EP. 363 — Passion Play

 

[00:00:00] Paul Scheer: Finally, a true Jacob’s Ladder scenario. We saw Passion Play. So, you know what that means.

[00:00:07] Music: [Intro song] [00:00:09] Paul Scheer: Hello people of Earth and welcome to How Did This Get Made? The movie is Passion Play, the year is 2011. The tagline? “Between heaven and hell, there is fear.” And what is it about? Well, Mickey Rourke is a former junkie with a hit on him, and after he escapes death, in quotes, he finds a winged woman, that’s Megan Fox, and offers to sell her to a gangster, played by Bill Murray, to take the price off his head, but that is before he falls in love with her.

[00:00:38] Woof. All right. Uh, Hey, let me introduce to you my co host Jason Manzoukas and June Diane Raphael. How are you both?

[00:00:47] Jason Mantzoukas: Worse. Worse than I was. Worse than I was before I started this movie at 9 30 this morning.

[00:00:54] Paul Scheer: Oof. Oof. I started it at midnight last night, and it went down smooth until 1. 45. You know

[00:01:02] June Diane Raphael: what’s so interesting, like, we have a lot to talk about, obviously, but, and I don’t want to jump to the end.

[00:01:07] Jason Mantzoukas: Oh, please, jump to the end.

[00:01:08] June Diane Raphael: Okay, fine. So this movie was, was worth it. It was all worth it for that one shot of Megan Fox holding Mickey Rourke like a baby, like a child, and flying through the air with him. It, honestly, I was like, oh, great. Like, it all.

[00:01:32] Paul Scheer: The scenes where Megan Fox wants to fly and she’s on a roof or she’s on a cliff and it’s so CGI’d out. It’s like the room Tommy Wiseau level CGI.

[00:01:43] Jason Mantzoukas: Where that’s what you tell you when you said it came out in 2011 that that blew my mind only because this movie looks like it was shot in the late nineties, early 2000s.

[00:01:53] Paul Scheer: Oh, I mean it definitely was shot with, yeah, I mean, this is to me like Dad fanfic. It’s like, you know, like a, like a dad who’s like, I love mystery novels and I love noir and what I want to write, I could write a movie.

[00:02:08] Like it feels like a, it feels.

[00:02:10] Jason Mantzoukas: But it’s, it’s that dad, if he also was given access to like three Vim Vendors movies, you know, like he also thinks like, and, you know, kind of, you know, enigmatic editing and like the music montage moments, like there’s a weird European cinema element to this that is.

[00:02:29] June Diane Raphael: Yeah. Well, okay. So, so just to, just to start with the title

[00:02:33] Paul Scheer: Passion Play.

[00:02:35] June Diane Raphael: Now, is this a passion play?

[00:02:38] Paul Scheer: Well, I was gonna Google it before we started. And I was, cause the Passion Play is normally related to like religion, right? It’s like that, like a, like a dramatic representation leading up to and including the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

[00:02:50] Now where this movie falls apart is he dies And he’s dead.

[00:02:56] Jason Mantzoukas: I don’t know. Cause he’s flying through the air with an angel.

[00:02:58] Paul Scheer: But I think he’s dead though, right? I mean, I guess like

[00:03:01] Jason Mantzoukas: Yes. No, I agree with you. I agree with you that this is a Jacob’s Ladder scenario. When he’s flying with the angel, he sees his own dead body in the desert where we left him at the beginning of the movie, where he got, where he gets taken at the beginning of them.

[00:03:14] Uh oh.

[00:03:15] June Diane Raphael: Uh oh.

[00:03:16] Paul Scheer: Oh, wait. Wait, wait, wait.

[00:03:19] Jason Mantzoukas: I’m going to mute. I’m just going to mute while June talks.

[00:03:21] June Diane Raphael: So. I. Well, I didn’t have my glasses on, so I’ll start there, but I, I thought when he was flying over the desert that we were looking at the body of that henchman.

[00:03:36] Paul Scheer: Oh.

[00:03:38] Jason Mantzoukas: Okay. That makes sense. But, but it wasn’t, it was the.

[00:03:41] Paul Scheer: You could tell by all the chains and leather jackets and hats.

[00:03:45] June Diane Raphael: I couldn’t see those details.

[00:03:47] Jason Mantzoukas: Did you not notice the three piece suit over a tank top?

[00:03:51] June Diane Raphael: I just saw a body and I was like, Oh, that’s interesting. He’s flying by and we’re, and I did think to myself, Oh, I guess we’re just seeing some of the sites we saw earlier.

[00:04:01] Jason Mantzoukas: Well, we are, but it wasn’t the henchman. It was his own body.

[00:04:05] June Diane Raphael: So this is a Jacob Ladder scenario.

[00:04:07] Paul Scheer: It’s truly a, there’s no, there is no. No doubt in my mind. Now, here’s something that I will just bring up that scene that you talk about, because we are starting at the end when she flying away with with Mickey Rourke, who seems to be like, even from bird standards, uh, be too heavy. It would be too much for Megan Fox’s body to be, you know.

[00:04:29] Jason Mantzoukas: Let me ask you guys a question about that specifically, because she has Megan Fox has wings in this. We find her initially in a carnival setting in a sideshow kind of setting. And people pay money to see the, the woman with angel wings, but then they keep clarifying that they’re bird wings.

[00:04:46] Paul Scheer: Right.

[00:04:47] Jason Mantzoukas: Why?

[00:04:47] Paul Scheer: Right.

[00:04:48] Jason Mantzoukas: Why keep doing that? Doesn’t the, doesn’t the movie work if she is an angel trying to pull these, pull Mickey Rourke out of hell or whatever? Is that what this is? Obviously, I think that’s what it is saying, but then why keep perpetuating the narrative that she’s a bird woman?

[00:05:04] June Diane Raphael: Great question.

[00:05:05] Paul Scheer: Well, I would also argue that I’ve seen movies like Michael, the John Travolta film, where he is an angel and he also sprouts wings, uh, or he has a broken wing or whatever, and, um, those angel wings are very white, and, you know, it’s very, you know, pristine, she definitely has Birdwings, like the, her, the coloring is of a bird.

[00:05:28] Jason Mantzoukas: So just to be clear, you are team bird woman.

[00:05:31] Paul Scheer: Here’s what I’m going to say. I am team. It should be an angel, but someone made the choice that we’re really leaning into bird. When.

[00:05:39] Jason Mantzoukas: The digital asset we have for wings is darker color.

[00:05:42] June Diane Raphael: I think there was a lot going on. Cause first of all, to go back to Paul’s point about Mickey Rourke being way too heavy.

[00:05:49] Cause he’s a dense man, you know. Dense head, dense hair, dense body. He’s dense in every way. So her wings in order to, to fly holding him, they had to be at least double the size that they were just the width, the width of them. That the scope of them. So.

[00:06:06] Paul Scheer: Even her arm strength, June.

[00:06:08] June Diane Raphael: Absolutely. No, absolutely. But.

[00:06:10] Jason Mantzoukas: He’s also in a fit. Somebody physicist can comment. He’s also falling.

[00:06:15] June Diane Raphael: Yes.

[00:06:15] Jason Mantzoukas: He’s she’s fighting grab not just his own weight to lift him, but to lift him against the gravitational pull.

[00:06:22] June Diane Raphael: But I think what happened or because I thought a lot about the wings, Jason and the bird wings and why they looked like bird feathers.

[00:06:29] So why? At points, they seem to be able to, should be, seem to be able to remove them. But that, put that over there for a second.

[00:06:35] Paul Scheer: Well, they kind of like fold back up, but we’d never see them fold back up because they clearly didn’t have the budget.

[00:06:40] June Diane Raphael: Well, that’s the thing. I think they were like, if they are real angel wings, cause angel wings are, should be the size of her whole body.

[00:06:47] They should go down to the ground and they should be white and she should have a big wingspan. But I think they were just. Got lost in the sauce with like, Oh, we need to be able to put them under a coat or a dress if they’re always here.

[00:07:02] Paul Scheer: But June, that would mean that they’re very small. Like they’re in between again, they are in between being very big and also not very small.

[00:07:11] Like they’re not like tiny.

[00:07:12] Jason Mantzoukas: I think what they were. What they were working against was the desire to have her wear almost nothing at all times, while simultaneously letting us still believe she has full size wings attached to her back. And so I think they can’t really, they can’t really reconcile those two things.

[00:07:35] They want her to be next to naked all the time, but they also want her wings to be able to be hidden by her tiny dress. Which it can’t be.

[00:07:42] June Diane Raphael: Well, here’s, but that shot, I thought she actually took off her wings when she went, UGH! When they just were folding into themselves.

[00:07:49] Jason Mantzoukas: No, I feel like she was just expressing the pain of these, these dang wings.

[00:07:53] Paul Scheer: I mean, when, I do, I do appreciate that when she goes to sleep, she has to sleep on her stomach.

[00:08:00] June Diane Raphael: But here’s the interesting thing though, I, I, because, She does. There’s a lot of, there’s a lot of discussion when we first meet her about her lower back pain, about just what it is to be a woman with wings. And it’s sort of.

[00:08:14] Paul Scheer: I mean, it’s a metaphor for big boobs, right?

