Fatal Attraction Ep. 02 - Bad Influence / Consenting Adults - Get Me Another

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
you
Hello and welcome to Get Me Another, a podcast where we explore those movies that followedin the wake of blockbuster hits and attempted to replicate their success.
My name is Chris Ayanakone and with me are my co-hosts Rob LaMorgzis.

(00:24):
Chris, what's the matter?
I'm not selling this podcast to my mother.
Please!
A more neon sound!
Come on!
And Justin beam I'm taping the whole thing guys.
Yeah.
No, it's you guys you got it.
You got it.
know, you got to play it back
in the
Today is episode two in our Get Me Another Fatal Attraction series.

(00:49):
Last week, we looked at Adrienne Lyne's film Fatal Attraction, as well as 1990's PresumedInnocent, directed by Alan J.
Pakula.
Now, here's the thing.
We've been doing this podcast for a while now, and I found that it's the second episodewhere the rubber really meets the road, so to speak.
The first episode looks at the inciting movie and what made it so significant and why ithad the impact it did.

(01:13):
But the second episode is where things really get interesting.
And I think that is where we, this week is gonna be no different.
Yeah.
Episode two is where Elvis leaves the building.
And that line is in one of these.
Yes, it is.
Yes, it is.
So, today we have two movies that center on guys at different stages in their lives whomeet and form a friendship with the wrong person.

(01:41):
So, first up today from 1990 is Bad Influence.
successful for God's sake.
Try to relax and enjoy it.
The guy told you to take a hike, why didn't you?
You know that voice that you, tells you what to do sometimes?

(02:05):
Guess I'll listen to it today.
I'm like that, and I always listen to it.
more than anything else in the world.
was a bigger piece of the good life.
Make it happen.
Make it happen.

(02:25):
He's about to find out that what he wants and what he's afraid of are really one and thesame.
my life.
He never saw it coming until it was too late.

(02:45):
I want you to remember one thing.
You asked for this.
Do think you would have gotten any of it if it weren't for me?
Why you do anything stupid like go to the police, I'd think you're fruitbound.
Because I've covered all bases.
There's no way out.

(03:06):
anything that wasn't in you already.
You and I need to talk.
No.
You're gonna die with your mouth shut.
I never showed you how.
Never.
James Spader.

(03:27):
everything he wanted and lost everything he had.
Bad influence.
Bad Influence was written by David Kep, his first solely credited screenplay, and directedby Curtis Hanson, who will later appear in our series with The Hand at the Rocks the
Cradle a few episodes from now, and would go on to direct a number of acclaimed films,including The River Wild, Wonder Boys, Eight Mile, and of course, L.A.

(03:58):
Confidential.
The film stars Rob Lowe, James Spader, Lisa Zane of Freddy's Dead, the final nightmarefame, and Christian Clemson.
Guys, I wanted to get all that out of the way, because I am very excited to talk about BadInfluence, because I think Bad Influence is a super interesting movie for a number of
reasons.
It's a good movie as well, but it's super interesting.

(04:21):
Rob, you may know this, and Justin, I'm not sure if you do, but I am particularlyfascinated by the way that for a time there were distinct stylistic changes
from one decade to the next, that you could tell the 70s, 80s, 90s at a glance.
And now here in 2025, it feels like for 25 years, we've been a perpetual today, 70s, 80s,90s and today.

(04:45):
And it's been today for a while.
But I think that those moments of transition between those decades is particularlyinteresting.
And with this film, I believe I have pinpointed.
The moment of transition from the 80s to the 90s.
is the release of Bad Influence, March 9th, 1990.

(05:09):
And what are the signifiers that tilt it that way for you?
well, there's a ton of stuff, because I think this movie, at its core, about an 80s guywho finds himself lost in a changing world and has to be guided into the 90s by Rob Lowe
like Dante guiding Virgil into hell.

(05:33):
So, I'm going to roll with this for a second.
We're going to go a little out of order here.
But at the beginning, James Spader, his character, his girlfriend is a foofy.
She belongs to like a rich family that essentially would be the villain in an 80s comedy.
And she has the stupid shoulder pad blazer, but like the 80s version of it.

(05:56):
Exactly.
He has to get rid.
He has to shed himself of that.
Her and her family, they're straight out of dynasty.
you know, mean, you know.
Yeah, it's, it's, it's, super.
And, and you can see the places that Rob Lowe takes, takes our hero will there.

(06:18):
It's the nineties that club that they go to early on.
We're going to talk about that in a little bit.
It's the club on the edge of the nineties.
But there's so many eighties elements to the stylistic elements of the winding spiralmetal staircases and the block glass windows.
just about everywhere.
There's so many glass blocks in this movie.

(06:41):
But that's the thing.
It's like that is that is like the architectural symbol of the late 80s, early 90s period.
don't you don't find that in 84, 85.
It's the late 80s.
We started to get those glass blocks.
my God.
This movie loves glass blocks.
And so do I.
And this movie loves Los Angeles.
I'll say this is really an LA movie.

(07:03):
Curtis Hansen loves the oil fields off La Cienega that you see in LA confidential.
You do get them here as well.
You get the beach, get, yeah, weird clubs that never existed.
All of it.
It's all.
the LeBraya Tar Pets.
it's, you there's a lot of LeBraya Tar Pets in this movie.
Yes.

(07:23):
So we'll go back.
We'll start at the beginning.
We open with Rob Lowe.
He's in this modern looking house.
It's dark.
There's a naked woman in bed.
He's gathering stuff in a bag.
And this whole sequence at the beginning, the music here, everything has this veryneo-noir feeling.
This movie has a very strong neo-noir vibe.

(07:44):
And you know, he's leaving, he's on his way out, he throws the bag in the garbage truck,it's a garbage truck on the way out, and then it's all very suspicious from Rob Lowe.
And it's worth noting that this movie was just starting production as the Rob Lowe sextape scandal had come out.
He had filmed himself having sex with two women, one of whom was a teenager, although notbelow the age of consent at the time, and it was a big scandal.

(08:11):
in like 1989 when it broke, which was just as this movie was starting production.
And there's stuff in this movie that would seem to like almost reference that, although Iwould think that the script was already locked when they went in.
It's, it's very strange, but there's these moments that sort of echo real life.
It blurs the lines for sure.
Absolutely.

(08:32):
Absolutely.
So I mean, you know, like even videotape is, and specifically videotaped sex is like a
a really significant, like it plays a really significant role.
mean, you know, and, James Spader, who plays Michael, he's a yuppie.
He's kind of on the nebbish end of the Spader yuppie scale.

(08:52):
but like he, you know, he had done Sex, Lies and Videotape the previous year, which was abig breakthrough movie for him.
And, again, videotape playing a big role because videotape, it, you know, it's, it's thenineties.
You're getting into the nineties, you know,
80s you had video tape, but you rented videos.
90s you shot videos.
There's the And this is when video took over.

(09:15):
Absolutely.
It transformed media.
It transformed home media, of course.
Video rental shops popping up all over the place.
But maybe the single biggest driving force for the success of videotape, because rememberthere was the beta video world.
sure.
And I won't go too into the weeds on this, but it was porn.

(09:36):
Porn is what
guided this media format of VHS into the forefront and it became accessible and the mostaffordable way for families to not only rent and enjoy movies at home, but to make their
own.
And so this was the era where I was going and renting video cameras from our grocery storeand then making home like backyard movies with my friends and stuff.

(09:59):
Rob and our band, we recorded some things a number of times on rented camcorders that werefrom
the Hy-Vee grocery store.
And here we are out recording with him and then returning in the next day.
And the next person who's filming a bat mitzvah or whatever had no clue that the nightbefore such debauchery was captured on tape, but it was this, it was a real wild frontier.

(10:21):
And it felt like for the first time we could preserve our world on video, which was a hugemove from just relying on, you know, photos that, and, this was that moment.
There was so much videotape activity in film and on television at this time.
Huge.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.

(10:43):
And James Spader, you know, he's a guy, he works in business.
You know, we don't really know what he does.
Like he's just, it's the eighties.
It's still the end of
on computers!
It's business and Rob, you got to get ahead in business.
Doesn't matter what the business is, you got to get ahead in it.
And the problem with Michael is that he doesn't have that killer instinct.

(11:05):
He's just not, you know, he's not that kind of guy.
One of his coworkers, Patterson, which, be honest, sounds like the name of a characterJames Spader would usually play.
Like he would usually play a guy named Patterson.
But here,
You know, he's the, you know, he's the adversary at work and he steals some kind of datathat's going to embarrass him in front of the big boss.

(11:26):
And who by the way, is played by John Delancey Q from Star Trek, the next generation.
Always glad to see John Delancey.
You know, he's, he's, he's just, he doesn't, he doesn't have that killer instinct.
He's somehow he's out of step.
He's out of step with things.
And this is where I think this movie takes a big cue from Fatal Attraction in that in thebeginning, there really isn't actually anything wrong with Michael's life.

(11:54):
Yeah.
But he is dissatisfied anyway.
There's this weird, undeserved ennui that seems to be a key to successfully doing thisgenre.
Yup.
Yup.
Yup.
why I'd use those words.
But in any event, it feels very much like, the beginning of fatal attraction, where you'resetting up this pretty good life, but it's being signified that it's not quite good

(12:24):
enough.
I absolutely had the note.
Michael's life isn't really that bad.
Like he seems fairly high up at work.
He's got an office with a window.
He's got an assistant.
He's got a lot of glass blocks in his apartment.
He's engaged to be married.
lives at the beach.
He lives at the beach.
He's engaged to be married to a beautiful woman played by future Melrose Place actress,Marcia Cross, who admittedly is a bit much.

(12:51):
the fiance is a little bit much.
when she comes in for that one scene in the office where, you know, he's so kind ofanxious by the thought of marrying this woman, he's having literal stomach pains.
Yes.
Well, there's a lot of carryover from the eighties in this too.
And in the eighties, remember the, one of the hallmarks of that era was more, the simpleword more.

