Episode 8: Deal of the Century (1983)

Directed by William Friedkin and written by Paul Brickman, Deal of the Century (1983) is another disappointing entry in Chevy Chase's filmography. He's playing slick arms dealer Eddie Muntz who lucks his way into the titular "deal of the century" where he's partnered with Catherine DeVoto (Sigourney Weaver). His other partner, Ray Kasternak (Gregory Hines), is a loose canon who has an ill-timed spiritual awakening.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Weird.

Speaker 2 (00:43):
Hello everyone, and welcome to the Chasing chevy Chase Cast.
I am your host, Christache from the Culture Cast, and
I am joined by my two good friends. All the
way from the projection booth Mike White.

Speaker 3 (00:52):
Just a little touch up God.

Speaker 2 (00:54):
And all the way from a wake up Heavy a
horror movie podcast, and boy, this movie is a horror RK. Begley.

Speaker 4 (01:00):
This place is hotter than Dolly Purton's Mini pad.

Speaker 2 (01:03):
Wow, boy, I'm so I'm so glad you guys put
in a lot more effort into what you just said
than chevy Chase did into his acting or voiceover. Because yes,
on this show, we talk about movies that star Chevy
Chase his vehicle. Films from a certain time in a
certain place, essentially from foul Play to National Lampoon's Vegas Vacation.

(01:24):
This is smack dab in the middle of that. This
is nineteen eighty three's William Friedkin directed I Think He's
as Confused as we are. William Friedkin directed based on
a screenplay by Paul Brickman. Yes, Paul Brickman, the gentleman
who wrote the screenplay for Risky Business and directed Risky Business.
I'm talking about nineteen eighty three's Chevy Chase, Gregory Hines

(01:46):
and Sigourney Weaver comedy question Mark Deal of the Century.
So Deal of the Century is what Lord of War
would be if Lord of War was bad. I mean
that's I mean, that's maybe being a little hyperbolic. But
Chevy Chase play a arms dealer who happens upon a
deal that allows him to I guess, get the contract

(02:07):
where a big sale of drones to a Central American country. Look,
it's not that I'm struggling with the plot. Yeah, it's
not that I'm struggling with the plot. But the plot
of this movie doesn't matter at all. But all you
need to is Chevy Chase plays an arms dealer who
happens upon a arms deal that is not his. It
is the is a man whose wife is played by

(02:29):
Sigourney Weaver, who shows up throughout the movie. And then
Gregory Hines plays a character who's no longer wanting to
be an arms dealer and wants to be.

Speaker 4 (02:38):
Er Christian.

Speaker 2 (02:39):
Yeah yeah, born again Christian. Yeah boy. If this doesn't
sound like high jinks galore, I don't know what does, Mike.
I'm gonna kick it to you first. Uh, what did
you think.

Speaker 3 (02:49):
I don't know if I had ever seen this movie before.
I think we talked maybe on the folluol Play episode
way back when that I used to get this and
as defense mixed up because of the white guy, black
guy on the cover and also talking about defense and
weapons and those kind of things, I have to imagine

(03:11):
that best defense is Susan Kane compared to this.

Speaker 2 (03:16):
This is the cane from Sinnacia in to this point.

Speaker 3 (03:20):
Oh, this was just wretched, and we touched a little
bit before we started recording. I read the script for this,
the Paul Brickman script, which some people give credit to
Bernard Edelman for this, and I can only imagine that
it's the Bernard Edelman that wrote Dear America, Letters Home

(03:40):
from Vietnam, because this would have been kind of along
the lines of that time period that was eighty seven.
This camp comes out in eighty three, and well, it
was odd because there were a lot of movies that
this reminded me of that were right around the same time.
But with Edelman up his bibliography, could not find any

(04:03):
books or articles or anything where he wrote about defense contractors.
And defense contractors are right before being made fun of
and just there is a lot of potential humor that
could be in this movie, but it is handled so
poorly and so wrong. And that goes all the way
back to this Brickman script, and we'll get into some

(04:25):
of the ins and outs of this stuff, but my god,
the script is a freaking mess. And what you read
in that script is almost verbatim on screen. So shame
on you, Billy Friedkin for not going in and doing
a rewrite of this because it was a fucking mess.
So anyway, I hated this movie, absolutely hated it.

Speaker 2 (04:42):
What about you beg Lee. I don't think anyone would
confuse this movie for a movie that's good at this.

Speaker 4 (04:46):
Point first time watch for sure for me, and like you, Mike,
I would confuse it with best defense, just based on
the poster image, and I warned. I always asked my family,
do you want to watch this one? And I said
it's got ten percent on Rotten Tomatoes, blah blah blah.
Then I mentioned I mentioned the cast, and they're like, okay,

(05:08):
we'll watch it, based mainly on Sigourney Weaver. So that
was their first mistake and so we plugged it in,
turned it on watched it, and my wife at one
point was like, well, it's not that bad, and I'm like, okay.

Speaker 2 (05:21):
Oh wow, all right, it's part of the It's not
that bad club.

Speaker 4 (05:26):
And I didn't want to veheminently disagree with her, But
at that point I was like, man, this is something
is off with this, and it was. I kept thinking
of Doctor Strangelove and how that absurdity in that movie
works so perfectly, and I'm like, this is this is

(05:47):
what this needs. They're not going there, it's not absurd.
They're playing it too straight, but yet they want it
to be funny. But everybody's kind of playing it straight
other than the few Hey we need to have Can
I add something to the program here? We need to
start counting. And I should have done this a long
time ago. I didn't realize it was a thing. How

(06:09):
many times Chivy Chase says gesuntight in a movie punchline, Zake,
this has got to be the fourth or fifth time
he's done that in a film. So anyway, Yeah, it's
a mess. It's a tonal mess. It's uh. The editing
is bizarre. They I'm sorry, Billy, but the direction was

(06:32):
just boring. Lots of static kind of wide shots of
people talking to each other about uninteresting things, and you know,
I don't know. Wallace Sean is wasted in the film.

Speaker 3 (06:46):
Literally, yeah, then is address you and wasted Wallas Sean
is a treasure that should be you know, coveted by everyone.
And then here he yeah, totally wasted. What are you
doing here?

Speaker 4 (06:59):
And it's not very clear that that's Sigourney Weaver's husband
until or Chevy doesn't understand it, but it's pretty obvious
based on his narration that she's married to a guy
that's half her size and twice her age and Waiala
Sean fits the bill perfectly, but he doesn't make that
connection until much later.

Speaker 2 (07:18):
Anyway.

Speaker 4 (07:20):
Oh sorry, I'm rambling on here, Chris.

Speaker 2 (07:22):
What did you think of this?

Speaker 1 (07:23):
Oh?

Speaker 2 (07:23):
Yes, please continue to ramble. I'm not going to stop you.
Uh oh. This is one of the most criminally unfunny
things I've ever seen to be not fun and save
forced because we did this willingly. It's like anyone was
forcing bamboo steaks under my fingers at the same time.
But this is the cinematic equivalent of waterboarding. I mean,

(07:47):
this movie is I don't know what's worse the fact
that it's directed by William Friedkin, or it's the fact
that William Friedkin left his name on Like if I
had been the director of this, I would have done
everything in my power to be like, take my name
off Alan Smithy. I don't care who directed it, just
don't let them put my name on it. Yeah. Look,

(08:07):
for as much as I love Friedkin, for as much
as we can joke about him telling Nicholas Whinding refnue,
I got to go fuck a rolling doughnut off of
a hill. Yo, dude, you made this movie like this
is why he never talks about it, just because he doesn't,
you know what they say though A can't talk about
anymore because he's dead. But be also, it's kind of

(08:28):
hard to talk about a movie that you just don't make,
So just don't make it. And it's shocking because to
your point, Mike was expecting to read the script and
somehow it'd be different. Nope, No, because then it's like, Okay,
it's somewhat defensible because you're like, well, he started off
on good footing and it just got lost in translation. No,
there was no translation for to get lost in This
is exact like I don't know. You know, William Friedkin

(08:52):
is someone who directed like one of my favorite movies,
The Exorcist. I mean, it's like, it's it's a It
is a classic piece of film filmmaking. It is a
piece of filmmaking that has been aped so many times
at this point, and yet nobody can really do it
as well as he did. And yet he also directed
what is one of the worst movies I've ever watched

(09:13):
for anything I've done. And Guys, I hate to say this,
but this is like the second time this has happened
on this show. This is I mean, what's so sad?
And Mike we were talking about this. We did Francis
Weber movies. When comedies are bad, it's like, oh, it's pain,
It's the fucking worst. Like a bad horror movie can

(09:35):
be somewhat salvageable, like, oh, you know, it's fun for
how ridiculous it is, or at least some interesting kills
in a Yeah, in a fucking comedy. If there's no laughs,
what are we here for? Like that's what you're there for.
And if there are none, uh boy, somebody's gonna be
leaving the theater disappointed. And I can imagine going to