[00:08:16] Jason Mantzoukas: Right.

[00:08:16] June Diane Raphael: Sure. But it’s like.

[00:08:17] Jason Mantzoukas: She could get a wing reduction.

[00:08:18] June Diane Raphael: It seems like she did get a wing reduction.

[00:08:20] Jason Mantzoukas: She did get a consult.

[00:08:23] June Diane Raphael: But I, I just, it almost seems like she’s a creature that was not supposed to have these wings as opposed to an ain, a species, an angel, a someone who there’ve been creatures like her, that came before her, that this is something she procreated from.

[00:08:44] It seems like Megan Fox, the character, her character, someone put these wings on her human body and she’s got to deal with them.

[00:08:55] Jason Mantzoukas: Okay, who?

[00:08:56] June Diane Raphael: I don’t, I don’t know.

[00:08:57] Paul Scheer: That guy, that guy who found her is very possessive, uh, the, the, uh,

[00:09:04] Jason Mantzoukas: Reecey Fonz, Reecey Fonz.

[00:09:05] Paul Scheer: Oh, that’s Reecey Fonz, okay.

[00:09:06] Jason Mantzoukas: The roommate from Notting Hill.

[00:09:07] June Diane Raphael: Always great to see.

[00:09:08] Jason Mantzoukas: Incredible actor.

[00:09:09] June Diane Raphael: Always great, always great.

[00:09:11] Paul Scheer: By the way, cast in this movie 100 percent like everyone’s hitting it out of the park. I love this cast.

[00:09:17] Jason Mantzoukas: This cast is, everybody is a home run hitter. It’s like Rory Cochran is the person who buys his trumpet from him in the diner. Like I was like, what’s going on?

[00:09:27] Paul Scheer: And here’s what I’ll say too. It, um, I have no issue with the acting this director and writer Mitch Glazer, you know has been wanting to make this movie for a very long time He’s married to Kelly Lynch. This was his love story This is how he felt that he fell in love with Kelly Lynch when he originally wrote it They’re like make it more like splash.

[00:09:47] He’s like, how dare you? That’s not what I wanted to do It was about the 50s and he held on to it. And then when Mickey Rourke was in trouble He was like, I want to bring him back. And I want to bring him back in a way where he’s not a thug. I want to bring him back to the Popo Greenwich village. Like this, this guy from Diner.

[00:10:03] So like, this is like, this is a passion project for the director, but I will say that’s what it also feels like. It feels like there was very little deviation from anything. And there’s a lot of stuff that makes. No sense.

[00:10:19] Jason Mantzoukas: It feels like there’s a lot of, like, creative editing to make sense of this. Cause there’s also quite a lot of, like, continuity problems.

[00:10:27] Paul Scheer: Huge.

[00:10:28] Jason Mantzoukas: Like, they go into a building at night and come out in the day. There’s a lot of day for night stuff. There’s a lot of, like.

[00:10:33] Paul Scheer: He goes to bed shirtless, wakes up in a full long johns.

[00:10:37] Jason Mantzoukas: Yes! Full long johns! He’s nude when he goes to bed. It’s lumpy. The movie is lumpy, but it’s like really interesting. I was fascinated to watch it, but what is interesting now to really think about, cause I just finished it before we got on is none of this is real.

[00:10:56] Right? Like all of the movie, Megan Fox entirely having wings, the winged woman, the angel, the, all this stuff are the creation of Mickey Rourke’s character in his own head while he dies in the desert. Right?

[00:11:11] June Diane Raphael: So I’m just learning this now. So I’m really having to kind of reroute over here.

[00:11:16] Jason Mantzoukas: And that makes sense as to why the movie is so bad is because he’s just not smart enough that character.

[00:11:21] Paul Scheer: Well, and this is the thing like we it’s hard to critique a movie. That is made. That is the uh, the vision of an idiot.

[00:11:28] Jason Mantzoukas: Of a character it’s hard to criticize a movie when it’s the vision of one of its main character

[00:11:32] Paul Scheer: Who is an idiot.

[00:11:35] June Diane Raphael: And also where are they? Where are they?

[00:11:41] Paul Scheer: I mean, it is.

[00:11:43] June Diane Raphael: Las Vegas. Are they in Albuquerque?

[00:11:46] Jason Mantzoukas: He finds her in the desert at a carnival, and he says, your English is so good.

[00:11:50] June Diane Raphael: Okay.

[00:11:52] Jason Mantzoukas: And she says she learned from watching TV.

[00:11:54] June Diane Raphael: She is in. I believe I believe they are in mexico there.

[00:12:00] Jason Mantzoukas: Where? And what we’re meant to believe that she is a native Spanish speaker.

[00:12:05] June Diane Raphael: Oh, she’s a Mexicana. Yes.

[00:12:07] Paul Scheer: Well, let’s, let’s, let’s go back to why he might have an issue with it is because when he dies, he is saved by, and again, we don’t see the faces, but, um, a handful of Native Americans.

[00:12:21] Jason Mantzoukas: Right.

[00:12:21] Paul Scheer: Who are.

[00:12:22] June Diane Raphael: Are they Native Americans? I don’t know.

[00:12:24] Jason Mantzoukas: All dressed in white.

[00:12:25] Paul Scheer: I am so upset that we did not get any payoff of that whatsoever.

[00:12:31] Jason Mantzoukas: What’s interesting is the movie offers, you know, no answers to any questions we don’t. And now that we understand that it’s a Jacob’s Ladder scenario, that’s why, because there are no answers because there is no story because this whole thing is a dream.

[00:12:45] And so the logic of it and the editing and the kind of like weird way that it’s kind of a tone poem or whatever is just the dream element of it. But boy, does it make for a frustrating watch when you’re like. Who are those guys? When’s that guy coming back? What’s the, what’s on offer here? What is this?

[00:13:01] June Diane Raphael: I also, like, I would love someone to count the number of lines Megan Fox has in this movie. I would say it’s on a two, yeah, you could count it on two hands.

[00:13:14] Jason Mantzoukas: So few, and many of them are the same line. Many of them are versions of the same sentiment.

[00:13:19] June Diane Raphael: She’s always, and I know it.

[00:13:20] Jason Mantzoukas: As long as I’m with you, you can’t hurt him.

[00:13:22] June Diane Raphael: The deal was that I I’m with you. And so he’s not a finger on him. That’s the deal.

[00:13:27] Okay.

[00:13:28] Paul Scheer: I, I felt like all I know about Megan Fox’s character is she, her character has some severe daddy issues. I feel like.

[00:13:37] June Diane Raphael: She was. She was found in a garbage.

[00:13:42] Paul Scheer: In a garbage.

[00:13:43] June Diane Raphael: That’s what he says. That he found her in the garbage.

[00:13:51] Paul Scheer: I just want to back up to the one thing that we know is real, which is where we meet Mickey Rourke in the beginning, right? He is in, he definitely is in America because that club has an American name and it’s like, I couldn’t quite tell what this club was like, it’s jazz burlesque.

[00:14:11] Jason Mantzoukas: Well, it’s interesting because it is a burlesque kind of, you know, strip club kind of environment.

[00:14:17] Paul Scheer: Right.

[00:14:17] Jason Mantzoukas: Um, and Mickey Rourke and his, like, I’m going to say.

[00:14:21] Six piece jazz band are on stage, right? Mickey Rourke is a trump, a trumpet player of note. He’s famous enough that he has made albums. Although we don’t know.

[00:14:32] June Diane Raphael: Solo albums, solo albums.

[00:14:34] Jason Mantzoukas: None of, none of this is again, none of this is real.

[00:14:36] Paul Scheer: This is real, right?

[00:14:37] Jason Mantzoukas: In his mind. What’s.

[00:14:38] June Diane Raphael: That part is real, Jason.

[00:14:39] Jason Mantzoukas: Oh no, no. This is no, no, no. We don’t know. It’s the part where they’re playing in the strip club is real. The album is in Megan Fox’s collection. So it’s fake.

[00:14:47] June Diane Raphael: You’re right. Because the album. He’s already dead.

[00:14:51] Jason Mantzoukas: So, I mean, I mean, who cares what’s real and what’s fake? The movie is so poor that does such a poor job.

[00:14:58] Like if we rewatched it right now, it’s not going to be like rewatching the, the sixth sense after you find out the, the, the reveal,

[00:15:05] Paul Scheer: You know, I’m going to, I’m going to believe that he released an album, but he, because he was addicted to heroin, his career went downhill. I’d also argue it’s because he smokes and plays the horn at the same time.

[00:15:15] This guy. I don’t look in Jason. I think you’re more, you probably the most astute of us in this. Is that a thing? Are people smoking and playing a horned instrument at the same time?

[00:15:25] Jason Mantzoukas: Yep.

[00:15:25] Paul Scheer: All right.

[00:15:26] Jason Mantzoukas: Oh yeah. That’s, that’s a very like Miles Davis. That’s a very like 40 40s jazz club vibe. Um, the other thing is what I loved is that this is what I watched when I watched it, started it last night and I was like, Oh, this is going to be wild.