(13:16):
Absolutely.
And it was everybody indulging to extremes and hedonism is a great term.
that came into play.
And in some reviews that I was reading of this, that term is used again and again inreference to the world that Alex brings him into.
But this guy having a fine life and still having an openness to the more, I think is ahallmark of not only this film, but this whole series.

(13:45):
And we found that with Fatal Attraction.
It was the same thing.
It's always gonna be people who are okay, but there could always be more.
Yeah, absolutely.
And we'll see that in both films today where you have you have guys who are doing allright, but, more.
Now, again, how those movies approach it a little bit different, but we'll get to that ina little bit.

(14:07):
So, you know, in a lot of ways, Michael in this movie, he reminds me kind of a GeorgeMcFly.
Like he's he just can't seem to stand up for himself and he needs someone to bring hisconfidence out of him.
And that's that's going to be Rob Lowe's character, Alec.
And this is something this movie does very well, and you're going to describe a bunch ofthe details I know, which is the, need to start with the life that's unfulfilling, and

(14:35):
then you have the seduction of the new.
Usually it's whoever that new person is now in fatal attraction and presumed innocent, Iguess, in a way that seduction was purely sexual of the opposite sex.
literal seduction.
It was a literal seduction.
And this time in both of these movies, but especially in this one, the seduction reallyis, it is between two men and it is non romantic between them.

(15:05):
It is a seduction of life, of lifestyle, of taking control and, you know, changing yourcircumstances so that you can finally be happy.
Spoiler alert, none of these people will make themselves happy by following the weird.
stranger who has the promise of it all.
But one thing this movie does get is that even though I'm not the biggest Rob Lowe fan inthe context of this movie, they have set up sad sack Michael enough.

(15:33):
And then, and then he is taken out to do some legit cool things.
You do see the actual seduction for the character of Michael, I think very successfully inthis one.
Yes.
Yes, absolutely.
Like you understand why Michael gravitates to Alex.
Like I get it.
You know, and that is one of the things that we'll talk about when I get to our nextmovie, because I don't understand why the character, you know, in that movie would

(16:04):
gravitate to the other character at all.
But that is for in a short while.
This movie does it much more successfully.
So they, the first encounter between the two happens at a bar by the beach where Michael'sthere and he offers to buy a woman a drink.
He's clearly having a bad day.
She's having a bad day.

(16:24):
But before long, her abusive boyfriend shows up and he slams Michael's head into the bar.
you know, after Michael kind of tries to stand up for himself, but I mean, honestly, eventhe girl doesn't give him any respect.
just refers to it.
She refers to him as just some drip.
And as Michael's getting at his ass beat,
Bottle smashes on the bar and Alex intervenes.

(16:50):
Jesus, Willie, not again!
Jesus,
Thank
Thank you
Yeah, what are you?
you

(17:22):
So the guy backs down, you know, I mean, and when Michael looks up, the rescuer is gone.
and this is we know we saw Rob Lowe's character at the opening, but this is his realintro.
And I think it's a terrific one.
Like it's a really like it's really compelling.
And I'm like, this guy.
Yeah.
And then he's gone.
He's disappeared.
And, know, it's it's interesting.

(17:44):
I really like I I'm not a huge Rob Lowe fan.
West Wing aside, but I thought he was really good.
It's funny a lot of the qualities that I don't like about him.
think play perfectly into this part.
Yes role.
Yes where he is and is supposed to you know, he comes off across as kind of the entitled,you know prick who's you know swinging his ego around and getting what he wants by being

(18:10):
kind of a jerk.
Yeah And the thing is is when you feel powerless there can be an appeal to that whichthere is for Michael
and also unlike, let's say our next film, you know, the goodie, there are a lot of redflags with Alex and his demeanor, like a lot of them, right?

(18:31):
Yeah.
I do like, I like the fact that they did name him exactly the same as closest characterand fatal attraction.
But the, the thing is the goodies that he gets Michael are our actual goodies.
They're really good.
They're really
It's like he's opening them up to this, you know, new cool parties getting out of thestuffy lifestyle.

(18:52):
He's like, you're having trouble at work.
I can help you out there.
And he does.
And even though there are red flags, you can see why why Michael would want to believe andwhy he would go along with it.
Just like someone who's you know, it's almost like starting to use drugs or something.
You're like, yeah, no, well, you know, just that that hit of cocaine was pretty good.
I'll just do another one.
Right.

(19:12):
And it's the sort of thing where it's like, oh, he's, you know, it gives him theconfidence to sort of push back against Patterson at work.
And yes, when, when one of the first things that he, when he runs into Alex again, one ofthe first things he asks is, can I drive your car?
mean, like that's a, that's a weird ask early in the relationship.
And it's just like, well, okay, that's kind of a red flag, but you know, he's helping meget the confidence that I need to do what I need to do.

(19:38):
Um, and,
Well, while Michael is a bit of a schlub, his older brother Pismo is frankly an evenbigger one.
Pismo was convicted of a minor drug offense a few years earlier and as such has troublegetting a job.
So basically he borrows money from his younger brother and smokes pot all day.
want to, it's an interesting note.
The character is named Pismo Bull because writer David Kep saw a sign for a bowling alleynear Pismo Beach and wanted to name a character after it.

(20:08):
they're,
That's a good, and then once Bull was established as the family last name, it had to beMichael Bull.
So that's why they are named as such.
Michael goes out, he encounters Alex and he's talking to his brother.
He goes out for a nighttime run and he meets Alex again.
And he approaches him to thank him for his help earlier.

(20:29):
And the two strike up a conversation and go out for drinks.
And Michael spends the whole conversation.
bitching about Patterson.
he's bitching about Patterson.
And I love the bit.
absolutely, where Alex convinces him to toast to Patterson and then slaps the drink out ofhis hand.
What kind of man are you that you drink to your enemies?

(20:51):
Like it's a really compelling moment.
So good.
Yeah.
And that was after, he worked him up for like 30 seconds.
Michael did not want to toast Patterson.
He's like, no, come on.
You gotta do it.
You gotta do it.
And then he's like, fine, I'll do it.
And then he's like, you know, man.
So again, from the also very suspicious that the night that he met him initially was thenight he quote unquote lost his wallet.

(21:15):
Right?
mean, it's, there's so many red flags going on here, but then again, this was a man whowas willing to jog along Venice beach in the nineties.
Bad, bad choice.
I can tell you the most, the most unbelievable thing about this movie is that he wouldhave been jogging along there and it would be fine.
And he doesn't have the meter for these red flags.

(21:37):
He doesn't come from this world.
And so he's not understanding what's happening necessarily.
And that's why he's being pulled through it.
And I think that's one of the great things about Spader's performance is that you feelthat way.
You don't feel like it's some guy who, like, know, Stephen King's complaints about TheShining, about the first film version was that, Jack seems insane from the beginning.

(22:02):
The way that Nicholson handled that character, he was kind of showing his cards from thestart anyway, and it made it less of an impact when the switch happens.
In this, I don't feel that way with Michael.
I feel like Michael really is a guy who's pretty oblivious to this very debaucherous worldthat he's tiptoeing into here.
And just like in that first conversation or the toast, he did have to be lassoed intothat.

(22:28):
So he's being tricked the whole time and I think it's justifiable.
no, absolutely.
Again, I think Rob Lowe's really good in this movie, but I actually thought James Spaderwas fantastic.
Yeah, I agree.
Really, really fantastic.
So Alex takes Michael to another place, another bar.
It's like this hidden speakeasy type of place where you need a password to get in and likethe passwords in the personals in the paper.

(22:54):
It's like...
The password here is dominant athletic woman.
And it's one of my favorite scenes, because as I mentioned earlier, this is the bar at thedawn of the 90s.
And it has a kind of quasi-Goth vibe.
There's a band called The Nymphs playing, which is way more 90s than 80s.

(23:15):
And Alex is like literally taking Michael into the future.
This bar is so 90s that if you look close, you can see David Duchovny.
in the bar.
The most 90s actor of all.
in a black leather jacket and I couldn't quite tell but they do look very similar to buddyHolly glasses.

(23:35):
I they're not quite.
I just sent you the picture because I did.
You did!
I was getting to the note anyway because I saw David Duchovny and was like, that is DavidDuchovny in that bar.
yes, yes it is.
So Alex encourages Michael to try and pick up the girl at end of the bar who willeventually come to know as Claire, played by Lisa Zane, the sister of Billy Zane.

(23:56):
And she's not super into him, nor is her friend, because he's a vestigial 80s guy tryingto pick up some very 90s chicks.
It is not happening for him at all.
And if you look at Rob Lowe.
He's got this jacket on and the cut of the jacket is super 90s.
He's walking right off the set of 90210 with that jacket.

(24:21):
And his hair, he's got like, what was it?
What was the Luke Perry hair in that same series?
Rob Lowe is there to bring this lost 80s guy into the 90s, at least enough.
man, you got too far.
You know, so he disappears with Claire, Alex disappears with Claire, Michael remembers helost his wallet at the bar he was attacked and then has to beat a hasty retreat.

(24:49):
But the encounter this whole evening gives Alex the confidence to get the best ofPatterson at work by sabotaging one of his files and replacing it with batting statistic.
He basically turns into a badass overnight.
Like, or more accurately, he turns into one of the characters that James Spader usuallyplays.
Yeah.

(25:10):
Yeah.
He is.
He is less than zero pretty quickly.
But you know, he's enough of a standup guy to go back to the bar the next day to pay histab.
I guess now that you know where it is, you know, you could get in any time.
again, this is where we, you he runs into Alex a third time.