(09:59):
see this movie in theaters and just wanting to fucking
wanting to riot what I left to be, Like they
took my money, they took I mean, like this it
feels like robbing people. This movie is to say, it's
an affront is being nice, Like there are scenes that
just end Chevy Chase is. I don't use letterbox, but

(10:19):
when I do, I just like write one word and
one word, one sentence. But it's not anything mean, it's
just like just the feelings like I almost wanted to
put in my review, I alluded to it like this
reminded me of Chevy Chase and O Heavenly Dog is
just thank god the narration wasn't throughout them, because when
he narrates in this movie, it's just the same. It's

(10:40):
the same, just like here I am being forced to
be an actor again and do adr Like, Wow, life
must be hard for you, Chevy Chase. People backing up
a fucking brinkstruck to your house with money to do
his ass movies like this and you can't even be
bothered to really show up. Eh. I guess that speaks
to what everybody else thought about this movie, even the

(11:02):
people making it like that the poster alone with Gregory
Hines and Chevy Chase thumbs up and Sigourney Weaver should
all been thumbs down, all three of them, and I
would have understood exactly what their feelings are in this movie,
because watching it, it's made very clear everybody's either phoning
it in or couldn't be bothered to give a shit.

Speaker 3 (11:21):
Well, even just the pacing of this movie, and again
goes back to the screenplay where you know you're watching it,
you're I don't remember how far into this movie before
Chevy Chase even shows up, And then you're so far
into this movie before uh, Sigourney Weaver shows up. Well,
I guess they show up right around the same time. Yeah,
and then the yeah when they finally connect later on.

(11:44):
But then Gregory Hines as well, he takes forever to
show up, and then I just have to bring it
up right now because I don't want to wait. Richard Libertini.

Speaker 5 (11:54):
I love Richard Libertini, guys, you know, like while I
love him so much, and his character is introduced at
exactly the wrong time in this movie, because when you
introduce him so late in this film, you think that
he's going to be a major.

Speaker 3 (12:11):
Part of the finale of the film. He has absolutely
nothing to do with this movie. He shows up for
one scene and that's it. And the way that they
build to that scene and the way that you think, like, oh, well,
this is going to play into it. No, you could
cut that entire thing out and it would not make
a difference to this But by putting it into that
third act exactly where they put it is exactly the

(12:32):
wrong place to put. That scene could have been earlier,
could have been out of the movie, maybe even as
a final like teaser at the end. I don't care,
but it was just absolutely the wrong thing to do.
And this movie does the wrong thing so many times.
There are so many questions, like I understand, I understand comedy,

(12:53):
and I understand there are times where you do outrageous
things in order to get a laugh, But then there
are times where you know in this world that you
have built for us. When Chevy Chase is showing off
the weapons to these guys near the beginning of the movie, Okay,
that's great, but when he actually uses the and I
know it's not a Bazuka but a Bazuka like weapon

(13:13):
to shoot a jeep, that is obviously a military jeep
down on the street and blow these guys back through
a couple doors. It's a funny visual, but it makes
absolutely no sense for him to be doing that as
part of this arms deal. And that's what this movie
excels in, is moments that just don't make any fucking sense.
I mean, I alluded to a little touch up for

(13:36):
your flame job. We'll talk about that later, but I
could not wait to talk about Libertini and just how
incredibly awful that placement of that scene lot I was.

Speaker 2 (13:48):
When when you waste Richard Libertini in your movie like
fuck You is really like I don't want to like
mark you alluded to in the opening here, like we
may have been dismissive of movies that Chevy Chase was
in in the past. Maybe not dismissive, but maybe a
little hard on him. This movie deserves it. Like I
went and looked because again curiosity killing the cat and

(14:11):
all that, So I went and looked at what else
was out the weekend of November fourth of nineteen eighty three.
So the film that walked away with the box office
was deal of the century. It made three and a
half million dollars at the box office that we want
at about three thousand dollars per theaters on average. The
next film was Never Say Never Again, Oh God, followed

(14:35):
closely by shockingly Richard Pryor Here and Now The Big
Chill and All the Right Moves and then The Dead
Zone and the Right Stuff, followed closely by the Austerman
Weekend Educating Rita, and then ironically at number ten is
Mister Mom but at eleven all better movie.

Speaker 3 (14:54):
Although man, that's what it was, a very ironic, well
easter momb that's really ironic at eleven, making eight hundred
thousand dollars risky business.

Speaker 4 (15:03):
Yeah, those weren't all opening weekends though.

Speaker 2 (15:06):
Right, no, no, no, no, But Deal of Centuries was
opening weekend, right.

Speaker 3 (15:11):
Yeah, that was back when movies would stick around for
a long time. I know you know that, Mark, and
I know you know that, Chris. But for our listeners
back then, yeah, you could be open for weeks and
weeks and weeks, not one of these like in and
out of the box office within you know, a month.
It was more like months that you could have this.
So yeah, having two Paul Brickman movies out at the

(15:33):
same time kind of makes sense, but some of those
are great movies. I love Educating Rita. There's some really
good titles in there. So oh man, I love mister
molm Yeah, oh, mister Mom is fucking fantastic. And yeah,
I love the connection there because as soon as the
one actor shows up, Graham Jarvis, I was just like,
where do I know that guy? From?

Speaker 2 (15:52):
Oh?

Speaker 3 (15:53):
I remember him talking about fish on a commercial. And
then I'm like, okay, there we go, mister Mom.

Speaker 2 (15:57):
I got it. Well.

Speaker 4 (15:58):
It was a little interesting that he's also in Parents
and that fucking music from Parents in there to my
daughter and I'm like, hey, if she watched that with
me back when we did that episode, Chris.

Speaker 2 (16:11):
It feels like a lifetime ago now, but that was
like six six months ago. To answer your question, Deal
a Century that was its opening weekend. Richard Pryor's Here
and Now had been out for two weekends, and the
movie that was the close second, Never Say Never Again,
had been out for over a month.

Speaker 4 (16:26):
So I'll say there's no way it beat a James
Bond movie.

Speaker 2 (16:30):
Yeah, but that James Bond. That's a say that that's
a James Bond movie. That was Speaking of films, that
don't deserve people being diplomatic about it. That may be
one of them. Never say never again. That's the for
those of you that don't know, that's the Sean Connery
Came Back for Money movie, and it has nothing to
do with any of the other James Bond movies literally,
So it feels kind of apropos that this is the

(16:52):
movie that is competing with it at theaters, because that's
the only way this movie could beat a James Bond
movie is if if it was that specific James Bond
movie and.

Speaker 3 (17:02):
Almost Hill went out for a month, right, well, I
was being reminding you mentioned Lord of War, and of
course that's a way better movie about armsteelers. I was
thinking of things like stripes with that RV and that
came out a couple years prior to this. Also, the
same summer nineteen eighty three was the summer of Blue Thunder,
and while they were talking about the drone technology that

(17:25):
they have with the Peacekeeper, I was thinking of that
advanced helicopter that they had in Blue Thunder, which was
again such a better movie than this drones I know.

Speaker 4 (17:37):
I was actually kind of surprised. I'm like, wait a minute,
what year.

Speaker 2 (17:40):
Was this, yeah, nineteen eighty three. Yeah, not thinking about
drone technology in nineteen eighty three really like or at all.
I mean, it is always a little shocking to sear
something so contemporary being model. Yeah you mentioned in this movie.

Speaker 4 (17:54):
I want to throw up a little defense for Billy
friedket Oh, here we goes this kind best defense.

Speaker 2 (18:01):
Yeah, yeah you you you got one shot here man,
don't miss it is so you know, who knows?

Speaker 4 (18:07):
This comes after Cruising, which I don't think did very
well at the months.

Speaker 3 (18:12):
There were so many protests about that.

Speaker 4 (18:14):
And I don't think he I mean, I don't want
to put words in his mouth or anything, but I
think that took a lot out of him. And I
believe this was just a.

Speaker 2 (18:25):
Job for hire.

Speaker 4 (18:27):
Pay the bills because what's his next film? His third masterpiece?
If you asked me.

Speaker 2 (18:32):
So in in In Sorry, that's my only defense. It
is the gays false. I'm just kidding. I know you
weren't saying that, but you're totally right. Like I mean,
for me, Reid Kid is a director that's like hot
or cold, and he's a great director, but even great
directors make bad.

Speaker 4 (18:50):
Movies like he's got Oh, he's got three masterpieces, a
couple of really solid films, and some mediocre films, some
of which I enjoy, and then this. I think I
haven't seen his full body of work, but I would
got to say, I've got to say this is probably
at the bottom.

Speaker 2 (19:09):
I think this is considered to be his worst film period.

