monkey hands on the bars. The camera's too high, Brian. It's a monkey.

The first thing that we're understanding is they're testing VR on monkeys. Okay, sure. It was a long time ago. Okay. Like I remember that movie with Matthew Broderick, Project X, where they were like teaching monkeys to be like pilots and there's nuclear radiation and stuff like that makes more sense.

VR, a little confused about why you'd need to test it on a monkey. How would you know what was happening? You would get no feedback. Like, the virtual world that they've created means nothing to a monkey. And how would you measure what the monkey's reaction was? And I guess they were training the monkey to be a soldier. But when you see the virtual world...

It looks nothing like anything that a soldier would encounter. And even to the monkey's point of view, it's telling the monkey facts in English. Threat. Yes. Not a threat. Mode switch. But also, also the monkey's antagonists are animated monkeys. Yeah.

To make it make sense to the monkey. So the monkey's shooting other monkeys. But like, I don't think that this VR is preparing the monkey for an impending monkey war. I don't think that's what's happening in this world. But neither is the Windows 95 tile magic game. Oh my God. Well, let's just add one other level to the VR here.

And all of this is happening while the monkey's in a centrifuge of some kind. The monkey is in arms and legs. One of those circular. Circular. Like Westworld. Gyroscope. Leonardo da Vinci. No reason for anyone in VR to be in a full gyroscope. Nope. Like...

Like, they are splayed out like David. Not David, the man. Origin of man. It's like that nonsense. What? Shut the fuck up. You fell for it, dummies. Who cares?

But yeah, it's like, why would you ever need to be weightless in VR? Why would you need to be moved around in chaos like that?

But I got to tell you, four minutes in, the monkey was murdering someone. I was like, I'm in. Before the monkey murders someone, the monkey picks a lock. They were like, click, click, click, click. And I was like, what? How? How does a monkey know how to pick a lock?

Want to connect with a family member who doesn't speak your language? Then check out the language learning program Rosetta Stone on desktop or as an app. Rosetta Stone is designed to immerse you in the language you're learning through an intuitive process. Plus, the true accent feature even gives you feedback on your pronunciation. And with a lifetime membership,

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We'll be right back.

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Two, I want to fuck that guy. A little off-center. And then the third and the most upsetting is, fuck you, simple man. You piece of shit, garbage. Pumping gas at my gas station? Fuck you. But what's interesting is one of the people that shares that last view is a priest. Yeah.

Yeah. No. Like, that's another, like, everybody in this, everybody in the movie is either abused or being abused in a myriad ways. Like, there's, the priest is abusing Job. There's, the father is abusing the son and the wife, the next door neighbors. This movie exists at a time when, like, abuse was, like, cool.

Where people would see the guy, they're all watching. Pierce Brosnan. That's the first thing we see of Pierce Brosnan is he's looking out the window, he sees that guy beating his wife and his child, and he just goes, yep. He's like, I guess I'll light a cigarette and try and fuck my wife. And then later, they're all outside, and they see the guy pull up,

smack the kid around some more and be like, get in the house. And they're all like, all right. Wait, wait, wait. Did you just talk about, oh, did you guys say? I guess it's 1992 and this is cool. They needed the real beating at the top because you'd be on the dad's side if he just pulled up and was like, did I tell you not to put the fucking bike here?

I'm on that dad's side if I didn't see him smacking him around before. My favorite part of the dad coming home getting mad is that he was still wearing his construction hard hat. A yellow

construction hard hat out of the fucking village people like oh god if I'm gonna work 12 hours on the site he drove home wearing it it's not a comfortable hat I would say like the determining thing so far that we've noticed in the Stephen King films that we've done monkey POV that was in monkey shines

Everybody's an asshole. That's a big thing. And I said sentient lawnmowers, and we'll get to that in a little bit. But so far, these are three things that have been in Stephen King movies in the past. Maximum Overdrive also had a sentient lawnmower. Really? Yeah. All the machines were sentient. Sure, but I'm saying a lawnmower is in there. So yeah, I don't understand why they're so mean to this guy who can't even buckle his overalls.

And he seems to be really fucking productive. One shoulder is always overalls. He also walks me. He was like, that was a character choice that he was like, well, this guy also doesn't know how to walk. Jeff Fahey made some choices. He made a lot of choices. The billing is Jeff Fahey and Pierce Brosnan. Like, together. Finally.

Wait, what was Jeff Fahey's character on Lost? Frank? Oh, yeah, the pilot. Thank you. That's it. What do you think the relationship between, like, okay, like the Irish guy, the priest. Terry? Yeah, the Irish guy, the priest, and Jobar. Anything? So there's...

The priest, he lives in the church, I guess, in the attic of the church. And the priest beats him and then...

But he does pay rent. He pays rent to live in the shed. He pays rent. And then also... And the sheds seem to be in the woods sometimes, too. And then there's another Irish guy who his main relationship is like, I guess he drives him to Mow Lons and then tries to tell him to fuck ladies. He's always hovering around saying, go for it. Go for it. Yeah.

You idiot. The priest also comes around and beats Job with a belt. Yeah. It's like, take your shirt off so I can beat you with a belt, you animal. And then Terry too sees it and is like, oh, is Father making you do penance last night? Yeah. Well...

