Season 2 - Ep 14 - True Colors - Sleazy Spader Springtime 7: "Sleaze the Day" No. 3

Moe Von Helvete née Porne joins me to talk about John Cusack and James Spader going head to head in a race to the top and political corruption in "Terrible White People in Connecticut" the Movie AKA True Colors!!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:13):
Yes, that's right. It's the inevitably nonsensical, yet hopefully enjoyable
After Movie Diner. If you enjoy the show and have
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(00:36):
You can also donate to the show directly at aftermovie
diner dot com. Rate and review the show wherever podcasts
are found and rating and reviewing is possible. Even a
one star review provides useful insights on exactly the sort
of petty minded and wretched individual who negatively reviews free
entertainment they do not need to be consuming. So, with

(01:00):
out further dribbling, charm Cross.

Speaker 2 (01:04):
Found in the rubble behind a closed down luboama, bedecked
in rainbow rhinestones and already tattooed with the legend if
you fuck with me, you fuck with my unicorn. Our
guest this week grew up in the decades of realistic
flappy boobs and vast, vast pubic mounds, both situations he
still heartily condones today. These were also the perfect interest
to allow him to win the seat of first selectmen

(01:26):
of a few tanning salons and massage parlors in one
of the slightly less waspy neighborhoods of a random town
in Connecticut. From this seat of power, he was able
to see the laundromat the Cuban Deli, and right into
the bedroom window of and Missus, respectfully endowed, who teaches
third grade but has the standing and prominence of a
poll dancer from Bridgeport. They would later often be seen

(01:47):
around the town discussing the finer points of Danzig lyrics
and imitating some of the more outlandish performances of Gigi Allen,
before the press started asking questions, especially about our guest's
vast collection of cute cat sweaters, and the two lovers
had to part ways and halt any more romantically problematic
defecation shows. Since then, he has wandered the country helping

(02:08):
retrieve kids from wells, pets from trees, and breasts from blouses.
They know his name internationally as El Ponderoso Mapache. Some
online may know him as Mo von Helveato, but to
me he will always be either Little Mickey Shortcakes or
Mose of pawn Sir. It is an unrivaled pleasure to
have you back in my ear crevices again, how are

(02:31):
you ducky poos?

Speaker 3 (02:34):
It's creepy? How accurate much of that introduction really was?

Speaker 2 (02:41):
Yeah, I told you, let's never talk about my eggs.
Let's never talk about the political aid that you did
defecation shows with in Bridgeport. Well know, she had the
prominence of appoldans from Bridgeport. We don't know whether that's
where she's from.

Speaker 3 (03:02):
Trust me, she was from Bridgeport. You know. It's it's
funny that that of all fucking movies for I mean,
I know we haven't even started talking about that, right,
but it just makes me laugh that of all fucking
movies that we that we ended up choosing, we choose
the one that has that prominently features Connecticut, like like.

Speaker 2 (03:25):
Fucking soup to nuts, the whole fucking thing. Yees.

Speaker 3 (03:29):
Constantly it's if it's not Virginia, it's Connecticut, but it's
fucking Connecticut.

Speaker 2 (03:33):
Yeah. Oh, and and the way that Cusack and Spader
so perfectly filled the roles of two young twenty something
douchebags from the Northeast. It's true. Yeah, although you know,
Cusack couldn't help at certain points to be like well,
I think in this scene I need to be in

(03:53):
a Ramones T shirt and a black leather jacket, you know,
just to show the Cusack fans that I'm still very
much Cusack, right exactly, glue and very much Cusack. Could
be the name, Doug.

Speaker 3 (04:07):
If you're listening and ever wanted to do a podcast
about watching every John Cusack film, then very much Cusack.

Speaker 2 (04:17):
Uh. Yeah, no, So we we are rounding up and
uh puttering out with sleazy Spader springtime.

Speaker 3 (04:26):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (04:26):
This will be the last one we do, because really,
there are no more films left.

Speaker 3 (04:31):
I am.

Speaker 2 (04:31):
I am like Alexander weeping for there are no more
worlds to conquer because apart from a sort of kid
role he did in a movie called A Killer in
the Family and a couple of like cameos that he's
done in ship recently, like The Homesman, I have basically
watched and damn near covered every single James Spader feature

(04:55):
length starring motion picture. The only ones I haven't done
are the ones we are f wishing out with now,
uh and ones that I felt just had already been
talked too much about, right uh, you know, and I
still hold out hope for like a one off episode
on Secretary. But I'm trying to get the right co

(05:19):
host and it's proving difficult.

Speaker 3 (05:20):
Right now, So I was gonna say, it's definitely not me.

Speaker 2 (05:26):
No anyway, So yes, we are talking about the Connecticut
heavy let's just call it that. The What did I
say in my chat to you? It was like rich
white elitist scumbags the movie, which is so accurate.

Speaker 3 (05:43):
Yeah, I mean, although although ironically ironically, since this is
sleazy Spader, he's the least sleazy character in the.

Speaker 2 (05:51):
Movie, which is so fucking weird. I know. It was
so disappointing that, apart from a moment of looseness at
the beginning when he's still with the senator's daughter and
you see him with her ravenous to reveal his befreckled
ginger body, she is. It's always funny to me when

(06:13):
they try and like like Spader's sexy in clothes, don't
get me wrong, Like in clothes, you totally understand the
appeal of Spader, but in the few movies where he's
got his pasty New England chest out his you know,
you kind of go, yeah, I think at that point
is where a woman would be like, oh, oh oh,

(06:37):
it makes some excuse me.

Speaker 3 (06:39):
Yeah, sort of like any time I'm with a woman.

Speaker 2 (06:43):
No, no, say it ain't so much. It's okay, I
don't mind now coming now. Any woman would be crazy
not to be berserk with lust for you, sir. I
can't roll my eyes hard enough at that. No.

Speaker 3 (06:58):
No, but but really, yeah, like you were talking about,
he really only has like one particularly sleazy scene and
then you find out, like almost immediately it's revealed that
like he's just saying hurt the hurtful things because he's hurt.
And that's that's the scene where he's getting ready to
propose and we don't know that and she's and so

(07:19):
she and she's breaking up with him, and he and
the way he delivers the line nobody said anything about
marriage is super sleazy, and then it's immediately ruined by
him revealing the ring he had in his pocket.

Speaker 2 (07:34):
Yeah, it's it's It's funny because just the other day
I was talking with our mutual friend Gary Hill about
the movies White Lightning and Gata, and obviously, at the
end of Gata, but Reynolds, who directed the thing, makes
it so that his character essentially loses like his character

(07:54):
doesn't get the woman. Lauren Hunton goes off to New York, right,
and Gata drives back off into this wamps. Now you
understand that everyone within a three hundred and fifty mile
radius wants to do horribly dirty things to Burt Reynolds,
So he's not going to be devoid a female company, right.
He literally at the end of the movie says to
Lauren Hunt's face like I love you, and she goes,

(08:16):
I know, but I'm going to New York and you're
just like, oh well, it's like that. I watched that
movie the other day, which sort of effectively, even though
Burton did it to himself effectively, Newted Reynolds like in
my eyes right there. And then I watch True Colors
and I'm like, wait, I get that they're playing against
type maybe, but but you're going to d Sleeze Spader

(08:40):
this close to the end of Sleezy Spader Springtime, I mean,
I have to.

Speaker 3 (08:44):
Say, moh well, back in nineteen ninety when they were filming,
he definitely said sometime in the distant future.

Speaker 2 (08:53):
Sometime in the early quadrant of the twenty first century,
past the year two thousand. Yeah, right, they're gonna be like,
the year two thousand is one hundred years off. What
are you talking about? Because in nineteen ninety, the year
two thousand felt like a hundred years away, right, which.

Speaker 3 (09:10):
Is ironic because because even now in twenty twenty four
and the nineteen nineties.

