And gentlemen, boys. New York City. This is the Kill by Kill podcast where we're dedicated to celebrating the least discussed component of any horror film, the characters. And we're going to unpack all the gorious details of 1997's The Devil's Advocate. in the hopes that a law firm partner's untimely end is just the beginning of the jokes we might make at his expense. And as always, there's only one person I trust to discourage me from rubbing one out in the middle of my trial. The one...
The only Gina Radcliffe. How are you doing today, Gina? I thought you said I would be the only one you'd trust you to tell you in Spanish that your wife is cheating on you. That is a joke I've written for later on. I'm sorry. I used my internal psychic powers to steal that joke from you. It is interesting, I suppose.
That guy is really troubled by this. But I have been on many a New York subway. Obviously not as many as you do because you live in that town. But isn't that a conversation that happens on every other train you're on? Accuses your wife of being a whore. Yeah, I mean, pretty much, yeah. It's like, oh, let's be Tuesday. You paid your fare. That's for free. Exactly. Well, Gina, I don't want to scare you, but we are not alone. That's right.
We have a special guest. Now, you may know him as a horror fan and a prominent L.A.-based entertainment lawyer helping productions big and small get their movies made here in town. The one, the only, Joshua Lestein. How are you doing today, Joshua? Hey, Patrick. Hey, Gina. Hey, Kill by Kill. Thank you for having me be here. It's a pleasure. This is a wonderful confluence of events. Every once in a while, we just pair the right guest with the right movie.
And Gina had mentioned that she wanted to talk about the devil's advocate. And I put it in the bullpen. And then when your name came across my desk, I thought, well, this is the perfect way to talk about. What is honestly a very weird piece of motion picture history. One of my favorites. Really? Now, when was the first time? You watched The Devil's Advocate. Goodness, I would have been a kid growing up and they would have had repeats of the movie on TNT. Oh, okay. That...
People Under the Stairs, Cape Fear. I'm trying to think of some of the other ones that I remember distinctly growing up as a kid. just kind of like having on in the background, like even just doing like things like caning, like I think my mom or something would have had it on in the background. And I remember seeing bits and pieces of that movie very early on and then just falling in love and wanting to watch the whole.
thing, which I would say I did, and I think I've seen it over a hundred million times by now. One of my favorite movies in the top 20 for sure. Really? Okay, interesting. Then buckle up because I don't know that I'm going to treat it that well, but... That's okay. I don't know that it holds up as well today, but it's certainly still a favorite. Listen, I love all sorts of... of what we like to call on the show, it may not be good, but it might be great movies.
And certainly this would qualify. Gina, what about you? When did you see this cinematic achievement? I didn't see it in the theater, but I have a very strong memory of renting it on DVD. I watched it I my first thought was this is one of the dumbest movies I've ever seen in my life and then my second thought was I think I love it yeah I can completely understand that because in terms, like it's very beautifully photographed.
I think there's a lot of attractive people in it. It certainly captures New York of a certain era, which is always nice to see a slice in time, as it were. I did want there to be a Friday the 13th Part 8. style dj sort of preparing me for entering new york city but unlike end of days this movie does not do that and i think it's the one thing i miss most of all yeah no it is joyously silly we really should have done this back to back
with end of days because end of days is just so dour and it takes itself so seriously and this does none of those things and makes it an infinitely more... No, let me just say it. Keanu Reeves and Charlize Theron are taking it seriously, but nobody else involved in it is taking it seriously. They're definitely focused on trying to make this as impactful as possible. I also think they're constantly...
concentrating a lot on their accents, which it is a skosh corn pwn, as the bard would put it. Veers slightly into foghorn leghorn. And obviously Charlize Theron, not of this country coming from South Africa. So she's already battling one accent she's trying to get out of and then wedge her way into this one is a tough ask on top of the other acting tasks she's already been given. There's a lot going on for these two in this movie.
And then you have Al Pacino, who's just taking pieces of scenery with a cake knife and hamming it up. Oh my God, he's just having the time of his life. Would you believe that he was asked to do this film not once, not twice, but thrice and kept turning it down? Basically saying, this is too obvious. You need to explore other options. Too obvious for him to be playing the devil? Yes.