And then Terry's like, go on, talk to that lady. And the lady's like, I guess we have sex now. I don't know what's up in this room. That lady raped him, by the way. I want to talk about that. But just to clarify this, the priest and the lawnmower boss brothers.

What? Brothers. Wait, did the priest also have an Irish accent? Nope. What? Here, I'll play a scene. Another scene with the brothers. This is blowing my mind. So this is the three of them out and about. A picture of mom. Dr. Angelo, that you're here to work and not to read books.

First of all, the accent's insane. You could not be brothers

And have... Unless you didn't live together ever. Yeah. And one was taken to America and the other one was left in Ireland. And it's stereotypical Ireland that... Where leprechauns are also running around. It's also like, they clearly don't like each other. Why would they move to the same town in America from Ireland? And also, why would the brother...

Why would Job need to have two jobs? I think just cleaning the church would be enough to keep this guy pretty busy. I feel like Job, and I don't know if Job's getting paid by either of the brothers, but both of them seem to just be using him for whatever. They both have their own little slave that they can enact. Kind of. Because I never saw that other guy, the Irish guy, mow any lawns. Nope. He gets out of his car to drink. Yeah.

He's driven a long way that he gets out of the car. He's like, you know what? I just have a nip here. Let him mose along with that giant... With a lawnmower that looks like it could have come out of Fast and the Furious. It has dual exhaust pipes. And the kid loves it. The kid goes, whoa, a lawnmower.

We all remember back in the 90s, like, going to your neighbor's house, just, like, drooling over that lawnmower. Oh, like a hot rod. Whoa, what is that? And I should also say, Job just slaughters these lawns. Did you see, like, he's mowing that lawn. It's this nice, tall grass, and he has it down to just the ground. The dirt.

Just killing this grass. I want to say I saw the Irish guy trimming a hedge, but he might have just been sitting in it. I think he was hiding behind it drinking. Yeah. Oh, my gosh. So, basically, this monkey dies, and now...

Pierce Brosnan's like, well, I need another monkey, but they won't let me get a monkey, so I guess I'll use this simple guy. Well, he has a real crisis at a certain point because he's not sure what to do. He got suspended from work, right? He's depressed, and that's why his wife is mad that he won't take her to the city. And then he decides to go rogue and start treating Job on his own in his house.

Because it takes him a while to bring him to the facility. Yeah, well, I feel like he doesn't have an office at the facility. No. I think he's like, you know, I'll work from home. I'll do all my VR research from my basement, my unsanitary basement in which my refrigerator has... We're like a Lord of the Next Door kid. Peter's like, you've got the best games. I'm like, don't. No. No.

Like that little kid shouldn't be like going to the basement of the neighbor's house whose name is Larry. Yeah. Larry who records his journal by leaning against a huge television. Shirtless. Like just a blinking red record light. Like this is, yeah, this is creepo. So he's like hovering over him. This is, if you just took out all the specifics about VR. Here. I have other different games. I even have one that could help make you smarter.

I was born dumb. Can you keep a secret? Like, I mean, right? I'll tell you what. My dick makes you smarter. I can make you smarter, but only if you want. And you must never tell anyone. You mean a secret for just you and me too? You see, my wife left. That's right.

This movie is a molestation allegory. This is all the creepiest stuff. But like, it's also like a weird religious, like his name is Joe. Oh yeah. And his name is Angelo. Like an angel. Oh. Yeah. And then also. His name is Larry, but okay. I mean. You know Larry Angelo. Larry Angelo.

Upper crust British guy? You know, works in his basement. Yeah. Oh, man. Great news. We've got Pierce Brosnan starting a phenomenal movie. It's called Larry Angelo. Ooh!

All right, well, oh man, there's so much to get into. There's so much. There's so many times I wrote, his name is Larry? I don't know.

Every time somebody said it, I was like, what? So, Neil, you brought up, like, they're doing tests with Job to kind of see if he can match certain things. Like, can you match the circle with the circle? This is one of the images that came up that April saw that I feel like, can you guys match the missing image here? Take a look at it. Because I don't think there is one that matches. LAUGHTER

Like, if I'm Job, I'm failing this test. Because I don't know what goes in that question mark from the bottom row. Yeah. At all. That's the first test he gives you. O, Q, or P? Are my options? No. This is what we're looking at. Oh, oh, oh. I see. I see. You're choosing from second row. That's what he chose. I don't know.

There's nothing that matches. All these symbols are different. Wait, wait, wait. No, no, here's the thing. Here's the thing. I feel like we're trying to do something that's impossible, right? Because we're not smart enough because we haven't been juiced up with the drug. This is the first thing that Joe did. Really? This is the first test pre any sort of intelligence test. In the director's cut, he just keeps hitting refresh until they're all swastikas. Ah!

yeah that is an impossible the matching game does not match oh man and talking about mistakes you can check out this they spelled millennium wrong in the beginning of the movie the opening text by the turn of the millennium a technology known as virtual reality will be widespread but they spelled millennium wrong wait oh wait is that right it looks right or no is it wrong is it right no it's wrong it's wrong right

Yeah, it's wrong. Wait, how is it spelled? Now I don't know. Two Ns. Two Ns. Oh, okay. Two Ms? Two Ns. But you see, but again, that should have been spellchecked. Somebody should have spellchecked that early on. Why, why, why?