Speaker 2 (09:15):
Feels like it was five minutes ago. That's because they're back, baby,
The nineties are back with a vengeance. We've had the
eighties for like the last thirty years. Now we're going
to have the nineties for the next like twenty or
thirty years. I think, oh, fucking kill me now. Then
fucking hated the nineties.

Speaker 3 (09:33):
I just almost everything about it, especially the fucking music.

Speaker 2 (09:37):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (09:38):
I don't get how people swoon over the nineties. It
was so fucking bad.

Speaker 2 (09:45):
There were some good things about the nineties.

Speaker 3 (09:47):
Yeah, early nineties like party hip hop. Sure, that was fun,
you know, but then everybody got so fucking serious and morose,
and it's like, oh, fuck yourself.

Speaker 2 (09:57):
Yeah, but sales of flannel went through the myself, and
you know, and then and shops and drug stores started
having to be like, oh shit, do we need to
do like men's haircare products as well? I thought men
just had one shampoo. Now all of a sudden, men
are growing long hair again and fucking shaving certain bits

(10:21):
of it and doing crazy stuff, and they're like, fuck,
we got it. Like it's it's like I've had a
beard right mover, like twenty plus years. Over long I've
been an adult, I've had a beard, and yet it's
only now that you're seeing like beardcare products on the
shelf of like a CVS or whatever. And so yeah,
that's what I'm saying is the drug stores are always behind.

(10:43):
I feel like, anyway, I don't know why we went there,
but anyway, the nineties flannel, long haired and he've had
hair and and those things, and obviously the formation, in
your eyes, the worst sex run franchise in existence, American Pie.

Speaker 3 (11:07):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (11:07):
Do you know there were like nine movies of that
fucking yeah.

Speaker 3 (11:10):
Yeah. I actually just found that out the other day,
and I'm like, this is insane. Like they went on
they did the American Wedding I think it was called
American Wedding Movies, and then there was like there were
weird spin offs and like, I'm sure there's a Stifler's
Mom sex tape out there somewhere.

Speaker 2 (11:27):
Yeah, well, there was the four with the original cast. Yeah,
the first three which ends with the wedding, and then
they have Reunion, which is the fourth one with the
original cast, and then you've got the Eugene Levy slumming
it before Ship's Creek becomes a thing. Sequels which are
all sort of like National Lampoon style, you know, how

(11:48):
like National Lampoon ended up doing, you know, a bunch
of very very low rent sex comedies in the nineties
and two thousands, often was almost all of which are
better than the American movies, right, and all of which
have a camera. Corey Feldm.

Speaker 3 (12:05):
Well, I mean that's why they're better than the.

Speaker 2 (12:07):
Old Judge Reinhold. But Brian Cranston and Judge Reinhold did one,
did a National Lampoon's family Reunion, and yeah, I mean
you have to watch that, Brian Cranston and Judge Reinhold.
The two worlds collide. But yeah, basically they did I
think four or five sequels that were straight to video

(12:30):
kind of deals, and I think Eugene Levy's in at
least three of them, which is just depressing.

Speaker 3 (12:36):
Well, I mean he had a slump there for a
little bit, you know, And.

Speaker 2 (12:39):
Well he also did a Mary Kate and Ashley fucking movie.

Speaker 3 (12:42):
So you know, yeah, look, a paycheck's a paycheck. Like like,
I don't ever get mad at actors for for doing
those movies, because, like I said, a paycheck's a paycheck.
You can't you can't get mad at somebody for wanting
to get paid, But.

Speaker 2 (12:55):
You can get mad at Spader for not being sleazy
in this movie.

Speaker 3 (12:59):
Yeah, exactly, have we even mentioned what the movie is?

Speaker 2 (13:04):
Let's let's do that right now. All right, well, I
presume people have we watched was drinking? Actually olshit, yeah
New York minute. Sorry Mary Kate and Ashley Olson with
Eugene Levi and uh that was the wasp boy of

(13:26):
pronouncing it.

Speaker 3 (13:27):
Yes.

Speaker 4 (13:28):
Ah wait, Sleazy Spider Springtime, Welcome to the show. Oh
it's a Slazy Spider Springtime. I want you all to
know that, if you please, let's Jake Spader sleeves and
it's got nowhere else to go.

Speaker 5 (13:43):
So loosen the houses. Give your nose a damn good
blow because you don't we going to give you one?
Four then, because it's twenty and twenty four Sleazy Spier
Time show, it is two thousand and twenty falls sweetly

(14:11):
spine out way time show.

Speaker 2 (14:23):
No. The movie we watched was True Colours Connecticut. The
Connecticut Story the story of waspby Pricks and their rise
to powers and falls from graces too. It's essentially a
story of Cusack is a hot headed lad from the

(14:45):
wrong side of the tracks who's looking to get in
with the white elite by any way possible, faking it
till he makes it, and taking every dodgy deal along
the way. In law school, Cusack befriends both antagonizes and
befriends a young, floppy fringed Spader who is all about truth, justice,

(15:10):
and the American way, looking to clean up the DOJ
and become one of the biggest das in American history.
He's got morals, good looks, and a senator daughters on
his side until Cusack barrels into his life, cherry picking

(15:31):
it for everything he could possibly use it for and
discarding the rest, causing Spader to ask some really big
questions about the man he calls his best friend. That
was fantastic. All right, good night, everybody. That just came
off the top of my head. That was just I

(15:53):
just rattled that off smooth as a Silken Cucumber. I'm
sure that wasn't written at all.

Speaker 3 (16:00):
Wasn't.

Speaker 2 (16:01):
But it did help that I just watched this movie,
because if I watched this movie yesterday I was talking
about it today, I would have forgotten every single thing
about that. That's become my moo too.

Speaker 3 (16:12):
Like if I'm watching a movie for a podcast appearance,
I watch it the second before I start recording, because
I will. I mean, I've already forgotten so much about
this movie, so and and I finished watching it less
than a half an hour ago.

Speaker 2 (16:26):
So, so tell me where do we know Imagen Stubbs.

Speaker 3 (16:30):
From from having an amazing name, I honestly don't know,
like I've so I watched it with fun, and she
said she knew her from somewhere, but I I didn't.
I didn't recognize her. I'm gonna well, she's a British actress.
That explains why. Halfway through the movie she started sounding

(16:54):
like she had like the classic mid Atlantic I don't
you notice that or not? Man Like? Her natural accent
started coming out real strong, like after her and Cusack
got married.

Speaker 2 (17:04):
But I think it didn't matter because I think that
being New England and being from I mean even her father.
I don't know whether the actor is Irish or whether
he is just Irish American. Even when her father was
admonishing Cusack on the golf course, he has Irish twang

(17:24):
coming through his accent as well. So there's a lot
of mid Atlantic accents in Connecticut. I feel like, yeah,
but the where I know her from is Eric the Viking.

Speaker 3 (17:36):
I was just looking at her IMDb, so's yeah, it's
definitely Ericdvike. I don't know who else you played in
it off the top of my head.

Speaker 2 (17:42):
But well, since since then, she's been in, you know,
a bunch of like Sense and Sensibility in Twelfth Night
and Casualty, which is sort of the British Er, which
is sort of a soap op perversion of Er. She's
been in that. She's been in Holby City, which she's
a Casualty spin off, and she's been in both Doctor Who,

(18:03):
The Crown and Midsummer Murders. That mo is the two
thousands trifecta of British actordom. If you've been in Midsummer Murders,
Doctor Who, and the Crown. If only she'd also been
in Downtown Abbey, and then she would have had the
quadumfern or whatever that is. But she got the triumviran
of British actor achievements. Back when I was growing up. Moh,

(18:27):
you had to be in Casualty in the Bill, that
was the two things. Now you have to be in
Doctor Who the Crown or Midsummer Murders, or as I
like to call it, squinty witness.

Speaker 3 (18:38):
Squinty I don't get that because I've never seen it,
so I don't.

Speaker 2 (18:41):
Well, the lead guy in Midsummer Murders is an actor
by the name of John Nettles, who, much like Shatner,
had that red, bloated rounder face of an older man,
and his eyes were always squinty, but now his face
is caving in and squinting his eyes even more. So
I called John Nettles squinty Witness.

