EP. 342.5 — Last Looks: Fifty Shades Freed & Ronal the Barbarian

Paul Scheer [00:00:00] What’s the deal with Danish asses? Finally, we’ll figure out what topping the bottom means. And you guessed it. We’re going to find out about that duplicitous maid. But before I can get into that, I must tell everyone. Places, people, places! It’s time for Last Looks.

Music [00:00:23] [Intro Song]

Paul Scheer [00:01:02] Hello all, you big bald barbarians who loved topping from the bottom. I’m your host, Paul Scheer, and welcome to this special supersized BDSM themed edition of How Did This Get Made Last Looks. That’s right. Because we took a little vacation from Last Looks. Last week while we were on tour in the UK, and on in this episode, I will finally address your issues on both Ronal The Barbarian and 50 Shades Freed. Plus, later in the show, Jason will join me and we’re just gonna, you know, shoot the breeze. It’s going to be a lot of fun. And as always, I will reveal next week’s movie, which I’m actually interested in. I don’t know what it’s going to be, and I think you got a good one in store, because I know why we picked it. So then would you know the movie? Anyway, I don’t want to let you in on all the magic here, but I kind of think I do, but I’m going to let myself be surprised anyway. First things first, a big shout out to you guessed it, Rob from Long Island for that opening song. Wow, I love that you made it especially for this special episode. I love Rob, I love you, you are great. I love that you’re out there. You know that we’re going to give you a big episode and you give me a super sized theme. Anyway, we love these songs. We love Rob. If you have a Last Looks theme song, if you want to cater it to what you think I might say or do in an episode, please do and send it to HowDidThisGetMade@Earwolf.com, but keep them short. Yeah, brevity is the soul of wit people. Anyway, my book, Joyful Recollections of Trauma. It’s days away from coming out. I got a Kirkus Star review, I got a Booklist star review. And wonderful people like Casey Wilson and Jane Fonda and Patton Oswald and Ed Brubaker are all saying so many nice things about my book, and I hope that you enjoy it, too. Out on the podcast circuit, jiving, selling my book. I’m getting it out there and I will be on tour. I’m going to be in New York, the week of May 20th. I’m going to be in Seattle and Portland with Jason. We’re gonna be doing our improv show out there. I’m also going to be in Chicago with Adam Pally. You’re going to see me all over the place in May. But if you want to see Jason and I improvise live on stage at a very, cheap ticket, you can go check us out in Chicago, Seattle or Portland, go to my website or go to HDTGM.com for tickets to see Dinosaur. Now I have to also ask you a favor. I know I’ve just asked you, please buy my book. And by the way, buy now. Go to Premier Collectibles and you’ll get an autographed copy that’s worldwide people worldwide. Premier collectibles will give you a book that I have autographed, and you can go watch a live stream where I’m going to be chatting with a guest. TBD. Anyway, the other thing I’m going to ask of you is something simple. Our Fast ten episode was nominated for a Webby Award. That’s right. We were nominated for Best individual Comedy Podcast. And the cool thing about the Webby’s are they are voted on by fans. So if you want to support the Fast Family, go to the link in the show’s episode notes and take a minute to vote. Or you can just go to Webbies.com and do it there too. Anyway, we got a lot to get into. Let’s get into it. During our last two episodes, we talked at length about both Ronal The Barbarian and 50 Shades Freed. We had questions and we might have even missed, a few things. Here’s your chance to set us straight. Fact check us if you will. It is now time for corrections and omissions.

Music [00:04:21] [Corrections and Omissions Song]

Paul Scheer [00:04:33] Oh, damn. Thank you. Styles O’Brien. I love that theme. First up, we will be talking about Ronal the Barbarian, a film the discord user Ushwan thought should have had the tagline “Something rotten from the state of Denmark.” Oh dude, you nailed it, I love it. Lars Anderson, Danish guy here. Sorry, Jason. “Love the show. Here are a couple notes. A shield maiden in Nordic sagas is simply a female warrior. I think the movie invented the rule that a shield maiden marries the man who defeats her. Number two, the old man who complains he’s been stuck on the toilet waiting for his nurse since Wednesday, is actually a joke on the quality of social services in Denmark. If you are no longer able to fully care for yourself but wish to stay in your home, you can apply for Social Service Helper to come and take care of the basic necessities, which yes, can involve cleaning the older person. There are two often reports of failures and duty of care and that’s a bummer. So let’s just leave it there.” And finally, Lars suggests if we like this movie, there are some other animated Danish films that are in this ilk, like Terkel in Trouble or Journey to Saturn, and maybe even Checkered Ninja, although that one is a little more serious. He says. While we’re we may not go back to Danish animation cinema anymore, we enjoyed it. But maybe get out while the getting’s good. Rob from Long Island, writing in with a comment. “The entire aesthetic of this movie is heavy metal.” Yes, I agree with you, Rob. “Yes, they bridge the gap between heavy metal, leather and BDSM, but the guitar guy also has a rock n roll t shirt. The name of the town is Melania, and Dee Snider is the voice of the bad guy. It’s all prime to have a heavy metal score or something, but it never leaned into it. There’s a song over the end credits and there’s a music video for it online, but from the trailer, you would think that this is some sort of tenacious D metal fever dream, and it’s nothing like that.” And you know what, Rob? You nailed it. Because you’re you are absolutely right. Like, this movie doesn’t know exactly what it wants to be. And that’s the problem. It should just be balls out. Fucking sex comedy, heavy metal. It should be heavy metal meets, you know, Lord of the rings, like heavy metal, the animated cartoon, not heavy metal music, but you know what I’m saying? It’s the same thing. Doctor guts 1003 writes “I take issue with the way invisibility is represented in this movie.” Ooh, I love I love a statement like that. To start off a paragraph long, correction and omission. “First of all, after becoming invisible, we can still see Ronald’s shadow. If he’s invisible, there would be nothing blocking the light to create the shadow, with the exception of his bouncing ball sack. Secondly, while this issue is not unique to the movie, being truly invisible would actually render a person completely blind. Your retinas are lined with photoreceptor cells that convert light into nerve signals, and if you are invisible in the classic sense of light passing through you unimpeded, that means light is passing through your photoreceptors rather than being stopped by them. Everything would probably appear pitch black, just as it would if your photoreceptors were getting no signal because you were in a totally dark room.” Doctor guts, thank you for giving us this Neil deGrasse Tyson moment. We need it to have some of the fun let out of being invisible. Well, there. I guess it isn’t so fun after all. Let’s go to the phones. Anonymous from Denmark.