He was approached three times, once by another director, and then finally by Hackford, and then he tells Taylor Hackford, the director here, this is very obvious for me to be doing this. You should reach out to somebody like Robert Redford. And Hacker's like, okay, but I might be coming back around to you. And then he finally says yes once Keanu Reeves joins and then cuts his rate to make more money available.
for al pacino uh so unfortunately as i alluded to earlier this denied us the chance to hear robert breadford tell a guy in the subway that his wife is having anal sex with his neighbor in spanish something I think we would be better off as a society hearing maybe someone could hold the microphone up to him and he could do that for us. He really missed out on Robert Redford very passionately saying the name Eddie Barzoom.
Which became a quote in my household for just letting out, hey, Barzun. Just Barzun. It is. Oh, boy. You know, if we had gotten a cat, if we'd had a cat around the time, we might have considered Eddie Barzun. Barzun. If anyone knows anyone who's named their cat Eddie Barzian, please let us know. Also, Gina, just for your edification, speaking of end of days.
A lot of people reached out on socials to let us know there is one other movie that has flaming pee, because we've covered two of them. Now there's a third, and that would be... The Ghostwriter sequel has Flaming P involved in it. We'll get to that in 2026. It's on the books, baby. It's happening. We got to close out the trilogy. I think the sequel is a lot. more interesting and fun. Talk about...
A Columbia movie that has some troubles is that first one. They don't know what to make of it. And they're really relying on the idea that if Nicolas Cage eats M&Ms out of a giant martini glass. Marvel fans will love it. I don't
I truly do not understand some of the decisions made in the film, but what are you going to do? Let's talk about some of the decisions made in The Devil's Advocate. Okay, this whole thing starts out actually as a novel by Andrew Niederman, whose name might sound familiar to some people. Gina, he wrote pin, which is, yes, you know, probably.
is possibly the most possessed anatomical dummy movie of all time. I mean, that's a small category, but yes. It might be a one of one, but it absolutely is that. Josh. covered it on his podcast. And I felt like everyone there felt like that was their statement. I never wanted to step on their toes, but. I do wonder eventually, we'll probably have to cover Pin and have Megan on to talk about it. And Josh, too. The novel version of this is more like, what if the firm but supernatural?
where a young hotshot lawyer from upstate New York is recruited to an NYC practice where criminal cases appear in the firm's files before they occur in real life. And the head of the place is, oh, named... John Milton, the devil. What do you know? If you want to know more, former guest Brian Collins has a great write-up on Fangoria.com if you want to get into that. So that book is optioned pretty quick.
quickly after it's released in 1990 but things start to really heat up after the conclusion of the oj simpson trial and director taylor hackford coming straight off of one of my favorite of his efforts It might be the favorite of his efforts. Dolores Claiborne is coming straight into this movie. And he responded to the material thusly.
The courtroom has become the gladiator's arena of the late 20th century. Following the progress of a sensational trial is a spectacular sport. You're watching something that's part melodrama. Part Vaughnville, part cold-blooded calculation. And now that audiences have seen these televised trials, they realize that morality and justice have very little to do with the outcomes, which is a very cynical take, but...
I can't say that he's wrong. The winners are the lawyers who will stop at nothing. I thought it would be interesting to put that behavior into a larger context of right and wrong. I wanted to examine a character who's been rewarded all his life for being a winner. so that he's never stepped back to say that winning may not always be the best thing. Adding to that, a giant sculpture that fucks, I guess. Well, there are some really, as you say, we're not going to do a deep dive into this plot.
No. Because it's nonsense. But it brings some interesting ideas to the table. I think that for me, one of the most interesting aspects is Charlize Theron's character. is essentially, let's call it reverse gas lit. Sure. In which she knows something bad's happening. She knows that the demons walk amongst us and that the devil is real. But everybody is telling her that she's wrong.
That she's imagining these demons, when in fact she's actually not. Right, yeah, yeah. Most situations would be reversed in which they are trying to convince her that it's demons causing all this. It's an interesting reversal from the book in which that character, which has a different name in that than Marianne, but in that she embraces the evil.
And it ends up that she actually comes out on top of this entire relationship, whereas her lawyer husband does not. It's a weird reversal. Yeah, she's kind of the sacrificial man in all this. Yeah.
And the original, the full... real version of the story has never been adapted i mean there's a lot of stuff that's pretty much the same it would you would basically be making a remake but the one of the big diversions are like the whole son of satan thing that is not in the book and it becomes more of like it really does feel like he picked up
elements of the firm and said, how can I make this supernatural? Because it really involves these cases that they're litigating that the files already exist for and then the crimes happen. This is more grandiose. It's more operatic. Fitting a movie, obviously any adaptation, your goal is to take what works for the medium you're adapting it into and leave the rest behind. And I think they make some pretty...
smart decisions. It also allows Charlize Theron to have a real definitive arc over the course of the movie and really engage in that character. She's not secondary to the plot, really. She has a very juicy role, and I think she makes the most out of it, accent notwithstanding. I really feel like her character is a reflection or homage to Rosemary's baby.
