#340. 'Best in Show' (Also: RIP Catherine O'Hara)
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This is a tribute episode built around the sudden death of Catherine O'Hara, anchored by a rewatch of Christopher Guest's Best in Show. Sonny calls it consistently, relentlessly funny and singles out O'Hara's Cookie Fleck for a pitch-perfect late-movie pratfall (a fake torn-ACL wobble) as well as a scene-stealing one-scene cameo from Will Sasso; JVL admits he was annoyed by the film on first viewing because he was rooting for Harlan over Eugene Levy's Jerry Fleck, but has since come to consider it Guest's best work, praising John Michael Higgins, Jane Lynch, Jim Piddick, and the Larry Miller "they all jump" scene. Mike adds his own close-reading details (Jerry Fleck's Johnny Carson-isms, O'Hara's underrated singing) before all three widen out into a full career tribute to O'Hara — SCTV's Brooke Shields sketches, Beetlejuice, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Schitt's Creek (which Sonny and Mike both find grating despite O'Hara's performance), Killers, Curb Your Enthusiasm's Bam Bam, and Waiting for Guffman — with JVL comparing her comic stature to John Candy's. The episode opens with its usual long banter stretch: JVL's deep dive into modding his new Deadpool pinball machine (shaker motors, quiet fan swaps, custom light kits and toys from a Warsaw modder) and a custom home arcade cabinet; Sonny's old dog's emergency vet scare; JVL's half-joking pitch for a Hunter Brook-style hedge-fund-meets-sports-journalism scheme; and Mike's saga of a clogged kitchen drain that cost him a thousand dollars and several days of DIY snaking before a plumber's hydro-jet finally cleared it. A box-office segment covers Sam Raimi's Send Help opening solid, the Melania documentary flopping badly for Amazon MGM, and Sonny's extended breakdown of Iron Lung, a cheap YouTuber Markiplier vehicle that used his 38-million-subscriber fanbase to outperform expectations. The episode closes with dueling Christopher Guest mockumentary rankings — Sonny and JVL both put Best in Show on top and A Mighty Wind last (for different reasons: Sonny dislikes the folk-music milieu, JVL finds its ending too mean to its characters), while Mike ranks A Mighty Wind higher than either of them do.
From the show notes
RIP Catherine O'Hara. Also: important pinball content.
Full transcript
Guest00:00:00Wakey! What? What? What's going on? Zach, what are you doing? Zach, wakey. It's okay, baby. Don't move. Zach. Don't move. He's got a parachute around his ass.
Mike00:00:11Please, please, this is what I do. Please, honey, this is what I do. Don't be mad at him, please. I'll gouge your left eye out with my thumb.
Guest00:00:17I shit you not, you freak. Get down here right now. I'm gonna punch you in the eye till it turns to jelly. Get down here.
Mike00:00:30Welcome to the Sub-Beacon Podcast. I'm your co-host, Mike Warren. Joining me, as always, are my two co-hosts who could talk or not talk forever and still find things to not talk about. Jonathan V. Last and Sonny Bunch. Join us over at Sub-Beacon.com. Tell your friends and family if they want to listen to this show, they gotta do it at Sub-Beacon.com. And they can get a new episode every Friday morning at Sub-Beacon.com. We are going to be talking about best in show and really the great and sadly late Catherine O'Hara later on in the show. But first, I mean, we we need it. You know, we've got to have the pinned update, the pinball update. But I did. There it is. I did. You cannot see. But we got a full shot of the let me get it.
Sonny00:01:24Let me get a screenshot of this. I'll see. I'll include that. Oh, boy. Look at that.
Mike00:01:29Look at that. The Deadpool pinball machine is up and running. Deadpool premium.
JVL00:01:35I have already done my first modifications on it. What? This is this is one of those things where the reality of it has turned out to be better than I had hoped.
Mike00:01:51I mean, what what what more can you hope for than for the reality to be better?
JVL00:01:54Yeah, it's so the kids love it. The kids are down here playing pinball. All night long. It is a super fun game. Pinball is sort of an infinitely recursive game like is all because it's always different. It's not like playing. I mean, you know, you play the X-Men side scrolling game. It's the same thing every time. It's the same but different. It's nice to have a game which is new that nobody is good at because everybody is sort of learning to figure out, like, how do you make shots and whatnot? But the modding. So I have just jumped to two fists in on this thing. So I installed a shaker motor. Okay. Last weekend, which is an accessory that gets mounted inside the cabinet. And it sort of gives. It's like the rumble controllers for everyone.
Mike00:02:50For like N64.
JVL00:02:51Yeah, the rumble pack. For N64, the rumble pack. It's like that for the pinball machine. And so it is hooked in with the GI and in the board. And so it tells them. It's like the machine went. I have. I have right in my hand. Why you don't have it in my actual hand here. I'm installing a new fan in the power supply because Stern pinball machines are notorious for having. Can you hear that? No, no. Can't hear that. Okay. So Stern fans are notorious for having a power supply fan that kicks on at a certain threshold temperature. Right. Inside the power supply, which is in the back box. The back box is where the big trans light thing is with a, you know, the artwork.
Guest00:03:37Mm-hmm.
JVL00:03:38Mm-hmm. And you don't notice this in an arcade because arcades are really loud and noisy. You've got a million things happening, but at home you hear it and it's like this turbine. I don't, I don't care for it. Kind of like old PCs. That would drive me crazy.
Mike00:03:53Yes. Like the old PC fan. Yeah. That.
JVL00:03:57Yeah. Used to always like rev on. So, you know, the community. Mm-hmm. Has a, a solution for this. What the, you know, there is a, uh, a company called pinball Zen, which creates a replacement fan for the power supply. And the trick is that this fan, instead of kicking on like every seven minutes when it needs it, it's just always running. Mm. But it's running at a very, very low. Yeah. And so you can't hear it.
Sonny00:04:26Just keeps the air moving. Constantly instead of.
JVL00:04:28Constantly. 12 decibels. Yeah. It's a 12 decibel fan. It'll be silent.
Sonny00:04:33Is that, is that louder or quieter than your dishwasher?
JVL00:04:35Dishwasher. Yeah. Much quieter. Much quieter. Okay. My, my dishwasher's like a 36 decibel dishwasher. So this is, you know, again, this thing is so quiet. You don't even, don't even, in fact, it's one of the things they tell you is that when you install it, before you close the whole thing back up, you have to stick like a little piece of a paper towel or something back to see if it is blown because otherwise you can't hear it. You don't want to know if you installed it wrong, so you gotta get a check before you close the whole thing back up to make sure it's installed correctly. Uh, I have ordered a light kit, what are called pin stadium lights, which are essentially a lights that go, uh, long here. I'm going to just put it back. So along this portion, okay, right inside the cabinet lights, which go all the way up it and which also get hooked into the GI, the general interface. And provide extra illumination, including UV. So like when you hit like super multi ball mode, you get like flashing black lights on the play field. I have ordered myself a piece of glare free glass. I'm replacing the stock glass on this thing because I do not care for the glare. I want to be, I want it to look like there isn't even glass on top of it.
Sonny00:05:57You probably can't even see what's going on in there.
JVL00:06:00Right now. Right. It's I don't like any reflections whatsoever. And that is before I got in touch with my friend Bart, not his actual name in Warsaw, Poland, who is a modder who has created some really outstanding models to go into the play field because this one has a Stern created a little chimichanga truck. Would you like me to hear just take a look? Do you see that? Chimichanga truck way in the back corner there.
Mike00:06:32Yeah. Yeah. Flames there. There. Now that I'm at it. There we go. See the flames. Right.
JVL00:06:40I mean, that's nice. So those are called toys, right? What? Toys. Right. Right. Toys. That's nice. But the one Bart made is amazing. And, you know, it's hand sculpted and three printed and then then then hand painted and it's got all sorts of light effects in it and it's beautiful. And so I'm I've. In the process of purchasing one of those from him and that I'm going to have to do a little bit of extra wiring under the cabinet when I get it. And I just. I feel like almost like like a 17 year old who has gotten an Iraq Camaro that he gets to work on on the weekends. It's like, oh yeah, you know, Saturday afternoon, can't wait to get this thing up on blocks and really get in there under the engine and. But. The air intake. And I got a little kit for the manifold.
