Mike talks to writer Alan Siegel (The Ringer) who just wrote a book about the golden era of The Simpsons in the 90s changed TV and America forever. They build their Mount Rushmore of 90’s Simpsons episodes, how the show was influenced by classic cinema and the best movies that they did parodies of on the show. In the Movie Review, Mike defends The Electric State and its horrendous score on the notorious fruit reviewing site. He talks about why people were too harsh on it, how he feels about the Russo Brothers going into the next Avengers movies, and his theory on why Netflix may start spying on us to improve their movies? In the Trailer Park, Mike talks about the new Blumhouse horror movie coming out this week, The Woman In The Yard. It’s about a mysterious woman who repeatedly appears in a family's front yard, often delivering chilling warnings and unsettling messages, leaving them to question her identity, motives and the potential danger she might pose. Mike shares the major red flags that popped up from him in the preview.
PRE-ORDER HERE: STUPID TV, BE MORE FUNNY by Alan Siegel. A book about the golden age of The Simpsons in the '90s, comes out on June 10.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello, and welcome back to movie Mike's movie podcast. I
am your host Movie Mike. Today we're covering one of
my favorite topics of all time, The Simpsons in the nineties.
I have on writer Alan Siegel, who wrote a book
about the Simpsons coming out this summer. We'll talk about
the golden age of the Simpsons, which is my favorite,
and we'll also talk about how movie classics had an
impact on the show in the nineties. In the movie review,
(00:20):
I am defending a movie on Netflix called The Electric State,
directed by the Russo Brothers, starring Chris Pratt and Millie
Bobby Brown. This movie was being dragged through the mud
and I'm here to say it is not as bad
as everybody is saying it is. In the trailer Park,
we'll talk about a new horror movie coming out this
week called The Woman in the Yard. Am I going
to hate it? Or Am I going to love it?
Thank you for being here, Thank you for being subscribed.
(00:43):
And now let's talk movies from the Nastville podcast network.
And this is movie Mike Movie Plot. Alan Siegel is
a fantastic writer. He lives in Los Angeles and covers
and makes some movies. Music TV show, sports, and general nostalgia.
For the Ringer. You can check out his work at them.
He has a book coming out on June tenth called
Stupid TV Be More Funny, about the golden age of
(01:05):
the Simpsons in the nineties. You know me from listening
to this podcast. I am a massive Simpsons fan. Even
though this isn't a TV podcast, I always find ways
to incorporate the Simpsons in my reviews because when you
look at the show's golden age, so much of it
was influenced by famous, iconic movies. So I want to
talk to Alan about that. I want to get to
know him through movies. You can find the link to
(01:26):
pre order his book in the episode notes. But right now,
let's talk to Alan Siegel. Alan, how are you doing.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
I'm good. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
It is so rare that I get to find somebody
who is as nerdy about the Simpsons as I am,
somebody who has now dedicated so much of their life
to write a Simpsons book. So I'm excited to get
to talking about the book. But first, since it's the
movie podcast, I want to get to know you through movies.
Is that cool?
Speaker 2 (01:50):
Absolutely?
Speaker 1 (01:51):
We're gonna do what I call the first four movie questions.
Question number one, What was the first movie you remember
seeing in theaters?
Speaker 2 (02:00):
I think it was Oliver and Company. Oh, It's so good,
nineteen eighty seven. So it's a Disney cartoon pre Disney
renaissance with the songs of Billy Joel.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
Yeah, that is a great Disney movie. I tell people
that is one of the most underrated Disney movies because
it was kind of in that bunk era, that what
they call the xerox era, where the animation was like
just not very good. They said the ideas at that
time were just unimaginative. But I love that movie. What
do you remember about seeing that in theaters?
Speaker 2 (02:29):
I just remember the songs and kind of not being
that impressed with it. I was really young, I was
probably four, so I enjoyed it, but I didn't really
know what was coming. And actually that there is a
good Simpsons tie in, which is the animators that I
talked to talked about sort of at that time, that
was like the peak of what you could do as
an animator. There really wasn't. There wasn't this ambitious stuff
(02:52):
that came later for sure.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
All right, next up, if you're on a Desert Island.
You can only bring one movie? What movie is that
going to be?
Speaker 2 (02:58):
Terminator two? I would say absolutely. I think I can
rewatch that anytime anywhere.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
Is that the movie you've seen the most?
Speaker 2 (03:05):
I don't think I've seen it the most. I think
the most the movie I've seen the most probably is
Major League, which my grandparents gave us on VHS in
around nineteen ninety one. I think because there was like
a baseball on the cover, they had no idea how
profane it was.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
For sure, literally one of the most vulgar baseball movies
you could give to a kid. All right. First, for
number three, what is your favorite animated movie?
Speaker 2 (03:28):
That is a very good question. I think the Original
Toy Story. I was twelve at the time, so it
really it kind of showed me that there could be
animated movies that weren't just sort of kiddy and yeah
it was for kids, but it was just like a
little more evolved than some of the stuff that we
had gotten at the time.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
And final, in the first four, what movie character are
you most like in real life?
Speaker 2 (03:50):
Man? I have to think about that one for a second, see.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
Because for me, like outside of doing something like this,
I would say silent Bob because if I'm not talking
about movies, if I'm not talking about the Simpsons, I
don't have a whole lot to say. So in like
normal everyday conversations, I'll say the least, but every now
and then I'll get in that one liner and I
was like, everybody's like, oh, that guy can talk, but
that is kind of mine, Like I identify a lot
with Silent Bob.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
I would say some combination of the three main characters
and super Bad so mcluve, Michael Sarah, and Jonah Hill.
I just think Christopher mintz plass his real name is
not mc lovey. I would say, like that combo of
you know, awkwardness and sweetness. I hope maybe I don't
really know if I was that way, and as a teenager,
maybe I sort of aspired to have the sense of
(04:33):
humor that Jonah Hill's character did.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
But yeah, I think that's a combination of like everybody
in high school as all those three characters, like you
want to be cool, but you're also kind of a jerk,
and you're also kind of a nerd, and we also
probably love Simpsons.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
Yeah, the insecurities would come out in sort of ye,
dickishness for sure.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
So let's talk about the book Stupid TV Be More Funny,
all about ninety Simpsons. And before we get into that,
I want to do something fun where we we draft
our favorite Simpsons episodes from the nineties. So we're building
a mount Rushmore of Simpson's episodes, and the rules are
that will each pick one episode and once one is
(05:11):
off the board, no one else can pick it. So
we're gonna go four episodes here. Since you're the guest,
kick us off with your first pick in the mount
Rushmore of ninety Simpsons episodes.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
So it's a little bit of a don't know out
there pick, But I'm gonna go first with Itchy and
Scratchy and Puucci because I think it was sort of
their best meta episode commentary about the fans and sort
of about what the show became and how difficult it
was to maintain its peak, and I think in a
perfect world that almost would have been the finale of
(05:40):
the show. I just think it really encapsulated the challenges
that they had to again continue making the show the
funniest thing on television, and really it showed how damn
impossible it was and how you just couldn't please everyone.
And it was sort of around the time where internet
fans were becoming a thing. And as you can imagine,
(06:01):
Simpsons fans are pretty eggheaded and nerdy, and I was
one of them, and they were early Internet adopters, and
they were saying that the show was going back in
the early nineties, which is insane.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
I've never thought about it like that. That they didn't
have to really take all that criticism that shows now
get with social media because you had the people hating
on it, but they didn't really see it as instantly
as you do now.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
Yeah, some of the writers, again, they were at the
time just sort of as nerdy and eggheaded as the fans,
so they too would get what they had early dial
up internet connections, and they kind of loved seeing what
the fans said. But like anything with the Internet, it
sort of devolves into this piling on and eventually they
sort of got annoyed with that too.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
All right, So we're going with Itching and Scratchy and
Pucci as your number one pick. For number one, I'm
gonna go with Bart gets famous. I think for me
working in show business doing radio and podcasts now as
a kid, I thought it was the coolest thing ever,
Like to see somebody working in show business and you're like, oh,
you must have the coolest life. And I actually got
into working in it, and I'll say I still love it.
(07:03):
But there's also that side that people don't often see
behind the scenes, of how much of a grind it is.
My favorite quote from that is I wish I was dead. Wow,
being in show business is like a dream.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
We're really lucky, aren't we.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
Which show was good?
Speaker 2 (07:19):
It's funny because I had interviewed Conan O'Brien about March
Versus the Monorail, and he talked about people asking him
all the time about creative work and what he's worked on,
and he said it was always sort of disappointing to
them because as much as he loved it, like these
magic moments, he said, basically, we're just eating fried food,
(07:39):
writing longhand on a notepad, driving his four tourus into
the Fox lot on a weekend. You know, the magic
came later after the thing was created. Creating it itself.
It was rarely romantic.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
Yeah, I mean, even if you look at where they
would write in the show, it's like this crappy, like
hotel looking place where there's nothing going on there exactly.
All right, what's your next pick?
Speaker 2 (08:01):
I'm gonna go with mister Plow. I think it's a
great combo of silly, emotional, ridiculous and started. It was
right when the show started to scratch the surface of
what it could do beyond family drama.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
I love that episode.
Speaker 3 (08:17):
Oh, mister Plow, that's my name? That name again is
mister Plow.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
I feel that that is just one of those defining
Homer moments out of the entire series. I think I
just love the rivalry between him and Barney in that episode,
because Barney, for the most part, is this unambitious, just
character the entire time, and then out of nowhere, he's like,
I'm gonna be the best plow guy in Springfield.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
It's it's definitely like a he, you know, breaks character
to film a commercial with Linda Ronstat that you just
don't like, get that kind of thing later with Barney.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
That's a great pick. I think with number two, I'm
gonna go with twenty two short films about Springfield. I
think it's just such an ambitious episode that they haven't
replicated since. I just love how every single story intertwines,
and I think as a kid, that is the episode
that blew my mind the most, just because how complex
it is.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
Yeah. Bill Oakley, who sort of shepherded that episode, talked
about how he did not expect the idea to fly,
and he was the showrunner, so I think he basically
was like, all right, we're gonna do it and pushed
it through. And I think they all sort of drew
ideas out of it or drew characters out of a
hat to pick how they would write the episode.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
All Right, what you got for your next pick?
Speaker 2 (09:26):
I'm gonna go with last Sexit the Springfield.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
Ah, that's a good one that was on my list.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
Yeah, it's sort of a it's a cliche now, but
people love that episode.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
That Oldlin Lisa needs Bracious Dan, Oldlin Lisa Needs Bracius.
Speaker 2 (09:42):
Has a bunch of good jokes. It's like a lot
of social commentary in it with talk about unions and
all the dental stuff is very very funny.
Speaker 3 (09:50):
If we give up our dental plan, I'll have to
pay for less precious.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
That's an episode that gets referenced the most. I feel
like that's a classic episode. That's a good for number three.
For number three. I'm going to go with an episode
that has been my longest favorite episode. I think it
would be number one for probably the majority of my life.
But it's Homie the Clown, and I think it's because
of the story of how there was always going to
(10:15):
be at one point a reveal that Krusty the Clown
was Homer Simpson, and this whole time that Bart is
kind of idolizing this character that it's actually his dad
the whole time in makeup, Like, I wish they would
have made that happen at some point. I get that
Krusty becoming a bigger figure probably would have made that
a little bit more confusing, but I think it was
that whole idea of Bart idolizing somebody that easily could
(10:38):
have been his dad, and then just hilarious like physical
comedy in that episode, the.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
First maybe five minutes where Homer is being wooed to
go to Clown College is definitely like a top five
sequence in the show's history.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
Yeah, that whole sequel, like him seeing the billboard and
then playing with his mashed potatoes and that's it. I'm
going to Clown College. One of the most out of
pocket things he's ever said in the series. Yes, Homie,
that's it. You people have stood in my way long enough.