Speaker 3 (19:01):
I love it. I love it.

Speaker 2 (19:02):
I don't know why, but that just is what it is.

Speaker 3 (19:04):
It works.

Speaker 2 (19:06):
So that's where she's from. And what did What did
we think of Imagen Stups? Because this this was sort
of one of her first American movies and I didn't
know what to make of it. She was fine in
the role, I guess, but nothing. She's nothing to write
home about. She was fine. That's about the end of it.
She has a couple of.

Speaker 3 (19:22):
Moments where where I really enjoyed her, Like on the
day that like when she finds out that John Cusack
had blackmailed her father and she smacks him.

Speaker 2 (19:35):
I'm like, oh, yeah, okay, I like that. That was
that was some British theatrical slap training from what that was.
That was prime right there.

Speaker 3 (19:44):
And then there's a great moment where she immediately afterwards
she storms out of the room and I don't know why,
but Spader does this weird like kickup with his leg,
like I think he's trying to avoid tripping over a chair.
But it's like it's so small and in the background,
and they should have like they could have easily done
like a take two on that and just not had

(20:07):
that happen. But I kind of love that they kept
that in. That kind of fucking cracked me the right up.
But that's the only standout performance that she really has
in the movie. She has a couple of like quiet complaint, contempt, uh,
what's the word I'm looking for, contemplative, you know, moments

(20:29):
where like she's kind of realizing what a bad guy.

Speaker 2 (20:33):
Yeah, uh, Pete is his name, Pete, Yeah, Yeah, But
it's also it's sort of weird as well because towards
the beginning of the movie, so we talked earlier about,
so she's with uh James Spader's character Tim Garrity at
the beginning of the movie, and she is Senator Styles daughter,
and when in the first break from law school, uh

(20:57):
Spada gets high on by the DOJ as sort of
like a temporary assistant kind of guy, and Cusack gets
hired on by Diana's father as sort of an aid
to Senator Styles kind of thing. And it's at that
point that you know he is. His intentions are made

(21:18):
abundantly clear towards her and indeed her entire legacy and
her father and everything else, because he is the scumbag
that is going to rock the core of every good
relationship he.

Speaker 3 (21:32):
Has in his life.

Speaker 2 (21:33):
However, Spader and Stubbs breakup, as you said, halfway through
an opera that Spader had taken her to, and she
gives this big spiel about how like you don't want
to be a goodie two shoes at the Department of
Justice fighting for peace and honesty and blah blah blah,
blah blah, like you want to be in politics. You know,

(21:54):
you're cleverer than this, You're harder than this, you're smarter
than this. And she made it out like what she
wants hunted was to be like a corrupt politician's wife,
Like that's what she was. That was the fucking tune
she was singing like at one point, and Spader quotes
it back to her at the end of the movie
like this has been going on for two hundred years
and it's worked this well so far kind of thing.
So like, don't stand in a way of progress. So

(22:16):
she dumps his ass, goes off with Cusack. Is there
when Cusack signs with a mobster to like run his
political pack, essentially his fundraising blah blah blah played by
Manti Potenti. Yeah, it gives them their swanky by the
Ocean house to run his campaign out of. And instead
of being like wait, wait, wait, I thought you were

(22:39):
gonna be like honest and true and stuff, she sort
of goes along with it. So I don't really understand
other than she's a bit of a sex part and
maybe Cusack stops stops giving her nightly robin tickles. I
don't know why she suddenly goes against him, because isn't
he doing everything, not not only everything her father had

(22:59):
to do, but every thing he said he was going
to do to get where he's going.

Speaker 3 (23:02):
He is doing, like beat for beat, everything that she
told Spader that she wanted him to do. And for
some reason, it's not okay when when Cusack does it
right female double standards? Am I right?

Speaker 2 (23:20):
But I feel like by the end of the movie,
even though it's not implicit, my feeling is that she
is going to be crawling back up Spider's drain pipe
within the next few weeks. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, without
a doubt because the Maral she she is torn essentially
between the maral high ground of Spader and the murky
ambiguity of Cusacks, Wheelan and Dylan.

Speaker 3 (23:45):
I I kind of love how the the the evolution
of Cusack's character, like as he gains more power, as
he h as he starts to become more successful, Like
like his hair, it's slicked back harder and harder, you know,
and and except but I noticed that's only in private.

(24:07):
In public, he still has the big poofy hair, like
he looks like it. I'm a man of the people.
But the second he's in private, it's looks like right
to his fucking head and he just looks like the
sleaziest like he looks like it's like, I'm going to
go study every James Spader film that came out up
to this point so i can understand just how sleezy works.

Speaker 2 (24:25):
And uh and just put it into action. Either that
or Spada had his greasy hand up his arse and
was working cusack like a puppet. Well at least he
didn't need lube. He was already greased up. Spada. Spader
is perpetually moist. That's the name of his biography, James

(24:48):
pet perpetually Moist.

Speaker 3 (24:50):
Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (24:52):
And then the forward to the book is written by
Image and Stubbs, and the forward is just it's just
the words. It's true, sign actually moist signs.

Speaker 3 (25:06):
Study stubbsy exactly.

Speaker 2 (25:11):
It would have been so awful if Imagen Stubbs had
suffered a horrible accident and had left her arms cut
off at the elpers that would have been pretty because
then the doctor would have had to be like, I'm sorry,
but it's two stubs for Stubsy. Too much, too wrong.

(25:36):
I don't know no, I think that's hilarious. I mean,
it's on accurate. Thankfully it didn't happen in real life,
so it's all good that I know of. I mean,
she might be stubbsy right now for all I know,
but I but as as of nineteen ninety, she was
still fully limbed. H And what I love about this movie.

(25:58):
So yeah, So basically because nothing about Cusack is is right,
they find out in the aforementioned Bridgeport one night at
a at a late night roused about ba full of bikers,
ned d wells and long had types.

Speaker 3 (26:14):
And might might I might I mention, as somebody who
lived in Bridgeport, I can tell you that bar is
not in Bridgeport.

Speaker 2 (26:23):
No, they're like entirely too many white people, entirely.

Speaker 3 (26:27):
City white people, you know, no Jamaicans getting angry like
it's just it's just not Bridgeport. No, you know, And
that's not you know, like that's not like a racially
insensitive thing, that's what.

Speaker 2 (26:41):
It's just. Bridgeport's more multicultural than this white of white
movies shows it to be. That's all we're.

Speaker 3 (26:47):
Saying, right, I mean, now, granted the guy did say
he was, it was it was like outside Bridgeport. Next
to Bridgeport, near Bridgeport or something like that, but that's
not Bridgeport, right, Yeah, I love the fact that bring Bridgeports.
I mean, like I hate the show, but I kind
of love the joke that Bridgeport's main claim to fame

(27:09):
is that family guy made a joke about it, and uh,
I forget what the joke was specifically, but I remember
thinking to myself, that is incredibly accurate. Like I think
they said that, like their main in their main export
is broken windows or something like that, and like.

Speaker 2 (27:27):
I say, I go down to Bridgeport regularly. It seems
like a lovely place. I'm just gonna say that.

Speaker 3 (27:31):
But there, no, I no, no, I know it's it's
I was gonna say that the place I lived in
was literally three houses down from a from a crackhouse.

Speaker 2 (27:40):
So I was just trying to keep the few listeners,
the only listeners I have in Bridgeport right now that
that they're literally having an off to movie Dina Fest
in Bridgeport, and I feel like I'm gonna, uh, I'm
gonna upset them and isolate them. So no, I'm gonna
say Bridgeport's a lovely place. H I'm just saying that
this BA wasn't in any way multicultural enough for it

(28:02):
to be Bridgeport. Anyway, we find out that Cusack is
known in the area because he's from there. Originally, as
I said, the wrong side of the tracks as far
as this movie is concerned, because this movie is the
waspiest movie ever made.