Mike00:07:32This is, this is no, but this is not a 17 year old's hobby. This is a, this is a father of your age's hobby, right?
JVL00:07:38It's just grown man. It's a grown man's hobby. It's it's. And I gotta say the pleasure I'm getting from that because it has a level of difficulty, which is enough to be challenging, but is ultimately surmountable, right? So there are, there is a level of modding you can get to at which point you are with a soldering iron. Correct.
Sonny00:07:59And I'm not there yet. Yeah.
JVL00:08:01You gotta work up to that. I'm not willing to solder circuit boards or anything like that. Yeah. But the rest of it, like going to the power, I gotta take apart the power supply, remove it from the, the machine itself, open the thing up and then like undo the wiring of the fan and rewire a new fan. And you know what? That sounds kind of butch. Maybe not really, but, uh, but it sounds a little intimidating, but I feel pretty confident I can do it. And there are a million YouTube tutorials. I just, oh, it's great. It's, it's scratching all of the itches, all of them. That's great. I started looking for my snap for my second, second machine.
Sonny00:08:37Of course you are. Cause you're gonna have, you're gonna have a whole, you're gonna have a whole room full of them. I mean, I, uh, unrelated, unrelated to this, unrelated to this. I happen to, I happen to come across a cartoon on Twitter and it was, uh, or maybe it wasn't even a cartoon. It was just like a little video clip of a man, a man about, about our age, maybe a little, little older. And he's reading a newspaper and he, he folds the newspaper up and he kind of looks off into the middle distance and says, you know what? I'm gonna start a really expensive hobby. And it was like, that's, that's it. That's we have, this is, this is the age of our life that we're in right now. We're, we're trying to find our thing, our, and you have found yours. You have found your, I think this is it. I think this is it for you.
JVL00:09:19I have found another expensive hobby. Yeah. This is not your first. I, I would say though, in my defense, in my defense. Like buying a car, which just depreciates and depreciates and depreciates. This again is like buying a treasury bill. Like this thing, I paid some money for it. And if I would like to get rid of it, I will get back almost the exact same amount of money. Like I'm not, you know, I might lose a couple hundred bucks on it, but that's it.
Mike00:09:48Yeah.
JVL00:09:49It's a lot more fun for the kids than a treasury bill. More fun for the kids, more fun for the kids. So I feel like this is a responsible hobby and uh, on the other. The other front with the, uh, the home video game console, the multi-cade, my artists sent back proofs having executed G money's design and uh, you know, I'm just going to drop this in, uh, let's drop this in text to you, but he, he really made, he made a little boy's dream come true. It is a, it is a video game. I did not sub in DOA. Um, but what he did, you know, we have star Wars on one side, superheroes on the other and on the control panel, classic video game characters.
Mike00:10:36And uh, it's, you know, oh, that looks great.
JVL00:10:41Star Wars.
Mike00:10:42We're living the dream here at the last house. This is the last house is, I mean, you gotta open like, uh, uh, open this up to the public, right? Sell, sell tickets and like, you can call it the last house, right? Like the last, this, this, the last house. It's the last house arcade.
Sonny00:10:57It's the last arcade. I mean, I, uh, there you go. There's your business. The last arcade.
JVL00:11:02Yeah. It's feeling pretty good.
Mike00:11:04So I, uh, congratulations anyway, that's, that's what I got.
JVL00:11:09I have a, I have a little media story for you, but we could talk about that some other time. Um, this we've taken up more, more of my time, maybe for, you should talk about your media
Sonny00:11:16story. Cause I, I have nothing for this week. My week's been a disaster. All right. I've got, I've got a sick dog, which has made this, which made watching this movie much worse than, uh, than it should have been.
JVL00:11:26Like, like seriously sick or like he has a cold. Do dogs get colds?
Sonny00:11:31Do cats get colds? Yeah. No, she, uh, she, well, we had the, we had to go to the doggy ER cause she was like, not just like throwing up and, and, uh, having diarrhea, but like, wouldn't lay down was like standing and just like standing still. She's so old. She's like 16. Uh, so, but she, she, she's eating now again. She's not, she's not sick. She's not throwing up. So she seems to. Yeah. She seems to be on the mend. It was touching go there for a minute. It was a, it was one of these things where it was like, does she have some sort of terrible stomach blockage? Is she going to need like surgery? Like what is, what is happening here? So, uh, anyway, I, I, I have not been sleeping very well because she still is getting up, you know, uh, uh, kind of frequently, but it's, uh, it is, it's anyway, what's your media story?
JVL00:12:19Yeah. Tell us that. Well, it's, it's, it's just my idea. So you, do you boys know about Hunter Brook? No. No. Okay.
Sonny00:12:28So Hunter Brook is a very interesting media company.
JVL00:12:29Uh, it is a media organization. One half is a media organization and the other half is a hedge fund. And the idea is that the media organization does investigations looking to find out bad things about businesses. Okay. And then simultaneously as it publishes those things, it's hedge funds. Hedge fund is taking market positions on them, often short selling. Huh. And this gets around, it's basically legalized insider trading. Right. Sure. Right. Because it's insider trading. If you possess information you're not supposed to know and you trade on it, that's bad. Not legal advice. But if you, if you publish information you're not supposed to have as a journalist, that's good. Protected by the first amendment. Sure. So you can trade on that. If you just happen to have that information at the exact moment it's published, so you could execute your trades.
?00:13:32Good.
JVL00:13:33Anyway.
Sonny00:13:34Wait, wait, wait, wait. I have a serious question. Like serious, actual league. I need legal advice, JBL. Yeah. Uh, the, um, so is it, is it still insider trading if you are creating the information?
JVL00:13:48Well, but is the information true?
Sonny00:13:52Assuming the information is true. Yeah. If you're creating the knowledge that leads to the reduction in value. You know what I mean? So this, so it's not, it's not just like, Hey, I got a tip where we're about to buy this company. You should go by. It's not bad.
JVL00:14:08It's like, so this depends if you're an employee of the company involved, yes.
Mike00:14:15Because the information you have belongs to that company.
JVL00:14:18Sure. Let's say, uh, I am just, I discover on my own. Um, that Scotch tape stops working, uh, you know, under, and, and so I go out and I short three M because I have discovered, and the rest of the world is able to discover that three that is not in, that is not. Sure. Sure. Yeah. Right. Okay. Um, but the act of publishing the information anyway, unimportant. Um, so what if we did this with the Washington post sports section? Okay. So you take all the people who've been laid off from the Washington post sports section, right? And you stand up a new sports journalism entity, but it's not really about publishing stories. Your reporters are turned loose to find actionable pieces of gambling information, which would allow you to, to shade different lines and create value in the sports market betting place. But you are attached to a hedge fund, which goes and acts on those things. Simultaneous with publication.
Sonny00:15:26So you're, what you're saying is you have a, you have a football game that has a line of like seven points, right? And you go out and you learn that the, the team is not going to have their star wide receiver, but you, you don't publish that until very close to game time.
JVL00:15:43No, and then you publish that as soon as you get the information because you own that information. It's just that as you're publishing that information. You are also trading on it.
Sonny00:15:56No, but I'm saying, wouldn't it make more sense to trade? Wouldn't it make more sense to get the better line and then publish the information and then the line will change?
JVL00:16:06No. So so you, you take advantage of the line, right? So you, you buy against or right. If, if the, if the line is too generous, right, because these things are, so with a lot, there are ways in which you can. You can. The simplest way of gambling is like I am betting that this team either covers the line or doesn't cover the line and we can't, that trade doesn't get executed until the game is finished playing. Right. Right. So I bet, but there's a whole universe and this is largely like how poly market works and and prediction markets work where I buy an outcome at a given line far out, but then the line shifts over time. I sell my position if my position is favorable to that.
Sonny00:16:56Oh, you're talking about. Oh, okay. So you're talking about like poly market or cow sheet, not, not like Vegas lines. Gotcha.
JVL00:17:02Right. Not talking about a sports book. Right. And so you, anyway, just an idea, just an idea. Maybe the three of us do that. That's the future of sports journalism.