Speaker 3 (11:07):
I'm going to clone college.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
I don't think any of us expected him to say that.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
It's definitely an early like, Oh, Homer is getting more
stupid and more out there and his family is starting
to notice, which it was always there, but it wasn't
quite as pronounced until then.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
I think I love that evolution of Homer where they
he went from just being the dad to be I
guess everybody watching kind of expected him to get dumber
and dumber as the show went along, and maybe that
was a little bit of a detriment to the show
later in seasons, like getting into late nineties and early
two thousands, where he got a little bit too dumb.
Did you think Homer got too dumb in the nineties.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
I would say the nineties was the peak of his stupidity,
and it really worked. I mean it was sort of fun.
I think for the writers to take Homer again, make
him stupider, and place him in these crazy situations where
he should be smart but he's not, Like going to space.
You know. That was controversial at the time but ended
up being very funny.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
All right, your final pick and your mount rushmore of
Simpsons episodes from the nineties.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
I'm gonna go with Lisa's Substitute. It's a season two
episode with Dustin Hoffman as the guest star. I think
it was maybe the earliest, true, incredible classic of the show.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
I'm gonna miss you.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
I'll tell you what. Whenever you feel like you're alone
and there's nobody you can rely on, this is all
you need to know.
Speaker 4 (12:37):
Thank you, mister.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:39):
The heartwarming Lisa episodes in the nineties were some of
the best because she gave balance to the show in
ways that the other Simpson's family members really couldn't. Because
you have Homer, like we're talking about, being a complete idiot.
Bart was like the rock star of the show in
the early nineties, and then she kind of brought everything
down to a human level. What do you love the
(13:00):
most about Lisa Simpson.
Speaker 2 (13:01):
I mean, she's the show's moral center, and I think
people kind of unfairly like view her as a kill joy,
But she is the closest thing to the audience, I
would say in terms of character, especially like hardcore Simpsons fans,
you know, like again kind of nerdy eggheaded, sweet, but
also likes to lord her intelligence over other people. She's
(13:23):
definitely one of the more vulnerable characters, and that can
lead to some really really good episodes. Anything with Lisa
and Homer together, contrasted, is always really good.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
For my final pick, I think I'm gonna go with
Marge Be Not Proud. That is an episode that I
watch every single year. I think it's obviously the bone
Storm reference is one of my favorites of all time,
but I think that one has the most heartwarming message
to me of like Bart getting older, him being so
just distraughd, of not just making his parents mad, but
(13:54):
you know, them being disappointed in him, And I think
that's like one of his most defining moments of like, oh,
Bart actually has some sensibilities here that aren't just like
him doing dumb radical things.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
Yeah, he's very guilty about stealing the video, and it's
funny that they or maybe not funny, but it's interesting
that they so when he steals it, like it's like
he steals it and he realizes he can't enjoy this
thing that he stole. It's just kind of miserable to
him after that dailing.
Speaker 3 (14:21):
How could you we live in a society of laws.
Why do you think I took it all those Police
Academy movies for fun?
Speaker 1 (14:29):
Well, I didn't hear anybody.
Speaker 3 (14:31):
Laughing, did you, except that that guy who made sound effects?
Whoa whoom? Where was I? Oh? Yeah, stay out.
Speaker 2 (14:42):
Of my boots? All right?
Speaker 1 (14:44):
So those are our Mount Rushmore picks. The book is
called Stupid TV, Be More Funny, which is a quote
from an episode where Homer bangs on the TV trying
to get the comedian on the screen to be more
funny because he doesn't get the jokes TV, but TV
more funny? Was this always the phrase that you wanted
to pick for the name of the book?
Speaker 2 (15:05):
You know, it took me a little while to settle
on that. I like it because, first of all, he
was watching Garrison Keeler, which is really funny. That's what
Homer was mad at. I don't think he understood Garrison
Keeler at the time. Prairie Home Companion was a little
advanced for him at that moment. I just thought it
sort of summed up what The Simpsons was about, which
was elevating TV in a way. This was sort of
(15:26):
before prestige TV was a phrase and it was I think,
you know, unequivocally smarter than anything else on you know,
at the time, there were funny sitcoms, for sure, but
the Simpsons was just on a different level.
Speaker 1 (15:39):
From that phrase, that quote. What are some other quotes
that have kind of become a part of your everyday
vocabulary because of The Simpsons? Because I have so many
of these, I.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
Think it shifts. But lately it's been doctor Nick saying,
you know, the most rewarding part was when he gave me.
Speaker 3 (15:55):
The most rewarding part was when he gave me my money.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
And that's it. You know, any kind of it applies
to any sort of cynical either money grab or just
like on a work setting when you're sort of down
about something. It kind of reminds me of the you know,
don Draper like that, that's what the money's for.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
One that has kind of creeped into my vocabulary recently
that I realized I've been saying here for so long,
is and how whenever Homer he's talking about whenever he
learns a new piece of information, he forgets an old
piece of information.
Speaker 3 (16:25):
Every time I learned something new, it pushes some old
stuff out.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
Of my brain.
Speaker 3 (16:29):
Remember, when I took that home wine making course and
I forgot how to drive.
Speaker 1 (16:33):
That's because you want drunk. And I've said and how
so many times that I kind of forget that it's
a phrase that nobody uses anymore. And then it's a
phrase from like the nineteen twenties slaying.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
Yeah, that show was so good at taking these like
little inconsequential phrases and kind of shoving them into the lexicon,
like doe was originally written to the script as like
annoyed grunt, and Dan Casselnetta just made it his own
and the word met, you know, free word. I don't
think the Simpsons came up with that, but they use
(17:04):
it all the time. And I guarantee, you know, I'm
forty one, people ten years younger, ten years older, like
in that range. That's where they got the use of
that word, for sure.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
So in your research for this book, how much of
the Simpsons did you had to dive into and at
what point did you get sick of them?
Speaker 2 (17:20):
I rewatched a bunch of classic episodes, but the thing
is that was sort of in my media diet already,
so I definitely didn't get sick of it. I would
say towards the end of the research process, I was like,
I just can't watch anymore. I don't want to get
sick of it, Like this is my favorite thing in
the world. I don't want to be susceptible to losing
the love. And it never really happened. You know, since
I've put the finishing touches on the book, I've definitely
(17:42):
gone back and watched more.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
A theory I kind of have is when we I
rewatched some episodes in preparation for this, and I realized
how much they would reference things that were so niche
and so obscure at a time when I didn't know
what was happening. I didn't know they were referencing old
TV shows, old songs, and it seemed like the writers
at that time were just these hardcore Harvard nerds who
(18:05):
would really dive into these really just deep things that
nobody else was gonna get. But now it's the people
who grew up with the show, like you and I,
who are a part of the writing staff now, who
are a part of it, who they're almost referencing the
episodes they grew up with more than referencing those other things.
Do you find that that is kind of what is
(18:25):
happening not only with The Simpsons, but even other media
franchises like Star Wars. It's that kind of evolution of
the fan now becoming a part of the driving force.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
Yeah, I think that's definitely the trend. I think that
can be good and bad. I mean, I think again,
like in mid century directors, all these these guys and
it was mostly men. You know, they fought in wars,
they had lives, and you know, then you look at
like Quentin Tarantino, who grew up on movies and all
his movies reference other movies, which is great. I just
think it sort of creates a different kind of cinema
(18:57):
or TV. But yeah, like, no one who worked in
the early Simpsons like obviously grew up on the Simpsons.
Like I think Oakley and Weinstein, who were the showrunners
in season seven and eight, were the first sort of
Simpsons fans who really worked on the show, like hardcore
Simpsons fans who ran the show, and they did a
really good job. I think of thinking outside the box.
Speaker 1 (19:19):
Focusing now on some film based questions here about the Simpsons.
What is your favorite movie that the Simpsons have done
a parody of.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
It's kind of a normy pick. But The Shining I
think is my favorite movie that they've parodied, just because
they really do a full parody of it. It's not
just a scene or one sequence.
Speaker 3 (19:38):
No TV and no beer, make home or something something
oh crazy, don't mind it, but do.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
Hot out of.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
Yeah, they really nail every single reference from The Shining,
from Homer busting down the door to the blood getting
off on the wrong floor.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
Give me the Bat March, Give me the Bat. Yeah,
it's very true to the movie, which is pretty incredible.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
Was there ever a episode that you watched that you
didn't realize at the time they were perioding a movie
and later you're like, oh, that was actually a movie,
and I gotta go check that movie out now.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
So there are a bunch of those. I think one
of my favorites is something that I realized was a
reference maybe three or four years ago, and that was
in Mister Plow. There is a scene with Homer's truck
that's on a bridge and it is a shot for
shot remake from Sorcerer, which is from nineteen seventy seven
William Freakin Sorcerer, which is a remake of Wages of
(20:40):
Fear and there's even a like faux tangerine dream score
in the episode of The Simpsons, and I didn't know
what the hell that was. I thought, you know, I
was young. I was like, oh, is this a reference
to Cliffhanger. I didn't really know. And then I saw
Sorcerer here in La three or four years ago, and
like something clicked in my head, and it was almost
embarrassing because that's sort of the breadth of their references,
(21:03):
like that movie in the early nineties source or you know,
I think it came out right around Star Wars got
buried by Star Wars, so it's not a movie that
was in the zeitgeist at all, but they parodied it anyway,
and it was sort of like Rich Moore, as an
animation director, called it like a one percent or there
was like one percent of the audience that might understand that,
but they did it anyway, just because that's their sensibility,
(21:25):
and that's the beauty of the show.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
Isn't that crazy when you watch some of these episodes
of how down to the minimal detail that they get
right when parroting something.
Speaker 2 (21:35):
They Again, this is something I really wanted to hammer home,
which is this was before Google searches, like you could
not find stills from movies easily, you know, you couldn't
just collect them on the internet. So they would have
interns and PA's run to the archives of various studios
to find stills of movies whatever they were parotying, whether
(21:58):
it was Psycho or The Shining or Chinatown or The Godfather,
and that's how they did it, and it was so
time consuming.
Speaker 1 (22:05):
Yeah. I think one for me that I didn't realize
at the time was a movie was whenever Lisa is
trying to do this experiment with bar in her hamster
and he goes to grab the pancakes, I did not
or the cupcakes, and I didn't realize that was a
clockwork Orange reference. And then seeing a still of that later,
I'm like, oh, I had no idea that that's totally
like a not safe for work reference.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
Yeah, the show definitely educated us, I think in ways
that we didn't realize at the time. And I think
like Kubrick and Hitchcock are two directors that their stuff
always comes up on The Simpsons.
Speaker 1 (22:38):
Aside from The Simpsons teaching us about movies, what is
the biggest thing the Simpsons has taught you about life.
Speaker 2 (22:45):
I think to have healthy cynicism or skepticism, but also
that you got to live, you know, you have to
sort of throw yourself into the world. I think it's
sort of a mistake that people sometimes people talk about
how like bleak the show is, or their their attitude
towards politics, basically that it doesn't work. But I really
think it is. You know, it does point out these
(23:06):
bidness of American life in some ways, but there's no
giving up on the show, and rather the characters don't
give up, and it's kind of like they have to
live on. And that I think is what I took
from the show for sure.
Speaker 1 (23:17):
I got that a lot too. I think, oddly the
thing I've learned a lot from this show was about marriage.
I think how good of a husband that Homer is,
even though he has a lot of flaws, Like growing up,
my dad didn't really talk to me a whole lot
about like girls and what to do in these situations.
