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September 24, 2022 • 73 mins
Hello, Tourists! Today, we're going to talk about two movies where Keanu Reeves plays characters in stories that were based off of real life true crime events, and then we dive into a couple movies involving fictional true crime stories. First, we have "River's Edge," which was a movie based off the tragic murder of high school student, Marcy Conrad, at the hands of her teenage boyfriend in 1981 and how her friends and peers dealt with her death. Next, we talk about the film, "I Love You To Death," which was based off of the attempted murder of Tony Toto by his wife Francis Toto in 1983. The fictional true crime films we talk about starring Keanu Reeves are "The Whole Truth" and "The Watcher."

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Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hello, This is Mamma D andI'm the host of Pedals of Support.
Pedals of Support is a podcast thatoffers advice from a mom to anyone that
needs a little extra love and support. This is not advice for moms,
but advice from a mom. I'vecovered such topics as forgiveness, how to
forgive, one to forgive, andwhen it's okay to not forgive, letting

(00:22):
go, how to make good decisions, and how to handle stressful situations.
I'm not a license anything. I'mjust a mom that wants to provide to
you the same advice that I givemy kids, my friends, and my
family. You can find me onany podcast platform. You can also find
me at Twitter at Pedals of Support. Please go listen, find the episodes

(00:46):
that apply to you, and maybethe ones that don't. You can file
that information away for later. Ifyou like what you're here, please subscribe.
Thank you. Down this Road isa small city, once thriving,

(01:12):
full of life, but now desolateand abandoned. Well abandoned save for the
horrors rumored to reside within, whichI presume is while you're here now,
there's nothing wrong with a little morbidcuriosity, but please remember to stay close
to your guides. We wouldn't wantanyone to get left behind. Now,

(01:40):
hello everyone, and welcome back toNopeville, the city filled with all the
terrifying and horrible things that make yousay nope, nope. We are your
tour guys. I'm Jen and I'mChristine, and this week we have something
very near and deared in my heart. It's an episode about Kiana Reeves.
So not quite a nope, buta little bit of nope, a little
bit of a yeah yeah from thenope. So it was his birthday earlier

(02:04):
this month month, September second,and he's been in a ship ton of
movies. So we were like,I wonder if he was in any movies
that were based off of real events, and lo and behold, he was
so too. To be exact,yeah, exactly too. So we're going
to start off with the real truecrime story and the movie that was based

(02:28):
on or loosely based off of those, and then we're going to talk about
a couple other of his true crimefilms that aren't based off of true events,
but we're just interesting to talk aboutanyway, Yeah, to kind of
sort of compare contrast reality to fiction. Yeah, and because I love Keanu
Reeves. It's just announced that he'sgoing to be in the Constantine sequel,
so I'm super excited about that.And we get to see him at Comic

(02:50):
Con. We did, yes,very excited goal since we were in high
school and saw him on stage.We did see him. We saw him
when he was performing with Becky mYeah, and he's actually coming back with
Dogstar. So so for all ourKeyanu fans out there, the sense for
you, but mainly for me.Yeah. I used to be a pseudo
hater back in the day. Yeah, people used to make fun of me.

(03:12):
But now he's going through a renaissanceorbut he loves him and I'm like,
see, I fucking told you Nowhe's the told startling. Yep.
If something goes wrong with Keanu,I think the world will just implode.
Probably he'll take the breath away becausehe's breathtaking, right exactly, No,
you're breathtaking. A poor man.He's going to get that for the rest
of his life. He he is. I don't think he's gonna mind though,

(03:34):
No, he's too pure. Christine'sgoing to start off with her real
true crime slash fiction based off ofmovie. Yes, that was a mouthful,
that was a it was a sentence, weather grammatically correct. That's up
in the air. So to startoff today, I'm going to set a
scene and I want you all todo your best to put yourselves back into

(03:57):
the mindset of your fourteen or fifteenyear old self. I know it's tough
because that was a dark place formost of us. Yes, okay,
we're already starting with the nopes.Yes. Now, imagine you're at school
one morning, hanging out with yourusual group of friends when someone points out
how strange it is that one hasn'tarrived just yet. You hear a voice
quietly mutter, I killed her.Okay. Everyone kind of chuckles, yeah,

(04:21):
right, very funny. Right,But he doesn't look like he's joking,
and even says he can show everyonethe body if they don't believe him.
Okay, if you're anything like Iwas back in my high school years,
you went along with a group offriends. Whether to see if he
was telling the truth or how theprank plays out doesn't matter, because you
just didn't want to be the oddone out of the group who didn't go.

(04:42):
When the group arrives, you canall clearly see something. Maybe it's
just cleverly arranged trash. You'll getcloser and no, well, maybe it's
a mannequin, but somebody pokes herwith a stick. It's definitely a body.
You all stare in disbelief. Maybesomeone asks why he did something like
this to a friend, to hisown girlfriend, But the real question is
what do you do now? Right, of course, the rational answer is

(05:02):
that someone called the police and reportthe crime. But now let's add that
this is happening at a time whencell phones don't exist, and you live
in a fairly small community. Again, you're just starting out in high school
and these are your friends. Wouldyou tell not in front of their faces,
but that would be your first instant, go home and tell somebody?
Yeah, would you call the police? My mom my? Theoretic a trusted

(05:30):
adult slash older individual, I thinkI would tell a trusted adult before telling
the police. Knowing that I shouldtell the police, but my anxiety wouldn't
want me to make a big dealout of something that could potentially not be
a big deal. Yeah, soI think I would tell a trusted adult
first, but not in the vicinityof the friends in case like they're like,

(05:53):
oh, you're a snitch and thenyou know that stuff happens to me.
So yeah, so nobody ever wantsto be the one who narked,
right, because scary you're a teenager, like these are your friends and now
you're going to be ostracized for therest of your life. Yeah, that's
exactly. This is a literal crime. But if you're the new kid,
like there's all there's that type ofanxiety that's happening at the same time,
and right, you just want tofit in. Yeah, so it's it's

(06:15):
easy to see why someone might notsay anything. So on November third,
nineteen eighty one, fourteen year oldMarcy Conrad was strangled to death by her
sixteen year old boyfriend Anthony Jacques Broussard, and her body was dumped half naked
near a popular lover's lane in thehills outside of town in Milpitas, California.
It was alleged in most articles thathe had also raped her, but
I never read anywhere that there hadbeen evidence that ever confirmed a sexual assault

(06:40):
after the autopsy report came out,So I can't also hard because I think
DNA evidence was just starting to comeinto the limelight back in the eighties and
even now there's a huge backup ofrape kits that will eventually get tested.
Yeah, maybe they didn't even liketest her. They were just like,
oh, well, she's dead,so it doesn't matter. M Yeah.

(07:00):
In fact, Jacques as he wentby his middle name, pleaded guilty of
the crime in exchange for twenty fiveto life sentence and dismissal of the rape
charges. So he didn't want thaton his record, Whether because it was
true and he just didn't want itto be there, or because it wasn't.
It's interesting because if it was twentyfive to life, what wouldn't matter
because he's in jail. I know, maybe he just doesn't want to go

(07:21):
down in history as a rapist.Maybe he claimed to have been high on
LSD at the time and that Marcyhad started mouthing off about his mother,
which is a bit of a sensitivetopic for the boy. See, when
he was seven years old, hefound his mother dead in the shower of
natural causes. Mind you, butthat was enough to emotionally disturb the boy.

(07:42):
Grown to be a murder right,as you may or may not have
realized by now, the crime itselfwasn't exactly what made this case so shocking
as to be made into a moviestarring Keanu Reeves and Crispin Glover. Nope,
it was what happened between the murderand Jacques being caught. The day
after Jacque killed Marcy, he wentto school and told his friends about it.
They didn't believe him, of course, so he brought them to see

(08:03):
her body. For two days afterher murder, teenagers visited the spot to
see the body, and not oneof them told the police or even their
parents during that time. Wow.Many of them were haunted by what they
saw, but they were afraid tobe blamed for the crime, and so
a sort of unspoken agreement to staysilent seemed to pass between each one of
the teens that made the trek tosee the evidence of the crime. One
girl cut herself a patch from Marcy'sclothes. I guess is a sort of

(08:24):
souvenir to prove to herself that whatshe'd seen was real. Apparently, she
also discarded it on the way,so I don't know, Yeah, why
she took it, okay? Interesting. Another kid actually threw leaves over the
body to help cover it up andwas also charged alongside Jacques as an accessory
to the murder by trying to coverup the body. Yeah, tampering with

(08:46):
evidence, yeah, which every singleone of those kids should have been charged
with tampering with evidence, especially thegirl who cut off a part of her
clothes. Apparently that kind of cameup like a lot. But the sheriff
in charge said, fai to reporta body is not a crime. Interesting.
I don't know when accessory after thefact became a thing, because that

(09:07):
is a thing, and not reportingsomething you saw is part of it.
But yeah, he said, failingto report a body is not a crime,
which was interesting. Even if somebodyconfessed to murdering this person. But
he didn't, well, I meanhe did with his friends, but like
yeah, otherwise, which was like, hey, you want to see a
dead body? Yeah, okay,Yeah. A lot of the other kids

