EP. 355 — Communion LIVE!

[00:00:00] Paul Scheer: Tonight, there will be plenty of Christopher Walken impressions. We saw Communion. So you know what that means.

[00:01:13] We are live at at the Wilbur Theater, talking about the 1989 Christopher Walken classic, Communion. Which I think might be his best movie ever made. Based on Based on a true story, written by the man who had the encounter, Steven Spielberg said, I want to direct it. This man said, no, I want my friend to do it instead.

[00:01:54] And what is it about? Well, on December 26th, Whitley Stryber had a strange nightmare. And the following day is plagued by painful headaches. His behavior becomes increasingly erratic. Later, under hypnosis, he realizes that his dream was not a dream at all. It was motherfucking aliens! And he dances with them!

[00:02:29] And that’s not even the weirdest part of the movie. Now, I do have to share one thing before I bring out our cohost. This movie holds a very special place for me because In my book, Joyful Recollections of Trauma which is available wherever you get your books, your ebooks, your audiobooks. I talk about meeting Christopher Walken And it was on the set of this movie!

[00:02:57] I’ve never seen it before just hours ago!

[00:03:04] And when I met him, he looked very weird. And when I saw him in the outfit that he was in, which is the magician outfit, my entire childhood came running back. I had not seen that image since I was alone with that man in an empty, dark warehouse. That is a true story. I was brought into an empty, dark warehouse to meet Christopher Walken who was dressed like that fucking crazy magician.

[00:03:46] And this is the first time I’m seeing this movie. I don’t know why, but man oh man it brought me back to my childhood. And I cannot wait to break down this movie with all of you, but more importantly, with my co host. Please welcome, your very own, Jason Manzoukas!

[00:04:05] Jason Mantzoukas: What’s up, jerks?

[00:04:09] Yeah! Come on, let’s go, Boston!

[00:04:16] Let’s go! Here we go! That’s right! Woo! What’s up, Balcony?

[00:04:35] You hear that? They’re making you guys look like dog shit. Wow, wow, wow. Here we are back in my hometown. What’s up, Boston?

[00:04:47] This is, I won’t play. I mean, I’m from the North shore. I’m from Nahon. I’m not from Boston. Oh, Oh yeah. A lot of, a lot of Nahon residents tonight for a lot of North shore. Give it up. North shore. Fuck. Yeah. Fuck. Yeah.

[00:05:03] Paul Scheer: Now, Jason, I want to check in with you really quickly. Have you ever seen this movie?

[00:05:08] Jason Mantzoukas: Never.

[00:05:09] Paul Scheer: Okay.

[00:05:09] Jason Mantzoukas: Oh, no, a hundred percent never. And I know that because I never realized that Christopher Walken had his own Vampire’s Kiss for Nicolas Cage. This is that movie. This is a movie where somebody was like, hey, man. Go nuts. Just full blown Walken ness. I mean, this is He is diagnosed as full blown Walken.

[00:05:34] Paul Scheer: You hope it never happens, but sometimes you wake up in the middle of the night and you come out with a full blown case of Walken.

[00:05:40] Jason Mantzoukas: I mean, this was nuts. Times nuts.

[00:05:44] Paul Scheer: The best part about this movie is that I was about an hour ahead of my next co host watching it. So I could watch her reaction to the black fedora the outfit on the meeting on the ship And I cannot wait for her to tell you her thoughts.

[00:06:09] Please. Welcome June Diane Raphael!

[00:06:30] Welcome June. How are you?

[00:06:33] June Diane Raphael: I’m well, how are you Paul ?

[00:06:37] Paul Scheer: I’m very, well, you know, June and I, um, left our home. 4:00 AM wake up, 5:00 AM Uh, we’re in the car. Mm-Hmm. to come here tonight to do this show, and I can only describe that what you had to watch would be. Like the best way to encapsulate how your body must be feeling after having no sleep and then traveling all day and then doing a show

[00:07:04] June Diane Raphael: Yeah, yeah.

[00:07:05] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so many feelings. I’ve Gosh, I felt like chaotic watching this. I felt

[00:07:13] Jason Mantzoukas: I certainly didn’t feel safe.

[00:07:16] June Diane Raphael: I didn’t feel safe. And you know, Jason and I were backstage during your .

[00:07:21] Jason Mantzoukas: We can get backstage.

[00:07:24] June Diane Raphael: We’ve got that kind of access.

[00:07:26] Paul Scheer: And you guys do have badges. Can you just quickly show those just to make sure.

[00:07:30] June Diane Raphael: Geez, I don’t know if I have credential.

[00:07:31] We’re in the show. We’re actually in the show.

[00:07:34] Paul Scheer: You gotta get them out of here.

[00:07:36] June Diane Raphael: And we heard your description, your synopsis of the movie, um, right before Jason came out. And we beg to differ.

[00:07:46] Jason Mantzoukas: That’s not the movie, that’s not the movie I saw. That’s not what we saw. Not the movie

[00:07:52] I saw. I took notes about a very different movie.

[00:07:55] June Diane Raphael: I didn’t see the movie. Headaches. I didn’t see.

[00:08:00] Jason Mantzoukas: I saw very

[00:08:01] little from the boy’s point of view.

[00:08:02] June Diane Raphael: I didn’t know he had that same dream, never saw that.

[00:08:05] Jason Mantzoukas: The trailer also made it look like William Friedkin shot this movie. The whole trailer is basically exorcist style shots, which are not in the movie. I don’t think.

[00:08:15] June Diane Raphael: Watching that trailer, I was like, well, first of all, I thought the first encounter was right before Halloween.

[00:08:21] Paul Scheer: It was.

[00:08:21] Jason Mantzoukas: It

[00:08:21] was.

[00:08:22] Except until

[00:08:24] later we find out it happened to him originally when he was a little kid in the kind of stand by me episode.

[00:08:29] June Diane Raphael: But why

[00:08:30] are we focusing on December 26th?

[00:08:32] Jason Mantzoukas: Who cares?

[00:08:33] June Diane Raphael: What happened

[00:08:34] on December 26th?

[00:08:36] Paul Scheer: December 26th is when he was anally probed.

[00:08:38] Jason Mantzoukas: When he what?

[00:08:39] Paul Scheer: He was anally probed.

[00:08:42] On December 26th.

[00:08:43] Jason Mantzoukas: You don’t think that happened in October when he was, when he saw the light, when the one armed man from the fugitive was there? That guys, I thought for sure that guy was to blame. I was like, why aren’t they looking at the villain from the fugitive? He’s right there. He’s behind the whole thing.

[00:09:01] Paul Scheer: All I’ll say is this every log line of this movie neglects to mention the Halloween encounter and only focuses on December 26. And the other tagline is “A close encounter of the fourth kind”, which.

[00:09:19] Jason Mantzoukas: Tell me what that means.

[00:09:20] Paul Scheer: I think it’s the anal probe. I think that the third kind is like. I’m meeting someone. The fourth kind is like now they’re jabbing me.

[00:09:32] Jason Mantzoukas: What’s interesting is that like the movie what year by the way?

[00:09:35] Paul Scheer: 1989.

[00:09:36] Jason Mantzoukas: Oh, oh wow. Okay. So way later than Close Encounters or ET or this is many, many years later. Starman. Okay. Oh, so that makes even less sense.

[00:09:49] June Diane Raphael: There’s nothing, okay. I don’t know where to start. I don’t know where to start.

[00:09:54] Jason Mantzoukas: I’m in a dream. I’m in, like, I think the little doctors have me right now.

[00:10:00] I think the little doctors have me right now. The, the, the wide eyed kind of pink guys who just mostly do, who mostly just do like those things that are inflatable in front of car dealerships. That’s all these guys are doing. But I think they’re the bosses.

[00:10:18] June Diane Raphael: Like I never understood. I never.

[00:10:22] Jason Mantzoukas: That’s,

[00:10:25] that’s their whole thing.

[00:10:27] Paul Scheer: They, those traditional looking oval faced, uh, aliens.

[00:10:32] Jason Mantzoukas: They’re like the greys.

[00:10:33] Paul Scheer: Right. They. They looked like they were kites that were hanging from the ceiling. They were floating, but they really had Like, it was And I have a lot of respect for puppeteers. The worst puppeteers of all time.

[00:10:47] Jason Mantzoukas: I love this disclaimer.

[00:10:48] Now take these fuckers to task.

[00:10:51] Paul Scheer: But these puppeteers

[00:10:52] were not doing a great job with that

[00:10:55] alien.

[00:10:55] Jason Mantzoukas: Yeah, I have no respect for puppeteers. And I’m thinking this looked just like inflatable stuff flapping around.

[00:11:04] June Diane Raphael: I just didn’t understand what the difference between all of those creatures.

[00:11:08] Paul Scheer: Well, we’re going to get into that, I hope, because there are two that we know of, plus one of them that is wearing a mask?

[00:11:16] And underneath

[00:11:16] the mask is another face?

[00:11:18] Jason Mantzoukas: That seems to be true, but then they seem to also suggest that that also is not true. That that is, he, he’s. Walken I think like a quarter of the way through the movie appears to just be improvising every scene. Well, he’s just doing wild stuff. When they get to the point where they’re doing like Like dances and high fives and stuff.

[00:11:39] I’m like, I think this is just captured footage. They put in the movie. I don’t think.

[00:11:45] Paul Scheer: There’s one moment where he is reading a magazine and I’m like, well, this is clearly behind the scenes footage that they put into the movie.

[00:11:56] He did, he did improvise.

[00:11:57] Jason Mantzoukas: Why does he get all dressed up to write? Why? Why does he get all dressed up in a hat and glasses to write his novel, which he mostly dictates to a video camera on a computer that’s showing on a computer that’s showing him his own image?

