August 22, 2024 • 37 mins
In honor of Labor Day, we look at how movies show and sell us the agony and glory of work.
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#Movies #Marketing #Podcast #LaborDay #WorkMovies #MenAtWork #WeekendAtBernies #HorribleBosses #SpeakingHuman #Opinions #Review #BoxOffice
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SHOW NOTES
Get visuals, links and show notes from this episode at speakinghuman.com or at MOMApodcast.com.
#Movies #Marketing #Podcast #LaborDay #WorkMovies #MenAtWork #WeekendAtBernies #HorribleBosses #SpeakingHuman #Opinions #Review #BoxOffice
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/moma-movies-marketing--3296937/support.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
In a world where movies rely on marketing more than
ever to connect with audiences, one podcast aims to make
sense of it all. This is movies and marketing. Next
Saturday Night, where's sending you that to the future?
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Go ahead, make my day Corbut no, you're crazy, Dutch bastard.
What we've got here is failure. You milligate, take the
ground where a freshole of how for we might as well?
Good time? I am an f B I agent, So
(00:43):
what do you think Labor Day? Is that a top
three holiday for you?
Speaker 1 (00:46):
I really never think of Labor Day ever.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
I think of it as I'm like, is that Memorial
Day or Labor Day? Yeah, so I never know which
one is which.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
If it wasn't for our summer movie draft, I would
never even know which one comes first.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
It's a good marker.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
On today's episode, we're talking about work. Why because as
we mentioned, Labor Day, it's coming up. Everybody's real excited.
You go to any store, all you do is you
see all the Labor Day decorations out. But may not
be exactly a thematic movie holiday. You know, we don't
have a lot of movies set at Labor Day. Maybe
(01:23):
we should, though, it's not like a Christmas or Halloween,
but we still thought we'd pay some respects here on
the show.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
Yeah, it's gonna be a fun episode because we're basically
gonna pick three movies about work, and these are all
up in the air. Outside of the theme of work,
you know, because of Labor Day, there's no real criteria
that we had to follow, so we created our own criteria. Really,
it's just work.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
It's pretty general, pretty open ended here. So I'm interested
to hear where you went with this. I thought I
went in some surprising to me direction.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
Do you know.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
I didn't know where I was going to go with
this one, So where I kind of landed, I think
is unique. So interesting to see where you landed mine.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
I felt like we're very obvious picks, but mine has a,
as I was telling, you, offer a sub theme. You know,
they're all connected by work, but there's also another element
that binds them together. So we'll see if everybody could
pick up on it. I'll talk about it at the
very end of my third pick. You ready to dive in,
(02:22):
Let's do it. Let's dive.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
Who goes first?
Speaker 1 (02:25):
I'll go first this time? If you're cool, Okay, So,
speaking of diving into our picks, let's maybe talk about
dumpster diving.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
I thought it was going to be a submarine. I
thought it was Crimson Tide.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
Oh, Crimson Tied at Work. Yeah, that would be a
good work movie for Memorial Day anyway. I mean it
could be either Labor Day Memorial Day, so dumpster diving.
More specifically, let's say garbage Men at Work from nineteen
ninety right there in the title. Yeah, I couldn't pass
it up. You know this isn't one of your picks, right,
it's not.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
Now. I had a feeling you were going to pick
this one. I know your appreciation for this. This is
one of those kind of signature HBO kind of movies
we've talked about a few times.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
Yeah, this movie was barely not big back in nineteen ninety.
To give you an indication, it made sixteen million dollars domestically.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
Oh that's higher than I thought. I thought this was
one of those movies that made like no money, but
everybody watched it on cable.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
Well, I feel like everyone did watch it on cable.
It's probably the only reason why it just even has
any collective memory. Fun fact to real life brothers Charlie
Sheen and Emilio Estevez in the movie, which I think
also gave it a level of celebrity status that probably
this movie would have never had otherwise. You know, people
(03:42):
really enjoyed seeing these two. They didn't have a lot
of movie parts together.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
Yeah, a lot of people even forget that they were brothers.
So i'll kind of work through, you.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
Know, we're going to talk a little bit about how
the movie shows work and the movie's marketing. Let me
tell you the summary of this movie just in case,
because there are a lot of these movies people may
not have seen because they're not like huge blockbuster hits.
Two garbage men uncover a conspiracy involving illegal toxic waste
dumping and decide to bring the whole operation down. Not
(04:13):
like really great creative summary, but to give you a
little bit more detail, it's about two garbage men who
are basically working for a living, living for a work,
and and they you know, are striving for something more right.
And some might argue that this movie is not all
(04:34):
about work, but I mean, A, it's in the title, okay,
and B it shows them working. They're you know, blue
collar workers. They're the front Liners. So did the marketing
focus on work? Yes, the title and a good amount
of the trailer focus on these guys basically at work.
But they're messing around while they're at work, you know,
(04:55):
like they're bowling with garbage cans and stuff like that.
You know, it's a common so it tends to be
you know, a little tongue in cheek. Even the movie
poster itself. Are them standing in front of a trash
can with a trash truck behind them, and they're in
their uniforms, they're onesies. Yeah, their jumpsuits the appropriate work attire. Yeah,
(05:21):
with like a you know, the yield caution sign. This
is meant at work. I like that part of it.
You know, they they branded that movie. It wasn't just
a font treatment. You know, it had some connection there
to actual road signage, you know, and men are at work.
Was it positive? Did it show a positive or a
negative association with work? And I would say it's pretty negative, right.
(05:42):
These guys hate their jobs. Charlie Sheen, you know, basically
says multiple times in the trailer even in the movie,
like you know, this is just a stepping stone, you know,
to something better. They're striving for more. They don't like it.
They don't like working what they're doing, which is in
pretty much every work movie ever. I feel like when
you get guys who are just you know, doing the
(06:02):
bottom rung jobs, nobody's ever really happy doing that, it
seems in the movies, and so they're always striving for more.
So that's my number one pick. A couple fun details
about this movie outside of them being brothers. Really interesting
little snippet that I saw was that Japanese garbage collectors
union there demanded that this film be banned from video
(06:25):
sholves because it disparaged trash collectors, portraying them in a
poor light. So they wanted this movie band. The other
fun detail, if you watch the trailer, which we can
probably have a link to it on the show notes page,
wonderful little uh ditty music that's accompanying this trailer. It's
pump Up the Jam by Technotronic. If you guys remember
(06:47):
that very popular song from their early nineties. Wonderful, wonderful movie.
If you get a chance to check it out, what
do you think of that?
Speaker 2 (06:54):
This is a good pick. Haven't seen this movie since
the you know, since the nineties when it was on
all the time. Yeah, but just an interesting movie. You know,
you don't see a lot of movies that focus on
what many people would probably think of as one of
the worst jobs you can have. Obviously one of the
most necessary jobs, especially in America, something we could not
(07:17):
live without. But you know something, you just don't see
some of these jobs, some of these people who do
these jobs not put in the spotlight a lot, you know,
not a glitzy job something like that. So I like
that this movie focuses on that. And I think at
this time we had kind of these, you know, workplace
movies where it was just kind of like, hey, let's
follow these guys around, let's see what happens to them,
(07:39):
and obviously what they find at work kind of kicks
off the plot of the movie. So this is a
good one. I'm glad you picked it. I thought you might.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
And again, I haven't seen it in a really long time,
but I'm sure a lot of things don't hold up,
but it's a good trip down memory lane.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
Also, I don't know if you mentioned it, but directed
by Emilia.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
West is directed and acted in this movie.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
I don't know if you wrote it too, but been
all est of it.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
Is, so, what's your number one pick?
Speaker 2 (08:02):
For my first pick, I went around the same time period.
It's something very, very different. The only movie I think
to feature both Indiana Jones and Ripley from Aliens, along
with Melanie Griffith, I'm talking about nineteen eighty eight's Working Girl.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
Okay, all right, let me give you.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
The plot synopsis of this one. When a secretary's idea
is stolen by her boss, she seizes an opportunity to
steal it back by pretending she has her boss's job.
This is an interesting movie, you know, this idea of
business and finance and this kind of like corporate capitalism.
(08:45):
Let's go for it, you know, work your way up
or get to the top. Very much on display here.
You know, this is a kind of working your way
up movie, even if you're starting at the bottom, which
we saw in a few different movies at the time.
Another one I kind of thought about was The Secret
of My Success with Michael J. Fox, which is kind
of similar. Oh yeah, but this one really kind of
(09:06):
unique because of the cast that's here. It's kind of
a comedy, it's kind of a drama. Very eighties, you know,
a lot of very eighties hair on display the workplace,
you know, a hostile, cutthroat place that you want to
kind of conquer. Secretaries treated really badly. So a lot
of this movie we're in kind of the corporate boardroom
in New York. That kind of culture is what we're
(09:26):
seeing on display, where it's like we got to work
our way up the ladder, that's what it's all about.