When Joe puts on the VR glasses and Pierce Brosnan is making him smarter by showing him images, are the images like what look to me to be like a cult? They look like runes. They look like runes or random things that are part of the Hellboy comic book series. I feel like they were training him to be almost like Satan or something. Yeah.

Well, it kind of worked. Yeah, it's true. But I couldn't understand why they were treating, why the images were not like scientific images or math or whatever. I mean, it's real shit science. I mean, like, they're literally shooting images into his brain and he's like, it hurts. It's like,

Here's the thing. I feel like I was... Here's the problem with the science. Here's one of the problems with the science. Here's the one problem. Here's the one problem with this whole movie. Because everything else adds up. Everything else adds up. Am I watching a movie about VR or smartness drugs? Because they also... Oh, this movie is a little bit Limitless or Lucy. Yeah. They also inject him with smartness drugs. And then

It's unclear to me which of those things is making him smarter. Well, you're talking just like the guy who doesn't know how to use FaceTime. Because they're like, through the whole thing, they're like, can we just keep shooting him up with the drugs and just fuck this VR guy? Just fire Larry and just shoot him up with the drugs? And the guy's like, maybe. I mean, what's crazy about that is you're referencing Larry, and I was genuinely like, who is Larry? That's how much Pierce Brosnan is not a Larry. Yeah.

Just so you know, Nate did some research here and he said that the stimulation of his brain, those symbols are, I'm trying to figure out how to pronounce this, but Kabbalistic mystical symbols with ancient Hebrew writing around. Like Kabbalah. Yes. Like what Madonna does. So he's basically teaching him Kabbalah.

That explains why he had a thin red bracelet for the latter part of the movie. He's bringing special bottled water. Nailed it. The guy who doesn't use FaceTime is Dean Norris from Breaking Bad. With oddly a British accent, I think, towards when you see him in real life, but when he's face front. He's like Faye. Okay. Okay.

I said to my boyfriend when we were watching it, he was like, it's weird that he's playing this kind of like effeminate. And I was like, it's like, it's like Hank from Breaking Bad doing an imitation of what he thinks a gay guy sounds like. Yeah. Like one of these nerds. Yeah. I'll do it for you. Yeah. Yeah. Walt, I'll do it. I'll do your play. I'll do your play. I'll do your short film. Ooh, I'm sorry. Um, man. All right. Well, um, well,

Well, then also Pierce Brosnan has to answer. We've barely gotten into this movie and we are so deep into this podcast. I could not tell you the plot of this movie. We are in the cold open of this movie. I don't know why what was happening happened. I lost interest an hour in. I was like, I don't know what's going on. I couldn't figure out what they were setting up. I kept on being obsessed with the fact that the guy, the bald guy that he was answering to looked like Ike Barinholtz, but a bald Ike Barinholtz.

He really does. Look at him. There's also the scene where the bald-eyed Barinholtz comes in when Pierce Brosnan is shirtless. And they start having this tense thing and I'm like, are they going to fuck right now?

He walks into his bedroom, which is like a hotel, but it's like, how did he get in there? I would have liked that. There's something about Jeff Fahey getting smarter that part of that also makes him more vain. Yes. The smarter he gets, the more he's looking at himself in the mirror. Yeah.

And then like not wearing a shirt. Tight jeans. Wearing those tight jeans. Oh my God. Can we talk about the scene at the gas station with that widow where, so there's the horny widow who is my favorite character in the movie. She's amazing. Marnie. Is sitting in her car and she looks in her side view mirror and there's just a round butt in jeans and she's just like, ooh.

And she turns and it's Job bending over, doing nothing. For no reason. He also, I will say, this is the second time that she's kind of really turned on by him. The first time he was full early Job. Like one suspender Job. And she's like eating a peach. Like, oh.

Yeah. And he's eating like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Like having like in the middle of mowing a lawn. See, I thought she was eating an apple and it was just the most heavy handed thing of all time. Just like tree of knowledge. He was literally sitting under a tree and she was eating an apple. Yep.

And his name is Job. I don't know the Bible, but this feels like... I wish we all knew what Job did in the Bible. It feels like a combination of some things from it. Speaking of her looking at his ass, this is like a time capsule of that moment in American history in the early 90s when women were really into buns. Yeah.

Remember when women were sort of like, he's got great buns. We've covered buns on this podcast. We talk a lot about the buns. But yeah, but I also found that it didn't seem like, to me, why do you even have to have the buns scene? Where she's like, why don't you come on over and mow my lawn? Well, she said to the, what's the guy's name who's the bully at the gas station? Um,

My fluids. Jake, she said, check my fluids. Check my fluids. And then he defends her. Yeah. Like, Terry comes out and is sort of like, she's fucking a lot of guys in town. He's like, you shut up. This was like a very progressive scene in a way because the guy called her a whore and he was like, hey,

Horse take money. She's got money. She doesn't do it for the money. She does it because she likes it. What's so wrong with that? And I'm like, okay, yeah. By the way, the most open-minded guy in the movie, like, he is so sweet. He's like, I'll take care of this guy. He's a great guy. And then has the most unceremonious, like, the worst death in the whole movie. Like, basically, Job goes around and kills everyone who's wronged him violently. And then this guy's like, I'll take you to go get in the internet. Don't worry.