Even just like the visions and the way that, you know, like Judah said, she's kind of reversed gaslit. There's something going on here. She knows that there's something going on here, but she just can't quite. Right down to the chopping her hair off as a sign that like, you know. All is not well with her emotionally. Yeah, I have...
written about this movie a little bit. I really do enjoy it for all of its nonsense. And I think that one of the most interesting things are these monologues that Al Pacino gives that basically says that like God is asleep at the wheel. And, like, you know, the devil interferes with humans because he likes them, actually. He likes to mix it up. Yeah, and he wants some of them to succeed.
Well, unfortunately, you know, that also means, you know, having to give up your morals and perhaps either literally or figuratively sacrifice people to get there. But he does want you to do well for yourself on occasion. A little bit like how Freddy Krueger really wanted to help people through their problems via...
dream therapy and the only downside was they were dead at the end. The devil here is really a people pleaser who's trying to help people reach their dreams. It just like involves selling your soul. One of the earliest stories out there is a... sell your soul, Faustian bargain, tick for tack. I'm giving up something in exchange for something from the devil. And that story is just very reflective of humanity in general.
telling across world societies to see this would be here done in such a grandiose way. Yeah, the reason why the whole, well, you're actually, it turns out you're my son, and to bring on the Antichrist, you have to have sex with your hot half-sister. You know, that's sort of secondary, almost, because I feel like the reason why he initially chooses... him to bring on to his infernal law practice is because he is willing to grill this little girl.
Well, she's not little, she's like a young teenager over, you know, charges that her teacher molested her, even though he knows that his client did it. But, you know, still forges ahead and breaks down this kid. and wins the case. And so he pegs the best. This is a guy who will do whatever he has to do to win, even if he knows that his client is guilty. And a lot of his self-worth seems to be wrapped up in something that I don't often see reported in.
you know, news sources, which is a lawyer's win-loss record. That is, I don't think, people don't follow that the way they do baseball. But in the world of this movie, the fact that he's undefeated, it's some sort of... calling card as opposed to just this if he has above 500 as a defense lawyer seems like You're doing well. Also, it would be better if you advised your client before this sort of sexual molestation trial to not rub one out.
in the midst of it, next to where the fucking jury is. Yeah, don't be, like, licking your lips at, like, your victim's testimony. I mean, there seems to be guilt by I can't put my glasses on correctly happening here is another thing because as he gets more and more turned on, his glasses come more and more sideways and tilted on his face. It's... It's real subtle work being done by this actor. And it's real fucking gross. Also, I don't think calling a guy a hog in classroom...
and then I made up a molestation story about him. The one-two punch here, I don't quite buy. I mean, I know it's a movie. You don't come to movies for fucking realism. But this is still a bit of a stretch that a teenager groped other teenagers and then... Made them make up a story about this guy? I don't know. That burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt is a real bitch for criminal lawyers. Pardon my French. I don't practice criminal law, right? I just do transactional law. But, you know.
really have a high bar threshold to overcome. As the prosecutor in a criminal case, you have to prove with 90.99999% accuracy that the defendant's guilty. I think there's actually a quote in the movie. movie something to the effect of what is it like to squeeze a guy through the the door of reasonable doubt and that's truly i think probably either to you know again these are fictitious cases movies or whatever but to open up the door
to just one jury member to say, oh, maybe he didn't do it. Both the child molestation and Craig T. Nelson coach, the triple homicide. I think his defense was that wasn't he having sex with his secretary? Yeah, it really depends on whether or not that jury bought that secretary's testimony. And she can barely put up... in front of Keanu Reeves. So she really must have stepped up to the plate in a big way during that trial. We're not allowed to see it. We just make sort of movie math that...
She testified, they come out smiling, it must have gone well. It's a weird cut through for a movie that in its sort of unrated form is nearly two and a half hours long. It's a long movie.
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is a fantastic way to support the show. So make sure you tell them that we sent you. So smell fresher, stay dryer, and boost your confidence from head to toe with Mando. And now... The better smelling body count continues. The other element to this film, and I'm glad you brought up End of Days, because one of the things that makes End of Days so... tough to swallow is the devil's terrible fucking planning. He just sucks at recruitment. Whereas Al Pacino here as the devil.
is great at recruiting he's everything the devil in end of days is not also apparently i don't think you can shoot this one as easily as you can shoot Gabriel Bird with a fucking grenade launcher and then he gets run over with a train. Yeah, no, you just defeat the devil here. He just like, you shakes his fist and just goes back to hell, I guess. I guess.