So I thought this was kind of a forgotten movie
from that time, though, you know, very successful at its time.
It made sixty three million domestic, nominated for six Oscars,
including Best Picture, one one Best Original Song, and you know,
(09:47):
of course, this is when Harrison Ford was like the
number one actor in the world around this time. Do
you remember this movie in any way?
Speaker 1 (09:55):
I do remember it. I don't remember the movie in
its entirety, but I do or the movie and the
I guess the clout that surrounded it, you know, because
it did have a name for itself.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
Yeah, it was like a known thing, another one they
probably played on HBO a few times, and we were
kind of of the age where this was like a
little above our heads.
Speaker 1 (10:14):
I also get that movie a little confused marketing wise,
between that and Tootsie Oh, Okay, Yeah, if that makes
any sense whatsoever.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
I'm not sure that it does. But yeah, I mean
very different, very different things that going on. Another kind
of women at work movie. Yeah, so that one's about
a man disguised as a woman. Yeah, so a little different.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
It's not the same.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
But so marketing for this is interesting and that it's
sort of upbeat, you know, it's selling this kind of
like rags to riches story and like the romance of it,
even though, like I said, a lot of it is
this this workplace that's kind of like not very nice.
The trailer includes the great line from Melanie Griffith, who
(10:57):
I really like. I really liked Melanie Griffith around this
time where she says I.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
Am ahead for business and I'm bud for sinner.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
Which just seems super eighties to me. And then the poster,
you know, has this tagline where it's supposed to I
think it's supposed to like raw rad inspire you be like, yeah, man,
I'm gonna go to New York. I don't have any
business experience. I'm gonna put on a time. I'm gonna
go up there, and I want to be an executive.
It's for anyone who's ever won, for anyone who's ever lost,
(11:25):
and for everyone who's still in there trying. So it's
almost like a sports movie they're selling it as, but
it's you know, conquering the business world.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
That's an interesting pick for sure. I like the talent
that's in that movie.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
It's an odd combination of people like even Harrison Ford
and Sigourney Weaver is an odd combo.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
But you know that, I feel like that's odd to
today's standards because back then, you know, Sigourney Weaver, I
mean she was huge, you know, yeah, I mean that
was that was the days, you know, alien, Ghostbusters, Busters.
I mean, she was really in high demand. Gorillas in
the Mist, Gorilla's in the Mist? You pulled that one out?
Speaker 2 (12:08):
Where'd you pull that from the Mist?
Speaker 1 (12:10):
I totally forgot about that movie, but yeah, really really
good pick and something Yeah, completely different than mine, obviously.
Speaker 2 (12:17):
Yeah, off the beaten path, but representative I thought of
the time period, you know, capturing kind of the eighties
mentality towards work, or at least how it was represented
in culture a little bit.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
Yeah, also very different in that that movie was fairly successful.
Mine was not.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
What do you got up next?
Speaker 1 (12:33):
My next movie is something a little loose in my
interpretation of a working movie. But this one comes from
a year before the last movie. Again picking movies from
my childhood, I guess Weekend at Bernie's.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
Ah, yes, did you pick this movie? I did not,
But I love this movie and we're just kind of
talking about the eighties and yuppie dumb. Yeah, this is
another great report presentation of that.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
Yeah, so Weekend at Bernie's nineteen eighty nine. This movie
made thirty million dollars at the box office domestic by
eighty nine standards, that's not too bad in my opinion.
So the summary for this movie, if you haven't seen it,
this movie I think is very well known today comparatively
to other movies from that time period. Like this, two
idiots try to pretend that their murdered employer is really alive,
(13:25):
leading the hitman to attempt to track him down to
finish him off. That's it, is that the IMDb summary,
I think, so it refers to them as two idiots.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
I thought that what was really funny is like I
thought that this summaries for these weren't that great, Like
they were really strangely lacking. Yeah, there's some creativity, there's
some bad summaries. Yeah, So the argument here right now,
I know a lot of people who have seen this
movie might argue that it's not a work movie because
it takes place mostly at the beach.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
But what are they doing at the beach. Yeah, they're working.
They're at their boss's house.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
Yeah, but a lot of the beginning of the movie
does take place in an office. They are at work.
The whole reason for the movie is that these two
guys are really doing what they can to get ahead
at work. Right. They're going to their boss's beach house
because they think he invites him because he's happy with them.
He's proud of them for finding an error in their
(14:22):
accounting or something. And again, you know, my criteria is
pretty loose, but I'll just use the fact that they're
trekking to work on a Saturday during the opening credits
scene as a point in the favor of this is
a work movie. Right, really, really great stuff. I rewatched
this movie. I was actually watching it before our episode,
and I'll tell you it's nostalgic in a lot of ways.
(14:42):
It has people who are smoking cigarettes in the office.
I wasn't in an office back then. But I do
remember those times. You know, we've had episodes about smoking
when it was normal, hilarious attire. So there's some scenes
where they're in New York City. They're walking to the
office building and there's ZS men who are walking in
(15:02):
suits in the office with matching shorts like they were
suit shorts with like high black socks. To the actual point, though,
did the marketing focus on work? Well, barely. Okay, maybe
twenty five seconds or so of the trailer is them
at work or at work as they could be in
(15:24):
an office setting. The rest they're at this beach pretending
that their employer, their boss, is alive. To the movie
posters also very beach themed. Was it positive? You know,
was this a positive representation of work? And I would
say no, it's absolutely a negative association with work. These
two guys work the weekends and are doing it very uncomfortably.
(15:47):
They're underpaid, and they're treated terribly by their boss, who,
in no way am I giving anything away in this movie,
tries to have them killed. So you know, that's about
the worst a boss can probably do. But the marketing
of this is really great when you know the premise
of this movie. It even becomes better. The movie poster
is them holding Bernie up, you know, to make them
(16:09):
look alive. They're in the beach, and the tagline is
Bernie Lomax would be the perfect host except for one
small thing. He's dead so good, just so fantastic.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
It's tough to fit the work angle in when the
whole hulk of your movie is we're pretending like this
dead guy is alive. You know, that's the real selling point,
the work thing. It's prominent, but it is separate. This
would actually be a fantastic double feature with Working Girl.
They're both set in New York around the same time period.
(16:44):
You know, people trying to work up the ladder. Yeah,
you know these like guys who are on the bottom.
They're trying to get their way up to the top.
So there's a lot of overlap between the two. But man,
do I love work Weekend at Bernie's. I love Weekend
at Bernie's two. Also, yeah, I feel like we really
missed out not getting this guy an Oscar, the guy
(17:05):
who played Bernie. Yeah, because the stuff he does is
pretty pretty amazing, you know, the way he's just like
this lifeless body the whole time. Yeah, they do all
sorts of things to him.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
And also, you know the premise of this where nobody
realizes he's dead. It's just a pretty fantastic plot summary.
I mean, you know, like the whole thing watching people go.
Even the two main characters see at the very beginning
they know he's dead, and there's all these people that's
sort of trekking into the beach house and they think
(17:40):
that they're all going to know right away, and they
nobody knows, and they just watching their facial expressions as
they realize these people are crazy. They do not realize
this guy's dead. Is super funny to watch that unfold.
I think it holds up. I mean, there's a lot
of outdated things, but that's kind of what makes it
fun too. You're like, what is this nonsense?
Speaker 2 (17:59):
That's a really good It's another one like Men at
Work not streaming anywhere. It's kind of been lost a
little bit to time, but man, if you get a
chance to see it, I mean that the plot, the
idea is just kind of timeless.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
Yeah, you can even do a triple you know, a
triple feature, triple feature with Secret of My Success, because
I think all three of those would work really well together.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
Yeah, all New York movies where somebody is trying to
get to the top. Well, once again, I'm gonna swerve us.
I'm gonna take us in a different direction. I'm gonna
take us out in New York, but not too far
out of New York. Gonna take us to New Jersey
nineteen ninety four for the movie Clerks.
Speaker 1 (18:35):
All right, okay, I see where you were going with
your picks.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
Yeah, like it. Synopsis of this one a day in
the lives of two convenience store clerks named Dante and
Randall as they annoy customers, discuss movies, and play hockey
on the store roof. This is writer director Kevin Smith's
no budget indie movie debut, shot in black and white.
You know, I think they made it for like seven
(19:00):
thousand dollars or something crazy like that, but you know,
kind of caught on, became something of a sensation, made
about three million domestic, which is pretty good for where
it came from. This, you know, has a totally different angle.
This is more in line with the men in work.
This is a work sucks. I'm working a dead end job.
All the customers I come in contact with are annoying.