I'll drive you there in my car. And a sniper just takes out Larry. Like, no, like, Larry's not even... Not Larry. Oh, sorry. Not Larry.

But he's more of a Larry. Who's Larry? You just proved my point. That guy's a Larry. His name is Terry. Terry, yeah. Here goes Terry. Also, not right for him. He's not a Terry. Well, Terry, it's like, I mean, shouldn't the moral be like the one guy who treated him nicely, like...

lives or like, you know, like, nope, they all die. Can we also, I know we're jumping around a lot here, but can we talk about in that scene where Terry goes to drive him to the internet, Job uses his telepathy to tell Terry to come pick him up. And so we just see Terry sitting in his truck silently. And then he says out loud,

Okay, Job, I'll come get you. And you're like, if he's using telepathy, why is he talking out loud? I know this is, again, a very small problem to have with this movie that has very big problems. Well, the movie does posit a superhero that gets created and sometimes he's super powerful and then sometimes he's got to be back in that internet. Like, he's like, it doesn't make sense, like,

Why go back in? You can basically do everything. Yeah, at a certain point, he just starts talking about this weird mythology that we're not let in on about like, well, I have to go back to the mainframe. And you're like, what mainframe? What are you talking about? We don't know what you're doing. Let us in. We just see you straight up murdering your enemies.

The keys to the universe are in this 486 DX 66. Top of the line Packard Bell. 16 megs of RAM. And I'm just like, can we talk about what it meant when I saw an animated lawnmower going over that guy's brain? No, an animated man with a lawnmower mouth. With a lawnmower mouth.

That's what I was like, what? Okay, this is a movie that exists in a world in which virtual reality is a world in which we could disappear into. Their version of virtual reality is like, might as well be a screensaver.

Like flying toasters level screensaver. Well, basically, I would argue the best scene in the movie is once Joe becomes super powerful, he's like, well, now I only want to fuck in virtual reality. No, the best scene of the movie is the first sex scene where she teaches him how to kiss. Oh, God. That felt super rapey. It felt super rapey. Oh, Marnie. It was like, okay.

Okay, you know how disturbing that scene in Big was? Let's make it worse. Let's make it... Make him less able to consent to what's happening. And the room just felt... It was... And then she's got, like, pink satin sheets. Everything's satin. This is... Yeah, if it was, like, a... If the genders were reversed in this movie, we would be, like, turning it off immediately. Because, like, he's, like, Simple Jack over there. He's just like...

But then he figures it out. It seems like he figures it out one, two, three. Yeah. Well, he gets, yeah, he's also getting smarter. Well, I would download fucking first, right? Well, that's the thing. That's the thing that Larry's wife says. She's like, flying, floating, falling. What's next? Fucking. I give up. You didn't take me to the city. Ha ha ha ha ha!

Like, I know. I'm not married. Got it. But, like, is that what it's about? You didn't take me to the sea.

I think this all can be summed up with this clip from Pierce Brosnan on The Tonight Show, where he tries to describe virtual reality. I love that everybody feels bad for him. Pierce Brosnan tries to describe virtual reality and some other things. We'll see.

And they just took this kind of short story by Stephen King, which was only seven pages long and had nothing to do with virtual reality. And they took this short story by Mr. King and they wrapped it in this, you know, this film about virtual reality. Now, this virtual reality, see this, I haven't had a chance to see the picture yet, so, but I've heard about this virtual reality. It's like a game where you're in it. Yeah, it's like a computer. You get in, you can enter inside the computer when you play this with a partner.

Wouldn't sex be just a little easier? Gosh, it seems so complicated. He makes a sex joke. He said, wouldn't sex be so much easier? But I love that, and the publicity for it, you get inside a computer is...

The man who's now worked, I would argue, the most closely with virtual reality out of anyone probably at that point is still describing virtual reality as getting inside a computer. Getting inside a computer.

Oh my god. Can we also, I mean, on the topic of the sex scenes too, there's a part where he so at a certain point Job learns how to read minds because I guess that's part of it and he's at the horny widow's house and he goes like, ooh, you've got dirty fantasies because he's reading her mind and then he's like, well, let's do

do something about it or something and I'm like oh cool he's about to find the clit and then like this is about to be the best part of the movie because a dude who can read a woman's mind and then fuck her based on but then but Emily hang on that posits a world this is science fiction but like that posits a world in which the clit is a real thing wait a minute

And then you think they're about to go have crazy cool sex, and then they go somehow break into the lab and get in those gyroscopes and do...

VR sex and their genitals aren't hooked up to anything that would make them feel... And she's like... She's never the same. Yeah. She literally fucks... He fucks her brains out. Yeah. Like on a level because she is fried. Like she was the fried. Yeah. She was on the bed like...

Just like moaning and acting. That's because he had to put her in the whirligig that was for the monkey. There's not two for humans. Put her in the monkey one. She's little. Oh my God.

And by the way, their virtual reality sex is the most disturbing thing ever. She becomes like a flower and he becomes this like monster. With a pussy mouth. The monster has a straight up pussy mouth. And she becomes like trapped in like the fluids of their love making. She can't, it's like she's stuck. She gets stuck in like a pile of cum. And he's like, hold on, it's fine. And she's like, help, I'm stuck. And he's like, no, you just stay there. Yeah.