And I went to the Simpsons a lot for some
of that advice of like what happens in this marital
(23:39):
situation that you have no idea about, Well, what did
Homer Simpson do? Have you ever used Homer as any
kind of like moral compass for you.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
I think usually with Homer it was sort of like
what not to do, and then in the in the
end it was, well, he still loves Marge, and you know,
he'd really do you know, he'd do anything for his family.
That's something that the writer John Swartzwelder basically he said,
like he tried to write home or like a big dog,
like you know, lazy, kind of not that smart, but
(24:07):
he would like kill for his family. And I think
there's something to admire about that.
Speaker 1 (24:13):
A stupid TV be more funny. Everybody, go pre order
the book. I'm going to put the link in the
episode notes of this podcast. What do you hope people
take away from the book?
Speaker 2 (24:22):
So when I wrote it, I kind of struggled initially
because I was sort of like, this is this giant
titan of pop culture and I'm afraid, you know, I'm
not going to get to everything I want to, and
I basically was trying to make it definitive without being completest.
And I think what I'm hoping is people can really
gather how the show influenced America and how the Simpsons
(24:45):
in America were intertwined in the nineties, like, I don't
think you can really tell the story of one without
the other.
Speaker 1 (24:49):
What was the first step you took in just sitting
down and writing it? Because it is a massive amount
to look for. It is so many episodes, so many
voice actors, so many things that could include what was
that first step you took up? Like this is me
starting the book.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
So I made a list of things I wanted to
hit on, like the you know, the merchandise craze in
the nineties, because I remembered, you know, when I was
a kid. It was absolutely insane. I think they sold
fifteen million Simpsons shirts in the first year of the
show alone. I wanted to hit on George H. W.
Bush taking a shot at the show from the campaign
stump and I do that. And I wanted to kind
(25:25):
of get the flavor of the writer's room and how
these guys and it was all guys for better and
worse really made this thing all right.
Speaker 1 (25:32):
Final question, I am planning on getting a Simpson's tattoo.
You are the Simpsons expert. What do you think I
should get that represents the Simpsons in the nineties best.
Speaker 2 (25:41):
I think you gotta go Homer, and I think you
just like a simple woohoo is a perfect Simpsons tattoo.
I could get into like more intricate things, you know.
I don't know if I would get Millhouse or you know,
early bart but I think, actually, you know, for me,
it would probably be a Lisa tattoo. I think that
would be the most meaningful. But I think you gotta
do Homer.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
I was feeling Lisa for you, like, if you've got
a Simpsons tattoo from what you talked about, I think
you're going Lisa.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
I agree. I think my tattoo days are over.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
Yeah, the one I was thinking of of just getting
the line I call the big one BiDi. So we're
kind of right there. On the Homer reference, Mindy has
a motorcycle.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
I love the Homer like declarative statements.
Speaker 1 (26:19):
Well, this has been awesome. I hope everybody pre orders
the book because why is that so important? I hear
that all the time. Let the listeners know why pre
ordering something is so important for artists and creators.
Speaker 2 (26:30):
Because pre ordering is the best way to try to
get on bestseller lists, and pre orders count towards your
first week of sales, and that's extremely important.
Speaker 1 (26:39):
So the book comes out in June, but go pre
order it right now. Alan, Thank you so much for
the time.
Speaker 2 (26:43):
Thanks for having me man.
Speaker 1 (26:48):
Let's get into it now. A spoiler free movie review
of The Electric State, starring mainly Bobby Brown Chris Pratt,
directed by the Russo brothers. Russo brothers have directed great
movies in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, like Infinity War Endgame.
Since then, they've done Cherry the Gray Man, which was
also a Netflix movie with Ryan Gosling. I thought that
(27:10):
was a fun action movie. But if you look at
all the reviews and all the talk about The Electric State,
you'd think this movie had kicked a dog. And I
will say, is it the best movie ever? No, by
no means, but does it deserve all the hate it
has been getting. I don't think so. And maybe it's
because of all the negativity that I went into this
(27:30):
movie a little bit differently. But it's hard to avoid
the Rotten Tomatoes number, and I never let that affect
me or influence my review, but this one was staggering.
A critics score of fourteen percent, but the audience score
is seventy six percent, So even myself, once I saw
the poster for this movie alone, I thought this looks bad.
When I saw the trailer, I thought this looks kind
(27:52):
of bad. I wasn't a fan of the costume design,
the hair in particular, Chris Pratt's hair looked awful. I
wasn't buying either him or Millie Bobby Brown in a
role like this what the movie is about. It takes
place in a retro futuristic nineteen nineties. Millie Bobby Brown
has a really smart brother and he dies, at least
(28:13):
she thinks that he dies, but then he comes back
as this robot trying to get her attention, trying to
get her to save him and in turn save the world.
So she has to go navigate this robotic state where
humans and robots have been at war. She's living with
Jason Alexander as her foster prayer, which I thought was
kind of a nice touch. But she has to go
and team up with Chris Pratt's character to journey to
(28:35):
this part of the world where robots have kind of
been banished to You have Stanley Tucci kind of playing
the bad guy. He's the person responsible for this technology
where you can put on this helmet and in order
to defeat the robots, they started to develop their own
robots where they could take over. They put on this
helmet and they are essentially able to power these drones remotely.
(28:55):
My biggest problem with this movie is it felt like
I'd already watched it before. In this movie, the robots
get tired of doing the jobs that they were assigned to,
so they become a little bit smarter, a little bit
more self aware, and they start fighting back against the humans,
and the humans find a way to defeat the robots
and banish them, so the robots become the bad guys.
But now that her brother is a robot, she has
(29:16):
to save him. Aside from creating a semi interesting world,
there wasn't anything that felt unique to this movie. Just
kind of felt like generic futuristic robot movie. And I
think it's also because I have a lower standard when
it comes to Netflix original movies, despite them throwing every
single actor in this movie from not only Millie, Bobby
(29:38):
Brown and Chris Pratt, Acky Hui Kuan, Jason Alexander. Like
I mentioned, Woody Harrelson is the voice of the robotic
mister Penut, which at first I thought it was Matthew McConaughey.
They do sound very similar, so who knows they might
be brothers. Anthony Mackie is the robot best friend to
Chris Pratt. You have Brian Cox, Jenny slat All doing voices,
Jihn Carlo Esposito pretty much doing the same thing he's
(30:00):
been doing in every movie playing the bad guy. He
does it so well. It just felt like they took
every big actor through it in this movie, put them
as voices, and nothing really stood out. Because of that,
when it comes to our two leads, let's look at
the positives and the negatives. I like Millie Bobby Brown.
I think her name alone is reason enough for me
to watch a movie. It's the reason I continue to
(30:22):
dip into these Netflix movies because I want her to
succeed post Stranger Things, which I think is really hard
for any child actor. And I think she and her
people did a really good job of distinguishing her from
the other cast of Stranger Things and making it very
much her separate Mille Bobby Brown, who is a part
(30:42):
of Stranger Things, but she wants to go on and
do other movies like Damsel and Nola Holmes and adding
more movies like this to her resume. I just think
when it comes to her acting ability, it's just not
quite there. And it could be because a lot of
this movie is a lot of blue screen, which Russo
Brothers do a lot of work in, and it just
feels like at times her acting is a little bit empty,
(31:05):
and sometimes she over sells the emotional scenes, which I
found just a little bit distracting. There are moments that
do require a little bit more emotion, but I just
didn't really feel it in her performance, and I'm not
sure she showed me that outside a Stranger Thing, and
maybe it works in that Stranger Things world, but I
just haven't seen that next level of acting from her
(31:25):
outside of Stranger Things. And then we get to Chris Pratt,
which I think is another major reason why people are
ripping this movie to shreds. There is Chris Pratt fatigue
that no matter what he comes out in now, people
are going to not want to watch it because we've
had so much of him. I'm still not quite there
all the time. The only movie that I was upset
he got cast in was whenever he was the voice
(31:47):
of Super Mario. It just felt like the same Chris
Pratt voice, and I wanted something a little bit more
unique there. He is kind of like the industry standard. Hey,
we need a straight white male in a role who
can bring money at the box office or get eyeballs
on a streaming movie. Let's get Chris Pratt. I'm not
fully in the I dislike Chris Pratt and everything he
(32:08):
does now, because he did do a lot of great things.
I mean, just a couple of years ago Guardians of
the Galaxy three. I don't think anybody felt that there
is just everything outside in the action world. Whenever he
is in a movie, I feel like people just automatically
don't want to be a part of it. His acting
in this movie was also a little bit flat, and
I think when you put him next to Millie Bobby Brown,
there's not really one person leading the charge here. But
(32:31):
I honestly think what it comes down to you is
it the blue screen nightmare. This entire movie is probably
a victim of that. And that's what you get when
you don't build a whole lot of sets and you
focus a lot on CGI robots and backgrounds. But you
have to do that in order to build a world
like this. And they did spend a lot of money
on making this movie. So while they did do I
(32:53):
got a decent job at creating this world. About forty
minutes in, I felt that that went by pretty quick.
I think that was the sign of an entertaining movie. Again,
it's not the most stimulating. It's unfortunately a movie that
you could have on in the background and just kind
of enjoy and still kind of go along with it.
Kind of reminds me of when you would just throw
(33:14):
on a movie on cable that was interesting enough. Like
I could see the commercial breaks inside of this movie.
It was that level of entertainment, and that doesn't make
it bad to me. That is kind of the streaming
standard now. So I found it entertaining enough through the end.
Even though the movie felt kind of like painting my numbers,
I kind of knew what was gonna happen, what was
going to come. All the emotional ups and downs were
(33:36):
already in my head happening, and I thought it was
entertaining enough. I enjoyed living in this world. I think
it's also probably catered to a younger viewer, so all
the people ripping it to shreds online or probably people
around my age older than me who think this movie
is an abomination I also think this movie probably isn't
(33:57):
for you. It's for the fan of Straights, the younger
fan who is more of the gen Z audience and
going to resonate more with Millie Bobby Brown. Of course,
you're probably not gonna get it. And those people watching
this movie and enjoying it haven't seen all those movies
from the eighties that you think it's reminiscent of. Haven't
seen all those movies from the nineties because those movies
(34:19):
are ancient to them. So the Electric State does probably
feel more fresh and new to them, and it could
be their next favorite movie. And I don't want to
keep some kid from enjoying that. I'm also not going
to Die on the Hill by any means that this
is a great movie that people are completely missing. It
is pretty average by today's standards. But when I look
at other Netflix original movies, which is always how I
(34:39):
compare every single movie to you like what is around
it in this genre? I think of Rebel Moon, which
was a complete disaster. The first one was all style,
no substance. The second one was much of the same,
so bad that I couldn't even finish that one. This
movie actually has some substance with a little bit of style.
So it's like right in the the middle on both those.
(35:02):
But the thing was I kept watching till the very end.
Unlike those other Netflix original movies that I dipped out.
There are movies on Netflix that I started, maybe got
twenty thirty minutes of, and I was like, I don't
care where this is going. I'm out the electric state.
I watched it all the way through. And that is
the big thing with Netflix. They want people to start
and not only start them, but complete their movies. That
(35:23):
is the sign of success here. That is why this
movie is gonna be at number one on Netflix, because
even though people are hating it, people are clicking on
it and people are watching it. I don't love that
because if all you're caring about is completion rate, I mean,
Netflix makes movies now that they're like, okay, we got
to overstate things because some people just have this on
(35:44):
in the background. Some people are watching on their phone
or their iPad. They have characters sometimes announcing things that
they are doing for the people who were distracted doing
other things while they are watching Netflix. I don't like that.