(25:30):
The bartender calls Alex by another name, which is always a red flag.
He asked to drive Michael's car, which is an odd request.
But again, Michael's happy to oblige.
And then we go to the art gallery.
We have the art gallery scene, which I thought was
fascinating, where, you know, Alex introduces himself variously, his various names, we runinto Claire again, and he spins this whole tale how Michael is a widower named Dominique,

(25:58):
and Rob Lowe with the intentional ridiculous accent.
I also wanted to mention, if you guys look closely in the art gallery, you can see MotherSuperior from Silent Night, Deadly Night.
Yep.
Whoa.
Lillian Chauvin is one of the patrons in the art gallery.
She's got a couple of lines and you hear, you go back, you hear her voice, you'll know herinstantly.

(26:20):
wow, that's very naughty.
is indeed.
So they go back to Michael's apartment.
This is where Michael's showing Claire around and Pismo shows up.
Alex answers the door and there's this great little moment.
I love this where he asks him to tell Michael, Pismo asks Alex to tell Michael that it'shis brother and that he has quote, the fear.

(26:46):
And I love that the fear is never explained.
It's just this odd little touch in this relationship.
between these two brothers.
Yeah, and then this is gonna be a key scene because he, he, you know, Alex sends Pismopacking essentially.
Yeah.
And then, and then we get some, some good old fashioned sexy times happening.

(27:06):
Well, yeah, well, the first thing that happens is that Michael and Claire end up fallingasleep on the couch and Alex is just sitting there watching them like a creeper.
It's such a red flag.
But Claire wakes up and she starts making out with Alex.
And first of all, there's so many shadows in this scene and you got the light saxophonemusic to boot.

(27:26):
It's like, again, this movie all feels very neo-noir.
But instead of sleeping with Claire, Alex is able to slide her over to Michael.
And what does he do?
He videotapes the two of them doing it.
Which is what's on the TV when Alex wakes up and it's like, shit.
And the way that VHS tape of the sex tape looks like in the movie is it's just theconstraints of the medium at the time.

(27:55):
just looks nasty.
Yeah, just looks grimy and dirty.
And there's something about like the VHS sex tape that just makes it look so illicit.
Well, it's not 1080p or ultra high definition 4K sex tape.
No, no, There's something about it that looks like it was found in the back of a reallyshitty video store.

(28:24):
There's an interesting exchange, I want to play this, where Alex asks Michael twoquestions.
Tell me what you want, Mick.
Mick?
Tell me what you want.
Tell me what you're afraid of.
I, Just for fun.

(28:45):
Come on, tell me.
What are you afraid of?
I should be getting married again.
That's easy.
Don't.
Well, I'm engaged.
Why?
No, I didn't want to lose her.

(29:10):
Bye.
terrifying in America.
Done.
Now tell me what you want.

(29:30):
Within anything else in the world, what do want?
I'm senior analyst.
What the hell?
and drink to it.

(29:54):
Make it happen.
Tell me what you want and tell me what you're afraid of.
And Michael's answers are sort of like, they're very contained.
Like he wants a promotion and he's afraid of getting married, which I think are symbolicof larger things in life.
It's like, but it's interesting that Michael is still, it's a very kind of, he's a very,still a very closed off guy and that he's thinking about things in a very kind of literal

(30:21):
manner as opposed to a large, what do you, what do you want in life?
Well, I want to be fulfilled.
no, no, I want to get promotion.
It's a very, it's very specific and he hasn't been able to look at a wider world yet.
It's super interesting.
And a literal, a complete literalization of something that writers are often asked about,which is what does your character want at the beginning of a story versus what does that

(30:47):
character actually need?
And here they just, you know, they, there's no place like home it.
the character is asked by the bad guy that by the antagonist, what do you want that thehero answers?
And then the hero is going to get it and find out that that's not actually
that's not, that's not what they want, you know, actually wanted or needed.

(31:09):
and it's, you know, what's funny is with all of this, cause there are movies that are verysubtextual and subtle and there are movies that are not.
And I would say this one falls in the latter category.
However, that doesn't necessarily make it, you know, bad or, or unentertaining becausethis is a movie we have talked like they're, they're red flags with Alex left and right,

(31:32):
but
Michael may not see those red flags or overlook them because of his naivete and becausehe's getting he's getting things that he wants out of life.
Right.
And it feels good in the moment.
But the movie is never pretending that we, the audience don't see it.
This is definitely a bomb under the table while characters are talking and we like we knowthere's a bomb under the table.

(31:53):
Right.
So I think it does effectively, although we've been kind of, you know, having fun with itand will continue to do so.
But,
It is definitely of a help ratchet up the tension version.
Which was what separates it from our second movie today, which does similar thing.
Yes.
You're good.

(32:13):
Well, Michael, Michael, you know, he's doing well at work now.
You know, although it's weird early on, we see him in an office with a window, but thenthe middle part of the movie, his desk now seems to be out in like this open concept area.
I, and I didn't know the reason for that.
It's like, it's just, and then he's back in the office later, but for some reason, themiddle part of the movie, when he's trying to do this deal in, in, you know, overseas or

(32:36):
whatever his office is, it's like, Oh, he's got a desk in it in a large open concept.
There was a very strange, I was like,
wait, what's the deal with this guy's office?
I don't know why I was taken by that.
He and Alex, hang out at the La Brea Tar Pits where they talk, you know, like businessybusiness and Alex encourages him to take some businessy risk, which pay off.
That's where deals are made guys.

(32:57):
That's how deals are made, you know, it's- At the Tar Pits.
It's just a cool place to hang out.
But then, so far, everything that Alex has done, you know, there, as we've said, there's alot of red flags, but it hasn't been-
it hasn't crossed that line.
It's going to cross that line next, guys, because now we have Michael at the party at hisfuture in-laws house.

(33:22):
And like I said, it's, it's, it's they're very eighties.
And when he goes to see them, he's wearing a tux.
He's got flowers.
He's got his hair slicked back like he's Pat Riley.
Guys, he's falling back.
in the 80s.
He had a little taste of the 90s, but now he's falling back in the 80s.
Who's there?
Who's out there that helped him push back in the 90s?

(33:44):
That's right, it's Alex.
And honestly, like this is the first time where Alex shows up and it feels weird.
Like before it could be just coincidence or he was in a place you might expect him to be.
Here, it feels weird.
Yeah.
I mean, how did he even know where this gray Pupon commercial was going to be?

(34:06):
Did he talk with Robin Leach and discover where it was going to be?
I am also glad you called out the Pat Riley hair that Michael has coming in.
Cause it did seem like, like he was trying to be Alex ask and failing.
Cause that is not that that's not the right hair.
No.
But the thing is, is even here with what's about to happen, the

(34:28):
world is presented like Michael seems very uncomfortable when he's coming in here, eventhough this is ostensibly a place he should be comfortable.
Right.
There are a lot of different signifiers.
He's getting led around a little bit as he's coming in.
There's signifiers here that this isn't necessarily a great place for Michael because eventhough this is going to be a big jump, I mean, you could argue he's he has a fiance.

(34:52):
So, you know, Alex getting him to sleep with another woman, that's a
That's a line cross there.
Sure.
This is going to be a whole other line cross, but even here it's, it's the movie is kindof setting it up that maybe it is a good thing because there's a version, right?
There's a version of this movie that could go in a completely different direction.

(35:13):
And this would have been the beginning of Michael breaking free from his old life.
Right.
Right.
Right.
This is not that movie, but, but even here they're setting it up so that you, might think,well,
Maybe this is okay.
So what does Alex do?
He knows Michael doesn't want to be engaged to someone.
What does he do?

(35:34):
He plays the sex tape he shot for the whole party.
And I gotta be honest, I am not sure if Michael's reaction here is realistic.
It's such a bizarre scenario that I have a hard time even imagining how I'd be, I meanlike I'd be mortified, you know, but he on the other hand didn't want to be in that

(35:55):
relationship anyway.
So like what you're saying,
is kind of like there's a version of this where it's, this is the tough love that heneeded.
This is the push off the cliff that he absolutely needed because he didn't want to marrythis lady.
know, like it's, and, you know, better now than 10 years, better now than marry her and 10years from now figure out, don't want to be married to her.

(36:17):
My God, you know, it's, that's, then it's, then it's, it's more difficult.
But on the other hand, sex tape at the in-laws, I mean, it's really something.
The one thing about the sequences that jumped out at me is that Michael is too slow.
not that I would have ever found myself in this situation, but if I had the moment when heknows that it's the sex tape and it's gonna, it's starting in the other room, but it

(36:44):
hasn't hit a critical, like they, no one's come on screen yet.
There's still time to save it.
And he does not go.
He just freezes.
would, I would, I would launch myself across the party and destroy their television.
100 % could have stopped that tape in time.
That's all.

(37:04):
He's not that far from it.
He totally could have done it.
my god.
So, but then once the sex tape is out of the bottle, so to speak, what happens is Alextakes Michael out of that stuffy 80s house and takes him to a super cool 90s party.

(37:25):
This place is so cool in 90s, it's got holes in the wall and exposed wiring and snakes,you know, it's cool.
It has that 90s vibe.
half expected Jackson from unmasked part 25 to come out.

(37:46):
You know what is?
It's the house that they all live in at the beginning of Tanker!
Yes, that as well.
And then of course, this is where he starts doing a little cocaine and pretty soon anyworries about the former fiance are gone.
And now this is a big jump.
After this party, Michael and Alex go for burgers and somewhere along the line, Michaelpicks up a bunny mask.

(38:10):
He's high as a kite.
And it's useful that he's got this mask because Alex decides to knock over the burgerjoint for kicks.
Cue the montage.
Cue the montage of them going on a little crime spree, holding up places seemingly for thethrill of it and I guess for the cash.
Although, know, Michael seems to have a good job.
doesn't really need cash, you know, it's this whole thing where it's like, it's really nowit's like, this is now something's wrong.

(38:40):
Like now we're in a place where something is, it's no longer fun.
It's a bad scene.
Well, that does make Michael Barb.
So there's still a bit of morality left in him.
He has to go off to the side.
There's several barfing scenes in this movie with him.
So there are, yeah.
He actually has, has, Alex stopped the car.
He's like, I gotta stop the car.
I gotta get out.
You know, it's, but, but that's where he remarks that, Patterson lives in this area.