Speaker 3 (28:16):
And but I like how I like how he does
the very typical thing of people who are from Connecticut
but don't want to admit where they're from. He just
tells them he's from new Haven, which, you know, like
I could understand being a little, you know, embarrassed of
being from Bridgeport because Bridgeport is kind of a shithole,
But like, you know, like being from new Haven is

(28:41):
nothing to be ashamed of. New Haven's a great, a
great city, right, you know. I spent a good chunk
of my adult life there. I loved it.

Speaker 2 (28:51):
Yeah, I'm a big fan of all Connecticut towns. Moe's
opinion on Bridgeport does not represent that of the Aftermovie
Diner or Diner in the subsidiary of the Aftermovie Diner,
wholly owned in part by ABC Universal. But anyway, who

(29:16):
asked us to review this movie?

Speaker 3 (29:17):
No, then.

Speaker 2 (29:20):
Point, but what I loved about the movie reaches peak
elitelspy white bullshit when it's revealed. Cusack reveals to Spader
at the top of a ski run that he's been
nailing his ex girlfriend Diana Styles on and off for
a year, and Spader, in order to teach Cusack a lesson,

(29:44):
the only way a white man can teach another white
man a lesson is basically to go down a slightly
harder ski run than they were prepared to go down,
and the two of them duke it out on the
slopes like white men do.

Speaker 3 (30:02):
I Me and me and Fawn are making the joke
the entire time. He's like, oh, is uh is Spader
gonna gonna sonny bono him?

Speaker 2 (30:10):
Right?

Speaker 3 (30:11):
I mean he kind of does. He gets to uh,
he gets to a point where there's a a cliff
drop off and uh he waits till the last minute,
the absolute last second, to tell him they no, wait, stop,
and then he tumbles down the whole thing. Yeah, Cusack
getting his way again, right, well, yes.

Speaker 2 (30:31):
It gets Cusack out of having slept with his girl,
right uh. And it gets Spader because Spader calls the
the airlift guys or whatever he calls the paramedics. He
gets away with almost trying to kill his friend, so
he considers them equal after that. Yeah, and what I

(30:54):
think the only thing this movie really lacks. I think
way you could have got maximum sleeves from both Spader
and Cusack is at that pivot point in the in
the end of the second act beginning of the third act,
when we find out that Cusack has completely shoved Spader aside,
gone above their friendship, fucked him over, lost him his job,

(31:18):
like completely did all this just to further himself with
a known mob criminal in John Palmery the mandypatent con role.
When Spader finds that out, yeah, he you know, goes
under cover for the Justice Department and he fucks up
Cusack's career and blah blah, gets Mandy patent and arrested,
et cetera, et cetera. But I feel had it gone

(31:41):
more like grind House, had it gone more death wish
or you know that kind of had Winner taken over
at that point he finished the movie off, and Spader
had gone like full demonic sleeze energy to get Cusack
rather than just pretending to be his friend and catching
him on camera. If he'd gone full blown, sweaty, psychotic

(32:06):
fuck you. I'm coming for you, Cusack Spader, all the
while having dark, unforgiving and unrepentant sex with imaged stubs, uh,
but but vowing never to get back with her, like
almost punishing her with his sex.

Speaker 3 (32:23):
It's funny you would say punishing her, because my brain
immediately went to like a punisher war zone style. You know,
he comes in, there's all these goons, he's got to
blow them off, and he works, he works his way
up the floors of the hotel, killing gangs of political
scumbags along.

Speaker 2 (32:43):
That's how this movie should have ended.

Speaker 3 (32:45):
Yeah, he finally gets to Cusack and he throws him
on the fire on a fire, and he says, let
me put you out of my misery. Yeah, you know,
that would have been fucking amazing. I would have fucking taken.

Speaker 2 (32:57):
A cock shaped bazooka out of his backpack and fired
a giant dildo into Cusack's neck, flipping him off the balcony,
landing him upside down dead as a doornail in the
pool below. Just a giant and it's as he's as
he rolls around, the vibrator is still buzzing in his neck.

(33:20):
And then Spader scooped Stubsy up under his arm and
swings out of the off the off the hotel, landing
in a soft top convertible and then driving away.

Speaker 3 (33:33):
He lands in John Cusack's red car from earlier in
the film.

Speaker 2 (33:38):
Yes, this is my car now, and and the movie
ends with him and Stubbsy ejaculating all over the car
like like multiple sexual positions all over the car, covering
the car in a jaculate, and then he just sets
it on fire and they walk off into the bridgeport darkness.

Speaker 3 (33:57):
Right, I'll say I'll you know the final tagline, like
the final like quip of the movie, I'll show you
my true colors.

Speaker 2 (34:08):
Ye, true colors. That's how I would have ended the movie. Really, Instead,
it ends in a much more pedestrian way, in the
sense that Spader gets the better of him but then
regrets it immediately. Yeah, that's not very sleazy, Spader. No,

(34:32):
he should be revelishing in it. He should be rubbing
his hands together and excreeting juices from his gill flaps.
He should be.

Speaker 3 (34:42):
He should be rubbing his hands together, but his cock
is in between them.

Speaker 2 (34:46):
Yes, exactly, Yes, so I saw there's a there's my
my I've said this on a previous podcast. But then
my wife got me a great shower curtain for a
downstairs bathroom that has all these old black and white
horror movies on, all these posters on them, and in
one of them, and I forget what the movie is.
It's something like The Undead something or other. But the

(35:07):
quote on the poster is he's an empty shell with
possessed by a lustful fiend. And my line about Spader
forever has been now He's an empty shell possessed by
a lustful fiend. And I've just realized that the lustful
fiend that dwells within Spader looks like Gwilledorf. Like when

(35:38):
Spader ejaculates, it's really gwilled or cleaning his gill flaps,
like you know when Griilldor grabs his nose and goes
like that and the water shoots out of his neck.
Skin's that's that's what dwells deep within Spader. I grilled.

(35:58):
I'm the lustful thing. I'm never going to get that
out of my head now. And as Spader has got larger,
the fiend's playground has become bigger. But yeah, so it's

(36:20):
what I have to say about the movie.

Speaker 3 (36:21):
Is.

Speaker 2 (36:22):
I mean, it's definitely a little slow going and a
little long, but it is pretty well written. Yeah, it's
very well acted, and I think, yeah, the only thing
that I think it because it plays stuff pretty straight
and pretty realistic. And I know why it does that.

(36:42):
It does that to make its political points, and it's
it's condemnation of the status quo and everything else. But
it almost plays it too straight and lacks some of
that nineties thriller energy.

Speaker 3 (36:58):
Now, I mean, you you can, you can kind of
forgive it for that, because it's still playing with the
eighties rule book, you know, and like serious dramas like
this in the eighties were pretty straight laced. I mean, like, sure,
the action movies were way over the fucking top and
the comedies were raunchy as shit, but the dramas were

(37:19):
pretty straight laced. It wasn't really until.

Speaker 2 (37:23):
Into the.

Speaker 3 (37:25):
Beginning of the mid nineties when you would start to
see that change, which is how it is in every decade, really, right.

Speaker 2 (37:31):
But I mean, if you think of this, it's sort
of one step removed from son Elmo's Fire in the
sense that Son Almo's Fire does at least have politically,
you know, you have the John Nelson characters going through
the politics, and initially in Mido Westvez is wanting to
be a lawyer. He changes that obviously during the movie.
But even in something like Sonelma's Fire, the reason why

(37:53):
it continues to be watchable is not the searing realism,
but the occasional flights of and I don't mean fancy,
but the occasional like melodrama it abused itself with.

Speaker 3 (38:06):
Yeah, this is definitely lacking mellow drama.

Speaker 2 (38:09):
Yeah, it's lacking a Demi Moore locking herself in a
frigid room and claiming she's gonna kill herself by freezing
herself to death. It's lacking giant pink, giant pink murals
of nondescript like Billie Idol clones. It's it's lacking a
sex scene on top of a coffin while Ali Sheedy

(38:30):
wears pearls. You know what I mean? Like it's that's
what it's. That's what this movie is lacking. It needed,
it needed just a little juice for the goose. If you.