It's fine. It's fine. Are we going to watch it? You know, we could watch it. But then I'm also thinking that maybe we should watch this EPK about people discussing about what's so cool about virtual reality sex, which doesn't exist. So this is, and we can watch them both, but here we go.

Beautiful. As imagined in the film, virtual reality sex is an experience of indescribable passion. As a cinematic special effect, it's an indescribable achievement, just what the director was hoping for. It's a little scary because you're going to uncharted ground, but it gives the audience something they've never seen before. And when I go see a science fiction movie, that's what I want to see, something I've never seen before. And it gives them a new ride. It's a new rollercoaster ride.

So that, and then you get to see them because you want to be a butterfly together. Yeah. And then Mel, it was all like birds and bees level shit. Yeah. In virtual reality. The fact that it immediately followed a conversation of like, you've got some dirty fantasies. I felt like the implication was this was her fantasy and he made it happen. To be like a pistol and be like sucked by a bee or something like that. Yeah.

To just twist into a liquid metal dragonfly with my lover? To melt like the T2 in Terminator? By the way, I'm into all that.

I know we have a lot more to talk about, but also we've been talking up here for quite some time, so I want to get to our audience and see what their questions are. This is one of those movies you guys are going to have to get on board for. We're just not going to get to huge parts of it. Because there's so, so much insanity. Or, you know, I can come to you. Here we go. Your name... Let's see. Uh...

Your name and what would you like... Who would you like to have seen in this... Oh, what's a better name for Pierce Brosnan's character, okay? And your question. A better name would be James. Yeah. What's your name? My name's Rob. Oh, all right. Or as Paul called me last time, Tim Curry guy. All right, that's it.

So one thing I have to say, there's a lot of how did this get made connections in this movie because the Job is actually West Coast from... Yeah, that guy knows. But is this a sequel to Monkey Shines? No. Because they're building smarter monkeys...

And in Monkey Shines, and then the director's cut was the monkeys all get taken off in advance that get taken to Larry to get them smarter. Hmm.

Interesting. I mean, interesting. Did people just learn about evolution in the 90s? Because I feel like there were so many make monkeys smarter movies. That's very true. And it felt like a response to them being like, this sounds fake. You know what I mean? I feel like this is in the 90s. They were like, did you know they test shampoo on monkeys? And then someone was like, what else do they test? Virtual reality. Yeah.

Click, click, click, click, click. Control-S save. Here's a script. See you later. All right. Your name for Pierce Brosnan and your question. Come to me. All right. Here we go. Hold the mic. Okay. I'm Valerie. Lawrence. Let's just give him the full name.

All right. Valerie Lawrence. Nice to meet you. It's pretty close, actually. So my question is, we were talking about how

Pierce Brosnan sees the family and the dad's abusing them. And he's like, okay. And then he ends up with them at the end. Like, that's his new wife? Oh, yeah. No, he full on takes on that family as a job. And that's fucking Peter's mom, like, immediately. During the credits. They embrace at that one point, like, after her husband's been murdered.

Yeah. Which is, he's directly responsible for it. Yeah. And they embraced it. He appears to have no remorse. It makes sense because he's like, as long as I don't beat the kid, she'll be fine. I don't have to take her into the city at all. Yeah.

Her power is so low. I want to talk about that mom, too, because the mom and the kid, they're like, hey, wait here in the car. And then the mom just falls asleep. Yeah. It seems like Larry has been gone for four to five minutes. Also, also, like, stuff is so stressful. Is that, is she just like, I can't take it?

Yeah, yeah. That whole scene was lifted from an abused wife's implausible testimony about her husband's mysterious death. Then I fell asleep. I didn't see anything. I was asleep. You couldn't awake me. All right, yes, sir. Your name, your name for Pierce Brosnan, your question. I'm Brandon. I think, probably McGonagall. I like that. Thank you. So the thing that I noticed that was the most surprising to me was the way that people died. You had given the first name McGonagall? Yeah, McGonagall Angelo. Yeah.

Because he's supposed to be Irish. He was drinking Bushmills. He had an Irish flag, even though it's very clearly Welsh. It's very strange. He also had that classic Irish beer Coors Light in his fridge. Why were there so many

Irish people in this town. Not actually Irish. Nobody was actually Irish and they were all just speaking with Irish accents. But it's a bad movie so who cares? Shouldn't Pierce have been like the priest's brother? Then that would have been a little bit of a connection too or just make it simpler. But the thing I was interested in was so many of the deaths occurred, was it actually virtual reality where the priest burns or something? I don't actually know. That was like digital fire. It

Yeah, but also his body turned transparent. He turns people into like that Adam Sandler movie, Pixels. Like that, like he turns people into pixels. And then they just bubble up and go away. First time I ever saw After Effects, it seems like, was like this movie. Like, oh, we got all these cool After Effects things we're going to use on these guys dying.

And then they just, I mean, they're dead in the real world. They're definitely dead in the real world. That's what I couldn't figure out. He's like applying technological kind of like traumas to them.