(39:08):
And it's like, Oh, well, first of all, how do you know where Patterson lives?
I don't, I didn't know where my coworkers live.
I don't want to know, you know, it's, it's.
And he didn't seem like he was, you know, they were buddies where he was going to hishouse for drinks, you know, afterwards.
But you know that once he remarks, Patterson lives around here, you know, something bad isgoing down.
So the next morning, Michael wakes up, he's got blood on his knuckles, which is, is, youknow, concerning.

(39:32):
It takes him a while to notice he's got blood on his knuckles.
And he learns Patterson was the victim of an assault the previous night.
So, you know, the, the, the, you know, the implication being, did he do it?
What happened?
You know, was he so high he doesn't even remember it.
And he confronts Alex about this and Alex tells him, no, no, no.

(39:53):
You you beat Patterson up.
I just held him down.
And this is apparently where the line is crossed for Michael, not armed robbery, but it'sthe beating of a coworker.
So he's gotten enough out of this.
You he's gotten just enough nineties into him, you know, to get a promotion and that sortof thing.
But beating Patterson is a little too much.

(40:14):
And he basically kicks Alex out of the house, which, know, guys, if you think Alex, hewas, you know, kind of burrowed his way into Michael's life this far, is just going to go
quietly.
That's not exactly, it's not exactly how it's going to go.
He's he's I think Michael's going to have to deal with the responsibilities he has for hisactions.

(40:39):
You know, Alex, he's not just gonna be ignored, Rob.
No.
And in fact, when Michael comes home, his entire apartment has been cleaned out.
Like literally everything is gone.
And it's just like, well, that's a hell of a thing.
All this stuff that is so, all this material stuff that was such a signifier of success.

(41:07):
in the eighties, you know, the, the more decade, the, the me decade, all gone.
He's all he's left is his glass blocks, which admittedly are also, what else do you need?
mean, so not long after he, he, he finds Alex who says, you know, that, that Michael askedfor everything, everything that happened, Michael asked for, uh, and that, you know, that

(41:33):
Alex is why he's gotten the things he's gotten.
He wouldn't have gotten Claire.
He wouldn't have gotten the promotion without Alex.
And Alex seems to be like, well, this is what you owe me.
Here's a question, just a quick question.
Do you think, and I honestly do not have, I come down, I flip-flop on this.
If Michael had just kept on the Alex train of doing debaucherous stuff and living as pureid, do we think, would Alex have eventually turned on him anyway to try and get the

(42:05):
apartment and all that stuff?
Or is he really, because it felt different than like the first situation at the verybeginning of the film that
Alex is leaving and dumping the bag and all of that.
Like I waffle on was Michael only ever just a mark or did Alex actually like like having abuddy?
I don't know.

(42:25):
I think eventually, I think Alex is a con artist and I think eventually he would havetaken Michael for what he could get.
But I think it was the explicit rejection of Alex after the beating of Patterson thatleads Alex to take the action he does.

(42:52):
because I don't think Alex's action would have been as extreme if a month or two had goneby and then it just kind of, I'm not saying he wouldn't have, he might've still used his
diner's club card.
the bank accounts, but maybe not the other stuff that that we're about to get to.
I buy that.

(43:13):
I buy.
Yeah, that's my thought.
So Michael gets a call at the office from Alex telling him, I sold your stuff, but there'ssome stuff I couldn't sell your personal effects.
And I put them in a box by the oil wells off of La Cienega and he tells them where tofind.
Yeah, go meet Pierce Patchett down by the oil.
And get your stuff.

(43:35):
What's in the box?
Flirtily, whatever you desire.
mean, honestly, there's a connection there thematically between Pierce Patchett and Alex.
Like Alex is, you know, he's a latter day version of that character in a lot of ways.
So, he goes and gets the box and it's there.

(43:55):
And then, you know, he goes back to his apartment and some of his stuff has returned.
Specifically,
the TV, the VCR and the video camera.
This is so well done.
This is probably my favorite set piece in the whole film.
It's terrific.
It is absolutely terrific.
So he plays the tape and he sees an image of Alex in his apartment, which he is incurrently.

(44:16):
So it's like you have the apartment on tape and you have the apartment that is there thatMichael is in.
And we see that Alex tells Michael on tape that he asked for this.
and we see him on the tape bring Claire into the apartment and towards Michael's bedroom.

(44:36):
Now, you know, up to this point, I had been thinking that Alex and Michael's relationshipwas kind of like the bro version of Alex and Dan in Fatal Attraction.
And comparing the two, I was thinking, Claire's going to play some kind of role vaguelylike Beth.

(44:59):
like Dan's wife.
But that's when it hit me, Claire isn't Beth.
Claire is the bunny.
Yes.
my goodness.
Claire is the bunny.
So Michael realizes this is the same time I did and breaks down the door into his bedroomto find Claire's body.

(45:21):
And guys, it's bad.
Like it looks like a scene from Dexter with the blood spatter against the wall.
it's real.
And Justin, you pointed this out.
You're absolutely, like the way this sequence cuts between Michael in his apartment andAlex on the tape, it is incredibly well put together.

(45:42):
It's really, really, really well done.
because you're realizing the mania in Alex too, you're not only seeing this thing play outand you're feeling the intensity of the entrapment with this whole thing.
All of it is unfolding on you as a viewer, but also the way Alex was clearly timinghimself.

(46:04):
Because he's up in the camera, his face there, and he's just sort of laughing, waiting,smiling, chuckling.
and knowing what's happening as this is playing out on this television, literally in thatmoment.
And then by the time he gets back out and returns to the TV, that scene is still on.
And that's when you hear, yeah, he's not alone.

(46:26):
Yeah, he's not.
Because I had a moment I was like, this guy should grab that tape and run to the nearestpolice station.
Yeah.
Like that's what you do.
But what he doesn't know is that Alex is still in the apartment and Alex grabs the tape.
He beats the crap out of Michael and boom, he's gone.
So without any evidence that would prove him to be not guilty, Michael enlists thebrothers help in getting rid of the body.

(46:53):
We have an extended sequence where they're trying to avoid getting caught as they move thebody down to the garage, which is good.
It's like it's good sort of, you know, kind of nuts and bolts suspense filmmaking.
works really well.
And then.
The two brothers, holy shit, they do the stupidest thing in this whole film.

(47:14):
They dispose of the body in the La Brea tar pits.
Which is where people go for meetings.
It's a fucking, it's a meeting place and a goddamn tourist attraction.
It's like, if this was set in New York, would they dump it on Liberty Island?
Like it's what, what the hell?
Like, but here's the thing.
The movie knows that's a stupid thing to do.

(47:35):
Michael is not making good decisions at this point.
It's not that the movie thinks that's a clever thing.
It's that Michael thinks, that's a place that'll work.
But of course it doesn't.
The body is discovered immediately.
And Michael, he goes over, he sees it, and he sees Alex eating popcorn on the other sideof the tar pit as the body is being taken out of the, not the swamp, but the tar pit.

(48:02):
We're getting sort of towards the end of it.
I thought the movie did lose a little steam like after Claire's death.
I thought you lose a little bit of it.
Part of it is you break POV to go with Pismo, which you've never.
entire movie up to this point has almost been all Michael's POV with just a tiny bit maybeof only Alex.

(48:25):
so to like getting into the end of Act Two and to Act Three and then you break to tertiarycharacters POV, it just felt weird.
Yeah, yeah, like it's, it's, it's, there's this whole sequence where they're trying to getAlex's fingerprints and, and Pismo follows them to another password protected club, which,
which I have to point out is some kind of like performance arts sex club, where likepeople are dancing around naked with these illuminated tubes.

(48:52):
It's, it's like the kind of place you'd see in a segment of HBO is real sex.
I also appreciate the evil Rob Lowe at that club during the fingerprint scam is drinkingBohemia beer, which I was in every bar in LA in the late 90s, at least when I got here and
in the early 2000s.

(49:14):
I don't know that I've ever seen that bar is widely available as in LA at that time.
So I was very happy to see that apparently in the early 90s, it was also here.
And so we have, you know, of course, Alex notices Pismo at the bar.
He follows him to his apartment and attacks him there.

(49:34):
You know, there's a whole sequence where he's hanging off the fire escape.
then, you know, Alex rigs Michael's car to explode, but Pismo notices it in time.
And then, I should mention, this is the thing I skipped over, is that Michael borrows agun from a security guard at work.
And the security guard was introduced earlier where like, you know, Michael was kind ofhaving a bad day and he kind of like, Hey, I took my exam and you know, I got, did real

(50:03):
well.
Honestly, the little subplot with the security guard is like two scenes and it needed athird.
You needed to see him at the beginning where it's like, how you doing on that?
On your, on your, you know, whatever examine he was taking, you know, that Michael hadhelped him out with.
You need to see like, the good version of their relationship.

(50:24):
before you see the, the, the not good version before he asks him for a gun, which thesecurity guard provides, which bad move.
Don't do that.
That's a, you no matter what happens at the end of this movie, that security guardsgetting fired.
Yeah, luckily I think he's got a new job though because of
yeah, that's true.
Yeah.

(50:45):
Cause he passed his whatever.
Yeah.
It's, it's so Michael eventually he follows Alex to, where he's staying now, which is thisother apartment with even more glass blocks.
Like if you think Michael had a lot of glass blocks in his apartment, the secondapartment, has got even more.
And this must be really Alex's thing.

(51:05):
And, and, and for his part, Alex is in bed with two women, again, shades of Rob Lowe'sreal life scandal.
Honestly though, this is where it felt a little faux transgressive to me.
It's like, ooh, look how edgy he is.
He's in bed with two women.
You know, like if they really wanted to push the envelope, they would have had in bed withthe wife and her husband.