Sonny00:17:12I don't know. I gotta think if anybody's listening to this, they're like, they're like this son and God doesn't know what he's talking about.
JVL00:17:17I don't think this is a good idea because this is basically what this entire like sports betting scandal. Like came, was it in the NBA? Was that where all these guys were? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, it was, it was MLB, right?
Mike00:17:29No. Well, there was, there was the, there's the NBA one.
JVL00:17:31Um, and then.
Sonny00:17:32Yeah. There's been multiple NBA guys.
JVL00:17:34Yes. Right. Like in the last year, this is a way of, of doing all of that legally. So uh, you know, you've got a guy in the clubhouse who's like talking to sources, getting information.
Mike00:17:47The problem I, the problem I foresee with this is the, is the competitiveness of that reporting market. Yeah. Uh, as opposed to this, you'd have to, I don't know much about Hunter Brooke, but like they've probably cornering the market on a lot of, in a lot of ways that like there's not a ton of investigative, uh, business reporting going on relative to the whole of business reporting or the whole of reporting in general where it's reporting. I mean, like if you've got something pretty, I guess you do have to, yeah, you do have to go with it pretty quickly or else ESPN and everyone else is jumping.
Sonny00:18:23Yeah. No, but, but Mike, here's, here's where JBL's plan is genius. You don't do it for major league baseball or NFL or NBA. You do it for like F1, no, not even F1. You do it for like, uh, for, um, I don't know, like, uh, what's the, what's the, what's the, what's the game with the stones and they slide across the, you do it for like curling, you do it for like the real, you do it for the ESPN, the Ocho sport, right? Because there are degenerate gamblers out there who will gamble on anything.
JVL00:18:51They will gamble on anything. With the arrivals departures screen.
Sonny00:18:55Remember that? So if you're, if you're, if you're, you're, you've got it, you've got the cornhole championship on ESPN eight, the Ocho, and you got some inside scoop as to, you know, Bobby, Bobby big fingers got a blister on his, uh, you know, on his tossing on his cornhole tossing hand. You get, you need to just, you play that. That's, that's how you do it.
Mike00:19:15We, yeah, we corner the market on reporting on the lumberjack games and, uh, world's strongest
JVL00:19:20man. And again, the value is created by reporting the fact, like you don't even need to wait for the outcome. Sure. Because then once you report it, the line and the market corrects to it, and that's where you've made your money.
Mike00:19:34I mean, all I can say is what could possibly go wrong?
JVL00:19:38What could possibly go wrong?
Mike00:19:39Look, this is the future of all journalism, uh, Michael, how are you? Uh, it's been, you're looking at me right now, guys, and your text last night was worrisome. So. Yeah. You're, you're seeing, uh, right now a man who has, who is more himself than he was earlier this time. He's, he's put together, he sort of reconstituted his sense of, of self and, and, and being,
Sonny00:20:08um, like the $8 million man, sort of.
Mike00:20:11Why not?
Sonny00:20:12Um, is that the right number of millions? No, it was $6 million, $6 million man.
Mike00:20:17Sorry. Uh, not quite that much money, but more money than I had anticipated. Spending this week, uh, I do not have a new arcade game or pinball set for, for the money that we spent.
JVL00:20:31Uh, I don't really have anything new, um, to speak up, but I, uh, it's not quite going
Mike00:20:40to water damage. It's not quite water damage, but it is water related. And it is, uh, it was our kitchen sink, uh, begins on Friday afternoon, evening, back and up, right? So I do what I know how to do, which is the first thing you check is dispose all suppose all is working just fine. There's nothing stuck here. There's nothing, there's nothing that's clogging things up. That's causing the water to come back up the sink. So the next step is obviously the P trap, right? It's just past the disposal and all you gotta do is take it out and check to say, oh, there's probably a clog in there. Maybe that, that leftover corn run drain tortilla soup. No, not Drano, my, my Lord, no, not Drano. You just take the P trap off and you see if there's gunk in there and you take the gunk in. Right? Uh, no, no. Is it ice further down the line? No, no, no. None of that. Although that was a theory that I had. Okay. Um, actually here's where my theory went because the P trap of course was nice and clear. Uh, nothing, nothing, nothing obstructing the flow there. So then my tree roots smell great too. Uh, oh yeah, of course. The fear then is that the, uh, the, the plumbing vent, right? So like your, your plumbing all has in your house as vents that go outside, usually through the roof in order to allow for airflow. So all of this deep freeze that we're, we've been experiencing for the past, you know, at that point, five days, um, maybe it's like there's ice in the vent and it's causing that sort of problem. Uh, and I went down to the basement where I've got to clean out for the kitchen drain. And I ran a test there to see if potentially there was a pressure problem. Essentially, uh, was there, uh, you know, was there too much pressure being built up and not enough flow up? That wasn't the problem. So then I get the exciting, uh, and innovative idea of going to buy myself a, uh, a nice 25 foot snake snake.
JVL00:22:53You're going to snake your own drain.
Mike00:22:55I'm going to snake my own drain, baby. And it's not a power snake. It's just a little, you know, manual cranking hand crank snake. Oh yeah. Oh yeah.
JVL00:23:04Because you snake through the drain or through the P trap. No, you don't want to go through the disposal unit.
Mike00:23:11No, no, no, no, no, no. So I had this clean out, um, on, so my sink, my kitchen sink is the only, uh, it's the only, uh, drain on. On this side of the house. And it's basically the only, so there, you know, it goes down through the basement and then in, you know, under the, under the slab and then into the horizontal pipe that connects
JVL00:23:33with the rest. Disconnected the disposal and you're, you're snaking from a, no, no, this disposal is not
Mike00:23:38even, not even I'm, I'm down below it. Right. There's like, there's like a, there's a, uh, there's a clean out. There's a clean out. Right. It's like, it's like on this vertical pipe, there's a little, uh, why? Yep. You open it up, you let the pressure out, you let it, whatever. And I start snaking. I spent about four and a half hours snaking on Saturday night. Um, there's, uh, quite a bit of, you know, gunk and buildup. It's quite disgusting. Um, and I'm just not getting anywhere, nothing. It's like, it's clearly there. What do I do with it? Like what, what, like, you know, it's not like I was able to just like break through this thing and open it all back up. So I did the thing that I just really did not want to do, which was, I called a plumber. I called it in fact, a, an expert in the, uh, in the snaking of drain plumber, like that's all they do. No, no, no, no, no. Don't go.
JVL00:24:38Don't go branding.
Mike00:24:39Go, go, uh, well, I, what happened was I ended up calling several people. I found a reputable plumber who said, I don't do that anymore. Here's who you should call. Here's who basically who he refers. All people too, because he doesn't do that work. So the guy comes with his crew on Monday. Um, look, I, I will bore you with all the details. Essentially they tried power snaking it. They were very, uh, skeptical that it was going to work. They power snaked it three times and, uh, it miraculously passed the hot water test. Like it ran two minutes of hot water down the drain after they did that. So presumably it worked right. So like literally like four hours later on Monday night, it starts back. So I have to call them back because now they're going to bring out the big guns. They came on Wednesday to hydro jet, just essentially taking like a power washer into
JVL00:25:36the pipe and just cleaning. How far along is the blockage?
Mike00:25:42So what they were able to determine was I did a lot of like research parallel to all this. So my house is. Closer to 60 years old than it is to 50 and we are pretty fastidious about like not putting bacon grease and other things down there, but like it doesn't really matter. Like it does matter. Like you shouldn't just throw like congealing fat down your drain. Like even if you, even if you're like a saint about it, like some is going to get down and it's even the soap, even the soap that we use, like it just builds up and over like 50 years, that's what's going to happen. What they said had happened. And even that power snaking had like created a hole, but then it collapsed because like that, that's just what it's the gunk just collapsed and locked it up. The, the, the, the hydro jetting, that thing, that's a, that's a drain enema that just everything out. Yeah. That thing. So anyway, so they, so they came back and did that. It was disgusting apparently, but, uh, I was able to hear they were running a hose all the way down it to indicate that it was like they were, it was just pumping water into it after they had cleaned it out to indicate that it was like, it was totally clear. Um, and okay, anyway, so it's all, it's all said none. And I even got them to basically take off what I had paid them on Monday off of the cost of, of the hydrogen anyway. So it was all as well that ends well, but I have to say, um, total a thousand dollars.