Listener [00:07:54] Hi Paul, I am calling after listening to Ronal the Barbarian. So long time listener, first time caller. I live in Denmark and so first and foremost I wanted to thank you for correcting everyone that John Dillerman is not weird. It’s very kid friendly. But more importantly, I had to call to defend Danish asses. So the point came up that maybe the animators were drawing their flat asses. Danes have great asses. These are people that walk and bike absolutely everywhere. They have to get their gorgeous Danish furniture up to their third floor apartment. So I have to say the animation does not reflect the reality of the Danish ass. Thank you so much. Lars Mikkelsen is in every Danish movie, so that’s not necessarily big news, but, the film is listed in the children’s section on TV. I don’t know any kids who have seen it, but thank you. Bye.

Paul Scheer [00:08:52] All right, you know what? I believe you, I believe. I believe in Danish asses. I love a Danish ass. They were not drawn well. So you should take this up with. Really the animator. Let’s go to Jesse.

Listener [00:09:08] Hey, Paul. Jesse. Two quick things. One, Jason mentioned he did, like, the Amazon part and role. That’s probably because it’s a poorly done rip off of a great Futurama episode about ten years ago, or, I’m sorry, ten years before this movie came out. There’s an episode called Amazon Women in the mood. Of course, as I take off on the old, exploitation movie. But anyway, the episode is hilarious. And of course, it aired on television. But even though it aired on television, the jokes are pretty great and actually kind of dirty for television. It’s kind of the way you pull these jokes off, rather than the silly kind of childish way they did in the movie. And a quick number two. This has nothing to do with the movie, but I want to thank you guys for talking about Sharon Stone, Sylvester movie The Specialist. I think I sent you that DVD ten years ago, hoping you’d review it, but I man, when that episode showed up in my feed, I was so pleased. Thanks for everything, guys.

Paul Scheer [00:10:04] Thank you. Jesse. We did do The Specialist and maybe it was because of you. And you know what I’m going to say it was. I’m not going to. Somebody said, oh, Paul, I finally convinced you to go to the UK. I’m like, well, no, you didn’t convince me. I’ve been wanting to go to the UK, just had to wait for my kids to get older. But you know what? For you, Jesse, we did the specialist because of you. And. Now do I have to watch the Futurama episode Amazon Women in the mood? I guess the answer is hell yeah. I got to compare notes. And finally, Rob from Ontario, Canada. What do you got?

Listener [00:10:36] Hi, Paul, this is Rob Rake from Kingston, Ontario, Canada, the birthplace and home of Dan Aykroyd. I wanted to start by saying, we’d love for you to come to Our Town and do a show on any type of accordion movie that’s still left over after Blues Brothers 2000 and beyond. I have a correction and an omission for, the Ronal show. A guest in the crowd noted that at Trolls Kristofferson, it was noted as a reindeer wrangler in the credits, when in fact, I also saw that in the credits. And it’s, a render wrangler of it is just a role within a computer animation production. The render wranglers the last person who sees the animation before it’s finally put to film and video. So it was just, I missed reading. It had nothing to do with the Danes and their reindeer. So thank you very much. Appreciate the show. Cheers.

Paul Scheer [00:11:31] Okay. That makes a lot more sense. Render wrangler. Our producer, Scott pulled me a clip. Yes, that is right. Thank you. Rob from Ontario. Good eyes on you and Seanagator on discord explains further. “When animators and VFX artists are finished prepping their shots each day, they send them to a render farm, which is a bunch of networked CPUs that process the data and render the actual shots for review and a render wrangler monitors the render farm overnight and make sure every frame of animation gets processed correctly, so the shots are ready to review the next morning as dailies.” That’s right. Wow, y’all brought it here. Okay, so many great Ronal the Barbarian corrections and omissions. We’re gonna take a quick break, then we’re gonna dive into your thoughts about 50 Shades of Freed. And then Jason’s going to join the show. Then we’re in, talk about the next movie. But don’t worry, we’re still going to pick a winner from all this, but it’s going to be a combined winner anyway. I know you want to hear some more bonus content from our Ronal of the barbarian show, so check out this deleted scene where June continues serving up hot takes during the audience Q&A.

Paul Scheer [00:12:36] I am with a person dressed as a barbarian. Our barbarian is here. Barbarian? What’s your name?

Audience Member [00:12:42] David the horny.

Paul Scheer [00:12:43] Okay.

Jason Mantzoukas [00:12:46] Because of his. Because of his horns and his raging hard on.

Audience Member [00:12:53] So the animals are also in leather. There’s a bird that’s tracking Ronald, and he’s in fully leather it out.

Jason Mantzoukas [00:13:02] Son of crum.

Audience Member [00:13:03] Exactly.