Speaker 3 (38:43):
Just a little little juice for the goose.

Speaker 2 (38:45):
I don't know where it came from. That I fucking
love that. A little juice for the goose. The goose
just spooning. Just I just needed it to ladle on
a little oil onto the back of the of the duck,
That's what I'm saying, you know what I mean? Oh yeah, yeah,
it needed some basting for sure. Yeah, it just needed
the things to be And I get it. There's the

(39:06):
big fisticuffs that they have around the room that gets
a pretty metodramatic at the end, and you know, whatever
it is, but in general, like Cusack should have picked
up a chainsaw or something like, it should have gone,
it should have gone a little daka. You know, one
of them needed to lose a finger, you know what
I mean to say the least, to say the least.

Speaker 3 (39:25):
Yeah, yeah, you know, I mean I do like how
at the very end, you know, and I but I
hate how goddamn relatable it is to modern politics. But
you know, Cusack giving his acceptance speech at the end,
you know, of like that he or his you know,
his his speech because he won, trying to get out

(39:49):
ahead of the trying to get ahead of the story. Yeah,
you know, and how because as we've learned over the
course of the film, that is that he will say
or do whatever he needs to do to get the
people on his side, you know, and there's nobody there's
no analogy to that in modern politics at all, right,
nobody at all who's running for president currently, you know,

(40:15):
but that's neither here nor there. But you know, like
the fact that it starts to work is like you
start thinking yourself shit, like he might actually succeed at this.
And then that's where I get thrown out of the
reality of it because he doesn't, right, you know, because

(40:36):
if this was today, he won kind away with it.

Speaker 2 (40:39):
Well also it's it's it's interesting because you know, you
look at politics stay as you say, and nothing, nothing
has changed. But the most telling line in this whole
movie that I think was really the crowning achievement of
the script was the scene where the father shits on
him on the golf course. Basically, the father realizes that Cusack,

(41:04):
like if he if he doesn't back Cusack, that you know,
Cusack's going to reveal shit about him that he really
doesn't want revealed. He's only got the one term left,
and so he resigns himself to being like, fine, I'll
put you on the ticket, but that's all I'm going
to do. Kind of thing, and at one point best

(41:27):
line in the movie, and I actually think that Cusack's
retort to the line wasn't nearly as good. But at
one point, the senator says something along the lines and
he's like, why do you even want this? I've never
even known you to have an opinion except for like
the food that you eat kind of thing or something,
or like where we eat dinner or whatever. And that
was the most telling thing, because the one thing this

(41:48):
movie doesn't explicitly show you, and there's a reason for it,
is that he's not a Democrat or a Republican. He's
just whichever way the wind or get him into power
kind of thing. Right. Yeah, So it's not a movie
about Cusack standing up and espousing his views or opinions
or his whatever. It's meant to let you know, well, look,

(42:10):
I'll go whichever way I'm told to go by the
people who are going to give me the money and
the power and the you know whatever. And that's what
rings true to me more than anything. That's that's what
rings true to me about this movie. And also probably
the saddest line in the film, because you're like, right,
Kusack isn't doing this because he has these great ideas

(42:35):
or opinions for the future of America, and he's not
necessarily doing this, you know, for cash and hand rewards.
He is doing this for sort of the power and
influence and you know, breaking the laws and the criminal
activities he can get away with in this position.

Speaker 3 (42:54):
Right, he is the only politician quote unquote in the
film who they don't show you his political affiliation because
there's because there's that Senator Steubens guy who they specifically
state is a Republican, you know, and then Styles, the
guy who he's working for is very much a Democrat

(43:17):
now because he wins in a Connecticut district. You know,
you you might think that maybe he's a Democrat, but
he but the district that he wins is the richest
district in Connecticut or as they call it, the Gold Coast,
which makes you think in all that area, yeah, Stanford, Greenwich, Darien, Yeah,

(43:44):
you know, which makes you think, oh, well, he could
win that as a Republican too, you know, But they
don't they don't tell you. You're right, they don't tell
you because it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter at all
what his uh, what his political affiliation is, because he
doesn't care about politics. This isn't a political movie, I mean,
which is fucking hilarious. It's all about politics, it's all

(44:06):
about the inner workings of politics. But it's not a
political movie. It doesn't have an opinion, it doesn't have ideology,
it doesn't have an agenda other than you know, gain
power and earn influence. You know, not earn influence, but
you know, gain power and influence.

Speaker 2 (44:22):
Right, that's all it matters, right, and and therefore equates
both parties with the same underhand practices, which we also
know to be true, completely true as well, and interesting
to see that the the older generation I'm portrayed by,
you know, the Republican senator who's all over some female

(44:48):
lobbyist and you know, cheating on his wife or whatever.
And then the Democratic senator who's desperately trying to hold
on to you know, a smidget of his beliefs while
also going, well, it's also about how I end my time,
like what's my legacy? So yeah, okay, there's the beliefs.

(45:10):
He says, I've had to play hardball, I've had to
learn where the line is, et cetera, et cetera. But
also he hates the fact that his last decision has
to be back in Cusack, if nothing else, to just
try and keep his legacy. The narrative, he wants his
legacy to be right exactly, instead of standing on his morals.

(45:32):
And the whole movie is like that. And again, I
think if it had been faster paced, and if it
had been a little if it had leaned more into
the nineties thrillers that would come in the next two
or three years and have a bit more you know,
a brooding score and you know, real stakes and a

(45:53):
little heightened melodrama and whatever, rather than being sort of
a kind of jokeless sont Elmo's Fire About last Night
kind of movie. But it is also interesting to say that,
you know, along with some incredibly frivolous movies, the brat

(46:15):
pack or the brat pack adjacent actors did at least
try where possible, and I'm thinking of you know, this
movie and Sonuma's Fire and About last Night and even
bad influence on some of the others, they did at
least try and tackle some topics back then. It might
have been in a idealistic way, but they did try

(46:38):
and tackle some serious like coming of age, questions that
you might have, like this is very much like a
what world do I want to live in? Kind of movie? Right, right, exactly.
I just think that its audience of twenty twenty one
year olds were probably too young for it at the time.
I think it probably makes more sense for you to
watch it in your thirties and your forties when once

(46:59):
you've lived through it alone little bit, you know what
I mean exactly? But you know, fair play to them
for trying to do it. I just think, as I say,
at one hour fifty, it's a love old fucking movie
and it doesn't have the It just doesn't have the dramatic,
operatic flair that I quite like films like this to have.
And I think they would have given Spade a better
opportunity to flounce it up in the third.

Speaker 3 (47:21):
Act, right, Yeah, no, this this movie. The biggest thing
that this movie suffers from is being twenty to twenty
five minutes too long.

Speaker 2 (47:30):
Yeah, you know, that's really it.

Speaker 3 (47:32):
Like even even the fact that they don't give like
they don't ever unleash Spader and let him go full
Spader is fine if the movie wasn't almost two hours long, right,
you know, I saw that run time, and I'm like, oh,
this is this is this is gonna be rough. But

(47:53):
it wasn't like it like it's like like like we
had said, it was fairly well written, you know, it
was in joy like like I liked watching it. Like
I mean, I'm a big politics guy anyway, you know,
usually rooting against all sides, but.

Speaker 2 (48:10):
Politics guy. I don't like anyone in politics, but in politics,
but I fucking love politics. This movie essentially is Yes,
it's about politics, Yes it's about the Department of Justice.
But ultimately the movie is like, guys, the moment you
leave college, the world is going to ask you to
make some difficult choices, and it's going to fuck you

(48:33):
in a way that you never expected. That's like, if
you look at this as sort of a post college
you know, the rest of your life, like a sort
of answer to Sunama's fire son Am. As far as
the frivolous version of this, you know, you'll love, you'll laugh,
you'll lose, you know, you'll all get back together, it'll
all be okay, and then you'll move on and be adults.
This is the no, no, no. The moment you get

(48:54):
out of college, life's going to fuck you. As hard
as you can match.