Speaker 3 (19:12):
I am curious when you say his masterpieces, because for me,
it's The Exorcist, Sorcerer and Live It to Live and
Die in l A h. Are you okay? Because I
know some people love the French Connection.

Speaker 4 (19:25):
Oh yeah, yeah, it's a that's one of the ones
like Cruising to me, which are I mean, they're good.
I'm not going to argue that they're not good movies.
I mean, Cruising is a is an oddity, but it's
interesting and I enjoy it. It's probably isn't the correct
word French Connection. As far as heist movies go, It's

(19:50):
not one of my favorites. I'd rather watch something like
The Taking of Telling one, two, three over and over again,
which I've done, oh yeah, or The Hot Rock or
some you know, some the ones, some of these heist movies,
if you can call that, I heist movie French connection,
But I most. Yeah, it's never really hit, and I
think it's partly due to Gene Hackman in that film,
which I know is kind of not cool to say

(20:12):
since he won the Oscar for it, But isn't he
the reason you watch that movie?

Speaker 3 (20:16):
Well, Popeye Doyle, it's a weird character though I had
old Yeah, the you ever pick your feet and Poughkeepsie
line like all that. Yeah, Yeah, he's an interesting character.

Speaker 2 (20:27):
I've never seen it. That's one of the movies I've
never seen.

Speaker 3 (20:30):
I've never seen the sequel, which I don't think Freak
had anything to do with.

Speaker 2 (20:34):
Yeah, years ago, random piece of trivia in case anybody
ever asked you, yes, the yes, the yes. In fact,
the fried Chicken joint Popeyes is named for Gene Hackman's
character Yes in The French Connection, which is actually.

Speaker 4 (20:49):
A pop by the Sailor.

Speaker 2 (20:51):
Yeah. Actually fucking insane, it's you know, I think Friedkin
for me is kind of like Ridley Scott, like your
mileage with him is going to vary, and his involvement
in the project does not necessarily mean it is going
to be like somehow better for his involvement. Like sometimes,
like we've already alluded to, he in. I don't think

(21:11):
Freedkin's phoning it in. I mean again, like, what does
that even mean? What does that look like? I think
it speaks volumes that he did not speak volumes about
this movie, given the voluminous way he would talk about
everything else he worked on, and the way that he
would defend the things that he worked on. And I
mean again, as someone who again, like we've already talked about,
made a movie that is in the National Registry like

(21:35):
it's in It's it's in the Library of Congress. The
Exorcis is for good reason. Normally better judgment is given
with something like this, like, like you've already alluded to, Mike,
I think it was so important that we got to
see the script for this movie, because normally, when I
sit down to a movie this unfunny, I wonder, like, well,
it just must have been funnier on the page, like

(21:57):
it must have worked better on the page. No, And
and you know, again we haven't. We've kind of danced
around the issue. And I think one of the biggest
issues with this movie the reason we're talking about it,
which is Chevy Chase. Folks, what what what? Why are
you so uninterested in? What? Was going on Chevy Chase,
like just don't understand it, can't be bothered to care.

Speaker 3 (22:19):
He could have really made this a good role. You know,
this hot whole idea Eddie Months, so you got just
even the name Eddie Months. You know. It's like he
talks at one point about how he doesn't sell used cars,
and which is funny because his brother sells you cars.
He ends up selling used cars. But he's just like, no, no,

(22:39):
I'm not a used car salesman type person.

Speaker 2 (22:42):
But he should be.

Speaker 3 (22:43):
He should be that, you know, wheeling delon. You know,
let's get you into this mine and these grenades, and
you know you could he should be like fucking Stephen
Prince from from from taxi driver. You know, oh you
can go and and hammer and nails with it all
day long and take it out and shoot in or
you know, straight into here. When he's given those minds
to the the I don't know Sandinista basically, I mean

(23:09):
like he should have been like, you know, oh yeah,
go home, take these, you know, play with the kids,
or something like that. He should have been like a
real fucking cynical asshole, who's selling these guns and weapons
and just like fetishizes this stuff. It should have been
Nikolaus Cage, but he's not, and he's so is just
missing the mark completely. That voiceovers should be more hard

(23:32):
boiled or ironic. There should be something to that. I mean,
you even get to the guy who's like the General
Lissimo character, and speaking of Richard Libertini, it should be
the guy from Fucking It should be Richard Libertini from
the in Laws, like it should be that Banana Republic
type of guy here, and it just makes no sense.
And then like they talk about like Viva Libertad and

(23:56):
it's like he know, he says to the guys, he's
selling to both sides, but I don't even know if
the movie really gets that across, that he sells to
both sides, and that he should basically be like Yo Jimbo,
who's like arming both sides of these and just taking money, money,
money from everybody. But like he gets one bucket of
money and then it just goes up in flames, and

(24:16):
it's like, no, it should be Maybe that's the irony
of it is that he keeps getting paid, but every
single time he turns around, the money gets stolen or
lost or blown up or something, but just make it interesting.
And I know that's a lot for me to ask
a movie, but it's like, please give me something to
care about. And then you, I mean, for you, the
problem might be Chevy Chase, but for me, the problem

(24:38):
is Gregory Hines and what the fuck is this character doing?

Speaker 2 (24:42):
Realvie my god.

Speaker 3 (24:44):
And I want to say there was one more scene
of him in the script where like he steals a
plane because he's vary into flying. He loves the freedom
of flying. But you know, if it steals a plane
at the beginning, not at the end. And because when
we're introduced to him again super late in the proceedings,
it's just like, oh, I'm thinking about giving my life
over to Jesus. Like right away he hits you with

(25:06):
that stuff, and you're like, Okay, what's the problem with
this guy? And then he is obviously and not I'm
not bashing religion though I love to do that, he's
obviously mentally unstable. Just with that flamethrower scene, what the
fuck is going on with that? And then it feels
like they didn't have him come back to do adr.
It literally feels like they took bits of that scene

(25:27):
and a few other lines to put for ad R
when he's flying the plane at the end of the movie.
This just felt like a fucking mess.

Speaker 2 (25:35):
Yeah, every you know, like you're like, let's talk about
Gregor Head's Like, man, do we have to because like
I didn't get it. Yeah, I'll get it. Yeah, And
I'm with you. It's it's a waste of his time,
and it's in in conjunction, it's a waste of our
time because like, why is this Like I'm not saying
Chevy Jay's character is interesting, but somehow Gregory Hines's character

(25:58):
is so uninteresting. What Chevy Chase on screen? Please, because
I don't want to see any more of whatever it
is he's selling.

Speaker 3 (26:05):
Make it some sort of thing between him and Sigourney Weaver,
because there's nothing. There's nothing between those two characters. Sorry, Mark,
I cut you off.

Speaker 4 (26:12):
That's okay. I was just gonna say I expected Hines
to be a foil now for the deals like to
undermine Chase because he's had this change of heart and
he's going to these Baptist meetings in a house and
getting baptized in a pool, and he's going to sabotage
the plans, which I guess is sort of what he

(26:34):
does at the end in the airplane. But they're partners.
This should be a problem for their partnership other than
Chevy's going, what are you doing? Whatever his name is
in the film, Ray, What are you doing?

Speaker 2 (26:46):
Ray?

Speaker 3 (26:46):
What are you doing?

Speaker 2 (26:47):
Ray?

Speaker 4 (26:47):
That's all that's the only tension between the two. He
doesn't understand what he's doing. And instead of Gregory Hines
being a foil other than the only foil that chevy
Chase has is himself in the film. And I guess
Sigourney Weaver in a way, but what I don't know
what her loyalty is either.

Speaker 3 (27:06):
Oh yeah, what a waste of a character. Again, You're like,
is she trying to manipulate chevy Chase? At first, yes,
she is, yes, and then she seems to get with
the program way too easily, and like she settles into
this role of I'm going to whine and dine in
sixty nine the General Lissimo so that we can seal

(27:27):
this deal.

Speaker 4 (27:28):
And it was offensive to gotta tell you that was
that seemed was.

Speaker 2 (27:32):
A It was.

Speaker 3 (27:33):
It was very offensive. I mean, just like he expects
her to sleep with this guy, and she just is
like Okay, I'm like, what, like there's a little hesitation,
there's a little thing in there about like, you know, oh,
I feel bad for sending you to do that, but
it is so inconsequential to this movie that should have
been like an emotional core to this that you know,

(27:54):
he is so desperate to make this deal. He does everything,
He betrays Ray, he sells out Missus Devoto, all this stuff.
She is the least grieving widow that I've ever met
in my entire life. I have no idea why she
married Wallace Shawn's character, what she's doing with this stuff.
She's a conniving bitch through half of the movie and

(28:15):
then goes with the program for the rest of it.
And there's no there is no chemistry between her and
Chevy Chase whatsoever in this whole thing. I mean, she
she makes Dana Barrett's character and Ghostbusters, you know, look
like she's so compassionate and like really connects with Bill
Murray what you and it doesn't Like I'm always so

(28:37):
surprised in the second movie when they have a kid together,
because I kept thinking she's going to drop him like
it's hot, because there's nothing between them.