(51:26):
But I guess, you know, hey, it's only the 90s.
And just barely so.
Just barely so.
So Michael shows up, he pins Alex to the wall with a knife, but he's very easily disarmed.
It's almost, it is both laughable and realistic how quickly Alex gets the better of him.
And then, you know, there's a fight in the house and Alex chases Michael outside and downthe street onto the pier where they just met where Michael has hidden the gun that he

(51:54):
bought.
And he gets the drop on Alex and, and, and Pismo is hiding nearby, catching the wholething on videotape.
So we cycle back to, you know, the, sort of the videotape theme.
and we get a little bit of a couple of revelations here.
learned that, that, that it was that Alex didn't beat Patterson at all that Alex did itall.

(52:14):
And he, he scuffed up Michael's knuckles and there's a scuffle.
Michael shoots Alex falls into the pier and Michael with the videotape.
you know, sees the police coming and he goes over to them to sort of explain everythingbecause he's got the videotape where, you know, he confessed everything.
I want to point out there's an interesting thing in one of the earlier drafts, and I don'tknow if the confrontation played out the same, there was an additional scene which took

(52:41):
place in San Francisco where you see Alex meeting a new mark.
So in one version of this, he survives his fall into the
into the ocean and winds up in San Francisco probably scamming some tech bros.
for bad influence too.
I do find it interesting that this movie seems to have learned the lesson from the screentesting of Fatal Attraction.

(53:06):
And I think does it one better in that in Fatal Attraction, if you listen to the firstepisode, originally, know, Dan did not defeat and kill Alex.
Alex kind of got him in the end.
then the wife got to undo it.
But here,
And test audiences hated it and they wanted a big fight and they got a big fight.

(53:28):
So here they not only made it the big fight where you got to take the bad guy down, butthey one-upped it because the fight in fatal attraction occurs because Alex comes after
the family in their new home.
Here, James Spader, Michael gets to be a little Scooby Doo, a little, he figures it out.

(53:51):
He gets to lay the trap.
Yes.
And then you have the classic thing in 80s and 90s movies where it's like, Michael wasn'tgoing to kill him, but then Alex comes back one last time and bang bang, you know, shoots
him into the ocean.
So you get the you get to that lovely, you know, violent trope of our hero was too good tokill him.

(54:14):
but he did get to kill him and that's awesome.
You know, it's that like we get to have our blood vengeance and also sleep at night.
Like one to punch that these movies often did in that era.
Now I think they just kill people.
They don't even care.
Yeah, now it's, it's, it's, the 21st century.
It's the perpetual now you can just kill people.

(54:35):
Yeah, yeah, the matrix theory of culture and 1999 was the pinnacle of human civilization.
Everything's a retread sense.
Might be true, it might be true.
I wanted to pull back the curtain on one final thing here for me with bad influencebecause as people know, we don't record this the day before it winds up online.

(54:56):
And I saw that today that we're recording this March 9th, 2025.
It is 35 years to the day.
Oh, that bad influence was released because it was released on March 9th, 1990.
So there you go.
Serendipity, serendipity.

(55:17):
I liked this movie a lot.
I thought it was a really interesting movie.
I thought it wasn't perfect, but I thought it was really good.
I Spader was outstanding.
I thought Rob Lowe was really good.
it's, again, I just think this, we found the pivot point from the eighties to thenineties.
It was 35 years ago today.

(55:39):
And really the thing we haven't talked about
We've talked a lot about style throughout the episode, but we haven't talked about howthis was shot because it really is shot very, very well.
There are some beautiful moments, cinematographer Robert Elswit who did like there will beblood and nightcrawler two of my favorite films of the last couple of decades here.

(56:01):
I mean, nightcrawler, I hope we have a reason at some point to talk about that filmbecause we can make a reason if we have to.
it presents the LA that I know as someone who doesn't live there.
but who is there very frequently, the loneliness of the night there and the way that heuses light in that film.
And also when there will be blood.

(56:23):
mean, he's a master with the camera for sure.
You don't know his name.
I don't know why he's not talked about more, but he should be.
But in this film, he minds some really beautiful moments out of Los Angeles.
There are some shots on bridges where there's statue elements that are silhouetted by themoon and by
city lights.

(56:43):
There's so much done with the wet scapes after rain has fallen.
The whole thing on the pier at the end is so nicely shot.
There's more to be found here than what you may expect.
And one of the things is how well it's shot.
I agree 100%.
I think that's a great observation.
well, it's interesting that we end our bad influence segment on that because we pivot to amovie that is very different.

(57:09):
And if our first film today was a
was to me about the pivot from the 80s to the 90s.
Our second movie is very squarely from that latter decade, also revolving around a man whomakes the wrong friend.
From 1992, this is Consenting Adults.
Shh.

(57:32):
you
Mom?
Nice party, Ms.
Marker.
You're welcome.
You're welcome.
We have no neighbors, You mind if I run along with you?
hey, idiotus.
Sorry I'm late.
I'm Catherine.
But everybody calls me Kay.

(57:56):
I would like to propose a toast to neighbors.
And friends.
What's the truth?

(58:19):
Ready, airboard!
You think you can be alive without taking risks?
You wanna make love to my wife, but you're afraid you'll get caught.
You are insane, Eddie.
This is how you die.
These little things you deny yourself.
Samples taken from the victim's body prove you had sex with her and the murder weapon asyour prints aren't.

(58:44):
have to help me understand this, Richard.
Please, help me.
I didn't kill him.
I'm telling you, it's a lie.
Evidence, dear boy.
Evidence.
This is not fair.
Who is Eddie?
Come on, Richard.
Where'd he come from?
Come.

(59:06):
Set up.
Now, Consenting Adults is the second film we've talked about in the series from directorAlan J.
Bakula following 1990's Presumed Innocent.
It was written by Matthew Chapman, who strangely enough, guys, happens to be thegreat-great-grandson of Charles Darwin.

(59:30):
But that doesn't stop every character in this movie from being eligible for a Darwin Awardbecause every one of them is colossally, irredeemably
DUMB
Dum da dum dum.
Oh my God.
So released in 1992, Consenting Adult stars Kevin Klein and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio asRichard and Priscilla Parker, a couple living in the Atlanta suburbs.

(59:56):
He's a composer for TV commercials and she is his manager, I think.
We see them recording a commercial in the studio at the beginning and she's there too.
Maybe, I don't know, maybe she's his agent.
But you know this is the nineties, because everything in the nineties was icks.
stream, including the commercial.

(01:00:17):
thing we see is that damn mohawk.
The commercial for the skis that Richard is selling.
He's got a mohawk skier and the guy in the booth is like, yo, he's playing this, thismusic that sounds like it should be from a Cialis commercial.
in, and in, you know, it's like the guy's like, Oh, we need more neon, a neon sound.
He skis, he says, he actually says we need a more neon sound in my head.

(01:00:41):
heard.
These skis are for people who drink Mountain Dew and have brightly colored shoelaces andstuff.
you know, Richard, he can't deliver that because he's tired and the orchestra is tired andthey just want to go get lunch and probably eat some soup.
Never has there been a more overbearing recording studio producer brought into a filmlandscape than this guy who just amazing.

(01:01:04):
He's making a commercial and will not let this guy off the hook.
God, he won't lay low and finish the track.
you know,
And Richard's like, Oh, you know, let us finish and then go get lunch and then we can havenotes.
Oh, I want to point out that it's still the early nineties because they're selling skisand not snowboards.
This movie comes out in 95.

(01:01:25):
It's totally snowboards.
yeah.
Yeah.
So Richard and Priscilla, they live in a nice upper middle-class suburb.
They get a daughter who's mostly away at boarding school, which is convenient because thatgets her away from her parents' bullshit.
And maybe their lives are a touch on the dull side, but honestly, they should be happythat they're living in the high watermark of human civilization rather than on the

(01:01:50):
downward slide that we're on right now.
whole film is, is rich people not working rich people doing rich people things.
It is, it is the least relatable movie that we have yet touched on in this series.
Yes.
Like, yes, the people in fatal attraction are well off.
but you see them going to work.

(01:02:10):
I he's a lawyer.
He's got a good job.
And they're trying to climb the ladder yet, right?
They want a bigger house.
They're trying to work towards something here.
Everybody has everything.
Yeah.
It's just here.
Like, you know, it's, it's this common theme of nineties movies, many of them featuringKevin Spacey, by the way, where having a steady, but slightly boring job and a comfortable

(01:02:33):
home is considered just too much for a human soul to bear.
Yeah.
And this is again, looking at the, yeah, the, starting in the world with a pretty goodlife that sucks, right?
Is the idea of all of these movies, you know, in some fashion, your life is great.

(01:02:53):
There be plenty of people who would kill for it, but you hate it.
Yeah.
And look, that's human.
I like, you know, and it works in some movies.
The thing here is I, and it's tough to say, but like just the recording session, not goingperfect.
doesn't necessarily, it doesn't give me the sense of on we about his life.
You know, and also fatal attraction had the kid and family life and it's kind of like,it's great, but suffocating.

(01:03:20):
And so I, you, you made the joke about it and I assume they just didn't want to pay forthe other kid or didn't want to figure around them for the plot.
But by not having the daughter, it's a huge fucking mistake because you don't get it.
You can't set up.
suffocation of a good family life if you don't have the family on screen.

(01:03:41):
Like they have their daughter every other weekend.
Like come on!
They have plenty of time to go water skiing and on boats and shit.
Like it's so...
yeah, because I say this seems like it's some kind of like boarding school, like a sixthrough 12 boarding school, something like that, because she's not college age.
There are so many boats in this movie.

(01:04:03):
So many boats in this movie.
there's a lot of this.
So many boats.
Also, I want to give this film a yellow card for an unnecessary use of Casablanca playingin the TV in their bedroom.
There was no need for Casablanca to be shoehorned into this movie.
Get the hell out of here.
This is another one.
I feel it is stuck.
It's not quite the 90s because of the boat thing you brought up.