?00:27:20Yep.
JVL00:27:21The killer is that it's a thousand dollars on top of the four hours you spent working at yourself on top of the hour you spent going out to home Depot to buy a snake. So it's five hours of your life plus a thousand dollars.
Mike00:27:43Yep. Yep. Yeah. That, that money quite literally went down the drain. Um, so, but I have to say like, I actually feel good about that because it's done and it's, it's finished. I have to say, when I, when we had no kitchen drip, cuz we weren't running the dishwasher, we weren't running the sink at all. Uh, I don't know. I've had plenty of problems in my house. I have never felt more like a broken man than when we had no access to our kitchen sink because I, I figured out like 75% of the time that I'm awake. And that I'm not working. I'm like in the kitchen or doing something kitchen related. Like you're cleaning up from dinner, you're making dinner, you're, you know, what, like whatever it is, like you're writing the dishwasher, like all of this stuff, it, it unmoored me. I was like, I was, I, I have to, I have to, like, I suspect that being like cooped up in the house after like, uh, once in a lifetime, like winter snow ice storm with like the kids home from school, all like, it was all compounding, but like. There was like a moment on Monday night where I was just like, I was basically like sitting, rocking, holding my knees up to my chest being like, will this ever, will this ever get better? And I don't know. I think, I think it was, I, it was, I was on the, I was on the edge of a knife on this one. So anyway, everything's better. I'm so I'm, I'm so much happier now, you know, we've run the dishwasher multiple times, Larry
Sonny00:29:16Miller to talk you off the ledge, I'll guard your eye out. I will jam my thumb into your eye. I forgot. They all jump. All right.
JVL00:29:25Secret of the trade. They all jump.
Sonny00:29:27I had, I had forgotten about that. We'll get to that. We're gonna talk about that.
Mike00:29:31All right. Oh my God. So anyway, so that's all. Everything's fine. And well, let's move on and talk about the box office. Uh, another pretty, not as abysmal box office weekend, but a pretty abysmal box office weekend. Number one, uh, at the box office send help, which is the Sam Raimi, uh, kind of Riller horror movie. Uh, right about the, right. This is about the, the woman, Rachel McAdams and her asshole boss.
Sonny00:29:57It's like cast away, but also mean girls.
Mike00:30:01Right. Uh, number one at the box office and also misery, kind of some misery, uh, pulling in $19 million at the box office. Number two at the box office, iron lung, uh, which is this, what is this? I have there.
Sonny00:30:16All right. There are a lot of interesting things going on at the box office. So let, let me just, let me just dive in.
Mike00:30:21Well, the last thing I would say is Melania is number three. Yeah.
Sonny00:30:24So go, go ahead. Okay. So, so several interesting things at the box office. One is Sam Raimi, uh, is back with send help, which is, uh, you know, kind of a mid budget, high concept studio programmer. Like this is a, this is just a, just a, we used to get five of these a year from every studio. Um, and we don't, we don't really get that anymore. Uh, and it did, it did well, it did $19 million. I think the budget was like $4 million. 40 million on it. Um, so that's that 20th century Fox 20th, 20th century studios, it's not a century Fox. Um, but it was, it was 20th century studios, which of course is part of Walt Disney, you know, um, well, Disney, but the, the, the, the two big stories, really the two inch, the two more interesting ones are, uh, iron lung and Melania. And like, I've, I've talked a lot about Melania elsewhere, so we don't need to go into that too, too deep here, but the, um, but you know, the Amazon MGM. MGM studios spent $75 million between production, licensing, advertising, et cetera. And, and it grossed, uh, it grows $7 million. It had been, it had been, it had been tracking for five, uh, initial reports that it was going to do 8 million. Then it, that ended up being a little front loaded. So 7 million, you know, it'll probably end up grossing 20 million bucks at the most, like on the, on the, you know, on the, the far edge of things, which means that it's, you know, going to lose a lot of money. Um, so, you know, that, that's, that's again, a lot of thoughts there, but, uh, it's, it's, it is what it is. The, um, iron lung is more interesting. Iron lung is so iron lung is a film from YouTuber Markiplier. Do you know who Markiplier is?
Mike00:32:12No, I have no idea who that is.
Sonny00:32:14Markiplier has 38 million subscribers on YouTube. Markiplier, 38 million subscribers on YouTube, or he's, he's just one of these video game guys. He talks video games. And so he is, he has adapted an indie horror video game called iron lung, which is about a man who is in a little tiny submarine going around a blood ocean, trying to find something, trying to find monster. He's been sent down there. He's trying to find monsters or the, the, the key to save humanity. Okay. And I can tell you, I went to go see this movie. I went to go see this movie yesterday, cuz I was like, I w I'm gonna write about it, write about it for, uh, you know, for my newsletter. And I figure I should probably see it if I'm gonna write about it. It is inscrutable to non-fans of this game. I like, I could not, I could not really explain the plot to you except to say. It's about a future in which humanity has experienced the end of the universe, kind of, but they find a planet and the planet is full of blood and they're trying to look for something in the blood oceans that are on this planet. That's, that's the plot of the movie action or live action, live action, starring Mark Applier himself.
Mike00:33:32I was saying, is he in it? Yeah, he's the, he's an actor.
JVL00:33:35What's the budget.
Sonny00:33:37So the budget, so, uh, he has not said specifically what the budget is, but, uh, this guy did a, this guy did a podcast with, um, Matt Bellany. And when he was talking to Matt Bellany, um, before the movie had come out, so this, this podcast debuted the, the Friday, the movie came out, um, they had obviously talked a day or two before that, at that point, the movie had done $7 million in pre-sales, um, which was enough to put it in the black. So if you figure 50% split between theaters and three and a half million, so it, it costs, it costs no more than three and a half million. It probably costs like, uh, 600,000, frankly, it was, it's, it's basically one man in a room for the whole time. Uh, so he, he has, he's already made his money back, uh, and it, it did much better than 7 million. It did 17.8 million. Um, so I, it's, it's a really interesting story because this is, you know, this is not the sort of thing that can be replicated really. Um, this guy has again, 38 million followers on YouTube. He's an enormous, he's an enormous, he's not quite Mr. Beast big, obviously, but he is, uh, closer to Mr. Beast than us. And he, um, he, he can do this because he can convince, you know, $17.8 million. That's if you can convince 1.1 million people to go see your thing, that's, that's about, so he, he really only has to convince about what, uh, 3% of his audience to go see this thing. And it, it's a, it's an enormous hit anyway. It's a really interesting story. Totally outside of the normal distribution, uh, methods it's, he's not partnered with a studio. He has not. He just went, he went to like, he, he, he has a guy who did this for him, but they went to all of the chains. They went to regal, they went to AMC, they went to draft house and they're like, Hey, put this movie in your theaters. And they were all like, fuck you, you don't, you're not going to do any advertising for this. We're not going to put this in here where we, we, we, you know, we need to put things in our theaters that will make money. And so he just had his followers. He had his viewers as followers. Like, call them up and send them emails and show up at the theaters and say, Hey, we want to see the Markiplier movie. And enough of them started like picking up, um, so, so, you know, what would happen is in a town, uh, the AMC would put it on two screens and those screens would sell out. And so they'd put it on bigger screens and then the other theaters would see these sellouts happening and then pick it up. And eventually it's on 3000 screens that way, 3000 screens. Um, so good for him. Good for him. It's really interesting. Uh, again, it's kind of like the Taylor Swift era's tour concert movie that came out, uh, in the sense that this is, this is not replicable on any sort of scale because you need a, you need an individual who has like a cult of personality to get people to show up for it.
JVL00:36:36Um, but it is, it's fast forward thousand people like that on YouTube. I don't think so.