[00:12:13] June Diane Raphael: I never, well see this is what’s so hard.

[00:12:15] Jason Mantzoukas: What’s the process at

[00:12:16] work here?

[00:12:16] June Diane Raphael: And this is what’s so hard, is like you want aliens You want them to come down and capture an every man, you know, capture somebody who’s just like going about their life, going to their job, coming home, raising their kids. Normal, normal, normal.

[00:12:33] Jason Mantzoukas: Yes. Like Richard Dreyfuss in Close Encounters of the Third Kind, not Richard Dreyfuss currently.

[00:12:42] A normal man.

[00:12:44] June Diane Raphael: Now he starts off psychotic. He gets probed, still psychotic, becomes. Like is in communion with the aliens at one point, still psychotic ends the movie psychotic. So there’s no, I, I did not understand, especially when she’s screaming at him, like, what’s happened to you. You’ve lost your mind.

[00:13:07] I’m like, did you see that man’s office set up? He was already gone, girl. He was gone.

[00:13:14] Jason Mantzoukas: He is

[00:13:15] dunzo when he in the middle of the movie is like, you know what? I just realized this happened to me as a kid. If I’m Lindsey Krauss, I’m like, get this kid and goodbye.

[00:13:27] June Diane Raphael: Listen, I would be the, that the night he took, by the way, he should not be a man who owns firearms.

[00:13:36] This is way before alien probe. I don’t care about alien probe. I don’t want this man to have access to firearms.

[00:13:43] Paul Scheer: Now I will say that you both are right. The director did let Christopher Walken do whatever he wanted. He said he gave him complete creative freedom, uh, allowing the actor to improvise his idiosyncratic quirks and lines of dialogue freely to which the author of the book and, uh, the writer of movie, the person that this is based on said, uh, he did not like Christopher Walken’s, uh, portrayal.

[00:14:13] He said, you made me to be a little too crazy. To which Walker replied, if the shoe fits.

[00:14:21] Jason Mantzoukas: Yeah. Yeah!

[00:14:26] Paul Scheer: This is the closest that we’ll ever get to a rom com with Christopher Walken. I mean, because he is like, you wanna fool around?

[00:14:35] Like, he’s doing it!

[00:14:36] June Diane Raphael: I hate it every second of that. I did not like it.

[00:14:40] Paul Scheer: He, I mean, there’s so many things happening.

[00:14:43] First of all, they established this couple. He is married to his wife and that opening shot.

[00:14:49] Jason Mantzoukas: When he lights the apartment on fire?

[00:14:51] Paul Scheer: Oh, I’m talking about the shot even before that.

[00:14:54] Jason Mantzoukas: When everybody’s

[00:14:55] coming into the apartment that is very visibly on fire and is acting like, Hey, we’re here. How’s it going? I mean, it’s on fire again.

[00:15:03] The police, the fire department shows up. Oh, what do we got a fire here again? Okay.

[00:15:08] June Diane Raphael: But I did have questions about that fire department though, NYFD. Because they start, they, they yell as they’re leaving false alarm. And I was like, well, no. Wasn’t, no, there was a duck on fire. Oh yeah, there’s something goes on fire in here.

[00:15:25] Jason Mantzoukas: No,

[00:15:25] no. It was real.

[00:15:26] June Diane Raphael: It was real.

[00:15:28] Paul Scheer: Yes. I will say that. Uh, a 10 26. is, or code 26 is a food fire in an apartment, but they said a code 23, which is an abandoned derelict vehicle is on fire. So.

[00:15:44] I don’t think they’re real firemen.

[00:15:46] Jason Mantzoukas: I would believe if that way, if the movie had pulled all the way out at the end to just Christopher Walken in a car that’s on fire on the side of the road and everything’s happening in his head, I would believe that.

[00:15:56] Why not? I, why not? I don’t know.

[00:16:00] Paul Scheer: I don’t

[00:16:01] have. Many clips, but the ones I do have are long. Um, I

[00:16:08] Jason Mantzoukas: The movie was endless. Oh, this is, this is one of those movies where whenever I stopped it, I was like, no, no, there can’t, somehow every time I stop it, there’s still 45 minutes left in the movie. Oh, that is impossible.

[00:16:23] Paul Scheer: I could not, I wanted it longer, but I just want to, I want to set the baseline for the performance for those who’ve not seen it. Can we play clip one? This is just, and again, Walken, as an everyman, like you said, June, this is before any contact.

[00:16:41] Jason Mantzoukas: This is the great American novelist, Christopher Walken.

[00:16:45] Paul Scheer: Here we go.

[00:16:51] Movie Audio: I’m cooking. I’m cooking. I’m on a roll. What’s the matter with you?

[00:16:56]

[00:16:56] Paul Scheer: So many

[00:17:01] fedoras.

[00:17:09]

[00:17:09] Movie Audio: Oh no. Ah,

[00:17:10] I got you. Got you. There you are. What’s the problem? The computer or you? I had such a terrible day. First the computer turns off, then the wolf painting jumps off the wall. It attacks me without provocation.

[00:17:24] Then your mother calls the toilet, explodes. The duck I’m cooking tries to tell me how to live my life. The computer completely erased itself when it turned off. No wonder that I can’t write my great.

[00:17:37] Paul Scheer: Now, this is also

[00:17:37] part of his Netflix is a joke standup special that

[00:17:41] Jason Mantzoukas: This is, this is, and this is before any of the alien shit happens.

[00:17:46] And what’s clear now in rewatching is this, this guy’s done. This guy is fully cooked and we just don’t know it yet because everything he’s up to there is straight nuts.

[00:17:57] June Diane Raphael: Yeah. And he’s also, here’s the other thing about him. Yeah. He’s also a dick. He’s so rude. He’s so fucking rude. And he’s so selfish, like after he almost shoots his wife, He’s like, I thought you were an alien!

[00:18:14] Paul Scheer: Or how about, how about his excuse when he doesn’t want to go to a therapist? Pay her? I’m more interesting than her. Like, as if he’s paying to go see a show?

[00:18:26] Jason Mantzoukas: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:18:28] Like wild stuff, and I mean like, look, this is Kyle MacLachlan’s mom from Sex in the City, okay? So you know you’re in good hands.

[00:18:38] Paul Scheer: I mean, he is.

[00:18:41] Jason Mantzoukas: Trey’s mom?

[00:18:43] June Diane Raphael: By the way,

[00:18:43] I did, I did, I thought she was wonderful, and I love watching her. I did question I did question why she never seemed to be able to get anyone out of hypnosis. Yes. Like, they were always just

[00:18:57] waking up.

[00:18:58] Jason Mantzoukas: They all bring themselves out. And they all have to say to her, I think I’m not hypnotized anymore.

[00:19:03] And she’s like, I think not.

[00:19:05] June Diane Raphael: Yeah, I think you’re

[00:19:06] awake. Seems like a really important part of the process.

[00:19:10] Paul Scheer: Yeah. To keep people under, it seems like they went under so quick. Like here’s my finger. I’m in a ship. I see it. Like she didn’t do anything yet. They immediately

[00:19:21] Jason Mantzoukas: in this interpretation of hypnosis. A lot of times when you see hypnosis portrayed in movies, it really is like.

[00:19:27] They go into like a separate almost state or a kind of like, it becomes a little monotone or it becomes a little just reporting or whatever they are just, just as conversational as it’s just, their eyes are closed and they’re like, I’m having the best time at home. And then we were just suddenly woken up by the brightest of lights,

[00:19:44] Paul Scheer: But this first moment where they go up to the cabin and we’re, and everyone is disturbed by the bright light, right?

[00:19:53] Everyone’s disturbed by the bright light. And. It doesn’t seem like anyone wants to talk about it or deal with it. And the couple, the other couple leaves as if Christopher Walken and his wife did something bad to them. Like they suggested a three way, like we’re out, we’re leaving, we’ll take a bus. We’ll go, take a bus.

[00:20:15] Jason Mantzoukas: Suggesting a three way means they want to leave one of them out. Which I understand. Leave out the one armed man from The Fugitive. He’s

[00:20:27] a villain.

[00:20:28] Paul Scheer: He’s gonna, he just, Christopher Walken’s gonna tape it on his camcorder. I’m just gonna

[00:20:34] watch.

[00:20:34] Jason Mantzoukas: We just want to fuck one of you.

[00:20:37] June Diane Raphael: Well, sometimes it was so exhausting watching this movie knowing everyone studied with David Mamet and they’re all like those scenes, but you could tell because there’s, especially in that scene, it was all like there was a, it wasn’t the moon.

[00:20:53] It was a moon. It wasn’t, there wasn’t a moon. It was a moon. You’re saying there wasn’t a moon, but. I was saying it wasn’t a moon, but you’re saying there is a moon.

[00:21:00] Jason Mantzoukas: There’s a lot of

[00:21:01] just Meisner repetition going back and forth.

[00:21:04] June Diane Raphael: It

[00:21:04] was maddening.

[00:21:05] Jason Mantzoukas: It was maddening.

[00:21:11] That’s what it was.

[00:21:12] June Diane Raphael: It really was.

[00:21:14] Paul Scheer: My favorite

[00:21:15] Jason Mantzoukas: Come on, Boston!

[00:21:17] Paul Scheer: One of my favorite things about this movie, though, is Walken’s reactions to the alien, because when he first sees that little head peeking out behind a dresser like, Meeh, I got a little like

[00:21:32] Jason Mantzoukas: So that’s what I couldn’t figure out. You know, I understood when it’s like hey little guys are coming.