For film, they might get to a point where they
install or encourage you to install these little cameras, or
they use your phones on your TVs so they can
(36:05):
look at your eyes and when you're looking at the
screen and not looking at the screen, and using that
for data on how they make movies. I don't like
that aspect of filmmaking, but I think that's just the
state of the world and them deciding on what they
want to invest in and how they want to make movies.
That's a whole other streaming world that'll probably be different
here in five years if they continue to lose money
(36:26):
on movies like this, and I don't even think they're
necessarily losing money on The Electric State, but it's not
doing them any favors by all the negative reviews that
they are getting. So maybe it's also me fighting a
little bit for this movie because I don't think it's
as bad as people are saying. Because I think for
the most part, if you like sci fi movies and
you click on The Electric State just looking for a
(36:47):
popcorn movie that you can sit down and watch with
your family on like a Friday night, I think this
is actually perfect for that. It has a little something
for everybody. It doesn't really excel at anything that it does,
but it's a very crowd pleasing movie in my opinion,
and some people are freaking out because they don't want
this to be the last project leading into the Russo
(37:09):
Brothers taking on the next Avengers movies. I think, to me,
this still proves that they can deal with a lot
of actors, can deal with a lot of action, which
is going to be up to an incredible level in
the next Avengers movies. I heard that I think Disney
or Marvel gave the Russo Brothers a deck of cards
with every single person cast in the Avengers movie as
(37:30):
far as how many movies they have left in their contract,
how much they are paying each of these people, and
how much they have left to pay these people because
it's so hard to keep track of. I think that's
why you hire these guys, because they can deal with
this amount of talent. There's two of them. They know
how to make a movie set for the big screen,
(37:50):
and I think they still prove that in the Electric State.
It's just kind of a mix of probably all the
movies that they grew up with and loved, so normally
I probably would have given this movie a two point
five out of five, but to combat all the negativity
and the fact that I watched it and finished it
all in one sitting and didn't feel the need to
click off of it. For that reason, I give this
(38:10):
movie three out of five robots, which is right there
at that D level. I think it's probably a week three,
but a really strong two point five. But for all
that hate, I'm gonna bump it up to a three
because I think that score is right there at that
I still think it's worth a stream. It's not gonna
change your life. It's not gonna be one of your
favorite movies of the year. I think if it would
(38:32):
have made two more wrong decisions, it probably would have
been in the bad category for me. But for right now,
three out of five robots for the Electric State.
Speaker 2 (38:43):
It's time to head down to movie.
Speaker 1 (38:45):
Mike Traylor, Paul, you know me, I love me a
good horror movie, and I can't decide if I'm gonna
love or hate this one. So by the end of
this trailer park, that is the decision we are going
to make here as part of the movie crew. It
is called The Woman in the Yard. It is about
a mysterious woman who keeps repeatedly appearing across in a
(39:05):
family's front yard, keeps delivering these chilling warnings, saying all
these weird things, unsettling messages, leaving them to question their identity,
motives and a potential danger that she might possess. Now,
what it looks like is you have a mom or
two kids. Apparently the dad died somehow, probably in a
(39:27):
car wreck, because in this trailer you see this car
up here that's all smashed up. This trailer has a
lot of cliches, but some good pieces of it. It
is coming to us from the director of Black Adam,
carry On an Orphan, which is a pretty vast different
just selection of movies there. If you told me the
same guy, he who directed carry On last year, which
(39:50):
was the movie that was like die Hard in an Airport,
which Diehard too is also Diehard in an Airport. But
that's the best way to describe that movie that came
in on Netflix and it was like their biggest movie
of the year. For him to follow that up with
this one, it just almost doesn't quite fit here because
carry On was a bigger budget movie. Black Adam was
a really big budget movie. Orphan is like still in
(40:13):
that horror space. But to see somebody go from that
to this, which feels like a really bare bones horror movie.
It's coming to us from Blumhouse, who is notorious for
doing this. I think they're one of the most profitable
horror studios because they make movies for eight to ten
million dollars and then really try to cash in on
(40:34):
their investment by the marketing. And there are some red
flags going on in this trailer. Before I give all
of my ideas away, here was just a little bit
of the woman in the yard trailer. And mom is
a woman in the yard. Hello, can I help you out?
My husband will be back very soon.
Speaker 4 (40:56):
We both know your husband's not coming home. I don't
come unless i'm called today.
Speaker 1 (41:13):
Why is your face covered? How did she get here?
I think she's closer, So today is the day. The
question is where did this woman come from? What does
she want when? And will she ever leave? Who's gonna die? Well,
only the woman in the yard knows. So before I
(41:33):
get into my red flags, let's talk about my green
flags here. I do like the overall idea of a
woman showing up in the yard and that being the
horror element. There is a cool thing that she does
to actually mess with the people inside the house and
is able to manipulate things and move things. She uses
(41:55):
the power of the sun to create shadows, and through
that she can move the lif she invades the house.
They even in this trailer kind of start to figure
that out. But I think that is interesting, because how
do you make a movie that's an hour and a
half interesting of a woman just sitting there covered entirely
in black, just saying things weirdly making things appear. This
(42:16):
movie kind of feels like those episodes of TV shows
they refer to as bottle episodes where they can't really
go anywhere else. They try to limit the different sets
so they don't have to spend a lot of money.
This is what this movie is. It takes place pretty
much primarily from what we see in this trailer in
one location, which I do like when movies do that,
because you have to be really inventive on how to
(42:39):
move this story along and how to bring elements in,
in this case from the supernatural that are gonna make
it entertaining for those ninety minutes. So I think it's
kind of a green flag, but also kind of a
red flag because sometimes I've been burned by these Blumhouse
movies that are ninety minutes long that give you this
trailer which pretty much tells you everything that is going
(42:59):
to happen. I really get a glimpse of the entire
plot through this trailer, but they're trying to entice you
in with showing you all those scary parts, and I
fear that there's not gonna be anything else scarier in
the actual movie. So in it having a small budget,
I feel like there's gonna be moments that are really
really stretched out to fill that time. It was almost
(43:20):
like they said, we need to make this movie ninety
minutes long. If you've ever written a paper that needed
to be a certain page length, and you start writing
sentences in way you would never say them in your
real life, adding all these extra words and filler words
to beef up that paper to give it some girth,
and you're increasing the font to like twelve point five
(43:43):
in a way that doesn't make it look completely obvious
that you don't have a whole lot to say in
your paper. That is also the vibes I'm getting from
The Woman in the Yard so far. So I do
like some of the horror aspects. I like the family
dynamic at the beginning, where it's just them chilling, having
a good time. Everything is normal. They make some eggs,
(44:03):
the sun makes them with doritos, so hopefully there's a
bit of a bonding moment there with the family, and
there's the whole mystery of what happened to the dad.
I gotta know, is you gonna pop up? Is the
woman in the yard gonna make them a zombie and
freak out all the kids? That could be cool, but
there are a lot of cliches. So we'll get to
the red flags now. They say the name of the
movie in the trailer. I like it when they save
(44:25):
that for the actual movie. It just feels like a
really weird delivery, like there's a woman in the yard
and that's the entire movie, all right, that's it. Just
close up the windows. We don't have to pay attention
to or end of movie. But really, the biggest red
flag of this entire trailer, it does the big cliche,
the cliche I hate in horror movie trailers that you
(44:45):
know is coming. Whenever there's some kind of a ghost,
there's some kind of a demon. There's always this part
where the family or the main character gets into a
situation where they're waiting for the monster to appear. It
gets really quiet and dark, and you're just waiting for
that moment for the jump scare where they give you
a glimpse of the monster. You get a big sound effect.
(45:06):
They appear boom in the trailer. Whenever a movie does that,
I just don't know that there's nothing else that's gonna happen.
There's no other moment to wait for to go see
that movie. They've already given it to you in the trailer.
That's a shot. I'm not gonna be anticipating that moment
anymore because I already know it's coming. I experienced that
(45:27):
in the first Smile movie. They showed you the oh,
the best part of the movie that would have been
a great jump scare in theaters, that was in the trailer.
Blumhouse has done that with Imaginary. They show you the
best part of the movie in the trailer, so then
there's nothing to look forward to. It's the same way
when you make a comment and you put your best
joke in the trailer, you're not going to really laugh
(45:48):
at it again when you go see it in theaters.
So out of everything that is the biggest red flag
for me. And I'll give you a warning now because
I do want to play it just so I can
explain to you how infuriating this to me. But be
aware that there is a jump scare coming. So if
you're listening in your car or in the gym, just
know that there is a moment where it's gonna get
really loud. So here's that moment and then boom and
(46:22):
the trailer. They also use like the uplifting music method,
where it's like, here's a really nice, cheerful song over
some dark imagery that every horror movie does. Now they
don't really incorporate it too much. But the other cliche
that I see and hear a lot is that weird,
creepy violin sound that almost sounds if you took rubber
bands and put them on a box and we're just
(46:43):
like twisting them over the box, like if we had
a thing of takeout, you know, sometimes you put a
rubber band over it kind of sounds like this, Like
anytime a trailer has that and it's doing all these
crazy cuts in between weird imagery, like a close up
on an eye, a single blood drop, a doll in
(47:03):
the attic with its head ripped off, and you hear
this sound, you just know it's gonna be the horror
movie of the year, the scariest movie in theaters. Ever, So,
the real reason I think this movie has potential is
because of the director to go from Black Adam and
carry on an Orphan, which was a pretty good horror
(47:24):
movie back in the day, at least the concept of it.
It gives me a little bit more confidence that there's
gonna be more to this story to actually make it
worth seeing in theaters, that it's not just gonna be
one of those fast fashion horror movies that you go
see and you're like, man, I've already seen this time
and time again. I feel scammed by this. And I
don't say this to try to sound snobby. I don't
try to say this to sound like a overly critical person.
(47:47):
It's just I know who this movie appeals to. Like
my mother in law saw this trailer and asked if
I was gonna go see it, And I think it
is those people that I want to have a great
experience when they go watch a movie in theaters, because
they're investing their time, they're investing their money, and if
you go for the first time in a while and
you see this and you're like, man, that sucked. Everything
(48:09):
is terrible. Now, that is where I draw the line,
Because there are great horror movies out there. You have
to look for them sometimes, and I know sometimes the
movies that get to the most people aren't the best ones.
So I just hope, for the sake of my mother
in law who's gonna go see this movie, that they
don't let her down and they don't make her waste
her time and waste your money. So I'm always looking
(48:31):
out for you in that sense. That's why I'm so
critical about these movies sometimes. But again, the woman in
the Art coming out in theaters this Friday, March twenty eighth,
And that was this week's edition of Movie Line Tramer
par and that is gonna do it for another episode
here of the podcast. But before I go, I gotta
give my listeners shout out of the week. This week,
(48:51):
I'm going over to x. I posted a clip from
last week's episode talking about my top ten baseball movies.
What I felt was the saddest moment in any sports
movie was from Angels in the Outfield. This week's listener
shout out is a reply to that video from Aaron
at so Dak Jack Mama on Ax, who said, just
introduce my seven and nine year old to this movie.
(49:12):
They are hooked this and Little Giants is going on
repeat at our house. That just warms my heart because
I've been talking about how these movies that we grew
up with in the nineties that don't really get made anymore.
It is very rare that you find a film that
comes out with an all kid cast and just has
that nostalgic feeling of reminding us what it's like to
(49:32):
be kids. So even though we don't have them coming
out as frequently as we do now, I do love
that Aaron and hopefully other parents are showing their seven
to nine year olds the movies that we grew up with,
and the fact that they are actually enjoying them and
don't think they are relics and boring things that their
parents show them is awesome. So I'm glad that people
are now watching Angels in the Outfield more that it
(49:55):
is available on Disney, plus that it's not just buried
in the Disney vault, and Little Giants is an other
great ones. So thank you Erin for sharing that thank
you for listening, and thank you for commenting on socials.