Speaker 2 (28:44):
It's not their kid. Oh it's her kid from another
marriage that then Bill Hurry chooses to raise, which is
even more unbelievable because Bill Murray and kids. Really, yeah,
those two things go together like oil and uh, I
don't know anything else water.

Speaker 4 (29:01):
I guess I kept I kept expecting that scene with
the General Lisimo two because we've got the voiceover dialogue
with all the images playing on the TV screen, and
I thought we were going to have a shot of
them where that's not what they're doing right dialogue, it's
but they can't take they can't do that joke. I

(29:22):
guess I kept waiting for absurdity and absurd jokes and
they just never happened in this And to me, that
would have paid off because for one thing, she's not
actually sleeping with the guy for you know, Chevy Chase,
who's a heel in this movie, and they could have
ended with a laugh. Instead, it was just like, I'm
disgusted by this. Why is she doing this? Because it's

(29:43):
written that way, that's the only reason why this woman
would do this.

Speaker 3 (29:46):
Right, Well, there's the other scenes of potential comedy, like
the peacemaker drone itself not working and you get to
see the crew and the guys that are working on
this with an uncredited Tracy Walfrid Walter.

Speaker 2 (30:00):
Yeah, to see Tracy Walters in this the ie talk
every time. Every time I see him, I think of you, Begley.
I think you're in that Silence of Lambs episode that
we would clip in.

Speaker 4 (30:10):
I know you don't put clips in these shows, Chris,
but you gotta put that clip.

Speaker 2 (30:13):
I guess I should. I should, just because every time.

Speaker 3 (30:16):
A book gets in there.

Speaker 4 (30:20):
And we'll look first sort of talking though, I was like,
where's his accent? You're on the accent well.

Speaker 3 (30:24):
And then Charles Levin, who we just saw in that
gin No Chaser episode of uh yeah, yeah, at least
it's a little more calm in this one.

Speaker 2 (30:32):
By when I saw him, I was like, oh God,
something else that wasn't great. I love being reminded of
bad things inside of other terrible things.

Speaker 3 (30:40):
But like that whole scene of them trying to make
this drone work, but I guess they're more concerned about
the air condition I'm like, I know, tie in the
air conditioning, like there needs to be something there. And
then even when they have the one Busty Lady crash champagne,
you know, like dedicate the peacemaker. I was like, well,

(31:00):
there's your excuse for why it doesn't work. Like this
thing should be so cobbled together with Scotch tape and
you know, hope and paper clips that anything is going
to make it go off. I mean basically it should
be like an AD two o nine, And it kind
of is an ED two o nine at times, and
then other times it's like no, no, it works absolutely fine,

(31:23):
but you know, like what, no, like make this thing,
make Vince Edwards as striker so obsessive about this and
then it has to work. This also, this movie also
reminds me a lot of real genius and this whole
thing of like this laser has to work, and we're
using this laser and it's actually for a military thing
and not for a piece thing. But just like maybe

(31:44):
there's something like that in there. Maybe there's like some
sort of wire or process that always goes wrong and
whenever they hit a certain thing, you know that that
process is going to go wrong. But no, there's nothing. Instead,
they're worried about the air conditioning. The second time it
just kind of goes off the way it's supposed to.
But then destroys this field of other planes. Wow again,

(32:06):
I just I'm lummoxed by just how poorly put together
this is.

Speaker 2 (32:12):
So we know IMDb is the source of trivia, so
I went on there. I went on there. Look and
God's honest truth, did you guys know that this was,
in fact a comedy? Yeah? IMDb is like, this is
a comedic film. I was like, Oh, is that what
this is supposed to be?

Speaker 3 (32:30):
That's what they're trying to do with this. I think
the scene of Rayman Zurich selling guns and then Robert
David Hall, who's just like super twisted and talking about
shooting innocent Pete.

Speaker 4 (32:43):
I wanted to see that movie of his character. And
I know, you know CSI fans will know. I saw
him on the the cast list before we started watching.
I'm like, oh, the corner from CSI is on here,
and I was just waiting for him to show up.
And that character, to me, the guy that gets Obviously
the actor didn't really lose his legs in Vietnam, but

(33:06):
that character to me was what it would be an
interesting movie where this guy gets his legs blown off
in Vietnam and then you know, turns into this arms
dealer selling these weapons of mass destruction and he's in
there for like what a minute? Two minutes?

Speaker 3 (33:22):
If that?

Speaker 4 (33:23):
He was the most fascinating character to me. Oh yeah,
even though that scene was odd, it was incredibly odd.

Speaker 3 (33:29):
And you know that, you know, I mentioned Ed two
o nine and that level of irony, or the irony
of another Verhoven film with Robert David Hall where he
turns around and goes, you know, mobile infant, mobile infantry
is what made me the man I am today. And
he's got no legs and I'm just like, that is
La Chef's kiss to you, Paul Verhoven. Where is that

(33:52):
irony here?

Speaker 1 (33:53):
Man?

Speaker 3 (33:53):
I mean the whole thing? Where uh why am I
blanking Striker's name? Vinca Edwards is is like, oh, oh well,
these drones are great. They never get tired, they don't
shoot in their own officers, they don't bleed, you know.
I'm like, okay, yeah, this it kind of reminds me
of the Ees Corporation talking about making the perfect workers.

(34:14):
You know, they don't have a mouth, they have you know,
six arms so they can do all these tasks. And
like again, like the irony the doctor strange loveiness of it,
the Catch twenty two ness of it. It's like there
are hints in there, but it never really realizes what
this is.

Speaker 2 (34:31):
Why would we we have Chevy Chase in our movie.
We don't have to tries because he has.

Speaker 4 (34:37):
To be flippant. He can't be like Mike was saying,
he can't be the car salesman, which I believe Ed
Months ed Madman Months in real life was a car salesman.

Speaker 3 (34:46):
He was.

Speaker 4 (34:46):
Yes, yes, I guess that's the gag there.

Speaker 3 (34:49):
That I remember that mostly from porclips now because it
was Months' that occurts. Yeah, he got out of the
car business. Then he got out of the car. Never
get out of the car.

Speaker 4 (34:59):
But he doesn't he doesn't play he can I guess
he can't play the goofball? Does he ever play the goofball?

Speaker 2 (35:04):
Yeah? It is Clark c that's Clark Griswold. Like that's
like as much of a goofball as Chevy Chase is
willing to allow himself to be.

Speaker 4 (35:11):
Yeah, but he's still kind of flippant there too.

Speaker 2 (35:14):
Yeah, well he has to be flippant, like that's the
like and that's the thing you just you alluded to. It.
Look at what's on other look at what is on
either side of this movie. In his filmography, the Last
Movie We Watched, which is ostensibly one of his most
famous movies, followed by again I think his second most
famous role. Now, I mean, look, I didn't realize that

(35:36):
as a as a precocious youngster, me liking Fletch would
be me liking the best movie Chevy Chase has ever made.
But I guess that ended up being the fucking case,
because I haven't seen anything yet that we've watched that
can hold a candle to vacation, let alone the next
movie we're going to watch. Because the fact that this
is in between them, this is the proverbial shit sandwich

(35:58):
like complement sandwich good bad beyond belief, and then good
on the other side. Like this chevy Chase is doesn't
make this movie better, He actively makes it worse. And
again it goes back to this idea, at least for me,
of like why are you here not not participating? Like
I get that you're a cool guy and being apathetic
is cool, but how can you be so apathetic you

(36:19):
don't even show up to be in the movie, Like
that's a whole, that's a I mean, I'm impressed that
they still paid you. But Jesus Christ, I was.

Speaker 4 (36:27):
Curious and I didn't say it in the trivia and
I didn't really look it up, but I was curious
to see if he had a real foot injury that
required the cast, because.

Speaker 2 (36:36):
That gag wasn't so funny to do it. Price in
the movie hucked me yu.

Speaker 3 (36:41):
It is in the script having the cast, so I
don't think it was like Richard Dreyfus in The Big
Fix or something where they had to work that into it.

Speaker 4 (36:51):
Yeah, it seemed weird.

Speaker 3 (36:53):
It was very weird to do that. And then I
think it's supposed to be very funny, and the way
that that Freed can shoot it is not funny because
the whole thing of them putting a cork in the
hole that she shot in the cast the second time,
it's like, I think it's a line that he says,
is that a cork. I'm like, that should have been

(37:14):
the funny part. That should have been a close up boom,
put that cork in there, funny sound effect of the
quirk going in, nothing, absolutely nothing, And instead it's almost
upsetting with the way that the blood shooting out of there.
It should have been like the blood shooting out of
the guy's nose and modern problems, you know.