(09:28):
were just like, hey, soI know where there's a dead body.
You want to go check it out? M Yeah. But of course,
eventually one of them, David Leffler, decided to speak up and inform the
police of what had happened, alongwith his friend Mike Irvin, who hadn't
really wanted any part of it,but he would dragged along all hell broke
loose from there with a media shitstorm throwing blame all over the place for
why these callous youths would keep quietabout a body in the hills, television,

(09:52):
weed, heavy metal, etc.The usual blame game. One thing
that was made clear and every articleI've read, was that race was never
blamed, thankfully, as Jacques wasa six four, two hundred and thirty
pound black mail and that could havebeen the easy scapegoat back in the eighties.
Yeah, despite his size, noone was scared of him, and
in fact, he was scared ofeverybody, so the silence of the teens
couldn't even be attributed to any kindof fear of retribution. Quote Jacques wasn't

(10:16):
that much of a likable person sothat people would want to cover for him.
He was scared of everybody. Endquote, said one sixteen year old.
Interesting quote. He didn't live byany code or nothing. Jacque is
a partner of mine. He needshelp. He's gone wacko. But I
wouldn't knarc on him. He wouldhave gotten it sooner or later. End
quote, said another, which lendsto another reason these teens held their tongues.
None of them wanted to be seenas a narc and indeed, Leffler

(10:39):
was not viewed too kindly. Afterward, Leffler told of a time he heard
voices outside his screen door a weekafter he reported the crime, and one
of those voices said, quote,he's going to pay for what he did
to Jacques en quote. Leffler persuadedquote unquote the young men at his door
to leave by pointing a twenty twoshotgun at the door, which they could
see through the screen, and theytook off. Well, there you go.

(11:01):
I did the right thing. Andhe was getting threatened for it,
yep, which was what everybody wasafraid of. Yes, why no one
said anything. River's Edge, whichwas released six years later, was not
well received in Milpitas, as peoplefelt the movie should never have been made,
but Roger Ebert saw it as quotethe best analytical film about a crime
since The Onion Field and in coldblood unquote interesting. Another journalist wrote that

(11:26):
it quote depicted San Jose better thananything I'd seen. That was my life
at the time, man, quotem I used to live up there.
I lived on the border of SanJose Milpitas. Yeah, but not as
a teen. No, much likethe real story. River's Edge gives no
voice, life, or personality tothe victim. She is simply a naked
body in the grass by the river'sedge, which is just so tragic to
me. Oh yeah, they couldhave given her a life before the murder

(11:50):
happened. People knew who she was. Yeah, you only see her living
in like a memory of him stranglingher. And even that's brief. This
movie intentionally took as far of atone shift as it could from other teen
movies being released in the eighties,with the teens all dressed in grunge and
mostly being your standard stoner stereotypes,and the soundtrack featuring the likes of Slayer,
Hallow's Eve and Agent Orange again rightsuper atypical. It plays out much

(12:16):
like I think anyone might imagine eventsplayed out for real. Sampson Talllett,
mostly referred to as John, killshis girlfriend Jamie and leaves her body on
the grassy hill by a raging river. He later goes to school and tells
his friends, who don't believe him, Surprice Bryce. The girls Clarissa and
Maggie head to class, as wellas another boy, Tony Matt Keanu Reeve's

(12:37):
character and Lane Crispin Glover's character decidedto go with John to see the alleged
body. Lane pokes the body witha stick to confirm what they already suspected,
and Matt is visibly shaken by thesight, but plays it cool and
extracts himself from the situation. Later, the other three friends plus another named
Mike, all pyl into a truckto see the body, and the rest
of the movie focuses on Lane's needto help John cover up the cry,

(13:00):
and Matt eventually reporting the body andshowing the police where it was left,
despite the fact that Lane had nowthrown it into the river, so they're
to go find it elsewhere. Themovie mostly comes across as a commentary of
teen life at the time, withteens often leaving home at all times of
day and their parents having little controland no idea of where they go or
where they're doing. I don't saythis to mean that I think the movie

(13:20):
is blaming the parents for why theteens never said anything though, just that's
how it was. People were runningout. I distinctly remember, like Clarissa's
story, like when she's leaving thehouse, her mom would be like Clarisia's
at you, she'd be like,yep, and then she just go that
was it. Yeah, I'm like, can't relate. Yeah. Despite not
much caring for the movie in general, it was I don't know, the

(13:41):
tone was kind of odd. Ifelt like it did a great job of
portraying what real life was like then, as well as the conflict a lot
of the teens felt with their unspokenloyalty to each other and their knowledge about
what they had saw and the factthat they knew it was a very real
crime that needed to be reported.That's interesting to note because so, for
instance, Stranger Things takes place inthe early eighties, right, and the

(14:03):
whole time I watch that, I'mlike, why can't the kids just tell
the adults what's happening and then theyall work together. But instead, like
the kids and the adults are havingtwo different storylines with the same end goal
and they all meet up at theend like, oh, you guys were
doing this thing too. It's likeif you just like told your mom or
told Hopper what was going on,like, it would have been a lot
easier. But really, the onlyadults who were involved who know what's going

(14:28):
on are Hopper, Enjoys and thenlike the weird guys afraid his name,
I want to say Murray anyway,that guy. Those are the only three
adults who like legitimately understand what's goingon and have seen what's happening. Yeah,
and didn't Nancy go to Murray withJohnathan in one season? They did,

(14:50):
so they do when they can.But between between Hopper, Joyce and
him, I don't know if Itrust him, I would probably go to
Hopper first. But every season I'mjust like, if the only the adults
and the kids got together and we'refighting these things together. But maybe that's
just a reflection of the time,Like what you're saying that, Like there
wasn't that kind of relationship the kids. What the kids did, the adult

(15:11):
did with the adults did, andthey never like meddled in each other's lives
pretty much. So yeah, anotherdepiction of it. Right. At one
point, Clarissa and Matter hanging outin the park and Clarisa talks about how
she respects whoever it was that rattedand that she wished she'd had the courage
to do so herself as well.In fact, earlier on screen, she's
seen at a payphone with Maggie debatingover making calls. So both of them

(15:35):
are like, oh, I don'tknow the number you make the call.
You make the call, Well,i'll talk to them you dial. I
don't know why that was a thing. Well nine one one is emergency services.
It's not the police specifically, threeone one is. But I don't
know when that became the thing,right, so unless they were looking for
like their local least Asian number.Yeah. After hearing this, Matt decides
it's safe to tell her that hewas the one who called the police and

(15:56):
says something about figuring he wouldn't bethe only one and being surprised that he
actually was. There's also this weirdsubplot with Matt's younger brother just being an
overall piece of trash kid who wantsto be involved in everything the older kids
are up to and acting bigger thanhe really is, which again was a
very accurate portrayal of younger siblings,especially back then. So despite how frustrating

(16:18):
it was to watch, in themidst of all this, I was like,
yeah, I know that's true.Yeah. Matt beats him up one
night for continuing to torment their youngersister, and the kid Tim gets it
in his head to make his brotherpay for snitching on John even though he's
never fucking talked to Johnny bottom ofbeer earlier in the movie, or whether
he didn't buy it he stole it. No weird regardless, like a weird

(16:40):
subplot that was unnecessary. It wasIt was almost like the point was to
sort of show that, like,the corruption goes further than teens. It's
the only other thing I could getfrom it. But Tim manages to get
his hands on a gun, whichhe plans to use on Matt. Okay,
but Matt is able to talk himdown again. Ridiculous. All right
out the movie there's plenty of teenagefuckery, with Lane single handedly deciding he

(17:03):
needs to cover the crime and hideJohn, and the others trying not to
get involved but also not be theones to nark. It's just a whole
teenage movie. Yeah. The movietakes a couple of departures from two events,
with the killer being played by DanielRoebuck, a white man, and
the killer being killed before he canbe arrested for his crime, and I
feel like the decision to make himwhite was to help the audience not jump

(17:25):
to the race conclusion. Right,since it obviously played no role. Yeah,
the killing of the killer, Ican only guess was to give the
audience some type of closure outside ofhim going to jail. Yeah, I
will say that what I genuinely hatedabout the scene where you find out he
was shot is how Lane reacted toseeing him dead. He all but threw

(17:45):
himself to the ground and what couldonly be seen his despair. And yet
this whole movie, no one hadany sort of reaction to seeing Jamie dead
from the beginning. So this girl, but they're all friends with, They're
like, huh, okay, yeahthat's a dead body. Yeah, who
was murdered for no reason? Andthen this other dude gets shot, and
I can only imagine that the reasonLane freaks out is because all his hard

(18:06):
work was for nothing. He spentthe entire night doing all this shit for
nothing. Oh my god, ismy guests He never says as much,
but yeah, there's just no motivefor his character development. Yeah. I
was so upset about that. Iwas like, really, all in all,
I guess I wouldn't say it wasa bad movie for one with a
relatively small budget of one point sevenmillion and a script written for a class

(18:26):
at UCLA that caught the producer's attentionat a student judge contest. Wow,
but a lot of it makes sensewhen you know that. Yeah, good
for that person. Yeah. Thecasting director had this to say about it,
quote, I thought it was powerfuland weirdly funny, and it had
a darkness that was rooted in realityin a way that I hadn't seen before.
When Daniel wrote Buck went in forthe part, he said, quote,

(18:48):
I put on a costume and kyjelly in my hair to make it
look greasy. On the way tothe audition, I stopped by a step
and eleven by my house in Hollywood, bought two beers and put him in
my coat pocket. When I walkedinto the roof whom I sat in a
corner and popped open the beer andtim the director grabbed his camera and started
shooting. I think he was seeingsomething in that moment that was unique,
different and real. End quote.Oh wow. The casting director said this

(19:11):
about when Keanu came in. Quote. When he came in, he hadn't
done anything and wasn't being represented byanybody. He was what's called a hip
pocket client, meaning they didn't knowif they wanted to sign him. They
were just testing him out. Hewalked in the door and I went,
oh my god, this is myguy. It was just because of the
way he held his body. Hisshoes were untied, and what he was
wearing looked like a young person growinginto being a man. I was over

(19:33):
the moon about him. End quote, which is probably just who he was
in the early eighties. So Ijust thought you'd appreciate that description. Well,
yeah. Interestingly, she also saidthis about casting for the movie,
quote, there was one part thatwas surprisingly tricky to cast, the dead
body Jamie. We were like,oh shit, who's going to play that
part? I started to meet peoplewho were young and could be comfortable naked.