Speaker 3 (48:59):
Yeah, yeah, because like both of these I mean, what's
fucking hilarious is both of these guys went on to
have their dream careers. You know. One of them wanted
to be in the d OJ. He got into the dj.
The other guy wanted to be a politician, have influence
and power. He became a politician, had influence and power,
you know, and they both still kind of got fucked right,

(49:20):
you know.

Speaker 2 (49:21):
Yeah, it's a very uh, I mean, it's realistic in
that tones, but it's also a very pessimistic movie, I
guess in that in that regard, Yeah, exactly real realistic pessimism,
I guess. Uh. The the the only other thing I
would say about it is it there if there is
a trend, Having watched a lot of Spada films, if

(49:45):
there is a trend in Spada films from his most
popular to his uh most bt movies, it is to
do with like the undue influence of a friend and
or male person in your life. So whether it's this,

(50:06):
whether it's a bad influence, whether it's the one that
we did last week with Matt Poia Shadow of Fear,
it's it's all to do with a lot of Spader
films are to do with that one voice in your
life that you shouldn't listen to and yet is undeniably desirable.
You know what I mean. You know, you're heading into
Dante's seventh Circle of Hell. But there's a little titillation

(50:29):
about doing so, so why not kind of thing. Yeah,
that's sort of the running theme throughout his his film career. Yeah, no,
I can see there.

Speaker 3 (50:38):
I can see that from the from the ones I've
I've seen at least at least the ones where he's
like one of the main characters. Yeah, you know that,
that's for sure. I mean, that's very much less than
zero too great.

Speaker 2 (50:48):
Lesson Zero plays a master manipulator, even in Pretty in Pink.
He's like the master manipulator in Pank Pink. And it's
funny because he sometimes plays the role of the manipulator
and sometimes he plays the role of the manipulate team.
But in both senses. The movies tend to be about, uh,
the general untrustworthiness of humans, but specifically like male friendships,

(51:16):
which is weird. That is weird. I feel like maybe
Spader and John Junior fell out or something and he
had to he had to, like all these movies were
away of him, because didn't he used to hang out
with John Junior when they were He was like a
big Kennedy friend I think Spider was back in the day.

Speaker 3 (51:33):
I don't know enough about him to know that that's
that would I mean shit. But it's funny though, because
it's not like he's the one writing the movies. They
just happened to be movies, that he's the one picking
them though. Yeah, yeah, true, true.

Speaker 2 (51:48):
I feel like, as I look back on a Spader career,
I feel like there's been some genuine choices made. He's
I mean, talk about an actor who's not just in
it for the patriot very often. Yeah, he's not Michael Kane, right,
you know, and we've talked about this in the last
few episodes. But but when you look at his trajectory,

(52:10):
like every four to five years, he'll do a sex
size and videotapes or a stargate. So every few years
he'll do a big blockbuster or an indie cred daling
like a festival Darling, so he'll do like a Secretary
or an Age of Ultron, or he'll do sexize videotapes

(52:31):
or Stargate like He'll do occasional kind of big, big
deal movies, but then in between them he takes these
you know, he's not an A list star in these
movies in between them, really no, And I feel like
he could have been. I feel like he could have
really gone that way if he wanted to. But I

(52:51):
feel like he just did the movies he wanted to do,
and it leads to a shorter but more interesting resume.
I think, well, that's what.

Speaker 3 (52:59):
That's the thing about Spader though, is that he he
Spader's almost exclusively the anti Michael Caine, you know, because
because Caine will say yes to everything. You know. He's
the man who famously missed his missed the ceremony where
he got an award for Hannah and her sisters, his
Hannah and her sisters because he was filming Jaws three D,

(53:23):
you know.

Speaker 2 (53:23):
And when asked why he did the hand with Oliver A.
Stone literally said, I needed to put an extra extension
on my garage, right, he said, garage. Sorry, I needed
to put an extra extension about bloody garage, that's right.
So I did the hand with.

Speaker 3 (53:41):
All of us, you know, No, yeah, yeah, exactly like
he he just says yes, to everything, and sometimes it
works out brilliantly for him, and sometimes he makes was
it Jaws three D? Or draws the revenge? I think
it might have been? Yeah, is lewis gross?

Speaker 6 (54:02):
Right?

Speaker 2 (54:02):
Right?

Speaker 3 (54:02):
Right, right right. It's been a very long time since
I've seen anything past the first Jaws, so me too.

Speaker 2 (54:09):
Fuck if I remember. I only know because I'm selling
the Jaws three D collectible CODs in my store in Connecticut. Ah, well,
there you go in my store in Connecticut.

Speaker 3 (54:22):
But Spader is the exact opposite. Like you could tell,
he has cultivated a very specific image. He's cultivated a
very specific idea, you know, and he's cultivated a very
specific filmography. And you know, while not all of his
movies are you know, notch for sure, he is probably

(54:45):
you know, like he's probably as respected as he is
as an actor today because of his choices, you know.

Speaker 2 (54:53):
Yeah. And I also think because people give him roles
because in the meeting with Spader, they don't know if
he's going to kiss them or kill them, and he
sits opposite them at a table, drinking a tiny espresso
out of a tiny teacup, wearing a series of flancy
scarves and large Trilby hats looking over his beursuited paunch

(55:20):
with those eyes that say I'm either going to fuck
you or flay you alive. And yeah, and people are
just like, yeah, put him in the film.

Speaker 3 (55:31):
I would love to see. I'd love to be like
a fly on the wall for like a movie pitch
idea where in the room you have Spader, Nick Cage,
and Christopher walk in.

Speaker 2 (55:50):
I mean, you'd have to cast all three of them.

Speaker 3 (55:52):
There's no way you could say no, no, no, no, no, yeah, yeah, no,
You'd have to cast all three of them. Yeah, and
it would be either the best movie ever made or
the absolute worst. There is no in between.

Speaker 2 (56:05):
No, there would be no in between. But what would
be the movie of the three of them sitting around?

Speaker 5 (56:12):
Hm?

Speaker 2 (56:13):
Hmmm, So wait, it's Christopher walk and James Spader and
who's the third one? What did I say? Nick Cage?
Nick Cage? Okay, so we've it's it's gotta be that
they are They're either it's it's either a Deliverance style
movie where you have three guys who go on a
wacky wilderness adventure and end up getting like hunted by

(56:36):
uh insane rednecks of whom their wives all want to
bang Spader like, oh no, Spader, this is what happens.
There're three guys who go on a wacky retreat adventure.
One night, Spader uh nails one of the Rednecks's wife
without knowing that she's one of the Redneck wife. She
just like comes on to him in a bar. He

(56:58):
sleeps with her, and that causes that. Then next second
act and third act of the movie of the Rednecks
going after Walk and Spader and Cage and the three
of them have to like get out of the jungle,
you know, before they're torn apart or something like that.

(57:19):
So it's either a movie like that, okay with those
three guys in it, or it's they plan a heist,
you know, either that or there like three criminals kind
of thing. See.

Speaker 3 (57:29):
I love that idea, but I was thinking more like,
they're three cake decorators and they're all in competition for
some prestigious cake decorating prize and they are sabotaging each
other's cakes to make the other cakes worse, you.

Speaker 2 (57:52):
Know, And no, wait, but halfway through you think it's
gonna be like a whacking comedy. But halfway through, because
they've sabotaged each other's cakes too much. They've poisoned one
of the judges, and he's died in like the whole
way of the hotel. And they have to then like
cover up the death and work together. That's a good twist. See,

(58:14):
you have to work together, you know what I mean?

Speaker 3 (58:16):
See, I my brain kept going the silly comedy route,
and I kept thinking that like some like Underdog who
we see once earlier in the film, may be played
by like Alan Tudek or something like comes in and
sweeps the competition at the end, because they have destroyed
each other's cakes so much that at the end they're

(58:38):
unrecognizable as cake, Like one of them is just made
of concrete, you know.