[00:21:37] They’re picking you up. They’re taking you out little guys are doing experiments on you. I got it. The little guy behind the dresser. I was like, Whoa, Whoa, Whoa. Wait a minute. Yep. Now what’s this guy up to? This guy seems like he’s rogue. He’s doing his own thing.

[00:21:52] Paul Scheer: Why is he behind the dresser? Why is he hiding?

[00:21:55] Jason Mantzoukas: Why is he peeping and creeping? We can take Walken, we can get the little doctors, bring him up. And plug him straight into the fucking prober.

[00:22:03] Paul Scheer: But this guy’s like popping up behind a dresser as if he came in and like threw an air vent.

[00:22:07] Jason Mantzoukas: Like, what is that? Why was he just creeping like a little weirdo?

[00:22:12] Paul Scheer: Walken’s reaction to aliens is like, like, like, um, the way the Sopranos are like, Bada bing! Like it is like a very like, hey, oh, don’t you, come on. Hey, you! Don’t!

[00:22:24] Get

[00:22:24] me!

[00:22:24] June Diane Raphael: Wait Now I will say, I will say, that this was one of the most evocative, affective probing scenes I’ve ever seen in all my days. When that probe came out of that hole.

[00:22:43] Jason Mantzoukas: Holy shit! Do we have I thought we were maybe watching it. I guess we’re gonna watch it.

[00:22:47] Paul Scheer: We do.

[00:22:48] Jason Mantzoukas: June just threw to a cliff! This is never, 14 years, never happened. June!

[00:23:03] Here we go Boston, here we go! Get ready Boston!

[00:23:11] Boston, you asked for this. He’s making so much direct eye contact.

[00:23:24] Uh oh.

[00:23:27] Paul Scheer: Here it comes.

[00:23:28] Jason Mantzoukas: This guy knows what’s up.

[00:23:29] Paul Scheer: This is the moment where it starts to get really upsetting. They’re taking off his pants.

[00:23:37] Jason Mantzoukas: He wants to smell. You know this is just Walken. Just Walken, being like, let me smell you.

[00:23:47] Paul Scheer: And here it comes.

[00:23:48] Jason Mantzoukas: Uh oh.

[00:24:01] Here we go. Don’t look away, Boston.

[00:24:07] Don’t look away, Boston. Yeah.

[00:24:14] Mezzanine.

[00:24:14] That’s

[00:24:19] right,

[00:24:34] Boston.

[00:24:38] Paul Scheer: I think what’s so disturbing about that anal probe scene is his hands because when it goes in he clenches.

[00:24:46] Jason Mantzoukas: Oh, and he says I’m gonna kill or I’m gonna kill you right like kill you

[00:24:51] Paul Scheer: But then it also seems like he wants it because he kissed that alien in the face.

[00:24:55] Jason Mantzoukas: He goes, let me

[00:24:57] smell you.

[00:24:58] June Diane Raphael: Okay. I did not hear that part where he asked to smell that doctor.

[00:25:03] I thought he was just making out with the doctor.

[00:25:05] Paul Scheer: You guys are calling them

[00:25:07] doctors.

[00:25:08] Jason Mantzoukas: That’s

[00:25:09] what they’re called in the movie.

[00:25:10] Paul Scheer: I get it. But you’re getting that little boy called

[00:25:13] them

[00:25:15] Doctors.

[00:25:17] Jason Mantzoukas: They are doing a procedure. Procedure.

[00:25:20] Paul Scheer: By the way, if they were doing that procedure effectively, that, um, that trough that you’re laying down in, the, the anal probe should be connected to that.

[00:25:27] It looks like it’s coming out of the wall. It’s like when I’m traveling, an extension cord, my God, it’s not going to reach this. You got to move it closer. Like let it come.

[00:25:35] Jason Mantzoukas: I agree, that is unhygienic.

[00:25:37] June Diane Raphael: It is so hard though, because, and this is also walk in, but it’s, like, at some points it really does seem like he’s enjoying it.

[00:25:45] It seems like he’s at, like, a Russian spa, you know, and like, whatever happens, happens.

[00:25:50] Jason Mantzoukas: Because part of it is him being like, Like he’s like, Oh, okay. When it’s, I don’t understand what it means when he has eyeliner on. True. And I’m being honest.

[00:26:00] Paul Scheer: And that’s when I met him.

[00:26:01] Jason Mantzoukas: Like it’s the, there’s another thing.

[00:26:03] What is it?

[00:26:04] Paul Scheer: That’s when I met him.

[00:26:04] Jason Mantzoukas: Yeah. That’s what I mean. And there is, there are moments where he’s like, where he’s saying things that are like, I’m, you’re the dream of me and I’m the dream of you or whatever. And I’m like, Oh, have they replaced him? Is he really with them? Like, is there a guy without eyeliner and a guy with eyeliner?

[00:26:20] And they are two different, I couldn’t figure it out.

[00:26:23] Paul Scheer: I

[00:26:24] mean, the fact that he’s playing multiple roles. But there is something really interesting.

[00:26:29] Jason Mantzoukas: The magician with the drawn on mustache is absolutely the most nuts of all.

[00:26:36] Paul Scheer: The year,

[00:26:37] 1988, young Paul Scheer meets that version of that man. Hand drawn mustache, slick back hair.

[00:26:46] I was told it was the bad guy from James Bond. He did not look like that when I met him in a dark room. Um.

[00:26:52] Jason Mantzoukas: Wow. Wow.

[00:26:54] Paul Scheer: What

[00:26:54] I

[00:26:55] love about.

[00:26:55] Jason Mantzoukas: And he gave you that watch.

[00:26:56] Paul Scheer: He did. Ha ha ha. Apparently he was able to the probe pushed it way high up. That’s why he was able to hold it for so many years. Um, What I love about him getting probed and being visited.

[00:27:10] Jason Mantzoukas: Yes,

[00:27:10] what do you love, Paul?

[00:27:12] Because you were saying backstage, wait till you hear what I loved about him getting probed.

[00:27:18] Paul Scheer: It’s like

[00:27:19] You brought Christopher Walken to a fun house. It’s like, Oh, wow, what’s this? Like, Oh, may I touch you? Like, it’s just like, everything is like soup. That’s soup. I’ll eat hot. It’s like food, but water. Like everything is a new environment.

[00:27:37] And I will tell you that that sequence in the movie, when he first sees what you call the doctors and he starts laughing was because he told the director, don’t show me the aliens until we’re rolling. And that was his natural response.

[00:27:56] June Diane Raphael: I

[00:27:56] don’t blame him for that.

[00:27:57] Paul Scheer: And the

[00:27:57] director left it in because he thought it was like organic.

[00:28:00] June Diane Raphael: No, gosh. I’m curious what the aliens wanted from him.

[00:28:13] Jason Mantzoukas: I mean, he’s one of the greatest writers of our time, obviously. You can hear it from just the snippets that he monologues, which is how one writes.

[00:28:24] Paul Scheer: I thought he was, like, an actor trying to do an audition.

[00:28:27] June Diane Raphael: I did too.

[00:28:29] Paul Scheer: The Walkman on, he’s like, yeah, yeah, that’s a joke.

[00:28:31] I’m like, what are you doing? But I still don’t understand in any world, the camera on his face.

[00:28:37] Jason Mantzoukas: I don’t understand the camera on his face. I don’t understand the Walkman. I don’t understand the hat and the glass. The glasses are the only part that makes sense for writing. But everything else, I’m like, what is this choice?

[00:28:48] What I love is that it is Christopher Walken given unlimited choices.

[00:28:54] June Diane Raphael: We saw all of them, I think.

[00:28:56] Jason Mantzoukas: Yeah.

[00:28:57] Paul Scheer: Yeah. He took them all.

[00:28:58] June Diane Raphael: All possible choices.

[00:29:00] Jason Mantzoukas: Nobody interceded at all to be like, maybe we don’t need all this stuff on your body? He was like, no, no, no, I want to wear all of this. There’s a great quote Darren Aronofsky in making The Wrestler said that before every take he would have them go through all of Mickey Rourke’s pockets and take out all of the glasses because invariably he would pull out glasses during scenes and put them on, play with them, do stuff, sunglasses, stuff that would obscure his eyes And he’s like, I don’t know where he hid them, he would always just somehow mis We’d take three pair of glasses off of him and suddenly he would just put glasses on in the middle of the scene. This is Christopher Walken given

[00:29:44] unlimited glasses.

[00:29:45] Paul Scheer: Like, I also like You know, it’s so funny because I think that oftentimes you’ll say like, oh here’s an actor and he’s like, I’m gonna play Uh, you know, a sanitation worker. What are they like? And it’s a lot of choices. Here’s an actor playing a writer. A screenwriter and a novel writer. He’s like, oh, they must be naked wearing cowboy boots.

[00:30:07] It’s like, like as if it’s a crazy thing. I’m so far removed from this world. They must be insane.

[00:30:14] Jason Mantzoukas: I feel like it was like, no, it’s going to be boring if I’m just sitting in front of a computer or a typewriter typing. Let’s externalize it all. So when I’m writing about the wolves, maybe I’m dressed as a wolf.

[00:30:24] I’ve got a wolf mask. I’ve got cowboy boots.

[00:30:27] Paul Scheer: Even the

[00:30:28] sets have too much on. There is a scene where they I mean, there’s so much art in this movie. Which

[00:30:36] June Diane Raphael: You know what I want to talk about? I don’t know if we have a screen. If I just go like this, if something’s gonna pop up. But the art in the therapist’s office, the tapestry.

[00:30:48] Paul Scheer: I mean, there was too much art in the therapist’s office. Like

[00:30:52] June Diane Raphael: There’s art everywhere though. You’re right. Like there’s not a single frame that doesn’t have a giant painting in the background.