He's like lighting that guy on fire, but it was like digital fire and the priest turns into like a computer character, but they're not in VR at that point. I don't know, man. Or are they like, are they being like sucked? Surprisingly, I couldn't crack it. In the director's cup, they're all fine. Like the gas station guy wakes up the next day, he's like, oh, I don't know. I'm all right. It's that lawnmower man in my brain. Yeah.

He wakes up with that same nightmare that Pierce Brosnan had. Oh, okay. Oh, Jesus. That's how a monkey escapes? The father wakes up. Ah! What the hell? And then beats his kid. But the father was killed brutally by a lawnmower, so... I told you to stay out of my dreams. Oh, that lawnmower chased him around the house. Yeah. And nobody woke up. Wait, didn't he put a spell on them to be asleep? That's right. Sorry. Yeah.

My bad, everybody. My bad. And they put a spell on those cops, too. Real convenient. Remember when the cops were like, hold on, hold on. The cop is just standing out in front of the house where the lawnmower has just killed the guy. Half the guy's in the birdbath. And the guy goes, hell of a thing. Hell of a thing. And I was like, okay, cool.

Talking to nobody. Also, and then Pierce Brosnan is there and they give him all the details. He is not related to that family at all. He's like, I'm the neighbor. And he's like, well, here's everything I got. Let's see if you can crack it.

I'm surprised nobody heard anything. All right, so your name, your name for Pierce Brosnan, your question. My name is Tyler. Clearly, Sting and Smythe would be the only name for Pierce Brosnan. I like that. One really quick thing is just that the partner at the lab, the other mysteriously bald man that's not Dean Norris, is just named Tims. And they just keep yelling Tims over and over again. But maybe...

But the main thing is that every way he kills someone, it's with lawnmowers or the one time there's a bee on top of a car, so he makes CGI bees and...

He's just seeing things that he's seen in real life and that's the only thing he can come up with? It's insane. So for a man who can create anything in virtual reality, he is simplistic in how he chooses to kill people. He's like, I got a lawnmower, I'll kill him with a lawnmower. Bees, tires, rocks. But meanwhile, when he gets it on in sex, it's crazy. Yes, sir.

My name is Brad. My name for Larry would be Dr. Nigel Applewhite III. And at the end of the movie, the Oculus Rift sucks up

physical being and mummifies him while he goes into the computer. Totally normal. Yeah. Yeah, it sucks him dry like a vacuum cleaner. It's as if by going into the digital world, his corporeal form would be affected. Yeah, but only dehydrated and everything else is still there. Yeah.

That is a bizarre moment. That was so weird. Like, why would the computer need his guts and blood and stuff? Because, by the way, there's no direct line to it. So that shit would just fall out on the floor. I think. Yeah. Okay. Back here. Yes.

Your name, your name for Pierce, and your question. My name's Allison. My name for Pierce would be Henry. Solid, brutish. And my question is, at the very, very end of the movie, it's all about high-tech, futuristic stuff, and then they just kind of get all these calls around the world, and it seems like backtracking. You're right. He says... Well, that's because... Yeah, go ahead. He wants to make a million phone calls. LAUGHTER

Right? That was a line. He says like once he's in the fucking mainframe that he's going to call people and I'm like, what? The whole point of phones is you don't have to be in it to do that. He says, I can make a million calls at the same time. You could do it from your house with just a phone. Yeah.

He says, I have things to do, people to see, a billion calls to make. Yeah. Why? He also said that, like, once he's in the computer or something, it's like, then he'll be everywhere and you'll know it because all the phones will ring at once or something. It's like, they just, they were like, what's a way to have a signifier that he's, like, infiltrated the computers that we can do with just a sound effect and some stock footage? Yeah.

And that's what they landed on. I'm sure there are a bunch of other takes of him saying alt versions that they just couldn't figure out how to do. The lights will go on in Chicago. Yeah. Too expensive. We can't get it. The sun will rise. But yeah, there's... So if you humor...

him and go, all right, well then I pick up the phone. Are you just hearing that old DSL dial-up? Or is it just really bad small talk? Do you have a lawnmower? Yeah. Yeah, is he doing this all to get his business going? Yeah. He's like, is your lawn overgrown? Why not call me the lawnmower man? Maybe I will.

I'll send a sentient lawnmower to your house. Okay. Your refrigerator running. Yeah, I like that. All right, so your question, your name, and your... My name is Stephanie, and I think that his name should be Hewlett-Packard. Ooh, I like that. That's great. I wanted to know if anybody noticed the connections between this story and Flowers for Algernon, the story that everybody had to read in some of the stories. Oh, yeah.

Yeah, it's like this and like Flowers for Algernon. Also like Charlie or is that another one? And there's a few. There's a few of these. Like Frankenstein, I would guess, would be the main one. Probably Frankenstein would probably be the clearest one. Pinocchio a little bit? Ooh, yeah.

All right, well, that's good call. Good call. Any other questions? These folks over here got super psyched for that. There's a real nerds book club going on over here. That's our Flowers for Algernon fan club that come to every show. All right, yeah, so you have a good question? All right, here we go. Come on over here. Your name, your question, your name for Pierce and your question.