Sonny00:36:41I don't, I don't, I mean, different genres maybe, but 30, 38 million is a lot. I like that's, you know, like here's, all right, so here's, here's a, here's a counter example, right? This guy, Chris Stuckman, um, made a movie called Shelby Oaks. He raised $1.4 million on Kickstarter, um, made the movie. It got picked up for distribution by neon. Now Chris Stuckman has 2 million followers on YouTube. That's not 38 million, but 2 million is still a lot. That's put you in the top, you know, one 10th of 1% probably of YouTube accounts. Um, uh, and that movie came out. And it grossed about $6 million total domestic, um, because that guy does not have the same sort of, you know, if 3% of his audience shows up, that's not very many people, frankly, at least in terms of, you know, at least in terms of big, uh, box office numbers. So it's, it's, it's, it's hard. That's I don't, I don't think, and you, you also just have to be the sort of person who like wants to make a movie, you know, like that there's not that many people like that.
Mike00:37:46But get, I mean, this does. Suggest however, that like, if there is a future for movies or maybe just take it a little more, well, let's just stay with movies. Like if there is a future for movies, which is totally in question at the moment, like a huge part of the business might be like replicating this kind of model, right?
Sonny00:38:08So, well, so this is why I find it interesting to pair this movie with send help, right? So send help is the sort of thing that studios used to put out all the time and it's the sort of thing that, you know, would do okay in theaters. Not nobody's, nobody's getting, nobody's, you know, uh, bumping up the stock price for, for the success of send help, right? Like that's not, that's not what that is doing, but it, it keeps people coming into the theaters.
JVL00:38:32It keeps the whole ecosystem.
Sonny00:38:34It supports the whole ecosystem. And so this sort of thing can be not a replacement for the studio programmer, but a nice little addition to it. Like this is, this is, you know, the, the big takeaway from this is that theaters do need to be more open to, uh, playing with this sort of thing. And look, you see it, you see it in the conservative documentary space, set aside Melania, like Melania is its own weird thing, but like the Dinesh D'Souza movies, right? Like those are, those are there. That is, there's a core audience and they show up and they do six to $18 million or whatever. And like, that's, that's good enough. Crunchyroll, right? All that stuff. What's that?
JVL00:39:13And the Crunchyroll stuff.
Sonny00:39:14And the Crunchyroll stuff, right?
JVL00:39:15Angel Studios, all that stuff.
Sonny00:39:17Um, yeah. So like, this is, this is the main, my, my big takeaway from this is that theaters need to be more open. The theater chains need to be more open to, to creators who are not going to spend 15 to $30 million on an advertising campaign. They need to, they need to, you know, really kind of be, be on the lookout for folks who can turn out 1 million people to see the thing you can do that. You do that enough. Times you, you got a nice little business.
JVL00:39:50I mean, I hear what you're saying and yet it does remind me of when there was a time in book publishing, like around 2008, 2010, where the publishing industry basically was like, uh, we're just going to give book contracts to people with a lot of Twitter followers. Yeah, sure. Uh, yes, this. This girl has started a Twitter account. Things babies say or shit. My dad says shit. My dad says, and, uh, well, they have a lot of followers on Twitter, so let's give them a book deal. And, or, or before this, there was, I forget who the actress was, but there is some real actress who like we all know and love now, who I remember writing or saying something in an interview about, and it was clearly. The Rob Schneider, it was a Rob Schneider movie. I think she had auditioned for a part in, and she was like, yeah, and they passed me over. They just took some girl from survivor. And it was like, you know, oh, survivor is this thing. It's this brand new show. There's this thing called reality television. Sure. These people are hot. What if we just put reality television people into movies? Maybe audiences will go. And I, I fucking rebel against all of this.
Sonny00:41:16I think. I think the difference between those two things is you had. So this is why I think, for instance, this is why I think Shelby Oaks didn't work right is that Chris Stuckman gave like I'm sure Chris Stuckman was doing his own PR, etc. But he's got a small audience and he was like, well, I'm going to let I'm going to let Neon take the lead on this. They're going to go out there and they're going to they're going to do it. And, you know, Neon did fine. Again, six million dollars on a one point four million dollar film is nothing to sneeze at that. That's not the. That's not the worst outcome in the world, but it's not this. It's not this. The big difference here is it's not a studio going out and saying we're going to get this hot new thing and we're going to put them in a movie and then people will show up. Right. It's not like Nate Bartsgate is going to be in this like daddy. Daddy's taking care of the house movie. I don't know if you guys have seen.
JVL00:42:08Oh, yeah.
Sonny00:42:10Looks fucking terrible.
JVL00:42:12It's not all over again.
Sonny00:42:14It's not like that.
JVL00:42:15I love Joe Dirt.
Sonny00:42:16Joe Dirt's great. It's not it's not like that. It's not it's not like, hey, we're going to have the Hawk to a girl in the first episode of Chad Powers, which is a thing that happened. I watched Chad Powers. Great show. Chad Powers. Very, very funny. Chad Powers. Very funny. But in the first episode, there's like a sequence with Haley. What's her name? The Hawk to a girl. And he keeps calling her Hawk, too. And she's like, I have a name. And it was like, do you really actually, though? Do you have a name? I don't think you do. But but the but the but the different again, I'm sorry, the difference here is not just the scale of this guy's audience, which is which is much larger. It's that he made the thing like he made the thing. It's a it's a it is a labor of love that appeals to his core demographic audience. It's a video game adaptation. That's what they watch him for. It's very specifically tailored to them. I see to say like, hey, come support me. And he was talking about this with Melanie. He's like, look, I don't make a lot of asks of my audience. I don't we don't you know, I don't have a bunch of ads. I don't we don't say, hey, you got to buy this thing because that's what we you know, that's not because that's just what we're selling this week. We just you know, we when we ask when we ask our audience for help, they show up. And I think there's something to that. There is something to that. Again, I not not really replicable because you have to you have to have a guy who not only has the big audience, he has to go out there and make the thing himself. And he has to do it in a way that appeals to his core audience. Is aligned with the audience and be in line with the audience and like have their have their emotional support and backing. You know, it's it's again, not you cannot build an industry around this, but it can be part of the industry that you've already built. Certainly build a company like that. Then you can bet against it. There we go.
Mike00:44:08I do think we should move on. But I do think the the video game element of this as well is something that I it remains a blind spot for me because I like the idea of like watching people play video games as entertainment is baffling to me. But this is clearly like not just the future. It's the now of like how people the present.
JVL00:44:29Yeah. What people do.
Mike00:44:30So anyway, but why don't we move on? Because we we need to talk about a loss, a sudden and surprising loss, I think, for old Hollywood, I guess, is what we call it. Old entertainment. And for comedy, Catherine O'Hara dying after a short illness. I don't know if we know much more, but not old, just not all right. Correct. Correct. She's not old. It was it was a shock and surprise. She's been she's been consistently working, working recently on, I think, the studio. Right. Was that the show that she had a better role in? And but she's I mean, she's been a mainstay. And really, I would consider her one of the. One of the best sketch comedians of all of all time, certainly the TV, like, you know, since they've been putting sketch comedy on TV, she's you just go back and watch her on SCTV, which you can watch them all on YouTube and see what I mean. But we watched Best in Show, one of the Christopher Guest movies that she starred in. There's so much to talk about with her, but why don't we just start with the with Best in Show? Sonny, you want to give us a big boy review of Best in Show?
Sonny00:45:45Best in Show is the mockumentary from Christopher Guest. It's the second of his like kind of big mockumentary series waiting for government, of course, the first. And it follows a bunch of people who are going to a dog show and trying to win the coveted Best in Show trophy. Again, I like I am I don't really want to talk too much about the movie. I had a I had a hard time watching it. It was very annoying. My my dog is like throwing up while I am in the midst of watching. I was like, this is a bummer. But it is it's it's just so it's so fucking funny. It's so funny from start to finish. And it has so many just pitch perfect performances. You know, top. We're here to talk about Catherine O'Hara and she her her her role of what is a cookie cookie Fleck is her cookie Fleck, who has had sex with everybody in the movie. Hundreds and hundreds and just like it and it. But but like set aside that part of it, which is very funny and like consistently very funny. She she delivers this piece of physical comedy toward the end of the film that is as funny as anything. And she she's so she's the one who's there walking the dogs around, you know, she's walking her little dog around and she's the one who's doing the the the showing. And she like for for out of nowhere, just collapses her. Her knee gives out and it's not just the collapsing and the knee giving out. It's right at the end of the movie as she's running across the floor of the Kennel Club, you know, thing. And she's trying to get to her husband, who's played by Eugene Levy. And and she's doing this like little wobble with her knees that I was like, that looks like she has like a torn ACL. That's like how you walk with it. That's like it's just this perfect little it's this perfect little piece of physical comedy. And again, throughout the whole the whole movie, the looks on her faces as she keeps encountering people from her past who she has had sex with in front of her husband is it just just just perfect.