Speaker 2 (37:30):
Right, which I think might be a better chevy Chase. God,
it is, it is. It's It's not that it's not great.
It's actually a funnier movie too, which is like an
even more of an affront to good senses. I genuinely
think that, and I've been we've been getting there this

(37:51):
year and some of the stuff that we watch this
is similarly to Casina Reale, which we watch for ranking
on Bond. This is, without a doubt, one of the
worst things I've ever watched to talk about with anybody else.
That is a mainstream Hollywood film, That's the other qualifier
that needs to be given. This is directed by William Friedkin,
with Chevy Chase and Sigourney Weaver and Gregory Hines, not

(38:13):
nineties chevy Chase, like chevy Chase again at ostensibly what
would be the height of his power as an actor.
He's about to be in his biggest role, effectively his
sole vehicle movie that then they would spin off a
movie that's not good. But even Fletch Lives makes this
like Fletch Lives looks like the fucking mona Lease in

(38:33):
compared to this, Like, what's effectively, you know, two gorillas
in a fucking pen throwing shit at a canvas and
claiming it's art. Like, I just I know why I've
never seen this movie now, and I know, like it's
self explanatory why this movie is not talked about. But
Freedkin of all people should have written at least something
about it in this book. That's like, you know, how

(38:55):
much of a glaring emission it is that you don't
write anything about it, Pal, Like, come on, now, you
have something to say about everything else, but this, What
did you just fall asleep for eight months and then
wake up? What are you a bear? Did you hibernate?
For fuck's sake?

Speaker 3 (39:08):
What was the other one? The Guardian? He doesn't talk
about either.

Speaker 4 (39:11):
That's that's kind of a fun, quirky Yeah, I don't
want a movie problem with that. Yeah, Like Bug, I mean,
those are kind of two of the odd ball ones
that I was mentioning earlier. Bug and the Guardian are weird.

Speaker 2 (39:23):
I love the Killer. Killer Joe's kind of a comedy,
Like Killer Joe is kind of It's like it's as
comedic as anything Freed can really make sow itch is
to say, like, fucked up you do.

Speaker 4 (39:35):
Maybe he just can't do comedy. I don't know. You
mentioned the sound effect for the quirk, and I was
kind of surprised to hear the boying is down to falls.

Speaker 3 (39:43):
These bulk things were out of roll. Yeah, I mean
when the yeah, the sound effects around the peacemaker, I mean,
like again, it reminded me so much of ED two
o nine, like when ED finally powers down and you
get that noise going, and it's like that is funny.

(40:04):
And yeah, they're adding the boying in here, and you're like,
I'm not kidding that this thing is that out of control?

Speaker 4 (40:10):
Like this isn't looney tunes. You haven't played any you have,
I think earns you haven't earned the looney tune noises
here with this because you're not going absurd enough.

Speaker 2 (40:20):
Well they have. I mean this is a film made
by Warner Brothers, so they've got access. So yeah, it's true. Yeah,
I mean they're like, hey, what would be funnier other
than some like boing boying noises and nothing? Nothing. I mean,
Chevy Chase could be funny if he tried, But you know,
fuck trying. Am I right, there's something And we've brought
this up like over and over again with chevy Chase,
and it's it's interesting to me how apathetic he comes

(40:43):
across in these movies and like we I know that
it's his act. Like look in Fletch there is a
kind of a note of that, but man, people really
misread what made chevy Chase appealing. Is what this feels
like like watching this movie and knowing that again like
chevy Chase, that they when you watch a movie, it's

(41:03):
hard to sit if you don't watch movies a lot
and realize that, like the movie didn't just happen in
one day. This movie happened over days, months, a year,
even like years, it takes years from something to go
from script to screen, sometimes decades even development hell is
a thing. And the thing that is shocking to me

(41:25):
is that people sat every day and worked on this
movie for months, and by the end of it, anybody
was willing to show up to the premiere because this
movie is just it's like again, like criminally unfunny, to
the point where if I was Chevy Chasing Gregory Hines
and Sigourney Weaver, if this movie got a premiere and
it premiered and they were there, I would want I

(41:46):
would be squirming in my seat the whole movie. I
would want to be anywhere but in the room surrounded
by people who are also squirming in their seat because
they're being forced to watch my movie. That is, they're
going to have to be like, oh, that was great.
Can we talk about anything else now? Can we just
be what are you working on now?

Speaker 1 (42:03):
Like?

Speaker 2 (42:03):
Got anything else going on? Like anything but this? Because
it's it's rare that I find a movie that is
this bad. But here we are.

Speaker 4 (42:12):
This was a Warner Brothers film, right.

Speaker 2 (42:14):
Yeah, Warner Brothers Archive was selling it. Are you?

Speaker 4 (42:17):
Are you suggesting that it should have been zas lobbed?

Speaker 2 (42:20):
Oh, in this day and age, it would have. Yeah,
back Girls being backgirl may have been a fucking nice
thing to do to a movie like this.

Speaker 4 (42:30):
And yes, people, I know that he was not the
head of Warner Brothers back in nineteen eighty three, so
you can save your an.

Speaker 2 (42:36):
Maybe he should have been just to say things like
this didn't get made.

Speaker 4 (42:41):
You know this this, I wouldn't have been mad about
this being ditched for text right off purposes to be honest,
with you.

Speaker 2 (42:49):
I mean kind of feels like it was given how
little money the movie like, and again, what's weird to me?

Speaker 4 (42:54):
I was surprised it was number one. Yeah, any point
it's released.

Speaker 2 (42:58):
It made a third of the money. Is ever going
to make that first weekend? It's you know, I probably
speak for the three of us and that like, sitting
down to do this show, we're like, well, maybe we're
going to find something that they, like the world had
slept on. Just you know, again, like not to say
that we're like geniuses or anything. You can call us that.
We don't want to self declare it, but like there's

(43:19):
always the opportunity for something like this to be like, oh,
you know, everybody's kind of slept on it, but that's okay.

Speaker 3 (43:26):
Well yeah, as a stable genius, I wanted to talk about.

Speaker 2 (43:30):
The very stable genius the.

Speaker 3 (43:32):
Arms deal Dealer Convention. I mean again, that should have
been hilarious, Like there should have been so many weird
weapons or like just overkill type of fit.

Speaker 2 (43:44):
Been the Zucker Abram Zucker thing. It's sure as hell
would have been well, like.

Speaker 4 (43:48):
Even loading in an elephant or something, do something with
the with the weapons, right, do you know.

Speaker 3 (43:53):
What It reminded me of a reminded me of the
convention that they have in the Conversation the Francis Porcopola film,
where it's all of these different gadgets that they're doing,
and like, you know, you've got Alan Garfield there and
he's trying to sell you with something. But I again,
it doesn't make any sense that you have Chevy Chase
trying to sell the electrocuting urinal to these guys when

(44:16):
he's supposed to be there and in the next shot
he's there kind of whining and dining in the general
Lisimo guy. I'm like, well, why didn't you get somebody
who was actually fucking funny to do this urinal gag?
But yeah, give me like five of those gags. Give
me five different things that are ridiculous crazy. Yeah, like
you're saying, like an elephant, maybe it's an it looks

(44:38):
like an elephant, but it's actually this thing, you know,
like or something. Give me something to handle with, this,
something to laugh at.

Speaker 2 (44:48):
I don't think that William Friedkin was the right choice
for this movie.

Speaker 3 (44:53):
I but again, it goes back to that fucking shits
back to this and I don't see where Robert Town
had anything to do with this either. He got an
uncredited rewrite in here. I'm like, no, what I read
is basically what we ended up with.

Speaker 4 (45:07):
Yeah, that's like I mentioned to you pre recording. I
was expecting to hear sort of.

Speaker 3 (45:14):
Like with oh the uh under the Rainbow.

Speaker 4 (45:18):
Yeah, where things were excis that made it make sense,
That made it funnier that maybe we're a little raunchy that.

Speaker 2 (45:27):
I mean, all those scenes that just ended maybe had
something else to.

Speaker 4 (45:30):
Them, or you know, there the scenes weren't connecting either,
and I'm like, there's got to be some connective tissue
here that's missing. Maybe this reads in that absurd tone
that I felt was missing. Maybe it reads that way
and it's it's the actors, it's the director that they're
just not going there. But it sounds like, no, none

(45:52):
of that was true. So I'm glad I.

Speaker 2 (45:55):
Didn't know well, and like, like we've alluded to, like
the fact that we we a we Mike, you were
able to find the script like yeah that we know
where they're not the blame as it were, but we
know where the idea fomented from and where it starts,
and you know where where it starts. Does this look
you know, Paul Brickman wrote Risky Business. Paul Brickman probably

(46:18):
known for Risky Business, probably because everything else that he
wrote or directed and wrote not nearly as well received
or even known at all. Unless someone here is a
fan of the bad news of Breaking and Training.