[00:30:58] Paul Scheer: I

[00:30:58] mean, the final act of the movie is both of them standing in front of six by seven foot.

[00:31:05] Paintings just monologues.

[00:31:07] Jason Mantzoukas: In front of murals is most of the last

[00:31:11] quarter of the movie.

[00:31:12] Paul Scheer: But the one thing that I was stuck on I don’t know if either of you saw it in the kitchen when he’s having a scene with his wife the wife.

[00:31:18] Thank you. Good. Good eyes, Mez The wife is standing in front of a plate that’s hanging on the wall that has a filet of fish Two sausages, two hard boiled eggs, and two string beans on it. In no world does that, is that a meal that anyone is eating. But also, what the fuck is that?

[00:31:46] June Diane Raphael: And why, I was obsessed with that kitchen.

[00:31:48] I could look at it for two days. There’s also a bathroom cabinet in the middle of the kitchen with a mirror on it. And I stared at that thing for a long time and I was like, Oh, there’s just, it’s just a mirror. There’s just a mirror in the kitchen. No, it’s a cabinet. That’s a bathroom cabinet that has somehow been placed in this kitchen.

[00:32:07] Jason Mantzoukas: Yeah.

[00:32:10] Yeah. It’s a medicine cabinet. It’s an actual, it’s just a medicine cabinet. The best thing would be if they opened it up and it took out some Tylenol.

[00:32:19] Paul Scheer: I am 90

[00:32:20] percent sure. That the therapist’s office is the same apartment that Andre, my character in the League, had in one of the seasons. Because I knew the floor layout enough.

[00:32:35] It’s different, but there’s enough defining elements. I know that one apartment I had had been in multiple shows, but this, this one was above an art gallery. And it made me go, I bet you somehow they said, can we take all your art? Cause there was a ton of art in that one too. And I feel like that’s part of the thing.

[00:32:55] It’s like, you can have, you can rent this for your movie. If you put my art in it, you want to put my art in it. But that I believe I have to do some more deep digging and it would be even weirder if I met him in Andre’s apartment as a child, but here’s what I’ll say about this movie, the art is weird.

[00:33:15] Everything’s weird. Nothing he does is normal. The way that Christopher Walken sleeps with his wife is abnormal.

[00:33:23] Jason Mantzoukas: Crazy. Crazy.

[00:33:25] Paul Scheer: It’s like his head is on her stomach and he’s like wrapped in her and then also out.

[00:33:32] Jason Mantzoukas: It’s like a referee’s gonna slide in and be like 1, 2, 3, you win! Every show, again, every choice is the most nuts choice.

[00:33:45] June Diane Raphael: I really, there’s one shot that will haunt me for the rest of my days. It’s when it’s during the sequence, but I didn’t see it here. But it’s, it’s sort of a shot behind Christopher Walken. It’s not when his pants come down. I saw that. His legs are wide open.

[00:34:03] Paul Scheer: And

[00:34:05] you see pubes.

[00:34:05] Jason Mantzoukas: And stirrups.

[00:34:07] June Diane Raphael: Yes, he’s in stirrups and I don’t ever want to see a man that way ever, ever.

[00:34:13] I was so rattled.

[00:34:16] Jason Mantzoukas: But, but truly real talk, real questions. What? What is this movie about? Like what, what is this a movie about mental illness and how mental illness is passed on from generation to generation?

[00:34:36] Paul Scheer: I

[00:34:36] have two strong theories. One, this isn’t, well, we know it’s a true story and I’ll talk about what, what this guy’s true story is, but what this movie posits is two things, a husband in a relationship where he starts to have an affair.

[00:34:54] And then he starts to destroy his home life because I think he’s having a hold on I.

[00:35:00] Jason Mantzoukas: With who? I love.

[00:35:01] Paul Scheer: The aliens. He’s having so much fun with those aliens. He’s dancing. He’s in the jacuzzi with them. He wants to go back to them.

[00:35:10] Jason Mantzoukas: I do not think that’s a jacuzzi. I, I’m so sorry. I have to disagree the first time tub where he is probed.

[00:35:20] Paul Scheer: When

[00:35:21] he’s reading the magazine and his arms are up and he’s like, he looks like he’s in like a sauna. And like at one point there’s aliens dancing around. He’s high fiving him. Like, I think this is about a man.

[00:35:32] June Diane Raphael: And I will

[00:35:33] say Paul, when he walks up to have that encounter, this is when he, he takes back the night and goes himself.

[00:35:40] And when he goes in there himself.

[00:35:43] Jason Mantzoukas: This was the original take back the night?

[00:35:46] June Diane Raphael: But, but as he’s walking up to the light, there’s like really sexy synth music that’s playing.

[00:35:56] Jason Mantzoukas: Oh, it’s all Eric Clapton. Every time he’s like being sexually assaulted and it’s like,

[00:36:05] just know, that it’s vaccine denier Eric Clapton, absolute piece of shit, Eric Clapton, noodling all this guitar.

[00:36:18] Paul Scheer: Would you know my name if I saw you in spaceship?

[00:36:25] June Diane Raphael: Okay, so that’s one of your theories.

[00:36:28] Jason Mantzoukas: I love that you have multiple theories,

[00:36:31] by the way.

[00:36:32] Paul Scheer: My other theory is We have spent our entire lives hearing stories about aliens abducting people.

[00:36:42] Aliens taking advantage of people. And this is the first person who goes, I’m taking it back. He’s like, I’m going to re write this. You’re not taking advantage of me. I’m going to you. I’m going to go to you. And that’s how the movie kind of ends. He’s like, no, no more. Fuck you. Okay, but Like, and I

[00:37:02] feel like there’s a funny I’ve never seen that before.

[00:37:05] Jason Mantzoukas: I agree, I agree. But then, the movie is unreliable in that context. Because the scene where he like, leaves the thing and gets on the bus alone Yeah. And then he’s looking around and everybody on the bus has bug heads And he’s like, okay, nice try, okay, I see what you’re doing, I see what you’re, I’m like, oh, this is an allegory for mental illness, and that’s what’s going on, but no, the movie’s not positing that at all.

[00:37:30] The movie, I think, genuinely is, at the end of the day, like, aliens did this to this guy. I think.

[00:37:37] Paul Scheer: Would you, would

[00:37:38] you like me to tell you what Whitley Strieber believes the movie is about?

[00:37:43] Jason Mantzoukas: Real name?

[00:37:43] Question mark?

[00:37:44] Paul Scheer: Yes.

[00:37:44] Audience Member: What?

[00:37:46] Jason Mantzoukas: Okay. Get this guy out of here.

[00:37:52] Paul Scheer: I mean, with, well, I guess, not what the movie is about, but what his experience was.

[00:37:55] Jason Mantzoukas: Deputy Doug?

[00:37:57] June Diane Raphael: Can I take a guess? What? Can I take a guess? And again, this, it’s not, it’s not, It’s not that different from what you’ve said, but it is the idea of being in communion with the aliens that yes, we do think of it as like very transactional experience. And the encounter group all has this trauma around their encounters with the aliens and their multiple.

[00:38:25] In utero, babies have been taken by these. That’s a whole other, I guess, conversation. But I do think that there’s something that there’s a switch that he turns, which is like, I am meeting them on my own terms. And that seems to be giving him some amount of peace,

[00:38:47] the end.

[00:38:48] Jason Mantzoukas: The movie, the pro, yeah, I agree with you.

[00:38:52] He seems at the end more at peace with something, but he seems to have also dot, dot, dot, lost his entire mind.

[00:38:59] Paul Scheer: Well, because here, here’s the thing.

[00:39:01] Jason Mantzoukas: And what I’m not following is this poor little boy who seems to be

[00:39:04] inheriting the whole thing.

[00:39:06] Paul Scheer: But

[00:39:06] here’s, the movie does open up, if we go back, when he drops the bomb on his wife that he had been raped.

[00:39:12] He goes, I was raped. And she’s like, well, what? He’s like, yeah, I was raped. And so then at the end, it seems like he is like going like, well, I will now be, I will, I’ll go to you and then you can still rape me, but I’m going, I’m making the choice. Like and I think that that is, there is an element to that, I mean, cause he’s calling police.

[00:39:32] He’s like, I need to investigate this rape on me. Like, I mean, that’s what he says. It’s not even, it’s not even banned, it’s not even sidestepped, he goes, I was raped.

[00:39:42] June Diane Raphael: Yeah, he does say that, huh?

[00:39:43] Jason Mantzoukas: Well,

[00:39:43] what’s, I mean, a lot of, a lot of alien abduction narratives are like, molestation stories in a lot of ways.

[00:39:52] And I thought that this movie was getting at that in some way when they cut to him as a child experiencing the same alien situation, but they never go there. And it is very much just like, no, no, no aliens are doing only this. There is no other scary thing. There is no other villain. The villain is the aliens who are saying over and over to everybody.

[00:40:16] It’s okay. We don’t mean you any harm. Right. Just need to like run a a couple of tests.

[00:40:23] Right. And

[00:40:23] Paul Scheer: I get, I

[00:40:24] get that. Well, now here’s what I’ll tell you. Uh,

[00:40:29] June Diane Raphael: Okay. Yeah. What does

[00:40:29] Whitley say?

[00:40:30] Paul Scheer: Whitley is like, this is not a story about aliens. He’s like, a lot of people have drawn that comparison and it kind of makes me mad.

[00:40:42] June Diane Raphael: Oh, fuck you, Whitley.