Hi, so my name is Jed, and I would name him, to go with the theme of Mr. Director, Mr. Scientist. All right. And so there's a scene when it all kind of culminates, and the lawnmower man makes the chair levitate, and then Pierce doesn't lose his shit at all. He just kind of calmly watches this happen. Totally normal. And then lawnmower man kind of tells this whole thing about

the power and what he wants to do. And then the next scene, he's just back at his audio recording, like, leaning against, being like, "I feel like I should be concerned about, you know, what the lawnmower man said." And then he just starts killing people. Like, how did that conversation end? Did they just kind of, like, shake hands and go part ways? "Bad lawnmower man. Bad."

All right, I figured it out. And then he walked away. But my favorite thing with him recording his journal is the one time where he turns it on and it's like, start recording. And it takes a beat and then he goes, ah, Jesus Christ. Yeah. He's like, he's like, he's with his sigh of sort of relief. He's like, why did you start recording? You haven't gathered your thoughts yet. Yeah.

Who has a really good question? The last one, the last one. Yes, okay, I'll come to you. I'll come from behind here. Your name and your name for him and your question. My name's Nicole. I just thought Isaac would be kind of a good name for him. I like it, good. So I thought that the movie was kind of like Job's revenge from the book of Job in the Bible because in the book of Job...

Satan does a lot of bad stuff to Job, and so Job doesn't do anything. He just still, you know, prays to God, which, like, okay. Anyways, so in the beginning, a lot of bad stuff happens to him, and then after he, when he sees God, that's when he becomes super smart, and then he just starts killing everyone that wronged him. So I just kind of saw a big relationship.

You actually knew the one thing that we did not know. That seems like very... That does seem exactly right. That seems exactly right. My favorite thing about that is that they, for this movie, they needed to make his name spelled J-O-B-E so that...

People would pronounce it correctly. Otherwise, every piece of paper about it would have to say Job, and then in parentheses, spelled like in the Bible. Was that so people would pronounce it correctly, or was it so they were like, this is going to be a really subtle reference that not a lot of people are going to pick up on? Let's give them a real softball, this audience. Just adding a vowel. They add E to Job. They add O to Angel. It is tactical.

of Alon to just slip their little subtle references in there. My script cyber god's gonna be great. Actually, he's gonna be Stephen King's lawnmower man. What? No. But Al Pacino will still play the scientist, right? No. Broznan is Remington Steele?

He's playing Angelo? Playing Larry? Not my Larry. I want to talk... We should get into second opinions, but the one thing I also want to talk about was, like, when he invites the lawnmower man over to play the video game for the first time, it is the most...

complex video game I have ever seen. And the kid, the five-year-old kid is doing really well, but it's just like jaws opening and closing and like they're flying. There's no rhyme or reason to that game whatsoever. It's not a game, yeah. And they don't have like players or tools or anything. It's just like razor blades come shooting down. It's like a void razor blade. Yeah. The flying game. Yeah.

Which also just shows you how shitty the VR is. They have to get on a special flying VR thing to get on that. It's like a motorcycle. I love that they need to approximate weightlessness in some way, shape, or form in order for VR to work.

Man, we've come so far. When this movie came out... And look at us now. Here we are. VR is what we're living in right now. Well, obviously, we had an opinion about this movie, but there are other people out there with a different opinion. It is now time for Second Opinions. What do they do to show a different view? They get a second opinion Amazon review. It's a five-star review written for someone like you. It's a second opinion.

Hamilton. Hamilton. Hamilton. Hamilton. These are five-star reviews from Amazon.com. All right, so there's a lot of great ones in here. We'll start off with this one from Roxy Gone. This was written recently, May 8, 2015. Wow.

The Lawnmower Man has two great actors in it. Jeff Fahey, yum. I'd fly upside down. And Pierce Brosnan, yum. You cannot go wrong with two great actors who are also dreamy to look at and a great script. Yum. Yum.

Five stars. Wait, the script was also yum? Yeah. The script was kind of a soft yum. Yeah. Okay. It's so funny when people compliment the script on a movie like this where I'm like, I'm not sure they used the script when they were filming it. The five star reviews here are a little bit tough. This one from Laura DiGiorno.

Are you sure it isn't Laura Delivery? It's definitely DiGiorno. That's great. Guys, don't reward that. This movie may have let me imagine what the city was like.

My delight and fascination with this movie revolves around the elements related to accelerated learning. Yeah, I have a certain fascination with mind stuff. So this movie was right up my alley. Five stars. That is a suicide note.

And the final one is written by Pavel Peev. Pavel Peev. Isn't that the guy that came up with the quiz at the end of Inside the Actor's Studio? What are your favorite curse words? Okay, so the title of this one is Virtual Reality Empowered the Lawnmower Man and it can help you as well. What?

The plot is about a guy who's not very smart, but he plugs into virtual reality and becomes intelligent. He tries all possible ways to gain access and finds a back door that allows him to ring all the phones in the world. LAUGHTER

In a way, you can do the same thing with the internet. You can find all information about all things in a life that interests you, and you become empowered, more intelligent, and successful. I strongly recommend this movie. Five stars. Thanks for reading. The priest says we have to leave the library now.

I am the lawnmower man. That makes it sound like his goal the whole movie was to ring all the telephones in the world. And he persevered. It's like an uplifting story about following your dreams. It's about a guy who's a landscaper who wants to ring every phone in the world.

To see if he could do it. There must be a back door to ring these phones. I've tried the front door. It's locked. Access denied.