Jason Mantzoukas [00:13:04] Son of crum.

Audience Member [00:13:05] So I don’t think they consented to that. I don’t think I don’t know if. What do you guys think? They consented to be in the leather?

Paul Scheer [00:13:16] This is a great question for June, because June is often upset. Like when monkeys are put in movies and forced to do things that are evil if they don’t get a chance. In the script, you’re saying that the birds were forced to wear leather.

June Diane Raphael [00:13:26] No way. No no no no way. This is an animated film and so anything goes. This is an animation is a great space. Animation’s not just for kids. It’s a great space for us to really explore our deepest, darkest desires and what we consider taboo and like it’s actually the safest space to explore those things.

Jason Mantzoukas [00:13:53] Yes.

Paul Scheer [00:13:54] Your name and your question.

Audience Member [00:13:55] So I’m Molly, and I’m kind of questioning the feminism in this movie because the men have all these intelligent ideas, like coming up with cell phones, but women cannot come up with vibrators.

June Diane Raphael [00:14:08] Well, no, because they don’t. The. God, I hate that I have to have this. I hate that I have to give this speech. The Amazonian women, they can come up with vibrators. And I believe they’re doing just fine there. And they’re having a grand old time without any men. But they need to keep the their tribe going, which is why they need to mate. So it’s not I don’t believe that that mating ritual is about pleasure for them. They just have to keep things moving and grooving.

Jason Mantzoukas [00:14:35] Respectfully disagree because they seem psyched when they find out that these women are in fact men. They are like, oh my God, that’s great news. We can fuck! Mating ritual. Let’s go now. But what that begs the question for me is where did all these women come from? How do they not know so much? An entire generation of women not know that these are, in fact, even men, that they see these two men and think they are just. They think the whole world is women. So where did they come from?

June Diane Raphael [00:15:08] It’s a movie.

Paul Scheer [00:15:14] We’re back. And that is enough Ronal. That’s right. The movie for women is now up on a shelf. We have two great shirts for that. Now it is time to enter the Red room one last time. For corrections and omissions from 50 Shades Free, a movie that discord user Vinyad S thinks could have had the tagline, “Not even a hot bodyguard can protect you from this.” I like it. George Glass writes “In response to Anastasia saying, people already think I got this job because I’m married to the owner. Oh, Anna, you’re a 22 year old college grad whose only other work experience was a part time retail worker at a very non busy hardware store. You went from assistant to running the fiction department in months. Hell, even in five years, that would be crazy. If I worked in that office, I would be livid at the blatant installation of this owner’s girlfriend slash wife.” Thank you George. I don’t know if that’s anything more than just a moment of anger. Yes, of course we all know that. Anyway. Doctor guts 1003 weighs in and says “Instead of having Jack’s female accomplice be H.R. Liz, which is just a big bowl of who cares. They should have had it been Gail, Christian’s housekeeper. There’s that scene early in the movie where Gail seems to be annoyed that Anna wants to cook her own food, and it would explain why Jack is so easily able to get into Christian’s place.” Oh, this is good, I like this? “And if they wanted to go full on soap opera, it could have been revealed that Gail was Jack’s adoptive mother, and the two of them have been secretly resenting Christian, his family, and their opulent lifestyle for all these years while they struggle to get by.” Doctor Guts. Write me a sexual fanfiction book. You got what it takes, kid. Kayla writes, you know, inspired by Doctor Guts and wants to continue this discussion of Gail, the housekeeper, and says, “If I remember correctly, in the book, Gail the housekeeper and Taylor, the bodyguard, were hooking up. Anna of course, is horrified, while Christian is all like, well, they’re consenting adults. No big deal. I want a Rosencrantz and Guildenstern version of 50 Shades of Gray about that relationship.” Tellico. You can do it because the author of this book did it that way too. You write that doctor guts, you take care of the new ending. We have more work to do. Let’s go to the phones. Stacy from Phenix.

Listener [00:17:33] Hi, Paul. So as you wrapped up the 50 Shades series and have talked multiple times about the fact that all these people need therapy, there was a very big plot point that was cut out of all of the movies, but was also filmed for the movie. So Christian did go to therapy, and Anastasia went with him on a handful of times. And Hugh Dancy actually filmed scenes to be Christian’s therapist in the movie, but he was inexplicably cut out for, I don’t know what reason. Maybe they just thought he could deal with life on his own. I don’t know, I just thought that was interesting. Love the show. Bye.

Paul Scheer [00:18:09] Whoa, I didn’t know that Hugh Dancy. We need it. I want to see it. Can we play it? No? Okay, well, go find them. I’m sure they’re not interesting. Because it would be. If they cut it. That means it’s more boring than what we actually saw. So. Wow. Amelia, next on the phone. What do you got?

Listener [00:18:30] Hi. I had a just mild correction about, some of the kink terminology in the movie. So specifically topping from the bottom, means that the bottom is is trying to take control, and that that was not a negotiated part of the scene. So it’s generally not something that’s cool to do unless it was discussed prior. Which is another issue. They should have had so many negotiations. This the coverage of these movies is really fun. Thank you so much.

Paul Scheer [00:19:16] Thank you. That makes sense. Okay. Got it. Now I understand topping from the bottom. Thank you for the clarification. You’re the best. So many great corrections and omissions this week. So many people came in and kind of set us straight. Shut us down really I think put the movies in a different perspective. But I have to say. That maybe the most creative one should be the winner today. You know, not, not the most eagle eyed person. And and I think that the most creative person to me is Doctor guts 1003. Doctor guts 1003. You are this double episode winner, and you get this amazing song from you know who it is, my favorite Rob from Long Island. Hit it.