[00:40:46] Paul Scheer: Whitley wrote a book called Communion. It was number one on the New York Times non fiction bestseller list. Then, it flopped to fiction. Because people were like, well, it seems like he might have made it up. I don’t know. But here’s

[00:41:02] Jason Mantzoukas: Are you willing to say right now that you will never flop your book to fiction?

[00:41:07] Paul Scheer: I will never. By the way, if you can get

[00:41:09] one of each on the same book, it’s pretty impressive.

[00:41:12] Jason Mantzoukas: Oh, that would be pretty great. Double New York Times bestseller.

[00:41:17] Paul Scheer: For fiction

[00:41:18] and non fiction, the same book? Yep. Um, so Stryber concludes That the human species is being shepherded into a higher level of understanding and existence within an endless multiverse of matter, energy, space, and time.

[00:41:35] Um, and he believes this is more about him being shown the multiverse, but then

[00:41:42] also says.

[00:41:44] Jason Mantzoukas: So is that way, hang on. I’m interested in that only because does that mean. Walken Prime, Eyeliner Walken, and Magician Walken are three versions of the same Christopher Walken? By the way, I love this

[00:41:57] movie.

[00:41:57] Paul Scheer: Well, because, what he says is, since I published this in 1987, science has determined that parallel universes may be physically real, and that time travel may in some way be possible.

[00:42:11] I don’t know if that’s totally 100 percent right, but, um, the book is a consolidation of UFO sightings and phenomenon, and but it, but he believes it’s about the multiverse. And then adds this, when I was in that house upstate, in the eighties, I was regularly drinking myself to sleep when I was there and I would listen to the radio until late hours drinking vodka dot, dot, dot.

[00:42:38] June Diane Raphael: Now we’re getting to it. Now we’re getting a little bit closer.

[00:42:43] Jason Mantzoukas: Out

[00:42:43] of curiosity, just by applause. Has anybody here had an experience with aliens? Okay. A couple, a couple of maniacs. Okay. The little robot guy I had real problems with.

[00:42:58] June Diane Raphael: All right So

[00:42:59] Jason Mantzoukas: The little robot guy who runs around on little robot legs with the universal symbol for hypnosis on his chest couldn’t make heads or tails.

[00:43:10] June Diane Raphael: It’s

[00:43:10] interesting Oh, well, first of all when that robot guy ran in I laughed so hard.

[00:43:16] Jason Mantzoukas: It was so jarring.

[00:43:17] It’s like you got one of these now?

[00:43:19] June Diane Raphael: It was so shocking I, and I thought for a second it was animated, like all of a sudden there was animation in the movie.

[00:43:24] Paul Scheer: And, and that little guy gets put on the, the probe table too.

[00:43:27] June Diane Raphael: Well that’s what I was just gonna say, like, but then later on it seems that he’s being probed as though he’s a part of our

[00:43:35] universe.

[00:43:36] Jason Mantzoukas: Agreed. That’s what I mean. Like, I almost feel like Walken somehow made that scene happen too. Like he’s, his spirit, his chaotic spirit influences even like the animation elements.

[00:43:51] Paul Scheer: I mean, when, when

[00:43:53] he looks at that alien dead in the face and goes, what do I call a book about you?

[00:44:05] Jason Mantzoukas: When he, Oh.

[00:44:08] Paul Scheer: What do I call a book

[00:44:10] about you?

[00:44:11] Jason Mantzoukas: Can we talk this over? It looks like you’re gonna sing White Christmas. These are lines!

[00:44:20] Paul Scheer: He’s high fiving aliens!

[00:44:23] Jason Mantzoukas: When he smells the alien, he goes Let me smell you. And then he goes, are you old? What? I feel like he’s doing Brando in Apocalypse Now. If he said you’re an errand boy, come to collect a bill.

[00:44:42] I would be like, okay, this makes sense. This is a absolute nightmare.

[00:44:49] Paul Scheer: But the fact that he gets dressed up, does a dance routine in the house and then tells his wife. I’m getting cigarettes. To which she takes a solid 30 seconds to go like, but he doesn’t smoke.

[00:45:03] Jason Mantzoukas: Also, I’m going for a pack of cigarettes is the universal line for I’m leaving forever.

[00:45:12] If someone ever said to me, I’m going out for a pack of cigarettes, I’d be like, Oh no, they’re not coming back.

[00:45:20] Paul Scheer: If someone dresses like Matt Drudge from the Drudge Report, you would have to get out of that marriage.

[00:45:26] Jason Mantzoukas: Lindsey Krauss just like between this and House of Cards just, or House of Games. Can’t just catch a break, always being conned by one of these nightmare guys.

[00:45:35] Paul Scheer: Here’s a thing, if you thought the movie was long. Was it interesting or weird that when he goes under hypnotherapy, he just, we flashback to about five minutes of the movie with no extra, like, it wasn’t like, oh, here’s a different thing. We’re going to tell you the story of the movie that you just saw 20 minutes ago.

[00:45:59] June Diane Raphael: The entire movie is discussing an event. Well, I think two events, one that did happen in October and then the other one in December. And, and everything is discussing and going over and turning over those two nights. That’s it. That’s the whole movie.

[00:46:20] Need her

[00:46:22] perspective on that night.

[00:46:23] We need the kids perspective on that night. We need the friends perspective on that night.

[00:46:27] Jason Mantzoukas: It’s like Rashomon for that night.

[00:46:29] Paul Scheer: And meanwhile, no one answers the biggest question. Why on December 26, did they take the bike the kid got for Christmas, which they rode outside and put it back under the Christmas tree?

[00:46:42] Also, why it’s already used. It’s not, you don’t keep

[00:46:46] it there.

[00:46:47] Jason Mantzoukas: Why when everybody’s in therapy, in hypnosis therapy, rather, do the terrace doors keep opening? Like, what was that? Are the aliens coming in? Like

[00:46:56] what? What was that?

[00:46:57] June Diane Raphael: By the way, the aliens came to visit her. The, the therapist. Yes. Remember she saw the big white light too, at one point.

[00:47:06] Jason Mantzoukas: Did she?

[00:47:08] June Diane Raphael: Yes.

[00:47:08] Jason Mantzoukas: I believe you, but I’m just like, I think I saw the big white light. I don’t know. I mean, I don’t know. Like, give me the big white light. I’m ready to

[00:47:17] go.

[00:47:18] Paul Scheer: But when he first meets that therapist. He goes, I had an experience with aliens and she’s like, and then she shows up at his apartment.

[00:47:28] Jason Mantzoukas: I loved him telling his regular doctor about what’s going on and him being like, uh

[00:47:34] huh.

[00:47:35] Paul Scheer: By the way, that’s a great example of an

[00:47:38] 80s doctor.

[00:47:40] 80s. I mean, when he’s telling that story to that doctor, but like the therapist hears his story. She looks at him like he’s insane. She says, you have a problem with your brain, this and that. And then he runs out and she’s like, let him walk it off. Then she’s at his house and then

[00:47:59] it’s revealed that she runs the, the, the group.

[00:48:04] Jason Mantzoukas: Oh, she tried

[00:48:05] to get him into the group earlier.

[00:48:07] Paul Scheer: But I know, but, but that was after she said, check your brain out. Do all this other stuff. Like you run a group of people who’ve been abducted.

[00:48:14] Jason Mantzoukas: Oh no, she has for sure seen this before. Like his doctor, his GP is like, Oh, you, you gotta go to this.

[00:48:22] You gotta go to talk to these guys. And she’s like, I’ve got a whole group of people who have the exact same story, which would be interesting because they all genuinely have the same touch points as him, but they don’t explore that at all.

[00:48:34] Paul Scheer: He hates

[00:48:35] them.

[00:48:37] June Diane Raphael: Why does he hate them so much?

[00:48:41] Jason Mantzoukas: Actually.

[00:48:42] Cause they’re victims, and he’s not a victim. He’s starting to feel connection, and Lindsey Krauss is like, I wanna get out of here. She says, I just wanna go home, and he’s like, Yeah, yeah, I don’t, I’m not dealing with what you’re dealing with. Spoiler alert, you are.

[00:48:57] Paul Scheer: And he says like the most condescending, I have a family too.

[00:49:01] It’s like, okay, what’s going on here, bud? Again, this is where improvising goes bad. Like, it’s too much improvising. Because he hates these people. They should have some

[00:49:12] Jason Mantzoukas: It’s almost selfish.

[00:49:13] He wants his own relationship with the little doctors. He doesn’t want them to have their own relationship with the little doctors.

[00:49:20] The more they’re like, solidifying the fact that they’ve had the same experience, the more he’s like, actually, no. Mine is, I want the primacy of my own experience.

[00:49:28] June Diane Raphael: Here’s something. What happened at school with his son and that airship apparatus that was outside on the playground?

[00:49:39] Paul Scheer: Oh, yeah.

[00:49:40] June Diane Raphael: What happened?

[00:49:41] Jason Mantzoukas: My

[00:49:42] guess would be that he also was taken aboard the ship in the first, um, iteration, the October event, we see the boy almost getting pulled out the window or whatever, we see him, trying to be taken.

[00:49:57] My assumption is that he had a spaceship experience that is making him afraid to play on the spaceship playground, uh.

[00:50:05] Paul Scheer: Well, what

[00:50:06] a tip your hat to playground designers that they’ve nailed the interior of a real spaceship that well. Normally it’s like saying like, wow, that that playground has a really effective airplane.

[00:50:20] Like I’ve, I’ve been on those playgrounds. It’s like, it doesn’t look like it doesn’t look like the interior cockpit of an airplane. I’m

[00:50:25] sorry.

[00:50:26] Jason Mantzoukas: The movie is kind of like The Shining, but with aliens.