Mike00:47:55Never forget the best.
Sonny00:47:57It's just it's just such a it's such a funny, funny movie. And this is this is a very this is God, this the the cast on this thing. I don't even know. I'm not going to I'm not going to go through all of them. I'm going to highlight one person in particular who is not somebody who normally gets highlighted. Will Sasso.
JVL00:48:20Will Sasso shows up in this one. One scene. One scene. Great.
Sonny00:48:25One scene.
JVL00:48:25Will Sasso shows up.
Sonny00:48:27And my wife turned to me and was like, well, Sasso really had that moment where he was like the the go to dumb, funny guy in Hollywood. I was like, he was he was he was like that. He was the the fill in for Chris Farley. He was like the bridge from Chris Farley to I don't even know who dropped that gorgeous.
JVL00:48:42He's so good and drop dead gorgeous.
Sonny00:48:44But he's so funny and like funny in a way that I I have never understood how he did not become a proper like full on movie star. I like I've always thought he was very, very good in just about everything I've seen him in. Very funny.
Mike00:49:00He was great on TV. He was so fantastic.
Sonny00:49:04Yeah. Like Matt. Anyway, so Will Sasso, again, just just like is is a perfect example of like, here's a guy who. Uh, shows up for one one scene and in like 10 other movies, that would be the best performance in the film. And it's like maybe the 20th best performance in this one. I like it's it's a it's something else. So anyway, best in show. Love it. It's on Netflix now. I'm very annoyed because I ended up I rented it because it didn't come on. It came on Netflix like a day after I rented it. It was very, very vexing.
Mike00:49:39But JVL, before we move on to just talk more about Catherine O'Hara, any any thoughts on best in show?
JVL00:49:46So it's funny, you know, I when I first saw best in show, I was a little annoyed by it. And then like the second time I saw it, I just fell in love with it. And I realize now the reason I was annoyed by it is because I didn't want. Uh, Eugene Levy to win best in show like I and I think the movie sets you up to really be rooting and I was rooting for Harlan, the, uh, the Christopher. Best character because I thought he was like the moral center of the movie.
Sonny00:50:19Sure.
JVL00:50:19Right. And the movie is sort of poking fun at him, but he's like a really good guy. Whereas Eugene Levy's character is not actually all the way like he's a little pompous. He's a little, he is self-deluded in ways that everybody else in this movie is also self-deluded except for, for Harlan with his nuts, peanuts. He's a little self-deluded. I mean.
Mike00:50:44Think about where he ends up.
JVL00:50:46I think he's just out to lunch.
?00:50:47Right.
JVL00:50:47I don't, I don't think he's deluded. I think he's out to lunch. Anyway. And once I made my piece with like, oh, that was why I was annoyed with the movie. I could just luxuriate in it. And it's so, it's so good. As you say, the performances are amazing. John Michael Higgins is un-fucking-believable. What is he? What is he? He calls Jane Lynch, he says, like a cocktail waitress on an oil rig.
Mike00:51:14Which is so funny, but which is also particularly.
JVL00:51:21So I, I did a, I did a podcast with Jane Lynch, like just once. And it's the first time I'd ever seen her like totally unfiltered. Like, you know, we're just like over Zoom. Right. And she's, I don't know, like in her mid sixties. You'd have to look that up. Something like. One of the most beautiful women. I've ever seen in my life. Like, I mean, like, and in movies, she's never allowed to be pretty. Like they always sort of ugly her up. But if you just like, look at like cheekbones and facial structure, what like she's luminous and 65, 65, right. She's gorgeous. The whole, the whole, the guy who plays Fred Willard straight man, Jim Piddick, Jim Piddick is amazing. And like, he sells all of that stuff. So perfect. Perfectly. I just, I love the shit out of it. And I especially love the, again, the Larry Miller scene. I remember, I've always remembered like, oh, I loved Larry in this movie, but I'd forgotten why. And it's because of his, when they sit down, you know, you're, you just have a bad day. Liam, I have a bad day. People die. And, uh, you know, I'm a, I'm a negotiator. I try to, you know, people go up on those buildings. That's when they send me in.
Mike00:52:41Gene Levy sends to like, totally earnestly.
JVL00:52:44Like, oh, like how many people have you saved? He goes, they all jump. Little secret of the, I just fucking lost it. Cause he says it in such a way that like, he's angry with the people. Yeah. Like the people.
Sonny00:52:59No, he says. Then you see why. Then you see why they all jump when his son is up on them. When his son is like, when his like, his like clearly deranged son is holding the dog on top of the roof for some reason, which it's never really explained. Never. Shows up there.
Mike00:53:15It's just there.
JVL00:53:16Anyway, I, the movie is genius. I think it is the best of all the Christopher Guest movies. Um, yes. And, uh, the sadness of Catherine, Catherine Harrah does something. I think she's the only person in the movie who does this, where she is alternating between straight man and funny girl. Yes. Like, depending on the scene, she is sometimes the one getting the laugh. And she is. Other times she is playing straight man and she does this throughout her career. Like this is her, her ability to live in both of those worlds and work in both of those modes. She's just amazing. And I feel watching, I don't know why it's harder, not harder, why it's sadder for me to lose funny people. But like, so, uh, I'm in the process of rewatching Arrested Development and having, um, um, Jessica Walter no longer with us. It's just like, it makes me like angry every time I like see her on screen for the first thing I feel is like, Oh, we don't have Jessica Walter anymore and not having Catherine O'Hara and then realizing that like, Oh, Fred Willard's gone too. And you start looking down the list like, well, I don't know how much longer we have Michael McKeon. Like, like all of these people who are so great and so funny and we're just going to start losing them all. And, uh, it put me into a very dark place.
Mike00:54:44It's like, it's, it's not, I'm sorry that we are, that we watched this movie, that we put you guys in dark places.
Sonny00:54:51Yeah. Between my sick dog and your, you know, it's a, do you guys feel that too?
Mike00:54:55Like it's, it's a little like, Oh, well, I want to, I want to, I want to explain a little bit like my parasocial relationship with Catherine later on, but I wanted to just talk about best in show just a little bit because it's one of my favorite movies. And I always love when I watch a favorite movie like this and picking up on. Like new things that I didn't pick up on. So one element of this is like, it's, it's never pointed out and it's never really commented on and it's only happens like three times maybe, but like the, the, the little gag of the little bit that, that Eugene Levy's character, Jerry Fleck is like, like does Carson, right? He does like, uh, Carson isms. He says at one point, right? Like I did not know that. Uh, and, uh, at another point he says, uh, he says like wild stuff or something like three times he does like just a little, and it's like, again, the movie doesn't comment on it, doesn't linger on it, but it's like this little window into like Jerry Fleck thinks his character thinks that Johnny Carson is
JVL00:55:57the funniest man alive and he thinks he is Johnny Carson, right? He thinks he is a funny guy.
Mike00:56:03Uh, and I just love like that little detail, the, um, the physical, I mean the fall that Catherine O'Hara is, it makes that Sonny, you were talking about. There's only a few people who can do a pratfall like that with just full commitment because it's, it's, it's just so hard. And like, it's basically Chevy chase, uh, Chris Farley and Catherine O'Hara. The only ones that I've ever seen, like do a full on comedy, like fall on the ground without stopping themselves, um, and, and make it look so natural. Uh, I've, I had forgotten how much bread Willard, like how much you can do. Like, you know, in my head, like he's always, you know, do, you know, making the little asides, whatever, but it really like it dominates a big chunk of like the last half of the movie.