[00:15:40] Is the, it’s, it’s this big jazz band on a stage and the, the dancer is dancing with like feather things and it’s a whole situation, but the music that’s playing isn’t the music of the jazz band. It’s slow plaintive piano and cello music, but the visual is this uptempo jazz band playing. So I’m like, what the, the disconnect between those two things is. immediately jarring.

[00:16:08] Paul Scheer: So bizarre that he seemed like, and look, what is his crime? You know, he’s a recovering junkie, but he sleeps with, and we don’t know what’s his character yet, but he sleeps with happy. His wife, Happy is Bill Murray. And so Bill Murray has put a hit out on him. And the way the movie starts is we’re following this, this mook. This guy’s going to kill him.

[00:16:27] Uh, and, and that’s the way that we see it. But I also don’t know enough about this world. Like I’m not invested in anything before he gets killed at all.

[00:16:37] June Diane Raphael: It’s so hard because there we’re on this journey with him, and by the way, alive or dead, we’re on this journey with him.

[00:16:43] Paul Scheer: We have to be, we’re locked in.

[00:16:44] June Diane Raphael: And we’re, we, we can’t help but to be, we’ve to do a podcast about it. And so we’re, we’re on this journey, and I’m like, I hate this man.

[00:16:54] Paul Scheer: Oh.

[00:16:54] June Diane Raphael: I, yeah, hate him.

[00:16:55] Paul Scheer: He smells. You know that he’s smells.

[00:16:57] June Diane Raphael: I hate who he is. I hate that he’s peering at her through the window. I hate that he won’t stop looking at her. I hate everything. I hate that. He won’t let her get those wings chopped off.

[00:17:10] Jason Mantzoukas: Yeah.

[00:17:10] Paul Scheer: Well, first of all, I do want to talk about when she goes to the plastic surgeon, uh, to get those wings chopped off. It seems like they’re doing it. Like, he’s like, Oh, yeah, I’ll do surgery today. You came in for a consultation. I’ll knock these off right away. And when he runs into that room, I saw it and I started laughing so hard, which is the, there’s just a computer printout on white paper that says operating room, like it’s this taped to the door.

[00:17:34] Jason Mantzoukas: I also loved that the, he comes in and the doctor is in the consult with Megan Fox’s character, Lily.

[00:17:42] June Diane Raphael: Lily luster.

[00:17:43] Jason Mantzoukas: Lily Luster, uh, and he’s holding up one of her wings and looking at it. So like so quizzically, but you have to understand like he, the, the actor is just holding nothing. So it’s such a funny disconnect.

[00:17:57] Paul Scheer: And when he goes and he goes, hey, you ever say a word about this, I’m gonna, I’m gonna, I’m gonna find out where you live and burn down your house. It’s like, this woman is performing. All around the country in a carnival, like she’s known, it’s not like she’s a secret.

[00:18:12] June Diane Raphael: Like, that’s the thing I hate about him the most. Like why take her out? She would, she was, she was living, I think the best version of her life as a carnie. I think she, I think things did not get better from there. I think she was living in a tiny hotel room with him and it was disgusting and he barely had 2 to rub together. Then she goes to live with Bill Murray.

[00:18:37] Paul Scheer: By the way, that hotel room was so low class, but so high class, like the, the owner of the. Uh, motel is like, okay, so there’s a twin bed and here’s an open door. I was like, I’ve never been escorted into a room at a motel and shown around.

[00:18:52] Jason Mantzoukas: Well, the guy also knew his name. The guy also knew Mickey Rourke’s name. So I’m like, is this where Mickey Rourke lives?

[00:18:59] June Diane Raphael: I wanted her to stay in that awesome airstream and just live out her life doing a couple hours a night behind the glass.

[00:19:07] Paul Scheer: And she wasn’t getting, she wasn’t nude, right? Like she wasn’t like, she wasn’t like a stripper, but, uh, she was just

[00:19:15] June Diane Raphael: An oddity. She was just something to be seen a sideshow.

[00:19:19] Jason Mantzoukas: Yeah. I think she was just like, uh, yes, the bearded woman or any of the other kinds of sideshow performers.

[00:19:25] June Diane Raphael: The funniest thing though, is like, yes, she’s in very little for much of the movie, but when they first, when he first gets her out of there and she leaves the trailer and, you know, saves him the first time she saves him and they drive away, she’s wearing such like corporate casual outfits. Like she is dressed as like a corporate junior executive very smartly.

[00:19:50] Jason Mantzoukas: I would love it if that’s where this went, that she just immediately gets a job in middle management in like an office park.

[00:19:57] Paul Scheer: Like, and then, and she’s like, okay, I can reverse your mortgage. Hold on one second. Her wing just pops up. Like, I mean,

[00:20:06] June Diane Raphael: We don’t know where, where are we? Are we in, are we in New Mexico or where are we?

[00:20:13] Jason Mantzoukas: I wrote 30 minutes in, and it genuinely feels like the movie hasn’t started.

[00:20:17] Paul Scheer: No, the movie feels like it never really goes to many places because his immediate thought is I am enamored with this woman. I need to meet her.

[00:20:26] I need to follow her and you feel like he’s in love with her and then the next scene is like, let me sell her. Let me sell her to this gangster for a million dollars.

[00:20:35] Jason Mantzoukas: I loved that scene though. The scene, the scene where Mickey Rourke and, and, and Megan Fox are off standing on the, sitting on the top of the car or whatever.

[00:20:45] And then there’s the music venue, and Bill Murray and his right hand man sit in the empty seats of a giant music venue, watching Solomon Burke, a legitimate legend, watching Solomon Burke do a sound check, which is easily the best part of the movie. Um, and then the doors to the back of the venue open completely, and we get a perfect view of Megan Fox. Like a mile away who just says to Mickey Rourke, do you want to see my wings?

[00:21:13] June Diane Raphael: Well, the best part too, is before that, a woman came up to, a woman came, she was a young lady, also dressed in corporate casual, also looks like she is a manager, you know, of a small team. Um, in corporate America and gives them a note.

[00:21:30] And then she wrote, I mean, it was just so bizarre and, and she says she did it for 20. I’m like, you get a paycheck every two weeks. It’s probably direct deposit.

[00:21:43] Jason Mantzoukas: Yeah, you can complain. You can complain about this on slack.

[00:21:46] Paul Scheer: I will say also, I love there’s no such thing really as a bad Bill Murray performance. And I actually love how oddly restrained he is. Like it reminds me a little bit of like Mad Dog and Gloria movie that I really enjoyed from back in the day. It’s like, um, but like he’s playing this gangster, this tough guy, you But he’s really low key, but then has these moments where he does like get the fuck out of here.

[00:22:09] Like that, he pushes her out of the way and he, you get, I don’t know. I love him in this. I’ll tell you this. He, um, was a replacement because one actor started shooting the movie for three days and the director said, yeah, he just was too nervous to be acting with Mickey Rourke. So he’s like, you know what?

[00:22:25] I can’t, I can’t, I can’t handle this anymore. I got to leave. And then, uh, Bill Murray called up the director of Mitch, uh, the director and writer on Christmas Day. And Mitch is like, Hey man, can you help me out? And Bill Murray read the script on Christmas Day and said, I’m in. And Bill Murray just stepped in to be Happy.

[00:22:42] Jason Mantzoukas: That’s so weird because he’s such a, you know, especially in this era is when Bill Murray still has that kind of mystique.

[00:22:49] Paul Scheer: Yes.

[00:22:49] Jason Mantzoukas: It’s impossible to reach him. He’s so picky and choosy. He only does the things he wants to do and they’re really high value for him or whatever. So the fact that he’s in this, I’m just like, this is a head scratcher. I understand what Mickey Rourke is doing here. Wait, is this before or after The Wrestler?

[00:23:05] Paul Scheer: After.

[00:23:06] June Diane Raphael: It’s after.

[00:23:07] Jason Mantzoukas: Yes. After The Wrestler. Wow.

[00:23:10] Paul Scheer: Yes. Because he felt that Mickey Rourke was being put into too many roles where he was, uh, just like a meathead, a lunkhead, a bruiser. Yeah. Um, and here’s the thing. Uh, this guy wrote. Uh, is one of the writers of Scrooged. So I think Bill Murray has a relationship with them and they have their friendships. So that, that’s what I think it was.

[00:23:30] Jason Mantzoukas: That makes, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay.

[00:23:32] Paul Scheer: Like I do, I just want to see more Happy.

[00:23:34] June Diane Raphael: I love Happy.

[00:23:34] Paul Scheer: I mean, even when, when Happy is sitting watching her, like put on makeup or like, and tells that monologue about why he’s happy because he was so sad as a kid. I’m like, I’m in, I’m into this, whatever this is.

[00:23:47] June Diane Raphael: He doesn’t, he can’t hit a wrong note. He just. Every choice he makes is, is.

[00:23:53] Jason Mantzoukas: It’s great when he, when, when he takes Megan Fox away from Mickey Rourke and is like, okay, she’s going to come with me and you get out of here. I genuinely was like, I hope we follow Bill Murray and Megan Fox and when Mickey Rourke breaks into the house and finds them like watching old black and white movies in the projection room, I was like, let’s please let her stay here.

[00:24:16] June Diane Raphael: And she seems quite comfortable there.