If it happened at all, because I. Oh no, my hot daughter. Oh no. He, he, he ghost busts his hot daughter. Is that what happens? She dies by blue. oopsie doodle i don't know what comes out of him that makes her into a weird stone creature but yeah why does she have to die in this scenario Is that just anger on his part, Gina? You get to the scene where Eddie Barnes gets killed.
You've got to indulge me in letting me read this monologue that Al Pacino gives while this character, played by one Jeffrey Jones, is beaten to death by sticks by angry demon homeless people. Gina why wait? The time is now. Okay, so Eddie Barzoom is a colleague in this law firm. He's going to report Al Pacino, not because he takes on, because he's the devil, and most of his law firm is staffed by demons, but because he...
pissed that Keanu Reeves has been brought on as a partner and I guess he's a little jealous of this. But also he's a terrible lawyer. He's shredding stuff in the middle of the night. He does not come off as a competent dude. And it also does not help. The character is portrayed by someone with a not great rap sheet, one Jeffrey. Oh, I'm not going to say, I mean, it's absolutely satisfying to see him getting beaten to death by, beating death with sticks by homeless people.
It's a highlight of the movie for me, honestly. It just happens while Al Pacino is saying this to a absolutely befuddled... Keanu Reeves. As we're scrambling from one deal to the next, who's got his eye on the planet? As the air thickens, the water sours. Even the bee's honey takes on the metallic taste of radioactivity. And it just keeps coming faster and faster. There's no chance to think to prepare. It's buy futures, sell futures, when there is no future.
We got a runaway train, boy. We got a billion Eddie Barzoons all jogging into the future. Every one of them is getting ready to fistfuck God's ex-planet. Lick their fingers clean as they reach out toward their pristine cybernetic keyboards to tot up their fucking... billable hours. That's a portion. This goes on first.
Almost five straight minutes. But he's not wrong. He's not wrong. I'll be honest with you, he's not fucking wrong. Any person who absolutely deserves to get peed to death with sticks. He's also being chased by predator joggers. Joggers and demon homeless people. Right, yes. Who become bats halfway through the beating. They don't have to do that. They can just beat the shit out of Jeffrey Jones and I will accept it. Yeah, no, they kill his ass men. I will say...
The non-belief on their faces when someone says he was out jogging is another, it's not helpful. He doesn't look like a jogger. He doesn't look like he's been jogging regularly.
running around like he's not running up his own volition. And his version of jogging is to go the wrong way running around the... the river or not i guess it's the lake in central park but everyone else is going the other way with the exception of the predator runners behind him so he never thinks to turn around and it turns out they don't have anything to do with it they're not there to harm him
two guys who have logs in the woods and they're within sight of this fucking jogging path but everyone sees jeffrey jones being beaten by two guys and like My name's Paul, and that's between y'all. Must be Thursday. If you've ever dealt with a New York corporate lawyer, I get it. I'll speak to you on behalf as a lawyer. Totally. Corporate lawyers, maybe since then deserve it. It is something I will say for as overblown as it is. The whole idea of a bunch of Barzoons.
waiting for their opportunity to hit their keyboards and make names for themselves and do the worst in this world. That's not a lie. That's not. It's not, but it's interesting how that's changed. It would have been perceived then as being that sort of white-collar, upper-echelon, C-suite lawyers and executive class, but now it's tech moguls. creators and Mark Zuckerberg. The villain in 2025 looks very different than, I guess...
Oh, you know, maybe I would have thought or we would have thought in 1997, a techno supervillain would look like Elon Musk's man boobs. Yeah, and I think the flavor of this movie is so deliciously 90s because if the film introduces a mix of both fictional and non-fictional characters who are perfectly fine being associated... In a major motion picture with the devil, including...
Former New York Senator Alphonse D'Amato, not a good guy. Last time I heard Alphonse's name mentioned in the press, he was recorded yelling at his wife in the hospital. He stopped being a senator after that. Then you have boxing. promoter Don King. Now, complicated fellow there. Then you have Jeffrey Jones, and then you get Trump name-checked, and his apartment is featured in this movie where they interview Craig T. Nelson.