Speaker 2 (58:41):
And and the judge, one of the judges is Tom Halse.
I don't know why. It just is and Oliver Platt
because what happened to Tom Hals, What happened to Tom Halse.
He was everywhere for a while, and now we're houlseless
And I think it shows, you know what.

Speaker 3 (59:04):
And and and stick stick Toby Husson there too somewhere,
because I always like him movies. I don't even care
what he does, just have him in there. You know,
make make some vague allusion to Artie the strongest man
in the world, and then and move on because that
doesn't happen nearly enough.

Speaker 2 (59:21):
People forget.

Speaker 3 (59:22):
People forget because he doesn't look like Artie anymore, so
people forget that he was already the strongest man in
the world.

Speaker 2 (59:29):
Yes he was. I have no idea what this reference is,
but I'm going with it.

Speaker 3 (59:32):
Oh do you've never seen The Adventures of Pete and Pete.

Speaker 2 (59:35):
No, never seen the It was a classic.

Speaker 3 (59:38):
Nickelodeon show from the nineties, and.

Speaker 2 (59:41):
It took Nickelodeon in the UK.

Speaker 3 (59:43):
That's that's fair.

Speaker 2 (59:44):
That's fair. And if we did, I certainly didn't have
the kind of people who paid for cable in that way.
That's a fair point too, dude. We have four TV
channels in nineteen eighty seven. Like that's like we have
four TV channels.

Speaker 3 (01:00:00):
Anyway. It was just a show about two brothers who
were both named Pete. It was a goofy comedy. It
had all sorts of you know, crazy cameos from people
like Iggy Pop played one of the kid's dads, not
not Pete's, but.

Speaker 2 (01:00:13):
Like I'm aware of that cultural thing.

Speaker 3 (01:00:16):
Yeah, right, yeah, and Toby huss who just randomly shows
up in things Now it played us like he was
a superhero named already the strongest man in the world,
that he was just an utter goofball just look at
look it up, watch a couple of episodes. I feel
like you'd probably enjoy it. I also feel like I

(01:00:38):
have like a strong affinity towards it because one of
my friends was part of the band that played the
theme song. Well, not not directly, it's a long story.
There was a band called Miracle Legion. They got offered
the gig to play the theme song for Pete and Pete.

(01:00:59):
One of the guys, ironically, my friend said, I don't
want to be involved in that. So the rest of
the other three members of the band reformed as a
band called Polaris and did the theme song for Pete
and Pete. But there's an episode where Pete discovers what
his discovers his favorite song and the band it's like
a garage band, and the band who's in there is

(01:01:21):
Miracle Legion, like all four of them. So it's just
it's always funny to me when I see that episode
becase I'm like, oh, look, it's Ray We're in a
goofy hat playing songs to Pete in his in a garage.

Speaker 2 (01:01:35):
Talking about I think you said something about hair at
a certain point. Maybe you didn't. Maybe I just thought
I heard hat and it made me go to uh,
Paul Gilfoyle's hat in this movie True Colors, His his
mullet is absolutely he plays the senior aid to senas
styles see.

Speaker 3 (01:01:54):
I thought it's clever because they they may make reference
to it in the movie, and I had already said
that to myself before. I'm like, this guy seems like
he was a hippie like ten years ago, right, you know.
And then and then John, I think it was John
Cusack's character says that he still thinks he's a radical
back on campus or whatever. He said, yeah, and I'm like, yeah,

(01:02:16):
that's fucking that's accurate. He looks exactly like he fits
that bill that early nineties. I was a hippie back
in the sixties and seventies. Now I'm working for.

Speaker 2 (01:02:28):
The man, you know, right with the long hair and
the mullet. Also Richard Widmock as sens of James Stiles.
He is entirely too good for this movie. He is
fucking phenomenal.

Speaker 3 (01:02:39):
He was. He's the best. He's probably the best acting
in the film. And that's saying a lot for a
film with John Cusack and James Pader, But he fucking
killed it.

Speaker 2 (01:02:52):
This was his second to last movie.

Speaker 3 (01:02:55):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (01:02:56):
He died in Uh, he died in two thousand and eight.
But his last movie was a TV movie called Lincoln
right after this in nineteen ninety two, and has not
done anything since.

Speaker 3 (01:03:13):
But you know, and what they don't tell you is
it's about the car, not the man, right exactly.

Speaker 2 (01:03:18):
But had had been a Hollywood player since nineteen forty
seven's Kiss of Death. He is in, he is in
the original movie The Roadhouse from nineteen forty eight. Yep.
And so yeah, he he has played a series of
American military and American authority figures. But boy is he

(01:03:44):
fantastic in this movie. I loved it.

Speaker 3 (01:03:48):
Yeah. He just plays a great like grizzled politician, like
somebody who has seen everything, who has been involved in everything,
who knows what it's really like.

Speaker 2 (01:03:58):
You know, it's just a lot he I don't know.

Speaker 3 (01:04:03):
It's like I don't want to say he choose the scenery.
He doesn't, But he knows his place, and he knows
exactly what he needs to be doing. And there are
a couple of scenes where it's where he does kind
of like explode, and when he explodes, it was it
was to die for, Like that scene on the golf
course where he gets pissed off at Pete and he

(01:04:27):
puts his golf club away and just snatches up the
other set of clubs and just throws it at him,
and I'm like, oh, that's so good.

Speaker 2 (01:04:36):
It's the one time you see Cusack unsure of the
decision he just made. Like you see him a little
shaken up because you're like, I know, I need this
guy on my side, but but I wasn't necessarily expecting
him to take it this personally and get this upset
about it. Like he does look a little shaken.

Speaker 3 (01:04:53):
Right because to him, it's like, oh, this is just
part of the game. This is just politics, you know,
this is just how we do things. But no, you're
like you were he was playing that game that Cusack
plays throughout the entire movie where he says what he
wants without saying what he wants. You know, he he's
a lot of double speak, you know, so that way
he has plausible deniability. Later he's like, no, no, that's

(01:05:15):
not what I said. You know, I didn't say that.
I said this, but you you everybody knows what you
mean by that shit, you know. And so yeah, so
he was basically saying, like, look, you got to do
this or I'm gonna you know, I'm going to tell
the world that you've got Alzheimer's and uh.

Speaker 2 (01:05:32):
But he doesn't say that.

Speaker 3 (01:05:35):
And it's great though, because when he gets called out
on it too, he goes, he goes, that's I didn't
say it like that, you know, And it's like, no,
you didn't say it like that, but you absolutely implied
it one hundred percent.

Speaker 2 (01:05:47):
Yeah. I think he just says, I'll have to go
elsewhere and it won't look good than an aid of uh,
senator what's his name? Styles? Style? Senator styles, an AIDI
and the styles has gone over to the other side
is basically what he's saying. And then he threatens him
about the Alzheimer's and yeah, and all ship breaks loose,

(01:06:10):
but it works up until a point. Apparently John Cusack
took over six hundred hours of skiing lessons in preparation
for this movie. That's that's the equivalent to fifteen forty
hour weeks.

Speaker 3 (01:06:25):
Yeah, no hard pass, Like he didn't even he didn't
even take on that much training for better Off dead.

Speaker 2 (01:06:32):
Right, But like he didn't have to do any of
the skiing in this movie, Like it's all stuntman surely
exactly not telling me Spader really knows how to ski.
I wouldn't.

Speaker 3 (01:06:45):
I would believe one hundred percent that James Sprader absolutely
knows how to ski. Yeah kidding me, no, no, right,
but not to.

Speaker 2 (01:06:51):
The extent of like, oh, I'm going to take the
hardest wrap down a mountain and you know, right exactly.
I'm just saying he didn't do his own skiing in
the movie. I don't doubt that Spader has you know,
summered an aspen or whatever, but like or wintered in Vermont,
But like it's you know, I fully expect waspy Spader

(01:07:13):
to have gone down a few mountains of snow, but
I don't think he needed to do any of his
real sk skiing in this movie.