[00:24:19] Paul Scheer: They seem like they’re having a nice time.

[00:24:20] June Diane Raphael: One of my favorite lines in this movie, aside from, do you want to see my wings? Was right before that, she fucking slams Mickey Rourke, where she says to him, she’s asking him about his career and you know, what happened. And then she goes. You were handsome. What happened? What happened? I laughed so hard. I mean, I had some laughs.

[00:24:46] Paul Scheer: My favorite like dialogue moment is we have just watched the first 20, 30 minutes of the film and then, uh, Mickey Rourke gets on the phone with Kelly Lynch and she just says describes the plot verbatim back to him. Wait a second. So you’re telling me you went out to a desert, you got shot, you got saved by some Native Americans, and then you went to a carnival, you met a girl, and then you got re then you got in a truck and you drove to this place. I was like, whoa! Why are, why are we doing this? We just saw it.

[00:25:19] June Diane Raphael: I loved her character though. I love that we met her tanning up there in that bathing suit that must have been terrible for tan lines and winter boots.

[00:25:28] Jason Mantzoukas: And winter boots that came up mid calf.

[00:25:31] June Diane Raphael: What an unbelievable.

[00:25:33] Jason Mantzoukas: I was like, what a strange tan line that’s gonna be.

[00:25:35] June Diane Raphael: That tan line and then also the bathing suit which had just like mesh cutouts. And the contraption she had built up there on that roof.

[00:25:43] Paul Scheer: I like that contraption.

[00:25:45] Jason Mantzoukas: My question was, did you think her being, laying out on the roof. Did you say very Jack McBrayer? Her being out on the roof, this is a real question.

[00:25:58] Do you feel like that was somehow an homage to her in Roadhouse, where they laid out on the roof in Roadhouse? This is not a real question, but that’s, I was like, Oh, I wonder if they’re trying to make, do a thing here. One of the things that I loved was, there’s this moment where early when Mickey Rourke and Megan Fox escape the carnival and they’re, uh, out in the desert at a gas station or something. I can’t remember what, but she’s off to the side and she’s letting her wings out and she’s kind of catching a draft. Right.

[00:26:31] And it’s this moment, it’s all green screen, but she’s kind of catching a draft and blah, blah, blah. And there’s a little kid wandering around with a camera and taking pictures. And Mickey Rourke is like, Hey, let me, let me, let me borrow that camera for a second.

[00:26:43] He takes a picture of Megan Fox. And then half an hour later, Mickey Rourke is in a dark room. He’s in a physical dark room developing that one picture. So, he either stole that kid’s camera.

[00:26:57] Paul Scheer: And smoking, by the way, around a lot of liquid chemicals.

[00:27:00] Jason Mantzoukas: Yes, he either stole that kid’s camera or the film, I don’t know which, but it’s, it is crazy that he’s in a dark, how does he have access to a dark room?

[00:27:12] Paul Scheer: And it’s in 2011 where it’s like very easy to print the picture quickly, like it’s not, yeah.

[00:27:18] June Diane Raphael: Yeah, go to a CVS or a Rite Aid. I mean, the crazy thing is, I think he must have I think he must have stolen the film.

[00:27:26] Paul Scheer: I think he took the camera. He’s not finding that kid.

[00:27:27] June Diane Raphael: Or who knows, this fucking guy. Well, right after that, we have to watch a sex scene between the two of them. That was so fucking unacceptable.

[00:27:35] Jason Mantzoukas: Holy shit.

[00:27:36] Paul Scheer: I want to get into the sex scene. I just want to say one thing about that photo. When he does take the photo of her, she goes, if you like it, you’ll delete it. Like, it’s like Who, what, who, what, who is it? Where is this going? It’s not like, like, she doesn’t know the plan.

[00:27:51] Like any, she’s like, just if you don’t, if I don’t like it, like I’m like, and meanwhile, it’s like, oh, she doesn’t want people to see her, but yet she’s in a carnival, but then she’s also literally, there are six foot tall posters of her at the carnival. So it’s like, what?

[00:28:04] June Diane Raphael: She just wanted a photo of her.

[00:28:06] Paul Scheer: Okay. But yes, let’s, I just wanted to talk about that. And then, yes, let’s talk about the sex scene between a 23 year old and a 57 year old man.

[00:28:13] June Diane Raphael: This actually enraged me.

[00:28:15] Jason Mantzoukas: This was chilling..

[00:28:17] June Diane Raphael: I was like, I’m protesting. I want, this is, this is not okay. Yeah. No, this, this ain’t okay.

[00:28:23] Paul Scheer: And, and by the way, it’s like, I feel bad for her because I feel like everybody is like, I feel it’s a bunch of older dudes who are just like, Oh God, she’s so hot.

[00:28:32] She’s so hot. Like, it just feels like, and she’s got to do all this kissing up on everybody. It’s like, ugh.

[00:28:37] June Diane Raphael: It was so unacceptable.

[00:28:39] Jason Mantzoukas: Oh, there’s so, yeah, there’s too much and big open mouth kiss, big, like big enveloping hands and kisses.

[00:28:48] June Diane Raphael: I know it’s like the only thing I wanted for, cause I knew it was coming and I was like, all I want to see is like her head sort of turned to the side, you know, a tight shot and then his head kind of facing forward around her neck and just like humping her that I could accept like, okay, you don’t have to look at him. Just lay there like.

[00:29:08] Paul Scheer: I wanted the wings to cover everything. I wanted the wings to be up and just see.

[00:29:13] June Diane Raphael: And a little movement.

[00:29:14] Jason Mantzoukas: By the way, that would have been awesome.

[00:29:16] June Diane Raphael: What we had to witness, what we had to see. And I’m sorry. This literally made me want to leave. I’m sorry. I wanted to leave the industry of film and television. Because I’m just like, show me an old wrinkly, saggy woman who gets to be on screen fucking a hot 23 year old man. Please. I, I, this is, this is not acceptable.

[00:29:47] Paul Scheer: I mean, I don’t know why it grossed me out so much, but like, they kind of show her plumage flying off because of the fucking, like one feather just like flies off like Forrest Gump style and it oddly.

[00:29:57] Jason Mantzoukas: Are you kidding? I fucked the feathers right off her.

[00:30:00] Paul Scheer: And it lands in the front stoop of the hotel. I’m like, what?

[00:30:03] Jason Mantzoukas: And the hotel owner finds it. And the hotel multiple people find single feathers and look at them, like, contemplatively, like, Huh, what must this be? It’s a bird feather, asshole. Keep walking.

[00:30:19] Paul Scheer: What’s his redemption?

[00:30:20] I mean, if this is like his redemption, right? Like we know that Happy, Bill Murray is a bad guy. Not only does, um, well, his wife cheats on him with Mickey Rourke and he has her kill. Poor woman. That’s what we understand.

[00:30:32] June Diane Raphael: Poor woman.

[00:30:32] Jason Mantzoukas: We never meet her, right?

[00:30:34] Paul Scheer: Never meet her. And so she’s killed. And so the only thing that we know that’s bad about Mickey Rourke is that he had an affair. Which is not like, okay, like, I don’t see, like, we need this redemption arc for him, like, his redemption.

[00:30:49] June Diane Raphael: Well, don’t forget about what happened with him and Annie Poole.

[00:30:53] Paul Scheer: What happened with him and Annie Poole?

[00:30:54] June Diane Raphael: Oh, Paul. Annie Poole.

[00:30:57] Jason Mantzoukas: The story he tells her?

[00:30:58] Paul Scheer: Oh, oh, I forgot about the story.

[00:31:01] June Diane Raphael: He dated Annie Poole. That was the love of his life. I think this was like a post coital scene between the two of them. And he,

[00:31:11] Jason Mantzoukas: So you might’ve fast forwarded through it, but I was doing a lot of 10 seconds ahead.

[00:31:16] June Diane Raphael: And Annie Poole was the love of his life and she was totally clean, but she just wanted, she was perfect and he was deeply in love with her. But in order for her to spend time with him, she had to start getting high and then that killed her.

[00:31:35] Paul Scheer: Well, that, by the way, I’m glad that they revealed this ending. That was a setup because when he meets that girl, the tattooed girl in the bar. Loved her tattoo.

[00:31:46] Jason Mantzoukas: What a reveal. Great, great reveal.

[00:31:48] Paul Scheer: Actually went and rewound that scene because.

[00:31:50] June Diane Raphael: I’m sorry.

[00:31:51] Paul Scheer: And great. Let’s get y’all warmed up. Let’s get you warmed up. And she like shoots heroin into him.

[00:31:56] Jason Mantzoukas: That’s I wish that had been at the beginning. I wish that scene had been at the beginning of the movie because then I would understand where this why and how this guy has fallen.

[00:32:07] Paul Scheer: Interesting way to be like, Oh, this all doesn’t make sense. Cause it’s a, a hazy dream. I, again, I don’t, I don’t know if anyone can answer this, but I, I don’t know that heroin is like a fuck drug, is it? Like, cause she’s like, Oh, let’s get you warmed up. Like I would imagine you do heroin. You’re not. Like you’re not really in the mood to have sex.