[00:50:31] Paul Scheer: Yeah, yeah, you’re right.

[00:50:33] Jason Mantzoukas: One single clap from the mezzanine. A Rudy esque clap from the mezzanine.

[00:50:42] Thank you for your

[00:50:44] service.

[00:50:44] Paul Scheer: Well, let me find out what the audience is thinking here. Alright, did you have your hand up? Alright, you stand up. I always say I will go to people in costume, and these two people are in costume. They’re in, uh, uh, Davy Crockett, uh, coonskin caps here. I love it. Alright, great job.

[00:51:04] Jason Mantzoukas: They’re in Davy Crockett coonskin caps for what reason?

[00:51:06] Audience Member: Because

[00:51:08] the friends that were never identified in the entire movie wore them in the restaurant after they were catching up after the movie.

[00:51:17] Paul Scheer: Great, great job.

[00:51:19] Jason Mantzoukas: And you guys were like, we need to be as hot as possible at the Wilbur. We need to make it hotter at the Wilbur.

[00:51:28] Paul Scheer: Okay, so what is your question?

[00:51:30] Audience Member: I was just gonna say we’re covered for winter now, Jason.

[00:51:32] So, um, we’ll, we’ll maintain winter.

[00:51:34] Jason Mantzoukas: Oh, well, good for you.

[00:51:36] Audience Member: But my question is, is.

[00:51:37] Jason Mantzoukas: Oh, that’s wicked smart.

[00:51:39] Audience Member: I know. My question is, when he, at the end of the movie, when he walks into the spaceship, he has the camcorder in hand. Ostensibly, he’s the only person in New York City that has a camcorder. But he walks with the camcorder, never once records with the camcorder.

[00:51:57] Anything.

[00:51:58] Jason Mantzoukas: What’s your name?

[00:51:59] Audience Member: Jordan.

[00:52:00] Jason Mantzoukas: Yes, give it up for Jordan. This, this is an incredible point. They established the video camera in the beginning of the movie. You would think at some point he would capture video of an alien encounter and that would be part of the movie.

[00:52:19] Paul Scheer: He brings it into the ship and that alien’s like, no, no, no.

[00:52:21] Sweetheart, give me that. We’re turning this off.

[00:52:23] Jason Mantzoukas: We’ll turn, we’ll put this over here. And that’s just the director being

[00:52:26] like, have an alien take that away from Walken. Don’t let Christopher walk on with the camera. He’s already on set. Have one of the aliens take the camera away from him.

[00:52:37] Paul Scheer: I would not have been surprised if he picked up like a little clapboard and said, take two!

[00:52:42] You know, like, uh,

[00:52:43] Jason Mantzoukas: Well, he’s constantly making direct eye contact with the camera.

[00:52:46] June Diane Raphael: I did

[00:52:47] not like it one

[00:52:48] bit.

[00:52:48] Jason Mantzoukas: Constantly. Because he’s clearly thinking, We’re not gonna use this. Spoiler alert, we used it all.

[00:52:56] Paul Scheer: To that point. Yes, he’s reading a magazine, right? We see that, but he’s next to, uh, just the head of a doctor.

[00:53:08] Yes. Which is a lot, there it is.

[00:53:10] Jason Mantzoukas: Every time, every time this, there’s a bunch of these. These are just behind the scenes shots. These are shots not meant for the movie, that they were like, fucking throw it in. Because, like, they’re Why else would this happen? Yeah. These are props. This is a list of props and Christopher Walken.

[00:53:31] Paul Scheer: I

[00:53:31] do believe they’re in the middle of it because there’s no reason why that’s a head and it’s moving its mouth. So I bet you they’re like, Chris, let me show you. We can control the mouth and eyes of this puppet. Uh, here and then he, and then Christopher goes, Hold on, let me go meet Paul Scheer. I have to, I’ll be right back.

[00:53:49] Jason Mantzoukas: He’s like, hang on, I’m reading this issue of Premier Magazine. Gaff Squad!

[00:53:55] Paul Scheer: Um, okay, yes, your name?

[00:53:57] Audience Member: Ray.

[00:53:57] Paul Scheer: Ray, what’s your question?

[00:53:58] Audience Member: My question is if we think Eric Clapton watched the movie.

[00:54:02] Jason Mantzoukas: Yes. Yes, a hundred percent.

[00:54:04] Paul Scheer: Well, so Eric Clapton is friends with the writer, uh, Whitley. They met in New Mexico.

[00:54:12] Jason Mantzoukas: I love how, like, Awww,

[00:54:14] everybody is, Eric Clapton is friends with the writer. Awww! Really? Very invested. Boston audience.

[00:54:23] Paul Scheer: I don’t want to put this person on the spot, but this person is a younger person than we normally get. Uh, so, alright.

[00:54:28] Jason Mantzoukas: How

[00:54:28] young? Is it a

[00:54:29] baby?

[00:54:30] Paul Scheer: No.

[00:54:31] Jason Mantzoukas: No baby. Any babies

[00:54:33] in the crowd? Okay. Oh, there’s a baby up there?

[00:54:36] Okay, go ahead, Paul. Sorry.

[00:54:37] Paul Scheer: Alright,

[00:54:37] what’s your name?

[00:54:39] Audience Member: Foster.

[00:54:39] Paul Scheer: Foster. Okay, I’m going to hold the mic.

[00:54:41] Jason Mantzoukas: Foster, grabbing for that mic.

[00:54:42] Paul Scheer: All right, here we go. Foster, what’s your question?

[00:54:44] Audience Member: Um, do you think this movie could be considered a Christmas movie?

[00:54:47] Jason Mantzoukas: Wow.

[00:54:48] June Diane Raphael: A Christmas movie?

[00:54:51] Jason Mantzoukas: Foster, that’s right. Give it up for Foster, everybody.

[00:54:56] This kid gets it. Absolutely, it’s a Christmas movie. Watch it with your family every Christmas, Foster. Make your family watch it.

[00:55:08] June Diane Raphael: I do feel like at some point, that’s why they started, that’s why they started describing this movie as, as taking place on December 26th.

[00:55:17] Jason Mantzoukas: Also, like, what is Santa Claus, but an alien who creeps into your goddamn house, rummages around.

[00:55:27] Paul Scheer: I am in the mezzanine. Oh, boy. Oh, wow. Be careful.

[00:55:30] Jason Mantzoukas: There is a baby over there. Alright. FYI, there’s a baby over there. I would love it on Father’s Day if someone would just give me a baby. Could you just give me a baby for Father’s Day, please?

[00:55:43] Paul Scheer: Alright, what’s your name?

[00:55:43] Audience Member: Uh, my name’s Avery.

[00:55:45] Paul Scheer: Okay, Avery, what’s your question?

[00:55:46] Audience Member: I was wondering, besides like the art piece, how they’re actually living is fascinating because there’s like one scene where they go down in an elevator, have a conversation, and just go back up, and it makes no sense.

[00:55:59] Paul Scheer: Well, then the kid says, you left me. Yeah, we just had to, just for a couple seconds. Yeah.

[00:56:08] June Diane Raphael: I had so many questions as the movie was going on for five hours. Um, I had so many questions about how they were sustaining themselves in New York City. And, um, What she did for a living. Like he does not seem to bring in any

[00:56:27] money.

[00:56:28] Jason Mantzoukas: He’s a hit novelist.

[00:56:29] Paul Scheer: By the way, I don’t, I forgot the titles, but he did write two very successful

[00:56:35] books that were turned into feature films. Alright, so he wrote The Day After Tomorrow

[00:56:39] June Diane Raphael: Wait, who are you talking about?

[00:56:41] Jason Mantzoukas: The

[00:56:41] real person or Christopher Walken?

[00:56:43] Paul Scheer: The real person wrote The, uh, The Day After Tomorrow, A Wolfin, and The Hunger.

[00:56:49] June Diane Raphael: Well, that’s

[00:56:50] fine. That’s all well and good. But I’m talking about this movie we saw

[00:56:54] in which this guy does not written anything.

[00:56:58] Jason Mantzoukas: Oh no! He’s

[00:56:59] a fucking clown!

[00:57:00] Paul Scheer: No! To me, he wrote those three things and now he’s having writers block him. And so he’s trying to write the new thing and then the aliens suck his brain out and he can’t write again

[00:57:12] Jason Mantzoukas: Yeah,

[00:57:13] I and I and I because I agree and I would love if any as you continue on if anybody can answer like what is the thing back here?

[00:57:21] Like what is what did it do?

[00:57:22] June Diane Raphael: Which

[00:57:22] happened in October. Yeah

[00:57:26] Jason Mantzoukas: Part of it, what is it? Like what is it? Like, and how is it related to his creativity?

[00:57:31] Paul Scheer: No, in October because.

[00:57:31] June Diane Raphael: Paul, it

[00:57:32] happens in October.

[00:57:34] Paul Scheer: Wait,

[00:57:34] wait, wait.

[00:57:34] Jason Mantzoukas: It happens

[00:57:35] right after Halloween when he yells at the 13 year old dressed as an alien.

[00:57:40] Paul Scheer: But, yes, when

[00:57:41] the kid falls off the bike, that’s Christmas.

[00:57:44] That’s Christmas. He goes, I’m sick. And he goes home.

[00:57:47] Jason Mantzoukas: That’s when he

[00:57:47] goes to the doctor.

[00:57:48] Paul Scheer: And then, and he’s like, look. And she’s like, oh, it’s a little red. And the doctor’s like, yeah, it’s a little red. Like he has a zit behind his ear. He’s like, it’s so big. Look, look. And, but that is, I think the second time, the first time they jumbled it.