(01:04:25):
was a time growing up in the United States, at least I don't know about elsewhere, boatswere such like a signifier of wealth and having made it.
And they still are like, you still have to be rich to have a boat, but I just don't thinkpeople give a shit about boats in the same way.
Cause you know what the problem with boats is?
The problem with boats is if you own a boat, then then your whole life, your all yourrecreational dollars and time are spent on the boat.

(01:04:51):
Like, you can't do something else.
I gotta go out on the boat.
Cause you gotta make that boat be worth it.
It's like, unless you're, you know, super rich, in which case you pay somebody to takecare of the boat.
But like as an upper middle-class thing, it's not worth the time and money unless you haveunlimited money.
My uncle in Wisconsin.
We thought of him as the rich uncle.

(01:05:13):
And there there's three reasons why.
Number one, he had a big screen, rear projection TV.
If you remember these, the size of an early computer.
mean, these massive box, these, these coffins in the basement, which is where I saw Jasontakes Manhattan for the first time when my brother and I were unattended down there in his
basement.
And I was just wowed by the whole thing.

(01:05:34):
Second, he subscribed to playboy.
And I remember in his bathroom, had stacks and stacks of Playboy magazines and all I hadever seen up into this point are like scraps of.
Fredericks of Hollywood catalogs that some weirdo left in the street as they were fleeingfrom their parents and dropped a leaflet or something.
underwear section of the Sears catalog.

(01:05:54):
Oh, exactly.
Yeah.
And then, and, the third thing was he had a boat.
And I remember when he got the boat.
There was a big to-do about the family all going out and getting to enjoy it.
And I get out there and we get to the beach or the dock, we walk down and he has this flatsurface pontoon boat.

(01:06:19):
And one of those, just had like the flimsy aluminum railings around it, a couple seats.
And there was his perch in the middle and he was the king.
He was the captain of the ship.
And we just thought we had entered an entirely new dimension of wealth.
And it was a, it was a different world for us just because he had a pontoon boat.

(01:06:39):
It really changed our perception of him and then made us feel like the rest of the family.
Come on guys, catch up.
We need more fun shit like this to do.
Eventually he did upscale to a, like a boat boat that had a downstairs with two littlebeds in it and stuff like that, that we went on a couple of times, but he quickly went
bankrupt and.
And he lost said boat.

(01:07:01):
I wasn't old enough to know what lesson that taught me at that time, but now I look backand with so many things in life and so many things in movies in particular, I see these
kinds of things that people spend money on and think, God, what a waste.
You could have been taking care of your taxes or whatever.
There's there's a lot of things you could do with money.
didn't write this boat, but this movie is riddled with these things, equaling wealth.

(01:07:26):
and equaling being somewhere in life for sure.
And as we meet the second character that's so key in this film in a moment that I'm sureyou're about to get to Chris, the way we are introduced to him is with- He's riding a
motorcycle straight out of the moving van because he's an extreme type of guy.
He's the guy they want to sell those skis to.
That's right.
So shaking up the cul-de-sac are the new arrivals, Eddie and Kay Otis.

(01:07:51):
played by the aforementioned Kevin Spacey and Rebecca Miller, the daughter of Death of aSalesman playwright Arthur Miller, the wife of Daniel Day-Lewis and a filmmaker in her own
right.
So yeah, Eddie, just, drives that motorcycle right out of the, right out of the moving banand they're watching him from know, Richard and Priscilla are watching him from the house

(01:08:13):
and they're like, oh my.
Well, hello neighbor.
But here's the thing about Eddie.
He is just the most
obvious slimeball you can imagine.
Like I understand in bad influence why Michael is drawn to Alex, at least at the outset.
He's charming, he's funny, he's charismatic.

(01:08:34):
Even if there's something seamy about him, he's compelling.
Eddie has all the charm of a used insurance salesman.
No, you know what Eddie is?
Eddie is, on the Simpsons.
He's poochy.
He's poochy the skateboarding dog with the And it's just like one of the signifiers of howawesome and bad ass he is, is he does a stunt on a bicycle, like a BMX dirt bike looking.

(01:09:05):
No, it's like a 10 speed and he's driving.
Yeah, like there's a truck coming and he races across the street just as the trucks comein.
He's like, no.
Let's do.
I wanted him to get hit.
it's it's like Richard like he doesn't have the tiny cramped apartment he's got like thisginormous thing there's no sense of of any stifling really at all and then and then the

(01:09:34):
big you know the big seduction here from his neighbor poochie is like
out of a truck.
And he's like, look at me on my bicycle.
do tricks.
And I, then, and then it's like immediately let's wife swap.

(01:09:55):
Wait, that takes a minute.
That takes a minute because in addition to the surplus of boat footage here, also have alot of bros working out pornography that yeah, they work out together.
These guys head gear, they're boxing without head gear.
These guys, they don't work.
They do.

(01:10:15):
There is no sign of them doing anything, but riding bikes, boxing, running, gettingextremely sweaty and then white swapping.
Well, and Eddie's wife, Kay, Richard, Richard looks at Eddie's wife, Kay, like she's thehottest thing since a baked Alaska and, but he's married to Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio.
So what gives pal?

(01:10:36):
You got another, you got another gorgeous wife with great hair.
What are you doing?
And again, to go back to fatal attraction, like, you know, and Archer is a beautiful womantoo.
But Glenn Close, Alex, you have the intimate moments where and it's and you get a lot ofthe like I said, at the time, there's smaller scenes, you're getting all these snippets

(01:10:59):
kind of, it feels like you're almost skipping time, but you're getting that seduction realtime.
Here, it's a lot of like knowing looks and then they're like playing football and theytackle each other.
It just isn't enough.
just is not enough.
Eddie and Kay, they invite Richard and Priscilla over to their house and can we talk aboutthe house?

(01:11:20):
The walls are painted deep red and just so the audience will know you're entering hell.
This is an Argento house.
It's a Dario Argento house.
my God.
Who does this?
everything that fatal attraction does with subtlety and skill.

(01:11:40):
consenting adults does with a fucking sledgehammer.
Like it's just- And a jet ski.
Yeah, and a jet ski.
It's got all the subtlety of a jet ski.
Sorry.
Look at you, Eddie.
Chris, I imagine you of all people had to quite disapprove of the hair that they gave toKevin Spacey in this movie.

(01:12:02):
my God, it's this blonde.
It's like everything else in this movie.
It's so stupid.
It's just stupid.
He looks like, uh, in what 21 jump street when they have the flashback and Jonah Hill'scharacter has dyed his hair to look like M and M that's what looks like in this movie.
It's a little longer.

(01:12:23):
Uh, it's, not the presumed innocent haircut,
And here's the thing, you know, Priscilla is supposed to be the level-headed one, but shefalls for Eddie's bullshit so fast she's asking him for financial advice.
you know, what would you do, Eddie?
invest in drug rehab centers.
there you go.
And she's like, she's supposed to be the smart one and she's taken with this snake oilsalesman.

(01:12:47):
Nobody wants to oil a snake these days.
I might disagree with you there, Chris.
I think a lot of people want to oil a snake these days.
Like honestly, I'm not sure if Eddie's whole persona is designed to be an act from thebeginning to draw in a mark in this case Richard, or if that's just who he is.

(01:13:10):
Like it's just, it's so, it's all so dumb.
And we're supposed to believe, like this is what gets me.
We're supposed to believe that Richard is rejuvenated by his friendship with Eddie.
Like he's doing better at work.
Although his Cialis theme sounds identical.
Yeah, like it cut to him, you know, conducting and it sounds the same.

(01:13:34):
And here's the thing.
I don't often point these kinds of things out, but this one just hit me.
He's wearing the same shirt from the beginning scene of the movie, so they didn't evenbother to shoot Kevin Klein in another shirt.
So it looked like a different day.
Yeah.

(01:13:54):
I mean, this is one where the movie tells you that Richard and Priscilla are being, youknow, seduced by Eddie and Kay and you will never feel it.
It, it, really is like, cause because what Eddie and Kay do, and especially Eddie, itfeels like he is the villain in the parody version of this genre that should come about

(01:14:18):
eight years from the release of this film.
Like,
It'll come sooner than that by the way, but.
Well, and we learned that Richard and Bracila are in debt to the tune of $25,000 and Eddiesays he's going to help him with that.
So we see Richard and Bracila driving along, I think like they're leaving work orwherever, I don't know.
And out of nowhere, they hit Eddie with a car.

(01:14:42):
The most comical thing.
And you see Eddie with the neck brace and like he's like, he does this whole prolongedthing where he's like, I've been...
Hey, it's like a wrestling gimmick.
It's like, it's, it's Andy Kaufman when he broke his neck.
Yeah.
It's like, yes, absolutely.
And he takes it off and he reveals the whole thing was an insurance scam, but you know,Eddie's a nice grifter.

(01:15:06):
He's only going to keep 5,000 for himself.
He's going to give the rest of the parkers.
It's so stupid.
is just so.
I just, and even then they don't wise up and they stop hanging out.
Like they keep hanging out with these guys and that's when Eddie suggests the Weissflopping.
up in the of the night and just sort of do it like half asleep.

(01:15:35):
Yeah.
I wonder what would happen if you and I got up in the middle of the night, went next door,crept into the other man's bedroom.
Would they know the difference?

(01:15:59):
I think so.
And would they mind if Richard take a look?
They want exactly what we want.
In the heat of the moment, they'll love it.
I hate this.

(01:16:19):
Nothing.
I'll bet you a thousand dollars we could pull it off.
Enough?
You say enough real quick, don't you?
Are you?
Wait, wait.
Are you sure?

(01:16:41):
Let me tell you something.
I can't remember when I liked a guy as much as I like you, but the truth of the matter isyou're a wimp.
You think you can be alive without taking risks.
No, you do.
That's why you end up living this 50 % existence when there's 100 % waiting out there tobe had.
You're full of fear.
Your life is choked.