(19:23):
The boss is annoying, my co workers annoying, you know,
in the in the trailer, you hear this, this quote.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
Still have to be great if it wasn't for the customers,
you know.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
And there's a lot of the just not taking the
job seriously. We're slacking off, We're closing up the store
for a while to go play hockey. I think there's
a part where somebody's you know, having sex at work.
There's a lot of just goofing off, talking about random stuff,
you know, talking about Star Wars, doing ever, being bored,
Remember that being bored at work? Remember when that happened?
Speaker 1 (19:53):
Does that still happen? But I guess that still happens.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
Doesn't seem to happen to us, but I'm sure it
still happens to you know, when you're a certain person
of a certain age at a certain job. Yeah, but
this all takes place around a single work day. So
it starts with the opening, you know, the day guy
gets called in on a day he's not supposed to work.
Ends when he closes up shop. So it's very much
this type of job, this kind of working class job,
and just the annoyances and the fun that happens within
(20:18):
that day. So clerks. Do you remember Clerks? You see clerk?
Speaker 1 (20:22):
Yeah, yeah, that was a big deal back in the day,
I think, mainly because it quickly and even today I
think it's still this way cult following. Everybody knew it.
The big thing. I remember years ago when they announced
Clerks Too, which.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
Is another you know work movie. That time they're working
in a fast food place.
Speaker 1 (20:41):
Yeah, now there's a Clerk's three even, But I know
that that was even a bigger deal because people loved
the first one so much. You know, it was one
of those things. It's just it's kind of like they
come along every so often write a movie like that
where made for little to no money, and that it
just hits a nerve with audiences. You know, they're like,
I love this. This describes me in some way or
(21:04):
you know, is a reflection of what I've went through
maybe in my past. And then suddenly that movie becomes
something that speaks to something.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
You know, even with some of these corporate ladder movies,
we're not all in that situation. Maybe we can expire
to be in that situation or relate it to our
job in some way. Almost everyone has had like a
stupid job they hate at some point, or like, you know,
i'm a teenager, I'm working at McDonald's or something like that.
Almost everybody has that type of experience where they can
(21:36):
kind of connect to something like this. I can remember
watching it when I was like fifteen or sixteen, and
some guy put it on and he was like, oh,
you got to see this, and it just seeing this
movie and it looks like crap, and just being like,
I don't want to watch this, and then they start
talking and you know, within like ten minutes of it,
I'm like, I feel like they're speaking my language. You know.
It was a real like gen X type movie in
(21:58):
that way.
Speaker 1 (21:58):
Yeah, you're hooked, pretty cool, but you're right, and I think,
you know, we all kind of see ourselves in some
of these characters or some of these jobs that have happened,
you know, either in our past or even maybe currently
we're in a job like that. It become very relatable
in that way.
Speaker 2 (22:14):
The marketing for this, there's no other way to go.
It's completely The movie's completely based around work. The marketing
based entirely around getting you to relate to this idea.
You know, the tagline which is in big like handwritten letters.
In handwriting on the poster is just because they serve
you doesn't mean they like you. They don't like you
as a customer there, they don't want to be there,
(22:34):
they don't want to do this job. These are your clerks.
Get to know these people. They kind of like push
that forward and that's you know, that's in the trailer,
that's on the poster. We're going to see these people
in their everyday work life. That's what this is.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
And they're at work the whole time. So even like
in the trailer, they're at work.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
Nowhere else to go because they film like probably eighty
five percent of it within this convenience store.
Speaker 1 (22:56):
That's a really good pick and one that I think
a lot of our listeners will appreciate. Eight because you know, again, clerks,
everyone knows that one. And if you haven't, you're getting
some great picks today. Some good things catch up on
Labor Day weekend, Yeah Film Festival for Yeah, Labor Day
Film Festival. Right here. You heard it first from MoMA,
speaking of movies that you have potentially experienced yourself, a
(23:21):
horrible boss might be in that in that world of
jobs that you've experienced relates to my third pick, which
is horrible bosses.
Speaker 2 (23:31):
Did I tell you that Parkin tricked me into having
a drink at eight o'clock this morning? That's your boss.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
Isn't sexually harassing you? See?
Speaker 2 (23:37):
If this thing is working, Oh, I can make out
our little freserv thereaba shalom.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
Somebody's circumcised. You know yours doesn't sound that bad. We
need to trim some of the fat.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
What do you mean by trim the fat? I want
you to fire the fat people. You can start with
large margin.
Speaker 1 (23:53):
March.
Speaker 2 (23:53):
Can you come in here please? What I thought he
was going to give you a promotion?
Speaker 1 (23:57):
No, he is. I have decided and who I want
to be a new vice president of sales. Me had
to kind of pick this movie twenty eleven. This movie
made one hundred and seventeen millions. This is probably the best,
did the best at the box office compared to all
my other movies that I picked. If you've never seen
this movie, very good. It's more recent, obviously, decades after
(24:18):
my other two picks. Three friends conspire to murder their
awful bosses when they realize they are standing in the
way of their happiness. Here's what I'll say, okay, I
did mention this. I'm going to say it first before
I even talk about the marketing. Thematically, all my movies
work related. All of my movies also have murder or
(24:40):
death in them. I don't know what that says about.
Why am I choosing movies that are associated with death?
I don't know. They're also all comedies. I think maybe
there's something that I appreciate about the comedy and work
relationship because I think sometimes, you know, you have to
laugh at certain things. You know, if you don't, you cry, right,
(25:00):
And maybe there's more crying that happens at work than
needs to be. But so did the marketing focus on work?
The trailer definitely focused on work life from three different perspectives.
That all three characters are talking about their horrible bosses
and their jobs not at all positive. You know, I
(25:21):
think this is pretty obvious. You know, if you have
horrible bosses, it's a pretty negative way to portray work.
What I did love about the marketing though, Not only
is the trailer pretty funny, but the marketing the movie posters.
So they had a main poster that was like the
three characters, and then they showed their bosses above them,
and they say psycho man eater tool for the situations
(25:44):
that they're being put in within the context of the movie.
What's really cool is they actually did these individualized posters
that elaborated on them and are thematically colored tied to
the main poster. For example, Jenner Anniston is one of
the bosses, and Charlie Day is her employee, and it says,
(26:04):
is your boss a sex crazed man eater? Right? If
you know the premise of the movie, she's like, just
that she is tormenting him at work inappropriate blah blah blah. Right.
For Colin Ferrell, his employee is Jason Sedekis and he's
just a sleezy guy, and it says, is your boss
(26:26):
a total sleezy tool. They're showing both of those characters
on there, and just you know, you get this feel
this is emotional connection to this sleezy tool of a boss.
Speaker 2 (26:35):
Right.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
The third one is Kevin Spacey and Jason Bateman and
it says, is your boss a slave driving psycho? All
like kind of color coded to their respective original movie
poster and stuff. So they're very very cool and something
that I hadn't seen done exactly like this before they're
all asking a question about your boss, right, that evokes
(26:58):
in emotion from you like yeah, yeah, yeah, I've had that,
I've had that kind of boss, or I do have
that kind of boss. You know, maybe not exactly, but
you get it. You get that they're tying a horrible
boss to the premise of the movie, and you want
to see it for that reason. Right, great title of
a movie too, So yeah, that's my pick. What do
you think of that one?
Speaker 2 (27:19):
That's a good one. This is one I also considered
for for my picks. Another thing, you know, we're talking
that's highly relatable. Almost anybody has probably had a horrible boss.
Maybe not to the extent yeah that they take it
in the movie, but you know, just a boss that
you're like, oh god, yeah, person. You know, so there's
(27:39):
some even just hearing the premise of the movie, there's
like some immediate connection.
Speaker 1 (27:44):
There, right, Yeah, to your point. Right, Maybe not to
the level of these you know, they're all very exaggerated
versions of probably a horrible boss and even what they're
willing to do to their horrible bosses, but you know,
it's it's one of those things you're like, man, I
just for whatever reason, you weren't real happy with your boss.
(28:05):
This movie can be relatable in that way. Also a
lot of great one liners.
Speaker 2 (28:09):
And yeah, I was gonna say great cast. M h.
There's the stuff Colin Farrell is doing is super funny.
Jennifer Aniston's very game. Jamie Fox comes in for like,
you know, just an extended cameo, and he's pretty hilarious.
So you got a lot of people doing some pretty
funny work in there, And I say it's pretty good
script all around. One of the better comedies that came out.
(28:30):
They came out with a sequel I think a few
years later that was just really really awful.
Speaker 1 (28:36):
Was it bad? I don't remember being horrible horrible.
Speaker 2 (28:40):
It was kind of like in my book I put
it with like The Hangover Part two, where I was like,
why why are we going back?
Speaker 1 (28:46):
Well, you know, it's something so successful, got to go
back to the Well, yeah, they're bound to. They're bound
to try to like milk it a little bit more.