(19:56):
We had this wonderful young actress comein. Danny Deets had to lie
there, cold and naked for daysand really look dead with all this makeup
all over her. She's an unsunghero. As I sort of mentioned before,
a reception of this movie was prettyhot or cold. People generally weren't
entirely sure what to make of it, and the producer stated that quote,
some executives from a small distribution companywouldn't look at us after a festival screening.

(20:18):
People either embraced it or very putoff by it. It didn't get
picked up right away. End quote. The director followed that up with quote,
I went to every goddamn festival screeningI could. The reactions were good,
but it didn't really take off untilSundance end quote. Okay. He
also added quote the screening I remembermost before the film opened was in San
Jose, near Milpitas, where theactual murder had taken place. A lot

(20:41):
of the audience was up in arms, saying, why are you raking as
all of the coals again? Whyare you bringing this all back? We've
had enough notoriety from this murder case. But the principle of the local high
school, when people from the policedepartment came up to us afterward and said
that we'd really gotten it right,that's what those kids were like, really
right, you know right? Everysingle one of you was like, no,

(21:03):
kids wouldn't do that because they're socallous. I don't trust the way
adults look at teenagers and children.They had this weird, twisted, warped
view of how children are right,and like when you're actually you know,
the teenager, you're like, yeah, we're not like that. Yeah.
But also the fact that, likeit was so fresh. You said,
it was only six years after thecrime actually happened, So people who were

(21:26):
on the case are probably still workingat the precinct, and you know,
people who went to school with thesepeople were probably still living in the area,
especially in like a smaller kind ofbooming mining town. Yeah. Yeah,
but this just reminds me of aquote that another one of the kids
had said in another article that Isaw that everyone. He didn't like that

(21:47):
everyone treated all fifteen hundred kids inthat school like they were also guilty.
So obviously not the entire school hadseen this body. Yeah, everybody acted
like all of these kids were exactlythe same, right, Like, no,
it's just part of that warped viewof what adults think of children or
teenagers. Yeah, they even triedto Originally, I remember seeing someone where

(22:07):
that the principle was going to havein like the school handbook, that there
needed to be some sort of ruleor some sort of statement about like,
if you see anything, you needto report it, like if you see
something, say something type of deal, right, And then he decided,
no, it's not the school's jobto teach kids morals like that. It's
the parents. Well you're part ofit, right, Okay, anyway,

(22:30):
right, just play the blame game, right. I am going to close
out the sad topic of a teenagegirl whose legacy has become to be known
as a murder victim that was shownoff among teens as if she were a
weekend attraction with something on her headstonea little touching inscription. It simply says
little dreamer. Yeah, you canvisit it online. So much life ahead

(22:51):
of her, I know, Andthis is all people know. There's like
two pictures on this little like finda gravestone site and that's it. Like
there's no pictures of her shown anywhere. Like nobody talks about like, oh
she was you know, I don'teven know what she did. I think
she used to draw. Yeah,Like these people were her friends, Like
somebody knew her before this happened.She wasn't just a random person that their

(23:12):
friend was dating outside of school.Like she had a life. So yeah,
I just wish we knew more abouther. Yeah, that her legacy
is the victim. There was arant by the one teacher that was focused
on in the movie for some reason, the River's Edge, and he was
like ranting about how nobody really caresabout Jamie, which is true. He's
like, none of you actually careabout her, not a single person,

(23:34):
not you, not you, nyou you knew her and you didn't say
anything. And he's like, noteven me, Like all we care about
is the fact that it's not us. Yeah, And I was like,
yeah, that's accurate. Yeah,there's a story of Marcy Conrad, all
right, So mine's not as muchof a downer because spoiler alert, everybody

(23:55):
lives. There we go. Innineteen eighty three, Tony and Francis Toto
were a married couple going strong withfour children, a pizzeria, and a
seventeen year marriage. So it shockedthe town of Alantown, Pennsylvania, and
eventually the world when Francis Toto wasarrested for the attempted murder of her husband.
And the attempt wasn't a singular event. There were multiple attempts on Tony's

(24:18):
life. As a matter of fact. As much as Tony proclaimed to have
loved his wife and would often speakof how wonderful if she was, he
had an odd way of showing it. Tony was known to fool around of
multiple women, sometimes upwards of threedifferent women a night. Okay. When
Francis got wind of his infidelity viafriends and neighbors who would call to tell
her that Tony was messing around,she tried to ask him about it.

(24:41):
Tony would tell her don't bother,and he would make up some excuse and
she would just give up, crying, don't bother, wait, don't bother
asking me, Look, what thefuck what do you mean? Yep?
Okay. Then Francis jumped to theirrational impulse of decision to kill her husband.
Well, you don't want to talkto me about it. It's really
that irrational, right, It's it'show many of us would have not Let's

(25:03):
be real, right, my husband, are you listening? I feel like
there could have been some steps inbetween that could have been further explored.
However, an interview, she didsay that she lacked the self esteem to
fully confront her cheating husband, SoI guess, I guess, yeah,
right. She enlisted her daughter's boyfriendto help with this endeavor. First,
a trip wire was placed at thetop of the porch in an effort to

(25:26):
trip Tony so he would die fallingdown the stairs. Yep, there's like
five stairs at most come on,let's be like, what are you gonna
You're gonna spray a wrist? Right? Obviously, that didn't work. Next,
a wire was rigged to the gastank of Tony's car slide an explosion
would occur when Tony started it.The car didn't explode. So I feel

(25:47):
like they got a lot of theselike ideas from probably like seventies mom movies
or something. But I also likeshe probably bought like an industrial thing of
like wire and was like, howmany different ways gonna kill him with this?
Right, She's like, I canto get my money's worth out of
The Next plan was to ambush Tonywith an assailant hiding in a bush outside
his house with a baseball bat.The attack failed when the baseball bat got

(26:10):
stuck in the shrubbery and Tony wasable to chase the boy away a way.
How does it get stuck in theshrubbery? I guess like he was
trying to have like a really largearc on his swing or something, and
it just got stuck in the bushesand he's just like, oh fuck,
and then ran away And now I'mjust picturing Nigan. It just gets like
tangled up in the branches like,oh, never mind them buy Then.

(26:34):
On the night of January twenty fifth, nineteen eighty three, frances elicited the
help of her daughter's ex boyfriend,twenty year old Anthony Bruno, whom she
had grown close with over the timehe'd come to the house while dating her
daughter. Bruno's like into Tony's bedroomand shot him in the head with a
twenty five caliber gun that Tony hadkept near his bed. Despite a bullet
lodge in his head, Tony didn'tdie from the shot. Also, I

(26:57):
like how she first enlisted the boyfriend, yes, and now she's like,
well he didn't work, yeah,so let's just go with the ex boyfriend.
Yeah. Over the next four days, Francis and Bruno tried everything they
could to finish the job. AsTony laid in bed with an obvious massive
headache and blood loss, he wouldask his wife what was wrong with him,
to which she tell him he wassuffering from the flu. Being the

(27:18):
good wife she was, she madehim some chicken soup with a special ingredient,
barbiturates. I was expecting like cyanide. Come on now. The soup
only subdued Tony and didn't kill him. That's when she had Bruno hire two
amateur hitman, nineteen year old RonaldBARLP and his cousin, eighteen year old
Donald Barlp. So Ronald and Donaldlike, okay, first of all the

(27:44):
names, that's hilarious, that's fantastic. I hope they were twins. There
were cousins. Twin cousins come onsomehow enough of a resemblance that they could
be like, here we doing Louis. Secondly, how were there so many
hitten in and like just people availablefor her to like, Hey, do
you want to whack my husband?Like yeah, I don't know. Maybe

(28:07):
their pizzeria was like so blooming thatthey just had all these people at their
All the mobsters went there and theywere like, oh wait, if you
ever need a favor, your pieceis amazing. Lord. So Ronald and
Donald were hired for five hundred dollarsto finish the job. They were going
to fire another bullet into his heartto kill him off for good. Right