Music [00:20:00] [Winner’s Song]

Paul Scheer [00:20:15] If you want to submit an atl movie tagline, chime in with your own thoughts about the latest episode. Hit us up at the discord at discord.gg/HDTGM or call us at 619-PAUL-ASK. Coming up, Jason stops by for a chat and I will reveal next week’s movie. But first, enjoy this bonus deleted scene from our 50 Shades Freed show, where I talk about how my mom refused to believe that I was in the TV show Veep. Take a listen.

Paul Scheer [00:20:39] My mom is the person who, I was on Veep, for one season. And, my mom. Thank you. And, and my mom, you know, she loves to talk to me about the stuff that I do, and I didn’t hear her talk about Veep at all. And I said, you know, hey mom, do you watch Veep? And she’s like, I watch it, but you’re not on it. And I go, well, what do you mean? I’m on. I’m on it. I’m definitive. I’m not. It’s not a big part, but I’m on it. She’s like, no, you’re not on it. I watched every episode and I go, what do you mean? You watch every. I am on it. She’s like, do you do any scenes with the dog? And I go, the dog? There’s no dog on the show. She’s like, there’s a yes. The dog is a good part of the show. There’s no scenes of the dog. And then.

Jason Mantzoukas [00:21:21] Oh, I so want to figure out what it is she was watching.

Paul Scheer [00:21:25] Do you want to figure it out? I’ll give you a well, I figure it took me about 20 minutes, and then we figured out my mom was watching Madame Secretary. The Tia Leoney, CBS hourlong drama, which is like the perfect, like, okay, Veep, that’s like a female president, right? So I’m she got like in the world.

Jason Mantzoukas [00:21:52] I love that that she likes probably googled like politics or something. And that’s what popped up. She was like, that must be it.

Paul Scheer [00:21:58] And she watched a lot of Madam Secretary.

Jason Mantzoukas [00:22:00] How many episodes? Because that.

Chelsea Devantez [00:22:02] Every episode.

Jason Mantzoukas [00:22:02] That’s a network, procedural. So that’s like 22 episodes a season.

Paul Scheer [00:22:07] Yeah. She watch a lot. So much so that I feel like she was like, well, I know that you’re not on, but I’m going to continue watching Madam Secretary and not watch Veep.

Jason Mantzoukas [00:22:16] Can you get on Madam Secretary?

Chelsea Devantez [00:22:18] Also, her logic was that you lied to her.

Paul Scheer [00:22:20] Yes. Yeah. Why wouldn’t you just tell me? And I think she was just angling to meet the dog.

Paul Scheer [00:22:30] Welcome back. Wow. Whew. Breathe it in. What a big episode. You’ve noticed that every Monday, How Did This Get Made is releasing an older episode back into the rotation. We had hackers out there. I love hackers. We got to the origin story of the whole BB-8 thing. And, if you have not listened to the episode in a long time, it’s worth the listen. To hear June’s reaction to my robot BB-8 that she hated so much. Every week, a brand new Matine Monday. Check out what we’re serving up there. They’re they’re repeats, but, they’re oldies but goodies. Anyway, let’s welcome Jason to the show for a little Just Chat. John Cohen, play us in.

Music [00:23:17] [Just Chat Song]

Paul Scheer [00:23:26] Jason. We are back from our UK Ireland Scotland tour and what? What a blast!

Jason Mantzoukas [00:23:32] Holy cow. But we really everybody showed up. London showed up, Dublin showed up, Glasgow showed, Belfast showed up. Huge, huge shows. Everybody was a blast. And also everybody was so lovely.

Paul Scheer [00:23:48] It really was such a treat to be there with an audience where I will say, like the first night going out on stage, starting up the show, I was like, oh, wow, okay. It just felt incredibly different. Yeah, like, how is this audience going to respond to things I didn’t know. You know, you’re just in a brand new place, but it really was some of the smartest, funniest and.

Jason Mantzoukas [00:24:12] Great questions.

Paul Scheer [00:24:13] Great, great questions.

Jason Mantzoukas [00:24:15] And not a backlog of people who wanted to sing second opinions. A respectful amount. Some nights just one. It was some crazy audience just decided, you know what? This one person we’re going to let them do it.

Paul Scheer [00:24:26] And you know, and we had some amazing guests. You’ll see, all the t shirts are available now on Teepublic.com, but there is one t shirt that is made, with the face of, really the winner of that show. I mean, there is a doctor in the audience, and she she killed it. She came dressed as King Arthur for King Arthur’s Return. And we also have an Alan shirt that, I wanted to bring this up because on our discord, we made this Alan shirt in Dublin, and the movie that we did for Dublin was this movie Thunder Pants, a farting movie.

Jason Mantzoukas [00:25:02] You’re welcome.

Paul Scheer [00:25:03] You’re you are welcome as someone.

Jason Mantzoukas [00:25:05] Starring Rupert Grinbert.

Paul Scheer [00:25:07] Did you did you make this pick for Dublin because there’s a lot of green and a redhead in it? Like, like calling out our own stereotyping. But she loves the Alan shirt because she’s like, what’s so great about it is that if you rearrange the letters, it’s anal and anal and farting. That’s what makes that shirt even more perfect. I was like, you know what? This is the kind of thinking that we need from our fans.

Jason Mantzoukas [00:25:33] So often, so often, I will say that I, I, I especially will try and get the audience to lead a chant of some sort, you know, a real audience wide fuck the moon, you know, Kumate, you know, there’s a lot of chanting in the history of this show. Dublin. We didn’t have to do a goddamn thing. They started chanting for Alan on their own.