I'm surprised they didn't make a third one, to be
honest with you, it's a.
Speaker 2 (28:57):
Ripe premise, right, You could do horrible bos. You could
keep thinking of horrible Bosses Forever like New Horrible Bosses.
Speaker 1 (29:03):
Yeah, so what's your last pick?
Speaker 2 (29:06):
My last pick? Again, swerving in a different direction, same
time period as Horrible Bosses. You know, now I'm going in.
I went in the eighties and I moved into the nineties.
Gave us a little different flavor. Now I'm into the
two thousands here, okay, and I'm going with a movie,
you know, a sort of a comedy drama, looks at
work in a different light again, sort of thinking about
(29:28):
the weight of work and what work really means to us,
and what it's like to lose work in some respects.
Talking about the two thousand and nine movie Up in
the Air with George Klooney. We give you the synopsis
on this one. This is a pretty bad synopsis. Ryan's
job is to travel around the country firing off people.
When his boss hires Natalie, who proposes firing people via
(29:48):
video conference, he tries to convince her that her method
is a mistake. So this was a, you know, pretty
big movie at the time. We got Jason Bateman of
Horrible Bosses, This, George Clooney, vera Farmiga, Anna Kendrick. I
think this was our first movie. Had some elements of comedy,
kind of almost Jerry maguireish, another kind of workplace comedy
(30:10):
where it's somebody kind of in crisis with their job
in some way, but looking at work as something necessary,
something valuable, something meaningful, and what it means when that's
kind of taken away for you. You know, losing your
work means losing your purpose in a way. And you
have a guy here in George Clooney whose job it
is to actually fire people take away their jobs for
(30:32):
a living, you know. And it also looks a lot
at this whole culture of people who travel all the
time for their jobs. So he has like a whole
system of how he packs his suitcase and be the
most efficient, how he can rack up the most frequent
flyer miles, how he like loves to live this sort
of travel working lifestyle. A lot of scenes in airports
(30:53):
of people, you know, dressed in suits or business attire
getting from one place to another. So it's just kind
of a different for different look at this kind of
jet setting executive or business class. Interesting thing. Movie came
out in two thousand and nine in the midst of
what was an economic collapse, so this kind of took
on added resonance. One thing they did when they were
(31:15):
making the movie was they said they were filming a documentary.
They interviewed people who were actually like unemployed or had
lost their job, incorporated that kind of footage into the movie.
So when it came out, it kind of had this
added resonance to it. Interesting movie. It's a movie I
really like. I think there's a lot a lot going
on here. Have you seen this movie? You like this movie?
Speaker 1 (31:34):
I don't know if I've ever seen this movie, but
I'm intrigued by it. And I'll tell you why I'm intrigued.
I don't even care about the premise of the movie,
to be honest with you. Summary the talent in this
movie is kind of interesting.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
It's a ton of people.
Speaker 1 (31:49):
It's loaded loaded. I'm looking at the cast. George Clooney,
Vera Formiga, Anna Kendrick, like you said, Jason Bateman also
in Horrible Bosses, JK. Simmons, Sam Elliott, Sam Elliott is
in this movie.
Speaker 2 (32:05):
There's a lot of people who show up for like
what you would call like a cameo or a short
small part.
Speaker 1 (32:10):
Danny McBride, Zach galifanekis I mean, yeah, it's it's crazy.
Here's the topper, here's the reason why I want to
watch this movie right now. Young MC Marvin Young Young
MC of stature, bust a Move. He was, he was
a rapper back in the day. I don't know what
year that was with bust a Move? Was that eighties?
Speaker 2 (32:32):
Eighties? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (32:33):
Yeah, eighty nine. I see eighty nine right there. I
mean soundtrack of our youth. I feel like bust a
Move still popular today, but you know, I'd go see
it just for that, for all the people that are
in this movie. That's crazy. I could see why it
didn't necessarily make it on my radar. I don't know
if I would have. Maybe this is more now than
(32:55):
it is then, Like I think this movie would do
better maybe now. I don't know. It might be.
Speaker 2 (32:59):
It was a fairly big movie, made eighty three million
dollars at the time, had some like Oscar nominations. It
was known and it was the director had done like Juneo.
It was a little buzzy at the time it came out.
Might have been more adult than than your brain was
ready for at the time.
Speaker 1 (33:14):
I'm sure it was.
Speaker 2 (33:15):
So the marketing for this This is kind of one
of those tricky movies got that tone where it dances
between being a comedy being a drama, you know, goes
back and forth. But they kind of mostly focused it
on obviously Colooney and the title with this air they
like the airport centric a little bit, this travel kind
of lifestyle. So you see on the poster you see
(33:36):
like an airport, people in business attire. You kind of
see George and silhouette with the two main actresses in
it on the side of him. You get the sense
of something work related, but it's not necessarily like Front
and Center. It's more selling like the human elements, which
I would say of the story, though in the trailer
(33:56):
they kind of do put up front, you know, this
kind of hook that this his job is to fire
people for a living, and he's in some sort of
crisis is happening with his employment.
Speaker 1 (34:08):
I think you mainly picked this because of Anna Kendrick,
because I know you have both.
Speaker 2 (34:12):
I mean, I like Anna Kendrick, I like Vera Farmiguy,
I like him both. You know.
Speaker 1 (34:16):
This is also I'm not sure it's totally believable that
Anna Kendrick is of the age in this she looks
like she's ten and she's playing like a professional who
looks much much older or should be much older.
Speaker 2 (34:32):
Well, she's supposed to be like a fresh out of
college m kind of whip or snapper, coming in and trying.
Speaker 1 (34:38):
To be like I have these ideas okay, okay.
Speaker 2 (34:41):
And she's like pushing through the organization. So she's supposed
to be someone very.
Speaker 1 (34:45):
Young, okay, fresh out of elementary school. Yeah, and again
I think this was kind of her first movie she
was in. Yeah, she's fresh, she's like kindergarten or something.
But this is a good one.
Speaker 2 (34:56):
And also, you know, we talk about things where you're
like maybe kind of aspirational or you watch it and
you're like, oh, that kind of seems exciting. Is when
you watch people who are like traveling and going to
you know, I'm like checking into all these airports. Really,
when you travel for work, it's kind of terrible, but
they make it look you know, I'm going to all
these hotels, I got these frequent flyer miles. I know
(35:18):
the best places to go and where to get a
seat and the best places to get a drink and
how to do this and that. I know all the
like workarounds. It looks cool.
Speaker 1 (35:26):
Yeah, and anybody living through two thousand and nine remembers
was not great time. Now, it was kind of scary,
as we thought at the time, everything was up in
the air, Well said. Well said yeah. But to the
point for our listeners, there's a million of these movies
out there. We were picking six. I mean, you could
(35:46):
go all day long and pick really great movies. I'd
argue you could pick Missus doubtfire. She's at work.
Speaker 2 (35:52):
That's what I mean the definition of work. When I
was initially thinking about this, I'm like, maybe there's not
that many movies about work. And then I kind of
like flipped completely the other way, and I'm like, maybe
every movie's about work.
Speaker 1 (36:03):
Yeah, I mean we talk about the ones that are obvious,
you know, like Off of Space.
Speaker 2 (36:08):
That's kind of the big, glaring one that's missing from
this discussion. But I think it was for me it
was like almost two on the nose.
Speaker 1 (36:15):
Yeah, even though I like Off Space, there's just so
many of those. So it's like it's hard because again
I was sort of picking things that were sort of
related but also you know, had like a fun twist
to them, just like yours, you know, working girl. I
would never even want to thaw that one. But that's
a great one and it's got work in the title.
That always works.
Speaker 2 (36:34):
Hey, you get you get like a bonus point for that.
We should maybe make this a Labor Day tradition.
Speaker 1 (36:39):
Yeah, we could.
Speaker 2 (36:40):
Since nobody's celebrating Labor Day, we should make this a
thing where we do, you know, six picks every Labor Day.
Speaker 1 (36:47):
You know, you really could pick six and we would
never run out of movies ever. I think that's a
good plan. We should do that. So meet us back
here next year at this time for more Labor Day picks.
You know, you could benjam if you can find them
on streaming. Maybe you've got a hard copy of this
movie somewhere sitting around.
Speaker 2 (37:05):
Your VHS of Men at Work.
Speaker 1 (37:07):
Yeah, you're Blu ray with all the extras, your DVD,
your laser disc if you've got that still sitting around, if.
Speaker 2 (37:15):
You capture that technology.
Speaker 1 (37:17):
Yeah, that's it for this episode of movies and marketing everyone.
Until next time, Let's do that thing we always do
and fade to black.
Speaker 2 (37:28):
I'll be back. He's not coming back.
In a world where movies rely on marketing more than
ever to connect with audiences, one podcast aims to make
sense of it all. This is movies and marketing. Next
Saturday Night, where's sending you that to the future?