That is Trump's apartment. And it looks it. They name check him at the party. And then that absolutely Craig T. Nelson is essentially the Trump stand in here. Although he's giving no. time to giving the appearances or persona of Trump outside of being really creepy with his daughter. Yeah, I mean, like, there's a, I think he's describing Eddie Barzun again as this, but there's a phrase, 250 pounds of self-serving greed on wheels. And it's like, you know, I'm just saluting the God bless America.
I'd bump it up 25 pounds, but you're absolutely right. It totally fits in. And so the weird millennial moral panic. That is also featured in end of days that goes for the wilder version of all this. Cause that you have fridge cat scares and floor pizza and. The ills that are worried about in this movie are entirely supernatural sourced until they're not. It's an interesting mix because so many of those monologues...
If you just closed your eyes and not worry about who he is talking about in the situation, as you noted, seem rather prescient. I would say if there's any major issue with the movie, it is the same thing that is kind of that early 90s problem.
that happens after the horror movie shame trilogy of Dracula, Frankenstein, and Wolf, where at least Dracula... wants to be a horror movie and then frankenstein's like we're too good for this and wolf is like what's a horror movie again we're too busy eating peanut butter sandwiches in front of a melting candelabra If you want to swim in the Omens waters, you can't be embarrassed to get wet. And it's not to say that this movie isn't campy. It's high on the intentional camp scale. It's just that.
It's also competing with actors doing real acting work alongside of there, because I don't find any part of the Charlize Theron plotline to be particularly campy. It feels very... And they want that to be haunting and scary and out of control. And, you know, as Joshua mentioned earlier, having that tinge of Rosemary's baby to it. It's hard for me. That's where the movie starts to rub and bump. Yeah.
Again, this is a little bit, and I feel like I've been bringing this up a lot lately with the movies we've been covering, a little bit of two different movies happening here. Yeah. It's not unusual in horror. Certainly we've covered this a lot. No, no, no. Horror is that one genre in which you can slip any other genre into along the way. And you still get a lot out of it. But occasionally, you have to have somebody who rides that tone really well. And I'm not entirely sure Hackford is...
great at high camp. Dolores Claiborne is showing him at his most earnest. And there's so much in that movie that is so good. And it's photographed just as well as this is. This movie looks gorgeous. Even the subway. looks good in this movie. That scene where he steps out of New York and is just completely empty 28 Days Later style. Right, yeah. There's just a ton of good-looking shit in this movie, and it's very autumnal.
Any other circumstance, you might look at this and there's a lot of romantic comedy going on in terms of how he's photographing New York. But then every once in a while, you get to visit Queens where someone has some sort of animal murder base. Gina, I'm assuming these are places you visit on the regular to just get low-cost meats. Of course, absolutely. It's interesting. This whole film has that Southern Baptist fever drain.
shit to it where it's like new york city's babylon and then the first person you meet in new york city is george weiner playing a seedy lawyer you're like oh come on movie we don't have to do that George Weiner feels like a real low blow to me. I love watching George Weiner, but I know exactly what character he's playing in every movie he's in. I think the other issue... that's odd here is that it takes a lot to make Charlize Theron look bad. But that box perm...
might be the closest I've seen in a really long time. Yeah, I mean, I do think it's funny that, you know, her cutting her hair short and dying black is supposed to be a sign of her, you know, mental unraveling, but it actually looks a lot better. It's like a genuine improvement. It's like whatever's going on there is not helping. And then...
There's all these interesting signals they give out for her character slowly going mad, and one of them is that she can't choose a paint color for her walls. I think there's a lot... deeper problems happening here than a shade of green was that to show her going mad or to me it was almost like that was part of the demons trying to drive her mad
I guess in terms of, you know, like that overly critical nosy neighbor. I think you're, you're, you're correct, Joshua. I think that's more that they're trying to instill doubt in her. And, you know, making her second guess herself in everything, which is sort of the start of how you... drive someone insane. Is decorating decisions is where it starts. It's just, you know, like, just making them question themselves.
I combine that. I mean, as a person who only experienced their first panic attack when people started to write down numbers for my house, that part I felt. But they're also not paying for that apartment. They've just been gifted that fucking apartment, and she has to put some curtains up, and it becomes a real problem for her. I will say, though... That my pinnacle of happiness in watching this movie was...