Paul Scheer [00:26:01] Well, I mean, and by the way, Dublin followed in the footsteps of Scotland when we did our show in Scotland where.

Jason Mantzoukas [00:26:08] Oh yes.

Paul Scheer [00:26:09] I just mentioned London. I thought we were in London. And then the entire audience, unprompted, started chanting Fuck London!

Jason Mantzoukas [00:26:18] Yes, great. These were great chanting cities. Thank you. Thank you for your willingness and in sometimes thank you for being the engine of the chant. You’re really incredible audiences.

Paul Scheer [00:26:32] I loved it. And, I will say this. You and I actually flew back on the same flight. Yeah. And I was excited to just really crack into some movies or, you know, watch a bunch of TV, and I just, I really just slept the entire time.

Jason Mantzoukas [00:26:49] I watched you sleep most of that flight. Yeah. I watched you like a hawk.

Paul Scheer [00:26:53] Oh, hey.

Jason Mantzoukas [00:26:53] I was like, nobody’s going to mess with my guy.

Paul Scheer [00:26:56] I was like, thank I appreciate that.

Jason Mantzoukas [00:26:59] I, I yeah, I was like, I’ll stand guard first.

Paul Scheer [00:27:03] But I passed out and I was so upset because I do enjoy a long flight and a chance to like, break into movies and shows. And I had it all. I had it all lined up. I knew what I wanted, and I was trying to stay awake like a kid. Like I was like, oh no, I can’t do that.

Jason Mantzoukas [00:27:19] Yeah, I know you got that. I will say like this. This tour was exhausting. I’m still wrecked from, the travel from the jet lag from all of that. All of it was a mess. But, I managed to. You know, what I’ve been doing lately, too, is downloading. Because sometimes when I go for flights, I’ll download a bunch of movies or a bunch of episodes of something that I’m watching or or whatever, but I’ve started downloading like YouTube videos simply because they’re shorter and they’re a little bit more like I’m much more likely to to watch Adam Savage that, you know, build a mock up of a lid for one of his bags in his workshop or watch, you know, backpack reviews. Yeah, it’s like a 12 or a 20 minute video about a backpack review. And I’m like, yes, that’s perfect for me right now while we’re doing plane stuff, you know, and versus like, oh, am I really going to jump into some, you know, a 2 hour movie that I, that I’ve decided, like, oh, I should rewatch Arrival, you know what I mean? Now that I’m so into Denis Villeneuve. Right now, you know.

Paul Scheer [00:28:26] Oh my gosh. So good. By the way. Yeah I mean you’re right. Like, I think sometimes I get, anxiety on an. Yeah. Am I picking the right thing? Am I getting it right? Maybe that’s it. Yes. Oh, my. Now, you asked on the show, on this show about a series. It was like, not a music. It was a comedy series about like.

Jason Mantzoukas [00:28:44] Yeah, it was Posh Nosh, right? The British.

Paul Scheer [00:28:48] Yes. And it’s all on YouTube.

Jason Mantzoukas [00:28:49] Somebody else has it that has found its way to me. Okay. Yes. Posh nosh, Richard E Grant, an incredible comedy. Funny. I mean, it looks like it’s a kind of old school British country manor cooking show. Like, we’re going to make some potatoes, we’re going to make some of this, but it’s actually just outrageous very funny comedy. Incredibly funny show.

Paul Scheer [00:29:10] I, I was very excited that it’s there. And, I don’t know if you’ve seen it, but I did get to watch the new Roadhouse.

Jason Mantzoukas [00:29:19] I’m like, I, I’ve only watched maybe the first 20 minutes.

Paul Scheer [00:29:23] Okay, so a lot of people have been pooh poohing.

Jason Mantzoukas [00:29:26] Oh, really?

Paul Scheer [00:29:27] The new Roadhouse. There’s a lot. Yeah, there’s a lot of negative talk, from what I’ve heard. Now, I know it’s also like the number one movie on Amazon. It went down very easy for me. I want to talk to you about it when you see it. But I will say this. If you don’t have an interest in watching it, let me just say that you’re maybe missing out on one of the best performances on film ever. And that is of Conor McGregor’s shoulders, because this guy, he is. And I’m doing this on camera, but you can’t. His shoulders are leading the way. He looks like a cartoon character of a strong man. And there is something about this villain. Like there’s I guess when I watched the Rock, when I watched Vin Diesel, when I watch all these big, muscular movie stars, there’s a part of me like, well, yes, but they’re movie stars. They they are built. But Conor McGregor beats the shit out of people, and he carries a self with an energy that is unlike anything I’ve seen. And I. And I really was like, this might be the best or worst performance of all time. I’m erring on the side that it’s the best. I couldn’t take my eyes off him.

Jason Mantzoukas [00:30:37] Okay, I got to watch it, I was liking what I was seeing, but I was like, yeah. I was like, oh, you know what? You know, it’s interesting. I think I was wrong both ways because I have, I have put, Roadhouse, the Roadhouse remake, and the Fall Guy remake, the, the David Leach, Ryan Gosling.

Paul Scheer [00:30:58] Yes. Yes.

Jason Mantzoukas [00:30:59] I’ve kind of matched them together in a way of like those to me are similar, and I feel like, oh, the Fall Guy is going to be a more serious one, and Roadhouse is going to be silly. And I think it’s the reverse, because as I was watching Roadhouse, I was like, oh, this is a little bit more of a this isn’t as campy your it isn’t yet as campy as the original Roadhouse.

Paul Scheer [00:31:19] No, no.

Jason Mantzoukas [00:31:20] And Fall Guy looks like it is having a blast.