Speaker 3 (46:34):
Well, you know, I love Citizens Band, I absolutely love
that film. We've talked about that.

Speaker 2 (46:39):
Did he write Citizens Band?

Speaker 3 (46:41):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (46:42):
He wrote, Oh I guess yeah, handle with care, right, yeah, okay, right.

Speaker 4 (46:45):
I have a pet spot for bad means bears and
breaking training that yeah, same here, that's a childhood thing.

Speaker 2 (46:52):
But like they're nothing. None of those are risky Business, though,
is what I mean? Like Risky Business is like that's
that's the thing, like written and directed by You would
assume that guy who wrote and directed Risky Business would
have been able to do something he peaked.

Speaker 4 (47:05):
He'd pepped it there because it's Citizens Band, which we
all enjoyed, bad newspapers and Breaking Training, which Mike and
I like, and then Risky Business, which you could call,
you know, a classic eighties teen sex romp, and then
nothing else after that.

Speaker 3 (47:21):
Yeah. Worth note it is very funny to me to
look at the composer of this, Arthur B. Rubinstein, and
that he wrote five scores in nineteen eighty three or
was credited for five scores in eighty three, and including
one that I've already mentioned, Blue Thunder, and another one

(47:42):
that this somewhat reminded me of, which was war Games.
War Games where it's incredibly deadly serious, though there are
some funny bits to it. They managed John Badam managed
to balance those things out very well. Badam even did
Blue Thunder. It's like, give this movie to fuck John
Badam and see what he could do with it. And

(48:02):
I would hope that somebody would rewrite this before it
finally came out, because I remember even reading the script
and I was confused about that whole Koshogi thing, the
Richard Lambertini section. I was looking at page numbers thinking
that I was missing pages because it was so abruptly
in and out of the script. And there's also a

(48:23):
moment where I was like, was that the general's name?
Did I screw up?

Speaker 5 (48:27):
No?

Speaker 3 (48:27):
They just drop a character in and then take him out.

Speaker 2 (48:30):
And with something like this, I think, you know, like
you mentioning John Badam, like the thing that bothers me.
Maybe the most about this movie. And I think just
in general now having done this so long, like yourself,
when a director refuses to talk about a movie like
you want to tell us why it is like this,
because you're getting an opportunity, in your words, to tell us, bro,

(48:51):
like this is your this is your shot to crow
and say and blame. I mean not saying blaming anybody
else is okay, but like this is your chance to
do it. If you're gonna write a book yourself and
someone's asking you to write a book about your career,
you have the opportunity. I mean even look, even David
Lynch has talked about Dune finally in the in the
last like six months, even he's kind of finally decided

(49:14):
to you know, oh, well, though Dune's making money now,
I guess I can talk about it. I mean, you know,
don't want to be that guy. But it also kind
of feels a little bit like that. But I think
to your point, like Freedkin brings nothing to this project,
and I don't understand his involvement just based on the
subject material, because yeah, like someone else would have been
better suited to direct something like this just based on

(49:35):
the subject material. This is so kind of I know
Freedkin likes to work on kind of just whatever he
wants to work on, but like, I really wish we
could know what drew him to this project. And again,
if he's unwilling to talk about it, we will never
know because there doesn't. I looked, I'm sure we all
looked like there is very little about this movie on
the internet in way of like information about it other

(49:58):
than other other kind of review sites having kind of
corelated some of the stuff that's out there. But because
Friedkin refused to talk about it, we don't get to
hear from the horse's mouth why it is this way.
And this is one of those movies that I'm like
oddly perplexed by and kind of wish there was more
about it because yeah, like you said kind of in
the opening, like it's like it's like that scene of

(50:19):
silent Bob and the Simpsons just walking onto a rare
not silent Bob, sideshow Bob stepping on a rake over
and over again, Like how did you make every wrong move?
Every time you had an opportunity to make a movie,
you made the wrong one.

Speaker 3 (50:33):
Yeah, and he had no problem bad mouthing other.

Speaker 2 (50:36):
People, right, does what I mean, like the thing with
Nicholas Winding Refin, Like are you insane? It's like, friedkin,
are you fucking with us? Cause like you made a
movie that I is indefensible as a film. Frankly, like
it's an indefensible piece of filmmaking that when I was
watching it last night, after having spent the day watching
other movies, I was like, this is the worst thing

(50:58):
I've watched today in a good while. Frankly, at this point.

Speaker 4 (51:03):
Are we going to get any lower in this?

Speaker 1 (51:06):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (51:06):
I don't I don't think so.

Speaker 3 (51:09):
I really hope not.

Speaker 2 (51:10):
God even nothing but Trouble is at least bizarre, Like
at least it's just a it's a it's a fucking
weird movie, but in it being a weird movie, okay,
Like that's the other thing, Like this doesn't even take
any chances or do anything that's I don't know that
it's not a failure in a way that's at least interesting.
It's just kind of like it just kind of farts
along and then just just like shit shits itself before anything.

(51:32):
It shits itself long before anything interesting can even happen.

Speaker 3 (51:35):
Mm hmm, Yeah, you get those weird scenes like Gregory
Hines reading all the specs for the weapons and things.
Then he's able to just jump in there with all
the facts and like, Okay, well that's cool. But maybe
that's not his character, because his character, to our point
from earlier, has become born again and he's trying to
get himself out of the arm selling business. Feels like

(51:56):
it could easily do that. It feels like another character.

Speaker 2 (52:00):
It's like the mob, Mike. Do you know once you're
in you can't leave.

Speaker 3 (52:03):
Yeah, I guess. So it should have been another character
who is this kind of you know, interesting autistic type
ray Man type character that they can give all this
material to and he can spit all out all these
facts for it. Having that be the ray character doesn't
really make a lot of sense, and especially because that's
like a superpower he suddenly has in this movie that

(52:24):
we've never seen and never experienced before.

Speaker 4 (52:27):
It could have been ray Man Zeric. Maybe packin and
be the idiot savant.

Speaker 3 (52:31):
That works for me. He did a decent job for
the one scene that he was in, and I thought
that was nice irony of him selling all these weapons.

Speaker 4 (52:39):
I kind of forgot that he dabbled in movies. Trying
to think of another example, and I can't shook. I
should have looked it up beforehand, but I know he
appeared in a handful of films over the years.

Speaker 2 (52:51):
Man with ten percent on Rotten Tomatoes is rough. That's
that is, that's that's I mean, it makes sense though,
after you watch the whoh oh yeah yeah. As much
as I dismissed Rotten Tomatoes as a thing, it's kind
of nailed it on this one. I think it's kind
of a good thing. This movie is hard to fight. Like,

(53:12):
I'm glad that this movie is not necessarily easy to find,
because the less people who stumble upon this film the better.

Speaker 3 (53:18):
Like I definitely remember it at the video store. I
remember that Yep, Fox cover very very well.

Speaker 2 (53:24):
That should have been that should have been the Chasing
Chevy Chase podcast album art because the three of us
doing that, and then one of us, but it's all
three of us doing the thumbs fucking down. But yeah,
I can't, I honestly can't even believe Warner Archive was
selling this at one point, Like who, I want to know,
Warner Archive, tell me how many people bought this? Please
tell me? Like ten people. It was reissued in twenty fourteen.

Speaker 4 (53:47):
What, I'm surprised I didn't watch it as a kid,
to be honest with you.

Speaker 2 (53:50):
I'm surprised it wasn't I'm surprised it wasn't mentioned by
you guys like that, like it was on TV all
the time, Like.

Speaker 4 (53:56):
Never saw it on cable and never bothered to rent it,
even though I felt like I was a Chivy Chase
fan fan.

Speaker 2 (54:03):
Maybe you heard you knew the subconscious time.

Speaker 3 (54:06):
Maybe maybe it feels like I might have seen this
on cable, but I definitely when I was watching it
for the first well, what when did I watched it yesterday?
It felt like the first time I was watching it, and.

Speaker 4 (54:16):
I know it's the first time for me a lot
in September. I didn't recognize anything.

Speaker 2 (54:22):
Wow, any movie that bothers ray Man Zeric enough to
have him show up in it is fine by me. God, yeah,
I honestly thought that O Heavenly Dog was going to
be kind of the low point. But even God, Oh
Heavenly Problems. Yeah. Well, but that's the thing, like Modern
Problems wasn't really that bad in retrospect comparatively to this,

(54:45):
At least Modern Problems had a plot that I could follow.
At Least Modern Problems didn't, like have three acts that
made no sense together, as if they made any sense
alone separately. Yeah, I don't. At least, you know what.
At least Modern Problems had Dadney Coleman in it a
weird which Dadney Coleman nonetheless now rest in peace. Dabney Coleman.