Watching Charlize Theron eat Popeye's children. Popeye's children. Children? Pardon me. It's part of the poo, blood, and honey movies. Popeye's eating his children. No, Popeye's chicken. My Popeye's. Yeah, I just enjoyed watching. Delroy Lindo is in this, and he's a fantastic actor. I love watching him in generally any movie I see him in. He is saddled. With an accent, he can also not land, which is a rare for him thing.
but he's having a real hard time landing on a locality for that accent. It seems to come and go, and that's before he wears a Barbie's pillbox hat during his trial. It's blinged. It's shiny. I don't know who decided that was the hat to go with. Not that he really had to say anything in his trial. As he gets off scot-free. Question about Al Pacino's dialogue. Quote.
I'm the hand up Mona Lisa's skirt. Are we looking at two different pictures? What is happening here? Does he know something about that portrait? I do not know. Is that what's going on there? I think the implication is that he's the reason. for Mona Lisa Smile.
I would think if your hand is up somebody's skirt, you would want a wider smile than what she's got going on. Yeah, I was going to say, that doesn't signify someone is pleasuring me under the frame. That doesn't, I'm not getting that impression. Al Pacino was wearing a lot of waistcoats. I did really enjoy when they go out on the balcony that has no safety railing. And my heart just started beating out of my chest at the very, like, listen, I'm not going to this realism or anything, but.
There should be a safety railing on that balcony that he has on this giant... Infinity pool in his office? Yeah. Where's the fucking water going, I ask myself. That's a safety answer for sure. For sure. But the camera pans down at one point. And you see that Pacino is wearing high fucking heels.
with his outfit and you couldn't cut away to his stand-in why why why are we showing off that this guy is five foot three right now we don't have to do that thank you you know just me since the devil is as in he's humble He doesn't mind showing that he needs a little lift. Another quote that I enjoyed from him, a woman's shoulders are the front lines of her mystique. What?
It sort of sounds like, remember those old Calvin Klein obsession commercials where you would just say something completely nonsensical, but it would sound poetic? That kind of sounds like that should have gone in a Calvin Klein obsession. I like that. Just in the middle of it.
A woman's shoulders are the front lines of her mistake. The guy who wrote this, by the way, Tony Gilroy, also wrote Andor and Michael fucking Clayton. So he's not bad at writing movies. And obviously he's going for something here. And at times it's rocking. I think the, I don't necessarily buy the plot wholesale. That being said, Gina, I think you mentioned in text.
The movie's more of a vibe. Oh, yeah. It's like, like I said, the plot is nonsense. I'm so glad that they managed to convince Al Pacino to take this role, because I understand his point. that no one would suspect Robert Redford of being the devil. Yeah, yeah. But Al's just having so much fun here. This is not a role that calls for a subtle... You take on the devil. Yeah, this needs a big show stopping monologues and he delivers.
It felt like the twist that he was the devil or that it even was a twist that I was supposed to be surprised. And to me, I like that, even though, you know, I guess, you know, traditionally. do you want to be surprised at the end of the movie? Just knowing Al Pacino's the devil throughout just makes it that much more enjoyable. When Keanu Reeves is brought into John Milton's office for the very first time on the top floor, his apartment rather, not his office.
He looks around and then he mentions to the other guy in the law office, is this all one room? And he's like, yeah. And he goes, well, where does he sleep? And he goes, I don't know. Does he sleep? And then he goes, but where does he fuck? Later on, we find out where he does. On his desk with just a piece of drapery over it? Come on. Look, work smarter, not harder, Patrick. But that's hard. You're working with a partner sometimes. It's alluded to. two partners for your lovemaking.
You want to do that on a hard desktop? That seems to me like you at least need a chaise lounge. Something. Something with some sort of padding. You're the devil. You can afford it. Allow yourself some luxuries, BLZ. Yeah, I mentioned that the book doesn't really have the backstory that Lomax is actually Milton's son.
very heavy-handedly alludes to throughout. So when it is actually said... It is funny to me that, you know, I have a great enjoyment for movies that involve the birth of the Antichrist. But... But the interesting thing is every single one of these movies that have the birth of the Antichrist as part of the central plot, it is done in a completely different way.
for each movie. Like in End of Days, it was the devil has to have sex with this specific woman on this specific date. Here it's the devil's son. has to have incestuous sex with his sister, and then that somehow. Brings about the birth of the Antichrist. It's just plain math. Whereas, you know, you've got, what was the last Damien movie? The Final Conflict? Yeah. Where he has to, you know, the devil's son.
has to have anal sex with a mortal woman to bring about the birth of the Antichrist. So it's just, you know, every single movie that does it... does it in a completely different fashion. But isn't Damien himself the Antichrist? Why does everyone need to go... another step down the rung why does it have to be the third generation antichrist why i've never really viewed this as it being the devil the devil's siblings
grandchild as the Antichrist? He wants it to look good on his Facebook reels? Why does it have to be so many generations down? What's the adage in business that the first generation makes the wealth the second generation? and the third generation blows it all or something. Maybe that's what they're going for.