Speaker 3 (01:07:22):
No. You know what absolutely disappointed me about the uh
the skiing scene in this one?

Speaker 2 (01:07:28):
What's that man is that tumbling after them? You know
behind them?

Speaker 3 (01:07:33):
Wasn't a little kid screaming two dollars the entire time.

Speaker 2 (01:07:38):
I get it. I get it.

Speaker 3 (01:07:41):
It's not a comedy, it's not doesn't belong there, But man,
that would have been fucking hilarious two dollars.

Speaker 2 (01:07:47):
I either that or if it had if it had
cut to the ground and there were two ski bumps there,
one of whom went, I can't believe they're attempting the
Chinese downhill, and then another guy had come over and
be like, what the fuck is the Chinese? Exactly exactly.

(01:08:07):
That's all for Hot Dog the Movie fans right there,
for people who aren't going to get the Chinese downhill reference.
But Shannon Tweed should have skied past Spader with a
top hour or something. Because it did. It suddenly became
fucking ski school for a minute, you know what I mean,

(01:08:27):
Like it suddenly became Hot Dog the movie. It's you know,
because the music kicked in as they were going down
the mountain, like some late eighties synth rock like whoa,
and they were going down the mountain, you know what I.

Speaker 3 (01:08:43):
Mean, It's the only good music in the movie. Everything
else it's fucking saxophone and pan flute.

Speaker 2 (01:08:50):
It looked the skiing downhill scene looked like it looked
like a Benetton ad or something. It looked like, you know,
a Sears advert or something, or Wiggley spearmint gum or something,
you know what I mean. But yeah, it just had

(01:09:11):
one of those like when.

Speaker 6 (01:09:12):
You were in the mountain skiing for your life, you
need you know, ostroplex, the new erection pill from Mattel.

Speaker 3 (01:09:26):
We sell barbies and erections pills. That actually sounds about
right these days.

Speaker 2 (01:09:34):
Yeah, I mean, look, I'm not gonna say it's one
of the greatest spider films of all time, but it
passed the time. It did its job. Spader and Cusack together,
they never would do another film together in the same way.
I think that. Do they both show up in Bob
Roberts for like five minutes or is it just Cusack
that shows up in Bob Roberts. It's been so long

(01:09:56):
since I've seen that. I honestly don't know.

Speaker 3 (01:10:00):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:10:01):
Spader, of course, would later play the lawyer Alan Show
for the Practice and for Boston Legal, so all his
lawyer training that he did for this movie would would
eventually they are both in Bob Roberts as well. Okay,
so and Spada and Mandy Patenkin would join up again

(01:10:21):
for the Music of Chance two years later.

Speaker 3 (01:10:28):
But I want to give a big shout out, just
as sort of a final note, I want to give
a huge shout out to Dina Morrell, who played the
Senator's wife, who she doesn't say much, she doesn't do much,
but she looks so like politician's wife the whole time
that like, there were a couple of moments where I'm like,

(01:10:50):
this bitch is channeling fucking Nancy Reagan, you know, like
just down to a tee, and like, just visually, she
was perfection for the role she was playing. She sparely
said a fucking word through the whole fucking movie, but
just visually, just like whenever there was a scene in

(01:11:12):
a crowded room and you knew that she and you
knew that the Senator was there, you could spot the
wife anywhere because she always had the most outlandish outfit.
She always had the biggest, ridiculous haircut. She like just
Nancy Reagan it up the whole whole time.

Speaker 2 (01:11:30):
I loved that.

Speaker 3 (01:11:31):
I thought that was fantastic.

Speaker 2 (01:11:32):
And she, like Woodmark, had been in Hollywood since the
late fifties, right, she was great, So this was career
continued after this, she did show up in a few
TV episodes, she showed up in a few TV movies,
and then she has bit pots in Mighty Joe Young,

(01:11:56):
The Magnificent Amberson's, the TV version The Glow Shade and
the remake Beyond a Reasonable Doubt from two thousand and nine.
That was her last appearance on camera and she died
in twenty seventeen at ninety three years old. So she
had a long old career. And it's funny how these

(01:12:19):
actors who just stuck it out, basically just stuck it out.
It's like when you it's like when we'll go back
and look at the career of like a Paul Gilfoyd,
who's the character actor in this, will go back in
like a few years and look at his career and
you'll go, shit, that guy was around forty plus years

(01:12:41):
just doing solid work and solid stuff for decades. And
you know, we forget that the Hollywood contract players of
the fifties and sixties continue to work even if they
even if they didn't break into the A list, they
continue to hang around all through to the early two thousands.
So wonderful to see dynam and Richard Woodmark in this movie. Yeah,

(01:13:07):
and it is directed by Herbert Ross. Herbert Ross, who
we will mostly know for films like the Secret of
My Success, The Goodbye Girl, Steel, Magnolia's.

Speaker 3 (01:13:27):
Not My Thing, my Blue Heaven See he wins me
back over with that footloose.

Speaker 2 (01:13:36):
And he directed Pennies from Heaven the Hollywood version with
Steve Martin in nineteen eighty one. He also directs The
Seven Percent Solution The Nicholas Meyer Sherlock Holmes not parody
but like comp comedic film. So yes is Herbert Ross.

(01:14:01):
That is the movie. Thanks Mo for talking yet another
sleazy spade of springtime film. Tell everyone where if you
care to be found, they can find you. And I
thank you again so for all your insights into this
into this film. What insights Okay? So for me, I

(01:14:23):
mean the easiest place.

Speaker 3 (01:14:24):
I still do No Budget Nightmares from time to time.
We took a very long hiatus there, but we are
back dropping new episodes occasionally. You can get those over
it No Budget podcast dot com or wherever you find podcasts.

Speaker 2 (01:14:41):
What else do I got?

Speaker 3 (01:14:41):
I do stream on Twitch occasionally, that is Twitch dot
Com slash mov on helviata h wish you know h
E l v e.

Speaker 2 (01:14:51):
T E for helveat to. That's that's about it.

Speaker 3 (01:14:55):
I don't do Twitter anymore.

Speaker 2 (01:14:56):
I stopped.

Speaker 3 (01:14:57):
I stopped doing Twitter a long time ago and shut.

Speaker 2 (01:15:00):
Down your Little Mickey Shortcakes OnlyFans, right, No, No, that's
still going.

Speaker 3 (01:15:04):
Yeah, just find me over at hot Cross Bonds Little
Mickey Shortcakes, Little Mickey slash Little Mickey Shortcakes.

Speaker 2 (01:15:14):
Yeah, look up for my new film with.

Speaker 3 (01:15:18):
Nick Cage, Christopher Walking and James Sprader Speaker about cake
decorators gone bad.

Speaker 2 (01:15:28):
They have to work together to hide the dead body
of the judge they killed with the arsenic that they
put in each other's cakes, and then they have to
like Weekend at bernies him around the hotel before finally,
and finally it's revealed that he actually died of natural
causes because he had a heart issue and the arsenic

(01:15:48):
never hit his system, and so they're exonerated in the
final act. But yeah, of course, for most of the movie,
when they're carrying the dead body around the hotel and
trying to hide it behind the three of them in
comical ways, they really do think they killed them because
of their rivalry about cake topics. Amazing it rights itself.
I don't know why anyone hasn't made this movie. But

(01:16:11):
thanks so much, Mo, as always for your sterling co hostness,
and we'll have you back on again. Thanks so much
for doing this, and we will we have one more.
I think we have one more episode. I wanted it
to be two more episodes, but I cannot get hold
of the person that I wanted to guest.

Speaker 3 (01:16:31):
On the.

Speaker 2 (01:16:32):
Secretary episode. Sir, it's not going to happen, So we're
probably just going to do one more, one more Sleazy
Spader with a surprise guest that I know that I
will definitely be able to get on the show, a
surprise guest that has been intrinsically tied to Sleazy Spader
Springtime from the very beginning. So that's just a hint
for the listeners out there. All right, that's it, Mo,

(01:16:56):
thanks so much, have your Saturday back and have a
good bye now bye bye bye