That means a lot to me. If you want to
follow me there, you can always find the links to
all my social media in the episode notes. That's where
I pick my listeners shout outs, or you can email
me Moviemike D at gmail dot com. And until next time,
(50:17):
go out and watch good movies and I will talk
to you later
Hello, and welcome back to movie Mike's movie podcast. I
am your host Movie Mike. Today we're covering one of
my favorite topics of all time, The Simpsons in the nineties.
I have on writer Alan Siegel, who wrote a book
about the Simpsons coming out this summer. We'll talk about
the golden age of the Simpsons, which is my favorite,
and we'll also talk about how movie classics had an
impact on the show in the nineties. In the movie review,
(00:20):
I am defending a movie on Netflix called The Electric State,
directed by the Russo Brothers, starring Chris Pratt and Millie
Bobby Brown. This movie was being dragged through the mud
and I'm here to say it is not as bad
as everybody is saying it is. In the trailer Park,
we'll talk about a new horror movie coming out this
week called The Woman in the Yard. Am I going
to hate it? Or Am I going to love it?
Thank you for being here, Thank you for being subscribed.
(00:43):
And now let's talk movies from the Nastville podcast network.
And this is movie Mike Movie Plot. Alan Siegel is
a fantastic writer. He lives in Los Angeles and covers
and makes some movies. Music TV show, sports, and general nostalgia.
For the Ringer. You can check out his work at them.
He has a book coming out on June tenth called
Stupid TV Be More Funny, about the golden age of
(01:05):
the Simpsons in the nineties. You know me from listening
to this podcast. I am a massive Simpsons fan. Even
though this isn't a TV podcast, I always find ways
to incorporate the Simpsons in my reviews because when you
look at the show's golden age, so much of it
was influenced by famous, iconic movies. So I want to
talk to Alan about that. I want to get to
know him through movies. You can find the link to
(01:26):
pre order his book in the episode notes. But right now,
let's talk to Alan Siegel. Alan, how are you doing.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
I'm good. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
It is so rare that I get to find somebody
who is as nerdy about the Simpsons as I am,
somebody who has now dedicated so much of their life
to write a Simpsons book. So I'm excited to get
to talking about the book. But first, since it's the
movie podcast, I want to get to know you through movies.
Is that cool?
Speaker 2 (01:50):
Absolutely?
Speaker 1 (01:51):
We're gonna do what I call the first four movie questions.
Question number one, What was the first movie you remember
seeing in theaters?
Speaker 2 (02:00):
I think it was Oliver and Company. Oh, It's so good,
nineteen eighty seven. So it's a Disney cartoon pre Disney
renaissance with the songs of Billy Joel.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
Yeah, that is a great Disney movie. I tell people
that is one of the most underrated Disney movies because
it was kind of in that bunk era, that what
they call the xerox era, where the animation was like
just not very good. They said the ideas at that
time were just unimaginative. But I love that movie. What
do you remember about seeing that in theaters?
Speaker 2 (02:29):
I just remember the songs and kind of not being
that impressed with it. I was really young, I was
probably four, so I enjoyed it, but I didn't really
know what was coming. And actually that there is a
good Simpsons tie in, which is the animators that I
talked to talked about sort of at that time, that
was like the peak of what you could do as
an animator. There really wasn't. There wasn't this ambitious stuff
(02:52):
that came later for sure.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
All right, next up, if you're on a Desert Island.
You can only bring one movie? What movie is that
going to be?
Speaker 2 (02:58):
Terminator two? I would say absolutely. I think I can
rewatch that anytime anywhere.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
Is that the movie you've seen the most?
Speaker 2 (03:05):
I don't think I've seen it the most. I think
the most the movie I've seen the most probably is
Major League, which my grandparents gave us on VHS in
around nineteen ninety one. I think because there was like
a baseball on the cover, they had no idea how
profane it was.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
For sure, literally one of the most vulgar baseball movies
you could give to a kid. All right. First, for
number three, what is your favorite animated movie?
Speaker 2 (03:28):
That is a very good question. I think the Original
Toy Story. I was twelve at the time, so it
really it kind of showed me that there could be
animated movies that weren't just sort of kiddy and yeah
it was for kids, but it was just like a
little more evolved than some of the stuff that we
had gotten at the time.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
And final, in the first four, what movie character are
you most like in real life?
Speaker 2 (03:50):
Man? I have to think about that one for a second, see.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
Because for me, like outside of doing something like this,
I would say silent Bob because if I'm not talking
about movies, if I'm not talking about the Simpsons, I
don't have a whole lot to say. So in like
normal everyday conversations, I'll say the least, but every now
and then I'll get in that one liner and I
was like, everybody's like, oh, that guy can talk, but
that is kind of mine, Like I identify a lot
with Silent Bob.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
I would say some combination of the three main characters
and super Bad so mcluve, Michael Sarah, and Jonah Hill.
I just think Christopher mintz plass his real name is
not mc lovey. I would say, like that combo of
you know, awkwardness and sweetness. I hope maybe I don't
really know if I was that way, and as a teenager,
maybe I sort of aspired to have the sense of
(04:33):
humor that Jonah Hill's character did.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
But yeah, I think that's a combination of like everybody
in high school as all those three characters, like you
want to be cool, but you're also kind of a jerk,
and you're also kind of a nerd, and we also
probably love Simpsons.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
Yeah, the insecurities would come out in sort of ye,
dickishness for sure.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
So let's talk about the book Stupid TV Be More Funny,
all about ninety Simpsons. And before we get into that,
I want to do something fun where we we draft
our favorite Simpsons episodes from the nineties. So we're building
a mount Rushmore of Simpson's episodes, and the rules are
that will each pick one episode and once one is
(05:11):
off the board, no one else can pick it. So
we're gonna go four episodes here. Since you're the guest,
kick us off with your first pick in the mount
Rushmore of ninety Simpsons episodes.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
So it's a little bit of a don't know out
there pick, But I'm gonna go first with Itchy and
Scratchy and Puucci because I think it was sort of
their best meta episode commentary about the fans and sort
of about what the show became and how difficult it
was to maintain its peak, and I think in a
perfect world that almost would have been the finale of
(05:40):
the show. I just think it really encapsulated the challenges
that they had to again continue making the show the
funniest thing on television, and really it showed how damn
impossible it was and how you just couldn't please everyone.
And it was sort of around the time where internet
fans were becoming a thing. And as you can imagine,
(06:01):
Simpsons fans are pretty eggheaded and nerdy, and I was
one of them, and they were early Internet adopters, and
they were saying that the show was going back in
the early nineties, which is insane.
Speaker 1 (06:10):
I've never thought about it like that. That they didn't
have to really take all that criticism that shows now
get with social media because you had the people hating
on it, but they didn't really see it as instantly
as you do now.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
Yeah, some of the writers, again, they were at the
time just sort of as nerdy and eggheaded as the fans,
so they too would get what they had early dial
up internet connections, and they kind of loved seeing what
the fans said. But like anything with the Internet, it
sort of devolves into this piling on and eventually they
sort of got annoyed with that too.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
All right, So we're going with Itching and Scratchy and
Pucci as your number one pick. For number one, I'm
gonna go with Bart gets famous. I think for me
working in show business doing radio and podcasts now as
a kid, I thought it was the coolest thing ever,
Like to see somebody working in show business and you're like, oh,
you must have the coolest life. And I actually got
into working in it, and I'll say I still love it.
(07:03):
But there's also that side that people don't often see
behind the scenes, of how much of a grind it is.
My favorite quote from that is I wish I was dead. Wow,
being in show business is like a dream.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
We're really lucky, aren't we.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
Which show was good?
Speaker 2 (07:19):
It's funny because I had interviewed Conan O'Brien about March
Versus the Monorail, and he talked about people asking him
all the time about creative work and what he's worked on,
and he said it was always sort of disappointing to
them because as much as he loved it, like these
magic moments, he said, basically, we're just eating fried food,
(07:39):
writing longhand on a notepad, driving his four tourus into
the Fox lot on a weekend. You know, the magic
came later after the thing was created. Creating it itself.
It was rarely romantic.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
Yeah, I mean, even if you look at where they
would write in the show, it's like this crappy, like
hotel looking place where there's nothing going on there exactly.
All right, what's your next pick?
Speaker 2 (08:01):
I'm gonna go with mister Plow. I think it's a
great combo of silly, emotional, ridiculous and started. It was
right when the show started to scratch the surface of
what it could do beyond family drama.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
I love that episode.
Speaker 3 (08:17):
Oh, mister Plow, that's my name? That name again is
mister Plow.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
I feel that that is just one of those defining
Homer moments out of the entire series. I think I
just love the rivalry between him and Barney in that episode,
because Barney, for the most part, is this unambitious, just
character the entire time, and then out of nowhere, he's like,
I'm gonna be the best plow guy in Springfield.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
It's it's definitely like a he, you know, breaks character
to film a commercial with Linda Ronstat that you just
don't like, get that kind of thing later with Barney.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
That's a great pick. I think with number two, I'm
gonna go with twenty two short films about Springfield. I
think it's just such an ambitious episode that they haven't
replicated since. I just love how every single story intertwines,
and I think as a kid, that is the episode
that blew my mind the most, just because how complex
it is.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
Yeah. Bill Oakley, who sort of shepherded that episode, talked
about how he did not expect the idea to fly,
and he was the showrunner, so I think he basically
was like, all right, we're gonna do it and pushed
it through. And I think they all sort of drew
ideas out of it or drew characters out of a
hat to pick how they would write the episode.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
All Right, what you got for your next pick?
Speaker 2 (09:26):
I'm gonna go with last Sexit the Springfield.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
Ah, that's a good one that was on my list.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
Yeah, it's sort of a it's a cliche now, but
people love that episode.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
That Oldlin Lisa needs Bracious Dan, Oldlin Lisa Needs Bracius.
Speaker 2 (09:42):
Has a bunch of good jokes. It's like a lot
of social commentary in it with talk about unions and
all the dental stuff is very very funny.
Speaker 3 (09:50):
If we give up our dental plan, I'll have to
pay for less precious.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
That's an episode that gets referenced the most. I feel
like that's a classic episode. That's a good for number three.
For number three. I'm going to go with an episode
that has been my longest favorite episode. I think it
would be number one for probably the majority of my life.
But it's Homie the Clown, and I think it's because
of the story of how there was always going to
(10:15):
be at one point a reveal that Krusty the Clown
was Homer Simpson, and this whole time that Bart is
kind of idolizing this character that it's actually his dad
the whole time in makeup, Like, I wish they would
have made that happen at some point. I get that
Krusty becoming a bigger figure probably would have made that
a little bit more confusing, but I think it was
that whole idea of Bart idolizing somebody that easily could
(10:38):
have been his dad, and then just hilarious like physical
comedy in that episode, the.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
First maybe five minutes where Homer is being wooed to
go to Clown College is definitely like a top five
sequence in the show's history.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
Yeah, that whole sequel, like him seeing the billboard and
then playing with his mashed potatoes and that's it. I'm
going to Clown College. One of the most out of
pocket things he's ever said in the series. Yes, Homie,
that's it. You people have stood in my way long enough.
Speaker 3 (11:07):
I'm going to clone college.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
I don't think any of us expected him to say that.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
It's definitely an early like, Oh, Homer is getting more
stupid and more out there and his family is starting
to notice, which it was always there, but it wasn't
quite as pronounced until then.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
I think I love that evolution of Homer where they
he went from just being the dad to be I
guess everybody watching kind of expected him to get dumber
and dumber as the show went along, and maybe that
was a little bit of a detriment to the show
later in seasons, like getting into late nineties and early
two thousands, where he got a little bit too dumb.