(28:30):
of course, supposedly, as everyonewas downstairs talking about how to get rid
of the body after the shot wasfired, Tony came walking into the room
asking what's going on? Maybe havea body before you discuss what to do
with it. Well, so theyshot him and already shot him in the
heart at this point. At thispoint they thought they shot him in the
heart. So they thought they shothim in the heart. They went downstairs

(28:52):
and they started talking about what shouldwe do with the body the invincible man?
Uh huh? And then Tony camedown and I was like, hey,
what's going on? Ronald's right outof the house, leaving Francis and
Brunard a fend for themselves. Didthey have like silenced weapons? I guess
how did he not hear any ofthese? I don't know? Deaf ask
right? Francis continued to convince Tonythat he was just sick and you needed
to rest, and he slept inbed over the next two days. Police

(29:15):
were tipped off by an informant afterRonald and Donald ran their mouths off bragging
about the deed they just did whilein a local bar. Well, yeah,
she needs to stop hiring's random ass. People will come on. Yeah,
but they were bragging about it andthey didn't even like actually kill him
right there, Like, yeah,I guess what this job we did?
It was amazing. Hire us rightWhen police came to Tony and Francis's house.
They found Tony covered in blood inbed and rushed him to the hospital,

(29:38):
and Bruno and Francis were arrested.Doctor said that the barbiturates in the
chicken soup most likely slowed down hismetabolism and prevented him from bleeding out from
the gunshot wounds, ultimately saving hislife. See that's what's gonna be signing.
Goddamn it. Yeah, rat poison. How do you know? Have
any I know? Like, whywould you do that? He spent twelve
days in the hospital, and assoon as he got out, he post

(30:00):
at his wife's fifty thousand dollars bail. When she was released, he said
they held each other for ten minutes. Oh my god, he said,
quote I always cared about her.I never wanted to replace Francis, and
deep inside I knew she loved me. He would go on to say that
the bullet to the head made himactually think clearer and reflect on his infidelity.
He vowed to give up all ofhis girlfriends and remain faithful to his

(30:22):
wife for the rest of their lives. No, it has nothing to do
with the seventeen attempts on your life. It's purely because there was a bullet
in your head and you were like, my wife is the one, Yeah,
she's the one. Yeah. Whenasked about the situation, Tony said
quote, I was the bad guy. I made a mistake. I did
not deserve to get shot. Ofcourse, it was not my time to
go. God gave me another chanceto live. After twelve days, I

(30:47):
walk miraculous. I walk nothing wrongwith me, Thank God. Now what
do I do walk away from myfamily and say forget about it? No?
If I could bring my family backtogether, I'm going to try.
And now we're happy. The moralis to be faithful, don't sheet on
your spouse, be honest with eachother, and learn to communicate with each
other. I think we'll save alot of marriages. And he's not entirely
wrong, Like, be faithful andcommunicate. Yep. I think it's a

(31:12):
little late when she's tried to killyou this many times, though, like
bro so funny, Tony gave uphis pizzeria, saying that him working sixty
to seventy hours a week caused himto have a rift with his family.
I don't think that was the problem, Tony. Mmmm, No, I
think it was all your multiple girlfriends. But you know what, whatever,

(31:34):
maybe I'm not talking about it whenshe confronts you. He took up a
job at a local printing shop wherehe only had to work forty hours a
week so he could spend more timewith his family. Instead of letting off
steam with a slew of multiple girlfriends, he took up karate. He said,
quote, I have only one lovein my life, my wife and
my family. The girls, theywere just a pastime. I like when

(31:56):
people say I only have one thingand then there's two. Yeah, Like
I know, literally it's the samething. If he'd just said my family,
it would have been yeah, buthe made sure to point out his
wife's specifically. However, in anewspaper article written just after the arrest of
Francis, she told police she wasdesperately afraid of her husband. She said
that Tony told her from his hospitalbed that he was going to kill her

(32:19):
and other members of her family,which she said she really believed he would
do. Francis said that during theirseventeen year of marriage, she was subjected
to physical and verbal abuse by herhusband, on top of infidelity. A
man who had known the Totos foryears had said that on multiple occasions he
was told by Francis about the beatingsshe received from Tony, and on at
least one occasion, she had athirty eight caliber handgun cocked and pointed at

(32:39):
her head. He said that Franciswas definitely afraid for her life. When
Francis was asked about why she didwhat she did, she said, quote,
it was an impulsive decision, nota capricious one. A body can
only take so much end quote.With regards to hearing over and over about
all the girls her husband was with, she also said, quote, I
don't even really think I really deepdown water to kill him. It was

(33:00):
something that just happened. End quote. Francis said she grew to hate her
husband, but felt the divorce wasout of the question. She said,
quote, we didn't sit down atthe kitchen table and say let's kill him
or anything like that. End quote. They just kind of decided to do
it, and there were people aroundher that were willing to help her.
So, yeah, this article whereshe was talking about how she was constantly

(33:21):
physically and verbally abused by Tony cameout while Tony was even still in the
hospital, so that it was immediatelyafter her arrest, Anthony Bruno and Ronald
and Donald Barleps pled guilty and weresent us to prison. Bruno spent five
and a half years in prison forhis part, and they attempted murder.
Francis pled guilty to reckless endangerment andsolicitation to commit murder. In nineteen eighty

(33:43):
six, Tony went public with herstory on television and an interview with Oprah.
The strange story caught media attention andwas optioned for film. Francis served
four years in prison and was releasedin nineteen eighty eight. The couple went
on to promote the film based offof their bizarre case called I Love You
to Death, where an interview theywere the epitome of a happy, reconciled
couple. The movie was released intheaters in nineteen ninety and as categorized as

(34:06):
a black comedy and I Love Youto Death. Tony claimed that the portrayals
of him, his wife and theirmarriage was ninety nine accurate. Names were
changed in the film as well asthe location. The character based off of
Tony, named Joey Boca, wasplayed by Kevin Klein and his wife,
Francis was represented by a character namedRosalie Boca played by Tracy Ullman, and
the couple lived in Tacoma, Washington. The film starts out with Joey Boca

(34:28):
in a confessional booth confessing to thepriests about all of the women he was
cheating on his wife with. Later, he's seen working in the pizza rea
he owns, where one of hislovers calls the pizza place while his wife
is working right next to him.Joey plays off the phone call as if
it was just another pizza order,but tells the woman he'll see her later.
Joey then leaves under the pretense thathe is going to work on some

(34:49):
plumbing for a tenant at an apartmentbuilding he owns next door. Of course,
this tenant is one of his manygirlfriends, of course, working on
her plumbing. Vote, a youngman who works at the restaurant played by
River Phoenix, warns Rosalie that sheshould be more careful about Joy because the
woman that Joey is going to seehas eyes for him. Rosalie plays it
off like, of course women wouldhave eyes for Joy, but believes Joy

(35:13):
would never do anything to jeopardize theirmarriage. That night, Divo is at
the Bocca's house, hanging out withRosalie and her mother, Naja, who
lives with them. Throughout the movie, it's apparent that Divo is infatuated with
Rosalie, and he tells Joey heneeds to take better care of her because
she's a wonderful woman. But Joeysays, of course she's wonderful, she's
my wife, I love my wife, etc. I roll. Joey's getting

(35:34):
ready to go out, as hedoes every night, and Rosalie tries to
convince him Tostace they could hang out, but said they could work on the
bills for the pizzeria. Joey sayshe needs to go out to relax and
he doesn't want to stay home towork, and he leaves. At the
club, he meets a young womanat the bar and they hit it off.
This woman is played by Phoebe Cats, who fun fact, is married
to Kevin Klein. I read inan article that Kevin Klein asked her to

(35:55):
be in the movie as a favorand she agreed. So she's just this
little cameo of being a slazy girl. Yeah, this isn't my real wife.
Yeah. The next day, anotherwoman that Joey met had come to
see an apartment, and he toldher he was renting out. Before Joey
could meet her himself, she wasintercepted by Rosalie, who took herself to
meet Joey at the apartment complex.Seeing how his plans were thwarted by his

(36:17):
wife, he chose to tell thewoman to meet him another time, since
I won't be ready for another month. So the girl leaves as Rosalie and
Joy walked away. A young womanfrom an apartment and called down to Joey
and threw down his pizzeria hat thathe left in her apartment. Oh.
Still not convinced Joey's messing around behindher back, she simply thinks that this
woman has eyes for Joy and nothingelse. It's established in the film that

(36:38):
Rosalie's mother, Naja, and Joeyhave a bad relationship. They are shown
arguing over dinner, and it appearsas though it's not a first or only
occurrence between them. Naja argues inYugoslavian and Joy argues back in Italian affect
to keep in mind for later.Okay, so it's Rosalie's in the middle.
She's like talking to both her husbandand her mom in different languages.