JVL00:56:55He is the inspiration for Jason Bateman and dodgeball. Totally. Oh yeah. They're just doing one of the great, one of the great comic performances of like the last 20 years is Jason Bateman and dodgeball. And he is working. I mean, it's a different version of Fred Willard, but like he looked at that and was like, Oh,
Mike00:57:13we can do that. Totally. Totally. Um, I loved, uh, so I had kind of forgotten too, that the swans like don't get to the finals, right? Like, Oh yeah. Like they're the only ones who are focused, who, who are the focus of this, of this mockumentary who don't get that far and they're like downfall. It's, it's kind of, it's, it's a little anachronistic because like people like that are different now than they were in like 1999 when they were making this movie. You know, or like, you know, the Starbucks yuppie types working on their back.
JVL00:57:49Today they would, today they would be photographing and Instagramming everything. Yeah. Yes. Those characters would have their phones out constantly. Totally. Yes.
Mike00:57:56But yeah, I love, I mean that whole, the whole thing between Hitchcock and Parker Posey where they're like talking about where they met in the catalog, like, Oh, that whole thing. What they were drinking.
JVL00:58:08Yeah.
Mike00:58:08Their Starbucks drink was. Yeah. I was, yeah. And I thought that was really sexy, you know, and they've got like the, the both, they have the, they both have the, the braces and it's just a whole thing is terrific. And like, when you know that that's just all improvised, you know, and, and they, and they just came up with that whole story, just the two of them. It just, Oh, I love it.
JVL00:58:28When he goes to look behind in, in Christopher Guest's collar, when they're at the cocktail parties, like, is that a little bean? And he's like, Christopher Guest has no idea what that is. And he's like, let me see, let me see. Like I have to see the collar to see the brand.
Mike00:58:42I mean, Parker. Post is like freak out over the B over the B and like just the way in which she responds to the deadpan reactions from the, from who I gather was probably like a local guy. They filmed this in Vancouver. He must be like a local guy who was working at the pet store, you know? And he's like, well, when she grabs chicken or whatever it is, and he's like, well, this is, this one is the least like a B of all of them. Like he's, he can't believe that she's, this is the one. Oh, love it. Um, also like, I, there was like a few like parts that I, I, I pointed out like the Will Sasso when I had forgotten Will Sasso was in this and all of a sudden was like, oh, there's Will Sasso. Um, the other one is the, the judge, I think at the end, uh, is, uh, is an actor named Don Davis who was in, he was in twin peaks and top gun. I don't know if he was in top gun. So this is the, the final judge, the bald guy.
Sonny00:59:39Oh yeah. No, you're thinking, uh, you're thinking of, uh, the guy who was also, also the principal in, um, and back to the future JBL.
Mike00:59:46Yeah. That's a different guy. This is, this is, this is, this, he plays the, the, the major in twin peaks, the dad, um, uh, and, uh, anyway, he's just, it's like, oh yeah. They're like, I, I look, it's a great, that guy, right. It's like, oh, there's that guy. Yeah. Don Davis. Um, so I, I don't know. It's just, it's, it was so enjoyable. And despite knowing every beat of this, you know, uh, I just, it, it was so great. And it was so great. And it's, what's funny about it is like Catherine O'Hara is, is in this movie less than I realized and remembered. And it's just like, she makes so much of the relatively little screen time that she has. Um, and you see all of the, the physical comedy, but also like, she's a great singer, you know, the, the, the ridiculous songs they sing about the terrier, like she's actually a very good singer. And so it was, it's, you know, like you said, JBL, the straight and the comedy, like she does it all. So we should talk about her though, because she's. Yeah.
Sonny01:00:46Well, I just want, just one last thing. The, the, the Don Davis thing is funny because he, uh, there, there are two actors in this movie from Stargate SG one, Don, Don Davis and, uh, Terrell Rothery. And I like recognize both of them. I was like, wait, where do I know them from? It was Stargate SG one. I was like, oh, that makes sense because they were 100% filming it like down the street in Vancouver. They just like popped over to the set. We're like, Hey, you guys, we need to, we need to, we, we, you got two of us.
Mike01:01:12We need to, um, anyway, so let's, let's talk about Catherine O'Hara because she, the pet shop owner is also a Canadian actor.
Sonny01:01:21Yeah. Okay. So there you kind of go.
Mike01:01:24Um, so, well, I, I guess, cause I, I kind of tease it like her death Catherine O'Hara's death sort of rocked me and, and all the ways that other people, you know, who love her and her performances. I mean, the, the fact that like home alone was such a formative movie for me, you know, watch that movie a thousand times, uh, both that and the sequel, like her role as the mother in it, you know, like it, it, I don't want to overstate it, but you know, she was just sort of, uh, a movie image of what a mother looks like. Uh, so like that was on, on that level, it just, it just sort of, um, it, it, it surprised me how much it hit me, uh, you know, beyond the other, uh, appreciation that I have for her and all of her, so, um. But like, it's, it's so funny to think about her as like, that's probably her most successful movie and it's just kind of scratches the surface of, of her and her career, um, like she does. She doesn't actually do that much in the movie. Um, and, uh, yeah, I don't know. What, what do you guys, what's your, what's your experience with.
Sonny01:02:35I mean, I'm definitely in the, like home alone was a formative sort of movie camp, right? Like home alone, home alone too. She she's very. Important than that. Um, but the, uh, the, the other thing that is, and then there's the Christopher guest movies, uh, which obviously are their kind of own thing. Um, and she is, she's such a key part of those, but the, the one that the she's, she's also like, uh, a key player for Tim Burton, like she's in a bunch of the, she's in a bunch of the Tim Burton movies that I, you know, uh, I grew up watching and loving, but also, you know, just like her ridiculous artist in Beetlejuice, like the re just the ridiculous art that, that she is putting out and like her annoyance with her agent who does not believe in her. And, you know, I just, I have always, I've always been deeply fond of that, uh,
Mike01:03:28that she's Sally and, uh, she's the voice and she's Sally and right, right.
Sonny01:03:32Before Christmas nightmare before Christmas, which has become like, which has become like the, one of the staple movies in our household, uh, in the, the Halloween to Christmas. Period. Um, you know, she's, she's wonderful in that. Uh, I don't know. I like it's, uh, did you guys watch, um, did you guys watch the TV show? Uh, the, that she, um, that she was in a very popular, uh, Schitt's Creek. Did you guys watch?
Mike01:04:02So I watched like the first season and a half of Schitt's Creek and it's, it's not for me and I appreciate what she. He did in that, in that show. Um, and I think she's very funny in it, but it's, it's, it's a weird show. What do you think? Like, it's a weird thing.
Sonny01:04:20That's so I like, I don't care for it. And I know people who are very, very, my wife is very, very into it. And I know, I know folks that I respect who are very, very into it. And I have always just kind of watched him and like, I find these, it's not just that they're annoying. It's that they're too annoying to be funny to me. I like, I just can't, I can't get into it. And I, I really dislike Eugene Levy's son. Uh, he's quite annoying. I, I find Dan Levy to be like, uh, nails on a chalkboard. Um, I don't know.
Mike01:04:51I it's also like, can I also say like the whole, like even just the, the production style, it, it doesn't look like a real TV show. Am I crazy for, for like, it just looks like it, maybe it's because it's in filmed in Canada and it's like unrecognizable, you know, scenes and stuff. It just, it was. Looks kind of fake. Like there's not enough, there's not enough people in the show to, to make it look real. I don't know.
Sonny01:05:17It's yeah, I have a weird, I know what you mean. You know what I mean? I look, I don't wanna, I don't wanna focus on this cause this is not the, this is not, this is not the point is, but I do wanna just highlight my, one of, one of, one of my, uh, favorite, my, my favorite, I don't to say, describe this as one of my favorite Catherine O'Hara movies would be a lie. It's not, but one of the funniest movies that exists is this 2010 film killers, which is the most 2010 film. That has ever existed. The just the, here's the poster. I'm gonna describe the poster to you. The poster is two, uh, people who are like in a kind of a classical love, love, you know, Hey, this is our engagement photo sort of look, the one on the right is Ashton Kutcher, the one on the left is Catherine Heigl it's like, it is the, those two, those two names conjure up a very specific period in American history, like remember when we were trying to get Ashton Kutcher and Catherine. Heigl to be movie stars. That's that's that's the, anyway, uh, not again, not my favorite Catherine O'Hara where she thinks she's barely in it. Uh, but it's, uh, but it, it just is always that, that, that poster particularly has always cracked me up.