(55:08):
On top of everything else, since we've started the show,
Dabney Coleman has passed away. So Jesus. Yeah, I did
wonder though, because this was the other thing that was
rolling through my head. If if Eddie Murphy had been
in this movie, it wouldn't have even salvaged it. If
they had somehow got Eddie Murphy into Gregory Hines role,
would it have been any better? Probably would have been

(55:29):
worse because they've been like, look, it's Eddie Murphy and
Chevy Chase in this movie together, and it's terrible.

Speaker 3 (55:34):
Oh yeah, I mean it's already a waste of Gregory.
It's a waste of everybody's time. Sigourney Weaver deserves better,
Gregory Heines deserves better, Walter deserves better. I mean, everybody
deserves better. In this movie with the exception av of
Chevy Chase ring Scared. I wanted to say was like
Aby five or eighty six, eighty six?

Speaker 4 (55:56):
Man, Yeah, you want to see Gregor Hines in a
good bomedy a movie, yes, or Cotton Club. Not for
a comedy, but for a good Gregory Hines performance.

Speaker 2 (56:06):
God? What else?

Speaker 3 (56:07):
Dirty work? Not dirty work?

Speaker 4 (56:10):
White Knights, Yeah, Man, talk about a talented guy, but
this is just.

Speaker 2 (56:15):
Like, Yeah, I haven't seen Gregory Heines in enough stuff.

Speaker 3 (56:19):
Well, even Eve of Destruction he was better in. Mmm.

Speaker 4 (56:22):
God, I haven't seen him in decades.

Speaker 2 (56:24):
I haven't seen him in enough stuff to have an
opinion about him. But he's like, this would not be
the movie to base any opinion of anybody for their
acting abilities, Like now Jesus crrect out running.

Speaker 4 (56:36):
Scared Chris So it's fun. It's a great one in there,
Ap Joey Pants, Yeah he's.

Speaker 3 (56:44):
Jerry Smith's one of his ROOZI rolls. Oh yeah. John
Greese is amazing in that.

Speaker 4 (56:49):
Dan Hadea, Jimmy Smith's, Larry Hankin call your Kalfa.

Speaker 3 (56:54):
Yes, oh yeah, I forgot damn Kalpa's in there.

Speaker 4 (56:57):
Oh yeah, Larry Hankin and Don calf A, people that
I confuse in my brain.

Speaker 3 (57:04):
So that's right, because it's Calfa that serves Billy Crystal
the papers in the uh or no, Gregory Hines the
papers in the Washing Out.

Speaker 2 (57:14):
Maybe Tracy Walters made it out light from Deal to
the Century, just uncredited.

Speaker 3 (57:20):
Fornee Murray aim on the Air.

Speaker 4 (57:23):
That's okay, I mean, and it's not a bit. I
mean it's a it's a small role, but he's in
two or three scenes.

Speaker 3 (57:29):
He's got lines.

Speaker 4 (57:30):
Yeah, and he's got lines. So I found that uncredited
thing to be odd.

Speaker 2 (57:34):
You mean that movie I did with the director who
did that movie Bug.

Speaker 4 (57:37):
Sometimes sometimes there's like leaves and things in there.

Speaker 2 (57:41):
Fucking freaking man. Yeah, you know what.

Speaker 4 (57:45):
This was the same year as Repo Man, I believe,
so at least I agree read that.

Speaker 3 (57:49):
Yeah, and at least Chevy had vacation same year and
Fletched the year after. Oh right, that's eighty four. Sorry,
I think Fletch was two years later. Oncelet five eighty five. Yeah, Well,
when I take a fan to regroup after this, take
a fucking break after this movie.

Speaker 1 (58:06):
For a while.

Speaker 3 (58:07):
The only thing he's credited for in eighty four is
the Ghostbusters video.

Speaker 4 (58:11):
Oh sorry, Mark over you, that's okay. I just said, Uh,
we should have watched Repo man.

Speaker 2 (58:18):
I should have watched anything other than this, Like, yeah,
it happens with these uh these kind of podcasts, these
theme podcasts.

Speaker 4 (58:27):
Yeah, we have to watch everything, which I kind of
hate talking about movies. I don't like you're dragging on
it the whole time. You know, it can't be fun.

Speaker 2 (58:36):
But here's the other thing in reality though, a we
didn't sit the entire time and make fun of it,
which is literally what anybody else would have done, and
be more than anything else. I'm just I'm just shocked
at this movie plus like this, yeah, more than anything else,
because again, if there's you know, if this is like
David Venture refuses to talk about it, but everybody else does,

(58:57):
that's one thing. But nobody has said anything about this,
So it's just like it's a movie that doesn't surprise me.
It doesn't surprise me, but I wish somebody would say
something other than nothing.

Speaker 3 (59:08):
It was bad oral history of deal of this. You're
not going to see that by Vanity Fair.

Speaker 2 (59:18):
Yeah, boy, that's your first book, Chris, get it? God?

Speaker 4 (59:22):
Can you imagine we're tracking these people down. You know,
our friend refused to talk to you, our friend.

Speaker 2 (59:29):
Ryan Voll of Someone's Favorite Productions contends that every movie
is someone's favorite movie.

Speaker 4 (59:34):
All right, yeah right, But but.

Speaker 2 (59:37):
Could this really be someone's favorite movie? I'm sure I
want to meet that I want to meet that person though,
and ask them just tell me, tell me what's great?

Speaker 4 (59:47):
We got IMDb somebody. Uh there was like a ten
ten out of ten.

Speaker 3 (59:52):
Review user review of this.

Speaker 2 (59:54):
Wow that real? Is that for real? I'm nails the world?
Please tell me? Oh office, Yeah, here you go, office
space for the Defense. This is a must seat ten
out of ten. This is a must seat for any
Chevy Chase fan or anyone who has ever worked at
a large defense subcontractor office light, all those locked employees.

(01:00:17):
I've worked at big companies, both defense and commercial, and
this movie portrays them quite accurately. That may be true.

Speaker 4 (01:00:25):
That may be true, because that is the potential for
the comedy.

Speaker 3 (01:00:29):
I mean that that we start off this movie with
the commercial for you for them, you know, yeah, that
whole thing I mean, And it's very similar to how
Real Genius starts off with that whole idea of the
you know, the the guys that are out and fighting
in these planes and things, and it's just like, yeah,
defense contracting can be a funny thing. We've seen other

(01:00:52):
movies that handle this and handle it so much better,
and the irony should have been off the charts with
this thing. These guys are out there selling weapons of
destruction to people that shouldn't have these weapons. I mean
they even make a comment at one part that the
General Lisimo can't even spell his own name, but yet

(01:01:12):
we're selling all of these dangerous weapons to them. Yeah,
that's where the comedy can come from, guys. That's also
where the pathos can come from. But there's neither comedy
nor pathos in this entire film.

Speaker 2 (01:01:24):
This movie is for people who want to learn about
the ugly convergence of business and war, peppered with a
handful of great jokes about the subject. Head out of ten,
this movie is they're not being hyperbolical, brilliant. This movie
is brilliant.

Speaker 3 (01:01:41):
This movie also makes a very strong moral point about
the military industrial complex that should be taught, whether with
this movie or not, to all people before they are
allowed to vote.

Speaker 2 (01:01:52):
This is this is actually the best part here to
bring this all full circle, so this is written in
September fifteenth of two thousand and five. Why is that
important to life? As line of this review gives you
an idea why the movie Lord of War with Nicholas
Cage is about to be released and from the trailer
it looks like the writers saw a deal of the
century and decided to update him for two thousand and five.

Speaker 4 (01:02:14):
Yeah, hey, prove that's not true, Kerk.

Speaker 3 (01:02:19):
So are there are multiple ten nunt of tens because
you just combined two of them? Oh, Paul, Yeah, there's
another thing.

Speaker 4 (01:02:26):
That has spoiled those people's favorite movie.

Speaker 3 (01:02:28):
Some movies completely understood compared con according to flip hop
from September fifth, two thousand and five.

Speaker 2 (01:02:37):
According to J. R. Williams, fifty one doll and in
all Cats, Chevy Chase, Sigurdy Weaver and Gregory Hines stir
up a real deal. The absolute beautiful Catherine Devoto played
by Sigourdy Weaver is a total dream girl gun carrying
and this is my favorite submissive femis. Oh she's a
dread wise lovely.

Speaker 3 (01:02:57):
When traudwives care Gunzo, well boy, they should. They should
know how to strip and uh whatever they need to do.

Speaker 2 (01:03:08):
Yeales cleaning him sis sane.