(37:00):
The next day, Rosalie goes toreturn some book cell library when she hears
a couple making out behind a bookshelf. When she looks through the book,
she sees this her husband, Joey, who has his hands all over a
young woman. Rosalie goes into astate of shock to witness firsthand her husband's
infidelity. The woman says something like, what about your wife, and Joey
says, don't worry about my wife. Rosalie goes home and cries to her

(37:22):
mother about what she saw. Shedoesn't know what to do because she can't
get a divorced because then he justgo live with another woman. She then
concludes that she needs to kill him, and her mother was all too eager
to jump on board with this plan. Of course, Naja says that if
Rosalie can't kill a joy, thenthe least she can do is kill herself.
Naja then goes to me to fellowYugoslavian immigrant and a trailer by the

(37:42):
park and offers to pay him moneyif he kills Joey. The man agrees,
and later he ambushes Joey with abaseball bat outside of his own yep.
The man falls down. Joy grabsthe bat and the man runs off
a fact from real life that theykept in the film. Joy reports the
attack to police. When the detectivecomes to the house, Joey is doing
the womanizing thing of making Rosalie getup and offer the detective some food or

(38:04):
coffee. Even though the detective sayshe doesn't need anything, Joey still insists
at Rosalie make him something. Soit's like a whole thing of like Rosalie
getting up and down, detective sayingI don't need anything, and Joy saying
no, go make him something exactlyyeah. After reporting the incident to the
police, Joey decides to buy atwenty two caliber pistol for protection and casey
assailant comes back. Later later,Naja, who used to be a car
mechanic in Yugoslavia, is seen tweakingwith something in Joey's car so that it

(38:29):
would explode when he would try tostart it the next morning. This plan
backfires when Rosalie insists on writing withJoey to work because they work together.
Here's where the Yugoslavian thing comes inthat I mentioned before. The whole time,
Naja is trying to stop Joy fromstarting in the car with Rosalie in
it, and she's trying to convinceRosalie to get out in English, when
it's clearly established earlier in the filmthat Rosalie can understand the Yugoslavian but Joey

(38:52):
can't. So I'm just like,why can't you just talk to her in
Yugoslavian and say, Hey, Iput a bomb in the car, get
out, Yeah, make up anexcuse, Yeah, sauce. But I
guess, like, while the scenewas there for comedic purposes, I was
just like, why why can't youjust talk to her in this language that
it's been clearly established that Joey doesn'tunderstand. Yeah, but the consistency just

(39:14):
isn't there. Yeah. Anyway,Joey cheeses not to listen to Naja,
even though at this point Rosalie finallyunderstands what Naja is all up arms about,
and Joey starts the car. Thetwo women duck and cover, but
nothing happens. The car doesn't explodeafter all. Joey is confused by their
reaction, but ultimately they just leavefor work. Later that night, Rosalie

(39:37):
is making Joey's favorite meal, spaghettiand meatballs, only she adds multiple bottles
of sleeping pills to the Marinara sauce. Joey downs three huge bowls of spaghetti
slouder than the spiked Marinara sauce,but this only makes him drowsy. Rosalie
tries to feed him more throughout thenight, but eventually Joey falls asleep.
Since it's too late to turn back. With Joey's stomach full of sleeping pills,
Naja calls Divo to come help her, after it's established that Diva would

(39:59):
do anything Rosalie. When Divo comesover, he helps the women bring Joy
to the bedroom, where Naja handshim the twenty two caliber pistoles so he
can shoot Joy and end his lifeonce and for all. Divo was hesitant
to do it, but he shutshis eyes and fires at the sleeping Joy.
When they go to check on Joy, they're unsure if he's dead because
he has Marinara sauce all over him, so is that blood or marinar sauce?

(40:21):
And since Divo closed his eyes whenhe shot, he wasn't sure of
where or if he even shot himright, So when Rosalie turned his head
to the side. They saw bloodon the pillow and a gunshot on the
back of his head, just whenthey thought he was dead. Though,
Joeya wakes up and complains about notfeeling good and having a headache. Rosalie
tells him he just caught a virusand he needs to rest. Naja and
Rosalie tell Divo he needs to shoothim again to finish the job, but

(40:44):
Divo refuses. Instead, he goesand hires two cousins, Harlan and Marlin
James, played by William Hurt andKean her Reuse, respectively. There are
two drug addicts who agreed to killJoey for five hundred dollars. These two
offer a lot of comic relief withtheir ticks. They're clearly high at all
times, and it was interesting tosee Keianu in this role. His hair

(41:05):
was cut like randomly buzz patches,his eyes were really blood shot, and
it's just interesting. It's different soto see him like this. He just
really played like the high airhead typeof drug addicts, which seemed to be
like his thing back in his earlycareer. Yeah, because that's probably what
led him to being in Bill andTed and why everybody thought he's dumb,

(41:25):
but he's really not. His characterin River's Edge is very much like the
Bill and Ted character. Interesting.Yeah, I can see why he got
cast for that. Ye. Thetwo show up to the house clearly intoxicated,
and Naja hands him the gun.They said they needed to play a
loud music to cover up the gunshot. While the cousins were in the bedroom
discussing what side of the chest theyneeded to shoot in order to hit the

(41:47):
heart, Naja and Rosalie were downstairsarguing over what music to play. The
cousins had to figure out which sideof the chest the heart was on by
reciting really poorly the Pledge of Allegiance, only they had their hands on the
wrong side. Oh lord. Justas Naja finally decided which records she wanted
to put on, they heard agunshot upstairs before Naja could even turn on
the music, so rendering this wholething moot right. Rosalie started wailing,

(42:08):
knowing what that sound meant, andthe two cousins came downstairs to tell them
the deed was done. They shothim in the chest. They all decided
to celebrate their accomplishment over drinks inthe kitchen, Rosalie prays to a picture
of Jesus in the living room,asking to bring her husband back, and
that she made a mistake. Ohmy god. Just then, Joey appears
behind her, pale and bloody.He said he woke up by the sound

(42:30):
of a firecracker. Joey wanders overto the kitchen table and wonders who all
these strangers are in his house.Like a good host, he introduces himself
to the cousins and offers them somethingto eat. Rosalie convinces Joey to go
back to bed, and Divo paysthe cousins two hundred dollars for not actually
finishing the job. At the policestation, a man is being detained and
offers information to the police about amurder he heard about in exchange for better

(42:53):
jail conditions. He overheard at abar Harlan and Marlin bragging about being paid
five thousand dollars to kill Joey Boca. The detective decides to head over to
the Boca's house just to see ifthe information was legit. When he arrived
at the house, Rosalie tells himthat Joey is sick in bed. The
detective insists on checking on Joey,and he lets himself into the house and
into the bedroom. Rosalie turns offall the lights and puts a pillow next

(43:15):
to Joey's head to hide the bloodpouring out with the detective turns on the
light and moves a pillow anyway.He sees the gunshot wound at the back
of Joey's head and calls ambulance andthey come to get him immediately. Naja
says they found Joey in the frontyard with gunshot wounds, and Rosalie says
it must have been a mob hit, but the police aren't buying it and
arrest everyone. Everyone goes back andforth on who shot Joey, with Divo

(43:37):
and Naja trying to protect Rosalie andRosalie trying to protect Naja and Divo since
it was her idea to kill Joeyin the first place. One of Joey's
girlfriends from earlier in the film comesto visit Joey at the hospital and hopes
that Joey will leave his wife tobe with her, but Joey says he
needs to end things with her becausehe loves his wife and he needs to
be faithful to her. The womanis shocked because she says that his wife

(43:58):
shot him, and Joy says thathe hasn't been taking his marriage vow seriously
and he needs to now. Thewoman leaves when Joey's mother comes in,
and his mother scolds him for beingunfaithful to his wife and hits him in
the hedge. Later, Joey isreleased from the hospital and he goes to
bail out everyone, including Divo,Naja, Harlan, and Marlin. Joey
proclaims he loves his wife now morethan ever and says that Rosalie must love

(44:21):
him too, because she was sojealous that she tried to kill him.
Joey kneels down in front of Rosalieand asked to renew their marriage, vows,
oh my god. She hits himover the head with the flowers he
had just given her and asks howcould he possibly do that, especially after
she tried to kill him. Hethanks Rosalie for helping him to see things
clearly and tells her that the doctorsaid that the sleeping pills she put in
the spaghetti probably saved his life bypreventing him from bleeding to death. The

(44:43):
two reconcile and start kissing. Divoasks Naja what they should do if Joey
cheats again, and Naja jokes that'lljust have to shoot him again, and
the movie ends. All on allbase on what I've read about the case,
the movie did keep things pretty accurate. There were small things changed,
like how the mother had a heavyinvolvement in the attempted murder, whereas in
real life, Francis's mother had nothingto do with it. Also, in

(45:04):
the movie, Joey bails out everyoneinvolved, However, in real life,
Joey only bailed out his wife.When the two went on toward to talk
about their story, they weren't doingso to promote the movie because federal law
prohibited Frances from profiting off of theticket sales, but they toured on the
premise that they wanted to explain whya husband would continue to love and support
a wife who trying to kill him. He said that Francis trying to kill
him showed him how bad he hadtreated her throughout their marriage, and he

(45:28):
needed to stay with her to makeup for all of his past errors,
and he claimed he'd stay faithful tohis wife for the rest of their lives.
They had interviews with the likes ofOprah, Johnny Carson, Joan Rivers,
Larry King, and Arcinio Hall.In interviews, Tony was seen wearing
I Love You to Death merch andhe even said a book was going to
be published base off of their story. He claims that he made mistakes,

(45:49):
his family was in trouble, andGod gave him another chance at life to
clean his conscience. Overall, thecouple enjoyed the movie and its accuracy.
Tony said, quote the movie isgreat. It's fantastic. We love it,
and it's a message for everybody.Crime doesn't pay, Cheating doesn't pay.
End quote oh my god. Francissaid that even the kids enjoyed the
film and they laughed at how wellKevin Klein portrayed Tony's bandarisms and Italian accent.