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Go ahead, make my day Corbut no, you're crazy, Dutch bastard.
What we've got here is failure. You milligate, take the
ground where a freshole of how for we might as well?
Good time? I am an f B I agent, So
(00:43):
what do you think Labor Day? Is that a top
three holiday for you?
Speaker 1 (00:46):
I really never think of Labor Day ever.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
I think of it as I'm like, is that Memorial
Day or Labor Day? Yeah, so I never know which
one is which.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
If it wasn't for our summer movie draft, I would
never even know which one comes first.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
It's a good marker.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
On today's episode, we're talking about work. Why because as
we mentioned, Labor Day, it's coming up. Everybody's real excited.
You go to any store, all you do is you
see all the Labor Day decorations out. But may not
be exactly a thematic movie holiday. You know, we don't
have a lot of movies set at Labor Day. Maybe
(01:23):
we should, though, it's not like a Christmas or Halloween,
but we still thought we'd pay some respects here on
the show.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
Yeah, it's gonna be a fun episode because we're basically
gonna pick three movies about work, and these are all
up in the air. Outside of the theme of work,
you know, because of Labor Day, there's no real criteria
that we had to follow, so we created our own criteria. Really,
it's just work.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
It's pretty general, pretty open ended here. So I'm interested
to hear where you went with this. I thought I
went in some surprising to me direction.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
Do you know.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
I didn't know where I was going to go with
this one, So where I kind of landed, I think
is unique. So interesting to see where you landed mine.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
I felt like we're very obvious picks, but mine has a,
as I was telling, you, offer a sub theme. You know,
they're all connected by work, but there's also another element
that binds them together. So we'll see if everybody could
pick up on it. I'll talk about it at the
very end of my third pick. You ready to dive in,
(02:22):
Let's do it. Let's dive.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
Who goes first?
Speaker 1 (02:25):
I'll go first this time? If you're cool, Okay, So,
speaking of diving into our picks, let's maybe talk about
dumpster diving.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
I thought it was going to be a submarine. I
thought it was Crimson Tide.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
Oh, Crimson Tied at Work. Yeah, that would be a
good work movie for Memorial Day anyway. I mean it
could be either Labor Day Memorial Day, so dumpster diving.
More specifically, let's say garbage Men at Work from nineteen
ninety right there in the title. Yeah, I couldn't pass
it up. You know this isn't one of your picks, right,
it's not.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
Now. I had a feeling you were going to pick
this one. I know your appreciation for this. This is
one of those kind of signature HBO kind of movies
we've talked about a few times.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
Yeah, this movie was barely not big back in nineteen ninety.
To give you an indication, it made sixteen million dollars domestically.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
Oh that's higher than I thought. I thought this was
one of those movies that made like no money, but
everybody watched it on cable.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
Well, I feel like everyone did watch it on cable.
It's probably the only reason why it just even has
any collective memory. Fun fact to real life brothers Charlie
Sheen and Emilio Estevez in the movie, which I think
also gave it a level of celebrity status that probably
this movie would have never had otherwise. You know, people
(03:42):
really enjoyed seeing these two. They didn't have a lot
of movie parts together.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
Yeah, a lot of people even forget that they were brothers.
So i'll kind of work through, you.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
Know, we're going to talk a little bit about how
the movie shows work and the movie's marketing. Let me
tell you the summary of this movie just in case,
because there are a lot of these movies people may
not have seen because they're not like huge blockbuster hits.
Two garbage men uncover a conspiracy involving illegal toxic waste
dumping and decide to bring the whole operation down. Not
(04:13):
like really great creative summary, but to give you a
little bit more detail, it's about two garbage men who
are basically working for a living, living for a work,
and and they you know, are striving for something more right.
And some might argue that this movie is not all
(04:34):
about work, but I mean, A, it's in the title, okay,
and B it shows them working. They're you know, blue
collar workers. They're the front Liners. So did the marketing
focus on work? Yes, the title and a good amount
of the trailer focus on these guys basically at work.
But they're messing around while they're at work, you know,
(04:55):
like they're bowling with garbage cans and stuff like that.
You know, it's a common so it tends to be
you know, a little tongue in cheek. Even the movie
poster itself. Are them standing in front of a trash
can with a trash truck behind them, and they're in
their uniforms, they're onesies. Yeah, their jumpsuits the appropriate work attire. Yeah,
(05:21):
with like a you know, the yield caution sign. This
is meant at work. I like that part of it.
You know, they they branded that movie. It wasn't just
a font treatment. You know, it had some connection there
to actual road signage, you know, and men are at work.
Was it positive? Did it show a positive or a
negative association with work? And I would say it's pretty negative, right.
(05:42):
These guys hate their jobs. Charlie Sheen, you know, basically
says multiple times in the trailer even in the movie,
like you know, this is just a stepping stone, you know,
to something better. They're striving for more. They don't like it.
They don't like working what they're doing, which is in
pretty much every work movie ever. I feel like when
you get guys who are just you know, doing the
(06:02):
bottom rung jobs, nobody's ever really happy doing that, it
seems in the movies, and so they're always striving for more.
So that's my number one pick. A couple fun details
about this movie outside of them being brothers. Really interesting
little snippet that I saw was that Japanese garbage collectors
union there demanded that this film be banned from video
(06:25):
sholves because it disparaged trash collectors, portraying them in a
poor light. So they wanted this movie band. The other
fun detail, if you watch the trailer, which we can
probably have a link to it on the show notes page,
wonderful little uh ditty music that's accompanying this trailer. It's
pump Up the Jam by Technotronic. If you guys remember
(06:47):
that very popular song from their early nineties. Wonderful, wonderful movie.
If you get a chance to check it out, what
do you think of that?
Speaker 2 (06:54):
This is a good pick. Haven't seen this movie since
the you know, since the nineties when it was on
all the time. Yeah, but just an interesting movie. You know,
you don't see a lot of movies that focus on
what many people would probably think of as one of
the worst jobs you can have. Obviously one of the
most necessary jobs, especially in America, something we could not
(07:17):
live without. But you know something, you just don't see
some of these jobs, some of these people who do
these jobs not put in the spotlight a lot, you know,
not a glitzy job something like that. So I like
that this movie focuses on that. And I think at
this time we had kind of these, you know, workplace
movies where it was just kind of like, hey, let's
follow these guys around, let's see what happens to them,
(07:39):
and obviously what they find at work kind of kicks
off the plot of the movie. So this is a
good one. I'm glad you picked it. I thought you might.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
And again, I haven't seen it in a really long time,
but I'm sure a lot of things don't hold up,
but it's a good trip down memory lane.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
Also, I don't know if you mentioned it, but directed
by Emilia.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
West is directed and acted in this movie.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
I don't know if you wrote it too, but been
all est of it.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
Is, so, what's your number one pick?
Speaker 2 (08:02):
For my first pick, I went around the same time period.
It's something very, very different. The only movie I think
to feature both Indiana Jones and Ripley from Aliens, along
with Melanie Griffith, I'm talking about nineteen eighty eight's Working Girl.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
Okay, all right, let me give you.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
The plot synopsis of this one. When a secretary's idea
is stolen by her boss, she seizes an opportunity to
steal it back by pretending she has her boss's job.
This is an interesting movie, you know, this idea of
business and finance and this kind of like corporate capitalism.
(08:45):
Let's go for it, you know, work your way up
or get to the top. Very much on display here.
You know, this is a kind of working your way
up movie, even if you're starting at the bottom, which
we saw in a few different movies at the time.
Another one I kind of thought about was The Secret
of My Success with Michael J. Fox, which is kind
of similar. Oh yeah, but this one really kind of
(09:06):
unique because of the cast that's here. It's kind of
a comedy, it's kind of a drama. Very eighties, you know,
a lot of very eighties hair on display the workplace,
you know, a hostile, cutthroat place that you want to
kind of conquer. Secretaries treated really badly. So a lot
of this movie we're in kind of the corporate boardroom
in New York. That kind of culture is what we're
(09:26):
seeing on display, where it's like we got to work
our way up the ladder, that's what it's all about.
So I thought this was kind of a forgotten movie
from that time, though, you know, very successful at its time.
It made sixty three million domestic, nominated for six Oscars,
including Best Picture, one one Best Original Song, and you know,
(09:47):
of course, this is when Harrison Ford was like the
number one actor in the world around this time. Do
you remember this movie in any way?
Speaker 1 (09:55):
I do remember it. I don't remember the movie in
its entirety, but I do or the movie and the
I guess the clout that surrounded it, you know, because
it did have a name for itself.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
Yeah, it was like a known thing, another one they
probably played on HBO a few times, and we were
kind of of the age where this was like a
little above our heads.