[00:32:26] June Diane Raphael: Well, because it’s better than having sex. Like people prefer it. So I think,

[00:32:32] I don’t, I think he was just like, he didn’t want to do the heroin. He didn’t really have a choice. He couldn’t really say no.

[00:32:38] Paul Scheer: Well, but she kept on saying, let’s get you warmed up. Let’s get you warmed up as if it was like, this is like the, the first step of a night.

[00:32:44] Jason Mantzoukas: I think. I think maybe, I don’t know, maybe I’m, I’m doing work for the movie here, but there’s a, there’s a world in which it is not a sex scene. It is a heroin scene.

[00:32:57] Paul Scheer: Oh, okay.

[00:32:57] Jason Mantzoukas: You know what I mean? Like it’s not about them fucking. It’s about them. It’s about almost sexualized. The, the act that is being consummated is shooting up.

[00:33:07] June Diane Raphael: Can I just say one thing, Paul? I couldn’t understand why he’s being presented to us that the movie is presenting him as like this crazy ladies man that every woman wants to fuck. Until we saw the scene of him in the bar. And watched him make that lemon move and turn into a little creature.

[00:33:31] Jason Mantzoukas: With a red napkin over it.

[00:33:33] Paul Scheer: I, first of all, didn’t, I’m like, Oh, he’s going to make the lemon disappear. I’m like, or like, what, what is happening here? Like I don’t.

[00:33:42] June Diane Raphael: I, and she, well, I guess we’ll find out later that she was duping him, but she did seem into it. Now, do you think that that was written in the script or was that all day long?

[00:33:55] Paul Scheer: That is a Mickey Rourke special because he is getting drunk at a bar and normally you’re in front of peanuts. He’s in front of a bunch of lemons as if he’s making his own shots and cutting his own, uh, juice for, uh, like, because he. Like he’s like, Oh, I know, I know how to impress a girl. Like, like, I feel like this is a lot of Mickey works own moves.

[00:34:15] June Diane Raphael: For those of you listening who haven’t seen the movie, he takes a lemon, puts it on the bar, and then he takes a red napkin, unfolds it. So it’s kind of a very big square. He puts the napkin over the lemon, sort of puts his hand underneath behind and then rolls the lemon. So it sort of looks like a little creature moving across the bar.

[00:34:42] Jason Mantzoukas: And that alone wins him the hand of the beautiful tattooed woman. Like she is so charmed by this.

[00:34:51] Paul Scheer: I just want to say one more thing. June, the way that you described it, there is 10 times more impressive than what it looks like on film. It looks as if like, He’s like, Oh, can we do it again? Cause I didn’t get it. I didn’t get that. I didn’t get what I wanted.

[00:35:04] June Diane Raphael: He doesn’t get it in the take they used. He messes up and then has to restart. That’s the best footage they had of this parlor trick.

[00:35:13] Jason Mantzoukas: And I feel like they did that. The director was like, Hey, let’s do one more, but let’s maybe not do the napkin thing, and he was like, no, no, you got it. Let’s move on.

[00:35:22] Paul Scheer: This is, by the way, this is the way that I feel like this movie was run a little bit, this director and writer felt like he really wanted to give Mickey Rourke like this amazing role, Mickey Rourke has come out and said so much negative stuff about this movie that is hilarious, but this is the one thing where it feels like he just bullied his way through most scenes because, uh, this is a story that both men agree to, that Mickey kept on saying, you know, uh, Kelly should, uh, be a stripper in the movie and the director’s like, no, no, no, she’s just a bar.

[00:35:55] This is his wife, by the way. He’s not she’s just a bar the director’s wife. No, no, she’s just a bartender. Mickey’s like, yeah, but like a bartender stripper And he’s like, no, just a bartender. And then he’s like, she should take her clothes off in the movie. And the director’s like, alright, yeah, we’ll let her take her clothes off in the movie.

[00:36:10] June Diane Raphael: We’ll let her.

[00:36:11] Paul Scheer: Like, it was like, he just bullied this director to make his wife

[00:36:15] June Diane Raphael: Wow.

[00:36:16] Paul Scheer: Scantily clad. She’s not naked, but scantily clad.

[00:36:19] Jason Mantzoukas: I know I’ve told this story before, but I feel like it makes sense in this context. Like, so I heard Aronofsky interviewed about the wrestler who is saying so much of his job every day was to somehow intercede with Mickey Rourke’s, like, attempts to constantly have sunglasses or eyeglasses on his head, sunglasses specifically, so that Aronofsky would have them check Rourke’s wardrobe because he would hide sunglasses in his wardrobe and then pull them out in the middle of scenes and put them on, which would ruin the take. And he, because we need to be able to see your eyes and he’d be like, no, no, no, no, no. My guy’s hiding. My guy’s hiding. You know? And it’s like, but it is this bull in.

[00:37:01] So left unchecked. You get this. This is what? Yeah. You know?

[00:37:05] June Diane Raphael: Yeah.

[00:37:05] Paul Scheer: And then you also get this thing where. He’s wearing that coat and that coat has become the biggest prop. Like he’s wearing like an overcoat over like a leather coat over like a, uh, you know, like a, uh, a little, uh, underwear shirt. And, um, and, and when he’s talking to Megan Fox outside that trailer, he’s like, just pulling, pulling the coat together.

[00:37:23] It’s so cold. It’s so cold. He’s always so cold, but then other times he’s not cold at all, but a lot of work, a lot.

[00:37:29] June Diane Raphael: A lot of coat work, hat work.

[00:37:33] Jason Mantzoukas: All externals. Yes. Mickey Rourke loves externals.

[00:37:36] June Diane Raphael: That’s why when he’s naked it felt so crazy to me. I was like, put stuff, I need stuff back on you.

[00:37:42] Paul Scheer: Yeah, yeah, more, put some more chains.

[00:37:45] June Diane Raphael: Please.

[00:37:46] Jason Mantzoukas: It’s really interesting because it’s like you, you forget unless you, modern Mickey Rourke is really doing a lot of work to erase an incredible early career. Like he was one of the next generation talents in that, in what you were saying, Paul, that Pope of Greenwich Village era of, uh, of Mickey Rourke and he’s this electric, compelling, like such, such a, such a hyperkinetic performer.

[00:38:16] And now. It is so bizarre to watch, frankly. It’s I, I, I’m obsessed with him as an actor because so much of what it is now seems like artifice and something that’s not quite there, but in the scene where he sells his trumpet to Rory Cochran, it’s a silent scene, uh, just music. It’s he like legitimately broke my heart when he is plaintively clearly like not wanting to let go of this instrument.

[00:38:46] I thought that was an incredible, like, I don’t know, 20 seconds of performance.

[00:38:52] June Diane Raphael: Oh, I was so happy. I was like, Yeah, you motherfucker. Like you don’t get the thing you love. Like I couldn’t, Jason, I was so thrilled that.

[00:39:02] Paul Scheer: He keeps the spit valve, like he keeps the little or the, the mouthpiece for the rest of the movie is like sucking on it.

[00:39:08] Like it’s a, like, it’s always, it’s always in his mouth. Like, just like, just like, like a toothpick. And he does also have a toothpick in the movie as well. Uh, What’s happening in the, in the laundromat when he meets his friend, who’s shoeless.

[00:39:22] Jason Mantzoukas: Oh yeah. I thought.

[00:39:24] Paul Scheer: Footloose and fancy free. And I was like, is that what footloose and fancy free is?

[00:39:28] That you don’t wear shoes. He’s rich.

[00:39:31] June Diane Raphael: Thought he was washing his socks.

[00:39:34] Paul Scheer: Okay.

[00:39:35] Jason Mantzoukas: And is this the laundromat where all the jazz musicians go? Is this like the jazz laundry?

[00:39:40] June Diane Raphael: Well, they gotta, they gotta do their laundry somewhere.

[00:39:43] Paul Scheer: Jazz laundry. Jazz laundry is a small place that I opened.

[00:39:48] Jason Mantzoukas: This is the kind of movie that when there is action, like there’s a certain point Mickey Rourke gets beaten down.

[00:39:55] Paul Scheer: Yeah.

[00:39:55] Jason Mantzoukas: Right? The bad guys, right hand man. Gives him a beat down, but we don’t watch it. We watch one punch and then we listen to the rest of it as the camera drifts over and just films a newspaper being blown in the wind.

[00:40:08] Paul Scheer: That is mickey Rourke being like, it’s the Vin Diesel, The Rock thing. It’s like, yes, you’re not gonna.

[00:40:14] Jason Mantzoukas: I can’t be beaten up.

[00:40:16] Paul Scheer: Yes.

[00:40:16] Jason Mantzoukas: Yep. Cause you know, you know, Mickey Rourke until recently, like well into his sixties was like training and boxing in like boxing matches in Russia or something like, or something like that. Like he was doing like boxing, like internationally training and like doing heavy boxing.

[00:40:35] June Diane Raphael: I thought if I made up. Like post all the surgery that that ended, but I guess not.

[00:40:42] Paul Scheer: In, in, in, in 2014 at the age of 62, three years after this movie, he was boxing in Russia and he defeated, uh, Elliot Seymour in Moscow. Uh, like, so he, yeah, he was going long after this movie. Uh.