(46:12):
She also said that the women thatKevin Kline were cheating with were much
prettier than her husband's girlfriends, towhich Tony replied, quote you didn't know
them all and quote oh my god, m you don't know. Yeah.
Tony admitted that what he did waswrong, and he said he knew what
he did was wrong, but hejust kept doing it, He said,
quote I just blank everything and justgo on and kept doing what I was

(46:34):
doing. And so why is nowdifferent? Yeah, I guess the bullet
in his head. Yeah you knew. You still know. When it was
revealed that Francis never actually saw himwith any of his girlfriends, Tony said,
quote I never got caught end quote, and had some sort of pride
behind that sentiment, just like theyou don't know all my girlfriends to know
how hot they are? Yeah,disgusting, Despite Francis saying quote I had

(46:54):
so many people call me and tellI think if more people had minded their
own business, we might have beenbetter off end quote, to which Tony
replied, quote, well maybe not, because I would have just kept going
and going. So in Francis's mind, ignorance is bliss and they're good now.
Yeah. Tony said that the moviewas funnier than the real events that

(47:14):
occurred that landed him near death.He said he woke up in the hospital
scared and worried, thinking, quote, I couldn't understand why my wife did
this. Was it because I cheatedon her or something else. At the
same time, I was praying toGod, please let me live endquote.
Yeah, I would imagine that thereal events were scarier in person than they
would be on screen slash hearing aboutthem because like, yeah, hearing about

(47:36):
it's hilarious. I think the factthat you can get some humor out of
it is because he lived. Yeah, Like, it wouldn't have been funny
after the fact if he was ifhe'd died. Yeah. The movie itself
had mixed reviews from the general public. Even local people of Allentown, Pennsylvania,
admitted they refused to see it becausethey've heard so much about it from
everybody else, so they felt likethey've seen the movie already. They're not

(47:57):
wrong. At the time of womanadmitted to writing to President Bush and Oprah
Winfrey to try to enlist their supportto boycott the movie, since she believed
that people shouldn't be able to profitoff of their crimes. Others said they
didn't have any respect for people whotried to kill each other, to which
Tony would just respond to these complaintswith quote, crime, it doesn't pay,
love pays due. Oh my god, he's so corny. Hate it.

(48:22):
As for Anthony Bruno's take on themovie, he doesn't much care for
it, he said, quote.The problem I have with it is I
have to live every day of mylife knowing I tried to hurt someone.
To me, that's no joke.End quote. He stated that he's angry
that the Totos were capitalizing on thecar and despite how much Tony proclaimed to
love his wife and tauted that he'dremained faithful to her for the rest of

(48:43):
his life. Nearly ten years later, in nineteen ninety two, the Totos
were in the public eye again asToto was charged for punching his girlfriend in
the mouth during a fight they werehaving as they were breaking up god police.
At that Tony also threw the womanto the ground, knocking out a
front tooth. Jesus Francis had nocomment about the situation since people were asking
her what she was going to dothis time if the last time he cheated

(49:05):
on her, she shot him.But that's the last time the couple was
in the media, So who knowswhat they're up to nowadays. And that's
the story of Tony and Francis,Toto and the movie I Love You to
Death. And we're really surprised thathe couldn't uphold this vow m twice.
It's compulsive behavior. On his point, he's probably addicted to having all this
attention by all these other women,and Francis probably just like, you know

(49:28):
what, whatever, He's addicted toattention in general. Because now everything about
the movie has died down, Sonow now what the only attention is from
his wife and apparently that's not enough. Yeah, he's proven that time and
time again. Now, yeah,yep, that was a crazy case.
I was like, is this real? Is this real life? Right?

(49:50):
Well, now we can move onto the fictional films, And oddly enough,
this one is reminiscent of that ina way. Oh really kinda you'll
kind of you'll understand, like it'snot really like it does like follow it,
but yeah, it has elements thatare similar. So I have been
seeing Keanu's entire filmography. I amworking my way towards doing so. But
he's been in a lot of movies. She's a terrible fan. I guess

(50:12):
boom that was an excuse to dothis tour so we can watch more Keona
movie. I'm working my way throughit, though, I'll get hold on
there eventually. Tell everybody about theone you watch that you don't recommend,
don't watch Knock Knock. That's ahorrible movie. Granted, the actors did
what they could when they were givenI don't like the actors. Yeah,

(50:35):
but it's a horrible movie. Don'twatch it. I had to give you
bucks there for that and all right, yep, don't watch that. She
likes saying that, that's why Ineeded to give it to her. All
right. So, my fictional filmabout crime starring Keanu is called The Whole
Truth, which is an interesting namesince you don't learn the whole truth of

(50:58):
the situation. The movie takes placearound until like the last ten minutes of
the hour and a half of thefilm, so you get it, yeah,
eventually. So this movie is alot like your pretty typical courtroom dramas.
Kean who plays the defense lawyer hiredto get a young man acquitted of
the murder he's being tried for ofhis father. He also happens to be

(51:20):
a friend of the family, soof course he was chosen to represent this
boy, Michael. Everything about thiscase appears to be open and shut on
the surface, and Richard Ramsey KeanWho's character, has his work cut out
for him if he wants to succeed. Interestingly, apparently. Daniel Craig was
originally supposed to play Ramsey, butwas pulled out four days prior to filming
and was replaced by Keanu. That'smy other love. Yeah, that's why

(51:43):
I was like, I must includethis in fact A fun fact. Anyway,
The situation represented with straight from thebeginning is this, the young man
Mike has not only been accused ofmurdering his father Boone, but has apparently
admitted to the act. However,he has elected not to speak to anyone
since the day of the murder,including Ramsey, making his job of defending

(52:05):
Mike that much more difficult. Ramseyis also joined by a new colleague,
Janelle, who is skilled at observingsubconscious cues that indicate when people are a
lying or at the very least whenthey are hiding something very helpful. In
the courtroom right, the movie playsout with witnesses taking the stand and giving
their testimonies on the relationship between Booneand Mike and how it had deteriorated,
as well as accounts of the murderscene and the investigation. Throughout this,

(52:30):
we're shown the scenes the witnesses aredescribing, and we're slowly coming to see
what kind of man Boone was tohis family. He was also a lawyer,
and Mike had hoped to study andbecome a lawyer as well. The
two had flown to tour various universitycampuses, but ultimately Boone made the decision
of which one Mike would be attending, showing he could be overbearing. So
there was one read, a universitycalled Read that Michael had really wanted to

(52:52):
go to, but they'd just gonefrom Stanford, and he's like, Ah,
you got the ace and the wholelet's just let's call it here.
It's a win. So you're goingto Stanford. You can't controlling his life
in every possible way. Yeah.Yeah. There were plenty of allegations of
him cheating on his wife, butmostly in the interest of establishing character,
since Ramsey was getting nothing to workwith from his client, so he was

(53:13):
just trying to very blatantly state like, hey, this man is not a
good dude. Yeah. We alsolearned that Boone had a tendency to verbally
abuse his wife, even during socialevents where witnesses could hear the unpleasant things
he would say to her, mostlyabout the fact that she didn't finish college
and that she was just a typist, like she wasn't anything sposual. None
of that is important to a person'scharacter. So right, we're showing one

(53:36):
particular instance where Mike stood up toBoone to demand that he stopped speaking to
her that way, before Boone takeshim away from everyone to have a talk
that we don't get to hear.The widow, Lauretta, takes the stand
and reveals that Boone would physically abuseher, as well as the verbal abuse
and even sexual abuse that had beenalluded to by a neighbor's son who had
been a bit obsessed with her.So he was like watching her from his

(53:57):
window. Yeah, creepy, buthe's all the sexual assaults, so he
was able to testify to that.Photo evidence of the bruises left on Loretta
comes to lighten, and she admitsthat perhaps Mike may have seen some of
the abuse at times, but shecouldn't say for sure. All of this
to indicate that this might be whyMichael decided to murder his father. Yeah,
just trying to kind of clear hisname a little bit, Michael,

(54:19):
but there's a reason he was protectinghis mom. At this point, Janelle
asks why Ramsey never showed her thephotos, and he claims that he had
only just received them. While preppingLoretta to take the stand, Ramsey receives
a note that Mike wants to takethe stand himself. He becomes upset by
this and confronts Mike about it,citing that you never let a witness take
the stand unless you know what they'regoing to say, But Mike stands is
ground without a word. He simplywrites a second note that Ramsey will no

(54:43):
longer be representing him if he's notallowed to take the stand, and so
the following day, Mike takes thestand and gives a fairly emotional testimony that
his father had been sexually assaulting himsince he turned twelve, and that his
father was going to be getting hislast moments of fund from him before he
went off to college. Yea,the prosecution decides to bring back the attendant
from the private jet that Boone woulduse to come back to the stand and