JVL01:06:27Hollywood tried to make Catherine Heigl happen so hard. They, they really did her and Jessica. What was there? Not, not Alba. The other Jessica, Jessica Beale, Jessica Beale, Jessica Beale. We're going to make these women stars. Juvia Heigl.
Mike01:06:42Juvia Heigl, Catherine O'Hara.
JVL01:06:44What, uh, what say I, you know, I knew her first from SCTV and I've always thought of her as a, as a sketch comedian, first and foremost, you know, not a standup girl, not even really an actress, but more of a, an improv style comedian. And I was thinking about this and I don't know. I mean, you can't. You can't really rank funny, but I can't think of very many other comedians who I'd put like at the level. She was like, she, she was working at like the John Candy level. Oh yeah. And, uh, just great, great.
Mike01:07:30And she, she was doing everything John Candy was doing, but backwards and in high heels sort of, sort of thing. Like, yeah, that's, that's how I feel.
JVL01:07:37And without the gift of his physical presence, right? Like, I mean, like. Candy, we get a lot of laughs just by, cause it was so huge. Right. I mean, she, she didn't have that going for him. Yeah. So I, very sad for me. Uh, very grateful for the laughs she gave us.
Mike01:07:56Can I, can I do stupid to say no, no, I love that. Can I, can I recommend just like a few things you people can go look up on YouTube that of hers, cause like in classic sketch comedy form, like she's like, you could just watch like a three, two or three minutes of her in the scene and like, and, and get it. So, um, from SCTV, uh, when she was Brooke shields, uh, she played Brooke shields a lot, but there's a, there's one where she's on a, um, talk show hosted by farmers and the farmers are John candy and Joe Flaherty, and she comes out there and she like, the very first thing she does is like falls flat on her face and like stands up and goes, and they're like, oh, sorry. Oh, are you okay there? Miss shields. And she's like, oh, I meant to do that. I meant to. Do that. That was on purpose. And then she like sings a song. It's so ridiculous. Uh, she's, she's great in all of like the Eugene Levy, um, the precursors to celebrity jeopardy that SCTV always did. Um, one of my favorite, uh, performances of hers is in the movie orange County. You guys remember orange County with Tom Hanks, his son, um, where she is his mom. And she's like a kind of a, a wino, uh, uh, you know, orange County mom. And it's like. It's for somebody who grew up on home alone. It was like, it was like a revelation to see her play. Not that way, but play totally differently. Um, so I love that on Curb Your Enthusiasm. She, she plays, she plays Marty Funkhousers, um, mentally challenged sister Bam Bam. And, um, that's all I'll say about just look up the Curb Your Enthusiasm and Bam Bam. Um, it's, it's, uh, hilarious and, uh, I don't know, I mean, that's, that's, that's, that's right there. Oh, and the last thing is in Waiting for Guffman, her scene with Fred Willard, where they are auditioning for the play, uh, and they sing a Broadway-ified version of, uh, a, an 80s, like basically an 80s sex song, Midnight at the Oasis, uh, which is just like one of those like mid seventies, like just kind of jazzy, soft jazz, rock heed songs. It was just the, it was just like the record you put on when you're going to bang your old lady and like, and they sing and they sing, they sing it like Broadway and it's so funny. And the, the best part of it is the little sketch that they come up with to introduce this song as they're playing, as they're doing it, um, as Fred Willard is doing his lines, uh, Catherine O'Hara's character is mouthing them back to her, back, back to him. Like she's written this. And she's like making sure that he hits all of his lines by it's like, it's so great. And I've watched it like 30 times since I found it. So that's any other thoughts on Catherine?
Sonny01:10:54All right.
Mike01:10:55Rest in peace. Good Catholic girl.
?01:10:58Yeah.
Mike01:10:58Irish, Irish Catholic, uh, Canadian. All right. Well, that is all the time we are going to give to this episode. Join us over at sub beacon.com. Tell your friends and family, and we will talk to you next time.
Sonny01:11:11But do you guys have a Christopher guest mockumentary ranking? Cause I, I do. I feel very strongly about to like, I feel like this is spinal tap, even though he doesn't count. Um, all right. So it's just four movies then it's, it's, it's, uh, there's five, right? What's the fifth?
Mike01:11:35That terrible mascots movie.
Sonny01:11:37Oh no, I don't count that. I have the four, the four main, the four main line ones. Let's just say that. But, um, I don't know that I've actually seen that, uh, the mascots. I saw it. It's not good. All right. So in order from, uh, from best to worst, best is best in show. I feel like best is very, very obviously best in show for me. Number two is for, for your consideration, which I have always is like a very kind of perfectly incisive portrait of Hollywood award season. Um, but I understand that this might appeal to me more just because it's, it's so amusing in my, uh, very specific number. Number three, waiting for Guffman. I could take, you could, I could see flipping waiting for Guffman and for your consideration and very, very much last. Uh, I, I, to the extent that I actually don't care for it is a mighty wind, which I, I have never, I've never enjoyed it because I really dislike that style of music. I, I find that I find that whole milieu very annoying and not in a fun way. Like, uh, like it's, it's, I just don't, I don't care for it. So that, that, that's where it is for me.
JVL01:12:39JVL. So I, I would agree actually with, with each of those rankings, but I put mighty wind last for a different reason. Um, so I grew up with that music in my hippie Quaker school. That is that our music class first through sixth grade was a mighty wind teacher. Marcy had the auto harp. We sang, uh, hymns about George Fox and social justice and every woman, child, and man got together hand in hand. Um, what a nightmare. And there are lots of parts of a mighty wind, which are very, very funny.
Mike01:13:18What happened?
JVL01:13:20What happened? Right. Bob Balban talking about, uh, the polo on punches. You know, can we just look at this Jewish mother? You know, could we just have on the horses that aren't so high? Um, but in the third act, the movie gets very mean towards its characters in ways that make me uncomfortable. And because I, I'm not there to be mean to the characters. Like I don't hate those characters. Uh, I don't want to see them unhappy and displaced. And like, you know, like I, I think best in show works because the truly bad people get their comeuppance, right? The, the park, the swans are kicked out of the thing. And like, I wish that Harlan had won. But like Eugene Levy is a good long suffering guy. He's a little pompous, a little bit of a loser and a dweeb, but like, it's fun. You know what I mean? Like everybody else is, we're happy that Jane Lynch has started. By the way, just the cover proofs for the idea, American bitch, American bitch, which again, people who didn't grow up with magazines in the early aughts don't understand how perfect that is because there were magazines like American bitch all over the place for America's lesbian dog owners, right? Um, like that movie. It, it doesn't blink from the foibles of its characters, but it doesn't hate them. And it lets everybody sort of have a happy ending and best and best and show a mighty wind humiliates them all by the end. And I don't like that.
Mike01:14:58Hmm. Fair.
JVL01:14:59Interesting. Right.
Mike01:15:00Um, I, I don't hate a mighty wind as much as you guys do. Um, I really like the, I like the music, uh, even though it's not my kind of music, I like that. They were all performing, you know, music, uh, and they're all, you know, I love the folksmen sort of the whole conceit of them. And they were on, they had been on Saturday night live like 20 years earlier before they made this movie. Um, uh, I just love seeing the spinal tap guys doing something else and something different and like the cheesiness of the, uh, eat at Joe's place or, you know, Joe's place song is just like perfect to me. So, um, uh, I probably switch. I probably put for your consideration. So that's, that's my, that's my, I love waiting for God. How dare you? Uh, I just think that, uh, it's, it's, it's protean in a lot of ways. Like you can see like why it's not the first, right? It's the first.
JVL01:15:55He hasn't figured out how to make it work smoothly.
Mike01:15:57Totally. But, but you can see, I, I like the pieces that I'm seeing. So anyway, uh, but that's, that's my list.
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