Did you think Homer got too dumb in the nineties.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
I would say the nineties was the peak of his stupidity,
and it really worked. I mean it was sort of fun.
I think for the writers to take Homer again, make
him stupider, and place him in these crazy situations where
he should be smart but he's not, Like going to space.
You know. That was controversial at the time but ended
up being very funny.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
All right, your final pick and your mount rushmore of
Simpsons episodes from the nineties.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
I'm gonna go with Lisa's Substitute. It's a season two
episode with Dustin Hoffman as the guest star. I think
it was maybe the earliest, true, incredible classic of the show.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
I'm gonna miss you.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
I'll tell you what. Whenever you feel like you're alone
and there's nobody you can rely on, this is all
you need to know.
Speaker 4 (12:37):
Thank you, mister.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:39):
The heartwarming Lisa episodes in the nineties were some of
the best because she gave balance to the show in
ways that the other Simpson's family members really couldn't. Because
you have Homer, like we're talking about, being a complete idiot.
Bart was like the rock star of the show in
the early nineties, and then she kind of brought everything
down to a human level. What do you love the
(13:00):
most about Lisa Simpson.
Speaker 2 (13:01):
I mean, she's the show's moral center, and I think
people kind of unfairly like view her as a kill joy,
But she is the closest thing to the audience, I
would say in terms of character, especially like hardcore Simpsons fans,
you know, like again kind of nerdy eggheaded, sweet, but
also likes to lord her intelligence over other people. She's
(13:23):
definitely one of the more vulnerable characters, and that can
lead to some really really good episodes. Anything with Lisa
and Homer together, contrasted, is always really good.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
For my final pick, I think I'm gonna go with
Marge Be Not Proud. That is an episode that I
watch every single year. I think it's obviously the bone
Storm reference is one of my favorites of all time,
but I think that one has the most heartwarming message
to me of like Bart getting older, him being so
just distraughd, of not just making his parents mad, but
(13:54):
you know, them being disappointed in him, And I think
that's like one of his most defining moments of like, oh,
Bart actually has some sensibilities here that aren't just like
him doing dumb radical things.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
Yeah, he's very guilty about stealing the video, and it's
funny that they or maybe not funny, but it's interesting
that they so when he steals it, like it's like
he steals it and he realizes he can't enjoy this
thing that he stole. It's just kind of miserable to
him after that dailing.
Speaker 3 (14:21):
How could you we live in a society of laws.
Why do you think I took it all those Police
Academy movies for fun?
Speaker 1 (14:29):
Well, I didn't hear anybody.
Speaker 3 (14:31):
Laughing, did you, except that that guy who made sound effects?
Whoa whoom? Where was I? Oh? Yeah, stay out.
Speaker 2 (14:42):
Of my boots? All right?
Speaker 1 (14:44):
So those are our Mount Rushmore picks. The book is
called Stupid TV, Be More Funny, which is a quote
from an episode where Homer bangs on the TV trying
to get the comedian on the screen to be more
funny because he doesn't get the jokes TV, but TV
more funny? Was this always the phrase that you wanted
to pick for the name of the book?
Speaker 2 (15:05):
You know, it took me a little while to settle
on that. I like it because, first of all, he
was watching Garrison Keeler, which is really funny. That's what
Homer was mad at. I don't think he understood Garrison
Keeler at the time. Prairie Home Companion was a little
advanced for him at that moment. I just thought it
sort of summed up what The Simpsons was about, which
was elevating TV in a way. This was sort of
(15:26):
before prestige TV was a phrase and it was I think,
you know, unequivocally smarter than anything else on you know,
at the time, there were funny sitcoms, for sure, but
the Simpsons was just on a different level.
Speaker 1 (15:39):
From that phrase, that quote. What are some other quotes
that have kind of become a part of your everyday
vocabulary because of The Simpsons? Because I have so many
of these, I.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
Think it shifts. But lately it's been doctor Nick saying,
you know, the most rewarding part was when he gave me.
Speaker 3 (15:55):
The most rewarding part was when he gave me my money.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
And that's it. You know, any kind of it applies
to any sort of cynical either money grab or just
like on a work setting when you're sort of down
about something. It kind of reminds me of the you know,
don Draper like that, that's what the money's for.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
One that has kind of creeped into my vocabulary recently
that I realized I've been saying here for so long,
is and how whenever Homer he's talking about whenever he
learns a new piece of information, he forgets an old
piece of information.
Speaker 3 (16:25):
Every time I learned something new, it pushes some old
stuff out.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
Of my brain.
Speaker 3 (16:29):
Remember, when I took that home wine making course and
I forgot how to drive.
Speaker 1 (16:33):
That's because you want drunk. And I've said and how
so many times that I kind of forget that it's
a phrase that nobody uses anymore. And then it's a
phrase from like the nineteen twenties slaying.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
Yeah, that show was so good at taking these like
little inconsequential phrases and kind of shoving them into the lexicon,
like doe was originally written to the script as like
annoyed grunt, and Dan Casselnetta just made it his own
and the word met, you know, free word. I don't
think the Simpsons came up with that, but they use
(17:04):
it all the time. And I guarantee, you know, I'm
forty one, people ten years younger, ten years older, like
in that range. That's where they got the use of
that word, for sure.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
So in your research for this book, how much of
the Simpsons did you had to dive into and at
what point did you get sick of them?
Speaker 2 (17:20):
I rewatched a bunch of classic episodes, but the thing
is that was sort of in my media diet already,
so I definitely didn't get sick of it. I would
say towards the end of the research process, I was like,
I just can't watch anymore. I don't want to get
sick of it, Like this is my favorite thing in
the world. I don't want to be susceptible to losing
the love. And it never really happened. You know, since
I've put the finishing touches on the book, I've definitely
(17:42):
gone back and watched more.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
A theory I kind of have is when we I
rewatched some episodes in preparation for this, and I realized
how much they would reference things that were so niche
and so obscure at a time when I didn't know
what was happening. I didn't know they were referencing old
TV shows, old songs, and it seemed like the writers
at that time were just these hardcore Harvard nerds who
(18:05):
would really dive into these really just deep things that
nobody else was gonna get. But now it's the people
who grew up with the show, like you and I,
who are a part of the writing staff now, who
are a part of it, who they're almost referencing the
episodes they grew up with more than referencing those other things.
Do you find that that is kind of what is
(18:25):
happening not only with The Simpsons, but even other media
franchises like Star Wars. It's that kind of evolution of
the fan now becoming a part of the driving force.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
Yeah, I think that's definitely the trend. I think that
can be good and bad. I mean, I think again,
like in mid century directors, all these these guys and
it was mostly men. You know, they fought in wars,
they had lives, and you know, then you look at
like Quentin Tarantino, who grew up on movies and all
his movies reference other movies, which is great. I just
think it sort of creates a different kind of cinema
(18:57):
or TV. But yeah, like, no one who worked in
the early Simpsons like obviously grew up on the Simpsons.
Like I think Oakley and Weinstein, who were the showrunners
in season seven and eight, were the first sort of
Simpsons fans who really worked on the show, like hardcore
Simpsons fans who ran the show, and they did a
really good job. I think of thinking outside the box.
Speaker 1 (19:19):
Focusing now on some film based questions here about the Simpsons.
What is your favorite movie that the Simpsons have done
a parody of.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
It's kind of a normy pick. But The Shining I
think is my favorite movie that they've parodied, just because
they really do a full parody of it. It's not
just a scene or one sequence.
Speaker 3 (19:38):
No TV and no beer, make home or something something
oh crazy, don't mind it, but do.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
Hot out of.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
Yeah, they really nail every single reference from The Shining,
from Homer busting down the door to the blood getting
off on the wrong floor.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
Give me the Bat March, Give me the Bat. Yeah,
it's very true to the movie, which is pretty incredible.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
Was there ever a episode that you watched that you
didn't realize at the time they were perioding a movie
and later you're like, oh, that was actually a movie,
and I gotta go check that movie out now.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
So there are a bunch of those. I think one
of my favorites is something that I realized was a
reference maybe three or four years ago, and that was
in Mister Plow. There is a scene with Homer's truck
that's on a bridge and it is a shot for
shot remake from Sorcerer, which is from nineteen seventy seven
William Freakin Sorcerer, which is a remake of Wages of
(20:40):
Fear and there's even a like faux tangerine dream score
in the episode of The Simpsons, and I didn't know
what the hell that was. I thought, you know, I
was young. I was like, oh, is this a reference
to Cliffhanger. I didn't really know. And then I saw
Sorcerer here in La three or four years ago, and
like something clicked in my head, and it was almost
embarrassing because that's sort of the breadth of their references,
(21:03):
like that movie in the early nineties source or you know,
I think it came out right around Star Wars got
buried by Star Wars, so it's not a movie that
was in the zeitgeist at all, but they parodied it anyway,
and it was sort of like Rich Moore, as an
animation director, called it like a one percent or there
was like one percent of the audience that might understand that,
but they did it anyway, just because that's their sensibility,
(21:25):
and that's the beauty of the show.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
Isn't that crazy when you watch some of these episodes
of how down to the minimal detail that they get
right when parroting something.
Speaker 2 (21:35):
They Again, this is something I really wanted to hammer home,
which is this was before Google searches, like you could
not find stills from movies easily, you know, you couldn't
just collect them on the internet. So they would have
interns and PA's run to the archives of various studios
to find stills of movies whatever they were parotying, whether
(21:58):
it was Psycho or The Shining or Chinatown or The Godfather,
and that's how they did it, and it was so
time consuming.
Speaker 1 (22:05):
Yeah. I think one for me that I didn't realize
at the time was a movie was whenever Lisa is
trying to do this experiment with bar in her hamster
and he goes to grab the pancakes, I did not
or the cupcakes, and I didn't realize that was a
clockwork Orange reference. And then seeing a still of that later,
I'm like, oh, I had no idea that that's totally
like a not safe for work reference.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
Yeah, the show definitely educated us, I think in ways
that we didn't realize at the time. And I think
like Kubrick and Hitchcock are two directors that their stuff
always comes up on The Simpsons.
Speaker 1 (22:38):
Aside from The Simpsons teaching us about movies, what is
the biggest thing the Simpsons has taught you about life.
Speaker 2 (22:45):
I think to have healthy cynicism or skepticism, but also
that you got to live, you know, you have to
sort of throw yourself into the world. I think it's
sort of a mistake that people sometimes people talk about
how like bleak the show is, or their their attitude
towards politics, basically that it doesn't work. But I really
think it is. You know, it does point out these
(23:06):
bidness of American life in some ways, but there's no
giving up on the show, and rather the characters don't
give up, and it's kind of like they have to
live on. And that I think is what I took
from the show for sure.
Speaker 1 (23:17):
I got that a lot too. I think, oddly the
thing I've learned a lot from this show was about marriage.
I think how good of a husband that Homer is,
even though he has a lot of flaws, Like growing up,
my dad didn't really talk to me a whole lot
about like girls and what to do in these situations.
And I went to the Simpsons a lot for some
of that advice of like what happens in this marital
(23:39):
situation that you have no idea about, Well, what did
Homer Simpson do? Have you ever used Homer as any
kind of like moral compass for you.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
I think usually with Homer it was sort of like
what not to do, and then in the in the
end it was, well, he still loves Marge, and you know,
he'd really do you know, he'd do anything for his family.
That's something that the writer John Swartzwelder basically he said,
like he tried to write home or like a big dog,
like you know, lazy, kind of not that smart, but
(24:07):
he would like kill for his family. And I think
there's something to admire about that.