[00:40:58] Jason Mantzoukas: What a character. What an absolute weird character.

[00:41:03] Paul Scheer: I mean, I guess he started, like, I’m looking at his IMDb.

[00:41:05] He was boxing at a young age, at 12 years old. He was a flyweight. And then he won the Golden Gloves in 71, the Florida Golden Gloves. And, uh, and so that was like his. That was his start of his career, and uh, he was trained by, oh this is great, Hells Angel, uh, Chuck Zito.

[00:41:28] Jason Mantzoukas: Oh, Chuck Zito.

[00:41:29] Paul Scheer: Yeah, and Freddie Roach also trained him. Wow. Wow, and that’s like the big reason why he’s had so much plastic surgery is because he, His face got so fucked up in these fights.

[00:41:40] Jason Mantzoukas: Huh.

[00:41:40] Paul Scheer: Oh, jeez. I’m looking, this is really a wild, like, His, his IMDB is wild.

[00:41:45] Jason Mantzoukas: Yeah, yeah, that’s fine.

[00:41:46] Paul Scheer: I mean, but he’s still kicking around. He, I mean, like, like, that’s the other thing, too.

[00:41:50] It’s like, I think he’s still acting as if he was from the 80s. Like, he’s still got that, like, I’m the hottest guy.

[00:41:57] Jason Mantzoukas: Well, people are still giving him roles that have the gravitas of a star from the 80s.

[00:42:03] June Diane Raphael: Yeah, it’s just

[00:42:04] Jason Mantzoukas: This movie is, uh, uh, He is Jesus Christ in the movie. He’s a Christ like character in this movie.

[00:42:11] June Diane Raphael: Except the problem is, except the problem is he sells, he’s trying to sell this woman off into prostitution slash indentured servitude. Like that’s who. That’s who this movie is about dream or no dream. Like if this is his best case scenario, if this is his Jacob’s ladder scenario, it’s like, well, how are we supposed to root for this character in any way, when that was his plan in no uncertain terms.

[00:42:42] Jason Mantzoukas: Well, yeah, well, his plan first, his plan first actually was to split the profits 60, 65 30.

[00:42:51] Paul Scheer: Right. He wanted, yeah, he wanted in on the deal and, and the, and, and the end game. And I agree that like, it looks like she’s living a pretty good life with Bill Murray. They’re watching movies. She seems not happy, but not, you know, she’s well off.

[00:43:04] June Diane Raphael: Happier. I think actually, no, I, I still maintain that she was happiest in the airstream.

[00:43:11] Jason Mantzoukas: I maintain that this is a character that these creators are not interested in investigating or revealing even remotely. She is a, like, a muse kind of character.

[00:43:23] We’re not, she is given, we’re not given any access and nor is anybody curious to her interiority, right? She is just beautiful.

[00:43:31] Paul Scheer: Let me pitch this version of it. Happy was married to Megan Fox. He had an affair with her. Happy kills her and then goes to kill Mickey Rourke. And then Mickey Rourke has this dream of like, kind of redeeming that death.

[00:43:48] I mean, I guess maybe he’s redeeming the death of his

[00:43:50] Jason Mantzoukas: Annie Poole.

[00:43:51] Paul Scheer: But I feel like that’s the thing. It’s like, because Bill Murray brings her to a museum, or they’re having a museum event. What’s that museum event? There’s like, it’s an angel scene, but then later on in the movie, like, it seems like a day or two later, it’s revealed that Bill Murray also has a private club where rich guys go to look at a non naked Meghan Fox.

[00:44:10] Just a, like another odd de milo just covering her. Yeah, just an oddity. She, so she is again an oddity where Bill Murray sits in the upper balcony watching.

[00:44:19] June Diane Raphael: Balcony monster.

[00:44:19] Paul Scheer: Watching.

[00:44:19] Jason Mantzoukas: A true balcony monster.

[00:44:21] Paul Scheer: Watching this, I mean, what in the world.

[00:44:25] June Diane Raphael: Well one of my favorite moments of the museum scene is, is when Bill Murray is being interviewed. Cause there is some roaming press at the party, and the woman says to him, well. So, and, and my next question, um, what’s going on with the two federal indictments?

[00:44:42] Jason Mantzoukas: Like racketeering and like, and then she details what they are.

[00:44:53] Paul Scheer: But by the way, this is a thought I had and, and I, I just was looking at Bill Murray and I was like, do you think this is Bill Murray doing Kevin Spacey?

[00:45:01] Cause there was something about the way that he was acting that reminded me of Kevin Spacey. Like, I don’t, maybe it was the hair or the glasses.

[00:45:08] Jason Mantzoukas: The hair was, the hair piece was very

[00:45:11] June Diane Raphael: Spacey.

[00:45:12] Jason Mantzoukas: Fake. You know, uh, seamy.

[00:45:14] Paul Scheer: I, I just looked at that and then the other thing that jumped out at me was when she’s in her trailer, living her good life in that airstream, uh, she goes to get him like gin.

[00:45:23] Just two people just drinking straight gin.

[00:45:26] June Diane Raphael: Disgusting.

[00:45:27] Jason Mantzoukas: Warm. He describes it as warm gin.

[00:45:30] June Diane Raphael: Disgusting.

[00:45:30] Paul Scheer: And she grabs the bottle and it’s, the title on the bottle is Gordon Shumway. And I was like, Gordon shumway.

[00:45:37] Jason Mantzoukas: That’s Alf.

[00:45:38] Paul Scheer: And that’s what I, yeah. And that was Alf’s name on Melmac.

[00:45:41] June Diane Raphael: Oh.

[00:45:43] Paul Scheer: And I don’t know if that, like, I don’t know if that’s a set designer. Kudos to you. Gordon Shumway Gin. Oh my god. That was great.

[00:45:53] Jason Mantzoukas: This, this movie was true nonsense to watch. It really, it doesn’t add up. It’s, it’s, it’s one of those movies that because there’s so, because it’s a, now we know a dreamlike. Um, piece of like fictional storytelling inside the protagonist’s brain, it makes sense that it makes no sense and it feels dreamlike.

[00:46:13] Paul Scheer: But that’s a fucking cheat. It makes me angry. It’s a cheat. It’s like, but.

[00:46:17] Jason Mantzoukas: It is. I agree. Oh, I agree. When you learn, it makes no sense until the best version of these movies make sense. And then the reveal makes them make a different kind of sense. This movie makes no sense. Then it kind of makes sense, but is makes it worse.

[00:46:32] Paul Scheer: It just kind of says all your issues, don’t worry about them. ’cause it didn’t make a difference anyway.

[00:46:37] Jason Mantzoukas: Yeah.

[00:46:37] Paul Scheer: I’ll tell you, obviously we had opinions about this movie. There are people out there that had a different opinion, but not many. Uh, it, it is now time for second opinions.

[00:46:45] Music: [Second Opinions song] [00:47:12] Paul Scheer: All right, so a lot of people don’t even know this movie existed and probably because it was

[00:47:15] Jason Mantzoukas: Yeah.

[00:47:15] Paul Scheer: It was only released in two theaters. It had its premiere at the Toronto Film Festival,

[00:47:20] Jason Mantzoukas: Wow.

[00:47:20] Paul Scheer: To great consternation, I don’t know that people were not happy with this movie. The director apparently re edited it and he goes this is actually the movie I wanted to make but it still didn’t really it It really was, uh.

[00:47:35] Jason Mantzoukas: He re edited into this?

[00:47:37] Paul Scheer: Yeah. I mean, yes, this is the, this is the thing. Um, and you know, and I think that like, uh, some of the reviews include things like it’s perversely eccentric and inert, uh, hard to take itself as seriously as the movie does. Um, but there are people out there who liked it. Uh, you know, uh, there are 200 reviews, 50 percent are five star reviews and each one of them feel oddly, the same way they are telling me things, but not showing me the work. Like you’ll see Craig and 2014 wrote,

[00:48:09] “This film, Passion Play is different. You could call it something like a film noir, if you’re into that terminology. But it doesn’t just fit into those boxes. It goes beyond them. You have a big gamut of human experience, hopelessness, hope, unfeeling, caring, disrespect for others, heating others, and what they ask for love, friendship, fear, bravery, freedom, dependence, escape, capture, happiness, despair, the emotional interdependence of these three main characters. Rourke’s desperate musician, Fox’s captive bird woman, and Murray’s implacable gangster makes for an unholy triangle, plus, to describe them in the ways that they are risk limiting how they portray them through the story.”

[00:49:01] June Diane Raphael: What?

[00:49:01] Paul Scheer: “Plenty to watch, process, and understand. Five stars. Glued to the screen, so good.”

[00:49:08] Jason Mantzoukas: Wow. I mean, to have had that experience watching this, hey, pretty, I mean, wow.

[00:49:14] June Diane Raphael: I am realizing, I just saw that the tagline is, love is stronger than death. And I am now, I’m going back to what you were saying, Paul, about, about Megan Fox about Lily Luster standing you and maybe she is maybe Lily Luster is Annie Poole because the other thing that I wanted to mention is when the Annie Poole story is coming out. Megan Fox is crying.