[00:58:01] Jason Mantzoukas: Well, also the first time too the alien thing, touch it seems to touch the magic wand on his forehead. And he’s like, get out of here. And he seems to make contact with it. At which point I was like, Oh, whoa, this is physical. This isn’t like in his head. This isn’t like,

[00:58:16] June Diane Raphael: Yeah. So you’re saying he, they didn’t actually get in there in October.

[00:58:20] Paul Scheer: I think that the thing behind his head was interesting because.

[00:58:24] Jason Mantzoukas: What

[00:58:25] is it?

[00:58:27] June Diane Raphael: What? A microchip.

[00:58:29] Jason Mantzoukas: Microchip?

[00:58:30] Paul Scheer: A tracking

[00:58:30] device? A tracking device? A microchip?

[00:58:32] Jason Mantzoukas: Boston, very into tracking. And microchips. Okay.

[00:58:36] Okay.

[00:58:37] Paul Scheer: What’s your name? A lot of

[00:58:38] Audience Member: My name’s Elizabeth.

[00:58:39] Paul Scheer: Okay, Elizabeth has

[00:58:40] a question over here.

[00:58:41] Audience Member: So I think, um, one of you earlier mentioned that when this lady in the group, when she was three months pregnant, had her baby taken away from her.

[00:58:50] And later you see a little boy pointing out like a little girl sit on the ship saying she wants, she’s looking for her mom. Was that her child? And why are they taking children?

[00:59:00] Jason Mantzoukas: Yes.

[00:59:01] Great question. The latter half of the movie really exits from any narrative structure. It truly becomes kind of a tone poem of images and, and kind of just that you’re describing is that

[00:59:20] June Diane Raphael: Vibes at some point.

[00:59:21] Jason Mantzoukas: The one we just had up or walk in is reading a magazine and the kid, the characters masks are off is part of this same section. The period where there are just a few babies and children hanging out. That’s part of it.

[00:59:33] Paul Scheer: Like he’s hanging out half

[00:59:34] naked with babies and children, like, and they’re all kind of like, and I’m not saying that in a weird thing, but he’s just like, they’re all at peace, they all like have let it go.

[00:59:45] But it doesn’t seem like they’re doing, like, it doesn’t seem like they’re doing any experimentation on them. It’s like, they just want company on that ship.

[00:59:53] June Diane Raphael: I don’t know what they’re doing.

[00:59:55] Jason Mantzoukas: I never got,

[00:59:56] I never got to the bottom of what this whole thing, what they were doing. Like the, why.

[01:00:02] June Diane Raphael: What’s

[01:00:02] it all about?

[01:00:03] Jason Mantzoukas: What’s it all about? Boy, would that have been satisfying.

[01:00:06] What’s it

[01:00:07] all about?

[01:00:08] Paul Scheer: Um, what’s your name and what’s your question?

[01:00:10] Audience Member: Hi, my name’s Cal, and I’m wondering if, based on his performance in the movie, does Christopher Walken believe in aliens?

[01:00:16] June Diane Raphael: Yes.

[01:00:17] Yes. So, that actually.

[01:00:21] Paul Scheer: He told

[01:00:21] me that personally.

[01:00:25] He did, not a joke.

[01:00:29] June Diane Raphael: I didn’t know this was based on a movie. I did, uh, a book. I didn’t know that this was, uh, also based on a true story. And I watched most of this movie thinking, like, Oh, this is just Christopher Walken telling us about his, the actor’s experience with aliens. Like, that was the only thing I could hang on to.

[01:00:54] Jason Mantzoukas: At one point he says I’m seeing things from my whole life.

[01:01:00] June Diane Raphael: Yep.

[01:01:00] Jason Mantzoukas: And I was like, Oh, well, that’s him. That’s all him.

[01:01:03] June Diane Raphael: And then at one point I was like, Oh my gosh, he’s an alien. Christopher Walken. And I, and I was like, Oh, he’s always been an alien. How did I not see it before?

[01:01:16] Jason Mantzoukas: I thought that too. In fact, it’s the scene, like I said before, when he seems to confront himself.

[01:01:23] With he, he’s talking to himself with eyeliner and he’s saying something to the effect of I’m you and you’re me or blah, blah, blah. And I was like, Oh, as a little boy, was he replaced with an alien clone? And the alien possibly trying to accumulate the information of what it is to be human. And I genuinely was like, Oh, we’re about to find some threads here and connect some things.

[01:01:45] And no, we’re not going to do that. This is just going to be cuckoo for the rest of

[01:01:50] the movie.

[01:01:51] Paul Scheer: I would have liked it if he also played the magician’s assistant. Um, so he was both, but when.

[01:01:59] Jason Mantzoukas: I would have loved

[01:01:59] it if Lindsey Krauss had played the magician’s assistant.

[01:02:02]

[01:02:02] Jason Mantzoukas: That’s what I,

[01:02:04] I was like, it must be someone or someone we know.

[01:02:08] June Diane Raphael: I didn’t recognize her.

[01:02:09] Jason Mantzoukas: Because I couldn’t make heads or tails out of whether the movie wanted me to understand these were dream states or actual events or I don’t know.

[01:02:17] Paul Scheer: When I met him,

[01:02:19] the first question he said to me was, Do you believe in aliens? And I said yes, and he said, Good. I’m in the balcony!

[01:02:32] Jason Mantzoukas: Be careful, Paul.

[01:02:34] By now, they’ve fully pissed that thing through. You’re welcome, Mezzanine.

[01:02:40] Paul Scheer: Alright, your name and your question. Oh, you’re in a, are you in costume? An homage. I was gonna say, yeah, okay, I didn’t want to insult you, but it is like, you look very good. Alright, um, your name and your question.

[01:02:53] Audience Member: My name is, uh, Brendan, and my question is, couldn’t he just sell that house in the California mountains?

[01:02:59] Paul Scheer: Yeah, technically New York State mountains, um, but yeah, like, why keep on going back? Like, clearly something happened. It’s a nice house.

[01:03:10] June Diane Raphael: In October.

[01:03:13] Paul Scheer: Yeah, why not just sell it? Now, uh, Beth, I believe it’s slide, the last slide. This is the last slide of the movie, or it’s the one that says what happens. It basically says 19 more people.

[01:03:27] Uh, yeah. Uh.

[01:03:28] June Diane Raphael: I don’t

[01:03:28] think I saw this.

[01:03:29] Paul Scheer: By October 1989, 19 other people had encountered similar unknown beings.

[01:03:35] Jason Mantzoukas: Was this

[01:03:36] part of the movie?

[01:03:37] June Diane Raphael: I didn’t see this, this slide.

[01:03:39] Jason Mantzoukas: I didn’t

[01:03:39] see this in the movie.

[01:03:41] Paul Scheer: Um, different cuts of this movie exist. So there are things.

[01:03:44] Jason Mantzoukas: Whoa, wait, what? You’re telling me, what are you talking about, Paul?

[01:03:51] Paul Scheer: Like, um, I read a bunch of things that were cut out, but they were all in my version. But then this was not in my version.

[01:03:58] Jason Mantzoukas: Oh,

[01:03:59] okay. This was not in my version. I didn’t see any of this.

[01:04:01] Paul Scheer: Show all three sides. Here we go. So it starts like this. Uh, at the end of the movie it goes, Based on the true experiences of one of their

[01:04:07] Jason Mantzoukas: Did not see this, but can you keep this here?

[01:04:09] This alone is a movie I desperately want to see.

[01:04:17] This is a movie about Christopher Walken being like a very hip Hasidic Jew.

[01:04:26] Paul Scheer: Alright, then the next slide is the Strybers continue to live in their cabin in upstate New York followed by 19 other people had encountered similar unknown beings there.

[01:04:40] Jason Mantzoukas: So,

[01:04:40] they’re like So the aliens are location based? They’re like, as long as you’re in that house

[01:04:47] June Diane Raphael: They always have been, Jason.

[01:04:48] Jason Mantzoukas: As long as you’re in that house, we’re intrigued by you.

[01:04:53] Somebody needs to check that house out. Like, something

[01:04:55] actually is going on there.

[01:04:57] Paul Scheer: Yeah, they’re doing something weird in that. Like, there’s definitely a gas leak in that house. I, I, sure. And, like, I saw it, the lights, sound.

[01:05:06] Jason Mantzoukas: I wrote it

[01:05:07] in my notes that I was like, I genuinely believe that someone in the movie is trying to fuck with him so that his next book is good.

[01:05:16] That’s what I wanted the story to be. Go ahead, Paul.

[01:05:20] Paul Scheer: I don’t want to freak you out, Gene. And I’m just going to take you out of this equation. But, if I was losing my mind,

[01:05:27] Jason Mantzoukas: Uh oh.

[01:05:29] Paul Scheer: And I accidentally almost killed my wife with a shotgun, I’d also make up the best alien story of all time. There’s no way to walk yourself out of almost killing your spouse

[01:05:46] with a shotgun.

[01:05:47] Jason Mantzoukas: June, you know you’re in trouble if you ever hear, I swear to God, the little doctors came for me. I had to get the gun.

[01:05:55] Paul Scheer: Obviously, we have opinions about this movie, but there are people out there with a different opinion. It is now time for second opinions.

[01:06:02] Audience Member: The

[01:06:03] lights arrived just the other day.

[01:06:05] They came to this world in an unusual way. They said, I am the dreamer and you’re the dream. Hmm. Their white Christmas cover is not what it seems. And since alien abduction is genetically passed, kid says, I’m gonna be like you, Dad.