Oh my God, that access denied scene. What was that? I don't even know what he was trying to do. I don't know. If you'd have to guess, how many video games were there made of this movie? Like, this movie spawned X amount of video games. I was hoping for zero. That could be a possibility. Like, the question being how many video games means multiple. Four? Three. Three.

Was this movie a hit? No. I believe those things are put into production before they realize that. Oh, my God. The first two. It was, oh, well, oh, actually, it was a hit.

Wow, it was a hit. Budget, $10 million. Opening weekend, $7 million. Domestic gross, $32 million. Wow. That's a hit. Does that make it a hit just because it's sort of profitable? Yeah. I mean, yeah.

I mean, it's not like a hit like Star Wars mega hit, but that's successful. That's like fine. Okay. It was the same year that Aladdin, Home Alone 2, Lost in New York, and Batman Returns came out. So those are one, two, and three. This came in number 42. It opened the same weekend as Wayne's World. Oh, it did? It opened the same weekend as Wayne's World.

I read that today. See? Oh my God. I wonder, that split the audience. Can you imagine that double feature? If you like went to the movies and saw both those movies, you'd be like, wait, what? You get it confused, you think it's just like about Garth? Yeah.

It's the continuing saga of Garth. It's the Garth prequel. The Garth origin story. You know, the director of this also directed that Peter Gabriel video. The one that looks like a virtual reality one. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

All right. And then the... Oh, then what else did I want to tell you guys? Oh, I don't know. That's it. That's all I have for here. I guess my question is, is there anything that we haven't talked about that you guys...

we'd like to bring up before we close up shop here. Oh, God. At 12.11. There's so many things. Just one thing. The part where he is driving in the car with the kid and he has a boombox sitting next to him and he keeps putting CDs in and listening to the first five seconds of a song and then taking the CD out and putting another CD in. And being like, this is country music. This is classical music. Yeah.

His IQ is off the charts. By the way, when did he turn in his truck for that Mercedes and where did he get that Mercedes from? Did he buy that? Great question. It was the Widows. Drove her insane. My favorite moment, and it's visual, so you in the theater will see it. It's like Pierce Brosnan's going to go in after he's collected all of his bombs. And he's like running in. He's like, huh.

Looks at it and he's like, all right, I'll take this gun. But it's like, if the gun is left on the side of the road, like a video game gun would be like left there. He's like, yeah, bullets. Oh, and it's like, oh, and ammo? And a health kit? And $100? Dude. I'd use that to buy body armor. Well, let's go around the thing. Would you recommend this movie? I would recommend this movie. I found it to be...

Highly enjoyable. Even though I didn't understand what was going on, it was great. And like we said, we didn't even touch upon the final CGI battle scene. And turning everybody into bubbles. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, fuck yeah, I'd recommend this movie. Great. Neil? Yeah, I'd recommend it. I remember seeing ads for it in comics when I was a kid and then seeing it on VHS and being like, yeah, I was satisfied with that. Jason? I mean, it's as relevant now as it was then. Yeah.

Here we are on the precipice of the advancements of virtual reality. They are at our doorstep. No, I mean, this was terrible. I would watch it, the caveat being fast forward. Like there's stuff in here that is just garbage, you know, but like fast forward, but yes, I would watch it. I would remake it and just be curious. You would? Yeah, because... That should be a new question.

Would you remake this movie? Would you remake this movie? I would. Would you? Like as the director? No, no. Knowing now what we know about VR, would it be more interesting to see it that way?

I'd reboot it and tell it from the point of view of the wife. Just a real female empowerment story. It's really her story. Yeah. Remember when she was like, oh, don't smoke in bed. Yeah. I'd like to see it's just like her day out in the city alone. Yeah. Just like a single, like how Stella got her groove back and then she comes back and she's like, oh,

The town is ruined. She passes that classic wall of TVs in the city and it's like her husband's place where it blows up. It's like a sequel that's about her only. But wouldn't it be great if it was all going on in the background of her movie, Her Stella Got the Groove Bag? Just seeing little things on the TV like, town blew up last night. And she's just having a shopping montage. I'm walking on sand.

It ends with her just picking up a payphone. Hello. All right. Well, thank you all for coming out. But let's talk. Making History is on Fox starting when? January. January on Fox. And we can follow you on the social media. Please follow me on Twitter. It's at NotNeilCasey. All right, great. And Emily, we are baby geniuses. You can get that wherever podcasts are downloaded or streamed, I imagine, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And can people follow you? They can follow you too. I'm at MrEmilyHeller. Ooh, I like that. All right, great. Jason, you want to plug anything? Not really. All right, great. Well, I will plug this. You can follow us on...

on Twitter at HDTGM. And also, if you have any comments, questions, anything at all, you can call us at 619-PAUL-ASK. That's P-A-U-L-A-S-K, 619-PAUL-ASK. And you can leave questions and comments. And a big thank you to everybody who makes this show possible. And I have that. I'm going to do that after the show. But give it up for Averill Halley, who puts all of our clips. Nate Kiley does all of our research. Marissa Zeitz does everything.

organizing the show. July Diaz up in the booth. Everybody here at Earwolf. Everybody at Largo. Thank you so much. Good night. Earwolf.

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