[00:49:41] Paul Scheer: Well, it’s a sad story. He’s telling about how he killed his true love.

[00:49:45] June Diane Raphael: I guess, but it.

[00:49:46] Jason Mantzoukas: I think the question you’re trying to ask is, in the movie’s logic, Is he working out the Annie Poole death, uh, regret inside of now his dying is he trying to kind of exorcise or redeem his own mind by saving someone by, by offsetting that the, this, this thing that he thinks.

[00:50:12] Paul Scheer: But he also like he saves somebody, puts them in danger, saves them again.

[00:50:18] Like, it’s like he’s responsible for, I mean, I guess at the end she’s free so it all works out, but I, I am still, Brrrr, I don’t know.

[00:50:27] Jason Mantzoukas: Well, they fly off together, to heaven? They appear to fly to heaven together, because

[00:50:32] Paul Scheer: That’s the resurrection?

[00:50:33] June Diane Raphael: Yes, so that, so I think, I think they definitely fly off together to heaven, and I guess because knowing she’s that Annie Poole’s already dead.

[00:50:44] Paul Scheer: So she’s dead too?

[00:50:45] June Diane Raphael: That, that maybe Annie Poole is, in, in this, Jacobs Ladder is an angel, and yeah, that this whole thing is sort of reconciling his part.

[00:50:58] Jason Mantzoukas: Yeah, he’s trying to make thing, make something right. You know, I did wrong in my past.

[00:51:02] Now’s my chance to do something right. Fine.

[00:51:04] Paul Scheer: Even though I’m going to do something wrong.

[00:51:06] Jason Mantzoukas: Is too late.

[00:51:06] Paul Scheer: Before I do the right thing.

[00:51:08] Jason Mantzoukas: It doesn’t matter too late. You died already. And none of these people are real. This is just your mind. Trying to convince you you’re a good person as you die.

[00:51:17] Paul Scheer: Now, uh, John Knight also gave it five stars. Uh, also in 2014 says,

[00:51:22] “An impressive list of movie heavyweights carry through a singular tale that could or could not be real. The movie moves through the underbelly of America and a broad span of the human condition. And emotions, nice music with a brief appearance by us legends, Salman Burke and tunes from legendary Alan Toussaint and Aaron Neville clip joints, indigenous Americans. Freaks, cheap motels, big horizons, and long roads, shining night skies, wrap around the story of desire, jealousy, owning, sharing, tricking, and taking one’s chance, gangsters, classy dames, tortured artists, all weave into the careful tracing of feelings and life’s challenges. An impressive list of movie heavyweights. Five stars.”

[00:52:14] I mean that D people are reading a lot into it. Meanwhile, Alejandro just says,

[00:52:19] “I like this movie a lot because it has drama and action. It’s a great movie to watch. It has good stars too. Five stars. I recommend this to a friend to buy. They’re going to like it too.”

[00:52:28] Jason Mantzoukas: Hey, if you’ve got at least two Murray brothers in your movie, I’m going to five stars.

[00:52:32] June Diane Raphael: And Brian Delmar is great. He’s always great.

[00:52:35] Paul Scheer: Got back on Friday. It is Friday.

[00:52:37] Jason Mantzoukas: Yeah, in a completely black space. There’s not, they’re not in a location. They’re not in a, on a set. It is a black void.

[00:52:45] Paul Scheer: They have a soundstage. This movie had a soundstage with a green screen. They shot a majority of the stuff low. This is a low budge thing. All across, I mean, wow, wow, wow. And as Mickey Rourke said about this film, it’s a terrible movie, but you know, in your career and all the movies you make, you’re going to make a dozen of terrible ones. Uh, it’s going to get not wide released because it’s not very good. And this was made by his good friend of 15 years. So really.

[00:53:14] Jason Mantzoukas: It really is. I can’t if you are listening to this and you haven’t watched the movie and I’m not saying watch the movie I mean go ahead and watch the movie It’s absolutely bananas But check it out a little bit because I mean it when I say this movie feels like it’s from a different time.

[00:53:31] June Diane Raphael: Yeah.

[00:53:31] Jason Mantzoukas: It feels like an indie movie from the nineties or even the eighties at times.

[00:53:36] Paul Scheer: It felt to me like a, and I don’t mean this in the sexual way, but like a Cinemax movie where it’s like, it really is just like red shoe diaries ask. It’s very slow. It’s it’s a, we’re just watching a person walk down a street for a long time.

[00:53:51] Jason Mantzoukas: Oh yeah.

[00:53:52] June Diane Raphael: I had it. I had it in my calendar, Passion Play. And then in parentheses. 2010. And so I kept on, as I’m watching the movie, I kept on freaking out. Like, if this can’t be, this can’t be right. This is, the movie I’m looking for was made in 2010. This isn’t, this couldn’t possibly be it.

[00:54:13] Jason Mantzoukas: I felt the same, June, so much so that I looked it up to see, Oh, was it shot in the 90s, shelved, and it was only released in 2010?

[00:54:22] Like, it made so little sense to me. Paul, like, will you tell us what are, like, movies that came out in 2010?

[00:54:29] Paul Scheer: That’s a great question. All right. So, 2010.

[00:54:32] June Diane Raphael: What? Like Barbie?

[00:54:33] Jason Mantzoukas: Avatar?

[00:54:39] Paul Scheer: Yeah. Uh, the big movies of 2010, uh, looking at it right here are, um, let’s see, I’m 127 Hours. Inception. The Town.

[00:54:49] Jason Mantzoukas: This came out the same year as Inception.

[00:54:52] Paul Scheer: This is, uh, you know, The Other Guys, McGruber, uh, you know, uh, get him to the Greek Hot Tub Time Machine, uh, Cyrus. You know, it’s like this is.

[00:55:01] Jason Mantzoukas: These movies all feel like, Like modern movies, contemporary movies, even though they’re now 15 years old or whatever. But nonetheless, this movie, the movie we watched feels like it’s 30 years old.

[00:55:13] June Diane Raphael: Yes.

[00:55:14] Paul Scheer: The Social Network. I mean, they even think of this movie came out in the time when there was a, when there was Facebook is crazy. Scott Pilgrim vs the World. Kick ass.

[00:55:24] Jason Mantzoukas: That’s the thing is nobody, nobody has a phone.

[00:55:28] Nobody has a cell phone in this movie. There’s no computers.

[00:55:32] Paul Scheer: There’s one of the things that everybody says, like all the people involved, Mickey Rourke and the director and writer, like they had no idea who Megan Fox was. Nobody had seen transformers. No one even knew that she was an actor. So like, it does seem like they were kind of out of it. And it does feel like this movie was. It was written as a fifties movie about like a detective and a dame. And, and they, they think they’ve kind of, they didn’t change much.

[00:55:53] Jason Mantzoukas: I see. Okay. That makes more sense then it was, it was a period.

[00:55:57] Paul Scheer: Well, here’s what I would argue. If you’re going to change it from a period piece, you got to, you got to, you got to go through that whole script and just kind of update all the scenes.

[00:56:04] I mean, so I guess the question is, would you recommend watching it? And I’m kind of with you in saying like, it is worth watching it because it is uniquely different than anything that I’ve seen.

[00:56:17] Jason Mantzoukas: Yes.

[00:56:18] June Diane Raphael: Yeah.

[00:56:19] Jason Mantzoukas: It’s so weird.

[00:56:20] June Diane Raphael: Again, for me, it all was worth it to see her swoop in, fly in and pick up Mickey Rourke.. I truly.

[00:56:29] Jason Mantzoukas: And that’s the end. That is, those are the last images.

[00:56:32] June Diane Raphael: And I was so delighted by that. I was so taken with it. I was, I thought it was so hilarious. And I thought it was so humiliating for him that it, it for me because I found this entire movie and Megan Fox being 23 and Mickey Rourke being 200 years old, like to be so.

[00:56:53] Jason Mantzoukas: Wait, how old did you say he was?

[00:56:55] Paul Scheer: I believe it was, uh, 50, 54 to 23 or no, 57 to 23.

[00:57:00] Jason Mantzoukas: Okay. I just want to be clear. Mickey Rourke in this movie is 57. I am currently 52.

[00:57:10] I, I just, I just, that to me, I’m saying that and it’s funny, but it is, I will hang up this zoom meeting soon and I will have a crisis.

[00:57:20] June Diane Raphael: No, because Jason, first of all, I don’t know that I have to be honest. I don’t know if I believe he’s 57 in this movie. Like I just don’t know. I think he’s very hard and I think he might have shaved a number like a decade off of his age, but I had so much trouble with this movie.

[00:57:37] I was so deeply, deeply disturbed by what I was watching between the two of them that, um, that seeing her fly with him like that, I needed it and put me at ease. Um, obviously I didn’t, I simply didn’t understand the ending and I thought, oh, well, that’s. It’s strange that the henchman’s still there, but you know, a couple of days later, his body has, doesn’t seem to have been picked over by vultures or anything, but.