So the failed grandson is going to blow. The grandson's the disappointment. Just blow it for everybody. I can believe that, honestly. That's the thing that's made the most sense. So I'm glad you brought it up. At one point, Shirley's and I don't want to say this to make fun of infertility issues. So let's just say that out front. But she lists the reason that she cannot have children on. Quote, non-specific ovarian failure, which I found odd because that was the name of my band in college.
Yeah, I don't think that's actually a diagnosis. I do not believe that is a diagnosis in medicine. It can be in movies, as we have just witnessed, but no. It's just another issue. And she was already body swapping with Connie Nielsen before this. I think Connie Nielsen really gets the short shrift in this movie. She's obviously been hired to be hot lady.
but then she's hot lady in a movie with Charlize Theron. And I don't, I don't, we don't want, I don't want to horse race their beauty, but it also isn't like. Well, Keanu Reeves has a real plain Jane at home. No, he has Charlize Theron at home. I think the idea is that she's supposed to be unsophisticated. Can't see showing her, you know, prominently showing her eating Popeye's chicken.
That's what makes her really attractive to me. Even in that first scene when he first sees her, I think Connie's character is speaking Italian or speaking another language. She's very impressive, right? Yes. Right. And she's just a sort of, you know, the naive hometown girl. The kind of woman that, you know.
that makes a very nice first wife. Yeah, I suppose if you viewed it through the sort of meet your first last wife scenario. It's the kind of movie where, again, you know, her cutting her hair short. and dying in a color much more flattering to her than the hairstyle she had before, is to make her seem drab and less attractive and possibly losing her mind.
I mean, she is losing her mind. She's losing her mind. But also she's not at the same time. What's making her lose her mind is all this stuff is real and no one else believes her. To the point where she's just like, I... The only escape from these people is to jab a piece of mirror into my neck. Surprisingly rough moment to watch in this movie, which makes it such an interesting, lack of better reason, rollercoaster ride.
If you think about it, it's an exercising of agency, which is the same that Kevin does at the end when he kills his... It is an interesting tack. that, you know, the only way you can really defeat the devil is to kill yourself. It's like, well, I either go with this or run off myself. That is sort of interestingly, as is the ending of this, you know, very pessimistic and cynical. This is a PSA or public sock announcement. Experts have declared Bombas socks as the best way to warm up chilly feet.
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It's absolutely in that time where it's like, I don't know, the devil's making some good points. We're even like him making the right decision in essentially giving up his client. But because he seems to be enjoying the attention he's getting for it, now the devil found another way to insinuate himself into his good graces. I had forgotten the ending of this until about the two thirds mark. I'm like, oh, that's right. This is all like a moment of conscience.
He was about to sell his soul and had this vision of what it would cost him. But then it's also, as far as the movie is concerned, this is real. And now Al Pacino gets a second. bite at the apple of... Before it was, you know, it was greed that enabled him to get to him, and now it's pride. He doesn't, like, destroy the devil.
He just sort of, you know, puts his plans on hold. Yeah, he just eliminates that as an ongoing concern. Just ever so briefly, there is a moment in which Keanu Reeves asks... somebody to call a character named Melissa Black, but he pronounced it, call a Melissa Black. And you're like, oh, buddy. Take two. Yeah, this was the years when Keanu was trying out accents. And then we learned this is not something we need from him. Yeah, I just realized that sort of the vague Southern California.
for boy was, you know, that was fine. That's fine. Did he use the same accent for the replacements of, what's his name, Shane Falco with the same Georgian Southern accent? It's entirely possible. He also attempts kind of one for Johnny Utah, but he relies more on the straight-lacedness and rigidness of his character over hardcore accent work in that one. Later during Eddie Barzul... funeral at a very nice looking church. Milton appears to be teasing paintings.
By sticking his finger in holy water? Why is he having a conversation with us? Does he communicate with all art? Is that a power the devil has? Because later on he has a statue that comes alive. but everyone heads a fuck fest. Yeah, he's got that, like, kind of moving painting in his office. Yeah, it's like the half an apple orgy in End of Days, but it's, you know, wall art.
Exactly. And then when the guy from the feds arrives to ask Lomax whether or not he will give him the information that Barzul... was about to Lomax just like crosses the street a bunch of times and then finally the guy gets hit by a car and I'm here to tell you that is a hell of a fucking stunt whoever took that hit with that car I hope...