[01:06:33] You know, you know I’m gonna be like you. And the wolf’s on the mantle and the duck’s on fire. The Halloween mask and a possible spider. You’ve broken my mind, but you’ve traveled so far. So I’m gonna give you five stars, yeah, you know I’m gonna give you five stars. Yeah.

[01:06:55] Paul Scheer: Give it

[01:06:56] up!

[01:06:56] Great job!

[01:06:57]

[01:06:57] Jason Mantzoukas: What’s your name?

[01:06:59] What’s your name?

[01:07:01] Audience Member: Pete.

[01:07:01] Jason Mantzoukas: Give it up for Pete, get the fuck out of here.

[01:07:05] Paul Scheer: The average Amazon review is 4. 1 out of 5 stars.

[01:07:11] Jason Mantzoukas: How? Genuine question, how?

[01:07:15] Paul Scheer: 62 percent are 5 star reviews. And it starts off like this. From Samuel B. King, written in 2010. “Great film. Christopher Walken is the only person who could have played this guy so genuinely.

[01:07:31] In my view, this is the weirdest, most convincing alien abduction film out there. Unsettling? Yes. Go see it, because it asks more questions than it answers. Which, it’s why we like these films. Correct?”

[01:07:54] Catherine writes, also in 2010, title of the review, “Gift from my husband. He was very happy with it. He is really into alien history. And reads a lot of novels by Zachariah Setchin. I would recommend this movie to anyone that is into those kind of things. There’s also a book adaptation.” Uh, duh, it’s not a book adaptation.

[01:08:23] This is a movie adaptation of the book. Ya dummy. Um, This one, uh, written by Amazon customer in 2020. It’s, uh, title is simply “Freaky. This movie freaked me out so much I took it out of the DVD player near the end and threw it away.

[01:08:50] No fault of Amazon or the seller. Perfect movie experience for me.”

[01:08:59] June Diane Raphael: Wow. Did they think it was going to restart itself or?

[01:09:07] Paul Scheer: I also just like that that’s the perfect way to watch a movie. If I throw the media away, I love the album. I tossed it right out the window. Uh, Melee Grove in 2021, right? “Very good indeed.

[01:09:28] My father, and his friend, and the mayor of my hometown once had their own close encounter on a lonely road. So, I’m fairly open to these stories.” Title? “Okay, not great, but”

[01:09:52] And finally, Rose Night in 2018 “I had a hard time watching it on my computer, trying to figure out which icon to click on. But once I figured it out, I enjoyed it a lot.” The title, “but once I figured it out, I enjoyed it.”

[01:10:16] June Diane Raphael: Which icon?

[01:10:17] Paul Scheer: Alright,

[01:10:19] so the question goes to the two of you.

[01:10:22] Jason Mantzoukas: Oh boy.

[01:10:23] Paul Scheer: Would you recommend this film?

[01:10:25] Jason Mantzoukas: I

[01:10:25] do, I want to take just a brief moment here at the end to once again reiterate how truly insane it is at the very end of the movie that they just cut to the, uh, to Lindsey Krauss and Christopher Walken hardcore making out in front of paintings in a museum delivering monologues to each other in front of paintings at the museum then it hard cuts to them and their son dressed up in weird clothes. It’s outside at night, like on top of a building or something.

[01:10:56] And I was like, what’s up here? I truly feel like at the end of all of this, we have no further understanding of what this movie was about, what this movie’s topics or themes were. I don’t understand what happened. Absolutely. Five stars.

[01:11:20] June Diane Raphael: Yeah. I mean, I don’t think I could, I can’t recommend watching this movie sober, like it’s not, this would be a wonderful movie to watch stoned.

[01:11:35]

[01:11:35] Jason Mantzoukas: Here’s

[01:11:36] the thing , June , I can

[01:11:39] tell you it is.

[01:11:41] June Diane Raphael: Okay, great.

[01:11:43] Jason Mantzoukas: Because I watched this movie in this hotel today and it was dynamite.

[01:11:49] Paul Scheer: Yeah, I, I

[01:11:52] will say this. Art is subjective. You go to a museum, you look at a piece, what it might mean to you, it might feel different to me. And I think that’s what this movie is saying. Alien objections are subjective. What do we get from it? Maybe power. Maybe the inspiration to write the next great American novel.

[01:12:13] Maybe we, we get depressed by it. By its beauty, and we know it will never achieve. Maybe we use it to grieve. Maybe we All these things can be true. Alien abductions need to be, uh, a personal experience. And for that, I give it five stars.

[01:12:31] Jason Mantzoukas: Wow. It was really interesting. The movie, the movie is only interested in Christopher Walken.

[01:12:38] And the reality is this kid, Alex is having a way like this, the movie should be about Alex and Lindsey Krauss, right? The way that like the shining is about, like, is about Shelley Duvall and the little kid, you know, like that’s, what’s crazy.

[01:12:56] June Diane Raphael: Yeah. He’s

[01:12:57] a dad.

[01:12:57] Jason Mantzoukas: He’s a villain. He’s a villain in

[01:13:01] the movie.

[01:13:02] Paul Scheer: Here’s what I’ll say. Every choice that Christopher Walken makes, there is no better movie that he has ever been in. If you want to edit the rest of the movie and just give it to him, they give him an elephant nose. For a Halloween party, he looks at it. And then sniffs it. And that choice alone is better than what most actors will ever do in their career.

[01:13:28] Oh, everything about this movie.

[01:13:31] Jason Mantzoukas: Every

[01:13:32] choice you’re watching him make is electric to watch, but confounding in helping you understand the plot of the movie.

[01:13:40] Paul Scheer: The

[01:13:41] good

[01:13:41] news is this. Uh, Whitley has announced that he is working on a TV adaptation of it. So, there is more, more Communion for us. We’re gonna let you take out your cameras in one second.

[01:13:55] I’m gonna just say one thing to you all. Um, Boston, thank you. We’ve been doing this show for 14 years. You guys always come out, you come out on a Sunday, you bring the best energy. We thank you for being here tonight.

[01:14:07] Jason Mantzoukas: Happy father’s day, Boston. Father’s day. Oh yeah.

[01:14:14] Paul Scheer: That’s our show. Thank you so much to the staff of the Wilbur theater, our amazing tour manager, Beth Thomas, and everyone in Boston who came out to that show.

[01:14:23] You all, uh, bought so many books that night and what a great tie in my book and that movie that was unintentional. Uh, we’ve been wanting to do Communion for such a long time, but, um, maybe now this is your moment. Go grab my book. It’s available as an ebook, an audio book, and even, uh, as our actual book.

[01:14:43] You can do whatever you want. If you want me to personalize the book, you go to my website and you can get a book for list price and it will be personalized. Just go through Chevalier’s. Um, thank you so much for everybody who has bought my book. I know I talked about it a bunch in the show, but it means the world to me.

[01:14:58] And, uh, it really makes a difference that you are sharing it online, you’re writing reviews and you’re just letting people know about it because books are weird and, uh, it’s a little bit more work, but it’s been so fulfilling and because of you all, I became a New York Times bestseller and I want to thank you, uh, for that.

[01:15:17] And, uh, I want to thank Christopher Walken because if I had never met him, uh, that’s one of my favorite stories in the entire book. And, uh, maybe the book would be a little less, uh, good without him, this movie and Christopher Walken. And anyway, uh, I don’t want to just say Christopher Walken is the only reason why this movie is good.

[01:15:36] I want to say that the little doctors are really the reason why this movie is fantastic. And that’s why we created a t shirt for this episode that says Little Doctors, Can I smell you? Uh, if you want that as a coffee mug, a sticker, a t shirt, a hoodie, whatever you want. Go to Teepublic.com/stores/HDTGM.

[01:15:55] And if you have a correction or omission from this episode, God, I know you’re going to have a ton. Leave me a voicemail at 619-PAUL-ASK or write a comment on our discord at discord.gg/HDTGM. Then make sure you tune in next week to listen to our Last Looks follow up, to hear me respond to your messages, announce our next movie.

[01:16:14] And Jason and I will always be there chatting with our friends, talking about what we’re into. If you’ve not listened to Last Looks in a while, give us a listen. We’re doing deleted scenes. We got a lot of stuff going on there. You’re missing out, honestly. Like last week, we had the writer of Jack Frost tell us what happened.

[01:16:34] Yeah, that’s right. But if you didn’t listen, you missed out. Anyway, we will be in Philadelphia. We’re coming back to the Miller Theater on November 16th. Tickets are on sale now at HDTGM. com. And if you want to see Jason, myself, Lisa Gilroy, Carl Tart, Rob Hubel, Nicole Byer, all do improv under the moniker of Dinosaur will come check us out in Boston and Washington, DC, Brooklyn is already completely sold out.

[01:17:01] We also do shows monthly in L. A. But it’s a great time. Uh, maybe even a little cheaper ticket than How Did This Get Made? But it’s like 10 amazing improvisers on stage for you in Boston and D. C. Buy those tickets. Now people, it’s going to be a blast. Uh, I mean, financially, it’s an irresponsible tour to tour with 10 people, but, uh, it’s a great

[01:17:24] night out. Um, remember if you listen to us on Apple podcasts or Spotify, please make sure that you are subscribed to our feed and have automatic downloads turned on in the show settings. That helps us. And we appreciate a lot. Now, last but not least, I got to thank our entire team to who this show could not be done without.

[01:17:41] I’m talking about our producers, Scott Sonne and Molly Reynolds, our movie picking producer, Avaryll Halley, our engineer, Casey Holford, and our associate producer, Jess Cisneros, and our EP, Codi Fisher, who stepped back into the ring to help out with this episode, Codi, we love you. You’re the best. Um, that’s all we got.

[01:17:58] We’ll see you next week on Last Looks. Bye for now.