[00:58:10] Paul Scheer: Here’s what I will say about that flyover scene at the end. It is like, she picks them up, she’s fine. And we’re, I think we’re supposed to be transported to this amazing world where you’re like, now they’re in the clouds. It’s her dream. She’s always wanted to fly. She’s never been able to fly. And the landscape is so ugly. It’s, it’s, it’s, it’s desert, but it’s not daylight. It’s like dusk in the desert. So it’s dark, like nothing pops. It looks like it’s like, Oh, if I was a bird, it’s not that good.

[00:58:40] June Diane Raphael: It sounds like a dusk in the desert could be beautiful, but it wasn’t.

[00:58:44] Jason Mantzoukas: It wasn’t. There’s nothing cinematic in the movie, you know, it’s, uh, yeah.

[00:58:50] June Diane Raphael: Oh heavens, no.

[00:58:52] Jason Mantzoukas: Um, but it really is like, um, the movie was really interested in telling a a good story.

[00:59:00] As they’re flying over Mickey Rourke’s dead body in the desert, she’s got him hooked under his armpits, flying him around, and he sees it and he’s like, Oh, now I get it. I wish she had dropped him at that moment, dropped him into his body. And then we follow her as she flies away to a better life, like she should be.

[00:59:24] I want, I don’t want, I don’t want to know the end of Mickey Rourke story. I want, I’m rooting for Megan Fox to get away from everybody in this.

[00:59:32] Paul Scheer: She, I want her to, she should have dropped him and gone to heaven herself. But also I’m like, so the first movie moment that she’s free, I know it’s in his head, but the first moment she’s free, she’s now dead too.

[00:59:43] Good ending? I mean, that’s sad to me. She’s finally free and dead.

[00:59:49] June Diane Raphael: Well, she’s dead because she doesn’t exist.

[00:59:52] Paul Scheer: Okay.

[00:59:53] Jason Mantzoukas: Yeah, she’s not dead. She’s just, she just is, doesn’t, she’s just a figment of his imagination?

[00:59:58] June Diane Raphael: So when he dies, it’s lights out really for everyone, but mainly for her.

[01:00:03] Paul Scheer: I am utterly stunned and every now and then it’s a jaw dropper.

[01:00:09] Jason Mantzoukas: Well, it’s, it’s interesting because when you see the end of the movie, you realize why it’s so bad. It’s because the person who’s written the terrible movie you just watched was the Mickey Rourke character.

[01:00:19] Paul Scheer: Yes.

[01:00:20] June Diane Raphael: Yes.

[01:00:22] Paul Scheer: Oh boy. Um, all right. Well, this, so I mean, I guess we’ve decided it’s worth it for the final scene, which I’m sure you could watch online. Uh, and uh, I mean, wow. Wow, wow, wow.

[01:00:34] Jason Mantzoukas: Yeah, it reminded me of, what was the Ryan O’Neal movie we watched where he does a like a, Uh, he, in, he, he tells like a monologue in the ocean or something like that. It has that kind of an amateur, an amateur vibe, you know?

[01:00:49] June Diane Raphael: Yeah. I mean, listen, it’s, it’s honestly, it’s an amateur vibe, but with big stars. So it’s like, it’s.

[01:00:57] Jason Mantzoukas: Some of whom are doing great work.

[01:00:58] June Diane Raphael: And so it is something to see. And I will say I was absolutely stunned that I’d never heard of this. Didn’t know anything about that. I mean, it was really, there’s a lot of work to be done.

[01:01:08] Paul Scheer: I mean, this is, I’m going to keep on saying it’s a dad core movie.

[01:01:11] It’s like a dad going like, I could do this. I got this. I’m a fan of movies. I’m gonna write, like, Dad, you’re retired. He’s like, I’m writing a movie. I’m gonna write a movie about a beautiful angel, jazz, all the things that Dad’s like. Yeah, jazz, he finds a carnival, they drink, uh, they drink, uh, hot gin. Uh.

[01:01:27] Jason Mantzoukas: He rescues an angel.

[01:01:29] Paul Scheer: A beautiful woman loves me and kisses me up all over my body. I fuck her wings off. Uh, you know, I save her from the plastic surgeon. Like, you know, it’s like, it’s such.

[01:01:37] Jason Mantzoukas: She’s 23. I’m an old rump roast.

[01:01:39] Paul Scheer: Uh, oh my gosh. Uh, all right. Well, I mean, I think we’ve done it and wow, wow, wow. Avaryll, uh, picked another, another banger, another banger.

[01:01:51] Jason Mantzoukas: And like June, I’d never heard of it.

[01:01:52] June Diane Raphael: I never heard of it. And I really want to like, I would, who I want to look up is that woman with the tattoos. I was so taken with those tattoos.

[01:01:59] Jason Mantzoukas: Oh yeah. Her tattoos were that, and that’s a visual. So that to me was visually. Interesting. I was like, Oh, this person, there’s, there’s the world of tattoo, lady, junkie, jazz musicians, scuzzy kind of motel life. I’m like, okay, what’s this? But it’s only told in that 30 seconds of the, of the film, you know?

[01:02:21] Paul Scheer: That’s what I’m saying. It just, it feels like it’s of a movie of a different time.

[01:02:25] Jason Mantzoukas: What’s very funny is that we’re saying it feels like it’s from a different time. And I’m sure there are people being like, yeah, 15 years ago.

[01:02:33] June Diane Raphael: I know that is.

[01:02:34] Jason Mantzoukas: That’s that is a different time.

[01:02:37] Paul Scheer: And with that, we say, we bid you, uh, all right. Uh, Jason, did you have anything you want to promote? Tell anybody about?

[01:02:46] June Diane Raphael: We’re going on tour in.

[01:02:48] Paul Scheer: That’s right. Oh yeah.

[01:02:49] June Diane Raphael: So let’s definitely talk about that.

[01:02:51] Paul Scheer: End of March, early April. We’re going to be in a Los Angeles. We’re going to be in Austin. We’re going to be in Boise, the Tree Fort music festival. Here’s the thing. You can buy a ticket individually. You don’t have to just buy a ticket to the music festival. So there’s two ways you can go. If you have a ticket for the festival, great. If you don’t, you can buy a ticket separately.

[01:03:09] Uh, and then Jason, where are we going after that? Do you remember from last night? Uh, San Francisco.

[01:03:13] Jason Mantzoukas: Uh, sorry. It is Austin. It’s Austin, Denver, Boise, Seattle, San Francisco, Portland, and then LA is now in the beginning. Not the end. So I guess technically it’s LA Austin, Denver, Boise, Seattle, San Francisco, Portland.

[01:03:29] Paul Scheer: And then you go to HDTGM.Com to get your tickets and information. We’ll release the movies shortly. The movies for LA are released because we, uh, move those shows. Um, all right. So, uh, come check us out on the road.

[01:03:41] June Diane Raphael: Yes. I’m getting very excited about it.

[01:03:43] Paul Scheer: Me too.

[01:03:44] June Diane Raphael: I cannot wait.

[01:03:45] Jason Mantzoukas: Cannot wait. There’ve been clamoring for us in Boise and baby, we’re coming to town.

[01:03:50] Paul Scheer: And I gotta tell you, Denver, we’ve owed you a show for a very long time. And, uh, they showed up immediately day one. It was like, we’re almost sold out because of Denver.

[01:03:59] Jason Mantzoukas: Cannot wait.

[01:04:00] Paul Scheer: Also make sure you check out Dark Web, a brand new series, starring Rob Huebel and me. Every week go to watch TheDarkWeb.Com.

[01:04:09] It is a super fun show where we dig deep into the internet and find weird things like scissor commercials and urine looping and paintball self defense. And we put it all together in a free little package for you on YouTube every single week. So check out Watch The Dark Web. com and then you’ll get to the YouTube page and all that good stuff.

[01:04:27] Also, Jason is on Invincible. That’s right. Invincible is back on Amazon Prime. It is so good. He is fantastic in it. You’re not gonna wanna miss it at all. People, do you like comedy? Are you gonna be in the L. A. area? Well, guess what? On February 27th, Largo is going to be hosting Dinosaur. Jason and I will be there.

[01:04:50] Maybe even Jack McBrayer, maybe even Rob Riggle. It is a cavalcade of who’s who of some of the funniest people. I love doing that show. So come check us out this month at Largo, a big thank you to our producer, Codi Fisher, Molly Reynolds, a big goodbye to one of our producers, Matt Apodaca, who was with us for a short period of time, but we wish him so well.

[01:05:12] I mean, and we mean that from the bottom of our heart, not in a negative, like, Oh, we wish him well, good luck kid. No, we love Matt. He is off to another company and he is going to kill it. Also a big giant thank you to Avaryll Halley, our movie picking producer. She found a gem in this one. You can follow her online at Movie Bitches.

[01:05:32] Um, you can check out all of the, How Did This Get Made? Merch at Teepublic.com/stores/HDTGM. People. The most important part now is you, if you have something that you want to share something that you feel like we might’ve missed in Passion Play, something that we didn’t know, give us a call at 6 1 9 P A U L A S K.

[01:05:52] 6 1 9 PAUL ASK to leave a comment or a question. You can also just leave it on our discord at Discord.gg/HDTGM. And next week we will turn the spotlight on you. And I can only imagine what you’re going to have to say about this show. All right. That brings us to the end of the episode. Bye for now.

[01:06:11] See you next week.