Speaker 1 (10:14):
I also get that movie a little confused marketing wise,
between that and Tootsie Oh, Okay, Yeah, if that makes
any sense whatsoever.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
I'm not sure that it does. But yeah, I mean
very different, very different things that going on. Another kind
of women at work movie. Yeah, so that one's about
a man disguised as a woman. Yeah, so a little different.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
It's not the same.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
But so marketing for this is interesting and that it's
sort of upbeat, you know, it's selling this kind of
like rags to riches story and like the romance of it,
even though, like I said, a lot of it is
this this workplace that's kind of like not very nice.
The trailer includes the great line from Melanie Griffith, who
(10:57):
I really like. I really liked Melanie Griffith around this
time where she says I.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
Am ahead for business and I'm bud for sinner.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
Which just seems super eighties to me. And then the poster,
you know, has this tagline where it's supposed to I
think it's supposed to like raw rad inspire you be like, yeah, man,
I'm gonna go to New York. I don't have any
business experience. I'm gonna put on a time. I'm gonna
go up there, and I want to be an executive.
It's for anyone who's ever won, for anyone who's ever lost,
(11:25):
and for everyone who's still in there trying. So it's
almost like a sports movie they're selling it as, but
it's you know, conquering the business world.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
That's an interesting pick for sure. I like the talent
that's in that movie.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
It's an odd combination of people like even Harrison Ford
and Sigourney Weaver is an odd combo.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
But you know that, I feel like that's odd to
today's standards because back then, you know, Sigourney Weaver, I
mean she was huge, you know, yeah, I mean that
was that was the days, you know, alien, Ghostbusters, Busters.
I mean, she was really in high demand. Gorillas in
the Mist, Gorilla's in the Mist? You pulled that one out?
Speaker 2 (12:08):
Where'd you pull that from the Mist?
Speaker 1 (12:10):
I totally forgot about that movie, but yeah, really really
good pick and something Yeah, completely different than mine, obviously.
Speaker 2 (12:17):
Yeah, off the beaten path, but representative I thought of
the time period, you know, capturing kind of the eighties
mentality towards work, or at least how it was represented
in culture a little bit.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
Yeah, also very different in that that movie was fairly successful.
Mine was not.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
What do you got up next?
Speaker 1 (12:33):
My next movie is something a little loose in my
interpretation of a working movie. But this one comes from
a year before the last movie. Again picking movies from
my childhood, I guess Weekend at Bernie's.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
Ah, yes, did you pick this movie? I did not,
But I love this movie and we're just kind of
talking about the eighties and yuppie dumb. Yeah, this is
another great report presentation of that.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
Yeah, so Weekend at Bernie's nineteen eighty nine. This movie
made thirty million dollars at the box office domestic by
eighty nine standards, that's not too bad in my opinion.
So the summary for this movie, if you haven't seen it,
this movie I think is very well known today comparatively
to other movies from that time period. Like this, two
idiots try to pretend that their murdered employer is really alive,
(13:25):
leading the hitman to attempt to track him down to
finish him off. That's it, is that the IMDb summary,
I think, so it refers to them as two idiots.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
I thought that what was really funny is like I
thought that this summaries for these weren't that great, Like
they were really strangely lacking. Yeah, there's some creativity, there's
some bad summaries. Yeah, So the argument here right now,
I know a lot of people who have seen this
movie might argue that it's not a work movie because
it takes place mostly at the beach.
Speaker 2 (13:56):
But what are they doing at the beach. Yeah, they're working.
They're at their boss's house.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
Yeah, but a lot of the beginning of the movie
does take place in an office. They are at work.
The whole reason for the movie is that these two
guys are really doing what they can to get ahead
at work. Right. They're going to their boss's beach house
because they think he invites him because he's happy with them.
He's proud of them for finding an error in their
(14:22):
accounting or something. And again, you know, my criteria is
pretty loose, but I'll just use the fact that they're
trekking to work on a Saturday during the opening credits
scene as a point in the favor of this is
a work movie. Right, really, really great stuff. I rewatched
this movie. I was actually watching it before our episode,
and I'll tell you it's nostalgic in a lot of ways.
(14:42):
It has people who are smoking cigarettes in the office.
I wasn't in an office back then. But I do
remember those times. You know, we've had episodes about smoking
when it was normal, hilarious attire. So there's some scenes
where they're in New York City. They're walking to the
office building and there's ZS men who are walking in
(15:02):
suits in the office with matching shorts like they were
suit shorts with like high black socks. To the actual point, though,
did the marketing focus on work? Well, barely. Okay, maybe
twenty five seconds or so of the trailer is them
at work or at work as they could be in
(15:24):
an office setting. The rest they're at this beach pretending
that their employer, their boss, is alive. To the movie
posters also very beach themed. Was it positive? You know,
was this a positive representation of work? And I would
say no, it's absolutely a negative association with work. These
two guys work the weekends and are doing it very uncomfortably.
(15:47):
They're underpaid, and they're treated terribly by their boss, who,
in no way am I giving anything away in this movie,
tries to have them killed. So you know, that's about
the worst a boss can probably do. But the marketing
of this is really great when you know the premise
of this movie. It even becomes better. The movie poster
is them holding Bernie up, you know, to make them
(16:09):
look alive. They're in the beach, and the tagline is
Bernie Lomax would be the perfect host except for one
small thing. He's dead so good, just so fantastic.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
It's tough to fit the work angle in when the
whole hulk of your movie is we're pretending like this
dead guy is alive. You know, that's the real selling point,
the work thing. It's prominent, but it is separate. This
would actually be a fantastic double feature with Working Girl.
They're both set in New York around the same time period.
(16:44):
You know, people trying to work up the ladder. Yeah,
you know these like guys who are on the bottom.
They're trying to get their way up to the top.
So there's a lot of overlap between the two. But man,
do I love work Weekend at Bernie's. I love Weekend
at Bernie's two. Also, yeah, I feel like we really
missed out not getting this guy an Oscar, the guy
(17:05):
who played Bernie. Yeah, because the stuff he does is
pretty pretty amazing, you know, the way he's just like
this lifeless body the whole time. Yeah, they do all
sorts of things to him.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
And also, you know the premise of this where nobody
realizes he's dead. It's just a pretty fantastic plot summary.
I mean, you know, like the whole thing watching people go.
Even the two main characters see at the very beginning
they know he's dead, and there's all these people that's
sort of trekking into the beach house and they think
(17:40):
that they're all going to know right away, and they
nobody knows, and they just watching their facial expressions as
they realize these people are crazy. They do not realize
this guy's dead. Is super funny to watch that unfold.
I think it holds up. I mean, there's a lot
of outdated things, but that's kind of what makes it
fun too. You're like, what is this nonsense?
Speaker 2 (17:59):
That's a really good It's another one like Men at
Work not streaming anywhere. It's kind of been lost a
little bit to time, but man, if you get a
chance to see it, I mean that the plot, the
idea is just kind of timeless.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
Yeah, you can even do a triple you know, a
triple feature, triple feature with Secret of My Success, because
I think all three of those would work really well together.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
Yeah, all New York movies where somebody is trying to
get to the top. Well, once again, I'm gonna swerve us.
I'm gonna take us in a different direction. I'm gonna
take us out in New York, but not too far
out of New York. Gonna take us to New Jersey
nineteen ninety four for the movie Clerks.
Speaker 1 (18:35):
All right, okay, I see where you were going with
your picks.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
Yeah, like it. Synopsis of this one a day in
the lives of two convenience store clerks named Dante and
Randall as they annoy customers, discuss movies, and play hockey
on the store roof. This is writer director Kevin Smith's
no budget indie movie debut, shot in black and white.
You know, I think they made it for like seven
(19:00):
thousand dollars or something crazy like that, but you know,
kind of caught on, became something of a sensation, made
about three million domestic, which is pretty good for where
it came from. This, you know, has a totally different angle.
This is more in line with the men in work.
This is a work sucks. I'm working a dead end job.
All the customers I come in contact with are annoying.
(19:23):
The boss is annoying, my co workers annoying, you know,
in the in the trailer, you hear this, this quote.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
Still have to be great if it wasn't for the customers,
you know.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
And there's a lot of the just not taking the
job seriously. We're slacking off, We're closing up the store
for a while to go play hockey. I think there's
a part where somebody's you know, having sex at work.
There's a lot of just goofing off, talking about random stuff,
you know, talking about Star Wars, doing ever, being bored,
Remember that being bored at work? Remember when that happened?
Speaker 1 (19:53):
Does that still happen? But I guess that still happens.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
Doesn't seem to happen to us, but I'm sure it
still happens to you know, when you're a certain person
of a certain age at a certain job. Yeah, but
this all takes place around a single work day. So
it starts with the opening, you know, the day guy
gets called in on a day he's not supposed to work.