They got paid well. Yeah, I mean, I wouldn't say it compares to the meet Joe Black bouncing off of three different cars. But that's a digital guy. This is a real guy who takes that. fucking hit because he's still moving when he hits the ground. I mean, yes. When I saw that on the lot at Universal, did I stop laughing for five minutes? No. No, I continued the laugh for the entirety of that five minutes. And then it got to the point where Brad Pitt does a patois, and that was hard to contain.
That was hard. That was a long screening, Gina. And then by the end of the movie, I kind of figured out what accent. Keanu Reeves was going for. He's going for Bill Clinton. I wouldn't be surprised if he kind of lifted a little bit of it from that. It's very in the culture. It's very of the time. So it's not... out of the you know it's not completely out of the ether but it's also such a famous accent and impression
that you wonder why you choose that one necessarily. But who would have expected Clinton to come out of Keanu? And then you hear the results and you're like, maybe choose somebody else. But that's where I think he was aiming for.
Which is not a Florida accent, I might add. Is there anything that we've missed that we really need to dig into that is not Barzoom related? I mean, that is... to me truly that that is the highlight of the movie just watching Jeffrey Jo's just you know gradually lose his shit in this park and like cursing at people who are bumping into him and as you say like predator joggers. Because it is deadass, the predator disappearing and the air sort of ripples.
While they're moving through it. And then you just got like two homeless people showing up just being the crap out of them with sticks. I refuse to. dislike any movie in in which like the the the credits are flaming at the end sure beginning and then you get flames on either end of this i joshua i think you're absolutely right ultimately when it comes down to this is the perfect TNT Saturday rainy afternoon movie.
I think that is the best. Yeah, I mean, the problem with that is that you, like, miss out on the nudity. And the swearing. Like, I can't imagine the monologue about your wife is having anal sex with her neighbor. comes off quite as fun dubbed over. On TNT. But you don't know what you're missing in that circumstance, if that's the first way you're seeing it. Before we get a verdict, of course, we need this jury to gather together and deliberate how we choose your own death venture.
That is where we decide, of the deaths portrayed in the movie, if you were forced to die in one of those ways, which would it be and why? Now, up for bid, we have... shot to death twice by a Trump standing. Then you have beaten to death with logs in Central Park, hit by a car, because you're not watching one-way traffic in New York City. It's almost as if you have it coming. you could slash your own throat with a piece of mirror because a bat lady wanted you to feel beautiful.
Or you could have the soul sucked out of your body by the devil. It's some sort of blue smoke situation. It's something out of the keep. I don't quite understand it, but it definitely happens. And Connie Nielsen turns into a weird... statue lady, or you could just shoot yourself in the head like Keanu does. Joshua, you are our guest, and that means you get to go first. I was shooting myself in the head over all of the other things, because then again, I exercise my own agency.
Sure. No, that absolutely makes sense. And, you know, you get to see what transpires as you slowly fall to the ground. So you get to see everything that happens after your decision, which I think, you know, makes it all work. worthwhile. Gina, what say you? I think I'm going to take getting the soul sucked out of me and turn into a gargoyle. She's very attractive.
Yeah. And, you know, everybody kind of looks at her like, you know, everybody looks at Sharon Stone and the Basic Instinct movies. And I just think that'd be kind of cool to experience that for a little while. No, I agree with you. The way to go here, for me, is be enveloped with blue smoke that turns you into a weird statue. I think you barely know what's happening, and I get to die naked. My greatest wish. Yeah. But that...
just about does it. We are on socials, mainly on Your Blue Sky. Josh Hulse does all of our artwork. Go to RevengeBodyMemphis at BandCape.com for this theme and all of our remixes. Of course, you can find us on Patreon. We're doing bonus episodes like chat by chat. We do extra movies there, whether our choice or yours and commentaries as well.
Joshua, where can people seek you out for what you're doing? You can find me on my website, lastingentertainmentlaw.com. You can find me on Instagram, outlastinglaw. Excellent. Gina, where can people find you on these here internets? I write about movies and television, including Some Time Ago, The Devil's Advocate, on my newsletter, genowatchesthings.substack.com. And you can find me predominantly on Blue Sky and sometimes Instagram.
Instagram under Gina Does Things. Do it today, people. Check it out. That just about does it, but don't worry, folks. The body count will continue. For myself, for Joshua and Gina, bye-bye, everybody.