(55:07):
confirm or deny the story of sexualassault that Mike was telling, because he
claimed that one instance had started onthat flight coming back from the touring of
the campuses. Yeah, she deniesanything of the sort ever taking place.
And Janelle is the one called toquestion her for the defense this time,
because it was mentioned that it wouldlook bad with the way that Ramsey had
kind of laid into her the firsttime she was on the stand, so

(55:29):
they said it would hurt them morethan help them if you interviewed her.
During her questioning, Janelle starts towonder if perhaps the story Mike is telling
really isn't true, and also ifmaybe he truly wasn't the one who had
killed Boone in the first place.Oh. Interesting. She first confronts Loretta
about this theory after quarters released forthe final time, but doesn't receive any

(55:50):
sort of confession, and so decidesto then confront Ramsey with this idea of
hers. Ramsey shuts her down andsays, quote, at some point,
every defense lawyer has to choose betweenhis own need to know the truth and
the best interests of his client quote, So she stops pursuing this. Yeah.
The following day, the jury comesback with a verdict of not guilty,
and Mike hands Ramsey a drawing thathe had scrawled at the bottom of

(56:13):
his legal pad while they were doingclosing statements, etc. Ramsey asks what
it is and Mike tells him it'shis watch, which might get seen under
his parents' bed the day of themurder. Okay, it's Ramsey's watch.
Oh m at this show? What? At this point, marschon scenes that
pull the rest of the real storytogether. Ramsey and Loretta had been having

(56:34):
an affair, and Boone knew,though he didn't know with whom, Well,
maybe he did know. He confrontsRamsey saying that he knows his wife's
having an affair. What does hedo about it now? Ramsey's just kind
of like, oh, I don'tknow, divorce her? And He's like,
yeah, I can't do that.Ramsey had been the one to kill
Boone while Loretta went into the bathroomto create bruises on her body. Oh
wow. The plan had been forLoretta to put her prints on the knife,

(56:57):
but Mike came home and saw thescene minus ram so he just saw
his mother standing over his father's deadbody. Mike, being a good son,
decided to take the fall for hismother and incriminated himself by leaving his
own bloody handprint on the knife whilehis mother let the police officer in,
and he also told the officer,I should have done it sooner. So
that was his confession. So yeah, quite the little twist here at the

(57:19):
end. Not sure why, butI hadn't really been looking for or anticipating
a twist with this movie. Itwas just kind of like huh oh,
okay, okay, it all justkind of felt justified. So I was
just waiting for the proof to showup or the kid to speak like that's
really And then when he came outwith sexual assault, I was like,
oh, yeah, well slam dunkright. Yeah. Uh interesting. The

(57:42):
only real parallel I can draw fromthis fictional movie to the previous crime is
that the kid kept his mouth shuteven when maybe it wasn't the best idea
to not speak up. Well,yeah, he just wanted to protect his
mom because his mom probably would havegotten in trouble too, so and I
think he just didn't. I don'tthink he knew that it was Ramsey m.
Maybe he found out later after,you know, seeing his watch.

(58:05):
Yeah, so interesting. I likethose movies where you don't see a twist
coming and you're like, oh,okay, just like okay, cool,
let's see how this plays out.All. Yeah, it just seemed kind
of like a cut and dry kindof like court movie and then all of
a sudden like oh okay, yep, yeah, even when Loretta starts saying
like, I don't know if they'reif the attendants telling any lies, like

(58:27):
I think she's I think she's madetruthful? What if this isn't what happened?
And I was like what if?Yeah? Okay, did you like
the movie? It was decent.I would have liked it more if I
didn't have several sections of like sevento eight ads. I really think that
that ruined it for me, right, Okay, So the other Keyana movie

(58:47):
I'll talk about. It's not basedon true events, but it was still
an interesting movie about a serial killerstalker and not tied into my previous crime
at all. It's just a moviethat I've been wanting. Does he see
and and excuses see it? Soit's called The Watcher. This movie came
out in two thousands, starring KeanuReeves and James Spader, with a supporting

(59:08):
role by Marissa Tomay and Ernie Hudson. James Spader plays a character named Joel
Campbell, who was a former FBIspecial agent that moved to Chicago and lives
his life in Squalor after a failedattempt to catch a serial killer in La,
he's trying to cope with his previousmistakes by attending therapy sessions with doctor
Polly Bielman played by Marissa Tomay.One day, Joel comes home to find

(59:30):
his apartment building roped off by policetape, but he nonchantly saunterers through it
because he just wants to go home. A detective stops him and he tells
them he lives upstairs, and thedetective questions him a little bit to try
to get some more information. Joelasks if attendant is dead, and the
detective is taken aback, Like Ididn't say anything about a murder, but
you just automatically jump to that conclusion. So Joel responds by saying, you

(59:52):
wouldn't go through all this trouble otherwise, Like he's not wrong. Yeah,
the building is teaming with FBI,and yeah, it's all roped off and
it was just a robbery. Yeah, essentially, I guess letting him in
on the fact that Joel had previousexperience with this type of crime scene.
But I mean, I think it'spretty obvious. The detective tells him if

(01:00:15):
he can think of anything else tolet him know and hands him his card.
Later, Joel stumbles upon a weirdFedEx envelope that was among his piles
of unopened mail on the floor.When he opens it, it was a
picture of his neighbor who had justbeen murdered that was sent to him three
days prior. He then gives thisinformation to the detective and believes that this
is the same killer who he wastrying to capture in La. Ernie Hudson's

(01:00:37):
character FBI agent Ibby tries to puthim on the case again, but Joel
refuses. One night, Joel getsa call from the killer, David Griffin.
He tells Joel that he had tofollow him to Chicago because Joel's successor
in La didn't work out for himand killing just wasn't the same. Oh
my god, it's like the joker, yep. And he complained about how
cold Chicago was, but you know, he needed he needed the the same

(01:01:00):
rush that he had back in La. So he's like, why'd you move
here? It sucks? Yeah,pretty much. He tells Joel that he'll
send him a photo of a girland Joel will have until nine pm to
find her before he kills her.Joel takes this information back to Abby and
Joel is put in charge of thecase again. The police department puts out
an APB and breaking news reports tryingto find the girl all over the city.

(01:01:22):
They try to take the photo andblow up different aspects of it to
try to see what's going on inthe background, which I feel like a
plot hole to this is that theydidn't have the negatives of the photo,
So how are they enhancing it likeit was? Yeah, you can't enhance
already printed photo, like if youhad the negatives. Sure, but that's

(01:01:45):
what they were trying to do.Like Joel just keeps telling one of the
other officers to blow up this section, blow up this section. I'm like,
that doesn't work that way. Butyeah, you can't zoom in there
like you can. You can blowup that section to get, like to
see it bigger, but you're notgoing to get closer to it. It's
just like you can't scan a photoand then zoom in to something. It

(01:02:06):
doesn't the resolution is already predetermined beforeyou just gonna get bursting. So it's
established beforehand. So the audience alreadyknows who this girl is. She's a
retail worker at a camera shop inthe mall. But despite that, nobody
can seem to find her, eventhough she works in a really public place.
She's kind of like hidden in plainsight. With thousands of leads.

(01:02:29):
A police scrambled to try to findher, but she's just living her normal
life, nobody paying any mind toher. She works in an obscure camera
shop in the middle of a busymall. Right, but they get a
tip that she was last seen atthe mall, but the clock is ticking
at this point. They arrive atthe mall, Joel recognizes the background of
the girl as a reflection of acamera shop sign. He enters the stores
and discovers that the girl has alreadyleft for the day, so he tries

(01:02:52):
to call her house. When hecalls, it's just a little past nine,
and then kill her answers, tellingJoel he was too late, so
let's try again the next day.Griffin send Joel a new photo of a
new girl. He seems to tryto pick young girls who can blend in
plain sight, girls that no onewould miss if they were gone. This
girl is a runaway who's living onthe streets, so very easy to be

(01:03:13):
looked over, Joel is able totrack down her mother, but her mother
said she ran away months ago andshe's only spoken to her a couple of
times since then with cryptic conversations.That night, the girl's boyfriend heads home
after hanging out with her, andshe goes to herself made camp in an
abandoned building. Then, just beforenine, Griffin enters the building and sits
next to her, trying to strikeup a friendly conversation, but the girl

(01:03:35):
is suspicious immediately and she hits himwith her radio. This stuns him for
a second and she's able to escapeand hide, but Griffin finds her.
As the boyfriend skateboarded past the policemanhanding out flyers for this girl, Joel
flags him down and forces him tolook at the photo. When the boyfriend
recognizes that it's his girlfriend in thephoto, he fled, thinking that they
were trying to take her back home. They catch up to him and let

(01:03:58):
him know what's going on. Hedecides to show them her hiding place.
When they arrived at her camp,she's obviously gone. They continued to search
through the building and find the girlstrangled to death. So the m of
Griffin is he would strangle his victimswith piano wire. They were too late
to save her, but Joel seesGryffin running away. He chases him,
and an epic car chase ensues,but Gryffin is able to get away.