(01:17:02):
You write jingles when you're ready to be doing albums.
You do it for money, but you're always in debt.
You want to make love to my wife, but you're afraid you'll get caught.
This is how you die, step by step.
These little things you deny yourself.
This cowardice.
No, that is what it is.

(01:17:23):
cares?
Who cares if we get caught?
Big deal.
forget it.
You've lost your juice.
It's no big deal.
It's your life.
Listen, I'm not here to pass judgment on what consenting adults, no pun intended, do intheir private lives.
If that's what a pair of couples want to do, if all parties are involved, that's fine.

(01:17:47):
But that's not what Eddie's suggesting.
Like this is what's so insane to me.
He is suggesting that they creep into each other's houses, get in bed with the otherdude's wife.
have sex with them and the wives wouldn't even know the difference.
So dumb.
What?

(01:18:09):
That's rape.
That's rape, dude.
Yeah.
and Kevin, Kevin Klein and Kevin Spacey are nowhere near the same height.
They're not the same build.
I'm not even talking about the morality of it.
Cause I think we all know bad, but I'm just saying, would this work?
No, it's so stupid.

(01:18:31):
is so, it is so goddamn stupid.
And while Richard says no at first, but he keeps hanging out with them and like Eddiekeeps badgering about him and like insulting his manhood and all that.
And I will say Eddie's right about one thing.
There's one thing that he is right about in this movie is that if you're going to dosomething for money, you should at least get well paid.

(01:18:53):
you know, he wanted, Richard wanted to be a composer, but he settled for, for
you know, writing jingles for commercials and he's not even getting well paid for that.
Like if you're going to sell out at least get the money, you know, like it's so stupid.
But also this is part of the, if they, if they're playing that angle, it's the movie'strying to, and they're saying they're $25,000 in debt.

(01:19:17):
It's like, don't have them in this giant mansion.
Giant house!
giant mick man!
giant exclusive suburb with their daughter at some boarding private school.
Like maybe that's why they're in debt, but you don't, you don't go through any of that.
Are they like, show me that they're keeping up with the Joneses and they can't.

(01:19:41):
now they're under water.
Sure.
But it's all just like half tossed off, like, you know, a sentence here, a sentence there,they're not showing or doing any of it.
So you don't feel it.
Like I don't feel that Richard is squeezed at all.
No, not at all.
Not at all.
And I don't feel that Eddie is cool.

(01:20:02):
And that's a real problem.
It's a real problem, guys.
It's a real problem.
And Eddie and Richard have a falling out, which Priscilla doesn't understand.
And Richard simply refuses to tell her.
just say, hey, honey, I had a falling out with Eddie because he wanted to swap wiveswithout their knowledge or consent.

(01:20:25):
Boom, done.
Any normal life would be like.
Well, well, shit, yeah, we should not hang out with them anymore.
But instead he sits around the house joylessly wrapping Christmas presents while Eddieleads the rest of the neighborhood.
And I swear to God, an endless rendition of the 12 days of Christmas is so long.
my God.

(01:20:45):
There's like 19 days.
Christmas.
my God.
It's just it's just it takes forever.
And, you know, his wife is questioning his manhood and Richard, because he's the most
easily manipulated guy in the world goes out and patches up things with Eddie and thenthey go hang out and play softball.

(01:21:06):
It's...
After the like 20 minutes of Christmas carols, it apparently ate up so much screen timethat we never get what would be probably the most critical scene in this whole movie.
Yeah, where Richard, who has been adamantly against the non-consensual wife swap, all of asudden decides, you know what?

(01:21:33):
That was a good idea.
I'm going to do it, except that happens.
off screen.
We never see him make that decision.
Yeah.
To the point that when it starts to happen, I was confused.
I was like, wait, what?
Like I went back to see if I missed something.
I wasn't clear.
I was like, wait, maybe this is a different, they're switching houses for a differentreason.

(01:21:56):
I'm like, oh wait, no, they're doing it.
Last I knew they were not going to do it.
Right.
Like this is such a fundamental like mistake.
I don't know like what they trimmed for time.
I can't, I cannot imagine.
that that scene was not written and shot.
Like, I don't f*** you.

(01:22:16):
It's crazy.
if it wasn't in the script, it would be a note from the studio to be like, hey, we neversee him make that decision.
But I don't know.
I just don't know.
it's-
Why don't we show him blowing up because his wife delivered a sandwich while he waswriting a jingle?

(01:22:38):
That should go in the movie, but not in the moment where he changes his mind.
Yes, I'm going to do this crazy thing.
It's such an obvious setup that Richard has to be the dumbest guy on earth to not realizeit.
It's different than when the two brothers in Bad Influence, made a dumb decision in asituation that was very, very unusual.

(01:23:03):
I, for one, have never had to dispose of a body, thank God.
And don't know if I would make all those good decisions if I was in that moment.
But holy shit, I would know that
the neighbor trying to set me up, you know, for non-consensual life swapping, that thereis something more to it than just that.

(01:23:24):
Holy shit.
Hey, look, if bad influence put a dead body in the tar pits, this movie puts a dead bodyin the recycling bin on the corner of the neighborhood block.
God.
So Richard goes into, you know, he goes into that hellish house, the bedrooms all filledwith an excessive amount of drapery and he has sex with Kay.

(01:23:44):
And the next morning he comes downstairs, his wife is having coffee, reading the paper andthere's this moment where he like, you know, he's thinking, did she actually fuck my
creepy neighbor?
Does she know?
Ugh, it's so dumb.
So Richard, goes for a run and he's running so hard, he collapsed on the pavement just asthe cops go by.
racing towards Eddie's house and he pushes his way into the house to find Kay dead in thebed where he had sex with her the previous night.

(01:24:11):
There's blood everywhere.
There's a bloody bath and a softball bat on the floor.
And Eddie, Eddie's there being restrained by the cops and he cries out, you it's like,it's the most, it's just complete and utter madness.
And, and then this is where things start to escalate like

(01:24:32):
Richard's arrested for Kay's murder.
His fingerprints are all over the bat.
They were playing softball.
His semen is inside Kay because he slept with her and Eddie's got an airtight alibi.
And it's where I realized that this, this movie isn't bad influence meets fatalattraction.
It's bad influence meets presumed innocent, but really, really dumb.

(01:24:57):
So E.G.
Marshall shows up.
as Richard's lawyer who clearly thinks Richard did it.
And like five minutes later, Priscilla shows up with divorce papers.
Like it's like, wait, she's out.
She's getting, she's divorced with him while he's sitting in jail.
It's again, it's all happening so fast and it's just all dumb.

(01:25:18):
And by the way, it never deals with her night with Eddie.
We never know what happened.
We just see her sipping coffee the next morning when he gets home and he's like freshlyshowered or whatever.
looking nervous and she's just like going about her business and they never touch on whathappened.
It never comes back around.
Oh, so now, now Richard is divorced.
He sells everything to make bail, which I thought was odd considering it was a murdercharge, but I guess I, you know, it happens.

(01:25:44):
Uh, and he runs into Forrest Whitaker.
Forrest Whitaker shows up late in this movie as an insurance investigator looking into the$1.5 million policy that Eddie's
had on his wife, and he's the only one who can see that Eddie is a slimy grifter despitethe fact that Eddie's whole persona is slimy grifter.

(01:26:09):
I swear to God, we haven't had a movie this dumb in a while.
So one night, know, Richard stays in his credit motel.
He hears what he is certain is Kay's voice on the radio.
He rushes down to the club where the show broadcasts he finds out that the episode wasrecorded the previous week.
So well after Kay's death.
So Richard is convinced that Kay is alive and singing in clubs under the name OliviaCayman.

(01:26:34):
K.O.
Kay Otis.
OK, Olivia Cayman.
Like that's his big connection.
And so if you watch this movie and you're mad about how it's treating the legacy of fatalattraction, get prepared to be pissed at how it's going to treat Hitchcock's vertigo.
That's right.
It's about to get even dumber than you thought.

(01:26:57):
Brace yourself.
It's extreme dumb.
Like, he tells all this to his lawyer and his lawyer's like, well, I need evidence.
And listen, I think Kevin Klein's a really good actor, but you have this moment where heleaps across the room at G Marshall and just says, then find it, you old bastard.
Okay, okay, she's got a nice voice.

(01:27:19):
Turn it off before I break down and cry.
You have any other recordings?
Like what?
Recordings like she made before she died.
Told you she didn't record anything.
That's my point.
No, that's my point.
We have no comparison.
A broad in some club in Five Points sounds like some broad who got snuffed in Huntcliff.

(01:27:42):
According to you, the accused snuffer.
I go on a quarter of a thing like that, they're laughing my face.
And the assholes...
Please, please, Mr.
Parker, I'm an old man.
It is a fault of me at this time of life to have to explain the fundamental principles ofthe judicial system to a man of your intelligence.

(01:28:04):
Evidence, dear boy.
Evidence.
So find it, you old bastard.
Find it.
Yes, behaving like someone who murdered a woman in order to protest your innocence.
So Richard learns from Forrest Whitaker that the same doctor who signed Eddie's insuranceclaim signed Kay's death certificate and that he's a buddy of Eddie's.

(01:28:29):
And that since the divorce, and we don't get a sense of how long time has passed,Priscilla has moved in with Eddie and they're having a relationship and they have opened a
drug rehab facility together.
It's a leap.
I was just, wait, what?

(01:28:50):
I was like, just, was so, my God.
I flummoxed by this movie and the drug rehab facility is so huge.
It's this massive house on the water, which is convenient.
So Richard could peer at them from a boat with binoculars back to the boats.
It's a little boat, but it's a boat.
Guys, it's just, it's so, it's, mean, here's the problem with this movie.

(01:29:16):
I mean, there's a lot of problems, but here's the real problem.
There's some interesting ideas at the core.
Like,
There's stuff that would work in a really good neo-noir movie, but it executes everythingso badly it's all undone.
like, imagine a guy wants to kill his wife and he manipulates this other guy into sleepingwith her and taking the fall.