Speaker 3 (01:03:10):
Yes, this left wing comedy is so very boring that
it doesn't even have the strength to properly annoy me.
It supports for communist rebels, and it's disdained for Reagan
and everything that he stood for is just so idiotic.
And troit Weaver is her usual uncharismatic self, and Chase
has never been this unfunny. But there's hardly anybody who

(01:03:33):
would have been funny in this script. And it amazes
me that it actually went through the last draft of
the script and actually thought, yeah, this will be good.
It's so funny that they went for the leg you
do it right down my body? No, those feedor eight
from eight jan two thousand and seven.

Speaker 2 (01:03:51):
This is honestly, this typing, this is the funniest shit
to be because again speaking of where this is in
Chevy Chase's career, if you are at all a Chevy
Chase fan and enjoy his older work, now in parentheses
they put Caddy shack, Letch and et cetera, his older
work that was the eighties. He's still working technically, then

(01:04:14):
this is definitely worth renting. And older work is Caddyshack
and Fletch Caddyshack is ostensibly one of chevy Chase's like
earlier things.

Speaker 4 (01:04:23):
No, like, there's only three years separating this from that,
so it's not old, it's it's contemporary work.

Speaker 2 (01:04:29):
No, his older Caddyshack is his older He never made
anything after Fletch Bad Way, that's his older works. If
only that word, if only the next thing we were
talking about is the last thing we were talking about, Boy
Got Well, anyone who likes Family Guy or Futurama will
have a good chance of appreciating this movie. Eighteen of
twenty seven people found this review helpful. So you know,

(01:04:52):
if at least nineteen people who listen to this find
this helpful, will have been at least one more helpful
than the person who gave this movie a ten out
of ten in two thousand and five. Mind you, when
other movies had come out, plenty of them, Frank.

Speaker 4 (01:05:05):
One other movies.

Speaker 2 (01:05:07):
The other movies existed in two thousand and five. Yeah, yeah, I.

Speaker 3 (01:05:10):
Think I think we are just about to crack nineteen
as far as our list their base. So maybe we
get twenty people that find this podcast interesting.

Speaker 4 (01:05:19):
Those thumbs up smash that like button mics.

Speaker 2 (01:05:24):
Make our show the deal of a century of podcasts
now though though we haven't, we'd have to stoop pretty
low at this point to even subter ratecot Oh, chevy
Chase Man, chevy Chase is not trying.

Speaker 4 (01:05:38):
So let me propose this our next I'm thinking about
this last night, and I believe there's some crossover. The
next series should be dan Ackroyd Films.

Speaker 2 (01:05:48):
Oh god, only if we get to cover that video
of dan Ackroyd talking for two hours in a hotel
room about aliens and chain smoking, like forty well, I
hear that, see that one, lazy gentlemen. My name is
dan Ackroyd, and I believe in aliens. Boy, we're off
to a good start here, dan Wow. Yeah. But that's
the thing, Like dan Akward always strikes me as like

(01:06:10):
a genuine human being, and maybe chevy Chase is now,
but like, I don't think dan Akred would do something
he doesn't, not that he doesn't believe in twenty sixteen Ghostbusters.
I give what you're saying, I give, but like dan
Akward's always I at least know that dan Akward is
kind of always at least showing up as dan Acrid
chevy Chase. It's like why are you here? I have

(01:06:30):
the money they're paying me. Okay, I hear you. Somebody
paid him for this movie. Somebody made money. Well, somebody
spent money to make this movie. And every day they
looked at those dailies and they were like, we are
in so much trouble.

Speaker 3 (01:06:44):
I think what the problem was that this was written
by leftists with the communist agenda who just wanted to
make fun of our dear President Reagan.

Speaker 2 (01:06:53):
Oh I thought that this was in fact about Donald Trump. Somehow,
just in nineteen eighty three, somehow tie it back. We'll
just tie it all ties back in the end leftist agenda. Boy,
if this is the leftist agenda, they got us all wrong.
The leftist deal of the century is our bible. This
is the sacred text for the leftist agenda. God, it

(01:07:16):
doesn't even hit that now, who could be who could
be offended by this movie?

Speaker 3 (01:07:22):
Like, I mean the two times that they reference Reagan
where they actually have clips of Reagan, and I mean
it just fits with everything that they're saying in the movie. Now,
very ironic, Yeah, right, spiel.

Speaker 4 (01:07:36):
Basically that's what they're doing.

Speaker 2 (01:07:38):
It's very toothless as a satire, and that like, you know,
maybe maybe to to bring this all full circle, like
that is the worst thing about this movie is that
is you know, like we mentioned, it's like doctor Strange dumb,
Like it's just dumb. It's it has nothing to say.
It thinks it's clever. I watched a preview for the
movie before I watched it last night, and they show

(01:08:00):
that scene where they all fly back after the rocket launcher.
Doesn't make any sense in the trailer, doesn't make any
sense in the movie. The movie doesn't have any idea
what it's trying to do. And yeah, you know, I've
referenced it so many times this year on several episodes
of the show that William Friedkin winding Refin interviewed, like,
I wish I could have five minutes and a time
machine to go back in time and be like, hey, Freedkin,

(01:08:20):
what's the deal? Like that should have been his retort,
winding reference retort should been tell me about Dela Century
Bill Billy, come on pal, Like I mean again, like,
if you're unwilling to talk about your movie, maybe just
thinking all out here, you shouldn't have made it, because again,
movie isn't made in one day. It's made in months
of time, and people edited this movie and sat in

(01:08:41):
the premiere and booked catering every day, and like people
were spending time making this and uh whatever. On the
other side, we like, we're lucky that movies are good,
because this is what it looks like when all of
the cylinders fire in every direction but forward. It's like
everything goes awry and this is yeah, this is a
good example of it. This Yeah, this is like casino

(01:09:03):
reale for me. If anyone ever comes up to me,
it's like my favorite movies deal of the century. I'm
not going to run away from them. I'm going to
ask them. Can you please tell me why? Because tell
me please, I have to know. I'm so glad and
neither one of you were like I loved this movie.
Be like I don't think we could be friends anymore.
Oh come on, I mean it's not that bad. But
like this, I mean, I think this is one of
the worst things I've ever done in episode on again

(01:09:24):
in terms of just like a modern Holly Ralf thing,
like made by an actual studio. This isn't released by like,
you know, two thousand Mules Productions or whatever. Insane ash
shit bad movies now don't look like this, right, This
is what a bad movie looked like in the eighties.
Bad movies now are like very different. This is just
kind of a very specific kind of comedy that would
come out in the eighties that just failed. Most of

(01:09:46):
them just didn't have Chevy Chase in them and Gregory
Hines and Sigourney Weaver. So with a with deal of
the century in our rearview mirror. Yes, on the next
episode of the Chasing Chevy Chase podcast, we will be
talking about nineteen eighty fives fletch. Guess what. It's a
good movie. So that's a spoiler. That's not even a spoiler,
that's a fact. So until then, where can people find

(01:10:08):
you and the things that you work on?

Speaker 4 (01:10:10):
Mark Begley, You can find this show and my two
other shows a CambridgeMA, Seawan and Wake Up Heavy Over
on the weirding Way media podcast site.

Speaker 2 (01:10:21):
About you, Marb that is what about you? Mike White?

Speaker 3 (01:10:23):
What about me? Mark White?

Speaker 2 (01:10:25):
Mark? Yeah, what about you? Mark White?

Speaker 3 (01:10:28):
You find everything that I do? Oh, we're doing media
to at Commas. Well except for one thing which Chris
and I have on our respect to Patreons, which is
ranking on Bond where every month we talk about a
different James Bond film, and ironically it always seems to
be the same day that we're talking about Chevy Chase film.
So maybe one of these days the two universes will collide.

(01:10:50):
Next Chevy Chase, next James Bond, Chevy Chase. What do
you think he's only like eighty something years.

Speaker 2 (01:10:56):
Old this chance?

Speaker 3 (01:10:57):
Man?

Speaker 2 (01:10:58):
Oh you're saying like, now he could play yo.

Speaker 3 (01:11:00):
Oh yeah, why do we think? Huh?

Speaker 2 (01:11:02):
God could good?

Speaker 1 (01:11:04):
God?

Speaker 3 (01:11:05):
Any think what will happen is that gun Site will
come over has he's walking across, and then I'll do
a craft fall and break.

Speaker 2 (01:11:11):
His hip, right I mean now, I mean is that
not funny? Like hilarity ensues. Yeah. As for me and
my opinions on things, they can be found over weirding
Way Media as well, where I do the Culture Cast
and so many other things with Mike, and Mike and
Mark have both been on the Culture Cast plenty of times.
So yeah, that's where we can find that show wherever.

(01:11:34):
Please like, rate and review this show on iTunes regardless
irrespective of where you get it, because it helps us
find an audience, and iTunes is where seventy five percent
of people who listen to things like this find it
so yeah. Like rate interview on iTunes, please wherever you
get it, Yeah, and please come back and join us
on the next episode, where I promise we'll be talking

(01:11:54):
about something that's good, not this thought s