(01:04:20):
The next day, the next photoisn't of just any woman. It's Joel's
former lover, a woman who waskilled by Griffin indirectly. Back in La,
this woman was taken hostage by Griffin, and although Joel was able to
find her before Griffin killed her.When Joel went to chase after Griffin,
the house the woman was in caughton fire and she was still bound,
so Joel finds the woman she's bound, sees Griffin running away. He chases

(01:04:44):
after Griffin, but the house catcheson fire, so Joel had to choose
between chasing down and capturing Griffin orsaving the woman he loved. By the
time he got back to the house, it was too late. The house
was engulfed in flames, killing thewoman, and Griffin got away, which
led Joel to leave La and movedto Chicago, where the wom and was
buried. She chose to move toChicago to be close to where she was
buried the photo that Griffin sent Joelclued him in on heading to the woman's

(01:05:06):
crave. When he arrived, Griffinwas there with a six pack of beer
waiting for Joel. Griffin tells Joelthat he has taken Polly, Joel's therapist,
hostage somewhere. Joel tells Griffin totake him to her so he can
know that she's safe. Gryffin agrees. During the drive there, Griffin explains
to Joel that they need each otherand that he considers Joel a good friend.
Joker, Yeah, I was gettingreally big Joker vibes, like with

(01:05:29):
Joker and Batman needing each other.Yeah, yeah, Like the Joker cannot
exist without Batman. He just can't. There's there's no reason for him.
Yeah. Joel then secretly uses hiscell phone to call the detective to cool
him in on what's going on.They were able to track them to an
abandoned warehouse by the docks. Joelgoes inside and sees Polly tied up,
surrounded by barrels of gasoline and candles, which again reminds me of The Dark

(01:05:50):
Night with Rachel, but that cameout years after this. This movie came
out in two thousands, so it'seven weird interesting. Yeah yeah. Griffin
knocks Joel out and ties him toa chair. When he comes to,
Gryffin gives a big speech about howthey need each other and that they'd both
be nothing without each other. Gryffintells Joel to say thank you to him

(01:06:10):
for killing the girls and for bringingmeaning to his purposeless life, but Joel
tells him that to him, Griffinwas nothing but paperwork. This pisses off
Griffin, and Gryffin starts to stranglePolly with piano wire. Joel yells at
Griffin to stop and start saying thankyou to him like Griffin wanted. Gryffin
stops and walks back over to Joeland tells him to repeat it. When
Gryffin is close enough, Joel takesout a pen and stabs Griffin in the

(01:06:33):
neck and kicks him into a nearbytable full of candles. Joel shoots Griffin
in the shoulder, and Joel grabsPolly and they jump out of the window
towards the water, just as thebuilding is engulfed in flames. Gryffin jumps
out too, but not before hiswhole body was on fire. When Joel
and Polly surface, they see Griffin'scharred dead body floating in the water.
Joel and Polly are then pulled outof the water by the police. Two

(01:06:55):
fakes. I was always interested inthis movie because it's not very often you
see Keanu play a bad guy.But I guess in your movie he was
kinda I mean, he wasn't theworst type of guy, but yeah,
yeah, kinda yeah. And whilehis portrayal of David Griffin was terrible,
it did seem like the villain wasmiscast, and after doing some research into

(01:07:16):
the behind the scenes of the movie, I think I know why. There
was a news article that said thatKeana originally didn't want to take the role
and that he never found the scriptinteresting, but that a friend forged his
signature on the contract. Since hedidn't want to go into a lengthy legal
battle over it because he couldn't provethat his friend did it, he decided
to just do the movie. Othersources said that initially he was only supposed

(01:07:39):
to have a cameo appearance. However, during production his character grew into a
major role. He was unhappy withhow his involvement was blowing up into more
than he originally agreed upon, sohe wanted out of the film, but
as lawyer said, there would bea lot of legal ramifications if he backed
out. So he was originally doingthis as a favor to a friend.
So the director was a music videodirector and he was friends with him.

(01:08:00):
He did some music videos for hisband, Dog Star. He wanted to
break into doing films, so likehe kind of did things under the table,
signing contracts, you know, notduring his usual route, right,
So much of the movie started changingthat because he didn't do it the traditional
way. There would have been alot of lengthy legal battles if he tried
to get out of it, sohe just had to do it. So

(01:08:23):
while his fellow main actors got paidmore for their larger roles, he was
ultimately only paid for the original cameorole he signed up for, even though
he ended up playing a bigger role, which caused a lot of friction.
So he signed up thinking he'd onlybe a few days of work because he
was just a cameo, but thenit blew up, so it ended up
being weeks of work and he didn'tget paid for it. Yeah, that's

(01:08:43):
bullshit and he couldn't do anything aboutit. Yeah, Ultimately he was paid
what he was missing, So hewas paid equivalent to what the other actors
got for their main roles because hewas a main fucking role. Like he
watched the movie, he had justas big of a role as James Spader
did. At the time of thefilm's release, didn't want to do any
promotion for it. Universal even agreedto downplay his involvement in the film by

(01:09:04):
having his name at the bottom ofposters and only had him in thirty percent
or less of the film's trailers,which I thought was interesting because when you
watched the film, you know howwhen they in the beginning, when they're
showing the credits and they show people'snames, they said and Keanu reeves,
which made it look like it wasa cameo role versus like a main role.

(01:09:24):
Yeah, so I was thought thatwas weird. I was like,
oh, that's an interesting choice,And then now I know why. Even
though the film topped the box officefor its first two weeks in theaters,
it got a lot of negative reviews, stating that casting Keanu as a serial
killer was a kin to casting lasthe has one. It just didn't fit.
I kind of had the same thoughtsthat in the movie, David Griffin

(01:09:44):
was charming enough to get these womento talk to him without any apparent sense
of danger, and he was ableto take photos of them like they posed
for these photos that he sent tothe police. But he was charming enough
to get them to talk to himand do that. But the killing part
and the ending monolog just didn't reallyseem to mess with Keanus innate BENI nature
right, I'm just like m Ican see him being the charming person taking

(01:10:08):
photos, but I can't see himdoing the strangling with piano wire. So
yeah, I wish there was morebackstory about the murders in la and the
dynamic between Griffin and Droll. Itwas just kind of mentioned and we're just
supposed to agree and go along withit that they had this history. The
ending was really abrupt, and Idon't know why Griffin went against everything he's
ever done and met Joel face toface and literally took him to this victim

(01:10:30):
Like that just seemed to go againstevery other murder that he committed. And
I'm just like his career, Yeah, I'm just like wild of a sudden,
are you doing this, You're puttingyourself out there taking him to the
victim where he had a chance tosave him. I don't even think Joel
was bound really well, which iswhy he was able to stab him in
the neck with a pen. Therewas just a lot of like plotholes at
the end where it just seemed likethe director or the scriptwriter, which just

(01:10:54):
like, we have to end thismovie. How are you going to end
it? And yeah, they justdon't know how to do endings, like
people say George accused of. Iguess it was just their way of pushing
the plot. Howard and I don'tknow, but I think the actress did
the best with what they were given, and I think it was more entertaining
than Rotten Tomatoes given it credit for. What I also thought was really interesting

(01:11:14):
was because the director was originally amusic video director. There is a lot
of different types of cinematography in thefilm that really a reminiscent of music videos,
and it seemed like in terms ofthe soundtrack, there was a lot
of actual songs with lyrics versus justlike instrumental stuff. So it's like they
got the rights to all these bigname bands and stuff to play in the

(01:11:36):
movie and maybe it's because of histie into the music industry, right,
Yeah, that's not what people areusually looking for though, Like, yeah,
you kind of just want instrumentals.Yeah, it's interesting, but I
mean, I thought it was agood movie up until the end. I
didn't think they ended it well,but I thought it was really fast paced,
like it made you really like onyour toes. Are they going to

(01:11:58):
catch him? Is he going tokill the girls? Yeah? That's good.
Well, so two thirds good,two thirds good. Yeah, they
could have ended it better, andI would like a little bit more backstory
of their relationship in La Yeah,what can you do? Yep, that's
our Keanu tour. Yeah, hopefullyyou enjoyed this different take on our tours.
But we thought it was really funto do, so yeah, it

(01:12:19):
was an interesting departure. She suggestedit, and I was like, yeah,
sure, why not. That soundsgood. So if you enjoyed your
tour today, please leave us areview on wherever you booked your tour.
Reviews help us grow and reach morelisteners so we can provide you with more
tours. Remember to visit our websiteat nopeville podcast dot com, where you
will have access to our show notesand anything we referenced in today's tour,

(01:12:39):
and you'll be able to find andfollow us on all of our social media
for updates, polls, events,or just interacting with us, which is
Nopevillecast on Twitter and nopeville Podcast onInstagram and Facebook. If you want to
be a part of our Campfire Stories, which are stories you submit for us
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(01:12:59):
email to us at nopeville Podcast atgmail dot com and be sure to write
campfire stories and your subject lines sowe know what emailing us about. Note.
Tour is complete without first stop andbuy the gift shop before you leave.
Go ahead and click on the giftshop on our website and be sure
to pick up a soupernir for yourselfor a loved one. And last,
but not least, gratuity isn't required, but sure is appreciated. You can
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(01:13:21):
Buy Me a Coffee, or youcan visit our Patreon for a more subscription
based type of deal to see howyou can support us and get some awesome
rewards in return, and we willcatch you on the next tour. Nine
excellent. I see most of youreturned and relatively unscathed. Bravo. I

(01:13:43):
hope you enjoyed your visit to Notpevilleand look forward to seeing you again next time.
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