Speaker 1 (24:13):
A stupid TV be more funny. Everybody, go pre order
the book. I'm going to put the link in the
episode notes of this podcast. What do you hope people
take away from the book?
Speaker 2 (24:22):
So when I wrote it, I kind of struggled initially
because I was sort of like, this is this giant
titan of pop culture and I'm afraid, you know, I'm
not going to get to everything I want to, and
I basically was trying to make it definitive without being completest.
And I think what I'm hoping is people can really
gather how the show influenced America and how the Simpsons
(24:45):
in America were intertwined in the nineties, like, I don't
think you can really tell the story of one without
the other.
Speaker 1 (24:49):
What was the first step you took in just sitting
down and writing it? Because it is a massive amount
to look for. It is so many episodes, so many
voice actors, so many things that could include what was
that first step you took up? Like this is me
starting the book.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
So I made a list of things I wanted to
hit on, like the you know, the merchandise craze in
the nineties, because I remembered, you know, when I was
a kid. It was absolutely insane. I think they sold
fifteen million Simpsons shirts in the first year of the
show alone. I wanted to hit on George H. W.
Bush taking a shot at the show from the campaign
stump and I do that. And I wanted to kind
(25:25):
of get the flavor of the writer's room and how
these guys and it was all guys for better and
worse really made this thing all right.
Speaker 1 (25:32):
Final question, I am planning on getting a Simpson's tattoo.
You are the Simpsons expert. What do you think I
should get that represents the Simpsons in the nineties best.
Speaker 2 (25:41):
I think you gotta go Homer, and I think you
just like a simple woohoo is a perfect Simpsons tattoo.
I could get into like more intricate things, you know.
I don't know if I would get Millhouse or you know,
early bart but I think, actually, you know, for me,
it would probably be a Lisa tattoo. I think that
would be the most meaningful. But I think you gotta
do Homer.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
I was feeling Lisa for you, like, if you've got
a Simpsons tattoo from what you talked about, I think
you're going Lisa.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
I agree. I think my tattoo days are over.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
Yeah, the one I was thinking of of just getting
the line I call the big one BiDi. So we're
kind of right there. On the Homer reference, Mindy has
a motorcycle.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
I love the Homer like declarative statements.
Speaker 1 (26:19):
Well, this has been awesome. I hope everybody pre orders
the book because why is that so important? I hear
that all the time. Let the listeners know why pre
ordering something is so important for artists and creators.
Speaker 2 (26:30):
Because pre ordering is the best way to try to
get on bestseller lists, and pre orders count towards your
first week of sales, and that's extremely important.
Speaker 1 (26:39):
So the book comes out in June, but go pre
order it right now. Alan, Thank you so much for
the time.
Speaker 2 (26:43):
Thanks for having me man.
Speaker 1 (26:48):
Let's get into it now. A spoiler free movie review
of The Electric State, starring mainly Bobby Brown Chris Pratt,
directed by the Russo brothers. Russo brothers have directed great
movies in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, like Infinity War Endgame.
Since then, they've done Cherry the Gray Man, which was
also a Netflix movie with Ryan Gosling. I thought that
(27:10):
was a fun action movie. But if you look at
all the reviews and all the talk about The Electric State,
you'd think this movie had kicked a dog. And I
will say, is it the best movie ever? No, by
no means, but does it deserve all the hate it
has been getting. I don't think so. And maybe it's
because of all the negativity that I went into this
(27:30):
movie a little bit differently. But it's hard to avoid
the Rotten Tomatoes number, and I never let that affect
me or influence my review, but this one was staggering.
A critics score of fourteen percent, but the audience score
is seventy six percent, So even myself, once I saw
the poster for this movie alone, I thought this looks bad.
When I saw the trailer, I thought this looks kind
(27:52):
of bad. I wasn't a fan of the costume design,
the hair in particular, Chris Pratt's hair looked awful. I
wasn't buying either him or Millie Bobby Brown in a
role like this what the movie is about. It takes
place in a retro futuristic nineteen nineties. Millie Bobby Brown
has a really smart brother and he dies, at least
(28:13):
she thinks that he dies, but then he comes back
as this robot trying to get her attention, trying to
get her to save him and in turn save the world.
So she has to go navigate this robotic state where
humans and robots have been at war. She's living with
Jason Alexander as her foster prayer, which I thought was
kind of a nice touch. But she has to go
and team up with Chris Pratt's character to journey to
(28:35):
this part of the world where robots have kind of
been banished to You have Stanley Tucci kind of playing
the bad guy. He's the person responsible for this technology
where you can put on this helmet and in order
to defeat the robots, they started to develop their own
robots where they could take over. They put on this
helmet and they are essentially able to power these drones remotely.
(28:55):
My biggest problem with this movie is it felt like
I'd already watched it before. In this movie, the robots
get tired of doing the jobs that they were assigned to,
so they become a little bit smarter, a little bit
more self aware, and they start fighting back against the humans,
and the humans find a way to defeat the robots
and banish them, so the robots become the bad guys.
But now that her brother is a robot, she has
(29:16):
to save him. Aside from creating a semi interesting world,
there wasn't anything that felt unique to this movie. Just
kind of felt like generic futuristic robot movie. And I
think it's also because I have a lower standard when
it comes to Netflix original movies, despite them throwing every
single actor in this movie from not only Millie, Bobby
(29:38):
Brown and Chris Pratt, Acky Hui Kuan, Jason Alexander. Like
I mentioned, Woody Harrelson is the voice of the robotic
mister Penut, which at first I thought it was Matthew McConaughey.
They do sound very similar, so who knows they might
be brothers. Anthony Mackie is the robot best friend to
Chris Pratt. You have Brian Cox, Jenny slat All doing voices,
Jihn Carlo Esposito pretty much doing the same thing he's
(30:00):
been doing in every movie playing the bad guy. He
does it so well. It just felt like they took
every big actor through it in this movie, put them
as voices, and nothing really stood out. Because of that,
when it comes to our two leads, let's look at
the positives and the negatives. I like Millie Bobby Brown.
I think her name alone is reason enough for me
to watch a movie. It's the reason I continue to
(30:22):
dip into these Netflix movies because I want her to
succeed post Stranger Things, which I think is really hard
for any child actor. And I think she and her
people did a really good job of distinguishing her from
the other cast of Stranger Things and making it very
much her separate Mille Bobby Brown, who is a part
(30:42):
of Stranger Things, but she wants to go on and
do other movies like Damsel and Nola Holmes and adding
more movies like this to her resume. I just think
when it comes to her acting ability, it's just not
quite there. And it could be because a lot of
this movie is a lot of blue screen, which Russo
Brothers do a lot of work in, and it just
feels like at times her acting is a little bit empty,
(31:05):
and sometimes she over sells the emotional scenes, which I
found just a little bit distracting. There are moments that
do require a little bit more emotion, but I just
didn't really feel it in her performance, and I'm not
sure she showed me that outside a Stranger Thing, and
maybe it works in that Stranger Things world, but I
just haven't seen that next level of acting from her
(31:25):
outside of Stranger Things. And then we get to Chris Pratt,
which I think is another major reason why people are
ripping this movie to shreds. There is Chris Pratt fatigue
that no matter what he comes out in now, people
are going to not want to watch it because we've
had so much of him. I'm still not quite there
all the time. The only movie that I was upset
he got cast in was whenever he was the voice
(31:47):
of Super Mario. It just felt like the same Chris
Pratt voice, and I wanted something a little bit more
unique there. He is kind of like the industry standard. Hey,
we need a straight white male in a role who
can bring money at the box office or get eyeballs
on a streaming movie. Let's get Chris Pratt. I'm not
fully in the I dislike Chris Pratt and everything he
(32:08):
does now, because he did do a lot of great things.
I mean, just a couple of years ago Guardians of
the Galaxy three. I don't think anybody felt that there
is just everything outside in the action world. Whenever he
is in a movie, I feel like people just automatically
don't want to be a part of it. His acting
in this movie was also a little bit flat, and
I think when you put him next to Millie Bobby Brown,
there's not really one person leading the charge here. But
(32:31):
I honestly think what it comes down to you is
it the blue screen nightmare. This entire movie is probably
a victim of that. And that's what you get when
you don't build a whole lot of sets and you
focus a lot on CGI robots and backgrounds. But you
have to do that in order to build a world
like this. And they did spend a lot of money
on making this movie. So while they did do I
(32:53):
got a decent job at creating this world. About forty
minutes in, I felt that that went by pretty quick.
I think that was the sign of an entertaining movie. Again,
it's not the most stimulating. It's unfortunately a movie that
you could have on in the background and just kind
of enjoy and still kind of go along with it.
Kind of reminds me of when you would just throw
(33:14):
on a movie on cable that was interesting enough. Like
I could see the commercial breaks inside of this movie.
It was that level of entertainment, and that doesn't make
it bad to me. That is kind of the streaming
standard now. So I found it entertaining enough through the end.
Even though the movie felt kind of like painting my numbers,
I kind of knew what was gonna happen, what was
going to come. All the emotional ups and downs were
(33:36):
already in my head happening, and I thought it was
entertaining enough. I enjoyed living in this world. I think
it's also probably catered to a younger viewer, so all
the people ripping it to shreds online or probably people
around my age older than me who think this movie
is an abomination I also think this movie probably isn't
(33:57):
for you. It's for the fan of Straights, the younger
fan who is more of the gen Z audience and
going to resonate more with Millie Bobby Brown. Of course,
you're probably not gonna get it. And those people watching
this movie and enjoying it haven't seen all those movies
from the eighties that you think it's reminiscent of. Haven't
seen all those movies from the nineties because those movies
(34:19):
are ancient to them. So the Electric State does probably
feel more fresh and new to them, and it could
be their next favorite movie. And I don't want to
keep some kid from enjoying that. I'm also not going
to Die on the Hill by any means that this
is a great movie that people are completely missing. It
is pretty average by today's standards. But when I look
at other Netflix original movies, which is always how I
(34:39):
compare every single movie to you like what is around
it in this genre? I think of Rebel Moon, which
was a complete disaster. The first one was all style,
no substance. The second one was much of the same,
so bad that I couldn't even finish that one. This
movie actually has some substance with a little bit of style.
So it's like right in the the middle on both those.
(35:02):
But the thing was I kept watching till the very end.
Unlike those other Netflix original movies that I dipped out.
There are movies on Netflix that I started, maybe got
twenty thirty minutes of, and I was like, I don't
care where this is going. I'm out the electric state.
I watched it all the way through. And that is
the big thing with Netflix. They want people to start
and not only start them, but complete their movies. That
(35:23):
is the sign of success here. That is why this
movie is gonna be at number one on Netflix, because
even though people are hating it, people are clicking on
it and people are watching it. I don't love that
because if all you're caring about is completion rate, I mean,
Netflix makes movies now that they're like, okay, we got
to overstate things because some people just have this on
(35:44):
in the background. Some people are watching on their phone
or their iPad. They have characters sometimes announcing things that
they are doing for the people who were distracted doing
other things while they are watching Netflix. I don't like that.
For film, they might get to a point where they
install or encourage you to install these little cameras, or
they use your phones on your TVs so they can
(36:05):
look at your eyes and when you're looking at the
screen and not looking at the screen, and using that
for data on how they make movies. I don't like
that aspect of filmmaking, but I think that's just the
state of the world and them deciding on what they
want to invest in and how they want to make movies.