(01:29:39):
That's not a bad start.
But then they add this extra layer that Eddie found a lookalike of his wife.
killed her, gave the real-life money to disappear, which she doesn't do.
It's all so needlessly complicated and dumb.
Like, is it one point in the movie where Richard actually asks the question out loud, whydidn't he kill the real Kay?

(01:30:04):
And the movie never answers it!
Nope.
Yeah.
He's not with her.
doesn't want to be with her.
He just left a witness dangling in the wind.
and had to find a substitute K that was close enough to his wife that Richard wouldn'tknow when he went into sleep with her.
And in the meantime, Priscilla is now sleeping with the guy and has gone into businesswith Eddie and like, I mean, she's the dumbest.

(01:30:35):
She'd believe anything anybody tells her.
Like it's just, all these people are so dumb and I...
I can't even, like if she was in on it with Eddie from the start, like if they had knowneach other and were setting up her husband, I would respect her more than, you know, how
stupid she actually is.
It's just.

(01:30:56):
And it's at this point in the film that I'm wondering, did they ever finish thecommercial?
Are they going to sell those skis?
Yes.
to be more neon.
So Richard finally tracks down Kay, the real Kay, who is living in a tiny cottage on theroof of a hotel.
Like it's like the rundown version of Lois Lane's apartment from Superman.

(01:31:18):
It's like on you, you, you get off on the roof and then you walk across to this cottage onthe, on the, on the roof and, he gets there.
He, he, he like literally tries to choke a confession out of her like screaming, don't lieto me.
And she admits to everything and he's behind it all.

(01:31:40):
Well, no shit.
And she helped him establish the alibi.
And then that's when Richard goes downstairs for something.
I don't remember what.
Her phone rings and then she says something.
I don't know what he goes.
Okay, I'll go downstairs and leave my alibi or my alibi.
Leave the one witness who can look at.

(01:32:01):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And then he comes back and she's dead.
There's, there's blood all over her little Lois Lane house and another softball bat at thescene.
Yeah.
Now here's the, and I'm, I am going to get real here for a second.
Look, I know the movie wants to do what it wants to do.

(01:32:23):
Why wouldn't this dead body exonerate him from the previous dead body?
Cause it's at this point, like you now have the real K dead.
And while it looks bad for you, you're already wanted for the other murder, but now youcan go look, see, I told you it wasn't anyway.
It would seem that.

(01:32:43):
It would seem like spacey should have taken like killed her and taken her body.
Like you don't want to leave this evidence here.
Am I crazy or just
killed his wife to begin with.
I don't understand why it's not about killing.
I mean, not that I'm not advocating for that, but in the context of the movie, Iunderstand that plot.

(01:33:05):
I understand a guy wants to kill his wife and set somebody else up for it, and he does itin this way.
I don't understand why he needed a substitute wife.
Like it's just so, God, I don't know.
So.
Priscilla discovers the plane ticket that Eddie used the night that he killed the realKay, so she's now suspicious of him.

(01:33:26):
but can't hide it at all.
Yeah, no, she can't hide it at all.
Like Eddie comes in after she sees that little ticket, and she's like
Of course, Eddie's suspicious.
There's the whole bit where like Eddie pretends to leave the house and drive away, butit's actually like the doctor buddy.
And then Eddie's waiting for her when she opens the door, you all menacing and then, andthe movie ends.

(01:33:53):
Richard infiltrates Eddie's house.
Like he's a commando.
Yeah, he's very Rambo.
It's crazy.
It's good.
This is my favorite part of the movie by the way.
He's got like a rope across, like he looks like it's like the guns of Navarone.
Like he's gonna climb up the thing.

(01:34:15):
so Eddie, but Eddie knows he's coming, right?
So he's waiting there with an Uzi.
Yes, an Uzi.
So like, and he has this whole monologue about how smart he is.
has this whole monologue where he's there.
and how smart he is and how Richard is his puppet and all that sort of stuff.

(01:34:40):
And you know that I can see things, Priscilla.
I can see things nobody can.
I'm so good at predicting.
that I can read tomorrow's headline.

(01:35:02):
A man last night broke into the home of his ex-wife and killed for the third and lasttime.
Arriving tragically too late, Eddie Otis, the woman's...
The dead woman's friend, shot and killed him.

(01:35:25):
man, Richard Parker, was already wanted in connection with several others.
yes, he's here.
He's in the house right now, wondering when he should make his final move.

(01:35:47):
Why?
Because I wanted him to.
He's my puppet.
Here we come.

(01:36:12):
And then Richard leaps out from a completely unexpected direction and starts beating thecrap out of him.
It's amazing.
Yeah, Uzi like then fly hits the ground and flies away is all guns are want to do whenthey hit the ground.
and gets fired.
There's a lot of oozy fire.
Like one's actually hitting anything.
At one point Eddie's just shooting random stuff in the house.

(01:36:33):
And I'm like, dude, this is your house.
Like, what are you doing?
Like if you want to make it look like, you know, self-defense, don't just randomly shootup your own stuff.
Like you're to have to replace them.
Yeah, but the rehab business is going so well that.
You know, people are sheep.
He actually says that people are sheep.

(01:36:54):
and, and guys, there's another softball bat hanging around, you know?
Well, yeah.
Well, you know, cause you know, he, that's his preferred M.O.
You know, so he needs to have it around.
He even says that it's like the real one.
Like this is the one he used.
And I'm like, wouldn't that be in the evidence locker?
Like waiting, awaiting trial?
Like you can't just go get that.

(01:37:18):
But then, you know, of course the bat is there so Priscilla can hit Eddie in the head withit and save Richard at the last minute.
know, live by the softball bat, die by the softball bat.
I, I, I, and then, Oh, Oh, Oh, I almost forgot the final shot.
So they, they survived.

(01:37:38):
We, learned that, that all the charges are cleared.
Richard's been cleared of all charges and we see Richard and Priscilla.
moving into a house in the middle of nowhere.
Like literally it's this long pullback shot.
It's like, it's like, it's like going with the wind.
It's this long pullback shot where you just see like miles and miles of corn around themor wheat or whatever.

(01:38:03):
And they're living in the middle of nowhere.
And it's, I wonder if they even told the daughter where they were moving to.
Yes.
The final signifier of marital bliss is the moving box that says Mr.
And Mrs.
Parker on it because, you know, and then, yeah, you get like this insane helicopter shot,pull back thing where, yes, instead of just wising up, they have to live.

(01:38:29):
They can't have a neighbor or they're just going to get seduced by some other guy in BMXbike shorts.
Yes.
Right.
They're just such easy marks that, you know, any, but, my God, I mean, this, like here'sthe thing about the two movies this week, like Bad Influence, I don't think was a perfect
movie, but, but Consenting Adults makes it look like, well, fatal attraction to beperfectly honest.

(01:38:53):
Like, Consenting Adults does a similar thing so ineptly that by comparison, you know, BadInfluence is, is, is a classic of all time.
It's so crazy to me because there's so many very good people who've done excellent work inevery other part of their career.
And it just shows it like movies are hard.

(01:39:15):
Yeah.
Look, I, you know, it's just you, like you said, a lot of stuff on paper might've lookedlike it was going to work and it just doesn't, doesn't come together.
Colin J.
Pakula had just done Presumed Innocent.
This was literally his next movie.
And I'm like, I don't know, maybe you didn't have the guiding hand of, of, of SydneyPollock.
So it all went off the rails.

(01:39:35):
Who knows?
Well, you what's interesting, just to talk for one second, is that while he is a very gooddirector, I think that it's possible there's a slight mismatch with his style for this
material.
In that the kind of that very classic and methodical direction and crafting of the filmwith the editing works so well with an unfolding mystery like Presumed Innocent.

(01:40:00):
But it doesn't quite always feel up to the task.
This movie is so ridiculous that it
I kind of needed direction that was a little hotter.
He often can feel it's a little colder style.
you know, and I think maybe that had something to do with it.
I don't
those movies he was known for in the seventies, the paranoia are all kind of mysteriesunfolding.

(01:40:24):
it has, it has that to propel it here.
There's no mystery other than why are these people so dumb and why don't they ever work?
Anyway, you know, Hey, it's a, it's a hundred floors of fright.
They're not all going to be winners.
and, it's been a while since we've had a movie that quite made me kind of bang my headinto the against the wall, way consenting adults.

(01:40:48):
A consenting S adults, Chris.
Yes.
So anyway, that I think probably brings us to the end for this week.
We will be back next week with two films that ask the question, what happens with adangerous stranger who gets a foothold into a couple's home and the law actually protects

(01:41:13):
the stranger?
So join us as we discuss Pacific Heights.
starring Matthew Modine, Melanie Griffith, and Michael Keaton, and unlawful entry withKurt Russell, Madeleine Stowe, and Ray Liotta.
Again, thank you so much for listening.
We are your hosts, Chris Iannicone, Rob Lemorgis, and Justin Beam.

(01:41:34):
If you enjoyed the show, please consider subscribing and following us on Blue Sky,Instagram, threads, and Twitter at Get Me Another Pod.
Check out the Justin Beam Radio Hour wherever you listen to podcasts, and you can findJustin's new book,
Roadside Memories at JustinBeam.com or wherever books are sold.
And if you've liked the show, tell your friends about it.

(01:41:54):
Tell your enemies about it.
Tell that charismatic guy who just saved your ass in a bar fight about it, but don't givehim the keys to your car or apartment.
And join us next time as we continue to explore what happens when Hollywood says, get meanother.

(01:42:29):
What's the matter?
me.
Mr.
Rund, I can't...
Remember to be free to soar like an eagle, to slip the surly bonds of earth.
Thank you.
Right?
That's the feel.
Here we go.

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Fatal Attraction Ep. 02 - Bad Influence / Consenting Adults

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Fatal Attraction Ep. 02 - Bad Influence / Consenting Adults