Paul Scheer [00:31:24] I think the Fall Guy is a straight up rom com with amazing stunts. And it’s going to be fun. And this movie is definitely darker, but man oh man, I was like watching Jake Gyllenhaal. And I was like this guy. Like, if you put his career together, it’s like he has done amazing, amazing stuff.

Jason Mantzoukas [00:31:47] Speaking of Denis Villeneuve. Incredible in Prisoners, incredible in a movie that is absolutely one of the most.

Paul Scheer [00:31:54] So good.

Jason Mantzoukas [00:31:55] Like difficult to watch. Harrowing.

Paul Scheer [00:31:58] Harrowing.

Jason Mantzoukas [00:31:59] What like a true edge of your seat, uncomfortable watch, but incredible movie.

Paul Scheer [00:32:05] Now, when you watch, I want to because I really want to break into. Because there are some things I need to talk about in there. It really is.

Jason Mantzoukas [00:32:13] Next time. Next time we do this, let’s talk about let’s talk specifically about Roadhouse.

Paul Scheer [00:32:17] Okay. Now, you saw some great music when you were in London because you got there a little bit before. What did you see? What did you?

Jason Mantzoukas [00:32:23] Yeah, I saw two great shows. I saw The Smile, which is the new, band that is Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood from Radiohead, as well as the drummer from Sons of Kemet, who is a monster.

Paul Scheer [00:32:37] Wow.

Jason Mantzoukas [00:32:37] And it’s just them. It’s a it’s a great rock show. Great. Beautiful venue, the Ali Pally. That was like, this big up on the hill in London, looking out over the city. Incredible show. But then I saw a show that even dwarfed that even in terms of I saw, like, truly like a, like one of the top ten shows, ever in a long or at least in a very long time. I saw, Mary Lattimore, who’s a beautiful harp player, songwriter, incredible artist, play at a venue called the Scala. And there’s a documentary about this venue. This venue was a music hall. It was a it was a movie theater. Everybody’s played. It’s like a legendary London venue, and it’s small. And it was the audience was. It was packed. But everybody was dead silent while she played beautiful songs, and it was one of the most transcendent musical experiences I’ve ever had. It was an absolutely stunning show. Mary Latimer, all of her records are fantastic.

Paul Scheer [00:33:39] How are you getting into the harp world, Jason?

Jason Mantzoukas [00:33:41] You know, she started playing. She’s inside of, like, the experimental music scene that I feel like I listen to a lot of that. I would put, like, Grouper in, and or, Cally Malone. There’s all these people that are that are playing stuff like beautiful experimental instrumental stuff, that, that I come across, you know, whether it’s, you know, I read a review of it, I’m sure how I found Mary Lattimore first. Because she also collaborates with a lot of people. So I might have first heard her on someone else’s record. I’m not sure.

Paul Scheer [00:34:17] Well, by the way, I want to ask you. You know, she’s got two LA dates coming up.

Jason Mantzoukas [00:34:20] Oh, nice. Oh. Oh, great.

Paul Scheer [00:34:22] April 15th and May 8th she is going to be at Zebulon.

Jason Mantzoukas [00:34:25] Oh, yeah. Oh. She was. That’s right. She did a residency there a couple months ago. Yeah.

Paul Scheer [00:34:29] Yeah, with Anthony Pirogue and Janelle Lapin.

Jason Mantzoukas [00:34:32] Oh, okay. I don’t know that.

Paul Scheer [00:34:33] And then that’s Walt McClements and, Ben Babbitt. So, like, this is, you know, if you’re in LA, I might want to check this out.

Jason Mantzoukas [00:34:41] I can’t recommend that show enough. I think she’s one of the most interesting artists working right now, and I love it. Beautiful music.

Paul Scheer [00:34:48] Well, that like, I love like, there’s something really interesting. I don’t love seeing shows in LA. And I think that if you talk to a lot of, musicians. They don’t like playing in LA that much either, like they play outside of LA, if you notice, like it’s like, oh, I’ll play Orange County. We’ll get like they get a little bit further out.

Jason Mantzoukas [00:35:06] Yeah.

Paul Scheer [00:35:07] And I love to sing shows in New York and I love but going to different venues, it’s like it really is. I don’t know, I just like seeing I love seeing a big concert.

Jason Mantzoukas [00:35:15] I agree, I agree, I agree, and there’s something about, you know, London when I was there shooting Infinite, I, I saw like because I was there so long I saw like 20 shows. So I saw, I saw shows at all these different venues, many of which like I saw like a show in like, something I think it’s called the Round Chapel and it’s like a, it’s like a 400 year old round church that I saw a jazz show, and it was absolutely stunning, like it was. The venues themselves were beautiful and crazy. Never mind just then seeing a great music show. But I agree, LA is a tough town. I saw, right before we left for tour. I saw, Destroyer, one of my absolute favorites, Dan Baker, play a solo show, here in at the Lodge Room, in Highland Park, which I think is a beautiful room, small, intimate show, fantastic show. Just played like again. Played for so long. Just him and another guy. And it was a beautiful show. He played songs from every record that I wanted him to play. It was for me. It was like one of my favorite because he was the, the, the last concert I saw before the pandemic and now one of the first concerts for me back, seeing live music. So, do yourself a favor. If if Dan Beyer is coming to your town, if Destroyer’s coming to your town, buy tickets, go to the show. It’s a phenomenal show, even if you’re not super familiar. If you’re not super familiar by all of his records.

Paul Scheer [00:36:45] I will. Here’s what I’ll say to you. I love this feeling that you’re talking about, like seeing a show. And I felt I was writing this person all this weekend because I saw, Rory Scovel’s new special Religion, Sex and Some Other Things. It’s an HBO Max special.