That's a whole other streaming world that'll probably be different
here in five years if they continue to lose money
(36:26):
on movies like this, and I don't even think they're
necessarily losing money on The Electric State, but it's not
doing them any favors by all the negative reviews that
they are getting. So maybe it's also me fighting a
little bit for this movie because I don't think it's
as bad as people are saying. Because I think for
the most part, if you like sci fi movies and
you click on The Electric State just looking for a
(36:47):
popcorn movie that you can sit down and watch with
your family on like a Friday night, I think this
is actually perfect for that. It has a little something
for everybody. It doesn't really excel at anything that it does,
but it's a very crowd pleasing movie in my opinion,
and some people are freaking out because they don't want
this to be the last project leading into the Russo
(37:09):
Brothers taking on the next Avengers movies. I think, to me,
this still proves that they can deal with a lot
of actors, can deal with a lot of action, which
is going to be up to an incredible level in
the next Avengers movies. I heard that I think Disney
or Marvel gave the Russo Brothers a deck of cards
with every single person cast in the Avengers movie as
(37:30):
far as how many movies they have left in their contract,
how much they are paying each of these people, and
how much they have left to pay these people because
it's so hard to keep track of. I think that's
why you hire these guys, because they can deal with
this amount of talent. There's two of them. They know
how to make a movie set for the big screen,
(37:50):
and I think they still prove that in the Electric State.
It's just kind of a mix of probably all the
movies that they grew up with and loved, so normally
I probably would have given this movie a two point
five out of five, but to combat all the negativity
and the fact that I watched it and finished it
all in one sitting and didn't feel the need to
click off of it. For that reason, I give this
(38:10):
movie three out of five robots, which is right there
at that D level. I think it's probably a week three,
but a really strong two point five. But for all
that hate, I'm gonna bump it up to a three
because I think that score is right there at that
I still think it's worth a stream. It's not gonna
change your life. It's not gonna be one of your
favorite movies of the year. I think if it would
(38:32):
have made two more wrong decisions, it probably would have
been in the bad category for me. But for right now,
three out of five robots for the Electric State.
Speaker 2 (38:43):
It's time to head down to movie.
Speaker 1 (38:45):
Mike Traylor, Paul, you know me, I love me a
good horror movie, and I can't decide if I'm gonna
love or hate this one. So by the end of
this trailer park, that is the decision we are going
to make here as part of the movie crew. It
is called The Woman in the Yard. It is about
a mysterious woman who keeps repeatedly appearing across in a
(39:05):
family's front yard, keeps delivering these chilling warnings, saying all
these weird things, unsettling messages, leaving them to question their identity,
motives and a potential danger that she might possess. Now,
what it looks like is you have a mom or
two kids. Apparently the dad died somehow, probably in a
(39:27):
car wreck, because in this trailer you see this car
up here that's all smashed up. This trailer has a
lot of cliches, but some good pieces of it. It
is coming to us from the director of Black Adam,
carry On an Orphan, which is a pretty vast different
just selection of movies there. If you told me the
same guy, he who directed carry On last year, which
(39:50):
was the movie that was like die Hard in an Airport,
which Diehard too is also Diehard in an Airport. But
that's the best way to describe that movie that came
in on Netflix and it was like their biggest movie
of the year. For him to follow that up with
this one, it just almost doesn't quite fit here because
carry On was a bigger budget movie. Black Adam was
a really big budget movie. Orphan is like still in
(40:13):
that horror space. But to see somebody go from that
to this, which feels like a really bare bones horror movie.
It's coming to us from Blumhouse, who is notorious for
doing this. I think they're one of the most profitable
horror studios because they make movies for eight to ten
million dollars and then really try to cash in on
(40:34):
their investment by the marketing. And there are some red
flags going on in this trailer. Before I give all
of my ideas away, here was just a little bit
of the woman in the yard trailer. And mom is
a woman in the yard. Hello, can I help you out?
My husband will be back very soon.
Speaker 4 (40:56):
We both know your husband's not coming home. I don't
come unless i'm called today.
Speaker 1 (41:13):
Why is your face covered? How did she get here?
I think she's closer, So today is the day. The
question is where did this woman come from? What does
she want when? And will she ever leave? Who's gonna die? Well,
only the woman in the yard knows. So before I
(41:33):
get into my red flags, let's talk about my green
flags here. I do like the overall idea of a
woman showing up in the yard and that being the
horror element. There is a cool thing that she does
to actually mess with the people inside the house and
is able to manipulate things and move things. She uses
(41:55):
the power of the sun to create shadows, and through
that she can move the lif she invades the house.
They even in this trailer kind of start to figure
that out. But I think that is interesting, because how
do you make a movie that's an hour and a
half interesting of a woman just sitting there covered entirely
in black, just saying things weirdly making things appear. This
(42:16):
movie kind of feels like those episodes of TV shows
they refer to as bottle episodes where they can't really
go anywhere else. They try to limit the different sets
so they don't have to spend a lot of money.
This is what this movie is. It takes place pretty
much primarily from what we see in this trailer in
one location, which I do like when movies do that,
because you have to be really inventive on how to
(42:39):
move this story along and how to bring elements in,
in this case from the supernatural that are gonna make
it entertaining for those ninety minutes. So I think it's
kind of a green flag, but also kind of a
red flag because sometimes I've been burned by these Blumhouse
movies that are ninety minutes long that give you this
trailer which pretty much tells you everything that is going
(42:59):
to happen. I really get a glimpse of the entire
plot through this trailer, but they're trying to entice you
in with showing you all those scary parts, and I
fear that there's not gonna be anything else scarier in
the actual movie. So in it having a small budget,
I feel like there's gonna be moments that are really
really stretched out to fill that time. It was almost
(43:20):
like they said, we need to make this movie ninety
minutes long. If you've ever written a paper that needed
to be a certain page length, and you start writing
sentences in way you would never say them in your
real life, adding all these extra words and filler words
to beef up that paper to give it some girth,
and you're increasing the font to like twelve point five
(43:43):
in a way that doesn't make it look completely obvious
that you don't have a whole lot to say in
your paper. That is also the vibes I'm getting from
The Woman in the Yard so far. So I do
like some of the horror aspects. I like the family
dynamic at the beginning, where it's just them chilling, having
a good time. Everything is normal. They make some eggs,
(44:03):
the sun makes them with doritos, so hopefully there's a
bit of a bonding moment there with the family, and
there's the whole mystery of what happened to the dad.
I gotta know, is you gonna pop up? Is the
woman in the yard gonna make them a zombie and
freak out all the kids? That could be cool, but
there are a lot of cliches. So we'll get to
the red flags now. They say the name of the
movie in the trailer. I like it when they save
(44:25):
that for the actual movie. It just feels like a
really weird delivery, like there's a woman in the yard
and that's the entire movie, all right, that's it. Just
close up the windows. We don't have to pay attention
to or end of movie. But really, the biggest red
flag of this entire trailer, it does the big cliche,
the cliche I hate in horror movie trailers that you
(44:45):
know is coming. Whenever there's some kind of a ghost,
there's some kind of a demon. There's always this part
where the family or the main character gets into a
situation where they're waiting for the monster to appear. It
gets really quiet and dark, and you're just waiting for
that moment for the jump scare where they give you
a glimpse of the monster. You get a big sound effect.
(45:06):
They appear boom in the trailer. Whenever a movie does that,
I just don't know that there's nothing else that's gonna happen.
There's no other moment to wait for to go see
that movie. They've already given it to you in the trailer.
That's a shot. I'm not gonna be anticipating that moment
anymore because I already know it's coming. I experienced that
(45:27):
in the first Smile movie. They showed you the oh,
the best part of the movie that would have been
a great jump scare in theaters, that was in the trailer.
Blumhouse has done that with Imaginary. They show you the
best part of the movie in the trailer, so then
there's nothing to look forward to. It's the same way
when you make a comment and you put your best
joke in the trailer, you're not going to really laugh
(45:48):
at it again when you go see it in theaters.
So out of everything that is the biggest red flag
for me. And I'll give you a warning now because
I do want to play it just so I can
explain to you how infuriating this to me. But be
aware that there is a jump scare coming. So if
you're listening in your car or in the gym, just
know that there is a moment where it's gonna get
really loud. So here's that moment and then boom and
(46:22):
the trailer. They also use like the uplifting music method,
where it's like, here's a really nice, cheerful song over
some dark imagery that every horror movie does. Now they
don't really incorporate it too much. But the other cliche
that I see and hear a lot is that weird,
creepy violin sound that almost sounds if you took rubber
bands and put them on a box and we're just
(46:43):
like twisting them over the box, like if we had
a thing of takeout, you know, sometimes you put a
rubber band over it kind of sounds like this, Like
anytime a trailer has that and it's doing all these
crazy cuts in between weird imagery, like a close up
on an eye, a single blood drop, a doll in
(47:03):
the attic with its head ripped off, and you hear
this sound, you just know it's gonna be the horror
movie of the year, the scariest movie in theaters. Ever, So,
the real reason I think this movie has potential is
because of the director to go from Black Adam and
carry on an Orphan, which was a pretty good horror
(47:24):
movie back in the day, at least the concept of it.
It gives me a little bit more confidence that there's
gonna be more to this story to actually make it
worth seeing in theaters, that it's not just gonna be
one of those fast fashion horror movies that you go
see and you're like, man, I've already seen this time
and time again. I feel scammed by this. And I
don't say this to try to sound snobby. I don't
try to say this to sound like a overly critical person.
(47:47):
It's just I know who this movie appeals to. Like
my mother in law saw this trailer and asked if
I was gonna go see it, And I think it
is those people that I want to have a great
experience when they go watch a movie in theaters, because
they're investing their time, they're investing their money, and if
you go for the first time in a while and
you see this and you're like, man, that sucked. Everything
(48:09):
is terrible. Now, that is where I draw the line,
Because there are great horror movies out there. You have
to look for them sometimes, and I know sometimes the
movies that get to the most people aren't the best ones.
So I just hope, for the sake of my mother
in law who's gonna go see this movie, that they
don't let her down and they don't make her waste
her time and waste your money. So I'm always looking
(48:31):
out for you in that sense. That's why I'm so
critical about these movies sometimes. But again, the woman in
the Art coming out in theaters this Friday, March twenty eighth,
And that was this week's edition of Movie Line Tramer
par and that is gonna do it for another episode
here of the podcast. But before I go, I gotta
give my listeners shout out of the week. This week,
(48:51):
I'm going over to x. I posted a clip from
last week's episode talking about my top ten baseball movies.
What I felt was the saddest moment in any sports
movie was from Angels in the Outfield. This week's listener
shout out is a reply to that video from Aaron
at so Dak Jack Mama on Ax, who said, just
introduce my seven and nine year old to this movie.
(49:12):
They are hooked this and Little Giants is going on
repeat at our house. That just warms my heart because
I've been talking about how these movies that we grew
up with in the nineties that don't really get made anymore.
It is very rare that you find a film that
comes out with an all kid cast and just has
that nostalgic feeling of reminding us what it's like to
(49:32):
be kids. So even though we don't have them coming
out as frequently as we do now, I do love
that Aaron and hopefully other parents are showing their seven
to nine year olds the movies that we grew up with,
and the fact that they are actually enjoying them and
don't think they are relics and boring things that their
parents show them is awesome. So I'm glad that people
are now watching Angels in the Outfield more that it
(49:55):
is available on Disney, plus that it's not just buried
in the Disney vault, and Little Giants is an other
great ones. So thank you Erin for sharing that thank
you for listening, and thank you for commenting on socials.
That means a lot to me. If you want to
follow me there, you can always find the links to
all my social media in the episode notes. That's where
I pick my listeners shout outs, or you can email
me Moviemike D at gmail dot com. And until next time,
(50:17):
go out and watch good movies and I will talk
to you later
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Bobby Bones
Amy Brown
Lunchbox
Eddie Garcia
Morgan Huelsman
Raymundo
Mike D
Abby Anderson
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