Ends when he closes up shop. So it's very much
this type of job, this kind of working class job,
and just the annoyances and the fun that happens within
(20:18):
that day. So clerks. Do you remember Clerks? You see clerk?
Speaker 1 (20:22):
Yeah, yeah, that was a big deal back in the day,
I think, mainly because it quickly and even today I
think it's still this way cult following. Everybody knew it.
The big thing. I remember years ago when they announced
Clerks Too, which.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
Is another you know work movie. That time they're working
in a fast food place.
Speaker 1 (20:41):
Yeah, now there's a Clerk's three even, But I know
that that was even a bigger deal because people loved
the first one so much. You know, it was one
of those things. It's just it's kind of like they
come along every so often write a movie like that
where made for little to no money, and that it
just hits a nerve with audiences. You know, they're like,
I love this. This describes me in some way or
(21:04):
you know, is a reflection of what I've went through
maybe in my past. And then suddenly that movie becomes
something that speaks to something.
Speaker 2 (21:13):
You know, even with some of these corporate ladder movies,
we're not all in that situation. Maybe we can expire
to be in that situation or relate it to our
job in some way. Almost everyone has had like a
stupid job they hate at some point, or like, you know,
i'm a teenager, I'm working at McDonald's or something like that.
Almost everybody has that type of experience where they can
(21:36):
kind of connect to something like this. I can remember
watching it when I was like fifteen or sixteen, and
some guy put it on and he was like, oh,
you got to see this, and it just seeing this
movie and it looks like crap, and just being like,
I don't want to watch this, and then they start
talking and you know, within like ten minutes of it,
I'm like, I feel like they're speaking my language. You know.
It was a real like gen X type movie in
(21:58):
that way.
Speaker 1 (21:58):
Yeah, you're hooked, pretty cool, but you're right, and I think,
you know, we all kind of see ourselves in some
of these characters or some of these jobs that have happened,
you know, either in our past or even maybe currently
we're in a job like that. It become very relatable
in that way.
Speaker 2 (22:14):
The marketing for this, there's no other way to go.
It's completely The movie's completely based around work. The marketing
based entirely around getting you to relate to this idea.
You know, the tagline which is in big like handwritten letters.
In handwriting on the poster is just because they serve
you doesn't mean they like you. They don't like you
as a customer there, they don't want to be there,
(22:34):
they don't want to do this job. These are your clerks.
Get to know these people. They kind of like push
that forward and that's you know, that's in the trailer,
that's on the poster. We're going to see these people
in their everyday work life. That's what this is.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
And they're at work the whole time. So even like
in the trailer, they're at work.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
Nowhere else to go because they film like probably eighty
five percent of it within this convenience store.
Speaker 1 (22:56):
That's a really good pick and one that I think
a lot of our listeners will appreciate. Eight because you know, again, clerks,
everyone knows that one. And if you haven't, you're getting
some great picks today. Some good things catch up on
Labor Day weekend, Yeah Film Festival for Yeah, Labor Day
Film Festival. Right here. You heard it first from MoMA,
speaking of movies that you have potentially experienced yourself, a
(23:21):
horrible boss might be in that in that world of
jobs that you've experienced relates to my third pick, which
is horrible bosses.
Speaker 2 (23:31):
Did I tell you that Parkin tricked me into having
a drink at eight o'clock this morning? That's your boss.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
Isn't sexually harassing you? See?
Speaker 2 (23:37):
If this thing is working, Oh, I can make out
our little freserv thereaba shalom.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
Somebody's circumcised. You know yours doesn't sound that bad. We
need to trim some of the fat.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
What do you mean by trim the fat? I want
you to fire the fat people. You can start with
large margin.
Speaker 1 (23:53):
March.
Speaker 2 (23:53):
Can you come in here please? What I thought he
was going to give you a promotion?
Speaker 1 (23:57):
No, he is. I have decided and who I want
to be a new vice president of sales. Me had
to kind of pick this movie twenty eleven. This movie
made one hundred and seventeen millions. This is probably the best,
did the best at the box office compared to all
my other movies that I picked. If you've never seen
this movie, very good. It's more recent, obviously, decades after
(24:18):
my other two picks. Three friends conspire to murder their
awful bosses when they realize they are standing in the
way of their happiness. Here's what I'll say, okay, I
did mention this. I'm going to say it first before
I even talk about the marketing. Thematically, all my movies
work related. All of my movies also have murder or
(24:40):
death in them. I don't know what that says about.
Why am I choosing movies that are associated with death?
I don't know. They're also all comedies. I think maybe
there's something that I appreciate about the comedy and work
relationship because I think sometimes, you know, you have to
laugh at certain things. You know, if you don't, you cry, right,
(25:00):
And maybe there's more crying that happens at work than
needs to be. But so did the marketing focus on work?
The trailer definitely focused on work life from three different perspectives.
That all three characters are talking about their horrible bosses
and their jobs not at all positive. You know, I
(25:21):
think this is pretty obvious. You know, if you have
horrible bosses, it's a pretty negative way to portray work.
What I did love about the marketing though, Not only
is the trailer pretty funny, but the marketing the movie posters.
So they had a main poster that was like the
three characters, and then they showed their bosses above them,
and they say psycho man eater tool for the situations
(25:44):
that they're being put in within the context of the movie.
What's really cool is they actually did these individualized posters
that elaborated on them and are thematically colored tied to
the main poster. For example, Jenner Anniston is one of
the bosses, and Charlie Day is her employee, and it says,
(26:04):
is your boss a sex crazed man eater? Right? If
you know the premise of the movie, she's like, just
that she is tormenting him at work inappropriate blah blah blah. Right.
For Colin Ferrell, his employee is Jason Sedekis and he's
just a sleezy guy, and it says, is your boss
(26:26):
a total sleezy tool. They're showing both of those characters
on there, and just you know, you get this feel
this is emotional connection to this sleezy tool of a boss.
Speaker 2 (26:35):
Right.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
The third one is Kevin Spacey and Jason Bateman and
it says, is your boss a slave driving psycho? All
like kind of color coded to their respective original movie
poster and stuff. So they're very very cool and something
that I hadn't seen done exactly like this before they're
all asking a question about your boss, right, that evokes
(26:58):
in emotion from you like yeah, yeah, yeah, I've had that,
I've had that kind of boss, or I do have
that kind of boss. You know, maybe not exactly, but
you get it. You get that they're tying a horrible
boss to the premise of the movie, and you want
to see it for that reason. Right, great title of
a movie too, So yeah, that's my pick. What do
you think of that one?
Speaker 2 (27:19):
That's a good one. This is one I also considered
for for my picks. Another thing, you know, we're talking
that's highly relatable. Almost anybody has probably had a horrible boss.
Maybe not to the extent yeah that they take it
in the movie, but you know, just a boss that
you're like, oh god, yeah, person. You know, so there's
(27:39):
some even just hearing the premise of the movie, there's
like some immediate connection.
Speaker 1 (27:44):
There, right, Yeah, to your point. Right, Maybe not to
the level of these you know, they're all very exaggerated
versions of probably a horrible boss and even what they're
willing to do to their horrible bosses, but you know,
it's it's one of those things you're like, man, I
just for whatever reason, you weren't real happy with your boss.
(28:05):
This movie can be relatable in that way. Also a
lot of great one liners.
Speaker 2 (28:09):
And yeah, I was gonna say great cast. M h.
There's the stuff Colin Farrell is doing is super funny.
Jennifer Aniston's very game. Jamie Fox comes in for like,
you know, just an extended cameo, and he's pretty hilarious.
So you got a lot of people doing some pretty
funny work in there, And I say it's pretty good
script all around. One of the better comedies that came out.
(28:30):
They came out with a sequel I think a few
years later that was just really really awful.
Speaker 1 (28:36):
Was it bad? I don't remember being horrible horrible.
Speaker 2 (28:40):
It was kind of like in my book I put
it with like The Hangover Part two, where I was like,
why why are we going back?
Speaker 1 (28:46):
Well, you know, it's something so successful, got to go
back to the Well, yeah, they're bound to. They're bound
to try to like milk it a little bit more.
I'm surprised they didn't make a third one, to be
honest with you, it's a.
Speaker 2 (28:57):
Ripe premise, right, You could do horrible bos. You could
keep thinking of horrible Bosses Forever like New Horrible Bosses.
Speaker 1 (29:03):
Yeah, so what's your last pick?
Speaker 2 (29:06):
My last pick? Again, swerving in a different direction, same
time period as Horrible Bosses. You know, now I'm going in.
I went in the eighties and I moved into the nineties.
Gave us a little different flavor. Now I'm into the
two thousands here, okay, and I'm going with a movie,
you know, a sort of a comedy drama, looks at
work in a different light again, sort of thinking about
(29:28):
the weight of work and what work really means to us,
and what it's like to lose work in some respects.