Jason Mantzoukas [00:36:59] It’s on my list.

Paul Scheer [00:37:02] I will just say this.

Jason Mantzoukas [00:37:03] It’s fantastic.

Paul Scheer [00:37:04] It’s fantastic. Oh, you did see it, right? Yeah. So it is fantastic. And it gave me this feeling of watching a live show. I’ve not seen a stand up special where I felt like I was like, oh, I’m in the room. It felt relaxed, but everything that.

Jason Mantzoukas [00:37:19] He’s having fun.

Paul Scheer [00:37:20] Yeah, it’s so refreshing.

Jason Mantzoukas [00:37:24] He’s having fun. You’re watching somebody who is so comfortable and at ease and it feels it doesn’t feel. There’s too. I was going to shout out that special and another one which is Kyle Kinane’s Special, Dirt Nap is also absolutely fantastic. And both of them are exactly what we’re talking about. Both of them are just they’re not overly produced or manicured or they don’t feel like this big production. They don’t. They feel. Even though they are, they’re being specials. They, they, they both feel so comfortable and so, casual. I thought, these are two of the best specials I’ve seen in years.

Paul Scheer [00:38:05] They really like. It’s interesting because I think you and I see a lot of stand up. We are in the world of comedy, so to see a special that is doing something a little bit different or just, yeah, makes you feel a certain way. I remember, I talk about this a lot because, you know, I’ve been doing comedy. I came out to LA and I saw, Patton Oswald get on stage and start talking about the Star Wars prequels. That’s how long ago it was. And I was like, oh my God, I think it was at Largo, the old Largo. And I was like, and I’m listening. I’m laughing. I’m like, he’s just coming up with this on the spot. And I felt so like, it’s so cool. I’m getting to see his actual reaction to Star Wars prequels. And then I saw him like two nights later, do the same material. And I felt so betrayed because I was like, hey, because it was presented so casually. But that’s how that’s how well, that’s how great it that’s a great stand up is supposed to be like.

Jason Mantzoukas [00:38:58] And that’s what I felt like watching Rory’s special too, because I was like, there are so many moments in it that feel genuine to the moment, to that very moment that I’m like, oh, I know that can’t be exactly true. But however he’s doing it, it feels electric because it feels genuinely like these are the moments that are happening in this room on this night, not just here’s the act. Now I’m doing it for camera. I’ll shout out one more comedy special that I think is absolutely terrific that relates to our tour as well, which is James Acaster’s most recent special.

Paul Scheer [00:39:34] I haven’t seen that.

Jason Mantzoukas [00:39:34] Which is called, Cold Lasagna, Hate myself, 1999.

Paul Scheer [00:39:40] Okay.

Jason Mantzoukas [00:39:41] In typical James Acaster form, it is two hours long and it is an absolute must watch. It is if you’ve seen Repertoire, it’s fantastic that you know those four specials together. Yeah, this is a whole new other thing and it’s incredible. I think it’s on Vimeo. I think I had to watch it on Vimeo or something, like that.

Paul Scheer [00:40:02] I will get that, because I just recently listened to his, I, you know, I didn’t really know about his books. I knew about his podcast, I knew about I knew him as a personality and man, oh man, his books are so great. And you get those as audible books, or you can get him wherever you listen to audiobooks. And man, he is just such a he’s he produces so, so much stuff. I mean, it really is.

Jason Mantzoukas [00:40:27] And such a singular voice. Yes. Like and and like truly a somebody that I always like his his podcast Off Menu that he does with Ed Gamble. Ed Gamble who also has a fantastic stand up special that I think is on Prime called Blood Sugar. I think it’s on Prime. I’m sorry if it’s not, it’s on one of the others, but I think it’s prime. Blood sugar. And that’s a great stand up special as well. They have that great podcast Off Menu that I think you did, Paul.

Paul Scheer [00:40:56] Yes I did, yeah. I’m in it. Loved doing it.

Jason Mantzoukas [00:40:59] And that’s a great show if you also want to hear and they they’ve done them recently. They did one with Garth Marenghi recently the character Garth Marenghi.

Paul Scheer [00:41:08] I have. I love Garth Marenghi. He released his book as well, a book written. I love it. I love, I saw that show live and doing that. Amazing.

Jason Mantzoukas [00:41:18] Oh, how is that?

Paul Scheer [00:41:20] Amazing. And I have been like, all these guys are doing these shows right now. Peter Serafinowicz is doing, you know, he’s, he’s, that character. Oh, Butterfield. Butterfield is touring the UK right now. I love Butterfield. You know.

Jason Mantzoukas [00:41:34] Oh that’s cool, I don’t know that character.

Paul Scheer [00:41:35] That’s that very funny character that he has kind of like a. Right. Yeah. Like like a blow hard again. Like a kind of a, you know, that they’re all roughly these, you know, these blowhards, these, like, presenter blowhards that I love so much. But that’s so great.

Jason Mantzoukas [00:41:49] Yeah. Oh, I mean, speaking of they all, I just listen to, that that Off Menu podcast had Coogan on, and he had a, he told a lot of good Alan Partridge stories, a lot of.

Paul Scheer [00:42:00] Oh, I got to listen to all this. It’s so good. Well, these are.

Jason Mantzoukas [00:42:02] Can I just, I want to shout out a few just a few more things. Stephen Wright has written a book.

Paul Scheer [00:42:09] Oh. Yes.

Jason Mantzoukas [00:42:10] Called Harold, and he leads the audio. Just because we were talking about the audiobooks of people. The Stephen Wright audiobook called Harold is fantastic and worth reading or worth listening to.

Paul Scheer [00:42:21] It’s one of those books, by the way. I give it to my dad, and my dad loved it because, you know, because my dad kind of introduced me to Steven Wright back in the day. Like I had that tape. It was like, I remember it was Steven Wright sitting in, like, almost a Cubist style room or something like that. It was an audio tape, a stand up special, and I loved him from that day, and I gave it to my dad. My dad just absolutely loved that book.

Jason Mantzoukas [00:42:41] Oh that’s great. And then I’ve shouted out the podcast Dissect before, it’s a tremendous music podcast where they, they go through an album, an artist goes track by track and go through and really dissect the album. And it’s and they’ve done Kendrick Lamar and Frank ocean. It’s a great, a great podcast. And the new season that has just started is MF Doom, and it is so far absolute killer. So I can’t recommend it if you’ve, never checked out that podcast or if you’ve fallen off, now is a great time to jump back in. The season’s just started. They’ve got music in there. It’s, if you listen to it on Spotify, you get a lot of the tracks. It’s fantastic. Dissect is the podcast.

Paul Scheer [00:43:26] I will say, you know, if we’re talking about podcast, too, Jon Ronson, I don’t know if you know Jon Ronson, but he’s, right. You know, he has this. Yes. Yeah. Right. He has a podcast called Things Fell Apart. Yeah. And, I was listening to that and I thought I was really interested. The second season is really a lot of, like, post Covid. Like, it kind of just talks about like, oh, how society is kind of, ooh, morphed and what’s going on. It’s not like a, it’s not like it’s not true. It’s not anything. It’s just kind of interesting stories that kind of talk about culture war and, you know, things from like, the death of these black sex workers in Florida in the 80s and how that kind of connects to George Floyd and like the movement of police brutality is very like it’s it’s unnerving and it’s interesting and it, you know, every now and then it’s nice to I feel like, feel challenged by a podcast. And that one is really. Oh yeah. Okay. Yeah I really, really good.

Jason Mantzoukas [00:44:22] I’ll check that out. Yeah. And then just because people have been so good about it, I’m looking for two things.

Paul Scheer [00:44:28] Oh, I love it.

Jason Mantzoukas [00:44:29] Because we’ve talked about the Ed Zwick book already, but I am looking for 30 something. I want all of 30 something. Does somebody have a rip of 30 something. Is there does it exist? I mean, I can buy DVDs off of eBay, I get it, but I’m just curious. And then I’m looking for the documentary 32 sounds. I know it came out in theaters, but it’s no longer in theaters. Does anybody know? Is that going to live somewhere or does it exist somewhere already? And I’m just being I just I’m having trouble finding it? 32 sounds. I’m curious. I really want to see that documentary. Those are the two things I’m looking for.

Paul Scheer [00:45:05] All right. Let’s see if we get it. Let’s see.

Jason Mantzoukas [00:45:07] Get to it, audience.

Paul Scheer [00:45:08] I’m in. I’m on board. All right. Jason, what a pleasure. And we’ll be return next week. Or next time we’ll have special guest. We’ll talk about Roadhouse. We’ll do the whole thing. And, yeah, we will talk soon.

Jason Mantzoukas [00:45:18] Okay. Later.

Paul Scheer [00:45:19] Love it. Thank you, Jason, for chatting with me. Now that we got 50 Shades Freed out of the way, let’s talk about next week’s movie. We are finally completing our 50 Shades of Gray run with the fourth and final film 2019’s Shades Harder, starring Dakota Johnson, Jamie Dornan and Jacob Tremblay, who plays their teenage son 15 years in the future. Now. Just kidding. Boom! Gotcha, motherfucker. April Fools a couple days late. No worries. There is no fourth 50 Shades of Gray movie. But I think for a second you might have, believe me, that there was. You don’t have to listen to this talk about 50 Shades of Gray ever again. No more boring sex scene conversations. We’ll save that, for another movie. Only exciting sex scenes from here on. And next week we’ll be covering, 1991’s cult action classic Samurai Cop. Oh, I love this film. And here’s a short breakdown of the plot. “Two tenacious police officers, try to stop Katana, a renegade yakuza gang composed of violent and sadistic killers who want to lead the drug trade in Los Angeles.” There are not enough reviews on Rotten Tomatoes to give this one a score. And I don’t know why. Because this is really, the room of action movies. Instead, go to Letter Box and you can read tons of reviews. This one from Screening Notes writes “I’ve seen The Room and Troll 2 countless feature films from The Asylum and Samurai Cop is still, without context, the most poorly made film I’ve ever seen.” Well, what an endorsement. Take a listen to the trailer.

Trailer Audio [00:46:55] His real name is Joe Marshall. They call him samurai. He speaks fluent Japanese. He got his martial arts training from the Masters in Japan. Was brought over here from the police force in San Diego to fight us.

Trailer Audio [00:47:10] Would you like to fuck me?

Trailer Audio [00:47:11] You’re the one that talked me into bringing this moron from San Diego to fight the Japanese katana gang!

Trailer Audio [00:47:18] Bingo!

Paul Scheer [00:47:19] You can stream Samurai Cop for free on Tubi, Pluto TV and Hoopla. And remember, Hoopla is a digital media service offered by your local public library that allows you to consume movies, TV, music, audiobooks, ebooks, and comics for free. That is it. That is the show. Please remember to rate and review. It helps. And if you listen on Apple Podcasts, make sure you are following us. Visit us on social media everywhere at @HDTGM. And a big thank you to our producers Scott Sonne, Molly Reynolds, and our movie picking producer Avril Halley, and our associate producer Jesse Cisneros and our audio engineer, Casey Holford. We will see you next week for Samurai Cop.