Talking about the two thousand and nine movie Up in
the Air with George Klooney. We give you the synopsis
on this one. This is a pretty bad synopsis. Ryan's
job is to travel around the country firing off people.
When his boss hires Natalie, who proposes firing people via
(29:48):
video conference, he tries to convince her that her method
is a mistake. So this was a, you know, pretty
big movie at the time. We got Jason Bateman of
Horrible Bosses, This, George Clooney, vera Farmiga, Anna Kendrick. I
think this was our first movie. Had some elements of comedy,
kind of almost Jerry maguireish, another kind of workplace comedy
(30:10):
where it's somebody kind of in crisis with their job
in some way, but looking at work as something necessary,
something valuable, something meaningful, and what it means when that's
kind of taken away for you. You know, losing your
work means losing your purpose in a way. And you
have a guy here in George Clooney whose job it
is to actually fire people take away their jobs for
(30:32):
a living, you know. And it also looks a lot
at this whole culture of people who travel all the
time for their jobs. So he has like a whole
system of how he packs his suitcase and be the
most efficient, how he can rack up the most frequent
flyer miles, how he like loves to live this sort
of travel working lifestyle. A lot of scenes in airports
(30:53):
of people, you know, dressed in suits or business attire
getting from one place to another. So it's just kind
of a different for different look at this kind of
jet setting executive or business class. Interesting thing. Movie came
out in two thousand and nine in the midst of
what was an economic collapse, so this kind of took
on added resonance. One thing they did when they were
(31:15):
making the movie was they said they were filming a documentary.
They interviewed people who were actually like unemployed or had
lost their job, incorporated that kind of footage into the movie.
So when it came out, it kind of had this
added resonance to it. Interesting movie. It's a movie I
really like. I think there's a lot a lot going
on here. Have you seen this movie? You like this movie?
Speaker 1 (31:34):
I don't know if I've ever seen this movie, but
I'm intrigued by it. And I'll tell you why I'm intrigued.
I don't even care about the premise of the movie,
to be honest with you. Summary the talent in this
movie is kind of interesting.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
It's a ton of people.
Speaker 1 (31:49):
It's loaded loaded. I'm looking at the cast. George Clooney,
Vera Formiga, Anna Kendrick, like you said, Jason Bateman also
in Horrible Bosses, JK. Simmons, Sam Elliott, Sam Elliott is
in this movie.
Speaker 2 (32:05):
There's a lot of people who show up for like
what you would call like a cameo or a short
small part.
Speaker 1 (32:10):
Danny McBride, Zach galifanekis I mean, yeah, it's it's crazy.
Here's the topper, here's the reason why I want to
watch this movie right now. Young MC Marvin Young Young
MC of stature, bust a Move. He was, he was
a rapper back in the day. I don't know what
year that was with bust a Move? Was that eighties?
Speaker 2 (32:32):
Eighties? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (32:33):
Yeah, eighty nine. I see eighty nine right there. I
mean soundtrack of our youth. I feel like bust a
Move still popular today, but you know, I'd go see
it just for that, for all the people that are
in this movie. That's crazy. I could see why it
didn't necessarily make it on my radar. I don't know
if I would have. Maybe this is more now than
(32:55):
it is then, Like I think this movie would do
better maybe now. I don't know. It might be.
Speaker 2 (32:59):
It was a fairly big movie, made eighty three million
dollars at the time, had some like Oscar nominations. It
was known and it was the director had done like Juneo.
It was a little buzzy at the time it came out.
Might have been more adult than than your brain was
ready for at the time.
Speaker 1 (33:14):
I'm sure it was.
Speaker 2 (33:15):
So the marketing for this This is kind of one
of those tricky movies got that tone where it dances
between being a comedy being a drama, you know, goes
back and forth. But they kind of mostly focused it
on obviously Colooney and the title with this air they
like the airport centric a little bit, this travel kind
of lifestyle. So you see on the poster you see
(33:36):
like an airport, people in business attire. You kind of
see George and silhouette with the two main actresses in
it on the side of him. You get the sense
of something work related, but it's not necessarily like Front
and Center. It's more selling like the human elements, which
I would say of the story, though in the trailer
(33:56):
they kind of do put up front, you know, this
kind of hook that this his job is to fire
people for a living, and he's in some sort of
crisis is happening with his employment.
Speaker 1 (34:08):
I think you mainly picked this because of Anna Kendrick,
because I know you have both.
Speaker 2 (34:12):
I mean, I like Anna Kendrick, I like Vera Farmiguy,
I like him both. You know.
Speaker 1 (34:16):
This is also I'm not sure it's totally believable that
Anna Kendrick is of the age in this she looks
like she's ten and she's playing like a professional who
looks much much older or should be much older.
Speaker 2 (34:32):
Well, she's supposed to be like a fresh out of
college m kind of whip or snapper, coming in and trying.
Speaker 1 (34:38):
To be like I have these ideas okay, okay.
Speaker 2 (34:41):
And she's like pushing through the organization. So she's supposed
to be someone very.
Speaker 1 (34:45):
Young, okay, fresh out of elementary school. Yeah, and again
I think this was kind of her first movie she
was in. Yeah, she's fresh, she's like kindergarten or something.
But this is a good one.
Speaker 2 (34:56):
And also, you know, we talk about things where you're
like maybe kind of aspirational or you watch it and
you're like, oh, that kind of seems exciting. Is when
you watch people who are like traveling and going to
you know, I'm like checking into all these airports. Really,
when you travel for work, it's kind of terrible, but
they make it look you know, I'm going to all
these hotels, I got these frequent flyer miles. I know
(35:18):
the best places to go and where to get a
seat and the best places to get a drink and
how to do this and that. I know all the
like workarounds. It looks cool.
Speaker 1 (35:26):
Yeah, and anybody living through two thousand and nine remembers
was not great time. Now, it was kind of scary,
as we thought at the time, everything was up in
the air, Well said. Well said yeah. But to the
point for our listeners, there's a million of these movies
out there. We were picking six. I mean, you could
(35:46):
go all day long and pick really great movies. I'd
argue you could pick Missus doubtfire. She's at work.
Speaker 2 (35:52):
That's what I mean the definition of work. When I
was initially thinking about this, I'm like, maybe there's not
that many movies about work. And then I kind of
like flipped completely the other way, and I'm like, maybe
every movie's about work.
Speaker 1 (36:03):
Yeah, I mean we talk about the ones that are obvious,
you know, like Off of Space.
Speaker 2 (36:08):
That's kind of the big, glaring one that's missing from
this discussion. But I think it was for me it
was like almost two on the nose.
Speaker 1 (36:15):
Yeah, even though I like Off Space, there's just so
many of those. So it's like it's hard because again
I was sort of picking things that were sort of
related but also you know, had like a fun twist
to them, just like yours, you know, working girl. I
would never even want to thaw that one. But that's
a great one and it's got work in the title.
That always works.
Speaker 2 (36:34):
Hey, you get you get like a bonus point for that.
We should maybe make this a Labor Day tradition.
Speaker 1 (36:39):
Yeah, we could.
Speaker 2 (36:40):
Since nobody's celebrating Labor Day, we should make this a
thing where we do, you know, six picks every Labor Day.
Speaker 1 (36:47):
You know, you really could pick six and we would
never run out of movies ever. I think that's a
good plan. We should do that. So meet us back
here next year at this time for more Labor Day picks.
You know, you could benjam if you can find them
on streaming. Maybe you've got a hard copy of this
movie somewhere sitting around.
Speaker 2 (37:05):
Your VHS of Men at Work.
Speaker 1 (37:07):
Yeah, you're Blu ray with all the extras, your DVD,
your laser disc if you've got that still sitting around, if.
Speaker 2 (37:15):
You capture that technology.
Speaker 1 (37:17):
Yeah, that's it for this episode of movies and marketing everyone.
Until next time, Let's do that thing we always do
and fade to black.
Speaker 2 (37:28):
I'll be back. He's not coming back.
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The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show. Clay Travis and Buck Sexton tackle the biggest stories in news, politics and current events with intelligence and humor. From the border crisis, to the madness of cancel culture and far-left missteps, Clay and Buck guide listeners through the latest headlines and hot topics with fun and entertaining conversations and opinions.
The Charlie Kirk Show
Charlie is America's hardest working grassroots activist who has your inside scoop on the biggest news of the day and what's really going on behind the headlines. The founder of Turning Point USA and one of social media's most engaged personalities, Charlie is on the front lines of America’s culture war, mobilizing hundreds of thousands of students on over 3,500 college and high school campuses across the country, bringing you your daily dose of clarity in a sea of chaos all from his signature no-holds-barred, unapologetically conservative, freedom-loving point of view. You can also watch Charlie Kirk on Salem News Channel